COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



values of all possible tangents to all possible 

 curves.^ 



Fourthly, science is continually more and 

 more clearly differentiated from ordinary know- 

 ledge by the continually increasing ahstractness 

 of the relations which it classifies. This propo- 

 sition is involved in the preceding one. For 

 clearly the progress towards higher and higher 

 generality is the progress towards a knowledge 

 more and more independent of special circum- 

 stances—towards a study of the phenomena 

 most completely disengaged from the incidents 

 of particular cases. 



And finally science differs from ordinary 

 knowledge in its higher degree of organiza- 

 tion — in the far greater extent to which it 

 carries the process of coordinating groups of 

 like orders of relations, and subordinating 

 groups of higher and lower orders of relations. 

 This we habitually regard as such a funda- 

 mental characteristic of scientific knowledge 

 that we grant the title of science to some de- 

 partments of inquiry which possess it, in spite 

 of the fact that the only prevision which is pos- 

 sible in them is neither certain nor quantitative. 

 Take, for instance, the case of biology. If quan- 

 titative prevision were the only thing which 

 distinguishes science, we could hardly pretend 



1 Spencer's Essays y ist series, pp. 177-180. [Library 

 Edition, vol. ii. pp. 18-21.] 



54 



