MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL BIOLOGY. 595 



ress. They clasp rigid fetters on movements wliicli were becoming 

 more supple and elastic. All social organisms are finally parts of the 

 State* that tangible divine power, the right arm of God in his rela- 

 tions with men. Tiiere can be no true functions of association which 

 tend to embarrass the free development of the State the association 

 of associations. 



MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL BIOLOGY. 



By Dr. E. GAZELLE. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FKEXCH BY J. FITZGERALD, A. M. 



I. 



BIOLOGY, or the science of life, is so new a subject of investiga- 

 tion that its limits are as yet imperfectly ascertained. Meta- 

 l^hysical ideas have too large a place in our conception of its extent. 

 When we ask where biology commences, we are met by the problem 

 of the oriofin of livinc: thino;s. which very often is solved in accordance 

 rather with preconceived opinions of the system of the universe than 

 with an independent scientific hypothesis. When we would determine 

 its limits, we are met by the problems of cognition, and of the causes 

 determining man's actions ; and again usually it is unscientific preju- 

 dices that decide whether these problems should be referred to another 

 science, or treated under a subdivision of biology ; whether we should 

 range, alongside with phenomena which unquestionably belong to bi- 

 ology, those other phenomena which experience shows us to be closely 

 connected with them, associated with them, and which are in such 

 constant ratio with them in their variations that they appear to de- 

 rive from them, and from no other source, the conditions of their ex- 

 istence. The indecision as to the limits of biology results principally 

 from the difliculty of giving a strict definition of its subject-matter. 

 Still, in spite of these difficulties, though we cannot say precisely 

 what life is, where its province commences, where it ends, there exists 

 between the two extremes the inorganic world and the mental world 

 a very firm ground, imperfectly explored, it is true, but neverthe- 

 less belonging to biology alone. The various departments which con- 

 stitute this domain, though they themselves are not all very clearly 

 defined, are sufficient to give to biology a definite individuality. 



Living things present themselves to the observer of Nature as in- 

 dividuals ; and it was not long before man began to regard them from 

 another point of view, as forming groups of similar individuals more 

 nearly allied to one another than to individuals in other groups. At 

 first these groups were held to be natural ; next it was asked whether, 

 like individuals, they had a history a beginning and an ending. 



