Table of contents

“ For a separate statement of the works which are given in this volume the reader will naturally consult the table of contents; and, for a more detailed account of the books themselves, the introductions prefixed to each. ”

“ The accompanying Table of Contents will, at a single glance, show the variety as well as the practical character of the subjects illustrated; the aim being to render the work alike serviceable to the reader of a journal of the day, as well as to the student who reads to “reject what is no longer essential.” The Author has endeavoured to keep pace with the progress of Information; and in the selection of new accessions, some have been inserted more to stimulate curiosity and promote investigation than as things to be taken for granted. ”

“ All persons who, whatever might be their motive, have followed any subject of literary research, must be aware of the extent to which their labours are facilitated or retarded by the mechanical arrangements of books, such as the goodness of paper, the legibility of type, the size of volumes, the presence or absence of table of contents, indexes, and other means of reference. ”

“ The table before you, good reader, is only a part of the object of your cognition. You yourself are the other part. The true and total object of your mind is the table, or whatever else it may be,—and yourself. ”

“ The classification of so great a mass of material must necessarily be to some extent arbitrary. Too minute a subdivision might easily confuse the reader and decrease the practical usefulness of the Table. The principle adopted has been to classify articles under as few general headings as possible, and those the most natural and obvious—e.g. Art, Geography, History, &c.
In order to keep the Table within reasonable compass the duplicating of articles in several sections has been as far as possible avoided. ”

“ For all these reasons, when we say that a man “sees a table,” we use a highly abbreviated form of expression, concealing complicated and difficult inferences, the validity of which may well be open to question. ”

“ My notion of a table, for example, is that of an object possessing certain qualities, as form, size, weight, color, hardness, each of which qualities is known to me by a distinct act of perception, if not by a distinct sense, and each of which is capable, accordingly, of being distinctly, and by itself, an object of thought or conception. ”

“ Nay, there are books which may be said to be produced and utilized only for their outward garb. How often does one find a volume described as a charming one ‘for the table’! It is for the table that certain publications are destined. ”

“ To take an example, the impressions of roundness, angularity, smoothness, roughness, colour, etc., of a table contain, all told, nothing that could assure us of the existence of the object 'table' as the real content of an external world. ”

“ Now obviously this point in which the philosophers are agreed—the view that there is a real table, whatever its nature may be—is vitally important, and it will be worth while to consider what reasons there are for accepting this view before we go on to the further question as to the nature of the real table. ”

“ In any material object I may seek to obtain, such as a table, my interests are concentrated in the table itself, not on the tools which the workman has used in its manufacture; but if it were a question of thought, then the means by which it was produced by the human mind engage us ”

“ Our critic asks: “Did you ever find a table that could grasp the significance of what was graved on it?” and adds, “It is the power to read the writing and weave it into a connected and reasonable and rational whole, which is the very thing to be explained. It is not how nature through the senses comes to me, but how I through the senses read nature.” ”

“ We shall say that we have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference or any knowledge of truths. Thus in the presence of my table I am acquainted with the sense-data that make up the appearance of my table—its colour, shape, hardness, smoothness, etc. ”

“ Our Conceptions often Complex.—If we examine attentively the various notions or conceptions of the mind, we find that a large part of them are in a sense complex—comprising, in a word, a certain aggregate of properties, which, taken together, constitute our conception of the object. Thus, my notion of table, or chair, or desk, is made up of several conceptions, of form, size, material, color, hardness, weight, use, etc., etc., all which, taken together, constitute my notion of the object thus designated. ”

“ My Table Book, therefore, is a series of continually shifting scenes—a kind of literary kaleidoscope, combining popular forms with singular appearances—by which youth and age of all ranks may be amused ”

“ By an association of ideas and by recalling past experience, we feel justified in claiming the existence of the table “there” as we see it. In the majority of cases our judgment will be correct, but in a certain number of instances it will be erroneous. ”

“ Clearly, then, the table of which you are directly and immediately conscious when your eyes are open is always this mental duplicate, this aggregate of color, form, size and touch impressions; while the real table, the physical table, may be something other than the one of which you are directly aware. ”

“ He fumbled among the papers and books on the table beside him, selected a sheet of paper, covered with closely written lines, and extended it in a shaking hand to his caller.
"That explains things a little," he said. "It's illuminating. Read it." ”

“ Although we are doubting the physical existence of the table, we are not doubting the existence of the sense-data which made us think there was a table; we are not doubting that, while we look, a certain colour and shape appear to us, and while we press, a certain sensation of hardness is experienced by us. ”

“ Granted that we are certain of our own sense-data, have we any reason for regarding them as signs of the existence of something else, which we can call the physical object? When we have enumerated all the sensations which we should naturally regard as connected with the table, have we said all there is to say about the table, or is there still something else—something not a sensation, something which persists when we go out of the room? Common sense unhesitatingly answers that there is. ”

“ In each step of induction, our Table enumerates the particular facts, and states the general theoretical truth which includes these and which these constitute. The special act of attention by which we satisfy ourselves that the facts are so included,—that the general truth is so constituted,—then affords little room for errour, with moderate attention and clearness of thought. ”

“ Tables are abstractions, and the object a most concrete one, so difficult to read the essence of. There are innumerable circumstances; and one circumstance left out may be the vital one on which all turned. ”

“ There exist 16 possible different truth functions. A truth table is a graphical device for specifying a truth function, making it clear what the value of the truth function is for every possible value of the component sentences. ”

“ On reading over that table, one will have really a new and grateful impression of the resources, appliances, ingenuities, and ministrations of civilization for human life. All the varieties of food, of household and farming, mechanical and artistic, tools, of stuffs and garments, of groceries and furniture, of iron, tin, glass, and crockery ware, — fill the specifications in the tables. ”

“ The first answer that naturally occurs to one is that, although different people may see the table slightly differently, still they all see more or less similar things when they look at the table, and the variations in what they see follow the laws of perspective and reflection of light, so that it is easy to arrive at a permanent object underlying all the different people's sense-data. ”

“ But we shall have to follow here the guidance of the categories,—only, as in the present case a thing, "I," as thinking being, is at first given, we shall—not indeed change the order of the categories as it stands in the table,—but begin at the category of substance, by which at the a thing a thing is represented and proceeds backwards through the series. ”

“ Table talk proves that nine out of ten people read what amuses them, rather than what instructs them, and proves also, that the last thing they read is something which tells them disagreeable truths or dispels groundless hopes. ”

“ The great value of the measurement lies in the fact that it gives us the means of a comprehensive description of the varieties contained in a geographic or social group. A table that informs us of the frequency of various forms as expressed by measurements that occur in a group, gives us a comprehensive view of the variability of the group that we are studying. ”

“ The eye at the beginning of the table seems to be human, and may be the ideograph of the individual who drew it. Besides these recognizable sketches there are other linear representations of the slightest kind, but which, there can be little doubt, conveyed a definite meaning to those who drew them. ”

“ If a table had a designing cause, the tree from whence the wood came, and the man who made the table must have had a designing cause, which comprehended all the powers and properties of trees and men. ”

“ Thirdly, we must have a number of instances in which the nature is present in different degrees, either increasing or decreasing in the same subject, or variously present in different subjects. This is the table of Degrees, or Comparison. After the formation of these tables, we proceed to apply what is perhaps the most valuable part of the Baconian method, and that in which the author took most pride, the process of exclusion or rejection. ”

“ Parts of and places in countries are arranged alphabetically under each, and are marked either by the usual Cutter order-table, which has initial letters followed by figures, or by a special Cutter order-table composed of figures alone. ”

“ They are comparable to a catalogue, or to the card-index of a library which are an easy indicator to the millions of books, leaving us totally ignorant as to their contents and value. Hence, the higher we ascend, the farther we penetrate into the region of the fictitious and the vacant. ”

“ XXI. After our tables of first review, our rejection or exclusive table, and the first vintage derived from them, we must advance to the remaining helps of the understanding with regard to the interpretation of nature, and a true and perfect induction, in offering which we will take the examples of cold and heat where tables are necessary, but where fewer instances are required we will go through a variety of others, so as neither to confound investigation nor to narrow our doctrine. ”

“ It is designed for the table of the Student and the office of the Professional Man, and is issued in a very finished and elegant style, and embraces extensive details of all the important parts of the Earth. ”

“ The planning of a new book, from the determination of the shape of page and proper width of margin to the selection of the style and size of type in which each of its many parts should be set, is a subject too broad to be fairly treated in a limited space. ”

“ We put questions relating to subjects which specially interest us. Passively we write things which we already know more or less about, and unconsciously inspire ourselves with the name of the personage invoked. Far more reliable are the answers given by a table. ”

“ The first, or Affirmative Table, consists of a general collection of all the known analogous instances which agree in the nature sought, from subjects however dissimilar or sordid they may be supposed to be, and without being deterred by the apparent number of particulars. ”

“ A great multiplicity of names would only encumber the lists, and render the Table obscure and comparatively useless. As accurate information is given in the Catalogue, which, indeed, is the explanation of the Table, it has not been repeated here; and it is desired rather that the reader should refer to the Catalogue for the fuller information there given, than be satisfied with the mere dates of birth and death, or such other bare essentials as might have been compressed into the Table. Thus, also, the connection of master and scholar is omitted in the Table. ”

“ Before putting a book, about which there is any opportunity for choice, in the class you have selected for it, examine your shelf-list and see that the books already there are of like nature with it.
Classify as well as you can, and don't worry if you find you have made errors. There are always errors. ”

“ A table viewed from one place presents a different appearance from that which it presents from another place. This is the language of common sense, but this language already assumes that there is a real table of which we see the appearances. Let us try to state what is known in terms of sensible objects alone, without any element of hypothesis. We find that as we walk round the table, we perceive a series of gradually changing visible objects. But in speaking of “walking round the table,” we have still retained the hypothesis that there is a single table connected with all the appearances. ”

“ We might compare language to the catalogue of a library, which is the more perfect, the more it unites simplicity with variety, so as to designate exactly the classes of the books and the shelves whereon they are to be found. ”

“ When, however, we come to an actual survey of the material, certain appearances present themselves which lead us to expect that, possibly, a large part of our gain will accrue from the observation of the differences which characterise different parts of the material within itself. ”

“ A general survey of an important question, or an exhaustive comment on a single phase of a subject prominently in the public eye may cover the first three columns of a great daily, while in the care taken in the presentation of the subject it may vie with all that is best in literature. ”

“ The tables are the result of actual practice, and are worked out from complete drawings. The references are such as are constantly required in real work, and the selection is made by noting for a number of years the relative frequency of references to the different subjects. ”