Had Mr. Abernethy extended that collateral view which he justly insists on, to _all sorts of new depositions_, instead of confining it to the so-called "tumours," he would have detected how artificial was the division, and taken it at its just value; he would have found that he had excluded circumstances which not only led to a much more intimate knowledge of the relations on which those so-called tumours depend, but which confer a power of demonstrating easily, and in a more particular manner, to the most ignorant or prejudiced, those relations to a disordered state of the body, of which, without such assistance, it required a mind no less penetrative and suggestive than Abernethy's to give even a general enunciation. This defect essentially consisted in the vice we have before alluded to, and is nothing else but a violation of one of the rules most insisted on by Lord Bacon[28]. It proceeds, perhaps, from the habit of looking at subjects through a medium too exclusively anatomical, and by which even Mr. Hunter was sometimes, though exceptionally, hampered. Popularly, it was deducing conclusions from only a portion of the facts of the subject; but if Abernethy did not get the whole of the facts, and therefore missed some portion of the conclusions to be drawn from them, he at least avoided the error of inferring anything positive which the facts did not warrant. We hope, however, that the paper has been valuable, in enabling some of us to arrive at further views, which serve to confirm the truth and extend the application of those entertained by Abernethy. Now, to put the whole thing popularly, and to direct the public view to the common sense of the matter, it is obvious that if we want to know the real nature of any growth whatever—say a tumour, a plant, or an animal—we cannot do this by any examination of its structure _alone_. If we desire to know its nature, we must also examine its habits, food, climate, and the various influences to which it is subjected. If, indeed, this were once done, then it is very possible, on again seeing the structure _merely_, we might recognize its real relations, although we might still be glad to have any well-known substance to which we could compare it, if only to _record_ its identity. This is right enough, thus to _obtain_ the general knowledge before we _assume_ the particular. Again, suppose I had some ground growing all manner of plants, and twenty different sorts of fungi, what should I get by _merely_ examining the fibres of one or the other?