CLASSIFICATION AND THE PREDICABLES. 177 



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 Linnsean 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 ; 

 although 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 dis- 

 covered, having Linnseus's three characteristics 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 

 Linnsean 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 conno- 

 tation. Thus the word whiteness, .as we have so often 

 remarked, connotes nothing, it merely denotes the 

 attribute corresponding to a certain sensation : but if 

 we are making a classification of colours, and desire 

 to justify, or even merely to point out, the particular 

 place assigned to whiteness in our arrangement, we 

 may define it, "the colour produced by the mixture 

 of all the simple rays ;" and this fact, though by no 

 means implied in the meaning of the word whiteness 

 as ordinarily used, but only known by subsequent 

 scientific investigation, is part of its meaning in the 



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