30 CATEGORIES OF CLASSIFICATION. 



CHAPTER III. 



CATEGORIES OF CLASSIFICATION. 



FROM the time that Linnaeus showed us the 

 necessity of a scientific system as a framework for 

 the arrangement of scientific facts in Natural 

 History, the number of divisions adopted by zo- 

 ologists and botanists increased steadily. Not 

 only were families, orders, and classes added to 

 genera and species, but these were further multi- 

 plied by subdivisions of the different groups. But 

 as the number of divisions increased, they lost in 

 precise meaning, and it became more and more 

 doubtful how far they were true to Nature. 

 Moreover, these divisions were not taken in the 

 same sense by all naturalists : what were called 

 families by some were called orders by others, 

 while the orders of some were the classes of oth- 

 ers, till it began to be doubted whether these 

 scientific systems had any foundation in Nature, 

 or signified anything more than that it had 

 pleased Linnaeus, for instance, to call certain 

 groups of animals by one name, while Cuvier 

 had chosen to call them by another. 



