972 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 390. 



in tlie restricted German sense. The need 

 is also apparent in recent discussions in 

 Science. As the number of workers in 

 the field above indicated is rapidly increas- 

 ing, any attempt to fix the terminology, if 

 at all feasible, is certainly timely. In the 

 opinion of the writer all the terms above 

 mentioned are open to serious objection 

 and should be avoided at least by zoologists 

 who use the English language. 



Most objectionable is the tei^m 'natural 

 history' on account of the number of its 

 connotations. Not only may it be under- 

 stood to include everything from miner- 

 alogy to anthropology and ethnology,* but 

 even its more special meanings are most 

 confusing. To convince ourselves of the 

 truth of this statement we need go no 

 further than the writings of Huxley. In 

 his well-known essay 'On the Educational 

 Value of the Natural History Sciences' 

 (1854) and the 'Study of Biology' (1876) 

 he uses the term as synonymous with 'biol- 

 ogy.' After tracing the introduction of 

 the word 'biology' to Lamarck and Tre- 

 viranusf be says (p. 268) : "That is the 

 origin of the term 'biology' and that is 

 how it has come about that all clear think- 

 ers and lovers of consistent nomenclature 

 have substituted for the old confusing 

 name of 'natural history' which has con- 

 veyed so inany meanings, the term 'biol- 



* Conf., e. g., Leunis' 'Naturgescliiclite' and 

 Woods' 'Natural History of Man.' 



f Incidentally it may be remarked that the use 

 of this term to cover both botany and zoology 

 appears to be older than Huxley and other recent 

 writers have supposed. According to Father 

 E. Wasmann S.J. ('Biologie oder Ethologie?' 

 Biol. Centralhl., Bd. 21, No. 12, 1901, p. 392) who 

 can write with authority on this question, the 

 word was used by the schoolmen : " Aristotelian 

 scholastics designated the study of living 

 beings as ' biology.' The ' Biologia inferior ' 

 treated of organic human, animal and plant life; 

 the ' Biologia superior ' of the psychic life of 

 man and animals," etc. 



ogy. ' ' ' Nevertheless, in the introduction 

 to his little classic on the crayfish (p. 4) 

 he speaks of "that accurate, but neces- 

 sarily incomplete and unmethodized knowl- 

 edge which is understood by 'natural 

 history.'" To this subject he devotes 

 the opening chapter of the work above 

 mentioned, and it is clear that he uses 

 the term in one or both of two senses: 

 first, to designate an historical or phyletic 

 stage in the development of biological 

 science, and second, as the name of 

 a special discipline, which, though the 

 oldest of all the biological disciplines, stiU 

 survives and deserves to be cultivated. 

 In view of this multiplicity of meanings, it 

 would certainly be most expedient if we 

 could restrict the term 'natural history' so 

 that it would apply only to certain histor- 

 ical aspects of zoology and botany. 



The origin and use of the term 'oecology' 

 are well known. It was first introduced by 

 Haeckel in his 'Generelle Morphologie' 

 (1866, Vol. II., pp. 235, 236) as Professor 

 Bessey has stated* and not as Dr. Bather 

 supposes f in the ' Natiirliche Schopfungs- 

 geschichte, ' although a more expanded 

 definition of the term occurs in the various 

 editions of this worli and in the 'Anthro- 

 pogenie. ' It should be noted that in the 

 work just mentioned Haeckel distinguished 

 accurately between 'oecology' and 'chorol- 

 ogy, ' including both, evidently as coordi- 

 nate subjects under his third ('relational') 

 subdivision of physiology. J The term 

 'oecology,' thus originally proposed by an 

 eminent zoologist, has been adopted by the 



* Science, Vol. XV., No. 380, p. 593. 



t Science, Vol. XV., No. 384, p. 748. 



t Dr. Bather stigmatizes those who use the 

 term 'chorology' as 'pedants,' overlooking the 

 fact that we are not in the habit of applying 

 this name to Haeckel and Huxley, both of whom 

 must have found the word decidedly more con- 

 cise and euphonious, and therefore better, than 

 ' zoogeography,' ' phytogeography ' or even ' geo- 

 graphical distribution.' 



