자료: Google books
제목 Preliminary discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot
저자 Jean Le Rond d' Alembert, Richard N. Schwab, Walter E. Rex
번역자 Richard N. Schwab
에디션 일러스트
발행인 University of Chicago Press, 1995
***
Introduction
Of all the shorter works of the 18th-century ^philosophes^, the ^Preliminary Discourse^ to the Diderot's ^Encyclopedia^ is incomparably the best introduction to the French Enlightenment.[1] It ^is^ the Enlightenment insofar as one can make such a claim for any single work; with a notable economy and vigor it expresses the hopes, the dogmas, the assumptions, and the prejudices we have come to associate with the movement of the ^philosophes^. From the moment of its publication in 1751, many leaders of the Enlightenment recognized it as a masterful statement of their "philosophy," and even the men who were fearful of its implications acclaimed it for its lucidity and compactness. No less a judge than the great Montesquieu complimented d'Alembert on his work in the most flattering terms: "You have given me pleasure. I have read and reread your ^Preliminary Discourse^. It has strength, it has charm, it has precision; richer in thoughts than in words, likewise rich in sentiment--and my praises might go on."[2] Frederick the Great ranked it above his grandest military accomplishments: "Many men have won battles and conquered provinces," he wrote, "but few have written a work as perfect as the preface to the ^Encyclopedia^."[3] Toward the end of the century Condorcet eloquently summed up the judgment of the work shared by a substantial proportion of his fellow ^philosophes^: "The union of a vast extent of knowlege, that manner of viewing the sciences which belongs only to a man of genius, a clear, noble, and energetic style, having all the severity which the subject demands and all the pungency that it permits, have placed the ^Preliminary Discourse^ of the ^Encyclopedia^ in the number of invaluable works which two or three at the most in each century are in a position to execute."[4] Ever since the 18th century the ^Discourse^ has been cited repeatedly as the most representative work of its age.[5]
Indeed, the ^Preliminary Discourse^ could be regarded as the manifesto of the French Enlightenment, at least in the retrospective view of the historian. To be sure, it was not designed to be a pronouncement heralding or justifying revolutionary political action as were the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the ^Communist Manifesto^, but it expressed the spirit of an intellectual and emotional revolution going on in the 18th century that in one way or another lay in the background of each of these. It breathed a confidence that man, through his own intelligent efforts, could transform the conditions of human life and that the beginning of that revolution could already be seen in the sciences and arts.
Compared with anything that had preceded it, the ^Discourse^ was unique. We have seeb its likes since, but one looks in vain throughout previous history for a declaration of principles that representedm as this one did, the views of a party of men of letters who were convinced that through their combined efforts they could substantially contribute to the progress of humanity. Francis Bacon(1561-1626) dreamed of the co-operation of scholars for the advancement of learning, but he had no grounds for hoping that his schemes might soon revolutionize society. His ^New Atlantis^ was a distant utopia. Descartes(1596-1650) wrote as a courageous, lone individual, seeking truth through the powers of his isolated intelligence, although he of course understood that the advance of knowledge depended on the mutual efforts of scholars. He spoke for himself in the ^Discourse on Method^, and not for a groupd of men of letters. The scholarly societies of the 17th and early 18th centuries, while hoping to contribute to material progress, were concerned primarily with the erudite and professional activities of closeted savants and did not dream of transforming the conditions of the world in a fundamental way.
However, by the end of the 17th century, the members of the European international republic of letters were developing an awareness that cumulatively they were a force in the world, and this birth of a self-conscious sense of power among the literati proved to be one of the revolutionary events of modern times. For the first time large numbers of people were coming to the bracing conclusion that the progress of humanity could be carried forward indefinitely in this world, and men of letters felt they were the prime movers of that progress. Rather than isolating themselves in their closets, certain scholars and writers conceived of themselves as being very much involved in the affairs of the world and believed that their intellectual activity, if it contributed to the progress of knowledge, inevitably served a social function. A capital feature of the great ^Encyclopedia^ of Diderot, for which the ^Preliminary Discourse^ was the introduction, was that it became the principal expression of the solidarity and power of that group of energetic and articulate men of letters in France.
As the focal point of the Frech Enlightenment, the encyclopedic project marked a critical step in the process by which intellectual forces and an ever more influential portion of the French public combined in demanding reform. We now view the ^Encyclopedia^ more as a major historical event than as an original contribution to any of the branches of knowledge. Its publication precipitated a prolonged controversy that clarified the positions of various amorphous factions in the intellectual and emotional world of the 18th century and squarely confronted them with one another. Those who ranged themselves on the side of the encyclopedists in effect formed a party, or the rudiments of one, which served as the spiritual predecessor for groups of reformers who were to preside in large measure over the transformation of the conditions of life in France and throughout the western world during the next generation. Thus, as the most perfect expression of the principles of the encyclopedists and their sympathizers, the ^Preliminary Discourse^ can be singled out by the historian as the manifesto of the Enlightenment in a fuller sense, perhaps, than d'Alembert or his colleagues might originally have intended to be.
The Background of the ^Discourse^
The ^Preliminary Discourse^ was the work of a young scholar, in association with other men of letters who were not quite angry but filled with an iconoclastic gusto and a confident dedication to what they felt were great and progressive ideas. Their engaing characters, their colorful and earthy eccentricities growing from an 18th-century atmosphere especially conductive to individualit and originality, give a special appeal to the study of that era. The 20th-century reader is surprised by the degree of compactness and intimacy of the lively universe that existed in Europe just before the vast mushrooming of population during the past two centuries. A very large perventage of the men of letters knew one other. The most able of them in France easily gravitated together in Paris. Thus it was possible that in the second half of the 1740's the possessors of perhaps the four best young minds in the realm knew one another and perhaps on occasion even argued, jested, and ponticated around the same table. These were Diderot, the Genevan Rousseau, Condillac, and d'Alembert, Rousseay recalled episodes of their early association during the years before 1750 in his ^Confessions^. Diderot, he wrote, became his intimate friend, with whom he had practically daily contact.
I had also begun to see a great deal of the abbé de Condillac who was, like myself, of no consequence in the literary world, but was destined to become what he is at the present day. I was perhaps the first who recognized his ability and saw his true worth. He seemed likewise to take pleasure in my company, and, while I was shut up in my room in the rue Jean-Saint-Denis, near Opéra, ... he would sometimes come to eat his supper informally along with me, just two of us. He was then working on his ^Essay Concerning the Origin of Human Knowledge^[1746], his first work. When it was completed the problem was to find a publisher willing to accept it. Paris publishers are always arrogant and harsh toward someone who is just beginning, and metaphysics, which was not very fashionable then, hardly seemed an enticing subject. I spoke to Diderot of Condillac and his work and introduced them to one another. They were made to suit each other, and so they did. Diderot induced Durand[6] the publisher to accept the abbé manuscript, and for his first book this great metaphysician earned--and that almost as a favor--a hundred ^livres^, which he might not have received without me. As we lived in quarters that were widely separated, all three of us met once a week at the Palais-Royal, and we dined together at the hotel du Panier Fleuri. These little weekly dinners must have been very much to Diderot's liking, for he, who nearly always failed to keep his appointment, never missed one of them. There I drew up the plan of a periodical called ^Le Persifleur^, to be written alternately by Diderot and myself. I sketched out the first number, and this brought about my acquaintance with d'Alembert, to who Diderot had spoken of it. Then unforeseen events got in our way, and this plan went no further.
These two authors had just undertaken the ^Dictionnarie Encyclopédique^, which at first was only intended to be a kind of translation of Chambers, somewhat like that of James' ^Dictionary of Medicine^, which Diderot had just finished. He wanted me to have some part in this second enterprise, and proposed that I should undertake the musical section of it. I consented, and executed it very hastily and poorly in the three months he had stipulated to me as well as all the others who were to collaborate in the work. But I was the only one who was ready at the prescribed time. I gave him my manuscript, of which I had had a fair copy made by one of M. de Faccueil's lackeys, named Dupont, who wrote very well, paying him tem ^livres^ out my own pocket, for which I have never been reimbursed. Diderot, on the part of the publishers, promised me some remuneration, a remuneration of which he have never spoken to me again--nor have I to him. [7]
At the time of the composition and publication of Diderot's ^Prospectus^ for the ^Encyclopedia^(1750) and of the ^Preliminery Discourse^(1751), these men, all in their thirties, were just beginning their careers. They belonged to the second generation of the ^philosophes^. The time came when they were lionized and wooed by the crowned heads of Europe and the influential in society as the foremost intellectual attractions of France; but these were their happiest days of relative obscurity.
Jean Le Rond d'Alembert(1717-1783), although he was the youngest of the four, was best known for some time because of his precocious scientific and mathematical genius. By the time he joined the encyclopedic group he had already begun to make the contributions in those fields that were to assure him a permanent and important place in the history of science. His origins were bizarre. He was the natural son of a soldier aristocrat, the chevalier Destouches, and Madame de Tencin, one of the most notorious and fascinating aristocratic women of the century. A renegade nun, she acquired a fortune as mistress to the powerful minister, Cardinal Dubois, and after a successful career of political scheming, she rounded out her life by establishing a salon which attracted the most brillant writers and philosophers of France. It is reported that d'Alembert was not the first of the inconvenient offsrpring she abandoned. In any case, he was found shortly after his birth on the steps of the Parisian church of Saint-Jean-Lerond. He was raied by a humble nurse, Madame Rousseau, whom he treated as his mother and with whom he lived until long after he achieved international fame. His father, the chevalier Destouches, was able to keep track of the boy and provided him with sufficient means for his schooling. While d'Alembert was yet a child he showed extraordinary promise which matured into genius. For a number of years the young scholar abandoned himself entirely to his passion for the physico-mathematical sciences and, largely without formal training, he succeeded in mastering these fields. At the age of twenty-six he published his ^Treatise on Dynamics^(1743), now considered a landmark in the history of Newtonian mechanics, and he continued to contribute significantly to mathematics, astronomy, and dynamics through the period of his greatest scientific productivity in the 1740's and early 1750's. During most of his life he was in intimate contact with the eminent scientists of his day through this correspondence, and as a member of the most distinguished scientific societies of Europe.
D'Alembert's gay and lively character, which shines forth in the famous smiling pastel of him by La Tour in 1753, his enthusiasm, and his brilliance won him the friednship of Diderot and several other excellent Parisian men of letters in the 1740's. At the same time he charmed his way into the center of the powerful salon of Madame du Deffand, who became his intimate friend and protectress. The publication of the ^Preliminary Discourse^ brought hime out of his obscurity as a poverty-stricken mathematician and launched him, in the public mind, as a ^philosophe^. He began to be considered a spokesman for the philosophic party, a role which he adopted with great gusto. Endowed with an inquiring and facile intelligence, he easily assimilated the most exciting ideas of the time. His collected works included essays on a remarkable range of subjects. Along with Diderot and Rousseau, he was fascinated by the musical theories of Rameau, as will be seen in the ^Discourse^. HIs ^Eléments de musique^(1752), based on the principles of Rameau, was an influential work throughout Europe, and has caused music historians to rate him as one of the leading music critics of his century.[8] A combination of virtuosity, ambition, agressiveness, and personal charm eventually won him a most honored position in the intellectual community of Europe. Among other rewards, it brought him the lasting friendship of both Voltaire and Frederick the Great, who engaged with him in a rich correspondence which lasted from 1750's throughout the remainder of their lives. ... By the time he joined Diderot as an encyclopedist he was deeply involved in the active and inventive world of the French Academy of Sciences, and that connection was a valuable asset for the encyclopedic project. His entry into the Académie Française in 1754 marked a major victory for the encyclopedic party. Eventually he became the perpetual secretary of that academy, where he followed the tradition of composing eulogies that had been established by Fontenelle when he was secretary of the Academy of Sciences.
The Background of the ^Discourse^
The ^Preliminary Discourse^ was the work of a young scholar, in association with other men of letters who were not quite angry but filled with an iconoclastic gusto and a confident dedication to what they felt were great and progressive ideas. Their engaing characters, their colorful and earthy eccentricities growing from an 18th-century atmosphere especially conductive to individualit and originality, give a special appeal to the study of that era. The 20th-century reader is surprised by the degree of compactness and intimacy of the lively universe that existed in Europe just before the vast mushrooming of population during the past two centuries. A very large perventage of the men of letters knew one other. The most able of them in France easily gravitated together in Paris. Thus it was possible that in the second half of the 1740's the possessors of perhaps the four best young minds in the realm knew one another and perhaps on occasion even argued, jested, and ponticated around the same table. These were Diderot, the Genevan Rousseau, Condillac, and d'Alembert, Rousseay recalled episodes of their early association during the years before 1750 in his ^Confessions^. Diderot, he wrote, became his intimate friend, with whom he had practically daily contact.
I had also begun to see a great deal of the abbé de Condillac who was, like myself, of no consequence in the literary world, but was destined to become what he is at the present day. I was perhaps the first who recognized his ability and saw his true worth. He seemed likewise to take pleasure in my company, and, while I was shut up in my room in the rue Jean-Saint-Denis, near Opéra, ... he would sometimes come to eat his supper informally along with me, just two of us. He was then working on his ^Essay Concerning the Origin of Human Knowledge^[1746], his first work. When it was completed the problem was to find a publisher willing to accept it. Paris publishers are always arrogant and harsh toward someone who is just beginning, and metaphysics, which was not very fashionable then, hardly seemed an enticing subject. I spoke to Diderot of Condillac and his work and introduced them to one another. They were made to suit each other, and so they did. Diderot induced Durand[6] the publisher to accept the abbé manuscript, and for his first book this great metaphysician earned--and that almost as a favor--a hundred ^livres^, which he might not have received without me. As we lived in quarters that were widely separated, all three of us met once a week at the Palais-Royal, and we dined together at the hotel du Panier Fleuri. These little weekly dinners must have been very much to Diderot's liking, for he, who nearly always failed to keep his appointment, never missed one of them. There I drew up the plan of a periodical called ^Le Persifleur^, to be written alternately by Diderot and myself. I sketched out the first number, and this brought about my acquaintance with d'Alembert, to who Diderot had spoken of it. Then unforeseen events got in our way, and this plan went no further.
These two authors had just undertaken the ^Dictionnarie Encyclopédique^, which at first was only intended to be a kind of translation of Chambers, somewhat like that of James' ^Dictionary of Medicine^, which Diderot had just finished. He wanted me to have some part in this second enterprise, and proposed that I should undertake the musical section of it. I consented, and executed it very hastily and poorly in the three months he had stipulated to me as well as all the others who were to collaborate in the work. But I was the only one who was ready at the prescribed time. I gave him my manuscript, of which I had had a fair copy made by one of M. de Faccueil's lackeys, named Dupont, who wrote very well, paying him tem ^livres^ out my own pocket, for which I have never been reimbursed. Diderot, on the part of the publishers, promised me some remuneration, a remuneration of which he have never spoken to me again--nor have I to him. [7]
At the time of the composition and publication of Diderot's ^Prospectus^ for the ^Encyclopedia^(1750) and of the ^Preliminery Discourse^(1751), these men, all in their thirties, were just beginning their careers. They belonged to the second generation of the ^philosophes^. The time came when they were lionized and wooed by the crowned heads of Europe and the influential in society as the foremost intellectual attractions of France; but these were their happiest days of relative obscurity.
Jean Le Rond d'Alembert(1717-1783), although he was the youngest of the four, was best known for some time because of his precocious scientific and mathematical genius. By the time he joined the encyclopedic group he had already begun to make the contributions in those fields that were to assure him a permanent and important place in the history of science. His origins were bizarre. He was the natural son of a soldier aristocrat, the chevalier Destouches, and Madame de Tencin, one of the most notorious and fascinating aristocratic women of the century. A renegade nun, she acquired a fortune as mistress to the powerful minister, Cardinal Dubois, and after a successful career of political scheming, she rounded out her life by establishing a salon which attracted the most brillant writers and philosophers of France. It is reported that d'Alembert was not the first of the inconvenient offsrpring she abandoned. In any case, he was found shortly after his birth on the steps of the Parisian church of Saint-Jean-Lerond. He was raied by a humble nurse, Madame Rousseau, whom he treated as his mother and with whom he lived until long after he achieved international fame. His father, the chevalier Destouches, was able to keep track of the boy and provided him with sufficient means for his schooling. While d'Alembert was yet a child he showed extraordinary promise which matured into genius. For a number of years the young scholar abandoned himself entirely to his passion for the physico-mathematical sciences and, largely without formal training, he succeeded in mastering these fields. At the age of twenty-six he published his ^Treatise on Dynamics^(1743), now considered a landmark in the history of Newtonian mechanics, and he continued to contribute significantly to mathematics, astronomy, and dynamics through the period of his greatest scientific productivity in the 1740's and early 1750's. During most of his life he was in intimate contact with the eminent scientists of his day through this correspondence, and as a member of the most distinguished scientific societies of Europe.
D'Alembert's gay and lively character, which shines forth in the famous smiling pastel of him by La Tour in 1753, his enthusiasm, and his brilliance won him the friednship of Diderot and several other excellent Parisian men of letters in the 1740's. At the same time he charmed his way into the center of the powerful salon of Madame du Deffand, who became his intimate friend and protectress. The publication of the ^Preliminary Discourse^ brought hime out of his obscurity as a poverty-stricken mathematician and launched him, in the public mind, as a ^philosophe^. He began to be considered a spokesman for the philosophic party, a role which he adopted with great gusto. Endowed with an inquiring and facile intelligence, he easily assimilated the most exciting ideas of the time. His collected works included essays on a remarkable range of subjects. Along with Diderot and Rousseau, he was fascinated by the musical theories of Rameau, as will be seen in the ^Discourse^. HIs ^Eléments de musique^(1752), based on the principles of Rameau, was an influential work throughout Europe, and has caused music historians to rate him as one of the leading music critics of his century.[8] A combination of virtuosity, ambition, agressiveness, and personal charm eventually won him a most honored position in the intellectual community of Europe. Among other rewards, it brought him the lasting friendship of both Voltaire and Frederick the Great, who engaged with him in a rich correspondence which lasted from 1750's throughout the remainder of their lives. ... By the time he joined Diderot as an encyclopedist he was deeply involved in the active and inventive world of the French Academy of Sciences, and that connection was a valuable asset for the encyclopedic project. His entry into the Académie Française in 1754 marked a major victory for the encyclopedic party. Eventually he became the perpetual secretary of that academy, where he followed the tradition of composing eulogies that had been established by Fontenelle when he was secretary of the Academy of Sciences.
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