258 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



oxygen, and next, that the substance so composed is a peculiar 

 Kind of substance. 



Now, this second part of the connotation* of any word 

 belonging to a nomenclature is as essential a portion of its 

 meaning as the first part, while the definition only declares 

 the first : and hence the appearance that the signification of 

 such terms cannot be conveyed by a definition : which appear- 

 ance, however, is fallacious. The name Viola odorata denotes 

 a Kind, of which a certain number of characters, sufficient to 

 distinguish it, are enunciated in botanical works. This 

 enumeration of characters is surely, as in other cases, a defini- 

 tion of the name. No, say some, it is not a definition, for the 

 name Viola odorata does not mean those characters ; it means 

 that particular group of plants, and the characters are selected 

 from among a much greater number, merely as marks by which 

 to recognise the group. But to this I reply, that the name 

 does not mean that group, for it would be applied to that group 

 no longer than while the group is believed to be an infima 

 species ; if it were to be discovered that several distinct Kinds 

 have been confounded under this one name, no one would any 

 longer apply the name Viola odorata to the whole of the group, 

 but would apply it, if retained at all, to one only of the Kinds 

 contained therein. What is imperative, therefore, is not that 

 the name shall denote one particular collection of objects, but 

 that it shall denote a Kind, and a lowest Kind. The form of 

 the name declares that, happen what will, it is to denote an 

 infima species ; and that, therefore, the properties which it con- 

 notes, and which are expressed in the definition, are to be con- 

 noted by it no longer than while we continue to believe that 

 those properties, when found together, indicate a Kind, and 

 that the whole of them are found in no more than one Kind. 



With the addition of this peculiar connotation, implied 

 in the form of every word which belongs to a systematic 

 nomenclature; the set of characters which is employed to 

 discriminate each Kind from all other Kinds (and which is a 

 real definition) constitutes as completely as in any other case 

 the whole meaning of the term. It is no objection to say 

 that (as is often the case in natural history) the set of charac- 



