same, partly distinct. Now these views or
sciences, as being abstractions, have far more to do with the relations of
things than with things themselves. They tell us what things are, only or
principally by telling us their relations, or assigning predicates to
subjects; and therefore they never tell us all that can be said about a
thing, even when they tell something, nor do they bring it before us, as
the senses do. They arrange and classify facts; they reduce separate
phenomena under a common law; they trace effects to a cause. Thus they
serve to transfer our knowledge from the custody of memory to the surer
and more abiding protection of philosophy, thereby providing both for its
spread and its advance:--for, inasmuch as sciences are forms of knowledge,
they enable the intellect to master and increase it; and, inasmuch as they
are instruments, to communicate it readily to others. Still, after all,
they proceed on the principle of a division of labour, even though that
division is an abstraction, not a literal separation into parts; and, as
the maker of a bridle or an epaulet has not, on that account, any idea of
the science of tactics or strategy, so in a parallel way, it is not every
science which equally, nor any one which fully, enlightens the mind in the
knowledge of things, as they are, or brings home to it the external object
on which it wishes to gaze. Thus they differ in importance; and according
to their importance will be their influence, not only on the mass of
knowledge to which they all converge and contribute, but on each other.

Since then sciences are the results of mental processes about one and the
same subject-matter, viewed under its various aspects, and are true
results, as far as they go, yet at the same time separate and partial, it
follows that on the one hand they need external assistance, one by one, by
reason of their incompleteness, and on the other that they are able to
afford it to each other, by reason, first, of their independence in
themselves, and then of their connexion in their subject-matter. Viewed
altogether, they approximate to a representation or subjective reflection
of the objective truth, as nearly as is possible to the human mind, which
advances towards the accurate apprehension of that object, in proportion
to the number of sciences which it has mastered; and which, when certain
sciences are away, in such a case has but a defective apprehension, in
proportion to the value o