Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/285

ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES. 273 must be continually made to their constituent atoms. The action of a society is the resultant of the actions of the individual mem- thus, a change in the body politic, for instance, is the resultant of the changes of its component individuals acting and reacting on each other, just as a change in a molecule is the re- sultant of the changes of its component atoms. The problem of Sociology is then, as we take it, to trace changes in society to their immediate causes in the actions of constituent societies, and to then: ultimate causes in the actions of individuals ; and to discover the laws of these changes. Comparative Psychology and Sociology, as dealing with sub-human life, are subordinate to Psychology and Sociology. But man rises, even according to Mr. Spencer, to an unknow- able reality, or, as the theist believes, to a knowable personal God ; but, according to both theist and pantheist, these aggre- gates of agregates find their final unity in God. We place below a tabular outline of the sciences as we have treated them : Chemistry. Science of Atom. rr Molecular Physics. Science of Molecule. ? Molar Physics. Science of Mass. Biology. Science of Aggregated Cell-Masses. 1L Psychology. Science of Individual Man. 5' Sociology. Science of Human Aggregates. Theology. Science of God. The order of aggregation plainly is : atoms into molecules, molecules into masses, cell-masses into plants, animals, and men, and these 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 presup- posed a knowledge 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 con- creteness, in that it is a logical order of increasing intension and decreasing extension. A number of objects decrease, and num- ber of attributes increase. It is also the order of recognised rank. As bearing on these points we quote the following passage from M. Th. Ribot's Heredity, p. 193 : " The philosophers of the present century have shown (and the positivist school has performed a fair proportion of the work) that the sciences are not isolated systems of doctrine, each detached from each, but that there mong them a hierarchical subordination, so that the more complex rest on the more simple, and presuppose them. The mathematical, physi-