THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 407 



Sciences may be arranged in alternative orders, and the choice 

 of order is essentially a matter of purpose and interest. 

 Bliss distinguishes five orders: the order of nature, the 

 developmental order, the pedagogic order, the logical order, 

 and gradation by speciality. There is reason to believe that 

 this classification of orders could itself be improved upon, 

 but this is not the concern at the moment. The point is 

 that those sciences which are most basic from the logical 

 point of view — in the sense that all of the sciences depend 

 upon them — are not necessarily those which emerged first 

 in the history of thought, nor are they those studies which 

 should be taught to the child in the elementary stages of 

 his education; that which is logically first need not be tem- 

 porally first either for the race or for the individual. Further- 

 more, the ways in which the sciences are used are not nec- 

 essarily a reflection of their inherent characters, hence a 

 classification of the arts and technologies need not parallel 

 a classification of the theoretical sciences. It follows that 

 a library classification of books about nature — which is 

 Bliss's main problem — need not reflect accurately the struc- 

 ture of nature itself, though it should clearly conform as 

 closely as this is possible. The agreement which Bliss finds 

 among the four alternative orders is somewhat surprising. 

 There is reason to believe that there should be an essential 

 conformity so far as the order of nature, the logical order, 

 and the gradation by speciality are concerned. But there 

 seems to be no reason why this order should agree either 

 with the pedagogic or the developmental orders. Neither 

 man nor the race grows logically. Hence the speculative 

 philosopher must recognize the possibility of alternative 

 schemes, and the relativity of any given scheme to the 

 intention of the classifier. This makes classificatory schemes 

 arbitrary but not whimsical. 



Finally, certain terminological difficulties may be men- 

 tioned. The fact that the term "natural philosophy' has 

 often been employed historically for "physics" does not 

 mean that physics should be classified as philosophy rather 



