266 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



from the general mass of learning, segregating 

 into secondary units ; and, from a general amal- 

 gam of scientific knowledge, mathematics, astron- 

 omy, physics, chemistry, geology, mineralogy, 

 zoology, botany, agriculture, even physiology (the 

 offspring of anatomy and chemistry) were begin- 

 ning to assert claims to individual and distinct 

 existence. It was in the Stewart reigns that, in 

 England at any rate, the specialist began to 

 emerge from those who hitherto had " taken all 

 knowledge to be " their " province/' 



Certain of the sciences, such as anatomy, 

 physiology and, to a great extent, zoology and 

 botany, had their inception in the art of medicine. 

 But the last two owed much to the huntsman 

 and the agriculturist. During the preceding cen- 

 tury, the great Belgian anatomist Vesalius had 

 broken loose from the bond of the written word 

 which had strangled research for a thousand 

 years, and had looked at the structure of the 

 human body for himself ; he taught what he 

 could himself see and what he could show to his 

 pupils. Under him, anatomy was the first of the 

 natural sciences to break loose from the scholastic 

 domination which had hitherto ever placed au- 

 thority above experiment. 



