摘要
The article examines the tradition of the writing of Encyclopaedias and historical dictionaries in seventeenth and eighteenth century France. The main ones--by Bayle, Chambers, and by the group assembled by d＇Alembert and Diderot--are all connected with unorthodoxy in religion. The massive collection of knowledge that all three dictionaries compiled sometimes seems to allow a juxtaposition of ideas which cannot be properly reconciled--a situation which leaves it to the reader to create a coherent whole. But Diderot goes the farthest in this direction, and causes even the possibility of such a whole to be questioned.
The article examines the tradition of the writing of Encyclopaedias and historical dictionaries in seventeenth and eighteenth century France. The main ones--by Bayle, Chambers, and by the group assembled by d＇Alembert and Diderot--are all connected with unorthodoxy in religion. The massive collection of knowledge that all three dictionaries compiled sometimes seems to allow a juxtaposition of ideas which cannot be properly reconciled--a situation which leaves it to the reader to create a coherent whole. But Diderot goes the farthest in this direction, and causes even the possibility of such a whole to be questioned.
