the cambridge dictionary thesaurus has a similar organisation and i always thought it was a unique quirk (further promulgated by the mobile version calling it "smart thesaurus").

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/thesaurus/articles/differen...

The author notes:

> since around 1962, publishers have abandoned the side-by-side layout of opposing categories which Roget insisted on as a visual representation of the opposing ideas

illustrated by the original's side-by-side entries for 615 Good and 616 Evil, seeing this as an unfortunate

> example of one of the many ways book design is actually getting less sophisticated over time.

It appears the Gutenberg project also see value in preserving the two columns, at least in their html edition, as can be seen in their rendition of the same passages: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10681/pg10681-images.ht.... (Link is to a 10M html file).

(Though it seems things have moved on, since Evil is now #619.)

Surely there must be more programmatic electronic editions, though, given the highly tractable organisation of the book?