408 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



It is truly remarkable that tlie zoologist who claims 

 the merit of having originated this conception of the 

 " division of labour " as a law in the organic economy * 

 should be amono; the stanchest defenders of the old 

 metaphysical idea that functions are not dependent on 

 organs ; and as this question is not only important in 

 itself, but of interest in the present discussion, it may 

 detain us for a moment. The argument, as conducted 

 by Milne Edwards,t is irresistible, because in it he 

 confines himself to showing that special organs may 

 disappear, and the general function nevertheless re- 

 main ; for instance, that lungs and gills may be absent, 

 but the function of Kespiration will still be present : 

 " C'est nne erreur grave de croire," he says, " qu'une 

 facidte determinee ne puisse s'exercer qu'a I'aide d'un 

 seul et meme organe." The grave error appears to me 

 wholly on the side of those who hold the contrary 

 opinion. The reader will perceive that when Milne 

 Edwards concludes, " que la fonction ne disparait pas 

 lorsque Tinstrument special cesse d'exister," the emi- 

 nent zoologist is guilty of a logical mistake very fre- 

 quent in biological discussions — the mistake of con- 

 founding the genercd with the particidar. Thus an 



* Milne Edwards : See his Introduction d la Zoologie Gemrale. 

 The conception, however, belongs to Goethe, Zur Morphologie, 1807 ; 

 Werhe, xxxvi. 7— the French naturalist having the merit of application 

 and abundant illustration of the law. 



f Loc. cit. p, 60, and Legons sur la Physiologie et V Anatomic Com- 

 parie, i. 22. " Les faits dont je viens vovis entretenir montrent com- 

 bien sont fausses les opinions de quelques naturalistes qui admettent 

 comme une sorte d'axiome physiologique que la fonction depend tou- 

 jours de sou organe." 



