portion of M. Comte's view of the evolution of human thought, as a
sample of the manner in which his theory corresponds with and interprets
historical facts, and also to obviate some objections to it, grounded on
an imperfect comprehension, or rather on a mere first glance. Some, for
example, think the doctrine of the three successive stages of
speculation and belief, inconsistent with the fact that they all three
existed contemporaneously; much as if the natural succession of the
hunting, the nomad, and the agricultural state could be refuted by the
fact that there are still hunters and nomads. That the three states were
contemporaneous, that they all began before authentic history, and still
coexist, is M. Comte's express statement: as well as that the advent of
the two later modes of thought was the very cause which disorganized and
is gradually destroying the primitive one. The Theological mode of
explaining phaenomena was once universal, with the exception, doubtless,
of the familiar facts which, being even then seen to be controllable by
human will, belonged already to the positive mode of thought. The first
and easiest generalizations of common observation, anterior to the first
traces of the scientific spirit, determined the birth of the
Metaphysical mode of thought; and every further advance in the
observation of nature, gradually bringing to light its invariable laws,
determined a further development of the Metaphysical spirit at the
expense of the Theological, this being the only medium through which the
conclusions of the Positive mode of thought and the premises of the
Theological could be temporarily made compatible. At a later period,
when the real character of the positive laws of nature had come to be in
a certain degree understood, and the theological idea had assumed, in
scientific minds, its final character, that of a God governing by
general laws, the positive spirit, having now no longer need of the
fictitious medium of imaginary entities, set itself to the easy task of
demolishing the instrument by which it had risen. But though it
destroyed the actual belief in the objective reality of these
abstractions, that belief has left behind it vicious tendencies of the
human mind, which are still far enough from being extinguished, and
which we shall presently have occasion to characterize.
The next point on which we have to touch is one of greater importance
than it seems. If all human speculation had to pass through the three
stages, we may presume that its different branches, having always been
very unequally advanced, could not pass from one stage to another at the
same time. There must have been a certain order of succession in which
the different sciences would enter, first into the metaphysical, and
afterwards into the purely positive stage; and this order M. Comte
proceeds to investigate. The result is his remarkable conception of a
scale of subordination of the sciences, being the order of the logical
dependence of those which follow on those which precede. It is not at
first obvious how a mere classification of the sciences can be not
merely a help to their study, but itself an important part of a body of
doctrine; the classification, however, is a very important part of M.
Comte's philosophy.
He first distinguishes between the abstract and the concrete sciences.
The abstract sciences have to do with the laws which govern the
elementary facts of Nature; laws on which all phaenomena actually
realized must of course depend, but which would have been equally
compatible with many other combinations than those which actually come
to pass. The concrete sciences, on the contrary, concern themselves only
with the particular combinations of phaenomena which are found in
existence. For example; the minerals which compose our planet, or are
found in it, have been produced and are held together by the laws of
mechanical aggregation and by those of chemical union. It is the
business of the abstract sciences, Physics and Chemistry, to ascertain
these laws: to discover how and under what conditions bodies may become
aggregated, and what are the possible modes and results of chemical
combination. The great majority of these aggregations and combinations
take place, so far as we are aware, only in our laboratories; with these
the concrete science, Mineralogy, has nothing to do. Its business is
with those aggregates, and those chemical compounds, which form
themselves, or have at some period been formed, in the natural world.
Again, Physiology, the abstract science, investigates, by such means as
are available to it, the general laws of organization and life. Those
laws determine what living beings are possible, and maintain the
existence and determine the phaenomena of those which actually exist:
but they would be equally capable of maintaining in existence plants and
animals very different from these. The concrete sciences, Zoology and
Botany, confine themselves to species which really exist, or can be
shown to have really existed: and do not concern themselves with the
mode in which even these would comport themselves under all
circumstances, but only under those which really take place. They set
forth the actual mode of existence of plants and animals, the phaenomena
which they in fact present: but they set forth all of these, and take
into simultaneous consideration the whole real existence of each
species, however various the ultimate laws on which it depends, and to
whatever number of different abstract sciences these laws may belong.
The existence of a date tree, or of a lion, is a joint result of many
natural laws, physical, chemical, biological, and even astronomical.
Abstract science deals with these laws separately, but considers each of
them in all its aspects, all its possibilities of operation: concrete
science considers them only in combination, and so far as they exist and
manifest themselves in the animals or plants of which we have
experience. The distinctive attributes of the two are summed up by M.
Comte in the expression, that concrete science relates to Beings, or
Objects, abstract science to Events.[2]
The concrete sciences are inevitably later in their development than the
abstract sciences on which they depend. Not that they begin later to be
studied; on the contrary, they are the earliest cultivated, since in our
abstract investigations we necessarily set out from spontaneous facts.
But though we may make empirical generalizations, we can form no
scientific theory of concrete phaenomena until the laws which govern and
explain them are first known; and those laws are the subject of the
abstract sciences. In consequence, there is not one of the concrete
studies (unless we count astronomy among them) which has received, up to
the present time, its final scientific constitution, or can be accounted
a science, except in a very loose sense, but only materials for science:
partly from insufficiency of facts, but more, because the abstract
sciences, except those at the very beginning of the scale, have not
attained the degree of perfection necessary to render real concrete
sciences possible.
Postponing, therefore, the concrete sciences, as not yet formed, but
only tending towards formation, the abstract sciences remain to be
classed. These, as marked out by M. Comte, are six in number; and the
principle which he proposes for their classification is admirably in
accordance with the conditions of our study of Nature. It might have
happened that the different classes of phaenomena had depended on laws
altogether distinct; that in changing from one to another subject of
scientific study, the student left behind all the laws he previously
knew, and passed under the dominion of a totally new set of
uniformities. The sciences would then have been wholly independent of
one another; each would have rested entirely on its own inductions, and
if deductive at all, would have drawn its deductions from premises
exclusively furnished by itself. The fact, however, is otherwise. The
relation which really subsists between different kinds of phaenomena,
enables the sciences to be arranged in such an order, that in travelling
through them we do not pass out of the sphere of any laws, but merely
take up additional ones at each step. In this order M. Comte proposes to
arrange them. He classes the sciences in an ascending series, according
to the degree of complexity of their phaenomena; so that each science
depends on the truths of all those which precede it, with the addition
of peculiar truths of its own.
Thus, the truths of number are true of all things, and depend only on
their own laws; the science, therefore, of Number, consisting of
Arithmetic and Algebra, may be studied without reference to any other
science. The truths of Geometry presuppose the laws of Number, and a
more special class of laws peculiar to extended bodies, but require no
others: Geometry, therefore, can be studied independently of all
sciences except that of Number.
Rational Mechanics presupposes, and depends on, the laws of number and
those of extension, and along with them another set of laws, those of
Equilibrium and Motion. The truths of Algebra and Geometry nowise depend
on these last, and would have been true if these had happened to be the
reverse of what we find them: but the phaenomena of equilibrium and
motion cannot be understood, nor even stated, without assuming the laws
of number and extension, such as they actually are. The phaenomena of
Astronomy depend on these three classes of laws, and on the law of
gravitation besides; which last has no influence on the truths of
number, geometry, or mechanics. Physics (badly named in common English
parlance Natural Philosophy) presupposes the three mathematical
sciences, and also astronomy; since all terrestrial phaenomena are
affected by influences derived from the motions of the earth and of the
heavenly bodies. Chemical phaenomena depend (besides their own laws) on
all the preceding, those of physics among the rest, especially on the
laws of heat and electricity; physiological phaenomena, on the laws of
physics and chemistry, and their own laws in addition. The phaenomena of
human society obey laws of their own, but do not depend solely upon
these: they depend upon all the laws of organic and animal life,
together with those of inorganic nature, these last influencing society
not only through their influence on life, but by determining the
physical conditions under which society has to be carried on. "Chacun de
ces degré's successifs exige des inductions qui lui sont propres; mais
elles ne peuvent jamais devenir systématiques que sous l'impulsion
déductive resultée de tous les ordres moins compliqués."[3]
Thus arranged by M. Comte in a series, of which each term represents an
advance in speciality beyond the term preceding it, and (what
necessarily accompanies increased speciality) an increase of
complexity--a set of phaenomena determined by a more numerous
combination of laws; the sciences stand in the following order: 1st,
Mathematics; its three branches following one another on the same
principle, Number, Geometry, Mechanics. 2nd, Astronomy. 3rd, Physics.
4th, Chemistry. 5th, Biology. 6th, Sociology, or the Social Science, the
phaemomena, of which depend on, and cannot be understood without, the
principal truths of all the other sciences. The subject matter and
contents of these various sciences are obvious of themselves, with the
exception of Physics, which is a group of sciences rather than a single
science, and is again divided by M. Comte into five departments:
Barology, or the science of weight; Thermology, or that of heat;
Acoustics, Optics, and Electrology. These he attempts to arrange on the
same principle of increasing speciality and complexity, but they hardly
admit of such a scale, and M. Comte's mode of placing them varied at
different periods. All the five being essentially independent of one
another, he attached little importance to their order, except that
barology ought to come first, as the connecting link with astronomy, and
electrology last, as the transition to chemistry.
If the best classification is that which is grounded on the properties
most important for our purposes, this classification will stand the
test. By placing the sciences in the order of the complexity of their
subject matter, it presents them in the order of their difficulty. Each
science proposes to itself a more arduous inquiry than those which
precede it in the series; it is therefore likely to be susceptible, even
finally, of a less degree of perfection, and will certainly arrive later
at the degree attainable by it. In addition to this, each science, to
establish its own truths, needs those of all the sciences anterior to
it. The only means, for example, by which the physiological laws of life
could have been ascertained, was by distinguishing, among the
multifarious and complicated facts of life, the portion which physical
and chemical laws cannot account for. Only by thus isolating the effects
of the peculiar organic laws, did it become possible to discover what
these are. It follows that the order in which the sciences succeed one
another in the series, cannot but be, in the main, the historical order
of their development; and is the only order in which they can rationally
be studied. For this last there is an additional reason: since the more
special and complete sciences require not only the truths of the simpler
and more general ones, but still more their methods. The scientific
intellect, both in the individual and in the race, must learn in the
move elementary studies that art of investigation and those canons of
proof which are to be put in practice in the more elevated. No intellect
is properly qualified for the higher part of the scale, without due
practice in the lower.
Mr Herbert Spencer, in his essay entitled "The Genesis of Science," and
more recently in a pamphlet on "the Classification of the Sciences," has
criticised and condemned M. Comte's classification, and proposed a more
elaborate one of his own: and M. Littré, in his valuable biographical
and philosophical work on M. Comte ("Auguste Comte et la Philosophie
Positive"), has at some length criticised the criticism. Mr Spencer is
one of the small number of persons who by the solidity and
encyclopedical character of their knowledge, and their power of
co-ordination and concatenation, may claim to be the peers of M. Comte,
and entitled to a vote in the estimation of him. But after giving to his
animadversions the respectful attention due to all that comes from Mr
Spencer, we cannot find that he has made out any case. It is always easy
to find fault with a classification. There are a hundred possible ways
of arranging any set of objects, and something may almost always be said
against the best, and in favour of the worst of them. But the merits of
a classification depend on the purposes to which it is instrumental. We
have shown the purposes for which M. Comte's classification is intended.
Mr Spencer has not shown that it is ill adapted to those purposes: and
we cannot perceive that his own answers any ends equally important. His
chief objection is that if the more special sciences need the truths of
the more general ones, the latter also need some of those of the former,
and have at times been stopped in their progress by the imperfect state
of sciences which follow long after them in M. Comte's scale; so that,
the dependence being mutual, there is a _consensus_, but not an
ascending scale or hierarchy of the sciences. That the earlier sciences
derive help from the later is undoubtedly true; it is part of M. Comte's
theory, and amply exemplified in the details of his work. When he
affirms that one science historically precedes another, he does not mean
that the perfection of the first precedes the humblest commencement of
those which follow. Mr Spencer does not distinguish between the
empirical stage of the cultivation of a branch of knowledge, and the
scientific stage. The commencement of every study consists in gathering
together unanalyzed facts, and treasuring up such spontaneous
generalizations as present themselves to natural sagacity. In this stage
any branch of inquiry can be carried on independently of every other;
and it is one of M. Comte's own remarks that the most complex, in a
scientific point of view, of all studies, the latest in his series, the
study of man as a moral and social being, since from its absorbing
interest it is cultivated more or less by every one, and pre-eminently
by the great practical minds, acquired at an early period a greater
stock of just though unscientific observations than the more elementary
sciences. It is these empirical truths that the later and more special
sciences lend to the earlier; or, at most, some extremely elementary
scientific truth, which happening to be easily ascertainable by direct
experiment, could be made available for carrying a previous science
already founded, to a higher stage of development; a re-action of the
later sciences on the earlier which M. Comte not only fully recognized,
but attached great importance to systematizing.[4]
But though detached truths relating to the more complex order of
phaenomena may be empirically observed, and a few of them even
scientifically established, contemporaneously with an early stage of
some of the sciences anterior in the scale, such detached truths, as M.
Littré justly remarks, do not constitute a science. What is known of a
subject, only becomes a science when it is made a connected body of
truth; in which the relation between the general principles and the
details is definitely made out, and each particular truth can be
recognized as a case of the operation of wider laws. This point of
progress, at which the study passes from the preliminary state of mere
preparation, into a science, cannot be reached by the more complex
studies until it has been attained by the simpler ones. A certain
regularity of recurrence in the celestial appearances was ascertained
empirically before much progress had been made in geometry; but
astronomy could no more be a science until geometry was a highly
advanced one, than the rule of three could have been practised before
addition and subtraction. The truths of the simpler sciences are a part
of the laws to which the phaenomena of the more complex sciences
conform: and are not only a necessary element in their explanation, but
must be so well understood as to be traceable through complex
combinations, before the special laws which co-exist and co-operate with
them can be brought to light. This is all that M. Comte affirms, and
enough for his purpose.[5] He no doubt occasionally indulges in more
unqualified expressions than can be completely justified, regarding the
logical perfection of the construction of his series, and its exact
correspondence with the historical evolution of the sciences;
exaggerations confined to language, and which the details of his
exposition often correct. But he is sufficiently near the truth, in both
respects, for every practical purpose.[6] Minor inaccuracies must often
be forgiven even to great thinkers. Mr Spencer, in the very-writings in
which he criticises M. Comte, affords signal instances of them.[7]
Combining the doctrines, that every science is in a less advanced state
as it occupies a higher place in the ascending scale, and that all the
sciences pass through the three stages, theological, metaphysical, and
positive, it follows that the more special a science is, the tardier is
it in effecting each transition, so that a completely positive state of
an earlier science has often coincided with the metaphysical state of
the one next to it, and a purely theological state of those further on.
This statement correctly represents the general course of the facts,
though requiring allowances in the detail. Mathematics, for example,
from the very beginning of its cultivation, can hardly at any time have
been in the theological state, though exhibiting many traces of the
metaphysical. No one, probably, ever believed that the will of a god
kept parallel lines from meeting, or made two and two equal to four; or
ever prayed to the gods to make the square of the hypothenuse equal to
more or less than the sum of the squares of the sides. The most devout
believers have recognized in propositions of this description a class of
truths independent of the devine omnipotence. Even among the truths
which popular philosophy calls by the misleading name of Contingent the
few which are at once exact and obvious were probably, from the very
first, excepted from the theological explanation. M. Comte observes,
after Adam Smith, that we are not told in any age or country of a god of
Weight. It was otherwise with Astronomy: the heavenly bodies were
believed not merely to be moved by gods, but to be gods themselves: and
when this theory was exploded, there movements were explained by
metaphysical conceptions; such as a tendency of Nature to perfection, in
virtue of which these sublime bodies, being left to themselves, move in
the most perfect orbit, the circle. Even Kepler was full of fancies of
this description, which only terminated when Newton, by unveiling the
real physical laws of the celestial motions, closed the metaphysical
period of astronomical science. As M. Comte remarks, our power of
foreseeing phaenomena, and our power of controlling them, are the two
things which destroy the belief of their being governed by changeable
wills. In the case of phaenomena which science has not yet taught us
either to foresee or to control, the theological mode of thought has not
ceased to operate: men still pray for rain, or for success in war, or to
avert a shipwreck or a pestilence, but not to put back the stars in
their courses, to abridge the time necessary for a journey, or to arrest
the tides. Such vestiges of the primitive mode of thought linger in the
more intricate departments of sciences which have attained a high degree
of positive development. The metaphysical mode of explanation, being
less antagonistic than the theological to the idea of invariable laws,
is still slower in being entirely discarded. M. Comte finds remains of
it in the sciences which are the most completely positive, with the
single exception of astronomy, mathematics itself not being, he thinks,
altogether free from them: which is not wonderful, when we see at how
very recent a date mathematicians have been able to give the really
positive interpretation of their own symbols.[8] We have already however
had occasion to notice M. Comte's propensity to use the term
metaphysical in cases containing nothing that truly answers to his
definition of the word. For instance, he considers chemistry as tainted
with the metaphysical mode of thought by the notion of chemical
affinity. He thinks that the chemists who said that bodies combine
because they have an affinity for each other, believed in a mysterious
entity residing in bodies and inducing them to combine. On any other
supposition, he thinks the statement could only mean that bodies combine
because they combine. But it really meant more. It was the abstract
expression of the doctrine, that bodies have an invariable tendency to
combine with one thing in preference to another: that the tendencies of
different substances to combine are fixed quantities, of which the
greater always prevails over the less, so that if A detaches B from C in
one case it will do so in every other; which was called having a greater
attraction, or, more technically, a greater affinity for it. This was
not a metaphysical theory, but a positive generalization, which
accounted for a great number of facts, and would have kept its place as
a law of nature, had it not been disproved by the discovery of cases in
which though A detached B from C in some circumstances, C detached it
from A in others, showing the law of elective chemical combination to be
a less simple one than had at first been supposed. In this case,
therefore, M. Comte made a mistake: and he will be found to have made
many similar ones. But in the science next after chemistry, biology, the
empty mode of explanation by scholastic entities, such as a plastic
force, a vital principle, and the like, has been kept up even to the
present day. The German physiology of the school of Oken,
notwithstanding his acknowledged genius, is almost as metaphysical as
Hegel, and there is in France a quite recent revival of the Animism of
Stahl. These metaphysical explanations, besides their inanity, did
serious harm, by directing the course of positive scientific inquiry
into wrong channels. There was indeed nothing to prevent investigating
the mode of action of the supposed plastic or vital force by observation
and experiment; but the phrases gave currency and coherence to a false
abstraction and generalization, setting inquirers to look out for one
cause of complex phaenomena which undoubtedly depended on many.