Form and Function Part 33

We have seen this thought expressed with the utmost clearness by Darwin himself (_supra_, p. 233). In his eyes the structure and activities of the living thing were a heritage from a remote past, the organism was a living record of the achievements of its whole ancestral line. What a light this conception threw upon all biology! "When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship as something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of Nature as one which has had a long history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing-up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, in the same way as any great mechanical invention is the summing-up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting--I speak from experience--does the study of natural history become!" (_Origin_, 6th ed., pp. 665-6).

Sedgwick expressed the same thing from the morphological point of view when he wrote, with reference to the ancestral significance of the blastopore:--"If there is anything in the theory of evolution, every change in the embryo must have had a counterpart in the history of the race, and it is our business as morphologists to find it out" (p. 49, 1884).

By the evolution-theory the problems of form were linked indissolubly with the problem of heredity. Unity of plan could no longer be explained idealistically as the manifestation of Divine archetypal ideas; it had a real historical basis, and was due to inheritance from a common ancestor. The evolution-theory gave meaning and intelligibility to the transcendental conception of the unity of plan; in particular it supplied a simple and satisfying explanation of those puzzling vestigial organs, whose existence was such a stumbling-block to the teleologists.

It enabled the biogenetic law to be subst.i.tuted for the laws of Meckel-Serres and von Baer, as being in some measure a combination and interpretation of both.

Where the concept of evolution proved itself particularly useful was in the interpretation of structures which were not immediately conditioned by adaptation to present requirements, such as, for instance, the arrangement of gill-slits and aortic arches in the foetus of land Vertebrates. Such "heritage characters" could only be explained on the hypothesis that they had once had functional or adaptational meaning.

Why, for instance, should the blastopore so often appear as a long slit, closing by concrescence, unless this had been the original method of its formation in remote Coelenterate ancestors?

The point hardly requires elaboration, since it has become an integral part of all our thinking on biological problems. It may be as well, however, for the sake of continuity, to give one or two examples of the historical interpretation of animal structures. The first may conveniently be the phylogenetic interpretation of the contrast between "membrane" and "cartilage" bones.

In his _Grundzuge_ of 1870, Gegenbaur made the suggestion that the investing or membrane bones were derived phylogenetically from integumentary ossifications, and this was worked out in detail a few years later by O. Hertwig.[458]

Many years before, several observers--J. Muller, Williamson, and Steenstrup--had been struck with the resemblance existing between the placoid scales and the teeth of Elasmobranch fishes. Hertwig followed up this clue, and came to the conclusion not only that placoid scales and teeth were strictly h.o.m.ologous, but also that all membrane bones were derived phylogenetically from ossifications present in the skin or in the mucous membrane of the mouth, just as cartilage bones were derived from the cartilaginous skeletons of the primitive Vertebrates. In some cases this manner of derivation could even be observed in ontogeny, as Reichert had seen in the Newt, where certain bones in the roof of the mouth are actually formed by the concrescence of little teeth, (_supra_, p. 163). Hertwig considered that the following bones were originally formed by coalescence of teeth--parasphenoid, vomer, palatine, pterygoid, the tooth-bearing part of the pre-maxillary, the maxillary, the dentary and certain bones of the hyo-mandibular skeleton of Teleosts. All the investing bones (_Deckknochen_) of the skull were of common origin, and could be traced back to integumentary skeletal plates, which in the ancestral fish formed a dense carapace.

These conclusions were accepted by Kolliker himself, who wrote in his _Entwickelungsgeschichte_ (1879)--"The distinction between the primary or primordial, and the investing or secondary bones is from the morphological standpoint sharp and definite. The former are ossifications of the (cartilaginous) primordial skeleton, the latter are formed outside this skeleton, and are probably all ossifications of the skin or the mucous membrane" (p. 464).

Gegenbaur[459] consistently upheld the phylogenetic derivation of investing bones from dermal ossifications, and even went further and derived subst.i.tutionary bones as well from the integument, thus establishing a direct comparison between the skeletal formations of Vertebrates and Invertebrates. Investing bones were actual integumentary ossifications which had gradually sunk beneath the skin to become part of the internal skeleton; subst.i.tutionary bones were produced by cells (osteoblasts) which were ultimately derived from the integument.[460]

A further instance of the historical interpretation of animal structure, taken from quite a different field, is afforded by the speculations of Dollo[461] on the ancestral history of the Marsupials. In a brilliant paper of 1880[462] Huxley made the suggestion that the ancestors of Marsupials were arboreal forms. "I think it probable," he wrote, "from the character of the pes, that the primitive forms, whence the existing Marsupialia have been derived, were arboreal animals; and it is not difficult, I conceive, to see that, with such habits, it may have been highly advantageous to an animal to get rid of its young from the interior of its body at as early a period of development as possible, and to supply it with nourishment during the later periods through the lacteal glands, rather than through an imperfect form of placenta" (p.

655). Dollo followed up this suggestion, which had in the meantime been strengthened by Hill's discovery of a true allantoic placenta in _Perameles_, by demonstrating in the foot of present-day Marsupials certain features which could only be interpreted as inherited from a time when the ancestors of Marsupials were tree-living animals. These were the occurrence of an opposable big toe (when this was present at all), the great development of the fourth toe, the reduction and partial syndactylism of the second and third toes, and in some cases the regression of the nails. These characters were shown to be typical of arboreal Vertebrates, and their occurrence in forms not arboreal indicated that these were descended from tree-living ancestors. Traces of an arboreal ancestry could be demonstrated even in the marsupial mole _Notoryctes_.

These are only two examples out of hundreds that might be given. Present day structure was interpreted in the light of past history; the common element in organic form was seen to be due to common descent; the existence of vestigial and non-functional organs was no longer a riddle.

There was even a tendency to concentrate attention upon the historical side of structure, upon what the animal pa.s.sively inherited rather than upon what it personally achieved. h.o.m.ologies were considered more interesting than a.n.a.logies, vestigial organs more interesting than foetal and larval adaptations. Convergence was anathema. The dead-weight of the past was appreciated at its full and more than its full value; and the essential vital activity of the living thing, so clearly shown in development and regeneration, was ignored or forgotten.

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. The reason is not far to seek. 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; but an explanation of the reason for the recapitulation of ancestral history during development can clearly not be given by pure morphology unaided.

From the fact that the common starfish shows in the course of its development distinct traces of a stalk[463] it is possible to infer, taking other evidence also into consideration, that the ancestors of the starfish were at one stage of their existence stalked and sessile organisms. But this leaves unanswered the question as to how and why the starfish does still repeat after so many millions of years part of the organisation of one of its remote ancestors. Why is this feature retained, and by what means has it been conserved through countless generations? It is clear that the answer can be given only by a science of the causes of the production and retention of form, by a causal morphology, based upon a study of heredity and development.

From the point of view of the pure morphologist the recapitulation theory is an instrument of research enabling him to reconstruct probable lines of descent; from the standpoint of the student of development and heredity the fact of recapitulation is a difficult problem whose solution would perhaps give the key to a true understanding of the real nature of heredity.

To make full use of the conception of the organism as an historical being it is necessary then to understand the causal nexus between ontogeny and phylogeny.

We shall see in the next chapter that the transformation of morphology from a comparative to a causal science did take place towards the end of the century, and that some progress was made towards an understanding of the relation between individual development and ancestral history, particularly by Roux and Samuel Butler, working with the fruitful Lamarckian conception of the transforming power of function.

[456] The importance of convergence came to be realised after the vogue of phylogenetic speculation had pa.s.sed--see Friedmann, _Die Konvergenz der Organismen_, Berlin, 1904, and A. Willey, _Convergence in Evolution_, London, 1911. Also L. Vialleton, _Elements de morphologie des Vertebres_, Paris, 1912.

[457] From this point of view there is a very profound a.n.a.logy between artificial and natural selection. Upon the theory of natural selection organisms are lifeless constructs which are mechanically perfected by external agency, just as machines are improved by a process of conscious selection of the most successful among a number of competing models. (_Cf._ pa.s.sage quoted below, on p. 308.)

[458] _Arch. f. mikr. Anat._, xi. (suppl.), 1874; _Morph.

Jahrb._, ii., 1876, v. 1879, and vii., 1882.

[459] _Vergleich. Anat. d. Wirbelthiere_, i., pp. 200-1, 1898.

[460] For a full historical account of work on membrane and cartilage bones (as well as on the theory of the skull) see E. Gaupp, "Altere und neuere Arbeiten uber den Wirbelthierschadel," _Ergeb. Anat. Entw._, x., 1901, and "Die Entwickelung des Kopfskelettes," in Hertwig's "_Handbuch vergl. exper. Entwickelungslehre d.

Wirbelthiere_," iii., 2, pp. 573-874, 1905.

[461] "Les Ancetres des Marsupiaux etaient-ils arboricoles?" _Trav. Stat. zool. Wimereux_, vii., pp.

188-203, pls. xi.-xii., 1899. See also Bensley, _Trans.

Linn. Soc._ (2) ix., pp. 83-214, 1903.

[462] _Proc. Zool. Soc._, pp. 649-62, 1880. _Sci. Mem._, iv., pp. 457-72.

[463] J. F. Gemmill, _Phil. Trans. B_, ccv., p. 255, 1914.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BEGINNINGS OF CAUSAL MORPHOLOGY

Until well into the 'eighties animal morphology remained a purely descriptive science, content to state and summarise the relations between the coexistent and successive form-states of the same and of different animals. No serious attempt had been made to discover the causes which led to the production of form in the individual and in the race.

It is true that evolution-theory had offered a simple solution of the great problem of the unity in diversity of animal forms, but this solution was formal merely, and went little beyond that abstract deduction of more complex from simpler forms, which had been the main operation of pre-evolutionary morphology. Little was known of the actual causes of ontogeny, and nothing at all of the causes of phylogeny; it was, for instance, mere rhetoric on Haeckel's part to proclaim that phylogeny was the mechanical cause of ontogeny.

Animal physiology, on its side, had developed in complete isolation from morphology into a science of the functioning of the adult and finished animal, considered as a more or less stable physico-chemical mechanism.

Since the days of Ludwig, Claude Bernard and E. du Bois Reymond, the physiologists' chief care had been to a.n.a.lyse vital activities into their component physical and chemical processes, and to trace out the interchange of matter and energy between the organism and its environment. Physiologists had left untouched, perhaps wisely, the much more difficult problem of the causes of the development of form. For all practical purposes they took the animal-machine as given, and did not trouble about its mode of origin. They held indeed that form-production was due to a complex of physico-chemical causes, which they hoped some day to unravel;[464] but this future physiology of development remained quite embryonic.

Physiology then had not really come into contact with the problems of form, and it could give the morphologist no direct help when he turned to investigate the causes of form-production. It had, however, a determining influence upon the methods of those who first broke ground in this No Man's Land between morphology proper and physiology. But it is significant that it was a morphologist and not a physiologist that did the first spade-work.

The pioneer in this field, both as investigator and as thinker, was W.

Roux, who sketched in the 'eighties the main outlines of a new science of causal morphology, to which he gave the name of _Entwicklungsmechanik_. The choice of name was deliberate, and the word implied, first, that the new science was essentially an investigation of the development of form, not of the mode of action of a formed mechanism, and second, that the methods to be adopted were mechanistic.[465]

Though Roux was the only begetter of the science of _Entwicklungsmechanik_, he was, of course, not the first to investigate experimentally the formative processes of animal life. Study of regeneration dates back to Trembley (1740-44), Reaumur (1742), Bonnet (1745), and Spallanzani (1768-82),[466] and in the years preceding Roux's activity good work was done by Philipeaux. A beginning had been made with experimental teratology by E. Geoffroy St Hilaire and others, and the work of C. Dareste[467] remains cla.s.sical. Back in the 18th century, some of John Hunter's experiments had a bearing upon the problems of form; his work on transplantation was followed up in the 19th century by Flourens, P. Bert, Ollier and many others. In founding in 1872 the _Archives de Zoologie experimentale et generale_ H. de Lacaze-Duthiers put forward in his introduction a powerful plea for the use of the experimental method in zoology.

In some ways more directly connected with _Entwicklungsmechanik_ was His's attempt in 1874[468] to explain on mechanical principles the formation of certain of the embryonic organs by the bendings and foldings of tubes or plates of cells. "His compared the various layers of the chick embryo to elastic plates and tubes; out of these he suggested that some of the princ.i.p.al organs might be moulded by mere local inequalities of growth--the ventricles of the brain, for instance, the alimentary ca.n.a.l, the heart--and he further succeeded in imitating the formation of these organs by folding, pinching, and cutting india-rubber tubes and plates in various ways."[469]

But Roux was undoubtedly the first to make a systematic survey of the problems to be solved and to work out an organised method of attack. His earliest work deals with the important problem of functional adaptation--its importance to the organism, and its possible mechanistic explanation. The first paper[470] was a study of the branching and distribution of the arteries in the human body (1878), and a second paper on the same subject followed in 1879.[471]

In these papers Roux showed how the development of the blood-vascular system was largely determined by direct adaptation to functional requirements, and he inferred the existence in the vascular tissues of certain vital properties, in virtue of which the functional adaptation of the blood-vessels came about. Thus the intima or inner lining must possess the faculty of so reacting to the friction set up by the blood-current as to oppose the least possible resistance to its flow; the muscular coats must react to increased pressure by growing thicker, and so on.

These papers were followed in 1881 by his well-known book, _Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus_, which contained the working-out of his mechanistic explanation of functional adaptation, and most of the elements of his general "causal-a.n.a.lytical" theory of form production.

The significance of the book was popularly considered at the time to lie in its supposed application of the selection idea to the explanation of the internal adaptedness of animal structure--in the theory of "cellular selection," and the book owed its success to its fitting in so well with the prevalent Darwinism of the day. But its real importance, as a big step towards causal morphology, was naturally not so fully appreciated.

During the next few years Roux continued his studies on functional adaptation,[472] and at the same time made a new departure by inaugurating, almost contemporaneously with the physiologist Pfluger, the study of experimental embryology. Isolated observations had previously been made upon the development of single blastomeres or parts of blastulae, by Haeckel and Chun for instance,[473] but Roux[474] and Pfluger[475] were the first to investigate the subject systematically, choosing for their work the egg of the frog.[476] Roux continued for many years to follow up this line of work.[477]

In 1890 he drew up a programme and manifesto[478] of _Entwicklungsmechanik_ as "an anatomical science of the future," and in 1895 he founded the famous _Archiv fur Entwicklungsmechanik_,[479]

publishing in the same year the two large volumes of his collected papers,[480] of which the first volume dealt with functional adaptation, the second with experimental embryology.

His subsequent work includes several important general papers;[481]

besides a number of special memoirs dealing with the factors of development, and with his original subject, functional adaptation.[482]

In our sketch of his views we shall have occasion to refer particularly to his publications of 1881, 1895 (the _Einleitung_), 1902, 1905, and 1910.

Although Roux's biological philosophy is out-and-out mechanistic, he yet recognises the difficulty, even the impossibility, of straightway reducing development to the physico-chemical level. He tries to steer a course midway between the simplicist conceptions of the materialists and the "metaphysics" of the neo-vitalist school, which the experimental study of development and regeneration soon brought into being. In 1895 he writes:--"The too simple mechanistic conception on the one hand, and the metaphysical conception on the other represent the Scylla and Charybdis, between which to sail is indeed difficult, and so far by few satisfactorily accomplished; it cannot be denied that with the increase of knowledge the seduction of the second has lately notably increased"

(p. 23).