1182 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
rather than to immediate physical imposition.) But I suspect that direct physical
assembly or imposition may supply an important, perhaps even a controlling, theme
in two major and rather different arenas of evolutionary theory: (1) The origin of life
and the initial assembly of basic and universal components of cellular organization
and genetic structure. Do we not sense that much of life's initial history falls into the
domain of "universal chemistry" and the general physics of self-organizing systems,
whereas the actual, divergent pathways of metazoan phyla then fall under the control
of historical contingency? (2) Broad predictabilities of life's pattern through time,
transcending the contingent particularities of any individual lineage. The structure of
ecological pyramids must display some physical predictability, whereas the
occupation of the top carnivore apex by lions or tigers or bears (or phorusrhachids or
borhyaenids) demands knowledge of historical particulars. The increasingly right
skewed distribution of life's complexity, with stability of the bacterial mode
throughout (Gould, 1996a), speaks more to the general physics of reflecting
boundaries (of minimal complexity in this case), the physically necessary origin of
life at this minimal complexity, and the stochasticity of random walks, than to any
historical detail of uniquely earthly existence.
I am a historian at heart, and although the theme of immediate physical
assembly intrigues me—and no one with literary pretensions could remain unmoved
by the coincidence that D'Arcy Thompson's Growth and Form, the most stylish book
in the history of anglophonic biology, also happens to be the "Bible" of this particular
view of life—I don't think that the hypothesis of direct physical construction will play
a large part in the expansion of Darwinian theory advocated as my central argument
in this book. I therefore view this section as a "place holder" in the logic of my case,
and not at all as a complete or even adequate account of an important subject. I will
occupy this particular place in an idiosyncratic manner by analyzing D'Arcy
Thompson's great work (1917, 1942) and then discussing, much more briefly, the
most important modern expressions of this view of life in the works of Goodwin
(1994) and Kauffman (1993). But method does lie in the sanity of this choice, for one
could not ask for a better vehicle than D'Arcy Thompson's brilliant argument and
stunning prose. His magisterial (if idiosyncratic and, at times, even cranky) book
embodies an entire worldview within its ample scope. His specific examples may be
wrong or dated, but no one has ever presented a more complete and coherent version
of this approach to the explanation of evolution, including explicit discussion of all
major implications for general theory. In this sense, an exegesis of D'Arcy Thompson
may well represent the most modern and relevant way to discuss this important
corner of evolutionary thought.
D'ARCY THOMPSON'S SCIENCE OF FORM
The structure of an argument
In 1945, the Public Orator of Oxford lauded D'Arcy Thompson as unicum disciplinae
liberations exemplar (the outstanding example of a man of liberal