n and Sir John Lefevre, were
parties, is very nearly what I contend for. It gives the
order--Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Biology, Mental
Science (including Logic). In the working of that scheme, however,
Biology is made to comprehend both the mother science, Physiology, and
the two classificatory sciences, Botany and Zoology. Of course the
presence of two such enormous adjuncts cramps and confines the purely
physiological examination, which in my opinion should have full justice
done to it in the first instance: still, the physiology is not
suppressed nor reduced to a mere formality. Now, in any science scheme,
I would provide for the general sciences first, and take the others, so
far as expedient, in a new grouping, where those of a kind shall appear
together, and stand in their proper character, not as law-giving, but as
arranging and describing sciences. There is no more reason for coupling
Zoology with Physiology, than for tacking on Mineralogy to Chemistry.
In point of outward form, Mineralogy and Zoology are kindred subjects.

When the subjects are placed in the order that I have suggested, there
is an end of that promiscuous and random choosing that the arrangement
of the Commissioners suggests and encourages. To the specification of
the five heads of natural science, it is added, that the whole of the
1,000 marks may be gained by high eminence in any two; as if the choice
were a matter of indifference. Now, I cannot think that this suggestion
is in conformity with a just view of the continuity of science. When the
sciences are rightly arranged, there is but one order in the mother
sciences; if we are to choose a single science, it must be (with some
qualifications) the first; if two, the first and second, and so on. To
choose one of the higher sciences, Chemistry or Physiology, without the
others that precede, is irrational. Indeed, it would scarcely ever be
done, and for this reason. A man cannot have mastered Physiology without
having gone through Physics and Chemistry; and, although it is not
necessary that he should retain a hold of everything in these previous
sciences, yet he is sure to have done enough in both one and the other
to make it worth his while to take these up in the examination. So a
good chemist must have so much familiarity with Physics, as to make it
bad economy on his part not to give in Physics as well. The only case
where an earlier science might be dropped is Mathematics