Denis Diderot

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Denis Diderot Excerpts Abstinence of the Pythagoreans The Pythagoreans ate neither meat nor fish, or at least those of them who professed great perfection, and who prided themselves on having reached the ultimate degree of their Master’s theory. This abstinence from everything that has had life was the consequence of metempsychosis; but what was the origin of Pythagoras’ aversion for a large number of other kinds of food, for broad beans, asphodel, wine, etc.? We can understand abstinence from eggs, since they will one day hatch into chickens; but why did he imagine that asphodel was a sacred herb, folium sanctissimum ? Those who have Pythagoras’ honor at heart have explained all these things, showing that Pythagoras was quite right to eat cabbage and to abstain from broad beans. But with all due respect to Diogenes Laertius, Eustathius, Aelian, Iamblichus, Athenaeus, etc. we can only see, in all this part of his philosophy, superstition or ignorance: superstition, if he believed that the broad bean was protected by the gods, and ignorance, if he believed that asphodel had something in it that was bad for the health. But one must not consider Pythagoras the less for all that: his system of metempsychosis can only be unrightfully dismissed by those who do not have enough philosophy to understand the reasons why it was suggested to him, or rightfully by Christians to whom God has revealed the immortality of the soul and our future existence in another life." Jacques the Fatalist “There comes a moment when nearly all young girls and young boys become melancholic. They are disturbed by a vague uneasiness which extends to everything and can find no consolation. They look for solitude. They weep. The silence of the cloister moves them and the image of peace which seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first movements of their developing emotions for the voice of God calling them and it is at the precise moment when nature is calling to them that they embrace a life which is contrary to the laws of nature.” […] “Tell me how it is that whoever wrote out the great scroll could have decreed that such would be the reward of a noble act? Why should I, who am merely a miserable compound of faults, take your defence while He calmly watched you being attacked, knocked down, manhandled and trampled underfoot, He who is supposed to be the embodiment of all perfection?” […] “As I listened to him describing the scene of the procurer seducing the young girl, I found myself torn between two conflicting emotions, between a powerful desire to laugh and an overwhelming surge of indignation. I was in agony. Again and again a roar of laughter prevented my rage bursting forth; again and again the rage rising in my heart became a roar of laughter. I was dumbfounded by such shrewdness and such depravity; by such soundness of ideas alternating with such falseness; by so general a perversity of feeling, so total a corruption, and so exceptional a candour. He saw how agitated I was. 'What's the matter?' he asked. ME: Nothing. HIM: I think you're upset. ME: Indeed I am. HIM: So what do you think I should do? ME: Talk about something else. What a wretched fate, to have been born and to have fallen so low! HIM: I agree. But don't let my state affect you too much. In opening my heart to you, it was not my intention to upset you. I've managed to save a little, while I was with those people. Remember I wanted for nothing, nothing whatsoever, and they also made me a small allowance for incidentals. [Here he began to strike himself on the forehead with his fist, bite his lips, and roll his eyes like a lunatic, then he said:] What's done is done. I've put a bit aside. Time's passed, so I'm that much to the good. ME: You mean to the bad. HIM: No, to the good. Live one day less, or have a day more, it's all the same. The important thing is to open your bowels easily, freely, enjoyably, copiously, every evening; 'o stercus pretiosum!' That's the grand outcome of life in every condition. At the final moment, we're all equally rich - Samuel Bernard who by dint of theft, pillage, and bankruptcy leaves twenty-seven millions in gold, and Rameau who'll leave nothing, Rameau for whom charity will provide the winding-sheet to wrap him in.

Denis Diderot

Excerpts

Abstinence of the Pythagoreans

The Pythagoreans ate neither meat nor fish, or at least those of them who professed great perfection, and who prided themselves on having reached the ultimate degree of their Master’s theory. This abstinence from everything that has had life was the consequence of metempsychosis; but what was the origin of Pythagoras’ aversion for a large number of other kinds of food, for broad beans, asphodel, wine, etc.? We can understand abstinence from eggs, since they will one day hatch into chickens; but why did he imagine that asphodel was a sacred herb, folium sanctissimum ? Those who have Pythagoras’ honor at heart have explained all these things, showing that Pythagoras was quite right to eat cabbage and to abstain from broad beans. But with all due respect to Diogenes Laertius, Eustathius, Aelian, Iamblichus, Athenaeus, etc. we can only see, in all this part of his philosophy, superstition or ignorance: superstition, if he believed that the broad bean was protected by the gods, and ignorance, if he believed that asphodel had something in it that was bad for the health. But one must not consider Pythagoras the less for all that: his system of metempsychosis can only be unrightfully dismissed by those who do not have enough philosophy to understand the reasons why it was suggested to him, or rightfully by Christians to whom God has revealed the immortality of the soul and our future existence in another life."

Jacques the Fatalist

“There comes a moment when nearly all young girls and young boys become melancholic. They are disturbed by a vague uneasiness which extends to everything and can find no consolation. They look for solitude. They weep. The silence of the cloister moves them and the image of peace which seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first movements of their developing emotions for the voice of God calling them and it is at the precise moment when nature is calling to them that they embrace a life which is contrary to the laws of nature.”

[…] “Tell me how it is that whoever wrote out the great scroll could have decreed that such would be the reward of a noble act? Why should I, who am merely a miserable compound of faults, take your defence while He calmly watched you being attacked, knocked down, manhandled and trampled underfoot, He who is supposed to be the embodiment of all perfection?”

[…] “As I listened to him describing the scene of the procurer seducing the young girl, I found myself torn between two conflicting emotions, between a powerful desire to laugh and an overwhelming surge of indignation. I was in agony. Again and again a roar of laughter prevented my rage bursting forth; again and again the rage rising in my heart became a roar of laughter. I was dumbfounded by such shrewdness and such depravity; by such soundness of ideas alternating with such falseness; by so general a perversity of feeling, so total a corruption, and so exceptional a candour. He saw how agitated I was. 'What's the matter?' he asked.
ME: Nothing.
HIM: I think you're upset.
ME: Indeed I am.
HIM: So what do you think I should do?
ME: Talk about something else. What a wretched fate, to have been born and to have fallen so low!
HIM: I agree. But don't let my state affect you too much. In opening my heart to you, it was not my intention to upset you. I've managed to save a little, while I was with those people. Remember I wanted for nothing, nothing whatsoever, and they also made me a small allowance for incidentals. [Here he began to strike himself on the forehead with his fist, bite his lips, and roll his eyes like a lunatic, then he said:] What's done is done. I've put a bit aside. Time's passed, so I'm that much to the good.
ME: You mean to the bad.
HIM: No, to the good. Live one day less, or have a day more, it's all the same. The important thing is to open your bowels easily, freely, enjoyably, copiously, every evening; 'o stercus pretiosum!' That's the grand outcome of life in every condition. At the final moment, we're all equally rich - Samuel Bernard who by dint of theft, pillage, and bankruptcy leaves twenty-seven millions in gold, and Rameau who'll leave nothing, Rameau for whom charity will provide the winding-sheet to wrap him in.

Denis Diderot Excerpts

Abstinence of the Pythagoreans

Jacques the Fatalist

Denis Diderot

Excerpts