If we express ourselves
in one way we find our ideas in confusion and our action impotent:
if in another our ideas cohere harmoniously, and our action is
edifying. The convenience of least disturbing vested ideas, and at
the same time rearranging our views in accordance with new facts that
come to our knowledge, this is our proper care. But it is idle to
say we do not know anything about things--perhaps we do, perhaps we
don't--but we at any rate know what sane people think and are likely
to think about things, and this to all intents and purposes is
knowing the things themselves. For the things only are what sensible
people agree to say and think they are.
vii
The arrangement of our ideas is as much a matter of convenience as
the packing of goods in a druggist's or draper's store and leads to
exactly the same kind of difficulties in the matter of classifying
them. We all admit the arbitrariness of classifications in a languid
way, but we do not think of it more than we can help--I suppose
because it is so inconvenient to do so. The great advantage of
classification is to conceal the fact that subdivisions are as
arbitrary as they are.
Classification
There can be no perfect way, for classification presupposes that a
thing has absolute limits whereas there is nothing that does not
partake of the universal infinity--nothing whose boundaries do not
vary.
Pages:
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415