Seeds of Hierarchy 209
the courting of fame). The vast majority quickly succumbed to the negative
selection of incomprehensibility, but survivors include ontogeny, phylogeny,
heterochrony, ecology, and Monera.)
The second science, "promorphology," tried to establish a physical, or
crystallographic basis for organic form. Haeckel created a forest of terms
illustrated in two complex plates, but never established any useful connections
with physical or chemical principles. (Haeckel promoted his much vaunted
mechanistic reductionism more by verbal proclamation than by deed, but the
influence of a well-articulated philosophy consonant with social trends of an age
must never be doubted.) The first science, "tectology," tried a different approach to
reductionism—not subsumption under physical laws, but breakdown to component
parts.
As the "basic principle" of tectology, Haeckel stated that all organic objects
must be built from components in a structural hierarchy of six ascending levels.
But, in applying this pronouncement to actual cases, Haeckel makes a fascinating
intellectual move, proving that his allegiance lay as much with holistic traditions of
an older idealistic morphology, as with the militant physical reductionism that won
his lip service and fit with many of his social and political goals (Gasman, 1971).
For Haeckel did not argue, in the manner of most 19th century reductionists, that
his first and lowest level stands as fundamental and basic (also "closer" to physics),
with subsequent levels only treated as amalgamations based on principles of
joining. Instead, Haeckel proclaimed a form of equality among the six levels
(while not denying the compositional theme that lower units join to build higher
entities). He referred to tectology as the "doctrine of organic individuality" (Lehre
von der organischen Individuality), and insisted that the objects at each of the six
levels be designated as "individuals" in their own right—"individuals of the first
order," "individuals of the second order," etc. He placed "plastids" (cells and cell
components) on the first rung, organs (including tissues and organ systems) on the
second, antimeres or Gegenstiicke (symmetrical parts, including rays or body
halves of bilateral creatures, literally "counterparts") on the third, metameres or
Folgestucke (body segments, literally "following pieces") on the fourth, persons
(or vernacular "individuals") on the fifth as "morphologische Individuen funfter
Ordnung," and colonies or "corms" on the sixth and last plane.
This equalization of status prompted the interesting consequence, with
reference to natural selection, of denying to organisms their privileged Darwinian
role as exclusive evolutionary agents. Natural selection surely ascribed
evolutionary change to a struggle among individuals for reproductive success. But
Haeckel insisted that objects at all six levels counted as "individuals," and that no
level could claim any special status as evolutionary agent. Organisms represent
only one waystation in the ascending hierarchy. Perched on the fifth rung, they are
made of metameres and aggregate into corms—just as organs are made of plastids
and aggregate into antimeres. In an insightful statement on the role of language in
prejudicing thought, Haeckel wrote of his fifth level (1866, vol. 1, pp. 318-319):