92 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



Meteorology, Geography, Botany, Zoology, Phi- 

 lology, and Sociology the point in the definition 

 being that "no one of them involves any opera- 

 tion but what is expounded in the fundamental 

 or departmental sciences." 



Thirdly, Bain suggested a third group of Prac- 

 tical Sciences, but here his usual clearness of 

 thought is less evident. For he includes within 

 one very elastic band no only what we now call 

 "Applied Sciences," but also some of the arts like 

 Architecture, and several sub-sciences like ^Es- 

 thetics (surely a division of Psychology), not to 

 speak of Ethics and Economics. The idea of his 

 third group was a good one but the contents 

 formed, as Flint says, "an artificial and hetero- 

 geneous conglomeration." The same authority 

 protests against the exclusion of Metaphysics and 

 Theology, a procedure common to Comte, Spencer, 

 and Bain; but concedes that as regards the classi- 

 fication of the Sciences properly so-called Bain's 

 Scheme "may well be regarded as an improve- 

 ment on Comte's and much superior to Spencer's." 



KARL PEARSON'S CLASSIFICATION. One of the 

 clearest of recent maps of knowledge is that 

 furnished by Prof. Karl Pearson in his Grammar 

 of Science. He distinguishes, to begin with, the 

 Abstract Sciences, which deal with modes of 

 discrimination, from the Concrete Sciences, which 

 deal with the contents of perception. The Ab- 



