CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 167 



does not destroy the specific identity of a substance. To a change 

 which does destroy this specific identity we apply the term physical. 

 This is, of course, a narrow use of the term, hut it is in accordance with 

 past usage. Chemical phenomena are, then, the phenomena produced 

 by chemical forces, and physical changes are those produced by molec- 

 ular and molar forces. Chemical phenomena are first in order of time. 

 " In the beginning " were atoms, atomic forces, atomic changes, 

 chemism. 



The second order of phenomena are the physical. They include the 

 movements of molecules and masses from the invisible compounds of 

 atoms to the great aggregates of matter in suns and stars. They are 

 the natural outgrowth of chemical changes. Cooperating with the 

 chemical forces the physical produced organic matter, protoplasm, and 

 thus initiated the third great natural group of phenomena, the bio- 

 logical. Biological phenomena, which are the manifestation of the 

 biotic forces, include, of course, the whole range of phenomena between 

 inorganic nature and the origination of mind. Mind, we must assume, 

 was also the creation of the preexisting forces, and the manifestations of 

 mind, or psychic phenomena, constituted the fourth great division of 

 phenomena. Finally, beginning with the origin of social groups, we 

 have the constantly extending field of phenomena known as social, a 

 direct manifestation of the social forces. 



We have now presented a classification of forces and phenomena 

 based on their genetic relationships. This, it will be observed, is equiv- 

 alent to the classification of possible knowledge concerning concrete 

 phenomena. It is thus a classification of the sciences. For a science is 

 a study, or the classified knowledge resulting from the study, of a 

 definite field of phenomena occurring in natural sequence as a result of 

 a particular set of forces. Our classification of forces and of phenomena 

 in their genetic order is, then, in reality a serial or genetic classification 

 of the subject matter of the sciences. " Sciences," says Ward, " in so 

 far as they can be grouped at all, simply represent the natural groups 

 of phenomena, and to determine the natural order in which phenomena 

 are related to one another as indicated by their respective antecedence 

 and sequence in the march of evolving forces, is to determine the 

 natural order in which the sciences stand to one another." 5 The re- 

 spective fields of forces and phenomena as already classified, then, imply 

 corresponding sciences. There are five such fields, namely, chemical, 

 physical, biological, psychological and sociological. Hence there are five 

 great sciences: chemistry, physics, biology, psychology and sociology; 

 and unless phenomena do not arise in the order stated above, this is a 

 classification of the sciences which implies their genetic relationships 

 and their relations of dependence. It is the order, too, of increasing 



6 "Dynamic Sociology," Vol. I., p. 147. 



