OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 135 



CHAP. V. 



OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF NATURAL OBJECTS AND 

 PHENOMENA, AND OF NOMENCLATURE. 



(129.) THE number and variety of objects andjre- 

 lations which the observation of nature brings before 

 us are so great as to distract the attention, unless 

 assisted and methodized by such judicious distri- 

 bution of them in classes as shall limit our view to 

 a few at a time, or to groups so bound together by 

 general resemblances that, for the immediate pur- 

 pose for which we consider them, they may be 

 regarded as individuals. Before we can enter into 

 any thing which deserves to be called a general and 

 systematic view of nature, it is necessary that we 

 should possess an enumeration, if not complete, 

 at least of considerable extent, of her materials 

 and combinations; and that those which appear 

 in any degree important should be distinguished 

 by names which may not only tend to fix them 

 in our recollection, but may constitute, as it were, 

 nuclei or centres, about which information may 

 collect into masses. The imposition of a name on 

 any subject of contemplation, be it a material object, 

 a phenomenon of nature, or a group of facts and rela- 

 tions, looked upon in a peculiar point of view, is an 

 epoch in its history of great importance. It not only 

 enables us readily to refer to it in conversation or 

 writing, without circumlocution, but, what is oT 

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