t so
convinced as Cuvier was of the all-importance of functional correlation;
in this view he was probably confirmed by his work on teratology. It did
not surprise him that Insects, in which lungs, heart and circulation
have disappeared(!), should yet have a skeleton built upon the same plan
as the skeleton of Vertebrates, which possess these organs; the
correlation of organ-systems is not so close as to prevent this.[127] So
too, although the other organs of the insect are all inside the body of
the vertebrae, they are yet comparable with the organs of Vertebrates.[128]
The existence of rudimentary organs also seemed to him an argument
against too strict a correlation of parts.

The contrast between the teleological attitude, with its insistence upon
the priority of function to structure, and the morphological attitude,
with its conviction of the priority of structure to function, is one of
the most fundamental in biology.

Cuvier and Geoffroy are the greatest representatives of these opposing
views. Which of them is right? Is there nothing more in the unity and
diversity of organic forms than the results of functional adaptation, or
is Geoffroy right in insisting upon an element of unity which cannot be
explained in terms of adaptation? If there be an irreducible element of
unity, is there any truth in Geoffroy's suggestion that this unity
results from a power which is exercised in the world of atoms where are
elements of inalterable character?[129]

The problem as Geoffroy and Cuvier understood it was not an evolutionary
one. But the problem exists unchanged for the evolutionist, and
evolution-theory is essentially an attempt to solve it in the one
direction or the other. Theories such as Darwin's, which assume a random
variation which is not primarily a response to environmental changes,
answer the problem in Geoffroy's sense. Theories such as Lamarck's,
which postulate an active responsive self-adaptation of the organism,
are essentially a continuation and completing of Cuvier's thought.

[86] "Memoire sur les rapports naturels des makis,"
_Magasin Encyclopedique_, vii.

[87] Discours preliminaire, pp. xv.-xxiv.

[88] _Etudes progressives d'un Naturaliste_, p. 50,
Paris, 1835.

[89] _Philosophie Anatomique_., i., Introduction, p. 1.

[90] "Sur une colonne vertebrale et ses cotes dans les
insectes apiropodes," (_Acad. Sci._, Feb. 12, 1820).
Printed in _Isis_, pp. 527-52,