502. THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



thus the aim of his researches; the form and modification in the form of 

 the organs are all that interests him; physiological problems are thrust 

 aside, experimental investigations are unnecessary; histology is to him sim-- 

 ply microscopical anatomy and he fails to understand its efforts to discover 

 the phenomena of metabolism in the elementary parts of the body. Even 

 embryology, which has nevertheless made such weighty contributions to 

 the theories of descent, is given no independent position, but is recommended 

 to adjust itself carefully to the results of the comparisons between the out- 

 grown organs. But, owing to the fact that these investigations into the prob- 

 lem of origin can, of course, never be verified, Gegenbaur's research work 

 proves in reality to be a theoretical speculation, which differs from that of 

 idealistic natural philosophy only in appearance, but not in reality. Gegen- 

 baur's archipterygium and Owen's archetype are practically alike fictitious, 

 only that the former is believed to have existed some time in the beginning 

 of the ages, whereas the latter had its existence located in the ideal world. 

 But Gegenbaur and his school are the last people to attribute unreality to 

 their primal types; provided one could once get the evolutionary series in 

 order and the gaps filled up with suitably reconstructed forms, it could be 

 urged that the primal type had as real an existence as if it had actually been 

 dug up out of one of the earliest fossiliferous deposits. Here is undoubtedly 

 demonstrated an intellectual contact with the romantic natural philosophy, 

 and Gegenbaur himself was without doubt influenced from that quarter; that 

 he as a thinker should have been approved by the surviving representatives 

 of Hegelianism was in this respect striking enough, and, as a matter of fact, 

 he himself has clearly expressed his sympathies for the romantic tendency 

 — Goethe's morphological schemes found in him a warm admirer; the for- 

 mer's and Oken's theory of the skull's being formed of vertebra is referred 

 to with unreserved acceptance, in spite of its not being tenable any longer. 

 The worst of such evolutional constructions, however, is that they are never 

 allowed to live long undisturbed, owing to the discovery of fresh facts, and 

 Gegenbaur's life's work has to a great extent had to suffer that fate. His 

 archipterygium theory was soon supplanted by another, which derived the 

 extremities from a lateral fin instead of from the gill-bones, and which perhaps 

 nowadays has most supporters. Besides, palasontological finds in recent years 

 have proved that the earliest amphibious types had seven digital bones in- 

 stead of the five that Gegenbaur assumed. Further, it has been shown in our 

 own day that the earliest fossil fishes possessed a cranium of bone, where- 

 fore the theory of the shark's cartilaginous cranium as a primal type is no 

 longer tenable.^ In certain other cases, too, he has been alternately right 



^ For further reference to these questions see: Braus, "Die Enttvkklung der Form der Ex- 

 tranitdteri" in O. Hertwig's Handbuch der Engwkklungslehre der Wirbeltiere; Hans Steiner, "Die 

 Entwicklung des Vogelfiugelskelettes," in Acta Zoologica (Stockholm, 1912.); E. STENSio,Triassic Fishes 

 from Spitzbergen (Vienna, 192.1); and the literature referred to in those works. 



