But the popular impression that the Encyclopaedists constituted a single body with a common doctrine and a common aim was practically sound.

Comte has pointed out with admirable clearness the merit of the conception of an encyclopaedic workshop.[104] It united the members of rival destructive schools in a great constructive task.

It furnished a rallying-point for efforts otherwise the most divergent.

Their influence was precisely what it would have been, if popular impressions had been literally true.
Diderot and D'Alembert did their best to heighten this feeling.

They missed no occasion of fixing a sentiment of co-operation and fellowship.
They spoke of their dictionary as the transactions of an Academy.[105] Each writer was answerable for his own contribution, but he was in the position of a member of some learned corporation.