CONTEMPORARY CLASSIFICATION

At first glance, the order of the contemporary collection seems rationally defined, the functions of the objects dictating the nature of the categories. In some ways the modern classification of the natural world resembles the box-within-box structure of the sixteenth-century cosmos; categories are structured from the more inclusive to the increasingly specific. However, the trajectory of comparison in the modern paradigm is directed towards isolating the specific, identifying differences instead of similarities in order to divide the whole of creation into finer and more exact categories. Whereas the prized objects in the curiosity cabinet were those that blurred the divisions between categories, the prized objects in modern collections are those that clarify boundaries and define new categories.

The idea of the naturally generated category is particularly prevalent in the study of natural history. Taxonomies attempt to classify plants and animals according to their presumed natural relationships, but there is still a great deal that is arbitrary within this classification system. One important function of collections for taxonomic systems is to preserve the specimens on which classification is based; these archetypal specimens are called holotypes. Identical specimens, from the same plant, animal, or area are called isotypes; these may be indistinguishable from the holotype, but are not granted the same status as paradigmatic example. For there to be no uncertainty about the identifying characteristics and parameters of a particular classification, the original specimen must survive (this makes the fires and bombings which major collections have suffered in the last 100 years especially tragic).