SOCIAL SCIENCE. CHAPTER I. OF SCIENCE. 1. Bacon's distributions and partitions of the tree of knowledge. Roots and branches of the tree. 2. Method of discovery the same in all departments of knowledge. British economists recognize not the real man of society, but the artificial man of their own system. All sciences and their methods embraced in Sociology. Analysis leads to synthesis. Science one and indivisible. The economical relations of man require mathematical formulæ to render them into systematic truths. The societary laws undetermined. Terms of the theorists insufficient and equivocal 3. Social science, the constituent and concrete of all others, waits upon their development for its own. Its impediments. The metaphysical must be replaced by the methodical study of man. Physical and social laws indivisible in the study of society, and all the phenomena of the subject constituting but a single science. § 1. "THE distributions and partitions of knowledge," says Lord Bacon, "are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and touch but in a point; but are like branches of a tree that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance before it comes to discontinuance and break itself into arms and boughs; therefore," as he continues, "it is good before we enter into the former distribution, to create and constitute one universal science by the name of Philosophia Prima, or Summary Philosophy, as the main or common way, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves." Concerned as he was with the order and division of the sciences, and pledged as he was in the introduction to his work to furnish it, he failed to do so, as a consequence of which his editor submitted a study in its stead. The several branches of natural science are commonly spoken of, but the figure has a larger parallelism with the subject, a tree having not only branches but also roots. These latter are properly under-ground branches, constituting the structural support and furnishing the vital subsistence of the tree, which grows from its roots and with them. Its stem, branches, flowers, and fruits, being converted aliment supplied by and through the roots, the allusions of the figure bere given are in good keeping with the natural history of the subject intended to be illustrated. The central or taproot, as the reader sees, represents MATTER, with its essential properties of inertia, impenetrability, divisibility, and attraction. The lateral ones stand, on one side, for mechanical and chemical forces, and on the other, for vegetable and animal ones, and from these substantive roots of being rises the stem man, so composed as to his natural constitution. The soul, being the occult life of the structure, is incapable of representation, though manifested by its proper evidence in the flowers and fruits, the emotions and thoughts of his faculties. We have now the stem-the man-"having dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance before it came to discontinue and break itself," branching off into his diverse activities. These branches are his functions, ramifying into all their specific differences of application. The first branch on the material side is Physics, which ramifies itself into natural philosophy and chemistry-masses and atoms; and the shoots from these are mechanics and chemical dynamics; the one being the action of masses and the other that of atoms. The main branch on the vital side of the tree, rising a little above Physics, must necessarily be Organology, branching first into the science of vegetable beings, Phytology, and sending off the shoot, Vegetable Physiology; and second, into that of animal beings, Zoology, leading to Biology, or the science of life. Following the stem in the natural order of rank and successive development it is seen next giving off Social Science, which divides itself into Jurisprudence and Political Economy, while on the corresponding side the main branch, Psychology, ramifies itself into Ethics and Theology, the tree finally topping out with Intuition as the material branch and Inspiration as the vital one. These highest and last named, are rightly the source of the other science or sciences to which Bacon alludes as standing above Metaphysics, when he says. that, "as for the vertical point, the summary law of nature, we know not whether man's inquiry can attain unto it;" that is, so as to order and methodize its teachings. In this scheme of the sciences of things, there is no place for either Logic or Mathematics, the respective regulative sciences of mind and matter. Neither of these belongs to Natural History, being both alike mere instruments to be used in the study of nature.* Historically, the top branches of the tree of knowledge, as of all other trees, are first produced, and the branches next below are soon put forth, but mature later, the instincts of religion and reason appearing in their vigor in the childhood of the race. Social science, necessarily, and metaphysics, spontaneously, present themselves as early as societies take form, and speculation is awakened; and they bring forth quickly the flowers and fruits of music, poetry, the fine arts, logic, mathematics, and those generalities of speculative truth which are the products of imagination and reflection. The torrespondence between the figure chosen and the facts to be dlustrated would seem to be complete. In time, the branches nearer to the earth, more material in their substance and more dependent upon observation, obtain development in their larger diversity of use. The sciences of substance, of natural objects, grow and ramify themselves almost indefinitely, physical philosophy and organology, in their dependencies, shooting out in every direction of observation and experiment, at first overshadowed by the speculative branches above them, but always vivified by them; while in their turn repaying this service by affording substantive strength and corrective modification as they grow into maturity. Such is the history of science, and such the illustration of its orderly division, succession, and co-ordination; it represents the compound nature of man, the sources of his powers and the order of their development. § 2. Seeking now to understand the history of man in past ages, or in distant lands, we must commence by studying him in the present, and having mastered him in the past and present, we may then be enabled to predict the future. To do this, it is required that we do with society as does the chemist with the piece of granite, resolving it into its several parts and studying each part separately, ascertaining how it would act were it left to itself, and comparing what would be its independent action with that we see to be its societary action; and then by help of the same law of which the mathematician, the physicist, the chemist, and the physiologist, avail them *Science asks the questions, What? and Why? Those asked by Mathematics are, How much? and Where? |