138 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS, 



great family of plants or animals has a few anomalous 

 genera or species on its borders, which are admitted 

 into it by a sort of courtesy, and concerning which it 

 has been matter of discussion to what family they 

 properly belonged. Now when the class-name is pre- 

 dicated of any object of this description, we do, by so 

 predicating it, affirm resemblance and nothing more. 

 And in order to be scrupulously correct it ought to 

 be said, that in every case in which we predicate a 

 general name, we affirm, not absolutely that the object 

 possesses the properties designated by the name, but 

 that it either possesses those properties, or if it does 

 not, at any rate resembles the things which do so, 

 more than it resembles any other things. In most 

 cases, however, it is unnecessary to suppose any such 

 alternative, the latter of the two grounds being very 

 seldom that on which the assertion is made : and 

 when it is, there is generally some slight difference in 

 the form of the expression, as, This species (or genus) 

 is considered, or may be ranked, as belonging to such 

 and such a family: we should hardly say positively 

 that it does belong to it, unless it possessed unequivo- 

 cally the properties of which the class-name is scien- 

 tifically significant. 



There is still another exceptional case in which, 

 although the predicate is a name of a class, yet in 

 predicating it we affirm nothing but resemblance, 

 the class being founded not upon resemblance in any 

 particular respect, but upon general unanalyzable re- 

 semblance. The classes in question are those into which 

 our simple sensations, or other simple feelings, are 

 divided. Sensations of white, for instance, are classed 

 together, not because We can take them to pieces, and 

 say they are alike in this, and not alike in that, but 

 because we feel them to be alike altogether, although 



