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mathematical ground. I should not, however, have, mentioned it in these lectures for any other purpose than to say how much nearer the mathematician comes to understanding the nature of logic than do the psychologists or even the greater part of those who call themselves logicians. I refer to those who think that logic, if not a branch of psychology, is founded in psychology, since it deals with human thought. Yes it deals with human thought just as the theory of the quadratic equation deals with human thought,--just so much and no more. I have not the slightest doubt that if pure mathematics had not so developed itself that it was perfectly hopeless to attempt to give it a new direction, the present race of
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of thinkers would make that to be founded on psychology. They would have the same reason to do so that they have to make that the dig a similar foundation for logic.
But my classification of the sciences will give you a first inkling of my notion of the position that logic holds among the sciences.
This classification adopts the general idea, of Comte's the classification, called Comte's. When I speak of it as "the classification called Comte's," I must state that of my own knowledge, I know no reason for not simply calling it Comte's classification. But Dr. Robert Flint and other writers say very positively aver very solemnly, "If that classification possess any merits they must be ascribed to Dr. Burdin, who conceived it and to Saint-Simon who first received and published it; and not to Comte, although he showed
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how much could be made of it." Notwithstanding the scoundrelly character of the clerical profession in times past, I cannot believe that Dr. Flint would use such language without conclusive proof of its truth, convincing to every mind of its truth. I am sorry that I cannot quite suppress a lingering suggestion of doubt in my mind owing to the unspeakable mendacity of the cloth, not very long ago in times too recent. I certainly cannot for an instant believe that Comte was a conscious plagiarist.
This scheme, as you know, arranges what are called by Comte the "abstract sciences" in a ladder, with the idea that each derives its principles from the discoveries of the more abstract science that occupies the rung above, while all are at the same time pressing upwards in the endeavor to become more abstract.
Since Comte first set forth that scheme, many
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others have been proposed; but among the score or more which I have found to be seemed to me to be at all deserving of study, including all that are widely known, I have not found one which was not manifestly founded upon that which goes by Comte's name; and if my own has no other worth distinction it shall have that of honestly owning a filiation with a to a system of philosophy to which I am profoundly opposed,- a filiation of which most too many of its offspring seem to have a base to be basely ashamed to own.
This, however, is not the only peculiarity of my classification. In order to make it useful I wished it to be a natural classification, that is, I wished it to embody the chief facts of relationship between the sciences so far as they
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present themselves to scientific and observational study. Now to my apprehension, it is only natural experiential objects that lend themselves to such a natural classification. I do not think, for example, that we can make a natural clasification of plane curves or of any other mere possibilities. We do classify them, or rather, divide them, according to their orders and classes or their so-called deficiencies. But this is a mere enumeration of the logically possible cases. It embodies no positive information. It cannot therefore serve the same purpose as a natural classification. My notion is that what we call "natural classification" is, from the nature of things limited to natural objects. Now the vast majority