ABSTRACT
The distribution of the sciences, having become a somewhat discredited task, has of late been undertaken chiefly by persons who have no sound knowledge of any science at all. First, that science being composed of speculative knowledge and of practical knowledge, political theorists have to deal only with the first. Second, that theoretical knowledge, or science properly so called, being divided into general and particular, or abstract and concrete science, political theorists have again to deal only with the first. The best idea of the positive method would, of course, be obtained by the study of the most primitive, if political theorists were confined to one; but this isolated view would give no idea of its capacity of application to others in a modified form. Mathematics must hold the first place in the hierarchy of the sciences, and be the point of departure of all education, whether general or special.
