Page:EB1911 - Volume 01.djvu/10

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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION


ELSEWHERE in these volumes, under the heading of ENCYCLOPÆDIA (vol. ix. p. 369), an account is given in detail of the particular form of literature to which that name applies. It is no longer necessary, as was done in some of the earlier editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica, to defend in a Preface the main principle of the system by which subjects are divided for treatment on a dictionary plan under the headings most directly suggesting explanation or discussion. General idea
of the book
.
The convenience of an arrangement of material based on a single alphabetization of subject words and proper names has established itself in the common sense of mankind, and in recent years has lead to the multiplication of analogous works of reference. There are, however, certain points in the execution of the Eleventh Edition to which, in a preliminary survey, attention may profitably be drawn.


The Eleventh Edition and its Predecessors


It is important to deal first with the relationship of the Eleventh Edition to its predecessors. In addition to providing a digest of general information, such as is required in a reference-book pure and simple, the object of the Encyclopædia Britannica has always been to give reasoned discussionsDebt to earlier editions. on all the great questions of practical or speculative interest, presenting the results of accumulated knowledge and original inquiry in the form of articles which are themselves authoritative contributions to the literature of their subjects, adapted for the purpose of systematic reading and study. In this way its successive editions have been among the actual sources through which progressive improvements have been attained in the exposition of many important branches of learning. The Ninth Edition in particular, to which the Eleventh is the lineal successor—for the name of the Tenth was used only to indicate the incorporation of supplementary volumesTheir special value. which left the main fabric untouched—was universally recognized as giving the most scholarly contemporary expression to this constructive ideal. The reputation thus gained by the Encyclopædia Britannica as a comprehensive embodiment of accurate scholarship—the word being used here for authoritative exposition in all departments of knowledge—carries with it a responsibility which can only be fulfilled by periodical revision in the light of later research. Yet in any complete new edition, and certainly in that which is here presented, due acknowledgment must be made to the impulse given by those who kept the sacred fire burning in earlier days. In this respect, if a special dept is owing to the editors of the Ninth Edition, and particularly to the great services of Robertson Smith, it must not be forgotten that long before their time the Encyclopædia Britannica had enlisted among its contributors many eminent writers, whose articles, substantially carried forward at each revision, became closely associated with the name and tradition of the work[1]. To

  1. In earlier days the reverence due to deceased authority was perhaps carried to extreme lengths. The following footnote, attached in the Eight Edition to Sir Walter Scott's article DRAMA, may be cited:—“It is proper to state here . . . that this article is reprinted as it originally appeared in the supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of this work without any of those adaptations which the course of time and change of circumstances render necessary in ordinary cases. We have deemed this homage due to the genius and fame of the illustrious author, whose splendid view of the origin and progress of the dramatic art we have accordingly presented to the reader exactly as it proceeded from his own hand, leaving every contemporaneous allusion and illustration untouched.” It may be remarked that this footnote, which was reprinted from the Seventh Edition, was itself carried forward without being brought up to date, apparently in the same spirit; and in another footnote, also reprinted from the Seventh Edition, a reference is made to allusions “on p. 147,” which were indeed on p. 147 of the Seventh Edition, but are on p. 137 of the Eighth!

XI