30 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pi. i. 



phenomena, that are continually less and less widely con- 

 trasted, that are more and more accurately defined in their 

 limits and more and more coherent in their materials. And 

 the ultimate perfection of knowledge would he the recogni- 

 tion of all the distinctions which exist between phenomena, 

 and the consequent establishment of classes whose members 

 would be completely alike among themselves, while unlike 

 the members of all other classes. Manifestly such knowledge 

 would be, in the fullest sense of the term, scientific 

 knowledge ; which is thus seen to be merely a higher and 

 more complex development not only of the knowledge of 

 ordinary matters which we do not regard as scientific, but of 

 the rudimentary knowledge possessed by infants, by savages, 

 and by the lower animals. The dog or lion has no doubt 

 established in his mind the distinction between the bright 

 sky of day, illuminated by a single dazzling orb, and the 

 pale sky of night, spangled with a multitude of twinkling 

 points. The savage who in his nocturnal prowlings guides 

 himself by the stars has rudely classified these objects 

 in their relations of position. The shepherds of Mesopotamia 

 and the agriculturists of Attika superadded the distinctions 

 between stars which regularly traverse the same apparent 

 paths and stars which pursue an erratic course ; and in their 

 classifications of stars according to their times of rising and 

 setting we have an example of a rudely-scientific method of 

 proceeding. Finally by the modern astronomer the heavenly 

 bodies are minutely classified according to ti rv mutual 

 relations as suns, planets, or satellites ; according to their 

 visible magnitudes, or the angles which they subtend on the 

 field of vision ; according 1 3 their orbital courses, their 

 angular velocities, their axial inclinations, their specific 

 gravities, etc., wherever these have been ascertained ; and 

 lately in some few instances, according to their physical con- 

 stitutions in so far as light has been thrown upon this point 

 by spectrum-analysis. In like manner the lowest savage 



