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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