Dv Whe well's Inaugural Lecture. 16 



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 recommenda- 

 tion. In the systems already mentioned there were no gra- 

 dations of classification. There were a certain number, thirty- 

 nine 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, Batv Materials, Machinery, Manufac- 

 tured Goods, and the works of the Fine Arts, The efi^ect 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 pro- 

 cesses. 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 pro- 

 cedure 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 clas- 

 sification 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 com- 

 mercial experience to be most conv^enient 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. 



