and their Classification. 281 



morphology, which is an aspectual subdivision of phj^sology, 

 is divisible into geomorphology and metageomorphology ; 

 the former into biomorphology and abiomorphology ; bio- 

 morphology into zoomorphology, vegetomorphology and 

 protistomorphology, etc. 



Science as a whole, and also each science, may be studied 

 from either a general or a special point of view. General 

 science-as-a-whole is equivalent in meaning to what I desig- 

 nate by the word philosophy. Special science-as-a-whole 

 occupies itself with the subdivisions of science, the classifi- 

 cation of these, etc. The terms general and special, applied 

 to a subdivision of science, refer to the consideration of that 

 subdivision, either as a whole, or in its parts, and with me 

 correspond rather closely to what Stephen Pearl Andrews 

 calls analytical and observational, the former dealing more 

 (though by no means exclusively) with generalizations and 

 principles reasoned out, and the latter with facts observed. 

 The terms comparative and descriptive refer to another kind 

 of aspectual division of science, or of any particular science, 

 which is often confounded with that into general and special. 

 Briefly to illustrate the proper designations by an example, 

 general zoology occupies itself with generalizations of the 

 science of animals ; special zoology with the fjicts and details 

 of the domain ; comparative zoology, with comparisons, 

 analogies, correspondences and ditferences of diflerent sub- 

 jects pertaining to the animal kingdom ; and descriptive 

 zoology with the description of the animals themselves. 

 Either general or special zoology may be either comparative 

 or descriptive, and vice versa. 



The first departmental division of science is into concrete 

 and abstract. 



" The broadest natural division among the sciences," says Herbert 

 Spencer (The Classification of the Sciences, New York, D. Appletou & 

 Co., 1864, p. 4), "is the division between those which deal with the ab- 

 stract relations under which phenomena are presented to us, and those 

 which deal with the phenomena themselves. lielations, of whatever 

 orders, are nearer akin to one another than they are to any objects. 



