430 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is a certain stage in the development of science when its influence may- 

 be even disastrous. In the passage from art to science there is a cer- 

 tain stage vs^hen the presumptuous application of an imperfect science 

 interferes with the truer and better results of a perfect empiricism, and 

 art is thereby hurt. This is true especially of the more complex arts 

 and sciences. Thus the principles of science must be held in subordi- 

 nation to an enlightened empiricism in such arts as medicine, agricul- 

 ture, etc. Science can not yet undertake to guide these arts with confi- 

 dence. So is it also, and in a much greater degree, in the case of human 

 society ; for here we have the most difficult art, and the most complex 

 and imperfect science. It must be yet a very long time before the 

 science of sociology can presume to guide the course of social progress. 

 Premature interference with the results of an enlightened empiricism 

 can do nothing but harm. 



I have now covered the ground which is implied in the title of this 

 article. I have shown the close connection, both in doctrine and 

 method, between social and organic sciences — a connection similar to 

 that which exists between organic science and that immediately below 

 it in the hierarchy. I have shown that sociology is one of that hierarchy, 

 and the highest. I have shown that the cultivation of this science 

 requires acquaintance with all other and simpler sciences, but especially 

 biology. My task would seem to be done. But I would do violence 

 to my feelings and convictions, and would be liable to serious miscon- 

 struction, if I stopped here. What I have thus far said gives but an 

 imperfect idea of the comprehensiveness and complexity of social science. 

 I have yet shown but one side of this complex subject, although the side 

 which is most familiar to my thoughts, and, I believe, also the best de- 

 veloped. It is necessary at least to glance at the other side. I have 

 developed one of the foundations or basic connections of sociology ; but 

 there is another, as I now proceed to show. 



All along, in the course of this discussion, I have from time to time 

 shown that there are certain limitations to the application of the doc- 

 trines and methods of biology to sociology, and that in every case such 

 limitation is the result of the introduction of some new principle charac- 

 teristic of humanity as distinguished from animality, of reason as dis- 

 tinguished from instinct, of spirit as distinguished from matter. This 

 is precisely what, even from a purely scientific point of view, we ought 

 to expect, and is in fact necessary. For in the scientific hierarchy each 

 ^ience, in addition to the forces and phenomena of the lower sciences, 

 deals with a new force and a new group of phenomena, and therefore 

 with new doctrines and new methods. In going up the scale of sciences 

 we rise successively to a higher and higher plane of activity. On the 

 plane of dead matter only physical and chemical forces operate, and 

 only physical and chemical phenomena occur. On the plane of living 

 matter, in addition to the preceding, we have also vital forces and 



