Teleology and the Anatomist: I

Extract

To some, no doubt, the two terms that constitute the title of this paper will seem to make strange bedfellows. Teleology, one might think, is a curious speculative anachronism, a remnant of a long outworn system of metaphysics, the discipline that it has been the fashion, at least until recently, in philosophical circles in this country to decry as meaningless vapourings on an unknown and in essence unknowable theme. In complete contrast to this speculative science of abstraction, anatomy, one might think, is essentially of the earth, earthy. It is unhappily true that many otherwise intelligent and well-informed members of academic circles still look upon anatomical science as one that of set purpose limits and confines itself to studies in the mortuary, describing in ever more bewildering detail the relationships one to another of the myriad structures that comprise the embalmed human corpse. Such descriptive study is not, of course, without its own intrinsic interest and value —‘know thyself’ has from time immemorial been the maxim that points the way to the beginning of wisdom, and no one can deny his body a significant place in the constitution of whatever it is one calls ‘oneself’. But if pure description of the details of the inner recesses of the human body were all that constituted anatomy, as some of those not engaged in it still seem to suppose, then such a study, exercising the essentially sub-human faculties of visual perception and memory-storing, would lead inevitably to intellectual stagnation; being devoid of theoretical and experimental content it would not indeed even warrant the dignity of the name of science.