CLASSIFICATION. 301 



of the general logical principles which these classifica- 

 tions exemplify; and this has been still more com- 

 pletely done by M. Comte, whose view of the philo- 

 sophy of classification, in the third volume of his 

 great work, is the most complete with which I am 

 acquainted. 



$ 2. There is no property of objects which may 

 not be taken, if we please, as the foundation for a 

 classification or mental grouping of those objects; and 

 in our first attempts we are likely to select for that 

 purpose properties which are simple, easily conceived, 

 and perceptible on a first view, without any previous 

 process of thought. Thus Tournefort's arrangement 

 of plants was founded on the shape and divisions of 

 the corolla ; and that which is commonly called the 

 Linnsean (though Linnaeus also suggested another and 

 more scientific arrangement) was grounded chiefly upon 

 the number of the stamens and pistils. 



But these classifications, which are at first recom- 

 mended by the facility they afford of ascertaining to 

 what class any individual belongs, are seldom much 

 adapted to the ends of that Classification which is 

 the subject of our present remarks. The Linnaean 

 arrangement answers the purpose of making us think 

 together of all those kinds of plants which possess the 

 same number of stamens and pistils ; but to think of 

 them in that manner is of little use, since we seldom 

 have anything to affirm in common of the plants which 

 have a given number of stamens and pistils. If 

 plants of the class Pentandria, order Monogynia, 

 agreed in any other properties, the habit of thinking 

 and speaking of the plants under a common designa- 

 tion would conduce to our remembering those com- 

 mon properties so far as they were ascertained, and 



