Condition of Dynamical Biology

We have to pass on to dynamical biology, which is very far indeed from having attained the clearness and certainty of the statical department of the science. Important as are the physiological researches of recent times, they are only preliminary attempts, which must be soundly systematized before they can constitute a true dynamical biology. The minds which are devoted to mathematical, astronomical, and physical studies are not of a different make from those of physiologists; and the sobriety of the former classes, and the extravagance of the latter, must be ascribed to the definite constitution of the simpler sciences and the chaotic state of physiology. The melancholy condition of this last is doubtless owing in part to the vicious education of those who cultivate it, and who go straight to the study of the most complex phenomena without having prepared their understandings by the practice of the most simple and positive speculation: but I consider the prevalent license as due yet more to the indeterminate condition of the spirit of physiological science. In fact, the two disadvantages are one; for if the true character of the science were established, the preparatory education would immediately be rectified.

This infantine state of physiology prescribes the method of treating it here. I cannot proceed, as in statical biology, to an analytical estimate of established conceptions.