PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIAKUM 
 
 AND 
 
 A HISTORY OF CLASSIFICATIONS 
 
 OF THE SCIENCES 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIMTIA SCIENTIARUM 
 
 AND 
 
 A HISTOET OF CLASSIFICATIONS 
 OF THE SCIENCES 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT FLINT 
 
 M 
 
 D.D., LL.D., F.R.8.B. 
 
 CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE J 
 
 HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF PALERMO ; AND 
 
 PROFESSOR (EMERITUS), EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MCMIV 
 
 All Rights reserved 
 
<\ 
 
PEEFATOEY NOTE. 
 
 VERY little requires to be referred to here. The Table 
 of Contents should render unnecessary any Index of 
 Names. The author's connection with the subject of 
 his book has been a lengthened one. When a mere 
 youth in Glasgow University he joined a number of 
 young men, among whom were representative Cana- 
 dians, Englishmen, Welshmen, and others, in forming 
 a Literary and Philosophical Society. As a member 
 and vice-president his contributions to it were two 
 essays, one on " Cartesianism " and the other on "The 
 Eelations of the Sciences." The former cost him a 
 study of two hundred old books in Latin and French, 
 but it soon got lost and never returned to him. The 
 latter he still possesses, and deems on the whole fairly 
 accurate so far as it goes. His dealing with such a 
 subject at all he attributes to the inspiration of the 
 greatest of his teachers, the Professor William Thom- 
 son of the time, the Lord Kelvin of to-day and of all 
 time. My study on the " Kelations of the Sciences " 
 did not deal at all with the history of the subject, but 
 
 363613 
 
VI PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 kept entirely to what was implied in the title. During 
 some years I was entirely engrossed with pastoral 
 duties. In 1864-65, my first session as Professor of 
 Moral Philosophy and Political Economy at St An- 
 drews, I gave some lectures on the connection of those 
 two sciences to other sciences. In 1867 I had begun 
 to think of constructing an elaborate work on the 
 Relations of the Sciences to one another, to Philosophy, 
 Eeligion, and Morality, and such a work was adver- 
 tised for a considerable number of years. The delay 
 and revocation must have been hard on the publishers, 
 but I suppose publishers get accustomed to such things. 
 For myself I deem it fortunate and even providential 
 to have had to change my intended course and follow 
 others where more urgent demands were made and 
 more obvious interests were at stake. A considerable 
 portion of the History of Classifications of the Sciences 
 appeared in America long prior to any portion of it in 
 Britain. The portion referred to will be found in the 
 July number of the Presbyterian Review for 1885. 
 Dr Briggs and Dr Patton were the chief editors of the 
 Review. Dr Calderwood, Dr Blaikie, Dr Croskery, 
 and I were associate editors for Great Britain. Never 
 can I forget the kindness and worthiness of them all. 
 Alas ! few of them now remain here below. May those 
 of us who are still here walk worthy of those who 
 have gone before. 
 
 R. FLINT. 
 
 1 MOUNTJOY TERRACE, MUSSELBURGH, N.B., 
 September 1904. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIAEUM 1-63 
 
 I. Philosophy should supplement the sciences . . 3-7 . 
 
 It should trace aright their boundaries and relationships 7-12 
 
 Should aid them effectively to co-operate. Examples . 12-16 
 
 Needed to counteract excessive specialism. Examples . 16-18 
 
 Eemarks on a passage of Wordsworth . . . 19-21 
 
 Philosophy should be a guide to education t . 21-23 
 
 Truths between as important as truths within the sciences 24-28 
 
 II. How philosophy should help to estimate aright the sciences 28-32 
 
 Philosophy as Critical . . . . .32-33 
 
 as Metaphysical ..... 33-36 
 
 as Practical ...... 37-38 
 
 how different from ordinary knowledge or positive 
 
 science . . ... . . 38-41 
 
 III. The various species of knowledge. Animal Mind . 41-51 
 
 Ordinary human knowledge . . . . 51-52 
 
 Scientific knowledge . . .'. . . 52-54 
 
 Philosophic knowledge ..... 54-56 
 
 Restatement of its stages or species . . . 57-62 
 
 Divine knowledge. Omniscience . . . . 62-63 
 
 A HISTORY OF CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES 67-340 
 
 First problem of scientia scientiarum i.e., positive 
 
 philosophy . . . . . . 67-68 
 
 I. FROM PLATO TO THE RENAISSANCE . . . 68-97 
 The Platonic attempt at a distribution of knowledge. 
 
 Erroneous views of it. Its merits and defects 68-77 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ' The Aristotelian scheme of classification so far an 
 advance on the Platonic distribution of knowledge. 
 
 Its encyclopaedic character .... 77-81 
 
 Has three great defects ..... 81-84 
 
 Modified Aristotelian classification . . . 84-86 
 
 Stoic and Epicurean distribution of sciences . . 86-88 
 
 From Capella and Cassiodorus to Bonaventura and Dante 88-97 
 
 II. FROM THE BENAISSANCE TO KANT . . . 97-131 
 
 In that interval were the classifications of Poliziano 
 
 and Nizolio ...... 97-99 
 
 Of Campanella . . . . . .99-103 
 
 OfDesCartes ...... 103-104 
 
 ' And of Bacon. For the Baconian distribution of 
 
 science see ...... 104-111 
 
 For criticism of it . . . . . 111-113 
 
 Alsted's Encyclopaedias and the pansophic systems of 
 
 Comenius and Weigel . .... 113-118 
 
 - Hobbes' classification of the sciences is in some respects 
 
 superior to Bacon's . . . . .118-122 
 
 - Locke's division of them is much inferior to both 
 
 Bacon's and Hobbes' . . . . .122-124 
 
 Leibniz showed it to be radically defective. His own 
 
 was so likewise ..... 124-126 
 
 Vico largely anticipated Comte . . ' . . 127-129 
 
 Wolffianism essentially encyclopaedic . . . 129-131 
 
 III. FROM KANT TO DE TRACY .... 132-161 
 
 Kant's scheme of the sciences . . . . 132-134 
 
 Objections to it . . . . . . 134-135 
 
 In Germany Sulzer, Gesner, Krug, and many others 
 attempted to exhibit encyclopaedic surveys of the 
 
 sciences ...... 135-141 
 
 The English Cyclopaedia and the French Encyclopedic . 141-142 
 
 D'Alembert's classification, and indication of its defects 142-147 
 
 Rise of the Doctrine of Science. Fichte and Schelling . 147-153 
 
 German distributions of the sciences from 1806 to 1816 153-154 
 
 Hegel and his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences 154-160 
 
 - De Tracy and his Cours d? Ideologic . . . 160-161 
 
 IV. FROM BENTHAM TO GIOBERTI .... 162-197 
 
 Bentham's classification formed by successive bifurca- 
 tions like a Eamean tree 162-164 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 IX 
 
 Coleridge's classification ..... 165-166 
 
 Jannelli's general distribution .... 166-167 
 
 Eomagnosi, Longo, and Ventura . . . 167-170 
 Ferrarese and De Pamphilis . . . .170-173 
 
 Neil Arnott's fourfold distribution and four funda- 
 mental sciences ... . . . . 173-175 
 
 Comte's classification stated and criticised . . 175-185 
 
 Also Ampere's . . . . ; ' . 185-191 
 
 Proudhon's substitution of a ternary for Ampere's 
 
 quaternary distribution % . ' - + . 191-193 
 Duval-Jouve's classification in his Traite de Logique 
 
 manifestly insufiicient . . . . 193 
 
 Views of Kosmini and Gioberti on classification of the 
 
 Sciences . . . . * . 193-197 
 
 V. FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER . . . . 197-239 
 
 WhewelFs classification elaborate but not always ration- 
 ally connected . . . . . . 197-202 
 
 Views of Lubbock, Lindsay, and Eamsay . . 202-203 
 Schopenhauer's scheme of distribution of the sciences 
 
 a very ingenious curiosity . . . . 203-204 
 
 Dove's classification of the sciences well presented . 204-208 
 
 Objections to it . . . . . . 208-213 
 
 Cournot's co-ordination of the departments of human 
 
 knowledge ...... 213-215 
 
 Wilson's reproduction of the Aristotelian classification 215-216 
 Hamilton's classification in Lectures on Metaphysics 
 
 (Lect. VII.) 217-221 
 
 Eenouvier's scheme and its defects . . . 221-224 
 Peccenini's Nuovo Albero Endclopedico and Di Gio- 
 vanni's Prindpii di Filosofia Prima . . 224-226 
 Spencer's classification stated and criticised . . 227-238 
 Zeller and Harms . . . . . . 239 
 
 VI. FROM BAIN TO WUNDT . . . . . 239-272 
 
 Bain's classification an improvement on Comte's and 
 
 superior to Spencer's ..... 239-244 
 
 Cantoni's Corso, Valdarnini's Principio, &c., and Pey- 
 
 retti's Istituzioni, &c. . . . . . 244-247 
 
 Labanca's three classes of sciences. See his Dialettica 
 
 (vol. ii. lib. iv. c. i.) 247-249 
 
 Conti's 11 VerojieU Ordine (2 vols. c. xi.) . . 249-250 
 
 B. Erdmann's " Gliederung der Wissenschaf ten " . 250-253 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Corleo's Sophology in his Sistema della Filosofia Univer- 
 
 sale ....... 253-254 
 
 Bourdeau's single linear series of fundamental sciences 254-255 
 
 Prof. Shield's Order of the Sciences . . . 255-259 
 H. M. Stanley's Classification of the Sciences, in Mind, 
 
 No. XXXIV 259-261 
 
 D. G. Thompson's scheme in his System of Psychology 
 
 (vol. i. pp. 76, 77) . . . 262-263 
 
 DeKoberty's/ow^rowps .... 263-267 
 Wundt's conclusions as to the classification of the 
 
 sciences ...... 267-272 
 
 VII. FROM MASARTK TO KARL PEARSON . . . 272-301 
 
 Masaryk's Versuch einer Concreten Logik . . 272-283 
 Adrien Naville's classification of the sciences . . 283-289 
 De la Grasserie's De la classification objective et sub- 
 jective des sciences, &c. .... 289-292 
 * Karl Pearson's classification of the sciences in his 
 
 Grammar of Science ..... 292-301 
 
 Criticisms of ..... 293, 295, 299, 300 
 
 VIII. FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME . . . 301-340 
 
 How Janet has dealt with classification of the sciences 301-306 
 
 Goblot's" system of the sciences" . . . 307-315 
 
 Stadler's contribution to organisation of the sciences . 315-320 
 
 Trivero's Classijicazione delle Scienze . . . 320-324 
 Durand's study of Taxinomy i.e., of classification 
 
 itself 324-326 
 
 History of classification of the sciences will not be 
 
 arrested ...... 326-327 
 
 . Influence of Anthropology, Ethnology, and Sociology 
 
 on organisation of the sciences . . . 328-338 
 
 Of Anthropology ..... 328-334 
 
 Of Ethnology ...... 335 
 
 Of Sociology ...... 335-338 
 
 Concluding Words ..... 338-340 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIAEUM 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIAKUM. 
 
 I. 
 
 HHHE sciences are parts of a great whole, the 
 members of a magnificent system. Each of 
 them has manifold relations to every other. But 
 the great whole, the magnificent system, to which 
 they belong is itself an object of knowledge. 
 Unless the intellectual universe be no real uni- 
 verse, but essentially a chaos, science must be 
 general as well as special ; or, in other words, there 
 must be a science of the sciences a science which 
 determines the principles and conditions, the limits 
 and relations, of the sciences. This science is 
 philosophy ; and what the author has to say in the 
 present chapter is meant to be a plea for philosophy 
 as the legitimate but often disavowed and insulted 
 queen of the sciences. "Time was," says Kant, 
 "when metaphysics was the queen of all the 
 sciences. But now it is the fashion to heap con- 
 
4 : -PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 tempt and scorn upon her, and the matron mourns, 
 forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba." The sciences, 
 however, cannot do without a queen. There may 
 be a republic of letters, but the sciences cannot 
 constitute a republic; they must be so connected 
 as to form a unity; and the science which refers 
 them to unity and shows that knowledge as a 
 whole is a cosmos is the supreme science, the queen 
 of the sciences. The want of practical recognition 
 of this truth is one main cause of the intellectual 
 anarchy of our times. 
 
 Philosophy as scientia scientiarum may have 
 more functions than one, but it has at least one. 
 It has to show how science is related to science, 
 where one science is in contact with another, in 
 what way each fits into each, so that all may 
 compose the symmetrical and glorious edifice of 
 human knowledge, which has been built up by the 
 labours of all past generations, and which all future 
 generations must contribute to perfect and adorn. 
 With whatever province of science a thoughtful 
 man occupies himself, he soon becomes aware that 
 it has intimate and manifold connections with other 
 provinces, and if he try to trace these connec- 
 tions out, he will ere long perceive that the sciences 
 are not isolated things, but so bound together as 
 to constitute a unity which is a reflection of the 
 unity of nature and of the unity of that Supreme 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 5 
 
 Eeason which pervades all nature and originates all 
 intelligence. Philosophy aims to raise the mind 
 gradually and legitimately to a point from which 
 this unity may be visible, while the distinctions of 
 the special sciences are not only not effaced, but 
 lie clearly and truthfully before it. If I seek to 
 vindicate and magnify this aim it is not because I 
 suppose its reasonableness is likely to be directly 
 and explicitly denied, but because its importance 
 can scarcely in the present day be too often or 
 strongly insisted on. There is many a truth which 
 is not contested, which receives a ready acqui- 
 escence of a sort, and yet which is very far from 
 being apprehended or generally acted on, because 
 the evidence for it is not so definitely and ade- 
 quately before the mind as to counteract influences 
 which tend to obscure it and make it practically 
 neglected. And that aspiration after insight into 
 the system of science as a whole should not be lost 
 in the study of details is pre-eminently such a truth. 
 
 Now, the first consideration which here suggests 
 itself is that philosophy, viewed as scientia scienti- 
 arum, is simply science which has attained to a 
 knowledge of the unity, self-consistency, and har- 
 mony of the teachings of the separate sciences. 
 Philosophy seeks to do for the sciences just what 
 each science does for the doctrines it comprehends. 
 
6 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 In the latter case separate truths are brought into 
 unity, and in the former separate sciences. The 
 one unity constitutes a science, the other a science 
 of the sciences, anc^. shows that absolutely there is 
 but one science, although it has various depart- 
 ments, whereby the incommensurableness of nature 
 is brought down to our capacities. The second and 
 higher unity is as natural, as legitimate, as im- 
 portant as the first and lower unities. It would 
 little avail, indeed, that these existed that there 
 was unity enough in things to permit of the forma- 
 tion of special sciences if there were no still more 
 comprehensive unity, if the point of view of each 
 science was in itself final, if each science was utterly 
 isolated from all others. If such were the case 
 there would be in science something essentially dis- 
 appointing to the human mind, for it would be of 
 its very nature calculated not to satisfy but to 
 thwart that love of unity which is the source and 
 life of all scientific research. If such were the case 
 truth would not form a fair and harmonious body, 
 but it would resemble the mangled and scattered 
 limbs of Osiris, while the human mind in its pursuit 
 would be engaged in a task more mournful than 
 that of Isis, because hopeless. It is not so, how- 
 ever, but 
 
 " The One through all in cycles goes, 
 And all to One returning flows." 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTTARUM. 7 
 
 Science is not sectioned into entirely unconnected 
 sciences. In all the sciences there is a certain 
 common nature, and among them there are many 
 ties of affinity and points of contact. There are 
 precedence and subordination, order and harmony, 
 among them ; so that, many and diverse as they 
 are, they form a whole, a system in which each of 
 them has its appropriate place, and, so far from 
 being sacrificed to any other, has a new dignity 
 imparted to it by being referred to the final unity 
 of reason, the common centre of knowledge. 
 
 Secondly, philosophy, as a comprehensive survey 
 of the sciences and a deeply grounded knowledge 
 of their principal relations to one another, is a 
 condition indispensable to a correct conception of 
 the special province of any science. The bound- 
 aries of most sciences are very ill-traced, their 
 definitions most irreconcilable. The first question 
 which the student of any science naturally asks, 
 What is it ? What is it about ? is one to which 
 he can often get no satisfactory answer one on 
 which he finds that all the doctors disagree. Take 
 logic. One logician will tell you its proper object 
 is thought as thought ; another, that it is the forms 
 as contradistinguished from the contents or matter 
 of thought ; another, that it is only the necessary 
 as distinct from the contingent forms of thought ; 
 
8 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 another, that it is only a kind of thought, mediate 
 or discursive thought ; another, that it is only a 
 kind of mediate or discursive thought inference ; 
 and still another, that it is not thought as thought, 
 nor any elements or kinds of thought, but qualities 
 of thought truth and error so far as involved in 
 the application of thought. And, it must be re- 
 marked, this opposition is in no way one between 
 old and new views, between transcended and effete 
 conceptions and those which actually prevail, but 
 one which exists between the most deliberately 
 formed convictions of the most eminent modern 
 logicians. Certainly it is a somewhat perplexing 
 puzzle to lie at the very entrance of a science. 
 The ingenuous youth who makes his first acquaint- 
 ance with logic by getting that nut thrust into his 
 mouth is not likely, if his teeth be sharp enough to 
 crack it, to find any subsequent problem too hard 
 for him. It is not much otherwise with psychol- 
 ogy, with rhetoric, with ethics, with politics, with 
 political economy. And as to metaphysics, it fares 
 far worse ; the discordance and embroilment there 
 baffle description, for, as Professor Ferrier so happily 
 said, " All the captains are sailing on different tacks, 
 under different orders, and under different winds ; 
 and each is railing at the others because they will 
 not keep the same course with himself. One man 
 is playing at chess, his adversary is playing against 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 9 
 
 him at billiards ; and whenever a victory is achieved 
 or a defeat sustained, it is always such a victory as 
 a billiard-player might be supposed to gain over a 
 chess-player, or such a defeat as a billiard-player 
 might be supposed to sustain at the hands of a 
 chess-player." 
 
 Now, how is such a state of things to be 
 remedied ? How are we to decide between the dis- 
 putants ? How make a choice for ourselves between 
 conflicting definitions ? It is obvious neither tradi- 
 tion nor authority can here help us, for not only are 
 they in themselves discordant and undecided, but 
 they have no right to overrule reason, which ought 
 to submit to evidence alone, and is unworthy of 
 itself when it listens to any other voice than that of 
 truth. Nor will it suffice to found our definitions 
 on the etymology and inherent significance of 
 names. That may wholly mislead. Words often 
 come to signify what is altogether different from 
 their intrinsic meaning, sometimes what is the 
 reverse of it. A manufacture, for instance, is not 
 what is made by the hand, but what is made 
 by machinery with little or no aid from the 
 hand. Words may be stretched or contracted, where 
 needful, to conform to realities, but realities are 
 not to be twisted in any way to conform to words ; 
 and it is not with words but realities that science 
 has to deal. It may be said, a science cannot be 
 
10 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 defined until after the study of its appropriate facts, 
 and when the study is sufficiently advanced the 
 definition comes of itself. And that is so far true. 
 Although first in the order of exposition, the defini- 
 tion of a science is late in the order of discovery 
 and presupposes a certain acquaintance with an 
 appropriate order of facts, expressing, as it does, 
 some essential characteristic which they all possess. 
 But the question is, the difficulty is, to determine 
 what is the appropriate order of facts, why the one 
 chosen and not another, why an order of a given 
 extent instead of one larger or smaller. All the 
 views of logic, for instance, to which I have referred 
 assign to it a natural order of facts, a sphere of real 
 knowledge worth acquiring, a sphere with distinct 
 enough boundaries ; and yet the natural orders 
 are not coincident, the boundaries are altogether 
 different, some going all round those of others, 
 and others intersecting one another in the most 
 perplexing ways. 
 
 Now, in such a case, it is obvious there is but 
 one mode of deciding who is right and who is 
 wrong, who has selected the proper group of facts 
 and who groups larger or smaller, who has traced 
 the boundaries of his science well and who ill. It is 
 by examining whose views give to their science a 
 place that fits in rightly into the scheme of science. 
 The question is one of adjustment. The logician 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 11 
 
 simply as logician cannot define logic, for that is an 
 affair of the settlement of boundaries between the 
 sort of knowledge he cultivates and contiguous 
 divisions of knowledge, such as metaphysics, 
 psychology, and rhetoric ; one, accordingly, which 
 can only be decided by a higher and more general 
 sort of considerations than belongs to any special 
 science by considerations as to the relations of the 
 sciences. And this holds universally. It is as 
 impossible to fix the position of a science without 
 reference to neighbouring sciences, and even to the 
 general system of the sciences, as to fix the position 
 of a nation without reference to surrounding nations, 
 and even to the general geography of the earth. In 
 this respect a general scheme of science is exactly 
 like a general map or like a terrestrial globe ; and 
 like such map or globe it supplies a want which can 
 no otherwise be provided for. An atlas with a 
 separate map of every state in the world cannot 
 dispense with, cannot supply the place of, a map 
 which will show them in relation ; nay, the more 
 complete an atlas is in special maps the more need 
 is there of a general one, because the more certainly 
 and the more deeply will the student without such 
 assistance be lost in details. And so with respect 
 to science. The more it becomes divided and sub- 
 divided, the more urgent, the more imperative 
 becomes a knowledge of its greater general outlines 
 
12 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 in order that each man may recognise how the 
 department he is specially conversant with is related 
 to others. The greater the multiplication of sciences 
 the more chaotic must be the effect they produce 
 unless the mind can locate them aright, can refer 
 them to their place in a system, and see how they 
 stand to one another and the whole. 
 
 What has now been said leads to a third 
 consideration in favour of philosophy as viewed 
 from our present standpoint. By a true co-ordina- 
 tion of the sciences and a comprehensive insight 
 into their natures, it must help us to see how 
 and when they can assist each other. There are 
 problems which require a combination of sciences 
 for their solution ; there are certain combinations 
 of the sciences possible, while others are absurd ; 
 and it is only through a clear apprehension of the 
 respective natures and relations of any two or 
 more sciences that we can perceive if one can be 
 made to operate with another to the attainment 
 of a given end. Some of the most important 
 advances which have occurred in the history of 
 science have been due to the associated action of 
 two or more sciences. A signal instance is 
 Descartes' application of the algebraic analysis to 
 define the nature and investigate the properties of 
 curve lines. It was only by the clearest conception 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 13 
 
 of the relations of the two sciences, algebra and 
 geometry, that he could have brought the symbols 
 and calculations of the one to bear on the problems 
 of the other, and thus start a new epoch in mathe- 
 matical science. A more modern instance of the 
 same kind is the union of chemistry and optics in 
 spectral analysis, by which the most singularly 
 interesting results as to the physical constitution 
 of the heavenly bodies have been attained. It will 
 be in the future as it has been in the past. Some 
 of the most difficult and important of the problems 
 which are at present attracting the curiosity and 
 trying the ingenuity of men can only, it is apparent, 
 find their solution from a happy combination of 
 chemistry and physiology ; others still more vital 
 only from the combination of physiology and psy- 
 chology ; and not a few are so complex that it is vain 
 to hope that they will be mastered otherwise than 
 by the conjoint and concentrated efforts of many 
 sciences. It is most erroneous to suppose, as some 
 persons do, that the true way to advance any study 
 is to devote the whole mind exclusively to it so as 
 to have no thought or interest beyond it. 
 
 The sciences advance by solving problems which 
 are often presented to them from without, and by 
 accepting hints and helps from all sides. Mathe- 
 matics itself, although it has in the character of 
 its fundamental conceptions an enormous advantage 
 
14 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 over all other knowledge as abstract science, has 
 found its chief stimulus in the requirements of the 
 natural philosopher, in the problems of astronomy, 
 mechanics, optics, heat, and electricity. " The 
 combinations arising out of external phenomena," 
 said Principal J. D. Forbes of St Andrews, "are 
 more suggestive of the possible relations of number 
 and quantity than is the most unlimited stretch of 
 fancy and imagination." And if even mathematics, 
 which is based on such singularly simple, precise, 
 definable, workable conceptions as number and 
 quantity, thus needs light from without, and only 
 prospers because readily responsive to external 
 suggestions, what can be expected from, say, logic, 
 psychology, or ethics, which have vastly vaguer 
 conceptions to start from, attempting to proceed 
 entirely from within, and ignoring the combinations 
 of human nature which are presented to us in 
 history, in literature, and in language ; what but 
 that which we not unfrequently see men working 
 their way laboriously and painfully into a world of 
 mere formulae, of words and nothing but words, 
 although doubtless big and brave words a region 
 of absolute emptiness, into which we may as well 
 not follow them, however much we may admire 
 the strength of constitution which enables such 
 privileged natures to sustain life in a vacuum? 
 Whatever may be fancied to the contrary, the 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 15 
 
 truth is that the researches and studies of the mere 
 specialist are never very productive. Special in- 
 vestigations only enrich science to any considerable 
 extent when they are directed and guided by 
 enlarged views ; they are only truly successful 
 when not exclusively special ; when, on the contrary, 
 the part or section of existence examined is looked 
 at by a reason illumined by a worthy and ample 
 idea of science ; a reason which sees the part in the 
 light of the whole and the whole as related to the 
 part. I do not deny that now and then, by a 
 lucky chance, a mere specialist may come across 
 something valuable ; that an entomologist who has 
 no interest in anything but beetles may detect 
 something in the eye or on the wing of some of 
 these creatures which wiser men than himself can 
 turn to good account ; or that the most unintelligent 
 local antiquarian may not find in some old document 
 or mound or ruin a fact which decides the fate of a 
 brilliant historical hypothesis : but I do affirm that 
 discoveries thus made are extremely rare. Have 
 not the most minute researches of recent botanists, 
 zoologists, physiologists, &c., had reference to the 
 vast generalisations and bold conjectures of a Spencer 
 and a Darwin? What special historical researches 
 have ended in the adequate solution of a complicated 
 and difficult problem, except those conducted by 
 men whose insight into the general providential 
 
16 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 plan of history, or at least of a large portion 
 of history, was clearer and more profound than 
 that of other men ? I know of none. Now, what 
 does all that amount to, but just that a study, a 
 science, is progressive and flourishing only in so far 
 as it is impelled and guided, penetrated and per- 
 vaded, by the spirit of philosophy ; that all scientific 
 discoveries whatever lie in the path along which 
 philosophy leads science along which science tends 
 towards philosophy ? 
 
 Philosophy, understood as has been explained, is, 
 I remark fourthly, fitted and needed to counteract 
 the evil intellectual and moral influences of special- 
 ism. We are all narrow by nature, and we require 
 to have our narrowness guarded against and cor- 
 rected, not confirmed and intensified. Different 
 minds have different natural aptitudes. These 
 different aptitudes find their appropriate spheres 
 of exercise in special studies and special depart- 
 ments of practical life. A man with a genius for 
 languages may have no turn for mathematics. The 
 born poet may be the reverse of specially qualified 
 for success either in science or business. The 
 shrewdness and decision of mind which go so far 
 to ensure success in the commercial world are 
 useful gifts anywhere, but will certainly count 
 for less in the world of learning than of traffic. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 17 
 
 Many a man who is great, and justly great, 
 among the merchant princes of the earth, could 
 never have been educated into a great scholar or 
 great speculative thinker, and that not from want 
 of mind but from constitutional peculiarities of 
 mind. Now, all such variety is wise and good. 
 It makes human nature so much the fuller revela- 
 tion of the divine nature ; human life so much the 
 broader; human history so much the richer. But 
 the same facts which show most distinctly how wide 
 are the thoughts of God are those which also show 
 most distinctly how narrow are the thoughts of men. 
 Individuals will have it that their excellences 
 are the only excellences the pursuits which they 
 prefer those which all men ought to prefer. 
 The poet looks down on the man of business as a 
 creature of low and grovelling habits, and the latter 
 in turn casts a sarcastic glance upwards to his 
 aerial friend, with the suspicion that he must find 
 his castles in the air, even by moonlight, very 
 poor places to live in. The distinguished classical 
 scholar need not be ashamed that he cannot stand 
 high in mathematics, yet he ought humbly to feel 
 that his failure is owing to the limitations of his 
 own individual intellect : but how apt is he instead 
 to attribute to mathematics the restrictions which 
 are in himself; to despise them, instead of learning 
 the true lesson to be drawn from every failure 
 
 B 
 
18 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 where we have earnestly striven to succeed a due 
 sense of one's own littleness. So the mathemati- 
 cian, making his own individuality the measure of 
 the whole universe of truth and culture, is prone 
 to contemn many of the inquiries of the philologist 
 as instances of learned trifling beneath the notice 
 of serious men. Physicists and psychologists have 
 never been noted for a candid appreciation of each 
 other's labours. Any unfortunate science which 
 happens to be not quite so strong as could be 
 wished, metaphysics for instance, is almost sure to 
 be fiercely set on by all the others, just as a poor, 
 lame, unpopular swan is occasionally assailed by 
 the whole flock of its companions. Now, there is 
 only one judgment, I think, to be formed of all 
 aversion of this sort, be it directed against what 
 object it may. All such aversion is evil. It is a 
 narrow and bad feeling which we ought to beware 
 of cherishing. Sectarianism in science, like sec- 
 tarianism in religion, is unlovely in itself and 
 baneful in its consequences. Just as nothing is 
 morally so ruinous as cultivating a habit of detect- 
 ing only the faults and failings of our fellow-men, 
 so nothing is intellectually more ruinous than 
 cherishing a habit of depreciation of any kind of 
 knowledge whatever. As in the moral life, al- 
 though we cannot attain to all good, we ought 
 carefully to cherish the love of all good, so in the 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 19 
 
 intellectual life, although we cannot attain to all 
 truth, we ought carefully to cherish the love of all 
 truth. But this, I need hardly say, is very difficult 
 to do in the present state of society, when the 
 division of scientific as well as of industrial func- 
 tions is extreme. 
 
 A great and thoughtful poet, struck with the 
 obvious and terrible dangers which, in consequence, 
 threaten the spiritual life, has said : 
 
 " . . . . Go demand 
 Of mighty nature if 'twas ever meant 
 That we should pry far off and be unraised, 
 That we should pore, and dwindle as we pore, 
 
 Viewing all objects unremittingly 
 In disconnection dead and spiritless ; 
 And still dividing, and dividing still, 
 Break down all grandeur, still unsatisfied 
 With the perverse attempt, while littleness 
 May yet become more little : waging thus 
 An impious warfare 'gainst the very life 
 Of our own souls." 
 
 Now truth and error are mingled there and must 
 be separated. It was meant by mighty nature that 
 we should go on, as we have been doing, " still 
 dividing, and dividing still"; it was meant that 
 we should break down all grandeur into its consti- 
 tuents ; that the life which we cannot create we 
 should yet in order to understand dissolve into its 
 elements and view them unremittingly, " dead and 
 
20 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 spiritless " although they be ; that we should be 
 unsatisfied " while littleness may yet become more 
 little," while division has not reached its utmost 
 limits, while analysis has anything more to do. 
 Division, analysis, is a necessary and inevitable 
 condition of progress both in life and science. 
 Every stage of progress must be consequent on a 
 stage of division, spontaneous or reflective, indus- 
 trial or scientific. We can well forgive a poet 
 being slow to believe in the existence of such a 
 law ; but the law exists, and it will not avail us to 
 ignore it, still less to resist it. This law, however, 
 like every other, requires to be watched and its 
 incidental evils guarded against. It is not more 
 true that it is one of the conditions on which the 
 progress of science and the advancement of society 
 depend, than that if left to itself, if not balanced 
 and counteracted by other agencies, it will arrest 
 science and destroy society. But nature has pro- 
 vided forces with which it has only to be rightly 
 adjusted in order that its action may be purely 
 beneficial. If in one respect the subdivision of in- 
 dustrial labour has a narrowing and anti-social influ- 
 ence, it has in the other respect, that it condenses 
 population within narrow circuits, associates intel- 
 ligences and forces, and multiplies the objects of 
 common interest, as well as the occasions for sym- 
 pathy and the facilities for education, an influence 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 21 
 
 altogether contrary, which has only to be made the 
 most of and secured to the side of truth and good- 
 ness in order that all the evils incident to the 
 specialisation of functions in modern industry may 
 be scarcely recognisable when laid by the side of its 
 benefits. In a general doctrine of science, the ex- 
 pression of that pure love of truth in its entirety 
 which is identical with the spirit of philosophy, there 
 is no less obviously a natural remedy for the evils 
 incident to the specialisation of the sciences. Such 
 a doctrine would enable the specialist to transcend 
 the bounds of his own department, to realise his 
 relation to science as a whole, and his own relation 
 to all his fellow-labourers in science. Limited as his 
 own particular study might be, it would no longer 
 be a something " dead and disconnected," but united 
 to the ultimate principles which are the root of all 
 science, and through that union filled with the life 
 which the root alone supplies. 
 
 This leads me to remark that philosophy, thus 
 viewed, would afford the most important guidance in 
 education. It must be, indeed, the very basis of 
 rational education in science. It must be what best 
 determines the course to be pursued. We cannot 
 commence the study of science at any point nor 
 prosecute it in any order we please. Nature has 
 determined both where we ought to begin and what 
 path we ought to follow. It is very far from a 
 
22 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 matter of indifference which of the mathematical 
 sciences we commence with. If we plunge into 
 natural philosophy without any mathematics to buoy 
 us up we are likely soon to repent of our fool- 
 hardiness, and are certain not to swim very far. We 
 shall make a similar mistake if we enter on moral 
 philosophy without having made ourselves acquainted 
 with the leading truths of psychology. Now, a phil- 
 osophy of science worthy of what it should be would 
 inform us at once what science was the natural ante- 
 cedent of any other science, the condition of its intel- 
 ligibility. It would, in fixing the order of the 
 sciences, fix likewise the order of their rational study. 
 It would thus lay what is the very corner-stone of 
 the science of education that without which no 
 such thing as a science of education can exist. And 
 it would confer on education another advantage only 
 inferior to that. It would show what science was 
 most fitted to correct the mental vices generated by 
 any other science, as well as what science was needed 
 to render it intelligible. No one science does more 
 than cultivate the mind in a partial and one-sided 
 manner ; and if we would have fully developed, 
 well-balanced minds, we must not only not confine 
 ourselves exclusively to one, but counteract that 
 which is exclusive and hurtful in our special pursuit 
 by the kind of knowledge most unlike it in char- 
 acter and tendencies ; that which it requires the most 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 23 
 
 directly opposite procedure of mind to appropriate ; 
 that which exercises with most intensity the faculties 
 which the other leaves most dormant. 
 
 Those who cultivate a science which is entirely 
 inductive, which is only in process of formation, 
 still unsettled in its foundations, still vague and 
 dubious in the majority of its conclusions, while they 
 can need no mathematics merely to render it intel- 
 ligible, are precisely those who will need most the 
 peculiar discipline of mathematics ; and without it 
 their power of deduction will remain unexercised; 
 without it the very notion of what complete proof is 
 will never find a place in their minds. On the same 
 principle, the study of physics and psychology should 
 be conjoined in one culture. The one is required to 
 balance the other. All physicists should seek a 
 general acquaintance with psychology, and all psy- 
 chologists a general acquaintance with physics. This 
 would remove the unbecoming antagonism which 
 has so long and widely prevailed between those two 
 classes of students an antagonism which has its 
 origin in ignorance, and is a signal proof of the 
 narrowness of intellectual conception and illiber- 
 ality of feeling which are produced by specialism 
 when left to operate without check or counter- 
 poise. This, then, is also to be said on behalf of 
 a science of the sciences, that it would at once 
 and authoritatively tell where the knowledge 
 
24 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 requisite to condition or the knowledge requisite 
 to supplement or balance any other knowledge 
 was to be found. 
 
 I now come to a consideration at least as weighty 
 as any of those which have already been mentioned 
 namely, the interest and importance of the truths 
 with which a science of the sciences must be con- 
 versant. The truths which lie between the sciences 
 are as real and have equal claims to attention as the 
 truths within the sciences. If the relations between 
 facts are as important as the facts themselves, and 
 every science acknowledges and proceeds on this 
 assumption, how should the relations between the 
 sciences not be of extreme interest and value ? 
 When these relations are known, all the facts any 
 given special sciences deal with, and all the laws 
 which have been derived from these facts, have a 
 new light shed on them by being connected, con- 
 trasted, and compared from an elevation which per- 
 mits of a truthful survey. That the relations of 
 the sciences to one another are in themselves most 
 worthy of examination, any one may convince him- 
 self by considering for a moment what they are, 
 what great problems they present, what grave in- 
 terests they involve. How are the mathematical 
 sciences related to one another and to physics ? Do 
 they originate in experience, or are they offshoots 
 of a transcendental or metaphysical condition ? Are 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 25 
 
 there any limits in nature to their application, and, 
 if so, what are those limits ? These are questions 
 which mathematics suggests, although it does not 
 solve, hard and abstruse but real and not fanciful, 
 weighty and not trivial questions, and on which 
 not philosophers only, but men whose distinctions 
 have been gained chiefly in mathematics, such as 
 Courtot, Sir Wm. E. Hamilton of Dublin, Boole, 
 De Morgan, Bartholmai, Duhamel, have written 
 either books or elaborate essays. How are the 
 physical sciences related ? Which are simple and 
 fundamental, which complex and applicate? What 
 must each take from others, and what may each be 
 made to contribute to others? These, again, are 
 questions which all physicists, not dwarfed by ex- 
 clusive specialism of pursuit into incapacity of large 
 views of any kind, are keenly alive to ; for they see 
 that on clear and correct views regarding them the 
 future progress of physical science is greatly depend- 
 ent, and a right settlement of the practical problem, 
 What is a wise and well-conducted education in 
 physical science ? entirely dependent. What is the 
 relation of the physical to the mental sciences, or 
 even merely, What is the relation of physiology to 
 psychology ? No man can be so intellectually blind 
 as to fail to perceive what a most momentous ques- 
 tion this is. Every thinking man must answer it in 
 some form or way ; yet if you answer it in one way 
 
26 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 you must be a materialist, if in another a pure ideal- 
 ist, and it is to be hoped that it can be answered 
 also in a third way which will make you neither 
 which will not compel you, as a rational being, to 
 deny the existence either of matter or spirit, either 
 of your bodies or souls. 
 
 Then, as to the mental sciences, psychology, ethics, 
 aesthetics, politics, paideutics, philology, philosophy 
 of history, &c. , nothing is more certain than that a 
 very large proportion of the evils which infest them, 
 and which have given such abundant occasion to 
 their adversaries to misrepresent and depreciate 
 them, are due precisely to the want of definite and 
 correct views in their cultivators as to their bound- 
 aries and relations ; so that inquiries proper to one 
 have been inextricably mixed up with inquiries 
 proper only to another, and not unfrequently even 
 this has been aggravated and confusion itself still 
 further confounded by the introduction of the still 
 more extraneous elements of physics, and meta- 
 physics, and religion. 
 
 There is not less involved in the question, How is 
 metaphysics related to physical and mental science ? 
 There are those who suppress metaphysics entirely, 
 who regard it as only an erroneous phase of thought, 
 gradually drawing near to the death which is its 
 doom, who maintain that there is no science save 
 realistic or positive science. There are others who, 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 27 
 
 instead of thus absorbing metaphysics in positive 
 science, have sought to absorb all positive science 
 in metaphysics, pretended to "re-think the great 
 thought of creation," and hesitated not to deny 
 the law of gravitation, to blame the very stars, 
 to pronounce the most ancient heavens wrong, 
 when these things did not appear to conform 
 to their deductions. And between these two ex- 
 tremes, the Comtist and the Hegelian, there are 
 innumerable other erroneous positions, into any 
 of which it is easy to fall ; while to get sure 
 footing on the one right spot no man can, unless 
 by working out for himself a correct and adequate 
 apprehension of the relation of metaphysics to 
 experience. 
 
 Quite as important as the question just referred 
 to is this other question, How are piety and 
 knowledge, religion and philosophy, theology and 
 the physical and mental sciences, to be shown in 
 their true relationship ? Even in this age of 
 many wants there are few, if any, more to be 
 desired than a right answer to that question. The 
 false and mischievous attitudes so often assumed 
 by scientific men towards religion and by religious 
 men towards science may unquestionably be largely 
 traced to such erroneous conceptions of the relation- 
 ship between religion and science as can only be 
 dispelled by a thorough and unprejudiced philo- 
 
28 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTTA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 sophical investigation. And it can hardly be in 
 the power of man to render better service to 
 either religion or science than to exhibit them in 
 their true natures and relationships, seeing that 
 both of them, and society as well, are so grievously 
 suffering from the want of clear and just views 
 on the subject. 
 
 II. 
 
 In seeking to attain self-consistency and com- 
 pleteness philosophy must strive to solve four 
 very comprehensive and complex problems. 
 
 In the fvrst place, it has a duty towards the 
 special sciences. 
 
 It is bound to form a right estimate of them 
 and to take up a right attitude towards them. 
 It is science, yet not merely a special science, but 
 the science which has the processes and results 
 of all the special sciences for its data the general 
 or universal science which has so risen above the 
 special and particular in science as to be able to 
 contemplate the sciences as parts of a system 
 which reflects and elucidates a world of which 
 the variety is not more wonderful than the unity. 
 Philosophy should neither attempt to do the work 
 nor to dispense with the aid of any special science, 
 but must seek so to understand the methods, to 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 29 
 
 appreciate the findings, and to trace the relation- 
 ships of all the special sciences as to be able to 
 combine them into a harmonious cosmos or well- 
 proportioned corpus. When engaged in this task 
 it may appropriately and usefully, perhaps, be 
 called positive philosophy, and nearly corresponds 
 to what has been so designated by Comte. 
 
 Comte's view of philosophy, however, as merely 
 a generalisation of the results of the sciences, 
 would have been an inadequate one even if he had 
 duly recognised the existence and claims of the 
 psychological and theological sciences. It is 
 necessary to hold to the truth which is in Kant's 
 view, and to the truth which is in Ferrier's or 
 Hegel's view, of the nature of philosophy, quite 
 as firmly as to the truth which is in Comte's view. 
 Given a complete knowledge of the relations of the 
 sciences given, consequently, a correct picture on 
 the mind's eye of the whole intelligible world drawn 
 from the highest and best established results of all 
 the sciences and the work of reason, which is the 
 comprehension of itself and of its objects so far as 
 knowable, is still far from accomplished ; yea, its 
 highest and perhaps hardest labours have not yet 
 begun. Scientific thought is not necessarily self- 
 criticising thought ; on the contrary, mere scientific 
 thought, however rigid and methodical, is essentially 
 dogmatic thought in that it rests on untested and 
 
30 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 uncriticised assumptions. It is reasoned, yet un- 
 reflective. It builds up what is currently admitted 
 to be knowledge, but it does not inquire what so- 
 called knowledge is or is essentially worth. The 
 philosophy which wholly depends on such assumed 
 thought or knowledge has all their essential defects. 
 It is merely an advance on special science, as special 
 science itself is on ordinary knowledge, and ordinary 
 knowledge on crude sensation. Along the whole 
 line the mind never changes its attitude towards 
 its objects. At the end its nature is just what it 
 was at the beginning. Throughout what it brings 
 with it is borrowed ordinary knowledge or positive 
 science. The scientist often fancies that he is a 
 man who takes nothing on trust when in reality he 
 takes everything on trust, because he accepts 
 without question or reservation thought itself as 
 naturally truthful and its laws as valid. What- 
 ever superficial scientists may suppose to the con- 
 trary, the fact is that the entire procedure of 
 science and of philosophy, in so far as it is simply 
 a generalisation of science, is assumptive and dog- 
 matic. Although often contrasted and opposed 
 to faith it really rests on faith, and in the view 
 of a serious and consistent scepticism must rest on 
 blind faith. 
 
 Thought may assume, however, and is bound to 
 assume, a very different attitude towards itself and 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 31 
 
 towards its objects. It may pass and ought to 
 pass from a believing to an inquiring, from a 
 dogmatic to a critical stage. It may turn its 
 attention and force from a study of the relations 
 of the known to an examination of the conditions 
 and guarantees of knowledge. 
 
 In the second place, then, philosophy is bound 
 to institute an investigation into the nature of 
 knowledge itself. 
 
 All the special sciences aim merely at the exten- 
 sion and acquisition of knowledge. They assume 
 that there are things and truths to be known, but 
 make no attempt to verify the assumption or even 
 to understand what it implies. What are things 
 apart from knowledge and in relation to knowledge ? 
 Are things just what they appear to be, or not at 
 all what they appear to be, or partly what they 
 appear to be and partly not ? May all things not 
 ultimately be thoughts or feelings, or even imagin- 
 ations and illusions? If more or else than states 
 or acts of mind, what more, what else? If they 
 are affirmed to be existences, or substances, or 
 realities, and the like, what precisely do such affirm- 
 ations mean ? What is truth ? Is the assump- 
 tion that we can attain it well founded or a mere 
 blind belief ? If attainable, on what conditions and 
 within what limits is it to be attained? What is 
 knowledge ? Is it possible ? How is it possible ? 
 
32 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 How can we separate between the knowable and 
 the unknowable? What are we to think of such 
 assertions as that knowledge is confined to experi- 
 ence, or that spiritual things may be objects of 
 faith but not of knowledge, or that metaphysical 
 problems are incapable of solution? 
 
 These are questions with which no special science 
 deals, and which even philosophy as positive does not 
 discuss. Positive philosophy is merely an advance 
 on special science, as special science itself is on 
 ordinary knowledge, and ordinary knowledge on 
 crude and confused sensation. It accepts the 
 sciences and endeavours by their combination and 
 co-ordination to organise knowledge, but it leaves 
 untouched the same questions as the special 
 sciences, and consequently remains as assumptive 
 and dogmatic as they are. For the special sciences 
 and for a consistent positive philosophy, philo- 
 sophical criticism and philosophical scepticism must 
 be as if they were not. But they undoubtedly 
 exist, and neither can nor ought to be ignored. 
 Philosophy is bound not only to organise but to 
 criticise whatever professes to be knowledge. It 
 must not only survey knowledge as a whole and 
 trace the relations of its parts, but it must satisfy 
 itself as to its grounds and guarantees, and nearly 
 corresponds to what has been designated by Kant 
 critical philosophy. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 33 
 
 What may be called positive philosophy naturally 
 prepares the way for critical philosophy. Kant 
 will always be honoured as the man who first ade- 
 quately realised the necessity under which philos- 
 ophy lay to exercise its critical functions, and who 
 gave the first general yet profound exposition of 
 philosophy as a criticism of knowledge. He erred 
 seriously, however, even in his conception of its 
 problems, and still more seriously in his attempted 
 solutions. Hence the cry of c Back to Kant ' which 
 for a time resounded widely throughout Germany, 
 and to a considerable extent, although compara- 
 tively feebly, in Britain and America, cannot be 
 justly regarded as having been wholly the voice of 
 wisdom. 1 No one, however, has done so much for 
 critical philosophy as Kant. Even his errors have 
 in a wonderful measure proved more valuable than 
 other men's truths. 
 
 In the third place, philosophy requires to elabo- 
 rate a theory of being and becoming in accordance 
 with its views of the sciences and its criticism of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Philosophy as critical examines all the assump- 
 tions on which philosophy as positive and the special 
 sciences proceed. It is only through critical philo- 
 
 1 See the criticism of Kant's criticism in Hegel's History of Philos- 
 ophy, vol. iii. pp. 423-478 (E.T.) ; and the author's in Agnosticism^ 
 pp. 140-190. 
 
 C 
 
34 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 sophy that thought can assure itself that what are 
 called science and knowledge have anything to cor- 
 respond to them, that their supposition of real 
 objects or objective realities is not a baseless illu- 
 sion, that sense and reason are not essentially 
 antagonistic, and experience not inherently self- 
 contradictory. This assurance it may conceivably 
 fail to attain. It may, on the contrary, be forced 
 either to the conclusion that nothing real exists, or 
 that if anything real exists it cannot be known. 
 In other words, its criticism of knowledge may lead 
 to philosophical nihilism or to agnosticism. But it 
 may also issue in the refutation of these hypotheses 
 and the vindication of the beliefs which under- 
 lie the special sciences, ordinary knowledge, and 
 common life. It may warrant the conviction that 
 objective reality is the necessary antecedent and 
 universal correlative of the subjective activity in 
 knowledge, and that, so far from being absolutely 
 unknowable, it is continuously self-revealing even 
 to our very limited minds. If this result, however, 
 be reached, philosophy is manifestly bound to en- 
 deavour to exhibit the nature of the ultimate reality 
 or realities which the special sciences presuppose 
 and in some measure reveal, but with which they 
 cannot directly deal, first because they are special, 
 and secondly because they are kinds of know- 
 ledge, and logically anterior to the criticism of 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIEls 7 TIA SCIENTIARUM. 35 
 
 knowledge. Philosophy in this phase philosophy 
 as the theory of being and becoming is what 
 has for very long been known as metaphysical 
 philosophy. 
 
 As such it cannot be satisfied with mere objec- 
 tive appearances or subjective impressions. It must 
 seek to penetrate farther, must seek after the un- 
 seen and eternal, and strive if possible to attain 
 some apprehension of ultimate reality, of absolute 
 being, in Nature, Mind, or Deity. Metaphysics 
 has sometimes been identified with Philosophy ; 
 but that is to make either the one term or the 
 other useless. Obviously the latter term is the 
 one best entitled to the wider signification. The 
 former, even if considerably restricted, will still 
 be found sufficiently comprehensive for any good 
 purpose. It will appropriately include Ontology, 
 the doctrine of being or reality as distinct from 
 phenomenon, appearance, or illusion; Psychology, 
 but only so far as regards the primary intuitions 
 of reason and their corresponding immutable ob- 
 jects; and Theology, but not further than as 
 occupied with Godhead as the one absolute 
 existence. To a large extent Psychology and 
 Theology are independent of Metaphysics. 
 
 The difficulty of defining Metaphysics is well 
 known. I prefer to regard it not as a science 
 but as a function of philosophy, although I do 
 
36 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 not see any serious objection to such a definition 
 of it as, say, Trendelenburg's, "the science 
 which considers what is universal in the objects 
 of all the sciences"; and still less to that of 
 Prof. Fraser, "the knowledge of being in its 
 universal principles." Either knowledge or phil- 
 osophy seems to me a better generic term for 
 Metaphysics than science. The jocular definition 
 even given of it by De Morgan is decidedly 
 suggestive, "The science to which ignorance goes 
 to learn its knowledge, and knowledge to learn 
 its ignorance. On which all men agree that it is 
 the key, but no two upon how it is to be put 
 into the lock." 
 
 The metaphysical function of philosophy is a 
 most important one. Although it may not be 
 exact science, such science has owed a great deal 
 to it. It has engrossed the attention and 
 energies of many of the world's greatest thinkers. 
 Socrates by his questionings, Plato by his dialogues 
 and dialectic, and Aristotle by the work called 
 (not by himself, however) 'Metaphysics/ were 
 among the first clearly to show what it meant 
 and should aim at accomplishing. The most re- 
 nowned oriental, medieval, and modern philosophers 
 have been eminent metaphysicians, and their repu- 
 tations as philosophers have been largely owing to 
 their having been wise enough not to despise 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 37 
 
 ' Metaphysics ' rightly understood. There is not 
 the slightest likelihood of * Metaphysics ' becoming 
 extinct. It will be despised only by the foolish 
 or by those who are ignorant of what it means. 
 No highly thoughtful man can fail to be some- 
 what of a metaphysical cast of mind. 
 
 In the fourth place, philosophy ought to forecast, 
 as far as it can, the course of things, the future 
 of the world and life, of humanity and science, 
 and to determine what the worth of enjoyment is, 
 and of truth, beauty, virtue, and piety, in relation 
 to one another, and to the great final end of 
 existence. 
 
 Philosophy as a science of the sciences, as an 
 inquiry into the nature and limits of knowledge, 
 and as a doctrine of being and becoming, or, in 
 other words, philosophy as positive, critical, and 
 metaphysical, is theoretical philosophy in its three 
 stages, and the whole of theoretical philosophy; 
 but not the whole of philosophy, because although 
 philosophy be fundamentally and predominantly 
 theoretical, a merely theoretical philosophy must 
 be essentially incomplete. Practical applicability 
 is a necessary consequence of theoretical accuracy. 
 The true theory of the relations of the sciences, 
 of the conditions of knowledge, and of the nature 
 of existence and causation, must be also the only 
 true basis of doctrine as to the ends and issues, 
 
38 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 the purposes and destinies of the beings which con- 
 stitute the universe. Whither tends the physical 
 world ? What is the chief end of man ? To what 
 goal is society moving? Is life worth living? Is 
 optimism or pessimism or an intermediate hy- 
 pothesis the legitimate conception of existence ? 
 Questions like these can only be answered aright 
 in connection with a general theory of final causes 
 such as a comprehensive and profound philosophy 
 alone can provide. The answers given to them 
 even by the most comprehensive and profound 
 philosophy of the present age, and of many ages 
 to come, may be far from distinct and certain, and 
 yet may gradually approximate to the full truth as 
 time advances and knowledge increases. Philo- 
 sophy, when engaged in the study of these ques- 
 tions and seeking to be helpful in the guidance of 
 active life, may be appropriately entitled practical 
 philosophy. 
 
 The four regions of thought now indicated com- 
 prise the entire domain of philosophy. Those who 
 would successfully explore that vast domain should 
 begin their investigations with its first region. As 
 I have already indicated, philosophy as positive 
 ought to precede philosophy whether critical or 
 metaphysical or practical. Although the followers 
 of Comte and the advocates of the so-called "scien- 
 tific philosophy" err greatly in supposing that 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 39 
 
 philosophy is merely the synthesis and generalisa- 
 tion of the positive or special sciences, they are 
 perfectly right in maintaining that philosophy must 
 be based on these sciences, and can only verify 
 itself through accepting and conforming to their 
 conclusions. Philosophy must base itself on the 
 sciences even while searching for their bases. It 
 may conceivably prove science to be illusory, but 
 in doing so it must annihilate itself, as it can only 
 establish its own claim to credence by first vindi- 
 cating the truthfulness of the sciences and then 
 appealing to their testimony. Thus philosophy as 
 positive must precede philosophy as critical, meta- 
 physical, and practical; and critical philosophy, 
 metaphysical philosophy, and practical philosophy 
 must submit to be attested by the conclusions of 
 a positive philosophy which accepts the well-estab- 
 lished results of any and every science. 
 
 If the view just stated be approved we shall be 
 freed from the danger of falling into either of two 
 common and hurtful errors. The first is the identi- 
 fication of philosophy with some special science or 
 group of sciences. The narrow notion that one 
 science belongs to philosophy and another not, that 
 the mental sciences are philosophical and the physi- 
 cal sciences non-philosophical, is still prevalent, but 
 is essentially and intensely unphilosophical. There 
 is no objection to using the terms science and philo- 
 
40 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCI ENTI ARUM. 
 
 sophy popularly, interchangeably, when no harm 
 is likely to be done thereby ; but if we distinguish 
 and delimit them there is but one view of philo- 
 sophy which can justify itself either historically 
 or logically, and it is that which regards it not 
 as exclusive of any of the sciences, but as com- 
 prehensive of them all. From this view it follows 
 immediately, on the one hand, that no special 
 science can claim to be philosophy as against any 
 other special science, and, on the other hand, that 
 no special science is excluded from having the 
 closest connection with and interest in philo- 
 sophy; that each special science, one may even 
 say each special subject, has its philosophy; the 
 philosophy of any subject as distinguished from 
 the science of that subject being the view or theory 
 of its relations to other things, to the universe of 
 which it is a part, as distinguished from the view 
 or theory of it as isolated or in itself. 
 
 The other grave error to which our account of 
 philosophy is directly opposed is that which would 
 found it on common-sense, on ordinary knowledge, 
 on untested and unanalysed consciousness. In pro- 
 nouncing appeals to common-sense to be illegitimate, 
 I take common-sense in its ordinary acceptation, and 
 censure in no degree appeals to those so-called prin- 
 ciples of common-sense which are simply the ulti- 
 mate conditions of thought as adequately ascertained 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 41 
 
 by psychological analysis. What is alone objection- 
 able is that * the science of the sciences ' should 
 appeal from science to any lower tribunal. Science 
 is more definite and better grounded than ordinary 
 knowledge ; nearer the perfect form of human know- 
 ledge ; such knowledge in its completest and purest 
 state. Therefore whenever science can be had it is 
 with science that philosophy should have to do, and 
 by science that it must be tried and judged. Each 
 science reduces to order, each science develops to 
 perfection or approximate perfection so much ordin- 
 ary knowledge, and philosophy has to avail itself of 
 the achievements of the separate sciences. Hence 
 an important reduction, an important simplification, 
 of its labour. As far as possible it has to do not 
 directly with the comparative chaos of common 
 knowledge, but with the separate systems of order 
 which constitute the special sciences. Wherever it 
 can do better it ought never to appeal from the 
 higher to the lower tribunal, from Philip sober to 
 Philip drunk. 
 
 III. 
 
 Some observations on the various kinds or stages 
 of knowledge still seem to be called for. To appre- 
 hend aright the nature of one phase or species of 
 knowledge acquaintance with that of others is in- 
 
42 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 dispensable. Yet it has long been, and still is, 
 common to assume that knowledge is only three- 
 fold, although the assumption is very erroneous, and 
 has given rise to various false inferences. There are 
 many stages and kinds of knowledge, and so im- 
 portant a fact should not be overlooked or the vast 
 significance of it fail to be realised as fully as 
 possible. Yet there are even scientists and philo- 
 sophers who treat of ordinary human knowledge as 
 if it were the primary source and oldest form of 
 knowledge. Of course that is a very great error, 
 one which assumes that there was no animal in- 
 telligence or knowledge on earth before mankind 
 appeared on its surface, and that the deepest roots of 
 consciousness and thought were brought into the 
 world with the advent of palaeolithic man or a 
 primeval Adam. There is not only no warrant for 
 the assumption, but absolutely conclusive evidence 
 to the contrary. 
 
 There was animal consciousness on earth for in- 
 calculable ages before the genus homo appeared on 
 it. Human psychology instead of being the whole 
 of psychology is a very small portion of it. There 
 is a psychology possible of far vaster extent, a 
 comparative psychology the aim of which should be 
 comprehensive enough to take account of all kinds 
 of creatures that have lived, suffered, and died 
 on earth, and capable of realising aright what 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 43 
 
 their experiences, their inner as well as outer his- 
 tories, have been. Its task may be a very difficult 
 one, but it cannot be reasonably held to be an im- 
 possible one. Why not ? Just because man has in 
 his own inmost nature the key to all animal con- 
 sciousness. In every state of consciousness he has 
 what are called feeling, knowing, and willing, or, in 
 other words, sensation, cognition, and volition. But 
 so has every animal, even the least and meanest. 
 The three elements of consciousness are inseparable 
 alike in man and beast, and hence the former may 
 by a judiciously directed study of the latter acquire 
 a very considerable amount of knowledge of the 
 actions, meanings, and experiences of animals of 
 every kind, and at every stage of their existence. 
 The course of the history of knowledge on earth 
 began apparently with the origination of animal life 
 on earth, although there are some scientists who be- 
 lieve that it began earlier, and that sentiency and 
 consciousness had their roots even in the vegetable 
 kingdom. In proof they have pointed to facts 
 traceable throughout the vegetable kingdom and to 
 adaptations between certain plants and their physi- 
 cal surroundings analogous to those that take place 
 in consequence of the repetition of animal actions 
 and the formation even of human habits. Among 
 the most relevant and best known of such facts are 
 the curious arrangement and action of the leaves in 
 
44 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 the pitcher-plant; the rapid and peculiar motion which 
 makes' 1 the Dion sea muscipula an efficient fly-trap ; 
 what Darwin calls the * nice sense ' of the Mimosa ; 
 and the elongation and contraction of the stalk of 
 the Vallisneria according as the waters in which it 
 grows rise or fall. But however analogous or akin 
 to animal actions such movements may appear, no 
 one has as yet proved them to be of the same 
 nature, whereas it is certain that knowledge began 
 wherever even the lowest animal life began. All 
 animals have intelligence, and many of them an 
 amazing intelligence. Yet not a few attempts have 
 been made to explain away their intelligence ; and to 
 represent their actions as merely automatic, as due 
 to the mechanical play of bodily organs, or to irrit- 
 ability, or to the immediate and sole operations of 
 deity, or to instinct undefined. 
 
 It was a curious fact that so late as the year 
 1874-75 such men as Prof. Huxley (in The Fort- 
 nightly Review), and Dr Carpenter, Mr Mivart, and 
 the late Duke of Argyll (in The Contemporary 
 Review), should have been discussing the question, 
 Whether or not animals are automata? Certainly 
 if animals are automata and their actions automatic 
 so are men and their actions. 1 Man and beasts are 
 alike machines in that they are alike influenced by 
 
 1 See Janet's Final Causes (E.T.), Bk. I. c. v., Mechanism and 
 Finality, pp. 137-178. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 45 
 
 their physical organisation and alike different from 
 machines in that they are alike endowed with sen- 
 tiency, appetite, desire, and activity. Sir Isaac 
 Newton, Addison, Bonnet, and others have spoken 
 of the instinctive actions of animals as immediate 
 operations of Deity. They have represented the 
 phenomena of so-called instinct as ' the direct mani- 
 festations of the Divine energy in animals,' as ' to 
 be explained by the continued and universal pres- 
 ence of a living intelligent Spirit/ and 'the body 
 of an insect as but a curtain hiding the operations 
 of the Supreme Artist/ a view which implies 
 that c God is the soul of brutes/ an opinion far 
 from peculiarly pious, a theory which, if con- 
 sistently carried out, would reduce all nervous 
 actions and all mental processes both in man 
 and beasts to divine operations, and land us in 
 complete pantheism. 
 
 Others have represented the study of animal mind 
 as impracticable and futile, on the grounds that we 
 are either (1) not conscious of what takes place in 
 animal mind or (2) that animal consciousness is 
 merely a quasi -consciousness. Both reasons are 
 exceedingly weak. If we can know only the mental 
 states of which we are self-conscious it is not merely 
 the minds of beasts that we must remain ignorant 
 of, but every human mind except our own, and also 
 the Divine mind, for all those minds are alike un- 
 
46 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 known to us except through their self-manifesta- 
 tions to us. 
 
 As inconclusive is it to assert that animal con- 
 sciousness cannot be apprehended and interpreted 
 by us because it is only quasi-consciousness. The 
 reply to that is obvious. How can what is asserted 
 as known be known by those who assert it? To 
 be entitled to say what they do say they must 
 have already done what they declare cannot be 
 done ; must have interpreted animal conscious- 
 ness and ascertained what it is before they can 
 rationally believe or pronounce it to be anything 
 or even quasi anything else. Unless they know 
 what it is, how do they know that it is not such 
 consciousness as they themselves possess, but a 
 mysterious tertium quid between that conscious- 
 ness and unconsciousness. As to the second reason 
 referred to, a quasi-consciousness is an absurdity. 
 To call the pain which an animal gives evidence of 
 suffering quasi-pain should be recognised by every 
 sane person as an abuse of language. There is no 
 medium, tertium quid, or quasi in such a case. 
 There is either pain or not pain, sensation or non- 
 sensation, knowledge or ignorance. 
 
 Seeing that consciousness and knowledge belong 
 to all creatures in the animal kingdom, man as 
 the earthly head of that kingdom is not only self- 
 conscious and self-cognitive but capable of under- 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 47 
 
 standing what are the sentiency and knowledge 
 of the countless active beings which Zoology distri- 
 butes into its multitudinous divisions, its types, 
 classes, orders, sub-orders, and families. The psy- 
 chical life and consciousness of all mere animals is 
 much simpler and more limited than that of man, 
 and may naturally be found, in consequence, to be 
 much more easily understood. That animal intelli- 
 gence is, as a whole, however, a lower stage of 
 intelligence than the human, and that in every 
 animal species the variation is greater than in the 
 human, must be admitted, and the main reason for 
 such being the case seems obviously to be that the 
 animal mind is much more dependent on the bodily 
 organism than the human mind is on the human 
 body. The former is in comparison much less free. 
 Whereas the manifestations of knowledge in animals 
 are often seemingly automatic, in man they are, in 
 comparison, very exceptionally so. Were it other- 
 wise, the achievements of many species of animals 
 would be far more extraordinary than those of a 
 similar character performed by man. Some of the 
 smallest species of animals display the largest 
 amount of intelligence. The elephant is sagacious 
 within certain limits, and in comparison with the 
 rhinoceros or hippopotamus, but its knowledge is 
 far less wonderful and exact than the knowledge 
 of ants, bees, and beavers. Ants are not only cap- 
 
48 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 able of giving good lessons to sluggards but they 
 display a marvellous knowledge in an architecture 
 of their own, the importance of social organisation, 
 and how to conduct war with vast numbers. Bees 
 in the construction of the cells of their honeycombs 
 not only solved an economic problem of the utmost 
 practical importance to them, but which was also so 
 difficult a problem of the higher mathematics that a 
 completely satisfactory solution was first given by 
 Colin Maclaurin in the Transactions of the Royal 
 Society of London. The naturalists who have made 
 a special study of the operations and habits of 
 beavers are agreed as to their extraordinary intelli- 
 gence. In one well-authenticated case these crea- 
 tures have been proved to have, for generation after 
 generation during at least a thousand years, con- 
 structed their lodges, dams, and canals, so as to 
 have at length changed the entire configuration of 
 the region in which they had operated. 
 
 The whole animal world is participant in know- 
 ledge. Every kind of living creature has some 
 measure of intelligence, sentiency, and self-activity. 
 Whence come they? Whence has every living 
 creature its share of them ? Surely not from mere 
 matter in any form, nor from the creatures them- 
 selves by any self-creative power, but only from an 
 eternal self-existent Intelligence, an Intelligence to 
 which no origin or limit can be assigned, an infinite 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 49 
 
 and ever-living Being creative and comprehensive of 
 all that knows and all that is known. Apparently 
 there were many and long ages before there was any 
 life and intelligence on earth ; but conceivably also 
 the sources of consciousness and knowledge may 
 have been present in the cosmic ether before our 
 world became a globe differentiated from all other 
 worlds. Nor is it entirely certain, perhaps, that 
 vegetable and animal vitality may not have had in 
 an incalculably remote age on earth their origins in 
 the same protoplasmic substance. What is alone 
 indubitable is that conscious life has had an exceed- 
 ingly long history on earth. 
 
 That it was preceded by a vastly long history 
 of entirely dead matter does not seem to have 
 been adequately proved either in the affirmative 
 or negative. Even a molecule of matter would 
 appear to have a history in or behind which alike 
 the chemist and biologist, geologist and palaeon- 
 tologist, have failed entirely to decipher. No 
 educated person, however, thanks to the labours of 
 those scientists, can now fail to believe that the 
 history of animal life and intelligence has already 
 been one of amazing and incalculable length, as 
 well as vast breadth, and that from its first known 
 appearance until the present time it has been a 
 history of unbroken continuity the development 
 of which can be traced as plainly as the history 
 
 D 
 
50 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 of any individual. It has passed through many 
 epochs and phases, every epoch having its own 
 physiognomy and every phase of every epoch having 
 presented some variation, but there has nowhere 
 been complete separation of the stages or radical 
 difference between the species of animals that have 
 lived and worked, enjoyed and suffered in those 
 stages. Absolutely new and original species, how- 
 ever, have been nowhere discovered. From the 
 earliest time animal nature has had general features 
 in common with those of to-day. It is impossible 
 to draw an absolute limit between the beings that 
 have existed before us and those that are living 
 around us. 
 
 Our animal world is not distinct from the fossil 
 world, but rests on it and is the continuation of it 
 at almost every point. The two in alliance have 
 had a series and history of the stages which are 
 so many periods of progress alike in the general 
 history of the animal world and in the special 
 history of mankind. And hence there has been 
 in the main a continuous growth of animal and 
 human intelligence and knowledge towards develop- 
 ment and improvement. The numbers of animals and 
 men have been increased. There has been greater 
 differentiation alike of their physical and mental 
 organisation. There has likewise been progress as 
 regards sensibility, intelligence, and activity e.g., 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 51 
 
 improvement in sight, hearing, smell, affectionate 
 and social sentiments, a higher development of the 
 nervous system, and more combination and co- 
 operation. 
 
 One has a temptation to dwell on so interesting 
 a subject, but I must not yield to it, as it has been 
 in recent times dwelt on by many distinguished 
 scientists. The study of animal mind had been 
 inaugurated by Aristotle's History of Animals, yet 
 during the last fifty or sixty years it will scarcely 
 be questioned to have been more carefully and 
 fruitfully cultivated than all those which had pre- 
 ceded them. Comparative Psychology is mainly 
 the creation of the present age, during which there 
 has, perhaps, been no more interesting scientific 
 achievement. It has immensely extended the 
 sphere of psychological study. Among those who 
 deserve most credit for that result have been Bingley, 
 Btichner, Darwin, Gaudry, Houzeau, Huber, Jesse, 
 Lubbock, Perty, Eomanes, Semper, and Wundt. 
 They are all authors of most instructive and easily 
 procurable works. 
 
 Of human knowledge there are universally re- 
 cognised to be three kinds or stages viz., ordinary, 
 scientific, and philosophic knowledge. Ordinary 
 knowledge is the kind of knowledge common to 
 all sane men but also such knowledge as is often 
 
52 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 extremely indistinct, confused, and superficial. It 
 is not strictly definable and generally very vague 
 as to its contents. The nature of it is common not 
 to men only but to all animals. It is distinguishable 
 from science by its lack of precision and exactness 
 and from philosophy by its lack of comprehensiveness 
 and profundity. Even as knowledge of particular 
 objects and limited ends indeed it implies universal 
 principles and rational intuitions but is not con- 
 sciously and distinctly aware of them. Only in the 
 scientific and philosophical stages do they come 
 clearly to light. Yet ordinary knowledge is a 
 knowledge by no means to be despised. A large 
 portion of it is probably of more value than much 
 which is called science and believed in as such. 
 Although less exact than science it is often less 
 capable of being dispensed with. A human world 
 composed exclusively of scientific experts might 
 very possibly, and not very improbably, be not 
 better but worse than one like the present com- 
 posed for the most part of merely ordinarily 
 intelligent men. There is a vast amount of 
 ordinary knowledge which is more helpful and of 
 more real human interest than there is of science. 
 All the roots of scientific thinking are already in 
 ordinary knowledge. Compared with ordinary 
 thought the amount of scientific thought is very 
 limited. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 53 
 
 Scientific knowledge is, nevertheless, rightly 
 regarded as on the whole a higher stage of know- 
 ledge than non-scientific or ordinary knowledge. It 
 is a knowledge of more than mere facts or common 
 observations and experiences, including as it does 
 a search for the reasons and causes of things as well 
 as of mere perceptions of them, or, in Greek 
 phraseology, not merely the ort but also the Siori 
 of phenomena. And, further, all scientific know- 
 ledge is knowledge of a specific kind, and differ- 
 entiated from knowledge not of that kind. Each 
 science has a sphere of its own, and is not to be 
 confounded with unuuified and indeterminate know- 
 ledge. The scientist is a specialist, and as such one 
 who keeps within a province peculiarly his own, 
 and distinguishes it from other provinces, although 
 if a wise man he will look beyond it and take note 
 of what other scientists are doing in contiguous 
 departments. The methods appropriate to the 
 several sciences must vary with their objects. 
 Still less, of course, is scientific knowledge to be 
 identified with mere belief, or with mere art and 
 practice, than with ordinary knowledge. To collect 
 facts, to analyse material objects and mental states, 
 to distinguish between semblance and reality, to 
 discover and formulate laws of sequence, to bring 
 to light the conditions of order and organisation 
 alike in the physical and spiritual worlds, are what 
 
54 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 the sciences have to accomplish, each in its own 
 province. 
 
 Science is often, but not always, what had been 
 merely ordinary knowledge in an advanced and 
 improved stage. It is not always so because when 
 sciences are thoroughly established they are often 
 capable of evolution from within so as to yield 
 vast accessions to knowledge such as have never 
 existed except in scientific form. Mathematics is 
 constantly thus extending itself into regions where 
 unscientific intellect has never been, and conse- 
 quently can predict effects which have never been 
 observed, and may be carried to developments far 
 beyond the reach of experiments. But in general 
 science issues out of ordinary knowledge, and that 
 knowledge may in every case be regarded as a 
 step towards scientific knowledge, as a humbler 
 stage always, a prior stage generally of the same 
 movement or process. Science rises superior to 
 ordinary knowledge in being both more general 
 and more definite. More general inasmuch as it 
 regards things not as isolated and individual but 
 as included under some law, as terms of some fixed 
 relation, of coexistence, or succession ; and more 
 definite as implying a recognition of the exact re- 
 lation in which one fact stands to another, whereas 
 ordinary knowledge in its recognition of connection 
 between facts is merely of some sort of connection. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 55 
 
 In a general way philosophic knowledge may 
 reasonably be held to be the highest stage and 
 most comprehensive kind of human knowledge, 
 but only when it strives with a fair measure of 
 success to realise the ideal at which it aims. All 
 that assumes to be philosophy is not to be taken 
 simply on its own authority. Much of it has 
 been found to be instead of perfect knowledge 
 pretentious nonsense. But genuine philosophy is 
 worthy of all the praise which has been bestowed 
 upon it. Wherever there has been active and 
 earnest thinking, wherever the arts have flourished, 
 wherever the sciences have prospered, wherever 
 civilisation has spread, there philosophy can be 
 shown to have been at work. The term itself 
 and the history of it have been suggestive and 
 instructive as to what it has meant and ought 
 to mean. It was as "the love of wisdom," and 
 not as the acquisition of mere knowledge, that it 
 was called into existence, and the Pythagoreans 
 and Platonists continued to regard " the yearning 
 after divine wisdom" as what was properly dis- 
 tinctive of it. Cicero spoke of it as " the science 
 of divine and human things and of the causes 
 in which they are contained." Descartes changed, 
 and contributed to modernise, the conception of 
 it, by representing it as "the pursuit of the 
 perfect knowledge of all things that men can 
 
56 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 know, deduced from first principles." Kant de- 
 scribed it as "the science of the relations of all 
 knowledge to the essential ends of human reason." 
 Lotze's definition of it (in his Grundzuge der 
 Logik, 83) is "an effort to import unity and 
 connectedness into the scattered doctrines of cul- 
 tured thought, to follow each of these directions 
 into its assumptions and into its consequences, 
 to combine them together, to remove their con- 
 tradictions, and to form out of them a compre- 
 hensive view of the world ; mainly, however, to 
 subject the ideas which science and life regard 
 as principles to a special scrutiny in order to 
 determine the limits of their validity." Even 
 those few definitions may suffice to show what 
 has been the course of thought as to the nature 
 of philosophy. It has been a long course and 
 one never entirely interrupted. Philosophy has 
 always preceded what we would call science. Wher- 
 ever there is earnest human thought as to truth 
 and error, good and evil, right and wrong, there is 
 something of the nature of philosophy, and as 
 such it aspires to be coextensive with human 
 knowledge, claims the right of criticising and 
 testing all opinions, and hesitates not to raise 
 and try to answer the most difficult and per- 
 plexing yet engrossing and important questions 
 which can come before the human mind. Hence 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 57 
 
 philosophy is rightly, and almost universally, 
 regarded as the last and highest stage of human 
 intelligence. 
 
 Philosophy, in order to be as comprehensive as 
 it ought, has to deal as its subject with the entire 
 intelligible universe, the three final existences of 
 which are God, the world, and self. Its ways or 
 modes of manifestation and action are : 
 1, Positive or Phenomenological ; 2, Critical or 
 Epistemological ; 3, Metaphysical or Theoretical ; 
 and 4, Practical ; or, it may suffice to say simply 
 the positive, the critical, the metaphysical, and 
 the practical. 
 
 Philosophy as universal science has, in the first 
 place, to deal in a comprehensive and general way 
 with what all the special positive sciences deal with 
 in a sectional way. It has to seek to attain to a 
 knowledge of the unity, self-consistency, and har- 
 mony of the teachings of these separate sciences, 
 and to a knowledge of what the universe is accord- 
 ing to their collective testimony. Philosophy as 
 thus a synthesis of the positive sciences is Positive 
 Philosophy. As such it deals only with phenomena, 
 appearances, particular experiences, with what the 
 ordinary man and the positivist scientist accept as 
 alone facts. According to Comte and the adherents 
 of all the positivist schools there is no other philo- 
 sophy than such positive philosophy. In that they 
 
58 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 err, but they are in no way mistaken in maintain- 
 ing that there is a positive philosophy, and that it 
 is of primary and fundamental importance. They 
 are only mistaken in supposing that philosophy can 
 rationally stop where they would have it to do. 
 
 Philosophy should be critical as well as positive. 
 A merely positive philosophy must be a very 
 imperfect philosophy. Philosophy as positive is 
 far from an adequate ideal of philosophy. Even 
 scientific thought is not necessarily self-criticising 
 thought ; on the contrary, mere scientific thought, 
 however rigid and methodical, is essentially dog- 
 matic thought, reasoned yet unreflective thought. 
 It builds up what is admitted to be knowledge, but 
 it does not inquire what so-called knowledge is or 
 is essentially worth. The mere scientist often 
 fancies that he is a man who takes nothing on 
 trust, when, in reality, he is taking everything 
 on trust, because he accepts without question or 
 reservation thought itself as naturally truthful, and 
 its laws as valid. Whatever superficial scientists 
 may suppose to the contrary, the fact is that the 
 entire procedure of science, and of philosophy in 
 so far as it is merely a generalisation of science, is 
 assumptive and dogmatic. The science which is so 
 often contrasted and opposed to faith by sceptics is 
 frequently implicit faith, and in the view of a serious 
 and consistent scepticism must be deemed a blind 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 59 
 
 faith. Thought may assume, however, and is even 
 bound to assume, a very different attitude towards 
 itself and its own objects ; not only may but ought 
 to pass from a belie viDg to an inquiring, from a 
 dogmatic to a critical stage, from a study merely 
 of the superficial and apparent in knowledge to an 
 examination of the conditions and guarantees of 
 knowledge. Philosophy, in a word, has not only 
 to accumulate what passes for knowledge in the 
 opinion of positivists, but must assure itself as to 
 the solidity of its own foundations. As critical it 
 is occupied with a fundamental and universal 
 problem, the problem as to the possibility and 
 reality of knowledge of every kind, if philosophy 
 is not to end in nihilism or agnosticism. It is 
 essentially epistemology (inclusive of what is philo- 
 sophical in logic and methodology). 
 
 Philosophy, besides being positive and critical, 
 should also be metaphysical (systematical or theo- 
 retical). The criticism of what passes for know- 
 ledge may lead only to a negative or sceptical 
 result, either to philosophical nihilism or agnos- 
 ticism. Were it to be successful, however, all so- 
 called science must be but an inevitable and 
 ineradicable illusion, and all so-called knowledge 
 at bottom no knowledge, or the knowledge of 
 nothing. In that case philosophy might be best 
 defined as a demonstration of the vanity of 
 
60 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 thought. While, however, its criticism of know- 
 ledge may conceivably lead to philosophical nihilism 
 or agnosticism, it may also, on the contrary, issue 
 in the refutation of them and the vindication of the 
 beliefs which underlie the special sciences, ordinary 
 knowledge, and common life. In other words, it 
 may warrant the conviction that objective reality 
 is the necessary antecedent and universal correlative 
 of the subjective activity in knowledge, and so far 
 from being absolutely unknowable is continuously 
 revealing itself, even to our very limited minds. 
 But if that result be reached, philosophy is mani- 
 festly bound to exhibit the nature of the ultimate 
 which the special sciences presuppose and so far 
 manifest, but with which they cannot competently 
 deal first, because they are special, and, secondly, 
 because they are logically anterior to the criticism of 
 knowledge. Philosophy in that phase has for very 
 long been known as metaphysical or ontological 
 philosophy. It has also been often termed 
 systematic, theoretic, or speculative. Of course, 
 philosophy as metaphysical has to determine 
 whether or not there is God, the ground and 
 source of all being, the reason of all existences and 
 events, and cannot escape the necessity of being 
 either theistic or antitheistic. It has to deal with 
 all dogmatic metaphysical theories, and all such 
 theories must be either theistic or anti - theistic. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 61 
 
 Hence it cannot itself escape the necessity of being 
 either theistic or anti-theistic. If the former be 
 arrived at, it is its obvious duty to tell us what it 
 can of God, of the world in relation to God, of man 
 in relation to God, of providence and theodicy, of 
 revelation and its media, of the destination of man- 
 kind and the consummation of things, of the aims, 
 ideals, spheres of action of the religious life, and the 
 like. A theistic metaphysical philosophy is bound 
 in self-consistency to exhibit the knowledge of God 
 as the alone absolute and all-comprehensive know- 
 ledge, the idea of ideas in metaphysical language, 
 and as inclusive of all the categories of being and 
 thought in their perfection. A correct doctrine of 
 the nature and function of the categories in thought 
 shows what is meant by knowing God as the abso- 
 lute, why it is erroneous to say that we cannot 
 know God, seeing that we can only know the 
 relative or the phenomenal, and the categories are 
 only valid for experience. In reality, all progress 
 in speculation, in science, in moral experience, and 
 in spiritual life, promotes progress in knowledge of 
 God. 
 
 Philosophy as a scheme of the sciences, as an 
 inquiry into the nature and limits of knowledge, 
 and as a doctrine of being and becoming, or, in 
 other words, philosophy as positive, critical, and 
 metaphysical, is theoretical philosophy in its three 
 
62 PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 
 
 stages, and the whole of theoretical philosophy. It 
 is not the whole of philosophy, however, because 
 although philosophy be fundamentally and predomi- 
 nantly theoretical, a merely theoretical philosophy 
 must be essentially incomplete. Practical applic- 
 ability is a necessary consequence of theoretical 
 accuracy. The true theory of the relations of the 
 sciences, of the conditions of knowledge, and of the 
 nature of existence and causation must be also the 
 only true basis of doctrine as to the ends and issues, 
 the purposes and destinies, of the beings which con- 
 stitute the universe. Whither tends the physical 
 world ? What is the chief end of man ? To what 
 goal is society moving ? Is life worth living ? Is 
 optimism or pessimism or an intermediate hypo- 
 thesis the legitimate conception of existence ? Ques- 
 tions like these can be answered aright only in con- 
 nection with a general theory of final causes such 
 as a comprehensive and profound philosophy can 
 alone provide. The answers given to them even 
 by the most comprehensive and profound philos- 
 ophy of the present age, and of many ages to come, 
 may be far from distinct and certain, and yet may 
 gradually approximate to the full truth as time 
 advances and knowledge increases. Philosophy 
 when engaged in the study of these questions and 
 seeking to be helpful in the guidance of active life 
 may be appropriately entitled practical philosophy. 
 
PHILOSOPHY AS SCIENTIA SCIENTIARUM. 63 
 
 Philosophy may not unreasonably present a claim 
 to be regarded as the highest and most comprehen- 
 sive kind of all human knowledge but certainly not 
 of all knowledge. There is an infinitely vaster and 
 more perfect knowledge than any to which man or 
 any other or even all created beings can pretend to 
 possess. There is a knowledge which we are very 
 apt to ignore although all other knowledge in the 
 universe springs from it and is closely connected 
 with it. In other words, there are not merely ordi- 
 nary and human knowledge, science, and philos- 
 ophy, but omniscience, divine intelligence and 
 wisdom, an all - comprehensive, perfect, and in- 
 finite knowledge. Nothing can be hid from God. 
 All is perfectly known to Him in the past, present, 
 and future, from the highest to the lowest, and 
 from the least to the greatest. He has all the 
 perfections of knowledge in himself and also knows 
 all that there is to know from without. Co-exten- 
 sive with omniscience is omnipotence. They are 
 indissolubly united. The former is not inactive 
 nor the latter unenlightened, More need not here 
 be said. The subject has been treated of in every 
 comprehensive system of theology. 
 
A HISTORY OF CLASSIFICATIONS 
 OF THE SCIENCES 
 
 E 
 
A HISTOKY OF CLASSIFICATIONS 
 OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 first problem with which philosophy, alike 
 as scientia scientiarum and as positive phil- 
 osophy, should deal seems to be how may the 
 sciences be rationally arranged and classified. 
 Unless it be so far accomplished obviously no 
 attempt at the organisation of either knowledge 
 or science can be successful. Philosophers have 
 always felt, more or less distinctly, that such must 
 be the case. They have never shown themselves 
 wholly unconscious that they ought to aim at the 
 organisation of knowledge. On the contrary, they 
 have made many endeavours to realise that aim, and 
 have always recognised that the first step or stage 
 to the organisation required is some form of classifi- 
 cation. From the time of Plato to the present day 
 there has been a continuous series of attempts to 
 classify the sciences. An historical and critical 
 account of them can hardly fail to be useful, even 
 
68 PLATONIC SCHEME OF 
 
 although none of them may have been completely 
 successful. Indeed, no scheme of the sciences can 
 be final and perfect so long as new sciences remain 
 to be formed. On the other hand, few have been 
 entirely worthless, and some may fairly be held to 
 have been of much value. A study of them is 
 indispensable at least to those who would improve 
 on them. It is always helpful towards knowing 
 how a thing ought to be done to consider how it 
 has been done. Thus only can all the points of 
 view, principles, and methods which require to be 
 considered in connection with any difficult problem 
 be brought distinctly before us. 
 
 I. FROM PLATO TO THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 Platonic Plato was, perhaps, the first who sought to give a 
 systematic distribution of knowledge. We must be 
 careful not to confound with that distribution so- 
 called divisions of his philosophy. Of its very 
 nature his philosophy will not divide. Those who 
 have divided it, like Marbach into general and 
 applied, or, like Krug into theoretical and practical, 
 have overlooked the fact, which numerous passages 
 might be brought to substantiate, that, in the eyes 
 of Plato, philosophy was an essentially practical 
 spiritual process. It was not theory or practice, 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES. 69 
 
 science or life, nor even theory applied to practice, 
 science applied to life, but both in one the striving 
 of the soul to purify and ennoble itself, to make 
 itself all beautiful within. There is no right under- 
 standing of the philosophy of Plato possible if we 
 forget that he regarded it as primarily a process, 
 the true life of the spirit, the soul making of itself 
 a divine poem, the highest music. It- is equally 
 incorrect to divide the Platonic philosophy, as Van 
 Heusde has done, into a philosophy of the true, 
 of the beautiful, and of the good. That is an 
 altogether modern mode of dividing philosophy, 
 and quite contrary to the spirit of Platonism. 
 Philosophy was, according to Plato, not only 
 essentially practical, but also essentially one, and 
 one because all ideas lead up to the idea of the 
 good 
 
 The division of philosophy most commonly 
 attributed to him, however, is that into dialectics, 
 physics, and ethics. But although Schwegler, 
 Zeller, Ferrier, Ueberweg, Erdmann, and many 
 others, have adopted it as substantially warranted, 
 it can exhibit no valid claims. It is admitted that 
 Plato nowhere distinctly states it. The very names 
 physics and ethics are unknown to him, and dia- 
 lectics is with him not a part of philosophy, but 
 the whole of philosophy. The way in which he 
 came to be credited with the division is apparent 
 
70 PLATONIC SCHEME OF 
 
 from what Sextus Empiricus, who flourished about 
 the beginning of the third century, says on the 
 subject : " Of those who divide philosophy into 
 physics, ethics, and logic, Plato is virtually the 
 originator (Swa/xei apx 7 ??^)' navm g discoursed on 
 many physical, many ethical, and not a few logical 
 questions." l The latter clause is here obviously the 
 explanation and reason of the former. It is because 
 Plato has discoursed much on physical matters, 
 much on ethical matters, and not a little on logic 
 that he is affirmed to have been virtually the author 
 of the threefold division of philosophy which was 
 afterwards widely prevalent. There is, in fact, no 
 other ground on which it can be carried up to Plato 
 with any plausibility, and this ground is quite 
 insufficient. That Plato wrote on all these three 
 subjects cannot in any degree warrant us to call 
 him even the virtual originator of the distribution. 
 It was scarcely possible that Plato, or any other 
 person, should write much on philosophy without 
 handling to some extent both physics and ethics, 
 and wholly impossible to handle them without 
 keeping them in some measure apart, but that was 
 a very different thing from making physics and 
 ethics distinct parts of philosophy, co-ordinate with 
 each other and with dialectics. That Plato certainly 
 did not. There is no dialogue of Plato exclusively 
 
 1 Adv. Math., vii. 16. 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES. 71 
 
 dialectical, and no dialogue from which dialectics is 
 excluded. Physical, ethical, and all other inquiries 
 are only included in his philosophy in so far as they 
 are dialectical, and his dialectics exists only as deal- 
 ing with the idealities of nature and spirit. Plato 
 knows nothing of a logic which has a province of 
 its own apart from all definite ideal contents. It 
 is vain to try to classify his writings as dialectical, 
 physical, and ethical. 
 
 Plato's distribution of knowledge is one involved 
 in his very theory of knowledge. It has been 
 discussed so often that I shall treat of it as briefly 
 as possible, and only because I must. According to 
 Plato, then, two worlds lie before the vision of man, 
 a visible world and an intelligible world. Each of 
 these worlds, in its turn, divides into two. Thus 
 the visible world is made up either of things or of 
 images of things. The former are the rocks, trees, 
 animals, &c. ; the latter are the shadows and reflec- 
 tions which they throw off, such shadows and 
 reflections as may be seen in water or in a mirror. 
 All the objects of the visible world are discerned 
 only through sense (a tcHfy cris), but sense in contact 
 with things generates belief (TTUTTIS), while in con- 
 tact with images (ei/coVes) it generates merely con- 
 jecture (ei/oxcria). Belief and conjecture are but a 
 higher and lower form of opinion (Sofa). Belief 
 differs from conjecture ; views based on things are 
 
72 PLATONIC SCHEME OF 
 
 not to be confounded with views based on mere 
 shadows, and have a greater worth and usefulness ; 
 but in no form can the informations of sense give 
 us truth or be entitled to the name of knowledge. 
 
 There is, however, an intelligible world, with 
 objects which reason apprehends and not sense. 
 These objects are likewise divisible into two classes, 
 conceptions and ideas. Conceptions are on the 
 lower level, and the mind reaches them by the help 
 of certain objects of sense which are a sort of images 
 of them. The mathematical sciences are conversant 
 with them, and in these sciences we make use of 
 visible figures, and motions, and audible sounds, but 
 only to help us to the comprehension of forms, pro- 
 perties, and ratios, which intellect alone can grasp. 
 They are five in number, and form a naturally and 
 closely connected series, Arithmetic, Plane Geo- 
 metry, Solid Geometry, Astronomy, and Harmonics. 
 Even the two latter deal not with physical things, 
 the visible luminaries of the sky, and the musical 
 sounds of the voice and other instruments, but 
 with permanent truths, mathematical relations, which 
 eye cannot see nor ear hear. 
 
 Plato gives, in the seventh book of the Republic, 
 a very remarkable account of the sciences conversant 
 with conceptions. To that account it must suffice 
 here merely to refer. The great value of those 
 sciences in his view was that they tended to raise 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES. 73 
 
 the mind above themselves, to develop philosophic 
 insight, to educate reason to apprehend the absolute 
 truth which is the light and life of the soul. In 
 themselves he regarded them as inherently defective. 
 They begin with certain assumptions and give us 
 only the consequences which follow from reasoning 
 on these assumptions. They start from principles 
 which they cannot prove, which it is beyond their 
 province to prove. They are essentially hypothetical. 
 There is need, accordingly, for a higher science ; 
 a science which may make use of the assumptions of 
 the sciences which deal with conceptions as occasions 
 and starting-points whence it may ascend to absolute 
 principles, to what has its reality and evidence in 
 itself, to ideas. And there is such a science. Its 
 name is Dialectic. The lower sciences have for their 
 objects conceptions or scientific assumptions ; the 
 faculty which they employ is discursive reason, and 
 their procedure is demonstration. The highest 
 science has for its objects ideas, not conceptions ; 
 absolute, not hypothetical principles ; real, not 
 assumed existences ; for its process intuition, not 
 demonstration, and for its faculty the intuitive, not 
 the discursive reason. It includes in itself all pro- 
 perly philosophical investigations. It is at once a 
 metaphysics, a logic, a theology, an ethics, and an 
 aesthetics ; a metaphysics, because occupied with the 
 immutable and invisible ; a logic, because the form 
 
74 PLATONIC SCHEME OF 
 
 and method of absolute science ; a theology, because 
 the supreme idea is the ultimate cause ; an ethics, 
 inasmuch as conversant with the principles which 
 are the source of all morality ; and an aesthetics, 
 since true beauty is ideal and transcendental in 
 nature and origin. 
 
 Plato's doctrine of science originated in a profound 
 conception of the nature of intelligence, and corre- 
 sponded to a magnificent view of the universe of 
 existence. From its promulgation to the present 
 time it has captivated alike the reason, imaginations, 
 and moral susceptibilities of men as no similar theory 
 has done. But, whatever were its merits, it had also 
 defects, which showed themselves very plainly in the 
 Platonic survey of the sciences, and which led, in 
 particular, to undue contraction of the sphere of 
 science. The whole world of sense is not to be 
 relegated, as Plato advised, to the limbo of mere 
 opinion. Natural apprehension and ordinary judg- 
 ment are not so essentially different from scientific 
 cognition as he assumed. The notion that there is 
 no science of phenomena, and that consequently 
 science cannot be reached through the study of 
 phenomena, but requires us to get beyond phen- 
 omena, through and above them as it were, into 
 a region of types, exemplars, conceptions, ideas, is 
 directly antagonistic to the spirit of modern science, 
 and has been amply confuted by the splendid achieve- 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES. 75 
 
 ments of modern science. It is a notion which 
 involves denial of the possibility of the physical or 
 natural sciences. 
 
 It apparently led Plato to that conclusion. For 
 although in the Timseus he speculated on the origin 
 and disposition of the world, and the organisation of 
 man, he expressly held that nothing could be affirmed 
 on these subjects as certain. What is called his 
 Physics was an application of his Dialectics, and of 
 a character which he himself maintained must be 
 conjectural. Of physical science in the proper sense 
 he has shown, I think, no conception. The error 
 which led him thus unduly to restrict the sphere of 
 science he also carried into his actual survey and 
 description of the sciences. There it took the form 
 of the dogma that the realities of a science are dis- 
 tinct from its phenomena. The latter do not contain 
 or manifest, but only suggest the truths of science, 
 and aid the mind to reach them. The conceptions 
 of Geometry are ideal assumptions ; its phenomena 
 are visible illustrations which never exactly cor- 
 respond to them, and often do them great injustice. 
 So there is an Astronomy of theories or realities, and 
 an Astronomy of appearances or phenomena ; and 
 the latter is not true Astronomy, because the varie- 
 gated adornments which appear in the sky, the visible 
 luminaries, beautiful as they are, are only a sort of 
 admirable diagrams by the help of which we may 
 
V6 PLATONIC SCHEME OF 
 
 rise to the contemplation of spheres, movements, 
 and relations, which are real and immutable, and 
 which can be grasped only in mental conception. 
 
 Now, all that is untenable. The diagrams of the 
 geometer are not phenomena of geometry. Geo- 
 metrical reasoning refers entirely to ideal figures 
 and relations, understanding thereby immediately 
 or mediately defined figures in immediately or 
 mediately defined relations. However badly drawn 
 may be the diagrams before the bodily eye of the 
 geometer, those before his mental eye are always 
 absolutely accurate delineations. He can only 
 reason on the supposition that his triangles, squares, 
 &c., are precisely what they are defined to be. 
 It is likewise vain to separate and contrast an 
 astronomy of appearances and an astronomy of 
 theories. The appearances are in astronomy the 
 very things and the only things to be explained. 
 A theory, to be of any worth, must be one which 
 accounts for the appearances. Plato failed to per- 
 ceive how phenomena exhibit laws and how laws 
 manifest themselves in phenomena, and conse- 
 quently he opposed phenomena to realities in a 
 way which few will now undertake to defend. 
 
 Apart from the error indicated, Plato's survey of 
 the hypothetical sciences the sciences which deal 
 with conceptions is of remarkable merit, consider- 
 ing the age to which it belongs. It is especially 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES. 77 
 
 meritorious for the comprehensiveness and correct- 
 ness of mathematical view which it displays. It 
 strongly corroborates the historical testimony that 
 Plato was a proficient in the mathematical knowledge 
 of his time. He ignored, as we have seen, natural 
 science. Here, where Aristotle was so powerful, 
 Plato was comparatively feeble ; but, on the other 
 hand, where Aristotle was weakest Plato was 
 strongest. All the difficulties which intelligence 
 meets with may be reduced to two classes, diffi- 
 culties of abstraction and difficulties of complexity. 
 Of superior minds some overcome more easily 
 the one class of difficulties and some the other class. 
 Aristotle was the more fitted to deal with the 
 complex, Plato with the abstract. Hence, Aristotle 
 was drawn to natural philosophy, and still more to 
 natural history and psychology, and whatever de- 
 manded close observation and searching analysis ; 
 Plato to mathematics, and all those loftier problems 
 which most transcend sense and most exercise pure 
 intellect. Few thinkers have discerned so broadly 
 and clearly as Plato the relations of the mathe- 
 matical sciences to philosophy. 
 
 Aristotle's conception of philosophy as distin- Aristo- 
 guished from science was greatly inferior to that scheme, 
 of Plato, and his criticism of the nature of know- 
 ledge was far less profound and suggestive, yet his 
 
78 ARISTOTELIAN DISTRIBUTION 
 
 work was, on the whole, an advance on that of his 
 predecessor. It was at once its continuation and 
 complement. Aristotle collected the truths which 
 Plato had so lavishly scattered, added to them a 
 multitude of facts acquired by his own indefatigable 
 industry, and a multitude of reflections suggested 
 by his own vigorous and penetrating intellect, and 
 combined with rare judgment his vast acquisitions 
 into distinct organic systems. He thus became the 
 founder of more sciences than any other man. He 
 gave existence and form to almost as many special 
 scientific disciplines as he wrote books. 
 
 That great thinker, than whom there probably 
 never lived a man of more encyclopaedic mind, 
 adopted a threefold division of philosophy, science, 
 or knowledge. He distributed it into Theoretic, 
 Productive, and Practical. Theoretic Philosophy 
 has no aim beyond the apprehension of truth. It 
 is conversant with the existent, with being. It 
 subdivides into Physics, Mathematics, and Meta- 
 physics. Being, considered in connection with 
 whatever can be known through perception and 
 experience, is the subject-matter of Physics, which, 
 according to Aristotle, includes Psychology. Being, 
 conceived of apart from the variations of the mate- 
 rial world, but not apart from matter, is that with 
 which Mathematics is conversant. Mathematics 
 consequently differs from Physics not essentially, 
 
OF KNOWLEDGE. *79 
 
 but only in degree, as being more general and 
 abstract. Metaphysics, again, differs from Mathe- 
 matics just as Mathematics differs from Physics, 
 being still more general and abstract. It treats of 
 Being per se, of the existent in its absolute nature 
 and universal properties. Aristotle called it " First 
 Philosophy," and sometimes "Theology." It con- 
 tained what little theology he taught. 
 
 But philosophy, according to Aristotle, although 
 primarily is not exclusively theoretic. The con- 
 templation of being is its proper function in its 
 purest form, but not its only function. It has 
 regard also to the production of effects and to the 
 regulation of human actions. In the former case 
 it is Productive Philosophy ; in the latter case it is 
 Practical Philosophy. Productive Philosophy differs 
 from Theoretic Philosophy because it tends to per- 
 formance instead of to contemplation, and from 
 Practical Philosophy because it does not terminate 
 in the regulation of actions, but in the origination of 
 permanent products. It is the theory of the arts. 
 Aristotle did not subdivide it. His " Poetics " deals 
 only with one of the "imitative" arts. Khetoric, 
 which, judging from its general character, one ex- 
 pects to find placed by the side of Poetics, was 
 viewed by him as a science auxiliary to Politics. 
 Practical Philosophy looks beyond truth to the 
 good, and seeks so to regulate actions that the good 
 
80 ARISTOTELIAN DISTRIBUTION OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 may be reached. Its two chief branches are Ethics 
 and Politics. The former deals with man in relation 
 to his natural good as an individual ; the latter is 
 an inquiry as to how society should be constituted 
 with a view to the public good. 
 
 Within this scheme Aristotle did not place Ana- 
 lytics, later called Logic. He regarded it not as a 
 part of philosophy, but as an introduction to philo- 
 sophy, and especially to "first philosophy." As a 
 doctrine of the principles and processes of science 
 he considered that it ought to take precedence of 
 the sciences. This, of course, was virtually to 
 exclude it from the sciences and to allow that the 
 proposed classification of the sciences was not in- 
 clusive of all departments of knowledge, while it 
 could, with much appearance at least of truth, be 
 maintained that the principles and processes of 
 science are only ascertainable after sciences have 
 been formed. Logic may, however, have a place 
 assigned it within the Aristotelian scheme. It may, 
 indeed, be ranked either among the Productive or 
 the Practical Sciences ; among the former if its end 
 be supposed to be the production of arguments ; 
 among the latter if it be held to aim at the regu- 
 lation of the reasoning faculty. Ehetoric, also, is 
 virtually excluded from the classification when re- 
 presented as simply an auxiliary to Politics. It too, 
 however, like Logic, may easily be placed within it, 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 81 
 
 and either as a Productive or a Practical Science, 
 the former if its aim be deemed the production of 
 orations, the latter if it be regarded as looking to 
 influence on the mind and conduct. Economics is 
 conjoined by Aristotle with Rhetoric, as being also 
 a science auxiliary to Politics. It might just as well 
 be viewed as a constituent member of the group of 
 Practical Sciences. 
 
 The work which Aristotle accomplished in the 
 way of originating and advancing the sciences which 
 he arranged or classified according to the plan now 
 described, gained him a unique position in the 
 history of science. No one has attained, or can 
 reasonably hope to attain, any very like position. 
 The scheme of classification itse]f, however, has 
 obvious defects. Thus, in the first place, the dis- 
 tinction between Productive Sciences and Practical 
 Sciences ought not to have the importance which is 
 assigned to it. It is neither broad nor deep, and 
 certainly not fundamental or primary. Nay, it is 
 much to be doubted whether it is a distinction 
 which can be at all applied to separate and distri- 
 bute the sciences. For as every science is in some 
 measure both regulative of actions and productive 
 of results, it would seem that there must be arbi- 
 trariness in forming sciences into groups by view- 
 ing some sciences as only regulative of actions and 
 others as only productive of results. Aristotle 
 
82 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 chose to regard Politics, for example, as a Practical 
 Science, but he might with equal reason have ranked 
 it as a Productive Science. He might have looked 
 at the result it seeks to accomplish rather than at 
 its character as a means, and the result is a perma- 
 nent product, an orderly, prosperous, and endur- 
 ing society. 
 
 In the second place, it is erroneous to classify the 
 sciences according to ends, either of regulation or 
 production. They should be arranged according to 
 their natures, their inherent characteristics, not 
 according to anything lying beyond themselves. 
 The end of a science is not anything fixed. It is 
 the sum of the uses to which the science can be put, 
 and uses always vary with wants. One science may 
 have many ends, and many sciences may require to 
 be combined in order to gain one end. It must 
 be especially erroneous to arrange some sciences 
 according to their natures and others according 
 to their ends. It must be illegitimate to employ 
 two principles of classification, and when one 
 fails, to have recourse to the other. That is a 
 procedure which must at once give rise to cross- 
 divisions, and which has in itself no logical limits. 
 If we can introduce two principles, why not three ? 
 And if three, why not as many as there are 
 things to divide ? There can be no legitimate 
 scheme of classification in which the divisions 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 83 
 
 are not determined throughout by one common 
 principle. 
 
 That leads me to say that a third, and perhaps 
 the greatest, defect of the Aristotelian survey of the 
 sciences was the want of unity which arose from the 
 absence of a philosophy inclusive of, but superior to, 
 the sciences. Without explicitly affirming that he 
 did so, he, in reality, viewed philosophy as merely 
 a whole constituted by the sciences, a sum made up 
 of the sciences as a unit is made up of its component 
 fractions. But this leaves no philosophy distinct 
 from the sciences, and either able or entitled to co- 
 ordinate and organise them. Hence in the Aristo- 
 telian arrangement there is a certain grouping of 
 the sciences, but not a real systemisation of them. 
 They are not shown to constitute an organic whole. 
 They have each an independent foundation, and 
 they are also in some degree classified, but there is 
 no highest science to comprehend them and to de- 
 termine the place of each. What Aristotle called 
 First Philosophy and his commentators Metaphysics, 
 does not perform this function. Its object is being 
 as being, and so it is the antecedent and presup- 
 position of all other sciences, since they all treat of 
 special concrete beings, but it possesses a merely 
 abstract universality, and it has no power nor is it 
 any part of its business to organise the various 
 sciences into a system. It is not) to use an Aristo- 
 
84 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 telian word, an architectonic science. The science 
 which Aristotle himself regards as such is Politics, 
 but its claims to the honour are altogether inadmis- 
 sible. They amount merely to an affirmation that 
 Politics is entitled to control other sciences, seeing 
 that politicians must view the sciences in relation to 
 the public good. We may be sure, however, that 
 the order of the sciences has a far deeper source 
 than the will and the interest of men. It must 
 spring from the essential truth of things, from the 
 all-pervasive order of nature. 
 
 Modified The Aristotelian classification, notwithstanding its 
 iaiTciassi- ra di ca l defects, was widely accepted, although only 
 fication. j n a slightly modified form. The narrow, the 
 really untenable distinction between Productive 
 and Practical Sciences was dropped, and philosophy 
 came to be divided simply into two great branches, 
 the Theoretical and Practical. This division found 
 recognition both among the Stoics and the Epi- 
 cureans. Some expressed it by representing Philo- 
 sophy as either Physical or Ethical, i.e., either 
 concerned with the contemplation of nature or the 
 regulation of human action. The great objection 
 to it is that it identified, or rather confounded, 
 philosophy with science. It recognised no philo- 
 sophy distinct from the sciences. It assumed that 
 the branches of philosophy were the divisions of 
 the sciences. If that be the case there is either 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 85 
 
 no philosophy proper or no science proper, for either 
 philosophy absorbs the sciences or the sciences leave 
 no room for philosophy. The division of the 
 sciences into Theoretical and Practical is still a 
 favourite popular one. There can be little doubt, 
 however, that it is faulty, even when science and 
 philosophy are expressly distinguished. All the 
 so-called Theoretical Sciences may be regarded as 
 also Practical Sciences, and all the Practical Sciences 
 as also Theoretical Sciences, if each class be only 
 looked at from the point of view previously appro- 
 priated to the other. 
 
 The division of philosophy into Dialectics, Physics, 
 and Ethics, commonly but erroneously attributed to 
 Plato, has been also referred to Aristotle, although 
 it is, of course, admitted not to have been the one 
 which he himself adopted. It has been referred to, 
 however, on the authority of a passage which by 
 no means warrants the conclusion drawn from it. 
 In that passage (Topics, B. I. ch. xiv.) he says that 
 "there are three parts of propositions and of pro- 
 blems ; for some propositions are ethical, others 
 physical, and others logical " ; and he says so only 
 when treating of the choice of propositions with 
 reference to disputation. To regard that as a 
 division of philosophy into Physics, Ethics, and 
 Logic is to raise a very large superstructure on a 
 very small foundation. To classify propositions 
 
86 CLASSIFICATIONS OP THE SCIENCES. 
 
 with reference to a particular end is a very differ- 
 ent thing from classifying the sciences. Besides, 
 Aristotle put forth his classification of propositions 
 as only generally, only in outline, true (o>s 
 
 stoic and The threefold division of philosophy into Logic, 
 distrfou" 1 Physics, and Ethics can be fairly ascribed neither 
 sciences ^ P^ or Aristotle. It may have been enunci- 
 ated by Xenocrates, as Sextus Empiricus says, but 
 there is now no proof of that, and not unlikely it 
 originated with those who attached so much im- 
 portance to it, the Stoics. They regarded all 
 knowledge as vain and superfluous which had no 
 end beyond itself, which did not help towards 
 the attainment of that wisdom to which the charac- 
 ter and conduct ought to conform. They held 
 that philosophy existed only to perfect human 
 nature and to guide human life, and that in order 
 I to secure this end it must elicit and cultivate three 
 I virtues or excellences : it must train the under- 
 standing to distinguish the true from the false, 
 I the useful from the useless, must enable the intel- 
 uect to penetrate into the nature and trace the 
 order of the universe, and must regulate the will 
 the practice of what is good ; in other words, it 
 
 must be a Logic, Physics, and Ethics, a Logic to 
 guide the reason, a Physics to explain the world, 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 87 
 
 and an Ethics to rule the moral life. Each of those 
 disciplines was deemed to include two sciences. 
 Logic was not only the science of correct thinking, 
 but of the correct expression of thought, and so 
 comprehended both Dialectic and Ehetoric ; Physics 
 was both a Cosmology and a Theology, Deity being 
 regarded as not separable from the world, but the 
 active and formative power immanent in it ; and 
 Ethics embraced Morals and Politics. The Stoics 
 were not agreed as to the order in which Logic, 
 Physics, and Ethics ought to stand. They com- 
 monly placed Logic first, but were much divided 
 as to whether Physics should precede or follow 
 Ethics. Logic they likened to the bones and 
 sinews of the animal body and to the shell of an 
 egg, but while some thought Physics was like the 
 flesh of the beast and white of the egg, and Ethics 
 like the soul of the one and the yolk of the other, 
 others represented Ethics as the flesh and white, 
 and Physics as the soul and yolk. The Epicureans 
 accepted the same threefold division of science, but 
 without differing among themselves as to the order 
 of the divisions. They were still more narrowly 
 and exclusively practical than the Stoics ; they 
 looked on philosophy merely as the power which 
 conducts men to happiness, and as worth attention 
 only in so far as it contributes to render existence 
 agreeable ; hence, Logic they confined to an investi- 
 
88 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 gation of the criteria of truth, and cultivated simply 
 as necessary to Physics, and Physics they entirely 
 subordinated to Ethics, valuing it only as the means 
 of delivering the mind from superstitious beliefs 
 which disquiet and embitter the life. 
 
 It is unnecessary to criticise this distribution of 
 science either in its Stoic or Epicurean form. It is 
 very obvious that it finds no proper place for, if it 
 does not expressly exclude, metaphysics, mathematics, 
 psychology, and theology ; and, in fact, that it ex- 
 cludes at least as much as it includes. It received, 
 however, a wide acceptance, rivalling, and perhaps 
 even exceeding, in its diffusion the Aristotelian 
 classification. It prevailed among the scholastics, 
 ajid has found favour even with Descartes, Locke, 
 Kant, Herbert, and Hegel, although they have, of 
 course, suggested certain real or supposed improve- 
 ments. It will, therefore, come before us again in 
 later and more elaborated forms. 
 
 Varro. Cicero has no claim to a place in this history, but 
 
 his contemporary and friend, the learned and inde- 
 fatigable Varro, is entitled to be mentioned as, in 
 all probability, the first who composed a kind of 
 inventory or encyclopsedia of the sciences. Like 
 all but two of the 490 works which he wrote, his 
 treatise Libri novem disciplinarum has been lost 
 for ages, but it exerted an influence, through the 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 89 
 
 writings of Capella, Cassiodorus, and others, on 
 many generations to which it was unknown. The 
 nine disciplines of which he treated were the seven 
 so-called " liberal arts," with the addition of medi- 
 cine and architecture. 
 
 In the fifth century of the Christian era, Marti- Capella. 
 anus Capella wrote his bizarre encyclopaedic ro- 
 mance, the Satyricon. Two books describe the 
 marriage of Mercury and Philology, the daughter 
 of Phronesis, and the remaining seven are devoted 
 to the seven attendants on the bride, the seven 
 liberal arts, Grammar, Dialectic, Khetoric, Geo- 
 metry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, Music. 
 
 Somewhat later Cassiodorus treated of the same 
 
 departments of knowledge in his De artibus et dis- 
 ciplinis liberalium litterarum, grouping together 
 Grammar, Dialectic, and Khetoric, as Aries or 
 ScienticB Sermocinales, and Arithmetic, Geometry, 
 Astronomy, and Music as Discipline or ScienticB 
 Reales. Capella and Cassiodorus definitively estab- 
 lished the educational curriculum for the studious 
 youth of medieval Europe. It has to be remem- 
 bered, however, that it was only a preparatory 
 course. The studies which it comprised were all 
 regarded as ancillary to a higher science, as so many 
 steps and supports leading up to the knowledge of 
 divine things, the mistress science, Theology. 
 
 They were grouped into what was called the 
 
90 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Trivium Trivium and Quadrivium ; the former comprehend- 
 rivium. ing Grammar, Dialectic, and Ehetoric, and the 
 latter Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music. 
 The general thought which underlay this division of 
 studies was that those of the lower order were con- 
 versant with words, those of the higher with things; 
 that the former were, as they were often termed, 
 scientice sermocinales, the latter scientice reales ; or, 
 otherwise, that the former were Logica, the latter 
 Mathematics. The Trivium corresponded likewise 
 to the Logic, and the Quadrivium to the Physics of 
 the Stoics. Ethics was generally included by the 
 Scholastics in Theology, although it was sometimes 
 given a place apart. It was usual for students to 
 pass slowly through the Trivium and rapidly 
 through the Quadrivium, and not uncommon for 
 them to omit the latter altogether, so as to pass 
 at once from logical and verbal studies to what was 
 then the science of most engrossing interest. This, 
 more than any other fact, perhaps, is explanatory 
 of Scholasticism. The scholastics were men whose 
 minds were nurtured on words divorced from things 
 and on the forms without the realities of know- 
 ledge. Even the medieval so-called "real sciences" 
 were essentially formal sciences ; Arithmetic and 
 Geometry manifestly so, and Astronomy and Music 
 less plainly yet, in the main, indubitably so, as the 
 physical bases and material contents of both these 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 91 
 
 sciences were almost wholly ignored. No wonder, 
 therefore, that so many of the representatives of 
 scholasticism should now seem to us, as we look 
 back upon their exertions, like " metaphysic mills 
 vigorous in grinding the air." 
 
 Isidore of Seville (560-636), a celebrated Spanish Isidore, 
 bishop, and two illustrious Englishmen, the Vener- 
 able Bede (673-735) and Alcuin (736-804), greatly 
 contributed to give currency and authority to the 
 scheme of classification of the sciences introduced 
 by Capella and Cassiodorus. Isidore did so by the 
 work entitled Originum s. Etymologiarum Libri xx, 
 which at the time of its appearance, and for several 
 centuries afterwards, was supposed to form a com- 
 plete encyclopaedia of all extant departments of 
 knowledge. It was the chief source from which in 
 those times general information was drawn, and had 
 there been no such book, the darkest period of the 
 medieval world would have been even darker than 
 it was. The author's scheme and description of the 
 sciences are contained in his first three books, and 
 the order of their arrangement runs thus : (1) Gram- 
 mar, (2) Ehetoric, (3) Dialectic, (4) Arithmetic, (5) 
 Geometry, (6) Music, (7) Astronomy, (8) Medicine, 
 (9) Jurisprudence, and (10) Chronology. 
 
 The influence of Bede, owing to his zeal for Bede and 
 acquiring and diffusing knowledge, his piety, his 
 authorship of such a work as the Historia Ecclesi- 
 
92 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 astica Gentis Britonum, and the compends which 
 he wrote to facilitate for students a mastery over 
 various discipline, could not fail to be strong and 
 of the same character and tendency as Isidore's. 
 Alcuin, doubtless, owed much to what Bede had 
 been and done, but he was called to work in a far 
 wider sphere. Fortunately, he was well prepared 
 for his mission in life by an admirable and appro- 
 priate education in the renowned schools of York, 
 and when he became the friend and preceptor of 
 Charlemagne he zealously sought to have similar 
 schools founded throughout that monarch's wide 
 
 o 
 
 empire. The king was his first pupil, gave him 
 always his complete confidence, and placed him 
 wherever he could be of most use. During the last 
 years of Alcuin's life he was abbot of the famous 
 monastery of St Martin of Tours, and there, as he 
 had done in other positions, he gave not only 
 lessons on the Bible, but also on ancient languages, 
 grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, and astronomy. 
 
 Between the ninth and twelfth century there was 
 little if anything which here concerns us. It must 
 be remembered, however, that from the twelfth 
 century onwards the scholastic doctors, although 
 not independent students of the sciences, or com- 
 petent to organise satisfactorily the system of the 
 sciences, knew all that Aristotle had taught, much 
 besides which the Jews and Arabs had added, and 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 93 
 
 the vast body of doctrines which had been gradu- 
 ally derived from the statements or suggestions of 
 Scripture. Only minds of the largest capacity 
 could contain those stores of thought and learning 
 possessed by an Albertus Magnus, a Thomas 
 Aquinas, or a Dante. 
 
 The most characteristic medieval attempts at 
 classification of the various kinds of knowledge 
 were those which subordinated all secular studies 
 to theology, and represented the former as so many 
 stages by which the soul might gradually raise itself 
 to communion with the Divine. It may suffice to 
 indicate the character of three such attempts, viz., 
 those of Hugo of St Victor, St Bonaventura, and 
 Vincent of Beauvais. Mysticism was a prominent 
 feature of all three, and the mysticism was of a 
 kind which has been appropriately called Latin, in 
 order to distinguish it from the earlier Greek mysti- 
 cism of the pseudo-Dionysius and Scotus Erigena 
 and the later German mysticism of Eckhart, Tauler, 
 and Thomas a Kempis. In all three stages medi- 
 eval mysticism was prominent, and naturally so as 
 a much-needed counterpoise to the crude and coarse 
 views, the empiricism, dogmatism, and formalism so 
 prevalent in the medieval world. 
 
 The classification of Hugo of St Victor (1096- Hugo of 
 1141) is to be found in his Eruditio didiscalica. 
 
94 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Three books in that work treat of worldly sciences, 
 and four of sacred and ecclesiastical history. The 
 former are of most interest. The main object of the 
 entire work, however, is distinctly avowed to be to 
 serve as a propedeutic to theology. All kinds of 
 secular knowledge are held to be of right subor- 
 dinate and auxiliary to religion. The entire scheme 
 of classification is comprised in three classes or divi- 
 sions. First, there are the theoretical sciences. 
 These include, physics (which is occupied with 
 what is temporal and material), mathematics 
 (which is represented as comprehending the whole 
 four divisions of the quadrivium, not merely arith- 
 metic and geometry but also astronomy and music), 
 and above all theology (the object of which is the 
 eternal and divine, and in which alone the reason 
 and heart can find their full satisfaction). Secondly, 
 there is the division of practical sciences. It is held 
 to consist of ethics, economics, and politics. And, 
 thirdly, there is a sevenfold distribution of so-called 
 mechanical or technical arts. They are arranged in 
 the following order, weaving, smith-work, naviga- 
 tion, agriculture, hunting, medicine, and the histri- 
 onic art. When one considers that Hugo was a 
 thorough recluse, of a feeble and sickly constitu- 
 tion, and who is said to have been only once away 
 from his monastery, it must seem marvellous that he 
 should have been able to acquire so much know- 
 ledge as he did of such arts as those mentioned. 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 95 
 
 He did not include psychology in his classification, 
 but he was a student of psychical facts. As he 
 assigned the different faculties of mind to different 
 divisions of the brain, he may be held to have so 
 far anticipated the phrenology of Gall and Spurz- 
 heim. In that, however, he was not original. 
 Phrenology should be regarded as not a modern 
 but a medieval invention. 
 
 The " Seraphic Doctor," St Bonaventura (1221- Bonaven- 
 1274), wrote a treatise entitled De reductions ar- 
 tium ad theologiam, in which he sought to refer the 
 varieties of knowledge to the one source of truth 
 the Father of light. Cognitions he distributed 
 into artificial, natural, intellectual, and revealed, 
 according to the character of the Divine illumina- 
 tion in which he supposed them to originate ; for, 
 in this view, there are four kinds or degrees of 
 light, the external light, by which we learn the 
 mechanical arts, the inferior light, which shines 
 through the senses, and by which we apprehend 
 individuals or things, the internal light, the 
 reason, which by reflection raises the soul to in- 
 tellectual things, the universals in conception, 
 and the superior light, the light of grace, which 
 reveals to us sanctifying virtue, and elevates us to 
 universals as they are in their reality i.e., in God 
 himself. It is, according to Bonaventura, from the 
 internal light that theoretic science or philosophy 
 
96 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 flows, and such science or philosophy may be three- 
 fold, natural, rational, and moral, the natural in- 
 cluding the three sciences of physics, mathematics, 
 and metaphysics, the rational those of grammar, 
 logic, and rhetoric, and the moral those of ethics, 
 economics, and politics. 
 
 Vincent of A contemporary of Bonaventura, Vincent of Beau- 
 R^^on, vais, was the author of a very learned work of an 
 and Dante, encyclopedic nature, the Bibliotheca mundi, other- 
 wise known as the Speculum quadruplex, since the 
 first part was meant to be a "mirror of nature" 
 (speculum naturale) ; the second a " mirror of doc- 
 trine " or science (speculum doctrinale) ; the third a 
 "mirror of history" (speculum historiale) ; and the 
 fourth a " mirror of morals " (speculum morale). In 
 the same century Koger Bacon did noble service to 
 the cause of science by insisting on the regard due 
 to experience, and enlarged men's conceptions of its 
 domain by his advocacy of linguistic, optical, and 
 experimental studies. 
 
 Some of our readers will recall to mind how 
 Dante in his Convito has represented the dis- 
 tribution of the sciences as corresponding to the 
 divisions of the heavens. Heaven in general 
 is science in general, science abstract and un- 
 divided, and as there are ten heavens, so are 
 there ten spheres of science. The seven heavens 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 97 
 
 nearest to the earth are those of the planets, and 
 the planets in ascending order are as follows, the 
 Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and 
 Saturn ; to them correspond the seven sciences of 
 the Trivium and Quadrivium ; and mysterious ana- 
 logies so the poet, with an imaginative subtility 
 impossible to describe, seeks to prove exist be- 
 tween each planet and the science of which it is a 
 symbol, between the Moon and grammar, Mercury 
 and dialectics, Venus and rhetoric, the Sun and 
 arithmetic, Mars and music, Jupiter and geometry, 
 Saturn and astronomy. Above those planetary 
 heavens are three others, the heaven of the fixed 
 stars, the crystalline heaven, and the heaven of 
 eternal rest, the all-embracing empyrean, not in 
 space but formed solely in the primal Mind; and 
 these heavens represent the highest sciences, the 
 starry sphere corresponding to physics and meta- 
 physics united, the crystalline to moral philosophy, 
 and the empyrean to theology. 
 
 II. FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO KANT. 
 
 We must come down to the Kenaissance period Poiiziano. 
 before we meet with any better schemes of scientific 
 co-ordination. The Panepistemon (published in 
 1491) of the renowned poet and classicist, Angelo 
 
 G 
 
98 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Poliziano, was merely a prelude to more serious 
 attempts. It delineates the tree of knowledge as 
 dividing into the three great branches of revela- 
 tion, of discovery, and of divination. To revelation 
 corresponds positive theology, the theology which 
 springs from the fountain of inspiration. To dis- 
 covery or invention corresponds philosophy, of which 
 the general divisions are these three, 1. Specta- 
 tiva, theoretic or intuitive, including mathematics, 
 physics, psychology, and ontology with natural 
 theology ; 2. Actualis, practical, comprising ethics, 
 economics, and politics ; and 3. Rationalis, rational, 
 conversant with grammar the art of expression, 
 history the art of narration, dialectics the art of 
 demonstration, rhetoric the art of persuasion, and 
 poetics the art of intellectual delectation. 
 
 There is some originality in the scheme of classi- 
 fication propounded by Mario Nizolio in his De 
 veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi 
 contra pseudophilosophos (1553). Nizolio was a 
 keen opponent of scholasticism, an extreme nomin- 
 alist, and a decided positivist almost three hundred 
 years before Comte. He held that metaphysics was 
 either false or useless, and to be excluded from 
 among the sciences (partim falsam, partim inu- 
 tilem et supervecuam . . . ab omni artium et 
 scientiarum numero removendam). He equally re- 
 jected dialectics and sought to retain only a logic 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 99 
 
 which would concern itself simply with experience, 
 induction, and the simple, clear, and correct use of 
 words. He laid great stress on language, holding 
 thought and speech to be related as soul and body. 
 Hence he represented the tree of the sciences and 
 arts as primarily dividing into the two branches of 
 Philosophy and Oratory, the former tending to 
 wisdom and the latter to its appropriate expression. 
 Philosophy he distributed into natural (Physics) 
 and civil (Politics), natural philosophy including 
 geography, meteorology, physiology, and even the- 
 ology, and moral philosophy comprising ethics, 
 politics in the special sense of the word, economics, 
 jurisprudence, &c. Under Oratorio, he ranked all 
 disciplines conversant with speech and composition, 
 e.g., grammar, rhetoric, poetics, and history. At 
 the same time he admitted that numerous depart- 
 ments of knowledge and practice, such as the var- 
 ious branches of mathematics, the mechanical arts, 
 the fine arts, and medicine, could not be included 
 simply and entirely under any one of these three 
 great divisions Physics, Politics, Oratory but 
 must be referred to two or even to all of them. 
 
 Now we reach Thomas Campanella (1568-1639), 
 who was one of the best representatives in Italy of e 
 that great movement of philosophical reform which 
 in the same age produced DesCartes in France and 
 
100 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Bacon in England. Like these two great men he 
 refused to be the slave of the past or to bow down 
 to authority, summoned the real and reputed 
 doctrines of Aristotle before the bar of reason in 
 order to be tried and tested by their conformity to, 
 or deviation from, nature, and sought, by substi- 
 tuting experience and induction for dogmatism and 
 a priori reasoning, to reconstruct the whole edifice 
 of science, while, by the courage with which he 
 braved danger and the patience with which he 
 endured persecution, he displayed a strength of soul 
 of which both were destitute and which entitles 
 him to a place in the foremost rank alike of the 
 heroes and martyrs of all time. Campanella, as 
 well as his great English contemporary, endeavoured 
 not only to recall men from an old and false to a 
 new and true method of scientific inquiry, but to 
 map out the provinces of knowledge according to 
 their natural order and relationship. It must be 
 admitted, however, that in this part of his task his 
 services were less brilliant than those of Bacon ; 
 that he has not lavished on it the same intellectual 
 wealth ; or indicated with the same clearness of 
 vision on his chart of the intellectual world where 
 there are lands to discover ; or given utterance to 
 the same magnificent prophecies respecting the 
 future of science. But if his conceptions were not 
 so large and magnificent, neither were they so 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 101 
 
 vague and confused. The principle of his classi- 
 fication was also sounder, inasmuch as he did not 
 set out from a purely subjective position, but 
 aimed at an objective arrangement : in other words, 
 he attempted to classify knowledge not according 
 to the faculties conversant with it, but according 
 to its own nature. 
 
 According to Campanella, all knowledge is latent 
 and in germ in sensation, sentire est scire, but 
 it can only be realised and rendered explicit by 
 intellection ascending from the immediate to the 
 remote, from the known to the unknown, from per- 
 ception to theory. The foundation, consequently, 
 of all science is history, and as history is either 
 divine or human, the sciences must be divided 
 into divine and human. God is the truth, and all 
 truth must be received from him, but he gives truth 
 in two ways, he places the book of nature before 
 our eyes, and he speaks to us through the prophets 
 and in our own hearts. Eevelation and nature, 
 these are the two sources of all knowledge, the 
 primary divine autographs of which all human 
 systems are but the imperfect and inaccurate copies, 
 and with which they need to be constantly com- 
 pared to see if they contain anything false. On 
 revelation theology must be built; on nature, 
 micrology. Micrology in its turn is divided in a 
 twofold way, into natural and moral science ; the 
 
102 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 principal branches of the former being geometry, 
 cosmography, astronomy, astrology, and medicine ; 
 and of the latter, ethics, politics, and economics, 
 with rhetoric and poetic as auxiliaries. All these 
 sciences, however, treat of particular objects, and 
 there must be another which treats of the universal. 
 They are but parts of a whole ; and there must be a 
 study which shows how they are so concentrated 
 and co-ordinated as to form the whole, and what 
 principles pervade and unify them. This study is 
 metaphysics. Its office is to supply principles to 
 all the arts and sciences, and it comprehends a 
 threefold inquiry, namely: (1) into principles of 
 knowledge, (2) into principles of existence, and (3) 
 into principles of action. 
 
 Thus Campanella surveyed the domain of science 
 and mapped out its provinces. It is unnecessary 
 to criticise its details, its subordinate divisions, and 
 its delineations of the limits of the special sciences. 
 These, of course, were not, and could not be expected 
 to be, correct. It is of more importance to note that 
 there -is hardly a part of the scheme scarcely a 
 science included in it on which Campanella has 
 not written with learning and ingenuity; that in 
 holding that a classification of the sciences ought to 
 have regard to their objective aspects, their own 
 natures, their inherent characteristics, he took up 
 the only right position; and that in representing 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 103 
 
 theology as overlying and metaphysics as under- 
 lying all the other sciences, and the intervening 
 sciences as composed of two series of sciences, he 
 made a remarkable approximation to a system 
 of co-ordination of the sciences true at least in 
 outline. 
 
 DesCartes has not entered on the subject under DesCartea. 
 consideration in any formal or elaborate manner. 
 The most explicit passage regarding it in his writings 
 is the following: "When a man has acquired some 
 skill in discovering truth, he should commence to 
 apply himself in earnest to true philosophy, of which 
 the first part is Metaphysics, containing the prin- 
 ciples of knowledge, among which is the explication 
 of the principal attributes of God, of the immortal- 
 ity of the soul, and of all the clear and simple 
 notions that are in us ; the second is Physics, in 
 which, after finding the true principles of material 
 things, we examine, in general, how the whole uni- 
 verse has been framed ; in the next place, we 
 consider, in particular, the nature of the earth, and 
 of all the bodies that are most generally found 
 upon it, as air, water, fire, the loadstone, and other 
 minerals ; in the next place, it is necessary also to 
 examine singly the nature of plants, of animals, and 
 above all of man, in order that we may thereafter 
 be able to discover the other sciences that are useful 
 
J 
 
 104 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 to us. Thus, all Philosophy is like a tree, of which 
 Metaphysics is the root, Physics the trunk, and all 
 the other sciences the branches that grow out of this 
 trunk, which are reduced to three principal, namely, 
 Medicine, Mechanics, and Ethics. By the science 
 of Morals I understand the highest and most perfect 
 which, presupposing an entire knowledge of the 
 other sciences, is the last degree of wisdom." 1 
 
 In the context DesCartes informs us that he 
 meant by Philosophy " all that the human mind 
 can know," so that his distribution of Philosophy 
 must be regarded as a distribution of all knowledge. 
 Logic, indeed, he did not include, although he had 
 been speaking of it immediately before, because he 
 looked on logic from an altogether practical point 
 of view, so that it was in his eyes not a part, but the 
 method, of philosophy. Notwithstanding this, his 
 division was nearly the same as that generally 
 adopted by his followers e.g., by Sylvain Regis, 
 Clauberg, Geulinx viz., a fourfold division into 
 Logic, Metaphysics, Physics, and Ethics. 
 
 Baconian The Baconian survey of the sciences is a very 
 
 survey. , T 
 
 celebrated one. 1 venture not to pronounce it 
 unworthy of its fame, although I cannot regard 
 even its leading divisions as accurate. If not a 
 particularly accurate, it was a comprehensive and 
 
 1 Preface to the Principles of Philosophy. 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 105 
 
 attractive, sketch of the intellectual world, in- 
 dicating in a striking way, difficult to forget, 
 not only what provinces had been acquired by 
 the human mind, but where, and in what manner, 
 new conquests were still to be made. It is difficult 
 to judge what importance Bacon himself attached 
 to it ; probably he valued it chiefly because it 
 afforded a convenient framework within which he 
 could arrange his criticisms and counsels regarding 
 each separate science, and his suggestions as to 
 how the " deficiencies " in the literature, learning, 
 and science of his age might be supplied. But 
 whatever was his own estimate of it, Diderot and 
 D'Alembert believed that they could not do better 
 than, in the main, adopt it as the basis of the 
 French Encyclopaedia. "If we emerge from this 
 vast operation," wrote the former of these authors 
 in the Prospectus, "we shall owe it mainly to the 
 chancellor Bacon, who sketched the plan of an 
 universal dictionary of sciences and arts at a 
 time when there were not, so to speak, either 
 arts or sciences. This extraordinary genius, when 
 it was impossible to write a history of what men 
 already knew, wrote one of that which they had 
 to learn." A circumstance so remarkable as that 
 the famous French Encyclopaedists of the eighteenth 
 century should derive from Bacon's scheme the 
 plan and guiding principles of their gigantic work 
 
106 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 has naturally of itself drawn much attention to 
 that scheme. 
 
 It is a scheme which rests, as I have already 
 observed, on a subjective foundation. Its basis 
 is a division of the faculties of the rational soul. 
 These, according to Bacon, are three, Memory, 
 Imagination, and Eeason. " The sense, which is 
 the door of the intellect, is affected by individual 
 objects only. The images of those individuals 
 that is, the impressions received by the sense 
 are fixed in the memory, and pass into it, in the 
 first instance, entire as it were, just as they occur. 
 These the human mind proceeds to review and 
 ruminate on ; and, thereupon, either simply 
 rehearses them, or makes fanciful imitations of 
 them, or analyses and classifies them. Therefore 
 from these three fountains Memory, Imagination, 
 and Eeason flow these three emanations History, 
 Poesy, and Philosophy ; and there can be no 
 others." 
 
 Memory, then, which accumulates facts, gives 
 rise to History, which is either Natural or Civil 
 either of the works of nature or of the works 
 of man. Natural History subdivides into the 
 history of generations, of prseter-generations, and 
 of the arts, since nature is, "(1) either free, 
 proceeding in her ordinary course, without molest- 
 ation ; or (2) obstructed by some stubborn and 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 107 
 
 less common matters, and thence put out of her 
 course, as in the production of monsters ; or (3) 
 bound and wrought upon by human means, for 
 the production of things artificial." Civil History, 
 in general, subdivides into literary, sacred or eccle- 
 siastical, and civil history strictly so called ; the 
 first treating of the progress of literature and 
 learning, the second of the church, prophecy, 
 and providence, and the third of the fortunes 
 of states. 
 
 Imagination operates on sensible materials, com- 
 bining, magnifying, and idealising them at pleasure, 
 and so gives rise to poetry, which, according to 
 Bacon, is simply feigned history, verse being but 
 a character of style. Poetry subdivides into 
 
 1. Narrative Poetry, "a mere imitation of history, 
 such as might pass for real, only that it com- 
 monly exaggerates things beyond probability " ; 
 
 2. Dramatic Poetry, " history made visible, for 
 it represents actions as if they were present, 
 whereas history represents them as past' ; ; and 
 
 3. Parabolical Poetry, "typical history, by which 
 ideas that are objects of the intellect are rep- 
 resented in forms that are objects of the sense." 
 
 Keason operates on things by analysis and 
 classification, by abstraction and generalisation, 
 and so produces philosophy. But philosophy is 
 not inclusive of all science ; it must be distin- 
 
108 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 guished from the knowledge due to revelation 
 from theology. Theology descends from heaven, 
 philosophy springs from the earth ; theology is 
 derived from divine inspiration, philosophy from 
 external sense. At the same time, the knowledge 
 based on revelation may be distributed in the 
 same way as that based on natural perception. 
 "Nor do I think that any other division is wanted 
 for Theology. The information derived from rev- 
 elation and the information derived from the sense 
 differ, no doubt, both in the matter and in the 
 mode of conveyance ; but the human mind is the 
 same, and its repositories and cells the same. It 
 is only as if different liquids were poured through 
 different funnels into one and the same vessel. 
 Theology therefore consists either of Sacred History 
 or of Parables, which are a divine poesy, or of 
 Doctrines and Precepts, which are a perennial 
 philosophy. For as for that part which seems 
 supernumerary, namely, Prophecy, it is but a kind 
 of history : for divine history has this prerogative 
 over human, that the narration may be before 
 the event as well as after." 
 
 Division The first division of the sciences, according to 
 Theology Bacon, is into Theology and Philosophy; but in 
 Theol gy is not included Natural Theology, which 
 is regarded as a part of Philosophy. " Philosophy," 
 he says, " has three objects, viz., God, Nature, and 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 109 
 
 Man; as also three kinds of rays for Nature 
 strikes the human intellect with a direct ray, God 
 with a refracted ray, from the inequality of the 
 medium betwixt the Creator and the creatures, and 
 Man, as exhibited to himself, with a reflected ray : 
 so that it is proper to divide Philosophy into the 
 doctrine of the Deity, the Doctrine of Nature, and 
 the doctrine of Man." These, then, are the main 
 branches of philosophy, but the branches must join 
 in a common trunk ; the special sciences must di- 
 verge out of a general science, consisting of the 
 axioms common to several or to all of the other 
 sciences, and including an inquiry into " transcend- 
 entals, or the adventitious conditions of beings." 
 This general science Bacon would name Primary Primary 
 Philosophy. " As the divisions of the sciences are osop hy. 
 not like different lines that meet in one angle, but 
 rather like the branches of trees that join in one 
 trunk, it is first necessary that we constitute an 
 universal science as a parent to the rest, and as 
 making a part of the common road to the sciences 
 before the ways separate. And this knowledge we 
 call philosophia prima, primary or summary phil- 
 osophy ; it has no other for its opposite, and differs 
 from other sciences rather in the limits whereby it 
 is confined than in the subject as treating only the 
 summits of things." 
 
 The doctrine of Deity or Natural Theology Bacon 
 
110 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 does not subdivide. The doctrine of Nature or 
 Natural Natural Philosophy he first separates into Specu- 
 osophy lative and Practical ; then, subdivides the specu- 
 lative branch into Physics and Metaphysics the 
 one the investigation of efficient causes and matter, 
 the other of final causes and form ; and the practical 
 branch into Mechanics, and what he calls Magic, 
 which answers in some measure to Experimental 
 Science. To Natural Philosophy, Speculative and 
 Practical, he adds Mathematics, Pure and Applied, 
 but merely as an appendix, not as an independent 
 science or distinct division of the sciences. 
 Human The doctrine of Man he divides into Human and 
 Phil- Civil Philosophy. Human Philosophy he distri- 
 >sophy. ] 3U ^ es j n -k a doctrine of the body, a doctrine of the 
 soul, and a doctrine of the things common to the 
 body and the soul. The doctrine of the body is to 
 i be divided according to the goods of the body, and 
 -^therefore comprises four sciences Medicine, which 
 aims at health ; Cosmetic, which has regard to 
 beauty ; Athletic, which looks to strength ; and 
 Voluptuary, what Tacitus calls " eruditus luxus," 
 which is conversant with pleasure. The doctrine of 
 the soul comprehends the doctrine of the Substance 
 of the Soul and the doctrine of the Faculties of 
 the Soul, and the latter again includes Logic and 
 Ethic ; the one treating of the understanding and 
 H. reason, and the other of the will and affections. 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. Ill 
 
 Civil Philosophy he divides into the Art of Con- 
 versation, the Art of Negotiation, and the Art of 
 State Policy. 
 
 The Baconian scheme of classification is now Criticism 
 before us. We do not overlook its many incidental i an ciassi- 
 merits, although we require to confine ourselves to 
 the rapid indication of its chief defects. The main 
 objection to it, as has been often pointed out, is the 
 character of its fundamental principle. The rational 
 soul does not exercise memory, imagination, reason, 
 so much apart, or in as isolated a manner as is 
 assumed, but together, so that all these faculties 
 co-operate in every department of intellectual 
 activity. Take history as the example. Not even 
 in its lowest form is it a mere product of memory,; 
 not even in the case of the most stupid historian is 
 it a mere recollection of facts, but a record of facts 
 selected according to certain real or supposed prin- 
 ciples of reason. In a higher form, when it aims to 
 reproduce the life of the past, it involves the most 
 difficult and delicate exercise of imagination ; and in 
 its highest form, the form of philosophical history, 
 it requires a most comprehensive combination of 
 mental gifts, and one in which mere memory is very 
 subordinate to reason. Further, history and poetry 
 neither admit of entire separation from science nor 
 of distinct co-ordination with it. They are on a 
 
112 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 different level from science, and may both be 
 covered by science. There is a science of history. 
 Every fact of every kind of history requires to be 
 explained, that is, to be brought under the domain 
 of science. Historical knowledge is knowledge on 
 the road to scientific knowledge. The perfect hist- 
 ory of anything, the complete exhibition of what, 
 how, and why anything is, must be also the science 
 of that thing. In like manner, poetry in all its 
 forms, imagination in all its workings, art in all its 
 varieties and developments, conform to laws and are 
 explicable by reason, and consequently are subjects 
 of science. There is a science, philosophy, or doc- 
 trine of the Fine Arts. ^Esthetic is the common 
 name for it. 
 
 As to the distribution of science, properly so 
 called, there is obviously much that is arbitrary in 
 Bacon's scheme. Theology is separated from Phil- 
 osophy with a sharpness and absoluteness for which 
 there is no sufficient warrant. Eevelation may pro- 
 ceed from divine inspiration, but theological science 
 must be built up on adequately evidenced facts, and 
 by strictly rational processes, even when its facts 
 have their source in revelation and inspiration. 
 The great mass of the facts recorded and of the 
 truths stated in the writings which Christians 
 accept as embodying a revelation, are facts of 
 history and truths accessible to reason ; only a 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 113 
 
 very small percentage of them can be exclusively 
 referred to special inspiration. Philosophy cannot 
 admit, consistently with loyalty to reason, that 
 theology is outside of its domain. The separation 
 of natural theology from other theology is the 
 separation of a foundation from the edifice which 
 it supports. Then, the threefold division of philo- 
 sophy into the doctrine of Deity, of Nature, and of 
 Man is unsatisfactory, requiring, for example, the 
 body of man to have a science to itself widely 
 distinct from the science which studies the bodies 
 of other animals. It implies that the physiology of 
 the human body is more related to psychology than 
 to general physiology. The bringing together of 
 Physics and Metaphysics as both parts of Natural 
 Philosophy is another error which needs no refuta- 
 tion at the present day ; the representing of Mathe- 
 matics as a mere appendix to Natural Philosophy 
 does so still less. The view given of the relation of 
 Logic and Ethics, although at first sight plausible, 
 will be found on examination untenable. 
 
 The state of knowledge in Bacon's age can prob- Aisted's 
 ably be more fully and distinctly learned from the pce dias. 
 Encyclopedias of John Henry Alsted than from 
 any other works. The first appeared as a quarto 
 volume of upwards of three thousand pages in 1620; 
 and the second, considerably more elaborate, in two 
 
 H 
 
114 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 large folio volumes in 1630. Alsted was a clear- 
 headed, learned, logical person, skilful in schematis- 
 ing knowledge, indefatigable in composing com- 
 pends, and his Encyclopedia of 1630 was a highly 
 creditable production both in regard to matter and 
 arrangement. By its rigidly methodical character 
 it is no mere dictionary of arts and sciences, but 
 entitled to the name of encyclopaedia, as few so- 
 called encyclopaedias have been. It consists of 
 thirty-five books. The first four are preliminary, 
 treating of the intellectual habits involved in the 
 acquisition of learning, the characteristics, order, 
 and divisions of the various departments of know- 
 ledge, and the ends and methods of study, its aids, 
 hindrances, &c. The six books which follow deal, 
 under the general heading of Philology, with Lexi- 
 cology, Grammar, Ehetoric, Logic, the Art of 
 Oratory, and Poetic. Philosophy is divided into 
 Theoretical and Practical. Theoretical Philosophy 
 has ten books devoted to it, since it includes ten 
 sciences : Metaphysics, Pneumatics, Physics, Arith- 
 metic, Geometry, Cosmography, Uranometry, Geog- 
 raphy, Optics, and Music ; Practical Philosophy 
 four books, because it comprehends the four sciences 
 of Ethics, Economics, Politics, and Scholastic. In 
 the three following books the three " Faculties," of 
 Theology, Jurisprudence, and Medicine, are the 
 subjects of dissertation. Theology is distributed 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCnaTOBL 115 
 
 into (1) Natural, (2) Catechetie, (3) Didactic, (4) 
 Polemic, (5) Casuistic, (6) Prophetic, and (7) Moral; 
 Jurisprudence into (1) General CSvfl, (2) Special 
 Civil, and (3) Ecclesiastical : and Medicine in a way 
 requiring more space than we can afford to describe. 
 The three next books give an account of the 
 irrliinu il arts. The last seven books are miscel- 
 laneous and supplementary: praeeipuae farragines 
 disciplinarum : mnemonica, historica, ehronologia, 
 architectoniea, critica, &e. 
 
 From the Instauratio Magna, of Bacon the 
 gnat Moravian educational reformer, John Anon 
 Comenius (1592-1671), derived the conviction that 
 universal wisdom the sum of all science might 
 be so arranged and presented that it could be 
 acquired without difficulty by any ingenuous and 
 intelligent youth. This belief in the attainability of 
 a Christian pansophy of an encyclopaedic culture 
 which would surely, easily, and solidly lead up, step 
 by step, from the most obvious facts of sense to the 
 secret things of God revealed through Christ -mm 
 one of the chief inspiring motives to those labours 
 which have made his name for ever immortal The 
 aim of his life was to show how his ideal could be 
 realised by means of pansophic nrhnalrr and pan- 
 sophic universities. He expounded his conceptions 
 in the Didactica magtw, Prodromes pansophug, 
 5 oUg pkUosophiocB delincatio, and other writings 
 
116 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 contained in his Opera didactica omnia, 4 vols., 
 Amst., 1657. The reader will find an excellent 
 account of what is essential and of abiding interest 
 in these works in the John Amos Comenius of Pro- 
 fessor Laurie of Edinburgh. Comenius 7 sketch of a 
 pansophic university is reproduced by Professor 
 Laurie in the following words : " As all knowledge 
 was to lead to God, and to God as revealed through 
 Christ, Comenius spoke of his encyclopsedism as a 
 Christian Pansophy, and gave the ' special titles of 
 the seven parts of the temple of Christian Pansophy/ 
 The first was to show the necessity and possibility 
 of the temple and to give its external structure or 
 outline to be called the Templi Sapientice Pro- 
 pylceum. The second part was to give the first 
 approach to a knowledge of all knowable things a 
 general apparatus of wisdom in which the highest 
 genera and fundamental principles and axioms were 
 to be exhibited, from which, as the primal sources of 
 truth, the streams of all sciences flow and diverge 
 to be called the Porta. The third part (iheprimum 
 Atrium) was to exhaust visible nature. The fourth 
 (the Atrium medium) was to treat of man and 
 reason; the fifth part (Atrium internum), of man's 
 essential nature free-will and responsibility, and 
 the repair of man's will in Christ as the beginning 
 of the spiritual life. The sixth part (Sanctum 
 sanctorum) was to be theological, and here man 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 117 
 
 was to be admitted to the study and worship of 
 God and his revelation, that thereby he might be 
 led to embrace God as the centre of eternal life. 
 The seventh part (Fons aquarum viventium) was 
 to expound the use of true wisdom and its dis- 
 semination, so that the whole world might be filled 
 with a knowledge of God" (pp. 72, 73). 
 
 Comenius in the last period of his life yielded to Weigei. 
 the seductions of mysticism. Another religious en- 
 cyclopaedist or pansophist, Erhard Weigei (1625- 
 1699), went much farther in the same direction. He 
 was a proficient in mathematical science and fancied 
 that everything must be explained mathematically. 
 He became a mystic through his excessive trust in 
 the powers of mathematics, and hence while a mystic 
 he was also a precursor of the Wolfian philosophical 
 rationalism. The conception of philosophy as the 
 universal science, and that all philosophy ought 
 accordingly to be treated by the methods of mathe- 
 matics, is fundamental in his Idea totius encyclo- 
 pcedice, Universi corpoms pansophici prodromus de 
 gradibus humance cognitionis, Ethica Euclidea, and 
 other works. The organisation of knowledge pro- 
 posed by Comenius was made with a view to the 
 practical requirements of teaching, and that proposed 
 by Weigei was meant to confirm and illustrate a 
 narrow conception of the nature of scientific method. 
 It was not to be expected, therefore, that either 
 
118 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 scheme should have much value in the way of in- 
 dicating the real relationships of the sciences. 
 
 Hobbes. The greatest English philosophical contemporary 
 of Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, also attempted a classi- 
 fication of the sciences, and his classification, although 
 it has been little remarked, is, in reality, very re- 
 markable. While Hobbes had not the philosophical 
 breadth or general wealth of mind characteristic of 
 Bacon, he had far more analytic keenness and 
 subtility, far more deductive vigour and self -con- 
 sistency, and, in a word, decidedly greater specially 
 scientific capacity. In spite of his dogmatic one- 
 sidedness, few English thinkers have surpassed him 
 in energy or range of intellect in the departments in 
 which his strength chiefly lay. His scheme of the 
 distribution and co-ordination of the sciences is ex- 
 hibited with characteristic conciseness and precision 
 in ch. 9 of Leviathan (1651). 
 
 Two philosophical theories mould and control it 
 from commencement to close, sensationalism and 
 nominalism, of both of which Hobbes was one of 
 the most strenuous and thoroughgoing advocates. 
 Knowledge, he says, is of two kinds, of facts and of 
 the consequences of one affirmation to another. The 
 knowledge of facts gives rise to history, and history 
 is either natural history or civil history. The know- 
 ledge of consequences gives rise to science, which 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 119 
 
 is manifold according to the diversity of matters con- 
 sidered. Its primary division is into Natural Philo- 
 sophy and Civil Philosophy, according as conse- 
 quences are from the accidents of bodies natural 
 or of bodies politic. 
 
 Natural Philosophy is, in its turn, divided in a 
 twofold manner, according as the consequences of 
 which it consists are drawn from the accidents 
 common to all bodies, which are quantity and 
 motion, or from the qualities of bodies. Conse- 
 quences from quantity and motion indeterminate 
 constitute Primary Philosophy ; from quantity and 
 motion determined by figure, Geometry ; from 
 quantity and motion determined by number, Arith- 
 metic ; from quantity and motion of bodies in special, 
 if the larger parts of the world, as the earth and 
 stars, Geography and Astronomy ; for special kinds 
 of motions and special figures of bodies, Engineer- 
 ing, Architecture, Navigation, &c. Then, going back 
 to physics or consequences from the qualities of 
 bodies natural, these consequences are either from 
 the qualities of bodies transient, such as some- 
 times appear and sometimes vanish, whence Meteor- 
 ology ; or from the qualities of bodies permanent. 
 Among permanent bodies are the stars, whence 
 Sciography conversant with their light, and Astro- 
 logy conversant with their influences ; the ether, 
 whence a science of atmospheric fluids ; terrestial 
 
120 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 bodies, which are either non-sentient or sentient. 
 Consequences drawn from parts of the earth without 
 sense are Mineralogy and Botany : the one con- 
 versant with the qualities of minerals, and the other 
 with the qualities of plants. Consequences from the 
 qualities of animals are either of animals in general 
 or men in special. If of animals in general, Optics 
 is knowledge of consequences from vision ; Music 
 of consequences from sound ; and some unnamed 
 science or sciences of consequences from the rest of 
 the senses. If of men in special, then, knowledge of 
 consequences from the passions is Ethics ; from 
 speech in magnifying, vilifying, &c., Poetry; in 
 persuading, Khetoric ; in reasoning, Logic ; in con- 
 tracting, the Science of Just and Unjust. 
 
 Civil Philosophy Hobbes did not subdivide into 
 more special sciences. He supposed it to be largely 
 his own creation, and that its history might be said 
 to have begun with the publication of his De Give 
 (1646). 
 
 Thus it was that Hobbes, with clear and sys- 
 tematic genius, mapped out the various provinces 
 of science. The praise of ingenuity and consider- 
 able truthfulness cannot reasonably be denied to 
 his arrangement. It shows a deeper and truer 
 insight into the relations of the physical sciences 
 than the chart of Bacon. At the same time, it 
 is not difficult to see defects in it. Some of 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 121 
 
 these, as, for instance, the absence of psychological 
 science, might be supplied without any alteration 
 of the principles on which it proceeds. Others 
 are irremediable, resulting from those principles 
 themselves. Of this character is the exclusion- 
 deliberate exclusion, not simply omission of theo- 
 logical science. Hobbes maintained there could be 
 no such science, on the ground that there could be 
 no ideas except of the finite and contingent that 
 body or matter is alone intelligible ; that spirit, 
 being beyond the range of experiment and sense, is 
 beyond comprehension, outside of the domain of 
 science. His philosophy was essentially incom- 
 patible with a recognition of the existence of theo- 
 logical science. 
 
 The strange and arbitrary way in which Hobbes 
 in his classification deals with moral science may 
 also be noted. Ethics is plainly united in the closest 
 manner with Politics, and yet he separates Politics, 
 under the name of Civil Philosophy, from Ethics, by 
 almost as great a distance as his scheme allows. 
 Civil Philosophy stands by itself isolated, as the 
 counterpart of Natural Philosophy and Ethics is 
 made a branch, or rather twig, of Natural Philosophy. 
 Nor is this all ; but Ethics, as a science conversant 
 about the passions, is separated from the Science of 
 Just and Unjust, and this last, Hobbes, pushing his 
 nominalism to the utmost, represents as a purely 
 
122 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 verbal science, since, according to him, contracts are 
 the origin or ground of just and unjust. 
 
 Locke. The last chapter of John Locke's Essay concerning 
 
 Human Understanding (1690) treats " of the divi- 
 sion of the sciences." Locke rightly judged that the 
 consideration of that subject would be a fitting con- 
 clusion to such an inquiry into the origin and nature 
 of knowledge as he had instituted. It is only to be 
 regretted that the consideration given was but slight 
 and superficial. The division adopted was threefold 
 Physica, Practica, Semeiotica "for a man can 
 employ his thoughts about nothing, but either the 
 contemplation of things themselves for the discovery 
 of truth ; or about the things in his own power, 
 which are his own actions, for the attainment of his 
 own ends ; or the signs the mind makes use of both 
 in the one and the other, and the right ordering of 
 them for its clearer information." I. Physics, in the 
 wide sense in which the term is used by Locke, is 
 " the knowledge of things as they are in their own 
 proper being, their constitution, properties, and opera- 
 tions" ; it has for end bare speculative truth, "and 
 whatsoever can afford the mind of man any such, 
 falls under this branch, whether it be God himself, 
 angels, spirits, bodies, or any of their affections." 
 II. Practics is " the skill of right applying our own 
 powers and actions, for the attainment of things good 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 123 
 
 and useful." Its chief branch is Ethics, " the seeking 
 out those measures and rules of human actions which 
 lead to happiness, and the means to practise them." 
 III. Semeiotics is the doctrine of signs, and includes 
 Logic, or the doctrine of words, "these being the 
 signs which the mind makes use of for the under- 
 standing of things, or conveying its knowledge to 
 others." 
 
 This division of science is much the same as that 
 employed so long before by the Stoics. It has, 
 however, even as presented by Locke, obvious and 
 serious defects. Thus, for instance, the grouping 
 together of all sciences the objects of which can be 
 said to be " things," as distinct from " actions" and 
 " signs," whatever be the characters otherwise of 
 these objects, and however great may be the differ- 
 ences in the modes and methods in which they 
 must be apprehended and studied, so far from being 
 helpful towards a true correlation of the sciences, 
 is productive of confusion which tends to render 
 their correlation impossible. Further, either of the 
 first two of Locke's groups includes the other two 
 groups. Thus, if Physics comprehend a knowledge 
 of man and of what pertains to man, it must 
 embrace Semeiotics, which is conversant with man's 
 reasoning and speech ; and Practics, which is con- 
 versant with his activities. So Practics would 
 include all Physics, since whatever knowledge man 
 
124 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 can attain of Deity, nature, or his own mind, may 
 be turned to use. Strictly speaking, indeed, 
 Practics ought not to be regarded as a kind or 
 branch of science, but as the application of science. 
 The representation of Logic as merely a doctrine of 
 signs may also be set down as erroneous. It implies 
 an extreme of nominalism of which few will be 
 found to approve. Further, as Dugald Stewart 
 observes, "it is difficult to reconcile one's self to an 
 arrangement which, while it classes with Astronomy, 
 with Mechanics, with Optics, and with Hydrostatics, 
 the strikingly contrasted studies of Natural Theology 
 and the Philosophy of the Human Mind, disunites 
 from the two last the far more congenial sciences of 
 Ethic and Logic." In fact, Locke's discussion of 
 the problem " the division of the sciences " is so 
 inferior alike to Bacon's and to Hobbes' treatment 
 of it that one can hardly suppose that he had read 
 what they had written regarding it. 
 
 Leibniz. Leibniz, in the last chapter of the Nouveaux 
 Essais, criticised the classification of Locke, and 
 easily succeeded, of course, in showing it to be 
 radically defective. In particular, he urged with 
 force the objection that each part of the division 
 proposed might absorb the whole. He provided, 
 however, no substitute for Locke's scheme. It does 
 not help us to be told by him that the truths or 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 125 
 
 doctrines of science may be arranged in three ways, 
 viz.: (1) synthetically or theoretically, according to 
 proofs ; (2) analytically or practically, according to 
 ends ; and (3) lexically, according to letters or terms. 
 What is wanted is an arrangement of the sciences, 
 not of their parts. Only through the right defini- 
 tion and division, constitution and correlation, of 
 the sciences, can their parts, their component truths 
 or doctrines, be scientifically arranged. Besides, 
 the objection which Leibniz urges against Locke's 
 division of sciences applies equally to his own 
 division of methods of arranging truths, if it be 
 presented as the basis of a classification of truths. 
 Any one of these methods is capable of including all 
 truths. Only one of them can be employed at one 
 time, and whichever method be preferred, the 
 classification of truths which is to be in accordance 
 with its principles will have to be made without any 
 help having been afforded by Leibniz. 
 
 In fact, Leibniz had no real sense of the im- 
 portance or clear conception of the nature of the 
 problem before him. Hence his nearest approach 
 to a classification of the sciences is included in 
 a plan for the catalogue of a library, Idea Leib- 
 nitiana Bibliothecce ordinandce contractior. Now, 
 the classification of the sciences and the classi- 
 fication of books are so far connected that a good 
 classification of the sciences must be of consider- 
 
126 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 able use to one who wishes to classify books, and 
 that a good catalogue raisonnee of books may well 
 afford assistance to one who would classify the 
 sciences ; but the two classifications are neverthe- 
 less essentially distinct. The classification of the 
 sciences is a fundamental problem of philosophy, the 
 first step toward the correlation of the sciences, and 
 so toward the positive philosophy of the sciences ; 
 the classification of books is merely a practical 
 problem of very limited interest, the convenience 
 of bookish people. The classification proposed by 
 Leibniz is one of books, and therefore, like those of 
 Brunet, Girard, Home, Lubbock, and the general 
 plans of all classed catalogues, necessarily non- 
 philosophical. His classes are, 1. Theology ; 2. 
 Jurisprudence ; 3. Medicine ; 4. Intellectual Phil- 
 osophy, which is either Theoretical (Logic, Meta- 
 physics, Pneumatics) or Practical (Ethics and 
 Politics) ; 5. Mathematical Philosophy, which in- 
 cludes not only Pure Mathematics, but Astronomy, 
 Mechanics, and all sciences specially dependent on 
 vigour of imagination ; 6. Physical Philosophy, com- 
 prehending Physics Proper, Chemistry, Mineralogy, 
 Botany, Zoology, and all sciences which rest on a 
 knowledge of the things of sense ; 7. Philology ; 8. 
 History; and 9. Miscellanies. According to this 
 arrangement, all knowledge belonging to the three 
 Faculties of Theology, Law, and Medicine is severed 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 127 
 
 and separated from Philosophy or Science, Phil- 
 ology, and History. Thus, to give only a single 
 example, Ecclesiastical History is expressly with- 
 drawn from History in order to be planted in 
 Theology. Of course, this is most arbitrary and 
 unnatural. It would be a mere waste of time, 
 indeed, to discuss at length any scheme of classifi- 
 cation in which the subject-matter is divided both 
 according to * Faculties ' and Sciences. 
 
 The Italian philosopher, Giambattista Vico (1688- Vico. 
 1744), cannot be said to have proposed any new 
 classification of the sciences, and yet ought not to 
 be altogether ignored. In this, as in so many 
 other regions of thought, his power of profound 
 and prophetic vision revealed itself. He was the 
 first to state and expound as a fundamental law 
 of human development the truth which Comte is 
 often credited with having discovered, but which he 
 merely so exhibited as to secure the general recogni- 
 tion of its importance, the truth that the entire 
 movement of society must correspond to that of 
 knowledge, the preponderant factor of historical 
 evolution being the growth of intelligence. This 
 truth he laid down as the foundation of his New 
 Science not less explicitly or confidently than 
 Comte affirmed it as the basis of his Positive 
 Philosophy. The order of social evolution accord- 
 
128 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 ing to Vico, as according to Comte, is a necessary 
 order determined by the advance of reason. Hence, 
 a law of three periods of history through which all 
 sciences and arts, ideas and institutions, naturally 
 pass. The periods are designated by Vico the 
 Divine, the Heroic, and the Human, and the root 
 of each is described by him as a peculiar mode of 
 conception or form of wisdom. Therefore, he main- 
 tains, there are three stages of science, three kinds 
 of nature, three types of character, three epochs of 
 religion, three species of language, of writing, of 
 governments, of natural law, of jurisprudence, &c. 
 Another equally original idea of his is entitled 
 to be noted here. The " New Science " which he 
 claimed to have founded he maintained to be the 
 central and regulative science. He regarded his 
 discovery of it as not merely an addition to the 
 sciences, but a revolution in the whole system of 
 the sciences, inasmuch as it showed that not 
 metaphysics or physics,Tl)ut the science of the 
 development of the human mind in history was 
 the fundamental and governing science. In his 
 view the science of history was the most compre- 
 hensive science, and all other sciences were rooted 
 or included in it, and had their character and rank 
 determined by their relationship to it. All science, 
 he held, is the production of the human mind ; the 
 whole science of any age is only a transient stage in 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 129 
 
 the history of the human mind ; the perfect state of 
 a science is but the last period of its history ; there- 
 fore, the science of history is not merely a special 
 and rather limited science, as we are apt to suppose, 
 but an all-comprehensive science, the true science of 
 the sciences. It is so because the fundamental, con- 
 stitutive, and regulative principle of all science is not 
 the abstract, transcendent, objective, but the actual, 
 immanent, subjective the all -productive reason. 
 This was a singularly bold and luminous conception. 
 To demonstrate its truth may be said to have been, 
 consciously or unconsciously, the ultimate aim of all 
 the labours of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and 
 their followers. 1 
 
 With Christian Wolff (1679-1754) and his school, 
 German philosophy passed into a stage of dogmatic 
 rationalism. The general contents of the current 
 philosophy and religion, the teachings of the special 
 sciences, the leading principles and main tenets of 
 Cartesianism, and the distinctive views of Leibniz 
 with certain modifications, were attempted to be 
 systematised and demonstrated by logical deduction 
 of a mathematical rigour and certainty. Wolffian- 
 ism was essentially encyclopaedic. It sought to 
 include and absorb all science. And yet it was 
 
 1 See the author's Vico in Blackwood's "Philosophical Classics." 
 The book has been translated into Italian. 
 
130 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 thoroughly one-sided. It ignored the fact that the 
 methods of science must vary with the objects of 
 science ; that each science must have its own 
 appropriate modifications of method ; that an ade- 
 quate philosophy can recognise no uniform universal 
 method. It was one-sided also in this respect, that 
 it confounded philosophy with the special sciences. 
 It represented the special sciences as simply sections 
 of philosophy. That is an error so radical as to 
 make unnecessary any other criticism of the Wolffian 
 classification. 
 
 Wolff distributes knowledge into historical, mathe- 
 matical, and philosophical. Philosophy he divides 
 into two great departments corresponding to two 
 fundamental faculties of the soul, Metaphysics to 
 a facultas cognoscitiva and Practical Philosophy to 
 a facultas appetitiva. At the same time he treats 
 Logic chiefly, however, on educational grounds 
 as antecedent and preparatory to both Metaphysics 
 and Practical Philosophy. In Metaphysics he 
 includes Ontology, Cosmology, Psychology, and 
 Natural Theology. These sciences he regards as 
 following in natural order from more general and 
 simple to more special and complex. In Practical 
 Philosophy he includes Ethics, Economics, and 
 Politics. His follower Baumgarten did good service 
 by vindicating the right of ^Esthetics to a place by 
 the side of Ethics. 
 
 The Wolffian philosophy was followed by a so- 
 

 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 131 
 
 called " Popular Philosophy," which was a con- 
 tinuation of its rationalism, but a reaction from 
 its formalism. The period of the prevalence of 
 this Popular Philosophy was one in which great 
 desire was shown to make the acquisition of science 
 easy. It accordingly abounded in " Introductions,' 7 
 " Outlines," and " Methods." It was a period in 
 which even special Encyclopaedias Encyclopaedias 
 of particular departments of knowledge, e.g., Ency- 
 clopaedias of Theology began to appear. It was 
 also the period when the want of a propaedeutic to 
 the study of the sciences made itself so strongly 
 felt as to give rise to the conception of a special 
 science for its satisfaction and to various attempts 
 to construct such a science ; the period in which 
 Gesner, Schade, Mertens, and others sought to raise 
 what they called Hodegetic or Isagogic to the rank 
 of a separate and fundamental discipline. It was, 
 above all, the period in which the idea of the organic 
 unity, diversity, and interrelationism of the sciences 
 obtained a universality and clearness of recognition 
 which it had never previously received, although it 
 had at no time since Plato gave it magnificent 
 expression been entirely ignored. It was not, how- 
 ever, a period in which philosophical problems were 
 investigated with depth or thoroughness. As to 
 the problem even of which we are tracing the 
 history it cannot be said to have produced any 
 solution of much value. 
 
132 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 III. FROM KANT TO DE TRACY. 
 
 Kant. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), by the publication 
 
 of his Critique of Pure Reason, inaugurated a new 
 and great epoch of philosophy a philosophy which 
 has had an enormous influence on the higher- 
 thought of mankind. He also treated expressly of 
 the very subject we are dealing with, a classifica- 
 tion of the sciences, in the chapter of his Critique 
 headed " The Architectonic of Pure Keason," and 
 has left elsewhere in his writings various passages 
 supplementary to the views expressed by him in 
 that chapter. He is not therefore to be here 
 ignored. Neither is there, however, any good 
 reason why he should have a large place in any 
 account of a history of our subject. 
 
 Science is regarded by Kant as an organism 
 which grows from within, not an aggregate which 
 increases from without. A science, according to 
 Kant, is a system of conceptions unified and dis- 
 tributed by a central and regulative idea; or, in 
 other words, a system organised on what he calls 
 architectonic principles, or constituted by parts 
 which possess an essential affinity and can be de- 
 duced from one supreme and internal aim. The 
 idea out of which a science is developed which is 
 the condition of its possibility, and which deter- 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 133 
 
 mines its form and end is a constituent element 
 of reason ; and hence not only is each science a 
 unity in itself, but all sciences are related as parts 
 of one grand system of knowledge. Knowledge is 
 either rational or empirical. Kational knowledge is 
 based either on conceptions or on the construction 
 of conceptions. In the former case it is philosophy, 
 in the latter mathematics. Philosophy is either a 
 criticism of the powers of reason, Critical Philos- 
 ophy, or a systematic presentation of the truths 
 given by pure reason, Metaphysic. Metaphysic, 
 again, is either of the speculative or of the practical 
 reason either a metaphysic of nature or a meta- 
 physic of ethics. The metaphysic of nature divides 
 into two parts Transcendental Philosophy and 
 Eational Physiology. The former, which may be 
 also called Ontology, presents the system of all the 
 conceptions and principles belonging to the under- 
 standing and reason which relate to objects in 
 general, but not to any particular given objects ; 
 the latter has nature or the sum of given objects for 
 its subject-matter, and is either immanent or tran- 
 scendent. Immanent Physiology considers nature 
 as the sum of the objects of experience presented 
 according to a priori conditions ; and when these 
 objects are those of the external senses it is Kational 
 Physics, when those of internal sense, Kational Psy- 
 chology. Transcendental Physiology, on the other 
 
134 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 hand, relates to connections of nature which take 
 us beyond all possible experience, and is, when it 
 embraces nature as a whole, Kational Cosmology, 
 and when it views nature in connection with a 
 Being above nature, Kational Theology. Mathe- 
 matics, Critical Philosophy, Ontology, Eational 
 Physics, Eational Psychology, Eational Cosmology, 
 Eational Theology, and the Metaphysic of Ethics 
 are consequently the sciences of pure reason. Dis- 
 tinct from, yet related to, Eational Physics and 
 Eational Psychology are to be placed Empirical 
 Physics and Empirical Psychology as parts of Ap- 
 plied Philosophy, the a priori principles of which 
 are contained in Pure Philosophy. 
 
 This scheme of the sciences suggests various ob- 
 jections. It is not a result of a direct study of the 
 sciences and of their relations to one another, but a 
 consequence of assent to a peculiar metaphysical 
 theory. It is such as was to be expected from 
 treating the problem involved at a wrong place and 
 in a wrong way. The division of knowledge into 
 rational and empirical is radically erroneous, for all 
 knowledge is at once rational and empirical. There 
 is no reason without experience, or experience with- 
 out reason. That Kant knew this that he was 
 aware that reason entirely pure, altogether un- 
 touched and unaffected by experience, is absolutely 
 ignorant and inactive, and that experience is only 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 135 
 
 constituted by the synthetic activity of reason far 
 from excusing, is precisely what makes inexcusable 
 his opposing and contrasting, as he does here, reason 
 and experience, rational and empirical knowledge. 
 The division of rational knowledge into Mathematics 
 and Philosophy is as little to be commended. 
 Mathematics is as subject to philosophy, as much 
 comprehended within the sphere of philosophy, as 
 any other science or group of sciences. Philosophy 
 has to deal with the construction of conceptions as 
 well as with conceptions themselves, for it has to 
 treat of the methods of science not less than of its 
 principles. It is universal science. Then, the place 
 which Kant gives to Metaphysic is quite exorbitant 
 and extravagant. In fact, he assigns to it and 
 Mathematics the whole world of science, properly 
 so called. Pure thought thought which may have 
 a relation to experience, but borrows nothing from 
 it is represented as able to establish and con- 
 struct all science worthy of the name, and like- 
 wise to lend out of its fulness to empirical studies 
 the principles which alone give them a sort of delu- 
 sive appearance of science. But neither Kant nor 
 any one else has demonstrated that reason has such 
 a strength and wealth of power, or is more than a 
 faculty or mental instrument of discovering truth 
 about the universe in and through experience. 
 During the latter half of the eighteenth century 
 
136 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 there were, as already indicated, owing to the in- 
 fluence of Wolifianism, Kantianism, and the Auf- 
 klarung, a considerable number of attempts made 
 by German authors to give easily intelligible ency- 
 clopaedic surveys of the whole field of science. 
 
 Suizer. J. G. Sulzer was one of the most highly appre- 
 ciated German authors of his day. His Short Sum- 
 mary of all Sciences mentioned above was not un- 
 worthy of his reputation. It was, however, of far 
 less importance than his General Theory of the Fine 
 Arts (Allgemeine Theorie der Schonen Kunste), 
 first announced in 1760, and published only in 1771- 
 74. Baumgarten, it is true, by the publication of 
 his ^Esthetica (2 vols., 1750 and 1759), preceded 
 him, and had the honour of first adding ^Esthetics 
 to the list of the sciences. A scarcely less honour, 
 however, seems to have been due to Sulzer, as his 
 work apparently was the first in which there was 
 given a comprehensive view of the fine arts (literary 
 included) in their various relationships. For more 
 than half a century he was considered in Germany 
 the chief authority in aesthetics, and that even by 
 those who differed from him in important respects. 
 Sir William Hamilton, to the close of his profes- 
 sional career, and while criticising the psychological 
 basis of Sulzer 's views on aesthetics, acknowledged 
 those views to be the best he was acquainted with, 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 137 
 
 his own and Aristotle's excepted. 1 Yet the author 
 of a generally able and admirable History of 
 ^Esthetic, Professor Bosanquet, has not once men- 
 tioned in it even the name of Sulzer. That is surely 
 a strange and large omission. In any general history 
 of aesthetic Sulzer's contribution to the science of 
 aesthetic, instead of being overlooked, ought to 
 have a considerable and prominent place. The 
 general distribution of the sciences proposed by 
 Sulzer was one in which they were referred either 
 to the faculty of knowledge or the faculty of 
 feeling. The inadequacy of it for the purpose 
 intended will now, in all probability, be univers- 
 ally recognised. 
 
 Gesner's Primary Lines of Introduction to all Gesnerand 
 Learning, Meinecke's Synopsis of all Learning, 
 Kltigel's Encyclopedic Survey of the different 
 kinds of Knowledge and Science, Roth's System 
 of the kinds of Human Knowledge and Science, 
 and Von Berg's Essay on the Foundations and 
 all parts of Science, were all in their day well- 
 appreciated works. Their authors felt themselves 
 to have a mission, endeavoured not unsuccess- 
 fully to write with clearness and simplicity, and 
 largely contributed to diffuse throughout Germany 
 desire for a many-sided culture. While aiming, 
 however, at an encyclopaedic knowledge they 
 
 1 Metaphysics, voL ii. pp. 467-471. 
 
138 CLASSIFICATIONS OP THE SCIENCES. 
 
 arrived at no satisfactory classification or co- 
 ordination of the sciences. 
 
 Krug. W. T. Krug (1770-1842) was an even more 
 
 influential author than any of those just men- 
 tioned. He had carefully studied the philosophies 
 of both Wolff and Kant without making any sur- 
 render of his own independence of mind. And 
 although he did more than any one else to 
 popularise many of the views of the latter, he 
 freely criticised others, and is justly enough classed 
 as only a Semi-Kantian. He was acknowledged to 
 have a very wide acquaintance with almost all the 
 recognised sciences. As regards the fundamental 
 science of Logic, his opinions were both more 
 accurate and more advanced than those of Kant 
 himself, a fact which may so far explain why Sir 
 Wm. Hamilton in his Lectures on Logic made far 
 longer and more numerous quotations from him 
 than from Kant, or indeed from any other logician 
 except Aristotle. Although not so ingenious or 
 profound as Kant, he was very worthy of the 
 successorship to his chair. I have thus far men- 
 tioned only his 'Lecture' (Yorlesung) of 1795, as 
 it only had appeared early enough to be in the 
 eighteenth century. A mere ' Lecture,' however, 
 could only be of slight value in comparison with 
 his Outline of a New Organon of Philosophy 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 139 
 
 (1801), his Handbook of Philosophy (1803), and 
 his magnum opus, his Universal Handbook of the 
 Philosophical Sciences (5 vols. 1827). Hence I 
 must in this case cross the boundary between two 
 centuries in order to be able to state what his 
 classification of the sciences was, as it is only on 
 the hither side of the line, only in the later works 
 mentioned, that the scheme was elaborated. I shall 
 do no more, however, than merely state the abstract 
 and general result, the bare scheme itself. It was 
 as follows : 
 
 The Sciences are either Free or Natural, Bound 
 or Positive, or Mixed. 
 
 A. The Free or Natural Sciences are formed 
 solely by the free activity of the human mind, 
 and are reducible to three general groups : 
 
 1. The Empirical, divisible into (a) Philo- 
 
 logical and (b) Historical Sciences; 
 
 2. The Rational, comprehending (a) Mathe- 
 
 matical and (b) Philosophical Sciences; 
 and 
 
 3. The Empirico- Rational, which is either 
 
 (a) Anthropological or (b) Physical 
 Science. 
 
 B. The Bound or Positive Sciences are depen- 
 dent on authority, and fall into two groups : 
 
 1. The Positive Theological Sciences, and 
 
 2. The Positive Juridical Sciences. 
 
140 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 C. The Mixed Sciences are those which are 
 theoretically free, but practically and in appli- 
 cation subject to and controlled by authority. 
 They comprise 
 
 1. The Politico-Economical, and 
 
 2. The Medical Sciences. 
 
 Such was the scheme of classification of the sciences 
 ultimately arrived at by Krug. Presented as it 
 necessarily is here, i.e., as a skeleton in all its bare- 
 ness, it must seem to have little if anything to 
 recommend it. On the contrary, grave objections 
 to it must make themselves felt. One is that no 
 sciences are formed solely by the free activity of the 
 human mind. All of them are to a large extent 
 dependent on the nature of the objects on which free 
 human activity is exercised. Another objection is 
 that no true sciences, either theological or juridical, 
 are bound or positive in the sense of being dependent 
 on authority. In so far as they are so treated they 
 cannot be truly sciences. The free exercise of 
 rational activity is inseparable from all true science. 
 It holds good of what Krug calls the Mixed Sciences 
 no less than of those which he represents as Bound 
 or Positive Sciences. Only in so far as Political 
 Economy and Medical Studies are free can they be 
 truly sciences, and what is true of them is just as 
 true of Theology and Jurisprudence and all other 
 studies or sciences. In all genuine study science 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 141 
 
 and philosophy, truth and freedom, are inseparable. 
 Notwithstanding these remarks I should greatly 
 regret were any one to infer from them that the 
 works in which Krug's scheme of classification is 
 imbedded are unworthy of study. They are very 
 much the reverse. 
 
 In the latter half of the eighteenth century there Encycio- 
 was nowhere shown so strong a desire for encyclo- efforts. 
 paedic views of the sciences as in Germany. Our 
 English freethinkers of that time showed little 
 interest in the study of scientific or speculative 
 problems. Yet even then England had a Cyclopaedia, 
 of a kind now well known and fully appreciated, 
 prior to any other country. I refer to the English 
 Cyclopaedia compiled and edited by Ephraim Cham- 
 bers. It appeared first in 1728, then in 1738, and 
 next in 1739, the later editions being greatly 
 enlarged by supplementary volumes. It was trans- 
 lated into French and Italian, originated Cyclopaedias 
 in all other European countries, and in England 
 became the basis of the greatly extended work of 
 Dr Eees, published in 45 vols. (1802-19). The 
 most widely famed and politically influential of 
 Encylopaedias was the French Encyclopedie, ou Dic- 
 tionnaire raisonne des sciences, arts et metiers, par 
 une societe des gens de lettres (17 torn, fol., 1751-65). 
 Its two leading contributors were D'Alembert and 
 
142 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Diderot, both highly gifted men, the former a great 
 proficient in mathematics and physics, and the latter 
 endowed with wonderful readiness of thought and 
 mastery of exposition on any subject. The Dis- 
 cours preliminaire was the work of D'Alembert, 
 the article on Encyclopedic of Diderot, and the 
 Prospectus (afterwards incorporated in the Discours 
 preliminaire) of both. In the Prospectus the plan 
 of Chambers is admitted to be excellent but the 
 execution is said to be very indifferent. The plan, 
 indeed, alike of Chambers and of D'Alembert and 
 Diderot, was mainly borrowed from Bacon. Neces- 
 sarily the French Encyclopedic with its large Societe 
 des gens de lettres was much superior in execution 
 to the English Encyclopaedia, which was almost the 
 work of one man. 
 
 D'Aiem- D'Alembert was unfortunate when he adopted 
 the Baconian scheme of classification as the founda- 
 tion of his own. The chief alterations made by 
 him on it in his Preliminary Discourse have been 
 well indicated by Prof. Fowler in the following 
 passage (Francis Bacon, pp. 75, 76) : " The places 
 of Imagination and Eeason, Poetry and Philosophy, 
 are reversed, so that in the scheme of the Encyclo- 
 pedic Poetry comes last ; the Imagination being 
 regarded by D'Alembert as a more mature faculty 
 (he is, of course, speaking of the creative, not of 
 the merely reproductive Imagination) than the 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OP THE SCIENCES. 143 
 
 Eeason, and posterior to it in the order of develop- 
 ment. Eevealed Theology, instead of being treated 
 as co-ordinate with and distinct from Human 
 Learning, is included under that part of Philosophy 
 which is concerned with the knowledge of God, 
 Natural Theology and the Science of evil spirits 
 being the co-ordinate branches. Metaphysics is 
 used in no less than three senses. In one sense, 
 it stands at the head of Philosophy, and has a 
 certain affinity to the Philosophia Prima of Bacon. 
 In another sense, it is employed as the equivalent 
 of Pneumatology, or the science of souls as distinct 
 from bodies, and in this sense is called Particular 
 Metaphysic. Finally, there is a metaphysic of 
 bodies, or general physic, which treats of extent, 
 movement, impenetrability, &c., or the properties 
 common to all bodies. Mathematics is made one 
 of the main divisions of the Philosophy of Nature, 
 instead of a mere appendix, and the mathematical 
 as well as the physical sciences are much more 
 elaborately divided than in Bacon's classification. 
 The various medical sciences, or those which have 
 to do with the care of man's body, are classified 
 on a more scientific basis, and transferred from 
 the Philosophy of Man to the Philosophy of Nature. 
 Morals are divided into general and particular : 
 general ethics being concerned with discussions on 
 the nature of good and evil, on the necessity of 
 being virtuous, &c. : particular ethics with the 
 
144 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 special duties of the individual when regarded 
 alone, of man in the family, and of man in society, 
 denominated respectively Natural, Economical, and 
 Political Jurisprudence, a similar division being 
 applicable to the conduct of states. Poesy is not 
 confined to Poetry proper, but is made coextensive 
 with the Fine Arts in general." 
 
 Those alterations of D'Alembert, however, neces- 
 sarily failed to improve to any great extent a 
 scheme so radically erroneous as Bacon's, one of 
 which the root-principle was the separation of three 
 inseparable mental states or faculties. No advan- 
 tage was gained, or could be gained, by reversing 
 the places of Imagination and Eeason, Poetry and 
 Philosophy, as was done by D'Alembert. His put- 
 ting poetry after history and science, and repre- 
 senting imagination as a more mature faculty than 
 reason, was going farther astray than Bacon had 
 done, and more inconsistent with the testimony 
 of history and psychology. That poetry and art 
 are posterior to history and science is not in accord- 
 ance with known facts and with the real order of 
 intellectual development. To assign historical 
 studies and their products to memory alone has 
 been already indicated to be erroneous. 
 
 The division of history into sacred and secular, 
 ecclesiastical and civil, although a very common 
 one, is also a very misleading one. A history of 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 145 
 
 mankind or the history of a nation is, or at least 
 should be, as sacred and religious as a history of 
 a church or churches. All history is sacred in so 
 far as it is pervaded by the power and spirit of 
 God. No clear, sharp, fixed distinction can be 
 drawn between sacred and secular, ecclesiastical 
 and civil. The larger or so-called civil society is, 
 or at least may be, as well entitled to be deemed 
 sacred and religious as the smaller and so-called 
 ecclesiastical societies within it. The Old Testa- 
 ment is throughout historical, but it certainly 
 never represents history as divisible into sacred 
 and secular, religious and political. There were 
 no ecclesiastical denominations in apostolic times, 
 and the New Testament ecclesia never means an 
 ecclesiastical denomination. The ecclesia in its 
 distinctively Scriptural sense is not a visible cor- 
 poration at all, although it manifests itself in all 
 spheres of human activity wherever there is the 
 working of spiritual life. The kingdom of God 
 which is so prominent in the New Testament is 
 certainly not one in which Churchmen are described 
 as having any exclusive or prominent place, but 
 certainly one which from the New Testament point 
 of view is as wide as history itself, because as wide 
 as the whole providential and redemptive work of 
 God as traceable in the history of mankind. 
 
 Under the head of 'Memory' D'Alembert adds 
 
 K 
 
146 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 to ' Sacred ' and ' Civil ' History ' Natural History/ 
 and gives a very elaborate distribution of its objects 
 and of the uses to which they might be applied 
 in arts, trades, and manufactures. This was an 
 important addition to the Baconian scheme, one 
 most creditable to the editor (or editors) of the 
 Encyclopedic, and necessarily helpful to those who 
 contributed to it. As 'History 7 is represented in 
 the scheme to be related only to 'Memory/ so 
 is 'Philosophy' to 'Keason.' Philosophy itself is 
 subdivided into the Science of God, the Science 
 of Man, and the Science of Nature. The first 
 of these is represented as including Natural and 
 Eevealed Religion and the Science of Good and 
 Evil Spirits, a worse than worthless view, such 
 as can hardly be regarded as a serious one. 
 
 The Science of Man is divided into Logic and 
 the Doctrine of Morality, and each of these again 
 into Arts. The scheme is elaborate, but to a 
 large extent artificial. The Science of Nature is 
 identified with General Metaphysics, Ontology, or 
 Science of Being in general, and divided into 
 Mathematics and Physics. Mathematics again is 
 divided into Pure and Mixed, and Physics into 
 General, Particular, and Chemistry. Subdivision 
 is carried still farther, and, indeed, too far. On 
 the whole, however, the scheme of classification 
 under the head of Philosophy must, with all its 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 147 
 
 faults, be regarded as a very remarkable and 
 valuable piece of work. It seems impossible to 
 determine how far D'Alembert was aided by 
 Diderot in the elaboration and exposition of 
 it, but there can, I think, be little reasonable 
 doubt that it must have been in the main the 
 work of the former, the more scientific of the two 
 men. 
 
 Under the head of ' Imagination ' Poetry is 
 divided into Sacred and Profane, then subdivided 
 into Narrative, Dramatic, and Parabolic, and each 
 of these subdivisions into others. But in that 
 there seems to be no merit whatever. In fact, 
 there is not a single science properly so-called 
 included in the section 'Imagination.' The ex- 
 tension given to the term 'Poesie' so as to make 
 it coextensive with 'the Fine Arts in general* 
 was a misapplication of it. Baumgarten had 
 previously found the appropriate term for 'the 
 Fine Arts in general,' the term Aesthetik. 
 
 The extraordinary philosophical activity to which 
 Kant's critical investigations into the nature and 
 foundations of knowledge gave rise early in the 
 nineteenth century was applied much more to what 
 was called the doctrine of science ( Wissenschafts- 
 lehre) than to direct study of the sciences them- 
 selves or of their relations to one another. Fichte, 
 Schelling, Hegel, and their followers felt the neces- 
 
148 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 sity of giving to the fundamental problems as to the 
 reality and validity of all that had been assumed to 
 be knowledge better and more constructive solu- 
 tions than those of Kant. Indeed his solutions 
 seemed to them essentially destructive, and himself 
 c der zermalmende/ an even greater 'smasher' of 
 all old theories and doctrines than the Scottish 
 Hume. Hence they felt that their own work must 
 necessarily be not only essentially critical but also 
 essentially constructive, the discovery and proof of 
 a fundamental philosophy or science of knowledge 
 which could not be destroyed like the older theories 
 and systems that Hume and Kant had discredited 
 without finding for them any credible or adequate 
 substitutes. The sciences properly so called could 
 not fail to be influenced by the turn thus taken by 
 speculative thought, nor could they fail to be to 
 a large extent influenced to their disadvantage. 
 Imagination and dreaming got inextricably com- 
 bined and confused with reason and reality. The 
 minds of the Teutonic philosophers of the time 
 ceased to be conscious of the laws and limitations 
 of human thought. The main result of that was an 
 extraordinary activity in the formation of systems 
 of belief based on some so-called science of know- 
 ledge ( Wissenschaftslehre) of a thinker's own inven- 
 tion and maintained by him to be the only true and 
 correct standard of all kinds of knowledge. 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 149 
 
 Fichte (1762-1814) led the way, and a singularly Fichte. 
 gifted leader he was. He is certainly entitled to 
 an eminent place in a history of the Doctrine 
 of Science. He showed that pure Kantianism 
 Kantianism as taught by Kant himself could not 
 be rationally maintained owing to the self-con- 
 tradictoriness pervading the whole system from 
 beginning to end. With eagle glance he gazed, 
 with eagle swoop he struck, straight at the quest- 
 ion around which Kant floundered with whale-like 
 awkwardness, What is the essential unifying factor 
 in all knowledge and in all that is known? He 
 saw that in Kant's teaching there was no such 
 factor, and made it manifest not only that he 
 himself but that Schelling, Hegel, and other 
 eminent thinkers could not consistently rest in 
 a teaching so radically inconsistent as was that of 
 Kant. Hence Fichte must be adjudged entitled to 
 an eminent place in a history of the doctrine of 
 science or philosophy of knoivledge. 
 
 He has, however, no special claim to any such 
 position in a history of the distribution or classifi- 
 cation of the sciences. He was far from having as 
 wide or accurate an acquaintance with any of the 
 positive sciences as Kant, for example, had; and 
 did little, if anything, in the way of showing how 
 those sciences are related to one another and to the 
 world of science as an intelligible whole. What he 
 
150 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 really did, or attempted to do, was to represent 
 various kinds of knowledge or action as offshoots 
 of the Wissensckaftslehre. It he held to be the 
 fundamental philosophy on which all special studies 
 should be based, to which they must be traced 
 back, and by the spirit of which they should be 
 permeated and vivified ; and hence in his various 
 writings he brought into connection with it such 
 subjects as (1) Revelation, (2) Theoretical Philo- 
 sophy, (3) Practical Philosophy, (4) Law of Nature, 
 (5) Systematic Ethics, (6) Philosophy of History, 
 &c. Indeed, he assumes or affirms all sciences to 
 have their principles in the Science of Knowledge. 
 That, however, does not yield a classification of the 
 sciences. 
 
 Schelling (1775-1854) has often been credited with 
 having dealt with the subject under consideration in 
 a rather effective manner, and, in particular, with 
 having anticipated, if not suggested, the solution of 
 it given by Comte. The following words of Morell 
 have been frequently quoted with approval : " The 
 influence of Schelling was not confined to Germany. 
 His attempt to unite the process of the physical 
 sciences in some affiliated line with the study of 
 man, both in his individual constitution and historic 
 development, has also had a very considerable result 
 out of his own country. No one, for example, who 
 compares the philosophic method of Schelling with 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 151 
 
 the ' Philosophie Positive ' of Auguste Comte can 
 have the slightest hesitation as to the source from 
 which the latter virtually sprang. The fundamental 
 idea is, indeed, precisely the same as that of Schelling, 
 with this difference only that the idealistic language 
 of the German speculator is here translated into the 
 more ordinary language of physical science. That 
 Comte borrowed his views from Schelling we can by 
 no means affirm ; but that the whole conception of 
 the affiliation of the sciences, in the order of their 
 relative simplicity, and the expansion of the same 
 law of development so as to include the exposition 
 of human nature and the course of social progress, is 
 all to be found there, no one in the smallest degree 
 acquainted with Schelling's writings can seriously 
 doubt." 1 
 
 Since Morell thus wrote documentary evidence 
 has come to light which proves that Comte could 
 not possibly have borrowed from Schelling. It is 
 unnecessary, how r ever, to bring forward that evi- 
 dence, seeing that the Comtist classification of the 
 sciences has no real connection with the procedure 
 of Schelling affirmed to be, in the main features, 
 identical with it. Schelling's procedure is in no 
 sense a classification of the sciences, and the prin- 
 ciple of it is utterly antagonistic to that of Comte. 
 Comte's principle is that of a methodical study of 
 
 1 " Modern German Philosophy" ; Manchester Papers, 1856, 
 
152 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 phenomena. Schelling's is that of the self-movement 
 and potentiation of the Absolute, from the lowest 
 manifestation of so-called matter to the highest 
 activity of reason. The method of Comte is that of 
 science directly studied, generalised, and distributed. 
 The method of Schelling is that of a high-soaring 
 ontology. It is altogether illusory to compare the 
 successive "potences" of Schelling with the funda- 
 mental sciences of Comte. Yet it is only just to 
 add that Schelling at all stages and in all phases of 
 his theorising took a keen interest in the sciences, 
 and wrote much of a very suggestive although 
 not infrequently very dubious character. Many a 
 scientist, I imagine, may read, for instance, with 
 considerable pleasure and profit, the Lectures on the 
 Method of Academic Study, published in 1803. 
 The subjects treated of in them are the following : 
 1. The Absolute Idea of Science ; 2. The Scientific 
 and Ethical Functions of Universities ; 3. The 
 Primary Presuppositions of a University Course of 
 Study ; 4. The Study of the Pure Sciences of Reason, 
 Mathematics, and General Philosophy; 5. TJie 
 Ordinary Objections to the Study of Philosophy ; 
 6. On the Special Study of Philosophy ; 7. Upon 
 some of the Departments which are to be discrim- 
 inated from Philosophy Specially the Positive 
 Sciences ; 8. The Historical Construction of Christi- 
 anity ; 9. The Study of Theology; 10. The Study 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 153 
 
 of History and Jurisprudence; 11. Natural His- 
 tory ; 12. Physics and Chemistry; 13. Medicine 
 (Pathology) ; and 14. Philosophy of Art (^Esthetics). 
 In his other numerous works he has so far treated 
 of those subjects in relation to absolute science. 
 Although his treatment of them leads neither to 
 a tenable classification nor a satisfactory organisa- 
 tion of the sciences, it has already been, and may 
 perhaps still be, of some value to them. 
 
 In the decade from 1806 to 1816 a number of dis- 
 tributions and surveys of the sciences appeared in 
 Germany. It may suffice merely to mention them. 
 Hefter published, in 1806, a Philosophical Exposi- 
 tion of a System of all Sciences ; Topfer, in the same 
 year, a Genera I Encyclopedic Chart of all Sciences, 
 to which he added, in 1808, a Commentary; Ortloff, 
 in 1807, a Systematic Distribution of the Sciences, 
 &c. ; Burdach, in 1809, an Organism of Human 
 Science and Art; Simon, in 1810, a Tabular 
 Survey of the Sciences; the celebrated Lorenz 
 Oken, in 1809-11, a Handbook of the Philosophy 
 of Nature (tr. by Tulk for the Eay Society) ; and 
 Jasche, in 1816, an Introduction to an Architectonik 
 of the Sciences. The works of the first five authors 
 mentioned have quite passed into oblivion. Jasche 
 is known chiefly as the editor of Kant's Logic. 
 Oken is still recognised as a man of genius, but 
 
154 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 the scheme of science indicated in his Handbook 
 has been generally found by those who tried to 
 appreciate it as so original as to be unintelligible. 
 
 Hegel. Hegel, in 1817, exhibited, in his Encyclopedia 
 
 of the Philosophical Sciences, a vast system of 
 thought which he believed inclusive of all the 
 fundamental sciences, and necessarily assigning to 
 each of them its appropriate place in the organic 
 and rational whole of knowledge. Judging his 
 work even exclusively from the point of view 
 which here specially concerns us, it must, I think, 
 be pronounced a prodigious advance on those which 
 preceded it, as any one may easily discover for him- 
 self by comparing it with the best of the produc- 
 tions mentioned in the previous paragraph. Hegel 
 connects and groups the fundamental sciences in an 
 order which is to a large extent true, and, presents a 
 very remarkable exemplification of a most magnifi- 
 cent conception of a Science of the Sciences. He 
 supposes that through the various stages of in- 
 dividual and collective experience and activity 
 described in the Phcenomenology of the Spirit, and 
 in the " Introduction " to the Encyclopedia, con- 
 sciousness is enabled to rise to absolute cognition, 
 to knowledge of the thought which is all- originative 
 and all-inclusive, to apprehension of the Idea which 
 is the essence alike of nature and of man, the source 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 155 
 
 and explanation alike of existence and of science. 
 The Idea, which is the only appropriate and 
 adequate object of absolute cognition, Hegel be- 
 lieves himself to have attained, and his whole 
 philosophy, as exhibited in the fincydopcedia, is 
 an attempt to trace the chief phases and forms of 
 its development. In direction the development is 
 from abstract to concrete, from simple to complex, 
 from barest poverty to fullest wealth of content ; in 
 character it is rhythmic, reasoned, dialectic ; and 
 the character of the movement determines its 
 direction, its whole course, and ultimate goal, 
 seeing that in affirming itself the thought with 
 which philosophy is conversant likewise denies 
 itself, yet so as thereby, instead of destroying 
 itself, to reconcile itself to itself, and this through 
 innumerable forms which become ever more con- 
 crete and comprehensive, until the whole content 
 of the Absolute Idea is evolved. Owing to the 
 very nature of the Hegelian dialectic, the Hegelian 
 philosophy is threefold alike as a whole and in its 
 parts. It must treat of the Idea in itself, in which 
 case it is Logic ; or of the Idea in its other or 
 external form, and then it is the Philosophy of 
 Nature ; or of the Idea in its return to itself, when 
 it is the Philosophy of Spirit. . In like manner the 
 threefold rhythm of the dialectic process causes 
 Logic to resolve itself into the Science of Being, the 
 
156 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Science of the Essence, and the Science of the 
 Notion ; the Philosophy of Nature into Mechanics, 
 Physics, and Organics ; and the Philosophy of Spirit 
 into the Doctrine of Subjective Spirit, the Doctrine 
 of Objective Spirit, and the Doctrine of Absolute 
 Spirit, the first of which comprehends Anthro- 
 pology, Phenomenology, and Psychology, while 
 the second deals with Legal Eight, Morality, and 
 Ethical Obedience, and the third embraces the 
 spheres of Art, Eeligion, and Absolute Philosophy. 
 Thus the fundamental sciences are represented as 
 having each a fixed and appropriate place, as bound 
 together by ties of rational affinity, and as the 
 necessary and constituent members of a vast har- 
 monious and organic system of knowledge. Hegel 
 must, consequently, be credited with having made 
 an enormous advance on all schemes of classification 
 of the sciences by mere logical division, external 
 arrangement, or figurate representation. He has 
 aimed at a real incorporation of the special sciences 
 into a general science, at a thorough reduction of 
 them under a comprehensive doctrine, at a correla- 
 tion of them based on consideration of the entire 
 contents of each. This may well render us averse 
 to dwell on errors of detail in his views. These are 
 neither few nor difficult to discover, and have been 
 often indicated. Hegel has, perhaps, oftener failed 
 than succeeded in defining the limits of the par- 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 157 
 
 ticular sciences. It is only in a very general way 
 that his scheme of co-ordination can be defended. 
 The defects of his Philosophy of Nature are notori- 
 ous, and the great merits of his Philosophy of Spirit 
 are blended with serious faults. But to ignore the 
 truth and grandeur of his general theory of the 
 correlation and combination of the sciences in 
 critically gazing at such imperfections must be 
 pronounced almost as irrational and unjust as to 
 doubt or deny the brightness of the sun because a 
 telescopic examination shows it to be mottled over 
 with a number of dark spots. Whatever be the 
 faults of Hegel's Encyclopedia although they be 
 even "thick as dust in vacant chambers" this 
 glory, I think, cannot fairly be denied to it, that 
 there, for the first time, appeared a system of such 
 a character and scope, so vast in its range of con- 
 ception, so rich in suggestion and doctrine, and so 
 skilfully constructed, as to present to the mind 
 something like what a Science of the Sciences 
 ought to be. 
 
 I refrain not only from urging particular objec- 
 tions to the Hegelian scheme of scientific co-ordina- 
 tion, but also those general objections which might 
 be drawn from the nature of the Hegelian Idea, and 
 of the Hegelian dialectic. These objections may be 
 both relevant and conclusive, but they obviously 
 raise the whole question of the truth or falsity of 
 
158 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 the Hegelian philosophy, which is a question far too 
 large to be here discussed. The late Prof. Harms, 
 in his Geschichte der Psychologie (pp. 42-48), has 
 rejected the Hegelian classification especially on 
 the ground that the dialectic process is a form 
 of evolution inconsistent with either the sciences 
 or their objects differing otherwise than in degree, 
 although the facts of experience show that they 
 differ essentially and specifically. It is an objec- 
 tion to which I cannot attribute much weight. 
 It may be difficult to conceive that any process 
 of evolution can produce certain differences, but 
 it is also difficult to show that they may not, and 
 off-hand appeals to experience on the question are 
 to be deprecated. Then, of all forms of evolution, 
 the Hegelian seems to be the one against which 
 the objection must strike with the least force, 
 seeing that the Hegelian dialectic, while a process 
 which goes on without interruption or cessation, is 
 also one of which each stage has a certain essence 
 and peculiar character of its own, each of the three 
 moments or acts included in it being relatively 
 distinct. The evolutionism of Hegel does not 
 attempt, like that of Darwin, and at least like 
 that of contemporary materialism, to explain de- 
 velopment entirely by gradation. It affirms un- 
 broken continuity of movement, but at the same 
 time maintains that the movement throughout 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 159 
 
 includes distinctions of nature, not merely differ- 
 ences of degree. The only objection on which I 
 deem it necessary to insist is that a doctrine of 
 the sciences ought to be based on, and built up 
 by, a direct study of the sciences, instead of being 
 drawn out of the bosom of a metaphysical philo- 
 sophy. It must be reached through induction, 
 not from deduction ; through analysis and general- 
 isation, not by synthesis and specialisation ; by an 
 upward, not a downward movement. It should be 
 the product of philosophic thought, but of such 
 thought in its first stage of advance on the thought 
 which has produced the various sciences. It is 
 one of the means with which the intellect must 
 provide itself in order to apprehend ultimate and 
 absolute truth. The view that a doctrine of the 
 sciences must be derived from a doctrine of science, 
 and even from a doctrine of Being, is very plausible, 
 yet very erroneous. A doctrine of the sciences 
 undoubtedly implies a doctrine of science, and even 
 a doctrine of Being; but for this very reason it 
 must precede them, and they can only be attained 
 through it. What is first in the order of nature 
 is last in the order of knowledge. To reach the 
 centre of truth, every point which lies between it 
 and the circumference must be passed through. 
 Hegel disregarded all considerations of this kind. 
 He started from what he believed to be truth 
 
160 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 higher than the truths of science without having 
 made use of the sciences to reach it. He began 
 with philosophy at its highest, sought to work it 
 all out by a uniform method from an absolute first 
 point, and so to incorporate into it the sciences, 
 to assign to each of them its place, and to exhibit 
 their relationships. This I hold to have been a 
 radically erroneous procedure. I must be content, 
 however, simply to state the conviction, having 
 indicated at the commencement of my previous 
 paper what I deem to be the true position and 
 function of a doctrine of the sciences in the organ- 
 ism of philosophy. 
 
 De Tracy. Two years before the publication of Hegel's 
 Encyclopaedia a celebrated French philosopher, 
 A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, completed a Cours 
 d' Ideologic (1801-15, 5 vols.), in which he attempted 
 to trace a plan of the whole edifice of science in 
 accordance with the general philosophical prin- 
 ciples of Locke and Condillac. He maintains that 
 the foundation of all science must be acquaintance 
 with the principles implied in the formation of 
 science the knowledge of how knowledge, which 
 consists of ideas, is obtained from sensations or 
 feelings. Ideology must be, consequently, the 
 fundamental science, and it includes three depart- 
 mental sciences Ideology in the narrower sense, 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 161 
 
 Grammar, and Logic which treat respectively of 
 the formation, the expression, and the combination 
 of ideas. Then, our means of knowledge may be 
 applied either to the study of what is within or 
 of what is beyond our power either to the study 
 of the operations of the will or of the properties 
 of nature and hence there are other two groups 
 of sciences. The sciences which refer to the will 
 are Political Economy, Morals, and Jurisprudence; 
 those which refer to external nature are Physics, 
 Geometry, and Arithmetic. 
 
 Such is De Tracy's scheme of classification. 
 Obviously the enumeration of sciences in the 
 second and third divisions is very incomplete, and 
 the arrangement of them careless. The omission 
 of ^Esthetics, the Science of History, and especially 
 Theology, cannot fail to be remarked. And even 
 the leading conception of his scheme the view 
 that the primary science must be a science of the 
 conditions and processes implied in the formation 
 of science is extremely questionable. How are 
 we to ascertain the conditions and processes of 
 science except through a study of the sciences, 
 and how shall we study them unless they exist? 
 An Ideology not drawn from ideas, a Grammar not 
 dependent on languages, a Logic which does not 
 presuppose the reasonings and methods of science, 
 must be most unworthy to be called sciences. 
 
 L 
 
162 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 IV. FROM BENTHAM TO GIOBERTI. 
 
 Bentham. Jeremy Bentham and Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
 were the Englishmen who at the period now 
 reached discussed the problem of the classification 
 of the sciences. The former in the fifth appendix 
 to his Chrestomathia, first published in 1816, did 
 so. His scheme assumes that " directly or in- 
 directly, wellbeing, in some shape or other, or in 
 several shapes, or all shapes taken together, is the 
 subject of every thought, and object of every action, 
 on the part of every known Being j who is, at the 
 same time, a sensitive and thinking Being " ; that 
 " art and science so run along everywhere together 
 that every division performed on the one may, on 
 any occasion, be considered as applying to the 
 other " ; that all the arts and sciences meet in, and 
 proceed from, a central, common, and comprehen- 
 sive art and science Eudaemonics ; and that the 
 distribution of this art and science into the various 
 arts and sciences ought to be exhaustive, and may 
 be made so through lengthened dichotomous divi- 
 sion, continued bifurcate ramification. These as- 
 sumptions are not to be admitted. The first is 
 the basis of utilitarianism, but denied by all who 
 reject utilitarianism ; the second ignores the fact 
 that the points of view of science and of art are 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 163 
 
 so different that every science is of use in several 
 arts, and that every art presupposes several 
 sciences ; the third falls with the two assump- 
 tions which precede it and on which it rests; 
 and the fourth has been so discredited in every 
 department of inductive study that the belief in 
 the applicability of dichotomous division either to 
 the realities of nature or to their reflections in 
 thought is now justly deemed by scientific men 
 a superstition. 
 
 The all- comprehensive art and science of Eudse- 
 monics may be regarded, according to Bentham, 
 specially either as art or science, and the name 
 Eudsemonics may be specially appropriated to the 
 former, and Ontology to the latter. " In every part 
 of the common field, concomitant and correspondent 
 to Eudcemonics, considered as an art, runs Ontology, 
 considered as a science." Ontology is, therefore, 
 the trunk of the tree of science, while the other 
 sciences are branches of that tree formed by suc- 
 cessive bifurcations. The tree itself is, conse- 
 quently, a Eamean tree. Thus Ontology is divided 
 into Ccenoscopic (Metaphysics) and Idioscopic ; 
 Idioscopic Ontology into Somatology and Pneu- 
 matology ; Somatology into Posology and Poiology, 
 and Pneumatology into Nooscopic and Pathoscopic ; 
 and so on, until the result is reached that Poso- 
 scopic Somatics includes Geometry, Arithmetic, and 
 
164 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Algebra ; Poioscopic Somatics, Astronomy, Botany, 
 Zoology, Experimental Philosophy, and Technology ; 
 Nooscopic Pneumatics, Logic, Grammar, and Rhet- 
 oric ; and Pathoscopic Pneumatics, ^Esthetics, Exe- 
 getic Ethics, Private Ethics, and the Political 
 Sciences. The process by which this result is at- 
 tained is not only long and wearisome, but at 
 almost every stage very questionable. Theology 
 is entirely ignored. Bentham, like Hobbes, sup- 
 posed it not entitled to any place among the 
 sciences. His whole scheme, indeed, reminds us of 
 that of Hobbes. It is as self-consistent and even 
 more elaborated, but shows less vigour and perspic- 
 acity, and more narrowness and pedantry of mind. 
 Its nomenclature is hideous, but ingenious and 
 significant. In the encyclopaedic language of Ben- 
 tham, Arithmetic is Gnostosymbolic, Alegomorphic, 
 Pososcopic, Somatic, Ccenoscopic Ontology ; Zoology 
 is Embioscopic, Epigeioscopic, Physiurgic, Poso- 
 scopic, Somatic, Idioscopic Ontology ; and Rhetoric 
 is Pathocinetic, Ccenonesioscopic, Nooscopic, Pneu- 
 matic Ontology. These are wonderful and fearful 
 propositions at first sight or first hearing, but any 
 reader possessed of a little Greek may easily trans- 
 late them into English, and will learn something by 
 doing so. 1 
 
 1 Bentham's Chrestomathia is contained in vol. viii. of Bowring' 
 edition of his works. 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 165 
 
 Coleridge divided the sciences into Pure Sciences, Coleridge, 
 which axe built on the relations of ideas to each 
 other, and Mixed and Applied Sciences, which are 
 built on the relations of ideas to the external world. 
 The Pure Sciences he subdivided into Formal and 
 Real, the former exhibiting the forms of thought, 
 and the latter treating of Being itself, of the true 
 nature and existence of the external universe, of 
 the guiding principles within us, and of the Great 
 Cause of all. Grammar, Logic, and Mathematics 
 he classed as the Formal Sciences ; Metaphysics, 
 Morals, and Theology as the Real Sciences ; Mech- 
 anics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Optics, and As- 
 tronomy as the Mixed Sciences ; and the various 
 branches of Experimental Philosophy, the theories 
 of the Fine Arts and of the Useful Arts, and 
 Natural History, with its applications to Medicine 
 and Surgery, as the Applied Sciences. 
 
 It is not difficult to discover grave defects in this 
 classification. The Real Sciences cannot be Pure 
 Sciences if Coleridge's own definitions of Real 
 Sciences and Pure Sciences be correct. The Mixed 
 and Applied Sciences, if only mixed and applied, 
 have no right to be classed as co-ordinate with the 
 Pure Sciences ; and if in any degree distinct and 
 independent sciences, they must be to the same 
 extent either Formal or Real Sciences. Most of 
 them are obviously entitled to be ranked among 
 
166 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 the so-called Eeal Sciences. Within the several 
 groups the order in which the particular sciences 
 follow one another is not the most natural order. 
 For all defects of this kind Coleridge himself may 
 not be responsible, as he complained that under 
 editorial revision his work was (to use his own 
 words) "so bedeviled that I am ashamed to own 
 it." 1 
 
 Jannein. Cataldo Jannelli, a clear-headed Italian author, 
 while endeavouring to correct and develop in his 
 Cenni sullen natura e necessite delle cosse e delle 
 storie umane (1817) the doctrine of Vico, dealt, 
 although only to a slight extent, with the problem 
 of the classification of the sciences. While recog- 
 nising the value of the work achieved by Vico in 
 the Principii di Scienza Nuova, and his right to 
 be regarded as the founder of the philosophy of 
 history and the improver of all sciences dependent 
 on that philosophy, he was sufficiently independent 
 to criticise even the central doctrine and most com- 
 prehensive generalisation in the great Neapolitan's 
 system of thought. For Vico's divine, heroic, and 
 human ages he substituted three ages partly corre- 
 spondent to and partly corrective of them namely, 
 
 1 As to Coleridge's classification see the third section of his Treatise 
 on Method, prefatory to the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, which 
 began to appear in 1817. 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 167 
 
 the ages of sense, imagination, and reason and 
 thus with a considerable measure of success im- 
 proved on his predecessor's description of the stages 
 of human development and distribution of the kinds 
 of knowledge, without rejection of the great idea of 
 a natural law of the development of life in the 
 history alike of the human race and the human 
 individual. His criticism left psychology, sociology, 
 and evolutionism none the less indebted to Vico, 
 while it led him to recognise as of supreme import- 
 ance the claims of two other sciences namely, 
 teleologia (the science of final causes) and ideologia 
 (the science of first causes). His general dis- 
 tribution of the sciences is into intuitive or 
 theoretical and operative or practical sciences, 
 a much too simple classification. 
 
 G. D. Komagnosi (1761-1835), a very eminent Romag- 
 Italian jurist and publicist, and a wise and inde- n 
 pendent citizen in a very difficult and critical 
 period of his country's history, gave expression in 
 one of his many writings to what may well be 
 regarded as an extravagant view of the importance 
 of an encyclopaedic distribution of the sciences. I 
 quote his words below. 1 So far as I am aware, he 
 
 1 Vedute fondamentale suW Arte Logica, Lib. i. Sez. i., 18 : " Un 
 albero enciclopedico delle scienze ben fatto forma P ultima e la piu 
 grande espressione del logico magistero." 
 
168 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 himself made no attempt to supply the sort of 
 classification he so highly appreciated. 
 Longo. It seems certain, however, from the Appendix to 
 
 the second volume of Prof. Vincenzo di Giovanni's 
 Storia della Filosofia in Sicilia, a very inter- 
 esting and every way admirable work, that the 
 problem must have been long and earnestly dealt 
 with by a Sicilian scientist, the Cav. Agatino 
 Longo. Greatly to my regret I have not been 
 able to obtain his writings on the subject one 
 which must have occupied his mind more or less 
 for over thirty years. Unfortunately for my pur- 
 pose Di Giovanni has given no information as to 
 their contents beyond what is implied in their 
 titles, and as they have all been published in Sicily, 
 and for the most part in Sicilian periodicals, gener- 
 ally short-lived and of very limited circulation, I 
 have not been able to obtain them, and must there- 
 fore content myself with reproducing a few of the 
 titles given by Giovanni in the work already 
 mentioned, viz. : 
 
 Longo, Cav. A. 
 
 Prolusion! accademiche, lette nell' universita di 
 Catania. (La prima di esse ivi stampata nei 
 1820 presenta una nuova classificazione delle 
 scienze : la seconda inserita nel t. xiii. del. Gior. 
 di scienze lettre ed arti offre partizioni della 
 erudizione e delle arti. 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 169 
 
 Sul bisogno d' una nuova classificazione delle cog- 
 nizioni, Cat. 1827, e nel tomo xxii. del Giorn. di 
 scienze lettre ed arti per la Sicilia. 
 
 Atlante universalle delle cognizioni, o Tavole sinottiche 
 contenenti la classificazione sistematica delle 
 scienze secondo il metodo naturale. (Di questa 
 grand opera ne da 1' annunzio nel t. xxxiv. di 
 detto Giornale, e nel xiii. dell' Efemeridi sicole.) 
 
 Osservazioni sulla Geneografia dello scibile del sign. 
 Pamphilis: nel t. xxxv. 
 
 Sul valore del vocabolo Filosofia, ed enumerazione delle 
 scienze che vi s' includono. Cat. 1850. 
 
 Delle partizioni della filosofia generale, e dei metodi 
 di classificazione. Cat. 1850. 
 
 Father Giovachino Ventura set forth his views on Ventura, 
 the classification of the sciences in his De Methodo 
 Philosophandi, published at Eome in 1828. But 
 his traditionalism, his subjection of reason to au- 
 thority and of science to faith, his want of secular 
 knowledge and exclusively theological habits of 
 thought, rendered it impossible for him to discuss 
 the theme with much success. He assigned to the 
 encyclopaedic tree of knowledge three branches 
 one bearing the sciences of authority, another the 
 sciences of ratiocination, and the third the sciences 
 of observation. These he represented as coincident 
 with the Ethics, Logic, and Physics of ancient 
 philosophy. That view, it need scarcely be said, is 
 utterly erroneous. It is, however, not more so than 
 
1*70 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 this other, closely connected with it, that the object 
 of Ethics, thus understood, is God ; of Logic, Man ; 
 and of Physics, Body. Ethics is divided into 
 Metaphysics and Jurisprudence ; Logic into Ideology 
 and Logic strictly so called ; and Physics into 
 General and Special Physics. The process of sub- 
 division is pushed to a great length. 1 The self- 
 confidence of the renowned Theatine orator was 
 undimmed by any suspicion of ignorance, and so he 
 mapped out the universe of knowledge with magis- 
 terial minuteness. It would serve no good purpose 
 to follow him in details, which are without interest 
 in themselves, and which belong to a scheme false 
 in its principles and misleading in its main lines. 
 
 Ferrarese. L. Ferrarese published, in 1828, a Saggio di una 
 nuova classificazione delle scienze. It contains good 
 remarks on the importance of a right distribution 
 of the system of knowledge, but the classification 
 which it sets forth is not based on sound principles, 
 and by no means satisfies the necessary requirements. 
 According to Ferrarese, the Science of Man must be 
 the foundation of all the sciences ; but he has for- 
 gotten to attempt to prove that there can be a 
 Science of Man without a foundation supplied by 
 other and simpler sciences. He classifies the sciences 
 exclusively according to the modes of their helpful- 
 
 1 Op. cit., art. vii., pp. 241-300. 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 1*71 
 
 ness to man, on the ground that they will not 
 otherwise be so useful to him as they might be ; 
 but in so doing he overlooks that even if this 
 allegation were correct which it is not it would 
 be altogether insufficient to establish that the 
 sciences should have their place and rank deter- 
 mined, not by intrinsic, but by extrinsic considera- 
 tions ; not by the nature of the truths of which 
 they consist, but by the uses to which they may 
 be put. To the tree of science he assigns three 
 great branches, because the sciences contribute, in 
 his opinion, to one or other of three great ends 
 the maintenance of man in health or sound- 
 ness (salute) of body or mind, the furtherance of 
 his perfection, and the prevention of his degradation 
 although these ends are obviously so closely as- 
 sociated that any one of them can only be realised 
 in the measure that the others are promoted, and 
 that, consequently, to distribute the sciences by them 
 into distinct groups must be futile. The fundamental 
 science Ferrarese calls Anthropography, and he de- 
 scribes it as dividing into Descriptive and Compara- 
 tive Anthropography. To these two branches the 
 mathematical, physical, natural, and medical sciences 
 are represented as belonging. The third branch 
 begins with Telestics, the general science of the 
 perfection of man, alike as regards his bodily, in- 
 tellectual, and moral faculties. It is supposed to 
 
1*72 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 support Psedagogy, the philosophical, juridical, and 
 moral sciences, history, and literature. 
 
 De Pam- The treatise of Giacinto de Pamphilis Geneografia 
 dello Scibile was published a year later than that 
 of Ferrarese, 1 and is even more ingenious. It places 
 the centre of the sciences not in man alone, as the 
 work of Ferrarese does, but both in nature and 
 man, since the former is the objective cause, and the 
 latter the subjective cause, and these causes act 
 incessantly on each other. It refers the origin of 
 knowledge to "the reciprocal circular influence" 
 between nature and man, and makes this fact the 
 principle of the division of the sciences. Hence it 
 distributes the sciences into three orders : 1. Ob- 
 jective Sciences, those of the Not-Me ; 2. Subjective 
 Sciences, those of the Me ; and, 3. Objective-sub- 
 jective and Subjective-objective Sciences, those of 
 the Me in relation to the Not-Me, and of the Not- 
 Me in relation to the Me ; or, in other words, into 
 Physical, Metaphysical, and Moral Sciences. These 
 orders are brought into connection in a somewhat in- 
 tricate and arbitrary manner, so as to yield such 
 groups as Grammar, Logic, and Morals ; Cosmology, 
 Psychology, and Theology ; Philoagathy, Philocaly, 
 and Philosophy ; Metaphysics, Ontology, and Ideo- 
 logy ; all the members of which deal directly with 
 
 1 A second edition appeared in 1 869. 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 173 
 
 the phenomenal, yet imply the transcendental and 
 absolute. It would occupy too much of the space at 
 my disposal to explain and criticise the processes by 
 which these groups are formed. Any reader whose 
 curiosity regarding the scheme is unsatisfied may be 
 referred not only to the work in which it was pro- 
 pounded, but also to the examination of it by Prof. 
 Longo, Osservazioni sulla Geneografia dello scibile 
 del sig. Pamphilis. 1 
 
 Dr Neil Arnott, in the introduction to his Elements Neil 
 of Physics , a popular work, of which the first edi- 
 tion appeared in 1828, divided the whole sum of 
 man's knowledge of nature into Natural History and 
 Science or Philosophy. The former treats of the 
 materials of the universe e.g., minerals, vegetables, 
 animals ; or, in other words, describes the kingdoms 
 of nature. The latter treats of the manners or kinds 
 of motion or change ; or, in other words, exhibits 
 the general truths or laws of nature. It ought, in 
 Dr Arnott's opinion, to be distributed into four dis- 
 tinct sciences Physics, Chemistry, the Science of 
 Life, and the Science of Mind because all pheno- 
 mena are referable to four distinct classes, the 
 physical, chemical, vital, and mental. These four 
 sciences " may be said to form the pyramid of 
 Science, of which Physics is the base, while the 
 
 1 Giorn. di sdenze letter e ed arti per la Sicilia, t. xxxv. 
 
174 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 others constitute succeeding layers in the order 
 mentioned, the whole having certain mutual re- 
 lations and dependencies well-figured by the parts 
 of a pyramid." Mathematics " may be considered 
 as a subsidiary department of human science, 
 created by the mind itself, to facilitate the study 
 of the others." Theology is included in the Science 
 of Mind. It was thus that Arnott enunciated 
 an idea of a hierarchy of fundamental sciences 
 closely resembling that of Comte, and, indeed, 
 superior to it in the two points in which it differs 
 from it namely, in neither representing Astron- 
 omy as a fundamental science, nor the Science of 
 Mind as merely a department of the Science of 
 Life. There is no evidence, so far as I am aware, 
 that his anticipation of Comte was due to any 
 acquaintance with the writings of Saint - Simon. 
 He enunciated, however, Saint - Simon's general 
 idea, although only in a very general way. He 
 made no attempt to build on it, as Comte did, 
 a universal philosophy, a science of the sciences. 
 How incompetent he was to perform such an achieve- 
 ment, had he been ambitious enough to undertake 
 it, we may judge from the feeble book he published 
 in 1861, entitled A Survey of Human Progress. 
 Yet in this work he developed in some degree the 
 conception just indicated as contained in his earlier 
 one. He, as Dr Bain says, " brought out more 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 175 
 
 decisively the distinction between Sciences and Arts, 
 and between the Concrete and the Abstract Depart- 
 ments of Science." Still distributing that know- 
 ledge of phenomena to which he restricted the term 
 Science or Philosophy into the four fundamental 
 Sciences of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, and 
 Psychology, he represented the knowledge of things 
 or objects called Natural History and the devices or 
 practical applications of knowledge called Art as 
 similarly divisible, so that the departments of 
 Natural History, of Science, and of Art form three 
 parallel and co-ordinate series, Astronomy and Geo- 
 graphy corresponding to Physics, Mineralogy and 
 Geology to Chemistry, Botany and Zoology to Physi- 
 ology, and the History of Man to Psychology, while 
 the Arts must be classified as Mechanical, Chemical, 
 Physiological, and Mental. 
 
 We now reach Auguste Comte, than whom, Comte. 
 perhaps, no one has done more for philosophy as 
 positive. He owes the high place he holds among 
 philosophers to the power and skill and general 
 truthfulness of his elaboration of the doctrine of the 
 so-called positive sciences as a whole, not to the 
 merits of his treatment of the particular problem 
 of the classification of the sciences. He claimed, 
 but had no right whatever to claim, that he 
 originated the classification which he adopted. If 
 
176 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 that classification possess any merits, they must 
 be ascribed to Dr Burdin, who conceived it, and to 
 Saint-Simon, who first received and published it ; 
 not to Comte, although he showed how much could 
 be made of it. As it is with Comte's name, how- 
 ever, that the classification is almost universally 
 associated, it is in connection with him, and as ex- 
 pounded in his GOUTS de Philosophic Positive (1830- 
 42), that I shall briefly consider and criticise it. 
 
 The classification cannot be dissevered from the 
 celebrated so-called " law of the three states." That 
 alleged law, as it is understood and expounded by 
 Comte, means that the human mind in every de- 
 partment of thought and inquiry reaches such rela- 
 tive truth as it can attain, and so enters into the 
 state called positive, or, in other words, arrives at 
 science only by passing through a theological and 
 metaphysical state, both essentially false and con- 
 jectural, although both containing some measure of 
 truth and pervaded by a certain nisus toward the 
 certainty of science. Thus apprehended, the law 
 necessarily implies that there can be no true the- 
 ology or true metaphysics, and that whatever 
 professes to be theological or metaphysical science 
 must be discarded as pretentious delusion. Comte 
 cannot be charged in this respect with want of 
 consistency ; he refused to assign either to theology 
 or metaphysics any place among the sciences. That 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 177 
 
 in doing so he most seriously erred I shall not here 
 endeavour to show, as I have elsewhere examined 
 his views on this point at considerable length. 1 
 
 Comte further defined and limited the field of 
 his investigation by excluding from consideration 
 merely composite and derivative sciences. He 
 distributed the sciences into two classes Abstract > 
 Sciences conversant with general laws, and Con- 
 crete Sciences conversant with the explanation of 
 particular existing things by means of general 
 laws ; and held the former only to be fundamental, 
 and alone to require from the philosopher classifi- 
 cation. He thus greatly simplified his task. There 
 can be no doubt that the distinction on which he 
 rested the simplification is a very valuable one. 
 It is now almost universally accepted. 
 
 The Abstract Sciences, Comte held, must fall into 
 a single linear series, each member of which has 
 its place determined by its relative simplicity, 
 generality, and independence. This does not pre- 
 vent them from being divisible into Mathematical 
 and Physical, or the Physical Sciences from being 
 divisible into Inorganic Physics (comprehending 
 Astronomy and Physics proper) and Organic Physics 
 
 1 Philosophy of History, pp. 267-278. In ch. x. of my Historical 
 Philosophy in France I have treated somewhat fully of the natural- 
 ism and positivism in the doctrine of Comte, but not at all of his 
 attempted classification of the sciences. 
 
 M 
 
178 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 (containing Biology and Sociology) ; but it implies 
 that Mathematical Science must precede Physical 
 Science, and that the five fundamentally distinct 
 Physical Sciences must have been evolved in the 
 following order : Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, 
 Biology, and Sociology. A relatively simple, 
 abstract, and independent science must always 
 precede one which is more special, complex, and 
 dependent. 
 
 These views of Comte raise various questions. 
 One is this : Is there, even of sciences of the kind 
 which he calls positive, only one series ? Is there 
 not, for example, a Psychical as well as Physical 
 series of such sciences ? The material and the 
 mental spheres of existence are conspicuously 
 different and appear to be essentially distinct. 
 The facts on which the physical sciences are built 
 are all observed externally by the senses, while 
 those on which mental science is built must be 
 apprehended by internal consciousness; we cannot 
 observe a single fact of physical nature by intro- 
 spection, nor a single fact of mind by perception. 
 From this it seems to follow that, although Psy- 
 chology may possibly be the root of a series of 
 sciences parallel to the Physical Sciences, neither 
 itself nor any science springing from it as, for 
 example, Sociology can be included in a series of 
 Physical Sciences. And certainly Comte has not 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. . 179 
 
 shown this conclusion to be unwarranted. The 
 views he maintained as to the position, character, 
 and method of the Science of Mind cannot com- 
 mend themselves to. any competent student. The 
 arguments from which he inferred that Psychology 
 is merely a department of Physiology, and may 
 even be identified with Phrenology, are singularly 
 weak and irrelevant, and have often been adequately 
 exposed. 
 
 There is a still more penetrating question : Is 
 there a fixed line or series either of the physical 
 or psychical sciences? Is there in any group of 
 the sciences a straight line of succession and neces- 
 sary order of filiation? Comte maintained that 
 there is, while Herbert Spencer, in an essay on 
 "The Genesis of Science," has argued, with great 
 ingenuity and vigour, that there is not ; that " the 
 conception of a serial arrangement of the sciences 
 is a vicious one " ; that " there is no ' one rational 
 order among a host of possible systems'"; that 
 " there is no ' true filiation of the sciences/ " That 
 Comte's doctrine is very inadequate and inaccurate 
 Spencer seems to me to have conclusively shown. 
 Indeed, a very general inspection of the procedure 
 of the mind in the formation of the sciences must 
 suffice to convince us that Comte has erred in his 
 views as to the filiation of the sciences. The 
 nature of the connection, or so-called filiation of 
 
180 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 the sciences, must depend on the nature of their 
 formation or genesis. The former must be simple 
 or complex according as the latter is simple or 
 complex. Now Comte supposed the latter to be 
 simple, while in the positive sciences, both physical 
 and psychical, it is really and obviously complex. 
 It is not a single, but a twofold process. In the 
 formation of any of the positive sciences, since a 
 positive science is the explanation of facts by laws, 
 the mind for some time predominantly and always 
 to some extent follows an ascending direction, rising 
 from facts to laws, from sense to science. On this 
 path its instruments are induction and its auxiliary 
 processes, and with their aid it evolves laws of 
 ever-increasing comprehensiveness and simplicity. 
 But the reverse method, the descending order, must 
 likewise be followed. The results of induction 
 become the premisses of deduction. The laws in- 
 ductively reached yield deductive solutions of 
 problems previously inexplicable. But since the 
 progress of science thus depends not on one pro- 
 cess of discovery, but on two processes, the one 
 the inverse of the other, the order of the evolution 
 of the sciences must manifestly be very different 
 from what it would be if determined by a single 
 process, whether induction or deduction. If the 
 formation of science were an exclusively induc- 
 tive process, the law of the development of the 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 181 
 
 sciences would be one of continuous movement 
 from complexity and particularity to simplicity 
 and generality ; if exclusively deductive, the re- 
 sultant law would be just the opposite, and precisely 
 what Comte supposed it to be, one of uninterrupted 
 advance from the general to the special, from the 
 simple to the complex, from the abstract to the 
 concrete ; but the process of scientific discovery 
 being both inductive and deductive, the order of 
 the evolution of the sciences cannot be entirely or 
 continuously in either of the directions indicated, 
 and cannot be either so absolute in itself or so 
 easily ascertainable by us as Comte would have us 
 to believe. In laying down his law of the filiation 
 of the sciences he overlooked all that is empirical 
 and inductive in the sciences, treated each science 
 as if it had been a single truth, and assumed that 
 the order of the succession of the sciences was de- 
 termined solely by pure deductive reason. In all 
 this he erred most grievously, and simplified his 
 problem most unduly. If science can be built up 
 only by the combined resources alike of induction 
 and deduction, we may be entitled to say, in a 
 general way, that this science must precede that, 
 but not to say, in an absolute way, that this whole 
 science must precede that whole science. 
 
 Are we to conclude, then, that Spencer is wholly 
 right and Comte wholly wrong ? That is by no 
 
182 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 means necessary. The association of induction and 
 deduction, of generalisation and specialisation, of 
 analysis and synthesis, in the growth of science, 
 requires us to believe that the sciences spring up 
 together and influence each other to an extent 
 unrecognised by Comte, but not to disbelieve that 
 some sciences are naturally antecedent to others, 
 or even that the sciences of which the phenomena 
 are most general and simple must be further de- 
 veloped than those conversant with phenomena 
 more special and complex. Biology may not only 
 develop simultaneously with Physics and Chemis- 
 try, but even suggest to them problems on the 
 solution of which their progress is greatly de- 
 pendent, while yet all its doctrines must be super- 
 ficial unless based on the teachings of a Physics 
 and a Chemistry which have attained a relatively 
 high perfection. Although Comte did not see 
 with sufficient clearness to what extent the sciences 
 develop spontaneously and simultaneously, he was 
 not mistaken in so far as he held that one fun- 
 damental science does come before another on 
 the whole, although not wholly and that in 
 virtue of the relative simplicity, generality, and 
 independence of the laws which they set forth. 
 We may assign full weight to all that is true in 
 the objections urged by Spencer in his criticism of 
 Comte's scheme of filiation of the sciences, and yet 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 183 
 
 reasonably hold that, in the main, it is Comte who 
 is in the right, and that Spencer's view that there is 
 no true order of filiation of the sciences is an ex- 
 aggerated inference from his facts, and implies that , 
 the progress of knowledge is without method or law. 
 Let us now confine our attention for a moment 
 to the fundamental physical sciences of Comte 
 Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology. 
 It is obvious, I think, that the first Astronomy 
 is not of the same rank as the others. It is not 
 a science of general properties, but of particular 
 objects, which is what no fundamental science is. 
 The fundamental sciences are not classed accord- 
 ing to individual objects. Every object is com- 
 plex, and can only be fully explained by the 
 concurrent application of various sciences. The 
 stars have a mathematics, physics, and chemistry; 
 a mineralogy also, and perhaps a botany and 
 zoology, and conceivably a psychology and soci- 
 ology. What Comte means by Astronomy is, of 
 course, only the mathematics and physics of the 
 stars ; but why, then, make it co-ordinate with 
 the mathematics and physics which include it, 
 or by their synthesis constitute it? The mathe- 
 matics and physics of the stars would require to be 
 entirely distinct from the mathematics and physics 
 of the earth i.e., to be no mathematics and physics 
 at all, but things essentially different, before they 
 
184 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 can be entitled to the place which Comte assigns 
 them a place separate from all other mathe- 
 matics and physics. Even if it were true that 
 Astronomy became positive science long before 
 terrestrial physics, this would prove no more than 
 that it was the simplest and most manageable part 
 of physics ; it would in nowise prove that it was 
 no part of physics. But the alleged fact cannot be 
 made out. For just as it was impossible to under- 
 stand the geometrical relations of the celestial 
 bodies while ignorant of the geometrical relations 
 of terrestrial bodies, so it was impossible to apply 
 physical conceptions and generalisations to the stars 
 without having drawn them from our experience of 
 the earth, or at least without applying them at the 
 same time to the earth. The laws of motion, weight, 
 force, &c., which rule in celestial, rule also in ter- 
 restrial physics. The great law of gravitation, 
 which regulates the motion of the stars, was, 
 according to the well-known story, suggested to 
 Newton by the fall of an apple, and could certainly 
 not have been ascertained and verified by him if he 
 had been ignorant of the laws of falling bodies, the 
 law of the composition of forces, and the law of 
 centrifugal force, which Galileo and Huygens had 
 previously discovered to rule terrestrial phenomena. 
 We must, therefore, strike out Astronomy from the 
 list of fundamental physical sciences. There then 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 185 
 
 remain only Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. Are 
 these fundamental physical sciences ? Are they the 
 only fundamental physical sciences ? So far as our 
 present knowledge goes, we must, I believe, answer 
 both questions in the affirmative. These sciences 
 are fundamental, not being able to be resolved into 
 any other sciences or into one another. They are 
 the only fundamental physical sciences because the 
 only irresolvable attributes of matter are physical 
 forces, chemical affinities, and vital properties. Those 
 who make a longer list overlook a distinction without 
 which the whole subject of the relationship of the 
 sciences must be an inextricable imbroglio the dis- 
 tinction between fundamental and derivative, prim- 
 ary and secondary, simple and complex sciences. 
 
 Another French philosopher, contemporaneously Ampere. 
 with but quite independently of Comte, strenuously 
 occupied his mind during many years on the classi- 
 fication of the sciences, and published, in 1834, the i 
 first part of an Essai sur la Philosophic des Sciences, ' 
 the second part of which, completing the work, only 
 appeared in 1843. This philosopher was the illus- 
 trious Andre-Marie Ampere, a man equally remark- 
 able for the extent and the profundity of his 
 knowledge, keenly interested in all the sciences, a 
 brilliant discoverer in several of them, and in par- 
 ticular, as a thoroughly competent authority, the 
 
186 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 late Principal Forbes, of St Andrews, observed, " at 
 least as well entitled as any other philosopher who 
 has yet appeared to be called 'the Newton of 
 Electricity.' " 
 
 M. Ampere proposes his classification as founded 
 upon a consideration of the sciences themselves. It 
 is, he conceives, in accordance with the conditions 
 of natural classification as exhibited, for example, 
 in Botany. It aims to bring together analogous 
 sciences, and to group them according to their real 
 affinities. It is certainly remarkable for its regu- 
 larity and symmetry. It proceeds thus : All science 
 has reference to one of two general objects the 
 material world and thought. This gives rise to the 
 natural division of the sciences into sciences of 
 matter and of thought, or, as Ampere calls them, 
 cosmological and noological sciences. Hence all our 
 knowledge is embraced under one or other of two 
 kingdoms. Each kingdom is in its turn the subject 
 of a twofold division. The cosmological sciences 
 separate into those which have for object the in- 
 animate world, and those which occupy themselves 
 with the world of life and organisation, the first of 
 these classes comprehending the mathematical and 
 the physical sciences, and the second the sciences 
 relative to natural history and the medical sciences. 
 In like manner, the sciences of thought divide into 
 two sub-kingdoms, of which the one includes the 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 187 
 
 noological sciences properly so called, and the other 
 the social sciences. From these spring, in conse- 
 quence of another division, four branches, as in the 
 case of the cosmological sciences. 
 
 We need not exhibit farther the general scheme. 
 If we confine our attention to the strictly noological 
 branch we shall find that it separates into two 
 the philosophical and the moral sciences. And if 
 we confine ourselves to the moral sciences, we find 
 these also to be two Ethics and Thelesiology. 
 Then, Ethics, which embraces all that can be known 
 relative to the characters, manners, and moral con- 
 duct of man, divides into two parts Elementary 
 Ethics, which includes Ethography and Physiog- 
 nomony and Ethognosy, which comprises Practical 
 Morality and Ethogeny. Thus in Ethics, a science 
 of the first order, there are, according to Ampere, 
 two sciences of the second order and four sciences 
 of the third order. 
 
 In the same way Thelesiology, which is con- 
 versant with the will, with duty, and the end 
 of man, embraces two sciences of the second order 
 Elementary Thelesiology and Thelesiognosy 
 and four of the third order Thelesiography, 
 Diceology, Apodictic Morality, and Anthropotelic. 
 Thus Moral Science comprehends two sciences of 
 the first order, four of the second order, and eight 
 of the third order. There can be no doubt that this 
 
188 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 is ingenious, and it is but a very small specimen of 
 the ingenuity of the scheme as a whole. Every 
 science of the first class includes, according to 
 Ampere, four sciences of the third order, and this 
 alleged fact he explains by an alleged law of scien- 
 tific thought. Intelligence in examining any sub- 
 ject whatever must, he holds, follow a process of 
 four stages. In the first stage, called autoptic, 
 it is limited to the simple inspection of its objects ; 
 in the second, the cryptoristic stage, it investigates 
 their inner and hidden natures ; in the third, or 
 troponomic stage, it traces the changes which they 
 undergo in time and place, and seeks, from the 
 experience of these changes, to ascertain their laws 
 of change ; and in the fourth, or cryptologic stage, 
 it occupies itself with what is most uncertain, ab- 
 struse, and difficult to discover in their causality 
 and destination. These stages consequently corre- 
 spond to four epochs of intellectual growth in indi- 
 vidual and social development. 
 
 The very regularity of the foregoing scheme is an 
 objection to it. Nature is less symmetrical than it 
 represents her to be. She observes order, indeed, 
 and obeys mathematical laws ; but she does not in- 
 cessantly go on dividing by two. She is free and 
 varied in her operations, and none of her secrets of 
 much value will be discovered by so simple a pro- 
 cess as a succession of divisions by two. Further 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 189 
 
 division is, in Ampere's scheme, pushed to an excess 
 which tends to defeat the great end of a classifica- 
 tion of the sciences. That end is so to group and 
 co-ordinate the sciences that they may be seen to- 
 gether as harmonious parts of a great whole in which 
 the universe is truthfully mirrored. But if we pro- 
 ceed to divide and divide, unsatisfied, as Wordsworth 
 says, " while littleness may yet become more little," 
 we break down all grandeur, destroy all life, and 
 amid the multiplicity of details lose sight of those 
 fundamental laws and relations which are most 
 worthy of our study. If Ampere had divided less 
 he would certainly have succeeded much better in 
 his attempt to form a philosophy of the sciences. 
 The elaborateness of his scheme weighed him down 
 and prevented his rising to a general doctrine ex- 
 hibiting the unity of science and reflecting the unity 
 of the universe. He found that even in two volumes 
 he could do no more than give a general idea of each 
 of the multitude of sciences to which he assigned 
 a place, although aware that an exposition of the 
 fundamental truths and general methods of science 
 is essential in a philosophy of the sciences. If the 
 trees did not hide from himself the forest, they cer- 
 tainly prevented him from describing it to others. 
 
 The scheme under consideration has, however, 
 even greater defects than those just indicated. One 
 is that it makes no distinction between arts and 
 
190 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 sciences, but treats the former as of the same nature 
 and as to be placed on the same level and ranked in 
 the same line with the latter. It represents, for 
 example, Technology as following Chemistry and 
 preceding Natural History, and often thus puts arts 
 and sciences side by side. This ignoring of the true 
 relationship of science and art this confounding of 
 \ knowledge and its application, of the quid and quid 
 lucri renders a true classification of the sciences 
 absolutely impossible. And it involves another 
 error as great as itself the ignoring of the distinc- 
 tion between fundamental and derivative sciences. 
 Unless the arts are separated from the sciences the 
 sciences themselves cannot be distributed into funda- 
 mental and derivative. To set aside the distinction 
 between dependent and independent at one point 
 of the scheme is to necessitate its being set aside 
 throughout. 
 
 It would not be difficult to show that Ampere's 
 sciences of the third order are seldom natural divi- 
 sions of his sciences of the first order. In fact, the 
 very conception of there being in each science of the 
 first order four sciences of the third order corre- 
 sponding to four distinct points of view from which 
 their common subject may be studied is illusive. 
 Even conceding the four points of view, it cannot be 
 reasonably held that there are separate sciences to 
 correspond to them. The points of view represent 
 
CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 191 
 
 only stages of the scientific process ; they are only 
 the series of steps by which science is attained. 
 Science corresponds to the process as a whole, not to 
 any particular point or stage of it. Science may 
 well begin with the simple inspection of objects, and 
 must, of course, end with their full comprehension ; 
 but this is not the slightest reason for supposing, 
 as Ampere does, that there are sciences of simple 
 inspection and sciences of full comprehension 
 autoptic sciences and cryptologic sciences. With 
 all his knowledge and ingenuity Ampere failed to 
 classify the sciences aright, and still more to found a 
 philosophy of the sciences. His work, however, is 
 most instructive, and not unworthy even of his 
 great reputation. 
 
 The celebrated socialist, P. J. Proudhon, published Proudhon. 
 in 1843 a work entitled De la Creation de I'Ordre 
 dans rHumanite, in which traces of the influence 
 both of Comte and Ampere are deeply marked. 
 Comte's law of three states is unqualifiedly adopted 
 in substance, although the terms in which it is 
 expressed are changed, metaphysic being called 
 philosophy or sophistic, and the doctrine of the 
 sciences or positive philosophy being designated 
 metaphysic, so that in Proudhon's phraseology 
 the Comtist law runs thus : " Keligion, philosophy, 
 science ; faith, sophistic, and method (metaphysic) 
 
192 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 such are the three moments of knowledge, the 
 three epochs of the education of the human race." 
 Ampere's classification of the sciences is expounded 
 and highly commended. At the same time, it is 
 held not to be the absolute or only true classification 
 of them. " The mind," says Proudhon, " may find 
 in Nature a multitude of systems, according to the 
 point of view which it takes up, although Nature 
 herself follows none of them exclusively." He under- 
 takes, in particular, to show that for the quaternary 
 distribution of Ampere a ternary may be substituted, 
 not less natural, regular, and precise. Of this ternary 
 classification he would make the ordinary distribu- 
 tion into kingdoms in Natural History mineral, 
 vegetable, and animal the basis, and then would 
 divide the sciences, according as they are descriptive 
 or declarative of phenomena, or as they study forces, 
 motions, progress, changes, or as they formulate laws 
 and determine relations. In other words, he would 
 reduce Ampere's four points or stages of the scientific 
 process to three, but retain his vicious principle of 
 regarding such mere points or stages as the roots 
 of distinct sciences. He has not exhibited his 
 ternary classification in detail, but he professes to 
 have worked through the whole scheme of Ampere, 
 changing it everywhere from quaternary to ternary 
 " absolutely as if I had transcribed our decimal 
 arithmetic into a duodecimal arithmetic." This I 
 
FROM BENTHAM TO GIOBERTI. 193 
 
 can readily believe, although I would infer from it 
 not, as Proudhon does, that both systems are alike 
 natural, but that both are alike arbitrary. 
 
 J. Duval- Jouve in his Traite de Logique, on Essai 
 sur la Theorie de la Science, 1844, has dealt with 
 the classification of the sciences in pp. 374-393. He 
 distributes them into cosmological and noological 
 sciences, and subdivides the former into mathe- 
 matical and physical classes. That is manifestly 
 insufficient. The work, however, can be safely com- 
 mended for its judicious counsels as to the study 
 of the sciences of reasoning and of physical and 
 psychological observation. 
 
 Two Italian philosophers of rare genius, and whose 
 influence on the thought and life of their nation was 
 great and salutary, Antonio Kosmini and Vincenzo 
 Gioberti, now claim our attention ; but, of course, 
 only in so far as they have dealt with the special 
 problem which at present concerns us. Neither 
 dealt with it as an independent problem, only to 
 be solved by a comparative study of the sciences 
 themselves; on the contrary, both professedly 
 evolved their classification of the sciences from the 
 fundamental principle of their philosophies. That 
 seems to me an altogether illegitimate procedure, 
 resting on an assumption as to the relation of phil- 
 
 N 
 
194 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 osophy to the sciences just the reverse of the 
 truth. 
 
 Eosmini's views on the classification of the 
 sciences are to be found in his New Essay on the 
 Origin of Ideas (first edition, 1830), Philosophical 
 System (first edition, 1845), and Logic (first edition, 
 1854), the first two of which have appeared in Eng- 
 lish. On the ground that every cognition must 
 have matter and form, he represented the sciences 
 as primarily divisible into material and formal; 
 and on the ground that the form of cognition is 
 at once the source of all intelligence and alone 
 knowable per se, he held that the science of the 
 form must precede all other sciences and supply 
 the principle of their encyclopaedic arrangement. 
 This first science, which he called Ideology, he re- 
 garded as the only pure science, all other sciences 
 being in relation to it only applied sciences. But 
 he was not content merely with this division, and 
 so proposed another corresponding to the aspects of 
 Being, that one necessary and objective form of 
 intelligence to which he believed all the other forms 
 of cognition could be reduced, and also to the 
 modes of mental activity by which these aspects 
 of Being are apprehended. Thus, viewing Being as 
 ideal, real, and moral, and intelligence as possessed 
 of intuition, perception, and reason, he classified 
 the sciences in the following threefold manner : 
 
FROM BENTHAM TO GIOBERTI. 195 
 
 1. Sciences of intuition, which treat of the ideal 
 and include Ideology and Logic; 2. Sciences of 
 perception, which treat of the real and comprehend 
 Psychology and Cosmology; and, 3. Sciences of 
 reasoning, which treat of what is only discoverable 
 through inference and may be subdivided into 
 Ontological and Deontological Sciences. The Math- 
 ematical Sciences have no place in the scheme, nor 
 even the Physical Sciences, the Kosminian Cosmo- 
 logy being only a department of Metaphysics. The 
 Ontological Sciences are said to be Ontology, 
 properly so called, and Natural Theology. The 
 Deontological Sciences are those which treat of the 
 perfection of being, and of the way in which this 
 perfection may be acquired and lost; and as they 
 are distributed in a somewhat minute and decidedly 
 artificial manner, it may suffice to say that they 
 comprehend not only Moral sciences usually so 
 called, but ^Esthetic sciences, Political sciences, 
 Pedagogics, and Economy. Language and history 
 are not represented as the special objects of distinct 
 sciences, but a scientific study of history is recog- 
 nised to be an important means of advancing the 
 Philosophy of Politics. 
 
 To Gioberti the first principle of Eosmini seemed Gioberti. 
 a vain abstraction and his method essentially false ; 
 and he resolved for his own part to start not with 
 
196 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 indeterminate ideal being, but with an object at 
 once ideal and real, and to evolve what it implied, 
 not by a psychological method, which can only 
 reflect the mind's attention to itself, but by the 
 only true philosophical method, the ontological, 
 which reflects the nature and manifestation of the 
 object. He deemed that he found at once a point 
 of departure and a law of procedure satisfying the 
 requirements of the case in a synthetic judgment, 
 comprehensive of all being and knowledge, for 
 which the appropriate expression is the ideal for- 
 mula Ens creat existentias Being creates exist- 
 ences. In his Introduzione alle studio delta Filosofia 
 (vol. iii. cap. v.), published in 1840, he has ex- 
 plained how the sciences may be arranged in accord- 
 ance with his formula. It is by a method which, if 
 not eminently satisfactory, is at least eminently 
 easy. The ideal formula is itself the " suprema 
 formula enciclopedica" and all sciences, it is held, 
 may be directly referred to one or other of its 
 terms. The subject (Being) is the theme of Philo- 
 sophy Proper, which includes the sciences of Onto- 
 logy and Theology. The copula (Creates) yields 
 the sciences which are concerned with the relation- 
 ship of Being to Existences and of Existences to 
 Being, the relationship of Being to Existences being 
 treated of by the Science of time and space (Mathe- 
 matics), and the relationship of Existences to Being 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 19*7 
 
 by the Sciences of the true, the good, and the 
 beautiful (Logic, Ethic, and Esthetics). The pre- 
 dicates (Existences) originate the sciences which are 
 conversant with the effects or results of the creative 
 act namely, Psychology, Cosmology, and the various 
 special Physical Sciences. Besides these Kational 
 Sciences there are Super-Kational Sciences based on 
 revelation ; they are, however, to be classified in the 
 same manner as the Kational Sciences. Such is the 
 scheme of classification proposed by Gioberti. It 
 has various obvious faults, but these it seems unne- 
 cessary to specify, seeing that the foundation of the 
 whole scheme is utterly untrustworthy. The " ideal 
 formula," on which everything is made to depend, is 
 admittedly the expression of an act of mystic intui- 
 tion, and really an arbitrary affirmation. 
 
 V. FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 
 
 Dr William Whewell, a man of extraordinary Wheweii. 
 versatility, industry, and knowledge, published in 
 1837 a History of the Inductive Sciences, and in 
 1840 a Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. In 
 the latter he treated of the classification of the 
 sciences. The work was greatly altered, even in 
 the arrangement of its parts, in the third edition, 
 where the discussion of the problem and the classi- 
 
198 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 fication proposed will be found in the volume en- 
 titled Novum Organon Renovatum, B. II. ch. ix. 
 " The classification depends neither upon the facul- 
 ties of the mind to which the separate parts of 
 our knowledge owe their origin, nor upon the 
 objects which each science contemplates, but upon 
 a more natural and fundamental element namely, 
 the Ideas which each science involves. The Ideas 
 regulate and connect the facts, and are the founda- 
 tions of the reasoning, in each science." It is not 
 necessary, Dr Whewell observes, that the Idea on 
 which a science is founded should be an absolutely 
 ultimate principle of thought, or that it should be 
 the only Idea involved in the science. " Each 
 science may involve, not only the Ideas or Con- 
 ceptions which are placed opposite to it in the 
 list, but also all which precede it." Whe well's 
 groups of sciences are as follows : 1. Pure Mathe- 
 matical Sciences, including Geometry, Arithmetic, 
 Algebra, and Differentials, and based on the ideas 
 of space, time, number, sign, and limit. 2. Pure 
 Motional Sciences, including Pure Mechanism and 
 Formal Astronomy, and based on the idea of 
 motion. 3. Mechanical Sciences, including Statics, 
 Dynamics, Hydrostatics, Hydrodynamics, and Physi- 
 cal Astronomy, based on the ideas of force, matter, 
 inertia, and fluid pressure, which are modifications 
 of the idea of cause. 4. Secondary Mechanical 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 199 
 
 Sciences, including Acoustics, Optics, Thermotics, 
 and Atmology, and based on the ideas of outness, 
 medium of sensation, intensity of qualities, and 
 scales of qualities. 5. Analytico-Mechanical Sciences, 
 including Electricity, Magnetism, and Galvanism, 
 and based on the idea of polarity. This group 
 and the immediately preceding one may, it is indi- 
 cated, be brought into connection as constituting 
 the two branches of Physics. 6. Analytical Science, 
 identified with Chemistry, and held to correspond 
 with the ideas of element, chemical affinity, and 
 substance or atoms. 7. The Analytico-Classifica- 
 tory Sciences namely, Crystallography and Sys- 
 tematic Mineralogy, which have symmetry and 
 likeness for ideas. 8. The Classificatory Sciences 
 namely, Systematic Botany, Systematic Zoology, 
 and Comparative Anatomy, which have as their 
 ideas degrees of likeness and natural affinity. 9. 
 The Organical Sciences, or Biology, founded on 
 the ideas of vital power, assimilation, irritability, 
 organisation, and final cause. 10. Metaphysics, 
 coincident with Psychology, and corresponding to 
 the ideas emotion and thought. 11. The Palsetio- 
 logical Sciences, comprehending Geology, Distri- 
 bution of plants and animals, Glossology, and 
 Ethnography, and springing from the idea of his- 
 torical causation. And, 12. Natural Theology, 
 which rests on the idea of a first cause. 
 
200 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 In examining this scheme its fundamental as- 
 sumption, that each science presupposes a special 
 a priori idea, is by no means found to be borne 
 out. Keasons to doubt its truth soon present 
 themselves. Suspicion thereof is forced on us by 
 Dr Whewell himself, even in regard to the mathe- 
 matical sciences. Algebra, for example, rests, he 
 tells us, on the a priori idea of sign. But is 
 Sign an a priori idea ? And if so, will it not be 
 difficult to discover any a posteriori idea ? Natur- 
 ally, however, as soon as Dr Whewell passed beyond 
 the province of mathematics his difficulties greatly 
 increased; and, in fact, with every forward step 
 he took the ineptness and inapplicability of the 
 principle he had assumed were made more mani- 
 fest. He soon reached sciences which he had to 
 refer to things never heard of before as a priori 
 or fundamental ideas e.g., fluid pressure, medium 
 of sensation, intensity of qualities, polarity, atoms, 
 &c. The mental sciences he wisety refrained from 
 attempting to subdivide or trace to root ideas. 
 There are other serious defects in Whe well's scheme. 
 Thus, Mechanical Science and Analytical or Chemi- 
 cal Science have no higher rank assigned them 
 than Secondary Mechanical Science and Analytico- 
 Mechanical Science; that is to say, they are put 
 on a level with sciences which are only branches 
 or applications or combinations of themselves. 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 201 
 
 Then there follow as Analytico-Classificatory and 
 Classificatory Sciences what are simply the un- 
 scientific parts of Mineralogy, Botany, and Physi- 
 ology. Observation, classification, and description 
 of phenomena are not science, although they neces- 
 sarily precede it. Anatomy, for instance, regarded 
 merely as descriptive, is a subordinate science ; it 
 is the series of observations and classifications pre- 
 paratory to the science of Physiology ; it is no 
 more a complete science than would be a descrip- 
 tion of the lines and figures employed in Geometry. 
 Then, tracing the scheme a little farther, we find 
 Metaphysics identified with Psychology, which in 
 reality amounts to the entire elimination of Meta- 
 physics ; and Geology and the Science of the dis- 
 tribution of plants and animals appearing, as 
 Palsetiological Sciences, after Metaphysics or Psy- 
 chology, quite separated from Mineralogy, Botany, 
 and Zoology, with which one would naturally have 
 expected them conjoined, and with which they are 
 certainly in much closer connection than with Meta- 
 physics or Psychology. It savours of the ludicrous 
 to represent Natural Theology as in closer contact 
 with the Palseontological Sciences than with any 
 others, on the ground that they are conversant 
 with historical causes and it with the first cause. 
 There is, finally, an objection of wider sweep which 
 I have not time to work out. Whewell fixes the 
 
202 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 order of the sciences by referring them to what 
 he deems their corresponding ideas. But how has 
 he determined the order of the ideas ? And has he 
 determined it aright ? It would be easy to show 
 that he arranged them in a haphazard way, with 
 extremely little regard to their rational connections. 
 
 Lubbock. The Remarks on the Classification of the Different 
 Branches of Human Knowledge, published in 1838 
 by J. W. Lubbock, possess hardly any value. The 
 general division of the classification recommended 
 is into History, Philosophy, and Fine Arts ; and 
 Philosophy is subdivided into Eeligion, Juris- 
 prudence, Intellectual, Moral, and Political Phil- 
 osophy, Logic, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, 
 Natural History, Medicine, and Arts, Trade, and 
 Manufactures. 
 
 Lindsay. In Progression }>y Antagonism, published by the 
 late Earl of Crawford (when Lord Lindsay) in 1846, 
 a " classification of human thought" is put forth 
 based on the general theory of development ex- 
 pounded in that exceedingly interesting book. 
 While the admission is made that no art or 
 science springs from imagination alone or reason 
 alone, it is also held that each art or science 
 must be distinguished by and classed under the 
 predominant faculty which originates it. Spirit 
 ruling sense predominantly by imagination gives 
 rise to Symbolism, Fine Arts, Rhetoric, Poetry, 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 203 
 
 and History ; ruling predominantly by reason to 
 Science, which is Speculative or Pure and Practi- 
 cal or Applied, both subdivisible into Physical 
 and Metaphysical, each of which contains many 
 separate sciences ; and ruling by reason and 
 imagination in harmonious co-operation to Phil- 
 osophy, also to be distributed into Speculative 
 and Practical. The order of classification is said 
 to be " determinable by that in which the in- 
 dividual, national, and universal mind applies 
 itself to the respective arts and sciences." 
 
 In 1847 the late Sir George Eamsay published Ramsay. 
 A Classification of the Sciences, in Six Tables. 
 The primary division is into: 1. Mental Sciences; 
 2. Physical Sciences ; and 3. Mathematics. It does 
 not seem to have occurred to the author that, even 
 if these were the chief classes of the sciences, the 
 order in which they are arranged is the reverse of 
 natural. Theology finds a place only under Moral 
 Philosophy, one of the mental sciences. The group- 
 ing is altogether of an external and unphilosophical 
 kind. 
 
 In 1844 Schopenhauer, in the second edition of Schopen 
 his chief work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 
 proposed a scheme of distribution of the sciences 
 which, perhaps, deserves to be noted only as an 
 ingenious curiosity. Schopenhauer, it has been 
 said, accepted one of Kant's categories, and threw 
 
204 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 the other eleven out of the window. It is on his 
 one working principle of the sufficient reason that he 
 hangs his scheme of classification. Every science 
 is regarded as exemplifying predominantly one of 
 the forms of that principle. The main division 
 is into I. Pure a priori sciences, and II. Empirical 
 or a posteriori sciences. The former are subdivided 
 into (1) the doctrine of the principle of Being in (a) 
 Space Geometry, and in (b) Time Arithmetic and 
 Algebra ; and (2) the doctrine of the principle of 
 knowledge Logic. The latter are concerned with 
 the principle of becoming, or law of causality, and 
 in its three forms of cause, stimulus, and motive. 
 Hence they are grouped as follows : (1) The 
 doctrine of causes, (a) General : Mechanics, Hy- 
 drodynamics, Physics, Chemistry. (b) Special : 
 Astronomy, Mineralogy, Geology, Technology, 
 Pharmacy. (2) The doctrine of stimuli, (a) General : 
 Vegetable and Animal Physiology, with Anatomy 
 as auxiliary science, (b) Special : Botany, Zoology, 
 Comparative Physiology, Pathology, Therapeutics. 
 (3) The doctrine of motives, (a) General : Ethics, 
 Psychology, (b) Special : Jurisprudence, History. 
 
 p. E. Dove. Patrick Edward Dove, in his TJieory of Human 
 Progression (1850), published at first anonymously, 
 but afterward acknowledged, treated the problem 
 under consideration with great clearness and vigour. 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 205 
 
 The general aim of his work was to show the natural 
 probability of the coming of a reign of justice, the 
 advent of a moral millennium, and, as essential to 
 this, to prove that there is a natural progression 
 of the mind in the extension of its knowledge and 
 the improvement of its practice. Such a progression 
 implied, according to Mr Dove, the consecutive evolu- 
 tion of the sciences and their logical dependence on 
 each other. The classification which he proposed 
 rested on the principle that every science must have 
 a distinctive object-noun, the place of which among 
 the categories of the mind determines the place of 
 the science among the series of the sciences. The 
 object-noun of a science is the primary condition 
 of its existence, and of the forms of that noun the 
 science exclusively treats. The connection of object- 
 nouns is such that the sciences follow in a deter- 
 minate order, the one in which they must necessarily 
 be studied and also that in which they must neces- 
 sarily be discovered. It is -an order of ever-increasing 
 complexity, each later science including not only its 
 own distinctive concept, but those of all the sciences 
 which precede it. Thus, Logic is the first and simplest 
 science. Arithmetic is nothing more than Logic 
 applied to number. Algebra is Logic and Arithmetic 
 applied to quantity. Geometry (in its larger sense) 
 is Logic, Arithmetic, and Algebra applied to space. 
 Statics is Logic, Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry 
 
206 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 applied to force. And if we look at the object- 
 nouns or substantive concepts we shall find, 
 according to Mr Dove, that Logic has two branches, 
 the one treating of identity and the other of equality; 
 that Arithmetic adds to identity and equality num- 
 ber; Algebra to identity, equality, and number 
 quantity ; Geometry to identity, equality, number, 
 and quantity space ; and Statics to all these forces. 
 " In this order," we are told, " the mathematical 
 sciences must necessarily be classed, and in this 
 order the mathematical sciences must necessarily 
 be discovered. Ten thousand men originating the 
 mathematical sciences by a process of independent 
 investigation would necessarily discover them in 
 this order ; and were ten thousand worlds peopled 
 with human beings to go through the process of 
 making anew the mathematical sciences, every one 
 of those human races would pass through the same 
 intellectual course, and evolve the abstract sciences 
 exactly in the same necessary order. The constitu- 
 tion of human reason forbids that it should be 
 otherwise, one science being impossible until its 
 antecedent is so well known as to be capable of 
 subjective operation. Thus, unless the laws of 
 identity are known, there can be no investigation 
 of the laws of equality ; and until the laws of 
 equality are known, there can be no investigation 
 of the laws of number ; and until Arithmetic is 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 207 
 
 known, there can be no investigation of the laws of 
 quantity ; and until the laws of quantity are known, 
 there can be no investigation into the relations of 
 space ; and until Geometry is known, there can be 
 no Statics." 
 
 The sciences which have just been mentioned 
 the mathematical sciences are all devoid of 
 any idea derived from sense. When, however, 
 they are applied to the substantives and opera- 
 tions of real life, they originate another order of 
 sciences the physical sciences which arise one 
 after another in similar order of complexity. The 
 first and simplest of these sciences is Dynamics, 
 which is closely connected with the last of the 
 mathematical sciences Statics Statics dealing 
 with forces which neutralise each other, and 
 Dynamics with forces which produce motion, the 
 simplest and most universal function of matter. It 
 is by adding to motion one physical characteristic 
 after another that the physical sciences are con- 
 secutively evolved. Thus, add to it weight or 
 resistance, the next most general property, and you 
 have Mechanics ; add still further sound, light, and 
 heat, and you have as corresponding sciences 
 Acoustics, Optics, and Thermology ; add again 
 magnetic force, electric force, and affinity, and you 
 have the sciences of Magnetism, Electricity, and 
 Chemistry ; and these three sciences are, in their 
 
208 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 turn, the necessary preparations for a new, a third 
 order of sciences the sciences of organisation 
 comprehending Vegetable and Animal Physiology. 
 These again lead to another, a fourth order of 
 sciences, the man -sciences, or sciences of human 
 action, which are a sensational and inductive 
 science called Political Economy and conversant 
 with utility, and a moral and deductive science 
 called Politics and conversant with equity. The 
 last science is Theology. It closes and completes 
 the book of science properly so called. But beyond 
 science lies Critical Philosophy. Science is direct 
 and spontaneous, and seeks only to determine what 
 is true in that which it makes its object, whether 
 mind or matter; whereas Philosophy is subjective 
 and reflective, and inquires not into the truth of 
 thought, but into its form and mechanism, endeav- 
 ouring with the whole mass received from the whole 
 circle of the sciences to read aright the phenomenon 
 of knowledge. 
 
 The scheme of Dove, it will have been remarked, 
 has an obvious resemblance to that of WhewelL 
 It proceeds throughout on the same assumption, 
 although that assumption is applied with much 
 greater tact and plausibility by Dove than by 
 WhewelL These two objections may be urged 
 against the scheme as a whole : 1. The conception 
 of object-nouns on which it rests is erroneous. An 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 209 
 
 object-noun is implied to be something very different 
 from what is ordinarily meant by the object of a 
 science namely, that about which the science is 
 conversant ; it is supposed to be some single idea 
 the application of which to appropriate objects 
 constitutes science. But it is only of the purely 
 abstract sciences that this can be with any appear- 
 ance even of truth maintained. Inductive science 
 at least originates in no such way ; it needs only an 
 object in the sense of a certain kind of material 
 subject to laws discoverable by the inductive 
 process. 2. More even than the scheme of Comte 
 that of Dove is vitiated by the hypothesis that the 
 order of the formation of the sciences is absolutely 
 fixed and necessary, proceeding on one straight 
 line, and incapable of being other than it is. 
 Comte only makes his scheme exclusively rational 
 and deductive in the working of it out and by 
 taking no account of induction as counteractive of 
 deduction, whereas Dove lays down a priori prin- 
 ciples and a deductive procedure as the very 
 groundwork of his whole system. In so doing 
 he builds upon the sand. Keason shows that the 
 order of the formation of the sciences must be 
 different from what he affirms it to be. Facts 
 prove that it is different. Spencer, in his masterly 
 criticism of the Comtist classification, has decisively 
 established the truth of both of these affirmations. 
 
 o 
 
210 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Let us now look a little at the details of Mr 
 Dove's scheme. Logic is placed at the head of the 
 sciences ; it is said to be the first, because the 
 simplest, of the sciences. But simplest in this case 
 means most abstract, and the most abstract, instead 
 of being always first, is generally last. That Logic 
 is more abstract than Arithmetic, Algebra, and 
 Geometry, instead of being a conclusive reason for 
 supposing it to be in the order of study and dis- 
 covery before them, is a reason for suspecting it to 
 be behind them. And, in fact, both Arithmetic and 
 Geometry preceded it. If it be said there can be 
 no reasoning in number or space which does not 
 presuppose identity and equality, the answer is 
 twofold, for, first, in a more relevant sense identity 
 and equality presuppose number, space, and other 
 concepts regarded as later, since one thing is not 
 identical with or equal to another unless identical 
 or equal in number, space, &c. ; and, secondly, it 
 needs no science to give us the notions of identity 
 or equality before we can proceed to study any 
 other science, as these notions are firmly and oper- 
 atively in our minds before all science. 
 
 Then, further, why confine Logic to reasoning 
 in identity and equality ? Why not extend it to 
 all reasoning? It will be said, because Arithmetic 
 is conversant with reasoning in numbers, Algebra 
 with reasoning in quantity, Geometry with reason- 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 211 
 
 ing in space, &c. But no ; these sciences are con- 
 versant with number, quantity, space, and their 
 laws, while reasoning and its laws in number, 
 quantity, space, or any other concept or matter, 
 are the object of Logic, which is therefore not, 
 strictly speaking, before any science, but pervasive 
 of all science, having to trace the connective 
 tissue of all knowledge, the forms and methods 
 of all sciences. This view of it, however, would 
 have quite deranged Mr Dove's serial arrange- 
 ment. It leaves, likewise, no place for his phil- 
 osophy ; for, according to him, it is Philosophy 
 which has to do with the form and method of 
 thought. If, therefore, he had taken a sufficiently 
 comprehensive view of Logic he would have seen 
 that it included and fulfilled all the functions 
 which he assigned to Philosophy. 
 
 As to the sciences grouped as Mathematical 
 Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, and Statics it 
 is obvious to remark that important mathematical 
 sciences are entirely omitted ; and that to de- 
 scribe Algebra as Logic and Arithmetic applied 
 to quantity, or Geometry as Logic, Arithmetic, 
 and Algebra applied to space, conveys no meaning, 
 and cannot be asserted to be erroneous only be- 
 cause unintelligible. Dove represents Arithmetic 
 as the first of the mathematical sciences, whereas 
 Whewell, it will be remembered, assigns that 
 
212 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 honour to Geometry. Both are, perhaps, right 
 and both wrong. Either science may have origin- 
 ated before the other, or they may have been of 
 simultaneous origin and growth. Statics is not a 
 mathematical science at all. Instead of force being, 
 as Dove supposes, a mathematical conception and 
 motion, the first and simplest of physical concep- 
 tions, it is motion which is the mathematical and 
 force which is the physical conception. There is a 
 science of pure motion, the science now generally 
 called Kinematics ; and it is a mathematical science, 
 not only because it treats of motion, displacement, 
 and deformature, tortuosity, and curvature, alto- 
 gether independently of force, mass, elasticity, 
 temperature, magnetism, electricity, which are all 
 physical attributes, the first not less than the last. 
 The arrangement of the Physical Sciences is also 
 defective. In particular, secondary sciences are put 
 on a level or equality of rank with those of which 
 they are branches, or at least from which they are 
 derived. Passing from the Physical Sciences, Psy- 
 chology is found to have been omitted altogether, 
 although it must be regarded as the very foundation 
 of the so-called Man-Sciences. There can be no 
 science of human actions if there be none of human 
 nature. Yet Psychology is not merely a Man- 
 Science. There is a Comparative Psychology as 
 certainly as there is a Comparative Physiology. 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 213 
 
 The sphere of Psychology includes every fact of 
 sensation, every form of consciousness, animal as 
 well as human ; it has to do with the psychical life 
 of all sentient creatures from the animalcule to the 
 man. This of itself shows that it must always be 
 arbitrary to make an exclusive instead of an in- 
 clusive group of Man - Sciences. In his Theory 
 of Human Progression, Dove ranked Politics or 
 Ethics as one of the Man - Sciences, erroneously 
 identifying Politics and Ethics. It is curious to 
 observe how, in his Elements of Political Science, 
 published four years later, he gave Ethics or 
 Politics a quite different position. He placed it, 
 in this latter treatise, as an abstract science immedi- 
 ately after Statics ; in other words, he ranked it as 
 a mathematical science, and held that, owing to the 
 ideal character of its truths, it stands on a higher 
 level than the mental or other inductive sciences. 
 
 M. Cournot, a man of remarkable capacity both Coumot. 
 for philosophical speculation and scientific research, 
 treated of the co-ordination of the departments of 
 human knowledge in his Essai sur les fondements 
 de nos connaissances (torn. ii. ch. xx.-xxii.), pub- 
 lished in 1851. He followed to some extent Bacon, 
 and to a much larger extent Ampere, although he 
 also criticised both with characteristic acuteness and 
 independence. He may be said to have adopted, 
 
214 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 in the main, Ampere's classification, but with 
 numerous and important modifications which are 
 mostly decided improvements. He rejected " the 
 artifice of bifurcation." Instead of commingling 
 and confounding, as Ampere did, arts and sciences, 
 he entirely separated them. He attempted to dis- 
 tinguish carefully between science strictly so called 
 and history, and founded on the distinction a divi- 
 sion of the sciences into two great series namely, 
 (a) a cosmological and historical series and (6) a 
 theoretical series. There are thus three parallel 
 series of the kinds or divisions of knowledge a 
 technical series, a cosmological and historical series, 
 and a theoretical series. Our author did not apply 
 the distinction between science and philosophy, like 
 that between science and history, as a principle of 
 classification. For that his reason was that philos- 
 ophy cannot be sharply separated from science, while 
 history can. Philosophy, he held, has no special 
 object of its own ; is not a science or group or series 
 of sciences ; but is an indispensable element of all 
 sciences ; lies at their root, pervades their ramifica- 
 tions, and reaches to their summits. The series of 
 theoretical sciences he divided into five groups 
 the mathematical, physical, biological, noological, 
 and political sciences. Psychology he placed among 
 the biological, not the noological sciences ; on the 
 other hand, he regarded Natural Theology as a 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 215 
 
 noological science. Few of his groups seem to com- 
 prehend just the sciences which they ought to con- 
 tain ; but the distribution as a whole has very great 
 merits. 
 
 An American author, Prof. W. D. Wilson, pub- Wilson, 
 lished in New York, in 1856, an Elementary 
 Treatise of Logic, which contains, in its last chapter, 
 a classification of both Sciences and Arts. They 
 are divided into three classes namely, Theoretical 
 Sciences, Practical Sciences, and Productive Arts ; 
 so that the scheme is essentially a modernised re- 
 production of the Aristotelian distribution of phil- 
 osophy. Each of the three classes, we are told, 
 "naturally divides itself into two departments, dif- 
 fering in the first class, both in the starting-point 
 and in the method ; in the second class they differ 
 in the starting-point only; and in the third class 
 the two departments differ chiefly in the object in 
 view the one producing objects of beauty, and the 
 other objects of utility." The departments of the 
 Theoretical Sciences are : 1. Exact Sciences, and, 2. 
 Pure Sciences. The former includes Meteorology, 
 Ouranography, Geology, Geography, Chemistry, 
 Mineralogy, Anatomy, Physiology, Botany, Zoology, 
 Ethnology, Psychology, and History ; the latter 
 Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, Calculus, Trigono- 
 metry, Analytic Geometry, Analytics, Method, and 
 Ontology. The departments of the Practical Sciences 
 
216 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 are : 1. Mixed Sciences, and, 2. Ethical Sciences. 
 The former comprehends Mechanics, Astronomy, 
 Hydrostatics, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Acoustics, 
 and Optics ; the latter Ethics, Polity, Natural Re- 
 ligion, Jurisprudence, Church Polity, and Eevealed 
 Religion. The departments of the Productive Arts 
 are : 1. Fine Arts, and 2, Useful Arts. The former 
 contains Gardening, Architecture, Sculpture, Paint- 
 ing, Music, and Poetry ; and the latter Agriculture, 
 Metallurgy, Technology, Typography, Engraving, 
 Commerce, Medicine, Rhetoric, Political Economy, 
 and War. This scheme is much inferior to that 
 of Cournot. It is impossible to regard the order in 
 which the sciences are arranged in it as the order 
 in which they have been discovered, or that in 
 which they should be studied, or as a natural order 
 of any kind. A number of the so - called Exact 
 Sciences are obviously and necessarily less exact 
 than the so-called Pure Sciences and Mixed Sciences. 
 The designation Exact Sciences is an infelicitous 
 one, as all science is only science on condition of 
 being exact. 
 
 There is nothing on our subject worth mentioning 
 in the hazy and confused Organismus der Wissen- 
 schaft which Adolf Helfferich published in 1856. 
 Science he defines as " the rational or ideal repro- 
 duction of the real human personality," and, there- 
 fore, holds that "the organism (Gliedbau) of science 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 217 
 
 must correspond to the organisation (Gliederung) of 
 the human being." 
 
 In Sir Wm. Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Hamilton, 
 published in 1859, but delivered from 1836-37, there 
 is a classification (see Lect. VII.) which, although 
 comprehending only the mental sciences, may be 
 noticed here, because if good for the mental sciences 
 it should be equally good for the physical sciences. 
 On the other hand, if no physical philosopher would 
 think of arranging the sciences with which he is 
 conversant as referring to the facts, the laws, and 
 the results of the material world, or, in other words, 
 as phsenomenological, nomological, and ontological ; 
 if, on the contrary, he must recognise that such an 
 arrangement would contravene every true notion of 
 what science is, it may be inferred that such an 
 arrangement of the mental sciences cannot be more 
 tenable, less unscientific, less destructive of every 
 true notion of the nature of science. Let us con- 
 sider, however, Hamilton's classification in itself. 
 
 He starts from the common but erroneous notion 
 that philosophy is equivalent to mental science. 
 Then he proceeds to divide and distribute philos- 
 ophy thus understood on the supposition that mind 
 or consciousness yields us facts, laws, and results. 
 If we deal merely with the facts or phenomena of 
 mind, we have a mental science or department of 
 mental science which may be called the Phaenomen- 
 
 
218 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 ology of Mind, but is generally known as Psy- 
 chology. Its divisions correspond to the classes of 
 mental phenomena cognitions, feelings, conative 
 powers. If we deal with the laws of mind we have 
 a Nomology of Mind, Nomological Psychology, which 
 comprises within itself three different Nomologies 
 one of cognition, Logic ; one of feeling, Esthetics ; 
 and one of conation, Practical Philosophy, or Ethics 
 and Politics. If we deal with the results or infer- 
 ences which the facts of mind or consciousness 
 warrant, we have Ontology, Metaphysics Proper, 
 Inferential Psychology. 
 
 Such is the classification of Sir Wm. Hamilton. 
 None of its divisions, major or minor, seem to me 
 correctly drawn. 
 
 Begin with the first, the Phenomenology of 
 Mind, erroneously identified with Psychology. 
 What sort of science can that be which deals 
 only with facts or phenomena, which deals with 
 them to the exclusion of laws ? There can be no 
 science where there are no laws. Science consists 
 in the knowledge of laws. A mere phsenomen- 
 ology, either of matter or mind, however exten- 
 sive, however exhaustive, can have no title to be 
 deemed science. Psychology is not such a phae- 
 nomenology of mind, just because it labours to 
 discover the laws of mind, yea, the most hidden, 
 the essential, and ultimate laws of mind. The 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 219 
 
 separation of facts and laws in science the assign- 
 ing of facts to one science and of laws to another 
 involves not only a false division of the sciences, 
 but the mutilation and destruction of the very idea 
 and life of science, since science is essentially the 
 union of facts and laws, the explanation of facts 
 by laws. 
 
 As to the particular divisions of the Nomology, 
 not one of them seems accurately drawn. How 
 can Logic, for example, be called a Nomology of 
 the cognitive powers ? On no reasonable view of 
 it, and not even on Sir Wm. Hamilton's own view 
 of it. Logic he held to be the science of the formal 
 laws of thought, and by thought he meant only 
 what is strictly termed discursive thought. In 
 other words, he regarded and treated it as the 
 science of some of the laws of one of the processes 
 of one of the cognitive faculties, yet in his scheme 
 of classification represented it to be the science of 
 all the laws of all the processes of all the cognitive 
 faculties. 
 
 ^Esthetics and Ethics are both only in part 
 psychological. The distinctive objects and prin- 
 ciples of both can no more be evolved out of 
 any psychological process than out of any physio- 
 logical or other physical process. And, on the 
 other hand, the properly psychological province of 
 ^Esthetics is not inclusive of all the laws of feel- 
 
220 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 ing, and yet comprehensive of laws of perception, 
 imagination, and reason ; and the psychological 
 provinces of Ethics and Politics are neither limited 
 to nor everywhere as extended as the reign of the 
 laws of action. 
 
 Then the Inferential Psychology of Sir Wm. 
 Hamilton does not seem to answer to Meta- 
 physics Proper. Metaphysics is not usually con- 
 ceived of as a science of results, but as a science 
 of principles. It is almost universally supposed to 
 be occupied with the conditions of all science, which 
 is a very different thing from consisting of the 
 inferences from a particular science. There is a 
 science which deals with the results of all other 
 sciences a science to which the ultimate conclu- 
 sions of every science are data from which it draws 
 its own inferences. That science is Natural Theo- 
 logy. When the scientific specialist has reached his 
 highest generalisations, the theologian receives them 
 from him, and, by showing that they are to be 
 regarded as expressions of the manifestation of God- 
 head, surrounds them with a halo of Divine glory. 
 Metaphysics is quite a different science, being con- 
 versant not with what thus overlies, but with 
 what underlies our knowledge of contingent things. 
 Hence Sir Wm. Hamilton's description of Meta- 
 physics answers not at all to Metaphysics, but 
 slightly to Natural Theology. And it will be ob- 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 221 
 
 served that both the instances which he gives as 
 specimens of the inferences with which Metaphysics 
 is concerned are not metaphysical, but theological 
 truths the existence of God and the immortality 
 of the soul. But while Hamilton's Metaphysics 
 answers slightly to Natural Theology, it is only 
 slightly and badly, seeing that the truths of Natural 
 Theology ought to be drawn from the results not of 
 psychological science alone, but of all science. All 
 things tell us of God. The mind, indeed, always 
 draws the inference which relates to Him, but it 
 does not always draw it from itself. Further, Sir 
 Wm. Hamilton's Inferential Psychology, as described 
 by himself, is not a psychological science, is not a 
 division of Psychology. Its inferences relate to 
 realities beyond the mind, while explanatory of 
 mind ; its truths are reached through truths of 
 Psychology, but are not truths of Psychology. Sir 
 Wm. Hamilton's classification, in fact, is erroneous 
 from beginning to end erroneous in its root and in 
 all its ramifications. 
 
 The late M. Charles Eenouvier, a vigorous and Renouvier. 
 acute thinker who developed and applied the doc- 
 trine of phenomenalism with a comprehensiveness 
 and consistency probably unequalled, dealt with the 
 subject of the rational classification of the sciences 
 in the second of his Essais de Critique Generale, 
 

 222 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 the Traite de Psychologie Rationnelle (ch. xviii.), 
 first published in 1859. 1 He entirely rejected 
 Comtek hypothesis of a hierarchy of the sciences, 
 and regarded their classification as purely a question 
 of logical arrangement. He describes what he calls 
 General Criticism (La Critique Generate) as "the 
 common trunk of all the sciences." It has to 
 analyse the universal conditions of knowledge ; to 
 study the general nature and laws of experience ; 
 and to treat specially of the categories of relation, 
 personality, causality, and finality. From this trunk 
 spring two great branches of sciences the logical 
 and the physical which differ not only in their 
 objects, but also in their methods, the logical 
 sciences following the method of ratiocination, and 
 the physical sciences the method of observation and 
 experimentation. The logical sciences comprehend 
 (a) logical sciences in the narrower sense of the 
 word, those occupied with the relations of quality 
 namely, Logic and General Grammar ; and (6) 
 mathematical sciences, those occupied with the 
 categories of number, position, succession, and 
 change namely, Arithmetic, Algebra, Mathemati- 
 cal Analysis, Geometry, Eational Mechanics, and 
 Applied Mathematics. The physical sciences in- 
 clude a group of Natural History Sciences (Cos- 
 mology, Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology, 
 
 1 I have seen only the second edition, which is of 1875. 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 223 
 
 and their subsidiary disciplines), Physics (with 
 Astronomy appended), Chemistry, and Biology. 
 The main line of demarcation among the physical 
 sciences is that which has strictly physical science 
 and chemical science on the one side, and biological 
 science on the other, just as the great division of 
 their objects is into inorganic and organic. There 
 are, however, according to Kenouvier, a number of 
 other studies which are not yet definitively separated 
 from philosophical speculation and constituted dis- 
 tinct sciences. These, therefore, he would not class 
 as sciences, but regard as belonging to General 
 Criticism. They include History, Morals, Politics, 
 and Political Economy, and were they sufficiently 
 advanced to be accounted sciences might be classed 
 as Moral Sciences. The tree of science would then 
 have three, not two, great branches. 
 
 The foregoing scheme has, I think, serious defects. 
 One is the non-recognition of theological science. 
 It is due, doubtless, to the thoroughness and con- 
 sistency of M. Kenouvier's phenomenalism ; but 
 it also indicates that an exclusive phenomenalism 
 is not the whole truth. Then, what M. Renouvier 
 calls General Criticism seems an incoherent and 
 incongruous combination of philosophy and special 
 science. It is identified both with the knowledge 
 which transcends special science because of its 
 universality, and with that which falls below it 
 
224 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 because of its lack of certainty. That is not a 
 view to be commended. Philosophy should keep 
 to the universal, and cannot be too critical ; and 
 it shows itself forgetful of both requirements when 
 it identifies itself with special studies on the ground 
 that they are somewhat too conjectural and un- 
 critical to be deemed sciences. It may, further, 
 be reasonably objected that the conditions of 
 thought and their relations ought to be regarded 
 as the objects, not of La Critique Generale, but 
 of a special science with a perfectly definite sphere 
 a science closely akin to, if not inclusive of, 
 Logic, which treats of the conditions of a kind of 
 thought, discursive thought; also, that Logic has 
 to do with reasoning in quantity as well as in 
 quality, and, indeed, with reasoning in all cate- 
 gories and under all forms. A glance at the order 
 in which the physical sciences are arranged will 
 suggest that Comte's view of " a hierarchy of the 
 sciences " cannot be so wholly false as M. Kenouvier 
 contends. Were it not on the whole a natural and 
 true view he would hardly be found conforming 
 to it so much, even when condemning it. It is, 
 likewise, certainly a serious defect in the scheme 
 that so many sciences are left unclassed and un- 
 arranged. Notwithstanding his great ability, there- 
 fore, M. Kenouvier was not in this instance quite 
 .successful. 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 225 
 
 In a tractate entitled Nuovo Albero Enciclo- Peccenini. 
 pedico, published at Naples in 1863, Melchiore 
 Peccenini, of Ferrara, has classified the sciences 
 on the hypothesis that the three chief endowments 
 of mind are the intellect, the will, and the cesthetic 
 sentiment, and that the objects which respectively 
 correspond to them are truth, goodness, and beauty. 
 Truth, goodness, and beauty are naturally and 
 closely connected, and equally so are all the sciences 
 and fine arts, seeing that they originate in these 
 innate ideas. Common to all the sciences and arts 
 is being (I'ente), which in relation to intellect is 
 truth, in relation to will goodness, and in relation 
 to aesthetic sense and imagination beauty. Hence, 
 under the head of " Truth (Intellect) " are placed 
 all the sciences which "regard being purely with 
 reference to intelligence." Thus, abstract being is 
 said to be the object of Ontology or Protology ; 
 concrete being in God of Natural and Eevealed 
 Theology ; concrete being in the soul of Psychology, 
 Ideology, Logic, Grammar, and Somatics ; and con- 
 crete being in matter of General Physics and Par- 
 ticular Physics, both of which are inclusive of a 
 large number of sciences. Under " Goodness (Will)" 
 are arranged the sciences " which relate to being 
 as fitted to satisfy the wants of the spirit." These 
 are Eudemonology, Moral Philosophy, and Juris- 
 prudence, with its various subordinate and sub- 
 
 p 
 
vanni. 
 
 226 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 sidiary disciplines. Under " Beauty (^Esthetic 
 sentiment)" are classed the sciences "which refer 
 to being as capable of gratifying the spirit and 
 senses." These are ^Esthetics, which treats of 
 abstract beauty, and a number of sciences which 
 deal with concrete beauty as exemplified in forms, 
 motions, sounds, and words. Such is the classi- 
 fication of Signor Peccenini. I believe that neither 
 its metaphysical nor its psychological principle will 
 stand examination. Placing the physical sciences 
 after the theological and psychological sciences is 
 in various respects obviously unnatural. Not one 
 of the larger groups seems accurately divided and 
 distributed. 
 
 In 1863 appeared also the first edition of Prof. 
 Di Giovanni's Principii di Filosofia Prima (the 
 2nd ed. is of 1878), in which (vol. i. Lez. 3) the 
 sciences are classified as belonging either to Primary 
 or Secondary Philosophy. The former is repre- 
 sented as comprehending Logic, Ontology, Theology, 
 Cosmology, Psychology, Noology, and Ethics ; the 
 latter as containing ^Esthetics, Philosophy of 
 Systems, Social Philosophy, and Philosophy of 
 History. The learned author endeavoured to 
 show that his classification can be connected 
 with, a*nd conformed to, the ideal formula -of 
 Gioberti. 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 227 
 
 Herbert Spencer's essay on The Genesis of Herbert 
 Science, originally published in 1854, was largely 
 devoted to the refutation of Comte 's views re- 
 garding the rational arrangement of the sciences. 
 His own views as to their correlation were ex- 
 pounded in a subsequent essay on The Classifica- 
 tion of the Sciences, originally published in 1864; 
 and obviously opposition to Comte must have been 
 a considerable motive and factor in their forma- 
 tion. He held that " the sciences as arranged 
 in the succession specified by M. Comte do not 
 logically conform to the natural and invariable 
 hierarchy of phenomena " ; that " there is no serial 
 order whatever in which they can be placed, which 
 represents either their logical dependence or the 
 dependence of phenomena"; and that "the his- 
 torical development of the sciences has not taken 
 place in any serial order." At the same time, he 
 thought that the sciences may be distributed into 
 classes, and endeavoured to show how that may be 
 done on what he regarded as the only true principle 
 of classification namely, that in each class of colli- 
 gated facts more numerous and radical character- 
 istics must be included than any of its facts have 
 in common with objects excluded from the class. 
 Now, having regard to this principle, the broadest 
 natural division of the sciences is, he affirmed, that 
 between sciences which deal with the abstract rela- 
 
228 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 tions under which phenomena are presented to us, 
 and those which deal with the phenomena them- 
 selves between sciences which deal with the mere 
 blank forms of existence, and those which deal with 
 real existences. The former class contains Logic and 
 Mathematics, and these are pre-eminently the Ab- 
 stract Sciences. The latter class is composed of two 
 great groups of sciences, the Abstract Concrete 
 Sciences and the Concrete Sciences. The Abstract 
 Concrete Sciences treat of realities in their ele- 
 ments, or of the real relations implicated in certain 
 classes of facts. Such are Mechanics, Physics, and 
 Chemistry. The Concrete Sciences deal with reali- 
 ties in their totalities, or, in other words, with aggre- 
 gates of phenomena. They comprehend Astronomy, 
 Geology, Biology, Psychology, and Sociology. 
 " From the beginning, the abstract sciences, the 
 abstract concrete sciences, and the concrete sciences 
 have progressed together, the first solving problems 
 which the second and third presented, and growing 
 only by the solution of the problems; and the 
 second similarly growing by joining the first in 
 solving the problems of the third. All along there 
 has been a continuous action and reaction between 
 the three great classes of sciences." 
 
 The classification of Mr Spencer has been criti- 
 cised by Bain in his Deductive Logic, by Eenouvier 
 in his Psychologic, by Siciliani in his Rinnovamento 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 229 
 
 della Filosofia positiva in Italia, and others. It 
 has been adopted with some modifications by Mr 
 Fiske in his Cosmic Philosophy. It has been de- 
 fended against the objections of Dr Bain by Mr 
 Spencer himself in the third edition of his essay 
 (1871). My own criticism of it must necessarily 
 be much briefer than I could wish. 
 
 Mr Spencer was probably right in holding that 
 any merely serial arrangement of the sciences must 
 be an inadequate and erroneons expression of their 
 relations to one another. But he can hardly have been 
 correct in supposing that there is no natural series 
 of the sciences at all none representative either of 
 logical dependence or dependence of phenomena. 
 In fact, he himself recognised a truth which plainly 
 implied that sciences may be arranged in series 
 according to their logical dependence. Mark the 
 following words : 
 
 The three groups of Sciences may be briefly defined as 
 laws of the forms, laws of the factors, laws of the products. 
 And when thus defined, it becomes manifest that the groups 
 are so radically unlike in their natures that there can be no 
 transitions between them ; and that any Science belonging to 
 one of the groups must be quite incongruous with the Sciences 
 belonging to either of the other groups, if transferred. 
 How fundamental are the differences between them will be 
 further seen on considering their functions. The first, or 
 abstract group, is instrumental with respect to both the 
 others ; and the second, or abstract-concrete group, is instru- 
 
230 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 mental with respect to the third or concrete group. An 
 endeavour to invert these functions will at once show how 
 essential is the difference of character. The second and 
 third groups supply subject-matter to the first, and the 
 third supplies subject-matter to the second ; but none of the 
 truths which constitute the third group are of any use as 
 solvents of the problems presented by the second group; 
 and none of the truths which the second group formulates 
 can act as solvents of problems contained in the first group. 
 
 In that passage we are told that the abstract 
 sciences, Logic and Mathematics, are instrumental 
 to the abstract - concrete sciences, Mechanics, 
 Physics, and Chemistry, and that all these sciences 
 of both classes are instrumental not only to such 
 concrete sciences as deal only with mathematical, 
 mechanical, physical, and chemical properties e.g., 
 Astronomy and Geology, but also to those which 
 are conversant with distinctly new peculiarities 
 e.g.. Biology and Psychology. But if so, on 
 what ground could Mr Spencer maintain that the 
 sciences of Logic, Mathematics, Mechanics, Physics, 
 Chemistry, Biology, and Psychology do not form 
 a logically dependent series ? Is Logic not as 
 instrumental to Mathematics as Mathematics to 
 Mechanics or Physics ? Is Physics not as instru- 
 mental to Chemistry as Chemistry to Biology? 
 How could Mr Spencer contend that Biology is not 
 instrumental to Psychology, seeing that he repre- 
 sented both as sciences of the same class ? Astro- 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 231 
 
 nomy and Geology, however certain and soundly 
 constituted sciences they may be, cannot possibly 
 be ranked among sciences which deal with elements 
 or properties not resolved, or proved to be resolv- 
 able, into properties with which more general 
 sciences are occupied. But these two sciences being 
 removed from where they have plainly no right to 
 be, Mr Spencer would seem to have himself con- 
 structed a series of sciences of the very kind which, 
 in opposition to Comte, he declared to be impos- 
 sible. Comte meant no more by calling one science 
 logically dependent on another than that the one 
 placed first is instrumental as regards the one 
 placed last, while the latter is not instrumental 
 as regards the former. If there be a number of 
 sciences dealing with fundamentally distinct pheno- 
 mena, and so related that every antecedent is 
 instrumental as regards every consequent, and no 
 consequent is instrumental as regards any ante- 
 cedent, a series of sciences is constituted which 
 represents the logical dependence of its members. 
 Mr Spencer started with denying that there was 
 any such series, but ended by implicitly showing 
 that there was one. His own classification, taken 
 in connection with the passage quoted, was a 
 decisive refutation of what was extreme in his own 
 criticism of the Comtist scheme. So far from 
 having succeeded in overthrowing that scheme, he 
 
232 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 only at the utmost succeeded in slightly modifying 
 it. There is a logical dependence of the sciences. 
 And why ? Just because there is a natural depend- 
 ence of phenomena. The quantitative relations 
 with which mathematics deals are more general 
 than the mechanical laws which physics brings to 
 light ; there can be no chemical combinations un- 
 conditioned by physical properties ; vital functions 
 never appear apart from chemical processes ; and 
 there must be life before there can be consciousness. 
 That remarkable hierarchy of phenomena is a fact 
 which a cloud of abstract language or a covering of 
 subtle reasoning may to some extent and for a short 
 while conceal from our view, but which no language 
 or reasoning can efface or even long obscure. And 
 there being such a hierarchy of phenomena, it is 
 scarcely conceivable that there should be no corre- 
 sponding hierarchy of sciences. 
 
 The terminology of the Spencerian classification 
 has little to recommend it. There is no science 
 which deals with concrete things to the exclusion of 
 abstract relations or with abstract relations to the 
 exclusion of concrete things. All science deals with 
 relations, and is more or less abstract. The con- 
 creteness of the objects of the so-called concrete 
 sciences is a concretion of elements and laws which 
 are abstract ; and the essential function of these 
 sciences is to discover the abstract factors and 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 233 
 
 operations explanatory of the concrete wholes. 
 Triangles, squares, and circles are as much concrete 
 things with respect to space and its relations as the 
 earth is a concrete thing with respect to matter and 
 its physical properties and laws. The only distinc- 
 tion among the sciences as to abstractness is one of 
 more or less ; the only difference one of degree and 
 not of kind. It should be obvious, from the very 
 nature of abstraction, that the word abstract is so 
 entirely a term of degree and relation that it cannot 
 be properly employed to denote distinctions deemed 
 ultimate or specific. But Mr Spencer's use of it 
 was not merely inappropriate ; it was misleading, 
 inasmuch as it tended to conceal from view that 
 the chief requirement in a philosophical classifica- 
 tion of the sciences is to determine which are simple 
 and fundamental, and which compound and deriva- 
 tive. Comte clearly saw the importance of that 
 requirement ; Spencer, unfortunately, did not see it, 
 and so threw together into his third group sciences 
 which are really separated by the deepest and 
 widest of scientific distinctions. 
 
 Mr Spencer's reasons for affirming that the so- 
 called abstract sciences, Logic and Mathematics, are 
 more widely separated from all others than any 
 other sciences are from one another, are far from 
 convincing. One is that these abstract sciences 
 deal with relations apart from realities, whereas 
 
234 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 other sciences deal with realities, and " relations of 
 whatever orders are nearer akin to one another than 
 they are to any objects, and objects of whatever 
 orders are nearer akin to one another than they are 
 to any relations." That Mr Spencer supposed to be 
 self-evident. It is not so. Moral relations are 
 surely much more akin to moral actions than to 
 mathematical relations. If not, there should be a 
 science of moral relations parted by a wide chasm 
 from a science of moral actions. Were Mr Spencer's 
 view correct, the division among the sciences into 
 sciences of relations and sciences of objects should 
 be drawn through the whole scheme of science, 
 instead of being merely made use of to separate two 
 sciences from the rest. In fact, it is quite incorrect, 
 and no division of the sciences ought to be founded 
 upon it. There is no science without both objects 
 and relations. There are no relations without objects. 
 The conception of relations without objects is not 
 an abstract, but an absurd conception. What proof 
 did Mr Spencer produce that the abstract sciences 
 deal exclusively with relations ? None at all ; he 
 merely said that they deal exclusively with space 
 and time, and that " space is the abstract of all 
 relations of coexistence, and time the abstract of all 
 relations of sequence." But how can there be any 
 relations of coexistence without space, or of rela- 
 tions of sequence without time ? Every experience 
 
FROM WHEWELt TO ZELLER. 235 
 
 and conception of coexistence presupposes the 
 intuition of space, and of sequence that of time. 
 To call the necessary conditions of thought and 
 experience abstracts from either is a serious abuse 
 of language. Mr Spencer had, however, another 
 reason for regarding his first division of the 
 sciences as the broadest which can be drawn. 
 The abstract sciences, he said, treat of " the 
 forms in which phenomena are known to us," 
 " the empty forms of things," whereas other 
 sciences treat of "the phenomena themselves," 
 "things themselves"; and "the distinction be- 
 tween the empty forms of things and the things 
 themselves is a distinction which cannot be 
 exceeded in degree." Things, things themselves, 
 are, then, phenomena, phenomena themselves 
 not noumena, or things in themselves. One is 
 glad to know that, for the word " thing " is by 
 itself very vague and nebulous ; but knowing it, 
 one must wish to know also what Mr Spencer 
 can mean by contrasting space and time with 
 things or phenomena. Are these " forms of 
 things " not themselves " things " ? Are these 
 " forms of phenomena " not themselves " phe- 
 nomena " ? Yes or no ? If yes, why oppose 
 forms and things, forms and phenomena? If no, 
 then there are sciences of what are not things, 
 of what are not phenomena sciences either of 
 
236 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 nothings or noumena and, in that case, Mr 
 Spencer's whole philosophy was a vanity, inas- 
 much as it was based on the supposition that 
 science is limited to the phenomenal. Further, 
 one may reasonably wish to know in what relevant 
 sense Mr Spencer could call space and time " empty 
 forms." If they are empty, how do the sciences 
 which deal with them bring so much out of them ? 
 Ex nihilo nihil fit. It is manifestly just because 
 space and time are not empty of quantitative pro- 
 perties and relations that there are mathematical 
 sciences ; and manifestly just because they are 
 thus not empty, but contain so many of the 
 fundamental attributes of matter, that the sway 
 of mathematical science is spreading over the 
 whole physical universe, and that physical 
 science tends constantly to become more and 
 more mathematical. 
 
 I might proceed to show by a direct considera- 
 tion of the abstract and abstract-concrete sciences 
 of Mr Spencer that the distance between them is 
 by no means so broad as he affirmed, but that 
 has been already so successfully accomplished by 
 other critics as to be now unnecessary. The 
 abstract sciences, according to Mr Spencer, were 
 Logic and Mathematics ; and the former treated 
 of qualitative, the latter of quantitative relations. 
 That Logic treats of qualitative relations was, 
 
FROM WHEWELL TO ZELLER. 23*7 
 
 however, a proposition which he not only 
 failed to substantiate, but failed to make intelli- 
 gible. He regarded it as conversant in some 
 sense, like Mathematics, with time and space. 
 What, then, are the qualitative, non-quantitative 
 relations either of time or space ? Logic is not 
 limited in the way Mr Spencer supposed. Were 
 it unable to deal with quantitative relations there 
 could be no Mathematics. There is even no 
 perfectly accurate Logic which is not quanti- 
 tative. Logic if simply qualitative may be con- 
 clusive, but cannot be absolutely exact. 
 
 Mr Spencer's distribution of the abstract-concrete 
 sciences into Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, and 
 Sciences of Light, Heat, Electricity, and Magnet- 
 ism seems inferior to Comte's classification of the 
 fundamental sciences, if Astronomy be excluded. 
 Biology and Psychology, if not Sociology, ought 
 to find their places in this group and not among 
 the merely concrete sciences, as although they 
 have concrete applications, they are in their own 
 natures decidedly abstract. There are important 
 differences between Mechanics and Physics, or 
 rather between Molar and Molecular Mechanics ; 
 but it is very doubtful if we ought to regard 
 them as two distinct kinds of Mechanics, or two 
 fundamentally distinct sciences. To do so appears 
 an error akin to Comte's separation of Celestial 
 
238 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 from Terrestrial Mechanics. How objectionable 
 the designation " abstract - concrete " is may be 
 most readily seen, perhaps, in the case of 
 Mechanics, which in itself is as abstract as 
 Geometry, and in its applications is not more 
 concrete. 
 
 The distinction between the so-called abstract- 
 concrete and concrete sciences implies a real dis- 
 tinction, but does not coincide with it. The 
 division which should have been drawn is that 
 between fundamental or simple and derivative or 
 complex sciences. If, instead of Biology and 
 Psychology, Mr Spencer had inserted Botany 
 and Zoology into his third group, he would have 
 conformed much better to his own description of 
 concrete science, and would have ranked along 
 with Astronomy and Geology sciences which 
 resemble them much more in scope, method, 
 and general character. 
 
 Like Comte, Mr Spencer failed to recognise 
 how broad is the division between physical and 
 psychical science ; like Comte also, he assigned 
 no place in the system of knowledge either to 
 Metaphysics or Theology. These peculiarities of 
 opinion followed naturally from his principles, 
 but must, of course, appear serious defects to 
 those whose principles are different. 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 239 
 
 The discourse of Prof. Zeller, Ueber die Aufgabe 
 der Philosophic und ihre Stellung zu den iibrigen 
 Wissenschaften, held at Heidelberg on 23rd Nov- 
 ember 1868, 1 touches thoughtfully on our problem 
 at various points, but does not directly treat of 
 it. The important work of the late Prof. Harms, 
 Philosophische Einleitung in die Encyclopaedic 
 der Physik, which forms the first volume of 
 Kars ten's Allgemeine Encyclopaedic der Physik, 
 and was published in 1869, does not classify or 
 distribute the non-physical sciences. 
 
 VI. FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 
 
 The late Dr Alex. Bain of Aberdeen in the first Bain, 
 division of his Logic the volume devoted to 
 Deduction, and published in 1870 has dealt with 
 the classification of the sciences with characteristic 
 ability. He started with the affirmation that 
 Science is the perfect form of knowledge, and 
 thus indicated its peculiarities : " It employs special 
 means and appliances to render knowledge true, is 
 knowledge made as general as possible, embraces 
 a distinct department of the world, or groups 
 
 1 Republished in his Vortrage u. Abhandlungen. Zweite Samm- 
 lung, 1877. 
 
240 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 together facts and generalities that are of a kindred 
 sort, and has a certain order or arrangement of 
 topics, suitable to its ends, in gathering, in verify- 
 ing, and in communicating knowledge." Then, 
 accepting as primary and fundamental Comte's 
 division of the Sciences into Abstract and Concrete, 
 he described the former as the truly fundamental 
 sciences, and as bound to precede the latter. 
 Logic, Mathematics, Mechanics or Mechanical 
 Physics, Molecular Physics, Chemistry, Biology, 
 and Psychology, are what he held to be the funda- 
 mental sciences. " In every one of these," he has 
 said, " there is a distinct department of phenomena ; 
 taken together they comprehend all known pheno- 
 mena ; and the order indicated is the order from 
 simple to complex, and from independent to 
 dependent, marking the order of study and evolu- 
 tion ; " and, further, that, taken collectively, " they 
 contain the laws of every known process in the 
 world, whether of matter or of mind ; and set 
 forth these laws in the order suitable for studying 
 and comprehending them to the greatest possible 
 advantage. No phenomenon can be strange to any 
 one thoroughly conversant with these subjects." 
 In Appendix A he has treated very briefly the 
 classifications of Bacon, D'Alembert, Neil Arnott, 
 but very carefully that of Herbert Spencer. The 
 first five, indeed, are disposed of in a few lines. 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 241 
 
 The criticism of Spencer's scheme seems to me 
 to be a quite adequate and very conclusive study. 
 So far as I am aware, it has not been answered. 
 Part II. the vol. on Induction treats in Book 
 V. of the 'Logic of the Sciences' (pp. 193-367). 
 Here Logic seems to be represented as so absorbed 
 in the other fundamental sciences as not to be itself 
 a science, or the first of the sciences, or in possession 
 of a specific method of its own no less than other 
 sciences. Epistemology, on the other hand, appears 
 to be left out of account. But how can that be 
 justified ? Apparently Logic should be preceded by 
 and included in Epistemology rather than the latter 
 should be absorbed in the former. Dr Bain has 
 dwelt instructively on the notions, propositions, 
 definitions, and axioms of Mathematics. His 
 divisions of Mathematics are (1) Arithmetic, (2) 
 Algebra, (3) Geometry, (4) Algebraic Geometry, 
 which furnishes rules for the embodiment and 
 interpretation of formulae, and (5) the Higher 
 Calculus, which deals with incommensurable quan- 
 tities. Mathematics is followed by Physics, and 
 Physics is divided into the Physics of Masses 
 (Molar Physics) and the Physics of Molecules 
 (Molecular Physics). Molar Physics is represented 
 as having Abstract and Concrete Branches. The 
 Abstract Branches comprise Mathematics of 
 Motion (Kinematics) ; Forces in equilibria (Statics), 
 
 Q 
 
242 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 and Forces causing motion (Dynamics). The Con- 
 crete Branches are Mechanic Powers and Solid 
 Machinery, Hydrostatics and Hydro - dynamics, 
 Aerostatics and Pneumatics, Acoustics and Astro- 
 nomy (pp. 222-233). Molecular Physics assumes 
 masses of matter to be composed of atoms or 
 molecules that attract or repel each other in various 
 modes, and in consequence of which its chief sub- 
 jects are Attractions (Cohesion, &c.), Heat, Light, 
 and Electricity (pp. 233-243). Chemistry follows 
 directly on Physics, and is intimately related to 
 all the departments of Molecular Physics. It is 
 divided into Inorganic and Organic (pp. 242-257). 
 Biology is placed immediately after Chemistry, and 
 defined as the science of living bodies, all such 
 bodies being constituted from elements common 
 to them all. Under that head the structure, 
 functions, various distinctive notions, methods, and 
 hypotheses of Biology are treated of (pp. 258-275). 
 Psychology is represented as the last of the Ab- 
 stract Sciences ; as comprehensive of both animal 
 and human mind ; and so intimately related alike 
 to body and mind that they are always concomitant, 
 and every fact of mind has two sides, a mental and 
 a physical. The Science of Character is presup- 
 posed by and conjoined with that of Mind. The 
 account of Psychology (pp. 275-286) is throughout 
 remarkably clear and instructive, and so likewise, 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 243 
 
 although more briefly, what is said of the Science 
 of Character (pp. 286-290). 
 
 Besides the Fundamental or Abstract Sciences 
 there are also in the scheme of Dr Bain Dependent 
 and Concrete Sciences. There are further distinc- 
 tively ' sciences of classification/ which include not 
 only Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology (see Part 
 II., pp. 292-314), but also Meteorology, Geography, 
 Sociology, and Philology (Part I., p. 28). Dr Bain 
 seems to have forgotten, when occupied with Part 
 II. , what he had written in Part I. In self-con- 
 sistency his list of Concrete Sciences should have 
 included seven sciences, the four in Part I. as 
 well as the three in Part II. Of all the Concrete 
 Sciences he maintained that " no one of them 
 involves any operation but what is expounded in 
 the fundamental or departmental sciences." 
 
 Finally, Bain has included in his scheme Practical 
 Sciences. These form not only a large but a most 
 heterogeneous group, including arts like Building 
 and Dyeing, disciplines like Jurisprudence and 
 Political Economy, and sciences which may fairly 
 be held to be themselves fundamental and depart- 
 mental, as, for example, Economics, Ethics, and 
 > ^Esthetics. That group is no natural class but 
 an artificial and heterogeneous conglomeration, to 
 which may be added all sorts of occupations, as, 
 e.g., Baking, Brewing, and the like. Like Comte 
 
244 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 and Spencer, Dr Bain has acknowledged neither 
 Metaphysics nor Theology to be sciences of any 
 kind. For that view I have never found good 
 reasons given. The opinion has been always rested 
 mainly on misconceptions as to what Metaphysics 
 and Theology are, and also as to what should be 
 understood by the terms knowledge, science, and 
 philosophy. Leaving out of account Dr Bain's un- 
 satisfactory conception as to what should be called 
 ' Practical Sciences,' his classification of the sciences 
 properly so called may well be regarded as an im- 
 provement on Comte's and much superior to 
 Spencer's. 
 
 Cantoni. Prof. Carlo Cantoni, well known by his remark- 
 able studies on Vico and Kant, and the most 
 eminent representative of Neo-Kantian criticists, 
 also sketched a classification of the sciences in his 
 Cor so elementare di Filosofia, a work published 
 in the same year as Bain's, and which has gone 
 through at least ten editions. He would divide 
 the sciences, according to the nature of the cogni- 
 tions which constitute them, into two classes the 
 ideal or rational and the experimental. And he 
 would further divide them according to their matter 
 or objects into three classes namely, 1. Those 
 which treat of the fundamental principle and uni- 
 versal conditions of existence Ontology, Natural 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 245 
 
 Theology, Cosmology ; 2. Those which treat of 
 material things and conditions Physics, Chem- 
 istry, Natural History, Mathematics ; and 3. Those 
 which treat of the powers, laws, and actions of 
 spiritual beings, i.e., men Psychology, Logic, Ethic, 
 ^Esthetic, Philosophy of Law, Philosophy of His- 
 tory, and Psedagogy. Whatever merits this scheme 
 may have it may also be held to be defective in 
 that it does not recognise the necessary conjunc- 
 tion of the ideal and experimental in cognition, nor 
 the unnaturalness of placing first the sciences which 
 are most remote and abstruse, nor the error of 
 treating fundamental and derivative sciences as of 
 co-ordinate rank. 
 
 The first edition of Prof. Valdarnini's Principio 
 Intendimento e Storia della Classificazione delle 
 umane conoscenze secondo Franceso Bacone also 
 appeared in 1870. The second edition is of 1880. 
 It contains a skilful exposition and energetic de- 
 fence of the Baconian classification, and gives a 
 brief but meritorious account of a number of other 
 classifications of the sciences. 
 
 G. B. Peyretti, who has drawn his philosophy Peyretti. 
 largely from Rosmini, discourses of the evolution 
 and distribution of the sciences in his Istituzioni 
 di Filosofia teoretica, published at Turin in 1874. 
 The fundamental division of his classification is 
 into rational or human sciences, which are con- 
 
 ni 
 
246 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 versant with the intelligible; and revealed or 
 divine sciences, conversant with the superintel- 
 ligible. Each of these orders is divided into a 
 scienza prima and scienze seconde. The primary 
 science supplies to the secondary sciences appro- 
 priate principles, and may be regarded as the 
 organising and organic whole of which the second- 
 ary sciences are the members. The primary rational 
 science is Philosophy, which is either Theoretical 
 (inclusive of Ideology and Metaphysics) or Prac- 
 tical. The secondary rational sciences are Mathe- 
 matics, Physics, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Botany, 
 Zoology, Medicine, Jurisprudence, &c. Theology 
 is said to be the primary revealed science, and 
 Dogmatic Theology and Moral Theology the 
 secondary revealed sciences. 
 
 The separation of the intelligible and superin- 
 telligible, of philosophy and theology, of rational 
 and revealed sciences, as presented in that scheme, 
 implies a very perplexing dualism which Peyretti 
 attempts to transcend by the supposition of "a 
 science of the whole, both intelligible and super- 
 intelligible a synthesis of the sciences " Encyclo- 
 paedia. But must not such Encyclopaedia be 
 deemed the only true scienza prima, and Philo- 
 sophy and Theology only scienze seconde? Be- 
 sides, how is the synthesis to be effected ? Is it 
 by reason or revelation ? In either case reason 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 247 
 
 and revelation must stand to each other in another 
 relation than is implied in the contrast which de- 
 mands a synthesis. The classification of Peyretti 
 unfortunately rests on conceptions of the relation 
 of reason to truth and science, and of nature to 
 revelation, which must render it unacceptable to 
 all but a small class of religionists, and are too 
 likely to lead others to undervalue the really judi- 
 cious observations which he has made on the forms 
 of knowledge and the stages of its development. 
 
 Baldassare Labanca, Professor of the Science of Labanca. 
 Eeligions in the University of Eome, has written 
 many most interesting philosophical works and a 
 still greater number which deal with religious 
 questions. Any student of theology would find 
 it well worth the trouble of acquiring a knowledge 
 of Italian, were it only that he might be able to 
 read the works of Labanca. Of course, his classi- 
 fication of the sciences is all that here concerns 
 us. He advocates what he calls an inclusive 
 system of philosophy, in opposition to exclusive 
 systems, devotes a chapter of his Dialettica (vol. 
 ii. lib. iv. c. i.), published in 1875, to a considera- 
 tion of the proper encyclopaedical arrangement of 
 the sciences. In his view, a logical distribution of 
 truth must be the basis of a logical distribution of 
 the sciences, seeing that truth is the end of all the 
 
248 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 sciences. But that is threefold. All truth comes 
 from the ideal world, the real world, or the social 
 world, and is apprehended through reason, sensi- 
 bility, or testimony. Hence three classes of sciences 
 the speculative , experimental, and documental. 
 
 To the speculative class belong the metaphysical, 
 mathematical, ethical, juridical, political, and sesthet- 
 ical sciences ; to the experimental class, all the 
 sciences called positive physics, mechanics, chem- 
 istry, geology, &c. ; to the documental class, the 
 historical, linguistic, geographical, statistical, and 
 economical sciences. All sciences, however, assume 
 certain principles and primary data, and so presup- 
 pose and depend on Philosophy. The divisions of 
 philosophy correspond to those of science ; hence, 
 a philosophy of spirit, comprehensive of the ideal 
 or speculative sciences ; a philosophy of nature, 
 regulative of the positive or experimental sciences ; 
 and a philosophy of history, which dominates the 
 documental or social sciences. These three great 
 branches of philosophy spring from a primary and 
 universal philosophy, the one root and common 
 stem of the tree of knowledge. 
 
 Is that scheme as true and solid as it is neat 
 and symmetrical ? No ; and for a reason fully 
 acknowledged by Signor Labanca himself. He 
 tells us that he bases his fundamental division 
 merely on the predominance of the traits men- 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 249 
 
 tioned, not on the exclusion of others ; that the 
 speculative sciences cannot dispense with experi- 
 ence and authority, or the positive sciences with 
 reason and authority, or the social sciences with 
 reason and experience ; and that all the sciences 
 are, in fact, mixed, being drawn more or less 
 from all the worlds of truth through all the 
 channels of knowledge ; but he contends that the 
 division, instead of being in consequence discredited, 
 is only thereby proved to be in conformity with the 
 inclusive nature of dialectics. Surely it proves 
 rather that a dialectic thus inclusive is incompetent 
 to draw specific distinctions. It would, besides, be 
 difficult, if not impossible, to make out, as regards 
 the particular sciences, even the predominance or 
 preponderance asserted. Other objections suggest 
 themselves, but may be withheld. 
 
 The work of Prof. Conti, H Vero nell' Ordine Conti. 
 (2 vols., 1876), is very largely occupied with the 
 doctrine of the sciences. The encyclopaedic problem 
 is the theme of the eleventh chapter. Science, 
 history, and art are represented as the departments 
 of human knowledge. Science is the first in the 
 order of reflection, but the last in the order 
 of formation. It is to be divided into Philo- 
 sophy, Mathematics, Physics, and Positive Theology. 
 Philosophy is either speculative or practical, in the 
 
250 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 former case including Ontology, Eational Theology, 
 Cosmology, and Psychology ; in the latter Logic, 
 ^Esthetics, and Ethics. Mathematics is either pure 
 or applied. Physics comprehends Physics in the 
 special sense of the term, Chemistry, Physiology, 
 and Pathology, and Physical Anthropology. Posi- 
 tive Theology is founded upon authority, and 
 therefore to be entirely separated from the theology 
 which, being based on reason, is a part of philosophy. 
 I leave it to the reader to criticise that scheme for 
 himself. 
 
 B. Era- In 1877 an article of Benno Erdmann on the 
 
 mann. 
 
 "Gliederung der Wissenschaften " appeared in the 
 Vierteljahrschrift fur wissenschaftliclie Philosophic, 
 Bd. ii., Hft. i. It is marked by the clearness and 
 penetration characteristic of its author, and although 
 in its general conclusions there may be little that is 
 remarkable, the observations which it contains on 
 the nature and limits of various particular sciences 
 are undoubtedly most worthy of consideration. The 
 sciences as a whole are conceived of by Erdmann as 
 a system conversant with a complex of regular series 
 of elementary data. Each series is represented by 
 a special discipline, and there are as many groups of 
 sciences as there are different kinds of series. The 
 mathematical sciences constitute the first great 
 group, as their series are resolvable into absolutely 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 251 
 
 like elements and purely logical relations. The sci- 
 ences concerned with causal connection and real 
 evolution are, then, divided into formal those ( 
 which seek general laws and maternal or historical 
 those which deal with the processes of change 
 which arise from the interaction of general laws. It 
 is next argued that in the present state of our know- 
 ledge we must also distribute them into mechan- 
 ical and psychical Naturwissenschaften and 
 Geisteswissenschaften but with the admission that 
 this distinction may eventually be discovered to be 
 unwarranted. After a few general remarks on the 
 formal mechanical sciences, the historico- mechan- 
 ical sciences Astronomy, Geology, Anorganology, 
 Organology, Anthropology are more fully char- 
 acterised. The sciences held to belong at once to 
 the formal and the psychical class are Psychology 
 and the normative sciences of knowing (Logic and 
 Theory of Cognition), of willing in conduct toward 
 things (Ethic), and of feeling in the appreciation 
 of things (^Esthetic). While Psychology treats of 
 psychical processes as they are, the other psychical 
 sciences just mentioned discuss their validity. The 
 historico -psychical sciences are unfortunately not 
 described and distributed. The sciences even when 
 combined are, according to Erdmann, incomplete ; 
 between them and within them there are blanks 
 or gaps which can only be filled up in a hypo- 
 
252 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 thetical manner ; and there is a discipline not 
 entitled to be called a science which has this 
 function namely, Metaphysics. Besides may be 
 appended Paedagogy and Theology, the former an 
 art based on Psychology and Ethics, and the latter 
 one which undertakes to satisfy the interest of the 
 general understanding in the ultimate questions of 
 knowledge in a way conducive to culture and 
 progress. 
 
 These are the findings of Dr Benno Erdmann. 
 Some of them are, I think, not in the least made 
 out. A little reflection on the distinctive nature 
 of Theology, on the character of its relation to 
 the sciences, and on the number of disciplines, 
 some of which are plainly theoretical, which it 
 embraces, should suffice to show that it cannot 
 properly be ranked along with Psedagogy, and 
 regarded as merely a practical appendage to 
 psychical research and metaphysical conjecture. 
 The account given of the function of Metaphysics 
 is more amusing than edifying. If true, she who 
 was erewhile held to be the queen of the sciences 
 is, in reality, but a degraded and untrustworthy 
 handmaiden who mends their tattered garments 
 by patching them with cobwebs. It is obviously, 
 however, not true, for the whole representation given 
 of Metaphysics is but a mutilated and caricatured 
 reflection of the idea of a doctrine of the sciences 
 
FROM BAIET TO WUNDT. 253 
 
 a doctrine which has for aim to trace the limits, 
 note the defects, and exhibit the relations of the 
 sciences, as much without hypothesis or conjecture 
 as possible. In regard to the so-called normative 
 psychical sciences due weight is not assigned to the 
 fact that the validity of the distinctions between 
 truth and error, right and wrong, beauty and 
 deformity, can no more be shown to result from 
 mental than from mechanical processes, and must 
 be the object of investigations of a kind commonly 
 called metaphysical. 
 
 Prof. Simone Corleo has treated of the doctrine of Corieo. 
 the sciences, or, as he calls it, Sophology, in his 
 Sistema della Filosofia Universale (Eome, 1880). 
 He distributes the sciences into physical, meta- 
 physical, and moral, and gives under each head an 
 ample enumeration of particular disciplines ; but he 
 does not show how his classes are related, or group 
 their constituent members, or arrange these mem- 
 bers in their natural order of sequence, contiguity, 
 or dependence. The classification is the conclusion 
 of his work. It is preceded by a special treatment 
 of psychology, anthropology, and sociology. The 
 treatise as a whole is a very acute and ingenious 
 exposition of a philosophy of identity. The author 
 has earnestly and skilfully combated atheism, pan- 
 theism, and other inadequate representations of 
 the Divine. His name has an honourable place 
 
254 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 among Italian patriots in a great crisis of Italian 
 history. 
 
 Bourdeau. M. L. Bourdeau, in his elaborate Tlieorie des 
 sciences (2 vols., 1882), resumed the work of Comte 
 in the spirit of Comte, seeking to expound an 
 "integral" or universal science into which shall 
 enter no metaphysical or theological conception. 
 His treatise is one of very great importance, to 
 which, were the publication of my studies on the 
 scientia scientiarum continued, I should have 
 frequently to refer. At present, however, I need 
 only state that, like Comte, he arranges what he 
 regards as fundamental sciences in a single linear 
 series ; and that series runs as follows : 1. Positive 
 Ontology or Logic, the science of realities, employ- 
 ing the method of intuition ; 2. Metrology or Mathe- 
 matics, the science of magnitudes, employing the 
 method of deduction ; 3. Theseology or Dynamics, 
 the science of positions, employing the method of 
 observation ; 4. Poiology or Physics, the science of 
 modalities, employing the method of experimenta- 
 tion ; 5. Craseology or Chemistry, the science of 
 combinations, employing the method of integration ; 
 6. Morphology, the science of forms, employing the 
 method of comparison ; and 7. Praxeology, the 
 science of functions, employing the method of 
 connection. The Ontology of M. Bourdeau is 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 255 
 
 mainly a kind of Psychology, and not entitled, it 
 seems to me, to the place of priority which he 
 assigns it. At least one whole department of his 
 Theseology that of Kinetics properly belongs to 
 Mathematics. The way in which he distinguishes 
 Morphology and Praxeology, and divides and dis- 
 tributes both, is the most original and ingenious 
 part of his scheme, and I regret that I cannot give 
 it the consideration which it merits. I think it 
 could be shown that the separation of forms and 
 functions, necessary and important although it be 
 within certain limits, is not so radical and far- 
 reaching as he would make it. The new designa- 
 tions which he gives to the methods of the sciences 
 seem as little to be commended as the new names 
 which he applies to the sciences themselves. Of 
 course, the objections which hold good against 
 positivism in general must hold good against the 
 positivism of M. Bourdeau. 
 
 The Order of the Sciences, an Essay on the shields. 
 Philosophical Classification and Organisation of 
 Human Knowledge, published in 1882 by Prof. 
 Charles W. Shields, of Princeton, may fairly be 
 ranked among the best of the smaller treatises which 
 have appeared on the subject of which it treats. 
 Its exhibition of the scheme of scientific distribution 
 adopted is clear and skilful ; its criticism of other 
 
256 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 classifications is discriminating and incisive. The 
 author successively enunciates and applies to his 
 problem the following principles : "1. A phil- 
 osophical scheme of the sciences should be based 
 upon the facts which support them, rather than 
 upon the ideas which they involve ; 2. Such a 
 scheme should fully reflect all the distinct classes 
 of facts which have been scientifically ascertained ; 
 3. It should exhibit all classes of facts in their 
 actual connections as coexistent in space and 
 successive in time ; 4. It should embrace both the 
 empirical and metaphysical divisions of the sciences 
 in logical correlation ; and 5. It should have its 
 completion in a general science of all the other 
 sciences, based upon their historical and logical 
 evolution." 
 
 A strict application of the first of these prin- 
 Y ciples, he thinks, " would exclude the abstract 
 sciences of Logic and Mathematics from a phil- 
 osophical classification, and retain them as dis- 
 ciplinal studies, until, by being employed in 
 empirical investigations, they acquire a content 
 of positive knowledge, when they simply become 
 parts and processes of other more real sciences." 
 As regards the second principle, he holds "that 
 the progress of science has brought into view six 
 distinct classes of facts, affording ground for as 
 many corresponding groups of fundamental sciences 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 257 
 
 the Physical, the Chemical, the Organical, the 
 Psychical, the Social, and the Religious." In con- 
 nection with his third principle he maintains that, 
 "although the different classes of facts are distinct 
 and separate, yet they are found succeeding one 
 another in a fixed order of mutual dependence 
 and increasing multiformity, each involving its 
 predecessor, and becoming a condition precedent 
 to its successor; and with such actual procession 
 of phenomena must correspond the normal pro- 
 cession of the sciences." He also lays down a 
 series of what he calls Principal Sciences Astron- 
 omy, Geology, Anthropology, Psychology, Soci- 
 ology, and Theology "each Principal Science 
 representing, in a concrete form, the parallel group 
 of Fundamental Sciences to which it corresponds, 
 and including, as its special domain, all of those 
 Fundamental Sciences from which it is not excluded 
 by its immediate predecessor and successor in the 
 series." All these sciences, he argues, exemplify 
 the fourth principle by being half empirical and 
 half metaphysical. And he concludes by treating 
 of the conditions and nature of that terminal science 
 which, as the fifth proposition affirms, must organise 
 and complete all other sciences. 
 
 In the following respects these views of Dr 
 Shields fail to command my assent. The ideas 
 of a science may be its facts, as, for example, in 
 
 R 
 
258 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Mathematics, which is truly science in its most 
 perfect form and no merely disciplinal study. 
 Further, ideas may give to the facts their distinc- 
 tive character. Only if the idea of God have 
 validity can religious facts be more than simply 
 facts of psychology. But for the idea which under- 
 lies it theology would have to be included in 
 mental pathology. Again, moral and aesthetic 
 facts seem as distinct from merely psychical facts 
 as social and religious facts. Then, I cannot 
 concur in the acceptance of Comte's doctrine of 
 a single linear series of sciences. The relationship 
 of the sciences is not truly represented when it is 
 reduced to a simple order of sequence. The con- 
 ception of a series of Principal Sciences parallel 
 to a series of Fundamental Sciences also appears 
 very questionable. Is it not misleading, for in- 
 stance, to bring together Astronomy and Theology 
 as Principal Sciences, seeing that Astronomy is 
 merely one of a number of sciences of physical 
 facts, whereas Theology is the science of religious 
 facts ? Further, while holding that the sciences 
 involve metaphysical ideas or conditions, I do not 
 deem it correct to maintain that they have each 
 a metaphysical part. To do so ignores the con- 
 nection of the categories, and is inconsistent 
 with the unity and independence of metaphysics. 
 Finally, while accepting Dr Shields's account of the 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 259 
 
 function of the doctrine of science as thoroughly 
 just, I cannot regard the doctrine itself as the 
 terminal science, but only as the first department 
 of philosophy. 
 
 Mr H. M. Stanley, another American writer Stanley. 
 favourably known by his contributions to philo- 
 sophy and mental science, has published a paper, 
 well worthy of consideration, On the Classification 
 of the Sciences, in Mind, No. XXXIV., April 1884. 
 It is necessary to leave unnoticed his remarks on 
 the historical classification of the sciences, as also 
 on the distinction between Static and Dynamic 
 Sciences, and to state only the general result at 
 which he arrives as to a logical classification. He 
 places Mathematics alongside of all other sciences, 
 " not as constitutive, but as concomitant " ; and 
 then gives the following series of the sciences, as 
 one which is determined by " the principle of aggre- 
 gation " : 1. Chemistry the Science of Atom ; 2. 
 Molecular Physics Science of Molecule ; 3. Molar 
 Physics Science of Mass; 4. Biology Science of 
 Aggregated Cell-Masses ; 5. Psychology Science of 
 Individual Man ; 6. Sociology Science of Human 
 Aggregates ; and 7. Theology Science of God. 
 "The order of aggregation," he says, " plainly is: 
 Atoms into molecules, molecules into masses, cell- 
 masses into plants, animals, and men, and these 
 
260 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 into societies. Nature is thus a combination of 
 wheels within wheels. This classification presents 
 the general order of the dependence of the sciences. 
 If we wish, for instance, to study in Sociology the 
 family, there will be necessarily presupposed a know- 
 ledge of the human individual as a psychical whole ; 
 and this presupposes a study of the human animal, 
 and this of the cell, and this of masses, molecules, 
 and atoms. Herein is a ' hierarchy of the sciences/ 
 If this be the order of dependence of the sciences, 
 it must also be the order of their completion, the 
 higher sciences necessarily waiting on the lower. 
 Again, it is also the order of increasing complexity, 
 as has been exemplified throughout. It is also 
 the order of increasing speciality and concreteness, 
 in that it is a logical order of increasing intension 
 and decreasing extension. A number of objects 
 decrease, and numbers of attributes increase. It 
 is also the order of recognised rank." 
 
 On this simple yet ingenious scheme of Mr 
 Stanley the following criticisms may be offered : 
 First, it is not shown that Mathematics only is so 
 concomitant with the other sciences that it cannot 
 be simply placed in a series of the sciences. The 
 same is true of Logic, inasmuch as all other sciences 
 are built up by logical processes. The same is true 
 even of Theology, inasmuch as all other sciences 
 furnish materials for Theology. Secondly, the con- 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 261 
 
 ception given of the nature and position of Chem- 
 istry seems untenable. Chemistry is defined as the 
 Science of the Atom, and as such is regarded as the 
 first constitutive science. In reality, Chemistry has 
 not yet proved the existence of the atom. The 
 atom is still only an assumption, and may turn out 
 to be a pseudo-metaphysical fiction. And should 
 its existence be scientifically established, it is most 
 improbable that it will not be found to have 
 properties and relations of a mechanical order, 
 simpler and more general than its chemical charac- 
 teristics. Chemistry has not to do with atoms more 
 than with molecules and masses. It has to do with 
 the analysis of compounds into elements and the 
 synthesis of elements into compounds. It is, as 
 M. Bourdeau says, the science of combinations. 
 Thirdly, the principle of aggregation is insufficient 
 and unsuited for the classification of the sciences. 
 It is just because there are distinctions of things 
 which cannot be explained by aggregation that 
 there are distinct sciences. If life and mind could 
 be shown to be simply aggregates, Biology and 
 Psychology would be at the same time resolved 
 into Chemistry. Sociology can have no claim to 
 be more than a department of Psychology unless it 
 can be shown to be more than "human aggrega- 
 tion." The idea of God, in which Theology is 
 rooted, is not that of an aggregate. 
 
262 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 D. G. Mr Daniel Greenleaf Thompson, also an American, 
 
 ' exhibits a tabular scheme of classification of the 
 Sciences in his System of Psychology (vol. i. p. 
 76, 7), published in 1884. His main division is into 
 (a) Sciences relating primarily to the extended 
 Non-Ego Sciences ; and (b) Sciences relating prim- 
 arily to the unextended Ego Sciences. Class A is 
 subdivided into Physics and Biology, each of which 
 is represented as including various Abstract and 
 Concrete Sciences. Class B is subdivided into Theor- 
 etical and Practical Sciences. The former are sub- 
 divided into : 1. Sciences of Mind in its relations to 
 itself, comprehending the Abstract Sciences of Logic, 
 Mathematics, and ^Esthetics, and the Concrete 
 Sciences of Psychology and Ethnology; and 2. 
 Sciences of Mind in its relation to other Minds, 
 comprehending the Science of Human Communica- 
 tion and Sociology, with its related group of studies. 
 The scheme, it may be perceived, is of an external 
 and artificial kind. It rests on no principle, pro- 
 ceeds on no consistent method, and is pervaded by no 
 general philosophical conception. It counts various 
 sciences twice, first as theoretical and next as prac- 
 tical, and it is not apparent why all are not so 
 dealt with, while it seems almost absurd to confine 
 the distinction of Theoretical and Practical to the 
 Ego-Sciences. Mathematics and Logic are placed 
 after all the physical sciences, although both are 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 263 
 
 plainly presupposed by all these sciences. While 
 prominence is given to the questionable distinc- 
 tion of Abstract and Concrete Sciences, the much 
 more significant one of Fundamental and Deriv- 
 ative Sciences is ignored. No room is found for 
 Theology. Several other errors of Bain and Spencer 
 are reproduced. 
 
 It is now necessary to give some account of the De 
 views of M. E. De Eoberty on the subject in hand. 
 He is a native of Eussia but lives in Paris, and is a 
 most industrious as well as very able French publi- 
 cist. He is a thorough positivist, but very far from 
 a mere Comtist or, indeed, a mere disciple of any 
 teacher. He often rejects Comte's conclusions and 
 substitutes for them very different views of his own ; 
 and, in fact, is one of the most independent as well 
 as one of the most interesting and instructive con- 
 temporary thinkers of the positivist school. Of all 
 criticisms of Comte and contributions to positivism 
 those of Eoberty are, perhaps, on the whole, the 
 most thorough and suggestive. 
 
 His views on the classification of the sciences are 
 to be found chiefly in his La Sociologie, 1881. 
 There he has distributed all that he regards as 
 sciences into four groups. The reason given for 
 doing so is that the sciences of each of those groups 
 rest on different ways of observation. The sciences 
 
264 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 ^ 
 
 of the first group are held by him to be the mathe- 
 matical sciences, on the ground that they rest on 
 simple intuitions or self-evident axioms. Astron- 
 omy, on the other hand, is made to do duty as 
 representative of a second kind of science, or perhaps 
 / group of sciences, because based on pure and simple 
 observation. Physics and Chemistry are adduced 
 as constitutive of a third class, and one of special 
 interest inasmuch as dependent not only on observa- 
 tion but on observation conjoined with experiment- 
 ation. And, further, there is a fourth class, the 
 ' sciences of which are designated by Eoberty de- 
 scriptive sciences, because grounded on what he 
 calls scientific description, a process on which he 
 has dealt at considerable length and to which he 
 attaches great importance. In that last class he has 
 included Mechanics, Biology, Psychology, and Soci- 
 ology. To Sociology he assigns the same place, 
 and attributes much of the same importance, as 
 Comte had done. The definitive co-ordination of 
 the sciences he holds to be the task to which the 
 Philosophy of the Sciences is bound to devote 
 itself, a task which is still in the future but will 
 not fail to be accomplished. Six years later than 
 La Sociologie appeared his L'Ancienne et la Nouvelle 
 Philosophic (1887), which was followed by five 
 works, the parts of a single system of thought, and 
 the titles of which are L Inconnaissable (1889), 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 265 
 
 La Philosophic du Siecle (1891), Agnosticisme 
 (1892), La Recherche de Tunite (1893), and Auguste 
 Comte et Herbert Spencer (1894). They are all 
 meant to be contributions to a true philosophy of 
 the sciences, a scientia scientiarum, a whole of 
 positive sciences alone, one on which each positive 
 science depends for its development on the ante- 
 cedent sciences, and on which all real philosophy 
 depends exclusively on all real positive sciences. 
 They are all meant also to convince their readers 
 that " the whole of religion and the whole of phil- 
 osophy so-called " have nothing in them of the real 
 nature of science ; that there is no such thing as 
 theological or metaphysical science ; that even the 
 so-called criticism of Kant, the positivist agnosti- 
 cism of Comte, the conditioned or relativist agnos- 
 ticism of Hamilton and Mansel, and the evolutionist 
 agnosticism of Spencer are all forms of pseudo- 
 science or of philosophy falsely so called. 
 
 The courage and self-consistency of Koberty in 
 extruding all theology and metaphysics from what 
 he considers knowledge or science, and his per- 
 spicacity in showing that very much of what has 
 been affirmed by modern Agnostics is as non- 
 sensical as anything of an analogous kind which 
 can be laid to the charge of medieval scholastics, 
 are worthy of recognition, but he has quite failed 
 to prove all metaphysics and theology to be of 
 
266 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 an agnostic, unscientific, or anti - scientific char- 
 acter. Eightly understood, both metaphysics and 
 theology may be sciences. The exclusion of all 
 theology and metaphysics, of all religion and 
 philosophy, from the rank and nature of 
 sciences, is a serious defect in a classification 
 of the sciences. The views of Koberty and 
 others to the contrary are somewhat fully dealt 
 with in my Croall Lectures on Agnosticism for 
 1887-88. Roberty's first group of sciences are 
 the mathematical. Some of those sciences, how- 
 ever, are among the latest, and, alike on historical 
 and rational grounds, it may be questioned whether 
 any of them were the earliest. Logic, for example, 
 may perhaps have preceded any of them both in 
 India and Greece. It is somewhat difficult to 
 conceive how mathematics could have arisen until 
 preceded by a considerable knowledge of know- 
 ledge, a clear apprehension of the axioms on which 
 mathematics rest, and of the rules and processes 
 of reasoning. Scientific knowledge has in almost 
 all departments so grown out of ordinary know- 
 ledge that it is difficult to determine where the 
 latter has ended and the former begun. Further, 
 Roberty describes astronomy as representative of 
 a second group of sciences on the ground that 
 it is a science of pure and simple observation. 
 But is it so ? What would have become of 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 267 
 
 astronomy were it confined to observation and 
 left unaided by calculation? Other questions are 
 suggested by Roberty's classification. My readers 
 may raise and answer them for themselves. His 
 scheme is a meagre one compared with many 
 others that I have already noticed. That does 
 not, however, much affect the value of his 
 writings, which I wish were more widely known 
 in Britain. 
 
 The name of Wm. Wundt is much more widely Wundt. 
 known than that of De Roberty. Although born 
 in 1832, Wundt is still an indefatigable teacher 
 and experimentalist. Physiology has doubtless 
 been the main subject of his studies, seeing that 
 as privat - decent and professor he has publicly 
 taught it for the long period of forty - seven 
 years, but he has also by original investigations 
 left his mark on many of the chief sciences. 
 Even on logic, ethics, and psychology he has 
 written most elaborate and very valuable 
 treatises. It is only natural, therefore, that he 
 should have occupied himself earnestly with the 
 problem of the relations of the sciences to one 
 another. His range of knowledge must be greatly 
 wider and more exact than was that of Comte. 
 If less of a philosopher than was Spencer, he is 
 much more of a scientist. The works in which 
 
268 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 he has treated of the classification of the sciences 
 are his Logik, Bd. ii. (1883), his Philosophische 
 Studien, Bd. v. Th. 1 (1886), and his System 
 der Philosophic (1889). They show that he has 
 thoroughly realised the importance of classification 
 of the sciences, and of the dependence of the 
 sciences on philosophy. 
 
 Perhaps it is in the last of the works men- 
 tioned that he has most completely expounded 
 and defended his conception of philosophy as ' a 
 science of all the positive sciences/ as * the uni- 
 versal science which has to do with the cogni- 
 tions obtained by the particular sciences into a 
 consistent system/ His Logic is described by 
 himself as f an investigation of the principles of 
 knowledge and of the methods of scientific re- 
 search/ Hence its first volume is expressly de- 
 signated an Erkentnislehre and the second a 
 Methodenlehre, the former being regarded as the 
 general theory of logic or of real and formal in- 
 vestigation and reasoning, and the latter as a study 
 of the principles, methods, and acquisitions of the 
 special sciences. In the second edition of 1895 
 the Methodenlehre was greatly enlarged and elabor- 
 ated so as to be much superior to any corresponding 
 chapters in J. S. Mill's Logic. The volume con- 
 sists of four main sections with subdivisions. It 
 begins with 'a general doctrine of method' (pp. 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 269 
 
 1-73), and then expounds the logic of mathematics, 
 treating first of its method so far as general, and 
 then in the following order of succession the special 
 methods of arithmetic, geometry, functions, and 
 infinitesimals (pp. 74-219). The logic of the natural 
 sciences is similarly dealt with : an exposition of 
 the general foundation of natural investigation 
 being first given, and then in due order an ex- 
 position of the special logical methods of physics, 
 chemistry, physiology, and biology. The logic of 
 the mental sciences is dealt with in the same 
 manner. The bases common to them all are first 
 laid bare, and then those of the historical and 
 social sciences are specially described. The volume 
 is brought to a close with an elaborate exposition 
 of the methods of philosophy (pp. 478-620). 
 
 As already said, Wundt has also dealt with the 
 classification of the sciences in his PhUosophische 
 Studien, Bd. v. Th. 1, 1886. There he divides 
 the general system of the sciences into I. Par- 
 ticular Sciences, and II. Philosophy, and subdivides 
 both. I. The Particular Sciences he distributes 
 into two great groups Formal Sciences and Keal- 
 istic Sciences. (A) Formal sciences are the mathe- 
 matical sciences, and of these a detailed enumera- 
 tion and description are given. (B) Kealistic 
 sciences are subdivided into two sections viz., 
 (a) Physical sciences and (V) Mental sciences. The 
 
2*70 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 latter are subdivided thus : (a) Theory of the 
 phenomena of spirit (i.e., psychology under its 
 different forms) : (b) Sciences of the products of 
 spirit (philology and social sciences) ; and (c) 
 Science of the development of the products of the 
 spirit (history under its different forms). II. Philo- 
 sophy itself is thus subdivided : (a) Theory of 
 knowledge (both formal and realistic) ; and (b) 
 Theory of principles, which under its general form 
 is metaphysics and under its particular forms is 
 philosophy of nature and philosophy of spirit. 
 
 A still later attempt of Wundt's at the distribu- 
 tion of the sciences is to be found in his System 
 der Philosophic (1889). The view of it given by 
 Prof. Ladd of Yale in his Introduction to Philo- 
 sophy (1891) is so brief, exact, and accurate, and 
 so likely to be better than any I could myself 
 produce, that I shall venture to avail myself of it. 
 
 The most recent important work aiming at a system of 
 philosophy is by Wundt. As might be expected from its 
 author, this treatise on synthetic philosophy is everywhere 
 conceived and executed in a spirit of fidelity to the method 
 and results of the particular sciences. Wundt regards 
 philosophy as a universal science, having for its problem 
 to unite the cognitions of the particular sciences into a 
 consistent system. On account of the relation in which 
 it stands to these sciences, its divisions must be based on 
 the division of the sciences. Two main problems are, 
 therefore, given to philosophy in its efforts to treat syn- 
 
FROM BAIN TO WUNDT. 
 
 271 
 
 thetically all the particular sciences. The first of these 
 problems relates to knowing in a process of becoming; 
 the second, to knowing already become ( Wissen, Werdende, 
 and Gewordene). Hence the two main divisions of philo- 
 sophy are (1) Science of Cognition, (2) Science of Prin- 
 ciples. These two divisions are then developed into a 
 scheme, which may be tabulated as follows: 
 
 Division of Scientific Philosophy. 
 
 I. Science of 
 knowledge. 
 
 II. Science of 
 Principles. 
 
 2. Real. 
 
 1. General, or 
 Metaphy sic. 
 
 L 2. Special. 
 
 1. Formal (Formal Logic). 
 
 'A. History of Knowledge. 
 B. Theory of Knowledge, which in con- 
 nection with formal logic constitutes 
 Logic in the wider meaning of the word, 
 is then further subdivided into 
 (a) General Theory of knowledge. 
 (6) Theory of Special Methods as 
 applied to scientific investigation. 
 The systematic exposition of the funda- 
 mental conceptions, and fundamental 
 laws of all science. 
 
 'A. Philosophy of Nature, which is sub- 
 divided into 
 
 (a) General Cosmology, and (6) Gen- 
 eral Biology. 
 
 B. Philosophy of Spirit, which has three 
 subdivisions 
 
 (a) Ethics, (b) ^Esthetics, and (c) 
 Philosophy of Religion. 
 
 On the foundation of the three divisions of the Philosophy 
 of Spirit, and with the help of a comprehensive survey of 
 human development, stands the Philosophy of History. 
 Its aim is to give a picture of the whole external and 
 internal life of man. 1 
 
 Wundt's classification of the sciences merits, I 
 have no doubt, a fuller exposition of it than has just 
 
 1 Ladd, pp. 167, 168. 
 
272 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 been given. A criticism of it I shall not undertake, 
 although on several points it seems to be not beyond 
 criticism. The scheme has, I think, a considerable 
 number of defects. Its merits seem far from equal 
 to those of the work done by the author of it on the 
 methodology of the sciences included in it. It is on 
 the latter, not on the former, that Prof. Wundt's 
 labours are of such very exceptional value. Only 
 experts, and experts of an extraordinary range of 
 knowledge, can be expected fully to appreciate how 
 great those merits are. As a general review of 
 Wundt's conclusions as to the classification, logic, 
 and system of the sciences I know none better 
 than Prof. Venn's in Mind, vol. ix. pp. 451-468. 
 To it I refer my readers. 
 
 VII. FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 
 
 Masaryk. T. Gr. Masaryk, professor in the University of 
 Prague, in 1866 published in the Bohemian language 
 a book on "the classification and organisation of the 
 sciences." Fortunately a German translation ap- 
 peared in the following year. It would well deserve 
 translation also into other European languages, as 
 there is scarcely any other work so likely to serve 
 well as an introduction to as many sciences ; for, 
 although its author modestly acknowledges that only 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 273 
 
 on some sociological and psychological departments 
 of research can he make any claim to write as an 
 expert, he has obviously made a thoughtful general 
 study of most of the principal sciences, and acquired 
 an adequate acquaintance with the literature regard- 
 ing them. The authorities on which he relies are of 
 a good kind. With British philosophical literature 
 he is exceptionally well acquainted. The English 
 authors to whom he refers most frequently are 
 Bacon, Bain, Faraday, Eowan Hamilton, Sir Wm. 
 Hamilton, Hume, Locke, J. S. Mill, Newton, 
 H. Spencer, and Whewell ; the French, DesCartes, 
 A. Comte, Pascal, and Koberty; and the German, 
 Du Bois-Eeymond, Dilthey, Fechner, Harms, Kant, 
 Leibniz, and Wundt. That Italian authors are so 
 much overlooked is to be regretted. 
 
 The German title of Masaryk's treatise is Versuch 
 einer Concreten Logik, and his introductory remarks 
 are clear and relevant as to the need of a classifica- 
 tion and also an organisation of the sciences. With 
 regard to the character of classification, while affirm- 
 ing its necessity, he allows that there is something 
 artificial in every classification, and that neither 
 evidence, certainty, nor method can be its sufficient 
 principle. The order and relationships of the 
 sciences ought to be determined by the nature of 
 their objects. Theoretical and practical sciences, 
 however, are to be separated. There is the widest 
 
 s 
 
274 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 distance between them. Abstract and concrete 
 sciences are less so, both classes being theoretical 
 sciences. All these sciences abstract and concrete 
 alike are occupied with the natures of certain kinds 
 of objects, the systems of truth that may be elicited 
 from special spheres of knowledge. What the so- 
 called practical sciences aim at is the attainment 
 of desired ends, the accomplishment of purposes 
 deemed useful. All sciences may be applied to 
 several uses, and all arts may be more or less related 
 to some science or sciences. To enclose them in the 
 same scheme cannot be rightly effected, but merely 
 made to seem so, by a cross and confusing division. 
 The study of the sciences is one thing, the applica- 
 tion of them to ends and identification of them 
 with arts another. Masaryk's so-called ' practical 
 sciences' seem to have been counted by him as 
 both seven and twelve. There might, I think, 
 have been many more. His list of them is as 
 follows : A. Calculation and Measurement. De- 
 scriptive Geometry. Theory of industrial and 
 imitative Arts ; B. Technology in widest sense 
 (Rendering serviceable the forces of nature) ; C. 
 Physical and curative education (Phytotechnic, 
 Zootechnic, Medicine, and Hygiene) ; D. Training 
 of the character and understanding (Pedagogic and 
 Didactic), Politics, and Ethics (as science of the 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 275 
 
 complete guidance of life) ; E. Practical Grammar 
 (Mastery of Language) ; F. Practical ^Esthetic ; and 
 G. Practical Logic. Such is Masaryk's enumeration 
 of so-called ' practical sciences/ 
 
 Obviously some of them would have been better 
 placed among arts, while others are as properly 
 sciences and should have been so designated. 
 Sciences and arts may be intimately connected, 
 but to call either arts sciences or sciences arts is 
 an error, and must lead to confusion as it has 
 obviously done in Masaryk's scheme. That scheme 
 owes more to Comte than to any one else, and 
 indeed so much that the author of it may be 
 fairly regarded as a Comtist, a very independent 
 and sagacious one however, who cannot be reason- 
 ably charged with having taken the views of 
 Comte, or any one else, without close and careful 
 consideration. He has rejected even Comte's 
 linear series of the sciences and substituted for it 
 a binary classification, although his own classifica- 
 tion thereby loses the sort of unity which per- 
 vades Comte's scheme, and to which more than 
 anything else that scheme has owed its popularity. 
 But for its simplicity Comte's classification would 
 never have been preferred to a considerable 
 number of the more complex schemes that have 
 been already described in our pages. 
 
276 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 As already stated, Masaryk distributes his 
 1 theoretical sciences ' into ' abstract sciences ' and 
 ' concrete sciences/ There has been much con- 
 troversy as to what should be meant by the terms 
 'abstract/ 'concrete,' and also 'abstract -concrete/ 
 Comte, Littre, Spencer, and others have been 
 engaged in it without arriving at any very definite 
 or important result. There is no mere abstractness 
 or mere concreteness in the objects of any of the 
 sciences. The term abstract-concrete should imply 
 that and neither more nor less. The division or 
 classification of sciences into abstract and concrete 
 cannot be a complete division, a perfect classifica- 
 tion. It may, however, be none the less but all 
 the more instructive on that account, as showing 
 how intimately all sciences are related. Prof. 
 Masaryk attaches great importance to Comte' s 
 doctrine of a hierarchy of sciences, a closely 
 connected series of fundamental sciences. Sub- 
 stantially he adopts it as a whole, yet obviously 
 after a close and independent study of it. Hence 
 he is often accurate where Comte was not, and 
 brings to light what Comte had left in darkness. 
 All the sciences of the hierarchy are, of course, 
 represented by him as abstract sciences, not 
 concrete and still less so-called practical sciences. 
 Hence it is now necessary to indicate what in his 
 scheme of classification are the abstract sciences and 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 277 
 
 especially what are the sciences of the hierarchy. 
 The following table may suffice : 
 
 The Theoretical Abstract Sciences. 
 
 A. The Sciences of the Hierarchy (Fundamental 
 Sciences). The idea of a hierarchy of the sciences 
 was first clearly set forth in the Pansophice 
 Diatyposis (1645) of Comenius. 
 
 I. Mathematics. To it is assigned by Masaryk 
 precedence in the hierarchical sciences and con- 
 sequently of all other sciences. His description 
 and distribution of the mathematical sciences seem 
 to be about as accurate as could possibly be given 
 in fifteen pages (71-86) by one professedly not a 
 mathematical expert ; and show how carefully he 
 has utilised not only the well - known works of 
 Comte, Bain, and Wundt so far as they bear on 
 the subject, but also such works as Baumann's 
 Lehren von Raum, Zeit und Mathematik in der 
 neuesten Philosophic, Clifford's Common Sense of 
 the Exact Sciences, Cantor's Vorlesungen uber 
 Geschichte der Mathematik, De Morgan On the 
 Study and Difficulties of Mathematics, Duhamel's 
 Des Methodes dans les sciences de raisonnement, 
 Kroman's Beitrdge zu einer Theorie der Mathe- 
 matik und Physik, and Schmitz - Dumont's Die 
 mathematischen Elemente der Erkenntnisstheorie. 
 Mathematics is, however, a very comprehensive 
 
2*78 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 term. It is the name not merely of a science 
 but of a system of sciences, and these closely 
 interrelated sciences, each of which rests on a 
 fundamental idea or ideas, and has a corre- 
 spondently different method. Space, magnitude, 
 figure, number, time, motion, direction, rate, limit, 
 &c., are all foundations of mathematical reasoning, 
 and all mathematical sciences have so far their 
 own distinctive methods. Arithmetic and Geo- 
 metry are very different both as to matter and 
 method from the Calculus and Kinematics. That 
 is not sufficiently indicated by Masaryk. He has, 
 however, clearly stated the advantages which the 
 mathematical sciences have in important respects 
 over all other sciences, and also their limitations. 
 II. Mechanics. According to Masaryk it is the 
 second hierarchical science ; one which has very 
 much in common with, and is to a great extent 
 dependent on, Mathematics. It has even been 
 often included among the mathematical sciences. 
 Mach in a treatise on 'the development of 
 mechanics' has contested its right to be so placed, 
 and Masaryk deems his argumentation probably 
 conclusive. Perhaps he is right in thinking so, 
 but certainly Mechanics is both abstract and con- 
 crete, both quantitative and qualitative, and cannot 
 be denied to be on the borderland between mathe- 
 matical and physical science, and to lie almost as 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 279 
 
 much within the territory of the one as of the 
 other. 
 
 III. Physics. That third so - called hierarchical 
 science is comprehensive of a large class of sciences, 
 namely, all those which deal with inorganic physical 
 things, or, in other words, with the properties and 
 changes of matter in their molecular constitution, 
 and therefore with hardness, elasticity, cohesion, 
 &c., as also with heat, light, sound, electricity, 
 magnetism, &c. All the sciences referred to are 
 occupied with these objects, their properties, and 
 effects. They are all inductive sciences and de- 
 pendent on observation and experimentation. 
 Masaryk declines to arrange the departmental 
 physical sciences in any serial order. He regards 
 Comte's attempt to do so as a failure. 
 
 IV. Chemistry. It seems strange that Chemistry 
 should not have been included among physical 
 sciences but ranked as an hierarchical science. In 
 its present condition even it seems closely akin to 
 and dependent on the physical sciences, and appears 
 likely to be much more so in the future. What 
 separates Chemistry from Physics as described by 
 Masaryk is that while physical processes leave the 
 material structure of things ordinarily unchanged, 
 chemical processes leave a profound and lasting 
 change. In other words, what is distinctive of 
 Chemistry as compared with Physics is what is 
 
280 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 called 'chemical affinity/ a peculiar and as yet 
 altogether mysterious ability of matter to enter in 
 its smallest parts into an intimate connection of a 
 kind confined to Chemistry alone. Its products are 
 completely new. No other science apparently takes 
 us so deeply into the nature of matter. A complete 
 knowledge of the evolution of molecules may go far 
 to explain the evolution of worlds. The infinitely 
 little may be a key to acquaintance with the in- 
 finitely great, Experimentation has a large place 
 in Chemistry. What measuring is in Geometry, 
 weighing may not unreasonably be said, as it is by 
 Masaryk, to be in Chemistry. 
 
 V. Biology. To this fifth hierarchical science in 
 Masaryk's scheme both Physics and Chemistry are 
 represented by him as subservient, while holding 
 great injury to have been done to it by a crude 
 materialism in unreasonable attempts to explain life 
 and its operations by inadequate causes. A com- 
 pletely satisfactory method of studying it is held 
 to have been as yet far from adequately ascertained. 
 Mere conjectures and conflicting hypotheses abound in 
 it. Its province is an extremely wide one, including 
 not merely a single science but many sciences, as, e.g., 
 Anatomy and Physiology, Botany and Zoology, &c. 
 
 VI. Psychology. It is closely connected with and 
 largely dependent on Biology. Life is presupposed 
 in every psychological process. That life has origin- 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 281 
 
 ated out of mere matter (if there be such a thing), 
 has not been fully proved, but no one doubts that 
 where there is no vitality there can be no mental 
 states. Thought, feeling, and volition in every 
 form, all phases and stages of consciousness, pre- 
 suppose life, not death. Of all the mental sciences 
 Psychology is the fundamental science the Grund- 
 wissenschaft. Masaryk's treatment of it (in pp. 116- 
 138) seems to be very judicious. 
 
 VII. Sociology. Like other positivists, Masaryk 
 regards Sociology as the crowning hierarchical 
 science, and naturally deals with it at much more 
 length than with any preceding science. He adopts 
 Comte's division of it into Social Statics and Social 
 Dynamics, and also distributes its contents into 
 Theoretical and Practical Sociology. Its connec- 
 tions with, and bearings on, other sciences are like- 
 wise traced, and the history as well as probable results 
 of its development and findings are referred to. Biol- 
 ogy, Psychology, and Sociology are the inseparable 
 stages in a vast and complex system of evolution. 
 
 B. Outside of the hierarchy three other abstract 
 sciences are recognised by Masaryk namely, VIII. 
 Philology (Sprachforschung, including SprachleUre 
 und Grammatik) ; IX. ^Esthetics ; and X. Logic 
 (i.e., Abstract Logic). I do not deem it necessary 
 to remark on that part of Masaryk's scheme, nor on 
 
282 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 his plan or views of the system of the concrete 
 sciences. It must suffice that I enumerate them as 
 given by himself : C. Concrete Sciences. 1. 
 Geometry ; 2. Astronomy (Chronology), Acoustics 
 (in part), Hydrostatics, Hydrodynamics, Aero- 
 statics, &c., Cosmography (Astro, Geo, and Oceano- 
 graphy), Cosmology (Astrogeny, Geology, &c., also 
 Cosmical Physics, Chemistry, Astro - physics and 
 Astro -chemistry, Geo -physics and Geo -chemistry, 
 &c.) ; 3. Botany and Zoology ; 4. Concrete Psy- 
 chology, Ethnology, Political Sciences, Political 
 Economy (including Statistics), and History (both 
 Universal and Special) ; 5. History of Language ; 
 6. Theory of Arts ; and 7. Concrete Logic. All the 
 so-called Concrete Sciences are represented as in 
 one direction or connection closely related to the 
 Abstract Sciences, and in another to the Practical 
 Sciences. 
 
 Supplementary to the section of Masaryk's 
 system of the sciences, as above described, are two 
 sections of reflections exclusively on the concrete 
 and practical sciences. Book v. of his work is a 
 statement of his Philosophy understood as equivalent 
 to Metaphysics. Theology he does not admit to be 
 a science or group of sciences. But he treats it 
 respectfully, and acknowledges it to have been a 
 chief condition of scientific progress. He has 
 written a valuable treatise, and discussed in it 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 283 
 
 with varying degrees of lucidity and thoroughness 
 a great number of questions and problems as to 
 the classification and organisation of the sciences. 
 That he has often failed to arrive at definite or 
 accurate conclusions, I am not prepared to deny. 
 To excite thought, however, is often a greater 
 benefit than to satisfy it. 
 
 M. Adrien Naville, a worthy son of the illustri- A. Naviiie. 
 ous Genevan philosopher, M. Ernest Naville, has 
 earnestly and repeatedly occupied his mind with 
 the subject under consideration. In 1888 he pub- 
 lished a Nouvelle Classification des Sciences ; in 
 1898 he gave an excellent restatement of Le 
 principe general de la classification des sciences in 
 the German philosophical periodical Archiv fur 
 systematische Philosophic, iv Band, Heft 3, 1898 ; 
 and in 1901 a second edition of the work which 
 appeared in 1888 is spoken of by the author as 
 " completely recast " (entierment refondue). He 
 describes the purpose of the work so long dealt 
 with as being to trace the boundaries of the special 
 sciences, to distinguish the fundamental notions of 
 each of them, and to mark the relations which 
 connect them. His mode of distributing them 
 has, so far as I am aware, the merit of original- 
 ity, one now becoming rare among the classifiers 
 of the sciences. It is by grouping the sciences 
 
284 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 around three questions which he regards as funda- 
 mental. 
 
 The sciences he maintains are " wholes (des 
 ensembles) of answers to questions put by the 
 human mind, and the deepest differences between 
 the sciences are those which result from the 
 answers to the questions laid down." But the 
 fundamental questions referred to are in his opinion 
 just those three : 1. What is it that is possible ? 
 2. What is it that is real ? and 3. What is it that 
 is good? Hence he holds that there are three 
 great classes of sciences ; and that those sciences 
 which answer the first question are the sciences 
 of limits and of the necessary relations of pos- 
 sibilities, or, in equivalent terms, the sciences of 
 laws ; those which answer the second question, 
 the sciences of possibilities realised, the sciences 
 of facts ; and, further, those which satisfy the 
 third question namely, the sciences of possibil- 
 ities the realisation of which would be good, or, 
 in equivalent terms, the sciences of ideal rules 
 of action. His scheme of classification is entirely 
 dependent on his principle of classification. 
 
 His Tableau of the former is regulated by the 
 latter, and determines his distribution of the sciences 
 under the three headings I. Theorematics ; II. 
 History; and III. Canonics. As belonging to I. 
 Theorematics, he mentions the following sciences : 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 285 
 
 (1) Nomology, (2) Arithmology, (3) Geometry, (4) 
 Kinematics, (5) Physico-Chemistry, (6) Biology, (7) 
 Psychology, and (8) Sociology. He acknowledges, 
 however, that there may be many more sciences of 
 mere laws, and even an indefinite number of them. 
 "What he regards as the science of laws under an 
 absolutely abstract form is what he calls nomology ; 
 arithmology (arithmetic and algebra), geometry, and 
 kinematics are at once mathematical sciences and 
 sciences of law ; but there are other mathematical 
 sciences, and, even if there were not, there is a vast 
 interval between the mathematical and the physical 
 sciences, and a still vaster between the former and 
 psychology and sociology. That psychology and 
 sociology are occupied merely with the possible, not 
 with the real, is extremely questionable, and indeed 
 M. Naville himself admits that we do not yet possess 
 a truly theorematic psychology or sociology; that 
 they are not universally considered as sciences of 
 laws, but are, on the contrary, largely composed of 
 historical generalisations derived from experience. 
 Herbert Spencer placed them in the same class as 
 astronomy, geology, mineralogy, &c., which are 
 certainly more occupied with the real than with 
 the possible. That the mathematical sciences are 
 sciences of possibilities and theorems and not of 
 realities or facts is not likely to be denied, nor 
 will it be doubted that they are members of a 
 
286 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 very distinct and special group of sciences which, 
 although not wholly unrelated to psychology and 
 sociology, are no more related to them than to many 
 other disciplines which M. Naville himself does not 
 include among his so-called theorematic sciences. 
 M. Naville's distinction between laws and facts, 
 possibilities and realities, seems to me to be a real 
 and important one, but also one which he somewhat 
 misapplies and makes too much of. 
 
 II. History, the second great section of his scheme 
 of classification, is defined by him as the science of 
 realised possibilities or facts. The signification given 
 to it is very comprehensive, and yet, as we have 
 seen, sociology is not included in it but in theore- 
 matics, although it surely has as much right to be 
 regarded as an historical discipline as most of those 
 studies which M. Naville has represented as actually 
 included in history. His reason for regarding 
 history as he does is that it is the kind of know- 
 ledge or science in which the question, What is 
 that which is real ? is solved or in the way of being 
 solved. The real is part of the possible, the possible 
 so far as realised, what presupposes no mere con- 
 ditions, no contingencies, no ifs. It is concerned 
 only with facts and composed only of categorical 
 affirmations. Further, according to M. Naville, 
 history is not, strictly speaking, a class of definite 
 and separate sciences, but, as he himself says, " a 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 287 
 
 single science without rigidly distinct divisions, 
 because in concrete reality all acts upon all, so 
 that in place of a series of different sciences there 
 are only parts of one science." Hence the parts of 
 history thus understood may be innumerable, and, 
 as they already are in number and character, may 
 be held to constitute the chief objects of human 
 study. Naville's list of them is (1) Astronomy, 
 (2) Geology, (3) Mineralogy, (4) Botany, (5) 
 Zoology, (6) Anthropology, and (7) Human History, 
 political, moral, judicial, economic, linguistic, liter- 
 ary, artistic, religious, &c. And they are all 
 obviously to a large extent of an historical char- 
 acter. But are they more so than say Sociology 
 or even the History of Mathematical Sciences ? 
 Geometry, Biology, Psychology, and Sociology 
 have all histories simply as accounts of them 
 as evolutionary or progressive studies, and their 
 objects would also have had histories had there 
 been no human beings to study them. 
 
 III. Canonics is the third and last section of 
 Naville's classification of the sciences. He holds 
 it to be a scientific group essentially different 
 from Theorematics and History. It is meant to 
 be the answer to the third great scientific question, 
 which is also the chief practical question, and to 
 include all sciences of the rules of human activity 
 which expressly tend to the realisation of the best 
 
288 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 possible. A threefold division of it is given. The 
 first (a) is Morale, the general theory of aims, the 
 system or doctrine of rules relative to the choice 
 of chief ends. Its function, according to Naville, 
 is to study the different aims possible, so as to 
 estimate aright their comparative and complete 
 value ; aims held by him to be of four kinds, 
 namely, 1. satisfaction for self, 2. satisfaction for 
 others, 3. truth (knowledge) for self, and 4. truth 
 for others. He leaves it to la morale itself to 
 determine the value of all special investigations 
 into the nature of the good, and to show how 
 their findings may be and should be combined. 
 There are, however, in his conception of Canonics 
 two other departments than Morale, a second and 
 third. The second, (b) Theories of the arts, may 
 be indefinitely numerous, inasmuch as they are 
 held to include all theories which endeavour to 
 formulate rules for selection of the most suitable 
 means to attain ends of every kind ; all arts 
 associated with the various species of knowledge 
 or games of chance ; logic and didactic ; industries, 
 medicine, &c. Finally, as a third division of 
 Canonics there are said to be (c) Moral Sciences; 
 sciences said to be composed of rules for the 
 choice of the means best adapted to realise in a 
 harmonious way human ideals. Psedagogy and 
 the Law of Nature (or Keason) are the examples 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 289 
 
 given of them. The former seeks by all attainable 
 means to develop to the utmost and in the most 
 harmonious way whatever elements for good are 
 contained in germ in the natures of children. 
 The latter seeks to ascertain how the State ought 
 so to constrain and regulate the power intrusted 
 to it as to contribute as much as possible to the 
 physical, intellectual, and moral development of 
 all classes in a nation. 
 
 M. Naville's classification of the sciences has now 
 been described and as far as possible in his own 
 words. My readers may criticise it for themselves, 
 and decide, say, whether the section of Canonics is 
 satisfactory or the reverse. Before coming, how- 
 ever, to a definitive conclusion even in regard to 
 Canonics, the seemingly weakest part of his scheme, 
 they would do well to take into account that M. 
 Naville published in the Revue Philosophique (No. 1, 
 Jan. 1897) a very able essay onEconomique et Morale, 
 which may be held as a valuable contribution to 
 what would otherwise have rather discredited his 
 whole system, whereas now even Canonics may be 
 deemed not unworthy of consideration. 
 
 In 1893 M. Eaoul de la Grasserie published hisDeia 
 De la classification objective et subjective des 
 sciences, des lettres, et des arts. It is an elaborate 
 work of more than three hundred pages, and obvi- 
 
 T 
 
290 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 ously the result of long and earnest studies. Its 
 author has attempted, however, an almost impos- 
 sible task by undertaking to deal with three so dis- 
 tinct classes of objects as arts, letters, and sciences, 
 and with two contrary kinds of method, a subjec- 
 tive and objective. Arts and letters are certainly 
 not wholly independent of or unrelated to the 
 sciences, but they are not sciences nor, perhaps, 
 more dependent on the sciences than the sciences 
 are on them. The subjective method of De la Gras- 
 serie is any suitable order of method for a desirable 
 course of education. His objective method is a quite 
 different process. It is a tracing of the order of 
 succession and dependence of the sciences in accord- 
 ance with their own natures. As I have already so 
 far criticised the classifications of Bacon, D'Alem- 
 bert, and Ampere, in which arts, letters, and sciences 
 are included, it seems to me unnecessary to dwell 
 on what is akin to them in M. de la Grasserie's 
 scheme. Of course he has not only studied what 
 he knew to have been carefully attempted by the 
 most eminent of his predecessors, but has also 
 sought to appropriate and utilise what seemed to 
 him to have true findings. Those from whom he 
 has derived most are Ampere, Comte, Spencer, and 
 Wundt. 
 
 He has accepted as highly important the distinc- 
 tion between sciences of matter and of mind, or 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 291 
 
 what Ampere called cosmological and noological 
 sciences. It is a distinction which few thinkers, 
 if any, have either altogether overlooked or re- 
 jected. It is not a distinction, however, which 
 can legitimately carry us very far. In proof I refer 
 my readers to my criticism of Ampere's method of 
 bifurcation based on the distinction. See pp. 79-82. 
 Grasserie also adopts what he calls Spencer's 'lumin- 
 ous division of the sciences ' into abstract sciences, 
 abstract-concrete sciences, and concrete sciences, (a) 
 By Abstract Sciences are meant those sciences which , 
 like Logic and Mathematics, treat of ideals or un- 
 occupied forms of relations in which phenomena are 
 known to us ; (b) By Abstract - Concrete Sciences 
 those which, like Mechanics, Physics, and Chemistry, 
 treat of real relations or the relations among reali- 
 ties to which different modes of matter and motion 
 conform ; and (c) By Concrete Sciences those which, 
 like Astronomy, Geology, Biology, &c., deal with 
 distributions and redistributions of matter and 
 motion, molecules, solids, gases, organic pheno- 
 mena, &c. As to the character of that classifica- 
 tion see the criticism on pp. 98-103. Further, 
 M. de la Grasserie has accepted Wundt's distinc- 
 tion of general and special sciences but rejected 
 the distinction of formal and real sciences. The 
 latter, however, if properly drawn, is just as cer- 
 tain and accurate as the former ; and it is unfor- 
 
292 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 tunate that our author, while recognising how 
 intimately the mathematical sciences are related 
 to the physical sciences, should have failed to 
 recognise that they are related also, although in 
 a lesser measure, to the psychical sciences. Mathe- 
 matics has undoubtedly a place and function in 
 psycho-physics, human and comparative psychology, 
 economics, ethics (moral statistics), and sociology. 
 How far it will advance it is for the future to 
 decide. 
 
 Karl Karl Pearson, the Gershom Professor of Mathe- 
 
 matics, has given a classification of the sciences 
 in his well-known work the Grammar of Science. 
 The work was published in 1892, and has gone 
 through at least three editions. The classification 
 is only dealt with in the last chapter. The nine 
 chapters which precede it treat of a great variety 
 of subjects bearing on science or sciences, as, e.g., 
 the scope, claims, domain, or method of science ; 
 the facts of science ; the meanings, progress in 
 formulation, and universality of scientific law ; 
 cause and effect, as also probability ; space and 
 time ; the geometry of motion ; matter ; laws and 
 life. All those subjects and others are brought 
 by Prof. Pearson before his readers in a most 
 emphatic and vigorous style, and with the utmost 
 faith in himself and in whatever he affirms. Self- 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 293 
 
 criticism, however, is obviously not one of his char- 
 acteristics, otherwise when writing his Grammar 
 of Science he could not have failed to discover 
 that he was really as much of the sort of meta- 
 physician he despised as of the scientist he adored. 
 He begins his chapter on the classification of the 
 sciences with "a summary as to the material of 
 science," and claims for "the heritage of science 
 the whole domain to which the word knowledge 
 can be applied," whereas it is philosophy as scientia 
 scientiarum which makes that claim. No single 
 science can reasonably do so, nor even all special 
 sciences combined, as every single science has a 
 definite and limited sphere of its own. Then he 
 reminds his readers again, as he had been doing 
 all through his work, that " knowledge is essentially 
 a description and not an explanation," a quite un- 
 proved, and probably unprovable, generalisation of 
 KirchofFs definition, not of all sciences, but merely 
 of Mechanics. Whoever has looked into the Grammar 
 of Science must have been struck with the contempt 
 of its author for " the statements regarding force 
 and matter current in all the elementary text-books 
 of science," and his extraordinary faith in such 
 phrases as " science description but not explana- 
 tion," "conceptual formulae," " conceptual shorthand," 
 and a host of other questionable phrases. Probably 
 few books will be found less serviceable as an ele- 
 
294 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 mentary text-book of science than Prof. Pearson's 
 own Grammar of Science if used as such, although 
 being in various respects a work of ability it may be 
 very stimulating and useful to those who can separate 
 metaphysics from physics and rhetoric from logic in 
 ways which the author himself has not always 
 succeeded in doing. 
 
 As regards the problem of the classification of the 
 sciences, he approaches it with a clear perception of 
 its difficulty, and even with an almost excessive 
 humility. He recognises, to use his own words, 
 " how incapable any individual scientist must nowa- 
 days be of truly measuring the importance of each 
 separate branch of science and of seeing its relation 
 to the whole of human knowledge. An adequate 
 classification could only be reached by a group of 
 scientists having a wide appreciation of each other's 
 fields, and a thorough knowledge of their own 
 branches of learning. They must further be en- 
 dowed with a sympathy and patience enough to 
 work out a scheme of combination." 1 And again he 
 writes : " An individual even with the ability of 
 Bacon or Spencer must fail for want of specialists' 
 knowledge to classify the sciences satisfactorily. A 
 group of scientists might achieve much more, but 
 even their system would only have temporary value 
 as the position of a science relative to other changes 
 
 1 P. 443. 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 295 
 
 with its development." l These are certainly words 
 of soberness and truth. There can be no satisfactory 
 classification of the sciences without careful dis- 
 tribution of them into groups, a comprehensive ex- 
 hibition of the connections between the groups, and 
 a patient attempt to trace the relationships of the 
 members of each group. The history of the classi- 
 fications of the sciences is of itself ample proof of 
 that. 
 
 Prof. Pearson has taken into consideration only 
 the schemes of Bacon, Comte, and Spencer, im- 
 perfect although they be, and expressly tells us 
 that his own scheme, which is derived from these, 
 " pretends to no logical exactness " ; 2 and that he " is 
 content to call it an enumeration if the logician 
 refuses it the title of classification ; for he readily 
 admits that he is not likely to be successful where 
 Bacon, Comte, and Spencer have failed." But 
 surely any scheme of classification should aim at 
 logical exactness ; and to aim at surpassing the 
 schemes even of Bacon, Comte, and Spencer need 
 imply nothing presumptuous. The latest scientists 
 have always an advantage over their predecessors. 
 Further, how can a man be reasonably content to 
 call a classification an enumeration, what it is not 
 and cannot be ? A mere enumeration of the sciences 
 can only be useless or worse than useless. Prof. 
 
 i P. 474. 2 P. 452. s P. 452. 
 
296 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Pearson's scheme is nowhere merely an enumeration, 
 but everywhere a kind of classification, one mainly 
 composed of three other classifications generally 
 recognised to be far from perfect but also of con- 
 siderable value. 
 
 It is a scheme composed of three sections viz., 
 A. Abstract Science. Modes of Discrimination ; B. 
 Concrete Science. Inorganic Phenomena ; and C. 
 Concrete Science. Organic Phenomena. 
 
 In A the general relations of discrimination dealt 
 with are (a) either qualitative and quantitative, as 
 also (b) relations peculiar to space and time. 
 
 As regards the qualitative relations Logic, Ortho- 
 logy (by which is meant " the study of the right use 
 of language, the clear definition and, if needful, in- 
 vention of terms), and Grammar. As regards the 
 quantitative relations there is a division of discrete 
 quantity and another of change in quantity. Under 
 the heading ' discrete quantity ' Arithmetic, Algebra, 
 Theory of Measurement, Errors, Probability, Stat- 
 istics, &c., and under that of * change in quantity' 
 Theory of Functions, Calculus of Rates or Func- 
 tions, Calculus of Sums, &c., are assigned a place. 
 Connected with the special relations of space are 
 held to be Descriptive Geometry, Metrical Geometry, 
 Trigonometry, Mensuration, &c., and with those of 
 time Theories of Observation and Description (qual- 
 itative), as also Theory of Strains and Kinematics 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 297 
 
 (quantitative). Abstract Science is represented as 
 inclusive of all that is generally considered Logic 
 and Pure Mathematics. 
 
 B. To this second section belong concrete as 
 opposed to abstract science and inorganic as distinct 
 from organic phenomena. The common name for 
 the sciences included in it are physical sciences, and 
 by Pearson they are subdivided into what he calls 
 precise or exact and synoptic or descriptive physical 
 sciences, the former being held to be those reduced 
 and the latter those not yet reduced to ideal motions. 
 Molar Physics, Molecular Physics, Atomic Physics, 
 and Physics of the Ether are viewed as so many 
 groups of Precise Physical Science. "In Molar 
 Physics," says our author, " we deal with the motion 
 which conceptualises the changes of position in 
 bodies at the surface of the earth, Mechanics ; with 
 the motion which conceptualises the changes in the 
 planetary system, Planetary Theory ; and with the 
 motion by which we describe changes in the con- 
 figuration of a planet and its satellites, Lunar 
 Theory" l To Molecular Physics he attaches 
 Crystallography, Hydromechanics, Aeromechanics, 
 Theory of the Tides, &c. ; to Atomic Physics 
 Theoretic Chemistry, Spectrum Analysis, Solar and 
 Sidereal Physics, &c. ; to Physics of the Ether 
 sundry studies apart from and also in association 
 
 1 P. 461. 
 
298 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 with the Molecule, as e.g., Theory of Radiation, 
 Light y Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, and Theories 
 of Dispersion, Absorption, Transmission, Conduction, 
 &c. The Synoptic Physical Sciences are the Theory 
 of Inorganic Evolution, Geology, Geography, 
 Meteorology, Mineralogy, Chemistry, &c. 
 
 C. The third and last great field of knowledge 
 according to Pearson is the division of concrete 
 science which deals with organic phenomena. It 
 includes the biological sciences, and he subdivides 
 them into those which deal more especially with 
 space or the localisation of life and those which 
 deal more especially with time or growth. In the 
 first subdivision he places what he calls Ghorology 
 (geographical distribution of living forms), Ecology 
 (habits in relation to situation and climate), and 
 Natural History (in old sense) ; and in the second 
 History as non-recurring and Biology as recurring 
 growth. History is further described as compre- 
 hending the general evolution of species, connected 
 with which are Phylogeny, Palaeontology, Origin of 
 Species, &c., and the special evolution of man, con- 
 nected with which are Craniology, Anthropology, 
 &c., as regarding his physique ; Art, Literature, 
 Science, and Philosophy as dependent on his mental 
 faculties ; and States, Laws, Customs, Archaeology, 
 Folklore, &c., as inseparable from his social in- 
 stitutions. There follow Morphology, Histology, 
 
FROM MASARYK TO KARL PEARSON. 299 
 
 Anatomy, Evolution, Theory of Sex, Theory of 
 Heredity, Physiology, Special Psychology of Man, 
 and Sociology, the last branch of psychology, but 
 also one which subdivides into such branches as the 
 Science of Morals, the Science of Politics, Political 
 Economy, and Jurisprudence. The whole scheme 
 is brought to a close with Applied Mathematics, 
 which link Abstract Science to the Physical Sciences, 
 and Bio-Physics, which connects the Physical and 
 Biological Sciences. 
 
 Prof. Pearson has candidly acknowledged that 
 freedom from errors cannot be claimed for the 
 foregoing scheme, and certainly the errors of it 
 are numerous. Logic, Orthology, and Grammar 
 are the members of his first group. But of the 
 three only the first is a science. So-called Orth- 
 ology is merely a portion or function of Logic 
 which almost all books on Logic deal with in some 
 measure, but which it is an abuse of language to 
 designate a science in itself. Further, what is meant 
 by Grammar? and why is it located in the first 
 group of sciences? Is it even Grammar in the 
 ordinary sense of the term? In that case it is 
 nearly equivalent to what Pearson calls Orthology, 
 and there would seem to be no good reason for the 
 invention of the latter term, and still less for count- 
 ing the same science, if a science at all, twice. Or, 
 Is Grammar to be understood in the sense which he 
 
300 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 attaches to it in the title and throughout the body 
 of his own book? a book in which he pronounces 
 judgment on the relation of science to theology and 
 metaphysics, as well as on the natures and relation- 
 ships of causes and effects, matter, motion, life, &c. 
 Epistemology, Logic, and Methodology would, I 
 think, have formed a much more natural group than 
 the one he has given us. As regards most of the 
 other group there is no less room for criticism. The 
 author of them has trusted too much to Bacon, 
 Comte, and Spencer alone ; and has apparently 
 not even looked at what, for example, Ampere, 
 Whewell, and Wundt have done in the matter. In 
 the edition in my possession he has not even re- 
 ferred to them. He confidently denies the reality 
 of either theological or metaphysical science. The 
 closing words of his Grammar of Science are these : 
 " We have a duty before us, which, if we have faith 
 in the scientific method, is simple and obvious. We 
 must turn a deaf ear to all those who would suggest 
 that we can enter the stronghold of truth by the 
 burrow of superstition, or scale its walls by the 
 ladder of metaphysics. We must accomplish a task 
 more difficult to many minds than daring to know. 
 We must dare to be ignorant. Ignoramus, labor- 
 andum est." l It is strange that a man of the ability 
 of Prof. Pearson could fancy that by such rash and 
 
 1 P. 474. 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 301 
 
 random words rational beings would be induced to 
 ignore all theological and philosophical studies as 
 superstition and folly. How daring to be ignorant 
 can be profitable to any mind or any inducement to 
 labour he has not told us and probably cannot. All 
 labour and science presuppose a desire of know- 
 ledge. That no one should enter into any burrow 
 of superstition may be readily granted; that all 
 theology is superstition must be proved instead of 
 merely asserted. As to scaling the walls of truth 
 with a ladder of metaphysics a good deal depends 
 on the ladder, and Prof. Pearson may have been 
 unfortunate in the choice of one. I cannot suppose 
 him to be ignorant of the fact that an encyclopaedic 
 study, a comprehensive and organic study, of the 
 theological sciences, has had a far longer history 
 than any other group of sciences. The history of it 
 has been continuous through so many centuries, and 
 on the whole so progressive and beneficial, that un- 
 prejudiced men are most unlikely to deem all the- 
 ology a mere " burrow of superstition." 
 
 VIII. FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 
 
 From Karl Pearson I must pass to the late Paul 
 Monsieur Janet, a man of very differently consti- 
 tuted mind. During the last half of the nine- 
 
302 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 teenth century France had probably no more ad- 
 mirable representative of philosophy than the latter. 
 For almost fifty years a professor of philosophy, he 
 made himself acquainted with all forms, phases, and 
 departments of it ; was, to use his own words, 
 always ready " to seek its foundations, authority, 
 limits, and signification, by confronting it with the 
 data and conditions of modern science, as well as 
 with the doctrines of the boldest and most recent 
 metaphysics " ; and could most justly say, as he has 
 actually done, nihil philosophicum a me alienum 
 putavi. He has written many philosophical works, 
 not one of which is other than valuable, and most 
 of which should long deserve to be studied. His 
 Causes Finales (translated into English in 1878) is 
 the best work on the subject. Hardly less im- 
 portant is his Principes de Metaphysique et de 
 Psychologic, published in 1897, two years before 
 his death. The first twenty lectures of the first 
 volume of it all bear more or less on the subject 
 of the relations of philosophy and the sciences to 
 one another, and also on the classification of the 
 sciences. To them I must refer. 
 
 The first lecture is an admirable discussion of the 
 
 | question, Is philosophy a science ? The second is 
 
 an equally admirable examination of certain modern 
 
 definitions of philosophy. The third and fourth 
 
 treat of the criterion of philosophy. And the fifth 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 303 
 
 is an inquiry as to what is or ought to be the 
 respective and appropriate functions of science and 
 belief in philosophy. None of the subjects of 
 those lectures are irrelevant to a study either of 
 the organisation of science or the classification of 
 the sciences, for the simple but almost always over- 
 looked reason that philosophy and science are most 
 closely connected, and that neither can in any form 
 be wholly severed from the other without serious 
 detriment to both. In his sixth lecture Janet 
 gives an account of just five classifications of the 
 sciences namely, those of Aristotle, Bacon, Ampere, 
 Comte, and Spencer ; and the conclusions arrived at 
 are that the classification of Aristotle is antiquated, 
 of Bacon superficial, of Ampere artificial and com- 
 plicated, of Comte simple and solid but incomplete 
 and mutilated, and of Spencer more comprehensive 
 than that of Comte but also incomplete and likewise 
 burdened with defects justly ascribed to the scheme 
 of Ampere. 
 
 In his seventh lecture Janet begins his own 
 attempt at a classification of the sciences, but 
 distinctly refuses to commit himself to presenting 
 a systematic and complete plan such as Ampere 
 and Spencer had endeavoured to provide. He first 
 proceeds to indicate the reasons which had been or 
 may be advanced in favour of a linear series of 
 sciences ; and then carefully to show that plausible 
 
304 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 as those reasons may be there is a fact of such a 
 kind the fact of consciousness which when care- 
 fully considered makes absolutely incredible to sane 
 reason belief in a merely linear series of sciences. 
 Hence he falls back on the distribution of the 
 sciences into cosmological and noological sciences, 
 or into sciences of nature and sciences of humanity. 
 The sciences of nature or cosmological sciences are 
 subdivided into two classes. As regards the first 
 group, these are the sciences which are concerned 
 with the most general conditions of matter, and 
 specially occupied with measurement, numeration, 
 extension, and motion. Such are arithmetic, geo- 
 metry, mechanics, and the still more abstract 
 sciences, algebra, and the differential and integral 
 calculus. Astronomy, physics, and chemistry, al- 
 though less abstract and comparatively concrete, 
 are placed in the same group and treated as 
 abstract and fundamental sciences. Geology and 
 mineralogy, however, are viewed as concrete sciences 
 attached to terrestrial physics. The second group 
 of cosmological sciences are those which treat of 
 life and its phenomena. It also includes abstract 
 and concrete sciences, those which treat of life 
 in general and those which study Hving beings. 
 Biology is the science of life in general. As such 
 it subdivides into three great sciences Biotamy, 
 Biotaxy, and Bionomy. Biotamy corresponds to 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PEESENT TIME. 305 
 
 anatomy, and is the science of the structure of 
 living beings. Biotaxy is the science of the classi- 
 fication of living beings. Bionomy corresponds 
 to physiology, both general and comparative. 
 Botany and zoology are two concrete sciences 
 connected with those that are abstract. The 
 sciences of humanity should follow in due order. 
 They all rest on a fundamental fact, the fact of 
 consciousness, and are divisible into three orders 
 of sciences (1) Historical sciences; (2) Phil- 
 ological sciences ; and (3) Sociological sciences. 
 While distinct from the sciences of nature they 
 are notwithstanding related to them. History, for 
 example, is inseparable from geography, and geo- 
 graphy is connected with geology and astronomy. 
 Psychology itself is intimately united with physio- 
 logy. To psychology as the science of the facts 
 of consciousness lectures eight and nine are devoted. 
 Comte's criticism of the science is shown to have 
 greatly misrepresented it from his desire to get 
 rid of it ; and, following his example, some later 
 writers have fallen into errors as to its nature. 
 Janet has done justice to metaphysics by raising 
 in lecture ten such questions as, Is there no other 
 science or class of sciences than those already men- 
 tioned? Is there not a science superior to, after, 
 and above any merely particular science ? Is there 
 not the science known by the name of Metaphysics 
 
 u 
 
306 CLASSIFICATIONS OP THE SCIENCES. 
 
 from the time of Aristotle to the present day ? Is 
 Metaphysics not a legitimate and necessary study 
 in so far as positive philosophy or logic of the 
 sciences? Is it not so far likewise as a synthesis 
 of the universe under the form of philosophy of 
 evolution or any other form? Or as a critique 
 of knowledge? Or as knowledge even of the 
 unknowable so far as in any measure knowable? 
 Or in so far as a final synthesis or as a synthesis 
 of the sciences of nature and of humanity ? 
 
 The lectures which follow those that have just 
 been noticed are not directly occupied with classifi- 
 cation of the sciences, but they have indirect bear- 
 ings on it of very great importance. The subjects 
 to which I refer are the relations of theology and 
 philosophy (lectures 12 and 13), of philosophy and 
 the sciences (14 and 15), of philosophy and history 
 (16), si philosophy and geography (17 and 18), of 
 philosophy and literature (19), and of philosophy 
 and politics (20). They are all subjects of a kind 
 to be studied and taken into account by those who 
 would aim at a thorough organisation of the sciences, 
 all of a character indispensable to any one attempt- 
 ing so great a task. By Janet they have been dealt 
 with remarkable clearness and comprehensiveness, 
 and with entire freedom from any kind of prejudice 
 or exaggeration. Although not direct efforts at 
 classification, they must indirectly be most helpful 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 307 
 
 towards a thorough insight into the natures alike 
 of philosophy and science in all their relationships. 
 
 Monsieur Edmond Goblot published in 1898 an Gobiot. 
 Essai sur la classification des sciences, a work of 
 296 pages. The spirit of positivism pervades it 
 from beginning to end, although Comte's views 
 and conclusions are often criticised and rejected. 
 M. Goblot endeavours in many instances to be a 
 more thorough and consistent positivist than 
 Comte, and assumes that all philosophical ques- 
 tions and conclusions properly belong entirely to 
 some positive science or other. The assumption 
 is one which facts are not yet found to have 
 verified. No philosophical question properly so 
 called has been shown to belong exclusively to 
 any of the so-called positive sciences. Philosophy 
 always of its very nature transcends more than is 
 attained or attainable by a single exact science. 
 
 The work of M. Goblot consists of two parts. 
 The first is much shorter than the second, and also 
 of considerably less importance. The title given to 
 it is " The Formal Unity of Science " ; and induc- 
 tion and deduction are represented as merely two 
 stages in the development of certain sciences, not as 
 two distinct methods proper to them. All sciences, 
 even the mathematical, arithmetic, algebra, and 
 geometry, are maintained to have followed the 
 
308 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 same method of procedure, one uniform or homo- 
 geneous in direction as being alike inductive and 
 deductive ; not two distinct methods separate from 
 each other, an inductive which begins with groping, 
 seeking, and finding, and a deductive, synthetic, 
 demonstrative process. The accuracy of that view 
 may not unreasonably be doubted. Possibly such 
 plausibility as it may appear to have may be due 
 to failure on M. Goblot's part to distinguish and 
 separate the two stages of knowledge, ordinary and 
 scientific. Mathematical demonstration belongs ex- 
 clusively to the latter and higher stage. According 
 to the author of the Essai, all true science tends 
 to become abstract and deductive, the experimental 
 as well as the mathematical. That may or may not 
 be so. Considering how far mathematics has during 
 the nineteenth century extended its bounds, what 
 thoughtful and educated man will venture to say 
 where will be its limits at the close of the twentieth? 
 There has probably been nothing more marvellous 
 in the nineteenth century A.D. than the development 
 and expansion of mathematical thought. 
 
 The title given by M. Goblot to the second 
 section of his work is " The System of the Sciences," 
 and in that section he subjects to a very close 
 examination the arrangement and classification of 
 the sciences. As was to be expected, he has main- 
 tained that of all sciences the mathematical are 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 309 
 
 entitled to have the foremost and dominant place 
 assigned to them. They are, of course, represented 
 as composing the first group of sciences. Arith- 
 metic, algebra, geometry, and mechanics are held 
 to be its constituent sciences. The first two, in- 
 asmuch as they are occupied not with measurable 
 things like space and motion but with pure quan- 
 tity, measurement in general, are deemed entitled 
 to be placed before geometry and mechanics. Geo- 
 metry is placed next in order on the ground that 
 it starts from the idea of space, the conception 
 of extension, what is also directly measurable. 
 Mechanics follows as dependent on the idea of time, 
 and is viewed as including kinematics, the science 
 of movements, and dynamics, the science of forces. 
 According to M. Goblot it is the best example of 
 a science which has become deductive as soon as 
 its elementary notions have been elucidated and 
 its essential definitions formulated. Like all pure 
 science, he holds it to be entirely abstract, and as 
 such altogether independent of the reality of its 
 objects. He denies that the notion of mass is what 
 differentiates kinematics and dynamics, and affirms 
 the real distinction between them to be that the 
 former is concerned only with real motions whereas 
 the latter takes account also of possible motions. 
 The sciences of the mathematical group are said 
 to have no need of resting on experience as they 
 
310 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 are always in conformity with experience. A fact 
 not in conformity with mathematical laws is an 
 impossibility. 
 
 The physical sciences are next brought before us 
 under the head of Cosmology. In their present 
 condition they are, of course, allowed to be experi- 
 mental and inductive, but they are also affirmed 
 to be destined to become deductive. The following 
 is the list given of them (see ch. iv. pp. 128-156 of 
 M. Goblot's Essai) : 
 
 Physics, described as theoretical and abstract 
 cosmology and inclusive of various studies viz., 
 (a) the study of the mutual gravitation or attrac- 
 tion of masses (barology), (b) the study of heat 
 (thermics), (c) optics, (d) acoustics, and (e) elec- 
 trology understood as not only the study of elec- 
 tricity but also of magnetism. The study of molec- 
 ular actions is also added, but only so far as confined 
 to physics and consistent with physics and chem- 
 istry being two quite distinct sciences. Physics is 
 defined as the science of matter, but matter is said 
 to have no ontological meaning i.e., to be not a 
 reality but an abstract conception; and by the 
 indefinite possibility of bodies as space is meant 
 the indefinite possibility of figures. Body is 
 affirmed to be space occupied in opposition to 
 space empty, but the physicist is told that it does 
 not belong to him to say by what it is occupied; 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 311 
 
 that the chemist and mineralogist should be left 
 to determine that. 
 
 Chemistry, with which mineralogy is intimately 
 connected, is characterised as special or systematic 
 cosmology. The new conception here is said to be 
 that of bodies as actual things. The body, the 
 elementary body, is the atom. And according to 
 M. Goblot the atom, although indivisible, extended, 
 and impenetrable, has no sensible properties, neither 
 temperature nor colour nor even resistance, neither 
 solidity nor fluidity. He has strangely little to say 
 of it, and virtually nothing of what others have said 
 of it, much and disputed as that has been. 
 
 Astronomy and physical geography are char- 
 acterised as forms of descriptive, concrete, and 
 theoretic cosmology. Cosmogony and geology are 
 described as historical, concrete, and theoretical 
 cosmology. The concrete and theoretic are what 
 they are held to have in common. What is pro- 
 nounced distinctive of them is that astronomy and 
 physical geography are * descriptive sciences ' and 
 that cosmogony and geology are * historical sciences/ 
 
 The last great group of sciences dealt with by M. 
 Goblot is now reached. He has treated it at far 
 greater length than either of the two correspondent 
 groups which preceded it. It is composed of Biology, 
 Psychology, and Sociology, and designated Bio- 
 Psycho - Sociologie, a somewhat clumsy but ap- 
 
312 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 propriately comprehensive term, one meant to 
 indicate three important and distinct yet related 
 sub - groups of very important sciences namely, 
 the biological, psychological, and sociological. The 
 fundamental idea, however, which one would expect 
 to connect all biological, psychological, and socio- 
 logical science, is the very reverse of clearly brought 
 out. What it is I confess I do not know. Perhaps 
 it may be the idea of finality, but if so, there is no 
 definite statement to that effect. 
 
 Physiology occupies in our author's scheme 
 ! almost the same position towards biology ', psycho- 
 logy, and sociology as physics towards cosmology. 
 As pure and abstract or general physiology it is 
 coextensive with all biology, and is the science of 
 all the laws of life, or more simply the science of 
 life. It is in close connection with anatomy. They 
 march side by side. Neither without the other 
 would have attained to the full rank of science. 
 The great stages of progress in physiology have 
 been preceded by discoveries in anatomy, and 
 anatomy without the researches of physiology 
 would be unable to elucidate its own observations. 
 Physiology indeed, as understood by M. Goblot, 
 can only adequately accomplish its work by combin- 
 ing and co-operating with such species of knowledge 
 as histology, embryology, morphology, phylogeny, 
 pathology, and teratology. Zoology he connects 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 313 
 
 with botany, and describes them as systematic or 
 special and applied or concrete biological sciences. 
 Anthropology he includes in zoology. What he 
 calls biological geography he describes as a biology 
 which is descriptive, applied, or concrete, and as a 
 geography which is linguistic, economic, political, 
 &c. He further includes palaeontology and history 
 as closely connected in this section of his scheme, 
 and as both occupied with 'the order of facts in 
 time.' Apparently he has overlooked that that is 
 true also of all sociological studies. Hygiene and 
 therapeutics are appended as ' practical sciences,' on 
 the ground that they are serviceable to plants, 
 beasts, and men. 
 
 M. Goblot next proceeds to assign to psychology 
 its appropriate position in the scheme of classifica- 
 tion of the sciences. He affirms its dependence on 
 physiology and biology, and indicates the relation- 
 ship between it and them. Further, he endeavours 
 to describe what physical phenomena are and to 
 show their inseparability to some extent from 
 physico-chemical phenomena. As to what psycho- 
 logy itself is, however, he has said disappointingly 
 little, and that little is not of much importance. 
 The comparative psychology both of human races 
 and animal species is entirely overlooked, although 
 it well deserves to be regarded as what it must 
 probably soon become acknowledged to be viz., 
 
314 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 one of the greatest and most instructive of sciences. 
 There is a like oversight as to mental pathology. 
 
 As a positivist of the Comtist type M. Goblot 
 should bring his classification of the sciences to a 
 close in sociology. Comte did so, and was in that 
 respect self-consistent, but it is not evident that his 
 disciple is so. Comte divided sociology into social 
 statics and social dynamics, the former being the 
 theory of the spontaneous order of human society 
 and the latter the theory of its natural progress, 
 the one exhibiting the conditions of the social exist- 
 ence of the individual, the family, and the species, 
 and the other the course of human development. 
 What M. Goblot does seems to be something very 
 different. He appends to sociology logic and 
 aesthetics, and thereby implies that logic and 
 aesthetics are of later origin and rank than soci- 
 ology. True, he speaks of them as the remotest 
 branches of sociology, and thereby implies the latest, 
 but he does not show that they are branches of it at 
 all. The logic of Aristotle, who died in 322 B.C., was 
 at least as great an achievement as the sociology of 
 Comte, although the former preceded the latter by 
 so many centuries. Further, if logic and aesthetics 
 can be so located or characterised as M. Goblot 
 represents them to be, ethics and economics may be 
 equally so, and in that case more may reasonably 
 be said for the priority of them all to sociology than 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 315 
 
 for the priority of sociology to any one of them. 
 It has also to be noted that logic, aesthetics, ethics, 
 and economics form a distinct group of sciences, 
 each of which has a definite aim of its own and a 
 nature akin to but not identical with the others. 
 Thus logic is occupied with the nature, conditions, 
 and processes of reasoning as its subject-matter, and 
 with the attainment of truth and exposure of error 
 as its appropriate ends. Thus beauty is the dis- 
 tinctive object, and the realisation and enjoyment 
 of it the final causes, of aesthetics. So ethics not 
 only undertakes to study men's moral natures, moral 
 relations, and moral histories, but also endeavours 
 to direct and regulate their actions. And similarly, 
 while the specific matter of economics is public 
 wealth, its distinctive ends are the production and 
 distribution of that matter in the most appropriate 
 and socially beneficial manner. 
 
 A favourably known Neo - Kantish philosopher, stadier. 
 Prof. A. Stadier of Zurich, published in the Archiv 
 fur Systematische Philosophic (Bd. ii. 1, N. F., 
 1896) a contribution to the subject in hand, entitled 
 Zur Klassification der Wissenschaften. He had 
 already made an attempt of the kind in 1887. He 
 prefaced his scheme with remarks on the views of De 
 la Grasserie and Wundt, which seem to me of little 
 relevancy and less value. That he should speak of 
 
316 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 such attempts as " relatively rare " seems to me an 
 astounding statement, which the present volume 
 should amply refute. He starts by defining science 
 as ' the most exact description possible of the 
 totality of the representations given to human 
 consciousness.' That may pass as a harmless 
 statement, but Stadler, following the bad example 
 of some other recent German writers, has talked in 
 such a confused way about what should be meant by 
 the terms " Beschreibung," " Vergleichung," " Mit- 
 theilung," " Benennen," " Mittheilen," " Erklaren," 
 &c., as tends to the reverse of elucidation. On 
 that subject readers may consult Herr Otto 
 Schneider's review of Stadler's Klassification. (See 
 A. S. Ph., iii. Bd. i. 1-19.) 
 
 The first and most comprehensive section of 
 sciences in Stadler's scheme of classification is that 
 in which the sciences are divided into those which 
 come under the heading either of Erscheinungslehre 
 or of Ideen&lehre either into sciences which rest 
 on phenomena or on ideals, on what is or what 
 ought to be. The sciences which have physical and 
 psychical phenomena for their objects and forms are 
 numerous and compose subordinate groups, of which 
 the first and largest is occupied with external and 
 physical phenomena, and entitled Korperlehre. 
 The members of this group are classified by Stadler 
 as follows : 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 31*7 
 
 A. I. Morphology. It is said to deal with 
 phenomena and their changes as they are im- 
 mediately given, and is represented as a generic 
 science of which those others are specific namely, 
 (a) Cosmology, as knowledge of the external pheno- 
 mena of the universe ; (b) Astronomy, the objects of 
 which are the celestial bodies ; (c) Erdkunde, such 
 an acquaintance with the earth as includes Meteor- 
 ology, Geography, and Geology ; (d) Mineralogy ; 
 and (e) Biology, conjoined with which are Botany, 
 Zoology, and Physical Anthropology, which all deal 
 with the study of organisms. 
 
 IT. Chemistry. It is represented by Stadler as 
 dealing with external phenomena that are combina- 
 tions of elements and as having the following de- 
 partments belonging to it : (a) Analytic Chemistry ; 
 {b) Synthetic Chemistry ; (c) Astro-chemistry ; (d) 
 Geo - chemistry ; (e) Chemistry of Minerals ; and 
 (/) Biological Chemistry. As regards Synthetic 
 Ohemistry, the syntheses are referred to as either 
 inorganic or organic. 
 
 III. Histology. Is occupied with organic pheno- 
 mena as combinations of vegetable and animal 
 tissues of the smallest and simplest order. It seems 
 questionable that it should be held to precede either 
 Anatomy or Physiology as it does in the scheme, 
 and questionable also that it should be given pre- 
 cedence to Physics. 
 
318 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 IV. Physics. Has many sciences assigned to it. 
 It is described as being no less than synthetic, 
 analytic, cosmic, astrophysical, mechanical, optical, 
 acoustic, magnetic, electric, and thermal, which 
 means ten sciences in one. But there are added to 
 it four other sciences Physical Geography, Physics 
 of Minerals, Special Physiology, and Special Psycho- 
 physics. 
 
 V. History. The objects of history are pheno- 
 mena and their changes as given at different times 
 and in an orderly succession. Belonging to it are 
 said to be Cosmogony, Astrogeny, History of the 
 Earth, History of Development, Autobiography, 
 General and Special Biography, and the General 
 and Special History of Culture. Certainly not 
 all of these are entitled to be deemed sciences 
 strictly so - called, however interesting they may 
 be as studies. 
 
 B. SEELENLEHKE (PSYCHOLOGY). Is the science of 
 mind and self-consciousness, but also intimately con- 
 nected with the nature and states of a corporeal 
 organism. Stadler assigns to it the following studies 
 as sciences viz., (a) Subjective Psychology and 
 Autobiography; (b) Objective Psychology, Psycho- 
 physical Anatomy, General Psychophysics, Special 
 Psycho physics, and General Life-History of the in- 
 dividual consciousness (Special Biography) ; also (c) 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 319 
 
 Comparative Psychology, Universal History of Cul- 
 ture, and Special History of Culture. 
 
 C. SEINSOLLENDE (!DEENLEHRE), knowledge of the 
 obligatory and ideal, subdivides into Teleology, 
 which has to do with happiness, and Ethics, which is 
 conversant with morality. 
 
 I. Teleology has the following subdivisions: (a) 
 Pure Teleology ; (b) Applied Teleology ; (c) Euda- 
 monistic Psedagogy ; (d) Economics ; and (e) 
 Esthetics. 
 
 II. jEthics. It is subdivided into (a) Pure Ethics, 
 which treats of absolute morality ; and (b) Ethical 
 Psedagogic, which concerns itself with the relation- 
 ship of appearances to absolute morality. 
 
 D. MATHEMATICS. Stadler regards the mathe- 
 matical sciences as occupied with the possible forms 
 of phenomena. He has contented himself with 
 enumerating merely three such sciences namely, 
 Geometry, Arithmetic, and Kinetics. But are 
 mathematicians likely to be satisfied with so 
 few ? Or, are they likely to acquiesce in the 
 three that are mentioned being placed last in 
 any classification of sciences ? Is it not a fact 
 that they have very generally been accustomed 
 to see their sciences placed in the first rank of 
 most classifications of the sciences? 
 
320 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 Stadler's scheme of classification must be credited 
 with containing not a few good points and some 
 admirable suggestions. As a whole, however, it 
 is far from satisfactory, and many earlier schemes 
 are likely to be preferred to it. I have already 
 referred to Schneider's criticism of it. 
 
 Trivero. Three years later than the appearance of Stadler's 
 scheme the Classifications delle Scienze of Signor 
 Camillo Trivero was published. It is a work of 
 nearly three hundred pages, and one of the books 
 in the Collection of the Manuali Hoepli, so termed 
 from the well - known publishing firm in Milan. 
 The book of Signor Trivero has been much in- 
 fluenced by the treatise of M. Goblot that has 
 already been under consideration in this volume. 
 It may suffice to treat it briefly. 
 
 Signor Trivero maintains, like M. Goblot, the 
 necessity of classifying the sciences both from an 
 objective and a subjective point of view. All classi- 
 fications regarded only from either standpoint of 
 observation are held by him to be necessarily very 
 defective. In his opinion, as in his predecessor's, 
 the sciences must be distinguished from one another 
 either by differences of the facts with which they 
 have to deal or by differences of the points of 
 view from which the same facts are contemplated 
 and examined. Differences of method, he holds, 
 are not to be taken into account in any attempts 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 321 
 
 at classifying the sciences. He even denies that 
 there are any such methods. In that respect he 
 has gone farther than M. Goblot, inasmuch as 
 whereas the latter at least admits that there are 
 different methods correspondent to the stages or 
 phases of development in all the sciences, Trivero 
 denies that, properly understood, there are any 
 different methods. There is " only one," he affirms, 
 "only one that is good and scientific, the method 
 which proceeds from the known to the unknown ; 
 and it is of little consequence whether that method 
 ascends and is called induction, or descends and is 
 said to be deduction, or proceeds horizontally and 
 is termed analogy." These so-called methods he 
 denies to be distinct methods. 
 
 In the opinion of Trivero a system of the sciences 
 should be presented under the form, as M. Goblot 
 has said, "d'un tableau a double entree, avec 
 1 divisions horizontales ' et ' divisions verticales.' " 
 In that respect Trivero and Goblot are agreed, 
 but neither of them has worked out a scheme of 
 the kind to either order or completeness, and 
 Trivero least so, as he has presented no justi- 
 fication whatever of the " horizontal divisions." 
 Holding all knowledge to be capable of being 
 studied from three points of view, he should 
 have shown what the results would be, but that 
 he cannot be said to have successfully done. The 
 
 x 
 
322 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 three points of view are affirmed to be the his- 
 torical, scientific, and philosophic, and intimately 
 connected with them are held to be 'vertical 
 divisions' of the sciences. It does not appear, 
 however, from Trivero's scheme that almost any 
 sciences of any kind are to be seen from his 
 'points of view* or arranged in his 'divisions.' 
 The so-called first point of view is 'history,' and 
 in history ' geography ' is included, but not more 
 than ' history ' is included in ' geography.' Further, 
 history began its course not as 'science' but as 
 'art/ as 'literature,' and still is often that and 
 no more. Gradually indeed it passed into a 
 political stage, and even exercised much political 
 and social influence. Later it ceased to be satis- 
 fied with merely describing or recording historical 
 actions and events, and sought for a full com- 
 prehension and explanation of them. It thus 
 passed into the stage of theoretical and explana- 
 tory science, but with only a very slight addition 
 to the number of sciences. Beyond the scientific 
 stage there is admitted to be a philosophical stage, 
 but there is no mention of philosophical sciences, 
 and could not be expected to be, as for Trivero 
 all philosophy is merely metaphysics, and all 
 metaphysics is merely a search for the absolute. 
 Thus far the sciences exhibited must be admitted 
 to have been exceedingly few. 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 323 
 
 But a hierarchy of the sciences resting on the nat- 
 ural objects and natural sequences of those sciences 
 has still to be recognised, and according to Trivero 
 there are seven of them. The first is said to be 
 Astronomy, and to have for its object the sidereal 
 world; the second to be Geology, with the earth 
 for its object ; the third Mineralogy, which treats 
 of the mineral kingdom ; the fourth Botany, 
 which is occupied with the vegetable world; the 
 fifth Zoology, to which the animal kingdom 
 belongs ; the sixth Psychology, in so far as 
 man is more than a mere animal; and the 
 seventh Sociology, the science of man's actions 
 and productions. That may well seem to some 
 a very clear and simple distribution of the 
 sciences, or at least of a ' vertical section ' of 
 them, but it is certainly also a very inadequate 
 scheme of classification of the sciences as a com- 
 prehensive system in which are many members 
 at once distinct and related. Could there have 
 been a science of astronomy worthy of the name 
 of science had there not been prior to it logic, 
 mathematics, and so far physics? If geology be 
 pronounced a science why should geography not? 
 Can mineralogy be a science if chemistry be 
 ignored ? Is the definition given to sociology 
 one of which any sociologist would approve ? 
 Certainly not. It would be nearer to a defi- 
 
324 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 nition of anthropology. All sociologists are aware 
 that to define sociology is a very difficult affair. 
 
 In 1898 a J. GL Meyer published at Strassburg 
 a book or essay bearing the title Das naturliche 
 System der Wissenschaften. I am, however, quite 
 ignorant of its character or contents, having been 
 unable to obtain a copy, notice, or review of it, or 
 even to find out the name of its publisher. 
 
 From 1866 to his death in 1901 Monsieur J. P. 
 Durand (de Gros) devoted himself to the study of 
 classification with more zeal, perhaps, than any one 
 in France or elsewhere, while deploring that even 
 naturalists and logicians had contributed exceedingly 
 little towards the development of what seemed to 
 him might be, and ought to be, made a complete 
 and well-established science of universal classifica- 
 tion or orderly arrangement in every direction, the 
 science to which he has given the appropriate title 
 of Taxinomy. The most important of his works, 
 perhaps, is the one entitled Apergus de Taxinomie 
 Generate, published at Paris in 1899 (by F. Alcan, 
 editeur, pp. 265). Too modestly he described himself 
 as merely a pioneer in a region where he had really 
 laboured for almost a lifetime, and seems to have 
 found in it much which alike his predecessors and 
 contemporaries had overlooked. A more earnest 
 and independent treatment of it there could scarcely 
 be. A vainer man who had done as much would 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 325 
 
 have not unlikely claimed to be the author of a 
 Scienza Nuova. Yet few readers, and especially 
 readers outside of France, would, I fear, be likely 
 to do justice to such works as those of M. Dur- 
 and, suggestive and instructive although they be. 
 It seems desirable, therefore, to state that of the 
 Apergus there are two good yet brief notices which 
 will be no great burdens on their readers. One is 
 that of Monsieur F. Paulhan in the Revue Phil- 
 osophique for April 1899 (pp. 419 - 424). The 
 other is that of Prof. Bosanquet in Mind for 
 October 1899 (pp. 531-535). 
 
 Both reviewers have naturally dwelt chiefly on 
 the main subjects of the works reviewed, those 
 which Durand himself called the Four Taxinomic 
 Orders or Problems. The First Order is described 
 as that of Generality or Resemblance. The classi- 
 fications of botany and zoology are applications of 
 it, specially included in it, and familiar to us in the 
 relationship between genera and species. Induction, 
 generalisation, and specification are processes im- 
 plied in it. The entire order is based on the rela- 
 tionship of genus to species and of species to genus. 
 Not so the Second Order, the order of Composition 
 or Collectivity. It is founded on the relation of 
 whole to part and part to whole, and has for its 
 objects concrete objects, not abstract conceptions 
 like those in the first order. The Third Order is 
 
326 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 the order of Hierarchy or Relationship of Rank. 
 It is maintained to rest on relationships of sub- 
 ordination, as, e.g., of superiority, equality, and 
 inferiority. The Fourth Order is that of Genealogy 
 and Evolution, and is represented as dependent on 
 affinities of kinship under the three species of ascent, 
 collaterally, and descent. Taxinomy was Durand's 
 great contribution to classification, and it was with 
 classification as a whole that he felt himself bound 
 to see it as far as possible fully developed. A classifi- 
 cation of the sciences was accordingly not overlooked 
 by him. But he cannot be said to have given it 
 any special attention. It would appear as if it 
 were regarded by him as a comparatively small 
 affair, the settlement of which could only be attained 
 through a rational evolution of the science of taxi- 
 nomy itself. Study, he seems to have thought, 
 the variations of all the objects and methods of 
 the objects and relations of the sciences, and you 
 will necessarily learn to classify the sciences aright, 
 although so many have failed to do so. We can 
 understand, therefore, how, although he dealt to 
 some extent in the last chapter of the Apergus with 
 the classification of the sciences, it was to a very 
 small extent, and led to no result of consequence. 
 
 There is no apparent likelihood of there being 
 fewer attempts at classifications of the sciences in 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PKESENT TIME. 327 
 
 the present than in the past century. No one 
 classification of the kind has yet been generally 
 adopted. The number of sciences to be classified 
 seem to be on the increase, and some of them are 
 difficult both to define and locate. New sciences 
 are generally found to speedily introduce others. 
 An active philosophy is sure to agitate questions 
 which call for settlement from sciences that had 
 previously been dormant or ignored. The great 
 increase of interest shown by scientists of late in 
 classification itself is of itself evidence that classifi- 
 cations of the sciences will not decrease but increase 
 in number. Both taxinomy and morphology are 
 obviously working in that direction under the 
 belief of those who cultivate them that each science 
 is to be carefully assigned to its appropriate posi- 
 tion in an appropriate class. It does not follow 
 that a correct and adequate classification of the 
 sciences will be either easily or speedily found. 
 It will certainly not be found in any single linear 
 series. It is much more complicated than that, 
 and seems to be always becoming more compli- 
 cated. The older sciences are at least as fruitful 
 as they ever were, and the newer sciences are now 
 seldom regarded with suspicion, but, on the con- 
 trary, rapidly adopted and warmly welcomed. 
 
 Consider for an instant the positions occupied 
 by those three recent and very interesting and 
 
328 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 flourishing sciences called Anthropology, Ethno- 
 logy, and Sociology. There are, perhaps, none 
 which have come more rapidly to the front or 
 attracted more attention. Nor are there almost 
 any sciences which have taken possession of vaster 
 regions or more numerous provinces. But they so 
 interlap one another at all points, and so over- 
 spread ground claimed by all of them with almost 
 or altogether equal rights, that it is difficult to say 
 what are their external limits or internal contents. 
 So far as they have hitherto been dealt with, any 
 one of them would seem to be largely occupied in 
 attempting to supplant the other two, while profess- 
 ing to be entirely co-operating with them. 
 
 Anthropology is a real and very important 
 science, the success of which has been great and well- 
 deserved owing to the labours of its many zealous 
 students. In the United States of America alone 
 there are about forty Universities, and in the 
 majority of them several teachers of the science, 
 anthropological museums, and various means of 
 practical anthropological study. Great Britain and 
 Ireland are not so advanced owing to their want of 
 encouragement and support, but individuals have 
 amply shown how much they could do, and how 
 much more with ampler means might be done. 
 There is happily one admirable institution in the 
 
FKOM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 329 
 
 kingdom devoted to the study of anthropological 
 science, and which is well known to have an admir- 
 able organ in the Journal of the Anthropological 
 Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, a large 
 annual volume now in the twenty-fourth year of 
 its existence. 
 
 Its eminent president, Dr A. C. Haddon, delivered 
 on January 27, 1903, a very interesting address on 
 Anthropology, Its Position and Needs. But the 
 very opening sentences of his address are these : 
 " A peculiarity of the study of Anthropology is its 
 lack of demarcations : sooner or later the student 
 of Anthropology finds himself wandering into fields 
 that are occupied by other sciences. The practical 
 difficulty of drawing a dividing-line between the 
 legitimate scope of Anthropology and that of other 
 studies is so great that we are often told there is no 
 science of Anthropology. This lack of definiteness 
 adds a charm to the subject and is fertile in the 
 production of new ideas, for it is at the fringe of a 
 science that originality has its greatest scope. It is, 
 however, only by a synthesis of the various studies 
 which are grouped together under the term Anthro- 
 pology, that one can hope to gain a clear conception 
 of what man is, and what he has done." * And he 
 adds : "It may be logically consistent to distribute 
 portions of Anthropology among other sciences, but 
 
 1 Vol. xxxiii. p. 11. 
 
330 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 the result would be that the subject would suffer, 
 and unless a society like our Anthropological Insti- 
 tute busied itself with the study as a whole, it would 
 be developed very unequally. Indeed, to be quite 
 candid, at the present there is very little direction 
 in the evolution of Anthropology, or in the study of 
 its branches." 1 He has further drawn out, with the 
 fully acknowledged co-operation of Professor Patrick 
 Geddes, a very remarkable scheme of classification 
 of sciences, or at least of studies, all held to belong 
 to, and even to be portions of, Anthropology. The 
 scheme is represented as having three planes. The 
 lowermost plane may be designated anthropological 
 and even biological. Adherent to it are held to be 
 the following sciences, and they are arranged in two 
 parallel series thus : 
 
 2. Palaeontology. 
 
 Taxonomy. 
 
 (Ecology. 
 
 Rational Phylogeny. 
 
 1. Embryology. 
 
 Anatomy. 
 
 Physiology. 
 
 Rational Ontogeny. 
 
 I. 
 
 The two series are included in the first and 
 lowermost plane. Series number one is the lowest 
 of all in the scheme, and on the whole lies beyond 
 the legitimate bounds of both Anthropology and 
 Sociology, Taxonomy and Anatomy. Neither Tax- 
 onomy nor Anatomy belongs exclusively or dis- 
 tinctively to Man. The same is true of Physiology. 
 
 1 Vol. iii. p. 11. 
 
FKOM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 
 
 331 
 
 (Ecology is an ambiguous term, being employed by 
 some, Hseckel for example, to denote the science 
 of Economics as applied to plants and animals, 
 and by others to nature-folk as distinguished from 
 culture-folk. The term Ontogeny is employed in 
 biology and psychology for individual development, 
 as contrasted with the term Phylogeny, which is 
 used to denote the process of the descent and 
 development of species, and to explain the ancestry 
 and genetic relations of organisms. 
 
 The second plane with its two parallel series are 
 manifestly more entitled to be regarded as of an 
 anthropographical or anthropological stage than the 
 first. It is, however, arranged just in the same 
 way. It is the intermediate stage or plane, and 
 its two parallel series are the following : 
 
 4. Palaeontology 
 of Man. 
 
 Racial Classifica- 
 tion of Man. 
 
 Anthropographical 
 (Ecology. 
 
 Rational 
 Phylogeny. 
 
 3. Comparative 
 Human Em- 
 bryology. 
 
 Comparative Hu- 
 man Anatomy. 
 
 Comparative Hu- 
 man Physio- 
 logy- 
 
 Rational 
 Ontogeny. 
 
 II. 
 
 The man who appears at that stage is truly man, 
 although far from fully man. He is not a mere 
 animal but a social and rational being which has 
 occupations and institutions of the kind distinctly 
 recognisable as human. 
 
 On the third plane man is seen to have risen, 
 
332 
 
 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 aided by the stepping-stones of the stages I. and 
 II., or what is equivalent, those of the series 1, 2, 
 3, and 4. It is the plane or stage on which, as 
 President Haddon says, "the limitations of the 
 classification in the animal plane are largely tran- 
 scended," " all the enterprises of social man studied," 
 and where " Psychology takes us into the inner 
 sanctuary of man, and while it, too, has its roots in 
 his animal nature, it flowers, so to speak, in a realm 
 of its own. In the third stage, the uppermost stage, 
 Ethnology and Sociology are identified without 
 proof given. They should be treated as distinct. 
 The uppermost plane is the last, and composed of 
 the two following series of sciences, or supposed 
 sciences, thus : 
 
 6. Archaeology. 
 
 Social Taxonomy. 
 
 Economics and 
 Politics. 
 
 Philosophy 
 of History. 
 
 5. Evolution of 
 Institutions. 
 
 Analysis of In- 
 stitutions and 
 Technology. 
 
 Functioning of Oc- 
 cupations and 
 of Institutions. 
 Linguistics. 
 
 Criticism of 
 Institu- 
 tions. 
 
 III. 
 
 President Haddon and Professor Geddes have 
 presented as a whole the planes, sections, and 
 series of their scheme of classification. That, it 
 seems to me, may be found rather too difficult for 
 general comprehension. Therefore I have also dis- 
 tributed it into parts and sections, without the 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 333 
 
 least addition, however, of my own. But there 
 should be no difficulty in piecing them together, 
 starting from the bottom to the top, as indicated by 
 the planes L, II. , and III., and connecting the mem- 
 bers of each series by the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 
 In accordance with the views of the authors of the 
 classification, Embryology is set down as its first 
 term and Philosophy of History as its last. That 
 may imply either that the intervening distance be- 
 tween the first and the last link is vast or that it is 
 not. Embryology regarded as a science is of very 
 recent origin. Yon Baer and F. M. Balfour were 
 among the earliest, as well as the best known, of its 
 originators. Eegarded as a history, an evolutionary 
 or developmental process, between the present hour 
 and the origin of embryonic existences, millions on 
 millions of years may have intervened. Then as to 
 the last term, Philosophy of History, why should it 
 be where it is and Sociology left unnamed ? Socio- 
 logy claims to be a science, and, if not the very 
 last, at least almost the last attained, whereas Philo- 
 sophy of History does not claim to be an exact 
 science, although it has generally claimed to be as 
 good or better. History is a very ambiguous term. 
 Everything has a history, the world and all things 
 therein, a molecule of matter no less than the 
 British Empire. Whatever exists, whatever acts, 
 in the heavens or on the earth is history, and that 
 
334 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 which is purely and strictly history. The best 
 narrative of history is only a verbal history of a 
 real history, the history of a history. So there may 
 be a science of history ; but the science of history, 
 too, is, and must be, another thing than the history. 
 And as there is a science of history, so there is 
 a philosophy of history, and it must rest on what is 
 actual history, not history of history, science of 
 history, or itself, i.e., philosophy of history. Socio- 
 logy may, and not without reason, attempt to be a 
 Science of History. Philosophy of History may not 
 reasonably do so, but it is bound to aim at being 
 more than any mere science or any single science 
 whatever. It cannot be difficult to recognise defects 
 in the scheme of classification presented. To in- 
 clude the Philosophy of History in Anthropology 
 implies the impossible, the enclosure of a larger 
 system in a smaller. And further, there are other 
 sciences seemingly as well entitled to a place in the 
 scheme as those which are there. The general 
 utility of the scheme, however, may readily be 
 acknowledged. Acquaintance with most of the 
 ^ubjects drawn into it cannot fail to be helpful to an 
 anthropologist. Enough, however, may now have 
 been said of Anthropology, as it has not yet been 
 clearly and successfully discriminated from either 
 Ethnology or Sociology, although it is manifestly a 
 member of the same group. 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 335 
 
 As Ethnography corresponds, or at least should 
 correspond, to Anthropography, so should Ethnology 
 to Anthropology. Ethnography is merely the de- 
 scriptive study of all ascertainable groups of peoples. 
 Ethnology is in a stricter sense a science, although 
 one intimately connected with and greatly aided by 
 Ethnography . The latter is occupied with the ob- 
 servation of human groups and organisations, of 
 hordes, clans, races, peoples, and nations, or, in 
 other words, with the status, occupations, and insti- 
 tutions of mankind, whereas the former aims at 
 carrying out the fullest possible investigation and 
 explanation of all that Ethnography may have dis- 
 covered and described. Keane's Ethnology is an 
 admirable exposition of the science so called. It 
 deals in a singularly lucid style alike with the funda- 
 mental ethnical problems and the primary ethnical 
 groups. The work issued from the Cambridge Uni- 
 versity Press in 1896. As regards the accumulation 
 of ethnographical and ethnological facts and theories, 
 perhaps the Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic : Organ der 
 Berliner Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie, Ethno- 
 logic, und Urgeschichte, founded in 1869, has not 
 been surpassed, owing doubtless to having started 
 with the support of such indefatigable workers as 
 A. Bastian, R. Hartmann, and E. Virchow. 
 
 Sociology is an advance on Ethnology, as Ethno- 
 logy is on Anthropology. It has often been referred 
 
336 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 to in this work in connection with the views of it 
 given by Comte, Spencer, J. S. Masaryk, De Eoberty, 
 and many others. Very opposite views of it are 
 still given by equally able men. For instance, Prof. 
 Giddings, a most distinguished American thinker 
 and economist, published in 1897 his Principles of 
 Sociology, a work in which the nature of sociology 
 as a science, of its place among the sciences, of its 
 appropriate method, its territory, and distribution of 
 parts, &c., were most skilfully exhibited. In the 
 same year, however, a very subtle and elaborate 
 attempt was made by Prof. Hyslop of Columbia 
 University, in a Supplementary Number of the 
 American Journal of Sociology, to refute the 
 views of his predecessor. There he dealt with 
 Prof. Giddings' classification in detail, and exam- 
 ined and criticised a number of possible systems 
 regarding the relations between Sociology and all 
 its cognate and auxiliary sciences, or sources of 
 knowledge. 
 
 In America, and all the chief countries of Europe, 
 Sociology has now attracted to itself a wide, vivid, 
 and growingly increasing interest. Perhaps its im- 
 portance has been most adequately realised in the 
 United States, where it has been taught in almost 
 all their Universities, and in a generally inde- 
 pendent and practical way. Britain must be 
 admitted to have lagged behind, but has now 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 337 
 
 seemingly awakened up to its duty and interests in 
 the matter. The newly formed Sociological Society 
 starts on right lines, and promises to be worthy of 
 what it should be. It is to be hoped that it may 
 have, as so many other countries already have, an ap- 
 propriate literary organ for such a science as Socio- 
 logy is. Of such an organ the Annee Sociologique, 
 founded in 1896, and since then till now directed 
 by M. Durkheim and an able body of collaborateurs, 
 seems to be an excellent model. The distribution 
 of the matter in it appears to be about as appro- 
 priate as possible. Little that is relevant to what 
 Sociology is seems to escape the sociological net, or 
 to fail to find in it something that may be of use. 
 The classification in the Annee is from its first year 
 (1896-1897) to its present year (1903-1904) scarcely 
 at all altered, a fact which shows that the scheme 
 had been maturely conceived from the first. An 
 "Analysis of the Sociological Literature (in Books 
 and in Periodicals) summarised in the Annee 
 Sociologique for 1902 " will be found at the close 
 of a very valuable paper by Mr Victor V. Branford, 
 " On the Origin and Use of the Word Sociology, 
 and on the Eelation of Sociological to other Studies 
 and to Practical Problems." The great variety of 
 classifications of the contents of Sociology to be 
 found in books and pamphlets at the present time 
 should not be regarded as in any way disproving or 
 
338 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 discrediting the validity and worth of Sociology. 
 It shows merely that Sociology as the general social 
 science is an extremely comprehensive science when 
 compared or contrasted with the special social sciences 
 which are occupied with the composition, elements, 
 and internal organisation of social groups within 
 comparatively limited spheres. There are many 
 'approaches/ as Prof. Geddes says, to Sociology. 
 There are likewise many sections, and also sub- 
 sections, each of which has its own special charac- 
 teristics, and depends on distinctive phenomena 
 (statistical, physical, organic, psychical, anthropo- 
 logical, ethnological, or theological), yet which none 
 the less belong to Sociology itself. 1 
 
 I must now hasten to a close. My history of the 
 classifications of the sciences may be said to be 
 ended, and a few concluding words are all that 
 seem called for. 
 
 I have not meant the book to be more than what 
 its title means, and I have brought the history con- 
 tained in it down to the present time. That that 
 history is needed, no one, I think, for whom it has 
 been intended, can fail to acknowledge. It is 
 meant only for a certain class of persons, and 
 
 1 The most comprehensive study of the nature, methods, and aims 
 of Sociology is the Sistema di Sociologies, 1901 (pp. 664), of Errico 
 De Marinis, Professor in the University of Naples and Parliament- 
 ary Deputy. 
 
FROM PAUL JANET TO PRESENT TIME. 339 
 
 whether the class be a large or a small one I do 
 not profess to know. It is a history brought down 
 to a given date, or, practically speaking, the present 
 day. I do not pretend to have succeeded in col- 
 lecting and dealing with all classifications of the 
 sciences, but I hope to have come nearer than 
 any one else to success in that respect. I have 
 little doubt that of those who take up the book 
 into their hands there will be a considerable pro- 
 portion who deem its chief fault to be that so 
 very many schemes of classification are presented 
 in it. That criticism or objection will not touch 
 me at all. A selection of comparatively interest- 
 ing classifications is not needed, and it can be 
 of very little worth to any one who wishes to 
 have an historical view of the process of classifi- 
 cation of the sciences. 
 
 While I am writing these lines there is being 
 held at St Louis, U.S.A., a Universal Exposition, 
 an International Congress of Arts and Sciences, 
 the express object of which is "to discuss and set 
 forth the unification and mutual relations of the 
 sciences, and to thus overcome the lack of relation 
 and harmony in the scattered specialistic sciences of 
 our day." There has never, so far as I am aware, 
 been known in the history of the world any such 
 event in the history of classifications of the sciences, 
 and if that event be a success the latter history, 
 
340 CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 the history of classifications of the sciences, far 
 from being ended or drawing near to a close, must 
 receive an altogether exceptionally powerful pro- 
 gressive impetus. 
 
 Considering the character of the arrangements 
 and the qualifications of those to whom they are 
 intrusted, there is every likelihood that the event 
 will be a great success. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SOXS. . 
 
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