CHAPTER V.
THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA.
The history of the encyclopaedic conception of human knowledge is a much more interesting and important object of inquiry than a list of the various encyclopaedic enterprises to be found in the annals of literature.

Yet it is proper here to mention some of the attempts in this direction, which preceded our memorable book of the eighteenth century.

It is to Aristotle, no doubt, that we must look for the first glimpse of the idea that human knowledge is a totality, whose parts are all closely and organically connected with one another.

But the idea that only dawned in that gigantic understanding was lost for many centuries.

The compilations of Pliny are not in a right sense encyclopaedic, being presided over by no definite idea of informing order.