DESCRIPTIVE SCIENCE 135 



symbol, which is the essential tool for handling data on any 

 level. Every linguistic symbol (except proper names and 

 certain applicational symbols such as "the," "a," "some," 

 etc.) is either itself universal or contains elemental symbols 

 which are universal. Hence such symbols determine classes 

 of referents. In the very act of representing an event by a 

 symbol there has been performed an operation of classifica- 

 tion. If this is true, classification cannot be considered as 

 the peculiar feature of descriptive science; on the contrary 

 any science must, in so far as it employs linguistic symbols, 

 use classificatory techniques. What distinguishes descriptive 

 science from other science, therefore, must be the way in 

 which classification is employed. The essential feature seems 

 to be that emphasis is laid on specific and narrow rather than 

 highly abstract and inclusive classes. If one is to remain as 

 close as possible to the clearly given, he must avoid wide 

 and sweeping generalizations. High abstractions are vague 

 and indefinite, and classes defined by them involve an ex- 

 tensive anticipation of experience. For this reason descrip- 

 tive science, in its attitude of caution, classifies events only 

 in terms of those obvious features which are called to one's 

 attention by the fact that he observes other objects which 

 do not possess them. Color, sound, smell, taste, shape, 

 size, weight, hardness, and so on constitute the apparent 

 properties of events. "The usual mode in which an in- 

 vestigator proceeds to form a classification of a new group 

 of objects seems to consist in tentatively arranging them 

 according to their most obvious similarities. Any two ob- 

 jects which present a close resemblance to each other will 

 be joined and formed into the rudiment of a class, the defi- 

 nition of which will at first include all the apparent points 

 of resemblance. Other objects as they come to our notice 

 will be gradually assigned to those groups with which they 

 present the greatest number of points of resemblance, and 

 the definition of a class will often have to be altered in order 

 to admit them. The early chemists could hardly avoid 

 classing together the common metals, gold, silver, copper, 



