Identification

“ The identification is, of course, limited by the measure of the individual intelligence, meaning, not merely the intellectual perception of the sequence of cause and effect, but also that indescribable reciprocity of feeling by which we instinctively recognize something in another making them akin to ourselves ”

“ The many vexed questions that arise concerning individual identity are metaphysical rather than psychological. But it Individual Identity. will serve to bring out the difference between the two forms of identity to note that an identification cannot be established solely by qualitative comparison; an alibi or a breach of temporal continuity will turn the flank of the strongest argument from resemblance. ”

“ It must be clear to any student of the subject that persistence of patterns must become the basis of identification in this way, and that persistence is now as firmly established as anything can be as to living creatures. ”

“ First, natural science served—if we overlook the hasty identification of mind and matter which had its origin in natural science—as a shining and fruitful example to psychology. ”

“ Simple identity or non-identity is the ultimate state to which every assertion may be reduced; and we shall, therefore, first ask, from what identities, &c., can other identities, &c., be produced? Again, since we name objects in species, each species consisting of a number of individuals, and since our assertion may include all or only part of a species, it is further necessary to ask, in every instance, to what extent the conclusion drawn is true, whether of all, or only of part? ”

“ We shall see that they form patterns, considerable in size and of a curious variety of shape, whose boundaries can be firmly outlined, and which are little worlds in themselves. They have the unique merit of retaining all their peculiarities unchanged throughout life, and afford in consequence an incomparably surer criterion of identity than any other bodily feature. They may be made to throw welcome light on some of the most interesting biological questions of the day, such as heredity, symmetry, correlation, and the nature of genera and species. ”

“ Or Science and some of our cursed hard-shelled data.
One speaks of the tutelarian as if it were something distinct in itself. So one speaks of a tree, a saint, a barrel of pork, the Rocky Mountains. One speaks of missionaries, as if they were positively different, or had identity of their own, or were a species by themselves. To the Intermediatist, everything that seems to have identity is only attempted identity, and every species is continuous with all other species, or that which is called the specific is only emphasis upon some aspect of the general. ”

“ If by the study of Natural History we evolve, in a clear and well defined form, the conceptions of genus, species, and of higher and lower steps of classification, we communicate precision, clearness, and method to the intellect, through a great range of its operations. ”

“ The history of the origin of a type, as species, genus, order, etc., is simply the history of the origin of the structure or structures which define those groups respectively. It is nothing more nor less than this, whether a man or an insect be the object of investigation. ”

“ And by dint of all these matters, this long continued acquaintance only reviving the impressions received in early life, they had no doubt of the identity of the person. Was there ever a more perfect train of evidence exhibited to prove the identity of a person, than on the present occasion? ”

“ And what more natural to expect, or rational to hold, than that the Unchangeable One should have wrought in all time after one general type and pattern, or than that we may seek, in the hope of finding, meet correspondences and striking analogies between his revealed workings during the human period, and his previous workings of old during the geologic periods,—correspondences and analogies suited to establish the identity of the worker, and, of course, from that identity to demonstrate the authenticity of the revelation? ”

“ And here 'tis evident, the same method of reasoning must be continu'd, which has so successfully explain'd the identity of plants, and animals, and ships, and houses, and of all the compounded and changeable productions either of art or nature. The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies. ”

“ In this way the second or classificatory leads us naturally to the third or final stage—the theoretical, or metaphysical. If the work of classification is properly carried out, it teaches us that nothing exists in nature by accident; that each individual belongs to a species, each species to a genus ”

“ To overcome this difficulty we must understand the resemblance upon which classification is based to include resemblance of Causation, that is, the fact itself of descent from common ancestors. For organic beings, all other rules of classification are subordinate to one: trace the genealogy of every form. ”

“ The same method of reasoning which enables us, when furnished with a fragment of an extinct animal, to prophesy the character which the whole organism exhibited, will, sooner or later, enable us, when we know a few of the later terms of a genealogical series, to predict the nature of the earlier terms. ”

“ Actual identity is not what the theory of descent with modification would lead us to expect, seeing that, according to this theory, the comparable features usually refer to features that are derived from a common ancestor lower down in a branching stem of descent. ”

“ If in all judgments there is affirmation of identity, or non-identity, and all our cognitions either begin or end in a judgment, it would seem that they all ought to be reduced to a simple perception of identity. The general formula of our cognitions will then be: A is A, or, a thing is itself. ”

“ What interpretation is to be put on these truths of classification? We find that organic forms admit of an arrangement everywhere indicating the fact, that along with certain attributes, certain other attributes, which are not directly connected with them, always exist. How are we to account for this fact? And how are we to account for the fact that the attributes possessed in common by the largest assemblages of forms, are the most vitally-important attributes? ”

“ In this manner we substitute the word man, for example, for the word Thomas, when we predicate the Species of the individual, in the proposition, “Thomas is a man;” the word animal, for the word man, when we predicate the Genus of the Species, in the proposition, “man, is an animal. ”

“ But now, as the genus and the species have no material existence, how can they vary? If individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the variability of the species? To which we reply by asking, Which does the question refer to, the category of thought, or the individual embodiment? If the former, then we would remark that our categories of thought vary from time to time in the readiest manner. ”

“ In short, if one wishes full understanding of a people, one must take its language into consideration. This means that it must be classified. If a historical classification is to be more than barrenly logical, it must have reference to relationship, development, origin. In a word, it must be a genetic classification. ”

“ To the investigator who believes in the unity of the human species, whether he be a proper ethnologist, or a zoologist in the more current signification of the term, the phænomena exhibited by the numerous families of mankind supply ninetenths of the data for that part of natural history which deals with varieties as subordinate to, and as different from, species. ”

“ In the lower forms of recognition where the self is not present, as in the higher vertebrates and possibly in infants, there exists the present cognition of the experience and the re-cognition of it in the shape of a vague memory that it had been experienced before. ”

“ In studying the biography, if I may so express myself, of an individual animal, we have to acquaint ourselves with the circumstances in which nature has placed it,—its adaptation to these, both in structure and instinct,—the points of resemblance which it presents to the individuals of other races and families, and the laws which determine its terms of development, vigorous existence, and decay. ”

“ There is nature-knowledge and there is man-knowledge; there is scientific experience and there is vital experience. Let the reader track down this contrast into his own inmost being, and he will understand what I mean.
All modes of comprehending the world may, in the last analysis, be described as Morphology. The Morphology of the mechanical and the extended, a science which discovers and orders nature-laws and causal relations, is called Systematic. The Morphology of the organic, of history and life and all that bears the sign of direction and destiny, is called Physiognomic. ”

“ And so on in regard to all other things. By overlooking the differences, and attending to the resemblances of singulars, we form a species; by overlooking the differences, and attending to the resemblances of species, we form a genus; by overlooking the differences, and attending to the resemblance of genera, we form a still higher genus, until we ascend up to ens, or "Being," the highest generalisation of ordinary ontology as described in the common schoolbooks upon logic. ”

“ If all names were names of Species, as man, horse, eagle, the facility of marking the order of the ideas which they represent would be the same. If the idea man occurred first, the idea horse second, the idea eagle third; all that would be necessary would be to put down the name or mark man the first, the name or mark horse the second, and the order of marks would represent the order of ideas. ”

“ The manner in which they answer questions, relative to the botany and zoology of their country, giving first the name of the genus and then that of the particular species which forms the subject of inquiry, discovers great intelligence. No clown —none but a person of education—could reply with so much propriety. ”

“ But inasmuch as our genealogies are wholly insufficient for the purpose of explaining our respective originals or any or either of them, or to give us or any of us, considered as individuals or nations, who fall under the denomination of the term man, any manner of insight or knowledge from whom we are lineally descended, or who were our respective original ancestors, or what their names were: we must therefore reason on this subject from the facts and causes now existing, which abundantly evince, that we are of different kinds, and consequently are not of the same lineage. ”

“ Are the genera and species which the mind contemplates, in its attempts to classify and interpret phenomena, real in nature, or produced only by human thought and speech? A comparison with the modern mode of investigation will explain the importance which the question possessed, and the reason why it monopolized the entire field of inquiry. ”

“ The flowers and leaves of a plant may both differ in colour from the earth in which the plant grows, and yet they may differ from each other; in other cases the leaves and stem may both differ from the soil and yet agree with each other. Where we have difference only we can make no inference; where we have identity we can infer. This fact gives great countenance to my assertion that inference proceeds always through identity, but may be equally well effected in propositions asserting difference or identity. ”

“ In like manner, the established grouping of objects under a common name, even when founded only on a gross and general resemblance, is evidence, in the first place, that the resemblance is obvious, and therefore considerable ”

“ Our chief business, then, must be to prove, that all objects, to which we ascribe identity, without observing their invariableness and uninterruptedness, are such as consist of a succession of related objects. ”

“ It appears to us that a great deal of confusion and a large number of errors which creep into our modern generalizations and hypotheses, may be traced to the acceptance of analogies for identities. How many cases of mistaken identity has the improvement of microscopes revealed during the past quarter of a century. ”

“ The Origin of Man Has not Yet Been Determined.—Man's origin is still shrouded in mystery, notwithstanding the accumulated knowledge of the results of scientific investigation in the field and in the laboratory. ”

“ Is it not wonderful enough, that organic impressions merely should have been transmitted so fresh and entire, as to admit of classification, equal in scientific precision to that of the families of living things? ”

“ As observation becomes more minute, and the mind advances in culture and power of discrimination, these ruder generalizations are either abandoned or subdivided into genera and species, and the process assumes a scientific form. What was at first mere classification, becomes now, in the strictest sense, generalization.
Scientific Classification.—Classification, however scientific, is still essentially the process already described. We observe a number of individuals, for example, of our own species. Certain resemblances and differences strike us. ”

“ This discovery is made by means of comparison and classification. We cease to study each flower for its own sake; and by continually enlarging the sphere of our observation, we try to discover what is common to many and offers those essential points on which groups or natural classes may be established. These classes again, in their more general features, are mutually compared; new points of difference, or of similarity of a more general and higher character, spring to view, and enable us to discover classes of classes, or families. ”

“ Throughout, however, there must necessarily exist a certain classification of things according to their properties—a classification which is either organically registered in the system, as in the inferior creation, or is formed by experience, as in ourselves. ”

“ Immediate evidence is the perception of identity between various conceptions, separated by the analytical power of the intellect. Thus identity combined in a certain way with diversity is not a contradiction, as it might at first sight seem, but something very natural, if we observe one of the most constant facts of our intellect, the faculty of analyzing the most simple conceptions, and of seeing relations between identical things. ”