Encyclopaedia Britannica

Abstract

THE critical student familiar with the ninth edition of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” would have no difficulty in detecting a change of intellectual attitude upon examining the volume before us. When the articles were prepared for the ninth edition, in the seventies and eighties of last century, scholastic traditions had a greater influence in determining the point of view than they have to-day. The result was that early periods of history and early developments of the arts and sciences received far more attention than modern views and methods. The significance of the present was disregarded in the contemplation of the past, while the promise of the future was mostly left out of consideration altogether. This retrospective spirit pervaded very many of the articles, and may be said to represent the characteristic style of a generation educated upon literary ideals. Knowledge was regarded as a structure to be observed in various aspects—as material for philosophy—rather than as something to which continual additions should be made, which alter the character of the whole edifice.

Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Vol. xxv. Pp. xiii + 786. (Aachen to Australia.) Edited by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace A. T. Hadley, President of Yale University, and Hugh Chisholm, B.A. (London and Edinburgh: A. and C. Black; London: The Times Office, 1902.)