OUTLINE OF BIOLOGICAL PROGRESS 5 
tance in the world of science, and it iscoming more and more 
to be recognized that it occupies a field of compelling in- 
terest not only for medical men and scholars, but for all 
intelligent people. The discoveries and conquests of biology 
have wrought such a revolution in thought that they should 
be known to all persons of liberal culture. In addition to 
making acquaintance with the discoveries, one ought to learn 
something about the history of biology; for it is essential 
to know how it took its rise, in order to understand its 
present position and the nature of its influence upon expand- 
ing ideas regarding the world in which we live. 
In its modern sense, biology did not arise until about Ee 
1860, when the nature of protoplasm was first clearly pointed 
out by Max Schultze, but the currents that united to form it 
had long been flowing, and we can never understand the 
subject without going back to its iatric condition, when what 
is now biology was in the germ and united with medicine. 
Its separation from medicine, and its rise as an independent 
subject, was owing to the steady growth of that zest for cx- 
ploration into unknown fields which began with the new 
birth of science in the sixteenth century, and has continued 
in fuller measure to the present. It was the outcome of 
applying observation and experiment to the winning of new 
truths. 
Difficulties.—But biology is so comprehensive a field, 
and involves so many details, that it is fair to inquire: can 
its progress be made clear to the reader who is unacquainted 
with it as a laboratory study? The matter will be simplified 
by two general observations—first, that the growth of biology 
is owing to concurrent progress in three fields of research, 
concerned, respectively, with the structure or architecture of 
living beings, their development, and their physiology. We 
recognize also a parallel advance in the systematic classifica- 
tion of animals and plants, and we note, furthermore, that 
