THE CEPHALOrOD AND THE VERTEBRATE 65 



detail that the arrangement of the main organs was quite 

 different, that the likeness would have been much greater 

 if the Cephalopod had been likened to a Vertebrate doubled 

 up the other way, 1 but that even then the arrangement 

 of the organs would not be the same. The organs, too, 

 of the Cephalopod are differently constructed. He sums 

 up his criticism by saying : " I give true and summary 

 expression to all these facts when I say that Cephalopods 

 have several organs in common with Vertebrates, which fulfil 

 in either case similar functions, but that these organs are 

 differently arranged with respect to one another, and often 

 constructed in a different way ; that they are in Cephalopods 

 accompanied by several other organs which Vertebrates do 

 not possess, whilst the latter on their side have many organs 

 which Cephalopods lack" (p. 257). Geoffrey could not accept 

 this commonsense view of the matter, but made a fight for 

 his transcendental theories. This was the beginning of the 

 famous controversy between Geoffrey and Cuvier which so 

 excited the interest of Goethe. It was a struggle between 

 " comparative anatomy " and " morphology," between the 

 commonsense teleological view of structure and the abstract, 

 transcendental. Geoffrov brought forward all his theories 



* o 



on the homology of the skeleton of fish with the skeleton 

 of higher Vertebrates, and tried to prove by them his great 

 principle of the unity of plan and composition ; Cuvier took 

 Geoffrey's homologies one by one, and showed how very 

 slight was their foundation. Cuvier was on sure ground in 

 insisting upon the observable diversities of structural type, 

 and his vast knowledge enabled him to score a decisive 

 victory. 2 



The controversy was not, as we are sometimes told, a 

 controversy between a believer in evolution and an upholder 

 of the fixity of species, although it raised a question upon 

 which evolution-theory was to throw some light. 



1 Cf. Aristotle (supra, p. 10). 



' For an account of the controversy reference may be made to 

 I. Geoffroy St Hilaire, Vie Travaux <?/ Doctrine scientifique (PEticnne 

 Geoffrey Si Hilaire, Paris, 1847 ; also Semper, Arb. zool. zoot. Instit. 

 Wiirzburg, iii., 1876-7, K. E. von Baer, Lebensgeschichte Cuiners, 

 ed. L. Stieda, 1897, and J. Kohlbrugge, in Zoolog. Annalen, v., pp. 



H3-95) 



