REVIEW— THE ECONOMY OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 647 
on the other hand, the successful physician commonly has no pre- 
tensions to a minute knowledge of anatomy.” 
“ The truth, then, is — that pure or unlimited anatomy does not 
belong to medicine : it is a mistake to regard it as a subordinate 
branch of hygiene ; a mistake which oppresses medicine with a 
load of alien materials, and degrades universal anatomy to a state 
of unnatural subservience. The mariner is not ex-officio an astro- 
nomer, although astronomy is applied in navigation. The compass 
needs but its own observations of the starry heavens : therapeutics 
and dietetics require their own research into the human body. 
Beyond and above the anatomy which is applicable to these high 
arts, there is a vast field of knowledge, which belongs to no one 
calling, and lends itself to no single material use. The microsco- 
pist, who peers into the unfathomable azure of nature’s purest field, 
is not the pioneer of medicine, but the minister of natural philoso- 
phy, standing beside a well of principles, of which the useful arts 
and sciences are but remote derivations. He appears to be con- 
nected with medicine at present, because medicine has probably 
born and bred him ; because her children understand his terms, 
can apprehend his discoveries, and receive his instructions ; more- 
over, because no other class has yet seen needful to open a com- 
munication with the vein of his knowledge. But this relation is 
not to be perpetual ; even as the parental affection is not to con- 
tinue when the child becomes a man. As chemistry once dwelt 
with medicine, so does anatomy now*. But chemistry has long 
since flown over the whole globe of the arts, and introduced herself 
to each ; and in process of time anatomy will do the same — nor 
minister only to the arts, but to the deepest ideas and purposes 
of the mind — to the ordination of civil life, to philosophy and 
theology.” 
“ It will probably be found that, in these respects, all the 
sciences are in nearly the same position as geometry. Thus we 
have pure and applied geometry ; we may also have pure and ap- 
plied anatomy. Any walk of nature, cultivated in the light of 
mere knowledge, is, in this sense, a pure science : when one 
or more aspects of such knowledge are turned to use, it constitutes 
an applied science, or an art*; and no pure science can serve 
an art without receiving limits which do not belong to it per 
* “ Chemistry was long known only as it was serviceable to the physician, 
for the preparation of his purgatives and emetics. Whilst it was thus 
grafted on the medical sciences, it could obtain no independent position. 
But chemistry is capable of being made subservient to far higher offices : it 
may be employed as a means of cultivating the mind, of training the human 
faculties for the universal investigation of nature.” — Liebig's Familiar Letters 
on Chemistry , 2d Series, p. 4-5. London, 1844. 
