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Title: Form and Function
A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

Author: E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

Release Date: January 23, 2007 [EBook #20426]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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FORM AND FUNCTION

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
HISTORY OF ANIMAL MORPHOLOGY

By E.S. RUSSELL,
M.A., B.Sc., F.Z.S.

ILLUSTRATED

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1916

_All rights reserved_

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| Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer |
| errors have been corrected, all other |
| inconsistencies in spelling and |
| punctuation are as in the original. |
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PREFACE

This book is not intended to be a full or detailed history of animal
morphology: a complete account is given neither of morphological
discoveries nor of morphological theories. My aim has been rather to
call attention to the existence of diverse typical attitudes to the
problems of form, and to trace the interplay of the theories that have
arisen out of them.

The main currents of morphological thought are to my mind three--the
functional or synthetic, the formal or transcendental, and the
materialistic or disintegrative.

The first is associated with the great names of Aristotle, Cuvier, and
von Baer, and leads easily to the more open vitalism of Lamarck and
Samuel Butler. The typical representative of the second attitude is E.
Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and this habit of thought has greatly influenced
the development of evolutionary morphology.

The main battle-ground of these two opposing tendencies is the problem
of the relation of function to form. Is function the mechanical result
of form, or is form merely the manifestation of function or activity?
What is the essence of life--organisation or activ