DIDEROT, Denis, cred're, French man of letters and encyclopedist: b. Langres, 5 Oct. 1713; d. Paris, 31 July 1784. He was educated by the Jesuits but afterward became one of the bitterest enemies of the church. When his education was at an end he became estranged from his family by turning away from respec table callings and engaging in the Bohemian life of a bookseller's hack in Paris. In 1743 he married Anne Toinette Champion, a devout Catholic, but possessed of a narrow and fretful temper; in consequence Diderot's domestic life was unhappy. He sought attachments abroad, first with a Madame de Puiscux, who prompted his indecent novel, 'Les Bijoux (1748), and later with Sophie Voland, to whom he was constant throughout her life. In 1743 he published a translation of Stanyan's 'His tory of Greece,' and three years later a trans lation of James' 'Dictionary of Medicine.' In 1746 he published his first independent work, the (Pensees philosophiques,' a general state ment of the usual rationalistic objections to a supernatural religion. It was followed in 1747 by the 'Promenade du sceptique) The first work which brought him into general notice was his famous 'Lettre sur les aveugles ('usage de ceux qui voient> (1749), a study of the philosophy of sensation, involving also an undermining of ethical standards and of social order. It contains strange forecasts of later discoveries and hypotheses, such as the sur vival by superior adaptation and the suggestion of teaching the blind to read through the sense of touch. The publication of the work caused the imprisonment of Diderot at Vincennes, where he remained three months; then he was released to enter on the gigantic undertaking of his life. Lebreton, the bookseller, had pro jected a French translation of Chambers' 'Encyclopaedia' and approached Diderot in re gard to the undertaking. Diderot persuaded the publisher to enter upon a new work which should collect under one roof all the active writers, all the new ideas, all the new knowl edge, that were then stirring the cultivated strata of society. The thus be came the organ of intellectual emancipation rather than of any single school of ethics or philosophy. D'Alembert was appointed Diderot's colleague and so remained until 1759. Diderot spent 20 years of unremitting toil on the work, revising, editing, correcting and combating the intrigues of opponents. He wrote all the articles on technology and industries, besides many of those on points of philosophy and even on phys ics and chemistry. The first volume appeared in 1751 and the last in 1772. The work fell under the ban of the censors in 1759, but owing to the venality and corruption of the authorities the work went on as before, excepting the defection of Turgot and D'Alembert. The work was not
primarily revolutionary, but practical. It takes for granted the justice of religious tolerance and speculative freedom. It asserts the demo-. cratic doctrine that it is the common people in a nation whose lot ought to be the main con cern of the nation's government. The entire work is one unbroken process of exaltation of scientific knowledge on the one hand and pacific industry on the other. Despite. this arduous task Diderot gave further proof of his ver satility in the admirable reports on the annual exhibitions of painting, by which he established the first bond between art and literature. He wrote two dramas —'Le fils Naturel> (1757) and 'Le pore de famille> (1758), which mark the beginning of modern domestic drama. His (Paradoxe sur le comedien) influenced Lessing and the German stage, and Goethe translated an essay on painting from the His novel, 'The Nun,) and the dramatic dia Josue, neveu de Rameau,) are wonderfully effective pictures of the corrupt society of the time. His little sketches are pearls of kindly humor and of witty narrative. It is calculated that the average annual salary received by Diderot for his work on the (Encyclopedic) was but $600 per year. In 1773 he felt obliged to sell his library to provide a dowry for his daughter. It was purchased by Catharine II of Russia and presented to Diderot whom she constituted her salaried librarian. Diderot went to Russia to thank the empress and spent some months in her society in Petrograd. He re turned home in 1774 and passed his remaining years in the acquisition of new knowledge, in ephemeral compositions and in luminous con versations with his friends, who deemed him unrivaled as a conversationalist. The justice of their opinion is borne out by the fact that his influence on his contemporaries was tre mendous. His works were edited by Assezat and Tourneux (20 vols., Paris 1879). His 'Correspondance with Sophie Voland gives perhaps the best insight into his character. Consult Brunetiere, critiques' (Paris 1881) ; Carlyle, (Essay on Diderot' (London 1881) ; Collignon, A., 'Diderot) (Paris 1907) ; ru C, R. L., as a Disciple of English Thought' (New York 1913) ; Lauson, G., (His toire de la Litterature francaise' (Paris 1912) ; Morley, John, (Diderot and the Encyclopaedists' (London 1891), the best study in English of Diderot's life and influence; Rosenkranz, rot's Leben and Werke) (Leipzig 1866) ; Tornizy, A., legende des philosophes' (Paris 1911).