IV. 



ON CORRELATIONS OF GROWTH, WITH A 

 SPECIAL EXAMPLE FROM THE ANATOMY 

 OF A PORPOISE. 



Philosophers of other countries have often taken occasion to 

 remark, and in no complimentary terms, upon the utilitarian ten- 

 dency constantly displayed by the English mind. Our everlasting 

 seeking after hidden purposes, our infantine inquisitiveness after 

 final causes in biological as well as other investigations, has fre- 

 quently called forth contemptuous comments from foreigners who 

 happened to be acquainted with Bacon's famous comparison of final 

 causes to vestal virgins. But in these latter days it has come 

 to be acknowledged, even in England, that there are many struc- 

 tures in normal organisms for the existence of which no teleologicai 

 explanation will suffice ; and it is right to say that in no other 

 country, and in no other time than ours, have theories for the 

 explanation of such phenomena been more clearly enunciated. Our 

 natural hankering after hypothesis, our constitutional craving after 

 rationales, has called into use, if not into being, the several theories 

 of adherence to type, of complemental nutrition, of genealogical, 

 yet modified, transmission, and of correlation of growth. 



The first of these theories has won with us not a little popularity; 

 its antique dress, striking the eye, diverted the attention from the 

 utter incongruity which exists between Platonic mysticisms and 

 modern science ; and, appealing to our reverence for the dreams of 

 our youth, it has lived longer, and made more converts than un- 

 assisted by the associations of the Academy it ever could have done. 

 Even now it is fairly in the way of developing out of the larva 

 stage of an Idolon Theatri into an Idolon Fori, a more active, 

 elusive, albeit fragile, Imago. But a few years back, the joint 

 empire of final and formal causes, of confederated teleologicai and 



