The substance of a lecture, designed as an introduction to the study of anatomy considered as the science of organization ; and delivered at the re-opening of the school, founded by ... Joshua Brookes, Esq. in Blenheim Street October 1st, 1833 / by Thomas King.

Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The substance of a lecture, designed as an introduction to the study of anatomy considered as the science of organization ; and delivered at the re-opening of the school, founded by ... Joshua Brookes, Esq. in Blenheim Street October 1st, 1833 / by Thomas King. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    person has a good knowledge of Anatomy, meaning the structure of the body ; that Anatomy is useful, meaning the knowledge of that structure ; that Anatomy is not unattended with danger, meaning dissection. But it has a more extensive and important signification, especially among men of Science. By those who have thought most deeply and written most usefully on Anatomy, the term is employed to designate the Science of Organization ; and, we take it in this signi- fication, although, etymologically, it may not he so applicable as the word Organography. If, even, we used it in the restricted senses just mentioned, I should still have to introduce Anatomy to you as a part of the Science of Organization : and as, to know a part, you must have some conception of the whole; an Introductory Lecture ought still, it seems to me, to have for its object to give you that conception. In either case, then, our course would be the same. The Bodies of the Universe which have organs, exercising, for a time, certain actions, so independently of external circumstances that the aggregate of these actions is called life, are termed Organized ; and the knowledge of the manner in which they are organized, or of the laws and principles of their construction is the Science of Organization. Embra- cing all Organized Beings, it has been, of necessity, subjected to many divisions and subdivisions for the purpose of convenience ; and, indeed , to render its study possible : for, it is so vast and comprises such an immensity of facts and phenomena, that the mind is iucapable of re- ceiving and associating them, unless arranged in classes, so that the memory can retain the most important of them. These divisions are made for the same purpose as the grander divisions of the entire of human knowledge into separate Sciences. And, here let me remind you that all are strictly artificial. Knowledge has no real or natural divisions; its parts are not separate, but links of one great chain. They are, even, less conceivably separate and disconnected than the substantial bodies of the Universe, (which also can have no separation or intervals between them) and constitute one continuous, uninter- rupted circle. You mark it out into segments, the better to examine and become acquainted with it; just, as in the survey of any terri- tory, you would mark it out into districts. Human knowledge, as regards its unity, is well represented by a tree, the roots, trunks and branches of which are without disconnection ; and, in this relation you will do well to consider the different branches of the Science of