Now, there is no fact or phenomenon of the world that is not comprised under the doctrines expounded in some one or other of these sciences.  We may have fifty “ologies” besides, but they will merely repeat for special ends, or in special connections, the principles already comprised in these five fundamental subjects.  The regular, systematic, exhaustive account of the laws of nature is to be found within their compass.

[ORDER OF THE FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCES.]

Again, these sciences have a fixed order or sequence, the order of dependence.  Mathematics precedes them all, as being not dependent upon any, while all are more or less dependent upon it.  The physical forces have to be viewed prior to the chemical; and both physical and chemical forces are preparatory to vital.  So there are reasons for placing Mental Science last of all.  Hence a student cannot comprehend chemistry without natural philosophy, nor biology without both.  You cannot stand a thorough examination in chemistry without indirectly showing your knowledge of physics; and a testing examination in biology would guarantee, with some slight qualifications, both physics and chemistry.

Let us now turn to the other sciences—­those that are not fundamental, but derivative.  The chief examples are the three commonly called Natural History sciences—­Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology.  In these sciences no law or principle is at work that has not been already brought forward in the primary sciences.  The properties of a Mineral are mathematical, physical, and chemical:  the testing of minerals is by measurement, by physical tests, by chemical tests.  The aim of this science is not to teach forces unknown to the student of physics and chemistry; it is to embrace, under the best classification, all the bodies called minerals, and to describe the species in detail under mathematical, physical, and chemical characters.  It is the first in order of the classificatory sciences.  Its purpose in the economy of education is distinct and peculiar; it imparts knowledge, not respecting laws, forces, or principles of operating, but respecting the concrete constituents of the world.  It gives us a commanding view of one whole department of the material universe; supplying information useful in practice, and interesting to the feelings.  It also brings into exercise the great logical process, wanted on many occasions, the process of CLASSIFICATION.

[CLASSIFICATORY SCIENCES.]

So much for an instance from the Inorganic world, as showing the distinction between the two kinds of sciences.  Another example may be cited from the field of Biology; it is a little more perplexing.  For “biology” is sometimes given as the name for the two concrete classificatory sciences—­botany and zoology.  In point of fact, however, there is a science that precedes those two branches, although blending with them; the science commonly expressed by the older term, ‘Physiology,’ which