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Now available thanks to Shawn P. Wilbur at Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth:

Johnson's (Revised) Universal Cyclopaedia (1886) contained the following explanation, by its creator, of the science of "universology:"

Universol´ogy is the name given to a universal science covering the whole ground of philosophy, of the sciences in their general aspects—in which sense it is called “sciento-philosophy”—and of social polity, or the collective life of the human world. As a philosophy, in the more common and general or less precise use of that term, the system is called “integralism,” as that of Comte is called “positivism;” as a new science—in the exact sense as a new scientific method and as the philosophy of science—it is especially known as “universology;” and as a social polity—”the universal institute of humanity” (universal government, universal religion, universal social organization, etc.)—it is called the “pantarchy.” Sciento-philosophy is the name which applies to the system especially in so far as it is a philosophy of the sciences, or a new philosophical system based on and derived from the objective point of view of the special sciences.

Universology claims to be reconciliative of all systems of philosophy, by virtue of positive new discovery and of the unity which it, for the first time, establishes between philosophy and science, and between both of these and the domains of art, religion, and practical life. Universology claims to be “a single and central science among the sciences, and that from which the integral education of mankind should hereafter take its departure. It embraces those laws of being which are common to all sciences and to all departments or domains of being, and which, when known and systematized, constitute the unity of the sciences in a sense alike new, peculiar, and important. Universology is based on analogy, resting in turn on the discovery and demonstration of a unific element in things otherwise diverse from each other through all spheres— not, therefore, analogy in a vague poetic sense, as mere superficial resemblance, nor in an occult and mystical sense, nor, in fine, in the narrow technical sense to which it has been confined in comparative anatomy as contrasted with homology. It is analogy in that essential sense in which it underlies all other possible analogies. Analogy, in the broad or universological sense, includes both homology and analogy in the narrow scientific sense, together with nil resemblances which are fundamental, or such as grow out of an underlying unity of system (of outlay, organotaxis or functions) in all spheres of being; or such, in other words, as rest upon the existence of a real, permanent, and traceable unific clement in the midst of the overlying diversity of phenomena. The universologist is, therefore, by no means, one who claims to know everything, as is sometimes mistakenly supposed, but merely one who known certain newly-discovered principles and laws of science which are common to all the sciences, and which serve to systematize and harmonize the sciences and the details within the several sciences, as well as—when applied in the practical sphere—to regulate the affairs of human life.”

The three fundamental principles of universology, from which the whole logical and actual evolution of being is then to be rigorously deduced, furnishing all the sciences and the details within the sciences, are unism, duism, and trinism, defined as follows; Unism is the principle or spirit of the number one, duism of the number two, and trinism of the number three. Unism is not mere unity, nor duism mere duality, nor trinism mere trinity. If we were to consider a handful of printer's types, unity in respect to this collection of objects would mean either the handful as one, or a single one among the types, or each of the types in turn as a single one: and duality, in this connection, would mean either some two among the types, or any two among the types, until the whole was exhausted by these couplings, unism, as relating to this same collection of objects, would, on the contrary, mean no one of the ideas above attributed to unity, but a different idea, still related to unity—namely, the capacity of these types to be united into printer's forms which produce the printed page; so duism does not mean either of the ideas above attributed to duality, but another idea, which is, however, also related to or allied with two-ness—namely, the capacity of these types for being separated and distributed, each one apart from every other one, as a preparation, it may be, for other new combination or unity. So, again, trinism does not mean a mere trinity, which would consist of any three types united, but it means another idea, compounded of the unism and the duism, and related, therefore, to one and two, and indirectly therefore to three. Trinism is, in other words, the new and higher unity of the unism and the duism; that is to say, of the capacity of the types to be united for a unitary purpose, and to be separated or distributed for a dispartive purpose—the compound character, in other words, of this collection of objects enabling them to act in two opposite and contradictory methods, hinging, nevertheless, upon the inherent unity in the constitution of each type, Unism, duism, and trinism are, therefore, three qualities which inhere in. or pertain to, every typo individually, and the sum of which qualities is the total character of the type. They are, nevertheless, qualities which are derived from quantitative discriminations, and specifically from one, two, and three; but they must by no means be confounded with the common ideas of unity, duality, and trinity.

Duism has a close relationship with Spencer's “differentiation,” but it differs from it in the fact that it is the lowest or most elementary term of differentiation; that it offers, for that reason, the broadest generalization of the idea; and that it is, at the same time, more fundamentally exact. Unism and trinism are confusedly represented by Spencer's “integration.”

Unism and duism crop out and reappear under many forms, and in the absence, heretofore, of any sufficiently compendious generalization, they have received a variety of namings; thus, unism is called unity, sameness, centralizing or centripetal tendency, gravitation, arrival, conjunction, thesis or synthesis, integration, combination, contraction, generality, simplicity, etc. It is the tendency to unite or toward unity, or the manifestation of the presence or results of that tendency, in thousands of modes in every sphere of being. Duism is called diversity, difference or variety, decentralizing or centrifugal tendency, repulsion, departure, separation, antithesis, analysis, differentiation, diffusion, expansion, specialty, complexity, etc. It is the tendency to disparting or dividing, or the manifestation of the presence or results of that tendency in thousands of modes in every sphere of being. Trinism is the principle symbolized by the totality of being, or of any particular being. It is compounded of unism and duism as its factors, constituents, or elements. Hence it is a cardinated or hingewise principle, entity, or manifestation, the type or representative of all-concrete or real being, unism and duism being abstract elements of being merely.

All orderly numbers capable of count or of falling into regular scries constitute collectively unismal number, being characterized by unity in the sense in which we speak of the unity of a poem, a play, or other work of art. All chaotic and irregular numbers are then duismal, and the totality of number, embracing these two opposite aspects under one head or in one domain, is trinismal. Within the unismus of number—that is to say, within the domain of orderly numbers—the odd numbers, headed by the number one, are unismal; the even numbers, headed by the number two, duismal; and the combined series of odd and even numbers, headed by the number three, is trinismal. So all orderly, regular, or commensurable form is unismal; all disorderly, irregular, and incommensurable form is duismal; and the total domain of form as constituted of these two is trinismal. But within the proper unisma or domain of regular form, all round form, that which is constituted around one centre or regulative point, is unismal; all elongated form, the lowest term and type of which is the straight line, as that which is constituted with reference to two regulative points (the ends of the line), is duismal; and regularly modulated form, as Hogarth's line of beauty, triangular forms, and the like, as being constituted by reference to three regulative points, is trinismal form. To these elementary varieties all other forms are reducible.

In respect to position, the perpendicular, as central and uniaxial, is again unismal: the horizontal, measured by two axes, is duismal; and the incline from perpendicularity to horizontality, as relating at the same time to the one axis and to the two axes, is trinismal. As all these, however, are orderly, they are within the larger unismus of position, the corresponding duismus then being disorderly or chaotic position, and the larger trinismus being the totality of this domain of being.

It results from what has been said that orderly numeration, orderly form, and orderly position are three special instances of unism, and fall together into a new class or domain of being, which is the general unismus: that disorderly or chaotic numbers, disorderly or chaotic form, and disorderly or chaotic position are special instances of duism, and fall together into another special class or domain, which is the duismus of being at large; and that the conjunction of orderly and disorderly number, the conjunction of orderly and disorderly form, and the conjunction of orderly and disorderly position are special instances of trinism, and fall, in like manner, into a new class or domain, which is the trinismus of being at large. Unism, duism, and trinism become, therefore, the basis of a new and crosswise distribution and classification, taking in, as in this instance, a part of each particular sphere of being, as of number, of form, and of position, and uniting it with a corresponding part or portion of each of the other related spheres or departments of being.

And, again: within the unismus, odd numbers, round forms, and perpendicular positions are thrown together as allied analogically with each other; oven or regular numbers, even or regular forms, and horizontal postures or positions (also called “even,” then meaning level), are thrown in like manner into a special class as related analogically with each other; and finally, the combined series of numbers, odd and even, modulated form, partly round and partly elongated, and pyramidal or dome-like position, convergent from base to apex, are likewise thrown into a new special class or domain, as also analogously related to each other. This cross-division, as allied with classification, is analogous with comparative science, which takes a part out of each of the sciences compared, and classifies anew with reference to the relationship of these parts. The further signification and importance of this new basis of universological classification can only be exhibited in the special treatises devoted to the subject.

Abstract morphology is to universology, and to the rectified classification of all spheres, what the mathematical element is in geography, establishing definite lines of latitude and longitude, or what Mercator's projection is to navigation. It furnishes types and models for every variety of conception, and maps them out with a wonderful precision. Uprightness of character and the inclinations of the mind are no longer figures of speech, but scientific verities relating the phenomena of mind to the domain of form. Ethics, the science of government, sociology at large, and even theology and religion, are by this new method rendered rigorously amenable to scientific treatment. In a word, universology claims to be literally the science of the universe, or of all possible departments of thought, fully in accordance with the idea implied in its name.

STEPHEN PEARL ANDREWS.

Read the whole thing at Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth.