From our present point of view, then, it becomes obvious that the conception of a _serial_ arrangement of the sciences is a vicious one. It is not simply that, as M. Comte admits, such a classification “will always involve something, if not arbitrary, at least artificial;” it is not, as he would have us believe, that, neglecting minor imperfections such a classification may be substantially true; but it is that any grouping of the sciences in a succession gives a radically erroneous idea of their genesis and their dependencies. There is no “one _rational_ order among a host of possible systems.” There is no “true _filiation_ of the sciences.” The whole hypothesis is fundamentally false. Indeed, it needs but a glance at its origin to see at once how baseless it is. Why a _series_? What reason have we to suppose that the sciences admit of a _linear_ arrangement? Where is our warrant for assuming that there is some _succession_ in which they can be placed? There is no reason; no warrant. Whence then has arisen the supposition? To use M. Comte’s own phraseology, we should say, it is a metaphysical conception. It adds another to the cases constantly occurring, of the human mind being made the measure of Nature. We are obliged to think in sequence; it is a law of our minds that we must consider subjects separately, one after another: _therefore_ {28} Nature must be serial—_therefore_ the sciences must be classifiable in a succession. See here the birth of the notion, and the sole evidence of its truth. Men have been obliged when arranging in books their schemes of education and systems of knowledge, to choose _some_ order or other. And from inquiring what is the best order, have fallen into the belief that there is an order which truly represents the facts—have persevered in seeking such an order; quite overlooking the previous question whether it is likely that Nature has consulted the convenience of book-making. For German philosophers, who hold that Nature is “petrified intelligence,” and that logical forms are the foundations of all things, it is a consistent hypothesis that as thought is serial, Nature is serial; but that M. Comte, who is so bitter an opponent of all anthropomorphism, even in its most evanescent shapes, should have committed the mistake of imposing upon the external world an arrangement which so obviously springs from a limitation of the human consciousness, is somewhat strange. And it is the more strange when we call to mind how, at the outset, M. Comte remarks that in the beginning “_toutes les sciences sont cultivées simultanément par les mêmes esprits_;” that this is “_inevitable et même indispensable_;” and how he further remarks that the different sciences are “_comme les diverses branches d’un tronc unique_.” Were it not accounted for by the distorting influence of a cherished hypothesis, it would be scarcely possible to understand how, after recognizing truths like these, M.