226 COSMIC PHILOSOPlTY. [pt. i. 



minutely how the allied sciences in each grand division have 

 continually reacted upon each other; how synthesis has 

 directly aided synthesis, and how analysis has directly aided 

 analysis ; how the analytic and the simpler synthetic sciences 

 have from time to time furnished new hints to mathematics ; 

 and how all the other sciences, in all the divisions, from 

 mathematics to sociology, have aided the progress of logic, 

 supplying it with new methods of investigation and fresh 

 canons of proof. But such a detailed survey is not needful 

 for the purposes of this work. Let us rather return for a 

 moment to our criticism of Comte, and, having already 

 examined his organization of the sciences both from the 

 historical and from the logical point of view, let us endeavour 

 to render an impartial verdict as to the philosophic value oi 

 his achievement. 



If tried by its conformity to the ideal standard of perfec- 

 tion furnished by the scientific and philosophical knowledge 

 of the present day, the Comtean classification of the sciences 

 must undoubtedly be pronounced, in nearly all essential 

 respects, a failure. As a representation of the historic order 

 of progression among the different sciences, it must be 

 regarded as the imperfect expression of an inadequately 

 comprehended set of truths. We have seen that this order 

 of progression depends upon at least five interacting factors ; 

 upon the simplicity, the concreteness, the conspicuousness, 

 and the frequency of the phenomena investigated, and upon 

 the comparative number and perfection of the implements of 

 investigation. Of these five factors, the Comtean series takes 

 into account only the first, or at the utmost only the first and 

 the last. For this reason it unduly simplifies the order of 

 progression. Doubtless it is correct to say that, other things 

 equal, the simpler and more general phenomena have been 

 interpreted earlier than the more complex and special 

 phenomena ; but the other things have not been equal. And 

 consequently scientific evolution has not proceeded uniformly, 



