notwithstanding that the wonderfully rapid progress in recent years of
new ideas, lying at the very root of all the natural sciences, may be
thought by some to give the whole argument, in spite of its logical
excellence, a somewhat antiquated flavor. How fully Mr. Mill
recognized the great importance of the study of biological
classifications, and the influence such a study must have had on
himself, may be judged from the following quotation:--

"Although the scientific arrangements of organic nature
afford as yet the only complete example of the true
principles of rational classification, whether as to the
formation of groups or of series, those principles are
applicable to all cases in which mankind are called upon to
bring the various parts of any extensive subject into mental
co-ordination. They are as much to the point when objects
are to be classed for purposes of art or business as for
those of science. The proper arrangement, for example, of a
code of laws, depends on the same scientific conditions as
the classifications in natural history; nor could there be a
better preparatory discipline for that important function
than the study of the principles of a natural arrangement,
not only in the abstract, but in their actual application to
the class of phenomena for which they were first elaborated,
and which are still the best school for learning their use.
Of this, the great authority on codification, Bentham, was
perfectly aware; and his early 'Fragment on Government,' the
admirable introduction to a series of writings unequalled in
their department, contains clear and just views (as far as
they go) on the meaning of a natural arrangement, such as
could scarcely have occurred to any one who lived anterior