CHAPTER XXIII 



WHERE LIFE ON THE EARTH BEGAN 



Sir Arthur Thomson and Once upon a Time 



MY chief convictions/ ' says Professor Sir Arthur 

 Thomson in a letter to the writer, " are 

 (i) biology for the service of man; (2) the 

 necessity for religion/ ' 



What is biology? 



In Chambers's Encyclopedia it is defined as " the science 

 that seeks to classify and generalize the vast and varied 

 multitude of phenomena presented by and peculiar to the 

 living world." 



In one sense biology is the oldest of the sciences, for 

 even the savage observes the different forms of life around 

 him; he gives names to the various animals, birds, and 

 plants, and learns the uses of each, and to some extent 

 their habits. 



The biologist is better known as the naturalist, and 

 naturalists are divided broadly into botanists and 

 zoologists — those who deal with the plant and animal 

 kingdoms respectively. The modern biologist, such as 

 Sir Arthur Thomson, is concerned with all branches of 

 life, and seeks for knowledge of the laws that govern 

 their organization and activity. 



For a long time naturalists occupied themselves chiefly 

 in describing the outward characteristics of animals and 

 plants, and in classifying them in accordance with appear- 

 ance or habits. The French botanist de Jussieu, who 

 was made superintendent of the royal gardens of the Petit 

 Trianon in 1758, was the first to make a new grouping of 

 plants on the basis of their ' comparative anatomy/ So 



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