A wide range of the animal and vegetable kingdom,
including cats, dogs and birds of various species, were thus
analyzed. The practice of dissection was introduced on a large
scale. That of the cadaver of an elephant occupied several
sessions, and was of such interest that the monarch himself was a
spectator.
To the same epoch with the formation and first work of these two
bodies belongs the invention of a mathematical method which in its
importance to the advance of exact science may be classed with the
invention of the alphabet in its relation to the progress of
society at large. The use of algebraic symbols to represent
quantities had its origin before the commencement of the new era,
and gradually grew into a highly developed form during the first
two centuries of that era. But this method could represent
quantities only as fixed. It is true that the elasticity inherent
in the use of such symbols permitted of their being applied to any
and every quantity; yet, in any one application, the quantity was
considered as fixed and definite. But most of the magnitudes of
nature are in a state of continual variation; indeed, since all
motion is variation, the latter is a universal characteristic of
all phenomena.
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