§ 333. It will be seen that the term 'species,' as it appears in the
scheme, has a wholly different meaning from the current acceptation in
which it was defined above. Species, in its now accepted meaning,
signifies the relation of a smaller class to a larger one: as it was
originally intended in the heads of predicables it signifies a class
in reference to individuals.
§ 334. Another point which requires to be noticed with regard to this
five-fold list of heads of predicables, if its object be to classify
the relations of a predicate to a subject, is that it takes no account
of those forms of predication in which class and attribute are
combined. Under which of the five heads would the predicates in the
following propositions fall?
(1) Man is a rational animal.
(2) Man is a featherless biped.
In the one case we have a combination of genus and difference; in the
other we have a genus combined with an accident.
§ 335. The list of heads of predicables which we have been discussing
is not derived from Aristotle, but from the 'Introduction' of
Porphyry, a Greek commentator who lived more than six centuries later.
_Aristotle's Heads of Predicables_.
§ 336. Aristotle himself, by adopting a different basis of division,
has allowed room in his classification for the mixed forms of
predication above alluded to. His list contains only four heads,
namely,
Genus ([Greek: génos])
Definition ([Greek: òrismós])
Proprium ([Greek: îdion])
Accident ([Greek: sumbebekós])
§ 337. Genus here is not distinguished from difference. Whether we
say 'Man is an animal' or 'Man is rational,' we are equally understood
to be predicating a genus.
§ 338. There is no account taken of species, which, when predicated,
resolves itself either into genus or accident. When predicated of an
individual, it is regarded as a genus, e.g. 'Socrates is a man'; when
predicated of a class, it is regarded as an accident, e.g. 'Some
animals are men.'
§ 339. Aristotle's classification may easily be seen to be
exhaustive. For every predicate must either be coextensive with its
subject or not, i.e. predicable of the same things. And if the two
terms coincide in extension, the predicate must either coincide also
in intension with the subject or not.
A predicate which coincides both in extension and intension with its
subject is exactly what is meant by a definition. One which coincides
in extension without coinciding in intension, that is, which applies
to the same things without expressing the whole meaning, of the
subject, is what is known as a Proprium or Peculiar Property.
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