the source of all his pleasures. It is regarded as an affront to reason
if one dares to say a word in favour of its rivals. Yet it is only
passions, and strong passions, that can raise the soul to great things.
Sober passions produce only the commonplace. Deadened passions degrade
men of extraordinary quality. Constraint annihilates the greatness and
energy of nature. See that tree; 'tis to the luxury of its branches that
you owe the freshness and the wide-spreading breadth of its shade, which
you may enjoy till winter comes to despoil it of its leafy tresses. An
end to all excellence in poetry, in painting, in music, as soon as
superstition has once wrought upon human temperament the effect of old
age! It is the very climax of madness to propose to oneself the ruin of
the passions. A fine design truly in your pietist, to torment himself
like a convict in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing;
and he would end by becoming a true monster, if he were to succeed!"[34]
Many years afterwards he wrote in the same sense to Madame Voland. "I
have ever been the apologist of strong passions; they alone move me.
Whether they inspire me with admiration or horror, I feel vehemently. If
atrocious deeds that dishonour our nature are due to them, it is by them
also that we are borne to the marvellous endeavour that elevates it. The
man of mediocre passion lives and dies like the brute." And so forth,
until the writer is carried to the perplexing position that "if we were
bound to choose between Racine, a bad husband, a bad father, a false
friend, and a sublime poet, and Racine, good father, good husband, good
friend, and dull worthy man, I hold to the first. Of Racine, the bad
man, what remains? Nothing. Of Racine, the man of genius? The work is
eternal."[35] Without attempting to solve this problem in casuistry, we
recognise Diderot's mood, and the hatred with which it would be sure to
inspire him for the starved and mutilated passions of the Christian
type. The humility, chastity, obedience, indolent solitude, which had
for centuries been glorified by the Church, were monstrous to this