Chambers E
NAME:
ACHIEVEMENTS:
First encyclopedia
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
c 1680, Kendal, Westmoreland, England
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:
15 May 1740, London, England. Aged 60
DISCIPLINE:
Writer
FIELD:
Reference
EDUCATION:
Grammar school, Kendal
MAJOR WORK:
"Cyclopaedia; or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences" (1728)
LIFE AND TIMES:
Chamber's father owned a modest farm on the edge of the Lake District in north-west England where Chambers was brought up and educated at the local grammar school, then sent to London and apprenticed to Senex, a map and globe maker.
Senex encouraged Chambers in his pursuit of knowledge and Chambers got the idea of writing a cyclopedia: a classification of knowledge. The first work of this kind had been published in 1704 by John Harris and it was still the only one in English.
Chambers left his work with Senex and devoted himself to writing his cyclopedia. In 1728, when Chambers was probably in his late forties, the work was published by subscription, entitled "Cyclopaedia or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences". Chambers dedicated it to the new king, George II. There is no record of any payment from the king, but Chambers was rewarded by being elected as a member of the Royal Society* in 1729. His work was immediately recognised and the first print run sold out.
While planning a new edition, Chambers drew up a proposal for re-organising the material used in the first edition. There is no record of this plan, but it is supposed that Dr Johnson* was referring to it when he said he had been influenced by "Chamber's proposal for his Dictionary".
Chambers also undertook literary work such as book reviews, and may have edited the "Literary Magazine by a Society of Gentlemen". He translated Jean Dubreuil's "Practice of Perspective" from French into English, and collaborated with the botanist John Martyn, in a translation of the "Philosophical History and Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris" (1742).
Chamber's health was poor in his later years and he visited France, where he is said to have turned down an offer to issue a French edition of his "Cyclopaedia" dedicated to the French king (Louis XV). His original work was reprinted many times and by 1746 there were five editions. It was translated into French and inspired the work of the French encyclopedist Diderot*.
ASSESSMENT: He was the inspiration for the great French encyclopedists of the 18th century.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Smellie* used his material in the first Encyclopedia Britannica
His work was known to geologist J Hutton*
The Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert owed its inception to a French translation of Chambers's work.
ONELINER: Ephraim Chambers, author of the first encyclopedia
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
DSB/EB
LANGUAGE:
English
PARENTS:
Father:
Mother:
SIBLINGS:
??
SPOUSE:
? name
CHILDREN:
??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Chambers
Research Notes:
CHAMBERS & THE 'CYCLOPAEDIA':
Ephraim Chambers born at Kendal in Westmorland c. 1680, youngest of three
sons of presbyterian dissenters and farmers. Was sent early to Kendal
school, where received a good classical education, but his father had
already placed eldest son at Oxford, and could not afford to do same for
other sons - so Ephraim placed in trade. Was therefore at age 14 sent to
London, where for a time was apprenticed to a mechanic, but hated this so
much that was eventually (late 1690s) apprenticed to John Senex (d. 1740),
well-known map and globe-maker plus also a bookseller. Senex, who owned 'The
Globe' in Salisbury Court, and later in Fleet Street, was a skilled
engraver, a maker of mathematical instruments, a successful publisher of
mathematical books, charts and globes, and a member of the Stationers'
Company; was appointed geographer to Queen Caroline and was elected a member
of the Royal Society in 1728.
EC immediately took to work (apprenticeship with such a man kind of liberal
education in itself), and became deeply interested in science and learning -
his employment with Senex gave him access to a wide range of books (esp in
mathematics and geography) which he read ferociously and then used in his
dictionary - was apparently during this apprenticeship that he first formed
the design of his great work, the 'Cyclopaedia', and some of the first
articles for it were written behind the counter of Senex's shop. However,
realized that he could not do both, and so at some stage (no one says when)
he left Senex and took up residence in Gray's Inn (probably with elder
brother Nathaniel, who became a solicitor in Chancery), where he remained
for almost whole of rest of life. First edition of the 'Cyclopaedia', result
of many years intense and mainly solitary work, appeared in 1728, published
by subscription with large number of subscribers. Many of articles compiled
from other works, but many also original and written by Chambers - after
much research - himself.
Chambers' work in part inspired by first alphabetical encyclopedia in
English, John Harris's (1666-1719) 'Lexicon technicum, or an Universal
English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences' (1704), published in two volumes to
which Senex subscribed. Harris had felt that previous encyclopedias had
neglected the arts and sciences in favour of lexicography and pedagogy, and
consquently he stressed mathematics, physics, and the useful arts and
omitted proper names entirely. Chambers first advertised his 'Cyclopaedia'
on 17 January 1726 (book cost 4 guineas), and was published by Thomas
Longman as 'Cyclopaedia; or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences' in
two folio volumes in 1728. In his preface Chambers acknowledged indebtedness
to his predecessors such as Harris, and proceeded to outline his scheme for
the organization of knowledge (this all important - Harris often criticized
even by contemporaries for lack of organization and repetition of material),
based - like Bacon's - upon three faculties (the senses, imagination and
reason), with further subdivision into 47 sciences and arts, which then have
a number of headings (e.g. under subject of meteorology comes headings air,
aether, fire vapour etc.). However, there is nothing in his 'Preface' like
the sections of d'Alembert's 'Preliminary Discourse' that offered a
genealogy of the various sciences, and EC's classification is generally
woolly and inconsistent: was v. aware of this, and defended himself by
saying that he did not believe that scientific progress depended on further
sophisticated classification, and even suggested that new relationships were
likely to be found because of the way in which the alphabetical order of the
'Cyclopaedia' threw things together - "To do justice to a collection, I mean
a general and promiscuous one, it has its advantages. Where numbers of
things are thrown precariously together, we sometimes discover relations
among them, which we should never have thought of looking for."
EC attempting innovative and delicate balancing act with book: created a
combination of the systematic encyclopaedia (such as Johann Heinrich
Alsted's neo-scholastic encyclopedia 'Encyclopaedia Septem Tomis Distincta',
1630) and the possibility of easy reference allowed by more recent
alphabetical scientific dictionaries (such as Harris) - was this achievement
that gave him reputation as one who had transformed a dictionary into an
encyclopedia. In his Proposal (1726) EC promised to represent the 'System'
of knowledge but explained that it would be "a System taken asunder, and its
Members re-compos'd in a different Order, to render 'em more obvious, and
easy of access. Instead of the Natural Order, wherein the vast Assemblage
would be unwieldy, and the Complication of numerous Parts make each
difficult to come at and conceive; they are here presented singly, and in
the familiar Order of the Alphabet." Hence, in spite of the alphabetical
arrangement, he promised that relations between parts of knowledge would be
indicated, and thus would allow movement from particulars to generals of any
art or science - this done by a "Map of Knowledge" in book's preface, and by
a "chain of references" within the text. While 'Method' was innovative, the
'Matter' of book was portrayed even more dramatically by EC - no less than
"the Sum of what the busy Mind of man has been a-doing these many Ages", and
work was "the Result of [studying] Volumes without Number" and accomplished
with "grievous Toil, and great Expence of Time, and Books".
Book written in response to explosion of knowledge: rather than a confident
'summa' of universal knowledge, was rather a response to a crisis: expansion
and specialization of knowledge, esp through scientific enquiry of the
natural world, had widened the scope of a modern encyclopedia so that the
"sciences become cantoned out into so many separate districts, and the due
communication between them cut off". Thus, although polymathy still
desirable even for EC, had become an almost impossible ideal by this time,
posing problem of what an individual should know, and how well. Since he
believed that the sciences illuminated each other, EC one who was intensely
reluctant to abandon ideal of polymathy - thus his response was to work for
the "reduction of the vast bulk of universal knowledge into a lesser
compass". He wrote, such a contraction was "growing every day more and more
necessary" because the objects of inquiry were increasing, books were
becoming more numerous, and new points of dispute more frequent; in this
situation, those who "should make discoveries" were spending their whole
lives trying to learn what was already known. Staying true to his belief in
links between the sciences, EC therefore argued that some convenient summary
gave the only chance of making the essential knowledge of a range of
sciences accessible to all, including specialist scholars: the 'Cyclopaedia'
therefore took words or 'terms' as its basic unit, not 'subjects' - his
purpose being to distill a body of knowledge into readable proportions by
focusing on the definition of terms - and in this way aimed to distil
knowledge of the arts and sciences in a more manageable form, as a way of
mapping the 'terra cognita'. In this respect, EC's intention resembles that
of Comenius, who sought to abbreviate knowledge in accessible forms while
still portraying its unity. His ultimate aim in writing book expressed on
last page of 'Preface: "the ultimate view of a work of this kind, should be,
the forming of a sound mind", as opposed to accumulation of facts in memory
- for EC, ideas had to be "owned", which required that they be placed in an
orderly manner in a mind practised in orderly methods of reading and study -
attitude that owed much to ideas of Locke.
Another point of the book was against bookish culture of time : in his
'Preface', Chambers identified inappropriate uses of books - bibliphilia he
saw as a great sin, with many libraries being merely opportunities for
acquisition and display. Instead, 'Cyclopaedia' would "answer all the
Purposes of a Library, except Parade and Incumbrance" and would be more
useful "than any, I had almost said all, of the Books extant", and declared
that "half the men of letters" would be better employed working with him on
this project, especially since the learned academies of Europe had not
adequately taken up this challenge.
Chambers' 'Cyclopaedia' was an immediate success, and was well treated by
Longmans as a result. Plus received official recognition: in late 1728 he
presented a copy to King George II and Queen Caroline after their coronation
and, though without a university education, Chambers was nominated as a
fellow of the RS of London in 1729. 'Cyclopedia' was frequently reprinted
in England (1738, 1739, 1741, 1746), and an Italian version (Venice,
1748-49) constituted the first complete Italian encyclopedia. A French
edition was proposed in 1739, but Chambers refused.
Cyclopaedia & Encyclopedie: Chambers' work directly inspired most important
encyclopedia of C18th - French 'Encyclopedia' - latter in fact owed its
genesis to Chambers' work. There had been earlier French encyclopedias and
dictionaries and earlier efforts to erect a philosophic organization of
knowledge - eg. the 'Tableaux accomplis de tous les arts liberaux' (1585) of
French savant and courtier Christofle de Savigny - but nothing on scale of
Chambers. In 1743-45, French translation of Chambers was made by John Mills,
an English bank clerk, assisted by a German professional translator, G.
Sellius. Andre Le Breton of Paris obtained in Feb 1745 a royal privilege for
its publication and issued a prospectus for a five-vol edition. However,
following a disagreement with the translators, Le Breton cancelled his
planned edition and instead secured a privilege for a new, longer work to be
published in collaboration with several of his colleagues in the trade -
Jean d'Alembert and Abbe J.P. Gua de Malves were appointed to supervise the
project, with Denis Diderot as adviser. In late 1750, Diderot's prospectus
outlining the general organization of the 'Encyclopedie' was published (much
of which had been written in the prision of Vincennes where Diderot had
spent hte previous year over furor caused by his 'Lettre sur les aveugles' -
accused of atheism), and first volume of 'Encyclopedie' issued in July 1751.
Finally, after much controversy, all 28 volumes published by 1772.
'Encyclopedie' marked considerable advance on Chambers' and other
predecessors in two main respects: in amount of space allocated to the
mechanical arts, hitherto considered to merit little attention by scholars
and men of the world; an in its multiple authorship by men of high
intellectual attainment, instead of by literary hacks. Major defect of
Chambers' - anyway, according to those promoting the 'Encyclopedie' - was no
reference to his sources or authorities anywhere, and alleged that greatest
part of his 'Cyclopaedia' compiled from French authors (this highly
dubious): however, they assented that "the plan and the design of
[Chambers'] dictionary are excellent, and that, if it were executed to a
certain degree of perfection, it would alone contribute more to the progress
of true science, than one half of the books that are
known."