420 HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



can have to say respecting the history of Physio- 

 logy must need great indulgence on the part of the 

 reader. 



Yet here, as in other cases, we may, by guiding 

 our views by those of the greatest and most phi- 

 losophical men who "have made the subject their 

 study, hope to avoid material err ours. Nor can we 

 well evade making the attempt. To obtain some 

 simple and consistent view of the progress of phy- 

 siological science, is in the highest degree important 

 to the completion of our views of the progress of 

 physical science. For the physiological or organical 

 sciences form a class to which the classes already 

 treated of, the mechanical, chemical, and classifica- 

 tory sciences, are subordinate and auxiliary. Again, 

 another circumstance which makes physiology an 

 important part of our survey of human knowledge, 

 is, that we have here a science which is concerned, 

 indeed, about material combinations, but in which 

 we are led almost beyond the borders of the mate- 

 rial world, into the region of sensation and percep- 

 tion, thought and will. Such a contemplation may 

 offer some suggestions which may prepare us for 

 the transition from physical to metaphysical specu- 

 lations. 



In the survey which we must, for such purposes, 

 take of the progress of physiology, it is by no means 

 necessary that we should exhaust the subject, and 

 attempt to give the history of every branch of the 

 knowledge of the phenomena and laws of living 



