And inasmuch as the partly deductive and partly experimental
methods of treatment to which Newton and others subjected these branches
of human knowledge, showed that the phenomena of nature which belonged
to them were susceptible of explanation, and thereby came within the
reach of what was called "philosophy" in those days; so much of this
kind of knowledge as was not included under astronomy came to be spoken
of as "natural philosophy"--a term which Bacon had employed in a much
wider sense. Time went on, and yet other branches of science developed
themselves. Chemistry took a definite shape; and since all these
sciences, such as astronomy, natural philosophy, and chemistry, were
susceptible either of mathematical treatment or of experimental
treatment, or of both, a broad distinction was drawn between the
experimental branches of what had previously been called natural history
and the observational branches--those in which experiment was (or
appeared to be) of doubtful use, and where, at that time, mathematical
methods were inapplicable. Under these circumstances the old name of
"Natural History" stuck by the residuum, by those phenomena which were
not, at that time, susceptible of mathematical or experimental
treatment; that is to say, those phenomena of nature which come now
under the general heads of physical geography, geology, mineralogy, the
history of plants, and the history of animals.
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