Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/17

Rh emplifying the first attempt that had yet been made, in any age or country, to combine the talents of a number of literary and scientific men, some of them occupying the highest stations in the Republic of Letters, in the composition of a Digest of Human Knowledge, upon a scale commensurate to the magnitude and importance of the object, this Encyclopædia must always, however, be viewed as fixing a remarkable era in the history of that important class of publications.

One proof of its influence in recommending such undertakings as worthy the co-operation of the highest class of literary men, may, perhaps, be found, in Dr Goldsmith’s project for publishing “An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences,” with the promised assistance of many of the most distinguished writers of that day. This plan was unfortunately frustrated by his untimely death; and it is matter of regret, that his Prospectus, described by his biographer as “giving a luminous view of his design,” was not permitted to reach the Public.

A few years after the conclusion of the French Encyclopédie, the Encyclopædia Britannica began to be published. The first edition, consisting of only three quarto volumes, was completed at Edinburgh, in the year 1771. Compared with other works of the same kind, previously published in England, it had no superiority in point of execution; but it was certainly distinguished by a far happier and more philosophical plan. Instead of attempting to communicate a knowledge of the Sciences by a number of articles, corresponding to the technical terms and heads of inquiry respectively belonging to them, its Compilers proceeded upon the assumption, that as the Sciences consist of connected serieses of principles and conclusions, it was necessary to treat them compendiously in the form of systems, under their general denominations; the technical terms, and subordinate heads, being also explained, when something more than a reference to the proper part of each system was required, in the order of the alphabet. This was illustrated upon a wider scale, and with more maturity of method, in the subsequent editions; and, though not always followed out with perfect order

b