MS 1343 (1902) - Of the Classification of the Sciences

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modifications of sciences of serious industries.

The medical sciences constitute an immense body of love, even when we exclude, as we must, those inquiries which are properly theoretical and are not, in themselves, pursued merely with a view to gratifying the desire for health. Of the two branches of Medicine, Hygiene and Thereapeutics, the former divides itself into Personal Hygiene and the Hygiene of Communities (Municipal, Military, and perhaps Nautical Hygiene). Municipal hygiene, which includes the disposal of garbage, drainage, and sewerage, might be extended so as to include the entire sanitation of dwellings, embracing for example ventilation. Under Personal Hygiene might be included Gymnastics and Balaneutics. At any rate, Massage is a recognized science, along with Diet, the special study of effects of Alcohol required in the public schools, and the sanatation of dwellings if this is not made [??]

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deutic, the science of the art of discovering, be conducted as a separate science, as to some extent it has been, and not as one of the avocations of the logician, it is par excellence the science that is ministrant to the Gnostic Instinct. Such books as Jean Senebier's 'L'art d'observer' (2 vols. Genève 1775) and Catherine Aiken's admirable 'Methods of Mind Training' (Harpers: 1896) treat of this science.

When man acts mainly for the purpose of gratifying some desire,—and the word 'mainly' here recognizes that in a secondary way he generally aims at gratifying that instinct that is his motive,—it is most commonly somebody else's gratification that he seeks, as it invariably is the gratification of some other wish than the wish that moves him to act. We might, there-

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fore, have separated the Sciences of Gratification into Sciences of Self-Gratification and Sciences of Vicinal[??] Gratification. But, rightly or wrongly, it has been deemed that such a division would not promote the purposes of natural classification. That which moves the man to gratify his neighbor is his own Getting Instinct. Among the gratifications which he might procure for his neighbor, that which it will pay him least to procure is the gratification that he is the most skillful in producing. Thus, industries are founded on different kinds of skill, or, as we have agreed to understand the word, on different Arts. If a man's Art is restricted to procuring a single kind of gratification, it and its science are an Art and a Science of Gratification. But if the man's Art does something or makes something which may be applied to gratifying one instinct or an other, it will be nothing to him, intent on getting, as he is, what gratification it is used for, and in the doing or the

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making, he will generally not trouble his head about the gratification. A weaver does not think much whether the linen cloth he is making is to bandage a wound, or tie up a pudding, be formed into a moneybag, or be a part of a screen. It may be of such peculiar texture as to be suited only for a single purpose; but if so, the weaver very likely will not know what that purpose is. His art is to weave and not to [compose??] fabrics for special purposes. He takes his order and executes it.

There are men whose art is of a higher kind. Take a shipbuilder. He will build you any kind of vessel you want. He does not do it with his own hands; but from your description of what you want, he can tell whom to go to for aid in the design, what workmen to employ, where to make the necessary purchases, and how to raise the money. He knows in a general way what the ship is to carry, whether passengers, fruit, animals, this or that kind of freight. But he does not in most cases care to inquire

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whether it be gain or curiosity that moves those passengers to travel, whether the iron that is to be brought in the vessel is to build houses, railways, or machinery, etc.

The difference between the weaver and the ship-builder, for purposes of classification, is that the weaver can do or make a single thing applicable to various purposes, and he is not competent to take into account the purpose to be served except to a very limited extent; while the shipbuilder is skillful in many different ways all of which are contributory to the production of results of one general category, and he is competent to take into account the purposes so far as these ought to modify the performance. It is obvious that the weaver practices an art which is nearer to an art of gratification, notwithstanding his knowing less about the utility of what he does than the shipbuilder. Let us call an art such as his an art of industry, and its science, a Science of Industry.