IJllllliHlltlilill Class j:£L_2_Ali=L Book £uL. GopyrightN". COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. iiTTl Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2011 witii funding from Tine Library of Congress Iittp://www.arcliive.org/details/diderotasdiscipl01crur STUDIES IN ROMANCE PHILOLOGY AND LITERATURE DIDEROT AS A DISCIPLE OF ENGLISH THOUGHT " II est clair, pour tous ceux qui ont des yeux, que sans les Anglais la raison et la philosophie seraient encore dans I'enfance la plus m6prisable en France . . . ." Diderot d Catherine II, 1775. M COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES AGENTS New York : LEMCKE & BUECHNER 30-32 West 27th Street London : HENRY FROWDE Amen Corner, E.C. Toronto : HENRY FROWDE 25 Richmond Street, W. %l DIDEROT AS A DISCIPLE OP ENGLISH THOUGHT R. LOYALTY CRU, Ph.D. Bt\a Park COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1913 All rights reserved Copyright, 1913 By Columbia University Press Printed from type. Published May, 1913 PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY LANCASTER, PA. \^ / ©CI.A350084 To JOHN VISCOUNT MORLEY, WHOSE WORKS ON VOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU AND DIDEROT AND THE ENCYCLOP^T^DISTS ARE THE SINCEREST STUDIES YET DEVOTED, IN ANY LANGUAGE, TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS DISCIPLES OF ENGLISH THOUGHT WHO ILLUMINED EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE AND INFLUENCED THE DESTINIES OF THE WORLD, THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED (v CONTENTS Page Introduction 1 CHAPTER I Diderot's Life and General Relationship to England 19 Diderot's early years. — New importance of modern languages. — Which are most neces- sary in the eighteenth century? — Impression created by Voltaire's Lettres pJiilosophiques. — Diderot's needy years. — He learns English. - — His dislike for traveling. — Marriage. Diderot's literary career. — Translations from the English for the booksellers. — The Encyclopedie. — Diderot's early writings. — His imprisonment. — Posthumous works. Second-hand knowledge of England. — Eng- lish spleen. — The English Parliament, and other topics. — The question of patriotism. — A recantation. — Holbach's impressions of Eng- land. — " Paris, when shall I Bee thee again ? " — Diderot's unfavorable reflections on England. — Blots in the scutcheon. — Eng- land's true greatness. — Protestantism and education, Diderot's enthusiasm for the American In- surgents: an unpublished letter to Wilkes. vii viii DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT — His wishes for the United States. — Conclusion. CHAPTER II Diderot's English Friends 76 An enemy: Horace Walpole. — Many Eng- lishmen in Paris after 1763. — An anecdote by Goldsmith. — Incomplete state of Diderot's Correspondence. — A great friend: "Hoop," or Hope; his life and character. — Tales of savages; Baron Dieskau; anthropology and philosophy. — Curiosities of literature : Hoop and Sterne ; Smollett's " Roman dinner."— Sterne; did he know Diderot personally? — Gibbon. — Obscurer visitors to Paris. Three famous friends of Diderot: Gar- rick; Hume; Wilkes. — Franklin in Paris. English reaction against French free-think- ing: Burke, Romilly. — The divorce between the French and English intellects. CHAPTER III The Moralist and Philosopher 118 Diderot "le Philosophe" essentially a mor- alist. — Shaftesbury's popularity in England and France. — His Inquiry concerning merit or virtue. — Why Diderot found it especially interesting. — Rhetorical precautions. — Eng- lish "boldness" tempered in the translation. — Shaftesbury's influence on Diderot. — Sceptical doubts. CONTENTS ix Diderot's Pensees philosophiques, partly made up of extracts from the Characteris- tics. — Reminiscences from Shaftesbuiy in some subsequent works of Diderot. The Lettre sur les aveugles and the " prob- lem of Molyneux." — Nicholas Saunderson. —The fictitious "William Inchliff."— The " elephant and tortoise " illustration. — First outline of a transformistic theory. — Passage from metaphysical to scientific activity. CHAPTER IV The Scientist 174 General contempt for " systematic " phi- losophy about 1750. — Locke's sensationalism almost universally accepted in France. — Hume's phenomenism. — Reaction against hy- potheses. — Diderot's reserve in judging meta- physical systems. His work in mathematics and acoustics. — Controversy concerning vaccination. — Variety of Diderot's scientific studies. Diderot's Pensees sur I'interpretation de la nature and Bacon's Thoughts on the inter- pretation of nature. — Some scientific antici- pations by Diderot. — Question of patent rights in science. Diderot as a forerunner of Transformism : his ideas on this subject in 1749, 1754, and 1769. — General principles on matter and mo- tion, life and consciousness. — Diderot, La- marck, Darwin. X DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT CHAPTER V The Encyclopedist 225 Bacon quoted, on the necessity of " Circle- Learning." — Elements for compiling encyclo- pedias, provided by the seventeenth century: learned periodicals, special reviews, historical and technical dictionaries. — An age of dic- tionaries. John Harris's Lexicum Technicum. — E. Chambers's Cyclopcedia. — Their deficiencies. — Italian and German compilations ; Brucker. Outline of the history of the Encyclopedie. — Its originality. — The charge of plagiarism. — Influence of Bacon: classification of sci- ences ; dignity of the mechanical arts. Diderot's contributions to the Encyclopedie : Articles on the arts and crafts: some arti- cles taken from Chambers. — Mistakes and in- accuracies. — His original share : technical descriptions. Articles on philosophy, often taken from Brucker. — His articles on English philosophy. — The Annual Register and the Zend Avesta. Conclusion: what is of lasting interest in the Encyclopedie is not borrowed. CHAPTER VI The Dramatist 287 Diderot's early taste for the stage. — His reaction against the French dramatic tradi- CONTENTS xi tion. — The importance of action, or " panto- mime." — Diderot was writing a play in 1753. Diderot's dramatic theories combine the French and English movements in reaction against French classicism. — Difference be- tween these two movements. — English ex- amples adduced by Diderot as confirmations of his theories. Lillo's London Merchant. — Enthusiastically praised by Diderot. — Moore's Gamester. — Translated and " improved " by Diderot ; English " boldness " again corrected. Diderot's view of the work of his prede- sessors in France and England. — His own discovery, the "genre serieux." — His prog- eny, the drama. The art of acting. — Romantic and realistic definition of artistic genius. — Influence of Garriek and the Paradoxe sur le comedien. — Genius and sensibility. CHAPTER VII The Novelist 337 Connection between Diderot's dramatic theories and his ideas concerning the novel. His ideal, Richardson. — What Diderot ad- mired in his works. — The Eloge de Richard- son. — Traces of Richardson's influence in La Religieuse. — " Eclaireissements sur les obscenites." xii DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Sterne. — Vogue of " Shandyism " in France. — Tristram Shandy and Jacques le Fataliste. — Why Diderot copied some pages from Tristram. — Relation of both works to Candide. — A philosophic tale on Fatalism. Diderot's fondness for the "conte phi- losophique." — Consideration of the Supple- ment au Voyage de Bougainville in this light. CHAPTER VIII The Critic 395 " Fixed faith and constant axioms " in criti- cism. — The passage from literary criticism to general esthetic criticism before Diderot, in France and England. Diderot's predecessors in esthetics. — His theory of the Beautiful. — Shaftesbury; mo- rality and art. — Hogarth's peinture morale. English books on art: Hogarth, Spence, Webb. — Diderot upbraids Hogarth. — His quarrel with Webb : are Christian subjects fit for artistic treatment? — Esthetic value of " the reigning superstition." — Gothic architec- ture. The process of the imitation of nature by great artists. — Hogarth's " line of beauty." — An illustration borrowed from him by Dide- rot. — The transcendental model; influence of Garrick. Romantic themes for poetry. — Philosophy adverse to poetry. — Diderot and Shakespeare. CONTENTS xiii — Scottish j)oeins; Ossian. — Young. — Diderot and Dr Johnson. Conclusion 446 Diderot essentially French. — Variety of the forms of English " influence " that acted upon him. — His gradual emancipation. — How he transformed what he received. — Diderot in many ways a thinker of the nineteenth een- tuiy. — Devious ways of his influence in Europe. — Why French critics have often dealt severely with him. — Multum incola fuit anima mea. Appendices 463 I A. A letter from Voltaire to G. Keate. B. Letters from Diderot to David Hume (Reprinted). C. An unpublished letter from Diderot to Bret. D. Letters from Diderot to John Wilkes ( three unpublished ) . II A Chronological Table of Diderot's main works. Ill Bibliographical Note. ! k Diderot as a Disciple of English Thought INTKODUCTION " The junction of the French and English intellects, which, looking at the immense chain of its effects, is by far the most important fact in the history of the eighteenth century,"^ is also the most significant and far-reaching move- ment in the history of French literature. Until that time, England had often looked to France for intellectual leadership, more especially after the Norman Conquest, during the Renaissance, and after the Restoration, while France had ignored the thought and art of her northern neighbor: but in the eighteenth century, Eng- land became the leader, the masters became the disciples, and the message they received and interpreted was heard by all nations. This great intellectual revolution has received ^ H. T. Buckle, History of English Civilisation, I, Chap. 12. 2 1 2 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT a great deal of attention since Buckle first em- phasized its importance, more than half a cen- tury ago. The circumstances by which it was brought about, the progress of the English influ- ence, and the manner in which it affected the most eminent minds in France during the philo- sophic age, are questions which had been barely touched upon by historians of French literature, like Villemain and Barante, in the first half of the nineteenth century. Within the last sixty years they have been brought into clearer light, by Buckle himself, in his History of English Civilization, and by Lord Morley, in his admir- able studies on the French Philosophers, Rous- seau (1873), Voltaire (1874), and Diderot and the Encyclopedists (1878) ; in France, by Joseph Texte, in his work on Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les origines du cosmopolitisme litteraire (1895), and by M. J. J. Jusserand, in his Shakespeare en France sous Vancien regime (1898), — two books teeming with in- formation for the student of comparative lit- erature. ISov has the detail of the influences exerted in France by English writers, and of the in- INTRODUCTION 3 debtedness of individual French authors to English thought, been neglected in the study of that great epoch which has been characterized as that of the " discovery of England " by the French. What M. Jusserand has done for Shakespeare, in tracing the rise of his popular- ity in France from its obscure beginnings to its climax in French Romanticism, has been done by Mr J. M. Telleen for Milton, by M. Leon Morel for Thomson, by M. W. Thomas and M. F. Baldensperger for Young,^ while valuable studies have been written by M. Huchon on Mrs Montagu and by Mr Hedgcock on David Garrick in their relation to French society in the eighteenth century.^ Concerning English influences on French writers in that age, fewer works have appeared. The Abbe J. Dedieu has given a comprehensive view of Montesquieu's indebtedness to the political tradition of Eng- *J. M. Telleen, Milton dans la litterature frangaise, Paris, 1904. — L. Morel, James Thomson, sa vie et ses ceuvres, Paris, 1895. — W. Thomas, Le poete Edward Young, 1901. — F. Baldensperger, "Young et ses 'Nuits' en France," in Etudes d'histoire litteraire, I, 1907. ' Een6 Huchon, Mrs Montagu and her friends, London, 1906.— F. A. Hedgcock, David Garrick et ses amis fran- Qois, Paris, 1911, transl. London and N. Y., 1912. 4 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT land ; on Voltaire, an admirably thorough study of the English sources of his Lettres Philoso- phiques is to be found in M. Lanson's critical edition of that work (Societe des Textes Fran- gais Modernes, Paris, 1909, 2 vols) ; while the late Churton Collins, Mr Walter Sichel, and several others, have thrown some light on Vol- taire's friendship with Bolingbroke and his sojourn in England.* But it is surprising, and much to be regretted, that there is as yet no work dealing with the whole subject of the relations of Voltaire with English thought. The same lack is felt in the case of Diderot, who, although he has been called "the most German of Frenchmen," is however "full of England " in his works.^ A great deal of atten- * Churton CoUins, Bolingbrolce ; Voltaire in England, 1886; reprinted with additions in Voltaire, Montesquieu and Bousseau in England, 1908. — W. Sichel, BolinghroTce and his times, 2 vols, 1901. — To which one may add Ballantyne, Voltaire's Visit to England, 1893, and two articles on the same subject by M. L. Foulet in Eev, d'hist. litt., 1906, 1908. " ' ' He has been described by a most consummate judge [by Goethe] 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 litera- INTEODUCTION 5 tion has been devoted by historians of German literature to his influence in Germany, particu- larly on the drama, through Lessing; and an interesting study might yet be written on Di- derot and his German friends, and on the Germanic features of his genius which made him so great in the eyes, not only of Grimm and Lessing, but of Schiller and Goethe. The Italian Diderot could also be made the subject of a curious though less considerable inquiry; for, like Voltaire and many other contemporaries he was a good Italian scholar, and his indebtedness to Italian literature, after a good deal of cou- ture, save a little of the very highest" (J. Morley, Diderot . . ., I, p. 39). F. Brunetiere, Manuel de I'hist. de la litt. frang., 1898, p. 321-322 : " . . , On ne trouve rien que d 'anglais dans I'oeuvre de I'homme que I'on appelle encore aouvent le ' plus allemand ' des Franqais. ' ' — Also, in his Epoques du theatre frang.: "On a dit de Diderot qu'il etait *le plus allemand des Fran^ais, ' et je crois que I'on s'eat trompe; mais si I'on disait qu'il fut tout anglais, on serait assez pres de la verite" (1896, p. 313). — See also F, Loliee, Les litteratures comparees, p. 268: "Chaucer est plein de France et d'ltalie, Corneille d'Espagne, Shakespeare et Moliere d'ltalie, Diderot d 'Angleterre " ; and J. Texte, Etudes de litteratures europeenne, p. 16- 17: "Si Voltaire doit beaucoup a 1 'Angleterre, Diderot lui doit plus encore. ' ' 6 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT troversy, is still to be determined. What has been attempted in the present work is a delinea- tion of the English aspect of that prolific and truly cosmopolitan genius, that is to say a study of his life and works with constant reference to the various English influences that were brought to bear upon them. It need not be said, there- fore, that this is not in any way a complete presentation of Diderot, his character, his writ- ings, and his influence, but only a partial sketch of one of the most curious figures in French literature, " Diderot the Englishman," and a survey of the abundant and varied inspiration which he drew from English thought. Born in 1713, in the year when the Treaty of Utrecht was concluded, at a time when the political power of England was decidedly in the ascendant, he reached manhood and started on an eventful literary career in a decade (1Y33-1743) when England, already embroiled in fresh quarrels with France, was becoming an object of immense interest for the intellectual part of the French nation. This interest, far from abating, increased greatly in the following twenty years, during that period marked in INTRODUCTION 7 European history by the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War, which, at the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, ended disas- trously for France as a world power, by the loss of nearly the whole of the first French colonial empire. He died in 1784, one year after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles: the inde- pendence of the United States of America had been recognized, the pride of Great Britain humbled, and the excellence of her Constitu- tion, as well as the wisdom of her policies, which Voltaire and Montesquieu had so much admired, had for some time become a matter of general doubt.^ Through all those years, which had seen the rise, the glory, and the temporary decline of the British power in war and diplomacy, the ' The preface for instance of a p©em on the Inde- pendence of America, L'Amerique Delivree, dedicated to John Adams (Amsterdam, 1783, 2 vols), illustrates in a curious manner this reaction against ' ' 1 'anglomanie. ' ' The author, who signs with the initials L. C. d. 1. G., de- clares that "the much vaunted wonder, the British Con- stitution, was, just as much as the codes of neighboring nations, subject to the convulsions of despotism, the mis- deeds of tyranny, and perhaps more favorable to a cor- ruption most dangerous to the people whose reins it held so clumsily." 8 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT intellectual influence of England had been steadily gaining ground in France, where it was to remain the paramount foreign inspira- tion for many years to come. The language, the literature, the philosophy, the laws, the manners of England, which during the reign of Louis XIV had been unknown in France, or, when known, had been despised,'^ were in the eighteenth century studied with the greatest eagerness by the French. England was con- sidered by them as the land of original thought, independent theories, curious observations, practical suggestions, new departures in every field of intellectual activity. Such a reaction was but natural and inevitable after what Buckle calls the brilliant and slavish classical age of France. " For where but in England was a literature to be found that could satisfy those bold and inquisitive thinkers who arose in France after the death of Louis XIV ? In their own country there had no doubt been great displays of elo- quence, of fine dramas, and of poetry, which, though never reaching the highest point of excel- ^ See on this subject Buckle (vol. I, p. 517), Texte (pp. 1-16), M. Jusserand (pp. 89-94), in their works noted above. INTRODUCTION 9 lence, is of finished and admirable beauty. But it is an unquestionable fact, and one melancholy to contemplate, that during the sixty years which succeeded the death of Descartes, France had not yet possessed a single man who dared to think for himself.* Metaphysicians, moralists, historians, all had become tainted by the servil- ity of that bad age. During two generations, no Frenchman had been allowed to discuss with freedom any question either of politics or of religion. The consequence was, that the largest intellects, excluded from their legitimate field, lost their energy ; the national spirit died away ; the very materials and nutriment of thought seemed to be wanting. 'No wonder, then, if the great Frenchmen of the eighteenth century sought that aliment abroad which they were unable to find at home. No wonder if they turned from their own land, and gazed with admiration at the only people who, pushing their inquiries into the highest departments, had shown the same fearlessness in politics as in religion; a people who, having punished their kings and controlled their clergy, were storing the treasures of their experience in that * An exception might be made for Pascal at least. But Buckle evidently had in mind here independent rationalistic thought; and it is true that what seeds of it Descartes had sown found a good soil only in England and the Netherlands. Besides, one knows but too well what treatment Jansenism received at the hands of Louis XIV. 10 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT noble literature which never can perish, and of which it may be said in sober truth, that it has stimulated the intellects of the most distant races."® In a comparatively short time the French became even more fearless than the English, if not in art, at least in philosophy, in religion, and finally in the domain of political action, eliciting from England itself passionately elo- quent protests " in sounds that echo still." Diderot, with his enthusiastic nature, was strongly predisposed to share that admiration for the boldness of English thought which through his lifetime was like a contagion in France. The universality of his mind, his curiosity, his indefatigable activity in the most varied fields of science and literature, made him the ready disciple of English masters. More than Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau, he drew examples and lessons from that nation which had a reputation for profound thinking, independence in words and deeds, and virtue both private and public. There is some diiference, however, in the »H. T, Buckle, Hist, of Engl. Civilis., I, p. 524 (2d edit.). INTEODUCTION 11 manner in which England as a nation affected the greatest intellects of France in the eight- eenth century. The two most conspicuous spirits in the earlier half of the philosophic age, Voltaire and Montesquieu, can be considered as belonging to the upper middle-class, the one being issued from the "bourgeoisie," and the other, although "noble d'epee," being an eminent representative of the " noblesse de robe," that is to say, that part of the professional Third Estate which had entered the privileged order. They had seen the England of 1730, and felt at once in sympathy with its manners, its tradi- tions, and that political Constitution which had been gaining strength and authority under the reigns of Queen Anne and the first two Georges. They had had intercourse with Englishmen of rank or wit; they had directed their attention to the economical and political development of a country which proved more and more suc- cessful as years went by; they had been filled with admiration for that nation, " the only one on earth which had succeeded in regulating the power of kings by resisting it," " the freest country in the world, without excepting any 12 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT republic."^ '^ That admirably well regulated land showed indeed some lack of orthodox dis- cipline in religion and philosophy, but neither Montesquieu nor Voltaire were inclined to find fault with it on that account ; as for its contempt for the classical discipline of the rules, while it had been the source of many " irregular beau- ties" in its literature, it might happily be con- sidered (so Voltaire thought) as a thing of the past. The second generation of French writers who became interested in England, and, deriving inspirations from its genius, rose to fame after 1750, are men of an altogether different stamp. Diderot and Rousseau, whose friendship, begun in 1742, lasted some fifteen years,^^ were both thoroughly plebeian, and full of the qualities as well as the shortcomings of a popular origin : naturally inclined to radicalism in thought, and hostile to the spirit of compromise, more impatient of limitations on equality than of any restraints on liberty, they found little to admire " Voltaire, Lettres philos., VIII (Lanson ed., vol. I, p. 89i) ; and Montesquieu, Notes sur I 'Angleterre, towards the end (1830 edit., vol. VIII, p. 157). "J. J. Eousseau, Confessions, Garnier ed., p. 265. INTEODUCTION 13 ill a political constitution which seemed to have been framed for the exclusive benefit of an oligarchy of nobles and " bourgeois." Their logical minds, f ollov^ing their proletarian aspira- tions, carried them beyond all political systems then existing, towards democratic conceptions which had not yet been tested by experience. In the same way, the comfortable beliefs of Deism, the frigid tenets of " natural religion," did not hold them long. But, in matters of literature, their interest was aroused by Eng- lish originality; and that profound, unfeigned sympathy developed almost into worship for the most sentimental, moral, and realistic novelist of England, the plebeian Richardson. Only, whereas Rousseau tried to minimize his indebtedness to Richardson in the Nouvelle Helo'ise, while indeed he did not owe much to Locke in his Emile, or to other English writers in the remainder of his works, because he was not familiar with English books in the original, Diderot lavishly praised his foreign models, enjoyed among his contemporaries a reputation for English scholarship, and must have read almost as abundantly in English as in his 14 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT native tongue. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that he owed more to English than to French thought, and that without his early knowledge of English, and his acquaintance with whatever had been or was being written in this language by philosophers, scientists, novelists, dramatists, poets, and critics, he could not have been the prolific writer, original thinker, and powerful leader that he eventually became. This statement, it is hoped, will be found to be borne out by the results of the researches embodied in this book. The somewhat frag- mentary nature of the subject, which is due to the great diversity of Diderot's intellectual pursuits, and to the restricted viewpoint from which they are here considered, compelled the adoption of a very discursive method of investi- gation. But we have endeavored to introduce some unity in the presentation of the various aspects of Diderot's indebtedness to English thought by constantly keeping them under one view, namely, their relation to Diderot's philo- sophic message. This message is, in philosophy and art, what has become known in the nine- h INTRODUCTION 15 teenth century as Positivism and Kealism, respectively. Yet, as these general tendencies, in which we now sum up Diderot's intellectual personality, were some time in taking shape, and did not from the beginning appear fully formed in him, since also they were not infre- quently subjected by him to cross-examination and criticism, it has been easy for those who for other reasons do not like him to charge him with obscurity and self-contradiction. Eeferences made between parentheses in our text are to the volumes and pages of the latest and most complete edition of Diderot's Works, by Messrs J. Assezat and M. Tourneux (20 vols, Paris, Garnier, 1875-1877), in which the classification of our author's writings is made according to their matter : Philosophy, Sciences, Belles-Lettres, Art Criticism, Encyclopedia, Correspondence. Whether we start from the chronological or from the methodical order of Diderot's productions, our study of his in- debtedness to English thinkers falls naturally into the following parts: the philosopher and moralist, the scientist, the Encyclopedist, the 16 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT dramatist, the novelist, and the critic. To these chapters it would have been idle to prefix a full biography. What we know of Diderot's life and character, through the Memoirs of him written by his daughter, Madame de Vandeul, and his disciple, l^aigeon, as well as through the works of contemporaries, will be found excellently expounded in the studies on Diderot of Karl Rosenkranz, Lord Morley, and M. Ducros. But it has seemed interesting, and suited to our purpose, first to trace his general relations to English culture in the eighteenth century; secondly, to outline his personal con- nections with various Englishmen who jour- neyed to Paris, and to determine in what man- ner he reacted under such individual influences : and this is the subject of the first two chapters in this book. In our concluding chapter we have attempted, in summing up what Diderot owed to English philosophy and literature, to indicate how the borrowed elements were trans- formed by his vigorous, original personality, how he contributed to their diffusion in conti- nental Europe, and lastly how it came to pass INTEODUCTION 17 that he met with more sympathetic recognition in Germany and in England than in his native country. In the appendices will be found a few unpub- lished letters of Diderot, together with one of Voltaire, and some letters of Diderot that have appeared in print but were not collected in his CEuvres Completes; also a chronological table of his most important writings, and a bibli- ography. It is a pleasure for us to return sincere thanks here to M. Maurice Tourneux, the editor of Diderot's Works and of the C orrespondance litteraire by Grimm and Diderot, who helped us with his advice; to Professor George Saints- bury, of the University of Edinburgh, for his kind assistance in having researches made among Hume's manuscripts, and to Mr H. W. Meikle, Lecturer in Scottish History in the same University, for collating Diderot's letters to Hume with the originals; to M. L. Reau, Director of the Institut Frangais de Saint- Petersbourg, who obligingly made inquiries for us in Petersburg concerning Diderot's library; 3 18 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT to our friend and colleague, M. Henri Vigier; and to Professors Adolphe Cohn and H. A. Todd, of the Department of Romance Languages in Columbia University, for many valuable suggestions and improvements. Normal College, New York, March, 1913. CHAPTER I DIDEROT'S LIFE AND GENERAL RELATIONSHIP TO ENGLAND Denis Dideeot was born in Langres, in the province of Champagne, on October 5, 1713. The Diderot family must have been an old one in Langres, for its name is a diminutive form of the name of Didier, the patron saint of the ancient city of the Lingones. Diderot's father, Didier Diderot, was a cutler, who seems always to have enjoyed the reputation among his neigh- bors of a skilled workman and a worthy man, and to have deserved the reverent affection of his three children.^ These were Denis, the phi- losopher, who was considered more or less as a black sheep in the family until he made its name famous; his sister, a sensible and merry person, " a kind of female Diogenes ; " and the brother, the Abbe, succinctly described as " a good Christian, and a bad man." Young Denis was educated by the Jesuits of * Another child of Didier Diderot, a daughter, entered a convent against the will of her family, and died insane. 19 20 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT his native town. His family cherished the ambition of having him enter the Church and succeed to a canonicate vrhich was held by one of his uncles. But, as he had no taste for the priesthood, his father for a time took him into his workshop, in order to hand down to him the trade which the Diderots had exercised for several generations. Yet cutlery was not, any more than the ecclesiastical career, the destined vocation of the last of the Diderots. He soon dropped the craftman's apron, and returned to his books. Then he planned, we are told, to run away to Paris: in this he was aided and abetted by his Jesuit teachers, who would have liked to train the clever youth for their order. Diderot, however, like many a poor and intelli- gent lad before and since, was more eager to improve his opportunities and advance in learn- ing as far as he could under the Jesuits, than to become a member of their Society. The plot was discovered by Diderot the father. He as- sented to the boy's desire for more education, took him to Paris himself, saw him settled, satisfied himself that Denis liked the College d'Harcourt and was well thought of by his regents, and then went back home. DIDEROT'S LIFE 21 From that day it became probable that Denis Diderot would reflect great credit on his family, as a lawyer or a Sorbonic divine, or else great discredit, as a playwright, an actor perhaps, or (worse than all) a philosopher. " The picture of the famous man dying of starvation is con- stantly placed before the eyes of children by sensible fathers. 'Wretched child, what are you going to do ? You are not sure to attain glory, and you rush headlong into poverty.' . . . Such words resound again and again in our homes, but they scarcely convert any but mediocre children; the others let their parents talk, and go whither nature calls them" {(Euv., II, 378). ''Had I lived in Athens, I should not have become a Eumolpid, for I have never been very powerfully attracted by the service of the altars ; but I should have taken the robe of Aristotle or Plato, or donned the tunic of Diogenes" (III, 75). As soon as he had completed his course at college, Diderot was placed by his father under the care of Maitre Clement du Ris, a gentleman from Langres and an attorney in Paris, in order to study law. But, just as he had dis- 22 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT liked theology, so the drudgery of an attorney's office proved very uninteresting to him. He devoted all his spare time to Latin, Greek, and mathematics, which were the foundations of the Jesuits' pedagogy, and in which he was already proficient. " For several years," he says, " I have read a canto of Homer before going to bed, as religiously as a good priest recites his brevi- ary" (III, 478). His curiosity also turned to newer things, for which the traditional system of education then prevalent in France made no provision: such was the study of Italian and English, and probably the rudiments of rational- istic philosophy. Later on, when he had an opportunity to outline a plan of public edu- cation, he emphasized the important part which modern languages should play in modern in- struction, in words which may be worth repeat- ing to-day : " French, Italian, English, German are to- day four languages that are almost essential to a man who has enjoyed a liberal education. As nations become more and more civilized, the number of essential languages will increase ; for it is most certain that the arts, sciences, and DIDEROT'S LIFE 23 letters travel, and that it is impossible to fix them." Since, however, the language of a nation is to be mastered for its past as well as for its present riches, the ancient languages were not to be discarded. Then, "by degrees, the mass of knowledge will become too large for the scope of the human mind: confusion and barbarism will have their turn. And that is the true key to the allegorical fable of the Tower of Babel . . ." (Ill, 422, n.). Diderot's ambition was not to become a poly- glot, and to spend over the chaff of words the valuable years which he wished to devote to the grain of things. In the bulk of essential knowledge which to enlightened minds seemed to grow larger day by day, he had to make a choice : he devoted his greatest efforts to acquir- ing the mastery of Italian and English, then in fashion, " like the pretintailles and the falhalas " (IV, 223). Voltaire, in a short piece entitled Conseils a un joumaliste,^ wrote in 1Y37 : " A good journalist must know at least Italian and * Voltaire, (Euvres, Moland edition, vol. XXII, p. 261. (As a rule we have tried to quote titles of books in their original form, exception being made only when necessary for the sake of clearness.) 24 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT English ; for there are many works of genius in those languages, and genius can hardly ever be translated. Those are, I think, the two lan- guages of Europe that are most necessary to a Erenchman. The Italians are the first who rescued the arts from barbarism; and there is so much greatness, so much strength of imagina- tion, even in the faults of the English that one cannot too urgently advise the study of their language." When a choice had to be made between Italian and English, the former was more generally sacrificed; witness the Abbe Le Blanc : " We have lately placed the English lan- guage in the rank of the learned languages; even the women learn it, and have forsaken Italian in order to study the language of that philosophic nation. There is no provincial Armande or Belise who does not desire to know it."^ And the Abbe deplored that "the sex" 'Jean Bernard Le Blanc (1707-1781), Letter 62, to Freret, in his Lettres d'un Frangais (1745), 3 vols; translated into English, as "Letters on the English and French nations: containing curious and useful observa- tions on their constitutions natural and political; nervous and humorous descriptions of the virtues, vices, ridicules and foibles of the inhabitants; critical remarks on their writers; together with moral reflections interspersed DIDEROT'S LIFE 25 should look for edification and entertainment to wicked English plays and dry English political pamphlets. Diderot shared, it is true, a rather common belief, that "of all the nations of Europe, the French showed the least aptitude to modern foreign languages" (II, 317). He was mis- taking for natural inability what was only the effect of a prolonged national concentration, of a culture too exclusively humanistic, and of that universal attention which foreign nations had for ages given to the French language and French civilization. In periods of intellectual expansion, the French have learned modern languages, whenever it has been necessary or worth while for them to do so. In the seven- teenth century, polite society in France had been well versed in the knowledge of Italian and Spanish. We have just seen that English and Italian were deemed indispensable to cul- tured people in the age of Diderot. And in the nineteenth century English and German throughout ■ the work" (1747), 2 vols. — The general trend of the "moral reflections" is to warn the French against excessive enthusiasm for English things. 26 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT were to become familiar not only to the cosmo- politan Madame de Stael, but to a host of poets, historians, and philosophers who looked abroad for new inspirations, new methods, new systems of thought. In Diderot's lifetime, German was not yet an essential language. Frederick II himself, who liked to play the part of a protector of science and polite literature, was comparable to an Augustus devoid of faith in the resources of his native tongue, who looked abroad for Vergils and Varros to patronize.* Diderot in 1770, at the age of fifty-seven, confessed that he did not know a word of German (VI, 401). Yet his great bosom friend, Frederic-Melchior Grimm, was a German, and through him he became acquainted, not only with various obscure Ger- man visitors to Paris, but with personages of importance like the crown princes of Brunswick- Wolf enbiittel and of Saxe-Gotha (XI, 382). * See the Poesies di/verses of the King of Prussia (Ber- lin, 1760), a curious production, with its condescendingly apologetic preface: "Ma Muse tudesque et bizarre, Jargonnant un fran^ais barbare, Dit les choses comme elle peut. ..." DIDEROT'S LIFE 27 The French language, however, was then suffi- cient for all intercourse between Frenchmen and Germans, as it is to-day for the relations between the French and the nations of Eastern Europe and the Levant. Had Diderot lived after the age of Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, and Kant, there is no doubt that his versatile genius would have been as greatly interested in their writings as they were in his own. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century, he needed no knowledge of German to read Leibnitz, whose works were written in French, or Gessner's elegies, to which he listened with sympathetic interest as they were orally rendered by his friend Huber (VI, 401) ; and withal he knew enough Latin and Greek to consult Alsted's Encyclopcedia, or Brucker's Historia Critica Philosophice, or any other of "those Germanic compilations, bristling, against all reason and taste, with Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, which are very big already, are growing bigger still, will ever grow bigger, and will be all the worse for it" (I, 370). English works were more attractive, both in form and matter, for Diderot and his contempo- 28 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT raries. " England," he wrote, " is the country of philosophers, of curious, systematic minds" (I, 312). A "philosophic breeze," to use D'Argenson's phrase, was blowing from over the Channel.^ Diderot was just twenty years old when that breeze first raised a great storm in the Parliament of Paris: that judicial body, alarmed by the nouveautes anglaises, which seriously threatened both Church and State, the throne and the altar, sentenced Voltaire's Let- tres philosophiques (1734) to be publicly burned by the hand of the executioner.^ We may imagine with what feelings the young clerk in the office of M. Clement du Pis heard about that public execution, if he did not witness it 'D'Argenson, Journal et Memoires, Eathery ed., 1859- 1867, vol. VI, p. 464 (3 sept. 1751) : "From England a philosophic wind of free, anti- monarchic government is blowing over to us; it passes into all minds, and it is well known that the world is ruled by opinion. Maybe that government is already arranged in the people's heads, to be put into practice on the first occasion; and perhaps the revolution might take place with less opposi- tion than one thinks. ..." • The Lettres philosophiques, also known as the Lettres anglaises, had been published first in English, in London, under the title Letters concerning the English Nation (1733). DIDEROT'S LIFE 29 with his own eyes, as it was performed in state on the grand staircase of the Palais de Justice. Nothing of course could more effectually adver- tise English ideas than those absurd outbreaks of a tyrannical spirit. While Voltaire was fleeing to the frontiers of France and of the duchy of Lorraine for a place of safety, young Denis no doubt read the condemned book, and found in its deep and witty pages a fuller and more vivid picture than France had ever had before^ of that philosophic country across the Channel, where people were not persecuted for discussing topics of religion and politics ; where toleration reigned, and where all men, being free, "might go to Heaven by whatever path they chose ; " where men with property were allowed to participate in the government ; where trade was no dishonor, and a rich merchant was held to be of more account than a beggared nobleman; where men of letters received pen- sions or profitable appointments, and great men ' Concerniiiig the Swiss Beat de Muralt, who visited England in 1694-1G95, and whose Lettres sur les Anglais et les Frangais et sur les voyages (1725) influenced his countryman Eousseau more than Diderot, see J. Texte, J. J. Rousseau, liv. I, Chap. II, sect. 1. 30 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT of all kinds, poets, philosophers, and scientists, were buried with kings at the expense of the nation. The " E'eophyte " in that formidable party of Philosophy, which in France was rising amidst persecution, must have realized then that the " fashion " of learning English corresponded in the French nation to certain greater needs than did the study of Italian, Latin, or Greek. Thirty years later, in 1763, his own experience justified him in repeating, almost in Voltaire's own words : " There seem to be two countries in Europe in which philosophy is cultivated, France and England. In England, philosophers are hon- ored, respected, they rise to public offices, they are buried with the kings. Do we see that Eng- land is any the worse for it ? In France, war- rants are issued against them, they are perse- cuted, pelted with pastoral letters, with satires, and libels. They however are the men who enlighten us and uphold the honor of the nation. Am I not right in saying that the French are children who throw stones at their masters ? " (II, 80, n.). In the Memoir on Diderot written by Madame de Vandeul, his daughter, we can gather little DIDEROT'S LIFE 31 information about Diderot's life between 1733 and 1743, when he was in his twenties. We do not know when he left M. Clement's office, to live for years la vie de Boheme — not so gay a life as Henri Miirger has made it — a life of penury and hard work. In those lean years, he studied eagerly, learning everything with equal delight, and giving private lessons for a living. It is not too much to allow one whole decade for the acquisition of that amazing amount of knowledge which stood the future editor of the Encyclopedia in good stead, and made him a Philosopher, in the earliest and fullest mean- ing of the word. Madame de Vandeul, however, tells us how in that needy period he wrote, for fifty ecus apiece, six sermons for the Jesuit missions in Paraguay ; how another time, under the pretence of joining a monastic order, he obtained large sums of money from a certain credulous Frere Ange, which honest Diderot the father refunded ; how he gave lessons to such pupils only as were worth teaching, giving up all those whose dulness did not repay his efforts ; with several other curious anecdotes which she had heard from her father. 32 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT For our present purpose it would be more interesting to know how he learned English, to what extent he knew it, and what English hooks were his earliest reading. We only know, from himself, that he preferred to use an English- Latin rather than an English-French dictionary, because the sense of Latin words is better de- termined, less liable to vary with different lexicographers, than the sense of the words in a modern language.^ Probably he mostly read Locke, Shaftesbury, E'ewton, Taylor, Rapson, Saunderson, works of philosophy and science which interested him more, and were, idiomat- ically speaking, easier reading than the lighter forms of literature. It is evident that for the study of English he never had the opportunities which Voltaire enjoyed in his younger days. His life in a miserable quarter of Paris, his needy circumstances, his retired mode of living, make a striking contrast with Voltaire's bril- liant successes some twenty years before, when, not yet thirty years old, he was an idol of the *XIV, 438. Gibbon similarly tells us, in his Memoirs, that he learned French and Latin together, one language helping the other. DIDEEOT'S LIFE 33 public, moved in the aristocratic spheres of society, and made friends with the exiled Bolingbroke, Lord Stair, and Bishop Atterbury. It is furthermore worthy of notice that, whereas almost all other great Frenchmen of letters in the eighteenth century visited England at some time or other in their lives, Diderot certainly never crossed the Channel. Voltaire was exiled to England (1726-1729), where he met with as much honor as he had enjoyed at home; Montesquieu travelled through the same country about the same time, in the course of his tour of Europe (1728-1731) ; and later on, Buf- fon, Holbach, and Helvetius, visited the land of philosophy, whither Rousseau also journeyed on an ill-fated tour. Diderot alone stayed at home, and would have stayed there all his life, had not gratitude impelled him, when he was sixty years old, to undertake a long journey to visit his imperial benefactress at Petersburg. While the taste for traveling was so prevalent in Eng- land that no gentleman was considered really well-educated unless he had accomplished the " Grand Tour," while the French began to share the same desire to look beyond the walls of 4 34 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT their metropolis for new ideas and inspirations, Diderot still thought that there was no place like home. " Traveling is a fine thing ; but a man must have lost his father, mother, children, and friends, or never have had any, to wander by profession over the surface of the globe. What would you think," he asked Grimm, " of the owner of an immense palace who would spend all his life ascending and descending, from cellar to attic and from attic to cellar, instead of quietly sitting down in the midst of his family ? Such is the image of the traveler " (XI, 218; XVIII, 490). "Hitherto," he again wrote in I'TTS, after reading the account of Bougainville's voyage around the world, " the final result of my reflec- tions had always been that a man was nowhere so comfortable as he is at home, a conclusion which I took to be the same for each inhabitant of the earth taken singly, a natural result of that attraction of the soil, which results from the comforts that a man enjoys, and is not cer- tain to find elsewhere" (II, 206, 212). Besides, had Diderot possessed any fondness for traveling, had he been curious to know DIDEEOT'S LIFE 35 more of foreign nations than what he could compass from books, in his poor study high up in some house along the Rue Mouffetard or the Rue Taranne, how could he have afforded to indulge a taste that was a great deal more expensive in his days than in ours? He had no pecuniary competency to fall back upon, no resources but his learning and the uncongenial labor of tutoring, and, as yet, no illustrious friends who might have facilitated his travels outside of France. Before his journey to Rus- sia, he may indeed have gone for a time as far as Dieppe.^ But information is lacking on this head, as on almost everything concerning his life between 1733 and 1743. At the end of this decade, Diderot married Mile Champion, a poor seamstress, and, if we may believe a parenthetic confession which he makes to Grimm^'^ in the 8alon of 1767 , his " From some of hia criticisms in tbe Salons, it seems diflficult to imagine that he had never seen the sea, " The light tone of the passage on ' ' ce maudit lien conjugal" has roused the ire of some earnest critics. Compare Thackeray's virulent attack on Sterne, for his playful " cegrotus sum de uxore mea." It is a question whether, in the estimate of a man's character, so much should be made of a sally casually thrown out in a piece 36 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT marriage influenced and almost determined the main directions in the chaotic currents of his subsequent literary activities. " The necessities of life, which imperiously dispose of us, lead astray the talents which they apply to things foreign to them, and often degrade the talents which chance has employed in the right direc- tion. That is one of the drawbacks of society for which I know of no remedy." A married man cannot follow his personal inclinations, or his vocation. "For is a husband, a father, allowed to be proud, and to be deaf to the com- plaints, blind to the miseries which surround him? I had arrived in Paris. I was about to don the fur gown and to settle among the doctors in the Sorbonne. I meet on my way a woman of angelic beauty. ..." We marry, four chil- dren are bom to us, " and there am I, compelled to forsake mathematics, of which I was fond, Homer and Vergil whom I always carried about in my pocket, the theatre, for which I had some inclination; glad enough to undertake the En- which it wag not the author 'g desire ever to see published. Diderot makes a similar complaint about his domestic life, in a more discreet tone, to Mile Volland, in 1765 (XIX, 149, 159). DIDEROT'S LIFE 37 cyclopedie, to which I shall have sacrificed twenty-five years of my life" (XI, 265). He had to begin with less interesting under- takings than the Encyclopedie. As English books were in demand and it was comparatively easy for a Frenchman who knew English to turn his knowledge to some account, Diderot, to support his family, readily turned to the re- source of writing translations for publishers. Many books, from the English language or about the English, were put forth to satisfy the general curiosity which Voltaire's Lettres pliilosophiques had aroused. The Abbe Prevost, who between 1733 and 1740 had been publishing a period- ical, Le Pour et le Contre, expressly devoted to the literary news from England, had now begun to translate the novels of Richardson. Other abbes, like Desfontaines and Le Blanc, and a host of poor hacks, were hard at work along the same line. Diderot in 1743 translated Temple Stanyan's Grecian History; then, with the assistance of two other translators more desti- tute even than himself, the huge Medicinal Dic- tionary of Dr Robert James, which appeared in 38 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT French in six volumes in 1746. What merits in those works attracted a Parisian publisher's attention to them and induced him to venture on having them translated, it is now difficult to determine. These translations, naturally, have not been included in Diderot's works, and it is doubtful whether we should have known any- thing about them had they not been mentioned by Madame de Vandeul. Some parts of Dr James's Dictionary later found their place in the contributions of Diderot to the Encyclo- pedie. The only interest which to-day might attach to these translations is, that they might enable us to ascertain how accurately, after abundant reading, Diderot had acquired the English language about the year 1745. Having become known among Parisian pub- lishers as a man of wide information, something of a,, savant^ and an English scholar, Diderot received the distinction of being chosen in 1745 to be the editor of the Encyclopedie. The his- tory of that epoch-making work, which had originated in a plan of translating into French the two volumes of Chambers's Cyclopcedia (1728), will be dwelt on at appropriate length DIDEEOT'S LIFE 39 in a subsequent chapter.^ ^ It suffices here to say that by 1747 the son of the cutler at Langres found himself definitely settled in Paris, and starting upon a long and stormy life of literary labors. This work for the Encyclopedie supplied him with what he really needed most, beside his daily bread. It gave definiteness of aim to the rather exuberant and erratic faculties of his mind, and induced some trace of discipline in the management of his extraordinarily versatile and restless intellect. Too much pity need not therefore be wasted on him on account of his regrets concerning talents misapplied and natu- ral gifts neglected. In a way, it was better for him not to have devoted himself entirely to the stage ; and, on the other hand, the general trend of his philosophy enables us to make a safe sur- mise that, had he ever found a place among the doctors of theology in the Sorbonne, it would not have been for long. The more fully one becomes acquainted with Diderot, the stronger does the conviction grow that, if no Encyclo- pedia had existed before him, one would have " Chapter V, The Encyclopedist. 40 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT had to be invented for him; much as Voltaire thought it morally necessary that " If there were no God, one would have to be invented." Diderot was happily possessed with the active curiosity, the catholicity of taste, the unrelent- ing energy, and the sociable and patient dispo- sition that must go to the making of an Encyclo- pedia editor ; and that " rage for study " which, as he tells us, characterized him when he was thirty years old (XX, 80), had fitted him for a task formidable at all times, more formidable still when no great modern encyclopedia was yet in existence. The remainder of Diderot's literary activity, outside of the Encyclopedie, is, however, worthy of attention. While he was engaged in starting this great work, writing its Prospectus (1Y50), and preparing its first two volumes for publica- tion (1751-1752), he tried his hand at inde- pendent writing, and learned by experience that it was, to say the least, a hazardous undertaking. He always had a sort of shamefacedness about his encyclopedic work, for though he considered the Encyclopedie a highly useful undertaking, bound to be exceedingly beneficial to man- DIDEROT'S LIFE 41 kind, yet the kind of labor it entailed smacked too much of mere compilation to satisfy his ambition. Before 1747, he had, as it were, felt his way by publishing — in 1745 — a paraphrase of Shaftesbury's Essay on Virtue or Merit, with all the reserves and rhetorical precautions of a man who had "the courage of his opinions and the fear of their consequences";^^ — in 1746, a series of Pensees philosophiques which form a striking contrast with the prudent orthodoxy of the notes subjoined by him to the paraphrase of Shaftesbury; — in 1748, a merely licentious book entitled Les Bijoux Indiscrets, yet inter- spersed with a greater number of interesting philosophic digressions than most merry tales of the same sort. This last " display of intem- perate wit that had escaped him," as he pleaded later, might have passed unperceived by a censorship which, although hostile to the free- dom of the press on religious and political " Thia is BrunetiSre 's characterization of Bayle 's and Voltaire's attitude. It is not without analogy with the mot of the Jesuit Pere Garasse concerning free-thinkers: " Faggots will always be afraid of fire," — a natural thing, aa long as there are stakes burning somewhere about. 42 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT questions, was as a rule a great deal more in- dulgent than many modern governments in matters affecting moral propriety. But Diderot went too far when he boldly expounded the plausibility of atheism in his Letter on the Blind, for the use of those who see, in 1749. On July 24, 1749, he was arrested, and, as Voltaire had once said of himself, "provided by the king with free lodgings in one of his chateaux ; " in other words, he was imprisoned at Vincennes for an indefinite period of time. On November 3 of the same year, he was freed, after repeated requests to the government from the booksellers, his employers, who needed him sorely. Yet he could not forbear publishing another Letter, this time On the Deaf and Dumb, for the use of those who hear and speah (1751) ; but this, as it hap- pened, did not involve him in new troubles. All the vexations he was to endure henceforth were solely connected with the Encyclopedie. In 1752, he wrote the third part of an Apology for the Ahhe de Prades, one of his fellow- laborers who had written articles on theology, and who, despite all apologies, was condemned by the Sorbonne and had to flee to Berlin. In DIDEROT'S LIFE 43 1754, Diderot gave out his Thoughts on the In- terpretation of Nature, an homage to Bacon, and a proof of the close intellectual intercourse in which the French philosopher for some years had lived with the author of the Novum Or- ganum. Those first ten years in the eye of the public must have satisfied Diderot's craving for an author's fame. After 1755, if we except his two attempts in the drama, and in his last years, an Essay on the life of Seneca and the reigns of Claudius arid Nero (1778), he did not pub- lish anything beside the bulky volumes of the Encyclopedie, the last volume of text appearing in 1765, and the last volume of plates in 1772. In this period of his life, it was his policy to be ignored (III, 379). Thus it is that so few of his writings were known to his contemporaries. For reasons of prudence, and out of contempt for present fame, perhaps also because he could not bring him- self to finish the various works he began en haguenaudant, Diderot after 1755 was content to write for himself and a chosen few. We must imagine him as he describes himself in his 44 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Refutation of Helvetius, at his desk, clad in the old dressing-gown which he has celebrated, curtains drawn, lamp lighted, " occupe a decom- poser des idees." This is the true Diderot, ecco il vero Pulcinella: reading, analyzing all sorts of notions, the most trifling as well as the most respected, remaking a whole book by way of amending it, challenging dogmatic assertions, whether orthodox or revolutionary, writing " the diary of his reading," like Montaigne, testing theories in the light of free examination, in the spirit of Descartes, Bayle, and Locke. This Diderot intime enjoyed the rare liberty of thinking and writing with absolute freedom, more freely than any of his English masters, not because wealth or a safe retreat made him independent, like Voltaire, but because, not caring for publication, he had no reading public to humor, and no " consequences " to fear. There is good reason to believe that, during the very active period of his life which extends from 1748 to 1760, while he became famous both as the editor of the Encyclopedie and as the originator of new dramatic theories, Diderot DIDEEOT'S LIFE 45 knew England mostly through books ; very little, if at all, by actual intercourse with English people traveling in France.^ ^ When he met some Englishmen later on, in the social circles which welcomed them after the Treaty of Paris, we are not aware that he was able to converse with them in their own language; at any rate, in what we know of his correspondence with them, he always expressed himself in French. It was in 1759 and 1760 that he had the occa- sion, apparently for the first time, to obtain authentic particulars of the manners and insti- tutions of Great Britain, concerning which he had hitherto been content to read the accounts given by Muralt, Voltaire, Prevost, and the Abbe Le Blanc. The curious interest with which he relates to Sophie Volland his conver- sations with "father Hoop" a Scotchman,^ ** shows how little he knew about England at that time, and how eager he was to know more. Hoop was a typical Englishman, according to the notions entertained of their neighbors by the French about the middle of the eighteenth " See Chapter II, Diderot 's English friends. " For more particulars concerning this great friend of Diderot, see Chapter II, pp. 86 S. 46 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT century. He was grave and taciturn, and suf- fered from that peculiar form of melancholy which Voltaire in a famous piece,^^ and the Abbe Prevost in his novel entitled Cleveland, had described as characteristic of the English temperament, — spleen, "You do not know what spleen is, the Eng- lish ' vapeurs ' ; I did not know either," Diderot writes to Mile VoUand (Oct. 31, 1760). "I a«!ked our Scotchman about it in our last walk, and this is what he told me : " ' For the last twenty years I have had a more or less troublesome feeling of general discom- fort; my head is never free. It is so heavy at times that it feels like a weight which drags me forward, and would carry me out of a window into the street, or headlong to the " Voltaire, Melanges, Moland edition, vol. XXII, pp. 21-22. His humorous account of the tragic effects of the east wind on the morale of Londoners seems likely enough; but the story of the unfortunate Molly leaves the reader under a strong impression that Voltaire was made, by his English friends, the victim of a hoax which Tie never suspected. Prevost, in his Eistoire de Monsieur Cleveland, fils naturel de Cromwell (1732-1739), had said of spleen that it was "a kind of delirious frenzy, which is more common among the English than among the other nations of Europe. ' ' The word spleen was entered in the Vic- tiotmaire de I'Academie in 1798. DIDEROT'S LIFE 47 ) bottom of a river, if I stood on the bank. I have gloomy ideas, I am sad and bored; I feel uncomfortable everywhere, I wish for nothing. I am unable to wish, I try to enjoy myself and to be busy, but all in vain; the mirth of others grieves me, I suffer when I hear them laughing or talking. Do you know that kind of stupid or discontented feeling one has on waking after sleeping too long ? That is my usual state ; life is distasteful to me; the least changes in the atmosphere are to me like violent shocks ; I cannot remain in one place, but must be going, I do not know whither. That is how I have gone around the world. I do not sleep well, have no appetite, cannot digest; I am com- fortable only in a stage-coach. I am just the reverse of other people ; 1 dislike what they like, I like what they dislike ; there are days when I hate the light, at other times it makes me feel safe, and if I suddenly entered darkness, I should think I was falling into an abyss. My nights are disturbed by a thousand weird dreams. . . . But,' he added, 'the most annoy- ing sensation is to know one's own stupidity, to know that you were not born stupid, to wish to enjoy your intellect, to endeavor to find amuse- ment, enter into conversation, bestir yourself, and finally to be overwhelmed by the effort. Then it is impossible to depict the mental grief you feel at being hopelessly condemned to be what you are not. Sir,' he then added with an 48 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT exclamation that rent mj soul, ' I was gay once, I used to skim along like you over the earth, I enjoyed the sight of a fine day, or a beautiful woman, I enjoyed a good book, a pleasant walk, agreeable conversation, the spectacle of nature, the intercourse of wise men, the comedy of fools : I still recollect that happiness; I feel that I must give it up,' "Well, with all that, dear friend," Diderot goes on to say, " this man is still most agreeable to deal with. He has kept I know not what of his former gaiety which still comes out in his expression. His sadness is pleasantly peculiar, and is not sad. He is never worse than when he is silent; and so many people would be very decent if they were like old Hoop when he is bad!" (XVIII, 530). A few days before (Oct. 13, 1760), Diderot and his Scotchman had talked politics, and Di- derot seems to have learned much : " I asked him a thousand questions about the English Parliament. It is a body composed of some five hundred persons. The place where it holds its sittings is a vast building ; six or seven years ago everybody could be admitted there, and the most important affairs of State were discussed under the very eyes of the nation assembled and sitting in large galleries above the heads of the DIDEEOT'S LIFE 49 representatives." (The debates of Parliament were then no longer public, for reasons of State. ) " Do you think, my friend," Diderot asks with naive confidence, " that a man would dare to propose a harmful project or oppose a useful measure in front of a whole nation, and acknowl- edge himself wicked or stupid ? " (XVIII, 488). The use of shorthand to record parliamentary debates was another foreign wonder to Hol- bach's circle, and the philosopher marveled at a secret which he thought had been lost since the days of Cicero. But what about the question of " merit or virtue " ? Did the Britons live up to their repu- tation in this respect ? The Scotchman began to dispel Diderot's illusions on this score. London society life was less peculiar than Eng- lish political life, for it appeared to be much like Parisian life in some ways. Diderot told amazing stories of the extravagance of "la Deschamps," a much talked-of actress ; but they were matched by Hoop's recollection of a famous Miss Phillips, who showed "un esprit etonnant" by practising in a masterly manner the art of blackmailing noblemen, as a short and easy 5 50 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT way to raise money wlieii she wanted some (Oct. 28, 1760; XVIII, 526). Yet such examples, Hoop adds for the honor of his country, were comparatively rare in England. Thirteen years later, in his journey through Holland, Diderot relieved the tedium of travel in a stage-coach by conversing on the same sub- ject with an English lady. English manners, it appears by her report, were no better than the French: the only difference was, that in Paris the dangerous moral influence was that of women ; in London, it was that of men. Where- upon Diderot passes on to a discussion of the anatomy and the ethics of the Hottentots, with a young Englishman, named Gordon, who had visited South Africa.^ ^ As he acquired a more substantial and direct knowledge of England, after 1760, Diderot lost indeed some long cherished notions about Eng- lish virtue, for which Shaftesbury was partly responsible : but, at the same time, he was filled with sympathy and respect for those men who had the honor of sharing in the managment "Whether this was the "Colonel Gordon" to whom Madame Geoffrin refers in her letters to Hume, or some other, we have not been able to ascertain. DIDEROT'S LIFE 51 of the public affairs of their country, his " dear philosopher" David Hume, secretary of the English embassy in Paris, and his "very dear and honored Gracchus," John Wilkes.^ '^ The latter excited his enthusiasm, for had he not dared to brave his king and make a stand for " liberty," — a wonderful example of hardiesse anglaise? While the former gave him occasion to wonder when philosophers would be entrusted with responsible positions in the French admin- istration. The time was near for that honor to devolve on a Turgot, a I^ecker; but the French monarchy was to find then that it was too late. The halo of glory which still surrounded the parliamentary system of England was beginning to be obscured by many shadows in its foreign and colonial policy. After 1763, Great Britain appeared to Frenchmen as a power which for years had been France's relentless enemy on the Continent, and her triumphant rival in the struggle for colonial expansion. Diderot, while unable to sympathize with the exclusive, narrow- minded, bitter spirit of so-called patriotism " For more details on the relations of Diderot with Hume and Wilkes, see Chapter II. 52 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT which long-protracted wars had fostered in the less enlightened part of the French and the English nations, could no longer share that other excess, a philosophic kind of cosmopolitanism founded on the negation of patriotism, which extolled everything connected with England and reviled everything French. An undiscerning "Anglomania" would have been as unbecom- ing to a truly philosophic intellect as that un- compromising hatred and contempt of foreign- ers which characterized, for instance, a Smollett and a Samuel Johnson.^ ^ "All nations," he wrote in the Encyclo- pedie}^ "have fairly just ideas to-day concern- ing their neighbors, and they consequently have less of the fatherland enthusiasm than in the ages of ignorance ; there is not much enthusiasm when there is much enlightenment ; it is almost always the impulse of a soul full rather of pas- sion than of knowledge; by comparing in all ^' He tried to convince the Russian Princess Dashkoff that her exclusive feelings of admiration for the English blinded her to the merits of the French; but he left to his less intelligent disciple Naigeon, by whom the Rus- sian Czernischew had already been "trounced" (in a literary way) for placing England above France, the task of upbraiding Helvetius for a similar offence. "Article " Legislateur, " (Euv., XV, 434. DIDEROT'S LIFE 53 countries laws with laws, talents with talents, manners with manners, nations will find so little reason to prefer themselves to others that, although they will preserve for their own land that love which is the product of personal inter- est, they will at least cease to entertain that enthusiasm which is the result of exclusive esteem." And he proceeds to say, with more optimism than true insight : " It would not be pos- sible nowadays, through supposititious charges, and political tricks, to inspire people with such violent forms of national hatred as one formerly did; the slanders published by our neighbors against us have hardly any effect, except on a small, despicable part of the inhabitants of a capital [London] which contains the lowest kind of rabble as well as the noblest population." The fanatic London mobs whose patriotic passion could be fanned to fury by the introduc- tion of French dancers on Garrick's stage, those "true Britons" whose ancient hatred for France is displayed in innumerable skits and songs of that time, were not without equivalents in Paris. Sebastien Mercier, in his Tableau de Paris (1781), tells us how gaping audiences, in the Jardin du Luxembourg, listened to the ha- rangues of a patriotic Abbe, who used to bawl repeatedly that if only " thirty thousand men " 54 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT . marched on London the war would soon be at an end; and how, in consequence, his admirers conferred on him the name of the "Abbe Thirty-Thousand-Men." That Diderot one day felt ashamed of having too highly extolled England during the earlier part of his life, is shown by a curious recan- tation, in his Second Entretien sur le Fils Naturel. In the same passage he illustrates the truth that "there are good people every- where," and that feelings of kindness and hu- manity are not to be claimed as belonging to one nation alone, to the exclusion of all others. In his play, an old servant, Andre, is supposed to have been captured at sea with his master, and both had been afterwards despoiled of all they had in the English pontoons; but a kind- hearted Englishman had eventually obtained their freedom and provided them with all they wanted : " ISTow," Andre says to Dorval [Diderot] , who has alluded to those facts in his domestic tragedy, "you are a little too concise about the good deeds of the Englishman who succored us. Sir, there are honest people everywhere. . . . But you are much altered from what you used DIDEROT'S LIFE 55 to be, if what is also said about you is true."^'' " And what else do people say ? " " That you have been madly infatuated with those people." " Andre ! " " That you looked upon their coun- try as the refuge of liberty, the land of virtue, in- vention, originality." "Andre ! " " Now it annoys you. Well, let us not talk about it any more " (VII, 110). Let us rather talk, he says, of an English servant's charity to him, which was as worthy to be put on record as the English gen- tleman's generosity. Several passages in Diderot's Refutation de Vouvrage d'Helvetius intitule L'Homme are devoted to criticizing the idea that the best form of government was the regime of a " good tyrant," that is, an unlimited, enlightened monarchy. This ideal of a bygone age, which Frederick II and Catherine II had been re- furbishing of late, and which probably was not altogether foreign to the policy of the " royal prerogative " pursued by George III with such disastrous results, had found defenders in the camp of philosophy. Diderot disliked Fred- erick, and did not care if he knew it. He had "It has just been said that Dorval had become a free- thinker. 56 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT accepted Catherine's protection, but was doomed to fail in his futile attempts to advise her and win her over to plans of philosophic and truly far-sighted reforms for Russia. As for Eng- land, ominous signs were already appearing in her political sky, and Diderot wrote : " Suppose the English had had three successive Elizabeths, they would be the lowest slaves in Europe" (II, 382). Helvetius, who had fled to England when his book De VEsprit was condemned in France, had been handsomely treated in London. Naturally, he had come back as pleased with England and as dissatisfied with France as Voltaire in 1729. " Poor Helvetius," said Holbach, " he has seen nothing else in England than the persecution of his book in France." Now Holbach, who was one of Diderot's great friends, and who had entertained most of the distinguished English visitors who had come to the French capital after the Treaty of Paris, went to England in his turn in 1765. But he brought back the most unfavorable impressions of the aspect of the country, its climate, its wealth, and the pro- verbial tristesse of its inhabitants. Diderot DIDEROT'S LIFE 57 summed up those impressions for his friend Sophie Volland (Sept. 20, 1765) with the faith- ful accuracy of one who has learnt something new and well worth recording: "The Baron has returned from England: he had gone to that country favorably prejudiced ; there he has met with the pleasantest reception, enjoyed the best of health, and yet he has come back dissatisfied; dissatisfied with the country, which he does not think so thickly populated nor so well tilled as people said; dissatisfied with the buildings, in which the affectation of imitating nature is worse than the monotonous symmetry of art ; dissatisfied with a taste which piles up in palaces the excellent, the good, the bad, the detestable, all pell mell ; dissatisfied with the amusements, which look like religious ceremonies ; dissatisfied with the people, on whose faces one never sees confidence, friend- ship, mirth, sociability, but which all bear this inscription: What is there in common between you and me? — dissatisfied with the great, who are sullen, cold, haughty, disdainful and vain, and the lowly, who are harsh, insolent, and barbaric; dissatisfied with the dinners between friends where each one takes his place according to his rank, and where formality and ceremony sit by the side of each guest; dissatisfied with the meals at inns where one is well and quickly served, but without any affability. I heard him 58 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT praise nothing but the conveniences for travel- ing; he says that there is not one village, not even on a by-road, where you would not find four or five post-chaises and twenty horses ready to start. He traveled through the whole prov- ince of Kent, one of the most fertile in Eng- land; he claims that it is not to be compared with our province of Flanders. In that English trip he has been filled anew with fondness for living in France. He confessed to us that every moment he found himself saying in his inner- most heart : ' O Paris, when shall I see thee again? O French people, indeed you are very light and giddy, but you are a hundred times better than these morose, sad thinkers over here.' He claims that only in France do people drink Champagne wine, that only here people are gay, full of laughter and self-enjoyment" (XIX, 179). These regretful longings for Paris were not unusual, and were indulged in even by many Englishmen, at a time when the attraction of Paris was greater than it has ever been. In the preceding year, for instance. Lord Holdernesse similarly wrote to David Hume : " . . . There is something in the plan of society in France so entirely adapted to my taste, that I must feel the want of it. Here, my pleasure is retreat DIDEROT'S LIFE 69 and contemplation ; there 'twas company and conversation. I suppose there is something in our natural as well as political constitution, that renders the ease of life, which is so universal in France, difficult, if not impossible here. In most respects, the English seem fit for society. They are naturally good-natured, and commonly not ignorant; and the many easy fortunes amongs us ought to facilitate our communica- tion with each other; instead of which chacun houde chez soi."^^ Concerning the economical, political, educa- tional and social conditions in England, Holbach was even less enthusiastic than about the Eng- lish climate and temperament : " Do not believe," Diderot writes to Mile Vol- land (Oct. 6, 1765), "that the repartition of wealth is unequal in France only. There are two hundred English lords who have each an income of six, seven, eight, nine, up to eighteen hundred thousand livres; there is a numerous clergy which owns, as ours does, one quarter of the property in the State, but it contributes in *^In J. H. Burton, Letters of Eminent Persons ad- dressed to D. Hume, 1849, p. 72. — Lord Marishal, also writing to Hume (Oct. 28, 1763), thinks Paris a more comfortable place than Edinburgh for thinking freely. 60 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT proportion to the public charges, while ours does not ; there are merchants who are extrava- gantly wealthy; you may imagine how little is left for the other citizens. The monarch seems to have his hands free to do good and bound for evil ; but he is as much the master of everything as any sovereign, and more. Elsewhere the court commands, and is obeyed. There, it cor- rupts and does what it pleases, and the corrup- tion of the subjects is perhaps worse, in the long run, than tyranny.^^ There is no public edu- cation. The colleges, sumptuous buildings, palaces which might be compared with our Chateau des Tuileries, are occupied by rich, lazy fellows who sleep and get drunk through a part of the day, and spend the other part knocking into shape a few apprentices to the ministry. The gold which abundantly flows into the capital from the provinces and all the lands of the earth raises wages to an exorbitant level, encourages smuggling, and causes the manufactures to decay. Whether it be an effect of the climate, or of the use of beer and strong spirits, of coarse meat, of everlasting fogs, of the coal smoke by which they are always en- ^ Montesquieu, in his Notes on England, mentions this tradition of political corruption. — See to the same effect D'Argenson, Journal et Memoires, Rathery edit., vol, 5, p. 89 (Oct., 1747): "[The English], with their greed and their fondness for opposing their own government, yet are duped by a king who distorts their Constitution by bribing the deputies of the government. ' ' DIDEEOT'S LIFE 61 shrouded, these people are sad and melancholy. Their gardens are cut with winding, narrow paths ; everywhere you are made to feel that the host hides himself and wishes to be alone. There you find a Gothic temple; elsewhere a grotto, a Chinese hut, ruins, obelisks, caves, tombs. A private man of wealth has had a large space planted with cypresses ; among those trees he has scattered busts of philosophers, funeral urns, antique marbles, on which one reads : Diis Manibus, ' To the Manes.' What the Baron calls a Roman cemetery, that gentle- man calls the Elysium. But what above all characterizes that national melancholy, is their behavior in those immense, sumptuous buildings which they have erected to Pleasure.^^ There you could hear the trotting of a mouse. A hun- dred women, erect and silent, walk there around an orchestra built in the middle, where the most delightful music is played. The Baron com- pares those rounds to the seven processions of the Egyptians around the mausoleum of Osiris. They have public gardens that are not much frequented; on the other hand, the people are not more densely crowded in the streets than in Westminster, a famous abbey adorned with the funeral monuments of all the great men of the country. A charming mot of my friend Garrick is, that London is good for the English, but Paris is good for everybody. When the ^ Vauxhall, etc. 62 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Baron called on that famous player, the latter led him bj an underground passage to the end of an island watered by the Thames. There he found a cupola raised on columns of black marble, and, under that cupola, in white marble, the statue of Shakespeare. ' There,' said Gar- rick to him, ' is the tribute of gratefulness which I owe to the man who has made my reputation, my fortune, and my talent.' " The Englishman is a gambler ; he stakes frightful sums of money. He plays without speaking, loses without complaining, wastes in one instant all his resources; nothing is more common there than to find a man, not more than thirty years old, who has become insensible to riches, the table, women, study, even philan- throphy. Ennui seizes them in the midst of pleasures, and leads them into the Thames, unless they prefer to take the muzzle of a pistol between their teeth. In a remote spot of St. James' Park, there is a pool reserved for women by an exclusive privilege : that is where they go to drown themselves. Listen to a fact, which might well fill with sadness a sensitive soul. The Baron was taken to the house of a charming man, full of kindness and courtesy, affable, learned, wealthy, and honored; that man ap- peared to him to be after his own heart, and the closest friendship sprang up between them ; they lived together, and parted vdth grief. The Baron came back to France; his first care was to thank the Englishman for the manner in DIDEEOT'S LIFE 63 which he had been received at his house, and to repeat the feelings of attachment and esteem which he had vowed for him. His letter was half written when he heard that, two days after his departure from London, that man had blown out his brains with a pistol. What is most peculiar, however, is that this weariness of life which takes them from country to country does not leave them, and that often an English- man who travels is simply a man who leaves his country to go and kill himself elsewhere " (XIX, 182 ff.). This propensity of the English to suicide, which some of their writers acknowledged as a national characteristic,^^ had just been illus- trated by the case of an Englishman who, after an unsuccessful attempt to drown himself in the Seine, had given a great deal of trouble to the English Embassy in the matter of his rescue from the French law: Hume, as secretary of " Eichardson 's Pamela (Leslie Stephen edit., vol. Ill, p. 101), in her criticism of The Bistrest Mother, Phillips's translation of Eacine's Andromaque, deplores the im- moral example given by a tragic heroine, Hermione, to "such a gloomy, saturnine nation as ooirs, where self- murders are more frequent than in all the Christian world besides." — In the Encyclopedie, article "Suicide" {(Euv., XVII, 234-237), Diderot discusses English authorities on the subject, among others Dr. Donne's Piaei.va.To^ (1700). 64 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT the Embassy, " had been obliged to call twenty times on the Premier President before he could make him understand that there was no stipu- lation, in any of the treaties between France and England, forbidding an Englishman to drown himself in the Seine under penalty of hanging" (XIX, 184). " The English have, like ourselves, a mania for converting people," Diderot goes on; and he introduces several stories about missionaries and savages, one of which he had heard from Hume, all tending to show what a ludicrous construction is apt to be put on some Christian doctrine or sacrament by Cannibal or Huron converts. And yet, in spite of the missionary zeal which had inspired the foundation of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,^^ " the Christian religion is almost extinct in England. The Deists there are without num- ber ; there are hardly any atheists ; those who are such conceal the fact. ' Atheist ' and ' crim- inal' are for them almost synonymous terms" (XIX, 185). Paris evidently contained at that ^Noticed by Diderotj after Chambers, in the Encyclo- pedie: see Chapter V, The Encyclopedist. DIDEROT'S LIFE 65 time fewer deists than England, and more atheists, who did not take much trouble to hide their creed: Hume soon found this out at the dinners of Baron d'Holbach. Diderot con- cludes : " A nation which thinks that good people are produced by believing in a God, and not through sound laws, does not seem to me very far ad- vanced. I think of the existence of God, in relation to a nation, as I do of marriage. The latter as an institution, the former as a notion, are excellent for three or four persons of sound intellect, but fatal to the common run of men. The vow of indissoluble marriage makes, and is bound to make, almost as many wretches as there are married people. The belief in a God makes, and is bound to make, almost as many fanatics as there are believers. Wherever a God is admitted, there is worship; wherever there is worship, the natural order of moral duties is subverted, and ethics corrupted. Sooner or later, a moment comes when the notion which had prevented a man from steal- ing a shilling will cause a hundred thousand men to be slaughtered. Fine compensation ! " Whose authority was Diderot inclined to accept, the pessimistic views of Holbach, or the enthu- siastic encomiums of England by Helvetius? 6 1 66 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Helvetius, we are told (XIX, 187), was madly enthusiastic over England, even before he had visited it. Later on, at a time when the prestige of England as an admirably well-governed coun- try was fast waning in the minds of his contem- poraries, when her difficulties with her American colonies were increasing, and had begun to darken the glory so lately acquired by the Treaty of Paris (1Y63), Helvetius had written in his book On Man (1772) : " To what cause should one ascribe the ex- treme power of England ? — To her government." And to this Diderot retorted {Refutation of Helvetius s hooTc " On Man" 1773-1774) : "But to what cause should one ascribe the poverty of Scotland and Ireland, and the ab- surdity of the present war against the colonies ? To the greed of the merchants in the metropolis. — People praise that nation for its patriotism. I challenge anyone to show me, in ancient or modern history, an example of such national selfishness, or of more marked anti-patriotism. — I imagine this people under the emblem of a robust child, born with four arms, in whom one arm tears off the other three." Another blot in the scutcheon of England, 1 DIDEEOT'S LIFE 67 according to him, was the peculiarly cruel treat- ment which negro slaves suffered in the British colonies. Yet while he freely criticized the policies of England and was siding with Burke, Wilkes and other " friends of liberty " on the question of the American colonies, Diderot paid a glow- ing tribute to the part played by England, and generally by the countries of Europe in which the Reformation had prevailed, in the emancipa- tion and the enlightening of the intellect of man. In his Essai sur les etudes en Russle, in which he gave the first outline of the Plan d'une Uni- versite pour le Gouvernement de Russia (1775) which Catherine II had asked him to write, he said : " When we glance over the progress of the human mind since the invention of the art of jirinting, after that long succession of centuries during which it had remained buried in the profoundest darkness, we notice at once that, after the revival of letters in Italy, it was in the Protestant countries that the best schools were established, rather than in the lands which have preserved the Roman religion, and that to this day those schools have made the most remark- able progress. I shall not enlarge upon this 68 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT assertion in order to prove it, but it will sujSice to observe that the spirit of the Catholic clergy, which in all times has secured control of public education, is entirely opposed to the progress of enlightenment and reason, while everything favors it in Protestant countries, and that the question here is not whether in Catholic coun- tries there have not been some very great men since the Renascence of letters, but whether the majority, the main body of each nation, has become more enlightened and sensible : for it is the privilege of a minority of great minds not to resemble their age, and nothing in their case can be accepted as the rule. ISTow we see that, since the time of the Reformation, all Protes- tant countries have made a rapid advance toward a better order, that the absurdities and preju- dices contrary to good sense have noticeably diminished there, and that there is not one among them which is not more flourishing than any Catholic country that we may compare with it, in proportion respectively to their advantages and the condition in which each ought to be. We may even add that the Catholic lands have profited by the light reflected on them from Protestant countries ; that the disappearance of prejudice, buried by reason in the lands where an ambitious clergy no longer had any interest or credit to uphold it, has brought about the shame and finally the ruin of the same prejudice in the neighboring country, to the greatest dis- pleasure of the priests. To all those who have DIDEROT'S LIFE 69 eyes, it is clear that, without the English, reason and philosophy would still be in the most con- temptible infancy in France, and that their true originators among us, Montesquieu and Voltaire, have been the disciples and followers of the philosophers and great men of England.^® It is therefore in Protestant countries that we must look for the best and wisest institutions for the instruction of youth" (III, 415). Thus, in the last decade of his life, Diderot still entertained feelings akin to veneration for the English masters of French thought, while, in relation to the contemporary social, political, and even cultural condition of England, he had reached a state of comparative scepticism. He readily fell in with the great enthusiasm which the revolt of the American colonies elicited in France ; he was aflame with the same idealistic, philosophic love of liberty which inspired a Lafayette, and for once he must have felt in ^In 1760, Voltaire wrote to the same effect to G. Keate: "... I am confident nobody in the world looks with a greater veneration [than I do] on your good philosophers, on the crowd of your good authors, and I am these thirty years the disciple of your way of thinking." — This letter, written in English, has not hitherto been included in Voltaire's Works; it will be found in Appendix I. 70 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT sympathy with the action of the French mon- archy. The utterances of his friend Wilkes in the English Parliament further confirmed his sympathy for the Insurgents; and so we find him, some two weeks before the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, sending to Wilkes his first and only attempt in political oratory :^^ " Friend Wilkes, what are you doing ? If you are resting, you are much to be pitied. I have read with great satisfaction the various speeches which you have made, on the affair of the [American] provincials. I have found them full of eloquence, dignity, and strength. I have also made one, and here it is : ' Gentlemen, I shall not speak to you upon the justice or in- justice of your- conduct. I am well aware that those words are but empty sounds, when the common interest is at stake. I might speak to you about your means for success, and ask you whether you are strong enough to play the part of oppressors ; that might be a little nearer the question. However, I shall do nothing of the sort. But I shall be content merely to beseech you to cast a glance at the nations which hate you ; ask them what they think of you, and tell me until what time you have resolved to make =^For the following unpublished letter of Didexot, see also Appendix I. DIDEROT'S LIFE 71 your enemies laugh.' A paper is being pub- lished here, which is said to be by a man of importance in your country ; from that paper it appears that the secret plan of the mother- country is to butcher one half of the colonists, and reduce the others to the condition of the negroes. In fact, that would raise every diffi- culty for the present and the future." When the success of the American Revolution was assured, Diderot, two years before his death, hailed the young republic in glowing terms, in a half-didactic, half-prophetic page, which one might consider as the message of pre-revolution- ary France to the newly-born United States, and the testament of eighteenth-century philosophy to all democratic governments in the future : " After centuries of general oppression, may the revolution which has just taken place beyond the seas, by offering to all the inhabitants of Europe a shelter against fanaticism and tyranny, instruct those who govern men on the legitimate use of their authority! " May those brave Americans, who have pre- ferred to see their wives outraged, their chil- dren throttled, their dwellings destroyed, their fields laid waste, their cities burned, to shed their blood and die, rather than to lose the least part of their freedom, prevent the enormous increase and unequal distribution of wealth. 72 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT luxury, idleness, the corruption of morals, and provide for the preservation of their liberty and the duration of their government! May they postpone, at least for a few centuries, the decree pronounced against all things in this world, a decree which has doomed them to have their birth, their time of vigor, their decline, and their end! May the earth swallow up that province of theirs which might one day prove powerful and insensate enough to look for the means of subjugating the others ! In each of them, may the citizen either never be born, or die at once by the executioner's sword or the dagger of a Brutus, who might be powerful enough one day, and hostile enough to his own happiness, to frame the design of making him- self its master ! " Let them remember that the public good is never accomplished but by necessity, and that the fatal time for governments is that of pros- perity, not that of adversity. " Let men read in the first paragraph of their annals : ' People of JSTorthern America, remem- ber for ever that the power from which your fathers made you free, a ruler of seas and lands but a short time before, was brought to the verge of ruin by the abuse of prosperity.' "Adversity keeps great talents busy; pros- perity makes them useless, and brings to the foremost positions the incapable, the corrupt rich, and the wicked. DIDEEOT'S LIFE 73 "Let them bear in mind that virtue often hatches the germ of tyranny. " If the great man is for a long time at the head of affairs, he there becomes a despot. If he is there a short time, the administration is relaxed and languishes under a succession of mediocre administrators. " Let them bear in mind that it is neither by gold, nor even by the multitude of arms, that a State is upheld, but by morals. " A thousand men who fear not for their lives are more to be dreaded than ten thousand who fear for their fortunes. " Let every one of them have in his house, at the end of his field, by his loom, by his plough, his gun, his sword, and his bayonet. " Let them all be soldiers. "Let them bear in mind that if, in circum- stances which allow of deliberation, the advice of old men is the best, in moments of crisis, youth is commonly better advised than old age "28 (iii^ 324-325). To sum up, Diderot's estimation of England was never founded on experience, but on second- hand information which he derived from books, and later from his conversations with English visitors in Paris and the impressions of French ^ The Essay on the reigns of Claudius and Nero, from which this passage is extracted, was written in 1778, revised in 1782. 74 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT friends returning from London, l^evertheless, lie accurately represents the attitude of the enlightened part of French opinion concerning England between 1Y40 and 1784. At first, he shared the unrestricted admiration of Voltaire, the Voltaire of the Letters concerning the Eng- lish nation, for " the shelter of liberty, the land of virtue, invention, originality." Then, he grew ashamed of his infatuation, and, as social England lost its glamor in his eyes, and political England appeared tainted with corruption at home and a tyrannical selfishness abroad, he began to revise his early notions concerning that country. Finally, in the light of the world events which in 1783 culminated in England's defeat and the condemnation of a policy which had made too light of the right of men to liberty and self-government, he greeted in the American commonwealth the democracies of the future as he dreamed they should be. But to the end he discerned the true greatness of eighteenth-century England, more lasting than economic prosperity and supremacy on land and sea: he remained true to his admiration for England as a great intellectual power to which DIDEEOT'S LIFE 75 France owed much ; for English philosophy and literature; for the spirit of toleration and of free inquiry, unhampered by authority, whether spiritual or temporal, for which France was still longing. Indeed, a religious reaction had set in against freethinking in England since the advent of Methodism, about 1740; and the spirit of a Samuel Johnson, for instance, was in singular contrast with that of a David Hume : orthodoxy seemed to prevail, in public oj^inion, over Deism. But Diderot continued to cherish the Land of Philosophy which had given birth to Bacon, Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hume; and this sympathetic feeling was fostered in him by his intercourse with his English friends. CHAPTER II DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS In a letter to Sir Horace Mann, in 1Y64, Horace Walpole derided the innocent mania of some French visitors who believed in la solidite, la vertu, la profondeur anglaises, and who had evidently been more puzzled than charmed by the " Gothick " style of his mansion at Straw- berry Hill. " Is it not amazing," he went on, "that the most sensible people in France can never help being domineered by sounds and general ideas ? ITow everybody must be a geometre, now a philosophe, and the moment they are either, they are to take up a character and advertise it: as if one could not study geometry for one's amusement or for its utility, but one must be a geometrician at table, or at a visit."^ One almost shudders to think of what must have happened when this fastidious virtuoso ^ H. Walpole, Letters, ed. by Mrs Paget Toynbee (1903-1905), VI, 162 (December 20, 1764). 76 \ DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 77 was introduced, probably in the salon of Madame dii Deffand, to "notre illustre ge- ometre " D'Alembert, and to " le philosophe " Diderot. His aristocratic aloofness of manner and his sarcastic wit were evidently perceived by the kind-hearted, enthusiastic editor of the Encyclopedie, who was innocently proud of " an honorable title^ which he held from a few in- dulgent friends, and which, when restricted to its etymology, might fit him as well as any good man" (XII, 1Y5). Horace Walpole, who was in Paris in 1Y65 and 1766, enjoys the distinction of being the only Englishman whom Diderot disliked when he met him, and for whom he had no good word to say. Let this be our reason, or rather our excuse, for disposing of him before we proceed to speak of the Englishmen who were Diderot's "friends" in a less Pickwickian sense. The supercilious humor of the dilettante of Straw- berry Hill was bound to clash with the plebeian good sense and the somewhat rustic manners of "Denis le Philosophe." In Walpole's volumi- nous Correspondence, Diderot and D'Alembert * The title of ' ' Philosopher, " or " friend of wisdom. ' ' 78 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT are never mentioned without a sneer and a scornful reference to their gratefulness towards Catherine 11.^ In the letter quoted above, Wal- pole refers to Richardson's novels, for which Diderot entertained an intense admiration, as " most woeful," " deplorably tedious lamenta- tions . . . which are pictures of high life as conceived bj a bookseller, and romances as they would be spiritualized by a Methodist teacher ; " while elsewhere he ridicules Sterne's manner of writing, which at that time Diderot was prob- ably engaged in imitating. Walpole had some affinities with people of the world, persons of wit and intellect, like Voltaire (though he quar- relled with him), or old Madame Du Deffand, with whom he entertained a famous friendship. But the sentimental, moralizing Diderot, whose manners were not "genteel" enough to suit even Madame Geoffrin,"* Diderot with his eccen- tric fits of enthusiasm, his lack of humor and social refinement, must have affected him as a kind of infidel Richardson. *H. Walpole, Letters, VII, 369; XI, 58, 163; XII, 39, 100. *De Segur, Le royaume de la Hue Saint-Sonore, p. 315. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FEIENDS 79 As Diderot's letters after 1765 are compara- tively few and cover fragmentary periods, w^e have no other record of the personal relations of these two men than an anecdote of a later date, to be found in Diderot's short Memoir Sur la Princesse DasUoff (XVII, 491). The incident took place in 1770 at the house of the Russian princess, in Paris: " Secretary Walpole^ having very inconsider- ately spoken of my country, I thought I should not suffer it; and I induced Mr Walpole to offer apologies to me, and he assured me that he had not thought that he was talking in the pres- ence of a Frenchman. I pointed out to him that a man should not have two ways of speaking, one for the people present, and another for the absent; and I vowed that whatever I might have to say about him after he had left, I would have *H. Walpole wrote, before going to Paris (April 9, 1764; VI, 47) : "I am going to realize the very low ideas I have of modern France, by a journey to Paris." After arriving there, he complained that he was losing all his mirth (Oct. 19, 1765; VI, 332): "Laughing is as much out of fashion as pantins or bilboquets. Good folks, they have no time to laugh. There is a God and the king to be pulled down first; and men and women, one and all, are devoutly employed in the demolition. They think me quite profane, for having any belief left ; ' ' etc. — For his estimate of the philosophers, see his letter to Hume, Nov. 11, 1766 (VII, 70). 80 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT the courage to say to himself. Walpole went away; Princess Dashkoff praised my conduct, adding that, had she been in my place when ' the Walpole' had had the meanness to apologize because he did not think me French, she would not have answered one word, but turned her back on him with contempt; and I think she was right." But that rather despicable parodist, who soon acquired an unenviable celebrity in Parisian society by his heartless practical joke on perse- cuted Rousseau,^ was happily not the first nor the only Englishman of note who visited Paris at that time. The conclusion of the peace in 1763 brought about a veritable exodus of dis- tinguished English people from England into France; it was as if the English had never so fully realised how much they needed an occa- sional breath of the Parisian atmosphere as during the Seven Years' War. During the lull of hostilities that had taken place between the ' It ia well known that he wrote the supposed Letter of the King of Prussia to Jean-Jacques, which helped to further unbalance Rousseau's mind. He was rather proud of his performance (see Letters, VI, 396, 401, etc.), and could not understand the indignation which his meanness aroused in Madame de BouflBers, the Prince de Conti, Hume, and Turgot. DIDEEOT'S ENGLISH FEIENDS 81 end of the War of the Austrian Succession (1748) and the beginning of the Seven Years' War (1756), Diderot had not had many chances to meet visitors from the " Philosophic Coun- try." In 1763, hovs^ever, at a time when the Encyclopedie was almost completed, when he was so famous throughout Europe that the em- press of Russia, in order to court public opinion, was about to make him her protege, he had more opportunities to see foreigners of distinction, and he was sought after by some of them. Thus it is that Diderot was already fifty years old when he began to know England through the English. Are we to believe that Goldsmith had met him as early as 1754 ? It is a point of literary his- tory which it is not very easy to clear up. Goldsmith was in Paris in that year, and at- tended those courses in chemistry, given by Rouelle, which have been preserved in notes taken by Diderot; he might have become ac- quainted with the philosopher and Rousseau in the laboratory of the famous chemist, but of this there is no evidence. He only mentions 7 82 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Diderot incidentally, in a passage of his incom- plete Memoirs of M. de Voltaire (1759) : " The person who writes this Memoir, who had the honour and the pleasure of being his (Voltaire's) acquaintance, remembers to have seen him in a select company of wits of both sexes in Paris, when the subject happened to turn upon English taste and learning. Fonte- nelle, who was of the party, and who, being (was?) unacquainted with the language or au- thors of the country he undertook to condemn, with a spirit truly vulgar began to revile both. Diderot, who liked the English, and knew some- thing of their literary pretensions, attempted to vindicate their poetry and learning, but with unequal abilities. The company quickly per- ceived that Eontenelle was superior in the dis- pute, and were surprised at the silence which Voltaire had preserved all the former part of the night, particularly as the conversation hap- pened to turn upon one of his favourite topics. Eontenelle continued his triumph till about twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He began his defence with the utmost elegance mixed with spirit, and now and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery upon his antagonist ; and his harangue lasted until three in the morning. I must confess, that, whether from national partiality, or from DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 83 the elegant sensibility of his manner, I never was so much charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he gained in this dispute."^ This interesting anecdote, though plausible enough in some ways, unfortunately takes no account of the fact that, after his departure for Berlin in 1750, Voltaire did not return to Paris until 1778, the year of his death; in 1754, having fled from the court of the King of Prus- sia, he was looking for a safe i^ef uge " in the free canton of Geneva." On the other hand, we know that Goldsmith's recollections are not infrequently inaccurate, especially when he wishes to provide interesting reading. He either wrongly imagined that Diderot and Fontenelle were present at a conversation which took place in Switzerland, or made a mistake in mixing Voltaire with his reminiscences of Parisian * Groldsmith, Miscell. Works, Globe ed. (Prof. Masson), 1884, pp. 500-501. John Forster, Life and Times of 0. Goldsmith, first pointed out the weak points of this atory (vol. I, pp. 67-69, in 2d ed., 1854), and suggested that the meeting might have taken place at "Les Delices. " But then, as Austin Dobson remarks {Life of Goldsmith, 1888, p. 40), how is one to account for the presence in Switzerland of Fontenelle and Diderot, to say nothing of the "select company of wits of both sexea"? 84 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT salons. It is likely enough that, on such an occasion, Diderot may have vindicated the literature of England ; but that he was so easily .worsted in an argument, even by Fontenelle, is less credible. If it is to be admitted, therefore, that Goldsmith's anecdote has some foundation in fact, the natural conclusion is that Diderot himself scored the success here ascribed to Vol- taire ; but that Goldsmith, having had an oppor- tunity to hear Voltaire also undertake a defence of England, when he later called on him at "Les Delices," blended the two incidents into one. It is much to be regretted that Diderot's letters cannot give us more light than they do on his English acquaintances, both before and after 1763. His Correspondence with Mile Volland has been transmitted to us in an incom- plete state: it is said to have included 546 let- ters,^ only 139 of which are known to us. It is not impossible that a part if not the whole of what is now missing may some day be found. But it seems probable that the lost letters have * See CEuv., XX, 103, in the notice by M. Toumeux on the lost and destroyed writings of Diderot. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 85 been, for private reasons, destroyed, either by the Volland family before the Correspondence was returned to Diderot after Sophie's death (1774), or by Diderot himself, or by his daughter. The letters which are printed in the Assezat-Tourneux edition were written during eight months of 1759, six months of 1760, two months of 1761, four months of 1762, while there are but a few scattered letters left for the years 1765, 1766, 1767, 1768, 1769, 1772, 1773, and 1774. It will be noted that the years 1763 and 1764, which are most interesting to us as representing the period when the great exodus of the English to France took place, con- tributed nothing at all to that Correspondence as we know it. From the earliest of those letters, however, those which were written in 1759 and 1760, we have seen that Diderot had just made a first- hand acquaintance with the English tempera- ment and intellect, in the person of le pere Hoop. The naive admiration of the French philosopher, his sympathy for Hoop and his spleen, his interest in English manners and the British Parliament, all tend to prove that, to 86 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT him, Hoop was a rare and curious find. It was more than fifteen years since Diderot had risen out of obscurity ; but he had been too poor, and too busy with his Encyclopedie, to entertain distinguished guests at his own house, or to go out and meet them in the spheres of fashionable society. It must be remembered that, like his friend Rousseau, Diderot never was at his ease in society ; that he preferred philosophic discus- sions among men to the conversation of ladies ; and that Madame d'Epinay thought it deplor- able that he should be so careless of the homage which " the world " would have liked to pay to his genius. Hence the seemingly dispropor- tionate importance of Hoop in Diderot's letters : if the melancholy Scotch surgeon was not the first Briton whom Diderot met, he at least gave Diderot his first chance thoroughly to canvass a denizen of the Land of Philosophy. Who was Hoop, "old Hoop," le pere Hoop? — "We call him le pere Hoop," Diderot ex- plains, " because he is a wrinkled, dry, oldish- looking man" (XVIII, 407). He was, to some extent, a romantic figure. I^ot only did he afford Diderot a rare opportunity of hearing. DIDEEOT'S ENGLISH FEIENDS 87 from an actual sufferer, all about that incom- prehensible English disorder which puzzled the gay, sociable Frenchmen of the eighteenth cen- tury, little acquainted yet with the mat de vivre; but, beside la tristesse anglaise, he had some- thing of the vertu then ascribed to his nation. Born in Scotland, probably a younger son of a noble family,^ he had studied medicine under ' A learned and respected friend, Dr Edward Nichol- son, the translator of Diderot's Entretien d'un Philo- sophe avec la Marechale {A Philosophical Conversation, London^ 1875), suggested to ua that "Hoop" probably was Diderot's French way of pronouncing and spelling the name * * Hope ' ' ; compare the change of ' ' Barn- well ' ' into ' ' Barnevelt, ' ' because Dutch names were less strange to the French about 1750 and 1760 than Eng- lish names, and the name of Van der Hoop was then more particularly familiar to all. — Now, whether "Hoop" was or was not one of the three brothers of Charles Hope, second Earl of Hopetoun (1710- 1791), he certainly belonged to the firm of Hope and Co. in Amsterdam, — and this connection with the Netherlands further accounts for the "Hoop" spelling; but we have not been able to ascertain whether he was Thomas, the founder of that flourishing English concern, who died in Dec., 1779, aged 75 (see Gentl. Mag., 1780, p. 50), or Adrian, or Henry. — Voltaire, in a letter to the Marquis Albergati Capac«lli (Delices, Oct. 3, 1760), speaks of a "Mr. Hope, half -English, half -Dutch," not Diderot 's ' ' Hoop, ' ' who was then at Grandval, but prob- ably a brother and partner: "Signor mio amabile, caro 88 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT one of the famous Gregorys ; then he had gone to trade abroad. He had begun to build up a little fortune in Spain, when he heard that his eldest brother had brought shame and dishonor on the family, and driven his parents and sisters from hearth and home : Hoop came back to England, restored his people to happiness, and chastised the wicked brother. Then Hoop resumed his wanderings, for pleasure as well as for purposes of trade, going as far as China. And now, in 1Y59 and 1760, weary of life, longing for V anedntissement, he was the guest of Baron d'Holbach at his country-seat of Grandval; in the dismal October evenings, by the fireside, or in afternoon rambles through the rain, over the hills that border the Marne, he gave Diderot the benefit of his knowledge not only of the life and institutions of England, as we have already seen, but of the Chinese and the Scottish highlanders. The Chinese were full of absorbing interest to Holbach and Diderot, and they discussed protettore di tutte le buone arti, vi ho scritto per mezzo d'un cavaliere cbiamato M. Hope, mezzo Inglese, mezzo Ollandese, e riehiasimo, dixnque tre volte libero. Egli va a vedere tutta 1 'Italia, e la Grecia ancora. ..." DIDEEOT'S ENGLISH FEIENDS 89 them with Hoop late into the night, with their candle-sticks in their hands, before retiring to bed. Hoop was fond of the Chinese. He de- scribed them as wonderfnlly quiet and self- possessed, very punctilious in their forms of courtesy, sly in trade, and full of strange notions concerning art (XVIII, 407, 499 ; XIX, 11-12). l^ations living in remote countries, Chinese, Iroquois, Tahitians, and even the Highlanders, those " savages of Europe," were interesting to eighteenth-century philosophers not merely be- cause their religious, political, and moral notions were diiferent from those of Europeans, but because it was assumed that, being nearer "nature," they could throw some light on the foundations of religion, politics, and ethics. This early form of anthropology used the facts derived from the experience of travelers for critical and polemical ends, adducing the ex- ample of unsophisticated savages to confirm or to undermine the philosophic ideas of more civilized nations. Thus Holbach wanted to prove man to be a naturally vicious beast, after the system of Hobbes ; while Diderot, following 90 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Shaftesbury, vindicated virtue and the natural goodness of human nature. The tales of sav- ages related by Hoop and others served as argu- ments to clinch their controversy. " Our mountaineers/' said Hoop, " are naked, brave, revengeful; on occasions when they eat all together, towards the end of the meal, when their heads are heated with wine, when old quarrels begin to be revived and high words to fly, do you know how they restrain one another ? They all draw their poniards, and stick them into the table, beside their glasses. That will answer the first insult" (XIX, 8). Although they know the value of gold and silver, they would not betray the Pretender when he fled to their caves for safety, — "a proof of man's natural goodness," says Diderot in conclusion. More terrible stories were told by General Dieskau, who some time before had returned from Canada, and was now a visitor at Grand- val (NoY. 1760). Dieskau, after an uneven battle against the English and Iroquois,^ ^ had been picked up on the field horribly wounded, ^^ The battle around Fort Edward, on the southern end of the Lac du Saint-Sacrement, named Lake George by General Johnison. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 91 and carried into the same tent with General Johnson : " The Englishman would never allow his own wounds to be dressed before those of his enemy had been attended to. What a moment for natural goodness and virtue to show themselves ! It was in the midst of blood and carnage. ... I could give you a hundred more examples of it." Two more are given, which had come into the conversation. " No, my dear friend, nature has not made us wicked ; it is bad education, bad examples, bad legislation which corrupt us." But what of those Iroquois, Hol- bach would say, who wanted to massacre Dieskau in Johnson's very tent, in order to avenge the deaths of some of their chiefs? Dieskau had had a narrow escape then: carried from the camp into a city, for more safety, he was found there by the enragetl Iroquois, and stabbed several times before the English could rescue him. "Ah! you will say, where is natural goodness? Who had corrupted those Indians? Who inspired them with feelings of revenge and treachery ? " Diderot replies : " The gods, my friend, the gods. Revenge is a religious virtue among those savages. They believe that the 92 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Great Spirit, who dwells behind a mountain some little way from Quebec, awaits them after death, that he wiH judge them, and value their merit by the number of scalps they bring" (XIX, 8). Among the many anecdotes which Diderot heard from Hoop, a certain histoire polissonne is of some interest in that it bears a curious likeness to a large and rather objectionable chapter^ ^ in Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Sterne there discusses at length the invention of a Parisian apothecary for the administering of " prenatal baptism," together with the Sorbonic consultation and decision relating thereto. Ample evidence exists^ ^ that such a contrivance was suggested, and deliberated upon by the Sor- bonne, in 1733 ; it is, like the famous formula of excommunication to which Mr Shandy re- sorted when Dr Slop wanted to curse Obadiah, another of Sterne's little jokes on Popery. 'Now, " Chapter XX, in Prof. Saintsbury 's elegant edition of Sterne. ^^ Sterne's reference is not fictitious: see Deventer, Observations sur le Tnanuel des accoucJiements, Paris, 4to, 1734, p. 366; the Sorbonic deliberations took place March 30 and April 10, 1733. DIDEEOT'S ENGLISH FEIENDS 93 Hoop tells a similar story of a Scotch doctor, one of the Gregorys, in the very year when the irreverent tale was embodied in the first volume of Tristram. This volume had appeared Jan. 1, 1760; Diderot tells Hoop's story Oct. 13, 1760 (XVIII, 491). Is it likely that the Scotchman fathered the grotesque invention of the Parisian apothecary on his countryman? It is difficult to believe, especially as the two operations suggested differ materially. It is more probable that those two inventive and well- meaning geniuses, Gregory and the apothecary, had quite independently hit upon the same idea. A similar problem, or rather curiosity, of literary history will strike the student of Eng- lish literature in another of the Letters to Mile Volland (Oct. 1761 ; XIX, 73). Diderot writes that he has been treated to a " Roman dinner " by two young German friends, N^icolai and De La Fermiere. Is there any relation between this repast, concocted according to the true pre- cepts of Apicius, and the episode, in Smollett's Peregrine Pichle (Chap. 44), of the "enter- tainment in the manner of the Ancients " ? Ten years had elapsed between the publication 94 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT of Smollett's novel and the real dinner which fairly upset Diderot's digestion. We are not aware that such erudite meals, whether organ- ized by Swiss doctors or learned young Germans, were the fashion in Paris in the eighteenth century. A more plausible conjecture is, that the two German Peregrines were better read in contemporary English novels than their En- cyclopedic friend, and that they derived from Smollett the suggestion of a practical joke which they played upon him. In his journeys to and from Italy, it is well known that Smollett found nothing in Prance but occasions to vent his wrath against lazy postilions and greedy innkeepers all bent on aggravating him. He had no time or was not in a proper temper to call on philosophers ; Di- derot in his works mentions him only once, as a historian.^ ^ About Sterne, however, who in his Sentimental Journey ridiculed the ill-tem- pered traveler under the name of "Smelfungus," modern biographers of the author of the Tris- trapcedia are often positive on this point, that after arriving in Paris (Jan. 1762) he enter- "In the Encycl, article "Suicide"; (Euv., XVII, 237. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 95 tained a close friendship with the editor of the Encyclopedie}^ Of this there is no evidence in Diderot's Correspondence ; but then the Volland Letters for the early part of 1762 are lost, as we have said before. We only know that Sterne wrote from Paris to Becket, his bookseller (April 22, 1762), asking him to send to his Parisian banker, for Diderot, all the works of Pope and of Gibber (with the Life of Gibber), Chaucer, Tillotson's Sermons, all of Locke, and the six volumes of Tristram Shandy, — this last as a present from the author : " I am forced to enclose the card itself which we have received from Mr. Diderot, because I have not been able to make it all out — 'tis the last article but one."^^ We also know that there is much more than a tinge of Shandyism in Diderot's Jacques le Fataliste. Had he met the Sentimental Trav- eler at the house of Mile de Lespinasse, also an admirer and an imitator of Yorick's style ? " See W. L. Cross, Life and Times of Sterne, 1909, p. 278;— Walter Sichel, Sterne, a study, 1910, pp. 215-217, is less positive. F. B. Barton, Influence de Sterne, Paris, 1911, p. 9, states that on the relations between Sterne and Diderot we are "mal renseignes. " ^'British Museum, Egerton MSS, 1762 (Clonmel Soe. edit., Part I, p. 229). 96 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT When Sterne was in Paris, in the first half of 1Y62, he mentioned Diderot only twice: to Becket, when he ordered the books for him; and, a few days earlier, to Garrick, concerning Diderot's Natural Son, with little commenda- tion of that play : "... I have been these two days reading a tragedy, given me by a lady of talents to read, and conjecture if it would do for you — 'Tis from the plan of Diderot, and possibly half a translation of it — The I^atural Son, or the Triumph of Virtue, in five acts — It has too much sentiment in it (at least for me), the speeches too long, and savour too much of preaching — ^this may be a second reason, it is not to my taste. 'Tis all love, love, love, throughout, without much separation in the character; so I fear it would not do for your stage, and perhaps for the very reason which recommends it to a French one."^^ That Diderot and Sterne were acquainted, is not improbable; that they were friends, needs to be proved. They bore some likeness to each "April 10, 1762 (Clonmel Soc. ed., vol. Ill, Part I, p. 221). Sterne also asked Beeket whether he would care to print that translation of Diderot's play, stating again that it would not do for the English stage. It was eventually printed by Dodsley, under the title Borval, 1767. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 97 other by their sentiment, or sensibilite; yet their temperaments were very different. Yorick the parson had a great deal of humor which Denis the philosopher lacked; and inversely Denis abounded in the "preaching" earnest- ness in which Yorick was somewhat deficient. Whether the likeness, or the contrast, bred interest in each of them for the other, remains a matter of speculation. Sterne may have looked with good-natured amusement, devoid of Walpolean contempt, on the robust sentiment of the philosopher from Langi-es ; while Diderot was pleasantly puzzled by the strange novelties of Shandyism. Gibbon arrived in Paris January 28, 1763, and was as warmly welcomed as Sterne had been. He had become comparatively well known in Parisian society by his Essai sur I'etude de la liUerature, in French, published in London the preceding year, and appreciated in a flattering manner by French reviewers.^ ^ In his Memoirs, he expresses in a characteristic way the feelings of pride and delight which " Gibbon, Memoirs, prefixed to his Miscell. Works, Basel, 1796, vol. I, pp. 84, 105-106, and 125-127. 8 98 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT were those of most English visitors to Paris when "Anglomania" reigned there: "... The principal end of my journey was to enjoy the society of a polished and amiable people, in whose favor I was strongly preju- diced, and to converse with some authors, whose conversation, as I fondly imagined, must be far more pleasing and instructive than their writ- ings. The moment was happily chosen. At the close of a successful war the British name was respected on the continent. Clarum et venerahile nomen Gentihus. Our opinions, our fashions, even our games, were adopted in France, a ray of national glory illuminated each individual, and every English- man was supposed to be born a patriot and a philosopher. For myself, I carried a personal recommendation ; my name and my Essay wisre already known; the compliment of having writ- ten in the French language entitled me to some returns of civility and gratitude. ... Of the men of genius of the age, Montesquieu and Fon- tenelle were no more ; Voltaire resided on his own estate near Geneva; Rousseau in the pre- ceding year had been driven from his hermitage in Montmorency; and I blush at my having neglected to seek, in this journey, the acquaint- ance of Buffon. Among the men of letters DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 99 whom I saw, D'Alerabert and Diderot held the foremost rank in merit, or at least in fame." In the society of these men and of others of less importance, at the hospitable homes of Mesdames Geoffrin and Du Bocage, of Hel- vetius and Holbach, " fourteen weeks insensibly stole away," at the end of which Gibbon regret- fully left Paris and jDroceeded on his way to Lausanne and Italy. Boswell, on his return from Italy and Cor- sica, stayed some time in Paris in 1Y65 and 1766, before he escorted Therese Levasseur to England. With his " rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked of," and his habit of forcing himself upon people " in spite of their teeth and their doors,"^^ the Laird of Auchinleck should have been at least as eager as Gibbon to seek the acquaintance of Diderot, as he had sought that of Voltaire, Rousseau, and many more. Yet, as he nowhere boasts about it, we must perforce believe that he somehow failed in the attempt. With characteristic kindness, Diderot served as a guide to many English visitors who wanted » H. Walpole, Letters, V, 192. 100 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT to see Paris. He took two Englishmen one day to hear Eckard, another day to hear Mile Bayon, two great singers. " I had two Englishmen to take about/' he says simply. " They have gone back home, having seen everything; and I find that I miss them very much. They were not enthusiastic about their country. , They re- marked that our language had been perfected, while theirs had remained almost barbaric. ' That,' I said, ' is because no one meddles with yours, whereas we have forty geese watching over the Capitol ; ' a comparison which struck them as being all the more apt, because our geese, like those of Rome, watch over the Capitol but do not defend it."^^ Another day, he gave a warm letter of introduction to a young man ^^ Salon of 1767; XI, 374; also in the Volland Corre- spondence (XIX, 26&-267), under date Aug. 24, 1768;- the Salon was written in that year. It had early become a commonplace of English courtesy to "envy" the French their Academy, The Abbe Le Blanc, who all his .life yearned in vain for a seat in that celebrated com- pany, had enlarged upon this same topic, quoting Dryden, Locke, and Swift (Lettres d'un Frangais, Lett. 6'5). It seema to have remained a fashion to this day, in England, to blame the French for generally not setting enough value on a blessing for which other nations are hankering. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FEIENDS 101 from Pennsylvania who would not return to America without having seen, on his way through England, "the famous Mr. Hume."^*^ Three great Englishmen who were in Paris after 1763 deserve special mention, because their relations with Diderot were not of a con- jectural nature, but were characterized by true friendliness: Garrick, Hume, and Wilkes asso- ciated with him in Paris, and corresponded with him after they had returned to England. Of this correspondence little is as yet known; but it may be surmised that, if the bulk of Diderot's Correspondence as we have it is to receive sub- stantial additions in the future, a number of such additions will probably come from the papers of those and other English contempo- raries.^^ It is, for instance, a matter of surprise that there should be but one letter extant from Di- derot to David Garrick. That their relations were most friendly may safely be assumed, not '^See Appendix I, p. 470. '^ Some curious letters of Diderot to Hume, not col- lected ini the Assezat-Tourneux edition, and some un- published letters to Wilkes, will be found at the end of this book, Appendix I, 102 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT SO much on the strength of Diderot's philosophic familiarity with his " dear Roscius " in that single letter — for with whom could not Diderot be familiar ? — as because there is abundant evi- dence that the English actor was greatly ad- mired by Diderot and his circle in Paris, when he favored them with exhibitions of his histri- onic talent, and that he exerted a rather impor- tant influence on the esthetic creed of Diderot. According to Garrick's latest biographer, ^^ in a work most interesting to us in that it deals especially with that actor's French friends, it was probably not in Garrick's first journey to Paris, in 1Y51, but in his tour to France and Italy in 1763 and 1Y64, that he became ac- quainted with Diderot. The philosopher, who in his youth had yearned for the glory of the stage, and in whose general plan of dramatic ^F. A. Hedgcock, D. GarricTc et ses amis frangms, Paris, 1911, p. 66. We shall further develop, in our Chapters VI and VIII, the importance of Garrick's in- fluence on Diderot's critical ideas. Mr Hedgcock graph- ically depicts (from Garrick's Memoirs, p. 205) warm discussiona between Garrick, Diderot, and Marmontel, at the house of Baron d'Holbach, with the Abbe Morellet watching the scene. On the discrepancy, amounting to a contradiction., between Diderot's ideas on acting in 1758 and in 1770, see Mr Hedgcock 's book, pp. 173-174. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 103 reforms there was so much of criticism and advice concerning the actor's art, seems to have learned a great deal from the famous Garrick, or at least to have found, in his discussions with him, opportunities to revise his own theories and adjust his points of view. Before meeting Gar rick, Diderot had freely asserted, and often endeavored to prove, that genius is essentially enthusiastic, unconscious of itself, as sponta- neous and instinctive as nature itself; after he had known him, he brilliantly defended an exactly opposite theory, and defined artistic genius as being, above all, self-possessed, con- scious of all its means, and very careful not to allow any admixture or interference of real with fictitious emotions. The occasion to develop in writing this famous " paradox " came for him in 1770, when he reviewed a pamphlet by an obscure actor, Antonio Sticoti, entitled Garrich or the English Actors. Garrick, on his return from Italy through Paris in 1765, played the dagger scene from Macbeth before some friends, again eliciting enthusiastic admiration, of which we find an echo in Grimm and Diderot's Correspondance 104 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT litteraire (July, 1Y65). His bust by Le Moyne was exhibited in the Salon of 1Y65, and dis- cussed by Diderot (X, 425). Walpole, in a letter dated March 26, 1765, could not help noticing Garrick's great popularity in Paris. And we have seen that, when Holbach visited London in the same year, he called on the great actor, and was shown the monument which he had erected to Shakespeare. Twelve years later Gibbon found as warm a memory of Garrick in Parisian circles as if the latter had but just returned to England. Hume, as well as Garrick, had made a journey to France at a comparatively early stage of his life, and sojourned there from 1734 until 1737 : it was then that he wrote, mostly at La Fleche, his Treatise on Human Nature, which he pub- lished in 1739. That work, on which he had founded great expectations, "fell dead-born from the press ; " and, although it is to-day for us his most lasting title to glory, it does not seem to have been appreciated in accordance with its true value in his lifetime. In 1763, he came to Paris as Secretary of Embassy, under Lord Hertford. Diderot knew him DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 105 already as the author of Essays, Moral and Political (1741-1T42), and the Inquiry con- cerning Human Understanding (1748) : the French translation of the Inquiry (1751) by Mile de la Chaux, had been revised by Diderot.^^ He also admired Hume as a bold political thinker, and the stern historian of the Stuarts. A feeling of genuine friendship sprang up between the two philosophers: shortly after arriving in Paris, Hume wrote to his Scottish friend Dr Blair that Diderot, D'Alembert, Buffon, Marmontel, Duclos, Helvetius, and the President Henault were the men whom he liked best.^^ He further said : " There is not one deist among them." Indeed most of them were far beyond that intermediate stage of infidelity, as he very soon discovered. In a letter to Mile Volland (XIX, 185), Diderot relates how Hume was undeceived; and he later repeated the anecdote to Sir Samuel Romilly. Hume, ^ The Inquiry, in the first two editions, had been entitled PhilosopMcal Essays concerning Human Under- standing. — See W. Knight, Hume, 1886, p. 50. As early as 1759 and 1760, Hume's philosophical and historical works had been translated into French. ^ J. H. Burton, Life and Corresp. of D. Hume, 1846, vol. II, pp. 180-181. 106 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT discussing the topic of natural religion at one of Holbach's dinners, declared that he did not believe in the existence of atheists, because he had never seen any : " You are unfortunate," replied his host, " for here you are dining with seventeen of them for the first time."^^ The change of atmosphere from Edinburgh to Paris was of course in all respects very great. But Hume was not the man to suffer from it : de- lighted with his new surroundings, popular in town with the ladies, he w^as even courted at Versailles, where he found the Dauphin en- gaged in reading one of his works (XIX, 209), and was treated by three little princes of the blood of France — ^the future Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and Charles X — with compliments memorized for the purpose.^® Diderot seems above all to have esteemed him for his benevolent aspect, his true good-nature, and his "fat Ber- nardine cheeks." After Hume's return to England, the French philosopher wrote letters to him, and it is interesting to note that they ^Memoirs of Eomilly, 2d ed., 1840, vol. I, p. 179 (Nov. 16, 1781). ^'On Hume's popularity in Paris, see W. Knight, Hume, Chap. VII. DIDEKOT'S ENGLISH FEIENDS 107 were always letters of recommendation, some- times to introduce a friend of Madame Diderot's who had resolved to try and make a living in England, or simply to oblige an obscure young Pennsylvanian. The consideration shown Hume by the French court was also extended, in a lesser degree, to another Englishman visiting France, in 1763 and 17G4, somewhat against his will and in an altogether unofficial capacity. John Wilkes, on arriving in Paris (Dec. 29, 1763), called on the English ambassador, and left his card with Hume, whom he shortly after met again at the house of Baron d'Holbach. When Wilkes was declared an outlaw in England (Nov., 1764), the ambassador ceased to invite him to his re- ceptions; but the French court and French society showed themselves quite as hospitable as before, and even more so — a just retaliation for the excellent treatment accorded the perse- cuted Helvetius in London in that same year! Diderot tells us of a most romantic love affair which the English patriot had in Naples in 1765, and which may be to his credit or not, 108 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT as one chooses to regard it.^^ When Wilkes was returned at the polls for Middlesex (March 28, 1768), Diderot warmly congratulated him.^^ In another letter to his " dear Gracchus," he depicted France in 1771 as being on the verge of a revolution; and we have seen, in the pre- ceding chapter, with what glowing enthusiasm he greeted Wilkes's speeches a few years later in favor of the American colonists. In writing to Wilkes in 1771, Diderot took the liberty to recommend to him a certain Mile Biheron, who excelled in making anatomical models and in teaching anatomy, and who was going to England. This lady knew Franklin, and occasionally carried letters for him to England, evidently without the knowledge of Diderot. He was keenly interested in the great Amer- ican, but it does not appear that he was ever ^In a letter to Mile Volland, XIX, 202. Contempo- rary letters from Winckelmann and Boswell to Wilkes, preserved in the Wilkes Collection of MSS at the British Museum, evince a great deal of interest in that affair with "la Corradini"; but Wilkes seemed rather inclined to drop the subject." ^This letter (April 2, 1768), republished in XIX, 490, from the English translation given in The Correspon- dence of the late John WilTces with his friends (1805), is not known in the French original. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 109 able to gain access to him. He admired him as scientist, free-thinker, patriot, and the servant of a great cause. As early as 1754, in his Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature, he had referred to Franklin's Experiments atid Observations on Etectricity, translated in 1752 by the Abbe d'Alibard, as a model of scientific investigation. He later read some of Frank- lin's political writings, published in French by Barbeu du Bourg together with Dickinson's Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer (IV, 86) . But, when Franklin came to Paris as an agent of the American colonies, he associated more with the Economists than with the Philosophers. Di- derot, in a little dramatic sketch entitled Est-il hon? Est-il mediant? outlined by him in 1770 and developed in 1781, represents himself as cu- riously inquiring from an official of the French government after the American patriot ; and he is then informed that Franklin is indeed " a sharp Quaker," un acuto Quakero, — a charac- terization which he evidently owed to his con- nection with the city of Philadelphia.^^ ^ Concerndng Mile Biheron, whom Diderot also recom- mended in 1774 to Catherine II {(Euv., XX, 62), see M. M. Tourneux's work on Diderot et Catherine II, pp. 110 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT It must have been shortly after his return from Petersburg and the court of "the Il^orth- ern Semiramis " that Diderot met Burke, prob- ably at the house of Mile de Lespinasse.^^ Burke, according to the testimony of Mme du Deffand, spoke French very imperfectly, and on the other hand Diderot does not seem to have been able to speak English as easily as he read it; so that it is not likely that they became very intimately acquainted. Sympathy would have been lacking for the formation of ties of friendship between these two men. Diderot could not think much of a man who had come to France in order to entrust the supervision of his son's education to a French bishop, who was thrown into raptures by his visit to the court of Versailles, and who is known to have brought back from the Parisian philosophic salons a passionate hatred of all free-thinkers.^^ 387 ff.; and on her connection with Franklin, see Frank- lin in France, by Edw. E. Hale and Edw. E. Hale Jr, Boston, 1888', 2 vols. (vol. I, pp. 17, 73). Diderot had studied anatomy with Mile Biheron, who for some time had been his neighbor on the Place de I'Estrapade (IX, 240, n.). ^^ J. Morley, BurTce, 1879, p. 66. Little ia known about Burke's residence in Paris. ^ In a letter from Horace Walpole to the Countess^ of DIDEEOT'S ENGLISH FEIENDS 111 The French disciples of English thinkers had indeed gone far beyond their masters in bold- ness of speculation ; so that the truly represent- ative Englishmen who chanced to visit Paris in the twenty years which preceded the French Revolution stood aghast at a freedom of thought and speech which was no longer, if it ever had truly been, fashionable or " proper " in Great Britain. The characteristic fondness of the English for order, for compromise, and for Upper Ossory (March 11, 1773, Toynbee ed., vol. VIII, 252), we read that "Mr Burke is returned from Paris, where he waa so much the mode that, happening to dispute with the philosophers, it grew the fashion to be Christians. St. Patrick himself did not make more converts. ' ' Lord Morley aptly quotes (BurJce, p. 69) a passage from Burke's Speech on the Belief of Protestant Dis- senters (1773), from which one might think that, had Burke been born a French smbject, he could have found it in him to endorse the persecuting policy of the French monarchy: "These [the free-thinkers] are the people against whom you ought to aim the shaft of the law; these are the men to whom, arrayed mi all the terrors of government, 1 would say, 'You shall not degrade us into brutes.' . , . The most horrid and cruel blow that can be offered to civil society is through atheism. . . . The infidels are outlaws of the constitution, not of this country, but of the human race. They are never, never to be supported, never to he tolerated." 112 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT every kind of half-way measures in vital mat- ters, that particular form of practical sense which renders men unwilling rather than unfit frankly to deal with great questions of meta- physics and religion as well as politics, must have revolted against the intellectual radicalism and the relentlessly analytic bent of French thinkers. Dr Johnson in his short trip to Paris in 1775 found time to call on Freron and to make friends with Benedictine monks,^^ but steered clear of those haunts of infidelity which had so warmly welcomed a Hume and a Wilkes. Diderot, three years before his death, had a conversation with Sir Samuel Romilly which may serve to illustrate this point of the divorce between the fundamental tendencies of the French and the English intellects at this time. " He praised the English," says Romilly, " for having led the way to true philosophy, but the adventurous genius of the French, he said, had pushed them on before their guides. ' Vous autres,' these were his words, 'vous melez la theologie avec la philosophie; c'est gater tout, ^Boswell, Life of Johnson (Birkbeck Hill), vol. II, p. 441 ff. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 113 c'est meler le mensonge avec la verite; il faut sabrer la theologie.' . . . ' Vous Anglais vous crojez un peu en Dieu; pour nous autres nous n'j croyons guere.' "^^ As Romilly's corre- spondent showed some curiosity concerning the famous French philosopher, and further in- quired of Romilly what he thought of him, our traveler remained on the safe ground of gen- eralities : he was " not vain enough to pronounce what was the extent of Diderot's and D'Alem- bert's learning and capacity," but he expatiated on the pity and horror deserved by such as labor under the " deadly contagious disease " of atheism, and, being inclined to think that they should not be spared, he took pleasure in quot- ing Plato against " unbounded toleration." Yet he was glad and not a little proud to have seen those famous men, " D'Alembert and Diderot, the most celebrated of all the writers then re- maining in France." Romilly goes on : " D'Alembert was in a very infirm state of health, and not disposed to enter much into con- versation with a person so shy and so unused to society as I was. Diderot, on the contrary, was •'Sir Samuel Romilly, Memoirs, 2d edit., 1840, vol. I, p. 179. 9 114 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT all warmth and eagerness, and talked to me with as little reserve as if I had been long and inti- mately acquainted with him. Rousseau, poli- tics, and religion, were the principal topics of his conversation. The Confessions of Rousseau were, at that time, expected shortly to appear; and it was manifest, from the bitterness with which Diderot spoke of that work and of its author, that he dreaded its appearance. On the subject of religion he made no disguise; or rather he was ostentatious of a total disbelief in the existence of a God. He talked very eagerly upon politics, and inveighed with great warmth against the tyranny of the French government. He told me that he had long meditated a work upon the death of Charles the First; that he had studied the trial of that prince; and that his intention was to have tried him over again, and to have sent him to the scaffold if he had found him guilty, but that he had at last relin- quished the design. In England he would have executed it, but he had not the courage to do so in France."^^ ^Eomilly, op. cit., pp. 63-64. Sir Samuel in Paria had associated a great deal with the Genevese watchmaker Romilly, — a man not in any way related to him; this Swiss Romilly, a former contributor to the Encyclopedic, introduced the Englishman to D'Alembert and Diderot, and made him side with Rousseau in the controversy here alluded to, which gave rise to so many digressions in Diderot's Essay on the reigns of Claudius and Nero, revised about this time. DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 115 It must have been very puzzling indeed for a French philosopher, after 1760, to find con- temporary England so different from what he had imagined. The contrast was particularly striking and painful to a man who, like Diderot, had read a great deal about England, and seen nothing of the country itself. Viewed through the works of Hobbes, Locke, Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, the Deistic writers and Hume, and through the impKCssions of Muralt, Voltaire, and the Abbe Le Blanc, England appeared as being preeminently a revolutionary land, not at all averse to any kind of novelty in religion, politics, science, and literature. But when the Englishmen who came to Paris were questioned, when they took part in philosophic discussions, behold, quite another spirit was revealed: the Walpoles, the Burkes, the Romillys, nay, even the Humes, seemed unwilling to follow out their thinking to its legitimate conclusions; they were inspired with decidedly conservative tendencies, and were far indeed from the Tolands, the Tindals, the Collinses, whose bold attacks on Christianity were being translated and republished by Diderot's friends, Naigeon 116 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT and the Baron d'Holbach. The very names of the early Deists were loathed in England. Hume, whose rather independent manner of thinking on religious subjects had procured for him a bad reputation in his native country, had for a time been infatuated with the enemy of the Encyclopedists, Rousseau; and Rousseau himself found in England a wider sympathy (mingled of course with much orthodox blame) than any member of the Philosophic party, who had thought to be in the true English tradition. The fact is, that while French thinkers had enthusiastically welcomed the bolder results of English Rationalism, and nursed and fostered in French soil all the seeds of intellectual eman- cipation and positive thought that they had found in English works produced under the reigns of William III and Queen Anne, Eng- land under the first Georges had seen the Deists routed in controversy ; a revival of the religious spirit had been brought about by Methodism; political agitation had settled down into an apparently satisfactory system of parliamentary government. The two nations were drifting DIDEROT'S ENGLISH FRIENDS 117 farther and farther apart in spirit ; and the last representatives of French Philosophy tried to find the true English spirit, the real tradition of English thought, in the last of the Deists, Gibbon, Wilkes, and Hume. CHAPTER III THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE If, of all French writers in the eighteenth cen- tury, Diderot is more generally known to-day under the title of " philosopher," if in his own lifetime he was commonly thus designated not only by " a few indulgent friends," but by France and Europe, it should be clearly understood that he did not owe that name to any special achieve- ment in the field of metaphysics, to any system of thought which he could call his own. He holds no place in the history of philosophy properly so-called : in the evolution of rationalistic thought between Descartes and Kant, Hume's phenome- nism and the materialism of Holbach and Hel- vetius are of much more account than Diderot's occasional excursions in the realm of metaphysics. He was, however, a philosopher in the more esoteric, broad, inaccurate sense which that word has to-day in unphilosophic spheres, and com- monly had in eighteenth-century society. To the larger part of every age and nation, since Socrates, ethical speculation divested of religious 118 THE MORALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 119 aspects has appeared to be the proper region of philosophy. 'Now, Diderot not only lived the simple life, looked "like an ancient orator," fought the battles of Rationalism against polit- ical and ecclesiastical abuses, evinced a universal interest in the sciences and arts, and was truly an "encyclopedic" genius, or (as Voltaire used to call him) a Pantophile; but he was, first and above all, a moralist. In 1745, when he had yet given nothing to the press except a translation of a Greek His- tory and of a Medical Dictionary, from the English, Diderot made his first attempt at authorship, or rather semi-authorship, by pub- lishing his paraphrase of the Inquiry concern- ing Virtue or Merit, which had appeared^ in 1711, as a part of the Characteristics oi Anthony Ashley Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury's moral treatise was about that time extremely popular, both in England and France, for different reasons. To Shaftesbury's English disciples, to Bolingbroke, Hutcheson, Pope, and Hume, the Inquiry appeared essen- * First published by Toland in 1699, without the author's permission. 120 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT tiallj as a victorious vindication of disinterested moral affections against Hobbes's reduction of all affections to those of the selfish kind. By French thinkers, the same work was considered as the first clear statement of " natural ethics " founded on "natural religion," that is, an ethical system with an independent, secular, non-revealed foundation, an application of Rationalism to the problems of conduct quite as rigorous and successful, yet less abstruse, than the Ethics of Spinoza, from which it was derived. The opening pages of the Inquiry may well have attracted the attention of Diderot, as of any contemporary inclined to free-thinking. Shaftesbury begins by contending, against a prevailing belief, that religion and virtue, although nearly related in many respects, are not inseparable companions. (Diderot, being immediately reminded of his brother, who had more of religion than of natural goodness, dedi- cated his paraphrase to him.) Are we not always more concerned about the honesty than about the religion of any man with whom we have some important transaction? It follows THE MORALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 121 that virtue, or goodness, can be defined in itself, apart from any religious creed; and that the influence of each creed on natural morality should be properly investigated. Now, the main opinions relating to the Deity can be classified as follows: — Theism, accord- ing to which the universe is ruled for the best by a ruling mind; — Atheism, according to which the universe is ruled by chance; — Polytheism, according to which the universe is ruled by two or more minds, good in their nature ; — Dwmon- ism, according to which the universe is ruled by one or several minds, not absolutely good, but capable of following their mere will and fancy. — Lastly, various combinations of these main beliefs are possible, and have been or are ex- istent.^ Shaftesbury then proceeds to define goodness or virtue. He does not think it to be conceiv- able, or to have any meaning, in some individual imagined solitary, some hypothetic Crusoe of creation, living outside of any system or society "See the Intro duotion to J, M. Robertson's edition of the Characteristics, Lond., 1900, 2 vols. — Also Thomas Fowler, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson (English Philos- ophers Series), 18S3. 122 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT of beings. Virtue therefore is essentially a social fact. Self-interest and selfish passions, good in themselves, are vicious only when opposed to the general good. Since everything is a part of some system or systems in the great whole, it follows that nothing is absolutely good or evil in nature. It follows also that no reli- gious faith or philosophic doctrine is bad in itself, but that all are to be judged according to the measure in which they increase or weaken the principles of right social action or morality. — ]^ow, none of the doctrines enumerated above can deprive men of their natural feeling con- cerning right and wrong. This feeling, in spite of Locke's opinion against innateness, is described by Shaftesbury as innate, thereby resembling the esthetic feeling, which Shaftesbury also takes to be bom with man. But, if the moral feeling cannot be done away with by those systems of belief, it may be altered or obscured by them; and in this respect atheism is less to be feared than superstition, which has always proved fer- tile in persecutions. Lastly, the passions may be used for or against natural virtue by the differ- ent systems concerning the Deity: the hope of I THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 123 rewards and the fear of punishment hereafter are strong incentives which are lacking in athe- ism; but theism does not look upon the affec- tions of fear and hope as very commendable motives, because they detract from the merit of virtuous living. The contemplation of the order of the universe, the belief that everything is for the best, a strong persuasion that personal interest is inseparable from the social interest, are for Shaftesbury the best foundations of virtue. Thus theism, optimism, utilitarianism, con- stitute the sum of this ethical system. Widely tolerant of all religious and metaphysical be- liefs, condemning none absolutely, but pointing out the advantages and defects of each of them for moral action, placing morality outside of them and above them, and defining virtue as an intelligent pursuit of happiness through social benevolence and a wise management of the indi- vidual affections, such a system could not fail to attract a great deal of interest in an age when men had grown tired of religious strifes, and were looking for a positive foundation of moral- ity. The apparent logic of the doctrine, its 124 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT clear presentation, and the further developments which it received in the other essays and reflec- tions subjoined to the Inquiry in the publication of the Characteristics, possibly also that very tone of urbanity v^hich Charles Lamb later on ridiculed (not very justly) by calling it "gen- teel," made Shaftesbury's moral system ex- tremely popular among men intent on popu- larizing philosophy. Bolingbroke and Pope developed it in prose and verse, and through them it reached Voltaire and arrested his atten- tion. Montesquieu, in his Pensees Diverses, declared : " The four great poets are Plato, Malebranche, Shaftesbury, Montaigne,"^ — pos- sibly meaning, to use a modern phrase, the four great creators of new moral values. In Ger- many, Shaftesbury's system practically replaced the similar doctrine expounded by Leibnitz in his Theodicee (ITIO), and affected the ethics and esthetics of Kant. In England, through Hutcheson, Hume, Bentham, Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer, rational ethics became as it were ingrained in English philosophy. As for Diderot, what impelled him to trans- ' Quoted in J. M. Eobertson, Introd., p. ix. THE MORALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 125 late or adapt Shaftesbury's Inquiry f And with what reserves or alterations did he effect that adaptation ? To a young man with a philosophic turn of mind, anxious to probe the best solutions given to the problem of human conduct, there was in France, about 1745, little else to choose between but the various kinds of "heathen virtue," on the one hand, and Christianity in a more or less Jansenistic garb, on the other. Ancient Pyrrhonism had been revived by Montaigne. Descartes had been content with a morale pro- visoire, inspired from Stoicism, which had never been followed up by the systematic ethical doc- trine of which it bore the promise. La Roche- foucauld, in spite of his intellectual likeness to Hobbes, and La Bruyere, could not be consid- ered as moralists in the philosophic sense of the word, being descriptive rather than dogmatic moralists. Pascal's profound defence of Chris- tianity as conceived by the disciples of Jansenius was still greatly influential in the French middle-class, particularly in the judiciary; but no doctrine could be more opposed to the ration- alistic tendencies of the age, and, while it was 126 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT discredited by the superstitious demonstrations of the populace in its favor, ridiculed by public opinion, persecuted by the Jesuits and the gov- ernment, it had been controverted in the name of reason by Voltaire, in his Remarks on Pas- cal's ' Thoughts/ a supplement to his Lettres philosophiques (1Y34). Diderot found in Shaftesbury what his abun- dant reading of Montaigne, Cicero, and Seneca had not given him : a complete system of ethics founded on reason and psychological experience, equally distant from the unsafe regions of mystic perfection and the severe heights of stoic virtue, yet apparently as consistent and satisfactory. " We are not lacking in moral treatises," he wrote in his Discours preliminaire (I, 11-12) ; "but no one yet has thought of giving us the elements of ethics. . . . The science of morals formed the main part of philosophy among the Ancients, who in this, I think, were much wiser than we are. From the way in which we treat that science, one might think either that it is less essential now for a man to know his duty, or that it is easier to fulfill it. A young man, on completing his course in philosophy, is thrown into a world of atheists, deists, Socinians, THE MORALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 127 Spiiiozists, and other infidels; knowing much about the properties of the ' subtile matter ' and the formation of ' vortices,' a marvellous science which becomes perfectly useless to him; but hardly aware of the advantages of virtue except through what a tutor has told him, or of the foundations of his religion except through what he has read in his catechism. We must hope that those enlightened professors who have purged logic of the 'universals' and 'cate- gories,' metaphysics of the ' entities ' and ' quid-, dities,' and in physics substituted experiments and geometry for frivolous hypotheses, will be struck with this defect, and will not refuse to give ethics some of those patient labors which they devote to the public good. I shall be happy if this Essay finds a place in the multitude of materials which they will gather together." Diderot clearly perceived that a reform of ethical thought was a natural consequence of the new scientific spirit which had accom- plished so much, since the time when Bacon and Descartes had resolutely forsaken Scholastic philosophy. But, however sincerely he may have thought that his presentation of Shaftes- bury's system filled a great want in his country, there were two powers which, even with the best intentions, the philosopher could not neglect to 128 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT consider while introducing the new ethics : those were, to use Shaftesbury's words, "that abom- inable blasphemous representation of church power" and that "worst of temporal govern- ments" which ruled the land.* In these two directions, Diderot could not be too cautious in his adaptation of intellectual novelties from England. He therefore carefully states, in his Preliminary Discourse, that the virtue he is about to discuss is only " moral virtue, that vir- tue which even the Fathers of the Church have granted to some heathen philosophers." He then proceeds to clear theism and "Mylord S * * *" of all suspicions of impiety, and to distinguish^ the deist, "who believes in God but denies any revelation," from the theist, "who is near admitting revelation and already admits a God" (I, 13). Shaftesbury, he says, has very unjustly been ranked with the Asgils, Tindals, and Tolands, "bad Protestants and bad writers," whom Swift had so pleasantly derided in his Argument concerning the Abol- ishing of Christianity in England. The Inquiry * Shaftesbury, Letters to a Young Man at the Uni- versity, Letter I. "Gomp. Shaftesbury's Moralists, in Charact. (ed. eit.), vol. II, 19. THE MORALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 129 is not directed against religion; what will be gained for the "God of nations" and for nat- ural religion will also be gained for the better knowledge of the God of Christians. After these rhetorical precautions, which in our freer times it is more easy than fair to con- demn, Diderot explains how he has written his paraphrase : " I have read over and over again Mylord S * * * , filled myself with his spirit, then closed his book, as it were, when I took up my pen." This is not literally true.^ Diderot's work is practically a translation, which was certainly not written with the English original closed ; only, as he more truly proceeds to state, he has condensed what was lengthy, developed what appeared too concise, corrected what was but too boldly thought. A comparison of the two works fully proves that Diderot made a translation, but a free translation. For instance, here are specimens of English " boldness " as corrected by the French writer.^ ^ Critics generally have taken Diderot 's words too much on trust in this matter (T. Fowler, Shaftesbury, p. 160; etc.). ^ In what follows, I quote from J. M. Robertson 's edition of the Characteristics, vol. I, and Diderot, CEuv., vol. I. 10 130 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT "Religion only excludes perfect atheism" (Shaft., p. 241) becomes: "Atheism alone ex- cludes all religion" (Did., p. 22). — Elsewhere (Shaft., p. 285), when too much seems to be said about the determining power of mere affec- tions in " animals," Diderot (p. TO) points out that only animals are meant, not human beings. — Or again, when the heroism of men who died to rid the world of tyrants is dwelt on (Shaft., p. 290), Diderot reminds us that this should be understood as referring to examples from ancient history only, and that of course the inviolability of kings is not in question (p. 74). — Again, when the English author commits himself to the statement that " the economy of the social affec- tions makes temporal happiness," Diderot takes good care (p. 77) to add a long paragraph re- serving the higher rights of the contemplative life. It was an easy thing, and even patriotic in a way, for the protestant Briton to inveigh against " absolute monarchs " and " pampered priests," not only of the past, but of his own time (Shaft., pp. 313, 316) ; while it is some- what pathetic to see the French philosopher draw on the Orient or antiquity for adequate THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 131 terms: "those opulent communities of idle deiTishes" (Did., p. 97), "those sombre Ori- ental monarchs, those jDroud sultans," not ruled bj love for their people, " but bj a weakness for some vile creature," etc. (p. 100) ; and all allu- sions to a similar state of affairs in the present are eschewed. Even such veils thrown on a writer's meaning had become very transparent since Montesquieu's Persian Letters; but they were sufficient to save the situation, and keep the police away from the philosopher's door. It would be less interesting to give examples of the manner in which Diderot unravels his author's elaborate periods, cutting them up in short sentences, suppressing redundancies and tiresome ornaments, enlivening the style with questions, apostrophes, dialogues, and occasional developments of his own. The numerous foot- notes are but the overflow, as it were, of what he could not insert in the close woof of the argu- ment. They generally tend, as well as the additions in the text, to emphasize the con- demnation of atheism on the one hand, and of the persecuting spirit of bigotry on the other, to apologize for the much maligned influence of 132 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT passions on human actions, and to tone down whatever might give offense to orthodoxy. The influence of Shaftesbury on Diderot's ethical speculations seems to have been lasting. Both considered the science of morals as much more important than metaphysics, right action and happiness as preferable to plausible intel- lectual speculation (Shaft., I, 189, 197; II, 276; — Did., II, 257) ; both agreed in condemn- ing "enthusiasm" in its early meaning of religious fanaticism, and in praising it in its modern sense of a noble passion for action; both were "intoxicated with the idea of Vir- tue,"^ and not only professed a secular kind of righteousness with great constancy, to the annoy- ance of ill-tempered critics, but were very really benevolent, and made their lives good illustrations of their precepts; lastly, both shared to an uncommon degree the traditional philosophic dislike for " all the anointed of the Lord, under any title whatsoever" (Did., II, 289), and spared them only as much as was consistent with prudence. Yet Diderot was different from his English » T, Fowler, op. cit, pp. 35-37. THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 133 master in two respects: his heart was apt to grow more enthusiastic in the defence of virtue, while his mind, being more critical than that of Shaftesbury, better perceived the shortcomings of the cause which they had both undertaken to defend. Hence, although he took up the doc- trine of virtue as a necessary social fact with great fervor, and remained a good utilitarian always, he soon abandoned his weak plea for theism as a religion, and never was tempted to make optimism the foundation of his philosophy of life. He confesses somewhere (II, 345) that he had always thought it better to be a good man, un liomme de hien, without ever being able to demonstrate the reason why. For, after all, if morality is not a social imposition, as Hobbes and his school would have it, if we can- not conceive of it as being merely the unex- plained will of God, as Locke chose to consider it, if it is truly founded on " the public good," as is taught by Shaftesbury, the question arises : "Where lies the public good?" Who shall decide wherein it consists, the fanatic or the philosopher (XI, 121) ? Socrates or his judges ? The law and the Church of the kingdom of France, or Diderot ? 134 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Concerning this problem of the foundations of social ethics, Diderot seems to have resolved his doubt in two different manners. Scientific- ally, he gradually came to ascribe the origin of morality to the nature of man and the develop- ment of human societies, that is, he gave it a physical basis in a common organization and common needs: such a system of universal morality founded on nature is to be found in outline in an eloquent page of the Fragments from a Philosopher s Portfolio (1772). In this solution, he abandoned Shaftesbury's inneistic conception of the moral and the esthetic notions, and explained them by the experience of the individual living in society. Speculatively, he dreamt of perfect happiness in a very ideal state of society, not so much that blissful condition of innocent savages which he praised in his Sup- plement to Bougainville's Voyage, but a sort of Utopia in which both virtue and society would have so far harmonized as to become needless. In his old age, he wrote one day, referring to his early interest in Shaftesbury's Inquiry: " I was very young when it came into my head that the whole of ethics consisted in prov- THE MOKALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 135 ing to men that, after all, in order to be happy, there was nothing better in this world to do than to be virtnons ; I at once began to medi- tate on that question, and am still meditating it. " Shall I tell you a fine paradox ? Well, I am convinced that there cannot be any real happiness for mankind except in a social state in which there would be no king, no magistrate, no priest, no laws, no thine or mine, no owner- ship of property, no vices or virtues; and that social state is the dickens of an ideal ! That does not very well agree with the economic shop, does it?" (VI, 439). It certainly did not. But such a " fine para- dox," in the eighteenth century, could not be taken seriously, so harmless did it appear in its very enormity. After all, it was but a reminis- cence of Montaigne,^ who was a great favorite of Diderot, as of many other Jionnetes gens. Diderot courted greater danger indeed, when in 1747 he published his Pensees philosophiques : they were sentenced by the Parliament of Paris, on July 7 of the same year, to be publicly burnt, as Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques had been thirteen years before. 'Essays, chapter on Cannibals, imitated by Shake- speare in Tempest, Act II, sc. 1, 136 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT The Philosophic Thoughts of Diderot are said to have been written between Good Friday and Easter of 1747 (I, xlii). Such expedition should not be wondered at, when one considers that the dangerous volume in which Diderot, discarding circumlocution, openly defended deism and natural religion, was little else than a compilation of passages from Shaftesbury and a few others. This fact has not, to our knowl- edge, been pointed out before. Diderot sent to the press a collection of philosophic fragments, extracts, or " discoveries," out of his scrap-book. Probably encouraged by the way in which his paraphrase of the Inquiry had been received, he wished to try how the "bold thoughts" of the English moralist would fare in his age and country. The outcome must have answered his expectations: the Thoughts, persecuted by the judicial powers, were widely read by the public, anonymously reprinted by various publishers, and abundantly refuted. The main ideas in this book are to be found scattered throughout the Characteristics. Pas- sions are rehabilitated against the sweeping de- nunciations of theologians and moralists of the THE MOKALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 137 older schools ( Thoughts, I-V) . The evils caused bj religious zeal, asceticism, superstition, are contrasted with the comparative harmlessness of atheism (Th., VI-XII). Atheism in turn is represented as more effectively confuted by deists — and by scientists, adds Diderot — than by the efforts of orthodoxy (Th., XIII-XIX) : God is proved by the very existence of mind, and by the harmony of nature (XX). Besides, deism, while less abhorrent to unbelievers than dogmatic theology, and more readily embraced by them, has decided advantages over atheism and scepticism in ethics (Th., XXIII). Scep- ticism is in a way necessary to attain belief, as long as it does not stop half-way, and rest con- tent with itself (Th., XXVIII-XXXVI). Negative atheism is to be pitied, doubting atheism can be brought over to belief (XXII). Miracles have ceased ; only fanatics and enthu- siasts are ready to believe in them at any time (Th., XLI-XLII, and XLVI). E"ew religions are dangerous to a State, and to civilization itself, as was exemplified even by Christianity in its beginnings (Th., XLIII-XLIV).^" Con- " The great similarity between the Thoughts of Diderot and some Essays of Hume (1741-1742) on miracles and 138 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT elusive evidence of the divine character of Scripture should not be derived from its literary vp^orth, but from history and exegesis (XLV, LX). Both authors profess that they hold the faith of their national Church as well as any of the bigoted class who will attack them (LVIII). Some other suggestions in the Philosophic Thoughts are derived from Cicero, Saint Au- gustine, and Montaigne; others are prompted by the so-called Jansenistic miracles which were still agitating Paris, and found defenders among members of the Parliament; several of them advocate natural religion and that broader con- ception of God which Rousseau was going to make his own in the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar. Shaftesbury however seems to be by far the most considerable source of inspiration for Diderot at this time; and his influence is worth tracing a little more closely in this book. Atheism, the English philosopher had said, is less insulting to the Deity than superstition: the danger of new religions is not due to an influence of Hume on Diderot, but to a common inspiration from Shaftesbury, and a common reaction against the "mod- ern miracles" of Jansenism. THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 139 " For my own part, says honest Plutarch, I had rather men should say of me. That there neither is nor ever was such a one as Plutarch; than they should say. There was a Plutarch, an un- steady, changeable, easily provokable, and re- vengeful man, dv6po)7ro<; a0€0ai,o<;, €VfxeTd^o\o PHILOSOPHER 153 in England would have been rank heresy in France; and thus the Catholic Church, unable to come to terms with the rationalists, met them by a free use of the weapons of authority."^^ Diderot's use of ridicule, in The Sceptic's Walk, would surely have involved him in very serious difficulties with the defenders of the established faith if he had been rash enough to publish what he had had the boldness to write. But he never was able to recover his manuscript from the hands of the police. In the same year 1747 he wrote a short work on The Sufficiency of Natural Religion, which affects the mathematical form of demonstration used by Clarke and Wollaston^'* on the same subject. He resembles more the latter than the former, in that he does not concern himself with vindicating the Christian religion together with the religion dictated by nature and reason. On the contrary, Christianity is only introduced in order to show that the natural religion is of greater " sufficiency " and excellence, and should supersede it. ^Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the eighteenth century, Chap. II, § 13. =" Clarke, Boyle Lectures, 1704-1705; Wollaston, The Eeligion of Nature delineated, 1722. 154 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT The Letter on the Blind, for the use of those who see, published in 1749, caused the arrest and imprisonment of Diderot; not so much because of its contents, which seem to have been but little considered or understood, as because of a disparaging remark concerning the eyes of Mme Dupre de Saint-Maur, a friend of D'Argenson, then Minister of War. This book may be said to be the last in which Diderot the moralist and philosopher tried to express his opinions with some degree of freedom. The treatment which he received as a consequence of its publication could have been much more severe ; but it sufficed to make him vividly mind- ful of " the history and persecutions of the men who had the misfortune of finding the truth in ages of darkness, and the imprudence of reveal- ing it to their blind contemporaries" (I, 290). The ideas which must have appeared most ob- noxious to the orthodox in the Letter on the Blind, and which served as a pretext to D'Argen- son not only to avenge his lady friend, but also to "pay his court and show himself a great minister,"^^ were not the theories relating to '^ Sueh is the view of the matter taken by his brother, the Marquis d 'Argenson;, in his Memoirs (August, 1749). THE MORALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 155 the psychological experiments on the blind sug- gested to Locke by Molyneux,^^ performed by Cheselden, and discussed by Voltaire. Diderot had dared go further, and, starting from the principle that " the state of our organs and our senses has a great deal of influence on our meta- physics and ethics" (I, 288-289), he conceived that " that great proof (of God's existence) de- rived from the wonders of nature is very weak for blind people." Yet, as he could not very well demonstrate this proposition without incur- ring the risk of being assailed by " certain people, who make a crime of everything," he came to his paradox in a roundabout manner, by introducing in his Letter a famous professor of mathematics who was blind, Nicholas Saun- derson. Thus, after timidly expounding rationalistic ethics in a free translation of Shaftesbury, then rational religion in anonymous quotations from the Characteristics and demonstrations in the ^ The ' ' problem of Molyneux ' ' had first been proposed amd discussed by Locke, in hia Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690), Book II, Chap. IX {Of Percep- tion), §§ 8-10, "Ideas of sensation often changed by the .iudgment. " 156 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT manner of Wollaston, Diderot now proceeded to criticize the main argument of both deism and revealed religion in favor of God's exist- ence, yet still under the guise of " English bold- ness." But, on this last occasion, the mask of foreign authority was, with the exception of one more reminiscence from Shaftesbury, entirely fictitious. The " land of thinkers " here served the same purpose as Montesquieu's Persia, or other geographical fictions of eighteenth-century philosophers: it was merely a shield against persecution; England was a sort of unaccount- able land of heresy and free-thinking for the productions of which a French writer should not be held responsible when he translated them. I^icholas Saunderson, or Sanderson, born in 1682, had lost his sight when he was but twelve months old. He succeeded however in becoming very proficient in mathematics ; in 1707 he went to Cambridge, and taught classes in ISTewtonian philosophy, particularly in hydrostatics, me- chanics, acoustics, astronomy, the science of tides, and optics. In 1711 he succeeded Whiston, who had been expelled from the Uni- versity. Lord Chesterfield, who attended some THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 157 of his courses from 1712 to 1714, described him as a professor without ejes who taught others how to use their own. He died April 19, 1739. The following year his Algehra^"^ was published, with a Memoir of his Life and Character by his friends, Dr Thomas Nettleton, Dr Richard Wilkes, the Rev. J. Boldero, the Rev. Gervas Holmes, the Rev. Granville Wheeler, and Dr Richard Davies. In 1751 appeared his Method of Fluxions applied to a Select Number of Use- ful Problems. Diderot declares (I, 304) that he had looked through Saunderson's Elements of Algebra, with the hope of finding there what he wanted to learn concerning the metaphysics of the blind, from those who had known the famous professor intimately and acquainted us with some par- ticulars of his life. But his curiosity had been disappointed. He thought that elements of geometry by the blind mathematician would have been a work more singular in itself and more interesting to us. His definitions of lines, " The Elements of Algehra, in ten books, by Nicholas Saunderson, LL.D., 2 vols, Camb., 1740. — Translated into French by M. de Joncourt, Siemens d'Algebre de M. Saunderson . . ., 2 vols, Paris, 1756. 168 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT points, surfaces, angles, would have been based on very abstract metaphysical notions, some- what resembling those of subjective idealism, " an extravagant system which, I think, could owe its birth to blind men only," yet a system which, "to the shame of the human mind and philosophy, is the most difficult to combat, although the most absurd of all."^^ But, to return to the point from which our philosopher had been wandering, what might be Saunderson's theology ? He was said to have been a man of outspoken opinions in general, ^^ — possibly a deist. But the Memoir of his Life gave an edifying account, on the whole, of his attitude towards religion : "It would be thought an omission in these Memoirs of the Life of Dr Saunderson, if no notice were taken of the manner in which he resigned it. The Reverend Mr Gervas Holmes informed him, that the mortification gained so much ground that his best friends could enter- tain no hopes of his recovery. He received this notice of his approaching death with great =»In The Sceptic's Walk (I, 218-219), Diderot had attempted a rather weak refutation of Berkeley's im- materialism. '"Diet, of National Biogr., " Saunderaon. " THE MORALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 159 calmness and serenity, and after a short silence, resumed life and spirits, and talked with as much composure of mind as he had ever done in his most sedate hours of perfect health. He appointed the evening of the following day to receive the sacrament with Mr Holmes; but before that came, he was seized with a delirium, which continued to his death."^*' Here also Diderot must have been " disap- pointed." His imagination then supplied what the book did not give him, and he wrote a sequel, or complement, concerning the last moments of Saunderson, in an original manner that was to be characteristic of some of his best works later on.^^ Like his favorite Montaigne, he de- lighted to make his reading a matter for inde- pendent thought and composition; and, like Montaigne again, he " busied himself with form- ing rather than dissipating clouds, and with suspending judgments rather than with judg- ing" (I, 369-370). But this undogmatic man- ner of thinking merely for the sake of thinking, *° Saunderson, Elements of Algebra, vol. I, p. xix. ^'For instance, D'Alembert's Dream, based on a con- versation, probably not imaginary; the Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage, and Jacques le Fataliste, inspired by booka which Diderot had read; etc. 160 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT and this sceptical enjoyment of an argument for its intrinsic logic rather than for its practical value, are not to everybody's taste: Diderot must have been amused at the wrath which was excited in England, and particularly in the Royal Society, by a mystification which turned Saunderson into a champion of atheism.^ ^ Being very sorry that he could derive so little interesting information from the Memoir on Saunderson, — " those who lived with him must have been most unphilosophic people ! " (I, 312) — Diderot claimed to have drawn a better account of Saunderson's death from a book by his disciple, Mr William Inchliff,^^ printed in 1747 in Dublin with this title, given in English by the French philosopher, for more verisimili- tude : The Life and Character of Dr Nicholas Saunderson.; late Lucasian Professor of the Mathematics in the University of Cambridge; hy his disciple and friend William Inchliff, Esq. '^ J. Morley, Diderot . . ., vol. I, p. 91. ^ Or " Hinchliff , ' ' wMeh is the same thing to French ears. There has been a J. E. HinchlifP, sculptor (1777- 1867), and a John Hinchliflfe, bishop of Peterborough (1731-1794) ; but there ia no record left of the English- man whose patronymic Diderot borrowed in 1749. THE MORALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 161 Barring the fictitious "Inchliff," the date, and the place, all is transcribed from the title-page of the Elements of Algebra. And this is how Diderot imagines Saunderson's last conversa- tion, which never took place, with the Rev. Gervas Holmes (I, 307 if.) : " When he was on the point of death, a very learned clergyman, Mr Gervaise Holmes, was called to his bedside; they had a conversation concerning the existence of God, of which some fragments remain that I am going to translate for you as best I may, for they are well worth the trouble. The minister began by objecting to him the wonders of nature : ^ Hey, Sir,' said the blind philosopher, ' leave all that beautiful spec- tacle which was never made for me ! I have been condemned to spend my life in darkness ; and you talk to me of prodigies which I do not understand, and which are proofs only for you and those who see like you. If you wish me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.' — " ' Sir,' the minister cleverly replied, ' feel yourself with your own hands, and you will find the Deity in the wonderful mechanism of your organs.' — " ' Mr Holmes," said Saunderson, ' I tell you again, all that is not so fine for me as it is for you. But, were the animal mechanism as wonderful as you claim it is, and as I am willing to believe, for you are an honest gentleman, 12 162 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT quite incapable of imposing upon me, what has it in common with a supremely intelligent being ? If it surprises you, that is perhaps because you are in the habit of treating as a prodigy what- ever seems to you beyond your strength. I have attracted from the remotest parts of England people who could not conceive how I studied geometry: you must acknowledge that those people had no very distinct notions about the possibility of things. Is a certain phenomenon, according to us, above man ? we say at once, It is the work of a God; our vanity is not content with less. Might we not put a little less pride in our talk, and a little more philosophy? If nature offers us some knot hard to untie, let us leave it for what it is ; and let us not, in order to cut it, resort to the hand of a being which afterwards turns out to be another knot even more difficult to untie than the first. Ask an Indian why the world remains suspended in the air, he will reply that it is carried on the back of an elephant; and on what will he rest the elephant? on a tortoise; and the tortoise, who will support it? . . . That Indian seems piti- able to you ; yet one might say to you as to him : Mr Holmes, my good friend, confess your igno- rance first of all, and spare me the elephant and the tortoise.' " This "elephant and tortoise" illustration, used against the ohscurum per ohscurius way of THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 163 reasoning, had been first introduced by Locke, in his criticism of the idea of substance (Essay concerning Human Understanding, Bk. II, Ch. 13, § 19,— and again Ch. 23, § 2). It had been further developed by his disciple Shaftesbury {Charact., The Moralists, vol. II, p. 15), to criticize the solutions given to the problem of the origin of evil. From Shaftesbury Diderot appears to have taken both the idea and the illus- tration, in § XXII of his Sufficiency of Natural Religion, where he boldly applies to the story of Adam the ridicule which Shaftesbury seemed to cast on the myth of Prometheus only. In that instance Diderot had ascribed the elephant and tortoise theory to a " Chinois " ; here he reverted to the original " Indian." To Diderot's criticism of the cosmological proof of God's existence, Voltaire retorted that he " did not at all agree with Saunderson, who denied God because he happened to have been born blind" (Letter to Diderot, June, 1749). But this afiswer does not dispose of the whole argument. Diderot meant to show the weakness of reasoning from the data of our senses in such a weighty subject, and, as he had done in his 164 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Philosophic Thoughts, to point out the trifling value of wonders or miracles where a rational proof would serve the purpose much better. Shaftesbury had asserted that "the contempla- tion of the universe, its laws and government, was the only means which could establish the sound belief of a Deity. For what though in- numerable miracles from every part assailed the sense and gave the trembling thought no respite ? ... To whom the laws of this universe and its government appear just and uniform, to him they speak the government of one Just One; to him they reveal and witness a God. ..." Revelation and miracles may afterwards con- firm this belief in a just and true being, but the existence of such a being " no power of miracles, nor any power besides his reason, can make him know or apprehend."^^ In this Diderot partly follows, and partly disagrees with, his master: after denying with him the power of miracles to convince reason (Philosophic Thoughts, L), he now tried to show against him how unphilo- sophic and inconclusive the sense of wonder was ** Shaftesbury, Charact., The Moralists (vol. II, pp. 91-92). THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 165 even in relation to the normal state of the uni- verse. Was it such a wonderful order after all ? Was not the world full of evils and imperfec- tions which only the systematic optimist chose to ignore? When we admire the arrangement of our world, and claim that its final cause is the happiness of mankind, are we not like ants and worms dwelling among heaps of earth and refuse in some back garden, and marvelling at the intelligent benevolence of the gardener who has arranged all those materials for them?^^ Diderot, as we have already seen, had from the beginning taken exception at Shaftesbury's philosophic optimism. He was now led to find that, without an implicit faith in the perfect order of the world, it was difficult to uphold the deistic belief that the universe was " not a self- governed but a God-governed machine. "^^ The vacillation evinced in 1747 in The Sceptic's Walk disappears in 1749 in the Letter on the ^ Thus ' ' Atheos ' ' had answered the arguments of the deist (then identical with Diderot) in the "Path of Chestnut-Trees" (§§ 33-36) ; and his case had been made out rather strong against the celebrated metaphor of the * * Watchmaker. ' ' '" Shaftesbury, Charact., The Moralists (vol. II, p. 93). 166 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Blind. The scientific attitude replaces the deist's natural religion; Shaftesbury gives way to Lucretius; and, where English Deism and Voltaire rested satisfied, Diderot evolves, in Saunderson's parting words, the first outline of a theory of the universe which is identical with that of modern transformism. Admitting, upon the word of ISTewton, Leib- nitz, Clarke, and honest Mr Holmes, that there is a wonderful order in that universe which his eyes had never seen, Saunderson goes on to say (I, 309) : " I yield to you concerning the present state of the universe, on condition that you will allow me the liberty to think what I please about its ancient, original state, concerning which you are not less blind than I. Here you have no wit- nesses to oppose to me, and your eyes are of no avail. Imagine then, if you wish, that the order which strikes you has existed always; but let me believe that it is not so, and that if we went back to the birth of things and ages, if we felt matter moving and chaos assuming shape, we should meet with a multitude of shapeless beings against a few well-organized creatures. If I have nothing to object to you about the present condition of things, I may at least ask you about their past condition. I may for instance THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 167 ask you, who told you, and Leibnitz, Clarke, and ISTewton, that when animals were first formed, some were not without heads, and some without feet ? I may assert that some had no stomachs, others no bowels; that those creatures which, having a stomach, palate and teeth, seemed likely to endure, have ceased to exist, because of some defect in the heart or lungs; that monsters have successively been destroyed ; that all defective combinations of matter have disap- peared, and that only those remained in which the mechanism implied no important contradic- tion, which could subsist by their own means and perpetuate themselves." These ideas, it must be remembered, offered nothing that appeared very striking to eight- eenth-century thinkers. To us, they are like a prophetic view of biological theories that have revolutionized modern science; and we shall endeavor to consider them in their proper scien- tific aspect in the next chapter. For Voltaire and his contemporaries, and even for Villemain as late as 1828, they were but a development, a sort of reboiling, of the most ancient material- istic system of the universe, the physics of Epicurus expounded by Lucretius in his poem De Rerum Natura. They meant little more 168 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT than that Diderot, after having for a time de- fended rational ethics and rational religion on the same grounds as the English deists, had dis- covered that the foundations of natural religion were as undemonstrable, rationally, as those of the revealed religions, and that he had no other alternative than to fall back upon that least un- satisfactory system of materialism which for ages past had been adopted by the most radical free-thinkers, though not yet indorsed by scien- tists. Concerning the origin of the universe and life, the choice lay between the Biblical account of Creation and the hypotheses of the Atomistic School, between Genesis and the six books of the De Rerum Natura; concerning the present order of the world, between the belief in Providence and final causes, and the faith in a mechanical universe governed by scientific laws. While Voltaire refused to abandon deism and creationism, yet pointed out many objections to the belief in Providence, finality, and optimism, Diderot declared his preference for the Lucre- tian solutions, denying creation, final causes, and Providence, declaring God " unknowable " scien- tifically, and limiting his philosophy, long be- THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHEE 169 fore Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, to the knowledge of positive reality, the observation of phenomena and the investigation of their laws. The two letters of Voltaire and Diderot concerning the Letter oji the Blind illustrate in a significant manner the parting of the ways not only between their authors, but between the two generations of French philosophers which be- long to the first and the second half of the eigh- teenth century. They also mean a final separa- tion between Diderot's philosophy and English deism. That he was not, however, a systematic mate- rialist is shown by the fact that he no longer concerned himself with advancing the philos- ophy of mechanism or atomism in the abstract, or in shaping a metaphysical theory of his own. This task he left to Helvetius, Holbach, and ISTaigeon ; the last two soon engaged in translat- ing the most audacious English works, written earlier in the century by Toland, Tindal, and others, for the promotion of systematic atheism. The " fury of systematizing " did not appeal to Diderot, and he criticized the weak points in the materialistic arguments of Helvetius with as 170 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT much independence as he had done those of the English deists. If we apply to him Comte's division of the intellectual ages of mankind, we may say that before 1745 he had already passed the " theological age " ; between 1745 and 1749, he lived through his " metaphysical age " ; and in 1750 he entered the "positive age," re- solving to confine himself to the study of nature, believing with Locke that nothing could be known except through the senses, and with Bacon that the investigation of nature was the most useful task of all. He had in this metaphysical period devoted enough attention to philosophic speculation to find it as unsatisfactory in its results as it was dangerous to his life and liberty. His thought during those few years may be said to have been dominated, though not in any sense ruled, by the influence of English philosophy, and par- ticularly of Shaftesbury. The Characteristics, as they directed his attention to the problem of morality, at the same time trained his mind in abstract reflections on the nature of art and of the beautiful, and thus were not an inconsider- able factor in the formation of his esthetic criti- THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 171 cism. Furthermore, one may find the sug- gestion at least of his last philosophic work, the Essay on the reigns of Claudius and Nero, in a footnote of the Characteristics which outlined an apology for Seneca, as " mitigator and moderator" of Nero's tyranny, "an able minister, and honest courtier," and pointed out the source of current prejudices against the Eoman philosopher in the writings of "that apish shallow historian and court flatterer, Dion Cassius."^^ What high regard Diderot always preserved for Shaftesbury, even long after he had lost his early enthusiasm for the " divine anchorite," will appear from the parallel which he drew between him and Locke, in the article " Genie " of the Encyclopedie {(Euv., XV, 39) : " The true and the false, in philosophic pro- ductions, are not the distinguishing characters of genius. There are very few errors in Locke, and too few truths in Mylord Shaftesbury: the " Shaftesbury, Charact., Miscell. Beflect. (vol. II, p. 169, n.). Diderot's apology for Seneca seems also to owe something to Montaigne's Essais, Liv. II, ch. 32, "Defence de Seneque et de Plutarque. " 172 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT , former however is nothing but a comprehensive, penetrating, precise intellect; and the latter is a genius of the first rank. Locke saw ; Shaftes- bury created, constructed, edified: to Locke we owe great truths perceived in a frigid manner, methodically followed up, drily announced; to Shaftesbury, brilliant systems often lacking in sound foundations, yet full of sublime truths; and, in his moments of error, he still pleases and persuades by the charms of his eloquence." Before he left Shaftesbury, Clarke, Wollas- ton, and all deistic systems, before he abandoned the ungrateful task of framing beliefs which could not satisfactorily be demonstrated but only raised new doubts, Diderot had not lost sight of scientific research and theory, for which he had had a great inclination since his youth. From the first, even in metaphysics, he had been a realist; thus he could not suffer Berkeley's subjective idealism, while he felt all the force of its demonstrations, and he always was more or less irritated by the amoralism of Hobbes and Mandeville, although it was the logical consequence of a materialism to which he was not averse. From Shaftesbury, for whom he always entertained a sort of veneration, THE MOEALIST AND PHILOSOPHER 173 through Locke's philosophy of sensation, in which his faith never wavered, he worked his way back, as it were, to the fountain-head of English philosophy and the father of positivistic thought, Francis Bacon. CHAPTEK IV THE SCIENTIST " Devote yourselves to metaphysics as much as you please; as for me, I am a physicist and a chemist" (II, 66). Thus wrote Diderot in 1770, at the end of a period of scientific work which had occupied more than twenty years of his life. Just as, in the deistic phase of his thought, he had shared Shaftesbury's dislike for "enthu- siasm," meaning the unreasoning impulses of fanaticism, so in philosophy he had early pro- fessed the same contempt as the author of the Characteristics for all metaphysical systems and their authors. In a remarkable passage of the Bijoux Indiscrets, he had depicted, under the guise of a vision (Beve de Mangogul) , the downfall of all the systems of ontology at the apparition of the giant child called Experience. " The most ingenious way of becoming foolish is by a system,"^ Shaftesbury had said; and * CTiaract., Advice to an Author, p. iii, sect. 1. In Miscell., Y, Shaftesbury disposes of Oartesianism in his usual tone of banter. 174 THE SCIENTIST 175 the word " systematic " was used by him and his followers as characterizing speculations as bar- ren as those of Aristotle and the Scholastics, didactic constructions in which an outward ap- pearance of order and logic served as a vain cloak to ideas that had no relation to experience. Shaftesbury also described systematic thinkers, that is, all kinds of metaphysicians, as " a sort of moon-blind wits who, though very acute and able in their kind, may be said to renounce day- light and extinguish, in a manner, the bright visible outside world, by allowing us to know nothing besides what we can prove by strict and formal demonstration."^ As Locke's experimental philosophy had gained ground in England, then in France, and " natural philosophy," or science, had constantly grown in favor, constructive metaphysics had lost more and more credit everywhere, Des- cartes's attempt at solving the riddle of the universe by the method of mathematics had been followed by the systems of Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, which, because they appealed to pure reason, and not at all to experi- "Charact., Miscell., TV, Chapt. II. 176 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ence, had made the a priori method of reasoning unpopular, and brought down a great deal of undeserved obloquy upon Cartesianism. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, Rational- ism had inspired philosophers and scientists alike, but divergences existed between the spirit of metaphysical, a priori Rationalism and the spirit of the experimental, a posteriori school, which sometimes had brought them into a sort of conflict. For instance, Spinoza and Leibnitz, though they admired the work of the English Royal Society, thought that Boyle was taking needless trouble in attempting to demonstrate experimentally that the " substantial forms " and " qualities " of bodies, i. e., their properties, were effects of the order and movement of their particles: what need was there of such proofs, when the fact had been rationally demonstrated by Bacon and Descartes ? "... Nescio cur Clar. Vir hoc adeo sollicite conetur colligere ex hoc suo experimento ; cum j am hoc a Verulamio et postea a Cartesio satis superque demonstratum sit" (Spinoza to Oldenburg, Oct. 21, 1661). And Leibnitz (Nouveaux Essais, L.IV,Ch. 12, § 13) : " M. Boyle s'arrete un pen trop, pour dire la THE SCIENTIST 177 verite, a ne tirer d'une infinite de belles experi- ences d'autre conclusion que celle qu'il pourrait prendre pour principe, savoir, que tout se fait mecaniquement dans la nature; principe qu'on pent rendre certain par la seule raison, et jamais par les experiences, quelque nombre qu'on en fasse."^ Matters had grown worse, if we may saj so, between the metaphysical and the ex- perimental rationalists, when from the criti- cism of the " secondary qualities " of matter, which stood in the way of science as well as philosophy, Berkeley had proceeded to criticize rationally and reduce to naught the " primary qualities," concluding with a system of imma- terialism which, as we have seen, confounded and irritated Diderot by its appearance of irre- fragable evidence. It is hardly to be wondered at, that, in the general reaction against all ontological systems which characterized the eighteenth century, while Locke was highly praised and Berkeley ridiculed, not the slightest attention was paid to the most remarkable philosophy produced in 'Quoted by Cli. Adam, Philosophie de Fr. Bacon, Paris, 1890, p. 332, n. 2. 13 178 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT, that age, the Phenomenism of Hume, which gave rise later on to Kant's " Copernican revo- lution" in metaphysics. Hume's system, as expounded in the Treatise on Human Nature, was apparently unknown to his friend Diderot. Of course Diderot also believed that we never know anything but phenomena of consciousness, as he poetically expresses it in the Conclusion of his Elements of Physiology (IX, 428) : " The world is the house of fate.* Only at the end shall I know what I have lost or gained in this vast gambling-house in which I shall have spent some sixty years, dice-box in hand, tesserae agitans. Felices quibus, ante annos, secura malorum Atque ignara sui, per ludum elahitur cetas. What do I see ? Forms. And what else ? Forms. I do not know the thing. We walk among shadows, and we also are shadows for * Here I read * ' sort, ' ' instead of * ' fort, ' ' which is evideBtly an erratum m the Assezat-Tourneux edition, where the Elements were first printed. The erroneous reading, "Le monde est la maison du fort," led E, Caro to suggest that Diderot might have thought here of the struggle-for-life theory (E. Caro, La fin du dix-huitieme siecle, 2d edition, 1881, p. 203). THE SCIENTIST 179 other people and for ourselves." — Yet he was a phenomeiiist only as any scientist might be. He did not believe that things in themselves, substances, could be known: but he never ques- tioned the absolute value of the laws laid down by the understanding as governing the world of matter. He thought that man knows nothing but forms, facts, phenomena; but they are the object of science, the knowable part of the uni- verse. Concerning all that transcends them, there is no science, nothing but more or less plausible speculation. Later on, about the time when metaphysics had, as it were, a new birth in Kant's critique, we find Diderot tolling the knell of speculative philosophy : he was writing to Catherine II that the age was most propitious for the foundation of Universities, especially in Russia, and he said : " The human mind seems to have cast off its shackles; the futility of Scholastic studies is acknowledged ; the rage for systematizing has ceased; there is no more any talk about Aris- totelianism, Cartesianism, Malebranchism, or Leibnitzianism ; the taste for true science reigns everywhere; knowledge of all kinds has been 180 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT carried to a very high degree of perfection" (III, 441). In other words, a strong revival of the Positivistic spirit which had first shone with Bacon early in the seventeenth century, and which was to reappear in the nineteenth with Auguste Comte, had for a time driven metaphysics out of fashion, and obscured, in the most representative thinkers of the age, its high character and deep interest. If the proper object of philosophy is truly the investigation of the principles of human knowledge which are beyond the range of experimental science, no school of thinkers was more unphilosophic than that eighteenth century school of Shaftesbury, Voltaire, Diderot, which ridiculed " systematic " thought and identified philosophy with science. In the domain of science itself, the reaction against the constructive mechanism of the Car- tesians, who had freely used hypotheses in their demonstrations, brought about a strong preju- dice against all hypotheses, l^ewton's saying, Hypotheses non jingo, was constantly repeated, and taken in too strict a sense. I^ewtonians were apt to overlook the fact that gravitation itself was only a magnificent hypothesis. This THE SCIENTIST 181 confusion arose from an inadequate perception of the differences between the metaphysical and the scientific kind of hypothesis, and was natural at a time when, the word " philosophy " having kept much of its ancient universal meaning, the boundaries between " first " philosophy and " natural " philosophy, metaphysics and science, were not yet very distinctly perceived. A metaphysical hypothesis appeared as a self- evident, self-sufficient principle, not susceptible of experimental confirmation, and claiming not to need proofs any more than the first principles of mathematics : the assumption of the existence of vacuum, or of ether, the " corpuscles " of matter, the " vortices " of the universe, belonged to that class of conjectural principles upon which the eighteenth-century thinkers looked with dif- fidence or contempt. A scientific hypothesis, on the other hand, as we admit of it to-day, is a merely provisional principle, subject to proof or rejection under the tests of experiment, and is as necessary to the progress of scientific in- vestigation as is the process of induction, of which it is a powerful auxiliary : for how could one resort to observation and experiment in a 182 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT useful way, without a preconceived explanation of phenomena to conduct research, even if it eventually failed to be proved ? Thus scientific thought in the eighteenth cen- tury, through an excessive distrust of the indiscreet speculations in which the later Car- tesians had indulged,^ tended to ignore the necessity of hypothesis and system in the inves- tigation of nature, while it emphasized the need of an abundant, indefatigable observation and collection of facts. All the credit which Des- 'Ch. Adam, in hia work cited above (p. 374), to which we are here much indebted, points out that the reaction against Descartes, while extolling Bacon, did not alto- gether blind the more scientific minds of the age to the merits of the French pliilosopher. Fontenelle did not indiscriminately blame Ms boldness in speculation : * ' One must dare in every kind; but the difficulty is to dare with wisdom, and that is to reconcile a contradiction." He commended "a lucky and wise boldness" in science. D'Alembert, in 1751, complained of too much timidity in Bacon, and compared Descartes with those revolu- tionists who at least prepare the future by destroying the past, even if the new regime which they set up does not realize their dreams. Lastly, at the end of the century, Oondorcet also thought Bacon too prudent, and admired Descartes as a conqueror in science, who forces truth before it surrenders: "the very boldness of his errors served the progress of the human mind better" than Bacon had done. THE SCIENTIST 183 cartes was losing, as the most systematic of the fathers of modern science, was a gain for the more emj^iric Bacon and the less universal but more successful genius of Newton. Diderot, who had been freer than Voltaire in his criticism of the systems concerning the Deity, showed much more reserve than his great contemporary in his estimate of metaphysical systems. In spite of his positivistic professions and his fondness for facts and realities, he was himself by nature too much of a metaphysician not to appreciate to some extent the true great- ness of the synthetic constructions erected in the past to account for all that transcends the senses and experience, and the originality of other methods than the positive method of Bacon and Locke. While Voltaire had been indefatigable in denouncing the system of Des- cartes and refuting it by ridicule, Diderot only once had a fling at the " vorticoses," or partisans of the Cartesian theory of vortices, in a chapter of the Bijoux Indiscrets (IV, 162) ; and, although on that occasion he sided against them with the " attractionnaires " or N^ewtonians, he never professed the same worship as Voltaire 184 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT for the discoverer of the law of gravitation : for was not gravitation in itself as obscure a prin- ciple as the vortices ?^ On the other hand, com- paring Malebranche with Locke, his great master in philosophy, he did not hesitate to write: " Malebranche was one of the deepest and most sublime dreamers. One page of Locke contains more truths than all the volumes of Malebranche ; but one line of the latter perhaps shows more subtlety, imagination, penetration, and genius, than the whole of Locke's big book" (XVI, 53). In one of his most Baconian works, he sums up in a characteristic manner the tendencies and the results of the metaphysical and the physical schools of philosophy up to his own time : " To collect and to connect facts, are two very tedious occupations ; therefore philosophers have divided them between themselves. Some spend their lives in gathering materials, useful and active 'Diderot, though full of respect for Newton, had no patience with his less intelligent followers: "Men want to explain everything, well or ill, no matter; owing to this mania, the abhorrence for vacuum has caused water to rise in pumps, vortices have been the cause of the motions of celestial bodies, and for a long time yet attraction will be the cause of the weight of bodies ..." (Memoires . . . mathem., IX, 115). THE SCIENTIST 185 artisans; others, proud architects, hasten to make use of the materials. But, up to the present, time has overthrown almost all the edifices of rational philosophy. Sooner or later, from the subterranean galleries where he digs blindly, the dusty workman brings up the piece that proves fatal to all that architecture raised by sheer intellect; down it comes, and nothing is left but the materials in pell-mell confusion, until some other rash genius undertakes to make a new combination of them. Happy is the systematic philosopher to whom nature has given, as she formerly gave to Epicurus, Lucre- tius, Aristotle, and Plato, a powerful imagina- tion, great eloquence, the art of expounding his ideas with striking, sublime images ! The edi- fice he has reared may fall one day; but his statue shall remain standing in the midst of ruins ; and the stone rolling down the mountain- side shall not shatter it, because the feet thereof are not of clay."^ '' Pensees sur I 'interpretation de la nature, XXI {(Euv., II, 19). — Comp. Montesquieu, Observations sur I'histoire naturelle, 1721, read before the Academy of Sciences of Bordeaux: "A man does not need a great deal of wit to see a gnat in the microscope, or a star through great 186 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Diderot as a scientist partook of both char- acters : he was to some extent a patient working- man in the field of nature; he also was a " dreamer," or a speculative thinker, who did not fear to rise from the particularity of facts to the generality of no less vast a theory than Evolutionism. In science, he may be said to have had two masters : Bacon, for the collection of facts; and the ancient school of Atomism, which he knew mostly through Lucretius,^ for telescopes, and that is the point in which physical science is so wonderful: great geniuses, narrow minds, mean intellects, all play their part in it; he who cannot frame a system, like Newton, will make an observation with which he may rack that great philosopher." — "Yet," he adds, "Newton will always be Newton, that is, the suc- cessor of Descartes, and the other a common man, a low artisan, who has seen once and may never have thought. ' ' (Quoted by Ch. Adam, op. cit., p. 360.) * The poem of Lucretius was translated into French by Lagrange, and published, after a revision by Naigeon, in 1768; both Diderot and Holbach had been interested in, and to some extent connected with, the undertaking. Abundant quotations from Lucretius are found in Dide- rot's writings about 1767 and 1768 (XI, 33, 76, 78, 164, 331; XIII, 18', 94, n.; etc.), and D'Alembert's Dream was written in 1769. For some years past Diderot had been concerned vsdth the question of the influence of functions on the modification of organs: see his Salon of 1765, in which the connection between his scientific and his esthetic ideas is curiously illustrated. THE SCIENTIST 187 the connection of phenomena and their higher interpretation. Since his philosophic generali- zations are essentially of a concrete nature, based on scientific observations which were new in his age, and since they are closely connected with his studies in chemistry and natural history, we shall feel justified in giving them a fuller consideration in this chapter than in our pre- ceding estimate of the Philosopher. He had early been much interested in mathe- matics, probably before he was more absorbed by physiology, physics, chemistry, and their applications to the needs of man. He was not content with giving private lessons, in which he " learned while teaching others, and made some proficient pupils " ; he attempted to do some original work. Hence his commentary on New- ton's Principles of Mathematics, which he sup- pressed when Fathers Jacquier and Le Sueur published theirs (IX, 168), and his five Mem- oirs on sundry subjects of mathematics, which appeared in 1748 to redeem the impression created by his frivolous novel, the Bijoux Indiscrets. We know from Diderot himself 188 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT (IX, 252) that of all his works he valued most a certain mathematical dissertation and D'Alem- herfs Dream. The volume of Memoirs of Mathematics was elegantly illustrated with emblematic cuts by a certain "!N^. Blakej, Londineus,"^ and was typical of those scientific works which eight- eenth-century writers designed for the ladies' drawing-room tables as well as for the scholars' or scientists' shelves. Its contents are far from being of a trifling nature ; they are indeed more fit to be judged by the distinguished mathe- matician, Madame de Premontval, to whom they were dedicated, than by modern students of lit- erary history. Let us at least point out that these papers evince a great degree of familiarity with the state of some scientific problems at that time, abroad as well as in France. The First Memoir deals with the "general principles of the science of sound, with a sin- gular method of fixing the sound, so that one * Nieholas Blakey, a designer and engraver, born in Ireland, spent the greater part of his life in Paris; he is said to have acquired much repute as an illustrator of books; the dates of his birth and his death are not known (Diet. Nat. Biogr.). THE SCIENTIST 189 may at any time and in any place play a piece of music in exactly the same tone." In this work Diderot alludes to the determination of the speed of sound by Halley and Flamsteed, and the exj^eriments made by Derham concern- ing the influence of a favorable or contrary wind on its transmission. He further discusses and corrects the solution given by Taylor, a con- temporary of Newton, to the problem of the relation between the number of vibrations of a chord in a given time and its length, weight, and tension. Passing over the Second Memoir, on the circle-wrapper ( la developpante du cercle ) , and the Third, on the tension of chords, we notice that the Fourth Paper relates to an im- provement of the German organ, or street organ, a popular instrument which seems to have been improved shortly after by a Parisian con- structor, on the lines suggested by Diderot. In England, the Gentleman's Magazine for 1749 (pp. 339, 405, 495) greatly commended Di- derot's Second and Fourth Dissertations, and called the attention of specialists to his plan for a new organ. The Fifth Memoir, on the resist- ance of the air to the motion of pendulums, 190 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT demonstrates that this retardation is like the squares of the arcs described, against ISTewton's contention that it was like the arcs. Diderot concludes by inviting experiment in this matter : " I have," he says, " for l^ewton all the defer- ence that we owe to men unique in their kind ; I am much inclined to believe that the truth is on his side ; yet it is right to make this sure." A difficulty raised against the explanation of cohesion in bodies by the principle of attraction suggested another paper by Diderot which was inserted in the Memoires de Trevoux, for April, 1761. Here he attempted to defend the exten- sion of the ]!^ewtonian principle from the mo- tions of celestial bodies and of falling bodies to several other natural facts related to cohesion. In the same year, 1761, he had occasion to write two papers, in answer to D'Alembert, whose Opuscules Mathematiques had just ap- peared. One of Diderot's papers discussed the calculation of probabilities; the other was de- voted to a very interesting application of that kind of calculation to a question which, in some quarters, is still open to-day : it was concerning the advisability of inoculation, or vaccination. THE SCIENTIST 191 D'Alembert had given statistics that were not favorable to vaccination. Diderot criticized his friend's figures, and vigorously defended a practice which, however dangerous it proved in some individual cases (easily exaggerated at a time when vaccination was an English nov- elty), he considered indispensable to prevent or to check the ravages of small-pox in a com- munity. According to him, it was only through a selfish, narrow application of the calculation of probabilities that the individual chances of death from small-pox were balanced against those of death by inoculation: a higher reason for the general practice of vaccination lay in the dangers of contagion and large mortality which had been made but too manifest in the past. The interest which Diderot had shown for questions of acoustics again appeared later in his life, when he practically composed, under the name of the German Bemetzrieder, who taught Mile Diderot music, a method for teach- ing the clavecin, or harpsichord, and the ele- ments of harmony. The notes on music, which he had collected since the early days when he associated with composers like Rameau, J.-J. 192 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Rousseau, Gretrj, and enlightened amateurs like Grimm, he handed to Charles Burney^*' for his work on the state of music in France and Italy. It was about the year 1750, when he had set about the enormous task of the Encyclopedie, that the scientific activity of Diderot displayed itself in the widest and the most varied fields. The influence of Bacon was at that time very powerful over the minds of the two editors of the Encyclopedie, when they planned to give a full account of the contemporary state of all the branches of human knowledge. This period seems to have marked a decline in Diderot's interest in pure mathematics (which D'Alembert thought a matter for regret) and a correspond- ing increase in his chemical and biological stud- ies. He attended the courses which Eouelle gave in chemistry, where he had Rousseau, and probably Lavoisier, as fellow-students; Locke's maxim. Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu, was conspicuously displayed on the walls of Rouelle's laboratory.^ ^ Those lec- *" Corresp. litter., Tourneux ed., I, p. 313, n. " Ch. Adam, op. cit., p, 357. — On Eouelle (I'Aine), who is to be counted among the founders of chemistry, THE SCIENTIST 193 tures on chemistry have been preserved from the notes taken by Diderot in 1754—1755, put in order and written out by him in 1756, and re- vised in 1757 and 175 8.^ ^ jjg ^jg^ attended courses in physiology and medicine, trying to be present at important operations, and vari- ously improving his knowledge by reading med- ical works and conversing with doctors, of whose society he was especially fond. He was well known as the learned translator of that huge encyclopedia of medical lore, James's Medicinal Dictionary. He must have early begun that large collection of facts, confirming his theories on the origin of life and the variation of species, which has been preserved, in a somewhat undi- gested shape, under the title of Elements of Physiology. From that variety of studies, and his familiar- ity with Bacon's works, resulted the composition of his Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature (1754), a work which is Baconian not only in its title, borrowed from several of Bacon's works see the Notice of Diderot (VI, 405-410); also Ferd. Hoefer, Eistoire de la chimie, II, 386. "Bevue Scientifique, July 26, 1884. 14 194 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT which bear it/^ but in its general inspiration. It is, in fact, a series of aphorisms, more or less developed, mingled with scientific "conjectures," • some of which have been justified by later ex- periments. The influence of Bacon on Diderot seems as direct, although not as often traceable through literal transcriptions, as that of Shaftesbury. The Pensees philosophiques were to a large ex- tent quotations from Shaftesbury; the Pensees sur I' interpretation de la nature are rather the notes and jottings of a scientist reading the works of Bacon. Diderot's Prospectus of the Encyclopedie, which we shall consider in the next chapter, affords clear evidence of an avowed discipleship ; the Pensees sur V interpretation de la nature are Baconian in a more independent manner. They embody the spirit of Bacon's experimental method, proclaim anew the mes- sage of the Great Instauration, in a somewhat modernized and disconnected fashion, and are " The Cogitata et Visa de mterpretatione naturce, sive de scientia operativa, not included in Blackbourne '9 edi- tion of Bacon's Opera Omnia in 1730; the very similar first book of tlie Novum Organum, entitled Aphorismi de Interpretatione Natures et Begno Hominis. » THE SCIENTIST 195 illustrated by " anticipations " or hypotheses in certain fields of science which in Bacon's age were almost or altogether unexplored. Diderot begins by advocating a closer alliance between ingenious and patient men, men with ideas and men with instruments, to " unite and direct all their efforts at once against the resist- ance of nature."^ ^ He then proclaims the neces- sary decline of pure mathematics in the near future, because they are useful only in conjunc- tion with experiment, and are nothing, taken in themselves, but " a kind of general metaphysics, in which bodies are divested of their individual qualities."^ ^ As for the phenomena of nature, " (We quote from the edition of the Works of Francis Bacon by J. Spedding, E. L. Ellis, and D, D. Heath, Boston, 1861, 15 vols.) — Bacon, Nov. Org., Pref., wishes to have two "tribes" or "families of contemplators or philosophers," not hostile, "but rather allied and united by mutual assistance," the one practising a method called "the anticipation of the mind," the other "the interpretation of nature." He often dwells on the use- fulness of efforts proceeding from the most various minds (Sped., I, 237). "Bacon, De Augmentis, (Sped., II, 305): "Nescio . . . quo fato fiat ut Mathematica et Logica, quae ancil- larum loco erga Physicam se gerere debent, nihilominus certitudinem suam prae ea jactantes, dominatum contra exercere praesumant. " He elsewhere claims that optics 196 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT which are more properly the objects of true science, their infinite multitude and astounding variety and the confusion introduced by the terms used to designate them might well dis- courage men; but "usefulness circumscribes everything/' and will set limits to the sciences of nature, the most useful of all, as it has done to mathematics.-^^ E'otions which have no foundation in experience, that is, in the outside world, are nothing but " opinions " ; they are comparable to those l^orthern forests in which the trees have no roots and are felled by a blast of wind. The investigation of truth must be made through the senses and reflection: man and astronomy belong to physics more properly than to mathematics, by which they have been invaded. In the Advancement of Learning, Bk II (Sped., VI, 225): "There remaineth yet another part of Natural Philosophy, which is commonly made a principal part, and holdeth rank with Physic special and Metaphysic; which is Mathematic; but I think it more agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of order, to place it as a branch of Metaphysic. ..." "For the utilitarian standpoint in science, see Bacon, De Augmentis, Bk V, c. 2; Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 73; and Cogitata et Visa. — The apparent hopelessness of the task confronting natural philosophers is also a familiar topic throughout Bacon's works: Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 118. etc. THE SCIENTIST 197 must incessantly go in and out of himself, as the bee does to collect honey in its hive.^^ Un- fortunately, it is much easier to consult one's own mind than nature ; hence so many systems. The systematic philosopher often perceives truth, as the unskilled politician sees oppor- tunity, from the bald side, and asserts that it cannot be grasped, while the experimental worker seizes it through chance by the fore- lock.^ ^ Great men have not been lacking, yet the amount of true knowledge is very scanty, because they have given too much attention to the abstract sciences,^ ^ and words have been multiplied instead of things. " The true way of philosophizing should have been and should " Similarly Bacon, Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 95, compares the empirics to ants, the dogmatical to spiders, while the true labor of philosophy resembles that of the bee, which "extracts matter from the flowers of the garden and the field, but works and fashions it by its own efforts. ' ' ^' Bacon, Fhcenomena Universi, Pref. (Sped., VII, 232) : ". . , Naturam, ut fortunam, a front© capillatam, ab occipito calvam esse. ' ' Also Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 121. ^"Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 79-80,—". . . Nemo expectet magnum progressum in scientiis (prsesertim in parte earum operativa), nisi Philosophia Naturalis ad scientias particulares producta fuerit, et scientiae particulares rursus ad Naturalem Philosophiam reductse" (Sped., I, 286). 198 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT be to apply the understanding to the under- standing ; the understanding and experiment, to the senses ; the senses, to nature ; nature, to the investigation of instruments; instruments, to the research and improvement of arts, which would be thrown to the common people to teach them to respect philosophy." The standard of usefulness is the only one which the vulgar knows. It is unfortunate that rational or sys- tematic philosophy should have spent so much ingenuity in connecting facts, instead of col- lecting them ; for facts, of whatever nature, are the philosopher's true wealth. Useful discoveries are often reached in experimental physics, as it were by chance,^*^ while the investigator is look- ing for other results ; as the ploughman's sons in the fable reaped an unexpected harvest, or dis- covered a mine of lead, while they had been dig- ing for hidden gold.^^ The experimental philo- sopher, through long practice, acquires an in- , ''"Bacon, Of the Advanc. of Learning, Bk II (Sped., VI, 261-262). ^ This illustration is applied by Bacon to the researches of the Chemists, who, while looking for gold, had inci- dentally made some very useful discoveries (C agitata et Visa, Sped., VII, 121; De Augmentis, lib. I, Sped., II, 134). THE SCIENTIST 199 stinct or scent for discovering truth, comparable to Socrates' "familiar demon" ; it were useful to reduce that instinct into clear notions, so as to impart it to other men. ISTothing can be more op- posed to the true spirit of scientific research than an affectation of power or mjsterj, that " affecta- tion of great masters" illustrated by Newton and Stahl, which often robs them of the credit of their discoveries, and tends to make philo- sophy unpopular. Read Franklin's Observations and Experiments on Electricity, to learn how experiments may be varied ; make tables of the qualities of matter, and apply them to the sub- ject of your investigation; practice the "inver- sion" of experiment,^^ and be not fondly at- tached to any system from which you may have started. Vary the objects of your experiments ; complicate, combine them in every possible manner. Some phenomena may be quite near us, by which in the future physics will reduce gravity, elasticity, attraction, magnetism, elec- tricity, all to one principle. Enlightening facts are often found in those which appear deceptive, ^*0n the formation of "tables," see Nov. Org., II, Aphor. 10 sqq. — The "inversion," in De Augmentis Sc, Lib. V, cap. 2 (Sped., II, 380). 200 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT or in contradiction with our system. Experi- ment must be free ; it must not be distorted, and made to lie, by showing only examples that prove, and excluding others that disprove, our idea.^^ We must not shape things according to our notions, but reform our notions according to things. Methods are not to be trusted utterly; for by following the wrong road persistently, a man loses his way more and more.^^ Instru- ments and measures, used as auxiliaries to the senses, may be as misleading as they; experi- ment will serve to test them, and then will safely borrow their help. Obstacles are to be met not only in nature, but in men; for every age ^ Aristotle is charged with, this abuse of expeTiment in Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 63: "... Experientiam ad sua placita tortam circumdueit et captivam ; ' ' — and in the Bedargutio PMlosophiarum (Sped., VII, 91): "lUi (Aristoteli) enim mos erat non liberam experientiam consulere, sed captivam ostentare; nee earn ad veritatis inquisitionem promiscuam et aequam, sed ad dictorum stuorum fidem sollicitatam et electam adducere. " ''^In Bacon, Advanc. of Learning, Bk I (Sped., VI, 131), there is only a caution against the error of an "over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods. ' ' It seems as though here Diderot had had in view the Cartesian principle of abiding by the method once chosen, even if it is bad, in order eventually to com© out of error. THE SCIENTIST 201 abounds in systematics and divines^^ who, in their constant oi^position to the natural philos- opher, are comparable to those ephemeral insects who must needs disturb man in his work and his rest. The chain of causes and effects is infinite, and we must stop in our conjectures where we are on the point of transcending nature. Final causes are bad for the interpretation of nature,^*^ even in natural theology: for they amount to a substitution of man's conjecture to the work of God. The physicist should not concern himself with the " Why," but only try and explain the " How";^''' the latter being derived from things, the former from our understanding only. Com- mon prejudices and axioms are snares to our precipitation: the "Nihil sub sole novum," for instance, is little else than an absurdity; the philosopher must severely criticize the so-called popular wisdom, ^^ ^ Bacon, Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 89, and Cogitata et Visa (Sped., VII, 108) ; also Filum Labyrinthi sive Formula Inquisitionis (Sped., VI, 421). ^ De Augmentis Sc, Lib. Ill, cap. 4 (Sped., II, 294), and Nov. Org., II, Aphor. 2: "Causa Finalis tantum abest ut prosit, ut etiam scientias corrumpat. ..." " Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 66. ^* This is probably a suggested addition to Bacon 's 202 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ^ . The foregoing analysis may suffice to show how thoroughly imbued Diderot was with the philosophy of Bacon, when he wrote the Pensees sur V interpretation de la nature. The opening apostrophe of the book : " Young man, take this, and read . . . ," which puzzled and amused Diderot's contemporaries, is but a reminiscence of Bacon's favorite form of address "Ad Filios " ; and we are inclined to think that the Prayer which was inserted at the end of some copies of the Pensees, is likewise in imitation of the author of the Great Instauration. The scientific illustrations given in conjunction with Diderot's aphorisms are mainly derived from studies in electricity, then much in vogue. We have seen how Diderot held up to his country- men Franklin's book on electricity, just trans- lated by the Abbe d'Alibard (1752), as a model' of scientific investigation. It is very much to be regretted that Diderot did not develop his ideas concerning electricity at least as much as he had done his notions concerning some sub- jects in geometry and acoustics. Had he de- well kn'own criticism of the ' * Idola, ' ' or commoii human errors (Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 39 sqq.) ; it comes directly from De Augm., lib. I (Sped., II, 166). i THE SCIENTIST 203 voted several papers, instead of only a few il- luminating paragraphs of his Interpretation de la nature, to the then new problems of electric- ity, had he above all had the means and leisure of contriving experiments in that field, he might have conclusively shown, before ffirsted and Ampere, that electricity and magnetism were identical in nature, and that many unexplained phenomena, enumerated in his Second, Third, and Fourth Conjectures, could be reduced to the newly discovered principle. He thought that the constitution and the motion of the earth might account for the direction of the magnetic needle, the Northern lights, and many other natural facts : " These notions," he added, " may be received or controverted, because they have as yet no reality except in my understanding. Experiments must substantiate them ; the physi- cist must imagine experiments that will sepa- rate the phenomena and completely identify them" (II, 28). It is unfortunate perhaps that, like his master Bacon, ho suggested more for others to do than he attempted himself to achieve. Yet raising doubts and making scien- tific hypotheses was more commendable than 204 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT dogmatizing : " I throw mj ideas on paper, and they become what they may" (I, 406). Diderot could apparently not be a specialist in science any more than in philosophy, because his mind was, from the first, essentially ency- clopedic. Being interested in everything, he could not devote his life to any one particular pursuit, be it ethics, or chemistry, or physiology, or the arts and crafts, or mathematics, or litera- ture. In his age, and with his singular capacity for every kind of work, the one work for which he was fitted, and which he successfully carried out, was the production of an Encyclopedia, the first of the bulky encyclopedias of modern times, for the propagation of practical knowledge and the promotion of useful ideas. Hence his strong disapproval of anything that tended to obscure human knowledge, or keep it under the bushel, for whatever purpose. It has been seen that he blamed Il'J'ewton and Stahl for what he called the " affectation of great masters " : the former having held back his discovery of differential calculus until Leibnitz in his turn had discovered it and claimed the credit of it for himself: the latter THE SCIENTIST 205 having invested valuable chemical theories with the obscurity of language and affected mystery of alchemy. Are not the veils of nature thick enough for our eyes, that the most enlightened men should further wrap in darkness the truth which they chance to discover ? When the in- vention, besides, is immediately beneficial to mankind, like that alleged cure for a disease reputed incurable, by a certain Dr Keyser, which was then much discussed, or the dis- covery of a secret of ancient painters for paint- ing with wax, our encyclopedist shunned all considerations regarding a legitimate profit for the inventors, fought to get possession of the secret, and hastened to publish it. Keyser's secret he does not seem to have found; but on the question of wax-painting he cheerfully entered the lists against the antiquarian Comte de Caylus, and published the results attained in the same field by a young painter, his friend, named Bachelier. Of any scientific discovery he might have said, as he said of esthetic pleas- ures : " Any pleasure that is for me alone moves me but little, and is of short duration. ... It is for my friends as well as for myself that I 206 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT read, reflect, write, meditate, hear, see, and feel " (XI, 115). All truth, as he thought with Bacon, was to be imparted to mankind; the in- ventor must think of the community rather than of himself, his interests, and his glory: hiding useful discoveries is little short of criminal. " We invite all artisans," he said in the Encyclo- pedie, "to take advice from the scientists, and not to allow the discoveries that they will make to die with them. Let them be aware that to hide a useful secret is to be guilty of theft towards society; and that, in such cases, it is as base to put the interest of one man above the interest of all, as in a hundred other cases con- cerning which they themselves would not hesi- tate to decide" (XIII, 371). Diderot's scientific activity, as we have re- marked before, was not confined to facts, obser- vations, experiments, that is, to borrow Bacon's term, to " works." He was truly great in daring to soar above the contemporary state of science, and boldly framing a hypothetical theory of the universe. In this he certainly went beyond the precepts of Bacon and the practice of English THE SCIENTIST 207 Baconians. Yet his hypothesis, which to him- self appeared as a rather wild venture, was truly of a scientific, not metaphysical, order; for the next century brought little that could invalidate, and much that confirmed it. He only ceased to be a Baconian, so to speak, where he began to be a Darwinian avant la lettre. Had Saunderson really seen on his deathbed his wonderful vision of the first stages of the world, as recorded by the mythical Inchliff, he would to-day be quoted among the forerunners of Evolutionism. As it is, the works that at- tracted Diderot's attention to the question of the origin of animate and inanimate nature were those of his French contemporaries, De Maillet, Bonnet, Robinet, Buffon to some extent, but above all Maupertuis.^^ As early as 1749, Di- derot had conceived the idea that the universe might not have been for all time past in its present order, but that it must have undergone an infinite series of transformations before reaching its present state; and that, as far as life is concerned, nature had probably produced " Marcel Landrieu, Lamarck et ses precurseurs, in Eevue anthropologique, 1906 (vol. XVI), pp. 152-169. 208 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT an immense number of forms, monsters or " sports," not fitted to endure, as well as those other kinds which had survived because they had proved able to " subsist by their own means and perpetuate themselves." In 1754, he faced the same problem again, while discussing a dissertation by Maupertuis; and he was then led, in one of the most illuminating pages of the Pensees sur V interpretation de la nature, clearly to express the great philosophic doubt which in his days it was prudent to express with some reserves, in the form of a "question" or a "conjecture": " Just as in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, an individual begins, increases, endures, decays, and passes away, might it not be the same for species as a whole ? Were we not taught by our faith that the animals came out of the Creator's hands such as we see them, and were it allowed to entertain the least uncertainty about their beginning and their end, might not the philoso- pher, left to his conjectures, suspect that animal- ity had its particular elements, from all eternity, scattered and mixed in the mass of matter ; that those elements happened to meet, because it was possible that it should happen ; that the embryo formed from those elements passed through an infinite number of organizations and develop- THE SCIENTIST 209 ments; that by succession it acquired motion, sensations, ideas, thought, reflection, conscious- ness, sentiments, passions, signs, gestures, sounds, articulate sounds, a language, laws, sciences and arts ; that millions of years elapsed between each of these developments ; that it may perhaps still have other developments to undergo, other increases to receive, which are unknown to us; that it has had or will have a stationary state; that it is receding or will re- cede from that state through an everlasting decay, during which its faculties will go out of it as they had come ; that it will disappear from nature for ever, or rather that it will continue to exist in nature, but in a form and with facul- ties very different from those that are perceived in it at this instant of duration ? Religion saves us many wanderings and a great deal of work ! " (11,57-58). Between 1Y54 and 1759, that is, roughly, while his labors as editor of the Encyclopedie took up most of his time, Diderot did not give any further developments to his favorite theory of the evolution of life ; but he meditated about it a great deal: he gradually discarded the notion of a common prototype or "embryo" of all living forms, constituted by eternal particles of animate matter, and paid more attention to 15 210 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT , the criticism of the accepted definitiors of matter and life, inanimate and animate nature. To his profound view, that the order of the universe was not absolute, but relative, not im- mutably fixed, but forever changing, he then added this important hypothesis, that every- thing in nature is in a perpetual process of transformation, through forces inherent in mat- ter. The artificial character of all the fixed distinctions commonly established by scientists and philosophers between inertia, motion, life, consciousness, he tried to demonstrate in his Philosophic Principles on Matter and Motion (1770), and in that medley of madness and deep thinking, as he called it, entitled D'Alemhert's Dream (written in 1769, published in 1830). In this fully developed form, his transformistic theories constitute a rather crude, but exceed- ingly original system, far more interesting and fruitful than the cut and dried materialism of his friends Helvetius and Holbach. The scien- tific miscellanies collected under the title of Elements of Physiology, and first published in the Assezat-Tourneux edition, may in part rep- resent the Baconian " tables " of facts on which the system rests. ^^^Wl^^^SSSB THE SCIENTIST 211 Can matter be conceived as eternally and essentially invested with motion? Can matter and motion spontaneously generate life ? Can the living molecules of primitive chaos have given rise to all the forms of life, vegetal and animal, from the lowest to the most highly or- ganized ? — All these questions Diderot answered in the affirmative in 1769 and 1770. His Philosophic Pnnciples on Matter and Motion, one of his most original contributions to the philosophy of science, may be considered as the outcome of his long study of natural philosophy under Eouelle and other masters, and of his discussions with D'Alembcrt and Holbach. Matter, he thought, never is at rest. The state of rest is nothing but an abstraction. All bodies gravitate, and all the particles of bodies gravitate; bodies therefore are full of latent energies. " The molecule, endowed with a quality proper to its nature, is by itself an active force" (II, 65). The assertion that matter is essentially inert is " a tremendous mistake, contrary to all sound physics and chemistry." N^o outside force is needed to set matter in motion; for matter, being hetero- 212 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT geneous in its nature, has in itself the principle of motion, it is eternally in nisu. The capital error of philosophers has been to imagine matter as homogeneous, inert, indifferent to motion and rest. The universe conceived by science shall be a closed system of forces. " The supposition of any being whatever, placed outside of the material universe, is impossible. One should never make such suppositions, because nothing can be inferred from them" (II, 69). As for the passage from matter to life: Di- derot solved it by denying that there was any irreducible difference, any impassable gulf be- tween them. In his age, and for a long time after, it appeared legitimate to think that what is called organic matter, and even rudimentary living forms, might be created, under proper conditions, through spontaneous generation. The experiments of Needham on that subject had attracted a great deal of attention: in ex- amining the fermentation of yeast in the micro- scope, he had discovered numberless moving bodies which he had taken to be micro-organisms spontaneously generated from the flour. Vol- taire had made great fun of Keedham and his THE SCIENTIST 213 microscopic " eels " ; but Diderot did not think them so ridiculous after all (II, 131). Need- ham later on had felt uneasy when he had been charged with undermining the belief in the Biblical account of creation, and, says Diderot, had turned theologian "in self-defence" (IX, 437). Torn between science and the Bible, rationalism and faith, he had, like many men before and after him, done his best to keep one foot ashore while he put the other in the boat.^*^ The French philosopher had no inclination to spare beliefs which he no longer shared, and, besides, he was not writing for the press : hence arose his altogether un-English boldness in his speculations on animate and inanimate matter. From Needham's experiments, and others of a similar nature by Beccari, Kessel and Mayer, Rouelle, Macquer, on vegetable fibrine, from ob- servations on the Muscipula Dionsea, on anther- ozoids, zoophytes, and various modes of animal and vegetable life, he concluded that the bound- aries between the mineral, vegetable, and animal "reigns" of nature were not at all fixed and " Max Miiller, quoted in E. Caro, Problemes de morale sociale, p. 272. 214 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT immutable.^^ Many very familiar facts, as the phenomenon of the assimilation of food, that is, the tranformation of inanimate into animate matter, sufficiently prove, according to him, that a divergence between the properties of two forms of matter has been exaggerated into a funda- mental difference. Life cannot be conceived as a kind of mysterious entity which, in certain given conditions, invests matter. Diderot in 1759 strove to prove to Hoop and the Holbach family that, if the particles of matter are con- ceived as dead and inert, no change of their position in relation to animate, sentient particles can possibly make them live. " Sentiment and life therefore are eternal. What lives has always lived, and shall live without end. The only difference I know between death and life is, that you now live in a mass, and that dissolved, scattered in molecules, you will live in detail twenty years hence" (XVIII, 407). ^ For a eritieism of the endeavors to prove spontaneous generation, from Needliam to Pouehet, and a statement of the problem of life in its modern form, see Prof. E. A. Schafer, The Nature, Origin and Maintenamce of Life (Inaugural Address of the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science), 1912. -^B^ THE SCIENTIST 215 On another occasion, in 1769, after he had defended this same "paradox" of the eternity and the ubiquity of life and sentiment against his friend D'Alembert, he wrote down the Con- versation hetiveen D' Alemhert and Diderot, and imagined a Dream of his friend as a sequel or result of the conversation. D'Alembert talks in his sleep, imagining that he is still engaged in his discussion with " le philosophe " ; Mile de Lespinasse and Dr Bordeu watch over him, the former much puzzled by his incoherent talk, while the latter is extremely interested: "All beings circulate in one another, conse- quently all species. . . . Everything is in per- petual flow. . . . Every animal is more or less man ; every mineral is more or less plant ; every plant is more or less animal. There is nothing definite in nature. . . . And you talk of indi- viduals, poor philosophers! Leave your indi- viduals; answer me. Is there one atom in nature absolutely like another atom ? . . . I^o. . . . Do you not acknowledge that everything holds together in nature, and that it is impos- sible that there should be a gap in the chain ? What do you mean then with your individuals ? There are none, no, there are none. . . . There is nothing but one great individual, that is the whole. In that whole, as in a machine, as in 216 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT any animal, there is a part which you will call such or such; but when you give the name of individual to that part of the whole, it is through as false a concept as if, in a bird, you called the wing, or a quill on that wing, an individual. . . . And you talk of essences, poor philosophers ! Leave your essences. Consider the general mass, and if your imagination is too narrow to com- pass it, consider your first origin and ultimate end. . . . O Architas! you who measured the globe, what are you? A handful of dust. . . . What is a being ? . . . The sum of a certain num- ber of tendencies. . . . Can I be anything else but a tendency ? . . . l^o, I am going towards a goal. . . . And the species ? . . . Species are nothing but tendencies to a certain common goal of their own. . . . And life ? Life is a succession of actions and reactions. . . . Living, I act and react en masse. . . . Dead, I act and react in molecules. . . . Then I do not die ? . . . Ko, cer- tainly, I do not die in that sense, either I, or anything that is. . . . To be born, to live, and to pass away, are changes of form. . . . And what matters one form or another? Each form has the happiness and unhappiness that are its own. From the elephant to the gnat, . . . from the gnat to the sentient living molecule, the origin of all, there is not a point in the whole of nature that does not suffer or enjoy" (II, 138-140). Before this monistic system, in which the living cell was the origin and the composing THE SCIENTIST 217 element of all living forms, and life was admitted as existing, at least potentially, in all matter, the Cartesian theory of animal mechanism crumbled to pieces (II, 115) ; the identity of man's self was found to be based on memory alone, since his physical and psychological frame was in a state of constant transformation ; determinism reigned, and with moral liberty the notion of responsibility disappeared, so that a reform of the foundations of ethics became necessary.^- In other words, man ceased to be an exception in the universe; he was wholly reintegrated into the realm and under the laws of nature. He was shown to be merely a lucky ^'The Lettre d'envoi (IX, 252), subjoined to a lost version of the Dream, makes a few distinctions which unphilosophic minds are too prone to forget: Diderot beseeches his correspondent "not to judge him without meditation, not to make any extract from this shapeless and dangerous production, the publication of which would irretrievably destroy the author's rest, fortune, life, honor, or the just opinion that is entertained of his morals": "Eemember the difference between illicit and criminal ethics; do not forget that the honest man does nothing criminal, and the good citizen nothing illicit ; that there is a speculative doctrine which is not for the multitude, nor for practice; and that if, without being false, we do not write all that we do, so without being inconsistent we do not do all we write." 218 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT survivor, or rather a cunning, successful con- queror, in the great struggle that had begun since living forms had originated out of chaos. After listening for some time to the appar- ently incoherent Dream, Dr Bordeu remarks: " He has made a rather fine excursion. This is very high philosophy: systematic for the pres- ent, but I believe that the more man advances in knovrledge, the more this will be confirmed " (II, 140). It is indeed astonishing to find with what well-grounded confidence Diderot awaited the verdict of later ages : " I feel rightly, and I judge rightly," he wrote to Grimm, " and time in the end always follows my taste and my opinion. Do not laugh: it is I who anticipate the future and know its thought " (Dec. 3, 1765 ; XVIII, 475). He knew that, before his anticipations could be verified, and cease to be mere "opinions," much work had to be accomplished in botany, comparative anatomy, and geology. In the opening pages of his Elements of Physiology, he vaguely outlined some of the directions of future researches : THE SCIENTIST 219 "Beings. — One must begin by classifying beings, from the inert molecule, if there is any, to the living molecule, the microscopic animal, the animal-plant, the animal, man. " Chain of beings. — One should not believe that the chain of beings is interrupted by the diversity of forms; often the form is nothing but a deceiving mask, and the link which seems to be missing may exist in some known being, the true place of which has not yet been assigned by the progress of comparative anatomy. This way of classifying beings is very laborious and slow, and can only be the fruit of successive labors by a large number of naturalists. Let us wait, and not hasten to judge. " Contradictory beings. — They are those the organization of which does not agree with the rest of the universe. Blind Nature, which cre- ates them, exterminates them; it only allows those to subsist which are able to coexist sup- portably with the general order celebrated by its panegyrists" (IX, 253). How this elimination took place was the great question; Diderot between 1770 and 1780 gave the same general principle as in 1749 : the sur- vival of the fittest, through the adaptation of the organisms to the needs of beings (IX, 264). It should not be hastily surmised, however, that Diderot was a direct forerunner of Dar- 220 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT win. In the long succession of speculative thinkers and scientists who prepared the coming of Evolution,^ ^ he occupies an honorable place; he deserves credit for having anticipated in a striking manner the formulas of natural science in the nineteenth century ; and, while this credit should not be minimized, care should be taken also that it be not exaggerated. Under the direct influence of the works of some contempo- raries,^^ as well as that of Lucretius and the Greek Atomists, he for over thirty years inde- fatigably debated, within himself and with his friends, several ideas that attracted him be- cause they seemed to have some potential scien- tific value: the Empedoclean and Lucretian theory of the survival of the fittest, the eternity of organic molecules, the Lockian hypothesis of ^J. W. Judd, The Coming of Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1910; — H. F. Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin, N. Y., 1894. ^ All published in the period immediately preceding the composition of D'Alembert's Dream: Bonnet, Con- templations de la Nature, 1764, and PalingSnesie philo- sophique ou idees sur I'etat passe et I'etat present des etres vivants, 1768'; — Eobinet, De la Nature, 1766, and Considerations philosophiques sur la gradation naturelle des formes de I'etre, 1768; — lastly. Buff on 's transform- istie phase may be limited between 1761 and 1766, THE SCIENTIST 221 sentient matter, spontaneous generation, the Leibnitzian law of continuity, the reactions of functions on organs; in the end he evolved a transformistic theory clearer than any to be found in Maupertuis and Buffon, a system of plausible hypotheses which, although still in- tricate and sometimes self-contradictory, was at least more positive and more exempt from ludi- crous features than the cosmological fancies of Bonnet and De Maillet. It has been claimed that, for chronological reasons, this lucid expression of transformism by Diderot had been absolutely uninfluential on Lamarck. ^^ But enough has been said to show that, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, transformism as a general theory of life had become identified with the thought of the En- cyclopedic school. The agitation created by Diderot and his circle around that theory must have largely contributed to awaken the attention of Goethe in Germany, Erasmus Darwin in Eng- land, and Lamarck in France, to the necessity of throwing more positive light on that great ^ M. Landrieu, Lamarck, fondateur du transformisme, Paria, 1909. 222 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT issue. ^® Transformism only needed the partial scientific confirmation which Lamarck and Geoffroj Saint-Hilaire gave it in the first two decades of the nineteenth century to pass from the realm of systematic philosophy into that of scientific controversy. Lamarck, who was for some time the protege of Buffon, and in 1Y85 became a contributor to the Encyclopedie me- ^ Ch. Darwin, in the Historical Slcetch prefixed in 1866 to the Origin of Species, notes the curious manner in which similar ideas concerning the origin of species occurred to Goethe, E. Darwin, and Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire in 1794-1795. — Ch. Darwin had at first resented comparisons between his work and that of Lamarck (see his correspondence with Lyell) ; but in 1866 he wrote in his Slcetch (p. xiv) : "Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention. This justly-celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801 ; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his Philosophie Zoologique, and subsequently, in 1815, in the Introduc- tion to his Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Verte- hres. In these works he upholds the doctrine that all species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of aU change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition." It may be said, without in any way detracting from Lamarck's credit for having first scientifically formulated transformism, that the movement had been prepared for at least half a century by the Encyclopedists. THE SCIENTIST 223 thodique, edited by Naigeon and other friends of Diderot, eventually founded transformism when he subjected it to definite laws. Thus, in natural science, Diderot was not so much a disciple of English thought as a distant and very indirect forerunner of the most momen- tous revolution accomplished in science and philosophy in the nineteenth century by La- marck and Darwin. The idea by which he anticipated one of Lamarck's laws, the modifica- tion of organs according to the particular activi- ties of individuals, was a theme to which he often reverted in esthetic criticism, and which we shall have occasion again to consider: he called it the "metaphysics of drawing" (X, 307). Diderot as a scientist achieved little, and fore- shadowed a great deal. Had he been a specialist, had he known how to confine himself to mathe- matics, or chemistry, or natural science, he might have rivalled D'Alembert, or Lavoisier, or Buffon. But scientific achievements, as well as genius itself, are the fruits, as Buffon said, of " long patience " ; and Diderot's philosophic mind was essentially impatient. It always car- ried him, against Bacon's precept, above the 224 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT forest of particulars into the sky of generalities ; he had more of the "proud architect" in him than of the "patient artisan." Still, in this very incapacity substantially to increase posi- tive knowledge, in this instinct of the directions which scientific investigation was to follow in after times, he was not unlike Francis Bacon. With a sincere contempt for unfounded con- jectures and systems in science, and a strong belief that only through a patient study of con- crete reality can human knowledge be increased, both worked to destroy philosophic systems pre- vailing in their age, and at the same time began to frame the more positive systems that were to supersede them. CHAPTER V THE ENCYCLOPEDIST Francis Bacon, in a short work entitled Valerius Terminus of the Interpretation of Nature, had cautioned natural philosophers against the danger of excessive specialization: "... In particular sciences we see that if men fall to subdivide their labours, as to be an oculist in physic, or to be perfect in some one title of the law, or the like, they may prove ready and subtile, but not deep or suflficient, no, not in that subject which they do particularly attend, because of that consent which it hath with the rest. And it is a matter of common discourse of the chain of sciences how they are linked together, insomuch as the Grecians, who had terms at will, have fitted it of a name of Circle- Learning" (Sped., VI, 43). — This Circle- Learning, or Encyclopedic knowledge, was to become more and more necessary in the modem age, when specialization, with all the evils at- tending on it, has become a general and unavoid- 16 225 'J« 226 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT able practice, while the interest in natural phi- losophy, or science, has ceased to be the privilege of a few. As it is no longer possible to claim a knowledge de omni re scihili, like the famous Pico della Mirandola, or Cicero's ideal orator, works of general reference have steadily been increased and multiplied. Of course there had been no dearth of encyclo- pedic works or sums of human knowledge since Aristotle, especially in the thirteenth century, "the century of books bearing the significant titles of Summa, or Universitas, or Speculum."^ In the age of the Renaissance, a book bearing for the first time the title of Cyclopwdia had been published at Basel by Ringelberg in 1541 ; several others had followed, until Alstedius published his Latin Encyclopwdia scientiarum omnium (1630) shortly after Bacon's death. Works of this kind, brought up to date so as to include the latest results of scientific researches, ^ John Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopcedists, vol. I, p. 119. We are much inidebted to this author's excellent review of the encyclopedic idea before the eighteenth century, aa well as to H. Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe (vol. IV), and to the article "Encyclopaedia," in the EncyclopcBdia Britannica, 11th edition. THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 227 became more necessary than ever towards the end of the seventeenth century, when the acces- sions to human knowledge since Bacon and Alsted had been very considerable. The task, though greater, had then become easier. The acquisitions of the past were to be found in the early encyclopedias which had broken the ground; as for the later observations and dis- coveries, they were to be collected from a large number of learned periodical publications, which had their rise in Western Europe in the latter half of the seventeenth century. For instance, the Academy of Sciences of Paris, established in 1666, had by 1700 pub- lished ten volumes of Memoirs, mostly on mathe- matical subjects. The English Royal Society, which may be said to have arisen as early as 1645, '^ and which was incorporated in 1662, had begun on March 1, 1665, the publication of its Philosophical Transactions, in which obser- vations and experiments held a large place. The progress of knowledge was further advanced by the first scientific reviews: the Journal des Savants, begun in 1665 by Denis de Sallo, of 'H. Hallam, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 562. 228 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT the Parliament of Paris, and continued by Gallois ; the Giornale de Litterati (Kome, 1668), and the Giornale Veneto de' Litterati (Venice, 1671) ; the Leipzig Acts, begun in 1682; while many periodicals of general as well as scientific interest sprang up in the i^Tetherlands, espe- cially after the immigration into that country of a large number of learned French Protestants : the Mercure Savant (Amsterdam, 1684) was intended to supplement or to rival Vise's more literary Mercure Galant, but quickly met a suc- cessful competitor in Bayle's Nouvelles de la Repuhlique des Lettres (Amsterdam, 1684) ; Le Clerc, in Amsterdam, shortly after began to issue a series of learned periodicals, the Bihlio- theque Universelle et Historique from 1686 to 1693, the Bihliotheque Choisie from 1703 to 1713, and the Bihliotheque ancienne et moderne from 1714 to 1727. Lastly, in this period vast compilations appeared which aimed at embody- ing information of an encyclopedic nature from all these various periodical papers and transac- tions: Moreri wrote his Grand Dictionnaire historique as early as 1674; Baillet published his Jugements des Savants in 1685-1686, THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 229 Morhof liis Polyhistor in 1G89, Chauvin his Lexicon Rationale sive Thesaurus Philosoph- icus, much used later by Harris and by Brucker, in 1692. In the year 1694 appeared Thomas Corneille's Dictionnaire des arts et des sciences, an official supplement to the professedly untech- nical Dictionnaire de V Academic franqaise which had been rendered necessary by the publi- cation of Furetiere's Dictionnaire Universel (Rotterdam, 1690). Bayle in 1692 undertook to correct the mistakes of Moreri, but his under- taking resulted in the production of his very original and highly successful Dictionnaire his- torique et critique (1695-1696), the vast store- house from which French philosophers borrowed much throughout the eighteenth century to wage their warfare against dogmaticism. The English were no less active in the same direction than the Continental compilers. In 1704 appeared the first volume of a work which was less philosophical and historical than the compilations of Chauvin and Bayle, and was in purpose similar to those of Furetiere and Thomas Corneille: this was the " Lexicum Teclmicum, or an Universal English Dictionary 230 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT of Arts and Sciences, explaining not only the terms of art, but the arts themselves," by a fel- low of the Royal Society, John Harris.^ The second volume followed in 1710. It was prob- ably to adapt this book for French readers that the French Jesuits, who had printing worts at Trevoux, near Lyons, began in 1704 the publi- cation of the Didionnaire de Trevoux. The novelty of Harris's Lexicum lay in the fact that, while other compilations were either mere dic- tionaries, or else special encyclopedias which concerned themselves only with terms and names of history, or philosophy, or belles-lettres, or various sciences, this dictionary was universal in its scope, and claimed to define not only words, but things. John Harris in his Preface criticized the labors of his predecessors, to whom however he acknowledged that he was indebted to no small extent ; he had used, beside the periodicals and dictionaries enumerated above, special books of reference, like Ozanam's Mathematical Dictionary, the Physical and Chemical Dictionaries by Johnson, Castellus, Blanchard, and many other similar works. •London, 1704 and 1710, 2 vols fol. THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 231 This first of the modern practical encyclo- pedias or technical dictionaries enjoyed great popularity, having by 1736 run through five editions. But it was virtually superseded by another work of general reference which ap- peared in 1728, written by Ephraim Chambers, a free-thinker and scientist, who in 1729 was elected a member of the Royal Society. This book, like the Lexicum with which it was in- tended to compete, bore its programme on the title-page, as follows : " Cyclopcedia, or an Uni- versal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, con- taining an explication of the terms, and an account of the things signified thereby, in the several arts, both liberal and mechanical, and the several sciences, human and divine; the figures, kinds, properties, productions, prepara- tions, and uses of things natural and artificial; the rise, progress and state of things ecclesias- tical, civil, military, and commercial; with the several systems, sects, opinions, . . . among Philosophers, Divines, Mathematicians, . . . the whole intended as a course of ancient and mod- ern learning, extracted from the best authors, dictionaries. Journals, Memoirs, Transactions, 232 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Ephemerides, ... in several languages."^ It was practically the same universal plan as that of the Lexicum Technicum, but broadened, and improved in one particular : to remedy the more or less fragmentary aspect imparted to the work by the alphabetical order of the articles, Cham- bers had attempted "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 ; their connexion with which to be pointed out by a reference." This idea of combining the methodical with the alphabetical order, through the system of " references," was later taken up again in the Encyclopedie. The common fault of both Harris's and Chambers's universal dictionaries was obviously their comparatively small size: two folio vol- umes could not afford adequate space for the *LoBdon, 1728 (the preface is dated 1727); 2d edi- tion, 1738, 2 vols fol.; 3d, 4th, and 5th editions in 1739, 1741, 1746. — E. Chambers also published a translation (with P, Shaw) of A New Method of Chemistry, by H. Boerhave, 1727; — the Literary Magazine, London, 1736 and ff. ; — a translation (with J. MartyB) of The Philo- sophical History and Memoirs of the BoyaJ Academy of Sciences, Paris, London, 1742. THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 233 fulfilment of a j)lan of complete as well as uni- versal information. This appears to have been perceived by Ephraim Chambers. In the " Con- siderations " prefixed to the second edition of the Cyclopcedid, he informs his readers that he had planned an encyclopedia on a much broader basis than the first; some sheets of it had even been printed, when the printers were deterred from the undertaking by a bill then about to pass in Parliament, " containing a clause to oblige the publishers of all improved editions of books to print their improvements separately." It was doubtful whether one author working alone, however learned and industrious he might be, could henceforth prove equal to the task of summing up the whole of human knowledge. In spite of the great success of Chambers's Cyclopcedia, or because of it, an attempt was made by " a Society of Gentlemen " to bring Harris's Lexicum up to date, and to outdo Chambers in copiousness both in the text and on the title-page. In 1Y44 was published a "Supplement to Dr Harris's Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, explaining not only the terms in Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, . . . but also the 234 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT arts and sciences themselves, together with a just account of the Origin, Progress and State of Things, Offices, Officers, ..." etc., etc. ; " in all which . . . this book is of itself entirely com- plete, and more copious and extensive than any work of this kind, not excepting Mr. Chambers's Cyclopcedia, of which it is a very great improve- ment."^ This book was probably the outcome of a booksellers' war. It boasted 1,100 more articles than Chambers had, and bitterly attacked the Cyclopcedia: Chambers was accused of hav- ing pillaged the Lexicum Technicum, besides Chauvin's Lexicum Rationale and the Dic- tionnaire de Trevoux. It was alleged that this last compilation had supplied him with three fourths of his book. Whatever the indebtedness of the free-thinking English encyclopedist may have been to the Reverend Fathers of Trevoux, and through them of course to Harris and his predecessors, the partisans of John Harris should have borne in mind that the charge of plagiarism loses much of its weight when pre- ferred against a compiler. Universal informa- tion must needs be borrowed, at least in part; 'London, 1744, one vol. fol. THE ENCTGLOPEDIST 235 no man or society of men can invent everything anew for the purpose of writing an encyclopedia, and, as no work of this kind can claim to be complete and final, the main use of each encyclo- pedia consists in facilitating the production of later works of a similar nature, improved and augmented. The bibliography of the works which the authors of the Supplement acknowl- edged to have used was practically the same set of scientific periodicals and dictionaries which, growing larger as years went by, had been the common source from which Harris, Chambers, and many others before and after them freely drew. The continuators of John Harris, sorely af- fected by Chambers's success, pointed out in their Preface how the Cyclopcedia, with all its plagiarisms, had supplied a certain Grassineau with materials for a Dlctionn/iire de Musique (at that time, J.- J. Rousseau was contemplating a similar work), and the Chevalier Denis Coetlo- gon with An Universal History of Arts and Sci- ences, in English; many more books would doubtless appear of the same progeny ! It was indeed the next year (1745) that Diderot un- 236 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT dertook, on Chambers's plan, an Encyclopedie which was destined very much to obscure the fame of both Chambers and Harris. That a general taste for concrete, useful in- formation was prevalent in England during the first part of the eighteenth century, coinciding with the beginnings of the English industrial development, is sufficiently proved not only by the success of the Cyclopcedia, and the efforts of Chambers's rivals to win the favor of the public away from him, but also by the large number of other contemporary dictionaries which aimed at instructing in things as well as in words. Of these we need only mention, because Diderot used it, ''A New General English Dictionary, peculiarly calculated for the use and improve- ment of such as are unacquainted with the learned languages," etc., begun by the late Rev. Mr Thomas Dyche, completed by William Par- don, Gent.^ The French Encyclopedie, on its title-page, was declared to be "collected from the best authors, and particularly from the Eng- lish dictionaries by Chambers, Harris, Dyche, etc." 'Of this work we have seen only the 3d edition, Lon- don, 1740, 1 vol. 8vo. THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 237 Together with these English dictionaries and encyclopedias, the editor of the Encyclopedie naturally used French dictionaries, particularly that of Bayle. It has never been inquired whether he owed anything to Italian encyclo- pedias, like V. M. Coronelli's incomplete Bih- lioteca Universale Sacro-profana (lYOl-1706), or G. Pivati's Dizionario Universale (1744) and Nuovo Dizionario scientifico e curioso sacro- profano (1746-1751), which were published so shortly before the Encyclopedie. At any rate, he used some German compilations, similar in title and purpose to the works already cited, which had appeared during the same period: possibly J. Hiibner's Reales 8taats-Zeitungs und Conversations-Lexicon (1704), and J. T. Jab- lonski's Allgemeines Lexicon der Kilnste und Wissenschaften (1721), but certainly J. H. Zedler's G7'osses vollstdndiges Universal Lexicon Aller Wissenschaften und Kiinsten, begun in 1732, completed in 1750 in 64 volumes. As Diderot did not know German, the translation of the articles from the German, which were mostly on topics of chemistry, was made by an anonymous contributor (probably Grimm) who 238 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT is mentioned in the opening pages of the second volume of the Encyclopedie. Much was also borrowed by Diderot, as will later be shown, from Brucker's Historia critica philosophiw. Excepting this last work on the history of philosophy, it may be said that on the whole the sources of Diderot's information in the Encyclo- pedie, when it was not derived from his own observations, were mostly French and English. The various collections of Memoirs, Transac- tions, and periodicals which we have enumer- ated, several technical dictionaries, like that of Robert James for medicine, the historical or the universal dictionaries of Moreri, Bayle, Harris, Chambers, Dyche, lastly the works of Francis Bacon, which had just been published in the first collection that claimed to be complete (Black- bourne edition, London, 4 vols in-fol., 1730), served as the foundations of the most monu- mental work of the philosophic age in France. The eventful history of the Encyclopedie is well known. Two foreigners residing in Paris, John Mills and Gottfried Sellius, had in 1743 undertaken to translate Ephraim Chambers's THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 239 Cyclopwdia into French. Their work was com- pleted in 1745, and was announced as Encyclo- pedie ou Dlctionnaire TJniversel des arts et des sciences^ to be published by subscription in four volumes in-folio, and one volume for the plates and indexes. But Mills's ignorance of the French formalities relating to privileges for printing embroiled him in quarrels with his not over-scupulous publisher Lebreton, by whom eventually he was robbed of his translation and of the profit he might have expected from it. What use may have been made of this first trans- lation we shall try to ascertain in the discussion of the indebtedness of the Encyclopedie to the Cyclopwdia. The Abbe du Gua de Malves, a queer type of scholar and scientist, was for a time made the editor of Mills's translation ; but, failing to agree with his fellow-workers, he was finally compelled to resign. Then Diderot, who was still engaged in translating, with Toussaint and Eidous, Robert James's Medicinal Diction- ary,"^ was asked to edit the Cyclopcedia. He proposed a vast transformation of the scheme, ^London, 3 vols fol., 1743-1745; translated as Dic- tionnaire universel de medecine, Paris, 6 vols fol., 1746- 1748. 240 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT suggesting that all the most eminent Frenchmen in the sciences, arts, and literature should be invited to contribute to a large and very full Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire raisonne des arts et des sciences^ to be published by subscription in eight folio volumes, with about 600 plates. A privilege was obtained (1746), and the work was begun. Through many delays and perse- cutions, also because of the great extension of the undertaking as it proceeded, the first edition of the Encyclopedie was completed only in 1765, in 17 volumes in-folio; these were followed by 11 volumes of plates (1762-1772) containing 2,888 plates, then by a supplement in 5 volumes (1776-1777) with 224 plates. It is not within the scope of this study to relate in detail the difficulties which attended the publication of the Encyclopedie: the hostile intrigues of the Fath- ers of Trevoux, the imprisonment of Diderot in consequence of the publication of the Letter on the Blind, the suppression of the first two vol- umes of the Encyclopedie by the King's Council (Febr. 9, 1752), the suspension of the enter- prise by the Parliament of Paris (March 7, 1759), the shameless mutilation of the last ten THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 241 volumes by Lebreton, who was haunted by the fear of the Bastille, and the despair of Diderot, enraged by such treachery, have been dramatic- ally narrated by most biographers of Diderot. Diderot had undertaken all the articles relat- ing to philosophy and to the mechanical arts, beside the wearisome task of filling in whatever articles were not undertaken by any of the con- tributors. The less technical of these pieces have been collected and republished in his (Euvres Completes by Assezat and Tourneux (vol. XIII-XVII). Furthermore, he wrote a Prospectus of the Encyclopedie, while his friend and associate D'Alembert wrote a Preliminary Discourse. — Looking over these various contri- butions, we find in them a strong current of Ba- conian thought, particularly in the Prospectus, the Preliminary Discourse, and Diderot's article on " Art " ; the articles on the arts and crafts owe very little to English works, but many articles on miscellaneous subjects are directly borrowed from English sources; the articles on philosophy are to a large extent translated from Brucker's Latin History of Philosophy. Because their undertaking was known to 17 242 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT have owed its inception to Chambers's Cyclo- poedia, the two editors of the Encyclopedie seem to have been anxious to disclaim any indebted- ness to the English compilation. The great novelty of their encyclopedic plan consisted in having conceived the work as collective : the idea of mustering all the men of genius or talent of one age and country to produce an abstract of human knowledge, the philosophic and scientific testament of a generation, was Diderot's very own. Had it not been for this epoch-making innovation in encyclopedia-writing, the Encyclo- pedie would be of no more interest to us to-day than the translation of James's Medicinal Dic- tionary. The scheme offered great difficulties, and to some contemporaries it seemed impossible of achievement; but Diderot in his Prospectus (XIII, 129, n.) answered such doubts with Bacon's own words : " De impossibilitate ita statuo; ea omnia possibilia, et praestabilia censenda, quae ab aliquibus perfici possunt, licet non a quibusvis; et quae a multis con- junctim, licet non ab uno ; et quae in successione saeculorum, licet non eodem aevo; et denique quae multorum cura et sumptu, licet non opibus THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 243 et industria singulonim."^ With this great col- lective work in view, Diderot had found Cham- bers's dictionary, when he had looked it through in the translation (XIII, 131), very unsatis- factory in many respects. Chambers had bor- rowed " without discrimination and discretion " from many well-known dictionaries in the French language. His treatment of the mechan- ical arts was very insufficient; he was prone to discard their technicalities, and did not empha- size enough the importance of that branch of useful knowledge. His book had only 30 plates, whereas the Encyclopedie was to have at least 600; we have seen that eventually it had 2,888, and with the Supplement 3,112 plates. Lastly, Chambers in his Preface had given a table or "pedigree" of sciences and arts, in rather too concise a form, supplementing his enumerations with many " etcoeteras." Diderot pointed to D'Alembert's Discourse for a really valuable classification of human knowledge, based on Bacon's classification, which was not established •Bacon, De Augm. Sdent., Lib. II, cap. I, (Sped., II, 18'5). Diderot refers to p. 103, which shows that he was using the Amsterdam edition, 1662; he substitutes "mul- torum" for "publica." 244 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT according to the objects of the arts and sciences, but according to the mental faculties of man. The Encyclopedie followed the Cyclopcedia in excluding history from its scope, in allowing biography only in an incidental way, and in making frequent use of " references " in order to reconcile the methodical with the alphabetical order. Having escaped the possible charge of having performed a mere adaptation of Chambers's Cyclopcedia, Diderot and D'Alembert were ac- cused of having plagiarized Bacon. As far as their classification of sciences is concerned, this charge is plainly absurd. Diderot took the trouble to refute these malevolent suggestions in some Observations on the Chancellor Bacon's Division of Sciences joined to his Prospectus (XIII, 159-164). He had indeed written in the Prospectus: "If we have successfully emerged from this vast operation (of the classi- fication of sciences), our principal debt will be to the Chancellor Bacon, who sketched the plan of a universal dictionary of the sciences and arts at a time when there were not, sO to say, either arts or sciences. That extraordinary THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 245 genius, being unable to make the history of what was known, wrote the history of what should be learned" (XIII, 133-134). But now he had to show that indebtedness was not synonymous with a servile translation of Bacon's words. The truth is, that the two classifications of sciences illustrate in a striking manner the progress accomplished in the sciences between 1600 and 1750. The new division of medicine was from Boerhave ; the rather antiquated classi- fication of the physical sciences given by Bacon had been entirely recast; and the places of sev- eral sciences or arts, such as Music and Painting, put by Bacon under Medicine as belonging to the Science of Pleasure, had been altered. On the subject of the dignity of the mechan- ical arts, or trades, the indebtedness of Diderot to Bacon is obvious, and, far from attempting to conceal it, he emphasized it by many quota- tions from the English philosopher. Yet the relentless enemies of the Encyclopedie made the most of what he himself told them, and tried at once to spread the belief that his article on " Art," which he had sent as a specimen to the Jesuit Pere Berthier, of the Journal de Trevoux, 246 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT was copied verbatim from Bacon. A translation of a part of this article will show that Diderot, advocating with Bacon the necessity of bestow- ing more attention on the useful arts and crafts, in other words, of developing Applied Sciences by a closer alliance between the speculative and the practical activities of man, united in one strong plea ideas, examples, and quotations from various writings of the leading spirit of scientific thought whose authority he acknowledged : A distinction, he wrote, has early been estab- lished between the liberal and the mechanical arts. " This distinction, although well founded, has had a bad effect, in debasing some very worthy and useful people, and strengthening in us I know not what natural laziness, which was already impelling us but too strongly to believe that to apply ourselves steadily and constantly to experiments and to particular, material ob- jects of our senses was to derogate from the dignity of the human mind, and that to practise or even to study the mechanical arts was to stoop to things the research of which is laborious, the meditation base, the exposition difficult, the handling disgraceful, the number inexhaustible, and the value trifling. Minui majestatem m entis humance, si in experimentis et rebus particularir THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 247 huSj etc. (Bacon, Novum Organum).^ A preju- dice which might tend to fill the cities with proud disputers and useless contemplators, and the country with petty tyrants full of ignorance, idleness, and disdain. Not thus thought Bacon, one of the foremost geniuses of England; nor Colbert, one of the greatest ministers of France ; nor the sound minds and wise men of all ages. Bacon considered the history of the mechanical arts as the most important branch of true philos- ophy;^" he therefore took good care not to despise their practise. Colbert considered the nation's industry and the establishment of manu- factures as the safest wealth of a kingdom. According to those who to-day have sound no- tions of the value of things, the man who peopled France with engravers, painters, sculp- tors, and artists of every kind, who snatched from the English the secret of the stocking-loom, who took the velvets from the Genoese, the looking-glasses from the Venetians, did hardly less for the State than the men who beat its 'Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 83: "Minui nempe mentia humanse majestatem, si experimentis et rebus partieu- laribus, sensui subjectis et in materia determinatis, diu ae multum versetur: praesertim quum hujusmodi res ad inquirendum laboriosae, ad meditandum ignobiles, ad dicendum asperae, ad practicam illiberales, numero in- finitse, et subtilitate tenues esse soleant. ' ' — Same thought, in a slightly different form, in Cogitata et Visa (Sped., VII, 114) and in Filum Labyrinthi (Sped., VI, 427). ^"Nov. Org., I, Aphor. 29. 248 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT enemies and took their strongholds by storm; and, in the eyes of the philosopher, there may be more real credit in having given rise to the Le Bruns, Le Sueurs, and Audrans, in having had the battles of Alexander painted and en- graved, and the successes of our generals worked in tapestries, than there had been in vs^inning those victories. Put on one side of the scales the real advantages of the most sublime sciences and of the most honored arts, and on the other side those of the mechanical arts, and you will find that the esteem in which the ones and the others have been severally held has not been granted in a just proportion to those advantages, and that more praise has been given to the men who were busy in making us believe that we were happy than to the men who were concerned in causing us to be really happy. How queer our judgments are ! We require that people should be usefully employed, and we despise useful men" (XIII, 361). Then, in the spirit of the Novum Organum and the other works of Bacon " on the interpre- tation of nature," which, as we have seen, were at. the same time inspiring his own Pensees sur I' interpretation de la nature, Diderot suggests that a complete treatise of the mechanical arts should be vrritten : THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 249 " And let no one imagine that these are vain ideas which I propose, or that I promise chimer- ical discoveries to men. Having remarked, with a philosopher whom I am never weary of prais- ing because I have never grown weary of read- ing him, that the history of nature is incomplete without that of the arts, and having invited naturalists to crown their work on the vegetable, mineral, animal kingdoms, and so forth, by the experiments of the mechanical arts, the knowl- edge of which is of great importance to true philosophy, I shall dare add with him : Ergo rem quam ago^non opinionem, sed opus esse; eamque non sectce alicujus, aut placiti, sed utilitatis esse et amplitudinis immensce fundamenta}'^ This is not a system, nor a man's fanciful imaginings ; these are the verdicts of experience and reason, and the foundations of an immense edifice ; and whoever shall think diiferently shall seek to make the sphere of our knowledge nar- rower and to discourage men's minds. We owe to chance a large number of the things we know ; it has offered us many important things which we were not seeking: is it to be presumed that we shall find nothing, when we add our efforts to its caprice, and put some order and method in our researches ?^ ^ If at present we possess ^Cogitata et Visa (Sped,, VII, 140). A slightly different version is to be found in the preface of the Instauratio Magna (Sped., I, 210). "Bacon, On the Adv. of Learning (Sped., VI, 261- 262) ; Nov. Org., I, Aph. 7. 250 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT some secrets for which formerly no man was hoping, and if from the past we are allowed to draw conjectures, why should not the future have riches in store for us which we hardly expect to-day? Had anyone, a few centuries ago, told those who measure the possibility of things by the scope of their intellects, and who imagine nothing beyond what they know, that there is a certain powder which blasts rocks, which overthrows the thickest walls from amaz- ing distances, and a few pounds of which, enclosed within the deep entrails of the earth, shakes them, makes its way through the enor- mous masses which cover it, and may open an abyss in which a whole city could disappear, those people would not have failed to compare those effects to the action of the wheels, pulleys, levers, weights, and other known machines, and to pronounce that such a powder is chimerical, and that only lightning, or the cause which pro- duces earthquakes through an inimitable mech- anism, is capable of producing those frightful prodigies.^ ^ Thus spoke that great philosopher to his age and to all the ages to come. We shall add, to follow his example: How many silly arguments would have arisen concerning the project of that machine for raising water by " Directly from Nov. Org., 1, Aphor, 109-110, and less directly from Aphor. 129 and tlie Cogitata et Visa (Sped., VII, 134). THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 251 fire,^* as it was for the first time constructed in London, especially if the author of the machine had been modest enough to represent himself as a man of little skill in mechanics ? If the world was peopled only with such appreciators of in- ventions, neither great nor small things could be accomplished. Let those therefore who hasten to decide concerning works which imply no con- tradiction, which sometimes are merely slight additions to some known machines, and which at most require a skilled workman, let those who are so narrow-minded as to deem those works impossible be aware that they themselves know too little even to make reasonable wishes. The Chancellor Bacon tells them so:^*^ Qui sumpta, or what is even less pardonable, qui neglecta ex his quae proesta sunt conjectura, ea aut impos- s'lbilicb, aut yninus verisimilia, putet; eum scire debere se non satis doctum, ne ad optandum quidem commode et apposite esse" (XIII, 364-365). Reverting to the subject of the bright antici- pations of future progress in science which are warranted by marvelous discoveries in the past, Diderot again takes up three favorite illustra- " This is the steam engine invented by Capt. Thomas Savery (1698), described and illustrated by John Harris in his Lexicum, article "Engine." ^"Cogitata et Visa (Sped., VII, 135). Diderot adds "qui neglecta" to Bacon's text. 252 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT tions from Bacon :^^ "With the English philos- opher, I shall dwell on three inventions of which the ancients had no knowledge, and the authors of which (be it said to the shame of modem history and poetry) are almost unknown: I mean the art of printing, the discovery of gun- powder, and of the property of the magnetic needle" (XIII, 3Y0). At a time when the identity of lightning with the electricity gener- ated in laboratories was being demonstrated, and, as we have seen, the identity of magnetic and electric phenomena was at least conjectured, when chemistry as a science was coming into existence, and when, especially in England, most of the trades underwent those great trans- formations and improvements which brought about modern industrialism. Bacon's prophecies seemed more than ever pregnant with truth. The first steam engines, the mechanical looms, the improved methods of tillage, which were about to revolutionize English life, appeared as so many proofs of the beneficial results which Bacon had expected from the alliance of thought and "works," the natural philosopher and the ^"Cogitata et Visa (Sped., VII, 130) ; etc. THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 253 artisan, the scientific and the practical activities of mankind. Such is the broad significance of Diderot's enthusiastic praises of the mechanical arts, and of his unbounded admiration for Bacon. His article on "Art" concludes with a perhaps ill- advised invitation to the liberal arts to celebrate the hitherto despised useful arts, instead of singing their own praises for ever. Such philo- sophic poems have often been attempted, both before and since Diderot's time, with indifferent success. The encyclopedist further invited kings to protect the useful trades, according to one of the wisest traditions of the French mon- archy ; he begged the scientists not too readily to condemn inventions as useless, and asked the artisans to take advice from the scientists, to become communicative, so as not to deprive society of those valuable secrets which they might have chanced to discover, and not to be- lieve, on the other hand, that their respective arts had reached the utmost degree of perfection. The son of the skilled cutler of Langres was better fitted than any other man in France at that time to understand and to propagate the I 254 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT practical meaning of Bacon's message. While D'Alembert in the Discours preliminaire had paid a glowing tribute to Bacon as the master of true philosophy, that is, !N^atural Philosophy or Science, and had improved his division of sci- ences into a classification which stood unrivalled until Auguste Comte's, the indebtedness of Di- derot to Bacon, both in the Pensees sur Vinter- pretation de la nature and in the Encyclopedie (particularly in the article "Art"), may be summed up under two heads: practical advice for the advancement of scientific knowledge, and directions for the improvement of the practical arts of life. I^o man could be less inclined than Diderot to consider the practical side of life as mean or ignoble ; no man in his age showed more genuine interest in all that pertained to the mill and the workshop. In our age of technical schools and technical books, encyclopedia editors no longer have to turn into workmen for days together; but Diderot certainly enjoyed that practical side of his study of the mechanical arts. Withal he was not, any more than Bacon, a nar- row utilitarian. The applications of science, though very important in themselves, did not THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 265 seem to him more important than science itself : pure science, disinterested knowledge must re- main the common aim of all true philosophers. " The true way of philosophizing," to quote once more Diderot's very Baconian TAow^^^, "should have been and should be to apply the under- standing to the understanding; the understand- ing and experiment, to the senses ; the senses, to nature; nature, to the investigation of instru- ments; instruments, to the research and im- provement of arts, which would be thrown to the common people to teach them to respect philosophy." N^ow, English thought since Bacon had been, with few exceptions, essentially practical. The Royal Society for a century had worked along the lines indicated by the author of the Novum Organum, while the awakening of the industrial spirit had brought into being a large number of useful appliances and an ever-growing host of practical inventors. Indeed France had not been behind in devising new instruments and machines for the improvement of manufactures and the greater comfort of life : the products of 265 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT her industry in the eighteenth century were ex- ported into all parts of Europe, and still serve as models to manufacturers in the twentieth cen- tury. With all the secrets of the national indus- tries Diderot indefatigably tried to get a first- hand acquaintance. We might expect him also abundantly to have used English works regard- ing the progress of the arts and crafts in Eng- land. Unfortunately, works of that kind were scarce, and the contemporary English encyclo- pedias gave little or none of the practical infor- mation which he sought. Harris and Chambers had devoted more attention to the sciences and arts properly so-called, and had been content to give historical instead of descriptive accounts of the trades. An accurate description of the processes and the products of industry in all its branches was the want which Diderot made it his task to supply. We shall presently see, in a few concrete instances from the Encyclopedie, how he 'added the result of his original re- searches to the historical disquisitions of his predecessors. Eor the second part of his programme as con- tributor to the Encyclopedie, namely the articles THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 257 on philosophy, Diderot found little to satisfy him in Chambers. He went to Bayle and other sources; above all he borrowed largely, as we shall show, from a bulky Latin work by the Hanoverian Jacob Brucker, member of the Royal Society of Berlin: his Historia Critica Philosophice had appeared at Leipzig (1742- 1744) in four volumes (five tomes), with a "sixth volume" of Supplement in 1767. The work was dedicated to George II, "regi ac domino meo." Of course, our consideration of Diderot's indebtedness to Brucker will not be based merely on this allegiance so proudly acknowledged by the German historian of philos- ophy, but on the fact that much of the learning apparently derived by Diderot in his articles on philosophy from English works came to him through Brucker's book. To begin with Diderot's articles on the sci- ences, arts, and trades. Earlier in this chapter it has been seen how the article on " Art," which was printed separately in 1751 and launched as a specimen, after the Prospectus of 1750, was made original by Diderot's development of the 18' 258 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT section concerning " mechanical arts" imbued throughout with the spirit of Bacon. The treat- ment of " Agriculture " was in a similar man- ner enlarged and transformed, from the meagre, untechnical articles in Chambers on " Earth," " Soil," " Tilling," etc., by a liberal use of Jethro Tull's works,^^ first collected in one edi- tion in 1743. Diderot strongly advocated the Tullian method, praised Duhamel's work in the same direction, and invited the great and the rich to improve the agriculture of the king- dom by experiments. Voltaire and the Marechal de ISToailles were among the first disciples of Tull in France, and two years after Diderot's article had appeared the works of Tull were translated into French (1753). Another example will show how Diderot sup- " Jethro Tull (1674-1741) observed method® of tillage in France and Italy, 1711-1714; published his Horse- Hoing Susbandry, 1731; again, The Korse-Moing Hus- handry, or an Essay on the Prmciples of Tillage and Vegetation, 1733 ; replied to attacks in a Supplement to the Essay . . ., 1735; Addenda, 1738-; Conclusion, 1739. The whole was collected in a 2d edition, 1743; 3d edition, 1751; republished with alterations by William Cobbett, 1822. Two undertakings to translate his works into French were blended into one by Duhamel, from 1753 to 1757, with commentaries. THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 259 plied the absence of teclinical books by his direct observations^ Under, the article "Stocking," Chambers had mentioned the stocking-loom, discussed the French and English claims to its invention, giving the credit of it to a French- man, and concluded by stating that the machine was too complicated for description. This was characteristic of the deficiency of earlier encyclo- pedias which Diderot intended to remedy.^ ^ By him the stocking-loom was not so lightly dismissed : he went to see it, had it explained to him, learned to work it, then had its very numer- ous parts designed and engraved, and wrote a full article and the explanatory text of the plates. In substituting this thorough and pains- taking method of work for that of mere com- pilation, he was the initiator of all succeeding encyclopedias worthy of the name. For what " A quotation will show how startling thi& deficiency was, which had struck Diderot so much: "A frame or machine made of polished iron," Chambers had written; * ' the structure whereof is exceedingly ingenious, but withal exceedingly complex, so that it were very difficult to describe it well, by reason of the diversity and num- ber of its parts; nor is it even conceived, without a deal of difficulty, when working before the face." (Cyclo- poedia, article "Stocking-Loom,") 260 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT should we think to-day of an encyclopedia in which we found, for instance, a definition and a history of the locomotive, or the turbine, or the automobile, or the aeroplane motor, followed by a statement that such machines are too compli- cated to be described ? At other times, Chambers's articles are en- livened with unexpected additions of a philo- sophic nature which are Diderot's very own. Under the word "Aigle," Diderot faithfully transcribes the whole of Chambers's article "Eagle," treated from the point of view of ornithology and mythology; he adds some par- ticulars from Willoughby's Ornithology ; and, on his way, blending the wish to conciliate the temporal and spiritual powers of the land with a strong inclination to laugh at them in their faces, he relinquishes the bird of Jove and the fable of Ganymede to exclaim: "A hundred times happy is the people to whom religion offers nothing to believe but true, sublime, and holy things, nothing to imitate but virtuous actions! Such a one is ours, in which the philosopher needs but to follow his reason to arrive at the foot of our altars." THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 261 Chambers's humor occasionally ran in a vein comparable to that of Bayle or Voltaire. Speak- ing of " Butter," he notes that Schookius, De huiyro et aversione casei, has wondered whether Abraham knew butter, and, if he did, whether that was not precisely the food with which he treated the angels who came to visit him. Di- derot (article " Beurre ") found the whole piece too good not to be inserted, with Schookius's name and the title of his valuable book. Then he proceeded to give the more essential infor- mation which Chambers had neglected, namely, the methods in use for making butter. Some other curiosities, fraught with more scientific interest, also passed bodily from the Cyclopaedia into the Encyclopedie. Such for instance is the collection of cases of people who had swallowed fruit-stones, pins, etc., collected by Chambers (article "Swallowing") from the Philosophical Transactions. The article " Avaler " reproduces the English text and ref- erences word for word, yet with some puzzling inaccuracies : for instance, " a lad sixteen years of age," who was reported to have swallowed a needle which later came out of his shoulder, 262 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT unaccountably becomes "une fille agee de dix ans," and the " docteur Cbrist Weserton " is the French rendering of " Dr Christ. Wesenon," who had reported the case. In truth, these blunders and the reckless method of plagiarism which the most casual comparison of the Encyclopedie with the Cyclo- pcedia will suffice to lay bare are not exactly chargeable to Diderot. What is wholly bor- rowed from Chambers or some one else, and published by Diderot " as editor," not " as author," is marked with an asterisk; but how can the distinction be made between the editor and the author when, as is often the case, Di- derot adds long developments of his own to the borrowed matter? These developments gener- ally being of a technical nature, a strange result has occurred : what is really Chambers's text, in many articles, has been reprinted in Diderot's CEuvres Completes^ the reprint often stopping exactly where Diderot's own share, the tech- nical, begins. In the case of articles wholly or almost wholly taken from the Cyclopaedia, such as " Anagramme," " Avaler," " Beurre," " Ono- mancie," etc., Diderot may have been guilty of THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 263 negligence in allowing the membra disjecta of Mills's translation to find their way whole and unaltered, yet with inaccuracies, to the printing- j)ress. He may have been unable to collate them all, before or after printing, with the English original, if indeed he was always aware of their origin when he found them among his papers. Still, when every allowance is made for the difficulties of his editorial task, it must be acknowledged that he was naturally inclined to be as free a borrower as he was a generous lender. It is certain that, on subjects of minor importance, those mere curiosities of science, erudition, or history which had served to enliven joreceding encyclopedias, he never scrupled to copy English articles literally. In proof of this, a few examples will suffice. The article " Albadara " (the Arabic name of the sesamoid bone of the first joint of the big toe), containing medical cases which tended to prove that the amputation of that bone cured convulsions, is wholly taken from Kobert James's Medicinal Dictionary. On the sect of the Seekers (article " Chercheurs " ) , there is a free transcription from the French. Dictionnaire 264 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT historique of Moreri. The recipe for writing Pindaric odes (article "Pindarique") is liter- ally from Chambers, as well as the statement that Cowley is the best English Pindaric poet. Chambers's paragraph on the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, under the general heading " Society," supplies the material of the article " Propagation de I'Evangile," the spirit of which is unmistakably Diderot's, from the vehemence of a denunciation of the presump- tion and interference of missionaries in foreign lands, with which the article concludes, and of which there is not one word in Chambers. On the other hand, the English article on " Proph- ecy" is much bolder than the French article "Prophetic," which is inspired from it but evidently toned down. Another article bor- rowed from Chambers and much enlarged in the Encyclopedie may be said to have indirectly brought about the first outburst of persecution against that work, in 1752. Of "Certitude" Chambers had distinguished three kinds: the metaphysical, the physical, and the moral. Concerning this last, he had quoted some fig- ures from the Philosophical Transactions tend- THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 265 ing to show how the certainty of a fact was bound to dwindle to nothing through oral trans- mission, in a ratio corresponding to the number of successive transmitters. To this calculation, apparently dangerous for religious tradition, Diderot subjoined an extensive dissertation by the Abbe de Prades, his friend, combating both the English mathematician who had thus criti- cized the reliability of oral tradition and some of Diderot's sceptical Pensees philosophiques on the same subject. The friendliness between the philosopher and his orthodox opponent was obvious, and was soon after used to implicate both in trouble, on the occasion of De Prades's thesis in the Sorbonne. The article "Resurrection" in the Encyclo- pedie, though wholly taken from Chambers, yet bears clear traces of Diderot's hand. Chambers writes : " The great argument for the truth of Christianity, and that urged with the most force and conviction for the same, is drawn from the resurrection of Our Saviour. — The circumstan- ces thereof are such as almost admit of a demon- stration ; which, has accordingly been attempted on the strict principles of the geometricians. 266 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT See Ditton on the resurrection." This passage is followed by philosophic objections, rather strongly put, with replies to the objections, and a reference to the article "Identity," inspired from Locke. Diderot translates with a freedom that verges on inaccuracy, as will better appear in the French text: "L'argument qu'on tire de sa resurrection (de Jesus-Christ) en favour de la verite de la religion chretienne est un de ceux qui pressent avec le plus de force et de conviction. Les circonstances en sont telles, qu'elles portent ce point jusqu'a la demonstra- tion, suivant la methode des geometres, comme Ditton I'a execute avec succes." But all this orthodox emphasis is amply counterbalanced in the sequel by an equal or greater emphasis laid on Chambers's objections; a similar reference to the article "Identite" brings the reader to another less close borrowing from the Cyclo- pwdia. Many of the articles of Diderot on the me- chanical arts would show that it was his con- stant practice to start from the Cyclopwdia, to make a few additions on the way, and, when the technical part was too deficient in Chambers, THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 267 to enter into very full developments of his own. The articles " Email," " Carrosse," " Livre " are good examples of his method; let us con- sider his retouches in the last two of these. The article " Carrosse " has been partly reprinted in the latest edition of the (Euvres; the article " Livre " will be found in volume IX of the Encyclopedie. In " Carrosse," the historical in- formation is from Chambers (article "Coach"), the technical is by Diderot. To the legal Lon- don cab-fares, as established by Statute 14 Car. II — which becomes in French "le quatrieme statut de Charles II " — Diderot adds for com- parison the fares of public carriages in Paris. His practical mind leads him to suggest the appointment of an official to receive the fares and start the coaches, as a means of preventing the drivers from fleecing the public and de- frauding their employers. As Pascal in the seventeenth century had conceived the modern notion of omnibuses, Diderot in the eighteenth came very near an idea that is more modern still, that of taximeters. — The article " Livre " closely follows Chambers's article " Book." To distinguish a " book " from a " volume," a dis- 268 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT creet little advertisement is here inserted by Diderot: " UHistoire de la Grece de Temple Stanyan est un fort bon livre, divise en trois petits volumes/' The references of Chambers are copied, sometimes simplified, at the risk of misleading the reader. To the German boast, recorded by Chambers, of the excellence of their learned catalogues, Diderot retorts by giving an imposing list of French scholars. A blunder slips in which cannot be ascribed to Mills in the translation of the following passage : Cyclopcedia — "As flexible matters came to be wrote on, they (the ancients) found it more convenient to make their books in form of rolls " ; Encyclo- pedie — "Quand les anciens avaient des matieres un peu Ungues a traiter, ils se servaient plus commodement de feuilles ou de peaux cousues les unes au bout des autres, qu'on nommait rouleaux." On the other hand, it is hard to believe that Diderot could have been so ignorant or so careless as to translate Chambers's refer- ence " Vid. muv. Eep. Lett., T. 39, p. 427," by " Voyez la nouv. republ. des Lettres, tome XXXIX, p. 427." The models given by Chambers for bookkeeping are copied with THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 269 trifling alterations, but the main body of the article which follows this paragraph is more freely treated. To sum up, Diderot was right when he had written in his Pros'pectus: "Chambers has read books, but hardly seen any artisans; yet there are many things which can only be learnt in the workshops." These things Diderot spared no trouble to learn. For the rest, he mostly relied on Chambers ; all the articles or part of articles of miscellaneous information which he found satisfactory in the Cyclopaedia were appropria- ted by him, with very slight alterations, for the Encyclopedie. He may sometimes have used fragments of Mills's translation, with or with- out the knowledge of their origin. But there is enough evidence in his additions, emendations, and defective translations, that he often had re- course himself to the Cyclopaedia. The stricter views of our age concerning literary honesty may lead us to regret that in those cases the name of Chambers was not more often quoted in the col- umns of the Encyclopedie, and that the acknowl- edgment of the indebtedness of the French to the English work was almost confined to the 270 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT title-page. It should however be remembered that eighteenth-century ideas on this subject were broader than ours, for at that time the notion of literary property was hardly in exist- ence, especially in respect to works of this kind ; and of international copyright there was of course no question. Diderot's free method of dealing with infor- mation gathered by other people attracted in- deed some notice in his own age : not in relation to the Cyclopoedia, but to Brucker's Ilistoria Critica Philosophice , the substance and the lan- guage of which were more familiar to the learned. In 1773, the Nouvelles Litteraires of Berlin accused Diderot of having stolen his articles on the history of philosophy from Brucker's book.^^ He had acknowledged that he owed something to that " excellent work," as well as to the Histoire de la phUosophie by Deslandes (article "Philosophic"; (Euv., XVI, 280). But can such a passing reference be judged sufficient, when it is true that a large number of Diderot's articles on philosophy are "See M. Tourneux, Diderot et CatJierme II, Faria^ 1899, p. 527, note. THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 271 but extracts or abstracts from Brucker's j)ou- derous History? To begin at the verj beginning, Diderot had an article on the " Philosophic antediluvienne," discussing the thesis of some historians of philo- sophy who, probably for the sake of thorough- ness, had formed a philosophy of Adam and his progeny down to IToah. This, except a few ad- ditions, and a digression on the Essay on Virtue or Ment, is from one of the early chapters of Brucker. It seems to be, like Schookius's De Butyro, a topic adduced rather for the entertain- ment than for the instruction of the reader, as Brucker himself had been gay over it all. The article on Arabic philosophy ("Arabes — Etatde la philosophic chez les anciens Arabes") learn- edly quotes the names of Hottinguer, Pocock, Hyde, "le docte Spencer," and expatiates on the subject of Zabianism, or the worship of celestial bodies. It is a resume, luckily made lighter and almost readable, of Brucker's chapter " De phi- losophia veterum Arabum," down to paragraph 9 {Hist. crit. phil, vol. I, pp. 213-228), from which " doctus Spencerus " and his fellows have passed into the French. One cannot help remark- ing on the way that the unfortunate translator 272 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT turns " Islamismus " into " Islamime," mistak- ing a common designation of the Mohammedan religion for the name of its founder. Again, what the Encyclopedie offers concerning Chaldaic philosophy, the Mosaic and Christian philos- ophy (articles " Juifs" and "Mosaique"), and other less familiar fields of human thought, comes from the same source.^*^ In the examina- tion of the attempts made by some writers to reconcile Christian beliefs with rationalism, Brucker is more painstaking, Diderot more petulant. " Je ne sais ce que Bigot a pretendu . . . ," he exclaims impatiently (XVI, 125) ; and indeed nobody knows, except Bayle, who alone had read Bigot and been used by Brucker for information.^^ So that on the whole we come to wonder what Feverlinus, Glassius, Zeisoldius, Valesius, Bochartus, Scheuchzerus, Grabovius, etc., have to do with us and with an ^ For Diderot 'a articles on the ' ' Eomains et Etrus- ques," see Brucker, vol. I, pp. 342 ff., and II, pp. 7-70; — "Sarrasins," Vol. Ill, pp. 3 ff. (the poetical frag- ment from Sadi on p. 209) ;— "Chaldeenis," vol. I, pp. 102 ff.;— "CMnois," vol. V, pp. 846 ff.;— etc. ^Brucker, vol. IV, p. 614, declares tkat he relies on Bayle concerning Bigot's book, "ut hunc librum saepius quaesitum invenire non potuimus. ' ' THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 273 Encyclopedic designed to make learning popu- lar, especially when Diderot stops short in his enumeration to leave out the embarrassing name of "Bossuetus." In all these pages he follows Brucker ("Philosophia Hebrgeorum," vol. II, pp. 653 if., and "De Philosophicis Mosaicis et Christianis," vol. IV, pp. 610 ff.), to the end of his review of the principles of Comenius. Was it worth while to inform the readers of the En- cyclopedie of the existence of so many obscure writers, even for the sake of having a fling at Dickenson and Burnet because they had en- deavored to reconcile Genesis with modern science? Diderot's encyclopedic consciousness went at times a little far. It must of course be allowed that on such questions it was much better for him to adapt the work of a specialist to his own ends, and to make it readable to all, than to waste his time in a personal investigation of matters deservedly forgotten. But, when the question is about the greater schools or systems of philosophy, the situation is different. While there is hardly any disgrace in translating Brucker's Latin on such topics as the philosophy of Enoch, or of 19 274 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT the Jews after the Captivity ("Philosophia Hebrseorum post captivitatem Babylonieam nulla," we are told, vol. II, p. 653), or the systems of the Scythians, the Saracens, and the Chinese, it is hardly excusable in a professed philosopher to resort to the same method in relation to Eclecticism, Epicurism, Platonism, or the systems of Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Locke. * IS'ow, with the exception of the articles on Leibnitz and Spinoza, almost everything that Diderot writes concerning modern philosophy is freely compiled from Brucker. It often happens of course that original reflections usher in the topic treated, or are mingled in its de- velopment. But, for the biographies of philos- ophers, modern as well as ancient, it is Diderot's constant practice to translate Brucker in a cur- sory way, as he used to translate Shaftesbury, leaving out lengthy developments, tedious dis- cussions of authorities, and generally whatever would be of no interest to the average reader. Whenever also an abstract of a philosophy is given, in the shape of brief propositions (some- times, but not always, numbered), we are in THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 275 presence of Bnicker's own work, which in such cases always affects the form of short para- graphs. The only difference is, that Brucker regularly begins by outlining the life, then pro- ceeds with the system of a given philosopher; Diderot occasionally inverts this order, as in the articles " Eclectisme," " Epicurisme,"^^ but the substance remains the same. A more distinctive difference between Di- derot and Brucker is, that while the German historian is generally objective and impersonal in his estimate of philosophic systems, the En- cyclopedist perpetually tends to a very subjective kind of appreciation. For instance. Eclecticism with him becomes the philosophy of all sound thinkers, and is made synonymous with ration- alism and free-thinking; a confusion which proves useful for polemical purposes when he comes to relate the conflict between the Alex- andrine Syncretists and the early Christians, ^ These two articles are specially interesting in that they serve to expound Diderot's own philosophy in an indirect manner. Naigeon wondered whence Diderot had taken his material for the discourse in which Epicurus is supposed to develop his system (CEuv., XIV, 527, n.) ; it comes from Brucker, vol. I, pp. 1255-1315, and hints on modern Epicurianism are from vol. IV, pp. 503 ff. 276 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Hypatia and Cyril. In the same manner, the philosophy of the Romans and the Etruscans, or that of the Theosophists, affords good start- ing-points for vigorous outbursts against super- stition. Here, as in a hundred other passages in his works, Diderot uses the borrowed matter to make fresh developments from it, as a preacher starts from a text, or (to use a more appropriate simile) as a brilliant talker launches forth from a passing remark into an eloquent digression. In some questions connected with the history of philosophy, concerning which the prevailing orthodoxy did not allow of any latitude, Brucker, who we may assume was a sound Lutheran, was a safe refuge. The article " Jesus-Christ " would be exceedingly interesting to study as an illus- tration of the way in which the editor of the Encyclopedie managed, with his semi-orthodox German source of information, to comply with the duty imposed upon him to write in conform- ity with Catholic beliefs. In this case, Brucker's marginal titles, " Christiana religio philosophia sensu excellentiori," and " Jesus Christus utrum philosophus fuerit?" (vol. Ill, pp. 242-247) gave him the cue for the beginning of his arti- THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 277 cle, which for exoteric readers is reassuringly orthodox. But presently, when Christ and the apostles are denied the title of philosophers by Brucker, with an abundance of quotations to that effect from the Fathers and other authori- ties, Diderot does not fail to convey his esoteric meaning to such as are prepared to receive it, by means of those same quotations. One cannot help wondering how Brucker would have appre- ciated the use thus made of his learning; probably not any better than Saunderson's friends had appreciated the liberties taken with the religious beliefs of Saunderson in the Letter on the Blind. 0n the two great English philosophers whose influence, with that of Bacon, was paramount in the Encyclopedic circle, Diderot again uses Brucker's History. For Hobbes ( article " Hobb- isme"), he rather closely follows the Historia Critica Philosophice (vol. V, 145-199), con- cluding however with a return to the discus- sion of Hobbes's character, which introduces a curious parallel between the English philos- opher and Rousseau. The whole article betrays an evident sympathy for Hobbes's materialism. 278 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT veiled under an apparently scrupulous care in quoting his most startling propositions verbatim, and a strong feeling of repulsion for his moral and political theories. " Locke " is made the subject of a short article which is disappointing. A biography, abridged from Brucker, is followed by a brief review of three topics of Lockian philosophy with which eighteenth-century readers had grown familiar: the reduction of all the contents of the under- standing to sensation; the theory of education; and the admission that matter itself might be endowed with thought. On the first question, Diderot goes further than Locke; he chooses to ignore " reflection," the second source of "ideas" in Locke's Essay, and concludes that such of our ideas as have no equivalent in nature are vain and void of meaning. ^^ Hence may have arisen that scheme of a philosophical dictionary which *^A passage in the Paradoxe sur le comedien (VIII, 390) shows how deeplj rooted the idea was in Diderot that whatever has its origin in the mind only has no existence: "But since (that model) is ideal, it does not exist: now, there is nothing in the understanding which has not been in sensation." "That is true." It is easy to perceive why Berkeley's immaterialism grated so on his sense. THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 279 he later expounded in his Letters to Falconet (XVIII, 232), and which, had he been able to carry it out, he intended to offer as a monu- ment of gratitude to Catherine 11.^^ Locke's pedagogic ideas give Diderot the opportunity of sketching a plan for an education along " natural " lines which in several respects makes the reader think of the yet unpublished Emile of Rousseau. The discussion by Diderot of Locke's suggestion, that matter might think if it was so ordained by God, tends to prove that it contains nothing alarming for any established creed. Then the article stops very abruptly, and we cannot help suspecting that Lebreton must have curtailed it: for how could Diderot have foregone such an occasion of giving at least a few hints of his favorite theories on life and matter? One reason for the reverence in which Locke was held by the whole French school of mechanistic psychologists in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, from Condillac to Cabanis, is clearly given in the fol- lowing digression of Diderot concerning Locke's *• Locke seemed to call for such a work, In his Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book III, particu- larly Chapt. IX. 280 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT studies in medicine : " To write about meta- physics belongs only to the man who has prac- tised medicine for a long time; he alone has seen the phenomena, the machine quiet or furious, weak or full of vigor, sound or shat- tered, delirious or well-regulated, successively imbecile, enlightened, torpid, noisy, dumb, le- thargic, acting, living, and dead." The whole gist of the Rapports du physique et du moral, and generally of physiological psychology, is in that passage. Concerning Leibnitz and Spinoza, which are less important in this study, let us note that Diderot combined other sources with Brucker, his most usual because most copious reference. He copied abundantly from Fontenelle's Eloge for the biography of Leibnitz, but his bibliog- raphy of references is taken from Brucker (vol. V, 33 6-33 Y) as well as his abstract of Leib- nitzianism (vol. V, 398-446). For Spinoza, Brucker being very insufficient, he drew largely from Bayle, adding some objections of his own.^^ The article on Descartes is by D'Alem- '"John Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopcedists, I, pp. 228-233. The articles ' ' Philosophe ' ' and ' ' PhilosopMe, ' ' amusingly criticized in the same work, pp. 224-227, THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 281 bert. For Malebranche, Diderot once more laid Fontenelle's Eloges . under contribution, for Brucker had himself used them in writing his book. A curious instance of the way in which Di- derot drew from foreign sources, particularly from English publications, even the informa- tion which he might as well have gathered from French books, is supplied by his article on the "Zend Avesta." The French Orientalist An- quetil du Perron, on his return from long travels and studies in India, where he had sojourned from 1755 to 1762, had read before the Acad- emy of Sciences in Paris (May 1762) an ac- count of his voyage and a review of the works attributed to Zoroaster, copies of which he had brought back to be deposited in the King of France's Library. This paper, translated into English, was inserted in the Annual Register which the Dodsleys had begun to issue in 1758 (Ann. Reg., vol. V, 1762, Part II, pp. 101- exemplify the usual alliance, which sometimes turns into a conflict, between Diderot's propensity to speak his own mind and his habit of borrowing material on questions that may prove "dangerous." His abstract from Wolf on Philosophy does not seem to come from Brucker. 282 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT 127). Diderot retranslated this document from the English, only adding a more enthusiastic note to the praises given by the English re- viewer to Anquetil's devotion to science, and loyally acknov^ledging his debt to the Annual Register. This periodical, with its very miscel- laneous information, the natural curiosities and the practical ideas which it collected, must have been a favorite with Diderot. It is not improb- able that some years later it was not foreign to the composition of Diderot's Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage. On the whole, Diderot's indebtedness to for- eign works in the Encyclopedie seems to be much greater than is commonly supposed. If one takes up the volumes of his (Euvres com- pletes in which the late Assezat has collected his main encyclopedic articles, one will be sur- prised to notice how large a share they contain of borrowed material and mere translations.^^' ^ Only in the letter A of the Encyclopedie, * ' Abiens, ' ' " Abstinence des Pythagoriciens, " ' ' Asiatiques, " " Azabe-Kaberi, " "Azarecah," are from Brucker; " Acridophages, " "Adultere," and other articles men- tioned above, are from Chambers; "Aius Locutius" from Zedler; etc. THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 283 But there is nothing new or startling in this. It would be comparatively an easy task, and not so long as it appears, were it not beyond the purpose of this book, to trace similar borrow- ings from Diderot's originals to their predeces- sors, for instance from Brucker to Fontenelle, Bayle, etc., or from Chambers to the Dictionr naire de Trevoux, which in its turn had copied Moreri's posthumous edition by Basnage, Har- ris's Lexicum, and other dictionaries. The torch of encyclopedic knowledge had passed from man to man and from country to country for many years before Diderot took it up, and there is no doubt that it was considered more or less as common property, except by malignant critics. What would modern readers think if part of the Grande Eneyclopedie was translated without acknowledgment from the Encyclo- pcedia Britanmca, or if articles in the last Chanibers' s Encyclopcedia were copied word for word from the Didionnaire Larousse? How- ever strange this practice of wholesale borrow- ing may appear to us to-day, it must have been natural in the early age of encyclopedia-writing. In the case of Diderot, several other reasons 284 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT explain this conduct. He was, as we have already noted, inclined to borrow one, two, or more pages, when he thought them interesting, in order to weave them with his own disquisi- tions, with or without acknowledgment. On topics which were of little or no interest to him, like systematic philosophy, or questions which required an orthodox treatment, he willingly relied on someone else's authority. Lastly, the great haste and the secrecy with which the main part of the Encyclopedie had to be written, especially after the desertion of D'Alembert and of many contributors, the urgent necessity of completing in a short time a work for which the subscribers had paid in advance, and in which the fortunes of several booksellers were involved, compelled him to finish almost alone a task which to-day requires the work of hundreds of scholars and scientists. Then, in the last ten volumes which came out all together in 1765, Diderot discovered that Lebreton had cut out the boldest parts of many articles, and it is a safe surmise that these parts were in the major- ity of cases Diderot's original share in the articles. It is indeed unfortunate for him that THE ENCYCLOPEDIST 285 what is generally known as his contribution to the Encyclopedie, whether in the original text or in later reprints, is the least personal part of his encyclopedic work. His original work, on which he looked with some degree of pride, in that vast compilation which as a whole appeared to him a very un- satisfactory book, is of a twofold nature. It consists of the philosophic propaganda, " de- signed to change the general manner of think- ing," and the description of the trades. The reforming spirit, characteristic both of the age and the writer, brought about persecutions, but ensured a European popularity and a far- reaching influence to the Encyclopedie; it placed it in a class apart from all other dic- tionaries and encyclopedias, except Bayle's Dictionary. The department of practical knowl- edge, the popularization of the secrets of the arts, sciences, and trades, is more in conformity with the modern conception of encyclopedias, and it may be said to be altogether Diderot's own, for he was the first to make technical infor- mation rank higher in importance than mere erudition. Thus the practical pfert of his work. 286 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT though obsolete in matter to-day, is altogether modern in its conception; and the polemical part, which has no equivalent in later encyclo- pedias, will remain representative of the pro- gressive intelligence of an enlightened age. CHAPTER VI THE DEAMATIST Towards the end of his life, after he had seen the last volume of Supplements and the last volume of Plates of the Encyclopedie through the press, Diderot made a melancholy reflec- tion, in the course of his Refutation du livre d'Helvetius intitule L'llomme (1Y73-1774) : " Chance, and even more the necessities of life, dispose of us as they please; who knows this better than I do ? This is the reason why, for some thirty years, I have against my taste made the Encyclopedie, and written only two j)lays" (II, 312). He elsewhere remembers the needy years of his youth, when he managed to go to the theatre regularly (VII, 401), and when we may pre- sume that, like his friend Rousseau about the same time, he dreamt of forcing open the gates of fame by the short and uneasy way of dra- matic triumphs. While translating Temple Stanyan and Robert James for Aoney, he must 287 288 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT have begun to sketch plays. He had even thought of becoming an actor, and he tells us that for a time he had trained himself for that profession, reciting passages from Corneille and Moliere along the lonely walks of the Jardin du Luxembourg, even on the coldest days (VIII, 398). But it was not possible for Diderot to become interested in anything without first sub- jecting it to criticism and framing it all anew to his satisfaction. Thus an account of Diderot as a dramatist must deal more with theory than practice, with suggestions than achievements. 'No other part of Diderot's writings has given rise to a larger mass of studies and criticisms than his plays and his essays concerning dra- matic literature. The great interest which they have excited in European literature is due to two main facts: the novelty of their embodi- ment in one doctrine or system, which was sin- gularly in advance of the eighteenth-century French dramaturgy; and the relation which they bear to the theory and practice of the stage in England, before Diderot, and in Germany, after him. We shall of course be concerned not so much with the echoes which Diderot's ideas THE DEAMATIST 289 found abroad, particularly beyond the Rhine, as with the inspirations and examples which he received from the other side of the Channel. In the Bijoux Indiscrets (Chap. 38, "En- tretien sur les lettres"), Diderot had, some- what after the manner of Dryden in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry (1668), discussed in dia- logue form three great topics of criticism: the comparative merits of the ancient and the mod- ern writers; nature and the rules; the conven- tions of dramatic writing and acting. The first of these questions was already rather worn out in Diderot's age ; so he quickly dismissed it, satis- fied with a free imitation of Swift's Battle of the Books (Chap. 39, "Reve de Mirzoza") and a fling at the race of critics (p. 296). The other two topics, namely, the everlasting question of nature and art, and the deficiencies of the French classical stage, were going to exercise Diderot's critical faculty for many years. Starting from the old principle that only the true can please and move, and from the mistaken notion that the perfection of a play consists in imitating an action with such accuracy that the spectator is deceived throughout and fancies that he wit- nesses the action itself, Diderot blamed the com- 20 290 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT jplication and rush of French tragedies, the rant or wit of their dialogues, the artificial nature of their denouements. " And then," Diderot added, " did anyone ever talk as we recite ? Do princes and kings walk otherwise than a man who walks well ? Have they ever gesticulated as though they were possessed or raving mad ? Do princesses utter sharp hisses while they talk ?^ People say that we have carried tragedy to a high degree of perfection ; and I consider it a demonstrated fact that, of all genres of literature to which (the French) have applied themselves in the last centuries, this is the most imperfect" (IV, 283-286). In the Letter on the Deaf and Dumb (1751), Diderot tells us of an experiment which he used to make in order to ascertain how far the play- ers acted in conformity with the parts they held : as he knew the words of the plays by heart, he would stop his ears with his fingers, watch the gestures of the performers, and only listen when he was misled and confused by their action. "Ah! Sir," he concludes, "how few ^ See Moliere's satirical description of the fashionable way of playing French tragedy, as practised at a rival theatre, the Hotel de Bourgogne, in Impromptu de Ver- sailles, sc. 1. THE DEAMATIST 291 players were able to stand such a trial!" (I, 359). Of the player's art he would have said what the ancient orator said of the art of elo- quence, that the quality most to be prized in public speaking was action; the next, action; and the next, action. Action, Diderot thought, was in some cases superior to the highest reaches of eloquence or poetry. " There are some sublime gestures which all the resources of oratory shall never express. Such is the gesture of Lady Macbeth in Shakes- peare's tragedy. Walking in her sleep, she comes forward in silence (Act V, sc, 1) on the stage, her eyes closed, imitating the action of a person who washes her hands, as if hers were still stained with the blood of her king, whom she had murdered twenty years before. I know of nothing in discourse more pathetic than the silence of that woman and the motion of her hands. What a picture of remorse ! " (I, 254-255). To Voltaire, who, as Gibbon tells us, adhered to the artificial mannerisms of performance which were the tradition of the French stage, Diderot wrote, ISTov. 28, 1760, after the presen- tation of Tancrede: 292 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT " Ah ! my dear master, if you could see Clairon passing across the stage, half fainting in the arms of the executioners who surround her, her knees bending under her, her eyes closed, her arms falling stiff by her side, as though she was dead ; if you heard the cry that she utters when she perceives Tancrede, you would remain more convinced than ever that silence and pantomime sometimes have a pathos to which all the re- sources of oratory can never attain" (XIX, 457). This early taste of Diderot for theorizing about the dramatic art, that is, the art of the actor as well as that of the playwright, might have produced nothing but treatises and plans of reforms. Yet it was not likely that he would refrain from trying his personal skill in writ- ing, if not in performing, plays, while thus find- ing fault with the traditional repertoire and art of acting. It is not very easy to determine exactly when he began to write plays. Rosen- kranz finds no evidence that Diderot wrote for the stage before 1757, but endeavors to ascribe to him a drama entitled UHumanite, triste drome J par un aveugle tartare,^ possibly written ''Karl Eosenkranz, Diderot's Leben und WerTce, Leip- zig, 1866, vol. I, p. 268; he developed this point in THE DRAMATIST 293 in 1749, but first published in an unauthorized edition of Diderot's works in 1773. "This is not at all probable. Diderot's first dramatic attempt was Le Fils Naturel, but he was several years writing it, probably because the Encyclopedie left him but very little time for this kind of work. In an unpublished letter of Diderot to an obscure fellow-playwright, Antoine Bret, we have a proof that as early as 1753, and probably for a year or two before that, Diderot had been engaged in writing at least two plays; the one which he discusses with Bret seems to be Le Fils Naturel, which has an incident in common with one of Bret's plays, Le Jaloux, that was never performed.^ Diderot probably also wrote at a comparatively early date some of the dra- matic sketches now included in his works, and never had time or the inclination to develop them into plays. For instance his sketch en- titled Le Sherif, the plot of which is similar to that of Measure for Measure, yet without any trace of a Shakespearean influence, is said by Gosche's Jahrbuch der Literaturgeschichte, vol. I. See Assezat 's discussion of the same point in CEuv., VII, 5 ff. ^ This letter will be found at the end of the present work, Appendix I. 294 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Grimm (Dec. 1, 1769) to have been contem- plated inore than twelve years earlier, that is to saj before 1757. It was only in 1757, however, that Diderot published Le Fils Naturel ou les epreuves de la vertu, a comedy written in prose, in five acts; it was performed without success in 1771. To this play were appended some dialogues con- cerning dramatic theory, entitled Entretiens sur Le Fils Naturel: Dorval et moi. In 1758 he published Le Pere de. famille, also a prose com- edy in five acts, with a Discours sur la poesie dramatique; the play met with considerable suc- cess when it was acted in 1761 and 1769. " Diderot's theatre," it has been rightly said,^ " is now for us nothing but a commen- tary on his theories." As a matter of fact, his theories were partly intended as a commentary and defence of his plays. His unlucky efforts in play-writing have been very severely dealt with by critics, more particularly by French critics ; and indeed it is difficult to vindicate his * J. Texte, Introduetion to Extraits de Diderot, Paris, 4th edition, 1909, p. Iv. THE DRAMATIST 295 performances. But it would be unjust to deny that in dramatic theory he showed originality.^ Between 1750 and 1758, from two independent movements which tended, in France and in England, to substitute a new dramatic genre for the classical tragedy and comedy of the French seventeenth century, he succeeded in organizing for the first time into one dramatic system ele- ments which before him had been more or less scattered and disconnected. It is true that he was naturally inclined to consider as great nov- elties, nay, as his own discoveries, ideas which had already been expressed by someone else; but was it not because he had, according to his custom, harbo . ,?d those ideas long enough in his mind to make them fructify, and discovered some latent wealth or new values in them which their originators themselves had failed to per- ceive ? There was no need for him to give to any of his predecessors the credit of the philo- sophic generalizations which he had been the "* This negative view is to be found in F. Brunetiere, Evolution des genres, Paris, 1892 (2d edition), vol. I. pp. 152 ff. ; also in Ernest Bernbaum, in an unpublished thesis, Harvard University, on Sentimental and Domestic Drama in England and France, 1906. 296 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT • first to make. Yet, while lie claimed that he was about to renovate all dramatic literature, he was more eager than even his critics have been to point to precedents and confirmations of his theories in the theatre of the French, the English, and even the ancients. In or about the year 1753, as he tells us,^ Diderot, then forty years old, endeavored to frame for himself some philosophic notions concerning what we call the true, the good, and the beautiful. We have already seen how some years before he had begun to shape a system of positive ethics under the influence of Shaftes- bury, and to define, after Francis Bacon, the method by which scientific truth could be dis- covered. In both cases he had been emboldened, by English precedents as well as by the natural bent of his analytic mind, to criticize and reject the traditional elements preserved in religion and in metaphysical systems. Concerning the beautiful, we shall see in a subsequent chapter'^ ° VII, 390, the monologue of Ariste the philosopher (that is, Diderot) on the fundamental nature of our ideaa of the true, the good, the beautiful, nature, taste, etc. 'Chapter VIII, The Critic. THE DRAMATIST 297 what results he attained in his philosophic in- quiry and to what extent those results affected his criticism of art and literature. In the par- ticular theory of dramatic literature, which had early interested him, he proceeded in the same positive spirit as in ethics and in science : he found tradition insufficient, narrow, and arti- ficial ; he called for truth, nature, and morality, saw the possibility of a complete transforma- tion of the stage, and looked for confirmations of his ideas in the examples of some independent playwrights at home and abroad. This connec- tion between the dramatic theories and the general philosophic message of Diderot should be borne in mind, because it accounts for and justifies his belief in the originality of his system. Considered in this light, his dramatic system is primarily a reaction against tradition, and a philosophic attempt to forecast the future of dramatic literature, to outline the probable path of its development, at a time when the classical edifice of conventional rules appeared to be tottering to its fall. The substitution of a new dramatic ideal for the old naturally carried as 298 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT its corollary a reformation of the art of acting. Now, what was Diderot's relation to the general movement which had already begun in France and England towards the creation of a more "natural/' that is more realistic, kind of dra- matic literature than that of the classical age of France? What British dramatists did he extol as good models and worthy guides ? And to what extent was he influenced by his friend Garrick in his philosophy of the art of acting? The reaction against the classical or pseudo- classical tradition, in the history of which Di- derot was to occupy a prominent place, may be said to have had two distinct aspects before he came, in France and in England. In France, the growth of sentiment, la sensihilite, had affected the general character of comedy, caus- ing it to become less satirical than it had been with Moliere and Regnard, and to deal more with emotion and sentiment, with Destouches, Marivaux, and La Chaussee, until it received the paradoxical name of "tearful comedy," la comedie larmoyante.^ In England, meanwhile, * See M. G. Lanson 's Nivelle de la Chaussee et la comedie larmoyanie, Paris, 1887 (2cli edition, 1903). If in what follows we seem to claim for Diderot some of THE DRAMATIST 299 the increasing importance of the middle-class in the affairs of the nation and the consequent tendency of literature to become more democratic operated in conjunction with certain literary movements, like the reaction against the influ- ence of French classicism, the moralization of the stage, and the return to Elizabethan models, to produce a sort of tragedy of the middle-class, la tragedie hourgeoise. A common feature of both the French and the English movement, as of most new departures in literary history, was a wish to " return to nature," or rather to "return to truth," truth being understood as a close imitation of the reality that is nearest the audience. Were not mild emotions nearer reality, in an age of sentiment, than a satirical spirit castigating vice through ridicule? And were not the misfortunes of common people, in a democratic age, nearer the truth of life than the catastrophes which had befallen heroes and kings in mythology or history? The common element which is to be found in the credit which M. Lanson gives to La Chaussee as a dramatic reformer, it is because Diderot summed up in his system what had been done before him' abroad as well as in France, and exerted a wider influence. 300 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT the evolution of the French and the English stage during the early part of the eighteenth century, the analogy which the two movements bore to each other by their common tendency to depart from a certain dramatic tradition in order to give a more faithful representation of human actions, is obvious and was very early perceived. It may have obscured the essen- tial difference which separated the French and the English effort to disintegrate the neoclass- ical tradition: the French dramatists made in- novations in comedy only, for Voltaire had as it were monopolized the tragic stage, and would not hear of a "tragedie bourgeoise"; the Eng- lish, by a return to the Elizabethan tradition, produced examples of this middle-class tragedy which in the latter part of the century gave rise to the Drama. Two other considerations have contributed to introduce some confusion into this question : in the first place, the protest against the so-called Aristotelian rule^ which admitted of no common or mean characters and actions on the tragic stage had early been voiced in France by no less a playwright than Cor- " Aristotle, Poetics, Chap. XIII. THE DEAMATIST 301 neille;^" and, in the second place, the English stage, in the first two. decades of the century, had produced some moral comedies, which had to some extent influenced the plays of Des- ^'' Corneille, Dwi Sanche d'Aragon, Epitre dedicatoire a Monsieur de Zuylichem, had given in substance what Lillo, Diderot, and Beaumarchais later proclaimed: "Je dirai plua , . .: la tragedie doit exciter de la pitie et de la crainte, et cela est de ses parties essentielles, puisqu'il entre dans sa definition. Or, s'il est vrai que ce dernier sentiment ne s 'excite en nous par sa representation que quand nous voyons souffrir nos semblables, et que leurs infortunes nous en font apprehender de pareilles, n'est-il pas vrai aussi qu'il y pourrait etre excite plus fortement par la vue des malheurs arrives aux personnes de notre condition, a qui nous ressemblons tout k fait, que par 1 'image de ceux qui font trebucher de leurs trones les plus grands monarques, avec qui nous n'avons aucun rapport qu'en tant que nous sommes susceptibles des passions qui les ont jetes dans ce precipice; ce qui ne se rencontre pas toujours?" . . . "Et eertes, apres avoir lu dana Aristote que la tragedie est une imitation des actions, et non pas des personnages, je pense avoir quelque droit , . , de prendre pour maxime que c'est par la seule consideration des actions, sans aucun egard aux personnages, qu'on doit determiner de quelle espece est un po6me dramatique. " To be sure, even though Comeille does not think of "bourgeois" here, his thesis seems rather novel and paradoxical to himself, and he adds: "Si vous ne me pouvez accorder la gloire d 'avoir assez appuye une nou- veaute, vous me laisserez du moins celle d 'avoir passable- ment defendu un paradoxe." 302 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT touches ;^^ so that it has seemed allowable to trace the origin of the " tragedie bourgeoise " in French literature, and the first beginnings of sentimental comedy in English literature. But it remains true that neither Corneille nor any French dramatist after him had dared to intro- duce mere "bourgeois" as protagonists in a tragedy, and that, on the other hand, although the moral tone of English comedy had been raised by Colley Cibber and Steele under the influence of Jeremy Collier's pamphlet and of the general sense of propriety which began to prevail in the age of Addison, the aim of the English reformers had never been to replace the comic by the pathetic emotions, that is, pro- fessedly to write sentimental comedy. Thus, when Diderot began to write for the stage, the traditional separation des genres, the distinction rigidly kept by the French classicists between the comic and the tragic, was very seriously threatened in France by the admix- ture of sentimental and moral elements in comedy. ISTot that the " monstrous " Shake- "E. Bernbaum, op. cii., has attempted to prove that Destouches ia the originator of sentimental comedy in France. THE DRAMATIST 303 spearean alliance of laughter and tears, of clowns and kings, had. had any influence as yet : Voltaire had condemned it, it was abhorrent to all polished taste in England as well as in France, and the Romantic theory concerning the reflected beauties of " the sublime and the grotesque" was still far from all minds. But comedy was no longer essentially comic; and, for those who, like Diderot, looked to England for novelties of every kind, tragedy ceased to appear necessarily confined to kings, legendary heroes, saints, or historical characters. Some English writers, feeling more at ease than Cor- neille in forsaking the "tragoedia cothurnata, fitting kings," because they lacked no precedents in the dramatic tradition of their country, had taken tragic plots from real life, and characters from among " people of our own condition." Otway's Orphan (1680) was a sort of domestic tragedy said to be related to a fact; Rowe's Fair Peniient (1703) had staged "a melan- choly tale of private woes" which owed some- thing to The Fatal Dowry of Massinger and Field; and Southerne's Fatal Marriage or the Innocent Adultery (1694) had treated the 304 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' ancient theme which Tennyson later resumed in Enoch Arden}"^ These in turn served as prece- dents to the two English dramatists who, in Diderot's lifetime, again dared to invade the tragic stage with " moral tales from private life"; but Diderot gave them all the credit of the bold innovation, and established the belief that the originators of domestic tragedy were George Lillo, in The London Merchant, and Edward Moore, in The Gamester. The play of George Lillo entitled The Lon- don Merchant, or The History of George Barn- well, derived from a real story preserved in a popular ballad, had been performed with great success in London in 1731. Translated into French by Pierre Clement in 1748, it had a second edition in Paris in 1751, and in 1755 was incorporated in the Theatre bourgeois. From the Dedication of The London Merchant, it appears that Lillo was conscious of the com- parative novelty of his attempt in England: " Tragedy," he wrote, " is so far from losing its dignity, by being accommodated to the cir- "See A. H. Thorndike, Tragedy, 1908, pp. 271, 274, 285; and pp. 316-319 for wliat concerns Lillo and Moore. THE DRAMATIST 305 cumstances of the generality of mankind, that it is more truly august in proportion to the extent of its influence, and the numbers that are properly affected by it. As it is more truly great to be the instrument of good to many, who stand in need of our assistance, than to a very small part of that number. " If princes, etc., were alone liable to mis- fortunes, arising from vice, or weaknesses in themselves or others, there would be good reason for confining the characters in tragedy to those of superior rank; but, since the contrary is evident, nothing can be more reasonable than to proportion the remedy to the disease."^ ^ If the traditional kind of tragedy has proved effectual in fulfilling that moral function which for Lillo is the main utility of dramatic per- formances, why should we hesitate to make its field wider? "I have attempted, indeed, to enlarge the province of the gTaver kind of poetry, and should be glad to see it carried on by some abler hand. Plays founded on moral tales in private life may be of admirable use, by carrying convic- tion to the mind with such irresistible force as to engage all the faculties and powers of the soul '*We quote from A. W. Ward's excellent edition of Lillo 'a London Merchant and Fatal Curiosity, Belles- Lettrea Series, 1906, 21 306 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT in the cause of virtue, by stifling vice in its first principles." With this laudable end in view, Lillo was the first dramatist who made " a London 'Prentice " his hero since the distant time when Heyivood had turned four apprentices into heroes of chivalry and been ridiculed for it in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle (1611) ; but he knew that he had been preceded in the field of domestic tragedy by more recent playwrights, and he mentioned them in the Prologue to The London Merchant, which gives in abstract both the manifesto and the history of the tragedie hourgeoise : " The Tragick Muse, sublime, delights to show Princes distrest and scenes of royal woe; In awful pomp, majestick, to relate The fall of nations or some heroe's fate; That scepter'd chiefs may by example know The strange vicissitude of things below: What dangers on security attend; How pride and cruelty in ruin end; Hence Providence supream to know, and own Humanity adds glory to a throne. In ev'ry former age and foreign tongue With native grandure thus the Goddess sung. Upon our stage indeed, with wish'd success, You've sometimes seen her in a humbler dress — Great only in distress. When she complains In Southern's, Bowe's or Otway's moving strains. THE DEAMATIST 307 The brilliant drops that fall from each bright eye The absent pomp with brighter gems supply. Forgive us then, if we attempt to show, In artless strains, a tale of private woe." Etc." The venerable belief that art is subservient to morality, that poetic ornaments serve as a sweet coating for the bitter pill of the moral lesson, or as honey on the edge of the cup filled with a wholesome but unpalatable draught, had never been expressed with a stronger conviction than it is in the Dedication and the Prologue of The London Merchant, not even by that other " Lon- don merchant," Samuel Richardson. This seems to have impressed Diderot greatly. Already imbued through Shaftesbury with the idea of a close relationship between the good and the beautiful, confirmed in the notion that art should develop the principles of virtue by his worship for the virtuous Richardson, he was quite ready to initiate another worship (the natural form of his admiration) for George Lillo. In his treatise On Dramatic Poetry, ^^ we find him indiscriminately mingling in his praise Corneille's Cinna, Racine's Phedre, the episode of Clementina in Grandison, and scenes " The London Merchant, A. W. Ward edition, pp. 8-9. "Section xvii, Bu Ton; CEuv., VII, 365. 308 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT from The London Merchant, for their excellence in the subtle connections of the dialogue with the psychology of the characters. Take the farewell scene between Barnwell and his friend, he exclaims: Barnwell. — So far was I lost to goodness, so devoted to the author of my ruin, that, had she insisted on my murdering thee, I think I shou'd have done it. "' Trueman. — Prithee, aggravate thy faults no more! " ' Barn. — I think I shou'd ! Thus, good and generous as you are, I shou'd have murder 'd you! '"True. — We have not yet embrac'd, and may be interrupted. Come to my arms ! '^^ " We have not yet embraced : what a reply to, I should have murdered you ! If I had a son who felt no connection here, I should prefer him never to have been born. Yes, I should feel a greater aversion towards him than towards Barnwell, the murderer of his uncle." Elsewhere, in a review of a poem entitled Lettre de Barnevelt dans sa prison (1764) by Dorat, Diderot praised Lillo at the expense of his imitator, and, returning once more to the wonderful "Let us embrace," he said whim- " The London Merchant, Act I, sc. 5 (A. W. Ward, p. 98). Diderot's rendering of thia passage is free. THE DRAMATIST 309 sically: "I advise the man whose heart is not torn by these words to go and be thrown again by Deucalion and Pyrrha over their shoulders; for he has remained a stone" (VIII, 449). He charged his contemporaries to share his unbounded admiration : " Confess that The Lour- don Merchant is a sublime thing ! " To those who timidly objected " decency, propriety," he retorted by comparing the English drama with Greek tragedy, the despair of Millwood and Barnwell's tears of repentance with the frantic outcries of Philoctetes in Sophocles (VII, 95). His zealous propaganda bore some fruit. Dorat's epistle has just been mentioned; An- seaume in 1Y65 wrote a comic opera entitled L'Ecole de la jeunesse ou le Barnevelt frangais, — this Dutch name seemed more harmonious to French ears than " Barnwell " ; Sebastien Mercier in 1769 gave Jetineval ou le Barnevelt frangais; and in 17 Y8 La Harpe printed a Barnevelt in the first volume of his Theatre^ which was Lillo's play attenuated and revised according to the canons of classical taste.-' '^ " On these imitations, see F. Gaiflfe, Le Drame en France au XVIIle siecle, Paris, 1910, pp. 73-74. 310 DIDEKOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT The other English play in which Diderot found a germ of the " new poetics " that he was seeking, Edward Moore's Gamester, was more recent than The London Merchant: it had been performed at Drurj Lane in 1753, and pub- lished in the same year. Diderot, in his Con- versations with Dorval (1757), gave it as an excellent example of domestic tragedy; having no doubt praised it enthusiastically in conver- sation, he was urged by his friends to translate it and submit it to the Comedie Frangaise for performance.-^^ His translation, written in 1760, was neither played nor printed in his life- time ; it was published for the first time in 1819. But The Gamester was soon offered to the French public in another translation, by the Abbe Brute de Loirelle (1762), and in a poor imitation by Saurin, entitled Beverley (1768), which was successful on the stage. Even the mathematician D'Alembert was interested in this English drama, and translated the soliloquy of Beverley in his prison, of course with the ""They all want me to translate The Gamester, and give it to the Theatre Fran^ais." (To Mile Volland, Sept. 5, 1760; (Euv., XVIII, 448, 451, 461.) Le Joueur, drame, will be found in (Euv., VII, 417-525. THE DRAMATIST 311 alterations which French "taste" called for.^^ A short comparison between the original Gamester and Diderot's Le Joueur is instruct- ive, and to some extent entertaining, Le Joueur is a free translation, sometimes a mere para- phrase, especially in the passages which express violent emotions: here Diderot, who as a rule preserves the general tone of his original rather faithfully, almost always emphasizes the ex- clamations, lamentations, apostrophes to Heaven, les cris, as he would have said, which marked the more pathetic situations. ^"^ The philosopher and the man of sentiment also appears at times, to develop what Moore's rhythmic prose had briefly expressed ; so that it becomes difficult for the reader to discern what may have been written by the author of The Gamester and what by the author of Le Pere de famille: " Madame Beverley [who had just unmasked her husband's wicked friend Stukely]. — And there is a Heaven ! a God ! an avenger of crime ! a place destined for the wicked ! and the earth " Assezat, in Diderot 's (Euv., VII, 413-415. ** See for instance the scene of Beverley 's arrest (Joueur, Acte V, sc. 1, p. 503; — Gamester, 1753 edition, p. 67). Diderot preserved the exact order of the dialogue, but divided the acts into scenes after the French fashion. 312 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT does not gape open ! O God ! Thou wishest him to be abandoned to his own heart; I consent: Thou allowest him time; Thou wishest, before consummating his loss through hard-heartedness, to let him appease Thy wrath by his repentance. I subscribe to Thy will." [Be-enter LucyJ] "Lucy, follow me. Come, child, come and hear the wretchedness of thy poor mistress, and mingle thy tears with hers. Come; yet know, and do not forget, that good and evil come from above; that God has not turned His face away even from him who suffers undeservedly, that He sometimes strikes with most violence the one whom He most loves ; and that whether He gives affliction or prosperity, He always gives re- wards."^-^ In this tirade, which to English ears would have had the familiar sound of a sermon, Di- derot unconsciously violated that "propriety" ^ Thus Diderot (VII, 481), while the original is much simpler {Gamester, 1753, p. 50): "Mrs Bev. — Why opena not the Earth to swallow such a Monster? Be Conscience then his Punisher, 'till Heaven in mercy givea him Penitence, or dooms him in hia Justice. [Re- enter Lucy.] Come to my Chamber, Lucy; I have a Tale to tell thee, shall make thee weep for thy poor Mistress. Yet Heav'n the guiltless Sufferer regards, And when it most afficts, it most rewards. [Exeunt. }" THE DRAMATIST 313 commonly observed on the British stage which excludes references to God by name. On the other hand, the French literary " bienseances " were respected. This sentence of Moore's, for instance, referring to Beverley in his prison : " The bleak Winds perhaps blowing upon his pillow ! " was deemed intolerable, untranslatable, and was duly rei>laoed by a consecrated cliche: " De la paille est son lit, une pierre est son chevet."^^ Some parts of Diderot's translation reveal a good deal of haste and carelessness, and, one might add, an insufficient knowledge of every- day English. We have seen that, in spite of his reputation for English scholarship, he was more likely to be versed in the language of books than in that of conversation and corre- spondence. Thus in this translation it some- times happened that he missed the meaning of a whole sentence and became inextricably in- volved for having too hastily assumed that one important word in the sentence was familiar to him.^^ '^Gamester, p. 6&; Jmeur, Acte V, sc. 2 (VII, 505). ^ See above, Chapter V, p. 268. The two following examples fmm Le Joueur will justify the reservations 314 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT In spite of his admiration for The Gamester, Diderot conceived that its general effect might be improved bj some additions to, or compli- cations of the plot. We are not certain that he suggested to Saurin the awful "tableau" in which the gamester raises a knife over his sleep- ing children, a dramatic contrivance which contributed a great deal to the success of Beverley in Paris. But we know through wbieh we have made concerning Diderot's knowledge of English.— Gamester, p. 10: "Charlotte. — Cure her, and be a friend then. — Stukely. How cure her, Madam? — Char. Keclaim my Brother. — Stu. Ay; give him a new Creation; or breathe another Soul into him. I'll think on't, Madam. Advice I see is thankless." Le Joueur, I, sc. 5: "Char. Si vous etes d© ses amis, Monsieur, faites-le voir. — Stu. Comment, madame? — Char. En ramenant mon f rere de son egarement et en le rendant a sa malheureuse epouse. — Stu. J'entends, il faut que je refonde mon ami, ame et corps. Ce n/'est que cela que vous exigez? J'y penserai, madame. Mais en atten- dant, vous me permettrez de vous dire que je ne vols pas, dans le conseil que vous avez la honte de me donner, de quoi vous remercier et vous etre oblige." Again, in Gamester, p. 53^ the confusion of the un- familiar word "wainscot" with "waistcoat," and an imperfect underatanding of the verb "to sit down," produce an absurd result in Le Joueur, TV, sc. 3: "Stu. Tell me of Beverly — How bore he his last Shock? — Bates. Like one (so Dawson says) whose Senses have been numb'd with Misery. When all was lost, he fixt THE DRAMATIST 315 Grimm that Stukely's passion for Mrs Beverley, in Saurin's play, was of Diderot's own inven- tion, — an improvement similar to his suggestion of an encounter between Miss Howe and Love- lace in Clarissa.^^ On the whole, however, his appreciation of The London Merchant and The Gamester was deep, whole-hearted, and unfeigned. He nowhere expressed any criticism against those plays ; and whatever corrections he ventured to make were only intended to facilitate their success in a land where taste, according to him, was still his Eyes upon the Ground, and stood some Time, with folded Arms, stupid and motionless. Then snatching his Sword, that hung against the Wainscot, he sat him down; and with a Look of fixt Attention, drew Figures on the Floor. ..." Translation: " Stu. Mais ou est Beverly? . . . ou est-il? . . . Et sa derniere catastrophe, comment I'a-t-il soutenue? — Bates. Dauson m'a dit, comme un homme abasourdi. Lorsqu'il eut tout perdu, ses yeux s'attacherent k la terre. II demeura quelque temps ainsi, les bras croises sur la poitrine, immobile, stupide. Puis tirant son epee, qui etait accrochee a une des boutonnieres de sa veste, il se coucha par terre; et les regards distraits, 6gares, il se mit k tracer des figures avec la pointe. " It seems difficult to ascribe this blunder to mere carelessness, especially in such an im- portant instance of described "pantomine. " "See next chapter, p. 342. 316 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT absurdly narrow. He wanted to broaden the esthetic notions of art, nature, taste, just as in metaphysics he had called for a broader concep- tion of God : " Elargissez Dieu ! " Make art more comprehensive, more tolerant, more uni- versal; do not exclude as vulgar, cheap, con- temptible, emotions to which a large number of our fellow-men are responsive. Let the stage no longer be aristocratic, but popular, so that its appeal may be wider. This, as it seemed to him, in his ignorance of the Elizabethan tradi- tion, was what Lillo and Moore, with true Eng- lish "boldness," had done for the first time since the age of Sophocles. Boldness, a radical spirit of reform, a thor- ough-going plan to modernize the stage and rid it of the last patches and shreds of pseudo- Aristotelian criticism, was what playwrights before Diderot had lacked, and what Diderot meant to supply; hence the pompous, oracular tone with which he is sometimes reproached. There had no doubt been, since Corneille, some upholders of the moderns against the ancients. La Motte, Fontenelle, who had pointed to a dramatic ideal different from that of Classicism, THE DRAMATIST 317 while Destouches, La Chaussee, even Voltaire had departed from tradition with success. But "the theories of La Motte had not resulted in any work likely to live; Fontenelle's comedies had not been performed ; and on the other hand the plays which had met with real success on the stage seemed merely to have aimed at pleasing the audience, rather than at the conscious appli- cation of a new system of poetics."^^ But Diderot did not ignore what had been done before him in France to emancipate the stage, and, with all his admiration for the con- temporary English dramas, he once went so far as to claim for his country the honor of having initiated domestic tragedy, and the domestic novel as well, innovations of which the English had reaped the glory. This is what he wrote in 1762 concerning the unsuccessful Sylvie (1742) of Landois : " This is the first prose tragedy that ever appeared on any stage " — he forgot or did not know that The London Merchant had been produced eleven years earlier. " All preju- dices are braved together in it ; it is in one act ; ^'F. Gaiffe, Le Drame en France au XVIIle siecle, p. 154. On Destouches, Fontenelle, Marivaux, and their imfluenee, see in the same work pp. 29-30. 318 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' it takes place between characters of low degree, and is written in prose; this genre has given birth in England to The London Merchant and The Gamester; in Germany to Miss Sara Samp- son and Clementina; just as the novels of Mon- sieur de Marivaux have inspired Pamela, Cla- rissa, and Grandison. To us belongs the honor of having taken the first steps in those genres. It must be acknowledged that the boldness of the English genius has left us sadly behind. We find things ; and while prejudice, criticism, stupidity stifle them among us, the good sense of foreigners seizes them, follows them up, and produces masterpieces and originals."^^ The whole fragment from which this passage is ex- "^CEuv., VIII, 439, Pro jet d'vme Preface sent to Tru- daine de Momtigny, who had planned to publish in one volume Sylvie, The London Merchant, The Gamester, and Miss Sara Sampson. Diderot's inaccurate assumption that Landois had preceded Lillo in domestic tragedy is less material than his hint of an influence of Marivaux on Kichardsoni This erroneous idea, founded on some likenesses between the two writers, was echoed by Grimm, President Henault, Madame du Bocage, and asserted by Larroumet in his Marivaux (Paris, 1882) without suflS-cient proofs. Austin Dobson, in his Bichardson (English Men of Letters Series, 1902) has convincingly shown how independent Eichardson was of any French influence. THE DRAMATIST 319 tracted clearly shows how Diderot conceived the historical development of the parallel movements which in France and England seemed about to modernize and democratize the stage, and of which he wished to be the first complete theo- rist.^'^ In spite of the efforts of a conservative, pseudo-classic criticism " to defend good taste, the old rules, the ancient authors, our fathers, our masters, to stifle geniuses at their birth, to prolong by half a century the ennui of a nation, to stop art in its progress by idly strengthening its earlier boundaries, to pass to a bolder neigh- boring people the honor which an inventive nation would have had,""* he believed that the time had come for taste to become more tolerant, for the rules and masters to be respectfully set aside, for true pathetic emotions to replace ennui, and for new plays to be written after the models of Lillo and Moore. It would be neither appropriate nor possible to review and criticize here all the dramatic system "F. Gaiffe, op. cit., pp. 153 ff., clearly brings out Diderot's originality in this respect, against those who have been tempted to minimize or deny it. =»VIII, 441. The manifestos of Stendhal and Hugo hardly go beyond this. 320 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT of Diderot. The Entretiens sur Le Pits Naturel, in which he resorts to his favorite mode of ex- position, the dialogue, in settings of natural scenery which may be reminiscent of Shaftes- bury's Moralists, contain much that is intended to explain and defend Le Fits Naturel, together with plenty of criticism of the classical tra- dition of play-writing and acting, and occasional references to models or precedents in England and among the ancients. Diderot claimed that his subject was taken from life and used every possible effort to make his play appear like " a true story." He acknowledged the necessity of observing the three unities, " difficult to keep, but sensible," though he wished for a greater variety of stage-setting and a larger stage. He defined the tragedie hourgeoise in prose, as created by Landois, Lillo, and Moore. ^^ He ^ After paying homage to the Sylvie of Landois, Dorval apostrophizes Voltaire, as the only man whose genius could provide France with the domestic tragedies she lacks, and firmly establish the new genre. "But what will you call that genre?" he asked. — "Domestic, tourgeoise tragedy. The English have The London Merchant and The Gamester, prose tragedies. The tragedies of Shakespeare are half -prose, half -verse. The first poet who made us laugh with prose introduced prose THE DRAMATIST 321 emphasized the importance of gestures, or " pantomime," against mere discourse, and con- sidered the emotional value of realistic, pictorial effects (tableaux) as much greater than that of stage-effects or clap-trap (coups de theatre). Then, in the Third Dialogue, he defined his own innovation, which he called the genre serieux, tried to justify it by the example of Terence, and placed it between the comic and the tragic, distinct from both. In his usual fashion, he had acknowledged English masters only to try and improve upon them. The Fits Naturelj as well as the Pere de famille, could not be considered as belonging to tragedy any more than to comedy: hence the new class in- into comedy. The first wbo makes us weep with prose will introduce prose into tragedy. . . . Then we shall see, on the stage, natural situations which a certain sense of propriety, inimical to genius and great effects, has proscribed. I shall never be weary of crying to our French people : ' Truth ! Nature I The Ancients I Sopho- cles! Philoctetea! ' " (VII, 120). This passage gave rise to an idea long current in France, that The Gamester was by Lillo. Similarly, in Diderot's latest edition, the play entitled Miss Sara Sampson, rightly ascribed to Lessing in VIII, 439, n., is described as "an English play" in XIX, 75, n. 22 32-^ DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' vented by Diderot for tis two plays.^*^ But if the "serious" plays of this new kind are not designed to make the audience either "laugh" or "weep," if they are not to make any appeal to the emotions, it becomes difficult to see how they can be interesting on the stage. The great aim of these plays, like that of domestic tragedy, according to Diderot, was to give moral instruction, — a very undramatic purpose, to say the least. Whereas in the Bijoux Indiscrets Diderot had stated that a good play should tend to give the spectator the greatest possible illusion, he now asserted that the ob- ject of a dramatic composition was "to inspire men with love for virtue and abhorrence for vice" (VII, 149). This moral or utilitarian point of view was taken up once more and in- sisted upon by Diderot in his essay OnDrdmatic Poetry, in which the exposition of his doctrine is less hampered than in the Entretiens by '" TMs point ig lost sight of by A. Eloesser, Bos Biirgerliche Drama, p. 63^ when, in the course of his excellent discussion of Diderot's reform, he asaimilatea domestic tragedy with the "genre serieux. " In Dide- rot's mind (see the beginning of the Troisieme Entretien) they were very distinct kinds. THE DRAMATIST 323 apologies pro domo sua. The influences of Shaftesbury, Richardson, and Lillo now com- bined with the more definite moralizing pro- pensity which Diderot was acquiring in art criticism (his first Salon was for the year 1Y59). " Oh what good would accrue to mankind, if all imitative arts aimed at one common object, and some day concurred with the laws to make us love virtue and hate vice! It belongs to the philosopher to invite them to this : he must call on the poet, the painter, the musician, and urgently cry to them : ' Men of genius, to what end have you received gifts from Heaven ? ' If they hear him, soon the images of debauchery shall no longer cover the walls of our palaces; our voices shall no longer be the organs of crime, and taste and morality shall gain thereby" (VII, 313). This would then be the task of " serious plays " ; and Diderot had a rather indistinct vision of a sort of moral drama, later realized on the stage, yet with a good deal of the tragic element, in which such questions as duelling, suicide, and so forth, would be dis- cussed. In the course of the many precepts intended 324 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT for beginners which fill this essay, Diderot de- cisively condemns the use of versification in the plays to be written about the middle-class, for the middle-class: "I have sometimes wondered if domestic tragedy" — we may add: and com- edy, and the drama — "could be written in verse; and, without very well knowing why, I answered to myself, ISTo. ... Is it that this genre requires a particular style of which I have no notion? Or because the truth of the subject and the intensity of the interest do not admit of a language ruled by symmetry? Or because the condition of the characters is too near our own to allow of regular harmony?" (VII, 332). In this, as in many other parts of his theories concerning the plays of the future, Diderot was right. To sum up, Diderot's indebtedness to the two English plays which he so sincerely admired, and to which he so often referred the reader in his two main works of dramatic criticism, was quite considerable, though not in any respect very close. Without them, he would no doubt have written Le Pits Naturel and Le Pere de famille, connecting these plays with the new THE DRAMATIST 325 dramatic tradition created by the Sylvie of Landois, the Cenie of Madame de Graffigny, and above all the comedies of La Chaussee. But The London Merchant, which staged a fait- divers in true Elizabethan fashion, and The Gamester, which transposed into tragedy a char- acter study which Regnard had treated in a comedy, helped Diderot both to confirm and generalize his theory that everything in life could be made an object of dramatic imitation, and that of all concerns those most like our own would prove most interesting to us. They em- boldened him also to invade the hitherto sacred realm of French tragedy, and to ask for the creation in France of a tragedie bourgeoise similar to that of England. Although he did not set the example by writing one, but con- tented himself with a "genre serieux" which in spite of his assertions lacked dramatic inter- est, he at least advised, encouraged, and assisted a numerous school of young dramatists to intro- duce in France that new dramatic species which, for want of a better name, was called the drama.^^ " F, Gaiffe, in Le Drame en France au XVIII^ siScle, haa proved that Diderot's theories marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the French stage. 326 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT In this new kind of play, destined to become ex- tremely popular, prose alone was to be used ; ter- rible situations were no longer to be hidden be- hind the scenes, nor strong emotions suppressed ; the whole performance was to be made as " real " as possible, so as to penetrate the hearts of men with the stern, direct, and very simple morality which reality alone can give. Critics have blamed Diderot for not fore- seeing that he and his English models led the way to the inferior art of the melodrama. But they led the way likewise to some modern dra- matic forms which are as free from the cheap means which naturally enough were resorted to at first to move audiences, as from the classical artificiality which in his day produced nothing but ennui. Yet, even if the Diderotian refor- mation of the stage had produced nothing else than more or less crude melodramas, even if it had not been distantly beneficial to the stage in the romantic and in the realistic age, there is reason to doubt whether he would have blushed for his immediate progeny, the popular plays. From his philosophic, encyclopedic point of view, the masses with their easy emotions and THE DRAMATIST 327 their fondness for concrete shows were as inter- esting as the cultured, classes with their finer esthetic standards, and it was high time that the stage should offer to the Mimi Pinsons and the Margots some other sort of play than that which had delighted the Dorimenes and the Arthenices. As the theatre-going public was becoming more vast, there was no harm in making art more social and accessible. Indeed it is a great pity that the popular plays have for so many years been worthless from the literary standpoint; but only a Shakespeare has so far been able to please both the high and the low. Voltaire never agreed with Diderot concern- ing the reform of the French stage, but both were at one, and ahead of their time, in their great respect for the profession of acting. Di- derot insisted on the moral value of the theatre not only through a philosophic wish to justify it from Puritanic aspersions, to oppose the stage to the pulpit, and to substitute secular for religious morality,^^ but also to vindicate the =^ See VII, 108-109, and 369, where he goes so far as to suggest that governments might use the power of the stage to assist legislation. In the Lettres d Mile Jodin, he dwelt at length on the idea that the life of an actress need not necessarily be an immoral life. 328 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT dignity of the actor's art, long despised by the world and condemned by the Church. He was among the first to assert with emphasis that actors were not merely public amusers, but artists, men of genius. His acquaintance with David Garrick certainly influenced him here to no small extent. Only, whereas at first he had considered all artists, and particularly the artists of the stage, as exceptionally rich in sentiment, inspiration, or enthusiasm, and more deficient in reflective power than average men, he later reversed his judgment entirely, and, in the Paradoxe sur le comedien, demonstrated that the highest genius consisted in possessing the clearest consciousness of one's means of artistic expression. In 1757 and 1758, probably generalizing from what he found in his own temperament, and from a favorite theme of Shaftesbury, he had rather uncritically accepted the more ordinary, obvious conception of genius, what one might call its Romantic designation: "Poets, actors, musi- cians, painters, singers of the highest order, great dancers, fond lovers, the truly devout people, all that enthusiastic, passionate crowd feels in- THE DRAMATIST , 329 tensely, and reflects little "^^ (VII, 108). In 1770, having analyzed the current notion con- cerning artists and found it wanting, he promul- gated and defended the Realist's definition of genius :^^ he required the actor to have " a great deal of judgment," to be " a cold, tranquil spec- tator of human nature, possessing therefore much penetration, but no sendbilite whatever" (VIII, 345, 347). For why should the actor be different in this respect from the sculptor, the painter, the orator, the musician? It is not in the first inspiration, under the spell of some " fine madness," that they accomplish their best work. The new idea, the " paradox," came on Diderot with such force that, for fuller demon- *^ Comp. Shaftesbury, Charact., Moralists (J. M. Eobertson, vol. II, p. 129): "The transporta of poets, the sublime of orators, the rapture of musicians, the high strains of the virtuosi — all mere enthusiasm! Even learning itself, the love of arts and curiosities, the spirit of travellers and adventurers, gallantry, war, heroism — all, all enthusiasm ! ' ' This is a comment on a part of the Letter concerning Enthusiasm (vol. I, p. 38) ; see also Miscell. Reflect, (vol. II, pp. 175-180). ** Flaubert wiU say : * ' The less you feel a thing, the more apt you are to express it as it is, . . . but you must have the faculty of making yourself feel it." Letter to Mme X., 1852 (Corresp., Charpentier edition, vol. II, p. 82). 1 1 330 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT stration, he fondly digested it into a dialogue; this work, from internal evidence, appears to have been written in 1773 and revised in 1778. How can this striking change in Diderot's philosophy of the art of acting be accounted for ? It may be considered as conclusively proved that this volte-face was due to Diderot's ac- quaintance with Garrick,^^ in 1763 and 1764, In a Letter to Madame Biccohoni, written in defence of some of his statements on acting in the Discours sur la poesie dramnatique, which that actress had criticized, Diderot had repre- sented Garrick, whom he did not yet know personally, as a model of that "natural" way of acting which he thought French players lacked : " Here is an anecdote which the Due de Duras will relate to you much better than I can write it. He was a witness to it. You know by repu- tation an English actor called Garrick; some people were one day talking in his presence about pantomime, and he held that, even apart from all discourse, there was no effect that could not be expected from it. Being contradicted, he '^We think that this was first shown by Mr. F. A. Hedgcoek, in Garrick et ses amis frangais, Paris, 1911, pp. 173 ff. THE DRAMATIST 331 grew warm in the dispute; driven to an ex- tremity, he said to his contradictors, picking up a cushion : ' Gentlemen, I am the father of this child.' Then he opened a window, took his cushion, dandling, kissing, fondling it, and mimicking all the silly little ways of a father who plays with his child; but a moment came when the cushion, or rather the child, slipped from his hands and fell out of the window. Garrick then began to mimic the father's de- spair. Ask the Due de Duras what happened. The spectators were struck with such violent consternation and terror that most of them with- drew. Do you believe that Garrick was thinking then whether he was seen in the face or side- ways, whether his action was proper or not, whether his gestures were well compassed, his movements in cadence?" (VII, 402). In 1770, hestiam mugientem audiverat, Di- derot had seen and heard "the monster him- self," and had had another demonstration of the power of pantomime. This is how he spoke of his experience :^^ ^* In his ' ' Observations on a pamphlet entitled ' Garrick or the English Actors,' a work containing reflections on the dramatic art, the art of performing and the manner of playing of actors, with historical and critical notes on the various theatres of London and Paris, translated from the English" (by Antonio Fabio Sticoti, actor). This book, publisihed in 1769, was reviewed by Diderot 332 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT " I repeat that I shall not be swayed by the man who is beside himself, but by the man who is cool, self-possessed, the master of his own face, voice, actions, movements, and play. Gar- rick shows his head in a folding-door, and in two seconds I see his face pass quickly from extreme joy to astonishment, from astonish- ment to sadness, from sadness to dejection, from dejection to despair, and return with the same rapidity from the point where he is to the point whence he had started. Has his soul been able successively to experience all those passions, and, in concert with his face, to go through that sort of gamut ? I believe nothing of the sort " (VIII, 352). Though players are not willing to confess it, they do not act according to nature, but accord- ing to art ; their gestures, the varied expressions of their faces are all learnt by heart. Could anything more preposterous be imagined than a coordination of several individual sensibilities with a view to a dramatic performance ? Garrick had told Diderot that the art of acting Shake- speare had nothing in common with the art of acting Racine (VIII, 344, 364) ; it was alto- in these Observations, the first draft of the Paradox, for Grimm's Correspondance Litteraire (Oct. 1, Nov. 15, 1770). THE DRAMATIST 333 gether another set of principles. Garrick's great versatility, his ability to impersonate the most opposite characters at a moment's notice, was a proof of the degree of self-consciousness and self-mastery to which he had attained : " If you asked this celebrated man, who de- serves to be made the sole object of a trip to England, as much as all the remains of Rome deserve the trouble of a journey to Italy, if, I say, you asked him for the scene of the Little Baker's Boy, he played it for you ; if you asked him at once for the scene of Hamlet, he played it for you, just as ready to weep over the fall of his buns as to follow in the air the path of a dagger" (VIII, 382). With a profusion of reflections and examples, Diderot proceeded to show that the player did not and could not play from nature, but from an ideal model created by him in his mind. For this he again appealed to " his dear Roscius," as he called Garrick, in a glowing apostrophe: " I call you for my witness, English Roscius, famous Garrick, you who by the universal con- sent of all existing nations, are reputed the first actor they have ever known, pay an homage to the truth ! Have you not told me that, however strongly you felt, your action would be but feeble, if, for any passion or character you had 334 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT to express, you did not know how to rise in thought to the greatness of a Homeric phantom with which jou tried to identify yourself ? As I objected that it was not after yourself then that you played, confess your answer: did you not acknowledge that you took good care not to do it, and that the only reason for your appear- ing so wonderful on the stage was, that in the theatre you always showed an imaginary being which was not you?"^? (VIII, 396). It is probable that Garrick, while recognizing the necessity of working as a rule from "emo- tions recollected in a mood of tranquillity," had made some reservations — which should be the corrective part of the Paradox — respecting the occasions when the actor is carried away as well as his audience and shares in their illusion. Thus, as a conclusion of his Paradoxe sur le comedien^Diderot had found that " enthusiasm," la sensihilite, which he had formerly considered as the living flame which fed souls of genius, " In this connection Diderot also quotes, p. 421, from a letter in the St. James' Chronicle, the English actor Macklin, who, apologizing to the audience for daring to take up the part of Macbeth after Garrick, had ^id that "the impressions which subjugated the player and made him submissive to the genius and inspiration of the poet were very bad for him." Compare also Dr Johnson's boutade to Kemble quoted hereafter (Chapt. VIII, p. 431, n.). THE DRAMATIST 335 were elements of weakness in the accomplish- ment of any great work. " The man of senti- ment is too much at the mercy of his diaphragm to be a great king, a great politician, a great magistrate, a just man, a deep observer, and consequently a sublime imitator of nature." And he said in the same breath : " Besides, when I j)ronounced that sensibility was the character- istic of a good soul and a mediocre genius, I made a confession which was rather uncommon, for if Nature ever kneaded a sensitive soul, it was mine" (VIII, 408). There, it will be noticed in passing, was indeed Diderot's great weakness as a dramatist. If he failed in prac- tice, while his theories contained much that was valuable and gave him many disciples in France and abroad, it was because of his exuberant, romantic personality, which constantly burst forth in fits of moralizing and sentiment. His friend the Abbe d'Amaud told him once that while other dramatists identified themselves with their characters he on the contrary identi- fied all his characters with himself. He imag- ined them acting as he himself would have done in their plight, crying out, weeping, gesticulat- ing, discoursing, "not minding the audience any more than if it was not there," and sadly 336 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT • indulging in that most unpathetic of all human moods, self-pity.^^ He lacked objectivity, the gift of Realism in creation, the art of investing personal elements, subjective emotions vividly recollected, with that impersonal aspect vrhich makes them endure. At least he clearly dis- cerned once what his failing was and what his error had been; and there is reason to believe that to this error he acknowledged that his dramatic failures were due.^^ He may pos- sibly have remembered then the praise given in Aristotle's Poetics to Homer, whom he was wont to read so religiously : " Homer, deserving of praise for many other things, is especially to be praised because he, alone of all poets, knows what part to take himself. For the poet in his own person should speak as little as may be ; for he is not an imitator in speaking himself — avTov yap Set rov iroitjrrjv iXd')(^L(jTa Xeyeiv • ov yap ia-TL Karb. ravTa fiifirjrrj^;. — ISTow, other poets are on the stage themselves throughout, and their imitations are few and rare." "^''The less a suffering man complains, the more he touches me," Diderot wrote concerning the much admired group of statuary which in 1766 inspired Lessing's Laocoon (Pensees detachees swr la peinture, XII, 117). "' See, in VII, 311, his frank misgivings about his treatment of Le Fere de famUle. CHAPTER VII THE NOVELIST There is no reason to doubt that Diderot attached much more importance to his plays than he ever did to his novels. While his two plays were, as one might say, his main publica- tions besides the Encyclopedie, and appeared with all the pomp and circumstance of a dra- matic manifesto, his novels were published in a straggling manner between 1748 and 1830, some before his death, but the larger number post- humously. Not one among them carried with it any preface, programme, or critical essay — a singular thing for Diderot — and nowhere can any sign be found that the author had any inter- est in the value or the fate of his attempts in fiction. He very probably believed that as a genre the novel was susceptible of many new and useful developments ; but he never digested his thoughts on this subject, as he had done for dramatic literature, in some half-dogmatic, half- apologetic body of doctrine. There is, however, a fairly close relationship 23 337 338 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT' between Diderot's dramatic theory and his ideas concerning the novel. He was not inter- ested in the ancient form of romance, whether founded on the chivalrous notions of love and honor, as it had been revived in France in the seventeenth century, or on wonder and mystery, as it was being revived by his contemporary Horace Walpole; all this must have seemed as artificial and obsolete to him as classical trag- edy. ]^or did he seem to believe in the future of the picaresque novel, as he found it for in- stance in Le Sage and his English followers. Fielding and Smollett, any more than he be- lieved in satirical comedy. If we try to supply, from his appreciations on Richardson, the main features of what he would have con- sidered the ideal of the novel, this form should have essentially been like the drama, realistic, "bourgeois," and moral. In order to conform to " nature," or reality, the characters in a novel should be taken from the middle-class, the setting from modern surroundings, and the incidents from everyday life. To convey the moral in- struction which he was inclined to consider as the principal function of art, the novel should deal with some great topics of ethics affecting THE NOVELIST 339 all men, such as the duties of parents to their children and of children to their parents, the question of marriage, and whatever jDertains to the relations between the sexes. This realism in character-study and in de- scription, together with an omnipresent moral purpose, he had found in the novels of Samuel Richardson: Pamela (1740), Clarissa Harloivc (1748), and 8ir Charles Grandisoh (1754). These works had early been translated into French by the Abbe Prevost ; Pamela in 1742, Clarissa in 1751, Grandison in two parts in 1755 and 1757. Clarissa was translated also by Le Tourneur in 1758, and Grandison by G. F. Monod in 1756. Prevost had not hesitated to abridge and polish the English original : " I have suppressed or reduced to the common usages of Europe," he wrote in his Preface to Grandison,, "whatever in the manners of Eng- land might be shocking to other nations. It has seemed to me that those traces of the ancient British grossness, to which only the force of habit can still blind the English, would dis- honor a book in which politeness must go hand in hand with nobleness and virtue." Many tell- !t 340 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ing incidents were thus sacrificed as "low," "indecent," "too long and very English," or "revolting."^ Diderot must have read the novels of Richardson almost as fast as they appeared, while Prevost was engaged in giving those elegant adaptations of them. In a letter to Mile Volland (Oct. 20, 1760), Diderot writes that Clarissa had just been the occasion of heated discussions in the circle of Baron d'Holbach at Grandval : " Those who despised that work despised it supremely; those who prized it, as excessive in their esteem as the others were in their con- tempt, looked upon it as one of the highest achievements of the human mind. I have the book: I am very sorry you did not put it in your box. I shall not be satisfied with you or with myself until I have brought you to relish the truth of Pamela, Tom Jones, Clarissa, and Grandison" (XVIII, 514). One year later, Sophie Volland had perused at least Clarissa Harlowe, probably in the Eng- lish original; for we read that she had been greatly moved by the account of Clarissa's funeral, which the French translator had sup- ^ Quoted in J. Texte, J.-J. Bousseau . . ., 1895, pp. 195-197. THE NOVELIST 341 pressed out of respect for French taste, and which only appeared in French in 1762, in a Supplement aux lettres anglaises de Miss Clor risse Harlowe. " What you tell me concerning the funeral and the will of Clarissa," Diderot writes, Sept. 17, 1761, "I had also felt; it is but one more proof of the likeness between our souls. Only a little while ago, my eyes filled again with tears. I could no longer read, I arose, and began to grieve, to apostrophize the brother, the sister, the father, the mother, and the uncles, talking aloud, to Damilaville's great amazement, who could not make anything out of my transport and my speech, and asked me what I was after. It is certain that such reading is very unwhole- some after meals, and that you do not choose the right time; it is before a walk that one should take up the book. There is not one letter in wbich two or three moral topics could not be found for discussion" (XIX, 47). Shortly after, Sophie having probably related to Diderot some good action which she had per- formed, he replies (Sept. 22, 1761): "Well, there is a good effect of that reading. Now imagine that book disseminated over the whole surface of the earth, and Richardson will thus be the author of a hundred good actions a day. 342 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT • Imagine that he will do some good to all coun- tries, many centuries after his death." Rich- ardson had died July 4, 1761, a little over two months before this letter was written, and Di- derot was already thinking of writing an Eloge of him. In this same letter however he sug- gests how he would have improved the plot of Clarissa: had it been left to him, he tells Mile Volland, he would have contrived to bring Miss Howe and Lovelace face to face, in accordance with some hints given to that effect by Richard- son :^ " That petulant girl does nothing but talk : I should have liked to see her in action. Cla- rissa is a lamb fallen under the teeth of a wolf, she has nothing to protect her but her timidity, penetration, and prudence; Miss Howe would have been a better match for Lovelace. These two would have given each other much to do. ... If things had happened as I wish, Cla- rissa would have been saved. ... In order to save her I should not have been sorry to make her friend run a few risks " (XIX, 50). Sophie Volland did not approve of this suggestion, and " See Lettexa 24 and 34, in vol. Ill of Clarissa (vol. VI of the WorTcs), in The WorJcs of S. Bichardson, with Introd. by Leslie Stephen, 1883, 12 vols. THE NOVELIST 343 she certainly was right from the moral as well as from the artistic standpoint : for where would have the pathetic catastrophe been ? And what would the novel have gained ? A few more of those risque scenes, with their disgusting sug- gestiveness, in which Richardson, Diderot and their " age of sentiment " delighted, at the ex^Jense of a scene of lasting beauty, the tragic end of the heroine. Meanwhile Sophie Volland, her sisters, and her mother had further discussed Lovelace and agreed that it would indeed be a good thing if all men like him were to be killed. Thereupon Diderot, questioning the right of such executions even in the abstract, undertakes to defend the composite character of Richardson's libertine with great ingenuity (Sept. 28, 1761) : " That man Lovelace has a charming face, which really pleases you as it does everybody, and in your mind you keep an image of him which is truly captivating; his soul has some- thing noble, he has education, knowledge, all agreeable talents, agility, strength, courage; there is nothing base in his wickedness; it is impossible for you to despise him; you prefer to die a Lovelace, by the hand of Captain Mor- den, than to live a Solmes; in the main, we like 344 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT a half-good, half-bad individual better than an indifferent person. We trust our luck or our cleverness to make us foil his v^ickedness, and we hope to profit on occasion by his goodness. Do jou believe that anyone under the heavens could with impunity have dared to make Cla- rissa suffer a hundredth part of the injuries she receives from Lovelace ? It is something to have a persecutor who, while he torments us, protects us against all that surrounds and threat- ens us. And then, you entertain some presenti- ment that this man, who hardened his heart so much against another, would have softened towards you" (XIX, 55). The result of all these discussions concerning the works of Richardson and of the reflections which Diderot had made for some twenty years on the art of the English novelist is embodied in the famous Eloge de Richardson which Di- derot wrote some time towards the end of 1761, for publication in the Journal Etranger (Janu- ary, 1Y62), then edited by a great admirer of England, Suard. The unbounded admiration, often rising to a pitch of lyric enthusiasm, which pervades the whole of this piece, may seem unaccountable and paradoxical. But it must be remembered, first, that it was intended as a sort of funeral oration, in which adverse THE NOVELIST 345 criticism would have been a little out of place ; secondly, that Diderot's natural self was exag- gerated, that his normal speech always ran in superlatives, especially when the topic on hand was the " return " of art to nature and to virtue. Thus he threw down his thoughts on paper, "without connection, order, or premeditated design, as they were inspired to him in the tumult of his heart" (V, 212), trying only to express the meaning which the novels of Rich- ardson had for him and which he trusted they would have for posterity. He admired in Richardson a natural world, characters taken from the middle ranks of so- ciety, incidents and passions which are always and everywhere to be found. Richardson sows the germs of virtue in our hearts. He excells in giving voice to the passions and making peo- ple of all conditions speak each in his own way. He strengthens the feeling of commiseration for those who suffer. His so-called lengthy style is characteristic of true imitation : for it is by the multitude of common details that illusion is created; his clear vision of reality soars above the "petty taste" of the age. His characters are almost numberless, yet all so alive that the 346 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT readers cannot help discussing them as though they were real persons. The immeiise variety of nuances which he uses makes his fiction truer than history; his characters are not excep- tional and particular, but human and universal. His art is deep and hidden; Diderot has often read Clarissa in order to " train himself," and has forgotten his intention at the twentieth page (V, 221). Liking or disliking the works of Richardson, he concludes, is a good test of a man's inmost nature. " For me, the people who dislike them are judged, l^ever have I talked about them to any man whom I esteemed, with- out trembling lest his judgment should not agree with mine. Never have I met anyone who shared my enthusiasm without feeling tempted to hug him in my arms." Two ladies had had to sever their friendship, because one of them could not help laughing at Richardson, whom the other admired; and this latter wrote to Diderot : " I must confess that it is a great curse to feel and think as she does; so great, that I would rather see my daughter die at once in my arms than to know her to be thus cursed. My daughter ! . . . Yes, I have thought over it, and do not take it back" (V, 224). Between THE NOVELIST 347 the two attitudes which Diderot tells us his con- temporaries took towards Richardson, one of supreme contempt, the other of unbounded, "exaggerated" admiration, Diderot unhesi- tatingly chose the latter. He was conscious of its exaggeration, but, being convinced that the novels of Richardson were excellent both morally and artistically, he thought that exaggeration was no fault in a good cause. As some later critics have been tempted to react rather strongly against the worship of Richardson, it is better here to let Diderot himself speak, and explain his attitude: " By a novel, one had hitherto meant a fabric of chimerical, frivolous events, the perusal of which was dangerous for taste and morals. I should very much like another name to be found for the works of Richardson, which elevate the mind, touch the soul, are inspired throughout with love for the good, and which are also called novels.^ " All that Montaigne, Charron, La Rochefou- cauld, and Nicole have put in maxims, Richard- son has put in action. But a thoughtful mind, ^ The French word ' ' roman ' ' applies equally well to the two kinds of fiction called in English "novel" and "romance," while the French "nouvelle" is the "short story. ' ' This however is not very material for the trans- lation of this passage. 348 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' reading the works of Richardson with refliection, makes anew most of the maxims of the moral- ists, whereas with all those maxims he would not be able to make one page of Richardson. "A maxim is an abstract, general rule of conduct, the application of which is left to us. By itself, it does not impress any sensible image on our mind: but he who acts is seen, we put ourselves in his place or by his side, we grow excited for or against him; we enter into the part he plays, if he is virtuous ; we shun it with indignation, if he is unjust or vicious. Who has not shuddered at the character of a Love- lace or a Tomlinson ? Who has not been struck with horror by the pathetic and true tone, the look of candor and dignity, the profound art with which the latter impersonates all virtues ? Who has not in his inmost heart said that we should flee from society and take refuge in the depth of the forests if there were a number of such crafty dissemblers ? " O Richardson ! in spite of ourselves we must take a part in your works, we mingle in the conversation, we blame, approve, admire, are angry or indignant. How often have I caught myself crying out, as some children have done when they were first taken to a play : 'Do not believe him, he deceives you. ... If you go there, you are lost.' My soul was in a state of perpetual agitation. How good I was ! how just! how well satisfied with myself! After reading you, I was as a man is at the THE NOVELIST 349 close of a day devoted by him to doing good. In the space of a few hours, I had traversed a great number of situations, which the longest life hardly offers through the whole of its dura- tion. I had heard thie true discourse of the passions ; I had seen the mainsprings of interest and self-love play in a hundred different ways ; I had become the spectator of a multitude of incidents; I felt that I had gained experience. " This author does not shed blood beside wain- scotted walls; he does not take you into far- distant lands ; he does not expose you to the danger of being devoured by savages ; he never loses his way into the realms of fairyland. The world where we live is the scene of his action ; the matter of his drama is true ; his actors have all the reality we may wish for; his characters are taken from the middle ranks of society ; his incidents from the manners of all civilized nations ; the passions which he depicts are tHe same that I experience in myself; the same objects inspire them, they have all the power which I know them to possess ; the diffi- culties and afflictions of his characters are of th^e same kind as constantly threaten me ; he shows me the general course of things around me. Without this art, my soul, unwillingly accepting chimerical contrivances, would feel but a momentary illusion, and a weak, transi- tory impression. " What is virtue ? From whatever point of view we consider it, it is a sacrifice of oneself. 350 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT The sacrifice made of oneself in idea predis- poses one to self-immolation in reality. " Richardson sows in our hearts the germs of virtue, which at first remain there idle and dor- mant: they are hidden there until an occasion comes to make them move and germinate. Then they develop ; we feel carried to the ac- complishment of good with an eagerness that we did not suspect in ourselves. At the sight of injustice, we experience a revolt for which we cannot account. It is because we have as- sociated with Richardson, because we have con- versed with a good man, in moments when the disinterested soul lay open to the truth. " I still remember the day when the works of Richardson fell into my hands for the first time: I was in the country. What delicious impression that reading made on me ! At every passing moment I saw my bliss grow shorter by one page. I soon experienced the same sen- sation as men would feel who, bound by pleas- ant intercourse and having long lived together, might be on the point of separation. At the end, it suddenly seemed to me that I had re- mained all alone. . . . "He has left me in a state of melancholy which is pleasing and lasting; people some- times notice it, and ask me : ' What is the mat- ter ? You are not your natural self ; what has happened to you ? ' They inquire about my health, my fortune, my relatives, my friends. O my friends ! Pamela, Clarissa, and Grandi- THE NOVELIST 351 son are three great dramas ! Torn from that reading hj serions occupations, I felt an uncon- querable distaste for them ; I gave up the task and resumed Richardson's book. Take good care not to open those enchanting works when jou have any duties to perform. " Who has ever read the works of Richardson without wishing to know that man, to have him for a brother or for a friend ? Who has not wished him every blessing ? " O Richardson, Richardson, man unique in my eyes, thou shalt be my reading at all times ! Compelled by pressing needs, if my friend falls into poverty, if my mediocre fortune does not suffice to give my children the cares neces- sary for their education, I will sell my books ; but thou shalt remain with me, thou shalt re- main with me on the same shelf as Moses, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles, and I will read you by turns. . . .■* " I have heard my author reproached for his details, which were taxed with prolixity: how impatient those strictures have made me ! "Woe to the man of genius who oversteps the bounds prescribed by custom and time to the productions of art, and tramples underfoot the protocol and its fonnulas ! Long years *It was in 1763, according to Mnie de Vandeul, in 1765, according to Meister, that Diderot sold his library to the empress of Kussia, in order to provide a dowry for his daughter, who in 1763 was twelve years old. We are not aware that he then reserved this ' ' five-foot shelf. ' ' 352 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT shall pass after his death before he receives the just treatment he deserves. " Yet let "US be equitable. In the midst of a nation carried away by a thousand distractions, where the day is not sufficient with its twenty- four hours for the amus'ements with which people have grown accustomed to fill it, Rich- ardson's books must seem long. It is for the same reason that this nation already has no opera left, and that by and by only detached scenes of comedy and tragedy will be performed in its other theatres. "My dear fellow-citizens, if the novels of Eichardson seem long to you, why don't you abridge them ? Be consequent with yourselves. You hardly go to the performance of a tragedy except to see the last act. Skip at once to the last twenty pages of Clarissa. " Richardson's details are and cannot but be unpleasant to a frivolous, dissipated man; but he did not write for that man ; he wrote for the quiet, solitary man who has known the vanity of the din and the amusements of the world, who loves to dwell in the shade of some retreat and to feel useful emotions in silence. " You charge Richardson with being prolix ! Have you then forgotten how many troubles, cares, pains are required to succeed in the least undertaking, to end a law-suit, make a match, bring about a reconciliation ? Think what you like of those details ; but they will be interesting to me, if they are true, if they bring out the passions, if they depict the characters. THE NOVELIST 353 " You say, ' They are common ; they are what we see every day ! ' You are mistaken ; they are what takes place every day before your eyes and you never see. Take care: you are attacking the greatest poets under the name of Richardson. A hundred times have you seen the sunset and the stars rising, heard the fields resound with the loud song of birds; but who among you has felt that it was the noise of day which made the silence of night more affecting ? Well, it is the same with you for the moral as for the physical phenomena: the outbursts of the passions have often struck your ears; but you are very far from knowing all that is secret in their accents and expressions. Not one of them but has its physiognomy; and all these physiognomies succeed one another on one hu- man face while it still remains the same; and the art of the great poet and the great painter is to show you a fleeting circumstance which had escaped you. " Painters, poets, men of taste, virtuous men, read Richardson, read him constantly. " Know that on this multitude of small things the illusion depends: there is much difficulty in imagining them, much more in rendering them. The bodily gesture is sometimes as sub- lime as the word ; and then it is through all this truth in details that the soul becomes prepared for the strong impressions of great events. When your impatience has been suspended by those momentary delays which acted upon it as 24 354 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' a dike, witli what impetuosity will it rush forth as soon as it pleases the poet to break them ! It is then that, sunken in grief or transported with jo J, you will not have the strength to keep back your tears ready to flow, and to say to yourself : ' But perhaps this is not true.' Such a thought had been gradually removed farther and farther from you; and it is so far that it will not occur. "An idea which sometimes came to me while reading the works of Richardson is, that I had bought an old castle; that, exploring its apart- ments one day, I had seen in an angle a closet that had not been opened for a long time, and that on bursting it open I had found pell mell some letters of Clarissa and Pamela. After having read a few, how eagerly would I have arranged them according to their dates! How distressed should I have been, if there had been any gap among them ! Do you think that I would have suffered a bold (I had almost said, sacrilegious) hand to have suppressed one line ? " You who have only read the works of Rich- ardson in your elegant French translation, and who think that you know them, are mistaken. " You do not know Lovelace ; you do not know Clementina ; you do not know the unfortunate Clarissa ; you do not know Miss Howe, her dear tender Miss Howe, since you have not seen her dishevelled, prostrate over her friend's coffin, wringing her hands, raising towards heaven her eyes flooded with tears, fllling the house of the THE NOATELIST 355 Harlowes with her shrieks, and loading with curses all that ciiiel family; you are ignorant of the effect produced by those circumstances which your petty taste would suppress, since you have not heard the dismal sound of the parish bells, carried by the wind over the dwell- ing of the Harlowes, and waking remorse which lay slumbering in those stony hearts, since you have not seen how they shuddered on hearing the wheels of the chariot which bore the corpse of their victim. It was then that the mournful silence which reigned in their midst was broken by the sobs of the father and the mother ; it was then that the real torture of those wicked souls began, that serpents stirred in the depth of their hearts and tore them. Happy were those who were able to weep ! . . . "Richardson is no more. What a loss for literature and for mankind! This loss has af- fected me as though he had been my own brother. I carried him in my heart without having seen him, without knowing him otherwise than through his works. "I have never met one of his countrymen, or one of mine who has traveled to England, without asking : ^ Have you seen the poet Rich- ardson?' And then: 'Have you seen the phi- losopher Hume ? ' . . . " O Richardson ! if in thy lifetime thou hast not enjoyed all the reputation that thou didst deserve, how great thou shalt be among our de- scendants, when they see thee at the distance msBi I 356 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT from which we view Homer! Then who will dare tear a line out of thy sublime work ? Thou hast had more admirers among us than even in thj country; and I am glad of it. Ages, hasten to flow by, and bring with you the honors that are due to Richardson! I call to witness all those who listen to me: I have not awaited the example of other people to pay homage to thee; this very day I was bowed at the foot of thy statue ; I worshipped thee, trying to find in the depth of my soul words fitting the extent of my admiration for thee, and I could find none. You who glance over these lines which I wrote without any connection, design, or order, as they were inspired to me in the tumult of my heart, if you have received from heaven a soul more sensitive than mine, erase them. The genius of Richardson has stifled whatever genius I had. His phantoms constantly wander in my imagination; if I want to write, I hear Clem- entina's complaint; Clarissa's shadow appears; I see Grandison walking before me; Lovelace disturbs me, and my fingers let my pen drop. And you, sweeter apparitions, Emilia, Char- lotte, Pamela, dear Miss Howe, while I con- verse with you, the years of work and the har- vest of laurels pass by; and I advance towards my last t«rm, without attempting aught that might commend me also to the ages to come" (V, 212-227). This eulogy, in which a large element of sin- THE NOVELIST 357 cerity is strangely blended with "enthusiasm" and rhetoric, and in which a taste superior to traditional canons is occasionally deceived by an " almost fanatical admiration/'^ may well give rise to the question whether Diderot was not inspired by Richardson to write some work of fiction that might commend his own name to posterity. For Diderot very willingly imitated whatever he thought worthy of admiration, and, without meaning any disrespect to him, there was much in the good philosopher's character that reminds one of the self-confident and ver- satile Bottom : " I will play the Lion too ! " Indeed, far from stifling his inventive genius, the influence of Richardson seems to have urged him about 1760 to enter a path which he had not yet attempted. In saying this, we ignore those Bijoux Indis- crets of 1748, which are said to have caused their author much shame and regret in later years, as La Fontaine in his old age rued his licentious Tales. They belonged to a sorry class of writings, licentious for mere indecency's sake, to which every age and country has more ■* Leslie Stephen, The Novels of Bichardson, in the WorJcs of S. Bichardson, ed. eit., vol. I. 358 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT or less contributed. The medieval grossness of the original of the Bijoux, an anonymous " merry tale," was but thinly veiled in the more polished style of the eighteenth-century writer. If we once more mention here this pecJie de ieunesse, it is because the influence of that kind of writing is perhaps not altogether absent from Diderot's next work in fiction. This book, La Religieuse, was written in 1Y60 and left in an unfinished shape among the papers of Diderot. It was posthumously published by ITaigeon in 1796. It is in the form of a long letter, or memoir, supposed to be founded on facts:® it is the story of an unfor- * For the foundation, or rather the pretext on which the Btory was built, see the Preface-Annexe de La Eeligieiise (V, 175, with the note by Naigeon). Yet we may wonder whether the whole memoir of the unhappy nun was indeed nothing but a contrivance imagined by Diderot and his friends to interest the absent M. de Croismare and drag him out of his country seat in Normandy back to the circle of Baron d'Holbach. It is not improbable that the first suggestion of the story came from what Diderot in 1760 knew of the life of Mile de Lespinasse. The birth and the convent life of Sister Suzanne Simonin have much in common with those of Mile de Lespinasse: see de Segur, Mile de Lespinasse. We know that Diderot, if he did not think of D 'Alembert when he wrote Le Fils Naturel, at least thought of himself in composing Le THE NOVELIST 359 tunate girl, of illegitimate birth, thrust by her mother and her legal father in a convent, against her will, to expiate her mother's sin. Her ex- perience in the first two houses which she enters on trial, particularly in the second convent, under the authority of an abbess who is repre- sented as a real saint and an excellent woman, convinces her that she is not fitted for the mo- nastic life : not that she has any fondness for worldly life, or any kind of attachments in the outer world, but because her independent spirit loath'es the life of a recluse. Yet, having taken the veil out of a feeling of duty to her mother and self-sacrifice to her family, the persecutions which she suffers under a narrow-minded and ferocious abbess who succeeds her saintly pro- tectress induce her at length to ask for the re- scinding of her vows. This step, which was no simple matter in pre-revolutionary France, brings about a recrudescence of cruel treatment against the poor wretch. Taken to another con- vent, under the rule of an abbess who suffers from a nervous disease, she is made as miserable Fere de famille. He had a great propensity^ uncom- fortable to those who were acquainted with him, of staging himself and everyone he knew: see the Beve de B'Alembert, the play Est-il bon? est-il mechant? etc. 360 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' by this woman's affection as she had been by the other's cruelty. She escapes from this last establishment shortly after the mad woman's death, and her subsequent adventures, which lack a conclusion, are merely sketched in a few pages. This book "was undoubtedly an expression of the strong feeling of the Encyclopaedic school about celibacy, renunciation of the world, and the burial of men and women alive in the clois- ter.'"^ It was also a realistic, scientific study of the normal and abnormal psychology of hu- man beings living in seclusion. Richardson had described the dangers and miseries that may assail innocent and virtuous girls in the world; Diderot showed what misfortunes may befall them outside of the family circle and so- ciety, in houses intended as refuges from the temptations and wickedness of the world. Suzanne Simonin, the Nun, presents some features which remind the reader of Clarissa, Pamela, and sometimes perhaps of the unhappy Clementina. Like the first two of Richardson's ^J. Morley, Diderot . . ., vol. II, p. 32. On tMs sub- ject, Diderot hadi expressed himself strongly in the articles "Celibat" and "Passager" of the Encyclopedie. THE NOVELIST 361 heroines, she is bkssed with very many gifts of soul and body, of which she is not altogether unconscious. When, in a state of dazed de- spair, she first dons the monastic habit, she is still able to hear without displeasure the compli- mentary remarks of the other nuns on her out- ward appearance ; " ' Just look, sister, how beautiful she is ! how that black veil enhances the whiteness of her complexion ! how well that band suits her ! how it rounds off her face ! how it expands her cheeks! how that habit fits her waist and her arms !'...! hardly listened to them ; I was desolate ; however, I must confess that, when I was alone in my cell, I recollected their flatteries ; I could not help verifying them in my little looking-glass ; and it seemed to me that they were not altogether undeserved."^ Like Clarissa, she has been treated by her fam- ily with a harshness that her merits have not been able to disarm, but have rather increased. The initial motives of this exceptional treat- ment are in both cases financial considerations and a marriage transaction, to which is added, ' V, 15. Compare the innocent, naive coquetry of Pamela, in WorTcs of S. Richardson, ed. eit., vol. I, pp. 42, 53, etc. 362 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT for Diderot's heroine, the mystery of an irregu- lar birth later imravelled by her. "My father was a barrister. He had mar- ried my mother when he was somewhat ad- vanced in years ; by her he had three daughters. He had a greater fortune than was necessary to settle them comfortably; but in order to do that he should at least have divided his love equally between us, and I am far from being able to give his love this praise. I certainly excelled my sisters in wit and looks, in temper and talents ; and it seemed as though my parents were grieved by this. As all the advantages which nature and application had given me over them became for me a source of sorrows, from my earliest years I wished to resemble them, in order always to be loved, petted, fondled, ex- cused as they were. If someone happened to tell my mother that 'she had charming chil- dren,' that was never meant for me. I was sometimes well revenged for that injustice ; but the praises which I had received cost me so dear as soon as we were alone, that I should have pre- ferred indifference or even insults; the greater the preference which strangers had shown for me, the bitterer the ill-humor from which I suf- fered after they had gone. Oh ! how often have I cried for not having been born ugly, silly, stupid, proud; in a word, with all the faults THE NOVELIST 363 which made them successful with my parents ! "® (V, 11-12). As the three girls grow up, marriage is thought of, and suitors appear. " My eldest sister was courted by a charming young man ; I soon per- ceived that he was taking notice of me, and I guessed that presently my sister would be but a i^retext for his attentions to me. I had a foreboding of the troubles that his preference might bring down upon me; and I told my mother about it"^^ (V, 12). Suzanne is re- warded for her disinterestedness by the an- nouncement that she must immediately go into a convent, and steps are taken to this effect. The estate is divided between her two sisters, who are soon married. Her mother's fear that she might some day question the right of that parti- tion and claim her legal share, thus associating a natural child with legitimate children, acts as a new and powerful incentive to get rid of her (V,24,2Y). These are the few traits in the character and ' Compare Clarissa Harlowe, the motives of her family 's enmity to her. ^^ Similarly Clarissa was preferred by Lovelace, who had come to woo her sister Arabella. J 364 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT the adventures of the Eeligieuse which strike us as obviously reminisoent of the novels of Richardson. Presently Diderot frees himself from his model and starts to describe the ways of life in a convent, of which, as a Protestant, Richardson knew little. ^ ^ Diderot's philosophic moralizings are of a nature very distinct from the Puritanic cant of the English author; his remarks on religious life in general, on some forms of exalted piety or mystical "enthu- siasm" in particular, and on their effects on practical life and on minds lacking the monastic vocation, are as far as possible from Richard- son's vein; as far indeed as the earnest feeling, for which the French philosopher finds an im- partial expression, of the state of bliss and sanc- tity to which some souls manage to attain in conventual rettreats. It should also be men- tioned that, in spite of all the admiration which Diderot professed for Richardson's copiousness of details, there is little room for realistic trifles in La ReKgieuse: the work as a whole is short, the characters few in number, the narrative compact to a fault ; little is allowed even for the description of gestures, that part of fiction " See in Grandison, the story of Clementina. THE NOVELIST 365 which Diderot held to be often more eloquent than words. That very epistolary form which Rousseau was borrowing for his Nouvelle Heloise in the same year, 1760, that useful fiction by which a variety of correspondents describe themselves and one another and slowly evolve the main action, as it were, by a process of gradual adumbration, is discarded by Dide- rot, who adopts the simpler and more direct form of the memoir, in the manner of Marivaux and Prevost. One trait in La Religieuse, however, the most disagreeable perhaps to mention, may have been partly due to the influence of Richardson : we mean the thorough description of indecent or revolting scenes, the kind of stuff which Prevost had not thought fit to print in his trans- lations of Richardson. It looks as if, in the earlier stages of the literature of " sentiment," mysterious connections were more openly and naively revealed between the traditional no- tions of sexual purity and certain forms of pruriency, between sentimental morality and an amazing fondness for improper descriptions which serve as texts to its preachings. ^^ The " This attitude of the * * virtuoua Eichardson, ' ' without 366 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT preoccupation, nay, the obsession of the prob- lems of sex was as characteristic of Richardson as of Diderot, and their notions concerning womanly honor, virtue, purity, weire substan- tially the same. Little justification can be found in their moral intentions for their prac- tice of describing in writing what is unmention- able in speech; because, if indeed their aim is ethical, and their novels are destined to '^moral- ize" youthful readers, a good deal of expurgation is needed before their works are placed in the hands of " young persons of both sexes." When whieh his novels would be meaningless, stands in curious contrast with, the attitude of another great English novelist, a professed enemy of the sentimentalists, who has denounced "all these false sensations, peculiar to men, concerning the soiled purity of woman, the lost innocence, the brand of shame upon her, which are com- monly the foul sentimentalism of such as can be too eager in the chase of corruption when occasion suits, and are another side of pruriency, not absolutely foreign from the best of us in our youth. ..." " The young man who can look on them we call fallen women with a noble eye, is to my mind he that is most nobly begotten of the race, and likeliest to be the sire of a noble line" (George Meredith, Bhoda Fleming). Why, in the judgment of many critics, Diderot seems to be credited with the pruriency and Eichardson with the purity of a sentimental period, it is dif&cult to determine. THE NOVELIST 367 realistic pictures of certain aspects of life are given with a view to instilling the principles of virtue in the hearts of young persons, as Rich- ardson would have said, the method employed is very likely to defeat the end; and the more power is applied to the descriptions in question, the more demoralizing the fiction may become. Should we accept the claim of all moral realists, that their intentions are irreproachable even when writing most repulsive, libidinous de- scriptions, their achievements in this line sup- ply one more proof of the radical difference, often amounting to incompatibility, between a moral and an artistic purpose in a work of lit- erature. Realism may have a great deal of scientific, social, artistic value ; but it is a mis- take to try and make realistic imitation instru- mental for morality, for as the imitation be- comes more perfect, as the reader comes nearer nature itself, he drifts farther and farther away from ethical concerns. The trials of Pamela's and Clarissa's virtue, which by the way make the modem reader wonder how the poor creatures could still love their persecutors and entertain a wish to marry them, very probably had something to do with 368 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT' the writing of those infamous scenes in which the Eeligiense is the unconscious victim of attentats a la pudeur. One may of course ob- ject that Diderot had written more than one indecent page before, particularly in the Bijoux Indiscrets, which had nothing to do with Rich- ardson's influence. But between that early work of Diderot and his Religieuse, there is all the difference which is found between a light and a serious work, between the inspiration of the Parnasse Satyrique and that of a master of reialism, be he Richardson or Zola or Maupas- sant. In the same way, there is a strong anal- ogy between the death of the insane abbess and the agony of the woman Sinclair in Clarissa. The portrait of each of those horrible creatures shows " a possibility of character of which the healthy, the pure, the unthinking have never dreamed. Such a portrait is not art, that is true; but it is science, and that delivers the critic from the necessity of searching his vocab- ulary for the cheap superlatives of moral cen- sure."^^ Diderot is not free from a suspicion that he described the wicked and their courses with a little too much complacency; but Rich- " J. Morley, Diderot . , ., vol. II, pp. 35-36. THE NOVELIST 369 ardson is exactly in the same plight. Like good realists, they both thought that everything in nature could be made the object of literary description, and were tempted to lay a little stress on the things that had not been very gen- erally described before. Only, Diderot had too much sense to develop at great length the moral reflections suggested by his topic, and he knew how to avoid that painful insistency of the Puritan whose prolix commentary betrays an uncomfortable feeling that the purity of his in- tentions is more or less open to doubt. Had Diderot looked abroad for examples of mere gaillardise, he would have found plenty to satisfy him in the healthier spirit of unsenti- mental novelists like Fielding and Smollett. But he never wrote anything in their vein, prob- ably because he knew it well enough, and it would have led him straight back to Gil Bias. There was more novelty in the manner of Sterne, which invested improper jests, derived from a long and almost venerable literary tradi- tion, with an original style and a transparent veil of proper intentions and childish innocence. 25 370 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT We have seen^* how Tristram Shandy was all the rage in Paris when Sterne went there in 1763. Just as Pantagruelism, "which you know is a certain jollity of mind, pickled in the scorn of fortune,"^ ^ had been the fashion two centuries or so before, when it was preached by the Cure of Meudon, so Shandyism now gained the hearts of French readers to " Yorick," the parson of Sutton and Stillington. What was Shandyism ? — Shandyism was la sensihilite, or sentiment, with everything that the word car- ried with Richardson, that is, pity, goodness, benevolence, beneficence, a disposition to love all mankind and to fall in love with this or that individual when chance served, a blend of phi- lanthropy and amorousness, the whole " pickled " in that peculiar English form of "jollity of mind " which is called humor. The Shand- ean was full of sentiment and laughed at him- self for it ; he dared make fun of the feeling which everyone had been taking seriously, but his saving grace in the eyes of his contempo- raries was that he himself was a man of feeling ; "See Chapter II, Diderot's English friends. " Eabelais, ' ' The Author 'a Prologue ' ' to the Fourth Boole, Motteux transl. THE NOVELIST 371 like Gargantua on a memorable occasion, lie wept with one eye and laughed with the other. The humor of Shandyism, besides, was not the fierce humor of a Swift, ^'^ or a Smollett, which until that day most Frenchmen had taken to be typical of that British variety of mirth, but an indirect, urbane, innocent-looking, "parson- ical " kind of wit, which constantly hinted enor- mous improprieties and at once reproved the reader for imagining wicked things. Walpole sneered at the infatuation of French readers for Tristrayn Shandy, while his Castle of Otranto, although translated into French, failed to become popular. If Richardson was aware of his own success in France, one might almost imagine that, when he died in 1761, it was from a broken heart, because he had found a rival there in a writer whom he despised, Laurence Sterne. Sterne's popularity in France, which increased greatly after the publication of ^"Voltaire in his Lettres pMlosophiques had given as a specimen of "humour" Swift's Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public. Diderot in the Encyclopedic, article "Humour," uses the same illus- tration. J 372 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT the Sentimental Journey, was to last long after the close of the eighteenth century, as long as " sensibility," romantic egotism, and the fond- ness for eccentricity.^^ The Sentimental Jour- ney was translated first, in 1Y69, by Frenais; the more wearisome task of putting Tristram Shandy into French, begun by the same trans- lator (2 vols, 1YY6), was completed in 1785 in two separate translations, one by La Baume, the other by the Marquis de Bonnay. But the more cultured part of Parisian society had not waited for these translations to become ac- quainted with Sterne's works. Mile de Lespi- nasse, the Count de Bissy, Diderot were devoted Shandeans from the very first, Diderot in 1Y73, on his return from Russia, completed a curious book, entitled Jacques le Fataliste, which was published only in 1796 ; as this work is generally described as being in the manner of Sterne, let us now consider what it owed to the English humorist. 17 Mr F. B. Barton, in the preface of his interesting Etude sur I'influence de Laurence Sterne en France au dix-huitieme siecle (Doctorat d 'universite, Paris, 1911), counts seventy French editions of the Sentimental Journey, about twenty-five of Tristram, five or six of Sterne's complete works, and twenty of his miscellaneous works. THE NOVELIST 373 There is, to our knowledge, no instance in comparative literature of an apparently more obvious "influence" than this, of Tristram Shandy on Jacques le Fataliste. It does not consist in general literary tendencies, or the application of common doctrines on art, or in reminiscences, as was the case ior La Beligieuse : Diderot himself calls it " plagiarism," to antici- plate the very worst that malevolent critics would not fail, and have not failed, trium- phantly to proclaim. The whole of the preamble of Jacques is borrowed from Tristram;^^ the method of narration is exceedingly discursive, full of interruptions and digressions; and, to- wards the end, Diderot in these words returns to the episode in Tristram from which he had started : " Here is the second paragraph, copied from the life of Tristram Shandy, unless the conver- sation between Jacques the Fatalist and his master bet anterior to that work, and the Rev- erend Sterne be the plagiarist, which I do not believe, but it is out of a very particular regard for Mr Sterne, whom I except from most writers of his nation, among whom it is a rather " Tristram Shandy, Book VIII, Chapt. 19-23 (Saints- bury edition, London, 1900, vol. Ill, pp. 142-151). 374 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ■ frequent custom to rob and tben to abuse us" (VI, 284). Diderot proceeds to recount as a conclusion how his Jacques, just like Corporal Trim, fell in love while his wound was being massaged. But it is curious to note that Sterne's gross in- tention, which was the key to the whole tale, and the double meaning involved in his reflec- tion that Trim's amour with the Beguine " con- tained in it the essence of all the love romances which ever have been wrote since the beginning of the world," were entirely missed by Diderot. Yet this is not surprising, for the roundabout style and the peculiar form of wit of Sterne (to say nothing of the material difficulty which Diderot had in understanding colloquial Eng- lish) were far from akin to Diderot's very plain speech. What then attracted or interested Diderot in Tristram? And why did he choose to begin and conclude his Jacques with passages quoted from that book ? The most natural assumption, which has been repeatedly made since the publi- cation of Jacques le Fataliste,^^ is, that he " Aasezat quotes (VI, 5) the earliest criticism of Jacques le Fataliste, from the Decade pMlosopTiique, THE NOVELIST 375 meant to imitate the style aiid the humor of Sterne. It has also been suggested by Assezat (VI, 7) that Diderot intended to show how easy that manner of trifling was, and how the most intricate piece of fiction, in spite of Sterne's example, could after many wanderings be brought to some sort of conclusion. Again, that in Sterne's mode of composition, or rather in his lack of construction, he found a suitable framework to support a variety of short stories which he had among his petits papiers, narra- tive sketches written for his own and his friends' entertainment. Each of these conjectures seems plausible enough to the critical reader of Jacques le Fataliste. It has been pointed out that Dide- rot's imitation is not limited to the beginning and the end of his book, where it is more appar- ent, but runs more or less through the whole. Hei not only follows Sterne's whimsical method of story-telling, and tries " most of his narrative where it is declared to be "a very feeble imitation of Tristram." F. B. Barton, Influence de Sterne, 1911, takes substantially the same position. We refer the reader to this last work (Chap. IV, p. 98) for a parallel between the original and the borrowed passages, which it would be too lengthy to make here anew. 376 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT gymnastics/ '^^ but he is rather haunted by reminiscences from Tristram. The amours of Jacques, and to a lesser degree those of his master, are the supposed thread of Ariadne in this labyrinth of narration, just as the amours of Uncle Toby, and incidentally those of Trim, were something like the main action in Tris- tram Shandy. Both Trim and Jacques have been soldiers, and therefore believe in fatalism, — " Military men are apt to be superstitious," Diderot remarks; both have been wounded in the knee, and this wound is the occasion for eiach of them to tell his master how he fell in love. The masters listen to their valets with benevolent kindness. Trim and Jacques both have a brother in Lisbon; Trim's brother is supposed to be groaning in the cells of the In- quisition, Jacques's brother meets his fate in the Lisbon earthquake. Masters and valets alike have habitual gestures or tics which are supposed to be characteristic.^^ As a whole, ^ C. S. Baldwin, ' ' The Literary Influence of Sterne in France," in Modern Language Assoc. Public, vol. XVII (New Series, X), Number 2, p. 227. ^ Other reminiscences of analogies, some of which are rather doubtful, are: the comparison of the soul with the grub becoming a butterfly (VI, 195) ; social char- THE NOVELIST 377 however, the Sternian ekments in Jacques re- main artificial. The two main characters do not live by any life of their own; like most of Diderot's other creations, they serve as mouth- pieces for their author. The general plan of the book, as far as there is one, is much better connected, the contents are more serious and philosophic, though less picturesque and humor- ous, than in Sterne's flighty masterpiece. Di- derot's trifling is less amusing and his thought more substantial. To sum up, as a modern critic has excellently put it, Diderot's imitation is not "of the tone, but of the method and acters likened to worn coins; the "bed of justice" (p. 26) ; the sentimental effusions of the Master about his horse, and of the Hostess about her dog; Jacques's tearful disposition. Lastly, Diderot's mysterious riders, at least in the opening pages of the book, remind one of the puzzling rider with the long nose, out of Slawken- bergius, in Tristram Shandy. — Aa for those "narrative gymnastics" which consist in interruptions, alleged gaps in the manuscript, apostrophes to the reader, they were common in the less proper kinds of literature before the age of Sterne, when it was no longer possible to write coarse things plainly. See Bijoux Indiscrets, pp. 176, 299, 336, etc., and in the Essay on Claudius and Nero (III, 74), apostrophes to "Monsieur I'abbe," as Yorick apostrophized "Madam" or his friend "Eugenius. " 378 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT . manner; only there is somewhat more method and much less manner."^^ On the other hand, Jacques le Fataliste cer- tainly contains satirical intentions directed against novels of adventurei, possibly also against that nondescript of literature, Tristram Shandy, which so oddly jumbles together the elements of the obscene novel, the novel of adventure, the novel of character and manners, the essay, the sermon, and what not other ingredients. Just after setting out, Diderot remarks: "You see, reader, that I am in a fair way, and that it would only depend on me to keep you waiting one, two, three years for the story of the amours of Jacques. . . . What would prevent me from making his master get married ? from shipping Jacques off to the West Indies ? taking his mas- ter over there? bringing them both back to France on the same vessel ? How easy it is to write tales!" (VI, 11). All the possibilities, all the complications which a given situation might bring about are thus reviewed by Diderot, time and time again, as his story proceeds, to show how cheap he holds them :^^ it would have '^ C. S. Baldwin, op. cit., p. 229. =^See VI, pp. 13, 21, 23, 43, etc. THE NOVELIST 379 had " an infectious smell " of Prevost's Cleve- land; it would have been as artificial and easy- flowing a narrative as all the ronmns a tiroirs, Gil Bias, Tom Jones, Roderick Random, Can- dide, and a thousand more, in which incident follows on incident, apparently without end, until it pleases the author to stop. Diderot prefers a series of "true stories," anecdotes from life, such as those about Messrs Le Pelle- tier and Aubertot (p. 60), about Jacques's cap- tain and his friend (p. 68), about Gousse and Premontval (p. 70), about Suzon and the priest (p. 121), etc., the authenticity of which he vouches for and seems to consider as a great recommendation. Here, as in his plays, Dide- rot takes a pride in being a realist; he scorns the mere imaginative tale, he keeps repeating " Oeci n'est pas un conte,"^* he weaves real ad- ventures, " histories," in the loose fabric of his Jacques le Fataliste. In his eyes truth is much more valuable than fiction. " I do not care for novels, except for those of Richardson. I make a history; this history will please or will not please, that is the least of my concerns. My ^ Thia is the title of hia touching story of the unfor- tunate Mile de la Chaux. 380 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT . aim. is to be true, I have attained it. ... I see that, with a little imagination and style, noth- ing is easier than to spin a novel" (VI, 239). Therefore it seems likely that, although the setting of Jacques is borrowed from Sterne, Diderot never intended to rival him, or to rank among novelists of any description whatsoever. He threw into a handy mould a farrago of anec- dotes, which are perfect in their way, each of them complete, and not at all so disconnected as the reader might have expected from an imi- tator of Sterne. His imitation of Sterne does not go deep ; it is a mere screen, a pretext, for the introduction of a large number of original developments. And this original part, which is the most important in the book, owes nothing whatever to Sterne's plots, characters, humor, or fanciful tricks of writing ; it is Diderot pure and simple. There is besides a philosophic part in the work, a discussion of Fatalism, which gives rise to all the reflections, paradoxes, syllogisms and logical absurdities which may result from a critical consideration of the Mohammedan Meh- touh, "It was written." Supposing a man — Jacques — who firmly believes, after Zeno, Mo- THE NOVELIST 381 hammed, or Spinoza, that a strict necessity rules the world, that he cannot help his destiny, that all he thinks, does, and suffers was written down from eternity " in the big book above," no line of which can ever be changed, would not the adventures of such a man make an enter- taining conte philosophiquef 'Now, the great creator of the philosophic tale, Voltaire, had just published his Candide ou rOptimisme (1759) when Sterne began to write the first instalments of Tristram Shandy. Faint gleams of a philosophic purpose may be discerned in the opening chapters of Tristram, which its author placed under the patronage of the Moon, the " Bright Goddess " who had made the world go mad after Cunegund and Candid.^*^ What is Sterne's pale hero but a victim of cir- cumstance, a wretch predestined from his ear- liest beginning, before even he was bom, to odd misfortunes, and forever incapable of thinking or writing anything in an orderly, logical man- ner? The initial data of his psychological make-up, as they are found in the first chapters ^' Tristram Shandy, Book I, Chap. 9 (Saintsbury edi- tion, p. 19). — On Candide, see M, Andre Morize's article in Bevue du XVIIIe siecle (Jan.-March, 1913) ; also his critical edition of that work, Paris, 1913. 382 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT of his history, lead one to expect a book entitled Tristram or Pessimism, a kind of pendant or counterpart of the wonderful Oandide. How- ever, what eventually prevailed was not this philosophic purpose, but the element of oddity and topsy-turviness which was in the poor hero's nature; his congenital infirmity, that of hope- lessly muddled " animal spirits," is to be taken as sufficiently accounting for the utter confu- sion of the succeeding instalments of his sup- posed autobiography. Diderot took up the task which Sterne, car- ried away by his subject, had willingly relin- quished. But Diderot could not write a novel on Pessimism. For Pessimism, that philo- sophic offspring of " spleen," had not yet risen to the dignity of a metaphysical system. There were Hoops, Tristrams, and other English pes- simists who proclaimed that "the worst thing was to exist,"^® who cursed "this scurvy and disastrous world of ours," "this vile, dirty planet,"^'^ but no Schopenhauer, no Hartmann had yet come to systematize this distressing be- lief, so that Diderot might make fun of it. '^Lettres d Mile Volland, XVIII, 407. ^ Tristram Shandy, Book I, Chap, 5, (Saintsbury edi- tion, pp. 11-12). THE NOVELIST 383 Fatalism, or scientific determinism, was a more ancient and familiar topic, in which many philosophic systems and religious sects were in- terested, and numberless vast questions, such as free-will, predestination, moral responsibility, were involved. Thus it is not at all improbable that Diderot conceived and began a literary illustration of Fatalism several years before he thought of associating anything from Sterne with his work. The pitiless determinism that ruled the destinies of Candide and his friends as well as the fortunes of the unhappy Tristram, found its exponent in Jacques, the Fatalist. A few facts seem to confirm the impression that both Jacques le Fataliste and Tristram Shandy were written partly under the influence of Voltaire's tale, and that Diderot's Jacques was intended as a satire on Spinozism, just as Candide had been composed against the philo- sophic optimism of Leibnitz. The idea of de- terminism reigned supreme throughout the pages of Candide: "There is no effect without a cause," says the hero, "everything is neces- sarily bound together, and arranged for the best" (Chap. III). The notion of the neces- sary concatenation of all events in nature and in ap> 384 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT a man's life, with a pessimistic instead of an optimistic clause subjoined to it, assumed in Tristram Shandy the aspect of a hopeless and unavoidable confusion; it only came in to show how distressing such a notion makes the task of a story-teller who is anxious properly to refer each effect to its cause, and each fact in the present to its antecedent in the past. A much more consistent effort was made by Diderot to analyze the fatalistic belief, not in the light of optimism, or pessimism, but simply to show how what men call chance works in everyday life, how artificial is the representation of reality as imaginative novelists are wont to give it, and how true stories are not so apt as fictions to turn out exactly as we expected that they would. Diderot probably thought of Voltaire's Candide when he pointed out how easily he could at every step make his tale branch out in various directions, how he might, if he wished, carry his characters into the remotest parts of the globe at a moment's notice. What becomes for in- stance of Frere Jean, the brother of Jacques, after he has escaped with Frere Ange from the persecution of wicked monks? Like Candide, with Doctor Pangloss and that good Dutch Ana- THE NOVELIST 385 baptist who was also called Jacques, the two monks went to Lisbon, " there to find an earth- quake, which could not take place without them."^^ There they also met their doom, " as it was written above," whereas Candide and Pangloss, as is well known, only escaped the earthquake to fall into the hands of the Inqui- sition. ITow, Trim's worthy brother, having married a Jew's widow who sold sausages in Lisbon, was also a victim of the Inquisitors. Thus, of the two dreaded calamities which had overtaken Voltaire's pair of philosophic opti- mists in the capital of Portugal, Sterne natu- rally enough remembered the catastrophe which vividly illustrated the intolerant and persecut- ing spirit of " Popery," a subject on which he could outdo Voltaire in warmth of denuncia- tion; while Diderot chose the earthquake inci- dent as being more to his purpose. Lastly, it may be noted that there is some analogy between Diderot's "true story" of the indigent poet whom he sent to Pondicherry so that he might ^ The Lisbon earthquake happened in 1756. Voltaire's Poeme sur le desastre de Lisbonne (1758) discussed the notion of Providence and the tenets of Optimism sup- ported by Shaftesbury, Leibnitz, and Pope. 26 386 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT . get rich quickly and afford to write bad poetry afterwards, and Voltaire's satire entitled Le Pauvre Diahle, which was published in 1758. To conclude, it seems very possible that the first outline of Jacques le Fataliste may have been written as early as 1760 ; it was then in- tended as a philosophic story after Voltaire's model, on the subject of determinism or fatal- ism. Diderot's contributions to the Encyclo- pedie on Zeno and the Stoics, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and other determinists, which he had completed before this time, supplied the philosophic ma- terial in abundance. Happening then to read Tristram Shandy^ he paid much more attention to the manner in which it illustrated the vagaries of chance than to its style and humor, the origi- nality of which he could not very well perceive. The episode of Trim's wound and his love, and the fatalistic saying of Trim's captain, that "each bullet has its billet," served as centers around which all the rest crystallized. Diderot discarded Sterne's typographical oddities; he made a weak attempt to characterize his heroes by habitual gestures ; he proved more methodical in the management of his narrative eccentrici- ties, less discursive and digressive, and alto- THE NOVELIST 387 getber careless of saving proprieties by tbe use of innuendoes. In a sort of frame plastered up at botb ends witb two fragments from Sterne, be tbrew in confusedly, belter skelter, not only tbe arguments of fatalism, but also a collection of true anecdotes and sbort stories wbicb owed notbing wbatever to tbe Englisb bumorist, eitber in matter or in tone. Tbe result is Jacques le Fataliste as we know it: a work of mosaic, a very composite novel, written in a free, conversational style, very different from Sterne's artistic style, a dialogue enlivened every now and tben by elaborate pbilosopbical, critical, and narrative passages. It is in some respects unfortunate tbat Jacques le Fataliste sbould almost always recall Sterne and Rabelais to tbe critic's mind ; for all comparisons between tbose great masters of Humor and a pbilosopber wbo sadly lacked bumor are bound to bring scorn upon bis work. But, considered as an essen- tially Diderotian piece, wbicb it is even in tbat love for digressions wbicb bas been ascribed to Sterne's influence, it is full of power, and de- serves tbe eulogy wbicb Goetbe gave it, after reading it in manuscript, in 1Y80 : " It is really first-rate — a very fine and exquisite meal, pre- 388 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT • pared and dished up with great skill."^^ Goethe sajs that he enjoyed the whole meal ; but other critics may pass some of the courses. It has been asserted that Sterne's influence made Diderot conscious of the resources which he could find in the description of gestures to make his stories more real and give a more con- crete vision of his characters.^'' Sterne, accord- ing to this theory, taught Diderot the value of this important part of the narrative art, and is to some extent responsible for the progress made by Diderot between Ld Religieuse, in 1760, and such tales as the Neveu de Rameau, the Conver- sation d'un pere avec ses enfants, and Ceci nest pas un conte, all written after 1770. This seems a little difficult to admit. Sterne had touched Diderot too lightly to affect his style in any lasting manner, l^o glowing eulogy of Sterne is to be found anywhere in the works of Diderot ; he does not even quote him once as a master of that great art of pantomime on which so much stress had been laid, not only in the disserta- tions on the Fils Natural and the Pere de ^ Quoted by J. Morley, Diderot . . ., vol. II, p. 38. ^ F, B, Barton, L 'Influence de Sterne, Chapitre IV, end. THE NOVELIST 389 famille, which had appeared before Sterne be- came famous, but in the Paradoxe sur le come- dien, of 1773. Diderot would surely have acknowledged in 1773 what he owed to Sterne, if he had learnt from him the secrets of such a valuable art as that of descriptive pantomime. For this he admires no other master beside Richardson. Neither Richardson nor Sterne, however, ap- pear to have left any trace in Diderot's other works of fiction, or rather narration, since he prided himself on always writing from facts. A philosophical conception generally dominates these pieces: a criticism of common morality in Rameaus Nephew, that wonderful picture of a Bohemian who is a great musician, a parasite, a buffoon, and a kind of Zarathoustra all in one ; — some interesting cases of moral casuistry, eX' pounded by Diderot's worthy father talking with his children around the fire in their home at Langres;^^ — the cruelty of people who love no more and are still loved, in the lamentable true story of Mile de la Chaux ; — a return to the criticism of common morality, but this time ^^ Entretien d'un -pere avec ses enfants. 390 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT limited to tlie question of sex only, in the Sup- plement au Voyage de Bougainville. Bougainville in 1771 had related the voyage of circumnavigation which he had accomplished, by the King's order, betvs^een 1766 and 1769, on the frigate La Boudeuse escorted by the trans- port L'Etoile.^^ In his preface, Bougainville ^ Louis- Antoine de Bougainville, Voyage autour du monde, 'par la fregate du roi La Boudeuse et la flute! L'Etoile, en 1766, 1767, 1768, et 1769, Paris, 1771, 1 vol. 4to. — This was translated into English by John Keinhold Forster, Dublin, 1772, 8vo. In 1771 John Hawkesworth, thanks to his friend Gar- rick, was appointed by Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, to publish an account of the English ex- plorations in the South Seas: this appeared in 1773, in 3 vols 4to, as An Account of the Voyages undertaken hy the order of His present Majesty for maMng discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and successfully performed hy Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain CooJc, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour. As a consequence of this editorial work Hawkesworth was so harassed by critics that he died in the same year. Bougainville's Account deals with the moral notions of the Tahitians on p. 197; he also spoke of the whiFe woman disguised, named Bare, p. 254, and of a noble old Tahitian who seemed to foretell dire catastrophes to his countrymen from the coming of white men, p. 192. Diderot adds much to these few data, partly, as it seems, THE NOVELIST 391 reviewed the thirteen voyages around the world which had preceded his own, from Magellan's in 1519 down to the more recent English expedi- tions by Anson (1740-1744), Byron (1764), Wallis and Carteret (1766-1769). Wallis had preceded him in Tahiti by a very short time, and Cook was on his way there (1768-1771) before the French navigator had returned home. Diderot was greatly interested in Bougainville's relation of his voyage, and he possibly read also the collection of Voyages which John Hawkes- worth published in 1773, for the English gov- ernment, from the accounts of the English ex- plorers. But it was not as a geographer, nor as a political economist considering the possibili- ties of future economic expansion for his coun- try, that Diderot read and admired these won- derful stories of traflScs and discoveries: the philosopher found an occasion to moralize in the from Hawkesworth and the discussions in the Annual Begister and the Gentleman's Magazine concerning the immorality of the Tahitians. Bougainville charges Wallis 's companions with having brought a contagious disease into the islands; Cook (in Hawkesworth, vol. Ill, p. 82) returns the charge against Bougainville; but Wallis 's attempt to vindicate himself (Hawkesworth, vol. I, p. 324) had conclusively proved the case against his own expedition. aJWS^ 392 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' consequences of the arrival of white men among happj savages, and, in the consideration of the religious and moral ideas of those islanders, an excellent starting-point to study critically, as Montaigne had done in his chapter On Canni- bals, the foundations of natural religion and natural ethics. As usual, this sort of conte philosopMque runs at once into the form of a dialogue; this introduces the fictitious Supplement to Bougain- ville's book, an ingenious fabrication in the manner of Saunderson's dying speech; and the Supplement in its turn is a dialogue, between a good Tahitian and the Catholic priest who ministered to the spiritual needs of the two French ships, — Bougainville tells us that his name was La Veze, The total absence of mod- esty by which Wallis, Bougainville, and Cook had been struck on arriving in Tahiti, the shame- less and apparently naive libidinous habits of the natives which greatly excited the interest of the contemporary reviewers and readers, be- came with Diderot a theme for prolonged dis- cussions between the Abbe and Orou concerning morality, propriety, marriage, religious institu- THE NOVELIST 393 tions, and the celibacy of priests.. There is no need to enter with them into the discussion of the old sceptical theme concerning the relativity of human ideas, nor of the belief cherished by Diderot and the school of Shaftesbury, and seemingly confirmed by the kindly disposition of the Tahitians, that human nature was good. It suffices that the Supplement^ as well as Di- derot's previous attempts at novel-writing, points to the conclusion that the good philosopher was not any more gifted for the novel than for the drama, because his personality insisted on ob- truding itself in everything he wrote. In spite of his wish to be objective and to follow reality faithfully, he appeared in his own person every- where, as a dogmatic or a critical moralist. He started indeed from some ground of reality, gen- erally borrowed from his experience or his reading; but he at once rose to philosophic generalization, and then his rationalistic ego prevailed, together with his unconquerable fond- ness for intellectual analysis, in the light of which the most respected systems were speedily undermined. The philosophic tale, an emi- nently French genre, in which Renan was to 394 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' excel after Voltaire, was, mucli more truly than either Richardson's or Sterne's novels, the kind of fiction for which Diderot was best fitted, and in which " it was written " that he should leave his mark. CHAPTER VIII THE CEITIO " Sunt qui cogitationum vertigine delectantur, ac pro servitute habent fide fixa a/at axiomatis constantibus constringi/' With these words, from Bacon, a great French critic once charac- terized Diderot.^ Although this sentence is meant, both by its author and the writer who quoted him, to convey a good deal of blame, it may well be asked whether it does not sound a little like praise when applied to a philosopher. Diderot certainly would have felt rather flattered than grieved by a description of him which placed him in the same class with his masters Montaigne and Bayle. " As for me," he frankly wrote one day, " I concern myself more with forming than with dissipating clouds, with sus- pending judgments than with judging" (I, 369) ; and, in his Refutation of Helvetius: "1 do not decide, I ask questions " (II, 388). This independence from preconceived principles, this ' F, Brunetiere, Manuel de I 'hist, de la litt. frang., 1st edition, 1898, p. 314. 395 396 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT scepticism which delights in the free examina- tion of ideas and in the exercise of thought for its own sake, is to be borne in mind when at- tempting to define Diderot's position in criti- cism. " I do not like Diderot very much," said Briinetiere, " and one of the reasons I have for not liking him is, that after reading his works over more than once I am still and always in doubt as to what he was."^ It is probable that the more dogmatic intellect of the evolutionistic critic failed to understand Diderot sympathet- ically for the very reason that Diderot had above all avoided being bound "by a fixed faith and constant axioms." It is both easier and safer to trace the history — or, to use the modern term, the evolution — of Diderot's critical ideas, as one should do for all his ideas, than to try and state them in some complete and systematic whole. ^ Several times indeed, and in several fields of inquiry, he had attempted to fix his thought in its essential forms, to reach some solid founda- tions for his beliefs. In ethics, he had followed Shaftesbury, only to find in the end that he could not possibly prove his inmost persuasion, ^ F. Brunetiere, L 'evolution des genres, 2d edition, 1892, p. 153. •**saB8r _ THE CRITIC 397 that a good, virtuous life was the best. He had sincerely believed, with Richardson, in sexual morality, and yet had found, in the peculiar notions entertained on this subject in Tahiti, a proof of "the inconvenience there is in attach- ing moral ideas to certain physical actions which do not admit of any." He had not only preached, but lived up to, a gospel of benevo- lence and philanthropy, and, on the other hand, denied all merit, virtue and moral responsibility with Jacques the Fatalist, and depicted in Rameau's nephew a sort of Nietzschean avant la lettre, who deliberately lived " beyond good and evil " and professed a distressingly plausible creed of selfishness and immorality. In sci- ence, he had shown a truly Baconian contempt for builders of systems, he had commended facts and experiments above everything else, and then left his record in the history of scientific thought mainly as a forerunner of Evolutionism, the most far-reaching system of modem times. In dramatic literature, he had elaborately laid down a new body of rules, concluding however with these words : " Remember that there is not one of these rules which genius cannot success- fully infringe." — Who could expect such a 398 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT thinker to adhere throughout his life to a creed in criticism, especially at a time when old tenets were being revised or overthrown, when Classi- cism was on the wane and Romanticism was dawning ? Diderot's critical ideas concerning dramatic literature have already been considered. Al- though they constitute the most elaborate and coherent part of his work as a critic, that also by which he was best known in his lifetime and through which perhaps he exerted the widest influence, yet they are dependent on a higher, more general system of criticism, which he never was able to grasp fully and expound as a whole. This system may be deduced from his theo- retical discussion on "the Beautiful" in the Encyclopedie, from passages in the Letter on the Deaf and Dumb and the Literary Miscel- lanies, and from the reports, entitled Salons, which he wrote for Grimm's Correspondance litteraire on the art exhibitions held in Paris every other year after 1751. As for the particular question of the English influence on Diderot in general criticism, in art criticism, and in the criticism of poetry, it is much less simple than the questions studied in THE CEITIC 399 the preceding chapters, concerning his indebted- ness to English philosophy and science, or to the dramatists and novelists of England. In mat- ters of poetics and esthetics, France had for about a century laid down the classical canons which English writers and critics had more or less reluctantly followed. The ^' noble freedom " of the English, when displayed in literature, met with much less appreciation among the French than when it exerted itself in politics, in science, in philosophy and in divinity. And on the other hand it looked as if the more polite English writers, ever since 1660, had been ashamed of their national literary tradition, and more eager than even the French to place themselves under the authority of Boileau, Bouhours, Rapin, Le Bossu, or Du Bos. Diderot therefore, while he felt greatly interested by the independent spirit which began to reassert itself in English poetry towards the middle of the eighteenth century, might very well believe that in a general way the truth in esthetics was still on the side of the French neo-classical tradition. Besides, esthetic problems were no longer so simple as they had been in the preceding cen- tury. From the domain of literature they had I m?!! 400 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT , been extended to all the other arts. The ques- tion no longer was, for instance, as in the early seventeenth century, which should prevail, popu- lar and romantic forms or the learned and clas- sical models ; nor was it, as in the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV, whether the Ancients or the Moderns had reached the highest point of literary perfection in all kinds. But critics, following up a traditional misconception of a misquoted passage of Horace, Ut piciura poesis,^ had sought to define those philosophic concepts which underlie all artistic activity, — Art, the Beautiful, and !N^ature. From the moment when criticism had ceased to be merely literary and had carried its inquiries into all the fields of art, general esthetic criticism had appeared, the philosophy of the Beautiful had been born. It is not possible to assign a precise date to this important fact of the generalization of criticism, which gave rise to esthetics. In France, the granting of royal patronage to the fine arts under the reign of Louis XIV had in a manner interested the learned in the essence and ^ See an interesting paper on tMg subject, hj Mr W. G. Howard, in Modern Lang. Assoc. Publications, 1909, vol. XXIV (New Series, vol. XVII), pp. 40-124. THE CRITIC 401 principles of other arts besides literature; later on, the wider popularity which painting, sculp- ture, architecture and all the liberal arts had gained during the regency and the reign of Louis XV, when their patrons were found in greater numbers in town than at court, made their concerns a common topic for all polite con- versations. In England, meanwhile, artistic preoccupations had begun to be considered an essential part of a gentlemanly education, and amateurs, connoisseurs or "virtuosi "had become legion. Thus it is that, long before Diderot, both in England and France, a close alliance had been established between literary criticism and art criticism ; and, in attempts to outline a philosophy of the Beautiful, the ideals of arts which differed in purpose and means of expres- sion had been more and more combined, amalga- mated, and often hopelessly confused.* Among the most celebrated virtuosi in the reign of Queen Anne was Shaftesbury, the phi- losopher whose system of ethics had fired Di- * On the origin and development of this confusion be- tween artistic ideals, see the preface of Leasing 's Laocoon, and for a fuller and more critical account Prof. Irving Babbitt's New LaoTcoon, Chap, I. 27 SR"! 402 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT . derot with enthusiasm. His principles of esthetics were intimately connected with his ethical theories. For him there was more than an analogy, there was almost an identity between morality and art. Both were conceived by him as originating in a kind of natural taste, an innate faculty of discerning between good and evil, beauty and ugliness. The Beautiful and the Good, according to him, were intuitively felt, immediately recognized, by a kind of in- stinct proper to all generous, unsophisticated souls. Beauty referred to things; morality to actions and characters. Shaftesbury did not go further, he refused to analyze those innate no- tions of the Good and the Beautiful. For him, they shone by their own splendor, they were as clear and distinct as any "first principles" in Descartes; for a criterion, which might have afforded the basis for a more satisfactory defini- tion, the author of the Characteristics gave nothing but a rather vague " harmony."^ This uncritical attitude was maintained and in a way exaggerated by Shaftesbury's disciple, " Leslie Stephen, English Thought in the eighteenth century, vol. II, pp. 26, 31-32. Also Thomas Fowler, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, pp. 67-70, and 126 ff. THE CEITIC 403 Hutchesoii, ill his Inquiry concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, and Design (1725).^ With Hutcheson, the metaphors of Shaftesbury be- came philosophic entities : the " moral sense " and the " esthetic sense " were spoken of as though they had been as real as the sense of sight or the sense of hearing, — Crousaz, in his Traits du Beau (1715) had enumerated the kinds of the Beautiful rather than defined its nature. — The Jesuit Father Andre, whose Essai sur le Beau (1741) also gave a full descrip- tion of the concrete forms of the Beautiful, fol- lowed Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in assigning a character of Cartesian evidence to the percep- tion of beauty. On the more particular subject of the rela- tions between the different arts, the Abbe Du ° This waa one of two treatises by Hutcheson which appeared in 1725. They were translated into French by Eidous, one of Diderot's assistants in the translation of James's Dictionary, under this title: Becherches sur I'origine des idees que nous avons de la Beaute et de la Vertu, en deux traites : le Premier, sur la Beaute, I 'Ordre, I'Harmonie et le Bessein; le Second, sur le Bien et le Mai Physique et Moral; from the 4th English edition; 2 vols, Amsterdam, 1749. Diderot, while disagreeing with Hutcheson, strongly recommends the perusal of his work, "especially in the original" (X, 17). '} 404 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT . Bos had written some Reflexions critiques sur la poesie etld peinture which were widely read and ran through six editions between 1719 and 1766 ; and the Abbe Batteux, in 1746, had concluded an era of long and unfruitful discussions concern- ing the principles of esthetics, with his Beaux- Arts reduits a un meme principe, — a title which is descriptive of the aim pursued by all esthetic critics up to 1750. The common principle to which all arts were reduced was " the imitation of beautiful nature," — a baffling definition, as Diderot justly remarked, when the question was to define la belle nature itself. We need not enter into Diderot's discussion, in his article " Beau,"''^ of the results attained by his predecessors. His account of Plato's and Augustine's theories of the Beautiful, which he copied from Father Andre, was followed by a critical examination of the systems of Wolf, Crousaz, Hutcheson, Shaftesbury, Batteux, and Andre. To this last he gave the preference. But he brought his efforts more or less success- ^ Printed separately as Eecherches pMlosopMques sur I'origine et la nature du Beau (1751), as a specimen of the Encyclopedie ; and thus reprinted in the Amsterdam edition (1773), also by Naigeon, and by Assezat (vol. X). THE CRITIC 405 fully to bear upon the question of the origin, the formation of the concept of Beauty. He would not see in it an innate idea, reflecting some transcendent essence supposed to exist ob- jectively in the Platonic world of ideas. Truer to the principles of Locke than Locke's own disciple, Shaftesbury, he reduced the notion of the Beautiful to sensations accumulated and generalized; he defined the esthetic feeling by the perception of relations, and then attempted to confirm and to complete his definition by bringing all the various kinds of beauty within the scope of his rather abstract formula. This abstract character prevented his theory from becoming widely accepted. To most crit- ics it has seemed that his earnest effort to deter- mine the nature of the Beautiful philosophically had resulted in a vague, narrowly intellectual, and altogether unsatisfactory definition. This may not appear quite fair, if one will but follow Diderot's explanation and see whether his mean- ing is not clearer and deeper than one is in- clined to think at first sight : " When I say, whatever calls up in our minds the idea of relations, I do not mean that we must, in order to call a thing beautiful, appro- 406 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' ciate what kind of relations reign in it; I do not require that the man who sees a piece of architecture should be able to state, what even the architect may not know, that this part is to that other part as such a number is to such another number; I do not require that the man who hears a concert should know, when some- times the musician is ignorant of it, that this sound stands to this other sound in the relation of two to four, or four to five. It suffices that he should perceive and feel that the parts of that architecture, the sounds of that musical piece, have some relations either between themselves or with other objects. It is the inde termination of these relations, the ease with which they are perceived, and the pleasure which attends their perception, that have caused men to imagine that the beautiful was a matter of feeling rather than of reason." Diderot here appears in his usual role of de- stroyer of artificial distinctions: the "faculties" of the soul, just as the "kingdoms" of nature, and the "genres" of literature, are convenient categories, but should not be mistaken for reali- ties existing independently and separated from one another by hard and fast partitions. Having thus shown that there is a large intellectual ele- ment in the feelings of esthetic pleasure, espe- cially in those of a higher grade, he goes on to THE CRITIC 407 apply his theory to all the so-called " innate " ideas or principles, reducing them likewise, to an empiric source: " I dare assert that, whenever a principle has been familiar to us from early childhood, and whenever through habit we apply it easily and immediately to external objects, we believe that we judge concerning such objects through senti- ment ; but we are compelled to confess our error in all the cases where the complication of the relations and the novelty of the object suspend the application of the principle: then the pleas- ure must wait, before it is felt, until the under- standing has decided that the object is beauti- ful" (X, 29). In other words, the esthetic feeling, accord- ing to Diderot, resolves itself into two classes of elements : first, the unconscious or subcon- scious perception of some mathematical rela- tions existing between certain lines, or colors, or sounds; secondly, the associations which in our minds are connected with those harmonies of lines, colors, or sounds. His theory, though perhaps it affected a little too much empiricism, was remarkable in that it sought a subjective instead of an objective explanation of the es- thetic judgment. His early work in acoustics, 408 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT and his later Elements d'harmonie, published under the name of the musician Bemetzrieder, sufficiently prove that he knew a great deal about the physical causes of musical pleasure, while his Essai sur la peinture shows a great degree of familiarity with the technique of color and design. As for the associations which so largely contribute to the true appreciation of artistic works of every kind, the suggestiveness which enhances the pleasure of harmonies per- ceived by the organs of sense, the whole body of Diderot's art criticism witnesses that he never lost sight of it. Unfortunately, after outlining this funda- mentally sound theory of the esthetic emotions, in reaction against his English and French predecessors, he allowed some other notions to interfere with it which were irrelevant and hardly reconcilable with empiricism. Foremost among these stands the ethical idea. Under Shaftesbury's influence, later strength- ened by the precepts and examples of Richard- son and Lillo, Diderot early became a staunch defender of the notion that art and ethics are intimately connected in their nature and their purpose, and that the main function of the THE CRITIC 409 former should be to fortify or popularize the latter. This was a very ancient claim, which artists had put forth, as it were in their own defence, almost from the earliest beginnings of the arts. The eighteenth century was not a time in which such a claim could be contro- verted or ignored. It would have been not only foolhardy and dangerous, but contrary to the whole spirit of a sentimental age to suggest that art might be independent of morality. Thus it is that from the outset Diderot advocated the idea that art should be moral or not be at all; all its suggestions, all esthetic pleasures should tend to " sow the seeds of virtue in our hearts," or " aiford topics for moral discussions," like the novels of Eichardson. "Every work of sculpture or painting must be the expression of some great maxim, a lesson for the spectator." — " Two qualities are essen- tial for the artist, morality and perspective." — "I am not a capuchin; yet I confess that I would willingly sacrifice the pleasure of seeing beautiful nude figures, if I could hasten the coming of the day when painting and sculpture, more decent and moral, would think of contrib- uting, together with the other arts, to inspire virtue and purify our manners " (XII, 83, 84). 410 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT It was not so much the nude as the deshabille with which Diderot had a quarrel ; and in this he represented an important movement which was taking place in the evolution of French taste after 1Y50. The advent of sensibility and the progress of philosophy were gradually driving out of public favor the amiable levity, the delightfully artificial art of the disciples of Watteau. In condemning the pastorals of Boucher he stood not only for morality, but for the new tendency of public opinion which called for more truth and nature in painting as in the other arts. There was much in the realism of Chardin and in the wonderfully lifelike por- traits of La Tour that appealed to him ; but his ideal was best realized by Greuze, as is shown by his enthusiastic praises of everything he pro- duced: humble settings, familiar scenes, the faithful imitation of natural objects, pathetic intentions, all the elements that go to the mak- ing of a "popular" piece were actually to be found in each of the pictures of Greuze ; as Di- derot had meant to put them, and thought that he had put them, in his own plays. Would he have admired the peinture morale of Hogarth as well, had he been acquainted with THE CRITIC 411 it? An eminent English critic has rightly judged that, despite the moralizing aim of Ho- garth, Diderot would have looked upon his works with feelings akin to horror.^ Hogarth indeed is essentially satirical, and Diderot hated satire. There is no trace in the English artist of that gentle commiseration, that noble gift of human sympathy which, though it may easily turn into namby-pamby sentiment, is not a fea- ture for which a Diderot or a Greuze need blush. But Diderot knew nothing of English art. He wrote in his Salon of 1761: " They no longer paint in Flanders. If there are any painters in Italy and Germany, they are more scattered, they have less emulation and encouragement than ours. France then is the only country where this art is still maintained, and even with no small degree of glory" (X, 151). And again, in 1765 : " I am much mistaken, or the French school, the only one still extant, is still far from its decline" (X, 237). * J. Morley, Diderot . . ., vol. II, p. 59. 412 DTDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT However, he read at least three contemporary English works of art criticism, and this reading suggested some of his own critical ideas. Ho- garth's odd production entitled The Analysis of Beauty,^ Webb's Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting, ^^ and Spence's Polymetis^^ ex- erted on him that kind of influence which we *W. Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty, written with a view of fixing the fluctuating Ideas of Taste (1753) rather puzzled the contemporaries. Its purpose was to substitute the criticism of an artist for that of men of letters in matters of art, and to this end gave a com- mentary on an "oracle" of Lamozzo concerning Michael Angelo: this was mainly a discussion of the respective merits of straight and curved lines in art, and concluded by symbolizing the ideal of beauty under the guise of a certain curve enclosed in a pyramid of glass. This queer figure served as a frontispiece to the book. ^"Daniel Webb, An Inquiry into the Beauties of Pa/int- ing, and into the merits of the most celebrated painters, ancient and modern (1760) ; dedicated to Spence; re- printed in Webb's Miscellanies, 1802. *^ Joseph Spence, Polymetis, or an Enquiry concerning the agreement between the worTcs of the Soman poets and the remains of the ancient artists, being an attempt to illustrate them mutually from one another (1747); a series of 21 dialogues. It is well known that Winckel- mann's similar study of the beauties of ancient poetry and of the plastic arts. Von der Nachahmung der griecM- schen WerTce in der Malerei und Bildhauerlcunst (1756), to which Diderot alludes in his Salon of 1765 (X, 417), was the starting-point of Lessing's Laocoon. THE CEITIC 413 have already had occasion to note, and which is characteristic of almost all the- influences which Diderot undei-went : they made him think, react, and evolve some theories of his own. He read Webb's Inquiry in a manuscript translation^^ and wrote a review of it in 1763. He found it "full of sense, wit, taste, and knowledge, not devoid of finesse and grace . . ., a work quite a la frangaise." While he agreed with its author regarding the kind of artistic knowledge which should be sought after by true virtuosi or connoisseurs, he was sadly grieved by two things: Webb's neglect of French painters in his enumeration of the mas- ters to be studied, and his bold statement that scenes from the history of Christianity could not compare with mythological subjects for ar- tistic treatment. For the first of these offences, both Webb and Hogarth were sharply rebuked in Diderot's Salon of 17 65 J in the course of a eulogy of Chardin : " This man (Chardin) is the foremost col- orist in the Salon, and maybe one of the great- ^' Extrait d'un ouvrage anglais sur la peinture (XIII, 33). The translation, by B , . . (Bergier) appeared in 1765, aa Becherches sur les beautes de la peinture. 414 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT est colorists in the whole art of painting. I cannot forgive that impertinent Webb for hav- ing written a treatise on art without mentioning one single Frenchman. ISTor do I forgive Ho- garth either for having said that the French school has not even one mediocre colorist ! There jou lied, Mr Hogarth ! It is either ignorance or platitude on your part. I know full well that your nation has a trick of disdaining an im- partial writer who dares to speak of us with praise ; but must you basely court your country- men at the expense of the truth ? Paint better, paint better, if you can. Learn how to sketch, and do not write. We and the English have two opposite manias. Ours is to overpraise English productions; theirs is to underrate our own. Hogarth was still living two years ago. He had sojorned in France; and for the last thirty years Chardin has been a great color- ist "^^ (X, 303). These are but petty quarrels of national amour-propre. The question of the artistic value of Christian subjects was of more im- " Elsewhere (XI, 349) Diderot refers to Hogarth 'a Analysis and the curious sketches which it contained. Of a certain ugly bust by Le Moyne he says: "Do you know a book by Hogarth entitled the Line (Analysis) of Beauty? It is one of the queer figures in that work." — See also below (p. 426) the illustration of the Antinous and the dancing-master. THE CRITIC 415 portance, and was one which could well divide English and French critics. The English en- tertained at that time (and possibly still enter- tain to some degree) the neo-classical and some- what Jansenistic idea which, in spite of the examples of Comeille and Racine, Boileau had expressed in his A7-t Poetique: "The awful mysteries of the Christian faith are not sus- ceptible of fictitious ornaments." But Boileau had in mind the literary treatment of sacred subjects, on the stage and in the epic; he did not for one moment think of banishing from painting and sculpture those innumerable themes which in all Catholic countries had long been drawn from Scripture and the Lives of the Saints. The English critics were more radical, either out of scorn for " Popish superstition," or out of that Puritanic respect for religion which has never allowed Biblical subjects on the English stage. Diderot was not so blinded by his philosophic creed as to share a fastidious dislike which would exclude from the realm of art all the great works which the Christian in- spiration has produced in painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature. In his Salon of 1763, he pointed out what 416 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT great resources Christianity afforded to artists "in its very crimes" (X, 184-185). Pagan mythology offered more voluptuous forms and scenes; the Christian religion, on the other hand, was rich in great tragedies.^* In the Salon of 1765, he returned to this favorite sub- ject of the artistic value of Christianity with fresh fervor, tempered by philosophic reserva- tions : " It seems to me that since the pictures with which churches are adorned are made only to engrave the deeds of the heroes of religion in the memory of the people and increase their veneration, it is not indifferent whether they are good or bad. In my opinion, a church painter is a sort of preacher, more clear, strik- ing, intelligible, more readily accessible to the common people than the priest and his curate. These latter speak to ears that are often stopped tight. The picture speaks to the eyes, as does "In this matter Diderot seems to contradict himself, probably under the influence of Webb and Spence, in his very disrespectful comparison of the Pagan with the Christian mythology, two years later (Essai sur la pein- ture, 1765; X, 490-495). But even there he recognizes that Eaphael, Guido, Barocci, Titian have created great and beautiful Christian figures. He might have dwelt at greater length on some of the gentler themes, like that of motherhood, which have graced Christian art. THE CRITIC 417 the panorama of nature, which has taught us almost all we know. I go even further: I con- sider the iconoclasts and contemnors of proces- sions, images, statues, and all the outward pomps of worship, as executioners in the pay of the philosopher weary of superstition ; with this difference, that those valets do much more harm to superstition than their master. Abolish all material symbols; what is left will soon be nothing but a metaphysical galimatias, which will assume as many odd shapes and turns as there will be heads. . . . Those absurd rigor- ists do not know the effect of outward cere- monies on the people ; they have never seen our Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday, the en- thusiasm of the multitude at the procession of Corpus Christi, an enthusiasm by which I am myself carried away sometimes. I have never seen that long file of priests in sacerdotal vest- ments, those young alcolytes clad in white albs, girt in wide blue sashes, strewing flowers before the Holy Sacrament ; that crowd preceding and following them in religious silence ; so many men prostrate on the ground ; I have never heard that grave, pathetic chant sung by the priests, affectionately answered by numberless men, wo- men, girls, and children, without being stirred in my inmost heart, without tears in my eyes. There is in all this something, I know not what, that is grand, sombre, solemn, and melancholy. I have known a Protestant painter who had 28 418 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT • spent a long time in Rome,^^ and who confessed that he had never seen the sovereign pontiff officiating in Saint Peter, in the midst of his cardinals and clergy, without becoming a Catholic. He resumed his religion at the door. 'But, they say, those images and cere- monies lead to idolatry.' It is strange to see dealers in lies fear that the number of falsehoods will increase with the general infatuation for them. My friend, if we prefer the truth to the fine arts, let us pray God for the icono- clasts" (X, 390-391). Luckily, what Diderot calls " the truth " can tolerate the arts; "philosophy" would have been but a poor sort of creed if it had blinded its adherents to the beauties which religious enthusiasm has created in most lands. Diderot remained an admirer and a defender of the Christian inspiration in art. We see him in 1767 resuming his controversy with his oppo- nents; not only the Protestant Webb this time, but also the Abbe Galiani : " Webb, an elegant writer and a man of taste, says in hh Reflections on Painting that subjects drawn from the sacred books or the martyrology "Allan Eamsay?— Diderot had dined with him and hia family at the house of Van Loo the painter in that year 1765 {Volland Letters, Sept. 8, 1765; XIX, 174). THE CEITIC 419 can never produce a beautiful picture.^*' That man has never seen Le Brun's Massacre of the Innocents, nor the same Massacre by Rubens, nor the Descent from the Cross by Hannibal Carracci, nor Saint Paul preaching in Athens by Le Sueur, nor I do not know which apostle or disciple rending the clothes on his breast at the sight of a pagan sacrifice, nor Magdalene wiping the Savior's feet with her beautiful hair, nor the same Saint so voluptuously stretched on the ground in her cave, by Correggio, nor a host of Holy Families, each more touching, beautiful, simple, noble, interesting than the others, nor my Virgin by Barocci, holding on her knees the infant Jesus standing and naked. That writer has not foreseen that he would be asked why Hercules choking the l^cmean lion should be beautiful in a picture, while Samson doing the same thing should displease ? Why the flay- ing of Marsyas, but not of Saint Bartholomew, may be painted ? Why Christ writing with his finger on the sand the absolution of the adulter- ous woman, in the midst of the abashed Phari- sees, should not be a fine picture, as beautiful as Phryne charged with impiety before the Areopagus ? Our friend Galiani, whom I like to hear jnst as much when he upholds a paradox "He alludea to Webb's Seventh Dialogue (Of Com- position) in his Inquiry, in which Christ armed with a whip is unfavorably compared with Alexander carrying Jove 's thunder, and the martyrdom of Saint Andrew with the sacrifice of Iphigenia (Miscell., 1802, pp. 73-74). 420 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT as when lie proves a truth, thinks like Webb; and he adds that Michael Angelo had felt this, that he had condemned the straight hair, the Jewish beards, the pale, thin, mean-looking, common, traditional features of the apostles, substituting for them the antique character." Diderot doubts this; but, granting it to be true, he cannot approve that strange confusion (frequent indeed in the Renaissance) which " puts the figure of a man in contradiction with his manners, history, and life." If it is meant that Michael Angelo used to treat sacred sub- jects according to the proportions of the antique, there is nothing to say, " it is the wise course." But "to pronounce that the reigning super- stition is sterile for art, as Webb claims that it is, is to be ignorant of art and of the history of religion; one must never have seen Bernini's Saint Theresa, and that Virgin nursing her playful child naked on her knees ;^'^ one must have no idea of the pride with which certain fanatic Christians appeared at the foot of the Praetor's tribunals, before the prsetorial majesty ; of the cold, tranquil ferocity of the priests, and of the lesson derived by me from those compo- sitions, which instruct me better than all the ^' The * ' Virgin witli the green cushion, ' ' by Andrea Solario, in the Louvre. THE CRITIC 421 philosophers in the world concerning the power of men possessed with that sort of demon. Pa- triotism and thcophobia are the sources of great tragedies and terrifying pictures. What! the Christian interrupting a sacrifice, overthrowing altars, smashing gods, insulting the pontiff, braving the magistrate, does not offer a great sight ? All this seems to me to be seen through the little spectacles of Anticomania. I am Mr Webb's and the Abbe Galiani's humble ser- vant!" (XI, 344-346). Thus, because he felt the weakness of that narrow-minded neo-classicism which had then formidable defenders in England in Reynolds and Dr Johnson, Diderot sounded on his " phi- losophic lyre " the earliest praises of the heautes du christianisme, soon to be echoed by Chateau- briand and his Romantic progeny. What Cor- neille and Racine had done in an apologetic sort of way, he justified by theory, at a time when it was no small credit for a rationalist thus to overcome the prejudices of Rationalism. He never went so far as to admire the so- called " Gothic " architecture, which Thomas Warton was then timidly but insistently at- tempting to rescue from undeserved contempt. Yet, in his Essai sur la peinture (1765), when 422 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ■ he said just one "word on architecture" (Chap- ter VI), he outlined a parallel between "the advantages of Greek and Eoman architecture and the prerogatives of Gothic architecture " ; he was tempted to show " the latter expanding space inside by its high arches and light col- umns, destroying on the outside the imposing effect of the mass by the multitude and the bad taste of its ornaments, to bring out the analogy between the darkness of its colored windows and the incomprehensible nature of the worshipped Being and the sombre ideas of the worshipper " (X, 510). Had he developed this parallel, there is no doubt that he would have mingled many reflections of a "philosophic" nature with his artistic appreciations; but also, in conform- ity to his motto, Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lueem (Horace, De Arte Poet., V, 143), he would have given some illuminating criti- cism on a subject which had inspired so many classical platitudes and was still obscured by prejudiced declamations against Gothic bar- barity. With the neo-classic worship of the ancient THE CRITIC 423 artists, and the rather absurd tradition of that "imitation of nature" which was supposed to have consisted in wisely selecting and hannoni- ously grouping elements borrowed from reality, he began to quarrel in 1765, and he finally dis- posed of them in 1767, under the influence of his own reflections, his earlier studies in physi- ology, and suggestions from Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty and Garrick's conversation. In his preceding Salons his criticism had been mostly technical, probably owing to his association with artists like Chardin, Greuze, Van Loo, and intelligent amateurs like Grimm and Holbach ; or else it had been literary, in the tradition of Du Bos, Batteux, Spence, and the numerous critics who perpetually compared the plastic arts with poetry and poetry with the plastic arts. This literary tendency of Dide- rot's art criticism, with which he has been very severely reproached, was general at a time when innumerable works of academic art took their themes out of ancient literature ; and it was in a sense legitimate when it led to intelligent re- marks concerning the composition, the expres- sions, the gestures of the characters represented. If such a critique du sujet and de la -pantomime -■^ — ^. -^-^ — •-• 424 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ■ had not been allowed, how could Diderot have challenged the inept composition of the pas- torals of Boucher, the preposterous allegories of La Grenee, and hundreds of insipid mytholog- ical, historical, fanciful pieces which reflected little credit on the intelligence and the original- ity of their perpetrators? He was right in energetically denouncing every work, however cleverly executed, which was ill-conceived, fin- ical, and falsely classical. Besides, Diderot knew how to be technical, as far as technical criticism is allowed to a man who is not a pro- fessional artist, and who writes in a Corre- spondance litter cdre designed for an enlightened public, but not for technicians.^^ To return to his theory of the process of ar- tistic imitation, he first expounded it in his Salon of 1766 — particularly in the Essay on Painting which concluded and supplemented it— and in his Salon of 1767. "E'ature," he said, "makes nothing incorrect. Every form, whether beautiful or ugly, has its cause; and, among all existing beings, there is not one ^ See an excellent vindication of Diderot 's criticism in M. E. Faguet's Dix-huitieme siecle, pp. 316 ff. (7th edition). THE CRITIC 425 which is not as it should be " (X, 461). Every- thing is well formed, well balanced, according to certain laws which we know but imperfectly ; organs are shaped by their functions, and all the organs in one body determine and explain one another's form, A blind woman, a hunch- back, a pack-carrier, have the same organs as the Antinous, but differently shaped owing to some physiological peculiarities.^^ Then what is la belle nature? It is "what fits with cir- cumstances" (III, 485). And what is arti- ficial in the " academic " tradition ? It is the disregard of those natural relations, the ac- ceptance of narrow standards of taste, rules derived from the examples of antiquity, man- nerisms acquired by copying from models and working from the imagination; it is all that tends "to correct nature" in the name of bor- rowed ideals. To give an example of the difference which exists between true gracefulness, natural beauty, and the artificial standards of art, Diderot took his cue from the plate of sketches which Hogarth "Diderot carefully inveatigated this point (Letter to M. Petit, the surgeon; IX, 239;— also XI, 371, etc.), which was intimately connected with his transformistic theories as well as with his art criticism. -L-- 426 DIDEKOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT- I Lad prefixed to his Analysis of Beauty. The English artist had represented a ridiculous dancing-master, standing bolt upright, in a stiff attitude, by the side of the Antinous, and push- ing his elbow in an attempt to correct his indo- lent bearing.^*' "Know what true gracefulness is," says Di- derot, " or that true, precise conformity of the limbs with the nature of the action. Above all, do not mistake it for that of the actor or the dancing-master. The gracefulness of action and that of Marcel [a celebrated dancing-master] are in direct opposition. If Marcel were to meet a man standing like the Antinous, he would put one hand under his chin, the other on his shoulder : ' Come now, you awkward booby, is this a proper carriage ? ' Then, pushing back his knees with his own and lifting him up under the arms, he would add: 'You look as though you were made of wax and ready to melt. Come, you fool, stretch that leg; turn that face ^^ The illustration which struck Diderot was thus ex- plained in the Analysis (Chapter VIII^ also p. 20), in a discussion of the superstition of straight lines: "If a dancing-master were to see his scholar in the easy and gracefully turned attitude of the Antinous (fig. 6, pi. 1), he would cry shame on him, and tell him he looked as crooked as a ram's horn^ and bid him hold up his head as he himself did. See fig. 7, pi. 1. " — Diderot several times paraphrased this text: XI, 372, etc. THE CEITIC 427 about; your nose more in the wind.' And, when he had made him into the most insipid petit-maitre, he would begin to smile at him and applaud himself on his work " (X, 489). Nature, Diderot would say to art students, was not the professional model, that poor crea- ture hired for the purpose of illustrating arti- ficial attitudes in a school: what is there in common between the man drawing water from a well in the courtyard and the model posing for the same action in a studio? Copy reli- gious devotion in a Carthusian convent; copy anger from your fellow-student when he is truly in a passion ; copy woodlands from the woods, M. Loutherbourg ! " The vaster a composition, the more studies from nature it will require. . . . Ah ! if a sacrifice, a battle, a triumph, a public scene could be rendered with the same truth in all its details as a domestic scene by Greuze or Chardin!" (X, 505). Instead of which, painters of historical subjects looked with contempt upon the painters de genre. The latter drew less from their imagination, they copied everything from nature, and Diderot loved them for it. But is everything in nature equally beauti- 428 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ful ? Diderot did not think so. He admitted that anything may be imitated, since nothing is intrinsically incorrect; and in this he was a thorough realist. However, some works of art, such as those of classical antiquity, are richer in relations than some others; they have more of the inward harmony and the outward suggest- iveness in which beauty consists; they make a deeper esthetic impression. How is this ? What is the secret of that charm which is felt in the antique, or in a Michael Angelo ? Hogarth had believed that it consisted in a certain "line of beauty," a peculiar kind of curve which only the very great masters had known how to use. But he had more curiously than convincingly expounded his strange system in the Analysis of Beauty. Diderot thought of this book when he wrote, on the subject of beauty :^^ "All that is said about elliptical, cir- cular, serpentine, undulating lines, is absurd. Each part has its line of beauty, and that of the eye is not that of the knee. And even if the undulating line were the line of beauty of the ^Pensees detachees sur la peinture, la sculpture, I'arcMtecture et la poesie (publislied 1798), a restune in aphorisms of most of the theoretical matter to be found in the Salons, particularly those of 1765 and 1767. THE CRITIC 429 human body, which are we to prefer among a thousand lines that undulate?" (XII, 124). The process of artistic imitation is made the object of an illuminating analysis in the open- ing pages of the Salon of 1765. It is not, he says, a mere copying of reality, "portrait work," as he calls it, — photography, as we should say; and, in spite of a venerable tradi- tion, the ancient masterpieces, the Venuses and the Apollos, were not made up with real fea- tures copied from various beautiful women or men and harmoniously combined : for how was the ancient artist to know which features were beautiful and which were not? He had no "antiques" to judge by, as we do in our aca- demic routine. It was only through a slow, prolonged series of attempts, corrections, and eliminations, that the "true line of beauty" was found. It is an ideal line, non-existent in nature, for nature does not offer any perfect model: the perfect model of man or woman should be a man or woman eminently fitted for all the functions of life without ever having ful- filled any, — a being which does not exist and never will exist. The academic method of the schools is therefore as bad as the method of 430 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT copying nature from artificial models, which is also used in the schools ; for copy work, whether from the antique or from nature, is slavish and barren. The method of all great masters is essentially creative: the ideal model, the true line, exists nowhere but in the head of an Agasias, a Raphael, a Poussin, a Falconet. It is discovered and shaped anew by each artist of genius, and for a time it serves as a model to a crowd of minor artists, disciples of the sublime imitators of an ideal nature. This artistic idealism which Diderot ex- pounds with true eloquence, in 176Y, is not without analogy with his Paradox on the Player, in which we have seen that his realistic conception of all arts in general, and of the art of acting in particular, was giving way to an idealistic theory represented as being Garrick's ovm. Indeed here, in the Salon of 1767, after the long digression in which Hogarth's line of beauty is discussed, Garrick is again remem- bered by Diderot : " The famous Garrick used to say to the Chevalier de Chastellux : ' However sensitive ISTature may have madei you, if you act only after yourself, or after the most perfect real THE CRITIC 431 nature that you know, you will be nothing but mediocre.' ' Mediocre ? Why so ? ' ' Because for you, for me, for the spectator, there is a certain possible ideal man who, in the given situation, would be affected very differently from you. This is the imaginary being whom you must take for your model. The stronger your con- ception of him, the greater, the more rare, mar- vellous, sublime you will be.' ' Then you never are yourself ? ' ' I take good care not to be. l^ot myself, Chevalier, nor anything that I exactly know around me. When I rend my heart, when I utter frightful cries, it is not my heart, it is not my cries, but those of another whom I have imagined and who does not exist.'^^ N^ow, my friend, there is no kind of poet or artist to whom Garrick's lesson does not apply. If you think over and look deeply into this saying of his, you will find that it contains Plato's secundus a ^ The main idea of Diderot 's paradox, the differentia- tion between nature and art, must have been in the air in England as well as in France. Dr Johnson, we are told by Boswell, asked Kemble one day : " ' Are you, Sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe yourself transformed into the very character you represent?' Upon Mr. Kemble 's answering that he had never felt so strong a persuasion himself; 'To be sure not, Sir, (said Johnson;) the thing is impossible. And if Grarrick really believed himself to be that monster^ Richard the Third, he de- served to be hanged every time he performed it.' " (Boswell, Life of Johnson, edition G. Birkbeck Hill, vol. IV, pp. 243-244, and note; under date 1783). 432 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT naiura and tertius ah idea, both the germ and the proof of everything that I have said.^^ The models, the great models, so useful to mediocre men, are very harmful to men of genius" (XI, 9-17). After 1767, the Salons of Diderot became shorter, more descriptive and technical, and less philosophic. His friend Grimm had requested him to be more concise. ^^ But we may assume that by 1768 he had reached solutions that seemed satisfactory to him concerning the na- ture of the beautiful, the relations of art and ^A. Fontaine, in his work on Les doctrines d'art en France — De Poussin d Diderot (Paris, 1909), Chap. IX, suggests that Diderot's advocacy of idealism against naturalism and academism in the Salon of 1767 may be in part determined by Winckelmann 's influence. This "fanatic of the antique" had been criticized by Diderot in his Salon of 1765 (X, 417-418'). It seems to us that by 1767 at any rate Diderot had freed himself of Winckelmann 's influence through his consideration of the theories of Hogarth and Garrick on art. " In the Assezat edition, Diderot 's Salon for 1759 has 13 pages; — for 1761, 49 pages; — for 1763, 67 pages; — for 1765, 121 pages, and an Essay on Painting, 60 pages; —for 1767, 379 pages. Then, for 1769, 76 pages;— for 1771, 81 pages;— for 1775, 23 pages;— for 1781, 42 pages. The Pensees dStacMes, made up of fragments developed or not developed in the Salons, extend over 58 more pages. THE CRITIC 433 morality, the fit subjects for artistic treatment, and the general theory of the process of artistic creation. It must be acknowledged that in the two Salons in which his "tyrant" (as he pleas- antly called Grimm) had allowed him to have his own way, that is, between 1765 and 1768, he had found the means of pricking a good many bubbles of traditional art criticism as he went along, and of correcting the early form of obvious naturalism with which he had set out a few years before. How his dramatic theories of 1758 would have fared, had he been able to revise them ten years later, it is difficult to imagine. His final pronouncement on the general subject of artistic imitation, as we find it in the Salon of 1 767 and in the Paradox, written shortly after, shows that he had altogether forsaken his earlier critical positions. Now the true standard of art, whether in painting, or in sculpture, or in poetry, or in acting, was not reality, that is, sensations, any more than it was an academic tradition. It was a transcendant essence, quelque chose d'ul- terieur a la nature (XI, 223), "non-existent" of course for a disciple of Locke, yet very real to the inspired artist who created it, set it up 29 434 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT' before himself, and strove to materialize it with the means at his disposal. Concerning poetry, at any rate, Diderot in the latter part of his life gave some hints about what he preferred and what he considered fittest for poetic treatment. He seems to have had from the beginning a rather Eomantic concep- tion of what poetry should be; and what ac- quaintance he gained with English poetry, mostly after 1760, confirmed his prepossessions. Already in the Letter on the Deaf and Dumb (I, 371-372), while praising the. Erench lan- guage as the best interpreter of reason and good sense, he had expressed the opinion that it was not as well fitted to express the passions, and that it was a weaker poetic instrument than Greek, Latin, Italian, or English. Besides, French had been impoverished, enervated by the abuse of a so-called "noble language" or poetic diction (I, 388). Supposing however that French had kept all its poetic resources, how could any great outburst of poetry be ex- pected in a highly polished age ? Diderot tells us that in his youth he had sometimes felt the poetic spirit stirring within himself (I, 374), THE CRITIC 435 probably at that time when he "was fed with the milk of Homer and the prophets."^ ^ " Poetry needs something enormous, barbaric, savage," primitive manners and wild nature; its well- springs might be opened again on the morrow of some huge social cataclysm, but not in the refined and artificial age of philosophy (VIII, 370). To the question : " Is the philosophic spirit favorable or not favorable to poetry ? " Diderot unhesitatingly replied that it was not. " There is more poetic spirit (verve) among barbaric than among civilized nations ; more among the Hebrews than among the Greeks; more among the Greeks than among the Romans; more among the Romans than among the Italians and the French ; more among the English than among the latter" (XI, 131). Philosophy and reason drive poetry and imagination out of a country. Superstition, prejudices depart, "and it is incredible what resources poetry loses * Life in the country inspired him in the same way, but too rarely, as is shown by some of his letters from Grandval, or that eloquent page in the Salon of 1767 on the eternal longing of men cooped up in cities for the country, their true abode: "0 rus, quando te aspiciam?" (XI, 112). 436 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT through unbelief. Manners become civilized; barbaric, poetic, picturesque customs disappear ; and this monotonous politeness does incredible harm to poetry" (XI, 131). That is the rea- son why Pindar is no longer understood, and Milton is despised. Taste is opposed to genius and sublime poetry; classical correctness sup- presses the vagaries of the imagination. England and ancient Greece offer examples of the true, genuine poetic spirit : " Genius and the sublime shine in Shakespeare like flashes of lightning in a long night, while Racine is always beautiful: Homer is full of genius, Vergil of elegance. . . . One dialect did not suffice to supply Homer with the expressions necessary to his genius ; Milton at every moment violates the rules of his language,^® and looks for energetic phrases in three or four different tongues" (XV, 37). When in 1762 Voltaire began his Commerir ^Diderot in 1763 sees Milton's "darkness visible" in a certain landscape by Vernet (X, 202). He elsewhere (XVIII, 105) commits a slight blunder when he fancies the blind poet sadly watching cartloads of copies of his immortal poem going back to the paper factories. Dide- rot had a copy of Paradise Lost with him in his prison at Vincennes, and filled its margins with notes. THE CRITIC 437 taii'a sur Corneille, in order to provide a dowry for an indigent descendant of the great tragic poet, he made occasional references to Shake- speare, illustrating his criticism of Medee, or of Cinna, with quotations from Macbeth, or from Julius Ccesar: this was not intended to estab- lish any comparison between " the wild and per- nicious irregularities of Shakespeare" and "the profound judgment of Corneille,"^'^ but to show the various resources of two different dramatic traditions. Diderot seems to have thought that Voltaire was a little too lukewarm in his praise of Shakespeare : " Confess that Shakespeare is indeed a very extraordinary man. There is not one of those scenes which, with a little talent, could not be made into a great thing. Would it not be a fine beginning for a tragedy to have two senators upbraiding a debased rabble for the applause which they have just been lavish- ing on their tyrant? And then what a rapid flow! what harmony!" (XIX, 465). It has become a sort of tradition in literary history that Diderot undertook to defend the fame of " Voltaire, CEuvres, Moland edition, vol. XXXI, p. 343, commentary on Cinna. Diderot 's letter to Voltaire, which deals mostly with the difficulties of the Encyclopedie, was written Sept. 29, 1762. 438 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT' Shakespeare against Voltaire, "the sworn en- emy of pedestals."^^ But his praise of Shake- speare seems mild enough when we see how careful he is not to commit himself too far, and what contemporaries he classes with the great English playwright: "I consider Sedaine as one of the great-grandchildren of Shakespeare, that Shakespeare whom I shall not compare with the Apollo of the Belvedere, or the Gladia- tor, or the Antinous, or Glycon's Hercules, but rather with the Saint Christopher of IS^otre- Dame, a shapeless, rudely carved colossus, yet hetween whose legs we might all pass without touching him" (VIII, 384). He regretted that both Sedaine and Shakespeare had lacked a classical education. Yet at the same time he admired Shakespeare's power not only in his mob scenes, but in those very " butcheries " ^^ Thus Diderot; in a curious vindication of Voltaire (1769) against a certain Abbe Chaudon (VI, 351 ff.)- — Diderot's comparison of Shakespeare with Saint Christo- pher is also found in his letter of Dec. 18, 1776, to FranQois Tronchin (printed in H. Tronchin, Le Conseiller Frangois Tronchin, Paris, 18&5, p. 227) ; — also in Metra's Correspondance, 2d edition, 1787, vol. VI, p. 425, in a conversation between Diderot, Voltaire and Madame Denis, of which it is diflS.cult to say where it might have taken place. THE CRITIC 439 which an over-delicate and over-sensitive na- tion would not permit: why then, he said, let us be logical, and exclude the Greek CEdipus, Philoctetes, the Eumenides, from polite litera- ture (VIII, 393). When Ducis offered an im- proved and polished Shakespeare to French au- diences, Diderot had enough sense to prefer the rude original. This is because he was more responsive to the suggestive power of poetry than to any clas- sical regularity or correctness. His admiration sprang from emotional rather than intellectual sources. Darkness, terror, melancholy seemed to him more poetical than light, mirth and happy moods. " Light (la clarte) is good to convince ; it has no power to move. Light, or clearness, how- soever we understand it, is inimical to enthu- siasm. Poets, talk always of eternity, infinity, immensity, time, space, divinity, tombs. Manes, hell, dark skies, deep seas, dim forests, thunder, flashes rending the clouds. Be dark. Great noises heard from afar, waterfalls heard and unseen, silence, solitude, the desert, ruins, cav- erns, the sound of veiled drums beaten at inter- vals, the strokes of a bell slowly tolling and awaited by the ear, the screech of night birds, the howls of wild beasts in winter, during the 440 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT night, particularly when mingled with the mur- mur of the winds . . . there is in all these things I know not what that is awful, great and dark" (XI, 147). Such a passage clearly points the way to all the themes of pre-romantic and romantic poetry. It is not surprising that the names of Milton, Gray, Young, and Ossian are mentioned almost immediately after this suggestive page in the Salon of 1767. Diderot seems to have become widely ac- quainted, between 1760 an.d 1770, with some of the most original aspects of English poetry in his age, probably through Hoop, Garrick, and other friends. ^^ In October 1761, he was send- ^' Hoop for the Scottisli songSj and perhaps for Ossian ; Garrick for Gray. Diderot's paragraph on Ossian, which we quote, may have been prompted by the reading of Conlath and Cuthona. — It is interesting to compare with Diderot's enthusiastic appreciation the gruff comments of Johnson in his Life of Gray: "In 1757, he published the Progress of Poetry and The Bard, two compositions at which the readers of poetry were at first content to gaze in mute amazement. Some that tried them con- fessed their inability to understand them, though War- burton said that they were understood as well as the works of Milton and Shakespeare, which it is the fashion to admire. Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. Some hardy champions undertook to rescue them from THE CRITIC 441 ing Bliylvic and Vinivela and other Scottish songs to Sophie Volland, remarking that there reigned in those pieces a taste which " con- founded" him (XIX, 67). In 1767, he exulted in reading the song of Gray's Bard, and some of the Macpherson poems, which with most of his contemporaries he took to be genuine : " Ossian, a chief, a warrior, a j^oet, and a musician, hears in the night the trees murmur- ing around his abode ; he rises, he cries : ' Souls of my friends, I hear you ; you upbraid me for my silence.' He takes up his lyre, he sings ; and, after he has sung, he says : ' Souls of my friends, now you are immortal; be then satis- fied, and let me rest.' In his old age, a Bard asks to be led among the graves of his children ; he sits down, lays both his hands on the cold stone which covers their ashes, and sings of them. Meanwhile the air, or rather the wander- ing souls of his children, caressed his face and his long beard. O beautiful manners ! O beau- tiful poetry!" (XI, 181-182). neglect, and in a short time many were content to be shewn beauties which they could not see." Johnson's Life of Savage, translated by Le Tourneur in 1771, was described by Diderot in his review of it (IX, 451) as "a book which would have been delightful, if the English author had proposed to satirize his hero; but unfortunately he is in earnest." 442 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT' In 1771 he reviewed Le Tourneur's transla- tion (1769) of Young's Night ThougUs, "a poem of the finest black dye that you could pos- sibly imagine, which the translator has been clever enough to make readable for a nation whose mind is rosy-colored. It is true that this tint is beginning to fade" (IX, 451). As Grimm had not shown much warmth in recom- mending Young's poem to the readers of the Correspondance litteraire, Diderot finely took him to task (June, 1770) : " You must say that the Night Thoughts are a great book. Is it nothing to have succeeded in making a frivol- ous, gay nation like ours relish jeremiads ? " (XX, 13). Thomson, whose Life by Johnson Diderot reviewed, was more harshly treated.^** Diderot saw in him a mere neo-classic, and crushed the English Seasoiis with the Latin Georgics, Thomson with Vergil : " His Muse is like Notre-Dame de Lorette, while the Muse of Vergil is a Venus. . . . Thomson is a corrupter of taste" (IX, 451). He would have said of Thomson's Seasons what he said of the pastorals '• It is to be wished that Thomson should no longer be described as "auteur des Nuits d 'Young, " aa he is in the Index of the latest edition of Diderot's works. THE CEITIC 443 of Gessner and of Leonard : " Those rustic man- ners do not exist anywhere in the world; it is all false ; but if you admit the possibility of such country people, everything is true. ... I am like the children ; I never discuss the foundation of a tale which amuses me" (VI, 418). Un- fortunately, Thomson's pastorals failed to amuse him, and that is why he was as hard to him as he had been to Boucher.^^ " O the poets, the poets ! " the philosopher sometimes exclaims. " Plato knew what he was doing when he drove them out of his republic. They have not any right ideas about anything. Interpreting falsehood and truth alternately, their enchanting jargon infects a whole nation, and twenty volumes of philosophy are less read and accomplish less good than one of their songs does harm" (VI, 414). This brief consideration of some of Diderot's cursory judgments on English poets shows that what interested him most in English poetry was ^^ Occasional references to Dryden, Swift, Prior, Milton, Pope, are to be found in various parts of Diderot's (Euvres as we know them, which sufficiently show that he was as widely read in English poetry as any of his French contemporaries. It would have been unprofitable to mention all these references here, and only the most significant have been used. 444 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT not the neo-classical tradition, the academism of poetry, which he found in Pope and in Thom- son, but the new spirit, the new sources of emo- tion which were soon to become known as the sources of Romantic inspiration. His favorite English poets were exactly those whom Samuel Johnson was most unwilling or most unable to appreciate. It is truly curious to see two men so eminently representative of their respective countries during the latter half of the eighteenth century, and each of whom seems to have care- fully avoided mentioning the other by name, judge English poetry from two absolutely oppo- site standpoints: the English critic, from the classical rules which had been framed in seventeenth-century France; the French philos- opher, in the spirit of the independent poetic tradition of England which was being revived by the " school of Milton " and the English Pre- romanticists. Johnson harked back to the artistic gospel of the past ; Diderot hailed with enthusiasm the inspirations of the future. If Beauty is not, any more than Truth, a fixed quantity, an immutable essence, an innate sort of light, " of the Eternal co-eternal beam," and if the reason why it has for so long eluded the THE CRITIC 445 attemjjts made to grasp it within definitions is, that being an ideal it follows for ever the evolu- tion of the human mind, the most thankless as well as the most harmful undertaking of criti- cism may be to try and abide by " a fixed faith and constant axioms." Diderot preferred to open his mind wide to all influences, and to fore- stall the tastes and the beliefs of posterity. COITCLTJSION DiDEEOT, who dearly loved paradoxes, for the soul of truth which they contain, might have liked to hear about " Diderot the most German of all the French," and " Diderot the English- man." In truth, if we consider his tempera- ment and habits of thought, he appears as " eminently French, a Frenchman of the Centre, of Champagne or Burgundy, of the Seine or the Marne, and he was par excellence a Frenchman of the middle-class."^ Like many other French citizens who are loath to stir from home, he was lavish in his enthusiastic praise of the foreign nations concerning which he knew nothing but by hearsay, and which he was content to admire on trust : " Look at England ! " these worthy people exclaim ; " look at the United States ! " or at any other distant country that happens to serve their purpose. This gives weight to an argument, for men readily believe much about lands which they have not seen: major a ^ E. Faguet, Dix-huitieme siecle, 7th edition, 1890, p. 279. 446 CONCLUSION 447 longinquo reverentia. And this panegyrist of English virtue, boldness, and liberty, is Diderot as he generally appears in his works. To him, as to Voltaire, the adversaries of the philosophic propaganda must have often said : " You are always quoting the English to us, it is the rally- ing-cry of the philosophers."^ But Diderot, in his letters and his conversation, was more re- served and reticent than in his works, on the subject of England; his enthusiasm sometimes wavered, and he willingly relied on the testi- mony of other people. It was not possible for him, as it was for Voltaire, to boast that he had discovered England for the French; and conse- quently he never set himself up as an oracle on English things. This little French bourgeois, however, was " a fine genius, to whom nature had given great wings," and even " a transcendent genius which had no equal in his age."^ Curious of every- thing that came from the nation which was ^Voltaire, Dialogues Chretiens, "Premier dialogue, entre un pretre et un encyclopediste; " Moland edition, vol. XXIV, p. 132. ^ Diderot was thus characterized by Voltaire and by Eousseau; quoted by E. Bersot, Etudes sur le XVIIle Steele, 1855, vol. II, p. 147. 448 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT. the first in modern times to free human thought from the threats of the law, he read many Eng- lish books, meditated much over his reading; and thus it came about, through this vast book- knowledge as well as through his warm praises of England, that by his contemporaries he was considered as a kind of authority on English thought. He owed a great many suggestions to English philosophy and English literature ; but, from a cosmopolitan point of view, it is a ques- tion whether English writers were not eventually more indebted to him than he had been to them. Diderot was a very active agent in the dif- fusion of English thought. Of all the kinds of intellectual action which comparative literature brings under the rather vague designation of " influence," there is scarcely one of which Di- derot does not afford some example in his rela- tions with English writers of every description. The history of his indebtedness to them may be said to have begun vdth translations, to have continued with adaptations, then with "con- tinuations," digressions, manifold reminiscen- ces, and occasional criticisms. From the time when he was doing hack-work for the Parisian booksellers, to the days when he was acknowl- CONCLUSION 449 edged as a great representative of eighteenth- century philosophy, a Father of the yet unnamed Positivistic Church, he indef atigably worked for the propagation of many scientific, philosophic, and literary ideas of English origin, not only through translations and imitations, but, what was infinitely more interesting and fruitful, by a large number of original works in which the foreign suggestions served as nuclei for fertile developments, or as starting-points for bold generalizations which soared far beyond them. Thus he vastly increased the intrinsic wealth of what he borrowed, while broadening his person- ality. Our outline of his intellectual biography in relation to England has therefore aimed not merely at tracing evidences of direct disciple- ship, but also at describing a series of interesting reactions under the foreign influence. Had he not been endowed with great original power as well as with an exceptional faculty of assimilation, his connection with England would not be of much more importance to us than that of many other English scholars of his age and country,^ Desfontaines, Eidous, Toussaint, La * Some of these however contributed not a little to the modification of the French literary taste and standards: see Mary G. Gushing, P. Le Tourneur, New York, 1909. 30 450 DIDEKOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Place, Madame Riccoboni, and a score more of obscure abbes, poor scribblers, unsuccessful actresses, all sedulous day-laborers in the field of letters. He might have gone on translating Grecian Histories, Medicinal Dictionaries, Es- says on Virtue, Cyclopaedias, English plays, and secured for himself an honorable, inconspicuous place among the people who in each age have tried to make the intellectual wealth of one na- tion accessible to another. Instead of this, the history of his connection with English thought is one of gradual emancipation. In the space of approximately twenty years, between 1745 and 1763 or 1765, the translator of English books became a powerful interpreter of English ideas; and, thanks to the great prestige which the Erench language and literature enjoyed in Europe, he was able to effect a wider and deeper diffusion of those ideas than any of his contemporaries could have done. Fairly sub- missive to the influence of his first masters, Shaftesbury and Bacon, fervid to a fault in his intense admiration for them and for Rich- ardson, he asserted more independence in his activity as a dramatist — and this is perhaps a matter for regret: for, if instead of merely CONCLUSION 451 pointing to the dramas of Lillo and Moore for a justification of his timely reaction against the dramatic tradition of France, he had boldly attacked the problems of the Shakespearean dramaturgy, if he had given half as much atten- tion and sympathy to the art of Shakespeare as he had done to the art of Richardson or to the ethics of Shaftesbury, and displayed the same ingenuity in bringing out the hidden merits of Hamlet as in vindicating the beauties of Cla- rissa HarlowG, he would have done more for literature in general and for himself than by inventing the genre serieux. In the novel, it has seemed to us that, while more or less reminis- cent of Richardson and Sterne, he followed an independent vein, trying to derive his material either from reality or from philosophy — a phi- losophy both practical and theoretical, combative and speculative. Lastly, in criticism, a portion of his work which in spite of its lack of con- sistency is of great value,^ all the English influ- ences that were brought to bear upon him, save that of Garrick alone, resulted in opposition on " Diderot introduced life into criticism : see Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. Ill, and G. Saintsbury, History of Criticism, vol. Ill, Chap. IV.) 452 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT his part. Yet, even while his mind became more and more detached from England, both through his gradual disenchantment concerning the " Philosophic Country " and through the clearer consciousness which he had acquired of his own powers, it is to be noted that Diderot hailed such poets as Young, Gray, and " Ossian " with great enthusiasm, as though he discerned in their writings the promise of a wonderful poetic harvest for the future. It would be exceedingly difficult to determine what Diderot accomplished on the whole for les idees anglwises, that is, for the spirit of lib- erty in matters of philosophy and literature. All the English ideas which interested this very French intellect received from it a new life and a radical form. How far this transformation assisted their progress in continental Europe, what was gained for the Positivistic tendencies of Bacon, Locke, and Shaftesbury, for the Real- ism of Lillo and Richardson, by the advocacy of the enthusiastic philosopher, cannot be definitely expressed. It is beyond doubt that he con- tributed a great deal to the fame of Shaftesbury and of Richardson outside of England, that he initiated the worship for Bacon, and that he CONCLUSION 453 gave to the moral English drama of the eigh- teenth century a European reputation which it might never have obtained through its own deserts. " Tout s'exagere, tout s'enrichit un peu dans ma pensee et dans mon discours" (XI, 115). His mind acted as a great focus of con- centration and irradiation; thus it is that he appears not only as eminently representative of his age, but as a forerunner of several currents of human thought which were followed up in later ages. The very success of the main ideas for which he stood, the wide acceptance which they re- ceived in Europe in the nineteenth century, may have prevented him from obtaining the share of credit which he expected from posterity. To modern readers of his works, there is apparently no very great hardiesse in contending that psy- chology should be studied empirically ; that the foundation of ethics is essentially social, and that right living is not inseparable from a given set of "right beliefs"; that the ethical as well as the religious creeds vary in different forms of society, and that none of them can claim to be absolutely the best ; that toleration therefore must reign everywhere; that the greatest riddle 454 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT of all, for a mind unenlightened by supernatural agencies, is not so much the existence of God and His relations with man and the present order of the world, as the universe itself, its past transformations, the nature and the origin of life, and the relations between animate and inanimate nature. At the close of a highly positive and utilitarian age, such as the nine- teenth century has been, there is nothing very new in the idea that metaphysical systems, how- ever sublime they may be, are of less value to man than experimental sciences and their appli- cations; that the human intellect does not lose in dignity by applying itself to act on matter instead of merely analyzing itself; that manual labor deserves much respect ; and that a compen- dium of human knowledge, an encyclopedia, should devote more space to the description of the useful arts in their present state than to the curiosities of their history. Lastly, there is nothing very startling for us in the denunciation of the errors of Pseudo-Classicism and Acad- emism, when even the gospels of Romanticism, Realism, and l^aturalism have in their turn been denounced, controverted, and finally laid to rest. It remains true, nevertheless, that in almost CONCLUSION 455 every field of human thought Diderot " placed himself at the point of view whence, more com- prehensively than was possible from any other, he discerned the long course and the many bear- ings, the complex faces and the large ramifica- tions, of the huge movement of his day. ... To whatever quarter he turned, he caught the ris- ing 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."^ Complicated as the question of Diderot's in- fluence on his age in France and abroad is made by the transformation which every idea under- went in his seething intellect, obscured as it is also by the diffused nature of his action and by the vast number of forces which acted from other quarters in the same directions, the prob- lem seems to be made more difficult still for the student of literary history by the manner in which Diderot's most important works saw the light. A large part of his writings appeared posthumously. His contemporaries knew him mainly as the editor of the Encyclopedie, the originator of a system of dramatic reforms * John Morley, Diderot . . ., vol. I, p. 309. 456 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT which did not seem to be bearing much fruit, and the author of a few ill-digested philosophic fantaisies of which the less said the better, Some of his most interesting works were never intended by him for publication ; they were first printed in the very last years of the eighteenth and at various times throughout the nineteenth century. Of Diderot one may truly say, as of Pascal, Madame de Sevigne, and Saint-Simon, that we know him much better than his con- temporaries ever did, and that consequently he will for ever puzzle the constructions of "evo- lutionistic " criticism. " It should be clearly known," says Brunetiere emphatically, " that Diderot's contemporaries were not able to read his Religieuse, nor the Neveu de Rwmeau, nor the Reve de D'Alembert, nor the Salons. . . . "^ It is true ; and yet not absolutely true. For, if the public at large was not able to read Jacques le Fatalist e, for instance, before 1796, or D'Alembert' s Dream before 1830, or the whole collection of the Salons before 1877, there was a body of privileged readers, not at all small ' Brunetiere, Manuel de I 'hist, de la Hit. frang., 1898, p. 326, in the notes. — For the chronology of Diderot's main works, see Appendix II. CONCLUSION 457 or iinimportant, which became acquainted with many of Diderot's most curious works in manu- script form long before they were printed. The manuscripts of this " diahle dliomme" had a long and eventful career. When Diderot died, they were scattered everywhere, in the hands of the Parisian police, in the iron safe of the French king, among the papers of Grimm, Xaigeon, Mme de Vandeul, in the libraries of the king of Prussia, of various German princes, of the empress of Russia; and, what was more important, they were read by Lessing, Schiller and Goethe, and highly praised by them. '^ Di- derot is Diderot," Goethe wrote, " a peculiar in- dividuality; 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."^ Is it because of this favorable reception in Germany, where he seems to have early become * Quoted in J. Morley, Diderot . . ., vol. I, pp. 7-8. — See F. Papillon, Bes rapports pMlosophiques de Goethe et de Diderot, in Travaux de I'Academie des sciences 7norales et politiques, 1874, vol. 101, pp. 245 ff. 458 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT more famous than he was at home, that Diderot rather suffered at the hands of some French critics in the latter part of the nineteenth cen- tury ? Is it because he was such " a peculiar individuality," an anti-classicist, a romanticist, a positivist, a realist, and, taken all together, an antagonist of every kind of tradition, that he irritated Brunetiere as much as he had disgusted Carlyle ? It would be too long to trace the " his- tory of the variations" of criticism, and par- ticularly of French criticism, in relation to Di- derot. One great reason at least stands out which explains why he has often been held cheap by his own countrymen : his genius had more power than lucidity and coherence; he thought like a prophet rather than like a philosopher, and he wrote like an inspired orator rather than like a stylist. The philosophy of Voltaire has been unkindly described as " a chaos of clear ideas " ; the philosophy of Diderot is a chaos of ideas that are seldom very clear — "ce sont des idees qui sont devenues ivres et qui se sont mises a courir les unes apres les autres," said the Cheva- lier de Chastellux. Diderot's fire is often ob- fuscated with a good deal of smoke ; and this is CONCLUSION 459 a failing which. French criticism will seldom condone. But, even when we acknowledge, as Diderot himself repeatedly did with expressions of re- gTet, that he had sometimes allowed his imagina- tion too much liberty, that he had trifled with his higher gifts or too liberally put them at the service of other men, when we wish that he had concentrated his powers, and written less but with greater care, are we sure that such a discipline could have been of great advantage to him ? Is it certain that if Diderot had been a more scrupulous and less prolific writer he could have done better than he has done, or even as well ? He was excellent in improvisation, but there are good reasons to believe that in his case the limce labor gave but poor results. He could be a brilliant journalist, a reviewer, an orator, but scarcely a great writer. What is most admired in his works, that is, his philo- sophic dialogues, his Salons, his short stories, his letters, is what cost him the least labor; while his painstaking attempts in dramatic lit- erature have produced nondescripts which are well nigh execrable. 460 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ' Unfortunately, it is from this viewpoint of the drama that many eminent literary critics have taken their surveys of Diderot as a whole. Philosophic critics have founded their estimates of him partly on the consideration of his moral theories^a treacherous quicksand, to say the least. But then Diderot is not essentially a dramatist, or a moralist, notwithstanding what he and his contemporaries may have thought about it. His work in those fields has been mostly critical and destructive. The construct- ive, positive side of his genius proved most suc- cessful in science, or rather in two distinct branches of scientific thought which are not identical with scientific research: he initiated the popularization of science and its applica- tions through the Encyclopedie; and, from the data of science in his time, he made some inter- esting generalizations which resulted in a meta- physical theory of man and the universe, known to-day as Transformism. " They are happy men," Bacon had said,^ " whose natures sort with their vocations ; other- wise they may say, Multum incola fuit anima mea, when they converse in those things they do " Bacon, Essays, No. 38, ' ' Of Nature in Men. ' ' CONCLUSION 461 not affect." Diderot, if we believe him, was not a happy man in this respect : he had against his wish been forced to dwell in many intellectual regions which he would fain have left to others. Yet when we consider how from the beginning of his career he had shown the greatest variety of interest, and how in his later years he never took up any topic of science, art, philosophy, or literature without infusing new life into it and making it more fruitful than it was before, it seems as though his greatest gift had been a wonderful ability to make his nature sort with almost any vocation. Men whose minds are methodical, and inclined to be dogmatic, for whom there is no doubt concerning the unity and immutability of truth, and who have been so happy as to hit upon this truth once and for all time, will always be disappointed and irri- tated by Diderot. Other men, who, after Di- derot's example, look in books only for inspira- tion, for suggestiveness, for the fine page which is full of power, will not be tempted to reproach him with his versatility, or to characterize him with the less creditable traits of his rich and exuberant nature. We have seen how varied his mind was in its aspects, how open to every Ka^^mnnsanH 462 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT influence. Many of his ideas seem prophetic, because they were developed out of suggestions pregnant with potential truth. It was through this broadness of mind, this interest in other men's opinions, this curiosity of foreign thought and |)articularly of English thought, that he succeeding in transcending his age. Finis. APPENDIX I A. A Letter from Voltaire to G. Keate (The following letter, which at the time it was copied was among the British Museimi MSS exhibits, is not included in the Moland edition of the Works of Voltaii-e, and we are not aware of its having been published anywhere else.) Had I not fix'd the seat of my retreat in the free corner of Geneva, I would certainly live in the free kingdom of England, for, tho I do not like the monstrous irregularities of Shakespear, tho I admire but some lively and masterly strokes in his perform- ances, yet I am confident nobody in the world looks with a gi'eater veneration on your good philosophers, on the croud of your good authors, and I am these thirty years the disciple of your way of thinking. Your nation is at once a people of wamours and of philosophers. You are now at the pitch of glory in regard to publick affairs. But I know not whether you have preserv'd the reputation your island enjoy'd in point of litterature when Addison, Con- greve. Pope, Swift, were alive. However you kan not be so low as we are. Poor France at the present time has neither navy or money, nor plate nor fame, nor witt. We are at the ebb of all. I have read the life of Mad*, de Pompadour printed at London. Indeed, S""., 't is a scurrilous book, I assure you that there is not one page of truth. 463 464 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT. Pray, in ease some good book appears into y'. world, let me be informed of it. Adieu, mon cher jeune philosophe. Je eompte sur votre souvenir et je vous aimerai toujours. y. for ever Voltaire. aux Deliees, 16 Janvier 1760. B. Letters prom Diderot to David Hume (Reprinted from J. H. Burton, Letters of Eminent Persons addressed to David Hume, Edinburgh, 1849, pp. 280-287. Numerous corrections are made, from the collation by Mr H. W. Meikle, to whom we here again express our thanks. We have modernized the spelling, except for proper names.) Si le mauvais sucees des services que vous avez rendus, monsieur et tres honore philosophe, ne vous a point degoute de la bienfaisance,^ vous ne serez point offense de la liberte que je prends de vous recommander eelui qui aura I'honneur de vous re- mettre cette lettre. C'est un homme auquel Mad* Diderot s'interesse. C'est un parent de ses amis. C'est un honnete homme qui ne s'expatrie avee sa famille avee aucun motif qui soit reprehensible. Faites pour lui tout ee que vous attendriez de moi pour quelqu'un que vous m'auriez adresse, et . a qui je pourrais etre utile. Faites qu'il tire parti de ce qu'il pent avoir de talent. Faites qu'il vive, lui, sa ^An allusion to Hume's quarrel with Kousseau, 1766. LETTERS 465 femme, qui est la meilleure femme du monde, et son enfant, qui a du courage et de la raison fort au dela de la mesure de son age. Tres aime et tres honore David, vous savez bien qu'il n'y a aucune loi civile ni religieuse qui ait rompu ni pu rompre le lien de fraternite que nature a etabli entre tons les hommes. Vous savez aussi que ce lien nous attache encore d'une maniere plus indispensable et plus saeree aux malheureux qu'aux autres. Secourez, done, de votre mieux celui que je vous adresse. Comme vous n'etes pas moins excellent homme qu'excellent auteur, vous penserez avec moi, qui n'ai que la moitie de ee merite, qu'apres tout, le soir, quand on se retire et qu'on cause avec soi, on est encore plus content d'une bonne action que d'une belle page.^ Je vous salue et vous embrasse de tout mon coeur; et je suis, avec estime et veneration, monsieur et tres honore phi- losophe, votre tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur, Paris, ce 24 9"^^ [1767].' Diderot. 2 Paris, ce 22 fevrier 1768. Je ne suis pas mort, monsieur et tres honore David; il vous reste toujours un ami et un admirateur sincere a Paris. Mais j'ai beaucoup souffert d'une humeur goutteuse qui a commence a se faire sentir au bras gauche, qui s'est metamorphosee successive- * Comp. Diderot, CEuvres Completes, III, 539. ' We infer this to be the date from the reference to the same affair of the Neufvilles in February, 1768 (see next letter). 31 466 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT merit en mal de poitrine, en douleur d'estomae, eolique d'entrailles, et finalement en une effroyable fluxion d'oreilles, qui m'a detenu presque tout le mois de Janvier au coin du feu, sans pouvoir travailler, et, qui pis est, sans pouvoir reposer ni dormir. J'en suis quitte pour une surdite d'un earactere tout par- tieulier. J'entends tres bien ceux qui parlent, mais je parle si bas que les autres ont peine a m'entendre. Le son de ma voix retentit si fortement dans ma tete caverneuse et sonore, que, pour peu qu'il soit fort, je m'etourdis moi-meme. C'est la serie de ees indispositions qui m'a empeche de vous remereier des marques d'humanite que vous avez donnees a mes pauvres concitoyens. Ne vous deeouragez pas, Cette pauvre femme, qui a si peu merite son triste sort, m'en fait une peinture si affligeante que je n'ose pas relire sa lettre. On ne lui a pas conseille le voyage d'Angleterre ; elle y a ete appelee par un epoux qu'elle s'est fait un devoir de suivre, au basard de toutes les nouvelles peines auxquelles elle pourrait s'exposer, Je vous reponds de son bonnetete et de ses mceurs. D'ailleurs, mon eher pbilosopbe, je m'en rapporte la-dessus a votre propre tact. Vous qui savez si bien lire dans les ames de ceux qui ont joue quelque role sur la scene du monde, vous devez aussi savoir interroger celles qui se demenent autour de vous. Frappez a celle-la, et vous n'en ferez rien sortir qui ne vous plaise et ne vous interesse. Elle emportait avec elle, pour toute pacotille, quelques petits talents qui se trouvent presqu'inutiles a Londres. Ne verrons-nous jamais LETTEES 467 finir ees aversions nationales qui resserrent dans un petit espaee I'exerciee de la bienf aisanee ? Et qu'im- porte qu'un liomme soit ne en deqk ou en dela d'un detroit, en est-il moins un homme? n'a-t-il pas les memes besoins? n'est-il pas expose aux memes peines, avide du meme bonheur? Fais done pour lui tout ce qu'il est en droit d'attendre de toi sur une infinite de rapports imrauables, eternels, et independants de toutes les conventions. Je trouve Polifeme plus ex- cusable d'avoir mange les compagnons d'Ulisse, que la plupart de ces petits Europeens, qui n'ont que cinq pieds et demi, et deux yeux, qui se ressemblent en tout, et qui ne s'en devorent pas moins. Mon cber David, vous etes de toutes les nations, et vous ne deraanderez jamais au malheureux son extrait baptistaire. Je me flatte d'etre, comme vous, citoyen de la grande ville du monde. Mais treve de philoso- phie. Trouvez un trou a M. de Neufville. Cherchez a sa femme quelque niche ou elle puisse travailler, s'occuper, subsister, faire subsister son enfant, et seeourir son mari. Je vous le repete, j'y prends interet. Si vous revenez jamais parmi nous, je vous laresenterai a Mad" Diderot qui joint ses remerci- ments aux miens, et qui vous baisera sur vos deux larges joues Bernardines. Vos commergants avee leur secret de commerce me font mourir de rire. Vous veiTez qu'un particulier leur fera un dommage qu'il n'est pas au pouvoir de toute une nation ennemie de leur faire ;° et puis ne faut-il faire aucun ' It is probable that London business men had refused to give work to M. de Neufville on account of his foreign nationality. 468 DIDEKOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT fond sur la probite d'un homme qu'on tire de la misere, et a qui I'on a donne du pain sur la garantie de deux honnetes gens? Je vous fais mon compli- ment sur la cessation de vos fonctions publiques.* R^venez, revenez vite, mon cher philosophe, a vos livres — a vos occupations. Je vous aime bien mieux le fouet a la main, faisant justice de tons les celebres brigands qui ont trouble votre contree, brisant une statue, en elevant une autre, qu' expose a partager les forfaits des rois et de leurs ministres. Continuez votre histoire — ne la continuez pas7 Sondez les replis du coeur humain en moraliste. Examinez les ressorts delies de son entendement en subtil meta- physieien. Faites tout ce qu'il vous plaira — quelque chose que vous fassiez, vous servirez votre espece en general, ce qui est bien plus digne de vous que de n'en servir qu'une bien petite portion. II est peut- etre tres possible d'etre un bon eitoyen, sans etre un fort meehant homme : n'allez pas prendre un en- gourdissement momentane pour une perclusion. II est vrai que j'ai toujours conserve I'amour du travail; mais cet amour est devenu infructueux par des dis- tractions continues auxquelles la bonte de mon ame ne m'a jamais permis, et ne me permettra jamais, de me refuser. Je ne sais si j'ai tort, mais le temps me parait mieux employe pour un autre qui me le * Hume 's connection with the Home Office ceased in 1767. ' J. H. Burton found this passage obscure. Diderot evidently means that either as a historian, or as a moralist, or as a metaphysician, Hume cannot fail to "serve his species." LETTEES 469 demande que jjour moi. J'aurai toujours le temps d'ecrire, et je saisis avec empressement le moment de bien faire. Mais, mon clier David, je ne pense pas a I'homme de la philosophie. Je me suis precipite daus des questions abstinises d'un genre tout different, et je voudrais bien m'en tirer. J'aime les occupations qui ne compromettent pas le repos, II faut craindre les derniers mouvements convulsifs d'un animal feroce blesse a mort." J'ai vu une fois en ma vie, le dernier effort de la jambe d'un chevreuil casser la jambe du chasseur qui I'avait tire. Le fanatisme aux abois est bien une autre bete. Vous croyez notre intolerance plus favorable aux progres de I'opinion humaine que votre liberte presqu' illimitee. Cela se peut. Les D'Holbach, Helvetius, Morellet, Suard, qui ne sont pas tout a fait de votre avis, du moins a en juger par leurs diseours et leurs ecrits, n'en sont pas moins sensibles a votre souvenir. Si vous nous regrettez aussi sineerement que vous I'etes de nous, venez nous revoir. Que faites-vous de Jean- Jacques? On dit qu'il nous quitte pour aller a Londres faire imprimer ses memoires. Si cet ouvrage est court, il sera mau- vais. Plus il aura de volumes, moins il parlera de lui; meilleur il sera. Je redoute le moment ou un homme qui aime tant le bruit, qui connait si peu les egards, qui a ete lie si intimement avec une infinite de gens, publiera un pareil ouvrage, surtout avec I'art qu'il a de fletrir adroitement, d'obscurcir, d'alterer, de faire suspecter plus encore en louant "Compare a similar passage in Lettres d Falconet; CEuvres Completes, XVII, 265. 470 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT qu'en blamant." Ne convenez-vous pas, mon cher phi- losophe, que c'est dans une pareille eireonstance qu'il est infiniment doux de n'avoir rendu son ami infidele que le temoin d'aetions justes et de diseours hon- netes? Les meehants se rejouissent de la mort de leurs amis, ce sont des complices qui pourraient etre indiserets, et dont ils sont debarrasses. Les honnetes gens s'affligent de la mort des leurs, ce sont des panegyristes qui leur echappent. Vivez longtemps pour nous; nous tacherons de vous conserver le plus longtemps que nous pourrons, nous dont vous savez bien que Feloge ne vous man- quera pas. Je vous salue et vous embrasse de tout mon eceur. Sei'vez M. et Mad^ de Neufville, je vous en conjure; et me eroyez entierement votre tres obeissant serviteur. Monsieur et cber Philosophe, — On n'a rien pour rien dans ce monde; il faut payer ses vices — il faut payer ses vertus; et n'allez pas vous imaginer que vous jouirez gratuitement de la plus grande con- sideration. On voudra vous voir — on voudra se vanter de vous avoir vu. Ayez done la bonte d'ouvrir votre porte, et d'offrir votre face ronde et riante de Beniardin a un jeune Pensylvain qui a jure de ne pas repasser les mers sans vous avoir rendu son " Sir Samuel Eomilly was also told by Diderot how much he dreaded the publication of Eousseau's Con- fessions; see above p. 114. But here, as in his Essay on Claudius and Nero, Diderot shows that he had no great reasons to fear for himself personally. LETTERS 471 honiniage. Ne trouverez-vous pas fort etrange que ce soit un Frangais qui vous adresse un de vos com- patriotes? C'est que tout est sans dessus dessous dans ce moment-ci. Le Roi de France se jette sur les possessions du pape; le Turc veut luettre la paix entre ees chiens de Chretiens qui se deehirent." Nous ecrivons contra le despotisme; et il nous vient des pamphlets de Londres en faveur de la tyrannie. Ah, mon cher philosophe ! pleurons et gemissons sur le sort de la philosophic. Nous prechons la sagesse a des sourds, et nous sommes encore bien loin du siecle de la raison. Nous sommes meme infectes ici d'une secte de Machiavelistes qui pretendent que ce siecle ne viendra jamais. Cela serait bien capable de resoudre a prendre son bonnet de nuit, a poser molle- ment sa tete sur un oreiller, et a laisser aller le monde a sa fantaisie. Qu'en dites-vous? Quoi qu'il en soit, recevez gracieusement mon jeune Pensylvain. Donnez-lui de bons eonseils. Surtout persuadez-lui de mitiger son bel enthousiasme pour les progres de la medecine. S'il vous presente sa dissertation in- augurale, vous y lirez que ce jeune homme a fait des experiences dangereuses sur lui-meme." II ne faut pas se tuer pour apprendre a guerir les autres; d'autant plus que le bien qu'on se promet de leur faire est tres incertain, et que le mal qu'on se fait a soi-meme est tres sur. N'allez pa-s etayer votre " The Turks declared war on Russia in 1768, when the first partition of Poland was considered. '- We have not been able to find more particulars con- cerning this young doctor from Pennsylvania. 472 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT paresse de eette maxime: nous n'aurions plus rien de vous, et ce serait grand dommage. Les bonnes tetes sont si rares, qu'il n'est pas permis a celles qui sent bonnes d'etre oisives. Je vous salue, — je vous aime, — je vous revere — et suis avec ces sentiments pour toute ma vie, monsieur et eher philosophe, votre tres humble et tres obeissant sendteur. A Paris, ee 17 mars 1769. C. An Unpublished Letter from Diderot to Bret (The following letter, to which we alluded above, p. 293, was copied by us from the original in the British Museum, Egerton MSS. 19. The spelling is modernized.) A Monsieur Bret" Monsieur, Le plan de ma piece est reste tel que vous savez. La premiere m'avait donne tant de tracasseries que j'ai ete vingt fois sur le point d'abandonner la seconde et de Jeter au feu ee que j'en avals fait. Mes amis m'en ont empeche. Je I'ai reprise. J'y ai un peu travaille, mais si peu que ee n'est pas la peine de dire. Je ne prevois pas qu'on puisse I'imprimer de "Antoine Bret (1717-1792). The two plays discussed in this letter seem to be Bret's Le Jaloux, which was never performed, and Diderot's Fils Naturel, which have one "incident de rien" in common: a man suspects his friend of having paid addresses to a lady whom he him- self loves. LETTEES 473 deux mois; I'impression en prendra bien uu encore. D'ici a trois mois, je crois que vous aurez ete repre- sente, applaudi, et lu. Je n'en prends nulla inquie- tude. Vous reussirez surement, et ee ne seront pas des petites nuances de rien qui empecberont que je n'aie aussi du succes, nos genres etant si differents. J'y ai pense, et j'y ai bien pense. Ce que nous avons de conforme est un petit incident de rien. Aussi, Monsieur, allez votre cbeniin. Je sens toute la poli- tesse de ce que vous m'ecrivez, et je n'en aecepte a la lettre que ee que vous me dites des qualites de mon ame. Quelque opinion que vous en ayez, j'espere que vous ne la ven-ez jamais au-dessous de ce que [vous] en aurez pense. Je vous salue, vous embrasse de tout mon coeur, et vous prie de me compter parnii vos amis: c'est vous en dire assez. Si je parais le dernier, et qu'a la lecture de votre ouvrage je ti'ouve que nous nous sommes rencontres plus que je ne crois, je vous rendrai justice, et je me la rendrai a moi-meme. Si je vous precede, vous en ferez de meme, et je serai content. Ah, mon ami, soyez sur qu'il est impossible a d'honnetes gens de se donner en pareil cas le moindi'e petit chagrin; et nous sommes, je crois, d'honnetes gens. Au reste, mon cher, ce que vous dites de la facilite que je pour- rais avoir de retoumer mon plan, n'est pas tout a fait comme vous I'imaginez. Ce plan est cousu de maniere, cette charpente assemblee de fagon que je n'en peux pas arracher un point, deplacer une ehe- ville que tout ne se i-enverse. Je vous salue et vous ^^■^^■■■■innnnRii 474 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT embrasse derechef, et je suis pour vous avec tous les sentiments que vous avez pour moi, Monsieur, Votre tres humble et tres oblige serviteur, Diderot. ce 29 9bre 1753. Je vous confie oh j'en suis de mon ouvrage et le temps oil je crois qu'il pourra paraitre; e'est a vous seul que je fais cette confidence; et j'exige de vous [de] n'en dire rien a personne; ce sont deux eireonstanees qui, je crois, ne vous importent en rien. Mais pourquoi m'ecrire? Vous avez du plaisir a me voir; j'en ai de mon cote; pourquoi diable ne pas venir? — D. Letters from Diderot to John Wilkes M. M. Tourneux has published two letters from Diderot to Wilkes: one in the (Euvres Completes, XIX, 498, from the English translation given by John Almon in The Correspondence of the late John Wilkes with his friends, printed from the original MS8. . . . , London, 1805, vol. V, p. 243 ;— the other in his Diderot et Catherine II, Paris, 1899, pp. 389- 390. We reprint here, with two slight corrections, the second of these letters as our No. 1; Nos. 2, 3 and 4 have not hitherto been published. We copied these four letters from Addit. MSS. 30.877, ff. 81, 83, 85, 87, in the British Museum. The spelling is modernized.) LETTEES 475 1 A Wilkes Monsieur et tres honore Gracchus, avez-vous vu mon ami Grimm? Avez-vous bu la sante de vos amis de Paris'? Je crois que non. Attache a un prince, il hii aura ete difficile d'approcher sa levre de la coupe seditieuse d'uu tribun du peuple. Que faites- vous a Londres a present? Vous qui savez si bien reveiller dans les ames le demon patriotique, que n'etes-vous ici? L'homme qui salt susciter de grands mouvements aime a etre le spectateur de grandes revolutions. II n'y a que deux instants interessants dans la duree des empires, celui de leur grandeur et eelui de leur decadence, surtout lorsque cette deca- dence nait de petites causes imprevues et s'accelere avee une grande rapidite. Imaginez un palais im- mense dont I'aspect majestueux et solide vous en imposait, promettait a votre imagination une duree etemelle ; imaginez ensuite que ses f ondements s'ebran- lent et que vous voyiez tout a coup ses murs enonnes se separer et se disjoindre. Voila precisement le spectacle que nous offririons a votre speculation. Alors les beaux-arts se sauvent de chez un peuple, comme on voit par un instinct divin les rats sortir d'une maison qui menace mine. Le philosophe, moins sage que Inhabitant a museau pointu et a longue queue, reste jusqu'a ce qu'un moellon de I'edi- fiee lui casse la tete. M"* Biheron" qui vous remettra " See the notice on this lady in M. Tourneux, Diderot et Catherine II, pp. 390-391. 476 DIDEROT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT • ce billet extravagant est una souris effarouchee qui sort de son trou et qui va chereher chez vous de la securite. Cette souris est une souris distinguee dans son espece. Elle justifiera la consideration dont elle jouit ici, par une quantite de tres beaux ouvrages. Ce sont des precis anatomiques d'une verite et d'une exactitude" merveilleuses. Je vous prie de I'accueillir et de lui rendre tons les bons offices qui dependront de vous. Ma fille a fait avec facilite et sans degout un cours d'anatomie chez elle. Si vous m'en croyez, vous engagerez Mademoiselle Wilkes a prendre quel- ques-unes de ses lemons. Quoique ce ne soit point I'objet du voyage de Mademoiselle Biheron, comme elle joint a ses connaissances un grand caractere de bienfaisanee, je ne doute point qu'elle ne se fit un plaisir de vous obliger dans votre enfant. Je pre- sente mon respect a Mademoiselle Wilkes. Je vous embrasse, vous, de tout mon coeur, quoique vous soyez un grand vaurien; mais je ne sais comment cela s'est fait: toute ma vie j'ai eu et j'aurai un faible pour les vauriens, tels que vous s'entend. Votre tres humble, ti'es obeissant serviteur et un peu vaurien aussi. Diderot. Ce 19 octobre 1771. Monsieur et tres honore Alderman, Je vous ai adresse Mademoiselle Biheron, femme distinguee par ^* " Exactitude, " instead of "etude" (as printed by M. Tourneux) ; and above, "disjoindre" instead of ' ' dissoudre. ' ' LETTERS 477 son merite anatomique; je vous adresse aujourd'hui Monsieur Pasquier," peintre en portrait de notre Aeademie. C'est un habile homme, qui merite par la douceur de son earaetere et par son talent que vous le favorisiez. Favorisez-le done. Ah, mon eher politique, les sciences et les arts nous quittent. Si leur naissanee montre un peuple qui sort de la bar- baric; leur progTes, un peuple qui s'achemine a la grandeur; leur sj^lendeur, un peuple eelaire, puissant et florissant; leur mepris, leur indigence et leur de- gradation doivent marquer un peuple qui descend et qui s'en retoume a la stupidite et a la misere. On me demandait un jour comment on rendait la vigueur a une nation qui I'avait perdue; je repondis, comme Medee rendit la jeunesse a son pere; en le depegant et en le faisant bouillir. Je vous salue et vous embrasse de tout mon eoeur. Favorisez Monsieur Pasquier, et comptez-moi au nombre de vos amis. Diderot. Mon tres humble respect a Mad"" Wilkes. Ce 14 9bre 1771. 3 Ami Wilkes, vous vous etes bien trouve jusqu'a present de tous eeux que je vous ai adresses. lis etaient tous dignes de vous connaitre et d'etre connus de vous. Monsieur le Baron de Clingstad ne fera pas exception. C'est un homme egalement reeom- " Pierre Pasquier (1731-1806), had exhibited a por- trait of Diderot in enamel, at the Salon of 1769, and other portraits in the Salon of 1771. See XI, 449, 507; XII, 46. 478 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT mandable par la bonte, la franchise et la douceur de son earactere, et par son esprit et ses lumieres. Accueillez-le done comme j'accueillerais celui qui vous honorerait de son amitie. Monsieur le Baron de Klingstad m'honore de la sienne. II est attache a une souveraine, ma bienfaitrice, et nous aurions une haute opinion de la eour de Petersbourg, si I'imperatrice etait entouree d'un grand nombre de pareils servi- teurs. Bonjour, mon digne et tres aime Wilkes. Mad"* Biheron se loue infiniment de vous. Je vous salue et vous embrasse de tout mon coeur. Diderot. A Paris, ce 10 juil. 1772. Ami Wilkes, que f aites-vous ? Si vous vous re- posez, vous etes bien a plaindre. J'ai lu avec une grande satisfaction les differents discours que vous avez prononces, sur I'affaire des provineiaux.'* Je les ai trouves pleins d'eloquence, de dignite et de force. J'en ai aussi fait un, et le voici : " Messieurs, je ne vous parlerai point de la justice ou de I'in- justiee de votre conduite. Je sais bien que ee mot n'est que du bruit, quand il s'agit de I'interet general. Je pourrais vous parler de vos moyens de I'eussir, et vous demander si vous etes assez forts pour jouer le role d'oppresseurs ; cele toucherait un peu de plus pres a la question. Cependant je n'en ferai rien. Mais je m'en tiendrai a vous supplier de jeter les yeux sur les nations qui vous haissent; interrogez- " The American provincials. LETTERS 479 les; voyez ee qu'elles pensent de vous, et dites-moi jusques a quand vous avez resolu de faire rire vos ennemis." II parait ici un papier qu'on dit etre d'un homme important de votre nation; il parait par ee papier que le projet secret de la mere-patrie est de faire egorger la moitie des colons, et de rediiire le reste a la condition des negres. En effet, cela leverait toute difficulte pour le pre- sent et pour I'avenir. Au milieu du tumulte public, portez-vous bien; soyez gai; buvez de bons vins; et lorsqu'il vous pren- dra fantaisie d'etre tendre, adressez-vous a des fem- mes qui ne fassent pas soupirer longtemps. Elles amusent autant que les autres; elles occupant moins; on les possede sans inquietude, et on les quitte sans regret. C'est un jeune homme tres sage qui vous remettra ces sottises. S'il n'etait que cela, je ne vous I'adres- serais pas; mais il est tres aimable, et tres instruit. C'est un ami de Monsieur Suard, et c'est un des miens. Je presente mon respect a Mademoiselle Wilkes, et je vous prie de me croire toujours avec les memes sentiments Votre tres humble et tres obeiss* serviteur et ami Diderot. (Received at London June 25, 1776). APPENDIX II A Chronological Table of Diderot's Main Works Most of Diderot's works having been printed post- humously, it has been thought advisable to give here the dates of publication of his most important writ- ings, together with the probable dates of composition. A similar table will be found in the excellent Ex- traits de Diderot by the late Joseph Texte (Paris, 4th edition, 1909), and a complete chronology in M. G. Lanson's Manuel bihliographique de la litter ature frangaise moderne, 1500-1900 (Part III, Chap. XI), For full discussions of the dates of composition, we refer to the Notices preliminaires prefixed to each work in the Assezat-Toumeux edition of Diderot. Posthumous works are in italics. Composition. Publication. 1745 Principes de philosophie morale ou ^ Essai sur le merite et la vertu, par Mylord S * *" *, traduit de I'anglais. . 1745 1746 Pensees philosophiques 1746 1747 La Promenade du sceptique, ou Les Allees 1830 1747 De la Suffisanee de la religion naturelle. 1770 1748 Les Bijoux indiscrets 1748 1749 Lettre sur les aveugles a I'usage de ceux qui voient 1749 1750 Prospectus de I'Encyclopedie 1750 1746-1751 Eneyelopedie, tome I 1751 Encyclopedie, tome II 1752 480 -mm TABLE OF DIDEROT'S MAIN WORKS 481 1752-1757 Eneyclopedie, tomes III- VII. 1753-1757 1759-1765 Eneyclopedie, tomes VIII-XVII... 1765 Eneyclopedie, Planches, tomes I-V. 1765 Eneyclopedie, Planches, tomes VI- XI 1772 1765-1777 Eneyclopedie, Supplements, tomes I-V 1777 1751 Recherches philosophiques sur Forigine et la nature du beau (article "Beau"). 1751 1751 Lettre sur les sourds et muets a I'usage de eeux qui entendent et qui parlent . . 1751 1752 Suite de I'Apolog-ie de M. I'abbe de Prades en reponse a instruction pastorale de Mgr I'eveque d'AuxeiTe 1752 1754 Pensees sur interpretation de la nature. 1754 1753 ( '?)-l 757 Le Fils Nature! ou Les epreuves de la vertu 1757 1758 Le Pere de famille 1758 1759 Salon de 1759 1813 1761 Salon de 1761 1819 1763 Salon de 1763 1857 1765 Salon de 1765; — Essai sur la peinture. 1795 1767 Salon de 1767 1798 1769 Salon de 1769 1819 1771 Salon de 1771 1857 1775 Salon de 1775 1857 1781 Salon de 1781 1857 1759-1774 Lettres a Mile Volland 1830 1760 Le Joueiir, drame imite de V anglais .... 1819 1760 La Religieuse 1796 32 i82 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT 1760(?)-1773 Jacques le Fataliste et son maitre 1796 1761 Eloge de Richardson 1762 1762 Reflexions sur Terence 1762 1762-1773 Le Neveu de Uameau, satire. Ger- man translation by Goethe, 1805; — translated from the German, by De Sanr, 1821; — publ. from a copy, 1821; — from another copy, 1875;— from the MS, by M. Monval 1891 1765-1769 Lettres a Mile Jodin 1821 1766-1773 Lettres a Falconet (Thirteen letters in) 1831 1767 Lettre historique et politique sur le com- merce de la lihrairie 1861 1769 Entretien entre B'Alemhert et Diderot. Le Reve de B'Alemhert. Suite de Ventretien 1830 1770 Les deux amis de Bourbonne 1773 1772 Regrets sur ma vieille robe de ehambre. 1772 1772 Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville ou Dialogue entre A. et B. sur Vincon- venient d'attacJier des idees morales a certaines actions physiques qui n'en eomportent pas 1796 1773-1778 Paradoxe sur le comedien 1830 1773 Entretien d'un pere avec ses enfants, ou Du danger de se mettre au-dessus des lois 1773 TABLE OF DIDEROT'S MAIN WORKS 483 1773-1774 Refutation suivie de Vouvrage d'Helvetius intitule L'Homme . . 1875 1775-1776 Plan d'une Universite pour le gou- vernement de Russie 1813-1814 (complete) 1875 1776 Entretien d'un philosophe avec la Mare- chale de * * * 1776 1778 Essai sur la vie de Seneque le philosophe, sur ses ecrits, et sur les regiies de Claude et de Neron 1778 (Second edition, much enlarged) 1782 1781 Est-il bon? est-il mechant? 1834 APPENDIX III Bibliographical Note This is not a complete bibliography of Diderot, but only a list of the principal works that have been used in the preparation of the foregoing study of Diderot's relationship to English thought. For full bibliographical information concerning Diderot, we again refer to M. Gr. Lanson's Manuel bibliographique de la litterature frangaise moderns, 1500-1900, Part III {Dix-huitieme siecle), Chap. XI. — See also in vol. XX of Diderot's CEuvres Com- pletes, pp. 141-147, a list of the main writings con- cerning the person and the works of Diderot up to 1877, by M. Maurice Tourneux; and J. J. C. L(eyds), Principaux ecrits relatifs a la personne et aux oeuvres, au temps et a Vinfluence de Diderot, Paris and Amsterdam, 1887. For the biographical and critical works concerning the English writers who are mentioned below, we refer to the Index. I. Diderot (a) Works CEuvres completes de Diderot, edited by J. Assezat (as far as vol. XVII) and M. Tourneux, Paris, 1875-1877, 20 vols, 8vo. Correspondance litteraire (1753-1790) de Grimm (also partly by Diderot, Madame d'Epinay and Meister), edited by M. Tourneux, Paris, 1877- 1882, 16 vols 8vo. 484 BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE 485 M. Toumeux. Diderot et Catherine II (containing unpublished fragments), Paris, 1899, 8vo. (b) Biography Madame de Vandeul (Diderot's daughter). Me- moires sur Diderot (1787), reprinted in vol. I of the Assezat-Tourneux edition. Naigeon. Memoires historiques et philosophiques sur M. Diderot, Paris, 1821, 2 vols. (c) Biographical Criticism K. Rosenkranz. Diderot's Leben und Werke, Leip- zig, 1866, 2 vols 8vo. Avezac-Lavigne. Diderot et la societe du haron d'Holhach, etude sur le dix-huitieme sieele (1713- 1789), Paris, 1875, 8vo. John Morley. Diderot and the Encyclopaedists, London, 1878, 2 vols 8vo (2d edition 1886, repr. 1891, 1897, 1905; — references are made to the 1905 reprint). E. Scherer. Diderot, etude, Paris, 1880, 8vo. L. Ducros. Diderot, I'homme et I'eerivain, Paris, 1894, in-12. J. Reinach. Diderot, Paris, 1894, in-16. A. CoUignon. Diderot, sa vie, ses ceuvres, sa corre- spondance, Paris, 1895, in-18. (c) Criticism Sainte-Beuve. Portraits litteraires, Paris, 1862-1864, 3 vols 8vo; vol. I (article written in 1831). 486 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT ; And Causeries du lundi, Paris, 1851-1862, 15 vols 8vo (article written in 1851). Carlyle. Essays, in Works, London, 1885-1888, 17 vols 8vo; vol. XVII (article written in 1833). E. Bersot. Etudes sur le XVIII^ siecle, Paris, 1855, 2 vols 8vo; vol. I. H. Hettner. LiteraturgescMchte des XVIII Jahr- hunderts, 1856, — the 5tli edition Braunschweig, 1894, 2 vols 8vo; vol. II. Ph. Damiron. Memoires pour servir a Vhistoire de la philosophie au dix-huitieme siecle, Paris, 1858, 8vo; vol. I. J. Barni. Histoire des idees morales et politiques en France au dix-huitieme siecle, Paris, 1858, 8vo; vol. L E. Caro. La fin du dix-huitieme siecle, Paris, 1880, 8vo; vol. I. F. Brunetiere. Etudes critiques sur Vhistoire de la litterature frangaise, Paris, 1880-1907, 8vo., vol. II. E. Faguet. Dix-huitieme siecle. Etudes litteraires, Paris, 1890, in-18. II. English Writers Bacon. Francisci Baconi . . . opera omnia (the first collected edition), edited by John Blackbourne, London, 1730, 4 vols fol. (Diderot used the Amsterdam edition, Wm. Rawley, 1662, in-32, of the De Augmentis ; see above, p. 243). The Works of Francis Bacon . . . , collected and edited by James Spedding, R. L. Ellis, D. D. BIBLIOGKAPHICAL NOTE 487 Heath, Boston, 1860-1864 (American edition), 15 vols in-12. Philosophical Works, I-VII. Shaftesbury. Characteristics, London, 1737 (5th edi- tion), 3 vols (for A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgment of Her- cules, according to Prodieus, and A Letter con- cerning the Art or Science of Design, not in- cluded in the following). Characteristics, edited by J. M. Robertson, London, 1900, 2 vols 8vo (a critical reprint of the first edition, 1711), Locke. An Essay concerning Human Understanding, London, 1760 (15th edition), 2 vols 4to. Nicholas Saunderson. The Elements of Algebra, Cambridge, 1740, 2 vols 8vo, Robert James. A Medicinal Dictionary . . . , Lon- don, 1743-1745, 3 vols fol. John Harris. Lexicum Technicum, or a/n Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences . . . , London, 1704 (vol. I), 1710 (vol. II), 2 vols fol. Ephraim Chambers. Cyclopedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences . . . , London, 1728, 2 vols fol. A Supplement to Dr. Harris's Dictionary of Arts and Sciences . . . , by a Society of Gentlemen, London, 1744, fol. George Lillo. The London Merchant and Fatal Curiosity, edited by A. W. Ward (The Belles- Lettres Series), Boston, 1906 (American edition). Edward Moore. The Gamester, London, 1753, in-12. 488 DIDEEOT AND ENGLISH THOUGHT Richardson. The Worhs of Samuel Eichardson, with a prefatory chapter of biographical criti- cism by Leslie Stephen, London, 1883, 12 vols 8vo {Pamela, I-III; Clarissa Harlowe, IV- VIII; Sir Charles Grandison, IX-XII). Laurence Sterne. The Life and Opinions of Tris- tram Shandy, Gentleman, edited by G. Saints- bury, London, 1900, 3 vols in-16. John Hawkesworth. An Account of the voyages undertaken hy order of His present Majesty for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and successfully performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour, London, 1773, 3 vols 4to. Joseph Spence. Polymetis, or an Enquiry concern- ing the agreement between the works of the Roman poets and the remains of the ancient artists, being an attempt to illustrate them mutu- ally from one another, London, 1747. William Hogarth. Analysis of Beauty, written with a view of fixing the fluctuating Ideas of Taste, London, 1753, 4to. Daniel Webb. An Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting, and into the merits of the most cele- brated painters, London, 1760, — 2d edit., 1761, in-12. The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politicks, and Literature of the year 1762 (vol. BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE 489 V of the series), — also the other volumes, pas- sim, from 1758 to 1784, London, 1758 and ff., 8vo. The Gentleman's Magazine, years 1739 (Saunderson), 1749 (Diderot's mathematical Memoirs), and 1780 (Thomas Hope), London, 1731 ff., 8vo. INDEX Figures in italics refer to footnotes Adam, Ch., W, 182, 186, 192. Adams, John, 7. Addison, 302, 463. Agasias, 430. Albergati CapacelU, Marquis, 87. Alembert, D', 77, 99, 105, 113, Hi, 160, 182, 186, 188, 190, 191, 192, 210, 211, 215, 220, 223, 241, 243, 244, 254, Baillet, 228. 280, 284, 310, S58, 359, 456, Baldensperger, F., 3, 3 Babbitt, Irving, iOl. Baclielier, 205. Bacon, F., 43, 75, 127, 139, 171, 173, 176, 177, 180, 182, 183, 186, 192, 193 S., 206, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 238, 243, 2i3, 244 «f., 255, 258, 277, 296, 395, 450, 452, 460, i60, 486. 482. Alibard, Abb6 d', 109, 202. Almon, J., 474. Alsted, 27, 226, 227. Ampfere, 203. Andre, Pfere, 403, 404. Baldwin, C. S., 376, 378. Ballantyne, 4. Barante, De, 2. Barbeu du Bourg, 109. Barclay, 150. Barni, J., 486. Annual Register, 281, 282, 391, Barocci, il6, 419. 488. Barton, F. B., 95, 312, 375, S88. Anquetll du Perron, 281, 282. Basnage, 283. Anseaume, 309. Anson, 391. Architas, 216. Argenson, Comte d', 154. Argenson, Marquis d', 28, 60, 155. Aristotle, 21, 175, 185, i 226, 300, 301, 336. Arnaud, Abb6 d', 335. Asgil, 128. Batteux, Abb6, 404, 423. Bayle, U, 44, 150, 228, 229, 237, 238, 257, 261, 272, 272, 280, 283, 285, 395. Bayon, Mile, 100. Beaumarchais, 301. Beaumont, F., 306. Beccari, 213. Becket, 95, 96. Bemetzrieder, 191, 408. Ass^zat, J., 15, 282, 293, 311, Bentham, 124. 37i, 375, m, iS2, 484. Atterbury, 33. Audran, 248. Augustine, St., 138, 404. Avezac-Lavigne, 485. Bergier, il3. Berkeley, i.57, 173, 177, 278. Bernbaum, E., 293, 302. Bernini, 420. Berruyer, 145. 490 INDEX 491 Bersot, E., H7, 486. Cabanis, 279. Berthler, Pfere, 245. Caesar, 145. Bigot, 272, 272. Calvin, 150. Blheron, Mile, 108, 109, 110, Caracci, Hannibai, 419. 475, 476, 478. Cariyle, 458, 486. Bissy, Comte de, 372. Caro, E., 178, 213, 486. Blackbourne, J., 19i, 486. Carteret, Capt., 390, 391, 488. Blair, Dr, 105. Castellus, 230. Blakey, N., 188, 188. Catherine II, 55, 67, 78, 109, Blanchard, 230. 179, 279, 474, P5, 485. Bocage, Mme du, 99, 3/8. Caylus, Comte de, 205. Bochartus, 272. Chambers, Ephraim, 38, 6i, Boerhave, 245. 231 S., 238, 242 ff., 256, Bolleau, 399, 415. 257, 258, 259 «f., 282, 283, Boldero, J., 157. 487. Bolingbroke, 4, i, 33, 115, 119, Chardtn, 410, 413, 414, 423, 124, 149, 150, 150, 151, 152. 427. Bonnay, Marquis de, 372. Charron, 347. Bonnet, 207, 220, 221. Chastellux, Chevalier de, 430, Bordeu, Dr, 215, 218. 458. Bossuet, 273. Chateaubriand, 421. Boswell, 99, 108, 112, iSl- Chaucer, 5, 95. Boucher, 410, 424, 443. Chaudon, Abb^, i38. Boufflers, Mme de, 80. Chauvin, 229, 234. Bougainville, 34, 134, 159, 282, Chaux, Mile de la, 105, 379, 390 ff., 482. 389. Bouhours, 399. Cheselden, 155. Boyle. 176. Chesterfield, Lord, 156. Bret, A., 293, 472 ff. Cibber, 95, 302. Brucker, 27, 229, 238, 241, Cicero, 126, 138, 226. 257, 270 ff., 282, 283. Clairon, Mile, 292. Brunetiere, F., 5, 1,1, 295, 395, Clarke, 153, 153, 166, 167, 396. 396, 456. i56, 458, 48Q 173. Brute de Loirelle. Abbe, 310. Clement, P., 304. Buckle, H. T., 1, 2, 8, 8, 9, 10. Clingstad (see Kllngstad). Buffon. 33, 98, 105, 207, 220, Cobbett, Wm., 258. 221, 222, 223. Coetlogon, Chevalier Denis, Burke, E., 67, 110, 110, 111, 235. 115. Colbert, 247. Burnet, 273. Collier, Jeremy, 302. Burney, Chas., 192. Collignon, A., 485. Burton, J. H.. 59, 105, 464 ff. Collins. 115. Byron. Commodore. 390, 391, Collins, Churton, 4, i. 488. Comenius, 273. 492 INDEX Comte, Auguste, 169, 170, 180, 254. Condillac, 279. Condorcet, 182. Congreve, 463. Conti, Prince de, 80. Cook, Capt., 390, 391, 391, 392, 488. Corneille, P., 5, 141, 288, 300, 301, 302, 303, 307, 316, 415, 421, 437. Corneille, Thomas, 229. Coronelli, V. M., 237. Correggio, 419. Cowley, 264. Croismare, M. de, 358. Cross, W. L., 95. Crousaz, 403, 404. Gushing, Mary G., U9. Cyril, 276. Czernischew, 53. Damilaville, 341. Damiron, Ph., 486. Darwin, Chas., 219, 220, 222, 223. Darwin, Erasmus, 221, 222. Dashkoff, Princess, 52, 79, 80. Davies, R., 158. Dedieu, J., 3. Deffand, Mme du, 77, 78, 110. Denis, Mme, 438. Derham, 189. De Saur, 482. Descartes, 9, 9, 44, 118, 125, 127, 175, 176, 182, 183, 186, 280, 402. Deschamps, Mile, 49. Desfontaines, Abbe, 37, 449. Deslandes, 270. Destouches, 298, 301, 302, 317, 317. Deventer, 92. Dickenson, 273. Dickinson, 109. Dieskau, General, 90 ff. Dion Cassius, 171. Ditton, 266. Dobson, Austin, 83, 318. Dodsley, 96, 281. Donatus, 144. Donne, Dr, 63. Dorat, 308, 309. Dryden, 100, 289, ^3. Bu Bos, 399, 403, 423. Duels, 439. Duclos, 105. Ducros,. L., 16, 485. Duhamel, 258, 258. Dupr6 de Saint-Maur, Mme, 154. Duras, Due de, 330, 331. Dyche, Thos., 236, 238. Eckard, 100. Eidous, 239, iOS, 449. Ellis, R. L,., 195, 486. Eloesser, A., 322. Epicurus, 167, 185. Epinay, Mme d', 86, 484. Euripides, 351. Faguet, E., i2i, U6, 486. Falconet, 279, 430, i69, 482. Fermi^re, De La, 93. Feverlinus, 272. Field, 303. Fielding, 338, 369. Flamsteed, 189. Flaubert, 329. Fletcher, G., 306. Fontaine, A., ^32. Fontenelle, 82, 83, 83, 84, 98, 182, 280, 281, 283, 316, 317, Sir. Forster, .Tohn, 83. Forster, J. Reinhold, 390. Foulet, L., i. INDEX 493 Fowler, Thos., 121. 129, 1S2, 1,02. Fninklin, 108 ff., 110, 199, 202. Frederick II, 26, 26, 55. Frenais, 372. Freret, 24- Freron, 112. Furetifere, 229. Gaifife, F., SOO, 317, 319, 325. Galianl, Abbe, 418, 419, 421. Gallois, 228. Garasse, P6re, il. Garrick, 3, 3, 53, 61, 96, 101 ff., 298, 328 flf., 890, 423, 430 S., 1,32, 440, },>,0, 451. Ocntleman's Magazine, 87, 189, 391, 489. Geoffrin, Mme, SO, 78, 99. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, 222, 222. Gessner, 27, 443. Gibbon, 32, 97 ff., 104, 117, 291. Glassius, 272. Goethe, I,, 5, 27, 221, 222, 387, 388, 457, 457, 482. Goldsmith, 81 ff. Gordon, 50, 50. Gosche, 293. Grabovius, 272. Graffigny, Mme de, 325. Grassineau, 235. Gray, 440, l,hn, 441, 452. Gregory family, 88, 93. Gregory, St., 143. Gr«ry, 192. Grenze, 410, 411, 423, 427. Grimm, F. M., 5, 17, 26, 34, 35, 103, 192, 218. 237, 294, 315, Si8, 332, 398. 423, 432, 433, 442, 457, 475, 484. Gua de Malves. Abb6 du, 239. Guide, il6. Hale, Edw. E., 110. Haliam, H., 226, 227. Halley, 189. Harrington, 152. Harris, John, 229, 230, 232 ff., 238, 251, 256, 283, 487. Hartmann, von, 382. Ilawkesworth, J., 390, 391, 391, 488. Heath, D. D., 195, 487. Hedgcock, F. A., 3, 3, 102, 330. Helvetius, 33, 44, 52, 55, 56, 65, 66, 99, 105, 107, 118, 169, 210, 287, 395, 469, 483. Henault, President, 105, 318. Hertford, Lord, 104. Hettner, H., 486. Heywood, 306. Hill, G. Birkbeck, 112, .',31. Hinchliff, J. E., 160. Hinchliffe, J., 160. Hobbes, 89, 115, 120, 125, 133, 172, 274, 277. Hoefer, F., 193. Hogarth, 410, 411, 412, il2, 413, 414, m, 423, 425 ff., 428, 430, i32, 488. Holbach, 33, 56 ff., 65, 88, 89, 91, 99, 102, 104, 106. 107, 116, 118, 169, 186, 210, 211, 214, 340, 358, 423, 469, 485. Holdernesse, Lord, 58. Holmes, Gervas, 157, 158 ff. Homer, 1^5, 336, 351, 350, 435, 436. Hoop (or Hope), 45 ff., 85 ff., 214, 382, 440, HO, 489. Hoop, Van der, 87. Hope family (see Hoop). Horace, 400, 422. Hottinguer, 271. Howard, W. G., !,00. Huber, 27. 494 INDEX Htibner, 237. Huchon, R., 3, 3. Hugo, v., 319. Hume, D., 50, 51, 51, 58, 59, 63, 64, 75, 80, 101, 101, 104 fif., 107, 112, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 124, 137, 152, 178, 355, 464 ff. Huss, John, 150. Hutcheson, 119, 121, 124, i02, 403, iOS, 404. Hyde, 271. Hypatia, 276. Inchllff, Wm. (or Hlnchliff), 160, 160, 161, 207. Jablonskl, J. T., 237. Jacquier, Pfere, 187. Jahrhuch der Literaturge- schichte, 293. James, Dr Robert, 37, 38, 193, 238, 239, 242, 263, 287, iOS, 487. Jodin, Mile, 327, 482. Johnson, 230. Johnson, General, 90, 91. Johnson, Samuel, 52, 75, 112, 112, 33i, 421, i31, W, 442, 444. Joncourt, De 15T. Josephus, 145. Judd, J. W., 220. Julian, the emperor, 141. Jusserand, J. J., 2, 3, 8. Kant, 27, 118, 124, 178, 179. Keate, G., 69, 463. Kemble, 331,, 1,31. Kessel, 213. Keyser, Dr, 205. Klingstad, 477, 478. Knight, W., 105, 106. La Baume, 372. La Bruyfere, 125. La Chauss^e, 298, 298, 317, 325. Lafayette, 69. La Fontaine, 357. Lagrange, 186. La Grenee, 424. La Harpe, 309. Lamarck, 207, 221, 221, 222, 222, 223. Lamb, Chas., 124. La Motte, 316, 317. Lamozzo, Jil2. Landois, 317, 3i8, 320, 320, 325. Landrieu, M., 207, 221. Lanson, G., 4, 298, 299, 480, 484. La Place, 450. La Rochefoucauld, 125, 347. Larroumet, 318. La Tour, 410. La VSze, 392. Lavoisier, 192, 223. Le Blanc, Abbe, 24, 2i, 37, 45, 100, 115. Le Bossu, 399. Lebreton, 239, 241, 279, 284. Le Brun, 145, 248, 419. Le Clerc, 228. Leibnitz, 27, 124, 166, 167, 176, 177, 204, 274, 280, 383, 385, 386. Le Moyne, 104, m. Leonard, 443. Le Sage, 338. Lespinasse, Mile de, 95, 110, 215, 358, 372. Lessing, 5, 27, 321, 336, 1,01, 1,12, 457. Le Sueur, 145, 248, 419. Le Sueur, P6re, 187. Le Tourneur, 339, m, 442, «9. Levasseur, Th^rfese, 99. INDEX 495 Leyds, J. J. C, 484. Mills, John, 238, 239, 263, Lillo, G., 301, 304 «., 316, 318, 268, 269, 319, 320, 321, 323, 408, 451, Milton, 3, 3, 436, ^36, 440, UO, 452, 487. U3, 444. Llvy, 145. Mohammed, 380. Locke, 13, 32, 44, 75, 95, 100, Moli^re, 5, 288, 290, 298. 115, 122, 133, 155, 155, 163, Molyneux, 155, 155. 170, 171, 172, 175, 177, Monod, G. P., 339. 183, 184, 192, 266, 274, Montagu, Mrs, 3, 3. 278 ff., 405, 433, 452, 487. Montaigne, 44, 124, 125, 126, Loli^e, P., 5. 135, 138, 150, 159, 171, 347, Loutherbourg, 427. 392, 395. Lucretius, 166, 167, 185, 186, Montesquieu, 3, i, 7, 10, 11, 186, 220. 12, 12, 33, 60, 69, 98, 124, Luther, 150. 131, 151, 157, 185. Lyell, 222. Monval, 482. Moore, Edw., 304, SOi, 310 ff., Macklin, SSh 316, 319, 320, 451, 487. Macpherson, 441. Morel, L^on, 3, 3. Macquer, 213. Morellet, AbW, 102, 469. Magellan, 391. Mor^rl, 228, 229, 238, 264, Malllet, De, 207, 221. 283. Malebranche, 124, 175, 184, Morhof, 229. 281. Morlze, A., 381. Mandevllle, 172. Morley, Lord, 2, 5, 16, 110, 111, Mann, Sir Horace, 76. 160, 226, 280, 360, 368, 388, ill. Marcel, 426. i55, 1,57, 485. Marlschal, Lord, 59. Moses, 145, U6, 351. Marlvaux, 298, 317, 318, 318, Motteux, 370. 365. Muller, Max, 213. Marmontel, 102, 105. Muralt, B. de, 29, 45, 115. Martyn, J., 232. Miirger, H., 31. Masslnger, 303. Masson, Prof., 83. Nalgeon, 16, 52, 115, 168, 185, Maupassant, 3G8. 223, 275, 358, 358, W, 457, Maupertuis, 207, 208, 221. 485. Mayer, 213. Necker, 51. Meikle, H. W., 464. Needham, 212, 213, 2/f Melster, 351, 484. Nettletou, Thos., 156. Mercier, S^bastlen, 53, 309. Neufvllle, De, Ji65, -.il, ^67, Meredith, George, 366. 470. M^tra, i38. Newton, 32, 166, 167, 180, Michael Angelo, il2, 420, 428. 183, 18i, 186, 187, 189, 190, Mill, John Stuart, 124. 199, 204. 496 INDEX Nicholson, Edw., 87. Nicolal, 93. Nicole, 347. Noailles, Mar^chal de, 258. OErsted, 203. Oldenburg, 176. Osborn, H. F., 220. Ossian, 440, UO, 441, 452. Otway, 303, 306. Ozanam, 230. Papillon, F., i57. Pardon, Wm, 236. Pascal, 9, 125, 126, 267, 456. Pasquier, P., 477, 477. Petit, Dr, 425. Phillips, A., 63. Phillips, Miss, 49. Pico della Mirandola, 226. Pindar, 436. Pivati, G., 237. Plato, 21, 124, 185, 404, 443. Plutarch, 139. Pocock, 271. Pompadour, Mme de, 463. Pope, 95, 119, 124, 150, 152, 385, US, 444, 463. Pouchet, 21i. Poussin, 430, 432. Prades, Abbe de, 42, 265, 481. Prgmontval, Mme de, 188. Prevost, Abbe, 37, 45, 46, i6, 339, 340, 365, 379. Ptior, 443. Rabelais, 370, 387. Racine, 63, 307, 332, 415, 421, 436. Rameau, 191. Rameau (the nephew), 388, 389, 397, 456, 482. Ramsay, Allan, 4I8. Raphael, H6, il6, 430. Rapin, 399. Rapson, 32. Rawley, Wm., 486. Regnard, 298, 325. Reinach, J., 485. Renan, 393. Revue antJiropologique, 207. Revue d'histoire litteraire, 4. Revue du XVIIIe si^cle, S81. Revue scientiflque, 193. Reynolds, 421. Riccoboni, Mme, 330, 450. Richardson, S., 13, 37, 63, 78, 307, 318, 323, 338, 339 fif., 360, 361, 364, 365, 365, 366, 366, 367, 368, 370, 371, 379, 389, 394, 397, 408, 409, 450, 451, 452, 482, 488. Ringelberg, 226. Robertson, J. M., 121, 12i, 129, 329, 487. Robinet, 207, 220. Romilly, Hi. Romilly, Sir Samuel, 105, 106, 112 fif., 115, 470. Rosenkranz, K., 16, 292, 292, 485. Rouelle, I'Aine, 81, 192, 192, 211, 213. Rousseau, J. J., 2, 4, 10, 12, 12, 13, 29, 33, 80, 80, 81, 86, 98, 99, 114, m, 116, 138, US, 192, 235, 277, 279, 287, 365, 447, 464. 469, 470. Rowe, 303, 306. Rubens, 419. Sainte-Beuve, i51, 485. St. James' Chronicle, SSi. Saintsbury, G., 92, 373, 381, 382, 1,51, 488. Saint-Simon, 456. Sallo, Denis de, 227. Sallust, 145. INDEX 497 Sandwich, Lord, S90. Saunderson, 22, 155 £f., 207, 277, 302, 487, 489. Saurin, 310, 314, 315. Savage, Ul- Savery, Capt. Thomas, 251. Schiifer, E. A., 21i. Sch^rer, E., 485. Scheuchzeriis, 272. Schiller, 5, 27, 457. Schookius, 261, 271. Schopenhauer, 382. Sedalne, 438. Segur, De, 78, S58. Selllus, Gottfried, 238. Seneca, 126, 171, 171, 483. Sevigne, Mme de, 456. Shaftesbury, 32, 41, 50, 75, 90, 115, 119 flE., 155, 156, 163, 164, m, 165, 166, 170, 171, 172, 174, 171,, 175, 180, 194, 274, 296, 307, 320, 323, 328, 329, 385, 393, 396, 401, 402, i02, 403, 404, 405, 408, 450, 451, 452, 487. Shakespeare, 2, 3, 5, 62, 104, 135, 291, 320, 327, 332, 436 fE., UO, 451, 463. Shaw, P., 232. Slchel, W., 4, i, 95. Slawkenbergius, 377. Smollett, 52, 93, 94, 338, 369, 371. Socin, 150. Socrates, 118, 133, 199. Solarlo, Andrea, ^20. Sophocles, 309, 316, 321, 351. Southerne, 303, 306. Spedding, J., 195 ff., 486. Spence, J., 412, J,12, !,1G, 423, 488. Spencer, 271. Spencer, Herbert, 124, 168. Spinoza, 120, 175, 176, 274, 280, 381, 886. Stael, Mme de, 26. Stahl, 199, 204. Stair, Lord, 33. Stanyan, Temple, 37, 268, 287. Steele, 302. Stendhal, 319. Stephen, Leslie, 63, 152, 153, 3!,2, S57, 1,02, 488. Sterne, 78, 92, 92, 94 ff., 369 ff., 389, 394, 451. 488. Stlcoti, A. P., 103, 331. Suard, 344, 469, 479. Swift, 100, 128, 150, 289, 371, 371, U3, 463. Taylor, 32, 189. Telleen, J. M., 3, 3. Tennyson, 304. Terence, 321, 482. Teste, J., 2, 5, 8, 29, 29h 3^0, 480. Thackeray. 35. Thomas, W., 3, 3. Thomson, J., 3, 3, 442, ii2, 443, 444. Thorndike, A. H., SO.',. Tlllotson, 95. Tlndal, 115, 128, 169. Titian, il6. Toland, 115, 119, 128, 169. Tourneux, M., 15, 17, 8i, 109, 192, 270, 474, ^75. ^76, 484, 485. Toussaint, 239, 449. Toynbee, Mrs Paget, 76, 111. Tronchin, F., ^38. Tronchin, H., JiS8. Trudaine de Montigny, SIS. Tull, Jethro, 258, 25S. Turgot, 51, 80. Upper Ossory, Countess of. 111. ^ 498 INDEX Valeslus, 272. Walpole, Horace, 76, 16, 77 S., Vandeul,' Mme de, 16, 30, 31, 99, 104, 110, 115, 338, 371. 38, 351, 457, 485. Warburton, UO- Van Loo. il8, 423. Ward, A. W., 305, 307, 308, 487. Vergil, 436, 442. Warton, Thos.. 421. -ir-^-Lf /J Watteau, 410. IZ \ ^ o i«^ Webb, D., 412, il2, 413, 414, Vlllemaln, 2, 167. ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^20, 421, 488. Vise, 228. Wheeler, Granville, 157. Volland, Mile, 36, 45, 46, 57, ^Wston, 156. 59, 84, 85, 93, 95, 100, 105, ^^^^^^^ j^^^^ gj^ ^1, 67, 70, i08, 310, 340, 341, 342, 343, ^qj jq^ ff ^ 112, 117, 474 382, il8, 441, 481. ff' Voltaire, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10, Wilkes, Rich., 157. 11, 12, 12, 17, 23, 23, 28. Wllloughby, 260. 29, 30, 32. 33. 37. 40. il, Winckelmann, 108, 1,1^, 1,32. 42, 44, 45, 46, ^6, 56, 39, Wolf, 281, 404. 69, 74, 78, 82, 84, 87, 98, Wollaston, 153, 153, 155, 171. 99, 115, 119. 124. 126, 135, Woolston, 150. 142, 150, 153, 155. 163. 166. 167. 168. 169. 180, 183, Young, 3. 3, 440. 442. m. 452. 212. 258, 261, 291, 300, 303, 317, 320, 327, 371, 381, Zedler. J. H.. 237. 282. 383, 384, 385, 385, 386, 394. Zeisoldius, 272. 436, 437, ^37, 438, ^38, 447, Zeno, 380, 386. l,kt, 458, 463, 464. Zola, 368. Zoroaster, 281. Wallls, Capt.. 39a, 391, 391, Zuyllchem, M. de, 301. 392, 488. Zwingle. 150. 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