15 Feb. 1815

Didacologia

Ch. Art & Science Division

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In their physioplastic state, in the state in which, fashioned by the hand of nature, they are found in the bosom of nature, bodies from the contents and subject of that portion of the field of Somatics which is so commonly but so improperly designated by the appellation of Natural History, and which the term Physiology having, by a narrower application, been unfitted for this use, may more aptly and expressively, it should seem, be designated by the term Physiognosy.

In so far as they are considered as forming the subject of these preliminary trials and examinations which, as above, serve as the foundations for those ulterior operations by which they are rendered subservient to general use, they form the contents of that portion of the field of Somatics which also, very generally, but not the less inappropriately, has been termed sometimes Natural Philosophy, sometimes Experimental Philosophy, but which neither unaptly nor unexpressively, may, it is supposed, be termed Empiric Somatology.

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