CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS 



IN RELATION TO 



PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY, 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES. 



THE history of science teaches us, that every branch of physics comprised at its 

 commencement nothing beyond a series of observations and experiments, whitfy \ , . 



/ 



had no obvious connection with each other. 



SPECIAL LAWS OF NATURE. 



All advances in science were dependant upon the discovery of new facts, by 

 which two or more previously observed experiments were made to bear upon each 

 other. The first step gained was the deduction of special laws, which embraced 

 in themselves the connection of a certain number of natural phenomena ; the next 

 was the attainment of general laws, or what was the same thing, of certain 

 expressions of the dependence or connection of a larger, or smaller series of 

 experiments. 



GENERAL LAWS OF NATURE. 



Many branches of physics as mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, acoustics, the 

 theory of heat, &c., have been elevated to the rank of abstract sciences, in conse- 

 quence of their permitting all known cases of the phenomena of motion, air, 

 sound, heat, &c., to be traced through a series of syllogisms to certain truths, or to 

 a very small number of undoubted facts, which not only unite together those 

 already known, but also those yet remaining to be discovered; so that a new iso- 

 lated series of conclusions is not requisite to the explanation of new phenomena, 

 or experiments. 



If we can regard it as undoubted that not only the phenomena of inanimate 



(5) 



