Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/549

Rh purpose; that, in fact, the Greek word "bios" had relation only to human life and human affairs, and that a different word was employed when they wished to speak of the life of animals and plants. So Dr. Field tells us we are all wrong in using the term biology, and that we ought to employ another—only, unluckily, he is not quite sure about the propriety of that which he proposes as a substitute. It is a somewhat hard one—zoötocology. I am sorry we are wrong, because we are likely to continue so. In these matters we must have some sort of "statute of limitations." When a name has been employed for half a century, persons of authority have been using it, and its sense has become well understood, I am afraid that people will go on using it, whatever the weight of philological objection.

Now that we have arrived at the origin of this word "biology," the next point to consider is, What ground does it cover? I have said that in its strict technical sense it covers all the phenomena that are exhibited by living things, as distinguished from those which are not living; but while that is all very well so long as we confine ourselves to the lower animals and to plants, it lands us in a very considerable difficulty when we reach the higher forms of living things. For, whatever view we may entertain about the nature of man, one thing is perfectly certain, that he is a living creature. Hence, if our definition is to be interpreted strictly, we must include man and all his ways and works under the head of biology; in which case we should find that psychology, politics, and political economy, would all be absorbed into the province of biology. In fact, civil history would be merged in natural history. In strict logic it may be hard to object to this course, because no one can doubt that the rudiments and outlines of our own mental phenomena are traceable among the lower animals. They have their economy and their polity; and if, as is always admitted, the polity of bees and the commonwealth of wolves fall within the purview of the biologist proper, it becomes hard to say why we should not include therein human affairs, which in so many cases resemble those of bees in zealous getting, and are not without a certain parity in the proceedings of wolves. The real fact is, that we biologists are a self-sacrificing people; and inasmuch as, on a moderate estimate, there are about a quarter of a million different species of animals and plants to know about already, we feel that we have more than sufficient territory. There has been a sort of practical convention by which we give up to a different branch of science what Bacon and Hobbes would have called "civil history." That branch of science has constituted itself under the head of sociology. I may use phraseology which at present will be well understood, and say that we have allowed that province of biology to become