ORGANIZATION OF THE SCIENCES 



teenth : but what do we now mean by physics ? 

 If we mean merely the science which generalizes 

 the phenomena of weight, our proposition is 

 indisputable ; but unfortunately it is of little 

 use in supporting the Comtean classification. 

 For Comte, as we have seen, includes under 

 the general head of physics, not only the sci- 

 ence of weight, but also the sciences of heat, 

 light, electricity and magnetism, to say nothing 

 of sound. It was incumbent on Comte to show 

 that this whole group of phenomena became 

 scientifically coordinated at an earlier date than 

 the phenomena of chemical composition and 

 decomposition. This, however, it would have 

 been impossible to show. Electric phenomena, 

 the most backward of the group, were not scien- 

 tifically coordinated until the close of the last 

 century, when Coulomb generalized the laws of 

 electric equilibrium. Strictly speaking, there 

 was no general science of Physics even when 

 Comte wrote the " Philosophic Positive ; " and 

 in linking together the allied departments of 

 optics, thermology, acoustics and electrology, he 

 made up what was then an incongruous group, 

 about which it was unsafe to make general state- 

 ments. In 1842 — the year in which Comte's 

 work was finished — Mr. Grove, by showing 

 that the different allied manifestations of phy- 

 sical force are modes of motion which are con- 

 vertible into each other, laid the foundations 



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