The Philosophy of Classification; being a base for thought, a measure for morality, and a key to truth.

WILSON, Frederick J.

About this Item

London, Pitman 1866. Slender octavo blue cloth; viii,35pp, lithograph diagram of the Key of Truth and nine leaves of Tabulations printed on rectos. Inscription trimmed from the head of the title page, title and last page browned by the endpapers; still, a rather good copy. I don't believe that anyone else, ever, has so used the words 'comprehension' and 'comprehensive' in all their forms and been so incomprehensible. In the first of the prefatory paragraphs of this book appear 'comprehension', 'comprehensions', 'comprehensible' and 'comprehensiveness' (he also uses 'intelligible' twice); in later years he called himself a 'Comprehensionist' , issued three numbers of a journal called 'The Comprehensionist' (which may be what was collected and published under the title of 'The House That Jack Built' in 1889) and some of his works were published by or for the 'Comprehensional Association' - which I suspect consisted only of Mr Wilson. Frederick Wilson may well remain an impenetrable mystery - the scant notices I have traced are all uniform in their bewildered defeat; I have yet to come across anyone who had any clue as to what Wilson was on about. This is, I'm fairly sure, his first book and while his simplest statements are unclear I gather from his preface that only 200 copies were printed (in Leamington, then, it seems, his home) - he had no expectations of a large audience. The diagram (the Key of Truth) is purposely on paper that can be coloured and the colours are given; likewise the tabulations can be removed, mounted in order, and coloured. Colour and, to a lesser extent, geometry and numbers play a large part in all this. All the laws of nature and all human ideas are classified so that a "base may be formed for the expansion of thought [and] a rule laid down for the mathematical measurement of moral sentiments". Simple enough it seems but I defy you to make sense of it when given directions like this: "The columns are printed in deductive succession, but as all reasoning should be by a succession of flights, you must therefore read it backwards". As I said, this is his first book but he had been at work on this for some time - he exhibited two large diagrams painted in oil in the 1862 International Exhibition (which "did not excite either attention or remark") and tracking his publications indicates that he was still trying some forty years later. The only other book of his I have been able to find (the afore mentioned 'House That Jack Built') makes me think that he became less intelligible as the years went on - so this book may well be his high point in terms of clarity and it is the obvious starting point for any serious study of Comprehensionalism.

Seller Inventory # 7693

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Philosophy of Classification; being a base for thought, a measure for morality, and a key to truth.
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: very good