lection of things, however numerous and various, into classes, is a work of no great difficulty, though when the collection is great, it may require much time. For it might be said, You have only to determine according to what resemblances and what differences you will make your classes, and then to go through the work, sticking to these. But any one who has attended a little more to the science of classification, or even who has made the attempt on any considerable scale, knows that this is not so; and that, except the scheme of classes be very skilfully and very happily devised, it lands us in intolerable incongruities, and even in impossibilities. Indeed, without seeking any exemplification of this remark in the classificatory sciences, which can throw on this subject only a distant and doubtful light, we have experimental evidence of the difficulty of classifying a great collection of the products of art and industry, in the attempts which were made to perform that task on the occasions of the French Expositions in 1806, in 1819, in 1827, in 1834, and in 1844. On the first occasion, the distribution adopted was entirely geographical; on the second, it was what was called an entirely material or natural system, dividing the arts into thirty-nine heads, the consequence of which is said to have been great confusion. In 1827 a purely scientific arrangement was attempted, into five great divisions, namely, chemical, mechanical, physical, economical, and miscellaneous arts. But this was deemed too artificial and abstract, and in 1834 M. Dupin made the division depend on the relation of the arts to man, as being alimentary, sanitary, vestiary, domici liary, locomotive, sensitive, intellectual, preparative, social. This analysis was also adhered to in 1839. In 1844 an attempt was made to unite some features of the previous systems, and the objects were classified as woven, mineral, mechanical, mathematical, chemical, fine arts, ceramic, and miscellaneous; which was still complained of as confused, but which was, on the whole, retained in 1849.

I do not think there is any presumption in claiming for the classification which has been adopted in the Great Exhibition of 1851 a more satisfactory character than we can allow to any of those just mentioned, if we ground our opi

nion either upon the way in which this last classification was constructed, or upon the manner in which it has been found to work. And there is one leading feature in it which, simple as it may seem, at once gives it a new recommendation. In the systems already mentioned there were no gradations of classification. There were a certain number, thirtynine or five, nine or eight, of co-ordinate classes, and that was all. In the arrangement of the Great Exhibition of 1851, by a just and happy thought, a division was adopted of the objects to be exhibited into four great Sections, to which other Classes, afterwards established, were to be subordinate; these Sections being, Raw Materials, Machinery, Manufactured Goods, and the works of the Fine Arts. The effect of this grand division was highly beneficial, for within each of these sections classes could be formed far more homogeneous than was possible while these sections were all thrown into one mass; when, for instance, the cotton-tree, the loom, and the muslin, stood side by side, as belonging to vestiary art; or when woven and dyed goods were far removed, as being examples, the former of mechanical, the latter of chemical processes. Suitable gradation is the felicity of the classifying art, and so it was found to be in this instance.

But within this limit how shall classes be formed? Here, also, it appears to me, simply as a reader of the history of the Exhibition, which any one else may read, that the procedure of those who framed the classification was marked with sound good sense and a wise rejection of mere technical rules. For by assuming fixed and uniform principles of classification we can never obtain any but an artificial system, which will be found, in practice, to separate things naturally related, and to bring together objects quite unconnected with each other. It was determined, that within each of the four sections the divisions which had been determined by commercial experience to be most convenient should be adopted. "Eminent men of science and of manufactures in all branches were invited to assist in drawing each one the boundaries of his own special class of productions."* And it was resolved,

*Illustrated Catalogue," Introd., p. 22.

for the general purposes of the Exhibition, to adopt thirty broad divisions; of which Classes, four were of Raw Materials; six of Machinery; nineteen of Manufactures; and one of the Fine Arts. And these thirty Classes may be considered as having been confirmed by their practical application to the collection, and to the work of the juries in dealing with it; except that, in some instances, it was found necessary to subdivide a Class into others. Thus, Class X., which was originally described as Philosophical Instruments, was found to consist of materials so heterogeneous, that there were separated from it three Classes, of Musical, of Horological, and of Surgical Instruments. And to Class V., Machines, was added an Accessory Class, V a, Carriages. And, on the other hand, Classes XII. and XV., Woollen and Worsted, it was found could be advantageously thrown into

one.

Within these Classes, again, were other subdivisions, which are marked in the Catalogue by letters of the alphabet. Thus, the Third Class consists of substances used for food; and of these the vegetable division contains Sub-classes, A, B, C, D, E, F, G: the first being cereals, and the like; the second, fruits; the third, drinks, and so on. And in like manner, the Sixth Class, manufacturing machines and tools, had Sub-classes, A, B, C, D, E, F: as A, all spun and woven fabrics; B, manufactures of metals; C, manufactures of minerals and mining machinery, and the like.

And, again, each of these Sub-classes was separated into Heads, by numbers. Thus, the Sub-class cereals and the like, are 1, the common cereals; 2, the less common; 3, millet; 4, pulse and cattle-food; 5, grasses and roots; 6, flours (ground grain); 7, oil seeds; 8, hops. And the Sub-class A, of manufacturing machines and tools, included the Heads, 1, machinery for spinning and weaving cotton, wool, flax, hemp, silk,-for working caoutchouc, gutta percha, hair; 2, papermaking; 3, printing. And to shew how much practical experience governed these sub-divisions, I may mention that great aid in this task was found in the Trades' Directories of Birmingham and Manchester, and other great manufacturing towns.

I have followed this classification into the ultimate ramification of the Catalogue, at the risk of being, I fear, tedious for a moment; partly because I wish to make a reflection upon it; and partly, also, that you may see what a vast work is performed if this classification be really coherent and sound. For, first, turn your attention to the one Head which I have mentioned: this single Head includes no less than this, all machinery for the complete formation, from the raw material, of all fabrics of cotton, wool, flax, hemp, silk, caoutchouc, gutta percha, and hair. This is Head 1 of Subclass A. Under this Head, or under the first Particular Head, cotton, are very many Articles in the Great Exhibition. Besides this Particular Head, and the other Particular Heads, wool, flax, caoutchouc, &c., included in the General Head 1, there are two other Heads in this Sub-class, each of like extent. Along with this Sub-class A, are also Sub-classes B, C, D, E, F, each of an extent not much inferior to A; and thus, this Class VI. contains a great mass of Heads, each including a vast number of Articles. Yet in the Catalogue, this Class VI. is one of the smallest extent of all the thirty. And though this may arise in part from some of the others being followed out into greater comparative detail than this Class VI., yet still enough will remain in this mode of putting the matter to shew to you how vast and varied is the mass of objects which has thus been classified, and how great the achievement is if this mass have really been reduced into permanent order; if this chaos, not of elements only, but of raw materials mixed with complicated machines, with manufactured goods and sculptured forms, have really been put in a shape in which it will permanently retain traces of the ordering hand.

What the value and advantage would be of a permanent and generally accepted classification of all the materials, instruments, and productions of human art and industry, you will none of you require that I should explain at length. One consequence would be that the manufacturer, the man of science, the artisan, the merchant, would have a settled common.language, in which they could speak of the objects about which they are concerned. It is needless to point out VOL. LII. NO. CIII.-JANUARY 1852.

B

how much this would facilitate and promote their working together; how fatal to co-operation is diversity and ambiguity in the language used. One of our old verse writers, expanding according to the suggestions of his fancy, the account of the failure of men in the case of the tower of Babel, has made this cause of failure very prominent. He supposes that, the language of the workmen being confounded, when one of them asked for a spade, his companion brought him a bucket; or when he called for mortar, handed him a plumbline; and that, by the constant recurrence of these incongruous proceedings, the work necessarily came to a stand. Now the conditions necessary, in order that workmen may work together, really go much farther than the use of a common language, in the general sense of the phrase. It is not only necessary that they should call a brick a brick, and a wire a wire, and a nail a nail, and a tube a tube, and a wheel a wheel; but it is desirable, also, that wires, and nails, and tubes, and wheels, should each be classified and named, so that all bricks should be of one size, so that a wire number 3, or a tube section 1, or a six-inch wheel, should have a fixed and definite signification; and that wires, and tubes, and wheels, should be constructed so as to correspond to such significations; and even, except for special purposes, no others than such. It may easily be conceived, for instance, how immensely the construction, adjustment, and repair of wheelwork would be facilitated, if wheels of a certain kind were all made with teeth of the same kind, so that any one could work in any other. And something of this sort,-something which secures some of these and the like advantages, has been done with reference to cast-iron toothed wheels. And an eminent engineer, whose works stood in the Sixth Class of the collection to which I have just referred, has proposed a system by which a like uniformity should be secured in the dimensions and fitting of machinery; and especially with regard to screws; fixing thus their exact diameter and pitch, as it is called a process which would have the like effect of making the construction, application, and repair of all work into which screws enter vastly more easy and expeditious than it now is. Now these are the great and beneficial effects which