Having cited with some comments the extracts from Cudworth and Harris, Mr. James Mill observes, "Under the influence of such notions as these, men were led away from the real object of Classification, which remained, till a late period of metaphysical enquiry, not at all understood. Yet the truth appears by no means difficult to find, if we only observe the steps by which the mind acquires its knowledge, and the exigencies which give occasion to the contrivances to which it resorts" (p. 259).--He then proceeds, clearly and forcibly, to announce his own theory of classification, intended to dispel the mystery with which others have surrounded {275} it (p. 264). "The word _man_ is first applied to an individual: it is first associated with the idea of that individual, and acquires the power of calling up the idea of him: it is next applied to another individual, and acquires the power of calling up the idea of him: so of another and another, till it has acquired the power of calling up an indefinite number of those ideas indifferently. What happens? It does call up an indefinite number of the ideas of individuals, as often as it occurs: and calling them up in close combination, it forms them into a species of complex idea." "It thus appears that the word _man_ is not a word having a very simple idea, as was the opinion of the Realists: nor a word having no idea at all, as was that of the Nominalists: but a word calling up an indefinite number of ideas, by the irresistible laws of association, and forming them into one very complex and indistinct, but not therefore unintelligible, idea" (p. 265).--"As it is for the purpose of naming, and of naming with greater facility, that we form classes at all; so it is in furtherance of that same facility that such and such things only are included in one class, such and such things in another. Experience teaches us what sort of grouping answers this purpose best: under the suggestions of that experience, the application of a general word is tacitly and without much of reflection regulated: and by this process and no other, it is, that Classification is performed. It is the aggregation of an indefinite number of individuals, by their association with a particular name" (p. 268).--"It is Similarity or Resemblance, which, when we have applied a name to one individual, leads us to apply it to another and another till the whole forms an aggregate, connected together by the common relation of the aggregate to one and the same name" (p. 271).