§ 8. The First Appearance of this Idea
The historic career of the idea of Encyclopedia is different from that of the name. Much of what falls under this idea bore a different name, while on the other hand the name Encyclopedia has repeatedly been used for what was entirely foreign to the idea of it. The idea of Encyclopedia lies in the conception that the several parts of human knowledge are related to each other, and that it is possible and necessary for our mind to penetrate into this relation and to explicate it. When a group of phenomena reflects itself in a mirror, man is compelled to investigate not merely those phenomena, but also the reflected image, by means of Optics. And what Optics effects for the image presented to sight, Encyclopedia designs to do for the reflection of what exists in our science. There lies a majesty in the human mind by virtue of which it cannot rest until it has acquired full dominion in the world of thought. It cannot bear the suggestion that there should still be something in that world of thought that has withdrawn itself from the power of its sceptre. This impels it to scan not merely the whole horizon of phenomena with its knowledge, but the field of knowledge itself with its thought. An atomistical science offends the unity-sense of its own mind, or, by the pulverizing of the cosmos, robs that mind of confidence of step in its walk. And therefore it is bound to presume a relation between the parts of its knowledge also, nor can it rest until it has seen through that relation organically, because in this way only can science harmonize with the organic unity of its own thinking, as well as with the organic unity of the Kosmos.
But the human mind does not subject this field of knowledge to its greatness all at once. At best it is a process of slow growth. A space of twenty-three centuries separates Plato from Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre and Hegel’s Encyclopaedie, and Real-Encyclopedia still stands only at the very beginning of its clearer development. If Diogenes Laertius (IV. I, 5) can be believed, Plato already ventured upon a somewhat systematic classification of the several parts of our knowledge in a lost work, Διάλογοι τῶν περὶ τὴν πραγματείαν ὁμοίων. The same is said of Speusippus, Plato’s kinsman, in his “Ὅροι, and of Aristotle in his Περὶ ἐπιστημῶν; but since these writings have not been preserved, it is not possible to judge of the tendency of these studies. So much, however, is certain, that in those circles serious thinking was already begun upon the παιδεία in general and the ἐπιστῆμαι as such, but it took at once a more practical course. Aristotle indeed defined the boundary and the task of the several sciences. And Varro and Pliny actually put together the contents of different parts of knowledge. The organism itself of the plant was not reached; flowers were picked and tied together as bouquets, but in such a way that the relation was found at first almost solely in the cord that was twined about the stems, and a harmonious arrangement of flowers after their kinds is scarcely yet suggested. Varro’s Rerum humanarum et divinarum antiquitates and his Disciplinarum libri IX have both been lost, and Pliny’s Historia naturalis is the only treatise that enables us to form any idea of the defectiveness of these first efforts.
With Hugo of St. Victor (†1141) and Vincent of Beauvais (†1264) the eye is opened to this harmony in classification. That which Marcianus Capella (†406) gives us in his Satyricon, Cassiodorus (†562) in his Institutio divinarum litterarum, Isidore of Seville (†636) in his Origines, and Hrabanus Maurus (†856) in his De universo libri XXII. strives indeed after unity, as may be seen from Hrabanus’ title, but succeeds only in the presentation of a distasteful and overdone bouquet. Hugo of St. Victor, on the other hand, seems to have an eye for the inner relation of the sciences when in his Eruditio didascalia he gives us a descriptio et partitio artium, in which he endeavors to show quomodo unaquaeque disciplina contineat aliam et ab alia contineatur. But even his systematic talent did not reach far. He divides the disciplinae into three groups: (1) the theorica contra ignorantiam (to wit: theology, physics and mathematics); (2) the practica contra vitium (to wit: ethics, oeconomics and politics); and (3) the mechanica contra infirmitatem (to wit: mechanica, to which the trivium is added). Vincent followed chiefly the division of Hugo, which (with the exception of the change of mechanica into poetica) held its ground till the seventeenth century, but he gave it a more enduring phase by the division of his giant work into speculum historiale, naturale and doctrinale, to which was added at a later date a speculum morale by one of his followers. The mutual relation of the sciences is grasped somewhat more firmly already by Bonaventura (†1274) and by Thomas Aquinas (†1274). Excellent suggestions are given by Louis de Vives (†1540) in his XX books de caus. corrupt. art. de trad. discipl. et de ortibus; but this relation was grasped for the first time as organic by Bacon of Verulam (†1626), who in his work de dignitate et augmentis scientiarum (Lond. 1624), and more yet in his organon scientiarum (1620), divided the sciences organically, i.e. after a principle derived from those sciences themselves. The development of this idea could follow only when the task of collecting the contents of ready knowledge gave place to reflection on the relations of what had been collected. No doubt, only those who have never looked into Alstedt’s Encyclopedia can dispute the fact that this gigantic systematician had the systematizing talent; but the material to be collected began to be too extensive for the handling of it all and the deeper study of its relations to lie within the reach of a single scholar.