All language subtitles for Butterfly.Effect.S03E12_English

- [Narrator] Our history
is no more than a series

of incredible events.

Every one of us can
influence its course.

The most infinitesimal
of our decisions

can influence the
future of humanity.

To know the past is
to foresee the future.

1835, the Winter Palace.

After a vain escape attempt,

Tsar Nicholas I was
brought back by force

to St. Petersburg
by angry rioters.

At the end of a summary trial,

he was sentenced to
death by beheading.

Guillotine starts
its reign of terror

in the new republic of Russia.

During the previous century,
faced with constant
censorship,

Diderot, chief editor
of the Encyclopedia,

fled France for Russia.

Turned close advisor to
Empress Catherine II,

he contributed to
the spread of ideas

during the Enlightenment,
inspiring many philosophers.

These new ideas had
enraged the Russian people

in the grip of deep poverty.

Today, revolution has
overwhelmed the Russian empire,

but none of that ever happened.

In 1762, a small grain of sand

is going to enable the
completion of the
Encyclopedia,

monumental work of the age
of Enlightenment in France.

1746, France.

The royal power authorizes
a great project,

a universal dictionary
of arts and sciences.

1762, Empress Catherine II
offers philosopher Denis
Diderot

to finish the
Encyclopedia in Russia,

away from censorship.

1772, after 26 years
of a monumental work,

this formidable editorial
adventure is finally over.

These three inextricably
linked events

are key moments in the
age of Enlightenment

and have set the pace of the
great Encyclopedia adventure.

Aristotle, Galen,
and Pliny the Elder.

In the west, for centuries,
these three ancient scholars

had been perceived as the
foundation of knowledge.

Medieval society values
know-how and experiment,

but science often consists

of reconciling
Greco-Roman knowledge

with Christian theology.

From the 16th century on,

a new way of thinking
about the world emerges.

In 1543, after having waited
until the end of his life,

the astronomer and
mathematician Copernicus

publishes De Revolutionibus
Orbium Celestium.

Contrary to what Aristotle said,

the scholar declares that the
Earth is not a fixed planet

at the center of the universe

but that it revolves
around the Sun.

It's a revolution.

At the end of the century,
theologian Giordano Bruno

goes even further.

The Sun isn't the center
of the universe either.

It's only a star among many
others in the universe.

Condemned for
heresy and tortured,

Bruno was ordered to abandon
his beliefs on pain of death.

But he does not relent.

In 1600 in Rome,
he is burnt alive.

33 years later, the church
attacks another scholar.

Facing its omnipotence,
Galileo is forced

to recant his theory on
celestial bodies' motions.

At the end of the century,
the Englishman Isaac Newton

formulates his law of
universal gravitation,

founding modern physics.

In his calculations,

no borrowing from
Aristotle or the Bible,

but a prominent place given to
mathematics and experiments.

The scientific milieu is
in a fever of excitement.

The philosopher Descartes
develops a method of reasoning,

excluding de facto
beliefs and superstitions.

Time to make way for
the Cartesian spirit,

criticism, and logic.

The trend is towards
polemic and exchange.

In the 18th century,
the kingdom of France

is at the heart of
this intellectual boom.

Reason must prevail over all.

Independence of the
individual is primary.

In the face of
obscurantism and ignorance,

these philosophers become
beacons in the night,

the lanterns of knowledge
emerging from the abysses.

It's the Age of Enlightenment.

But like Giordano Bruno
or Galileo before them,

the philosophers of the
Age of Enlightenment

are going to meet
with full force,

censorship from both the
church and central authority.

Almost all of them are
going to experience exile,

prison, or censorship.

Very soon, their motto becomes
Sapere Aude, Dare to Know.

- [Female Android] Welcome
to the memory of humanity.

Every historical event,
regardless of how small,

is recorded and connected.

You only need to change one
to upset all the others.

Here, we were able
to control time,

analyze and compare
billions of events

in order to rewrite
history in infinite ways.

Censure is an
arbitrary limitation

of the freedom of expression
of the individual.

In the 18th century in France,

it is the responsibility
of the royal census.

Only a few philosophers of
the Age of Enlightenment

escaped it.

Montesquieu, Voltaire,
Diderot, Russo,

Helvetius, and many others.

In 1789, during the
French Revolution,

the National Assembly adopts

the Declaration of the Rights
of Man and of the Citizen.

Articles 10 and 11
very clearly state

that no one may be
disturbed for his opinions,

even religious ones, provided
that their manifestation

does not trouble the public
order established by the law

and that any citizen may
speak and write freely.

Theoretically, a Frenchman
is thus free to speak.

However, today, France is
only ranking 33rd in the world

for the freedom of the press.

Let's go back.

- [Narrator] 1745, Paris.

The German scholar Gottfried
Sellius is in town.

He has to meet a certain
le Breton, a publisher,

to present him with a project,

the translation into
French of the Cyclopedia,

an English language
universal dictionary.

The word encyclopedia
comes from Greek

and means body of knowledge
for a complete education.

Unlike a dictionary that
defines the words of a
language,

an encyclopedia explains
things in a universal way.

It compiles and summarizes
the whole of knowledge

to make it available to all.

An encyclopedia is
thus necessarily

a substantial and bulky work.

And at this time, no
work of this scope

has yet been published.

The initial translation
project comes to a sudden end.

But for le Breton,
the idea is launched,

the edition of a great
universal dictionary

of arts and sciences,
actually a real encyclopedia.

He obtains a 20-year
royal privilege,

the exclusive authorization
to print and sell this work,

a publishing concession.

Editorial supervision

is entrusted to Abbot
de Gua de Malves,

mathematician, member of the
Royal Academy of Sciences,

and professor at the
College du France.

The scholar immediately
surrounds himself

with collaborators, among
them Jean le Rond d'Alembert,

himself a member of the
French Academy of Sciences,

and Denis Diderot, a translator.

But very soon, the abbot
leaves the project.

Diderot and d'Alembert are
then given the weighty task

of taking over the
direction of the project.

And if, at the beginning, the
intentions of the publishers

were relatively modest,

those of the two new
publishers are less so

because Diderot and
d'Alembert embodied the spirit

of the Enlightenment perfectly.

Their watch word, accept
nothing without proof

and encourage thinking.

Their ambition opened
the doors of knowledge

to as many people as possible,

fight superstitions
and obscurantism,

ensure that reason prevails.

Diderot in particular
doesn't seek

to put a rigid system in
place
or a new method of thinking.

On the contrary, he questions,
raises incoherences,

lets the readers
think by themselves.

But he proves himself reckless.

In 1749, following one of
his anonymous publications,

he is imprisoned
for three months

in the prison of Vincennes.

The tone is set.

- [Female Android]
Financing a project.

The publishing world
of the 18th century

is very different from today's.

Despite the progress
of printing,

the manufacturing
process remains tedious.

Paper itself is a
very costly material

and of variable quality.

To finance such an
ambitious project,

encyclopedists turned to
the system of subscriptions.

A subscription is
a pre-purchase.

The future client
accepts to pay in advance

to allow for the
publication of the work

and gets a copy once
manufacturing is complete.

It represents a risk.

He cannot be certain either
of the delivery schedule

or of the final quality.

To convince subscribers,
Diderot then writes a text

accompanied by an image
representing schematically

the structure of
the encyclopedia

in the form of a
tree of knowledge.

These types of text,
named prospectus,

have given their name to the
leaflets we know nowadays.

This system of subscription
is very similar to

crowdsourcing or crowdfunding,
as we know it today,

a way for every one of us to
finance the culture we like.

- [Narrator] 1751, five
years after the launch

of the encyclopedic project,
the first volume is released

from le Breton's workshops.

A preface by d'Alembert
expounds the author's
ambitions,

a true Enlightenment manifesto.

The following year, the
release of the second volume

seems to go smoothly until
one of the collaborators,

an abbot, publishes a thesis.

It includes rational
explanations

for Jesus Christ's
miraculous healings.

It's a scandal, a blasphemy.

The opponents of the
Encyclopedia seize
the opportunity

and obtain from the king
the condemnation of the two

already published volumes.

It is prohibited for
anyone to sell, buy,

or even to simply
possess copies.

The encyclopedists come
to fear their project

might be taken
over by the church

and leave with the Jesuits.

It's in these tough
times that an ally

as powerful as
unexpected steps in.

Guillaume de Malesherbes,
director of censorship.

His duty requires him to
throw Diderot into a dungeon.

However, he works cleverly

to get the prohibition
lifted by the king.

D'Alembert, on the other
hand, has learnt the lesson.

He leaves the direction and
becomes a mere collaborator.

Diderot is left alone in charge.

The publications resume.

The attacks increase and
are more and more virulent

as the volumes are published.

In 1754, Voltaire,
enthusiastic, joins the
project.

But on January 5th,
1757, a failed attack

against Louis XV
shakes the public.

These new subversive ideas are
bound to be the guilty party.

The encyclopedists are accused
of undermining royal power.

Malesherbes himself
is threatened.

D'Alembert abandons the project.

Voltaire urges all of his
collaborators to show caution.

But Diderot and a handful
of hardliners stand firm.

He urges his collaborators
not to flee the fighting,

not to lose ground
to their enemies.

In Rome, the Pope puts the work

on the Index of
Prohibited Books.

Any Catholic found guilty

of owning a copy
of the Encyclopedia

is systematically threatened
of being excommunicated.

A royal decree
revokes the privileges

and declares illegal
the first seven volumes.

Diderot's manuscripts
are seized.

But those hidden at
Malesherbes are not.

The head of royal censorship,
taking huge risks,

manages to appease
people's minds.

He obtains from the king
permission to keep publishing

but only volumes of
illustrations and engravings.

Then starts the clandestine
period of the Encyclopedia.

With the passive
complicity of the police,

the volumes of text
remaining are written

and printed in secret in
le Breton's workshops.

This is a very tough
period for Diderot.

For years, enduring
threats and insults,

he works himself to
death in silence.

That is when in 1762,
Empress Catherine II

proposes him to finish
the Encyclopedia in Riga,

in the Russian empire
far away from censorship.

- [Female Android]
We have arrived at a
point of divergence.

A point of divergence
is a key moment,

a crossroads in our history
where our world can swing

from one side to the other.

The impact of books
on our societies

is very difficult to evaluate.

What would our world look
like without the Bible,

the Torah, or the Quran,

or if the works of
Karl Marx or Darwin

had never been published?

What would have happened if,

under the pressure
of censorship,

Diderot had accepted the
offer of Catherine II?

We can consider that in France,

the course of history would
have been pretty much the same.

The French Revolution
would still have happened,

but for the 18th century Russia,

it would have been different.

Catherine II was very receptive

to the ideas of the
Enlightenment philosophers

and maintained an intense
correspondence with Diderot.

The Encyclopedia would have
attracted many thinkers,

philosophers, and
enlightened minds.

Russia might have followed a
similar path to that of
France.

Driven by new ideas of freedom

inspired by the French example,

the Russian people,
enslaved and miserable,

would have rebelled
in their turn

right up to
overthrowing the power

and establishing a
republic in Russia.

We can consequently
imagine a period of turmoil

leading up to the
public execution

of the last tsar of Russia,

a guillotine in front
of the Winter Palace.

- [Narrator] 1765, the
last 10 volumes of text

printed in secret
without a royal privilege

are published in one go
and under a false address.

To circumvent the ban,
the volumes are handed out

outside of the city
walls of Paris.

For safety purposes,
the name of Diderot

doesn't appear on it anymore.

For the chief editor, the
great
and cursed work is finished,

the end of a 20 or so years
of work and sacrifices

but also of treasons.

Not long before the publication,

Diderot has realized
that le Breton

had exercised
preventive censorship.

In 1772, the last
volumes of illustrations

are finally completed
and published in turn.

After a quarter of a
century of incredible work,

the epic adventure of the
publication of the
Encyclopedia

is over,

its final title, Encyclopedia
or A Systematic Dictionary

of the Sciences,
Arts, and Crafts.

Offering about 72,000 articles

and thousands of illustrations
spread across 28 volumes,

it's a monumental work.

No work of this scope
had ever been published.

The Encyclopedia
astonishes by its modernity

and by the diversity
of its subject matter.

It includes topics previously
considered insignificant.

Mechanics stands alongside
astronomy, surgery,
mathematics.

Its conception is
original in itself,

a collective work with
over 150 collaborators

who have written articles
mostly voluntarily.

Diderot is the author of a
great variety of articles,

especially technical ones.

Numerous stories describe him
pacing the fabrication shops

at length to understand
all of their secrets.

D'Alembert, in spite
of his withdrawal,

provided about 1,600 articles,
mainly on mathematics.

But also the Chevalier de
Jaucourt, this workhorse

entirely devoted to the
work of the Encyclopedia

even in the toughest times,

we owe him more than
17,000 articles,

nearly 24% of the total volume.

If, with more than 150
different collaborators,

the quality of the articles
is
bound to be highly variable,

never the Encyclopedia
could have existed

without the dedication
of the encyclopedists.

They have defied censorship
and worked clandestinely

to forge beyond the mere
compiling of knowledge

a political weapon,
a weapon of light.

- [Female Android]
Nearly 72,000 articles

in all fields of knowledge.

The amount of data is,
for the time, phenomenal.

To structure the books, the
encyclopedists have decided

upon an alphabetical
classification

over a thematic one.

All subjects are thus
on an equal footing,

but it makes the
reading very tedious.

That's why an ingenious
system of cross-references

has been added.

At the bottom of each article,

the reader is invited to go
and read the related subjects.

For example, the
article agriculture

can refer to plow or wheat.

Centuries before the Internet,

the encyclopedists have
thus invented the concept

of hyperlink.

In addition to the help
in reading it provides,

this system allows the authors
to circumvent censorship.

Viewed in isolation,
the articles are
often quite neutral,

but connected together,
they can convey

a subversive message.

It's the case with
the article nobility

linked to fortune and birth,

or with the article
priests linked to cult,

itself linked to idolatry.

The stream of cross-references
give the encyclopedists

the freedom censorship
denies them.

- [Narrator] For the publishers,

the profits had been
proportionate to
the risks endured,

colossal.

Indisputably, the Encyclopedia
was the greatest publishing

undertaking of its time.

And this is only the beginning

because the first
edition called Of Paris

is going to generate
many others.

Among editions, republications,

reorganizations,
and translations,

its development will be
very prolific and lucrative.

At the outbreak of
the French Revolution,

it is estimated that
more than 25,000 copies

of the different versions

are in circulation
in western Europe.

Today, although aged
more than 250 years,

the Encyclopedia
still seems modern.

Its system of cross-references

allows us to navigate
between articles,

just like on the Internet,

according to our
thinking and wishes.

This system,
imagined by Diderot,

has found its
prolongation in 2008

at the time of the
upload of an open access

digital version of
the Encyclopedia.

The cross-references have
become real hyperlinks.

But the Internet revolution
doesn't stop here.

Today, the worldwide
network enables a new way

of gathering knowledge.

Wikipedia is a universal,
multilingual encyclopedia

created in 2001.

It is hosted on the servers
of a non-profit foundation.

Even though the net
encyclopedia was in 2017

the fifth most visited
website in the world,

it chose to keep
its independence

by not selling any
advertising space.

Financially, Wikipedia
is entirely dependent

on the Internet
users' donations.

In open access for reading
as well as for editing,

it is also in need
of contributors,

but this time, we
are the contributors.

Anyone can log into it
and modify its content.

It is thus prone to errors

and to manipulation
of information.

Powerful tool of diffusion,

Wikipedia distinguishes
itself on a fundamental
point,

the wish for neutrality.

Diderot would probably
not have settled

for this simple
juxtaposition of contents.

He would have made a
political work out of it.

But that is another story.

- [Female Android] Can a book
change the face of the world?

Diderot was convinced
that with time,

this work would produce
a revolution of minds.

The watch word of
the encyclopedists,

encourage the reader
to think for himself,

to free himself from the
yoke of superstition,

of fanaticism, of
intolerance,
and, broadly speaking,

of any argument from authority.

But even though the
text, simple and clear,

was understandable by everyone,

the Encyclopedia remained
a costly set of books,

affordable only to the well off,

impossible today to measure
its impact on the world.

Is the Internet the extension
of the encyclopedic project?

In a way, yes.

The creation of
new encyclopedias

or the free access
to those of the past

serves the ideal of
knowledge gathering.

But the great
accumulation of data

and the immense diversity
of collaborators

is in no way a
guarantee of quality.

The immediate
availability advances

exempts us from searching,
thinking by ourselves,

putting into perspective.

From there on, the question is,

is it still a
matter of knowledge

or of only information?