THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Sept. 1, 1864. 



b-2 ON THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES WHICH FORM 



next it is geology, and next to that mineralogy. At the tip of the other 

 horn stands chemistry, next it is mechanics, next to that heat, light, 

 electricity, and magnetism. In the centre of the crescent stands the 

 remarkable science which we have still to consider — namely, biology. 

 It includes botany, the science of plants and plant life, and zoology, 

 the science of animals and animal life. These sciences, in popular 

 estimation, alone constitute natural history, and are often referred to 

 as if they were solely observational and analytical ; but they are trans- 

 formational in a remarkable way, and furnish the industrialist with 

 most important instruments for effecting changes upon matter. After 

 death, plants and animals furnish to the botanist and anatomist end- 

 less subjects for the observation and analysis of peculiarities of form, 

 structure, and function. To the practical chemist also and the mecha- 

 nician they supply the raw or genetic materials, such as wood and wool, 

 of a thousand industrial arts. During life they are likewise objects of 

 observational science ; and in one respect are as much removed beyond 

 direct human interference as the objects of astronomy. Life builds up a 

 barrier round plants and animals which we may not overpass, except at a 

 few places. We cannot experiment on them in the way we can on dead 

 objects ; for interference with them, to any considerable extent, either 

 sacrifices life, or so alters its conditions, that a dead or diseased thing is 

 left in our hands. Nevertheless, every living plant and animal is for 

 the industrialist a machine or apparatus, possessed of remarkable trans- 

 forming and transmuting powers, which, to a very considerable extent, 

 may be controlled, directed, and even modified by him. And if living 

 organisms cannot be wielded as tools or weaj>ons in the same way as in- 

 organic machines can, there is this great compensation in the fact that, 

 to the extent an organism can be wielded by us, it enables us to add to 

 the transforming and transmuting powers of mechanical and chemical 

 force, which alone are available in the dead machine, the metamor- 

 phosing power of vital force. Differences of opinion may exist as to the 

 essential peculiarity of this force, but there can be none as to the prac- 

 tical advantage of regarding it as distinct from mechanical and che- 

 mical force. I will go further, and apply the term metamorphosis to the 

 kind of change which vitality specially induces in matter, so that, ac- 

 cepting the confessedly arbitrary employment of terms which I have 

 proposed, we shall speak of a mechanical transformation, a chemical 

 transmutation, and a vital metamorphosis. 



Looked at from this point of view, biology yields to none of the 

 sciences in industrial importance. Translated into practice, it gives us 

 agriculture, an art so peculiar and extensive, that, like medicine, it de- 

 mands all the energies of an entire profession. It is not my province to 

 discuss agriculture, but there are certain industrial aspects of the biology 

 on which it reposes requiring notice here. 



Animal force is of immense importance to all the useful arts ; first, 

 as a motive, secondly, as a transformative power. In these days of rail. 



