CLASSIFICATION. 



46: 



guages do this more or less, but 

 especially, among modern European 

 languages, the German ; while even 

 that is inferior to the Greek, in which 

 the relation between the meaning of 

 a derivative word and that of its 

 primitive is in general clearly marked 

 by its mode of formation, except in 

 the case of words compounded with 

 prepositions, which are often, in both 

 those languages, extremely anoma- 

 lous. 



But all that can be done, by the 

 mode of constructing words, to pre- 

 vent them from degenerating into 

 sounds passing through the mind 

 without any distinct apprehension of 

 what they signify, is far too little for 

 the necessity of the case. Words, 

 however well constructed originally, 

 are always tending, like coins, to have 

 their inscription worn off by passing 

 from hand to hand ; and the only 

 possible mode of reviving it is to be 

 ever stamping it afresh, by living in 

 the habitual contemplation of the plie- 

 nomena themselves, and not resting 

 in our familiarity with the words that 

 express them. If any one, having 

 possessed himself of the laws of phe- 

 nomena as recorded in words, whether 

 delivered to him originally by others, 

 or even found out by himself, is con- 

 tent from thenceforth to live among 

 these formulae, to think exclusively of 

 them, and of applying them to cases 

 as they arise, without keeping up his 

 acquaintance with the realities from 

 which these laws were collected — not 

 only will he continually fail in his 

 practical efforts, because he will apply 

 his formulae without duly considering 

 whether, in this case and in that, 

 other laws of nature do not modify 

 or supersede them ; but the formulae 

 themselves will progressively lose 

 their meaning to him, and he will 

 cease at last even to be capable of 

 recognising with certainty whether a 

 case falls within the contemplation of 

 his formula or not. It is, in short, 

 as necessary, on all subjects not 

 mathematical, that the things on 

 which we reason should be conceived 



by us in the concrete, and " clothed 

 in circumstances," as it is in algebra 

 that we should keep all individua- 

 lising peculiarities sedulously out of 

 view. 



With this remark we close our ob- 

 servations on the Philosophy of Lan- 

 guage. 



.CHAPTER VII. 



OP CLASSIFICATION, AS SUBSIDIARY TO 

 INDUCTION. 



§ I. There is, as has been fre- 

 quently remarked in this work, a 

 classification of things, which is in- 

 separable from the fact of giving 

 them general names. Every name 

 which .connotes an attribute, divides, 

 by that very fact, all things whatever 

 into two classes, those which have 

 the attribute and those which have it 

 not ; those of which the name can be 

 predicated and those of which it can- 

 not. And the division thus made is 

 not merely a division of such things 

 as actually exist, or are known to 

 exist, but of all such as may hereafter 

 be discovered, and even of all which 

 can be imagined. 



On this kind of Classification we 

 have nothing to add to what has pre- 

 viously been said. The Classification 

 which requires to be discussed as a 

 separate act of the mind is altogether 

 different. In the one, the arrange- 

 ment of objects in groups, and distri- 

 bution of them into compartments, is 

 a mere incidental effect consequent 

 on the use of names given for another 

 purpose, namely, that of simply ex- 

 pressing some of their qualities. In 

 the other, the arrangement and dis- 

 tribution are the main object, and 

 the naming is secondary to, and pur- 

 posely conforms itself to, instead of 

 governing, that more important ope- 

 ration. 



Classification, thus regarded, is a 

 contrivance for the best possible order- 

 ing of the ideas of objects in our 

 minds ; for causing the ideas to ac- 

 company or succeed one another in 



2G 



