Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume II. Spencer Herbert

Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume II

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The broadest natural division among the Sciences, is the division between those which deal with the abstract relations under which phenomena are presented to us, and those which deal with the phenomena themselves. Relations of whatever orders, are nearer akin to one another than they are to any objects. Objects of whatever orders, are nearer akin to one another than they are to any relations. Whether, as some hold, Space and Time are nothing but forms of Thought 2; or whether, as I hold myself, they are forms of Things, that have generated forms of Thought through organized and inherited experience of Things; it is equally true that Space and Time are contrasted absolutely with the existences disclosed to us in Space and Time; and hence the Sciences which deal exclusively with Space and Time, are separated by the profoundest of all distinctions from the Sciences which deal with the existences contained in Space and Time. Space is the abstract of all relations of co-existence. Time is the abstract of all relations of sequence. And dealing as they do entirely with relations of co-existence and sequence, in their general or special forms, Logic and Mathematics form a class of the Sciences more widely unlike the rest, than any of the rest are from one another.

The Sciences which deal with existences themselves, instead of the blank forms in which existences are presented to us, admit of a sub-division less profound than the division above made, but more profound than any of the divisions among the Sciences individually considered. They fall into two classes, having quite different aspects, aims, and methods. Every phenomenon is more or less composite – is a manifestation of force under several distinct modes. Hence result two objects of inquiry. We may study the component modes of force separately; or we may study them as co-operating to generate in this composite phenomenon. On the one hand, neglecting all the incidents of particular cases, we may aim to educe the laws of each mode of force, when it is uninterfered with. On the other hand, the incidents of the particular case being given, we may seek to interpret the entire phenomenon, as a product of the several forces simultaneously in action. The truths reached through the first kind of inquiry, though concrete inasmuch as they have actual existences for their subject-matters, are abstract inasmuch as they refer to the modes of existence apart from one another; while the truths reached by the second kind of inquiry are properly concrete, inasmuch as they formulate the facts in their combined order, as they occur in Nature.

The Sciences, then, in their main divisions, stand thus: —

• SCIENCE is

• that which treats of the forms in which phenomona are known to us: ABSTRACT SCIENCE (Logic and Mathematics)

• that which treats of the phenomena themselves:

• in their elements: ABSTRACT-CONCRETE SCIENCE (Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, etc.)

• in their totalities: CONCRETE SCIENCE (Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Psychology, Sociology, etc.)

It is needful to define the words abstract and concrete as thus used; since they are sometimes used with other meanings. M. Comte divides Science into abstract and concrete; but the divisions which he distinguishes by these names are quite unlike those above made. Instead of regarding some Sciences as wholly abstract, and others as wholly concrete, he regards each Science as having an abstract part, and a concrete part. There is, according to him, an abstract mathematics and a concrete mathematics – an abstract biology and concrete biology. He says: – “Il faut distinguer, par rapport à tous les ordres de phénomènes, deux genres de sciences naturelles: les unes abstraites, générales, ont pour objet la découverte des lois qui régissent les diverses classes de phénomènes, en considérant tous les cas qu’on peut concevoir; les autres concrètes, particulières, descriptives, et qu’on désigne quelquefois sous le nom de sciences naturelles proprement dites, consistent dans l’application de ces lois a l’histoire effective des différens êtres existans.” And to illustrate the distinction, he names general physiology as abstract, and zoology and botany as concrete. Here it is manifest that the words abstract and general are used as synonymous. They have, however, different meanings; and confusion results from not distinguishing their meanings. Abstractness means detachment from the incidents of particular cases. Generality means manifestation in numerous cases. On the one hand, the essential nature of some phenomenon is considered, apart from disguising phenomena. On the other hand, the frequency of the phenomenon, with or without disguising phenomena, is the thing considered. Among the phenomena presented by numbers, which are purely ideal, the two coincide; but excluding these, an abstract truth is not realizable to perception in any case of which it is asserted, whereas a general truth is realizable to perception in every case of which it is asserted. Some illustrations will make the distinction clear. Thus it is an abstract truth that the angle contained in a semi-circle is a right angle – abstract in the sense that though it does not hold of actually-constructed semi-circles and angles, which are always inexact, it holds of the ideal semi-circles and angles abstracted from real ones; but this is not a general truth, either in the sense that it is commonly manifested in Nature, or in the sense that it is a space-relation that comprehends many minor space-relations: it is a quite special space-relation. Again, that the momentum of a body causes it to move in a straight line at a uniform velocity, is an abstract-concrete truth – a truth abstracted from certain experiences of concrete phenomena; but it is by no means a general truth: so little generality has it, that no one fact in Nature displays it. Conversely, surrounding things supply us with hosts of general truths that are not in the least abstract. It is a general truth that the planets go round the Sun from West to East – a truth which holds good in several hundred cases (including the cases of the planetoids); but this truth is not at all abstract, since it is perfectly realized as a concrete fact in every one of these cases. Every vertebrate animal whatever, has a double nervous system; all birds and all mammals are warm-blooded – these are general truths, but they are concrete truths: that is to say, every vertebrate animal individually presents an entire and unqualified manifestation of this duality of the nervous system; every living bird exemplifies absolutely or completely the warm-bloodedness of birds. What we here call, and rightly call, a general truth, is simply a proposition which sums up a number of our actual experiences; and not the expression of a truth drawn from our actual experiences, but never presented to us in any of them. In other words, a general truth colligates a number of particular truths; while an abstract truth colligates no particular truths, but formulates a truth which certain phenomena all involve, though it is actually seen in none of them.

Limiting the words to their proper meanings as thus defined, it becomes manifest that the three classes of Sciences above separated, are not distinguishable at all by differences in their degrees of generality. They are all equally general; or rather they are all, considered as groups, universal. Every object whatever presents at once the subject-matter for each of them. In every fragment of substance we have simultaneously illustrated the abstract truths of relation in Time and Space; the abstract-concrete truths in conformity with which the fragment manifests its several modes of force; and the concrete truths resulting from the joint manifestation of these modes of force, and which give to the fragment the characters by which it is known as such or such. Thus these three classes of Sciences severally formulate different, but co-extensive, classes of facts. Within each group there are truths of greater and less generality: there are general abstract truths, and special abstract truths; general abstract-concrete truths, and special abstract-concrete truths; general concrete truths, and special concrete truths. But while within each class there are groups and sub-groups and sub-sub-groups which differ in their degrees of generality, the classes themselves differ only in their degrees of abstractness. 3

Let us pass to the sub-divisions of these classes. The first class is separable into two parts – the one containing universal truths, the other non-universal truths. Dealing wholly with relations apart from related things, Abstract Science considers first, that which is common to all relations whatever; and, second, that which is common to each order of relations. Besides the indefinite and variable connexions which exist among phenomena, as occurring together in Space and Time, we find that there are also definite and invariable connexions – that between each kind of phenomenon and certain other kinds of phenomena, there exist uniform relations. This is a universal abstract truth – that there is an unchanging order, or fixity of law, in Space and Time.

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I have been charged with misrepresenting Kant and misunderstanding him, because I have used the expression “forms of Thought” instead of “forms of Intuition.” Elsewhere I have shown that my argument against him remains equally valid when the phrase “forms of Intuition” is used. Here I may in the first place add that I did but follow some Kantists in saying “forms of Thought,” and I may add in the second place that the objection is superficial and quite irrelevant to the issue. Thought when broadly used as antithetical to Things includes Intuition: it comprehends in this sense all that is subjective as distinguished from all that is objective, and in so doing comprehends Intuition. Nor is this all. There cannot be Intuition without Thought: every act of intuition implies an act of classing without which the thing intuited is not known as such or such; and every act of classing is an act of thought.

Some propositions laid down by M. Littré, in his book – Auguste Comte et la Philosophie Positive (published in 1863), may fitly be dealt with here. In the candid and courteous reply he makes to my strictures on the Comtean classification in “The Genesis of Science,” he endeavours to clear up some of the inconsistencies I pointed out; and he does this by drawing a distinction between objective generality and subjective generality. He says – “qu’il existe deux ordres de généralité, l’une objective et dans les choses, l’autre subjective, abstraite et dans l’esprit.” This sentence, in which M. Littré makes subjective generality synonymous with abstractness, led me at first to conclude that he had in view the same distinction as that which I have above explained between generality and abstractness. On re-reading the paragraph, however, I found this was not the case. In a previous sentence he says – “La biologie a passé de la considération des organes à celles des tissus, plus généraux que les organes, et de la considération des tissus à celle des éléments anatomiques, plus généraux que les tissus. Mais cette généralité croissante est subjective non objective, abstraite non concrète.” Here it is manifest that abstract and concrete, are used in senses analogous to those in which they are used by M. Comte; who, as we have seen, regards general physiology as abstract and zoology and botany as concrete. And it is further manifest that the word abstract, as thus used, is not used in its proper sense. For, as above shown, no such facts as those of anatomical structure can be abstract facts; but can only be more or less general facts. Nor do I understand M. Littré’s point of view when he regards these more general facts of anatomical structure, as subjectively general and not objectively general. The structural phenomena presented by any tissue, such as mucous membrane, are more general than the phenomena presented by any of the organs which mucous membrane goes to form, simply in the sense that the phenomena peculiar to the membrane are repeated in a greater number of instances than the phenomena peculiar to any organ into the composition of which the membrane enters. And, similarly, such facts as have been established respecting the anatomical elements of tissues, are more general than the facts established respecting any particular tissue, in the sense that they are facts which the various parts of organized bodies exhibit in a greater number of cases – they are objectively more general; and they can be called subjectively more general only in the sense that the conception corresponds with the phenomena.

Let me endeavour to clear up this point: – There is, as M. Littré truly says, a decreasing generality that is objective. If we omit the phenomena of Dissolution, which are changes from the special to the general, all changes which matter undergoes are from the general to the special – are changes involving a decreasing generality in the united groups of attributes. This is the progress of things. The progress of thought , is not only in the same direction, but also in the opposite direction. The investigation of Nature discloses an increasing number of specialities; but it simultaneously discloses more and more the generalities within which these specialities fall. Take a case. Zoology, while it goes on multiplying the number of its species, and getting a more complete knowledge of each species (decreasing generality); also goes on discovering the common characters by which species are united into larger groups (increasing generality). Both these are subjective processes; and in this case, both orders of truth reached are concrete – formulate the phenomena as actually manifested. The truth that mammals of all kinds have seven cervical vertebræ (I believe there is one exception) is a generalization – a general relation in thought answering to a general relation in things. As the existence of seven cervical vertebræ in each mammal is a concrete fact, the statement of it is a concrete truth, and the statement colligating such truths is not made other than concrete by holding of case after case.

M. Littré, recognizing the necessity for some modification of the hierarchy of the Sciences, as enunciated by M. Comte, still regards it as substantially true; and for proof of its validity, he appeals mainly to the essential constitutions of the Sciences. It is unnecessary for me here to meet, in detail, the arguments by which he supports the proposition, that the essential constitutions of the Sciences, justify the order in which M. Comte places them. It will suffice to refer to the foregoing pages, and to the pages which are to follow, as containing the definitions of those fundamental characteristics which demand the grouping of the Sciences in the way I have pointed out. As already shown, and as will be shown still more clearly by and bye, the radical differences of constitution among the Sciences, necessitate the colligation of them into the three classes – Abstract, Abstract-Concrete, and Concrete. How irreconcilable is M. Comte’s classification with these groups, will be at once apparent on inspection. It stands thus: —

• Mathematics (including rational Mechanics)… partly Abstract, partly Abstract-Concrete.

• Astronomy.. Concrete.

• Physics.. Abstract-Concrete.

• Chemistry.. Abstract-Concrete.

• Biology.. Concrete.

• Sociology.. Concrete.