312 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
meaningless, but endlessly fascinating, issue of "who won?" Something happened
in 1830; a factual basis of word and gesture once unfolded. But we cannot recover
the original scene, and the actual debate would be subject to endless interpretation
in any case. If later judgments and interpolations loom so large in the mythological
versions learned and accepted by students for nearly two centuries since the actual
events (and I use "mythological" in the primal and powerful, not the pejorative,
sense)—Geoffroy's triumph among the literati, Cuvier's in most scientific
accounts—then these constructions replace the unattainable original and become
an important reality in their own right.
Finally (as I shall stress throughout this book), in the deepest sense, and by a
plethora of disparate criteria, neither Geoffroy nor Cuvier could have "won"
because neither man held tools of triumph in principle. Formalism and
functionalism represent poles of a timeless dichotomy, each expressing a valid way
of representing reality. Both poles can only be regarded as deeply right, and each
needs the other because the full axis of the dichotomy operates as a lance thrown
through, and then anchoring, the empirical world. If one pole "wins" for contingent
reasons of a transient historical moment, then the advantage can only be temporary
and intellectually limited. Such an ephemeral victory did occur in the recent history
of evolutionary theory— the exaltation of functionalism in the hardening
adaptationism of the Modern Synthesis, codified in the late 1950's and early
1960's, and marked by celebrations of the Darwinian centennial in 1959 (see
Chapter 7). In fact, this very historical context led me to emphasize structuralism
and formalism in this book (because its insights have been neglected in modern
evolutionary biology, not because formalist approaches could ever be labeled as
"more true"), and to revivify the great formalist thinkers, from Geoffroy to Owen
to Galton, Bateson, and Goldschmidt—not as an antiquarian indulgence, but for
the current utility of their ideas. (Other ages have needed to rescue functionalism
from equally limited formalist domination.)
But I would not spend so much time on this endeavor for reasons of selfish
and personal interest alone. Formalism resartus has been externally motivated by
great advances in genetics and development (see Chapters 10 and 11)—a system of
knowledge that requires a structure of explanation based as much on how
organisms can be built, as on how they do work. We should give the last word to
Goethe who, in choosing the debate between Geoffroy and Cuvier for his
swansong to the world, eloquently defended the claims of both men. He wrote
primarily of ideas and facts, but also of archetype and adaptation, arguing that "the
more vitally these two functions of the mind are related, like inhaling and exhaling,
the better will be the outlook for the sciences and their friends."
The Archetype of Vertebrates Richard Owen and English Formalism:
OF VERTEBRATES
No formalism please, we're British
I own a letter (see Fig. 4-12) written in October 1879 by Richard Owen and