CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES 89 



opposition to Comte, he declared to be impossible. 

 Comte meant no more by calling one science 

 logically dependent on another than that the one 

 placed first is instrumental as regards the one 

 placed last, while the latter is not instrumental 

 as regards the former. If there be a number of 

 sciences dealing with fundamentally distinct 

 phenomena, and so related that every antecedent 

 is instrumental as regards every consequent, and 

 no consequent is instrumental as regards any 

 antecedent, a series of sciences is constituted 

 which represents the logical dependence of its 

 members. Spencer started with denying that 

 there was any such series, but ended by impli- 

 citly showing that there was one. His own clas- 

 sification, taken in connection with the passage 

 quoted, was a decisive refutation of what was 

 extreme in his own criticism of the Comtist 

 scheme. So far from having succeeded in over- 

 throwing that scheme he only at the utmost 

 succeeded in slightly modifying it. 



"There is a logical dependence of the sciences. 

 And why? Just because there is a natural depen- 

 dence of phenomena. The quantitative relations 

 with which mathematics deals are more general 

 than the mechanical laws which physics brings 

 to light; there can be no chemical combinations 

 unconditioned by physical properties; vital func- 

 tions never appear apart from chemical processes; 



