en. vni.] ORGANIZATION OF TUB SCIENCES. 209 



progress of generalization has indeed been partly determined 

 by the relative simplicity or complexity of the phenomena 

 to be generalized (and this fact accounts for the considerable 

 amount of truth which the Comtean doctrine contains) ; but 

 it has been also determined by several other circumstances. 

 In the chapter on " Laws in General " to be found in the 

 first edition of "First Principles," but omitted in the revised 

 edition, Mr. Spencer has called attention to some of these 

 circumstances. He reminds us that not only are phenomena 

 early generalized in proportion as they are simple, but also in 

 proportion as they are conspicuous or obtrusive. " Hence it 

 happened that after the establishment of those very manifest 

 sequences constituting a lunation, and those less manifest 

 ones marking a year, and those still less manifest ones 

 marking the planetary periods, astronomy occupied itself 

 with such inconspicuous sequences as those displayed in the 

 repeating cycle of lunar eclipses, and those which suggested 

 the theory of epicycles and eccentrics ; while modern astro- 

 nomy deals with still more inconspicuous sequences, some 

 of which, as the planetary rotations, are nevertheless the 

 simplest which the heavens present." The solution of the 

 problem of specific gravity by Archimedes, and the discovery 

 of atmospheric pressure, nearly nineteen hundred years later, 

 by Torricelli, involved mechanical relations of exactly the 

 same kind ; but the connection between antecedent and con- 

 sequent was much more conspicuous in the former case than 

 in the latter. The effect produced by the air in decomposing 

 soil is a phenomenon just as simple as the rusting of iron or 

 the burning of wood ; but it is far less conspicuous, and 

 accordingly chemistry generalized the one long before the 

 other. Finally, if, remembering the enormous advance in 

 science due to the telescope and microscope, and bearing in 

 mind the equally astonishing results which are likely to 

 arise from the use of the lately-invented spectroscope, we ask 

 what is the character of the service rendered us by these 

 VOL. I P 



