J. F. MECKEL 101 



One understands from this how J. F. Meckel, who was in 

 some ways the leading comparative anatomist in Germany 

 at this time, could be at once a transcendentalist and an 

 opponent of Geoffrey. Meckel had a curiously eclectic 

 mind. A disciple of Cuvier, having studied in 1804-6 the 

 rich collections at the Museum in Paris, the translator of 

 Cuvier's Leqons danatomie comparee, he earned for himself 

 the title of the " German Cuvier," partly through the publica- 

 tion of his comprehensive textbook (System der vergl. 

 Anatomic, 5 vols.), partly by his extensive and many-sided 

 research work, partly by his authoritative teaching. His 

 System shows in almost every page of its theoretical part the 

 influence of Cuvier; and it is through having assimilated 

 Cuvier's teaching as to the importance of function that 

 Meckel combats Geoffrey's law of connections, at least in its 

 rigorous form. He submits that the connections of bones 

 and muscles must change in relation to functional require- 

 ments. He rejects Geoffroy's theory of the vertebrate nature 

 of Articulates. Generally throughout his work the functional 

 point of view is well to the fore. 



Yet at heart Meckel was a transcendentalist of the 

 German school. His vagaries on the subject of " homo- 

 logues " leave no doubt about that, and, in spite of Cuvier, 

 he believed, though not very firmly, in the existence of one 

 single type of structure. 



A Cuverian by training, his lack of morphological sense 

 threw him into the ranks of the transcendentalists, to whom 

 perhaps he belonged by nature. 



