1830. Paris. Two young anatomists presented to the Academy of Sciences research on the organization of molluscs. In it you want to show the analogy in the organic composition between vertebrates and mollusks.
Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, commissioned to submit a report on the results of the investigation, there is more evidence for his thesis on the unity of organic composition in animals types.
Georges Cuvier, eminent scientist, disapproves: considered an attack on the fundamental principles of comparative anatomy, and a discredit to their own investigations into the matter.
This defends the Aristotelian distinction of the four fundamental and irreducible modes of animal organization: vertebrata, Molusca, articulata and radiata. The other means possible to reduce these four types to a common organizational pattern.
Cuvier response to the report presented in an angry reply. Tempers twitch. The press publicized controversy; the audience festers. Promiscuous rhetoric extends between scientists and editors.
E. Geoffroy resolved communicate their views by way of a printed written: Principles of Zoological Philosophy.
And writes each session that made daily in the cabinets of King's Garden, he received an impression that playing always the same, I took this vision of the spirit ...
... A vision of connecting contemporary philosophical genius at all times when someone could see life in its "plastic" nature: a common constituent background, the same anatomy infinitely varied.
1996. Molecular genetics confirms one of those discussed in the controversial hypothesis Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire - Cuvier: the identity (investment) of the body plans of vertebrates and arthropods. (De Robertis and Sasai)

1904. "Everything in nature is modeled on the sphere, the cone and cylinder. You have to learn to paint on the basis of these simple figures; then can do whatever you want. "(Cézanne)