IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 233 



Quite in harmony with this position we find to be the 

 admissions that the sciences are as branches of one trunk, 

 and that they were at first cultivated simultaneously ; and 

 this harmony becomes the more marked on finding, as we 

 have done, not only that the sciences have a common root, 

 but that science in general has a common root with lan 

 guage, classification, reasoning, art ; that throughout civili 

 zation these have advanced together, acting and reacting 

 upon each other just as the separate sciences have done ; 

 and that thus the development of intelligence in all its di 

 visions and subdivisions has conformed to this same law 

 which we have shown that the sciences conform to. From 

 all which we may perceive that the sciences can with no 

 greater propriety be arranged in a succession, than language, 

 classification, reasoning, art, and science, can be arranged 

 in a succession; that, however needful a succession may bo 

 for the convenience of books and catalogues, it must be 

 recognized merely as a convention ; and that so far from its 

 being the function of a philosophy of the sciences to estab 

 lish a hierarchy, it is its function to show that the linear 

 arrangements required for literary purposes, have none of 

 them any basis either in Nature or History. 



There is one further remark we must not omit a re 

 mark touching the importance of the question that has been 

 discussed. Unfortunately it commonly happens that topics 

 of this abstract nature are slighted as of no practical mo 

 ment ; and, we doubt not, that many will think it of very 

 little consequence what theory respecting the genesis of 

 science may be entertained. But the value of truths is of 

 ten great, in proportion as their generality is wide. Re 

 mote as they seem from practical application, the highest 

 generalizations are not unfrequently the most potent in 

 their effects, in virtue of their influence on all those subor 

 dinate generalizations which regulate practice. And it must 

 be so here. Whenever established, a correct theory of the 



