Abstract

Christine Hertler has produced an extended work on the role of morphology in evolutionary thinking. Her book was originally her dissertation at the University of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. German dissertations have a tendency to be extremely detailed and systematized works, and Hertler's book is no exception. The whole book is divided into sections, subsections, and sub‐subsections, thus cumulating letters and numbers that are a little overwhelming, more confusing than helpful, and quite difficult to follow with all those B.4.2.1s, etc.Hertler starts with a lengthy introduction that considers “the methods of morphology” and “morphology and evolution.” Then we find a section dedicated to “materials and methods” . Then Hertler moves to “results of systematic and historical reconstructions,” a very lengthy part with the customary subdivisions that deals with all possible aspects of morphology and evolutionary theories, including such diverse elements as Archaeopteryx, drosophila, and skeletal models. The next section, “Comparative Anatomy and Evolution,” introduces Darwin and some of the major figures in the history of morphology and evolution. Thus we have first the contemporary developments of evolutionary morphology and then its historical origins.This order of things is followed within this very section, so that Darwin is discussed before Georges Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire, something rather unsettling for historians. Luckily enough, Carl Gegenbaur, the key figure in evolutionary morphology, and Anton Dohrn come after Darwin. Ernst Haeckel is there as well but is rather peripheral and mainly relevant for his collaboration with Gegenbaur. The final section, “Discussion,” restores historical order and starts with Darwin and Darwinismus and ends with modern morphology leading to an interpretation of evolutionary morphology.Hertler is a biologist and it shows—her main concern is the status of today's morphology, and she approaches the morphologists of the past analytically rather than historically. The best result of her professional approach is her constant use of precise examples to illustrate the general problems treated in her book, as scientists are not content with general statements.Hertler's knowledge of morphology is undoubtedly phenomenal, to say the least, but it is doubtful how profitable her book can be to historians of science except for the mass of details and specific information. Rather than a book on the history of science, her work is an example of “theoretical biology.” From a historical perspective, one notices that she focuses on German morphology as if morphology were a uniquely German methodology; thus Richard Owen and T. H. Huxley are not there, but Owen was essential for Darwin's view of morphology and Huxley central in the debates around evolutionary morphology. Also Edwin Ray Lankester is overlooked.The bibliography is good but far from being as exhaustive as one would expect of such a work. William Coleman's classic article on Gegenbaur's evolutionary revision of the type concept is not quoted, and Garland Allen's and Jane Maienschein's publications on the history of morphology are absent. Dietrich Starck, somehow an intellectual heir of Gegenbaur, is duly cited but only for some of his scientific production, while there is no mention of his masterly papers in the history of morphology. There is a subject index but no name index