748 



SCIENCE. 



[N, S. Vol. XV. No. 384. 



are prominent in the scope of oecology." Or, 

 as Cassell's 'Encyclopaedic Dictionary' (1886) 

 concisely puts it — 'The knowledge of the sum 

 of the relations of organisms to the surround- 

 ing outer world, etc' The word was, I be- 

 lieve, coined by Haeckel in his 'Schopfungs- 

 geschichte,' and must have been introduced 

 into English in the translation of that work, 

 which, being only about thirty years ago, is 

 in a sense 'post-Darwinian' as you suggest. 

 Haeckel and biologists generally have used 

 the word in the above sense, but of recent 

 years the botanists have wrested, or at least 

 restricted, the meaning of the term to the 

 study of the associations of plants in such 

 groups as alpine, sand-dune, and desert plants ; 

 and this is the sense intended on pp. 458, 459 

 of Science for March 21. In a word, they 

 have used ' (Ecology ' instead of 'oecological 

 plant geography.' This is rather different 

 from your editorial explanation, which seems 

 to apply equally to what pedants call 'chorol- 

 ogy.' Perhaps I may refer those who wish 

 tc be interested to a clear and concise paper 

 'On the Study of Plant Associations' by Mr. 

 Robert Smith in Natural Science, for Febru- 

 ary, 1899, though he does not mention the 

 word '{Ecology.' The botanists have about as 

 much right to alter the meaning of the word 

 as they have to alter its spelling. But the 

 deed is done, and perhaps that is why zoolo- 

 gists have tried to replace the word in its 

 original sense by such expressions as 

 'bionomics' and 'ethology.' 



On the general question of scientific ter- 

 minology (which is a different thing from 

 nomenclature) I take this opportunity of en- 

 dorsing Mr. Very's sensible remarks, and of 

 recalling two further arguments in favor of 

 a technical terminology based on Greek or 

 Latin. First, its universality, since the 

 words, with but slight modifications to adopt 

 them to the genius of each particular lan- 

 guage, may be used whether one be writing 

 Ilussian or Roumanian, French or English, 

 Portuguese or even German. The more ex- 

 tended the adoption of this technical termin- 

 ology, the more easily will students of one 

 country be able to read the scientific publi- 

 cations of other countries. 



A curious illustration of this is afforded 

 by the very sentence which Mr. T. A. Rick- 

 ard (Science, January 24, p. 137) quoted as 

 an abuse of geological terminology, intelligi- 

 ble to 'a traveling dictionary,' but not to the 

 miners for whom it was, intended. Without 

 pretensions to fall into either of these 

 categories, I found that the only words 

 I did not understand in the sentence were 

 two adopted from the miners themselves, and 

 far removed from Greek and Latin. Secondly, 

 such a terminology lends itself to the forma- 

 tion of analogous terms, of series of similar 

 terms, and of compounds defining or extend- 

 ing the root-term, in a way that can be 

 rivaled by few modern languages, certainly 

 not by Anglo-Saxon English. 



The other side to the question was admir- 

 ably put by Mr. Rickard in the article already 

 quoted, although he does not seem to discrim- 

 inate sufficiently between technical scientific 

 writing and the popular exposition of science. 

 Huxley is constantly held up as an example, 

 and those who would like to know how to 

 treat of technical subjects in simple language 

 are referred to 'the course of lectures deliv- 

 ered by Huxley to working-men.' But if Mr. 

 Rickard will turn to Huxley's original scien- 

 tific writings, he will find technical terms 

 quite as abundant there as in the works of 

 less lucid authors; indeed, every zoologist 

 knows that Huxley took his fair share in the 

 coining of new words. If this be clearly rec- 

 ognized by the readers of Mr. Rickard's arti- 

 cle they will do well to take heed to his warn- 

 ing. For there is a temptation, stronger per- 

 haps than ever before, to clothe simple ideas 

 in a far-fetched jargon, and thus to impose 

 on the credulous with a show of learning that 

 hides a poverty or a looseness of thought. 

 That fatal human habit of substituting words 

 for things is made still more easy; and we 

 deceive ourselves, which is far worse than 

 deceiving others. Lastly, a subject of fasci- 

 nating interest that might attract to the study 

 of science many an expanding mind, or that 

 might win the sympathy of the man whose 

 life-work lies elsewhere (a sympathy which 

 men of science profess to long for), is ren- 

 dered sterile and repellent by the unnecessary 



