Morphology

“ But evolutionary morphology for all practical purposes was a development of pure or idealistic morphology, and was powerless to bring to fruit the new conception with which evolution-theory had enriched it. ”

“ Pure morphology is essentially a science of comparison which seeks to disentangle the unity hidden beneath the diversity of organic form. It is not immediately concerned with the causes of organic diversity—that is rather the task of the sciences of the individual, heredity and development. To take an example—the recapitulation theory may legitimately be used as a law of pure morphology, as stating the abstract relation of ontogeny to phylogeny, and the probable line of descent of any organism may be deduced from it, as a mere matter of the ideal derivation of one form from another ”

“ The collaboration of working material in the form of demonstrated facts on the side of morphology, as well as in the realm of the doctrine of function, has aided in bringing the two nearer together, and the solution of the questions as to the functional significance of morphological structures is in full tide. The most successful has been the union of morphological and physiological knowledge as regards plant tissues, the study of which, as previously mentioned, was from the first often entangled with the doctrine of function. ”

“ To complete our historical survey of the morphology of the early 19th century we have now to turn back some way and consider the curious development of morphological thought in Germany under the influence of the Philosophy of Nature. ”

“ Only a small part of morphology, which we botanists call anatomy, but which is identical with the histology of the zoologists, developed along with physiology. The greater part of morphology, which corresponds to what zoologists call anatomy, pursued its way independently of physiology. ”

“ Other causes of the unwillingness of morphologists to admit the new formation of organs are to be sought in the main principle of pure morphology itself, that the unity of plan imposes an iron limit upon adaptation, and in the 308powerful influence exercised at the time by materialistic habits of thought. ”

“ CHAPTER XIII THE RELATION OF LAMARCK AND DARWIN TO MORPHOLOGY.
It is a remarkable fact that morphology took but a very little part in the formation of evolution-theory. When one remembers what powerful arguments for evolution can be drawn from such facts as the unity of plan and composition and the law of parallelism, one is astonished to find that it was not the morphologists at all who founded the theory of evolution. ”

“ That which Architecture, as an art conversant with pure form, is to buildings, Morphology, as a science conversant with pure form, is to animals and plants. And we may now proceed to occupy ourselves exclusively with the morphological aspect of the crayfish. ”

“ So Virchow taught. Each one of us is an individual, and as such an object of morphology. 210The cell, each single cell in each of us, is also an individual, and as such is equally an object of morphology. Hence it is the task of the morphology of organisms, not only to describe these higher individualities as such, but also to look on them as glass-houses, as it were, with so many shelves, divisions, and smaller houses within of a lower rank. ”

“ The close affinity of transcendentalists and evolutionists is shown very clearly in their common contrast in habits of 305thought with the Cuvierian school. It is the cardinal principle of pure morphology that function must be excluded from consideration. This is a necessary and unavoidable simplification which must be carried out if there is to be a science of pure form at all. But this limitation of outlook, if carried over from morphology to general biology becomes harmful, since it wilfully ignores one whole side of life—and that the most important. ”

“ That part of the subject which embraces the study of animal structure is Morphology. This word is generally used in a broad sense to mean something more than Anatomy, which is one division of morphology. The study of microscopic anatomy is Histology. It is not a different kind of study, and is separated from anatomy merely as a matter of convenience. The investigation of stages in animal development is Embryology. These divisions make up Structural Zoölogy. The general description and classification of animals is Systematic Zoölogy. The modern name for classification is Taxonomy. ”

“ The morphology is treated as external, involving the development of form in the plant kingdom, relations of symmetry, branch systems, the shoot, the root, and the ontogeny of plants; and internal, embracing the histology and anatomy In the special part the theory of evolution is credited with having first afforded a true basis for a natural system of classification, expressive of relationship and family. ”

“ The main result I hope to have achieved with this book is the demonstration, tentative and incomplete as it is, of the essential continuity of animal morphology from the days of Aristotle down to our own time. It is unfortunately true that modern biology, perhaps in consequence of the great advances it has made in certain directions, has to a considerable extent lost its historical consciousness, and if this book helps in any degree to counteract this tendency so far as animal morphology is concerned, it will have served its purpose. ”

“ It appears to me probable that more insight will be gained into the real nature of life and organisation by concentrating on the active response of the animal, as manifested both in behaviour and in morphogenesis, particularly in the post-embryonic stages, than by giving attention exclusively to the historical aspect of structure, as is the custom of "pure morphology." ”

“ That part of biological science which deals with form and structure is called Morphology—that which concerns itself with function, Physiology—so that we may conveniently speak of these two senses, or aspects, of "species"—the one as morphological, the other as physiological. Regarded from the former point of view, a species is nothing more than a kind of animal or plant, which is distinctly definable from all others, by certain constant, and not merely sexual, morphological peculiarities. ”

“ I learned the meaning of Morphology and the value of development as the criterion of morphological views—first, from the study of the Hydrozoa during a long voyage, and secondly, from the writings of Von Baer. I have done my best, both by precept and practice, to inaugurate better methods and a better spirit than had long prevailed. Others have taken the same views, and I confidently hope that a new epoch for zoology is dawning among us. I do not claim for myself any great share in the good work, but I have not flinched when there was anything to be done. ”

“ Though the theory of natural selection took little account of the problems of form, Darwin's masterly vindication of the theory of evolution was of immense service to morphology, and Darwin himself was the first to point out what a great light evolution threw upon all morphological problems. ”

“ Morphology, in natural science, teaches us that the whole animal and vegetable creation is formed upon certain fundamental types and patterns, which can be traced under various modifications and transformations through all the rich variety of things apparently of most dissimilar build. ”

“ We begin by an easy and general assumption of specific properties, by which each organism assumes its own specific form; we learn later (as it is the purpose of this book to shew) that throughout the whole range of organic morphology there are innumerable phenomena of form which are not peculiar to living things, but which are more or less simple manifestations of ordinary physical law. ”

“ In the department of anatomy and development, a host of accurate and patient inquirers, aided by novel methods of preparation, which enable the anatomist to exhaust the details of visible structure and to reproduce them with geometrical precision, have investigated every important group of living animals and plants, no less than the fossil relics of former faunæ and floræ. An enormous addition has thus been made to our knowledge, especially of the lower forms of life, and it may be said that morphology, however inexhaustible in detail, is complete in its broad features. ”

“ Many extended particles incorporated in many bodies have relations of position, space, form, metamorphosis and organization, all of which are included under the term morphology. These relations cannot exist by themselves, but can only be considered by themselves, for relations of morphology are concomitant with relations of classification, dynamics and evolution in the concrete world. Bodies can be analyzed only into particles, and the particles still retain their properties, which may be considered abstractly. ”

“ The history of the morphology and systematic botany of this period shows indeed, that the comparison of mature forms leads to the recognition of many and highly important morphological facts; but as long as matured organisms only are compared, the morphological consideration of them is always disturbed by the circumstance that the organs to be compared are already adapted to definite physiological functions, and thus their true morphological character is often entirely obscured ”

“ That branch of biology which is termed morphology is a commentary upon, and expansion of, the proposition that widely different animals or plants, and widely different parts of animals or plants, are constructed upon the same plan. ”

“ In either case, we shall find a very great tendency in small organisms to assume either the spherical form or other simple forms related to ordinary inanimate surface-tension phenomena; which forms do not recur in the external morphology of large animals, or if they in part recur it is for other reasons. ”

“ Classification has, however, derived much assistance from a wholly new branch of the science known as Morphology. This teaches that all parts of plants are modifications of other parts. What Nature may have intended to be a leaf may become a stem ”

“ Morphology then is not only a study of material things and of the forms of material things, but has its dynamical aspect, under which we deal with the interpretation, in terms of force, of the operations of Energy. And here it is well worth while to remark that, in dealing with the facts of embryology or the phenomena of inheritance, the common language of the books seems to deal too much with the material elements concerned, as the causes of development, of variation or of hereditary transmission. ”

“ The cellate homologies of the man are repeated in all mammals, while the same facts can be seen in birds, reptiles, batrachians and fishes, for all the pentalogic classes present a vast hierarchy of homologies, which illustrate the theme of morphology. ”

“ For all practical purposes, however, the empirical laws of co-ordination of structures, which are embodied in the generalisations of morphology, may be confidently trusted, if employed with due caution, to lead to a just interpretation of fossil remains ”

“ Accordingly, form is one of the least important elements to be considered in determining a homology. "Nature," he wrote in one of his early papers, "tends to repeat the same organs in the same number and in the same relations, and varies to infinity only their form. In accordance with this principle I shall have to draw my conclusions, in the determining the bones of the fish's skull, not from a consideration of their form, but from a consideration of their connections." ”

“ A higher relation of homology is that in which a part or series of parts stands to the fundamental or general type, and its enunciation involves and implies a knowledge of the type on which a natural group of animals, the Vertebrate, for example, is constructed. Thus when the basilar process of the human occipital bone is determined to be the 'centrum' or 'body' of the last cranial vertebra, its general homology is enunciated. ”

“ Certain empirical rules have been recognised, more or less consciously, by systematists—that analogical characters are less valuable than homological, that characters of great physiological importance are not always valuable for classificatory purposes, that rudimentary organs are often very useful, and so on. ”

“ The support, or skeleton, must of course be adapted to line with the pose of the figure, and should be of pipe and heavy wire or rods securely anchored to the base-plate.
The composition of flowers, fruit, foliage, animal life, and landscape is an inexhaustible one, and some beautiful effects can be had in flat-work. Good examples of this character of work may be found on all sides, and to the genius the field of modelling is a broad one—without limit. ”

“ This being so, the glands of the investing fleshy tissue secrete lime from the sea-water, which holds it in solution, and constantly deposits it, after a determinate and orderly pattern, on every part of the surface of each shelly piece; the inner face, the outer face, and each of the sides and angles of the polyhedron grow together, and all so evenly, that while the dimensions [Pg 179] increase, both of thickness and superficies, the form characteristic of that individual piece is maintained with immutable mathematical precision. ”

“ FLOWERS and other forms as LINE-MOTIVES. The rectangular space may be subdivided, as was the square, by a simple line-motif,—flower, fruit, still life, animal or figure,—following some Principle of Composition. In chapter III, under Subordination, an exercise was suggested and illustrated; it could be taken up again at this point, with new subjects, for a study of Variation. As rectangular compositions will be found under Notan and Color, it is not necessary to consider them further here as pure line, except in the case of Landscape, to which a special chapter is given. ”