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

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.

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