Astronomy, the second of M. Comte's abstract sciences,
answers to his own definition of a concrete science. M. Comte however
was only wrong in overlooking a distinction. There _is_ an abstract
science of astronomy, namely, the theory of gravitation, which would
equally agree with and explain the facts of a totally different solar
system from the one of which our earth forms a part. The actual facts of
our own system, the dimensions, distances, velocities, temperatures,
physical constitution, &c., of the sun, earth, and planets, are properly
the subject of a concrete science, similar to natural history; but the
concrete is more inseparably united to the abstract science than in any
other case, since the few celestial facts really accessible to us are
nearly all required for discovering and proving the law of gravitation
as an universal property of bodies, and have therefore an indispensable
place in the abstract science as its fundamental data.
[5] The only point at which the general principle of the series fails in
its application, is the subdivision of Physics; and there, as the
subordination of the different branches scarcely exists, their order is
of little consequence.
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