Abstract
INTRODUCTORY. TELEOLOGY, a word so familiar to readers of the works of Archdeacon Paley and of Sir Charles Bell, has disappeared from the vocabulary of scientific men. Darwin killed it; he put an end to natural theology and to Bridgewater treatises. Yet all those wonderful contrivances which Paley culled from the animal kingdom remain true; they are facts which have to be explained. The human hand is, as Bell maintained, a most effectively designed structure;2 a modern evolutionist can still study with profit the account he gave of the mechanical contrivances to be seen in every part of the human body.3 Modern discovery has served but to heighten our sense of wonder at the ingenuity which Nature has lavished on the human body. The means she has installed for fighting infection and internal disorders are almost beyond belief. In complexity and in efficiency of design the human brain far excels any invention or organisation the most fertile imagination of man has yet conceived. Engineers, in designing all their contrivances, ensure stability during emergencies by allowing a “factor of safety”; in all systems of the human body the “factor of safety” is more than ample. In this respect the human body has been made almost “fool-proof.”
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References
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It is unnecessary to give here a list of the men who have concluded that plants and animals tend to vary in definite directions, whatever be the circumstances in which they are placed. The evidence relating to this matter has been very ably summarised in recent times by E. S. Russell, Form and Function, London, 1916; and by Prof. R. Anthony, “Le Determinisme et l'Adaptation Morphologique,” Archives de Morphologie, Paris, 1922.
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An account of the actions and reactions of vascular tissues will be found in the writings of W. Roux from 1878 onwards. I have dealt with the adaptative reactions of peritoneal cells in Human Embryology and Morphology, 1921, 4th edition.
I have dealt with the growth reactions of bone cells at some length (Menders of the Maimed, 1919, chapters xiv., xv., xvi., xvii., and xviii.)
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KEITH, A. The Adaptational Machinery concerned in the Evolution of Man's Body. Nature 112, 257–268 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/112257a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/112257a0
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