University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  

expand sectionII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
collapse sectionVII. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIV. 

The Human Body. The role of symmetry in animate
life is both crude and subtle, disquieting and incom-
prehensible.

The human body is outwardly endowed with a
bilateral symmetry which seems to be a near
prerequisite for most physical activities, such as walk-
ing, seeing, hearing, using one's hands, etc. In the
internal anatomy, some organs, like lungs and kidneys
conform to this symmetry, but others, very basic ones,
the heart and the alimentary canal do not. Why this
should be so is most baffling, to the general reader at
any rate. Even the outward symmetry is not very
rigorous, especially in the adult. In fact, the outward
deviation from symmetry, especially in facial contours
frequently bespeak character and personality, even
superiority.

For the comprehension of those things it is not at
all helpful to read in a very scholarly (and equally dull)
book that “all asymmetries occurring [in the human
body] are of secondary character” (cf. Weyl, p. 26).
More helpful is the suggestion, which, in depth, may
have been articulated by Weyl himself, that “the
deeper chemical constitution of our human body shows
a screw, a screw that is turning the same way in every
one of us.” But some of the explanatory details bearing
on this vitalistic “turning of the screw” are very
disquieting, inasmuch as a “wrong” turn of the screw
may be vindictively lethal (Weyl, pp. 30-38).