human knowledge into a system, and to set it forth in a series of folio
volumes, had been made before. The endeavor is one which can never meet
with complete success, yet which should sometimes be made in a
philosophic spirit. The universe is too vast and too varied to be
successfully classified and described by one man, or under the
supervision of one editor. But the attempt may bring to light some
relation of things hitherto unnoticed, and the task is one of practical
utility.

The great French "Encyclopaedia" may claim two immediate progenitors.
The first is found in the works of Lord Bacon, where there is a
"Description of a Natural and Experimental History, such as may serve
for the foundation of a true philosophy," with a "Catalogue of
particular histories by titles." The second is Chambers's Cyclopaedia,
first published in 1727, a translation of which Diderot was engaged to
edit by the publisher Le Breton. Diderot, who freely acknowledges his
obligation to Bacon, makes light of that to Chambers, saying in his
prospectus that the latter owed much to French sources, that his work is
not the basis of the one proposed, that many of the articles have been
rewritten, and almost all the others corrected and altered. There is no
doubt that the whole plan of the "Encyclopaedia" was much enlarged by
Denis Diderot himself.[Footnote: Bacon, iv. 251, 265. Morley,
_Diderot_, i., 116. Diderot, _Oeuvres_, xiii. 6, 8. "If we
come out successfully we shall be principally indebted to Chancellor
Bacon, who laid out the plan of a universal dictionary of sciences and
arts _at a time when there were, so to speak, neither sciences nor
arts_."]

This eminent man was born at Langres in 1713, the son of a worthy
cutler. He was educated by the Jesuits, and on his refusal to enter