Note 259 — Chapter XVII · FRENCH FREETHOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Mallet du Pan grounds his charge against Diderot almost solely on “those incendiary diatribes intercalated in the Histoire philosophique des deux Indes which dishonour that work, and which Raynal, in his latter days, excised with horror from a new edition which he was preparing.” But supposing the passages in question to be all Diderot’s259—which is far from certain—they are to be saddled with responsibility for the Reign of Terror only on the principle that it was more provocative in the days of tyranny to denounce than to exercise it. To this complexion Mallet du Pan came, with the anti-Revolutionists in general; but to-day we can recognize in the whole process of reasoning a reductio ad absurdum. The school in question came in all seriousness to ascribe the evils of the Revolution to everything and everybody save the men and classes whose misgovernment made the Revolution inevitable.