A Discourse...... with Observations about the case of scandal or giving offence to weak BRETHREN. [By Benjamin Calamy, DD.], 1684. 4to. A modest plea for the Church of the BRETHREN. [Edited by Here we have not only three distinct senses for the word which has been made the common heading of all these titles, with others,-but in the last of them we meet with a subject which has given birth to many books, none of which, however, are indicated here. We remember, perchance, that the "Brethren" were also called HERRNHUTTERS, and under that word we find several titles more, but we must turn to another volume to meet with some of the most important, and there again we find them divided, some being entered under MORAVIANS, and others under UNITAS FRA TRUM. The waste of time and the uncertainty of result that cannot but attend the use, for purposes of study, of catalogues thus constructed, will become still more clearly apparent, if we glance, for a moment, at topics which have been treated in many languages and by writers of very various periods; especially if some of these writers have been subtle schoolmen, or hair-splitting controversialists. Turn-either to the work of Watt, or to any extensive catalogue on a similar plan,-and look at the headings ALTAR; EUCHARIST; HOST; MASS; REAL PRESENCE; SACRAMENT; SACRIFICE, &c. How many titles will be met with under one or other of these words which might, with equal propriety, have been put under any or all of the rest. And yet other, more vague and general headings must also be examined, be BOOK III. Chapter I. Catalogues, in general. BOOK III. fore the reader can attain a clear conviction that he is Catalogues, in fully in possession of the object of his search. In Watt, Chapter I. general. Difficulties of Classification. for example, he will find Bishop Stephen Gardiner's "Explication and assertion of the true Catholick Faith touching the most blessed sacrament of the Altar," neither under ALTAR, nor EUCHARIST, nor MASS, nor SACRAMENT, yet it is twice entered,-first, under "CATHOLIC RELIGION"; secondly under "SUPPER, Sacrament of the Lord's." array Should any further proof be needed that this alphabetical method is far less adapted to the main body of a Catalogue, than to its auxiliary Index, I think it will be afforded, conclusively, if the reader will once more turn to the book just quoted, and glance at the article "Rome." The attempt to do more than glance at that formidable of serried columns would be almost as alarming as to be doomed to read up the controversy on the "Power of the Keys," or that on the "Notes of the Church." This mass of titles is broken up into twelve divisions, and thirty six sub-divisions; and thus a result is ingeniously attained which at once sacrifices alphabetical uniformity, and fails to realize systematic classification. But what is "Systematic Classification?" Systems the most diverse have been and are advocated with great ingenuity. Even if we subtract those which on closer examination are found to be little more than transpositions and re-arrangements of preceding schemes, the number will still be large, and the difficulty of choice will continue to be a formidable one. Whatever BOOK III. Chapter I. general. the merits of the plan that may be selected, when it comes to be applied to a large collection, there will be Catalogues, in hundreds of books the precise places of which it will be hard to fix. In recent discussions about the Catalogues of great Libraries these undeniable difficulties have repeatedly been adduced, as reasons why all attempt at classification should be abandoned as hopeless. In reading or listening to such discussions I have often been reminded of a passage in the Biographical Memorabilia of the illustrious historian, Johannes von Müller, in which he describes, characteristically, his controversy on this subject with Van Swieten, then the Principal Librarian of the Imperial Library at Vienna. Müller had been appointed to an Underlibrarianship there, and soon after he had entered on its duties, he wrote thus to one of his friends:-"There is no classified Catalogue here, so that no one knows what and how much we possess on any subject; what is deficient, or what assistance the Library can really afford to a student. I have in vain spoken on this matter to the Chief Librarian, and will not here repeat his objections, lest you should be inclined to think I had invented. them for the purpose of turning him into ridicule [denn Sie würden zum Spott erdacht scheinen]. He then goes on to say that he had attempted a rough sort of classification for his own help, and adds: "This labour once over, I shall know the Library, shall be able to use it, and to make it useful to others." His friend having expressed a keen desire to hear Van Swieten's objections, he writes in his next letter,... "Listen, then, to these arguments against all classed catalogues: 'First, no BOOK III. Chapter I. general. mathematically accurate discrimination of the several Catalogues, in branches of human knowledge is possible,-therefore, it is best to have no systematic arrangement at all. Nor, secondly, is such a Catalogue necessary, because he that visits the Library must previously know what particular books he is in want of. And, lastly, a classed catalogue would 'expose our deficiencies.' Against which I submitted-but in vain-that although this distribution into classes cannot be made with absolute precision, yet every one knows that books on the history of Hungary can have no right to come next to those which treat of Pathology; nor a work of Science next to a Dutch Chronicle; ... that even an imperfect classification may be of great utility; and that a knowledge of our deficiencies is precisely the thing to be desired"...1 The various merits and characteristics of the principal schemes will be best appreciated if I now pass in review, as well as I am able, the most prominent or noticeable that have been proposed. 1 J. von Müller's Biographische Denkwürdigkeiten (Letters of 7 Feb. and 6 March, 1801), iv, 154-162. CHAPTER II. CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEMS. As Pilot, well expert in perilous wave, The Faerie Queene (Book II, Canto 7). IT may be said that, in some degree, the earliest of all Catalogues of Printed Books are, in some degree, classed catalogues, and the character of the classification seems to have been determined by that of the stock-in-trade of those Fathers of Printing who issued them. Thus, in 1498, the elder Aldus published a Catalogue of "Libri Græci impressi" under the classes:1. Grammatica. 2. Poetica. 3. Logica. 4. Philosophia. 5. Sacra Scriptura. BOOK III. Chapter II. Classificatory Systems. Classed lists of early printers. |