214 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



what would otherwise be disorder and confusion. On 

 the other side, the genetic view deals with the tran- 

 sition from one form to another in the course of time ; 

 takes more interest in movement and in the process 

 and function ; and seeks for their probable laws and 

 regularities. Without wishing to limit these remarks 

 to merely organic or living things, the difference be- 

 tween the morphological and genetic views can be 

 brought home to the mind by referring to the different 

 objects of anatomy and physiology.^ This twofold and 

 very general aim — the desire to know what is, and how 

 it has come to be — has existed at all times, though fre- 

 quently obscured by artificial and temporary restrictions. 

 From this point of view I propose to survey the mental 

 attitude of the century towards the real things and 

 events of nature, as distinguished from the artificial or 

 mathematical forms and processes of our studies and our 

 laboratories, our calculating and measuring rooms. The 



^ Genetic theories have every- 

 where been prepared and ushered 

 in by morphological studies. So in 

 Goethe's time ; so later on, after 

 Darwin had given a definite law 

 of descent, and Herbert Spencer 

 had fixed the vocabulary and ideas 

 of evolution, this relation is mani- 

 fested by two great works, the 

 ' Generelle Morphologie der Organ- 

 ischen Wesen,' by Ernst Haeckel 

 in Germany (1866), and Francis 

 M. Balfour's ' Elements of Embry- 

 ology ' (1874) in England. It is 

 characteristic that Prof. Haeckel, 

 in the further development of his 

 literary activity, dropped the term 

 morphology, and published the de- 

 sired new editions of his great work 

 under two different titles, ' Natur- 

 liche Schopf ungsgeschichte ' (1868, 



2 vols.), and ' Systematische Phylo- 

 geuie' (1896, 3 vols.) The division 

 of the great modern biological doc- 

 trine into morphology and genetics 

 is in conformity with Mr Herbert 

 Spencer's treatment in the ' Prin- 

 ciples of Biology,' vol. ii., published 

 in 1865, and with the two divisions 

 of Haeckel's ' Generelle Morpho- 

 logie,' which treated respectively of 

 the " science of developed forms "and 

 the "science of developing forms" — 

 i.e., of structure and process. I 

 have chosen such expressions in the 

 text as will permit of a compre- 

 hension of inanimate as well as of 

 animated nature. In 1875 there 

 were founded simultaneously in 

 Germany two periodicals, represent- 

 ing respectively the morphological 

 and genetic sides of animal biology. 



