CLASSIFICATION '. 375 



exhaustive classification in respect to the complexity of 

 the ratios forming them. Plane rectilinear figures may 

 also be classified according to the number of their sides 

 as triangles, quadrilateral figures, pentagons, hexagons, 

 heptagons, &c. The bifurcate arrangement is not false 

 when applied to such series of objects ; it is even neces- 

 sarily involved in the arrangement which we do apply, 

 so that its formal statement is needless and tedious. The 

 same may be said of the division of portions of space. 

 Reid and Kames endeavoured to cast ridicule on the 

 bifurcate arrangement n by proposing to classify the parts 

 of England into Middlesex and what is not Middlesex, 

 dividing the latter again into Kent and what is not 

 Kent, the latter again into Sussex and what is not Sussex ; 

 and so on. This is so far, however, from being an 

 absurd proceeding that it is requisite to assure us that 

 we have made an exhaustive enumeration of the parts of 

 England. 



The Five Predicates. 



As a general rule it is highly desirable to consign to 

 oblivion all the ancient logical names and expressions, 

 which have infested the science for many centuries past. 

 If logic is ever to be a useful and progressive science, 

 logicians must distinguish between logic and the history 

 of logic. As in the case of any other science it may be 

 desirable to examine the course of thought by which logic 

 has, before or since the time of Aristotle, been brought 

 to its present state ; the history of a science is always 

 instructive as giving instances of the mode in which dis- 

 coveries take place. But at the same time we ought 

 carefully to disencumber the statement of the science 



n George Bentham, 'Outline of a New System of Logic,' p. 115. 



