THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 511 



stored sense-impresses we perceive under these modes. 

 From the standpoint taken in this Graininar, namely, 

 that all science is a conceptual description, the Abstract 

 Sciences must not be considered as dealing with the space 

 and time of perception, but rather with the conceptual 

 space (p. 170) and absolute time (p. 189) of the scientific 

 description. This distinction is of importance, for Bain 

 has called in question Spencer's language about the 

 Abstract Sciences by asking how Time and Space can be 

 thought of without any concrete embodiment whatever, 

 i.e. as empty forms. This objection holds with regard 

 to the perceptual modes, space and time, but hardly with 

 regard to the conceptual notions of geometrical space and 

 absolute time by which the physicist represents these 

 modes. Spencer's opening paragraph on this point may 

 be quoted : — 



" Whether as some hold, Space and Time are forms of Thought ; 

 or whether as I hold myself, they are forms of Things, that have be- 

 come forms of Thought through organised and inherited experience 

 of Things ; it is equally true that Space and Time are contrasted 

 absolutely with the existences disclosed to us in Space and Time ; 

 and that the Sciences which deal exclusively with Space and Time, 

 are separated by the profoundest of all distinctions from the Sciences 

 which deal with the existences that Space and Time contain. Space 

 is the abstract of all relations of coexistence. Time is the abstract 

 of all relations of sequence. And dealing as they do entirely with 

 relations of coexistence and sequence in their general or special 

 forms, Logic and Mathematics form a class of the Sciences more 

 widely unlike the rest, than any of the rest can be from one 

 another." ^ 



Now it cannot be said that this passage brings out 

 very clearly the distinctions between the phenomenal 

 reality of space and time, their perceptual modality and 

 their conceptual equivalents. But what it does bring out 

 is this, that according to Spencer the latter or conceptual 

 values form the basis of scientific classification. And this 

 is in complete agreement with the views expressed in this 

 Grammar. That Spencer himself, admitting space and 

 time to be forms of perception, yet considers them to be 



' " The Classification of the Sciences," Essays, vol. ill. p. lo. 



