TO CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES. 



general concrete truths, and special concrete truths. 

 But while within each class there are groups and 

 sub-groups and sub-sub-groups which differ in their 

 degrees of generality, the classes themselves differ 

 only in their degrees of abstractness.* 



* Some propositions laid down by ]\I. Littre, in bis lately-published book 

 Auguste Comte et la Philosophic Positive, may fitly be dealt with here. In tho 

 candid and courteous reply he makes to my strictures on the Comtean classifica 

 tion in &quot; The Genesis of Science,&quot; he endeavours to clear up some of the incon 

 sistencies I pointed out; and he docs this by drawing a distinction between 

 objective generality and subjective generality. He says &quot; qu il cxistc deux 

 ordres do gencralite, 1 une objective et dans les choses, 1 autrc subjective, abstraito 

 et dans 1 esprit.&quot; This sentence, in which M. Littre makes subjective generality 

 synonymous with abstractness, led me at first to conclude that he had in view the 

 same distinction as that which I have above explained between generality and 

 abstractness. On re-reading the paragraph, however, I found this was not the 

 case. In a previous sentence he says &quot; La biologic a passe de la consideration 

 dcs organcs a cellos des tissus, plus generaux que les organes, et de la consideration 

 dcs tissus a celle des elements anatomiques, plus generaux que les tissus. Mais 

 cette gencralite croissante est subjective non objective, abstraite non concrete.&quot; 

 Here it is manifest that abstract and concrete, are used in senses analogous to 

 those in which they are used by M. Comtc ; who, as we have seen, rcg ards 

 general physiology as abstract and zoology and botany as concrete. And it is 

 further manifest that the word abstract, as thus used, is not used in its proper 

 sense. For, as above shown, no such facts as those of anatomical structure can 

 be abstract facts ; but can only be more or less general facts Nor do I under 

 stand M. Littre s point of view when he regards these more general facts of 

 anatomical structure, as subjectively general and not objectively general. The 

 structural phenomena presented by any tissue, such as mucous membrane, arc 

 more general than the phenomena presented by any of the organs which mucous 

 membrane goes to form, simply in the sense that the phenomena peculiar to the 

 membrane are repeated in a greater number of instances than the phenomena 

 peculiar to any organ into the composition of which the membrane enters. And, 

 similarly, such facts as have been established respecting the anatomical elements 

 of tissues, are more general than the facts established respecting any particular 

 tissue, in the sense that they are facts which organic bodies exhibit in a greater 

 number of cases they are objectively more general; and they can be called 

 subjectively more general only in the sense that the conception corresponds with 

 the phenomena. 



Let me endeavour to clear up this point : There is, as M. Littre truly says, 

 a decreasing generality that is objective. If we omit the phenomena of Dissolu 

 tion, which are changes from the special to the general, all changes which matter 

 indergocs are from the general to the special are changes involving a decreasing 



