CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 87 



Abstract Sciences of Logic and Mathematics, 

 which deal with modes or methods of scientific 

 description, and the Concrete Sciences which are 

 the scientific descriptions. Thus Mathematics 

 is obviously an abstract science, applicable to 

 all sorts of things, but never inquiring what sort 

 of things they are. 



"The broadest natural division of the sciences 

 is, he affirmed, that between sciences which 

 deal with the abstract relations under which phe- 

 nomena are presented to us, and those which 

 deal with the phenomena themselves between 

 sciences which deal with the mere blank forms of 

 existence, and those which deal with real ex- 

 istences" (Flint, 1904, p. 227). Among the lat- 

 ter, Spencer distinguished the Abstract-Concrete 

 Sciences, such as Mechanics, Physics, and Chem- 

 istry which treat of realities in their elements, or 

 of the real relations implicated in certain classes of 

 facts, and the Concrete Sciences, Astronomy, Geol- 

 ogy, Biology, Psychology, and Sociology, which 

 deal with realities in their totalities, or with 

 aggregates of phenomena. 



"From the beginning," he says, "the Abstract 

 Sciences, the Abstract-Concrete Sciences, and the 

 Concrete Sciences have progressed together, the 

 first solving problems which the second and third 

 presented, and growing only by the solution of 

 the problems; and the second similarly growing 



