Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume II. Spencer Herbert

– their quantitativeness – we also see to have been the characteristic alike of the initial steps in science, and of all the steps succeeding them. The facts and admissions cited in disproof of the assertion that the sciences follow one another, both logically and historically, in the order of their decreasing generality, have been enforced by the instances we have met with, showing that a more general science as much owes its progress to the presentation of new problems by a more special science, as the more special science owes its progress to the solutions which the more general science is thus led to attempt – instances, therefore, illustrating the position that scientific advance is as much from the special to the general as from the general to the special. Quite in harmony with this position we find to be the admissions that the sciences are as branches of one trunk, and that they were at first cultivated simultaneously. This harmony becomes the more marked on finding, as we have done, not only that the sciences have a common root, but that science in general has a common root with language, classification, reasoning, art; that throughout civilization these have advanced together, acting and reacting upon each other just as the separate sciences have done; and that thus the development of intelligence in all its divisions and sub-divisions has conformed to this same law which we have shown that the sciences conform to. From all which we may perceive that the sciences can with no greater propriety be arranged in a succession, than language, classification, reasoning, art, and science, can be arranged in a succession; that, however needful a succession may be for the convenience of books and catalogues, it must be recognized as merely a convention; and that so far from its being the function of a philosophy of the sciences to establish a hierarchy, it is its function to show that the linear arrangements required for literary purposes, have none of them any basis either in Nature or History.

      There is one further remark we must not omit – a remark touching the importance of the question that has been discussed. Topics of this abstract nature are commonly slighted as of no practical moment; and, doubtless, many will think it of little consequence what theory respecting the genesis of science may be entertained. But the value of truths is often great, in proportion as their generality is wide. And it must be so here. A correct theory of the development of the sciences must have an important effect on education; and, through education, on civilization. Much as we differ from him in other respects, we agree with M. Comte in the belief that, rightly conducted, the education of the individual must have a certain correspondence with the evolution of the race. No one can contemplate the facts we have cited in illustration of the early stages of science, without recognizing the necessity of the processes through which those stages were reached – a necessity which, in respect to the leading truths, may likewise be traced in all after stages. This necessity, originating in the very nature of the phenomena to be analyzed and the faculties to be employed, partially applies to the mind of the child as to that of the savage. We say partially, because the correspondence is not special but general only. Were the environment the same in both cases, the correspondence would be complete. But though the surrounding material out of which science is to be organized, is, in many cases, the same to the juvenile mind and the aboriginal mind, it is not so throughout; as, for instance, in the case of chemistry, the phenomena of which are accessible to the one but were inaccessible to the other. Hence, in proportion as the environment differs, the course of evolution must differ. After admitting exceptions, however, there remains a substantial parallelism; and, if so, it is of moment to ascertain what really has been the process of scientific evolution. The establishment of an erroneous theory must be disastrous in its educational results; while the establishment of a true one must be fertile in school-reforms and consequent social benefits.

      THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

[ First published as a brochure in April 1864. The preface to the second edition, published in April 1869, I reproduce because of certain facts contained in it which are not without interest.]

      The first edition of this Essay is not yet out of print. But a proposal to translate it into French having been made by Professor Réthoré, I have decided to prepare a new edition free from the imperfections which criticism and further thought have disclosed, rather than allow these imperfections to be reproduced.

      The occasion has almost tempted me into some amplification. Further arguments against the classification of M. Comte, and further arguments in support of the classification here set forth, have pleaded for utterance. But reconsideration has convinced me that it is both needless and useless to say more – needless because those who are not committed will think the case sufficiently strong as it stands; and useless because to those who are committed, additional reasons will seem as inadequate as the original ones. [In the preface to the third edition, however, a reason is given for a change of decision on this point at that time made (February 1871): the reason being “the publication of several objections by Prof. Bain in his Logic.”]

      This last conclusion is thrust on me by seeing how little M. Littré, the leading expositor of M. Comte, is influenced by fundamental objections the force of which he admits. After quoting one of these, he says, with a candour equally rare and admirable, that he has vainly searched M. Comte’s works and his own mind for an answer. Nevertheless, he adds – “j’ai réussi, je crois, à écarter l’attaque de M. Herbert Spencer, et à sauver le fond par des sacrifices indispensables mais accessoires.” The sacrifices are these. He abandons M. Comte’s division of Inorganic Science into Celestial Physics and Terrestrial Physics – a division which, in M. Comte’s scheme, takes precedence of all the rest; and he admits that neither logically nor historically does Astronomy come before Physics, as M. Comte alleges. After making these sacrifices, which most will think too lightly described as “sacrifices indispensables mais accessoires,” M. Littré proceeds to rehabilitate the Comtean classification in a way which he considers satisfactory, but which I do not understand. In short, the proof of these incongruities affects his faith in the Positivist theory of the sciences, no more than the faith of a Christian is affected by proof that the Gospels contradict one another.

      Here in England I have seen no attempt to meet the criticisms with which M. Littré thus deals. There has been no reply to the allegation, based on examples, that the several sciences do not develop in the order of their decreasing generality; nor to the allegation, based on M. Comte’s own admissions, that within each science the progress is not, as he says it is, from the general to the special; nor to the allegation that the seeming historical precedence of Astronomy over Physics in M. Comte’s pages, is based on a verbal ambiguity – a mere sleight of words; nor to the allegation, abundantly illustrated, that a progression in an order the reverse of that asserted by M. Comte may be as well substantiated; nor to various minor allegations equally irreconcileable with his scheme. I have met with nothing more than iteration of the statement that the sciences do conform, logically and historically, to the order in which M. Comte places them; regardless of the assigned evidence that they do not.

      Under these circumstances it is unnecessary for me to say more; and I think I am warranted in continuing to hold that the Comtean classification of the sciences is demonstrably untenable.

      In an essay on “The Genesis of Science,” originally published in 1854, I endeavoured to show that the Sciences cannot be rationally arranged in serial order. Proof was given that neither the succession in which the Sciences are placed by M. Comte (to a criticism of whose scheme the essay was in part devoted), nor any other succession in which the Sciences can be placed, represents either their logical dependence or their historical dependence. To the question – How may their relations be rightly expressed? I did not then attempt any answer. This question I propose now to consider.

      A true classification includes in each class, those objects which have more characteristics in common with one another, than any of them have in common with any objects excluded from the class. Further, the characteristics possessed in common by the colligated objects, and not possessed by other objects, involve more numerous dependent characteristics. These are two sides of the same definition. For things possessing the greatest number of attributes in common, are things that possess in common those essential attributes on which the rest depend; and, conversely, the possession in common of the essential attributes, implies the possession in common of the greatest number of attributes. Hence, either test may be used as convenience dictates.

      If, then, the Sciences admit of classification at all, it must be by grouping together the like