INTRODUCTION. 



Sect. 1. Of the Classificatory Sciences. 



horizon of the sciences spreads wider and wider before us, as 

 -A- we advance in our task of taking a survey of the vast domain, 

 We have seen that the existence of Chemistry as a science which 

 declares the ingredients and essential constitution of all kinds of 

 bodies, implies the existence of another corresponding science, which 

 shall divide bodies into kinds, and point out steadily and precisely 

 what bodies they are which we have analysed. But a science thus 

 dividing and defining bodies, is but one member of an order of 

 sciences, different from those which we have hitherto described; 

 namely, of the Classificatory sciences. Such sciences there must be, 

 not only having reference to the bodies with which chemistry deals, 

 but also to all things respecting which w r e aspire to obtain any gene- 

 ral knowledge, as, for instance, plants and animals. Indeed it w r ill 

 be found, that it is with regard to these latter objects, to organized 

 beings, that the process of scientific classification has been most suc- 

 cessfully exercised; while with regard to inorganic substances, the 

 formation of a satisfactory system of arrangement has been found 

 extremely difficult ; nor has the necessity of such a system been recog- 

 nised by chemists so distinctly and constantly as it ought to be. 

 The best exemplification of these branches of knowledge, of which we 

 now have to speak, will, therefore, be found in the organic world, in 

 Botany and Zoology ; but we will, in the first place, take a brief view 

 of the science which classifies inorganic bodies, and of which Minera 

 logy is hitherto the very imperfect representative. 



The principles and rules of the Classificatory Sciences, as well as of 

 those of the other orders of sciences, must be fully explained when AVC 

 come to treat of the Philosophy of the Sciences ; and cannot be intro- 

 duced here, where we have to do with history only. But I may 

 observe very briefly, that with the process of classing, is joined the 

 process of naming; that names imply classification ; and that even 

 the rudest and earliest application of language presupposes a distribu- 

 tion of objects according to their kinds; but that such a spontaneous 



