Encyclopedia or reasoned Dictionary of sciences, arts and the trades

The Encyclopedia or reasoned Dictionary of sciences, arts and the trades is a French Encyclopédie, published 1751 with 1772 under the direction of Diderot and D' Alembert.

It is about a major work of the 18th century. Initially because it is the first French encyclopedia. Then, by the synthesis of knowledge of time that it contains, it represents a editorial and leading work considerable for the time. Lastly, beyond the knowledge which it compiles, the work which it represents and the finalities whose load its authors become a symbol of the work of the Lights, a political weapon and, for this reason, the object of many power struggles between the editors, the writers, secular and ecclesiastical capacity.

The leading adventure

1745 : The publisher-bookseller Breton the entrusts to Denis Diderot the translation of the Cyclopædia , a Dictionary of arts and sciences of the English editor Ephraïm Chambers undertaken by Gua de Malves. The France did not have at the time any similar work, the trades and the mechanical arts being held for minors at that time. This modest project takes soon under the impulse of Diderot and D' Alembert very an other width with a desire of popularization and synthesis of knowledge of the time.
October 16th 1747: Diderot and D' Alembert are officially placed at the head of a project of drafting of encyclopedia.
November 1750: the Prospectus , written by Diderot is diffused with 8000 specimens.
1751 : publication of the first volume of the Encyclopedia, containing the preliminary Speech of Alembert.
February 1752, the Council of prohibited State to sell, buy or hold the Encyclopedia. However, Malesherbes, director of the bookstore and, therefore, in charge of the censure, is a defender of the philosophers and it authorizes the resumption of the publication.
January 1752: publication of volume 2. The Jésuites obtain the prohibition of volumes 1 and 2. The interventions of Pompadour and Malesherbes make it possible however to take again the publication. However, D' Alembert, careful, wishes more to be devoted but to the mathematical parts.
November 1753: publication of volume 3.
November 1755: publication of volume 5.
1757: publication of volume 7. After the attack of Robert François Damiens against Louis XV, the devout party seizes the occasion to announce the laxism of the censure and shows that the goal of the Encyclopédie is to shake the government and the religion.
March 8th 1759: suppression of the privilege of the Encyclopedia following the movements caused by the publication of Of the spirit of Helvétius. Judgment of the pope Clement XIII.
September 1759: Malesherbes makes it possible to circumvent the suppression of the privilege by obtaining the permission to publish volumes of boards. The drafting and the publication of the text will continue clandestinely.
1762 : the political wind changes: a stop of the Parliament expels the Jésuites.
1764 : Diderot discovers the censure exerted by Breton itself on the texts of the Encyclopedia.
1765 : Diderot completes the work of drafting and supervision. Distribution of last ten volumes. However, the Breton one will make a one week stay to the prison of the Bastille clandestinely to have sent some specimens to Versailles.
1770 - 1778: Long legal conflict between Diderot, Pierre-Joseph Luneau de Boisjermain and editors of the Encyclopedia in connection with nonthe respect of leading engagements of the Leaflet.
1772 : the last two volumes of the boards appear without difficulty.

To conclude their project, Diderot with Alembert, which will be co-director until in 1759, is surrounded by a “company of men of letters”, visits the workshops, deals of the edition and part of marketing. Envisaged initially to hold in ten volumes, their Encyclopedia will occupy finally thirty five including thirteen of boards, and will claim twenty-four years of keen work of them.

However, this Encyclopédie is also a work of combat which wants “all to stir up without exception and care”. To achieve this goal, Diderot will have to fight against the censure. The Jesuits reproach the thesis of the Prades abbot for containing proposals heretics and they succeed in drawing up a Autodafé. Madam de Pompadour, favorite of Louis XV, is also allied of Diderot.

Continuations of the adventure, after Diderot

The original edition was quickly followed pirate republications, adaptations and editions. Thus, if the first edition were drawn with 4.225 specimens, one counts nearly 24.000 specimens, all confused editions, sold at the time of the French revolution.

In 1776 - 1777, Charles-Joseph Panckoucke and Jean-Baptist-Rene Robinet make appear a Supplément with the Encyclopedia in four volumes and a volume of boards. A Alphabetical table appears in two volumes in 1780. Of 1782 with 1832, a supplemented edition appears in 1666 volumes.

The economic adventure

The Leaflet of 1750 brings a thousand of subscriptions. The conditions of acquisition, stated in the last page, are the following ones. For 10 folio vol. including 2 of boards: 60 books in installment, 36 pounds with the reception of the first volume planned for June 1751, 24 books with the delivery of each one of six months the spread out following in six months, 40 books with the reception of the eighth volume and the two volumes of boards. In all, 372 pounds.

This work, enormous for the time, had occupied thousand workmen during twenty-four years; there was: 2250 subscribers and a pulling to: 4250 specimens (ridiculous number today but, at the 18th century, a “normal” pulling did not exceed them: 1500 specimens). Considering the raised purchase price, one can deduct from it that the reader came from the middle-class, the administration, the army or the Church. As the reading rooms multiplied, it is possible that a larger audience consulted the work there.

The temporary prohibition of volumes 1 and 2 poked curiosities on the work. One counts then more: 4000 subscriptions. Following the movements caused by Of the spirit, to the prohibition of the privilege and papal prohibition, the Breton one is incidentally condemned to refund the subscribers: none will be presented in this direction.

The encyclopedic spirit

Philosophical spirit

In this Age of Enlightenment, the evolution of the thought is related to the evolution of manners. The accounts of voyages - that of Bougainville, for example - encourage with the comparison between various civilizations: the Moral and the practices appear relating to a place and a time. The middle-class men come from now on to knock on the doors of the nobility, they become the noblesse de robe in opposition to the old nobility. But the logic of the determinism (hereditary) and the free will are opposed. Many middle-class men feel frustrated that the situation is blocked (in particular compared to the the United Kingdom).

New values are essential: the nature which determines to become it of the man, terrestrial happiness who becomes a goal, the progress by which each time endeavors to better carry out collective happiness. The new philosophical spirit which is constituted is based on the love of the Science, the tolerance and material happiness. He is opposed to all the constraints Absolute monarchy or Religion. Essence is then to be useful for the community by diffusing a concrete thought where the application practices overrides the theory, and topicality on the eternal.

The atheism, which begins officially in the company, is denounced and even punished of death.

Scientific spirit

This evolution takes as a starting point the scientific spirit. The experimental methods, applied to philosophical questions, lead to the empiricism according to which all our knowledge derives, directly or indirectly, of the experiment by the directions, without activity of the spirit.

Moreover, the scientific spirit appears by its encyclopedic character. The 18th century does not specialize, it touches with all the fields: science, philosophy, Art S, Political, religion, etc Ainsi is explained the production of dictionaries and literary sums which characterizes this century and whose Encyclopédie is the most representative work. One can quote: the Spirit of the laws of Montesquieu (31 pounds), the Natural history of Buffon (36 volumes), the Test on the origins of human knowledge of Condillac, the philosophical Dictionary of Voltaire (614 articles). End of the 17th century, Fontenelle, in Talks on the plurality of the worlds (1686), and Pierre Bayle, in the historical and critical Dictionary (1697), popularized already this thought based on the fact, the experiment and curiosity for the Innovation S.

Critical spirit

As for the Critical spirit, he is exerted mainly against the institutions. With the absolute monarchy, one prefers the English model (constitutional monarchy). The historical criticism of the crowned texts tackles the certainty of the faith, the capacity of the clergy and the revealed religions. The philosophers direct themselves towards the deism which admits the existence of a god without church. They also criticize the persecution of the Huguenots by French monarchy (see the article Réfugiés ).

During positive of this criticism is the spirit of reform. The Encyclopédistes take party for the development of the instruction, the utility of the humanities, the fight against the Inquisition and the Esclavage, the valorization of “mechanical” arts, the equality and the natural right, the economic development which seems source of richness and comfort.

To defend their ideas, the authors oscillated between the tone polemizes (see the article Prêtres of D' Holbach) and of the techniques of Autocensure which consisted in being based on precise historical examples. The scientific examination of the sources allowed them a handing-over in question of the ideas bequeathed in the past. The abundance of the historical annotations discouraged a censure in the search of subversive ideas. Certain encyclopedists preferred to make pass from the sights iconoclasts by articles apparently pain-killers. Thus, the article devoted to with the cap is the occasion to ridicule the monks.

Even if the quantity sometimes harmed quality, it is necessary to underline the singularity of this collective adventure which was the Encyclopédie : for the first time, one described there with equality with the “noble” knowledge all know-how: bakery, cutlery, boiler making, leather working. This importance attached to the human experiment is one of the keys of the thought of the century: the reason turns to the human being which is from now on the end.

Middle-class spirit

Even if it is undeniable that the Lights brought large things to our civilization, nothing were not free. Voltaire was one of greatest fortunes of the kingdom, and, inspired by the English model, one of the first French capitalists. The values preached by these philosophers are often those of the middle-class men. The article “Taken refuge” is a perfect example. It develops work, the richness, and industry - what is opposed to the traditional values of the nobility, namely, not work but the important facts of weapons, the refusal to touch with the trade and the ground as well as agriculture.

It is of more essential to announce, for comprehension of texts, that the majority of the philosophers came from the middle-class and that they were addressed at the origin, no matter what says of them the Zzuéné article and Men of letters, with men of the same social state as them.

Voltaire - not to quote that him - was very often very scornful for the “small people” (and a poem wrote besides on the luxury essential to the happiness which depicts the misery of the people in terms very little eulogistic for this last) and at his place like at good of others, the defense of the minorities often takes the form of a defense of the middle-class minority vis-a-vis the absolute power of the nobility.

Structuring

To escape the limitations from the alphabetical classification, the Encyclopedia of Diderot innovates by using four type of references:

of traditional the references known as of words , for a definition which is in another article;
of the references known as of things , to confirm or refute an idea contained in an article by another article;
of the references known as satirical or epigrammatic ;
of the references known as of genius , which can lead to the invention of new arts, or with new truths .

Quotations

Some articles of the Encyclopedia written by Diderot are in WikiSource.

Extracts of the Encyclopedia

the reason is the regard of the philosopher what the grace is regard of the Christian… The other men walk in darkness; with the place that the philosopher, in his same passions, acts only after the reflection; he goes during the night, but he is preceded by a torch. The philosopher forms his principles on an infinity of particular observations. He does not confuse the truth with the probable one; he takes for truth what is true, for forgery what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is probable. The philosophical spirit is thus a spirit of observation and accuracy. (article Philosopher , Dumarsais)

To bend knee in front of man or in front of image is only one ceremony external, whose true God who asks the heart and for the spirit hardly troubles and that it gives up at the institution of the men to make some, as it will be appropriate to them, of the marks of a civil and political worship, or of a worship of religion. Thus they are not these ceremonies in themselves, but the spirit of their establishment which makes from there the practice innocent or criminal. (article Political authority , Diderot)

the means of growing rich divided between a greater number of citizens, will have naturally divided the richnesses; extreme poverty and the extreme richness will be also rare. (article Luxury , Diderot)

Since the human nature is the same one in all the men, it is clear that according to the natural right each one must estimate and treat the others as as many beings who are naturally equal for him, i.e. which is men as well as him. (article natural Equality , Jaucourt)

It is soft to dominate over its similar; the priests could make profitable the high opinion that they had given birth to in the spirit from their fellow-citizens; they claimed that the gods appeared with them; they announced their decrees; they taught dogmas; they prescribed what it was necessary to believe and what it was necessary to reject; they fixed what liked or displeased with the divinity; they returned oracles; they predicted the future with the man anxious and curious, they made it tremble by the fear of the punishments of which the irritated gods threatened the bold ones who would dare to doubt their mission or to discuss their doctrines. (article Priests , of Holbach)

the name of citizen is appropriate neither for those which live subjugated, nor with those which live isolated; from where it follows that those which live absolutely in the state of nature, like the sovereigns, and those which gave up perfectly in this state, like the slaves, cannot be looked like citizens; the citizens all are also noble; the nobility drawing not from the ancestors, but from the right common to the first dignities of the magistrature. More the citizens will approach the equality of claims and of fortune, more the State will be quiet: this advantage appears to be pure democracy, exclusively with any other government; but in the most perfect democracy even, the whole equality between the members is a chimerical thing. The best government is not that which is immortal, but that which lasts longest and most quietly. (article Citizen , of Diderot)

Relating to the Encyclopedia

What characterizes the philosopher and distinguishes it from vulgar, it is that he does not admit anything without proof, that he does not agree to misleading concepts and that he poses the limits of some exactly, of probable and the doubtful one. This work will surely produce with time a revolution in the spirits, and I hope that the tyrants, the oppressors, the fanatics and the intolerant ones will not gain there. We will have served humanity. (Letter of Diderot with Sophie Volland, on September 26th, 1762).

Principal contributors

The Encyclopedia in figures

: 4250 printed specimens
First part:

17 volumes of text
11 volumes of illustrations
: 71818 articles
15 years of work for Denis Diderot.
Publication spread out over 21 years.

Second part:

4 volumes of articles
1 volume of illustrations

Two volumes of general tables (1776-1780)
: 18000 pages of text
: 75000 entries

: 44000 principal articles
: 28000 secondary articles
: 2500 illustrations

: 20000000 words

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