t si oberres; cachinnos nesciunt si ignores."

In literature proper, as in philosophy, Diderot loses no opportunity of
insisting on the need of being content with suspended judgment. For
instance, he blames historians of opinion for the readiness with which
they attribute notions found in one or two rabbis to the whole of the
Jews, or because two or three Fathers say something, boldly set this
down as the sentiments of a whole century, although perhaps we have
nothing else save these two or three Fathers left of the century, and
although we do not know whether their writings were applauded, or were
even widely known. "It were to be wished that people should speak less
affirmatively, especially on particular points and remote consequences,
and that they should only attribute them directly to those in whose
writings they are actually to be found. I confess that the history of
the sentiments of antiquity would not seem so complete, and that it
would be necessary to speak in terms of doubt much more often than is
common; but by acting otherwise we expose ourselves to the danger of
taking false and uncertain conjectures for ascertained and
unquestionable truths. The ordinary man of letters does not readily put
up with suspensive expressions, any more than common people do so." All
this is an odd digression to be found under the head of Hylopathianism,
but it must always remain wholesome doctrine.

We cannot wonder at Diderot's admiration for Montaigne and for Bayle,
who, with Hume, would make the great trinity of scepticism. "The work of
Montaigne," said Diderot, "is the touchstone of a good intelligence; you
may be sure that any one whom the reading of Montaigne displeases has
some vice either of heart or understanding. As for Bayle, he has had few
equals in the art of reasoning, and perhaps no superior; and though he
piles doubt upon doubt, he always proceeds with order; an article of his
is a living polypus, which divides itself into a number of polypuses,
all living, engendered one from the other."[177] Yet Diderot had a
feeling of the necessity of advancing beyond the attitude of Bayle and
Montaigne. Intellectual suspense and doubt was made difficult to him by
his vehement and positive demand for emotional certainties.

Diderot is always ready to fling away his proper subject in a burst of
moralising. The article on _Man_, as a branch of natural history,
contains a correct if a rather superficial account of that curiou