arrangement was needed. Nor would it be better to separate the books according to the languages in which they were written. The presence or absence of "illustrations" would furnish no better guide; while the bindings would soon be found to follow no rule. Indeed, one by one all the external characters would prove unsatisfactory, and the labourers would finally have to decide upon some internal characters. Having read enough of each book to ascertain whether it was poetry or prose: and if poetry, whether dramatic, epic, lyric, or satiric; and if prose, whether history, philosophy, theology, philology, science, fiction, or essay: a rough classification could be made; but even then there would be many difficulties, such as where to place a work on the philosophy of history—or the history of science,—or theology under the guise of science—or essays on very different subjects; while some works would defy classification.
Gigantic as this labour would be, it would be trifling compared with the labour of classifying all the animals now living (not to mention extinct species), so that the place of any one might be securely and rapidly determined; yet the persistent zeal and sagacity of zoologists have done for the animal kingdom what has not yet been done for the library of the Museum, although the titles of the books are not absent. It has been done by patient reading of the contents—by anatomical investigation of the internal structure of animals. Except on a basis of comparative anatomy, there could have been no better a classification of animals than a classification of books according to size, language, binding, &c. An unscientific Pliny might group animals according to their habitat; but when it was known that whales, though living in the water and swimming like fishes, were in reality constructed like air-breathing quadrupeds—when it was known that animals differing so widely as bees, birds, bats, and flying squirrels, or as otters, seals, and cuttle-fish, lived together in the same element, it became obvious that such a principle of arrangement could lead to no practical result. Nor would it suffice to class animals according to their modes of feeding; since in all classes there are samples of each mode. Equally unsatisfactory would be external form—the seal and the whale resembling fishes, the worm resembling the eel, and the eel the serpent.
Two things were necessary: first, that the structure of various animals should be minutely studied, and described—which is equivalent to reading the books to be classified;—and secondly, that some artificial method should be devised of so arranging the immense mass of details as to enable them to be remembered, and also to enable fresh discoveries readily to find a place in the system. We may be perfectly familiar with the contents of a book, yet wholly at a loss where to place it. If we have to catalogue Hegel's Philosophy of History, for example, it becomes a difficult question whether to place it under the rubric of philosophy, or under that of history. To decide this point, we must have some system of classification.
In the attempts to construct a system, naturalists are commonly said to have followed two methods: the artificial and the natural. The artificial method seizes some one prominent characteristic, and groups all the
