nd silence of the night take possession
of it.... It is the presence of man that gives its interest to the
existence of other beings; and what better object can we set before
ourselves in the history of these beings, than to accept such a
consideration? Why shall we not introduce man into our work in the same
place which he holds in the universe? Why shall we not make him a common
centre? Is there in infinite space any other point from which we can
with greater advantage draw those immense lines that we propose to
extend to all other points? What a vivid and softening reaction must
result between man and the beings by whom he is surrounded?... Man is the
single term from which we ought to set out, and to which we ought to
trace all back, if we would please, interest, touch, even in the most
arid reflections and the driest details. If you take away my own
existence and the happiness of my fellows, of what concern to me is all
the rest of nature."[126]

In this we hear the voice of the new time, as we do in his exclamation
that the perfection of an Encyclopaedia is the work of centuries;
centuries had to elapse before the foundations could be laid; centuries
would have to elapse before its completion: "_mais a la poserite, et_ A
L'ETRE QUI NE MEURT POINT!"[127] These exalted ideas were not a
substitute for arduous labour. In all that Diderot writes upon his
magnificent undertaking, we are struck by his singular union of common
sense with elevation, of simplicity with grasp, of suppleness with
strength, of modesty with hopeful confidence. On occasions that would
have tempted a man of less sincerity and less seriousness to bombast and
inflation, his sense of the unavoidable imperfections of so vast a work
always makes itself felt through his pride in its lofty aim and
beneficent design. The weight of the burden steadied him, and the
anxiety of the honest and laborious craftsman mastered the impulses of
rhetoric.

Before going further into the general contents of the Encyclopaedia, we
shall briefly describe the extraordinary succession of obstacles and
embarrassments against which its intrepid conductor was compelled to
fight his way. The project was fully conceived and its details worked
out between 1745 and 1748. The Encyclopedia was announced in 1750, in a
Prospectus of which Diderot was the author. At length in 1751 the first
volume of the work itself was given to the public, followed by the
second in January 1752. The