Spē'ciēs, n. sing. & pl.
(spē'shēz), n. sing. & pl. [Lat., a sight, outward appearance, shape, form, a particular sort, kind, or quality, a species, from specere, to look, behold; It. specie, specie, Sp. & Pg. especie, Pr. especia, specia, Fr. espèce]
Sense 1. Visible or sensible presentation; appearance; a sensible percept received by the imagination; an image. [Rare.]
The species of letters illuminated with indigo and violet. Newton.
Wit, . . . the faculty of imagination in the writer, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent. Dryden.
In the scholastic philosophy, the species was sensible and intelligible. The sensible species was that in any material object which was in fact discerned by the mind through the organ of perception, or that in any object which rendered it possible that it should be perceived. The sensible species, as apprehended by the understanding in any of the relations of thought, was called an intelligible species. “An apparent diversity between the species visible and audible, is, that the visible doth not mingle in the medium, but the audible doth.” Bacon.
Sense 2. (Logic.) A group of individuals agreeing in common attributes, and designated by a common name; a conception subordinated to another conception, called a genus, or generic conception, from which it differs in containing or comprehending more attributes, and extending to fewer individuals. Thus MAN is a species, under ANIMAL as a genus; and MAN, in its turn, may be regarded as a genus with respect to European, American, or the like.
Sense 3. (Nat. Hist.) A permanent class of existing things, or beings, associated according to attributes, or properties which are determined by scientific observation.
These attributes differ in the different sciences. In those sciences (as mineralogy and chemistry) which relate to inorganic substances, objects possessing the same definite chemical structure, and which are fundamentally the same in crystallization and optical characters, are classed as belonging to a species. In the kingdom of life, a species is an ideal group of individuals resembling each other in essential characteristics, and capable of indefinitely continued fertile reproduction through the sexes. It may be considered as corresponding to specific amount or condition of concentrated force defined in the act or law of creation, but subject to a limited range of variation in accordance with the universal law of mutual reaction or sympathy among the forces. A form resulting from variation which may be perpetuated by any mode of propagation, is called a variety or race.
Sense 4. Sort; kind; variety; as, a species of low cunning; a species of generosity; a species of cloth.
Sense 5. Coin, or coined silver and gold, used as a circulating medium; specie. [Obs.]
There was, in the splendor of the Roman empire, a less quantity of current species in Europe than there is now.
Sense 6. A public spectacle or exhibition. [Obs.]
Sense 7. (Pharmacy.) (a.) A simple; a component part of a compound medicine. (b.) A compound powder of any kind. Quincy.
Sense 8. (Civil Law.) The form or shape given to materials; fashion or shape; form; figure. Burvill.