The Commens Dictionary

Quote from ‘L [R]’

The second group of sciences, which I call the Systematic Sciences, consists of that activity which is motivated, not so much by a desire to add to human knowledge, as by the desire to render what has already been discovered comprehensible, in a wide sense of the term; that is, to put it into such shape that the mind can grasp and handle it with facility. The systematic scientists sort out the results of the heuretic scientists, subject these results to a criticism more comprehensive than the latter scientists in their narrow specification are in a condition to apply, deduce the best conclusions, which they digest in handbooks, and go on first to the classification of the sciences and to the characterization of the different classes, and finally proceed to such broad surveys as the ‘Philosophie Positive’ of Comte and the ‘Synthetic Philosophy’ of Spencer.