Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology — John Shaqi
Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal MorphologyRussell, E. S. (Edward Stuart)
History
Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology
Russell, E. S. (Edward Stuart)
Anatomy, Comparative -- History; Morphology (Animals) -- History
(4) Aristotle was much struck with certain facts of correlation, of
the interdependence of two organs which are not apparently in
functional dependence on one another. Such correlation may be positive
or negative; the presence of one organ may either entail the presence
of the other, or it may entail its absence. Aristotle has various ways
of explaining facts of correlation. He observed that no animal has
both tusks and horns, but this fact could easily be explained on the
principle that Nature never makes anything superfluous or in vain. If
an animal is protected by the possession of tusks it does not require
horns, and _vice versa_. The correlation of a multiple stomach with
deficient development of the teeth (as in Ruminants) is accounted for
by saying that the animal needs its complex stomach to make up for the
shortcomings of its teeth! (_De Partibus_, iii., 14, 674^b.) Other
examples of correlation were not susceptible of this explanation in
terms of final causes. He lays stress on the fact, in the main true,
of the inverse development of horns and front teeth in the upper jaw,
exemplified in Ruminants. He explains the fact in this way. Teeth and
horns are formed from earthy matter in the body and there is not
enough to form both teeth and horns, so "Nature by subtracting from
the teeth adds to the horns; the nutriment which in most animals goes
to the former being here spent on the augmentation of the latter" (_De
Partibus_, iii., 2, 664^a, trans. Ogle). A similar kind of explanation
is offered of the fact that Selachia have cartilage instead of bone,
"in these Selachia Nature has used all the earthy matter on the skin
[_i.e._, on the placoid scales]; and she is unable to allot to many
different parts one and the same superfluity of material" (_De
Partibus_, ii., 9, 655^a, trans. Ogle). Speaking generally, "Nature
invariably gives to one part what she subtracts from another" (_loc.
cit._, ii., 14, 658^a).
This thought reappears again in the 19th century in E. Geoffroy St
Hilaire's _loi de balancement_ and also in Goethe's writings on
morphology. For Aristotle it meant that Nature was limited by the
nature of her means, that finality was limited by necessity. Thus in
the larger animals there is an excess of earthy matter, as a necessary
result of the material nature of the animal; this excess is turned by
Nature to good account, but there is not enough to serve both for
teeth and for horns (_loc. cit._, iii., 2, 663^b).
But there are other instances of correlation which seem to have taxed
even Aristotle's ingenuity beyond its powers. Thus he knew that all
animals (meaning viviparous quadrupeds) with no front teeth in the
upper jaw have cotyledons on their foetal membranes, and that most
animals which have front teeth in both jaws and no horns have no
cotyledons (_De Generatione_, ii., 7). He offers no explanation of
this, but accepts it as a fact.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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