THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION^. 25 



History. Just think of such a chair as that of Natural History in 

 the Toronto University, where the unfortunate occupant would have 

 to travel over the whole ground of Geology, Mineralogy, Zoology, 

 Botany and Physical Geography ? 



In course of time, however, it was noticed by thinking men, 

 that under this title of Natural History there were included hetero- 

 genous constituents — that Geology and Mineralogy were very dif- 

 ferent from Botany and Zoology, and consequently that a person 

 might obtain a somewhat extensive knowledge of the structure and 

 functions of plants and animals without the necessity of entering 

 upon the study of geology and mineralogy, and vice versa. We also 

 find that as knowledge advanced it became evident that there was 

 a great analogy and a very close alliance between the two sciences 

 of Botany and Zoology which dealt with living things, while they 

 are much more widely separated from all other branches of science. 

 Therefore we are not surprised that at the beginning of the present 

 century, in at least two different countries, two or three famous men 

 clearly conceived the idea of uniting the sciences which deal with 

 living matter into one. Lamarck, of France, as far as I can find, 

 was the first to use the term *■ Biology " (from two Greek words, 

 meaning a discourse upon life or living things.) His work waspub- 

 lished in 1801. In the following year a German, Treviranus, pub- 

 lished the first volume of a work called "Biologie," When com- 

 pleted the work extended to six volumes, on which he spent twenty 

 years of his life. He seems to have been the only one who really 

 worked out the idea of the oneness of all life. He contended that 

 all those sciences which deal with living matter are essentially and 

 fundamentally one, and ought to be treated as a whole. That is, 

 therefore, the origin and the history of the development of the werd, 

 and that is how it came about, that all clear thinkers and lovers of 

 consistent nomenclature came to use the term instead of the old 

 confusing name of " Natural History," which, as we have seen, con- 

 veyed so 77iany meanings, and that also is why the Hamilton Asso- 

 ciation prefer to call the section dealing with life, whether animal or 

 vegetable, the Biological Section and not the Natural History Sec- 

 tion. 



Before we leave the subject, just a few words about the general 

 scope of our studies in Biology. In the strict technical sense of the 

 word it takes in all the phenomena exhibited by living things as dis- 



