Internalism and Laws of Form 293
which had a materialist tinge, would be exploited in the name of science
and undermine religion and promote social unrest. If science could be
limited to experts and restricted to accumulating "positive facts" then it
might achieve a measure of autonomy, while at the same time the
questioning that might lead to heretical theories would be eliminated. As
Cuvier became increasingly concerned about the danger posed by certain
biological theories, he became increasingly insistent on the restraints
imposed by proper scientific method (Appel, 1987, pp. 52-53).The third theme of morphological explanation, though supported by other
roots, also melds into the Cuvierian totality of politics, method, and theory— for
Cuvier's functionalism views organisms as discrete, untransformable entities,
designed for specific conditions of life and no other. By contrast, Geoffroy held
opposite attitudes on all three accounts—as an outsider in politics, both academic
and national; a dreamer and visionary in methodology, a man who explicitly
exalted the power of ideas to guide and even to channel factual inquiry; and a
resolute formalist in morphology, with a theory of robust generation and
transformation along lines set by overarching laws of structure and archetypal
form.
To grasp the purity of Cuvierian functionalism, we must break through a
century's commitment to genealogical models of relationship. We are now so
wedded (properly of course) to the homological basis of deep similarity by descent,
that we can scarcely imagine any other theory of Bauplan. After all, what could the
sequence of humerus, to radius and ulna, to carpals, meta-carpals and phalanges
denote except inheritance by common descent when expressed over so broad a
functional range as dolphin, dog and bat. Even the most rabid panselectionist
would not identify phylum-level homologies (broad symplesiomorphies) as
indications of current function. At most, following Darwin (see pp. 253-260), they
would view such features as originating by adaptation in distant ancestors. Current
function will then be expressed in particular modifications of homologies within
each line.
Yet Cuvier actually believed that common features of current Bauplan
recorded such immediate functional rules of correlation. Cuvier acknowledged that
science does not yet understand organic physics well enough to know the logical
basis of these rules, and must therefore work empirically from comparative
anatomy, but the regularities must be rooted in function and will, one day, be
resolved analytically. Start with a carnivore's claw (or canine tooth, or any other
tool of its trade), and all other items of anatomy follow by mechanical necessity.
One part implies the next, and eventually the entire skeleton, according to
correlations set by functional rules alone. Type records broad function; specific
adaptation denotes local function. No part exists "in vain" or merely to indicate
conformity to plan (vestigial organs, developmental sequelae). Evolution becomes
literally inconceivable because change in one part requires corresponding change
in every other intimate detail—and no one can imagine a mechanism for such
globally coordinated alteration. (Nor can one, even today, gainsay this excellent
argument. If evolution were