262 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. X. 



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 

 appropriately termed Natural Philosophy, a designation which is 

 the correlative of Natural History. With this method of study 

 in the organic kingdoms we are familiar under the names of phy- 

 siological botany and physiological zoology, which concern them- 

 vselves with anatomy, organography, and morphology, and with the 

 processes of growth, nutrition and decay in organized existences. 

 The natural philo^iophy 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 activitie> together ''' constitute the 

 secular life of our planet. They are the geogenic agencies 

 which in the course of ages have moulded 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 atmosphere. They still regulate alike the ter- 

 restrial, the oceanic and the aerial circulation, and preside over 

 the constant change and decay by which tht surface of the earth 

 is incessantly renewed, and the conditions necessary to organic 

 life are maintained." ^ Thus the physiological 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 two-fold 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 philosophy 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 embr.ic •, 

 it i« true, much both of the natural history and the natural 

 philosophy of the inorganic world, including besides physic, 

 and chemistry, both descriptive and theoretical astronomy, and 

 mineralogy. This same section has also been made to include 



* The Domain of Physiology, or Nature in Thought and Language, 

 by T. Sterry Hunt; London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical 

 Maga^^ine. ([V.] xii. 233-253,) for October, 1881. 



