CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 29 



and Politics. Aristotle added three other specific branches, Gram- 

 mar, Rhetoric, and Logic ; which have since been called the Tri- 

 vium, or meeting of three roads ; and which, with the Quadrivium 

 of Pythagoras, constituted the seven liberal arts. A course of 

 instruction in these seven arts, was called by the Greeks CYKVKXIOS 

 naifcia, or the circle of learning ; and hence, as before mentioned, the 

 derivation of the modern word Encyclopedia. The poetical distri- 

 bution of the sciences among the Muses, will not bear philosophical 

 criticism ; but probably belongs to an earlier age. 



The Romans borrowed the Seven Liberal Arts of the Greeks; as 

 enumerated in the Latin verse, " Lingua, Tropus, Ratio ; Numerus, 

 Tonus, Angula, Astra." But Rome^ first warlike, and afterwards 

 luxurious, did little to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge ; except 

 incidentally, in enlarging the boundaries of her empire and language. 

 Porphyry is said to have been the first who arranged the branches of 

 knowledge in the form of a tree ; and the Gnostics, or Platonizing 

 Christians, went so far as to divide all being into material, animal, 

 and spiritual. These are the only Roman classifications of which we 

 can here speak. In the middle or dark ages, little was done for 

 the advancement of science ; and still less for its better arrangement. 

 Vincent de Beauvais, (Vincentius Bellovacensis), about the year 

 1250, summed up the knowledge of those times, in his Speculum 

 Historiale, Naturale, Doctrinale, or historical and philosophical 

 mirror ; to which was afterwards anonymously added a Speculum 

 Morale, or view of morals ; the preservation of all which, has thrown 

 some light on that obscure period. 



The celebrated Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, usually called Lord 

 Bacon, about the year 1605, made a classification of knowledge, 

 according to the powers of the mind employed in acquiring it ; which 

 he considered to be memory, imagination, and reason. To memory 

 he assigned history, which he subdivided into natural and civil ; to 

 imagination he ascribed poetry ; and to reason he allotted the whole 

 range of philosophy, or the study of the Deity, the human race, and 

 the laws of the material world. He subdivided philosophy into phy- 

 sics and metaphysics ; in the latter of which he comprehended 

 mathematics and other heterogenous sciences. Lord Bacon believed 

 in magic and astrology, and denied the earth's diurnal motion ; yet, 

 as the author of the Novum Organum, a work in which he pointed 

 out the right method of discovering and applying truth, he is regarded 

 as the great pioneer of modern science. 



The French philosopher Descartes, considered all knowledge as 

 either accessory or ultimate ; and hence divided it into mathematics, 

 physics, and metaphysics ; the latter including theology. The Sieur 

 de Lesclache published a classification of knowledge in a series of 

 engravings : and Comenius published another, comprised in one hun- 

 dred chapters of ten sentences each ; the whole containing almost 

 every word in common use. Mr. Hobbes divided all science intp 

 knowledge of facts, depending on sensation and memory, and know- 

 ledge of consequences, based upon reason. Mr. Locke has also left 

 us a classification of knowledge in three divisions ; physica, or the 

 laws of the material world ; practica, or rules of human action ; and 



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