Species

96 Species

extended discussion in his Preliminary Discourse^216 on what counted as a “natu-
ral classication.” This debate in part inspired Darwin to think through the reason
for systematic classication and the nature of a natural system and it survived
for some time after the Origin.^217 In Oken’s native Germany the tradition he had
begun continued in the work of Johann Jakob Kaup (1803–1879), who in turn
inuenced the Austrian Leopold Fitzinger (1802–1884). Kaup offered a penta-
grammatic system,^218 but otherwise was much in the tradition of Macleay and
Swainson (Figure 3.6B). However, such claims of the “end” of morphology depend
upon a rather rigid denition of morphological biology, which as Amundson notes
is neither historically plausible nor accurate.

Immanuel Kant and the Continuity of Species

Kant’s views on biological species are interesting primarily because they inu-

enced the work of Blumenbach^219 whose own work, published in 1781, established

the notion of races as distinct subspecic groups within the human species,^220 and

later inuenced the Naturphilosophen.^221 While Blumenbach worked mainly with

skull morphology, his views on teleology were inuenced deeply by Kant, and Kant

regarded him as the scientist who best understood his ideas. So, we may consider

Kant’s view to be inuential on some aspects of his contemporary biology, and also

on later biology through Goethe and Oken.^222

In his early lectures on geology, Kant made a similar distinction to that of Locke,

between species dened by similarity relations, and genealogical classication,

although unlike Locke he specically named the genealogical groups “biological

species” rather than simply “natural relations” as Locke had. He disparages species

that are simply similar as “academic” or “scholastic,” and as dry unproductive logi-

cal species:

In the animal kingdom, the natural division into genera and species [Natureinteilung

in Gattungen und Arten] is based on the law of common propagation and the unity

of the genera [Gattungen] is nothing other than the unity of the reproductive power

[zeugenden Kraft] that is consistently operative within a specic collection of ani-

mals. For this reason, Buffon’s rule, that animals that produce fertile young with one

another belong to one and the same physical genus [physisches Gattung] (no mat-

ter how dissimilar in form they may be), must properly be regarded only as a deni-

tion of a natural genus [Naturgattungen] of animals in general. A natural genus may,

however, be distinguished from every scholastic genus [Schulgattungen]. A scholastic

division [Schuleintheilung] is based upon classes and divides things up according to

(^216) Swa inson 1834.
(^217) Coggon 2002.
(^218) Kaup 1855.
(^219) Lenoir 1980, Sloan 2002. Sloan 2006 argues that Kant’s views on species, races and generation were
strongly inuenced by Buffon.
(^220) Osborne 1971, 164.
(^221) Nyhart 1995, Amundson 1998.
(^222) Moss 2003, 10–12.