160 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



Although, however, Predication does not pre- 

 suppose Classification, and although the theory of 

 Names and of Propositions is not cleared up, but only 

 encumbered, by intruding the idea of classification into 

 it, there is nevertheless a close connexion between 

 Classification, and the employment of General Names. 

 By every general name which we introduce, we create 

 a class, if there be any existing things to compose it ; 

 that is, any Things corresponding to the signification 

 of the name. Classes, therefore, mostly owe their 

 existence to general language. But general language, 

 also, though that is not the most common case, some- 

 times 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 crea- 

 tion 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 however be sup- 

 posed that such names, when introduced, differ in any 

 respect, as to their mode of signification, from other 

 connotative names. The classes which they denote 

 are, as much as any other classes, constituted by 

 certain common attributes ; and their names are signi- 

 ficant of those attributes, and of nothing else. The 

 names of Cuvier's classes and orders, Plantigrades, 

 Digitigradesy &c., are as much the expression of attri- 



