130 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



By every general name which we introduce, we create a class, 

 if there be any things, real or imaginary, to compose it ; that 

 is, any Things corresponding to the signification of the name. 

 Classes, therefore, mostly owe their existence to general lan- 

 guage. But general language, also, though that is not the 

 most common case, sometimes owes its existence to classes. 

 A general, which is as much as to say a significant, name, is 

 indeed mostly introduced because we have a signification to 

 express by it ; because we need a word by means of which to 

 predicate the attributes which it connotes. But it is also true 

 that a name is sometimes introduced because we have found it 

 convenient to create a class ; because we have thought it useful 

 for the regulation of our mental operations, that a certain 

 group of objects should be thought of together. A naturalist, 

 for purposes connected with his particular science, sees reason 

 to distribute the animal or vegetable creation into certain 

 groups rather than into any others, and he requires a name to 

 bind, as it were, each of his groups together. It must not how- 

 ever be supposed that such names, when introduced, differ in 

 any respect, as to their mode of signification, from other con- 

 notative names. The classes which they denote are, as much 

 as any other classes, constituted by certain common attributes, 

 and their names are significant of those attributes, and of 

 nothing else. The names of Cuvier's classes and orders, 

 Plantigrades, Digitigrades, &c., are as much the expression of 

 attributes as if those names had preceded, instead of grown 

 out of, his classification of animals. The only peculiarity of 

 the case is, that the convenience of classification was here the 

 primary motive for introducing the names ; while in other 

 cases the name is introduced as a means of predication, and 

 the formation of a class denoted by it is only an indirect con- 

 sequence. 



The principles which ought to regulate Classification as a 

 logical process subservient to the investigation of truth, cannot 

 be discussed to any purpose until a much later stage of our 

 inquiry. But, of Classification as resulting from, and implied 

 in, the fact of employing general language, we cannot forbear 

 to treat here, without leaving the theory of general names^ 



