196 CLOSE OF THE PRE-EVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 



physiologists they meant by physiology something very 

 different from the mere physical and chemical study of living 

 things. They were interested, as Cuvier was, primarily in 

 the problems of form ; they sought to penetrate the relation 

 between form and function ; their chief aim was, therefore, 

 the study not of physiology x in the restricted sense, but physio- 

 logical morphology. As a matter of fact they produced more 

 ta>0momic and anatomical work than work on physiological 

 morphology, but this was only natural, since such a wealth of 

 new forms was disclosed to their gaze. Milne-Edwards' 

 masterly Histoire Natnrelle ties Cntstaces'* 1 and A. de 

 Ouatrefage's Histoire Naturelle des Anneles marins ct (feau 

 douce' A were typical products of their activity. 



In the North, men like Sars and Loven were starting to 

 work on the littoral fauna of the fjords ; in Britain, Edward 

 Forbes was opening up new worlds by the use of the dredge ; 

 Johannes M tiller was using the tow-net to gather material for 

 his masterly papers on the metamorphoses of Echinoderms. 4 

 Work on the taxonomy and anatomy of marine animals was 

 in general in full swing by the 'fifties and 'sixties. 



This return to Nature and to the sea had a very beneficial 

 effect upon morphology, bringing it out from the laboratory 

 to the open air and the seashore. It saved morphology from 

 formalism and aridity, and in particular from a certain 

 narrowness of outlook born of too close attention paid to the 

 details of microscopical anatomy. It brought morphologists 

 face to face again with the wonderful diversity of organic 

 forms, with the unity of plan underlying that diversity, with 

 the admirable adjustment of organ to function and of both to 

 the life of the whole. 



Milne-Edwards' theoretical views, as expounded in his 

 Introduction a la zoologie gene rale (1851), well reflect this 

 Cuvierian attitude/' He acknowledges himself the debt he 



1 Milne-Edwards later published a classical textbook on comparative 

 anatomy and physiology Lemons sur la Physiologic et f Anatomic 



rers, 14 vols., Paris, 1857-80. 

 '' Paris, 1834-40. Three volumes of the Suites <i Bujfon. 

 ' Paris, 1865. Two volumes of the Suites >"i Huff on. 

 1 U. <{. Metamorphose dcr ^/>hiun-fi it. Secigcl., Berlin, 1848. U. d. 

 Metamorphose der Holothurien it. Asterien., Berlin, 1851. 



1 As I have been unable to obtain a copy of the Introduction^ 



