66 ETIENNE GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE 



In these Darwinian days Geoffrey has reaped a little 

 posthumous glory as an early believer in evolution. That 

 he did believe in evolution to a limited extent is certain ; 

 that his theory of evolution was, as it were, a by-product 

 of his life-work, is also certain. Geoffrey was primarily 

 a morphologist and a seeker after the unity hidden under 

 the diversity of organic form. His theory of evolution had 

 as good as no influence upon his morphology, for he did 

 not to any extent interpret unity of plan as being due to 

 community of descent. His morphological, non-evolutionary 

 standpoint comes out quite clearly in several places in the 

 Philosopliie anatoiiiiqne. He does not derive the structure of 

 the higher Vertebrates from the simpler structure of the lower, 

 but when he finds in fish a part at the maximum of its 

 development, he speaks of the same part, rudimentary in 

 the higher forms, as being, as it were, held in reserve for use 

 in the fish. Thus, speaking of the episternal in fish which 

 forms the central piece of its sternum, he says, " it is a bone 

 that is rudimentary in birds (one might almost add a 

 bone that is held in reserve in birds for this fate) which is 

 destined to form in the centre the principal keel of this new 

 machine " (p. 84). Again, with reference to the homology 

 of the ossicles of the car with the opercular bones in fish, 

 " employing other resources equally hidden and rudimentary, 

 Nature makes profitable use of the four tiny ossicles lodged 

 in the auditory passage, and, raising them in fish to the 

 greatest possible dimensions, forms from them these broad 

 opercula. . . ." (p. 85). Or you may take it the other way 

 about, and start from the organisation of fishes ; opercular 

 bones are of no use to air-breathing animals, so they 

 dwindle away, and are pressed into the service of the ear, 

 although they are of little use in hearing (p. 46). 



There is here no thought of evolution ; in later years, 

 however, his researches upon fossil crocodilians led him to 

 consider the possibility that the living species were descended 

 from the antediluvian. For the factors of the transformation 

 he refers to Lamarck's hypotheses. 1 In a memoir of i8jS,- ; 



1 <: Kcchcn In ^ ,ur 1'or-anisation dcs C.aviaK,' .1 /<///. .1///\-. tf } 'list. 

 ., xii., 1825. 

 M> 'in. Mus. if Hist, nut., xvii., pp. 209-29. 



