Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/485

 PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY. 471 received, best authorised, doctrine the genera and species were held to be realities, in such a way that a real essence, denoted by the name, was common to all the individuals of this genus or species. In fact, the " Realism " of the schools, in the form in which it is generally understood, is closely connected with the view that between things and names there exists a natural and necessary bond ; while the nominalistic, freer mode of thought apprehends phenomena in their nameless isolation, and claims the right to name them anew as it sees to be desirable. Practically that means, to distinguish them, to arrange them, to classify them, according to its own point of view, i.e. according to observation of the most constant and most characteristic attributes. It may seem that in this way an artificial systematisrn was favoured, because it alone seemed possible ; yet the investigation itself necessarily elicited the thought of a natural order, of a classification, therefore, which took account of the really common attributes of every species, genus, and family of plants and animals. It is thus that the great French naturalists worked to establish the sub- ordination and correlation of the organs. The recognition and discovery of an "architectural plan" of Nature, which was investigated in its complete unity and in its manifold ramifications, might indeed, if the old dispute had still survived, have appeared to be a victory for Realism, and has certainly worked in this direction through the doctrine of the " constancy " of species. But at the same time morphology led directly to the evolution theory, which seemed finally decisive in the opposite direction, hence in favour of the old Nominalism. Be that how it may, it may be said with certainty that the progress of the descriptive natural sciences, and in connexion with them, of Biology, has in this sphere overthrown those complaints. From the standpoint of every language whether its names are derived from ancient science, or are as yet not separated from the popular view all modern classifications of organisms are unnatural ; i.e. they depend upon methodical study of inner relationship instead of upon naive perceptions of outer resemblance. Thus they are developed from the rough into an infinite delicacy, and are full of artificial names, which indeed also produce a new confusion through the variety and conflict of systems. But this terminology, important as Biology is from a philosophical point of view, we will not consider further here as specifically philosophical. 67. The second complaint, on the other hand, maintains its full force to-day. It refers essentially and principally