SUPPLEMENT TO THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. * SUPPLEMENT TO THE FOURTH, FIFTH, AND SIXTH EDITIONS OF THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. WITH PRELIMINARY DISSERTATIONS ON THE HISTORY OF THE SCIENCES. gilugtratefc be ©narafoiuass* VOLUME FIRST. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH ; AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND COMPANY, LONDON. 1824. PREFACE. As the Encyclopaedia Britannica differed considerably from every work of the kind by which it was preceded, it may be useful, briefly to notice the more import- ant of those works, before giving any account of that Encyclopaedia and the im- provements it has successively received, or of this Supplement to its later editions. Though the term Encyclopaedia is of Grecian origin, the works to which it has been applied belong all to the modern world. Pliny’s Natural History has been sometimes called the Encyclopaedia of the Ancients; and he tells us himself, in his preface, that it embraces all that the Greeks included under that term ; but it is only in the compass and variety of its contents that it can be said to resemble the modern Encyclopaedias. Its method is that of a work chiefly descriptive ; it being no part of the author’s plan to examine and classify the objects of inquiry according to their scientific relations ; or to point out the place they ought to hold in the Circle of Knowledge. The object which the compilers of the first Encyclopaedias proposed to themselves, was, to reduce every thing comprehended within that Circle to a systematic form ; and their works accordingly consisted of a series of Systems, intended to exhibit an orderly Digest of all, or of some of the most important branches of Knowledge and Art. Such seems to have been the object of various works, published under the title of Encyclopaedias, during the latter half PREFACE. 11 of the sixteenth, and first half of the seventeenth century ; and if we are to look for any earlier exemplars, it must be among the unpublished remains of the Arabian writers of the middle ages. One of the most celebrated of them, Alfarabius, the great ornament of the School of Bagdad in the tenth centuiy, is mentioned as the author of an Encyclopaedia, seemingly of this description. The only notice of it that has yet appeared, is that given by Casiri, in his curious and valuable account of the works of the Arabian authors, preserved m manuscript in the library of the Escurial at Madrid. He describes it as a treatise, “ubi Scientiarum Artiumque liberalium Synopsis occurrit, una cum accurata et perspicua earum noti- tia, definitione, divisione, methodomentioning, at the same time, that it is in- scribed with the title of Encyclopaedia.1 The most noted and valuable of the early Encyclopaedias2 * 4 was that of John Hen- ry Alstedius, a Professor of Philosophy and Calvinistic Divinity, first at Her- born in the county of Nassau, afterwards at Weissembourg in Transylvania j and who is said to have been the author of about sixty other works, though he died at the age of fifty, in 1638.5 His Encyclopaedia, by which alone his name is remember- ed, appeared in 1630, in two large folio volumes. A smaller and less com- prehensive work of the same kind, published by him ten years before, serv- ed as the groundwork of this more extensive undertaking j in which he pro- fessedly aimed at the formation of a complete Encyclopaedia. It consists of thirty-five books, of which the first four are introductory; containing an explana- tion of the nature and requisites of the various studies which form the subjects of the rest. Then follow successively, six books on Philology; ten on speculative, and four on practical Philosophy; three on Theology, Jurisprudence, and Medicine; three on the mechanical Arts; and five on History, Chronology, and Miscellane- ous subjects. This work continued to be held in considerable estimation, till the close of that century. Leibnitz mentions it, in the early part of the next, 1 Casiri, Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis, T. I. p. 189. 2 For a list of them, see the Bibliotheca Realis Philosophica of Lipemus, T. I. 436-7- 5 Niceron, Menwires des Hommes illustres, T. XLI. p. 300. 4 His own definition of such a work is as follows:—“ Encyclopaedia est systema omnium syste- matum, quibus res, homine dignae, methodo certa explicantur.” Encyclop. T. I. p. 49- 10 PREFACE. Ill in respectful terms; accompanied, however, with an earnest wish, that some of the learned would either join in remodelling and improving it, or in forming another work of the same kind.1 2 His observations show, that he had reflected much on the nature of such an undertaking ; and that he considered an Encyclopaedia as a species of publication calculated to be eminently useful to mankind. After what has been said of the early Encyclopaedias, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that though the term Encyclopaedia is now familiarized to us as the ap- pellative for Dictionaries of Science and general Knowledge, the works to which it was first applied were by no means constructed in the form of Dictionaries. It was long before the idea occurred, that the whole Circle of Knowledge might be com- prehended, and discussed, in a work digested in that convenient method ; or that any thing could be done towards fulfilling the objects aimed at in these Encyclopaedias, if it were adopted. Nearly a century elapsed from the publication of Alstedius’s En- cyclopedia, before any considerable attempt was made to present the world with an Encyclopedical Dictionary. Dictionaries of technical terms, and Dictionaries explaining the rudiments of particular sciences, had been long in use throughout Europe j but the first work of the kind professing to embrace a detailed view of the whole body of the Sciences and Arts was the Lexicon Technicum of Dr Harris. This work was published at London in 1710,* and is generally regarded as the first great advance to the form and objects of the more modern Encyclopedias. But, though professing to be “ an Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, explaining not only the terms of art, but the arts themselves,” its explanations were mostly confined to the ma- thematical and physical sciences ; with respect to which, it has always been allowed, that it was fully on a level with the knowledge of that age. 1 <c Operae preliutn esset, Encydopcediam Alstedii perfici et emendari. Defuit viro optimo non labor, non judicium, sed materia, sed nostri temporis felicitas.”—“ Itaque vellem at aliquot Erudi- torum et bene animatorum studio componeretur opus Encydopcedice, qualem olim tentavit Alste- dius ; sed quae nunc tota refundenda est, ob innumera maximi momenti, quae ab eo tempore acces- sere.” Leibnitii Opera, T. V. p. 183—405. 2 The first of the two folio volumes of which it consists, was published in 1706. Before ITtd, when a Supplement to it was published, it had passed through five editions. PREFACE. IV In 1728, the Cyclopedia of Mr Chambers was given to the Public; and its appearance constitutes an era in the history of Encyclopedias; as exemplifying the first attempt that had yet been made at once to arrange Knowledge by the Alpha- bet, and to exhibit a view of its relations and dependencies. Mr Chambers sets out with stating, that his predecessors did not seem to have been aware, that “ a Dictionary is, in some measure, capable of the advantages of a continued discourseand therefore, he adds, “ we see nothing like a whole in what they have done.” In order to remedy this defect, and to unite the objects of an Encyclopedia with those of a Dictionary, he proposed to “ consider the several matters, not only in themselves, but relatively, or as they respect each other; both to treat them as so many wholes, and as so many parts of some greater whole.” But he still followed the method of splitting the Sciences into parts, corresponding to the terms and topics in each which required elucidation; so that it was not by connected views of these great branches of knowledge, introduced under their general denominations, that he proposed to exhibit those “ wholes” by which he was desirous that his Dictionary should be distinguished. He endeavoured to accomplish this, by references from the more general to the less general heads of science, and from these again to the former; conformably to an elaborate Scheme of the divisions and sub- divisions of Knowledge prefixed to the work. That something was done, by this plan, to point out the links among connected subjects, disjoined by the Alphabet, and to make its fortuitous distributions subservient to continued inquiry, can- not be questioned ; but the inconveniences and defects occasioned by the dis- memberment of the Sciences, could not possibly be remedied by any chain of references however complete. The Sciences can only be studied with effect, by being viewed in their appropriate state of unity and coherency; and the term Encyclopedia cannot be applied, with propriety, to any work in which that method of considering them is not observed. Useful purposes may no doubt be served, by ex- plaining the elements of a Science, in the order of the Alphabet; but it seems abundantly clear, that a work intended to include and to delineate the whole Circle of Knowledge, must fall greatly short of its professed object, if it fails to embody the truths of Science in a systematic form. In some other respects, Mr V PREFACE. Chambers’s notions of what was required by the nature of his undertaking were confined and arbitrary ; as in thinking, that an Encyclopaedia should only conta.n the conclusions, without any of the demonstrations of mathematical, or expen- mental details of physical science. But, with all its defects, whether of plan or execution, his work must be considered as the production of a mind of no ordi- nary reach and vigour; as well as one of the greatest and most useful literary un- dertakings ever accomplished by a single hand. How much has it not done through its numerous editions,' and the other works of the same kind to which it gave rise, to stimulate the curiosity, to enlarge the inquiries, and to diversify the knowledge of the mass of mankind i The popularity of the Cyclopcedia remained undisturbed by any rival work, for a considerable period ; but the success with which it was frequently republished, and the progress of knowledge in some departments in treating of which it was from the first defective, by holding out a prospect of encouragement to newer un- dertakings, led at length to a series of Universal Dictionaries, modelled upon its plan. The title which Mr Chambers chose, in preference to the more classical one of Encyclopaedia, was however laid aside ; nor was the latter assumed, m any British work of this class, till the appearance of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The first of the works alluded to, was Barrow’s New and Universal Dictionary oj Arts and Sciences, consisting of a folio volume, published in 1751 j to which a sup- plemental volume was added in 1?54. Its only claims to public notice were founded upon an enlarged number of articles on mathematical subjects, on the mechanical arts, 4and on naval affairs; to make room for which, church history and the scho- lastic parts of Chambers’s work were excluded. A garbled translation of D’Alem- bert’s preliminary Discourse to the French Encyclopedic, was prefixed, in two por- tions, to these two volumes, without the slightest acknowledgement or notice of the original. This was followed in 1754, by a New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and 1 The Cyclopedia consisted of two folio volumes, of which there were Jive editions published in the short period of eighteen years. A Supplement, also consisting of two folio volumes, chiefly compiled by Dr Hill, was published in 1754. VI PREFACE. Sciences, comprised in four large octavo volumes; commonly, from the name of the publisher, referred to under the title of Owen's Dictionary. The title page bears, that it was written “ by a Society of Gentlemen.” It is distinguished by the general brevity of its articles ; a quality, which enabled its Compilers to widen its range in the departments of geography, commerce, and natural history. Prefixed to it, there is a new Scheme of the divisions of Human Knowledge, intended to serve as the basis of its articles and references ; and which is announced, as “ more simple and natural, and likewise fuller and better distributed,” than that either of Chambers or of D’Alembert; but which may be fairly characterized as an exceedingly confused and illogical performance, and as exemplifying an extremely arbitrary use of philo- sophical terms. In 1?66, was published, in three folio volumes, The Complete Dictionary of Arts and Scie?ices; a work compiled under the joint direction of the Reverend Henry Croker, Dr Thomas Williams, and Mr Samuel Clark; the theological, philo- sophical, and critical branches being supplied, or edited, by the first; those of ana- tomy, medicine, and chemistry, by the second; and the mathematical by the last. The division of labour among these different hands, does not appear to have contribut- ed much to the excellence of their respective departments; for the character of the whole, with a few exceptions, is that of mere compilation. In point of struc- ture, this work has still less claim to praise; for its authors either did not perceive, or disregarded the use of that Encyclopedical chain of references, by which Cham- bers and some of his successors, have endeavoured to remedy the defects arising from the division of subjects naturally connected, under a multiplicity of separate heads. A part of D’Alembert’s Discourse was here also appropriated as an Intro- duction, without any notice of the quarter from whence it was derived. Besides these works, all of them founded in the main, upon the plan of Chambers, there appeared before any of them, an Encyclopedical work, of a somewhat different title as well as structure ; namely, An Universal History of Arts and Sciences, or a comprehensive illustration of all Sciences and oj all Arts, by Dr De Coetlogon ; a native of France, naturalized in England. This work, which appears to have early sunk into obscurity, was published in 1745, in two folio volumes. Though its title affords no indication that it was