great spiritual reaction that followed the
Revolution, and not even such of its apostles as Wordsworth and Carlyle
wholly escaped the taint.

Forty years ago, when Carlyle wrote, it might really seem to a
prejudiced observer as if the encyclopaedic tree had borne no fruit. Even
then, and even when the critic happened to be a devotee of the sterile
transcendentalism then in vogue, one might have expected some
recognition of the fact that the seed of all the great improvements
bestowed on France by the Revolution, in spite of the woful evils which
followed in its train, had been sown by the Encyclopaedists. But now that
the last vapours of the transcendental reaction are clearing away, we
see that the movement initiated by the Encyclopaedia is again in full
progress. Materialistic solutions in the science of man, humanitarian
ends in legislation, naturalism in art, active faith in the
improvableness of institutions--all these are once more the marks of
speculation and the guiding ideas of practical energy. The philosophical
parenthesis is at an end. The interruption of eighty years counts for no
more than the twinkling of an eye in the history of the transformation
of the basis of thought. And the interruption has for the present come
to a close. Europe again sees the old enemies face to face; the Church,
and a Social Philosophy slowly labouring to build her foundations in
positive science. It cannot be other than interesting to examine the
aims, the instruments, and the degree of success of those who a century
ago saw most comprehensively how profound and far-reaching a
metamorphosis awaited the thought of the Western world. We shall do this
most properly in connection with Diderot.

Whether we accept or question Comte's strong description of Diderot as
the greatest genius of the eighteenth century, it is at least undeniable
that he was the one member of the great party of illumination with a
real title to the name of thinker. Voltaire and Rousseau were the heads
of two important schools, and each of them set deep and unmistakable
marks both on the opinion and the events of the century. It would not be
difficult to show that their influence was wider than that of the
philosopher who discerned the inadequateness of both. But Rousseau was
moved by passion and sentiment; Voltaire was only the master of a
brilliant and penetrating rationalism. Diderot alone of this famous trio
had in his mind the idea of scientific method;