15 Feb. 1815

Didacologia

Ch. Art & Science Division

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Physioplastic, anthropoplastic - to /by/ one or other of these appellatives will the condition of all beings by which any part of the field of Somatics is seen to be occupied, be found referable; physioplastic, the state in which, being found in the bosom, they are supposed to have been formed by the hands, of nature; anthropoplastic, the state into which, after having been torn from the bosom of nature, they have been brought by the hands of man /human labour/.

The labour or course of the operations by which, under the hands of man, forms are given to bodies different in any respect from those into which they are cast by nature, may be considered at two different stages or points of time: viz. 1. The stage during which, with a view to the advancement whether of art or science, or of both in one, trials are made of the different forms into which they may be cast, of the different properties immediately or eventually conducive to man's well-being, they may be discovered or made to possess, and of the different points of view in which, for that purpose, they may be contemplated and subjected to examination. 2. The stage at which, by the light of a more or less considerable mass of knowledge, derived from such trials, means having been found of casting them into such and such useful forms, and thereby enduing them with such and such useful properties, the casting them into these forms, and enduing them with these properties, has become the regular and extensive result of an established course of practice.

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