Rhetorical Analysis and Synthesis [pp. 456-483]

RHETORICAL ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS.
fication are simply the qualities, traits, attributes, or properties,
which are the same in all the things which are classed together.
Upon consideration of any one or more of such common attri butes, things which may he as different as possible in other respects are included in one and the same class. F'or example,
seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling, have this attribute
in common, that they are all modes of sensation; therefore, upon
this principle, they are all classed together under the common
name of sense, or the senses. In like manner, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, have the common attribute
that they are all colors, and because they were regarded by Sir
Isaac Newton as incapable of being resolved into each other
they were classined by him, upon this principle, as the seven
primtary colors. The principle of classification, and the method
of procedure, in all spiritual objects, are precisely the same.
Thus, there are sensibilities, volitions and intellections, having
this attribute in common, that they are all acts or affections of
the mind, upon which, therefore, taken as the principle, they
are classed together as the mental states: and there are truths
of history, science, morals and religion, having this common
character that they are a.11 truths, and hence, upon this principle, they are all comprehended in one class under the common
name of truth.
2. Lower and higher classes are composed by grouping together things which have more, and things which have less
resemblance to each other.
The lowest classes which can be formed are composed of individuals, which thus become varieties of their class. The members of such classes have the greatest number of common attributes, or points of resemblance, and the classes so formed inelude the fewest members or varieties. The reason of this is,
that the things which have great resemblance to each other are
less numerous than the things which have little. Consequently
higher classes are formed of things which have less resemblance
to each other, and include a greater number of things under
them. They are, in fact, classes of classes, the lower being
classified in thie higher, precisely as in'viduals in the lowest
of all. In logic, the word extension is used to designate the
comprehensiveness of a class, or the number of things iDcluded
under it, and intension, to express the number of common at
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