CLASSIFICATION. 319 



it is usually called the specific name, could at most 

 express, independently of convention, no more than a 

 very small portion of the connotation of the term. But 

 by adding to this the name of the superior genus, we 

 make the best amends we can for the impossibility of 

 so contriving the name as to express all the distinctive 

 characters of the Kind. We make it, at all events, 

 express as many of those characters as are common to 

 the proximate natural group in which the Kind is 

 included. If even those common characters are so 

 numerous or so little familiar as to require a further 

 extension of the same resource, we might, instead of 

 a binary, adopt a ternary nomenclature, employing 

 not only the name of the genus, but that of the next 

 natural group in order of generality above the genus, 

 commonly called the Family. This was done in the 

 mineralogical nomenclature proposed by Professor 

 Mohs. " The names framed by him were/' says Mr. 

 Whewell*, "not composed of two, but of three ele- 

 ments, designating respectively the Species, the 

 Genus, and the Order ; thus he has such species as 

 Rhombohedral Lime Haloide, Octahedral Fluor Haloide, 

 Prismatic Hal Baryte." The binary construction, 

 however, has been found sufficient in botany and 

 zoology, the only sciences in which this general prin- 

 ciple has hitherto been successfully adopted in the 

 construction of a nomenclature. 



Besides the advantage which this principle of 

 nomenclature possesses, in giving to the names of spe- 

 cies the greatest quantity of independent significance 

 which the circumstances of the case admit of, it 

 answers the further end of immensely economizing 

 the use of names, and preventing an otherwise intole- 



* Aphorisms concerning the Language of Science, p. Ixiv. 



