34 T. WHITTAKEB : CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES. seem to agree ; but, if we view the facts impartially, the supposition that they do agree may be easily refuted. Chemistry, for example, is logically prior to Biology; yet it was later to become a coherent body of doctrine. And Psychology, even in its higher department, is an older science than Sociology ; which indeed is even now little more than inchoate, so that the definite place assigned to it in the series is still somewhat in advance of the facts. The sciences have not waited for one another, as Comte appears to have imagined, but have started up at intervals as occasion brought them into view; the higher sciences contenting themselves, if the lower were not "ready," with a few approximations to their laws, or in the meantime taking leaps in the dark. And at every stage since Greek science began, there has been some kind of general philo- sophy in more or less friendly relation with the special sciences. Finally, it might be contended that something like the arrangement proposed has always been implicit in educated thought. To make out a case, it would only be necessary to point to the etymology of the word " encyclopaedia ".
