PREFACE 



THE present brief Treatise is essentially a suggestive work, 

 not a demonstrative one. 



The writer can refer to no one part as being more attrac- 

 tive, or more important, than another. So much will 

 depend upon the individual tastes of the reader, as to where 

 they are directed, or as to the particular vein of thought 

 which he has most cultivated. 



The work divides itself into three parts : (i) Vital 

 Physics, (2) Animal Morphology, and (3) Epidemics ; to 

 which is added a short Essay upon, or rather against, the 

 Detrital Theory of Geology a science which records the 

 life of a past world, but now entombed in the rocks on the 

 surface of the earth. These either directly or indirectly 

 connect themselves with the present, and, though dead, yet 

 they speak to the living of ages gone by. 



In place of giving a table of Contents, or a long Preface, 

 an Introduction is given, which is an Epitome of the Text. 

 In style and substance it is simply a Syllabus of the whole, 

 and is intended to give, in an abrupt form, a concise Outline 

 of the Treatise. 



M3G06G7 



