4 INTRODUCTION 



general way, they are not usually included with this group of 

 sciences. 



The diagram (Fig. i) also illustrates in a general way, the 

 manner in which General Biology is related to the various 

 biological sciences. It must not be understood that the 

 several divisions which we recognize today have grown out 

 of any maternal science of biology. On the contrary the 

 principles of General Biology represent contributions from 

 all the related sciences, and these contributions, for the 

 most part, are fundamental or basic for the special 

 branches involved. Physiology, perhaps more than any other 

 branch, is intimately connected with General Biology; indeed 

 for a long early period General Biology and Physiology were 

 indistinguishable. Anatomy also was, and is yet, intimately 

 correlated with Physiology, and from these two main trunks 

 the secondary branches have developed into special fields 

 of research. One great stimulus for this development was 

 the doctrine of evolution which has been mainly responsible 

 for the distinctly modern sciences of Ecology, Experimental 

 Biology and Genetics. 



What then is the subject matter of General Biology? Many 

 naturalists refuse to recognize it or give it a place in their 

 teachings, while the majority of Universities have substituted 

 departments of Zoology and Botany and Physiology for the 

 erstwhile department of Biology. 



General Biology deals with the fundamental principles 

 of living matter; specifically, first, with protoplasm and with 

 the manifestations of vitality; second, with metabolism, or 

 the vital processes of waste and repair; third, with the food 

 of animals and plants and with the ultimate sources and trans- 

 formations of energy; fourth, with the fundamental struc- 

 tures of living things and with the evolution of organic struc- 

 tures; fifth, with the inter-relations of animals, plants, and 

 intermediate organisms; sixth, with the phenomena of vitality, 

 adolescence, age and senescence, fertilization, reproduction, 

 and heredity; and, seventh, with species and the factors of 

 organic evolution. Obviously if we were to study any one 



