{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_22797/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_22797","id":"gutenberg_22797","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22797","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - European","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Diderot, Denis, 1713-1784","Encyclopedists"],"text":"Produced by Paul Murray, LN Yaddanapudi and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDIDEROT AND THE ENCYCLOPAEDISTS\n\nBY\n\nJOHN MORLEY\n\n\nVOL. II.\n\n\nLondon\n\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\n\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n\n1905\n\n_First published elsewhere_\n\n_New Edition 1886. Reprinted 1891, 1897, 1905_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. II.\n\n\n PAGE\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nOTHER DIALOGUES.\n\n (1) _The Conversations of a Father with his Children_ 1\n Remarks upon it.\n (2) _The Inconsistency of Public Judgment on Private Actions_ 8\n Observations.\n (3) _Supplement to Bougainville's Travels_ 14\n Philosophical qualities of the discussion not satisfactory 19\n Nothing gained by his criticism on marriage 21\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nROMANCE.\n\n Digression inevitable in dealing with Diderot 24\n Richardson's influence in Europe 26\n Diderot's _Eloge_ upon him 28\n Rousseau and Richardson 29\n Diderot writes _The Nun_ (1796) 31\n Circumstances of its composition 32\n Its intention 33\n And characteristics 35\n Sterne 36\n Diderot writes _Jacques le Fataliste_ 37\n Its history 38\n Goethe's criticism on it 38\n Nature of Diderot's imitation of Richardson and Sterne 40\n No true creation in _Jacques le Fataliste_ 41\n Its unredeemed grossness 43\n Its lack of poetry and of flavour 44\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nART.\n\n The _Salons_ 45\n Qualities of their criticism 45\n Deep foundation of Diderot's critical quality 46\n French art-criticism 48\n Dufresnoy, Dubos, Webb, Andre, Batteux 48, 49\n Travellers in Italy 50\n Diderot never in Italy 52\n Spirit of French art in his day 52\n Greuze, Diderot's favourite 56\n Greuze's _Accordee de Village_ 57\n Hogarth would have displeased Diderot 59\n Diderot's considerateness in criticism 60\n Boucher 62\n Fragonard 62\n Diderot adds literary charm to scientific criticism 63\n His readiness for moral asides 65\n His suggestions of pictorial subjects 68\n His improved versions 69\n Illustration of his variety of approach 72\n Diderot's Essay on Painting 73\n Goethe's commentary 73\n Difference of type between Goethe and Diderot 76\n Diderot's Essay on Beauty 78\n His anticipation of Lessing 82\n Music 83\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nST. PETERSBURG AND THE HAGUE.\n\n Diderot's resolution to visit the Empress of Russia 84\n The Princess Dashkow 84\n Prince Galitzin 85\n Diderot in Holland (1773) 86\n St. Petersburg and Russian civilisation 89\n The Empress 91\n Accounts of her by men of affairs 92\n Her pursuit of French culture 94\n Her interest in the French philosophic party 96\n Partly the result of political calculation 98\n The philosophers and the Partition of Poland 101\n Rulhiere's narrative of Catherine's accession 102\n Falconet, the first Frenchman welcomed by her 104\n Diderot arrives at St. Petersburg (1773) 106\n His conversations with the Empress 107\n Not successful as a politician 108\n General impression of him 109\n Grimm outstrips him in court favour 110\n Diderot's return to the Hague 112\n Bjoernstaehl's report of him 114\n Contemporary literature in Holland 117\n Hemsterhuys 118\n The Princess Galitzin 119\n Diderot's return to Paris 121\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nHELVETIUS.\n\n Three works of which Diderot was regarded as the inspirer 123\n Helvetius's _L'Esprit_ 123\n Contemporary protests against it 123\n Turgot's weighty criticism 124\n Real drift of the book 127\n Account of Helvetius 127\n The style of his book 134\n The momentous principle contained in it 135\n Adopted from Helvetius by Bentham 136\n Helvetius's statement of doctrine of Utility 137\n Miscarriage of the doctrine in his hands 139\n His fallacy 140\n True side of his objectionable position 140\n Helvetius's reckless presentation of a true theory 141\n Confusion of beneficence with self-love 142\n Imitation from Mandeville 143\n Mean anecdotes 144\n Nature of Helvetius's errors 144\n Explanation of them 146\n Positive side of his speculation 147\n Its true significance 149\n Second great paradox of _L'Esprit_ 149\n Benjamin Constant's _Adolphe_ 152\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nHOLBACH'S SYSTEM OF NATURE.\n\n Publication of the _System of Nature_ (1770) 155\n Its startling effect 156\n Voltaire's alarm 158\n He never understood Holbach's position 159\n Account of Holbach 160\n Disregard of historic opinion in his book 163\n Its remarkable violence against the government 165\n The sting of this violence 166\n The doctrine from which Holbach's book arose 167\n Account of Holbach's Naturalism 168\n His proposition concerning Man 173\n He uses the orthodox language about the pride of man 177\n His treatment of Morals 178\n Onslaught upon the theory of Free Will 178\n Connection of necessarianism with humanity in punishment 181\n His answer to some objections against necessarianism 181\n Chapter on the Immortality of the Soul 183\n His enthusiasm for reforms 185\n The literature of a political revolution 187\n Misrepresentation of Holbach's ethical theory 188\n The _System of Nature_, a protest against ascetic ideals 191\n The subject of the second half of the book 193\n Repudiation of the _a priori_ method 194\n Replies to the common charges against atheism 197\n The chapter on the superiority of Naturalism 198\n Political side of the indictment against religion 199\n Holbach's propagandism 202\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nRAYNAL'S HISTORY OF THE INDIES.\n\n Contemporary estimate of _The History of the Indies_ 204\n Account of Raynal 205\n Composition of the book 207\n Its varied popularity 209\n Frederick the Great dislikes it 210\n Signal merit of the History 213\n Its shortcomings 214\n Its idyllic inventions 215\n Its animation and variety 218\n Superficial causes of its popularity 220\n Its deeper source 221\n Catholicism in contact with the lower races 222\n The other side of this 223\n Raynal's book a plea for justice and humanity 224\n Morality towards subject races 226\n Slavery 227\n Raynal's conduct in the Revolution 229\n His end 231\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nDIDEROT'S CLOSING YEARS.\n\n Diderot's meditation on life and death 232\n Age overtakes him on his return from Russia 233\n Writes his life of Seneca 235\n Its quality 236\n Interest to Diderot of Seneca's career 237\n Strange digression in the Essay 239\n Reason for Diderot's anger against Rousseau 240\n His usual magnanimity 241\n Diderot's relations with Voltaire 244\n Naigeon 246\n Romilly's account of Diderot 247\n Palissot and the conservative writers 249\n The ecclesiastical champions of the old system 251\n The precursors gradually disappearing 253\n Galiani 254\n Beaumarchais's _Mariage de Figaro_ 255\n Diderot's famous couplet 256\n His fellow-townsmen at Langres 257\n Last days 258\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\n The variety of Diderot's topics 261\n\n (1) _Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature_ 262\n Maupertuis's _Loi d'Epargne_ 262\n General scope of Diderot's aphorisms 263\n Prophecy about geometry 264\n Utility made to prescribe limits to speculation 267\n The other side of this principle 267\n On Final Causes 268\n Adaptation of the Leibnitzian law of economy 269\n\n (2) _D'Alembert's Dream_ 271\n Diderot not the originator of French materialism 272\n Materialism of the three dialogues 273\n Mdlle. Lespinasse's moral objections 274\n\n (3) _Plan of a University for Russia_ 275\n Religious instruction 276\n Latin and Greek 277\n Letter to the Countess of Forbach 278\n\n (4) _Conversation with the Marechale de ----_ 278\n Parable of the young Mexican 279\n\n (5) _Letters to Falconet_ 281\n Diderot defends the feeling for posterity 283\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\n _Rameau's Nephew: a Translation_ 285\n\n\n\n\nDIDEROT.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nOTHER DIALOGUES.\n\n\nWe may now pass to performances that are nearer to the accepted surface\nof things. A short but charming example of Diderot's taste for putting\nquestions of morals in an interesting way, is found in the _Conversation\nof a Father with his Children_ (published in 1773). This little dialogue\nis perfect in the simple realism of its form. Its subject is the peril\nof setting one's own judgment of some special set of circumstances above\nthe law of the land. Diderot's venerable and well-loved father is\nsitting in his arm-chair before the fire. He begins the discussion by\ntelling his two sons and his daughter, who are tending him with pious\ncare, how very near he had once been to destroying their inheritance. An\nold priest had died leaving a considerable fortune. There was believed\nto be no will, and the next of kin were a number of poor people whom the\ninheritance would have rescued from indigence for the rest of their\ndays. They appointed the elder Diderot to guard their interests and\ndivide the property. He finds at the bottom of a disused box of ancient\nletters, receipts, and other waste-paper, a will made long years ago,\nand bequeathing all the fortune to a very rich bookseller in Paris.\nThere was every reason to suppose that the old priest had forgotten the\nexistence of the will, and it involved a revolting injustice. Would not\nDiderot be fulfilling the dead man's real wishes by throwing the\nunwelcome document into the flames?\n\nAt this point in the dialogue the doctor enters the room and interrupts\nthe tale. It appears that he is fresh from the bedside of a criminal who\nis destined to the gallows. Diderot the younger reproaches him for\nlabouring to keep in the world an offender whom it were best to send out\nof it with all despatch. The duty of the physician is to say to so\nexecrable a patient--\"I will not busy myself in restoring to life a\ncreature whom it is enjoined upon me by natural equity, the good of\nsociety, the well-being of my fellow-creatures, to give up. Die, and let\nit never be said that through my skill there exists a monster the more\non earth!\" The doctor parries these energetic declamations with\nsufficient skill. \"My business is to cure, not to judge; I shall cure\nhim, because that is my trade; then the judge will have him hung,\nbecause that is his trade.\" This episodic discussion ended, the story of\nthe will is resumed. The father, when on the point of destroying it, was\nseized with a scruple of conscience, and hastened to a cure well versed\nin casuistry. As in England the agents of the law itself not seldom play\nthe part of arbitrary benevolence, which the old Diderot would fain have\nplayed against the law, the scene may perhaps be worth transcribing:\n\n \"'Nothing is more praiseworthy, sir, than the sentiment of\n compassion that touches you for these unfortunate people. Suppress\n the testament and succour them--good; but on condition of restoring\n to the rightful legatee the exact sum of which you deprive him,\n neither more nor less. Who authorised you to give a sanction to\n documents, or to take it away? Who authorised you to interpret the\n intentions of the dead?'\n\n 'But then, father Bouin, the old box?'\n\n 'Who authorised you to decide whether the will was thrown away on\n purpose, or mislaid by accident? Has it never happened to you to do\n such a thing, and to find at the bottom of a chest some valuable\n paper that you had tossed there inadvertently?'\n\n 'But, father Bouin, the far-off date of the paper, and its\n injustice?'\n\n 'Who authorised you to pronounce on the justice or injustice of the\n document, and to regard the bequest as an unlawful gift, rather\n than as a restitution or any other lawful act which you may choose\n to imagine?'\n\n 'But, these poor kinsfolk here on the spot, and that mere\n collateral, distant and wealthy?'\n\n 'Who authorised you to weigh in your balance what the dead man owed\n to his distant relations, whom you don't know?'\n\n 'But, father Bouin, that pile of letters from the legatee, which\n the departed never even took the trouble to open?'\n\n 'There is neither old box, nor date, nor letters, nor father Bouin,\n nor if, nor but, in the case. No one has any right to infringe the\n laws, to enter into the intention of the dead, or to dispose of\n other people's property. If providence has resolved to chastise\n either the heir or the legatee or the testator--we cannot tell\n which--by the accidental preservation of the will, the will must\n remain.'\"[1]\n\n [1] _Oeuv._, v. 289.\n\nDiderot the younger declaims against all this with his usual vehemence,\nwhile his brother, the abbe, defends the supremacy of the law on the\nproper ground, that to evade or defy it in any given case is to open the\ndoor to the sophistries of all the knaves in the universe. At this point\na journeyman of the neighbourhood comes in with a new case of\nconscience. His wife has died after twenty years of sickness; in these\ntwenty years the cost of her illness has consumed all that he would\notherwise have saved for the end of his days. But, as it happens, the\nmarriage portion that she brought him has lain untouched. By law this\nought to go to her family. Equity, however, seems to justify him in\nkeeping what he might have spent if he had chosen. He consults the party\nround the fire. One bids him keep the money; another forbids him; a\nthird thinks it fair for him to repay himself the cost of his wife's\nillness. Diderot's father cries out, that since on his own confession\nthe detention of the inheritance has brought him no comfort, he had\nbetter surrender it as speedily as possible, and eat, drink, sleep,\nwork, and make himself happy so.\n\n \"'Not I,' cried the journeyman abruptly, 'I shall be off to\n Geneva.'\n\n 'And dost thou think to leave remorse behind?'\n\n 'I can't tell, but to Geneva I go.'\n\n 'Go where thou wilt, there wilt thou find thy conscience.'\n\n The hatter went away; his odd answer became the subject of our\n talk. We agreed that perhaps distance of place and time had the\n effect of weakening all the feelings more or less, and stifling the\n voice of conscience even in cases of downright crime. The assassin\n transported to the shores of China is too far off to perceive the\n corpse that he has left bleeding on the banks of the Seine.\n\n Remorse springs perhaps less from horror of self than from fear of\n others; less from shame for the deed, than from the blame and\n punishment that would attend its discovery. And what clandestine\n criminal is tranquil enough in his obscurity not to dread the\n treachery of some unforeseen circumstance, or the indiscretion of\n some thoughtless word? What certainty can he have that he will not\n disclose his secret in the delirium of fever, or in dreams? People\n will understand him if they are on the scene of the action, but\n those about him in China will have no key to his words.\"[2]\n\n [2] v. 295, 296.\n\nTwo other cases come up. Does the husband or wife who is the first to\nbreak the marriage vow, restore liberty to the other? Diderot answered\naffirmatively. The second case arose from a story that the abbe had been\nreading. A certain honest cobbler of Messina saw his country overrun by\nlawlessness. Each day was marked by a crime. Notorious assassins braved\nthe public exasperation. Parents saw their daughters violated; the\nindustrious saw the fruits of their toil ravished from them by the\nmonopolist or the fraudulent tax-gatherer. The judges were bribed, the\ninnocent were afflicted, the guilty escaped unharmed. The cobbler\nmeditating on these enormities devised a plan of vengeance. He\nestablished a secret court of justice in his shop; he heard the\nevidence, gave a verdict, pronounced sentence, and went out into the\nstreet with his gun under his cloak to execute it. Justice done, he\nregained his stall, rejoicing as though he had slain a rabid dog. When\nsome fifty criminals had thus met their doom, the viceroy offered a\nreward of two thousand crowns for information of the slayer, and swore\non the altar that he should have full pardon if he gave himself up. The\ncobbler presented himself, and spoke thus: \"I have done what was your\nduty. 'Tis I who condemned and put to death the miscreants that you\nought to have punished. Behold the proofs of their crimes. There you\nwill see the judicial process which I observed. I was tempted to begin\nwith yourself; but I respected in your person the august master whom you\nrepresent. My life is in your hands: dispose of it as you think right.\"\nWell, cried the abbe, the cobbler, in spite of all his fine zeal for\njustice, was simply a murderer. Diderot protested. His father decided\nthat the abbe was right, and that the cobbler was an assassin.\n\nNothing short of a transcript of the whole would convey a right idea of\nthe dramatic ease of this delightful dialogue--its variety of\nillustration with unity of topic, the naturalness of movement, the\npleasant lightness of touch. At its close the old man calls for his\nnightcap; Diderot embraces him, and in bidding him good-night whispers\nin his ear, \"Strictly speaking, father, there are no laws for the sage.\nAll being open to exception, 'tis for him to judge the cases in which we\nought to submit to them, or to throw them over.\" \"I should not be\nsorry,\" his father answers, \"if there were in the town one or two\ncitizens like thee; but nothing would induce me to live there, if they\nall thought in that way.\" The conclusion is just, and Diderot might have\nverified it by the state of the higher society of his country at that\nvery moment. One cause of the moral corruption of France in the closing\nyears of the old _regime_ was undoubtedly the lax and shifting\ninterpretations, by which the Jesuit directors had softened the rigour\nof general moral principles. Many generations must necessarily elapse\nbefore a habit of loosely superseding principles in individual cases\nproduces widespread demoralisation, but the result is inevitable, sooner\nor later; and this, just in proportion as the principles are sound. The\ncasuists practically constructed a system for making the observance\nalike of the positive law, and of the accepted ethical maxims, flexible\nand conditional. The Diderot of the present dialogue takes the same\nattitude, but has the grace to leave the demonstration of its\nimpropriety to his wise and benevolent sire.\n\n * * * * *\n\nII. We shall presently see that Diderot did not shrink from applying a\nvigorous doubt to some of the most solidly established principles of\nmodern society. Let us meanwhile in passing notice that short piece of\nplangent irony, which did not appear until many years after his death\n(1798), and which he or some one else entitled, _On the inconsistency of\nthe Public Judgment on our Private Actions_. This too is in the form of\ndialogue, but the argument of the story is in its pith as follows.\nDesroches, first an abbe, then a lawyer, lastly a soldier, persuades a\nrich and handsome widow to marry him. She is aware of his previous\ngallantries, and warns him in very dramatic style before a solemn\ngathering of friends, that if he once wounds her by an infidelity, she\nwill shut herself up and speedily die of grief. He makes such vows as\nmost men would make under such circumstances; he presses her hands\nardently to his lips, bedews them with his tears, and moves the whole\ncompany to sympathy with his own agitation. The scene is absurd enough,\nor seems so to us dull people of phlegmatic habit. Yet Diderot, even for\nus, redeems it by the fine remark: \"'Tis the effect of what is good and\nvirtuous to leave a large assembly with only one thought and one soul.\nHow all respect one another, love one another in such moments! For\ninstance, how beautiful humanity is at the play! Ah, why must we part so\nquickly? Men are so good, so happy, when what is worthy unites all their\nsuffrages, melts them, makes them one.\"[3] For some time all went well,\nand our pair were the happiest of men and women. Then various assaults\nwere made on the faithfulness of Desroches. He resisted them, until in\nendeavouring to serve a friend he was forced to sue for the goodwill of\na lady with whom in his unregenerate days he had had passages of\ngallantry. The old intrigue was renewed. Letters of damning proof fell\nby ill hazard into his wife's hands. She reassembled her friends,\ndenounced the culprit, and forthwith carried away her child to seek\nshelter with her aged mother. Desroches's fervent remorse was unheeded,\nhis letters were sent back unopened, he was denied the door. Presently,\nthe aged mother died. Then the infant. Lastly, the wife herself. Now,\nsays Diderot to his interlocutor, I pray you to turn your eyes to the\npublic--that imbecile crowd that pronounces judgment on us, that\ndisposes of our honour, that lifts us to the clouds or trails us through\nthe mud. Opinion passed through every phase about Desroches. The\nshifting event is ever their one measure of praise and blame. A fault\nwhich nobody thought more than venial became gradually aggravated in\ntheir eyes by a succession of incidents which it was impossible for\nDesroches either to foresee or to prevent. At first opinion was on his\nside, and his wife was thought to have carried things with too high a\nhand. Then, after she had fallen ill, and her child had died, and her\naged mother had passed away in the fulness of years, he began to be held\nanswerable for all this sea of troubles. Why had not Desroches written\nto his wife, beset her doors, waylaid her as she went to church? He\nhad, as matter of fact, done all these things, but the public did not\nknow it. The important thing is, not to know, but to talk. Then, as it\nbefell, his wife's brother took Desroches's place in his regiment; there\nhe was killed. More exclamations as to the misfortune of being connected\nwith such a man. How was Desroches responsible for the death of his\nmother-in-law, already well stricken in years? How could he foresee that\na hostile ball would pierce his brother-in-law in his first campaign?\nBut his wife? He must be a barbarian, a monster, who had gradually\npressed a poniard into the bosom of a divine woman, his wife, his\nbenefactress, and then left her to die, without showing the least sign\nof interest or feeling. And all this, cries Diderot, for not knowing\nwhat was concealed from him, and what was unknown and unsuspected even\nby those who were daily about her? What presumption, what bad logic,\nwhat incoherence, what unjustified veering and vacillation in all these\npublic verdicts from beginning to end!\n\n [3] _Oeuv._, v. 342.\n\nYet we feel that Diderot's impetuous taunts fail to press to the root of\nthe matter. Diderot excels in opening a subject; he places it in a new\nlight; he furnishes telling concrete illustrations; he thoroughly\ndisturbs and unsettles the medium of conventional association in which\nit has become fixed. But he does not leave the question readjusted. His\nmind was not of that quality which is slow to complain where it cannot\nexplain; which does not quit a discussion without a calm and orderly\nreview of the conditions that underlie the latest exhibition of human\nfolly, shortsightedness, or injustice. The public condemnation of\nDesroches for consequences that were entirely strange to his one\noffence, was indefensible on grounds of strict logic. But then men have\nimagination as well as reason. Imagination is stronger than reason with\nmost of them. Their imagination was touched by the series of disasters\nthat followed Madame Desroches's abandonment of her husband. They admit\nno plea of remoteness of damage, such as law courts allow. In a way that\nwas loose and unreasonable, but still easily intelligible, the husband\nbecame associated with a sequel for which he was not really answerable.\nIf the world's conduct in such cases were accurately expressed, it would\nperhaps be found that people have really no intention to pronounce a\njudicial sentence; they only mean that an individual's associations have\nbecome disagreeable and doubtful to them. They may think proper to\njustify the grievously meagre definition of _homo_ as _animal\nrationale_, by varnishing their distaste with reasons; the true reason\nis that the presence of a Desroches disturbs their comfort, by recalling\nquestionable and disorderly circumstances. That this selfish and rough\nmethod many a time inflicts horrible cruelty is too certain, and those\nto whom the idea of conduct is serious and deep-reaching will not fall\ninto it. A sensible man is aware of the difficulty of pronouncing wisely\nupon the conduct of others, especially where it turns upon the\nintricate and unknowable relations between a man and a woman. He will\nnot, however, on that account break down the permanent safeguards, for\nthe sake of leniency in a given case. _A great enemy to indifference, a\ngreat friend to indulgence_, said Turgot of himself; and perhaps it is\nwhat we should all do well to be able to say of ourselves.\n\nAgain, though these ironical exposures of the fatuity and recklessness\nand inconsistency of popular verdicts are wholesome enough in their\ndegree in all societies, yet it has been, and still remains, a defect of\nsome of the greatest French writers to expect a fruit from such\nperformances which they can never bear. In the long run a great body of\nmen and women is improved less by general outcry against its collective\ncharacteristics than by the inculcation of broader views, higher\nmotives, and sounder habits of judgment, in such a form as touches each\nman and woman individually. It is better to awaken in the individual a\nsense of responsibility for his own character than to do anything,\neither by magnificent dithyrambs or penetrating satire, to dispose him\nto lay the blame on Society. Society is after all only a name for other\npeople. An instructive contrast might be drawn between the method of\nFrench writers of genius, from Diderot down to that mighty master of our\nown day, Victor Hugo, in pouring fulminant denunciations upon Society,\nand the other method of our best English writers, from Milton down to\nMill, in impressing new ideas on the Individual, and exacting a\nvigorous personal answer to the moral or spiritual call.\n\nOne other remark may be worth making. It is characteristic of the\nimmense sociability of the eighteenth century, that when he saw\nDesroches sitting alone in the public room, receiving no answers to his\nquestions, never addressed by any of those around him, avoided, coldly\neyed, and morally proscribed, Diderot never thought of applying the\nartificial consolation of the Stoic. He never dreamed of urging that\nexpulsion from the society of friends was not a hardship, a true\npunishment, and a genuine evil. No one knew better than Diderot that a\nman should train himself to face the disapprobation of the world with\nsteadfast brow and unflinching gaze; but he knew also that this is only\ndone at great cost, and is only worth doing for clear and far-reaching\nobjects. Life was real to Diderot, not in the modern canting sense of\nearnestness and making a hundred thousand pounds; but in the sense of\nbeing an agitated scene of living passion, interest, sympathy, struggle,\ndelight, and woe, in which the graceful ascetic commonplaces of the\nwriter and the preacher barely touch the actual conditions of human\nexperience, or go near to softening the smart of chagrin, failure,\nmistake, and sense of wrong, any more than the sweet music of the birds\npoised in air over a field of battle can still the rage and horror of\nthe plain beneath. As was said by a good man, who certainly did not fail\nto try the experiment,--\"Speciosa quidem ista sunt, oblitaque rhetoricae\net musicae melle dulcedinis; tum tantum cum audiuntur oblectant. Sed\nmiseris malorum altior sensus est. Itaque quum haec auribus insonare\ndesierint, insitus animum moeror praegravat.\"[4]\n\n [4] Boethius.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIII. We may close this chapter with a short account of the _Supplement\nto Bougainville's Travels_, which was composed in 1772, and published\ntwenty-four years later. The second title is, _A dialogue on the\ndisadvantage of attaching moral ideas to certain physical actions which\ndo not really comport with them_. Those who believe that the ruling\nsystem of notions about marriage represents the last word that is to be\nsaid as to the relations between men and women, will turn away from\nDiderot's dialogue with some impatience. Those, on the contrary, who\nhold that the present system is no more immovably fixed in ultimate laws\nof human nature, no more final, no more unimprovable, no more sacred,\nand no more indisputably successful, than any other set of social\narrangements and the corresponding moral ideas, will find something to\ninterest them, though, as it seems to the present writer, very little to\ninstruct. Bougainville was the first Frenchman who sailed round the\nworld. He did in 1766-69 what Captain Cook did about the same time. The\nnarrative of his expedition appeared in 1771, and the picture of life\namong the primitive people of the Southern Seas touched Diderot almost\nas deeply as if he had been Rousseau. As one says so often in this\nhistory of the intellectual preparation for the Revolution, the\ncorruption and artificiality of Parisian society had the effect of\ncolouring the world of primitive society with the very hues of paradise.\nDiderot was more free from this besetting weakness than any of his\ncontemporaries. He never fell into Voltaire's fancy that China is a land\nof philosophers.[5] But he did not look very critically into the real\nconditions of life in the more rudimentary stages of development, and\nfor the moment he committed the sociological anachronism of making the\npoor people of Otaheite into wise and benevolent patriots and sound\nreasoners. The literary merit of the dialogue is at least as striking as\nin any of the pieces of which we have already spoken. The realism of the\nscenes between the ship-chaplain and his friendly savage, with too\nkindly wife, and daughters as kindly as either, is full of sweetness,\nsimplicity, and a sort of pathos. A subject which easily takes on an air\nof grossness, and which Diderot sometimes handled very grossly indeed,\nis introduced with an idyllic grace that to the pure will hardly be\nother than pure. We have of course always to remember that Diderot is an\nauthor for grown-up people, as are the authors of the Bible or any other\nbook that deals with more than the surface of human experience. Our\nEnglish practice of excluding from literature subjects and references\nthat are unfit for boys and girls, has something to recommend it, but it\nundeniably leads to a certain narrowness and thinness, and to some most\nnauseous hypocrisy. All subjects are evidently not to be discussed by\nall; and one result in our case is that some of the most important\nsubjects in the world receive no discussion whatever.\n\n [5] See, however, above, vol. i. p. 274.\n\nThe position which Diderot takes up in the present dialogue may be\ninferred from the following extract. The ship-chaplain has been\nexplaining to the astonished Otaheitan the European usage of strict\nmonogamy, as the arrangement enjoined upon man by the Creator of the\nuniverse, and vigilantly guarded by the priest and the magistrate. To\nwhich, Orou thus:\n\n \"These singular precepts I find opposed to nature and contrary to\n reason. They are contrary to nature because they suppose that a\n being who thinks, feels, and is free, can be the property of a\n creature like itself. Dost thou not see that in thy land they have\n confounded the thing that has neither sensibility, nor thought, nor\n desire, nor will; that one leaves, one takes, one keeps, one\n exchanges, without its suffering or complaining--with a thing that\n is neither exchanged nor acquired, that has freedom, will, desire,\n that may give or may refuse itself for the moment; that complains\n and suffers; and that cannot become a mere article of commerce,\n unless you forget its character and do violence to nature? And they\n are contrary to the general law of things. Can anything seem more\n senseless to thee than a precept which proscribes the law of change\n that is within us, and which commands a constancy that is\n impossible, and that violates the liberty of the male and the\n female, by chaining them together in perpetuity;--anything more\n senseless than are oaths of immutability, taken by two creatures of\n flesh, in the face of a sky that is not an instant the same, under\n vaults that threaten ruin, at the base of a rock crumbling to\n dust, at the foot of a tree that is splitting asunder?... You may\n command what is opposed to nature, but you will not be obeyed. You\n will multiply evil-doers and the unhappy by fear, by punishment,\n and by remorse; you will deprave men's consciences; you will\n corrupt their minds; they will have lost the polar star of their\n pathway.\" (225.)\n\nAfter this declamation he proceeds to put some practical questions to\nthe embarrassed chaplain. Are young men in France always continent, and\nwives always true, and husbands never libertines? The chaplain's answers\ndisclose the truth to the keen-eyed Orou:\n\n \"What a monstrous tissue is this that thou art unfolding to me! And\n even now thou dost not tell me all; for as soon as men allow\n themselves to dispose at their own will of the ideas of what is\n just and unjust, to take away, or to impose an arbitrary character\n on things; to unite to actions or to separate from them the good\n and the evil, with no counsellor save caprice--then come blame,\n accusation, suspicion, tyranny, envy, jealousy, deception, chagrin,\n concealment, dissimulation, espionage, surprise, lies; daughters\n deceive their parents, wives their husbands, husbands their wives;\n young women, I don't doubt, will smother their children; suspicious\n fathers will despise and neglect their children; mothers will leave\n them to the mercy of accident; and crime and debauchery will show\n themselves in every guise. I know all that, as if I had lived among\n you. It is so, because it must be so; and that society of thine, in\n spite of thy chief who vaunts its fine order, is nothing but a\n collection of hypocrites who secretly trample the laws under foot;\n or of unfortunate wretches who make themselves the instrument of\n their own punishment, by submitting to these laws; or of imbeciles,\n in whom prejudice has absolutely stifled the voice of nature.\"\n (227.)\n\nThe chaplain has the presence of mind to fall back upon the radical\ndifficulty of all such solutions of the problem of family union as were\npractised in Otaheite, or were urged by philosophers in Paris, or are\ntimidly suggested in our own times in the droll-sounding form of\nmarriages for terms of years with option of renewal. That difficulty is\nthe disposal of the children which are the fruit of such unions. Orou\nrejoins to this argument by a very eloquent account how valuable, how\nsought after, how prized, is the woman who has her quiver full of them.\nHis contempt for the condition of Europe grows more intense, as he\nlearns that the birth of a child among the bulk of the people of the\nwest is rather a sorrow, a perplexity, a hardship, than a delight and\nground of congratulation.\n\nThe reader sees by this time that in the present dialogue Diderot is\nreally criticising the most fundamental and complex arrangement of our\nactual western society, from the point of view of an arbitrary and\nentirely fanciful naturalism. Rousseau never wrote anything more\npicturesque, nor anything more dangerous, nor more anarchic and\nsuperficially considered. It is true that Diderot at the close of the\ndiscussion is careful to assert that while we denounce senseless laws,\nit is our duty to obey them until we have procured their reform. \"He who\nof his own private authority infringes a bad law, authorises every one\nelse to infringe good laws. There are fewer inconveniences in being mad\nwith the mad, than in being wise by oneself. Let us say to ourselves,\nlet us never cease to cry aloud, that people attach shame, chastisement,\nand infamy to acts that in themselves are innocent; but let us abstain\nfrom committing them, because shame, punishment, and infamy are the\ngreatest of evils.\" And we hear Diderot's sincerest accents when he\nsays, \"Above all, one must be honest, and true to a scruple, with the\nfragile beings who cannot yield to our pleasures without renouncing the\nmost precious advantages of society.\"[6]\n\n [6] _Oeuv._, ii. 249.\n\nThis, however, does not make the philosophical quality of the discussion\nany more satisfactory. Whatever changes may ultimately come about in the\nrelations between men and women, we may at least be sure that such\nchanges will be in a direction even still further away than the present\nconditions of marriage, from anything like the naturalism of Diderot and\nthe eighteenth-century school. Even if--what does not at present seem at\nall likely to happen--the idea of the family and the associated idea of\nprivate property should eventually be replaced by that form of communism\nwhich is to be seen at Oneida Creek, still the discipline of the\nappetites and affections of sex will necessarily on such a system be not\nless, but far more rigorous to nature than it is under prevailing\nwestern institutions.[7] Orou would have been a thousand times more\nunhappy among the Perfectionists under Mr. Noyes than in Paris or\nLondon. We cannot pretend here to discuss the large group of momentous\nquestions involved, but we may make a short remark or two. One reason\nwhy the movement, if progressive, must be in the direction of greater\nsubordination of appetite, is that all experience proves the position\nand moral worth of women, taking society as a whole, to be in proportion\nto the self-control of their male companions. Nobody doubts that man is\ninstinctively polygamous. But the dignity and self-respect, and\nconsequently the whole moral cultivation of women, depends on the\nsuppression of this vagrant instinct. And there is no more important\nchapter in the history of civilisation than the record of the steps by\nwhich its violence has been gradually reduced.\n\n [7] See Nordhoff's _Communistic Societies of the United States_\n (London: Murray, 1875), pp. 259-293. This grave and most instructive\n book shows how modifiable are some of those facts of existing human\n character which are vulgarly deemed to be ultimate and ineradicable.\n\nThere is another side, we admit. The home, of which sentimental\nphilosophers love to talk, is too often a ghastly failure. The conjugal\nunion, so tender and elevating in its ideal, is in more cases than we\nusually care to recognise, the cruellest of bonds to the woman, the most\nharassing, deadening, spirit-breaking of all possible influences to the\nman. The purity of the family, so lovely and dear as it is, has still\nonly been secured hitherto by retaining a vast and dolorous host of\nfemale outcasts. When Catholicism is praised for the additions which it\nhas made to the dignity of womanhood and the family, we have to set\nagainst that gain the frightful growth of this caste of poor creatures,\nupon whose heads, as upon the scapegoat of the Hebrew ordinance, we put\nall the iniquities of the children of the house, and all their\ntransgressions in all their sins, and then banish them with maledictions\ninto the foul outer wilderness and the land not inhabited.\n\nOn this side there is much wholesome truth to be told, in the midst of\nthe complacent social cant with which we are flooded. But Diderot does\nnot help us. Nothing can possibly be gained by reducing the attraction\nof the sexes to its purely physical elements, and stripping it of all\nthe moral associations which have gradually clustered round it, and\nacquired such force as in many cases among the highest types of mankind\nto reduce the physical factor to a secondary place. Such a return to the\nnakedness of the brute must be retrograde. And Diderot, as it happened,\nwas the writer who, before all others, habitually exalted the delightful\nand consolatory sentiment of the family. Nobody felt more strongly the\nworth of domestic ties, when faithfully cherished. It can only have been\nin a moment of elated paradox that he made one of the interlocutors in\nthe dialogue on Bougainville pronounce Constancy, \"The poor vanity of\ntwo children who do not know themselves, and who are blinded by the\nintoxication of a moment to the instability of all that surrounds them:\"\nand Fidelity, \"The obstinacy and the punishment of a good man and a\ngood woman:\" and Jealousy, \"The passion of a miser; the unjust sentiment\nof man; the consequence of our false manners, and of a right of property\nextending over a feeling, willing, thinking, free creature.\"[8]\n\n [8] _Oeuv._, ii. 243.\n\nIt is a curious example of the blindness which reaction against excess\nof ascetic doctrine bred in the eighteenth century, that Diderot should\nhave failed to see that such sophisms as these are wholly destructive of\nthat order and domestic piety, to whose beauty he was always so keenly\nalive. It is curious, too, that he should have failed to recognise that\nthe erection of constancy into a virtue would have been impossible, if\nit had not answered first, to some inner want of human character at its\nbest, and second, to some condition of fitness in society at its best.\n\nHow is it, says one of the interlocutors, that the strongest, the\nsweetest, the most innocent of pleasures is become the most fruitful\nsource of depravation and misfortune? This is indeed a question well\nworth asking. And it is comforting after the anarchy of the earlier part\nof the dialogue to find so comparatively sensible a line of argument\ntaken in answer as the following. This evil result has been brought\nabout, he says, by the tyranny of man, who has converted the possession\nof woman into a property; by manners and usages that have overburdened\nthe conjugal union with superfluous conditions; by the civil laws that\nhave subjected marriage to an infinity of formalities; by religious\ninstitutions that have attached the name of vices and virtues to actions\nthat are not susceptible of morality. If this means that human happiness\nwill be increased by making the condition of the wife more independent\nin respect of property; by treating in public opinion separation between\nhusband and wife as a transaction in itself perfectly natural and\nblameless, and often not only laudable, but a duty; and by abolishing\nthat barbarous iniquity and abomination called restitution of conjugal\nrights, then the speaker points to what has been justly described as the\nnext great step in the improvement of society. If it means that we do\nwrong to invest with the most marked, serious, and unmistakable\nformality an act that brings human beings into existence, with uncounted\nresults both to such beings themselves and to others who are equally\nirresponsible for their appearance in the world, then the position is\nrecklessly immoral, and it is, moreover, wholly repugnant to Diderot's\nown better mind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nROMANCE.\n\n\nThe President de Brosses on a visit to Paris, in 1754, was anxious to\nmake the acquaintance of that \"furious metaphysical head,\" as he styled\nDiderot. Buffon introduced him. \"He is a good fellow,\" said the\nPresident, \"very pleasant, very amiable, a great philosopher, a strong\nreasoner, but given to perpetual digressions. He made twenty-five\ndigressions yesterday in my room, between nine o'clock and one o'clock.\"\nAnd so it is that a critic who has undertaken to give an account of\nDiderot, finds himself advancing from digression to digression, through\na chain of all the subjects that are under the sun. The same Diderot,\nhowever, is present amid them all, and behind each of them; the same\nfresh enthusiasm, the same expansive sympathy, the same large\nhospitality of spirit. Always, too, the same habitual reference of\nideas, systems, artistic forms, to the complex realities of life, and to\nthese realities as they figured to sympathetic emotions.\n\nIt was inevitable that Diderot should make an idol of the author of\n_Clarissa Harlowe_. The spirit of reaction against the artificiality of\nthe pseudo-classic drama, which drove him to feel the way to a drama of\nreal life in the middle class, made him exult in the romance of ordinary\nprivate life which was invented by Richardson. It was no mere accident\nthat the modern novel had its origin in England, but the result of\ngeneral social causes. The modern novel essentially depends on the\ninterest of the private life of ordinary men and women. But this\ninterest was only possible on condition that the feudal and aristocratic\nspirit had received its deathblow, and it was only in England that such\na revolution had taken place even partially. It was only in England as\nyet that the middle class had conquered a position of consideration,\nequality, and independence. Only in England, as has been said, had every\nman the power of making the best of his own personality, and arranging\nhis own destiny according to his private goodwill and pleasure.[9] The\ngreatest of Richardson's successors in the history of English fiction\nadds to this explanation. \"Those,\" says Sir Walter Scott, \"who with\npatience had studied rant and bombast in the folios of Scuderi, could\nnot readily tire of nature, sense, and genius in the octavos of\nRichardson.\" The old French romances in which Europe had found a dreary\namusement, were stories of princes and princesses. It was to be expected\nthat the first country where princes and princesses were shorn of\ndivinity and made creatures of an Act of Parliament, would also be the\ncountry where imagination would be most likely to seek for serious\npassion, realistic interest, and all the material for pathos and tragedy\nin the private lives of common individuals. It is true that Marivaux,\nthe author of _Marianne_, was of the school of Richardson before\nRichardson wrote a word. But this was an almost isolated appearance, and\nnot the beginning of a movement. Richardson's popularity stamped the\nopening of a new epoch. It was the landmark of a great social, no less\nthan a great literary transition, when all England went mad with\nenthusiasm over the trials, the virtue, the triumph of a rustic\nladies'-maid.\n\n [9] Hettner's _Literaturgeschichte_, i. 462.\n\nIn the literary circles of France the enthusiasm for Richardson was\nquite as great as it was in England. There it was one of the signs of\nthe certain approach of that transformation which had already taken\nplace in England; the transformation from feudalism to industrial\ndemocracy. It may sound a paradox to say that a passion for Richardson\nwas a symbol that a man was truly possessed by the spirit of political\nrevolution. Yet it is true. Voltaire was a revolter against superstition\nand the tyranny of the church, but he never threw off the monarchic\ntraditions of his younger days; he was always a friend of great nobles;\nhe had no eye and no inclination for social overthrow. And this is what\nVoltaire said of _Clarissa Harlowe_: \"It is cruel for a man like me to\nread nine whole volumes in which you find nothing at all. I said--Even\nif all these people were my relations and friends, I could take no\ninterest in them. I can see nothing in the writer but a clever man who\nknows the curiosity of the human race, and is always promising something\nfrom volume to volume, in order to go on selling them.\" In the same way,\nand for exactly the same reasons, he could never understand the\nenthusiasm for the _New Heloisa_, the greatest of the romances that were\ndirectly modelled on Richardson. He had no vision for the strange social\naspirations that were silently haunting the inner mind of his\ncontemporaries. Of these aspirations, in all their depth and\nsignificance, Diderot was the half-conscious oracle and unaccepted\nprophet. It was not deliberate philosophical calculation that made him\nso, but the spontaneous impulse of his own genius and temperament. He\nwas no conscious political destroyer, but his soul was open to all those\nvoices of sentiment, to all those ideals of domestic life, to those\nprimary forces of natural affection, which were so urgently pressing\nasunder the old feudal bonds, and so swiftly ripening a vast social\ncrisis. Thus his enthusiasm for Richardson was, at its root, another\nside of that love of the life of peaceful industry, which gave one of\nits noblest characteristics to the Encyclopaedia.\n\nTo this enthusiasm Diderot gave voice in half a dozen pages which are\ncounted among his masterpieces. Richardson died in 1761, and Diderot\nflung off a commemorative piece, which is without any order and\nconnection; but this makes it more an echo, as he called it, of the\ntumult of his own heart. Here, indeed, he merits Gautier's laudatory\nphrase, and is as \"flamboyant\" as one could desire. To understand the\nmarch of feeling in French literature, and to measure the growth and\nexpansion in criticism, we need only compare Diderot's _eloge_ on\nRichardson with Fontenelle's _eloge_ on Dangeau or Leibnitz. The\nexaggerations of phrase, the violences of feeling, the broken\napostrophes, give to Diderot's _eloge_ an unpleasant tone of\ndeclamation. Some of us may still prefer the moderation, the subtlety,\nthe nice discrimination, of the critics of another school. Still it\nwould be a sign of narrowness and short-sight not to discern the\nsincerity, the movement, the real meaning underneath all that profusion\nof glaring colour.\n\n \"O Richardson, Richardson, unique among men in my eyes, thou shalt\n be my favourite all my life long! If I am hard driven by pressing\n need, if my friend is overtaken by want, if the mediocrity of my\n fortune is not enough to give my children what is necessary for\n their education, I will sell my books; but thou shalt remain to me,\n thou shalt remain on the same shelf with Moses, Homer, Euripides,\n Sophocles!\n\n \"O Richardson, I make bold to say that the truest history is full\n of falsehoods, and that your romance is full of truths. History\n paints a few individuals; you paint the human race. History sets\n down to its few individuals what they have neither said nor done;\n whatever you set down to man, he has both said and done.... No; I\n say that history is often a bad novel; and the novel, as you have\n handled it, is good history. O painter of nature, 'tis you who are\n never false!\n\n \"You accuse Richardson of being long! You must have forgotten how\n much trouble, pains, busy movement, it costs to bring the smallest\n undertaking to a good issue,--to end a suit, to settle a marriage,\n to bring about a reconciliation. Think of these details what you\n please, but for me they will be full of interest if they are only\n true, if they bring out the passions, if they display character.\n They are common, you say; it is all what one sees every day. You\n are mistaken; 'tis what passes every day before your eyes, and what\n you never see.\"\n\nIn Richardson's work, he says, as in the world, men are divided into two\nclasses, those who enjoy and those who suffer, and it is always to the\nlatter that he draws the mind of the reader. It is due to Richardson, he\ncries, \"if I have loved my fellow-creatures better, and loved my duties\nbetter; if I have never felt anything but pity for the bad; if I have\nconceived a deeper compassion for the unfortunate, more veneration for\nthe good, more circumspection in the use of present things, more\nindifference about future things, more contempt for life, more love for\nvirtue.\" The works of Richardson are his touch-stone; those who do not\nlove them, stand judged and condemned in his eyes. Yet in the midst of\nthis tumult of admiration Diderot admits that the number of readers who\nwill feel all their value can never be great; it requires too severe a\ntaste, and then the variety of events is such, relations are so\nmultiplied, the management of them is so complicated, there are so many\nthings arranged, so many personages! \"O Richardson; if thou hast not\nenjoyed in thy lifetime all the reputation of thy deserts, how great\nwilt thou be to our grandchildren when they see thee from the distance\nat which we now view Homer! Then who will there be with daring enough to\nstrike out a line of thy sublime work?\"[10] Yet of the very moderate\nnumber of living persons who have ever read _Clarissa Harlowe_, it would\nbe safe to say that the large majority have read it in a certain\nabridgment in three volumes which appeared some years ago.\n\n [10] The _Eloge de Richardson_ is in Diderot's Works, v. 212-227.\n\nDoctor Johnson made the answer of true criticism to some one who\ncomplained to him that Richardson is tedious. \"Why, sir,\" he said, \"if\nyou were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so\nmuch frighted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for\nthe sentiment, and consider the story only as giving occasion to the\nsentiment.\" And this is just what Diderot and the Paris of the middle of\nthe eighteenth century were eager to do. It was the sentiment that\ntouched and delighted them in _Clarissa_, just as it was the sentiment\nthat made the fortune of the great romance in their own tongue, which\nwas inspired by _Clarissa_, and yet was so different from _Clarissa_.\nRousseau threw into the _New Heloisa_ a glow of passion of which the\nLondon printer was incapable, and he added a beauty of external\nlandscape and a strong feeling for the objects and movement of wild\nnatural scenery that are very different indeed from the atmosphere of\nthe cedar-parlour and the Flask Walk at Hampstead. But the sentiment,\nthe adoration of the _belle ame_, is the same, and it was the _belle\name_ that fascinated that curious society, where rude logic and a stern\nanti-religious dialectic went hand-in-hand with the most tender and\nexalted sensibility.[11] It is singular that Diderot says nothing about\nRousseau's famous romance, and we can only suppose that his silence\narose from his contempt for the private perversity and seeming\ninsincerity of the author.\n\n [11] The _belle ame_ was the origin of the _schoene Seele_ that has\n played such a part in German literature and life. The reader will\n find a history of the expression in an appendix to Dr. Erich\n Schmidt's study. _Richardson, Rousseau, und Goethe_ (Jena, 1875).\n\nDiderot made one attempt of his own, in which we may notice the\ninfluence of the minute realism and the tearful pathos of Richardson.\n_The Nun_ was not given to the world until 1796, when its author had\nbeen twelve years in his grave. Since then it has been reproduced in\ncountless editions in France and Belgium, and has been translated into\nEnglish, Spanish, and German. It fell in with certain passionate\nmovements of the popular mind against some anti-social practices of the\nCatholic Church. Perhaps it is not unjust to suppose that the horrible\npicture of the depraved abbess has had some share in attracting a\npublic.\n\nIt is thoroughly characteristic of Diderot's dreamy, heedless humour,\nand of the sincerity both of his interest in his work for its own sake,\nand of his indifference to the popular voice, that he should have\nallowed this, like so many other pieces, to lie in his drawer, or at\nmost to circulate clandestinely among three or four of his more\nintimate friends. It was written about 1760, and ingenious historians\nhave made of it a signal for the great crusade against the Church. In\ntruth, as we have seen, it was a strictly private performance, and could\nbe no signal for a public movement. _La Religieuse_ was undoubtedly an\nexpression of the strong feeling of the Encyclopaedic school about\ncelibacy, renunciation of the world, and the burial of men and women\nalive in the cloister.\n\nThe circumstances under which the story was written are worthy of a word\nor two. Among the friends of Madame d'Epinay, Grimm, and Diderot was a\ncertain Marquis de Croismare. He had deserted the circle, and retired to\nhis estates in Normandy. It occurred to one of them that it would be a\npleasant stratagem for recalling him to Paris, to invent a personage who\nshould be shut up in a convent against her will, and then to make this\npersonage appeal to the well-known courage and generosity of the Marquis\nde Croismare to rescue her. A previous adventure of the Marquis\nsuggested the fiction, and made its success the more probable. Diderot\ncomposed the letters of the imaginary nun, and the conspirators had the\nsatisfaction of making merry at supper over the letters which the loyal\nand unsuspecting Marquis sent in reply. At length the Marquis's interest\nbecame so eager that they resolved that the best way of ending his\ntorment was to make the nun die. When the Marquis de Croismare returned\nto Paris, the plot was confessed, the victim of the mystification\nlaughed at the joke, and the friendship of the party seemed to be\nstrengthened by their common sorrow for the woes of the dead sister. But\nDiderot had been taken in his own trap. His imagination, which he had\nset to work in jest, was caught by the figure and the situation. One day\nwhile he was busy about the tale, a friend paid him a visit, and found\nhim plunged in grief and his face bathed in tears. \"What in the world\ncan be the matter with you?\" cried the friend. \"What the matter?\"\nanswered Diderot in a broken voice; \"I am filled with misery by a story\nthat I am writing!\" This capacity of thinking of imaginary personages as\nif they were friends living in the next street, had been stirred by\nRichardson. His acquaintances would sometimes notice anxiety and\nconsternation on his countenance, and would ask him if anything had\nbefallen his health, his friends, his family, his fortune. \"O my\nfriends,\" he would reply, \"Pamela, Clarissa, Grandison ...!\" It was in\ntheir world, not in the Rue Taranne, that he really lived when these\nbrooding moods overtook him. And while he was writing _The Nun_, Sister\nSusan and Sister Theresa, the lady superior of Longchamp, and the\nlibertine superior of Saint Eutropius, were as alive to him as Clarissa\nwas alive to the score of correspondents who begged Richardson to spare\nher honour, not to let her die, to make Lovelace marry her, or by no\nmeans to allow Lovelace to marry her.\n\n_The Nun_ professes to be the story of a young lady whose family have\nthrust her into a convent, and her narrative, with an energy and\nreality that Diderot hardly ever surpassed, presents the odious sides of\nmonastic life, and the various types of superstition, tyranny, and\ncorruption that monastic life engenders. Yet Diderot had far too much\ngenius to be tempted into the exaggerations of more vulgar assailants of\nmonkeries and nunneries. He may have begun his work with the purpose of\nattacking a mischievous and superstitious system that mutilates human\nlife, but he certainly continued it because he became interested in his\ncreations. Diderot was a social destroyer by accident, but in intention\nhe was a truly scientific moralist, penetrated by the spirit of\nobservation and experiment; he shrunk from no excess in dissection, and\nfound nothing in human pathology too repulsive for examination. Yet _The\nNun_ has none of the artificial violences of the modern French school,\nwhich loves moral disease for its own sake. The action is all very\npossible, and the types are all sufficiently human and probable. The\nclose realistic touches which flowed from the intensity of the writer's\nillusion, naturally convey a certain degree of the same illusion to the\nmind of the reader.\n\nExistence as it goes on in these strange hives is caught with what one\nknows to be true fidelity; its dulness, its littleness, its goings and\ncomings, its spite, its reduction of the spiritual to the most purely\nmechanical.\n\n \"The first moments passed in mutual praises, in questions about the\n house that I had quitted, in experiments as to my character, my\n inclinations, my tastes, my understanding. They feel you all over;\n there is a number of little snares that they set for you, and from\n which they draw the most just conclusions. For example, they throw\n out some word of scandal, and then they look at you; they begin a\n story, and then wait to see whether you will ask for the end or\n will leave it there; if you make the most ordinary remark, they\n declare that it is charming, though they know well enough that it\n is nothing; they praise or they blame you with a purpose; they try\n to worm out your most hidden thoughts; they question you as to what\n you read; they offer you religious books and profane, and carefully\n notice your choice; they invite you to some slight infractions of\n the rule; they tell you little confidences, and throw out hints\n about the foibles of the Lady Superior. All is carefully gathered\n up and told over again. They leave you, they take you up again;\n they try to sound your sentiments about manners, about piety, about\n the world, about religion, about the monastic life, about\n everything. The result of all these repeated experiments is an\n epithet that stamps your character, and is always added by way of\n surname to the name that you already bear. I was called Sister\n Susan the Reserved.\"[12]\n\n [12] _La Religieuse._ _Oeuv._, v. 110.\n\nThe portraits we feel to be to the life. The strongest of them all is\nundoubtedly the most disagreeable, the most atrocious; it is, if you\nwill, the most infamous. We can only endure it as we endure to traverse\nthe ward for epileptics in an hospital for the insane. It is appalling,\nit fills you with horror, it haunts you for days and nights, it leaves a\nkind of stain on the memory. It is a possibility of character of which\nthe healthy, the pure, the unthinking have never dreamed. Such a\nportrait is not art, that is true; but it is science, and that delivers\nthe critic from the necessity of searching his vocabulary for the cheap\nsuperlatives of moral censure. Whether it be art or science, however,\nmen cannot but ask themselves how Diderot came to think it worth while\nto execute so painful a study. The only answer is that the\nirregularities of human nature--those more shameful parts of it, which\nin some characters survive the generations of social pressure that have\ncrushed them down in civilised communities--had an irresistible\nattraction for the curiosity of his genius. The whole story is full of\npower; it abounds in phrases that have the stamp of genius; and\nsuppressed vehemence lends to it strength. But it is fatally wanting in\nthe elements of tenderness, beauty, and sympathy. If we chance to take\nit up for a second or for a tenth time, it infallibly holds us; but\nnobody seeks to return to it of his own will, and it holds us under\nprotest.\n\nIf Richardson created one school in France, Sterne created another. The\nauthor of _Tristram Shandy_ was himself only a follower of one of the\ngreatest of French originals, and a follower at a long distance. Even\nthose who have the keenest relish for our \"good-humoured, civil,\nnonsensical, Shandean kind of a book,\" ought to admit how far it falls\nbehind Rabelais in exuberance, force, richness of extravagance, breadth\nof colour, fulness of blood. They may claim, however, for Sterne what,\nin comparison with these great elements, are the minor qualities of\nsimplicity, tenderness, precision, and finesse. These are the qualities\nthat delighted the French taste. In 1762 Sterne visited Paris, and found\n_Tristram Shandy_ almost as well known there as in London, and he\ninstantly had dinners and suppers for a fortnight on his hands. Among\nthem were dinners and suppers at Holbach's, where he made the\nacquaintance of Diderot, and where perhaps he made the discovery that\n\"notwithstanding the French make such a pother about the word\n_sentiment_, they have no precise idea attached to it.\"[13] The\n_Sentimental Journey_ appeared in 1768, and was instantly pronounced by\nthe critics in both countries to be inimitable. It is no wonder that a\nperformance of such delicacy of literary expression, united with so much\ngood-nature, such easy, humane, amiable feeling, went to the hearts of\nthe French of the eighteenth century. \"My design in it,\" said Sterne,\n\"was to teach us to love the world and our fellow-creatures better than\nwe do, so it runs most upon those gentle passions and affections which\naid so much to it.\"[14] This exactly fell in with the reigning Parisian\nmodes, and with such sentiment as that of Diderot most of all. There\nwere several French imitations of the _Sentimental Journey_,[15] but the\nonly one that has survived in popular esteem, if indeed this can be said\nto have survived, is Diderot's _Jacques le Fataliste_.\n\n [13] Sterne's Letters, May 23, 1765.\n\n [14] Nov. 12, 1767.\n\n [15] E.g. _Le Voyageur Sentimental_ of Vernes (Grimm, _Corr. Lit._,\n xiii. 227).\n\nIt seems to have been composed about the time (1773) of Diderot's\njourney to Holland and St. Petersburg, of which we shall have more to\nsay in a later chapter. Its history is almost as singular as the history\nof _Rameau's Nephew_. A contemporary speaks of a score of copies as\nexisting in different parts of Germany, and we may conjecture that they\nfound their way there from friends whom Diderot made in Holland, and\nsome of them were no doubt sent by Grimm to his subscribers. The first\nfragment of it that saw the light in print was in a translation that\nSchiller made of its most striking episode, in the year 1785. This is\nanother illustration of the eagerness of the best minds of Germany to\npossess and diffuse the most original products of French intelligence\nand hardihood. Diderot, as we have said, stands in the front rank along\nwith Rousseau, along also with Richardson, Sterne, and Goldsmith, among\nthose who in Germany kindled the glow of sentimentalism, both in its\ngood and its bad forms. It was in Germany that the first complete\nversion of the whole of _Jacques le Fataliste_ appeared, in 1792. Not\nuntil four years later did the French obtain an original transcript.\nThis they owed to the generosity of Prince Henri of Prussia, the brother\nof Frederick the Great; he presented it to the Institute.\n\n\"There is going about here,\" wrote Goethe in 1780, while Diderot was\nstill alive, \"a manuscript of Diderot's called _Jacques le Fataliste et\nson Maitre_, and it is really first-rate--a very fine and exquisite\nmeal, prepared and dished up with great skill, as if for the palate of\nsome singular idol. I set myself in the place of this Bel, and in six\nuninterrupted hours swallowed all the courses in the order, and\naccording to the intentions, of this excellent cook and _maitre\nd'hotel_.\"[16] He goes on to say that when other people came to read it,\nsome preferred one story, and some another. On the whole, one is\nstrongly inclined to judge that few modern readers will equal Goethe's\nunsparing appetite. The reader sighs in thinking of the brilliant and\nunflagging wit, the verve, the wicked graces of _Candide_, and we long\nfor the ease and simplicity and light stroke of the _Sentimental\nJourney_. Diderot has the German heaviness. Perhaps this is because he\nhad too much conscience, and laboured too deeply under the burdensome\nproblems of the world. He could not emancipate himself sufficiently from\nthe tumult of his own sympathies. At many a page both of _Jacques le\nFataliste_, and of others of his pieces, we involuntarily recall the\nwriter's own contention that excess of sensibility makes a mediocre\nactor. The same law is emphatically true of the artist. Diderot never\nwrites as if his spirit were quite free--and perhaps it never was free.\nIf we are to enjoy these reckless outbursts of all that is bizarre and\ngrotesque, these defiances of all that is sane, coherent, and rational,\nwe must never feel conscious of a limitation, or a possibility of stint\nor check. The draught must seem to come from an exhaustless fountain of\nboisterous laughter, irony, and caprice. Perfect fooling is so rare an\nart, that not half a dozen men in literature have really possessed it;\nperhaps only Aristophanes, Rabelais, Shakespeare. _Candide_, wonderful\nas it is, has many a stroke of malice, and _Tristram Shandy_, wonderful\nas that is too, is not without tinges of self-consciousness; and neither\nmalice nor self-consciousness belongs to the greater gods of buffoonery.\nCervantes and Moliere, those great geniuses of finest temper, still have\nnone of the reckless buffoonery of such scenes as that between Prince\nHenry and the drawer, or the mad extravagances of the _Merry Wives_;\nstill less of the wild topsy-turvy of the _Birds_ or the _Peace_. They\nhave not the note of true Pantagruelism. Most critics, again, would find\nin Swift a truculence, sometimes latent and sometimes flagrant, that\nwould deprive him, too, of his place among these great masters of free\nand exuberant farce. Diderot, at any rate, must rank in the second class\namong those who have attempted to tread a measure among the whimsical\nzigzags of unreason. The sincere sentimentalist makes a poor reveller.\n\n [16] Quoted in Rosenkranz, ii. 326.\n\nWe have spoken, as many others have done before us, of Diderot as\nimitating our two English celebrities, and in one sense that is a\nperfectly true description. In _Jacques le Fataliste_ whole sentences\nare transcribed in letter and word from _Tristram Shandy_. Yet imitation\nis hardly the right word for the process by which Diderot showed that an\nauthor had seized and affected him. _La Religieuse_ would not have been\nwritten if there had been no Richardson, nor _Jacques le Fataliste_ if\nthere had been no Sterne; yet Diderot's work is not really like the work\nof either of his celebrated contemporaries. They gave him the suggestion\nof a method and a sentiment to start from, and he mused and brooded over\nit until, from among the clouds of his imagination, there began to loom\nfigures of his own, moving along a path which was also his own. This was\nthe history of his adaptation of _The Natural Son_ from Goldoni. We can\nonly be sure that nothing became blithe in its passage through his mind.\nHe was too much of a preacher to be an effective humorist.\n\nThere is in _Jacques le Fataliste_ none of that gift of true creation\nwhich produced such figures as Trim, and my Uncle Toby, and Mr. Shandy.\nJacques's master is a mere lay figure, and Jacques himself, with his\nmonotonous catchword, \"_Il etait ecrit la-haut_,\" has no real\npersonality; he has none of the naturalness that wins us to Corporal\nTrim, still less has he any touch of the profound humour of the immortal\nSancho. The book is a series of stories, rather than Sterne's subtle\namalgam of pathos, gentle irony, and frank buffoonery; and the stories\nthemselves are for the most part either insipid or obscene. There is\nperhaps one exception. The longest and the most elaborate of them, that\nwhich Schiller translated, is more like one of the modern French novels\nof a certain kind, than any other production of the eighteenth century.\nThe adventure of Madame de Pommeraye and the Marquis d'Arcis is a crude\nforeshadowing of a style that has been perfected by M. Feydeau and M.\nFlaubert. The Marquis has been the lover of Madame de Pommeraye; he\ngrows weary of her, and in time the lady discovers the bitter truth.\nResignation is not among her virtues, and in her rage and anguish she\ndevises an elaborate plan of revenge, which she carries out with the\nutmost tenacity and resolution. It consists in leading him on, by\nskilful incitements, to marry a woman whom he supposes to be an angel of\npurity, but whom Madame de Pommeraye triumphantly reveals to him on the\nmorning after his marriage as a creature whose past history has been one\nof notorious depravity. This disagreeable story, of which Balzac would\nhave made a masterpiece, is told in an interesting way, and the\nhumoristic machinery by which the narrative is managed is less tiresome\nthan usual. It is at least a story with meaning, purpose, and character.\nIt is neither a jumble without savour or point, nor is it rank and gross\nlike half the pages in the book. \"Your _Jacques_,\" Diderot supposes some\none to say to him, \"is only a tasteless rhapsody of facts, some real,\nothers imaginary, written without grace, and distributed without order.\nHow can a man of sense and conduct, who prides himself on his\nphilosophy, find amusement in spinning out tales so obscene as\nthese?\"[17] And this is exactly what the modern critic is bound to ask.\nIn Rabelais there is at least puissant laughter; in Montaigne, when he\ndwells on such matters, there is _naivete_. In Diderot we do not even\nfeel that he is having any enjoyment in his grossnesses; they have not\neven the bad excuse of seeming spontaneous and coming from the fulness\nof his heart. \"Reader,\" he says, \"I amuse myself in writing the follies\nthat you commit; your follies make me laugh; and my book puts you out of\nhumour. To speak frankly to you, I find that the more wicked of us two\nis not myself.\" Unhappily, he does not convey the impression of\namusement to his readers; it has no infection in it, and if his book\nputs us out of humour, it is not by its satire on mankind, but by its\nessential want of point and want of meaning, either moral or aesthetic.\nThe few masters of this style have known how to bind the heterogeneous\nelements together, if not by some deep-lying purpose, at least by some\npervading mood of rich and mellow feeling. In _Jacques le Fataliste_ is\nneither.\n\n [17] vi. 221, 222.\n\nThat men of the stamp of Goethe and Schiller should have found such a\nbook of delicious feast, naturally makes the disparaging critic pause.\nIn truth, we can easily see how it was. Like all the rest of Diderot's\nwork, it breaks roughly in upon that starved formalism which had for\nlong lain so heavily both on art and life. Its hardihood, its very\nlicense, its contempt of conventions, its presentation of common people\nand coarse passions and rough lives, all made it a dissolvent of the\nthin, dry, and frigid rules which tyrannised over the world, and\ninterposed between the artist or the thinker and the real existence of\nman on the earth. When we think of what European literature was, it\nceases to be wonderful that Goethe should have been unable for six whole\nhours to tear himself away from a book that so few men to-day, save\nunder some compulsion, could persuade themselves to read through. On\ngreat wholesome minds the grossness left no stain, and the interest of\nDiderot's singularities worked as a stimulus to a happier originality in\nmen of more disciplined endowments. And let us add, of more poetic\nendowments. It is the lack of poetry in _Jacques_ that makes its irony\nso heavy to us. We only willingly suffer those to take us down into the\ndepths who can also raise us on the wings of a beautiful fancy. Even\nRabelais has his poetic moments, as in the picture of Cupid\nself-disarmed before the industrious serenity of the Muses. A single\nlovely image, like Sterne's figure of the recording angel, reconciles us\nto many a miry page. But in _Jacques le Fataliste_, Diderot never raises\nhis eye for an instant to the blue aether, his ear catches no harmony of\nawe, of hope, nor even of a noble despair. With a kind of clumsy\njubilancy he holds us fast in the ways and language of thick and clogged\nsense. The _fatrasie_ of old France has its place in literature, but it\ncan never be restored in ages when a host of moral anxieties have laid\nsiege to men's souls. The uncommon is always welcome to the lover of\nart, but it must justify itself. _Jacques_ has the quality of the\nuncommon; it is a curiously prepared dish, as Goethe said; but it lacks\nthe pinch of salt and the handful of herbs with sharp diffusive\nflavour.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nART.\n\n\nIn 1759 Diderot wrote for Grimm the first of his criticisms on the\nexhibition of paintings in the Salon. At the beginning of the reign of\nLewis XV. these exhibitions took place every year, as they take place\nnow. But from 1751 onwards, they were only held once in two years.\nDiderot has left his notes on every salon from 1759 to 1781, with the\nexception of that of 1773, when he was travelling in Holland and Russia.\n\nWe have already seen how Grimm made Diderot work for him. The nine\n_Salons_ are one of the results of this willing bondage, and they are\nperhaps the only part of Diderot's works that has enjoyed a certain\nmeasure of general popularity. Mr. Carlyle describes them with emphatic\nenthusiasm: \"What with their unrivalled clearness, painting the picture\nover again for us, so that we too _see_ it, and can judge it; what with\ntheir sunny fervour, inventiveness, real artistic genius, which wants\nnothing but a _hand_, they are with some few exceptions in the German\ntongue, the only Pictorial Criticisms we know of worth reading.\"[18] I\nonly love painting in poetry, Madame Necker said to Diderot, and it is\ninto poetry that you have found out the secret of rendering the works of\nour modern painters, even the commonest of them. It would be a truly\nimperial luxury, wrote A. W. Schlegel, to get a collection of pictures\ndescribed for oneself by Diderot.\n\n [18] _Essays_, iv. 303. (Ed. 1869.)\n\nThere is a freshness, a vivacity, a zeal, a sincerity, a brightness of\ninterest in his subject, which are perhaps unique in the whole history\nof criticism. He flings himself into the task with the perfection of\nnatural abandonment to a joyous and delightful subject. His whole\npersonality is engaged in a work that has all the air of being\noverflowing pleasure, and his pleasure is contagious. His criticism\nawakens the imagination of the reader. Not only do we see the picture;\nwe hear Diderot's own voice in ecstasies of praise and storms of\nboisterous wrath. There is such mass in his criticism; so little of the\nmincing and niggling of the small virtuoso. In facility of expression,\nin animation, in fecundity of mood, in fine improvisation, these pieces\nare truly incomparable. There is such an _impetus animi et quaedam artis\nlibido_. Some of the charm and freedom may be due to the important\ncircumstance that he was not writing for the public. He was not exposed\nto the reaction of a large unknown audience upon style; hence the\nabsence of all the stiffness of literary pose. But the positive\nconditions of such success lay in the resources of Diderot's own\ncharacter.\n\nThe sceptic, the dogmatist, the dialectician, and the other personages\nof a heterogeneous philosophy who existed in Diderot's head, all\ndisappear or fall back into a secondary place, and he surrenders himself\nwith a curious freedom to such imaginative beauty as contemporary art\nprovided for him. Diderot was perhaps the one writer of the time who was\ncapable on occasion of rising above the strong prevailing spirit of the\ntime; capable of forgetting for a season the passion of the great\nphilosophical and ecclesiastical battle. No one save Diderot could have\nbeen moved by sight of a picture to such an avowal as this:\n\n \"Absurd rigorists do not know the effect of external ceremonies on\n the people; they can never have seen the enthusiasm of the\n multitude at the procession of the _Fete Dieu_, an enthusiasm that\n sometimes gains even me. I have never seen that long file of\n priests in their vestments; those young acolytes clad in their\n white robes, with broad blue sashes engirdling their waists, and\n casting flowers on the ground before the Holy Sacrament; the crowd\n as it goes before and follows after them hushed in religious\n silence, and so many with their faces bent reverently to the\n ground; I have never heard that grave and pathetic chant, as it is\n led by the priests and fervently responded to by an infinity of\n voices of men, of women, of girls, of little children, without my\n inmost heart being stirred, and tears coming into my eyes. There is\n in it something, I know not what, that is grand, solemn, sombre,\n and mournful.\"\n\nThus to find the material of religious reaction in the author of\n_Jacques le Fataliste_ and the centre of the atheistic group, completes\nthe circle of Diderot's immense and deep-lying versatility. And in his\naccount of such a mood, we see how he came to be so great and poetical a\ncritic; we see the sincerity, the alertness, the profound mobility, with\nwhich he was open to impressions of colour, of sound, of the pathos of\nhuman aspiration, of the solemn concourses of men.\n\nFrance has long been sovereign in criticism in its literary sense. In\nthat department she has simply never had, and has not now, any serious\nrival. In the profounder historic criticism, Germany exhibits her one\ngreat, peculiar, and original gift. In the criticism of art Germany has\nat least three memorable names; but save where history is concerned most\nmodern German aesthetics are so clouded with metaphysical speculation as\nto leave the obscurity of a very difficult subject as thick as it was\nbefore. In France the beginnings of art-criticism were literary rather\nthan philosophic, and with the exception of Cousin's worthless\neloquence, and of the writers whose philosophy Cousin dictated, and of\nM. Taine's ingenious paradoxes, Diderot is the only writer who has\ndeliberately brought a vivid spirit and a philosophic judgment to the\ndiscussion of the forms of Beauty, as things worthy of real elucidation.\nAs far back as the time of the English Restoration, Dufresnoy had\nwritten in bad Latin a poem on the art of Painting, which had the signal\nhonour of being translated into good English by no less illustrious a\nmaster of English than Dryden, and it was again translated by Mason, the\nfriend of Reynolds and of Gray. Imitations, applied to the pictorial\nart, of the immortal Epistle to the Pisos, came thick in France in the\neighteenth century.[19] But these effusions are merely literary, and\nthey are very bad literature indeed. The abbe Dubos published in 1719 a\nvolume of Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting, including\nobservations also on the relations of those arts to Music. Lessing is\nknown to have made use of this work in his _Laocoeon_, and Diderot gave\nit a place among the books which he recommended in his Plan of a\nUniversity.[20] This, as it is the earliest, seems to have been the best\ncontribution to aesthetic thought before Lessing and Diderot. Daniel\nWebb, the English friend of Raphael Mengs, published an Enquiry into the\nBeauties of Painting (1760), and Diderot wrote a notice of it,[21] but\nit appears to have made no mark on his mind. Andre, a Jesuit father,\nwrote an Essay on the Beautiful (1741), which distributed the kinds of\nart with precision, but omitted to say in what the Beautiful consists.\nThe abbe Batteux wrote a volume reducing the fine arts to a single\nprinciple, and another volume attempting a systematic classification of\nthem. The first of these was the occasion of Diderot's Letter on Deaf\nMutes, and Diderot described their author as a good man of letters, but\nwithout taste, without criticism, and without philosophy; _a ces\nbagatelles pres, le plus joli garcon du monde_.[22]\n\n [19] _E.g._ Watelet's poem, _Sur l'Art de Peindre_, 1760; Le\n Mierre's _Sur la Peinture_, 1769; Marsy's _Pictura Carmen_, 1736.\n See Diderot's works, xiii. 17, etc.\n\n [20] _Oeuv._, iii. 486. Guhrauer, ii. 15. Also Bluemner's admirable\n edition of the _Laocoeon_, p. 173.\n\n [21] xiii. 33.\n\n [22] Grimm, _Corr. Lit._, iv. 136. In another place in the same work\n either Grimm or Diderot makes a remark about Batteux, which is worth\n remembering in our own age of official vindications of orthodoxy.\n The abbe had written a book about first causes. \"I venture to\n observe moreover to M. l'abbe Batteux that when in this world a man\n has put on the dress of any sort of harlequin, red or black, with a\n pair of bands or a frill, he ought to give up once for all every\n kind of philosophic discussion, because it is impossible for him to\n speak according to his faith and his conscience; and a writer of bad\n faith is all the more odious, as nothing compelled him to break\n silence.\" _Ib._ vi. 120.\n\nTravellers to the land where criticism of art has been so slight, and\nwhere production has been so noble, so bounteous, so superb, published\nthe story of what Italy had shown to them. Madame de Pompadour designed\nto make her brother the Superintendent of fine arts, and she despatched\nCochin, the great engraver of the day, to accompany him in a studious\ntour through the holy land of the arts. Cochin was away nearly two\nyears, and on his return produced three little volumes (1758), in which\nhe deals such blows to some vaunted immortalities as made the idolators\nby convention not a little angry. The abbe Richard (1766) published six\nvery stupid volumes on Italy, and such criticism on art as they contain\nis not worthy of serious remark. The President de Brosses spent a year\nin Italy (1739-40), and wrote letters to his friends at home, which may\nbe read to-day with interest and pleasure for their graphic picture of\nItalian society; but the criticisms which they contain on the great\nworks of art are those of a well-informed man of the world, taking many\nthings for granted, rather than of a philosophical critic industriously\nusing his own mind. His book recalls to us how true the eighteenth\ncentury was to itself in its hatred of Gothic architecture, that symbol\nand associate of mysticism, and of the age which the eighteenth century\nblindly abhorred as the source of all the tyrannical laws and cruel\nsuperstitions that still weighed so heavily on mankind. \"You know the\nPalace of Saint Mark at Venice,\" says De Brosses: \"_c'est un vilain\nmonsieur, s'il eu fut jamais, massif, sombre, et gothique, du plus\nmechant gout_!\"[23]\n\n [23] _Lettres Familieres_, i. 174. (Ed. 1869.)\n\nDupaty, like De Brosses, an eminent lawyer, an acquaintance of Diderot\nand an early friend of a conspicuous figure of a later time, the\nill-starred Vergniaud, travelled in Italy almost immediately before the\nRevolution (1785), and his letters, when read with those of De Brosses,\nare a curious illustration of the change that had come over the spirit\nof men in the interval. He leaves the pictures of the Pitti collection\nat Florence, and plunges into meditation in the famous gardens behind\nthe palace, rejoicing with much expansion in the glories of light and\nair, in greenery and the notes of birds, and finally sums all up in one\nrapturous exclamation of the vast superiority of nature over art.[24]\n\n [24] Dupaty's _Lettres sur l'Italie_, No. 40. In talking of Rome, he\n complains in a very Diderotian spirit of the want of _le beau\n moral_. \"On ne trouve ici dans les moeurs ni des hommes prives ni\n des hommes publics, cette moralite, cette bienseance, dont les\n moeurs francoises sont pleines. _Le beau moral est absolument\n inconnu._ Or, c'est pour atteindre a ce beau moral dans tous les\n genres que la sensibilite est la plus tourmentee; qu'elle est en\n proie aux contentions de l'esprit, aux emulations de l'ame ...\n qu'elle pare avec tant de raffinement et de peine, les ecrits, les\n discours, les passions, enfin toute la vie publique et privee.'\n\nIt is impossible, in reading how deeply Diderot was affected by\nfifth-rate paintings and sculpture, not to count it among the great\nlosses of literature that he saw few masterpieces. He never made the\ngreat pilgrimage. He was never at Venice, Florence, Parma, Rome. A\njourney to Italy was once planned, in which Grimm and Rousseau were to\nhave been his travelling companions;[25] the project was not realised,\nand the strongest critic of art that his country produced never saw the\ngreatest glories of art. If Diderot had visited Florence and Rome, even\nthe mighty painter of the Last Judgment and the creator of those sublime\nfigures in the New Sacristy at San Lorenzo, would have found an\ninterpreter worthy of him. But it was not to be. \"It is rare,\" he once\nwrote, \"for an artist to excel without having seen Italy, just as a man\nseldom becomes a great writer or a man of great taste without having\ngiven severe study to the ancients.\"[26] Diderot at least knew what he\nlost.\n\n [25] x. 514, _n._\n\n [26] xi. 241.\n\nFrench art was then, as art usually is, the mirror of its time,\nreproducing such imaginative feeling as society could muster. When the\nRepublic and the Empire came, and twenty years of battle and siege, then\nthe art of the previous generation fell into a degree of contempt for\nwhich there is hardly a parallel. Pictures that had been the delight of\nthe town and had brought fortunes to their painters, rotted on the quays\nor were sold for a few pence at low auctions. Fragonard, who had been\nthe darling of his age, died in neglect and beggary. David and his\nhideous art of the Empire utterly effaced what had thrown the\ncontemporaries of Diderot into rapture.[27] Every one knows all that can\nbe said against the French paintings of Diderot's time. They are\nexecuted hastily and at random; they abound in technical defects of\ncolour, of drawing, of composition; their feeling is light and shallow.\nWatteau died in 1721--at the same premature age as Raphael,--but he\nremained as the dominating spirit of French art through the eighteenth\ncentury. Of course the artists went to Rome, but they changed sky and\nnot spirit. The pupils of the academy came back with their portfolios\nfilled with sketches in which we see nothing of the \"lone mother of dead\nempires,\" nothing of the vast ruins and the great sombre desolate\nCampagna, but only Rome turned into a decoration for the scenes of a\ntheatre or the panels of a boudoir. The Olympus of Homer and of Virgil,\nas has been well said, becomes the Olympus of Ovid. Strength, sublimity,\neven stateliness disappeared, unless we admit some of the first two\nqualities in the landscapes of Vernet. Not only is beauty replaced by\nprettiness, but by prettiness in season and out of season. The common\nincongruity of introducing a spirit of elegance and literature into the\nsimplicities of the true pastoral, was condemned by Diderot as a mixture\nof Fontenelle with Theocritus. We do not know what name he would have\ngiven to that still more curious incongruity of taste, which made a\npublisher adorn a treatise on Differential and Integral Calculus with\namusing plates by Cochin, and introduce dainty little vignettes into a\nDemonstration of the Properties of the Cycloid.\n\n [27] Goncourt's _L'Art au 18ieme Siecle_, i.\n\nThere is one true story that curiously illustrates the spirit of French\nart in those equivocal days. When Madame de Pompadour made up her mind\nto play pander to the jaded appetites of the king, she had a famous\nfemale model of the day introduced into a _Holy Family_, which was\ndestined for the private chapel of the queen. The portrait answered its\npurpose; it provoked the curiosity and desire of the king, and the model\nwas invited to the Parc-aux-Cerfs.[28] This was typical of the service\nthat painting was expected to render to the society that adored it and\npaid for it. \"All is daintiness, delicate caressing for delicate senses,\neven down to the external decoration of life, down to the sinuous lines,\nthe wanton apparel, the refined commodity of rooms and furniture. In\nsuch a place and in such company, it is enough to be together to feel\nat ease. Their idleness does not weigh upon them; life is their\nplaything.\"[29]\n\n [28] Goncourt's _Art au 18ieme Siecle_, i. 213.\n\n [29] Taine's _Ancien Regime_, p. 186.\n\nOnly let us not, while reserving our serious admiration for Titian,\nRembrandt, Raphael, and the rest of the gods and demigods, refuse at\nleast a measure of historic tolerance to these light and graceful\ncreations. Boucher, whose dreams of rose and blue were the delight of\nhis age, came away from Rome saying: \"Raphael is a woman, Michael Angelo\nis a monster; one is paradise, the other is hell; they are painters of\nanother world; it is a dead language that nobody speaks in our day. We\nothers are the painters of our own age: we have not common sense, but we\nare charming.\" This account of them was not untrue. They filled up the\nspace between the grandiose pomp of Le Brun and the sombre\npseudo-antique of David, just as the incomparable grace and sparkle of\nVoltaire's lighter verse filled up the space in literature between\nRacine and Chenier. They have a poetry of their own; they are cheerful,\nsportive, full of fancy, and like everything else of that day, intensely\nsociable. They are, at any rate, even the most sportive of them, far\nless unwholesome and degrading than the acres of martyrdoms,\nemaciations, bad crucifixions, bad pietas, that make some galleries more\ndisgusting than a lazar-house.[30]\n\n [30] \"Si tous les tableaux de martyrs que nos grands peintres ont si\n sublimement peints, passaient a une posterite reculee, pour qui nous\n prendrait-elle? Pour des betes feroces ou des\n anthropophages.\"--Diderot's _Pensees sur la Peinture_.\n\nFor Watteau himself, the deity of the century, Diderot cared very\nlittle. \"I would give ten Watteaus,\" he said, \"for one Teniers.\" This\nwas as much to be expected, as it was characteristic in Lewis XIV., when\nsome of Teniers's pictures were submitted to him, imperiously to command\n\"_ces magots la_\" to be taken out of his sight.\n\nGreuze (_b. 1725, d. 1805_) of all the painters of the time was\nDiderot's chief favourite. Diderot was not at all blind to Greuze's\nfaults, to his repetitions, his frequent want of size and amplitude, the\nexcess of gray and of violet in his colouring. But all these were\nforgotten in transports of sympathy for the sentiment. As we glance at a\nlist of Greuze's subjects, we perceive that we are in the very heart of\nthe region of the domestic, the moral, \"_l'honnete_,\" the homely pathos\nof the common people. The Death of a father of a family, regretted by\nhis children; The Death of an unnatural father, abandoned by his\nchildren; The beloved mother caressed by her little ones; A child\nweeping over its dead bird; A Paralytic tended by his family, or the\nFruit of a Good Education:--Diderot was ravished by such themes. The\nlast picture he describes as a proof that compositions of that kind are\ncapable of doing honour to the gifts and the sentiments of the\nartist.[31] The _Girl bewailing her dead bird_ throws him into raptures.\n\"O, the pretty elegy!\" he begins, \"the charming poem! the lovely idyll!\"\nand so forth, until at length he breaks into a burst of lyric\ncondolence addressed to the weeping child, that would fill four or five\nof these pages.[32]\n\n [31] x. 143.\n\n [32] x. 343.\n\nNo picture of the eighteenth century was greeted with more enthusiasm\nthan Greuze's _Accordee de Village_, which was exhibited in 1761. It\nseems to tell a story, and therefore even to-day, in spite of its dulled\npink and lustreless blue, it arrests the visitor to one of the less\nfrequented halls of the Louvre.[33] Paris, weary of mythology and sated\nwith pretty indecencies, was fascinated by the simplicity of Greuze's\nvillage tale. \"_On se sent gagner d'une emotion douce en le regardant_,\"\nsaid Diderot, and this gentle emotion was dear to the cultivated classes\nin France at that moment of the century. It was the year of the _New\nHeloisa_.\n\n [33] No. 260 of the French School.\n\nThe subject is of the simplest: a peasant paying the dower-money of his\ndaughter. \"The father\"--it is prudent of us to borrow Diderot's\ndescription--\"is seated in the great chair of the house. Before him his\nson-in-law standing, and holding in his left hand the bag that contains\nthe money. The betrothed, standing also, with one arm gently passed\nunder the arm of her lover, the other grasped by her mother, who is\nseated. Between the mother and the bride, a younger sister standing,\nleaning on the bride and with an arm thrown round her shoulders. Behind\nthis group, a child standing on tiptoes to see what is going on. To the\nextreme left in the background, and at a distance from the scene, two\nwomen-servants who are looking on. To the right a cupboard with its\nusual contents--all scrupulously clean.... A wooden staircase leading to\nthe upper floor. In the foreground near the feet of the mother, a hen\nleading her young ones, to whom a little girl throws crumbs of bread; a\nbasin full of water, and on the edge of it, one of the small chickens\nwith its beak up in the air so as to let the water go down.\" Diderot\nthen proceeds to criticise the details, telling us the very words that\nhe hears the father addressing to the bridegroom, and as a touch of\nobservation of nature, that while one of the old man's hands, of which\nwe see the back, is tanned and brown, the other, of which we see the\npalm, is white. \"To the bride the painter has given a face full of\ncharm, of seemliness, of reserve. She is dressed to perfection. That\napron of white stuff could not be better; there is a trifle of luxury in\nher ornament; but then it is a wedding-day. You should note how true are\nthe folds and creases in her dress, and in those of the rest. The\ncharming girl is not quite straight; but there is a light and gentle\ninflexion in all her figure and her limbs that fills her with grace and\ntruth. Indeed she is pretty and very pretty. If she had leaned more\ntowards her lover, it would have been unbecoming; more to her mother and\nher father, and she would have been false. She has her arm half passed\nunder that of her future husband, and the tips of her fingers rest\nsoftly on his hand; that is the only mark of tenderness that she gives\nhim, and perhaps without knowing it herself: it is a delicate idea in\nthe painter.\"[34]\n\n [34] x. 151-156. Dr. Waagen pronounces this picture to be as truly\n an expression of _das Nationalfranzoesiche_ as Wilkie's paintings are\n of _das Englische_. See his _Kunstwerke und Kuenstler in Paris_, p.\n 675.\n\n\"Courage, my good Greuze,\" he cries, \"_fais de la morale en peinture_.\nWhat, has not the pencil been long enough and too long consecrated to\ndebauchery and vice? Ought we not to be delighted at seeing it at last\nunite with dramatic poetry in instructing us, correcting us, inviting us\nto virtue?\"[35] It has been sometimes said that Diderot would have\nexulted in the paintings of Hogarth, and we may admit that he would have\nsympathised with the spirit of such moralities as the Idle and the\nIndustrious Apprentice, the Rake's Progress, and Mariage a la Mode. The\nintensity and power of that terrible genius would have had their\nattraction, but the minute ferocities of Hogarth's ruthless irony would\ncertainly have revolted him. Such a scene as Lord Squanderfield's visit\nto the quack doctor, or as the Rake's debauch, would have filled him\nwith inextinguishable horror. He could never have forgiven an artist\nwho, in the ghastly pathos of a little child straining from the arms of\nits nurse towards the mother, as she lies in the very article of death,\ncould still find in his heart to paint on it the dark patches of foul\ndisease. He would have fled with shrieks from those appalling scenes of\nmurder, torture, madness, bestial drunkenness, rapacity, fury--from\nthat delirium of scrofula, palsy, entrails, the winding-sheet, and the\ngrave-worm. Diderot's method was to improve men, not by making their\nblood curdle, but by warming and softening the domestic affections.\n\n [35] x. 208.\n\nDiderot, as a critic, seems always to have remembered a pleasant\nremonstrance once addressed at the Salon by the worthy Chardin to\nhimself and Grimm: \"Gently, good sirs, gently! Out of all the pictures\nthat are here seek the very worst; and know that two thousand unhappy\nwretches have bitten their brushes in two with their teeth, in despair\nof ever doing even as badly. Parrocel, whom you call a dauber, and who\nfor that matter is a dauber, if you compare him to Vernet, is still a\nman of rare talent relatively to the multitude of those who have flung\nup the career in which they started with him.\" And then the artist\nrecounts the immense labours, the exhausting years, the boundless\npatience, attention, tenacity, that are the conditions even of a\nmediocre degree of mastery. We are reminded of the scene in a famous\nwork of art in our own day, where Herr Klesmer begs Miss Gwendolen\nHarleth to reflect, how merely to stand or to move on the stage is an\nart that requires long practice. \"_O le triste et plat metier que celui\nde critique!_\" Diderot cries on one occasion: \"_Il est si difficile de\nproduire une chose meme mediocre; il est si facile de sentir la\nmediocrite._\"[36] No doubt, as experience and responsibility gather upon\nus, we learn how hard in every line is even moderate skill. The wise\nare perhaps content to find what a man can do, without making it a\nreproach to him that there is something else which he cannot do.\n\n [36] x. 177.\n\nBut Diderot knew well enough that Chardin's kindly principle might\neasily be carried too far. In general, he said, criticism displeases me;\nit supposes so little talent. \"What a foolish occupation, that of\nincessantly hindering ourselves from taking pleasure, or else making\nourselves blush for the pleasure that we have taken! And that is the\noccupation of criticism!\"[37] Yet in one case he writes a score of pages\nof critical dialogue, in which the chief interlocutor is a painter who\navenges his own failure by stringent attacks on the work of happier\nrivals of the year. And speaking in his own proper person, Diderot knows\nhow to dismiss incompetence with the right word, sometimes of scorn,\nmore often of good-natured remonstrance. Bad painters, a Parrocel, a\nBrenet, fare as ill at his hands as they deserved to do. He remarks\nincidentally that the condition of the bad painter and the bad actor is\nworse than that of the bad man of letters: the painter hears with his\nown ears the expressions of contempt for his talent, and the hisses of\nthe audience go straight to the ears of the actor, whereas the author\nhas the comfort of going to his grave without a suspicion that you have\ncried out at every page: \"_The fool, the animal, the jackass!_\" and have\nat length flung his book into a corner. There is nothing to prevent the\nworst author, as he sits alone in his library, and reads himself over\nand over again, from congratulating himself on being the originator of a\nhost of rare and felicitous ideas.[38]\n\n [37] xii. 8, 79.\n\n [38] xi. 149.\n\nThe one painter whom Diderot never spares is Boucher, who was an idol of\nthe time, and made an income of fifty thousand livres a year out of his\npopularity. He laughs at him as a mere painter of fans, an artist with\nno colours on his palette save white and red. He admits the fecundity,\nthe _fougue_, the ease of Boucher, just as Sir Joshua Reynolds admits\nhis grace and beauty and good skill in composition.[39] Boucher, says\nDiderot, is in painting what Ariosto is in poetry, and he who admires\nthe one is inconsistent if he is not mad for the other. What is wanting\nis disciplined taste, more variety, more severity. Yet he cannot refuse\nto concede about one of Boucher's pictures that after all he would be\nglad to possess it. Every time you saw it, he says, you would find fault\nwith it, yet you would go on looking at it.[40] This is perhaps what the\nseverest modern amateur, as he strolls carelessly through the French\nschool at his leisure, would not in his heart care to deny.\n\n [39] See Reynolds's Twelfth Discourse, p. 106.\n\n [40] x. 102.\n\nFragonard, whose picture of Coresus and Callirrhoe made a great\nsensation in its day, and still attracts some small share of attention\nin the French school, was not a favourite with Diderot. The Callirrhoe\ninspired an elaborate but not very felicitous criticism. Then the\npainter changed his style in the direction of Boucher, and as far away\nas possible from _l'honnete_ and _le beau moral_, and Diderot turned\naway from him; at last describing an oval picture representing groups of\nchildren in heaven as \"_une belle et grande omelette d'enfants_,\" heads,\nlegs, thighs, arms, bodies, all interlaced together among yellowish\nclouds--\"_bien omelette, bein douillette, bein jaune, et bien\nbrulee_.\"[41]\n\n [41] xi. 296. For the Callirrhoe, see x. 397.\n\nOn the whole, we cannot wonder either that painters hold literary talk\nabout their difficult and complex art so cheap, or that the lay public\nprizes it so much above its intrinsic worth. It helps the sluggish\nimagination and dull sight of the one, while it is apt to pass\nignorantly over both the true difficulties and the true successes of the\nother. Diderot, unlike most of those who have come after him, had\ncarefully studied the conditions prescribed to the painter by the\nmaterial in which he works. Although he was a master of the literary\ncriticism of art, he had artists among his intimate companions, and was\ntoo eager for knowledge not to wring from them the secrets of technique,\njust as he extorted from weavers and dyers the secrets of their\nprocesses and instruments. He makes no ostentatious display of this\nspecial knowledge, yet it is present, giving a firmness and accuracy to\nwhat would otherwise be too like mere arbitrary lyrics suggested by a\npainting, and not really dealing with it. His special gift was the\ntransformation of scientific criticism into something with the charm of\nliterature. Take, for instance, a picture by Vien:\n\n \"_Psyche approaching with her lamp to surprise Love in his\n sleep._--The two figures are of flesh and blood, but they have\n neither the elegance, nor the grace, nor the delicacy that the\n subject required. Love seems to me to be making a grimace. Psyche\n is not like a woman who comes trembling on tiptoe. I do not see on\n her face that mixture of surprise, fear, love, desire, and\n admiration, which ought all to be there. It is not enough to show\n in Psyche a curiosity to see Love; I must also perceive in her the\n fear of awakening him. She ought to have her mouth half open, and\n to be afraid of drawing her breath. 'Tis her lover that she\n sees--that she sees for the first time, at the risk of losing him\n for ever. What joy to look upon him, and to find him so fair! Oh,\n what little intelligence in our painters, how little they\n understand nature! The head of Psyche ought to be inclined towards\n Love; the rest of her body drawn back, as it is when you advance\n towards a spot where you fear to enter, and from which you are\n ready to flee back; one foot planted on the ground and the other\n barely touching it. And the lamp; ought she to let the light fall\n on the eyes of Love? Ought she not to hold it apart, and to shield\n it with her hand to deaden its brightness? Moreover, that would\n have lighted the picture in a striking way. These good people do\n not know that the eyelids have a kind of transparency; they have\n never seen a mother coming in the night to look at her child in the\n cradle, with a lamp in her hand, and fearful of awakening it.\"[42]\n\n [42] x. 121.\n\nThere have been many attempts to imitate this manner since Diderot. No\nless a person than M. Thiers tried it, when it fell to him as a young\nwriter for the newspapers to describe the Salon of 1822. One brilliant\npoet, novelist, traveller, critic, has succeeded, and Diderot's\nart-criticism is at least equalled in Theophile Gautier's pages on\nTitian's Assunta and Bellini's Madonna at Venice, or Murillo's Saint\nAnthony of Padua at Seville.[43]\n\n [43] _Voyage en Italie_, 230. _Voyage en Espagne_, 330. See the same\n critic's _Abecedaire du Salon de 1861_.\n\nJust as in his articles in the Encyclopaedia, here too Diderot is always\nready to turn from his subject for a moral aside. Even the modern reader\nwill forgive the discursive apostrophe addressed to the judges of the\nunfortunate Calas, the almost lyric denunciation of an atrocity that\nstruck such deep dismay into the hearts of all the brethren of the\nEncyclopaedia.[44] But Diderot's asides are usually in less tragic\nmatter. A picture of Michael Van Loo's reminds him that Van Loo had once\na friend in Spain. This friend took it into his head to equip a vessel\nfor a trading expedition, and Van Loo invested all his fortune in his\nfriend's vessel. The vessel was wrecked, the fortune was lost, and the\nmaster was drowned. When Van Loo heard of the disaster, the first word\nthat came to his mouth was--_I have lost a good friend_. And on this\nDiderot sails off into a digression on the grounds of praise and blame.\n\n [44] xi. 309.\n\nHere are one or two illustrations of the same moralising:\n\n \"The effect of our sadness on others is very singular. Have you not\n sometimes noticed in the country the sudden stillness of the\n birds, if it happens that on a fine day a cloud comes and lingers\n over the spot that was resounding with their music? A suit of deep\n mourning in company is the cloud that, as it passes, causes the\n momentary silence of the birds. It goes, and the song is resumed.\"\n\n \"We should divide a nation into three classes: the bulk of the\n nation, which forms the national taste and manners; those who rise\n above these are called madmen, originals, oddities; those who fall\n below are noodles. The progress of the human mind causes the level\n to shift, and a man often lives too long for his reputation.... He\n who is too far in front of his generation, who rises above the\n general level of the common manners, must expect few votes; he\n ought to be thankful for the oblivion that rescues him from\n persecution. Those who raise themselves to a great distance above\n the common level are not perceived; they die forgotten and\n tranquil, either like everybody else, or far away from everybody\n else. That is my motto.\"[45]\n\n \"But Vernet will never be more than Vernet, a mere man. No, and for\n that very reason all the more astonishing, and his work all the\n more worthy of admiration. It is, no doubt, a great thing, is this\n universe; but when I compare it with the energy of the productive\n cause, if I had to wonder at aught, it would be that its work is\n not still finer and still more perfect. It is just the reverse when\n I think of the weakness of man, of his poor means, of the\n embarrassments and of the short duration of his life, and then of\n certain things that he has undertaken and carried out.\"[46]\n\n [45] xi. 294.\n\n [46] xi. 102.\n\nThese digressions are one source of the charm of Diderot's criticism.\nThey impart ease and naturalness to it, because they evidently reproduce\nthe free movement of his mind as it really was, and not as the supposed\ndignity of authorship might require him to pretend. There is no\nstiffness nor sense, as we have said, of literary strain, and yet there\nis no disturbing excess of what is random, broken, _decousu_. The\ndigression flows with lively continuity from the main stream and back\nagain into it, leaving some cheerful impression or curious suggestion\nbehind it. Something, we cannot tell what, draws him off to wonder\nwhether there is not as much verve in the first scene of Terence and in\nthe Antinoues as in any scene of Moliere or any work of Michael Angelo?\n\"I once answered this question, but rather too lightly. Every moment I\nam apt to make a mistake, because language does not furnish me with the\nright expression for the truth at the moment. I abandon a thesis for\nlack of words that shall supply my reasons. I have one thing in the\nbottom of my heart, and I find myself saying another. There is the\nadvantage of living in retirement and solitude. There a man speaks, asks\nhimself questions, listens to himself, and listens in silence. His\nsecret sensation develops itself little by little.\" Then when he is\nabout to speak of one of Greuze's pictures, he bethinks himself of\nGreuze's vanity, and this leads him to a vein of reflection which it is\ngood for all critics, whether public or private, to hold fast in their\nminds. \"If you take away Greuze's vanity, you will take away his verve,\nyou will extinguish his fire, his genius will undergo an eclipse. _Nos\nqualites tiennent de pres a nos defauts._\" And of this important truth,\nthe base of wise tolerance, there follow a dozen graphic examples.[47]\n\n [47] x. 342. He says elsewhere of Greuze (xviii. 247) that he is _un\n excellent artiste, mais une bien mauvaise tete_.\n\nGretry, the composer, more than once consulted Diderot in moments of\nperplexity. It was not always safe, he says, to listen to the glowing\nman when he allowed his imagination to run away with him, but the first\nburst was of inspiration divine.[48] Painters found his suggestions as\npotent and as hopeful as the musician found them. He delighted in being\nable to tell an artist how he might change his bad picture into a good\none.[49] \"Chardin, La Grenee, Greuze, and others,\" says Diderot, \"have\nassured me (and artists are not given to flattering men of letters) that\nI was about the only one whose images could pass at once to canvas,\nalmost exactly as they came into my head.\" And he gives illustrations,\nhow he instantly furnished to La Grenee a subject for a picture of\nPeace; to Greuze, a design introducing a nude figure without wounding\nthe modesty of the spectator; to a third, a historical subject.[50] The\nfirst of the three is a curious example of the difficulty which even a\nstrong genius like Diderot had in freeing himself from artificial\ntraditions. For Peace, he cried to La Grenee, show me Mars with his\nbreastplate, his sword girded on, his head noble and firm. Place\nstanding by his side a Venus, full, divine, voluptuous, smiling on him\nwith an enchanting smile; let her point to his casque, in which her\ndoves have made their nest. Is it not singular that even Diderot\nsometimes failed to remember that Mars and Venus are dead, that they can\nnever be the source of a fresh and natural inspiration, and that neither\nartist nor spectator can be moved by cold and vapid allegories in an\nextinct dialect? If Diderot could have seen such a treatment of La\nGrenee's subject as Landseer's _Peace_, with its children playing at the\nmouth of the slumbering gun, he would have been the first to cry out how\nmuch nearer this came to the spirit of his own aesthetic methods, than\nall the pride of Mars and all the beauty of Venus. He is truer to\nhimself in the subject with which he met Greuze's perplexity in the\nsecond of his two illustrations. He bade Greuze paint the Honest Model;\na girl sitting to an artist for the first time, her poor garments on the\nground beside her; her head resting on one of her hands, and a tear\nrolling down each cheek. The mother, whose dress betrays the extremity\nof indigence, is by her side, and with her own hands and one of the\nhands of her daughter covers her face. The painter, witness of the\nscene, softened and touched, lets his palette or his brush fall from his\nhand. Greuze at once exclaimed that he saw his subject; and we may at\nleast admit that this pretty bit of commonplace sentimentalism is more\nin Diderot's vein than pagan gods and goddesses.\n\n [48] Quoted in Diderot's _Oeuv._, v. 460, _n._\n\n [49] E.g. _Oeuv._, xi. 258.\n\n [50] xi. 74.\n\nDiderot is never more truly himself than when he takes the subject of a\npicture that is before him, and shows how it might have been more\neffectively handled. Thus:\n\n \"The Flight into Egypt is treated in a fresh and piquant manner.\n But the painter has not known how to make the best of his idea. The\n Virgin passes in the background of the picture, bearing the infant\n Jesus in her arms. She is followed by Joseph and the ass carrying\n the baggage. In the foreground are the shepherds prostrating\n themselves, their hands upturned towards her, and wishing her a\n happy journey. Ah, what a fine painting, if the artist had known\n how to make mountains at the foot of which the Virgin had passed;\n if he had known how to make the mountains very steep, escarped,\n majestic; if he had covered them with moss and wild shrubs; if he\n had given to the Virgin simplicity, beauty, grandeur, nobleness; if\n the road that she follows had led into the paths of some forest,\n lonely and remote; if he had taken his moment at the rise of day,\n or at its fall!\"[51]\n\n [51] x. 115.\n\nThe picture of Saint Benedict by Deshays--whom at one moment Diderot\npronounces to be the first painter in the nation--stirs the same spirit\nof emendation. Diderot thinks that in spite of the pallor of the dying\nsaint's visage, one would be inclined to give him some years yet to\nlive.\n\n \"I ask whether it would not have been better that his legs should\n have sunk under him; that he should have been supported by two or\n three monks; that he should have had the arms extended, the head\n thrown back, with death on his lips and ecstasy on his brow. If the\n painter had given this strong expression to his Saint Benedict,\n consider, my friend, how it would have reflected itself on all the\n rest of the picture. That slight change in the principal figure\n would have influenced all the others. The celebrant, instead of\n being upright, would in his compassion have leaned more forward;\n distress and anguish would have been more strongly depicted in all\n the bystanders. There is a piece from which you could teach young\n students that, by altering one single circumstance, you alter all\n others, or else the truth disappears. You could make out of it an\n excellent chapter on the _force of unity_: you would have to\n preserve the same arrangement, the same figures, and to invite them\n to execute the picture according to the different changes that were\n made in the figure of the communicant.\"[52]\n\n [52] x. 125.\n\nThe admirable Salons were not Diderot's only contributions to aesthetic\ncriticism. He could not content himself with reproductions, in eloquent\nlanguage upon paper, of the combinations of colour and form upon canvas.\nNo one was further removed from vague or indolent expansion. He returns\nagain and again to examine with keenness and severity the principles,\nthe methods, the distinctions of the fine arts, and though he is often a\nsentimentalist and a declaimer, he can also, when the time comes,\ntransform himself into an accurate scrutiniser of ideas and phrases, a\nseeker after causes and differences, a discoverer of kinds and classes\nin art, and of the conditions proper to success in each of them. In\nshort, the fact of being an eloquent and enthusiastic critic of\npictures, did not prevent him from being a truly philosophical thinker\nabout the abstract laws of art, with the thinker's genius for analysis,\ncomparison, classification. Who that has read them can ever forget the\ndialogues that are set among the landscapes of Vernet in the Salons of\n1767?[53] The critic supposes himself unable to visit the Salon of the\nyear, and to be staying in a gay country-house amid some fine landscapes\non the sea-coast. He describes his walks among these admirable scenes,\nand the strange and varying effects of light and colour, and all the\nmovements of the sky and ocean; and into the descriptions he weaves a\nseries of dialogues with an abbe, a tutor of the children of the house,\nupon art and landscape and the processes of the universe. Nothing can be\nmore excellent and lifelike: it is not until the end that he lets the\nsecret slip that the whole fabric has been a flight of fancy, inspired\nby no real landscape, but by the sea-pieces sent to the exhibition by\nVernet.\n\n [53] xi. 98-149.\n\nThis is an illustration of the variety of approach which makes Diderot\nso interesting, so refreshing a critic. He never sinks into what is\nmechanical, and the evidence of this is that his mind, while intent on\nthe qualities of a given picture, yet moves freely to the outside of the\npicture, and is ever cordially open to the most general thoughts and\nmoods, while attending with workmanlike fidelity to what is particular\nin the object before him.[54]\n\n [54] _E.g._ xi. 223.\n\nIn the light of modern speculation upon the philosophy of the fine arts,\nDiderot makes no commanding figure, because he is so egregiously\nunsystematic. But as Goethe said, in a piece where he was withstanding\nDiderot to the face, _die hoechste Wirkung des Geistes ist, den Geist\nhervorzurufen_--the highest influence of mind is to call out mind. This\nstimulating provocation of the intelligence was the master faculty in\nDiderot. For the sake of that men are ready to pardon all excesses, and\nto overlook many offences against the law of Measure. From such a point\nof view, Goethe's treatment of Diderot's Essay on Painting (written in\n1765, but not given to the world until 1796) is an instructive lesson.\n\"Diderot's essay,\" he wrote to Schiller, \"is a magnificent work, and it\nspeaks even more usefully to the poet than to the painter, though for\nthe painter, too, it is a torch of powerful illumination.\" Yet Diderot's\ncritical principle in the essay was exactly opposite to Goethe's; and\nwhen Goethe translated some portions of it, he was forced to add a\ncommentary of stringent protest. Diderot, as usual, energetically extols\nnature, as the one source and fountain of true artistic inspiration.\nEven in what looks to us like defect and monstrosity, she is never\nincorrect. If she inflicts on the individual some unusual feature, she\nnever fails to draw other parts of the system into co-ordination and a\nsort of harmony with the abnormal element. We say of a man who passes in\nthe street that he is ill-shapen. Yes, according to our poor rules; but\naccording to nature, it is another matter. We say of a statue that it is\nof fine proportions. Yes, according to our poor rules; but according to\nnature?[55]\n\n [55] x. 481, 462.\n\nIn the same vein, he breaks out against the practice of drawing from\nthe academic model. All these academic positions, affected, constrained,\nartificial, as they are; all these actions coldly and awkwardly\nexpressed by some poor devil, and always the same poor devil, hired to\ncome three times a week, to undress himself, and to play the puppet in\nthe hands of the professor--what have these in common with the positions\nand actions of nature? What is there in common between the man who draws\nwater from the well in your courtyard, and the man who pretends to\nimitate him on the platform of the drawing-school? If Diderot thought\nthe seven years passed in drawing the model no better than wasted, he\nwas not any more indulgent to the practice of studying the minutiae of\nthe anatomy of the human frame. He saw the risk of the artist becoming\nvain of his scientific acquirement, of his eye being corrupted, of his\nseeking to represent what is under the surface, of his forgetting that\nhe has only the exterior to show. A practice that is intended to make\nthe student look at nature most commonly tends to make him see nature\nother than she really is. To sum up, mannerism would disappear from\ndrawing and from colour, if people would only scrupulously imitate\nnature. Mannerism comes from the masters, from the academy, from the\nschool, and even from the antique.[56]\n\n [56] x. 467. For a more respectful view of the antique, and of\n Winckelmann's position, see _Salon de 1765_, x. 418.\n\nWe may easily believe how many fallacies were discerned in such lessons\nas these by the author of _Iphigenie_, and the passionate admirer of\nthe ancient marbles. Diderot's fundamental error, said Goethe, is to\nconfound nature and art, completely to amalgamate nature with art. \"Now\nNature organises a living, an indifferent being, the Artist something\ndead, but full of significance; Nature something real, the Artist\nsomething apparent. In the works of Nature the spectator must import\nsignificance, thought, effect, reality; in a work of Art he will and\nmust find this already there. A perfect imitation of Nature is in no\nsense possible; the Artist is only called to the representation of the\nsurface of an appearance. The outside of the vessel, the living whole\nthat speaks to all our faculties of mind and sense, that stirs our\ndesire, elevates our intelligence--that whose possession makes us happy,\nthe vivid, potent, finished Beautiful--for all this is the Artist\nappointed.\" In other words, art has its own laws, as it has its own\naims, and these are not the laws and aims of nature. To mock at rules is\nto overthrow the conditions that make a painting or a statue possible.\nTo send the pupil away from the model to the life of the street, the\ngaol, the church, is to send him forth without teaching him for what to\nlook. To make light of the study of anatomy in art, is like allowing the\ncomposer to forget thorough bass in his enthusiasm, or the poet in his\nenthusiasm to forget the number of syllables in his verse. Again, though\nart may profit by a free and broad method, yet all artistic significance\ndepends on the More and the Less. Beauty is a narrow circle in which\none may only move in modest measure. And of this modest measure the\nacademy, the school, the master, above all the antique, are the\nguardians and the teachers.[57]\n\n [57] Diderot's _Versuch ueber die Malerei_. Goethe's _Werke_, xxv.\n 309, etc.\n\nIt is unnecessary to labour the opposition between the two great masters\nof criticism. Goethe, as usual, must be pronounced to have the last word\nof reason and wisdom, the word which comprehends most of the truth of\nthe matter. And it is delivered in that generous and loyal spirit which\nnobody would have appreciated more than the free-hearted Diderot\nhimself. The drift of Goethe's contention is, in fact, the thesis of\nDiderot's Paradox on the Comedian. But the state of painting in\nFrance--and Goethe admits it--may have called for a line of criticism\nwhich was an exaggeration of what Diderot, if he had been in Goethe's\nneutral position, would have found in his better mind.[58]\n\n [58] And of course on occasion did actually find. See xi. 101. Sir\n Joshua Reynolds, who was too sincere a lover of his art not to be\n above mere patriotic prejudice, describes the condition of things.\n \"I have heard painters acknowledge that they could do better without\n nature than with her, or, as they expressed themselves, it only put\n them out. Our neighbours, the French, are much in this practice of\n extempore invention, and their dexterity is such as even to excite\n admiration, if not envy; but how rarely can this praise be given to\n their finished pictures!\" Twelfth Discourse, p. 105.\n\nThere is a passage in one of the Salons which sheds a striking\nside-light on the difference between these two great types of genius.\nThe difference between the mere virtuoso and the deep critic is that, in\nthe latter, behind views on art we discern far-reaching thoughts on\nlife. And in Diderot, no less than in Goethe, art is ever seen in its\nassociations with character, aspiration, happiness, and conduct.\n\n \"The sun, which was on the edge of the horizon, disappeared; over\n the sea there came all at once an aspect more sombre and solemn.\n Twilight, which is at first neither day nor night--an image of our\n feeble thoughts, and an image that warns the philosopher to stay in\n his speculations--warns the traveller too to turn his steps towards\n home. So I turned back, and as I continued the thread of my\n thoughts, I began to reflect that if there is a particular morality\n belonging to each species, so perhaps in the same species there is\n a different morality for different individuals, or at least for\n different kinds and collections of individuals. And in order not to\n scandalise you by too serious an example, it came into my head that\n there is perhaps a morality peculiar to artists or to art, and that\n this morality might well be the very reverse of the common\n morality. Yes, my friend, I am much afraid that man marches\n straight to misery by the very path that leads the imitator of\n nature to the sublime. To plunge into extremes--that is the rule\n for poets. To keep in all things the just mean--there is the rule\n for happiness. One must not make poetry in real life. The heroes,\n the romantic lovers, the great patriots, the inflexible\n magistrates, the apostles of religion, the philosophers _a toute\n outrance_--all these rare and divine insensates make poetry in\n their life, and that is their bane. It is they who after death\n provide material for great pictures. They are excellent to paint.\n Experience shows that nature condemns to misery the man to whom she\n has allotted genius, and whom she has endowed with beauty; it is\n they who are the figures of poetry. Then within myself I lauded\n the mediocrity that shelters one alike from praise and blame; and\n yet why, I asked myself, would no one choose to let his sensibility\n go, and to become mediocre? O vanity of man!\"[59]\n\n [59] x. 124, 125.\n\nGoethe's _Tasso_, a work so full of finished poetry and of charm, is the\nidealised and pathetic version of the figure that Diderot has thus\nconceived for genius. The dialogues between the hapless poet and\nAntonio, the man of the world, are a skilful, lofty, and impressive\nstatement of the problem that often vexed Diderot. Goethe sympathised\nwith Antonio's point of view; he had in his nature so much of the spirit\nof conduct, of saneness, of the common reason of the world. And in art\nhe was a lover of calm ideals. In Diderot, as our readers by this time\nknow, these things were otherwise.\n\nThe essay on Beauty in the Encyclopaedia is less fertile than most of\nDiderot's contributions to the subject.[60] It contains a careful\naccount of two or three other theories, especially that of Hutcheson.\nThe object is to explain the source of Beauty. Diderot's own conclusion\nis that this is to be found in \"relations.\" Our words for the different\nshades of the beautiful are expressive of notions (acquired by\nexperience through the senses) of order, proportion, symmetry, unity,\nand so forth. But, after all, the real question remains unanswered--what\nmakes some relations beautiful, and others not so; and the same objects\nbeautiful to me, and indifferent to you; and the same object beautiful\nto me to-day, and indifferent or disgusting to me to-morrow? Diderot\ndoes, it is true, enumerate twelve sources of such diversity of\njudgment, in different races, ages, individuals, moods, but their force\ndepends upon the importation into the conception of beauty of some more\ndefinite element than the bare idea of relation. Some sentences show\nthat he came very near to the famous theory of Alison, that beauty is\nonly attributed to sounds and sights, where, and because, they recall\nwhat is pleasing, sublime, pathetic, and set our ideas and emotions\nflowing in one of these channels. But he does not get fairly on the\ntrack of either Alison's or any other decisive and marking adjective,\nwith which to qualify his _rapports_. He wastes some time, moreover, in\ntrying to bring within the four corners of his definition some uses of\nthe terms of beauty, which are really only applied to objects by way of\nanalogy, and are not meant to predicate the beautiful in any literal or\nscientific sense.\n\n [60] _Oeuv._, x.\n\nThere is no more interesting department of aesthetic inquiry than the\nrelations of the arts to one another, and the nature of the\ndelimitations of the provinces of poetry, painting, sculpture, music.\nDiderot, from the very beginning of his career, had turned his thoughts\nto this intricate subject. In his letter on Deaf Mutes (1751) he had\nstated the problem--to collect the common beauties of poetry, painting,\nand music; to show their analogies; to explain how the poet, the\npainter, and the musician render the same image; to seize the fugitive\nemblems of their expression. Why should a situation that is admirable in\na poem become ridiculous in a painting?[61] For instance, what is it\nthat prevents a painter from reproducing the moment when Neptune raises\nhis head above the tossing waters, as he is represented in Virgil:\n\n Interea magno misceri murmure pontum.\n Emissamque hiemem sensit Neptunus, et imis\n Stagna refusa vadis; graviter commotus, et alto\n Prospiciens, summa placidum caput extulit unda.\n\n [61] It is to be observed also that he shows true perspicacity in\n connecting the difficulty of transforming a poetic into a pictorial\n description, with the kindred difficulty of translating a finished\n poem in one language into another language. See also xi. 107.\n\nDiderot's answer to the question is an anticipation of the main position\nof the famous little book which appeared fifteen years afterwards, and\nwhich has been well described as the Organum of aesthetic cultivation. In\n_Laocooen_ Lessing contends against Spence, the author of _Polymetis_\nagainst Caylus, and others of his contemporaries, that poetry and\npainting are divided from one another in aim, in effects, in reach, by\nthe limits set upon each by the nature of its own material.[62] So\nDiderot says that the painter could not seize the Virgilian moment,\nbecause a body that is partially immersed in water is disfigured by an\neffect of refraction, which a faithful painter would be bound to\nreproduce; because the image of the body could not be seen\ntransparently through the stormy waters, and therefore the god would\nhave the appearance of being decapitated; because it is indispensable,\nif you would avoid the impression of a surgical amputation, that some\nvisible portion of hidden limbs should be there to inform us of the\nexistence of the rest.[63] He takes another instance, where a\ndescription that is admirable in poetry would be insupportable in\npainting. Who, he asks, could bear upon canvas the sight of Polyphemus\ngrinding between his teeth the bones of one of the companions of\nUlysses? Who could see without horror a giant holding a man in his\nenormous mouth, with blood dripping over his head and breast?\n\n [62] Lessing appears to have been directly led to this by Aristotle.\n See Gotschlich's _Lessing's Aristotelische Studien_, p. 120.\n\n [63] _Oeuv._, i. 382, 403.\n\nAmong the many passages in which Diderot touches on the differences\nbetween poetry and painting, none is more just and true than that in\nwhich he implores the poet not to attempt description of details: \"True\ntaste fastens on one or two characteristics, and leaves the rest to\nimagination. 'Tis when Armida advances with noble mien in the midst of\nthe ranks of the army of Godfrey, and when the generals begin to look at\none another with jealous eyes, that Armida is beautiful to us. It is\nwhen Helen passes before the old men of Troy, and they all cry out--it\nis then that Helen is beautiful. And it is when Ariosto describes Alcina\nfrom the crown of her head to the soles of her feet, that\nnotwithstanding the grace, the facility, the soft elegance of his verse,\nAlcina is not beautiful. He shows me everything; he leaves me nothing to\ndo; he makes me wearied and impatient. If a figure walks, describe to\nme its carriage and its lightness; I will undertake the rest. If it is\nstooping, speak to me only of arms and shoulders; I will take all else\non myself. If you do more, you confuse the kinds of work; you cease to\nbe a poet, and become a painter or sculptor. One single trait, a great\ntrait; leave the rest to my imagination. That is true taste, great\ntaste.\"[64] And then he quotes with admiration Ovid's line of the\ngoddess of the seas:\n\n Nec brachia longo\n Margine terrarum porrexerat Amphitrite.\n\n [64] _Oeuv._, xi. 328.\n\nQuel image! Quels bras! Quel prodigieux mouvement! Quelle figure! and so\nforth, after Diderot's manner.\n\nNobody will compare these detached and fragmentary deliverances with the\nfull and easy mastery which Lessing, in _Laocoeon_ and its unfinished\nsupplements, exhibits over the many ramifications of his central idea.\nWe can only notice that Diderot had a foot on the track along which\nLessing afterwards made such signal progress. The reader who cares to\nmeasure the advantage of Lessing's more serious and concentrated\nattention to his subject, may compare the twelfth chapter of _Laocoeon_\nwith Diderot's criticism on Doyen's painting of the Battle between\nDiomede and Aeneas.[65] As we see how near Diderot came to the real and\ndecisive truths of all these matters, and yet how far he remains from\nthe full perception of what a little consecutive study must have\nrevealed to his superior genius, we can only think painfully of his\navowal--\"I have not the consciousness of having employed the half of my\nstrength: _jusqu'a present je n'ai que baguenaude_.\"\n\n [65] _Salon de 1761_; _Oeuv._, v. 140.\n\nOn the great art of music Diderot has said little that is worth\nattending to. Bemetzrieder, a German musician, who taught Diderot's\ndaughter to play on the clavecin, wrote an elementary book called\nLessons on the Clavecin and Principles of Harmony. This is pronounced by\nthe modern teachers to be not less than contemptible. Diderot, however,\nwith his usual boundless good nature, took the trouble to set the book\nin a series of dialogues, in which teacher, pupil, and a philosopher\ndeal in all kinds of elaborate amenities, and pay one another many\ncompliments. It reminds one of the old Hebrew grammar which is couched\nin the form of Conversations with a Duchess--\"Your Grace having kindly\ncondescended to approve of the plan that I have sketched. All this your\nGrace probably knows already, but your Grace has probably never\nattempted,\" and so forth.\n\nThe unwise things that men of letters have written from a good-natured\nwish to help their friends, are not so numerous that we need be afraid\nof extending to them a good-natured pardon. The beauty of Diderot's\nSalons is remarkable enough to cover a multitude of sins in other arts.\nThere are few other compositions in European literature which show so\nwell how criticism of art itself may become a fine art.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nST. PETERSBURG AND THE HAGUE.\n\n\n\"What would you say of the owner of an immense palace, who should spend\nall his life in going up from the cellars to the attics, and going down\nfrom attics to cellar, instead of sitting quietly in the midst of his\nfamily? That is the image of the traveller.\" Yet Diderot, whose words\nthese are, resolved at the age of sixty to undertake no less formidable\na journey than to the remote capital on the shores of the Neva. It had\ncome into his head, or perhaps others had put it into his head, that he\nowed a visit to his imperial benefactress whose bounty had rendered life\neasier to him. He had recently made the acquaintance of two Russian\npersonages of consideration. One of them was the Princess Dashkow, who\nwas believed to have taken a prominent part in that confused conspiracy\nof 1762, which ended in the murder of Peter III. by Alexis Orloff, and\nthe elevation of Catherine II. to the throne. Her services at that\ncritical moment had not prevented her disgrace, if indeed they were not\nits cause, and in 1770 the Princess set out on her travels. Horace\nWalpole has described the curiosity of the London world to see the\nMuscovite Alecto, the accomplice of the northern Athaliah, the amazon\nwho had taken part in a revolution when she was only nineteen. In\nEngland she made a pleasant impression, in spite of eyes of \"a very\nCatiline fierceness.\" She was equally delighted with England, and when\nshe went on from London to Paris, she took very little trouble to make\nfriends in the capital of the rival nation. Diderot seems to have been\nher only intimate. The Princess (1770) called nearly every afternoon at\nhis door, carried him off to dinner, and kept him talking and declaiming\nuntil the early hours of the next morning. The \"hurricanes of his\nenthusiastic nature\" delighted her, and she remembered for years\nafterwards how on one occasion she excited him to such a pitch that he\nsprang from his chair as if by machinery, strode rapidly up and down the\nroom, and spat upon the floor with passion.[66]\n\n [66] _Memoirs of Princess Dashkoff_ (vol. ii.). By Mrs. Bradford, an\n English companion and friend of the Princess. (London, 1840.) See\n Diderot's account of her, _Oeuv._, xvii. 487. Compare Horace\n Walpole's _Letters_, v. 266.\n\nThe Prince Galitzin was a Russian friend of greater importance. Prince\nGalitzin was one of those foreigners, like Holbach, Grimm, Galiani, who\nfound themselves more at home in Paris than anywhere else in the world.\nLiving mostly among artists and men of letters, he became an established\nfavourite. With Diderot's assistance (1767) he acquired for the Empress\nmany of the pictures that adorn the great gallery at St. Petersburg,\nand Diderot praises his knowledge of the fine arts, the reason being\nthat he has that great principle of true taste, the _belle ame_.[67] He\nwrote eclogues in French, and he attempted the more useful but more\ndifficult task of writing in the half-formed tongue of his own country\nan account of the great painters of Italy and Holland.[68] Diderot makes\nthe pointed remark about him, that he believed in equality of ranks by\ninstinct, which is better than believing in it by reflection.[69] It was\nthrough the medium of this friendly and intelligent man that the Empress\nhad acted in the purchase of Diderot's library. In 1769 he was appointed\nRussian minister at the Hague, and his chief ground for delight at the\nappointment was that it brought him within reach of his friends in\nParis.\n\n [67] _Oeuv._, xviii. 239.\n\n [68] Grimm, _Cor. Lit._, xv. 18. Diderot, xviii. 251.\n\n [69] _Oeuv._, xix. 250.\n\nDiderot set out on his expedition some time in the summer of 1773--the\ndate also of Johnson's memorable tour to the Hebrides--and his first\nhalt was at the Dutch capital, then at the distance of a four days'\njourney from Paris. Here he remained for many weeks, in some doubt\nwhether or not to persist in the project of a more immense journey. He\npassed most of his time with the Prince and Princess Galitzin, as\nbetween a good brother and a good sister. Their house, he notices, had\nonce been the residence of Barneveldt. Men like Diderot are the last\npersons to think of their own historic position, else we might have\nexpected to find him musing on the saving shelter which this land of\nfreedom and tolerance had given to more than one of his great precursors\nin the literature of emancipation. Descartes had found twenty years of\npriceless freedom (1629-1649) among the Dutch burghers. The ruling ideas\nof the Encyclopaedia came in direct line from Bayle (_d. 1706_) and Locke\n(_d. 1704_), and both Bayle and Locke, though in different measures,\nowed their security to the stout valour with which the Dutch defended\ntheir own land, and taught the English how to defend theirs, against the\ndestructive pretensions of Catholic absolutism. Of these memories\nDiderot probably thought no more than Descartes thought about the\nlearning of Grotius or the art of Rembrandt. It was not the age, nor was\nhis the mind, for historic sentimentalism. \"The more I see of this\ncountry,\" he wrote to his good friends in Paris, \"the more I feel at\nhome in it. The soles, fresh herrings, turbot, perch, are all the best\npeople in the world. The walks are charming; I do not know whether the\nwomen are all very sage, but with their great straw hats, their eyes\nfixed on the ground, and the enormous fichus spread over their bosoms,\nthey have the air of coming back from prayers or going to confession.\"\nDiderot did not fail to notice more serious things than this. His\nremarks on the means of travelling with most profit are full of sense,\nand the account which he wrote of Holland shows him to have been as\nwidely reflective and observant as we should have expected him to\nbe.[70] It will be more convenient to say something on this in\nconnection with the stay which he again made at the Hague on his return\nfrom his pilgrimage to Russia.\n\n [70] _Oeuv._, xviii. 365, 471.\n\nAfter many hesitations the die was cast. Nariskin, a court chamberlain,\ntook charge of the philosopher, and escorted him in an excellent\ncarriage along the dreary road that ended in the capital reared by Peter\nthe Great among the northern floods. It is worth while to digress for a\nfew moments, to mark shortly the difference in social and intellectual\nconditions between the philosopher's own city and the city for which he\nwas bound, and to touch on the significance of his journey. We can only\nin this way understand the position of the Encyclopaedists in Europe, and\nsee why it is interesting to the student of the history of Western\ncivilisation to know something about them. It is impossible to have a\nclear idea of the scope of the revolutionary philosophy, as well as of\nthe singular pre-eminence of Paris over the western world, until we have\nplaced ourselves, not only at Ferney and Grandval, and in the parlours\nof Madame Geoffrin and Mademoiselle Lespinasse, but also in palaces at\nFlorence, Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg.\n\nFrom Holland with its free institutions, its peaceful industry, its\nhusbanded wealth, its rich and original art, its great political and\nliterary tradition, to go to Russia was to measure an arc of Western\nprogress, and to retrace the steps of the genius of civilisation. The\npolitical capital of Russia represented a forced and artificial union\nbetween old and new conditions. In St. Petersburg, says an onlooker,\nwere united the age of barbarism and the age of civilisation, the tenth\ncentury and the eighteenth, the manners of Asia and the manners of\nEurope, the rudest Scythians and the most polished Europeans, a\nbrilliant and proud aristocracy and a people sunk in servitude. On one\nside were elegant fashions, magnificent dresses, sumptuous repasts,\nsplendid feasts, theatres like those which gave grace and animation to\nthe select circles of London or Paris: on the other side, shopkeepers in\nAsiatic dress, coachmen, servants, and peasants clad in sheepskins,\nwearing long beards, fur caps, and long fingerless gloves of skin, with\nshort axes hanging from their leathern girdles. The thick woollen bands\nround their feet and legs resembled a rude cothurnus, and the sight of\nthese uncouth figures reminded one who had seen the bas-reliefs on\nTrajan's column at Rome, of the Scythians, the Dacians, the Goths, the\nRoxolani, who had been the terror of the Empire.[71] Literary\ncultivation was confined to almost the smallest possible area. Oriental\nas Russia was in many respects, it was the opposite of oriental in one:\nwomen were then, as they are still sometimes said to be in Russia, more\ncultivated and advanced than men. Many of them could speak half a dozen\nlanguages, could play on several instruments, and were familiar with\nthe works of the famous poets of France, Italy, and England. Among the\nmen, on the contrary, outside of a few exceptional families about the\ncourt, the vast majority were strangers to all that was passing beyond\nthe limits of their own country. The few who had travelled and were on\nan intellectual level with their century, were as far removed from the\nrest of their countrymen as Englishmen are removed from Iroquois.\n\n [71] Segur's _Mem._, ii. 230.\n\nTo paint the court of Catherine in its true colours it has been said\nthat one ought to have the pen of Procopius. It was a hot-bed of\ncorruption, intrigue, jealousy, violence, hatred. One day, surrounded by\ntwenty-seven of her courtiers, Catherine said: \"If I were to believe\nwhat you all say about one another, there is not one of you who does not\nrichly deserve to have his head cut off.\" A certain princess was\nnotorious for her inhuman barbarity. One day she discovered that one of\nher attendants was with child; in a frenzy she pursued the hapless\nCallisto from chamber to chamber, came up with her, dashed in her skull\nwith a heavy weapon, and finally in a delirium of passion ripped up her\nbody. When two nobles had a quarrel, they fell upon one another then and\nthere like drunken navvies, and Potemkin had an eye gouged out in a\ncourt brawl. Such horrors give us a measure of the superior humanity of\nVersailles, and enable us also in passing to see how duelling could be a\nsign of a higher civilisation. The reigning passions were love of money\nand the gratification of a coarse vanity. Friendship, virtue, manners,\ndelicacy, probity, said one witness, are here merely words, void of all\nmeaning. The tone in public affairs was as low as in those of private\nconduct. I might as well, says Sir G. Macartney, quote Clarke and\nTillotson at the divan of Constantinople, as invoke the authority of\nPuffendorf and Grotius here.\n\nThe character of the Empress herself has been more disputed than that of\nthe society in which she was the one imposing personage. She stands in\nhistory with Elizabeth of England, with Catherine de' Medici, with Maria\nTheresa, among the women who have been like great men. Of her place in\nthe record of the creation of that vast empire which begins with Prussia\nand ends with China, we have not here to speak. The materials for\nknowing her and judging her are only in our own time becoming\naccessible.[72] As usual, the mythic elements that surrounded her like\na white fog from the northern seas out of which she loomed like a\nportent, are rapidly disappearing, and are replaced by the outlines of\nordinary humanity, with more than the ordinary human measure of\nfirmness, resolution, and energetic grasp of the facts of her position\nin the world.\n\n [72] The Imperial Historical Society are publishing a _Recueil\n General_ of documents, many of which shed an interesting light on\n Catherine's intercourse with the men of letters. In the Archives of\n the House of Woronzow (especially vol. xii.), amid much of what for\n our purpose is chaff, are a few grains of what is interesting. M.\n Rambaud, the author of the learned work on the Greek Empire in the\n Tenth Century, gave interesting selections from these sources in two\n articles in the _Revue des deux Mondes_ for February and April,\n 1877. Besides what is to be gathered from such well-known\n authorities as William Tooke, Segur, Dashkoff, there are many\n interesting pages in the memoirs of that attractive and interesting\n person, the Prince de Ligne. The passages from English and French\n despatches I have taken from an anonymous but authentic work\n published at Berlin in 1858, _La Cour de la Russie il y a cent ans:\n 1725-83: extraits des depeches des Ambassadeurs anglais et\n francais_. Catherine's own Memoirs, published in London in 1859 by\n Alexander Herzen, are perhaps too doubtful.\n\nWe must go from the philosophers to the men of affairs for a true\npicture. These tell us that she offered an unprecedented mixture of\ncourage and weakness, of knowledge and incompetence, of firmness and\nirresolution; passing in turn from the most opposite extremes, she\npresented a thousand diverse surfaces, until at last the observer had to\ncontent himself with putting her down as a consummate comedian. She had\nno ready apprehension. Too refined a pleasantry was thrown away upon\nher, and there was always a chance of her reversing its drift. No\nplayful reference to the finances, or the military force, or even to the\nclimate of her empire, was ever taken in good part.[73] The political\npart was the serious part of her nature. Catherine had the literary\ntastes, but not the literary skill, of Frederick. She is believed, on\ngood evidence, to have written for the use of her grandsons not only an\nAbridgment of Russian History, but a volume of Moral Tales.[74] The\ncomposition of moral tales was entirely independent of morality. Just\nas Lewis XV. had a long series of Chateauroux, Pompadours, Dubarrys, so\nCatherine had her Orloffs and Potemkins, and a countless host of obscure\nand miscellaneous Wassiltchikows, Zavadowskys, Zoriczes, Korsaks. On the\nserious side, Lewis XIV. was her great pattern and idol. She resented\ncriticism on that renowned memory, as something personal to herself. To\nher business as sovereign--_mon petit menage_, as she called the control\nof her huge formless empire--she devoted as much indefatigable industry\nas Lewis himself had done in his best days. Notwithstanding all her\nefforts to improve her country, she was not popular, and never won the\naffection of her subjects; but she probably cared less for the opinion\nand sentiment of Russia than for the applause of Europe. Tragedy\ndispleases her, writes the French Minister, and comedy wearies her; she\ndoes not like music; her table is without any sort of exquisiteness; in\na garden she cares only for roses; her only taste is to build and to\ndrill her court, for the taste that she has for reigning, and for making\na great figure in the universe, is really not so much taste as a\ndownright absorbing passion.\n\n [73] _Mem. du Prince de Ligne_, p. 101.\n\n [74] Segur, 219.\n\nGunning, the English charge d'affaires, insists that the motive of all\nher patriotic labours was not benevolence, but an insatiable and\nunbounded thirst for fame. \"If it were not so, we must charge her with\nan inconsistency amounting to madness, for undertaking so many immense\nworks of public utility, such as the foundation of colleges and\nacademies on a most extensive plan and at an enormous outlay, and then\nleaving them incomplete, not even finishing the buildings for them.\"\nThey had served the purpose of making foreigners laud the glory of the\nSemiramis of the north, and that was enough. The arts and sciences, said\nthe French Minister, have plenty of academies here, but the academies\nhave few subjects and fewer pupils. How could there be pupils in a\ncountry where there is nobody who is not either a courtier, a soldier,\nor a slave? The Princess Sophie of Anhalt, long before she dreamed of\nbecoming the Czarina Catherine II., had been brought up by a French\ngoverness, and the tastes that her governess had implanted grew into a\npassion for French literature, which can only be compared to the same\npassion in Frederick the Great. Catherine only continued a movement that\nhad already in the reign of her predecessor gone to a considerable\nlength. The social reaction against German political predominance had\nbeen accompanied by a leaning to France. French professors in art and\nliterature had been tempted to Moscow, the nobles sent to Paris for\ntheir clothes and their furniture, and a French theatre was set up in\nSt. Petersburg, where the nobles were forced to attend the performances\nunder pain of a fine. Absentees and loiterers were hurried to their\nboxes by horse-patrols.\n\nCatherine was more serious and intelligent than this in her pursuit of\nFrench culture. She had begun with the books in which most of the salt\nof old France was to be found, with Rabelais, Scarron, Montaigne; she\ncherished Moliere and Corneille; and of the writers of the eighteenth\ncentury, apart from Voltaire, the author of Gil Blas was her favourite.\nSuch a list tells its own tale of a mind turned to what is masculine,\nracy, pungent, and thoroughly sapid. \"I am a Gauloise of the north,\" she\nsaid, \"I only understand the old French; I do not understand the new. I\nmade up my mind to get something out of your gentry, the learned men in\n_ist_: I have tried them; I made some of them come here; I occasionally\nwrote to them; they wearied me to death, and never understood me; there\nwas only my good protector, Voltaire. Do you know it was Voltaire who\nmade me the fashion?\"[75] This was a confidential revelation, made long\nafter most of the philosophers were dead. We might have penetrated the\nsecret of her friendship for such a man as Diderot, even with less\ndirect evidence than this. It was the vogue of the philosophers, and not\ntheir philosophy that made Catherine their friend. They were the great\ninterest of Europe at this time, just as Greek scholars had been its\ninterest in one century, painters in another, great masters of religious\ncontroversy in a third. \"What makes the great merit of France,\" said\nVoltaire, \"what makes its unique superiority, is a small number of\nsublime or delightful men of genius, who cause French to be spoken at\nVienna, at Stockholm, and at Moscow. Your ministers, your intendants,\nyour chief secretaries have no part in all this glory.\" This vogue of\nthe philosophers brought the whole literature of their country into\nuniversal repute. In the depths of the Crimea a khan of the Tartars took\na delight in having Tartufe and the Bourgeois Gentilhomme read aloud to\nhim.[76]\n\n [75] To the Prince de Ligne.\n\n [76] Rambaud, p. 573.\n\nAs soon as Catherine came into power (1762), she at once applied herself\nto make friends in this powerful region. It was a matter of course that\nshe should begin with the omnipotent pontiff at Ferney. Graceful verses\nfrom Voltaire were as indispensable an ornament to a crowned head as a\ndiadem, and Catherine answered with compliments that were perhaps more\nsincere than his verses. She wonders how she can repay him for a bundle\nof books that he had sent to her, and at last bethinks herself that\nnothing will please the lover of mankind so much as the introduction of\ninoculation into the great empire; so she sends for Dr. Dimsdale from\nEngland, and submits to the unfamiliar rite in her own sacred person.\nPresents of furs are sent to the hermit of the Alps, and he is told how\nfortunate the imperial messenger counts himself in being despatched to\nFerney. What flattered Voltaire more than furs was Catherine's\npromptitude and exactness in keeping him informed of her military and\npolitical movements against Turkey. It made him a centre of European\nintelligence in more senses than one, and helped him in his lifelong\nbattle to pose, in his letters at least, as the equal of his friend, the\nKing of Prussia. For D'Alembert the Empress professed an admiration only\nless than she felt for Voltaire. She was eager that he should come to\nRussia to superintend the instruction of the young Grand Duke. But\nD'Alembert was too prudent to go to St. Petersburg, as he was too\nprudent to go to Berlin. Montesquieu had died five years before her\naccession, but his influence remained. She habitually called the Spirit\nof Laws the breviary of kings, and when she drew up her Instruction for\na new code, she acknowledged how much she had pillaged from Montesquieu.\n\"I hope,\" she said, \"that if from the other world he sees me at work, he\nwill forgive my plagiarism for the sake of the twenty millions of men\nwho will benefit by it.\" In truth the twenty millions of men got very\nlittle benefit indeed by the code. Montesquieu's own method might have\ntaught her that not even absolute power can force the civil system of\nfree labour into a society resting on serfdom. But it is not surprising\nthat Catherine was no wiser than more democratic reformers who had drunk\nfrom the French springs. Or probably she had a lower estimate in her own\nheart of the value of her code for practical purposes than it suited her\nto disclose to a Parisian philosopher.\n\nCatherine did not forget that, though the French at this time were\npre-eminent in the literature of new ideas, yet there were meritorious\nand useful men in other countries. One of her correspondents was\nZimmermann of Hanover, whose essay on Solitude the shelves of no\nsecond-hand bookseller's shop is ever without. She had tried hard to\nbribe Beccaria to leave Florence for St. Petersburg. She succeeded in\npersuading Euler to return to a capital whither he had been invited many\nyears before by the first Catherine, and where he now remained.\n\nBoth Catherine's position and her temperament made the society of her\nown sex of little use or interest to her. \"I don't know whether it is\ncustom or inclination,\" she wrote, \"but somehow I can never carry on\nconversation except with men. There are only two women in the world with\nwhom I can talk for half an hour at once.\" Yet among her most intimate\ncorrespondents was one woman well known in the Encyclopaedic circle. She\nkept up an active exchange of letters with Madame Geoffrin--that\ninteresting personage, who though belonging to the bourgeoisie, and\npossessing not a trace of literary genius, yet was respectfully courted\nnot only by Catherine, but by Stanislas, Gustavus, and Joseph II.[77]\n\n [77] See M. Mouy's Introduction to her Correspondence with\n Stanislas.\n\nOn the whole then we must regard Catherine's European correspondence as\nat least in some measure the result of political calculation. Its\npurposes, as has been said, were partly those to which in our own times\nsome governments devote a Reptile-fund. There is a letter from the\nDuchesse de Choiseul to Madame du Deffand, her intimate friend, and the\nfriend of so many of the literary circle, in which the secret of the\nrelations between Catherine and the men of letters is very plainly told.\n\"All that,\" she writes--protection of arts and sciences--\"is mere luxury\nand a caprice of fashion in our age. All such pompous jargon is the\nproduct of vanity, not of principles or of reflection.... The Empress of\nRussia has another object in protecting literature; she has had sense\nenough to feel that she had need of the protection of the men of\nletters. She has flattered herself that their base praises would cover\nwith an impenetrable veil in the eyes of her contemporaries and of\nposterity, the crimes with which she has astonished the universe and\nrevolted humanity.... The men of letters, on the other hand, flattered,\ncajoled, caressed by her, are vain of the protection that they are able\nto throw over her, and dupes of the coquetries that she lavishes on\nthem. These people who say and believe that they are the instructors of\nthe masters of the world, sink so low as actually to take a pride in the\nprotection that this monster seems in her turn to accord to them, simply\nbecause she sits on a throne.\"[78]\n\n [78] _Corresp. Complete de Mdme. du Deffand_, i. 115. (Ed. 1877.)\n June, 1767.\n\nIn short, the monarchs of the north understood and used the new forces\nof the men of letters, whom their own sovereign only recognised to\noppress. The contrast between the liberalism of the northern sovereigns,\nand the obscurantism of the court of France, was never lost from sight.\nMarmontel's _Belisarius_ was condemned by the Sorbonne, and burnt at\nthe foot of the great staircase of the Palace of Justice; in Russia a\ngroup of courtiers hastened to translate it, and the Empress herself\nundertook one chapter of the work. Diderot, who was not allowed to enter\nthe French Academy, was an honoured guest at the Russian palace. For all\nthis Catherine was handsomely repaid. When Diderot visited St.\nPetersburg, Voltaire congratulated the Empress on seeing that unique\nman; but Diderot is not, he added, \"the only Frenchman who is an\nenthusiast for your glory. We are lay missionaries who preach the\nreligion of Saint Catherine, and we can boast that our church is\ntolerably universal.\"[79] We have already seen Catherine's generosity in\nbuying Diderot's books, and paying him for guarding them as her\nlibrarian. \"I should never have expected,\" she says, \"that the purchase\nof a library would bring me so many fine compliments; all the world is\nbepraising me about M. Diderot's library. But now confess, you to whom\nhumanity is indebted for the strong support that you have given to\ninnocence and virtue in the person of Calas, that it would have been\ncruel and unjust to separate a student from his books.\"[80] \"Ah, madam,\"\nreplies the most graceful of all courtiers, \"let your imperial majesty\nforgive me; no, you are not the aurora borealis; you are assuredly the\nmost brilliant star of the north, and never was there one so beneficent\nas you. Andromeda, Perseus, Callisto are not your equals. All these\nstars would have left Diderot to die of starvation. He was persecuted in\nhis own country, and your benefactions came thither to seek him! Lewis\nXIV. was less munificent than your majesty: he rewarded merit in foreign\ncountries, but other people pointed it out to him, whereas you, madame,\ngo in search of it and find it for yourself. Your generous pains to\nestablish freedom of conscience in Poland are a piece of beneficence\nthat the human race must ever celebrate.\"[81]\n\n [79] November 1, 1773.\n\n [80] November 1766.\n\n [81] December 22, 1766.\n\nWhen the first Partition of Poland took place seven years later,\nCatherine found that she had not cultivated the friendship of the French\nphilosophers to no purpose. The action of the dominant party in Poland\nenabled Catherine to take up a line which touched the French\nphilosophers in their tenderest part. The Polish oligarchy was Catholic,\nand imposed crushing disabilities on the non-Catholic part of the\npopulation. \"At the slightest attempt in favour of the non-Catholics,\"\nKing Stanislas writes to Madame Geoffrin, of the Diet of 1764, \"there\narose such a cry of fanaticism! The difficulty as to the naturalisation\nof foreigners, the contempt for _roturiers_ and the oppression of them,\nand Catholic intolerance, are the three strongest national prejudices\nthat I have to fight against in my countrymen; they are at bottom good\nfolk, but their education and ignorance render them excessively stubborn\non these three heads.\"[82] Poland in short reproduced in an aggravated\nand more barbaric form those evils of Catholic feudalism, in which the\nphilosophers saw the arch-curse of their own country. Catherine took the\nside of the Dissidents, and figured as the champion of religious\ntoleration. Toleration was chief among the philosophic watchwords, and\nseeing that great device on her banners, the Encyclopaedic party asked no\nfurther questions. So, with the significant exception of Rousseau, they\nall abstained from the cant about the Partition which has so often been\nheard from European liberals in later days. And so with reference to\nmore questionable transactions of an earlier date, no one could guess\nfrom the writings of the philosophers that Catherine had ever been\nsuspected of uniting with her husband in a plot to poison the Empress\nElizabeth, and then uniting with her lover in a plot to strangle her\nhusband. \"I am quite aware,\" said Voltaire, \"that she is reproached with\nsome bagatelles in the matter of her husband, but these are family\naffairs with which I cannot possibly think of meddling.\"\n\n [82] _Corresp._, pp. 135, 144, etc.\n\nOne curious instance of Catherine's sensibility to European opinion is\nconnected with her relations to Diderot. Rulhiere, afterwards well known\nin literature as a historian, began life as secretary to Breteuil, in\nthe French embassy at St. Petersburg. An eyewitness of the tragedy which\nseated Catherine on the throne, he wrote an account of the events of the\nrevolution of 1762. This piquant narrative, composed by a young man who\nhad read Tacitus and Sallust was circulated in manuscript among the\nsalons of Paris (1768). Diderot had warned Rulhiere that it was\ninfinitely dangerous to speak about princes, that not everything that is\ntrue is fit to be told, that he could not be too careful of the feelings\nof a great sovereign who was the admiration and delight of her people.\nCatherine pretended that a mere secretary of an embassy could know very\nlittle about the real springs and motives of the conspiracy. Diderot had\ndescribed the manuscript as painting her in a commanding and imperious\nattitude. \"There was nothing of that sort,\" she said; \"it was only a\nquestion of perishing with a madman, or saving oneself with the\nmultitude who insisted on coming to the rescue.\" What she saw was that\nthe manuscript must be bought, and she did her best first to buy the\nauthor and then, when this failed, to have him locked up in the\nBastille. She succeeded in neither. The French government were not sorry\nto have a scourge to their hands. All that Diderot could procure from\nRulhiere was a promise that the work should not be published during the\nEmpress's lifetime. It was actually given to the world in 1797. When\nDiderot was at St. Petersburg, the Empress was importunate to know the\ncontents of the manuscript, which he had seen, but of which she was\nunable to procure a copy. \"As far as you are concerned,\" he said, \"if\nyou attach great importance, Madame, to the decencies and virtues, the\nworn-out rags of your sex, this work is a satire against you; but if\nlarge views and masculine and patriotic designs concern you more, the\nauthor depicts you as a great princess.\" The Empress answered that this\nonly increased her desire to read the book. Diderot himself truly enough\ndescribed it as a historic romance, containing a mixed tissue of lies\nand truths that posterity would compare to a chapter of Tacitus.[83]\nPerhaps the only piece of it that posterity will really value is the\npage in which the writer describes Catherine's personal appearance; her\nbroad and open brow, her large and slightly double chin, her hair of\nresplendent chestnut, her eyes of a brilliant brown into which the\nreflections of the light brought shades of blue. \"Pride,\" he says, \"is\nthe true characteristic of her physiognomy. The amiability and grace\nwhich are there too only seem to penetrating eyes to be the effect of an\nextreme desire to please, and these seductive expressions somehow let\nthe design of seducing be rather too clearly seen.\"\n\n [83] _Satire I. sur les caracteres, etc. Oeuv._, vi. 313.\n\nThe first Frenchman whom Catherine welcomed in person to her court was\nFalconet, of whose controversy with the philosopher we shall have a few\nwords to say in a later chapter. This introduction to her was due to\nDiderot. She had entreated him to find for her a sculptor who would\nundertake a colossal statue of Peter the Great. Falconet was at the\nheight of his reputation in his own country; in leaving it he seems to\nhave been actuated by no other motive than the desire of an opportunity\nof erecting an immense monument of his art, though Diderot's eloquence\nwas not wanting. Falconet had the proverbial temperament of artistic\ngenius. Diderot called him the Jean Jacques of sculpture. He had none of\nthe rapacity for money which has distinguished so many artists in their\ndealings with foreign princes, but he was irritable, turbulent,\nrestless, intractable. He was a chivalrous defender of poorer brethren\nin art, and he was never a respecter of persons. His feuds with Betzki,\nthe Empress's faithful factotum, were as acrid as the feuds between\nVoltaire and Maupertuis. Betzki had his own ideas about the statue that\nwas to do honour to the founder of the Empire, and he insisted that the\nfamous equestrian figure of Marcus Aurelius should be the model.\nFalconet was a man of genius, and he retorted that what might be good\nfor Marcus Aurelius would not be good for Peter the Great. The courtly\nbattle does not concern us, though some of its episodes offer tempting\nillustrations of biting French malice. Falconet had his own way, and\nafter the labour of many years, a colossus of bronze bestrode a charger\nrearing on a monstrous mass of unhewn granite. Catherine took the\nliveliest interest in her artist's work, frequently visiting his studio,\nand keeping up a busy correspondence. With him, as with the others, she\ninsisted that he should stand on no ceremony, and should not spin out\nhis lines with epithets on which she set not the smallest value. She may\nbe said to have encouraged him to pester her with a host of his obscure\ncountrymen in search of a living, and a little colony of Frenchmen whose\nnames tell us nothing, hung about the Russian capital. Diderot's\naccount of this group of his countrymen at St. Petersburg recalls the\npicture of a corresponding group at Berlin. \"Most of the French who are\nhere rend and hate one another, and bring contempt both on themselves\nand their nation: 'tis the most unworthy set of rascals that you can\nimagine.\"[84]\n\n [84] _Oeuv._, xx. 58.\n\nDiderot reached St. Petersburg towards the end of 1773, and he remained\nsome five months, until the beginning of March, 1774. His impulsive\nnature was shocked by a chilly welcome from Falconet, but at the palace\nhis reception was most cordial, as his arrival had been eagerly\nanticipated. The Empress always professed to detest ceremony and state.\nIn a letter to Madame Geoffrin she insists, as we have already seen her\ndoing with Falconet, on being treated to no oriental prostrations, as if\nshe were at the court of Persia. \"There is nothing in the world so ugly\nand detestable as greatness. When I go into a room, you would say that I\nam the head of Medusa: everybody turns to stone. I constantly scream\nlike an eagle against such ways; yet the more I scream, the less are\nthey at their ease.... If you came into my room, I should say to\nyou,--Madame, be seated; let us chatter at our ease. You would have a\nchair in front of me; there would be a table between us. _Et puis des\nbatons rompus, tant et plus, c'est mon fort._\"\n\nThis is an exact description of her real behaviour to Diderot. On most\ndays he was in her society from three in the afternoon until five or\nsix. Etiquette was banished. Diderot's simplicity and vehemence were as\nconspicuous and as unrestrained at Tsarskoe-selo as at Grandval or the\nRue Taranne. If for a moment the torrent of his improvisation was\nchecked by the thought that he was talking to a great lady, Catherine\nencouraged him to go on. \"_Allons_,\" she cried, \"_entre hommes tout est\npermis_.\" The philosopher in the heat of exposition brought his hands\ndown upon the imperial knees with such force and iteration, that\nCatherine complained that he made them black and blue. She was sometimes\nglad to seek shelter from such zealous enforcement of truth, behind a\nstrong table. Watchful diplomatists could not doubt that such interviews\nmust have reference to politics. Cathcart, the English ambassador,\nwrites to his government that M. Diderot is still with the Empress at\nTsarskoe-selo, \"pursuing his political intrigues.\" And, amazing as it\nmay seem, the French minister and the French ambassador both of them\nbelieved that they had found in this dreaming rhapsodical genius a\nuseful diplomatic instrument. \"The interviews between Catherine and\nDiderot follow one another incessantly, and go on from day to day. He\ntold me, and I have reasons for believing that he is speaking the truth,\nthat he has painted the danger of the alliance of Russia with the King\nof Prussia, and the advantage of an alliance with us. The Empress, far\nfrom blaming this freedom, encouraged him by word and gesture. 'You are\nnot fond of that prince,' she said to Diderot. 'No,' he replied, 'he is\na great man, but a bad king, and a dealer in counterfeit coin.' 'Oh,'\nsaid she laughing, 'I have had my share of his coin.'\"\n\nThe first Partition of Poland had been finally consummated in the Polish\nDiet in the autumn of 1773, a few weeks before Diderot's arrival at St.\nPetersburg. Lewis XV., now drawing very near to his end, and\nD'Aiguillon, his minister, had some uneasiness at this opening of the\ngreat era of territorial revolution, and looked about in a shiftless way\nfor an ally against Russia and Prussia. England sensibly refused to\nstir. Then France, as we see, was only anxious to detach Catherine from\nFrederick. All was shiftless and feeble, and the French government can\nhave known little of the Empress, if they thought that Diderot was the\nman to affect her strong and positive mind. She told Segur in later\nyears what success Diderot had with her as a politician.\n\n\"I talked much and frequently with him,\" said Catherine, \"but with more\ncuriosity than profit. If I had believed him, everything would have been\nturned upside down in my kingdom; legislation, administration,\nfinances--all to be turned topsy-turvy to make room for impracticable\ntheories. Yet as I listened more than I talked, any witness who happened\nto be present, would have taken him for a severe pedagogue, and me for\nhis humble scholar. Probably he thought so himself, for after some time,\nseeing that none of these great innovations were made which he had\nrecommended, he showed surprise and a haughty kind of dissatisfaction.\nThen speaking openly, I said to him: _Mr. Diderot, I have listened with\nthe greatest pleasure to all that your brilliant intelligence has\ninspired; and with all your great principles, which I understand very\nwell, one would make fine books, but very bad business. You forget in\nall your plans of reform the difference in our positions; you only work\non paper, which endures all things; it opposes no obstacle either to\nyour imagination or to your pen. But I, poor Empress as I am, work on\nthe human skin, which is irritable and ticklish to a very different\ndegree._ I am persuaded that from this moment he pitied me as a narrow\nand vulgar spirit. For the future he only talked about literature, and\npolitics vanished from our conversation.\"[85]\n\n [85] Segur, iii. 34.\n\nCatherine was mistaken, as we shall see, in supposing that Diderot ever\nthought her less than the greatest of men. Cathcart, the English\nambassador, writes in a sour strain: \"All his letters are filled with\npanegyrics of the Empress, whom he depicts as above humanity. His\nflatteries of the Grand Duke have been no less gross, but be it said to\nthe young prince's honour, he has shown as much contempt for such\nflatteries as for the mischievous principles of this pretended\nphilosopher.\"\n\nFrederick tells D'Alembert that though the Empress overwhelms Diderot\nwith favours, people at St. Petersburg find him tiresome and\ndisputatious, and \"talking the same rigmarole over and over again.\" In\nher letters to Voltaire, Catherine lets nothing of this be seen. She\nfinds Diderot's imagination inexhaustible, and ranks him among the most\nextraordinary men that have ever lived; she delights in his\nconversation, and his visits have given her the most uncommon pleasure.\nAll this was perhaps true enough. Catherine probably rated the\nphilosopher at his true worth as a great talker and a singular and\noriginal genius, but this did not prevent her, any more than it need\nprevent us, from seeing the limits and measure. She was not one of the\nweaker heads who can never be content without either wholesale\nenthusiasm or wholesale disparagement.\n\nDiderot had a companion who pleased her better than Diderot himself.\nGrimm came to St. Petersburg at this time to pay his first visit, and\nhad a great success. \"The Empress,\" wrote Madame Geoffrin to King\nStanislas, \"lavished all her graces on Grimm. And he has everything that\nis needed to make him worthy of them. Diderot has neither the fineness\nof perception, nor the delicate tact that Grimm has, and so he has not\nhad the success of Grimm. Diderot is always in himself, and sees nothing\nin other people that has not some reference to himself. He is a man of a\ngreat deal of understanding, but his nature and turn of mind make him\ngood for nothing, and, more than that, would make him a very dangerous\nperson in any employment. Grimm is quite the contrary.\"[86]\n\n [86] Mouy's _Corresp. du roi Stanislas_, p. 501.\n\nIn truth, as we have said before, Grimm was one of the shrewdest heads\nin the Encyclopaedic party; he had much knowledge, a judgment both solid\nand acute, and a certain easy fashion of social commerce, free from\nraptures and full of good sense. Yet he was as devoted and ecstatic in\nhis feelings about the Empress as his more impetuous friend. \"Here,\" he\nsays, \"was no conversation of leaps and bounds, in which idleness\ntraverses a whole gallery of ideas that have no connection with one\nanother, and weariness draws you away from one object to skim a dozen\nothers. They were talks in which all was bound together, often by\nimperceptible threads, but all the more naturally, as not a word of what\nwas to be said had been led up to or prepared beforehand.\" Grimm cannot\nfind words to describe her verve, her stream of brilliant sallies, her\ndashing traits, her eagle's _coup d'oeil_. No wonder that he used to\nquit her presence so electrified as to pass half the night in marching\nup and down his room, beset and pursued by all the fine and marvellous\nthings that had been said. How much of all this is true, and how much of\nit is the voice of the bewildered courtier, it might be hard to decide.\nBut the rays of the imperial sun did not so far blind his prudence, as\nto make him accept a pressing invitation to remain permanently in\nCatherine's service. When Diderot quitted St. Petersburg, Grimm went to\nItaly. After an interlude there, he returned to Russia and was at once\nrestored to high favour. When the time came for him to leave her, the\nEmpress gave him a yearly pension of two thousand roubles, or about ten\nthousand livres, and with a minute considerateness that is said not to\nbe common among the great, she presently ordered that it should be paid\nin such a form that he should not lose on the exchange between France\nand Russia. Whether she had a special object in keeping Grimm in good\nhumour, we hardly know. What is certain is that from 1776 until the fall\nof the French monarchy she kept up a voluminous correspondence with him,\nand that he acted as an unofficial intermediary between her and the\nministers at Versailles. Every day she wrote down what she wished to say\nto Grimm, and at the end of every three months these daily sheets were\nmade into a bulky packet and despatched to Paris by a special courier,\nwho returned with a similar packet from Grimm. This intercourse went on\nuntil the very height of the Revolution, when Grimm at last, in\nFebruary, 1792, fled from Paris. The Empress's helpful friendship\ncontinued to the end of her life (1796).[87]\n\n [87] _Memoire Historique_, printed in vol. i. of the new edition\n (1877) of the Correspondence of Grimm and Diderot, by M. Maurice\n Tourneux.\n\nDiderot arrived at the Hague on his return from Russia in the first week\nof April (1774), after making a rapid journey of seven hundred leagues\nin three weeks and a day. D'Alembert had been anxious that Frederick of\nPrussia should invite Diderot to visit him at Berlin. Frederick had told\nhim that, intrepid reader as he was, he could not endure to read\nDiderot's books. \"There reigns in them a tone of self-sufficiency and\nan arrogance which revolt the instinct of my freedom. It was not in such\na style that Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Gassendi, Bayle, and\nNewton wrote.\" D'Alembert replied that the king would judge more\nfavourably of the philosopher's person than of his works; that he would\nfind in Diderot, along with much fecundity, imagination, and knowledge,\na gentle heat and a great deal of amenity.[88] Frederick, however, did\nnot send the invitation, and Diderot willingly enough went homeward by\nthe northern route by which he had come. He passed Koenigsberg, where, if\nhe had known it, Kant was then meditating the Critic of Pure Reason. It\nis hardly probable that Diderot met the famous worthy who was destined\nto deal so heavy a blow to the Encyclopaedic way of thinking, and to\nleave a name not less illustrious than Frederick or Catherine. A court\nofficial was sent in charge of the philosopher. The troubles of posting\nby the sea-road between Koenigsberg and Memel had moved him to the\ncomposition of some very bad verses on his first journey; and the horror\nof crossing the Dwina inspired others that were no better on his return.\nThe weather was hard; four carriages were broken in the journey. He\nexpected to be drowned as the ice creaked under his horses' feet at\nRiga, and he thought that he had broken an arm and a shoulder as he\ncrossed the ferry at Mittau. But all ended well, and he found himself\nonce more under the roof of Prince Galitzin at the Hague. Hence he\nwrote to his wife and his other friends in Paris, that it must be a\ngreat consolation to them to know that he was only separated from them\nby a journey of four days. That journey was not taken, however, for\nnearly four months. Diderot had promised the Empress that he would\npublish a set of the regulations for the various institutions which she\nhad founded for the improvement of her realm. This could only be done,\nor could best be done, in Holland. His life there was spent as usual in\nthe slavery of proof-sheets, tempered by daily bursts of conversation,\nrhapsody, discussion, and dreamy contemplation. He made the acquaintance\nof a certain Bjoernstaehl, a professor of oriental languages at the\nuniversity of Lund in Sweden, and a few pages in this obscure writer's\nobscure book contain the only glimpse that we have of the philosopher on\nhis travels.[89] Diderot was as ecstatic in conversation, as we know him\nto have been in his correspondence, in praise of the august friend whom\nhe had left. The least of his compliments was that she united the charms\nof Cleopatra to the soul of Caesar, or sometimes it was, to the soul of\nBrutus.\n\n [88] D'Alembert au Roi de Prusse. Feb. 14, 1774.\n\n [89] _Briefe aus seinen auslaendischen Reisen_, iii. 217-233.\n (Leipsic, 1780--a German translation from the Swedish.)\n\n\"At the Hague,\" says Bjoernstaehl, \"we go about every day with M. Diderot.\nHe has views extending over an incredibly wide field, possesses a\nvivacity that I cannot describe, is pleasant and friendly in\nintercourse, and has new and unusual observations to make on every\nsubject.... Who could fail to prize him? He is so bright, so full of\ninstruction, has so many new thoughts and suggestions, that nobody can\nhelp admiring him. But willingly as he talks when one goes to him, he\nshows to little advantage in large companies, and that is why he did not\nplease everybody at St. Petersburg. You will easily see the reason why\nthis incomparable man in such companies, where people talk of fashion,\nof clothes, of frippery, and all other sorts of triviality, neither\ngives pleasure to others nor finds pleasure himself.\" And the friendly\nSwede rises to the height of generalisation in the quaint maxim, Where\nan empty head shines, there a thoroughly cultivated man comes too short.\n\nBjoernstaehl quotes a saying of Voltaire, that Diderot would have been a\npoet if he had not wished to be a philosopher--a remark that was rather\ndue perhaps to Voltaire's habitual complaisance than to any serious\nconsideration of Diderot's qualities. But if he could not be a poet\nhimself, at least he knew Pindar and Homer by heart, and at the Hague he\nnever stirred out without a Horace in his pocket. And though no poet, he\nwas full of poetic sentiment. Scheveningen, the little bathing-place a\nshort distance from the Hague, was Diderot's favourite spot. \"It was\nthere,\" he writes, \"that I used to see the horizon dark, the sea covered\nwith white haze, the waves rolling and tumbling, and far out the poor\nfishermen in their great clumsy boats; on the shore a multitude of women\nfrozen with cold or apprehension, trying to warm themselves in the sun.\nWhen the work was at an end and the boats had landed, the beach was\ncovered with fish of every kind. These good people have the simplicity,\nthe openness, the filial and fraternal piety of old time. As the men\ncome down from their boats, their wives throw themselves into their\narms, they embrace their fathers and their little ones; each loads\nhimself with fish; the son tosses his father a codfish or a salmon,\nwhich the old man carries off in triumph to his cottage, thanking heaven\nthat it has given him so industrious and worthy a son. When he has gone\nindoors, the sight of the fish rejoices the old man's mate; it is\nquickly cut in pieces, the less lucky neighbours invited, it is speedily\neaten, and the room resounds with thanks to God, and cheerful\nsongs.\"[90]\n\n [90] xvii. 449.\n\nThese scenes, with their sea-background, their animation, their broad\nstrokes of the simple, tender, and real in life, may well have been\nafter Diderot's own heart. He often told me, says Bjoernstaehl, that he\nnever found the hours pass slowly in the company of a peasant, or a\ncobbler, or any handicraftsman, but that he had many a time found them\npass slowly enough in the society of a courtier. \"For of the one,\" he\nsaid, \"one can always ask about useful and necessary things, but the\nother is mostly, so far as anything useful is concerned, empty and\nvoid.\"\n\nThe characteristics of the European capitals a century ago were believed\nto be hit off in the saying, that each of them would furnish the proper\ncure for a given defect of character. The over-elegant were to go to\nLondon, savages to Paris, bigots to Berlin, rebels to St. Petersburg,\npeople who were too sincere to Rome, the over-learned to Brussels, and\npeople who were too lively to the Hague. Yet the dulness thus charged\nagainst the Hague was not universally admitted. Impartial travellers\nassigned to the talk of cultivated circles there a rank not below that\nof similar circles in France and England. Some went even farther, and\ndeclared Holland to have a distinct advantage, because people were never\nembarrassed either by the levity and sparkling wit of France on the one\nhand, nor by the depressing reserve and taciturnity of England on the\nother.[91] Yet Holland was fully within the sphere of the great\nintellectual commonwealth of the west, and was as directly accessible to\nthe literary influences of the time as it had ever been. If Diderot had\ninquired into the vernacular productions of the country, he would have\nfound that here also the wave of reaction against French conventions,\nthe tide of English simplicity and domestic sentimentalism, had passed\ninto literature. The _Spectator_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_ inspired the\nwriters of Holland, as they had inspired Diderot himself.[92]\n\n [91] George Forster's _Ansichten vom Niederrhein_, etc. ii. 396\n (1790).\n\n [92] Jonckbloet's _Gesch. d. Niederland. Lit._ (German trans.) ii.\n 502, etc.\n\nIn erudition, it was still what, even after the death of Scaliger, it\nhad remained through the seventeenth century, the most learned state of\nEurope; and the elder Hemsterhuys, with such pupils as Ruhnken and\nValckenaer, kept up as well as he could the scholarly tradition of\nGronovius and Graevius. But the eighteenth century was not the century of\nerudition. Scholarship had given way to speculation.\n\nAmong the interesting persons whom Diderot saw at the Hague, the most\ninteresting is the amiable and learned son of the elder Hemsterhuys,\nhimself by the way not Dutch, but the son of a Frenchman. Hemsterhuys\nhad been greatly interested in what he had heard of Diderot's\ncharacter,[93] though we have no record of the impression that was made\nby personal acquaintance. If Diderot was playfully styled the French\nSocrates, the younger Hemsterhuys won from his friends the name of the\nDutch Plato. The Hollanders pointed to this meditative figure, to his\ngreat attainments in the knowledge of ancient literature and art, to his\nmellowed philosophising, to his gracious and well-bred style, as a proof\nthat their country was capable of developing both the strength and the\nsensibility of human nature to their highest point.[94] And he has a\nplace in the history of modern speculation. As we think of him and\nDiderot discussing, we feel ourselves to be placed at a point that seems\nto command the diverging streams and eddying currents of the time. In\nthis pair two great tides of thought meet for a moment, and then flow\non in their deep appointed courses. For Hemsterhuys, born a Platonist to\nthe core, became a leader of the reaction against the French philosophy\nof illumination--of sensation, of experience, of the verifiable. He\ncontributed a marked current to the mysticism and pietism which crept\nover Germany before the French revolution, and to that religious\nphilosophy which became a point of patriotic honour both in Germany and\nat the Russian Court, after the revolutionary war had seemed to identify\nthe rival philosophy of the Encyclopaedists with the victorious fury of\nthe national enemy. Jacobi, a chief of the mystic tribe, had begun the\nattack on the French with weapons avowedly borrowed from the\nsentimentalism of Rousseau, but by and by he found in Hemsterhuys more\ngenuinely intellectual arguments for his vindication of feeling and the\nheart against the Encyclopaedist claim for the supremacy of the\nunderstanding.\n\n [93] _Oeuv. Phil. de Fr. Hemsterhuys_, iii. 141. (Ed. Meyboom.)\n\n [94] Forster, ii. 398. Galiani, _Corresp._ ii. 189.\n\nDiderot's hostess at the Hague is a conspicuous figure in the history of\nthis movement. Prince Galitzin had married the daughter of Frederick's\nfield-marshal, Schmettau. Goethe, who saw her (1797) many years after\nDiderot was dead, describes her as one of those whom one cannot\nunderstand without seeing; as a person not rightly judged unless\nconsidered not only in connection, but in conflict, with her time. If\nshe was remarkable to Goethe when fifty years had set their mark upon\nher, she was even more so to the impetuous Diderot in all the flush and\nintellectual excitement of her youth. It was to the brilliance and\nversatility of the Princess Galitzin that her husband's house owed its\nconsideration and its charm. \"She is very lively,\" said Diderot, \"very\ngay, very intelligent; more than young enough, instructed and full of\ntalents; she has read; she knows several languages, as Germans usually\ndo; she plays on the clavecin, and sings like an angel; she is full of\nexpressions that are at once ingenuous and piquant; she is exceedingly\nkind-hearted.\"[95] But he could not persuade her to take his philosophy\non trust. Diderot is said, by the Princess's biographer, to have been a\nfervid proselytiser, eager to make people believe \"his poems about\neternally revolving atoms, through whose accidental encounter the\npresent ordering of the world was developed.\" The Princess met his\nbrilliant eloquence with a demand for proof. Her ever-repeated _Why?_\nand _How?_ are said to have shown \"the hero of atheism his complete\nemptiness and weakness.\"[96] In the long run Diderot was completely\nrouted in favour of the rival philosophy. Hemsterhuys became bound to\nthe Princess by the closest friendship, and his letters to her are as\nstriking an illustration as any in literature of the peculiar devotion\nand admiration which a clever and sympathetic woman may arouse in\nphilosophic minds of a certain calibre--in a Condillac, a Joubert, a\nD'Alembert, a Mill. Though Hemsterhuys himself never advanced from a\nphilosophy of religion to the active region of dogmatic professions, his\ndisciple could not find contentment on his austere heights. In the very\nyear of Diderot's death (1784) the Princess Galitzin became a catholic,\nand her son became not only a catholic but a zealous missionary of the\nfaith in America.\n\n [95] _Oeuv._, xix. 342.\n\n [96] Dr. Katerkamp's _Denkwuerdigkeiten aus dem Leben der Furstinn\n Amalie von Gallitzin_, p. 45.\n\nThis, however, was not yet. The patriotic Bjoernstaehl was very anxious\nthat Diderot should go to Stockholm, to see for himself that the\nHolstein blood was as noble in Sweden as it was in Russia. Diderot\nreplied that he would greatly have liked to see on the throne the\nsovereign (Gustavus III.) who was so nearly coming to pay him a visit on\nhis own fourth storey in Paris. But he confessed that he was growing\nhomesick, and Stockholm must remain unvisited. In September (1774)\nDiderot set his face homewards. \"I shall gain my fireside,\" he wrote on\nthe eve of his journey, \"never to quit it again for the rest of my life.\nThe time that we count by the year has gone, and the time that we must\ncount by the day comes in its stead. The less one's income, the more\nimportant to use it well. I have perhaps half a score of years at the\nbottom of my wallet. In these ten years, fluxions, rheumatisms, and the\nother members of that troublesome family will take two or three of them;\nlet us try to economise the seven that are left, for the repose and the\nsmall happinesses that a man may promise himself on the wrong side of\nsixty.\" The guess was a good one. Diderot lived ten years more, and\nalthough his own work in the world was done, they were years of great\nmoment both to France and the world. They witnessed the establishment of\na republic in the American colonies, and they witnessed the final stage\nin the decay of the old monarchy in France. Turgot had been made\ncontroller-general in the months before Diderot's return, and Turgot's\nministry was the last serious experiment in the direction of orderly\nreform. The crash that followed resounded almost as loudly at St.\nPetersburg and in Holland as in France itself, and Catherine, in 1792,\nordered all the busts of Voltaire that had adorned the saloons and\ncorridors of her palace to be thrust ignominiously down into the\ncellars.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nHELVETIUS.\n\n\nBefore proceeding to the closing chapter of Diderot's life, I propose to\ngive a short account of three remarkable books, of all of which he was\ncommonly regarded as the inspirer, which were all certainly the direct\nand natural work of the Encyclopaedic school, and which all play a\nstriking part in the intellectual commotions of the century.\n\nThe great attack on the Encyclopaedia was made, as we have already seen,\nin 1758, after the publication of the seventh volume. The same\nprosecution levelled an angrier blow at Helvetius's famous treatise,\n_L'Esprit_. It is not too much to say, that of all the proscribed books\nof the century, that excited the keenest resentment. This arose partly\nbecause it came earliest in the literature of attack. It was an\naudacious surprise. The censor who had allowed it to pass the ordeal of\nofficial approval was cashiered, and the author was dismissed from an\nhonorary post in the Queen's household.[97] The indictment described the\nbook as \"the code of the most hateful and infamous passions,\" as a\ncollection into one cover of everything that impiety could imagine,\ncalculated to engender hatred against Christianity and Catholicism. The\ncourt condemned the book to be burnt, and, as if to show that the motive\nwas not mere discontent with Helvetius's paradoxes, the same fire\nconsumed Voltaire's fine poem on Natural Religion. Less prejudiced\nauthorities thought nearly as ill of the book, as the lawyers of the\nparliament and the doctors of the Sorbonne had thought. Rousseau\npronounced it detestable, wrote notes in refutation of its principles,\nand was inspired by hatred of its doctrine to compose some of the most\nfervid pages in the Savoyard Vicar's glowing Profession of Faith.[98]\nEven Diderot, though his friendly feeling for the writer and his general\nleaning to speculative hardihood warped his judgment so far as to make\nhim rank _L'Esprit_ along with Montesquieu's _Spirit of Laws_, and\nBuffon's _Natural History_, among the great books of the century, still\nperceived and showed that the whole fabric rested on a foundation of\nparadox, and that, though there might be many truths of detail in the\nbook, very many of its general principles are false.[99] Turgot\ndescribed it as a book of philosophy without logic, literature without\ntaste, and morality without goodness.[100]\n\n [97] Barbier, vii. 137.\n\n [98] _Oeuv._, xii. 301.\n\n [99] _Ib._ ii. 267-274.\n\n [100] _Ib._ ii. 795.\n\nIn the same weighty piece of criticism, which contains in two or three\npages so much permanently valuable truth, Turgot proceeds:--\"When people\nwish to attack intolerance and injustice, it is essential in the first\nplace to rest upon just ideas, for inquisitors have an interest in being\nintolerant, and viziers and subviziers have an interest in maintaining\nall the abuses of the government. As they are the strongest, you only\ngive them a good excuse by sounding the tocsin against them right and\nleft. I hate despotism as much as most people; but it is not by\ndeclamations that despotism ought to be attacked. And even in despotism\nthere are degrees; there is a multitude of abuses in despotism, in which\nthe princes themselves have no interest; there are others which they\nonly allow themselves to practise, because public opinion is not yet\nfixed as to their injustice, and their mischievous consequences. People\ndeserve far better from a nation for attacking these abuses with\nclearness, with courage, and above all by interesting the sentiment of\nhumanity, than for any amount of eloquent reproach. Where there is no\ninsult, there is seldom any offence.... There is no form of government\nwithout certain drawbacks, which the governments themselves would fain\nhave it in their power to remedy, or without abuses which they nearly\nall intend to repress at least at some future day. We may therefore\nserve them all by treating questions of the public good in a calm and\nsolid style; not coldly, still less with extravagance, but with that\ninteresting warmth which springs from a profound feeling for justice and\nlove of order.\"[101]\n\n [101] _Oeuv._, ii. 795-798.\n\nOf course it is a question whether, even in 1758, a generation before\nthe convulsion, it was possible for the French monarchy spontaneously to\nwork out the long list of indispensable improvements; still, at that\ndate, Turgot might be excused for thinking that the progress which he\ndesired might be attained without the violence to which Helvetius's\ndiatribes so unmistakably pointed. His words, in any case, are worth\nquoting for their own grave and universal sense, and because they place\nus exactly at the point of view for regarding _L'Esprit_ rightly. He\nseizes on its political aspect, its assault on government, and the\nsocial ordering of the time, as containing the book's real drift. In\nthis, as in the rest of the destructive literature of the first sixty\nyears of the century, the church was no doubt that part of the social\nfoundations against which the assault was most direct and most\nvindictive, and it was the church, in the case of Helvetius's book, that\nfirst took alarm. Indeed, we may say that, from the very nature of\nthings, in whatever direction the revolutionary host moved, they were\nsure to find themselves confronted by the church. It lay across the\ntrack of light at every point. Voltaire pierced its dogma. Rousseau\nshamed its irreligious temper. Diderot brought into relief the vicious\nabsoluteness of its philosophy. Then came Helvetius and Holbach, not\nmerely with criticism, but with substitutes. Holbach brought a new dogma\nof the universe, matter and motion, and fortuitous shapes. Helvetius\nbrought a theory of human character, and a new analysis of\nmorals--interest the basis of justice, pleasure the true interpretation\nof interest, and character the creature of education and laws.\n\nTo press such positions as these, was to recast the whole body of\nopinions on which society rested. As the church was the organ of the old\nopinions, Helvetius's book was instantly seized by the ecclesiastical\nauthorities in accordance with a perfectly right instinct, and was made\nthe occasion for the first violent raid upon a wholesale scale. When,\nhowever, we look beyond the smoke of the ecclesiastical battle, and\nweigh _L'Esprit_ itself on its own merits, we see quite plainly that\nHelvetius was thinking less of the theological disputes of the day than\nof bringing the philosophy of sensation, the philosophy of Locke and\nCondillac, into the political field, and of deriving from it new\nstandards and new forces for social reconstruction. And in spite of its\nshallowness and paradoxes, his book did contain the one principle on\nwhich, if it had been generally accepted, the inevitable transition\nmight have taken place without a Reign of Terror.\n\nIt was commonly said, by his enemies and by his alarmed friends, that\nvanity and a restless overweening desire for notoriety was the inspiring\nmotive of Helvetius. He came from a German stock. His great-grandfather\nsettled in Holland, where he cured his patients by cunning elixirs, by\nthe powder of ground stag's horn, and the subtle virtues of crocodiles'\nteeth. His grandfather went to push his fortunes in Paris, where he\npersuaded the public to accept the healing properties of ipecacuanha,\nand Lewis XIV. (1689) gave him a short patent for that drug.[102] The\nmedical tradition of the family was maintained in a third generation,\nfor Helvetius's father was one of the physicians of the Queen, and on\none occasion performed the doubtful service to humanity of saving the\nlife of Lewis XV. Helvetius, who was born in 1715, turned aside from the\ncalling of his ancestors, and by means of the favour which his father\nenjoyed at court, obtained a position as farmer-general. This at once\nmade him a wealthy man, but wealth was not enough to satisfy him without\nfame. He made attempts in various directions, in each case following the\ncurrent of popularity for the hour. Maupertuis was the hero of a day,\nand Helvetius accordingly applied himself to become a geometer.\nVoltaire's brilliant success brought poetry into fashion, and so\nHelvetius wrote half a dozen long cantos on Happiness. Montesquieu\ncaught and held the ear of the town by _The Spirit of Laws_ (1748), and\nHelvetius was acute enough to perceive that speculation upon society\nwould be the great durable interest of his time.[103] He at once set to\nwork, and this time he set to work without hurry. In 1751 he threw up\nhis place as farmer-general, and with it an income of between two or\nthree thousand pounds a year,[104] and he then devoted himself for the\nnext seven years to the concoction of a work that was designed to bring\nhim immortal glory. \"Helvetius sweated a long time to write a single\nchapter,\" if we may believe one of his intimates. He would compose and\nrecompose a passage a score of times. More facile writers looked at him\nwith amazement in his country-house, ruminating for whole mornings on a\nsingle page, and pacing his room for hours to kindle his ideas, or to\nstrike out some curious form of expression.[105] The circle of his\nfriends in Paris amused themselves in watching his attempts to force the\nconversation into the channel of the question that happened to occupy\nhim for the moment. They gave him the satisfaction of discussion, and\nthen they drew him to express his own views. \"Then,\" says Marmontel, \"he\nthrew himself into the subject with warmth--as simple, as natural, as\nsincere as he is systematic and sophistic in his works. Nothing is less\nlike the ingenuousness of his character and ordinary life, than the\nartificial and premeditated simplicity of his works. Helvetius was the\nvery opposite in his character of what he professes to believe; he was\nliberal, generous, unostentatious, and benevolent.\"[106]\n\n [102] See Jal's _Dict. Crit._, p. 676. There is a comparison in\n _L'Esprit_, which we may assume to have been due to family\n reminiscence: \"Like those Physicians who, in their jealousy of the\n discovery of the emetic, abused the credulity of a few prelates, to\n excommunicate a remedy of which the service is so prompt and so\n salutary,\" etc.--ii. 23.\n\n [103] Hume, however, tells a story to the effect that Helvetius\n tried to dissuade Montesquieu from publishing his great book, as\n being altogether unworthy of his previous reputation.\n\n [104] Barbier v. 57.\n\n [105] Morellet, i. 71.\n\n [106] Marmontel, ii, 116.\n\nAs it happens, there is a very different picture in one of Diderot's\nwritings. While Diderot was on a journey he fell in with a lady who\nknew Helvetius's country. \"She told us that the philosopher at his\ncountry seat was the unhappiest of men. He is surrounded by peasants and\nby neighbours who hate him. They break the windows of his mansion; they\nravage his property at night; they cut his trees, and break down his\nfences. He dares not sally out to shoot a rabbit without an escort. You\nwill ask me why all this? It comes of an unbridled jealousy about his\ngame. His predecessors kept the estate in order with a couple of men and\na couple of guns. Helvetius has four-and-twenty, and yet he cannot guard\nhis property. The men have a small premium for every poacher that they\ncatch, and they resort to every possible vexation in order to multiply\ntheir sorry profit. They are, for that matter, no better than so many\npoachers who draw wages. The border of his woods was peopled with the\nunfortunate wretches who had been driven from their homes into pitiful\nhovels. It is these repeated acts of tyranny that have raised up against\nhim enemies of every kind, and all the more insolent, as Madame N. said,\nfor having found out that the good philosopher is a trifle\npusillanimous. I cannot see what he has gained by such a way of managing\nhis property; he is alone on it, he is hated, he is in a constant state\nof fright. Ah, how much wiser our good Madame Geoffrin, when she said of\na trial that tormented her: 'Finish my case. They want my money? I have\nsome; give them money. And what can I do better with money than buy\ntranquillity with it?' In Helvetius's place, I should have said: 'They\nkill a few hares, or a few rabbits; let them kill. The poor creatures\nhave no shelter save my woods, let them remain there.'\"[107]\n\n [107] Voyage a Bourbonne. _Oeuv._, xvii. 344.\n\nOn the other hand, there are well-attested stories of Helvetius's\nmunificence. There is one remarkable testimony to his wide renown for\ngood-nature. After the younger Pretender had been driven out of France,\nhe had special reasons on some occasion for visiting Paris. He wrote to\nHelvetius that he had heard of him as a man of the greatest probity and\nhonour in France, and that to Helvetius, therefore, he would trust\nhimself. Helvetius did not refuse the dangerous compliment, and he\nconcealed the prince for two years in his house.[108] He was as\nbenevolent where his vanity was less pleasantly flattered. More than one\nman of letters, including Marivaux, was indebted to him for a yearly\npension, and his house was as open to the philosophic tribe as\nHolbach's. Morellet has told us that the conversation was not so good\nand so consecutive as it was at the Baron's. \"The mistress of the house,\ndrawing to her side the people who pleased her best, and not choosing\nthe worst of the company, rather broke the party up. She was no fonder\nof philosophy than Madame Holbach was fond of it; but the latter, by\nremaining in a corner without saying a word, or else chatting in a low\nvoice with her friends, was in nobody's way; whereas Madame Helvetius,\nwith her beauty, her originality, and her piquant turn of nature, threw\nout anything like philosophic discussion. Helvetius had not the art of\nsustaining or animating it. He used to take one of us to a window, open\nsome question that he had in hand, and try to draw out either some\nargument for his own view or some objection to it, for he was always\ncomposing his book in society. Or more frequently still, he would go out\nshortly after dinner to the opera or elsewhere, leaving his wife to do\nthe honours of the house.\"[109] In spite of all this, Helvetius's social\npopularity became considerable. This, however, followed his attainment\nof celebrity, for when _L'Esprit_ was published, Diderot scarcely met\nhim twice in a year, and D'Alembert's acquaintance with him was of the\nslightest. And there must, we should suppose, have been some difficulty\nin cordially admitting even a penitent member of the abhorred class of\nfarmers-general among the esoteric group of the philosophic opposition.\nThere was much point in Turgot's contemptuous question, why he should be\nthankful to a declaimer like Helvetius, who showers vehement insults and\nbiting sarcasms on governments in general, and then makes it his\nbusiness to send to Frederick the Great a whole colony of revenue\nclerks. It was the stringent proceedings against his book that brought\nto Helvetius both vogue with the public and sympathy from the\nEncyclopaedic circle.\n\n [108] Burton's _Hume_, ii. 464.\n\n [109] Morellet, i. 141. A peculiarly graphic account of Madame\n Helvetius in her later years is to be found in Mrs. Adam's\n _Letters_, quoted in Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 429.\n\nTo us it is interesting to know that Helvetius had a great admiration\nfor England. Holbach, as we have already seen (above, vol. i. p. 270),\ndid not share this, and he explained his friend's enthusiasm by the\nassumption that what Helvetius really saw in our free land was the\npersecution that his book had drawn upon him in France.[110] Horace\nWalpole, in one of his letters, announced to Sir Horace Mann that\nHelvetius was coming to England, bringing two Miss Helvetiuses with\nfifty thousand pounds a-piece, to bestow on two immaculate members of\nour most august and incorruptible senate, if he could find two in this\nvirtuous age who would condescend to accept his money. \"Well,\" he adds,\nin a spirit of sensible protest against these unprofitable international\ncomparisons, \"we may be dupes to French follies, but they are ten times\ngreater fools to be the dupes of our virtues.\"[111] Gibbon met Helvetius\n(1763), and found him a sensible man, an agreeable companion, and the\nworthiest creature in the world, besides the merits of having a pretty\nwife and a hundred thousand livres a year. Warburton was invited to dine\nwith him at Lord Mansfield's, but he could not bring himself to\ncountenance a professed patron of atheism, a rascal, and a\nscoundrel.[112]\n\n [110] _Oeuv._, xix. 187.\n\n [111] _Corresp._, iv. 119.\n\n [112] Walpole's _Corresp._, iv. 217.\n\nLet us turn to the book which had the honour of bringing all this\ncensure upon its author. Whether vanity was or was not Helvetius's\nmotive, the vanity of an author has never accounted for the interest of\nhis public, and we may be sure that neither those who approved, nor\nthose who abhorred, would have been so deeply and so universally\nstirred, unless they had felt that he touched great questions at the\nvery quick. And, first, let a word be said as to the form of his book.\n\nGrimm was certainly right in saying that a man must be without taste or\nsense to find either the morality or the colouring of Diderot in\n_L'Esprit_. It is tolerably clear that Helvetius had the example of\nFontenelle before his eyes--Fontenelle, who had taught astronomical\nsystems in the forms of elegant literature, and of whom it was said that\n_il nous enjole a la verite_, he coaxes us to the truth. _L'Esprit_ is\nperhaps the most readable book upon morals that ever was written, for\npersons who do not care that what they read shall be scientifically\ntrue. Hume, who, by the way, had been invited by Helvetius to translate\nthe book into English, wrote to Adam Smith that it was worth reading,\nnot for its philosophy, which he did not highly value, but for its\nagreeable composition.[113] Helvetius intended that it should be this,\nand accordingly he stuffed it with stories and anecdotes. Many of them\nare very poor, many are inapposite, some are not very decent, others are\nspoiled in telling, but still stories and anecdotes they remain, and\nthey carry a light-minded reader more or less easily from page to page\nand chapter to chapter. But an ingenuous student of ethics who should\ntake Helvetius seriously, could hardly be reconciled by lively anecdotes\nto what, in his particular formula, seems a most depressing doctrine.\nMadame Roland read the celebrated book in her romantic girlhood, and her\nimpression may be taken for that of most generous natures. \"Helvetius\nmade me wretched: he annihilated the most ravishing illusions; he showed\nme everywhere repulsive self-interest. Yet what sagacity!\" she\ncontinues. \"I persuaded myself that Helvetius painted men such as they\nhad become in the corruption of society: I judged that it was good to\nfeed one's self on such an author, in order to be able to frequent what\nis called the world, without being its dupe. But I took good care not to\nadopt his principles, merely in order to know man properly so-called. I\nfelt myself capable of a generosity which he never recognises. With what\ndelight I confronted his theories with the great traits in history, and\nthe virtues of the heroes that history has immortalised.\"[114]\n\n [113] Burton, ii. 57.\n\n [114] _Oeuv. de Mdme. Roland_, i. 108.\n\nWe have ventured to say that _L'Esprit_ contained the one principle\ncapable of supplying such a system of thinking about society as would\nhave taught the French of that time in what direction to look for\nreforms. There is probably no instance in literature of a writer coming\nso close to a decisive body of salutary truth, and then losing himself\nin the by-ways of the most repulsive paradox that a perverse ingenuity\ncould devise. We are able to measure how grievous was this miscarriage\nby reflecting that the same instrument which Helvetius actually held in\nhis hand, but did not know how to use, was taken from him by a man of\ngenius in another country, and made to produce reforms that saved\nEngland from a convulsion. Nobody pretends that Helvetius discovered\nUtilitarianism. Hume's name, for instance, occurs too often in his pages\nfor even the author himself to have dreamed that his principle of\nutility was a new invention of his own. It would, as Mill has said,\nimply ignorance of the history of philosophy and of general literature\nnot to be aware that in all ages of philosophy one of its schools has\nbeen utilitarian, not only from the time of Epicurus, but long before.\nBut what is certain, and what would of itself be enough to entitle\nHelvetius to consideration, is that from Helvetius the idea of general\nutility as the foundation of morality was derived by that strong and\npowerful English thinker, who made utilitarianism the great reforming\nforce of legislation and the foundation of jurisprudence. Bentham\nhimself distinctly avowed the source of his inspiration.[115]\n\n [115] \"To that book [_L'Esprit_], Mr. Bentham has often been heard\n to say, he stood indebted for no small portion of the zeal and\n ardour with which he advocated his happiness-producing theory. It\n was from thence he took encouragement ... it was there he learned to\n persevere,\" etc. etc.--_Deontology_, i. 296.\n\nA fatal discredit fastened upon a book which yet had in it so much of\nthe root of the matter, from the unfortunate circumstance that\nHelvetius tacked the principle of utility on to the very crudest farrago\nto be found in the literature of psychology. What happened, then, was\nthat Rousseau swept into the field with a hollow version of a philosophy\nof reform, so eloquently, loftily, and powerfully enforced as to carry\nall before it. The democracy of sentimentalism took the place that ought\nto have been filled in the literature of revolutionary preparation by\nthe democracy of utility. Rousseau's fiction of the Sovereignty of the\nPeople was an arbitrary and intrinsically sterile rendering of the real\ntruth in Helvetius's ill-starred book.\n\nTo establish the proper dependence of laws upon one another, says\nHelvetius, \"it is indispensable to be able to refer them all to a single\nprinciple, such as that of _the Utility of the Public, that is to say,\nof the greatest number of men submitted to the same form of government:\na principle of which no one realises the whole extent and fertility; a\nprinciple that contains all Morality and Legislation_.\"[116]\n\n [116] _Disc._ ii. chap. xvii.\n\nA man is just when all his actions tend to the public good. \"To be\nvirtuous, it is necessary to unite nobleness of soul with an enlightened\nunderstanding. Whoever combines these gifts conducts himself by _the\ncompass of public utility_. This utility is the principle of all human\nvirtues, and the foundation of all legislations. It ought to inspire the\nlegislator, and to force the nations to submit to his laws.\"[117]\n\n [117] _Ib._ ii. 6.\n\nThe principle of public utility is invariable, though it is pliable in\nits application to all the different positions in which, in their\nsuccession, a nation may find itself.[118]\n\n [118] _Disc._ ii. 17.\n\nThe public interest is that of the greatest number, and this is the\nfoundation on which the principles of sound morality ought invariably to\nrest.[119]\n\n [119] _Ib._ ii. chap. xxiii.\n\nThese extracts, and extracts in the same sense might easily be\nmultiplied, show us the basis on which Helvetius believed himself to be\nbuilding. Why did Bentham raise upon it a fabric of such value to\nmankind, while Helvetius covered it with useless paradox? The answer is\nthat Bentham approached the subject from the side of a practical lawyer,\nand proceeded to map out the motives and the actions of men in a\nsystematic and objective classification, to which the principle of\nutility gave him the key. Helvetius, on the other hand, instead of\nworking out the principle, that actions are good or bad according as\nthey do or do not serve the public interest of the greatest number,\ncontented himself with reiterating in as many ways as possible the\nproposition that self-love fixes our measure of virtue. The next thing\nto do, after settling utility as the standard of virtue, and defining\ninterest as a term applied to whatever can procure us pleasures and\ndeliver us from pains,[120] was clearly to do what Bentham did,--to\nmarshal pleasures and pains in logical array. Instead of this,\nHelvetius, starting from the proposition that \"to judge is to feel,\"\nlaunched out into a complete theory of human character, which laboured\nunder at least two fatal defects. First, it had no root in a\ncontemplation of the march of collective humanity, and second, it\nconsidered only the purely egoistic impulses, to the exclusion of the\nopposite half of human tendencies. Apart from these radical\ndeficiencies, Helvetius fell headlong into a fallacy which has been\ncommon enough among the assailants of the principle of utility; namely,\nof confounding the standard of conduct with its motive, and insisting\nthat because utility is the test of virtue, therefore the prospect of\nself-gratification is the only inducement that makes men prefer virtue\nto vice.\n\n [120] _Ib._ ii. 1, _note_ (_b_).\n\nThis was what Madame du Deffand called telling everybody's secret. We\napprove conduct in proportion as it conduces to our interest.\nFriendship, _esprit-de-corps_, patriotism, humanity, are names for\nqualities that we prize more or less highly in proportion as they come\nmore or less close to our own happiness; and the scale of our\npreferences is in the inverse ratio of the number of those who benefit\nby the given act. If it affects the whole of humanity or of our country,\nour approval is less warmly stirred than if it were an act specially\ndevoted to our own exclusive advantage. If you want therefore to reach\nmen, and to shape their conduct for the public good, you must affect\nthem through their pleasures and pains.\n\nTo this position, which roused a universal indignation that amazed the\nauthor, there is no doubt a true side. It is worth remembering, for\ninstance, that all penal legislation, in so far as deterrent and not\nmerely vindictive, assumes in all who come whether actually or\npotentially within its sphere, the very doctrine that covered Helvetius\nwith odium. And there is more to be said than this. As M. Charles Comte\nhas expressed it: If the strength with which we resent injury were not\nin the ratio of the personal risk that we run, we should hardly have the\nmeans of self-preservation; and if the acts which injure the whole of\nhumanity gave us pain equal to that of acts that injure us directly, we\nshould be of all beings the most miserable, for we should be incessantly\ntormented by conduct that we should be powerless to turn aside. And\nagain, if the benefits of which we are personally the object did not\ninspire in us a more lively gratitude than those which we spread over\nall mankind, we should probably experience few preferences, and extend\nfew preferences to others, and in that case egoism would grow to its\nmost overwhelming proportions.[121]\n\n [121] _Traite de Legislation_, i. 243.\n\nThis aspect of Helvetius's doctrine, however, is one of those truths\nwhich is only valid when taken in connection with a whole group of\ndifferent truths, and it was exactly that way of asserting a position,\nin itself neither indefensible nor unmeaning, which left the position\nopen to irresistible attack. Helvetius's errors had various roots, and\nmay be set forth in as many ways. The most general account of it is that\neven if he had insisted on making Self-love the strongest ingredient in\nour judgment of conduct, he ought at least to have given some place to\nSympathy. For, though it is possible to contend that sympathy is only an\nindirect kind of self-love, or a shadow cast by self-love, still it is\nself-love so transformed as to imply a wholly different set of\nconvictions, and to require a different name.\n\n_L'Esprit_ is one of the most striking instances in literature of the\nimportance of care in choosing the right way of presenting a theory to\nthe world. It seems as if Helvetius had taken pains to surround his\ndoctrine with everything that was most likely to warn men away from it.\nFor example, he begins a chapter of cardinal importance with the\nproposition that personal interest is the only motive that could impel a\nman to generous actions. \"It is as impossible for him to love good for\ngood's sake as evil for the sake of evil.\" The rest of the chapter\nconsists of illustrations of this; and what does the reader suppose that\nthey are? The first is Brutus, of all the people in the world. He\nsacrificed his son for the salvation of Rome, because his passion for\nhis country was stronger than his passion as a father; and this passion\nfor his country, \"enlightening him as to the public interest,\" made him\nsee what a service his rigorous example would be to the state. The other\ninstances of the chapter point the same moral, that true virtue consists\nin suppressing inducements to gratify domestic or friendly feeling, when\nthat gratification is hostile to the common weal.[122]\n\n [122] _Disc._ ii. 5.\n\nIt may be true that the ultimate step in a strictly logical analysis\nreduces the devotion of the hero or the martyr to a deliberate\npreference for the course least painful to himself, because religion or\npatriotism or inborn magnanimity have made self-sacrifice the least\npainful course to him. But to call this heroic mood by the name of\nself-love, is to single out what is absolutely the most unimportant\nelement in the transaction, and to insist on thrusting it under the\nonlooker's eye as the vital part of the matter. And it involves the most\nperverse kind of distortion. For the whole issue and difference between\nthe virtuous man and the vicious man turns, not at all upon the fact\nthat each behaves in the way that habit has made least painful to him,\nbut upon the fact that habit has made selfishness painful to the first,\nand self-sacrifice painful to the second; that self-love has become in\nthe first case transformed into an overwhelming interest in the good of\nothers, and in the second not so. Was there ever a greater perversity\nthan to talk of self-interest, when you mean beneficence, or than to\ninsist that because beneficence has become bound up with a man's\nself-love, therefore beneficence _is_ nothing but self-love in disguise?\nAs if the fruit or the flower not only depends on a root as one of the\nconditions among others of its development, but is itself actually the\nroot! Apart from the error in logic, what an error in rhetoric, to\nsingle out the formula best calculated to fill a doctrine with odious\nassociations, and then to make that formula the most prominent feature\nin the exposition. Without any gain in clearness or definiteness or\nfirmness, the reader is deliberately misled towards a form that is\nexactly the opposite of that which Helvetius desired him to accept.\n\nIn other ways Helvetius takes trouble to wound the generous sensibility\nand affront the sense of his public. Nothing can be at once more\nscandalously cynical and more crude than a passage intended to show\nthat, if we examine the conduct of women of disorderly life from the\npolitical point of view, they are in some respects extremely useful to\nthe public. That desire to please, which makes such a woman go to the\ndraper, the milliner, and the dressmaker, draws an infinite number of\nworkmen from indigence. The virtuous women, by giving alms to mendicants\nand criminals, are far less wisely advised by their religious directors\nthan the other women by their desire to please; the latter nourish\nuseful citizens, while the former, who at the best are useless, are\noften even downright enemies to the nation.[123] All this is only a\nwordy transcript of Mandeville's coarse sentences about \"the sensual\ncourtier that sets no limits to his luxury, and the fickle strumpet that\ninvents new fashions every week.\" We cannot wonder that all people who\nwere capable either of generous feeling or comprehensive thinking turned\naside even from truth, when it was mixed in this amalgam of destructive\nsophistry and cynical illustration.\n\n [123] _Disc._ ii. 15.\n\nWe can believe how the magnanimous youth of Madame Roland and others\nwas discouraged by pages sown with mean anecdote. Helvetius tells us,\nwith genuine zest, of Parmenio saying to Philotas at the court of\nAlexander the Great--\"My son, make thyself small before Alexander;\ncontrive for him now and again the pleasure of setting thee right; and\nremember that it is only to thy seeming inferiority that thou wilt owe\nhis friendship.\" The King of Portugal charged a certain courtier to draw\nup a despatch on an affair with which he had himself dealt. Comparing\nthe two despatches, the King found the courtier's much the better of the\ntwo: the courtier makes a profound reverence, and hastens to take leave\nof his friends: \"_It is all over with me_,\" he said, \"_the King has\nfound out that I have more brains than he has_.\"[124] Only mediocrity\nsucceeds in the world. \"Sir,\" said a father to his son, \"you are getting\non in the world, and you suppose you must be a person of great merit. To\nlower your pride, know to what qualities you owe this success: you were\nborn without vices, without virtues, without character; your knowledge\nis scanty, your intelligence is narrow. Ah, what claims you have, my\nson, to the goodwill of the world.\"[125]\n\n [124] See Diderot's truer version, _Oeuv._, ii. 482.\n\n [125] _Disc._ iv. 13, etc.\n\nIt lies beyond the limits of our task to enter into a discussion of\nHelvetius's transgressions in the region of speculative ethics, from any\ndogmatic point of view. Their nature is tolerably clear. Helvetius\nlooked at man individually, as if each of us came into the world naked\nof all antecedent predispositions, and independent of the medium around\nus. Next, he did not see that virtue, justice, and the other great words\nof moral science denote qualities that are directly related to the\nfundamental constitution of human character. As Diderot said,[126] he\nnever perceived it to be possible to find in our natural requirements,\nin our existence, in our organisation, in our sensibility, a fixed base\nfor the idea of what is just and unjust, virtuous and vicious. He clung\nto the facts that showed the thousand different shapes in which justice\nand injustice clothed themselves; but he closed his eyes on the nature\nof man, in which he would have recognised their character and origin.\nAgain, although his book was expressly written to show that only good\nlaws can form virtuous men, and that all the art of the legislator\nconsists in forcing men, through the sentiment of self-love, to be just\nto one another,[127] yet Helvetius does not perceive the difficulty of\nassuming in the moralising legislator a suppression of self-love which\nhe will not concede to the rest of mankind. The crucial problem of\npolitical constitutions is to counteract the selfishness of a governing\nclass. Helvetius vaulted over this difficulty by imputing to a\nlegislator that very quality of disinterestedness whose absence in the\nbulk of the human race he made the fulcrum of his whole moral\nsystem.[128]\n\n [126] _Oeuv._, ii. 270.\n\n [127] _Disc._ ii. 24.\n\n [128] As Mr. Henry Sidgwick has put this:--\"Even the indefatigable\n patience and inexhaustible ingenuity of Bentham will hardly succeed\n in defeating the sinister conspiracy of self-preferences. In fact,\n unless a little more sociality is allowed to an average human being,\n the problem of combining these egoists into an organisation for\n promoting their common happiness, is like the old task of making\n ropes of sand. The difficulty that Hobbes vainly tried to settle\n summarily by absolute despotism, is hardly to be overcome by the\n democratic artifices of his more inventive successor.\"\n\nInto this field of criticism it is not, I repeat, our present business\nminutely to enter. The only question for us, attempting to study the\nhistory of opinion, is what Helvetius meant by his paradoxes, and how\nthey came into his mind. No serious writer, least of all a Frenchman in\nthe eighteenth century, ever sets out with anything but such an\nintention for good, as is capable of respectable expression. And we ask\nourselves what good end Helvetius proposed to himself. Of what was he\nthinking when he perpetrated so singular a misconstruction of his own\nmeaning as that inversion of beneficence into self-love of which we have\nspoken? We can only explain it in one way. In saying that it is\nimpossible to love good for good's sake, Helvetius was thinking of the\ntheologians. Their doctrine that man is predisposed to love evil for\nevil's sake, removes conduct from the sphere of rational motive, as\nevinced in the ordinary course of human experience. Helvetius met this\nby contending that both in good and bad conduct men are influenced by\ntheir interest and not by mystic and innate predisposition either to\ngood or to evil. He sought to bring morals and human conduct out of the\nregion of arbitrary and superstitious assumption, into the sphere of\nobservation. He thought he was pursuing a scientific, as opposed to a\ntheological spirit, by placing interest at the foundation of conduct,\nboth as matter of fact and of what ought to be the fact, instead of\nplacing there the love of God, or the action of grace, or the authority\nof the Church.\n\nWe may even say that Helvetius shows a positive side, which is wanting\nin the more imposing names of the century. Here, for instance, is a\npassage which in spite of its inadequateness of expression, contains an\nunmistakable germ of true historical appreciation:--\"However stupid we\nmay suppose the Peoples to be, it is certain that, being enlightened by\ntheir interests, it was not without motives that they adopted the\ncustoms that we find established among some of them. The bizarre nature\nof these customs is connected, then, with the diversity of interests\namong these Peoples. In fact, if they have always understood, in a\nconfused way, by the name of virtue the desire of public happiness; if\nthey have in consequence given the name of good to actions that are\nuseful to the country; and if the idea of utility has always been\nprivately associated with the idea of virtue, then we may be sure that\ntheir most ridiculous, and even their most cruel, customs have always\nhad for their foundation the real or seeming utility of the public\ngood.\"[129]\n\n [129] _Disc._ ii. 13.\n\nIf we contrast this with the universal fashion among Helvetius's\nfriends, of denouncing the greater portion of the past history of the\nrace, we cannot but see that, crude as is the language of such a\npassage, it contains the all-important doctrine which Voltaire,\nRousseau, and Diderot alike ignored, that the phenomena of the conduct\nof mankind, even in its most barbarous phases, are capable of an\nintelligible explanation, in terms of motive that shall be related to\ntheir intellectual forms, exactly as the motives of the most polished\nsociety are related to the intellectual forms of such a society. There\nare not many passages in all the scores of volumes written in France in\nthe eighteenth century on the origin of society where there is such an\napproach as this to the modern view.\n\nHelvetius's position was that of a man searching for a new basis for\nmorals. It was hardly possible for any one in that century to look to\nreligion for such a base, and least of all was it possible to Helvetius.\n\"It is fanaticism,\" he says in an elaborately wrought passage, \"that\nputs arms into the hands of Christian princes; it orders Catholics to\nmassacre heretics; it brings out upon the earth again those tortures\nthat were invented by such monsters as Phalaris, as Busiris, as Nero; in\nSpain it piles and lights up the fires of the Inquisition, while the\npious Spaniards leave their ports and sail across distant seas, to plant\nthe Cross and spread desolation in America. Turn your eyes to north or\nsouth, to east or west; on every side you see the consecrated knife of\nReligion raised against the breasts of women, of children, of old men,\nand the earth all smoking with the blood of victims immolated to false\ngods or to the Supreme Being, and presenting one vast, sickening,\nhorrible charnel-house of intolerance. Now what virtuous man, what\nChristian, if his tender soul is filled with the divine unction that\nexhales from the maxims of the Gospel, if he is sensible of the cries of\nthe unhappy and the outcast, and has sometimes wiped away their\ntears--what man could fail at such a sight to be touched with compassion\nfor humanity, and would not use all his endeavour to found probity, not\non principles so worthy of respect as those of religion, but on\nprinciples less easily abused, such as those of personal interest would\nbe?\"[130]\n\n [130] _Disc._ ii. 24.\n\nThis, then, is the point best worth seizing in a criticism of Helvetius.\nThe direction of morality by religion had proved a failure. Helvetius,\nas the organ of reaction against asceticism and against mysticism,\nappealed to positive experience, and to men's innate tendency to seek\nwhat is pleasurable and to avoid what is painful. The scientific\nimperfection of his attempt is plain; but that, at any rate, is what the\nattempt signified in his own mind.\n\nThe same feeling for social reform inspired the second great paradox of\n_L'Esprit_. This is to the effect that of all the sources of\nintellectual difference between one man and another, organisation is the\nleast influential. Intellectual differences are due to diversity of\ncircumstance and to variety in education. It is not felicity of\norganisation that makes a great man. There is nobody, in whom passion,\ninterest, education, and favourable chance, could not have surmounted\nall the obstacles of an unpromising nature; and there is no great man\nwho, in the absence of passion, interest, education, and certain\nchances, would not have been a blockhead, in spite of his happier\norganisation. It is only in the moral region that we ought to seek the\ntrue cause of inequality of intellect. Genius is no singular gift of\nnature. Genius is common; it is only the circumstances proper to develop\nit that are rare. The man of genius is simply the product of the\ncircumstances in which he is placed. The inequality in intelligence\n(_esprit_) that we observe among men, depends on the government under\nwhich they live, on the times in which their destiny has fallen, on the\neducation that they have received, on the strength of their desire to\nachieve distinction, and finally on the greatness and fecundity of the\nideas which they happen to make the object of their meditations.[131]\n\n [131] _Disc._ iii.\n\nHere again it would be easy to show how many qualifications are needed\nto rectify this egregious overstatement of propositions that in\nthemselves contain the germ of a wholesome doctrine. Diderot pointed out\nsome of the principal causes of Helvetius's errors, summing them up\nthus: \"The whole of this third discourse seems to imply a false\ncalculation, into which the author has failed to introduce all the\nelements that have a right to be there, and to estimate the elements\nthat are there at their right value. He has not seen the insurmountable\nbarrier that separates a man destined by nature for a given function,\nfrom a man who only brings to that function industry, interest, and\nattention.\"[132] In a work published after his death (1774), and\nentitled _De l'Homme_, Helvetius re-stated at greater length, and with a\nvariety of new illustrations, this exaggerated position. Diderot wrote\nan elaborate series of minute notes in refutation of it, taking each\nchapter point by point, and his notes are full of acute and vigorous\ncriticism.[133] Every reader will perceive the kind of answers to which\nthe proposition that character is independent of organisation lies open.\nYet here, as in his paradox about self-love, Helvetius was looking, and\nlooking, moreover, in the right direction, for a rational principle of\nmoral judgment, moral education, and moral improvement. Of the two\npropositions, though equally erroneous in theory, it was certainly less\nmischievous in practice to pronounce education and institutions to be\nstronger than original predisposition than to pronounce organisation to\nbe stronger than education and institutions. It was all-important at\nthat moment in France to draw people's attention to the influence of\ninstitutions on character; to do that was both to give one of the best\nreasons for a reform in French institutions, and also to point to the\nspirit in which such a reform should be undertaken. If Helvetius had\ncontented himself with saying that, whatever may be the force of\norganisation in exceptional natures, yet in persons of average\norganisation these predispositions are capable of being indefinitely\nmodified by education, by laws, and by institutions, then he would not\nonly have said what could not be disproved, but he would have said as\nmuch as his own object required. William Godwin drew one of the most\nimportant chapters of his once famous treatise on _Political Justice_\nfrom Helvetius, but what Helvetius exaggerated into a paradox which\nnobody in his senses could seriously accept, Godwin expressed as a\nrational half-truth, without which no reformer in education or\ninstitutions could fairly think it worth while to set to work.[134]\n\n [132] _Oeuv._ ii. 271.\n\n [133] _Ib._ ii. 275-456.\n\n [134] _Political Justice_, bk. i. chap. iv.--\"_The characters of men\n originate in their external circumstances._\"\n\nThe reader of Benjamin Constant's _Adolphe_, that sombre little study of\na miserable passion, may sometimes be reminded of Helvetius. It begins\nwith the dry surprise of youth at the opening world, for we need time,\nhe says, to accustom ourselves to the human race, such as affectation,\nvanity, cowardice, interest have made it. Then we soon learn only to be\nsurprised at our old surprise; we find ourselves very well off in our\nnew conditions, just as we come to breathe freely in a crowded theatre,\nthough on entering it we were almost stifled. Yet the author of this\nparching sketch of the distractions of an egoism that just fell short\nof being complete, suddenly flashes on us the unexpected but penetrating\nand radiant moral, _La grande question dans la vie, c'est la douleur que\nl'on cause_--the great question in life is the pain that we strike into\nthe lives of others. We are not seldom refreshed, when in the midst of\nHelvetius's narrowest grooves, by some similar breath from the wider\nair. Among the host of sayings, true, false, trivial, profound, which\nare scattered over the pages of Helvetius, is one subtle and\nfar-reaching sentence, which made a strong impression upon Bentham. \"_In\norder to love mankind_,\" he writes, \"_we must expect little from them_.\"\nThis might, on the lips of a cynic, serve for a formula of that kind of\nmisanthropy which is not more unamiable than it is unscientific. But in\nthe mouth of Helvetius it was a plea for considerateness, for\nindulgence, and, above all, it was meant for an inducement to patience\nand sustained endeavour in all dealings with masses of men in society.\n\"Every man,\" he says, \"so long as his passions do not obscure his\nreason, will always be the more indulgent in proportion as he is\nenlightened.\" He knows that men are what they must be, that all hatred\nagainst them is unjust, that a fool produces follies just as a wild\nshrub produces sour berries, that to insult him is to reproach the oak\nfor bearing acorns instead of olives.[135] All this is as wise and\nhumane as words can be so, and it really represents the aim and temper\nof Helvetius's teaching. Unfortunately for him and for his generation,\nhis grasp was feeble and unsteady. He had not the gift of accurate\nthinking, and his book is in consequence that which, of all the books of\nthe eighteenth century, unites most of wholesome truth with most of\nrepellent error.\n\n [135] _Disc._ ii. 10.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nHOLBACH'S SYSTEM OF NATURE.\n\n\nThe _System of Nature_ was published in 1770, eight years before the\ndeath of Voltaire and of Rousseau, and it gathered up all the scattered\nexplosives of the criticism of the century into one thundering engine of\nrevolt and destruction. It professed to be the posthumous work of\nMirabaud, who had been secretary to the Academy. This was one of the\ncommon literary frauds of the time. Its real author was Holbach. It is\ntoo systematic and coherently compacted to be the design of more than\none man, and it is too systematic also for that one man to have been\nDiderot, as has been so often assumed. At the same time there are good\nreasons for believing that not only much of its thought, but some of the\npages, were the direct work of Diderot. The latest editor of the\nheedless philosopher has certainly done right in placing among his\nmiscellanea the declamatory apostrophe which sums up the teachings of\nthis remorseless book. The rumour imputing the authorship to Diderot was\nso common, and Diderot himself was so disquieted by it, that he actually\nhastened away from Paris to his native Langres and to the Baths of\nBourbonne, in order to be ready to cross the frontier at the first hint\nof a warrant being out against him.[136] Diderot has recorded his\nadmiration of his friend's work. \"I am disgusted,\" he said, \"with the\nmodern fashion of mixing up incredulity and superstition. What I like is\na philosophy that is clear, definite, and frank, such as you have in the\n_System of Nature_. The author is not an atheist in one page, and a\ndeist in another. His philosophy is all of one piece.\"[137]\n\n [136] _Oeuv._, xvii. 329.\n\n [137] _Ib._ ii. 398.\n\nNo book has ever produced a more widespread shock. Everybody insisted on\nreading it, and almost everybody was terrified. It suddenly revealed to\nmen, like the blaze of lightning to one faring through darkness, the\nformidable shapes, the unfamiliar sky, the sinister landscape, into\nwhich the wanderings of the last fifty years had brought them\nunsuspecting. They had had half a century of such sharp intellectual\ndelight as had not been known throughout any great society in Europe\nsince the death of Michael Angelo, and had perhaps north of the Alps\nnever been known at all. And now it seemed to many of them, as they\nturned over the pages of Holbach's book, as if they stood face to face\nwith the devil of the mediaeval legend, come to claim their souls. Satire\nof Job and David, banter about Joshua's massacres and Solomon's\nconcubines, invective against blind pastors of blinder flocks, zeal to\nplace Newton on the throne of Descartes and Locke upon the pedestal of\nMalebranche, wishes that the last Jansenist might be strangled in the\nbowels of the last Jesuit--all this had given zest and savour to life.\nIn the midst of their high feast, Holbach pointed to the finger of their\nown divinity, Reason, writing on the wall the appalling judgments that\nthere is no God; that the universe is only matter in spontaneous\nmovement; and, most grievous word of all, that what men call their souls\ndie with the death of the body, as music dies when the strings are\nbroken.\n\nGaliani, the witty Neapolitan, who had so many good friends in the\nphilosophic circle, anticipated the well-known phrase of a writer of our\nown day. \"The author of the _System of Nature_,\" he said, \"is the Abbe\nTerrai of metaphysics: he makes deductions, suspensions of payment, and\ncauses the very Bankruptcy of knowledge, of pleasure, and of the human\nmind. But you will tell me that, after all, there were too many rotten\nsecurities; that the account was too heavily overdrawn; that there was\ntoo much worthless paper on the market. That is true, too, and that is\nwhy the crisis has come.\"[138] Goethe, then a student at Strasburg, has\ntold us what horror and alarm the _System of Nature_ brought into the\ncircle there. \"But we could not conceive,\" he says, \"how such a book\ncould be dangerous. It came to us so gray, so Cimmerian, so corpse-like,\nthat we could hardly endure its presence; we shuddered before it as if\nit had been a spectre. It struck us as the very quintessence of musty\nage, savourless, repugnant.\"[139]\n\n [138] _Corresp. de Galiani_, i. 142.\n\n [139] _Wahrheit und Dichtung_, bk. xi.\n\nIf this was the light in which the book appeared to the young man who\nwas soon to be the centre of German literature, the brilliant veteran\nwho had for two generations been the centre of the literature of France\nwas both shocked by the audacity of the new treatise, and alarmed at the\nperil in which it involved the whole Encyclopaedic brotherhood, with the\nPatriarch at their head. Voltaire had no sooner read the _System of\nNature_ than he at once snatched up his ever-ready pen and plunged into\nrefutation.[140] At the same time he took care that the right persons\nshould hear what he had done. He wrote to his old patron and friend\nRichelieu, that it would be a great kindness if he would let the King\nknow that the abused Voltaire had written an answer to the book that all\nthe world was talking about. I think, he says, that it is always a good\nthing to uphold the doctrine of the existence of a God who punishes and\nrewards; society has need of such an opinion. There is a curious\ndisinterestedness in the notion of Lewis the Fifteenth and Richelieu,\ntwo of the wickedest men of their time, being anxious for the\ndemonstration of a _Dieu vengeur_. Voltaire at least had a very keen\nsense of the meaning of a court that rewarded and punished. The author\nof the _System of Nature_, he wrote to Grimm, ought to have felt that he\nwas undoing his friends, and making them hateful in the eyes of the king\nand the court.[141] This came true in the case of the great\nphilosopher-king himself. Frederick of Prussia was offended by a book\nwhich spared political superstitions as little as theological dogma, and\ntreated kings as boldly as it treated priests. Though keenly occupied in\nwatching the war then waging between Russia and Turkey, and already\nrevolving the partition of Poland, he found time to compose a defence of\ntheism. 'Tis a good sign, Voltaire said to him, when a king and a plain\nman think alike: their interests are often so hostile, that when their\nideas do agree, they must certainly be right.[142]\n\n [140] See the article _Dieu_ in the _Dict. Philosophique_.\n\n [141] Voltaire's _Corr._, Nov. 1, 1770.\n\n [142] July 27, 1770.\n\nThe philosophic meaning of Holbach's propositions was never really\nseized by Voltaire. He is, as has been justly said, the representative\nof ordinary common sense which, with all its declamations and its\nappeals to the feelings, is wholly without weight or significance as\nagainst a philosophic way of considering things, however humble the\nphilosophy may be.[143] He hardly took more pains to understand Holbach\nthan Johnson took to understand Berkeley. In truth it was a\ncharacteristic of Voltaire always to take the social, rather than the\nphilosophic view of the great issues of the theistic controversy. One\nday, when present at a discussion as to the existence of a deity, in\nwhich the negative was being defended with much vivacity, he astonished\nthe company by ordering the servants to leave the room, and then\nproceeding to lock the door. \"Gentlemen,\" he explained, \"I do not wish\nmy valet to cut my throat to-morrow morning.\" It was not the truth of\nthe theistic belief in itself that Voltaire prized, but its supposed\nutility as an assistant to the police. D'Alembert, on the other hand,\nviewed the dispute as a matter of disinterested speculation. \"As for the\nexistence of a supreme intelligence,\" he wrote to Frederick the Great,\n\"I think that those who deny it advance far more than they can prove,\nand scepticism is the only reasonable course.\" He goes on to say,\nhowever, that experience invincibly proves both the materiality of the\nsoul, and a material deity--like that which Mr. Mill did not\nrepudiate--of limited powers, and dependent on fixed conditions.[144]\n\n [143] Lange's _Gesch. d. Materialismus_, i. 369; where the author\n shows how entirely Voltaire failed to touch Holbach's position as to\n the meaning of Order in the universe.\n\n [144] _Oeuv._, v. 296, 303, etc.\n\nLet us now turn to the book itself. And first, as to its author. The\nreader of the _New Heloisa_ will remember that the heroine, after her\nrepentance and her marriage, has only one chagrin in the world; that is\nthe blank disbelief of her husband in the two great mysteries of a\nSupreme Being and another world. Wolmar, the husband, has always been\nsupposed to stand for Rousseau's version of Holbach, and Holbach would\nhardly have complained of the portrait. The Wolmar of the novel is\nbenevolent, active, patient, tranquil, friendly, and trustful. The\nnicely combined conjunction of the play of circumstance with the action\nof men pleases him, just as the fine symmetry of a statue or the\nskilful contrivance of dramatic effects would please him. If he has any\ndominant passion, it is a passion for observation; he delights in\nreading the hearts of men.[145]\n\n [145] _Nouvelle Heloise_, IV. xii.\n\nAll this seems to have been as true of the real Holbach as of the\nimaginary Wolmar. We have already seen him as the intimate friend and\nconstant host of Diderot. He was one of the best-informed men of his\ntime (1723-89). He had an excellent library, a collection of pictures,\nand a valuable cabinet of natural history; and his poorer friends were\nas freely welcome to the use of all of them as the richest. His manners\nwere cheerful, courteous, and easy; he was a model of simplicity, and\nkindliness was written on every feature. His hospitality won him the\nwell-known nickname of the maitre d'hotel of philosophy, and his house\nwas jestingly called the Cafe de l'Europe. On Sundays and Thursdays,\nwithout prejudice to other days, from ten to a score of men of letters\nand eminent foreign visitors, including Hume, Wilkes, Shelburne,\nGarrick, Franklin, Priestley, used to gather round his good dishes and\nexcellent wine. It was noted, as a mark of the attractiveness of the\ncompany, that the guests, who came at two in the afternoon, constantly\nremained until as late as seven and eight in the evening. To one of\nthose guests, who afterwards became the powerful enemy of the\nEncyclopaedic group, the gaiety, the irreverence, the hardihood of\nspeculation and audacity of discourse, were all as gall and wormwood.\nRousseau found their atheistic sallies offensive beyond endurance. Their\nhard rationalism was odious to the great emotional dreamer, and after he\nhad quarrelled with them all, he transformed his own impressions of the\ndreariness of atheism into the passionate complaint of Julie. \"Conceive\nthe torment of living in retirement with the man who shares our\nexistence, and yet cannot share the hope that makes existence dear; of\nnever being able with him either to bless the works of God, or to speak\nof the happy future that is promised us by the goodness of God; of\nseeing him, while doing good on every side, still insensible to\neverything that makes the delight of doing good; of watching him, by the\nmost bizarre of contradictions, think with the impious, and yet live\nlike a Christian. Think of Julie walking with her husband; the one\nadmiring in the rich and splendid robe of the earth the handiwork and\nthe bounteous gifts of the author of the universe; the other seeing\nnothing in it all save a fortuitous combination, the product of blind\nforce! Alas! she cries, the great spectacle of nature, for us so\nglorious, so animated, is dead in the eyes of the unhappy Wolmar, and in\nthat great harmony of being where all speaks of God in accents so mild\nand so persuasive, he only perceives eternal silence.\"[146]\n\n [146] _Nouvelle Heloise_, V. v.\n\nYet it is fair to the author of this most eloquent Ignoratio Elenchi, to\nnotice that he honestly fulfilled the object with which he professed to\nset out--namely, to show to both the religious and philosophical\nparties that their adversaries were capable of leading upright, useful,\nand magnanimous lives. Whether he would have painted the imaginary\nWolmar so favourably if he could have foreseen what kind of book the\nreal Holbach had in his desk, is perhaps doubtful. For Holbach's\nopinions looked more formidable and sombre in the cold deliberateness of\nprint than they had sounded amid the interruptions of lively discourse.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt is needless to say, to begin with, that the writer has the most\nmarked of the philosophic defects of the school of the century. Perhaps\nwe might put it more broadly, and call the disregard of historic opinion\nthe natural defect of all materialistic speculation from Epicurus\ndownwards.[147] Like all others of his school, Holbach has no perception\nnor sense of the necessity of an explanation how the mental world came\nto be what it is, nor how men came to think and believe what they do\nthink and believe. He gives them what he deems unanswerable reasons for\nchanging their convictions, but he never dreams of asking himself in\nwhat elements of human character the older convictions had their root,\nand from what fitness for the conduct of life they drew the current of\ntheir sap. Yet unless this aspect of things had been well considered,\nhis unanswerable reasons were sure to fall wide of the mark. Opinions,\nas men began to remember, after social movement had thrown the logical\ncentury into discredit, have a history as well as a logic. They are\nbound up with a hundred transmitted prepossessions, and they have become\nidentified with a hundred social customs that are the most dearly\ncherished parts of men's lives. Nature had as much to do with the\ndarkness of yesterday as with the light of to-day; she is as much the\naccomplice of superstition as she is the oracle of reason. It was\nbecause they forgot all this that Holbach's school now seem so shallow\nand superficial. The whole past was one long working of the mystery of\niniquity. \"The sum of the woes of the human race was not diminished--on\nthe contrary, it was increased by its religions, by its governments, by\nits opinions, in a word, by all the institutions that _it was led to\nadopt_ on the plea of ameliorating its lot.\"[148] _On lui fit adopter!_\nBut who were the _on_, and how did they work? With what instruments and\nwhat fulcrum? Never was the convenience of this famous abstract\nsubstantive more fatally abused. And if religion, government, and\nopinion had all aggravated the miseries of the human race, what had\nlessened them? For the Encyclopaedic school never attempted, as Rousseau\ndid, to deny that the world had, as a matter of fact, advanced towards\nhappiness. It was because the Holbachians looked on mankind as slaves\nheld in an unaccountable bondage, which they must necessarily be eager\nto throw off, that their movement, after doing at the Revolution a\ncertain amount of good in a bad way, led at last to a mischievous\nreaction in favour of Catholicism.\n\n [147] See Lange, i. 85.\n\n [148] _Syst. de la Nat._, I. xvi.\n\nFar more immediately significant than the philosophy of the _System of\nNature_ were the violence, directness, and pertinacity of its assault\nupon political government. Voltaire, as has so often been noticed, had\nalways abstained from meddling with either the theory or the practical\nabuses of the national administration. All his shafts had been levelled\nat ecclesiastical superstition. Rousseau, indeed, had begun the most\nfamous of his political speculations by crying that man, who was born\nfree, is now everywhere in chains. But Rousseau was vague, abstract, and\nsentimental. In the _System of Nature_ we have a clear presage of the\ntrenchant and imperious invective which, twenty years after its\npublication, rang in all men's ears from the gardens of the Palais Royal\nand the benches of the Jacobins' Hall. The writer has plainly made up\nhis mind that the time has at last come for dropping all the discreet\nmachinery of apologue and parable, and giving to his words the edge of a\nsharpened sword. The vague disguises of political speculation, and the\nmannered reservations of a Utopia or New Atlantis, are exchanged for a\npassionate, biting, and loudly practical indictment. All over the world\nmen are under the yoke of masters who neglect the instruction of their\npeople, or only seek to cheat and deceive them. The sovereigns in every\npart of the globe are unjust, incapable, made effeminate by luxury,\ncorrupted by flattery, depraved by license and impunity, destitute of\ntalent, manners, or virtue. Indifferent to their duties, which they\nusually know nothing about, they are scarcely concerned for a single\nmoment of the day with the well-being of their people; their whole\nattention is absorbed by useless wars, or by the desire to find at each\ninstant new means of gratifying their insatiable rapacity. The state of\nsociety is a state of war between the sovereign and all the rest of its\nmembers. In every country alike the morality of the people is wholly\nneglected, and the one care of the government is to render them timorous\nand wretched. The common man desires no more than bread; he wins it by\nthe sweat of his brow; joyfully would he eat it, if the injustice of the\ngovernment did not make it bitter in his mouth. By the insanity of\ngovernments, those who are swimming in plenty, without being any the\nhappier for it, yet wring from the tiller of the soil the very fruits\nthat his arms have won from it. Injustice, by reducing indigence to\ndespair, drives it to seek in crime resources against the woes of life.\nAn iniquitous government breeds despair in men's souls; its vexations\ndepopulate the land, the fields remain untilled, famine, contagion, and\npestilence stalk over the earth. Then, embittered by misery, men's minds\nbegin to ferment and effervesce, and what inevitably follows is the\noverthrow of a realm.[149]\n\n [149] _Syst. de la Nat._, I. xiv., xvi., etc. etc.\n\nIf France had been prosperous, all this would have passed for the empty\ndeclamation of an excited man of letters. As it was, such declamation\nonly described, in language as accurate as it was violent and stinging,\nthe real position of the country. In the urgency of a present material\ndistress, men were not over-careful that the basis of the indictment\nshould be laid in the principles of a sound historical philosophy of\nsociety. We can hardly wonder at it. What is interesting, and what we do\nnot notice earlier in the century, is that in the _System of Nature_ the\nrevolt against the impotence of society, and the revolt against the\nomnipotence of God, made a firm coalition. That coalition came to a\nbloody end for the time, four-and-twenty years after Holbach's book\nproclaimed it, when the Committee of Public Safety despatched Hebert,\nand better men than Hebert, to the guillotine for being atheists.\nAtheism, as Robespierre assured them, was aristocratic.\n\nHolbach's work may be said to spring from the doctrine that the social\ndeliverance of man depends on his intellectual deliverance, and that the\nkey to his intellectual deliverance is only to be found in the\nsubstitution of Naturalism for Theism. What he means by Naturalism we\nshall proceed shortly to explain. The style, we may remark,\nnotwithstanding the energy and coherence of the thought, is often\ndiffuse and declamatory. Some one said of the _System of Nature_, that\nit contained at least four times too many words. Yet Voltaire, while\nprofessing extreme dislike of its doctrine, admitted that the writer had\nsomehow caught the ear of the learned, of the ignorant, and of women.\n\"He is often clear,\" said Voltaire, \"and sometimes eloquent, yet he may\njustly be reproached with declamation, with repeating himself, and with\ncontradicting himself, like all the rest of them.\"[150] Galiani made an\nover-subtle criticism on it, when he complained of the want of coolness\nand self-possession in the style, and then said that it looked as if the\nwriter were pressed less to persuade other people than to persuade\nhimself. This was a crude impression. Nobody can have any doubt of the\nwriter's profound sincerity, or of his earnest desire to make\nproselytes. He knows his own mind, and hammers his doctrines out with a\nhard and iterative stroke that hits its mark. Yet his literary tone, in\nspite of its declamatory pitch, not seldom sinks into a drone. Holbach's\ncontemporaries were in too fierce contact with the tusks and hooked\nclaws of the Church, to have any mind for the rhythm of a champion's\nsentences or the turn of his periods. But now that the efforts of the\nheterodox have taught the Churches to be better Christians than they\nwere a hundred years ago, we can afford to admit that Holbach is hardly\nmore captivating in style, and not always more edifying in temper, than\nsome of the Christian Fathers themselves.\n\n [150] _Dict. Phil._, s. v. Dieu, Sec. 4.\n\nWhat then is the system of Nature, and what is that Naturalism which is\nto replace the current faith in the deities outside of observable\nnature? The writer makes no pretence of feeling a tentative way towards\nan answer. From the very outset his spirit is that of dogmatic\nconfidence. He is less a seeker than an expounder; less a philosopher\nthan a preacher; and he boldly dismisses proof in favour of exhortation.\n\n\"Let man cease to search outside the world in which he dwells for beings\nwho may procure him a happiness that nature refuses to grant; let him\nstudy that nature, let him learn her laws, and contemplate the energy\nand the unchanging fixity with which she acts; let him apply his\ndiscoveries to his own felicity, and submit in silence to laws from\nwhich nothing can withdraw him; let him consent to ignore the causes,\nsurrounded as they are for him by an impenetrable veil; let him undergo\nwithout a murmur the decrees of universal force.\"\n\n_Science derived from experience is the source of all wise action._ It\nis physical science (_la physique_), and experience, that man ought to\nconsult in religion, morals, legislature, as well as in knowledge and\nthe arts. It is by our senses that we are bound to universal nature; it\nis by our senses that we discover her secrets. The moment that we first\nexperience them we fall into a void where our imagination leads us\nendlessly astray.\n\n_Movement is what establishes relations between our organs and external\nobjects._ Every object has laws of movement that are peculiar to itself.\nEverything in the universe is in movement; no part of nature is really\nat rest.[151]\n\n [151] Holbach confesses his obligation on this head to Toland's\n _Letters to Serena_ (1704).\n\n_Whence does nature receive this movement?_ From herself, since she is\nthe great whole, outside of which consequently nothing can exist. Motion\nis a fashion of being which flows necessarily from the essence of\nmatter; matter moves by its own energy; its motion is due to forces\ninherent in it; the variety of its movements, and of the phenomena\nresulting from them, comes from variation of the properties, the\nqualities, the combinations, originally found in the different primitive\nmatters of which nature is the assemblage.\n\n_Whence came matter?_ Matter has existed from all eternity, and a motion\nis one of the inherent and constitutive qualities of matter; motion also\nhas existed from eternity.\n\n_The abstract idea of matter must be decomposed._ Instead of regarding\nmatter as a unique existence, rude, passive, incapable of moving itself,\nof combining itself, we ought to look upon it as a Kind of existence, of\nwhich the various individual members comprising the Kind, in spite of\ntheir having some common properties, such as extension, divisibility,\nfigure, etc., still ought not to be ranged in a single class, nor\ncomprised in a single denomination.\n\n_What is nature's process? Continual movement._ From the stone which is\nformed in the bowels of the earth by the intimate combination, as they\napproach one another, of analogous and similar molecules, up to the sun,\nthat vast reservoir of heated particles that gives light to the\nfirmament; from the numb oyster up to man--we observe an uninterrupted\nprogression, a perpetual chain of combination and movements, from which\nthere result beings that only differ among one another by the variety of\ntheir elementary matters, and of the combination and proportion of these\nelements. From this variety springs an infinite diversity of ways of\nexisting and acting. In generation, nutrition, preservation, we can see\nnothing but different sorts of matter differently combined, each of them\nendowed with its own movements, each of them regulated by fixed laws\nthat cause them to undergo the necessary changes.\n\nLet us notice here three of the author's definitions. (1.) _Motion is an\neffort, by which a body changes or tends to change its place._ (2.) Of\nthe ultimate composition of Matter, Holbach says nothing definite,\nthough he assumes molecular movement as its first law. He contents\nhimself, properly enough perhaps in view of the destination of his\ntreatise, with a definition \"relatively to us.\" Relatively to us, then,\n_Matter in general is all that affects our senses in any fashion\nwhatever; and the qualities that we attribute to different kinds of\nmatter, are founded on the different impressions that they produce on\nus_. (3.) \"When I say that Nature produces an effect, I do not mean to\npersonify this Nature, which is an abstraction; I mean that the effect\nof which I am speaking is the necessary result of the properties of some\none of those beings that compose the great whole under our eyes. Thus,\nwhen I say that Nature intends man to work for his own happiness, I mean\nby this that it is of the essence of a being who feels, thinks, wills,\nand acts, to work for his own happiness. By Essence I mean that which\nconstitutes a being what it is, the sum of its properties, or the\nqualities according to which it exists and acts as it does.\"\n\n_All phenomena are necessary._ No creature in the universe, in its\ncircumstances and according to its given property, can act otherwise\nthan as it does act. Fire necessarily burns whatever combustible matter\ncomes within the sphere of its action. Man necessarily desires what\neither is, or seems to be, conducive to his comfort and wellbeing. There\nis no independent energy, no isolated cause, no detached activity, in a\nuniverse where all beings are incessantly acting on one another, and\nwhich is itself only one eternal round of movement, imparted and\nundergone, according to necessary laws. In a storm of dust raised by a\nwhirlwind, in the most violent tempest that agitates the ocean, not a\nsingle molecule of dust or of water finds its place by _chance_; or is\nwithout an adequate cause for occupying the precise point where it is\nfound. So, again, in the terrible convulsions that sometimes overthrow\nempires, there is not a single action, word, thought, volition, or\npassion in a single agent of such a revolution, whether he be a\ndestroyer or a victim, which is not necessary, which does not act\nprecisely as it must act, and which does not infallibly produce the\neffects that it is bound to produce, conformably to the place occupied\nby the given agent in the moral whirlwind.[152]\n\n [152] Almost the very words of this passage are to be found in\n Diderot. See above, vol. i. p. 237.\n\n_Order and disorder are abstract terms, and can have no existence in a\nNature, where all is necessary and follows constant laws._ Order is\nnothing more than necessity viewed relatively to the succession of\nactions. Disorder in the case of any being is nothing more than its\npassage to a new order; to a succession of movements and actions of a\ndifferent sort from those of which the given being was previously\nsusceptible. Hence there can never be either monsters or prodigies,\neither marvels or miracles, in nature. By the same reasoning, we have no\nright to divide the workings of nature into those of Intelligence and\nthose of Chance. Where all is necessary, Chance can mean nothing save\nthe limitation of man's knowledge.\n\nThe writer next has a group of chapters (vi.-x.) on Man, his\ncomposition, relations, and destiny. The chief propositions are in\nrigorous accord with the general conceptions that have already been set\nforth. All that man does, and all that passes in him, are effects of the\nenergy that is common to him with the other beings known to us. But,\nbefore a true and comprehensive idea of the unity of nature was possible\nto him, he was so seized by the variety and complication of his organism\nand its movements that it never came into his mind to realise that they\nexisted in a chain of material necessity, binding him fast to all other\nforces and modes of being. Men think that they remedy their ignorance of\nthings by inventing words; so they explained the working of matter, in\nman's case, by associating with matter a hypothetical substance, which\nis in truth much less intelligible than matter itself. They regarded\nthemselves as double; a compound of matter and something else\nmiraculously united with it, to which they give the name of _mind_ or\n_soul_, and then they proudly looked on themselves as beings apart from\nthe rest of creation. In plain truth, Mind is only an _occult force_,\ninvented to explain occult qualities and actions, and really explaining\nnothing. By Mind they mean no more than the unknown cause of phenomena\nthat they cannot explain naturally, just as the Red Indians believed\nthat it was spirits who produced the terrible effects of gunpowder, and\njust as the ignorant of our own day believe in angels and demons. How\ncan we figure to ourselves a form of being, which, though not matter,\nstill acts on matter, without having points of contact or analogy with\nit; and on the other hand itself receives the impulsions of matter,\nthrough the material organs that warn it of the presence of external\nobjects? How can we conceive the union of body and soul, and how can\nthis material body enclose, bind, constrain, determine a fugitive form\nof being, that escapes every sense? To resolve these difficulties by\ncalling them mysteries, and to set them down as the effects of the\nomnipotence of a Being still more inconceivable than the human Soul\nitself, is merely a confession of absolute ignorance.\n\nIt is worth noticing that with the characteristic readiness of the\nFrench materialist school to turn metaphysical and psychological\ndiscussion to practical uses, Holbach discerned the immense new field\nwhich the materialist account of mind opened to the physician. \"If\npeople consulted experience instead of prejudice, medicine would furnish\nmorality with the key of the human heart; and in curing the body, it\nwould be often assured of curing the mind too.... The dogma of the\nspirituality of the soul has turned morality into a conjectural science,\nwhich does not in the least help us to understand the true way of acting\non men's motives.... Man will always be a mystery for those who insist\non regarding him with the prejudiced eyes of theology, and on\nattributing his actions to a principle of which they can never have any\nclear ideas\" (ch. ix.). It is certainly true as a historical fact that\nthe rational treatment of insane persons, and the rational view of\ncertain kinds of crime, were due to men like Pinel, trained in the\nmaterialistic school of the eighteenth century. And it was clearly\nimpossible that the great and humane reforms in this field could have\ntaken place before the decisive decay of theology. Theology assumes\nperversity as the natural condition of the human heart, and could only\nregard insanity as an intolerable exaggeration of this perversity.\nSecondly, the absolute independence of mind and body which theology\nbrought into such overwhelming relief naturally excluded the notion\nthat, by dealing with the body, you might be doing something to heal the\nmind. Perhaps we are now in some danger of overlooking the potency of\nthe converse illustration of what Holbach says: namely, the efficacy of\nmental remedies or preventives in the case of bodily disease.\n\nIf you complain--to resume our exposition--that the mechanism is not\nsufficient to explain the principle of the movements and faculties of\nthe soul, the answer is, that it is in the same case with all the bodies\nin nature. In them the simplest movements, the most ordinary phenomena,\nthe commonest actions, are inexplicable mysteries, whose first\nprinciples are for ever sealed to us. How shall we flatter ourselves\nthat we know the first principle of gravity, by virtue of which a stone\nfalls? What do we know of the mechanism that produces the attraction of\nsome substances, and the repulsion of others? But surely the\nincomprehensibility of natural effects is no reason for assigning to\nthem a cause that is still more incomprehensible than any of those\nwithin our cognisance.\n\nIt is not given to man to know everything; it is not given to him to\nknow his own origin, nor to penetrate into the essence of things, nor to\nmount up to the first principle of things. What is given to him is to\nhave reason, to have good faith, to concede frankly that he is ignorant\nof what he cannot know, and not to supplement his lack of certainty by\nwords that are unintelligible, and suppositions that are absurd.\n\nSuns go out and planets perish; new suns are kindled, and new planets\nrevolve in new paths; and man--infinitely small portion of a globe that\nis itself only a small point in immensity--dreams that it is for him\nthat the universe has been made, imagines that he must be the confidant\nof nature, and proudly flatters himself that he must be eternal! O man,\nwilt thou never conceive that thou art but an insect of a day? All\nchanges in the universe; nature contains not a form that is constant;\nand yet thou wouldst claim that thy species can never disappear, and\nmust be excepted from the great universal law of incessant change!\n\nWe may pause for a moment to notice how, in their deliberate humiliation\nof the alleged pride of man, the orthodox theologian and the atheistic\nHolbach use precisely the same language. But the rebuke of the latter\nwas sincere; it was indispensable in order to prepare men's minds for\nthe conception of the universe as a whole. With the theologian the\nrebuke has now become little more than a hollow shift, in order to\ninsinuate the miracle of Grace. The preacher of Naturalism replaces a\nfutile vanity in being the end and object of the creation, by a fruitful\nreverence for the supremacy of human reason, and a right sense of the\nvalue of its discreet and disciplined use. The theologian restores this\nabsurd and misleading egoism of the race, by representing the Creator as\nabove all else concerned to work miracles for the salvation of a\ncreature whose understanding is at once pitifully weak and odiously\nperverse, and whose heart is from the beginning wicked, corrupt, and\ngiven over to reprobation. The difference is plainly enormous. The\ntheologian discourages men; they are to wait for the miracle of\nconversion, inert or desperate. The naturalist arouses them; he supplies\nthem with the most powerful of motives for the energetic use of the most\npowerful of their endowments. \"Men would always have Grace,\" says\nHolbach, with excellent sense, \"if they were well educated and well\ngoverned.\" And he exclaims on the strange morality of those who\nattribute all moral evil to Original Sin, and all the good that we do to\nGrace. \"No wonder,\" he says, \"that a morality founded on hypotheses so\nridiculous should prove to be of no efficacy.\"[153]\n\n [153] Ch. xi.\n\nThis brings us to Holbach's treatment of Morals. The moment had come to\nFrance, which was reached at an earlier period in English speculation,\nwhen the negative course of thought in metaphysics drove men to consider\nthe basis of ethics. How were right and wrong to hold their own against\nthe new mechanical conception of the Universe? The same question is\nagain urgent in men's minds, because the Darwinian hypothesis, and the\nmass of evidence for it, have again given a tremendous shake to\ntheological conceptions, and startled men into a sense of the\nprecariousness of the official foundations of virtue and duty.\n\nHolbach begins by a most unflinching exposure of the inconsistency with\nall that we know of nature, of the mysterious theory of Free Will. This\nremains one of the most effective parts of the book, and perhaps the\nwork has never been done with a firmer hand. The conclusion is\nexpressed with a decisiveness that almost seems crude. There is declared\nto be no difference between a man who throws himself out of the window\nand the man whom I throw out, except this, that the impulse acting on\nthe second comes from without, and that the impulse determining the fall\nof the first comes from within his own mechanism. You have only to get\ndown to the motive, and you will invariably find that the motive is\nbeyond the actor's own power or reach. The inexorable logic with which\nthe author presses the Free-Willer from one retreat to another, and from\nshift to shift, leaves his adversary at last exactly as naked and\ndefenceless before Holbach's vigorous and thoroughly realised Naturalism\nas the same adversary must always be before Jonathan Edwards's vigorous\ntheism. \"The system of man's liberty,\" Holbach says (II. ii.), with some\npungency, \"seems only to have been invented in order to put him in a\nposition to offend his God, and so to justify God in all the evil that\nhe inflicted on man, for having used the freedom which was so\ndisastrously conferred upon him.\"\n\nIf man be not free, what right have we to punish those who cannot help\ncommitting bad actions, or to reward others who cannot help committing\ngood actions? Holbach gives to this and the various other ways of\ndescribing fatalism as dangerous to society, the proper and perfectly\nadequate answer. He turns to the quality of the action, and connects\nwith that the social attitude of praise and blame. Merit and demerit\nare associated with conduct, according as it is thought to affect the\ncommon welfare advantageously or the reverse. My indignation and my\napproval are as necessary as the acts that excite these sentiments. My\nfeelings are neither more nor less spontaneous than the deciding motives\nof the actor. Whatever be the necessitating cause of our actions, I have\na right to do my best by praise and blame, by reward and punishment, to\nstrengthen or to weaken, to prolong or to divert, the motives that are\nthe antecedents of the action; exactly as I have a right to dam up a\nstream, or to divert its course, or otherwise deal with it to suit my\nown convenience. Penal laws, for instance, are ways of offering to men\nstrong motives, to weigh in the scale against the temptation of an\nimmediate personal gratification. Holbach does not make it quite\ndistinct that the object of penal legislation is in some cases to give\nthe offender, as well as other people, a strong reason for thinking\ntwice before he repeats the offence; yet in other cases, where the\npunishment is capital, the legislation does not aim at influencing the\nmind of the offender at all, but the minds of other people only. This is\nonly a side illustration of a common weakness in most arguments on this\nsubject. A thorough vindication of the penal laws, on the principles of\na systematic fatalism, can only be successful, if we think less of the\nwrongdoer in any given case, than of affecting general motives, and\nbuilding up a right habit of avoiding or accepting certain classes of\naction.\n\nThe writer then justly connects his scientific necessarianism in\nphilosophy with humanity in punishment. He protests against excessive\ncruelty in the infliction of legal penalties, and especially against the\nuse of torture, on two grounds; first, that experience demonstrates the\nuselessness of these superfluous rigours; and, second, that the habit of\nwitnessing atrocious punishments familiarises both criminals and others\nwith the idea of cruelty. The acquiescence of Paris for a few months in\nthe cruelties of the Terror was no doubt due, on Holbach's perfectly\nsound principle, to the far worse cruelties with which the laws had\ndaily made Paris familiar down to the last years of the monarchy. And\nHolbach was justified in expecting a greater degree of charitable and\nconsiderate judgment from the establishment in men's minds of a\nNecessarian theory. We are no longer vindictive against the individual\ndoer; we wax energetic against the defective training and the\ninstitutions which allowed wrong motives to weigh more heavily with him\nthan right ones. Punishment on the theory of necessity ought always to\ngo with prevention, and is valued just because it is a force on\nprevention, and not merely an element in retribution.\n\nHolbach answers effectively enough the common objection that his\nfatalism would plunge men's souls into apathy. If all is necessary, why\nshall I not let things go, and myself remain quiet? As if we _could_\nstay our hands from action, if our feelings were trained to proper\nsensibility and sympathy. As if it were possible for a man of tender\ndisposition not to interest himself keenly in all that concerns the lot\nof his fellow-creatures. How does our knowledge that death is necessary\nprevent us from deploring the loss of a beloved one? How does my\nconsciousness that it is the inevitable property of fire to burn,\nprevent me from using all my efforts to avert a conflagration?\n\nFinally, when people urge that the doctrine of necessity degrades man by\nreducing him to a machine, and likening him to some growth of abject\nvegetation, they are merely using a kind of language that was invented\nin ignorance of what constitutes the true dignity of man. What is nature\nitself but a vast machine, in which our human species is no more than\none weak spring? The good man is a machine whose springs are adapted so\nto fulfil their functions as to produce beneficent results for his\nfellows. How could such an instrument not be an object of respect and\naffection and gratitude?\n\nIn closing this part of Holbach's book, while not dissenting from his\nconclusions, we will only remark how little conscious he seems of the\ndegree to which he empties the notions of praise and blame of the very\nessence of their old contents. It is not a modification, but the\nsubstitution of a new meaning under the old names. Praise in its new\nsense of admiration for useful and pleasure-giving conduct or motive, is\nas powerful a force and as adequate an incentive to good conduct and\ngood motives, as praise in the old sense of admiration for a deliberate\nand voluntary exercise of a free-acting will. But the two senses are\ndifferent. The old ethical association is transformed into something\nwhich usage and the requirements of social self-preservation must make\nequally potent, but which is not the same. If Holbach and others who\nhold necessarian opinions were to perceive this more frankly, and to\nwork it out fully, they would prevent a confusion that is very\nunfavourable to them in the minds of most of those whom they wish to\npersuade. It is easy to see that the work next to be done in the region\nof morals, is the readjustment of the ethical phraseology of the\nvolitional stage, to fit the ideas proper to the stage in which man has\nbecome as definitely the object of science as any of the other phenomena\nof the universe.\n\nThe chapter (xiii.) on the Immortality of the Soul examines this\nmemorable growth of human belief with great vigour, and a most\ndestructive penetration. As we have seen, the author repudiates the\ntheory of a double energy in man, one material and the other spiritual,\njust as he afterwards repudiates the analogous hypothesis of a double\nenergy in nature, one of the two being due to a spiritual mover outside\nof the external phenomena of the universe. Consistently with this\nrenunciation of a separate spiritual energy in man, Holbach will listen\nto no talk of a spiritual energy surviving the destruction of the\nmechanical framework. To say that the soul will feel, think, enjoy,\nsuffer, after the death of the body, is to pretend that a clock broken\ninto a thousand pieces can continue to strike or to mark the hours. And\nhaving emphatically proclaimed his own refusal to share the common\nbelief, he proceeds with good success to carry the war into the country\nof those who profess that belief, and defend it as the safeguard of\nsociety. We need not go through his positions. They are substantially\nthose which are familiar to everybody who has read the Third Book of\nLucretius's poem, and remembers those magnificent passages which are not\nmore admirable in their philosophy than they are noble and moving in\ntheir poetic expression:--\n\n Nam veluti pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis\n In tenebris metuunt, sic nos in luce timemus\n Interdum, nilo quae sunt metuenda magis quam\n Quae pueri in tenebris pavitant finguntque futura.\n Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest\n Non radii solis neque lucida tela diei\n Discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.\n\nAnd so forth, down to the exquisite lines--\n\n \"Jam jam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxoi\n Optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati\n Praeripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent.\n Non poteris factis florentibus esse, tuisque\n Praesidium. Misero misere,\" aiunt, \"omnia ademit\n Una dies infesta tibi tot praemia vitae.\"\n Illud in his rebus non addunt, \"nec tibi earum\n Jam desiderium rerum super insidet una.\"\n Quod bene si videant animo dictisque sequantur,\n Dissolvant animi magno se angore metuque.\n \"Tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris aevi\n Quod superest cunctis privatu' doloribus aegris:\n At nos horrifico cinefactum te prope busto\n Insatiabiliter deflevimus, aeternumque\n Nulla dies nobis maerorem e pectore demet.\"\n Illud ab hoc igitur quaerendum est, quid sit amari\n Tanto opere, ad somnum si res redit atque quietem,\n Cur quisquam aeterno possit tabescere luctu.\n\nWe may regret that Holbach, in dealing with these solemn and touching\nthings, should have been so devoid of historic spirit as to buffet\nDavid, Mahomet, Chrysostom, and other holy personages, as superstitious\nbrigands. And we may believe that he has certainly been too sweeping in\ndenying any deterrent efficacy whatever to the fires of hell. But where\nHolbach found one person in 1770, he would find a thousand in 1880, to\nagree with him, that it is possible to think of commendations and\ninducements to virtue, that shall be at least as efficacious as the\nfiction of eternal torment, without being as cruel, as wicked, as\ninfamous to the gods, and as degrading to men.\n\nFrom his attack on Immortality, Holbach naturally turns with new energy,\nas do all who have passed beyond that belief, to the improvement of the\neducation, the laws, the institutions, which are to strengthen and\nimplant the true motives for turning men away from wrong and inspiring\nthem to right. He draws a stern and prolonged indictment against the\nkings of the earth, in words that we have already quoted above, as\nunjust, incapable, depraved by license and impunity. One passage in this\nchapter is the scripture of a terrible prophecy, the very handwriting on\nthe wall, which was to be so accurately fulfilled almost in the lifetime\nof the writer:--\"The state of society is now a state of war of the\nSovereign against all, and of each of its members against the other. Man\nis bad, not because he was born bad, but because he is made so; the\ngreat and the powerful crush with impunity the needy and the\nunfortunate, and these in turn seek to repay all the ill that has been\ndone to them. They openly or privily attack a native land that is a\ncruel stepmother to them; she gives all to some of her children, while\nothers she strips of all. Sorely they punish her for her partiality;\nthey show her that the motives borrowed from another life are powerless\nagainst the passions and the bitter wrath engendered by a corrupt\nadministration in the life here; and that all the terror of the\npunishments of this world is impotent against necessity, against\ncriminal habits, against a dangerous organisation that no education has\never been applied to correct\" (ch. xiv.). In another place: \"A society\nenjoys all the happiness of which it is susceptible so soon as the\ngreater number of its members are fed, clothed, housed; are able, in a\nword, without an excessive toil, to satisfy the wants that nature has\nmade necessities to them. Their imagination is content so soon as they\nhave the assurance that no force can ravish from them the fruits of\ntheir industry, and that they labour for themselves. By a sequence of\nhuman madness, whole nations are forced to labour, to sweat, to water\nthe earth with their tears, merely to keep up the luxury, the fancies,\nthe corruption of a handful of insensates, a few useless creatures. So\nhave religious and political errors changed the universe into a valley\nof tears.\" This is an incessant refrain that sounds with hoarse\nground-tone under all the ethics and the metaphysics of the book. There\nare scores of pages in which the same idea is worked out with a sombre\nvehemence, that makes us feel as if Robespierre were already haranguing\nin the National Assembly, Camille Desmoulins declaiming in the gardens\nof the Palais Royal, and Danton thundering at the Club of the\nCordeliers. We already watch the smoke of the flaming chateaux, going up\nlike a savoury and righteous sacrifice to the heavens.\n\nFrom this point to the end of the first part of the book, it is not so\nmuch philosophy as the literature of a political revolution. There is a\ncurious parenthesis in vindication not only of a contempt for death, but\neven of suicide; the writer pointing out with some malice that Samson,\nEleazar, and other worthies caused their own death, and that Jesus\nChrist himself, if really the Son of God, dying of his own free grace,\nwas a suicide, to say nothing of the various ascetic penitents who have\nkilled themselves by inches.[154] \"The fear of death, after all,\" he\nsays, summing up his case, \"will only make cowards; the fear of its\nalleged consequences will only make fanatics or melancholy pietists, as\nuseless to themselves as to others. Death is a resource that we do ill\nto take away from oppressed virtue, reduced, as many a time it is, by\nthe injustice of men to desperation.\" This was the doctrine in which the\nrevolutionary generation were brought up, and the readiness with which\nmen in those days inflicted death on themselves and on others showed how\nprofoundly it had entered their souls.[155] We think, as we read, of\nVergniaud and Condorcet carrying their doses of poison, of Barbaroux\nwith his pistol, and Valaze with his knife, of Roland walking forth from\nRouen among the trees on the Paris road, and there driving a cane-sword\ninto his breast, as calmly as if he had been throwing off a useless\nvesture.\n\n [154] This is not original in Holbach. Diderot's article on Suicide\n in the Encyclopaedia (_Oeuv._, xvii. 235) contains the usual\n arguments of the Church against suicide, with some casuistic\n illustrations, but it also contains an account of Dr. Donne's\n vindication of Suicide, called _Bia-thanatos_, 1651, in which these\n remarks of Holbach occur verbatim. Hallam found Donne's book so dull\n and pedantic that he declares no one would be induced to kill\n himself by reading such a book unless he were threatened with\n another volume.\n\n [155] Hume's suppressed Essay on Suicide (see the edition by Mr.\n Green and Mr. Grose, 1875, vol. ii. 405) is a much more exhaustive\n argument than Holbach's, though the language of the two pieces is\n sometimes curiously alike. Rousseau in this, as in so many other\n moralities--marriage, for instance--was on the side of the Church,\n only allowing suicide where a man happens to be stricken by a\n painful and incurable disease. See the two famous letters in the\n _New Heloisa_, Pt. iii. 21, 22.\n\nHolbach has been accused of reducing virtue to a far-sighted\negoism,[156] and detached and crude propositions may be quoted, that\nperhaps give a literal warrant for the charge. Nominally he bases\nmorality on happiness, but his real base is the happiness of the\ngreatest number. To borrow Mr. Sidgwick's classification, Holbach is a\nuniversalistic and not an egoistic Hedonist. The spirit of what he says\nis, in fact, not individualist but social. \"The good man is he to whom\ntrue ideas have shown his own interest or his own happiness to lie in\nsuch a way of acting, that others are forced to love and approve for\ntheir own interest.... It is man who is most necessary to the well-being\nof man.... Merit and virtue are founded on the nature of man, on his\nneeds.... It is by virtue that we are able to earn the goodwill, the\nconfidence, the esteem, of all those with whom we have relations; in a\nword, no man can be happy alone.... To be virtuous is to place one's\ninterest in what accords with the interest of others; it is to enjoy the\nbenefits and the delights that one is the means of diffusing among\nthem.... The sentiments of self-love become a hundred times more\ndelicious when we see them shared by all those with whom our destiny\nbinds us. The habit of virtue excites wants within us that only virtue\ncan satisfy; thus it is that virtue is ever its own recompense, and pays\nitself with the blessings that it procures for others\" (ch. xv.)\n\n [156] Taine's _Ancien Regime_, p. 287.\n\nSurely it is a childish or pedantic misinterpretation to represent this\nas egoism, whether armed or not with keen sight; and still worse to talk\nof it as over-throwing the barriers that keep in the throng of selfish\nappetites. \"Every citizen should be made to feel that the section of\nwhich he is a member is a Whole, that cannot subsist and be happy\nwithout virtue; experience should teach him at every moment that the\nwellbeing of the members can only result from that of the whole body\"\n(ch. xv.) To say of such a doctrine as this, that it is to invite every\nindividual to make himself happy after his own will and fashion, and to\npull down the barriers of the selfish appetites, is the very absurdity\nof philosophic prejudice. It is for us to look at Holbach's ethical\ndoctrine in its widest practical application, and if we place ourselves\nat a social point of view, we cannot but perceive that the principle\nlaid down in the words that we have just quoted, was the indispensable\nweapon against the anti-social selfishness of the oppressive privileged\nclass. These words represent the ethical side of every popular and\ndemocratic movement. You may class Holbach's morality as the morality of\nself-interest, if you please; but its true base lay in social sympathy.\nTo proclaim happiness as the test of virtue was to develop the doctrine\nof naturalism; for happiness is the outcome of a conformity to the\nnatural condition of things. On the other hand, to insist that virtue\nlies in promoting the happiness of the body social as a whole, was to\npreach the most sovereign of all truths, in a state of things where the\nbody social as a whole was kept distracted and miserable by the\nselfishness of a scanty few of its members. The Church, nominally built\nupon the morality of the Golden Rule, was perverted into being the great\norgan of sinister self-interest. The Atheists, apparently formulating\nthe morality of the Epicureans, were in effect the teachers of public\nspirit and beneficence. And, taught in such circumstances, public\nspirit could only mean revolution. We may doubt whether Holbach had\nthought out the very different questions that may be fused under the\neasy phrase of a basis for morals. What are the sanctions of moral\nprecepts? Why ought each to seek the happiness of all? What is the mark\nof the difference between right and wrong? What is the foundation of\nConscience, or that habit of mind which makes right as such seem\npreferable to wrong? Clearly these are all entirely separate topics. Yet\nHolbach, it is obvious, had not divided them in his own mind, and he\nseems to think that one and the same answer will serve for what he\nmistook for one and the same question. He found it enough to say that\nevery individual wishes to be happy, and that he cannot be happy unless\nhe is on good terms with his neighbours; this reciprocity of needs and\nservices he called the basis of morals. For a rough and common-sense\nview of the matter, such as Holbach sought to impress on his readers,\nthis perhaps will do very well; but it is not the product of accurate\nand scientific thinking.\n\nIt is not necessary, again, to point out how Holbach, while expounding\nthe System of Nature, left out of sight the great natural process by\nwhich the moral acquisition of one generation becomes the starting-point\nof further acquisitions in the next. He forgot the stages. He talks of\nMan as if all the races and eras of man were alike, and also as if each\nindividual deliberately worked out sums in happiness on his own\naccount. It would not only have been more true, according to modern\nopinions, but more in accordance with Holbach's own view of necessity,\nand of the irremovable chain that binds a man's conduct fast to a series\nof conditions that existed before he was born, if he had recognised\nconscience, moral preferences, interest in the public good, and all that\nhe called the basis of morals, as coming to a man with the rest of the\napparatus that the past imposes on the present, and not as due to any\nprocess of personal calculation.\n\nHolbach had not clearly thought out the growth, the changes, varieties,\nand transformations among moral ideals. He was, of course, far too much\nin the full current of the eighteenth century not to feel that\nexultation in life and its most exuberant manifestations, which the\nconventional moralists of the theological schools had set down and\nproscribed as worldliness and fleshliness. \"_Action_,\" he says in this\nvery chapter; \"_action is the true element of the human mind_; no sooner\ndoes man cease to act, than he falls into pain and weariness of spirit.\"\nNo doubt this is too absolutely stated, if we are to take some millions\nof orientals into our account of the human mind, but it has been true of\nthe nations of the west. Yet the recognition of this law did not prevent\nthe writer from occasionally falling into some of the old canting\ncommonplaces about people being happiest who have fewest wants. As if,\non the contrary, that action which he describes as the true element of\nman, were not directly connected with the incessant multiplication of\nwants. We may take this, however, as a casual lapse into the common form\nof moralists of ascetic ages. In substance the _System of Nature_ is\nessentially a protest against ascetic and quietist ideals.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe second half of the _System of Nature_ treats of the Deity; the\nproofs of his existence; his attributes; the manner in which he\ninfluences the happiness of men. What is remarkable is that here we have\nan onslaught, not merely on the Church with its overgrowth of abuses,\nnor on Christianity with its overgrowth of superstitions, but on that\ngreat conception which is enthroned on unseen heights far above any\nChurch and any form of Christianity. It is theism, in its purest as in\nits impurest shape, that the writer condemns. No more elaborate,\ntrenchant, and unflinching attack on the very fundamental propositions\nof theology, natural or revealed, is to be found in literature. Pure\nrationalism has nothing to add to this destructive onslaught. The tone\nis not truly philosophic, because the writer habitually regards the\nnotion of a God as an abnormal and morbid excrescence, and not as a\nnatural growth in human development. He takes no trouble, and it would\nhave been an incredible departure from the mental fashion of the time if\nhe had taken any trouble, to explain theology, or to penetrate behind\nits forms to those needs, aspirations, and qualities of human\nconstitution in which theology had its best justification, if not its\nearliest source. He regards it as an enemy to be mercilessly routed,\nnot as a force with which he has to make his account. Still, as a piece\nof rough and remorseless polemic, the second part of the _System of\nNature_ remains full of remarkable energy and power. The most eager\nNescient or Denier to be found in the ranks of the assailants of\ntheology in our own day is timorous and moderate compared with this\ndirect and on-pressing swordsman. And the attack, on its own purely\nrationalistic ground, is thoroughly comprehensive. It is not made on an\noutwork here, or an outwork there; it encircles the whole compass of the\ndefence. The conception of God is examined and resisted from every\npossible side--cosmological, ethical, metaphysical. To say that the\nargument is one-sided, is only to say that it is an attack. But the fact\nthat the writer omits the contributions made under the temporal shelter\nof theology to morality and civilisation, does not alter the other fact\nthat he states with unsurpassed vigour all that can be said against the\nintellectual absurdities and moral obliquities that theology has\nnourished and approved, and only too firmly planted.\n\nOf the elaborate examination of the proofs of the existence of a God\nadduced by Descartes, Samuel Clarke, Malebranche, and Newton (ch. iv.\nand v.), we need only say that its whole force might have been summed up\nin the single proposition that the author once for all repudiates any _a\npriori_ basis for any beliefs whatever. It would have been sufficient\nfor philosophic purposes if he had contented himself with justifying\nand establishing that position. The fabric of orthodox demonstration\nwould have fallen to the ground after the destruction of its\nfoundations. Holbach rejected the whole _a priori_ system; it was a\nmatter of course therefore that he rejected each one of the twelve\npropositions which Clarke had invented by the _a priori_ method. Holbach\nheld that experience is the source and limit of knowledge, reasoning,\nand belief, and rejected as a fantastic impertinence of dreamy\nmetaphysicians the assumption that our conceptions measure the\nnecessities of objective existence. From that point of view, merely to\nstate was to empty of all demonstrating quality such assertions as that\nsomething has existed from all eternity; an independent and immutable\nBeing has existed from all eternity; this immutable and independent\nBeing exists by himself, and is incomprehensible; the Being existing\nnecessarily is necessarily single and unique--and so forth. Even if we\naccept this _a priori_ method, and accept the first assumption that\nsomething must have existed from all eternity, it was open to Holbach to\nsay, as Locke said on setting himself to examine Descartes' proof of a\nGod: \"I found that, by it, senseless matter might be the first eternal\nbeing and cause of all things, as well as an immaterial intelligent\nspirit.\" But what we feel is that the whole controversy is being\nconducted between two disputants on two different planes of thought,\nbetween two creatures dwelling in different elements. To apply to\nClarke's propositions, or to the slightly different propositions of\nMalebranche, the test of experience, to measure them by the principle of\nrelativity, must be fatal in the minds of such persons as already accept\nexperience as the only right test in such a matter. It is exactly as if\nthe action of an Italian opera should be criticised in the light of the\nconditions of real life: the whole performance must in an instant figure\nas an absurdity. No partisan of the lyric drama would consent to have it\nso judged, and the philosophic partisans of theology would perhaps have\nbeen wiser to keep clear of pretensions to _prove_ their master thesis.\nThey might have been content to keep it as an emotional creation, an\nimaginative hypothesis, a noble simplification of the chimeras of the\nprimitive consciousness of the race.\n\nAs it was, neither side could be convinced by the other, for they had no\ncommon criterion. They had hardly even a common language. The only\neffect of Holbach's blows was to persuade the bystanders who thronged\nround the lists in that eager time, that the so-called proofs with which\nthe high philosophic names were associated, were only proofs to those\nwho accepted a way of thinking which it was the very characteristic of\nthat age decisively to reject. The controversial force of this part of\nthe attack simply lay in the piercing thoroughness with which the\nirreconcilable discrepancies between the seventeenth century notion of\ndemonstration, and that notion in the eighteenth, were forced upon the\nreader's attention.\n\nOne other remark may be made. Whatever we may think of the success of\nthe author's assault on the theistic hypothesis of the universe, it is\nimpossible to deny that he at least succeeds in repelling the various\nassaults levelled on what is vulgarly termed atheism. He rightly urges\nthe unreasonableness of taxing those who have formed to themselves\nintelligible notions of the moving power of the universe, with denying\nthe existence of such a power; the absurdity of charging the very men\nwho found everything that comes to pass in the world on fixed and\nconstant laws, with attributing everything to chance. If by Atheist, he\nsays, you mean a man who would deny the existence of a force inherent in\nmatter, and without which you cannot conceive nature, and if to this\nmoving force you give the name of God, then an Atheist would be a\nmadman. Holbach then describes the sense in which Atheists both exist\nand, as he thinks, may well justify their existence. Their qualities are\nas follows: To be guided only by experience and the testimony of their\nsenses, and to perceive nothing in nature except matter, essentially\nactive and mobile and capable of producing all the beings that we see;\nto forego all search for a chimerical cause, and not to mistake for\nbetter knowledge of the moving force of the universe, merely a separate\nattribution of it to a Being placed outside of the great whole; to\nconfess in good faith that their mind can neither conceive nor reconcile\nthe negative attributes and theological abstractions with the human and\nmoral qualities that are ascribed to the Divinity.\n\nThe chapter (ix.) on the superiority of Naturalism over Theism as a\nbasis for the most wholesome kind of Morality, is still worth reading by\nmen in search of weapons against the presumptuous commonplaces of the\npulpit. In this sphere Holbach is as earnest and severe as the most\nrigorous moralist that ever wrote. People who talk of the moral levity\nof the destructive literature of the eighteenth century would be\nastonished, if they could bring themselves to read the books about which\nthey talk, by the elevation of the _System of Nature_. The writer points\nout the necessarily evil influence upon morals of a Book popularly taken\nto be inspired, in which the Divinity is represented as now prescribing\nvirtue, but now again prescribing crime and absurdity; who is sometimes\nthe friend, and sometimes the enemy, of the human race; who is sometimes\npictured as reasonable, just, and beneficent, and at other times as\ninsensate: unjust, capricious, and despotic. Such divinities, and the\npriests of such divinities, are incapable of being the models, types,\nand arbiters of virtue and righteousness. No; we must seek a base for\nmorality in the necessity of things. Whatever the Cause that placed man\nin the abode in which he dwells, and endowed him with his\nfaculties--whether we regard the human species as the work of Nature, or\nof some intelligent Being distinct from Nature--the existence of man,\nsuch as we see him to be, is a fact. We see in him a being who feels,\nthinks, has intelligence, has self-love, who strives to make life\nagreeable to himself, and who lives in society with beings like\nhimself; beings whom by his conduct he may make his friends or his\nenemies. It is on these universal sentiments that you ought to base\nmorality, which is nothing more nor less than the science of the duties\nof man living in society. The moment you attempt to find a base for\nmorals outside of human nature, you go wrong; no other is solid and\nsure. The aid of the so-called sanctions of theology is not only\nneedless, but mischievous. The alliance of the realities of duty with\ntheological phantoms exposes duty to the same ruin which daylight brings\nto the superstition that has been associated with duty. It sets up the\narbitrary demands of a varying something, named Piety, in place of the\nplain requirements of Right. As for saying that without God man cannot\nhave moral sentiments, or, in other words, cannot distinguish between\nvice and virtue, it is as if one said that, without the idea of God, man\nwould not feel the necessity of eating and drinking.\n\nThe writer then breaks out into a long and sustained contrast, from\nwhich we may make a short extract to illustrate the heat to which the\nbattle had now come:\n\n\"Nature invites man to love himself, incessantly to augment the sum of\nhis happiness: Religion orders him to love only a formidable God who is\nworthy of hatred; to detest and despise himself, and to sacrifice to his\nterrible idol the sweetest and most lawful pleasures. Nature bids man\nconsult his reason, and take it for his guide: Religion teaches him that\nthis reason is corrupted, that it is a faithless, truthless guide,\nimplanted by a treacherous God, to mislead his creatures. Nature tells\nman to seek light, to search for the truth: Religion enjoins upon him to\nexamine nothing, to remain in ignorance. Nature says to man: 'Cherish\nglory, labour to win esteem, be active, courageous, industrious:'\nReligion says to him: 'Be humble, abject, pusillanimous, live in\nretreat, busy thyself in prayer, meditation, devout rites; be useless to\nthyself, and do nothing for others.' Nature proposes for her model, men\nendowed with noble, energetic, beneficent souls, who have usefully\nserved their fellow-citizens: Religion makes a show and a boast of the\nabject spirits, the pious enthusiasts, the phrenetic penitents, the vile\nfanatics, who for their ridiculous opinions have troubled empires....\nNature tells children to honour, to love, to hearken to their parents,\nto be the stay and support of their old age: Religion bids them prefer\nthe oracle of their God, and to trample father and mother under foot,\nwhen divine interests are concerned. Nature commands the perverse man to\nblush for his vices, for his shameless desires, his crimes: Religion\nsays to the most corrupt: 'Fear to kindle the wrath of a God whom thou\nknowest not: but if against his laws thou hast committed crime, remember\nthat he is easy to appease and of great mercy: go to his temple, humble\nthyself at the feet of his ministers, expiate thy misdeeds by\nsacrifices, offerings, prayers; these will wash away thy stain in the\neyes of the Eternal.'\"\n\nOf course, philosophical criticism would have much to say about this\nglowing mass of furious propositions; for the first voice of Nature\nhardly whispers into the ear of the primitive man all these high and\ngenerous promptings. But if by Nature we here understand the\nEncyclopaedists, and by Religion the Catholic Church in France at that\nmoment, then Holbach's fiery antitheses are a tolerably fair account of\nthe matter. And the political side of the indictment was hardly less\njust, though its hardihood appalled men like Voltaire.\n\n\"Nature says to man, 'Thou art free, and no power on earth can lawfully\nstrip thee of thy rights:' Religion cries to him that he is a slave\ncondemned by God to groan under the rod of God's representatives. Nature\nbids man to love the country that gave him birth, to serve it with all\nloyalty, to bind his interests to hers against every hand that might be\nraised upon her: Religion commands him to obey without a murmur the\ntyrants that oppress his country, to take their part against her, to\nchain his fellow-citizens under their lawless caprices. Yet if the\nSovereign be not devoted enough to his priests, Religion instantly\nchanges her tone; she incites the subjects to rebellion, she makes\nresistance a duty, she cries aloud that we must obey God rather than\nman.... If the nature of man were consulted on Politics, which\nsupernatural ideas have so shamefully depraved, it would contribute far\nmore than all the religion in the world to make communities happy,\npowerful, and prosperous under reasonable authority.... This nature\nwould teach princes that they are men and not gods; that they are\ncitizens charged by their fellow-citizens with watching over the safety\nof all.... Instead of attributing to the divine vengeance all the wars,\nthe famines, the plagues that lay nations low, would it not have been\nmore useful to show them that such calamities are due to the passions,\nthe indolence, the tyranny of their princes, who sacrifice the nations\nto their hideous delirium? Natural evils demand natural remedies; ought\nnot experience, therefore, long ago to have undeceived mortals as to\nthose supernatural remedies, those expiations, prayers, sacrifices,\nfastings, processions, that all the peoples of the earth have so vainly\nopposed to the woes that overwhelmed them?... Let us recognise the plain\ntruth, then, that it is these supernatural ideas that have obscured\nmorality, corrupted politics, hindered the advance of the sciences, and\nextinguished happiness and peace even in the very heart of man.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\nHolbach was a vigorous propagandist. Two years after the appearance of\nhis master-work he drew up its chief propositions in a short and popular\nvolume, called _Good sense; or Natural Ideas opposed to Supernatural_.\nHis zeal led him to write and circulate a vast number of other tractates\nand short volumes, the bare list of which would fill several of these\npages, all inciting their readers to an intellectual revolt against the\nreigning system in Church and State. He lived to get a glimpse of the\nvery edge and sharp bend of the great cataract. He died in the spring of\n1789. If he had only lived five years longer, he would have seen the\ngreat church of Notre Dame solemnly consecrated by legislative decree to\nthe worship of Reason, bishops publicly trampling on crosier and ring\namid universal applause, and vast crowds exulting in processions whose\nhero was an ass crowned with a mitre.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nRAYNAL'S HISTORY OF THE INDIES.\n\n\n\"Since Montesquieu's _Esprit des Lois_,\" says Grimm in his chronicle,\n\"our literature has perhaps produced no monument that is worthier to\npass to the remotest posterity, and to consecrate the progress of our\nenlightenment and diligence for ever, than Raynal's _Philosophical and\nPolitical History of European settlements and commerce in the two\nIndies_.\" Yet it is perhaps safe to say that not one hundred persons now\nliving have ever read two chapters of the book for which this immortal\nfuture was predicted.\n\nWhen the revolutionary floods gradually subsided, some of the monuments\nof the previous age began to show themselves above the surface of the\nfalling waters. They had lost amid the stormy agitation of the deluge\nthe shining splendour of their first days; still men found something to\nattract them after the revolution, as their grandfathers had done before\nit, in the pages of the _Spirit of Laws_, of the _New Heloisa_, and the\nendless satires, romances, and poems of the great Voltaire. Raynal's\nbook was not among these dead glories that came to life again. It\ndisappeared utterly. Nor can it be said that it deserved a kinder fate.\nIts only interest now is for those who care to know the humour of men's\nminds in those prae-revolutionary days, when they could devour a long\npolitical and commercial history as if it had been a novel or a play,\nand when the turn of men's interests made of such a book \"the Bible of\ntwo worlds for nearly twenty years.\"\n\nRaynal is no commanding figure. Born in 1711, he came to Paris from\nsouthern France, and joined the troop of needy priests who swarmed in\nthe great city, hopefully looking out for the prizes of the Church.\nRaynal is the hero of an anecdote which is told of more than one abbe of\nthe time; whether literally true or not, it is probably a correct\nillustration of the evil pass to which ecclesiastical manners had come.\nHe had, it was said, nothing to live upon save the product of a few\nmasses. The Abbe Prevost received twenty sous for saying a mass; he paid\nthe Abbe Laporte fifteen sous to be his deputy; the Abbe Laporte paid\neight sous to Raynal to say it in his stead. But the adventurer was not\ndestined to remain in this abject case, parasite humbly feeding on\nparasite. He turned bookmaker, and wrote a history of the\nStadtholderate, a volume about the English Parliament, and, of all\ncurious subjects for a man of letters of that date, an account of the\ndivorce of King Henry the Eighth of England. He visited this country\nmore than once, and had the honour in 1754 of being chosen a fellow of\nthe Royal Society of London.[157] We have some difficulty in\nunderstanding how he came by such fame, just as we cannot tell how the\nman who had been glad to earn a few pence by saying masses, came shortly\nto be rich and independent. He is believed to have engaged in some\ncolonial ventures, and to have had good luck. His enemies spread the\ndark report that he had made money in the slave trade, but in those days\nof incensed party spirit there was no limit to virulent invention. It is\nat least undeniable that Raynal put his money to generous uses. Among\nother things, he had the current fancy of the time, that the world could\nbe made better by the copious writing of essays, and he delighted in\nfounding prizes for them at the provincial academies. It was at Lyons\nthat he proposed the famous thesis, not unworthy of consideration even\nat this day: _Has the discovery of America been useful or injurious to\nthe human race?_\n\n [157] The _Biographie Universelle_, followed by the Encyclopaedia\n Britannica, tells a story of Raynal visiting the House of Commons;\n the Speaker, says the writer, learning that he was in the gallery,\n \"suspended the discussion until a distinguished place had been found\n for the French philosopher.\" This must be set down as a myth. The\n journals have been searched, and there is no official confirmation\n of the statement, improbable enough on the face of it.\n\nRaynal was one of the most assiduous of the guests at the philosophic\nmeals of Baron Holbach and Helvetius; he was very good-humoured, easy to\nlive with, and free from that irritable self-consciousness and self-love\nwhich is too commonly the curse of the successful writer, as of other\nsuccessful persons. He did not go into company merely to make the hours\nfly. With him, as with Helvetius, society was a workshop. He pressed\nevery one with questions as to all matters, great or small, with which\nthe interlocutor was likely to be familiar.[158] Horace Walpole met him\nat \"dull Holbach's,\" and the abbe at once began to tease him across the\ntable as to the English colonies. Walpole knew as little about them as\nhe knew about Coptic, so he made signs to his tormentor that he was\ndeaf. On another occasion Raynal dined at Strawberry Hill, and mortified\nthe vanity of his host by looking at none of its wonders himself, and\nkeeping up such a fire of talk and cross-examination as to prevent\nanybody else from looking at them. \"There never was such an impertinent\nand tiresome old gossip,\" cried our own gossip.[159]\n\n [158] Morellet, i. 221.\n\n [159] _Walpole's Corresp._, vi. 147 and 445.\n\nRaynal failed to give better men than Horace Walpole the sense of power.\nWhen his greatest work took the public by storm, nobody would believe\nthat he had written it. Just as in the case of the _System of Nature_,\nso people set down the _History of the Indies_ to Diderot, and even the\nmost moderate critics insisted that he had at any rate written not less\nthan one-third of it. Many less conspicuous scribes were believed to\nhave been Raynal's drudges. We can have no difficulty in supposing that\nso bulky a work engaged many hands. There is no unity of composition, no\nequal scale, no regularity of proportion; on the contrary, rhapsody and\nsober description, history and moral disquisition, commerce, law,\nphysics, and metaphysics are all poured in, almost as if by hazard. We\nseem to watch half a dozen writers, each dealing with matters according\nto his own individual taste and his own peculiar kind of knowledge.\n\nIndeed, it is a curious and most interesting feature in the literary\nactivity of France in the eighteenth century, that the egoism and vanity\nof authorship were reduced by the conditions of the time to a lower\ndegree than in any other generation since letters were invented. The\nsuppression of self by the Jesuits was hardly more complete than the\nsuppression of self by the most brilliant and effective of the\ninsurgents against Jesuitry. Such intimate association as exists in our\nday between a given book and a given personality, was then thoroughly\nshaken by the constant necessity for secrecy. As we have seen, people\nhardly knew who set up that momentous landmark, the _System of Nature_.\nVoltaire habitually and vehemently denied every one of his most\ncharacteristic pieces, and though in the buzz of Parisian gossip the\nright name was surely hit upon for such unique performances as\nVoltaire's, yet the fame was far too broken and uncertain to reward his\nvanity, if the better part of himself had not been fully and sincerely\nengaged in public objects in which vanity had no part. Rousseau was an\nexception, but then Rousseau was in truth a reactionist, and not a loyal\nmember of the great company of reformers. As for Diderot, he valued the\nauthor's laurel so cheaply, as we have seen, that with a gigantic\nheedlessness and Saturnian weariness of the plaudits or hisses of the\naudience, while supremely interested in the deeper movements of the\ntragi-comic drama of the world, he left some of his masterpieces lying\nunknown in forgotten chests. Again, in the case of the Encyclopaedia, as\nwe have also seen, Turgot as well as less eminent men bargained that\ntheir names should not be made public. Wherever a telling blow was to be\ndealt with the sword, or a new stone to be laid with the trowel, men\nwere always found ready to spend themselves and be spent, without taking\nthought whether their share in the work should be nicely measured and\npublicly identified, or absorbed and lost in the whole of which it was a\npart.\n\nWhatever may have been the secret of the authorship of Raynal's book,\nand whether or no even the general conception of such a performance was\ndue to Raynal, it is at least certain that the original author, whoever\nhe may have been, divined a remarkable literary opportunity. This\ndivination is in authorship what felicity of experiment is to the\nscientific discoverer. The book came into immediate vogue. It was\npublished in 1772; a second edition was demanded within a couple of\nyears, and it is computed that more than twenty editions, as well as\ncountless pirated versions, were exhausted before the universal\ncuriosity and interest were satisfied. As the subject took the writer\nover the whole world, so he found readers in every part of the habitable\nglobe. And among them were men for whom destiny had lofty parts in\nstore. Zeal carried one young reader so far that he collected all the\nboldest passages into a single volume, and published it as _L'Esprit de\nRaynal_; an achievement for which, as he was a member of a religious\ncongregation, he afterwards got into some trouble.[160] Franklin read\nand admired the book in London. Black Toussaint Louverture in his\nslave-cabin at Hayti laboriously spelled his way through its pages, and\nfound in their story of the wrongs of his race and their passionate\nappeal against slavery, the first definite expression of thoughts which\nhad already been dimly stirred in his generous spirit by the brutalities\nthat were every day enacted under his eyes. Gibbon solemnly immortalised\nRaynal by describing him, in one of the great chapters of the _Decline\nand Fall_, as a writer who \"with a just confidence had prefixed to his\nown history the honourable epithets of political and\nphilosophical.\"[161] Robertson, whose excellent _History of America_,\ncovering part of Raynal's ground, was not published until 1777,\ncomplimented Raynal on his ingenuity and eloquence, and reproduced some\nof Raynal's historical speculations.[162]\n\n [160] Hedouin by name.\n\n [161] Ch. xxi.\n\n [162] _Works_, xii. 189 (edition of 1822).\n\nFrederick the Great began to read it, and for some days spoke\nenthusiastically to his French satellites at dinner of its eloquence and\nreason. All at once he became silent, and he never spoke a word about\nthe book again. He had suddenly come across half a dozen pages of\nvigorous rhapsodising, delivered for his own good:\n\n\"Oh Frederick, Frederick! thou wast gifted by nature with a bold and\nlively imagination, a curiosity that knew no bounds, a passion for\nindustry. Humanity, everywhere in chains, everywhere cast down, wiped\naway her tears at the sight of thy earliest labours, and seemed to find\na solace for all her woes in the hope of finding in thee her avenger. On\nthe dread theatre of war thy swiftness, skill, and order amazed all\nnations. Thou wast regarded as the model of warrior-kings. There exists\na still more glorious name: the name of citizen-king.... Once more open\nthy heart to the noble and virtuous sentiments that were the delight of\nthy young days.\" He then rebukes Frederick for keeping money locked up\nin his military chest, instead of throwing it into circulation, for his\nviolent and arbitrary administration, and for the excessive imposts\nunder which his people groaned. \"Dare still more; give rest to the\nearth. Let the authority of thy mediation, and the power of thy arms,\nforce peace on the restless nations. The universe is the only country of\na great man, and the only theatre for thy genius; become then the\nbenefactor of nations.\"[163]\n\n [163] Book v. Sec. 31.\n\nIn after days, when Raynal visited Berlin, overflowing with vanity and\nself-importance, he succeeded with some difficulty in procuring an\ninterview with the King, and then Frederick took his revenge. He told\nRaynal that years ago he had read the history of the Stadtholderate, and\nof the English Parliament. Raynal modestly interposed that since those\ndays he had written more important works. \"_I don't know them_,\" said\nthe king, in a tone that closed the subject.[164]\n\n [164] _Thiebault_, iii. 172; where there is a long and most\n disparaging account of Raynal, by no means incredible, though we\n must remember that a competent judge has pronounced Thiebault to be\n \"stupid, incorrect, and the prey of stupidities.\"\n\nMore disinterested persons than Frederick set as low a value on Raynal's\nperformance. One writer even compares the book to a quack mounted on a\nwaggon, retailing to the gaping crowd a number of commonplaces against\ndespotism and religion, without a single curious thing about them except\ntheir hardihood.[165] But the instinct of the gaping crowd was sound.\nMeasured by the standard and requirements of modern science, Raynal's\nhistory is no high achievement. It may perhaps be successfully contended\nthat the true conception of history has on the whole gone back, rather\nthan advanced, within the last hundred years. There have been many signs\nin our own day of its becoming narrow, pedantic, and trivial. It\nthreatens to degenerate from a broad survey of great periods and\nmovements of human societies into vast and countless accumulations of\ninsignificant facts, sterile knowledge, and frivolous antiquarianism, in\nwhich the spirit of epochs is lost, and the direction, meaning, and\nsummary of the various courses of human history all disappear.\nVoltaire's _Essai sur les Moeurs_ shows a perfectly true notion of what\nkind of history is worth either writing or reading. Robertson's _View of\nthe Progress of Society in Europe from the Fall of the Roman Empire to\nthe Sixteenth Century_ is--with all its imperfections--admirably just,\nsensible, and historic in its whole scope and treatment. Raynal himself,\nthough far below such writers as Voltaire and Robertson in judgment and\ntemper, yet is not without a luminous breadth of outlook, and does not\nforget the superior importance of the effect of events on European\ndevelopment, over any possible number of minute particularities in the\nevents themselves. He does not forget, for instance, in describing the\nPortuguese conquests in the East Indies, to point out that the most\nremarkable and momentous thing about them was the check that they\ninflicted on the growth of the Ottoman Power, at a moment in European\nhistory when the Christian states were least able to resist, and least\nlikely to combine against the designs of Solyman.[166] This is really\nthe observation best worth making about the Portuguese conquests, and it\nillustrates Raynal's habit, and the habit of the good minds of that\ncentury, of incessantly measuring events by their consequences to\nwestern enlightenment and freedom, and of dropping out of sight all\nirrelevancies of detail.\n\n [165] Senac de Meilhan, 123.\n\n [166] Book i. Sec. 7. Robertson works out this reflection in his\n _Historical Disquisition concerning Ancient India_, iv. Sec. 8.\n\nThis signal merit need not blind us to Raynal's shortcomings in the\nother direction. There are very few dates. The total absence of\nreferences and authorities was condemned by Gibbon as \"the unpardonable\nblemish of what is otherwise a most entertaining book.\" There is no\ncriticism. As Raynal was a mere literary compiler, it was not to be\nexpected that he should rise above the common deficiencies in the\nthought and methods of his time. It was not to be expected that he\nshould deal with the various groups of phenomena among primitive races,\nin the scientific spirit of modern anthropology. It is true that he was\ncontemporary with De Brosses, who ranks among the founders of the study\nof the origins of human culture. One sentence of De Brosses would have\nwarned Raynal against a vicious method, which made nearly all that was\nwritten about primitive men by him and everybody else of the same\nschool, utterly false, worthless, and deluding. \"It is not in\npossibilities,\" said De Brosses, \"it is in man himself that we must\nstudy man: it is not for us to imagine what man might have done, or\nought to have done, but to observe what he did.\" Of the origin and\ngrowth of a myth, for example, Raynal had no rational idea. When he\nfound a myth, what he did was to reduce it to the terms of human action,\nand then coolly to describe it as historical. The ancient Peruvian\nlegend that laws and arts had been brought to their land by two divine\nchildren of the Sun, Manco-Capac and his sister-wife Manca-Oello, is\ntransformed into a grave and prosaic narrative, in which Manco-Capac's\nachievements are minutely described with as much assurance as if that\nsage had been Frederick the Great, or Pombal, or any statesman living\nbefore the eyes of the writer. Endless illustrations, some of them\namusing enough, might be given of this Euhemeristic fashion of dealing\nwith the primitive legends of human infancy.\n\nOn the other hand, if Raynal turns myth into history, he constantly\nresorts to the opposite method, and turns the hard prose of real life\ninto doubtful poetry. If he reduces the demi-gods to men, he delights\nalso in surrounding savage men with the joyous conditions of the\npastoral demi-gods. He can never resist an opportunity of introducing an\nidyll. It was the fashion of the time, begun by Rousseau and perfected\nby the author of _Paul and Virginia_. The taste for idylls of savage\nlife had at least one merit; it was a way of teaching people that the\nlife of savages is something normal, systematic, coherent, and not mere\nchaos, formless, and void, unrelated to the life of civilisation. A\nrecent traveller had given an account of an annual ceremony in China,\nwhich Raynal borrowed without acknowledgment.[167] M. Poivre had\ndescribed how the Emperor once every year went forth into the fields,\nand there with his own hand guided the plough as it traced the long\nfurrows. Raynal elaborated this formality into a characteristic rhapsody\non peace, simplicity, plenty, and the father of his people. As a\ncaustic critic of M. Poivre remarked, if a Chinese traveller had arrived\nat Versailles on the morning of Holy Thursday, he would have found the\nKing of France humbly washing the feet of twelve poor and aged men, yet,\nas Frenchmen knew, this would be no occasion for rapturous exultation\nover the lowliness and humanity of the French court.\n\n [167] _Voyage d'un Philosophe, etc._; a work published in 1768, and\n in great vogue for some time, partly because it furnished material\n for the speculations of Raynal, Helvetius, and the rest. See _De\n l'Homme_, II. xiii., etc. Grimm, v. 450.\n\nIn the same spirit Raynal made no scruple in filling his pages with the\nsentimental declamations in which the reaction of that day against the\nburden of a decaying system of social artifice found such invariable\nrelief and satisfaction. None of these imaginary pieces of high\nsentiment was more popular than the episode of Polly Baker. It occurs in\nthe chapters which describe the foundation of New England.[168] The\nfanaticism and intolerance of the Puritan Fathers of that famous land\nare set forth with the holy rage that always moved the reformers of the\neighteenth century against the reformers of the seventeenth. Religion is\nboldly spoken of as a dreadful malady, whose severity extended even to\nthe most indifferent objects. It may be admitted that the cruel\npersecution of the Quakers, and the grotesque horrors of witch-finding\nin New Salem, gave Raynal at least as good a text against Protestantism\nas he had found against Catholicism in the infernal doings in the West\nIndian Islands or in Peru. Even after this bloody fever had abated, says\nRaynal, the inhabitants still preserved a kind of rigorism that savours\nof the sombre days in which the Puritan colonies had their rise. He\nillustrates this by the case of a young woman who was brought before the\nauthorities for the offence of having given birth to a child out of\nwedlock. It was her fifth transgression. Raynal, conceiving history\nafter the manner of the author of the immortal speeches of Pericles, put\ninto the mouth of the unfortunate sinner a long and eloquent apology. At\nthe risk of her life, she cries, she has brought five children into\nexistence. \"I have devoted myself with all the courage of a mother's\nsolicitude to the painful toil demanded by their weakness and their\ntender years. I have formed them to virtue, which is only another name\nfor reason. Already they love their country, as I love it.... Is it a\ncrime, then, to be fruitful, as the earth is fruitful, the common mother\nof us all?... And how am I not to cry out against the injustice of my\nlot, when I see that he who seduced and ruined me, after being the cause\nof my destruction, enjoys honour and power, and is actually seated in\nthe tribunal where they punish my misfortune with rods and with infamy?\nWho was that barbarous lawgiver who, deciding between the two sexes,\nkept all his wrath for the weaker; for that luckless sex which pays for\na single pleasure by a thousand dangers,\"--and so forth. It need hardly\nbe said that this is far too much in the vein, and almost in the words\nof Diderot, to have any authenticity. And as it happens, there is a\npiece of external evidence on the matter, which illustrates Raynal's\ncurious lightheartedness as to historic veracity. Franklin and Silas\nDeane were one day talking together about the many blunders in Raynal's\nbook, when the author himself happened to step in. They told him of what\nthey had been speaking. \"Nay,\" says Raynal, \"I took the greatest care\nnot to insert a single fact for which I had not the most unquestionable\nauthority.\" Deane then fell on the story of Polly Baker, and declared of\nhis own certain knowledge that there had never been a law against\nbastardy in Massachusetts. Raynal persisted that he must have had the\nwhole case from some source of indisputable trustworthiness, until\nFranklin broke in upon him with a loud laugh, and explained that when he\nwas a printer of a newspaper, they were sometimes short of news, and to\namuse his customers he invented fictions that were as welcome to them as\nfacts. One of these fictions was the legend of Raynal's heroine. The\nabbe was not in the least disconcerted. \"Very well, Doctor,\" he replied,\n\"I would rather relate your stories than other men's truths.\"[169]\n\n [168] Book xvii.\n\n [169] Jefferson, quoted in Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 418.\n\nWhen all has been said that need be said about the glaring shortcomings\nof the _History of the Indies_, its popularity still remains to be\naccounted for. If we ask for the causes of this striking success, they\nare perhaps not very far to seek. For one thing, the book is remarkable\nboth for its variety and its animation. Horace Walpole wrote about it to\nLady Aylesbury in terms that do not at all overstate its liveliness: \"It\ntells one everything in the world; how to make conquests, invasions,\nblunders, settlements, bankruptcies, fortunes, etc.; tells you the\nnatural and historical history of all nations; talks commerce,\nnavigation, tea, coffee, china, mines, salt, spices; of the Portuguese,\nEnglish, French, Dutch, Danes, Spaniards, Arabs, caravans, Persians,\nIndians, of Louis XIV. and the King of Prussia, of La Bourdonnais,\nDupleix, and Admiral Saunders; of rice, and women that dance naked; of\ncamels, gingham, and muslin; of millions of millions of lires, pounds,\nrupees, and cowries; of iron cables and Circassian women; of Law and the\nMississippi; and against all governments and religions.\"[170]\n\n [170] _Walpole's Letters_, v. 421.\n\nAll this is really not too highly coloured. And Raynal's cosmorama\nexactly hit the tastes of the hour. The readers of that day were full of\na new curiosity about the world outside of France, and the less known\nfamilies of the human stock. It was no doubt more like the curiosity of\nkeen-witted children than the curiosity of science. Montesquieu first\nstirred this interest in the unfamiliar forms of custom, institution,\ncreed, motive, and daily manners. But while Montesquieu treated such\nmatters fragmentarily, and in connection with a more or less abstract\ndiscussion on polity, Raynal made them the objects of a vivid and\nconcrete picture, and presented them in the easier shape of a systematic\nhistory. Again, if the reading class in France were intelligently\ncurious, it must be added, we fear, that they were not without a\ncertain lubricity of imagination, which was pleasantly tickled by\nsensuous descriptions of the ways of life that were strange to the iron\nrestraints of civilisation. Finally, the public of that day always chose\nto veil and confuse the furtive voluptuousness of the time by moral\ndisquisition, and a light and busy meddling with the insoluble\nperplexities of philosophy. Here too the dexterous Raynal knew how to\nplease the fancies of his patrons, and whether Diderot was or was not\nthe writer of those pages of moral sophism and paradox, there is\nsomething in them which incessantly reminds us of his _Supplement to\nBougainville's Voyages_.\n\nAmong the superficial causes of the popularity of Raynal's _History_, we\ncannot leave out the circumstance that it was composed after a very\ninteresting and critical moment in the colonial relations of France. The\nSeven Years' War ended in the expulsion of the French from Canada and\nfrom their possessions in the East Indies. When the peace of 1763 was\nmade, this was counted the most disastrous part of that final record and\nsealing of misfortune. When we see with what attachment the ordinary\nFrenchman of to-day regards what is as yet the thankless possession of\nAlgeria, we might easily have guessed, even if the correspondence of the\ntime had set it forth less distinctly than it does, with what deep\nconcern and mortification the French of that day saw the white flag and\nits lilies driven for ever from the banks of the St. Lawrence in the\nwest, and the coast of Coromandel in the east. Raynal himself tells us\nwith what zealous impatience the government attempted to make the nation\nforget its calamities, by stirring the hope of a better fortune in the\nregion to which they gave the magnificent name of Equinoctial France.\nThe establishment of a free and national population among the scented\nforests and teeming swamps of Guiana, was to bring rich compensation for\nthe icy tracts of Canada. This utopia of a brilliant settlement in\nGuiana has steadily invested the minds of French statesmen from Choiseul\ndown to Louis Napoleon, and its history is a striking monument of\nperversity and folly. But from 1763 to 1770, while Raynal was writing\nhis book, men's minds were full of the heroic design, and this augmented\ntheir interest in the general themes which Raynal handled--colonisation,\ncommerce, and the overthrow and settlement of new worlds by the old.\n\nHowever much all these things may have quickened the popularity of\nRaynal's _History_, yet the true source of it lay deeper; lay in the\nfuel which the book supplied to the two master emotions of the hour--the\nhatred and contempt for religion, and the passion for justice and\nfreedom. The subject easily lent itself to these two strong currents. Or\nwe may say that hatred of religion, and passion for justice and freedom,\nwere in fact the subjects, and that the commercial establishments and\npolitical relations of the new worlds in the east and west were only the\nsetting and framework. Raynal was perhaps the first person to see that\nthe surest way of discrediting Catholicism was to write some chapters of\nits history. Gibbon resorted to the same device shortly afterwards, and\nfound in the contemptuous analysis of heresies, and the selfish and\nviolent motives of councils and prelates, as good an occasion of\npiercing the Church as Raynal found in painting the abominable fraud and\ncruelty that made the presence of Christians so dire a curse to the\nhelpless inhabitants of the new lands. And the same reproachful\nbackground which Gibbon so artistically introduced, in the humane,\nintelligent, and happy epoch of the pagan Antonines, Raynal invented for\nthe same purpose of making Christianity seem uglier, in the imaginary\nsimplicity and unbroken gladness of the native races whose blood was\nshed by Christian aggressors as if it had been water.\n\nIt would perhaps have been singular at a moment when men were looking\nround on every side for such weapons as might come to their hand, if\nthey had missed the horrible action of Catholicism when brought into\ncontact with the lower races of mankind. There is no more deplorable\nchapter in the annals of the race, and there is none which the historian\nof Christianity should be less willing to pass over lightly. The\nruthless cruelty of the Spanish conquerors in the new world is a\nprofoundly instructive illustration of the essential narrowness of the\npapal Christianity, its pitiful exclusiveness, its low and bad morality,\nand, above all, its incurable unfitness for dealing with the spirit and\nmotives of men in face of the violent temptations with which the wealth\nof the new world now assailed and corrupted them. Catholicism had held\ntriumphant possession of the conscience of Europe for a dozen centuries\nand more. The stories of the American Archipelago, of Mexico, of Peru,\neven if told by calmer historians than Raynal, show how little power,\namid all this triumph of the ecclesiastical letter, had been won by the\nChristian spirit over the rapacity, the lust, the bloody violence of the\nnatural man. They show what a superficial thing the professed religion\nof the ages of faith had been, how enormous a task remained, and how\nmuch the most arduous part of this task was to make Catholicism itself\ncivilised and moral. For it is hardly denied that Christianity had done\nworse than merely fail to provide an effective curb on the cruel\npassions of men. The Spanish conquerors showed that it had nursed a\nstill more cruel passion than the rude interests of material selfishness\nhad ever engendered, by making the extermination or enslavement of these\nhapless people a duty to the Catholic Church, and a savoury sacrifice in\nthe nostrils of the Most High.\n\nIt is true that a philosophic historian will have to take into account\nthe important consideration that the reckless massacres perpetrated by\nthe subjects of the Most Catholic King were less horrible and less\npermanently depraving than the daily offering of the bleeding hearts of\nhuman victims in the temples of Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipuk. He\nwould have to remember, as even Raynal does, that if the slave-drivers\nand murderers were Catholics, so also was Las Casas, the apostle of\njustice and mercy. Still the fact remains, that the doctrine of moral\nobligations towards the lower races had not yet taken its place in\nEurope, any more than the doctrine of our obligation to the lower\nanimals, our ministers and companions, has yet taken its place among\nItalians and Spaniards. The fact remains, that the old Christianity in\nthe sixteenth century was unable to deal effectively with the new\nconditions in which the world found itself. As Catholicism now in France\nin the eighteenth century proved itself unable to harmonise the new\nmoral aspirations and new social necessities of the time with the\nancient tradition, Raynal was right in telling over again the afflicting\nstory of her earlier failure, and in identifying the creed that murdered\nCalas and La Barre before their own eyes, with the creed that had\nblasted the future of the fairest portion of the new world two centuries\nbefore.\n\nThe mere circumstance, however, that the book was one long and powerful\ninnuendo against the Church, would not have been enough to secure its\nvast popularity. Attacks on the Church had become cheap by this time.\nThe eighteenth century, as it is one of the chief aims of these studies\nto show, had a positive side of at least equal importance and equal\nstrength with its negative side. As we have so often said, its writers\nwere inspired by zeal for political justice, for humanity, for better\nand more equal laws, for the amelioration of the common lot,--a zeal\nwhich in energy, sincerity, and disinterestedness, has never been\nsurpassed. Raynal's work was perhaps, on the whole, the most vigorous\nand sustained of all the literary expressions that were given to the\ngreat social ideas of the century. It wholly lacked the strange and\nconcentrated glow that burned in the pages of the Social Contract; on\nthe other hand, it was more full of movement, of reality, of vivid and\npicturesque incident. It was popular, and it was concrete. Raynal's\nstory went straight to the hearts of many people, to whom Rousseau's\narguments were only half intelligible and wholly dreary. It was that\nbook of the eighteenth century which brought the lower races finally\nwithin the pale of right and duty in the common opinion of France. The\nengravings that face the title-page in each of the seven volumes give\nthe keynote to the effect that the seven volumes produced. In one we see\na philosopher writing on a column those old words of dolorous pregnancy,\n_Auri sacra fames_, while in the distance Spanish and Portuguese ships\nride at anchor, and on the shore white men massacre blacks. In another\nwe see a fair woman, typifying bounteous Nature, giving her nourishment\nto a white infant at one breast, and to a black infant at the other,\nwhile she turns a pitiful eye to a scene in the background, where a gang\nof negro slaves work among the sugar-canes, under the scourge and the\ngoad of ruthless masters. A third frontispiece gives us the story of\nInkle and Yarico, which Raynal sets down to some English poet, but as no\nEnglish poet is known to have touched that moving tale until the\nyounger Colman dramatised it in 1787, we may suspect that Raynal had\nremembered it from Steele's paper in the _Spectator_. The last of these\npieces represents a cultivated landscape, adorned with villages, and its\nports thronged with shipping; in the foreground are two Quakers, one of\nthem benignly embracing some young Indians, the other casting\nindignantly away from him a bow and its arrows, the symbols of division\nand war.\n\nThe most effective chapters in the book were, in truth, eloquent sermons\non these simple and pathetic texts. They brought Negroes and Indians\nwithin the relations of human brotherhood. They preached a higher\nmorality towards these poor children of bondage, they inspired a new\npity, they moved more generous sympathies, and they did this in such a\nway as not merely to affect men's feelings about Indians and Negroes,\nslave-labour, and the yet more hateful slave-trade, but at the same time\nto develop and strengthen a general feeling for justice, equality, and\nbeneficence in all the arrangements and relations of the social union\nall over the world. The same movement which brought the suffering blacks\nof the new world within the sphere of moral duty, and invested them with\nrights, intensified the same notion of rights and duties in association\nwith the suffering people of France. This was the sentiment that reigned\nduring the boyhood and youth of those who were destined, some twenty\nyears after Raynal's book was first placed in their hands, to carry\nthat sentiment out into a fiery and victorious reality.\n\nMontesquieu had opened the various questions connected with slavery. We\ncan have no better measure of the increased heat in France between 1750\nand 1770 than the difference in tone between two authors so equal in\npopularity, if so unequal in merit, as Raynal and Montesquieu. The\nlatter, without justifying the abuses or even the usage of slavery in\nany shape, had still sought to give a rational account of its growth as\nan institution.[171] Raynal could not read this with patience. He\ntypifies all the passion of the revolt against the historic method.\n\"Montesquieu,\" he says, \"could not make up his mind to treat the\nquestion of slavery seriously. In fact, it is a degradation of reason to\nemploy it, I will not say in defending, but even in combating an abuse\nso contrary to all reason. Whoever justifies so odious a system deserves\nfrom the philosopher the deepest contempt, and from the negro a\ndagger-stroke. 'If you put a finger on me, I will kill myself,' said\nClarissa to Lovelace. And I would say to the man that should assail my\nfreedom: If you come near me, I poniard you.... Will any one tell me\nthat he who seeks to make me a slave, is only using his rights? Where\nare they, these rights? Who has stamped on them a mark sacred enough to\nsilence mine? If thou thinkest thyself authorised to oppress me, because\nthou art stronger and craftier than I--then do not complain when my\nstrong arms shall tear thy breast open to find thy heart; do not\ncomplain when in thy spasm-riven bowels thou feelest the deadly doom\nwhich I have passed into them with thy food. Be thou a victim in thy\nturn, and expiate the crime of the oppressor.\"[172]\n\n [171] Book xv. of the _Esprit des Lois_.\n\n [172] Book xi. Sec. 30.\n\nRaynal then asks the political question, how we can hope to throw down\nan edifice that is propped up by universal passion, by established laws,\nby the rivalries of powerful nations, and by the force of prejudices\nmore powerful still. To what tribunal, he cries, shall we carry the\nsacred appeal? He can find no better answer than that of Turgot and the\nEconomists. It is to Kings that we must look for the redress of these\nmonstrous abominations. It is for Kings to carry fire and sword among\nthe oppressors. \"Your armies,\" he cries, anticipating the famous\nexpression of a writer of our own day, \"will be filled with the holy\nenthusiasm of humanity.\" In a more practical vein, Raynal then warns his\npublic of the terrible reckoning which awaits the whites, if the blacks\never rise to avenge their wrongs. The Negroes only need a chief\ncourageous enough to lead them to vengeance and carnage. \"Where is he,\nthat great man, whom Nature owes to the honour of the human race? Where\nis he, that new Spartacus who will find no Crassus? Then the Black Code\nwill vanish; how terrible will the White Code be!\" We may easily realise\nthe effect which vehement words like these had upon Toussaint, and upon\nthose for whom Toussaint reproduced them.\n\nMen have constantly been asking themselves what the great literary\nprecursors of the Revolution would have thought, and how they would have\nacted, if they could have survived to the days of the Terror. What would\nVoltaire have said of Robespierre? How would Rousseau have borne himself\nat the Jacobin Club? Would Diderot have followed the procession of the\nGoddess of Reason? To ask whether these famous men would have sanctioned\nthe Terror, is to insult great memories; but there is no reason to\nsuppose that their strong spirits would have faltered. One or two of the\nyounger generation of the famous philosophic party did actually see the\nbreak-up of the old order. Condorcet faced the storm with a heroism of\nspirit that has never been surpassed: disgust at the violent excesses of\nbad men could never make him unfaithful to the beneficence of the\nmovement which their frenzy distorted.\n\nRaynal was of weaker mould, and showed that there had been a stratum of\ncant and borrowed formulas in his eloquence. He lived into the very\ndarkest days, and watched the succession of events with a keen eye. His\nheart began to quail very early. Long before the bloodier times of the\ninternecine war between the factions, and on the eve of the attempted\nflight of the king, he addressed a letter to the National Assembly (May\n31, 1791). The letter is not wanting in firm and courageous phrases. \"I\nhave long dared,\" he began, \"to tell kings of their duties. Let me\nto-day tell the people of its errors, and the representatives of the\npeople of the perils that menace us all.\" He then proceeded to inveigh\nin his old manner, but with a new purpose and a changed destination.\nThis time it was not kings and priests whom he denounced, but a\ngovernment enslaved by popular tyranny, soldiers without discipline,\nchiefs without authority, ministers without resources, the rudest and\nmost ignorant of men daring to settle the most difficult political\nquestions. How comes it, he asks, that after declaring the dogma of the\nliberty of religious opinions, you allow priests to be overwhelmed by\npersecution and outrage because they do not follow your religious\nopinions? In the same energetic vein he protests against the failure of\nthe Constituent Assembly to found a stable and vigorous government, and\nto put an end to the vengeances, the seditions, the outbreaks, that\nfilled the air with confusion and menace. It was in short a vigorous\npamphlet, written in the interest of Malouet and the constitutional\nroyalists. The Assembly listened, but not without some rude\ninterruptions. Robespierre hastened to the tribune. After condemning the\ntone of Raynal's letter, he disclaimed any intention of calling down the\nseverity either of the Assembly or of public opinion upon a man who\nstill preserved a great name; he thought that a sufficient excuse for\nthe writer's apostasy might be found in his advanced age. The Assembly\nagreed with Robespierre, and passed to the order of the day.[173]\n\n [173] Hamel's _Robespierre_ i. 456-458.\n\nRaynal lived to see his predictions fulfilled with a terrible bitterness\nof fulfilment. In spite of the anger which he had roused in the breasts\nof powerful personages, the aged man was not guillotined; he was not\neven imprisoned. All his property was taken from him, and he died in\nabject poverty in the spring of 1796. Let us hope that the misery of his\nend was assuaged by the recollection that he had once been a powerful\npleader for noble causes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nDIDEROT'S CLOSING YEARS.\n\n\nAt the end of a long series of notes and questions on points in anatomy\nand physiology, which he had been collecting for many years, Diderot\nwound up with a strange outburst:\n\n\"I shall not know until the end what I have lost or gained in this vast\ngaming-house, where I shall have passed some threescore years, dice-box\nin hand, _tesseras agitans_.\n\n\"What do I perceive? Forms. And what besides? Forms. Of the substance I\nknow nothing. We walk among shadows, ourselves shadows to ourselves and\nto others.\n\n\"If I look at a rainbow traced on a cloud, I can perceive it; for him\nwho looks at it from another angle, there is nothing.\n\n\"A fancy common enough among the living is to dream that they are dead,\nthat they stand by the side of their own corpse, and follow their own\nfuneral. It is like a swimmer watching his garments stretched out on the\nshore.\n\n\"Philosophy, that habitual and profound meditation which takes us away\nfrom all that surrounds us, which annihilates our own personality, is\nanother apprenticeship for death.\"[174]\n\n [174] _Elemens de Physiologie_, _Oeuv._, ix. 428.\n\nThis was now to be seen. Diderot, as we have said, came back from his\nexpedition to Russia in the autumn of 1744, tranquilly counting on half\na score more years to make up the tale of his days. He remained in\ntemper and habit through this long evening of his life what he had been\nin its morning and noontide--friendly, industrious, cheerful, exuberant\nin conversation, keenly interested in the march of liberal and\nprogressive ideas. On his return his wife and daughter found him thin\nand altered. A few months of absence so often suffice to reveal that our\nfriend has grown old, and that time is casting long shadows. Age seems\nto have come in a day, like sudden winter. He was as gay and as kindly\nas ever. Some of his friends had declared that he would never bethink\nhimself of returning at all. \"Time and space in his eyes,\" said Galiani,\n\"are as in the eyes of the Almighty; he thinks that he is everywhere,\nand that he is eternal.\"[175] They had predicted for Diderot at St.\nPetersburg the fate of Descartes at the court of Queen Christina. But\nthe philosopher triumphantly vindicated his character. \"My good wife,\"\nsaid he, when he had reached the old familiar fourth floor, \"prithee,\ncount my things; thou wilt find no reason for scolding; I have not lost\na single handkerchief.\"[176]\n\n [175] _Corresp._, ii. 180.\n\n [176] _Oeuv._, i. 54\n\nThis cheerfulness, however, did not hide from his friends that he was\nsubject to a languor which had been unknown before his journey to\nRussia. It was not the peevish fatigue that often brings life to an\nunworthy close. He remained true to the healthy temper of his prime, and\nfound himself across the threshold of old age without repining. As the\nveteran Cephalus said to Socrates, regrets and complaints are not in a\nman's age, but in his temper; and he who is of a happy nature will\nscarcely feel the burden of the years.\n\nIn 1762 Diderot had written to Mdlle. Voland a page of affecting musings\non the great pathetic theme:\n\n \"You ask me why, the more our life is filled up and busy, the less\n are we attached to it? If that is true, it is because a busy life\n is for the most part an innocent life. We think less about Death,\n and so we fear it less. Without perceiving it, we resign ourselves\n to the common lot of all the beings that we watch around us, dying\n and being born again in an incessant, ever renewing circle. After\n having for a season fulfilled the tasks that nature year by year\n imposes on us, we grow weary of them, and release ourselves.\n Energies fade, we become feebler, we crave the close of life, as\n after working hard we crave the close of the day. Living in harmony\n with nature, we learn not to rebel against the orders that we see\n in necessary and universal execution.... There is nobody among us\n who, having worn himself out in toil, has not seen the hour of rest\n approach with supreme delight. Life for some of us is only one long\n day of weariness, and death a long slumber, and the coffin a bed of\n rest, and the earth only a pillow where it is sweet, when all is\n done, to lay one's head, never to raise it again. I confess to you\n that, when looked at in this way, and after the long endless\n crosses that I have had, death is the most agreeable of prospects.\n I am bent on teaching myself more and more to see it so.\"[177]\n\n [177] Letter to Mdlle. Voland, Sept. 23, 1762. xix. 136, 137.\n\nAgain, we are reminded by Diderot's words on this last gentle epilogue\nto a harassing performance, of Plato's picture of aged Cephalus sitting\nin a cushioned chair, with the garland round his brows. \"I was in the\ncountry almost alone, free from cares and disquiet, letting the hours\nflow on, with no other object than to find myself by the evening as\nsometimes one finds one's self in the morning, after a night that has\nbeen busy with a pleasant dream. The years had left me none of the\npassions that are our torment, none of the weariness that follows them;\nI had lost my taste for all the frivolities that are made so important\nby our hope that we shall enjoy them long. I said to myself: If the\nlittle that I have done, and the little that is left for me to do,\nshould perish with me, what would the human race be the loser? What\nshould I be the loser myself?\"[178]\n\n [178] The dedication of the _Regnes de Claude et de Neron_ to\n Naigeon, iii. 9.\n\nThis was the mood in which Diderot wrote his singular apology for the\nlife and character of Seneca. Rosenkranz makes the excellent reflection\nthat though Diderot attained to a more free comprehension of Greek art,\nand especially of Homer, than most of his contemporaries, yet even with\nhim the Roman element was dominant. It was Horace, Terence, Lucretius,\nTacitus, Seneca, who to the very end came closer to him than any of the\nGreeks. The moralising reflection, the satirical tendency, the\ndeclamatory form of the Romans, all had an irresistible attraction for\nhim.[179] Both Roger Bacon and Francis Bacon had preceded him in\nadmiration for Seneca, and Montaigne found Cicero tiresome and\nunprofitable compared with the author of the Epistles to Lucilius. \"When\nthere comes any misfortune to a European,\" says the imaginary oriental\nof Montesquieu's _Persian Letters_, \"his only resource is the reading of\na philosopher called Seneca.\"[180]\n\n [179] Diderot's _Leben_, ii. 357.\n\n [180] See Mr. Brewer's preface to Roger Bacon, p. 73.; Montaigne's\n chapter _Des Livres_, and the _Defense de Seneque et de Plutarque._;\n _Let. Pers._, 33.\n\nBut Diderot was not a man to admire by halves, and to literary praise of\nSeneca's writings he added a thoroughgoing vindication of his career. In\nhis early days he had referred disparagingly to Seneca,[181] but\nreflection or accident had made him change his mind. The cheap severity\nof abstract ethics has always abounded against Seneca, and this severity\nwas what Diderot had all his life found insupportable. Holbach had\ninduced Lagrange, a young man of letters whom he had rescued from want,\nto undertake the translation of Seneca, and when Lagrange died, Holbach\nprevailed on Naigeon, Diderot's fervid disciple, to complete and revise\nthe work, which still remains the best of the French versions. That\ndone, then both Holbach and Naigeon urged Diderot to write an account\nof the philosopher.\n\n [181] _Essai sur le Merite et la Vertu._ _Oeuv._, i. 118, _note_.\n\nThe Essay on the Reigns of Claudius and Nero[182] is marked by as much\nvehemence, as much sincerity of enthusiasm, as if Seneca had been\nDiderot's personal friend. There is a flame, a passion, about it, an\ningenuous air of conviction, which are not common in historical\napologies. It is inevitable, as the composition is Diderot's, that it\nshould have many a rambling and declamatory page. His paraphrases of\nTacitus are the most curious case in literature of the expansion of a\nstyle of sombre poetic concentration into the style of exuberant\nrhetoric. Both Grimm and a Russian princess of the blood urged him even\nto translate the whole of Tacitus's works, but it is certain that nobody\nin the world had ever less of Tacitean quality. Still the history is\nalive. \"_I do not compose_,\" Diderot said in the dedication. \"_I am no\nauthor; I read or I converse; I ask questions and I give answers._\" The\nwriter throws himself into the historic situation with the vivid\nfreshness of a contemporary, and if the criticism is sophistical, at\nleast the picture is admirably dramatic. Seneca's position as the\nminister of Nero seemed exactly one of those cases which always excited\nDiderot's deepest interest--a case, we mean, in which the general rules\nof morality condemn, but common sense acquits.\n\n [182] The first edition (1778) was entitled _Essai sur la Vie de\n Seneque le philosophe, sur ses ecrits, et sur le regne de Claude et\n de Neron_. In the second edition (1782) this was changed into _Essai\n sur les regnes de Claude et de Neron, et sur la vie et les ecrits de\n Seneque_.\n\nDiderot, as we have already pointed out,[183] was always very near to\nthe position that there is no such thing as an absolute rule of right\nand wrong, defining classes of acts unconditionally, but each act must\nbe judged on its merits with reference to all the circumstances of the\ngiven case. Seneca's career tests this way of looking at things very\nseverely. His connivance with the minor sensualities of Nero's youth, as\na means of restraining him from downright crime, and of keeping a\nmeasure of order in the government, will perhaps be pardoned by most of\nthose who realise the awful perils of the Empire. As Diderot says,\nnobody blames Fenelon or Bossuet for remaining at the court of Lewis\nXIV. in its days of license. But connivance with a king's amours,\nhowever degrading it may be from a certain point of view, is a very\ndifferent thing from acquiescence in a king's murder of his mother. Even\nhere Diderot's impetuosity carries him in two or three bounds over every\nobstacle. The various courses open to the minister, after the murder of\nAgrippina, are discussed and dismissed. What, after Nero had slain his\nmother, was there nothing left to be done by a firm, just, and\nenlightened man, with an immense burden of affairs on his back, and\ncapable by his courage and benevolence, of bearing succour, repairing\nmisfortunes, hindering depredations, removing the incompetent, and\ngiving power to men of virtue, knowledge, and ability? If he had only\nsaved the honour of a single good woman, or the life or fortune of a\nsingle good citizen; if he could bring a day of tranquillity to the\nprovinces, or cross for a week the designs of the miscreants by whom the\nemperor was surrounded, then Seneca would have been blamed, and would\nhave deserved blame, if he had either retired from court or put an end\nto his life.[184] This is all true enough, and if Seneca had been only a\nstatesman, the world would probably have applauded him for clinging to\nthe helm at all cost. Unhappily, he was not only a statesman, but a\nmoralist. The two characters are always hard to reconcile, as perhaps\nany parliamentary candidate might tell us. The contrast between lofty\nwriting and slippery policy has been too violent for Seneca's good fame,\nas it was for Francis Bacon's. It is ever at his own proper risk and\nperil that a man dares to present high ideals to the world.\n\n [183] Above, vol. ii. chap. i.\n\n [184] iii. 110, 111.\n\nOne of the strangest of the many strange digressions in which the Essay\non Claudius and Nero abounds, brings us within the glare of the great\nliterary quarrel of the century. Soon after Rousseau settled in Paris\nfor the last time, on his return from England and the subsequent\nvagabondage, it was known that he had written the _Confessions_, dealing\nat least as freely with the lives of others as with his own. He had even\nin 1770 and 1771 given readings of certain passages from them, until\nMadame d'Epinay, and perhaps also the Marechale de Luxemburg, prevailed\non the authorities to interfere. No one was angrier than Diderot, and\nin the first edition of the Essay, published in the year of Rousseau's\ndeath (1778), he incongruously placed in the midst of his disquisitions\non the philosopher of the first century, a long and acrimonious note\nupon the perversities of the reactionary philosopher of the eighteenth.\nHe was believed by those who talked to him to be in dread of the\nappearance of the _Confessions_, and we may accept this readily enough,\nwithout assuming that Diderot was conscious of hidden enormities which\nhe was afraid of seeing publicly uncovered. Rousseau, as Diderot well\nknew, was so wayward, so strangely oblique both in vision and judgment,\nthat innocence was no security against malice and misrepresentation.\n\nRousseau's name has never lacked fanatical partisans down to our own\nday, and Diderot was attacked by some of the earliest of them for his\nnote of disparagement. The first part of the _Confessions_--all that\nDiderot ever saw--appeared in 1782, and in the same year Diderot\npublished a second edition of the Essay on Claudius and Nero, so\naugmented by replies, inserted in season and out of season, to the\ndiatribes of the party of Rousseau, that as it now stands the reader may\nwell doubt whether the substance and foundation of the book is an\napology for Seneca or a vindication of Denis Diderot. As Grimm said, we\nhave to make up our minds to see the author suddenly pass from the\npalace of the Caesars to the garret of MM. Royou, Grosier, and company;\nfrom Paris to Rome, and from Rome back again to Paris; from the reign\nof Claudius to the reign of Lewis XV.; from the college of the Sorbonne\nto the college of the augurs; to turn now to the masters of the world,\nand now to the yelping curs of literature; to see him in his dramatic\nenthusiasm making the one speak and the others answer; apostrophising\nhimself and apostrophising his readers, and leaving them often enough in\nperplexity as to the personage who is speaking and the personage whom he\naddresses.[185] We may agree with Grimm that this gives an air of\noriginality to the performance, but such originality is of a kind to\ndisplease the serious student, without really attracting the few readers\nwho have a taste for rebelling against the pedantries of literary form.\nWe become confused by the long strain of uncertainty whether we are\nreading about the Roman Emperor or the French King; about Seneca,\nBurrhus, and Thrasea, or Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker.\n\n [185] Grimm, _Corr. Lit._, xi. 77.\n\nDiderot's candour, simplicity, happy bonhommie, and sincerity in real\ninterests raised him habitually above the pettiness, the bustling\nmalice, the vain self-consciousness, the personalities that infest all\nliterary and social cliques. It is surprising at first that Diderot, who\nhad all his life borne the sting of the gnats of Grub Street with decent\ncomposure, should have been so moved by Rousseau, or by meaner\nassailants, whom Rousseau himself would have rudely disclaimed. The\nexplanation seems to lie in this fact of human character, that a man of\nDiderot's temperament, while entirely heedless of criticism directed\nagainst his opinions or his public position, is specially sensitive to\ninnuendoes against his private benevolence and loyalty. An insult to the\nforce of his understanding was indifferent to him, but an affront to\none's _belle ame_ is beyond pardon. It was hard that a man who had\nprodigally thrown away the forces of his life for others should be\ncharged with malignity of heart and an incapacity for friendship. This\nwas the harder, because it was the moral fashion of that day to place\nfriendliness, amiability, the desire to please and to serve, at the very\nhead of all the virtues. The whole correspondence of the time is\npenetrated to an incomparable degree by a caressing spirit; it is\nsometimes too elaborate and far-fetched in expression, but it marks a\nvivid sociability, and even a true humanity, that softens and harmonises\nthe sharpness of men's egotism.\n\nAgain, though Diderot himself is not ungenerously handled in the\n_Confessions_, there are passages about Madame d'Epinay and Madame\nd'Houdetot which not only stamp Rousseau with ingratitude towards two\nwomen who had treated him kindly, but which were calculated to make\npractical mischief among people still living. All this was atrocious in\nitself, and the atrocity seemed more black to Diderot than to others,\nbecause he had for some years known Madame d'Epinay as a friendly\ncreature, and, above all, because Grimm was her lover. Perhaps we may\nadd among the reasons that stirred him to pen these diatribes, a\nconsciousness of the harm that Rousseau's sentimentalism had done to\nsound and positive thinking. But this, we may be sure, would be\ninfinitely less potent than the motives that sprang from Diderot's own\nsentimentalism. The quarrel, for all save a few foolish partisans, is\nnow dead, and we may leave the dust once more to settle thick upon it.\nDiderot's own way of reading history is not unworthy of imitation, and\nit is capable of application in spirit to private conduct no less than\nto the history of great public events. \"Does the narrative present me\nwith some fact that dishonours humanity? Then I examine it with the most\nrigorous severity; whatever sagacity I may be able to command, I employ\nin detecting contradictions that throw suspicion on the story. It is not\nso when an action is beautiful, lofty, noble. Then I never think of\narguing against the pleasure that I feel in sharing the name of man with\none who has done such an action. I will say more; it is to my heart, and\nperhaps too it is only conformable to justice, to hazard an opinion that\ntends to whiten an illustrious personage, in the face of authorities\nthat seem to contradict the tenour of his life, of his doctrine, and of\nhis general repute.\"[186]\n\n [186] _Oeuv._, iii. 57.\n\nThe elaborate outbreak against Rousseau is perhaps Diderot's only breach\nof what ought thus to be a rule for all magnanimous men. Diderot, or his\nshade, paid the penalty. La Harpe retaliated for some slight wound to\npitiful literary vanity, by a lecture on Seneca in which he raked up\nall the old accusations against Seneca's champion. La Harpe, for various\nreasons into which we need not now more particularly enter, got the ear\nof the European public in the years of reaction after he had himself\ndeserted his old philosophic friends, and gone over to the conservative\ncamp. He found the world eager to listen to all that could be said\nagainst men who were believed to have corrupted their age; and his\nbitter misrepresentations, not seldom invigorated by lies, were the\norigin of much of the vulgar prejudice that has only begun to melt away\nin our own generation.\n\nRousseau died in 1778. The more versatile literary genius of the century\nhad died a couple of months earlier in the same year. It was not until\nthe occasion of Voltaire's triumphant visit to Paris, after an absence\nof seven-and-twenty years, that he and Diderot at length met. Their\ncorrespondence had been less constant and less cordial than was common\nwhere Voltaire was concerned; but though their sympathy was imperfect,\nthere was no lack of mutual goodwill and admiration. The poet is said to\nhave done his best to push Diderot into the Academy, but the king was\nincurably hostile, and Diderot was not anxious for an empty distinction.\nHe had none of that vanity nor eagerness for recognition--pardonable\nenough, for that matter--which such distinctions gratify. And he perhaps\nagreed with Voltaire himself, who said of academies and parliaments\nthat, when men come together, their ears instantly become elongated.\nAfter Diderot's return from Russia Voltaire wrote to him: \"I am\neighty-three years of age, and I repeat that I am inconsolable at the\nthought of dying without ever having seen you. I have tried to collect\naround me as many of your children as possible, but I am a long way from\nhaving the whole family.... We are not so far apart, at bottom, and it\nonly needs a conversation to bring us to an understanding.\"[187]\n\n [187] Dec. 8, 1776.\n\nOf such conversations we have almost nothing to tell. No sacred bard has\ncommemorated the salutation of the heroes. We only know that at the end\nof their first interview Diderot's facility of discourse had been so\ncopious that, after he had taken his leave, Voltaire said: \"The man is\nclever, assuredly; but he lacks one talent, and an essential\ntalent--that of dialogue.\" Diderot's remark about Voltaire was more\npicturesque. \"He is like one of those old haunted castles, which are\nfalling into ruins in every part; but you easily perceive that it is\ninhabited by some ancient sorcerer.\"[188] They had a dispute as to the\nmerits of Shakespeare, and Diderot displeased the patriarch by repeating\nthe expression that we have already quoted (vol. i. p. 330) about\nShakespeare being like the statue of St. Christopher at Notre Dame,\nunshapely and rude, but such a giant that ordinary men could pass\nbetween his legs without touching him.[189]\n\n [188] Metra's _Corresp. Secrete_, vi. 292.\n\n [189] See Diderot's _Oeuv._, xix. 465, _note_.\n\nThere was one man who might have told us a thousand interesting things\nboth about Diderot's conversations with Voltaire, and his relations\nwith other men. This man was Naigeon, to whom Diderot gave most of his\npapers, and who always professed, down to his death in 1814, to be\nDiderot's closest adherent and most authoritative expounder. Diderot\nwas, as he always knew and said, less an author than a talker; not a\ntalker like Johnson, but like Coleridge. If Naigeon could only have\ncontented himself with playing reporter, and could have been blessed by\nnature with the rare art of Boswell. \"We wanted,\" as Carlyle says, \"to\nsee and know how it stood with the bodily man, the working and warfaring\nDenis Diderot; how he looked and lived, what he did, what he said.\"\nInstead of which, nothing but \"a dull, sulky, snuffling, droning,\ninterminable lecture on Atheistic Philosophy,\" delivered with the\nvehemence of some pulpit-drumming Gowkthrapple, or \"precious Mr. Jabesh\nRentowel.\" Naigeon belonged to the too numerous class of men and women\noverabundantly endowed with unwise intellect. He was acute, diligent,\nand tenacious; fond of books, especially when they had handsome margins\nand fine bindings; above all things, he was the most fanatical atheist,\nand the most indefatigable propagandist and eager proselytiser which\nthat form of religion can boast. We do not know the date of his first\nacquaintance with Diderot;[190] we only know that at the end of\nDiderot's days he had no busier or more fervent disciple than Naigeon.\nTo us, at all events, whatever it may have been to Diderot, the\nacquaintance and discipleship have proved good for very little.\n\n [190] The _Biographie Universelle_, after giving 1738 as the date of\n Naigeon's birth, absurdly attributes to him the article on _Ame_ in\n the Encyclopaedia, which was published in 1752, when Naigeon was\n fourteen years old.\n\nOur last authentic glimpse of Diderot is from the pen of a humane and\nenlightened Englishman, whose memory must be held in perpetual honour\namong us. Samuel Romilly, then a young man of four-and-twenty, visited\nParis in 1781. He made the acquaintance of the namesake who had written\nthe articles on watch-making in the Encyclopaedia, and whose son had\nwritten the more famous articles on Toleration and Virtue. By this\nhonest man Romilly was introduced to D'Alembert and Diderot. The former\nwas in weak health and said very little. Diderot, on the contrary, was\nall warmth and eagerness, and talked to his visitor with as little\nreserve as if he had been long and intimately acquainted with him. He\nspoke on politics, religion, and philosophy. He praised the English for\nhaving led the way to sound philosophy, but the adventurous genius of\nthe French, he said, had pushed them on before their guides. \"You\nothers,\" he continued, \"mix up theology with your philosophy; that is to\nspoil everything, it is to mix up lies with truth; _il faut sabrer la\ntheologie_--we must put theology to the sword.\" He was ostentatious,\nRomilly says, of a total disbelief in the existence of a God. He quoted\nPlato, \"the author of all the good theology that ever existed in the\nworld, as saying that there is a vast curtain drawn over the heavens,\nand that men must content themselves with what passes beneath that\ncurtain, without ever attempting to raise it; and in order to complete\nmy conversion from my unhappy errors, he read me all through a little\nwork of his own\"--of which we shall presently speak. On politics he\ntalked very eagerly, \"and inveighed with great warmth against the\ntyranny of the French government. He told me that he had long meditated\na work upon the death of Charles the First; that he had studied the\ntrial of that prince; and that his intention was to have tried him over\nagain, and to have sent him to the scaffold if he had found him guilty,\nbut that he had at last relinquished the design. In England he would\nhave executed it, but he had not the courage to do so in France.\nD'Alembert, as I have observed was more cautious; he contented himself\nwith observing what an effect philosophy had in his own time produced on\nthe minds of the people. The birth of the Dauphin (known afterwards as\nLewis XVII., the unhappy prisoner of the Temple) afforded him an\nexample. He was old enough, he said, to remember when such an event had\nmade the whole nation drunk with joy (1729), but now they regarded with\ngreat indifference the birth of another master.\"[191]\n\n [191] _Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly_, i. 63, 179, etc.\n\nIt was thus clear to the two veterans of the Encyclopaedia that the\nchange for which they had worked was at hand. The press literally teemed\nwith pamphlets, treatises, poems, histories, all shouting from the\nhouse-tops open destruction to beliefs which fifty years before were\nactively protected against so much as a whisper in the closet. Every\nform of literary art was seized and turned into an instrument in the\nremorseless attack on _L'Infame_. The conservative or religious\nopposition showed a weakness that is hardly paralleled in the long\nhistory of the mighty controversy. Ability, adroitness, vigour, and\ncharacter were for once all on one side. Palissot was perhaps, after\nall, the best of the writers on the conservative side.[192] With all his\nfaults, he had the literary sense. Some of what he said was true, and\nsome of the third-rate people whom he assailed deserved the assault. His\ncriticism on Diderot's drama, _The Natural Son_, was not a whit more\nsevere than that bad play demanded.[193] Not seldom in the course of\nthis work we have wished with Palissot that the excellent Diderot were\nless addicted to prophetic and apocalyptical turns of speech, that there\nwere less of chaos round his points of burning and shining light, and\nthat he had less title to the hostile name of the Lycophron of\nphilosophy.[194] But the comedy of _The Philosophers_ was a scandalous\nmisrepresentation, introducing Diderot personally on the stage, and\nputting into his mouth a mixture of folly and knavery that was as\nforeign to Diderot as to any one else in the world. In 1782 the satirist\nagain attacked his enemy, now grown old and weary. In _Le Satyrique_,\nValere, a spiteful and hypocritical poetaster, is intended partially at\nleast for Diderot. A colporteur, not ill-named as M. Pamphlet, comes to\nurge payment of his bill.\n\n [192] See above, vol. i. p. 362.\n\n [193] _Petites Lettres sur de Grands Philosophes_, ii.\n\n [194] _Oeuv. de Palissot_, i. 445. iv. 244.\n\n Daignez avoir egard a mes vives instances.\n Je suis humilie d'y mettre tant de feu:\n Mais les temps sont si durs! le comptoir rend si peu!\n Imprimeur, Colporteur, Relieur, et Libraire,\n Avec tous ces metiers, je suis dans la misere:\n Mais j'ai toujours grand soin, malgre ma pauvrete,\n De ne peser mon gain qu'au poids de l'equite.\n Vous en allez juger par le susdit memoire.\n\n [_Il prend ses lunettes comme pour lire._\n\n VALERE. (_Avec humeur._) Eh, monsieur, finissez.\n\n M. PAMPHLET. C'est trahir votre gloire\n Que de vouloir caeher les immortels ecrits\n\n [_Il lit._\n\n Dont vous etes l'auteur. _Les Boudoirs de Paris,_\n _On Journal des Abbes._ _L'Espion des Coulisses,_\n Ouvrage assez piquant sur les moeurs des actrices.\n\nAnd the intention of the pleasantry is pointed by a malicious footnote,\nto the effect that people who might be surprised that a serious man like\nValere should have written works of this licentious and frivolous kind,\nwill conceive that in a moment of leisure a philosopher should write\n_Les Bijoux Indiscrets_, for instance, and the next day follow it by a\ntreatise on morality,[195]--as Diderot unhappily had done.\n\n [195] _Le Satyrique_, iii. p. 84. _note_.\n\nPalissot was not so good as Moliere, Boileau, and Pope, as he was\nfatuous enough to suppose; but he was certainly better than the\nscribbler who asked--\n\n Mais enfin de quoi se glorifie\n Ce siecle de mollesse et de Philosophie?\n Dites-moi: le Francais a-t-il un coeur plus franc\n Plus prodigue a l'etat de son genereux sang,\n Plus ardent a venger la plaintive innocence\n Contre l'iniquite que soutient la puissance?\n Le Francais philosophe est-il plus respecte\n Pour la foi, la candeur, l'exacte probite?\n Ou sont-ils ces Heros, ces vertueux modeles\n Que l'Encyclopedie a couve sous ses ailes?[196]\n\n [196] Metra, vi. 128.\n\nTiresome doggrel of this kind was the strongest retort that the party of\nobscurantism could muster against the vigour, grace, and sparkle of\nVoltaire.\n\nThe great official champions of the old system were not much wiser than\ntheir hacks in the press. The churchmen were given over to a blind mind.\nThe great edition of Voltaire's works which Beaumarchais was printing\nover the frontier at Kehl, excited their anger to a furious pitch. The\ninfamous Cardinal de Rohan, archbishop of Strasburg (1781), denounced\nthe publication as sacrilege. The archbishop of Paris (1785) thundered\nagainst the monument of scandal and the work of darkness. The archbishop\nof Vienne forbade the faithful of his diocese to subscribe to it under\npain of mortal sin. In the general assembly of the clergy which opened\nin the summer of 1780, the bishops, in memorials to the king, deplored\nthe homage paid to the famous writer who was \"less known for the beauty\nof his genius and the superiority of his talents, than for the\npersevering and implacable war which for sixty years he had waged\nagainst the Lord and his Christ.\" They cursed in solemn phrase the\n\"revolting blasphemies\" of Raynal's _History of the Indies_, and\ndeclared that the publication of a new edition of that celebrated book\nwith the name and the portrait of its author, showed that the most\nelementary notions of shame and decency lay in profound sleep.\n\nIn the midst of those prolonged cries of distress, we have no word of\nrecognition that the only remedy for a moral disease is a moral remedy.\nThe single resource that occurred to their debilitated souls was the\nfamiliar armoury of suppression, menace, violence, and tyranny. \"Sire,\"\nthey cried, \"it is time to put a term to this deplorable lethargy.\" They\nreminded the king of the declaration of 1757, which inflicted on all\npersons who printed or circulated writings hostile to religion, the\npunishment of death. But \"their paternal bowels shuddered at the sight\nof these severe enactments;\" all that they sought was plenty of rigorous\nimprisonment, ruinous fining, and diligent espionage.[197] If the reader\nis revolted by the rashness of Diderot's expectation of the speedy decay\nof the belief in a God,[198] he may well be equally revolted by the\nobstinate infatuation of the men who expected to preserve the belief in\na God by the spies of the department of police. Much had no doubt been\ndone for the church in past times by cruelty and oppression, but the\nfolly of the French bishops, after the reign of Voltaire and the\napostolate of the Encyclopaedia, lay exactly in their blindness to the\nfact that the old methods were henceforth impossible in France, and\nimpossible for ever. How can we wonder at the hatred and contempt felt\nby men of the social intelligence of Diderot and D'Alembert for this\ndesperate union of impotence and malignity?\n\n [197] See for abundant matter of the same kind, M. Rocquain's\n _L'Esprit Revolutionnaire avant la Revolution_, bk. x. pp. 382, 390,\n etc.\n\n [198] Montesquieu more sensibly had given the Church not more than\n five hundred years to live. _Let. Pers._, 117. One hundred and fifty\n of them have already passed.\n\nThe band of the precursors was rapidly disappearing. Grimm and Holbach,\nCatherine and Frederick, still survived.[199] D'Alembert, tended to the\nlast hour by Condorcet with the lovable reverence of a son, died at the\nend of October 1783. Turgot, gazing with eyes of astonished sternness on\na society hurrying incorrigibly with joyful speed along the path of\ndestruction, had passed away two years before (1781). Voltaire, the\ngreat intellectual director of Europe for fifty years, and Rousseau, the\ngreat emotional reactionist, had both, as we know, died in 1778. The\nlittle companies in which, from Adrienne Lecouvreur, the Marquise de\nLambert, and Madame de Tencin, in the first half of the century, groups\nof intelligent men and women had succeeded in founding informal schools\nof disinterested opinion, and in finally removing the centre of\ncriticism and intellectual activity from Versailles to Paris, had now\nnearly all come to an end. Madame du Deffand died in 1780, Madame\nGeoffrin in 1779, and in 1776 Mdlle. Lespinasse, whose letters will long\nsurvive her, as giving a burning literary note to the vagueness of\nsuffering and pain of soul. One of Diderot's favourite companions in\nolder days, Galiani, the antiquary, the scholar, the politician, the\nincomparable mimic, the shrewdest, wittiest, and gayest of men after\nVoltaire, was feeling the dull grasp of approaching death under his\nnative sky at Naples. Galiani's _Dialogues on the Trade in Grain_\n(1769-70) contained, under that most unpromising title, a piece of\nliterature which for its verve, rapidity, wit, dialectical subtlety, and\nreal strength of thought, has hardly been surpassed by masterpieces of a\nwider recognition. Voltaire vowed that Plato and Moliere must have\ncombined to produce a book that was as amusing as the best of romances,\nand as instructive as the best of serious books. Diderot, who had a hand\nin retouching the _Dialogues_ for the press,[200] went so far as to\npronounce them worthy of a place along with the _Provincial Letters_ of\nPascal, and declared that, like those immortal pieces, Galiani's\ndialogues would remain as a model of perfection in their own kind, long\nafter both the subject and the personages concerned had lost their\ninterest.[201] The prophecy has not come quite true, for the world is\nbusy, and heedless, and much the prey of accident and capricious\ntradition in the books that it reads. Yet even now, although Galiani\nwas probably wrong on the special issue between himself and the\neconomists, it would be well if people would turn to his demolition, as\nwise as witty, of the doctrine of absolute truths in political economy.\nGaliani's constant correspondent was Madame d'Epinay, the kindly\nbenefactress of Rousseau a quarter of a century earlier, the friend of\nDiderot, the more than friend of Grimm. In 1783 she died, and either in\nthat year or the next, Mademoiselle Voland, who had filled so great a\nspace in the life of Diderot. The ghosts and memories of his friends\nbecame the majority, and he consoled himself that he should not long\nsurvive.\n\n [199] Grimm died in 1807, Holbach in 1789, Catherine in 1796, and\n Frederick in 1786.\n\n [200] See _Oeuv._, xix. 317, 326.\n\n [201] _Oeuv._, vi. 442, where Diderot gives a sketch of this\n interesting man.\n\nThe days of intellectual excitement and philanthropic hope seemed at\ntheir very height, but in fact they were over. \"Nobody,\" said\nTalleyrand, \"who has not lived before 1789, knows how sweet life can\nbe.\" The old world had its last laugh over the _Marriage of Figaro_\n(April 1784), but in the laugh of Figaro there is a strange ring. Under\nall its gaiety, its liveliness, its admirable _naivete_, was something\nsombre. It was pregnant with menace. Its fooling was the ironical\nenforcement of Raynal's trenchant declaration that \"the law is nothing,\nif it be not a sword gliding indistinctly over the heads of all, and\nstriking down whatever rises above the horizontal plane along which it\nmoves.\"\n\nDiderot himself is commonly accused of having fomented an atrocious\nspirit by the horrible couplet--\n\n Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du pretre,\n Au defaut d'un cordon pour etrangler les rois.[202]\n\n [202] \"Is it not possible that the virtuous and moderate proposal to\n strangle the last Jesuit in the bowels of the last Jansenist might\n do something towards reconciling matters?\"--Voltaire to Helvetius,\n May 11, 1761.\n\nThat the verses could have actually excited the spirit of the Terrorists\nis impossible, for they were not given to the world until 1795. And in\nthe second place, so far as Diderot's intention is concerned, any one\nwho reads the piece from which the lines are taken, will perceive that\nthe whole performance is in a vein of playful phantasy, and that the\nparticular verses are placed dramatically in the mouth of a proclaimed\nEleutheromane, or maniac for liberty.[203] Diderot was not likely to\nforesee that what he designed for an illustration of the frenzy of the\nPindaric dithyramb, would so soon be mistaken for a short formula of\npractical politics.[204]\n\n [203] _Les Eleutheromanes, ou les Furieux de la Liberte._ _Oeuv._,\n ix. 16.\n\n [204] It is a curious illustration of the carelessness with which\n the so-called negative school have been treated, that so\n conscientious a writer as M. Henri Martin (_Hist. de France_, xvi.\n 146) should have taxed Diderot, among other sinister maxims, with\n this, that \"the public punishment of a king changes the spirit of a\n nation for ever.\" Now the words occur in a collection of\n observations on government, which Diderot wrote on the margin of his\n copy of Tacitus, and which are entitled _Principes de Politique des\n Souverains_ (1775). Some of the most pungent maxims are obviously\n intended for irony on the military and Machiavellian policy of\n Frederick the Great, while others on the policy of the Roman\n emperors are shrewd and sagacious. The maxim from which M. Martin\n quotes is the 147th, and in it the sombre words of his quotation\n follow this:--\"_Let the people never see royal blood flow for any\n cause whatever._ The public punishment of a king,\" etc.! See\n _Oeuv._, ii. 486.\n\nIn 1780 his townsmen of Langres paid him a compliment, which showed that\nthe sage was not without honour in his own country. They besought him to\nsit for his portrait, to be placed among the worthies in the town hall.\nDiderot replied by sending them Houdon's bronze bust, which was received\nwith all distinction and honour. Naigeon hints that in the last years of\nhis life Diderot paid more attention to money than he had ever done\nbefore;[205] not that he became a miser, but because, like many other\npersons, he had not found out until the close of a life's experience\nthat care of money really means care of the instrument that procures\nsome of the best ends in life. For a moment we may regret that he was\ntoo much occupied in attending to his affairs to take the unwise\nNaigeon's wise counsel, that he should devote himself to a careful\nrevision of all that he had written. Perhaps Diderot's instinct was\nright. Among the distractions of old age, he had turned back to his\nLetter on the Blind, and read it over again without partiality. He\nfound, as was natural, some defects in a piece that was written\nthree-and-thirty years before, but he abstained from attempting to\nremove them, for fear that the page of the young man should be made the\nworse by the retouching of the old man. \"There comes a time,\" he\nreflects, \"when taste gives counsels whose justice you recognise, but\nwhich you have no longer strength to follow. It is the pusillanimity\nthat springs from consciousness of weakness, or else it is the idleness\nthat is one of the results of weakness and pusillanimity, which disgusts\nme with a task that would be more likely to hurt than to improve my\nwork.\n\n Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne\n Peccet ad extremum ridendus et ilia ducat.\"\n\nAnd so he contented himself with some rough notes of phenomena that were\ncorroborative of the speculation of his youth.[206]\n\n [205] _Mem. sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Diderot_, p. 412.\n\n [206] Grimm, _Corr. Lit._, xi. 120.\n\nIn the early spring of 1784 Diderot had an attack which he knew to be\nthe presage of the end. Dropsy set in, and he lingered until the summer.\nThe priest of Saint Sulpice, the centre of the philosophic quarter, came\nto visit him two or three times a week, hoping to achieve at least the\nsemblance of a conversion. Diderot did not encourage conversation on\ntheology, but when pressed he did not refuse it. One day when they\nfound, as two men of sense will always find, that they had ample common\nground in matters of morality and good works, the priest ventured to\nhint that an exposition of such excellent maxims, accompanied by a\nslight retractation of Diderot's previous works, would have a good\neffect on the world. \"I daresay it would, monsieur le cure, but confess\nthat I should be acting an impudent lie.\" And no word of retractation\nwas ever made. As the end came suddenly, the priest escaped from the\nnecessity of denying the funeral rites of the Church.\n\nFor thirty years Diderot had been steadfast to his quarters on an upper\nfloor in the Rue Taranne, and even now, when the physicians told him\nthat to climb such length of staircase was death to him, he still could\nnot be induced to stir. It would have been easier, his daughter says, to\neffect a removal from Versailles itself. Grimm at length asked the\nEmpress of Russia to provide a house for her librarian, and when the\nrequest was conceded, Diderot, who could never be ungracious, allowed\nhimself to be taken from his garret to palatial rooms in the Rue de\nRichelieu. He enjoyed them less than a fortnight. Though visibly growing\nweaker every day, he did all that he could to cheer the people around\nhim, and amused himself and them by arranging his pictures and his\nbooks. In the evening, to the last, he found strength to converse on\nscience and philosophy to the friends who were eager as ever for the\nlast gleanings of his prolific intellect. In the last conversation that\nhis daughter heard him carry on, his last words were the pregnant\naphorism that _the first step towards philosophy is incredulity_.\n\nOn the evening of the 30th of July 1784 he sat down to table, and at the\nend of the meal took an apricot. His wife, with kindly solicitude,\nremonstrated. _Mais quel diable de mal veux-tu que cela me fasse?_ he\nsaid, and ate the apricot. Then he rested his elbow on the table,\ntrifling with some sweetmeats. His wife asked him a question; on\nreceiving no answer, she looked up and saw that he was dead. He had died\nas the Greek poet says that men died in the golden age--[Greek: thneskon\nd' hos hypno dedmemenoi], _they passed away as if mastered by sleep_. It\nhad always been his opinion that an examination of the organs after\ndeath is a useful practice, and his wish that the operation should take\nplace in his own case was respected. Nothing interesting or remarkable\nwas revealed, and his remains were laid in the vaults of the church of\nSaint Roche.\n\nSo the curtain fell upon this strange tragi-comedy of a man of letters.\nThere is no better epilogue than words of his own:--\"We fix our gaze on\nthe ruins of a triumphal arch, of a portico, a pyramid, a temple, a\npalace, and we return upon ourselves. All is annihilated, perishes,\npasses away. It is only the world that remains; only time that endures.\nI walk between two eternities. To whatever side I turn my eyes, the\nobjects that surround me tell of an end, and teach me resignation to my\nown end. What is my ephemeral existence in comparison with that of the\ncrumbling rock and the decaying forest? I see the marble of the tomb\nfalling to dust, and yet I cannot bear to die! Am I to grudge a feeble\ntissue of fibres and flesh to a general law, that executes itself\ninexorably even on very bronze!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\n\nA few more pages must be given to one or two of Diderot's writings which\nhave not hitherto been mentioned. An exhaustive survey of his works is\nout of the question, nor would any one be repaid for the labour of\ncriticism. A mere list of the topics that he handled would fill a long\nchapter. A redaction of a long treatise on harmony, a vast sheaf of\nnotes on the elements of physiology, a collection of miscellanea on the\ndrama, a still more copious collection of miscellanea on a hundred\npoints in literature and art, a fragment on the exercise of young\nRussians, an elaborate plan of studies for a proposed Russian\nUniversity,--no less panurgic and less encyclopaedic a critic than\nDiderot himself could undertake to sweep with ever so light a wing over\nthis vast area. Everybody can find something to say about the collection\nof tales, in which Diderot thought that he was satirising the manners of\nhis time, after the fashion of Rabelais, Montaigne, La Mothe-le-Vayer,\nand Swift. But not everybody is competent to deal, for instance, with\nthe five memoirs on different subjects in mathematics (1748), with\nwhich Diderot hoped to efface the scandal of his previous performance.\n\n\nI.\n\nDecidedly the most important of the pieces of which we have not yet\nspoken must be counted the _Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature_\n(1754). His study of Bacon and the composition of the introductory\nprospectus of the Encyclopaedia had naturally filled Diderot's mind with\nideas about the universe as a whole. The great problem of man's\nknowledge of this universe,--the limits, the instruments, the meaning of\nsuch knowledge, came before him with a force that he could not evade.\nMaupertuis had in 1751, under the assumed name of Baumann, an imaginary\ndoctor of Erlangen, published a dissertation on the _Universal System of\nNature_, in which he seems to have maintained that the mechanism of the\nuniverse is one and the same throughout, modifying itself, or being\nmodified by some vital element within, in an infinity of diverse\nways.[207] Leibnitz's famous idea, of making nature invariably work with\nthe minimum of action, was seized by Maupertuis, expressed as the Law of\nThrift, and made the starting-point of speculations that led directly to\nHolbach and the _System of Nature_.[208] The _Loi d'Epargne_ evidently\ntended to make unity of all the forces of the universe the keynote or\nthe goal of philosophical inquiry. At this time of his life, Diderot\nresisted Maupertuis's theory of the unity of vital force in the\nuniverse, or perhaps we should rather say that he saw how open it was to\ncriticism. His resistance has none of his usual air of vehement\nconviction. However that may be, the theory excited his interest, and\nfitted in with the train of meditation which his thoughts about the\nEncyclopaedia had already set in motion, and of which the _Pensees\nPhilosophiques_ of 1746 were the cruder prelude.\n\n [207] As to the precise drift of Maupertuis's theme, see Lange,\n _Gesch. d. Materialismus_, i. 413, _n._ 37. Also Rosenkranz, i. 134.\n\n [208] In 1765 Grimm describes the principle of Leibnitz and\n Maupertuis as \"gaining on us on every side.\"--_Corr. Lit._, iv. 186.\n\nThe _Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature_ are, in form as in title,\nimitated from those famous _Aphorismi de Interpretatione Naturae et Regni\nHominis_, which are more shortly known to all men as Bacon's _Novum\nOrganum_.[209] The connection between the aphorisms is very loosely\nheld. Diderot began by premising that he would let his thoughts follow\none another under his pen, in the order in which the subjects came up in\nhis mind; and he kept his word. Their general scope, so far as it is\ncapable of condensed expression, may be described as a reconciliation\nbetween the two great classes into which Diderot found thinkers upon\nNature to be divided; those who have many instruments and few ideas, and\nthose who have few instruments and many ideas,--in other words, between\nmen of science without philosophy, and philosophers without knowledge\nof experimental science.\n\n [209] Palissot, in the _Philosophers_, concocted some very strained\n satire on the too pompous opening of the _Interpretation of Nature_.\n Act I. sc. 2.\n\nIn the region of science itself, again, Diderot foresees as great a\nchange as in the relations between science and philosophy. \"We touch the\nmoment of a great revolution in the sciences. From the strong\ninclination of men's minds towards morals, literature, the history of\nnature and experimental physics, I would almost venture to assert that\nbefore the next hundred years are over, there will not be three great\ngeometers to be counted in Europe. This science will stop short where\nthe Bernouillis, the Eulers, the Maupertuis, the Clairauts, the\nFontaines, the D'Alemberts, the Lagranges have left it. They will have\nfixed the Pillars of Hercules. People will go no further.\" Those who\nhave read Comte's angry denunciations of the perversions of geometry by\nmeans of algebra, and of the waste of intellectual force in modern\nanalysis,[210] will at least understand how such a view as Diderot's was\npossible. And no one will be likely to deny that, whether or not the\npillars of the geometrical Hercules were finally set a hundred years\nago, the great discoveries of the hundred years since Diderot have been,\nas he predicted, in the higher sciences. The great misfortune of France\nwas that the supremacy of geometry coincided with the opening of the\ngreat era of political discussion. The definitions of Montesquieu's\nfamous book, which opened the political movement in literature, have\nbeen shown to be less those of a jurisconsult than of a geometer.[211]\nSocial truths, with all their profound complexity, were handled like\npropositions in Euclid, and logical deductions from arbitrary premises\nwere treated as accurate representations of real circumstance. The\nrepulse of geometry to its proper rank came too late.\n\n [210] Comte's _System of Positive Polity_, i. 380, etc. English\n translation, 1875.\n\n [211] By F. Sclopis, quoted in M. Vian's _Hist. de Montesquieu_, p.\n 51.\n\nComte always liberally recognised Diderot's genius, and any reader of\nComte's views on the necessities of subjective synthesis will discern\nthe germ of that doctrine in the following remarkable section:\n\n \"When we compare the infinite multitude of the phenomena of nature\n with the limits of our understandings and the weakness of our\n organs, can we ever expect anything else from the slowness of our\n work, from the long and frequent interruptions, and from the rarity\n of creative genius than a few broken and separated pieces of the\n great chain that binds all things together? Experimental philosophy\n might work for centuries of centuries, and the materials that it\n had heaped up, finally reaching in their number beyond all\n combination, would still be far removed from an exact enumeration.\n How many volumes would it not need to contain the mere terms by\n which we should designate the distinct collections of phenomena, if\n the phenomena were known? When will the philosophic language be\n complete? If it were complete, who among men would be able to know\n it? If the Eternal, to manifest his power still more plainly than\n by the marvels of nature, had deigned to develop the universal\n mechanism on pages traced by his own hand, do you suppose that this\n great book would be more comprehensible to us than the universe\n itself? How many pages of it all would have been intelligible to\n the philosopher who, with all the force of head that had been\n conferred upon him, was not sure of having grasped all the\n conclusions by which an old geometer determined the relation of the\n sphere to the cylinder? We should have in such pages a fairly good\n measure of the reach of men's minds, and a still more pungent\n satire on our vanity. We should say, Fermat went to such a page,\n Archimedes went a few pages further.\n\n \"What then is our end? The execution of a work that can never be\n achieved, and which would be far beyond human intelligence if it\n were achieved. Are we not more insensate than the first inhabitants\n of the plain of Shinar? We know the immeasurable distance between\n the earth and the heavens, and still we insist on rearing our\n tower.\n\n \"But can we presume that there will not come a time when our pride\n will abandon the work in discouragement? What appearance is there\n that, narrowly lodged and ill at its ease here below, our pride\n should obstinately persist in constructing an uninhabitable palace\n beyond the earth's atmosphere? Even if it should so insist, would\n it not be arrested by the confusion of tongues, which is already\n only too perceptible and too inconvenient in natural history?\n Besides, it is utility that circumscribes all. It will be utility\n that in a few centuries will set bounds to experimental physics, as\n it is on the eve of setting bounds to geometry. I grant centuries\n to this study, because the sphere of its utility is infinitely more\n extensive than that of any abstract science, and it is without\n contradiction the base of our real knowledge.\"[212]\n\n [212] _Oeuv._, ii. 12, 13, Sec. 6. See the same idea in the\n Encyclopaedia, above, vol. i. pp. 225-227.\n\nWe cannot wonder that when Comte drew up his list of the hundred and\nfifty volumes that should form the good Positivist's library in the\nnineteenth century, he should have placed Diderot's _Interpretation of\nNature_ on one side of Descartes' _Discourse on Method_, with Bacon's\n_Novum Organum_ on the other.\n\nThe same spirit finds even stronger and more distinct expression in a\nlater aphorism:--\"Since the reason cannot understand everything,\nimagination foresee everything, sense observe everything, nor memory\nretain everything; since great men are born at such remote intervals,\nand the progress of science is so interrupted by revolution, that whole\nages of study are passed in recovering the knowledge of the centuries\nthat are gone,--to observe everything in nature without distinction is\nto fail in duty to the human race. Men who are beyond the common run in\ntheir talents ought to respect themselves and posterity in the\nemployment of their time. What would posterity think of us if we had\nnothing to transmit to it save a complete insectology, an immense\nhistory of microscopic animals? No--to the great geniuses great objects,\nlittle objects to the little geniuses\" (Sec. 54).\n\nDiderot, while thus warning inquirers against danger on one side, was\nalive to the advantages of stubborn and unlimited experiment on the\nother. \"When you have formed in your mind,\" he says, \"one of those\nsystems which require to be verified by experience, you ought neither to\ncling to it obstinately nor abandon it lightly. People sometimes think\ntheir conjectures false, when they have not taken the proper measures to\nfind them true. Obstinacy, even, has fewer drawbacks than the opposite\nexcess. By multiplying experiments, if you do not find what you want, it\nmay happen that you will come on something better. _Never is time\nemployed in interrogating nature entirely lost_\" (Sec. 42). The reader will\nnot fail to observe that this maxim is limited by the condition of\nverifiableness. Of any system that could not be verified by experience\nDiderot would have disdained to speak in connection with the\ninterpretation of nature.\n\nThis, of course, did not prevent him from hypothesis and prophecy which\nhe himself had not the means of justifying. For example, he said that\njust as in mathematics, by examining all properties of a curve we find\nthat they are one and the same property presented under different faces,\nso in nature when experimental physics are more advanced, people will\nrecognise that all the phenomena, whether of weight, or elasticity, or\nmagnetism, or electricity, are only different sides of the same\naffection (Sec. 44). But he was content to leave it to posterity, and to\nbuild no fabric on unproved propositions.\n\nIn the same scientific spirit he penetrated the hollowness of every\nsystem dealing with Final Causes:\n\n \"The physicist, whose profession is to instruct and not to edify,\n will abandon the _Why_, and will busy himself only with the\n _How_.... How many absurd ideas, false suppositions, chimerical\n notions in those hymns which some rash defenders of final causes\n have dared to compose in honour of the Creator? Instead of sharing\n the transports of admiration of the prophet, and crying out at the\n sight of the unnumbered stars that light up the midnight sky, _The\n heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his\n handiwork_, they have given themselves up to the superstition of\n their conjectures. Instead of adoring the All-Powerful in the\n creation of nature, they have prostrated themselves before the\n phantoms of their imagination. If any one doubts the justice of my\n reproach, I invite him to compare Galen's treatise on the use of\n parts of the human body, with the physiology of Boerhaave, and the\n physiology of Boerhaave with that of Haller; I invite posterity to\n compare the systematic or passing views of Haller with what will be\n the physiology of future times. Man praises the Eternal for his own\n poor views; and the Eternal who hears from the elevation of his\n throne, and who knows his own design, accepts the silly praise and\n smiles at man's vanity\" (Sec. 56).\n\nThe world has advanced rapidly along this path since Diderot's day, and\nhas opened out many new and unsuspected meanings by the way. Perhaps the\nadvance has been less satisfactory in working out, in a scientific way,\nthe philosophy that is implied in the following adaptation of the\nLeibnitzian and Maupertuisian suggestion of the law of economy in\nnatural forces:--\"Astonishment often comes from our supposing several\nmarvels, where in truth there is only one; from our imagining in nature\nas many particular acts as we can count phenomena, whilst _nature has\nperhaps in reality never produced more than one single act_. It seem\neven that, if nature had been under the necessity of producing several\nacts, the different results of such acts would be isolated; that there\nwould be collections of phenomena independent of one another, and that\nthe general chain of which philosophy assumes the continuity, would\nbreak in many places. _The absolute independence of a single fact is\nincompatible with the idea of an All; and without the idea of a Whole,\nthere can be no Philosophy_\" (Sec. 11).\n\nAt length Diderot concludes by a series of questions which he thinks\nthat philosophers may perhaps count worthy of discussion. What is the\ndifference, for example, between living matter and dead? Does the energy\nof a living molecule vary by itself, or according to the quantity, the\nquality, the forms of the dead or living matter with which it is united?\nWe need not continue the enumeration, because Diderot himself suddenly\nbrings them to an end with a truly admirable expression of his sense of\nhow unworthy they are of the attention of serious men, who are able to\nmeasure the difference between a wise and beneficent use of\nintelligence, and a foolish and wasteful misuse of it. \"When I turn my\neyes,\" he says, \"to the works of men, and see the cities that are built\non every side, all the elements yoked to our service, languages fixed,\nnations civilised, harbours constructed, lands and skies measured--then\nthe world seems to me very old. When I find man uncertain as to the\nfirst principles of medicine and agriculture, as to the properties of\nthe commonest substances, as to knowledge of the maladies that afflict\nhim, as to the pruning of trees, as to the best form for the plough,\nthen it seems as if the earth had only been inhabited yesterday. And if\nmen were wise, they would at last give themselves up to such inquiries\nas bear on their wellbeing, and would not take the trouble to answer my\nfutile questions for a thousand years at the very soonest; or perhaps,\neven, considering the very scanty extent that they occupy in space and\ntime, they would never deign to answer them at all.\"\n\n\nII.\n\nIn 1769 Diderot composed three dialogues, of which he said that, with a\ncertain mathematical memoir, they were the only writings of his own with\nwhich he was contented. The first is a dialogue between himself and\nD'Alembert; the second is D'Alembert's Dream, in which D'Alembert in his\nsleep continues the discussion, while Mdlle. Lespinasse, who is watching\nby his bedside, takes down the dreamer's words; in the third, Mdlle.\nLespinasse and the famous physician, Bordeu, conclude the matter.[213]\nIt is impossible, Diderot said to Mdlle. Voland, to be more profound and\nmore mad: it is at once a supreme extravagance, and the most\ndeep-reaching philosophy. He congratulated himself on the cleverness of\nplacing his ideas in the mouth of a man who dreams, on the ground that\nwe must often give to wisdom the air of madness, in order to secure\nadmittance. Mdlle. Lespinasse was not so complacent. She made D'Alembert\ninsist that the dialogue should be destroyed, and Diderot believed that\nhe had burned the only existing copy. As a matter of fact, the\nmanuscript was not published until 1830, when all the people concerned\nhad long been reduced to dust. There are five or six pages, Diderot said\nto Mdlle. Voland, which would make your sister's hair stand on end. A\nman may be much less squeamish than Mdlle. Voland's sister, and still\npronounce the imaginative invention of D'Alembert's Dream, and the\nsequel, to be as odious as anything since the freaks of filthy Diogenes\nin his tub. Two remarks may be made on this strange production. First,\nDiderot never intended the dialogues for the public eye. He would have\nbeen as shocked as the Archbishop of Paris himself, if he had supposed\nthat they would become accessible to everybody who knows how to read.\nSecond, though they are in form the most ugly and disgusting piece in\nthe literature of philosophy, they testify in their own way to Diderot's\nsincerity of interest in his subject. Science is essentially unsparing\nand unblushing, and D'Alembert's Dream plunged exactly into those parts\nof physiology which are least fit to be handled in literature. The\nattempt to give an air of polite comedy to functions and secretions must\nbe pronounced detestable, in spite of the dialectical acuteness and\nforce with which Diderot pressed his point.\n\n [213] _Oeuv._, ii.\n\nIt would be impossible, in a book not exclusively designed for a public\nof professors, to give a full account of these three dialogues. It is\nindispensable to describe their drift, because it is here that Diderot\nfigures definitely as a materialist. Diderot was in no sense the\noriginator of the French materialism of the eighteenth century. He was\npreceded by Maupertuis, by Robinet, and by La Mettrie; and we have\nalready seen that when he composed the Thoughts on the Interpretation of\nNature (1754), he did not fully accept Maupertuis's materialistic\nthesis. Lange has shown that at a very early period in the movement the\nmost consistent materialism was ready and developed, while such leaders\nof the movement as Voltaire and Diderot still leaned either on deism, or\non a mixture of deism and scepticism.[214] The philosophy of\nD'Alembert's Dream is definite enough, and far enough removed alike from\ndeism and scepticism.\n\n [214] _Gesch. d. Materialismus_, i. 309, 310, etc.\n\n\"The thinking man is like a musical instrument. Suppose a clavecin to\nhave sensibility and memory, and then say whether it would not repeat of\nitself the airs that you have played on its keys. We are instruments\nendowed with sensibility and memory. Our senses are so many keys,\npressed by the nature that surrounds them, and they often press one\nanother; and this, according to my judgment, is all that passes in a\nclavecin organised as you and I are organised.\n\n\"There is only one substance in the world. The marble of the statue\nmakes the flesh of the man, and conversely. Reduce a block of marble to\nimpalpable powder; mix this powder with humus, or vegetable earth; knead\nthem well together; water the mixture; let it rot for a year, two\nyears--time does not count. In this you sow the plant, the plant\nnourishes the man, and hence the passage from marble to tissue.\n\n\"Do you see this egg? With that you overturn all the schools of theology\nand all the temples of the earth. It is an insensible mass before the\ngerm is introduced into it; and, after the germ is introduced, there is\nstill an insensible mass, for the germ itself is only an inert fluid.\nHow does this mass pass to another organisation, to life, to\nsensibility? By heat. What will produce heat? Movement. What will be the\nsuccessive effects of movement? First, an oscillating point, a thread\nthat extends, the flesh, the beak, and so forth.\"\n\nThen follows the application of the same ideas to the reproduction of\nman--a region whither it is not convenient to follow the physiological\ninquirer. The result as to the formation of the organic substance in man\nis as unflinching as the materialism of Buechner.\n\n But doctor, cries Mdlle. Lespinasse, what becomes of vice and\n virtue? Virtue, that word so holy in all languages, that idea so\n sacred among all nations?\n\n BORDEU. We must transform it into beneficence, and its opposite\n into the idea of maleficence. A man is happily or unhappily born;\n people are irresistibly drawn on by the general torrent that\n conducts one to glory, the other to ignominy.\n\n MDLLE. LESPINASSE. And self-esteem, and shame, and remorse?\n\n BORDEU. Proclivities, founded on the ignorance or the vanity of a\n being who imputes to himself the merit or the demerit of a\n necessary instant.\n\n MDLLE. LESPINASSE. And rewards and punishments?\n\n BORDEU. Means of correcting the modifiable being that we call bad,\n and encouraging the other that we call good.[215]\n\n [215] _Oeuv._, ii. 176.\n\nThe third dialogue we must leave. The fact that German books are written\nfor a public of specialists allows Dr. Rosenkranz to criticise these\ndialogues with a freedom equal to Diderot's own, and his criticism is as\nfull as usual of candour, patience, and weight. An English writer must\nbe content to pass on, and his contentment may well be considerable, for\nthe subject is perhaps that on which, above all others, it is most\ndifficult to say any wise word.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe Plan of a University for the Government of Russia was the work of\nDiderot's last years, but no copy of it was given to the public before\n1813-14, when M. Guizot published extracts from an autograph manuscript\nconfided to him by Suard. Diderot, with a characteristic respect for\ncompetence, with which no egotism can ever interfere in minds of such\nstrength and veracity as his, began by urging the Empress to consult\nErnesti of Leipsic, the famous editor of Cicero, and no less famous in\nhis day (1707-1781) for the changes that he introduced into the system\nof teaching in the German universities. Of Oxford and Cambridge Diderot\nspoke more kindly than they then deserved.\n\nThe one strongly marked idea of the plan is what might have been\nexpected from the editor of the Encyclopaedia, namely, the elevation of\nwhat the Germans call real or technological instruction, and the\nbanishment of pure literature as a subject of study from the first to\nthe last place in the course. In the faculty of arts the earliest course\nbegins with arithmetic, algebra, the calculation of probabilities, and\ngeometry. Next follow physics and mechanics. Then astronomy. Fourthly,\nnatural history and experimental physics. In the fifth class, chemistry\nand anatomy. In the sixth, logic and grammar. In the seventh, the\nlanguage of the country. And it was not until the eighth, that Greek and\nLatin, eloquence and poetry, took their place among the objects or\ninstruments of education. Parallel with this course, the student was to\nfollow the first principles of metaphysics, of universal morality, and\nof natural and revealed religion. Here, too, history and geography had a\nplace. In a third parallel, perspective and drawing accompanied the\nscience of the first, and the philosophy and history of the second.\n\nIn the thorny field of religious instruction, Diderot expresses no\nopinion of his own, beyond saying that it is natural for the Empress's\nsubjects to conform to her way of thinking. As her majesty thinks that\nthe fear of pains to come has much influence on men's actions, and is\npersuaded that the total of small daily advantages produced by belief\noutweighs the total of evils wrought by sectarianism and intolerance,\ntherefore students ought to be instructed in the mystery of the\ndistinction of the two substances, in the immortality of the soul, and\nso forth.[216]\n\n [216] _Oeuv._, iii. 490.\n\nThere is a story that one evening at St. Petersburg, Diderot was\ndeclaiming with stormy eloquence against the baseness of those who\nflatter kings; for such, he said, there ought to be a deeper and a\nfiercer hell. \"Tell me, Diderot,\" said the Empress by and by, \"what they\nsay in Paris about the death of my husband.\" Instead of telling her the\nplain truth that everybody said that Peter had been murdered by her\norders, the philosopher poured out a stream of the smoothest things.\n\"Come now,\" said Catherine suddenly, \"confess, if you are not walking\nalong the path that leads to your deep hell, you are certainly coming\nvery close to purgatory.\" Diderot's elaborate concessions to her\nmajesty's political religion would, it is to be feared, have brought him\nstill further in the same sulphureous track.\n\nAs we have often had to bewail Diderot's diffuseness, it is as well to\nremark that a long passage in the sketch of which we are speaking shows\nhow close and concentrated he could be upon occasion. The two pages in\nwhich he demolishes the incorrigible superstition about Latin and\nGreek,[217] contain a thoroughly exhaustive summary of all the arguments\nand the answers. In the immense discussion about Latin and Greek that\nhas taken place in the hundred years since Diderot's time, it is\ntolerably safe to say that not a single point has been brought forward\nwhich Diderot did not in these most pithy and conclusive pages attempt\nto deal with. He winds up with the position that, even for the man of\nletters, the present system of teaching Latin and Greek is essentially\nsterile. I am perfectly sure, he says, that Voltaire, who is not exactly\na mediocrity as a man of letters, knows extremely little Greek, and that\nhe is not twentieth nor even hundredth among the Latinists of the\nday.[218]\n\n [217] _Ib._ iii. 469-471.\n\n [218] _Oeuv._, iii. 473.\n\nFollowing this sketch is printed a letter to the Countess of Forbach on\nthe education of children. It is full of rich wisdom on its special\nsubject. Nobody can read it without feeling that quality in Diderot\nwhich made his friends love him. And we see how, when he was called to\npractical counsel, he banished into their own sphere the explosive\nparadoxes with which he delighted to amuse his hours of speculative\ndreaming.\n\n\nIV.\n\nRomilly has told us that Diderot was bent on converting him from the\nerror of his religious ways, and with that intention read to him a\nConversation with the Marechale de----.[219] It is believed to be an\nidealised version of a real conversation with Madame de Broglie, and was\nfirst printed, almost as soon as written (1777), in the correspondence\nin which Metra, in imitation of Grimm, informed a circle of foreign\nsubscribers what was going on in Paris. The admirers of Diderot profess\nto look on this Conversation as one of the most precious pearls in his\nphilosophic casket. It turns upon the conditions of belief and unbelief,\nrepresented by the two interlocutors respectively, and is a terse and\ngraphic summary of the rationalistic objections to the creed of the\nchurch. The most conspicuous literary passage in it is a parable which\nhas been attributed to Rousseau, but with which Rousseau had really\nnothing to do, beyond reproducing the spirit of its argument in the ever\nfamous creed of the Savoyard Vicar.\n\n [219] _Ib._ ii. 505-528.\n\n A young Mexican, tired of his work, was sauntering one day on the\n seashore. He spied a plank, with one end resting on the land, and\n the other dipping into the water. He sat down on the plank, and\n there gazing over the vast space that lay spread out before him, he\n said to himself: \"It is certain that my old grandmother is talking\n nonsense, with her history of I know not what inhabitants, who, at\n I know not what time, landed here from I know not where, from some\n country far beyond our seas. It is against common sense: do I not\n see the ocean touch the line of the sky? And can I believe, against\n the evidence of my senses, an old fable of which nobody knows the\n date, which everybody arranges according to his fancy, and which is\n only a tissue of absurdities, about which people are ready to tear\n out one another's eyes.\" As he was reasoning in this way, the\n waters rocked him gently on his plank, and he fell asleep. As he\n slept, the wind rose, the waves carried away the plank on which he\n was stretched out, and behold our youthful reasoner embarked on a\n voyage.\n\n _La Marechale._--Alas, that is the image of all of us; we are each\n on our plank; the wind blows, and the flood carries us away.\n\n _C._--He was already far from the mainland when he awoke. No one\n was ever so surprised as our young Mexican, to find himself out on\n the open sea, and he was mightily surprised, too, when having lost\n from sight the shore on which he had been idly walking only an\n instant before, he saw the sea touching the line of the sky on\n every side. Then he began to suspect that he might have been\n mistaken, and that, if the wind remained in the same quarter,\n perhaps he would be borne to that very shore and among those\n dwellers on it, about whom his grandmother had so often told him.\n\n _La Marechale._--And of his anxiety you say nothing.\n\n _C._--He had none. He said to himself: \"What does it matter,\n provided that I find land? I have reasoned like a giddy-pate,\n granted; but I have been sincere with myself, and that is all that\n can be required of me. If it is no virtue to have understanding, at\n any rate it is no crime to be without it.\" Meanwhile the wind\n continued, the man and the plank floated on, and the unknown shore\n came into sight. He touched it, and behold him again on land.\n\n _La Marechale._--Ah, we shall all of us see one another there, one\n of these days.\n\n _C._--I hope so, madam; wherever it may be, I shall always be very\n proud to pay you my homage. Hardly had he quitted his plank, and\n put his foot on the sand, when he perceived a venerable old man\n standing by his side. He asked him where he was, and to whom he had\n the honour of speaking. \"I am the sovereign of the country,\"\n replied the old man; \"you have denied my existence?\"--\"Yes, it is\n true.\"--\"And that of my empire?\"--\"It is true!\"--\"I forgive you,\n because I am he who sees the bottom of all hearts, and I have read\n at the bottom of yours that you are of good faith; but the rest of\n your thoughts and your actions are not equally innocent.\" Then the\n old man, who held him by the ear, recalled to him all the errors\n of his life; and as each was mentioned, the young Mexican bowed\n himself upon the ground, beat his breast, and besought forgiveness.\n\n\nV.\n\nOf Falconet,[220] we have already spoken, as a sculptor of genius, and\nas one of Diderot's most intimate friends. Writing to Sophie Voland\n(Nov. 21, 1765), Diderot informs her that some pleasantries of\nFalconet's have induced him to undertake very seriously the defence of\nthe sentiment of immortality and respect for posterity.[221] This\napology was carried on in an energetic correspondence which lasted from\nthe end of 1765 to 1767. Falconet's letters were burned by his\ngrand-daughter for reasons unknown, and we have only such passages from\nthem as are more specially referred to by Diderot himself. Falconet\nflattered himself that he had the best of the argument, and was eager\nthat they should be published, but Diderot was sluggish or busy. The\ncorrespondence was imparted to Catherine of Russia, who took a lively\ninterest in it, and to some others, but it was not given to the\npublic--and then only partially--until 1830.\n\n [220] Above, vol. ii. p. 104.\n\n [221] xix. 200.\n\nDiderot's position in these twelve letters may be described in general\nterms as being that the sentiment of immortality and respect for\nposterity move the heart and elevate the soul; they are two germs of\ngreat things, two promises as solid as any other, and two delights as\nreal as most of the delights of life, but more noble, more profitable,\nand more virtuous. What Diderot means by immortality is not the\nreligious dogma, that the individual personality will be objectively\npreserved and prolonged in some other mode of existence. On the\ncontrary, it was his disbelief in this dogma of the churches that gave a\ncertain keenness to his pleading for that other kind of immortality,\nwhich prolongs our personality only in the grateful and admiring\nmemories of other people who come after us. He intended by the sentiment\nof immortality \"the desire to surround one's name with lustre among\nposterity; to be the admiration and the talk of centuries to come; to\nobtain after death the same honours as we pay to those who have gone\nbefore us; to furnish a fine line to the historian; to inscribe one's\nown name by the side of those which we never pronounce without shedding\na tear, heaving a sigh, or being touched by regret; to secure for\nourselves the blessings that we have such a thrill in bestowing on\nSully, Henry IV., and all the other benefactors of the human race.\"[222]\nThe sphere that surrounds us, and in which the world admires us, the\ntime in which we exist and listen to praise, the number of those who\ndirectly address to us the eulogy that we have deserved of them--all\nthis is too small for the capacity of our ambitious souls. By the side\nof those whom we see prostrated before us, we place those who are not\nyet in the world. It is only this uncounted throng of adorers that can\nsatisfy a mind whose impulses are ever towards the infinite. At night it\nis sweet to hear a distant concert, of which only snatches reach the\near, all to be bound into a melodious whole by the imagination, which is\nall the more charmed as the work is in the main its own. Even if all\nthis were but the sweetness of a lovely dream, is then the sweetness of\na dream as nothing? And am I to count for nothing a sweet dream that\nlasts as long as my life, and holds me in perpetual intoxication?\n\n [222] xviii. 94.\n\nFalconet's answer was hard and positive. Contemporary glory suffices.\nWhat is fame, if I am not there to enjoy? The fear of contempt and\ndisgrace is as strong a motive as you need, to incite men to great work.\nGlory after death is chimerical and uncertain. Think of all the great\nnames that are clean forgotten, of all the great workers whose\nachievements are lost or effaced, of all the others whose works are\nattributed to those who did not execute them! Your posterity is no\nbetter than a lottery.\n\nNo, cries Diderot, with redoubled eloquence, rising to his noblest\nheight,[223] \"the present is an indivisible point that cuts in two the\nlength of an infinite line. It is impossible to rest on this point and\nto glide gently along with it, never looking on in front, and never\nturning the head to gaze behind. The more man ascends through the past,\nand the more he launches into the future--the greater he will be....\nAnd all these philosophers, and ministers, and truth-telling men, who\nhave fallen victims to the stupidity of nations, the atrocities of\npriests, the fury of tyrants, what consolation was left for them in\ndeath? This, that prejudice would pass, and that posterity would pour\nout the vial of ignominy upon their enemies. O posterity, holy and\nsacred! Stay of the unhappy and the oppressed, thou who art just, thou\nwho art incorruptible, who avengest the good man, who unmaskest the\nhypocrite, who draggest down the tyrant, may thy sure faith, thy\nconsoling faith, never, never abandon me! Posterity is for the\nphilosopher what the other world is for the devout!\"\n\n [223] xviii. pp. 113 and 100.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nRAMEAU'S NEPHEW: A TRANSLATION.\n\n[See vol. i. p. 348.]\n\n\n[I have omitted such pages in the following translation as refer simply\nto personages who have lost all possibility of interest for our\ngeneration; nor did any object seem to be served by reproducing the\ntechnical points of the musical discussion. Enough is given, and given\nas faithfully as I know how, to show the reader what _Rameau's Nephew_\nis.]\n\n In all weathers, wet or fine, it is my practice to go, towards five\n o'clock in the evening, to take a turn in the Palais Royal. I am he\n whom you may see any afternoon sitting by himself and musing in\n D'Argenson's seat. I keep up talk with myself about politics, love,\n taste, or philosophy; I leave my mind to play the libertine\n unchecked; and it is welcome to run after the first idea that\n offers, sage or gay, just as you see our young beaux in the Foy\n passage following the steps of some gay nymph, with her saucy mien,\n face all smiles, eyes all fire, and nose a trifle turned up; then\n quitting her for another, attacking them all, but attaching\n themselves to none. My thoughts,--these are the wantons for me. If\n the weather be too cold or too wet, I take shelter in the Regency\n coffee-house. There I amuse myself by looking on while they play\n chess. Nowhere in the world do they play chess so skilfully as in\n Paris, and nowhere in Paris as they do at this coffee-house; 'tis\n here you see Legal the profound, Philidor the subtle, Mayot the\n solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the\n sorriest talk, for if a man may be at once a wit and a great\n chess-player, like Legal, you may also be a great chess-player and\n a sad simpleton, like Joubert and Mayot.\n\n One day I was there after dinner, watching intently, saying little,\n and hearing the very least possible, when there approached me one\n of the most eccentric figures in the country, where God has not\n made them lacking. He is a mixture of elevation and lowness, of\n good sense and madness; the notions of good and bad must be mixed\n up together in strange confusion in his head, for he shows the good\n qualities that nature has bestowed on him without any ostentation,\n and the bad ones without the smallest shame. For the rest, he is\n endowed with a vigorous frame, a particular warmth of imagination,\n and an astonishing strength of lungs. If you ever meet him, and if\n you are not arrested by his originality, you will either stuff your\n fingers into your ears, or else take to your heels. Heavens, what a\n monstrous pipe! Nothing is so little like him as himself. One time\n he is lean and wan, like a patient in the last stage of\n consumption; you could count his teeth through his cheeks; you\n would say he must have passed several days without tasting a\n morsel, or that he is fresh from La Trappe. A month after, he is\n stout and sleek, as if he had been sitting all the time at the\n board of a financier, or had been shut up in a Bernardine\n monastery. To-day in dirty linen, his clothes torn or patched, with\n barely a shoe to his foot, he steals along with a bent head; you\n are tempted to hail him and fling him a shilling. To-morrow all\n powdered, curled, in a fine coat, he marches past with head erect\n and open mien, and you would almost take him for a decent worthy\n creature. He lives from day to day, from hand to mouth, downcast or\n sad, just as things may go. His first care in a morning, when he\n gets up, is to know where he will dine; and after dinner, he begins\n to think where he may pick up a supper. Night brings disquiets of\n its own. Either he climbs to a shabby garret that he has, unless\n the landlady, weary of waiting for her rent, has taken the key away\n from him; or else he slinks to some tavern on the outskirts of the\n town, where he waits for daybreak over a piece of bread and a mug\n of beer. When he has not threepence in his pocket, as sometimes\n happens, he has recourse either to a hackney carriage belonging to\n a friend, or to the coachman of some man of quality, who gives him\n a bed on the straw beside the horses. In the morning, he still has\n bits of his mattress in his hair. If the weather is mild, he\n measures the Champs Elysees all night long. With the day he\n reappears in the town, dressed over night for the morrow, and from\n the morrow sometimes dressed for the rest of the week.\n\n I do not rate these originals very highly. Other people make\n familiar acquaintances, and even friends, of them. They detain me\n perhaps once in a twelvemonth, if I happen to fall in with them.\n Their character stands out from the rest of the world, and breaks\n that wearisome uniformity which our bringing-up, our social\n conventions, and our arbitrary fashions have introduced. If one of\n them makes his appearance in a company, he is a piece of leaven\n which ferments and restores to each a portion of his natural\n individuality. He stirs people up, moves them, invites to praise or\n blame; he is the means of bringing out the truth, he gives honest\n people a chance of showing themselves, he unmasks the rogues; this\n is the time when a man of sense listens, and distinguishes his\n company.\n\n I had known my present man long ago. He used to frequent a house to\n which his clever parts had opened the door. There was an only\n daughter. He swore to the father and mother that he would marry\n their daughter. They shrugged their shoulders, laughed in his face,\n told him he was out of his senses, and I saw in an instant that his\n business was done. He wanted to borrow a few crowns from me, which\n I gave him. He worked his way, I cannot tell how, into some houses\n where he had his plate laid for him, but on condition that he\n should never open his lips without leave. He held his tongue and\n ate away in a towering rage: it was excellent to watch him in this\n state of constraint. If he could not resist breaking the treaty,\n and ever began to open his mouth, at the first word all the guests\n called out _Rameau!_ Then fury sparkled in his eyes, and he turned\n to his plate in a worse passion than ever. You were curious to know\n the man's name, and now you know it: 'tis Rameau, pupil of the\n famous man who delivered us from the plain-song that we had been\n used to chant for over a hundred years; who wrote so many\n unintelligible visions and apocalyptic truths on the theory of\n music, of which neither he nor anybody else understood a word; and\n from whom we have a certain number of operas that are not without\n harmony, refrains, random notions, uproar, triumphs, glories,\n murmurs, breathless victories, and dance-tunes that will last to\n all eternity; and who, after burying Lulli, the Florentine, will be\n himself buried by the Italian virtuosi,--a fate that he had a\n presentiment of, which made him gloomy and chagrined; for nobody is\n in such ill-humour, not even a pretty woman who awakes with a\n pimple on her nose, as an author threatened with loss of his\n reputation.\n\n He comes up to me. Ah, ah! here you are, my philosopher! And what\n are you doing among this pack of idlers? Can it be possible that\n you too waste your time in pushing the wood?...\n\n _I._--No, but when I have nothing better to do, I amuse myself by\n watching people who push it well.\n\n _He._--In that case you are amusing yourself with a vengeance.\n Except Philidor and Legal, there is not one of them who knows\n anything about it.\n\n _I._--What of M. de Bussy?\n\n _He._--He is as a chess-player what Mademoiselle Clairon is as an\n actress; they know of their playing, one and the other, as much as\n anybody can learn.\n\n _I._--You are hard to please, and I see you can forgive nothing\n short of the sublimities.\n\n _He._--True, in chess, women, poetry, eloquence, music, and all\n such fiddle-faddle. What is the use of mediocrity in these matters?\n\n _I._--Little enough, I agree. But the thing is that there must be a\n great number of men at work, for us to make sure of the man of\n genius: he is one out of a multitude. But let that pass. 'Tis an\n age since I have seen you. Though I do not often think about you\n when you are out of sight, yet it is always a pleasure to me to\n meet you. What have you been about?\n\n _He._--What you, I, and everybody else are about--some good, some\n bad, and nothing at all. Then, I have been hungry, and I have eaten\n when opportunity offered; after eating, I have been thirsty, and\n now and then have had something to drink. Besides that, my beard\n grew, and as it grew I had it shaved.\n\n _I._--There you were wrong; it is the only thing wanting to make a\n sage of you.\n\n _He._--Ay, ay; I have a wide and furrowed brow, a glowing eye, a\n firm nose, broad cheeks, a black and bushy eyebrow, a clean cut\n mouth, a square jaw. Cover this enormous chin with amplitude of\n beard, and I warrant you it would look vastly well in marble or in\n bronze.\n\n _I._--By the side of a Caesar, a Marcus Aurelius, a Socrates.\n\n _He._--Nay, I should be better between Diogenes, Lais, and Phryne.\n I am brazenfaced as the one, and I am happy to pay a visit to the\n others.\n\n _I._--Are you always well?\n\n _He._--Yes, commonly; but I am no great wonders to-day.\n\n _I._--Why, you have a paunch like Silenus, and a face like....\n\n _He._--A face you might take for I don't know what. The ill humour\n that dries up my dear master seems to fatten his dear pupil.\n\n _I._--And this dear master, do you ever see him now?\n\n _He._--Yes, passing along the street.\n\n _I._--Does he do nothing for you?\n\n _He._--If he has done anything for anybody, it is without knowing\n it. He is a philosopher after his fashion. He thinks of nobody but\n himself. His wife and his daughter may die as soon as they please;\n provided the church bells that toll for them continue to sound the\n _twelfth_ and the _seventeenth_, all will be well. It is lucky for\n him, and that is what I especially prize in your men of genius.\n They are only good for one thing; outside of that, nothing. They do\n not know what it is to be citizens, fathers, mothers, kinsfolk,\n friends. Between ourselves, it is no bad thing to be like them at\n every point, but we should not wish the grain to become common. We\n must have men; but men of genius, no; no, on my word; of them we\n need none. 'Tis they who change the face of the globe; and in the\n smallest things folly is so common and so almighty, that you cannot\n mend it without an infinite disturbance. Part of what they have\n dreamt comes to pass, and part remains as it was; hence two\n gospels, the dress of a harlequin. The wisdom of Rabelais's moral\n is the true wisdom both for his own repose and that of other\n people: to do one's duty so so, always to speak well of the prior,\n and to let the world go as it lists. It must go well, for most\n people are content with it. If I knew history enough, I should\n prove to you that evil has always come about here below through a\n few men of genius, but I do not know history, no more than I know\n anything else. The deuce take me, if I have learnt anything, or if\n I find myself a pin the worse for not having learnt anything. I was\n one day at the table of the minister of the King of----, who has\n brains enough for four, and he showed as plain as one and one make\n two, that nothing was more useful to people than falsehood, nothing\n more mischievous than truth. I don't remember his proofs very\n clearly, but it evidently followed from them that men of genius are\n detestable, and that if a child at its birth bore on its brow the\n mark of that dangerous gift of nature, it ought to be smothered or\n else thrown to the ducks.\n\n _I._--Yet such people, foes as they are to genius, all lay claim to\n it.\n\n _He._--I daresay they think so in their own minds, but I doubt if\n they would venture to admit it.\n\n _I._--Ah, that is their modesty. So you conceived from that a\n frightful antipathy to genius.\n\n _He._--One that I shall never get over.\n\n _I._--Yet I have seen the time when you were in despair at the\n thought of being only a common man. You will never be happy if the\n pro and the con distress you alike. You should take your side, and\n keep to it. Though people will agree with you that men of genius\n are usually singular, or as the proverb says, _there are no great\n wits without a grain of madness_, yet they will always look down on\n ages that have produced no men of genius. They will pay honour to\n the nations among whom they have existed; sooner or later, they\n rear statues to them, and regard them as the benefactors of the\n human race. With all deference to the sublime minister whom you\n have cited, I still believe that if falsehood may sometimes be\n useful for a moment, it is surely hurtful in the long-run; and so,\n on the other hand, truth is surely useful in the long-run, though\n it may sometimes chance to be inconvenient for the moment. Whence I\n should be tempted to conclude that the man of genius who cries down\n a general error, or wins credit for a great truth, is always a\n creature that deserves our veneration. It may happen that such an\n one falls a victim to prejudice and the laws; but there are two\n sorts of laws, the one of an equity and generality that is\n absolute, the other of an incongruous kind, which owe all their\n sanction to the blindness or exigency of circumstance. The latter\n only cover the culprit who infringes them with passing ignominy, an\n ignominy that time pours back on the judges and the nations, there\n to remain for ever. Whether is Socrates, or the authority that bade\n him drink the hemlock, in the worst dishonour in our day?\n\n _He._--Not so fast. Was he any the less for that condemned? Or any\n the less put to death? Or any the less a bad citizen? By his\n contempt for a bad law did he any the less encourage blockheads to\n despise good ones? Or was he any the less an audacious eccentric?\n You were close there upon an admission that would have done little\n for men of genius.\n\n _I._--But listen to me, my good man. A society ought not to have\n bad laws, and if it had only good ones, it would never find itself\n persecuting a man of genius. I never said to you that genius was\n inseparably bound up with wickedness, any more than wickedness is\n with genius. A fool is many a time far worse than a man of parts.\n Even supposing a man of genius to be usually of a harsh carriage,\n awkward, prickly, unbearable; even if he be thoroughly bad, what\n conclusion do you draw?\n\n _He._--That he ought to be drowned.\n\n _I._--Gently, good man. Now I will not take your uncle Rameau for\n an instance; he is harsh, he is brutal, he has no humanity, he is a\n miser, he is a bad father, bad husband, bad uncle; but it has never\n been settled that he is particularly clever, that he has advanced\n his art, or that there will be any talk of his works ten years\n hence. But Racine, now? He at any rate had genius, and did not pass\n for too good a man. And Voltaire?\n\n _He._--Beware of pressing me, for I am not one to shrink from\n conclusions.\n\n _I._--Which of the two would you prefer; that he should have been a\n worthy soul, identified with his till, like Briasson, or with his\n yard measure, like Barbier, each year producing a lawful babe, good\n husband, good father, good uncle, good neighbour, decent trader,\n but nothing more; or that he should have been treacherous,\n ambitious, envious, spiteful, but the author of _Andromaque_,\n _Britannicus_, _Iphigenie_, _Phedre_, _Athalie_?\n\n _He._--For his own sake, on my word, perhaps of the two men it\n would have been a great deal better that he should have been the\n first.\n\n _I._--That is even infinitely more true than you think.\n\n _He._--Ah, there you are, you others! If we say anything good and\n to the purpose, 'tis like madmen or creatures inspired, by a\n hazard; it is only you wise people who know what you mean. Yes, my\n philosopher, I know what I mean as well as you do.\n\n _I._--Let us see. Now why did you say that of him?\n\n _He._--Because all the fine things he did never brought him twenty\n thousand francs, and if he had been a silk merchant in the Rue\n Saint Denis or Saint Honore, a good wholesale grocer, an apothecary\n with plenty of customers, he would have amassed an immense fortune,\n and in amassing it, he could have enjoyed every pleasure in life;\n he would have thrown a pistole from time to time to a poor devil of\n a droll like me; we should have had good dinners at his house,\n played high play, drunk first-rate wines, first-rate liqueurs,\n first-rate coffee, had glorious excursions into the country. Now\n you see I know what I meant. You laugh? But let me go on. It would\n have been better for everybody about him.\n\n _I._--No doubt it would, provided that he had not put to unworthy\n use what gain he had made in lawful commerce, and had banished from\n his house all those gamesters, all those parasites, all those idle\n flatterers, all those depraved ne'er-do-wells, and had bidden his\n shop-boys give a sound beating to the officious creature who offers\n to play pander.\n\n _He._--A beating, sir, a beating! No one is beaten in any\n well-governed town. It is a decent enough trade; plenty of people\n with fine titles meddle with it. And what the deuce would you have\n him do with his money, if he is not to have a good table, good\n company, good wines, handsome women, pleasures of every colour,\n diversion of every sort? I would as lief be a beggar as possess a\n mighty fortune without any of these enjoyments. But go back to\n Racine. He was only good for people who did not know him, and for a\n time when he had ceased to exist.\n\n _I._--Granted, but weigh the good and bad. A thousand years from\n now he will draw tears, he will be the admiration of men in all the\n countries of the earth; he will inspire compassion, tenderness,\n pity. They will ask who he was, and to what land he belonged, and\n France will be envied. He brought suffering on one or two people\n who are dead, and in whom we take hardly any interest; we have\n nothing to fear from his vices or his foibles. It would have been\n better, no doubt, that he should have received from nature the\n virtues of a good man, instead of the talents of a great one. He is\n a tree which made a few other trees planted near him wither up, and\n which smothered the plants that grew at his feet; but he reared his\n height to the clouds, and his branches spread far; he lends his\n shadow to all who came, or come now, or ever shall come, to repose\n by his majestic trunk; he brought forth fruits of exquisite savour\n which are renewed again and again without ceasing.\n\n We might wish that Voltaire had the mildness of Duclos, the\n ingenuousness of the Abbe Trublet, the rectitude of the Abbe\n d'Olivet. But as that cannot be, let us look at the thing on the\n side of it that is really interesting; let us forget for an instant\n the point we occupy in space and time, and let us extend our\n vision over centuries to come, and peoples yet unborn, and distant\n lands yet unvisited. Let us think of the good of our race: if we\n are not generous enough, at least let us forgive nature for being\n wiser than ourselves. If you throw cold water on Greuze's head,\n very likely you will extinguish his talent along with his vanity.\n If you make Voltaire less sensitive to criticism, he will lose the\n art that took him to the inmost depths of the soul of Merope, and\n will never stir a single emotion in you more.\n\n _He._--But if nature be as powerful as she is wise, why did she not\n make them as good as she made them great?\n\n _I._--Do you not see how such reasoning as that overturns the\n general order, and that if all were excellent here below, then\n there would be nothing excellent.\n\n _He._--You are right. The important point is that you and I should\n be here; provided only that you and I are you and I, then let all\n besides go as it can. The best order of things, in my notion, is\n that in which I was to have a place, and a plague on the most\n perfect of worlds, if I don't belong to it! I would rather exist,\n and even be a bad hand at reasoning, than not exist at all.\n\n _I._--There is nobody but thinks as you do, and whoever brings his\n indictment against the order of things, forgets that he is\n renouncing his own existence.\n\n _He._--That is true.\n\n _I._--So let us accept things as they are; let us see how much they\n cost us and how much they give us, and leave the whole as it is,\n for we do not know it well enough either to praise or blame it; and\n perhaps after all it is neither good nor ill, if it is necessary,\n as so many good folk suppose.\n\n _He._--Now you are going beyond me. What you say seems like\n philosophy, and I warn you that I never meddle with that. All that\n I know is that I should be very well pleased to be somebody else,\n on the chance of being a genius and a great man; yes, I must agree.\n I have something here that tells me so. I never in my life heard a\n man praised, that his eulogy did not fill me with secret fury. I am\n full of envy. If I hear something about their private life that is\n a discredit to them, I listen with pleasure: it brings us nearer to\n a level; I bear my mediocrity more comfortably. I say to myself:\n Ah, thou couldst never have done _Mahomet_, nor the eulogy on\n Maupeou. So I have always been, and I always shall be, mortified at\n my own mediocrity. Yes, I tell you I am mediocre, and it provokes\n me. I never heard the overture to the _Indes galantes_ performed,\n nor the _Profonds abimes de Tenare, Nuit, eternelle nuit_, sung\n without saying to myself: That is what thou wilt never do. So I was\n jealous of my uncle.\n\n _I._--If that is the only thing that chagrins you, it is hardly\n worth the trouble.\n\n _He._--'Tis nothing, only a passing humour. [Then he set himself to\n hum the overture and the air he had spoken of, and went on:]\n\n The something which is here and speaks to me says: Rameau, thou\n wouldst fain have written those two pieces: if thou hadst done\n those two pieces, thou wouldst soon do two others; and after thou\n hadst done a certain number, they would play thee and sing thee\n everywhere. In walking, thou wouldst hold thy head erect, thy\n conscience would testify within thy bosom to thy own merit; the\n others would point thee out, There goes the man who wrote the\n pretty gavottes [and he hummed the gavottes. Then with the air of a\n man bathed in delight and his eyes shining with it, he went on,\n rubbing his hands:] Thou shalt have a fine house [he marked out its\n size with his arms], a famous bed [he stretched himself luxuriously\n upon it], capital wines [he sipped them in imagination, smacking\n his lips], a handsome equipage [he raised his foot as if to mount],\n a hundred varlets who will come to offer thee fresh incense every\n day [and he fancied he saw them all around him, Palissot,\n Poinsinet, the two Frerons, Laporte, he heard them, approved of\n them, smiled at them, contemptuously repulsed them, drove them\n away, called them back; then he continued:] And it is thus they\n would tell thee on getting up in a morning that thou art a great\n man; thou wouldst read in the _Histoire des Trois Siecles_ that\n thou art a great man, thou wouldst be convinced of an evening that\n thou art a great man, and the great man Rameau would fall asleep to\n the soft murmur of the eulogy that would ring in his ears; even as\n he slept he would have a complacent air; his chest would expand,\n and rise, and fall with comfort; he would move like a great man ...\n [and as he talked he let himself sink softly on a bench, he closed\n his eyes, and imitated the blissful sleep that his mind was\n picturing. After relishing the sweetness of this repose for a few\n instants he awoke, stretched his arms, yawned, rubbed his eyes, and\n looked about him for his pack of vapid flatterers].\n\n _I._--You think, then, the happy mortal has his sleep?\n\n _He._--Think so! A sorry wretch like me! At night when I get back\n to my garret, and burrow in my truckle-bed, I shrink up under my\n blanket, my chest is all compressed, and I can hardly breathe; it\n seems like a moan that you can barely hear. Now a banker makes the\n room ring and astonishes a whole street. But what afflicts me\n to-day, is not that I snore and sleep meanly and shabbily, like a\n paltry outcast.\n\n _I._--Yet that is a sorry thing enough.\n\n _He._--What has befallen me is still more so.\n\n _I._--What is that?\n\n _He._--You have always taken some interest in me, because I am a\n _bon diable_, whom you rather despise at bottom, but who diverts\n you.\n\n _I._--Well, that is the plain truth.\n\n _He._--I will tell you. [Before beginning he heaved a profound\n sigh, and clasped his brow with his two hands. Then he recovers his\n tranquillity and says:]\n\n You know that I am an ignoramus, a fool, a madman, an impertinent,\n a sluggard, a glutton....\n\n _I._--What a panegyric!\n\n _He._--'Tis true to the letter, there is not a word to take away;\n prithee, no debate on that. No one knows me better. I know myself\n and I do not tell the whole.\n\n _I._--I have no wish to cross you, and I will agree to anything.\n\n _He._--Well, I used to live with people, who took a liking for me,\n plainly because I was gifted with all these qualities to such a\n rare degree.\n\n _I._--That is curious. Until now I always thought that people hid\n these things even from themselves, or else that they granted\n themselves pardon, while they despised them in others.\n\n _He._--Hide them from themselves! Can men do that? You may be sure\n that when Palissot is all alone and returns upon himself, he tells\n a very different tale; you may be sure that when he talks quietly\n with his colleague, they candidly admit that they are only a pair\n of mighty rogues. Despise such things in others! My people were far\n more equitable, and they took my character for a perfect nonesuch;\n I was in clover; they feasted me, they did not lose me from their\n sight for a single instant without sighing for my return. I was\n their excellent Rameau, their dear Rameau, their Rameau the mad,\n the impertinent, the lazy, the greedy, the merry-man, the lout.\n There was not one of these epithets which did not bring me a smile,\n a caress, a tap on the shoulder, a cuff, a kick; at table, a titbit\n tossed on to my plate; away from the table, a freedom that I took\n without consequences, for, do you see, I am a man without\n consequence. They do with me and before me and at me whatever they\n like, without my standing on any ceremony. And the little presents\n that showered on me! The great hound that I am, I have lost all! I\n have lost all for having had common sense once, one single time in\n my life. Ah! if that ever chances again!\n\n _I._--What was the matter, then?\n\n _He._--Rameau, Rameau, did they ever take you for that? The folly\n of having had a little taste, a trifle of wit, a spice of reason;\n Rameau, my friend, that will teach you the difference between what\n God made you, and what your protectors wanted you to be. So they\n took you by the shoulder, they led you to the door, and cried: \"Be\n off, rascal; never appear more. He would fain have sense, reason,\n wit, I declare! Off with you; we have all these qualities and to\n spare!\" You went away biting your thumb; it was your infernal\n tongue, that you ought to have bitten before all this. For not\n bethinking you of that, here you are in the gutter without a\n farthing, or a place to lay your head. You were well housed, and\n now you will be lucky if you get your garret again; you had a good\n bed, and now a truss of straw awaits you between M. de Soubise's\n coachman and friend Robbe. Instead of the gentle quiet slumber that\n you had, you will have the neighing and stamping of horses all\n night long--you wretch, idiot, possessed by a million devils!\n\n _I._--But is there no way of setting things straight? Is the fault\n you committed so unpardonable? If I were you, I should go find my\n people again. You are more indispensable to them than you suppose.\n\n _He._--Oh, as for that, I know that now they have me no longer to\n make fun for them, they are dull as ditch-water.\n\n _I._--Then I should go back: I would not give them time enough to\n learn how to get on without me, or to turn to some more decent\n amusement. For who knows what may happen?\n\n _He._--That is not what I am afraid of: that will never come to\n pass.\n\n _I._--But sublime as you may be, some one else may replace you.\n\n _He._--Hardly.\n\n _I._--Hardly, it is true. Still I would go with that lacklustre\n face, those haggard eyes, that open breast, that tumbled hair, in\n that downright tragic state in which you are now. I would throw\n myself at the feet of the divinity, and without rising I would say\n with a low and sobbing voice: \"Forgive me, madam! Forgive me! I am\n the vilest of creatures. It was only one unfortunate moment, for\n you know I am not subject to common sense, and I promise you, I\n will never have it again so long as I live.\"\n\n [The diverting part of it was that, while I discoursed to him in\n this way, he executed it pantomimically, and threw himself on the\n ground; with his eyes fixed on the earth, he seemed to hold between\n his two hands the tip of a slipper, he wept, he sobbed, he cried:\n \"Yes, my queen, yes, I promise, I never will, so long as I live, so\n long as ever I live....\" Then recovering himself abruptly, he went\n on in a serious and deliberate tone:]\n\n _He._--Yes, you are right; I see it is the best. Yet to go and\n humiliate one's self before a hussy, cry for mercy at the feet of a\n little actress with the hisses of the pit for ever in her ears! I,\n Rameau, son of Rameau, the apothecary of Dijon, who is a good man\n and never yet bent his knee to a creature in the world! I, Rameau,\n who have composed pieces for the piano that nobody plays, but which\n will perhaps be the only pieces ever to reach posterity, and\n posterity will play them--I, I, must go! Stay, sir, it cannot be\n [and striking his right hand on his breast, he went on:] I feel\n here something that rises and tells me: Never, Rameau, never. There\n must be a certain dignity attached to human nature that nothing can\n stifle; it awakes _a propos des bottes_; you cannot explain it; for\n there are other days when it would cost me not a pang to be as vile\n as you like, and for a halfpenny there is nothing too dirty for me\n to do.\n\n _I._--Then if the expedient I have suggested to you is not to your\n taste, have courage enough to remain a beggar.\n\n _He._--'Tis hard being a beggar, while there are so many rich\n fools at whose expense one can live. And the contempt for one's\n self, it is insupportable.\n\n _I._--Do you know that sentiment?\n\n _He._--Know it! How many times have I said to myself: What, Rameau,\n there are ten thousand good tables in Paris, with fifteen or twenty\n covers apiece, and of these covers not one for thee! There are\n purses full of gold which is poured out right and left, and not a\n crown of it falls to thee! A thousand witlings without parts and\n without worth, a thousand paltry creatures without a charm, a\n thousand scurvy intriguers, are all well clad, while thou must go\n bare! Canst thou be such a nincompoop as all this? Couldst thou not\n flatter as well as anybody else? Couldst thou not find out how to\n lie, swear, forswear, promise, keep or break, like anybody else?\n Couldst thou not favour the intrigue of my lady, and carry the\n love-letter of my lord, like anybody else? Couldst thou not find\n out the trick of making some shopkeeper's daughter understand how\n shabbily dressed she is, how two fine earrings, a touch of rouge,\n some lace, and a Polish gown would make her ravishing; that those\n little feet were not made for trudging through the mud; that there\n is a handsome gentleman, young, rich, in a coat covered with lace,\n with a superb carriage and six fine lackeys, who once saw her as he\n passed, who thought her charming and wonderful, and that ever since\n that day he has taken neither bite nor sup, cannot sleep at nights,\n and will surely die of it?... He comes, he pleases, the little maid\n vanishes, and I pocket my two thousand crowns. What, thou hast a\n talent like this, and yet in want of bread? Shame on thee, wretch!\n I recalled a crowd of scoundrels who were not a patch upon me, and\n yet were rolling in money. There was I in serge, and they in\n velvet; they leaned on gold-headed canes, and had fine rings on\n their fingers. And what were they? Wretched bungling strummers, and\n now they are a kind of fine gentlemen. At such times I felt full of\n courage, my soul inflamed and elevated, my wits alert and subtle,\n and capable of anything in the world. But this happy turn did not\n last, it would seem, for so far I have not been able to make much\n way. However that may be, there is the text of my frequent\n soliloquies, which you may paraphrase as you choose, provided you\n are sure that I know what self-contempt is, and that torture of\n conscience which comes of the usefulness of the gifts that heaven\n has bestowed on us; that is the cruellest stroke of all. A man\n might almost as well never have been born.\n\n [I had listened to him all the time, and as he enacted the scene\n with the poor girl, with my heart moved by two conflicting\n emotions, I did not know whether to give myself up to the longing I\n had to laugh, or to a transport of indignation. I was distressingly\n perplexed between two humours; twenty times an uncontrollable burst\n of laughter kept my anger back, and twenty times the anger that was\n rising from the bottom of my soul suddenly ended in a burst of\n laughter. I was confounded by so much shrewdness and so much\n vileness, by ideas now so just and then so false, by such general\n perversity of sentiments, such complete turpitude, and such\n marvellously uncommon frankness. He perceived the struggle going on\n within me:] What ails you? said he.\n\n _I._--Nothing.\n\n _He._--You seem to be disturbed.\n\n _I._--And I am.\n\n _He._--But now, after all, what do you advise me to do?\n\n _I._--To change your way of talking. You unfortunate soul, to what\n abject state have you fallen!\n\n _He._--I admit it. And yet, do not let my state touch you too\n deeply; I had no intention, in opening my mind to you, to give you\n pain. I managed to scrape up a few savings when I was with the\n people. Remember that I wanted nothing, not a thing, and they made\n me a certain allowance for pocket-money.\n\n [He again began to tap his brow with one of his fists, to bite his\n lips, and to roll his eyes towards the ceiling, going on to say:]\n\n But 'tis all over; I have put something aside; time has passed, and\n that is always so much gained.\n\n _I._--So much lost, you mean.\n\n _He._--No, no; gained. People grow rich every moment; a day less to\n live, or a crown to the good, 'tis all one. When the last moment\n comes, one is as rich as another; Samuel Bernard, who by pillaging\n and stealing and playing bankrupt, leaves seven and twenty million\n francs in gold, is just like Rameau, who leaves not a penny, and\n will be indebted to charity for a shroud to wrap round him. The\n dead man hears not the tolling of the bell; 'tis in vain that a\n hundred priests bawl dirges for him, and that a long file of\n blazing torches go before: his soul walks not by the side of the\n master of the ceremonies. To moulder under marble, or to moulder\n under clay, 'tis still to moulder. To have around one's bier\n children in red and children in blue, or to have not a creature,\n what matters it? And then, look at this wrist, it was stiff as the\n devil; the ten fingers, they were so many sticks fastened into a\n metacarpus made of wood; and these muscles were like old strings of\n catgut, drier, stiffer, harder to bend than if that they had been\n used for a turner's wheel; but I have so twisted and broken and\n bent them. What, thou wilt not go? And I say that thou shalt....\n\n [And at this, with his right hand he seized the fingers and wrist\n of his left hand, and turned them first up and then down. The\n extremity of the fingers touched the arm, till the joints cracked\n again. I was afraid every instant that the bones would remain\n dislocated.]\n\n _I._--Take care, you will do yourself a mischief.\n\n _He._--Don't be afraid, they are used to it. For ten years I have\n given it them in a very different style. They had to accustom\n themselves to it, however they liked it, and to learn to find their\n place on the keys and to leap over the strings. So now they go\n where they must.\n\n [At the same moment he threw himself into the attitude of a\n violin-player; he hummed an allegro of Locatelli's; his right arm\n imitated the movement of the bow; his left hand and his fingers\n seemed to be feeling along the handle. If he makes a false note, he\n stops, tightens or slackens his string, and strikes it with his\n nail, to make sure of its being in tune, and then takes up the\n piece where he left off. He beats time with his foot, moves his\n head, his feet, his hands, his arms, his body, as you may have seen\n Ferrari or Chiabran, or some other virtuoso in the same\n convulsions, presenting the image of the same torture, and giving\n me nearly as much pain; for is it not a painful thing to watch the\n torture of a man who is busy painting pleasure for my benefit? Draw\n a curtain to hide the man from me, if he must show me the spectacle\n of a victim on the rack. In the midst of all these agitations and\n cries, if there occurred one of those harmonious passages where the\n bow moves slowly over several of the strings at once, his face put\n on an air of ecstasy, his voice softened, he listened to himself\n with perfect ravishment; it is undoubted that the chorus sounded\n both in his ears and mine. Then replacing his imaginary instrument\n under his left arm with the same hand by which he held it, and\n letting his right hand drop with the bow in it, said:]\n\n Well, what do you think of it?\n\n _I._--Wonderful!\n\n _He._--Not bad, I fancy; it sounds pretty much like the others....\n [And then he stooped down, like a musician placing himself at the\n piano.]\n\n _I._--Nay, I beg you to be merciful both to me and to yourself.\n\n _He._--No, no; now that I have got you, you shall hear me. I will\n have no vote that is given without your knowing why. You will say a\n good word for me with more confidence, and that will be worth a\n new pupil to me.\n\n _I._--But I am so little in the world, and you will tire yourself\n all to no purpose.\n\n _He._--I am never tired.\n\n [As I saw that it was useless to have pity on my man, for the\n sonata on the violin had bathed him in perspiration, I resolved to\n let him do as he would. So behold him seated at the piano, his legs\n bent, his head thrown back towards the ceiling, where you would\n have thought he saw a score written up, humming, preluding, dashing\n off a piece of Alberti's or Galuppi's, I forget which. His voice\n went like the wind, and his fingers leapt over the imaginary keys.\n The various passions succeeded one another on his face; you\n observed on it tenderness, anger, pleasure, sorrow; you felt the\n piano notes, the forte notes, and I am sure that a more skilful\n musician than myself would have recognised the piece by the\n movement and the character, by his gestures, and by a few notes of\n airs which escaped from him now and again. But the absurd thing was\n to see him from time to time hesitate and take himself up as if he\n had gone wrong.]\n\n Now, you perceive, said he, rising and wiping away the drops of\n sweat which rolled down his cheeks, that we know how to place our\n third, our superfluous fifth, and that we know all about our\n dominants. Those enharmonic passages, about which the dear uncle\n makes such fuss, they are not like having the sea to swallow; we\n can manage them well enough.\n\n _I._--You have given yourself a great deal of trouble to show me\n that you are uncommonly clever; but I would have taken your word\n for it.\n\n _He._--Uncommonly clever; oh no! For my trade, I know it decently,\n and that is more than one wants; for in this country is one obliged\n to know all that one shows?\n\n _I._--No more than to know all that one teaches.\n\n _He._--That is true, most thoroughly true. Now, sir philosopher,\n your hand on your conscience, speak the truth; there was a time\n when you were not a man of such substance as you are to-day.\n\n _I._--I am not so very substantial even now.\n\n _He._--But you would not go now to the Luxembourg in\n summer-time.... You remember?\n\n _I._--No more of that. Yes, I do remember.\n\n _He._--In an overcoat of gray shag?\n\n _I._--Ay, ay.\n\n _He._--Terribly worn at one side, with one of the sleeves torn; and\n black woollen stockings mended at the back with white thread.\n\n _I._--Yes, anything you like.\n\n _He._--What were you doing in the alley of Sighs?\n\n _I._--Cutting a shabby figure enough, I daresay.\n\n _He._--You used to give lessons in mathematics?\n\n _I._--Without knowing a word about them. Is not that what you want\n to come to?\n\n _He._--Exactly so.\n\n _I._--I learnt by teaching others, and I turned out some good\n pupils.\n\n _He_--That may be; but music is not like algebra or geometry. Now\n that you are a substantial personage....\n\n _I._--Not so substantial, I tell you.\n\n _He._--And have a good lining to your purse....\n\n _I._--Not so good.\n\n _He._--Let your daughter have masters.\n\n _I._--Not yet; it is her mother who looks to her education, for one\n must have peace in one's house.\n\n _He._--Peace in one's house? You have only that, when you are\n either master or servant, and it should be master. I had a\n wife--may heaven bless her soul--but when it happened sometimes\n that she played malapert, I used to mount the high horse, and bring\n out my thunder. I used to say like the Creator: Let there be light,\n and there was light. So for four years we had not ten times in all\n one word higher than another. How old is your child?\n\n _I._--That has nothing to do with the matter.\n\n _He._--How old is your child, I say?\n\n _I._--The devil take you, leave my child and her age alone, and\n return to the master she is to have.\n\n _He._--I know nothing so pig-headed as a philosopher. In all\n humility and supplication, might one not know from his highness the\n philosopher, about what age her ladyship, his daughter, may be?\n\n _I._--I suppose she is eight.\n\n _He._--Eight! Then four years ago she ought to have had her fingers\n on the keys.\n\n _I._--But perhaps I have no fancy for including in the scheme of\n her education a study that takes so much time and is good for so\n little.\n\n _He._--And what will you teach her, if you please?\n\n _I._--To reason justly, if I can; a thing so uncommon among men,\n and more uncommon still among women.\n\n _He._--Oh, let her reason as ill as she chooses, if she is only\n pretty, amusing, and coquettish.\n\n _I._--As nature has been unkind enough to give her a delicate\n organisation with a very sensitive soul, and to expose her to the\n same troubles in life as if she had a strong organisation and a\n heart of bronze, I will teach her, if I can, to bear them\n courageously.\n\n _He._--Let her weep and give herself airs, and have nerves all on\n edge like the rest, if only she is pretty, amusing, and coquettish.\n What, is she to learn no dancing nor deportment?\n\n _I._--Yes, just enough to make a curtsey, to have a good carriage,\n to enter a room gracefully, and to know how to walk.\n\n _He._--No singing?\n\n _I._--Just enough to pronounce her words well.\n\n _He._--No music?\n\n _I._--If there were a good teacher of harmony, I would gladly\n entrust her to him two hours a day for two or three years, not any\n more.\n\n _He._--And instead of the essential things that you are going to\n suppress?...\n\n _I._--I place grammar, fables, history, geography, a little\n drawing, and a great deal of morality.\n\n _He._--How easy it would be for me to prove to you the uselessness\n of all such knowledge in a world like ours? Uselessness, do I say?\n Perhaps even the danger! But I will for the moment ask you a single\n question, will she not require one or two masters?\n\n _I._--No doubt.\n\n _He._--And you hope that these masters will know the grammar, the\n fables, the history, the geography, the morality, in which they\n will give her lessons? Moonshine, my dear mentor, sheer moonshine!\n If they knew these things well enough to teach them to other\n people, they never would teach them?\n\n _I._--And why?\n\n _He._--Because they would have spent all their lives in studying\n them. It is necessary to be profound in art and science, to know\n its elements thoroughly. Classical books can only be well done by\n those who have grown gray in harness; it is the middle and the end\n which light up the darkness of the beginning. Ask your friend\n D'Alembert, the coryphaeus of mathematics, if he thinks himself too\n good to write about the elements. It was not till after thirty or\n forty years of practice that my uncle got a glimpse of the\n profundities and the first rays of light in musical theory.\n\n _I._--O madman, arch-madman, I cried, how comes it that in thine\n evil head such just ideas go pell-mell with such a mass of\n extravagances?\n\n _He._--Who on earth can find that out? 'Tis chance that flings them\n to you, and they remain. If you do not know the whole of a thing,\n you know none of it well; you do not know whither one thing leads,\n nor whence another has come, where this and that should be placed,\n which ought to pass the first, and where the second would be best.\n Can you teach well without method? And method, whence comes that? I\n vow to you, my dear philosopher, I have a notion that physics will\n always be a poor science, a drop of water raised by a needle-point\n from the vast ocean, a grain loosened from an Alpine chain. And\n then, seeking the reasons of phenomena! In truth, one might every\n whit as well be ignorant, as know so little and know it so ill; and\n that was exactly my doctrine when I gave myself out for a\n music-master. What are you musing over?\n\n _I._--I am thinking that all you have told me is more specious than\n solid. But that is no matter. You taught, you say, accompaniment\n and composition.\n\n _He._--Yes.\n\n _I._--And you knew nothing about either.\n\n _He._--No, i' faith; and that is why there were worse than I was,\n namely those who fancied they knew something. At any rate, I did\n not spoil either the child's taste or its hands. When they passed\n from me to a good master, if they had learnt nothing, at all events\n they had nothing to unlearn, and that was always so much time and\n so much money saved.\n\n _I._--What did you do?\n\n _He._--What they all do! I got there, I threw myself into a chair.\n \"What shocking weather! How tiring the streets are!\" Then some\n gossip: \"Mademoiselle Lemierre was to have taken the part of Vestal\n in the new opera, but she is in an interesting condition for the\n second time, and they do not know who will take her place.\n Mademoiselle Arnould has just left her little Count: they say she\n is negotiating with Bertin.... That poor Dumesnil no longer knows\n either what he is saying or what he is doing.... Now, Miss, take\n your book.\" While Miss, who is in no hurry, is looking for her\n book, which is lost, while they call the housemaid and scold and\n make a great stir, I continue--\"The Clairon is really\n incomprehensible. They talk of a marriage which is outrageously\n absurd: 'tis that of Miss ... what is her name? a little creature\n that used to live with so and so, etcetera, etcetera:--Come,\n Rameau, you are talking nonsense; it is impossible.--I don't talk\n nonsense at all; they even say it is done. There is a rumour that\n Voltaire is dead, and so much the better.--And pray, why so much\n the better?--Because he must be going to give us something more\n laughable than usual; it is always his custom to die a fortnight\n before.\" What more shall I tell you? I used to tell certain\n naughtinesses that I brought from houses where I had been, for we\n are all of us great fetchers and carriers. I played the madman,\n they listened to me, they laughed, they called out: How charming he\n is! Meanwhile Missy's book had been found under the sofa, where it\n had been pulled about, gnawed, torn by a puppy or a kitten. She sat\n down to the piano. At first she made a noise on it by herself; then\n I went towards her, after giving her mother a sign of approbation.\n The mother: \"That is not bad; people have only to be in earnest,\n but they are not in earnest; they would rather waste their time in\n chattering, in disarranging things, in gadding hither and thither,\n and I know not what besides. Your back is no sooner turned, M.\n Rameau, than the book is shut up, not to be opened until your next\n visit; still you never scold her.\" Then, as something had to be\n done, I took hold of her hands and placed them differently; I got\n out of temper, I called out \"_Sol, Sol, Sol_, Miss, it is a _Sol_.\"\n The mother: \"Have you no ear? I am not at the piano, and I can't\n see your book, yet I know it ought to be a _Sol_. You are most\n troublesome to your teacher; I can't tell how he is so patient; you\n do not remember a word of what he says to you; you make no\n progress....\" Then I would lower my tone rather, and throwing my\n head on one side, would say: \"Pardon me, madam, all would go very\n well if the young lady liked, if she only studied a little more;\n but it is not bad.\" The mother: \"If I were you, I should keep her\n at one piece for a whole year.\" \"Oh, as for that, she shall not\n leave it before she has mastered every difficulty, and that will\n not be as long as you may think.\" \"Monsieur Rameau, you flatter\n her, you are too good. That is the only part of the lesson which\n she will keep in mind, and she will take care to repeat it to me\n upon occasion....\" And so the time got over; my pupil presented me\n my little fee, with the curtsey she had learnt from the dancing\n master. I put it into my pocket while the mother said: \"Very well\n done, mademoiselle; if Favillier were here, he would applaud you.\"\n I chattered a moment or two for politeness' sake, and behold, that\n was what they call a music lesson.\n\n _I._--Well, and now it is quite another thing?\n\n _He._--Another thing! I should think so, indeed. I get there. I am\n deadly grave; I take off my cuffs hastily, I open the piano, I run\n my fingers over the keys, I am always in a desperate hurry. If they\n keep me waiting a moment, I cry out as if they were robbing me of a\n crown piece: in an hour from now I must be so and so; in two hours,\n with the duchess of so and so; I am expected to dine with a\n handsome marchioness, and then, on leaving her, there is a concert\n at the baron's....\n\n _I._--And all the time nobody is expecting you anywhere at all?\n\n _He._--No.\n\n _I._--What vile arts!\n\n _He._--Vile, forsooth! Why vile? They are customary among people\n like me; I don't lower myself in doing like everybody else. I was\n not the inventor of them, and it would be most absurd and stupid in\n me not to conform to them. Of course, I know very well that if you\n go to certain principles of some morality or other, which all the\n world have in their mouths, and which none of them practise, you\n will find black is white, and white will become black. But, my\n philosopher, there is a general conscience, just as there is a\n general grammar; and then the exceptions in each language that you\n learned people call--what is it you call them?\n\n _I._--Idioms.\n\n _He._--Ah, exactly; well, each condition of life has its exceptions\n to the general conscience, to which I should like to give the title\n of idioms of vocation.\n\n _I._--I understand. Fontenelle speaks well, writes well, though his\n style swarms with French _idioms_.\n\n _He._--And the sovereign, the minister, the banker, the magistrate,\n the soldier, the man of letters, the lawyer, the merchant, the\n artisan, the singing master, the dancing master, are all most\n worthy folk, though their practice strays in some points from the\n general conscience, and abounds in moral idioms. The older the\n institution, the more the idioms; the worse the times, the more do\n idioms multiply. The man is worth so much, his trade is worth the\n same; and reciprocally. At last, the trade counts for so much, the\n man for the same. So people take care to make the trade go for as\n much as they can.\n\n _I._--All that I gather clearly from this twisted stuff is, that\n there are very few callings honestly carried on, and very few\n honest men in their callings.\n\n _He._--Good, there are none at all; but in revenge, there are few\n rogues out of their own shops; and all would go excellently but for\n a certain number of persons who are called assiduous, exact,\n fulfilling their strict duty most rigorously, or, what comes to the\n same thing, for ever in their shops, and carrying on their trade\n from morning until night, and doing nothing else in the world. So\n they are the only people who grow rich and are esteemed.\n\n _I._--By force of idioms.\n\n _He._--That is it; I see you understand me. Now, an idiom that\n belongs to nearly all conditions--for there are some that are\n common to all countries and all times, just as there are follies\n that are universal--a common idiom, is to procure for one's self as\n many customers as one possibly can; a common folly is to believe\n that he is cleverest who has most of them. There are two\n exceptions to the general conscience, with which you must comply.\n There is a kind of credit; it is nothing in itself, but it is made\n worth something by opinion. They say, _good character is better\n than golden girdle_: yet the man who has a good character has not a\n golden girdle, and I see nowadays that the golden girdle hardly\n stands in much need of character. One ought, if possible, to have\n both girdle and character, and that is my object when I give myself\n importance by what you describe as vile arts, and poor unworthy\n tricks. I give my lesson and I give it well; behold the general\n rule. I make them think I have more lessons to give than the day\n has hours; behold the idiom.\n\n _I._--And the lesson; you do give it well?\n\n _He._--Yes, not ill; passably. The thorough bass of the dear master\n has simplified all that. In old days I used to steal my pupil's\n money. Yes, I stole it, that is certain; now I earn it, at least\n like my neighbours.\n\n _I._--And did you steal it without remorse?\n\n _He._--Oh, without remorse. They say that if one thief pilfers from\n another, the devil laughs. The parents were bursting with a\n fortune, which had been got the Lord knows how. They were people\n about the court, financiers, great merchants, bankers. I helped to\n make them disgorge, I and the rest of the people they employed. In\n nature, all species devour one another; so all ranks devour one\n another in society. We do justice on one another, without any\n meddling from the law. The other day it was Deschamps, now it is\n Guimard, who avenges the prince of the financier; and it is the\n milliner, the jeweller, the upholsterer, the hosier, the draper,\n the lady's-maid, the cook, the saddler, who avenge the financier of\n Deschamps. In the midst of it all, there is only the imbecile or\n the sloth who suffers injury without inflicting it. Whence you see\n that these exceptions to the general conscience, or these moral\n idioms about which they make such a stir, are nothing, after all,\n and that you only need to take a clear survey of the whole.\n\n _I._--I admire yours.\n\n _He._--And then misery! The voice of conscience and of honour is\n terribly weak, when the stomach calls out. Enough to say that if\n ever I grow rich I shall be bound to restore, and I have made up my\n mind to restore in every possible fashion, by eating, drinking,\n gambling, and whatever else you please.\n\n _I._--I have some fears about your ever growing rich.\n\n _He._--I have suspicions myself.\n\n _I._--But if things should fall so, what then?\n\n _He._--I would do like all other beggars set on horseback: I would\n be the most insolent ruffler that has ever been seen. Then I should\n recall all that they have made me go through, and should pay them\n back with good interest all the advances that they have been good\n enough to make me. I am fond of command, and I will command. I am\n fond of praise, and I will make them praise me. I will have in my\n pay the whole troop of flatterers, parasites, and buffoons, and\n I'll say to them, as has been said to me: \"Come, knaves, let me be\n amused,\" and amused I shall be; \"Pull me some honest folk to\n pieces,\" and so they will be, if honest folk can be found. We will\n be jolly over our cups, we will have all sorts of vices and\n whimsies; it will be delicious. We will prove that Voltaire has no\n genius; that Buffon, everlastingly perched upon his stilts, is only\n a turgid declaimer; that Montesquieu is nothing more than a man\n with a touch of ingenuity; we will send D'Alembert packing to his\n fusty mathematics. We will welcome before and behind all the pigmy\n Catos like you, whose modesty is the prop of pride, and whose\n sobriety is a fine name for not being able to help yourselves.\n\n _I._--From the worthy use to which you would put your riches, I\n perceive what a pity it is that you are a beggar. You would live\n thus in a manner that would be eminently honourable to the human\n race, eminently useful to your countrymen, and eminently glorious\n for yourself.\n\n _He._--You are mocking me, sir philosopher. But you do not know\n whom you are laughing at. You do not suspect that at this moment I\n represent the most important part of the town and the court. Our\n millionaires in all ranks have, or have not, said to themselves\n exactly the same things as I have just confided to you; but the\n fact is, the life that I should lead is precisely their life. What\n a notion you people have; you think that the same sort of happiness\n is made for all the world. What a strange vision! Yours supposes a\n certain romantic spirit that we know nothing of, a singular\n character, a peculiar taste. You adorn this incongruous mixture\n with the name of philosophy; but now, are virtue and philosophy\n made for all the world? He has them who can get them, and he keeps\n them who can. Imagine the universe sage and philosophical; agree\n that it would be a most diabolically gloomy spot. Come, long live\n philosophy! The wisdom of Solomon for ever! To drink good wines, to\n cram one's self with dainty dishes, to rest in beds of down: except\n that, all, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.\n\n _I._--What, to defend one's native land?\n\n _He._--Vanity; there is native land no more; I see nought from pole\n to pole but tyrants and slaves.\n\n _I._--To help one's friends?\n\n _He._--Vanity; has one any friends? If one had, ought we to turn\n them into ingrates? Look well, and you will see that this is all\n you get by doing services. Gratitude is a burden, and every burden\n is made to be shaken off.\n\n _I._--To have a position in society and fulfil its duties?\n\n _He._--Vanity; what matters it whether you have a position or not,\n provided you are rich, since you only seek a position to become\n rich? To fulfil one's duties, what does that lead to? To jealousy,\n trouble, persecution. Is that the way to get on? Nay, indeed: to\n see the great, to court them, study their taste, bow to their\n fancies, serve their vices, praise their injustice--there is the\n secret.\n\n _I._--To watch the education of one's children?\n\n _He._--Vanity; that is a tutor's business.\n\n _I._--But if this tutor, having picked up his principles from you,\n happens to neglect his duties, who will pay the penalty?\n\n _He._--Not I, at any rate, but most likely the husband of my\n daughter, or the wife of my son.\n\n _I._--But suppose that they both plunge into vice and debauchery?\n\n _He._--That belongs to their position.\n\n _I._--Suppose they bring themselves into dishonour?\n\n _He._--You never come into dishonour, if you are rich, whatever you\n do.\n\n _I._--Suppose they ruin themselves?\n\n _He._--So much the worse for them.\n\n _I._--You will not pay much heed to your wife?\n\n _He._--None whatever, if you please. The best compliment, I think,\n that a man can pay his dearer half, is to do what pleases himself.\n In your opinion, would not society be mightily amusing if everybody\n in it was always attending to his duties?\n\n _I._--Why not? The evening is never so fair to me as when I am\n satisfied with my morning.\n\n _He._--And to me also.\n\n _I._--What makes the men of the world so dainty in their\n amusements, is their profound idleness.\n\n _He._--Pray do not think that; they are full of trouble.\n\n _I._--As they never tire themselves, they are never refreshed.\n\n _He._--Don't suppose that either. They are incessantly worn out.\n\n _I._--Pleasure is always a business for them, never the\n satisfaction of a necessity.\n\n _He._--So much the better; necessity is always a trouble.\n\n _I._--They wear everything out. Their soul gets blunted, weariness\n seizes them. A man who should take their life in the midst of all\n their crushing abundance would do them a kindness. The only part of\n happiness that they know is the part that loses its edge. I do not\n despise the pleasures of the senses: I have a palate, too, and it\n is tickled by a well-seasoned dish or a fine wine; I have a heart\n and eyes, and I like to see a handsome woman. Sometimes with my\n friends, a gay party, even if it waxes somewhat tumultuous, does\n not displease me. But I will not dissemble from you that it is\n infinitely pleasanter to me to have succoured the unfortunate, to\n have ended some thorny business, to have given wholesome counsel,\n done some pleasant reading, taken a walk with some man or woman\n dear to me, passed instructive hours with my children, written a\n good page, fulfilled the duties of my position, said to the woman\n that I love a few soft things that bring her arm round my neck. I\n know actions which I would give all that I possess to have done.\n _Mahomet_ is a sublime work; I would a hundred times rather have\n got justice for the memory of the Calas. A person of my\n acquaintance fled to Carthagena; he was the younger son in a\n country where custom transfers all the property to the eldest.\n There he learns that his eldest brother, a petted son, after having\n despoiled his father and mother of all that they possessed, had\n driven them out of the castle, and that the poor old souls were\n languishing in indigence in some small country town. What does he\n do--this younger son who in consequence of the harsh treatment he\n had received at the hand of his parents had gone to seek his\n fortune far away? He sends them help; he makes haste to set his\n affairs in order, he returns with his riches, he restores his\n father and mother to their home, and finds husbands for his\n sisters. Ah, my dear Rameau, that man looked upon this period as\n the happiest in his life; he had tears in his eyes when he spoke to\n me of it, and even as I tell you the story, I feel my heart beat\n faster, and my tongue falter for sympathy.\n\n _He._--Singular beings, you are!\n\n _I._--'Tis you who are beings much to be pitied, if you cannot\n imagine that one rises above one's lot, and that it is impossible\n to be unhappy under the shelter of good actions.\n\n _He._--That is a kind of felicity with which I should find it hard\n to familiarise myself, for we do not often come across it. But,\n then, according to you, we should be good.\n\n _I._--To be happy, assuredly.\n\n _He._--Yet I see an infinity of honest people who are not happy,\n and an infinity of people who are happy without being honest.\n\n _I._--You think so.\n\n _He._--And is it not for having had common sense and frankness for\n a moment, that I don't know where to go for a supper to-night?\n\n _I._--Nay, it is for not having had it always; it is because you\n did not perceive in good time that one ought first and foremost to\n provide a resource independent of servitude.\n\n _He._--Independent or not, the resource I had provided is at any\n rate the most comfortable.\n\n _I._--And the least sure and least decent.\n\n _He._--But the most conformable to my character of sloth, madman,\n and good-for-nought.\n\n _I._--Just so.\n\n _He._--And since I can secure my happiness by vices which are\n natural to me, which I have acquired without labour, which I\n preserve without effort, which go well with the manners of my\n nation, which are to the taste of those who protect me, and are\n more in harmony with their small private necessities than virtues\n which would weary them by being a standing accusation against them\n from morning to night, why, it would be very singular for me to go\n and torment myself like a lost spirit, for the sake of making\n myself into somebody other than I am, to put on a character\n foreign to my own, and qualities which I will admit to be highly\n estimable, in order to avoid discussion, but which it would cost me\n a great deal to acquire, and a great deal to practise, and would\n lead to nothing, or possibly to worse than nothing, through the\n continual satire of the rich among whom beggars like me have to\n seek their subsistence. We praise virtue, but we hate it, and shun\n it, and know very well that it freezes the marrow of our bones--and\n in this world one must have one's feet warm. And then all that\n would infallibly fill me with ill-humour; for why do we so\n constantly see religious people so harsh, so querulous, so\n unsociable? 'Tis because they have imposed a task upon themselves\n which is not natural to them. They suffer, and when people suffer,\n they make others suffer too. That is not my game, nor that of my\n protectors either; I have to be gay, supple, amusing, comical.\n Virtue makes itself respected, and respect is inconvenient; virtue\n insists on being admired, and admiration is not amusing. I have to\n do with people who are bored, and I must make them laugh. Now it is\n absurdity and madness which make people laugh, so mad and absurd I\n must be; and even if nature had not made me so, the simplest plan\n would still be to feign it. Happily, I have no need to play\n hypocrite; there are so many already of all colours, without\n reckoning those who play hypocrite with themselves.... If your\n friend Rameau were to apply himself to show his contempt for\n fortune, and women, and good cheer, and idleness, and to begin to\n Catonise, what would he be but a hypocrite? Rameau must be what he\n is--a lucky rascal among rascals swollen with riches, and not a\n mighty paragon of virtue, or even a virtuous man, eating his dry\n crust of bread, either alone, or by the side of a pack of beggars.\n And, to cut it short, I do not get on with your felicity, or with\n the happiness of a few visionaries like yourself.\n\n _I._--I see, my friend, that you do not even know what it is, and\n that you are not even made to understand it.\n\n _He._--So much the better, I declare; so much the better. It would\n make me burst with hunger and weariness, and may be, with remorse.\n\n _I._--Very well, then, the only advice I have to give you, is to\n find your way back as quickly as you can into the house from which\n your impudence drove you out.\n\n _He._--And to do what you do not disapprove absolutely and yet is a\n little repugnant to me relatively?\n\n _I._--What a singularity!\n\n _He._--Nothing singular in it at all; I wish to be abject, but I\n wish to be so without constraint. I do not object to descend from\n my dignity.... You laugh?\n\n _I._--Yes, your dignity makes me laugh.\n\n _He._--Everybody has his own dignity. I do not object to come down\n from mine, but it must be in my own way, and not at the bidding of\n others. Must they be able to say to me, Crawl--and behold me,\n forced to crawl? That is the worm's way, and it is mine; we both of\n us follow it--the worm and I--when they leave us alone, but we turn\n when they tread on our tails. They have trodden on my tail, and I\n mean to turn. And then you have no idea of the creature we are\n talking about. Imagine a sour and melancholy person, eaten up by\n vapours, wrapped twice or thrice round in his dressing-gown,\n discontented with himself, and discontented with every one else;\n out of whom you hardly wring a smile, if you put your body and soul\n out of joint in a hundred different ways; who examines with a cold\n considering eye the droll grimaces of my face, and those of my\n mind, which are droller still. I may torment myself to attain the\n highest sublime of the lunatic asylum, nothing comes of it. Will he\n laugh, or will he not? That is what I am obliged to keep saying to\n myself in the midst of my contortions; and you may judge how\n damaging this uncertainty is to one's talent. My hypochondriac,\n with his head buried in a night-cap that covers his eyes, has the\n air of an immovable pagod, with a string tied to its chin, and\n going down under his chair. You wait for the string to be pulled,\n and it is not pulled; or if by chance the jaws open, it is only to\n articulate some word that shows he has not seen you, and that all\n your drolleries have been thrown away. This word is the answer to\n some question which you put to him four days before; the word\n spoken, the mastoid muscle contracts, and the jaw sticks.\n\n [Then he set himself to imitate his man. He placed himself on a\n chair, his head fixed, his hat coming over his eyebrows, his eyes\n half-shut, his arms hanging down, moving his jaw up and down like\n an automaton:] Gloomy, obscure, oracular as destiny itself--such is\n our patron.\n\n At the other side of the room is a prude who plays at importance,\n to whom one could bring one's self to say that she is pretty,\n because she is pretty, though she has a blemish or two upon her\n face. _Item_, she is more spiteful, more conceited, and more silly\n than a goose. _Item_, she insists on having wit. _Item_, you have\n to persuade her that you believe she has more of it than anybody\n else in the world. _Item_, she knows nothing, and she has a turn\n for settling everything out of hand. _Item_, you must applaud her\n decisions with feet and hands, jump for joy, and scream with\n admiration:--\"How fine that is, how delicate, well said, subtly\n seen, singularly felt! Where do women get that? Without study, by\n mere force of instinct, and pure light of nature! That is really\n like a miracle! And then they want us to believe that experience,\n study, reflection, education, have anything to do with the\n matter!...\" And other fooleries to match, and tears and tears of\n joy; ten times a day to kneel down, one knee bent in front of the\n other, the other leg drawn back, the arms extended towards the\n goddess, to seek one's desire in her eyes, to hang on her lips, to\n wait for her command, and then start off like a flash of lightning.\n Where is the man who would subject himself to play such a part, if\n it is not the wretch, who finds there two or three times a week the\n wherewithal to still the tribulation of his inner parts?\n\n _I._--I should never have thought you were so fastidious.\n\n _He._--I am not. In the beginning I watched the others, and I did\n as they did, even rather better, because I am more frankly\n impudent, a better comedian, hungrier, and better off for lungs. I\n descend apparently in a direct line from the famous Stentor....\n\n [And to give me a just idea of the force of his organ, he set off\n laughing, with violence enough to break the windows of the\n coffee-house, and to interrupt the chess-players.]\n\n _I._--But what is the good of this talent?\n\n _He._--You cannot guess?\n\n _I._--No; I am rather slow.\n\n _He._--Suppose the debate opened, and victory uncertain; I get up,\n and, displaying my thunder, I say: \"That is as mademoiselle\n asserts.... That is worth calling a judgment. There is genius in\n the expression.\" But one must not always approve in the same\n manner; one would be monotonous, and seem insincere, and become\n insipid. You only escape that by judgment and resource; you must\n know how to prepare and place your major and most peremptory tones,\n to seize the occasion and the moment. When, for instance, there is\n a difference in feeling, and the debate has risen to its last\n degree of violence, and you have ceased to listen to one another,\n and all speak at the same time, you ought to have your place at the\n corner of the room which is farthest removed from the field of\n battle, to have prepared the way for your explosion by a long\n silence, and then suddenly to fall like a thunder-clap over the\n very midst of the combatants. Nobody possesses this art as I do.\n But where I am truly surprising is in the opposite way--I have low\n tones that I accompany with a smile, and an infinite variety of\n approving tricks of face; nose, lips, brow, eyes, all make play; I\n have a suppleness of reins, a manner of twisting the spine, of\n shrugging the shoulders, extending the fingers, inclining the head,\n closing the eyes, and throwing myself into a state of stupefaction,\n as if I had heard a divine angelic voice come down from heaven;\n that is what flatters. I do not know whether you seize rightly all\n the energy of that last attitude. I did not invent it, but nobody\n has ever surpassed me in its execution. Behold, behold!\n\n _I._--Truly, it is unique.\n\n _He._--Think you there is a woman's brain that could stand that?\n\n _I._--It must be admitted that you have carried the talent of\n playing the madman, and of self-debasement, as far as it can\n possibly be carried.\n\n _He._--Try as hard as they will, they will never touch me--not the\n best of them. Palissot, for instance, will never be more than a\n good learner. But if this part is amusing at first, and if you have\n some relish in inwardly mocking at the folly of the people whom you\n are intoxicating, in the long run that ceases to be exciting, and\n then after a certain number of discoveries one is obliged to repeat\n one's self. Wit and art have their limits. 'Tis only God Almighty\n and some rare geniuses, for whom the career widens as they advance.\n\n _I._--With this precious enthusiasm for fine things, and this\n facility of genius of yours, is it possible that you have invented\n nothing?\n\n _He._--Pardon me; for instance, that admiring attitude of the back,\n of which I spoke to you; I regard it as my own, though envy may\n contest my claim. I daresay it has been employed before: but who\n has felt how convenient it was for laughing in one's sleeve at the\n ass for whom one was dying of admiration! I have more than a\n hundred ways of opening fire on a girl under the very eyes of her\n mother, without the latter suspecting a jot of it; yes, and even of\n making her an accomplice. I had hardly begun my career before I\n disdained all the vulgar fashions of slipping a _billet-doux_; I\n have ten ways of having them taken from me, and out of the number I\n venture to flatter myself there are some that are new. I possess in\n an especial degree the gift of encouraging a timid young man; I\n have secured success for some who had neither wit nor good looks.\n If all that was written down, I fancy people would concede me some\n genius.\n\n _I._--And would do you singular honour.\n\n _He._--I don't doubt it.\n\n _I._--In your place, I would put those famous methods on paper. It\n would be a pity for them to be lost.\n\n _He._--It is true; but you could never suppose how little I think\n of method and precepts. He who needs a protocol will never go far.\n Your genius reads little, experiments much, and teaches himself.\n Look at Caesar, Turenne, Vauban, the Marquise de Tencin, her brother\n the cardinal, and the cardinal's secretary, the Abbe Trublet, and\n Bouret! Who is it that has given lessons to Bouret? Nobody; 'tis\n nature that forms these rare men.\n\n _I._--Well, but you might do this in your lost hours, when the\n anguish of your empty stomach, or the weariness of your stomach\n overloaded, banishes slumber.\n\n _He._--I'll think of it. It is better to write great things than to\n execute small ones. Then the soul rises on wings, the imagination\n is kindled; whereas it shrivels in amazement at the applause which\n the absurd public lavishes so perversely on that mincing creature\n of a Dangeville, who plays so flatly, who walks the stage nearly\n bent double, who stares affectedly and incessantly into the eyes of\n every one she talks to, and who takes her grimaces for finesse, and\n her little strut for grace; or on that emphatic Clairon, who\n becomes more studied, more pretentious, more elaborately heavy,\n than I can tell you. That imbecile of a pit claps hands to the\n echo, and never sees that we are a mere worsted ball of\n daintinesses ('Tis true the ball grows a trifle big, but what does\n it matter?), that we have the finest skin, the finest eyes, the\n prettiest bill; little feeling inside, in truth; a step that is not\n exactly light, but which for all that is not as awkward as they\n say. As for sentiment, on the other hand, there is not one of these\n stage dames whom we cannot cap.\n\n _I._--What do you mean by all that? Is it irony or truth?\n\n _He._--The worst of it is that this deuced sentiment is all\n internal, and not a glimpse of it appears outside; but I who am now\n talking to you, I know, and know well, that she has it. If it is\n not that, you should see, if a fit of ill-humour comes on, how we\n treat the valets, how the waiting-maids are cuffed and trounced,\n what kicks await our good friend, if he fails in an atom of that\n respect which is our due. 'Tis a little demon, I tell you, full of\n sentiment and dignity. Ah, you don't quite know where you are, eh?\n\n _I._--I confess I can hardly make out whether you are speaking in\n good faith or in malice. I am a plain man. Be kind enough to be a\n little more outspoken, and to leave your art behind for once....\n\n _He._--What is it? why it is what we retail before our little\n patroness about the Dangeville or the Clairon, mixed up here and\n there with a word or two to put you on the scent. I will allow you\n to take me for a good-for-nothing, but not for a fool; and 'tis\n only a fool, or a man eaten up with conceit, who could say such a\n parcel of impertinences seriously.\n\n _I._--But how do people ever bring themselves to say them?\n\n _He._--It is not done all at once, but little by little you come to\n it. _Ingenii largitor venter._\n\n _I._--Then hunger must press you very hard.\n\n _He._--That may be; yet strong as you may think them, be sure that\n those to whom they are addressed are much more accustomed to listen\n to them than we are to hazard them.\n\n _I._--Is there anybody who has courage to be of your opinion?\n\n _He._--What do you mean by anybody? It is the sentiment and\n language of the whole of society.\n\n _I._--Those of you who are not great rascals must be great fools.\n\n _He._--Fools! I assure you there is only one, and that is he who\n feasts us to cheat him.\n\n _I._--But how can people allow themselves to be cheated in such\n gross fashion? For surely the superiority of the Dangeville and the\n Clairon is a settled thing.\n\n _He._--We swallow until we are full to the throat any lie that\n flatters us, and take drop by drop a truth that is bitter to us.\n And then we have the air of being so profoundly penetrated, so\n true.\n\n _I._--Yet you must once, at any rate, have sinned against the\n principles of art, and let slip, by an oversight, some of those\n bitter truths that wound; for, in spite of the wretched, abject,\n vile, abominable part you play, I believe you have at bottom some\n delicacy of soul.\n\n _He._--I! not the least in the world. Deuce take me if I know what\n I am! In a general way, I have a mind as round as a ball, and a\n character fresh as a water-willow. Never false, little interest as\n I have in being true; never true, little interest as I have in\n being false. I say things just as they come into my head; sensible\n things, then so much the better; impertinent things, then people\n take no notice. I let my natural frankness have full play. I never\n in all my life gave a thought, either beforehand, what to say, or\n while I was saying it, or after I had said it. And so I offend\n nobody.\n\n _I._--Still that did happen with the worthy people among whom you\n used to live, and who were so kind to you.\n\n _He._--What would you have? It is a mishap, an unlucky moment, such\n as there always are in life; there is no such thing as unbroken\n bliss: I was too well off, it could not last. We have, as you\n know, the most numerous and the best chosen company. It is a school\n of humanity, the renewal of hospitality after the antique. All the\n poets who fall, we pick them up; all decried musicians, all the\n authors who are never read, all the actresses who are hissed, a\n parcel of beggarly, disgraced, stupid, parasitical souls, and at\n the head of them all I have the honour of being the brave chief of\n a timorous flock. It is I who exhort them to eat the first time\n they come, and I who ask for drink for them--they are so shy. A few\n young men in rags who do not know where to lay their heads, but who\n have good looks; a few scoundrels who bamboozle the master of the\n house, and put him to sleep, for the sake of gleaning after him in\n the fields of the mistress of the house. We seem gay, but at bottom\n we are devoured by spleen and a raging appetite. Wolves are not\n more famishing, nor tigers more cruel. Like wolves when the ground\n has been long covered with snow, we raven over our food, and\n whatever succeeds we rend like tigers. Never was seen such a\n collection of soured, malignant, venomous beasts. You hear nothing\n but the names of Buffon, Duclos, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire,\n D'Alembert, Diderot; and God knows the epithets that bear them\n company! Nobody can have any parts if he is not as stupid as\n ourselves. That is the plan on which Palissot's play of _The\n Philosophers_ has been conceived. And you are not spared in it, any\n more than your neighbours.\n\n _I._--So much the better. Perhaps they do me more honour than I\n deserve. I should be humiliated if those who speak ill of so many\n clever and worthy people took it into their heads to speak well of\n me.\n\n _He._--Everybody must pay his scot. After sacrificing the greater\n animals, then we immolate the others.\n\n _I._--Insulting science and virtue for a living, that is\n dearly-earned bread!\n\n _He._--I have already told you, we are without any consistency; we\n insult all the world, and afflict nobody. We have sometimes the\n heavy Abbe d'Olivet, the big Abbe Le Blanc, the hypocrite Batteux.\n The big abbe is only spiteful before he has had his dinner; his\n coffee taken, he throws himself into an arm-chair, his feet against\n the ledge of the fireplace, and sleeps like an old parrot on its\n perch. If the noise becomes violent he yawns, stretches his arms,\n rubs his eyes, and says: \"Well, well, what is it?\" \"It is whether\n Piron has more wit than Voltaire.\" \"Let us understand; is it wit\n that you are talking about, or is it taste? For as to taste, your\n Piron has not a suspicion of it.\" \"Not a suspicion of it?\" \"No.\"\n And there we are, embarked in a dissertation upon taste. Then the\n patron makes a sign with his hand for people to listen to him, for\n if he piques himself upon one thing more than another, it is taste.\n \"Taste,\" he says, \"taste is a thing....\" But, on my soul, I don't\n know what thing he said that it was, nor does he.\n\n Then sometimes we have friend Robbe. He regales us with his\n equivocal stories, with the miracles of the convulsionnaires which\n he has seen with his own eyes, and with some cantos of a poem on a\n subject that he knows thoroughly. His verses I detest, but I love\n to hear him recite them--he has the air of an energumen. They all\n cry out around him: \"There is a poet worth calling a poet!...\"\n\n Then there comes to us also a certain noodle with a dull and stupid\n air, but who has the keenness of a demon, and is more mischievous\n than an old monkey. He is one of those figures that provoke\n pleasantries and sarcasms, and that God made for the chastisement\n of those who judge by appearances, and who ought to have learnt\n from the mirror that it is as easy to be a wit with the air of a\n fool as to hide a fool under the air of a wit. 'Tis a very common\n piece of cowardice to immolate a good man to the amusement of the\n others; people never fail to turn to this man; he is a snare that\n we set for the new-comers, and I have scarcely known one of them\n who was not caught ...\n\n [I was sometimes amazed at the justice of my madman's observations\n on men and characters, and I showed him my surprise.] That is, he\n answered, because one derives good out of bad company, as one does\n out of libertinism. You are recompensed for the loss of your\n innocence by that of your prejudices; in the society of the bad,\n where vice shows itself without a mask, you learn to understand\n them. And then I have read a little.\n\n _I._--What have you read?\n\n _He._--I have read, and I read, and I read over and over again\n Theophrastus and La Bruyere and Moliere.\n\n _I._--Excellent works, all of them.\n\n _He._--They are far better than people suppose; but who is there\n who knows how to read them?\n\n _I._--Everybody does, according to the measure of his intelligence.\n\n _He._--No; hardly anybody. Could you tell me what people look for\n in them?\n\n _I._--Amusement and instruction.\n\n _He._--But what instruction, for that is the point?\n\n _I._--The knowledge of one's duties, the love of virtue, the hatred\n of vice.\n\n _He._--For my part, I gather from them all that one ought to do,\n and all that one ought not to say. Thus, when I read the _Avare_, I\n say to myself: \"Be a miser if thou wilt, but beware of talking like\n the miser.\" When I read _Tartufe_, I say: \"Be a hypocrite if thou\n wilt, but do not talk like a hypocrite. Keep the vices that are\n useful to thee, but avoid their tone and the appearances that would\n make thee laughable.\" To preserve thyself from such a tone and such\n appearances, it is necessary to know what they are. Now these\n authors have drawn excellent pictures of them. I am myself, and I\n remain what I am, but I act and I speak as becomes the character. I\n am not one of those who despise moralists; there is a great deal\n of profit to be got from them, especially with those who have\n applied morality to action. Vice only hurts men from time to time;\n the characteristics of vice hurt them from morning to night.\n Perhaps it would be better to be insolent than to have an insolent\n expression. One who is insolent in character only insults people\n now and again; one who is insolent in expression insults them\n incessantly. And do not imagine that I am the only reader of my\n kind. I have no other merit in this respect than having done on\n system, from a natural integrity of understanding, and with true\n and reasonable vision, what most others do by instinct. And so\n their readings make them no better than I am, and they remain\n ridiculous in spite of themselves, while I am only so when I\n choose, and always leave them a vast distance behind me; for the\n same art which teaches me how to escape ridicule on certain\n occasions teaches me also on certain others how to incur it\n happily. Then I recall to myself all that the others said, and all\n that I read, and I add all that issues from my own originality,\n which is in this kind wondrous fertile.\n\n _I._--You have done well to reveal these mysteries to me, for\n otherwise I should have thought you self-contradictory.\n\n _He._--I am not so in the least, for against a single time when one\n has to avoid ridicule, happily there are a hundred when one has to\n provoke it. There is no better part among the great people than\n that of fool. For a long time there was the king's fool; at no time\n was there ever the king's sage, officially so styled. Now I am the\n fool of Bertin and many others, perhaps yours at the present\n moment, or perhaps you are mine. A man who meant to be a sage would\n have no fool, so he who has a fool is no sage; if he is not a sage\n he is a fool, and perhaps, even were he the king himself, the fool\n of his fool. For the rest, remember that in a matter so variable as\n manners, there is nothing absolutely, essentially, and universally\n true or false; if not that one must be what interest would have us\n be, good or bad, wise or mad, decent or ridiculous, honest or\n vicious. If virtue had happened to be the way to fortune, then I\n should either have been virtuous, or I should have pretended\n virtue, like other persons. As it was, they wanted me to be\n ridiculous, and I made myself so; as for being vicious, nature\n alone had taken all the trouble that was needed in that. When I use\n the term vicious, it is for the sake of talking your language; for,\n if we came to explanations, it might happen that you called vice\n what I call virtue, and virtue what I call vice.\n\n Then we have the authors of the Opera Comique, their actors and\n their actresses, and oftener still their managers, all people of\n resource and superior merit. And I forget the whole clique of\n scribblers in the gazettes, the _Avant Coureur_, the _Petites\n Affiches_, the _Annee litteraire_, the _Observateur litteraire_.\n\n _I._--The _Annee litteraire_, the _Observateur litteraire_! But\n they detest one another.\n\n _He._--Quite true, but all beggars are reconciled at the porringer.\n That cursed _Observateur litteraire_, I wish the devil had had both\n him and his sheet! It was that dog of a miserly priest who caused\n my disaster. He appeared on our horizon for the first time; he\n arrived at the hour that drives us all out of our dens, the hour\n for dinner. When it is bad weather, lucky the man among us who has\n a shilling in his pocket to pay for a hackney-coach! He is free to\n laugh at a comrade for coming besplashed up to his eyes and wet to\n the skin, though at night he goes to his own home in just the same\n plight. There was one of them some months ago who had a violent\n brawl with the Savoyard at the door. They had a running account;\n the creditor insisted on being paid, and the debtor was not in\n funds, and yet he could not go upstairs without passing through the\n hands of the other.\n\n Dinner is served; they do the honours of the table to the\n abbe--they place him at the upper end. I come in and see this.\n \"What, abbe, you preside? That is all very well for to-day, but\n to-morrow you will come down, if you please, by one plate; the day\n after by another plate, and so on from plate to plate, now to right\n and now to left, until from the place that I occupied one time\n before you, Freron once after me, Dorat once after Freron, Palissot\n once after Dorat, you become stationary beside me, poor rascal as\n you are--_che siedo sempre come_\"--[an Italian proverb not to be\n decently reproduced].\n\n The abbe, who is a good fellow, and takes everything in good part,\n bursts out laughing; Mademoiselle, struck by my observation and by\n the aptness of my comparison, bursts out laughing; everybody to\n right and left burst out laughing, except the master of the house,\n who flies into a huff, and uses language that would have meant\n nothing if we had been by ourselves--\n\n \"Rameau, you are an impertinent.\"\n\n \"I know I am, and it is on that condition that I was received\n here.\"\n\n \"You are a scoundrel.\"\n\n \"Like anybody else.\"\n\n \"A beggar.\"\n\n \"Should I be here, if I were not?\"\n\n \"I will have you turned out of doors.\"\n\n \"After dinner I will go of my own will.\"\n\n \"I recommend you to go.\"\n\n We dined: I did not lose a single toothful. After eating well and\n drinking amply, for after all Messer Gaster is a person with whom I\n have never sulked, I made up my mind what to do, and I prepared to\n go; I had pledged my word in presence of so many people that I was\n bound to keep it. For a considerable time I hunted up and down the\n room for my hat and cane in every corner where they were not likely\n to be, reckoning all the time that the master of the house would\n break out into a new torrent of injuries, that somebody would\n interpose, and that we should at last make friends by sheer dint of\n altercation. I turned on this side and that, for I had nothing on\n my heart; but the master, more sombre and dark-browed than Homer's\n Apollo as he lets his arrows fly among the Greeks, with his cap\n plucked farther over his head than usual, marched backwards and\n forwards up and down the room. Mademoiselle approaches me: \"But,\n mademoiselle,\" say I, \"what has happened beyond what happens every\n day? Have I been different from what I am on other days?\"\n\n \"I insist on his leaving the house.\"--\"I am leaving.... But I have\n given no ground of offence.\"--\"Pardon me; we invite the abbe\n and....\" It was he who was wrong to invite the abbe, while at the\n same time he was receiving me, and with me so many other creatures\n of my sort.--\"Come, friend Rameau, you must beg the abbe's\n pardon.\"--\"I shall not know what to do with his pardon.\"--\"Come,\n come, all will be right.\"--They take me by the hand, and drag me\n towards the abbe's chair; I look at him with a kind of admiring\n wonder, for who before ever asked pardon of the abbe? \"All this is\n very absurd, abbe; confess, is it not?\" And then I laugh, and the\n abbe laughs too. So that is my forgiveness on that side; but I had\n next to approach the other, and that was a very different thing. I\n forget exactly how it was that I framed my apology.--\"Sir, here is\n the madman....\"--\"He has made me suffer too long; I wish to hear no\n more about him.\"--\"He is sorry.\"--\"Yes, I am very sorry.\"--\"It\n shall not happen again.\"--\"Until the first rascal....\"--I do not\n know whether he was in one of those days of ill-humour when\n mademoiselle herself dreads to go near him, or whether he\n misunderstood what I said, or whether I said something wrong:\n things were worse than before. Good heavens, does he not know me?\n Does he not know that I am like children, and that there are some\n circumstances in which I let anything and everything escape me? And\n then, God help me, am I not to have a moment of relief? Why, it\n would wear out a puppet made of steel, to keep pulling the string\n from night to morning, and from morning to night! I must amuse\n them, of course, that is the condition; but I must now and then\n amuse myself. In the midst of these distractions there came into my\n head a fatal idea, an idea that gave me confidence, that inspired\n me with pride and insolence: it was that they could not do without\n me, and that I was indispensable.\n\n _I._--Yes, I daresay that you are very useful to them, but that\n they are still more useful to you. You will not find as good a\n house every day; but they, for one madman who falls short, will\n find a hundred to take his place.\n\n _He._--A hundred madmen like me, sir philosopher; they are not so\n common, I can tell you! Flat fools--yes. People are harder to\n please in folly than in talent or virtue. I am a rarity in my own\n kind, a great rarity. Now that they have me no longer, what are\n they doing? They find time as heavy as if they were dogs. I am an\n inexhaustible bagful of impertinences. Every minute I had some\n fantastic notion that made them laugh till they cried; I was a\n whole Bedlam in myself.\n\n _I._--Well, at any rate you had bed and board, coat and breeches,\n shoes, and a pistole a month.\n\n _He._--That is the profit side of the account; you say not a word\n of the cost of it all. First, if there was a whisper of a new piece\n (no matter how bad the weather), one had to ransack all the garrets\n in Paris, until one had found the author; then to get a reading of\n the play, and adroitly to insinuate that there was a part in it\n which would be rendered in a superior manner by a certain person of\n my acquaintance.--\"And by whom, if you please?\"--\"By whom? a pretty\n question! There are graces, finesse, elegance.\"--\"Ah, you mean\n Mademoiselle Dangeville? Perhaps you know her?\"--\"Yes, a little;\n but 'tis not she.\"--\"Who is it, then?\"--I whispered the name very\n low. \"She?\"--\"Yes, she,\" I repeated with some shame, for sometimes\n I do feel a touch of shame; and at this name you should have seen\n how long the poet's face grew, if indeed he did not burst out\n laughing in my face. Still, whether he would or not, I was bound to\n take my man to dine; and he, being naturally afraid of pledging\n himself, drew back, and tried to say \"No, thank you.\" You should\n have seen how I was treated, if I did not succeed in my\n negotiation! I was a blockhead, a fool, a rascal; I was not good\n for a single thing; I was not worth the glass of water which they\n gave me to drink. It was still worse at their performance, when I\n had to go intrepidly amid the cries of a public that has a good\n judgment of its own, whatever may be said about it, and make my\n solitary clap of the hand audible, draw every eye to me, and\n sometimes save the actress from hisses, and hear people murmur\n around me--\"He is one of the valets in disguise belonging to the\n man who.... Will that knave be quiet?\" They do not know what brings\n a man to that; they think it is stupidity, but there is one motive\n that excuses anything.\n\n _I._--Even the infraction of the civil laws.\n\n _He._--At length, however, I became known, and people used to say:\n \"Oh, it is Rameau!\" My resource was to throw out some words of\n irony to save my solitary applause from ridicule, by making them\n interpret it in an opposite sense.\n\n Now agree that one must have a mighty interest to make one thus\n brave the assembled public, and that each of these pieces of hard\n labour was worth more than a paltry crown? And then at home there\n was a pack of dogs to tend, and cats for which I was responsible. I\n was only too happy if Micou favoured me with a stroke of his claw\n that tore my cuff or my wrist. Criquette is liable to colic; 'tis I\n who have to rub her. In old days mademoiselle used to have the\n vapours; to-day, it is her nerves. She is beginning to grow a\n little stout; you should hear the fine tales they make out of this.\n\n _I._--You do not belong to people of this sort, at any rate?\n\n _He._--Why not?\n\n _I._--Because it is indecent to throw ridicule on one's\n benefactors.\n\n _He._--But is it not worse still to take advantage of one's\n benefits to degrade the receiver of them?\n\n _I._--But if the receiver of them were not vile in himself, nothing\n would give the benefactor the chance.\n\n _He._--But if the personages were not ridiculous in themselves they\n would not make subjects for good tales. And then, is it my fault if\n they mix with rascaldom? Is it my fault if, after mixing themselves\n up with rascaldom, they are betrayed and made fools of? When people\n resolve to live with people like us, if they have common sense,\n there is an infinite quantity of blackness for which they must make\n up their minds. When they take us, do they not know us for what we\n are, for the most interested, vile, and perfidious of souls. Then\n if they know us, all is well. There is a tacit compact that they\n shall treat us well, and that sooner or later we shall treat them\n ill in return for the good that they have done us. Does not such an\n agreement subsist between a man and his monkey or his parrot?... If\n you take a young provincial to the menagerie at Versailles, and he\n takes it into his head for a freak to push his hands between the\n bars of the cage of the tiger or the panther, whose fault is it? It\n is all written in the silent compact, and so much the worse for the\n man who forgets or ignores it. How I could justify by this\n universal and sacred compact the people whom you accuse of\n wickedness, whereas it is in truth yourselves whom you ought to\n accuse of folly.... But while we execute the just decrees of\n Providence on folly, you who paint us as we are, you execute its\n just decrees on us. What would you think of us, if we claimed, with\n our shameless manners, to enjoy public consideration? That we are\n out of our senses. And those who look for decent behaviour from\n people who are born vicious and with vile and bad characters--are\n they in their senses? Everything has its true wages in this world.\n There are two Public Prosecutors, one at your door, chastising\n offences against society; nature is the other. Nature knows all the\n vices that escape the laws. Give yourself up to debauchery, and you\n will end with dropsy; if you are crapulous, your lungs will find\n you out; if you open your door to ragamuffins, and live in their\n company, you will be betrayed, laughed at, despised. The shortest\n way is to resign, one's self to the equity of these judgments, and\n to say to one's self: That is as it should be; to shake one's ears\n and turn over a new leaf, or else to remain what one is, but on the\n conditions aforesaid....\n\n _I._--You cannot doubt what judgment I pass on such a character as\n yours?\n\n _He._--Not at all; I am in your eyes an abject and most despicable\n creature; and I am sometimes the same in my own eyes, though not\n often: I more frequently congratulate myself on my vices than blame\n myself for them; you are more constant in your contempt.\n\n _I._--True; but why show me all your turpitude?\n\n _He._--First, because you already know a good deal of it, and I saw\n that there was more to gain than to lose, by confessing the rest.\n\n _I._--How so, if you please?\n\n _He._--It is important in some lines of business to reach\n sublimity; it is especially so in evil. People spit upon a small\n rogue, but they cannot refuse a kind of consideration to a great\n criminal; his courage amazes you, his atrocity makes you shudder.\n In all things, what people prize is unity of character.\n\n _I._--But this estimable unity of character you have not quite got:\n I find you from time to time vacillating in your principles; it is\n uncertain whether you get your wickedness from nature or study, and\n whether study has brought you as far as possible.\n\n _He._--I agree with you, but I have done my best. Have I not had\n the modesty to recognise persons more perfect in my own line than\n myself. Have I not spoken to you of Bouret with the deepest\n admiration? Bouret is the first person in the world for me.\n\n _I._--But after Bouret you come.\n\n _He._--No.\n\n _I._--Palissot, then?\n\n _He._--Palissot, but not Palissot alone.\n\n _I._--And who is worthy to share the second rank with him?\n\n _He._--The Renegade of Avignon.\n\n _I._--I never heard of the Renegade of Avignon, but he must be an\n astonishing man.\n\n _He._--He is so, indeed.\n\n _I._--The history of great personages has always interested me.\n\n _He._--I can well believe it. This hero lived in the house of a\n good and worthy descendant of Abraham, promised to the father of\n the faithful in number equal to the stars in the heavens.\n\n _I._--In the house of a Jew?\n\n _He._--In the house of a Jew. He had at first surprised pity, then\n goodwill, then entire confidence, for that is how it always\n happens: we count so strongly on our kindness, that we seldom hide\n our secrets from anybody on whom we have heaped benefits. How\n should there not be ingrates in the world, when we expose this man\n to the temptation of being ungrateful with impunity? That is a just\n reflection which our Jew failed to make. He confided to the\n renegade that he could not conscientiously eat pork. You will see\n the advantage that a fertile wit knew how to get from such a\n confession. Some months passed, during which our renegade redoubled\n his attentions; when he believed his Jew thoroughly touched,\n thoroughly captivated, thoroughly convinced that he had no better\n friend among all the tribes of Israel ... now admire the\n circumspection of the man! He is in no hurry; he lets the pear\n ripen before he shakes the branch; too much haste might have\n ruined his design. It is because greatness of character usually\n results from the natural balance between several opposite\n qualities.\n\n _I._--Pray leave your reflections, and go straight on with your\n story.\n\n _He._--That is impossible. There are days when I cannot help\n reflecting; 'tis a malady that must be allowed to run its course.\n Where was I?\n\n _I._--At the intimacy that had been established between the Jew and\n the renegade.\n\n _He._--Then the pear was ripe.... But you are not listening; what\n are you dreaming about?\n\n _I._--I am thinking of the curious inequality in your tone, now so\n high, now so low.\n\n _He._--How can a man made of vices be one and the same?... He\n reaches his friend's house one night, with an air of violent\n perturbation, with broken accents, a face as pale as death, and\n trembling in every limb. \"What is the matter with you?\"--\"We are\n ruined.\" \"Ruined, how?\"--\"Ruined, I tell you, beyond all\n help.\"--\"Explain.\"--\"One moment, until I have recovered from my\n fright.\"--\"Come, then, recover yourself,\" says the Jew.... \"A\n traitor has informed against us before the Holy Inquisition, you as\n a Jew, me as a renegade, an infamous renegade....\" Mark how the\n traitor does not blush to use the most odious expressions. It needs\n more courage than you may suppose to call one's self by one's right\n name; you do not know what an effort it costs to come to that.\n\n _I._--No, I daresay not. But \"the infamous renegade----\"\n\n _He._--He is false, but his falsity is adroit enough. The Jew takes\n fright, tears his beard, rolls on the ground, sees the officers at\n his door, sees himself clad in the _Sanbenito_, sees his\n _auto-da-fe_ all made ready. \"My friend,\" he cries, \"my good,\n tender friend, my only friend, what is to be done?\"\n\n \"What is to be done? Why show ourselves, affect the greatest\n security, go about our business just as we usually do. The\n procedure of the tribunal is secret but slow; we must take\n advantage of its delays to sell all you have. I will hire a boat,\n or I will have it hired by a third person--that will be best; in it\n we will deposit your fortune, for it is your fortune that they are\n most anxious to get at; and then we will go, you and I, and seek\n under another sky the freedom of serving our God, and following in\n security the law of Abraham and our own consciences. The important\n point in our present dangerous situation is to do nothing\n imprudent.\"\n\n No sooner said than done. The vessel is hired, victualled, and\n manned, the Jew's fortune put on board; on the morrow, at dawn,\n they are to sail, they are free to sup gaily and to sleep in all\n security; on the morrow they escape their prosecutors. In the\n night, the renegade gets up, despoils the Jew of his portfolio, his\n purse, his jewels, goes on board, and sails away. And you think\n that this is all? Good: you are not awake to it. Now when they told\n me the story, I divined at once what I have not told you, in order\n to try your sagacity. You were quite right to be an honest man; you\n would never have made more than a fifth-rate scoundrel. Up to this\n point the renegade is only that; he is a contemptible rascal whom\n nobody would consent to resemble. The sublimity of his wickedness\n is this, that he was himself the informer against his good friend\n the Israelite, of whom the Inquisition took hold when he awoke the\n next morning, and of whom a few days later they made a famous\n bonfire. And it was in this way that the renegade became the\n tranquil possessor of the fortune of the accursed descendant of\n those who crucified our Lord.\n\n _I._--I do not know which of the two is most horrible to me--the\n vileness of your renegade, or the tone in which you speak of it.\n\n _He._--And that is what I said: the atrocity of the action carries\n you beyond contempt, and hence my sincerity. I wished you to know\n to what a degree I excelled in my art, to extort from you the\n admission that I was at least original in my abasement, to rank me\n in your mind on the line of the great good-for-noughts, and to hail\n me henceforth--_Vivat Mascarillus, fourbum imperator_!\n\n[Here the discussion is turned aside, by Rameau's pantomimic performance\nof a fugue, to various topics in music.[224]]\n\n [224] Vol. v. pp. 457-468.\n\n _I._--How does it happen that with such fine tact, such great\n sensibility for the beauties of the musical art, you are so blind\n to the fine things of morality, so insensible to the charms of\n virtue?\n\n _He._--It must be because there is for the one a sense that I have\n not got, a fibre that has not been given to me, a slack string that\n you may play upon as much as you please, but it never vibrates. Or\n it may be because I have always lived with those who were good\n musicians but bad men, whence it has come to pass that my ear has\n grown very fine, and my heart has grown very deaf. And then there\n is something in race. The blood of my father and the blood of my\n uncle is the same blood; my blood is the same as that of my father;\n the paternal molecule was hard and obtuse, and that accursed first\n molecule has assimilated to itself all the rest.\n\n _I._--Do you love your child?\n\n _He._--Do I love it, the little savage! I dote on it.\n\n _I._--Will you not then seriously set to work to arrest in it the\n consequences of the accursed paternal molecule?\n\n _He._--I shall labour in vain, I fancy. If he is destined to grow\n into a good man, I shall not hurt him; but if the molecule meant\n him for a ne'er-do-well like his father, then all the pains that I\n might have taken to make a decent man of him would only be very\n hurtful to him, Education incessantly crossing the inclination of\n the molecule, he would be drawn as it were by two contrary forces,\n and would walk in zigzags along the path of life, as I see an\n infinity of other people doing, equally awkward in good and evil.\n These are what we call _especes_, of all epithets the most to be\n dreaded, because it marks mediocrity and the very lowest degree of\n contempt. A great scoundrel is a great scoundrel, but he is not an\n _espece_. Before the paternal molecule had got the upper hand, and\n had brought him to the perfect abjection at which I have arrived,\n it would take endless time, and he would lose his best years. I do\n not meddle at present; I let him come on. I examine him; he is\n already greedy, cunning, idle, lying, and a cheat; I'm much afraid\n that he is a chip of the old block.\n\n _I._--And you will make him a musician, so that the likeness may be\n exact?\n\n _He._--A musician! Sometimes I look at him and grind my teeth,\n saying: If thou wert ever to know a note of music, I believe I\n would wring thy neck.\n\n _I._--And why so, if you please?\n\n _He._--Music leads to nothing.\n\n _I._--It leads to everything.\n\n _He._--Yes, when people are first-rate. But who can promise himself\n that his child shall be first-rate. The odds are ten thousand to\n one that he will never be anything but a wretched scraper of\n catgut. Are you aware that it would perhaps be easier to find a\n child fit to govern a realm, fit to be a great king, than one fit\n for a great violin player.\n\n _I._--It seems to me that agreeable talents, even if they are\n mediocre, among a people who are without morals, and are lost in\n debauchery and luxury, get a man rapidly on in the path of fortune.\n\n _He._--No doubt, gold and gold; gold is everything, and all the\n rest without gold is nothing. So instead of cramming his head with\n fine maxims which he would have to forget, on pain of remaining a\n beggar all the days of his life, what I do is this: when I have a\n louis, which does not happen to me often, I plant myself in front\n of him, I pull the louis out of my pocket, I show it to him with\n signs of admiration, I raise my eyes to heaven, I kiss the louis\n before him, and to make him understand still better the importance\n of the sacred coin, I point to him with my finger all that he can\n get with it, a fine frock, a pretty cap, a rich cake; then I thrust\n the louis into my pocket, I walk proudly up and down, I raise the\n lappet of my waistcoat, I strike my fob; and in that way I make him\n see that it is the louis in it that gives me all this assurance.\n\n _I._--Nothing could be better. But suppose it were to come to pass\n that, being so profoundly penetrated by the value of the louis, he\n were one day....\n\n _He._--I understand you. One must close one's eyes to that; there\n is no moral principle without its own inconvenience. At the worst\n 'tis a bad quarter of an hour, and then all is over.\n\n _I._--Even after hearing views so wise and so bold, I persist in\n thinking that it would be good to make a musician of him. I know no\n other means of getting so rapidly near great people, of serving\n their vices better, or turning your own to more advantage.\n\n _He._--That is true; but I have plans for a speedier and surer\n success. Ah, if it were only a girl! But as we cannot do all that\n we should like, we must take what comes, and make the best of it,\n and not be such idiots as most fathers, who could literally do\n nothing worse, supposing them to have deliberately planned the\n misery of their children--namely, give the education of Lacedaemon\n to a child who is destined to live in Paris. If the education is\n bad, the morals of my country are to blame for that, not I. Answer\n for it who may; I wish my son to be happy, or what is the same\n thing, rich, honoured, and powerful. I know something about the\n easiest ways of reaching this end, and I will teach them to him\n betimes. If you blame me, you sages, the multitude and success\n will acquit me. He will put money in his purse, I can tell you. If\n he has plenty of that, he will lack nothing else, not even your\n esteem and respect.\n\n _I._--You may be mistaken.\n\n _He._--Then perhaps he will do very well without it, like many\n other people.\n\n * * * * *\n\n [There was in all this a good deal of what passes through many\n people's minds, and much of the principle according to which they\n shape their own conduct; but they never talk about it. There, in\n short, is the most marked difference between my man and most of\n those about us. He avowed the vices that he had, and that others\n have; but he was no hypocrite. He was neither more nor less\n abominable than they; he was only more frank, and more consistent,\n and sometimes he was profound in the midst of his depravity. I\n trembled to think what his child might become under such a master.\n It is certain that after ideas of bringing-up, so strictly traced\n on the pattern of our manners, he must go far, unless prematurely\n stopped on the road.]\n\n _He._--Oh, fear nothing. The important point, the difficult point,\n to which a good father ought to attend before everything else, is\n not to give to his child vices that enrich, or comical tricks such\n as make him valuable to people of quality--all the world does that,\n if not on system as I do, at least by example and precept. The\n important thing is to impress on him the just proportion, the art\n of keeping out of disgrace and the arm of the law. There are\n certain discords in the social harmony that you must know exactly\n how to place, to prepare, and to hold. Nothing so tame as a\n succession of perfect chords; there needs something that\n stimulates, that resolves the beam, and scatters its rays.\n\n _I._--Quite so; by your image you bring me back from morals to\n music, and I am very glad, for, to be quite frank with, you, I\n like you better as musician than as moralist.\n\n _He._--Yet, I am a mere subaltern in music, and a really superior\n figure in morals.\n\n _I._--I doubt that; but even if it were so, I am an honest man, and\n your principles are not mine.\n\n _He._--So much the worse for you. Ah, if I only had your talents!\n\n _I._--Never mind my talents; let us return to yours.\n\n _He._--If I could only express myself like you! But I have an\n infernally absurd jargon--half the language of men of the world and\n of letters, half of Billingsgate.\n\n _I._--Nay, I am a poor talker enough. I only know how to speak the\n truth, and that does not always answer, as you know.\n\n _He._--But it is not for speaking the truth--on the contrary, it is\n for skilful lying that I covet your gift. If I knew how to write,\n to cook up a book, to turn a dedicatory epistle, to intoxicate a\n fool as to his own merits, to insinuate myself into the good graces\n of women!\n\n _I._--And you do know all that a thousand times better than I. I\n should not be worthy to be so much as your pupil.\n\n _He._--How many great qualities lost, of which you do not know the\n price.\n\n _I._--I get the price that I ask.\n\n _He._--If that were true, you would not be wearing that common\n suit, that rough waistcoat, those worsted stockings, those thick\n shoes, that ancient wig.\n\n _I._--I grant that; a man must be very maladroit not to be rich, if\n he sticks at nothing in order to become rich. But the odd thing is\n that there are people like me who do not look on riches as the most\n precious thing in the world; bizarre people, you know.\n\n _He._--Bizarre enough. A man is not born with such a twist as that.\n He takes the trouble to give it to himself, for it is not in\n nature.\n\n _I._--In the nature of man?\n\n _He._--No; for everything that lives, without exception, seeks its\n own wellbeing at the expense of any prey that is proper to its\n purpose; and I am perfectly sure that if I let my little savage\n grow up without saying a word to him on the matter, he would wish\n to be richly clad, sumptuously fed, cherished by men, loved by\n women, and to heap upon himself all the happiness of life.\n\n _I._--If your little savage were left to himself, let him only\n preserve all his imbecility, and add to the scanty reason of the\n child in the cradle the violent passions of a man of thirty--why he\n would strangle his father and dishonour his own mother.\n\n _He._--That proves the necessity of a good education, and who\n denies it? And what is a good education but one that leads to all\n sorts of enjoyments without danger and without inconvenience?\n\n _I._--I am not so far from your opinion, only let us keep clear of\n explanations.\n\n _He._--Why?\n\n _I._--Because I am afraid that we only agree in appearance, and\n that if we once begin to discuss what are the dangers and the\n inconveniences to avoid, we should cease to understand one another.\n\n _He._--What of that?\n\n _I._--Let us leave all this, I tell you; what I know about it I\n shall never get you to learn, and you will more easily teach me\n what I do not know, and you do know, in music. Let us talk about\n music, dear Rameau, and tell me how it has come about that with the\n faculty for feeling, retaining, and rendering the finest passages\n in the great masters, with the enthusiasm that they inspire in you,\n and that you transmit to others, you have done nothing that is\n worth....\n\n Instead of answering me, he shrugged his shoulders, and pointing to\n the sky with his finger, he cried: The star! the star! When Nature\n made Leo, Vinci, Pergolese, Duni, she smiled. She put on a grave\n and imposing air in shaping my dear uncle Rameau, who for half a\n score years they will have called the great Rameau, and of whom\n very soon nobody will say a word. When she tricked up his nephew,\n she made a grimace, and a grimace, and again a grimace. [And as he\n said this, he put on all sorts of odd expressions: contempt,\n disdain, irony; and he seemed to be kneading between his fingers a\n piece of paste, and to be smiling at the ridiculous shapes that he\n gave it; that done, he flung the incongruous pagod[225] away from\n him, and said:] It was thus she made me, and flung me by the side\n of the other pagods, some with huge wrinkled paunches, and short\n necks, and great eyes projecting out of their heads, stamped with\n apoplexy; others with wry necks; some again with wizened faces,\n keen eyes, hooked noses. All were ready to split with laughing when\n they espied me, and I put my hands to my sides and split with\n laughter when I espied them, for fools and madmen tickle one\n another; they seek and attract one another. If when I got among\n them, I had not found ready-made the proverb about _the money of\n fools being the patrimony of people with wits_, they would have\n been indebted to me for it. I felt that nature had put my lawful\n inheritance into the purses of the pagods, and I devised a thousand\n means of recovering my rights.\n\n [225] These little china images of gods, with nodding heads, were\n then a fashionable toy in Paris.\n\n _I._--Yes, I know all about your thousand means; you have told me\n of them, and I have admired them vastly. But with so many\n resources, why not have tried that of a fine work?...\n\n _He._--When I am alone I take up my pen and intend to write; I bite\n my nails and rub my brow; your humble servant, good-bye, the god is\n absent. I had convinced myself that I had genius; at the end of the\n time I discover that I am a fool, a fool, and nothing but a fool.\n But how is one to feel, to think, to rise to heights, to paint in\n strong colours, while haunting with such creatures as those whom\n one must see if one is to live; in the midst of such talk as one\n has to make and to hear, and such idle gossip: \"How charming the\n boulevard was to-day!\" \"Have you heard the little Marmotte? Her\n playing is ravishing.\" \"Mr. So-and-so had the handsomest pair of\n grays in his carriage that you can possibly imagine.\" \"The\n beautiful Mrs. So-and-so is beginning to fade; who at the age of\n five-and-forty would wear a headdress like that?\" \"Young\n Such-and-such is covered with diamonds, and she gets them cheap.\"\n\n \"You mean she gets them dear.\"\n\n \"No, I do not.\"\n\n \"Where did you see her?\"\n\n \"At the play.\"\n\n \"The scene of despair was played as it had never been played\n before.\" \"The Polichinelle of the Fair has a voice, but no\n delicacy, no soul.\" \"Madame So-and-so has produced two at a birth;\n each father will have his own child....\" And yet you suppose that\n this kind of thing, said and said again, and listened to every day\n of the week, sets the soul aglow and leads to mighty things.\n\n _I._--Nay, it were better to turn the key of one's garret, drink\n cold water, eat dry bread, and seek one's true self.\n\n _He._--Maybe, but I have not the courage. And then the idea of\n sacrificing one's happiness for the sake of a success that is\n doubtful! And the name that I bear? Rameau! It is not with talents\n as it is with nobility; nobility transmits itself, and increases in\n lustre by passing from grandfather to father, and from father to\n son, and from son to grandson, without the ancestor impressing a\n spark of merit on his descendant; the old stock ramifies into an\n enormous crop of fools; but what matter? It is not so with talents.\n Merely to obtain the renown of your father, you must be cleverer\n than he was; you must have inherited his fibre. The fibre has\n failed me, but the wrist is nimble, the fiddle-bow scrapes away,\n and the pot boils; if there is not glory, there is broth.\n\n _I._--If I were in your place, I would not take it for granted; I\n would try.... Whatever it be that a man applies himself to, nature\n meant him for it.\n\n _He._--She makes mighty blunders. For my part, I do not look down\n from heights, whence all seems confused and blurred,--the man who\n prunes a tree with his knife, all one with the caterpillar who\n devours its leaf; a couple of insects, each at his proper task. Do\n you, if you choose, perch yourself on the epicycle of the planet\n Mercury, and thence distribute creation, in imitation, of Reaumur;\n he, the classes of flies into seamstresses, surveyors, reapers;\n you, the human species into joiners, dancers, singers, tilers. That\n is your affair, and I will not meddle with it. I am in this world,\n and in this world I rest. But if it is in nature to have an\n appetite--for it is always to appetite that I come back, and to the\n sensation that is ever present to me--then I find that it is by no\n means consistent with good order not to have always something to\n eat. What a precious economy of things! Men who are over-crammed\n with everything under the sun, while others, who have a stomach\n just as importunate as they, a hunger that recurs as regularly as\n theirs, have not a bite. The worst is the constrained posture to\n which want pins us down. The needy man does not walk like anybody\n else; he jumps, he crawls, he wriggles, he limps, he passes his\n whole life in taking and executing artificial postures.\n\n _I._--What are postures?\n\n _He._--Ask Noverre.[226] The world offers far more of them than his\n art can imitate.\n\n [226] A famous dancing-master of the time.\n\n _I._--Ah, there are you too--to use your expression or\n Montaigne's--_perched on the epicycle of Mercury_, and eyeing the\n various pantomimes of the human race.\n\n _He._--No, no, I tell you; I'm too heavy to raise myself so high.\n No sojourn in the fogs for me. I look about me, and I assume my\n postures, or I amuse myself with the postures that I see others\n taking. I am an excellent pantomime as you shall judge.\n\n * * * * *\n\n [Then he set himself to smile, to imitate the admirer, the\n suppliant, the fawning complaisant; he expects a command, receives\n it, starts off like an arrow, returns, the order is executed, he\n reports what he has done; he is attentive to everything; he picks\n up something that has fallen; he places a pillow or a footstool; he\n holds a saucer; he brings a chair, opens a door, closes a window,\n draws the curtains, gazes on the master and mistress; he stands\n immovable, his arms hanging by his side, his legs exactly straight;\n he listens, he seeks to read their faces, and then he adds:--That\n is my pantomime, very much the same as that of all flatterers,\n courtiers, valets, and beggars.\n\n The buffooneries of this man, the stories of the abbe Galiani, the\n extravagances of Rabelais, have sometimes thrown me into profound\n reveries. They are three stores whence I have provided myself with\n ridiculous masks that I place on the faces of the gravest\n personages, and I see Pantaloon in a prelate, a satyr in a\n president, a pig in a monk, an ostrich in a minister, a goose in\n his first clerk.]\n\n * * * * *\n\n _I._--But according to your account, I said to my man, there are\n plenty of beggars in the world, and yet I know nobody who is not\n acquainted with some of the steps of your dance.\n\n _He._--You are right. In a whole kingdom there is only one man who\n walks, and that is the sovereign.\n\n _I._--The sovereign? There is something to be said on that. For do\n you suppose that one may not from time to time find even by the\n side of him, a dainty foot, a pretty neck, a bewitching nose, that\n makes him execute his pantomime. Whoever has need of another is\n indigent, and assumes a posture. The king postures before his\n mistress, and before God he treads his pantomimic measure. The\n minister dances the step of courtier, flatterer, valet, and beggar\n before his king. The crowd of the ambitious cut a hundred capers,\n each viler than the rest, before the minister. The abbe, with his\n bands and long cloak, postures at least once a week before the\n patron of livings. On my word, what you call the pantomime of\n beggars is only the whole huge bustle of the earth....\n\n _He._--But let us bethink ourselves what o'clock it is, for I must\n go to the opera.\n\n _I._--What is going on?\n\n _He._--Dauvergne's _Trocqueurs_. There are some tolerable things in\n the music; the only pity is that he has not been the first to say\n them. Among those dead, there are always some to dismay the living.\n What would you have? _Quisque suos patimur manes._ But it is\n half-past five, I hear the bell ringing my vespers. Good day, my\n philosopher; always the same, am I not?\n\n _I._--Alas, you are; worse luck.\n\n _He._--Only let me have that bad luck for forty years to come! Who\n laughs last has the best of the laugh.\n\n\n THE END.\n\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh._\n\n +--------------------------------------------------------------+\n | |\n | COLLECTED EDITION OF THE |\n | WORKS OF JOHN MORLEY |\n | |\n | In 12 Vols. Globe 8vo. 4s. net each. |\n | |\n | [_Eversley Series._ |\n | |\n | |=VOLTAIRE.= |1 Vol. | |\n | |=ROUSSEAU.= |2 Vols. | |\n | |=DIDEROT AND THE ENCYCLOPAEDISTS.= |2 Vols. | |\n | |=ON COMPROMISE.= |1 Vol. | |\n | |=MISCELLANIES.= |3 Vols. | |\n | |=BURKE.= |1 Vol. | |\n | |=STUDIES IN LITERATURE.= |1 Vol. | |\n | |=OLIVER CROMWELL.= |1 Vol | |\n | |\n | =THE LIFE OF WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.= 3 Vols. 8vo. 42s. |\n | net. |\n | |\n | =OLIVER CROMWELL.= 8vo. 10s. net. Illustrated Edition. Extra |\n | Crown 8vo. 14s. net |\n | |\n | =LIFE OF WALPOLE.= Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. |\n | [_Twelve English Statesmen._ |\n | |\n | =LIFE OF BURKE.= Crown 8vo. Library Edition, 2s. net; |\n | Popular Edition, 1s. 6d.; sewed, 1s. |\n | [_English Men of Letters._ |\n | |\n | =MACHIAVELLI.= 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. |\n | |\n | MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. |\n | |\n +--------------------------------------------------------------+\n\n +--------------------------------------------------------------+\n | |\n | Transcriber's Notes & Errata |\n | |\n | Italic text is enclosed in underscores (_). |\n | |\n | Bold text is enclosed in 'equals' signs (=). |\n | |\n | 'OE' and 'oe' ligatures have been transcribed as 'o' and |\n | 'e', and 'O' and 'e'. |\n | |\n | The following words were found in both unhyphenated and |\n | hyphenated forms. The number of instances of each are given |\n | in parentheses. |\n | |\n | |apiece (1) |a-piece (1) | |\n | |demigods (1) |demi-gods (2) | |\n | |nightcap (1) |night-cap (1) | |\n | |wellbeing (4) |well-being (3) | |\n | |\n | The following typographical errors have been corrected. |\n | |\n | |Error |Correction ||\n | | | ||\n | |sociey |society ||\n | | | ||\n | |It would, as Mill has said, |It would, as Mill has said, ||\n | | imply ignorance of the | imply ignorance of the ||\n | | history of philosophy and | history of philosophy and ||\n | | of general literature not | of general literature not ||\n | | to be aware that in all | to be aware that in all ||\n | | ages of philosophy and of | ages of philosophy one of ||\n | | general literature, not | its schools has been ||\n | | to be aware that in all | utilitarian, not only from ||\n | | ages of philosophy one of | the time of Epicurus, but ||\n | | its schools has been | long before. ||\n | | utilitarian, not only | ||\n | | from the time of Epicurus, | ||\n | | but long before. | ||\n | | | ||\n | |beween |between ||\n | | | ||\n | |sense how |sense of how ||\n | | | ||\n | |arbitary |arbitrary ||\n | |\n +--------------------------------------------------------------+","title":"Diderot and the Encyclop\u00e6dists (Vol. 2 of 2)","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":98804}