his character to Nature herself, exactly as he used to
conceive her--rich, fertile, abounding in germs of every sort ...
without any dominating principle, without a master, and without a
God." No image more suitable could be found; and his works resemble
the man, in their richness, their fertility, their variety, and their
disorder. A great writer we can hardly call him, for he has left no
body of coherent thought, no piece of finished art; but he was the
greatest of literary improvisators.

DENIS DIDEROT, son of a worthy cutler of Langres, was born in 1713.
Educated by the Jesuits, he turned away from the regular professions,
and supported himself and his ill-chosen wife by hack-work for the
Paris booksellers--translations, philosophical essays directed
against revealed religion, stories written to suit the appetite for
garbage. From deism he advanced to atheism. Arguing in favour of the
relativity of human knowledge in his _Lettre sur les Aveugles_ (1749),
he puts his plea for atheism into the lips of an English man of science,
but the device did not save him from an imprisonment of three months.

In 1745 the booksellers, contemplating a translation of the English
"Cyclopaedia" of Chambers, applied to Diderot for assistance. He
readily undertook the task, but could not be satisfied with a mere
translation. In a Prospectus (1750) he indicated the design of the
"Encyclopaedia" as he conceived it: the order and connection of the
various branches of knowledge should be set forth, and in dictionary
form the several sciences, liberal arts, and mechanical arts should
be dealt with by experts. The homage which he rendered to science
expressed the mind of his time; in the honour paid to mechanical toil
and industry he was in advance of his age, and may be called an
organiser of modern democracy. At his request JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT
(1717-83) undertook the direction of the mathematical articles, and
wrote the _Discours Preliminaire_, which classified the departments
of human knowledge on the basis of Bacon's conceptions, and gave a
survey of intellectual progress. It was welcomed with warm applause.
The aid of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Buffon, Turgot, Quesnay,
and a host of less illustrious writers was secured; but the vast
enterprise excited the alarms of the ecclesiastical party; the
Jesuits were active in rivalry and opposition; Rousseau deserted and
became an enemy; D'Alembert, timid, and a lover of peace, withdr