Note 87 — Chapter III · THE RATE OF GROWTH

Cf. His, On the Principles of Animal Morphology, Proc. R. S. E. XV, 1888, p. 294: “My own attempts to introduce some elementary mechanical or physiological conceptions into embryology have not generally been agreed to by morphologists. To one it seemed ridiculous to speak of the elasticity of the germinal layers; another thought that, by such con­si­de­ra­tions, we ‘put the cart before the horse’: and one more recent author states, that we have better things to do in embryology than to discuss tensions of germinal layers and similar questions, since all explanations must of necessity be of a phylogenetic nature. This opposition to the application of the fundamental principles of science to embryological questions would scarcely be intelligible had it not a dogmatic background. No other explanation of living forms is allowed than heredity, and any which is founded on another basis must be rejected ....... To think that heredity will build organic beings without mechanical means is a piece of unscientific mysticism.”