5 2 3 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



they had best study it ; and I shall address myself to the endeavor to 

 give you some answer to these four questions what biology is ; why 

 it should be studied ; how it should be studied ; and when it should 

 be studied. 



In the first place, in respect to what biology is, there are, I believe, 

 some persons who imagine that the term " biology " is simply a new- 

 fangled denomination, a neologism, in short, for what used to be 

 known under the title of "natural history;" but I shall try to show 

 you, on the contrary, that the word is the expression of the growth 

 of science during the last two hundred years, anS came into existence 

 half a century ago. 



At the revival of learning, knowledge was divided into two kinds 

 the knowledge of Nature, and the knowledge of man ; for it was the 

 current idea then (and a great deal of that ancient concejDtion still 

 remains) that there was a sort of essential antithesis, not to say an- 

 tagonism, between Nature and man; and that the two had not very 

 much to do with one another, except that the one was oftentimes ex- 

 ceedingly troublesome to the other. Though it is one of the salient 

 merits of our great philosophers of the seventeenth century that they 

 recognize but one scientific method, applicable alike to man and to 

 Nature, we find this notion of the existence of a broad distinction be- 

 tween Nature and man in the writings of Bacon and Hobbes of 

 Malmesbury ; and I have brought with me that famous work which is 

 now so little known, greatly as it deserves to be studied, " The Levi- 

 athan," in order that I may put to you, in the wonderfully terse and 

 clear language of Thomas Hobbes, what was his view of the matter. 

 He says : 



" The register of knowledge of fact is called history. Whereof 

 there be two sorts: one called natural history; which is the history 

 of such facts or effects of Nature as have no dependence on man's 

 will ; such as are the histories of metals, plants, animals, regions, and 

 the like. The other is civil history ; wdiich is the history of the volun- 

 tary actions of men in commonwealths." 



So that all history of fact was divided into these two great groups 

 of natural and of civil history. The Royal Society was in course of 

 foundation about the time that Hobbes was writing this book, w T hich 

 was published in 1651, and that Society is termed a "Society for the 

 Advancement of Natural Knowledge," which is nearly the same thing 

 as a "Society for the Advancement of Natural History." As time 

 went on, and the various branches of human knowledge became more 

 distinctly developed and separated from one another, it was found 

 that some were much more susceptible of precise mathematical treat- 

 ment than others. , The publication of the "Principia" of Newton, 

 which probably gave a greater stimulus to physical science than any 

 work ever published before, or which is likely to be published here- 

 after, showed that precise mathematical methods were applicable to 



