DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE

ROND D’Alembert
Parent item session 2: The Enlightenment in Europe and the Americas

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may come as a surprise to learn that an encyclopedia could be considered one of the most
dangerous books of its time. Edited by Denis Diderot 1713
1784) and lean le Rond DAlembert (1717-1783), two French thinkers, the thirty volume lustrated
Eno,clopedie (1751-1772) broke with established
knowledge arid religious authority to af
firm the kinds of knowledge that could
be gained through human experience
and human reason "Ahundred and
forty authors collaborated on the finished product, putting together more than 70.000 entries
starting with asparagus and ending with zodiac. Often considered the quintessential creation of
the Enlightenment, it was written in French. rather than Latin, and intended to be accessible to
sewide audience.
Diderot, who was especially interested in biology, and D'Alembert, who was an important
mathematician, worked from an unshakable confidence in sei-ence, and deliberately inserted
views unsettling to established religion in minor articles, which they cross-refer-enced with more
orthodox articles on major topics. But it was not only un-settling, it was also useful. a collection
of the latest scientific and technologi-Hical advances that could be put to use for industrial
development. The Ency clopédie proved cnormously popular across Europe, reprinted in cheap
editions to meet the demands of an ever-expanding readership. It helped to circulate the central
values of the Enlightenment universalism, reason; progress, and a thoroughgoing skepticism
about authority on an unprecedented new scale.
From The Encyclopédie
AFRICA,' one of the four principal parts of the Earth. It measures approximately 800 leagues
from Tangiers to Suez; 1420 from Cape Verde to Cape Guardaful; and 1450 from the Cape of
Good Hope to Bone, Long. 1-71. Lat. (southern) 1-35 and (northern) 1-37.30,
There is little trading on the African coasts; the interior of this part of the world is still

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 1

 insufficiently known, and Europeans began trading only around the middle of the XIVth century.
There is little trade between the Kingdoms of Morocco and Fez and the area near Cape Verde.
Trading posts can be found around Cape Verde and between the Senegal and the Sierra Leone
rivers. The coast of Sierra Leone has been explored by the four Nations, but only the Portuguese
and the English have established posts. Only the English have a trading post near Cape
Miserado. We do some trading along the Melegueta and Greve Coasts: we trade even more along
little Dieppe and the grand Sestre The Ivory (or Tusk) Coast is frequented by all Europeans; they
almost all have Settlements and Forts along the Gold Coast. The Cape of Corsica is the main
settlenient of the English: there is little trade at Asdres. Many Negroes are taken from Benin and
Angola. There is no activity in Kafir country. The Portu guese are established in Sofala, in
Mozambique, in Madagascar. They also handle all the Malindi trade. We will follow the
branches of this trade in the different articles CAPE VERDE, SENEGAL, etc.
BEAST, ANIMAL, BRUTE.' People use beast in contradistinction to man; thus one says: "man
has a soul, but some philosophers do not concede that beasts have any at all. Brute is a term of
contempt applied to beasts and to man only in a bad sense. He surrenders himself to all the fury
of his inclinations like a brute. Animal is a generic term suitable to all organic and living beings:
the animal lives, acts, and moves by itself, etc. If we consider the animal as thinking, wanting,
acting, reflecting, etc., then the sense of the word would be restricted to the human race. If we
consider the animal to be limited in all the functions
that indicate intelligence and will, but seem to have them in common with the human racc, then
it is restricted to the beast. If we consider the beast in its lowest depths of stupidity, released from
the laws of reason and honesty according to which we must regulate our conduct, then we call it
a brute. We do not know if beasts are governed by the general laws of motion or by a particular
impulse. Both of these opinions present difficulties. If they act out of a particular impulse, if they
think, if they have a soul, etc., then what is that soul? We cannot suppose that it is material in
nature, but could it be spiritual? To declare that they do not have souls and do not think would
reduce animals to the level of machines, which we hardly seem any more authorized to do than
to maintain that a man whose speech we do not hear is an automaton. The argument based on the
perfection of their works is strong, for it would seem, if we judge from their frst steps, that they
should go rather far. Nevertheless, they all stop at the same point, which is almost the character
of machines. But the argument based on the uniformity of their productions does not appear quite
as well-founded to me. The nests of swallows and the dwellings of beavers do not resemble each
other any more than do the houses of men. If a swallow places its nest in an angle, the only
circumference will be the arc covered between the sides of the angle. On the other hand, if the
nest is set against a wall, it will measure half a circumference. If you dislodge beavers from their

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 2

 homes, and they go settle in another location, as it is not possible for them to find the same piece
of ground, there will necessarily be variety in the techniques they use and the dwellings they
construct.
However that may be, one cannot imagine that beasts have a much more intimate relationship
with God than the other parts of the material world, oth-erwise, which one of us would dare to
lay a hand on them and shed their blood without any qualms? Who would be able to kill a lamb
with an easy conscience?
The feelings they have, whatever their nature, are only useful in communicating with each other
or with other creatures. With the incentive of pleasure they conserve their own being; and with
the same incentive, they conserve their species. I have said incentive of pleusure for lack of a
more precise expression, for if beasts were capable of the same feeling which we call pleasure, to
cause them any harm would be an act of unprecedented cruelty. They have their own natural laws
because they are united by common needs, interests, etc; but they do not have any positive ones
because they are not united by any intellectual understanding. However, they do not seem to
follow their natural laws in an invariable manner, and plants which we assume have neither
understanding nor feeling are even more subject to these laws.
Beasts do not have the supreme advantage of human beings. However, they have some that we
do not have: they do not have our hopes, but they do not have our fears. They suffer death as we
do, but it is without knowing it. Most of them take better care of themselves and do not misuse
their passions as much as we do. See the articles souL and ANIMAL.

EDUCATION: is the care one takes of feeding, bringing up and instructing children; thus
education has as goals, 1) the health and good constitution of
the body; 2) what regards the rectitude and the instruction of the mind,
3) manners, that is the conduct of life, and social qualities.
Of education in general. Children who come into the world, must form one day the society in
which they will live. Their education is thus the most inter. esting subject, 1) for themselves,
whom education must fashion such that they will be useful to that sociely, obtain its esteem, and
find in it their well-being;
2) for their families, whom they must support and honor; 3) for the state itself, which must reap
the fruits of the good education that the citizens that compose it receive.
All children who come into the world must be subjected to the care of educa. tion, for there is
none who is born completely instructed and completely edu. cated. So what advantage does not
accrue everyday to a state whose head has had his mind cultivated early, who has learned in
History that the most stable empires are exposed to revolutions; who has been as much instructed
in what he owes his subjects, as in what his subjects owe to him; to whom the source, the motive,

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 3

 the extent and the limits of his authority have been made known; to whom it has been taught that
the sole certain means of conserving it and making it be respected, is to make good use of it?
Erudimini qui judicatis ter-ram [be wise, you rulers of the earth! Psalm IL, 10. What happiness
that of a state in which magistrates have early learned their duties, and have manners where each
citizen is warned that in coming into the world he has received a talent to render valuable, that he
is member of a political body, and that in this capacity he must contribute to the common good,
search for everything that can procure true advantages to society, and avoid what can disrupt its
har mony, and disturb tranquility and good order! It is evident that there is no order of citizens in
a state, for whom some kind of education is not proper education for the children of sovereigns,
education for the children of the great, for those of magistrates, ete; education for the children of
the country-side, where, in the same way that there are schools for learning the truths of religion,
there should be also those in which the exercises, the practices, the duties and the virtues of their
social state could be shown to them, so that they might act with greater knowledge:
If every kind of education were imparted with enlightenment and persever ance. the motherland
would be well constituted, well governed, and protected from the insults of its neighbors.
Education is the greatest good that fathers can leave to their children. One finds only too
frequently fathers who do not know their true interests, refuse to spend what is necessary for a
good education, and who save nothing afterwards to provide an occupation for their children, or
to lend to them an honorable office: yet what duty is more useful than a good education, which
commony does not cost so much, although it is the good whose product is the greatest. the most
honorable and the most sensible? It pays back every day. other goods are often dissipated: but
one cannot get rid of a good education. nor, unfortu
nately, of a bad one, which often is such because one has not wanted to defray
the expenses of a good one:

There is much analogy between the cultivation of plants and the education of children; in one
and in the other nature must furnish the base. The owner of a field cannot make it be usefully
cultivated, unless the terrain is proper to what he wants to produce in it, likewise, an enlightened
father, and a master who has discernment and experience, must observe their student; and after a
certain period of observation, they must disentangle his penchants, his inelina-tions, his taste, his
character, and know what he is good for, and what role, so to speak, he must play in the concert
of society.
Do not force the inclinations of your children, but also do not allow them to choose lightly a
station for which you foresee that they will realize in time they were not suitable. One must, as
much as one can, spare them bad initiatives.
Happy those children who have experienced parents capable of conducting them well in the

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 4

 choice of a station! A choice on which depends happiness or evil without considering the rest of
life.
With regard to the mind, the first years of childhood require much more care than is commonly
given to them, so that it is often very diflicult afterwards to erase the bad impressions that a
young man has had through the discourses and the examples of people of little sense and little
cnlightenment, who were. near him in those first years.
From the moment that a child lets it be known hy his look and by his yes-tures that he
understands what is said to him, he should be regarded as a subject proper to be submitted to the
jurisdiction of education, whose goal is to form the mind, and set aside what can lead it astray. It
would be desirable for him to be approached only by sensible people, and for him to see and hear
nothing but good. The first instances of sensible acquiescence in our mind, or. to speak in
common parlance, the first knowledge or the first ideas that form within us during the first years
of our life, are as many models that it is difficult to refashion, and which later serve us as rules in
the use that we make of our reason. Thus it is extremely important for a young man to acquiesce
only to what is true, that is to what is, as soon as he has judgment. So keep him away from all
fabulous stories, from all puerile tales of Fairies, of werewolves, of wandering Jews,' of goblins,
of ghosts, of wizards, of spells, told by those make ers of horoscopes, those fortune tellers male
and female, those interpreters of dreams, and so many other superstitious practices that serve
only to lead astray children's reason, to frighten their imagination, and often even to make them
regret having come into the world.
Persons who amuse themselyes by frightening children are very reprehensi-ble. It has often
happened that the weak organs of children's brains hive been deranged for the rest of their lives,
besides their mind being filled with ridieu lous prejudices, etc. The more these chimerical ideas
are extrordinam iho more deeply ingrained they become in the brain.
One must not blame less those who amuse themselves by tricking children, leading them into
error, deluding them into believing things, and who congratulate themselves instead of being
ashamed. In such instances it is the
young man who has the good part; he does not yet know that there are persons whose soul is low
enough to speak against their thought, and who affirm shameful falsehoods in the same tone in
which honest people say the most certain truths; he has not yet learned to suspect; he puts
himself in your hands, and you trick him; all those false ideas become as many exemplary ideas,
which lead children's reason astray. I would have it that instead of thus taming the mind of young
people with charm and lies, one never told them anything but the truth.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: (Philosophy). This word means the interrelation of all enowledge, it is made
up of the Greek prefix en, in, and the nouns kiklos, cir-cle, and paideia, instruction, science,

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 5

 knowledge. In truth, the aim of an encyclopedia is to collect all the knowledge scattered over the
face of the earth, to present its general outlines and structure to the men with whom we live, and
to transmit this to those who will come after us, so that the work of past centuries may be useful
to the following centuries, that our children, by becoming more educated, may at the same time
become more virtuous and happier, and that we may not die without having deserved well of the
human race.
We have seen that our Encyclopedia could only have been the endeavor of a philosophical
century; that this age has dawned, and that fame, while raising to immortality the names of those
who will perfect man's knowledge in the future, will perhaps not disdain to remember our own
names. We have been heartened by the ever so consoling and agreeable idea that people may
speak to one another about us, too, when we shall no longer be alive, we have been encouraged
by hearing from the mouths of a few of our contemporaries a certain voluptuous murmur that
suggests what may be said of us by those happy and educated men in whose interests we have
sacrificed ourselves, whom we esteem and whom we love, even though they have not yet been
born. We have felt within ourselves the development of those seeds of emulation which have
moved us to renounce the better part of ourselves to accomplish our task, and which have
ravished away into the void the few moments of our existence of which we are genuinely proud.
Indeed, man reveals himself to his contemporaries and is seen by them for what he is a peculiar
mixture of sublime attributes and shameful weaknesses. But our weaknesses follow our mortal
remains into the tomb and disappear with them; the same earth covers them both, and there
remains only the total result of our attributes immortalized in the monuments we raise to
ourselves or in the memorials that we owe to public respect and gratitude honors which a proper
awareness of our own deserts enables us to enjoy in anticipation, an enjoyment that is as pure, as
great, and as real as any other pleasure and in which there is nothing imaginary except, perhaps,
the titles on which we base our pretensions. Our own claims are deposited in the pages of this
work, and posterity will judge them.

I have said that it could only belong to a philosophical age to attempt an encyclopedia; and I
have said this because such a work constantly demands more intellectual daring than is
commonly found in ages of pusillanimous taste. All things must be examined, debated,
investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings... We must ride
roughshod over all these ancient puerilities, overturn the barriers that reason never erected, give
back to the arts and sciences the liberty that is so precious to them... We have for quite some time
needed a reasoning age when men would no longer
seck the rules in classical authors but in nature, when men would be conscious
of what is false and true about so many arbitrary treatises on aesthetics: and I take the term

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 6

 treatise on aesthetics in its most general meaning, that of a sys tem of given rules to which it is
claimed that one must conform in any genre whatsoever in order to succeed
It would be desirable for the government to authorize people to go into the factories and shops, to
see the craftsmen at their work, to question them, to draw the tools, the machines, and even the
premises.
There are special circumstances when craftsmen are so secretive about their techniques that the
shortest way of learning about them would be to apprentice oneself to a master or to have some
trustworthy person do this. There would be few secrets that one would fail to bring to light by
this method, and all these secrets would have to be divulged without any exception.
I know that this feeling is not shared by everyone. These are narrow minds, deformed souls, who
are indifferent to the fate of the human race and who are so enclosed in their little group that they
see nothing beyond its special inter-est. These men insist on being called good citizens, and I
consent to this, provided that they permit me to call them bad men. To listen to them talk, one
would say that a successful encyclopedia, that a general history of the mechanical arts, should
only take the form of an enormous manuscript that would be carefully locked up in the king's
library, inaccessible to all other eyes but his. an official document of the state, not meant to be
consulted by the people.
What is the good of divulging the knowledge a nation possesses, its private transactions, its
inventions, its industrial processes, its resources, its trade secrets, its enlightenment, its arts, and
all its wisdom? Are not these the things to which it owes a part of its superiority over the rival
nations that surround it:
This is what they say; and this is what they might add; would it not be desirable if, instead of
enlightening the foreigner, we could spread darkness over him or even plunge all the rest of the
world into barbarism so that we could dominate more securely over everyone? These people do
not realize that they occupy only a single point on our globe and that they will endure only a
moment in its exis-tence. To this point and to this moment they would sacrifice the happiness of
future ages and that of the entire human race.
They know as well as anyone that the average duration of empires is not more than two thousand
years and that in less time, perhaps, the name Frenchman, a name that will endure forever in
history, will be sought after in vain over the surface of the earth. These considerations do not
broaden their point of view; for it seems that the word humanity is for them a word without
meaning. All the same, they should be consistent! Eor they also fulminate against the
impenetrability of the Egyptian sanctuaries; they deplore the loss of the knowledge of the
ancients; they accuse the writers of the past for having been silent or negligent in writing so
badly on an infinite number of important subjects; and these illogical critics do not see that they
demand of the writers of earlier ages something they call a crime when it is committed by a

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 7

 contemporary, that they are blaming others for having done what they think it honorable to do.
TRIC POETRY *• It is a type of poetry totally devoted to sentiment; that's its substance, its
essential object. Whether it rises like a trembling flame; whether it seeps in, little by little, and
excites us without noise; whether it is an eagle, a butterfly, a bee, it is always sentiment that
guides it or carries it along:
In general, lyric poetry is destined to be set to music; it is for this that it is called lyrie, and
because, in times past, when it was sung, the lyre accompanied the voice. The word ode has the
same origin, it means, song, hymn or canticle.
Thence, lyric poetry and music have an intimate connection between them, founded on things
themselves, since they both have the same object to express; and if this is so, music being an
expression of sentiments from the hean through inarticulate sound, musical or lyric poetry will
be the expression of sentiments through articulate sound, that is to say, through words.
So, one can define lyric poetry as that which expresses sentiment in verse that is melodie: but as
sentiments are hot, passionate and powerful, warmth must dominate in this genre of work.
Thence are bom all the rules of lyric poetry, as well as its privileges: that is what allows for the
boldness of begin-nings. the deviations, the energy of unconventional moments, it is from here
that it derives this sublimity, which so specifically belongs to it, and this enthusiasm that brings it
close to the divine.
Lyric poetry is as ancient as the world. When man had opened his eyes on to the universe, on the
agreeable impressions that he received from all his senses, on the marvels that surrounded him,
he raised his voice to pay the tribute of glory that he owed to the supreme benefactor. And that is
the origin of hymns, odes, in a word, lyric poetry.
At the base of their holidays, the pagans had the same principle as the worshippers of the true
God, It was joy and gratitude that made them institute solemn games to celebrate the gods to
whom they believed they were indebted for their harvest. From there came the songs of joy that
they devoted to the god of the harvest, and to that of love. If the beneficent gods were the natural
material of lyric poetry, heroes, children of the gods naturally had to have their part in this sort of
tribute, without counting that their virtue, their courage, or their favors either to a particular
people or to the whole human race, made them resemble divinity.
We will ool peint out here that it is particularl to bric poets that it is piven
to instruct with dignity and agreement. Dramatie and fable poetry rarely bring together these two
advantages, the ode brings respect to a moral diviniti by the sublimits of thoughts. the majests of
cadences. the boldness of figures. the foree of expressions at the same time it wards riff distaste
be brecite, by the varicty of its turns, and by the choice of the embellishments that a skillful poet
knows how to use at the right time.

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 8

 POLITICAL ALTHORITY: No man has received from nature the right to command others.
Liberty is a gift from heaven, and each individual of the same species has the right to enjos it as
soon as he enjoys the use of reason. I nature has established any authority, it is paternal control:
but paternal control has its Timits, and in the state of nature it would terminate when the children
could take care of themselves. Ant other authorits comes from another origin than nature. I one
seriously considers this matter. one will always go back to one of these two sources: either the
force and violence of an individual a ho has seized it. or the consent of those who have submitted
to it be a contract made or assumed between them and the individual on whom they have
bestowed
ancthorin
Power that is acquired bi siolence is only usurpation and only lasts as long as the force of the
individual who commands can prevail over the force of those whe obers in such a was that if the
latter become in their turn the strongest party and then shake off the toke, they do it with as much
right and justice as the other who had imposed it upon them. The same law that made authorin
can then destroy it. for this is the law of might.
Sometimes authorits that is established beviolence changes its nature: this is when it continues
and is maintained with the espress consent of those who have been brought into subjection, but
in this case it reverts to the second case about which lam woing to speak. and the individual who
had arrogated it then becomes a prince, ceasing to be a tyrant.
Poser that comes from the consent of the people necessarily presupposes
certain conditions that make its use legitimate useful to socient adi antageous
to the republic. and set and restrict it between limits: for man must not nor cannot give himself
entirels and without reserte to another man. because he has a master superior to eventhing, to
whom he alone belongs in his entire being. It is God, whose power alwars has a direct bearing on
each creature, a master as jealous as absolute, who neer loses his rights and does not transfer
them: He permits for the common good and for the maintenance of societ that men establish
among themseh es an order of subordination, that ther ober ane of them. but he wishes that it be
done with reason and proportion and not br hindness and without resentation. so that the creature
does not arrogste the rights of the creator. in other submission is the veritable crime of idola-tr.
To bend one's knee before a man or an image is mereli an external cere mons about which the
true God, who demands the heart and the mind. hardh Cares and ishich he leaves to the
institution of men to do with as thet please
the tokens of civil and political devotion or of religious worship. Thus it is not these ceremonies
in themselves, but the spirit of their establishment that makes their observance innocent or
criminal. An Englishman has no scruples about serving the king on one knee; the ceremonial

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 9

 only signifies what people wanted it to signify. But to deliver one's heart, spirit, and conduct
without any reservation to the will and caprice of a mere creature, making him the unique and
final reason for one's actions. is assuredly a crime of divine lese majesty' of the highest degree.
Otherwise this power of God about which one speaks so much would only be empty noise that
human politics would use out of pure fantasy and which the spirit of irreligion could play with in
its turn; so that all ideas concerning power and subordination coming to the point of merging, the
prince would trifle with God, and the subject with the prince.
The prince owes to his very subjects the authority that he has over them; and this authority is
limited by the laws of nature and the state. The laws of nature and the state are the conditions
under which they have submitted or are sup. posed to have submitted to its government: One of
these conditions is that, nor having any power or authority over them but by their choice and
consent, he can never employ this authority to break the act or the contract by which it was
transferred to him. From that time on he would work against himself, since his authority could
only subsist by virtue of the right that established it.
Whoever annuls one, destroys the other. The prince cannot therefore dispose of his power and his
subjects without the consent of the nation and indepen dently of the option indicated in the
contract of allegiance. If he proceeded otherwise, everything would be nullified, and the laws
would relieve him of the promises and the oaths that he would have been able to make, as a
minor who would have acted without full knowledge of the facts, since he would have claimed to
have at his disposal that which he only had in trust and with a clause of entail, in the same way as
if he had had it in full ownership and without any condition.
Moreover the government, although hereditary in a family and placed in the hands of one person,
is not private property, but public property that consequently can never be taken from the people.
to whom it belongs exclusively, fundamentally, and as a freehold. Consequently it is always the
people who make the lease of the agreement: they always intervene in the contract that adjudges
its exercise. It is not the state that belongs to the prince, it is the prince who belongs to the state:
but it does rest with the prince to govern in the state, because the state has chosen him for that
purpose: he has bound himself to the people and the administration of affairs, and they in their
turn are bound to obey him according to the laws. The person who wears the crown can certainly
discharge himself of it completely if he wishes, but he cannot replace it on the head of another
without the consent of the nation who has placed it on his. In a word, the crown, the government,
and the public author ity are possessions owned by the body of the nation, held as a usufruct by

princes and as a trust by ministers. Although heads of state, they are nonetheless members of it;
as a matter of fact the first, the most venerable, and the most powerful allowed everything in
order to govern, allowed nothing legitimately to change the established government or to place

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 10

 another head in their place. The sceptre of Louis XV' necessarily passes to his eldest son, and
there is no power who can oppose this; nor any nation because it is the condition of the contract,
nor his father for the same reason.
The depository of authority is sometimes only for a limited time, as in the Roman republic. It is
sometimes for the life of only one man, as in Poland; sometimes for all the time a family exists,
as in England; sometimes for the time a family exists only through its male descendants, as in
France?
This depository is sometimes entrusted to a certain class in society, sometimes to several people
chosen by all the classes, and sometimes to one man.
The conditions of this pact are different in different states. But everywhere the nation has a right
to maintain against all forces the contract that they have made; no power can change it, and when
it is no longer valid, the nation recovers its rights and full freedom to enter into a new one with
whomever and however it pleases them. This is what would happen in France if by the great est
of misfortunes the entire reigning family happened to die out, including the most remote
descendants; then the sceptre and the crown would return to the nation.
It seems that only slaves whose minds are as limited as their hearts are debased could think
otherwise. Such men are born neither for the glory of the prince nor for the benefit of society,
they have neither virtue nor greatness of soul. Fear and self-interest are the motives of their
conduct. Nature only produces them to improve by contrast the worth of virtuous men; and
Providence uses them to make tyrannical powers, with which it chastises as a rule the people and
the sovereigns who offend God; the latter for usurping, the former for granting too much to man
of supreme power, that the Creator reserved for Himself over the created being.
The observation of laws, the conservation of liberty, and the love of country are the prolific
sources of all great things and of all beautiful actions. Here we can find the happiness of people,
and the true luster of princes who govern them. Here obedience is glorious, and command
august. On the contrary, flat-tery, self-interest, and the spirit of slavery are at the root of all the
evils that overpower a state and of all the cowardice that dishonor it. There the subjects are
miserable, and the princes hated; there the monarch has never heard himself proclaimed the
beloved; submission is hateful there, and domination cruel.
If I view France and Turkey from the same perspective, I perceive on the one hand a society of
men united by reason, activated by virtue, and governed by a head of state equally wise and
glorious according to the laws of justice; on the other, a herd of animals assembled by habit,
driven by the law of the rod, and led by an absolute master according to his caprice.
SAVAGES: Barbarous peoples who live without law, without governance, without religion, and
who have no fixed habitation.

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 11

 This word comes from the iralian salvagio, derived from salvaticus, selvaticus
and sivalicns, which signifies the same thing as sylestris rustic. or that which
concerns woods and forests, because savages ordinarily dwell in forests.
A large part of America is peopled by savages, the majority of whom are still fierce and feed
upon human flesh.
Tages by Lurprans on Che cost of Aitei to use as lues In f f cfuna
This buying of Negroes, to reduce them to slavery, is one business that violates religion,
morality, hatural laws. and all the rights of human nature.
Negroes, says a modern Englishman full of enlightenment and humanity. have not become slaves
by the right of war; neither do they deliver themselves voluntarily into bondage and consequently
their children are not born slaves.
Nobody is unaware that they are bought from their own princes, who claim to have the right to
dispose of their liberty, and that traders have them transported in the same way as their other
goods, either in their colonies or in America, where they are displayed for sale.
If commerce of this kind can be justified by a moral principle, there is no crime, however
atrocious it may be, that cannot be made legitimate. Kings, princes, and magistrates are not the
proprietors of their subjects; they do not, therefore, have the right to dispose of their liberty and
to sell them as slaves.
On the other hand, no man has the right to buy them or to make himself their master. Men and
their liberty are not objects of commerce; they can be neither sold nor bought nor paid for at any
price. We must conclude from this that a man whose slave has run away should only blame
himself. since he had acquired for money illicit goods whose acquisition is prohibited by all the
laws of humanity and equity:
There is not, therefore, a single one of these unfortunate people regarded only as slaves who does
not have the right to be declared free, since he has never lost his freedom, which he could not
lose and which his prince, his father, and any person whatsoever in the world had not the power
to dispose of. Consequently the sale that has been completed is invalid in itself. This Negro does
not divest himself and can never divest himself of his natural right, he carries it everywhere with
him, and he can demand everywhere that he be allowed to enjoy it. It is, therefore, patent
inhumanity on the part of judges in free countries where he is transported, not to emancipate him
like them.
immediately by declaring bim free, since he is their fellow man, having a soul
There are authors who, posing as political jurists. come to tell us confidently
that the questions relative to the state of persons must be decided by the laws of the countries in
which they belong and that therefore a man who is declared a slave in America and who is

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 12

 transported from there to Europe, must be regarded there as a slave. But this is to decide the
rights of humanity by the
civil laws of a gutter, as Cicero says." Must the magistrates of a nation, out of consideration for
another nation, have no regard for their own people? Must their deference to a law that binds
them in no way make them trample underfoot the law of nature that binds all men at all times
and in all places? Is there any law as obligatory as the eternal laws of equity? What problem is
created if a judge is bound to observe them more than to respect the arbitrary and inhuman
practices of the colonies?
One will say perhaps that these colonies will soon be ruined if the slavery of Negroes were
abolished there. But if this were true, should we conclude from this that the human race must be
horribly injured to enrich us and to provide us with luxuries? It is true that the pockets of
highwaymen would be empty if robbery were to be entirely suppressed, but do men have the
right to enrich themselves by cruel and criminal acts? What right has a bandit to rob travel-ers?
Who is allowed to become opulent by making his fellow men unfortu-nate? Can it be legitimate
to rob mankind of its most sacred rights solely to satisty one's avarice, one's vanity, or one's
particular passions? No ... therefore let the European colonies be destroyed rather than make so
many unfortunate people
But I believe it is false that the suppression of slavery would entail its ruin.
Commerce would suffer for some time, I agree; this is the effect of all new arrangements,
because in this case new trade relations could not be readily found to follow another economic
system; but out of this suppression other
advantages would arise
It is this slave trade, this practice of slavery, that has prevented America from being populated as
promptly as it would have been. Let them free the Negroes, and in a few generations this vast
and fertile country will have innumerable inhabitants. The arts and talent will flourish there, and
instead of a land populated almost.entirely by savages and wild beasts there will soon be a
country of industrious men. It is freedom, it is industry that are the real sources of abun-dance.
As long as a nation conserves this industry and this freedom, it has nothing to fear. Industry as
well as necessity is ingenious and inventive: it finds a thousand different ways to procure riches
for itself; and if one of the channels to opulence is blocked, a hundred others immediately open
up.
Sensible and generous souls will without doubt applaud these reasons in favor of humanity; but
avarice and greed which dominate the earth will never wish to hear them
WIFE, in Latin uxor, female of man, considered such when she is united to him by ties of
marriage. See therefore Marriage IMARRIAGE (NATURAL LAW), MARRIAGE

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 13

 (JURISPRUDENCE), MARRIAGE (THEOLOGY)] and HUSBAND.
The Supreme Being having judged that it was not good for man to be alone, conceived a desire
to unite him in close society with a companion, and this society is made through a voluntary
accord between the parties. As this society has as its principal goal the procreation and protection
of the children it produces, the father and mother of necessity devote all their energies to
nourishing and

properly rearing the fruits of their love up until the time when they are able to care and judge for
themselves.
But although the husband and the wife have fundamentally the same inter. ests in their marriage,
it is nevertheless essential that governing authority belong to one or the other: now the
affirmative right of civilized nations, the laws and the customs of Europe give this authority
unanimously to the male, being the one endowed with the greatest strength of mind and body,
contribut ing more to the common good in matters of sacred and human things; such that the
woman must necessarily be subordinated to her husband and obey his orders in all domestic
affairs. This is the belief of the ancient and modern jurists and the formal decision of legislators.
In addition, the Frederician code," which appeared first in 1750 and which seems to have
attempted to introduce definitive and universal rights, declares that the husband is according to
nature itself the master of the house, the chief of the family and that it therefore follows that the
wife resides there at his leave, She is in all regards under the power of the husband, from which
fact devolve diverse prerogatives which pertain personally to him. Finally, holy scripture
commands the wife to submit to him as to her master."
However the reasons weve just listed for marital power are not without rejoinder, humanely
speaking, and the character of this work allows us to boldly enunciate them.
It appears first of all that it would be difficult to demonstrate that the authority of the husband
comes from nature; because this principle is contrary to the natural equality of men; and just
because one is suited for commanding doesn't mean that it is actually one's right to do so: 2. man
does not always have greater strength of body, wisdom, spirit or conduct than woman:
3. Scriptural precepts being established in punitive terms, indicates as well that there is only a
positive right. One can therefore claim that there is no other type of subordination in marital
relations than that of the civil law, and as a consequence, the only things preventing change in
the civil law are particular conventions, and that natural law and religion do not determine
anything to the contrary.
We do not deny that in a society composed of two people, it is necessary that the deliberative
laws of one or the other carry the day: and since ordinarily men are more capable than women of
ably governing particular matters, it is wise to establish as a general rule, that the voice of the

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 14

 man will carry more weight as long as the two have not made any agreement to the contrary,
because general law results from human institutions, and not from natural right. In this way, a
woman who knows the basis of civil law and who contracts her marriage purely and simply, has
by law submitted, tacitly, to this civil law.
But if this woman, persuaded that she has more judgment and direction, or knowing that she has
greater fortune or is of a higher station than that of the man who asks her to marry him, stipulates
the contrary of that which the law implies, and with the consent of this husband, should she not
have, by virtue
of natural law, the same power her husband has by virtue of the law of the realm? The case of a
queen, who, being sovereign in her own right, marries a prince below her rank; or if she likes,
one of her subjects, is enough to show that the authority of a woman over her husband, even in
matters concerning the governance of the family, is not incompatible with the nature of the
marital contract.
In effect, we have seen among the most civilized nations, marriages which submit the husband to
the domain of the wife; we have seen a princess, heir to the realm, reserve to herself, while
marrying, the sovereign power of the state. Everyone knows the conventions of marriage which
were made between Philip II and Mary Queen of England; those of Mary Queen of Scots and
those of Ferdinand and Isabel, in order to govern the kingdom of Castile together.!+ * *
The examples of England and of Muscovy' make evident that women can succeed equally, both
in moderate and despotic government, and if it is not against reason and nature that they rule an
empire, then it would seem that it is no more contradictory that they should be mistresses in a
family When Laccaemonian marriages were ready to be consummated, the woman took the dress
of a man; and it was a symbol of the equal power that she would share with her husband. On this
subject we know what Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, king of Sparta, said to a foreign woman who
was extremely surprised by this equality: Don't you know, responded the queen, that we bring
men into the world? In other times, even in Egypt, marriage contracts between individuals, as
much as those of the ling and the queen, gave authority over the husband to the wife.
It makes no difference (because it is not a matter here of exploiting unique examples which
prove too much; it makes no difference, I say, if the authority of a woman in marriage cannot
exist within conventional bounds, between people of equal stature, at least let the legislature
refrain from prohibiting exceptions to the law, made with the free consent of the parties.
Marriage is by its nature a contract; and as a result, in all things not expressly prohibited by
natural law, the contractual engagements between the husband and the wife determine reciprocal
rights.
Finally, why should the ancient maxim, provisio hominis tollit provisionem legis, not be

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 15

 accepted in this case, such as one allows it in dowries, in the division of goods, and in several
other things, where the law does not rule except when the parties have not stipulated provisions
different from those prescribed by law?

DENIS DIDEROT AND JEAN LE ROND D’Alembert 16