LIFE AND MIND 



with reference to the other sciences. Mr. 

 Lewes, for instance, misled by his general ad- 

 herence to the Comtean classification of the 

 sciences, regards psychology as a subdivision of 

 biology, on the ground that the phenomena 

 of consciousness are merely a special division 

 of the phenomena of life. This is, in one sense, 

 true ; so true, indeed, as to be fatal to the con- 

 clusion which it is meant to support. For it 

 may be said, with equal truth, that the pheno- 

 mena of life are but a subdivision of the phe- 

 nomena presented by the surface of our con- 

 tracting and cooling planet ; so that it might 

 equally well be argued that biology is only a 

 subdivision of geology. And again it may be 

 said that geologic phenomena are only a sub- 

 division of the general phenomena presented 

 by the condensation of a nebula ; so that geo- 

 logy is only a branch of astronomy. Yet it 

 could hardly be said that psychology is a mere 

 branch of astronomy ; so that here we seem to 

 have reached a reductio ad absurdum. 



But by travelling back over the course we shall 

 get out of the difficulty, and not only see why- 

 psychology has as good a right as any other 

 branch of inquiry to be ranked as an independ- 

 ent science but also see why it must needs be 

 partly founded upon an observation and com- 

 parison of states of consciousness. Let us then. 



109 



