HAECKEL: IDEALISTIC MORPHOLOGY 249 



disintegration of the organism was pushed by him to its 

 logical extreme, and in this also he was a child of his time. 



A no less important influence clearly visible in the 

 General Morphology is the idealistic morphology of men like 

 K. G. Carus and H. G. Bronn. In previous chapters we 

 have seen how K. G. Carus attempted to work out a 

 geometry of the organism, and ho\v Bronn tried in a modest 

 way to found a stereometrical morphology, but had the grace 

 not to push his stereometry a routrauce, recognising very 

 wisely that the greater part of organic form is functionally 

 determined. Haeckel took over this idea 1 and pushed it to 

 wild extremes, founding a new science of " Promorphology " of 

 which he was the greatest and only exponent. 2 



This "science" dealt with axes and planes, poles and 

 angles, in a veritable orgy of barbarous technical terms. It 

 was intended to be a " crystallography of the organic," and 

 to lay the foundations of a mechanistic morphology, or 

 morphography at least. 



How it was to be linked up with the physics and 

 chemistry of living matter on the one hand and with the 

 ordinary morphology of real animals on the other, was never 

 made quite clear. 



The science of Promorphology has no historical signi- 

 ficance; it is interesting only because it illustrates Haeckel's 

 close affinity with the idealistic morphologists. 



Another abortive science of Haeckel's, the science of 

 Tectology, was equally a heritage from idealistic morphology. 

 Tectology is the science of the composition of organisms 

 from individuals of different orders. There were six orders 

 of individuals : (i) Plastids (Cytodes and cells) ; (2) Organs 

 (including cell-fusions, tissues, organs, organ-systems) ; (3) 

 Antimeres (homotypic parts, i.e., halves or rays) ; (4) Meta- 

 meres (homodynamic parts, i.e., segments); (5) Persons 

 (individuals in the ordinary sense) ; (6) Corms (colonial 

 animals). 



The thought is essentially transcendental, and recalls 



1 He mentions as his predecessors in this field, Bronn, J. Muller, 

 Burmeister, and G. Jager. 



2 In Grundriss einer Allgeineinen Naturgeschichte der Radiolarien, 

 Berlin, 1887, and Kunstforinen der Natitr, Suppl. Heft, Leipzig. 



