Emerson's "The Method of Nature" and "The Enclopaedia Americana"

After my somewhat lame oral report to the seminar, Robert Spilller gave me references to Emerson's state of mind, and, bless him, he set the old, multiplevolume Americana Encyclopaedia on reserve for us in the rare book room (he had bought the set at a church sale for fifty cents). Articles were not clearly separated, and I found myself reading the article on the "Physiocratic or Agricultural System in political economy." None of this shows a borrowing, still less an ordered sequence of topics.