368 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



catalogue like ours is primarily useful in enabling 

 persons to consult our books, it would still be of 

 great value, as a bibliographical aid to other li- 

 braries, even if all our own books were to be de- 

 stroyed. 1 This part of its function, moreover, it 

 cannot properly fulfil even now, so long as it can 

 be consulted only in Gore Hall. Our subject- 

 catalogue, if printed to-day, would afford a noble 

 conspectus of the literature of many great depart- 

 ments of human knowledge, and would have no 

 small value to many special inquirers. Much of 

 this usefulness is lost so long as it remains in 

 manuscript, confined to a single locality. 



For such reasons as these, I believe that the 

 card-system is but a temporary or transitional ex- 

 pedient, upon which we cannot always continue 

 to rely exclusively. By the time Professor Ab- 

 bot's great catalogue is finished (i. e. brought up 

 to date) and thoroughly revised, it will be on all 

 accounts desirable to print it. The huge mass of 

 cards up to that date will then be superseded, and 

 might be destroyed without detriment to any one. 

 But the card-catalogue, kept up in accordance 

 with the present system, would continue as a sup- 



1 Thus I often find valuable information in the printed catalogue of 

 the Bodleian Library, and wish that the splendid catalogue of the 

 million books in the British Museum were as readily accessible. 



