COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



chemistry; but we cannot proceed a step in 

 chemistry without appealing to physics. 



Turning now to organic phenomena, we per- 

 ceive that living beings may be studied either 

 individually or collectively. In the first case 

 we generalize the laws of nutrition and repro- 

 duction, of muscular contractility and nervous 

 sensibility. This is the province of biology, a 

 science which according to Comte is of itself 

 competent to include all the phenomena pre- 

 sented by vegetables and by the lower animals, 

 as well as all those presented by individual man. 

 But in the case of man, the aggregation of in- 

 dividuals gives rise to an entirely new class of 

 phenomena produced by the reaction of indi- 

 viduals upon each other. To generalize the 

 laws of this class of phenomena is the business 

 of sociology, which is thus manifestly the most 

 complex and special of the sciences. 



According to Comte, this disposes of all the 

 fundamental abstract sciences except mathe- 

 matics. This science he places first of all, the 

 phenomena of number and. form being univer- 

 sal, and capable of generalization without re- 

 ference to other phenomena. 



Thus we have the hierarchy of the positive 

 sciences arranged in the following order : — 

 I. Mathematics. 

 II. Astronomy. " 



III. Physics. 



IO 



