216 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. i. 



cannot be altogether avoided." Conversely, when we come 

 to the concrete sciences, — astronomy, geology, biology, psy- 

 chology, and sociology, — our business is no longer analysis 

 but synthesis. "Not to formulate the factors of phenomena 

 is now the object; but to formulate the phenomena resulting 

 from these factors under the various conditions which the 

 Universe presents." 



Thus we have distinguished three orders of sciences, — the 

 abstract, the abstract-concrete, and the concrete. Our task 

 is next to arrange the concrete sciences in some convenient 

 and justifiable order. Mr. Spencer has constructed an 

 elaborate tableau of these sciences, which is at once elegant 

 and accurate, but which, for ordinary purposes, may profit- 

 ably be abridged and condensed. Our principle of abridgment 

 shall be a simple one. Since, in the concrete sciences, our 

 object is to interpret the various orders of phenomena syn- 

 thetically, as actually manifested throughout that portion of 

 the universe which is accessible to our researches, — we cannot 

 do better than arrange these sciences in the order in which 

 their subject-phenomena have begun to be manifested in the 

 course of universal Evolution. 1 First in order come the 

 astronomical phenomena presented by the genesis of the 

 solar system from a cooling and contracting mass of vapour, 

 and the resulting rotatory motions of its members. Next 

 come the geological phenomena presented by each cooling 

 and contracting planet, but completely accessible to us only 

 in the case of the earth. With the origin of life upon the earth, 

 already considerably advanced in its development, biological 

 phenomena begin to be presented. Still later, with the 

 appearance of animals possessing comparatively complex 

 nervous systems, begin the phenomena of consciousness, con- 

 stituting the subject-matter of psychology. Finally, with 



1 See, in this connection, a very interesting letter by the distinguished 

 geologist M. Cotta, ; u La Philosophic Positive, mai-juin. 1669 ; torn. iv. p. 

 486, 



