1 138 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



But past faunas and floras, often including present groups, yet 

 with others now extinct, have increasingly come into view since 

 Linne's day; hence Palaeontography; and since then, too, we have 

 learned to inquire into the past of the individual as Embryography. 

 With the movement of time thus clearly introduced, we cannot 

 be satisfied with past and present, with forms which have been, or 

 now are : so beyond having been and being, we look into the process 

 of becoming, and search into the rationale of life's changes in pro- 

 gress. In the measure in which we are beginning to comprehend 

 these past forms of life in their persistence or their extinction, and 

 to discern somewhat of their process of change into varieties or 

 species, etc., of newer type, we are so far learning something of the 

 evolution of groups. The observed development of each individual 

 form, from ovum onwards, is similarly so far on the way of inter- 

 pretation. Such studies of evolution, of groups and individuals, 

 and utilising each and all of the six preliminary sub-sciences above 

 specified, are thus rising from mere "graphics" to "logics" of inter- 

 pretation — so that the palaeontographer now not only enric?ies the 

 taxonomist, and often the ecologist as well, but marshals these 

 towards advancing that rationale of group-history which we now 

 call Phylogeny. Similarly the embryographer aids the anatomist to 

 fuller comprehension and safer comparison: both seek together to 

 rationalise form-developments, by discerning more and more of the 

 physiological processes and functional changes underlying them: 

 thus an increasingly rational embryology, conveniently called 

 Ontogeny. 



Here then our eight sub-sciences of Biology are clear before us, 

 and alike inviting fuller specialised inquiry, yet also rewarding wider 

 study of their comprehensive interaction, throughout the whole 

 sphere of life, and in its unity, as Biodrama. 



This scheme now yields answer to the question asked above — • 

 Are there no more sub-sciences? The answer is in the negative — so 

 far, of course, as the strictly biological view is kept apart from that 

 of psychology. For here is the simple rationale which determines 

 these sub-sciences. It will not be disputed that all hfe's phenomena 

 are conditioned by the triad of space, energy, and time. Hence, 

 arranging our studies of these in succession, we see 



(i) Material Forms in Space 



