Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/488

476 2. The hierarchy of the sciences.

An arrangement of decreasing generality or increasing complexity, each science immediately dependent upon the next below: (a) mathematics, (b) astronomy, (c) physics, (d) chemistry, (e) biology (including "transcendental biology," a sort of psychology), (f) social physics or sociology.

Of this hierachy it is also asserted that the sciences pass through the three stages in the sequence indicated, and should be studied in this order.

3. The progress of society from the military to the industrial regime.

a) Intellectual progress is the determining factor of social evolution.

b) Intellectual progress passes through three stages to which there correspond three grades of social evolution: military, transitional or legal, industrial.

c) These three propositions (1,2, and 3 above) together constitute Comte's theory of social evolution.

4. Criticisms.

a) As to the three stages, it is pointed out by Spencer (Recent Discussions, p. 124) and Fiske (Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. I., p. 185) that the movement of human thought is a continual progress, that the three stages are not different in kind, that the advancement is simply from the more anthropomorphic to the less.

b) The hierarchy of the sciences is by the same authorities declared to be weakened by a confusion of "abstract" with "general;" the historical proof of order of development is denied; the evolution is not linear but the sciences have advanced together in mutual interdependence (''cf. Classification of the Sciences, Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy,'' Vol. I., p. 219).

c) As to the transition from militancy to industrialism the causal connection between intellectual progress and the three types of society is not even remotely shown except perhaps in the case of the third.