A young Mexican, tired of his work, was sauntering one day on the seashore. He spied a plank, with one end resting on the land, and the other dipping into the water. He sat down on the plank, and there gazing over the vast space that lay spread out before him, he said to himself: “It is certain that my old grandmother is talking nonsense, with her history of I know not what inhabitants, who, at I know not what time, landed here from I know not where, from some country far beyond our seas. It is against common sense: do I not see the ocean touch the line of the sky? And can I believe, against the evidence of my senses, an old fable of which nobody knows the date, which everybody arranges according to his fancy, and which is only a tissue of absurdities, about which people are ready to tear out one another’s eyes.” As he was reasoning in this way, the waters rocked him gently on his plank, and he fell asleep. As he slept, the wind rose, the waves carried away the plank on which he was stretched out, and behold our youthful reasoner embarked on a voyage.
La Maréchale.—Alas, that is the image of all of us; we are each on our plank; the wind blows, and the flood carries us away.
C.—He was already far from the mainland when he awoke. No one was ever so surprised as our young Mexican, to find himself out on the open sea, and he was mightily surprised, too, when having lost from sight the shore on which he had been idly walking only an instant before, he saw the sea touching the line of the sky on every side. Then he began to suspect that he might have been mistaken, and that, if the wind remained in the same quarter, perhaps he would be borne to that very shore and among those dwellers on it, about whom his grandmother had so often told him.
La Maréchale.—And of his anxiety you say nothing.
C.—He had none. He said to himself: “What does it matter, provided that I find land? I have reasoned like a giddy-pate, granted; but I have been sincere with myself, and that is all that can be required of me. If it is no virtue to have understanding, at any rate it is no crime to be without it.” Meanwhile the wind continued, the man and the plank floated on, and the unknown shore came into sight. He touched it, and behold him again on land.
La Maréchale.—Ah, we shall all of us see one another there, one of these days.
C.—I hope so, madam; wherever it may be, I shall always be very proud to pay you my homage. Hardly had he quitted his plank, and put his foot on the sand, when he perceived a venerable old man standing by his side. He asked him where he was, and to whom he had the honour of speaking. “I am the sovereign of the country,” replied the old man; “you have denied my existence?”—“Yes, it is true.”—“And that of my empire?”—“It is true!”—“I forgive you, because I am he who sees the bottom of all hearts, and I have read at the bottom of yours that you are of good faith; but the rest of your thoughts and your actions are not equally innocent.” Then the old man, who held him by the ear, recalled to him all the errors of his life; and as each was mentioned, the young Mexican bowed himself upon the ground, beat his breast, and besought forgiveness.
Of Falconet,[220] we have already spoken, as a sculptor of genius, and as one of Diderot’s most intimate friends. Writing to Sophie Voland (Nov. 21, 1765), Diderot informs her that some pleasantries of Falconet’s have induced him to undertake very seriously the defence of the sentiment of immortality and respect for posterity.[221] This apology was carried on in an energetic correspondence which lasted from the end of 1765 to 1767. Falconet’s letters were burned by his grand-daughter for reasons unknown, and we have only such passages from them as are more specially referred to by Diderot himself. Falconet flattered himself that he had the best of the argument, and was eager that they should be published, but Diderot was sluggish or busy. The correspondence was imparted to Catherine of Russia, who took a lively interest in it, and to some others, but it was not given to the public—and then only partially—until 1830.
Diderot’s position in these twelve letters may be described in general terms as being that the sentiment of immortality and respect for posterity move the heart and elevate the soul; they are two germs of great things, two promises as solid as any other, and two delights as real as most of the delights of life, but more noble, more profitable, and more virtuous. What Diderot means by immortality is not the religious dogma, that the individual personality will be objectively preserved and prolonged in some other mode of existence. On the contrary, it was his disbelief in this dogma of the churches that gave a certain keenness to his pleading for that other kind of immortality, which prolongs our personality only in the grateful and admiring memories of other people who come after us. He intended by the sentiment of immortality “the desire to surround one’s name with lustre among posterity; to be the admiration and the talk of centuries to come; to obtain after death the same honours as we pay to those who have gone before us; to furnish a fine line to the historian; to inscribe one’s own name by the side of those which we never pronounce without shedding a tear, heaving a sigh, or being touched by regret; to secure for ourselves the blessings that we have such a thrill in bestowing on Sully, Henry IV., and all the other benefactors of the human race.”[222] The sphere that surrounds us, and in which the world admires us, the time in which we exist and listen to praise, the number of those who directly address to us the eulogy that we have deserved of them—all this is too small for the capacity of our ambitious souls. By the side of those whom we see prostrated before us, we place those who are not yet in the world. It is only this uncounted throng of adorers that can satisfy a mind whose impulses are ever towards the infinite. At night it is sweet to hear a distant concert, of which only snatches reach the ear, all to be bound into a melodious whole by the imagination, which is all the more charmed as the work is in the main its own. Even if all this were but the sweetness of a lovely dream, is then the sweetness of a dream as nothing? And am I to count for nothing a sweet dream that lasts as long as my life, and holds me in perpetual intoxication?
Falconet’s answer was hard and positive. Contemporary glory suffices. What is fame, if I am not there to enjoy? The fear of contempt and disgrace is as strong a motive as you need, to incite men to great work. Glory after death is chimerical and uncertain. Think of all the great names that are clean forgotten, of all the great workers whose achievements are lost or effaced, of all the others whose works are attributed to those who did not execute them! Your posterity is no better than a lottery.
No, cries Diderot, with redoubled eloquence, rising to his noblest height,[223] “the present is an indivisible point that cuts in two the length of an infinite line. It is impossible to rest on this point and to glide gently along with it, never looking on in front, and never turning the head to gaze behind. The more man ascends through the past, and the more he launches into the future—the greater he will be.... And all these philosophers, and ministers, and truth-telling men, who have fallen victims to the stupidity of nations, the atrocities of priests, the fury of tyrants, what consolation was left for them in death? This, that prejudice would pass, and that posterity would pour out the vial of ignominy upon their enemies. O posterity, holy and sacred! Stay of the unhappy and the oppressed, thou who art just, thou who art incorruptible, who avengest the good man, who unmaskest the hypocrite, who draggest down the tyrant, may thy sure faith, thy consoling faith, never, never abandon me! Posterity is for the philosopher what the other world is for the devout!”
[See vol. i. p. 348.]
[I have omitted such pages in the following translation as refer simply to personages who have lost all possibility of interest for our generation; nor did any object seem to be served by reproducing the technical points of the musical discussion. Enough is given, and given as faithfully as I know how, to show the reader what Rameau’s Nephew is.]