PART III. 

 NOMENCLATURE. 



. 230. DEFINITION. 



The Systematic Nomenclature is the assemblage 

 of those denominations which Natural History ap- 

 plies to natural productions, and which refer to a 

 natural-historical system. 



There is only one mode in which Natural History may 

 provide the productions of nature with denominations ; but 

 this mode is in the closest connexion with the whole being 

 of the science. The whole object of Natural History in 

 this respect, is to resolve that single problem : to com- 

 prehend the unities of observation within certain ideas, 

 which may be formed either by assemblage, or by division 

 (. 229.). We may say that we know a natural production, 

 if we are capable to tell to which of these assemblages or 

 divisions it belongs ; but we may say the same thing, if 

 we know its denomination. This- denomination must there- 

 fore be intimately connected with the above-mentioned 

 ideas ; it must express the relation, in which that natural 

 production, to which it is applied, stands to others, with 

 whom it agrees more or less in respect to their natural-his- 

 torical resemblance. 



According to the preceding observations, the natural or 

 synthetical systems represent this connexion. That only 

 mode of nomenclature, therefore, which expresses this con- 

 nexion, will deservedly be called the systematic nomen- 

 clature. 



The systematic nomenclature alone is capable of fulfilling 

 those conditions which Natural History requires from no- 

 menclature in general. For it provides every natural pro- 



