MINERAL PHYSIOLOGY 



AX ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF 



VASSAR BROTHERS' INSTITUTE, 



November 28, 1882. 



BY T. STERRY HUNT, LL. D., F. R. S. 



In accepting an invitation to address yon on this occa- 

 sion, I have considered that, although the plan of your 

 Institute includes letters and art as well as natural 

 science, you have honored me with your choice because 

 I have become somewhat known to you as a student of 

 the latter, and will expect from me a discourse on some 

 theme relating to that division of human knowledge. 

 At the same time, a consciousness of my own deficiencies 

 and limitations would prevent me from attempting to 

 speak of subjects which rightly belong to other students. 

 I shall therefore content myself with a discussion of 

 some of the relations of science to nature, which may 

 serve as an introduction to the consideration of certain 

 problems of the inorganic world connected with geologi- 

 cal history. 



The term science, when used without qualification, is 

 vague, and requires farther definition. Any organized 

 branch of human knowledge is properly called a science. 

 Thus, for example, there is a science of mathematics, a 

 science of psychology, a science of theology, and a science 

 of political economy ; but in popular language we mean 

 none of these when we speak of science. To the mathe- 

 matician belongs the study of space and of number, and 

 to others the consideration of man in his intellectual, 

 moral, social and political relations, but by a general 

 understanding the scientific man is one who is learned 

 in some branch of science or knowledge pertaining to 

 the material world ; in astronomy, physics, chemistry. 



