1. Q. How is the word Biology made up, and what does it mean? A. It is made up of two Greek words—bios, life, and logos, a discourse. It means the study of living things.
2. Q. What does Biology include in its survey? A. Both animals and vegetables, and considers their forms and peculiarities, the parts of which they are composed, their relations to each other, and the uses which they serve.
3. Q. What are the subjects of Physics and Chemistry? A. The general forces of nature and the changes in non-living matter.
4. Q. What is the teaching of the Bible and of all the religions of mankind, the belief of the most eminent philosophers, the doctrine held by the early Christian fathers, and maintained by the majority of scientific and unscientific men as to the difference between a living body and the same body after death? A. That it arises from the union of matter and spirit.
5. Q. What is it that entitles any thing to be called a living being? A. The presence of little particles of living matter scattered through it.
6. Q. What does this living matter look like when seen through the microscope? A. Like a little bit of jelly or albumen. It is generally transparent; is neither quite solid or fluid.
7. Q. What is it called? A. It is often called protoplasm, or first formation. It is also called by the better term bioplasm, or living formation.
8. Q. What is said as to the resemblance of the particles of bioplasm to one another, no matter where they belong? A. They always look alike. There is no difference under the microscope between the bioplasm of a blade of grass or a whale, or an oak, a rose, a dog, or a man.
9. Q. What does chemical examination show as to all living matter? A. That it is composed of the same elementary materials. Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen enter into the construction of every piece of bioplasm.