COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



tific truths are to be grouped for the purposes 

 of our philosophic construction. In short, we 

 are brought face to face with the problem which 

 also occupied Comte next in order after the 

 question of deanthropomorphization ; we have 

 to deal with the classification of the sciences. 

 And as in the preceding chapter, we shall en- 

 deavour, while adversely criticising the Com- 

 tean theory, to elicit results which are both true 

 and available for our subsequent inquiries. 



Comte begins by distinguishing two kinds of 

 natural sciences — the one kind abstract and 

 general, having for their object the discovery 

 of the laws to which the various orders of phe- 

 nomena conform, in all conceivable cases ; the 

 other kind concrete, special, descriptive, con- 

 sisting in the application of general laws to the 

 natural history of the various objects actually 

 existing in the present or past. There is no- 

 thing difficult, or even novel, in this distinction, 

 since it corresponds very nearly with that which 

 is ordinarily drawn in scientific treatises between 

 dogmatic physics and natural history. We 

 shall see the difference very clearly by compar- 

 ing general physiology on the one hand with 

 zoology and botany on the other. The one 

 formulates the general laws of life, whether con- 

 sidered in equilibrium or in the process of de- 

 velopment ; the other merely enumerates the 

 conditions and mode of existence of each par- 



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