positive sciences already formed, so that we may know both what system
of inquiry to follow in our new science, and also where the new
science will stand in relation to other knowledge.

The first step in this direction is to arrange scientific method and
positive knowledge in order, and this brings us to another cardinal
element in the Comtist system, the classification of the sciences. In
the front of the inquiry lies one main division, that, namely, between
speculative and practical knowledge. With the latter we have no
concern. Speculative or theoretic knowledge is divided into abstract
and concrete. The former is concerned with the laws that regulate
phenomena in all conceivable cases; the latter is concerned with the
application of these laws. Concrete science relates to objects or
beings; abstract science to events. The former is particular or
descriptive; the latter is general. Thus, physiology is an abstract
science; but zoology is concrete. Chemistry is abstract; mineralogy is
concrete. It is the method and knowledge of the abstract sciences that
the Positive Philosophy has to reorganise in a great whole.

Comte's principle of classification is that the dependence and order
of scientific study follows the dependence of the phenomena. Thus, as
has been said, it represents both the objective dependence of the
phenomena and the subjective dependence of our means of knowing them.
The more particular and complex phenomena depend upon the simpler and
more general. The latter are the more easy to study. Therefore science
will begin with those attributes of objects which are most general,
and pass on gradually to other attributes that are combined in greater
complexity. Thus, too, each science rests on the truths of the
sciences that precede it, while it adds to them the truths by which it
is itself constituted. Comte's series or hierarchy is arranged as
follows:--(1) Mathematics (that is, number, geometry, and mechanics),
(2) Astronomy, (3) Physics, (4) Chemistry, (5) Biology, (6) Sociology.
Each of the members of this series is one degree more special than the
member before it, and depends upon the facts of all the members
preceding it, and cannot be fully understood without them. It follows
that the crowning science of the hierarchy, dealing with the
phenomena of human society, will remain longest under the influence of
theological dogmas and abstract figments, and will be the last to pass
into the positive stage