To which I would reply, that nothing could be further from my thoughts.
But different habits and various special tendencies of two sciences do
not imply different methods. The mountaineer and the man of the plains
have very different habits of progression, and each would be at a loss
in the other's place; but the method of progression, by putting one leg
before the other, is the same in each case. Every step of each is a
combination of a lift and a push; but the mountaineer lifts more and the
lowlander pushes more. And I think the case of two sciences resembles
this.
I do not question for a moment, that while the Mathematician is busied
with deductions _from_ general propositions, the Biologist is more
especially occupied with observation, comparison, and those processes
which lead _to_ general propositions. All I wish to insist upon is, that
this difference depends not on any fundamental distinction in the
sciences themselves, but on the accidents of their subject-matter, of
their relative complexity, and consequent relative perfection.
The Mathematician deals with two properties of objects only, number and
extension, and all the inductions he wants have been formed and finished
ages ago. He is occupied now with nothing but deduction and
verification.
The Biologist deals with a vast number of properties of objects, and
his inductions will not be completed, I fear, for ages to come; but when
they are, his science will be as deductive and as exact as the
Mathematics themselves.
Such is the relation of Biology to those sciences which deal with
objects having fewer properties than itself. But as the student, in
reaching Biology, looks back upon sciences of a less complex and
therefore more perfect nature; so, on the other hand, does he look
forward to other more complex and less perfect branches of knowledge.
Biology deals only with living beings as isolated things--treats only of
the life of the individual: but there is a higher division of science
still, which considers living beings as aggregates--which deals with the
relation of living beings one to another--the science which _observes_
men--whose _experiments_ are made by nations one upon another, in
battle-fields--whose _general propositions_ are embodied in history,
morality, and religion--whose _deductions_ lead to our happiness or our
misery,--and whose _verifications_ so often come too late, and serve
only
"To point a moral or adorn a tale"--
I mean the science of Society or _Sociology_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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