432 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



it must receive is, or should be, the rising and arching shaft of psychol- 

 ogy. But, alas ! this shaft is yet too imperfectly built to support effec- 

 tively, and hence the present unsteady condition of the whole fabric of 

 science so far as it relates to man. 



Thus, then, there are two fundamental sciences upon which sociology 

 must rest. These are on the material side biology and on the spiritual 

 side psychology. But sociology, like all other sciences, must first rise 

 on its own basis of observed and collated facts and phenomena. There- 

 fore we may describe the process of the building of a scientific sociology 

 as follows : First, social facts, or building materials, are gathered in 

 chronicles and detailed histories : this is descriptive sociology. Then 

 these facts are collated and reduced to laws, the materials are chiseled 

 and fitted and cemented into a rising column : this is formal sociology, 

 or philosophic history and political economy. Then the column arches 

 and connects in one direction with the more fundamental science of 

 biology, and in another direction with that of psychology, and thus 

 becomes causal or true scientific sociology. On this triune arch (not 

 double arch, for the columns stand in triangle) rests the broad triply- 

 supported platform of social science, and from this must hereafter rise 

 the beautiful shaft of increasing social knowledge. 



On this triply-supported platform there are three regions from which 

 spring respectively three shafts, distinct yet united to form one. The 

 social organism is composed of three subordinate organisms ; the social 

 body is composed of three fundamental coordinate corporations, con- 

 nected each most closely with one of the supporting columns. These 

 are — 1. The political organization ; 2. The moral and religious organi- 

 zation ; and, 3. The industrial organization : or the state, the church, 

 and the guild. The first is connected directly with the history column; 

 the second with the psychology column ; and the third with the scien- 

 tific column. They may be compared (though the comparison may be 

 considered fanciful) to the three great regions of the organic body, viz., 

 the head, the thoraoc, and the abdomen, or rather to the three great co- 

 ordinate systems of the animal organism, viz., the nervous system, the 

 blood and respiratory system, and the digestive system ; the first con- 

 trolling and directing, the second warming and vivifying, the third 

 furnishing aliment. They correspond also to the three great divisions 

 of the psyche, viz., the intellect, the affections, the will : the first di- 

 recting and controlling; the second giving motive-stimulus, energy ; 

 the third, active and executive. They correspond finally to the three 

 subordinate and coordinate courses of a perfect human culture insisted 

 upon in my article " On Liberal Education," ' viz. : 1. The Language- 

 Art course, commencing with language, ancient and modern, passing 

 upward through literature, art, history, philosophical history, and thus 

 connecting with sociology through the political organizaticm or the 

 state; 3. The Philosophic course, commencing with logic and passing 



' "Southern Presbyterian Review," 1859. 



