48 AN INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



may be paid to matter, (0) Chemistry ; or to the exhibi- 

 tions of force through matter, (7) Physics. 



As the study of the several modes of motion is to the 

 study of the combinations and changes of state of matter, so 

 is the study of physiology to that of the structure, develop- 

 ment, taxonomy and distribution of living organisms, includ- 

 ing Man. Biology (5), therefore, includes one group of 

 subjects and (e) Physiology another ; while the study of 

 function leads to Psychology (f), and this to (77) Ethics 

 and (0) Esthetics. The applied sciences must take their 

 places under one or under several of these subdivisions. 

 A special application does not constitute a special science. 

 Nor does the borrowing of materials, or methods of study, 

 create proprietorship of such materials or methods. Solar 

 spectroscopy is not astronomy, nor palaeo-botany geology. 



Of all the sciences, if each is looked at as a whole, 

 astronomy is the most concrete. Yet before Neptune had 

 been observed its existence was inferred by Adams as the 

 cause of the perturbations of other planets. It may almost 

 be said to have been a mathematical product in Adams' 

 mind. Though, of course, this is merely a figure of speech, 

 for the cause of the perturbations was at all times in his 

 thoughts a concrete thing ; but it illustrates the way in 

 which for the astronomer the heavenly bodies may almost 

 lose their objective reality apart from his calculations. 



When we look at the sciences which treat of the world, 

 its constituents and inhabitants, and the forces to which 

 they react, we see that, as physics becomes abstract in 

 proportion as phenomena are left behind and the ideal 

 conception of force is approached, so the biological sciences 

 become abstract when they attempt to explain the nature 

 of life. Life is to the manifestations of life what force is 

 to the manifestations of force. No definition of life does 

 more than specify in the most generalized way the qualities 

 which distinguish it from non-life. When Herbert Spencer 

 defines it as "the coordination of action" he does not 



