302 ON LIFE AND ORGANISATION. 



Note IV. p. 286. 



"absorbs in its progress." 



The gradual absorption of one science by another is merely a 



higher form of induction, and a necessary consequence of the finite 



nature of the human faculties. We acquire knowledge as we 



ascertain the peculiarities of a country which we enter for the 



first time from the sea. We are compelled to approach all subjects 



of inquiry ah extra. We become aware at first only of their salient 



points ; as we advance in our examination, the points dilate into 



masses ; and as we at length fairly enter a particular district of 



investigation, the points and masses blend more or less completely 



into one harmonious whole, or confuse and distract for a time by 



their number and complexity. The isolated phenomena and 



observations which gave origin to magnetism, electricity, galvanism. 



electro-magnetism, thermo-electricity, organic electricity, and the 



physiology of the nerve-fibre, were salient points of a number of 



apparently independent subjects, but which, in the progress of 



discovery, have blended more or less completely with one another, 



and will undoubtedly, at no distant period, form one continuous 



whole. And so it is with every other department of inquiry. 



The mind is therefore necessitated, from its finite nature and the 



laws of its constitution, to prosecute inquiry in different directions 



and from different aspects, and thus to amass for itself departments 



of knowledge, at first independent, but destined sooner or later to 



blend together. This blending together of different departments 



again results from their accordance with the whole (rb £v), as far 



as we are capable of investigating it. We can never comprehend 



the to Ik ; but we can apprehend as much of it as our senses and 



self-consciousness, framed in harmony with it, are fitted to reach. 



And thus it is that acquired knowledge must ever be fragmentary ; 



that it has originated, and will originate, in centres apparently 



independent ; which again, in as far as our faculties permit, will 



expand and blend into masses, which will be but portions of the 



infinite whole. 



