USE OF THE TERM BIOLOGY. 103 



The applicability of the term biology, in the sense now so generally accorded 

 to it, is doubtless debatable, and has been strongly objected to by an eminen^ 

 scholar, Baden Powell. That gentleman, in the first essay of his " Order of Na- 

 ture," (§ 4, p. 173, note,) while discussing the "Theory of Life" and "Life in 

 Geological Epoch," has uttered a protest against the use of the word in the fol- 

 lowing terms : 



" While on this subject I cannot omit to take this occasion of recording my 

 protest against the now prevalent, but barbarous use of the term 'Biology.' 

 (l\oq never means 'life' in the sense of 'vitality;' it means the 'life' of a man 

 as progressing in time — his birth, actions, and death. Plato has ' /?:</? C^iy?,' 

 the lifetime of a life. (Epinomis, [or the Philosopher,] 982. ) Unfortunately the 

 term ' Zoology,' which would be the proper one for this branch of science, has 

 been already appropriated to what ought to have been called 'Zoography;' but 

 there is still ' Zoonomy,' the science of the laws of life, open to adoption, and, 

 at any rate, much better than 'biology,' which, if it means anything, would be a 

 theory of the facts of biography." * 



On the other hand, a still more eminent and probably better scholar in Greek 

 philology, William Whewell, has preferred the term biology to any other. In his 

 " History of Scientific Ideas," under the caption of " The Philosophy of Biology," 

 (Vol. 2, p. 170,) he urges that "the word Physiology, by which they [that is, to 

 use again his own words, 'the organical sciences'] have most commonly been 

 described, means the science of nature ; and though it would be easy to explain, 

 by reference to history, the train of thought by which the word was latterly re- 

 stricted to living nature, it is plain that the name is, etymologically speaking, 

 loose and improper. The term biology, which means exactly what we mean to 

 express, the science of life, has often been used, and has of late become not un- 

 common among good writers." 



It may be added that the word /Swc, although doubtless generally used in the 

 sense of lifetime, as urged by Baden Powell, nevertheless does not appear to have 

 been limited to such meaning, but to have had practically the same range as our 

 word life. Even if it were so limited, however, it would be eminently appropriate 

 from the standpoint from which all scientific students of nature now take view, 

 for it is the lifetime of nature and the questions of how organisms have been 

 evolved and how grown and developed that must interest the students of life, 

 plants and animals, as well as those organisms neither plants nor animals that for- 

 merly existed and still survive. 



It is in fact the sum of those phenomena which may be aptly described as con- 

 stituting the lifetime of nature that forms the true aim of what may, with the 

 strictest and exact propriety, be called Biology. 



The word seems to have been also used quite generally by entomologists in a 

 very restricted sense ; that is, as a common denominator for whatever relates to 

 the special habits and manners of insects in contradistinction to Physiology. 

 Thus Hagen, in his Bibliotheca Entomologica, (1863,) groups all entomological 



* Powell, Order of Nature, Essay 1, § 4, p. 172, note, Theory of Life. 



