became animated. For a very long time students had only 

 repeated what was known to the ancient Greeks. In the 

 study of the structure of organisms, they everywhere collided 

 with the manifestation of purpose, whose existence, as all 

 else, was attributed to the omnipotent Creator. Thus, one 

 teacher stated that he illustrated the effect of the wisdom 

 of God, in that God, in his opinion, directed the flow of 

 the rivers to where the big cities are. In other cases a 

 purely mechanical necessity was attached to this idea. 

 Spiegel, 32 a seventeenth- century anatomist, speaking of 

 the sciatic muscles in man, which develop more in connection 

 with the direct process of walking than in other animals, 

 stated his belief that man possesses such powerful sciatic 

 muscles so that he may sit on soft bedding when he meditates 

 on the greatness of God. "Another anatomist," according to 

 Baer, "posed the question, why does man not have two backs, 

 and answered, because that would be ridiculous. "33 The new 

 method was established by Newton and his contemporaries, 

 showing the application of the fall of bodies and the 

 movement of the planets to simple laws of nature and their 

 effect. Only then did "the powers contrived from a scarcity 

 of knowledge, about which it was impossible to state any- 

 definite thing . . . disappear as ghosts in the light. "34 



"At the end of the eighteenth century," Baer wrote in 

 his article "Uber Zielstrebigkeit," "man did not doubt that 

 all physico-chemical processes are under obligation to 

 natural necessity. "35 



Otherwise at that time they were related to vital mani- 

 festations, the supposition being that they obeyed special 

 regularities absolutely. In relation to living beings it 

 was considered necessary to take into consideration "a 

 special power which shows its activity on these bodies and 

 all conditions which could not be explained with the help 

 of the already known physical and chemical powers; this power 



32. Adriaan van den Spiegel, Dutch anatomist and embryologist 



(1578-1625). He wrote DE FORMATU FOETU (Amsterdam, 

 1645) . 



33. Baer, "Uber den Zweck," p. 62. 



34. Ibid ., £.64. 



35. Baer, "Uber Zielstrebigkeit," p. 186. 



503 



