Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/462

 4S6 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

omy as an outgrown stage in the development of biology; and third, something of the wretched consequences that have resulted from the f alL A quotation from Huxley^s " Life of Owen '' may serve as a starting point of the discussion :

The clasBificationB of the scientific taxonomist are of two kinds. Those of the one sort are merelj handy reference catalogues. . . . The others, known as natwrcd classifications, are arrangements of objects according to the sum total of their likenesses, in respect of certain characters. . . . And natural classification is of perennial importance, because the construction of it is the same thing as the accurate generalization of the facts of form, or the establishment of the em- pirical laws of the correlation of structure.

That which makes taxonomic biology as practised by many system- atists genuinely superficial, and has so depreciated its value in the minds of many biologists, is failure to distinguish sharply and see the profound significance of the difference between the two sorts of classi- fication referred to by Huxley. The sort of classification which he calls " merely handy reference catalogues," I call synoptic classification^ and remind the reader that such classification rests upon synoptic descrip- tion^ The other sort of classification, said by Huxley to be of "per- ennial importance^ because the construction of it is the same thing as the accurate generalization of the facts of form,'' I call analytic classi- fication, and ask the reader to note that it rests on analytic description, just as synoptic classification rests on synoptic description. And here I must state that analytic description and classification will include con- siderably more, as I use them, than was included by Huxley in his second sort of classification.

In order to bring into clearer view the close kindred between the biological and the logical aspects of our subject, we shall so choose our language as to fix attention quite as much on the meaning of the names used, as on the natural objects to which the names are applied.

If any one is disposed to shy at the proposal to thus connect biology with logic, he may be reminded of a dictum of one of the most famous and also the most objective of biologists — Cuvier. "In order to name well, you must know well,*' said the father of comparative anatomy. The import of this straightforward statement is that natural science deals with natural objects and that the names of these objects are the instruments by which the work is done. As a speculator, Cuvier did not escape the common weakness of the class, that of permitting Ideas to so intrude themselves between object and name as to prevent assurance that the two should really fit each other; but, as naturalist he stood firmly for the practise of making both knowing and naming apply very directly to the object. So far he was on the road to the sound position later definitely taken by J. S. Mill as a logician, that common sense is right in calling the word which stands for an object the name of the object, and not merely the name of our idea of the object.

�� �