436 Living in a World of CImnge 



noted that Georges Cuvier elaborated comparative anatomy 

 into a powerful instrument of research, although the be- 

 ginnings of this study were worked out rather crudely in 

 the middle of the Sixteenth Century by Pierre Belon (see 

 page 78). Comparative embryology was similarly estab- 

 lished in the early part of the last century by Carl von 

 Baer (see page 132). The study of forms with a view to a 

 better system of classification is itself a comparative study; 

 and great strides had been made from the time of Linnaeus 

 to the time of Lamarck. And morphology, also a distinctly 

 comparative approach, received a strong impetus from 

 the nature philosophers at the end of the Eighteenth Cen- 

 tury. The objective study of physiology according to the 

 methods of the physical and chemical laboratories was well 

 under way before Darwin's work was presented to the scien- 

 tific world. 



Indeed, we may attribute a considerable measure of 

 Darwin's success to the earlier comparative studies. For 

 these first supplied Darwin a large part of the factual ma- 

 terial which he needed for the working out of his theory, 

 and then prepared the minds of his contemporaries for an 

 understanding and sympathetic reception of his theories. 



Genetic Studies 



The immediate effect upon the biological sciences was to 

 stimulate research in a dozen fields, both among those who 

 sought to find supporting evidence for the brilliant theory, 

 and among those who were either hostile or critical. This 

 increased activity yielded a great body of facts, helped to 

 formulate new problems, and cultivated a point of view 

 which gradually affected research in other departments of 

 thought. This was the so-called genetic study of all sorts of 

 problems. Instead of attacking the material of study from 

 the point of view of special problems, it became fashionable 

 to formulate the investigations in terms of evolution: How 

 does this or that come to be? 



