CLASSIFICATION. 303 



or philosophical, and is commonly called a Natural, 

 in contradistinction to a Technical or Artificial, classi- 

 fication or arrangement. The phrase Natural Classi- 

 fication seems most peculiarly appropriate to such 

 arrangements as correspond, in the groups which they 

 form, to the spontaneous tendencies of the mind, by 

 placing together the objects most similar in their gene- 

 ral aspect ; in opposition to those technical systems 

 which, arranging things according to their agreement 

 in some circumstance arbitrarily selected, often throw 

 into the same group objects which in the general 

 aggregate of their properties present no resemblance, 

 and into different and remote groups, others which 

 have the closest similarity. It is one of the most 

 valid recommendations of any classification to the 

 character of a scientific one, that it shall be a natural 

 classification in this sense also ; for the test of its scien- 

 tific character is the number and importance of the 

 properties which can be asserted in common of all 

 objects included in a group ; and properties on which 

 the general aspect of the things depends, are, if only on 

 that ground, important, as well as, in most cases, numer- 

 ous. But, though a strong recommendation, this cir- 

 cumstance is not a sine qud non; since the more obvious 

 properties of things may be of trifling importance 

 compared with others that are not obvious. I have 

 seen it mentioned as a great absurdity in the Linnaean 

 classification, that it places (which by the way it does 

 not) the violet by the side of the oak : it certainly 

 dissevers natural affinities,, and brings together things 

 quite as unlike as the oak and the violet are. But the 

 difference, apparently so wide, which renders the 

 juxtaposition of those two vegetables so suitable an 

 illustration of a bad arrangement, depends, to the 

 common eye, mainly upon mere size and texture ; now 



