Their immense confusion Constant insinuation of sound doctrines And of practical suggestions Diderot not always above literary trifling No taste for barren erudition On Montaigne and Bayle Occasional bursts of moralising Varying attitude as to theology The practical arts Second-hand sources Inconsistencies Treatment of metaphysics On Spinosa On Leibnitz On Liberty Astonishing self-contradiction Political articles On the mechanism of government Anticipation of Cobdenic ideas Conclusion CHAPTER VI. SOCIAL LIFE (1759-1770). Diderot's relations with Madame Voland His letters to her His Regrets on My Old Dressing-gown Domestic discomfort His indomitable industry Life at Grandval Meditations on human existence Interest in the casuistry of human feeling Various sayings A point in rhetoric Holbach's impressions of England Two cases of conscience A story of human wickedness Method and Genius: an Apologue Conversation Annihilation Characteristic of the century Diderot's inexhaustible friendliness The Abbe Monnier Mademoiselle Jodin Landois Rousseau Grimm Diderot's money affairs Succour rendered by Catherine of Russia French booksellers in the eighteenth century Dialogue between Diderot and D'Alembert English opinion on Diderot's circle CHAPTER VII. THE STAGE. In what sense Diderot the greatest genius of the century Mark of his theory of the drama Diderot's influence on Lessing His play, _The Natural Son_ (1757) Its quality illustrated His sense of the importance of pantomime The dialogues appended to _The Natural Son_ His second play, _The Father of the Family_ (1758) One radical error of his dramatic doctrine Modest opinion of his own experiments His admiration for Terence Diderot translates Moore's _Gamester_ On Shakespeare The Paradox on the Player Account of Garrick On the truth of the stage His condemnation of the French classic stage The foundations of dramatic art Diderot claims to have created a new kind of drama No Diderotian school Why the Encyclopaedists could not replace the classic drama The great drama of the eighteenth century CHAPTER VIII. "RAMEAU'S NEPHEW."