Subjects of research in State Laboratories. 191 



ments for the simpler pure sciences and even for 

 biology. 



It is manifest that the arguments which support the 

 proposition for professorships of original research in 

 those sciences apply in a greater or less degree to 

 other sciences ; and it has been stated that " there is 

 no ground upon which the scheme can be limited to 

 the subject of natural philosophy." In reference to 

 this remark, (which, like most objections, contains 

 some truth), it must be remembered that there is a 

 natural order of dependence of the sciences upon each 

 other, in which order also they are being evolved. It 

 is a general truth that the physical sciences of light 

 and heat are based upon mechanical conditions of the 

 particles of matter ; that the science of chemistry is 

 founded upon physics ; that biological phenomena 

 are dependent upon physical and chemical conditions; 

 that psychological subjects are based upon biology ; 

 and that biological science cannot progress excepting 

 in proportion to the advance of the sciences on which 

 it is based. In addition to this general order of pre- 

 cedence of evolution in point of time, the various 

 sciences are so mutually related that all must advance 

 together, the simple ones taking the lead, and the 

 concrete and more complex sciences, with their at- 

 tendant arts, following behind. 



As this natural order of dependence and develop- 

 ment of the sciences is a great fact of nature, over 

 which we have little or no control, and as a scheme 

 for the simultaneous establishment of professorships 

 of research in all the sciences, simple, complex, and 



