By A. M. MARTIN, GENERAL SECRETARY C. L. S. C.
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.
10. Q. In what three different states do we recognize matter in every
bioplast, or living particle? A. Matter not yet alive, but about to
become so, called pabulum, or nutriment. Living matter in the strictest
sense, or bioplasm. Formed material, or matter which was alive, but is so
no longer.
11. Q. What peculiarity has living matter as to motion? A. All bioplasm
has spontaneous motion. Non-living matter has inertia.
12. Q. What are the three kinds of motion of bioplasm? A. Inherent
motions of individual particles among themselves. Constant change of
shape. Wandering movements.
13. Q. What is the peculiarity of living matter as to the power of
nutrition and growth? A. The non-living increases in size by external
additions; but bioplasm selects appropriate material from its food,
or pabulum, changes the chemical relations of this material, and
appropriates it to its own structure in such a way that it grows from
within.
14. Q. What is the peculiarity of bioplasm as to reproduction A. Bioplasm
can generate or reproduce its own kind of living matter.
15. Q. What power has a living thing to preserve its own identity? A. A
living being preserves its identity amid all the material changes which
take place.
16. Q. In the grouping together of living things according to their real
relationships, what do types represent? A. General plans of structure.