1877.] On the Study of Biology. 211 
German, Treviranus. Bichat assumed the existence of a special 
group of ‘ physiological” sciences. Lamarck, in a work pub- 
lished in 1801,! for the-first time made use of the name “ biolo- 
gie,” from the two Greek words which signify a discourse upon life 
and living things. About the same time it occurred to Trevira- 
nus that all those sciences which deal with living matter are es- 
sentially and fundamentally one, and ought to be treated as a 
whole, and in the year 1802 he published the first volume of 
what he also called Biologie. Treviranus’s great merit con- 
sists in this, that he worked out his idea, and that he published 
the very remarkable book to which I refer, which consists of six 
volumes, and which occupied him for twenty years, — from 1802 
to 1822. 
That is the origin of the term “ biology,” and that is how it 
has come about that all clear thinkers and lovers of consistent 
nomenclature have substituted for the old confusing name of 
natural history, which has conveyed so many meanings, the 
term biology, to denote the whole of the sciences which deal 
with living things, whether they be animals or whether they be 
plants, 
Having now defined the meaning of the word biology, and 
having indicated the general scope of biological science, I turn to 
my second question, which is, Why should we study biology ? 
Possibly the time may come when that will seem a very odd 
` question. That we, living creatures, should not feel a certain 
amount of interest in what it is that constitutes our life will 
eventually, under altered ideas of the fittest objects of human in- 
quiry, seem to be a singular phenomenon ; but at present, judg- 
ing by the practice of teachers and educators, this would seem to 
be a matter that does not concern us at all. I propose to put be- 
fore you a few considerations which I dare say many of you will 
be familiar with already, but which will suffice to show — not 
fully, because to demonstrate this point fully would take a great 
many lectures — that there are some very good and substantial 
reasons why it may be advisable that we should know something 
about this branch of human learning. I myself entirely agree 
with another sentiment of the philosopher of Malmesbury, that 
“the scope of all speculation is the performance of some action — 
or thing to be done,” and I have not any very great respect for 
Or interest in mere knowing as such. I judge of the value of hu- 
man pursuits by their bearing upon human interests, — in other 
1 Hydrogéologie, an. x., 1801. 
