CLASSIFICATION BY SERIES. 



479 



whether as to the formation of groups 

 or of series, those principles are ap- 

 plicable to all cases in which man- 

 kind are called upon to bring the 

 various parts of any extensive sub- 

 ject into mental co-ordination. They 

 are as much to the point when objects 

 are to be classed for purposes of art 

 r)r business as for those of science. 

 The proper arrangement, for example, 

 of a code of laws, depends on the same 

 scientific conditions as the classifica- 

 tions in natural history ; nor could 

 there be a better preparatory discip- 

 line for that important function than 

 the study of the principles of a natural 

 arrangement, not only in the abstract, 



but in their actual application to the 

 class of phenomena for which they 

 were first elaborated, and which are 

 still the best school for learning their 

 use. Of this the great authority on 

 codification, Bentham, was perfectly 

 aware ; and his early Fragment on 

 Government, the admirable introduc- 

 tion to a series of writings unequalled 

 in their department, contains clear 

 and just views (as far as they go) on 

 the meaning of a natural arrange- 

 ment, such as could scarcely have 

 occurred to any one who lived an- 

 terior to the age of Linnaeus and 

 Bernard de Jussieu, 



