i 7 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The second aspect of the study of nature, which we have desig- 

 nated as philosophical, regards the logic of nature, or what the older 

 writers spoke of as General Physiology. This is sometimes appropri- 

 ately termed Natural Philosophy, a designation which is the correlative 

 of Natural History. With this method of study in the organic king- 

 doms we are familiar under the names of physiological botany and 

 physiological zoology, which concern themselves with anatomy, or- 

 ganography, and morphology, and with the processes of growth, 

 nutrition, and decay in organized existences. The natural philosophy 

 of the inorganic world investigates the motions and the energies of the 

 heavenly bodies, and then, coming down to our planet, considers all 

 the phenomena which come under the head of dynamic or physic, as 

 well as those of chemistry. These various activities together "con- 

 stitute the secular life of our planet. They are the geogenic agencies 

 which in the course of ages have molded the mineral mass of the 

 earth, and from primeval chaos have evolved its present order, formed 

 its various rocks, filled the veins in its crust with metals, ores, gems, 

 and spars, and determined the composition of its waters and its at- 

 mosphere. They still regulate alike the terrestrial, the oceanic, and 

 the aerial circulation, and preside over the constant change and decay 

 by which the surface of the earth is incessantly renewed and the con- 

 ditions necessary to organic life are maintained." * Thus the physio- 

 logical study of the inorganic world, or in other words its natural 

 philosophy, includes in its scope at once theoretical astronomy and 

 theoretical geology or geogeny. 



The twofold division which has been adopted in the scientific class 

 of our new society does not correspond to that which we have just set 

 forth, namely, of Natural History on the one hand and Natural Philos- 

 ophy on the other ; nor yet, as might at first seem to be the case, to 

 the more familiar distinction between inorganic and organic nature. 

 Our Section III has been made to embrace, it is true, much both of the 

 natural history and the natural philosophy of the inorganic world, in- 

 cluding, besides physic and chemistry, both descriptive and theoretical 

 astronomy and mineralogy. This same section has also been made to 

 include mathematic, which in itself does not belong to the domain 

 of natural science, though in its applications it becomes an indispen- 

 sable instrument in the study of nature ; whether we investigate the 

 phenomena of physic or of chemistry, or seek to comprehend the laws 

 which regulate alike the order of the celestial spheres, the shapes of 

 crystals, and the forms of vegetation. 



Section IV, on the other hand, in its department of biology, in- 

 cludes alike the natural history and the natural philosophy of the 

 vegetable and the animal kingdoms. In this same section has, how- 



* " The Domain of Physiology, or Nature in Thought and Language," by T. Sterry 

 Hunt, " London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine " (vol. xii, pp. 233-253) 

 for October, 1881; also separately reprinted, pp. 2S ; S. E. Cassino: Boston, 18S2. 



