A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
§ 6. And here, to prevent the notion of differentia from being
restricted within too narrow limits, it is necessary to remark, that a
species, even as referred to the same genus, will not always have the
same differentia, but a different one, according to the principle and
purpose which preside over the particular classification. For example, a
naturalist surveys the various kinds of animals, and looks out for the
classification of them most in accordance with the order in which, for
zoological purposes, he considers it desirable that we should think of
them. With this view he finds it advisable that one of his fundamental
divisions should be into warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals; or into
animals which breathe with lungs and those which breathe with gills; or
into carnivorous, and frugivorous or graminivorous; or into those which
walk on the flat part and those which walk on the extremity of the foot,
a distinction on which two of Cuvier's families are founded. In doing
this, the naturalist creates as many new classes; which are by no means
those to which the individual animal is familiarly and spontaneously
referred; nor should we ever think of assigning to them so prominent a
position in our arrangement of the animal kingdom, unless for a
preconceived purpose of scientific convenience. And to the liberty of
doing this there is no limit. In the examples we have given, most of the
classes are real Kinds, since each of the peculiarities is an index to a
multitude of properties belonging to the class which it characterizes:
but even if the case were otherwise--if the other properties of those
classes could all be derived, by any process known to us, from the one
peculiarity on which the class is founded--even then, if these
derivative properties were of primary importance for the purposes of the
naturalist, he would be warranted in founding his primary divisions on
them.