WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY? 



357 



WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY? 1 



By W. K. PARKER. 



IF those of us who have labored up the hill 

 of life revert to the studies of our youth, I 

 think we shall not remember to have heard our 

 teachers speak of the " morphology of animals." 

 I cannot remember when or where I first met 

 with the word ; although the idea itself with re- 

 gard to plants has been familiar to me for nearly 

 forty years, that is, since the time when I became 

 possessed of Lindley's " Introduction to Bot- 

 any;" but he used the term "organography." 

 The term " morphology " was used by Schleiden 

 in his " Principles of Scientific Botany" at least 

 thirty years ago ; and I may say in passing that 

 the study of that work was one of the best prep- 

 arations I received for the work I have under- 

 taken since. 



A comparison of the mode in which both 

 plants and animals are developed was suggested 

 to me, if not for the first time, yet then with 

 new force, by reading Johann Miiller's " Physi- 

 ology of Man ; " especially in the part on gen- 

 eration, and more especially in his statement of, 

 and criticisms upon, Caspar J, Wolffs " Theory 

 of Generation," which was published at Halle in 

 1759. The very mention of this date is interest- 

 ing, for this is evidently the time, and this work 

 of Wolff's was surely the work, which suggested 

 to the great, rich mind of Goethe the idea of 

 an underlying unity amid all the diversity of 

 vegetable and animal forms. How fruitful this 

 conception of the simplicity and unity of vege- 

 table and animal patterns has been, I need nojt 

 tell you ; for more than a century it has been 

 yielding precious and ever-increasing results. It 

 was natural, therefore, that a division of biology 

 so new and so fascinating should gain for itself 

 a name : and as naturalists had been from time 

 immemorial familiar with the metamorphosis of 

 certain types, the term " morphology," which 

 especially treats of such changes in the individual 

 life-history of a plant or of an animal, was nat- 

 ural, easy, and appropriate. 



The a priori dreams which made the study 

 of vertebrate morphology appear transcendental, 

 and indeed gave it that title as a cognomen, 

 caused great loss of time and of talent : and if 



1 The first of a course of lectures "On the Mor- 

 phology of the Batrachia," delivered at the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons, by Prof. W. K. Parker, P. R. S. 



Prof. Huxley had done nothing else whatever 

 than dispel the glamour of these dreams, he would 

 have deserved well of his age. His "Croonian 

 Lecture," delivered at the Royal Society about 

 twenty years ago, was as " a trumpet that gives 

 a certain sound ; " the dreamers awoke from 

 their dreams, and became the workers, who 

 since that time have wrought with labor and trav- 

 ail night and day. But the science of mor- 

 phology, which had become an elegant pastime 

 here, had long before Prof. Huxley's time found 

 a noble band of workers in Germany ; from that 

 land came the dream ; in that land arose the 

 workers ; the labors of Rathke, Yon Baer, and 

 Reichert, were ready to the hand of our biologi- 

 cal reformer. After these, who were the chiefs 

 of the band, came others, all men of name and 

 renown ; " but they attained not to the first 

 three." 



My own indebtedness is primarily to Johann 

 Miiller, who in his " Physiology of Man," already 

 referred to, gave such an excellent abstract of 

 the labors of the embryologists, his countrymen. 

 I ought not to forget his lamented translator, Dr. 

 Baly; for in the original Miiller's work was a 

 sealed book to me, and indeed would be now. 



The fact that all organic beings pass through 

 various stages, and run a certain round of life, 

 is now becoming generally known. In the midst 

 of the very beginnings of life the unspeakably 

 minute monads, as the beautiful researches of 

 Dallinger and Drysdale show, pass through sev- 

 eral stages in their individual life-history. All 

 the intervening living forms, between the monad 

 and the man, pass through several stages. The 

 " Seven Ages " attributed by the poet to man 

 are preceded by twice seven stages. 



In all times the insects showed the wonder- 

 ful working of the morphological force ; the 

 poets noticed these facts and sang of them ; the 

 philosophers, also, and reasoned upon them ; but 

 it was left for us to learn that these facts are not 

 unique, but universal. Nevertheless, " the bee 

 who is small among those that fly, and yet her 

 fruit is the chief of sweet things ;" and that still 

 smaller creature, the wise-hearted ant, architect, 

 soldier, and lawgiver — these, and the other mem- 

 bers of the insect-class, are metamorphosed open- 

 ly. So, also, are the amphibia among the verte- 



