286 On the Subdivisions of Science 



can be absolutely separate, although we may turu our atten- 

 tion to either of them predominantly. The phenomena con- 

 cretely presented to us are those of substance, motion and 

 shape. 



By hylology I designate chemistry in its proper sense. 

 Dynamology I use for what is ordinarily termed natural 

 philosophy, or physics in its restricted sense, and what, 

 when it concerns living beings, is ordinarily called physi- 

 ology. To do away with the confusion that has come from 

 the different uses to which these words have been subjected, 

 I have proposed the nomenclature here presented. When 

 the use of the word physiology for biodynamology (i.e. the 

 science of the manifestation of force, viz., motion or func- 

 tion, of living beings) shall have become obsolete — if it ever 

 does — physiology may be substituted for the term physology 

 as being more euphonious. Natural philosophy is, prop- 

 erly, general physology ; although all the subjects usually 

 discussed in treatises on natural philosophy belong to general 

 djaiamology. The word physics, as I have already indicated, 

 would express the abstract science of concrete science of 

 natural objects. General dynamology is the general science 

 of motion — that concrete science of which the old and 

 obsolete term " phoronomics " might express the abstract 

 science. Motion, as is well known, impresses our senses 

 differently, according to its different kinds. Thus, vibratory 

 motion through space, repeated less than sixteen times in a 

 second of time, produces in us, if we become aware of the 

 motion at all, only the consciousness of mechanical force or 

 "mechanism," as it has been called. Eepeated oftener, we 

 receive the impression of sound, unless recurring too rapidly. 

 When the motion is so rapid as no longer to impress us as 

 sound, and still is not frequent enough to give us the con- 

 sciousness of heat, I believe that it produces in us the sensa- 

 tion of what we call electricity, a belief I have publicly 

 announced for several years. When motion recurs more 

 rapidly than sixty-five trillion times in a second, we become 



