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Diderot's Influence on Rousseau's First Discours

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Lester Gilbert Krakeur
Lester Gilbert Krakeur*
Affiliation:
New York City
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Extract

The problem of ascertaining whether Diderot or Rousseau was responsible for the original inspiration of the Discours sur les sciences et les arts has been a vexing one to biographers and students of both men. Though the famous paradox belongs to Jean-Jacques by reason of his exploitation of it, the question is none the less one of exceeding interest. Rousseau's work, as Lemaître remarks, is but a reflection of his life, the incidents of which “sont à peu près toutes des oeuvres de circonstances. Et la grandeur de conséquence fait qu'il devient émouvant de les voir sortir de si petites causes et si accidentelles.” And it is to the accident of Diderot's intervention that the initial impulse, which was to have such momentous consequences, is frequently attributed. “Il y a tout lieu de croire que c'est lui qui suggère à Rousseau la fameuse réponse à la question posée par l'Académie de Dijon,” affirms the author of a recently published work.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 1937 , pp. 398 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1937

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References

page 398 note 1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Paris, 1907), p. 81.

page 398 note 2 Luppol, Diderot (Paris: Ed. Sociales Internationales, 1936), p 66.

page 398 note 3 Rousseau, Confessions, Livre viii; Lettre à M. de Malesherbes (12 janvier 1762). Marmontel: Mémoires (Paris, 1857), Livre vii, p. 283.

page 398 note 4 Cf. Annales de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, vii, 1–17; xi, 64–71.

page 398 note 5 Diderot, Œuvres, éd. Assézat et Tourneux, iii, 98.—One may well wonder why Diderot says that nobody will take the paradoxical side of the question. I believe that the explanation is psychological: in a moment of sudden enthusiasm, such exaggeration is but natural, especially on the part of Diderot. As a matter of fact, of the thirteen contestants, only one other did take the negative side.

page 398 note 6 Prof. George R. Havens pointed out to me that M. F. Vézinet has also suggested that this passage may be read not as advice but as a prognostication of Roussaeu's course of action. M. Vézinet's excellent analysis, although complete in regard to the testimony of Diderot's friends, neglects entirely his far more important earlier account, in the Réfutation de l'Homme. Consequently, the view he takes of Diderot's position and the resulting treatment are entirely different; among other things, he casts doubt upon the strict veracity of the above account of the meeting, suggesting it was written in the heat of anger. Cf. Autour de Voltaire (Paris, 1925), pp. 126–137.

page 398 note 7 This sentence evidently disproves Vézinet's assertion, concerning the account in Claude et Néron, that Diderot falsely insinuates, by his use of the past definite, that Rousseau had come to see him especially to ask his advice concerning the contest (cf. op. cit., pp. 126,137)

page 398 note 8 Œuvres, ii, 285.

page 398 note 9 Ibid. (italics inserted).

page 398 note 10 Ibid., 285.

page 398 note 11 iii, 95.

page 398 note 12 ii, 285.

page 398 note 13 Ibid., pp. 285–286 (italics inserted).

page 398 note 14 Ibid.

page 398 note 15 m, 285–287.

page 398 note 16 Cf. ii, 248, 287, 411; vi, 439, 456–457, etc. Cf. P. Hermand: Les Idées morales de Diderot, ch. iv.

page 398 note 17 Cf., on the contrary, iii, 429–430, 518; vi, 439; xviii, 238, 274; Lettre d John Wilkes, in Cru: Diderot as a Disciple of English Thought, p. 477.

page 398 note 18 iii, 433.

page 398 note 19 Lettres à Sophie Volland, éd. Babelon, ii, 32.