There must, we should think, be many truths in
physiology (for example) which are only known by a similar indirect
process; and Mr Spencer would hardly detach these from the body of the
science, and call them abstract and the remainder concrete.
[3] Systeme de Politique Positive, ii. 36.
[4] The strongest case which Mr Spencer produces of a scientifically
ascertained law, which, though belonging to a later science, was
necessary to the scientific formation of one occupying an earlier place
in M. Comte's series, is the law of the accelerating force of gravity;
which M. Comte places in Physics, but without which the Newtonian theory
of the celestial motions could not have been discovered, nor could even
now be proved. This fact, as is judiciously remarked by M. Littre, is
not valid against the plan of M. Comte's classification, but discloses a
slight error in the detail. M. Comte should not have placed the laws of
terrestrial gravity under Physics. They are part of the general theory
of gravitation, and belong to astronomy. Mr Spencer has hit one of the
weak points in M. Comte's scientific scale; weak however only because
left unguarded.
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