ELEMENTS OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 95 



internal functions ; from its character as a germ, through the 

 many changes of size, form, organization, and habit, it goes 

 through until death ; from the physical characters of it as 

 a whole, to the physical characters of its microscopic cells, 

 and vessels, and fibres ; from the chemical characters of 

 its substance in general to the chemical characters of each 

 tissue and each secretion all these, with many others. 

 And not only so, but there is comprehended as the ideal 

 goal of the science, the consensus of all these phenomena 

 in their co-existences and successions, as constituting a 

 coherent individualized group definitely combined in space 

 and in time. It is this recognition of individuality in its 

 subject-matter, that gives its concretencss to Biology, as 

 to every other Concrete Science. As Astronomy deals 

 with bodies that have their several proper names, or (as 

 with the smaller stars) are registered by their positions, 

 and considers each of them as a distinct individual as 

 Geology, while dimly perceiving in the Moon and nearest 

 planets other groups of geological phenomena (which it would 

 deal with as independent wholes, did not distance forbid), 

 occupies itself with that individualized group presented by 

 the Earth ; so Biology treats either of an individual dis 

 tinguished from all others, or of parts or products belonging 

 to such an individual, or of structural or functional traits 

 common to many such individuals that have been observed, 

 and supposed to be common to others that are like them 

 in most or all of their attributes. Every biological truth 

 connotes a specifically individualized object, or a number 

 of specifically individualized objects of the same kind, or 

 numbers of different kinds that are severally specific. See, 

 then, the contrast. The truths of the Abstract-Concrete 

 Sciences do not imply specific individuality. Neither Molar 

 Physics, nor Molecular Physics, nor Chemistry, concerns it 

 self with this. The laws of motion are expressed without 

 any reference whatever to the sizes or shapes of the moving 



