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Professor Burt Wilder, in his paper on "Pathological Polarities," strongly supports the philosophical importance of these peculiar relations, adding arguments in favour of antero-posterior homologies, which it is here unnecessary to discuss, enough having been said, it is believed, to thoroughly demonstrate the existence of these deep internal relations which are named lateral and serial homologies.
In the cases in which we know of no intermediate or transitional states, we should be very cautious in concluding that none could have existed, for the homologies of many organs and their intermediate states show that wonderful metamorphoses in function are at least possible. For instance, a swim-bladder has apparently been converted into an air-breathing lung.
Now as to all of these phenomena in the evolution of species, there are, if not homologies, at least certain analogies, in the history of human societies, in the history of the rise to prominence, of the development and change, of the temporary dominance, and death or transformation, of the groups of varying kind which form races or nations.
How inexplicable are the cases of serial homologies on the ordinary view of creation! Why should the brain be enclosed in a box composed of such numerous and such extraordinarily shaped pieces of bone apparently representing vertebrae?
These four types show, moreover, a certain unity, even to the untaught eye: we call them all by one name, animals, and feel that there is a likeness between them deeper than the widest differences in their structure; there are analogies where there are not homologies.
The harmony of the universe is a manifestation of illimitable intellect, displaying itself in various modes of thought, as these are shown in the characters and relations of organized beings: unity of thought, manifesting itself independently of space, of time, of known material agencies, of special form, illustrated by repetition of similar types in different circumstances, by identities, or partial resemblances, or serial connections, found under varying conditions of being; power of expressing the same idea in innumerable forms, as in those instances of essential identity of parts in the midst of formal differences known as special homologies; power of combination, as in the adjustment of organized beings to each other and to the inorganic world, or in the harmonious allotment of the most varied gifts to different beings; definite recognition of time and space, as in the life of individuals, of species, in the stages of growth, in the geographical limitation of types; prescience and omniscience, as shown in the prophetic types of earlier geological ages; omnipresence, by the adjustment of the whole series of animal organisms to the various parts of the planet they inhabit.
But I have a taste for the homologies, I want to go deeply into the subject of embryology, I want to analyze the protonihilates precipitated from pigeon's milk by the action of the lunar spectrum, shall I not follow my star, shall I not obey my instinct, shall I not give myself to the lofty pursuits of science for its own sake? Certainly you may, if you like.
It has turned out that the earlier classifications, guided by general resemblances, though containing much truth, and though very useful provisionally, were yet in many cases radically wrong; and that the true affinities of organisms, and the true homologies of their parts, are to be made out only by examining their hidden structures.
The main arguments in favour of it appear to him to be the general ones; the homologies and analogies revealed by comparative morphology and physiology, the ascending series in the palæontological record, vestigial organs, parasitic degeneration, the origin of those vital associations which we call consortism and symbiosis.
In the cases in which we know of no intermediate or transitional states, we should be very cautious in concluding that none could have existed, for the homologies of many organs and their intermediate states show that wonderful metamorphoses in function are at least possible. For instance, a swim-bladder has apparently been converted into an air-breathing lung.
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