JOHANNES VON MÜLLER AND VAN SWIETEN. 759 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 BOOK III. Chapter II. Systems. It may be said that, in some degree, the earliest of all Catalogues of Printed Books are, in some degree, Classificatory 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. Classed lists of early printers. 5. Sacra Scriptura. BOOK III. Almost half a century later (1546) we have cataClassificatory logues of Robert Estienne, in which the following divi Chapter II. Gesner's scheme of 2. Græca. 3. Sacra. 4. Prophana. 5. Grammatica. 6. Poetica. 7. Historica. 8. Rhetorica. 9. Oratoria. 10. Dialectica. 11. Philosophica. 12. Arithmetica. 13. Geometrica. 14. Medica. In 1548, we arrive at what some writers have termed "the first bibliographical system," published with a view to the use rather than to the sale of books; it is that of Conrad Gesner, and appeared in the shape of an index, of matters to his "Bibliothèque universelle," under the title of "Pandectarum sive partitionum universalium libri xxi." Cuvier has given a minute account of the work in the excellent notice of Gesner which he in serted in the Biographie Universelle, adding that the author (like many other authors) never considered it "as complete as it ought to be," and therefore never permitted the section "Medicine" to be printed. Brunet, too, praises Gesner as a man of good sense, who knew how to keep clear of "those arbitrary combinations of GESNER'S SCHEME OF CLASSIFICATION. 1 763 BOOK III. Chapter II. Systems. several sciences into a single class, which have captivated so many learned men." 1 M. Brunet appears, Classificatory however, to have overlooked that synthetical grouping of the various divisions and subdivisions which Gesner placed at the head of his section entitled "Partitiones theologica." If only as the first scheme of its kind, this synopsis deserves to be quoted at length. It is as follows: The system of classification, next in order of date, is that which was proposed by Florian Trefler, a Bavarian Benedictine, in a work published in 1560, which I know only by M. Albert's citation of it in his "Recherches sur la classification bibliographique;" and by Dr. Edmund Zoller's brief epitome, in his tract, entitled "Die Biblio 1 Manuel du libraire, Introduction, vii (4th edition). Gesner has dedicated each of his twenty books or chapters to a celebrated printer, and usually appends to the dedication a list of the most important books printed by each of them respectively. |