Joseph Henry Woodger, the British biologist, was born at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He was graduated from University College, London, where he studied zoology, and after war service returned there to teach. The rest of his academic career was associated with the University of London, as reader in biology from 1922 to 1947 and professor of biology from 1947 to 1959. In the term of 1949-1950 he was appointed Tarner lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge, whose philosophers—C. D. Broad, Bertrand Russell, and Alfred North Whitehead—greatly influenced his early outlook. Later, the influence of the logicians Rudolf Carnap and Alfred Tarski can be seen in his writings, some of which are highly formal studies of the language and principles of biology. The chief work of his early period is Biological Principles (1929); the two best-known works of his later period are The Axiomatic Method in Biology (1937) and...