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.