Abstract
In this chapter, Annelie Grosse reconstructs the nature and history of a stranded encyclopedia incorporated into the famous Encyclopédie edited by the French philosophers Denis Diderot and Jean D’Alembert. The Huguenot pastor and scholar Jean Henri Samuel Formey (1711–1797) is nowadays best known for his role as the secretary of the Berlin Academy of Science, his wide-ranging correspondence, and his defense of Christianity against the heretical writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Diderot. Less familiar is his involvement with the Encyclopédie, the very symbol of Enlightenment rationalism and criticism of dogma. Between 1742 and 1747, Formey worked on his own philosophical dictionary but ended up selling the almost finished work to the publishers of the Encyclopédie. On the basis of his correspondence and the printed text of the Encyclopédie, Grosse first elucidates Formey’s concept of encyclopedism, his role models and his practices. Thereafter she reevaluates the motives and circumstances of the abandonment of his dictionary and its subsequent stranding in the emerging Parisian encyclopedia. Lastly, she briefly analyses the multi-faceted appropriation of Formey’s manuscript by the Encyclopédie’s editors. In this way, besides presenting Formey’s stranded encyclopedia, Grosse provides new perspectives on the nature and production history of the Encyclopédie.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Pierre Rétat, “L’âge des dictionnaires,” in Histoire de l’edition française, ed. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin, 2nd ed. (Paris: Fayard, 1990), vol. 2, 232–41; Richard Yeo, Encyclopaedic Visions: Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Marie Leca-Tsiomis, “Les dictionnaires en Europe: présentation,” Dix-huitième siècle 38, no. 1 (2006): 4–16, https://doi.org/10.3917/dhs.038.0004; and the very recent history of the modern encyclopedia since the mid-seventeenth century: Jeff Loveland, The European Encyclopedia: From 1650 to the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
- 2.
On the this landmark work, see the pioneer studies by Jacques Proust, L’Encyclopédie (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1965) and John Lough, The ‘Encyclopédie’ (Harlow: Longman, 1971), as well as the most recent digital critical edition by the current French specialists in the field: Édition Numérique Collaborative et CRitique de l’Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (1751–1772), http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/.
- 3.
Marie Leca-Tsiomis, “L’Encyclopédie: entre héritages et innovations,” in: Qu’est-ce que l’Encyclopédie?, Édition Numérique Collaborative et Critique de l’Encyclopédie, last modified December 23, 2014, http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/documentation/?s=2&.
- 4.
See Ulrich Johannes Schneider, “Die Konstruktion des Allgemeinen Wissens in Zedlers Universal-Lexicon,” in Wissenssicherung, Wissensordnung und Wissensverbreitung: Das Europäische Modell der Enzyklopädien, ed. Theo Stammen and Wolfgang Weber (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004), 81–101.
- 5.
See Silvano Garofalo, “Gianfrancesco Pivati’s Nuovo dizionario,” in Notable Encyclopedias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Nine Predecessors of the Encyclopédie, ed. Frank A. Kafker (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1981), 197–219.
- 6.
See Pierre Rétat, Le ‘Dictionnaire’ de Bayle et la lutte philosophique au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1971), 399–403, who, however, emphasized that this interpretation was flawed and that Bayle was not a direct role model for the Encyclopédie’s editors.
- 7.
This role appears, emblematically, in the title of Franco Venturi, Le origini dell’ Enciclopedia: il capolavoro dell’illuminismo (Torino: Einaudi, 1963), and is claimed in studies on the radical Enlightenment like Jonathan Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752 (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 842.
- 8.
The most recent example is Glenn Roe, “A Sheep in Wolff’s Clothing: Émilie Du Châtelet and the Encyclopédie,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 51, no. 2 (2017): 179–96, https://doi.org/10.1353/ecs.2017.0059, who stresses the book’s “multivocality.”
- 9.
See Linn Holmberg, The Maurists’ unfinished encyclopedia (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2017), particularly p. 216. A similar motivation to study the “non-stellar” encyclopedias of the eighteenth century animates Jeff Loveland, An Alternative Encylopedia?: Dennis de Coetlogon’s ‘Universal History of Arts and Sciences’ (1745) (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010), particularly p. 12.
- 10.
Besides the efforts undertaken in ENCCRE, see Sonia Carboncini-Gavanelli, “L’Encyclopédie et Christian Wolff: a propos de quelques articles anonymes,” Les études philosophiques 4 (1987): 489–504; Khanh Dao Duc, “Leibniz dans l’Encyclopédie,” Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 48 (2013): 123–41; and again Roe, “A Sheep in Wolff’s clothing.”
- 11.
On Formey’s biography and thought, see his autobiographical book Souvenirs d’un citoyen, 2 vols. (Berlin: La Garde, 1789), and the modern scholarship: Werner Krauss, “Ein Akademiesekretär vor 200 Jahren: Samuel Formey,” in Studien zur Deutschen und Französischen Aufklärung, ed. Werner Krauss (Berlin: Rütten & Loening, 1963), 53–62; Jens Häseler, “Samuel Formey, pasteur huguenot entre Lumières françaises et Aufklärung,” Dix-huitième siècle 34 (2002): 239–47; Martin Fontius, “Zwischen ‘Libertas Philosophandi’ und ‘Siècle de la Philosophie’: Zum Geistesgeschichtlichen Standort Formeys und der zweiten Generation der réfugiés,” in L’Allemagne et la France des Lumières/ Deutsche und Französische Aufklärung: Mélanges offerts à Jochen Schlobach par ses élèves et amis, ed. Michel Delon and Jean Mondot (Paris: Champion, 2003), 45–68.
- 12.
See Formey, “Dédicace à la reine mère,” in Le philosophe chrétien, ou discours moraux, vol. 1 (Leiden: Luzac, 1750), fol. [*3 r–v].
- 13.
Formey, Pensées raisonnables opposées aux pensées philosophiques (Leiden: Luzac, 1749) and Lettre de M. Gervaise Holmes à l’auteur de la Lettre sur les aveugles (Cambridge [Berlin]: 1750).
- 14.
Formey, “Examen philosophique de la liaison réelle qu’il y a entre les sciences et les mœurs […],” in Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences et des belles-lettres de Berlin 1753 (Berlin: Haude & Spener, 1755), 397–416; Formey, L’esprit de Julie, ouvrage utile à la société et particulièrement à la jeunesse (Berlin: Jasperd, 1762); Formey, Anti-Émile (Berlin: Pauli, 1763); and Formey, Emile chrétien, consacré à l’utilité publique, 4 vols. (Berlin: Neaulme, 1764).
- 15.
See Abraham Joseph de Chaumeix, Préjugés légitimes contre l’Encyclopédie et essai de réfutation de ce dictionnaire, vol. 1 (Brussels: Herissant, 1758), 56–63.
- 16.
See Krauss, “Ein Akademiesekretär,” 56, and Marcel Thomann, “Une source peu connue de l’Encyclopédie: L’influence de Christian Wolff,” in Actes du 92e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes tenu à Strasbourg et Colmar 1967, vol. 3 (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1970), 102–103.
- 17.
See Eva Marcu, “Un encyclopédiste oublié: Formey,” Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France 53, no. 3 (1953): 296–305, and François Moureau, “L’Encyclopédie d’après les correspondants de Formey,” Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 3 (1987): 125–45. Moureau goes so far as to claim that Formey’s project was “assassinated by the new Parisian competitor” (p. 128). See also the posthumously published study of Formey’s encyclopedism by Rolf Geissler, “Der Beitrag Formeys zum Enzyklopädismus im 18. Jahrhundert,” in Franzosen in Berlin. Über Religion und Aufklärung in Preußen. Studien zum Nachlass des Akademiesekretärs Samuel Formey, ed. Martin Fontius and Jens Häseler (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2019), 293–373 (see especially 300–315 for Formey’s Dictionnaire philosophique).
- 18.
The number of Formey’s articles in the Encyclopédie varies according to the definition of his authorship, a problem that will be elaborated in more detail below. Marcu indicated 81 articles, and Richard N. Schwab, Walter E. Rex, and John Lough, eds., Inventory of Diderot’s Encyclopedie, vol. 6 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1972), 100–101, count 114. My count relies on a list established by Colette Le Lay on the basis of the digital edition ENCCRE.
- 19.
Formey to Prosper Marchand (January 12, 1742), in Jan Schillings, “La correspondance entre Formey et Marchand (1736–1749),” Lias 39, no. 2 (2012), 280: “J’ai commencé avec l’année un ouvrage de longue haleine, et dont je me propose de faire ce que je suis capable de faire de meilleur. C’est un dictionnaire philosophique en françois. Nous n’avons que celui de Chauvin en latin, qui est presque pure scholastique. Je me propose un tout autre plan. Mes articles seront disposés comme ceux de Bayle, un texte court et degagé, et des notes etenduës où je rendrai compte des opinions, des decouvertes, où j’ajouterai les questions, etc. Mon premier but est de m’instruire moi-même dans ma profession. Si je puis en même tems rendre service au public, à la bonne heure, mais cela est encore éloigné.”
- 20.
See Giuliano Gasparri, Étienne Chauvin (1640–1725) and his Lexicon philosophicum (Hildesheim: Olms, 2016).
- 21.
As Gasparri shows, Chauvin’s dictionary was reasonably modern for 1692 anyway. Not only did it treat scholastic authors reluctantly (pp. 16–17) but it also—in the second edition—betrayed Chauvin’s growing interest in the empiricist and eclectic philosophy of the early Enlightenment (pp. 8, 16 and 18).
- 22.
The first to signal the extent to which Wolff’s philosophy marked the Encyclopédie, especially via the articles provided by Formey, was Thomann, “Une source peu connue de l’Encyclopédie.”
- 23.
For this survey, I only included those articles from the list having a disciplinary denomination.
- 24.
These articles were spread among the following sub-disciplines: 1 in chemistry, 9 in astronomy, 1 in arithmetic, 20 in physics, 1 in anatomy, 3 in geometry, 3 in mechanics, 1 in optics, and 1 in hydraulics.
- 25.
Johann Georg Walch, Philosophisches Lexicon: Darinnen die in allen Theilen der Philosophie, als Logic, Metaphysic, Physic, Pnevmatic, Ethic, natürlichen Theologie und Rechts-Gelehrsamkeit, wie auch Politic fürkommenden Materien und Kunst-Wörter erkläret und aus der Historie erläutert; die Streitigkeiten der ältern und neuern Philosophen erzehlet, die dahin gehörigen Bücher und Schrifften angeführet, und alles nach Alphabetischer Ordnung vorgestellet werden (Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1726). See Dagmar von Wille, “Johann Georg Walch und sein Philosophisches Lexicon,” Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 22, no. 1 (1998): 31–39. Walch was also up to a certain extent indebted to Chauvin, as he acknowledged in the preface to his Philosophisches Lexicon, see Gasparri, Étienne Chauvin, 233.
- 26.
Formey, Principes de morale déduits de l’usage des facultés de l’entendement humain, vol. 2 (Leiden: Luzac, 1762), 334.
- 27.
Formey’s Wolffian mentor, Ernst Christoph von Manteuffel, sent him a copy of Walch’s Philosophisches Lexicon in 1742 as a working tool for his dictionary. See Manteuffel to Formey (August 11, 1742), Biblioteka Jagiellońska Krakow, Collection Autographa. Abraham Bocquet, Formey’s friend and prospective collaborator to his dictionary apparently used Walch as a source for the articles he wanted to contribute. See Bocquet to Formey (February 26, 1745), Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlass Formey.
- 28.
See Walch, “Vorrede,” in Philosophisches Lexicon, fol. [)()(2r–)()(4v] [the signs refer to unpaginated leaves in the book], where he explains which of his subjects were not usually treated in philosophical dictionaries.
- 29.
See Walch, “Vorrede,” in Philosophisches Lexicon, fol. [)()(6v–)()(7r] [the signs refer to unpaginated leaves in the book].
- 30.
See Walch, “Vorrede,” in Philosophisches Lexicon, fol. [)()()(6v] [the signs refer to unpaginated leaves in the book], Walch’s introduction to philosophy appeared one year after his dictionary: Walch, Einleitung in die Philosophie, worinnen alle Theile derselbigen nach ihrem richtigen Zusammenhang erkläret und der Ursprung nebst dem Fortgang einer jeden Disciplin zugleich erzehlet worden, sonderlich zum Gebrauch des Philosophischen Lexici (Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1727). See Wille, “Johann Georg Walch und sein Philosophisches Lexicon,” 35.
- 31.
See Jean Le Rond D’Alembert, “Discours préliminaire des éditeurs,” in Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 1 (Paris: Briasson et al., 1751), XVIII. With a focus on the cross-references, see Gilles Blanchard and Mark Olsen, “Le système de renvois dans l’Encyclopédie: une cartographie des structures de connaissances au XVIIIe siècle,” Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 31–32 (2002): 45–70, https://doi.org/10.4000/rde.122, particularly p. 46.
- 32.
Gabriel Cramer to Formey (April 9, 1742), in Lettres de Genève (1741–1793) à Jean Henri Samuel Formey, ed. André Bandelier and Frédéric Eigeldinger (Paris: Champion, 2010), 29: “Je me forme l’idée d’un Dict[ionnaire] philos[ophique] comme d’un amas de materiaux pour batir l’édifice d’un système de philosophie. […] de même il seroit à souhaiter que les articles du Dict[ionnaire] fussent tellement digerés & si bien raportez les uns aux autres, que qui voudroit se donner la peine de tourner souvent le feuillet, pourroit le lire comme un système de philosophie. Je crois qu’avec quelques attention & à force de combinaisons on y pourroit réussir par le moien des divisions & des renvois.” See also André Bandelier, “L’encyclopédisme avant l’Encyclopédie: Attentes genevoises et projet de ‘Dictionnaire Philosophique’ de J.H.S. Formey,” in L’Encyclopédie d’Yverdon et sa résonance européenne: contextes – contenus – continuités, ed. Jean-Daniel Candaux et al. (Geneva: Slatkine, 2005), 55–68.
- 33.
See Formey, Principes de morale déduits de l’usage des facultés de l’entendement humain, vol. 2, 334. Cramer’s letter is reprinted on pages 335–45.
- 34.
The pedagogical use of encyclopedias has a long history and was famously present in Johann Heinrich Alsted’s Encyclopaedia of 1630; see Ulrich Johannes Schneider, Die Erfindung des allgemeinen Wissens: Enzyklopädisches Schreiben im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012), 47.
- 35.
See Formey, Histoire abrégée de la philosophie (Amsterdam: Schneider, 1760), 9–10; compare to Christian Wolff, Discursus praeliminaris de philosophia in genere, ed. Günter Gawlick and Lothar Kreimendahl (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1996), §6 and §7 (p. 6).
- 36.
See “Explication détaillée du système des connoissances humaines,” in Encyclopédie, vol. 1, XLVII–XLVIII.
- 37.
For example in César Chesneau Du Marsais, “Philosophe,” in Encyclopédie, vol. 12 (Neufchâtel: Faulche, 1765), 510.
- 38.
See Wolff, Discursus praeliminaris, §57 (p. 68) and Wolff, Theologia naturalis, methodo scientifico pertractata, pars prior, ed. Jean Ecole, Christian Wolff Gesammelte Werke, Sect. 2, vol. 7.1 (Hildesheim: Olms, 1978) [original from 1739], §1.
- 39.
See Robert Theis, “Theologie,” in Handbuch Christian Wolff, ed. Theis and Alexander Aichele (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2018), 221 and 244–47.
- 40.
See Walch, “Vorrede,” in Philosophisches Lexicon, fol. [)()(4v] [the signs refer to unpaginated leaves in the book].
- 41.
See Walch, “Vorrede,” in Philosophisches Lexicon, fol. [)()(7v] [the signs refer to unpaginated leaves in the book].
- 42.
Pierre Rétat, “La remarque baylienne,” in Critique, savoir et érudition à la veille des Lumières: le Dictionnaire historique et critique de Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), ed. Hans Bots (Amsterdam/Maarsen: APA, 1998), 27–39.
- 43.
See Isabel Rivers, “Biographical Dictionaries and their Uses from Bayle to Chalmers,” in Books and their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays, ed. Isabel Rivers (London: Leicester University Press, 2001), 135–69 (see especially 139 and 151–53).
- 44.
Mara van der Lugt, Bayle, Jurieu, and the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 28. Already Elisabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1985) stressed the largely erudite character of Bayle’s Dictionnaire. According to her, the later interpretation of the Dictionnaire’s structure as a means to subvert religion does not correspond to Bayle’s original conception (p. 238).
- 45.
Cramer to Formey (April 9, 1742), in Lettres de Genève, 28.
- 46.
For eighteenth-century Protestant criticism of Bayle’s dictionary see Rétat, Le ‘Dictionnaire’ de Bayle, 153–80. For criticism of Bayle’s alleged skepticism by rationalist Calvinist philosophers, see Stefano Brogi, Teologia senza verità: Bayle contro i ‘rationaux’ (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1998), and Anton Matytsin, The Specter of Skepticism in the Age of Enlightenment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), 54–65.
- 47.
Bocquet to Formey (May 21, 1742), Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlass Formey.
- 48.
See Antony McKenna, “Les critiques de Bayle au 18e Siècle: L’exemple de Jean-Pierre de Crousaz,” in Aufklärung und Aufklärungskritik in Frankreich. Selbstdeutungen des 18. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel der Zeitgenossen, ed. Johannes Rohbeck and Sonia Asval (Berlin: Wissenschaftsverlag, 2003), 35–62, and Anton Matytsin, “The Protestant Critics of Bayle at the Dawn of the Enlightenment,” in: Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung, ed. Sébastien Charles and Plinio J. Smith (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), 63–76.
- 49.
See Formey, Le triomphe de l’évidence, 2 vols. (Berlin: Lange, 1756). For the work’s genesis, see the preface to its first volume.
- 50.
See Formey, “Introduction,” in Le triomphe de l’évidence, vol. 1, LXVIII–LXIX. For a similar stand on Bayle and his method see Formey, Histoire abrégée de la philosophie, 247–48.
- 51.
See Matytsin, Specter of Skepticism, 142–43.
- 52.
See Matytsin, Specter of Skepticism, 143–44. Jens Häseler, “Formey et Crousaz, ou comment fallait-il combattre le scepticisme?,” in The Return of Scepticism: From Hobbes and Descartes to Bayle, ed. Gianni Paganini (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), 458–61.
- 53.
See Formey, “Dieu, (Métaph. & Théol.),” in Encyclopédie, vol. 4 (Paris: Briasson et al., 1754), 976–83. For my more detailed analysis of this article see Annelie Grosse, “Dossier critique de l’article DIEU, (Métaph. & Théol.) (Encyclopédie, t. IV, p. 976a–983a),” in Édition Numérique Collaborative et Critique de l’Encyclopédie, last modified March 30, 2019, http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/article/v4-2500-0/.
- 54.
Formey, “Dialéle, (Logique),” in Encyclopédie, vol. 4, 935 and “Epoque, (Logique),” in Encyclopédie, vol. 5 (Paris: Briasson et al., 1755), 831–33.
- 55.
See Bocquet to Formey (May 21, 1742), Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlass Formey. Besides Bocquet, Formey also asked the Huguenot pastor Jacques Pérard to collaborate on his Dictionnaire philosophique, yet the latter declined. Furthermore, the German professor of philosophy Ludwig Martin Kahle offered to provide articles. See Geissler, “Der Beitrag Formeys zum Enzyklopädismus,” 305–306.
- 56.
See Bocquet to Formey (October 13, 1742; September 15, 1744; February 26, 1745), Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlass Formey.
- 57.
See Briasson to Formey (September 28, 1743), in Correspondance passive de Formey: Antoine-Claude Briasson et Nicolas-Charles-Joseph Trublet. Lettres adressées à Jean-Henri-Samuel Formey (1739–1770), ed. Martin Fontius, Rolf Geissler, and Jens Häseler (Paris: Champion, 1996), 29–30.
- 58.
See Briasson to Formey (June 16, 1740), in Correspondence passive, 24.
- 59.
Formey, “Notice de mes Ouvrages,” in Conseils pour former une bibliothèque peu nombreuse, mais Choisie, 3rd ed. (Berlin: Haude & Spener, 1755), 112–13.
- 60.
See D’Alembert, “Discours préliminaire,” XXXVIII.
- 61.
On the Cyclopædia see Lael Ely Bradshaw, “Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopædia,” in Notable Encyclopedias, 123–40. The following account on the Encyclopédie’s early history relies on Louis-Philippe May, “Histoire et sources de l’Encyclopédie: d’après le registre de délibérations et de comptes des éditeurs et un mémoire inédit,” Revue de synthèse 58 (1938): 5–30.
- 62.
See Bandelier, “L’encyclopédisme avant l’Encyclopédie,” 59.
- 63.
See Peschier to Formey (December 24, 1745), in Lettres de Genève, 139.
- 64.
See Mercure de France, June 1745, vol. 1, 87–88.
- 65.
See Mercure de France, 84.
- 66.
Similarly, Holmberg, The Maurists’ Unfinished Encyclopedia, 112–13 stresses that in 1745 the nature of the later Encyclopédie was unpredictable.
- 67.
See Mercure de France, 86.
- 68.
See Formey to Cramer (July 16, 1746), in Lettres de Genève, 149.
- 69.
For the full list of Formey’s publications during these years, see “Notice de mes ouvrages,” 111–14.
- 70.
See Formey to Marchand (March 16, 1743), in “La correspondance entre Formey et Marchand,” 300–301, and Jacques Pérard to Formey (May 16, 1743), Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlass Formey.
- 71.
See Marchand to Formey (April 19, 1743), in “La correspondance entre Formey et Marchand,” 308.
- 72.
See Formey to Marchand (July 13, 1743), in “La correspondance entre Formey et Marchand,” 310–11.
- 73.
See Formey to Marchand (May 20, 1744), in “La correspondance entre Formey et Marchand,” 316.
- 74.
See “Actum vom 15.7.1745,” Archiv der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Berlin, Abt. IV, Nr. 12, p. 114.
- 75.
See Bocquet to Formey (January 11, 1745 and February 26, 1745), Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Nachlass Formey.
- 76.
See Peschier to Formey (April 29, 1746), in Lettres de Genève, 144.
- 77.
See Formey to Cramer (July 16, 1746), in Lettres de Genève, 149.
- 78.
On Gua de Malves and his conflict with the Encyclopédie’s publishers see Edgar Mass, “Les envers du succès: L’infortune du premier éditeur de l’Encyclopédie, Gua de Malves,” in L’Encyclopédie et Diderot, ed. Edgar Mass and Paul-Eckhard Knabe (Köln: DME-Verlag, 1985), 155–79.
- 79.
May, “Histoire et sources de l’Encylopédie,” 21.
- 80.
This is the date of Gua de Malves’s letter to Formey in which he outlined the conditions of their deal, published in extract in Élisabeth Badinter, Les passions intellectuelles, vol. 1 (Paris: Fayard, 2010), 399–402.
- 81.
See Gua de Malves, “Memoire circulaire des differentes choses que l’editeur de l’Encyclopedie demande a ceux qui voudrons bien l’aider dans cet ouvrage,” 104r–104v, in Christine Théré and Loïc Charles, “Un nouvel élément pour l’histoire de l’Encyclopédie: le ‘plan’ inédit du premier éditeur, Gua de Malves,” Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 39 (2005): 105–22, https://doi.org/10.4000/rde.320.
- 82.
See Gua de Malves, “Memoire circulaire,” 105r.
- 83.
See Gua de Malves, “Memoire circulaire,” 106r.
- 84.
See Gua de Malves, “Memoire circulaire,” 109r–109v.
- 85.
The remuneration that Formey received for his manuscript (300 pounds) appears low compared to those of the Encyclopédie’s collaborators. Louis Jean Marie Daubenton, for example, received 2000 pounds in June 1748, and Edme François Mallet received 900 pounds for his work in theology, ecclesiastic history, trade, and numismatics in September 1748. See May, “Histoire et sources de l’Encyclopédie,” 22 and 23.
- 86.
See Gua de Malves to Formey (April 29, 1747), in Badinter, Passions intellectuelles, 402, footnote.
- 87.
See Gua de Malves to Formey (April 29, 1747), in Badinter, Passions intellectuelles, 400.
- 88.
See Gua de Malves to Formey (April 29, 1747), in Badinter, Passions intellectuelles, 401. Geissler, “Der Beitrag Formeys zum Enzyklopädismus,” 309–10 reveals that Gua de Malves sent additional instructions to the Encyclopédie’s collaborators in 1747 in which he explained how they should deal with Formey’s manuscript in particular. These printed instructions are to be found in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska Krakow, Collection Autographa. Contrary to what Geissler claims, however, they are dated August 10, 1747. Geissler published an extract of this document in his article.
- 89.
See D’Alembert to Formey (October 27, 1748), Biblioteka Jagiellońska Krakow, Collection Autographa. Of all 114 articles in the Encyclopédie that refer to Formey, 31 were signed by “(O)”, D’Alembert’s mark as a contributor.
- 90.
For the different kinds of collaborating and contributing to the Encyclopédie that can be inferred from the indications in the articles, see Alain Cernuschi, “Les modes de collaboration,” in La fabrique de l’Encyclopédie, Édition Numérique Collaborative et Critique de l’Encyclopédie, last modified September 9, 2017, http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/documentation/?s=91&.
- 91.
See May, “Histoire et sources de l’Encyclopédie,” 21.
- 92.
See Frank A. Kafker, The Encyclopedists as a Group: A Collective Biography of the Authors of the Encyclopédie (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1996), 76–75 who revealed that 24% of the 140 contributors were sincere Catholics and 11% were Protestants.
References
Archival Resources
Archiv der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Berlin.
Abt. IV, Nr. 12, p. 114 (“Actum vom 15.7.1745”).
Biblioteka Jagiellońska Krakow.
Collection Autographa (letters by Jean Le Rond D’Alembert and Ernst Christoph Manteuffel to Samuel Formey).
Staatsbibliothek Berlin.
Nachlass Formey (letters by Abraham Bocquet and by Jacques Pérard to Samuel Formey).
Digital Resources
ENCCRE, Édition Numérique Collaborative et CRitique de l’Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (1751–1772), accessed September 16, 2020, http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/.
Printed Works
Badinter, Élisabeth. Les passions intellectuelles. Vol. 1. Paris: Fayard, 2010.
Bandelier, André. “L’Encyclopédisme avant l’Encyclopédie: attentes genevoises et projet de ‘Dictionnaire philosophique’ de J. H. S. Formey.” In L’Encyclopédie d’Yverdon et sa résonance européenne: contextes—contenus—continuités, edited by Jean-Daniel Candaux et al., 55–68. Geneva: Slatkine, 2005.
Bandelier, André, and Frédéric Eigeldinger, eds. Lettres de Genève (1741–1793) à Jean Henri Samuel Formey. Paris: Champion, 2010.
Blanchard, Gilles, and Mark Olsen. “Le système de renvois dans l’Encyclopédie: une cartographie des structures de connaissances au XVIIIe siècle.” Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 31–32 (2002): 45–70. https://doi.org/10.4000/rde.122.
Bradshaw, Lael Ely. “Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopædia.” In Notable Encyclopedias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Nine Predecessors of the Encyclopédie. edited by Frank A. Kafker, 123–40. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1981.
Brogi, Stefano. Teologia senza verità: Bayle contro i ‘rationaux’. Milano: Franco Angeli, 1998.
Carboncini-Gavanelli, Sonia. “L’Encyclopédie et Christian Wolff: a propos de quelques articles anonymes.” Les études philosophiques 4 (1987): 489–504.
Cernuschi, Alain. “Les modes de collaboration.” In La fabrique de l’Encyclopédie. Édition Numérique Collaborative et CRitique de l’Encyclopédie, last modified September 9, 2017. http://enc789cre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/documentation/?s=91&.
Chaumeix, Abraham Joseph de. Préjugés légitimes contre l’Encyclopédie et essai de réfutation de ce dictionnaire. 3 vols. Brussels: Herissant, 1758.
D’Alembert, Jean Le Rond. “Discours préliminaire des éditeurs.” In Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Vol. 1, I–XLV. Paris: Briasson et al., 1751.
D’Alembert, Jean Le Rond and Denis Diderot. “Explication détaillée du système des connoissances hHumaines.” In Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Vol. 1, XLVII–LI. Paris: Briasson et al., 1751.
Dao Duc, Khanh. “Leibniz dans l’Encyclopédie.” Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 48 (2013): 123–41.
Du Marsais, César Chesneau. “Philosophe.” In Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Vol. 12, 509–11. Neufchâtel: Faulche, 1765.
Fontius, Martin. “Zwischen ‘Libertas Philosophandi’ und ‘Siècle de la Philosophie’: Zum geistesgeschichtlichen Standort Formeys und der zweiten Generation der réfugiés.” In L’Allemagne et la France des lumières/ Deutsche und Französische Aufklärung: Mélanges offerts à Jochen Schlobach par ses élèves et amis, edited by Michel Delon and Jean Mondot, 45–68. Paris: Champion, 2003.
Fontius, Martin, Rolf Geissler, and Jens Häseler, eds. Correspondance passive de Formey: Antoine-Claude Briasson et Nicolas-Charles-Joseph Trublet. Lettres adressées à Jean-Henri-Samuel Formey (1739–1770). Paris: Champion, 1996.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. Pensées raisonnables opposées aux pensées philosophiques. Leiden: Luzac, 1749.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. Lettre de M. Gervaise Holmes à l’auteur de la Lettre sur les aveugles. Berlin: Cambridge, 1750.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. Le philosophe chrétien, ou discours moraux. Vol. 1. Leiden: Luzac, 1750.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. “Dieu, (Métaph. & Théol.).” In Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Vol. 4, 976–83. Paris: Briasson et al., 1754.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. “Dialéle, (Logique).” In Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Vol. 4, 935. Paris: Briasson et al., 1754.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. “Epoque, (Logiq.).” In Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Vol. 5, 831–33. Paris: Briasson et al., 1755.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. “Examen philosophique de la liaison réelle qu’il y a entre les sciences et les mœurs […].” In Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences et des belles-lettres de Berlin 1753, 397–416. Berlin: Haude & Spener, 1755.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. “Notice de mes ouvrages.” In Conseils pour former une bibliothèque peu nombreuse, mais choisie. 3rd ed., 104–22. Berlin: Haude & Spener, 1755.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. Le triomphe de l’évidence. 2 vols. Berlin: Lange, 1756.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. Histoire abrégée de la philosophie. Amsterdam: Schneider, 1760.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. L’Esprit de Julie, ouvrage utile à la société et particulièrement à la jeunesse. Berlin: Jasperd, 1762.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. Principes de morale déduits de l’usage des facultés de l’entendement humain. 2 vols. Leiden: Luzac, 1762.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. Anti-Émile. Berlin: Pauli, 1763.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. Emile chrétien, consacré à l’utilité publique. 4 vols. Berlin: Neaulme, 1764.
Formey, Jean Henri Samuel. Souvenirs d’un citoyen. 2 vols. Berlin: La Garde, 1789.
Garofalo, Silvano. “Gianfrancesco Pivati’s Nuovo dizionario.” In Notable Encyclopedias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Nine Predecessors of the Encyclopédie, edited by Frank A. Kafker, 197–219. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1981.
Gasparri, Giuliano. Étienne Chauvin (1640–1725) and his Lexicon philosophicum. Hildesheim: Olms, 2016.
Geissler, Rolf. “Der Beitrag Formeys zum Enzyklopädismus im 18. Jahrhundert.” In Franzosen in Berlin: Über Religion und Aufklärung in Preußen. Studien zum Nachlass des Akademiesekretärs Samuel Formey, edited by Martin Fontius and Jens Häseler, 293–373. Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2019.
Grosse, Annelie. “Dossier critique de l’article DIEU, (Métaph. & Théol.) (Encyclopédie, t. IV, p. 976a-983a).” In Édition Numérique Collaborative et CRitique de l’Encyclopédie, last modified March 30, 2019. http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/article/v4-2500-0/.
Häseler, Jens. “Formey et Crousaz, ou comment fallait-il combattre le scepticisme?” In The Return of Scepticism: From Hobbes and Descartes to Bayle, edited by Gianni Paganini, 449–61. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003.
Häseler, Jens. “Samuel Formey, pasteur huguenot entre Lumières françaises et Aufklärung.” Dix-huitième siècle 34 (2002): 239–47.
Holmberg, Linn. The Maurists’ Unfinished Encyclopedia. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2017.
Israel, Jonathan. Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Kafker, Frank A. The Encyclopedists as a Group: A Collective Biography of the Authors of the Encyclopédie. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1996.
Krauss, Werner. “Ein Akademiesekretär vor 200 Jahren: Samuel Formey.” In Studien zur Deutschen und Französischen Aufklärung, edited by Werner Krauss, 53–62. Berlin: Rütten & Loening, 1963.
Labrousse, Elisabeth. Pierre Bayle. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1985.
Leca-Tsiomis, Marie. “Les dictionnaires en Europe: présentation.” Dix-huitième siècle 38, no. 1 (2006): 4–16. https://doi.org/10.3917/dhs.038.0004.
Leca-Tsiomis, Marie. “L’Encyclopédie: entre héritages et innovations.” In Qu’est-ce que l’Encyclopédie? Édition Numérique Collaborative et CRitique de l’Encyclopédie, last modified December 23, 2014. http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/documentation/?s=2&.
Lough, John. The ‘Encyclopédie’. Harlow: Longman, 1971.
Loveland, Jeff. An Alternative Encylopedia?: Dennis de Coetlogon’s ‘Universal History of Arts and Sciences’ (1745). Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010.
Loveland, Jeff. The European Encyclopedia: From 1650 to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Lugt, Mara van der. Bayle, Jurieu, and the Dictionnaire historique et critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Marcu, Eva. “Un encyclopédiste oublié: Formey.” Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France 53, no. 3 (1953): 296–305.
Mass, Edgar. “Les envers du succès: l’infortune du premier éditeur de l’Encyclopédie, Gua de Malves.” In L’Encyclopédie et Diderot, edited by Edgar Mass and Paul-Eckhard Knabe, 155–79. Köln: DME-Verlag, 1985.
Matytsin, Anton. “The Protestant Critics of Bayle at the Dawn of the Enlightenment.” In Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung, edited by Sébastien Charles and Plinio J. Smith, 63–76. Dordrecht: Springer, 2013.
Matytsin, Anton. The Specter of Skepticism in the Age of Enlightenment. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
May, Louis-Philippe. “Histoire et sources de l’Encyclopédie: d’après le registre de délibérations et de comptes des éditeurs et un mémoire inédit.” Revue de synthèse 58 (1938): 5–30.
McKenna, Antony. “Les critiques de Bayle au 18e siècle: l’exemple de Jean-Pierre de Crousaz.” In Aufklärung und Aufklärungskritik in Frankreich: Selbstdeutungen des 18. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel der Zeitgenossen, edited by Johannes Rohbeck and Sonia Asval, 35–62. Berlin: Wissenschaftsverlag, 2003.
Mercure de France. June 1745. Vol. 1.
Moureau, François. “L’Encyclopédie d’après les correspondants de Formey.” Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 3 (1987): 125–45.
Proust, Jacques. L’Encyclopédie. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1965.
Rétat, Pierre. “La remarque baylienne.” In Critique, savoir et érudition à la veille des Lumières: le Dictionnaire historique et critique de Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), edited by Hans Bots, 27–39. Amsterdam/Maarsen: APA, 1998.
Rétat, Pierre. “L’âge des dictionnaires.” In Histoire de l’édition française, edited by Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin. 2nd ed. Vol. 2, 232–41. Paris: Fayard, 1990.
Rétat, Pierre. Le ‘Dictionnaire’ de Bayle et la lutte philosophique au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Les Belles lettres, 1971.
Rivers, Isabel. “Biographical Dictionaries and their Uses from Bayle to Chalmers.” In Books and their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays, edited by Isabel Rivers, 135–69. London: Leicester University Press, 2001.
Roe, Glenn. “A Sheep in Wolff’s Clothing: Émilie Du Châtelet and the Encyclopédie.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 51, no. 2 (2017): 179–96. https://doi.org/10.1353/ecs.2017.0059.
Schillings, Jan. “La correspondance entre Formey et Marchand (1736–1749).” Lias 39, no. 2 (2012): 231–320.
Schneider, Ulrich Johannes. Die Erfindung des Allgemeinen Wissens: Enzyklopädisches Schreiben im Zeitalter der Aufklärung. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012.
Schneider, Ulrich Johannes. “Die Konstruktion des Allgemeinen Wissens in Zedlers Universal-Lexicon.” In Wissenssicherung, Wissensordnung und Wissensverbreitung: Das Europäische Modell der Enzyklopädien, edited by Theo Stammen and Wolfgang Weber, 81–101. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004.
Schwab, Richard N., Walter E. Rex, and John Lough, eds. Inventory of Diderot’s Encyclopedie. Vol. 6. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1972.
Theis, Robert. “Theologie.” In Handbuch Christian Wolff, edited by Robert Theis and Alexander Aichele, 219–50. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2018.
Théré, Christine, and Loïc Charles. “Un nouvel élément pour l’histoire de l’Encyclopédie: Le ‘plan’ inédit du premier éditeur, Gua de Malves.” Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 39 (2005): 105–22. https://doi.org/10.4000/rde.320.
Thomann, Marcel. “Une source peu connue de l’Encyclopédie: L’influence de Christian Wolff.” In Actes du 92e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes Tenu à Strasbourg et Colmar 1967. Vol. 3, 95–110. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1970.
Venturi, Franco. Le origini dell’Enciclopedia: il capolavoro dell’illuminismo. Torino: Einaudi, 1963.
Walch, Johann Georg. Philosophisches Lexicon. Darinnen die in allen Theilen der Philosophie, als Logic, Metaphysic, Physic, Pnevmatic, Ethic, natürlichen Theologie und Rechts-Gelehrsamkeit, wie auch Politic fürkommenden Materien und Kunst-Wörter erkläret und aus der Historie erläutert; die Streitigkeiten der ältern und neuern Philosophen erzehlet, die dahin gehörigen Bücher und Schrifften angeführet, und alles nach Alphabetischer Ordnung vorgestellet werden. Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1726.
Walch, Johann Georg. Einleitung in die Philosophie, worinnen alle Theile derselbigen nach ihrem richtigen Zusammenhang erkläret und der Ursprung nebst dem Fortgang einer jeden Disciplin zugleich erzehlet worden, sonderlich zum Gebrauch des Philosophischen Lexici. Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1727.
Wille, Dagmar von. “Johann Georg Walch und sein Philosophisches Lexicon.” Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 22, no. 1 (1998): 31–39.
Wolff, Christian. Discursus praeliminaris de philosophia in genere [1728], edited by Günter Gawlick and Lothar Kreimendahl. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1996.
Wolff, Christian. Theologia naturalis, methodo scientifico pertractata, pars prior [1739], edited by Jean Ecole. Christian Wolff Gesammelte Werke. Section 2. Vol. 7.1. Hildesheim: Olms, 1978.
Yeo, Richard. Encyclopaedic Visions: Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Grosse, A. (2021). Stranding in the Encyclopédie: The Case of Samuel Formey’s Philosophical Dictionary, 1742–1747. In: Holmberg, L., Simonsen, M. (eds) Stranded Encyclopedias, 1700–2000. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64300-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64300-3_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-64299-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-64300-3
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)