46 AN INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



habit of marching every claimant for a place in the world ot 

 facts and every newly derived conclusion up to his dissect- 

 ing table, his microscope, his balance, with a curt demand 

 to show itself for what it is. Small wonder if he grows im- 

 patient of phantoms which walk over the pan of his most 

 sensitive balance, past his photographic plates, and through 

 his electroscopes without leaving a record. He doesn't 

 deny their existence. Why should he? But, without looking 

 up from his work, he grumbles that it isn't his business to 

 weigh the imponderable or to measure the all-pervading. 



Physics and chemistry deal with matter, the action upon 

 matter of force, and the resolution of force by the influence 

 of matter. Sublimated from matter, these sciences pass 

 over the boundary between physics and metaphysics. In 

 their abstract form, independent of phenomena, they resolve 

 themselves into a study of terms. As long as they are 

 based upon knowledge they are concrete. 



It is somewhat unfortunate that subjects which are so 

 little congruous as mathematics or logic, and the physical 

 sciences, must be included under a general designation and 

 classified as members of one group. Comte in his classifi- 

 cation was not using the terms " abstract " and " concrete " 

 in a strictly logical way, for he speaks of ' ' two kinds of 

 natural sciences the one abstract, general, has for its object 

 the discovery of the laws which regulate the diverse classes 

 of phenomena, taking into consideration all the cases which 

 can be conceived ; the others concrete, particular, descrip- 

 tive, which are sometimes designated as the natural sciences 

 properly so-called, consisting of the application of these laws 

 to the effective history of the different existing things." Her- 

 bert Spencer points out that "abstract " and "general " are 

 terms which cannot be compatibly applied to the same class. 

 "Abstractness- means detachment from the incidents of 

 particular cases. Generality means manifestation in nu- 

 merous cases," and it is evident that the comparative iso- 

 lation and specialty of phenomena or their generality do 



