g matter into one whole, and of dealing with them as one
discipline. In fact, I may say there were three men to whom this idea
occurred contemporaneously, although there were but two who carried it
into effect, and only one who worked it out completely. The persons to
whom I refer were the eminent physiologist Bichat, and the great
naturalist Lamarck, in France; and a distinguished German, Treviranus.
Bichat[1] assumed the existence of a special group of "physiological"
sciences. Lamarck, in a work published in 1801,[2] for the first time
made use of the name "Biologie" from the two Greek words which signify a
discourse upon life and living things. About the same time it occurred
to Treviranus, that all those sciences which deal with living matter are
essentially 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 lies in this, that he worked
out his idea, and wrote the very remarkable book to which I refer. It
consists of six volumes, and occupied its author 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" which denotes the whole of
the sciences which deal with living things, whether they be animals or
whether they be plants. Some little time ago--in the course of this
year, I think--I was favoured by a learned classic, Dr. Field of
Norwich, with a disquisition, in which he endeavoured to prove that,
from a philological point of view, neither Treviranus nor Lamarck had
any right to coin this new word "Biology" for their purpose; that, in
fact, the Greek word "Bios" had relation only to human life and human
affairs, and that a different word was employed by the Greeks when they
wished to speak of the life of animals and plants. So Dr. Field tells us
we are all wrong in using the term biology, and that we ought to employ
another; only he is not quite sure about the propriety of that which he
proposes as a substitute. It is a somewhat hard one--"zootocology." I am
sorry we are wrong, because we are likely to continue so. In these
matters we must have some sort of "Statute of Limitations." When a name
has been employed for half-a-century, persons of authority[3]