PREFACE.


The present work closes a series of studies on the literary preparation
for the French Revolution. It differs from the companion volumes on
Voltaire and Rousseau, in being much more fully descriptive. In the case
of those two famous writers, every educated reader knows more or less of
their performances. Of Diderot and his circle, such knowledge cannot be
taken for granted, and I have therefore thought it best to occupy a
considerable space, which I hope that those who do me the honour to read
these pages will not find excessive, with what is little more than
transcript or analysis. Such a method will at least enable the reader to
see what those ideas really were, which the social and economic
condition of France on the eve of the convulsion made so welcome to men.
The shortcomings of the encyclopædic group are obvious enough. They have
lately been emphasised in the ingenious and one-sided exaggerations of
that brilliant man of letters, Mr. Taine. The social significance and
the positive quality of much of their writing is more easily missed, and
this side of their work it has been one of my principal objects, alike
in the case of Voltaire, of Rousseau, and of Diderot, to bring into the
prominence that it deserves in the history of opinion.

The edition of Diderot's works to which the references are made, is that
in twenty volumes by the late Mr. Assézat and Mr. Maurice Tourneux. The
only other serious book on Diderot with which I am acquainted is
Rosenkranz's valuable _Diderot's Leben_, published in 1866, and
abounding in full and patient knowledge. Of the numerous criticisms on
Diderot by Raumer, Arndt, Hettner, Damiron, Bersot, and above all by Mr.
Carlyle, I need not make more particular mention.