Through Sweden. 
”3 
of knowledge might be referred either to the beings which they 
have for their objects, or to the different faculties of the foul. 
Difficulties attend either plan. The former involves us in an 
endlefs labyrinth, not only of genera and fpecies, and thefe too the 
mere work of the human mind; but of individual objects not to be 
reduced with precifion to any clafs or mutual correfpondence: 
the latter implies that latitude of arbitrary choice, which the 
French encyclopaedias have juftly remarked. 
The fcientific academicians of Stockholm have not adopted 
either of thefe plans, but {truck out a new one of their own, as is 
to be perceived in the following claffification, which feems to reft 
principally on the myflical number feven. The firft clafs have 
for the fubjedt of their inquiries, oeconomy general and rural. This 
clafs is compofed of fifteen members. The fecond, confifting alfo 
of fifteen members, has for its objedf, commerce and the mechanical 
arts. The third clafs, in number alfo fifteen, exterior phyjics and 
natural hiftory. The fourth clafs, likewife fifteen, interior phyjics 
and naturalphilofophy. The fifth clafs, in number eighteen, ma¬ 
thematics. The fixth clafs, fifteen in number, medicine. The fe- 
venth and laft clafs, confifting of twelve members, is configned to 
belles-lettres, the hiftory of the world, languages, and other Rudies 
uleful or agreeable. 
It is evident that the whole of this arrangement is characte¬ 
rized by an air of inaccuracy, whimficality and confufion. The 
laft clafs is plainly contrived as a receptacle for the various fub- 
jedts of inveftigation not provided for in any of the former divifions. 
Vol. I. Q In 
