A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. I
John Stuart Mill · en
If, however, practical convenience is a sufficient warrant for making
the main demarcations in our arrangement of objects run in lines not
coinciding with any distinction of Kind, and so creating genera and
species in the popular sense which are not genera or species in the
rigorous sense at all, _à fortiori_ must we be warranted, when our
genera and species _are_ real genera and species, in marking the
distinction between them by those of their properties which
considerations of practical convenience most strongly recommend. If we
cut a species out of a given genus--the species man, for instance, out
of the genus animal--with an intention on our part that the peculiarity
by which we are to be guided in the application of the name man should
be rationality, then rationality is the differentia of the species man.
Suppose, however, that being naturalists, we, for the purposes of our
particular study, cut out of the genus animal the same species man, but
with an intention that the distinction between man and all other species
of animal should be, not rationality, but the possession of "four
incisors in each jaw, tusks solitary, and erect posture." It is evident
that the word man, when used by us as naturalists, no longer connotes
rationality, but connotes the three other properties specified; for that
which we have expressly in view when we impose a name, assuredly forms
part of the meaning of that name. We may, therefore, lay it down as a
maxim, that wherever there is a Genus, and a Species marked out from
that genus by an assignable differentia, the name of the species must be
connotative, and must connote the differentia; but the connotation may
be special--not involved in the signification of the term as ordinarily
used, but given to it when employed as a term of art or science. The
word Man in common use, connotes rationality and a certain form, but
does not connote the number or character of the teeth; in the Linnæan
system it connotes the number of incisor and canine teeth, but does not
connote rationality nor any particular form. The word _man_ has,
therefore, two different meanings; though not commonly considered as
ambiguous, because it happens in both cases to _de_note the same
individual objects. But a case is conceivable in which the ambiguity
would become evident: we have only to imagine that some new kind of
animal were discovered, having Linnæus's three characteristics of
humanity, but not rational, or not of the human form. In ordinary
parlance, these animals would not be called men; but in natural history
they must still be called so by those, if any there be, who adhere to
the Linnæan classification; and the question would arise, whether the
word should continue to be used in two senses, or the classification be
given up, and the technical sense of the term be abandoned along with
it.