Life, he says,[117] is usually supposed to be a particular being or entity; a sort of principle whose nature is unknown, and which possesses living bodies.

This notion he denies as absurd, saying that life is a very natural phenomenon, a physical fact; in truth a little complicated in its principles, but not in any sense a particular or special being or entity.
He then defines life in the following words: "Life is an order and a state of things in the parts of every body possessing it, which permits or renders possible in it the execution of organic movement, and which, so long as it exists, is effectively opposed to death.

Derange this order and this state of things to the point of preventing the execution of organic movement, or the possibility of its reestablishment, then you cause death." Afterwards, in the _Philosophie zoologique_, he modifies this definition, which reads thus: "Life, in the parts of a body which possesses it, is an order and a state of things which permit organic movements; and these movements, which constitute active life, result from the action of a stimulating cause which excites them."[118] For the science of all living bodies Lamarck proposed the word "Biology," which is so convenient a term at the present day.

The word first appears in the preface to the _Hydrogeologie_, published in 1802.
It is worthy of note that in the same year the same word was proposed for the same science by G.R.Treviranus as the title of a work, _Biologie, der Philosophie der lebenden Natur_, published in 1802-1805 (vols.

i.-vi., 1802-1822), the first volume appearing in 1802.
In the second part of the _Philosophie zoologique_ he considers the physical causes of life, and in the introduction he defines nature as the _ensemble_ of objects which comprise: (1) All existing physical bodies; (2) the general and special laws which regulate the changes of condition and situation of these bodies; (3) finally, the movement everywhere going on among them resulting in the wonderful order of things in nature.
To regard nature as eternal, and consequently as having existed from all time, is baseless and unreasonable.