XI. DEPARTMENT: 



IDIOPHYSICS. 



IN the department of Idiophysics, we include the immediate study 

 of the various productions of nature, animal, vegetable, and mineral ; 

 with their classification and description ; their relations, and origin ; 

 as far as these latter can be ascertained. The name is from the 

 Greek tScoj, special or particular, and <J>V<H$, nature; as this depart- 

 ment examines the individual objects in nature, of which the preced- 

 ing department traced only the phenomena, and general laws. The 

 name Idiophysics, here introduced, is nearly synonymous with the 

 term Natural History : but the latter term is sometimes used in a 

 more limited sense, as when it is made to exclude Geology : though 

 this science belongs, we think, essentially to the same group. In 

 treating of the animal kingdom, a place must necessarily be assigned 

 to the human race, as the head of this division : but the more im- 

 mediate study of the human frame, will be reserved for the follow- 

 ing department, that of the Medical Sciences. 



The popular division of natural objects, into the three kingdoms 

 of nature, as they have long been called, animal, vegetable, and 

 mineral, gives rise to the corresponding sciences of Zoology, Bo- 

 tany, and Mineralogy ; which have been also termed the classifi- 

 catory sciences, for reasons soon to be explained. But Geology is 

 also a classificatory science ; inasmuch as it classifies, on a grand 

 scale, the rocky strata and mountain masses which compose the outer 

 covering of our globe. And although Geology borrows from Aero- 

 physics the general laws and principles which it uses, in examining 

 the structure and revolutions of the earth ; the other sciences of this 

 department do the same, whenever they find occasion. Thus, the 

 Zoologist employs the laws of Mechanics, in studying animal mo- 

 tion ; and the Mineralogist,, particularly, is guided by the light of 

 Chemistry, in his difficult and often dubiou's path. In arranging 

 these sciences among themselves, we have been governed by the 

 consideration that Geology is absolutely dependent on all the others, 

 for the means of its advancement : since a knowledge of Zoology, 

 and even of Botany, is necessary to the study of the organic re- 

 mains, from which Geology derives many of its most important 

 conclusions. We have therefore placed Geology last in this group, 

 although it thereby interrupts the connexion between Zoology and 

 the Medical Sciences. 



As the study of Idiophysics, essentially requires the means of 

 distinguishing each object, of which it treats, it should be based on 

 a classification of all natural objects; or a System of Nature; 

 founded on the most permanent and important properties, or pecu- 

 liarities, of these objects ; and so arranging them, that those which 



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