58 ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE ii 



objects only, number antl extension, and all the 

 inductions he wants have been formed and finished 

 ages ago. lie is occui)ied now with nothing but 

 deduction and verification. 



The Biologist deals with a vast number of 

 properties of objects, and his inductions will not be 

 completed, I fear, for ages to come; but when they 

 are, his science will be as deductive and as exact 

 as the Mathematics themselves. 



Such is the relation of Biology to those sciences 

 which deal with objects having fewer properties 

 than itself. But as the student, in reaching 

 Biology, looks back upon sciences of a less complex 

 and therefore more perfect nature; so, on the other 

 hand, does he look forward to other more complex 

 and less perfect branches of knowledge. Biology 

 deals only with living beings as isolated things — 

 treats only of the life of the individual: but there 

 is a higher division of science still, which considers 

 living beings as aggregates — which deals with the 

 relation of living beings one to another — the sci- 

 ence wliich observes men — whose experimenis are 

 made by nations one upon another, in battle-fields 

 — whose general prnposifinvs are em1)odied in his- 

 tory, morality, and religion — whose defhirtinns 

 lead to our happiness or our misery — and whose 

 verifications so often come too late, and serve only 



"To point a moral, or adorn a tale" — 

 I mean the science of Society or Sociology. 



