LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 7 1 



merate the several distinctive differences which 

 separate the organic from the inorganic kingdom 

 of nature. These are, generally speaking, well 

 marked, and sufficiently understood, hy almost every 

 one ; although almost every one might not proba- 

 bly be able to give a scientific relation of them. 

 To dwell upon these, therefore, would be foreign 

 to my present purpose. But there are a few cha- 

 racteristics of organic matter, of such vast and 

 immediate importance to all that relates to the 

 preservation of health, that I must not omit to take 

 especial note of them. 



with regard to animal life, should be Zoonomy, which signifies 

 that science which consists in a knowledge of the laws of life, 

 and nothing else. With regard to the life of vegetables, the 

 terra should be Phyto-zootomy, which means the science which 

 makes us acquainted with the laws of plant-life, that is, the 

 life of plants. " The endless introduction of new technical 

 terms, on every frivolous pretence," says Dr. FLETCHER (a new- 

 star in the latro-philosophical firmament, and a bright one 

 too), " seems adapted much less to benefit than to injure the 

 cause of philosophy." True : but when the introductions are 

 not endless, and the pretence not frivolous, an exactly opposite 

 result will accrue. Nothing has tended so much to mystify 

 science, and obstruct its progress, as the unsettled state of the 

 exact meanings of words. Words are, through ideas, the signs 

 of things : and if one word be used indiscriminately, as the 

 sign of several things, how is the reader to know which thing 

 of the several the writer desires to indicate ? Dr. Fletcher 

 has himself taken occasion elsewhere to complain, and that 

 loudly, of this improper indiscriminate use of words. 



