SECTION 28. CLASSIFICATION. 393 



This reconstruction commenced, in essence, long ago. In 

 antiquity and in the Middle Ages, where consistency constituted 

 the ideal of sound thinking, nomenclatures and terminologies 

 were developed in connection with diverse subjects : the special 

 names connected with logics and with rhetoric may be cited 

 in illustration. With the development of the sciences, progress 

 was hastened in this direction. We have the early example 

 of botany, where a luxurious nomenclature and terminology 

 came into being. Chemistry can also boast of having built a 

 wall around its preserve, saving its terms from pollution by 

 the profane multitude. Other sciences have striven more or less 

 successfully to achieve the same end, seeking refuge wherever 

 possible in mathematical terms, symbols, and formulae. Defi- 

 ciencies in language, difficulties experienced in unequivocally 

 expressing distinctions without circumlocution, are among the 

 most formidable obstacles to progress in science. An invalu- 

 able service would be therefore rendered to science and its 

 popularisation if some learned international body occupied it- 

 self with the project of how to design stable and appropriate 

 nomenclatures and terminologies on a general and a scientific 

 basis. In this attempt, the secret of a scientific language, which 

 we sought in the preceding Conclusion, might possibly be dis- 

 covered. 1 



The advantage is patent of classifying stars according to 

 their brightness into sixteen magnitudes, or the force of the 

 wind into twelve magnitudes: from 1 a light air, to 12 a hur- 

 ricane ; the chemical elements according to their atomic weights ; 

 living beings into kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, 

 species, variety, and individual; the metabolism of life into 

 anabolism and katabolism; the problems of life into function 

 and environment; organisms into systems of organs, organs, 

 tissues, cells, and protoplasm; plants into Thallophyte, Bryo- 

 phyte, Pteridophyte, Gymnosperms, and Angiosperms; verte- 

 brates into fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals; 

 foods into proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamines, mineral mat- 

 ters, water, and oxygen ; languages into isolating, agglutinative, 



1 A supplementary dictionary, where the words are divided into groups 

 conformably to their signification, should be of inestimable value in illu- 

 minating the nature of language and in outlining how it may be extensively 

 rationalised and developed. Of course, more than one tongue ought to be 

 studied in this way. Even now, however, much might be accomplished in 

 developing the intellectual powers by (a) training the young to the intelligent 

 every day use of the substance of the dictionary, and (b) thoroughly habitu- 

 ating them to the frequent and matter-of-fact employment of such terms as 

 judgment, balance, discernment, perspicacity, penetration, clarity, discrimina- 

 tion, sagacity, circumspection, caution, prudence, restraint, vigilance, heed- 

 fulness, correctness, exactitude, precision, tentativeness, diffidence, deference, 

 moderation, reserve, discretion, considerateness, etc., as well as to methodo- 

 logical terms and constant recourse to measurement generally. This educa- 

 tional method might be advantageously extended to the principal terms 

 employed in practice in connection with the cultural list referred to in 1. 



