is not controverted. They are sciences of facts, and there is not one of the facts on which they rest, that is not denied by some one; they are sciences of observation, and how few well made observations have there been collected until now?"* Whatever human pursuit deserves in our times the name of science, must be treated in the same manner as is, for instance, natural philosophy. The objects of science must be carefully studied and compared, with regard to each other. and the external circumstances that may influence them. From this comparison will be derived the laws which rule over those objects or phenomena, and these laws constitute the soul of the science. This is, at least, the manner in which history, and political sciences, as well as vegetable and animal physiology, are treated by the greatest modern authorities, in each one of these respective departments. Still further, is not all our positive knowledge acquired in the same manner? Is it not by an attentive observation of men, by a careful, though perhaps unconscious, comparison of the different individuals we meet with, from contrasting the vices of some with the virtues of others, the talents of the few with the defects of the many, that we arrive at our idea of man's intellectual and moral character? Is it not generally admitted that no one knows less of human society, than he who is constantly meditating upon, but never mingling in it? Experience is the source of knowledge in all matters, with regard to the moral, as well as to the physical world. Observation is a common means of acquiring it. There is but one science, and this is the daughter of observation, and the mother of all arts. Whatever may be its objects, its methods are This may not seem orthodox, but it is true. It is from this axiom the French philosopher, Achille Comte, mentioned above, started, when he began to write on political sciences; he made it the ruling principle of his high and deservedly praised work, "Cours de Philosophie Positive." the same. A few words of this author and his work will, we hope, not be without interest to the reader. He was educated in the Ecole Polytechnique, which furnished so many distinguished savans to France. Immediately after having left this institution, he began to write on several questions of a social character. In the year 1828, he gave a course of lectures on his new system of philosophy, and then it was evident * Sismondi, Histoire de la chute de l' Empire Romain. 1842.] Organized and unorganized Bodies. 167 that his former writings must have revealed in him a superior genius, for among the persons who attended these lectures, we find De Humboldt, the distinguished traveller and naturalist; Fourier, the greatest mathematician of the time; De Blainville, the most eminent physiologist of France since the death of Cuvier; Poinsot, a celebrated geometer; Broussais, well known as one of the most eminent physicians and professors of the medical faculty; and many other men of distinction. Nothing could have spoken more plainly in proof of his eminent talent, than this circle round an orator scarcely twenty-eight years old, of all these grey-haired celebrités, sitting on the benches of a lecture-room, and listening to the voice of their former scholar, whose only title was that of pupil of the polytechnical school. The first volume of this course of lectures was published in the year 1820, and the last has not yet reached us. The following short notice will serve to give an idea of the classification adopted by the French philosopher, which it is the object of the five volumes of his work to explain. It being once admitted that there is but one science, it is evident that this can only be divided with regard to the objects or phenomena of its inquiry, either considered with reference to their nature, or to their greater or less universality. From the first position we see all phenomena at once in two distinct classes; the first contains those which belong to unorganized bodies; the second, those which are peculiar to organization; at the same time the former are much more general than the latter. That the study of the phenomena of the material world should precede, needs no further explanation, since all organized beings are at the same time material beings. In further applying the principle of universality, we find phenomena which belong to the whole universe, and others which are peculiar to our globe; hence results a first division of the phenomena of material matter, into celestial and terrestrial. The latter, again, are divided into physical and chemical phenomena, these being much less general than the former. In the order of phenomena peculiar to living beings, the most general are those which distinguish them from those comprised in the preceding division; the least general those which characterize living beings in society, and especially mankind. Thus Comte arrives at the five following great divisions of science: astronomy, natural philosophy, chemistry, physiology, and sociology. It will be asked in which of these departments we are to look for the mathematical sciences? The following short extract answers this question: "In the actual state of development of our positive knowledge, mathematical science, I think, may be properly considered less as a constituent part of natural philosophy, than as being, since Descartes and Newton, the true basis of that philosophy itself. For at the present moment mathematical science is much less important for the knowledge, real and precious as it is, of which it directly consists, than as constituting the most powerful instrument which the human mind may make use of in the investigation of the laws of nature." Here, of course, only that part of the science called pure mathematics is meant; the applications fall under the heads astronomy and natural philosophy. Placing mathematics, then, at the head of the foregoing classification, we have six primitive branches of science, arranged in such a manner that each one is founded upon the preceding ones, and almost independent of those which follow. The order in which they proceed is from the most simple to the most complicated, and at the same time from the most general to the most limited phenomena. There is an "experimentum crucis," by which the character of this arrangement is tested; a kind of a posteriori verification of its consistency and method. If the arrangement is such that, beginning with the most simple of sciences, it proceeds through constantly increasing complications, we are authorized to expect that the degree of perfection to which these six sciences have arrived decreases in the same order. And so we really find it to be the case. Any question which falls really under the dominion of the mathematician he solves with the utmost precision. In the sciences which relate to the material world astronomy has reached a much higher degree of perfection than natural philosophy, and the latter again is farther advanced than chemistry. As for sociology, which comprises political sciences, it is evidently less advanced than any one of the five preceding. In mathematics and astronomy there are no opinions; but the number of these increases as we proceed from natural philosophy to 1842.] Popular Character of the Work. 169 sociology; and in the last there are about as many different opinions as there are individuals who profess to be initiated into it. We do not contrast the classification of Comte with that under examination. The objects of the two writers are so different that no similarity could be expected in the plans of their works. The former unfolds, in five large volumes, the idea contained in his classification; he investigates the actual state of science; shows the relative superiority of its different branches; points out the defects in the method, and the means of improving them; in short, his object is to create a general method by which positive philosophy is to be brought to a higher degree of perfection and a more general application. In all this, knowledge is reduced to its smallest compass, to its active principles; it finds a place only as containing the materials of science. His book is intended for the student who has prepared himself by long and persevering application to most branches of positive science, and who seeks to arrange methodically in his own mind what he knows. Mr. Park's volume is of a very different character. In his preface it is rightly called an index rerum, and as such it may be found useful to every one. The most inexperienced tyro will find no difficulty in understanding it. It does not presuppose the reader to be familiar with all the sciences of which it treats, but it aims to give him some idea of them, and at the same time refers him to the sources from which he may acquire more profound knowledge on the same subjects. The best elementary works in the several departments of science, in all languages, are enumerated, and if the list is neither as full nor as correct as might be desired, it is as nearly so as could reasonably be expected in one embracing the literary productions of so many nations and languages. ART. VII. Speech of WILLIAM COST JOHNSON, of Maryland, on Resolutions which he had offered, proposing to appropriate Public Land for purposes of Education to all the States and Territories. Delivered in the House of Representatives, February, 1838. AFTER a long and troublesome contest the "land bill" has at length passed, and the right of all the states to participate in the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, is acknowledged and defended by law. An act of tardy justice has been performed to the old states; after having purchased the freedom of the country by blood and toil - after having paid for the public lands in many of the new states and territories, the old states are at length allowed, by her ungrateful and arrogant children, to enjoy a share of the unsold acres in the new. Would that this act of justice had been performed before millions of acres of the public domain had been squandered at a nominal value bearing no propor tion to their real value, and a double injury, real and lasting, had thus been done to the whole country. By the low price at which the public lands have been offered for sale, they have become a drug in the market for wholesale speculation, or for a system of cultivation which soon exhausted them and left them in a worthless condition; the value of the lands in the old states has been reduced till they will scarcely pay taxes and cultivation. Was it necessary thus to squander the public domain? Has the rapidity with which the new lands have been settled, worn out, and abandoned, taught us to love the soil? The results are plain. The new states are overrun, not with faithful cultivators of the soil, but with speculators with hearts incapable of attachment to any pur suit that requires time and toil; the public treasury is not improved; the lands in the old states are drained of their fertility by a system of cultivation that demanded crops, but could not afford the expense of enriching, and are, by competition in the market with the new lands of the west and southwest, reduced so low in value that in many sections there are none to purchase, and few to risk the expenses of cultivation. If, by the policy which has been pursued with regard to the public lands, they had been brought rapidly into successful cultivation, and the purchasers had been |
