Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/279

 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES. 267 dates to the birth of Geology and other sciences. Professor Huxley defines science as " organised common sense," and Mr. Spencer as " partially unified knowledge ". Science has also been defined as systematised knowledge, rationalised knowledge, verified knowledge, classified knowledge, &c. It seems to us that such definitions are difficult of application, and we would define science historically as the knowledge of any department resulting from intelligent and special investigation, according to a rigid method. It is thus distinguished from ordinary knowledge by the rigidity of the method, and the special and intelligent atten- tion given. As soon as any intelligent worker gives any results of investigation in any particular line we have the nucleus of a science. M. Pouchet well remarks : "A science is founded as soon as a fact, whatever it may be, is well settled. It forms a point whence we set out on new discoveries, until another and broader one has been found." Adam Smith organised the science of Political Economy, but Aristotle and others, centuries before, left results of intelligent investigation in this field. The one who brings the first material for the building of a house is building it as truly as the architect who designs the whole. The difference between the house and the science is this, that a great deal of material for a science is collected long before the architect makes his appearance, while in the case of the house the material is collected at the instance of the architect. All sciences have a descriptive or natural history stage of growth before they arrive at the period of organic growth, and organic growth often pro- ceeds for many years before the science receives general recog- nition as an organised science. Classifications of the sciences may evidently be either historical or logical. An historical classification would show the sciences in the order of genesis, and this view of the subject would belong to the science of the history of the sciences. This is a science which has been too little cultivated. Dr. Whewell made some progress in this line of study in his History of the Inductive Sciences, but this was only a partial treatment, and, moreover, we have a vast amount of material which was not open to him. The science of the history of the sciences may be conceived as in some measure the correlative of the science of religions. Religions are bodies of belief concerning God and a future life, and the science of the history of religions investigates the genesis, growth and relationships of these bodies of beliefs. Sciences are bodies of beliefs concerning nature, man, and God, arrived at by rigid method and intelligent and special attention ; and the science of the history of the sciences investigates their genesis, growth and relationships. The history of science is thus a legiti- mate historical science correlated with the history of religion and the history of philosophy. In tracing the rise and progress of the sciences we should find that a genetic classification would be in ramifying form rather than linear, would present the ap-