Part 1

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+Transcriber's Notes+

1. Typographical errors have been silently corrected.

2. Variations of spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.

3. The text version is coded for italics and the like mark-ups i.e., (a) italics are indicated thus italic; (b) small-caps are indicated thus CAPS; (c) Images in the book are indicated as [Illustration:] at the respective place, between paragraphs. (d) Footnotes were moved to the end of chapters. * * * * *

(By permission of the Berlin Photographic Company, 133 New Bond Street, London, W.)]

HISTORY OF

BIOLOGY

L. C. MIALL, D.Sc., F.R.S., FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

London: WATTS & CO., 17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.

1911

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction 1

Biology of the ancients. Extinction of scientific inquiry. Revival of knowledge.

PERIOD I (1530-1660) 7

Characteristics of the period. The revival of botany. The revival of zoology. Early notions of system. The first English naturalists. The rise of experimental physiology. The natural history of distant lands (sixteenth century and earlier). Agriculture, horticulture, and silk-culture in the sixteenth century.

PERIOD II (1661-1740) 28

Characteristics of the period. The minute anatomists. Early notions about the nature of fossils. Comparative anatomy; the study of biological types. Adaptations of plants and animals; natural theology. Spontaneous generation. The natural history of John Ray. The scale of nature. The sexes of flowering plants.

PERIOD III (1741-1789) 49

Characteristics of the period. Systems of flowering plants; Linnæus and the Jussieus. Réaumur and the History of Insects. The budding-out of new animals (Hydra); another form of propagation without mating (aphids). The historical or comparative method; Montesquieu and Buffon. Amateur students of living animals. Intelligence and instinct in the lower animals. The food of green plants. The metamorphoses of plants. Early notions about the lower plants.

PERIOD IV (1790-1858) 89

Characteristics of the period. Sprengel and the fertilisation of flowers. Cuvier and the rise of palæontology. Chamisso on the alternation of generations in Salpa. Baer and the development of animals. The cell-theory. The scientific investigation of the higher cryptogams. The enrichment of English gardens. Humboldt as a traveller and a biologist. Premonitions of a biological theory of evolution.

PERIOD V (1859 and Later) 124

Darwin on the Origin of Species. Pasteur's experimental study of microbes.

Chronological Table 141

The Sub-Divisions of Biology 146

Bibliography 147