FOUNDATIONS OF BIOLOGY 



CHAPTER I 

 THE SCOPE OF BIOLOGY 



Science is, in its source, eternal; in its scope, immeasurable; 

 in its problem, endless; in its goal, unattainable. von Boer. 



THE oldest and the most obvious classification of the 

 materials of our environment is into non-living and living; 

 and the accumulation of knowledge in regard to the former is 

 represented in the so-called physical sciences, while that of 

 the latter comprises the content of BIOLOGY, the science of 

 matter in the living state. Biology, like all science, has as its 

 ultimate object the explanation of its phenomena in terms 

 of the basic concepts matter and energy acting in space 

 and time; but it is needless to say that the realization of this 

 object is not imminent in any department of knowledge, and 

 least of all in the science of living things which exhibit a 

 condition of matter which altogether transcends the classi- 

 fications of physicist and chemist to-day a condition which 

 expresses in its highest manifestations what we call 'our life.' 



Whether the ' riddle of life' will ultimately be solved is a 

 question which every one would like to answer but only the 

 rash would attempt to predict. Suffice it to say that biolo- 

 gists who are on the firing line of progress to-day are directing 

 their attention solely to an attempt to elucidate life phenom- 

 ena in terms which the chemist and physicist offer. Our 

 present interest, however, is not in discussing the theoretical 

 goal of biology, but in drawing in bold strokes an outline 

 picture of the present-day knowledge of the subject which 



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