IV 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE 



Object of biology — Relation to the other sciences — General and 

 special biology — Nattiral philosophy — Monism: hylozoism, 

 materialism, dynamism — Naturalism — Nature and spirit — 

 Physics — Metaphysics — Dualism — Freedom and natural 

 law — God in biology — Realism — Idealism — Branches of 

 biology — Morphology and physiology — Anatomy and bi- 

 ogeny — Ergology and perilogy. 



THE broad realm of science has been vastly extended 

 in the course of the nineteenth century. Many new 

 branches have established themselves independently; 

 many new and most fruitful methods of research have 

 been discovered, and have been applied with the great- 

 est practical success in furthering the advance of mod- 

 em thought. But this enormous expansion of the field 

 of knowledge has its disadvantages. The extensive di- 

 vision of labor it has involved has led to the growth 

 of a narrow specialism in many small sections; and in 

 this way the natural connection of the various provinces 

 of knowledge, and their relation to the comprehensive 

 whole, have been partly or wholly lost sight of. The 

 importation of new terms which are used in different 

 senses by one-sided workers in the various fields of 

 science has caused a good deal of misunderstanding and 

 confusion. The vast structure of science tends more 

 and more to become a tower of Babel, in the labyrinthic 

 passages of which few are at their ease and few any 

 longer understand the language of other workers. In 



77 



