PREFACE 



THIS book is not intended to be a full or detailed history of 

 animal morphology : a complete account is given neither of 

 morphological discoveries nor of morphological theories. My 

 aim has been rather to call attention to the existence of 

 diverse typical attitudes to the problems of form, and to 

 trace the interplay of the theories that have arisen out of 

 them. 



The main currents of morphological thought are to my 

 mind three the functional or synthetic, the formal or 

 transcendental, and the materialistic or disintegrative. 



The first is associated with the great names of Aristotle, 

 Cuvier, and von Baer, and leads easily to the more open 

 vitalism of Lamarck and Samuel Butler. The typical 

 representative of the second attitude is E. Geoffrey St 

 Hilaire, and this habit of thought has greatly influenced the 

 development of evolutionary morphology. 



The main battle-ground of these two opposing tendencies 

 is the problem of the relation of function to form. Is 

 function the mechanical result of form, or is form merely 

 the manifestation of function or activity? What is the 

 essence of life organisation or activity ? 



The materialistic attitude is not distinctively biological, 

 but is common to practically all fields of thought. It dates 

 back to the Greek atomists, and the triumph of mechanical 

 science in the ipth century has induced many to accept 

 materialism as the only possible scientific method. In 

 biology it is more akin to the formal than to the functional 

 attitude. 



In the course of this book I have not hidden my own 

 sympathy with the functional attitude. It appears to me 

 probable that more insight will be gained into the real 



