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25 chapters
PREFACE.
PREFACE.
The present work closes a series of studies on the literary preparation for the French Revolution. It differs from the companion volumes on Voltaire and Rousseau, in being much more fully descriptive. In the case of those two famous writers, every educated reader knows more or less of their performances. Of Diderot and his circle, such knowledge cannot be taken for granted, and I have therefore thought it best to occupy a considerable space, which I hope that those who do me the honour to read t
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DIDEROT. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY.
DIDEROT. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY.
There was a moment in the last century when the Gallican church hoped for a return of internal union and prosperity. This brief era of hope coincided almost exactly with the middle of the century. Voltaire was in exile at Berlin. The author of the Persian Letters and the Spirit of Laws was old and near his end. Rousseau was copying music in a garret. The Encyclopædia was looked for, but only as a literary project of some associated booksellers. The Jansenists, who had been so many in number and
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CHAPTER II. YOUTH.
CHAPTER II. YOUTH.
Denis Diderot was born at Langres in 1713, being thus a few months younger than Rousseau (1712), nearly twenty years younger than Voltaire (1694), nearly two years younger than Hume (1711), and eleven years older than Kant (1724). His stock was ancient and of good repute. The family had been engaged in the great local industry, the manufacture of cutlery, for no less than two centuries in direct line. Diderot liked to dwell on the historic prowess of his town, from the days of Julius Cæsar and t
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CHAPTER III. EARLY WRITINGS.
CHAPTER III. EARLY WRITINGS.
La Rochefoucauld, expressing a commonplace with the penetrative terseness that made him a master of the apophthegm, pronounced it "not to be enough to have great qualities: a man must have the economy of them." Or, as another writer says: "Empire in this world belongs not so much to wits, to talents, and to industry, as to a certain skilful economy and to the continual management that a man has the art of applying to all his other gifts." [18] Notwithstanding the peril that haunts superlative pr
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CHAPTER IV. THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER IV. THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
It is a common prejudice to treat Voltaire as if he had done nothing save write the Pucelle and mock at Habakkuk. Every serious and instructed student knows better. Voltaire's popularisation of the philosophy of Newton (1738) was a stimulus of the greatest importance to new thought in France. In a chapter of this work he had explained with his usual matchless terseness and lucidity Berkeley's theory of vision. The principle of this theory is, as every one knows, that figures, magnitudes, situati
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CHAPTER V. THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA.
CHAPTER V. THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA.
The history of the encyclopædic conception of human knowledge is a much more interesting and important object of inquiry than a list of the various encyclopædic enterprises to be found in the annals of literature. Yet it is proper here to mention some of the attempts in this direction, which preceded our memorable book of the eighteenth century. It is to Aristotle, no doubt, that we must look for the first glimpse of the idea that human knowledge is a totality, whose parts are all closely and or
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CHAPTER VI. SOCIAL LIFE (1759-1770).
CHAPTER VI. SOCIAL LIFE (1759-1770).
Any one must be ignorant of the facts who supposes that the men of the eighteenth century who did not believe in God, and were as little continent as King David, were therefore no better than the reckless vagabonds of Grub Street. Diderot, after he had once settled down to his huge task, became a very orderly person. It is true that he had an attachment to a lady who was not his wife. Marriage was in those days, among the courtiers and the encyclopædic circle, too habitually regarded as merely a
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CHAPTER VII. THE STAGE.
CHAPTER VII. THE STAGE.
There is at first something incredible in the account given by some thinkers of Diderot, as the greatest genius of the eighteenth century; and perhaps an adjustment of such nice degrees of comparison among the high men of the world is at no time very profitable. What is intended by these thoroughgoing panegyrists is that Diderot placed himself at the point of view whence, more comprehensively than was possible from any other, he discerned the long course and the many bearings, the complex faces
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CHAPTER VIII. RAMEAU'S NEPHEW.
CHAPTER VIII. RAMEAU'S NEPHEW.
In hypochondriacal moments, it has been said, the world, viewed from the æsthetic side, appears to many a one a cabinet of caricatures; from the intellectual side, a madhouse; and from the moral side, a harbouring place for rascals. [292] We might perhaps extend this saying beyond the accidents of hypochondriasis, and urge that the few wide, profound, and real observers of human life have all known, and known often, this fantastic consciousness of living in a strange distorted universe of lunati
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END OF VOL. I.
END OF VOL. I.
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh ....
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DIDEROTANDTHE ENCYCLOPÆDISTS BY JOHN MORLEY VOL. II.
DIDEROTANDTHE ENCYCLOPÆDISTS BY JOHN MORLEY VOL. II.
London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1905 First published elsewhere New Edition 1886. Reprinted 1891, 1897, 1905...
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DIDEROT. CHAPTER I. OTHER DIALOGUES.
DIDEROT. CHAPTER I. OTHER DIALOGUES.
We may now pass to performances that are nearer to the accepted surface of things. A short but charming example of Diderot’s taste for putting questions of morals in an interesting way, is found in the Conversation of a Father with his Children (published in 1773). This little dialogue is perfect in the simple realism of its form. Its subject is the peril of setting one’s own judgment of some special set of circumstances above the law of the land. Diderot’s venerable and well-loved father is sit
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CHAPTER II ROMANCE.
CHAPTER II ROMANCE.
The President de Brosses on a visit to Paris, in 1754, was anxious to make the acquaintance of that “furious metaphysical head,” as he styled Diderot. Buffon introduced him. “He is a good fellow,” said the President, “very pleasant, very amiable, a great philosopher, a strong reasoner, but given to perpetual digressions. He made twenty-five digressions yesterday in my room, between nine o’clock and one o’clock.” And so it is that a critic who has undertaken to give an account of Diderot, finds h
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CHAPTER III. ART.
CHAPTER III. ART.
In 1759 Diderot wrote for Grimm the first of his criticisms on the exhibition of paintings in the Salon. At the beginning of the reign of Lewis XV. these exhibitions took place every year, as they take place now. But from 1751 onwards, they were only held once in two years. Diderot has left his notes on every salon from 1759 to 1781, with the exception of that of 1773, when he was travelling in Holland and Russia. We have already seen how Grimm made Diderot work for him. The nine Salons are one
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CHAPTER IV. ST. PETERSBURG AND THE HAGUE.
CHAPTER IV. ST. PETERSBURG AND THE HAGUE.
“What would you say of the owner of an immense palace, who should spend all his life in going up from the cellars to the attics, and going down from attics to cellar, instead of sitting quietly in the midst of his family? That is the image of the traveller.” Yet Diderot, whose words these are, resolved at the age of sixty to undertake no less formidable a journey than to the remote capital on the shores of the Neva. It had come into his head, or perhaps others had put it into his head, that he o
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CHAPTER V. HELVÉTIUS.
CHAPTER V. HELVÉTIUS.
Before proceeding to the closing chapter of Diderot’s life, I propose to give a short account of three remarkable books, of all of which he was commonly regarded as the inspirer, which were all certainly the direct and natural work of the Encyclopædic school, and which all play a striking part in the intellectual commotions of the century. The great attack on the Encyclopædia was made, as we have already seen, in 1758, after the publication of the seventh volume. The same prosecution levelled an
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CHAPTER VI. HOLBACH’S SYSTEM OF NATURE.
CHAPTER VI. HOLBACH’S SYSTEM OF NATURE.
The System of Nature was published in 1770, eight years before the death of Voltaire and of Rousseau, and it gathered up all the scattered explosives of the criticism of the century into one thundering engine of revolt and destruction. It professed to be the posthumous work of Mirabaud, who had been secretary to the Academy. This was one of the common literary frauds of the time. Its real author was Holbach. It is too systematic and coherently compacted to be the design of more than one man, and
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CHAPTER VII. RAYNAL’S HISTORY OF THE INDIES.
CHAPTER VII. RAYNAL’S HISTORY OF THE INDIES.
“"Since Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois ,” says Grimm in his chronicle, “our literature has perhaps produced no monument that is worthier to pass to the remotest posterity, and to consecrate the progress of our enlightenment and diligence for ever, than Raynal’s Philosophical and Political History of European settlements and commerce in the two Indies .” Yet it is perhaps safe to say that not one hundred persons now living have ever read two chapters of the book for which this immortal future was
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CHAPTER VIII. DIDEROT’S CLOSING YEARS.
CHAPTER VIII. DIDEROT’S CLOSING YEARS.
At the end of a long series of notes and questions on points in anatomy and physiology, which he had been collecting for many years, Diderot wound up with a strange outburst: “I shall not know until the end what I have lost or gained in this vast gaming-house, where I shall have passed some threescore years, dice-box in hand, tesseras agitans . “What do I perceive? Forms. And what besides? Forms. Of the substance I know nothing. We walk among shadows, ourselves shadows to ourselves and to others
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I.
I.
Decidedly the most important of the pieces of which we have not yet spoken must be counted the Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature (1754). His study of Bacon and the composition of the introductory prospectus of the Encyclopædia had naturally filled Diderot’s mind with ideas about the universe as a whole. The great problem of man’s knowledge of this universe,—the limits, the instruments, the meaning of such knowledge, came before him with a force that he could not evade. Maupertuis had in 1
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II.
II.
In 1769 Diderot composed three dialogues, of which he said that, with a certain mathematical memoir, they were the only writings of his own with which he was contented. The first is a dialogue between himself and D’Alembert; the second is D’Alembert’s Dream, in which D’Alembert in his sleep continues the discussion, while Mdlle. Lespinasse, who is watching by his bedside, takes down the dreamer’s words; in the third, Mdlle. Lespinasse and the famous physician, Bordeu, conclude the matter. [213]
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III.
III.
The Plan of a University for the Government of Russia was the work of Diderot’s last years, but no copy of it was given to the public before 1813-14, when M. Guizot published extracts from an autograph manuscript confided to him by Suard. Diderot, with a characteristic respect for competence, with which no egotism can ever interfere in minds of such strength and veracity as his, began by urging the Empress to consult Ernesti of Leipsic, the famous editor of Cicero, and no less famous in his day
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IV.
IV.
Romilly has told us that Diderot was bent on converting him from the error of his religious ways, and with that intention read to him a Conversation with the Maréchale de——. [219] It is believed to be an idealised version of a real conversation with Madame de Broglie, and was first printed, almost as soon as written (1777), in the correspondence in which Métra, in imitation of Grimm, informed a circle of foreign subscribers what was going on in Paris. The admirers of Diderot profess to look on t
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V.
V.
Of Falconet, [220] we have already spoken, as a sculptor of genius, and as one of Diderot’s most intimate friends. Writing to Sophie Voland (Nov. 21, 1765), Diderot informs her that some pleasantries of Falconet’s have induced him to undertake very seriously the defence of the sentiment of immortality and respect for posterity. [221] This apology was carried on in an energetic correspondence which lasted from the end of 1765 to 1767. Falconet’s letters were burned by his grand-daughter for reaso
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APPENDIX. RAMEAU’S NEPHEW: A TRANSLATION.
APPENDIX. RAMEAU’S NEPHEW: A TRANSLATION.
[See vol. i. p. 348.] [I have omitted such pages in the following translation as refer simply to personages who have lost all possibility of interest for our generation; nor did any object seem to be served by reproducing the technical points of the musical discussion. Enough is given, and given as faithfully as I know how, to show the reader what Rameau’s Nephew is.]...
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