90 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



and there must be life before there can be con- 

 sciousness. That remarkable hierarchy of phe- 

 nomena is a fact which a cloud of abstract lan- 

 guage or a covering of subtle reasoning may to 

 some extent and for a short while conceal from 

 our view, but which no language or reasoning can 

 efface or even long obscure. And there being 

 such a hierarchy of phenomena, it is scarcely 

 conceivable that there should be no correspond- 

 ing hierarchy of sciences" (Flint, 1904, p. 231). 



We have quoted this strong opinion from an 

 authority who earned a high reputation in deal- 

 ing with philosophical questions, but it appears 

 to us to require some safeguarding in one direc- 

 tion in particular, to which we have already 

 referred, and must refer yet again. There are, 

 of course, physical and chemical processes in the 

 living body; we may speak of the physics and 

 chemistry of organisms; but these do not con- 

 stitute biology, nor do they directly contribute 

 to the solution of biological problems, which 

 have primarily to do with the ways of living 

 creatures as such. 



One of the features of Spencer's classification 

 which has been much criticized and justly, as 

 it seems to us is the awkward naming and 

 grouping of the "Abstract-Concrete" Sciences, 

 which included Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry 

 and Sciences of Light, Heat, Electricity, and 



