ENCYCLOPEDIE

(an-sik-lo-pa-dé), THE FRENCH, one of the most. important literary enterprises of the eighteenth century, originated in a French translation of Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopedia. Diderot was appointed to edit it, and enlisted the ablest men of the #ime as contributors. D’Alembert (who wrote the famous Discours préliminaire) edited the mathematics; Rou eau wrote the musical articles; Daubenton, those connected with natural history; the Abbé Yvon, those on logic, metaphysics, and ethics; To us saint, those: on jurisprudence; Buffon contributed. the article Nature; and Montesquieu,, Voltaire, Kuler, Marm on tel, D’Hol-bach, Turgot, Grimm, and Condor cet, took some share in the great work. Diderot himself was a prolific contributor on a wide variety of topics. The prospectus appeared in Noy. 1750, and the first volume in 1751, the whole being completed, despite: fierce opposition, in 1765. The con tributers to the Encyclopédie, the majority of whom held unorthedox views on religious, political, and social subjects, are known as the Encyclopédistes.