SCIENCE AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 245 



to medicine agriculture also forms a root for biology as well as for 

 chemistry. 



Psychology in early times had an indistinct origin in metaphysics, 

 but as an inductive science it is of recent growth. In addition to the 

 metaphysical problems which the study of mental processes was sup- 

 posed to solve, two practical problems may be mentioned as stimulating 

 the development of psychology. First the study and treatment of 

 pathological mental states, which unites psychology with biology and 

 chemistry in that all three have their origin to some extent in medicine. 

 Secondly, the study of normal mental states and the course of mental 

 development in order to improve the intellect and ameliorate human 

 conditions through better methods of education. 



As biology rests on the attempt to heal individual disease, so sociol- 

 ogy arises from the desire to cure social ills and improve social relations. 

 This statement would not be true of all the social sciences, especially 

 economics, which found its chief incentive in the attempt to increase the 

 material wealth of one social group at the expense of other groups. 

 The general science of sociology, however, like that of biology, had its 

 chief root in the desire to heal. The existence of poverty, crime, labor 

 disputes, and similar problems has stimulated the desire to understand 

 the principles of human association and the laws of social development. 



With this brief review of the social origin of the sciences, we are pre- 

 pared to consider in greater detail their effects upon social progress. 

 In order to do this it will be advantageous to separate the sciences into 

 three groups by diagonal lines, so to speak, the divisions not correspond- 

 ing to the recognized boundaries of the different sciences. The first 

 group includes astronomy, the greater part of physics and smaller parts 

 of chemistry and biology. This group comprises what may be called the 

 sciences of the environment. The second group includes a small part of 

 physics and larger portions of chemistry, biology and psychology. This 

 group comprises the sciences pertaining to individual life. Sociology 

 and a part of psychology form the third group, treating of social life. 

 If a larger number of the subsciences are included, the divisions would 

 not be materially altered. A part of economics would be included in 

 group one, as dealing with the environment; and a part of geology 

 would fall into group two. These three groups may be designated for 

 the sake of brevity as the natural sciences, the biological sciences and 

 the social sciences, dealing respectively with the environment, with 

 individual life, and with social life. 



The historical development of the sciences is a complicated problem. 

 Comte maintained that they developed in a serial order from the 

 simplest to the most complex in the order of his classification — 

 astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and sociology. Spencer strongly 

 opposed this theory and produced many facts to show that the serial 



