278 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



and properly guided, in most cases at least, by resemblance 

 to a type. We form our groups round certain selected Kinds, 

 each of which serves as a sort of exemplar of its group. But 

 though the groups are suggested by types, I cannot think that 

 a group when formed is determined by the type ; that in 

 deciding whether a species belongs to the group, a reference is 

 made to the type, and not to the characters; that the cha 

 racters &quot; cannot be expressed in words.&quot; This assertion is 

 inconsistent with Dr. Whewell s own statement of the funda 

 mental principle of classification, namely, that &quot; general asser 

 tions shall be possible.&quot; If the class did not possess any 

 characters in common, what general assertions would be 

 possible respecting it? Except that they all resemble each 

 other more than they resemble anything else, nothing what 

 ever could be predicated of the class. 



The truth is, on the contrary, that every genus or family 

 is framed with distinct reference to certain characters, and is 

 composed, first and principally, of species which agree in pos 

 sessing all those characters. To these are added, as a sort of 

 appendix, such other species, generally in small number, as 

 possess nearly all the properties selected ; wanting some of 

 them one property, some another, and which, while they agree 

 with the rest almost as much as these agree with one another, 

 do not resemble in an equal degree any other group. Our 

 conception of the class continues to be grounded on the cha 

 racters ; and the class might be defined, those things which 

 either possess that set of characters, or resemble the things 

 that do so, more than they resemble anything else. 



And this resemblance itself is not, like resemblance be 

 tween simple sensations, an ultimate fact, unsusceptible of 

 analysis. Even the inferior degree of resemblance is created 

 by the possession of common characters. Whatever resembles 

 the genus Rose more than it resembles any other genus, does 

 so because it possesses a greater number of the characters of 

 that genus, than of the characters of any other genus. Nor 

 can there be any real difficulty in representing, by an enu 

 meration of characters, the nature and degree of the resem 

 blance which is strictly sufficient to include any object in 



