word, such as quadruped, comprehending these two species; which men in their situation would no more be led to form, than a person, who had only seen one individual of each species, would think of an appellation to express both, instead of applying a proper name to each.  In consequence of the variety of birds, it appears that they had a generic name comprehending all of them, to which it was not unnatural for them to refer any new animal they met with.”—­This solution is very specious, but when narrowly examined, will be found to rest on two suppositions not altogether borne out by evidence, and also to be liable to yield a conclusion not readily reconcileable with all the circumstances of the case.  In the first place, it is not proved that these islanders had no generic word to comprehend the two species of quadrupeds with which they were acquainted; and the reason given for their want of it, which, after all, is merely a probable one, cannot be allowed much force.  Its weakness will appear from the consideration, that men in their situation, having certainly an idea of number, must, according to Mr S.’s own principles stated in the next page, have possessed the power of attending separately to the things which their senses had presented to them in a state of union, and have found it necessary to apply to all of them one common name, or, in other words, “to have reduced them all to the same genus.”  It is requisite, therefore, for the validity of Mr S.’s reason, to shew that these islanders either were not able to distinguish betwixt their hogs and dogs, or had never numbered them together, which it is quite impossible to credit.  Even the case of the person who had seen only one individual of each species, which Mr S. conceives similar to that we are considering, may be argued against in the same manner, and besides this, will be found not analogous.  The reason is plain.  He may or may not have been able, from a solitary observation, to infer that the distinction he noticed betwixt them was a radical difference, or, in the language of the schoolmen, was essential:  Whereas the islanders, from the constancy of the differences they observed, must have been necessitated to form a classification of the objects, the result of which would be, the use of one term for the common properties or the resemblance, and two words for the comprehended individuals.  In the second place, it cannot otherwise be made appear, that these islanders had a generic name comprehending the variety of birds with which they were acquainted, than on such principles of reasoning as we have now been considering, the proper inference from which, as we have seen, is destructive of the foundation of Mr S.’s solution.  Here, it may be remarked, it is somewhat unfortunate that we cannot depend implicitly on Captain Cook’s account as to the words in which the islanders conveyed the notions we have been commenting on; because, as the reader will find at the end of this section, these people, who, whatever