Figurative system of human knowledge

The "figurative system of human knowledge" (French: Système figuré des connaissances humaines), sometimes known as the tree of Diderot and d'Alembert, was a tree developed to represent the structure of knowledge itself, produced for the Encyclopédie by Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot.

The tree was a taxonomy of human knowledge, inspired by Francis Bacon's The Advancement of Learning.

The three main branches of knowledge in the tree are: "Memory"/History, "Reason"/Philosophy, and "Imagination"/Poetry.

The historian Robert Darnton has argued that this categorization of religion as being subject to human reason, and not a source of knowledge in and of itself (revelation), was a significant factor in the controversy surrounding the work.

(Note: This next branch seems to belong to both the narrative and dramatic tree, as indicated by the line drawn connecting the two.)