The fundamental, or departmental sciences, as most commonly accepted, are these:—1. Mathematics; 2. Natural Philosophy, or Physics; 3. Chemistry; 4. Biology; 5. Psychology. They may be, therefore, expressed as Formal, Inanimate, Animate, and Mental. In these sciences, the idea is to view exhaustively some department of natural phenomena, and to assume the order best suited for the elucidation of the phenomena. Mathematics, the Formal Science, exhausts the relations of Quantity and Number; measure being a universal property of things. Natural Philosophy, in its two divisions (molar and molecular), deals with one kind of force; Chemistry with another: and the two together conspire to exhaust the phenomena of inanimate nature; being indispensably aided by the laws and formulae of quantity, as given in Mathematics. Biology turns over a new leaf; it takes up the phenomenon—Life, or the animated world. Finally, Psychology makes another stride, and embraces the sphere of mind.
Now, there is no fact or phenomenon of the world that is not comprised under the doctrines expounded in some one or other of these sciences. We may have fifty "ologies" besides, but they will merely repeat for special ends, or in special connections, the principles already comprised in these five fundamental subjects. The regular, systematic, exhaustive account of the laws of nature is to be found within their compass.
[ORDER OF THE FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCES.]
Again, these sciences have a fixed order or sequence, the order of dependence. Mathematics precedes them all, as being not dependent upon any, while all are more or less dependent upon it. The physical forces have to be viewed prior to the chemical; and both physical and chemical forces are preparatory to vital. So there are reasons for placing Mental Science last of all. Hence a student cannot comprehend chemistry without natural philosophy, nor biology without both. You cannot stand a thorough examination in chemistry without indirectly showing your knowledge of physics; and a testing examination in biology would guarantee, with some slight qualifications, both physics and chemistry.
Let us now turn to the other sciences—those that are not fundamental, but derivative. The chief examples are the three commonly called Natural History sciences—Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology. In these sciences no law or principle is at work that has not been already brought forward in the primary sciences. The properties of a Mineral are mathematical, physical, and chemical: the testing of minerals is by measurement, by physical tests, by chemical tests. The aim of this science is not to teach forces unknown to the student of physics and chemistry; it is to embrace, under the best classification, all the bodies called minerals, and to describe the species in detail under mathematical, physical, and chemical characters. It is the first in order of the classificatory sciences. Its purpose in the economy of education is distinct and peculiar; it imparts knowledge, not respecting laws, forces, or principles of operating, but respecting the concrete constituents of the world. It gives us a commanding view of one whole department of the material universe; supplying information useful in practice, and interesting to the feelings. It also brings into exercise the great logical process, wanted on many occasions, the process of CLASSIFICATION.
[CLASSIFICATORY SCIENCES.]
So much for an instance from the Inorganic world, as showing the distinction between the two kinds of sciences. Another example may be cited from the field of Biology; it is a little more perplexing. For "biology" is sometimes given as the name for the two concrete classificatory sciences—botany and zoology. In point of fact, however, there is a science that precedes those two branches, although blending with them; the science commonly expressed by the older term, 'Physiology,' which is not a classificatory and a dependent science, but a mother science, like chemistry. It expounds the peculiarities of living bodies, as such, and the laws of living processes—such processes as assimilation, nutrition, respiration, innervation, reproduction, and so on. One division is Vegetable Physiology, which is generally fused with the classificatory science of botany. Animal Physiology is allied with zoology, but more commonly stands alone. Lastly, the Physiology of the Human animal has been from time immemorial a distinct branch of knowledge, and is, of course, the chief of them all. Man being the most complicated of all organised beings, not only are the laws of his vitality the most numerous, and the most practically interesting, but they go far to include all that is to be said of the workings of animal life in general. Thus, then, the mother science of Biology, as a general or fundamental science, comprises Vegetable, Animal, and Human physiology. The classificatory adjunct sciences are Botany and Zoology. It is in the various aspects of the mother science that we look for the account of all vital phenomena, and all practical applications to the preservation of life. Even if we stop at these, we shall have a full command of the laws of the animate world. But we may go farther, and embrace the sciences that arrange, classify, and describe the innumerable host of living beings. These have their own independent interest and value, but they are not the sciences that of themselves teach us the living processes.
Thus, then, a proper scheme of scientific instruction starts from the essential, fundamental, and law-giving sciences—Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Mind. It then proceeds to the adjunct branches —such as Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology: and I might add others, as Geology, Meteorology, Geography, no one of which is primary; for they all repeat in new connections, and for special purposes, the laws systematically set forth in the primary sciences.
In the foregoing remarks, I do not advance any new or debatable views. I believe the scientific world to be substantially in accord upon all that I have here stated; any differences that there are in the manner of expressing the points do not affect my present purpose—namely, to discuss the scheme of the mathematical and physical sciences as set forth in the Civil Service Examinations.
[BAD GROUPINGS OF SCIENCES.]