ENCYCLOPAEDIA. The Greeks seem to have under stood by encyclopaedia (EyeueXohatueLa, or EyKVKXtos irat5eia) instruction in the whole circle (iv KvKAc.i) or complete system of learning--education in arts and sciences. Thus Pliny, in the pref ace to his Natural History, says that his book treated of all the subjects of the encyclopaedia of the Greeks, "Iam omnia attin genda quae Graeci -ri s E7Kvao7rau5ELas vocant." The word en cyclopaedia was probably first used in English by Sir Thomas Elyot. 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 term does not seem to have been used as the title of a book by the ancients or in the middle ages. The edition of the works of Joachimus Fortius Ringelbergius, printed at Basle in 1S41, is called on the title-page Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissirna KveXoirau eta. Paulus Scalichius de Lika, a Hun garian count, wrote Encyclopaediae seu orbis disciplinarum episte mon (1599). Alsted published in 1608 his Encyclopaedia cursus philosophici, and afterwards expanded this into his great work, noticed below, calling it without any limitation Encyclopaedia, because it treats of everything that can be learned by man in this life. This is now the most usual sense in which the word encyclo paedia >> used—a book treating of all the various kinds of knowledge. The form "cyclopaedia" is not merely without any appearance of classical authority, but is etymologically less definite, complete and correct. For as Cyropaedia means "the instruction of Cyrus," so cyclopaedia may mean "instruction of a circle." Vossius says, "Cyclopaedia is sometimes found, but the best writers say encyclopaedia." In a more restricted sense, encyclopaedia means a system or classification of the various branches of knowledge, a subject on which many books have been published, especially in Germany, as Schmid's Allgemeine Encyklopiidie and Methodologie der W issensc/iaf ten ( Jena, 181o) . In this sense the Novum Organusn of Bacon has often been called an encyclopaedia. Fortunius Licetus, an Italian physician, entitled several of his dissertations on Roman altars and other antiquities encyclopaedias (as, for instance, Encyclopedia ad Aram mysticam Nonarii 1631), because in composing them he borrowed the aid of all the sciences. Ency clopaedia is often used to mean a book which is, or professes to be, a complete or very full collection of treatises relating to some par ticular subject, as Blaine's work, The Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports; The Encyclopaedia of Wit; The Vocal Encyclopaedia, a collection of songs, catches, etc. The word is frequently used for an alphabetical dictionary treating fully of some science or subject, as Murray, Encyclopaedia of Geography; Lefebvre Laboulaye, Encyclopedie technologique; E. R. Seligman, editor, En cyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (193o), etc. Whether under the name of "dictionary" or "encyclopaedia" large numbers of this class of reference-work have been published. These are essentially encyclopaedic, being subject books and not word-books. The important books of this character are referred to in the articles dealing with the respective subjects.