Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/757

* b = a> SCIENCES. 687 SCIENCES. ^ _^ and most scientific iiicii would reckon them as ^ fc. §• more. Six objects admit of 720 different disposi- I o. § I tions. . . . Our problem is, then, to (iiid the M V. S ■5, § rational order, amonf; a host of jiossible sjs- g gi . S ^ ^ terns." '"The true order is determined by the dc- C ^ ^ £ 2 .& S''*'^ °f simplicity, or, «hat comes to (he .same §, % % -a S. = thing, of generality," of the phenomena which are » i2 S a 5 ■§ e ^^^ objects of scientific investigation. This or- ■^ . "5 « » ii ? g ~ <"'■ turns out to be mathematics, astronomy, ^ ■-'■_=-,.» physics, chemistry, physiologj-, and social phys- ^ ics, for the last of which C'ouite invented the now = current name, 'soeiologj-.' The correctness of a this order, he argues, is confirmed in variou.* 3' ways. For instance, in education, this is the or- £ der in which the .sciences must be studied. An c astronomer must have learned Iiis mathematics. ■5 Physical philosophers cannot understand phys- g ics without at least a general knowledge of as- S tronomy ; nor chemists without physics and as- 2 K tronomy ; nor physiologists without chemistry, £■5 wO physics, and astronomy; nor, above all, the stu- rl °.| dents of social philosojihy, without a general Is i^ knowledge of all the anterior scienees. As such S3 S 2 conditions are, as yet. rarely fulfilled, and as "" ^ no organizations exist for their fulliUment, there ^ is among us, in fact, no rational scientific edu- cation." ^ Herbert Spencer in 1854 suggested a classi- I . fication of the sciences which he worked out in g. S ^ detail ten ,vears later, and which has become fa- 5 ■§ 5 mous. He begins by criticising Comte's scheme I 5 2 on account of the identification the latter made o ^ . ° o of the abstract and the general. "Abstraetncss," -■§ .| 5" .& lie insists, "means detachment from the inci- os j. o o dents of particular cases. Generality means u= §• .2 o manifestation in numerous cases." Not degree ?-^ ■g g g of generality — as by Conite — but of abstract- '" 5 ness is by Spencer regarded as the proper basis ^^ • o • ^ _, for division of the sciences. Applying this prin- J ai ciple of division, he obtains three classes of M .S' ■§, sciences, the abstract, the abstract-concrete, and SB ^ the concrete sciences. The variotis subdivisions of I £ B these classes are shown in the accom]ianying table. M w o ■3 One of the most carefully worked out classi- fications ever published is Wundt's (1889). He objects to most previous classifications because they attempt to force some arbitrary schema- tism upon the facts. One must fisd the scheme i ^ S .2 in the facts themselves, he argiies, and these facts are not the object-matter of the sciences, but the points of view which the various sciences take of their object-matter. The point of view of a science is a conceptional point of view. It is taken in order that from this vantage ground we may survey the facts and bring them into intelligible relations. This point of view deter- mines the method pursued by any science. As sciences are distinguished by their conceptional points of view, Wundt classifies them according to these points of view. The first division, ac- cording to this principle, is into the special sciences and philosophy. The special sciences J deal with faCts from some single point of view ; ^ philosophy takes a more comprehensive sur'ey ^, of our knowledge of these same facts. "While ^ the special sciences divide knowledge into a g ^ great number of objects of knowledge, the eye i g of philosophy is from the start directed toward .S§ the organic unity (Zusammenhnnri) of all these S3S objects of knowledge." The various subdivisions J of the special sciences and of philosophy, as f< accompanying table. o
 * 3 worked out by Wundt, are to be found in tho