BOOK III. Chapter II. Systems. science which treats of God should precede all other Classificatory sciences, and it would be so in my classification but for those principles of analytical exposition, according to which every science which embraces several subjects ought to precede those sciences which treat of every such subject severally. Now "THEOLOGY" has God only for its object, and there is another science which treats both of God and of the creation, that is, “Philosophy.".. Philosophy will then precede Theology, and after Theology will come the Sciences which relate to created things. Thus it is that he makes the sciences relating to man, not an independent class, but the last division of "Cosmology." Lord Lindsay's Scheme. 1 2 Nearly contemporaneous with the first appearance of the first outlines of M. Merlin's system, as applied to the Silvestre de Sacy catalogue, was the publication of a new scheme of classification in England by Lord Lindsay, by way of supplement to his remarkable tract entitled "Progression by antagonism.' Presented primarily, as a scheme for the classification of human thought (grounded upon certain views of the moral government of the world with which we have not here to do,) and in an extremely analytical form, its connection with our subject arises from the author's remark that with certain modifications, which he indicates, "this might be made the basis and skeleton of an extended classification for a Library." Those who have read Lord Lindsay's charming "Lives of the Lind . 1 Ibid. 2 8vo, London, 1845. BOOK III. Chapter II. Systems. says," will readily recognize the claim of any production of his pen to respectful attention. I give, there- Classificatory fore, a brief outline of this scheme, open as it is to many of the objections which have been already urged against other schemes, similarly ambitious in their scope, although widely different in all respects beside. Lord Lindsay proposes five chief classes (the fifth being added in view of the exigencies of a Library,) namely:-I. THEOLOGY AND REVELATION; II. POETRY; III. SCIENCE; IV. PHILOSOPHY; V. BIBLIOGRAPHY and COLLECTIONS. "History," he makes a section of the class "Poetry," because closely akin to Poetry and Painting; rhythmical in early times, and always epical and dramatic." Thus, POETRY is made to include four principal sub-divisions:-1. Symbolism; 2. Fine Arts, (Music-Dancing-Architecture-Sculpture-Painting,) 3. Polite Literature, (Rhetoric-Poetry proper,) 4. History; whilst the class SCIENCES is divided, on the one hand, into "Speculative Physical," and "Speculative Metaphysical" Sciences; and, on the other, into "Practical Physical," and "Practical Metaphysical" Sciences. Still more recently, Mr. Samuel Eyre, of Derby, has circulated "Outlines of a classified scheme for the arrangement of a Library," etc., (suggested, he says, by Locke's three-fold division of knowledge in the Essay on the Human Understanding, and by some other works.) It comprises twenty-three divisions, which are grouped into four classes: I. METAPHYSICAL, that is, concerning things beyond the bounds of mere human experience; II. PHYSICAL, that is, discoverable by human reason, Mr. Eyre's BOOK III. Chapter II. Systems. but existing independently of the human will; III. PRACClassificatory TICAL, that is, dependent upon, or arising from human actions; IV. MISCELLANEOUS (sic.) The first group is nearly co-extensive with the ordinary classes THEOLOGY and PHILOSOPHY, and the second with SCIENCES, in the ordinary sense of that word. The third group embraces in its comprehensive grasp-"HISTORY," "POLITICS," "LITERATURE," and "ARTS." The last group is our old acquaintance "POLYGRAPHY," under a designation certainly more familiar, but not one jot more vernacular. Schleiermacher's (1852.) In a very elaborate work, entitled, Bibliographisches System der gesammten Wissenschaftskunde, (completed, it would seem, in 1847, but not published until 1852,) Dr. A. A. E. Schleiermacher of Darmstadt, has reverted, in substance, to the older classifications, those, I mean, which were prevalent in the middle of the seventeenth century; giving to them, however, the multifarious developement, and the minute analysis, which are entailed by the growth of the sciences. He proposes fourteen main classes, as follows: Class I-ENCYCLOPEDIAS, LITERARY HISTORY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. II.-POLYGRAPHY (Vermischte Schriften). IV. GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE. VI.-FINE ARTS. VII.-HISTORICAL SCIENCES: (1.) Works introductory to the Historical (2.) Church History. (3.) Universal History; History of Greece, (4.) History of Portugal, Spain, France, (5.) History of Germany. (6.) History of Netherlands, Belgium, (7.) History of the other parts of the VIII. MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES. X.-MEDICINE AND PATHOLOGY. XI.-INDUSTRIAL AND ECONOMICAL SCIENCES:- (1.) General Treatises. (2.) Agriculture. (3.) Economical Botany and Horticulture. (11.) Economical Zoology. (15.) Technology. (16.) Chemical Manufactures. (17.) Millwork, etc. (18.) Metallurgy, etc. (19.) Domestic Economy. (23.) Tool-making. BOOK 111. Chapter II. Classificatory Systems. BOOK III. Chapter II. Classificatory Dr. Wilson's Scheme. (25.) Navigation and Marine Warfare. (26.) Military Sciences. Class XII.-PHILOSOPHY. XIII. XIV. THEOLOGY. JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICS: (1.) Public and General Law and Policy. (2.) Private and Feudal Law. (3.) Commercial, Criminal, and Canon Law. The elaboration with which this plan is carried out into the utmost minuteness of subdivision is marvellous, but this, I fear, is its chief merit.1 The latest scheme with which I am acquainted belongs, (like those just mentioned), to the Philosophical group, and evinces considerable originality under due restraint. It is the production of Dr. W. D. Wilson, Professor of Ethics and of Logic in the Hobart Free College, at Geneva, in the State of New York, and forms part of the closing chapter of his Treatise on Logic, published in 1856. Dr. Wilson proposes three principal classes, each of which, he says, "naturally divides itself into two departments, differing in the first class, both in the starting point and in the method; in the second class they differ in the starting point only: and in the third class the two departments differ chiefly in the object in view,-the one producing objects of Beauty, and the other objects of Utility." The classes and their sub-divisions stand thus: Schleiermacher, Bibliographisches System, etc. (Braunschweig, 1852, Svo,) passim. |