On the Nomenclature of the Physical Sciences. 461 



in that sense by some experiment of Regnault's, that he took it 

 in its natural sense, and transferred it to his book. 



The character of elementary scientific books has become a 

 matter of great importance since the recognition in our old 

 Universities of physical studies as instruments of education. It 

 is for this reason alone that I have thought it worth while to 

 offer these remarks for publication in the Philosophical Magazine. 



Oxford, October 27, 1864. 



LVI. On the Nomenclature of the Physical Sciences, 

 By C. J. Monro*. 



IN a paper lately published in the Philosophical Transactions, 

 Professor Thomson has called the Astronomer Royal a natu- 

 ralist. It would not be more inconsistent with English usage 

 to call him a physician ; but the most startling innovation 

 seemed better than to call anybody a natural philosopher. What- 

 ever is or ought to be the meaning of philosophy, it has nothing 

 to do with special branches of science. To use the word in this 

 manner is to do violence to its history, and is inconsistent with 

 its modern application in other connexions. 



But I venture to think that the reform leaves untouched the 

 most serious vice of the misnomer. Vi philosophy is more grossly 

 misused in the substantive, nature is more gravely misused in 

 the adjective. Even as far as it goes, the advantage of the 

 change is not unqualified : by rescuing the word philosophy from 

 its misuse in the term natural philosophy , we shall sacrifice the 

 distinction between natural philosophy and natural history. The 

 distinction is ill expressed indeed, and even, if I rightly under- 

 stand the usage on the subject, inaccurately drawn ; but it is 

 real at bottom. Natural history describes things, to speak 

 roughly, as they come : it comprehends the typical examples of 

 what Dr. Whewell calls the classincatory sciences. Natural phi- 

 losophy analyzes its object ; but perhaps because we have a good 

 deal restricted our view to a particular kind of analysis, mathe- 

 matical analysis, it is assumed that its object consists exclusively 

 of things without life. 



However, the whole system is in confusion. In the classifica- 

 tion of the physical sciences we meet the word nature, or the cor- 

 responding Greek word in different forms, of which none sug- 

 gests its own meaning much more than the meaning of any 

 other. 



In the first place we have the general term physical science, 

 or, as Mr. Faraday apparently prefers to say, natural knowledge. 

 * Communicated by the Author. 



