IX THE HISTORY AND SCOPE OF ZOOLOGY 309 



causes, the highest forms have been evolved, and it 

 rendered unavoidable the conclusion that this earliest 

 living material was itself evolved by gradual processes, 

 the result also of the known and recognised laws of 

 physics and chemistry, from material which we should 

 call not living. It abolished the conception of life as 

 an entity above and beyond the common properties 

 of matter, and led to the conviction that the marvel- 

 lous and exceptional qualities of that which we call 

 ^* living " matter are nothing more nor less than an 

 exceptionally complicated development of those chemi- 

 cal and physical properties which we recognise in a 

 gradually ascending scale of evolution in the carbon 

 compounds, containing nitrogen as well as oxygen, 

 sulphur, and hydrogen as constituent atoms of their 

 enormous molecules. Thus mysticism was finally 

 banished from the domain of Biology, and Zoology 

 became one of the physical sciences, — the science 

 which seeks to arrange and discuss the phenomena of 

 animal life and form as the outcome of the operation 

 of the laws of physics and chemistry. 



Nature and Scope of Zoology 



The brief historical outline above given is sufficient 

 to justify us in rejecting, for the purposes of an ade- 

 quate appreciation of the history and scope of Zoology, 

 that simple division of the science into Morphology 

 and Physiology which is a favourite one at the present 

 day. No doubt the division is a logical one, based as 

 it is upon the distinction of the study of form and 



