  (abridged): To derive a coherent physical framework for the excitation of
spiral structure in galaxies, one must consider the co-existence of two
different dynamical components: a gas-dominated Population I disk (OB
associations, HII regions, cold interstellar HI gas) and an evolved stellar
Population II component. The Hubble classification scheme has as its focus, the
morphology of the Population I component only. In the near-infrared, the
morphology of evolved stellar disks indicates a simple classification scheme:
the dominant Fourier m-mode in the dust penetrated regime, and the associated
pitch angle. On the basis of deprojected K$'$ (2.1$\mu m$) images, we propose
that the evolved stellar disks may be grouped into three principal dust
penetrated archetypes: those with tightly wound stellar arms characterised by
pitch angles at K$'$ of $\sim$ 10$^{\circ}$ (the $\alpha$ class), an
intermediate group with pitch angles of $\sim$ 25$^{\circ}$ (the $\beta$ class)
and thirdly, those with open spirals demarcated by pitch angles at K$'$ of
$\sim$ 40$^{\circ}$ (the $\gamma$ bin). Both optically flocculent or grand
design galaxies can reside within the {\it same} dust penetrated morphological
bin. Any specific dust penetrated archetype may be the resident disk of {\it
both} an early or late type galaxy in the optical regime. There is no
correlation between our dust penetrated classes and optical Hubble binning; the
Hubble tuning fork does not constrain the morphology of the old stellar
Population II disks.
