CLASSIFICATION AND THE PREDICABLES. 143 



man. Suppose, however, that being naturalists, we, for the 

 purposes of our particular study, cut out of the genus animal 

 the same species man, but with an intention that the dis- 

 tinction between man and all other species of animal should 

 be, not rationality, but the possession of " four incisors in 

 each jaw, tusks solitary, and erect posture." It is evident 

 that the word man, when used by us as naturalists, no longer 

 connotes rationality, but connotes the three other properties 

 specified ; for that which we have expressly in view when 

 we impose a name, assuredly forms part of the meaning of 

 that name. We may, therefore, lay it down as a maxim, 

 that wherever there is a Genus, and a Species marked out 

 from that genus by an assignable differentia, the name of 

 the species must be connotative, and must connote the diffe- 

 rentia ; but the connotation may be special not involved in 

 the signification of the term as ordinarily used, but given to 

 it when employed as a term of art or science. The word Man 

 in common use, connotes rationality and a certain form, but 

 does not connote the number or character of the teeth ; in the 

 Linnaean system it connotes the number of incisor and canine 

 teeth, but does not connote rationality nor any particular 

 form. The word man has, therefore, two different meanings ; 

 though not commonly considered as ambiguous, because it 

 happens in both cases to denote the same individual objects. 

 But a case is conceivable in which the ambiguity would 

 become evident: we have only to imagine that some new 

 kind of animal were discovered, having Linnseus's three cha- 

 racteristics of humanity, but not rational, or not of the human 

 form. In ordinary parlance, these animals would not be 

 called men ; but in natural history they must still be called 

 so by those, if any there be, who adhere to the Linnasan 

 classification ; and the question would arise, whether the word 

 should continue to be used in two senses, or the classification 

 be given up, and the technical sense of the term be abandoned 

 along with it. 



Words not otherwise connotative may, in the mode just 

 adverted to, acquire a special or technical connotation. Thus 

 the word whiteness, as we have so often remarked, connotes 



