THE LIBRARY AND KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE 211 



references that could thus be made available for personal inspection 

 or dispatch through the post. What has been said refers to an alpha- 

 betical catalogue, but there are also many subject-entries awaiting 

 consolidation. The labors of Poole and his continuators and 

 imitators, British and foreign, and the excellent Subject Index 

 of Mr. G. K. Fortescue should here be named. The Institut Inter- 

 national de Bibliographic announces that it has in its possession six 

 and a half million of bibliographical references and that it is daily 

 adding to its store. Millionaires who desire to advance literature 

 and learning might find a useful employment for their money and 

 energies in the task of facilitating rational efforts towards a general 

 catalogue of all literature. 



" If we think of it," says Carlyle, " all that a university, or final 

 highest school can do for us, is still but what the first school began 

 doing --teach us to read. We learn to read, in various languages, 

 in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner 

 of books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theo- 

 retic knowledge, is the books themselves! It depends on what we 

 read, after all manner of professors have done their best for us. 

 The true university of these days is a collection of books." 



In this illuminating passage is the justification for insisting that 

 universality is the true note of the library. No science can prosper 

 without its aid. He who would add to the sum of knowledge must, 

 as a preliminary, learn what is already known. He who devises what 

 he hopes is a new invention must investigate, in fear and trembling, 

 lest he has been anticipated. Even the mistakes of predecessors 

 may be turned to account. The comparison of discordant views 

 may suggest omitted considerations that will bring them into fruitful 

 harmony. There is happily no finality in science. 



Classification, even the most elaborate, useful and necessary as it. 

 is, can often only be approximate, and that only in a rough and ready 

 fashion. One book may serve several purposes and may be placed 

 with equal propriety in more than one part of the library. Thus 

 the celebrated Lunar Hoax of Richard Adams Locke, which de- 

 scribes ' ' wonderful ' - and quite imaginary - - discoveries in the 

 moon, has certainly no scientific value, yet it is an interesting docu- 

 ment in the history of astronomy, as it shows the condition of educa- 

 tion which caused its impossibilities to be greedily swallowed by 

 multitudes both in Europe and America. The tract itself is an amus- 

 ing piece of mystification, and it has a literary interest from the 

 fact that Edgar Allan Poe noticed it in his Literati, and institutes 

 a comparison between its incidents and those in the story of Hans 

 Pfaal. Knowledge is not an island but a continent, and, however 

 strictly defined the capital may be, each kingdom has vague border- 

 lands where one science merges into another. Literature cannot be 



