APPENDIX C 



TYPE ANALYSIS IN THE SCIENCES 



10GICALLY, the term species indicates 'A group of individuals 

 having common attributes, and designated by a common 

 -i name'; biologically, A category of classification lower than a 

 genus or subgenus and above a subspecies or variety; a group of 

 animals or plants which possess in common one or more characters 

 distinguishing them from other similar groups, and do or may 

 interbreed and reproduce their characters in their offspring, 

 exhibiting between each other only minor differences bridged over 

 by intermediate forms (see subspecies) and differences ascrib- 

 able to age, sex, polymorphism, individual peculiarity or acci- 

 dent, or to selective breeding by man; a distinct kind or sort of 

 animal or plant.' i The fact of interbreeding — i.e., of capacity for 

 entering into a productive relationship — has usually been taken as the 

 chief distinguishing characteristic of a biological species. ^ 



Given a series of specimens, the procedure seems to be, first, 

 one of gross description of their common elements. Then, assum- 

 ing the specimens to possess a set of powers or potentialities as yet 

 not completely known, the scientist places them in various experi- 

 mental combinations, and the initial description is completed by 

 specifying the kinds ofrelatio?is into which the species is capable of 

 entering. Thus, we discover that coal and diamonds are both 

 carbon because they make the same compounds; hydrogen is a 

 common element in acids; and, when in doubt, we can determine 

 that two animals are both 'equine' by discovering if they 

 interbreed. 



The scientific goal is, if possible, to determine the definition of a 



type from its purest form. Thus, the common procedure in 



chemistry is to isolate the element out of the compounds in which 



it occurs, and, though hydrogen 'exists' in water, the chemist is 



231 



