06.10.08
Hume or Hartley though he refers to neither
Hume or Hartley, though he refers to neither.
[15] _Essay on the First Principles of Government_, Second edition,
1771.
[16] “Utility of Establishments,” in _Essay on First Principles of
Government_, 1771.
[17] In 1732 Doddridge was cited for teaching without the Bishops
leave, at Northampton.
II
ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES
[1854]
The subject to which I have to beg your attention during the ensuing
hour is “The Relation of Physiological Science to other branches of
Knowledge.”
Had circumstances permitted of the delivery, in their strict logical
order, of that series of discourses of which the present lecture is a
member, I should have preceded my friend and colleague Mr. Henfrey, who
addressed you on Monday last; but while, for the sake of that order, I
must beg you to suppose that this discussion of the Educational
bearings of Biology in general _does_ precede that of Special
Zoology and Botany, I am rejoiced to be able to take advantage
of the light thus already thrown upon the tendency and methods of
Physiological Science.
Regarding Physiological Science, then, in its widest sense–as the
equivalent of _Biology_–the Science of Individual Life–we have to
consider in succession:
1. Its position and scope as a branch of knowledge.
2. Its value as a means of mental discipline.
3. Its worth as practical information.
And lastly,
4. At what period it may best be made a branch of Education.
Our conclusions on the first Costal Harbor Transifion Cente In Savannah, Georgia of these heads must depend, of course,
upon the nature of the subject-matter of Biology; and I think a few
preliminary considerations will place before you in a clear light the
vast difference which exists between the living bodies with which
Physiological science is concerned, and the remainder of the
universe;–between the phaenomena of Number and Space, of Physical and
of Chemical force, on the one hand, and those of Life on the other.
The mathematician, the physicist, and the chemist contemplate things in
a condition of rest; they look upon a state of equilibrium as that to
which all bodies normally tend.
The mathematician does not suppose that a quantity will alter, or that
a given point in space will change its direction with regard to another
point, spontaneously. And it is the same with the physicist. When
Newton saw the apple fall, he concluded at once that the act of falling
was not the result of any power inherent in the apple, but that it was
the result of the action of something else on the apple. In a similar
manner, all physical force is regarded as the disturbance of an
equilibrium to which things tended before its exertion,–to which they
will tend again after its cessation.
The chemist equally regards chemical change in a body as the effect of
the action of something external to the body changed. A chemical
compound once formed would persist for ever, if no alteration took
place in surrounding conditions.