Cyclopaedia

“ This important matter of inequality, which has led us so far, is one to which the Encyclopædia is as subject as the Cyclopædia; but it is not so easily recognized as a fault. We receive the first book as mainly a collection of treatises: we know their authors, and we treat them as individuals. ”

“ As far as is consistent with thoroughness of research and exactness of statement, the popular method has been pursued. The wants of the people in a work of this kind have been carefully kept in view throughout. By condensation and brevity, the editors have been enabled to introduce a much greater variety of subjects than is usually found in similar works, and thus to enhance the value of the Cyclopædia as a manual of universal reference. ”

“ Such a work may be a monument of careful labor, which is still misdirected. The question remains, What is its purpose, and how is its design fulfilled? There are cyclopædias upon all subjects, commerce, chemistry, agriculture, technology, fine art, engineering, and various other branches of knowledge; and they have special values, of course, for the cultivators of those branches, though very little value for general use. It is folly to expatiate upon the accuracy and fullness of a cyclopædia of antiquities, for example, to one who cares nothing about the subject. ”

“ The cyclopædias are, some of them, both in articles on particular authors and in their sketches of French literary history as a whole, good sources of general information on the subject. Readers who command the means of comparing several different cyclopædias, or several successive editions of some one cyclopædia, as, for example, the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” will find enlightening and stimulating the not always harmonious views presented on the same topics. Hallam’s “History of Literature in Europe” is an additional authority by no means to be overlooked. ”

“ ENCYCLOPAEDIAS, DICTIONARIES, AND EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. The Encyclopaedia Americana, the first work of the kind undertaken in America, appeared in 1829, under the auspices of Dr. Lieber, and contains articles on almost every subject of human knowledge. The New American Cyclopaedia, edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, is a work on a larger and more original plan, and is particularly valuable as the repository of all knowledge bearing upon American civilization, while at the same time it embodies a great amount of interesting and valuable information on all subjects. ”

“ The Encyclopædia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature. Eighth Edition. 21 vols. and Index. (Black.) The two editions above described are completed at the same time: and they stand at the head of the two great branches into which pantological undertakings are divided, as at once the largest and the best of their classes.
When the works are brought together, the first thing that strikes the eye is the syllable of difference in the names. The word Cyclopædia is a bit of modern purism. ”

“ But send a half-educated man to look for a scrap of learning in an article of a hundred pages, and one might as well at once turn him loose into a library. And what is worse, the unwieldy dimensions of these great articles are out of all proportion to the information they contain. We venture to assert that the ponderous "Encyclopaedia Britannica," with its twenty-two quarto volumes, will tell less, for instance, about the Horse, or about Louis XIV., than the much smaller work of Messrs. Ripley and Dana. In the "New American Cyclopaedia" there are few articles over twenty pages long. ”

“ The circle of those who are attaining sound knowledge is steadily widening. Already, as the circle has widened, the means of acquiring information have been offered to "the masses," and even to "the needy," at a rate of cheapness quite unequalled by any previous attempts to make sound knowledge popular. We now especially allude to 'The Penny Cyclopædia'—a work of which the literature and {301} engravings alone cost the publisher, as he has recorded, the large sum of 42,000l. ”

“ Time is thus saved by directing attention to the volume, page, and part of the page, where what is sought may be found. It will thus be seen whether the subject is treated of by name in a leading article so entitled, or in connection with some other subject; saving the trouble of first seeking it in the Cyclopædia, and then by the aid of the index. It often happens, moreover, that important light is thrown on the subject of one leading article by the views presented in others, to which attention is directed by the index. ”

“ This ignoring by the Encyclopædia Britannica of any definition of the word ‘science,’ and also the attempted reduction of life to a property of matter, is, however, too limited a view of Nature to be accepted by many thoughtful students of the present day. Turning, therefore, to Chambers’ Cyclopædia, which is the latest expression of the views of the able thinkers of North Britain, an explanation of the term ‘science’ was found, which is far truer to advancing thought. ”

“ But it is “a grammar only of the sciences: a cyclopaedia is not a grammar, but a dictionary; and to confuse the meanings of grammar and dictionary is to lose the benefit of a distinction which it is fortunate that terms have been coined to convey” (Quarterly Review, cxiii. 354) . Fortunius Licetus, an Italian physician, entitled several of his dissertations on Roman altars and other antiquities encyclopaedias (as, for instance, Encyclopaedia ad Aram mysticam Nonarii, Pataviae, 1631, 4to) , because in composing them he borrowed the aid of all the sciences. ”

“ Those who affect to believe that nothing has been done for the cheapening of books, should recollect that, before the existence of this Cyclopædia, no great work of reference of this nature could be obtained under 40l. ”

“ The probability is, that, when completed, it will be found to contain articles by almost every person of literary and scientific note in the United States; for the wide and friendly relations which the editors hold with American authors and _savans_, of all sects, parties, and sections, will enable them to obtain valuable contributions, even if the general interest in the success of an American Cyclopaedia were not sufficient of itself to draw the intellect of the country to its pages. ”

“ The first great dictionary may perhaps be taken to be Hofman's Lexicon Universale [456] (1677) ; but Chambers's [457] (so called) Dictionary (1728) has a better claim. And we support our proposed nomenclature by observing that Alsted accidentally called his work Encyclopædia, and Chambers simply Cyclopædia.
We shall make one little extract from the myrrour, and one from Ringelberg. Caxton's author makes a singular remark for his time; and one well worthy of attention. ”

“ If any man wishes to be well informed, let him work on a cyclopædia. As I could read several languages, I was additionally useful at times. The greatest conciseness of style is required for such work. In German cyclopædias this is carried to a fault.
After a while I began to find that there was much more money to be made outside the Cyclopædia than in it. William H. Hurlbut, whom I had once seen so nearly shot, had been the “foreign editor” of the New York Times. Mr. Henry Raymond, its proprietor, had engaged a Mr. ”

“ By the bye, what a strange abuse has been made of the word encyclopaedia! It signifies, properly, grammar, logic, rhetoric, and ethics and metaphysics, which last, explaining the ultimate principles of grammar—log., rhet., and eth.—formed a circle of knowledge. * * * To call a huge unconnected miscellany of the "omne scibile", in an arrangement determined by the accident of initial letters, an encyclopaedia, is the impudent ignorance of your Presbyterian bookmakers. Good night! ”

“ He became connected with a short-lived literary paper called the Verulam; in 1831 he published his Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties among the works of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; he contributed a considerable number of biographical and historical articles to the Penny Cyclopaedia; and he edited the Pictorial History of England, himself writing much of the work. ”

“ Before the middle of the century, it had been translated into the Italian language; and had, in France, become the foundation of the Encyclopédie,—the most extensive and celebrated undertaking of the kind, that had yet appeared in the world. This great work, originally intended to consist of ten, was ultimately enlarged to seventeen folio volumes; of which the first was published in 1751, the last in 1765. [8] It is well known to those who are conversant with its history, that it was founded upon a French translation of Chambers’s Cyclopædia, at first designed for separate publication. ”

“ The word encyclopaedia was probably first used in English by Sir Thomas Elyot. “In an oratour is required to be a heape of all maner of lernyng: whiche of some is called the worlde of science, of other the circle of doctrine, whiche is in one worde of greke Encyclopedia” (The Governour, bk. i. chap. xiii.) . In his Latin dictionary, 1538, he explains “Encyclios et Encyclia, the cykle or course of all doctrines,” and “Encyclopedia, that lernynge whiche comprehendeth all lyberall science and studies.” ”

“ The older encyclopædias attempted to give everything then known on all subjects; but, as knowledge has increased, it has become more and more necessary, in order to say something about everything, to be content not to say everything about anything. The great Latin collections of Terentius Varro, dating from 30 B. C., and the Natural History of Pliny the Elder are the first works which can in any sense be called encyclopædias. ”

“ Encyclopédie, a French encyclopædia consisting of 28 vols., to which a supplement of 5 vols. was added; edited by D'Alembert and Diderot; contributed to by a number of the eminent savants of France, and issued in 1751-1777, and which contributed to feed, but did nothing to allay, or even moderate, the fire of the Revolution.
Encyclopedist, generally a man of encyclopedic knowledge, or who conducts or contributes to an encyclopædia; specially one who has, as the French encyclopedists, an overweening, false, and illusory estimate of the moral worth and civilising power of such knowledge. ”

“ Philip Thicknesse (A Treatise on the Art of Decyphering and of Writing in Cypher) , 1772; William Blair (the writer of the comprehensive article “Cipher” in Rees’s Cyclopaedia) , 1819; and G. von Marten (Cours diplomatique) , 1801 (a fourth edition of which appeared in 1851) . Perhaps the best modern work on this subject is the Kryptographik of J. L. Klüber (Tübingen, 1809) , who was drawn into the investigation by inclination and official circumstances. In this work the different methods of cryptography are classified. ”

“ It is in the nature of a memorial of their literary work, but it will be found to contain no specimen extracts from their writings.
Everybody has heard of the Encyclopædists of France. Who are they? They are a group of men who, during the eighteenth century, associated themselves together for the production of a great work to be the repository of all human knowledge,—in one word, of an encyclopædia. ”

“ From 1746 they had been correspondents; but the “Encyclopædia” was a link which had bound them closer far. Founded on the “English Encyclopædia” of Chambers, which had been translated into French about 1743, the “immense and immortal work” of Diderot and d’Alembert wholly eclipsed its prototype. It was, is, and will be, not an “Encyclopædia” but the “Encyclopædia.” It includes, indeed, neither history nor biography: the vast discoveries of modern times make men smile to-day [325] at its science; and its hardy philosophy seems timid to our bolder age. ”

“ PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
PREFACE
The Trustees of the British Museum, seeing the need of a full alphabetical index to the great Chinese Encyclopaedia acquired by them in 1877, resolved that this work should be prepared, and entrusted the task to Mr. L. Giles, Assistant in this Department. The methods that have been followed by Mr. Giles in the compilation of this index, together with a history of the Encyclopaedia itself, are fully set forth in his Introduction.
L. D. BARNETT,
Keeper of the Department of Oriental
Printed Books and MSS.
British Museum. ”

“ Families who have read through all or nearly all the books they possess will gladly bestow them for so useful a purpose, especially when assured of [362] reaping reciprocal benefit by the opportunity of freely perusing a great variety of choice books, new and old, which they have never read. Sometimes, too, a public-spirited citizen, when advised of the lack of a good cyclopaedia, or of the latest extensive dictionary, or collective biography, in the library, will be happy to supply it, thereby winning the gratitude and good will of all who frequent the library. ”

“ We say this in no spirit of egotism; it is simply our good fortune that we happen to possess extraordinary advantages. We have the best assortment of cyclopaedias in seven states, and the Public Library is only two blocks off. It is no wonder, therefore, that our erudition and our research are of the highest order. ”

“ Thank God for having brought into the world in your kingdom the men who have done such good work for the whole universe. Other nations must either buy the Encyclopædia, or else they must pirate it. Take all my property if you will, but give me back my Encyclopædia. ”

“ It is surprisingly varied in its contents, is most compact and handy in form, is beautifully clear in typography and illustrations, and is low in price. It is not enough to say that we know of nothing to surpass this miniature Encyclopædia—we know of nothing that approaches it."— Glasgow Herald.
⁠"'The Pocket Encyclopædia' merits the highest commendation. It is a thoroughly useful and trustworthy work, and we shall be much surprised if it does not obtain an enormous sale. It is the handiest book of reference ever offered to the public."—
Court Circular. ”