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Updated: June 3, 2025
Among the éloges by Bailly, there is one, that of the Abbé de Lacaille, which not having been written for a literary academy, shows no longer any trace of inflation or declamation, and might, it seems to me, compete with some of the best éloges by Condorcet. Yet, it is curious, that this excellent biography contributed, perhaps as much as D'Alembert's opposition, to make Bailly's claims fail.
It must be admitted that no consistent and definite language is adhered to from beginning to end. D'Alembert's prophecy that time would disclose to people what the writers really thought, behind what fear of the censorship compelled them to say, is only partially fulfilled.
Bacon, Descartes and Locke made their way extremely slowly and only after a long time; as the reader may see by d'Alembert's celebrated Preface to the Encyclopedia. Newton was not more successful; and this is sufficiently proved by the bitterness and contempt with which Leibnitz attacked his theory of gravitation in the controversy with Clarke.
D'Alembert's advice to the student who complained to him about his want of success in mastering the first elements of mathematics was the right one "Go on, sir, and faith and strength will come to you." The danseuse who turns a pirouette, the violinist who plays a sonata, have acquired their dexterity by patient repetition and after many failures.
Here for instance is D'Alembert's story: "The necessity of shielding our own body from pain and destruction leads us to examine among external objects those which are useful and those which are hurtful, so that we may seek the one and flee the others.
It is to be said that even in these bad days when religion meant cruelty and cabal, the one or two men who boldly withstood to the face the king and the Pompadour for the vileness of their lives, were priests of the church. D'Alembert's article hardly goes beyond what to us seem the axioms of all men of sense. We must remember the time.
"No," said Diderot in a reply of pathetic energy; "to abandon the work is turning our back upon the breach, and to do precisely what the villains who persecute us desire. If you knew with what joy they have learnt D'Alembert's desertion! It is not for us to wait until the government have punished the brigands to whom they have given us up.
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