Abstract
In a recent paper (Enq 1979), Berent Enq has argued, on the basis of an historical example, that functional hypotheses are logically independent of consequence etiologies. I shall show that Eng's argument is based on a philosophical and a historical confusion. Enq's chief philosophical error is to confuse (or conflate) two quite distinct etiological questions-'How did the heart get there?' and 'Why is the heart there?'. Historically, William Harvey's discovery of the proper function of the heart is Enq's sole example of the attribution of a previously unknown function to a known structure (one which, in this case, had other functions attributed to its parts by previous theorists). It appears that from his understanding of this case (which he admittedly borrows from A. R. Hall's summary (Hall 1962)), he has concluded that . .. a function attribution need not be able to explain ... why the organ is in the animal. (Enq 1979, p. 362, note 18) I wish to establish two related points:
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