The development of Darwin's theory : natural history, natural theology, and natural selection, 1838-1859 / Dov Ospovat.

  • Ospovat, Dov.
Date:
1995, ©1981
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: The development of Darwin's theory : natural history, natural theology, and natural selection, 1838-1859 / Dov Ospovat. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Darwin and the biology of the i8ßOS authors of the Bridgewater treatises were commissioned to illus¬ trate design in nature, and in most cases they defended teleologi¬ ca! explanation as well. Charles Bell in his treatise on The Hand (1834), for instance, rejected Geoffroy in favor of Cuvier and insisted that the only principle that should be employed in explaining animal organization is the principle of adaptation. However, in the same year that Bell's work on The Hand was published, Peter Mark Roget brought out the treatise on Animal and Vegetable Physiology, in which he suggested that some organic structures cannot be explained solely by their functions, but instead must be referred to a general pattern. Nature, he said, has laid down certain great plans of functions and, in accordance with them, has established general structural patterns for each class of animals. More specialized structures, which carry out the subordi¬ nate functions in each species, are not adapted directly to their special functions, but are governed and limited by the general pattern, or type, on which the species is modeled. The student of animal organization must recognize not only adaptation to func¬ tion - as the teleologist assumed - but also a law ... of conformity to a definite type.^^ Two years later, at about the time of Darwin's return to England, Martin Barry argued, somewhat more forcefully, that form, rather than function, was the more fruitful guide to the solution of the most profound problems in natural history. Like Roget, Barry stopped short of declaring the absolute priority of the study of structure: It has been usual [he said] to regard organic structure as manifesting design, because it shews adaptation to the function to be performed. It has also been suggested, that function may be equally well considered as the result of structure. And, truly so it may. Yet perhaps we are not required to shew the claim of either to priority; but may consider both structure and function, - harmonizing, as they always do, - as having been simultaneously contemplated in the same design.'® Although Barry seems here to be equivocating, he was in fact making the strong claim that as important a consideration as adaptation is, it is not by itself a sufficient explanation of organ¬ isms. Throughout the rest of his article he insisted that the investigation of animal organization must focus on structure and development. Adaptations to particular functions merely confuse 11