Antedating of "Sociobiology"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/8/06, Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> sociobiology (OED 1946)
>
> 1912 _Harvard Law Review_ 25: 503 (JSTOR)  "The heroic period of
> socio-biology" in jurisprudence has passed.
>
> [NOTE:  This is said to be a translation of Tourtoulon, Les principes
> philosophiques de l'historie du droit, p. 82]

I think this cite would have to be bracketed, or else listed under a
separate subsense. The writer is talking about an approach to law in
which society (or the nation) is treated as if it is a biological
organism (also called "biosociological theory"). Compare this OED cite
for "biosociology":

1901 G. GISSING Our Friend Charlatan ii. 22 'It's uncommonly
suggestive,' said Dyce... 'The best social theory I know. He [sc. J.
Izoulet] calls his system Bio-Sociology, a theory of society founded
on the facts of biology.'

The modern sense of "sociobiology", i.e., 'the study of the biological
basis of social behavior', doesn't show up in JSTOR until 1940, in M.
F. Ashley-Montagu's article "The Socio-Biology of Man" in _The
Scientific Monthly_.


--Ben Zimmer