CLASSIFICATION OF RESULTS. 399 



also according to the more abstruse or hidden ones, because 

 the great object of classifying is to render evident the 

 general truths contained in the results, and thus to enable 

 us to extract from those results, by means of the subsequent 

 processes of generalisation and inference, the largest pos- 

 sible amount of knowledge. Even the exceptional cases, 

 if a sufficient number of them can be obtained, should be 

 classified in a similar manner. A few of the leading 

 heads of classification of properties, actions, and substances, 

 in physics and chemistry, have already been enumerated 

 in Chapter XXXV., pp. 330, 331. 



Although for the purpose of scientific discovery, it is 

 necessary to classify ideas in every possible way in order 

 to extract the maximum amount of truth from them, yet 

 it is equally necessary in a systematic representation of 

 knowledge, and in all cases where we wish to determine 

 the relative degrees of intrinsic value or importance of 

 things, to classify them upon the most fundamental basis 

 we can find. 



As the number of similarities and differences which we 

 are able to perceive between the results of a given number 

 of experiments or observations is limited, and as the 

 number of properties, actions, and substances with which 

 we are at present acquainted is not infinite, the number 

 of ways in which we can classify the results of a single 

 research is also limited. Still, we never exhaust the pos- 

 sible modes of classifying them, because many of their 

 similarities and differences are latent and unperceived, 

 and the phenomena really present before us are far more 

 numerous than they appear to be, and every instance con- 

 tains far more information than we can even imagine. 



