Animal Forms and Patterns: A Study of the Appearance of Animals

Here is a book written with grace and style, a book where the ideas flow from one another and progress gradually and still make their point. Portmann, the famed Swiss zoologist, has written his most famous work now unfortunately out of print but still worth getting. There are no earth shattering statements but rather careful study culminating in the relaxed style he uses. This book has been written for the general reader although it is not lacking in academic qualities and the practicing scientist can still gain enormous insight into his/her field and especially in how to write well and without pandering for the market as many do today. Portmann introduces his ideas regarding the "form" of an organism through practical studies of the animals themselves considering not ony external shapes but internal developments such as nervous systems, organs and so forth. He brings to mind the interlaced wholeness of the organism, rather than being constructed from bits as seems to be the current way of thought. Certainly the book is not as ground breaking as D'Arcy Thompson's remarkable work but still, whereas Thompson considers the mathematical structures shown to be relevant in an animals build, Portmann looks at the whole animal and makes his most important point that organisms are not just structured for functions' sake but rather exude self expression not in the human way of expression of their own idea of self but rather as an expression of the "type" which IS the animal itself. This idea sort of creaps up on you as you read his book which is full of very good drawings making his points. As I reached the end of it I found that much more work needs to be done in this way of study in order to bring back, so to speak, the organic aspect of the organism and let biology once again be a science of life rather than an attempt to imitate the exact sciences such as physics. I believe that through such approaches not only biology but the whole of science can undergo a fundamental change in its current outlook which is of course a product of the mechanistic way of thought. This way of work enriches science and its study avoiding the deadness often felt once something has been analysed until basically nothing remains of the elusive "life" which is the only real meaning attached to a science of life. If only more of his work has survived.