6 Aug. 1814 +

Logic

Section 6

Of the Porphyrian Tree.

6

Ch. │ │ Methodization

'. │ │ Subalternation

1

The minuteness of the distinction giving rise to so many names depends on the experienced demand for distinction. Sheep species Ewe, Ram & Weather. Bos species Cow Bull and Ox. Canine species Dog & Bitch. Cat species no difference of gender: both served alike to catch Mice. The pronoun he & she served for these & other animals. Horse & Mare: gelding more recent. Boar & Sow.

The process or course by which, setting out from individuals and those indeterminate, men arrived at the seat of most extensive aggregates {at that level in the scale on which are seated the most extensive aggregates} has received the name of generalization: it has division - logical or psychical division - for its converse.

At this stage of the enquiry, the justly celebrated logical instrument, called the Porphyrian tree, presents its claim to notice. It took this name from its inventor Porphyrius, a Greek who not long after the days of Aristotle became numbered among his disciples.

In the track of generalization such among that ingenious people had been even before - no one knows how long before - the days of Aristotle: he found rising one above another in that scale words in the Greek language employed as the names of the following aggregates, 1 Man {and Brute}. 2. animal. 3. living thing. 4 body. 5 substance.

In addition to those objects the existence of which is made known to sense, for designating other objects, the idea of which is presented to us only by abstraction, the work of imagination, while their existence is pointed out to us by inference, he found already in use a word corresponding to our word substance.

For exhibiting to the senses the relation between the objects standing on different levels of the scale thus composed, he employed as an emblem the figure of a tree.

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