‘Biology’ in the Life Sciences: A Historiographical Contribution

Grassé P. P. , “‘La Biologie’. Texte inédit de Lamarck”, Revue scientifique, v (1944), 267–76; Hoppe B. , “Le concept de biologie chez G. R. Treviranus”, in Schiller J. (ed.), Colloque international “Lamarck” (Paris, 1971), 199–237; Dittrich M. , “Progressive Elemente in den Lebensdefinitionen des romantischen Naturphilosophie”, Communicationes de historia artis medicinae, lxxiii–lxxiv (1974), 72–85.

‘Biology’, as used here, does not refer a priori to the ensemble of the life sciences, although the term ‘biology’ does, for many, become synonymous with ‘life sciences’. This issue will be discussed below. See, in similar fashion, for chemistry, Bud Robert and Roberts Gerrylynn K. , Science versus practice: Chemistry in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1984); also, recently reported in the pages of this Journal, Fores Michael , “Science and the ‘neolithic paradox”’, History of science, xxi (1983), 141–63; and Fores , “Newton on a horse: A critique of the historiographies of ‘technology’ and ‘modernity”’, History of science, xxiii (1985), 351–78. Cf. Hannaway Owen , The chemists and the word (Baltimore, 1975); Christie J. R. R. and Golinski J. V. , “The spreading of the word: New directions in the historiography of chemistry 1600–1800”, History of science, xx (1982), 235–66; Guntau Martin , “The emergence of geology as a scientific discipline”, History of science, xvi (1978), 280–90.

See, for example, Sirks M. J. and Zirkle Conway , The evolution of biology (New York, 1964), 3; Magner Lois , A history of the life sciences (New York and Basel, 1979), 2.

For example, Smith C. U. M. , The problem of life: An essay in the origins of biological thought (London, 1976), 27; Nordenskiöld Erik , The history of biology: A survey (New York, 1928).

See discussion, later, of Foucault Michel , Les mots et les choses (Paris, 1966); or, around the notion of heredity as central to knowledge of life, Jacob François , La logique du vivant: Une histoire de l'hérédité (Paris, 1970), even if Jacob recognizes that “contrairement à ce qu'on imagine souvent, la biologie n'est pas une science unifiée” (p. 14).

Caullery M. , A history of biology (orig.: Étapes de la biologie (1941)) (New York, 1966), 4.

Thomson J. A. , The science of life: An outline of the history of biology and its recent advances (London, 1899). See also Schiller Joseph , Physiology and classification: Historical relations (Paris, 1980), 7; and Woodruff L. L. , “History of biology”, The scientific monthly, xii (1921), 253–81.

Gasking E. , The rise of experimental biology (New York, 1970); Rook Arthur , “Introduction”, in Rook A. (ed.), The origins and growth of biology (Harmondsworth, 1964), 21; Asimov Isaac , A short history of biology (Garden City, N.Y., 1964), 20.

Gasking , op. cit. (ref. 8); also, Baumel Howard , Biology: Its historical development (New York, 1978), chapter 1: “The rise of modern biology”, 9–27.

Rostand Jean , Esquisse d'une histoire de la biologie (Paris, 1945), 10, 7–8.

Caullery , op. cit. (ref. 6), 29.

Caullery , op. cit. (ref. 6), 42.

Loeb Jacques , The mechanistic conception of life, biological essays (Chicago, 1912), 4–5 (to situate Loeb's claims, see Pauly Philip J. , Controlling life (New York, 1987)). Also, Mendelsohn Everett , “The biological sciences in the nineteenth century: Some problems and sources”, History of science, iii (1964), 39–59, p. 46.

Roger Jacques , “Chimie et biologie: Des ‘molécules organiques’ de Buffon à la ‘physicochimie’ de Lamarck”, History and philosophy of the life sciences, i, pt. 1 (1979), 43–64, p. 49.

According to Foucault, op. cit. (ref. 5).

Ritterbush Philip C. , Overtures to biology: The speculations of eighteenth-century naturalists (New Haven and London, 1964), chapter 5. See also Jacyna L. S. , “Images of John Hunter in the nineteenth century”, History of science, xxi (1983), 85–108, p. 90. For further comment, see Cross Stephen , “John Hunter, the animal oeconomy, and late eighteenth century physiological discourse”, Studies in history of biology, v (1981), 1–110.

Again, Gasking , op. cit. (ref. 8); Asimov , op. cit. (ref. 8), chapter 3, pp. 20, 23, 62; Mayr Ernst , The growth of biological thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 131, 249, 70; see also, implicitly, in Limoges Camille , La sélection naturelle: Étude sur la première constitution d'un concept (1837–1859) (Paris, 1970), 151. Much less rigorous in its treatment is Churchill F. B. in a critical review of Ruse Michael , The Darwinian revolution: Science red in tooth and claw (Chicago, 1979), “Book review”, Victorian studies, xxiv (1981), 255–7. See also, Magner , op. cit (ref. 3); and Miall L. C. , The early naturalists: Their lives and works (1530–1789) (London, 1912).

Locy William , Biology and its makers (New York, 1908), 275. Locy takes up the idea from Geddes Patrick , “A synthetic outline of the history of biology”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xiii (1885–86), 904–11, p. 907.

For others, there is not even discussion of the “origin” or “beginning” of biology. In some cases the titles are surely misleading. See Baumel , op. cit. (ref. 9); Dawes Ben , A hundred years of biology (London, 1952); Locy William A. , The story of biology (Garden City, N.Y., 1925); Maienschein Jane , “History of biology”, Osiris, 2nd ser., i (1985), 147–62.

Jones Gareth Stedman , Outcast London (Harmondsworth, 1984), p. xxv.

Coleman William , “The cognitive basis of the discipline: Claude Bernard on physiology”, Isis, lxxvi (1985), 49–70, p. 49.

See Moscovici Serge , Essai sur l'histoire humaine de la nature (Paris, 1968), 333–42, 377–82; Ben-David J. , The scientist's role in society (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971). See also Bourdieu Pierre , “La spécificité du champ scientifique et les conditions sociales du progrès de la raison”, Sociologie et sociétés, vii (1975), 91–116.

Roose used the word ‘Biologie’ in his Grundzüge der Lehre von der Lebenskraft (Braunschweig, 1797); see Dittrich , op. cit. (ref. 1).

Burdach Karl F. , Propedeutik zum Studium der gesammten Heilkunst (Leipzig, 1800), according to Rothschuh K. , History of physiology, transl. by Risse G. B. (Huntington, N.Y., 1973), 170. Lamarck J. B. , Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivons (Paris, 1802), 185–6, 202; see Grassé , op. cit. (ref. 1); Hodge M. J. S. , “Lamarck's science of living bodies”, The British journal for the history of science, v (1971), 323–52. Treviranus G. R. , Biologie, oder Philosophie der lebenden Naturfur Naturforscher une Aerzte (6 vols, Goettingen, 1802–22); see Hoppe , op. cit. (ref. 1).

See Salomon-Bayet Claire , “1802 — ‘Biologie’ et médecine”, in Jahnke H. N. and Otte M. (eds), Epistemological and social problems of the sciences in the early nineteenth century (Dordrecht, 1981), 35–54, p. 46. For independent expression of this, see Coleman William , Biology in the nineteenth century (New York, 1971), 1–2.

See Limoges C. , “De l'économie de la nature aux écosystèmes: L'histoire de l'écologie esquissée à grands traits”, Spectre, (Dec. 1980), 9–14; Sapp Jan , “The struggle for authority in the field of heredity, 1900–1932: New perspectives on the rise of genetics”, Journal of the history of biology, xvi (1983), 311–42; also Sapp , Beyond the gene (New York and Oxford, 1987); Kohler Robert E. , From medical chemistry to biochemistry: The making of a biomedical discipline (Cambridge, Mass., 1982); Cambrosio Alberto and Keating Peter , “The disciplinary stake: The case of chronobiology”, Social studies of science, xiii (1983), 323–53; Yoxen Edward , The gene business: Who should control biotechnology? (London and Sydney, 1983), chap. 2; and Abir-Am Pnina , “Themes, genres and orders of legitimation in the consolidation of new scientific disciplines: Deconstructing the historiography of molecular biology”, History of science, xxiii (1985), 73–117.

Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 5), 281.

ibid., 294. See Cuvier Georges , Leçons d'anatomie comparée (Paris, 1800–5). I used the edition of Paris, 1805, 5 vols.

Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 5), 230; preceding statements discussed, pp. 146, 174.

Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 5), 239 ff., 144.

Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 5), 291.

Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 5), 245.

It seems that Labeyrie Vincent , “Remarques sur l'évolution du concept de biologie”, La Pensée, cxxxv (1967), 125–37, does not fully understand Foucault's argument. Foucault is discussing the very general question of the manner in which science perceives living organisms. I do, however, agree with Labeyrie's serious reservation about the “tournant uniformisateur de la structure de la pensée biologique” (p. 127) hypothesized by Foucault as of the end of the eighteenth century.

It is well to note that the description of the transformation given by Foucault is far from novel or revolutionary; see Russell E. S. , Form and function (London, 1912). The interpretation of the basis of the transformation is of course Foucault's alone.

See, for example, Foucault, op. cit. (ref. 5), 232.

Foucault Michel , L'archéologie du savoir (Paris, 1969), 243.

Foucault Michel , “La situation de Cuvier dans l'histoire de la biologie — II”, Revue d'histoire des sciences, xxiii (1970), 63–69 and the discussion following, pp. 70–92; see p. 89.

ibid., 84.

ibid., 85.

Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 5), 231–2.

ibid., 307.

Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 36), 84.

ibid.

Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 5), 287.

Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 35), 233, 237.

For example, Cross Stephen , op. cit. (ref. 16), examines John Hunter's (1728–93) comparative anatomy as informed by other fields of life science knowledge. In a Foucaldian tradition he analyses the “implicit biology” found in Hunter's work. However, if indeed there is in Hunter's work constitution of “the problematic of biology“(p. 26), on the grounds that his work in comparative anatomy, physiology and pathology are quite tightly intertwined and mutually supporting, this does not prove that one sees in Hunter the appearance of a biological science along the discursive rules defined by Foucault (p. 67). See, concerning the constitution of the science of physiology, Salomon-Bayet Claire , L'institution de la science et l'expérience du vivant: Méthode et expérience à l'Académie Royale des Sciences 1666–1793 (Paris, 1978). Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7), also analyses the production of general physiology as a life science in the nineteenth century.

Cuvier Georges , Le règne animal distribué d'après son organisation, pour servir de base à l'histoire naturelle des animaux et d'introduction à l'anatomie comparée (4 vols, Paris, 1817), i, 7.

See the importance of reformulation of the problematic about “life” in Cuvier's work in Outram Dorinda , “Uncertain legislator: Georges Cuvier's laws of nature in their intellectual context”, Journal of the history of biology, xix (1986), 323–68. However, it merits repeating that the object of this paper is to re-examine historiographical issues related to the creation of a science called ‘biology’ per se.

Salomon-Bayet , op. cit. (ref. 45), 15.

ibid., 7, 334n.

ibid., 195.

ibid., 341.

ibid., 410.

ibid., 438, 173.

ibid., 436; and see Salomon-Bayet , op. cit. (ref. 25), 47.

Salomon-Bayet , op. cit. (ref. 25), and see also Canguilhem Georges , “Du singulier et de la singularité en épistémologie biologique”, pp. 211–25 in Études d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences (Paris, 1975; 1st edn, 1968).

Salomon-Bayet , “1802 — ‘Biologie’ et médecine” (ref. 25), 48–49; see also Lesch John , Science and medicine in France: The emergence of experimental physiology, 1790–1855 (Cambridge and London, 1984), 222–3.

Schiller Joseph , La notion d'organisation dans l'histoire de la biologie (Paris, 1978), 84; Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7), 7. (Little consideration is given to the fact that the word ‘organisation’ appears only in 1796!).

Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7), 85.

ibid., 88.

See Lamarck J. B. , Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivons (Paris, 1802), 202, 185–6. See also Lamarck , Hydrogéologie (Paris, 1802), 31, 112–15, 188.

Lamarck , Philosophie zoologique (2 vols, Paris, 1809), i, 14.

ibid., ii, 126.

Lamarck , Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres (Paris, 1815), 49.

Burkhardt Richard W. Jr , The spirit of system: Lamarck and evolutionary biology (Cambridge and London, 1977), 210.

Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7), 86–87.

Schmid C. C. E. , Physiologie, philosophisch betrachtet (3 vols, Jena, 1798–1801), i, 240. See Risse G. B. , “Kant, Schelling, and the early search for a philosophical ‘science’ of medicine in Germany”, Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, xxvii (1972), 145–58, pp. 153–4.

Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7), 85.

ibid., chap. XII.

ibid., chap. XIII.

ibid., 93.

ibid.

Pickstone J. V. , “Locating Dutrochet” (Essay Review), The British journal for the history of science, xi (1978), 49–64, pp. 52–53. Further, this reading is generally in conformity with the major lines of the portrait of France given for this period by Albury William R. in “Experiment and explanation in the physiology of Bichat and Magendie”, Studies in the history of biology, i (1977), 47–131.

Pickstone , op. cit. (ref. 72), 59. The distinction made by Pickstone between biologist and physiologist seems to be based on the following differences: The taxonomic variety of experimental organisms is wider in the case of the biologists, especially for the simpler organisms; one finds in the work of biologists a search for elements common to animals and plants; biologists use “genetic” analysis whereas physiologists tend to use “componential analysis”. Dutrochet is on the side of the biologists on the first two counts, but not on the third (ibid., 58–59). Pickstone concludes that Dutrochet is not a biologist albeit that this section ostensibly dealt with his “conversion” to “biologie“(ibid., 55).

Pickstone J. V. , “Vital actions and organic physics: Henri Dutrochet and French physiology during the 1820s”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, 1 (1976), 191–212, p. 208. Cf. Pickstone, op. cit. (ref. 72), 54, according to which in the 1820s biology had a non-negligeable influence.

See, for example, de Blainville H. D. , Histoire des sciences de l'organisation et de leurs progrès, comme base de la philosophie (3 vols, Paris, 1845). It is well to note, however (i, p. xvii), the explicit recognition that at that time there was no distinct science dealing with living beings.

ibid., iii, 425–31, 461 ff.

Foderà M. , Discours sur la biologie, ou science de la vie; suivi d'un tableau des connaissances naturelles envisagées d'après leur nature et leur filiation (Paris, 1826), 5.

ibid., 5.

ibid., 9.

ibid., 21, 19.

ibid., 23. Medicine and biology function according to different systems of logic, the former searching for particularities and the solution of immediate problems, the latter interested rather (ibid., 22) “connaître les phénomènes dans leurs rapports généraux, pour les enchaîner, les lier, les coordonner, pour atteindre et fixer la connaissance des actions principes”.

ibid., 19. Biologie is considered to be absolutely distinct from hygiologie (“appelée improprement physiologie”).

ibid., 24.

Comte Auguste , Cours de philosophie positive (6 vols, Paris, 1830–42), iii, 307–8, 301. It should be noted, further, that at the beginning of this section on philosophical biology, in the third volume (1838), Comte praises the work of de Blainville and especially his courses of 1829–32. In the first volume (1830) Comte did not utilize the word ‘biologie’ but rather ‘physiologie’; physiology was described, there, as the science studying “en général, les lois de la vie”, i, 59.

Comte , op. cit. (ref. 84), iii, 473. See also another triplet making up biology, in Comte's view: “biotomie” (anatomy), “biotaxie” (classification or taxonomy) and “bionomie” (physiology): “Telles sont donc les trois branches générales de la science biologique: La biotomie, la biotaxie, et enfin la bionomie pure ou physiologie proprement dite; le nom de biologie étant consacré à désigner leur ensemble total”, ibid., iii, 476. Comte is, here, describing a position in express contradistinction with that of Bichat.

Comte sometimes uses the words ‘biologie’ and ‘physiologie’ interchangeably, and sometimes not.

The reader will recall Comte's three universal stages of advancement of thought: Theological or fictive, metaphysical or abstract, and scientific or positive.

Comte , op. cit. (ref. 84), iii, 282–3. See generally, here, 281–8.

One sees the same situation at the Société de Biologie, founded some years later in a clearly Comtian view, and with the aim of constructing a science of life. One sees, though, a dominance of medical thinking, and especially of human pathology and physiology in the works of this group (see Lesch , op. cit. (ref. 56), 217, 219).

Comte , op. cit. (ref. 84), iii, 301; preceding statements discussed pp. 287, 289, 295.

ibid., iii, 706; preceding statements discussed pp. 302–4, 310.

See Robin Charles , “Sur la direction que se sont proposée en se réunissant les membres fondateurs de la Société de Biologie pour répondre au titre qu'ils ont choisi”, Comptes rendus de la Société de Biologie, i (1849), i–xi, pp. x–xi: C'est certainement pour avoir voulu considérer l'art médical exclusivement, comme point de départ et non comme but, sans s'appuyer sur les éléments d'études que lui fournissent les autres branches de la biologie, que trop souvent des tentatives analogues à celles que nous faisons ici se sont vues, au bout d'un certain temps, frappées de stérilité. Du reste, déjà d'autres sociétés, dont nous faisons partie pour la plupart, ont pour direction spéciale l'étude directe de la pathologie, dont on ne saurait mettre en doute l'importance, vu les applications immédiates à l'homme. C'est donc à chercher complètement autant que possible, sous un autre point de vue, l'ensemble des connaissances qui nous sont nécessaires à tous que doivent tendre nos efforts collectifs. See also Lesch , op. cit. (ref. 56), 222–3.

Robin , op. cit. (ref. 92), p. ix.

ibid., pp. vii–viii.

Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7), 165–6.

Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7), 91 cites (translating) Bernard Claude , Tissus vivants (Paris, 1866), 4.

Bernard Claude , Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale (1865) (Paris, 1966), 69–70, 100, 105, 49, 157. See Coleman , op. cit. (ref. 21).

For example, Bernard , op. cit. (ref. 97), 238, 164 or 206–7.

Saint-Hilaire Isidore Geoffroy , Histoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques (2 vols, Paris, 1854, 1859). In these volumes Comte is not at all a central reference point. The word ‘biologie’ is used by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in characterizing the “chefs des trois principales écoles biologiques, Cuvier, Schelling, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire” (i, 169–70). Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire does clearly understand the novelty of the term. He mentions that neither Bichat nor Lamarck developed a new science of biology. The first-mentioned only dealt with “a part” of biological sciences; the other “n'a[vait] ni développé ni précisé ses vues [on a science called biologie], et il est resté, sur ce point, sans influence sur les travaux ultérieurs” (i, 249n–50n). However, the classification in which biological sciences take their place “entre les sciences physiques et les sciences humanitaires ou sociales“(i, 264) is gaining ground, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire seems to be saying. He affirms that the changes in the examinations at the Facultés des Sciences in Paris represent a consecration of his own positions, because the material examined in the “sciences naturelles” exam is actually, in his opinion, an exam in “sciences biologiques“(i, 255n).

I do not wish to intervene, here, in the debate on the origin of a general science of physiology. That is not the aim of this text. See, to this effect, Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7); Canguilhem Georges , “Théorie et technique de l'expérimentation chez Claude Bernard”, in Études d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences (Paris, 1975), 143–55; Canguilhem , “La constitution de la physiologie comme science”, in ibid., 226–73; Albury , op. cit. (ref. 72); see also Salomon-Bayet , op. cit. (ref. 45).

Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7), 91. I looked at the translation of the fifth edition of the Précis of Magendie, wherein one reads the following: “Physiology, or Biology, is that vast natural science which studies life wherever it exists, and investigates its general characters.” See Magendie François , An elementary treatise on human physiology, on the basis of the Précis élémentaire de physiologie, transl. by Revere John , 5th edn (New York, 1838), 13. This is the same description of life science as the one seen previously in Magendie's work, with the simple addition of the word ‘biologie’ as a synonym to ‘physiologie’.

In Dutrochet M. H. , Recherches anatomiques et physiologiques sur la structure intime des animaux et des végétaux, et sur leur motilité (Paris, 1824), the word ‘biologie’ does not appear. In the introductory “Avertissement” of L'agent immédiat du mouvement vital dévoilé dans sa nature et dans son mode d'action, chez les végétaux et chez les animaux (Paris and London, 1826), Dutrochet says: L'ouvrage que je publie mettra dans tout son jour cette vérité, qu'il n'existe point deux physiologies, l'une animale et l'autre végétale, entre lesquelles il soit possible d'établir une ligne de démarcation. La science de la vie est une, et l'on ne peut que perdre de précieux secours en isolant les unes des autres les diverses parties qui la composent; car c'est par le rapprochement des faits que la science devient féconde … (v). In Nouvelles recherches sur l'endosmose et l'exosmose … (Paris and London, 1828), Dutrochet expresses himself even more clearly: L'importance de la physiologie comparée des végétaux et des animaux est aujourd'-hui sentie pour tous les bons esprits. La vie a des phénomènes généraux qui appartiennent au règne végétal comme au règne animal. Il est donc nécessaire d'étudier comparativement ces phénomènes chez tous les êtres vivans sans exception. C'est de cette étude que sortira la physiologie générale, science qui est encore à créer, mais pour laquelle il existe de nombreux matériaux.

Hoppe Brigitte , op. cit. (ref. 1), 235. See also Hoppe Brigitte , “Umbildungen des Forschung in der Biologie im 19. Jahrhundert”, in Diemer Alwin (ed.), Konzeption und Begriff der Forschung in den Wissenschaften des 19. Jahrhunderts (Meisenheim am Glan, 1978), 104–88, and Biologie, Wissenschaft von der belebten Materie von der Antike sur Neuzeit: Biologische Methodologie und Lehren von der stofflichen Zusammensetzung der Organismen (Sudhoffs Archiv, Beiheft 17; Wiesbaden , 1976).

See Hoppe , op. cit. (ref. 1), 235–7 and in particular p. 236. It is true, as Hoppe mentions, that Engelmann in 1846 lists (see the word ‘Biologie’ in the index) about twenty works supposedly relevant to ‘biology’ (see Engelmann Wilhelm , Bibliotheca Historico-Naturalis: Verzeichniss der Bücher über Naturgeschichte welche in Deutschland, Scandinavien, Holland, England, Frankreich, Italien und Spanien in den Jahren 1700–1846 erschienen sind (Leipzig, 1846), 749). The link with Treviranus, it must be noted, is not thereby proved. Further, only five of these titles deal specifically with ‘biologie’ (Treviranus, Chiaverini, Martini, Battels, Wetter). Indeed, I think that a more telling point is that in the second edition of this volume, the word ‘Biologie’ is dropped from the index. See Carus J. Victor and Engelmann Wilhelm , Bibliotheca Zoologica: Verzeichniss der Schriften über Zoologie, welche in den periodischen werken enthalten und vom Jahre 1846–1860 selbstandig erschienen sind (2 vols, Leipzig, 1861).

Lenoir Timothy , The strategy of life: Teleology and mechanics in nineteenth century German biology (Dordrecht, 1982); Lenoir , “The Göttingen School and the development of transcendental Naturphilosophie in the Romantic era”, Studies in history of biology, v (1981), 111–205; Lenoir , “Teleology without regrets: The transformation of physiology in Germany: 1790–1847”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xii (1981), 293–354.

Lenoir , “The Göttingen School” (ref. 105), 190.

Lenoir , The strategy of life (ref. 105), 71.

ibid., 1. Baron W. , “Gedanken…”, cited in Schiller , op. cit. (ref. 7), 88 where he says that the term ‘biologie’ disappears from Treviranus's works.

Lenoir , The strategy of life (ref. 105), 247.

ibid., 1. Coleman is incorrect in this issue. See further on.

Lenoir , “The Göttingen School” (ref. 105), 190.

Lenoir , The strategy of life (ref. 105), 2, 13.

There is, for example, Kielmeyer (ibid., 41), Dollinger (70–72), and Muller J. (103 ff).

The morphotype is at the nucleus of the teleomechanist approaches (Lenoir, The strategy of life (ref. 105), 13). The second research programme is called developmental morphology, the third functional morphology (see also pp. 56, 65, 112).

Darwinian evolutionism and teleomechanism are the two major theoretical currents in the life sciences in the nineteenth century, according to Lenoir , The strategy of life (ref. 105), 247.

Cf. Scheele I. , Von Lüben bis Schmeil: Die Entwicklung von der Schulnaturgeschichte zum Biologieunterricht zwischen 1830 und 1933 (Berlin, 1982).

See Mayr , op. cit. (ref. 17); Churchill , op. cit. (ref. 17); and Limoges , op. cit. (ref. 17), 151.

See Darwin C. to Muller Fritz , 5 June 1882, in Life and letters of Charles Darwin (3 vols, London, 1888), iii, 251; and Darwin C. to Spencer H. , 25 Nov. 1858, in ibid., ii, 141–2.

Mayr , op. cit. (ref. 17), 119.

ibid., 36: “The word ‘biology’ is a child of the nineteenth century. Prior to that date, there was no such science.” Mayr continues, 108–9: … and the coining of the word biology did not create a science of biology. In the early 1800s there was really no biology yet, regardless of Lamarck's grandiose scheme and the work of some of the Naturphilosophen in Germany. These were only prospectuses of a to-be-created biology. What existed was natural history and medical physiology. The unification of biology had to wait for the establishment of evolutionary biology and for the development of such disciplines as cytology.

See ibid., 131: If one wanted to characterize modern biology in a few words, what would one say? Perhaps the most impressive aspect of current biology is its unification…. More and more biologists have learned that functional and evolutionary are not an ‘either-or’ situation, but that no biological problem is solved until both proximate and ultimate (= evolutionary) causations are determined.

On the other hand, Mayr points out, without further analysis, the existence of an important period of transformation between 1830 and 1860 (ibid., 127).

See Churchill , op. cit. (ref. 17). In fact, Ruse shows simply and schematically (notably in chapter 9, esp. pp. 250–67) that Darwinism was largely accepted by scientific contemporaries and also by a larger public. It is Churchill who confuses biology with Darwinian evolutionary theory.

Singer Charles , “Biology, history” (1929), in Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago, 1958), iii, 909–18, p. 917.

Ibid.; see also Singer Charles , A history of biology to about the year 1900, 3rd edn (London and New York, 1959), esp. 413–16.

Coleman , op. cit. (ref. 25), 8. Coleman does not say, as Lenoir suggests, that evolutionary theory constituted the starting point of biology.

ibid., 3.

ibid., 15.

Allen D. E. , The naturalist in Britain: A social history (London, 1976).

Farber Paul , “Discussion paper: The transformation of natural history in the nineteenth century”, Journal of the history of biology, xv (1982), 145–52, p. 152. These multiple changes are only mentioned suggestively in this “Discussion paper”; the empirical base for this interpretation is only barely sketched.

See, for instance Allen Garland E. , “The transformation of a science: T. H. Morgan and the emergence of a new American biology”, in Oleson Alexandra and Voss John (eds), The organization of knowledge in modem America, 1860–1920 (Baltimore and London, 1979), 173–210, p. 173, italics added: “In the earlier decades of the century, most biology was concerned with descriptive studies of natural history: The study of anatomy, biogeography, paleontology, and what today would be called ecology and embryology.” Or, of course, the whole argument of this text as concerns the evolution of biochemical and molecular genetics. Cf. Allen G. E. , Thomas Hunt Morgan (Princeton, N. J., 1978), chap. VIII.

ibid., 202.

It should be very clear that this criticism is not the same as that of Maienschein, Benson and Rainger, as concerns the supposed imposition on history of a descriptive-speculative/experimental dichotomy in the life sciences. My point is that ‘biology’ is external to the whole argument here.

ibid., 204.

Maienschein Jane , “Shifting assumptions in American biology: Embryology, 1890–1910”, Journal of the history of biology, xiv (1981), 89–113, p. 98, emphasis added.

Maienschein Jane , “Experimental biology in transition: Harrison's embryology, 1895–1910”, Studies in history of biology, vi (1983), 107–27, see pp. 110–12.

Maienschein , op. cit. (ref. 135), 93.

Indeed, Maienschein later acknowledges that “biology never quite became one science”, p. 50 in “Introduction” to Maienschein Jane (ed.), Defining biology (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 3–50.

Churchill Frederick B. , “In search of the new biology: An epilogue”, Journal of the history of biology, xiv (1981), 177–91, p. 179.

Benson Keith R. , “American morphology in the late nineteenth century: The biology department at Johns Hopkins University”, Journal of the history of biology, xviii (1985), 163–205, p. 166.

ibid., 167–8.

Martin's contribution to A course of practical instruction in elementary biology is well established. Foster, it seems, might have preferred a title page with Huxley's and his own name on it, and perhaps Martin's and William Rutherford's names in tiny, tiny lettering. It is Huxley who makes the final decision on the title page. See Huxley papers, iv, Foster to Huxley, 27 Jan. [1875], pp. 194–7; Foster to Huxley , 31 Jan. [1875], pp. 200–1; Huxley to Foster , 1 Feb. 1875, pp. 102–3. The Huxley papers are to be found at the Archives, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London.

Note however that Churchill quotes a supposedly important article of Huxley and Chalmers without even pointing out that Huxley has, at time of publication, been dead 15 years. In the particular instance the detail is relevant. The words quoted were written not by Huxley but by Chalmers (compare the 9th and 11th editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica). Indeed the tenor of those words echoes well a transformation we have noted elsewhere (Joseph Caron, “Les commencements de la biologie: Ses bases conceptuelles et institutionnelles dans l'Angleterre victorienne” (doctoral thesis, University of Montreal, 1986), 257–8) between the first ((2 vols, London, 1884; orig. 1864–67), i, 96) and second ((2 vols, New York and London, 1910; orig. 1898), i, 125) editions of the Principles of biology of Herbert Spencer, the first edition of which was the first English language biology manual. Spencer's comments may be read as an implicit statement to the effect that the scope of biology as a science is not quite so ambitious as at the start.

See Pauly Philip , “The appearance of academic biology in late nineteenth-century America”, Journal of the history of biology, xvii (1984), 369–97, p. 373n.

ibid., 369.

ibid., 373.

ibid., 376.

ibid., 380n.

ibid.

Whitman C. O. , “Biological instruction in universities”, American naturalist, xxi (1887), 507–19, p. 517.

Ibid ., 518–19: Whitman says that the minimum number of professors necessary to give instruction in the life sciences would be two, and perhaps four or five could be required, according to the particular scheme adopted.

ibid., 516.

Macmillan Conway , “On the emergence of a sham biology in America”, Science, xxi (1893), 184–6.

Merriam C. Hart , “Biology in our colleges: A plea for a broader and more liberal biology”, Science, xxi (1893), 352–5, p. 355.

ibid., 354.

ibid.

Wilson Edmund B. , “Aims and methods of study in natural history”, Science, n.s., xiii (1901), 14–23, p. 19. On this, I concur with Maienschein's reading (see “Shifting assumptions in American biology”, 94). Cf. Sedgwick W. T. and Wilson E. B. , General biology (New York, 1886).

See, for example, Thiselton-Dyer W. T. in 1895 before the BAAS, where a similar note is struck but in a much more strident tone. See, for example, Thiselton-Dyer W. T. , “Address” (of the president, Section K, Botany), Report of the BAAS transactions, (1895), 836–50.

Pauly , op. cit. (ref. 144).

ibid., 383.

Caron , op. cit. (ref. 143).

Kohler Robert E. Jr , “The enzyme theory and the origin of biochemistry”, Isis, lxiv (1973), 181–96, p. 181.

Huxley T. H. , journal entry, 31 Dec. 1856, in Huxley L. , Life and letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (London, 1908), i, 217.

Huxley T. H. , “The principles of biology: A course of twelve lectures”, given at the Royal Institution between 19 January 1858 and 23 March 1858. The manuscript is at the Archives of Imperial College of Science and Technology, London; see Huxley Papers, xxxvi, 163 pp. A copy may also be found at the Library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. My thanks to both these institutions for their collaboration.

Important work on the question of nineteenth century comparisons of animals and plants remains still to be completed. See Singer , op. cit. (ref. 124) for some indications of the English scene. The importance of the dichotomous treatment of cellular theory and protoplasmic theory is somewhat better known. See, for instance, Geison Gerald , “The protoplasmic theory of life and the vitalist-mechanist debate”, Isis, lx (1969), 272–92.

On the question of humans in nature, it is important to note that the question is very much in the centre of biological thinking, for instance, as of 1858 in the Fullerian Lectures. This question is not specifically related to the evolution issue.

Iverach James , The ethics of evolution examined (London, n.d.), 3.

Beale L. S. , The new materialism: Dictatorial scientific utterances and the decline of thought (London, 1882), 10.

Geison , op. cit. (ref. 165), 284.

Bastian H. Charlton , “Facts and reasonings concerning the heterogenous evolution of living things”, Nature, (30 June 1870), 170–7; (7 July 1870), 193–201; (14 July 1870), 219–28; see p. 170.

Bastian H. Charlton , “Reply to Professor Huxley's inaugural address at Liverpool on the question of the origin of life”, Nature, (22 Sept. 1870), 410–13, p. 410.

Spencer Herbert , “On alleged ‘Spontaneous generation’”, Appendix, in Principles of biology (1864–67) (2 vols, London, 1884), 479–92, p. 480.

It seems clear that Huxley's evolutionary thinking informs his biology. Cf., however, Eng Erling , “Thomas Henry Huxley's understanding of ‘evolution”’, History of science, xvi (1978), 291–303; and Bartholomew Michael , “Huxley's defence of Darwin”, Annals of science, xxxii (1975), 525–35. See discussion in Di Gregorio Mario A. , T. H. Huxley's place in natural science (New Haven and London, 1984).

See also, in a similar vein, Skoog Gerald , “Topic of evolution in secondary school biology textbooks: 1900–1977”, Science education, lxiii (1979), 621–40; and Cretzinger John I. , “Biological generalizations appearing in secondary texts published between 1800 and 1933”, Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, xiv (1940), 84–87.

Huxley T. H. to Spencer H. , 15 June 1875, Spencer papers, MS 791/109 (i), on deposit by The Athenaeum at the University of London, Paleography Room.

Huxley T. H. to Tyndall J. , 22 July 1874, Huxley papers, viii, 165.

Anon., “Physiology at the British Association” (Editorial), The lancet, (issue of 8 Sept. 1866), ii, 270–1, p. 270.

Humphry G. M. , “An address delivered at the opening of The Section of Physiology” (Annual Meeting, British Medical Association, 6 Aug. 1873), British medical journal, (issue of 9 Aug. 1873), ii, 160–3, p. 160.

Pettigrew J. Bell , “A lecture on the relations of plants & animals to inorganic matter, and on the interaction of the vital and physical forces. Introductory to a course of physiology”, The lancet, (issue of 15 Nov. 1873), ii, 691–6.

Moxon Walter , “The biologist and the physician: Being the annual oration before the Hunterian Society for 1877”, Medical times and gazette, (issue of 3 Mar. 1877), i, 221–9.

This treatment of Huxley is quite general. See, for instance, Michael Foster's relation with Huxley (e.g., Huxley Papers, iv, 194–7, 204–5, 173–4, 186–7, 157–60, 164–5), E. Ray Lankester with Huxley (Huxley Papers, xxi, 88), etc.

See Huxley T. H. , “An address on the connection of the biological sciences with medicine” (delivered at the International Medical Congress, London, August 1881), British medical journal, (issue of 13 Aug. 1881), ii, 273–6. For references to persons mentioned as favourable to biologist aims, see the following. In Foster Michael , A text book of physiology (London, 1877), the introductory pages are explicit concerning recognition of the importance of biology and the volume in entirety contains other relevant passages. Martin H. N. is co-author with Huxley T. H. of A course of practical instruction in elementary biology (London, 1875), the first book of this genre in biology per se. See Rutherford William , “Introductory lecture on the present aspects of physiology”, The lancet, (issue of 14 Nov. 1874), ii, 683–9. E. Ray Lankester works with Huxley as an assistant in the first practical elementary course developed at South Kensington and is later strongly active at University College London in creating similar courses of biological instruction. Balfour F. M. , a brilliant embryologist who died accidently at a young age, actively pursued the interests of biology, for instance at Cambridge University (debates recounted in Cambridge University reporter, issue of 25 Mar. 1879, 472–3 and issue of 1 Apr. 1879, 499). Parker T. J. also assists Huxley at South Kensington a few years after the beginning of the course; he later publishes his own textbook on biology, Lessons in elementary biology (London, 1891). It is Parker who apparently convinced Huxley to invert the original presentation of material in the elementary biology course. The innovation permitted students to examine vertebrates in first place as opposed to the least complex organism, the amoeba, originally studied at the outset of the course.

Geison Gerald L. , Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology: The scientific enterprise in late Victorian society (Princeton, N.J., 1978).

See Cambridge University, Archives, Minutes of Special Board for Biology and Geology, i (1882–1904), see the questionnaire facing minutes of 12 Dec. 1882. Also Cambridge University reporter, (13 June 1883), 885, 886.

I use the term publicist in the sense of public science as described in Turner F. M. , “Public science in Britain, 1880–1919”, Isis, lxxi (1980), 589–608. However, I prefer the word publicist as (a) it is difficult to conceive of a science as being anything other than “public”, in the sense of shared and organized knowledge; and (b) this word renders better the sense of the expression.

I have dealt little in this paper with Herbert Spencer's role in the formulation of biology, aside from mentioning his Principles of biology (ref. 143). This manual of biology, it must be remembered, constitutes a contribution to Spencer's System of philosophy, a multivolume formulation of a new philosophical spirit of the Victorian period to which some of the more influential biologists lent their full support.

Compare the two editions of Spencer, op. cit. (ref. 143).

See British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), Minute Book of Section ‘D’, Zoology (1890–1905), starting at Committee Meeting, 15 Sept. 1893. The BAAS archives are deposited at Oxford University.

Between 1870–71 and 1910–11, at least 79 distinct positions were created in the United Kingdom for the study and teaching of biology in 40 separate institutions.

See, in England alone, about or after the turn of the century, the following connotations given to the term ‘biology’ and the new precisions applied to this term. In 1904 an Association of Applied Biology is founded, and in 1905 an Association of Economic Biologists. The British Social Biology Council is formed in 1914. Further, debates between Karl Pearson and William Bateson are reported under the name ‘mathematical biology’; see Anon., “Mathematical biology”, Natural science, iv (1894), 82–84, and follow-up articles, ibid ., iv, 172–3, and ibid ., v (1894), 1–2. Thompson's D'A. W. “Magnalia naturae; or, The greater problems of biology”, BAAS report, (1911), 395–404 gives yet another portrait of biology.

See in particular, as concerns this question, Lankester E. Ray , “Address” (of the President of Section D), Report of the BAAS transactions, (1883), 512–28. See also Thiselton-Dyer W. T. , “The needs of biology”, in Essays on the endowment of research (London, 1876), 226–43. See, for a general background to this question, among other articles on this issue by MacLeod Roy M. , “Resources of science in Victorian England: The Endowment of Science Movement, 1868–1900”, in Mathias Peter (ed.), Science and society 1600–1900 (Cambridge, 1972), 111–66.

For turn-of-the-century England, see for instance Bateson William , “Heredity, differentiation and other conceptions of biology”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, lxix (1901), 193–203; Pearson Karl , “On the fundamental conceptions of biology”, Biometrika, i (1901–2), 320–44. Conceptions of biological science vary widely, from The biological problem of today of O. Hertwig, transl. by Mitchell P. C. (London, 1896) to H. Spencer's second edition of Principles of biology (London, 1898). In this period, one sees diffusion of ‘biological’ conceptions in marine biology, mathematical biology, applied biology, economic biology, social biology, etc. Through the twentieth century, numerous and widely differing positions are expressed concerning the fundamental nature of ‘biological’ study. The following lists only a very few instances published in English until the 1970s: Loeb Jacques , “The recent development of biology”, Science, xx (1904), 777–86; Johnstone James , The philosophy of biology (Cambridge, 1914); Haldane J. S. , “A lecture on the fundamental conceptions of biology”, British medical journal, (issue of 3 March 1923), i, 359–63; Jennings H. S. , “Biology and experimentation”, Science, lxiv (1926), 97–105; Morgan T. H. , “The relation of biology to physics”, Science, lxv (1927), 213–20; Woodger J. H. , Biological principles: A critical study (London, 1929); Delbrück Max , “A physicist looks at biology”, Transactions, The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, xxxviii (1949), 173–90; Commoner Barry , “In defense of biology”, Science, cxxxiii (1961), 1745–8; Davis C. C. , “Biology is not a totem pole”, Science, cxli (1963), 308, 310; Dobzhansky Theodosius , “Biology, molecular and organismic”, American zoologist, iv (1964), 443–52; Waddington C. H. , “The basic ideas of biology” (1968) in The evolution of an evolutionist (Ithaca, N.Y., 1975), 209–30; Delbrück , “A physicist's renewed look at biology: Twenty years later”, Science, clxviii (1970), 1312–15. For comment on this and the preceding period, see Maienschein , op. cit. (ref. 138); Pauly , op. cit. (ref. 13); Benson Keith Maienschein Jane Rainger Ronald (eds), The emergence of biology in America, forthcoming; Abir-Am , op. cit. (ref. 26); Yoxen Edward , “Giving life a new meaning: The rise of the molecular establishment”, in Elias N. Martins H. and Whitley R. (eds), Scientific establishments and hierarchies, Sociology of the Sciences, vi (Dordrecht, 1982), 123–43. This list could be expanded for other languages, in particular French and German about the turn of the twentieth century.