ORGANIZATION OF THE SCIENCES 



ganization, and you have nothing left but the 

 laws of molecular rearrangement, which are the 

 subjects of physics and chemistry. This is not 

 identifying biology with physics and chemistry. 

 The fact of organization remains, by the study 

 of which biology is an independent science. 

 But it is a concrete science, since it can study 

 organization only as actually exemplified in 

 particular organisms. The same is true of so- 

 ciology, which is simply an extension of the 

 principles of biology and psychology to the 

 complex phenomena furnished by the mutual 

 reactions of intelligent organisms upon each 

 other. There is no abstract science of sociology 

 which leaves out of sight the special complica- 

 tions arising from the interaction of concrete, 

 actually existing communities. Any such ab- 

 stract science is a mere figment of the imagi- 

 nation, born of Comte's excessive passion for 

 systematizing. The science of sociology is the 

 generalization of the concrete phenomena of 

 society, as recorded in history ; and, in the wid- 

 est sense, the laws of sociology are the laws of 

 history. And, travelling back to the other end 

 of the series, a similar criticism must be made 

 upon astronomy. This science is an application 

 of molar physics (and latterly, in some degree, 

 of molecular physics and chemistry) to the con- 

 crete phenomena presented by the heavenly 

 bodies. The universal law of gravitation is in- 

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