The Evolution of Man — Volume 1 by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel
page 48 of 358 (13%)
page 48 of 358 (13%)
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"Though these facts are ignored by several well-known popular leaders,
they are easy to prove, and are accepted by all scientific men; on the other hand, their importance is so great that those who have once mastered them will, in my opinion, find few other biological discoveries to astonish them." We shall make it our chief task to study the evolution of man's bodily frame and its various organs in their external form and internal structures. But I may observe at once that this is accompanied step by step with a study of the evolution of their functions. These two branches of inquiry are inseparably united in the whole of anthropology, just as in zoology (of which the former is only a section) or general biology. Everywhere the peculiar form of the organism and its structures, internal and external, is directly related to the special physiological functions which the organism or organ has to execute. This intimate connection of structure and function, or of the instrument and the work done by it, is seen in the science of evolution and all its parts. Hence the story of the evolution of structures, which is our immediate concern, is also the history of the development of functions; and this holds good of the human organism as of any other. At the same time, I must admit that our knowledge of the evolution of functions is very far from being as complete as our acquaintance with the evolution of structures. One might say, in fact, that the whole science of evolution has almost confined itself to the study of structures; the evolution of FUNCTIONS hardly exists even in name. That is the fault of the physiologists, who have as yet concerned themselves very little about evolution. It is only in recent times that physiologists like W. Engelmann, W. Preyer, M. Verworn, and a few |
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