50

Logic II 43g

but he asks but little and that little not very urgently
of anything that the taxonomist can tell him and that
he could not find out for himself. All natural classification
is then essentially, [well?] we may almost
say, an attempt to find out the true genesis of
the objects classified. But by genesis must be
understood not the efficient action which produces
the whole by producing the parts because they
are needed to make the whole. Genesis is production
from ideas. It may be difficult to understand
how this is true in the biological world, though there
is proof enough that it is so. But in regard to science
it is a proposition easily enough intelligible. A
science is defined by its problem; and its problem is
clearly formulated on the basis of abstracter science.

This is all I intended to say here concerning
classification, in general.