n.

The reader sees by this time that in the present dialogue Diderot is
really criticising the most fundamental and complex arrangement of our
actual western society, from the point of view of an arbitrary and
entirely fanciful naturalism. Rousseau never wrote anything more
picturesque, nor anything more dangerous, nor more anarchic and
superficially considered. It is true that Diderot at the close of the
discussion is careful to assert that while we denounce senseless laws,
it is our duty to obey them until we have procured their reform. "He who
of his own private authority infringes a bad law, authorises every one
else to infringe good laws. There are fewer inconveniences in being mad
with the mad, than in being wise by oneself. Let us say to ourselves,
let us never cease to cry aloud, that people attach shame, chastisement,
and infamy to acts that in themselves are innocent; but let us abstain
from committing them, because shame, punishment, and infamy are the
greatest of evils." And we hear Diderot's sincerest accents when he
says, "Above all, one must be honest, and true to a scruple, with the
fragile beings who cannot yield to our pleasures without renouncing the
most precious advantages of society."[6]

[6] _Oeuv._, ii. 249.

This, however, does not make the philosophical quality of the discussion
any more satisfactory. Whatever changes may ultimately come about in the
relations between men and women, we may at least be sure that such
changes will be in a direction even still further away than the present
conditions of marriage, from anything like the naturalism of Diderot and
the eighteenth-century school. Even if--what does not at present seem at
all likely to happen--the idea of the family and the associated idea of
private property should eventually be replaced by that form of communism
which is to be seen at Oneida Creek, still the discipline of the
appetites and affections of sex will necessarily on such a system be not
less, but far more rigorous to nature than it is under prevailing
western institutions.[7] Orou would have been a thousand times more
unhappy among the Perfectionists under Mr. Noyes than in Paris or
London. We cannot pretend here to discuss the large group of momentous
questions involved, but we may make a short remark or two. One reason
why the movement, if progressive, must be in the direction of greater
subordination of appetite, is that all experience proves the position
and mor