physiogeny

Simplified learned borrowing from German Physiontogenie, itself from physio- +‎ Ontogenie; equivalent to a reduction of physio- +‎ ontogeny to physio- (“nature”) +‎ -geny (“origin”). The simplification means that the term is also used to translate German Physiogenie, the distinction between Physiontogenie and Physiogenie not being made in English.

physiogeny (usually uncountable, plural physiogenies)

1. (historical, biology, theory of recapitulation, rare) The study of the evolution of functions and vital activities by observing the supposed ontogenic recapitulation of that phylogeny.^[1]
   • 1874, Ernst Haeckel, “Das Grundgesetz der organischen Entwickelung” (chapter I), in Anthropogenie; oder, Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen. Gemeinverständliche wissenschaftliche Vorträge über die Grundzüge der Menschlichen. Keimes- und Stammes-geschichte, volume 1, page 15; translated as “The Fundamental Law of the Evolution of Organisms”, in The Evolution of Man: A Popular Exposition of the Principal Points of Human Ontogeny and Phylogeny. From the German of Ernst Haeckel., 1897, page 21:

     Es wird daher erst die Aufgabe einer zukünftigen Physiogenie sein, die Entwickelungsgeschichte der Functionen mit gleichem Eifer und Erfolge in Angriff zu nehmen, wie dies für die Entwickelungsgeschichte der Formen von der Morphogenie längst geschehen ist.

     It will, therefore, be the task of a future Physiogeny to grasp the history of the evolution of the functions with the same earnestness, and with the same success, with which Morphogeny has long ago undertaken the study of the history of the evolution of forms.

     .

• morphogeny
• physiophyly

• germ history

• morphogeny

• “physiogeny”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.