A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
It is to be remarked of these distinctions, that they express, not what
the predicate is in its own meaning, but what relation it bears to the
subject of which it happens on the particular occasion to be predicated.
There are not some names which are exclusively genera, and others which
are exclusively species, or differentiæ; but the same name is referred
to one or another predicable, according to the subject of which it is
predicated on the particular occasion. _Animal_, for instance, is a
genus with respect to man, or John; a species with respect to Substance,
or Being. _Rectangular_ is one of the Differentiæ of a geometrical
square; it is merely one of the Accidentia of the table at which I am
writing. The words genus, species, &c. are therefore relative terms;
they are names applied to certain predicates, to express the relation
between them and some given subject: a relation grounded, as we shall
see, not on what the predicate connotes, but on the class which it
denotes, and on the place which, in some given classification, that
class occupies relatively to the particular subject.
§ 3. Of these five names, two, Genus and Species, are not only used by
naturalists in a technical acceptation not precisely agreeing with their
philosophical meaning, but have also acquired a popular acceptation,
much more general than either. In this popular sense any two classes,
one of which includes the whole of the other and more, may be called a
Genus and a Species. Such, for instance, are Animal and Man; Man and
Mathematician. Animal is a Genus; Man and Brute are its two species; or
we may divide it into a greater number of species, as man, horse, dog,
&c. _Biped_, or _two-footed animal_, may also be considered a genus, of
which man and bird are two species. _Taste_ is a genus, of which sweet
taste, sour taste, salt taste, &c. are species. _Virtue_ is a genus;
justice, prudence, courage, fortitude, generosity, &c. are its species.
The same class which is a genus with reference to the sub-classes or
species included in it, may be itself a species with reference to a more
comprehensive, or, as it is often called, a superior genus. Man is a
species with reference to animal, but a genus with reference to the
species Mathematician. Animal is a genus, divided into two species, man
and brute; but animal is also a species, which, with another species,
vegetable, makes up the genus, organized being. Biped is a genus with
reference to man and bird, but a species with respect to the superior
genus, animal. Taste is a genus divided into species, but also a species
of the genus sensation. Virtue, a genus with reference to justice,
temperance, &c., is one of the species of the genus, mental quality.