d by
the environment. Adaptation so defined comes to be synonymous with the
fortuitous variation which plays so great a part in Darwin's theory of
natural selection.

It goes without saying that Haeckel allowed to the organism no other nor
higher individuality than belongs to the crystal, and took no account at
all of that harmonious interaction of the organs which Cuvier called the
principle of the "conditions of existence." The concept of correlation
had simply no meaning for Haeckel. The analysis and disintegration of
the organism was pushed by him to its logical extreme, and in this also
he was a child of his time.

A no less important influence clearly visible in the _General
Morphology_ is the idealistic morphology of men like K. G. Carus and H. G.
Bronn. In previous chapters we have seen how K. G. Carus attempted to
work out a geometry of the organism, and how Bronn tried in a modest way
to found a stereometrical morphology, but had the grace not to push his
stereometry _a l'outrance_, recognising very wisely that the greater
part of organic form is functionally determined. Haeckel took over this
idea[367] and pushed it to wild extremes, founding a new science of
"Promorphology" of which he was the greatest--and only--exponent.[368]

This "science" dealt with axes and planes, poles and angles, in a
veritable orgy of barbarous technical terms. It was intended to be a
"crystallography of the organic," and to lay the foundations of a
mechanistic morphology, or morphography at least.

How it was to be linked up with the physics and chemistry of living
matter on the one hand and with the ordinary morphology of real animals
on the other, was never made quite clear.

The science of Promorphology has no historical significance; it is
interesting only because it illustrates Haeckel's close affinity with
the idealistic morphologists.

Another abortive science of Haeckel's, the science of Tectology, was
equally a heritage from idealistic morphology. Tectology is the science
of the composition of organisms from individuals of different orders.
There were six orders of individuals:--(1) Plastids (Cytodes and cells);
(2) Organs (including cell-fusions, tissues, organs, organ-systems); (3)
Antimeres (homotypic parts, _i.e._, halves or rays); (4) Metameres
(homodynamic parts, _i.e._, segments); (5) Persons (individuals in the
ordinary sense); (6) Corms (colonial animals).

The thought is essentially transcendental, and r