HVBtt.J 
92 fAprils. 
Tliere is, I tliink, a decided advantage in substituting bioplastol- 
oo,v ior inor|>liogeny. This is essentially the genesis of form and 
is n very convenient term of general application, whereas the 
study of tlie relations of the individual and of the phylum neces- 
sarily includes the study of the dynandcal phenomena of ontogeny 
and phvdogeny. It woidd be practicable to study morphogeny 
as ordinarily understood without consideiing any of the correhi- 
tions of ontogeny and ])hylogeny, but it would not be practicable 
to study bioplastology in this Avay. The latter is in other words 
a department of biology which consists of researches upon the 
correlations of development and evolution by means of both the 
dynamical and statical phenomena of morphogenesis. 
To sura up in a few words the rather ambitious aims of this 
comparatively new recruit in the army of investigation, it aspires 
to show that the phenomena of individual life are parallel with 
those of its own phylum and that both follow the same law of 
morphogenesis, that, not only can one indicate the past history 
of groups from the study of the young, and obviously the present 
or existing progression or retrogression of the type by means of 
the adult characters of any (uie organism, but that it is also possi- 
ble to prophesy what is to happen in the future history of the type, 
from the study of the corresponding paraplastic phenomena in tlie 
development of the individual. Or to put the whole statement 
into a few words, bioplastology deals with the morphic and physi- 
ologic relations of organic cycles. 
AYhile growth is the result of one form of organic force, 
genism,the result of another form of the same force, and ctetism, 
or the acquisition of new characters, still a third form of the same 
force, the bioplastic relations of organisms are due to the action 
of all three of these forms of energy in so far as they are con- 
cerned in the l)uilding up of cycles both in ontogeny and 
phylogeny. 
Whether these cdaims are well founded or not the nomencla- 
ture to be employed is a matter of importance, and should be 
accurate, api»ropriate, and convenient for those who are interested 
in this work, and this paper has been in large part Avritten as a 
contribution towards this object. 
I 
