THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 513 



and weight approaching each other. The principle of 

 " redistribution of force " seems, so far as I can grasp it at 

 all, to flatly contradict the modern principle of the 

 conservation of energy. Indeed Spencer's whole discus- 

 sion of the physical sciences is one which no physical 

 specialist would be able, were he indeed willing, to accept. 

 So I fancy it must always be, when any one individual 

 attempts to classify the whole field of human knowledge. 

 At best the result will be suggestive, but as a complete 

 and consistent system it must be more or less of a failure. 

 But there is a good deal to be learnt from Spencer's 

 classification, for it combines the " tree " system of Bacon 

 with Comte's exclusion of theology and metaphysics from 

 the field of knowledge. Especially in the primary division 

 into Abstract and Concrete Sciences} it provides us with 

 an excellent starting-point. 



S 5. — Precise and Synoptic Sciences 



The scheme I propose to lay before the reader pretends 

 to no logical exactness, but is merely a rough outline 

 which attempts to show how the various branches of 

 science are related to those fundamental scientific concepts, 

 conceptual space, absolute time, motion, molecule, atom, 

 ether, variation, inheritance, natural selection, social evolu- 

 tion, which have formed the chief topics of earlier chapters. 

 The writer is content to call it an enumeration, if the 

 logician refuses it the title of classification ; for he readily 

 admits that he is not likely to be successful where Bacon, 

 Comte, and Spencer have failed. 



In proceeding to discuss a scheme, we have to bear in 

 mind the following points: Science is not a mere catalogue 

 of facts, but is the conceptual model by which we briefly 

 resume our experience of those facts. Hence we find that 

 many branches of science, which call for admission into a 

 practical classification, are in reality only sciences in the 

 making, and correspond to the catalogue raisonftc rather 



^ The germ of this division appears also to be due to Bacon : see his 

 Scheme, p. 507. 



33 



