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diff --git a/15098-8.txt b/15098-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d08d1b --- /dev/null +++ b/15098-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9982 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol 1 of 2) +by John Morley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol 1 of 2) + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: February 18, 2005 [EBook #15098] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIDEROT *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, LN Yaddanapudi, Leonard Johnson and the PG +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +DIDEROT + +AND + +THE ENCYCLOPÆDISTS + + +BY JOHN MORLEY + + +VOL. I. + + +LONDON + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + +NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +1905 + + + + +_First published elsewhere_ + +_New Edition 1886. Reprinted 1891, 1897, 1905_ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The present work closes a series of studies on the literary preparation +for the French Revolution. It differs from the companion volumes on +Voltaire and Rousseau, in being much more fully descriptive. In the case +of those two famous writers, every educated reader knows more or less of +their performances. Of Diderot and his circle, such knowledge cannot be +taken for granted, and I have therefore thought it best to occupy a +considerable space, which I hope that those who do me the honour to read +these pages will not find excessive, with what is little more than +transcript or analysis. Such a method will at least enable the reader to +see what those ideas really were, which the social and economic +condition of France on the eve of the convulsion made so welcome to men. +The shortcomings of the encyclopædic group are obvious enough. They have +lately been emphasised in the ingenious and one-sided exaggerations of +that brilliant man of letters, Mr. Taine. The social significance and +the positive quality of much of their writing is more easily missed, and +this side of their work it has been one of my principal objects, alike +in the case of Voltaire, of Rousseau, and of Diderot, to bring into the +prominence that it deserves in the history of opinion. + +The edition of Diderot's works to which the references are made, is that +in twenty volumes by the late Mr. Assézat and Mr. Maurice Tourneux. The +only other serious book on Diderot with which I am acquainted is +Rosenkranz's valuable _Diderot's Leben_, published in 1866, and +abounding in full and patient knowledge. Of the numerous criticisms on +Diderot by Raumer, Arndt, Hettner, Damiron, Bersot, and above all by Mr. +Carlyle, I need not make more particular mention. + +_May, 1878._ + + +NOTE. + + Since the following pages were printed, an American + correspondent writes to me with reference to the dialogue + between Franklin and Raynal, mentioned on page 218, Vol. + II.:--"I have now before me Volume IV. of the _American Law + Journal_, printed at Philadelphia in the year 1813, and at + page 458 find in full, 'The Speech of Miss Polly Baker, + delivered before a court of judicature in _Connecticut_, where + she was prosecuted.'" Raynal, therefore, would have been right + if instead of Massachusetts he had said Connecticut; and + either Franklin told an untruth, or else Silas Deane. + + _September, 1878._ + + + + + CONTENTS OF VOL. I. + + + CHAPTER I. + PRELIMINARY. + + The Church in the middle of the century + New phase in the revolt + The Encyclopædia, its symbol + End of the reaction against the Encyclopædia + Diderot's position in the movement + + + CHAPTER II. + YOUTH. + + Birth and birthplace (1713) + His family + Men of letters in Paris + Diderot joins their company + His life in Paris: his friendly character + Stories of his good-nature + His tolerance for social reprobates + His literary struggles + Marriage (1743) + + + CHAPTER III. + EARLY WRITINGS. + + Diderot's mismanagement of his own talents + Apart from this, a great talker rather than a great writer + A man of the Socratic type + Hack-work for the booksellers + The Philosophical Thoughts (1746) + Shaftesbury's influence + Scope of the Philosophical Thoughts + On the Sufficiency of Natural Religion (1747) + Explanation of the attraction of Natural Religion + Police supervision over men of letters + Two pictures of the literary hack + Seizure of the Sceptic's Walk (1747) + Its drift + A volume of stories (1748) + Diderot's view of the fate and character of women + + + CHAPTER IV. + THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. + + Voltaire's account of Cheselden's operation + Diderot publishes the Letter on the Blind (1749) + Its significance + Condillac and Diderot + Account of the Letter on the Blind + The pith of it, an application of Relativity to the conception + of God + Saunderson of Cambridge + Argument assigned to him + Curious anticipation of a famous modern hypothesis + Voltaire's criticism + Effect of Diderot's philosophic position on the system + of the Church + Not merely a dispute in metaphysics + Illustration of Diderot's practical originality + Points of literary interest + The Letter on Deaf Mutes (1751) + Condillac's Statue + Diderot imprisoned at Vincennes (1749) + Rousseau's visit to him + Breach with Madame de Puisieux + Diderot released from captivity + + + CHAPTER V. + THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA. + (1) ITS HISTORY. + + Previous examples of the Encyclopædic idea + True parentage of Diderot's Encyclopædia + Origin of the undertaking + Co-operation of D'Alembert: his history and character + Diderot and D'Alembert on the function of literature + Presiding characteristic of the Encyclopædia + Its more eminent contributors + The unsought volunteers + Voltaire's share in it + Its compliance with reigning prejudice + Its aim, not literature but life + Publication of first and second volumes (1751-52) + Affair of De Prades + Diderot's vindication of him (1752) + Marks rupture between the Philosophers and the Jansenists + Royal decree suppressing first two volumes (1752) + Failure of the Jesuits to carry on the work + Four more volumes published + The seventh volume (1757) + Arouses violent hostility + The storm made fiercer by Helvétius's _L'Esprit_ + Proceedings against the Encyclopædia + Their significance + They also mark singular reaction within the school of + Illumination + Retirement of D'Alembert + Diderot continues the work alone for seven years + His harassing mortifications + The Encyclopædia at Versailles + Reproduction and imitations + Diderot's payment + + (2) GENERAL CONTENTS. + + Transformation of a speculative into a social attack + Circumstances of practical opportuneness + Broad features of Encyclopædic revolution + Positive spirit of the Encyclopædia + Why we call it the organ of a political work + Articles on Agriculture + On the _Gabelle_ and the _Taille_ + On Privilege + On the _Corveée_ + On the Militia + On Endowments, Fairs, and Industrial Guilds + On Game and the Chase + Enthusiasm for the details of industry + Meaning of the importance assigned to industry and science + Intellectual side of the change + Attitude of the Encyclopædia to religion + Diderot's intention under this head + How far the scheme fulfilled his intention + The Preliminary Discourse + Recognition of the value of discussion + And of toleration + + (3) DIDEROT'S CONTRIBUTIONS. + + Their immense confusion + Constant insinuation of sound doctrines + And of practical suggestions + Diderot not always above literary trifling + No taste for barren erudition + On Montaigne and Bayle + Occasional bursts of moralising + Varying attitude as to theology + The practical arts + Second-hand sources + Inconsistencies + Treatment of metaphysics + On Spinosa + On Leibnitz + On Liberty + Astonishing self-contradiction + Political articles + On the mechanism of government + Anticipation of Cobdenic ideas + Conclusion + + + CHAPTER VI. + SOCIAL LIFE (1759-1770). + + Diderot's relations with Madame Voland + His letters to her + His Regrets on My Old Dressing-gown + Domestic discomfort + His indomitable industry + Life at Grandval + Meditations on human existence + Interest in the casuistry of human feeling + Various sayings + A point in rhetoric + Holbach's impressions of England + Two cases of conscience + A story of human wickedness + Method and Genius: an Apologue + Conversation + Annihilation + Characteristic of the century + Diderot's inexhaustible friendliness + The Abbé Monnier + Mademoiselle Jodin + Landois + Rousseau + Grimm + Diderot's money affairs + Succour rendered by Catherine of Russia + French booksellers in the eighteenth century + Dialogue between Diderot and D'Alembert + English opinion on Diderot's circle + + + CHAPTER VII. + THE STAGE. + + In what sense Diderot the greatest genius of the century + Mark of his theory of the drama + Diderot's influence on Lessing + His play, _The Natural Son_ (1757) + Its quality illustrated + His sense of the importance of pantomime + The dialogues appended to _The Natural Son_ + His second play, _The Father of the Family_ (1758) + One radical error of his dramatic doctrine + Modest opinion of his own experiments + His admiration for Terence + Diderot translates Moore's _Gamester_ + On Shakespeare + The Paradox on the Player + Account of Garrick + On the truth of the stage + His condemnation of the French classic stage + The foundations of dramatic art + Diderot claims to have created a new kind of drama + No Diderotian school + Why the Encyclopædists could not replace the classic + drama + The great drama of the eighteenth century + + + CHAPTER VIII. + "RAMEAU'S NEPHEW." + + The mood that inspired this composition + History of the text + Various accounts of the design of _Rameau's Nephew_ + Juvenal's Parasite + Lucian + Diderot's picture of his original + Not without imaginative strokes + More than a literary diversion + Sarcasms on Palissot + The musical controversy + + + + +DIDEROT. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +PRELIMINARY. + + +There was a moment in the last century when the Gallican church hoped +for a return of internal union and prosperity. This brief era of hope +coincided almost exactly with the middle of the century. Voltaire was in +exile at Berlin. The author of the Persian Letters and the Spirit of +Laws was old and near his end. Rousseau was copying music in a garret. +The Encyclopædia was looked for, but only as a literary project of some +associated booksellers. The Jansenists, who had been so many in number +and so firm in spirit five-and-twenty years earlier, had now sunk to a +small minority of the French clergy. The great ecclesiastical body at +length offered an unbroken front to its rivals, the great judicial +bodies. A patriotic minister was indeed audacious enough to propose a +tax upon ecclesiastical property, but the Church fought the battle and +won. Troops had just been despatched to hunt and scatter the Protestants +of the desert, and bigots exulted in the thought of pastors swinging on +gibbets, and heretical congregations fleeing for their lives before the +fire of orthodox musketry. The house of Austria had been forced to +suffer spoliation at the hands of the infidel Frederick, but all the +world was well aware that the haughty and devout Empress-Queen would +seize a speedy opportunity of taking a crushing vengeance; France would +this time be on the side of righteousness and truth. For the moment a +churchman might be pardoned if he thought that superstition, ignorance, +abusive privilege, and cruelty were on the eve of the smoothest and most +triumphant days that they had known since the Reformation. + +We now know how illusory this sanguine anticipation was destined to +prove, and how promptly. In little more than forty years after the +triumphant enforcement of the odious system of confessional +certificates, then the crowning event of ecclesiastical supremacy, Paris +saw the Feast of the Supreme Being, and the adoration of the Goddess of +Reason. The Church had scarcely begun to dream before she was rudely and +peremptorily awakened. She found herself confronted by the most +energetic, hardy, and successful assailants whom the spirit of progress +ever inspired. Compared with the new attack, Jansenism was no more than +a trifling episode in a family quarrel. Thomists and Molinists became as +good as confederates, and Quietism barely seemed a heresy. In every age, +even in the very depth of the times of faith, there had arisen +disturbers of the intellectual peace. Almost each century after the +resettlement of Europe by Charlemagne had procured some individual, or +some little group, who had ventured to question this or that article of +the ecclesiastical creed, to whom broken glimpses of new truth had come, +and who had borne witness against the error or inconsistency or +inadequateness of old ways of thinking. The questions which presented +themselves to the acuter minds of a hundred years ago, were present to +the acuter minds who lived hundreds of years before that. The more +deeply we penetrate into the history of opinion, the more strongly are +we tempted to believe that in the great matters of speculation no +question is altogether new, and hardly any answer is altogether new. But +the Church had known how to deal with intellectual insurgents, from +Abelard in the twelfth century down to Giordano Bruno and Vanini in the +seventeenth. They were isolated; they were for the most part submissive; +and if they were not, the arm of the Church was very long and her grasp +mortal. And all these meritorious precursors were made weak by one +cardinal defect, for which no gifts of intellectual acuteness could +compensate. They had the scientific idea, but they lacked the social +idea. They could have set opinion right about the efficacy of the +syllogism, and the virtue of entities and quiddities. They could have +taught Europe earlier than the Church allowed it to learn that the sun +does not go round the earth, and that it is the earth which goes round +the sun. But they were wholly unfitted to deal with the prodigious +difficulties of moral and social direction. This function, so +immeasurably more important than the mere discovery of any number of +physical relations, it was the glory of the Church to have discharged +for some centuries with as much success as the conditions permitted. We +are told indeed by writers ignorant alike of human history and human +nature, that only physical science can improve the social condition of +man. The common sense of the world always rejects this gross fallacy. +The acquiescence for so many centuries in the power of the great +directing organisation of Western Europe, notwithstanding its +intellectual inadequateness, was the decisive expression of that +rejection. + +After the middle of the last century the insurrection against the +pretensions of the Church and against the doctrines of Christianity was +marked in one of its most important phases by a new and most significant +feature. In this phase it was animated at once by the scientific idea +and by the social idea. It was an advance both in knowledge and in moral +motive. It rested on a conception which was crude and imperfect enough, +but which was still almost, like the great ecclesiastical conception +itself, a conception of life as a whole. Morality, positive law, social +order, economics, the nature and limits of human knowledge, the +constitution of the physical universe, had one by one disengaged +themselves from theological explanations. The final philosophical +movement of the century in France, which was represented by Diderot, +now tended to a new social synthesis resting on a purely positive basis. +If this movement had only added to its other contents the historic idea, +its destination would have been effectually reached. As it was, its +leaders surveyed the entire field with as much accuracy and with as wide +a range as their instruments allowed, and they scattered over the world +a set of ideas which at once entered into energetic rivalry with the +ancient scheme of authority. The great symbol of this new +comprehensiveness in the insurrection was the Encyclopædia. + +The Encyclopædia was virtually a protest against the old organisation, +no less than against the old doctrine. Broadly stated, the great central +moral of it all was this: that human nature is good, that the world is +capable of being made a desirable abiding-place, and that the evil of +the world is the fruit of bad education and bad institutions. This +cheerful doctrine now strikes on the ear as a commonplace and a truism. +A hundred years ago in France it was a wonderful gospel, and the +beginning of a new dispensation. It was the great counter-principle to +asceticism in life and morals, to formalism in art, to absolutism in the +social ordering, to obscurantism in thought. Every social improvement +since has been the outcome of that doctrine in one form or another. The +conviction that the character and lot of man are indefinitely modifiable +for good, was the indispensable antecedent to any general and energetic +endeavour to modify the conditions that surround him. The omnipotence +of early instruction, of laws, of the method of social order, over the +infinitely plastic impulses of the human creature--this was the maxim +which brought men of such widely different temperament and leanings to +the common enterprise. Everybody can see what wide and deep-reaching +bearings such a doctrine possessed; how it raised all the questions +connected with psychology and the formation of character; how it went +down to the very foundation of morals; into what fresh and unwelcome +sunlight it brought the articles of the old theology; with what new +importance it clothed all the relations of real knowledge and the +practical arts; what intense interest it lent to every detail of +economics and legislation and government. + +The deadly chagrin with which churchmen saw the encyclopedic fabric +rising was very natural. The teaching of the Church paints man as fallen +and depraved. The new secular knowledge clashed at a thousand points, +alike in letter and in spirit, with the old sacred lore. Even where it +did not clash, its vitality of interest and attraction drove the older +lore into neglected shade. To stir men's vivid curiosity and hope about +the earth was to make their care much less absorbing about the kingdom +of heaven. To awaken in them the spirit of social improvement was ruin +to the most scandalous and crying social abuse then existing. The old +spiritual power had lost its instinct, once so keen and effective, of +wise direction. Instead of being the guide and corrector of the organs +of the temporal power, it was the worst of their accomplices. The +Encyclopædia was an informal, transitory, and provisional organisation +of the new spiritual power. The school of which it was the great +expounder achieved a supreme control over opinion by the only title to +which control belongs: a more penetrating eye for social exigencies and +for the means of satisfying them. + +Our veteran humorist told us long ago in his whimsical way that the +importance of the Acts of the French Philosophes recorded in whole acres +of typography is fast exhausting itself, that the famed Encyclopædical +Tree has borne no fruit, and that Diderot the great has contracted into +Diderot the easily measurable. The humoristic method is a potent +instrument for working such contractions and expansions at will. The +greatest of men are measurable enough, if you choose to set up a +standard that is half transcendental and half cynical. A saner and more +patient criticism measures the conspicuous figures of the past +differently. It seeks their relations to the great forward movements of +the world, and asks to what quarter of the heavens their faces were set, +whether towards the east where the new light dawns, or towards the west +after the old light has sunk irrevocably down. Above all, a saner +criticism bids us remember that pioneers in the progressive way are +rare, their lives rude and sorely tried, and their services to mankind +beyond price. "Diderot is Diderot," wrote one greater than Carlyle: "a +peculiar individuality; whoever holds him or his doings cheaply is a +Philistine, and the name of them is legion. Men know neither from God, +nor from Nature, nor from their fellows, how to receive with gratitude +what is valuable beyond appraisement" (_Goethe_). An intense +Philistinism underlay the great spiritual reaction that followed the +Revolution, and not even such of its apostles as Wordsworth and Carlyle +wholly escaped the taint. + +Forty years ago, when Carlyle wrote, it might really seem to a +prejudiced observer as if the encyclopædic tree had borne no fruit. Even +then, and even when the critic happened to be a devotee of the sterile +transcendentalism then in vogue, one might have expected some +recognition of the fact that the seed of all the great improvements +bestowed on France by the Revolution, in spite of the woful evils which +followed in its train, had been sown by the Encyclopædists. But now that +the last vapours of the transcendental reaction are clearing away, we +see that the movement initiated by the Encyclopædia is again in full +progress. Materialistic solutions in the science of man, humanitarian +ends in legislation, naturalism in art, active faith in the +improvableness of institutions--all these are once more the marks of +speculation and the guiding ideas of practical energy. The philosophical +parenthesis is at an end. The interruption of eighty years counts for no +more than the twinkling of an eye in the history of the transformation +of the basis of thought. And the interruption has for the present come +to a close. Europe again sees the old enemies face to face; the Church, +and a Social Philosophy slowly labouring to build her foundations in +positive science. It cannot be other than interesting to examine the +aims, the instruments, and the degree of success of those who a century +ago saw most comprehensively how profound and far-reaching a +metamorphosis awaited the thought of the Western world. We shall do this +most properly in connection with Diderot. + +Whether we accept or question Comte's strong description of Diderot as +the greatest genius of the eighteenth century, it is at least undeniable +that he was the one member of the great party of illumination with a +real title to the name of thinker. Voltaire and Rousseau were the heads +of two important schools, and each of them set deep and unmistakable +marks both on the opinion and the events of the century. It would not be +difficult to show that their influence was wider than that of the +philosopher who discerned the inadequateness of both. But Rousseau was +moved by passion and sentiment; Voltaire was only the master of a +brilliant and penetrating rationalism. Diderot alone of this famous trio +had in his mind the idea of scientific method; alone showed any feeling +for a doctrine, and for large organic and constructive conceptions. He +had the rare faculty of true philosophic meditation. Though immeasurably +inferior both to Voltaire and Rousseau in gifts of literary expression, +he was as far their superior in breadth and reality of artistic +principle. He was the originator of a natural, realistic, and +sympathetic school of literary criticism. He aspired to impose new forms +upon the drama. Both in imaginative creation and in criticism, his work +was a constant appeal from the artificial conventions of the classic +schools to the actualities of common life. The same spirit united with +the tendency of his philosophy to place him among the very few men who +have been great and genuine observers of human nature and human +existence. So singular and widely active a genius may well interest us, +even apart from the important place that he holds in the history of +literature and opinion. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +YOUTH. + + +Denis Diderot was born at Langres in 1713, being thus a few months +younger than Rousseau (1712), nearly twenty years younger than Voltaire +(1694), nearly two years younger than Hume (1711), and eleven years +older than Kant (1724). His stock was ancient and of good repute. The +family had been engaged in the great local industry, the manufacture of +cutlery, for no less than two centuries in direct line. Diderot liked to +dwell on the historic prowess of his town, from the days of Julius +Cæsar and the old Lingones and Sabinus, down to the time of the Great +Monarch. With the taste of his generation for tracing moral qualities to +a climatic source, he explained a certain vivacity and mobility in the +people of his district by the great frequency and violence of its +atmospheric changes from hot to cold, from calm to storm, from rain to +sunshine. "Thus they learn from earliest infancy to turn to every wind. +The man of Langres has a head on his shoulders like the weathercock at +the top of the church spire. It is never fixed at one point; if it +returns to the point it has left, it is not to stop there. With an +amazing rapidity in their movements, their desires, their plans, their +fancies, their ideas, they are cumbrous in speech. For myself, I belong +to my country side." This was thoroughly true. He inherited all the +versatility of his compatriots, all their swift impetuosity, and +something of their want of dexterity in expression. + +His father was one of the bravest, most upright, most patient, most +sensible of men. Diderot never ceased to regret that the old man's +portrait had not been taken with his apron on, his spectacles pushed up, +and a hand on the grinder's wheel. After his death, none of his +neighbours could speak of him to his son without tears in their eyes. +Diderot, wild and irregular as were his earlier days, had always a true +affection for his father. "One of the sweetest moments of my life," he +once said, "was more than thirty years ago, and I remember it as if it +were yesterday, when my father saw me coming home from school, my arms +laden with the prizes I had carried off, and my shoulders burdened with +the wreaths they had given me, which were too big for my brow and had +slipped over my head. As soon as he caught sight of me some way off, he +threw down his work, hurried to the door to meet me, and fell a-weeping. +It is a fine sight--a grave and sterling man melted to tears."[1] Of his +mother we know less. He had a sister, who seems to have possessed the +rough material of his own qualities. He describes her as "lively, +active, cheerful, decided, prompt to take offence, slow to come round +again, without much care for present or future, never willing to be +imposed on by people or circumstance; free in her ways, still more free +in her talk; she is a sort of Diogenes in petticoats.... She is the most +original and the most strongly-marked creature I know; she is goodness +itself, but with a peculiar physiognomy."[2] His only brother showed +some of the same native stuff, but of thinner and sourer quality. He +became an abbé and a saint, peevish, umbrageous, and as excessively +devout as his more famous brother was excessively the opposite. "He +would have been a good friend and a good brother," wrote Diderot, "if +religion had not bidden him trample under foot such poor weaknesses as +these. He is a good Christian, who proves to me every minute of the day +how much better it would be to be a good man. He shows that what they +call evangelical perfection is only the mischievous art of stifling +nature, which would most likely have spoken as lustily in him as in +me."[3] + +Diderot, like so many others of the eighteenth-century reformers, was a +pupil of the Jesuits. An ardent, impetuous, over-genial temperament was +the cause of frequent irregularities in conduct. But his quick and +active understanding overcame all obstacles. His teachers, ever wisely +on the alert for superior capacity, hoped to enlist his talents in the +Order. Either they or he planned his escape from home, but his father +got to hear of it. "My grandfather," says Diderot's daughter, "kept the +profoundest silence, but as he went off to bed took with him the keys of +the yard door." When he heard his son going downstairs, he presented +himself before him, and asked whither he was bound at twelve o'clock at +night. "To Paris," replied the youth, "where I am to join the Jesuits." +"That will not be to-night; but your wishes shall be fulfilled. First +let us have our sleep." The next morning his father took two places in +the coach, and carried him to Paris to the Collége d'Harcourt. He made +all the arrangements, and wished his son good-bye. But the good man +loved the boy too dearly to leave him without being quite at ease how he +would fare; he had the patience to remain a whole fortnight, killing the +time and half dead of weariness in an inn, without ever seeing the one +object of his stay. At the end of the fortnight he went to the college, +and Diderot used many a time to say that such a mark of tenderness and +goodness would have made him go to the other end of the world if his +father had required it. "My friend," said his father, "I am come to see +if you are well, if you are satisfied with your superiors, with your +food, with your companions, and with yourself. If you are not well or +not happy, we will go back together to your mother. If you had rather +stay where you are, I am come to give you a word, to embrace you, and to +leave you my blessing." The boy declared he was perfectly happy; and the +principal pronounced him an excellent scholar, though already promising +to be a troublesome one.[4] + +After a couple of years the young Diderot, like other sons of Adam, had +to think of earning his bread. The usual struggle followed between +youthful genius and old prudence. His father, who was a man of +substance, gave him his choice between medicine and law. Law he refused +because he did not choose to spend his days in doing other people's +business; and medicine, because he had no turn for killing. His father +resolutely declined to let him have more money on these terms, and +Diderot was thrown on his wits. + +The man of letters shortly before the middle of the century was as much +an outcast and a beggar in Paris as he was in London. Voltaire, Gray, +and Richardson were perhaps the only three conspicuous writers of the +time, who had never known what it was to want a meal or to go without a +shirt. But then none of the three depended on his pen for his +livelihood. Every other man of that day whose writings have delighted +and instructed the world since, had begun his career, and more than one +of them continued and ended it, as a drudge and a vagabond. Fielding and +Collins, Goldsmith and Johnson, in England; Goldoni in Italy; +Vauvenargues, Marmontel, Rousseau, in France; Winckelmann and Lessing in +Germany, had all alike been doubtful of dinner, and trembled about a +night's lodging. They all knew the life of mean hazard, sorry shift, +and petty expedient again and again renewed. It is sorrowful to think +how many of the compositions of that time that do most to soothe and +elevate some of the best hours of our lives, were written by men with +aching hearts, in the midst of haggard perplexities. The man of letters, +as distinguished alike from the old-fashioned scholar and the systematic +thinker, now first became a distinctly marked type. Macaulay has +contrasted the misery of the Grub Street hack of Johnson's time, with +the honours accorded to men like Prior and Addison at an earlier date, +and the solid sums paid by booksellers to the authors of our own day. +But these brilliant passages hardly go lower than the surface of the +great change. Its significance lay quite apart from the prices paid for +books. The all-important fact about the men of letters in France was +that they constituted a new order, that their rise signified the +transfer of the spiritual power from ecclesiastical hands, and that, +while they were the organs of a new function, they associated it with a +new substitute for doctrine. These men were not only the pupils of the +Jesuits; they were also their immediate successors as the teachers, the +guides, and the directors of society. For two hundred years the +followers of Ignatius had taken the intellectual and moral control of +Catholic communities out of the failing hands of the Popes and the +secular clergy. Their own hour had now struck. The rationalistic +historian has seldom done justice to the services which this great +Order rendered to European civilisation. The immorality of many of their +maxims, their too frequent connivance at political wrong for the sake of +power, their inflexible malice against opponents, and the cupidity and +obstructiveness of the years of their decrepitude, have blinded us to +the many meritorious pages of the Jesuit chronicle. Even men like +Diderot and Voltaire, whose lives were for years made bitter by Jesuit +machinations, gave many signs that they recognised the aid which had +been rendered by their old masters to the cultivation and enlightenment +of Europe. It was from the Jesuit fathers that the men of letters whom +they trained, acquired that practical and social habit of mind which +made the world and its daily interests so real to them. It was perhaps +also his Jesuit preceptors whom the man of letters had to blame for a +certain want of rigour and exactitude on the side of morality. + +What was this new order which thus struggled into existence, which so +speedily made itself felt, and at length so completely succeeded in +seizing the lapsed inheritance of the old spiritual organisation? Who is +this man of letters? A satirist may easily describe him in epigrams of +cheap irony; the pedant of the colleges may see in him a frivolous and +shallow profaner of the mysteries of learning; the intellectual coxcomb +who nurses his own dainty wits in critical sterility, despises him as +Sir Piercie Shafton would have despised Lord Lindsay of the Byres. This +notwithstanding, the man of letters has his work to do in the critical +period of social transition. He is to be distinguished from the great +systematic thinker, as well as from the great imaginative creator. He is +borne on the wings neither of a broad philosophic conception nor of a +lofty poetic conception. He is only the propagator of portions of such a +conception, and of the minor ideas which they suggest. Unlike the Jesuit +father whom he replaced, he has no organic doctrine, no historic +tradition, no effective discipline, and no definite, comprehensive, +far-reaching, concentrated aim. The characteristic of his activity is +dispersiveness. Its distinction is to popularise such detached ideas as +society is in a condition to assimilate; to interest men in these ideas +by dressing them up in varied forms of the literary art; to guide men +through them by judging, empirically and unconnectedly, each case of +conduct, of policy, or of new opinion as it arises. We have no wish to +exalt the office. On the contrary, I accept the maxim of that deep +observer who warned us that "the mania for isolation is the plague of +the human throng, and to be strong we must march together. You only +obtain anything by developing the spirit of discipline among men."[5] + +But there are ages of criticism when discipline is impossible, and the +evils of isolation are less than the evils of rash and premature +organisation. Fontenelle was the first and in some respects the greatest +type of this important class. He was sceptical, learned, ingenious, +eloquent. He stretched hands (1657-1757) from the famous quarrel between +Ancients and Moderns down to the Encyclopædia, and from Bossuet and +Corneille down to Jean Jacques and Diderot. When he was born, the man of +letters did not exist. When he died, the man of letters was the most +conspicuous personage in France. But when Diderot first began to roam +about the streets of Paris, this enormous change was not yet complete. + +For some ten years (1734-1744) Diderot's history is the old tale of +hardship and chance; of fine constancy and excellent faith, not wholly +free from an occasional stroke of rascality. For a time he earned a +little money by teaching. If the pupil happened to be quick and docile, +he grudged no labour, and was content with any fee or none. If the pupil +happened to be dull, Diderot never came again, and preferred going +supperless to bed. His employers paid him as they chose, in shirts, in a +chair or a table, in books, in money, and sometimes they never paid him +at all. The prodigious exuberance of his nature inspired him with a +sovereign indifference to material details. From the beginning he +belonged to those to whom it comes by nature to count life more than +meat, and the body than raiment. The outward things of existence were +to him really outward. They never vexed or absorbed his days and nights, +nor overcame his vigorous constitutional instinct for the true +proportions of external circumstance. He was of the humour of the old +philosopher who, when he heard that all his worldly goods had been lost +in a shipwreck, only made for answer, _Jubet me fortuna expeditius +philosophari_. Once he had the good hap to be appointed tutor to the +sons of a man of wealth. He performed his duties zealously, he was well +housed and well fed, and he gave the fullest satisfaction to his +employer. At the end of three months the mechanical toil had grown +unbearable to him. The father of his pupils offered him any terms if he +would remain. "Look at me, sir," replied the tutor; "my face is as +yellow as a lemon. I am making men of your children, but each day I am +becoming a child with them. I am a thousand times too rich and too +comfortable in your house; leave it I must. What I want is not to live +better, but to avoid dying." Again he plunged from comfort into the life +of the garret. If he met any old friend from Langres, he borrowed, and +the honest father repaid the loan. His mother's savings were brought to +him by a faithful creature who had long served in their house, and who +now more than once trudged all the way from home on this errand, and +added her own humble earnings to the little stock. Many a time the hours +went very slowly for the necessitous man. One Shrove Tuesday he rose in +the morning, and found his pockets empty even of so much as a +halfpenny. His friends had not invited him to join their squalid +Bohemian revels. Hunger and thoughts of old Shrovetide merriment and +feasting in the far-off home made work impossible. He hastened out of +doors and walked about all day visiting such public sights as were open +to the penniless. When he returned to his garret at night, his landlady +found him in a swoon, and with the compassion of a good soul she forced +him to share her supper. "That day," Diderot used to tell his children +in later years, "I promised myself that if ever happier times should +come, and ever I should have anything, I would never refuse help to any +living creature, nor ever condemn him to the misery of such a day as +that."[6] And the real interest of the story lies in the fact that no +oath was ever more faithfully kept. There is no greater test of the +essential richness of a man's nature than that this squalid adversity, +not of the sentimental introspective kind but hard and grinding, and not +even kept in countenance by respectability, fails to make him a savage +or a miser or a misanthrope. + +Diderot had his bitter moments. He knew the gloom and despondency that +have their inevitable hour in every solitary and unordered life. But the +fits did not last. They left no sour sediment, and this is the sign of +health in temperament, provided it be not due to mere callousness. From +that horrible quality Diderot assuredly was the furthest removed of any +one of his time. Now and always he walked with a certain large +carelessness of spirit. He measured life with a roving and liberal eye. +Circumstance and conventions, the words under which men hide things, the +oracles of common acceptance, the infinitely diversified properties of +human character, the many complexities of our conduct and destiny--all +these he watched playing freely around him, and he felt no haste to +compress his experience into maxims and system. He was absolutely +uncramped by any of the formal mannerisms of the spirit. He was wholly +uncorrupted by the affectation of culture with which the great Goethe +infected part of the world a generation later. His own life was never +made the centre of the world. Self-development and self-idealisation as +ends in themselves would have struck Diderot as effeminate drolleries. +The daily and hourly interrogation of experience for the sake of +building up the fabric of his own character in this wise or that, would +have been incomprehensible and a little odious to him in theory, and +impossible as a matter of practice. In the midst of all the hardships of +his younger time, as afterwards in the midst of crushing Herculean +taskwork, he was saved from moral ruin by the inexhaustible geniality +and expansiveness of his affections. Nor did he narrow their play by +looking only to the external forms of human relation. To Diderot it came +easily to act on a principle which most of us only accept in words: he +looked not to what people said, nor even to what they did, but wholly +to what they were. + +Those whom he had once found reason to love and esteem might do him many +an ill turn, without any fear of estranging him. Any one can measure +character by conduct. It is a harder thing to be willing, in cases that +touch our own interests, to interpret conduct by previous knowledge of +character. His father, for instance, might easily have spared money +enough to save him from the harassing privations of Bohemian life in +Paris. A less full-blooded and generous person than Diderot would have +resented the stoutness of the old man's persistency. Diderot on the +contrary felt and delighted to feel, that this conflict of wills was a +mere accident which left undisturbed the reality of old love. "The first +few years of my life in Paris," he once told an acquaintance, "had been +rather irregular; my behaviour was enough to irritate my father, without +there being any need to make it worse by exaggeration. Still calumny was +not wanting. People told him--well what did they not tell him? An +opportunity for going to see him presented itself. I did not give it two +thoughts. I set out full of confidence in his goodness. I thought that +he would see me, that I should throw myself into his arms, that we +should both of us shed tears, and that all would be forgotten. I thought +rightly."[7] We may be sure of a stoutness of native stuff in any stock +where so much tenacity united with such fine confidence on one side, +and such generous love on the other. It is a commonplace how much waste +would be avoided in human life if men would more freely allow their +vision to pierce in this way through the distorting veils of egoism, to +the reality of sentiment and motive and relationship. + +Throughout his life Diderot was blessed with that divine gift of pity, +which one that has it could hardly be willing to barter for the +understanding of an Aristotle. Nor was it of the sentimental type proper +for fine ladies. One of his friends had an aversion for women with +child. "What monstrous sentiment!" Diderot wrote; "for my part, that +condition has always touched me. I cannot see a woman of the common +people so, without a tender commiseration."[8] And Diderot had delicacy +and respect in his pity. He tells a story in one of his letters of a +poor woman who had suffered some wrong from a priest; she had not money +enough to resort to law, until a friend of Diderot took her part. The +suit was gained; but when the moment came for execution, the priest had +vanished with all his goods. The woman came to thank her protector, and +to regret the loss he had suffered. "As she chatted, she pulled a shabby +snuff-box out of her pocket, and gathered up with the tip of her finger +what little snuff remained at the bottom: her benefactor says to her +'Ah, ah! you have no more snuff; give me your box, and I will fill it.' +He took the box and put into it a couple of louis, which he covered up +with snuff. Now there's an action thoroughly to my taste, and to yours +too! Give, but, if you can, spare to the poor the shame of holding out a +hand."[9] And the important thing, as we have said, is that Diderot was +as good as his sentiment. Unlike most of the fine talkers of that day, +to him these homely and considerate emotions were the most real part of +life. Nobody in the world was ever more eager to give succour to others, +nor more careless of his own ease. + +One singular story of Diderot's heedlessness about himself has often +been told before, but we shall be none the worse in an egoistic world +for hearing it told again. There came to him one morning a young man, +bringing a manuscript in his hand. He begged Diderot to do him the +favour of reading it, and to make any remarks he might think useful on +the margin. Diderot found it to be a bitter satire upon his own person +and writings. On the young man's return, Diderot asked him his grounds +for making such an attack. "I am without bread," the satirist answered, +"and I hoped you might perhaps give me a few crowns not to print it." +Diderot at once forgot everything in pity for the starving scribbler. "I +will tell you a way of making more than that by it. The brother of the +Duke of Orleans is one of the pious, and he hates me. Dedicate your +satire to him, get it bound with his arms on the cover; take it to him +some fine morning, and you will certainly get assistance from him." +"But I don't know the prince, and the dedicatory epistle embarrasses +me." "Sit down," said Diderot, "and I will write one for you." The +dedication was written, the author carried it to the prince, and +received a handsome fee.[10] + +Marmontel assures us that never was Diderot seen to such advantage as +when an author consulted him about a work. "You should have seen him," +he says, "take hold of the subject, pierce to the bottom of it, and at a +single glance discover of what riches and of what beauty it was +susceptible. If he saw that the author missed the right track, instead +of listening to the reading, he at once worked up in his head all that +the author had left crude and imperfect. Was it a play, he threw new +scenes into it, new incidents, new strokes of character; and thinking +that he had actually heard all that he had dreamed, he extolled to the +skies the work that had just been read to him, and in which, when it saw +the light, we found hardly anything that he had quoted from it.... He +who was one of the most enlightened men of the century, was also one of +the most amiable; and in everything that touched moral goodness, when he +spoke of it freely, I cannot express the charm of his eloquence. His +whole soul was in his eyes and on his lips; never did a countenance +better depict the goodness of the heart."[11] Morellet is equally loud +in praise, not only of Diderot's conversation, its brilliance, its +vivacity, its fertility, its suggestiveness, its sincerity, but also +his facility and indulgence to all who sought him, and of the +sympathetic readiness with which he gave the very best of himself to +others.[12] + +It is needless to say that such a temper was constantly abused. +Three-fourths of Diderot's life were reckoned by his family to have been +given up to people who had need of his purse, his knowledge, or his good +offices. His daughter compares his library to a shop crowded by a +succession of customers, but the customers took whatever wares they +sought, not by purchase, but by way of free gift. Luckily for Diderot, +he was thus generous by temperament, and not because he expected +gratitude. Any necessitous knave with the gift of tears and the mask of +sensibility could dupe and prey upon him. In one case he had taken a +great deal of trouble for one of these needy and importunate clients; +had given him money and advice, and had devoted much time to serve him. +At the end of their last interview Diderot escorts his departing friend +to the head of the staircase. The grateful client then asks him whether +he knows natural history. "Well, not much," Diderot replies; "I know an +aloe from a lettuce, and a pigeon from a humming-bird." "Do you know +about the _Formica leo?_ No? Well, it is a little insect that is +wonderfully industrious; it hollows out in the ground a hole shaped like +a funnel, it covers the surface with a light fine sand, it attracts +other insects, it takes them, it sucks them dry, and then it says to +them, 'M. Diderot, I have the honour to wish you good day.'"[13] + +Yet insolence and ingratitude made no difference to Diderot. His ear +always remained as open to every tale of distress, his sensibility +always as quickly touched, his time, money, and service always as +profusely bestowed. I know not whether to say that this was made more, +or that it was made less, of a virtue by his excess of tolerance for +social castaways and reprobates. Our rough mode of branding a man as bad +revolted him. The common appetite for constituting ourselves public +prosecutors for the universe, was to him one of the worst of human +weaknesses. "You know," he used to say, "all the impetuosity of the +passions; you have weighed all circumstance in your everlasting balance; +you pass sentence on the goodness or the badness of creatures; you set +up rewards and penalties among matters which have no proportion nor +relation with one another. Are you sure that you have never committed +wrong acts, for which you pardoned yourselves because their object was +so slight, though at bottom they implied more wickedness than a crime +prompted by misery or fury? Even magistrates, supported by experience, +by the law, by conventions which force them sometimes to give judgment +against the testimony of their own conscience, still tremble as they +pronounce the doom of the accused. And since when has it been lawful for +the same person to be at once judge and informer?"[14] + +Such reasoned leniency is the noblest of traits in a man. "I am more +affected," he said, in words of which better men that Diderot might +often be reminded, "by the charms of virtue than by the deformity of +vice. I turn mildly away from the bad, and I fly to embrace the good. If +there is in a work, in a character, in a painting, in a statue, a single +fine bit, then on that my eyes fasten; I see only that: that is all I +remember; the rest is as good as forgotten."[15] + +This is the secret of a rare and admirable temperament. It carried +Diderot well through the trial and ordeal of the ragged apprenticeship +of letters. What to other men comes by culture, came to him by inborn +force and natural capaciousness. We do not know in what way Diderot +trained and nourished his understanding. The annotations to his +translation of Shaftesbury, as well as his earliest original pieces, +show that he had read Montaigne and Pascal, and not only read but +meditated on them with an independent mind. They show also that he had +been impressed by the Civitas Dei of Augustine, and had at least dipped +into Terence and Horace, Cicero and Tacitus. His subsequent writings +prove that, like the other men of letters of his day, he found in our +own literature the chief external stimulant to thought. Above all, he +was impressed by the magnificent ideas of the illustrious Bacon, and +these ideas were the direct source of the great undertaking of Diderot's +life. He is said to have read little and to have meditated much--the +right process for the few men of his potent stamp. The work which he had +to do for bread was of the kind that crushes anything short of the +strongest faculty. He composed sermons. A missionary once ordered +half-a-dozen of them for consumption in the Portuguese colonies, and +paid him fifty crowns apiece, which Diderot counted far from the worst +bargain of his life. All this was beggarly toil for a man of genius, but +Diderot never took the trouble to think of himself as a man of genius, +and was quite content with life as it came. If he found himself +absolutely without food and without pence, he began moodily to think of +abandoning his books and his pen, and of complying with the wishes of +his father. A line of Homer, an idea from the Principia, an interesting +problem in algebra or geometry, was enough to restore the eternally +invincible spell of knowledge. And no sooner was this commanding +interest touched, than the cloud of uncomfortable circumstance vanished +from before the sun, and calm and serenity filled his spirit. + +Montesquieu used to declare that he had never known a chagrin which half +an hour of a book was not able to dispel. Diderot had the same fortunate +temper. + +Yet Diderot was not essentially a man of books. He never fell into the +characteristic weakness of the follower of letters, by treating books as +ends in themselves, or placing literature before life. Character, +passion, circumstance, the real tragi-comedy, not its printed shadow +and image, engrossed him. He was in this respect more of the temper of +Rousseau, than he was like Voltaire or Fontenelle. "Abstraction made," +he used to say, "of my existence and of the happiness of my fellows, +what does the rest of nature matter to me?" Yet, as we see, nobody that +ever lived was more interested in knowledge. His biographer and disciple +remarked the contrast in him between his ardent impetuous disposition +and enthusiasm, and his spirit of close unwearied observation. _Faire le +bien, connaître le vrai_, was his formula for the perfect life, and +defined the only distinction that he cared to recognise between one man +and another. And the only motive he ever admitted as reasonable for +seeking truth, was as a means of doing good. So strong was his sense of +practical life, in the midst of incessant theorising. + + * * * * * + +At the moment when he had most difficulty in procuring a little bread +each day for himself, Diderot conceived a violent passion for a +seamstress, Antoinnette Champion by name, who happened to live in his +neighbourhood. He instantly became importunate for marriage. The mother +long protested with prudent vigour against a young man of such +headstrong impetuosity, who did nothing and who had nothing, save the +art of making speeches that turned her daughter's head. At length the +young man's golden tongue won the mother as it had won the daughter. It +was agreed that his wishes should be crowned, if he could procure the +consent of his family. Diderot fared eagerly and with a sanguine heart +to Langres. His father supposed that he had seen the evil of his ways, +and was come at last to continue the honest tradition of their name. +When the son disclosed the object of his visit, he was treated as a +madman and threatened with malediction. Without a word of remonstrance +he started back one day for Paris. Madame Champion warned him that his +project must now be for ever at an end. Such unflinching resoluteness is +often the last preliminary before surrender. Diderot fell ill. The two +women could not bear to think of him lying sick in a room no better than +a dog-kennel, without broths and tisanes, lonely and sorrowful. They +hastened to nurse him, and when he got well, what he thought the great +object of his life was reached. He and his adored were married +(1743).[16] As has been said, "Choice in marriage is a great match of +cajolery between purpose and invisible hazard: deep criticism of a game +of pure chance is time wasted." In Diderot's case destiny was hostile. + +His wife was over thirty. She was dutiful, sage, and pious. She had +plenty of that devotion which in small things women so seldom lack. +While her husband went to dine out, she remained at home to dine and +sup on dry bread, and was pleased to think that the next day she would +double the little ordinary for him. Coffee was too dear to be a +household luxury, so every day she handed him a few halfpence to have +his cup, and to watch the chess-players at the Café de la Régence. When +after a year or two she went to make her peace with her father-in-law at +Langres, she wound her way round the old man's heart by her affectionate +caresses, her respect, her ready industry in the household, her piety, +her simplicity. It is, however, unfortunately possible for even the best +women to manifest their goodness, their prudence, their devotion, in +forms that exasperate. Perhaps it was so here. Diderot at fifty was an +orderly and steadfast person, but at thirty the blood of vagabondage was +still hot within him. He needed in his companion a robust patience, to +match his own too robust activity. One may suppose that if Mirabeau had +married Hannah More, the union would have turned out ill, and Diderot's +marriage was unluckily of such a type. His wife's narrow pieties and +homely solicitudes fretted him. He had not learned to count the cost of +deranging the fragile sympathy of the hearth. While his wife was away on +her visit to his family, he formed a connection with a woman (Madame +Puisieux) who seems to have been as bad and selfish as his wife was the +opposite. She was the authoress of some literary pieces, which the world +willingly and speedily let die; but even very moderate pretensions to +_bel-esprit_ may have seemed wonderfully refreshing to a man wearied to +death by the illiterate stupidity of his daily companion.[17] This +lasted some three or four years down to 1749. As we shall see, he +discovered the infidelity of his mistress and broke with her. But by +this time his wife's virtues seem to have gone a little sour, as +disregarded prudence and thwarted piety are so apt to do. It was too +late now to knit up again the ravelled threads of domestic concord. +During a second absence of his wife in Champagne (1754), he formed a new +attachment to the daughter of a financier's widow (Mdlle. Voland). This +lasted to the end of the lady's days (1783 or 1784). + +There is probably nothing very profitable to be said about all this +domestic disorder. We do not know enough of the circumstances to be sure +of allotting censure in exact and rightful measure. We have to remember +that such irregularities were in the manners of the time. To connect +them by way of effect with the new opinions in religion, would be as +impertinent as to trace the immoralities of Dubois or Lewis the +Fifteenth or the Cardinal de Rohan to the old opinions. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +EARLY WRITINGS. + + +La Rochefoucauld, expressing a commonplace with the penetrative +terseness that made him a master of the apophthegm, pronounced it "not +to be enough to have great qualities: a man must have the economy of +them." Or, as another writer says: "Empire in this world belongs not so +much to wits, to talents, and to industry, as to a certain skilful +economy and to the continual management that a man has the art of +applying to all his other gifts."[18] Notwithstanding the peril that +haunts superlative propositions, we are inclined to say that Diderot is +the most striking illustration of this that the history of letters or +speculation has to furnish. If there are many who have missed the mark +which they or kindly intimates thought them certain of attaining, this +is mostly not for want of economy, but for want of the great qualities +which were imputed to them by mistake. To be mediocre, to be sterile, to +be futile, are the three fatal endings of many superbly announced +potentialities. Such an end nearly always comes of exaggerated faculty, +rather than of bad administration of natural gifts. In Diderot were +splendid talents. It was the art of prudent stewardship that lay beyond +his reach. Hence this singular fact, that he perhaps alone in literature +has left a name of almost the first eminence, and impressed his +greatness upon men of the strongest and most different intelligence, and +yet never produced a masterpiece; many a fine page, as Marmontel said, +but no one fine work. + +No man that ever wrote was more wholly free from that unquiet +self-consciousness which too often makes literary genius pitiful or +odious in the flesh. He put on no airs of pretended resignation to +inferior production, with bursting hints of the vast superiorities that +unfriendly circumstance locked up within him. Yet on one occasion, and +only on one, so far as evidence remains, he indulged a natural regret. +"And so," he wrote when revising the last sheets of the Encyclopædia +(July 25, 1765), "in eight or ten days I shall see the end of an +undertaking that has occupied me for twenty years; that has not made my +fortune by a long way; that has exposed me many a time to the risk of +having to quit my country or lose my freedom; and that has consumed a +life that I might have made both more useful and more glorious. The +sacrifice of talent to need would be less common, if it were only a +question of self. One could easily resolve rather to drink water and eat +dry crusts and follow the bidding of one's genius in a garret. But for a +woman and for children, what can one not resolve? If I sought to make +myself of some account in their eyes, I would not say--I have worked +thirty years for you: I would say--I have for you renounced for thirty +years the vocation of my nature; I have preferred to renounce my tastes +in doing what was useful for you, instead of what was agreeable to +myself. That is your real obligation to me, and of that you never +think."[19] + +It is a question, nevertheless, whether Diderot would have achieved +masterpieces, even if the pressure of housekeeping had never driven him +to seek bread where he could find it. Indeed it is hardly a question. +His genius was spacious and original, but it was too dispersive, too +facile of diversion, too little disciplined, for the prolonged effort of +combination which is indispensable to the greater constructions whether +of philosophy or art. The excellent talent of economy and administration +had been denied him; that thrift of faculty, which accumulates store and +force for concentrated occasions. He was not encyclopædic by accident, +nor merely from external necessity. The quality of rapid movement, +impetuous fancy, versatile idea, which he traced to the climate of his +birthplace, marked him from the first for an encyclopædic or some such +task. His interest was nearly as promptly and vehemently kindled in one +subject as in another; he was always boldly tentative, always fresh and +vigorous in suggestion, always instant in search. But this multiplicity +of active excitements--and with Diderot every interest rose to the +warmth of excitement--was even more hostile to masterpieces than were +the exigencies of a livelihood. It was not unpardonable in a moment of +exhaustion and chagrin to fancy that he had offered up the treasures of +his genius to the dull gods of the hearth. But if he had been childless +and unwedded, the result would have been the same. He is the munificent +prodigal of letters, always believing his substance inexhaustible, never +placing a limit to his fancies nor a bound to his outlay. "It is not +they who rob me of my life," he wrote; "it is I who give it to them. And +what can I do better than accord a portion of it to him who esteems me +enough to solicit such a gift? I shall get no praise for it, 'tis true, +either now while I am here, nor when I shall exist no longer; but I +shall esteem myself for it, and people will love me all the better for +it. 'Tis no bad exchange, that of benevolence, against a celebrity that +one does not always win, and that nobody wins without a drawback. I have +never once regretted the time that I have given to others; I can +scarcely say as much for; the time that I have used for myself."[20] +Remembering how uniformly men of letters take themselves somewhat too +seriously, we may be sorry that this unique figure among them, who was +in other respects constituted to be so considerable and so effective, +did not take himself seriously enough. + +Apart from his moral inaptitude for the monumental achievements of +authorship, Diderot was endowed with the gifts of the talker rather than +with those of the writer. Like Dr. Johnson, he was a great converser +rather than the author of great books. If we turn to his writings, we +are at some loss to understand the secret of his reputation. They are +too often declamatory, ill-compacted, broken by frequent apostrophes, +ungainly, dislocated, and rambling. He has been described by a +consummate judge as the most German of all the French. And his style is +deeply marked by that want of feeling for the exquisite, that dulness of +edge, that bluntness of stroke, which is the common note of all German +literature, save a little of the very highest. In conversation we do not +insist on constant precision of phrase, nor on elaborate sustension of +argument. Apostrophe is made natural by the semi-dramatic quality of the +situation. Even vehement hyperbole, which is nearly always a +disfigurement in written prose, may become impressive or delightful, +when it harmonises with the voice, the glance, the gesture of a fervid +and exuberant converser. Hence Diderot's personality invested his talk, +as happened in the case of Johnson and of Coleridge, with an imposing +interest and a power of inspiration which we should never comprehend +from the mere perusal of his writings. + +His admirers declared his head to be the ideal head of an Aristotle or a +Plato. His brow was wide, lofty, open, gently rounded. The arch of the +eyebrow was full of delicacy; the nose of masculine beauty; the +habitual expression of the eyes kindly and sympathetic, but as he grew +heated in talk, they sparkled like fire; the curves of the mouth bespoke +an interesting mixture of finesse, grace, and geniality. His bearing was +nonchalant enough, but there was naturally in the carriage of his head, +especially when he talked with action, much dignity, energy, and +nobleness. It seemed as if enthusiasm were the natural condition for his +voice, for his spirit, for every feature. He was only truly Diderot when +his thoughts had transported him beyond himself. His ideas were stronger +than himself; they swept him along without the power either to stay or +to guide their movement. "When I recall Diderot," wrote one of his +friends, "the immense variety of his ideas, the amazing multiplicity of +his knowledge, the rapid flight, the warmth, the impetuous tumult of his +imagination, all the charm and all the disorder of his conversation, I +venture to liken his character to nature herself, exactly as he used to +conceive her--rich, fertile, abounding in germs of every sort, gentle +and fierce, simple and majestic, worthy and sublime, but without any +dominating principle, without a master and without a God."[21] Grétry, +the musical composer, declares that Diderot was one of the rare men who +had the art of blowing the spark of genius into flame; the first +impulses stirred by his glowing imagination were of inspiration +divine.[22] + +Marmontel warns us that he who only knows Diderot in his writings, does +not know him at all. We should have listened to his persuasive +eloquence, and seen his face aglow with the fire of enthusiasm. It was +when he grew animated in talk, and let all the abundance of his ideas +flow freely from the source, that he became truly ravishing. In his +writings, says Marmontel with obvious truth, he never had the art of +forming a whole, and this was because that first process of arranging +everything in its place was too slow and too tiresome for him. The want +of ensemble vanished in the free and varied course of conversation.[23] + +We have to remember then that Diderot was in this respect of the +Socratic type, though he was unlike Socrates, in being the disseminator +of positive and constructive ideas. His personality exerted a decisive +force and influence. In reading the testimony of his friends, we think +of the young Aristides saying to Socrates: "I always made progress +whenever I was in your neighbourhood, even if I were only in the same +house, without being in the same room; but my advancement was greater if +I were in the same room with you, and greater still if I could keep my +eyes fixed upon you."[24] It has been well said that Diderot, like +Socrates, had about him a something dæmonic. He was possessed, and so +had the first secret of possessing others. But then to reach excellence +in literature, one must also have self-possession; a double current of +impulse and deliberation; a free stream of ideas spontaneously obeying a +sense or order, harmony, and form. Eloquence in the informal discourse +of the parlour or the country walk did not mean in Diderot's case the +empty fluency and nugatory emphasis of the ordinary talker of +reputation. It must have been both pregnant and copious; declamatory in +form, but fresh and substantial in matter; excursive in arrangement, but +forcible and pointed in intention. No doubt, if he was a sage, he was +sometimes a sage in a frenzy. He would wind up a peroration by dashing +his nightcap passionately against the wall, by way of clencher to the +argument. Yet this impetuosity, this turn for declamation, did not +hinder his talk from being directly instructive. Younger men of the most +various type, from Morellet down to Joubert, men quite competent to +detect mere bombast or ardent vagueness, were held captive by the +cogency of his understanding. His writings have none of this compulsion. +We see the flame, but through a veil of interfused smoke. The expression +is not obscure, but it is awkward; not exactly prolix, but heavy, +overcharged, and opaque. We miss the vivid precision and the high +spirits of Voltaire, the glow and the brooding sonorousness of Rousseau, +the pomp of Buffon. To Diderot we go not for charm of style, but for a +store of fertile ideas, for some striking studies of human life, and for +a vigorous and singular personality. + +Diderot's knowledge of our language now did him good service. One of +the details of the method by which he taught himself English is curious. +Instead of using an Anglo-French dictionary, he always used one in +Anglo-Latin. The sense of a Latin or Greek word, he said, is better +established, more surely fixed, more definite, less liable to capricious +peculiarities of convention, than the vernacular words which the whim or +ignorance of the lexicographer may choose. The reader composes his own +vocabulary, and gains both correctness and energy.[25] However this may +be, his knowledge of English was more accurate than is possessed by most +French writers of our own day. Diderot's first work for the booksellers +after his marriage seems to have been a translation in three volumes of +Stanyan's History of Greece. For this, to the amazement of his wife, he +got a hundred crowns. About the same time (1745) he published Principles +of Moral Philosophy, or an Essay of Mr. S. on Merit and Virtue. The +initial stands for Shaftesbury, and the book translated was his Inquiry +concerning Virtue and Merit. + +Towards the same time, again, Diderot probably made acquaintance with +Madame de Puisieux, of whom it has been said with too patent humour that +she was without either the virtue or the merit on which her admirer had +just been declaiming. We are told that it was her need of money which +inspired him with his first original work. As his daughter's memoir, +from which the tale comes, is swarming with blunders, this may not be +more true than some of her other statements. All that we know of +Diderot's sense and sincerity entitles him to the benefit of the doubt. +The Philosophical Thoughts (1746) are a continuation of the vein of the +annotations on the Essay. He is said to have thrown these reflections +together between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Nor is there anything +incredible in such rapid production, when we remember the sweeping +impetuosity with which he flung himself into all that he undertook. The +Thoughts are evidently the fruits of long meditation, and the literary +arrangement of them may well have been an easy task. They are a robuster +development of the scepticism which was the less important side of +Shaftesbury. The parliament of Paris ordered the book to be burnt along +with some others (July 7, 1746), partly because they were heterodox, +partly because the practice of publishing books without official leave +was gaining an unprecedented height of license.[26] This was Diderot's +first experience of that hand of authority, which was for thirty years +to surround him with mortification and torment. But the disapproval of +authority did not check the circulation or influence of the Thoughts. +They were translated into German and Italian, and were honoured by a +shower of hostile criticism. In France they were often reprinted, and +even in our own day they are said not wholly to have lost their vogue +as a short manual of scepticism.[27] + +The historians of literature too often write as if a book were the cause +or the controlling force of controversies in which it is really only a +symbol, or a proclamation of feelings already in men's minds. We should +never occupy ourselves in tracing the thread of a set of opinions, +without trying to recognise the movement of living men and concrete +circumstance that accompanied and caused the progress of thought. In +watching how the beacon-fire flamed from height to height-- + + [Greek: phaos de têlepompon ouk ênaineto + phroura, prosaithrizousa pompimonphloga--] + +we should not forget that its source and reference lie in action, in the +motion and stirring of confused hosts and multitudes of men. A book, +after all, is only the mouthpiece of its author, and the author being +human is moved and drawn by the events that occur under his eye. It was +not merely because Bacon and Hobbes and Locke had written certain books, +that Voltaire and Diderot became free-thinkers and assailed the church. +"So long," it has been said, "as a Bossuet, a Fénelon, an Arnauld, a +Nicole, were alive, Bayle made few proselytes; the elevation of Dubois +and its consequences multiplied unbelievers and indifferents."[28] + +The force of speculative literature always hangs on practical +opportuneness. The economic evils of monasticism, the increasing +flagrancy and grossness of superstition, the aggressive factiousness of +the ecclesiastics, the cruelty of bigoted tribunals--these things +disgusted and wearied the more enlightened spirits, and the English +philosophy only held out an inspiring intellectual alternative.[29] + +Nor was it accident that drew Diderot's attention to Shaftesbury, rather +than to any other of our writers. That author's essay on Enthusiasm had +been suggested by the extravagances of the French prophets, poor +fanatics from the Cevennes, who had fled to London after the revocation +of the edict of Nantes, and whose paroxysms of religious hysteria at +length brought them into trouble with the authorities (1707). Paris saw +an outbreak of the same kind of ecstasy, though on a much more +formidable scale, among the Jansenist fanatics, from 1727 down to 1758, +or later. Some of the best attested miracles in the whole history of the +supernatural were wrought at the tomb of the Jansenist deacon, +Paris.[30] The works of faith exalted multitudes into convulsive +transports; men and women underwent the most cruel tortures, in the hope +of securing a descent upon them of the divine grace. The sober citizen, +whose journal is so useful a guide to domestic events in France from the +Regency to the Peace of 1763, tells us the effect of this hideous +revival upon public sentiment. People began to see, he says, what they +were to think of the miracles of antiquity. The more they went into +these matters, whether miracles or prophecies, the more obscurity they +discovered in the one, the more doubt about the other. Who could tell +that they had not been accredited and established in remote times with +as little foundation as what was then passing under men's very eyes? +Just in the same way, the violent and prolonged debates, the intrigue, +the tergiversation, which attended the acceptance of the famous Bull +Unigenitus, taught shrewd observers how it is that religions establish +themselves. They also taught how little respect is due in our minds and +consciences to the great points which the universal church claims to +have decided.[31] + +These are the circumstances which explain the rude and vigorous +scepticism of Diderot's first performances. And they explain the +influence of Shaftesbury over him. Neither Diderot nor his +contemporaries were ready at once to plunge into the broader and firmer +negation to which they afterwards committed themselves. No doubt some of +the politeness which he shows to Christianity, both in the notes to his +translation of Shaftesbury, and in his own Philosophic Thoughts, is no +more than an ironical deference to established prejudices. The notes to +the Essay on Merit and Virtue show that Diderot, like all the other +French revolters against established prejudice, had been deeply +influenced by the shrewd-witted Montaigne. But the ardour of the +disciple pressed objections home with a trenchancy that is very unlike +the sage distillations of the master. It was from Shaftesbury, however, +that he borrowed common sense as a philosophic principle. Shaftesbury +had indirectly drawn it from Locke, and through Hutcheson it became the +source and sponsor of the Scottish philosophy of that century. This was +a weapon exactly adapted for dealing with a theology that was +discredited in the eyes of all cool observers by the hysterical +extravagances of one set of religionists, and the factious pretensions +of their rivals. And no other weapon was at hand. The historic or +critical method of investigation was impossible, for the age did not +possess the requisite learning. The indirect attack from the side of +physical science was equally impossible. The bearing of Newton's great +discovery on the current conceptions of the Creator and the supposed +system of the divine government, was not yet fully realised. The other +scientific ideas which have since made the old hypothesis less credible, +were not at that time even conceived. + +Diderot did indeed perceive even so early as this that the controversy +was passing from the metaphysicians to the physicists. Though he for the +moment misinterpreted the ultimate direction of the effect of +experimental discovery, he discerned its potency in the field of +theological discussion. "It is not from the hands of the metaphysician," +he said, "that atheism has received the weightiest strokes. The sublime +meditations of Malebranche and Descartes were less calculated to shake +materialism than a single observation of Malpighi's. If this dangerous +hypothesis is tottering in our days, it is to experimental physics that +such a result is due. It is only in the works of Newton, of +Muschenbroek, of Hartzoeker, and of Nieuwentit, that people have found +satisfactory proofs of the existence of a being of sovereign +intelligence. Thanks to the works of these great men, the world is no +longer a god; it is a machine with its cords, its pulleys, its springs, +its weights."[32] In other words, Diderot had as yet not made his way +beyond the halting-place which has been the favourite goal of English +physicists from Newton down to Faraday.[33] Consistent materialism had +not yet established itself in his mind. Meanwhile he laid about him with +his common sense, just as Voltaire did, though Diderot has more +weightiness of manner. If his use of the weapon cannot be regarded as a +decisive settlement of the true issues, we have to remember that he +himself became aware in a very short time of its inadequateness, and +proceeded to the discussion, as we shall presently see, from another +side. + +The scope of the Philosophical Thoughts, and the attitude of Diderot's +mind when they were written, may be shown in a few brief passages. The +opening words point to the significance of the new time in one +direction, and they are the key-note to Diderot's whole character. +"People are for ever declaiming against the passions; they set down to +them all the pains that man endures, and quite forget that they are also +the source of all his pleasures. It is regarded as an affront to reason +if one dares to say a word in favour of its rivals. Yet it is only +passions, and strong passions, that can raise the soul to great things. +Sober passions produce only the commonplace. Deadened passions degrade +men of extraordinary quality. Constraint annihilates the greatness and +energy of nature. See that tree; 'tis to the luxury of its branches that +you owe the freshness and the wide-spreading breadth of its shade, which +you may enjoy till winter comes to despoil it of its leafy tresses. An +end to all excellence in poetry, in painting, in music, as soon as +superstition has once wrought upon human temperament the effect of old +age! It is the very climax of madness to propose to oneself the ruin of +the passions. A fine design truly in your pietist, to torment himself +like a convict in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing; +and he would end by becoming a true monster, if he were to succeed!"[34] +Many years afterwards he wrote in the same sense to Madame Voland. "I +have ever been the apologist of strong passions; they alone move me. +Whether they inspire me with admiration or horror, I feel vehemently. If +atrocious deeds that dishonour our nature are due to them, it is by them +also that we are borne to the marvellous endeavour that elevates it. The +man of mediocre passion lives and dies like the brute." And so forth, +until the writer is carried to the perplexing position that "if we were +bound to choose between Racine, a bad husband, a bad father, a false +friend, and a sublime poet, and Racine, good father, good husband, good +friend, and dull worthy man, I hold to the first. Of Racine, the bad +man, what remains? Nothing. Of Racine, the man of genius? The work is +eternal."[35] Without attempting to solve this problem in casuistry, we +recognise Diderot's mood, and the hatred with which it would be sure to +inspire him for the starved and mutilated passions of the Christian +type. The humility, chastity, obedience, indolent solitude, which had +for centuries been glorified by the Church, were monstrous to this +vehement and energetic spirit. The church had placed heroism in +effacement. Diderot, borne to the other extreme, left out even +discipline. To turn from his maxims on the foundation of conduct, to his +maxims on opinion. As we have said, his attitude is that of the +sceptic:-- + +What has never been put in question, has not been proved. What people +have not examined without prepossessions, they have not examined +thoroughly. Scepticism is the touchstone. (§ 31.) + +Incredulity is sometimes the vice of a fool, and credulity the defect of +a man of intelligence. The latter sees far into the immensity of the +Possible; the former scarcely sees anything possible beyond the Actual. +Perhaps this is what produces the timidity of the one, and the temerity +of the other. + +A demi-scepticism is the mark of a feeble understanding. It reveals a +pusillanimous reasoner, who suffers himself to be alarmed by +consequences; a superstitious creature, who thinks he is honouring God +by the fetters which he imposes on his reason; a kind of unbeliever who +is afraid of unmasking himself to himself. For if truth has nothing to +lose by examination, as is the demi-sceptic's conviction, what does he +think in the bottom of his heart of those privileged notions which he +fears to sound, and which are placed in one of the recesses of his +brain, as in a sanctuary to which he dares not draw nigh? (§ 34.) + +Scepticism does not suit everybody. It supposes profound and impartial +examination. He who doubts because he does not know the grounds of +credibility, is no better than an ignoramus. The true sceptic has +counted and weighed the reasons. But it is no light matter to weigh +arguments. Who of us knows their value with any nicety? Every mind has +its own telescope. An objection that disappears in your eyes, is a +colossus in mine: you find an argument trivial that to me is +overwhelming.... If then it is so difficult to weigh reasons, and if +there are no questions which have not two sides, and nearly always in +equal measure, how come we to decide with such rapidity? (§ 24.) + +When the pious cry out against scepticism, it seems to me that they do +not understand their own interest, or else that they are inconsistent. +If it is certain that a true faith to be embraced, and a false faith to +be abandoned, need only to be thoroughly known, then surely it must be +highly desirable that universal doubt should spread over the surface of +the earth, and that all nations should consent to have the truth of +their religions examined. Our missionaries would find a good half of +their work done for them. (§ 36.) + +One thing to be remembered is that Diderot, like Vauvenargues, Voltaire, +Condorcet, always had Pascal in his mind when dealing with apologetics. +They all recognised in him a thinker with a love of truth, as +distinguished from the mere priest, Catholic, Anglican, Brahman, or +another. "Pascal," says Diderot, "was upright, but he was timid and +inclined to credulity. An elegant writer and a profound reasoner, he +would doubtless have enlightened the world, if Providence had not +abandoned him to people who sacrificed his talents to their own +antipathies. How much to be regretted, that he did not leave to the +theologians of his time the task of settling their own differences; that +he did not give himself up to the search for truth, without reserve and +without the fear of offending God by using all the intelligence that God +had given him. How much to be regretted that he took for masters men who +were not worthy to be his disciples, and was foolish enough to think +Arnauld, De Sacy, and Nicole, better men than himself." (§ 14.) The +Philosophic Thoughts are designed for an answer in form to the more +famous Thoughts of this champion of popular theology. The first of the +following extracts, for instance, recalls a memorable illustration of +Pascal's sublime pessimism. A few passages will illustrate sufficiently +the line of argument which led the foremost men at the opening of the +philosophic revolution to reject the pretensions of Christianity:-- + +What voices! what cries! what groans! Who is it that has shut up in +dungeons all these piteous souls? What crimes have the poor wretches +committed? Who condemns them to such torments? _The God whom they have +offended_. Who then is this God? _A God full of goodness_. But would a +God full of goodness take delight in bathing himself in tears? If +criminals had to calm the furies of a tyrant, what would they do +more?... There are people of whom we ought not to say that they fear +God, but that they are horribly afraid of him.... Judging from the +picture they paint of the Supreme Being, from his wrath, from the rigour +of his vengeance, from certain comparisons expressive of the ratio +between those whom he leaves to perish and those to whom he deigns to +stretch out a hand, the most upright soul would be tempted to wish that +such a being did not exist. (§§ 7-9.) + +You present to an unbeliever a volume of writings of which you claim to +show him the divinity. But, before going into your proofs, he will be +sure to put some questions about your collection. Has it always been the +same? Why is it less ample now than it was some centuries ago? By what +right have they banished this work or that, which another sect reveres, +and preserved this or that, which the other has repudiated?... You only +answer all these difficulties by the avowal that the first foundations +of the faith are purely human; that the choice between the manuscripts, +the restoration of passages, finally the collection, has been made +according to rules of criticism. Well, I do not refuse to concede to the +divinity of the sacred books a degree of faith proportioned to the +certainty of these rules. (§ 59.) + +People agree that it is of the last importance to employ none but solid +arguments for the defence of a creed. Yet they would gladly persecute +those who attempt to cry down the bad arguments. What then, is it not +enough to be a Christian? Am I also to be one upon wrong grounds? (§57.) + +The less probability a fact has, the more does the testimony of history +lose its weight. I should have no difficulty in believing a single +honest man who should tell me that the king had just won a complete +victory over the allies. But if all Paris were to assure me that a dead +man had come to life again, I should not believe a word of it. That a +historian should impose upon us, or that a whole people should be +mistaken--there is no miracle in that. (§46.) + +What is God? A question that we put to children, and that philosophers +have much trouble to answer. We know the age at which a child ought to +learn to read, to sing, to dance, to begin Latin or geometry. It is only +in religion that you take no account of his capacity. He scarcely hears +what you say, before he is asked, What is God? It is at the same +instant, from the same lips, that he learns that there are ghosts, +goblins, were-wolves--and a God. (§25.) + +The diversity of religious opinions has led the deists to invent an +argument that is perhaps more singular than sound. Cicero, having to +prove that the Romans were the most warlike people in the world, +adroitly draws this conclusion from the lips of their rivals. Gauls, to +whom if to any, do you yield the palm for courage? To the Romans. +Parthians, after you, who are the bravest of men? The Romans. Africans, +whom would you fear, if you were to fear any? The Romans. Let us +interrogate the religionists in this fashion, say the deists. Chinese, +what religion would be the best, if your own were not the best? +Naturalism. Mussulmans, what faith would you embrace, if you abjured +Mahomet? Naturalism. Christians, what is the true religion, if it be not +Christianity? Judaism. But you, O Jews, what is the true religion, if +Judaism be false? Naturalism. Now those, continues Cicero, to whom the +second place is awarded by unanimous consent, and who do not in turn +concede the first place to any--it is those who incontestably deserve +that place. (§62.) + + * * * * * + +In all this we notice one constant characteristic of the eighteenth +century controversy about revealed religion. The assailant demands of +the defender an answer to all the intellectual or logical objections +that could possibly be raised by one who had never been a Christian, and +who refused to become a Christian until these objections could be met. +No account is taken of the mental conditions by which a creed is +engendered and limited; nor of the train of historic circumstance which +prepares men to receive it. The modern apologist escapes by explaining +religion; the apologist of a hundred years ago was required to prove it. +The end of such a method was inevitably a negation. The objective +propositions of a creed with supernatural pretensions can never be +demonstrated from natural or rationalistic premisses. And if they could +be so demonstrated, it would only be on grounds that are equally good +for some other creeds with the same pretensions. The sceptic was left +triumphantly weighing one revealed system against another in an equal +balance.[36] + +The position of the writer of the Philosophical Thoughts is distinctly +theistic. Yet there is at least one striking passage to show how +forcibly some of the arguments on the other side impressed him. "I +open," says Diderot, "the pages of a celebrated professor, and I +read--'Atheists, I concede to you that movement is essential to matter; +what conclusion do you draw from that? That the world results from the +fortuitous concourse of atoms? You might as well say that Homer's Iliad, +or Voltaire's Henriade, is a result of the fortuitous concourse of +written characters.' Now for my part, I should be very sorry to use that +reasoning to an atheist; the comparison would give him a very easy game +to play. According to the laws of the analysis of chances, he would say +to me, I ought not to be surprised that a thing comes to pass when it is +possible, and the difficulty of the event is compensated by the number +of throws. There is a certain number of throws in which I would safely +back myself to bring 100,000 sixes at once with 100,000 dice. Whatever +the definite number of the letters with which I am invited fortuitously +to produce the Iliad, there is a certain definite number of throws which +would make the proposal advantageous for me; nay, my advantage would be +infinite if the quantity of throws accorded to me were infinite. Now, +you grant to me that matter exists from all eternity, and that movement +is essential to it. In return for this concession, I will suppose with +you that the world has no limits; that the multitude of atoms is +infinite, and that this order, which astonishes you, nowhere contradicts +itself. Well, from these reciprocal admissions there follows nothing +else unless it be this, that the possibility of engendering the universe +fortuitously is very small, but that the number of throws is infinite, +or in other words, that _the difficulty of the event is more than +sufficiently compensated by the multitude of the throws. Therefore, if +anything ought to be repugnant to reason, it is the supposition +that,--matter being in motion from all eternity, and there being perhaps +in the infinite number of possible combinations an infinite number of +admirable arrangements,--none of these admirable arrangements would have +been met with, out of the infinite multitude of all those which_ matter +successively took on. Therefore the mind ought to be more astonished at +the hypothetical duration of chaos."_[37] (§ 21.) + +In a short continuation of the Philosophical Thoughts entitled On the +Sufficiency of Natural Religion, Diderot took the next step, and turned +towards that faith which the votaries of each creed allow to be the best +after their own. Even here he is still in the atmosphere of negation. He +desires no more than to show that revealed religion confers no +advantages which are not already secured by natural religion. "The +revealed law contains no moral precept which I do not find recommended +and practised under the law of nature; therefore it has taught us +nothing new upon morality. The revealed law has brought us no new truth; +for what is a truth but a proposition referring to an object, conceived +in terms which present clear ideas to me, and the connection of which +with one another is intelligible to me? Now revealed religion has +introduced no such propositions to us. What it has added to the natural +law consists of five or six propositions which are not a whit more +intelligible to me than if they were expressed in ancient Carthaginian, +inasmuch as the ideas represented by the terms, and the connection among +these ideas, escape me entirely."[38] + +There is no sign in this piece that Diderot had examined the positive +grounds of natural religion, or that he was ready with any adequate +answer to the argument which Butler had brought forward in the previous +decade of the century. We do not see that he is aware as yet of there +being as valid objections on his own sceptical principles to the alleged +data of naturalistic deism, as to the pretensions of a supernatural +religion. He was content with Shaftesbury's position. + +Shaftesbury's influence on Diderot was permanent. It did not long remain +so full and entire as it was now in the sphere of religious belief, but +the traces of it never disappeared from his notions on morals and art. +Shaftesbury's cheerfulness and geniality in philosophising were +thoroughly sympathetic to Diderot. The optimistic harmony which the +English philosopher, coming after Leibnitz, assumed as the +starting-point of his ethical and religious ideas, was not only highly +congenial to Diderot's sanguine temperament; it was a most attractive +way of escape from the disorderly and confused theological wilderness of +sin, asceticism, miracle, and the other monkeries. This naturalistic +religion may seem a very unsafe and comfortless halting-place to us. But +to men who heard of religion only in connection with the Bull Unigenitus +and confessional certificates, with some act of intolerance or cruelty, +with futile disputes about grace and the Five Propositions, the +naturalism which Shaftesbury taught in prose and Pope versified was like +the dawn after the foulness of night. Those who wished to soften the +inhuman rigour of the criminal procedure of the time[39] used to appeal +from customary ordinances and written laws to the law natural. The law +natural was announced to have preceded any law of human devising. In the +same way, those who wished to disperse the darkness of unintelligible +dogmas and degraded ecclesiastical usages, appealed to the simplicity, +light, and purity of that natural religion which was supposed to have +been overlaid and depraved by the special superstitions of the different +communities of the world. + +"Pope's Essay on Man," wrote Voltaire after his return from England +(1728), "seems to me the finest didactic poem, the most useful, the most +sublime, that was ever written in any tongue. 'Tis true the whole +substance of it is to be found in Shaftesbury's Characteristics, and I +do not know why Pope gives all the honour of it to Bolingbroke, without +saying a word of the celebrated Shaftesbury, the pupil of Locke."[40] +The ground of this enthusiastic appreciation of the English naturalism +was not merely that it made morality independent of religion, which +Shaftesbury took great pains to do. It also identified religion with all +that is beautiful and harmonious in the universal scheme. It surrounded +the new faith with a pure and lofty poetry, that enabled it to confront +the old on more than equal terms of dignity and elevation. Shaftesbury, +and Diderot after him, ennobled human nature by placing the principle of +virtue, the sense of goodness, within the breast of man. Diderot held to +this idea throughout, as we shall see. That he did so explains a kind of +phraseology about virtue and morality in his letters to Madame Voland +and elsewhere, which would otherwise sound disagreeably like cant. +Finally, Shaftesbury's peculiar attribution of beauty to morality, his +reference of ethical matters to a kind of taste, the tolerably equal +importance attributed by him to a sense of beauty and to the moral +sense, all impressed Diderot with a mark that was not effaced. In the +text of the Inquiry the author pronounces it a childish affectation in +the eyes of any man who weighs things maturely to deny that there is in +moral beings, just as in corporeal objects, a true and essential beauty, +a real sublime. The eagerness with which Diderot seized on this idea +from the first, is shown in the declamatory foot-note which he here +appends to his original.[41] It was the source, by a process of +inverted application, of that ethical colouring in his criticisms on art +which made them so new and so interesting, because it carried æsthetic +beyond technicalities, and associated it with the real impulses and +circumstances of human life.[42] + +One of Diderot's writings composed about our present date (1747), the +Promenade du Sceptique, did not see the light until after his death. His +daughter tells us that a police agent came one day to the house, and +proceeded to search the author's room. He found a manuscript, said, +"Good, that is what I am looking for," thrust it into his pocket, and +went away. Diderot did his best to recover his piece, but never +succeeded.[43] A copy of it came into the hands of Naigeon, and it seems +to have been retained by Malesherbes, the director of the press, out of +goodwill to the author. If it had been printed, it would certainly have +cost him a sojourn in Vincennes. + +We have at first some difficulty in realising how he police could know +the contents of an obscure author's desk. For one thing we have to +remember that Paris, though it had been enormously increased in the days +of Law and the System (1719-20), was still of a comparatively manageable +size. In 1720, though the population of the whole realm was only +fourteen or fifteen millions, that of Paris had reached no less a figure +than a million and a half. After the explosion of the System, its +artificial expansion naturally came to an end. By the middle of the +century the highest estimate of the population does not make it much +more than eight hundred thousand.[44] This, unlike the socially +unwholesome and monstrous agglomerations of Paris or London in our own +time, was a population over which police supervision might be made +tolerably effective. It was more like a very large provincial town. +Again, the inhabitants were marked off into groups or worlds with a +definiteness that is now no longer possible. One-fifth of the +population, for instance, consisted of domestic servants.[45] There were +between twenty-eight and thirty thousand professional beggars.[46] The +legal circle was large, and was deeply engrossed by its own interests +and troubles. The world of authorship, though extremely noisy and +profoundly important, still made only a small group. One effect of a +censorship is to produce much gossip and whispering about suspected +productions before they see the light, and these whispers let the police +into as many secrets as they choose to know. + +In Diderot's case, his unsuspecting good-nature to all comers made his +affairs accessible enough. His house was the resort of all the starving +hacks in Paris, and he has left us more than one graphic picture of the +literary drudge of that time. He writes, for instance, about a poor +devil to whom he had given a manuscript to copy. "The time for which he +had promised it to me expired, and as my man did not appear, I became +uneasy, and started in search of him. I found him in a hole about as big +as my fist, almost pitch-dark, without the smallest scrap of curtain or +hanging to cover the nakedness of his walls, a couple of straw-bottomed +chairs, a truckle-bed with a quilt riddled by the moths, a box in the +corner of the chimney and rags of every sort stuck upon it, a small tin +lamp to which a bottle served as support, and on a shelf some dozen +first-rate books. I sat talking there for three-quarters of an hour. My +man was as bare as a worm, lean, black, dry, but perfectly serene. He +said nothing, but munched his crust of bread with good appetite, and +bestowed a caress from time to time on his beloved, on the miserable +bedstead that took up two-thirds of his room. If I had never learnt +before that happiness resides in the soul, my Epictetus of Hyacinth +Street would have taught it me right thoroughly."[47] + +The history of one of these ragged clients is to our point. "Among +those," he wrote to Madame Voland,[48] "whom chance and misery sent to +my address was one Glénat, who knew mathematics, wrote a good hand, and +was in want of bread. I did all I could to extricate him from his +embarrassments. I went begging for customers for him on every side. If +he came at meal-times, I would not let him go; if he lacked shoes, I +gave him them; now and then I slipped a shilling into his hands as well. +he had the air of the worthiest man in the world, and he even bore his +neediness with a certain gaiety that used to amuse me. I was fond of +chatting with him; he seemed to set little store by fortune, fame, and +most of the other things that charm or dazzle us in life. Seven or eight +days ago Damilaville wrote to send this man to him, for one of his +friends who had a manuscript for him to copy. I send him; the manuscript +is entrusted to him--a work on religion and government. I do not know +how it came about, but that manuscript is now in the hands of the +lieutenant of police. Damilaville gives me word of this. I hasten to my +friend Glénat, to warn him to count no more upon me. 'And why am I not +to count upon you?' 'Because you are a marked man. The police have their +eyes upon you and 'tis impossible to send work to you.' 'But, my dear +sir, there's no risk, so long as you entrust nothing reprehensible to my +hands. The police only come here when they scent game. I cannot tell how +they do it, but they are never mistaken.' 'Ah well, I at any rate know +how it is, and you have let me see much more in the matter than I +ever expected to learn from you,' and with that I turn my back on my +rascal." Diderot having occasion to visit the lieutenant of police, +introduced the matter, and could not withhold an energetic remonstrance +against such an odious abuse of a man's kindness of heart, as the +introduction of spies to his fireside. M. de Sartine laughed and Diderot +took his leave, vowing that all the wretches who should come to him for +the future, with cuffs dirty and torn, with holes in their stockings and +holes in their shoes, with hair all unkempt, in shabby overcoats with +many rents, or scanty black suits with starting seams, with all the +tones and looks of distressed worth, would henceforth seem to him no +better than police emissaries and scoundrels set to spy on him. The vow, +we may be sure, was soon forgotten, but the story shows how seriously in +one respect the man of letters in France was worse off than his brother +in England. + +The world would have suffered no irreparable loss if the police had +thrown the Sceptic's Walk into the fire. It is an allegory designed to +contrast the life of religion, the life of philosophy, and the life of +sensual pleasure. Of all forms of composition, an allegory most depends +for its success upon the rapidity of the writer's eye for new +felicities. Accuracy, verisimilitude, sustention, count for nothing in +comparison with imaginative adroitness and variety. Bunyan had such an +eye, and so, with infinitely more vivacity, had Voltaire. Diderot had +not the deep sincerity or realism of conviction of the one; nor had he +the inimitable power of throwing himself into a fancy, that was +possessed by the other. He was the least agile, the least felicitous, +the least ready, of composers. His allegory of the avenue of thorns, the +avenue of chestnut-trees, and the avenue of flowers, is an allegory, +unskilful, obvious, poor, and not any more amusing than if it's matter +had been set forth without any attempt at fanciful decoration. The +blinded saints among the thorns, and the voluptuous sinners among the +flowers, are rather mechanical figures. The translation into the dialect +required by the allegorical situation, of a sceptic's aversion for gross +superstition on the one hand, and for gross hedonism on the other, is +forced and wooden. The most interesting of the three sections is the +second, containing a discussion in which the respective parts are taken +by a deist, a pantheist, a subjective idealist, a sceptic, and an +atheist. The allegory falls into the background, and we have a plain +statement of some of the objections that may be made by the sceptical +atheist both to revelation and to natural religion. A starry sky calls +forth the usual glorification of the maker of so much beauty. "That is +all imagination," rejoins the atheist. "It is mere presumption. We have +before us an unknown machine, on which certain observations have been +made. Ignorant people who have only examined a single wheel of it, of +which they hardly know more than a tooth or two, form conjectures upon +the way in which their cogs fit in with a hundred thousand other wheels. +And then to finish like artisans, they label the work with the name of +it's author." + +The defender justifies this by the argument from a repeater-watch, of +which Paley and others have made so much use. We at once ascribe the +structure and movement of a repeater-watch to intelligent creation. +"No--things are not equal," says the atheist. "You are comparing a +finished work, whose origin and manufacture we know, to an infinite +piece of complexity, whose beginnings, whose present condition, and +whose end are all alike unknown, and about whose author you have nothing +better than guesses." + +But does not its structure announce an author? "No; you do not see who +nor what he is. Who told you that the order you admire here belies +itself nowhere else? Are you allowed to conclude from a point in space +to infinite space? You pile a vast piece of ground with earth-heaps +thrown here or there by chance, but among which the worm and the ant +find convenient dwelling-places enough. What would you think of these +insects, if, reasoning after your fashion, they fell into raptures over +the intelligence of the gardener who had arranged all these materials so +delightfully for their convenience?"[49] + +In this rudimentary form the chief speaker presses some of the +objections to optimistic deism from the point of view of the fixed +limitations, the inevitable relativity, of human knowledge. This kind of +objection had been more pithily expressed by Pascal long before, in the +famous article of his Thoughts, on the difficulty of demonstrating the +existence of a deity by light of nature.[50] Diderot's argument does not +extend to dogmatic denial. It only shows that the deist is exposed to an +attack from the same sceptical armoury from which he had drawn his own +weapons for attacking revelation. It is impossible to tell how far +Diderot went at this moment. The trenchancy with which his atheist urges +his reasoning, proves that the writer was fully alive to its force. On +the other hand, the atheist is left in the midst of a catastrophe. On +his return home, he finds his children murdered, his house pillaged, and +his wife carried off. And we are told that he could not complain on his +own principles. + +If the absence of witnesses allowed the robber to commit his crime with +impunity, why should he not? Again, there is a passage in which the +writer seems to be speaking his own opinions. An interlocutor maintains +the importance of keeping the people in bondage to certain prejudices. +"What prejudices? If a man once admits the existence of a God, the +reality of moral good and evil, the immortality of the soul, future +rewards and punishments, what need has he of prejudices? Supposing him +initiated in all the mysteries of transubstantiation, consubstantiation, +the Trinity, hypostatical union, predestination, incarnation, and the +rest, will he be any the better citizen?"[51] + +In truth, Diderot's mind was at this time floating in an atmosphere of +rationalistic negation, and the moral of his piece, as he hints, points +first to the extravagance of Catholicism, next to the vanity of the +pleasures of the world, and lastly, to the unfathomable uncertainty of +philosophy. Still, we may discern a significant leaning towards the +theory of the eternity of matter, which has arranged itself and assumed +variety of form by virtue of its inherent quality of motion.[52] + +It is a characteristic and displeasing mark of the time that Diderot in +the midst of these serious speculations, should have set himself (1748) +to the composition of a story in the kind which the author of the _Sofa_ +had made highly popular. The mechanism of this deplorable piece is more +grossly disgusting--I mean æsthetically, not morally--than anything to +be found elsewhere in the too voluminous library of impure literature. +The idea would seem to have been borrowed from one of the old +Fabliaux.[53] But what is tolerable in the quaint and _naïf_ verse of +the twelfth or thirteenth century, becomes shocking when deliberately +rendered by a grave man into bald unblushing prose of the eighteenth. +The humour, the rich sparkle, the wit, the merry _gaillardise_, have all +vanished; we are left with the vapid dregs of an obscene anachronism. +Mr. Carlyle, who knows how to be manly in these matters, and affects +none of the hypocritical airs of our conventional criticism, yet has not +more energetically than truly pronounced this "the beastliest of all +past, present, or future dull novels." As "the next mortal creature, +even a Reviewer, again compelled to glance into that book," I have felt +the propriety of our humorist's injunction to such a one, "to bathe +himself in running water, put on change of raiment, and be unclean until +the even." Diderot himself, as might have been expected, soon had the +grace to repent him of this shameful book, and could never hear it +mentioned without a very lively embarrassment.[54] + +As I have said before,[55] it was such books as this, as Crébillon's +novels, as Duclos's Confessions du Comte X., and the dissoluteness of +manners indicated by them, which invested Rousseau's New Heloïsa +(1761) with its delightful and irresistible fascinations. Having +pointed out elsewhere the significance of the licentiousness from +which the philosophic party did not escape untainted,[56] I need not +here do more than make two short remarks. First, the corruption which +had seized the court after the death of Lewis XIV. in the course of a +few years had reached the middle class in the town. The loosening of +social fibre, caused by the insenate speculation at the time of Law, +no doubt furthered the spread of demoralisation. Second, the reaction +against the Church involved among its other elements a passionate +contempt for all asceticism. This happened to fall in with the +general relaxation of morals that followed Lewis's gloomy rigour. +Consequently even men of pure life, like Condorcet, carried the +theoretical protest against asceticism so far as to vindicate the +practical immorality of the time. This is one of those enormous +drawbacks that people seldom take into account when they are +enumerating the blessings of superstition. Mediæval superstition had +produced some advantages, but now came the set-off. Durable morality +had been associated with a transitory religious faith. The faith fell +into intellectual discredit, and sexual morality shared its decline +for a short season. This must always be the natural consequence of +building sound ethics on the shifting sands and rotting foundations +of theology. + +Such literature as these tales of Diderot's, was the mirror both of the +ordinary practical sentiment and the philosophic theory. A nation pays +dearly for one of those outbreaks, when they happen to stamp themselves +in a literary form that endures. There are those who hold that Louvet's +Faublas is to this day a powerful agent in the depravation of the youth +of France. Diderot, however, had not the most characteristic virtues of +French writing; he was no master in the art of the _naïf_, nor in +delicate malice, nor in sprightly cynicism. His book, consequently, has +not lived, and we need not waste more words upon it. _Chaque esprit a sa +lie_, wrote one who for a while had sat at Diderot's feet;[57] and we +may dismiss this tale as the lees of Diderot's strong, careless, +sensualised understanding. He was afterwards the author of a work, La +Religieuse, on which the superficial critic may easily pour out the +vials of affected wrath. There, however, he was executing a profound +pathological study in a serious spirit. If the subject is horrible, we +have to blame the composition of human character, or the mischievousness +of a human institution. La Religieuse is no continuation of the vein of +defilement which began and ended with the story of 1748--a story which +is one among so many illustrations of Guizot's saying about the +eighteenth century, that it was the most tempting and seductive of all +centuries, for it promised full satisfaction at once to all the +greatnesses of humanity and to all its weaknesses. Hettner quotes a +passage from the minor writings of Niebuhr, in which the historian +compares Diderot with Petronius, as having both of them been honest and +well-intentioned men, who in shameless times were carried towards +cynicism by their deep contempt for the prevailing vice. "If Diderot +were alive now," says Niebuhr, "and if Petronius had only lived in the +fourth instead of the third century, then the painting of obscenity +would have been odious to them, and the inducement to it infinitely +smaller."[58] There is no trace in Diderot of this deep contempt for the +viciousness of his time. All that can be said is that he did not escape +it in his earlier years, in spite of the natural wholesomeness and +rectitude of his character. + +It is worthy of remark that the dissoluteness of the middle portion of +the century was not associated with the cynical and contemptuous view +about women that usually goes with relaxed morality. There was a more or +less distinct consciousness of a truth which has ever since grown into +clearer prominence with the advance of thought since the Revolution. It +is that the sphere and destiny of women are among the three or four +foremost questions in social improvement. This is now perceived on all +sides, profound as are the differences of opinion upon the proper +solution of the problem. A hundred years ago this perception was vague +and indefinite, but there was an unmistakable apprehension that the +Catholic ideal of womanhood was no more adequate to the facts of life, +than Catholic views about science, or property, or labour, or political +order and authority. + +Diderot has left some curious and striking reflections upon the fate and +character of women. He gives no signs of feeling after social +reorganisation; he only speaks as one brooding in uneasy meditation over +a very mournful perplexity. There is no sentimentalising, after the +fashion of Jean Jacques. He does not neglect the plain physical facts, +about which it is so difficult in an age of morbid reserve to speak with +freedom, yet about which it is fatal to be silent. He indulged in none +of those mischievous flatteries of women, which satisfy narrow +observers, or coxcombs, or the uxorious. "Never forget," he said, "that +for lack of reflection and principles, nothing penetrates down to a +certain profoundness of conviction in the understanding of women. The +ideas of justice, virtue, vice, goodness, badness, float on the surface +of their souls. They have preserved self-love and personal interest with +all the energy of nature. Although more civilized than we are outwardly, +they have remained true savages inwardly.... It is in the passion of +love, the access of jealousy, the transports of maternal tenderness, the +instants of superstition, the way in which they show epidemic and +popular notions, that women amaze us; fair as the seraphin of Klopstock, +terrible as the fiends of Milton.... The distractions of a busy and +contentious life break up our passions. A woman, on the contrary, broods +over her passions; they are a fixed point on which her idleness or the +frivolity of her duties holds her attention fast.... Impenetrable in +dissimulation, cruel in vengeance, tenacious in their designs, without +scruples about the means of success, animated by a deep and secret +hatred against the despotism of man--it seems as if there were among +them a sort of league, such as exists among the priests of all +nations.... The symbol of women in general is that of the Apocalypse, on +the front of which is inscribed _Mystery_.... If we have more reason +than women have, they have far more instinct than we have."[59] All this +was said in no bitterness, but in the spirit of the strong observer. + +Cynical bitterness is as misplaced as frivolous adulation. Diderot had a +deep pity for women. Their physical weaknesses moved him to compassion. +To these are added the burden of their maternal function, and the burden +of unequal laws. "The moment which shall deliver the girl from +subjection to her parents is come; her imagination opens to a future +thronged by chimæras; her heart swims in secret delight. Rejoice while +thou canst, luckless creature! Time would have weakened the tyranny that +thou hast left; time will strengthen the tyranny that awaits thee. They +choose a husband for her. She becomes a mother. It is in anguish, at the +peril of their lives, at the cost of their charms, often to the damage +of their health, that they give birth to their little ones. The organs +that mark their sex are subject to two incurable maladies. There is, +perhaps, no joy comparable to that of the mother as she looks on her +first-born; but the moment is dearly bought. Time advances, beauty +passes; there come the years of neglect, of spleen, of weariness. 'Tis +in pain that Nature disposes them for maternity; in pain and illness, +dangerous and prolonged, she brings maternity to its close. What is a +woman after that? Neglected by her husband, left by her children, a +nullity in society, then piety becomes her one and last resource. In +nearly every part of the world, the cruelty of the civil laws against +women is added to the cruelty of Nature. They have been treated like +weak-minded children. There is no sort of vexation which, among +civilised peoples, man cannot inflict upon woman with impunity."[60] + +The thought went no further, in Diderot's mind, than this pathetic +ejaculation. He left it to the next generation, to Condorcet and others, +to attack the problem practically; effectively to assert the true theory +that we must look to social emancipation in women, and moral discipline +in men, to redress the physical disadvantages. Meanwhile Diderot +deserves credit for treating the position and character of women in a +civilised society with a sense of reality; and for throwing aside those +faded gallantries of poetic and literary convention, that screen a broad +and dolorous gulf. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. + + +It is a common prejudice to treat Voltaire as if he had done nothing +save write the Pucelle and mock at Habakkuk. Every serious and +instructed student knows better. Voltaire's popularisation of the +philosophy of Newton (1738) was a stimulus of the greatest importance to +new thought in France. In a chapter of this work he had explained with +his usual matchless terseness and lucidity Berkeley's theory of vision. +The principle of this theory is, as every one knows, that figures, +magnitudes, situations, distances, are not sensations but inferences; +they are not the immediate revelations of sight, but the products of +association and intellectual construction; they are not directly judged +by vision, but by imagination and experience. If this be so, neither +situation, nor distance, nor magnitude, nor figure, would be at once +discerned by one born blind, supposing him suddenly to receive sight. +Voltaire then describes the results of the operation performed by +Cheselden (1728) on a lad who had been blind from his birth. This +experiment was believed to confirm all that Locke and Berkeley had +foreseen, for it was long before the patient could distinguish objects +by size, distance, or shape.[61] Condillac had renewed the interest +which Voltaire had first kindled in the subject, by referring to +Cheselden's experiment in his first work, which was published in +1746.[62] + +It happened that in 1748 Réaumur couched the eyes of a girl who had been +born blind. Diderot sought to be admitted to the operation, but the +favour was denied him, and he expressed his resentment in terms which, +as we shall see, cost him very dear. As he could not witness the +experiment, he began to meditate upon the subject, and the result was +the _Letter on the Blind for the Use of those who See_. published in +1749--the date, it may be observed in passing, of another very important +work in the development of materialistic speculation, David Hartley's +_Observations on man, his frame, his duty, and his expectations_. +Diderot's real disappointment at not being admitted to the operation was +slight. In a vigorous passage he shows the difficulties in the way of +conducting such an experiment under the conditions necessary to make it +conclusive. To prepare the born-blind to answer philosophical +interrogatories truly, and then to put these interrogatories rightly, +would have been a feat, he declares, not unworthy of the united talents +of Newton, Descartes, Locke, and Leibnitz. Unless the patient were +placed in such conditions as this, Diderot thinks there would be more +profit in questioning a blind person of good sense, than in the answers +of an uneducated person receiving sight for the first time under +abnormal and bewildering circumstances.[63] In this he was undoubtedly +right. If the experiment could be prepared under the delicate conditions +proper to make it demonstrative evidence, it would be final. But the +experiment had certainly not been so prepared in his time, and probably +never will be.[64] + +Read in the light of the rich and elaborate speculative literature which +England is producing in our own day, Diderot's once famous Letter on the +Blind seems both crude and loose in its thinking. Yet considering the +state of philosophy in France at the time of its appearance, we are +struck by the acuteness, the good sense, and the originality of many of +its positions. It was the first effective introduction into France of +these great and fundamental principles; that all knowledge is relative +to our intelligence, that thought is not the measure of existence, nor +the conceivableness of a proposition the test of its truth, and that our +experience is not the limit to the possibilities of things. That is an +impatient criticism which dismisses the French philosophers with some +light word as radically shallow and impotent. Diderot grasped the +doctrine of Relativity in some of the most important and far-reaching of +all its bearings. The fact that he and his allies used the doctrine as a +weapon of combat against the standing organisation, is exactly what +makes their history worth writing about. The standing organisation was +the antagonistic doctrine incarnate. It made anthropomorphism and the +absolute the very base and spring alike of individual and of social +life. No growth was possible until this speculative base had been +transformed. Hence the profound significance of what looks like a mere +discussion of one of the minor problems of metaphysics. Diderot was not +the first to discover Relativity, nor did he establish it; but it was he +who introduced it into the literature of his country at the moment when +circumstances were ripe for it. + +Condillac, as we have said, had published his first work, the Essay on +the Origin of Human Knowledge, three years before (1746). This was a +simple and undeveloped rendering of the doctrine of Locke, that the +ultimate source of our notions lies in impressions made upon the senses, +shaped and combined by reflection. It was not until 1754 that Condillac +published his more celebrated treatise on the Sensations, in which he +advanced a stride beyond Locke, and instead of tracing our notions to +the double source of sensation and reflection, maintained that +reflection itself is nothing but sensation "differently transformed." In +the first book, again, he had disputed Berkeley's theory of vision: in +the second, he gave a reasoned adhesion to it. Now Diderot and Condillac +had first been brought together by Rousseau, when all three were needy +wanderers about the streets of Paris. They used to dine together once a +week at a tavern, and it was Diderot who persuaded a bookseller to give +Condillac a hundred crowns for his first manuscript. "The Paris +booksellers," says Rousseau, "are very arrogant and harsh to beginners; +and metaphysics, then extremely little in fashion, did not offer a very +particularly attractive subject."[65] The constant intercourse between +Diderot and Condillac in the interval between the two works of the great +apostle of Sensationalism, may well account for the remarkable +development in doctrine. This is one of the many examples of the share +of Diderot's energetic and stimulating intelligence, in directing and +nourishing the movement of the time, its errors and precipitancies +included. On the other hand, the share of Condillac in providing a text +for Diderot's first considerable performance, is equally evident. + +The Letter on the Blind is an inquiry how far a modification of the five +senses, such as the congenital absence of one of them, would involve a +corresponding modification of the ordinary notions acquired by men who +are normally endowed in their capacity for sensation. It considers the +Intellect in a case where it is deprived of one of the senses. The +writer opens with an account of a visit made by himself and some friends +to a man born blind at Puisaux, a place seventy miles from Paris. They +asked him in what way he thought of the eyes. "They are an organ on +which the air produces the same effect as my stick upon my hand." A +mirror he described "as a machine which sets things in relief away from +themselves, if they are properly placed in relation to it." This +conception had formed itself in his mind in the following way. The blind +man only knows objects by touch. He is aware, on the testimony of +others, that we know objects by sight as he knows them by touch; he can +form no other notion. He is aware, again, that a man cannot see his own +face, though he can touch it. Sight, then, he concludes, is a sort of +touch, which only extends to objects different from our own visage, and +remote from us. Now touch only conveys to him the idea of relief. A +mirror, therefore, must be a machine which sets us in relief out of +ourselves. How many philosophers, cries Diderot, have employed less +subtlety to reach notions just as untrue? + +The born-blind had a memory for sound in a surprising degree, and +countenances do not present more diversity to us than he observed in +voices. The voice has for such persons an infinite number of delicate +shades that escape us, because we have not the same reason for +attention that the blind have. The help that our senses lend to one +another, is an obstacle to their perfection. + +The blind man said he should have been tempted to regard persons endowed +with sight as superior intelligences, if he had not found out a hundred +times how inferior we are in other respects. How do we know--Diderot +reflects upon this--that all the animals do not reason in the same way, +and look upon themselves as our equals or superiors, notwithstanding our +more complex and efficient intelligence? They may accord to us a reason +with which we should still have much need of their instinct while they +claim to be endowed with an instinct which enables them to do very well +without our reason. + +When asked whether he should be glad to have sight, the born-blind +replied that, apart from curiosity, he would be just as well pleased to +have long arms: his hands would tell him what is going on in the moon, +better than our eyes or telescopes; and the eyes cease to see earlier +than the hands lose the sense of touch. It would therefore be just as +good to perfect in him the organ that he had, as to confer upon him +another which he had not. This is untrue. No conceivable perfection of +touch would reveal phenomena of light, and the longest arms must leave +those phenomena undisclosed. + +After recounting various other peculiarities of thought, Diderot notices +that the blind man attaches slight importance to the sense of shame. He +would hardly understand the utility of clothes, for instance, except as +a protection against cold. He frankly told his philosophising visitors +that he could not see why one part of the body should be covered rather +than another. "I have never doubted," says Diderot, "that the state of +our organs and senses has much influence both on our metaphysics and our +morality." This, I may observe, does not in the least show that in a +society of human beings, not blind, but endowed with vision, the sense +of physical shame is a mere prejudice of which philosophy will rid us. +The fact that a blind man discerns no ill in nakedness, has no bearing +on the value or naturalness of shame among people with eyes. And +moreover, the fact that delicacy or shame is not a universal human +impulse, but is established, and its scope defined, by a varying +etiquette, does not in the least affect the utility or wisdom of such an +artificial establishment and definition. The grounds of delicacy, though +connected with the senses, are fixed by considerations that spring from +the social reason. It seems to be true, as Diderot says, that the +born-blind are at first without physical delicacy; because delicacy has +its root in the consciousness that we are observed, while the born-blind +are not conscious that they are observed. It is found that one of the +most important parts of their education is to impress this knowledge +upon them.[66] + +But the artificiality of a moral acquisition is obviously no test of +its worth, nor of the reasons for preserving it. Diderot exclaims, "Ah, +madam, how different is the morality of a blind man from ours; and how +the morality of the deaf would differ from that of the blind; and if a +being should have a sense more than we have, how wofully imperfect would +he find our morality!" This is plainly a crude and erroneous way of +illustrating the important truth of the strict relativity of ethical +standards and maxims. Diderot speaks as if they were relative simply and +solely to our five wits, and would vary with them only. Everybody now +has learnt that morality depends not merely on the five wits, but on the +mental constitution within, and on the social conditions without. It is +to these rather than to the number of our senses, that moral ideas are +relative. + +Passing over various other remarks, we come to those pages in the Letter +which apply the principle of relativity to the master-conception of God. +Diderot's argument on this point naturally drew keener attention than +the more disinterestedly scientific parts of his contribution. People +were not strongly agitated by the question whether a blind man who had +learned to distinguish a sphere from a cube by touch, would instantly +identify each of them if he received sight.[67] + +The question whether a blind man has as good reasons for believing in +the existence of a God as a man with sight can find, was of more vivid +interest. As a matter of fact, Diderot's treatment of the narrower +question (pp. 324, etc.) is more closely coherent than his treatment of +the wider one, for the simple reason that the special limitation of +experience in the born-blind cannot fairly be made to yield any decisive +evidence on the great, the insoluble enigma. + +Here, as in the other part of his essay, Diderot followed the method of +interrogating the blind themselves. In this instance, he turned to the +most extraordinary example in history, of intellectual mastery and +scientific penetration in one who practically belonged to the class of +the born-blind; and this too in dealing with subjects where sight might +be thought most indispensable. From 1711 to 1739 one of the professors +of mathematics at Cambridge was Nicholas Saunderson, who had lost his +sight before he was twelve months old. He was a man of striking mental +vigour, an original and efficient teacher, and the author of a book upon +algebra which was considered meritorious in its day. His knowledge of +optics was highly remarkable. He had distinct ideas of perspective, of +the projections of the sphere, and of the forms assumed by plane or +solid figures in certain positions. For performing computations he +devised a machine of great ingenuity, which also served the purpose, +with certain modifications, of representing geometrical diagrams. In +religion he was a sceptic or something more, and in his last hours +Diderot supposes him to have engaged in a discussion with a minister of +religion, upon the arguments for the existence of a deity drawn from +final causes. This discussion Diderot professes to reproduce, and he +makes Saunderson discourse with much eloquence and some pathos. + +By one of those mystifications which make the French polemical +literature of the eighteenth century the despair of bibliographers, +Diderot cites as his authority a _Life of Saunderson_, by Dr. Inchlif. +He sets forth the title with great circumstantiality, but no such book +exists or ever did exist. The Royal Society of London, however, took the +jest of fathering atheism on one of its members in bad part, and Diderot +was systematically excluded from the honour of admission to that learned +body, as he was excluded all his life from the French Academy. + +The reasoning which Diderot puts into the professor's mouth is at first +a fervid enlargement of the text, that the argument drawn from the +wonders of nature is very weak evidence for blind men. Our power of +creating new objects, so to speak, by means of a little mirror, is far +more incomprehensible to them, than the stars which they have been +condemned never to behold. The luminous ball that moves from east to +west through the heavens, is a less astonishing thing to them than the +fire on the hearth which they can lessen or augment at pleasure.[68] +"Why talk to me," says Saunderson, "of all that fine spectacle which has +never been made for me? I have been condemned to pass my life in +darkness; and you cite marvels that I cannot understand, and that are +only evidence for you and for those who see as you do. If you want me to +believe in God, you must make me touch him." The minister replied that +the sense of touch ought to be enough to reveal the divinity to him in +the admirable mechanism of his organs. To this, Saunderson:--"I repeat, +all that is not as fine for me as it is for you. But the animal +mechanism, even were it as perfect as you pretend, and as I daresay it +is--what has it in common with a Being of sovereign intelligence? If it +fills you with astonishment, that is perhaps because you are in the +habit of treating as a prodigy anything that strikes you as being beyond +your own strength. I have been myself so often an object of admiration +for you, that I have a poor opinion of what surprises you. I have +attracted people from all parts of England, who could not conceive by +what means I could work at geometry. Well, you must agree that such +persons had not very exact notions about the possibility of things. Is a +phenomenon in our notions beyond the power of man? Then we instantly +say--_'Tis the handiwork of a God_. Nothing short of that can content +our vanity. Why can we not contrive to throw into our talk less pride +and more philosophy? If nature offers us some knot that is hard to +untie, let us leave it for what it is; do not let us employ for cutting +it the hand of a Being, who then immediately becomes in turn a new knot +for us, and a knot harder to untie than the first. An Indian tells you +that our globe is suspended in the air on the back of an elephant. And +the elephant! It stands on a tortoise. And the tortoise? what sustains +that?... You pity the Indian: and yet one might very well say to you as +to him--Mr. Holmes, my good friend, confess your ignorance, and spare me +elephant and tortoise."[69] + +The minister very naturally then falls back upon good authority, and +asks Saunderson to take the word of Newton, Clarke, and Leibnitz. The +blind man answers that though the actual state of the universe may be +the illustration of a marvellous and admirable order, still Newton, +Clarke, and Leibnitz must leave him freedom of opinion as to its earlier +states. And then he foreshadows in a really singular and remarkable way +that theory which is believed to be the great triumph of scientific +discovery, and which is certainly the great stimulus to speculation, in +our own time. As to anterior states "you have no witnesses to confront +with me, and your eyes give you no help. Imagine, if you choose, that +the order which strikes you so profoundly has subsisted from the +beginning. But leave me free to think that it has done no such thing, +and that if we went back to the birth of things and scenes, and +perceived matter in motion and chaos slowly disentangling itself, we +should come across a whole multitude of shapeless creatures, instead of +a very few creatures highly organised. If I have no objection to make to +what you say about the present condition of things, I may at least +question you as to their past condition. I may at least ask of you, for +example, who told you--you and Leibnitz and Clarke and Newton--that in +the first instances of the formation of animals, some were not without +heads and others without feet? I may maintain that these had no +stomachs, and those no intestines; that some to whom a stomach, a +palate, and teeth seemed to promise permanence, came to an end through +some fault of heart or lungs; that the monsters annihilated one another +in succession, that all the faulty (_vicieuses_) combinations of matter +disappeared, and that _those only survived whose mechanism implied no +important mis-adaptation_ (contradiction), _and who had the power of +supporting and perpetuating themselves_. + +"On this hypothesis, if the first man had happened to have his larynx +closed, or had not found suitable food, or had been defective in the +parts of generation, or had failed to find a mate, then what would have +become of the human race? It would have been still enfolded in the +general depuration of the universe; and that arrogant being who calls +himself Man, dissolved and scattered among the molecules of matter, +would perhaps have remained for all time hidden in the number of mere +possibilities. + +"If shapeless creatures had never existed, you would not fail to insist +that none will ever appear, and that I am throwing myself headlong into +chimerical hypotheses. But the order is not even now so perfect, but +that monstrous products appear from time to time."[70] + +We have here a distinct enough conception, though in an exceedingly +undigested shape, first, of incessant Variability in organisms as an +actual circumstance, which we may see exemplified in its extreme form in +the monstrous deviations of structure that occur from time to time +before our own eyes; second, of Adaptation to environment as the +determining condition of Survival among the forms that present +themselves. Even as a bald and unsustained guess, this was an effective +side-blow at the doctrine of final causes--a doctrine, as has been often +remarked, which does not survive, in any given set of phenomena, the +reduction of these phenomena to terms of matter and motion. + +"I conjecture then," continues Saunderson, enlarging the idea of the +possibilities of matter and motion, "that in the beginning when matter +in fermentation gradually brought our universe bursting into being, +blind creatures like myself were very common. But why should I not +believe of worlds what I believe of animals? How many worlds, mutilated +and imperfect, were peradventure dispersed, then re-formed, and are +again dispersing at each moment of time in those far-off spaces which I +cannot touch and you cannot behold, but where motion combines and will +continue to combine masses of matter, until they have chanced on some +arrangement in which they may finally persevere! O philosophers, +transport yourselves with me on to the confines of the universe, beyond +the point where I feel, and you see, organised beings; gaze over that +new ocean, and seek across its lawless, aimless heavings some vestiges +of that intelligent Being whose wisdom strikes you with such wonder +here! + +"What is this world? A complex whole, subject to endless revolutions. +All these revolutions show a continual tendency to destruction; a swift +succession of beings who follow one another, press forward, and vanish; +a fleeting symmetry; the order of a moment. I reproached you just now +with estimating the perfection of things by your own capacity; and I +might accuse you here of measuring its duration by the length of your +own days. You judge of the continuous existence of the world, as an +ephemeral insect might judge of yours. The world is eternal for you, as +you are eternal to the being that lives but for one instant. Yet the +insect is the more reasonable of the two. For what a prodigious +succession of ephemeral generations attests your eternity! What an +immeasurable tradition! Yet shall we all pass away, without the +possibility of assigning either the real extension that we filled in +space, or the precise time that we shall have endured. Time, matter, +space--all, it may be, are no more than a point."[71] + +Diderot sent a copy of his work to Voltaire. The poet replied with his +usual playful politeness, but declared his dissent from Saunderson, "who +denied God, because he happened to have been born blind."[72] More +pretentious, and infinitely less acute critics than Voltaire, have fixed +on the same point in the argument and met it by the same answer; namely, +that, blind as he was, Saunderson ought to have recognised an +intelligent Being who had provided him with so many substitutes for +sight; he ought to have inferred a skilful demiurgus from those ordered +relations in the universe, which Thought, independently of Vision, might +well have disclosed to him. In truth, this is not the centre of the +whole argument. When Saunderson implies that he could only admit a God +on condition that he could touch him, he makes a single sense the +channel of all possible ideas, and the arbiter of all reasoned +combinations of ideas. This is absurd, and Diderot, as we have seen, +rapidly passed away from that to the real strength of the position. All +the rest of the contention against final causes would have come just as +fitly from the lips of a man with vision, as from Saunderson. The +hypothetical inference of a deity from the marvels of adaptation to be +found in the universe is unjustified, among other reasons, because it +ignores or leaves unexplained the marvels of mis-adaptation in the +universe. It makes absolute through eternity a hypothesis which can at +its best only be true relatively--not merely to the number of our +senses, but--to a few partially chosen phenomena of our own little day. +It explains a few striking facts; it leaves wholly unexplained a far +greater number of equally striking facts, even if it be not directly +contradicted by them. It is the invention of an imaginary agency to +account for the scanty successes of creation, and an attribution to that +agency of the kind of motives that might have animated a benevolent +European living in the eighteenth century. It leaves wholly unaccounted +for the prodigious host of monstrous or imperfect organisms, and the +appalling law of merciless and incessant destruction. + +To us this is the familiar discussion of the day. But let us return to +the starting-point of this chapter. In France a hundred and twenty years +ago it was the first opening of a decisive breach in the walls that had +sheltered the men of Western Europe against outer desolation for some +fifteen centuries or more. The completeness of Catholicism, as a +self-containing system of life and thought, is now harder for +Protestants or Sceptics to realise, than any other fact in the whole +history of human society. Catholicism was not only an institution, nor +only a religious faith; it was also a philosophy and a systematised +theory of the universe. The Church during its best age directed the +moral relations of individual men, and attempted, more or less +successfully, to humanise the relations of communities. It satisfied or +stimulated the affections by its exaltation of the Virgin Mary as a +supreme object of worship; it nourished the imagination on polytheistic +legends of saints and martyrs; it stirred the religious emotions by +touching and impressive rites; it surrounded its members with emblems of +a special and invincible protection. Catholicism, we have again and +again to repeat, claimed to deal with life as a whole, and to leave no +province of nature, no faculty of man, no need of intelligence or +spirit, uncomprehended. But we must not forget that, though this +prodigious system had its root in the affections and sympathies of human +nature, it was also fenced round by a theory of metaphysic. It rested +upon authority and tradition, but it also sought an expression in an +intellectual philosophy of things. The essence of this philosophy was to +make man the final cause of the universe. Its interpretation of the +world was absolute; its conception of the Creator was absolute; its +account of our intellectual impressions, of our moral rules, of our +spiritual ideals, made them all absolute. Now Diderot, when he wrote the +Letter on the Blind, perceived that mere rationalistic attacks upon the +sacred books, upon the miracles, upon the moral types, of Catholicism, +could only be partially effective for destruction, and could have no +effect at all in replacing the old ways of thinking by others of more +solid truth. The attack must begin in philosophy. The first fruitful +process must consist in shifting the point of view, in enlarging the +range of the facts to be considered, in pressing the relativity of our +ideas, in freeing ourselves from the tyranny of anthropomorphism. + +Hobbes's witty definition of the papacy as the ghost of the old Roman +Empire sitting enthroned on the grave thereof, may tempt us to forget +the all-important truth that the basis of the power of the ghost was +essentially different from that of the dissolved body. The Empire was a +political organisation, resting on military force. The Church was a +social organisation, made vital by a conviction. The greatest fact in +the intellectual history of the eighteenth century is the decisive +revolution that overtook that sustaining conviction. The movement and +the men whom we are studying owe all their interest to the share that +they had in this immense task. The central conception, that the universe +was called into existence only to further its Creator's purpose towards +man, became incredible. This absolute proposition was slowly displaced +by notions of the limitation of human faculties, and of the +comparatively small portion of the whole cosmos or chaos to which we +have reason to believe that these faculties give us access. To +substitute this relative point of view for the absolute, was the +all-important preliminary to the effectual breaking up of the great +Catholic construction. + +What seems to careless observers a mere metaphysical dispute was in +truth, and still is, the decisive quarter of the great battle between +theology and a philosophy reconcilable with science. When the Catholic +reaction set in, Joseph de Maistre, by far its acutest champion in the +region of philosophy, at once made it his first business to attack the +principle of relativity with all his force of dialectic, and to +reinstate absolute modes of thinking, and the absolute quality of +Catholic propositions about religion, knowledge, and government.[73] Yet +neither he nor any one else on his side has ever effectively shaken the +solid argument which Diderot fancifully illustrated in the following +passage from his reply to Voltaire's letter of thanks for the opuscule: +"This marvellous order and these wondrous adaptations, what am I to +think of them? That they are metaphysical entities only existing in your +own mind. You cover a vast piece of ground with a mass of ruins falling +hither or thither at hazard; amid these the worm and the ant find +commodious shelter enough. What would you say of these insects, if they +were to take for real and final entities the relations of the places +which they inhabit to their organisation, and then fall into ecstasies +over the beauty of their subterranean architecture, and the wonderfully +superior intelligence of the gardener who arranges things so +conveniently for them?"[74] This is the notion which Voltaire himself +three years afterwards illustrated in the witty fancies of +_Micromégas_. The little animalcule in the square cap, who makes the +giant laugh in a Homeric manner by its inflated account of itself as the +final cause of the universe, is the type of the philosophy on which +Catholicism is based. + +In the same letter Diderot avows his dissent--hypocritically, we find +reason for suspecting--from Saunderson's conclusion. "It is commonly in +the night-time," he says, "that the mists arise which obscure in me the +existence of God; the rising of the sun never fails to scatter them. But +then the darkness is ever-enduring for the blind, and the sun only rises +for those who see." Diderot's denial of atheism seems more than +suspicious, when one finds him taking so much pains to make out +Saunderson's case for him, when he urges the argument following, for +instance: "If there had never existed any but material beings, there +would never have been spiritual beings; for then the spiritual beings +would either have given themselves existence, or else would have +received it from the material beings. But if there had never existed any +but spiritual beings, you will see that there would never have been +material beings. Right philosophy only allows me to suppose in things +what I can distinctly perceive in them. Now I perceive no other +faculties distinctly in the mind except those of willing and thinking, +and I no more conceive that thought and will can act on material beings +or on nothing, than I can conceive material beings or nothing acting on +spiritual beings." And he winds up his letter thus: "It is very +important not to take hemlock for parsley; but not important at all to +believe or to disbelieve in God. The world, said Montaigne, is a +tennis-ball that he has given to philosophers to toss hither and +thither; and I would say nearly as much of the Deity himself."[75] + +In concluding our account of this piece, we may mention that Diderot +threw out a hint, which is a good illustration of the alert and +practically helpful way in which his mind was always seeking new ideas. +We have common signs, he said, appealing to the eye, namely, written +characters, and others appealing to the ear, namely, articulate sounds; +we have none appealing to touch. "For want of such a language, +communication is entirely broken between us and those who are born deaf, +dumb, and blind. They grow, but they remain in a state of imbecility. +Perhaps they would acquire ideas, if we made ourselves understood by +them from childhood in a fixed, determinate, constant, and uniform +manner; in short, if we traced on their hand the same characters that we +trace upon paper, and invariably attached the same significance to +them."[76] The patient benevolence and ingenuity of Dr. Howe of Boston +has realised in our own day the value of Diderot's suggestion. + +One or two trifling points of literary interest may be noticed in the +Letter on the Blind. Diderot refers to "the ingenious expression of an +English geometer that _God geometrises_" (p. 294). He is unaware +apparently of the tradition which attributes the expression to Plato, +though it is not found in Plato's writings. Plutarch, I believe, is the +first person who mentions the saying, and discusses what Plato exactly +meant by it. In truth, it is one of that large class of dicta which look +more ingenious than they are true. There is a fine Latin passage by +Barrow on the mighty geometry of the universe, and the reader of the +_Religio Medici_ (p. 42) may remember that Sir Thomas Browne pronounces +God to be "like a skilful geometrician." + +An odd coincidence of simile is worth mentioning. Diderot says "that +great services are like large pieces of money, that we have seldom any +occasion to use. Small attentions are a current coin that we always +carry in our hands." This is curiously like the saying in the _Tatler_ +that "A man endowed with great perfections without good breeding is like +one who has his pockets full of gold, but wants change for his ordinary +occasions." Yet if Diderot had read the _Tatler_, he would certainly +have referred to the story in No. 55, how William Jones of Newington, +born blind, was brought to sight at the age of twenty--a story told in a +manner after Diderot's own heart. + + +II. + +It is proper in this place to mention a short philosophic piece which +Diderot wrote in 1751, his _Letter on the Deaf and Dumb for the Use of +those who Hear and Talk_. This is not, like the Letter on the Blind, +the examination of a case of the Intellect deprived of one or more of +the senses. It is substantially a fragment, and a very important +fragment, on Æsthetics, and as such there will be something to say about +it in another chapter. But there are, perhaps, one or two points at +which the Letter on the Deaf and Dumb touches the line of thought of the +Letter on the Blind. + +The Letter opens on the question of the origin and limits of inversion +in language. This at once leads to a discussion of the natural order of +ideas and expressions, and that original order, says Diderot, we can +only ascertain by a study of the language of gesture. Such a study can +be pursued either in assiduous conversation with one who has been deaf +and dumb from birth, or by the experiment of a _muet de convention_, a +man who foregoes the use of articulate sounds for the sake of experiment +as to the process of the formation of language. Generalising this idea, +Diderot proceeds to consider man as distributed into as many distinct +and separate beings as he has senses. "My idea would be to decompose a +man, so to speak, and to examine what he derives from each of the senses +with which he is endowed. I have sometimes amused myself with this kind +of metaphysical anatomy; and I found that of all the senses, the eye was +the most superficial; the ear, the proudest; smell, the most voluptuous; +taste, the most superstitious and the most inconstant; touch, the +profoundest and the most of a philosopher. It would be amusing to get +together a society, each member of which should have no more than one +sense; there can be no doubt that they would all treat one another as +out of their wits." + +This is interesting, because it was said at the time to be the source of +one of the most famous fancies in the philosophical literature of the +century, the Statue in Condillac's Treatise on the Sensations. Condillac +imagined a statue organised like a man, but each sense unfolding itself +singly, at the will of an eternal arbiter. The philosopher first admits +the exercise of smell to his Frankenstein, and enumerates the mental +faculties which might be expected to be set in operation under the +changing impressions made upon that one sense. The other senses are +imparted to it in turn, one by one, each adding a new group of ideas to +the previous stock, until at length the mental equipment is complete. + +We may see the extent of the resemblance between Condillac's Statue and +Diderot's _muet de convention_, but Diderot at least is free from the +charge of borrowing. Condillac's book was published three years (1754) +after the Letter on the Deaf and Dumb, and he afterwards wrote a +pamphlet defending himself from the charge of having taken the fancy of +his Statue from Diderot; nor, for that matter, did Diderot ever make +sign or claim in the matter. We have already spoken of the relations +between the two philosophers, and though it is a mistake to describe +Diderot as one of Condillac's most celebrated pupils,[77] yet there is +just as little reason to invert the connection, or to doubt Condillac's +own assertion that the Statue was suggested to him by Mademoiselle +Ferrand, that remarkable woman to whose stimulating and directing +influence he always professed such deep obligation. Attention has been +called to the fact that in 1671 a Parisian bookseller published a Latin +version of a much more intelligent and scientific fancy than the +Statue--the _Philosophus Autodidactus_ of the Arabian, Ibn Tophail. This +was a romance, in which a human being is suckled by a gazelle on a +desert island in the tropics, and grows up in the manner of some +Robinson Crusoe with a turn for psychological speculation, and gradually +becomes conscious, through observation, of the peculiar properties +belonging to his senses.[78] + +Of the part of the Letter that concerns gesture, one can only say that +it appears astonishingly crude to those who know the progress that has +been made since Diderot's time in collecting and generalising the +curious groups of fact connected with gesture-language. We can imagine +the eager interest that Diderot would have had in such curious +observations as that gesture-language has something like a definite +syntax; that it furnishes no means of distinguishing causation from +sequence or simultaneity; that savages can understand and be understood +with ease and certainty in a deaf-and-dumb school.[79] Diderot was acute +enough to see that the questions of language could only be solved, not +by the old metaphysical methods, but experientially. For the +experiential method in this matter the time was not ripe. It was no +wonder, then, that after a few pages, he broke away and hastened to +æsthetics. + + +III. + +Penalties on the publication of heretical opinion did not cease in +England with the disappearance of the Licensing Act. But they were at +least inflicted by law. It was the Court of King's Bench which, in 1730, +visited Woolston with fine and imprisonment, after all the forms of a +prosecution had been duly gone through. It was no Bishop's court nor +Star Chamber, much less a warrant signed by George the Third or by Bute, +which in 1762 condemned Peter Annet to the pillory and the gaol for his +Free Inquirer. The only evil which overtook Mandeville for his Fable of +the Bees was to be harmlessly presented (1723) as a public nuisance by +the Grand Jury of Middlesex. We may contrast with this the state of +things which prepared a revolution in France. + +One morning in July, 1749--almost exactly forty years before that July +of '89, so memorable in the annals of arbitrary government and state +prisons--a commissary of police and three attendants came to Diderot's +house, made a vigorous scrutiny of his papers, and then produced a +warrant for his detention. The philosopher, without any ado, told his +wife not to expect him home for dinner, stepped into the chaise, and +was driven off with his escort to Vincennes. His real offence was a +light sneer in the Letter on the Blind at the mistress of a +minister.[80] The atheistical substance of the essay, however, apart +from the pique of a favourite, would have given sufficiently good +grounds for a prosecution in England, and in France for that vile +substitute for prosecution, the _lettre-decachet_. And there happened to +be special causes for harshness towards the press at this moment. Verses +had been published satirising the king and his manner of life in bitter +terms, and a stern raid was made upon all the scribblers in Paris. At +the court there had just taken place one of those reactions in favour of +the ecclesiastical party, which for thirty years in the court history +alternated so frequently with movements in the opposite direction. The +gossip of the town set down Diderot's imprisonment to a satire against +the Jesuits, of which he was wrongly supposed to be the author.[81] It +is not worth while to seek far for a reason, when authority was as able +and as ready to thrust men into gaol for a bad reason as for a good one. +The writer or the printer of a philosophical treatise was at this moment +looked upon in France much as a magistrate now looks on the wretch who +vends infamous prints. + +The lieutenant of police (Berryer) treated the miserable author with +additional severity, for stubbornly refusing to give up the name of the +printer. Diderot was well aware that the printer would be sent to the +galleys for life, if the lieutenant of police could once lay hands upon +him. This personage, we may mention, was afterwards raised to the +dignified office of keeper of the seals, as a reward for his industry +and skill in providing victims for the royal seraglio at Versailles.[82] +The man who had ventured to use his mind, was thrown into the dungeon at +Vincennes by the man who played spy and pander for the Pompadour. The +official record of a dialogue between Berryer and Denis Diderot, "of the +Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion," is a singular piece of +reading, if we remember that the prisoner's answers were made, "after +oath taken by the respondent to speak and answer the truth." + +"Interrogated if he has not composed a work entitled _Letters on the +Blind_. + +"Answered no. + +"Interrogated by whom he had caused said work to be printed. + +"Answered that he had not caused the said work to be printed. + +"Interrogated if he knows the name of the author of the said work. + +"Answered that he knows nothing about it. + +"Interrogated whether he has not had said work in manuscript in his +possession before it was printed. + +"Answered that he had not had the said manuscript in his possession +before or after it was printed. + +"Interrogated whether he has not composed a work which appeared some +years ago, entitled _Philosophic Thoughts_. + +"Answered no." + +And so, after a dozen more replies of equal veracity, on reading being +made to the respondent of the present interrogatory, Diderot "said that +the answers contain the truth, persisted in them, and signed," as +witness his hand. A sorrowful picture, indeed, of the plight of an +apostle of a new doctrine. On the other hand, the apostle of the new +doctrine was perhaps good enough for the preachers of the old. Two years +before this, the priest of the church of Saint Médard had thought it +worth while to turn spy and informer. This is the report which the base +creature sent to the lieutenant of police (1747):-- + + "Diderot, a man of no profession, living, etc., is a young man + who plays the free-thinker, and glories in impiety. He is the + author of several works of philosophy, in which he attacks + religion. His talk is like his books. He is busy at the + composition of one now, which is very dangerous." + +The priest's delation was confirmed presently by a still lower agent of +authority, who, in bad grammar and bad spelling, describes "this wretch +Diderot as a very dangerous man, who speaks of the holy mysteries of +our religion with contempt; who corrupts manners, and who says that when +he comes to the last moment of his life, he will have to do like others, +will confess, and will receive what we call our God, but it will only be +for the sake of his family."[83] + +All these things had prepared an unfriendly fate for Diderot when his +time at last came, as it came to most of his friends. For a month he was +cut off from the outer world. His only company was the _Paradise Lost_, +which he happened to have in his pocket at the moment of his arrest. He +compounded an ink for himself, by scraping the slate at the side of his +window, grinding it very fine, and mixing with wine in a broken glass. A +toothpick, found by happy accident in the pocket of his waistcoat, +served him for pen, and the fly-leaves and margins of the Milton made a +repository for his thoughts. With a simple but very characteristic +interest in others who might be as unfortunate as himself, he wrote upon +the walls of his prison his short recipe for writing materials.[84] +Diderot might easily have been buried here for months or even years. +But, as it happened, the governor of Vincennes was a kinsman of +Voltaire's divine Emily, the Marquise du Châtelet. When Voltaire, who +was then at Luneville, heard of Diderot's ill-fortune, he proclaimed as +usual his detestation of a land where bigots can shut up philosophers +under lock and key, and as usual he at once set to work to lessen the +wrong. Madame du Châtelet was made to write to the governor, praying him +to soften the imprisonment of Socrates-Diderot as much as he could.[85] +It was the last of her good deeds, for she died in circumstances of +grotesque tragedy in the following month (Sept. 1749), and her husband, +her son, Voltaire, and Saint Lambert alternately consoled and reproached +one another over her grave. Diderot meanwhile had the benefit of her +intervention. He was transferred from the dungeon to the château, was +allowed to wander about the park on his parole, and to receive visits +from his friends. One of the most impulsive of these friends was Jean +Jacques. Their first meeting after Diderot's imprisonment has been, +described by Rousseau himself, in terms at which the phlegmatic will +smile--not wisely, for the manner of expressing emotion, like all else, +is relative. "After three or four centuries of impatience, I flew into +the arms of my friend. O indescribable moment! He, was not alone; +D'Alembert and the treasurer of the Sainte Chapelle were with him. As I +went in, I saw no one but himself. With a single hound and a cry, I +pressed his face close to mine, I clasped him tightly in my arms, +without speaking to him save by my tears and sobs; I was choking with +tenderness and joy."[86] After this Rousseau used to walk over to see +him two or three times a week. It was during one of these walks on a hot +summer afternoon, that he first thought of that memorable literary +effort, the essay against civilisation. He sank down at the foot of a +tree, and feverishly wrote a page or two to show to his friend. He tells +us that but for Diderot's encouragement he should hardly have executed +his design. There is a story that it was Diderot who first suggested to +Rousseau to affirm that arts and sciences had corrupted manners. There +is no violent improbability in this. Diderot, for all the robustness and +penetration of his judgment, was yet often borne by his natural +impetuosity towards the region of paradox. His own curious and bold +_Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville_ is entirely in the vein of +Rousseau's discourse on the superiority of primitive over civilised +life. "Prodigious sibyl of the eighteenth century," cries Michelet, "the +mighty magician Diderot! He breathed out one day a breath; lo, there +sprang up a man--Rousseau."[87] It is hard to believe that such an +astonishing genius for literature as Rousseau's could have lain +concealed, after he had once inhaled the vivifying air of Paris. Yet the +fire and inspiring energy of Diderot may well have been the quickening +accident that brought his genius into productive life. All the testimony +goes to show that it was so. Whether, however, Diderot is really +responsible for the perverse direction of Rousseau's argument is a +question of fact, and the evidence is not decisive.[88] It would be an +odd example of that giant's nonchalance which is always so amazing in +Diderot, if he really instigated the most eloquent and passionate writer +then alive to denounce art and science as the scourge of mankind, at the +very moment when he was himself straining his whole effort to spread the +arts and sciences, and to cover them with glory in men's eyes. + +Among Diderot's other visitors was Madame de Puisieux. One day she came +clad in gay apparel, bound for a merry-making at a neighbouring village. +Diderot, conceiving jealous doubts of her fidelity, received assurance +that she would be solitary and companionless at the feast, thinking +mournfully of her persecuted philosopher lying in prison. She forgot +that one of the parents of philosophy is curiosity, and that Diderot had +trained himself in the school of the sceptics. That evening he scaled +the walls of the park of Vincennes, flew to the scene of the festival, +and there found what he had expected. In vain for her had he written +upon virtue and merit, and the unhallowed friendship came to an end. + +After three months of captivity, Diderot was released. The booksellers +who were interested in the Encyclopædia were importunate with the +authorities to restore its head and chief to an enterprise that stirred +universal curiosity.[89] For the first volume of that famous work was +now almost ready to appear, and expectation was keen. The idea of the +book had occurred to Diderot in 1745, and from 1745 to 1765 it was the +absorbing occupation of his life. Of the value and significance of the +conception underlying this immense operation, I shall speak in the next +chapter. There also I shall describe its history. The circumstances +under which these five-and-thirty volumes were given to the world mark +Diderot for one of the few true heroes of literature. They called into +play some of the most admirable of human qualities. They required a +laboriousness as steady and as prolonged, a wariness as alert, a grasp +of plan as firm, a fortitude as patient, unvarying, and unshaken, as men +are accustomed to applaud in the engineer who constructs some vast and +difficult work, or the commander who directs a hardy and dangerous +expedition. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA. + + +The history of the encyclopædic conception of human knowledge is a much +more interesting and important object of inquiry than a list of the +various encyclopædic enterprises to be found in the annals of +literature. Yet it is proper here to mention some of the attempts in +this direction, which preceded our memorable book of the eighteenth +century. It is to Aristotle, no doubt, that we must look for the first +glimpse of the idea that human knowledge is a totality, whose parts are +all closely and organically connected with one another. But the idea +that only dawned in that gigantic understanding was lost for many +centuries. The compilations of Pliny are not in a right sense +encyclopædic, being presided over by no definite idea of informing +order. It was not until the later middle age that any attempt was made +to present knowledge as a whole. Albertus Magnus, "the ape of Aristotle" +(1193-1280), left for a season the three great questions of the +existence of universals, of the modes of the existence of species and +genus, and of their place in or out of the bosom of the individuals, +and executed a compilation of such physical facts as had been then +discovered.[90] A more distinctly encyclopædic work was the book of +Vincent de Beauvais (_d._ 1264), called _Speculum naturale, morale, +doctrinale, et historiale_--a compilation from Aquinas in some parts, +and from Aristotle in others. Hallam mentions three other compilations +of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and observes that their +laborious authors did not much improve the materials which they had +amassed in their studies, though they sometimes arranged them +conveniently. In the mediæval period, as he remarks, the want of +capacity to discern probable truths was a very great drawback from the +value of their compilations.[91] + +Far the most striking production of the thirteenth century in this kind +was the _Opus Majus_ of Roger Bacon (1267), of which it has been said +that it is at once the Encyclopædia and the Novum Organum of that +age;[92] at once a summary of knowledge, and the suggestion of a truer +method. This, however, was merely the introductory sketch to a vaster +encyclopædic work, the _Compendium Philosophiæ_, which was not +perfected. "In common with minds of great and comprehensive grasp, his +vivid perception of the intimate relationship of the different parts of +philosophy, and his desire to raise himself from the dead level of +every individual science, induced Bacon to grasp at and embrace the +whole."[93] In truth, the encyclopædic spirit was in the air throughout +the thirteenth century. It was the century of books bearing the +significant titles of Summa, or Universitas, or Speculum. + +The same spirit revived towards the middle of the sixteenth century. In +1541 a book was published at Basel by one Ringelberg, which first took +the name of Cyclopædia, that has since then become so familiar a word in +Western Europe. This was followed within sixty years by several other +works of the same kind. The movement reached its height in a book which +remained the best in its order for a century. A German, one J.H. Alsted +(1588-1638), published in 1620 an _Encyclopædia scientiarum omnium_. A +hundred years later the illustrious Leibnitz pronounced it a worthy task +to perfect and amend Alsted's book. What was wanting to the excellent +man, he said, was neither labour nor judgment, but material, and the +good fortune of such days as ours. And Leibnitz wrote a paper of +suggestions for its extension and improvement.[94] Alsted's Encyclopædia +is of course written in Latin, and he prefixes to it by way of motto the +celebrated lines in which Lucretius declares that nothing is sweeter +than to dwell apart in the serene temples of the wise. Though he informs +us in the preface that his object was to trace the outlines of the +great "latifundium regni philosophici" in a single syntagma, yet he +really does no more than arrange a number of separate treatises or +manuals, and even dictionaries, within the limits of a couple of folios. +As is natural to the spirit of the age in which he wrote, great +predominance is given to the verbal sciences of grammar, rhetoric, and +formal logic, and a verbal or logical division regulates the +distribution of the matter, rather than a scientific regard for its +objective relations. + +For the true parentage, however, of the Encyclopædia of Diderot and +D'Alembert, it is unnecessary to prolong this list. It was Francis +Bacon's idea of the systematic classification of knowledge which +inspired Diderot, and guided his hand throughout. "If we emerge from +this vast operation," he wrote in the Prospectus, "our principal debt +will be to the chancellor Bacon, who sketched the plan of a universal +dictionary of sciences and arts at a time when there were not, so to +say, either arts or sciences." This sense of profound and devoted +obligation was shared by D'Alembert, and was expressed a hundred times +in the course of the work. No more striking panegyric has ever been +passed upon our immortal countryman than is to be found in the +Preliminary Discourse.[95] The French Encyclopædia was the direct fruit +of Bacon's magnificent conceptions. And if the efficient origin of the +Encyclopædia was English, so did the occasion rise in England also. + +In 1727 Ephraim Chambers, a Westmoreland Quaker, published in London +two folios, entitled, a Cyclopædia or Universal Dictionary of the Arts +and Sciences. The idea of it was broad and excellent. "Our view," says +Chambers, "was to consider the several matters, not only in themselves, +but relatively, or as they respect each other; both to treat them as so +many wholes, and as so many parts of some greater whole." The compiler +lacked the grasp necessary to realise this laudable purpose. The book +has, however, the merit of conciseness, and is a singular monument of +literary industry, for it was entirely compiled by Chambers himself. It +had a great success, and though its price was high (four guineas), it +ran through five editions in eighteen years. On the whole, however, it +is meagre, and more like a dictionary than an encyclopædia, such as +Alsted's for instance. + +Some fifteen years after the publication of Chambers's Cyclopædia, an +Englishman (Mills) and a German (Sellius) went to Le Breton with a +project for its translation into French. The bookseller obtained the +requisite privilege from the government, but he obtained it for himself, +and not for the projectors. This trick led to a quarrel, and before it +was settled the German died and the Englishman returned to his own +country. They left the translation behind them duly executed.[96] Le +Breton then carried the undertaking to a certain abbé, Gua de Malves. +Gua de Malves (_b._ 1712) seems to have been a man of a busy and +ingenious mind. He was the translator of Berkeley's _Hylas and +Philonous_, of Anson's Voyages, and of various English tracts on +currency and political economy. It is said that he first suggested the +idea of a cyclopædia on a fuller plan,[97] but we have no evidence of +this. In any case, the project made no advance in his hands. The +embarrassed bookseller next applied to Diderot, who was then much in +need of work that should bring him bread. His fertile and energetic +intelligence transformed the scheme. By an admirable intuition, he +divined the opportunity which would be given by the encyclopædic form, +of gathering up into a whole all that new thought and modern knowledge, +which existed as yet in unsystematic and uninterpreted fragments. His +enthusiasm fired Le Breton. It was resolved to make Chambers's work a +mere starting-point for a new enterprise of far wider scope. + +"The old and learned D'Aguesseau," says Michelet, "notwithstanding the +pitiable, the wretched sides of his character, had two lofty sides, his +reform of the laws, and a personal passion, the taste and urgent need of +universality, a certain encyclopædic sense. A young man came to him one +day, a man of letters living by his pen, and somewhat under a cloud for +one or two hazardous books that lack of bread had driven him to write. +Yet this stranger of dubious repute wrought a miracle. With +bewilderment the old sage listened to him unrolling the gigantic scheme +of a book that should be all books. On his lips, sciences were light and +life. It was more than speech, it was creation. One would have said that +he had made these sciences, and was still at work, adding, extending, +fertilising, ever engendering. The effect was incredible. D'Aguesseau, a +moment above himself, forgot the old man, received the infection of +genius, and became great with the greatness of the other. He had faith +in the young man, and protected the Encyclopædia."[98] + +A fresh privilege was procured (Jan. 21, 1746), and as Le Breton's +capital was insufficient for a project of this magnitude, he invited +three other booksellers to join him, retaining a half share for himself, +and allotting the other moiety to them. As Le Breton was not strong +enough to bear the material burdens of producing a work on so gigantic a +scale as was now proposed, so Diderot felt himself unequal to the task +of arranging and supervising every department of a book that was to +include the whole circle of the sciences. He was not skilled enough in +mathematics, nor in physics, which were then for the most part +mathematically conceived. For that province, he associated with himself +as an editorial colleague one of the most conspicuous and active members +of the philosophical party. Of this eminent man, whose relations with +Diderot were for some years so intimate, it is proper that we should say +something. + +D'Alembert was the natural son of Madame de Tencin, by whom he had been +barbarously exposed immediately after his birth. "The true ancestors of +a man of genius," says Condorcet finely upon this circumstance, "are the +masters who have gone before him, and his true descendants are disciples +that are worthy of him." He was discovered on a November night in the +year 1717, by the beadle, in a nearly dying condition on the steps of +the church of St. John the Round, from which he afterwards took his +Christian name. An honest woman of the common people, with that personal +devotion which is less rare among the poor than among the rich, took +charge of the foundling. The father, who was an officer of artillery and +brother of Destouches, the author of some poor comedies, by and by +advanced the small sums required to pay for the boy's schooling. +D'Alembert proved a brilliant student. Unlike nearly every other member +of the encyclopædic party, he was a pupil not of the Jesuits but of +their rivals. The Jansenists recognised the keenness and force of their +pupil, and hoped that they had discovered a new Pascal. But he was less +docile than his great predecessor in their ranks. When his studies were +completed, he devoted himself to geometry, for which he had a passion +that nothing could extinguish. For the old monastic vow of poverty, +chastity, and obedience, he adopted the manlier substitute of poverty, +truth, and liberty--the worthy device of every man of letters. When he +awoke in the morning, he thought with delight of the work that had been +begun the previous day and would occupy the day before him. In the +necessary intervals of his meditations, he recalled the lively pleasure +that he felt at the play: at the play between the acts, he thought of +the still greater pleasure that was promised to him by the work of the +morrow. His mathematical labours led to valuable results in the +principles of equilibrium and the movement of fluids, in a new calculus, +and in a new solution of the problem of the precession of the +equinoxes.[99] + +These contributions to what was then the most popular of the sciences +brought him fame, and fame brought him its usual distractions. As soon +as a writer has shown himself the possessor of gifts that may be of +value to society, then society straightway sets to work to seduce and +hinder him from diligently exercising them. D'Alembert resisted these +influences steadfastly. His means were very limited, yet he could never +be induced to increase them at the cost either of his social +independence or of his scientific pursuits. He lived for forty years +under the humble roof of the poor woman who had treated him as a son. +"You will never be anything better than a philosopher," she used to cry +reproachfully, "and what is a philosopher? 'Tis a madman who torments +himself all his life, that people may talk about him when he is dead." +D'Alembert zealously adhered to his destination. Frederick the Great +vainly tempted him by an offer of the succession to Maupertuis as +president of the Academy of Berlin. Although, however, he declined to +accept the post, he enjoyed all its authority and prerogative. Frederick +always consulted him in filling up vacancies and making appointments. It +is a magnanimous trait in D'Alembert's history that he should have +procured for Lagrange a position and livelihood at Berlin, warmly +commending him as a man of rare and superior genius, although Lagrange +had vigorously opposed some of his own mathematical theories. Ten years +after Frederick's offer, the other great potentate of the north, +Catherine of Russia, besought him to undertake the education of the +young grand duke, her son. But neither urgent flatteries and +solicitations under the imperial hand, nor the munificent offer of a +hundred thousand francs a year, availed to draw him away from his +independence and his friends. The great Frederick used to compare him to +one of those oriental monarchs, who cherish a strict seclusion in order +to enhance their importance and majesty. He did not refuse a pension of +some fifty pounds a year from Berlin, and the same amount was bestowed +upon him from the privy purse at Versailles. He received a small annual +sum in addition from the Academy. + +Though the mathematical sciences remained the objects of his special +study, D'Alembert was as free as the other great men of the encyclopædic +school from the narrowness of the pure specialist. He naturally reminds +us of the remarkable saying imputed to Leibnitz, that he only attributed +importance to science, because it enabled him to speak with authority in +philosophy and religion. His correspondence with Voltaire, extending +over the third quarter of the century, is the most instructive record +that we possess of the many-sided doings of that busy time. His series +of _éloges_ on the academicians who died between 1700 and 1772 is one of +the most interesting works in the department of literary history. He +paid the keenest attention to the great and difficult art of writing. +Translations from Tacitus, Bacon, and Addison, show his industry in a +useful practice. A long collection of synonyms bears witness to his fine +discrimination in the use of words. And the clearness, precision, and +reserved energy of his own prose mark the success of the pains that he +took with style. He knew the secret. Have lofty sentiments, he said, and +your manner of writing will be firm and noble.[100] Yet he did not +ignore the other side and half of the truth, which is expressed in the +saying of another important writer of that day--By taking trouble to +speak with precision, one gains the habit of thinking rightly +(_Condillac_). + +Like so many others to whom literature owes much, D'Alembert was all his +life fighting against bad health. Like Voltaire and Rousseau, he was +born dying, and he remained delicate and valetudinarian to the end. He +had the mental infirmities belonging to his temperament. He was +restless, impatient, mobile, susceptible of irritation. When the young +Mademoiselle Phlipon, in after years famous as wife of the virtuous +Roland, was taken to a sitting of the Academy, she was curious to see +the author of the Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopædia, but his +small face and sharp thin voice made her reflect with some +disappointment, that the writings of a philosopher are better to know +than his mask.[101] In everything except zeal for light and +emancipation, D'Alembert was the opposite of Diderot. Where Diderot was +exuberant, prodigal, and disordered, D'Alembert was a precisian. +Difference of temperament, however, did not prevent their friendship +from being for many years cordial and intimate. When the Encyclopædia +was planned, it was to D'Alembert, as we have said, that Diderot turned +for aid in the mathematical sciences, where his own knowledge was not +sufficiently full nor well grounded. They were in strong and singular +agreement in their idea of the proper place and function of the man of +letters. One of the most striking facts about their alliance, and one +of the most important facts in the history of the Encyclopædia, is that +henceforth the profession of letters became at once definite and +independent. Diderot and D'Alembert both of them remained poor, but they +were never hangers-on. They did not look to patrons, nor did they bound +their vision by Versailles. They were the first to assert the lawful +authority of the new priesthood. They revolted deliberately and in set +form against the old system of suitorship and protection. "Happy are men +of letters," wrote D'Alembert, "if they recognise at last that the +surest way of making themselves respectable is to live united and almost +shut up among themselves; that by this union they will come, without any +trouble, to give the law to the rest of the nation in all affairs of +taste and philosophy; that the true esteem is that which is awarded by +men who are themselves worthy of esteem.... As if the art of instructing +and enlightening men were not, after the too rare art of good +government, the noblest portion and gift in human reach."[102] + +This consciousness of the power and exaltation of their calling, which +men of letters now acquired, is much more than the superficial fact +which it may at first seem to be. It marked the rise of a new teaching +order and the supersession of the old. The highest moral ideas now +belonged no longer to the clergy, but to the writers; no longer to +official Catholicism, but to that fertilising medley of new notions +about human knowledge and human society which then went by the name of +philosophy. What is striking is that the ideas sown by philosophy became +eventually the source of higher life in Catholicism. If the church of +the revolution showed something that we may justly admire, it was +because the encyclopædic band had involuntarily and inevitably imparted +a measure of their own clearsightedness, fortitude, moral energy, and +spirit of social improvement, to a church which was, when they began +their work, an abominable burden on the spiritual life of the nation. If +the Catholicism of Chateaubriand, of Lamennais, of Montalembert, was a +different thing from the Catholicism of a Dubois, or a Rohan, from the +vile corruptions of the Jesuits and the grovelling superstitions of the +later Jansenists, it was the execrated freethinkers whom the church and +mankind had to thank for the change. The most enlightened Catholic of +to-day ought to admit that Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, were the true +reformers of his creed. They supplied it with ideas which saved it from +becoming finally a curse to civilisation. It was no Christian prelate, +but Diderot who burst the bonds of a paralysing dogma by the +magnificent cry, _Détruisez ces enceintes qui rétrécissent vos idées! +Elargissez Dieu!_[103] We see the same phenomenon in our own day. The +Christian churches are assimilating as rapidly as their formula will +permit, the new light and the more generous moral ideas and the higher +spirituality of teachers who have abandoned all churches, and who are +systematically denounced as enemies of the souls of men. _Sic vos non +vobis mellificatis apes!_ These transformations of religion by leavening +elements contributed from a foreign doctrine, are the most interesting +process in the history of truth. + +The Encyclopædia became a powerful engine for aiding such a +transformation. Because it was this, and because it rallied all that was +then best in France round the standard of light and social hope, we +ought hardly to grudge time or pains to its history. For it was not +merely in the field of religious ideas that the Encyclopædists led +France in a new way. They affected the national life on every side, +pressing forward with enlightened principles in all the branches of +material and political organisation. Their union in a great +philosophical band gave an impressive significance to their work. The +collection within a single set of volumes of a body of new truths, +relating to so many of the main interests of men, invested the book and +its writers with an aspect of universality, of collective and organic +doctrine, which the writers themselves would without doubt have +disowned, and which it is easy to dissolve by tests of logic. But the +popular impression that the Encyclopædists constituted a single body +with a common doctrine and a common aim was practically sound. Comte has +pointed out with admirable clearness the merit of the conception of an +encyclopædic workshop.[104] It united the members of rival destructive +schools in a great constructive task. It furnished a rallying-point for +efforts otherwise the most divergent. Their influence was precisely what +it would have been, if popular impressions had been literally true. +Diderot and D'Alembert did their best to heighten this feeling. They +missed no occasion of fixing a sentiment of co-operation and fellowship. +They spoke of their dictionary as the transactions of an Academy.[105] +Each writer was answerable for his own contribution, but he was in the +position of a member of some learned corporation. To every volume, until +the great crisis of 1759, was prefixed a list of those who had +contributed to it. If a colleague died, the public was informed of the +loss that the work had sustained, and his services were worthily +commemorated in a formal _éloge_.[106] Feuds, epigrams, and offences +were not absent, but on the whole there was steadfast and generous +fraternity. + +As Voltaire eloquently said, officers of war by land and by sea, +magistrates, physicians who knew nature, men of letters whose taste +purified knowledge, geometers, physicists, all united in a work that was +as useful as it was laborious, without any view of interest, without +even seeking fame, as many of them concealed their names; finally +without any common understanding and agreement, and therefore without +anything of the spirit of party.[107] Turning over the pages on which +the list of writers is inscribed, we find in one place or another nearly +every name that has helped to make the literature of the time famous. +Montesquieu, who died in the beginning of 1755, left behind him the +unfinished fragment of an article on Taste, and it may be noticed in +passing that our good-natured Diderot was the only man of letters who +attended the remains of the illustrious writer to the grave.[108] The +article itself, though no more than a fragment, has all the charms of +Montesquieu's delightful style; it is serious without pedantry, graceful +without levity, and is rich in observations that are precise and pointed +without the vice of emphasis. The great Turgot, diligently solicitous +for the success of every enterprise that promised to improve human +happiness by adding to knowledge and spreading enlightenment, wrote some +of the most valuable articles that the work contained, and his +discussion of Endowments perhaps still remains the weightiest +contribution to that important subject. Oddly enough, he was one of the +very few writers who refused to sign his name to his +contributions.[109] His assistance only ceased when he perceived that +the scheme was being coloured by that spirit of sect, which he always +counted the worst enemy of the spirit of truth.[110] Jean Jacques +Rousseau, who had just won a singular reputation by his paradoxes on +natural equality and the corruptions of civilisation, furnished the +articles on music in the first half dozen volumes. They were not free +from mistakes, but his colleagues chivalrously defended him by the plea +of careless printing or indifferent copying.[111] The stately Buffon +very early in the history of the Encyclopædia sent them an article upon +Nature, and the editors made haste to announce to their subscribers the +advent of so superb a colleague.[112] The articles on natural history, +however, were left by Buffon in his usual majestic fashion to his +faithful lieutenant and squire-at-arms, Daubenton. And even his own +article seems not to have been printed. Before the eleventh volume +appeared, terrible storms had arisen, not a few of the shipmen had +parted company, and Buffon may well have been one of them. Certainly the +article on Nature, as it stands, can hardly be his. + +In the supplementary volumes, which appeared in 1776--ten years after +the completion of the original undertaking--two new labourers came into +the vineyard, whose names add fresh lustre and give still more serious +value to the work. One of these was the prince of the physiologists of +the eighteenth century, the great Haller, who contributed an elaborate +history of those who had been his predecessors in unfolding the +intricate mechanism of the human frame, and analysing its marvels of +complex function. The other was the austere and generous Condorcet. Ever +loyal to good causes, and resolute against despairing of the human +commonwealth, he began in the pages of the Encyclopædia a career that +was brilliant with good promise and high hopes, and ended in the grim +hall of the Convention and a nobly tragic death amid the red storm of +the Terror. + +Among the lesser stars in the encyclopædic firmament are some whose +names ought not to be wholly omitted. Forbonnais, one of the most +instructive economic writers of the century, contributed articles to the +early volumes, which were afterwards republished in his Elements of +Commerce.[113] The light-hearted Marmontel wrote cheerful articles on +Comedy, Eloges, Eclogues, Glory, and other matters of literature and +taste. Quesnai, the eminent founder of the economic sect, dealt with two +agricultural subjects, and reproduced both his theoretical paradoxes, +and his admirable practical maxims, on the material prosperity of +nations. Holbach, not yet author of the memorable System of Nature, +compiled a vast number of the articles on chemistry and mineralogy, +chiefly and avowedly from German sources, he being the only writer of +the band with a mastery of a language which was at that moment hardly +more essential to culture than Russian is now. The name of Duclos should +not be passed over, in the list of the foremost men who helped to raise +the encyclopædic monument. He was one of the shrewdest and most vigorous +intelligences of the time, being in the front rank of men of the second +order. His quality was coarse, but this was only the effect of a +thoroughly penetrating and masculine understanding. His articles in the +Encyclopædia (_Déclamation des Anciens_, _Etiquette_, etc.) are not very +remarkable; but the reflections on conduct which he styled +_Considérations sur les Moeurs de ce Siécle_ (1750), though rather +hard in tone, abound in an acuteness, a breadth, a soundness of +perception that entitle the book to the rare distinction, among the +writings of moralists and social observers, of still being worth +reading. Morellet wrote upon some of the subjects of theology, and his +contributions are remarkable as being the chief examples in the record +of the encyclopædic body of a distinctly and deliberately historic +treatment of religion. "I let people see," he wrote many years after, +"that in such a collection as the Encyclopædia we ought to treat the +history and experience of the dogmas and discipline of the Christian, +exactly like those of the religion of Brahma or Mahomet."[114] This sage +and philosophic principle enabled him to write the article, Fils de Dieu +(vol. vi.), without sliding into Arian, Nestorian, Socinian, or other +heretical view on that fantastic theme. We need not linger over the +names of other writers, who indeed are now little more than mere shadows +of names, such as La Condamine, a scientific traveller of fame and merit +in his day and generation; of Du Marsais, the poverty-stricken and +unlucky scholar who wrote articles on grammar; of the President Des +Brosses, who was unfortunate enough to be in the right in a quarrel +about money with Voltaire, and who has since been better known to +readers through the fury of the provoked patriarch, than through his own +meritorious contributions to the early history of civilisation. + +The name of one faithful worker in the building of this new Jerusalem +ought not to be omitted, though his writings were _multa non multum_. +The Chevalier de Jaucourt (1704-1779), as his title shows, was the +younger son of a noble house. He studied at Geneva, Cambridge, and +Leyden, and published in 1734 a useful account of the life and writings +of Leibnitz. When the Encyclopædia was projected, his services were at +once secured, and he became its slave from the beginning of A to the end +of Z. He wrote articles in his own special subjects of natural history +and physical science, but he was always ready to lend his help in other +departments, in writing, rewriting, reading, correcting, and all those +other humbler necessities of editorship of which the inconsiderate +reader knows little and thinks less. Jaucourt revelled in this drudgery. +God made him for grinding articles, said Diderot. For six or seven +years, he wrote one day, Jaucourt has been in the middle of half a dozen +secretaries, reading, dictating, slaving, for thirteen or fourteen hours +a day, and he is not tired of it even now. When he was told that the +work must positively be brought to an end, his countenance fell, and the +prospect of release from such happy bondage filled his heart with +desolation.[115] "If," says Diderot in the preface to the eighth volume +(1765), "we have raised a shout of joy like the sailor when he espies +land after a sombre night that has kept him midway between sky and +flood, it is to M. de Jaucourt that we are indebted for it. What has he +not done for us, especially in these latter times? With what constancy +has he not refused all the solicitations, whether of friendship or of +authority, that sought to take him away from us? Never has sacrifice of +repose, of health, of interest been more absolute and more entire."[116] +These modest and unwearying helpers in good works ought not to be wholly +forgotten, in a commemoration of more far-shining names. + +Besides those who were known to the conductors of the Encyclopædia, was +a host of unsought volunteers. "The further we proceed," the editors +announced in the preface to the sixth volume (1756), "the more are we +sensible of the increase both in matter and in number of those who are +good enough to second our efforts." They received many articles on the +same subject. They were constantly embarrassed by an emulation which, +however flattering as a testimony to their work, obliged them to make a +difficult choice, or to lose a good article, or to sacrifice one of +their regular contributors, or to offend some influential newcomer. +Every one who had a new idea in his head, or what he thought a new idea, +sent them an article upon it. Men who were priests or pastors by +profession and unbelievers in their hearts, sent them sheaves of +articles in which they permitted themselves the delicious luxury of +saying a little of what they thought. Women, too, pressed into the great +work. Unknown ladies volunteered sprightly explanations of the +technicalities of costume, from the falbala which adorned the bottom of +their skirts, up to that little knot of riband in the hair, which had +come to replace the old appalling edifice of ten stories high, in +hierarchic succession of duchess, solitary, musketeer, crescent, +firmament, tenth heaven, and mouse.[117] The oldest contributor was +Lenglet du Fresnoy, whose book on the Method of Studying History is +still known to those who have examined the development of men's ideas +about the relations of the present to the past. Lenglet was born in +1674. The youngest of the band was Condorcet, who was born nearly +seventy years later (1743). One veteran, Morellet, who had been, the +schoolmate of Turgot and Loménie de Brienne, lived to think of many +things more urgent than Faith, Fils de Dieu, and Fundamentals. He +survived the Revolution, the Terror, the Empire, Waterloo, the +Restoration, and died in 1819, within sight of the Holy Alliance and the +Peterloo massacre. From the birth of Lenglet to the death of +Morellet--what an arc of the circle of western experience! + +No one will ask whether the keen eye, and stimulating word, and helpful +hand of Voltaire were wanting to an enterprise which was to awaken men +to new love of tolerance, enlightenment, charity, and justice. Voltaire +was playing the refractory courtier at Potsdam when the first two +volumes appeared. With characteristic vehemence, he instantly pronounced +it a work which should be the glory of France, and the shame of its +persecutors. Diderot and D'Alembert were raising an immortal edifice, +and he would gladly furnish them with a little stone here or there, +which they might find convenient to stuff into some corner or crevice in +the wall. He was incessant in his industry. Unlike those feebler and +more consequential spirits, the _petits-maîtres_ of thought, by whom +editors are harassed and hindered, this great writer was as willing to +undertake small subjects as large ones, and to submit to all the +mutilations and modifications which the exigencies of the work and the +difficulties of its conductors recommended to them.[118] As the +structure progresses, his enthusiasm waxes warmer. Diderot and his +colleague are cutting their wings for a flight to posterity. They are +Atlas and Hercules bearing a world upon their shoulders. It is the +greatest work in the world; it is a superb pyramid; its printing-office +is the office for the instruction of the human race; and so forth, in +every phrase of stimulating sympathy and energetic interest. Nor does +his sympathy blind him to faults of execution. Voltaire's good sense and +sound judgment were as much at the service of his friends in warning +them of shortcomings, as in eulogising what they achieved. And he had +good faith enough to complain to his friends, instead of complaining of +them. In one place he tells them, what is perfectly true, that their +journeymen are far too declamatory, and too much addicted to substitute +vague and puerile dissertations for that solid instruction which is what +the reader of an Encyclopædia seeks. In another he remonstrates against +certain frivolous affectations, and some of the coxcombries of literary +modishness. Everywhere he recommends them to insist on a firm and +distinct method in their contributors--etymologies, definitions, +examples, reasons, clearness, brevity. "You are badly seconded," he +writes; "there are bad soldiers in the army of a great general."[119] "I +am sorry to see that the writer of the article _Hell_ declares that +hell was a point in the doctrine of Moses; now by all the devils that is +not true. Why lie about it? Hell is an excellent thing, to be sure, but +it is evident that Moses did not know it. 'Tis this world that is +hell."[120] + +D'Alembert in reply always admitted the blemishes for which the +patriarch and master reproached them, but urged various pleas in +extenuation. He explains that Diderot is not always the master, either +to reject or to prune the articles that are offered to him.[121] A +writer who happened to be useful for many excellent articles would +insist as the price of good work that they should find room for his bad +work also; and so forth. "No doubt we have bad articles in theology and +metaphysics, but with theologians for censors, and a privilege, I defy +you to make them any better. There are other articles that are less +exposed to the daylight, and in them all is repaired. Time will enable +people to distinguish what we have thought from what we have said."[122] +This last is a bitter and humiliating word, but before any man hastens +to cast a stone, let him first make sure that his own life is free from +every trace of hypocritical conformity and mendacious compliance. +Condorcet seems to make the only remark that is worth making, when he +says that the true shame and disgrace of these dissemblings lay not with +the writers, whose only other alternative was to leave the stagnation +of opinion undisturbed, but with the ecclesiastics and ministers whose +tyranny made dissimulation necessary. And the veil imposed by authority +did not really serve any purpose of concealment. Every reader was let +into the secret of the writer's true opinion of the old mysteries, by +means of a piquant phrase, an adroit parallel, a significant reference, +an equivocal word of dubious panegyric. Diderot openly explains this in +the pages of the Encyclopædia itself. "In all cases," he says, "where a +national prejudice would seem to deserve respect, the particular article +ought to set it respectfully forth, with its whole procession of +attractions and probabilities. But the edifice of mud ought to be +overthrown and an unprofitable heap of dust scattered to the wind, by +references to articles in which solid principles serve as a base for the +opposite truths. This way of undeceiving men operates promptly on minds +of the right stamp, and it operates infallibly and without any +troublesome consequences, secretly and without disturbance, on minds of +every description."[123] "Our fanatics feel the blows," cried D'Alembert +complacently, "though they are sorely puzzled to tell from which side +they come."[124] + +It is one of the most deplorable things in the history of literature to +see a man endowed with Diderot's generous conceptions and high social +aims, forced to stoop to these odious economies. In reading his +Prospectus, and still more directly in his article, + +_Encyclopédie_, we are struck by the beneficence and breadth of the +great designs which inspire and support him. The Encyclopædia, it has +been said, was no peaceful storehouse in which scholars and thinkers of +all kinds could survey the riches they had acquired; it was a gigantic +siege-engine and armoury of weapons of attack.[125] This is only true in +a limited sense of one part of the work, and that not the most important +part. Such a judgment is only possible for one who has not studied the +book itself, or else who is ignorant of the social requirements of +France at the time. We shall show this presently in detail. Meanwhile it +is enough to make two observations. The implements which the +circumstances of the time made it necessary to use as weapons of attack, +were equally fitted for the acquisition in a happier season of those +treasures of thought and knowledge which are the object of disinterested +research. And what is still more important, we have to observe that it +was the characteristic note and signal glory of the French revolutionary +school, to subordinate mere knowledge to the practical work of raising +society up from the corruption and paralysis to which it had been +brought by the double action of civil and ecclesiastical authority. The +efforts of the Encyclopædists were not disinterested in the sense of +being vague blows in the air. Their aim was not theory but practice, not +literature but life. The Encyclopædists were no doubt all men of battle, +and some of them were hardly more than mere partisans. + +But Diderot at least had constantly in mind the great work which +remained after the battle should be won. He was profoundly conscious +that the mere accumulation of knowledge of the directly physical facts +of the universe would take men a very short way towards reconstruction. +And he struck the key-note in such admirable passages as this: "One +consideration especially that we ought never to lose from sight is that, +if we ever banish a man, or the thinking and contemplative being, from +above the surface of the earth, this pathetic and sublime spectacle of +nature becomes no more than a scene of melancholy and silence. The +universe is dumb; the darkness and silence of the night take possession +of it.... It is the presence of man that gives its interest to the +existence of other beings; and what better object can we set before +ourselves in the history of these beings, than to accept such a +consideration? Why shall we not introduce man into our work in the same +place which he holds in the universe? Why shall we not make him a common +centre? Is there in infinite space any other point from which we can +with greater advantage draw those immense lines that we propose to +extend to all other points? What a vivid and softening reaction must +result between man and the beings by whom he is surrounded?... Man is the +single term from which we ought to set out, and to which we ought to +trace all back, if we would please, interest, touch, even in the most +arid reflections and the driest details. If you take away my own +existence and the happiness of my fellows, of what concern to me is all +the rest of nature."[126] + +In this we hear the voice of the new time, as we do in his exclamation +that the perfection of an Encyclopædia is the work of centuries; +centuries had to elapse before the foundations could be laid; centuries +would have to elapse before its completion: "_mais à la posérité, et_ À +L'ÊTRE QUI NE MEURT POINT!"[127] These exalted ideas were not a +substitute for arduous labour. In all that Diderot writes upon his +magnificent undertaking, we are struck by his singular union of common +sense with elevation, of simplicity with grasp, of suppleness with +strength, of modesty with hopeful confidence. 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 Encyclopædia, 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. The clerical party at once discerned what +tremendous fortifications, with how deadly an armament, were rising up +in face of their camp. The Jesuits had always been jealous of an +enterprise in which they had not been invited to take a part. They had +expected at least to have the control of the articles on theology. They +now were bent on taking the work into their own hands, and orthodoxy +hastily set all the machinery of its ally, authority, in vigorous +motion. + +The first attack was indirect. An abbé de Prades sustained a certain +thesis in an official exercise at the Sorbonne, and Diderot was +suspected, without good reason, of being its true author. An examination +of its propositions was ordered. It was pronounced pernicious, +dangerous, and tending to deism, chiefly on account of some too +suggestive comparisons between the miraculous healings in the New +Testament, and those ascribed in the more ancient legend to Æsculapius. +Other grounds of vehement objection were found in the writer's +maintenance of the Lockian theory of the origin of our ideas. To deny +the innateness of ideas was roundly asserted to be materialism and +atheism. The abbé de Prades was condemned, and deprived of his license +(Jan 27, 1752). As he was known to be a friend of Diderot, and was +suspected of being the writer of articles on theology in the +Encyclopædia, the design of the Jesuit cabal in ruining De Prades was +to discredit the new undertaking, and to induce the government to +prohibit it. Their next step was to procure a pastoral from the +archbishop of Paris. This document not only condemned the heretical +propositions of De Prades, but referred in sombre terms to unnamed works +teeming with error and impiety. Every one understood the reference, and +among its effects was an extension of the vogue and notoriety of the +Encyclopædia.[128] The Jesuits were not allowed to retain a monopoly of +persecuting zeal, and the Jansenists refused to be left behind in the +race of hypocritical intrigue. The bishop of Auxerre, who belonged to +this party, followed his brother prelate of Paris in a more direct +attack, in which he included not only the Encyclopædia, but +Montesquieu and Buffon. De Prades took to flight. D'Alembert commended +him to Voltaire, then at Berlin. The king was absent, but Voltaire gave +royal protection to the fugitive until Frederick's return. De Prades was +then at once taken into favour and appointed reader to the king. He +proved but a poor martyr, however, for he afterwards retracted his +heresies, got a benefice, and was put into prison by Frederick for +giving information to his French countrymen during the Seven Years' +War.[129] Unfortunately neither orthodoxy nor heterodoxy has any +exclusive patent for monopoly of rascals. + +Meanwhile Diderot wrote on his behalf an energetic and dignified reply +to the aggressive pastoral. This apology is not such a masterpiece of +eloquence as the magnificent letter addressed by Rousseau ten years +later to the archbishop of Paris, after the pastoral against Emilius. +But Diderot's vindication of De Prades is firm, moderate, and closely +argumentative. The piece is worth turning to in our own day, when great +dignitaries of the churches too often show the same ignorance, the same +temerity, and the same reckless want of charity, as the bishop of +Auxerre showed a hundred and twenty years ago. They resort to the very +same fallacies by way of shield against scientific truths or +philosophical speculations that happen not to be easily reconcilable +with their official opinions. "I know nothing so indecent," says +Diderot, "and nothing so injurious to religion as these vague +declamations of theologians against reason. One would suppose, to hear +them, that men could only enter into the bosom of Christianity as a herd +of cattle enter into a stable; and that we must renounce our common +sense either to embrace our religion or to remain in it.... Such +principles as yours are made to frighten small souls; everything alarms +them, because they perceive clearly the consequences of nothing; they +set up connections among things which have nothing to do with one +another; they spy danger in any method of arguing which is strange to +them; they float at hazard between truths and prejudices which they +never distinguish, and to which they are equally attached; and all +their life is passed in crying out either miracle or impiety." In an +eloquent peroration, which is not more eloquent than it is instructive, +De Prades is made to turn round on his Jansenist censor, and reproach +him with the disturbance with which the intestine rivalries of Jansenist +and Jesuit had afflicted the faithful. "It is the abominable testimony +of your convulsions," he cries, "that has overthrown the testimony of +miracles. It is the fatuous audacity with which your fanatics have +confronted persecution, that has annihilated the evidence of the +martyrs. It is your declamations against sovereign pontiffs, against +bishops, against all the orders of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, that +have covered priest, altar, and creed with opprobrium. If the pope, the +bishops, the priests, the simple faithful, the whole church, if its +mysteries, its sacraments, its temples, its ceremonies, have fallen into +contempt, yours, yours, is the handiwork."[130] + +Bourdaloue more than half a century before had taunted the free-thinkers +of his day with falseness and inconsistency in taking sides with the +Jansenists, whose superstitions they notoriously held in open contempt. +The motive for the alliance was tolerably obvious. The Jansenists, apart +from their theology, were above all else the representatives of +opposition to authority. It was for this that Lewis XIV. counted them +worse than atheists. The Jesuits, it has been well said in keeping down +their enemies by force, became the partisans of absolute government, +and upheld it on every occasion. The Jansenists, after they had been +crushed by violence, began to feel to what excesses power might be +brought. From being speculative enemies to freedom as a theory, they +became, through the education of persecution, the partisans of freedom +in practice. The quarrel of Molinists and Jansenists, from a question of +theology, grew into a question of human liberty.[131] + +Circumstances had now changed. The free-thinkers were becoming strong +enough to represent opposition to authority on their own principles and +in their own persons. Diderot's vigorous remonstrance with the bishop of +Auxerre incidentally marks for us the definite rupture of philosophic +sympathy for the Jansenist champions. "It is your disputatiousness," he +said, "which within the last forty years has made far more unbelievers +than all the productions of philosophy." As we cannot too clearly +realise, it was the flagrant social incompetence of the church which +brought what they called Philosophy, that is to say Liberalism, into +vogue and power. Locke's Essay had been translated in 1700, but it had +made no mark, and as late as 1725 the first edition of the translation +remained unsold. It was the weakness and unsightly decrepitude of the +ecclesiastics which opened the way for the thinkers. + +This victory, however, was not yet. Diderot had still a dismal +wilderness to traverse. He was not without secret friends even in the +camp of his enemies. + +After his reply to Peré Berthier's attack on the Prospectus, he +received an anonymous letter to the effect that if he wished to avenge +himself on the Jesuits, there were both important documents and money at +his command. Diderot replied that he was in no want of money, and that +he had no time to spare for Jesuit documents.[132] He trusted to reason. +Neither reason nor eloquence availed against the credit at court of the +ecclesiastical cabal. The sale of the second volume of the Encyclopædia +was stopped by orders which Malesherbes was reluctantly compelled to +issue. A decree of the king's council (Feb. 7, 1752) suppressed both +volumes, as containing maxims hostile to the royal authority and to +religion. The publishers were forbidden to reprint them, and the +booksellers were forbidden to deliver any copies that might still be in +hand. The decree, however, contained no prohibition of the continuance +of the work. It was probably not meant to do anything more serious than +to pacify the Jesuits, and lend an apparent justification to the +officious pastorals of the great prelates. Some even thought that the +aim of the government was to forestall severer proceedings on the part +of the parliament of lawyers;[133] for corporations of lawyers have +seldom been less bigoted or obstructive than corporations of churchmen. +Nor were lawyers and priests the only foes. Even the base and despicable +jealousies of booksellers counted for something in the storm.[134] + +A curious triumph awaited the harassed Diderot. + +He was compelled, under pain of a second incarceration, to hand over to +the authorities all the papers, proof-sheets, and plates in his +possession. The Jesuit cabal supposed that if they could obtain the +materials for the future volumes, they could easily arrange and +manipulate them to suit their own purposes. Their ignorance and +presumption were speedily confounded. In taking Diderot's papers, they +had forgotten, as Grimm says, to take his head and his genius: they had +forgotten to ask him for a key to articles which, so far from +understanding, they with some confusion vainly strove even to decipher. +The government was obliged (May 1752) to appeal to Diderot and +D'Alembert to resume a work for which their enemies had thus proved +themselves incompetent. Yet, by one of the meannesses of decaying +authority, the decree of three months before was left suspended over +their heads.[135] + +The third volume of the Encyclopædia appeared in the autumn of 1753. +D'Alembert prefixed an introduction, vindicating himself and his +colleague with a manliness, a sincerity, a gravity, a fire, that are +admirable and touching. "What," he concluded, "can malignity henceforth +devise against two men of letters, trained long since by their +meditations to fear neither injustice nor poverty; who having learnt by +a long and mournful experience, not to despise, but to mistrust and +dread men, have the courage to love them, and the prudence to flee +them?... After having been the stormy and painful occupation of the +most precious years of our life, this work will perhaps be the solace of +its close. May it, when both we and our enemies alike have ceased to +exist, be a durable monument of the good intention of the one, and the +injustice of the other.... Let us remember the fable of Bocalina: 'A +traveller was disturbed by the importunate chirrupings of the +grasshoppers; he would fain have slain them every one, but only got +belated and missed his way; he need only have fared peacefully on his +road, and the grasshoppers would have died of themselves before the end +of a week.'"[136] A volume was now produced in each year, until the +autumn of 1757 and the issue of the seventh volume. This brought the +work down to Gyromancy and Gythiuin. Then there arose storms and +divisions which marked a memorable epoch alike in the history of the +book, in the life of Diderot and others, and in the thought of the +century. The progress of the work in popularity during the five years +between 1752 and 1757 had been steady and unbroken. The original +subscribers were barely two thousand. When the fourth volume appeared, +there were three thousand. The seventh volume found nearly a thousand +more.[137] Such prodigious success wrought the chagrin of the party of +superstition to fever heat. As each annual volume came from the press +and found a wider circle of readers than its predecessor, their malice +and irritation waxed a degree more intense. They scattered malignant +rumours abroad; they showered pamphlets; no imputation was too odious or +too ridiculous for them. Diderot, D'Alembert, Voltaire, Rousseau, +Buffon, were declared to have organised a league of writers, with the +deliberate purpose of attacking the public tranquillity and overthrowing +society. They were denounced as heads of a formal conspiracy, a +clandestine association, a midnight band, united in a horrible community +of pestilent opinions and sombre interests. + +In the seventh volume an article appeared which made the ferment angrier +than it had ever been. D'Alembert had lately been the guest of Voltaire +at Ferney, whence he had made frequent visits to Geneva. In his +intercourse with the ministers of that famous city, he came to the +conclusion that their religious opinions were really Socinian, and when +he wrote the article on Geneva he stated this. He stated it in such a +way as to make their heterodox opinions a credit to Genevese pastors, +because he associated disbelief in the divinity of Jesus Christ, in +mysteries of faith, and in eternal punishment, with a practical life of +admirable simplicity, purity, and tolerance. Each line of this eulogy on +the Socinian preachers of Geneva, veiled a burning and contemptuous +reproach against the cruel and darkened spirit of the churchmen in +France. Jesuit and Jansenist, loose abbès and debauched prelates, felt +the quivering of the arrow in the quick, as they read that the morals of +the Genevese pastors were exemplary; that they did not pass their lives +in furious disputes upon unintelligible points; that they brought no +indecent and persecuting accusation against one another before the civil +magistrate. There was gall and wormwood to the orthodox bigot in the +harmless statement that "Hell, which is one of the principal articles of +our belief, has ceased to be one with many of the ministers of Geneva; +it would be, according to them, a great insult to the divinity, to +imagine that this Being, so full of justice and goodness, is capable of +punishing our faults by an eternity of torment: they explain in as good +a sense as they can the formal passages of Scripture which are contrary +to their opinion, declaring that we ought never in the sacred books to +take anything literally, that seems to wound humanity and reason." And +we may be sure that D'Alembert was thinking less of the consistory and +the great council of Geneva, than of the priests and the parliament of +Paris, when he praised the Protestant pastors, not only for their +tolerance, but for confining themselves within their proper functions, +and for being the first to set an example of submission to the +magistrates and the laws. The intention of this elaborate and, reasoned +account of the creed and practice of a handful of preachers in a +heretical town, could not be mistaken by those at whom it was directed. +It produced in the black ranks of official orthodoxy fully as angry a +shock as its writer could have designed. + +The church had not yet, we must remember, borrowed the principles of +humanity and tolerance from atheists. It was not the comparatively +purified Christian doctrine of our own time with which the +Encyclopædists did battle, but an organised corporation, with +exceptional tribunals, with special material privileges, with dungeons +and chains at their disposal. We have to realise that official religion +was then a strange union of Byzantine decrepitude, with the energetic +ferocity of the Holy Office. Within five years of this indirect plea of +D'Alembert for tolerance and humanity, Calas was murdered by the +orthodoxy of Toulouse. Nearly ten years later (1766), we find Lewis XV., +with the steam of the Parc aux Cerfs about him, rewarded by the loyal +acclamations of a Parisian crowd, for descending from his carriage as a +priest passed bearing the sacrament, and prostrating himself in the mud +before the holy symbol.[138] In the same year the youth La Barre was +first tortured, then beheaded, then burnt, for some presumed disrespect +to the same holy symbol--then become the hateful ensign of human +degradation, of fanatical cruelty, of rancorous superstition. Yet I +should be sorry to be unjust. It is to be said that even in these bad +days when religion meant cruelty and cabal, the one or two men who +boldly withstood to the face the king and the Pompadour for the vileness +of their lives, were priests of the church. + +D'Alembert's article hardly goes beyond what to us seem the axioms of +all men of sense. We must remember the time. Even members of the +philosophic party itself, like Grimm, thought the article misplaced and +hardy.[139] The Genevese ministers indignantly repudiated the compliment +of Socinianism, and the eulogy of being rather less irrational than +their neighbours. Voltaire read and read again with delight, and plied +the writer with reiterated exhortations in every key, not to allow +himself to be driven from the great work by the raging of the heathen +and the vain imaginings of the people.[140] + +While the storm seemed to be at its height, an incident occurred which +let loose a new flood of violent passion. Helvétius published that +memorable book in which he was thought to have told all the world its +own secret. His _De l'Esprit_ came out in 1758.[141] It provoked a +general insurrection of public opinion. The devout and the heedless +agreed in denouncing it as scandalous, licentious, impious, and pregnant +with peril. The philosophic party felt that their ally had dealt a sore +blow to liberty of thought and the free expression of opinion. +"Philosophy," said Grimm, by philosophy, as I have said, meaning +Liberalism, "will long feel the effect of the rising of opinion which +this author has caused by his book; and for having described too freely +a morality that is bad and false in itself, M. Helvétius will have to +reproach himself with all the restraints that are now sure to be imposed +on the few men of lofty genius who still are left to us, whose destiny +was to enlighten their fellows, and to spread truth over the +earth."[142] + +At the beginning of 1759 the procureur-général laid an information +before the court against Helvétius's book, against half a dozen minor +publications, and finally against the Encyclopædia. The _De l'Esprit_ +was alleged to be a mere abridgment of the Encyclopædia, and the +Encyclopædia was denounced as being the opprobrium of the nation by its +impious maxims and its hostility to morals and religion. The court +appointed nine commissaries to examine the seven volumes, suspending +their further sale or delivery in the meanwhile. When the commissaries +sent in their report a month later, the parliament was dissatisfied +with its tenour, and appointed four new examiners, two of them being +theologians and two of them lawyers. Before the new censors had time to +do their work, the Council of State interposed with an arbitrary decree +(March 1759) suppressing the privilege which had been conceded in 1746; +prohibiting the sale of the seven volumes already printed, and the +printing of any future volumes under pain of exemplary punishment.[143] +The motive for this intervention has never been made plain. One view is +that the king's government resented the action of the law courts, and +that the royal decree was only an episode in the quarrel then raging +between the crown and the parliaments. Another opinion is that +Malesherbes or Choiseul was anxious to please the dauphin and the +Jesuit party at Versailles. The most probable explanation is that the +authorities were eager to silence one at least of the three elements of +opposition, the Jansenists, the lawyers, and the philosophers,--who +were then distracting the realm. The two former were beyond their +direct reach. They threw themselves upon the foe who happened to be +most accessible. + +The government, however, had no intention of finally exterminating an +enemy who might at some future day happen to be a convenient ally. They +encouraged or repressed the philosophers according to the political +calculations of the moment, sometimes according to the caprices of the +king's mistress, or even a minister's mistress. When the clergy braved +the royal authority, the hardiest productions were received with +indulgence. If the government were reduced to satisfy the clergy, then +even the very commonplaces of the new philosophy became ground for +accusation. The Encyclopædia was naturally exposed in a special degree +to such alternations of favour and suspicion.[144] The crisis of 1759 +furnishes a curious illustration of this. As we have seen, in the spring +of that year the privilege was withdrawn from the four associated +booksellers, and the continuance of the work strictly prohibited. Yet +the printing was not suspended for a week. Fifty compositors were busily +setting up a book which the ordinance of the government had decisively +forbidden under heavy penalties. + +The same kind of connivance was practised to the advantage of other +branches of the opposition. Thirty years before this, the organ of the +Jansenist party was peremptorily suppressed. The police instituted a +rigorous search, and seized the very presses on which the Nouvelles +Ecclésiastiques was being printed. But the journal continued to appear, +and was circulated, just as regularly as before.[145] + +The history of the policy of authority towards the Encyclopædia is only +one episode in the great lesson of the reign of Lewis XV. It was long a +common mistake to think of this king's system of government as violent +and tyrannical. In truth, its failure and confusion resulted less from +the arbitrariness of its procedure, than from the hopeless absence of +tenacity, conviction, and consistency in the substance and direction of +its objects. And this, again, was the result partly of the complex and +intractable nature of the opposition with which successive ministers had +to deal, and partly of the overpowering strength of those Asiatic maxims +of government which Richelieu and Lewis XIV. had invested with such +ruinous prestige. The impatience and charlatanry of emotional or +pseudo-scientific admirers of a personal system blind them to the +permanent truth, of which the succession of the decrepitude of Lewis XV. +to the strength of his great-grandfather, and of the decrepitude of +Napoleon III. to the strength of his uncle, are only illustrations. + +The true interest of all these details about a mere book lies in the +immense significance of the movement of political ideas and forces to +which they belong. The true interest of all history lies in the +spectacle which it furnishes of the growth and dissolution, the shock +and the transformation, incessantly at work among the great groups of +human conceptions. The decree against the Encyclopædia marks the central +moment of a collision between two antagonistic conceptions which +disputed, and in France still dispute, with one another the shaping and +control of institutions. One of these ideas is the exclusion of +political authority from the sphere and function of directing opinion; +it implies the absolute secularisation of government. The rival idea +prompted the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the dragonnades, the +revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and all the other acts of the same +policy, which not only deprived France of thousands of the most +conscientious and most ingenious of her sons, but warped and corrupted +the integrity of the national conscience. It is natural that we should +feel anger at the arbitrary attempt to arrest Diderot's courageous and +enlightened undertaking. Yet in truth it was only the customary +inference from an accepted principle, that it is the business or the +right of governments to guide thought and regulate its expression. The +Jesuits acted on this theory, and resorted to repressive power and the +secular arm whenever they could. The Jansenists repudiated the +principle, but eagerly practised it whenever the turn of intrigue gave +them the chance. + +An extraordinary and unforeseen circumstance changed the external +bearings of this critical conflict of ideas. The conception of the +duties of the temporal authority in the spiritual sphere had been +associated hitherto with Catholic doctrine. The decay of that doctrine +was rapidly discrediting the conception allied with it. But the movement +was interrupted. And it was interrupted by a man who suddenly stepped +out from the ranks of the Encyclopædists themselves. Rousseau from his +solitary cottage at Montmorency (1758) fulminated the celebrated letter +to D'Alembert on Stage Plays. The article on Geneva in the seventh +volume of the Encyclopædia had not only praised the pastors for their +unbelief; it also assailed the time-honoured doctrine of the churches +that the theatre is an institution from hell and an invention of devils. +D'Alembert paid a compliment to his patriarch and master at Ferney, as +well as shot a bolt at his ecclesiastical foes in Paris, by urging the +people of Geneva to shake off irrational prejudices and straightway to +set up a playhouse. Rousseau had long been brooding over certain private +grievances of his own against Diderot; the dreary story has been told by +me before, and happily need not be repeated.[146] He took the occasion +of D'Alembert's mischievous suggestion to his native Geneva, not merely +to denounce the drama with all the force and eloquence at his command, +but formally to declare the breach between himself and Diderot. From +this moment he treated the Holbachians--so he contemptuously styled the +Encyclopædists--as enemies of the human race and disseminators of the +deadliest poisons. + +This was no mere quarrel of rival authors. It marked a fundamental +divergence in thought, and proclaimed the beginning of a disastrous +reaction in the very heart of the school of illumination. Among the most +conspicuous elements of the reaction were these: the subordination of +reason to emotion; the displacement of industry, science, energetic and +many-sided ingenuity, by dreamy indolence; and finally, what brings us +back to our starting-point, the suppression of opinions deemed to be +anti-social by the secular arm. The old idea was brought back in a new +dress; the absolutist conception of the function of authority, +associated with a theistic doctrine. Unfortunately for France, +Rousseau's idea prospered, and ended by vanquishing its antagonist. The +reason is plain. Rousseau's idea exactly fitted in with the political +traditions and institutions of the country. It was more easily and +directly compatible than was the contending idea, with that temper and +set of men's minds which tradition and institutions had fixed so +disastrously deep in the national character. + +The crisis of 1758-59, then, is a date of the highest importance. It +marks a collision between the old principle of Lewis XIV., of the +Bartholomew Massacre, of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the +new rationalistic principle of spiritual emancipation. The old principle +was decrepit, it was no longer able to maintain itself; the hounds were +furious, but their fury was toothless. Before the new principle could +achieve mastery, Rousseau had made mastery impossible. Two men came into +the world at this very moment, whom destiny made incarnations of the +discordant principles. Danton and Robespierre were both born in 1759. +Diderot seems to have had a biblical presentiment, says Michelet. "We +feel that he saw, beyond Rousseau, something sinister, a spectre of the +future. Diderot-Danton already looks in the face of +Rousseau-Robespierre."[147] + +A more vexatious incident now befell the all-daring, all-enduring +Diderot, than either the decree of the Council or the schism of the +heresiarch at Montmorency. D'Alembert declared his intention of +abandoning the work, and urged his colleague to do the same. His letters +to Voltaire show intelligibly enough how he brought himself to this +resolution. "I am worn out," he says, "with the affronts and vexations +of every kind that this work draws down upon us. The hateful and even +infamous satires which they print against us, and which are not only +tolerated, but protected, authorised, applauded, nay, actually commanded +by the people with power in their hands; the sermons, or rather the +tocsins that are rung against us at Versailles in the presence of the +king, _nemine reclamante_; the new intolerable inquisition that they are +bent on practising against the Encyclopædia, by giving us new censors +who are more absurd and more intractable than could be found at Goa; +all these reasons, joined to some others, drive me to give up this +accursed work once for all." He cared nothing for libels or stinging +pamphlets in themselves, but libels permitted or ordered by those who +could instantly have suppressed them, were a different thing, especially +when they vomited forth the vilest personalities. He admitted that there +were other reasons why he was bent on retiring, and it would appear that +one of these reasons was dissatisfaction with the financial arrangements +of the booksellers.[148] + +Voltaire for some time remonstrated against this retreat before the +hated _Infâme_. At length his opinion came round to D'Alembert's +reiterated assertions of the shame and baseness of men of letters +subjecting themselves to the humiliating yoke of ministers, priests, and +police. Voltaire wrote to Diderot, protesting that before all things it +was necessary to present a firm front to the foe; it would be atrocious +weakness to continue the work after D'Alembert had quitted it; it was +monstrous that such a genius as Diderot should make himself the slave of +booksellers and the victim of fanatics. Must this dictionary, he asked, +which is a hundred times more useful than Bayle's, be fettered with the +superstition which it should annihilate; must they make terms with +scoundrels who keep terms with none; could the enemies of reason, the +persecutors of philosophers, the assassins of our kings, still dare to +lift up their voices in such a century as that? "Men are on the eve of a +great revolution in the human mind, and it is you to whom they are most +of all indebted for it."[149] + +More than once Voltaire entreated Diderot to finish his work in a +foreign country where his hands would be free. "No," said Diderot in a +reply of pathetic energy; "to abandon the work is turning our back upon +the breach, and to do precisely what the villains who persecute us +desire. If you knew with what joy they have learnt D'Alembert's +desertion! It is not for us to wait until the government have punished +the brigands to whom they have given us up. Is it for us to complain, +when they associate with us in their insults men who are so much better +than ever we shall be? What ought we to do then? Do what becomes men of +courage,--despise our foes, follow them up, and take advantage, as we +have done, of the feebleness of our censors. If D'Alembert resumes, and +we complete our work, is not that vengeance enough?... After all this, +you will believe that I cling at any price to the Encyclopædia, and you +will be mistaken. My dear master, I am over forty. I am tired out with +tricks and shufflings. I cry from morning till night for rest, rest; and +scarcely a day passes when I am not tempted to go and live in obscurity +and die in peace in the depths of my old country. There comes a time +when all ashes are mingled. Then what will it boot me to have been +Voltaire or Diderot, or whether it is your three syllables or my three +syllables that survive? One must work, one must be useful, one owes an +account of one's gifts, etcetera, etcetera. Be useful to men! Is it +quite clear that one does more than amuse them, and that there is much +difference between the philosopher and the flute-player? They listen to +one or the other with pleasure or disdain, and remain what they were. +The Athenians were never wickeder than in the time of Socrates, and +perhaps all that they owe to his existence is a crime the more. That +there is more spleen than good sense in all this, I admit--and back I go +to the Encyclopædia."[150] + +Thus for seven years the labour of conducting the vast enterprise fell +upon Diderot alone. He had not only to write articles upon the most +exhausting and various kinds of subjects; he had also to distribute +topics among his writers, to shape their manuscripts, to correct +proof-sheets, to supervise the preparation of the engravings, to write +the text explanatory of them, and all this amid constant apprehension +and alarm from the government and the police. He would have been free +from persecution at Lausanne or at Leyden. The two great sovereigns of +the north who thought it part of the trade of a king to patronise the +new philosophy, offered him shelter at Petersburg or Berlin.[151] + +But how could he transport to the banks of the Neva or the Spree his +fifty skilled compositors, his crafty engravers on copper-plate, and all +the host of his industrial army? How could he find in those +half-barbarous lands the looms and engines and thousand cunning +implements and marvellous processes which he had under his eye and ready +to his hand in France? And so he held fast to his post on the fifth +floor of the house in the Rue Saint Benoît, a standing marvel to the +world of letters for all time. + +As his toil was drawing to a close, he suddenly received the most +mortifying of all the blows that were struck at him in the course of his +prolonged, hazardous, and tormenting adventure. After the interruption +in 1759, it was resolved to bring out the ten volumes which were still +wanting, in a single issue. Le Breton was entrusted with the business of +printing them. The manuscript was set in type, Diderot corrected the +proof-sheets, saw the revises, and returned each sheet duly marked with +his signature for the press. At this point the nefarious operation of Le +Breton began. He and his foreman took possession of the sheets, and +proceeded to retrench, cut out, and suppress every passage, line, or +phrase, that appeared to them to be likely to provoke clamour or the +anger of the government. They thus, of their own brute authority, +reduced most of the best articles to the condition of fragments +mutilated and despoiled of all that had been most valuable in them. The +miscreants did not even trouble themselves to secure any appearance of +order or continuity in these mangled skeletons of articles. Their +murderous work done, they sent the pages to the press, and to make the +mischief beyond remedy, they committed all the original manuscripts and +proof-sheets to the flames. One day, when the printing was nearly +completed (1764), Diderot having occasion to consult an article under +the letter S, found it entirely spoiled. He stood confounded. An +instant's thought revealed the printer's atrocity. He eagerly turned to +the articles on which he and his subordinates had taken most pains, and +found everywhere the same ravages and disorder. "The discovery," says +Grimm, "threw him into a state of frenzy and despair which I shall never +forget."[152] He wept tears of rage and torment in the presence of the +criminal himself, and before wife and children and sympathising +domestics. For weeks he could neither eat nor sleep. "For years," he +cried to Le Breton, "you have been basely cheating me. You have +massacred, or got a brute beast to massacre, the work of twenty good men +who have devoted to you their time, their talents, their vigils, from +love of right and truth, from the simple hope of seeing their ideas +given to the public, and reaping from them a little consideration richly +earned, which your injustice and thanklessness have now stolen from them +for ever.... You and your book will be dragged through the mire; you +will henceforth be cited as a man who has been guilty of an act of +treachery, an act of vile hardihood, to which nothing that has ever +happened in this world can be compared. Then you will be able to judge +your panic terror, and the cowardly counsels of those barbarous +Ostrogoths and stupid Vandals who helped you in the havoc you have +made."[153] + +Yet he remained undaunted to the very last. His first movement to throw +up the work, and denounce Le Breton's outrage to the subscribers and the +world, was controlled. His labour had lost its charm. The monument was +disfigured and defaced. He never forgot the horrible chagrin, and he +never forgave the ignoble author of it. But the last stone was at length +laid. In 1765 the subscribers received the concluding ten volumes of +letterpress. The eleven volumes of plates were not completed until 1772. +The copies bore Neufchâtel on the title-page, and were distributed +privately. The clergy in their assembly at once levelled a decree at the +new book. The parliament quashed this, not from love of the book, but +from hatred of the clergy. The government, however, ordered all who +possessed the Encyclopædia to deliver it over forthwith to the police. +Eventually the copies were returned to their owners with some petty +curtailments. + +Voltaire has left us a vivacious picture of authority in grave +consultation over the great engine of destruction. With that we may +conclude our account of its strange eventful history. + + A servant of Lewis xv. told me that one day the king his + master supping at Trianon with a small party, the talk + happened to turn first upon the chase, and next on gunpowder. + Some one said that the best powder was made of equal parts of + saltpetre, of sulphur, and of charcoal. The Duke de la + Vallière, better informed, maintained that to make good + gunpowder you required one part of sulphur and one of charcoal + to five parts of saltpetre. + + "It is curious," said the Duke de Nivernois, "that we should + amuse ourselves every day in killing partridges at Versailles, + and sometimes in killing men or getting ourselves killed on + the frontier, without knowing exactly how the killing is + done." + + "Alas," said Madame de Pompadour, "we are all reduced to that + about everything in the world: I don't know how they compound + the rouge that I put on my cheeks, and I should be vastly + puzzled if they were to ask me how they make my silk + stockings." + + "'Tis a pity, then," said the Duke de la Vallière, "that his + Majesty should have confiscated our Encyclopædias, which cost + us a hundred pistoles apiece: we should soon find there an + answer to all our difficulties." + + The king justified the confiscation: he had been warned that + one-and-twenty folios, that were to be found on the + dressing-tables of all the ladies, were the most dangerous + thing in all the world for the kingdom of France; and he meant + to find out for himself whether this were true or not, before + letting people read the book. When supper was over, he sent + three lackeys for the book, and they returned each with a good + deal of difficulty carrying seven volumes. + + It was then seen from the article _Powder_ that the Duke de la + Vallière was right; and then Madame de Pompadour learnt the + difference between the old rouge of Spain, with which the + ladies of Madrid coloured their faces, and the rouge of the + ladies of Paris. She knew that the Greek and Roman ladies + were painted with the purple that came from the _murex_, and + that therefore our scarlet is the purple of the ancients; that + there was more saffron in the rouge of Spain, and more + cochineal in that of France. + + She saw how they made her stockings by loom; and the machine + transported her with amazement. + + Everyone threw himself on the volumes like the daughters of + Lycomedes on the ornaments of Ulysses; every one immediately + found all he sought. Those who were at law were surprised to + see their affair decided. The king read all about the rights + of his crown. "But upon my word," he said, "I can't tell why + they spoke so ill of this book." "Do you not see, sire," said + the Duke de Nivernois, "it is because the book is so good; + people never cry out against what is mediocre or common in + anything. If women seek to throw ridicule on a new arrival, + she is sure to be prettier than they are." + + All this time they kept on turning over the leaves; and the + Count de C---- said aloud--"Sire, how happy you are, that + under your reign men should be found capable of understanding + all the arts and transmitting them to posterity. Everything is + here, from the way to make a pin down to the art of casting + and pointing your guns; from the infinitely little up to the + infinitely great. Thank God for having brought into the world + in your kingdom the men who have done such good work for the + whole universe. Other nations must either buy the + Encyclopædia, or else they must pirate it. Take all my + property if you will, but give me back my Encyclopædia." + + "Yet they say," replied the king, "that there are many faults + in this work, necessary and admirable as it is." + + "Sire," said the Count de C----, "there were at your supper + two ragouts which were failures; we left them uneaten, and yet + we had excellent cheer. Would you have had them throw all the + supper out of the window because of those two ragouts?..." + + Envy and Ignorance did not count themselves beaten; the two + immortal sisters continued their cries, their cabals, their + persecutions. What happened? Foreigners brought out four + editions of this French book which in France was proscribed, + and they gained about 1,800,000 crowns.[154] + +In a monotonous world it is a pity to spoil a striking effect, yet one +must be vigilant. It has escaped the attention of writers who have +reproduced this lively scene, that Madame de Pompadour was dead before +the volumes containing Powder and Rouge were born. The twenty-one +volumes were not published until 1765, and she died in the spring of the +previous year. But the substance of the story is probably true, though +Voltaire has only made a slip in a name. + +As to the reference with which Voltaire impatiently concludes, we have +to remember that the work was being printed at Geneva as it came out in +Paris. It was afterwards reprinted as a whole both at Geneva (1777) and +at Lausanne (1778). An edition appeared at Leghorn in 1770, and another +at Lucca in 1771. Immediately after the completion of the Encyclopædia +there began to appear volumes of selections from it. The compilers of +these anthologies (for instance of an _Esprit de l'Encydopédie_ +published at Geneva in 1768) were free from all intention of +proselytising. They meant only to turn a more or less honest penny by +serving up in neat duodecimos the liveliest, most curious, and most +amusing pieces to be found in the immense mass of the folios of the +original. + +The Encyclopædia of Diderot, though not itself the most prodigious +achievement on which French booksellers may pride themselves, yet +inspired that achievement. In 1782 Panckoucke--a familiar name in the +correspondence of Voltaire and the Voltairean family--conceived the plan +of a Methodical Encyclopædia. This colossal work, which really consists +of a collection of special cyclopædias for each of the special sciences, +was not completed until 1832, and comprises one hundred and sixty-six +volumes of text, with a score more volumes of plates. It has no unity of +doctrine, no equal application of any set of philosophic principles, and +no definite social aim. The only encyclopædia since 1772 with which I am +acquainted, that is planned with a view to the presentation of a general +body of doctrine, is the unfinished Encyclopédie Nuevelle of Pìerre +Leroux and Jean Reynaud. This work was intended to apply the socialistic +and spiritualistic ideas of its authors over the whole field of +knowledge and speculation. The result is that it furnishes only a series +of dissertations, and is not an encyclopædia in the ordinary sense.[155] + +The booksellers at first spoke of the Encyclopædia as an affair of two +million livres. It appeared, however that its cost did not go much +beyond one million one hundred and forty thousand livres. The gross +return was calculated to be nearly twice as much. The price to the +subscriber of the seven volumes up to 1757, of the ten volumes issued in +1765, and of the eleven volumes of plates completed in 1772, amounted to +nine hundred and eighty livres,[156] or about forty-three pounds +sterling of that date, equivalent in value to more than three times the +sum in money of to-day. + +The payment received by Diderot is a little doubtful, and the terms were +evidently changed from time to time. His average salary, after +D'Alembert had quitted him, seems to have amounted to about three +thousand livres, or one hundred and thirty pounds sterling, per annum. +This coincides with Grimm's statement that the total sum received by +Diderot was sixty thousand livres, or about two thousand six hundred +pounds sterling.[157] And to think, cried Voltaire, when he heard of +Diderot's humble wage, that an army contractor makes twenty thousand +livres a day! Voltaire himself had made a profit of more than half a +million livres by a share in an army contract in the war of 1734, and +his yearly income derived from such gains and their prudent investment +was as high as seventy thousand livres, representing in value a sum not +far short of ten thousand pounds a year of our present money. + +II. + + +All writers on the movement of illumination in France in the eighteenth +century, call our attention to the quick transformation, which took +place after the middle of the century, of a speculative or philosophical +agitation into a political or social one. Readers often find some +difficulty in understanding plainly how or why this metamorphosis was +brought about. The metaphysical question which men were then so fond of +discussing, whether matter can think, appears very far removed indeed +from the sphere of political conceptions. The psychological question +whether our ideas are innate, or are solely given to us by experience +through the sensations, may strike the publicist as having the least +possible to do with the type of a government or the aims of a community. +Yet it is really the conclusions to which men come in this region, that +determine the quality of the civil sentiment and the significance of +political organisation. The theological doctors who persecuted De Prades +for suggestions of Locke's psychology, and for high treason against +Cartesianism, were guided by a right instinct of self-preservation. De +Maistre, by far the most acute and penetrating of the Catholic school, +was never more clear-sighted than when he made a vigorous and deliberate +onslaught upon Bacon, the centre of his movement against revolutionary +principles.[158] + +As we have said before, the immediate force of speculative literature +hangs on practical opportuneness. It was not merely because Bacon and +Hobbes and Locke had written certain books, that the Encyclopædists, who +took up their philosophic succession, inevitably became a powerful +political party, and multiplied their adherents in an increasing +proportion as the years went on. From various circumstances the attack +acquired a significance and a weight in France which it had never +possessed in England. For one thing, physical science had in the +interval taken immense strides. This both dwarfed the sovereignty of +theology and theological metaphysics, and indirectly disposed men's +minds for non-theological theories of moral as well as of physical +phenomena. In France, again, the objects of the attack were inelastic +and unyielding. Political speculation in England followed, and did not +precede, political innovation and reform. In France its light played +round institutions which were too deeply rooted in absolutism and +privilege to be capable of substantial modification. Deism was +comparatively impotent against the Church of England, first, because it +was an intellectual movement, and not a social one; second, because the +constitutional doctrines of the church were flexible. Deism in the hands +of its French propagators became connected with social liberalism, +because the Catholic church in those days was identified with all the +ideas of repression. And the tendencies of deism in France grew more +violently destructive, not only because religious superstition was +grosser, but because that superstition was incorporated in a strong and +inexpansible social structure. + +"It would be a mistake," wrote that sagacious and well-informed +observer, D'Argenson, so early as 1753, "to attribute the loss of +religion in France to the English philosophy, which has not gained more +than a hundred philosophers or so in Paris, instead of setting it down +to the hatred against the priests, which goes to the very last extreme. +All minds are turning to discontent and disobedience, and everything is +on the high road to a great revolution, both in religion and in +government. And it will be a very different thing to that rude +Reformation, a medley of superstition and freedom, which came to us from +Germany in the sixteenth century! As our nation and our century are +enlightened in so very different a fashion, they will go whither they +ought to go; they will banish every priest, all priesthood, all +revelation, all mystery." This, however, only represents the destructive +side of the vast change which D'Argenson then foresaw, six-and-thirty +years before its consummation. That change had also a constructive side. +If one of its elements was hate, another and more important element was +hope. This constructive and reforming spirit which made its way in the +intelligence of the leading men in France from 1750 to 1789, was +represented in the encyclopædic confederation, and embodied in their +forty folios. And, to return to our first point, it was directly and +inseparably associated with the philosophy of Bacon and Locke. What is +the connection between their speculations and a vehement and energetic +spirit of social reform? We have no space here to do more than barely +hint the line of answer. + +The broad features of the speculative revolution of which the +Encyclopædia was the outcome, lie on the surface of its pages and cannot +be mistaken. The transition from Descartes to Newton meant the definite +substitution of observation for hypothesis. The exaltation of Bacon +meant the advance from supernatural explanations to explanations from +experience. The acceptance and development of the Lockian psychology +meant the reference of our ideas to bodily sensations, and led men by +what they thought a tolerably direct path to the identification of mind +with functions of matter. We need not here discuss the philosophical +truth or adequateness of these ways of considering the origin and nature +of knowledge, or the composition of human character. All that now +concerns us is to mark their tendency. That tendency clearly is to expel +Magic as the decisive influence among us, in favour of ordered relations +of cause and effect, only to be discovered by intelligent search. The +universe began to be more directly conceived as a group of phenomena +that are capable of rational and connected explanation. Then, the wider +the area of law, the greater is man's consciousness of his power of +controlling forces, and securing the results that he desires. Objective +interests and their conditions acquire an increasing preponderance in +his mind. On the other hand, as the limits of science expand, so do the +limits of nescience become more definite. The more we know of the +universal order, the more are we persuaded, however gradually and +insensibly, that certain matters which men believed themselves to know +outside of this phenomenal order, are in truth inaccessible by those +instruments of experience and observation to which we are indebted for +other knowledge. Hence, a natural inclination to devote our faculty to +the forces within our control, and to withdraw it from vain industry +about forces--if they be forces--which are beyond our control and beyond +our apprehension. Thus man becomes the centre of the world to himself, +nature his servant and minister, human society the field of his +interests and his exertions. The sensational psychology, again, whether +scientifically defensible or not, clearly tends to heighten our idea of +the power of education and institutions upon character. The more vividly +we realise the share of external impressions in making men what they +are, the more ready we shall be to concern ourselves with external +conditions and their improvement. The introduction of the positive +spirit into the observation of the facts of society was not to be +expected until the Cartesian philosophy, with its reliance on +inexplicable intuitions and its exaggeration of the method of +hypothesis, had been laid aside. + +Diderot struck a key-note of difference between the old Catholic spirit +and the new social spirit, between quietist superstition and energetic +science, in the casual sentence in his article on alms-houses and +hospitals: "_It would be far more important to work at the prevention of +misery, than to multiply places of refuge for the miserable_." + +It is very easy to show that the Encyclopædists had not established an +impregnable scientific basis for their philosophy. Anybody can now see +that their metaphysic and psychology were imperfectly thought out. The +important thing is that their metaphysic and psychology were calculated, +notwithstanding all their superficialities, to inspire an energetic +social spirit, because they were pregnant with humanistic sentiment. To +represent the Encyclopædia as the gospel of negation and denial is to +omit four-fifths of its contents. Men may certainly, if they please, +describe it as merely negative work, for example, to denounce such +institutions as examination and punishment by Torture (See _Question, +Peine_), but if so, what gospel of affirmation can bring better +blessings?[159] If the metaphysic of these writers had been a +thousandfold more superficial than it was, what mattered that, so long +as they had vision for every one of the great social improvements on +which the progress and even the very life of the nation depended? It +would be obviously unfair to say that reasoned interest in social +improvement is incompatible with a spiritualistic doctrine, but we are +justified in saying that energetic faith in possibilities of social +progress has been first reached through the philosophy of sensation and +experience. + +In describing the encyclopædic movement as being, among other things, +the development of political interest under the presiding influence of a +humanistic philosophy, we are using the name of politics in its widest +sense. The economic conditions of a country, and the administration of +its laws, are far more vitally related to its well-being than the form +of its government. The form of government is indeed a question of the +first importance, but then this is owing in a paramount degree to the +influence which it may have upon the other two sets of elements in the +national life. Form of government is like the fashion of a man's +clothes; it may fret or may comfort him, may be imposing or mean, may +react upon his spirits to elate or depress them. In either case it is +less intimately related to his welfare than the state of his blood and +tissues. In saying, then, that the Encyclopædists began a political +work, what is meant is that they drew into the light of new ideas, +groups of institutions, usages, and arrangements which affected the real +well-being and happiness of France, as closely as nutrition affected the +health and strength of an individual Frenchman. It was the +Encyclopædists who first stirred opinion in France against the +iniquities of colonial tyranny and the abominations of the slave trade. +They demonstrated the folly and wastefulness and cruelty of a fiscal +system that was eating the life out of the land. They protested in +season and out of season against arrangements which made the +administration of justice a matter of sale and purchase. They lifted up +a strong voice against the atrocious barbarities of an antiquated penal +code. It was this band of writers, organised by a harassed man of +letters, and not the nobles swarming round Lewis XV., nor the churchmen +singing masses, who first grasped the great principle of modern society, +the honour that is owed to productive industry. They were vehement for +the glories of peace, and passionate against the brazen glories of +war.[160] + +We are not to suppose that the Encyclopædia was the originating organ +of either new methods or new social ideas. The exalted and peculiarly +modern views about peace, for instance, were plainly inspired from the +writings of the Abbé Saint Pierre (1658-1743)--one of the most original +spirits of the century, who deserves to be remembered among other good +services as the inventor of the word _bienfaisance_. Again, in the mass +of the political articles we feel the immense impulse that was given to +sociological discussion by the Esprit des Lois. Few questions are +debated here, which Montesquieu had not raised, and none are debated +without reference to Montesquieu's line of argument. The change of which +we are conscious in turning from the Esprit des Lois to the Encyclopædia +is that political ideas have been grasped as instruments. Philosophy has +become patriotism. The Encyclopædists advanced with grave solicitude to +the consideration of evils, to which the red-heeled parasites of +Versailles were insolently and incorrigibly blind. + +The articles on Agriculture, for example, are admirable alike for the +fulness and precision with which they expose the actual state of France; +for the clearness with which they trace its deplorable inadequateness +back to the true sources; and for the strong interest and sympathy in +the subject, which they both exhibit and inspire. If now and again the +touch is too idyllic, it was still a prodigious gain to let the country +know in a definite way that of the fifty million arpents of cultivable +land in the realm, more than one quarter lay either unbroken or +abandoned. And it was a prodigious gain to arouse the attention of the +general public to the causes of the forced deterioration of French +agriculture, namely, the restrictions on trade in grain, the +arbitrariness of the imposts, and the flight of the population to the +large towns. Then the demonstration, corroborated in the pages of the +Encyclopædia by the two patriotic vaunts of contemporary English +writers, of the stimulus given to agriculture by our system of free +exports, contained one of the most useful lessons that the French had to +learn. + +Again, there are some abuses which cannot be more effectively attacked, +than by a mere statement of the facts in the plainest and least +argumentative terms. The history of such an impost as the tax upon salt +(_Gabelle_), and a bold outline of the random and incongruous fashions +in which it was levied, were equivalent to a formal indictment. It +needed no rhetoric nor discussion to heighten the harsh injustice of the +rule that "persons who have changed domicile are still taxed for a +certain time in the seat of their former abode, namely, farmers and +labourers for one year, and all other tax-payers for two years, provided +the parish to which they have removed is within the same district; and +if otherwise, then farmers to pay for two years, and other persons for +three years" (_Taille_). Thus a man under the given circumstances would +have to pay double taxes for three years as a penalty for changing his +dwelling. We already hear the murmur of the _cahiers_ of five-and-twenty +years later in the account of the transports of joy with which the +citizens of Lisieux saw the _taille proportionelle_ established (1718), +and how numerous other cities sent up prayers that the same blessing +might be conferred on them. "Reasons that it is not for us to divine, +caused the rejection of these demands; so hard is it to do a good act, +which everybody talks about, much more in order to seem to desire it, +than from any intention of really doing it.... To illustrate the +advantages of this plan, the impost of 1718 with all arrears for five +years was discharged in twelve months without needless cost or dispute. +By an extravagance more proper than any other to degrade humanity, the +common happiness made malcontents of all that class whose prosperity +depends on the misery of others,"--that is the privileged class.[161] + +It is no innate factiousness, as flighty critics of French affairs +sometimes imply, that has made civil equality the passion of modern +France. The root of this passion is an undying memory of the curse that +was inflicted on its citizens, morally and materially, by the fiscal +inequalities of the old _régime_. The article, _Privilegé_, urges the +desirableness of inquiring into the grounds of the vast multitude of +fiscal exemptions, and of abolishing all that were no longer associated +with the performance of real and useful service. "A bourgeois," says +the writer, anticipating a cry that was so soon to ring through the +land, "a bourgeois in comfortable circumstances, and who could himself +pay half of the _taille_ of a whole parish, if it were imposed in its +due proportion,--on payment of the amount of his taxes for one or for +two years, and often for less; without birth, education, or talents, +buys a place in a local salt office, or some useless charge at court, or +in the household of some prince.... This man proceeds to enjoy in the +public eye all the exemptions possessed by the nobility and the high +magistracy.... From such an abuse of privileges spring two very +considerable evils: the poorer part of the citizens are always burdened +beyond their strength, though they are the most useful to the State, +since this class is composed of those who cultivate the land, and +procure a subsistence for the upper classes; the other evil is that +privileges disgust persons of education and talent with the idea of +entering the magistracy or other professions demanding labour and +application, and lead them to prefer small posts and paltry offices." +And so forth, with a gravity and moderation, that were then common in +political discussion in France. It gradually disappeared in 1789, when +it was found that the privileged orders, even at that time, in their +_cahiers_ steadily demanded the maintenance of every one of their most +odious and iniquitous rights.[162] + +When it is said, then, that the Encyclopædists deliberately prepared +the way for a political revolution, let us remember that what they +really did was to shed the light of rational discussion on such +practical grievances as even the most fatuous conservative in France +does not now dream of bringing back. + +Let us turn to two other of the most oppressive institutions that then +scourged France. First the _Corvée_, or feudal rule which forced every +unprivileged farmer and peasant in France to furnish so many days' +labour for the maintenance of the highways. Arthur Young tells us, and +the statement is confirmed by the Minutes of Turgot, that this wasteful, +cruel, and inefficient system was annually the ruin of many hundreds of +persons, and he mentions that no less than three hundred farmers were +reduced to beggary in filling up a single vale in Lorraine.[163] Under +this all-important head, the Encyclopædia has an article that does not +merely add to the knowledge of its readers by a history of the +_corvées_, but proceeds to discuss, as in a pamphlet or review article, +the inconveniences of the prevailing system, and presses schemes for +avoiding them. Turgot had not yet shown in practice the only right +substitute. The article was printed in 1754, and it was not until ten +years later that this great administrator, then become intendant of the +Limousin, did away in his district with compulsory personal service on +the roads, and required in its place a money payment assessed on the +parishes.[164] The writer of the article in the Encyclopædia does not +anticipate this obviously rational plan, but he paints a striking +picture of the thousand abuses and miserable inefficiencies of the +practice of _corvées_, and his piece illustrates that vigorous +discussion of social subjects which the Encyclopædia stimulated. It is +worth remarking that this writer was a sub-engineer of roads and bridges +in the generality of Tours. The case is one example among others of the +importance of the Encyclopædia as a centre, to which active-minded men +of all kinds might bring the fruits of their thought and observation. + +Next to the _corvées_, the monster grievance of the third estate was the +system of enrolments for the militia. The article, _Milice_, is very +short, but it goes to the root of the matter. The only son of a +cultivator of moderate means, forced to quit the paternal roof at the +moment when his labour might recompense his straitened parents for the +expense of having brought him up, is justly described as an irreparable +loss. The writer, after hinting that it would be well if such an +institution were wholly dispensed with, urges that at least its object +might be more effectively and more humanely reached by allowing each +parish to provide its due contingent of men in its own way. This change +was indeed already (1765) being carried out by Turgot in the Limousin, +and with excellent results. The writer concludes with the highly +civilised remark, that we ought to weigh whether the good of the rural +districts, the culture of the land, and population, are not preferable +objects to the glory of setting enormous hosts of armed men on foot +after the example of Xerxes. Alas, it is one of the discouragements of +the student of history, that he often finds highly civilised remarks +made one or two or twenty centuries ago, which are just as useful and +just as little heeded now as they were when they were made. + +The same reflection occurs to one in reading the article on Foundations. +As I have already said, this carefully written and sagacious piece still +remains the most masterly discussion we possess of the advantages and +disadvantages of endowments. Even now, and in our own country, the most +fertile and beneficent work to which a statesman of energy and courage +could devote himself, would be an application of the wise principles +which were established in the Encyclopædia. Passing from _Fondation_ to +_Foire_ in the same volume, also from the pen of Turgot, we see an +almost equally striking example of the economic wisdom of the +encyclopædic school. The provincial fairs, with their privileges, +exemptions, exclusions, were a conspicuous case of the mischief done by +that "mania for regulating and guiding everything," which then infected +commercial administration, and interrupted the natural course of trade +by imbecile vexations of police. Another vicious example of the same +principle is exposed in the article on _Maîtrises_. This must have +convinced every reader capable of rising above "the holy laws of +prejudice," how bad faith, idleness, disorder, and all the other evils +of monopoly were fomented by a system of jealous trade-guilds, carrying +compulsory subdivision and restriction of all kinds of skilled labour +down to a degree that would have been laughable enough, if it had only +been less destructive. + +One of the loudest cries in 1789 was for the destruction of game and the +great manorial chases or capitaineries. "By game," says Arthur Young, +"must be understood whole droves of wild boars, and herds of deer not +confined by any wall or pale, but wandering at pleasure over the whole +country to the destruction of crops, and to the peopling of the galleys +by the wretched peasants who presumed to kill them, in order to save +that food which was to support their helpless children."[165] In the +same place he enumerates the outrageous and incredible rules which +ruined agriculture over hundreds of leagues of country, in order that +the seigneurs might have sport. In most matters the seven volumes of the +Encyclopædia which were printed before 1757, are more reserved than the +ten volumes which were conducted by Diderot alone after the great schism +of 1759. On the subject of sport, however, the writer of the article +_Chasse_ enumerates all the considerations which a patriotic minister +could desire to see impressed on public opinion. Some of the paragraphs +startle us by their directness and freedom of complaint, and even a very +cool reader would still be likely to feel some of the wrath that was +stirred in the breast of our shrewd and sober Arthur Young a generation +later (1787). "Go to the residence of these great nobles," he says, +"wherever it may be, and you would probably find them in the midst of a +forest, very well peopled with deer, wild boar, and wolves. Oh! if I +were the legislator of France for a day, I would make such great lords +skip!"[166] + +This brings us to what is perhaps the most striking of all the guiding +sentiments of the book. Virgil's Georgics have been described as a +glorification of labour. The Encyclopædia seems inspired by the same +motive, the same earnest enthusiasm for all the purposes, interests, and +details of productive industry. Diderot, as has been justly said, +himself the son of a cutler, might well bring handiwork into honour; +assuredly he had inherited from his good father's workshop sympathy and +regard for skill and labour.[167] The illustrative plates to which +Diderot gave the most laborious attention for a period of almost thirty +years, are not only remarkable for their copiousness, their clearness, +their finish--and in all these respects they are truly admirable--but +they strike us even more by the semi-poetic feeling that transforms the +mere representation of a process into an animated scene of human life, +stirring the sympathy and touching the imagination of the onlooker as by +something dramatic. The bustle, the dexterity, the alert force of the +iron foundry, the glass furnace, the gunpowder mill, the silk calendry +are as skilfully reproduced as the more tranquil toil of the dairywoman, +the embroiderer, the confectioner, the setter of types, the compounder +of drugs, the chaser of metals. The drawings recall that eager and +personal interest in his work, that nimble complacency, which is so +charming a trait in the best French craftsman. The animation of these +great folios of plates is prodigious. They affect one like looking down +on the world of Paris from the heights of Montmartre. To turn over +volume after volume is like watching a splendid panorama of all the busy +life of the time. Minute care is as striking in them as their +comprehensiveness. The smallest tool, the knot in a thread, the ply in a +cord, the curve of wrist or finger, each has special and proper +delineation. The reader smiles at a complete and elaborate set of +tailor's patterns. He shudders as he comes upon the knives, the probes, +the bandages, the posture, of the wretch about to undergo the most +dangerous operation in surgery. In all the chief departments of industry +there are plates good enough to serve for practical specifications and +working drawings. It has often been told how Diderot himself used to +visit the workshops, to watch the men at work, to put a thousand +questions, to sit down at the loom, to have the machine pulled to pieces +and set together again before his eyes, to slave like any apprentice, +and to do bad work, in order, as he says, to be able to instruct others +how to do good work. That was no movement of empty rhetoric which made +him cry out for the Encyclopædia to become a sanctuary in which human +knowledge might find shelter against time and revolutions. He actually +took the pains to make it a complete storehouse of the arts, so perfect +in detail that they could be at once reconstructed after a deluge in +which everything had perished save a single copy of the Encyclopædia. +Such details, said D'Alembert, will perhaps seem extremely out of place +to certain scholars, for whom a long dissertation on the cookery or the +hair-dressing of the ancients, or on the site of a ruined hamlet, or on +the baptismal name of some obscure writer of the tenth century, would be +vastly interesting and precious. He suggests that details of economy, +and of arts and trades, have as good a right to a place as the +scholastic philosophy, or some system of rhetoric still in use, or the +mysteries of heraldry. Yet none even of these had been passed over.[168] + +The importance given to physical science and the practical arts, in the +Encyclopædia, is the sign and exemplification of two elements of the +great modern transition. It marks both a social and an intellectual +revolution. We see in it, first, the distinct association with pacific +labour, of honour and a kind of glory, such as had hitherto been +reserved for knights and friars, for war and asceticism, for fighting +and praying. + +It is the definite recognition of the basis of a new society. If the +nobles and the churchmen could only have understood, as clearly as +Diderot and D'Alembert understood, the irresistible forces that were +making against the maintenance of the worn-out system, all the worst of +the evils attending the great political changes of the last decade of +the century would have been avoided. That the nobles and churchmen would +not see this, was the fatality of the Revolution. We have a glimpse of +the profound transformation of social ideas which was at work in the +five or six lines of the article, _Journalier_. "Journeyman--a workman +who labours with his hands, and is paid day-wages. This description of +men forms the great part of a nation; it is their lot which a good +government ought to keep principally in sight. If the journeyman is +miserable, the nation is miserable." And again: "The net profit of a +society, if equally distributed, may be preferable to a larger profit, +if it be distributed unequally, and have the effect of dividing the +people into two classes, one gorged with riches, the other perishing in +misery" (_Homme_). + +The second element in the modern transition is only the intellectual +side of the first. It is the substitution of interest in things for +interest in words, of positive knowledge for verbal disputation. Few now +dispute the services of the schoolmen to the intellectual development of +Europe. But conditions had fully ripened, and it was time to complete +the movement of Bacon and Descartes by finally placing verbal analysis, +verbal definition, verbal inferences, in their right position. Form was +no longer to take precedence of matter. The Encyclopædists are never +weary of contrasting their own age of practical rationalism with "the +pusillanimous ages of taste." A great collection of books is described +in one article (_Bibliomanie_) as a collection of material for the +history of the blindness and infatuation of mankind. The gatherer of +books is compared to one who should place five or six gems under a pile +of common pebbles. If a man of sense buys a work in a dozen volumes, and +finds that only half a dozen pages are worth reading, he does well to +cut out the half dozen pages and fling the rest into the fire. Finally, +it would be no unbecoming device for every great library to have +inscribed over its portal, The Bedlam of the Human Mind. At this point +one might perhaps suggest to D'Alembert that study of the pathology of +the mind is no bad means of surprising the secrets of humanity and life. +For his hour, however, the need was not knowledge of the thoughts, +dreams, and mental methods of the past, but better mastery of the aids +and instruments of active life. In any case Diderot was right when he +expressed his preference for the essay over the treatise: "an essay +where the writer throws me one or two ideas of genius, almost isolated, +rather than a treatise where the precious gems are stifled beneath a +mass of iteration.... A man had only one idea; the idea demanded no more +than a phrase; this phrase, full of marrow and meaning, would have been +seized with relish; washed out in a deluge of words, it wearies and +disgusts."[169] Rousseau himself does not surpass Diderot or D'Alembert +in contempt for mere bookishness. We wholly misjudge the Encyclopædia, +if we treat it either as literature or philosophy. + +The attitude of the Encyclopædia to religion is almost universally +misrepresented in the common accounts. We are always told that the aim +of its conductors was to preach dogmatic atheism. Such a statement could +not be made by any one who had read the theological articles, whether +the more or the less important among them. Whether Diderot had himself +advanced definitely to the dogma of atheism at this time or not, it is +certain that the Encyclopædia represents only the phase of rationalistic +scepticism. That the criticism was destructive of much of the fabric of +popular belief, and was designed to destroy it, is undeniable, as it was +inevitable. But when the excesses of '93 and '94--and all the +revolutionary excesses put together are but a drop compared with the +oceans of bloodshed with which Catholicism and absolutism have made +history crimson--when the crimes and confusion of the end of the century +are traced by historians to the materialism and atheism of the +Encyclopædia, we can only say that such an account is a +misrepresentation. The materialism and atheism are not there. The +religious attack was prompted and guided by the same social feeling +that inspired the economic articles. The priest was the enemy of +society, the patron of indolence, the hater of knowledge, the mutineer +against the civil laws, the unprofitable devourer of the national +substance, the persecutor. Sacerdotalism is the object of the +encyclopædic attack. To undermine this, it was necessary first to +establish the principle of toleration, because the priest claims to be +recognised as the exclusive possessor of saving doctrine. Second, it was +necessary to destroy the principle of miracle, because the priest +professes himself in his daily rites the consecrated instrument of +thaumaturgy. "Let a man," says Rosenkranz very truly, "turn over +hundreds of histories of church, of state, of literature, and in every +one of them he will read that the Encyclopædia spread abroad an +irreligious spirit. The accusation has only a relative truth, to the +extent that the Encyclopædia assailed the belief in miracles, and the +oppression of conscience supported by a priestly aristocracy."[170] + +It must be admitted that no consistent and definite language is adhered +to from beginning to end. D'Alembert's prophecy that time would disclose +to people what the writers really thought, behind what fear of the +censorship compelled them to say, is only partially fulfilled. + +The idea of miracle is sapped not by direct arguments, but by the +indirect influences of science, and the exposition of the successes of +scientific method. It was here that the Encyclopædia exerted really +destructive power, and it did so in the only way in which power of that +kind can be exerted either wisely or effectually. The miracle of a +divine revelation, of grace, of the mass, began to wear a different look +in men's eyes, as they learned more of the physical processes of the +universe. We should describe the work of the Encyclopædia as being to +make its readers lose their interest, rather than their belief, in +mysteries. This is the normal process of theological dissolution. It +unfolded a vast number of scientific conceptions in all branches of +human activity, a surprising series of acquisitions, a vivid panorama of +victories won by the ingenuity and travail of man. A contemplation of +the wonders that man had wrought for himself, replaced meditation on the +wonders that were alleged to have been wrought by the gods. The latter +were not so much denied by the plain reader, as they were gradually left +out of sight and forgotten. Nobody now cares to disprove Jupiter and +Juno, Satyrs and Hamadryads. + +Diderot constantly insists on the propriety, the importance, the +indispensableness of keeping the provinces of science and philosophy +apart from the province of theology. This separation is much sought in +our own day as a means of saving theology. Diderot designed it to save +philosophy. He felt that the distinct recognition of positive thought as +supreme within the widest limits then covered by it, would ultimately +lead to the banishment of theological thought to a region of its own, +too distant and too infertile for men to weary themselves in pursuit of +it. His conception was to supplant the old ways of thinking and the old +objects of intellectual interest by new ones. He trusted to the +intrinsic fitness and value of the new knowledge and new views of human +life, to displace the old. This marks him for a constructive thinker. He +replaced barren theological interests that had outlived their time, by +all those great groups of living and fruitful interests which glow and +sparkle in the volumes of the Encyclopædia. Here was the effective +damage that the Encyclopædia inflicted on the church as the organ of a +stationary superstition. Some of the articles remind us on what a +strange borderland France stood in those days, between debasing +credulity and wholesome light. We are so sensible of the new air that +breathes impalpably over the book, that when the old theological fancies +appear for form's sake, and are solemnly marshalled in orthodox state, +the contrast and the incongruity are so marked that one is amused by +what looks like a subtle irony, mocking the censor under his very eyes. +Who can help smiling at the grave question, _Adam, le premier de tous +les hommes, a-t-il été philosophe?_ Such disputes as whether it is +proper to baptize abortions, ceased to interest a public that had begun +to educate itself by discussions on the virtue of Inoculation. + +Of the gross defects in the execution of the Encyclopædia nobody was so +sensible as Diderot himself. He drew up a truly formidable list of the +departments where the work was badly done.[171] But when the blunders +and omissions in each subject were all counted, the value of the vast +grouping of the subjects was hardly diminished. The union of all these +secular acquisitions in a single colossal work invested them with +something imposing. Secular knowledge was made to present a massive and +sumptuous front. It was pictured before the curious eyes of that +generation as a great city of glittering palaces and stately mansions; +or else as an immense landscape, with mountains, plains, rocks, waters, +forests, animals, and a thousand objects, glorious and beautiful in the +sunlight. Theology became visibly a shrivelled thing. Men grew to be +conscious of the vastness of the universe. At the same time and by the +same process the Encyclopædia gave them a key to the plan, a guiding +thread in the immense labyrinth. The genealogical tree, or +classification of arts and sciences, which with a few modifications was +borrowed from Bacon and appeared at the end of the Prospectus, is seen +to be faulty and inadequate. It distributes the various branches of +knowledge with reference to faculties of the human understanding, +instead of grouping them according to their objective relations to one +another. This led to many awkward results, as when the art of printing +is placed by the side of orthography as a subdivision of Logic, to which +also is given the art of heraldry or emblazonment. There is awkwardness +too in dividing architecture into three heads, and then placing civil +architecture under national jurisprudence, and naval architecture under +social jurisprudence, while under fine arts no kind of architecture has +any place. But when we have multiplied these objections to the +uttermost, the effect of the magnificence and vastness of the scheme +remains exactly what it was. + +Even more important than the exposition of human knowledge was the +exposition of the degrees by which it had been slowly reared. The +Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopædia, of which by far the greater +and more valuable portion was written by D'Alembert, contains a fine +survey of the progress of science, thought, and letters since the +revival of learning. It is a generous canonisation of the great heroes +of secular knowledge. It is rapid, but the contributions of Bacon, +Descartes, Newton, Locke, Leibnitz are thrown into a series that +penetrates the reader's mind with the idea of ordered growth and +measured progress. This excited a vivid hopefulness of interest, which +insensibly but most effectually pressed the sterile propositions of +dogmatic theology into a dim and squalid background. Nor was this all. +The Preliminary Discourse and the host of articles marshalled behind it, +showed that the triumphs of knowledge and true opinion had all been +gained on two conditions. The first of these conditions was a firm +disregard of authority; the second was an abstention from the premature +concoction of system. The reign of ignorance and prejudice was made +inveterate by deference to tradition: the reign of truth was hindered by +the artificial boundary-marks set mischievously deep by the authors of +systems. As the whole spirit of theology is both essentially +authoritative and essentially systematic, this disparagement was full of +tolerably direct significance. It told in another way. The Sorbonne, the +universities, the doctors, had identified orthodoxy with Cartesianism. +"It is hard to believe," says D'Alembert in 1750, "that it is only +within the last thirty years that people have even begun to renounce +Cartesianism." He might have added that one of the most powerful of his +contemporaries, Montesquieu himself, remained a rigid Cartesian to the +end of his days. "Our nation," he says, "singularly eager as it is for +novelties in all matters of taste, is in matters of science extremely +attached to old opinions." This remark remains true of France to the +present hour, and it would be an interesting digression, did time allow, +to consider its significance. France can at all events count one master +innovator, the founder of Cartesianism himself. D'Alembert points out +that the disciples violate the first maxims of their chief. He describes +the hypothesis of vortices and the doctrine of innate ideas as no longer +tenable, and even as ridiculous; but do not let us forget, he says with +a fine movement of candour, that it was Descartes who opened the way; he +who set an example to men of intelligence, of shaking off the yoke of +scholasticism, of opinion, of authority--in a word, of prejudices and +barbarism. Those who remain faithful to his hypothetical system, while +they abandon his method, may be the last of his partisans, but they +would assuredly never have been the first of his disciples. + +By system the Encyclopædists meant more or less coherent bodies of +frivolous conjecture. The true merit of the philosopher or the physicist +is described as being to have the spirit of system, yet never to +construct a system. The notion expressed in this sentence promises a +union of the advantages of an organic synthesis, with the advantages of +an open mind and unfettered inquiry. It would be ridiculous to think, +says D'Alembert, that there is nothing more to discover in anatomy, +because anatomists devote themselves to researches that may seem to be +of no use, and yet often prove to be full of use in their consequences. +Nor would it be less absurd to lay a ban on erudition, on the pretext +that our learned men often give themselves up to matters of trivial +import. + +We are constantly struck in the Encyclopædia by a genuine desire to +reach the best opinion by the only right way, the way of abundant, +many-sided, and liberal discussion. The article, for instance, on +_Fermes Générales_ contains an examination of the question whether it is +more expedient that the taxes of a nation should be gathered by farmers +of the revenue, or directly by the agents of the government acting on +its behalf and under its supervision. Montesquieu had argued strongly +in favour of a _Régie_, the second of these methods. The writer of the +article sets out the nine considerations by which Montesquieu had +endeavoured to establish his position, and then he offers on each of +them the strongest observations that occur to him in support of the +opposite conclusion. At the conclusion of the article, the editors of +the Encyclopædia append the following note: "Our professed impartiality +and our desire to promote the discussion and clearing up of an important +question, have induced us to insert this article. As the Encyclopædia +has for its principal aim the public advantage and instruction, we will +insert in the article, _Régie_, without taking any side, all such +reasons for and against, as people may he willing to submit to us, +provided they are stated with due sense and moderation." Alas, when we +turn to the article on _Régie_, the promise is unfulfilled, and a dozen +meagre lines disappoint the seeker. But eight years of storm had passed, +and many a beneficent intention had been wrecked. The announcement at +least shows us the aim and spirit of the original scheme. + +Of the line of argument taken in the Encyclopædia as to Toleration we +need say nothing. The Encyclopædists were the most ardent propagators of +the modern principles of tolerance. No one has to be reminded that this +was something more than an abstract discussion among the doctors of +social philosophy, in a country where youths were broken on the wheel +for levity in face of an ecclesiastical procession, where nearly every +considerable man of the century had been either banished or imprisoned +for daring to use his mind, and which had been half ruined by the great +proscription of Protestants more than once renewed. The article +_Tolérance_ was greatly admired in its day, and it is an eloquent and +earnest reproduction of the pleas of Locke. One rather curious feature +in it is the reproduction of the passage from the Social Contract, in +which Rousseau explains the right of the magistrate to banish any +citizen who has not got religion enough to make him do his duties, and +who will not make a profession of civil faith. The writer of the article +interprets this as implying that "atheists in particular, who remove +from the powerful the only rein, and from the weak their only hope," +have no right to claim toleration. This is an unexpected stroke in a +work that is vulgarly supposed to be a violent manifesto on behalf of +atheism.[172] + +Diderot himself in an earlier article (_Intolérance_) had treated the +subject with more trenchant energy. He does not argue his points +systematically, but launches a series of maxims, as with set teeth, +clenched hands, and a brow like a thundercloud. He hails the oppressors +of his life, the priests and the parliaments, with a pungency that is +exhilarating, and winds up with a description of the intolerant as one +who forgets that a man is his fellow, and for holding a different +opinion, treats him like a ravening brute; as one who sacrifices the +spirit and precepts of his religion to his pride; as the rash fool who +thinks that the arch can only be upheld by his hands; as a man who is +generally without religion, and to whom it comes easier to have zeal +than morals. Every page of the Encyclopædia was, in fact, a plea for +toleration. This embittered the hostility of the churchmen to the work +more than its attack upon dogma. For most ecclesiastics valued power +more dearly than truth. And in power they valued most dearly the +atrocious right of silencing, by foul means or fair, all opinions that +were not official. + + +III. + +Having thus described the general character and purport of the +Encyclopædia, we have still to look at a special portion of it from a +more particular point of view. We have already shown how multifarious +were Diderot's labours as editor. It remains to give a short account of +his labours as a contributor. Everything was on the same vast scale. His +industry in writing would have been in itself most astonishing, even if +it had not been accompanied by the more depressing fatigue of revising +what others had written. Diderot's articles fill more than four of the +large volumes of his collected works. + +The confusion is immense. The spirit is sometimes historical, sometimes +controversial; now critical, now dogmatic. In one place Diderot speaks +in his own proper person, in another as the neutral scribe writing to +the dictation of an unseen authority. There is no rigorous measure and +ordered proportion. We constantly pass from a serious treatise to a +sally, from an elaborate history to a caprice. There are not a few pages +where we know that Diderot is saying what he does not think. Some of the +articles seem only to have found a place because Diderot happened to +have taken an interest in their subjects at the moment. After reading +Voltaire's concise account of Imagination, we are amazed to find Diderot +devoting a larger space than Voltaire had needed for the subject at +large, to so subordinate and remote a branch of the matter as the Power +of the Imagination in Pregnant Women upon the Unborn Young. The article +on Theosophs would hardly have been so disproportionately long as it is, +merely for the sake of Paracelsus and Van Helmont and Poiret and the +Rosicrucians, unless Diderot happened to be curiously and +half-sympathetically brooding over the mixture of inspiration and +madness, of charlatanry and generous aim, of which these semi-mystic, +semi-scientific characters were composed.[173] + +Many of Diderot's articles, again, have no rightful place in an +Encyclopædia. _Genius_, for instance, is dealt with in what is neither +more nor less than a literary essay, vigorous, suggestive, diffuse; and +containing, by the way, the curious assertion that, although there are +few errors in Locke and too few truths in Shaftesbury, yet Locke is only +an acute and comprehensive intelligence, while Shaftesbury is a genius +of the first order. + +Under the word _Laborious_, we have only a dozen lines of angry reproach +against the despotism that makes men idle by making property uncertain. +Under such words as _Frivolous_, _Gallantry_, _Perfection_, +_Importance_, _Politeness_, _Melancholy_, _Glorieux_, the reader is +amused and edified by miniature essays on manners and character, seldom +ending without some pithy sentence and pointed moral. Sometimes (e.g. +_Grandeur_) we have a charming piece after the manner of La Bruyère. +Under the verb _Naítre_, which is placed in the department of grammar, +we find a passage so far removed from grammar as the following:-- + +"The terms of life and death have nothing absolute; they only designate +the successive states of one and the same being; for him who has been +strongly nourished in this philosophy, the urn that contains the ashes +of a father, a mother, a husband, a mistress, is truly a touching +object. There still remains in it life and warmth; these ashes may +perhaps even yet feel our tears and give them response; who knows if the +movement that our tears stir, as they water those ashes, is wholly +without sensibility?" + +This little burst of grotesque sentimentalism is one of the pieces that +justify the description of Diderot as the most German of all the +French.[174] Equally characteristic and more sensible is the writer's +outbreak against Formalists. "The formalist knows exactly the proper +interval between receiving and returning a visit; he expects you on the +exact day at the exact time; if you fail, he thinks himself neglected +and takes offence. A single man of this stamp is enough to chill and +embarrass a whole company. There is nothing so repugnant to simple and +upright souls as formalities; as such people have within themselves the +consciousness of the good-will they bear to everybody, they neither +plague themselves to be constantly displaying a sentiment that is +habitual, nor to be constantly on the watch for it in others." This is +analogous to his contempt for the pedants who object to the use of a +hybrid word: "If it happens that a composite of a Greek word and a Latin +word renders the idea as well, and is easier to pronounce or pleasanter +to the ear than a compound of two Greek words and two Latin words, why +prefer the latter?" (_Hibrides_). Some articles are simply diatribes +against the enemy. _Pardon_, for instance: "It needs much attention, +much modesty, much skill to wring from others pardon for our +superiority. The men who have executed a foolish work, have never been +able to pardon us for projecting a better. We could have got from them +pardon for a crime, but never for a good action." And so forth, with +much magnanimous acrimony. _Prostitution_ is only introduced for the +pleasure of applying the unsavoury word to certain critics "of whom we +have so many in these days, and of whom we say that they prostitute +their pens to money, to favour, to lying, and to all the vices most +unworthy of an honourable man." + +We are constantly being puzzled and diverted by Diderot's ingenuity in +wandering away from the topic nominally in hand, to insinuate some of +those doctrines of tolerance, of suspended judgment, or of liberty, +which lay so much nearer to his heart than any point of mere erudition. +There is a little article on Aius-Locutius, the Announcing Speaker, one +of the minor Roman gods. Diderot begins by a few lines describing the +rise of the deity into repute. He then quotes Cicero's pleasantry on the +friendly divinity, that when nobody in the world had ever heard of him, +he delivered a salutary oracle, but after people had built him a fine +temple, then the god of speech fell dumb. This suggests to Diderot to +wonder with edifying innocence how so religious a people as the Romans +endured these irreverent jests in their philosophers. By an easy step we +pass to the conditions on which modern philosophers should be allowed by +authority to publish their speculations. Diderot throws out the curious +hint that it would be best to forbid any writing against government and +religion in the vulgar tongue, and to allow those who write in a learned +tongue to publish what they please. And so we bid farewell to +Aius-Locutius. In passing, we ask ourselves whether Diderot's suggestion +is not available in the discussion of certain questions, where freedom +of speech in the vernacular tongue is scarcely compatible with the +_reverentia quæ debetur pueris_? + +Diderot is never prevented by any mistaken sense of the dignity of his +enterprise from interspersing his disquisitions on science and +philosophy with such practical thoughts on the common matters of daily +life as come into his ingenious head. He suggests, for instance, by way +of preventing the frauds of cab-drivers on their masters and on the +public, that all payments of fares should be made to appointed officers +at the various cab-stations, and that no driver should take up a fare +except at one of these stations.[175] In writing about lackeys, after a +word on their insolence and on the wretched case in which most of them +end their days, he points out that the multitude of them is causing the +depopulation of the fields. They are countrymen who have thronged to +Paris to avoid military service. Peasants turned lackeys to escape the +conscription, just as in our own days they turn priests. Then, says +Diderot, this evil ought to be checked by a tax upon liveries; but such +a tax is far too sensible ever to be imposed. + +Yet, notwithstanding the practical and fervid temper of his +understanding, Diderot is not above literary trifling when the humour +seizes him. If he can write an exhaustive article on Encyclopædia, or +Spinosa, or Academies, or Weaving, he can also stoop to Anagrams, and +can tell us that the letters of Frère Jacques Clément, the assassin of +Henry III., make up the sinister words, _C'est l'enfer qui m'a créé_. He +can write a couple of amusing pages on Onomatomancy, or divination of a +man's fortune from his name; and can record with neutral gravity how +frequently great empires have been destroyed under princes bearing the +same name as their first founders; how, again, certain names are unlucky +for princes, as Cains among the Romans, John in France, England, and +Scotland, and Henry in France. + +We have now and then an anecdote that is worth reading and worth +preserving. Thus, under Machiavellist: "I have heard that a philosopher, +being asked by a great prince about a refutation of Machiavellism, which +the latter had just published, replied, 'Sire, I fancy that the first +lesson that Machiavelli would have given to his disciple would have been +to refute his work.'" Whether Voltaire ever did say this to the great +Frederick, is very questionable, but it would not have been ill said. +After the reader has been taken through a short course of Arabian +philosophy, he is enlivened by a selection of poetic sayings about human +life from the Rose-garden of Sadi, and the whole article winds up with +an eastern fable, of no particular relevancy, of three men finding a +treasure, and of one of them poisoning the food for which the other two +had sent him; on his return they suddenly fell on him and slew him, and +then ate the poisoned food, and so the treasure fell to none of +them.[176] + +We have spoken in the previous section of the contempt expressed by +D'Alembert for mere literary antiquarianism--a very different thing, let +us remember, from scientific inquiry into the origin and classification +of institutions and social organs. Diderot's article on the Germans is +an excellent illustration of this wholesome predominance of the +scientific spirit over the superficialities of barren erudition. The +word "Allemand," says Diderot, "has a great many etymologies, but they +are so forced, that it is almost as well to know none of them, as to +know them all. As for the origin of this famous stock, all that has been +said on that matter, between Tacitus and Clovis, is simply a tissue of +guesses without foundation." Of course in this some persons will see a +shameful levity; others will regard it as showing very good sense, and a +right estimate of what is knowable and worth knowing, and what is +neither one nor the other. In the article on Celibacy we notice the same +temper. A few sentences are enough for the antiquarianism of the +subject, what the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans thought and ordained +about celibacy. The substance of the article is a reproduction of the +Abbé Saint Pierre's discussion of the advantages that would be gained +for France, with her declining population, if her forty thousand curés +were allowed to marry, and to bring into the world eighty thousand +children. We may believe that Diderot smiled as he transcribed the +Abbé's cunning suggestion that a dispensing power to relieve from the +obligation of celibacy should be recognised in the Pope, and that the +Roman court should receive a sum of money for every dispensation so +granted. + +Although, however, Diderot despised mere bookishness, his article on +Libraries is one of the longest and most painstaking, furnishing a +tolerably complete list of the most famous collections, from the +beginning of books down to the latest additions to the King's Library in +the Rue Vivienne. In the course of this article he quotes with seeming +approval the quaint words in which old Richard of Bury, the author of +the _Philobiblon_ (1340), praised books as the best of masters, much as +the immortal defender of the poet Archias had praised them: "Hi sunt +magistri qui nos instruunt sine virgis et ferulis, sine cholera, sine +pecuniâ; si accedis non dormiunt; si inquiris non se abscondunt; non +obmurmurant si oberres; cachinnos nesciunt si ignores." + +In literature proper, as in philosophy, Diderot loses no opportunity of +insisting on the need of being content with suspended judgment. For +instance, he blames historians of opinion for the readiness with which +they attribute notions found in one or two rabbis to the whole of the +Jews, or because two or three Fathers say something, boldly set this +down as the sentiments of a whole century, although perhaps we have +nothing else save these two or three Fathers left of the century, and +although we do not know whether their writings were applauded, or were +even widely known. "It were to be wished that people should speak less +affirmatively, especially on particular points and remote consequences, +and that they should only attribute them directly to those in whose +writings they are actually to be found. I confess that the history of +the sentiments of antiquity would not seem so complete, and that it +would be necessary to speak in terms of doubt much more often than is +common; but by acting otherwise we expose ourselves to the danger of +taking false and uncertain conjectures for ascertained and +unquestionable truths. The ordinary man of letters does not readily put +up with suspensive expressions, any more than common people do so." All +this is an odd digression to be found under the head of Hylopathianism, +but it must always remain wholesome doctrine. + +We cannot wonder at Diderot's admiration for Montaigne and for Bayle, +who, with Hume, would make the great trinity of scepticism. "The work of +Montaigne," said Diderot, "is the touchstone of a good intelligence; you +may be sure that any one whom the reading of Montaigne displeases has +some vice either of heart or understanding. As for Bayle, he has had few +equals in the art of reasoning, and perhaps no superior; and though he +piles doubt upon doubt, he always proceeds with order; an article of his +is a living polypus, which divides itself into a number of polypuses, +all living, engendered one from the other."[177] Yet Diderot had a +feeling of the necessity of advancing beyond the attitude of Bayle and +Montaigne. Intellectual suspense and doubt was made difficult to him by +his vehement and positive demand for emotional certainties. + +Diderot is always ready to fling away his proper subject in a burst of +moralising. The article on _Man_, as a branch of natural history, +contains a correct if a rather superficial account of that curious +animal; at length the writer comes to a table showing the probable +duration of life at certain ages. "You will observe," he says, "1st, +that the age of seven is that at which you may hope a longer life; 2d, +that at twelve or thirteen you have lived a quarter of your life; at +twenty-eight or twenty-nine you have lived half; at fifty more than +three-quarters." And then he suddenly winds up the whole performance by +the exclamation: "O ye who have laboured up to fifty, who are in the +enjoyment of comfort, and who still have left to you health and +strength, what then are you waiting for before you take rest? How long +will you go on saying _To-morrow, to-morrow?_" + +There are many casual brilliancies in the way of analogy and parallel, +many aptnesses of thought and phrase. The Stoics are called the +Jansenists of Paganism. "For a single blade of grass to grow, it is +necessary that the whole of nature should co-operate." "A man comes to +Pyrrhonism by one of two opposite ways; either because he does not know +enough, or because he knows too much; the latter is not the most common +way." And so forth. + +If we turn to the group of articles dealing with theology, it is +difficult for us to know exactly where we are. Sometimes Diderot writes +of popular superstitions with the gravity proper to a dictionary of +mythology. Sometimes he sews on to the sober gray of his scepticism a +purple patch of theistic declamation.[178] The article on Jesus Christ +is obviously a mere piece of common form, and more than one passage in +his article on _Christianisme_ is undoubtedly insincere. When we come to +his more careful article, _Providence_, we find it impossible to extract +from it a body of coherent propositions of which we could confidently +say that they represented his own creed, or the creed that he desired +his readers to bear away in their minds. + +It is hardly worth while to measure the more or the less of his +adherence to Christianity, or even to Deism, as inferred from the +Encyclopædia. We need only turn to his private letters to find that he +is in no degree nor kind an adherent, but the most hardy, contemptuous, +and thoroughgoing of opponents. At the risk of shocking devout persons, +I am bound to reproduce a passage from one of his letters, in which +there can be no doubt that we have Diderot's true mind, as distinguished +from what it was convenient to print. "The Christian religion," he says, +"is to my mind the most absurd and atrocious in its dogmas; the most +unintelligible, the most metaphysical, the most intertwisted and +obscure, and consequently the most subject to divisions, sects, schisms, +heresies; the most mischievous for the public tranquillity, the most +dangerous to sovereigns by its hierarchic order, its persecutions, its +discipline; the most flat, the most dreary, the most Gothic, and the +most gloomy in its ceremonies; the most puerile and unsociable in its +morality, considered not in what is common to it with universal +morality, but in what is peculiarly its own, and constitutes it +evangelical, apostolical, and Christian morality, which is the most +intolerant of all. Lutheranism, freed from some absurdities, is +preferable to Catholicism; Protestantism to Lutheranism, Socinianism to +Protestantism, Deism, with temples and ceremonies, to Socinianism. Since +it is necessary that man, being superstitious by nature, should have a +fetish, the simplest and most harmless will be the best fetish."[179] We +need not discuss nor extend the quotation; enough has been said to +relieve us from the duty of analysing or criticising articles in which +Christianity is treated with all the formal respect that the secular +authority insisted upon. + +This formal respect is not incompatible with many veiled and secret +sarcasms, which were as well understood as they were sharply enjoyed by +those who read between the lines. It is not surprising that these +sarcasms were constantly unjust and shallow. Even those of us who +repudiate theology and all its works for ourselves, may feel a shock at +the coarseness and impurity of innuendo which now and then disfigures +Diderot's treatment of theological as of some other subjects. For this +the attitude of the Church itself was much to blame; coarse, virulent, +unspiritual as it was in France in those days. Voltaire, Diderot, +Holbach, would have written in a very different spirit, even while +maintaining and publishing the same attacks on theological opinion, if +the Church of France had possessed such a school of teachers as the +Church of England found in the Latitudinarians in the seventeenth +century; or such as she finds now in the nineteenth century in those who +have imported, partly from the poetry of Wordsworth, partly from the +historic references of the Oxford Tracts, an equity, a breadth, an +elevation, a pensive grace, that effectually forbid the use of those +more brutal weapons of controversy which were the only weapons possible +in France a century ago. + +We have already said so much of the great and important group of +articles on arts and trades, that it is unnecessary to add anything +further as to Diderot's particular share in them. He visited all the +workshops in Paris; he sent for information and specifications to the +most important seats of manufacture in the kingdom; he sometimes +summoned workmen from the provinces to describe to him the paper works +of Montargis, and the silk works and velvet works of Lyons.[180] Much of +Diderot's work, even on great practical subjects, was, no doubt, the +reproduction of mere book-knowledge acquired at second-hand. Take, for +instance, Agriculture, which was undoubtedly the most important of all +subjects for France at that date, as indeed at every other date. There +are a dozen pages of practical precepts, for which Diderot was probably +indebted to one of the farmers at Grandval. After this, he fills up the +article with about twenty pages in which he gives an account of the new +system of husbandry, which our English Jethro Tull described to an +unbelieving public between 1731 and 1751. Tull's volume was translated +into French by Duhamel, with notes and the record of experiments of his +own; from this volume Diderot drew the pith of his article. Diderot's +only merit in the matter--and it is hardly an inconsiderable one in a +world of routine--is that he should have been at the pains to seek the +newest lights, and above all that he should have urged the value of +fresh experiments in agriculture. Tull was not the safest authority in +the world, but it is to be remembered that the shrewd-witted Cobbett +thought his ideas on husbandry worth reproducing, seventy years after +Diderot had thought them worth compiling into an article. + +It was not merely in the details of the practical arts that Diderot +wrote from material acquired at second-hand. The article on the +Zend-Avesta is taken from the Annual Register for 1762. The long series +of articles on the history of philosophy is in effect a reproduction of +what he found in Bayle, in Deslandes, and in Brucker. There are one or +two considerable exceptions. Perhaps the most important is under the +heading of Spinosa, to which we shall return presently. The article on +_Hobbisme_ contains an analysis, evidently made by the writer's own +hand, of the bulk of Hobbes's propositions; it is scarcely, however, +illuminated by a word of criticism. If we turn to the article on +_Société_, it is true, we find Hobbes's view of the relations between +the civil and temporal powers tolerably effectively combated, but even +here Diderot hardly does more than arm himself with the weapons of +Locke. + +Of course, he honestly refers his readers to these sources of wider +information.[181] All that we can say of the articles on the history of +philosophy is that the series is very complete; that Diderot used his +matter with intelligence and the spirit of criticism, and that he often +throws in luminous remarks and far-reaching suggestions of his own. This +was all that the purpose of his book required. To imitate the laborious +literary search of Bayle or of Brucker, and to attempt to compile an +independent history of philosophy, would have been to sacrifice the +Encyclopædia as a whole, to the superfluous perfection of a minor part. +There is only one imperative condition in such a case, namely, that the +writer should pass the accepted material through his own mind before +reproducing it. With this condition it was impossible for a man of +Diderot's indefatigable energy of spirit, not as a rule to comply. + +But this rule too had exceptions. There were cases in which he +reproduced, as any mere bookmaker might have done, the thought of his +authority, without an attempt to make it his own. Of the confusion and +inequalities in which Diderot was landed by this method of mingling the +thoughts of other people with his own, there is a curious example in the +two articles on Philosopher and Philosophy. In the first we have an +essentially social and practical description of what the philosopher +should be; in the second we have a definition of philosophy, which takes +us into the regions most remote from what is social and practical. We +soar to the airiest heights of verbal analysis and pure formalism. +Nothing can be better, so far as it goes, than the picture of the +philosopher. Diderot begins by contrasting him with the crowd of people, +and clever people, who insist on passing judgment all day long. "They +ignore the scope and limits of the human mind; they think it capable of +knowing everything; hence they think it a disgrace not to pronounce +judgment, and imagine that intelligence consists in that and nothing +else. The philosopher believes that it consists in judging rightly. He +is better pleased with himself when he has suspended his faculty of +coming to a conclusion, than if he had come to a conclusion without the +proper grounds. He prefers to brilliancy the pains of rightly +distinguishing his ideas, of finding their true extent and exact +connection. He is never so attached to a system as not to feel all the +force of the objections to it. Most men are so strongly given over to +their opinions that they do not take any trouble to make out those of +others. The philosopher, on the other hand, understands what he rejects, +with the same breadth and the same accuracy as he understands what he +adopts." Then Diderot turns characteristically from the intellectual to +the social side. "Our philosopher does not count himself an exile in the +world; he does not suppose himself in an enemy's country; he would fain +find pleasure with others, and to find it he must give it; he is a +worthy man who wishes to please and to make himself useful. The ordinary +philosophers who meditate too much, or rather who meditate to wrong +purpose, are as surly and arrogant to all the world as great people are +to those whom they do not think their equals; they flee men, and men +avoid them. But our philosopher who knows how to divide himself between +retreat and the commerce of men is full of humanity. _Civil society is, +so to say, a divinity for him on the earth_; he honours it by his +probity, by an exact attention to his duties, and by a sincere desire +not to be a useless or an embarrassing member of it. The sage has the +leaven of order and rule; he is full of the ideas connected with the +good of civil society. What experience shows us every day is that the +more reason and light people have, the better fitted they are and the +more to be relied on for the common intercourse of life."[182] + +The transition is startling from this conception of + +Philosopher as a very high kind of man of the world, to the definition +of Philosophy as "the science of possibles quâ possibles." Diderot's own +reflection comes back to us, _Combien cette maudite métaphysique fait +des fous!_[183] We are abruptly plunged from a Baconian into a +Leibnitzian atmosphere. We should naturally have expected some such +account of Philosophy as that it begins with a limitation of the +questions to which men can hope for an answer, and ends in an ordered +arrangement of the principles of knowledge, with ultimate reference to +the conditions of morals and the structure of civil societies. We should +naturally have expected to find, what indeed we do find, that the +characteristic of the philosopher is to "admit nothing without proof, +never to acquiesce in illusory notions; to draw rigorously the dividing +lines of the certain, the probable, the doubtful; above all things never +to pay himself with mere words." But then these wholesome prescriptions +come in an article whose definitions and distribution of philosophy are +simply a reproduction from Christian Wolff, and the methods and dialect +of Wolff are as essentially alien from the positive spirit of the +Encyclopædia as they were from the mystic spirit of Jacobi. + +Wolff's place in the philosophical succession of German speculation +(1679-1754) is between Leibnitz and Kant, and until Kant came his +system was dominant in the country of metaphysics.[184] It is from +Wolff that Diderot borrows and throws unassimilated into the pages of +the Encyclopædia propositions so fundamentally incongruous as this, +that "among all possibles there must of necessity be a Being subsisting +by himself; otherwise there would be possible things, of the +possibility of which no account could be given, an assertion that could +never be made." It is a curious thing, and it illustrates again the +strangely miscellaneous quality of Diderot's compilation, that the very +article which begins by this incorporation of the author of a +philosophical system expounded in a score of quartos, ends by a +vigorous denunciation of the introduction of the systematic spirit into +philosophy. + +I shall venture to quote a hardy passage from another article +(_Pyrrhonienne_) which some will think a measure of Diderot's +philosophical incompetency, and others will think a measure of his good +sense. "We will conclude," he says, "for our part that as all in nature +is bound together, there is nothing, properly speaking, of which man has +perfect, absolute, and complete knowledge, because for that he would +need knowledge of all. Now as all is bound together, it inevitably +happens that, from discussion to discussion, he must come to something +unknown: then in starting again from this unknown point, we shall be +justified in pleading against him the ignorance or the obscurity or the +uncertainty of the point preceding, and of that preceding this, and so +forth, up to the most evident principle. So we must admit a sort of +sobriety in the use of reason. When step by step I have brought a man to +some evident proposition, I shall cease to dispute. I will listen no +longer to a man who goes on to deny the existence of bodies, the rules +of logic, the testimony of the senses, the difference between good and +evil, true and false, etc. etc. I will turn my back on everybody who +tries to lead me away from a simple question, to embark me in discussion +as to the nature of matter, of the understanding of thought, and other +subjects shoreless and bottomless."[185] Whatever else may be said of +this, we have to recognise that it is exactly characteristic of the +author. But then why have written on metaphysics at all? + +We have mentioned the article on Spinosa. It is characteristic both of +the good and the bad sides of Diderot's work. Half of it is merely a +reproduction of Bayle's criticisms on Spinosa and his system. The other +half consists of original objections propounded by Diderot with marked +vigour of thrust against Spinosa, but there is no evidence that he had +gone deeper into Spinosa than the first book of the Ethics. There is no +certain sign that he had read anything else, or that he had more of that +before him than the extracts that were furnished by Bayle. Such +treatment of a serious subject hardly conforms to the modern +requirements of the literary conscience, for in truth the literary +conscience has now turned specialist and shrinks from the encyclopædic. +Diderot's objections are, as we have said, pushed with marked energy of +speech. "However short away," he says, "you penetrate into the thick +darkness in which Spinosa has wrapped himself up, you discover a +succession of abysses into which this audacious reasoner has +precipitated himself, of propositions either evidently false or +evidently doubtful, of arbitrary principles, substituted for natural +principles and sensible truths; an abuse of terms taken for the most +part in a wrong sense, a mass of deceptive equivocations, a cloud of +palpable contradictions." The system is monstrous, it is absurd and +ridiculous. It is Spinosa's plausible method that has deceived people; +they supposed that one who employed geometry, and proceeded by way of +axioms and definitions, must be on the track of truth. They did not see +that these axioms were nothing better than very vague and very uncertain +propositions; that the definitions were inexact, defective, and bizarre. + +We have no space to follow the reasoning by which Diderot supports this +scornful estimate of the famous thinker, of whom it can never be settled +whether he be pantheist, atheist, akosmist, or God-intoxicated man. He +returns to the charge again and again, as if he felt a certain secret +uneasiness lest for scorn so loudly expressed he had not brought forward +adequate justification. And the reader feels that Diderot has scarcely +hit the true line of cleavage that would have enabled him--from his own +point of view--to shatter the Spinosist system. He tries various bouts +of logic with Spinosa in connection with detached propositions. Thus he +deals with Spinosa's third proposition, that, _in the case of things +that have nothing in common with one another, one cannot be the cause of +the other_. This proposition, Diderot contends, is false in all moral +and occasional causes. The sound of the name of God has nothing in +common with the idea of the Creator which that name produces in my mind. +A misfortune that overtakes my friend has nothing in common with the +grief that I feel in consequence. When I move my arm by an act of will, +the movement has nothing in common in its nature with the act of my +will; they are very different. I am not a triangle, yet I form the idea +of one and I examine its properties. So with the fifth proposition, that +_there cannot be in the universe two or more substances of the same +nature or the same attributes_. If Spinosa is only talking of the +essence of things or of their definition, what he says is naught; for it +can only mean that there cannot be in the universe two different +essences having the same essence. Who doubts it? But if Spinosa means +that there cannot be an essence which is found in various single +objects, in the same way as the essence of triangle is found in the +triangle A and the triangle B, then he says what is manifestly untrue. +It is not, however, until the last two or three pages that Diderot sets +forth his dissent in its widest form. + +"To refute Spinosa," he says at last, "all that is necessary is to stop +him at the first step, without taking the trouble to follow him into a +mass of consequences; all that we need do is to substitute for the +obscure principle which he makes the base of his system, the following: +namely, that _there are several substances_--a principle that in its own +way is clear to the last degree. And, in fact, what proposition can be +clearer, more striking, more close to the understanding and +consciousness of man? I here seek no other judge than the most just +impression of the common sense that is spread among the human race.... +Now, since common sense revolts against each of Spinosa's propositions, +no less than against the first, of which they are the pretended proofs, +instead of stopping to reason on each of these proofs where common sense +is lost, we should be right to say to him:--Your principle is contrary +to common sense; from a principle in which common sense is lost, nothing +can issue in which common sense is to be found again." + +The passage sounds unpleasantly like an appeal to the crowd in a matter +of science, which is as the sin against the Holy Ghost in these high +concerns. What Diderot meant, probably, was to charge Spinosa with +inventing a conception of substance which has no relation to objective +experience; and further with giving fantastic answers to questions that +were in themselves never worth asking, because the answers must always +involve a violent wrench of the terms of experience into the sphere +transcending experience, and because, moreover, they can never be +verified. Whether he meant this or something else, and whether he would +have been right or wrong in such an intention, we may admit that it +would have been more satisfactory if in dealing with such a master-type +of the metaphysical method as Spinosa, so acute a positive critic as +Diderot had taken more pains to give to his objections the utmost +breadth of which they were capable.[186] + +The article on Leibnitz has less original matter in it than that on +Spinosa. The various speculations of that great and energetic intellect +in metaphysic, logic, natural theology, natural law, are merely drawn +out in a long table of succinct propositions, while the account of the +life and character of Leibnitz is simply taken from the excellent +_éloge_ which had been published upon him by Fontenelle in 1716. +Fontenelle's narrative is reproduced in a generous spirit of admiration +and respect for a genius that was like Diderot's own in encyclopædic +variety of interest, while it was so far superior to Diderot's in +concentration, in subtlety, in precision, in power of construction. If +there could exist over our heads, says Diderot, a species of beings who +could observe our works as we watch those of creatures at our feet, with +what surprise would such beings have seen those four marvellous insects, +Bayle, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Newton. And he then draws up a little +calendar of the famous men, out of whom we must choose the name to be +placed at the very head of the human race. The list contains, besides +Julian the Apostate--who was inserted, we may presume, merely by way of +playful insult to the ecclesiastical enemy--Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, +Trajan, Bacon, and the four great names that have just been cited. +Germany derives as much honour from Leibnitz alone, he concludes with +unconsidered enthusiasm, as Greece from Plato, Aristotle, and +Archimedes, all put together. As we have said, however, there is no +criticism, nor any other sign that Diderot had done more than survey the +façade of the great Leibnitzian structure admiringly from without. + +The article on Liberty would be extremely remarkable, appearing where it +does, and coming from a thinker of Diderot's general capacity, if only +we could be sure that Diderot was sincere. As it happens, there is good +reason to suppose that he was wholly insincere. It is quite as shallow, +from the point of view of philosophy, as his article on the Jews or on +the Bible is from the point of view of erudition. One reason for this +might not be far to seek. We have repeatedly observed how paramount the +social aim and the social test are in Diderot's mind over all other +considerations. But this reference of all subjects of discussion to the +good of society, and this measurement of conclusions by their presumed +effect on society, is a method that has its own dangers. The aversion of +ecclesiastics to unfettered discussion, lest it should damage +institutions and beliefs deemed useful to mankind, is the great leading +example of this peril. Diderot, it might be said by those who should +contend that he wrote what he thought, did not escape exactly the same +predicament, as soon as ever he forgot that of all the things that are +good for society, Truth is the best. Now, who will believe that it is +Diderot, the persecuted editor of the Encyclopædia, and the author of +the manly article on Intolerance, who introduces such a passage as the +following into the discussion of the everlasting controversy of Free +Will and Necessity: "Take away Liberty, and you leave no more vice nor +virtue nor merit in the world; rewards are ridiculous, and punishments +unjust. The ruin of Liberty overthrows all order and all police, +confounds vice and virtue, authorises every monstrous infamy, +extinguishes the last spark of shame and remorse, degrades and +disfigures beyond recovery the whole human race. _A doctrine of such +enormity as this ought not to be examined in the schools; it ought to be +punished by the magistrates._"[187] Of course, this was exactly what the +Jesuits said about a belief in God, about revelation, and about the +institutions of the church. To take away these, they said, is to throw +down the bulwarks of order, and an attempt to take them away, as by +encyclopædists or others, ought to be punished by the magistrates. +Diderot had for the moment clearly lost himself. + +We need hardly be surprised if an article conceived in this spirit +contains no serious contribution to the difficult question with which +it deals. Diderot had persuaded himself that, without Free Will, all +those emotional moralities in the way of sympathy and benevolence and +justice which he adored would be lowered to the level of mere mechanism. +"If men are not free in what they do of good and evil, then," he cries, +in what is surely a paroxysm of unreason, "good is no longer good, and +evil no longer evil." As if the outward quality and effects of good and +evil were not independent of the mental operations which precede human +action. Murder would not cease to be an evil simply because it had been +proved that the murderer's will to do a bad deed was the result of +antecedents. Acts have marks and consequences of their own, good or bad, +whatever may be the state of mind of those who do them. But Diderot does +not seem to divine the true issue; he writes as if Necessarians or +Determinists denied the existence of volitions, and as if the question +were whether volitions do exist. Nobody denies that they exist; the real +question is of the conditions under which they exist. Are they +determined by antecedents, or are they self-determined, spontaneous, and +unconnected? Is Will independent of cause? + +Diderot's argumentation is, in fact, merely a protest that man is +conscious of a Will. And just as in other parts of his article Diderot +by Liberty means only the existence of Will, so by Liberty he means only +the healthy condition of the soul, and not its independence of +causation. We need not waste words on so dire a confusion, nor on the +theory that Will is sometimes dependent on cerebral antecedents and +sometimes not. The curious thing is that the writer should not have +perceived that he was himself in this preposterous theory propounding +the very principle which he denounced as destructive to virtue, ruinous +to society, and worthy of punishment by the government. For it seems +that, after all, the Will of those whose "dispositions are not moderate" +is not free; and we may surely say that those whose dispositions are +least moderate, are exactly the most violent malefactors against the +common weal. One more passage is worth quoting to show how little the +writer had seized the true meaning of the debate. "According to you," he +says to Bayle, "it is not clear that it is at the pure choice of my will +to move my arm or not to move it: if that be so, it is then necessarily +determined that within a quarter of an hour from now I shall lift my +hand three times together, or that I shall not. Now, if you seriously +pretend that I am not free, you cannot refuse an offer that I make you; +I will wager a thousand pistoles to one that I will do, in the matter of +moving my hand, exactly the opposite to what you back; and you may take +your choice. If you do think the wager fair, it can only be because of +your necessary and invincible judgment that I am free." As if the will +to move or not to move the arm would be uncaused and unaffected by +antecedents, when you have just provided so strong an antecedent as the +desire to save a thousand pistoles. It was, perhaps, well enough for +Voltaire to content himself with vague poetical material for his +poetical discourse on Liberty, but from Diderot, whether as editor or as +writer, something better might have been expected than a clumsy +reproduction of the reasoning by which men like Turretini had turned +philosophy into the corrupted handmaid of theology. + +The most extraordinary thing about this extraordinary article still +remains to be told. It was written, we may suppose, between 1757 and +1762, or about that time. In June, 1756, Diderot wrote to a certain +Landois, a fellow-worker on the Encyclopædia, a letter containing the +most emphatic possible repudiation of the whole doctrine of Liberty. +"Liberty is a word void of sense; there are not and there never can have +been free beings; we are only what fits in with the general order, with +organisation, with education, and with the chain of events. We can no +more conceive a being acting without a motive than we can conceive one +of the arms of a balance acting without a weight; and the motive is +always exterior and foreign to us, attached either by nature or by some +cause or other that is not ourselves. _There is only one sort of causes, +properly speaking, and those are, physical causes._"[188] And so forth +in the vein of hard and remorseless necessarianism, which we shall find +presently in the pages of the System of Nature.[189] + +There is only one explanation of this flagrant contradiction. Diderot +must have written on Liberty just as he wrote on Jesus Christ or the +Bible. He cannot have said what he thought, but only what the persons in +authority required him to pretend to think. We may he sure that a letter +to an intimate would be more likely to contain his real opinion than an +article published in the Encyclopædia. That such mystifications are +odious, are shameful, are almost too degrading a price to pay for the +gains of such a work, we may all readily enough admit. All that we can +do is to note so flagrant a case, as a striking example of the common +artifices of the time. One other point we may note. The fervour and +dexterity with which Diderot made what he knew to be the worse appear +the better cause, make a still more striking example of his astonishing +dramatic power of throwing himself, as dialectician, casuist, sophist, +into a false and illusive part. + +Turning from the philosophical to the political or social group of +articles, we find little to add to what has been said in the previous +section. One of the most excellent essays in this group is that on +Luxury. Diderot opens ingeniously with a list of the propositions that +state the supposed evils of luxury, and under each proposition he places +the most striking case that he can find in history of its falseness. He +goes through the same process with the propositions asserting the gains +of luxury to society. Having thus effectually disposed of any wholesale +way of dealing with the subject, he proceeds to make a number of +observations on the gains and drawbacks of luxury; these are full of +sense and freedom from commonplace. Such articles as _Pouvoir, +Souverain, Autorité_, do little more than tell over again the old +unhistoric story about a society surrendering a portion of its sovereign +power to some individual or dynasty to hold in trust. It is worth +remarking how little democratic were Diderot and his school in any +Jacobinical, or anarchic, or even more respectable modern sense. There +is in Diderot's contributions many a firm and manly plea for the +self-respect of the common people, but not more than once or twice is +there a syllable of the disorder which smoulders under the pages of +Rousseau. Thus: "When the dwellers among the fields are well treated, +the number of proprietors insensibly grows greater, the extreme distance +and the vile dependence of poor on rich grow less; hence the people have +courage, force of soul, and strength of body; they love their country, +they respect the magistrates, they are attached to a prince, to an +order, and to laws to which they owe their peace and well-being. And you +will no longer see the son of the honourable tiller of the soil so ready +to quit the noble calling of his forefathers, nor so ready to go and +sully himself with the liveries and with the contempt of the man of +wealth."[190] + +No one can find fault with democratic sentiment of this kind, nor with +the generous commonplaces of the moralist, about virtue being the only +claim to honour, and vice the only true source of shame and inferiority. +But neither Diderot nor Voltaire ever allowed himself to flatter the +crowd for qualities which the crowd can scarcely possess. The little +article on Multitude seems merely inserted for the sake of buffeting +unwarranted pretensions. "Distrust the judgment of the multitude in all +matters of reasoning and philosophy; there its voice is the voice of +malice, folly, inhumanity, irrationality, and prejudice. Distrust it +again in things that suppose much knowledge or a fine taste. The +multitude is ignorant and dulled. Distrust it in morality; it is not +capable of strong and generous actions; it rather wonders at such +actions than approves them; heroism is almost madness in its eyes. +Distrust it in the things of sentiment; is delicacy of sentiment so +common a thing that you can accord it to the multitude? In what then is +the multitude right? In everything, but only at the end of a very long +time, because then it has become an echo, repeating the judgment of a +small number of sensible men who shape the judgment of posterity for it +beforehand. If you have on your side the testimony of your conscience, +and against you that of the multitude, take comfort and be assured that +time does justice." It is far from being a universal gift among men of +letters and others to unite this fastidious estimation of the incapacity +of the crowd in the higher provinces of the intellectual judgment, with +a fervid desire that the life of the crowd should be made worthy of +self-respecting men. + +The same hand that wrote the defiance of the populace that has just been +quoted, wrote also this short article on Misery: "There are few souls so +firm that misery does not in the long run cast them down and degrade +them. The poor common people are incredibly stupid. I know not what +false dazzling prestige closes their eyes to their present wretchedness, +and to the still deeper wretchedness that awaits the years of old age. +Misery is the mother of great crimes. It is the sovereigns who make the +miserable, and it is they who shall answer in this world and the other +for the crimes that misery has committed." + +So far as the mechanism of government is concerned, Diderot writes much +as Montesquieu had done. Under the head of _Représentants_ he proclaims +the advantages, not exactly of government by a representative assembly, +but of assisting and advising the royal government by means of such an +assembly. There is no thought of universal suffrage. "_It is property +that makes the citizen_; every man who has possessions in the state is +interested in the state, and whatever be the rank that particular +conventions may assign to him, it is always as a proprietor; it is by +reason of his possessions that he ought to speak, and that he acquires +the right of having himself represented." Yet this very definite +statement does not save him from the standing difficulty of a democratic +philosophy of politics. Nor can it be reconciled in point of logic with +other propositions to which Diderot commits himself in the same article. +For instance, he says that "no order of citizens is capable of +stipulating for all; if one order had the right, it would very soon +come to stipulate only for itself; each class ought to be represented by +men who know its condition and its needs; _these needs are only well +known to those who actually feel them_." But then, in that case, the +poorest classes are those who have most need of direct representation; +they are the most numerous, their needs are sharpest, they are the +classes to which war, consumption of national capital and way of +expending national income, equal laws, judicial administration, and the +other concerns of a legislative assembly, come most close. The problem +is to reconcile the sore interests of the multitude with the ignorance +and the temper imputed in Diderot's own description of them. + +An interesting study might be made, if the limits of our subject +permitted such a digression, on the new political ideas which a +century's experience in England, France, Germany, the American Union, +has added to the publicist's stock. Diderot's article on the Legislator +is a curious mixture of views which political thinkers have left behind, +with views which the most enlightened statesmen have taken up. There is +much talk after the fashion of Jean Jacques Rousseau about the admirable +legislation of Lycurgus at Sparta, the philosophical government of the +great empire of China, and the fine spirit of the institutions of Peru. +We perceive that the same influences which made Rousseau's political +sentimentalism so popular also brought even strong heads like Diderot to +believe in the unbounded power of a government to mould men at its +will, and to impose institutions at discretion. The idea that it is the +main function of a government to make its people virtuous, is generally +as strong in Diderot as it was in Rousseau, and as it became in +Robespierre. He admires the emperors of China, because their edicts are +as the exhortation of a father to his children. All edicts, he says, +ought to instruct and to exhort as much as they command. Yet two years +after the Encyclopædia was finished (1774), when Turgot prefaced his +reforming edicts by elaborate and reasoned statements of the grounds for +them, it was found that his prefaces caused greater provocation than the +very laws that they introduced. + +Apart from the common form of enthusiasm for the "sublime legislation" +of countries which the writer really knew nothing about, the article on +the Legislator has some points worth noticing. We have seen how Diderot +made the possession of property the true note of citizenship, and of a +claim to share in the government. But he did not pay property this +compliment for nothing. It is, he says, the business of the legislator +to do his best to make up to mankind for the loss of that equality which +was one of the comforts that men surrendered when they gave up the state +of nature. Hence the legislator ought to take care that no one shall +reach a position of extreme opulence otherwise than by an industry that +enriches the state. "He must take care that the charges of society shall +fall upon the rich, who enjoy the advantages of society." Even those who +agree with Diderot, and are ready to vote for a graduated income-tax, +will admit that he comes to his conclusion without knowing or reflecting +about either the serious arguments for it, or the serious objections +against it. + +What is really interesting in this long article is its anticipation of +those ideas which in England we associate with the name of Cobden. "All +the men of all lands have become necessary to one another for the +exchange of the fruits of industry and the products of the soil. +Commerce is a new bond among men. Every nation has an interest in these +days in the preservation by every other nation of its wealth, its +industry, its banks, its luxury, its agriculture. The ruin of Leipsic, +of Lisbon, and of Lima has led to bankruptcies on all the exchanges of +Europe, and has affected the fortunes of many millions of persons."[191] +In the same spirit he foresees the decline of patriotism in its older +and narrower sense, and the predominance of the international over the +national sentiment. "All nations now have sufficiently just ideas of +their neighbours, and consequently they have less enthusiasm for their +country than in the old days of ignorance. There is little enthusiasm +where there is much light; enthusiasm is nearly always the emotion of a +soul that is more passionate than it is instructed. By comparing among +all nations laws with laws, talents with talents, and manners with +manners, nations will find so little reason to prefer themselves to +others, that if they preserve for their own country that love which is +the fruit of personal interest, at least they will lose that enthusiasm +which is the fruit of an exclusive self-esteem." + +Yet Diderot had the perspicacity to discern the drawbacks to such a +revolution in the conditions of social climate. "Commerce, like +enlightenment, lessens ferocity, but also, just as enlightenment takes +away the enthusiasm of self-esteem, so perhaps commerce takes away the +enthusiasm of virtue. It gradually extinguishes the spirit of +magnanimous disinterestedness, and replaces it by that of hard justice. +By turning men's minds rather to use than beauty, to prudence rather +than to greatness, it may be that it injures the strength, the +generosity, the nobleness of manners." + +All this, whether it comes to much or little, is at least more true than +Diderot's assurance that henceforth for any nation in Europe to make +conquests must be a moral impossibility. Napoleon Bonaparte was then a +child in arms. Whether his career was on the whole a fulfilment or a +contradiction of Diderot's proposition, may be disputed. + +And so our sketch of the great book must at length end. Let us make one +concluding remark. Is it not surprising that a man of Diderot's +speculative boldness and power should have failed to rise from the +mechanical arrangement of thought and knowledge, up to some higher and +more commanding conception of the relation between himself in the +eighteenth century, or ourselves in the nineteenth, and all those great +systems of thought, method, and belief, which in various epochs and over +different spaces of the globe have given to men working answers to the +questions that their leading spirits were moved to put to themselves and +to the iron universe around them? We constantly feel how near Diderot is +to the point of view that would have brought light. We feel how very +nearly ready he was to see the mental experiences of the race in east +and west, not as superstition, degradation, grovelling error, but as +aspects of intellectual effort and aspiration richly worthy of human +interest and scientific consideration, and in their aim as well as in +their substance all of one piece with the newest science and the last +voices of religious or anti-religious development. Diderot was the one +member of the party of Philosophers who was capable of grasping such a +thought. If this guiding idea of the unity of the intellectual history +of man, and the organic integrity of thought, had happily come into +Diderot's mind, we should have had an Encyclopædia indeed; a survey and +representation of all the questions and answers of the world, such as +would in itself have suggested what questions are best worth putting, +and at the same time have furnished its own answers. + +For this the moment was not yet. An urgent social task lay before France +and before Europe; it could not be postponed until the thinkers had +worked out a scheme of philosophic completeness. The thinkers did not +seriously make any effort after this completeness. The Encyclopædia was +the most serious attempt, and it did not wholly fail. As I replace in my +shelves this mountain of volumes, "dusky and huge, enlarging on the +sight," I have a presentiment that their pages will seldom again be +disturbed by me or by others. They served a great purpose a hundred +years ago. They are now a monumental ruin, clothed with all the profuse +associations of history. It is no Ozymandias of Egypt, king of kings, +whose wrecked shape of stone and sterile memories we contemplate. We +think rather of the gray and crumbling walls of an ancient stronghold +reared by the endeavour of stout hands and faithful, whence in its own +day and generation a band once went forth against barbarous hordes, to +strike a blow for humanity and truth. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +SOCIAL LIFE (1759-1770). + + +Any one must be ignorant of the facts who supposes that the men of the +eighteenth century who did not believe in God, and were as little +continent as King David, were therefore no better than the reckless +vagabonds of Grub Street. Diderot, after he had once settled down to his +huge task, became a very orderly person. It is true that he had an +attachment to a lady who was not his wife. Marriage was in those days, +among the courtiers and the encyclopædic circle, too habitually regarded +as merely an official relation. Provided that there was no official +desertion, and no scandal, the world had nothing to say. Diderot was no +worse than his neighbours, though we may well be sorry that a man of his +generous sympathies and fine impulse was no better than his neighbours. +Mademoiselle Voland, after proper deduction made for the manners of the +time, was of a respectable and sentimental type. Her family were of good +position; she lived with her mother and sisters, and Diderot was on good +terms with them all. We have a glimpse of the characteristics of the +three ladies in a little dialogue between Diderot and some one whom he +met, and who happened to have made their acquaintance. "He informed me +that he had passed three months in the country where you are.--_Three +months_, said he, _is more than one needs to go mad about Madame Le +Gendre_.[192]--True, but then she is so reserved.--_I scarcely know any +woman with such an amount of self-respect_.--She is quite +right.--_Madame Voland is a woman of rare merit_.--Yes, and her eldest +daughter?--_She has the cleverness of a very devil_.--She is very +clever, no doubt; but what I especially like is her frankness. I would +lay a wager that she has never told a voluntary lie since she came to +years of discretion."[193] The relations between Diderot and Sophie +Voland were therefore not at all on the common footing of a low amour +with a coarse or frivolous woman of the world. All the proprieties of +appearance were scrupulously observed. Their mutual passion, though once +not wholly without its gallantries, soon took on that worthy and +decorous quality into which the ardour of valiant youth is reluctantly +softened by middle age, when we gravely comfort it with names of +philosophical compliment. + +One of the most interesting of all the documentary memorials of the +century is to be found in the letters which Diderot wrote to +Mademoiselle Voland. No doubt has ever been thrown on the authenticity +of these letters, and they bear ample evidence of genuineness, so far as +the substance of them is concerned, in their characteristic style. They +were first published in 1830, from manuscripts sold to the bookseller +the year before by a certain French man of letters, Jeudy-Dugour by +name. He became a naturalised Russian, changed his name to Gouroff, and +died in the position of councillor of state and director of the +university of St. Petersburg. How he came by any papers of Diderot it is +impossible to guess. It is assumed that when Mademoiselle Voland died +her family gave his letters and other papers back to Diderot. These, +along with other documents, are supposed to have been given by Diderot +to Grimm. Thence they went to the Library of the Hermitage at St. +Petersburg. Whether Jeudy-Dugour sold copies or originals, and whether +he made the copies, if copies they were, from the Library, which was, +however, rigorously closed during the reign of Nicholas I., are literary +secrets which it is impossible to fathom. So far as Diderot is +concerned, some of the spirit of mystification that haunted literature +in the eighteenth century still hovers about it in the nineteenth. This +we shall presently find in a still more interesting monument of Diderot +than even his letters to Mademoiselle Voland.[194] + +They are not a continuous series. It was only when either Diderot was +absent from Paris, or his correspondent was away at her mother's house +in the country, that letter-writing was necessary. Diderot appears to +have written to her openly and without disguise. The letters of +Mademoiselle Voland in reply were for obvious reasons not sent to +Diderot's house, but under cover to the office of Damilaville, so well +known to the reader of Voltaire's correspondence. Damilaville was a +commissioner in one of the revenue departments, and it is one among many +instances of the connivance between authority and its foes, that most of +the letters and packets of Voltaire, Diderot, and the rest of the group, +should have been taken in, sent out, guarded, and franked by the head of +a government office. The trouble that Damilaville willingly took in +order to serve his friends is another example of what we have already +remarked as the singular amiability and affectionate solicitude of those +times. "Think of Damilaville's attention," says Diderot on one occasion: +"to-day is Sunday, and he was obliged to leave his office. He was sure +that I should come this evening, for I never fail when I hope for a +letter from you. He left the key with two candles on a table, and +between the two candles your little letter, and a pleasant note of his +own." And by the light of the candles Diderot at once wrote a long +answer.[195] + +We need not wonder if much is said in these letters of tardy couriers, +missing answers, intolerable absences, dreary partings, delicious +anticipations. All these are the old eternal talk of men and women, ever +since the world began; without them we should hardly know that we are +reading the words of man to woman. They are in our present case only +the setting of a curiously frank and open picture of a man's life. + +It is held by some that one of the best means of giving the sense of a +little fixity to lives that are but as the evanescent fabric of a dream +and the shadow of smoke, is to secure stability of topographical centre +by abiding in the same house. Diderot is one of the few who complied +with this condition. For thirty years he occupied the fourth and fifth +floors of a house which was still standing not long ago, at the corner +of the Rue Saint Benoit by the Rue Taranne, in that Paris which our +tourists leave unexplored, but which is nevertheless the true Paris of +the eighteenth century. Of the equipment of his room we have a charming +picture by the hand of its occupant. It occurs in his playful Regrets on +My Old Dressing-gown, so rich in happy and delightful touches. + +"What induced me to part with it? It was made for me; I was made for it. +It moulded itself to all the turns and outlines of my body without +fretting me. I was picturesque and beautiful; its successor, so stiff, +so heavy, makes a mere mannikin of me. There was no want to which, its +complaisance did not lend itself, for indigence is ever obsequious. Was +a book covered with dust, one of the lappets offered itself to wipe the +dust away. Did the thick ink refuse to flow from the pen, it offered a +fold. You saw traced in the long black lines upon it how many a service +it had rendered me. Those long lines announced the man of letters, the +writer, the workman. And now I have all the mien of a rich idler; you +know not who I may be. I was the absolute master of my old robe; I am +the slave of my new one. The dragon that guarded the golden fleece was +not more restless than I. Care wraps me about. + +"The old man who has delivered himself up bound hand and foot to the +caprices of a young giddypate, says from morning to night: Ah, where is +my old, my kind housekeeper? What demon possessed me the day that I +dismissed her for this creature? Then he sighs, he weeps. I do not weep +nor sigh; but at every moment I say: Cursed be the man who invented the +art of making common stuff precious by dyeing it scarlet! Cursed be the +costly robe that I stand in awe of! Where is my old, my humble, my +obliging piece of homespun? + +"That is not all, my friend. Hearken to the ravages of luxury--of a +luxury that must needs be consistent with itself. My old gown was at one +with the things about me. A straw-bottomed chair, a wooden table, a deal +shelf that held a few books, and three or four engravings, dimmed by +smoke, without a frame, nailed at the four corners to the wall. Among +the engravings three or four casts in plaster were hung up; they formed, +with my old dressing-gown, the most harmonious indigence. All has become +discord. No more _ensemble_, no more unity, no more beauty. + +"The woman who comes into the house of a widower, the minister who steps +into the place of a statesman in disgrace, the molinist bishop who gets +hold of the diocese of a jansenist bishop--none of these people cause +more trouble than the intruding scarlet has caused to me. + +"I can bear without disgust the sight of a peasant-woman. The bit of +coarse canvas that covers her head, the hair falling about her cheeks, +the rags that only half cover her, the poor short skirt that goes no +more than half-way down her legs, the naked feet covered with mud--all +these things do not wound me; 'tis the image of a condition that I +respect, 'tis the sign and summary of a state that is inevitable, that +is woful, and that I pity with all my heart. But my gorge rises, and in +spite of the scented air that follows her, I turn my eyes from the +courtesan, whose fine lace head-gear and torn cuffs, white stockings and +worn-out shoes, show me the misery of the day in company with the +opulence of last night. Such would my house have been, if the imperious +scarlet had not forced all into harmony with itself. I had two +engravings that were not without merit, Poussin's Manna in the +Wilderness, and the same painter's Esther before Ahasuerus; the one is +driven out in shame by some old man of Rubens's, the Fall of the Manna +is scattered to the winds by a Storm of Vernet's. The old straw chair is +banished to the ante-room by a luxurious thing of morocco. Homer, +Virgil, Horace, Cicero, have been taken from their shelf and shut up in +a case of grand marqueterie work, an asylum worthier of them than of me. +The wooden table still held its ground, protected by a vast pile of +pamphlets and papers heaped pell-mell upon it; they seemed as if they +would long protect it from its doom. Yet one day that too was mastered +by fate, and in spite of my idleness pamphlets and papers went to +arrange themselves in the shelves of a costly bureau.... It was thus that +the edifying retreat of the philosopher became transformed into the +scandalous cabinet of the farmer-general. Thus I too am insulting the +national misery. + +"Of my early mediocrity there remained only a list carpet. The shabby +carpet hardly matches with my luxury. I feel it. But I have sworn and I +swear that I will keep this carpet, as the peasant, who was raised from +the hut to the palace of his sovereign, still kept his wooden shoes. +When in a morning, clad in the sumptuous scarlet, I enter my room, if I +lower my eyes I perceive my old list carpet; it recalls to me my early +state, and rising pride stands checked. No, my friend, I am not +corrupted. My door is open as ever to want; it finds me affable as ever; +I listen to its tale, I counsel, I pity, I succour it." ... + +Yet the interior of Socrates-Diderot was as little blessed by domestic +sympathy as the interior of the older and greater Socrates. Of course +Diderot was far enough from being faultless. His wife is described by +Rousseau as a shrew and a scold. It is too plain that she was so; sullen +to her husband, impatient with her children, and exacting and +unreasonable with her servants.[196] We cannot pretend accurately to +divide the blame. The companionship was very dreary, and the picture +grievous and most afflicting to our thoughts. Diderot returns in the +evening from Holbach's, throws his carpet-bag in at the door, flies off +to seek a letter from Mademoiselle Voland, writes one to her, gets back +to his house at midnight, finds his daughter ill, puts cheerful and +cordial questions to his wife, she replies with a tartness that drives +him back into silence.[197] Another time the scene is violent. A torrent +of injustice and unreasonableness flows over him for two long hours, and +he wonders what the woman will profit, after she has made him burst a +blood-vessel; he groans in anguish, "Ah, how hard life seems to me to +bear! How many a time would I accept the end of it with joy!"[198] So +sharp are the goads in a divided house; so sorely, with ache and smart +and deep-welling tears, do men and women rend into shreds the fine web +of one another's lives. But the pity of it, O the pity of it! + +There are many brighter intervals which make one willing to suppose +that if the wife had been a little more patient, more tolerant, more +cheerful, less severely addicted to her sterile superstition, there +might have been somewhat more happiness in the house. One misery of the +present social ideal of women is that, while it keeps them so +systematically ignorant, superstitious, and narrow, it leaves them +without humility. "Be content," said the great John Wesley to his +froward wife, "be content to be a private insignificant person, known +and loved by God and me. Of what importance is your character to +mankind? If you was buried just now, or if you had never lived, what +loss would it be to the cause of God?" This energetic remonstrance can +hardly be said to exhaust the matter. Still it puts a wholesome side of +the case which Madame Diderot missed, and which better persons are +likely to miss, so long as the exclusion of women, by common opinion or +by law, from an active participation in the settlement of great issues, +makes them indifferent to all interests outside domestic egoism, and +egoistic and personal religion. Brighter intervals shone in the +household. "I announced my departure," writes Diderot, "for next +Tuesday. At the first word I saw the faces both of mother and daughter +fall. The child had a compliment for my fête-day all ready, and it would +not do to let her waste the trouble of having learnt it. The mother had +projected a grand dinner for Sunday. Well, we arranged everything +perfectly. I made my journey, and came back to be harangued and +feasted. The poor child made her little speech in the most bewitching +way. In the middle there came some hard words, so she stopped and said +to me, 'My papa, 'tis because my two front teeth have come out'--as was +true. Then she went on. At the end, as she had a posy to give me, and it +could not be found, she stopped a second time to say to me--'Here's the +worst of the tale; my pinks have got lost.' Then she started off in +search of her flowers. We dined in great style. My wife had got all her +friends together. I was very gay, eating, drinking, and doing the +honours of my table to perfection. On rising from table I stayed among +them and played cards instead of going out. I saw them all off between +eleven and twelve: I was charming, and if you only knew with whom; what +physiognomies, what folk, what talk!" + +Another time the child, whispering in his ear, asks why her mother bade +her not remind him that the morrow was the mother's fête-day. The +presence of the blithe all-hoping young, looking on with innocent +unconscious eyes at the veiled tragedy of love turned to bitter discord, +gives to such scenes their last touch of piteousness. Diderot, however, +observed the day, and presented a bouquet which was neither well or ill +received. At the birthday dinner the master of the house presided. "If +you had been behind the curtains, you would have said to yourself, how +can all this gossip and twaddle find a place in the same head with +certain ideas! And in truth I was charming, and played the fool to a +marvel."[199] + +In the midst of distractions great and small, was an indomitable +industry. "I tell you," he wrote, "and I tell all men, when you are ill +at ease with yourself, instantly set about some good work. In busying +myself to soothe the trouble of another, I forget my own." He was +assiduous in teaching his daughter, though he complained that her mother +crushed out in a day what it had taken him a month to implant. The +booksellers found him the most cheerful and strenuous bondsman that ever +booksellers had. He would pass a whole month without a day's break, +working ten hours every day at the revision of proof-sheets. Sometimes +he remains a whole week without leaving his workroom. He wears out his +eyes over plates and diagrams, bristling with figures and letters, and +with no more refreshing thought in the midst of this sore toil than that +insult, persecution, torment, trickery, will be the fruit of it. He not +only spent whole days bent over his desk, until he had a feeling as of +burning flame within him; he also worked through the hours of the night. +On one of these occasions, worn out with fatigue and weariness, he fell +asleep with his head on his desk; the light fell down among his papers, +and he awoke to find half the books and papers on the desk burnt to +ashes. "I kept my own counsel about it," he writes, "because a single +hint of such an accident would have robbed my wife of sleep for the +rest of her life."[200] + +His favourite form of holiday was a visit to Holbach's country house at +Grandval. Here he spent some six weeks or more nearly every autumn after +1759. The manner of life there was delightful to him. There was perfect +freedom, the mistress of the house neither rendering strict duties of +ceremony nor exacting them. Diderot used to rise at six or at eight, and +remain in his own room until one, reading, writing, meditating. Nobody +was more exquisitely sensible than Diderot to the charm of loitering +over books, "over those authors," as he said, "who ravish us from +ourselves, in whose hands nature has placed a fairy wand, with which +they no sooner touch us, than straightway we forget the evils of life, +the darkness lifts from our souls, and we are reconciled to +existence."[201] The musing suggestiveness of reading when we read only +for reading's sake, and not for reproduction nor direct use, was as +delightful to our laborious drudge as to others, but he could indulge +himself with little of this sweet idleness. It was in harder labour that +he passed most of his mornings. These hours of work achieved, he dressed +and went down among his friends. Then came the mid-day dinner, which was +sumptuous; host and guests both ate and drank more than was good for +their health. After a short siesta, towards four o'clock they took their +sticks and went forth to walk, among woods, over ploughed fields, up +hills, through quagmires, delighting in nature. As they went, they +talked of history, or politics, or chemistry, of literature, or physics, +or morality. At sundown they returned, to find lights and cards on the +tables, and they made parties of piquet, interrupted by supper. At +half-past ten the game ends, they chat until eleven, and in half an hour +more they are all fast asleep.[202] Each day was like the next; +industry, gaiety, bodily comfort, mental activity, diversifying the +hours. Grimm was often there, "the most French of all the Germans," and +Galiani, the most nimble-witted of men, inexhaustible in story, +inimitable in pantomimic narration, and yet with the keenest +intellectual penetration shining through all his Neapolitan prank and +buffoonery. Holbach cared most for the physical sciences. Marmontel +brought a vein of sentimentalism, and Helvétius a vein of cynical +formalism. Diderot played Socrates, Panurge, Pantophile; questioning, +instructing, combining; pouring out knowledge and suggestion, full of +interest in every subject, sympathetic with every vein, relishing alike +the newest philosophic hardihood, the last too merry mood of Holbach's +mother-in-law, the freshest piece of news brought by a traveller. It was +not at Grandval that he found life hard to bear, or would have accepted +its close with joy. And indeed if one could by miracle be transported +back into the sixth decade of that dead century for a single day, +perhaps one might choose that such a day should be passed among the +energetic and vivid men who walked of an afternoon among the fields and +woods of Grandval. + +The unblushing grossness of speech which even the ladies of the party +permitted themselves cannot be reproduced in the decorous print of our +age. It is nothing less than inconceivable to us how Diderot can have +brought himself to write down, in letters addressed to a woman of good +education and decent manners, some of the talk that went on at Grandval. +The coarsest schoolboy of these days would wince at such shameless +freedoms. But it would be wrong to forget the allowance that must be +made for differences in point of fashion. Diderot, for instance, in +these very letters is wonderfully frank in his exposure of the details +of his health. He describes his indigestions, and other more +indescribable obstructions to happiness, as freely as Cicero wrote about +the dysentery which punished him, when, after he had resisted oysters +and lampreys at supper, he yielded to a dish of beet and mallow so +dressed with pot-herbs, _ut nil posset esse suavius_. Whatever men could +say to one another or to their surgeons they saw no harm in saying to +women. We have to remember how Sir Walter Scott's great-aunt, about the +very time when Diderot was writing to Mademoiselle Voland, had heard +Mrs. Aphra Behn's books read aloud for the amusement of large circles, +consisting of the first and most creditable society in London. We think +of Swift, in an earlier period of the century, enclosing to Stella some +recklessly gross verses of his own upon Bolingbroke, and habitually +writing to fine ladies in a way that Falstaff might have thought too bad +for Doll Tearsheet. In saying that these coarse impurities are only +points of manners, we are as far as possible from meaning that they are +on that account unimportant. But it is childish to waste our time in +censorious judgment on the individual who does no worse than represent a +ruling type. We can only note the difference and pass on. + +A characteristic trait in this rural life is Diderot's passion for high +winds. They gave him a transport, and to hear the storm at night, +tossing the trees, drenching the ground with rain, and filling the air +with the bass of its hoarse ground-tones, was one of his keenest +delights.[203] Yet Diderot was not of those in whom the feeling for the +great effects of nature has something of savagery. He was above all +things human, and the human lot was the central source of his innermost +meditations. In the midst of gossip is constantly interpolated some +passage of fine reflection on life--reflection as sincere, as real, +coming as spontaneously from the writer's inmost mood and genuine +sentiment, as little tainted either by affectation or by commonness, as +ever passed through the mind of a man. Some of these are too +characteristic to be omitted, and there is so little of what is +exquisite in the flavour of Diderot's style, that he perhaps suffers +less from the clumsiness of translation than writers of finer colour or +more stirring melody. One of these passages is as follows:-- + +"The last news from Paris has made the Baron anxious, as he has +considerable sums in royal securities. He said to his wife: 'Listen, my +friend; if this is going on, I put down the carriage, I buy you a good +cloak and a good parasol, and for the rest of our days we will bless the +minister for ridding us of horses, lackeys, coachmen, ladies'-maids, +cooks, great dinner-parties, false friends, tiresome bores, and all the +other privileges of opulence.' And for my part I began to think, that +for a man without a wife or child, or any of those connections that make +us long for money, and never leave any superfluity, it would be almost +indifferent whether he were poor or rich. This paradox comes of the +equality that I discover among various conditions of life, and in the +little difference that I allow, in point of happiness, between the +master of the house and the hall-porter. If I am sound in mind and body, +if I have worth and a pure conscience, if I know the true from the +false, if I avoid evil and do good, if I feel the dignity of my being, +if nothing lowers me in my own eyes, then people may call me what they +will, _My Lord,_ or _Sirrah_. To do what is good, to know what is +true--that is what distinguishes one man from another; the rest is +nothing. The duration of life is so short, its true needs are so narrow, +and when we go away, it all matters so little whether we have been +somebody or nobody. When the end comes, all that you want is a sorry +piece of canvas and four deal boards. In the morning I hear the +labourers under my window. Scarce has the day dawned before they are at +work with spade and barrow, delving and wheeling. They munch a crust of +black bread; they quench their thirst at the flowing stream; at noon +they snatch an hour of sleep on the hard ground. They are cheerful; they +sing as they work; they exchange their good broad pleasantries with one +another; they shout with laughter. At sundown they go home to find +their children naked round a smoke-blackened hearth, a woman hideous and +dirty, and their lot is neither worse nor better than mine. I came down +from my room in bad spirits; I heard talk about the public misery; I sat +down to a table full of good cheer without an appetite; I had a stomach +overloaded with the dainties of the day before; I grasped a stick and +set out for a walk to find relief; I returned to play cards, and cheat +the heavy-weighing hours. I had a friend of whom I could not hear; I was +far from a woman whom I sighed for. Troubles in the country, troubles in +the town, troubles everywhere. He who knows not trouble is not to be +counted among the children of men. All gets paid off in time; the good +by the evil, evil by good, and life is naught. Perhaps to-morrow night +or Monday morning we may go to pass a day in town; so I shall see the +woman for whom I sighed, and recover the man of whom I could not hear. +But I shall lose them the next day; and the more I feel the happiness of +being with them, the worse I shall suffer at parting. That is the way +that all things go. Turn and turn and turn again; there is ever a +crumpled rose-leaf to vex you."[204] + +It is not often that we find such active benevolence as Diderot's, in +conjunction with such a vein of philosophy as follows:-- + +"Ah, what a fine comedy this world would be, if only one had not to play +a part in it; if one existed, for instance, in some point of space, in +that interval of the celestial orbs where the gods of Epicurus slumber, +far, far away, whence one could see this globe, on which we strut so +big, about the size of a pumpkin, and whence one could watch all the +airs and tricks of that two-footed mite who calls itself man. I would +fain only look at the scenes of life in reduced size, so that those +which are stamped with atrocity may be brought down to an inch in space, +and to actors half a line high. But how bizarre, that our sense of +revolt against injustice is in the ratio of the space and the mass. I am +furious if a large animal unjustly attacks another. I feel nothing at +all if it is two atoms that tear and rend. How our senses affect our +morality. There is a fine text for philosophising!"[205] + +"What I see every day of physic and physicians does not much heighten my +opinion of them. To come into the world in imbecility, in the midst of +anguish and cries; to be the toy of ignorance, of error, of necessity, +of sickness, of malice, of all passions; to return step by step to that +imbecility whence one sprang; from the moment when we lisp our first +words, down to the moment when we mumble the words of our dotage, to +live among rascals and charlatans of every kind; to lie expiring between +a man who feels your pulse, and another man who frets and wearies your +head; not to know whence one comes, nor why one has come, nor whither +one is going--that is what we call the greatest gift of our parents and +of nature--human life."[206] + +These sombre meditations hardly represent Diderot's habitual vein; they +are rather a reaction and a relief from the busy intensity with which he +watches the scene, and is constantly putting interrogatories to human +life, as day by day its motley circumstance passes before his eyes. We +should scarcely suspect from his frequent repetitions of the mournful +eternal chorus of the nullity of man and the vanity of all the things +that are under the sun, how alert a watch he kept on incident and +character, with what keen and open ear he listened for any curious note +of pain, or voice of fine emotion, or odd perversity of fate. All this +he does, not in the hard temper of a Balzac, not with the calm or pride +of a Goethe, but with an overflowing fulness of spontaneous and +uncontrollable sympathy. He is a sentimentalist in the rationalistic +century, not with the sentimentalism of misanthropy, such as fired or +soured Rousseau, but social, large-hearted, many-sided, careless of the +wise rigours of morality. He is never callous nor neutral; on the +contrary, he is always approving or disapproving, but not from the +standards of the ethical text-books. The casuistry of feeling is of +everlasting interest to him, and he is never tired of inventing +imaginary cases, or pondering real ones, in which pliant feeling is +invoked against the narrowness of duty. These are mostly in a kind of +matter which modern taste hardly allows us to reproduce; nor, after all, +is there much to be gained by turning the sanctities of human +relationship, with all their immeasurable bliss, their immeasurable woe, +into the playthings of an idle dialectic. It is pleasanter, and for us +English not less instructive than pleasant, to see this dreaming, +restless, thrice ingenious spirit, half Titan of the skies, half gnome +of the lower earth, entering joyously or pitifully into the simple charm +and natural tenderness of life as it comes and passes. Nothing delights +him more than to hear or to tell such a story as this of Madame +D'Epinay. She had given a small lad eighteen sous for a day's work. At +night he went home without a farthing. When his mother asked him +whether they had given him nothing for his work, he said No. The mother +found out that this was untrue, and insisted on knowing what had become +of the eighteen sous. The poor little creature had given them to an +alehouse-keeper, where his father had been drinking all day; and so he +had spared the worthy man a rough scene with his wife when he got +home.[207] + +From the pathos of kindly youth to the grace of lovable age the step is +not far. "To-day I have dined with a charming woman, who is only eighty +years old. She is full of health and cheerfulness; her soul is still +all gentleness and tenderness. She talks of love and friendship with +the fire and sensibility of a girl of twenty. There were three men of +us at table with her; she said to us, 'My friends, a delicate +conversation, a true and passionate look, a tear, a touched expression, +those are the good things of the world; as for all besides, it is +hardly worth talking of. There are certain things that were said to me +when I was young, and that I remember to this day, and any one of those +words is to be preferred before ten glorious deeds: by my faith, I +believe if I heard them even now, my old heart would beat the quicker.' +'Madame, the reason is that your heart has grown no older.' 'No, my +son, you are right; it is as young as ever. It is not for having kept +me alive so long that I thank God, but for having kept me kind-hearted, +gentle, and full of feeling.'"[208] All this was after Diderot's own +heart, and he declares such a conversation to be worth more than all +the hours of talk on politics and philosophy that he had been having a +few days before with some English friends. We may understand how, as we +shall presently see, a member of a society that could relish the beauty +of such a scene, would be likely to think Englishmen hard, surly, and +cheerless. + +His letters constantly offer us sensible and imaginative reflection. He +amused himself in some country village by talking to an old man of +eighty. "I love children and old men; the latter seem to me like some +singular creatures that have been spared by caprice of fate." He meets +some old schoolfellows at Langres, nearly all the rest having gone: +"Well, there are two things that warn us of our end, and set us +musing--old ruins, and the short duration of those who began life with +us." He is taken by a host over-devoted to such joys, to walk among +dung-heaps. "After all," he says, "it ought not to offend one's sense. +To an honest nose that has preserved its natural innocence, 'tis not a +goat, but a bemusked and ambre-scented woman, who smelleth ill." + +"When I compare our friendships to our antipathies, I find that the +first are thin, small, pinched; we know how to hate, but we do not know +how to love." + +"A poet who becomes idle, does excellently well to be idle; he ought to +be sure that it is not industry that fails, but that his gift is +departing from him." + +"Comfort the miserable; that is the true way to console yourself for my +absence. I recollect saying to the Baron, when he lost his first wife, +and was sure that there was not another day's happiness left for him in +this world, 'Hasten out of doors, seek out the wretched, console them, +and then you will pity yourself, if you dare.'"[209] + +"An infinitude of tyrannical things interpose between us and the duties +of love and friendship; and we do nothing aright. A man is neither free +for his ambition, nor free for his taste, nor free for his passion. And +so we all live discontented with ourselves. One of the great +inconveniences of the state of society is the multitude of our +occupations and, above all, the levity with which we make engagements to +dispose of all our future happiness. We marry, we go into business, we +have children, all before we have common sense."[210] + +After some equivocal speculations as to the conduct of a woman who, by +the surrender of herself for a quarter of an hour to the desires of a +powerful minister, wins an appointment for her husband and bread for her +six children, he exclaims: "In truth, I think Nature heeds neither good +nor evil; she is wholly wrapped up in two objects, the preservation of +the individual and the propagation of the species."[211] True; but the +moral distinction between right and wrong is so much wrung from the +forces that Diderot here calls Nature. + +The intellectual excitement in which he lived and the energy with which +he promoted it, sought relief either in calm or else in the play of +sensibility. "A delicious repose," he writes in one of his most harassed +moments, "a sweet book to read, a walk in some open and solitary spot, a +conversation in which one discloses all one's heart, a strong emotion +that brings the tears to one's eyes and makes the heart beat faster, +whether it comes of some tale of generous action, or of a sentiment of +tenderness, of health, of gaiety, of liberty, of indolence--there is the +true happiness, nor shall I ever know any other." + +_A Point in Rhetoric._--"Towards six in the evening the party broke up. +I remained alone with D., and as we were talking about the Eloges on +Descartes that had been sent in to the Academy, I made two remarks that +pleased him upon eloquence. One, that it is a mistake to try to stir the +passions before convincing the reason, and that the pathetic remains +without effect, when it is not prepared by the syllogism. Second, that +after the orator had touched me keenly, I could not endure that he +should break in upon this melting of the soul with some violent stroke: +that the pathetic insists on being followed by something moderate, weak, +vague, that should leave room for no contention on my part."[212] + +_Holbach's Impressions of England._--"The Baron has returned from +England. He started with the pleasantest anticipations, he had a most +agreeable reception, he had excellent health, and yet he has returned +out of humour and discontented; discontented with the country, which he +found neither as populous nor as well cultivated as people say; +discontented with the buildings, that are nearly all bizarre and Gothic; +with the gardens, where the affectation of imitating nature is worse +than the monotonous symmetry of art; with the taste that heaps up in the +palaces what is first-rate, what is good, what is bad, what is +detestable, all pell-mell. He is disgusted at the amusements, which have +the air of religious ceremonies; with the men, on whose countenances you +never see confidence, friendship, gaiety, sociability, but on every face +the inscription, _'What is there in common between me and you?'_; +disgusted with the great people, who are gloomy, cold, proud, haughty, +and vain; and with the small people, who are hard, insolent, and +barbarous. The only thing that I have heard him praise is the facility +of travel: he says there is not a village, even on a cross-road, where +you do not find four or five post-chaises and a score of horses ready to +start.... There is no public education. The colleges--sumptuous +buildings--palaces to be compared to the Tuileries, are occupied by rich +idlers, who sleep and get drunk one part of the day, and the rest they +spend in training, clumsily enough, a parcel of uncouth lads to be +clergymen.... In the fine places that have been built for public +amusements, you could hear a mouse run. A hundred stiff and silent women +walk round and round an orchestra that is set up in the middle. The +Baron compares these circuits to the seven processions of the Egyptians +round the tomb of Osiris. A charming _mot_ of my good friend Garrick, is +that London is good for the English, but Paris is good for all the +world.... There is a great mania for conversions and missionaries. Mr. +Hume told me a story which will let you know what to think of these +pretended conversions of cannibals and Hurons. A minister thought he had +done a great stroke in this line; he had the vanity to wish to show his +proselyte, and brought him to London. They question his little Huron, +and he answers to perfection. They take him to church, and administer +the sacrament, where, as you know, the communion is in both kinds. +Afterwards, the minister says to him, 'Well, my son, do you not feel +yourself more animated with the love of God? Does not the grace of the +sacrament work within you? Is not all your soul warmed?' 'Yes,' says the +Huron: 'the wine does one good, but I think it would have done still +better if it had been brandy.'"[213] + +_Two Cases of Conscience_.--"The curé said that unhappy lovers always +talked about dying, but that it was very rare to find one who kept his +word; still he had seen one case. It was that of a young man of family, +called Soulpse. He fell in love with a young lady of beauty and of good +character, but without money, and belonging to a dishonoured family. Her +father was in the galleys for forgery. The young man, who foresaw all +the opposition, and all the good grounds for opposition, that he would +have to encounter among his family, did all that he could to cure +himself of his passion; but when he was assured of the uselessness of +his efforts, he plucked up courage to open the matter to his parents, +who wearied themselves with remonstrances. Our lover suddenly stopped +them short, saying, 'I know all that you have to say against me; I +cannot disapprove of your reasons, which I should be the first to urge +against my own son, if I had one. But consider whether you would rather +have me dead or badly married; for it is certain that if I do not marry +the woman that I love, I shall die of it.' They treated this speech as +it deserved; the result does not affect that. The young man fell sick, +faded from day to day, and died. 'But, Curé,' said I, 'in the place of +the father, what would you have done?' 'I would have called my son; I +would have said: Soulpse has been your name hitherto; never forget that +it is yours no more; and call yourself by what other name you please. +Here is your lawful share of our property; marry the woman you love, so +far from here that I may never hear speak of you again, and God bless +you. 'For my part,' said old Madame D'Esclavelles, 'if I had been the +mother of the young madman, I would have done exactly as his father did, +and let him die.' And upon this there was a tremendous division of +opinion, and an uproar that made the room ring again. + +"The dispute lasted a long time, and would be going on now if the cure +had not broken it off by putting to us another case. A young priest, +discontented with his profession, flees to England, apostatises, marries +according to the law, and has children. After a certain time he longs +for his native country; he comes back to France with his children and +his wife. After that, again, he is stricken by remorse; he returns to +his religion, has scruples about his marriage, and thinks of separating +from his wife. He opens his heart to our curé, who finds the case very +embarrassing, and not venturing to decide it, refers him to casuists and +lawyers. They all decide that he cannot, with a sure conscience, remain +with his wife. When the separation, which the wife opposed with all her +might, was about to be legally effected--rather against the wishes of +our curé--the husband fell dangerously ill. When he knew that he could +not recover, he said to the curé: 'My friend, I wish to make public +amends for my backsliding, to receive the sacraments, and to die in the +hospital; be kind enough to have me taken there.' 'I will take care to +do no such thing,' the curé replied to him. 'This woman is innocent; she +married you according to law; she knew nothing of the obstacles that +existed. And these children, what share have they in your sin? You are +the only wrongdoer, and it is they who are to be punished! Your wife +will be disgraced, your children will be declared illegitimate, and what +is the gain of it all?' And the good curé stuck to his text. He +confessed his man, the illness grew worse, he administered the last +sacraments. The man died, and his wife and children remained in +possession of the titles they had. We all approved the curé's wisdom, +and Grimm insisted on having his portrait taken."[214] + +_Chinese Superiority_.---"Apropos of the Chinese, do you know that with +them nobility ascends, and descends never? It is the children who +ennoble their ancestors, and not the ancestors the children. And upon my +word that is most sensible. We are greater poets, greater philosophers, +greater orators, greater architects, greater astronomers, greater +geometers, than these good people; but they understand better than we +the science of good sense and virtue; and if peradventure that science +should happen to be the first of all sciences, they would be right in +saying that they have two eyes and we have only one, and all the rest of +the world is blind."[215] + +_Why Women write good Letters_.--"She writes admirably, really +admirably. That is because good style is in the heart; and that is why +so many women talk and write like angels without ever having learnt +either to talk or to write, and why so many pedants will both talk and +write ill all the days of their life, though they were never weary of +studying,--only without learning."[216] + +"A little adventure has just happened here that proves that all our fine +sermons on intolerance have as yet produced but poor fruit. A young man +of respectable birth, some say apprentice to an apothecary, others to a +grocer, took it into his head to go through a course of chemistry; his +master consented, on condition that he should pay for board; the lad +agreed. At the end of the quarter the master demanded the money, and it +was paid. Soon after, another demand from the master; the apprentice +replied that he barely owed a single quarter. The master denied that the +first quarter had been paid. The affair was taken into court. The master +is put on his oath, and swears. He had no sooner perjured himself than +the apprentice produced his receipt, and the master was straightway +fined and disgraced. He was a scoundrel who deserved it, but the +apprentice was a rash fellow, whose victory was bought at a price dearer +than life. He had received, in payment or otherwise, from some +colporteur, two copies of _Christianity Unveiled_, and one of them he +had sold to his master. The master informs against him. The colporteur, +his wife, and his apprentice, are all three arrested, and they have just +been pilloried, whipped, and branded, and the apprentice condemned to +nine years of the galleys, the colporteur to five years, and the woman +to the hospital for life.... Do you see the meaning of this judgment? A +colporteur brings me a prohibited book. If I buy more than one copy, I +am declared to be encouraging unlawful trading, and exposed to a +frightful prosecution. You have read the _Man with Forty Crowns_,[217] +and will hardly be able to guess why it is placed under the ban in the +judgment I am telling you of. It is in consequence of the profound +resentment that our lords and masters feel about a certain article, +_Tyrant_, in the _Philosophical Dictionary_. They will never forgive +Voltaire for saying that it was better to have to do with a single wild +beast, which one could avoid, than with a band of little subaltern +tigers who are incessantly getting between your legs.... To return to +those two unfortunate wretches whom they have condemned to the galleys. +When they come out, what will become of them? There will be nothing left +for them to do, save to turn highway robbers. The ignominious +penalties, which take away all resource from a man, are worse than the +capital punishment that takes away his life."[218] + +_Method and Genius: an Apologue._--"There was a question between Grimm +and M. Le Roy of creative genius and co-ordinating method. Grimm detests +method; according to him, it is the pedantry of letters. Those who can +only arrange, would do as well to remain idle; those who can only get +instruction from what has been arranged, would do as well to remain +ignorant. What necessity is there for so many people knowing anything +else besides their trade? They said a great many things that I don't +report to you, and they would be saying things still, if the Abbé +Galiani had not interrupted them: + +'My friends, I remember a fable: pray listen to it. One day, in the +depths of a forest, a dispute arose between a Nightingale and a Cuckoo. +Each prizes its own gift. What bird, said the Cuckoo, has a song so +easy, so simple, so natural, so measured, as mine? + +What bird, said the Nightingale, has a song sweeter, more varied, more +brilliant, more touching, than mine? + +_The Cuckoo:_ I say few things, but they are things of weight, of order, +and people retain them. + +_The Nightingale:_ I love to use my voice, but I am always fresh, and I +never weary. I enchant the woods; the Cuckoo makes them dismal. He is so +attached to the lessons of his mother, that he would not dare to venture +a single note that he had not taken from her. Now for me, I recognise no +master. I laugh at rules. What comparison between his pedantic method +and my glorious bursts? + +The Cuckoo tried several times to interrupt the Nightingale. But +nightingales always go on singing, and never listen; that is rather +their weakness. Ours, carried away by his ideas, followed them with +rapidity, without paying the least attention to the answers of his +rival. + +So after some talk and counter-talk, they agreed to refer their quarrel +to the judgment of a third animal. But where were they to find this +third, equally competent and impartial? It is not so easy to find a good +judge. They sought on every side. As they crossed a meadow, they spied +an Ass, one of the gravest and most solemn that ever was seen. Since the +creation of the world, no ass had ever had such long ears. 'Ah,' said +the Cuckoo, 'our luck is excellent; our quarrel is a matter of ears: +here is our judge. God Almighty made him for the very purpose!' + +The Ass went on browsing. He little thought that one day he would have +to decide a question of music. But Providence amuses itself with this +and many another thing. Our two birds bow very low, compliment him upon +his gravity and his judgment, explain the subject of their dispute, and +beseech him, with all deference, to listen to their case and decide. + +But the Ass, hardly turning his heavy head and without losing a single +toothsome blade, makes them a sign with his ears that he is hungry, and +that he does not hold his court to-day. The birds persist; the Ass goes +on browsing. At last his hunger was appeased. There were some trees +planted by the edge of the meadow. 'Now, if you like,' said he, 'you go +there, I will follow; you shall sing, I will digest; I will listen, and +I'll give you my opinion.' + +The birds instantly fly away, and perch on branches. The Ass follows +them with the air and the step of a chief justice crossing Westminster +Hall: he stretches himself flat on the ground, and says, 'Begin, the +court listens.' + +Says the Cuckoo: 'My lord, there is not a word to lose. I beg of you to +seize carefully the character of my singing; above all things, deign, my +lord, to mark its artifice and its method.' Then filling its throat, and +flapping its wings at each note, it sang out, 'Coucou, coucou, coucou, +coucou, coucou, coucou.' And after having combined this in every +possible way, it fell silent. + +The Nightingale, without any prelude, pours forth his voice at once, +launches into the most daring modulations, pursues the freshest and most +delicate melodies, cadences, pauses, and trills; now you heard the notes +murmuring at the bottom of its throat, like the ripple of the brook as +it loses itself among the pebbles; now you heard them rising and +gradually swelling and filling the air, and lingering long-drawn in the +skies. It was tender, glad, brilliant, pathetic; but his music was not +made for everybody. + +Carried away by enthusiasm, he would be singing still; but the Ass, who +had already yawned more than once, stopped him, and said, 'I suspect +that all you have been singing there is uncommonly fine, but I don't +understand a word of it: it strikes me as bizarre, incoherent, and +confused. It may be you are more scientific than your rival; but he is +more methodic than you, and for my part, I'm for method.' + +"And then the abbé, addressing M. Le Roy, and pointing to Grimm with his +finger: 'There,' he said, 'is the nightingale, and you the cuckoo; and I +am the ass, who decide in your favour. Good-night.' + +"The abbés stories are capital, but he acts in a way that makes them +better still. You would have died with laughing to see him stretch his +neck into the air, and imitate the fine note of the nightingale, then +fill his throat, and take up the hoarse tone for the cuckoo; and all +that naturally, and without effort. He is pantomime from head to +foot."[219] + +_Conversation._--"'Tis a singular thing, conversation, especially when +the company is tolerably large. Look at the roundabout circuits we took; +the dreams of a patient in delirium are not more incongruous. Still, +just as there is nothing absolutely unconnected in the head either of a +man who dreams, or of a lunatic, so all hangs together in conversation; +but it would often be extremely hard to find the imperceptible links +that have brought so many disparate ideas together. A man lets fall a +word which he detaches from what has gone before, and what has followed +in his head; another does the same, and then let him catch the thread +who can. A single physical quality may lead the mind that is engaged +upon it to an infinity of different things. Take a colour--yellow, for +instance; gold is yellow, silk is yellow, care is yellow, bile is +yellow, straw is yellow; to how many other threads does not this thread +answer? Madness, dreaming, the rambling of conversation, all consist in +passing from one object to another, through the medium of some common +quality."[220] + +_Annihilation._--"The conversation took a serious turn. They spoke of +the horror that we all feel for annihilation. + +"'Ah,' cried Father Hoop, 'be good enough to leave me out, if you +please. I have been too uncomfortable the first time to have any wish to +come back. If they would give me an immortality of bliss for a single +day of purgatory, I would not take it. The best that can befall us is to +cease to be.' + +"This set me musing, and it seemed to me that so long as I was in good +health I should agree with Father Hoop; but that, at the last instant, I +should perhaps purchase the happiness of living again by a thousand, +nay, ten thousand, years of hell. Ah, my dear, if I thought that I +should see you again, I should soon persuade myself of what a daughter +once succeeded in persuading her father on his deathbed. He was an old +usurer; a priest had sworn to him that he would be damned unless he made +restitution. He resolved to comply, and calling his daughter to his +bedside, said to her: 'My child, you thought I should leave you very +rich, and so I should; but the man there insists that I shall burn in +hell-fire for ever, if I die without making restitution.' 'You are +talking nonsense, father, with your restitution and your damnation,' the +daughter answered; 'with your character I you will not have been damned +ten years, before you will be perfectly used to it.' + +"This struck him as true, and he died without making restitution. + +"And so behold us launched into a discussion on life and death, on the +world and its alleged Creator. + +"Some one remarked that whether there be a God or no, it is impossible +to introduce that device either into nature or into a discussion without +darkening it. + +"Another said that if a single supposition explained all the phenomena, +it would not follow from this that it is true; for who knows whether the +general order only allows of one reason? What, then, must we think of a +supposition which, so far from resolving the one difficulty for the sake +of which people imagined it, only makes an infinity of others spring up +from it? + +"I believe, my dear, that our chat by the fireside still amuses you; so +I go on. + +"Among these difficulties is one that has been proposed ever since the +world has been a world; 'tis that men suffer without having deserved +suffering. There has been no answer to it yet. 'Tis the incompatibility +of physical and moral evil with the nature of the Eternal Being. This is +how the dilemma is put: it is either impotence or bad will; impotence, +if he wished to hinder evil and could not; bad will, if he could have +hindered it and did not will it. A child would understand that. It is +this that has led people to imagine the fault of the first father of us +all, original sin, future rewards and punishments, the incarnation, +immortality, the two principles of the Manicheans, the Ormuzd and +Ahriman of the Persians, the doctrine of emanations, the empire of light +and darkness, metempsychosis, optimism, and other absurdities that have +found credit among the different nations of the earth, where there is +always to be found some hollow vision of a dream, by way of answer to a +clear, precise, and definite fact. + +"On such occasions what is the part of good sense? Why, the part that we +took: whatever the optimists may say, we will reply to them that if the +universe could not exist without sensible creatures, nor sensible +creatures without pain, there was nothing to do but to leave chaos at +peace. They had got on very well for a whole eternity without any such +piece of folly. + +"The world a piece of folly! Ah, my dear, a glorious folly for all that! +'Tis, according to some of the inhabitants of Malabar, one of the +seventy-four comedies with which the Eternal amuses himself. + +"Leibnitz, the founder of optimism, tells somewhere how there was in the +Temple of Memphis a high pyramid of globes placed one above the others; +how a priest, being asked by a traveller about this pyramid and its +globes, made answer that these were all the possible worlds, and that +the most perfect of them all was at the summit; how the traveller, +curious to see this most perfect of all possible worlds, mounted to the +top of the pyramid, and the first thing that caught his eyes, as they +turned towards the globe at the summit, was Tarquin outraging +Lucretia."[221] + +Almost every letter reminds us that we are in the very height of the +disputing, arguing, rationalistic century. Diderot delighted in this +kind of argument, as Socrates or Dr. Johnson delighted in it. He was +above all others the archetype and representative of the passion for +moralising, analysing, and philosophising which made the epoch what it +was; but the rest of the world was all in the same vein. If he came to +Paris in a coach from the country, he found a young lady in it, eager to +demonstrate that serious passions are nowadays merely ridiculous; that +people only promise themselves pleasure, which they find or not, as the +case may be; that thus they spare themselves all the broken oaths of old +days. "I took the liberty of saying that I was still a man of those old +days. '_So much the worse for you_,' she said, '_you either deceive or +are deceived, and one is as bad as the other_.'"[222] If Grimm and +Madame d'Epinay and he were together, they discussed ethics from morning +to night; Diderot always on the side of the view that made most for the +dignity and worth of human nature. Grimm is described on one of these +occasions as having rather displeased Madame d'Epinay: "He was not +sufficiently ready to disapprove the remark of a man of our +acquaintance, who said that it was right to observe the most scrupulous +probity with one's friends, but that it was mere dupery to treat other +people better than they would treat us. We maintained, she and I, that +it was right and necessary to be honest and good with all the world +without distinction."[223] + +Here is another picture of discussion, with an introduction that is +thoroughly characteristic of Diderot's temper: + +"This man looks at the human race only on its dark side. He does not +believe in virtuous actions; he disparages them, and denies them. If he +tells a story, it is always about something scandalous and abominable. +I have just told you of the two women of my acquaintance, of whom he +took occasion to speak as ill as he could to Madame Le Gendre. They have +their defects, no doubt; but they have also their good qualities. Why be +silent about the good qualities, and only pick out the defects? There is +in all that a kind of envy that wounds me--me who read men as I read +authors, and who never burden my memory except with things that are good +to know and good to imitate. The conversation between Suard and Madame +Le Gendre had been very vivacious. They sought the reasons why persons +of sensibility were so readily, so strongly, so deliciously moved at the +story of a good action. Suard maintained that it was due to a sixth +sense that nature had endowed us with, to judge the good and the +beautiful. They pressed to know what I thought of it. I answered that +this sixth sense was a chimæra; that all was the result of experience in +us; that we learnt from our earliest infancy what it was in our instinct +to hide or to show. When the motives of our actions, our judgments, our +demonstrations, are present to us, we have what is called science; when +they are not present to our memory, we have only what is called taste, +instinct, and tact. The reasons for showing ourselves sensible to the +recital of good actions are numberless: we reveal a quality that is +worthy of infinite esteem; we promise to others our esteem, if ever they +deserve it by any uncommon or worthy piece of conduct.... Independently +of all these views of interest, we have a notion of order, and a taste +for order, which we cannot resist, and which drags us along in spite of +ourselves. Every fine action implies sacrifice; and it is impossible for +us not to pay our homage to self-sacrifice"--and so forth.[224] + +Alas, all these endless debates and dialogues lacked the inspiration and +the charm with which the genius of a Plato could adorn the narrowest +quibble between Socrates and a Sophist. "Diderot," said Mademoiselle de +Lespinasse, "is an extraordinary man; he is out of his place in society; +he was meant for the chief of a sect, a Greek philosopher, instructing +youth. He pleases me greatly, but his manner does not touch my +soul."[225] And we understand this. People disputed what virtue is, but +the dispute failed in that undefined spirit which makes men love and +adore virtue. Goodness is surrounded with no spacious beauty, it is +clothed with none of the high associations of spontaneous piety. The +discussion seems close, stifling, and airless. Yet ages of loftier +speech and greater spirituality have not always been so favourable to +the affections or to the attachments of life. In amiability that society +has never been surpassed; in sincerity of mutual sympathy and kindliness +of mutual regard. The common irregularity of morals was seen to be +perfectly compatible not merely with a desire to please, but with an +honest anxiety to serve. + +Of the thorough excellence of Diderot's heart, of his friendliness and +unwearied helpfulness, time would fail us to tell. Men's conceptions of +friendship differ as widely as their conceptions of other things. Some +look to friendship for absolute exemption from all criticism, and for a +mutual admiration without limit or conditions. Others mistake it for the +right of excessive criticism, in season and out of season. + +Diderot was content to take friendship as the right, the duty, or the +privilege of rendering services, without thought of requiring either +them, or gratitude for them, back in return. This we must confess to be +rare. No man that ever lived showed more sterling interest in furthering +the affairs of others around him. He seemed to admit every claim on his +time, his purse, and his talents. A stranger called upon him one day, +and begged Diderot to write for him a puffing advertisement of a new +pomatum. Diderot with a laugh sat down and wrote what was wanted. The +graver occasions of life found him no less ready. Damilaville lost one +of his children, and his wife was inconsolable. It was Diderot who was +summoned, and who cheerfully went for days together to soothe and divert +her mind. For his correspondent and for us he makes the tedium of his +story beautiful by recalling the fine saying of a grief-stricken woman +in Metastasio, when they tried to console her by the example of Abraham, +who was ready even to slay his son at the command of God: _Ah, God would +never have given such an order to his mother!_ + +The abbé Le Monnier wrote the worst verses that ever were read, a play +that was instantly damned, and a translation of Terence that came into +the world dead. But bad writers are always the most shameless intruders +on the time of good critics, and we find Diderot willingly spending +hours over the abbé's handwriting, which was as wretched as what he +wrote, and then spending hours more in offering critical observations +on verses that were only fit to be thrown into the fire. The abbé, being +absent from Paris and falling short of money, requested Diderot to sell +for him his copy of the Encyclopædia. "I have sold your Encyclopædia," +said Diderot, "but did not get so much as I expected, for the rumour +spread abroad by those scoundrels of Swiss booksellers, that they were +going to issue a revised edition, has done us some harm. Send for the +nine hundred and fifty livres (about £40) that belong to you, and if +that is not enough for your expenses, besides the drawer that holds your +money is another that holds mine. I don't know how much there is, but I +will count it all at your disposal."[226] + +One Jodin, again, was a literary hack who had been employed on the +Encyclopædia. He died, leaving a foolish and extravagant widow, and a +perverse and violent daughter. The latter went on to the stage, and +Diderot took as much trouble in advising her, in seeking appointments +for her, in executing her commissions, in investing her earnings, in +dealing with her relatives, as if he had been her own father. If his +counsels on her art are admirable, there is something that moves us with +more than admiration in the good sense, the right feeling, the +worthiness of his counsels on conduct. And Diderot did not merely +moralise at large. All that he says is real, pointed, and apt for +circumstance and person. The petulant damsel to whom they were addressed +would not be likely to yawn over the sharp remonstrances, the vigorous +plain speaking, the downright honesty and visible sincerity of his +friendliness. It appears that she had sense enough not to be offended +with the frankness of her father's old employer, for after he has +plainly told her that she is violent, rude, vain, and not always too +truthful, she still writes to him from Warsaw, from Dresden, from +Bordeaux, praying him to procure a certain bracelet for her, to arrange +her mother's affairs, to find a good investment for twelve thousand +francs. When the mother was in the depths of indigence, Diderot insisted +that she should take her meals at his own table. And all this for no +other reason than that the troublesome pair had been thrown in his way +by the chance of human circumstance, and needed help which he was able, +not without sacrifice, to give. Mademoiselle Jodin was hardly worthy of +so good a friend. Her parents were Protestants, and as she was a +convert, she enjoyed a pension of some eight pounds a year. That did not +prevent her from one day indulging in some too sprightly sallies, as the +host was carried along the street. For this she was put into prison, and +that is our last glimpse of the light creature.[227] + +Men knew how to be as wrong-headed and as graceless as women. We have +already mentioned the name of Landois in connection with Diderot's +article on Liberty. Landois seems to have been a marvel of +unreasonableness, but he was a needy man of letters, and that was +enough to make Diderot ready to bear with him and to succour him. He +wound up an epistle abounding, after the manner of the worthless +failures of the world, in reproaches and grievances against his +benefactor, with a cool request about a manuscript that was full of +dangerous matter. "Why, that," replied Diderot, "is a work that might +well be the ruin of me! And it is after you have on two separate +occasions charged me with the most atrocious and deliberate offences +towards you, that you now propose that I should revise and print your +work! You know that I have a wife and child, that I am a marked man, +that you are putting me into the class of hardened offenders; never +mind, you don't think of one of these things. You take me for an +imbecile, or else you are one. But you are no imbecile.... I see through +men's designs, and often enough I lend myself to them, without deigning +to disabuse them as to the stupidity which they impute to me. It is +enough if I perceive in their design some great service for them, and +not an excess of inconvenience for myself. It is not I who am the fool, +so often as people take me for one." Diderot then seems half to forget +to whom he is writing and pours out what reads like a long soliloquy on +morals, conduct, and the philosophy of life. He insists that man, with +all his high-flying freedom of will, is but a little link in a great +chain of events. He is a creature to be modified from without; hence the +good effects of example, discourse, education, pleasures, pains, +greatness, misery. Hence a sort of philosophy of commiseration, which +attaches us strongly to the good, and irritates us no more against the +bad than against a wind-storm that fills our eyes with dust. If you +adopt such principles as these, they will reconcile you with others and +yourself; you will neither praise nor blame yourself for what you are. +To reproach others with nothing, to repent yourself of nothing--these +are the two first steps towards wisdom; this is the philosophy that +reconciles us with the human race and with life.[228] + +When he was in the very midst of all the toil and strife that the +Encyclopædia brought upon him, he could not refuse to spend three whole +days in working like a galley-slave at an account of an important +discovery that had been made by some worthy people with whom he was +acquainted slightly. "But while I was busy about their affairs, my own +are at a standstill. I write to you from Le Breton's, with a mass of +uncorrected proofs before me, and the printers crying out for them. +Still Grimm must be right, when he says that time is not a thing of +which we are free to dispose at our own fancy; that we owe it first and +foremost to our friends, our relations, our daily duties; and that in +the lavish profusion of our time on people who are indifferent, there is +nothing less than vice."[229] Yet in spite of Grimm's most just +remonstrance, the lavish profusion always went on as before. + +There was one man, and only one man, for whose perverse and intractable +spirit Diderot's most friendly patience, helpfulness, and devotion, +were no match. I have already, in dealing with Rousseau,[230] said as +much of the quarrel which he picked with Diderot as the matter +requires, and it would be superfluous to go over the ground again from +another side. Whether we listen to Rousseau's story or to Diderot's +story, our judgment on what happened remains unchanged. We have already +seen how warm and close an intimacy subsisted between them in the days +when Diderot was a prisoner at Vincennes (1749). When Rousseau made up +his mind to leave Paris and turn hermit (1756), there was a loud outcry +from the social group at Holbach's. They said to him, in the least +theological dialect of their day, what Sir Walter Scott had said to +Ballantyne when Ballantyne thought of leaving Edinburgh, that, "when +our Saviour himself was to be led into temptation, the first thing the +Devil thought of was to get him into the wilderness." Diderot +remonstrated rather more loudly than Rousseau's other friends, but +there was no breach, and even no coolness. What sort of humours were +bred by solitude in Rousseau's wayward mind we know, and the +Confessions tell us how for a year and a half he was silently brooding +over fancied slights and perhaps real pieces of heedlessness. Grimm, +who was Diderot's closest friend next to Mademoiselle Voland, despised +Rousseau, and Rousseau detested Grimm. "Grimm," he one day said to a +disciple, "is the only man whom I have ever been able to hate." Madame +d'Epinay was compelled to go to Geneva for her health, and Grimm easily +persuaded Diderot that Rousseau was bound by all the ties of gratitude +to accompany his benefactress on the expedition. Diderot wrote to the +hermit a very strong letter to this effect: it made Rousseau furious. +He declined the urgent counsel, he quarrelled outright and violently +with Grimm, and after an angry and confusing interview with Diderot, +all intercourse ceased with him also. "That man," wrote Diderot, on the +evening of this, their last interview, "intrudes into my work; he fills +me with trouble, and I feel as if I were haunted by a damned soul at my +side. May I never see him more; he would make me believe in devils and +hell."[231] And writing afterwards to some friend at Geneva, he recalls +the days when he used to pour out the talk of intimacy "with the man +who has buried himself at the bottom of a wood, where his soul has been +soured and his moral nature has been corrupted. Yet how I pity him! +Imagine that I used to love him, that I remember those old days of +friendship, and that I see him now with crime on one side and remorse +on the other, with deep waters in front of him. He will many a time be +the torment of my thought; our common friends have judged between him +and me; I have kept them all, and to him there remains not one."[232] +It was not in Diderot's nature to bear malice, and when eight years +later Rousseau passed through Paris on his ill-starred way to England +and the Derbyshire hills, Diderot described the great pleasure that a +visit from Rousseau would give to him. "Ah, I do well," he says, "not +to let the access to my heart be too easy; when anybody has once found +a place in it, he does not leave it without making a grievous rent; +'tis a wound that can never be thoroughly cauterised."[233] + +It is needless to remind the neutral reader that Rousseau uses exactly +the same kind of language about his heart. For this is the worst of +sentimentalism, that it is so readily bent into a substitution of +indulgence to oneself for upright and manly judgment about others. Still +we may willingly grant that in the present rupture of a long friendship, +it was not Diderot who was the real offender. _Too many honest people +would be in the wrong_, he most truly said, _if Jean Jacques were in the +right_. + +Of Grimm, I have already said elsewhere as much as is needful to be +said.[234] His judgment in matters of conduct and character was cool and +rather hard, but it was generally sound. He had a keen eye for what was +hollow in the pretensions of the society in which he lived. Above all, +he had the keen eye of his countrymen for his own interest, and for the +use which he could make of other people. The best thing that we know in +his favour, is that he should have won the friendship of Diderot. +Diderot's attachment to Grimm seems like an exaggeration of the excesses +of the epoch of sentimentalism in Germany. + +He pines for a letter from him, as he pined for letters from +Mademoiselle Voland. If Grimm had been absent for a few months, their +meeting was like a scene in a melodrama. "With what ardour we enclasped +one another. My heart was swimming. I could not speak a word, nor could +he. We embraced without speaking, and I shed tears. We were not +expecting him. We were all at dessert when he was announced, _'Here is +M. Grimm.'_ '_M. Grimm_,' I exclaimed, with a loud cry; and starting up, +I ran to him and fell on his neck. He sat down, and ate a poor meal, you +may be sure. As for me, I could not open my lips either to eat or to +speak. He was next to me, and I kept pressing his hand and gazing at +him."[235] Mademoiselle Voland appears on some occasion to have compared +Diderot with his friend. "No more comparison, I beseech you, my good +friend, between Grimm and me. I console myself for his superiority by +frankly recognising it. I am vain of the victory that I thus gain over +my self-love, and you must not deprive me of that little +advantage."[236] Grimm, however, knew better than Diderot how to unite +German sentimentalism with a steady selfishness. "I have just received +from Grimm," writes good-natured Diderot, "a note that wounds my too +sensitive spirit. I had promised to write him a few lines on the +exhibition of pictures in the Salon; he writes to me that if it is not +ready to-morrow, it will be of no use. I will be revenged for this kind +of hardness, and in a way that becomes me. I worked all day yesterday, +and all day to-day. I shall pass the night at work, and all to-morrow, +and at nine o'clock he shall receive a volume of manuscript."[237] We +may doubt whether his German friend would feel the force of a rebuke so +extremely convenient to himself. + +While Grimm was amusing himself at Madame d'Epinay's country house, +Diderot was working at the literary correspondence which Grimm was +accustomed to send to St. Petersburg and the courts of Germany. While +Grimm was hunting pensions and honorary titles at Saxe-Gotha, or +currying favour with Frederick and waiting for gold boxes at Potsdam, +Diderot was labouring like any journeyman in writing on his behalf +accounts and reviews of the books, good, bad, and indifferent, with +which the Paris market teemed. When there were no new books to talk +about, the ingenious man, with the resource of the born journalist, gave +extracts from books that did not exist.[238] When we hear of Paris being +the centre of European intelligence and literary activity, we may +understand that these circular letters of Grimm and Diderot were the +machinery by which the light of Paris was diffused among darker lands. +It is not too much to say that no contemporary record so intelligent, so +independent, so vigorous, so complete, exists of any other remarkable +literary epoch. + +The abbé Raynal, of whom we shall have more to say in a later chapter, +had founded this counterpart of a modern review in 1747, and he sent a +copy of it in manuscript once a month to anybody who cared to pay three +hundred francs a year. In 1753 Raynal had handed the business over to +Grimm, and by him it was continued until 1790, twelve years beyond the +life of Voltaire and of Rousseau, and six years after the death of the +ablest, most original, and most ungrudging of all those who gave him +their help. + +An interesting episode in Diderot's life brought him into direct +relations with one of the two crowned patrons of the revolutionary +literature, who were philosophers in profession and the most arbitrary +of despots in their practice. Frederick the Great, whose literary taste +was wholly in the vein of the conventional French classic, was never +much interested by Diderot's writing, and felt little curiosity about +him. Catherine of Russia was sufficiently an admirer of the Encyclopædia +to be willing to serve its much-enduring builder. In 1765, when the +enterprise was in full course, Diderot was moved by a provident anxiety +about the future of his daughter. He had no dower for her in case a +suitor should present himself, and he had but a scanty substance to +leave her in case of his own death. The income of the property which he +inherited from his father was regularly handed to his wife for the +maintenance of the household. His own earnings, as we have seen, were of +no considerable amount. There are men of letters, he wrote in 1767, to +whom their industry has brought as much as twenty, thirty, eighty, or +even a hundred thousand francs. As for himself, he thought that perhaps +the fruit of his literary occupations would come to about forty thousand +crowns, or some five thousand pounds sterling. "One could not amass +wealth," he said pensively, and his words are of grievous generality for +the literary tribe, "but one could acquire ease and comfort, if only +these sums were not spread over so many years, did not vanish away as +they were gathered in, and had not all been scattered and spent by the +time that years had multiplied, wants, grown more numerous, eyes grown +dim, and mind become blunted and worn."[239] This was his own case. His +earnings were never thriftily husbanded. Diderot could not deny himself +a book or an engraving that struck his fancy, though he was quite +willing to make a present of it to any appreciative admirer the day +after he had bought it. He was extravagant in hiring a hackney-coach +where another person would have gone on foot, and not seldom the +coachman stood for half a day at the door, while the heedless passenger +was expatiating within upon truth, virtue, and the fine arts, +unconscious of the passing hours and the swollen reckoning. Hence, when +the time came, there were no savings. We have to take a man with the +defects of his qualities, and as Diderot would not have been Diderot if +he had taken time to save money, there is no more to be said. + +When it became his duty to provide for his daughter, between 1763 and +1765, he resolved to sell his library. Through Grimm, Diderot's position +reached the ears of the Empress of Russia. Her agent was instructed to +buy the library at the price fixed by its possessor, and Diderot +received sixteen thousand livres, a sum equal to something more than +seven hundred pounds sterling of that day. The Empress added a handsome +bounty to the bargain. She requested Diderot to consider himself the +custodian of the new purchase on her behalf, and to receive a thousand +livres a year for his pains. The salary was paid for fifty years in +advance, and so Diderot drew at once what must have seemed to him the +royal sum of between two and three thousand pounds sterling--a figure +that would have to be trebled, or perhaps quadrupled, to convey its +value in the money of our own day. We may wish for the honour of letters +that Diderot had been able to preserve his independence. But pensions +were the custom of the time. Voltaire, though a man of solid wealth, did +not disdain an allowance from Frederick the Great, and complained +shrilly because it was irregularly paid at the very time when he knew +that Frederick was so short of money that he was driven to melt his +plate. D'Alembert also had his pension from Berlin, and Grimm, as we +have seen, picked up unconsidered trifles in half of the northern +courts. Frederick offered an allowance to Rousseau, but that strange +man, in whom so much that was simple, touching, and lofty, mingled with +all that was wayward and perverse, declined to tax the king's strained +finances.[240] + +It would shed an instructive light upon authorship and the characters of +famous men, if we could always know the relations between a writer and +his booksellers. Diderot's point of view in considering the great modern +enginery and processes of producing and selling books, was invariably, +like his practice, that of a man of sound common sense and sterling +integrity. We have seen in the previous chapter something of the +difficulties of the trade in those days. The booksellers were a close +guild of three hundred and sixty members, and the printers were limited +to thirty-six. Their privileges brought them little fortune. They were +of the lowest credit and repute, and most of them were hardly better +than beggars. It was said that not a dozen out of the three hundred and +sixty could afford to have more than one coat for his back. They were +bound hand and foot by vexatious rules, and their market was gradually +spoiled by a band of men whom they hated as interlopers, but whom the +public had some reason to bless. No bookseller nor printer could open an +establishment outside of the quarter of the University, or on the north +side of the bridges. The restriction, which was as old as the +introduction of printing into France, had its origin in the days when +the visits of the royal inspectors to the presses and bookshops were +constant and rigorous, and it saved the time of the officials to have +all their business close to their hand. Inasmuch, however, as people +insisted on having books, and as they did not always choose to be at the +pains of making a long journey to the region of the booksellers' shops, +hawkers sprang into existence. Men bought books or got them on credit +from the booksellers, and carried them in a bag over their shoulders to +the houses of likely customers, just as a peddler now carries laces and +calico, cheap silks and trumpory jewellery, round the country villages. +Even poor women filled their aprons with a few books, took them across +the bridges, and knocked at people's doors. This would have been well +enough in the eyes of the guild, if the hawkers had been content to buy +from the legally patented booksellers. But they began secretly to turn +publishers in a small way on their own account. Contraband was here, as +always, the natural substitute for free trade. They both issued pirated +editions of their own, and they became the great purchasers and +distributors of the pirated editions that came in vast bales from +Switzerland, from Holland, from the Pope's country of Avignon. To their +craft or courage the public owed its copies of works whose circulation +was forbidden by the government. The Persian Letters of Montesquieu was +a prohibited book, but, for all that, there were a hundred editions of +it before it had been published twenty years, and every schoolboy could +find a copy on the quays for a dozen halfpence. Bayle's Thoughts on the +Comet, Rousseau's Emilius and Heloïsa, Helvétius's L'Esprit, and a +thousand other forbidden pieces were in every library, both public and +private. The Social Contract, printed over and over again in endless +editions, was sold for a shilling under the vestibule of the king's own +palace. When the police were in earnest, the hawker ran horrible risks, +as we saw a few pages further back; for these risks he recompensed +himself by his prices. A prohibition by the authorities would send a +book up within four-and-twenty hours from half a crown to a couple of +louis. This only increased the public curiosity, quickened the demand, +led to clandestine reprints, and extended the circulation of the book +that was nominally suppressed. When the condemnation of a book was cried +through the streets, the compositors said, "Good, another edition!" +There was no favour that an unknown author could have asked from the +magistrates so valuable to him as a little decree condemning his work to +be torn up and burnt at the foot of the great staircase of the Palace of +Justice.[241] + +It was this practical impossibility of suppression that interested both +the guild of publishers and the government in the conditions of the book +trade. The former were always harassed, often kept poor, and sometimes +ruined, by systematic piracy and the invasion of their rights. The +government, on the other hand, could not help seeing that, as the books +could not possibly be kept out of the realm, it was to be regretted +that their production conferred no benefit on the manufacturing industry +of the realm, the composition, the printing, the casting of type, the +fabrication of paper, the preparation of leather and vellum, the making +of machines and tools. When Bayle's Dictionary appeared, it was the rage +of Europe. Hundreds of the ever-renowned folios found their way into +France, and were paid for by French money. The booksellers addressed the +minister, and easily persuaded him of the difference, according to the +economic light of those days, between an exchange of money against +paper, compared with an exchange of paper against paper. The minister +replied that this was true, but still that the gates of the kingdom +would never be opened to a single copy of Bayle. "The best thing to do," +he said, "is to print it here." And the third edition of Bayle was +printed in France, much to the contentment of the French printers, +binders, and booksellers. + +In 1761 the booksellers were afflicted by a new alarm. Foreign pirates +and domestic hawkers were doing them mischief enough. But in that year +the government struck a blow at the very principle of literary property. +The King's Council conferred upon the descendants of La Fontaine the +exclusive privilege of publishing their ancestor's works. That is to +say, the Council took away without compensation from La Fontaine's +publishers a copyright for which they had paid in hard cash. The whole +corporation naturally rose in arms, and in due time the lieutenant of +police was obliged to take the whole matter into serious +consideration--whether the maintenance of the guild of publishers was +expedient; whether the royal privilege of publishing a book should be +regarded as conferring a definite and unassailable right of property in +the publication; whether the tacit permission to publish what it would +have been thought unbecoming to authorise expressly by royal sanction, +should not be granted liberally or even universally; and whether the old +restriction of the booksellers to one quarter of the town ought to +remain in force any longer. M. de Sartine invited Diderot to write him a +memorandum on the subject, and was disappointed to find Diderot +staunchly on the side of the booksellers (1767). He makes no secret, +indeed, that for his own part he would like to see the whole apparatus +of restraint abolished, but meanwhile he is strong for doing all that a +system of regulation, as opposed to a system of freedom, can do to make +the publication of books a source of prosperity to the bookseller, and +of cheap acquisition to the book-buyer. Above all things, Diderot is +vehemently in favour of the recognition of literary property, and +against such infringement of it as had been ventured upon in the case of +La Fontaine. He had no reason to be especially friendly to booksellers, +but for one thing, he saw that to nullify or to tamper with copyright +was in effect to prevent an author from having any commodity to sell, +and so to do him the most serious injury possible. And for another +thing, Diderot had equity and common sense enough to see that no +high-flown nonsense about the dignity of letters and the spiritual power +could touch the fact that a book is a piece of marketable ware, and that +the men who deal in such wares have as much claim to be protected in +their contracts as those who deal in any other wares.[242] + +There is a vivid illustration of this unexpected business-like quality +in Diderot, in a conversation that he once had with D'Alembert. The +dialogue is interesting to those who happen to be curious as to the +characters of two famous men. It was in 1759, when D'Alembert was tired +of the Encyclopædia, and was for making hard terms as the condition of +his return to it. "If," said Diderot to him, "six months ago, when we +met to deliberate on the continuation of the work, you had then proposed +these terms, the booksellers would have closed with them on the spot, +but now, when they have the strongest reasons to be out of humour with +you, that is another thing." + +"And pray, what reasons?" + +"Can you ask me?" + +"Certainly." + +"Then I will tell you. You have a bargain with the booksellers; the +terms are stipulated; you have nothing to ask beyond them. If you worked +harder than you were bound to do, that was out of your interest in the +book, out of friendship to me, out of respect for yourself; people do +not pay in money for such motives as these. Still they sent you twenty +louis a volume: that makes a hundred and forty louis that you had beyond +what was due to you. You plan a journey to Wesel [in 1752, to meet +Frederick of Prussia] at a time when you were wanted by them here; they +do not detain you; on the contrary, you are short of money, and they +supply you. You accept a couple of hundred louis; this debt you forget +for two or three years. At the end of that rather long term you bethink +you of paying. What do they do? They hand you back your note of hand +torn up, with all the air of being very glad to have served you. Then, +after all, you turn your back on an undertaking in which they have +embarked their whole fortunes: an affair of a couple of millions is a +trifle unworthy of the attention of a philosopher like you.... But that +is not all. You have a fancy for collecting together different pieces +scattered through the Encyclopædia; nothing can be more opposed to +their interests; they put this to you, you insist, the edition is +produced, they advance the cost, you share the profits. It seemed that, +after having thus twice paid you for their work, they had a right to +look upon it as theirs. Yet you go in search of a bookseller in some +quite different direction, and sell him in a mass what does not belong +to you." + +"They gave me a thousand grounds for dissatisfaction." + +"_Quelle défaite!_ There are no small things between friends. Everything +weighs, because friendship is a commerce of purity and delicacy; but are +the booksellers your friends? Then your behaviour to them is horrible. +If not, then you have nothing to say against them. If the public were +called upon to judge between you and them, my friend, you would be +covered with shame." + +"What, can it be you, Diderot, who thus take the side of the +booksellers?" + +"My grievances against them do not prevent me from seeing their +grievances against you. After all this show of pride, confess now that +you are cutting a very sorry figure?"[243] + +All this was the language of good sense, and there is no evidence that +Diderot ever swerved from that fair and honourable attitude in his own +dealings with the booksellers. Yet he was able to treat them with a +sturdy spirit when they forgot themselves. Panckoucke, one of the great +publishers of the time, came to him one day. "He was swollen with the +arrogance of a parvenu, and thinking apparently that he could use me +like one of those poor devils who depend upon him for a crust of bread, +he permitted himself to fly into a passion; but it did not succeed at +all. I let him go on as he pleased; then I got up abruptly, I took him +by the arm, and I said to him: 'M. Panckoucke, in whatever place it may +be, in the street, in church, in a bad house, and to whomsoever it may +be, it is always right to keep a civil tongue in one's head. But that is +all the more necessary still, when you speak to a man who has as little +patience as I have, and that, too, in his own house. Go to the devil, +you and your work. If you would give me twenty thousand louis, and I +could do your business for you in the twinkling of an eye, I would not +stir a finger. Be kind enough to be off."[244] + +Before returning from the author to his books, it is interesting to know +how he and his circle appeared at this period to some who did not belong +to them. Gibbon, for instance, visited Paris in the spring of 1763. "The +moment," he says, "was happily chosen. At the close of a successful war +the British name was respected on the continent; _clarum et venerabile +nomen gentibus_. Our opinions, our fashions, even our games were adopted +in France, a ray of national glory illuminated each individual, and +every Englishman was supposed to be born a patriot and philosopher." He +mentions D'Alembert and Diderot as those among the men of letters whom +he saw, who "held the foremost rank in merit, or at least in fame."[245] + +Horace Walpole was often in Paris, and often saw the philosophic +circle, but it did not please his supercilious humour. + + "There was no soul in Paris but philosophers, whom I wished in + heaven, though they do not wish themselves so. They are so + overbearing and underbred.... I sometimes go to Baron + d'Holbach's, but I have left off his dinners, as there was no + bearing the authors and philosophers and savants of which he + has a pigeon-house full. They soon turned my head with a + system of antediluvian deluges which they have invented to + prove the eternity of matter.... In short, nonsense for + nonsense, I liked the Jesuits better than the + philosophers."[246] + +Hume, as everybody knows, found "the men of letters really very +agreeable; all of them men of the world, living in entire, or almost +entire harmony, among themselves, and quite irreproachable in their +morals." He places Diderot among those whose person and conversation he +liked best. + +We have always heard much of the power of the Salon in the eighteenth +century, and it was no doubt a remarkable proof of the incorporation of +intellectual interests in manners, that so many groups of men and women +should have met habitually every week for the purpose of conversing +about the new books and new plays, the fresh principles and fresh ideas, +that were produced by the incessant vivacity of the time. The Salon of +the eighteenth century passed through various phases; its character +shifted with the intellectual mood of the day, but in all its phases it +was an institution in which women occupied a place that they have never +acquired in any society out of France. We are not here called upon to +speculate as to the reasons for this; it is only worth remarking that +Diderot was not commonly at his ease in the society of ladies, and that +though he was a visitor at Madame Geoffrin's and at Mademoiselle +Lespinasse's, yet he was not a constant attendant at any of the famous +circles of which women had made themselves the centre. The reader of +Madame d'Epinay's memoir is informed how hard she found it to tame +Diderot into sociability. "What a pity," she exclaims, "that men of +genius and of such eminent merit as M. Diderot should thus wrap +themselves up in their philosophy, and disdain the homage that people +would eagerly pay them in any society that they would honour with their +presence."[247] One of the soundest social observers of the time was +undoubtedly Duclos. His _Considerations on the Manners of the Century_, +which was published in 1751, abounds in admirable criticism. He makes +two remarks with which we may close our chapter. "The relaxation of +morals does not prevent people from being very loud in praise of honour +and virtue; those who have least of them know very well how much they +are concerned in other people having them." Again, "The French," he +said, "are the only people among whom it is possible for morals to be +depraved, without either the heart being corrupted, or their courage +being weakened." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE STAGE. + + +There is at first something incredible in the account given by some +thinkers of Diderot, as the greatest genius of the eighteenth century; +and perhaps an adjustment of such nice degrees of comparison among the +high men of the world is at no time very profitable. What is intended by +these thoroughgoing panegyrists is that Diderot placed himself at the +point of view whence, more comprehensively than was possible from any +other, he discerned the long course and the many bearings, the complex +faces and the large ramifications, of the huge movement of his day. He +seized the great transition at every point, and grasped all the threads +that were to be inwoven into the pattern of the new time. + +Diderot is in a thousand respects one of the most unsatisfactory of men +and of writers. Yet it is hard to deny that to whatever quarter he +turned, he caught the rising illumination and was shone upon by the +spirit of the coming day. It was no copious and overflowing radiance, +but they were the beams of the dawn. Hence, what he has to say, and we +shall soon see how much he said, about the two great arts of painting +and the drama, though it is fragmentary, though it is insufficient, yet +points, as all the rest of his thoughts pointed, along the lines that +the best minds of the western world have since traversed. He would, in +the old metaphysical language, have called the direction of it a turning +to Nature, but if we translate this into more positive terms, just as we +have said that the Encyclopædia was a glorification of pacific industry +and of civil justice, so we may say that his whole theory of the drama +was a glorification of private virtues and domestic life. And the +definite rise of civil justice and industry over feudal privilege and a +life of war, and again the elevation of domestic virtue into the place +formerly held by patriotic devotion, are the two great sides of a single +movement.[248] It is quite true that Diderot and the French of that day +had only a glimpse of the promised land in art and poetry. The whole +moral energy of the generation after Diderot was drawn inevitably into +the strong current of social action. The freshly kindled torch of +dramatic art passed for nearly half a century to the country of Lessing +and Goethe. + +There is in the use of a certain kind of abstract language this +inconvenience, that the reader may suppose us to be imputing to Diderot +a deliberate and systematic survey of the whole movement of his time, +and a calculated resolution to further it, now in this way and now in +that. It is not necessary to suppose that the movement as a whole was +always present to him. Diderot's mind was constantly feeling for +explanations; it was never a passive recipient. The drama excited this +alert interest just as everything else excited it. He thought about +that, as about everything else, originally, that is to say, sincerely +and in the spirit of reality.[249] Whoever turns with a clear eye and +proper intellectual capacity in search of the real bearings of what he +is about, is sure to find out the strong currents of the time, even +though he may never consciously throw them into their most general and +abstract expression. + +Since Aristotle, said Lessing, no more philosophical mind than Diderot's +has treated of the theatre. Lessing himself translated Diderot's two +plays, and the Essay on Dramatic Poetry, and repeatedly said that +without the impulse of Diderot's principles and illustrations his own +taste would have taken a different direction. As a dramatist, the author +of _Miss Sara Sampson_, of _Emilia Galotti_, and above all that noble +dramatic poem, _Nathan the Wise_, could hardly have owed much to the +author of such poor stuff as _The Natural Son_ and _The Father of the +Family_. Lessing had some dramatic fire, invention, spontaneous +elevation; he had a certain measure, though not a very large one, of +poetic impulse. Diderot had nothing of all these, but he had the eye of +the philosophic critic. + +Any one who reads Lessing's dramatic criticisms will see that he did +not at all overrate his obligations to his French contemporary.[250] It +has been replied to the absurd taunt about the French inventing nothing, +that at least Descartes invented German philosophy. Still more true is +it that Diderot invented German criticism. + +Diderot's thoughts on the stage, besides his completed plays, and a +number of fragmentary scenes, are contained principally in the Paradox +on the Player, a short treatise on Dramatic Poetry, and three dialogues +appended to _The Natural Son_. On the plays a very few words will +suffice. _The Natural Son_ must, by me at least, be pronounced one of +the most vapid performances in dramatic history. Even Lessing, unwilling +as he was to say a word against a writer who had taught him so much, is +too good a critic not to recognise monotony in the characters, stiffness +and affectation in the dialogue, and a pedantic ring in the sentences of +new-fangled philosophy.[251] Even in the three critical dialogues that +Diderot added to the play, Lessing cannot help discerning the mixture of +superficiality with an almost pompous pretension. Rosenkranz, it is +true, finds the play rich in fine sentences, in scenes full of effect, +in which Diderot's moral enthusiasm expresses itself with impetuous +eloquence. But even he admits that the hero's servant is not so far +wrong when he cries, "_Il semble que le bon sens se soit enfui de cette +maison_," and adds that the whole atmosphere of the piece is sickly with +conscious virtue.[252] For ourselves we are ready for once even to +sympathise with Palissot, the hack-writer of the reactionary parties, +when he says that _The Natural Son_ had neither invention, nor style, +nor characters, nor any other single unit of a truly dramatic work. The +reader who seeks to realise the nullity of the _genre sérieux_ in +Diderot's hands, should turn from _The Natural Son_ to Goldoni's play of +_The True Friend_, from which Diderot borrowed the structure of his +play, following it as narrowly as possible to the end of the third act. +Seldom has transfusion turned a sparkling draught into anything so flat +and vapid. In spite of the applause of the philosophic _claque_, led by +Grimm,[253] posterity has ratified the coldness with which it was +received by contemporaries. _The Natural Son_ was written in 1757, but +it was not until 1771 that the directors of the French Comedy could be +induced to place it on the stage. The actors detested their task, and as +we can very well believe, went sulkily through parts which they had not +even taken the trouble to master.[254] The public felt as little +interest in the piece as the actors had done, and after a single +representation, the play was put aside. + +Ill-natured critics compared Diderot's play with Rousseau's opera; they +insisted that _The Natural Son_ and _The Village Conjuror_ were a +couple of monuments of the presumptuous incompetence of the encyclopædic +cabal. The failure of _The Natural Son_ as a drama came after it had +enjoyed considerable success as a piece of literature, for it had been +fourteen years in print. We can only suppose that this success was the +fruit of an unflinching partisanship. + +It is a curious illustration of the strength of the current passion for +moral maxims in season and out of season, that one scene which to the +scoffers of that day seemed, as it cannot but seem to everybody to-day, +a climax of absurdity and unbecomingness, was hailed by the party as +most admirable, for no other reason than that it contained a number of +high moralising saws. Constance, a young widow and a model of reason, +takes upon herself to combat the resolution of Dorval not to marry, +after he has led her to suppose that he has a passion for her, and after +a marriage between them has been arranged. "No," he cries, "a man of my +character is not such a husband as befits Constance." Constance begs him +to reassure himself; tells him that he is mistaken; to enjoy +tranquillity, a man must have the approval of his own heart, and perhaps +that of other men, and he can have neither unless he remains at his +post; it is only the wicked who can bear isolation; a tender soul cannot +view the general system of sensible beings without a strong desire that +they should be happy. Dorval, who cuts an extremely sorry figure in +such a scene, exclaims, "Ah, but children! Dorval would have children! +When I think that we are thrown from our very birth into a chaos of +prejudices, extravagances, vices, and miseries, the idea makes me +shudder!"--"Dorval, you are beset by phantoms, and no wonder. The +history of life is so little known, while the appearance of evil in the +universe is so glaring.... Dorval, your daughters will be modest and +good; your sons noble and high-minded; all your children will be +charming.... There is no fear that a cruel soul should ever grow in my +bosom from stock of yours."[255] + +We can hardly wonder that players were disgusted, or critics moved to +wicked jests. The counterpart to the scene in which Constance persuades +Dorval that they would be very happy in one case, is the scene in which +Dorval persuades Rosalie that they would be very unhappy in another +case. The situations in themselves may command our approval morally, but +they certainly do not attract our sympathies dramatically. That a woman +should demonstrate to a man in fine sententious language the expediency +of marrying her, is not inconsistent with good sense, but it is +displeasing. When a man tells a woman that, though love draws in one +way, duty draws in the other, we may admire his prudence, but we are +glad when so delicate a business comes to an end. In _The Natural Son_ +the latter scene, though very long, is the less disagreeable of the +two. And just as in Diderot's most wordy and tiresome pages we generally +find some one phrase, some epithet, some turn of a sentence whose +freshness or strength or daring reveals a genius, so in this scene we +find a few lines whose energy reminds us that we are not after all in +the hands of some obscure playwright, whose works ought long ago to have +been eaten by moths or burnt by fire. Those lines are a warning against +the temptation so familiar in every age since Paris was a guest in the +halls of Menelaus, to take that fatal resolve, All for love and the +world well lost. "To do wrong," says Dorval, "is to condemn ourselves to +live and to find our pleasure with wrong-doers; it is to pass an +uncertain and troubled life in one long and never-ending lie; to have to +praise with a blush the virtue that we flung behind us; to hear from the +lips of others harsh words for our own action; to seek a little calm in +sophistical systems, that the breath of a single good man scatters to +the winds; to shut ourselves for ever out from the spring of true joys, +the only joys that are virtuous, austere, sublime; and to give ourselves +up, simply as a way of escape from ourselves, to the weariness of those +frivolous diversions in which the day flows away in self-oblivion, and +our life glides slowly from us and loses itself in waste."[256] A very +old story, no doubt; but natural, true, and in its place. + +What adds to the flatness of the play is a device which Diderot +introduced on a deliberately adopted principle; we mean the elaborate +setting out of the acting directions. Every movement, every gesture, +every silent pause is written down, and we have the impression less of a +play than of some strangely bald romance. In the versified declamation +which then reigned on the French stage, nothing was left to natural +action, nothing was told by change of position, by movement without +speech, or in short by any means other than discourse. Diderot, +repudiating the conventions of dramatic art, and consulting nature or +reality, saw that there are many scenes in life in which it is more +natural to the personages of the scene to move than to speak, in which +indeed motion is natural, and speech is altogether unnatural. If this be +so in real life, he said, it should be so on the stage, because nothing +passes in the world which may not pass also in the theatre; and as +pantomime, or expression of emotion, feeling, purpose, otherwise than by +speech, has so much to do in life, the dramatist should make abundant +use of pantomime in composing stage-plays. Nor should he trust to the +actor's invention and spontaneous sense of appropriateness. He ought to +write down the pantomime whenever it adds energy or clearness to the +dialogue; when it binds the parts of the dialogue together; when it +consists in a delicate play that is not easily divined; and almost +always he ought to write it down in the opening of a scene. If any one +is inclined to regard this as superfluous, let him try the experiment of +composing a play, and then writing the pantomime, or "business," for +it; he will soon see what follies he commits.[257] + +Whatever we may think of the practice of writing the action as well as +the words for the player, nobody would now dispute the wisdom of what +Diderot says as to the part that pantomime fills in the highest kind of +dramatic representation. We must agree with his repeated laments over +the indigence, for purposes of full and adequate expression, of every +language that ever has existed or ever can exist.[258] "My dear master," +he wrote to Voltaire on the occasion of a performance of _Tancred_, "if +you could have seen Clairon passing across the stage, her knees bending +under her, her eyes closed, her arms falling stiff by her side as if +they were dead; if you heard the cry that she uttered when she perceives +Tancred, you would remain more convinced than ever that silence and +pantomime have sometimes a pathos that all the resources of speech can +never approach."[259] If we wonder that he should have thought it worth +while to lay so much emphasis on what seems so obvious, we have to +remember that it did not seem at all obvious to people who were +accustomed to the substitution of a mannered and symmetrical declamation +for the energetic variety and manifold exuberance of passion and +judgment in the daily lives of men. + +We have already seen that even when he wrote the Letter on the Deaf and +Dumb, Diderot's mind was exercised about gesture as a supplement to +discourse. In that Letter he had told a curious story of a bizarre +experiment that he was in the habit of making at the theatre. He used to +go to the highest seats in the house, thrust his fingers into his ears, +and then, to the astonishment of his neighbours, watch the performance +with the sharpest interest. As a constant playgoer, he knew the words of +the plays by heart, and what he sought was to isolate the gesture of the +performers, and to enjoy and criticise that by itself. He kept his ears +tightly stopped, so long as the action and play went well with the words +as he remembered them, and he only listened when some discord in gesture +made him suppose that he had lost his place. The people around him were +more and more amazed as they saw him, notwithstanding his stopped ears, +shed copious tears in the pathetic passages. "They could not refrain +from hazarding questions, to which I answered coldly, 'that everybody +had his own way of listening, and that my way was to stop my ears, so as +to understand better'--laughing within myself at the talk to which my +oddity gave rise, and still more so at the simplicity of some young +people who also put their fingers into their ears to hear after my +fashion, and were quite astonished that the plan did not succeed."[260] +This was an odd and whimsical way of acting on a conviction which lay +deep in Diderot's mind, namely, that language is a very poor, +misleading, and utterly inadequate instrument for representing what it +professes, and what we stupidly suppose it, to represent. Rousseau had +expressed the same kind of feeling when he said that definitions might +be good things, if only we did not employ words in making them. + +A curious circumstance is worth mentioning in connection with the Three +Dialogues appended to _The Natural Son_. Diderot informs his readers +that the incidents of _The Natural Son_ had actually occurred in real +life, and that he knew the personages. In the Dialogues it is assumed +that the play had been written by the hero himself, and the hero is the +chief speaker. Not a word is said from which the reader would guess that +Diderot had borrowed the substance of his plot and some of its least +insipid scenes from Goldoni. We can hardly wonder that he was charged +with plagiarism. Yet it was not deliberate, we may be sure. When Diderot +was strongly seized by an idea, outer circumstances were as if they did +not exist. He was swept up into the clouds. "Diderot is a good and +worthy man," wrote Madame Geoffrin to the King of Poland, "but he has +such a bad head, and he is so curiously organised, that he neither sees +nor hears what he does see and hear, as the thing really is; he is +always like a man who is dreaming, and who thinks all that he has +dreamed quite real."[261] + +_The Father of the Family_, written in 1758, and first acted in 1761, +is very superior to _The Natural Son_; it even enjoyed a certain +popularity. In Germany it became an established favourite, and in Italy +it was only less popular than a piece of Goldoni's. The French were not +quite so easy to please. In 1761 its reception was undoubtedly +favourable, and it ran for more than a week. In 1769 it was reproduced, +and, according to Diderot's own account, with enthusiasm. "There was a +frightful crowd," he says, "and people hardly remember such a success. I +was surprised at it myself. My friends are at the height of exultation. +My daughter came home intoxicated with wonder and delight." Even Madame +Diderot at length grew ashamed at having to confess that she had not +seen her husband's triumph, and throwing aside her horror of the stage, +was as deeply moved as every one else.[262] + +Notwithstanding this satisfactory degree of success, and though it was +performed as late as 1835, the play never struck root in France. It is +indeed a play without any real quality or distinction. "Diderot, in his +plays," said Madame de Staël, "put the affectation of nature in the +place of the affectation of convention."[263] The effect is still more +disagreeable in the first kind of affectation than the second. _The +Father of the Family_ is made more endurable than _The Natural Son_ by a +certain rapidity and fire in the action, and a certain vigour in the +characters of the impetuous son (Saint Albin) and the malignant +brother-in-law (the Commander). But the dialogue is poor, and the Father +of the Family himself is as woolly and mawkish a figure as is usually +made out of benevolent intentions and weak purpose combined. The woes of +the heavy father of the stage, where there is no true pathos, but only a +sentimental version of it, find us very callous. The language has none +of that exquisite grace and flexibility which makes a good French comedy +of own day, a piece by Augier, Sandeau, Feuillet, Sardou, so delightful. +Diderot was right in urging that there is no reason why a play should be +in verse; but then the prose of a play ought to have a point, elegance, +and highly-wrought perfection, which shall fill us with a sense of art, +though not the art of the poet. Diderot not only did not write comedy in +such a style; but he does not even so much as show consciousness that +any difference exists between one kind of prose and another. The blurred +phrases and clipped sentences of what Diderot would have called Nature, +that is to say of real life, are intolerable on the stage. Even he felt +this, for his characters, though their dialogue is without wit or +finish, are still dull and tame of speech, in a different way from that +in which the people whom we may meet are dull and tame. There is an art +of a kind, though of an extremely vapid kind. + +Again, though he may be right in contending that there is a serious kind +of comedy as distinct from that gay comedy which is neighbour to +farce--of this we shall see more presently--yet he is certainly wrong +in believing that we can willingly endure five acts of serious comedy +without a single relieving passage of humour. Contrast of character, +where all the characters are realistic and common, is not enough. We +crave contrast in the dramatic point of view. We seek occasional change +of key. That serious comedy should move a sympathetic tear is reasonable +enough; but it is hard to find that it grudges us a single smile. The +result of Diderot's method is that the spectator or the reader speedily +feels that what he has before him substitutes for dramatic fulness and +variety the flat monotony of a homily or a tract. It would be hard to +show that there is no true comedy without laughter--Terence's _Hecyra_, +for instance--but Diderot certainly overlooked what Lessing and most +other critics saw so clearly, that laughter rightly stirred is one of +the most powerful agencies in directing the moral sympathies of the +audience,--the very end that Diderot most anxiously sought. + +It is mere waste of time to bestow serious criticism on Diderot's two +plays, or on the various sketches, outlines, and fragments of scenes +with which he amused his very slight dramatic faculty. If we wish to +study the masterpieces of French comedy in the eighteenth century, we +shall promptly shut up the volumes of Diderot, and turn to the ease and +soft gracefulness of Marivaux's _Game of Love and Chance_, to the +forcible and concentrated sententiousness of Piron's _Métromanie_, to +the salt and racy flavour of Le Sage's _Turcaret_. Gresset, again, and +Destouches wrote at least two comedies that were really fit for the +stage, and may be read with pleasure to-day. Neither of these +compliments can fairly be paid to _The Natural Son_ and _The Father of +the Family_. Diderot's plays ought to be looked upon merely as sketchy +illustrations of a favourite theory; as the rough drawings on the black +board with which a professor of the fine arts may accompany a lecture on +oil painting. + +One radical part of Diderot's dramatic doctrine is wholly condemned by +modern criticism; and it is the part which his plays were especially +designed to enforce. "It is always," he says, "virtue and virtuous +people that a man ought to have in view when he writes. Oh, what good +would men gain, if all the arts of imitation proposed one common object, +and were one day to unite with the laws in making us love virtue and +hate vice. It is for the philosopher to address himself to the poet, the +painter, the musician, and to cry to them with all his might: _O men of +genius, to what end has heaven endowed you with gifts_? If they listen +to him, speedily will the images of debauch cease to cover the walls of +our palaces; our vices will cease to be the organs of crime; and taste +and manners will gain. Can we believe that the action of two old blind +people, man and wife, as they sought one another in their aged days, and +with tears of tenderness clasped one another's hands and exchanged +caresses on the brink of the grave, so to say--that this would not +demand the same talent, and would not interest me far more than the +spectacle of the violent pleasures with which their senses in all the +first freshness of youth were once made drunk?"[264] + +The emphasising moralists of Diderot's school never understood that +virtue may be made attractive, without pulling the reader or the +spectator by the sleeve, and urgently shouting in his ear how attractive +virtue is. When _The Heart of Midlothian_ appeared (1818), a lady wrote +about it as follows: "Of late days, especially since it has been the +fashion to write moral and even religious novels, one might almost say +of the wise good heroines what a lively girl once said of her +well-meaning aunt--'On my word she is enough to make anybody wicked.' +Had this very story been conducted by a common hand, Effie would have +attracted all our concern and sympathy, Jeanie only cold approbation. +Whereas Jeanie, without youth, beauty, genius, warm passions, or any +other novel perfection, is here our object from beginning to end. This +is 'enlisting the affections in the cause of virtue' ten times more than +ever Richardson did; for whose male and female pedants, all excelling as +they are, I never could care half as much as I found myself inclined to +do for Jeanie before I finished the first volume."[265] + +In other words, you must win us by kindling our sympathy, not by +formally commanding our moral approval. To kindle sympathy your +personage must be interesting; must touch our pity or wonder or +energetic fellow-feeling or sense of moral loveliness, which is a very +different thing from touching our mere sense of the distinctions between +right and wrong. Direct homily excites no sympathy with the homilist. +Deep pensive meditations on the moral puzzles of the world are not at +all like didactic discourse. But the Father of the Family was exactly +fulfilling Diderot's notion of dramatic purpose and utility when he +talked to his daughter in such a strain as this: "Marriage, my daughter, +is a vocation imposed by nature.... He who counts on bliss without alloy +knows neither the life of man nor the designs of heaven. If marriage +exposes us to cruel pain, it is also the source of the sweetest +pleasures. Where are the examples of pure and heartfelt interest, of +real tenderness, of inmost confidence, of daily help of griefs divided, +of tears mingled, if they be not in marriage? What is there in the world +that the good man prefers to his wife? What is there in the world that a +father loves more dearly than his children? O sacred bond, if I think of +thee, my whole soul is warmed and elevated!"[266] + +But these virtuous ejaculations do not warm and elevate us. In such a +case words count for nothing. It is actual presentation of beautiful +character, and not talk about it, that touches the spectator. It is the +association of interesting action with character, that moves us and +inspires such better moods as may be within our compass. Diderot, like +many other people before and since, sought to make the stage the great +moral teacher. That it may become so, is possible. It will not be by +imitating the methods of that colossal type of histrionic failure, the +church-pulpit. Exhortation in set speeches always has been, and always +will be, the feeblest bulwark against the boiling floods of passion that +helpless virtue ever invented, and it matters not at all whether the +hortatory speeches are placed on the lips of Mr. Talkative, the son of +Saywell, or of some tearful dummy labelled the Father of the Family.[267] + +Yet one is half ashamed to use hard words about Diderot. He was so +modest about his work, so simple and unpretending, so wholly without +restless and fretting ambitions, and so generous in his judgment of +others. He made his own dramatic experiment, he thought little enough of +it; and he was wholly above the hateful vice of sourly disparaging +competitors, whether dead or living. He knew that he was himself no +master, but he was manly enough to admire anybody who was nearer to +mastery. He was full of unaffected delight at Sedaine's busy and +pleasing little comedy, _The Philosopher without knowing it_; it was so +simple without being stiff, so eloquent without the shadow of effort or +rhetoric. After seeing it, Diderot ran off to the author to embrace him, +with many tears of joyful sympathy and gratitude. Sedaine, like Lillo, +the author of Diderot's favourite play of _George Barn__well_, was a +plain tradesman, and the success of his libretti for comic operas had +not spoiled him. He could find no more expansive words for his excited +admirer than "_Ah, Monsieur Diderot, que vous étes beau_!"[268] Diderot +was just as sensible of the originality and Aristophanic gaiety of +Collé's brilliant play, _Truth in Wine_, though Collé detested the +philosophic school from Voltaire downwards, and left behind him a +bitterly contemptuous account of _The Natural Son_.[269] + +Of all comic writers, however, the author of the _Andria_ and the +_Heautontimorumenos_ was Diderot's favourite. The half dozen pages upon +Terence, which he threw off while the printer's boy waited in the +passage (1762), are one of the most easy, flowing, and delightful of his +fragments; there is such appreciation of Terence's suavity and tact, of +his just and fine judgment, of his discrimination and character. He +admits that Terence had no verve; for that he commends the young poet to +Molière or Aristophanes, but as verve was exactly the quality most +wanting to Diderot himself, he easily forgave its absence in Terence, +and thought it amply replaced by his moderation, his truth, and his fine +taste. Colman is praised for translating Terence, for here, says +Diderot, is the lesson of which Colman's countrymen stand most in need. +The English comic writers have more verve than taste. "Vanbrugh, +Wycherley, Congreve, and some others have painted vices and foibles +with vigour; it is not either invention or warmth or gaiety or force +that is wanting to their pencil, but rather that unity in the drawing, +that precision in the stroke, that truth in colouring, which distinguish +portrait from caricature. Especially are they wanting in the art of +discerning and seizing those _naïf_, simple, and yet singular movements +of character, which always please and astonish, and render the imitation +at once true and piquant."[270] Criticism has really nothing to add to +these few lines, and if Diderot in his last years read _The School for +Scandal_, or _The Rivals_, he would have found no reason to alter his +judgment. + +One English play had the honour of being translated by Diderot; this +was _The Gamester_, not _The Gamester_ of Shirley nor of Garrick, but +of Edward Moore (1753). It is a good example of the bourgeois tragedy +or domestic drama, which Diderot was so eager to see introduced on to +the French stage. The infatuation of Beverley, the tears and virtue of +Mrs. Beverley, the prudence of Charlotte and the sage devotion of her +lover, the sympathetic remorse of Bates, and even the desperation of +Stukely, made up a picture of domestic misery and moral sentiment with +which Diderot was sure to fall in love. Lillo's _George Barnwell_, with +its direct and urgent moral, was a still greater favourite, and Diderot +compared the scene between Maria and Barnwell in prison to the despair +of the _Philocletes_ of Sophocles, as the hero is heard shrieking at +the mouth of his cavern;[271] just as a more modern critic has thought +Lillo's other play, _The Fatal Curiosity_, worthy of comparison with +the _Oedipus Tyrannus_. + +Diderot's feeling for Shakespeare seems to have been what we might have +anticipated from the whole cast of his temperament. One of the scenes +which delighted him most was that moment of awe, when Lady Macbeth +silently advances down the stage with her eyes closed, and imitates the +action of washing her hands, as wondering that "the old man should have +so much blood in him." "I know nothing," he exclaims, "so pathetic in +discourse as that woman's silence and the movement of her hands. What an +image of remorse!"[272] + +It was not to be expected that Diderot should indulge in those +undiscriminating superlatives about Shakespeare which are common in +Shakespeare's country. But he knew enough about him to feel that he was +dealing with a giant. "I will not compare Shakespeare," he said, "to the +Belvedere Apollo, nor to the Gladiator, nor to Antinous"--he had +compared Terence to the Medicean Venus--"but to the Saint Christopher of +Notre Dame, an unshapely colossus, rudely carven, but between whose legs +we could all pass without our brows touching him."[273] Not very +satisfactory recognition perhaps; but the Saint Christopher is better +than Voltaire's drunken savage. + +It is not every dramatist who treats the art of acting as seriously as +the art of composition. The great author of _Wilhelm Meister_ is the +most remarkable exception to this rule, and Lessing is only second to +him. It is hardly possible for a man to be a great dramatist, and it is +simply impossible for a man to be a great critic of the drama, who has +not seriously studied the rules, aims, and conditions of stage +representation. Hazlitt, for instance, has written some admirable pages +about the poetry, the imaginative conception, the language, of +Shakespeare's plays, but we find his limit when he says that King Lear +is so noble a play that he cannot bear to see it acted. As if a play +could be fully judged without reference to the conditions of the very +object with which it was written. A play is to be criticised as a play, +not merely as a poem. The whole structure of a piece depends on the fact +that it is to be acted; its striking moments must be great dramatic, not +merely beautiful poetic, moments. They must have the intensity of pitch +by which the effect of action exceeds the effect of narrative. This +intensity is made almost infinitely variable with the variations in the +actor's mastery of his art. + +Diderot, who threw so penetrating a glance into every subject that he +touched, even if it were no more than a glance, has left a number of +excellent remarks on histrionics. The key to them all is his everlasting +watchword: _Watch nature, follow her simple, and spontaneous leading_. +The Paradox on the Player is one of the very few of Diderot's pieces of +which we can say that, besides containing vigorous thought, it has real +finish in point of literary form. There is not the flat tone, the heavy +stroke, the loose shamble, that give a certain stamp of commonness to so +many of his most elaborate discussions. In the Paradox the thoughts seem +to fall with rapidity and precision into their right places; they are +direct; they are not overloaded with qualifications; their clear +delivery is not choked by a throng of asides and casual ejaculations. +Usually Diderot writes as if he were loath to let the sentence go, and +to allow the paragraph to come to an end. Here he lays down his +proposition, and without rambling passes on to the next. The effort is +not kept up quite to the close, for the last half dozen pages have the +ordinary clumsy mannerism of their author. + +What is the Paradox? That a player of the first rank must have much +judgment, self-possession, and penetration, _but no sensibility_. An +actor with nothing but sense and judgment is apt to be cold; but an +actor with nothing but verve and sensibility is crazy. It is a certain +temperament of good sense and warmth combined, that makes the sublime +player.[274] Why should he differ from the poet, the painter, the +orator, the musician? It is not in the fury of the first impulse that +characteristic strokes occur to any of these men; it is in moments when +they are tranquil and cool, and such strokes come by an unexpected +inspiration.[275] It is for coolness to temper the delirium of +enthusiasm. It is not the violent man who is beside himself that +disposes of us; that is an advantage reserved for the man who possesses +himself. The great poets, the great actors, and perhaps generally all +the great imitators of nature, whatever they may be, are gifted with a +fine imagination, a great judgment, a subtle tact, a sure taste, but +they are creatures of the smallest sensibility. They are equally well +fitted for too many things; they are too busy in looking, in +recognising, and in imitating, to be violently affected within +themselves. Sensibility is hardly the quality of a great genius. He will +have justice; but he will practise it without reaping all the sweetness +of it. It is not his heart, but his head, that does it all. Well, then, +what I insist upon, says Diderot, is that it is extreme sensibility that +makes mediocre actors; it is mediocre sensibility that makes bad actors; +and it is the absolute want of sensibility that prepares actors who +shall be sublime.[276] + +This is worked out with great clearness and decision, and some of the +illustrations to which he resorts to lighten the dialogue are amusing +enough. Perhaps the most interesting to us English is his account of +Garrick, whose acquaintance he made towards the year 1765. He says that +he saw Garrick pass his head between two folding doors, and in the space +of a few seconds, his face went successively from mad joy to moderate +joy, from that to tranquillity, from tranquillity to surprise, from +surprise to astonishment, from astonishment to gloom, from gloom to +utter dejection, from dejection to fear, from fear to horror, from +horror to despair, and then reascend from this lowest degree to the +point whence he had started.[277] + +Of course his soul felt none of these emotions. "If you asked this +famous man, who by himself was as well worth a journey to England to +see, as all the wonders of Rome are worth a journey to Italy, if you +asked him, I say, for the scene of _The Little Baker's Boy_, he played +it; if you asked him the next minute for the scene from _Hamlet_, he +played that too for you, equally ready to sob over the fall of his pies, +and to follow the path of the dagger in the air."[278] + +Apart from the central proposition, Diderot makes a number of excellent +observations which show his critical faculty at its best. As, for +example, in answering the question, what is the truth of the stage? Is +it to show things exactly as they are in nature? By no means. The true +in that sense would only be the common. The really true is the +conformity of action, speech, countenance, voice, movement, gesture, +with an ideal model imagined by the poet, and often exaggerated by the +player. And the marvel is that this model influences not only the tone, +but the whole carriage and gait. Again, what is the aim of multiplied +rehearsals? To establish a balance among the different talents of the +actors. The supreme excellence of one actor does not recompense you for +the mediocrity of the others, which is brought by that very superiority +into disagreeable prominence. Again, accent is easier to imitate than +movement, but movements are what strike us most violently. Hence a law +to which there is no exception, namely, under pain of being cold, to +make your denouement an action and not a narrative.[279] + +One of the strongest satires on the reigning dramatic style, Diderot +found in the need that the actor had of the mirror. The fewer gestures, +he said, the better; frequent gesticulation impairs energy and destroys +nobleness. It is the countenance, the eyes, it is the whole body that +ought to move, and not the arms.[280] There is no maxim more forgotten +by poets than that which says that great passions are mute. It depends +on the player to produce a greater effect by silence than the poet can +produce by all his fine speeches.[281] Above all, the player is to study +tranquil scenes, for it is these that are the most truly difficult. He +commends a young actress to play every morning, by way of orisons, the +scene of Athalie with Joas; to say for evensong some scenes of Agrippina +with Nero; and for Benedicite the first scene of Phædra with her +confidante. Especially there is to be little emphasis--a warning +grievously needed by ninety-nine English speakers out of a hundred--for +emphasis is hardly ever natural; it is only a forced imitation of +nature.[282] + +Diderot had perceived very early that the complacency with which his +countrymen regarded the national theatre was extravagant. He would not +allow a comparison between the conventional classic of the French stage +and the works of the Greek stage. He insisted in the case of the Greeks +that their subjects are noble, well chosen, and interesting; that the +action seems to develop itself spontaneously; that their dialogue is +simple and very close to what is natural; that the dénouements are not +forced; that the interest is not divided nor the action overloaded with +episodes. In the French classic he found none of these merits. He found +none of that truth which is the only secret of pleasing and touching us; +none of that simple and natural movement which is the only path to +perfect and unbroken illusion. The dialogue is all emphasis, wit, +glitter; all a thousand leagues away from nature. Instead of +artificially giving to their characters _esprit_ at every point, poets +ought to place them in such situations as will give it to them. Where in +the world did men and women ever speak as we declaim? Why should princes +and kings walk differently from any man who walks well? Did they then +gesticulate like raving madmen? Do princesses when they speak utter +sharp hissings? + +People believe us to have brought tragedy to a high degree of +perfection. It is not so. Of all kinds of literature it is the most +imperfect.[283] + +The ideas which appeared thus incongruously in the tales of 1748 +reappeared in the direct essays on the drama in 1757 and 1758. We have +left nothing undone, he said, to corrupt dramatic style. We have +preserved from the ancients that emphasis of versification which was so +well fitted to languages of strong quantity and marked accent, to vast +theatres, to a declamation that had an instrumental accompaniment; and +then we have given up simplicity of plot and dialogue, and all truth of +situation.[284] La Motte nearly fifty years before had attacked the +pseudo-classic drama. He had inveighed against the unities, against long +monologues, against the device of confidants, and against verse. His +assault, in which he had the powerful aid of Fontenelle, was part of +that battle between Moderns and Ancients with which the literary +activity of the century had opened. The brilliant success of the +tragedies of Voltaire had restored the lustre of the conventional drama, +though Voltaire infused an element of the romantic under the severity of +the old forms. But the drama had become even less like Sophocles and +Euripides in _Zaïre_ than in _Phédre_ or _Iphigénie_. Voltaire intended +to constitute the French drama into an independent form. He expected to +be told that he was not like Sophocles, and he did not abstain from some +singularly free railing against Euripides. The Greek pieces often +smacked too much of the tone of the fair to satisfy him; they were too +familiar and colloquial for a taste that had been made fastidious by the +court-pieces of Lewis XIV. Diderot was kept free from such deplorable +criticism as this by feeling that the Greek drama was true to the +sentiment of the age that gave it birth, and that the French drama, if +not in the hands of Racine, still even in the hands of Voltaire, and +much more in the hands of such men as Lagrange-Chancel and the elder +Crébillon, was true to no sentiment save one purely literary, +artificial, and barren. He insists on the hopelessness of the stage, +unless men prepared themselves at every part for a grand return to +nature. We have seen what is his counsel to the actor. He preaches in +the same key to the scene-painter and the maker of costumes. +Scene-painting ought to be more rigorously true than any other kind of +picture. Let there be no distraction, no extraneous suggestion, to +interfere with the impression intended by the poet. Have you a salon to +represent? Let it be that of a man of taste and no more: no ostentation +and no gilding, unless the situation expressly demands the contrary. + +In the dresses the same rule holds good. Under robes that are overladen +with gold lace, I only see a rich man; what I want to see is a man. +Pretty and simple draperies of severe tints are what we need, not a +mass of tinsel and embroidery. "A courageous actress has just got rid of +her panier, and nobody has found her any the worse for it. Ah, if she +only dared one day to show herself on the stage with all the nobility +and simplicity of adjustment that her characters demand; nay, in the +disorder into which she would be thrown by an event so terrible as the +death of a husband, the loss of a son, and the other catastrophes of the +tragic stage, what would become, round her dishevelled figure, of all +those powdered, curled, frizzled, tricked-out creatures? Sooner or later +they must put themselves in unison. O nature, nature! We can never +resist her."[285] + +From all this we turn, for a few moments only, and not too cheerfully, +to the Serbonian bog of dramatic rules and the metaphysics of the +theatre. There is no subject in literature, not even the interpretation +of the Apocalypse, which has given birth to such pedantic, dismal, and +futile discussion. The immense controversy, carried on in books, +pamphlets, sheets and flying articles, mostly German, as to what it was +that Aristotle really meant by the famous words in the sixth chapter of +the _Poetics_, about tragedy accomplishing the purification of our moods +of pity and sympathetic fear, is one of the disgraces of human +intelligence, a grotesque monument of sterility. The great tap-root of +fallacy has been and remains the incessant imputation of ethical or +social purpose to the dramatist, and the demand of direct and combined +ethical or social effect from the drama. There is no critic, from the +great Aristotle downwards, who has steered quite clear of these evil +shallows; Diderot, as we have seen, least of all. But Diderot disarms +the impatience which narrower critics kindle, by this magnificent +concession, coming at the close of all: "Especially remember that _there +is no general principle;_ I do not know a single one of those that I +have indicated which a man of genius cannot infringe with success."[286] +Here we listen to the voice of the genuine Diderot; and if this be +granted, we need not give more than a passing attention to the rules +that have gone before--about the danger of borrowing in the same +composition the shades both of the comic and of the tragic styles; about +movement being injurious to dignity, and of the importance therefore of +not making the principal personage the _machinist_ of the piece; about +the inexpediency of episodic personages--and so forth. The only remark +worth making on these propositions is that, whatever their value may be, +Diderot at any rate, like a true philosopher, generalised from the facts +of nature and art. He did not follow the too common critical method of +reading one's own ideas into a work of art, and then taking them back +again in the more imposing form of inevitable deductions from the work +itself. + +What Diderot conceived himself really to have done, was to have sketched +and constituted a new species in the great dramatic kingdom. Every one +knows, he said, that there is tragedy and that there is comedy, but we +have to learn that there is room in nature and the art of the stage for +a third division, namely, the _genre sérieux_, a kind of comedy that has +for its object virtue and the duties of man. Why should the writer of +comedy confine his work to what is vicious or ridiculous in men? Why +should not the duties of men furnish the dramatist with as ample +material as their vices? Surely in the _genre honnête et sérieux_ the +subject is as important as in gay comedy. The characters are as varied +and as original. The passions are all the more energetic as the interest +will be greater. The style will be graver, loftier, more forcible, more +susceptible of what we call sentiment, a quality without which no style +ever yet spoke to the heart. The ridiculous will not be absent, for the +madness of actions and speeches, when they are suggested by the +misunderstanding of interests or by the transport of passion, is the +truly ridiculous thing in men and in life.[287] + +Besides his own two pieces, Diderot would probably have pointed to +Terence as the author coming nearest to the _genre sérieux_. If Goethe's +bad play of _Stella_ had retained the close as he originally wrote it, +with the bigamous Fernando in the last scene rejoicing over the devoted +agreement of the two ladies and his daughter to live with him in happy +unity, that would perhaps have been a comedy of the _genre sérieux_, +with the duties of man gracefully adapted to circumstances. + +The theory of the _genre sérieux_ has not led to the formation of any +school of writers adopting it and working it out, or to the production +of any masterpiece that has held its ground, as has happened in tragedy, +comedy, and farce. Beaumarchais, who at last achieved such a dazzling +and portentous success by one dramatic masterpiece, began his career as +a playwright by following the vein of _The Father of the Family;_ but +_The Marriage of Figaro_, though not without strong traces of Diderotian +sentiment in pungent application, yet is in its structure and +composition less French than Spanish. It is quite true, as Rosenkranz +says, that the prevailing taste on the French stage in our own times +favours above all else bourgeois romantic comedy, written in prose.[288] +But the strength of the romantic element in them would have been as +little satisfactory to Diderot's love of realistic moralising as the +conventional tragedy of the court of Lewis XIV. The Fable of most of +them turns on adultery, and this is not within the method of the _genre +sérieux_ as expounded by Diderot. Perhaps half a dozen comedies, such, +for instance, as _The Ideas of Madame Aubray,_ by M. Dumas, are of the +_genre sérieux_, but certainly there are not enough of such comedies to +constitute a genuine Diderotian school in France. There is no need +therefore to say more about the theory than this, namely, that though +the drama is an imitative art, yet besides imitation its effects demand +illusion. What, cries Diderot, you do not conceive the effect that would +be produced on you by a real scene, with real dresses, with speech in +true proportion to the action, with the actions themselves simple, with +the very dangers that have made you tremble for your parents, for your +friends, for yourselves? No, we answer: reproduction of reality does not +move us as a powerful work of imagination moves us. "We may as well +urge," said Burke, "that stones, sand, clay, and metals lie in a certain +manner in the earth, as a reason for building with these materials and +in that manner, as for writing according to the accidental disposition +of characters in Nature."[289] Common dangers do not excite us; it is +the presentation of danger in some uncommon form, in some new +combination, in some fresh play of motive and passion, that quickens +that sympathetic fear and pity which it is the end of a play to produce. +And if this be so, there is another thing to be said. If we are to be +deliberately steeped in the atmosphere of Duty, illusion is out of +place. The constant presence of that severe and overpowering figure, +"Stern Daughter of the Voice of God," checks the native wildness of +imagination, restricts the exuberance of fancy, and sets a rigorous +limit to invention. Diderot used to admit that the _genre sérieux_ could +never take its right place until it had been handled by a man of high +dramatic genius. The cause why this condition has never come to pass is +simply that its whole structure and its regulations repel the faculties +of dramatic genius. + +Besides the perfection of the _genre sérieux_, Diderot insisted that the +following tasks were also to be achieved before the stage could be said +to have attained the full glory of the other arts. First, a domestic or +bourgeois tragedy must be created. Second, the conditions of men, their +callings and situations, the types of classes, in short, must be +substituted for mere individual characters. Third, a real tragedy must +be introduced upon the lyric theatre. Finally, the dance must be brought +within the forms of a true poem. + +The only remark to be made upon this scheme touches the second article +of it. To urge the substitution of types of classes for individual +character was the very surest means that could have been devised for +bringing back the conventional forms of the pseudo-classic drama. The +very mark of that drama was that it introduced types instead of +vigorously stamped personalities. What would be gained by driving the +typical king off the stage, only to make room for the generalisation of +a shopkeeper? This was not the path that led to romanticism, to André +Chenier, to De Vigny, to Lamartine, to Victor Hugo. Théophile Gautier +has told us that the fiery chiefs of the romantic school who suddenly +conquered France at the close of the Restoration, divided the whole +world into _flamboyant_ and _drab_. In the literature of the past they +counted Voltaire one of the Drab, and Diderot a Flamboyant.[290] If it +be not too presumptuous in a foreigner to dissent, we cannot but think +that they were mistaken. Nothing could be farther removed at every part +from Diderot's dramatic scheme, than _Faust_ or _Götz von Berlichingen_ +or _Hernani_. + +The truth is that it was impossible for an effective antagonism to the +classic school to rise in the mind of an Encyclopædist, for the reason +that the Encyclopædists hated and ignored what they called the Dark +Ages. Yet it was exactly the Dark Ages from which the great romantic +revival drew its very life-breath. "In the eighteenth century," it has +been said, "it was really the reminiscence of the classic spirit which +was awakened in the newer life of Europe, and made prominent."[291] This +is true in a certain historic sense of Rousseau's politics, and perhaps +of Voltaire's rationalism. In spite of the vein of mysticism which +occasionally shows in him, it is true in some degree of Diderot himself, +if by classicism we mean the tendency to make man the centre of the +universe. Classicism treats man as worthy and great, living his life +among cold and neutral forces. This is the very opposite of the +sinfulness, imperfection, and nothingness habitually imputed to man, and +the hourly presence of a whole hierarchy of busy supernatural agents +placed about man by the Middle Ages. Yet we cannot but see that Diderot +was feeling for dramatic forms and subjects that would have been as +little classic as romantic. He failed in the search. There is one play +and only one of his epoch that is not classic, and is not romantic, but +speaks independently the truest and best mind of the eighteenth century +itself, in its own form and language. That play is _Nathan the Wise_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +RAMEAU'S NEPHEW. + + +In hypochondriacal moments, it has been said, the world, viewed from the +æsthetic side, appears to many a one a cabinet of caricatures; from the +intellectual side, a madhouse; and from the moral side, a harbouring +place for rascals.[292] We might perhaps extend this saying beyond the +accidents of hypochondriasis, and urge that the few wide, profound, and +real observers of human life have all known, and known often, this +fantastic consciousness of living in a strange distorted universe of +lunatics, knaves, grotesques. It is an inevitable mood to any who dare +to shake the kaleidoscopic fragments out of their conventional and +accepted combination. Who does not remember deep traces of such a mood +in Plato, Shakespeare, Pascal, Goethe? And Diderot, who went near to +having something of the deep quality of those sovereign spirits, did not +escape, any more than they, the visitation of the misanthropic spectre. +The distinction of the greater minds is that they have no temptation to +give the spectre a permanent home with them, as is done by theologians +in order to prove the necessity of grace and another world, or by +cynics in order to prove the wisdom of selfishness in this world. The +greater minds accept the worse facts of character for what they are +worth, and bring them into a right perspective with the better facts. +They have no expectation of escaping all perplexities, nor of hitting on +answers to all the moral riddles of the world. Yet are they ever drawn +by an invincible fascination to the feet of the mighty Sphinx of +society. She bewilders them with questions that are never overheard by +common ears, and torments them with a mockery that is unobserved by +common eyes. The energetic--a Socrates, a Diderot--cannot content +themselves with merely recording her everlasting puzzles; still less +with merely writing over again the already recorded answers. They insist +on scrutinising the moral world afresh; they resolve the magniloquent +vocabulary of abstract ethics into the small realities from which it has +come; they break the complacent repose of opinion and usage by a graphic +irony. "The definitions of moral beings," said Diderot, "are always made +from what such beings ought to be, and never from what they are. People +incessantly confound duty with the thing as it is."[293] We shall +proceed to give a short account of one or two dialogues in which he +endeavours to keep clear of this confusion. + +By far the most important of these is _Rameau's Nephew_. The fortunes +of this singular production are probably unique in literary history. In +the year 1804 Schiller handed to Goethe the manuscript of a piece by +Diderot, with the wish that he might find himself able to translate it +into German. "As I had long," says Goethe, "cherished a great regard +for this author, I cheerfully undertook the task, after looking through +the original. People can see, I hope, that I threw my whole soul into +it."[294] When he had done his work, he returned the manuscript to +Schiller. Schiller died almost immediately (May 1805), and the +mysterious manuscript disappeared. Goethe could never learn either +whence it had come, or whither it went. He always suspected that the +autograph original had been sent to the Empress Catherine at St. +Petersburg, and that Schiller's manuscript was a copy from that. Though +Goethe had executed his translation, as he says, "not merely with +readiness but even with passion," the violent and only too just hatred +then prevailing in Germany for France and for all that belonged to +France, hindered any vogue which _Rameau's Nephew_ might otherwise have +had. On the eve of Austerlitz and of Jena there might well be little +humour for a satire from the French. + +Thirteen years afterwards an edition of Diderot's works appeared in +Paris (Belin's edition of 1818), but the editors were obliged to content +themselves, for _Rameau's Nephew_, with an analysis of Goethe's +translation. In 1821 a lively sensation was produced by the publication +of what professed to be the original text of the missing dialogue. It +was really a retranslation into French from Goethe. The fraud was not +discovered for some time, until in 1823 Brière announced for his edition +of Diderot's works a reprint from a genuine original. This original he +had procured from Madame de Vandeul, Diderot's daughter, who still +survived. She described it as a copy made in 1760 under the author's own +eyes, and this may have been the case, though, if so, it must, from some +of the references, have been revised after 1773. The two young men who +had tried to palm off their retranslation from Goethe as Diderot's own +text, at once had the effrontery to accuse Brière and Diderot's daughter +of repeating their own fraud. A vivacious dispute followed between the +indignant publisher and his impudent detractors. At length Brière +appealed to the great Jove of Weimar. Goethe expressed his conviction +that Brière's text was the genuine text of the original, and this was +held to settle the question. Yet Goethe's voucher for its correspondence +with the copy handed to him by Schiller was not really decisive +evidence. He admits that he executed the translation very rapidly, and +had no time to compare it closely with the French. An identification +nearly twenty years afterwards of verbal resemblances and minute +references, in a work that had been only a short time in his hands, +cannot be counted testimony of the highest kind. We have thus the +extraordinary circumstance that for a great number of years, down almost +to the present decade, the text of the one masterpiece of a famous man +who died so recently as 1784 rested on a single manuscript, and that a +manuscript of disputed authenticity.[295] + +Critics differ extremely in their answers to the question of the subject +or object of Diderot's singular "farce-tragedy." One declares it to be +merely a satirical picture of contemporary manners. Another insists that +it is meant to be an ironical _reductio ad absurdum_ of the theory of +self-interest, by exhibiting a concrete example of its working in all +its grossness. A third holds that it was composed by way of rejoinder to +Palissot's comedy _(Les Philosophes_), 1760, which had brought the +chiefs of the rationalistic school upon the stage, and presented them as +enemies of the human race. A fourth suspects that the personal and +dramatic portions are no more than a setting for the discussion of the +comparative merits of the French and Italian schools of music. The true +answer is that the dialogue is all of these things, because it is none +of them. It is neither more nor less than the living picture and account +of an original, drawn by a man of genius who was accustomed to observe +human nature and society with a free unblinking vision, and to meditate +upon them deeply and searchingly. + +Diderot goes to work with Rameau in some sort and to a certain extent +as Shakespeare went to work with Falstaff. He is the artist, reproducing +with the variety and perfection of art a whimsical figure that struck +his fancy and stirred the creative impulse. Ethics, æsthetics, manners, +satire, are all indeed to be found in the dialogue, but they are only +there as incident to the central figure of the sketch, the prodigy of +parasites. Diderot had no special fondness for these originals. Yet he +had a keen and just sense of their interest. "Their character stands out +from the rest of the world, it breaks that tiresome uniformity which our +bringing up, our social conventions, and our arbitrary fashions have +introduced. If one of them makes his appearance in a company, he is like +leaven, fermenting and restoring to each person present a portion of his +natural individuality. He stirs people up, moves them, provokes to +praise or blame: he is a means of bringing out reality; gives honest +people a chance of showing what they are made of, and unmasks the +rogues."[296] + +Hearing that the subject of Diderot's dialogue is the Parasite, the +scholar will naturally think of that savage satire in which Juvenal +rehearses the thousand humiliations that Virro inflicts on Trebius: how +the wretched follower has to drink fiery stuff from broken crockery, +while the patron quaffs of the costliest from splendid cups of amber and +precious stones; how the host has fine oil of Venafrum, while the guest +munches cabbage that has been steeped in rancid lamp-oil; one plays +daintily with mullet and lamprey, while the other has his stomach turned +by an eel as long as a snake, and bloated in the foul torrent of the +sewers; Virro has apples that might have come from the gardens of the +Hesperides, while Trebius gnaws such musty things as are tossed to a +performing monkey on the town wall. But the distance is immeasurable +between Juvenal's scorching truculence and Diderot's half-ironical, +half-serious sufferance. Juvenal knows that Trebius is a base and abject +being; he tells him what he is; and in the process blasts him. Diderot +knows that Rameau too is base and abject, but he is so little willing to +rest in the fat and easy paradise of conventions, that he seems to be +all the time vaguely wondering in his own mind how far this genius of +grossness and paradox and bestial sophism is a pattern of the many, with +the mask thrown off. He seems to be inwardly musing whether it can after +all be true, that if one draws aside a fold of the gracious outer robe +of conformity, there is no comeliness of life shining underneath, but +only this horror of the skeleton and the worm. He restrains exasperation +at the brilliant effrontery of his man, precisely as an anatomist would +suppress disgust at a pathological monstrosity, or an astonishing +variation in which he hoped to surprise some vital secret. Rameau is not +crudely analysed as a vile type: he is searched as exemplifying on a +prodigious scale elements of character that lie furtively in the depths +of characters that are not vile. It seems as if Diderot unconsciously +anticipated that terrible, that woful, that desolating saying,--_There +is in every man and woman something which, if you knew it, would make +you hate them_. Rameau is not all parasite. He is your brother and mine, +a product from the same rudimentary factors of mental composition, a +figure cast equally with ourselves in one of the countless moulds of the +huge social foundry. + +Such is the scientific attitude of mind towards character: It is not +philanthropic nor pitiful: the fact that base characters exist and are +of intelligible origin is no reason why we should not do our best to +shun and to extirpate them. This assumption of the scientific point of +view, this change from mere praise and blame to scrutiny, this +comprehension that mere execration is not the last word, is a mark of +the modern spirit. Besides Juvenal, another writer of genius has shown +us the parasite of an ancient society. Lucian, whose fertility, wit, +invention, mockery, freshness of spirit, and honest hatred of false +gods, make him the Voltaire of the second century, has painted with all +his native liveliness more than one picture of the parasite. The great +man's creature at Rome endures exactly the same long train of affronts +and humiliations as the great man's creature at Paris sixteen centuries +later, beginning with the anguish of the mortified stomach, as savoury +morsels of venison or boar are given to more important guests, and +ending with the anguish of the mortified spirit, as he sees himself +supplanted by a rival of shapelier person, a more ingenious versifier, a +cleverer mountebank. The dialogue in which Lucian ironically proves +that Parasitic, or the honourable craft of Spunging, has as many of the +marks of a genuine art as Rhetoric, Gymnastic, or Music, is a spirited +parody of Socratic catechising and Platonic mannerisms. Simo shows to +Tychiades, as ingeniously as Rameau shows to Diderot, that the Spunger +has a far better life of it, and is a far more rational and consistent +person than the orator and the philosopher.[297] Lucian's satire is +vivid, brilliant, and diverting. Yet every one feels that Diderot's +performance, while equally vivid, is marked by greater depth of spirit; +comes from a soil that has been more freely broken up, and has been +enriched by a more copious experience. The ancient turned upon these +masterpieces of depravation the flash of intellectual scorn; the modern +eyes them with a certain moral patience, and something of that curious +kind of interest, looking half like sympathy, which a hunter has for the +object of his chase. + +The Rameau of the dialogue was a real personage, and there is a dispute +whether Diderot has not calumniated him. Evidence enough remains that he +was at least a person of singular character and irregular disastrous +life. Diderot's general veracity of temperament would make us believe +that his picture is authentic, but the interest of the dialogue is +exactly the same in either case. Juvenal's fifth satire would be worth +neither more nor less, however much were found out about Trebius. + +"Rameau is one of the most eccentric figures in the country, where God +has not made them lacking. He is a mixture of elevation and lowness, of +good sense and madness; the notions of good and bad must be mixed up +together in strange confusion in his head, for he shows the good +qualities that nature has bestowed on him without any ostentation, and +the bad ones without the smallest shame. For the rest, he is endowed +with a vigorous frame, a particular warmth of imagination, and an +uncommon strength of lungs. If you ever meet him, unless you happen to +be arrested by his originality, you will either stuff your fingers into +your ears or else take to your heels. Heavens, what a monstrous pipe! +Nothing is so little like him as himself. One time he is lean and wan, +like a patient in the last stage of consumption: you could count his +teeth through his cheeks; you would say he must have passed some days +without tasting a morsel, or that he is fresh from La Trappe. A month +after, he is stout and sleek as if he had been sitting all the time at +the board of a financier, or had been shut up in a Bernardine monastery. +To-day in dirty linen, his clothes torn and patched, with barely a shoe +to his foot, he steals along with a bent head; one is tempted to hail +him and toss him a shilling. To-morrow, all powdered, curled, in a good +coat, he marches about with head erect and open mien, and you would +almost take him for a decent worthy creature. He lives from day to day, +from hand to mouth, downcast or sad, just as things may go. His first +care of a morning when he gets up is to know where he will dine; after +dinner, he begins to think where he may pick up a supper. Night brings +disquiets of its own. Either he climbs to a shabby garret he has, unless +the landlady, weary of waiting for her rent, has taken the key away from +him; or else he shrinks to some tavern on the outskirts of the town, +where he waits for daybreak over a crust of bread and a mug of beer. +When he has not threepence in his pocket, as sometimes happens, he has +recourse either to a hackney-carriage belonging to a friend, or to a +coachman of some man of quality, who gives him a bed on the straw beside +the horses. In the morning he still has bits of the mattress in his +hair. If the weather is mild, he measures the Champs Elysées all night +long. With the day he reappears in the town, dressed over night for the +morrow, and from the morrow sometimes dressed for the rest of the week." + +Diderot is accosted by this curious being one afternoon on a bench in +front of the Café de la Régence in the Palais Royal. They proceed in the +thoroughly natural and easy manner of interlocutors in a Platonic +dialogue. It is not too much to say that _Rameau's Nephew_ is the most +effective and masterly use of that form of discussion since Plato. +Diderot's vein of realism is doubtless in strong contrast with Plato's +poetic and idealising touch. Yet imaginative strokes are not wanting to +soften the repulsive theme, and to bring the sordid and the foul within +the sphere of art. For an example. "Time has passed," says Rameau, "and +that is always so much gained." + +"_I._--So much lost, you mean. + +"_He._--No, no; gained. People grow rich every moment; a day less to +live, or a crown piece to the good, 'tis all one. When the last moment +comes, one is as rich as another. Samuel Bernard, who by pillaging and +stealing and playing bankrupt, leaves seven-and-twenty million francs in +gold, is no better than Rameau, who leaves not a penny, and will be +indebted to charity for a shroud to wrap about him. The dead man hears +not the tolling of the bell; 'tis in vain that a hundred priests bawl +dirges for him, in vain that a long file of blazing torches go before. +His soul walks not by the side of the master of the funeral ceremonies. +To moulder under marble, or to moulder under clay, 'tis still to +moulder. To have around one's bier children in red and children in blue, +or to have not a creature, what matters it?" + +These are the gleams of the _mens divinior_, that relieve the perplexing +moral squalor of the portrait. Even here we have the painful innuendo +that a thought which is solemnising and holy to the noble, serves +equally well to point a trait of cynical defiance in the ignoble. + +Again, there is an indirectly imaginative element in the sort of terror +which the thoroughness of the presentation inspires. For indeed it is an +emotion hardly short of terror that seizes us, as we listen to the +stringent unflinching paradox of this heterogeneous figure. Rameau is +the squalid and tattered Satan of the eighteenth century. He is a +Mephistopheles out at elbows, a Lucifer in low water; yet always +diabolic, with the bright flash of the pit in his eye. Disgust is +transformed into horror and affright by the trenchant confidence of his +spirit, the daring thoroughness and consistency of his dialectic, the +lurid sarcasm, the vile penetration. He discusses a horrible action, or +execrable crime, as a virtuoso examines a statue or a painting. He has +that rarest fortitude of the vicious, not to shrink from calling his +character and conduct by their names. He is one of Swift's Yahoos, with +the courage of its opinions. He seems to give one reason for hating and +dreading oneself. The effect is of mixed fear and fascination, as of a +magician whose miraculous crystal is to show us what and how we shall +be twenty years from now; or as when a surgeon tells the tale of some +ghastly disorder, that may at the very moment be stealthily preparing +for us a doom of anguish. + +Hence our dialogue is assuredly no "meat for little people nor for +fools." Some of it is revolting in its brutal indecency. Even Goethe's +self-possession cannot make it endurable to him. But it is a study to be +omitted by no one who judges the corruption of the old society in France +an important historic subject. The picture is very like the corruption +of the old society in Rome. We see the rotten material which the +purifying flame of Jacobinism was soon to consume out of the land with +fiery swiftness. We watch the very classes from which, as we have been +so often told, the regeneration of France would have come, if only +demagogues and rabble had not violently interposed. There is no gaiety +in the style; none of that laughter which makes such a delineation of +the manners of the time as we find in Collé's play of _Truth in Wine_, +_naïf_, true to nature, and almost exhilarating. In _Rameau_ we are +afflicted by the odour of deadly taint. + +As the dialogue is not in every hand--nor could any one wish that it +should be--I have thought it worth while to print an English rendering +of a considerable part of it in an appendix. Mr. Carlyle told us long +ago that it must be translated into English, and although such a piece +of work is less simple than it may seem, it appears right to give the +reader an opportunity of judging for himself of the flavour of the most +characteristic of all Diderot's performances. Only let no reader turn to +it who has any invincible repugnance to that curious turn for +_wildbret_, which Goethe has described as the secret of some arts. + + Dixeris hæc inter varicosos centuriones, + Continuo crassum ridet Pulfenius ingens + Et centum Græcos curto centusse licebit. + +As I have already said, it must be judged as something more than a +literary diversion. "You do not suspect, Sir Philosopher," says Rameau, +"that at this moment I represent the most important part of the town and +the court." As the painter of the picture says, Rameau confessed the +vices that he had, and that most of the people about us have; but he was +no hypocrite. He was neither more nor less abominable than they; he was +only more frank and systematic and profound in his depravity. This is +the social significance of the dialogue. This is what, apart from other +considerations, makes _Rameau's Nephew_ so much more valuable a guide to +the moral sentiment of the time than merely licentious compositions like +those of Louvet or La Olos. Its instructiveness is immense to those who +examine the conditions that prepared the Revolution. Rameau is not the +[Greek: akolastos] of Aristotle, nor the creature of [Greek: aponoia] +described by Theophrastus--the castaway by individual idiosyncrasy, the +reprobate by accident. The men whom he represented, the courtiers, the +financiers, the merchants, the shopkeepers, were immoral by formula and +depraved on principle. Vice was a doctrine to them, and wretchlessness +of unclean living was reduced to a system of philosophy. Any one, I +venture to repeat, who realises the extent to which this had corroded +the ruling powers in France, will perceive that the furious flood of +social energy which the Jacobins poured over the country was not less +indispensable to France than the flood of the barbarians was +indispensable for the transformation of the Roman Empire. + +Scattered among the more serious fragments of the dialogue is some +excellent by-play of sarcasm upon Palissot, and one or two of the other +assailants of the new liberal school. Palissot is an old story. The +Palissots are an eternal species. The family never dies out, and it +thrives in every climate. All societies know the literary dangler in +great houses, and the purveyor to fashionable prejudices. Not that he is +always servile. The reader, I daresay, remembers that La Bruyère +described a curious being in Troilus, the despotic parasite. Palissot, +eighteenth century or nineteenth century, is often like Troilus, +parasite and tyrant at the same time. He usually happens to have begun +life with laudable aspirations and sincere interests of his own; and +when, alas, the mediocrity of his gifts proves too weak to bear the +burden of his ambitions, the recollection of a generous youth only +serves to sour old age. + + Bel esprit abhorré de tous les bons esprits, + Il pense par la haine échapper au mépris. + A force d'attentats il se croit illustré; + Et s'il n'était méchant, il serait ignoré. + +Palissot began with a tragedy. He proceeded to an angry pamphlet +against the Encyclopædists and the fury for innovation. Then he achieved +immense vogue among fine ladies, bishops, and the lighter heads of the +town, by the comedy in which he held Diderot, D'Alembert, and the +others, up to hatred and ridicule. Finally, after coming to look upon +himself as a serious personage, he disappeared into the mire of +half-oblivious contempt and disgust that happily awaits all the poor +Palissots and all their works. His name only survives in connection with +the men whom he maligned. He lived to be old, as, oddly enough, Spite so +often does. In the Terror he had a narrow escape, for he was brought +before Chaumette. Chaumette apostrophised the assailant of Rousseau and +Diderot with rude energy, but did not send him to the guillotine. In +this the practical disciple only imitated the magnanimity of his +theoretical masters. Rousseau had declined an opportunity of punishing +Palissot's impertinences, and Diderot took no worse vengeance upon him +than by making an occasional reference of contempt to him in a dialogue +which he perhaps never intended to publish. + +Another subject is handled in _Rameau's Nephew,_ which is interesting in +connection with the mental activity of Paris in the eighteenth century. +Music was the field of as much passionate controversy as theology and +philosophy. The Bull Unigenitus itself did not lead to livelier +disputes, or more violent cabals, than the conflict between the +partisans of French music and the partisans of Italian music. The +horror of a Jansenist for a Molinist did not surpass that of a Lullist +for a Dunist, or afterwards of a Gluckist for a Piccinist.[298] Lulli +and Rameau (the uncle of our parasite) had undisputed possession of +Paris until the arrival, in 1752, of a company of Italian singers. The +great quarrel at once broke out as to the true method and destination of +musical composition. Is music an independent art, appealing directly to +a special sense, or is it to be made an instrument for expressing +affections of the mind in a certain deeper way? The Italians asked only +for delicious harmonies and exquisite melodies. The French insisted that +these should be subordinate to the work of the poet. The former were +content with delight, the latter pressed for significance. The one +declared that Italian music was no better than a silly tickling of the +ears; the other that the overture to a French opera was like a prelude +to a Miserere in plain-song. In 1772-73 the illustrious Gluck came to +Paris. His art was believed to reconcile the two schools, to have more +melody than the old French style, and more severity and meaning than the +purely Italian style. French dignity was saved. But soon the old battle, +which had been going on for twenty years, began to rage with greater +violence than ever. Piccini was brought to Paris by the Neapolitan +ambassador. The old cries were heard in a shriller key than before. +Pamphlets, broadsheets, sarcasms flew over Paris from every side. + +Was music only to flatter the ear, or was it to paint the passions in +all their energy, to harrow the soul, to raise men's courage, to form +citizens and heroes? The coffee-houses were thrown into dire confusion, +and literary societies were rent by fatal discord. Even dinner-parties +breathed only constraint and mistrust, and the intimacies of a lifetime +came to cruel end. _Rameau's Nephew_ was composed in the midst of the +first part of this long campaign of a quarter of a century, and its +seems to have been revised by its author in the midst of the second +great episode. Diderot declares against the school of Rameau and Lulli. +That he should do so was a part of his general reaction in favour of +what he called the natural, against the artifice and affectation. Goethe +has pointed out the inconsistency between Diderot's sympathy for the +less expressive kind of music, and his usual vehement passion for the +expressive in art. He truly observes that Diderot's sympathy went in +this way, because the novelty and agitation seemed likely to break up +the old, stiff, and abhorred fashion, and to clear the ground afresh for +other efforts.[299] + + + + +END OF VOL. I. + +_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. FOOTNOTES: + + + + +[Footnote 1: _Oeuv._, xviii. 505.] + +[Footnote 2: _Oeuv._, xviii. 364.] + +[Footnote 3: _Ib._ 379.] + +[Footnote 4: _Oeuv._, i. 30.] + +[Footnote 5: _Wahlverwandschaften_, pt. ii. ch. vii. The reader will do +well to consult the philosophical estimate of the function of the man of +letters given by Comte, _Philosophie Positive_, v. 512, vi. 192, 287. +The best contemporary account of the principles and policy of the men of +letters in the eighteenth century is to be found in Condorcet's +_Esquisse d'un Tableau, etc._, pp. 187-189 (ed. 1847).] + +[Footnote 6: Naigeon, p. 24.] + +[Footnote 7: _Oeuv._, xix. 162.] + +[Footnote 8: _Oeuv._, xix. 89.] + +[Footnote 9: _Oeuv._, xix. 93.] + +[Footnote 10: _Oeuv._, i. xlviii.] + +[Footnote 11: Marmontel, _Mém._, vol. ii. b. vii. p. 315.] + +[Footnote 12: Morellet, _Mém._, i. p. 29.] + +[Footnote 13: _Oeuv._, i. xlviii.] + +[Footnote 14: _Ib._ xix. 55.] + +[Footnote 15: _Oeuv._, xviii. 376.] + +[Footnote 16: Madame de Vandeul says 1744. But M. Jal (_Dict. Crit._, +495) reproduces the certificate of the marriage. Perhaps we may +charitably hope that Diderot himself is equally mistaken, when in later +years he sets down a disreputable adventure to 1744. (_Oeuv._, xix. +85.)] + +[Footnote 17: For an account of Madame de Puisieux in her later years, +see Mdme. Roland's _Memoirs_, i. 156.] + +[Footnote 18: Sainte Beuve, _Causeries_, ix. 136.] + +[Footnote 19: _Oeuv._, xix. 159. See also _Salons_, 1767, No, 118.] + +[Footnote 20: _Les Règnes de Claud et de Néron, § 79.] + +[Footnote 21: Account of Diderot by Meister, printed in Grimm's +_Correspondence Littéraire_ xiii. 202-211.] + +[Footnote 22: Grétry, quoted in Genin's _Oeuv. choisies de Diderot_, +42.] + +[Footnote 23: Marmontel, _Mém_., bk. vii. vol. ii. 312.] + +[Footnote 24: Plato, _Theages_, 130, c.] + +[Footnote 25: Art. _Encyclopédie_.] + +[Footnote 26: See Barbier's Journal, iv. 166.] + +[Footnote 27: The book was among those found in the possession of the +unfortunate La Barre.] + +[Footnote 28: Honegger's _Kritische Geschichte der französischen +Cultureinflüsse in den letzten Jahrhunderten_, pp. 267-273.] + +[Footnote 29: "Es ist nicht gleichgültig ob eine Folge grosser Gedanken +in frischer Ursprünglichkeit auf die Zeitgenossen wirkt, oder ob sie zu +einer Mixtur mit reichlichem Zusatz überlieferter Vorurtheile +verarbeitet ist. Ebensowenig ist est gleichgültig welcher Stimmung, +welchem Zustande der Geister eine neue Lehre begegnet. Man darf aber +kühn behaupten, das für die volle durchführung der von Newton +angebahnten Weltanschauung weder eine günstigere Naturanlage, noch eine +günstigere Stimmung getroffen werden konnte, als die der Franzosen im +18. Jahrhundert." (Lange's _Gesch. d. Materialismus_, i. 303.) But the +writer, like most historians of opinion, does not dwell sufficiently on +the co-operation of external social conditions with the progress of +logical inference.] + +[Footnote 30: See Montgeron's _La Verité des Miracles de M. de Pâris +démontrée_ (1737)--an interesting contribution to the pathology of the +human mind.] + +[Footnote 31: Barbier, 168, 244, etc.] + +[Footnote 32: _Pensées Philosophiques_, xviii.] + +[Footnote 33: On this, see Lange, i. 294.] + +[Footnote 34: _Pensées Philosophiques. Oeuv._, i. 128, 129.] + +[Footnote 35: _Oeuv._, xix. 87. Grimm, Supp. 148.] + +[Footnote 36: Volney, in a book that was famous in its day, _Les Ruines, +ou Méditation sur les révolutions des empires_ (1791), resorted to a +slight difference of method. Instead of leaving the pretensions of the +various creeds to cancel one another, he invented a rather striking +scene, in which the priests of each creed are made to listen to the +professions of their rival, and then inveigh against his superstition +and inconsistency. The assumption on which Diderot's argument rests is, +that as so many different creeds all make the same exclusive claim, the +claim is equally false throughout. Volney's argument turns more directly +on the merits, and implies that all religions are equally morbid or +pathological products, because they all lead to conduct condemned by +their own most characteristic maxims. Volney's concrete presentation of +comparative religion was highly effective for destructive purposes, +though it would now be justly thought inadequate. (See _Oeuv. de +Volney_, i. 109, etc.)] + +[Footnote 37: See on this, Lange, ii. 308.] + +[Footnote 38: _De la Suffisance de la Religion Naturelle_, § 5.] + +[Footnote 39: It is well to remember that torture was not abolished in +France until the Revolution. A Catholic writer makes the following +judicious remark: "We cannot study the eighteenth century without being +struck by the immoral consequences that inevitably followed for the +population of Paris from the frequency and the hideous details of +criminal executions. In reading the journals of the time, we are amazed +at the place taken in popular life by the scenes of the Grève. It was +the theatre of the day. The gibbet and the wheel did their work almost +periodically, and people looked on while poor wretches writhed in slow +agony all day long. Sometimes the programme was varied by decapitation +and even by the stake. Torture had its legends and its heroes--the +everyday talk of the generation which, having begun by seeing Damiens +torn by red-hot pincers, was to end by rending Foulon limb from limb." +(Carné, _Monarchie française au 18ième Siècle_, p. 493.)] + +[Footnote 40: _Lettres sur les Anglais_, xxiii.] + +[Footnote 41: _Essai sur le Mérite_, I. ii. § 3. _Oeue.,_ i. 33.] + +[Footnote 42: "Shaftesbury is one of the most important apparitions of +the eighteenth century. All the greatest spirits of that time, not only +in England, but also Leibnitz, Voltaire, Diderot, Lessing, Mendelssohn, +Wieland, and Herder, drew the strongest nourishment from him." (Hettner, +_Literaturgeschichte des 18ten Jahrhunderts: ler Theil_. 188.) See also +Lange's _Gesch. des Materialismus,_ i. 306, etc. An excellent account of +Shaftesbury is given by Mr. Leslie Stephen, in his _Essays on +Free-thinking and Plain-speaking_.] + +[Footnote 43: _Oeuv_., i. xlvi.] + +[Footnote 44: Jobez, _France sous Louis XV_., ii. 373. There were, in +1725, 24,000 houses, 20,000 carriages, and 120,000 horses. (Martin's +_Hist, de France_, xv. 116.)] + +[Footnote 45: The records of Paris in this century contain more than one +illustration of the turbulence of this odious army of lackeys. Barbier, +i. 118. For the way in which their insolence was fostered, see +Saint-Simon, xii. 354, etc. The number of lackeys retained seems to have +been extraordinarily great in proportion to the total of annual +expenditure, and this is a curious point in the manners of the time. See +Voltaire, _Dict. Phil_, § v. Économie Domestique (liv. 182).] + +[Footnote 46: Duclos, _Mém. secrets sur le Règne de Louis XV., iii 306.] + +[Footnote 47: _Oeuv_., xix. 91.] + +[Footnote 48: _Ib_. p. 130.] + +[Footnote 49: _Prom, du Sceptique. Oeuv_., i. 229.] + +[Footnote 50: "If there is a God, he is infinitely incomprehensible, +since, being without parts or limits, he has no relation to us: we are +therefore incapable of knowing what he is, or if he is. That being so, +who shall venture to undertake the solution of the question? Not we, at +any rate, who have no relation to him." _Pensees_, II. iii. 1.] + +[Footnote 51: P. 182.] + +[Footnote 52: P. 223.] + +[Footnote 53: Barbazan's _Fabliaux et Contes_, iii. 409 (ed. 1808). The +learned Barbazan's first edition was published in 1756, and so Diderot +may well have heard some of the contents of the work then in progress.] + +[Footnote 54: Naigeon.] + +[Footnote 55: In my _Rousseau_, p. 243 (new ed.)] + +[Footnote 56: _Voltaire_, p. 149 (new ed., Globe 8vo).] + +[Footnote 57: Joubert.] + +[Footnote 58: Hettner, _Literaiurgeschichte des 18ten Jahrhunderts_, ii. +301.] + +[Footnote 59: _Oeuv._, ii. 260, etc.] + +[Footnote 60: _Oeuv._, ii. 258, 259. _De l'Essai sur les Femmes, par +Thomas_. See Grimm's _Corr. Lit._, vii. 451, where the book is +disparaged; and viii. 1, where Diderot's view of it is given. Thomas +(1732-85) belonged to the philosophical party, but not to the militant +section of it. He was a serious and orderly person in his life, and +enjoyed the closest friendship with Madame Necker. His enthusiasm for +virtue, justice, and freedom, expressed with much magniloquence, made +him an idol in the respectable circle which Madame Necker gathered round +her. He has been justly, though perhaps harshly, described as a +"valetudinarian Grandison." (Albert's _Lit. Française au 18ième Siècle_, +p. 423.)] + +[Footnote 61: _Elémens de la Philosophie de Newton_, Pt. II. ch. vii. +Berkeley himself only refers once to Cheselden's case: _Theory of Vision +vindicated_, § 71. Professor Fraser, in his important edition of +Berkeley's works (i. 444), reproduces from the _Philosophical +Transactions_ the original account of the operation, which is +unfortunately much less clear and definite than Voltaire's emphasised +version would make it, though its purport is distinct enough.] + +[Footnote 62: _Essai sur l'Origine des Connaissances humaines_, I. § 6.] + +[Footnote 63: _Let. sur les Aveugles_, 323, 324. Condorcet attaches a +higher value to Cheselden's operation. _Oeuv._, ii. 121.] + +[Footnote 64: Dr. M'Cosh _(Exam. of J. S. Mill's Philosophy_, p. 163) +quotes what seems to be the best reported case, by a Dr. Franz, of +Leipsic; and Prof. Fraser, in the appendix to Berkeley (_loc. cit._), +quotes another good case by Mr. Nunnely. See also Mill's _Exam. of +Hamilton_, p. 288 (3d ed.)] + +[Footnote 65: _Confessions_, II, vii.] + +[Footnote 66: Darwin, _The Expression of the Emotions in Men and +Animals_, c. xiii. p. 312, and also pp. 335-337. This fact, so far as it +goes, seems to make against the theory of transmitted sentiments.] + +[Footnote 67: Locke answered that the man would not distinguish the cube +from the sphere, until he had identified by actual touch the source of +his former tactual impression with the object making a given visual +impression. Condillac, while making just objections to the terms in +which Molyneux propounded the question, answered it different from +Locke. Diderot expresses his own opinion thus: "I think that when the +eyes of the born-blind are opened for the first time to the light, he +will perceive nothing at all; that some time will be necessary for his +eye to make experiments for itself; but that it will make these +experiments itself, and in its own way, and without the help of touch." +This is in harmony with the modern doctrine, that there is an inherited +aptitude of structure (in the eye, for instance), but that experience is +an essential condition to the development and perfecting of this +aptitude.] + +[Footnote 68: A very intelligent English translation of the _Letter on +the Blind_ was published in 1773. For some reason or other, Diderot is +described on the title-page as Physician to His most Christian Majesty.] + +[Footnote 69: _Oeuv_., i. 308.] + +[Footnote 70: Pp. 309, 310.] + +[Footnote 71: P. 311.] + +[Footnote 72: _Corr._, June 1749.] + +[Footnote 73: See _Critical Miscellanies: First Series_.] + +[Footnote 74: Diderot to Voltaire, 1749. _Oeuv_., xix. 421.] + +[Footnote 75: Diderot to Voltaire, 1749. _Oeuv_., xix. 421.] + +[Footnote 76: P. 294.] + +[Footnote 77: Lewes's _Hist. Philos_., ii. 342.] + +[Footnote 78: Rosenkranz, i. 102.] + +[Footnote 79: Tylor's _Researches into the early history of mankind_, +chaps. ii. and iii.; Lubbock's _Origin of Civilization_, chap. ix.] + +[Footnote 80: Madame Dupré de Saint Maur, who had found favour in the +eyes of the Count d'Argenson. D'Argenson, younger brother of the +Marquis, who had been dismissed in 1747, was in power from 1743 to 1757. +Notwithstanding his alleged share in Diderot's imprisonment, he was a +tolerably steady protector of the philosophical party.] + +[Footnote 81: Barbier, iv. 337.] + +[Footnote 82: There is a picture of Berryer, under the name of Orgon in +that very curious book, _L'Ecole de l'Homme_, ii. 73.] + +[Footnote 83: Pieces given in Diderot's Works, xx. 121-123.] + +[Footnote 84: Naigeon, p. 131.] + +[Footnote 85: Voltaire's _Corr_. July and Aug. 1749.] + +[Footnote 86: _Conf_., II. viii.] + +[Footnote 87: Michelet's _Louis XV_., p. 258.] + +[Footnote 88: See the present author's _Rousseau_, vol. i. p. 134 (Globe +8vo ed.)] + +[Footnote 89: For the two petitions of the booksellers to D'Argenson +praying for Diderot's liberty, see M. Assézat's preliminary notice. +_Oeuv_., xiii. 112, etc.] + +[Footnote 90: Jourdain's _Recherches sur les traductions latines +d'Aristote_, p. 325.] + +[Footnote 91: _Lit. of Europe_, pt. i. ch. ii. § 39.] + +[Footnote 92: Whewell's _Hist. Induc. Sci._. xii. c. 7.] + +[Footnote 93: Fr. Roger Bacon; J.S. Brewer's Pref. pp 57, 63.] + +[Footnote 94: Leibnitii, Opera v. 184.] + +[Footnote 95: _Oeuv. de D'Alembert_, i. 63.] + +[Footnote 96: _Mém._ pour J.P.F. Luneau de Boisjermain, 4to, Paris, +1771. See also Diderot's _Prospectus_, "La traduction entière de +Chambers nous a passé sous les yeux," etc.] + +[Footnote 97: Biog. Universelle, _s.v._] + +[Footnote 98: Michelet, _Louis XV._, 258. D'Aguesseau (1668-1751) has +left one piece which ought to be extricated from the thirteen quartos of +his works--his memoir of his father (_Oeuv._, xiii.) This is one of +those records of solid and elevated character, which do more to refresh +and invigorate the reader than a whole library of religious or ethical +exhortations can do. It has the loftiness, the refined austerity, the +touching impressiveness of Tacitus's _Agricola_ or Condorcet's _Turgot_, +together with a certain grave sweetness that was almost peculiar to the +Jansenist school of the seventeenth century.] + +[Footnote 99: A short estimate of D'Alembert's principal scientific +pieces, by M. Bertram, is to be found in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, +for October 1865.] + +[Footnote 100: _Oeuv. de D'Alembert_, iv. 367.] + +[Footnote 101: _Oeuv. de J. Ph. Roland_, i. 230 (ed. 1800).] + +[Footnote 102: _Essai sur la Société des Gens de Lettres et des Grands_, +etc. _Oeuv_., iv. 372. "Write," he says, "as if you loved glory; in +conduct, act as if it were indifferent to you." Compare, with reference +to the passage in the text, Duclos's remark (_Consid. sur les Moeurs_, +ch. xi.): "The man in power commands, but the intelligent govern, +because in time they form public opinion, and that sooner or later +subjugates every kind of despotism." Only partially true.] + +[Footnote 103: _Pensées Philos._, § 26.] + +[Footnote 104: _Phil. Pos._, v. 520. _Polit. Pos._, iii. 584.] + +[Footnote 105: See Pref. to vol. iii.] + +[Footnote 106: For instance, see Pref. to vol. vi.] + +[Footnote 107: _Siècle de Louis XV_., ch. xliii.] + +[Footnote 108: Grimm, _Corr. Lit._, i. 273. Diderot, _Oeuv_., iv. 15.] + +[Footnote 109: _Avertissement_ to vol. vi.; also to vol. vii. Turgot's +articles were Etymiologie, Existence, Expansibilité, Foires, Fondations. +The text of these is wrongly inserted among Diderot's contributions to +the Encyclopædia, in the new edition of his Works, xv. 12.] + +[Footnote 110: Condorcet's _Vie de Turgot_.] + +[Footnote 111: Pref. to vol. iii. (1752), and to vol. vi. (1756).] + +[Footnote 112: Pref. to vol. ii.] + +[Footnote 113: Grimm, _Corr. Lit._, i. 130. Forbonnais's chief work is +his _Becherches et Considérations sur les finances de la France_.] + +[Footnote 114: _Avert._ to vol. ii.] + +[Footnote 115: Nov. 10, 1760, xix. 24. Also, Oct. 7, 1761, xix. 35.] + +[Footnote 116: See also Preface to vol. iii.] + +[Footnote 117: _Avert._ to vol. vi., and _s. v. Fontange_. Grimm, i. +451.] + +[Footnote 118: _Corresp. avec D'Alembert_ (_Oeuv._, lxxv.), Sept. +1755, Feb. 1757, etc.] + +[Footnote 119: Dec. 22, 1757.] + +[Footnote 120: May 24, 1757.] + +[Footnote 121: Dec. 13, 1756; April 1756.] + +[Footnote 122: July 21, 1757.] + +[Footnote 123: Article _Encyclopédie_.] + +[Footnote 124: To Voltaire, Feb. 15, 1757.] + +[Footnote 125: Hettner's _Literaturgesch, des 18ten Jahrhunderts_, ii. +277.] + +[Footnote 126: Art. _Encyclopédie_.] + +[Footnote 127: _Prospectus_.] + +[Footnote 128: Barbier, v. 151, 153.] + +[Footnote 129: Diderot to Voland, _Oeuv_., xviii. 361. Carlyle's +_Frederick,_ bk. xviii. ch. xi.] + +[Footnote 130: _Apologie de l' Abbe de Prades. Oeuv.,_ i. 482.] + +[Footnote 131: See Jobez, i. 358.] + +[Footnote 132: xix. 425.] + +[Footnote 133: Barbier, v. 160.] + +[Footnote 134: _Ib_. v. 169.] + +[Footnote 135: Grimm, _Corr. Lit_., i. 81. Barbier, _v_. 170.] + +[Footnote 136: _Avert._, to vol. iii. _Oeuv. de D'Alembert_, iv. 410.] + +[Footnote 137: Barbier, v. 170. Grimm, _Corr. Lit._, i. 201; _Ib._ ii. +197.] + +[Footnote 138: Hardy, quoted by Aubertin, 407, 408.] + +[Footnote 139: _Corr. Lit._, ii. 271.] + +[Footnote 140: To D'Alembert, Dec. 29, 1757; Jan. 1758.] + +[Footnote 141: For a short account of Helvétius's book, see a later +chapter.] + +[Footnote 142: _Corr. Lit._, ii. 292, 293.] + +[Footnote 143: Barbier, vii. 125-142.] + +[Footnote 144: Lacretelle's _France pendant le 18ième Siècle_, iii. 89.] + +[Footnote 145: Jobez, ii. 464, 538.] + +[Footnote 146: See _Rousseau_, vol. i. chaps, vii. and ix. (Globe 8vo +ed.)] + +[Footnote 147: _Louis XV. et Louis XVI._, p. 50.] + +[Footnote 148: Jan. 11, 1758. Jan. 20, 1758. Diderot to Mdlle. Voland, +Oct. 11, 1759. See the following chapter.] + +[Footnote 149: Voltaire to D'Alembert, Jan. to May 1758. Voltaire to +Diderot, Jan. 1758.] + +[Footnote 150: Diderot to Voltaire, Feb. 19, 1758, xix. 452.] + +[Footnote 151: To Voland, _Oeuv._, xix. 146.] + +[Footnote 152: _Corr. Lit._, vii. 146.] + +[Footnote 153: _Corr. Lit._, vii. 146.] + +[Footnote 154: _Oeuv. de Voltaire_. Published sometimes among +_Facéties_, sometimes among _Mélanges_.] + +[Footnote 155: See _Oeuv. Choisies de Jean Reynaud_, reprinted in +1866. The article on _Encyclopèdie_ (vol. i.) is an interesting attempt +to vindicate Cartesian principles of classification.] + +[Footnote 156: See fly-leaf of vol. xxviii.] + +[Footnote 157: _Mém._, ii. 115. Grimm, vii. 145.] + +[Footnote 158: De Maistre says that the reputation of Bacon does not +really go farther back than the Encyclopædia, and that no true +discoverer either knew him or leaned on him for support. (_Examen de la +Phil. de Bacon_, ii. 110.) Diderot says: "I think I have taught my +fellow-citizens to esteem and read Bacon; people have turned over the +pages of this profound author more since the last five or six years than +has ever been the case before" (xiv. 494). In Professor Fowler's careful +and elaborate edition of the Novum Organum (_Introduct._, p. 104), he +disputes the statement of Montuola and others, that the celebrity of +Bacon dates from the Encyclopædia. All turns upon what we mean by +celebrity. What the Encyclopædists certainly did was to raise Bacon, for +a time, to the popular throne from which Voltaire's Newtonianism had +pushed Descartes. Mr. Fowler traces a chain of Baconian tradition, no +doubt, but he perhaps surrenders nearly as much as is claimed when he +admits that "the patronage of Voltaire and the Encyclopædists did much +to extend the study of Bacon's writings, besides producing a +considerable controversy as to his true meaning on many questions of +philosophy and theology."] + +[Footnote 159: See above, p. 62, _note_.] + +[Footnote 160: D'Alembert was not afraid to contend against the great +captain of the age, that the military spirit of Lewis XIV. had been a +great curse to Europe. He showed a true appreciation of Frederick's +character and conception of his duties as a ruler, in believing that the +King of Prussia would rather have had a hundred thousand labourers more, +and as many soldiers fewer, if his situation had allowed it. _Corresp. +avec le roi de Prusse_, _Oeuv._, v. 305.] + +[Footnote 161: See Essay on Turgot in my _Critical Miscellanies_, +_Second Series_.] + +[Footnote 162: Such, as that their feudal rights should be confirmed; +that none but nobles should carry arms, or be eligible for the army; +that _lettres-de-cachet_ should continue; that the press should not be +free; that the wine trade should not be free internally or for export; +that breaking up wastes and enclosing commons should be prohibited; that +the old arrangement of the militia should remain.--Arthur Young's +_France_, ch. xxi. p. 607.] + +[Footnote 163: _Ib._ ch. xxi.] + +[Footnote 164: _Critical Miscellanies_, _Second Series_, p. 202.] + +[Footnote 165: _Travels in France_, p. 600.] + +[Footnote 166: _Travels in France_, i. 63.] + +[Footnote 167: Rosenkranz, i. 219.] + +[Footnote 168: _Avert_. to vol. iii] + +[Footnote 169: Diderot, _Oeuv._, iv. 24.] + +[Footnote 170: Diderot's _Leben_, i. 157.] + +[Footnote 171: _Oeuv._, xx. 132.] + +[Footnote 172: The writer was one Romilly, who had been elected a +minister of one of the French Protestant churches in London. See +_Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly_, vol. i.] + +[Footnote 173: I have no space to quote an interesting page in this +article on the characteristics and the varying destinies of genius. "We +must rank in this class Pindar, Æschylus, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mahomet, +Shakespeare, Roger Bacon, and Paracelsus." xvii. 265-267.] + +[Footnote 174: The same idea is found still more ardently expressed in +one of his letters to Mdlle. de Voland (Oct. 15, 1759, xviii. 408), +where he defends the eagerness of those who have loved one another +during life, to be placed side by side after death.] + +[Footnote 175: xiv. 32.] + +[Footnote 176: _S.v._ Sarrasins, xvii. 82. See also xviii. 429, for +Diderot's admiration of Sadi.] + +[Footnote 177: _S.v. Pyrrhonienne_.] + +[Footnote 178: _E.g._ in the article on _Plaisir_, xvi. p. 298.] + +[Footnote 179: To Damilaville, 1766, xix. 477.] + +[Footnote 180: xx. 34.] + +[Footnote 181: xvi. 280.] + +[Footnote 182: See also article _Indépendance_.] + +[Footnote 183: iv. 93.] + +[Footnote 184: The reader will find abundant information and criticism +upon the Wolffian Philosophy in Professor Edward Caird's _Critical +Account of the Philosophy of Kant_, recently published at Glasgow.] + +[Footnote 185: xvi. 491, 492.] + +[Footnote 186: There are casual criticisms on Spinosa in the articles on +_Identity_ and _Liberty_.] + +[Footnote 187: xv. 501.] + +[Footnote 188: xix. 435, 436.] + +[Footnote 189: See below, vol. ii.] + +[Footnote 190: S.v. _Luxe_, xvi. 23.] + +[Footnote 191: As an illustration how much these ideas were in the air, +the reader may refer to a passage in Sédaine's popular comedy, _The +Philosopher without knowing it_ (1765), Act II. sc. 4. Vanderk, among +other things, says of the merchant: "Ce n'est pas un temple, ce n'est +pas une seule nation qu'il sert; il les sert toutes, et en est servi: +c'est l'homme de l'univers. Quelques particuliers audacieux font armer +les rois, la guerre s'allume, tout s'embrase, l'Europe est divisée: mais +ce négociant anglais, hollandais, russe ou chinois, n'en est pas moins +l'ami de mon coeur: nous sommes sur la superficie de la terre autant de +fils de soie qui lient ensemble les nations, et les ramènent à la paix +par la nécessité du commerce; voila, mon fils, ce que c'est qu'un +honnête négociant."] + +[Footnote 192: The younger sister of Diderot's Sophie.] + +[Footnote 193: xviii. 454.] + +[Footnote 194: See below, the chapter on _Rameau's Nephew_.] + +[Footnote 195: Nov. 10, 1770; xix. 22.] + +[Footnote 196: See, for instance, xix. 81, 91, 129, 133, 145, +etc.--passages which Mr. Carlyle and Rosenkranz have either overlooked, +or else, without any good reason, disbelieved.] + +[Footnote 197: xviii. 293.] + +[Footnote 198: xix. 46.] + +[Footnote 199: xix. 84. See also 326.] + +[Footnote 200: xix. 137, 341, etc.] + +[Footnote 201: xviii. 535.] + +[Footnote 202: xviii. 507, etc.] + +[Footnote 203: xviii. 526, 531.] + +[Footnote 204: Nov. 2, 1759; xviii. 431.] + +[Footnote 205: xix. 82.] + +[Footnote 206: xix. 139.] + +[Footnote 207: xix. 107.] + +[Footnote 208: xix. 181.] + +[Footnote 209: xix. 81.] + +[Footnote 210: xix. 149.] + +[Footnote 211: xix. 90.] + +[Footnote 212: xix. 163, 164.] + +[Footnote 213: Sept. 20, 1765; xix. 179-187.] + +[Footnote 214: xviii. 476, 478.] + +[Footnote 215: xviii. 479. Comte writes more seriously somewhat in the +same sense: "For thirty centuries the priestly castes of China, and +still more of India, have been watching our Western transition; to them +it must appear mere agitation, as puerile as it is tempestuous, with +nothing to harmonise its different phases but their common inroad upon +unity." _Positive Polity_, iv. 11 (English Translation)] + +[Footnote 216: xix. 233.] + +[Footnote 217: Voltaire's Satire on the Economists.] + +[Footnote 218: Oct. 8, 1768; xix. 832.] + +[Footnote 219: xviii. 509.] + +[Footnote 220: xviii. 513.] + +[Footnote 221: xviii. 511-513.] + +[Footnote 222: xix. 244.] + +[Footnote 223: xviii. 459.] + +[Footnote 224: xix. 259.] + +[Footnote 225: _Lettres de Mdlle. de Lespinasse_, viii. p. 20. (Ed. +Asse, 1876.)] + +[Footnote 226: Aug. 1, 1769; xix. 365.] + +[Footnote 227: (1765-69) xix. 381-412. Also p. 318.] + +[Footnote 228: June 1756; xix. 433-436.] + +[Footnote 229: Aug. 1762; xix. 112.] + +[Footnote 230: In _Rousseau_, vol. i. ch. vii. (Globe 8vo, ed.)] + +[Footnote 231: Dec. 1757; xix. 446.] + +[Footnote 232: xix. 449.] + +[Footnote 233: Dec. 20, 1765; xix. 210.] + +[Footnote 234: See _Rousseau_, vol. i. ch. vii. (Globe 8vo. ed.)] + +[Footnote 235: Oct. 9, 1759; xviii. 397.] + +[Footnote 236: Nov. 6, 1760; xix. 17.] + +[Footnote 237: Sept. 17, 1761; xix. 47.] + +[Footnote 238: Sept. 17, 1769; xix. 320.] + +[Footnote 239: _Lettres sur le Commerce de la Librairie_, xviii. 47.] + +[Footnote 240: See _Rousseau_, vol. ii. ch. i. (Globe 8vo. ed.)] + +[Footnote 241: Diderot's _Lettre sur le Commerce de la Librairie_ +(1767). _Oeuv._, xviii.] + +[Footnote 242: Those who are interested in the history of authorship may +care to know the end of the matter. Copyright is no modern practice, and +the perpetual right of authors, or persons to whom they had ceded it, +was recognised in France through the whole of the seventeenth century +and three-quarters of the eighteenth. The perpetuity of the right had +produced literary properties of considerable value; for example, +Boudot's Dictionary was sold by his executors for 24,000 livres; +Prévot's Manual Lexicon and two Dictionaries for 115,000 livres. But in +1777--ten years after Diderot's plea--the Council decreed that copyright +was a privilege and an exercise of the royal grace. The motives for this +reduction of an author's right from a transferable property to a +terminable privilege seem to have been, first, the general mania of the +time for drawing up the threads of national life into the hands of the +administration, and second, the hope of making money by a tariff of +permissions. The Constituent Assembly dealt with the subject with no +intelligence nor care, but the Convention passed a law recognising in +the author an exclusive right for his life, and giving a property for +ten years after his death to heirs or _cessionaires_. The whole history +is elaborately set forth in the collection of documents entitled _La +Propriété littéraire au 18ième siècle_. (Hachette, 1859.)] + +[Footnote 243: Oct. 11, 1759; xviii. 401.] + +[Footnote 244: xix. 319, 320.] + +[Footnote 245: _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 73.] + +[Footnote 246: Walpole to Selwyn. 1765. Jesse's _Selwyn_, ii. 9. See +also Walpole to Mann, iv. 283.] + +[Footnote 247: D'Epinay, ii. 4, 138, 153, etc.] + +[Footnote 248: See Comte's _Positive Polity_, vol. iii.] + +[Footnote 249: "_That virtue of originality that men so strain after is +not newness, as they vainly think (there is nothing new), it is only +genuineness._"--Ruskin.] + +[Footnote 250: Lessing: 1729-81. Diderot: 1713-84. As De Quincey puts +it, Lessing may be said to have begun his career precisely in the middle +of the last century.] + +[Footnote 251: _Hamburg. Dramaturgie_, § 85. Werke, vi. 381. (Ed. +1873.)] + +[Footnote 252: Diderot's _Leben_, i. 274, 277.] + +[Footnote 253: _Corr. Lit._, ii. 103.] + +[Footnote 254: See Grimm's account of the performance, _Corr. Lit._, +vii. 313.] + +[Footnote 255: Act IV. sc. 3.] + +[Footnote 256: Act V. sc. 3.] + +[Footnote 257: _De la Poésie Dramatique_, ch. xxi.] + +[Footnote 258: vii. 107.] + +[Footnote 259: Nov. 28, 1760; xix. 457.] + +[Footnote 260: _Lettre sur les Sourds et les Muets_, i. 359.] + +[Footnote 261: _Correspond. du Roi Stanislas-Auguste et de Mdme. +Geoffrin, _p. 466.] + +[Footnote 262: Aug. 1769; xix. 314-323.] + +[Footnote 263: Quoted in Mr. Sime's excellent _Life of Lessing_ (Trübner +and Co., 1877), p. 230.] + +[Footnote 264: _De la Poésie Dramatique_, § 2, vii. 313.] + +[Footnote 265: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, iv. 177 (ed. 1837).] + +[Footnote 266: xix. 474.] + +[Footnote 267: _Père de Famille_, Act II. sc. 2, p. 211.] + +[Footnote 268: _Paradoxe sur le Comédien_, p. 383.] + +[Footnote 269: _Journals_, ii. 331. Also vi. 248; vii. 9.] + +[Footnote 270: _Réflexions sur Térence_, v. 228-238. In another place +(_De la Poésie Dram._, 370) he says: "Nous avons des comédies. Les +Anglais n'ont que des satires, à la vérité pleines de force et de +gaieté, mais sans moeurs et sans goût. Les Italiens en sont réduits au +drame burlesque."] + +[Footnote 271: vii. 95.] + +[Footnote 272: _Lettre sur les Sourds et les Muets_, i. 355.] + +[Footnote 273: _Paradoxe_, viii. 384. The criticism on the detestable +rendering of _Hamlet_ by Ducis (viii. 471) makes one doubt whether +Diderot knew much about Shakespeare.] + +[Footnote 274: Letter to Mdlle. Jodin, xix. 387.] + +[Footnote 275: Johnson one day said to John Kemble: "Are you, sir, one +of those enthusiasts who believe yourself transformed into the very +character you represent?" Kemble answered that he had never felt so +strong a persuasion himself. _Boswell_, ch. 77.] + +[Footnote 276: Lessing makes this a starting-point of his criticism of +the art of acting, though he uses it less absolutely than Diderot would +do. _Hamburg. Dramaturgie_, § 3, vol. vi. 19.] + +[Footnote 277: In Lichtenberg's _Briefe aus England_ (1776) there is a +criticism of the most admirably intelligent kind on Garrick. Lord Lytton +gave an account of it to English readers in the _Fortnightly Review_ +(February 1871). The following passage confirms what Diderot says above: + +"You have doubtless heard much of his extraordinary power of change of +face. Here is one example of it. When he played the part of Sir John +Brute, I was close to the stage, and could observe him narrowly. He +entered with the corners of his mouth so turned down, as to give to his +whole countenance the expression of habitual sottishness and debauchery. +And this artificial form of the mouth he retained, unaltered, from the +beginning to the end of the play, with the exception only that, as the +play went on, the lips gaped and hung more and more in proportion to the +gradually increasing drunkenness of the character represented. This +made-up face was not produced by stage-paint, but solely by muscular +contraction; and it must be so identified by Garrick with his idea of +Sir John Brute as to be spontaneously assumed by him whenever he plays +that part; otherwise, his retention of such a mask, without even once +dropping it either from fatigue or surprise, even in the most boisterous +action of his part, would be quite inexplicable."] + +[Footnote 278: viii. 382.] + +[Footnote 279: viii. 373, 376, etc.] + +[Footnote 280: As Hamlet to his players: "Nor do not saw the air too +much with your hand thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, +tempest, and (as I may say) the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire +and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness."] + +[Footnote 281: To Jodin, xix, 382. "Point de hoquets, point de cris, de +la dignité vraie, un jeu ferme, sensé, raisonné, juste, mâle; la plus +grande sobriété de gestes. C'est de la contenance, c'est du maintien, +qu'il faut déclamer les trois quarts du temps."--P. 390.] + +[Footnote 282: P. 395.] + +[Footnote 283: _Bijoux Indiscrets_, ch. xxxviii.] + +[Footnote 284: vii. 121. Lessing makes a powerful addition to this. +_Hamburg. Dram._ vi. 261.] + +[Footnote 285: _Poésie Dramatique_, §§ 20, 21.] + +[Footnote 286: _Sienne Entretien_, vii. 138.] + +[Footnote 287: _Poés. Dram._., § 2. The Poetics of the Genre Sérieux are +to be found, vii. 137, 138.] + +[Footnote 288: i. 316.] + +[Footnote 289: _Hints for an Essay on the Drama_, p. 155.] + +[Footnote 290: _Hist. du Romantisme_, p. 93.] + +[Footnote 291: _Der Gegensatz des Classischen und des Romantischen, +etc._ By Conrad Hermann, p. 66.] + +[Footnote 292: Schopenhauer, _Ethik_, 199] + +[Footnote 293: _Oeuv._, iv. 29.] + +[Footnote 294: _Werke_, xxv. 291.] + +[Footnote 295: The original of the text, published in the Assézat +edition of Diderot's works, was a manuscript found, with other waifs and +strays of the eighteenth century, in a chest that had belonged to +Messrs. Würtel and Treutz, the publishers at Strasburg. Its authenticity +is corroborated by the fact that in the places where Goethe has marked +an omission, we find stories or expressions from which we understand +only too well why Goethe forbore to reproduce them.] + +[Footnote 296: v. 339.] + +[Footnote 297: Lucian, [Greek: Peri Parasitou], and [Greek: Peri tôn epi +misthô sunontôn.]] + +[Footnote 298: Grimm, ix. 349.] + +[Footnote 299: _Anmerkungen, Rameau's Neffe; Werke_, xxv. 268.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol 1 +of 2), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIDEROT *** + +***** This file should be named 15098-8.txt or 15098-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/0/9/15098/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, LN Yaddanapudi, Leonard Johnson and the PG +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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