Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume II

• TABLE III.

• CONCRETE SCIENCE.

• Universal laws of the continuous re-distribution of Matter and Motion; which results in Evolution where there is a predominant integration of Matter and dissipation of Motion, and which results in Dissolution where there is a predominant absorption of Motion and disintegration of Matter.

• Laws of the redistributions of Matter and Motion actually going on

• among the celestial bodies in their relations to one another as masses: comprehending (ASTRONOMY)

• the dynamics of our solar system. (Planetary Astronomy.)

• the dynamics of our stellar universe. (Sidereal Astronomy.)

• among the molecules of any celestial mass; as caused by

• the actions of these molecules on one another (ASTROGENY)

• resulting in the formation of compound molecules. (Solar Mineralogy.)

• resulting in molecular motions and genesis of radiant forces.9

• resulting in movements of gases and liquids. (Solar Meteorology.10)

• the actions of these molecules on one another, joined with the actions on them of forces radiated by the molecules of other masses: (GEOGENY)

• as exhibited in the planets generally.

• as exhibited in the Earth

• causing composition and of decomposition of inorganic matters. (Mineralogy.)

• causing re-distributions of gases and liquids. (Meteorology.)

• causing re-distributions of solids. (Geology.)

• causing organic phenomena; which are (Biology)

• those of structure (Morphology)

• general.

• special.

• those of function

• in their internal relations (Physiology)

• general.

• special.

• in their external relations (Psychology)

• general

• special

• separate.

• combined. (Sociology.11)

That these great groups of Sciences and their respective sub-groups, fulfil the definition of a true classification given at the outset, is, I think, tolerably manifest. The subjects of inquiry included in each primary division, have essential attributes in common with one another, which they have not in common with any of the subjects contained in the other primary divisions; and they have, by consequence, a greater number of attributes in which they are severally like the subjects they are grouped with, and unlike the subjects otherwise grouped. Between Sciences which deal with relations apart from realities, and Sciences which deal with realities, the distinction is the widest possible; since Being, in some or all of its attributes, is common to all Sciences of the second class, and excluded from all Sciences of the first class. And when we divide the Sciences which treat of realities, into those which deal with their component phenomena considered in ideal separation and those which deal with their component phenomena as actually united, we make a profounder distinction than can exist between the Sciences which deal with one or other order of the components, or than can exist between the Sciences which deal with one or other order of the things composed. The three groups of Sciences may be briefly defined as – laws of the forms; laws of the factors; laws of the products. 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 instrumental 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.

Concerning the sub-divisions of these great groups, little remains to be added. That each of the groups, being co-extensive with all phenomena, contains truths that are universal and others that are not universal, and that these must be classed apart, is obvious. And that the sub-divisions of the non-universal truths, are to be made according to their decreasing generality in something like the manner shown in the Tables, is proved by the fact that when the descriptive words are read from the root to the extremity of any branch, they form a definition of the Science constituting that branch. That the minor divisions might be otherwise arranged, and that better definitions of them might be given, is highly probable. They are here set down merely for the purpose of showing how this method of classification works out.

I will only further remark that the relations of the Sciences as thus represented, are still but imperfectly represented: their relations cannot be truly shown on a plane, but only in space of three dimensions. The three groups cannot rightly be put in linear order as they have here been. Since the first stands related to the third, not only indirectly through the second, but also directly – it is directly instrumental with respect to the third, and the third supplies it directly with subject-matter. Their relations can thus only be truly shown by branches diverging from a common root on different sides, in such a way that each stands in juxta-position to the other two. And only by a like mode of arrangement, can the relations among the sub-divisions of each group be correctly represented.

The foregoing exposition, highly abstract as it is, will by some readers be less readily followed than a more concrete one. With the view of carrying conviction to such I will re-state the case in two ways: the first of them adapted only to those who accept the doctrine of Evolution in its most general form.

We set out with concentrating nebulous matter. Tracing the re-distributions of this, as the rotating contracting spheroid leaves behind successive annuli and as these severally form secondary rotating spheroids, we come at length to planets in their early stages. Thus far we consider the phenomena dealt with purely astronomical; and so long as our Earth, regarded as one of these spheroids, was made up of gaseous and molten matters only, it presented no data for any more complex Concrete Science. In the lapse of cosmical time a solid film forms, which, in the course of millions of years, thickens, and, in the course of further millions of years, becomes cool enough to permit the precipitation, first of various other gaseous compounds, and finally of water. Presently, the varying exposure of different parts of the spheroid to the Sun’s rays, begins to produce appreciable effects; until at length there have arisen meteorological actions, and consequent geological actions, such as those we now know: determined partly by the Sun’s heat, partly by the still-retained internal heat of the Earth, and partly by the action of the Moon on the ocean? How have we reached these geological phenomena? When did the astronomical changes end and the geological changes begin? It needs but to ask this question to see that there is no real division between the two. Putting pre-conceptions aside, we find nothing more than a group of phenomena continually complicating under the influence of the same original factors; and we see that our conventional division is defensible only on grounds of convenience. Let us advance a stage. As the Earth’s surface continues to cool, passing through all degrees of temperature by infinitesimal gradations, the formation of more and more complex inorganic compounds becomes possible. Later, its surface sinks to that heat at which the less complex compounds of the kinds called organic can exist; and, finally, the formation of the more complex organic compounds takes place. Chemists now show us that these compounds may be built up synthetically in the laboratory – each stage in ascending complexity making possible the next higher stage. Hence it is inferable that, in the myriads of laboratories, endlessly diversified in their materials and conditions, which the Earth’s surface furnished during the myriads of years occupied in passing through these stages of temperature, such successive syntheses were effected; and that the highly complex unstable substance out of which all organisms are composed, was eventually formed in microscopic portions: from which, by continuous integrations and differentiations, the evolution of all organisms has proceeded. Where then shall we draw the line between Geology and Biology? The synthesis of this most complex compound, is but a continuation of the syntheses by which all simpler compounds were formed. The same primary factors have been co-operating with those secondary factors, meteorologic and geologic, previously derived from them. Nowhere do we find a break in the ever-complicating series; for there is a manifest connexion between those movements which various complex compounds undergo during their isomeric transformations, and those changes of form undergone by the protoplasm which we distinguish as living. Strongly contrasted as they eventually become, biological phenomena are at their root inseparable from geological phenomena – inseparable from the aggregate of transformations continually wrought in the matters forming the Earth’s surface by the physical forces to which they are exposed. Further stages I need not particularize. The gradual development out of the biological group of phenomena, of the more specialized group we class as psychological, needs no illustration. And when we come to the highest psychological phenomena, it is clear that since aggregations of human beings may be traced upwards from single wandering families to tribes and nations of all sizes and complexities, we pass insensibly from the phenomena of individual human action to those of corporate human action. To resume, then, is it not manifest that in the group of sciences – Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Psychology, Sociology, we have a natural group that admits neither of disruption nor change of order? Here there is both a genetic dependence, and a dependence of interpretations. The phenomena have arisen in this succession in cosmical time; and complete scientific interpretation of each group depends on scientific interpretation of the preceding groups. No other science can be thrust in anywhere without destroying the continuity. To insert Physics between Astronomy and Geology, would be to make a break in the history of a continuous series of changes; and a like break would be produced by inserting Chemistry between Geology and Biology. It is true that Physics and Chemistry are needful as interpreters of these successive assemblages of facts; but it does not therefore follow that they are themselves to be placed among these assemblages.

Concrete Science, made up of these five concrete sub-sciences, being thus coherent within itself, and separated from all other science, there comes the question – Is all other science similarly coherent within itself? or is it traversed by some second division that is equally decided? It is thus traversed. A statical or dynamical theorem, however simple, has always for its subject-matter something that is conceived as extended, and as displaying force or forces – as being a seat of resistance, or of tension, or of both, and as capable of possessing more or less of vis viva. If we examine the simplest proposition of Statics, we see that the conception of Force must be joined with the conception of Space, before the proposition can be framed in thought; and if we similarly examine the simplest proposition in Dynamics, we see that Force, Space, and Time, are its essential elements. The amounts of the terms are indifferent; and, by reduction of its terms beyond the limits of perception, they are applied to molecules: Molar Mechanics and Molecular Mechanics are continuous. From questions concerning the relative motions of two or more molecules, Molecular Mechanics passes to changes of aggregation among many molecules, to changes in the amounts and kinds of the motions possessed by them as members of an aggregate, and to changes of the motions transferred through aggregates of them, as those constituting light. Daily extending its range of interpretations, it is coming to deal even with the components of each compound molecule on the same principles. And the unions and disunions of such more or less compound molecules, which constitute the phenomena of Chemistry, are also being conceived as resultant phenomena of essentially kindred natures – the affinities of molecules for one another, and their reactions in relation to light, heat, and other modes of force, being regarded as consequent on the combinations of the various mechanically-determined motions of their various components. Without at all out-running, however, this progress in the mechanical interpretation of molecular phenomena, it suffices to point out that the indispensable elements in any chemical conception are units occupying places in space, and exerting forces on one another. This, then, is the common character of all these sciences which we at present group under the names of Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry. Leaving undiscussed the question whether it is possible to conceive of force apart from extended somethings exerting it, we may assert, as beyond dispute, that if the conception of force be expelled, no science of Mechanics, Physics, or Chemistry remains. Made coherent, as these sciences are, by this bond of union, it is impossible to thrust among them any other science without breaking their continuity. We cannot place Logic between Molar Mechanics and Molecular Mechanics. We cannot place Mathematics between the group of propositions concerning the behaviour of homogeneous molecules to one another, and the group of propositions concerning the behaviour of heterogeneous molecules to one another (which we call Chemistry). Clearly these two sciences lie outside the coherent whole we have contemplated; separated from it in some radical way.

By what are they radically separated? By the absence of the conception of force through which alone we know objects as existing or acting. However true it may be that so long as Logic and Mathematics have any terms at all, these must be capable of affecting consciousness, and, by implication, of exerting force; yet it is the distinctive trait of these sciences that not only do their propositions make no reference to such force, but, as far as possible, they deliberately ignore it. Instead of being, as in all the other sciences, an element that is not only recognized but vital; in Mathematics and Logic, force is an element that is not only not vital, but is studiously not recognized. The terms in which Logic expresses its propositions, are symbols that do not profess to represent things, properties, or powers, of one kind more than another; and may equally well stand for the attributes belonging to members of some connected series of ideal curves which have never been drawn, as for so many real objects. And the theorems of Geometry, so far from contemplating perceptible lines and surfaces as elements in the truths enunciated, consider these truths as becoming absolute only when such lines and surfaces become ideal – only when the conception of something exercising force is extruded.

Let me now make a second re-statement, not implying acceptance of the doctrine of Evolution, but exhibiting with a clearness almost if not quite as great, these fundamental distinctions.

The concrete sciences, taken together or separately, contemplate as their subject-matters, aggregates – either the entire aggregate of sensible existences, or some secondary aggregate separable from this entire aggregate, or some tertiary aggregate separable from this, and so on. Sidereal Astronomy occupies itself with the totality of visible masses distributed through space; which it deals with as made up of identifiable individuals occupying specified places, and severally standing towards one another, towards sub-groups, and towards the entire group, in defined ways. Planetary Astronomy, cutting out of this all-including aggregate that relatively minute part constituting the Solar System, deals with this as a whole – observes, measures, and calculates the sizes, shapes, distances, motions, of its primary, secondary, and tertiary members; and, taking for its larger inquiries the mutual actions of all these members as parts of a coordinated assemblage, takes for its smaller inquiries the actions of each member considered as an individual, having a set of intrinsic activities that are modified by a set of extrinsic activities. Restricting itself to one of these aggregates, which admits of close examination, Geology (using this word in its comprehensive meaning) gives an account of terrestrial actions and terrestrial structures, past and present; and, taking for its narrower problems local formations and the agencies to which they are due, takes for its larger problems the serial transformations undergone by the entire Earth. The geologist being occupied with this cosmically small, but otherwise vast, aggregate, the biologist occupies himself with small aggregates formed out of parts of the Earth’s superficial substance, and treats each of these as a coordinated whole in its structures and functions; or, when he treats of any particular organ, considers this as a whole made up of parts held in a sub-coordination that refers to the coordination of the entire organism. To the psychologist he leaves those specialized aggregates of functions which adjust the actions of organisms to the complex activities surrounding them: doing this, not simply because they are a stage higher in speciality, but because they are the counterparts of those aggregated states of consciousness dealt with by the science of Subjective Psychology, which stands entirely apart from all other sciences. Finally, the sociologist considers each tribe and nation as an aggregate presenting multitudinous phenomena, simultaneous and successive, that are held together as parts of one combination. Thus, in every case, a concrete science deals with a real aggregate (or a plurality of real aggregates); and it includes as its subject-matter whatever is to be known of this aggregate in respect of its size, shape, motions, density, texture, general arrangement of parts, minute structure, chemical composition, temperature, etc., together with all the multitudinous changes, material and dynamical, gone through by it from the time it begins to exist as an aggregate to the time it ceases to exist as an aggregate.

No abstract-concrete science makes the remotest attempt to do anything of this sort. Taken together, the abstract-concrete sciences give an account of the various kinds of properties which aggregates display; and each abstract-concrete science concerns itself with a certain order of these properties. By this, the properties common to all aggregates are studied and formulated; by that, the properties of aggregates having special forms, special states of aggregation, etc.; and by others, the properties of particular components of aggregates when dissociated from other components. But by all these sciences the aggregate, considered as an individual object, is tacitly ignored; and a property, or a connected set of properties, exclusively occupies attention. It matters not to Mechanics whether the moving mass it considers is a planet or a molecule, a dead stick thrown into the river or the living dog that leaps after it: in any case the curve described by the moving mass conforms to the same laws. Similarly when the physicist takes for his subject the relation between the changing bulk of matter and the changing quantity of molecular motion it contains. Dealing with the subject generally, he leaves out of consideration the kind of matter; and dealing with the subject specially in relation to this or that kind of matter, he ignores the attributes of size and form: save in the still more special cases where the effect on form is considered, and even then size is ignored. So, too, is it with the chemist. A substance he is investigating, never thought of by him as distinguished in extension or amount, is not even required to be perceptible. A portion of carbon on which he is experimenting, may or may not have been visible under its forms of diamond or graphite or charcoal – this is indifferent. He traces it through various disguises and various combinations – now as united with oxygen to form an invisible gas; now as hidden with other elements in such more complex compounds as ether, and sugar, and oil. By sulphuric acid or other agent he precipitates it from these as a coherent cinder, or as a diffused impalpable powder; and again, by applying heat, forces it to disclose itself as an element of animal tissue. Evidently, while thus ascertaining the affinities and atomic equivalence of carbon, the chemist has nothing to do with any aggregate. He deals with carbon in the abstract, as something considered apart from quantity, form, appearance, or temporary state of combination; and conceives it as the possessor of powers or properties, whence the special phenomena he describes result: the ascertaining of all these powers or properties being his sole aim.

Finally, the Abstract Sciences ignore alike aggregates and the powers which aggregates or their components possess; and occupy themselves with relations – either with the relations among aggregates, or among their parts, or the relations among aggregates and properties, or the relations among properties, or the relations among relations. The same logical formula applies equally well, whether its terms are men and their deaths, crystals and their planes of cleavage, or plants and their seeds. And how entirely Mathematics concerns itself with relations, we see on remembering that it has just the same expression for the characters of an infinitesimal triangle, as for those of the triangle which has Sirius for its apex and the diameter of the Earth’s orbit for its base.

I cannot see how these definitions of these groups of sciences can be questioned. It is undeniable that every Concrete Science gives an account of an aggregate or of aggregates, inorganic, organic, or super-organic (a society); and that, not concerning itself with properties of this or that order, it concerns itself with the co-ordination of the assembled properties of all orders. It seems to me no less certain that an Abstract-Concrete Science gives an account of some order of properties, general or special; not caring about the other traits of an aggregate displaying them, and not recognizing aggregates at all further than is implied by discussion of the particular order of properties. And I think it is equally clear that an Abstract Science, freeing its propositions, so far as the nature of thought permits, from aggregates and properties, occupies itself with relations of co-existence and sequence, as disentangled from all particular forms of being and action. If then these three groups of sciences are, respectively, accounts of aggregates , accounts of properties , accounts of relations , it is manifest that the divisions between them are not simply perfectly clear, but that the chasms between them are absolute.

Here, perhaps more clearly than before, will be seen the untenability of the classification made by M. Comte. Already, after setting forth in a general way these fundamental distinctions, I have pointed out the incongruities that arise when the sciences, conceived as Abstract, Abstract-Concrete, and Concrete, are arranged in the order proposed by him. Such incongruities become still more conspicuous if for these general names of the groups we substitute the definitions given above. The series will then stand thus: —

• MATHEMATICS.. An account of relations (including, under Mechanics, an account of properties).

• ASTRONOMY.. An account of aggregates.

• PHYSICS.. An account of properties.

• CHEMISTRY.. An account of properties.

• BIOLOGY.. An account of aggregates.