s similar to those under which the Oxford _New English
Dictionary_ was undertaken (see below). The labour demanded is too vast,
and the necessary bulk of the dictionary too great. When, however, a
language is recorded in one such dictionary, those of smaller size and
more modest pretensions can rest upon it as an authority and conform to
it as a model so far as their special limitations permit.

The ideal thus developed is primarily that of the general dictionary of
the purely philological type, but it applies also to the encyclopaedic
dictionary. In so far as the latter is strictly lexicographic--deals
with words as words, and not with the things they denote--it should be
made after the model of the former, and is defective to the extent in
which it deviates from it. The addition of encyclopaedic matter to the
philological in no way affects the general principles involved. It may,
however, for practical reasons, modify their application in various
ways. For example, the number of obsolete and dialectal words included
may be much diminished and the number of scientific terms (for instance,
new Latin botanical and zoological names) be increased; and the relative
amount of space devoted to etymologies and quotations may be lessened.
In general, since books of this kind are designed to serve more or less
as works of general reference, the making of them must be governed by
considerations of practical utility which the compilers of a purely
philological dictionary are not obliged to regard. The encyclopaedic
type itself, although it has often been criticized as hybrid--as a
mixture of two things which should be kept distinct--is entirely
defensible. Between the dictionary and the encyclopaedia the dividing
line cannot sharply be drawn. There are words the meaning of which
cannot be explained fully without some description of things, and, on
the other hand, the description of things and processes often involves
the definition of names. To the combination of the two objection cannot
justly be made, so long as it is effected in a way--with a selection of
material--that leaves the dictionary essentially a dictionary and not an
encyclopaedia. Moreover, the large vocabulary of the general dictionary
makes it possible to present certain kinds of encyclopaedic matter with
a degree of fulness and a convenience of arrangement which are possible
in no single work of any other class. In fact, it may be said that if
the encyclopaedic dic