Internalism and Laws of Form 291
or simply imbibed from the stated mores of a recognized intellectual brotherhood.
If his views also feature—as they do—a linkage of interest in laws of form with an
antipathy to adaptationist explanation, then we may interpret the correlation as
independently generated, at least in part, and therefore as good evidence for a link
based upon intrinsic intellectual entailment in the "morphology" of formalism as a
key "nucleating" idea in biology.
Indeed, Goethe showed a strong appreciation for the morphology (and, in this
case, the utility) of dichotomy in intellectual life. In discussing his understanding
of the division between Cuvier and Geoffroy, Goethe noted that each man
defended not a single idea or a unitary position, but rather a nexus or complex of
mutually entailed notions, causing a precipitation at one of two foci—with these
two aggregations then opposing each other like the poles of a magnet. For Goethe,
the systems of Cuvier and Geoffroy formed "two different doctrines, which are so
ordinarily and so necessarily separated that little chance exists for finding them
together in a single person. On the contrary, it is of their essence that they not be
well allied" (Goethe, 1831, p. 181). For Darwin, discontinuity originates by
historical contingency (following extinction of intermediate forms) in a fully
accessible and isotropic morphospace. Natura non facit saltum. But the universe of
formalism—in ideas and in morphology—views discontinuity as inherent in the
structure of inhabitable space.
Geoffroy and Cuvier
Cuvier and conditions of existence
The struggle of Cuvier and Geoffroy continues to rivet our attention (from Russell,
1916, to the modern book of Appel, 1987) because this conflict features the two
central elements of intellectual drama: a clash of two superior minds within the
primal tale of professional ontogeny: two scholars begin as warm friends fired with
the idealism of youth, and end as wily, cynical, politically astute opponents. (The
conventional view interprets Cuvier as a clear winner by virtue of such astuteness
and Geoffroy as loser by naiveté and woolliness. I shall defend a different version
of interesting, disparately styled, equality.)
When the French revolutionary government established the Museum d'histoire
naturelle as the world's finest in 1793, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, installed as
the first curator for vertebrates, played a primary role in bringing Georges Cuvier
to Paris, thus launching his scientific career. The two men enjoyed close
friendship, sharing living quarters and making idealistic plans for the reform and
flowering of natural history. In 1798, as Geoffroy embarked with Napoleon upon a
long expedition to Egypt, he wrote to Cuvier: "Goodbye my friend, love me
always. Do not cease to consider me as a brother" (in Appel, 1987, p. 73).
But their differences in temperament, intellect and style eventually and
inevitably drove them apart. Cuvier became one of the most powerful, politically
conservative figures ever to operate in Western science. The oft quoted