The Cabinet

Roget's Thesaurus · A thesaurus is a classification of ideas: Roget set every idea English has a word for under six classes, so that a writer could go from the idea to the word.

Its classes give a being its palette, its sections its matter. Lay the plates out by it →

Wilkins's Real Character · Wilkins sorted all that can be named under forty genera, so that each word of his philosophical language would show, in its letters, what kind of thing it names.

Its predicaments give a being its symmetry, its genera its outline. Lay the plates out by it →

WordNet · The twenty-five files in which WordNet's makers entered every sense of every English noun: a flat list, with no tree above it.

Its categories give a being its gesture and the way it grew. Lay the plates out by it →

Llull's Nine Subjects · A ladder of being, from God down to the instruments, through which Llull's Art meant to reason about everything that is.

Its subjects choose the book a being is drawn from: its body, its hand and the forms of its organs. Lay the plates out by it →