eople abstained from philosophy?
What circle is that in which serious political problems and profound
criticism are not admitted? And what motive brings intellectual
people together if not the desire to debate questions of the highest
importance?--For two centuries in France the conversation has been
related to all that, and hence its great charm. Strangers find it
irresistible; nothing like it is found at home; Lord Chesterfield sets
it forth as an example:

"It always turns, he says, on some point in history, on criticism or
even philosophy which is much better suited to rational beings than our
English discussions about the weather and whist."

Rousseau, so querulous, admits "that a moral subject could not be better
discussed in a society of philosophers than in that of a pretty woman in
Paris." Undoubtedly there is a good deal of idle talk, but with all the
chattering "let a man of any authority make a serious remark or start a
grave subject and the attention is immediately fixed on this point;
men and women, the old and the young, all give themselves up to its
consideration on all its sides, and it is surprising what an amount of
reason and good sense issues, as if in emulation, from these frolicsome
brains." The truth is that, in this constant holiday which this
brilliant society gives itself philosophy is the principal amusement.
Without philosophy the ordinary ironical chit-chat would be vapid. It
is a sort of superior opera in which every grand conception that can
interest a reflecting mind passes before it, now in comic and now in
sober attire, and each in conflict with the other. The tragedy of the
day scarcely differs from it except in this respect, that it always
bears a solemn aspect and is performed only in the theaters; the other
assumes all sorts of physiognomies and is found everywhere because
conversation is everywhere carried on. Not a dinner nor a supper is
given at which it does not find place. One sits at a table amidst
refined luxury, among agreeable and well-dressed women and pleasant and
well-informed men, a select company, in which comprehension is prompt
and the company trustworthy. After the second course the inspiration
breaks out in the liveliest sallies, all minds flashing and
scintillating. When the dessert comes on what is to prevent the gravest
of subjects from being put into witticisms? On the appearance of the
coffee questions on the immortality of the soul and on the existence of