[Early reception of Darwin's selection theory and its sequelae for comparative morphology today]

It is argued that Darwin's concept of evolutionary change is primarily based on the idea of functional adaptation. Genealogical aspects are seen as a secondary consequence of this hypothesis. Unfortunately, the reception of Darwin's work was concentrated on the genealogical aspects from the very beginning (Huxley, Haeckel) and thus channeled future development of evolutionary morphology in a very one-sided way. This direction of development led to the adoption of cladism as a very sophisticated concept of comparative morphology. Though cladism claims to contribute to our understanding of evolution, it is demonstrated that it suffers in this regard because of the incompatibility of "pure morphology" with the demands of functional thinking as an integrative part of Darwin's proposition.