Classification (information)

“ When a classification is once established upon a logical basis, it need not undergo dissolution to be reclassified, for when the germs of classification are established on a logical basis it has but to grow with increasing knowledge. ”

“ Classification is founded upon natural facts, but it is an enumeration rather than an elucidation. It arranges; it does not explain.
Understand that I do not undervalue classification. The student can no more advance without it than he could climb to a roof without a ladder. I merely wish to impress upon you the fact that in all work—and perhaps especially in scientific work—it is of the highest importance to keep steadily in mind that it is not the ladder but the ascent which is of consequence; that the aim is not the schedule but the secrets of wisdom to which it helps us. ”

“ It is frequently said that classification is a mere affair of convenience. This assertion is true in one sense, but not if its meaning be, that the most proper classification is that in which it is easiest to say whether an object belongs to one class or to the other. The use of classification is, to fix attention upon the distinctions which exist among things; and that is the best classification, which is founded upon the most important distinctions, whatever be the facilities which it may afford of ticketing and arranging the different objects which exist in nature. ”

“ A new classification, therefore, which includes, in its generic character, those neglected qualities, will of course draw to them attention, which they could not otherwise have obtained; and, the more various the views are, which we take of the objects of any science, the juster consequently, because the more equal, will be the estimate which we form of them. ”

“ This shows, more strongly than ever, how extensive a knowledge of the properties of objects is necessary for making a good classification of them. And as it is one of the uses of such a classification that by drawing attention to the properties on which it is founded, and which, if the classification be good, are marks of many others, it facilitates the discovery of those others; we see in what manner our knowledge of things, and our classification of them, tend mutually and indefinitely to the improvement of each other. ”

“ Classification thus considered, differs from classification in the wider sense, in having reference to real objects exclusively, and not to all that are imaginable: its object being the due co-ordination in our minds of those things only, with the properties of which we have actually occasion to make ourselves acquainted. But, on the other hand, it embraces all really existing objects. We can not constitute any one class properly, except in reference to a general division of the whole of nature ”

“ What interpretation is to be put on these truths of classification? We find that organic forms admit of an arrangement everywhere indicating the fact, that along with certain attributes, certain other attributes, which are not directly connected with them, always exist. How are we to account for this fact? And how are we to account for the fact that the attributes possessed in common by the largest assemblages of forms, are the most vitally-important attributes? ”

“ With the help of a guiding system of classification, you were able to see the connection between the separate facts, to arrange them according to their mutual relations, and thus to ascend to the great general laws under which the material world has been constructed. With all attainable thoroughness in the mastery of detail, you have been taught to combine a breadth of treatment which enables you to find and keep a leading clew even through the midst of what might seem a tangled web of confusion. ”

“ Throughout, however, there must necessarily exist a certain classification of things according to their properties—a classification which is either organically registered in the system, as in the inferior creation, or is formed by experience, as in ourselves. ”

“ The phrase Natural Classification seems most peculiarly appropriate to such arrangements as correspond, in the groups which they form, to the spontaneous tendencies of the mind, by placing together the objects most similar in their general aspect; in opposition to those technical systems which, arranging things according to their agreement in some circumstance arbitrarily selected, often throw into the same group objects which in the general aggregate of their properties present no resemblance, and into different and remote groups, others which have the closest similarity. ”

“ Since the common properties of a true Kind, and consequently the general assertions which can be made respecting it, or which are certain to be made hereafter as our knowledge extends, are indefinite and inexhaustible; and since the very first principle of natural classification is that of forming the classes so that the objects composing each may have the greatest number of properties in common; this principle prescribes that every such classification shall recognize and adopt into itself all distinctions of Kind, which exist among the objects it professes to classify. ”

“ This classification is not the seven-fold classification we have adopted. I make this assertion without the slightest fear of contradiction. The real classification has all the requisites of a scientific classification. It has seven distinct principles, which correspond with seven distinct states of Pragna or consciousness. It bridges the gulf between the objective and subjective, and indicates the mysterious circuit through which ideation passes. The seven principles are allied to seven states of matter, and to seven forms of force. ”

“ The Method of Natural Classification consists in classing cases, not according to any assumed Definition, but according to the connexion of the facts themselves, so as to make them the means of asserting general truths. ”

“ The ends of scientific classification are best answered, when the objects are formed into groups respecting which a greater number of general propositions can be made, and those propositions more important, than could be made respecting any other groups into which the same things could be distributed. The properties, therefore, according to which objects are classified, should, if possible, be those which are causes of many other properties ”

“ Classification is a matter of convenience and technic; though it may have a scientific basis, it is entirely a matter of form. There is always danger that a particular classification may become a fetich. It is the life of society that we study, it is the improvement of social relations at which we aim. Whatever method best contributes to this end is valid in classification for all except those who delight in science for science's sake. ”

“ A classification system is a schedule or chart of knowledge arranged in some logical order according to a definite and invariable principle. It may arrange knowledge by the historical, evolutionary or some other and arbitrary principle, the choice of which is governed by the rule that the order must be that which is likely to be most serviceable to the users of the system. ”

“ Although the chief purpose of classification is to disclose the deepest and most general resemblances of the objects classified, yet the practical value of a system will depend partly upon the ease with which we can refer an object to its proper class, and thus infer concerning it all that is known generally of that class. ”

“ There is no impropriety in saying that of these two classifications, the one answers to a much more radical distinction in the things themselves, than the other does. And if any one even chooses to say that the one classification is made by nature, the other by us for our convenience, he will be right ”

“ The Classification thus obtained, depends neither upon the faculties of the mind to which the separate parts of our knowledge owe their origin, nor upon the objects which each science contemplates; but upon a more 137 natural and fundamental element;—namely, the Ideas which each science involves. The Ideas regulate and connect the facts, and are the foundations of the reasoning, in each science: and having in another work more fully examined these Ideas, we are now prepared to state here the classification to which they lead. ”

“ Wherever there is a general name there is a class: classification, and general names, are things exactly coextensive. It thus appears that, without classification, language would not fulfil its most important function. Had we no names but those of individuals, the names might serve as marks to bring those individuals to mind, but would not enable us to make a single assertion respecting them, except that one individual is not another. ”

“ THE Classification of Sciences has its chief use in pointing out to us the extent of our powers of arriving at truth, and the analogies which may obtain between those certain and lucid portions of knowledge with which we are here concerned, and those other portions, of a very different interest and evidence, which we here purposely abstain to touch upon. The classification of human knowledge will, therefore, have a more peculiar importance when we can include in it the moral, political, and metaphysical, as well as the physical portions of our knowledge. ”

“ In Book I, Chapter II, I have adopted a new definition of ‘Classification’, which enables me to regard the whole Universe as a ‘Class,’ and thus to dispense with the very awkward phrase ‘a Set of Things.’
In the Chapter on ‘Propositions of Existence’ I have adopted a new ‘normal form,’ in which the Class, whose existence is affirmed or denied, is regarded as the Predicate, instead of the Subject, of the Proposition, thus evading a very subtle difficulty which besets the other form. ”

“ Next only in importance to accurate observation of the facts is their classification. Objects of experience as they come to us through the senses appear in a sequence which is random and chaotic. But in order to deal effectively with our experience we must arrange facts according to their likenesses and differences. Whenever we discover certain striking similarities between facts, we classify them, place them in a class, knowing that what will apply to one will apply to all. Some logicians go so far as to say that science cannot go any further than accurate classification. ”

“ The purpose of classification is the detection of the laws of nature. However much the process may in some cases be disguised, classification is not really distinct from the process of perfect induction, whereby we endeavour to ascertain the connexions existing between properties of the objects under treatment. ”

“ That orderly arrangement of objects called Classification has two purposes, which, though not absolutely distinct, are distinct in great part. It may be employed to facilitate identification, or it may be employed to organize our knowledge. If a librarian places his books in the alphabetical succession of the author's names, he places them in such way that any particular book may easily be found, but not in such way that books of a given nature stand together. ”

“ This discovery is made by means of comparison and classification. We cease to study each flower for its own sake; and by continually enlarging the sphere of our observation, we try to discover what is common to many and offers those essential points on which groups or natural classes may be established. These classes again, in their more general features, are mutually compared; new points of difference, or of similarity of a more general and higher character, spring to view, and enable us to discover classes of classes, or families. ”

“ Classification and books are but a faulty means of getting a clear insight into nature and human life or society. Knowledge should not only be mastered in its scientific classifications but also constantly referred back to things as seen in practical life and closely traced out and fixed in those connections. ”

“ The process of classification enables us to resolve these combinations, and refer each one to its place according to one or other of the elementary circumstances out of which it was produced. We restore nature to the simple conditions out of which its endless variety was developed. ”

“ Classification of Functions.—Attempts to classify the Vital Functions of man were made at an early period, and have been repeated in great number up to modern times. The task of classification is exposed to the same difficulties, and governed by the same conditions, in this as in other subjects. Here, as in the case of other things, there may be many classifications which are moderately good and natural, but there is only one which is the best and the true natural system. ”

“ It is of importance, however, to recognize that in all investigations classification is not an end, but a means. He who classifies clears the way for future work, either of his own or of others, but he does not necessarily reach anything permanent or effective in itself. ”

“ As observation becomes more minute, and the mind advances in culture and power of discrimination, these ruder generalizations are either abandoned or subdivided into genera and species, and the process assumes a scientific form. What was at first mere classification, becomes now, in the strictest sense, generalization.
Scientific Classification.—Classification, however scientific, is still essentially the process already described. We observe a number of individuals, for example, of our own species. Certain resemblances and differences strike us. ”

“ It is one of the most valid recommendations of any classification to the character of a scientific one, that it shall be a natural classification in this sense also; for the test of its scientific character is the number and importance of the properties which can be asserted in common of all objects included in a group ”