484 Mr. Biche NO o)i Si/stems and Methods 



the word species, it is not previously defined. Thus much in- 

 deed has been thought requisite ; that in botany these common 

 characters should be taken from the parts of fructification, and 

 in zoology from such parts as are indicative of structure and 

 habits. " A genus should furnish a character, not a character 

 form a genus." We are not here, as in the word species, pre- 

 cluded from inquiry by a previous definition. Though both 

 words are terms of generalization, there is the same difterence 

 between them, as instruments of reasoning, as between a defi- 

 nition and a proposition in geometry. 



The species includes all the characters which are in the genus, 

 and those likewise which distinguish that species from others be- 

 lonoino- to the same genus ; and the more divisions we make, 

 as order, family, class, it is intended that the names of the lower 

 should become still the more comprehensive in their signifi- 

 cation, but the less extensive in their application to individuals. 

 Naturalists by this invention, which is not exclusively their own, 

 have it in their power to contemplate and reason upon these 

 separate characters, with all their consequences, as if they ex- 

 isted independently of species ; as by the use of the word species 

 they are enabled to look at their peculiar attributes indepen- 

 dently of individuals. This faculty of the mind, which is one of 

 the most curious that belongs to it, has given rise in all languages 

 to a multitude of words of the same kind as the names of genera 

 in Natural History ; words, which do not express individual ex- 

 istences, but are abstractions of qualities and characters belong- 

 ing to them*. 



All general reasoning in morality, law, politics, and even ma- 

 thematics, depends for its accuracy upon the proper use of ge- 



*■ I would avoid here, and leave the question to be decided by the reader, after lie 

 has consulted Locke and Berkeley, \\hether we have got ideas corresponding to these 

 abstract terms, or whether they are mere signs, like r, i/, and - in algebra. 



neric 



