392 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



of living and lifeless matter was that by spectrum analysis of the 

 chemical composition of the stars, in which various elements 

 common on the earth were readily detected. This astounding 

 result, taken together with the clearer and more convincing ideas 

 of the conservation of matter and energy, and of the similarity 

 in nature of heat, light, and sound as undulations, served to 

 demonstrate and to emphasize the scope and immanence of 

 natural law, as well as the fine adjustment, balance, and economy 

 of nature, and to cause interference or governance by anything 

 supernatural to seem gratuitous and unwarranted. 



TREVIRANUS' BIOLOGY AND LAMARCK'S ZOOLOGICAL PHI- 

 LOSOPHY. Very early in the nineteenth century the two works 

 here mentioned and already referred to appeared, the former 

 introducing into science for the first time the word biology, 

 and thereby formally recognizing a world of life in contradistinc- 

 tion to a world of lifelessness. Both works virtually ignored the 

 old cosmogony as applied to plants and animals, and both sought 

 after some new and less supernatural theory. Lamarck in par- 

 ticular was bold enough to suggest that the elongated neck of 

 the giraffe was not specially created, but had been gradually 

 developed by constant effort to obtain food beyond its ordi- 

 nary reach. Both authors deserve special mention because with 

 them biology began consciously and frankly to part company 

 with the older cosmogony. Lamarck, for example, after frankly 

 accepting the possibility of spontaneous generation for the origin 

 of living matter sought to explain its present variety and differ- 

 entiation by four laws, which may be stated as follows : 



1. Life naturally tends to increase and enlarge up to a certain 

 self-determined limit. 



2. New organs arise in response to new and reiterated wants 

 and to the changes produced by these wants or by efforts to meet 

 them. 



3. The development of organs and their functions is determined by 

 the use of such organs. 



4. All changes in organization are conserved by generation and 

 transmitted to offspring. 



