NATURE 



169 



THE ''ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA." 



The Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol. XXIV. (Edinburgh : 

 Adam and Charles Black, 1888.) 



THE assertion attributed by the undergraduate to the 

 Master of his College, " What I know not is not 

 knowledge," might be made in sober earnest on behalf of 

 the authors of the ninth edition of the " Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica " in their corporate capacity. Their task has 

 been to compile a compendious summary of all that is 

 best worth knowing ; to set up a landmark which should 

 indicate the point to which we have now attained, which 

 should distinguish between the uncertain and the sure, 

 between hypothesis and fact. 



To affirm that they have in all respects succeeded 

 would be to assume an omniscience from which even the 

 boldest critic might shrink, but it is doing them bare 

 justice to say that it is generally held by those most com- 

 petent to judge that their work is worthy of themselves. 

 Art and science, history and literature, everything from 

 the cedar on Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, are 

 included, and article after article bears in the initials at 

 its end the hall-mark which stamps it as a work of the 

 highest authority. 



The " Encyclopaedia," therefore, is not a mere compila- 

 tion. Many of the scientific articles, though avoiding 

 the mistake of giving undue prominence to opinions 

 specially associated with the authors' names, are evidently 

 the product of minds capable of looking forward as well 

 as around. They are not content with producing the 

 stock evidence in favour of generally-accepted theories ; 

 they know their weak as well as their strong points. 

 They tell the reader not only what has been done, but 

 something of what there is yet to do. 



As examples, and in choosing them we confine our- 

 selves to writers who, though they shared in the work, 

 have unhappily, and to the great loss of science, not lived 

 to see its completion, we may refer first to Prof. Clerk 

 Maxwell's contributions on molecular physics. His article 

 on "Atom" has become famous. Under the head of 

 " Capillary Attraction," he gave (in spite of a few slips 

 which have been pointed out by Sir William Thom son) a 

 fuller and more suggestive discussion of the theory of 

 capillarity than is to be found in any other English 

 treatise. Turning to other subjects, no higher authority on 

 the microscope could have been found than the late Dr. 

 Carpenter. The article on " Terrestrial Magnetism," by 

 Prof. Balfour Stewart, is a masterly synopsis both of the 

 present state of knowledge on this subject, and of the 

 directions in which inquiry should be prosecuted. 



It is not, however, our intention either to attempt to 

 give a general outline of the scientific articles or to cri- 

 ticize those in the concluding volume. At the moment 

 when the task is just completed, we would rather con- 

 gratulate the editor, authors, and publishers, on a work 

 in which they may fairly take an honest pride. The 

 examples we have cited will suffice to prove to our readers 

 that anyone who has access to a good public library may 

 now find in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " a review of 

 Vol. XXXIX.— No. 999. 



what is known on almost every scientific subject, together 

 with references which are sufficient to direct him if he 

 wishes to pursue it further for himself. 



Of course we do not mean to assert that articles in the 

 earlier volumes — some fourteen years old — are always up 

 to date now. But in spite of this drawback it is no slight 

 advantage to have a succinct account of the state of know- 

 ledge at a definite and not very distant epoch. No 

 doubt, editor and publishers have gained much valuable 

 experience during the progress of the work, and perhaps 

 they will be able to pigeon-hole a scheme by which the 

 tenth edition will be more rapidly issued. We live quickly 

 now, and though fourteen years was at one time consi- 

 dered a not unreasonable probation for an expectant 

 swain, it seems long to a modern subscriber who is 

 looking for the colophon. 



Now that the end has come, the work may be regarded 

 by Englishmen — or rather, if our Scotch friends insist 

 on regarding that word as excluding them, by Britons — 

 with just pride. Its completion was celebrated, in ac- 

 cordance with our national custom, by a dinner, of which 

 we give some account elsewhere. In the course of an 

 admirable speech, which he then delivered, Mr. Adam 

 Black referred to the circulation of the ninth, as com- 

 pared with that of the eighth, edition. It appears that while 

 five thousand copies of the eighth edition were sold, the cir- 

 culation of the ninth has been ten times as great. No doubt 

 this is due in part to the demand for the work in the 

 United States, but we may also assume that there has 

 been a largely increased demand in England. The fact 

 deserves to be specially recorded as a very striking sign 

 of the times. It affijrds remarkable proof that during 

 the lifetime of a generation there has been a steady 

 growth not only of general intelligence, but of an en- 

 lightened desire to seek for information on all important 

 subjects at the best and most trustworthy sources. 



In these days of specialism, it is well that those engaged 

 in different pursuits should, in one task at all events, meet 

 on common ground. In educational matters they are 

 too often opponents, struggling for the prominence of 

 their particular subjects, offering rival inducements ta 

 the ablest scholars. Round the table in Christ's College, 

 last week, these differences disappeared. The old learn- 

 ing and the new shared a triumph together. Every man 

 who could tell, better than they, something of real in- 

 terest to his fellows was recognized as having a claim on 

 their attention. 



In the company of encyclopiedists, however, though 

 due attention is given to each, the amount due is 

 measured with the most scrupulous care. If sometimes 

 we despair of the future when we read the endless babble 

 of the platform, we may take courage from the study of 

 pages in which the description of fact and the expression 

 of thought are reduced to their utmost concentration. 

 There is still hope for a race which, though it is producing 

 *' Hansard," has produced also the ninth edition of the 

 " Encyclopaedia Britannica." 



Memories of some of those who have been left by 



the way cast over such a meeting a sobering but not 



necessarily a saddening influence. The " Encyclopaedia " 



I is itself a proof that we are growing in knowledge which 



I can be put to good account to make the lives of succeed- 



i ing generations less toilsome and more elevated than they 



