Let me try and explain what might be meant by a 'natural' classification in an 18th Century context by thinking in terms of how one might classify a group of Lego stones.
Suppose you have a set of Lego pieces (assume what you are given are six stones, all with eight studs, two of which are dirty, but all of which are white. The question is: is there a 'natural' way of group the stones?
Suppose you drew up a list of yes/no questions about the pieces e.g.
Is it an eighter?
Is it white?
Is it dirty?
You could then take any pair of pieces and count the number of similarities between them (in relation to the list). This would enable you to make such judgements as: Piece A has more in common with piece B than it has with piece C.
Set 1 : 6 white eighters |
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
Is it an eighter? |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Is it white? |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Is it dirty? |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Characters shared by pairs of pieces
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
1 |
3
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
2 |
3
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
3 |
3
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
4 |
3
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
5 |
3
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
6 |
3
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
3
|
And on the basis of a series of judgements of that kind you could see if a grouping of pieces would be justified. it may not be. Each of the pieces might have exactly the same number of similarities with each of the others. But there may be the basis for groupings, based on the number of shared features.
VP
Revised 06:06:03