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46 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



standing as it were at the entrance of scientific reason- 

 ing, there is another idea which stands at the end of all 

 3. scientific thought. This is the idea of Unity in its 

 luty!"^"' most impressive form as Individuality. It remains over 

 as an ultimate empirical fact to which scientific reason- 

 ing advances, of equal importance with order. 



These two conceptions of Order and Individuality 

 likewise govern the two great divisions under which 

 scientific thought has been studied by us — Physics and 

 Biology. After reviewing in the first three chapters 

 the characteristic attitudes taken up by the three lead- 

 ing nations in scientific thought, I entered upon the 

 four abstract conceptions — namely, Attraction, Atom- 

 ism, Kinetics, and Energy — which are capable of strict 

 mathematical definition, and which form the skeleton 

 or framework around or in which the sciences of 

 Astronomy, Dynamics, Physics, and Chemistry have 

 arranged their various doctrines. They serve together 

 to define more precisely the conception of the general 

 order of things, appropriately termed the Cosmos. In 

 the four chapters following upon these I dealt with 

 the different conceptions under which a comprehension, 

 not so much of the general order as of the special events 

 and things of our world, has been gained. These con- 

 ceptions, referring to the actual forms, the history, the 

 life and soul of things natural, have been likewise 

 dealt with in four chapters. On them the physics 

 of the universe and of our earth, the sciences dealing 

 with the organised and animated creations, have been 

 built up. Beginning with a special kind of order — 

 namely, that indicated by external figure — these sciences 



