ENCYCLOPE'DIA means properly a book or work professing to give information, more or less full, on the whole circle of human knowledge. The name is compounded of two Greek words, enkyldios, circular or general; and paideia, discipline or instruction. These words were used by the Greeks and Romans to signify the circle of instruction through which every free-born youth had to pass before entering on public life. That circle embraced more particularly grammar, music, geometry, astronomy, and gymnas tics, and afterwards became the " seven liberal arts" of the middle ages. The compound name E. appears to have been unknown to the Greeks, and also to the Latin writers of the classic period; and there is no evidence that either Greeks or Romans ever applied the words, single or compounded, to designate a book. The short form Cyclopcedia has still less classical authority than encyclopedia.
Encyclopmdias, in the modern sense of the word, are most commonly alphabetical; but sometimes the arrangement is "rational," i.e., according to the natural relations of the subjects. An alphabetical E. is a dictionary of universal knowledge. Besides this, its proper meaning, of a repertory of universal knowledge, the name E. is often applied —less properly perhaps—to alphabetical works whose scope is limited to a particular branch—works differing in no respect from others which are styled dictionaries, gazet teers, etc. See DICTIONARY. As all works of this kind, which now form a large and increasing section of literature in every language, have. in so far a common character with encyclopedias proper, we may give some account of the whole class under the present head.
For the sake of convenience, they may be arranged in three divisions: 1. The earlier works of this kind, having, for the most part, merely an encyclopmdic character, i.e., embracing a large fahlee of subjects, without diStinetly. alming'zit universality; 2. Ency clopmdias proper, which treat of the whole circle of human knowledge; 3. Books pro fessedly confined to a definite department of knowledge, whether under the name of E., dictionary, gazetteer, or other title. As books of this class profess to touch on every important point that comes within their scope, they may be considered as encyclopaedic in a limited sense. In the following sketch, the distinction between the first and second of those classes, which is of a somewhat indeterminate kind, is not strictly adhered to when it would interfere with the chronological sequence.
1. The earliest work of an encyclopaedic character is generally ascribed to Speusippus, a disciple of Plato. The great collections of Varro (Rerum Humanarurn et Divinarum Antiquitates and Discipliaarum lThri ix.), of the elder Pliny Wistoria Naturalisl of Stobmus, of Suidas, of Isidorus (the Original and of Capella, belong to the same class, but they exhibit uo plan, and are only confused accumulations of the then known arts and sciences. Vincent of Beauvais (1264) surpassed them all. He gathered together with wonderful diligence the entire knowledge of the middle ages in three comprehen sive works, Speculum Historiale, Speculum itiaturale, and Speculum Doctrinale, to which soon after an unknown hand added a Speculum Morale. But these, as well as the other similar compilations which appeared in the later mediaeval period under the title of Summa, or Speculum (mirror), are marked throughout by a lack of philosophic spirit. Perhaps the nearest approach to the modern E. by an ancient writer, dates two centuries earlier than the time of Beauvais. In the 10th c., flourished Alfarabius, the ornament of the school of Bagdad, who wrote an encyclopaedic collection of knowledge, remarkable for its grasp and completeness, and which still lies in MS. in the Escorial of Spain. Among the earliest and most noted of the modern encyclopaedias was that of Johann Heinrich Alsted, or Alstedius, which appeared in Germany in two volumes in 1630. It consisted of 35 books in all, of which the first four contained an explanation of the nature of the rest. Then followed six on philology, ten on speculative and four on practical philoso phy; three on theology, jurisprudence, and medicine; three on the mechanical arts; and five on history, chronology, and miscellaneous topics. Two important French works belong to this century—the one is Louis Moreri's Grand Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, of which the first edition appeared at Paris in 1673, and the last in 1759; the other, Peter Bayle's famous Dietionnaire Historique et Critique, published at Rotterdam, in 4 vols., 1697. The first encyclopaedic dictionary, so far as known, appeared in Ger
many as the Lexicon Universale of Hoffmann (2 vols., Basel) in 1677. Some time after there appeared in France, Thomas Corneille's Dietionnaire des Arts et des Sciences, 2 vols. (Paris, 1694). Dictionaries limited to the explanation of technical terms had long been common throughout Europe; but previous to Hoffmann's work, no attempt had been made to bring the whole body of science and art under the lexicographic form. A highly successful attempt identical in kind, and attributable in idea, it may be, to the German work just alluded to, was the Lexicon Technicum of Dr. Harris. 2 vols. folio (Loudon, 1710), which may fairly be regarded as the parent of all the dictionaries of arts and sciences that have since appeared in England. The Cyelopadia of Ephraim Chambers, pub lished in 1728, in two very large folio volumes, presents the next marked advance in the construction of encyclopmdical dictionaries. This one was brought out with consid erable claims to originality of arrangement. The author endeavored to communicate to his alphabetical materials something of the interest of a " continuous discourse," by an elaborate system of cross references. Another peculiarity of this cycloptedia was that its author, in the details of mathematical and physical science, gave only conclusions and not processes of demonstration. It was long a very popular work. The largest and most comprehensive of the successors to Iloffmann's book in Germany, was Zedler's Universal Lexicon, 64 vols. (Leip. 1732-50). In point of comprehensiveness, this work should be classed with the encyclopaedias proper, there being almost nothing then known that may not be found in it. Perhaps the strongest impulse, if not in all respects the best, communicated by this successful attempt of Ephraim Chambers, was given to the French mind through D'Alembert and Diderot. Their Encyclopedic was really, though not professedly, founded upon E. Chambers's book, which an Englishman named Mills had translated between 1743 and 1745, though the French version of it never was pub lished. The great French Encyclopedia was written by various authors of high literary and philosophical attainments, but of whom nearly all were tainted too much with the most impracticable revolutionary ideas, besides holding for the most part extremely skeptical opinions. The Encyclopedists excluded both biography and history from its scope, yet infused into it more originality, depth, and ability, than ever had appeared before within the boards of an eneycloptedical dictionary. It appeared at Paris in 28 vols. between the years 1751-72, and was followed by a supplement in 5 vols. (Amst. 1776-77), and an analytical index in 2 vols. (Paris, 1780). The work was everywhere received with the greatest enthusiasm, and it secured a place in the literary history of the nation for the editors and principal writers, who are ordinarily known as the Eney elopedists of France. They were D'Alembert and Diderot the editors, Rousseau, Grimm, Dumarsais, Voltaire, baron d'Holbach, and Jancourt. [See La Porte's Esprit de l'Ency clopedie (Paris, 1768); and Voltaire's Questions sur l'Encyclopedie (Paris, 1770).] D'Alem bert's celebrated preliminary discourse was garbled in various pretentious works of this class published for the most part in England; such were 'Barrow's and Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 1 vol. folio, 1751; and the Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, by Croker, "Williams, 'and Clerk, 3 vols. folio, 1766. A somewhat better, though rather illogical performance was published by a " Society of Gentlemen" in 1754 in four 8vo vols., generally known as Owen's Dictionary, from the name of the publisher of it. The first rude outline of the ponderous and solid Encyclopedia Britannica was laid down in the year 1771, in three volumes, but it was nothing more than a dictionary of arts and sciences; it had not yet attained to its subsequent universality. Such is a brief outline of the earlier kind of encyclopaedias.