A manual of physiology : including physiological anatomy / by William B. Carpenter.

  • William Benjamin Carpenter
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of physiology : including physiological anatomy / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/690 (page 13)
    20. Air sciences have their 'ultimate facts;' that is, facts for i^hich no other cause can be assigned than the Will of the Creator, ['hus, in Physics, we cannot ascend above the fact of Attraction which operates according to a simple and universal law) between ,11 masses of matter; and in Chemistry, we cannot rise beyond the act of Affinity (limited by certain conditions which are not yet well mderstood) between the particles of different kinds of matter. /Vhen we say that we have explained any phenomenon, we merely mply that we have traced its origin to properties with which we vere previously acquainted, and shown that it takes place in accord- tnce with the known laws of their operation. Of the existence of he properties, and the determination of the conditions of their iction, we can give no other account than that the Creator willed hem so to be; and, in looking at the vast variety of phenomena to \rhich they give rise, we cannot avoid being struck with the general larmony that exists amongst them, and the mutual dependence and idaptation that may be traced between them, when they are con- idered as portions of the general economy of Nature.—There is no liflference in this respect between Physiology and other sciences; ixcept that the number of these (apparently) ultimate facts is at )resent greater in physiology than it is elsewhere, because we are lot yet able to include them all under any more general expression. But the march of discovery tends decidedly towards simplification; Lnd its generalizations will be more sure, the wider the basis of facts >n which they are founded, and the greater the caution exercised in srecting them. 21. In the study of any branch of science, it is most desirable to iommence with definite views of the nature of the phenomena with vhich it is concerned; and such are best gained by the examination )f these phenomena under their simplest aspects. This course is nost especially necessary in Physiology; since the complexity of ;he conditions under which its phenomena usually present them- ielves, often tends to mask their real character, causing that to be 'egarded as essential which is only accidental or contingent, and lice versa. It is extremely difficult, however, and frequently impos- sible, for the Physiologist to isolate these several conditions, and to study them separately, in the way that the Chemical or Physical nvestigator would do ; and his best course is to take advantage of ihose experiments ready prepared by Nature, which he finds in jhe variety of forms of living organized beings, with which this jlobe is so richly peopled. Now it is in the simplest forms of Oryptogamic Vegetation, that the phenomena of Life present them- selves under their least complicated aspect; for we shall find in the 3perations of each of those simple cells of which such Plants are 3omposed (all of them resembling one another in structure and ictions), an epitome, as it were, of those of the highest and most 3omplex Plant; whilst those of the higher Plants be;ir a close cor-