Internalism and Laws of Form 307
Therefore, at the weekly, Monday afternoon meeting of February 15, 1830,
Geoffroy presented an enthusiastic endorsement of Meyranx and Laurencet's work,
perhaps extending their conclusions far beyond their own intents and desires. And
Cuvier finally reached his breaking point.
On February 22, Cuvier appeared, colored charts in hand, to demolish the
proposed homology of mollusk and vertebrate. He showed, with devastating effect,
that although some organs may look similar and bear the same name, they occupy
entirely different topological positions in the two phyla and therefore cannot be
homologized by Geoffroy's own criterion of connection. Moreover the anatomy of
cephalopods features several organs not found in vertebrates at all. Strongly
attacking Geoffroy and his pretensions, Cuvier stated (in Geoffroy, 1830, p. 243):
One of our learned colleagues, Monsieur Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire avidly
seized upon this new view and announced that it completely refuted all that
I had said on the distance that separates mollusks and vertebrates. Going
much further than the authors of the memoir [Meyranx and Laurencet], he
concluded that, up to now, zoology had had no solid base, that it had been
an edifice constructed upon sand, and that the only true basis, henceforth
indestructible, shall be a certain principle that he calls unity of composition
[unite de composition], and which, he assures us, will have a universal
application.Following this flourish of controlled contempt, Cuvier presented his specific
rebuttal (in Geoffroy, 1830, p. 257): "Cephalopods have several organs in common
with vertebrates, and fulfilling similar functions; but the organs are differently
arranged in mollusks, often constructed in a different manner, and accompanied by
several other organs that vertebrates do not possess."
Poor Meyranx and Laurencet. They became the ultimate victims of numerous
clichés, hackneyed by virtue of their fundamental truth—bit off more than they
could chew, sacrificial lambs, caught in the middle, between Scylla and Charybdis,
a rock and a hard place. The two young men disappeared, forthwith and
permanently, both from immediate view, and from later history. Of poor
Laurencet, we do not even know his first name (official reports, in those days,
spoke only of M.—for Monsieur—so-and-so). Of the equally wretched Meyranx,
we know only his attempt to rend his garments before the powerful Cuvier. He
wrote, in an abject letter to Cuvier (quoted in Appel, 1987, p. 147): "I cannot find
words to express how devastated I am that our Memoir has given rise to disputes.
We could scarcely believe that anyone could draw such exaggerated consequences
from a single, simple consideration on the organization of mollusks." He then
added that the memoir contained nothing "which contradicts the admirable work
that you have written and that we regard as the best guide in this matter."
Cuvier, having demolished a specific argument about mollusks, and grasping
the deeper issue with his usual clarity, set the groundwork for expanding the debate
by defending his functionalist view against the true subject of Geoffroy's primary
concern—the defense and hegemony of formalist morphology.