ont beaucoup plus de proprietes communes que de differences reelles."
Therefore, it is not wonderful that, at the beginning of the present
century, in two different countries, and so far as I know, without any
intercommunication, two famous men clearly conceived the notion of
uniting the sciences which deal with living 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 endeavourved to prove