Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol 1 of 2) | Page 5

years ago, when Carlyle wrote, it might really seem to a
prejudiced observer as if the encyclopædic tree had borne no fruit.
Even then, and even when the critic happened to be a devotee of the
sterile transcendentalism then in vogue, one might have expected some
recognition of the fact that the seed of all the great improvements
bestowed on France by the Revolution, in spite of the woful evils
which followed in its train, had been sown by the Encyclopædists. But
now that the last vapours of the transcendental reaction are clearing
away, we see that the movement initiated by the Encyclopædia is again
in full progress. Materialistic solutions in the science of man,
humanitarian ends in legislation, naturalism in art, active faith in the
improvableness of institutions--all these are once more the marks of
speculation and the guiding ideas of practical energy. The philosophical
parenthesis is at an end. The interruption of eighty years counts for no
more than the twinkling of an eye in the history of the transformation
of the basis of thought. And the interruption has for the present come to
a close. Europe again sees the old enemies face to face; the Church, and
a Social Philosophy slowly labouring to build her foundations in
positive science. It cannot be other than interesting to examine the aims,
the instruments, and the degree of success of those who a century ago
saw most comprehensively how profound and far-reaching a
metamorphosis awaited the thought of the Western world. We shall do
this most properly in connection with Diderot.
Whether we accept or question Comte's strong description of Diderot as
the greatest genius of the eighteenth century, it is at least undeniable
that he was the one member of the great party of illumination with a
real title to the name of thinker. Voltaire and Rousseau were the heads
of two important schools, and each of them set deep and unmistakable
marks both on the opinion and the events of the century. It would not
be difficult to show that their influence was wider than that of the
philosopher who discerned the inadequateness of both. But Rousseau
was moved by passion and sentiment; Voltaire was only the master of a
brilliant and penetrating rationalism. Diderot alone of this famous trio
had in his mind the idea of scientific method; alone showed any feeling

for a doctrine, and for large organic and constructive conceptions. He
had the rare faculty of true philosophic meditation. Though
immeasurably inferior both to Voltaire and Rousseau in gifts of literary
expression, he was as far their superior in breadth and reality of artistic
principle. He was the originator of a natural, realistic, and sympathetic
school of literary criticism. He aspired to impose new forms upon the
drama. Both in imaginative creation and in criticism, his work was a
constant appeal from the artificial conventions of the classic schools to
the actualities of common life. The same spirit united with the tendency
of his philosophy to place him among the very few men who have been
great and genuine observers of human nature and human existence. So
singular and widely active a genius may well interest us, even apart
from the important place that he holds in the history of literature and
opinion.
CHAPTER II.
YOUTH.
Denis Diderot was born at Langres in 1713, being thus a few months
younger than Rousseau (1712), nearly twenty years younger than
Voltaire (1694), nearly two years younger than Hume (1711), and
eleven years older than Kant (1724). His stock was ancient and of good
repute. The family had been engaged in the great local industry, the
manufacture of cutlery, for no less than two centuries in direct line.
Diderot liked to dwell on the historic prowess of his town, from the
days of Julius Cæsar and the old Lingones and Sabinus, down to the
time of the Great Monarch. With the taste of his generation for tracing
moral qualities to a climatic source, he explained a certain vivacity and
mobility in the people of his district by the great frequency and
violence of its atmospheric changes from hot to cold, from calm to
storm, from rain to sunshine. "Thus they learn from earliest infancy to
turn to every wind. The man of Langres has a head on his shoulders
like the weathercock at the top of the church spire. It is never fixed at
one point; if it returns to the point it has left, it is not to stop there. With
an amazing rapidity in their movements, their desires, their plans, their
fancies, their ideas, they are cumbrous in speech. For myself, I belong

to my country side." This was thoroughly true. He inherited all the
versatility of his compatriots, all their swift impetuosity, and something
of their want