The History Book

192

ASSEMBLE ALL

THE KNOWLEDGE

SCATTERED ON

THE EARTH

DIDEROT PUBLISHES THE

ENCYCLOPÉDIE (1751)

I

n the mid 18th century, the

French philosopher Denis

Diderot invited some of his

country’s leading intellectuals—

literary men, scientists, scholars,

and philosophers to write articles

for a huge “Classified Dictionary

of Sciences, Arts, and Trades,” for

which he was both editor-in-chief

and contributor. The first volumes

of his Encyclopédie appeared

in 1751, and the full work was

completed 21 years later, made up

of 17 volumes of text and another

11 volumes of illustrations.

The Encyclopédie was not

the first large encyclopaedia to be

published, but it was the first to

feature content by named authors,

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

The Enlightenment

BEFORE

1517 The Reformation begins,

challenging the authority of

the Catholic Church.

1610 Galileo Galilei publishes

Sidereus Nuncius (Starry

Messenger), containing his

observations of the heavens.

1687 In Principia, Newton

outlines a concept of the

universe based on natural,

rationally understandable laws.

AFTER

1767 American thinker and

diplomat Benjamin Franklin

visits Paris, and transmits

Enlightenment ideas to the US.

1791 English writer Mary

Wollstonecraft adds feminism

to Enlightenment ideas in the

pioneering A Vindication of

the Rights of Women.

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193

See also: Newton publishes Principia 188 ■ The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■

The storming of the Bastille 208–13 ■ Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25 ■ The Slave Trade Abolition Act 226–27

and to give close attention to

the trades and crafts. Its most

striking feature, however, was its

critical approach to contemporary

ideas and institutions: its authors

were champions of scientific

thought and secular values. They

sought to apply reason and logic

to explain the phenomena of the

natural world, and humankind’s

existence, rather than religious

or political dogma. As such, the

work challenged both the Catholic

Church and the French monarchy,

which derived their authority from

traditional ideas such as a divinely

ordained, unchanging order.

A revolution in thought

The mission of the Encyclopédie

was to catalog the collective

knowledge of the Western world

in the spirit of the Enlightenment.

This was a multifaceted intellectual

movement that took root around

1715, although its origins lay in work

done by the pioneers of modern

scientific and philosophical thought

in the previous century. The work’s

multidisciplinary articles, which

numbered around 72,000, distilled

the ideas and theories of France’s

key Enlightenment thinkers—

including the writers and

philosophers Voltaire, Jean-Jacques

Rousseau, and Montesquieu.

The articles were extremely

wide-ranging, but centered on

three main areas: the need to base

society not on faith and the

doctrines of the Catholic Church

but on rational thought; the

importance of observations and

experiments in science; and the

search for a way of organizing

states and governments around

natural law and justice.

Diderot organized the

Encyclopédie’s articles into three

main categories: memory (subjects

connected to history); reason

(philosophy); and imagination

(poetry). Controversially, there was

no special category for God or the

divine—religion, like magic and

superstition, was treated as part

of philosophy. This approach was

groundbreaking, and contentious.

Religion had been at the very heart

of life and thought in Europe for

THE EARLY MODERN ERA

centuries: the Encyclopédie, and

the Enlightenment itself, denied

it this key position.

In spite of repeated efforts by

the authorities to censor some

of its articles, and to intimidate

and threaten its editors, the

Encyclopédie became the most

influential and widely consulted

work of the period. The ideas that it

transmitted inspired the revolutions

that exploded in France and the

US at the end of the 18th century.

Science and reason

The Enlightenment movement

was characterized by a focus on

the power of human reason and

skepticism of accepted knowledge.

This marked a break from earlier

generations in which beliefs about

the world derived from religious

teachings and the doctrines of the

Church. These governed everything

from the laws of marriage to the

way people understood the

movement of the planets and the

creation of the universe. For

Enlightenment thinkers, however,

the evidence of a person’s senses

and the use of one’s reason was far

more important than their blind ❯❯

Dare to know! Have courage

to use your own reason!

Immanuel Kant

“What is Enlightenment?” (1784)

The Enlightenment movement begins, spearheaded

by the publication of the Encyclopédie.

Scientists begin

to make

systematic

investigations

into natural

phenomena.

Growing belief

that knowledge,

freedom, and

happiness are

achieved through

the use

of reason.

Questioning

of traditional

social, religious,

and political

ideas.

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