Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 33

Chap.

PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION

I]

whole and the

parts.

9

For which reason Alstedt's Encyclo-

pedia stands for his times really very high.

It is evidently

body of the sciences and he seeks to reach

his purpose to exhibit before our eyes the

(^Corpus Scientiarum) as one whole

;

end on the one hand by giving us a description of the members of the body, but also on the other hand by directing our attention to the skeleton and the network of nerves and veins that unite these parts. But even with Alstedt the word Encycloijedia as such has not received a pregnant significance. In his introduction he himself tells us that his Encyclopedia has the same end in view as was held by Petrus Ramus in his Professio regia, by Gregorius Thoiosanus in his Syiitaxis artis mirabiUs, and by this

Wower

in his Polymathia. To him, therefore, Encyclopedia but a convenient name for what had been furnished by others before him. With Alstedt Encyclopedia refers rather to the exhaustive scope than to the organic coherence of his work what Martinius called adumbratio universitatis. This, is

;

however, did not prevent him from unconsciously attaching a double significance to the name (1) that of a book which :

comprehended in brief the results of the most widely known sciences, and (2) that of a study of the mutual relations of the sciences. Alstedt had a systematic nature, and his organic interpretation of science is already evident from his announcement that it is his purj)ose to furnish a " description in one exhibit of the whole estate of the kingdom of philosophy." To work methodically was to him an outspoken necessity. Thus in his introduction he writes " That the foundation of all philosophy may be presented in one view to systematic minds eager for learning." :

§ 5.

Use of the Word after the Seventeenth Century

In the second half of the seventeenth and in the course of the eighteenth century, the systematic conception in the use

word Encyclopedia retires still more into the background than with Alstedt. It is still used as the title for more or less systematic reviews of the contents of separate sciences, and medical and juridical compendiums are published of the

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