78 ETIENNE GEOFFROY SAINT-IIILAIRE 



of final causes." l He was not so convinced as Cuvier was 

 of the all-importance of functional correlation ; in this view 

 he was probably confirmed by his work on teratology. It 

 did not surprise him that Insects, in which lungs, heart and 

 circulation have disappeared (!), should yet have a skeleton 

 built upon the same plan as the skeleton of Vertebrates, 

 which possess these organs ; the correlation of organ- 

 systems is not so close as to prevent this.' 2 So too, although 

 the other organs of the insect are all inside the body of the 

 vertebrae, they are yet comparable with the organs of Verte- 

 brates. 3 The existence of rudimentary organs also seemed 

 to him an argument against too strict a correlation of parts. 



The contrast between the teleological attitude, with its 

 insistence upon the priority of function to structure, and the 

 morphological attitude, with its conviction of the priority of 

 structure to function, is one of the most fundamental in 

 biology. 



Cuvier and Geoffroy are the greatest representatives 

 of these opposing views. Which of them is right? Is 

 there nothing more in the unity and diversity of organic 

 forms than the results of functional adaptation, or is 

 Geoffroy right in insisting upon an element of unity which 

 cannot be explained in terms of adaptation? If there be 

 an irreducible element of unity, is there any truth in 

 Geoffrey's suggestion that this unity results from a power 

 which is exercised in the world of atoms where are elements 

 of inalterable character ? 4 



The problem as Geoffroy and Cuvier understood it was 

 not an evolutionary one. But the problem exists unchanged 

 for the evolutionist, and evolution-theory is essentially 

 an attempt to solve it in the one direction or the other. 

 Theories such as Darwin's, which assume a random variation 

 which is not primarily a response to environmental changes, 

 answer the problem in Geoffrey's sense. Theories such as 

 Lamarck's, which postulate an active responsive self-adapta- 

 tion of the organism, arc essentially a continuation and 

 completing of Cuvier's thought. 



1 Mamiir,-rcs,, Discours prcl., p. 7. - Jsr's, p. 460, 1820(2). 



M ,".-. .Ui/s. it' I fiat. n<tt., ix., p. 102, 1822. 

 1 Mcin. Acnit. .SV/., xii., p. 76, 1833. 



