date

22 Feb. 1815 Didacologia 7
22 Feb. 1815

Didacologia

7 3

Ch. Art

'. Use

When upon taking a further step, we come to the word philosophy, the misrepresentation, instead of receiving any correction is rendered still more flagrant. Instead of a state of, or acquisition made by the understanding, and that alone, that which the term philosophy was originally employed to designate, and which, even now, it ceases not to convey to those who are more or less acquainted with the language from which it has been borrowed, is a state of the affections, a sentiment or affection of love and good-liking. Of good-liking in relation to what ? - Why, even to wisdom. And what is wisdom ? - A term of wide and imperfectly determined import, employed not so much to designate science as to designate an habitually correct state of the judgment, or judicial faculty, to whatsoever subjects, considered as applied, but more particularly, to such as are regarded as standing distinguished, in respect of their importance, in the highest degree.

As in its original import, this term Natural Philosophy is scarcely expressive of any idea which it is employed to express; hence it is, that, from the first to the last, in relation to this or that less extensive branch of science, a question may be, - does it belong to Natural History, or does it belong to Natural Philosophy ? whereas, under the terms physioplastic somatology, and anthropoplastic somatology, a clear line of demarkation between the two sciences, thus designated, is drawn at one stroke, and all such questions are nipped in the bud.

19
Similar Items
  • Title: [22 Feb. 1815 D Didacologia]
    Description: 22 Feb. 1815 D

    Didacologia

    5 1

    Ch. Art & Science Division

    '. Use

    The further we advance, the more clearly does /do/ the convenience of an apposite nomenclature and systematic arrangement, and the inconvenience of inapposite nomenclature and unsystematic arrangement become perceptible.

    Somatics being the name given to the branch /stem/, by the two adjuncts physioplastic and anthropoplastic, a designation which is correct, and to every one to whom the import attached to those adjuncts in the original language is familiar, an intelligible one is presented. By a person whose ignorance of all particulars contained in the respective fields of human science, should be as great as that of any person can be, the import of the two names, and accordingly the nature of the two branches of science would nevertheless be conceived and understood, so he were but apprized of the import of the Greek words correspondent to the word nature and the word man.

    So much for the apposite and systematic nomenclature and arrangement, now as to the inapposite and unsystematic. Of the two composing the inapposite appellative employed to designate physioplastic somatics, the word natural in so far as it went, was apposite and expressive. But when applied to designate the anthropoplastic branch of somatics, instead of being apposite and leading to truth, it leads of itself to error. What it gives you to understand is, that under the branch of science to which it thus gives name, in the observation made on the bodies which are the subjects of it, the state to which the consideration is confined is that into which they have been brought by the hands of nature, whereas the truth is, that the state in which alone they constitute, in a direct way, the subject of anthropoplastic somatology, is the state into which they have been brought, or are capable of being brought by the hand of man.

    17
  • Title: [22 Feb. 1815 Didacologia 6]
    Description: 22 Feb. 1815

    Didacologia

    6 2

    Ch. Art

    '. Use

    True it is that in anthropoplastic somatics without more or less regard paid to physioplastic somatics, that is, to the bodies which are constituted its subjects, and that too in the state in which they are its subjects, nothing could be done; for it is to physioplastic somatology that anthropoplastic somatology is indebted for all its subjects, for all the materials which it can have to work upon. But from this no such consequences follow as that, in any part, anthropoplastic and physioplastic are the same. By architecture, stone and wood are employed; but architecture is not, on this account, one and the same branch of art and science either with mineralogy or with botany.

    18
  • Title: [22 Feb. 1815 Didacologia 8]
    Description: 22 Feb. 1815

    Didacologia

    8 4

    Ch. Art & Science Division

    Instead of physioplastic and anthropoplastic, had the words pushpin and trapball been to the same extent, and for the same length of time, employed for the designation of the two branches of art and science, for the designation of which the terms Natural History and Natural Philosophy still continue to be employed, the change, instead of being for the worse, would have been rather for the better. By the word trapball, no person would have been tempted to regard as belonging to physioplastics what belongs to anthropoplastics; whereas, of the term Natural Philosophy, when thus applied, the tendency to produce this sort of misconception is, as hath just been seen, not inconsiderable. A word is not the more inconvenient, but the less inconvenient the less liable it is to lead men to confound with any object those objects from which it is most material that it should be distinguished.

    20