280 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



Inductive Method, that we should establish a type-species or 

 genus, namely, the one which exhibits in the most eminent 

 degree the particular phenomenon under investigation. But 

 of this hereafter. It remains, for completing the theory of 

 natural groups, that a few words should be said on the prin- 

 ciples of the nomenclature adapted to them. 



5. A Nomenclature in science, is, as we have said, a 

 system of the names of Kinds. These names, like other class- 

 names, are defined by the enumeration of the characters dis- 

 tinctive of the class. The only merit which a set of names 

 can have beyond this, is to convey, by the mode of their con- 

 struction, as much information as possible : so that a person 

 who knows the thing, may receive all the assistance which the 

 name can give in remembering what he knows, while he who 

 knows it not, may receive as much knowledge respecting it as 

 the case admits of, by merely being told its name. 



There are two modes of giving to the name of a Kind this 

 sort of significance. The best, but which unfortunately is 

 seldom practicable, is when the word can be made to indicate, 

 by its formation, the very properties which it is designed to 

 connote. The name of a Kind does not, of course, connote 

 all the properties of the Kind, since these are inexhaustible, 

 but such of them as are sufficient to distinguish it; such as 

 are sure marks of all the rest. Now, it is very rarely that one 

 property, or even any two or three properties, can answer this 

 purpose. To distinguish the common daisy from all other 

 species of plants would require the specification of many cha- 

 racters. And a name cannot, without being too cumbrous for 

 use, give indication, by its etymology or mode of construction, 

 of more than a very small number of these. The possibility, 

 therefore, of an ideally perfect Nomenclature, is probably con- 

 fined to the one case in which we are happily in possession of 

 something nearly approaching to it ; the Nomenclature of 

 elementary Chemistry. The substances, whether simple or 

 compound, with which chemistry is conversant, are Kinds, 

 and, as such, the properties which distinguish each of them 

 from the rest are innumerable ; but in the case of compound 



