orbids him; a
third thinks it fair for him to repay himself the cost of his wife's
illness. Diderot's father cries out, that since on his own confession
the detention of the inheritance has brought him no comfort, he had
better surrender it as speedily as possible, and eat, drink, sleep,
work, and make himself happy so.

"'Not I,' cried the journeyman abruptly, 'I shall be off to
Geneva.'

'And dost thou think to leave remorse behind?'

'I can't tell, but to Geneva I go.'

'Go where thou wilt, there wilt thou find thy conscience.'

The hatter went away; his odd answer became the subject of our
talk. We agreed that perhaps distance of place and time had the
effect of weakening all the feelings more or less, and stifling the
voice of conscience even in cases of downright crime. The assassin
transported to the shores of China is too far off to perceive the
corpse that he has left bleeding on the banks of the Seine.

Remorse springs perhaps less from horror of self than from fear of
others; less from shame for the deed, than from the blame and
punishment that would attend its discovery. And what clandestine
criminal is tranquil enough in his obscurity not to dread the
treachery of some unforeseen circumstance, or the indiscretion of
some thoughtless word? What certainty can he have that he will not
disclose his secret in the delirium of fever, or in dreams? People
will understand him if they are on the scene of the action, but
those about him in China will have no key to his words."[2]

[2] v. 295, 296.

Two other cases come up. Does the husband or wife who is the first to
break the marriage vow, restore liberty to the other? Diderot answered
affirmatively. The second case arose from a story that the abbe had been
reading. A certain honest cobbler of Messina saw his country overrun by
lawlessness. Each day was marked by a crime. Notorious assassins braved
the public exasperation. Parents saw their daughters violated; the
industrious saw the fruits of their toil ravished from them by the
monopolist or the fraudulent tax-gatherer. The judges were bribed, the
innocent were afflicted, the guilty escaped unharmed. The cobbler
meditating on these enormities devised a plan of vengeance. He
established a secret court of justice in his shop; he heard the
evidence, gave a verdict, pronounced sentence, and went out into the