OPINIONS ON GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY 169 
and these movements, which constitute active life, 
result from the action of a stimulating cause which 
excites them,» 
For the science of all living bodies Lamarck pro- 
posed the word “ Biology,” which is so convenient a 
term at the present day. The word first appears in the 
preface to the Hydrogéologie, published in 1802. Itis 
worthy of note that in the same year the same word was 
proposed for the same science by G. R. Treviranus as 
the title of a work, Biologie, der Philosophie der lebenden 
Natur, published in 1802-1805 (vols. i.—vi., 1802-1822), 
the first volume appearing in 1802. 
In the second part of the Phzlosophie zoologique he 
considers the physical causes of life, and in the in- 
troduction he defines nature as the ensemble of objects 
which comprise: (1) All existing physical bodies; (2) 
the general and special laws which regulate the 
changes of condition and situation of these bodies; 
(3) finally, the movement everywhere going on among 
them resulting in the wonderful order of things in 
nature. 
To regard nature as eternal, and consequently as 
having existed from all time, is baseless and unreason- 
* Here might be quoted for comparison other famous definitions of 
life : 
‘* Life is the sum of the functions by which death is resisted.” 
—Bichat. 
‘* Life is the result of organization.”’—(?) 
‘* Life is the principle of individuation.” —Coleridge ex. Schelling. 
‘* Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and decom- 
position, at once general and continuous,”—De Blainville, who wisely 
added that there are ‘‘two fundamental and correlative conditions 
inseparable from the living being—an organism and a medium.” 
‘* Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external 
relations.”—Herbert Spencer. 
