This Classification is admirable for the purpose of showing the mutual interdependence of the branches of Knowledge included in it; but aside from its covering only a small part of our intellectual domain, it is also defective in not distinguishing with sufficient clearness that which is properly Science, from that which is merely Theory or Plausible Conjecture. Biology and Sociology are classed with Mathematics as _Positive_ Sciences, as if the Laws or Principles which correlated the Phenomena of the former were established as certainly and definitely as those of the latter; while there is no prominence given to the different nature of _proof_ in Mathematics and that in every other department of investigation--except in so far as Mathematical Phenomena and Processes enter into the latter--if, indeed, the founder of Positivism has even anywhere distinctly stated it. Chemistry, Biology, and Sociology, leaving Astronomy and Physics aside for the present, are not yet _Positive_ Sciences, in any such sense as Mathematics. The lack of _exact_ analysis is apparent in all of Comte's generalizations, otherwise magnificent and masterly as they undoubtedly are. In respect to the matter under consideration, it renders his Classification unavailing for determining with sufficient precision and exactitude the character of any intellectual domain. History, while it is the source whence the proof of his fundamental positions is drawn, finds no place in his Scientific schedule. Even had it been otherwise, the defect just alluded to would have rendered it useless for our present purposes, until a prior Classification had first been made, exhibiting the radical difference between the various domains, which are all indiscriminately grouped under the name of _Science_. After such a Classification, based on the nature of _proof_ as involved in Method, the Principle which guided Comte in the establishment of the Hierarchy of the Sciences will enable us, in a concluding paper, to estimate with proximate certainty the character of a possible Science of History, and to ascertain how far the labors of Mr. Buckle and Professor Draper have aided toward the creation of such a Science.
OR, LIFE IN POLAND DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.