Classification Theoretical And Practical

n some sort as molecules into their atoms by the chemist. This breaking up is, however, only relative and partial?no one, e. g., analyzes an encyclopaedia in the general catalogs or wants to. The catalog would get altogether too cumbersome. Moreover, the breaking up must still leave unbroken sections, and is rather the breaking of rocks into fragments than resolving them chemically into their elements, as- has been already suggested. The variations are at bottom, therefore,, the same as in book location, though less marked. 4. The Classification of Books on the Shelves. The actual putting together of books in groups on the shelves is conditioned practically in the first place by the heterogeneous character of many books, such as encyclopaedias, essays, periodicals, etc. There are those who on a small scale go so far as to attempt to break up their periodicals and to classify the individual articles,, but this scheme cannot be carried very far. Books must, as a rule, be handled as a whole just as the physiographer handles his conglomerate mass, not as the chemist who resolves his into the individual atoms. A second practical conditioning of the classification of books on the shelves is the matter of size. I have gone so far as to stand up the Paris Polyglot beside the little Stevens edition, but the most fanatical advocate of complete sequence on the shelves would not dare put some elephant folios that you have seen next to the Pickering classics. There must be ...