and preserve its richness for future generations. The opening of the work consists of a foreword addressed to the reader, explaining the purpose of this electronic publication and noting its fidelity to the original text. Furetière outlines the overarching goal of his endeavor, which is to provide an encyclopedic dictionary that covers the arts and sciences missing from existing works, thereby serving not only scholars and scientists but also the general public. He mentions that this is just an "essay" or sample of the extensive work he intended to produce, setting the stage for an elaborate exploration of language and knowledge within the pages that follow. (This is an automatically generated summary.)