CONTENTS
PAGE
| [Introduction] | 1 |
Biology of the ancients. Extinction of scientificinquiry. Revival of knowledge. | |
| [PERIOD I] (1530-1660) | 7 |
Characteristics of the period. The revival ofbotany. The revival of zoology. Early notions ofsystem. The first English naturalists. The rise ofexperimental physiology. The natural history ofdistant lands (sixteenth century and earlier). Agriculture,horticulture, and silk-culture in the sixteenthcentury. | |
| [PERIOD II] (1661-1740) | 28 |
Characteristics of the period. The minute anatomists.Early notions about the nature of fossils. Comparativeanatomy; the study of biological types. Adaptationsof plants and animals; natural theology.Spontaneous generation. The natural history ofJohn Ray. The scale of nature. The sexes offlowering plants. | |
| [PERIOD III] (1741-1789) | 49 |
Characteristics of the period. Systems of floweringplants; Linnæus and the Jussieus. Réaumur andthe History of Insects. The budding-out of newanimals (Hydra); another form of propagation withoutmating (aphids). The historical or comparativemethod; Montesquieu and Buffon. Amateur studentsof living animals. Intelligence and instinct in thelower animals. The food of green plants. Themetamorphoses of plants. Early notions about thelower plants. | |
| [PERIOD IV] (1790-1858) | 89 |
Characteristics of the period. Sprengel and thefertilisation of flowers. Cuvier and the rise ofpalæontology. Chamisso on the alternation ofgenerations in Salpa. Baer and the development ofanimals. The cell-theory. The scientific investigationof the higher cryptogams. The enrichment ofEnglish gardens. Humboldt as a traveller and abiologist. Premonitions of a biological theory ofevolution. | |
| [PERIOD V (1859 and Later)] | 124 |
Darwin on the Origin of Species. Pasteur's experimentalstudy of microbes. | |
| [Chronological Table] | 141 |
| [The Sub-Divisions of Biology] | 146 |
| [Bibliography] | 147 |
| [Index] | 149 |