The Theory of the Organic Types and its Consequences

The studies of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the brilliant insights of Goethe, and the speculations of the German school of Natural Philosophy drew renewed attention to the various orders of resemblance of the different vertebrate animals. Thanks to the new ideas about the skeleton that emerged from these studies, osteology soon took on the status of a true science. It seemed that bones – solid and invariable in their appearance and relative positions – were a basic feature to which all the organic systems could be related. Bones have determined the arrangement of organs, and if the vertebrates really shared a definite plan of composition, it was in the skeleton that one should find it best displayed. Goethe had recommended a methodical and relentless pursuit of this study in the hope that it would enable one to identify a general type that could serve as a standard to which all the varied skeletons of the animals could be related. This is the problem that Richard Owen undertook to resolve. He coined the name archetype for the primordial skeleton to which he hoped to be able to relate all the others.