History, Sacred.” [43]
This is plausible. If the public could ever get as accustomed to the inversion of subject-names as they are to the inversion of personal names the rule would undoubtedly be very convenient; but it might be difficult to teach the rule. The catalogue treatment of personal names is familiar to every one, because it is used in all catalogues, dictionaries, directories, and indexes. But there are less than three hundred subject-names consisting of adjective and noun in a catalogue which has probably over 50,000 names of persons. The use of the rule would be so infrequent that it would not remain in the memory. And it should be observed that the confusion caused by the different treatment of Morbid anatomy and Comparative anatomy would only occur to a man who was examining the system of the catalogue, and not to the ordinary user. A man looks in the catalogue for treatises on Comparative anatomy; he finds it, where he first looks, under C. He does not know anything about the disposition of works on Morbid anatomy, and is not confused by it. Another man looks for works on Morbid anatomy and under M he is referred to Anatomy, Morbid. [44] He finds there what he wants and does not stop to notice that Comparative anatomy is not there, but under C, consequently he is not puzzled by that. And even those who are taking a general survey of all that the library possesses on anatomy would probably be too intent upon their object to pause and criticise the arrangement, provided the reference from Anatomy to Comparative Anatomy were perfectly clear, so that they ran no risk of overlooking it and had no difficulty in finding the subject referred to.
The specific-entry rule is one which the reader of a dictionary catalogue must learn if he is to use it with any facility; it is much better that he should not be burdened with learning an exception to this, which the noun rule certainly is.
It ought also to be noticed that this plan does not escape all the difficulties of the others. In reducing, for instance, Intellectual philosophy or Moral philosophy, will you say Mind or Intellect, Morals or Ethics? And the reader will not always know what the equivalent noun is,—that Physics = Natural Philosophy, for example, and Hygiene = Sanitary science. Nor does it help us at all to decide whether to prefer Botanical morphology or Morphological botany. These difficulties, which beset any rule, are only mentioned here lest too much should be expected from a plan which at first sight seems to solve all problems.
The practice of reducing a name to the substantive form is often a good one; but should not be insisted upon as an invariable rule, as it might lead to the adoption of some very out-of-the-way names. As a mere matter of form Nebulæ is to be preferred for a heading to Nebular hypothesis, Pantheism to Pantheistic theory, Lyceums to Lyceum system, etc. {54}
In (b), (c), and (d) the same subject can often be named in different ways; as,
| (b) | Capital punishment. | Floral fertilization. |
| (c) | Death penalty. | Flower fertilization. |
| (d) | Penalty of death. | Fertilization of flowers. |
Is there any principle upon which the choice between these three can be made, so that the cataloguer shall always enter books on the same subject under the same heading? I see none. When there is any decided usage (i. e., custom of the public to designate the subjects by one of the names rather than by the others) let it be followed; that is to say, if, in the examples given above, the more customary phrases are Capital punishment, Fertilization of flowers, then we must use those names, preferring in the first case the name which begins with an adjective to its equivalent beginning with a noun, and in the other the name beginning with a noun to its equivalent beginning with an adjective. As is often the case in language, usage will be found not to follow any uniform course.
If usage manifests no preference for either name, we can not employ the two indifferently; we must choose one; and some slight guide to choice in certain cases may perhaps be found. On examination of the phrases above, it appears that they are not all of the same composition. In Comparative anatomy, Capital punishment, the noun is the name of a general subject, one of whose subdivisions is indicated by the adjective. And Capital, Comparative have only this limiting power; they do not imply any general subject. But Ancient history, Mediæval history, etc., may be viewed not only in this way (History the class, Ancient history and Mediæval history the subdivisions) but also as equivalent to Antiquity: History, Middle Ages: History (as we say Europe: History), in which case the adjectives (Ancient, Mediæval) imply a subject and the noun (History) indicates the aspect in which the subject is viewed. Here, then, we choose Ancient and Mediæval as the heading, on the principle of § [68]. So in (b) and (c) each of the nouns in turn may be considered as expressing the more general idea and the other as limiting it; e. g., we can have various headings for Death considered in different lights, among others as a penalty; and we can have headings of various sorts of penalties, among others death. It is evident that this collection of penalties taken together makes up a class, and therefore this belongs to a style of entry which the dictionary catalogue is expected to avoid; but the series of headings beginning with the word Death would not make a class, being merely different aspects of the same thing, not different subordinate parts of the same subject.
When an adjective implies the name of a place, as in French literature, German philosophy, Greek art, it is most convenient on the whole to make the subject a division under the country. In this way all that relates to a country is brought together and arranged in one alphabetical series of subjects under its name (see § [258]). It is not of the slightest importance that this introduces the appearance of an alphabetico-classed catalogue, so long as the main object of a dictionary, ready reference, is attained. Of course Hebrew language, Latin language, Latin literature, and Punic language can not be so treated; it is the custom and is probably best not to put English language and English literature under England, as they have extended far beyond the place of their origin; books on the language spoken in the United States go with those on the English language except the few on Americanisms, which are separated, like accounts of any other dialect. Our literature can not be treated satisfactorily. It is never called United States literature, and no one would expect to find it under United States. On the other hand the name American properly should include Canadian literature and all the Spanish literature of South America. It is, however, the best name we have.