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LXVIII. Voltaire's Reaction to Diderot
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
If we render to the word philosophy its true meaning of “love of wisdom,” and inject into the word wisdom a few of the qualities suggested by the French word “sagesse,” we shall find Voltaire and Diderot at the very heart of eighteenth-century philosophy. Since they were by no means wholly in agreement, a study of their personal and intellectual reactions should clarify many of the main issues and bring us a step nearer to an understanding of deism and materialism, of decadent classicism and renascent romanticism, and of the nobler eighteenth-century conceptions of reason and nature. This study will be centered around certain comments in Voltaire's hand in the margins of Diderot's works now in the Public Library of Leningrad. Voltaire's reactions, however, are so often essentially personal that it will be necessary to consider the general relations between the two men. Certain letters of Diderot recently published have thrown new light on this rather unusual friendship, in which Voltaire appears the more tolerant and forbearing. An attempt will be made also to relate the essential ideas of the two philosophers to trends in modern thought.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1935
References
1 It gives me great pleasure here to express my appreciation of the courtesies rendered me during my stay in Russia in 1932 by both the Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and members of the staff of the Public Library at Leningrad, as also my thanks to the Guggenheim Foundation for making my visit possible.
2 xxxix, 192.—References to the Moland edition of Voltaire's works will be thus indicated, by volume and page number alone. References to the Assézat-Tourneux edition of Diderot's works will be preceded by the word Œuvres. It will be noted that many of Diderot's letters to Voltaire have been included in the Moland volumes.
3 Cf. Vallette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau genevois, p. 396, n. 2; E. H. Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau, p. 32.
4 This opinion has been reached after an intensive study of Voltaire's correspondence. The evidence is cumulative, but references to a few of the more striking passages may be given: xlii, 150, 192 (“O comme nous aurions chéri ce fou, s'il n'avait pas été faux frère”), 236–238, 364; xliii, 256, 263 (“Il n'a même été persécuté que pour des sentiments qui sont les miens”), 268, 286, 418, 425, 430, 438, 457, 530; xliv, 83 (“L'infâme Jean-Jacques est le Judas de la confrérie”); xlv, 125, etc.
5 xxxvii, 22–23.
6 xlviii, 551.
7 xlviii, 558.
8 Œuvres, v, 397.
9 Œuvres, v, 426.
10 Lettres à Sophie Volland (Paris, 1930), ii, 117–118.
11 Ibid., ii, 121.
12 This letter is dated 1777; it should be 1772. Voltaire was 78 years old at the time. Œuvres, xx, 73.
13 xxxvii, 22.
14 xxxix, 333. From Desnoiresterres, op. cit., v, 287, one would infer that this undated letter was written in March, 1758.
15 xxxix, 364.
16 xxxix, 386.
17 xxxix, 401.
18 xxxix, 402.
19 xxxix, 422.
20 xxxix, 532, Cf. xli, 110
21 xl, 433.
22 Lettres à Sophie Volland, i, 268.
23 xli, 79–80; Œuvres, xx, 73.
24 xl, 478.
25 xl, 453. See Voltaire's Socrate.
26 xl, 503–504.
27 Letter to Stanislas; xl, 512.
28 xl, 526.
29 xli, 68.
30 “Tâchez donc qu'Argire soit plus père,” xli, 77; cf. xli, 99, 101, 109.
31 xli, 163, 172.
32 xli, 215, 211.
33 Thus satirized by Voltaire in Le pauvre diable, x, 107–108.
34 xli, 255.
35 xlii, 253.
36 Correspondance inédite, i, 276.
37 Lettres à Sophie Volland, iii, 176.
38 xliii, 3.
39 xliv, 357, 358, 361, 366, 407, 429, 432.
40 Cf. xliii, 183.
41 xliv, 371.
42 L'humanisme de Diderot, p. 76. Cf. P. Trahard: Les maîtres de la sensibilité française au XVIIIe siècle, Vol. ii.
43 xlvi, 543.
44 xlvi, 300.
45 l, 150.
46 xlviii, 96.
47 xlvii, 220.
48 xxxvii, 25.
49 Desnoiresterres, op. cit., viii, 128.
50 xxxvii, 515.
51 Desnoiresterres, op. cit., viii, 129.
52 Correspondance secrète, v, 292.
53 Œuvres, iii, 394.
54 xl, 433, 478; xliv, 190; l, 150.
55 The numbers in brackets are the case and volume numbers of Voltaire's books in the Public Library of Leningrad.
58 It is possible that Voltaire left a standing order for Diderot's works as they appeared, and that this volume, published after his death and the transfer of his library to St. Petersburg, was sent along and added to the collection.
57 Voltaire's Marginalia on the Pages of Rousseau, (Columbus, Ohio, 1933).
58 xxxvii, 23.
59 Ibid., n. 3.
60 xxii, 469.
61 xxxix, 181.
62 Cf. Chapter “Voltaire and Shakespeare” in E. Sonet, Voltaire et l'influence anglaise.
63 v, 410. Cf. Diderot, Œuvres, vii, 150.
64 vi, 269–270.
65 Cf. xlv, 139.
66 xlii, 85.
67 xlii, 73–74.
68 xxxix, 532.
69 xxxix, 563–564.
70 xl, 410–111.
71 Cf. Jean Thomas, L'Humanisme de Diderot, pp. 64–65.
72 xl, 410.
73 xl, 417.
74 Cf. xliv, 51, 492.
75 xlvi, 258; cf. xlvi, 479.
76 xliii, 484.
77 xl, 437.
78 Cf. Francis Birrell, “Things Diderot could do,” Criterion, xii (July, 1933), 632 ff.
79 xliii, 183.
80 xl, 413, 424, 435, 438; xli, 227, 240.
81 Diderot, Œuvres, i, 135–136, Pensées philosophiques (1746), pp. 40–44.
82 Cf. Dampier-Whetham, A History of Science, p. 483.
83 Torn page.
84 Cf. Kingsley Martin, French Liberal Thought in the 18th Century, p. 126.
85 Cf. xxxi, 140. A comment on Nieuwentyt's Existence de Dieu.
86 Cf. xxii, 194.
87 x, 169, n. 3.
88 xxviii, 310–311.
89 Œuvres, i, 136; 1746 ed., p. 42.
90 N. L. Torrey, Voltaire and the English Deists, p. 16.
91 Œuvres, i, 136; 1746 ed., p. 44.
92 Reason and Nature, p. 230.
93 Œuvres, i, 136; 1777 ed., p. 39.
94 Cf. xl, 105.
95 xxviii, 445, n. 1.
96 Correspondance inédite, i, 278–279.
97 xxviii, 444.
98 xlvi, 106.
99 Morris R. Cohen, Reason and Nature, p. 267.
100 Cf. Morris Cohen, op. cit., p. 138: “It is curious that the empiricist philosophy which began with Locke's rather near-sighted arguments against innate ideas ends with instincts that serve all the purposes of innate ideas. …”
101 Œuvres, ii, 58.
102 xliii, 167.
103 xl, 104–105.
104 Œuvres, i, 137; 1746 ed., p. 46; 1777 ed., p. 41.
105 The evidence of Voltaire's mysticism will be the basis of a critical study, now in preparation.
106 xl, 413, 424, 435, 438.
107 xli, 227, 240.
108 Œuvres, ii, 20–21; 1754 ed., pp. 54–55.
109 Œuvres, ii, 25; 1754 ed., pp. 73v–74.
110 Cf. xxv, 153–158; xxi, 335–360; xxx, 508 ff.
111 Œuvres, ii, 38–39; 1754 ed., pp. 106–107.
112 Œuvres, ii, 44; 1754 ed., pp. 132–133.
115 Cf Avertissement de Beuchot; xxxi, 1–2.
114 Œuvres, i, 127; 1777 éd., p. 3.
115 Œuvres, i, 127; 1777 ed., p. 5
116 Ed. de Paris (1757), i, 109. The metaphor later found its way into Pope's Essay on Man.
117 Cf. Zadig: xxi. 88.
118 Œuvres, i, 128; 1777 ed., p. 7.
119 Cf. Desnoiresterres, Voltaire et la société au XVIIIe siècle, v, 128–129.
120 Œuvres, i, 128; 1777 ed., p. 7.
121 Œuvres, i, 128; 1777 ed., p. 9.
122 Œuvres, i, 128–129; 1777 ed., p. 11. This thought so typically a part of Diderot's moral philosophy was first published in 1746. Rousseau, a decade later, as he set out for his hermitage, was indeed egotistic to take as a personal insult a mild and brief repetition of the same idea.
123 Œuvres, i, 130; 1777 ed., p. 13.
124 Œuvres, i, 130, 1777 ed., p. 15.
125 Œuvres, i, 131; 1777 ed., p. 17.
126 Cf. xl, 171.
127 Œuvres, ii, 515; 1777 ed., p. 143.
128 Œuvres, ii, 515–516; 1777 ed., p. 145.
129 Œuvres, ii, 520; 1777 ed., p. 159.
130 Œuvres, loc. cit.; 1777 ed., loc. cit.
131 Œuvres, ii, 520, 522; 1777 ed., p. 165.
132 Œuvres, ii, 526, 527; 1777 ed., p. 179.
133 xlii, 514. The heading given this letter in Grimm's Correspondance (1er août, 1763) is much more descriptive: Épître aux fidèles, par le grand apôtre des Délices. The letter has been variously assigned. In Caussy, Inventaire des Manuscrits, (1913), p. 88, it is erroneously given as a fragment of a letter from Diderot to Voltaire.