Life Outlines Of General Biology

Author : J. Arthur Thomson
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781330321560
Total Pages : 735 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (215 download)

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Download or read book Life, Vol. 1 written by J. Arthur Thomson and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 735 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Life, Vol. 1: Outlines of General Biology Of these large and crowded volumes a brief sketch indicating main endeavours may be of service to the reader at the beginning, and perhaps also at the close; hence a Preface, larger than is customary, may be pardoned. The aims of this book are broadly fourfold. (a) We give in eight chapters our outline-survey of Biology, in all its essential inquiries into the nature, continuance, and evolution of living beings. (b) We illustrate with more care, and in more detail, than usual, the relations between Biology and the other Sciences-as to Chemistry and Physics on the one hand, to Psychology and Sociology on the other. We have also sought to show how the study of Life, as central among the sciences, and with clear orientation of the sub-sciences of Biology, aids-we even think illumines-the old yet ever-renewing problem of the arrangement of knowledge into an adequate classification of the sciences in general, and this even within their essential fields, their own sub-sciences. (c) Our specific presentment of Biology hence seeks to do justice between "mechanistic" and "vitalistic" doctrines, since we utilise the mechanistic advances, and even formulations, of bio-chemistry and bio - physics for all they are worth, and that is much; yet also show the need of complementing these, by no less due utilisation of psychologic and neo-vitalistic viewpoints and doctrines; and this especially when these are re-stated more concretely, as here in outline we do. For we avoid taking refuge, as older vitalists have done, and some of our contemporaries still do, in metaphysical transcendentalisms, not definitely enough related to the actual processes of Life, in Evolution, and to Life-histories as we naturalists observe them. Central to our thinking are Life's fundamental categories; of Organism, Function, and Environment; and these not merely as separately investigated, but in their varied harmonies, throughout that perpetual interaction which is the essential of Life at all its levels of being and becoming. Hence throughout this book there is reiterated illustration of Organisms functioning in their environments, and of Environments impressing their influences on organisms. And hence, for each and every type of organism, we further seek to appreciate, as far as may be, its Psycho - biosis as well as its Biopsychosis; in other words, its Mind-body as well as its Body-mind. (d) Besides such expositions and orientations, we submit to the reader various personal contributions, old and new, and outlined a little more fully below - such as our Metabolic Theory of Sex, conception of the Cell-Cycle, arrangement of the diverse types of Animal Behaviour, and fuller analyses of various familiar biological concepts, which have become somewhat conventionalised, such as Reversion, Parasitism, and the Influence of the Environment. Such contributions include, especially in the last quarter of the book, many human and social applications of Biology - medical, eugenic, educational, and even civic. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.