WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.580 Okay, so if I asked you to picture the ultimate 00:00:03.580 --> 00:00:06.480 intellectual from the 18th century, the absolute 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:09.119 peak of the French Enlightenment, what comes 00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:11.560 to mind? You're probably thinking of some very 00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:14.699 serious man, right? Powdered wig, big mahogany 00:00:14.699 --> 00:00:17.980 library. Totally. Writing these incredibly dense 00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:20.820 books on geometry or something. And to be fair, 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:23.300 there were a lot of those guys. There were. But 00:00:23.300 --> 00:00:25.019 the man we're talking about today, he breaks 00:00:25.019 --> 00:00:29.800 that mold so completely, it's almost disorienting. 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:31.920 It really is. I mean, we are talking about the 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:35.439 man who basically tried to back up the Internet 00:00:35.439 --> 00:00:39.920 onto paper in 1700. Exactly. And he's often remembered, 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:42.719 you know, in history class is this dry, stuffy 00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:45.479 encyclopedist. But in reality, he was a bohemian 00:00:45.479 --> 00:00:47.780 rebel, a prisoner. And this is the best part. 00:00:47.859 --> 00:00:50.659 He wrote a bestselling novel about talking jewelry. 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:53.280 We are 100 percent going to get to the talking 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:55.140 jewelry, because when I first read that in the 00:00:55.140 --> 00:00:58.159 sources, I was sure it was a typo. We're talking, 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:00.159 of course, about Dennis Diderot. And I think 00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:02.000 for a lot of people, and I'll include myself 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.500 here before this dive, Diderot is just another 00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:06.859 name on the list. You know, you get Voltaire, 00:01:06.859 --> 00:01:09.400 you get Rousseau, and Diderot's just kind of 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:11.299 stuck in the middle. Right. But the more you 00:01:11.299 --> 00:01:13.420 look into it, the more you realize he wasn't 00:01:13.420 --> 00:01:15.579 just on the list. He was the guy who built the 00:01:15.579 --> 00:01:17.900 list. He was the engine room. That's a great 00:01:17.900 --> 00:01:20.099 way to put it, the engine room. It's the perfect 00:01:20.099 --> 00:01:22.719 analogy, I think. If you imagine the Enlightenment 00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:25.760 as a band, Voltaire is the lead singer. He's 00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:28.420 charismatic. He's famous. He's playing to the 00:01:28.420 --> 00:01:31.260 crowd. And Rousseau is the moody songwriter. 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:34.299 The tortured artist, exactly. But Diderot, Diderot 00:01:34.299 --> 00:01:36.420 was the producer. He was the one in the studio 00:01:36.420 --> 00:01:39.180 connecting the instruments, mixing the sound, 00:01:39.340 --> 00:01:41.640 making sure the entire thing didn't just fall 00:01:41.640 --> 00:01:44.680 apart. He was connecting art and science and 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:47.689 philosophy and industry in a way that... Well, 00:01:47.829 --> 00:01:49.829 it had never been done before. But his life was 00:01:49.829 --> 00:01:52.290 so volatile, it wasn't like a quiet, behind -the 00:01:52.290 --> 00:01:55.090 -scenes job. This is a guy who was disowned by 00:01:55.090 --> 00:01:57.709 his own father, who was putting together this 00:01:57.709 --> 00:02:01.829 massive encyclopedia while basically dodging 00:02:01.829 --> 00:02:04.810 the 18th century version of the FBI. And he had 00:02:04.810 --> 00:02:07.150 to hide his best work, just shove it in a drawer 00:02:07.150 --> 00:02:09.430 for his entire life. Which is really our mission 00:02:09.430 --> 00:02:11.169 for this deep dive, isn't it? We want to figure 00:02:11.169 --> 00:02:13.770 out how one man tried to compile all of human 00:02:13.770 --> 00:02:16.770 knowledge. and why he had to live this strange 00:02:16.770 --> 00:02:22.719 double life as a public intellectual and uh a 00:02:22.719 --> 00:02:24.759 secret radical and and this is the part that 00:02:24.759 --> 00:02:27.840 just blew my mind how he somehow predicted evolutionary 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:31.460 theory a full century before charles darwin it's 00:02:31.460 --> 00:02:34.060 an incredible story so let's set the scene a 00:02:34.060 --> 00:02:36.580 little bit we're in 18th century france the age 00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:39.800 of enlightenment the age of reason but i want 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:42.379 to kind of push back on that reason label was 00:02:42.379 --> 00:02:44.460 it really that reasonable what was the actual 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:46.680 vibe the vibe was more like a battlefield honestly 00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:50.599 it was less a vibe and more just Extreme tension. 00:02:50.740 --> 00:02:53.740 You've got these two massive tectonic plates 00:02:53.740 --> 00:02:56.759 grinding against each other. On one side, you 00:02:56.759 --> 00:02:59.520 have the absolute unquestionable authority of 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:01.520 the king and the Catholic Church. They control 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:03.439 everything, the press, the schools, the prisons, 00:03:03.639 --> 00:03:06.319 everything. And on the other side. You have this 00:03:06.319 --> 00:03:09.659 new rising tide of scientific skepticism. People 00:03:09.659 --> 00:03:11.400 are starting to say, hey, don't just tell me 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:13.099 what the Bible says about the stars. Let me, 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:14.900 you know, actually look through this telescope 00:03:14.900 --> 00:03:17.240 and see for myself. So it's a conflict between 00:03:17.240 --> 00:03:20.939 dogma and direct observation. Exactly. And Denise 00:03:20.939 --> 00:03:22.979 Diderot is born right into the middle of this 00:03:22.979 --> 00:03:26.199 friction. And he didn't start out as some fancy 00:03:26.199 --> 00:03:29.180 philosopher. He's born in a town called Langres, 00:03:29.340 --> 00:03:32.659 and his dad was a master cutler. He made knives. 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:35.439 He made knives. Which feels really important, 00:03:35.639 --> 00:03:38.060 right? It does. He wasn't born into the aristocracy. 00:03:38.180 --> 00:03:40.360 He was born in a workshop. He came from a world 00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:43.840 of making things. Of tools and sharp edges. It's 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:45.840 crucial to who he becomes. He was brilliant, 00:03:45.879 --> 00:03:48.319 though. He was educated by the Jesuits, got his 00:03:48.319 --> 00:03:50.139 Master of Arts from the University of Paris in 00:03:50.139 --> 00:03:53.919 1732. But then he hits this classic crossroads. 00:03:54.060 --> 00:03:56.419 The family expectations. Exactly. His father, 00:03:56.539 --> 00:03:58.819 the knife maker, wants him to have a stable life. 00:03:59.159 --> 00:04:02.659 Go be a lawyer. or a priest. The classic get 00:04:02.659 --> 00:04:05.780 a real job speech. And I take it Diderot wasn't 00:04:05.780 --> 00:04:09.599 interested. He said no thank you. In 1734, he 00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:12.020 tells his dad he wants to be a writer. His father 00:04:12.020 --> 00:04:15.159 is absolutely furious, disowns him. Just like 00:04:15.159 --> 00:04:16.939 that, cuts him off. Cuts him off completely. 00:04:17.339 --> 00:04:20.720 So for the next 10 years, Diderot is living this. 00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:23.500 Well, the sources call it a bohemian existence 00:04:23.500 --> 00:04:26.160 in Paris. Which sounds romantic, but I'm guessing 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:28.980 it was mostly just being poor. It was. The images 00:04:28.980 --> 00:04:32.199 of him wandering around, broke, wearing a worn 00:04:32.199 --> 00:04:34.620 -out coat, drinking coffee at the Café de la 00:04:34.620 --> 00:04:37.199 Régence, watching other people play chess because 00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:38.920 he couldn't afford to play. And this is when 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:41.279 he meets Jean -Jacques Rousseau. It is. They're 00:04:41.279 --> 00:04:44.439 these two young, hungry outsiders together, the 00:04:44.439 --> 00:04:47.060 bad boys of the intellectual scene. But Diderot 00:04:47.060 --> 00:04:49.259 has a problem that philosophy can't really solve. 00:04:49.560 --> 00:04:52.300 Rent. Rent. And he's complicated his life in 00:04:52.300 --> 00:04:55.600 a big way. In 1743, he marries a woman named 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:57.819 Antoinette Champion. And his father hated her 00:04:57.819 --> 00:05:00.139 too, right? Oh, passionately. She was a devout 00:05:00.139 --> 00:05:02.920 Catholic, she was uneducated, and she had no 00:05:02.920 --> 00:05:05.699 dowry. From his father's perspective, it was 00:05:05.699 --> 00:05:08.120 a disaster of a match. So the marriage was strained 00:05:08.120 --> 00:05:10.300 from the start. Let's just say Diderot wasn't 00:05:10.300 --> 00:05:12.199 exactly a faithful husband. The sources are pretty 00:05:12.199 --> 00:05:15.019 clear on that. So he's got a wife, a child, and 00:05:15.019 --> 00:05:17.620 as the reading points out, a very demanding mistress, 00:05:17.899 --> 00:05:20.740 Madeleine de Pouzieux. The pressure must have 00:05:20.740 --> 00:05:23.379 been immense. Massive financial pressure. Yep. 00:05:23.420 --> 00:05:25.899 Which brings us to probably the weirdest origin 00:05:25.899 --> 00:05:28.740 story for a major philosophical work I have ever 00:05:28.740 --> 00:05:32.779 heard. He didn't write his first hit to enlighten 00:05:32.779 --> 00:05:35.139 the world. He wrote it for the money. He did. 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:38.500 The story goes, he told his mistress that writing 00:05:38.500 --> 00:05:41.300 a novel was trivial, that it was easy. And she 00:05:41.300 --> 00:05:43.899 basically said, oh yeah, prove it. So he does. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:47.139 In 1748, he cranks out this book, Les Bijoux 00:05:47.139 --> 00:05:50.420 Indiscrets. The Indiscreet Jewels. Okay, we have 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:52.399 to unpack this plot. Yeah. Because the title 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:54.220 sounds like a mystery about a diamond heist or 00:05:54.220 --> 00:05:56.779 something. It is not. Jewels here is a very specific 00:05:56.779 --> 00:05:59.920 euphemism. A very specific one. Discreet Jewel 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:02.339 was 18th century slang for the vagina. Right. 00:06:02.439 --> 00:06:05.860 So the plot is, a sultan gets a magic ring, and 00:06:05.860 --> 00:06:08.720 when he points this ring at any woman... Jewel. 00:06:08.740 --> 00:06:10.980 Starts talking. It starts talking. It speaks. 00:06:11.439 --> 00:06:14.360 And it confesses all of the woman's sexual experiences, 00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:17.319 all her secrets. So on the surface, this is just 00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:21.100 straight up 18th century smut. It's scandalous. 00:06:21.100 --> 00:06:24.100 It's bawdy. Is that all it is? Is this just Diderot 00:06:24.100 --> 00:06:26.379 selling out to pay his bills? Or is there something 00:06:26.379 --> 00:06:28.980 deeper going on? That is the classic Diderot 00:06:28.980 --> 00:06:31.759 move. He can't help himself. Yes, it's a satire 00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:33.720 of the French court. The sultan is pretty clearly 00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:36.899 King Louis VIII. But underneath all the smut, 00:06:36.920 --> 00:06:39.759 he's sneaking in his real philosophy. Which is 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:42.519 what? Materialism. He's arguing that people aren't 00:06:42.519 --> 00:06:45.399 driven by these lofty morals or some immaterial 00:06:45.399 --> 00:06:48.220 soul. They're driven by their biology. by their 00:06:48.220 --> 00:06:50.339 physical urges. The sources mention a specific 00:06:50.339 --> 00:06:53.439 scene, a dream sequence. The Sultan sees a giant 00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:57.019 child named Experiment. Yes. This child, Experiment, 00:06:57.240 --> 00:06:59.639 is growing bigger and stronger, and eventually 00:06:59.639 --> 00:07:02.579 he just smashes this huge temple called Hypothesis. 00:07:02.660 --> 00:07:05.199 It's such a brilliant metaphor to hide in a sex 00:07:05.199 --> 00:07:07.879 comedy. Isn't it? He's saying that the scientific 00:07:07.879 --> 00:07:10.790 method... Actual experimentation, real observation, 00:07:11.009 --> 00:07:13.850 is going to crush the old dogmatic ways of thinking. 00:07:14.029 --> 00:07:16.430 The hypothesis, he's basically shouting, look 00:07:16.430 --> 00:07:18.430 at the real world, look at real bodies, don't 00:07:18.430 --> 00:07:20.310 just trust these abstract theories you've been 00:07:20.310 --> 00:07:23.009 fed. So he sells the scandal, but he's hiding 00:07:23.009 --> 00:07:25.649 the medicine inside it. And it worked, didn't 00:07:25.649 --> 00:07:27.889 it? It made him a lot of money. It was a huge 00:07:27.889 --> 00:07:31.050 underground bestseller. Yeah. But the authorities 00:07:31.050 --> 00:07:34.149 were watching. And they could, you know, tolerate 00:07:34.149 --> 00:07:36.949 a bit of smut. But they could not tolerate what 00:07:36.949 --> 00:07:41.120 he did next. The next year, 1749, he writes Letter 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:43.300 on the Blind. This feels like such a hard pivot. 00:07:43.459 --> 00:07:46.819 He goes from talking vaginas to this really serious 00:07:46.819 --> 00:07:49.620 philosophical treatise on blindness. Is there 00:07:49.620 --> 00:07:51.620 a connection? It looks like a pivot, but it's 00:07:51.620 --> 00:07:54.480 the same argument in a different costume. In 00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:56.759 the dirty novel, he argues that our bodies drive 00:07:56.759 --> 00:07:59.120 our behavior. In Letter on the Blind, he just 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:01.920 takes the concept of the soul completely out 00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:04.199 of the equation. How does he do that? He centers 00:08:04.199 --> 00:08:07.579 it on a real person. a blind English mathematician 00:08:07.579 --> 00:08:11.800 named Nicholas Sanderson. And Diderot asks a 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:14.740 very, very dangerous question. How does a blind 00:08:14.740 --> 00:08:17.379 man perceive God? And the standard answer at 00:08:17.379 --> 00:08:19.399 the time would have been the argument from design. 00:08:19.620 --> 00:08:21.699 Right, the watchmaker argument. You look at a 00:08:21.699 --> 00:08:23.560 flower, you look at a sunset, it's so complex, 00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:25.740 so beautiful, it must have had a divine creator. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:28.439 But Sanderson can't see the sunset. Exactly. 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:31.959 Diderot has Sanderson say, Basically, I can't 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:33.580 see this glorious sunset you're talking about. 00:08:33.620 --> 00:08:35.720 I can't see the glory of God written in the stars. 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:37.860 I only know the world through what I can touch. 00:08:38.419 --> 00:08:41.500 So he rejects the idea of a designed universe. 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:45.519 Instead, he argues for something he calls thinking 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:47.580 matter. And this is where it gets really radical. 00:08:47.700 --> 00:08:49.440 This is where the source material says he starts 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.039 predicting evolution. How specific does he get 00:08:52.039 --> 00:08:54.779 here? It's 1749. It is startlingly specific. 00:08:55.059 --> 00:08:57.480 Saunderson argues that nature isn't some perfect 00:08:57.480 --> 00:09:00.220 finished creation. He suggests that nature just 00:09:00.220 --> 00:09:03.960 turns out variations blindly. It just makes stuff. 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:05.840 And most of it doesn't work. Most of it is what 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:08.700 he calls monsters, biological failures that just 00:09:08.700 --> 00:09:11.539 die out immediately. And only the viable ones, 00:09:11.620 --> 00:09:13.620 the ones that are functional, survive and go 00:09:13.620 --> 00:09:15.960 on to reproduce. Wait a minute. So he's describing 00:09:15.960 --> 00:09:17.740 natural selection. He's effectively describing 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:20.100 natural selection, yes. He's suggesting that 00:09:20.100 --> 00:09:22.759 order arises from chaos over vast stretches of 00:09:22.759 --> 00:09:26.480 time, not from a divine blueprint. And in 1749, 00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:29.419 France... That is not a scientific theory. That's 00:09:29.419 --> 00:09:32.159 atheism. It's atheism. And atheism is sedition. 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:35.480 It's a crime against the state. So, okay, let 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:37.659 me push back on the heroic rebel thing for a 00:09:37.659 --> 00:09:41.100 second. Diderot has to know what he's doing here. 00:09:41.220 --> 00:09:44.580 He is publishing atheist arguments in a Catholic 00:09:44.580 --> 00:09:48.539 absolute monarchy. He's directly attacking the 00:09:48.539 --> 00:09:50.820 foundation of the state's power. Did he really 00:09:50.820 --> 00:09:52.700 think he was going to get away with it? That's 00:09:52.700 --> 00:09:55.019 a great question. I don't think he was naive. 00:09:55.580 --> 00:09:57.419 But he might have been a bit arrogant. I mean, 00:09:57.440 --> 00:09:59.679 you have to remember, Paris was flooded with 00:09:59.679 --> 00:10:02.840 underground literature. It was everywhere. Diderot 00:10:02.840 --> 00:10:05.000 probably thought he was just one more voice in 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:07.720 a huge, noisy crowd. He didn't realize he'd become 00:10:07.720 --> 00:10:10.059 the loudest voice. He'd become the loudest voice. 00:10:10.279 --> 00:10:14.410 And the crackdown was swift. Very swift. July 00:10:14.410 --> 00:10:17.350 1749, the police just kick down his door. They 00:10:17.350 --> 00:10:19.870 search his place, they confiscate his manuscripts, 00:10:20.009 --> 00:10:22.250 and they haul him off to the dungeon at Vincennes. 00:10:22.429 --> 00:10:24.370 And this is not house arrest. We're talking solitary 00:10:24.370 --> 00:10:26.519 confinement. Yeah, it's brutal. Total isolation. 00:10:26.639 --> 00:10:29.200 But this is where you get a real sense of his 00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:32.179 character. He was so desperate to write, to think, 00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:34.220 that he starts improvising. Right. He only had 00:10:34.220 --> 00:10:37.620 one book with him, Paradise Lost. And he scrapes 00:10:37.620 --> 00:10:40.179 sleet from the walls, mixes it with the wine 00:10:40.179 --> 00:10:42.899 they gave him to make ink, and uses a sharpened 00:10:42.899 --> 00:10:45.580 toothpick as a pen. That's incredible dedication. 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:48.600 But the experience, it did break him, didn't 00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:51.539 it? It did. After months in there, he realized 00:10:51.539 --> 00:10:53.940 that being a stubborn martyr wasn't going to 00:10:53.940 --> 00:10:57.080 work. He had to sign a submission. He had to 00:10:57.080 --> 00:10:59.440 confess that he wrote the jewels and the letter 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:01.440 on the blind and promise he wouldn't write any 00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:04.080 more debaucheries of the mind. And they let him 00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:08.200 out. They let him out in November 1749. And this 00:11:08.200 --> 00:11:10.620 is such a pivotal moment. He walks out of that 00:11:10.620 --> 00:11:13.019 prison with a choice. He can go back to being 00:11:13.019 --> 00:11:15.360 a quiet translator, keep his head down. Or he 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:17.919 can fight back. But he knows now he can't fight 00:11:17.919 --> 00:11:20.820 openly. He has to be cunning. He realizes that 00:11:20.820 --> 00:11:22.960 if he really wants to change the world, he can't 00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:24.659 just write these little pamphlets that the government 00:11:24.659 --> 00:11:26.960 is just going to burn. He needs to build something 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:29.899 bigger, something that looks official, but secretly 00:11:29.899 --> 00:11:32.240 contains the seeds of revolution. And this is 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:33.940 where the encyclopedia comes in. This is the 00:11:33.940 --> 00:11:36.240 encyclopedia. Now, when we hear encyclopedia 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:39.259 today, we think of Wikipedia or maybe those old 00:11:39.259 --> 00:11:41.840 dusty books in the school library. It just seems 00:11:41.840 --> 00:11:46.179 so harmless. Why was a dictionary a revolutionary 00:11:46.179 --> 00:11:49.039 weapon in the 18th century? Well, context is 00:11:49.039 --> 00:11:51.419 everything. Because originally, it wasn't supposed 00:11:51.419 --> 00:11:53.259 to be revolutionary at all. It was just a business 00:11:53.259 --> 00:11:56.519 venture. A publisher, André Le Breton, wanted 00:11:56.519 --> 00:11:59.340 to translate an English dictionary, Chamber Cyclopedia, 00:11:59.539 --> 00:12:02.559 into French, just to make a quick buck. But Diderot 00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:05.919 gets involved, and he has bigger ideas? He basically 00:12:05.919 --> 00:12:08.639 hijacks the entire project. He doesn't just want 00:12:08.639 --> 00:12:10.960 to define words. He brings in the mathematician 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:14.120 Jean -Laurent d 'Alembert as his co -editor. 00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:17.399 And their goal, in Diderot's own words, was to 00:12:17.399 --> 00:12:19.460 change the common way of thinking. Okay, but 00:12:19.460 --> 00:12:21.299 how do you do that in practice? If you're writing 00:12:21.299 --> 00:12:23.279 an encyclopedia that has to be approved by the 00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:25.100 king's censors, you can't just write an entry 00:12:25.100 --> 00:12:28.059 for God that says doesn't exist. So how do you 00:12:28.059 --> 00:12:30.860 sneak the radical ideas in? This is the absolute 00:12:30.860 --> 00:12:33.759 genius of it. They created a system of cross 00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:36.360 -references. Envois, they called them. It was 00:12:36.360 --> 00:12:38.679 like a paper version of a hyperlink. So you would 00:12:38.679 --> 00:12:41.549 look up a very safe, standard article. Let's 00:12:41.549 --> 00:12:44.230 say Christianity. And the text of that article 00:12:44.230 --> 00:12:46.809 would be completely orthodox, very respectful. 00:12:47.009 --> 00:12:50.289 The censor reads it, nods, stamps it, approved. 00:12:50.610 --> 00:12:53.110 But that's not the whole story. No, because at 00:12:53.110 --> 00:12:54.629 the bottom of the page, there's a tiny note. 00:12:54.710 --> 00:12:58.450 It says, see also, cannibalism. You're kidding 00:12:58.450 --> 00:13:01.480 me. Not at all. Or an entry on a group of monks 00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:03.179 might have a cross -reference that just says, 00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:07.419 see also, insects. They created this whole subversive 00:13:07.419 --> 00:13:10.000 web where the real argument, the real critique, 00:13:10.100 --> 00:13:12.559 was hidden in the connections between the articles. 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:15.690 Diderot didn't just write a book. He designed 00:13:15.690 --> 00:13:18.029 an information architecture that forced you to 00:13:18.029 --> 00:13:20.330 think. That's so modern. It's like hiding the 00:13:20.330 --> 00:13:22.350 important code in the comment section where nobody 00:13:22.350 --> 00:13:25.289 looks. But beyond just the subversion, the scale 00:13:25.289 --> 00:13:27.169 of this thing is mind -boggling. Diderot wrote 00:13:27.169 --> 00:13:30.750 something like 7 ,000 articles himself. 7 ,000. 00:13:31.110 --> 00:13:33.450 And remember where he came from. He's the son 00:13:33.450 --> 00:13:36.299 of a knife maker. He didn't just sit in a library 00:13:36.299 --> 00:13:38.539 and write about philosophy. He went out into 00:13:38.539 --> 00:13:41.779 the workshops. He spent days with weavers, with 00:13:41.779 --> 00:13:44.840 glassblowers, with tanners. He learned how to 00:13:44.840 --> 00:13:47.279 make gunpowder just so he could write about it 00:13:47.279 --> 00:13:49.440 accurately. And I think that's a point we often 00:13:49.440 --> 00:13:51.539 miss. You know, in the 18th century, there was 00:13:51.539 --> 00:13:54.700 this massive class divide. Thinking was for the 00:13:54.700 --> 00:13:56.799 rich people and making things was for the poor 00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:59.539 people. And Diderot just smashes that wall down. 00:13:59.759 --> 00:14:02.220 He believes the mechanical arts, the trades, 00:14:02.220 --> 00:14:04.559 were just as noble and important as theology 00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:07.820 or philosophy. By putting a detailed diagram 00:14:07.820 --> 00:14:10.399 of a stocking loom right next to an article on 00:14:10.399 --> 00:14:12.700 the nature of the soul, he was leveling the playing 00:14:12.700 --> 00:14:15.620 field of knowledge. He was secularizing it. He 00:14:15.620 --> 00:14:17.580 was saying that human progress comes from industry 00:14:17.580 --> 00:14:19.600 and science, not just from prayer and kings. 00:14:19.879 --> 00:14:21.539 Which, of course, the establishment absolutely 00:14:21.539 --> 00:14:23.799 hated. It must have been a magnet for controversy. 00:14:24.620 --> 00:14:27.139 Constantly. It was banned by the king in 1752. 00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:29.519 Then it was reinstated because it was making 00:14:29.519 --> 00:14:31.440 too much money. Then it was banned by the pope 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:34.519 in 1758. Then the government suppressed it completely 00:14:34.519 --> 00:14:37.580 in 1759. Just imagine working on a project for 00:14:37.580 --> 00:14:39.799 20 years and the government's constantly trying 00:14:39.799 --> 00:14:42.120 to shut you down, to burn your work. It's insane. 00:14:42.519 --> 00:14:45.840 And his partner, D 'Alembert. He eventually quits. 00:14:45.840 --> 00:14:47.759 He can't take the pressure. But Diderot stays. 00:14:47.960 --> 00:14:50.200 He calls himself the captain of the ship, trying 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:53.639 to steer this massive illegal project through 00:14:53.639 --> 00:14:56.740 hostile waters. He just keeps going, writing, 00:14:56.960 --> 00:14:59.700 editing, managing hundreds of contributors. But 00:14:59.700 --> 00:15:01.600 there is a really heartbreaking twist at the 00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:03.820 very end of the story. This part of the source 00:15:03.820 --> 00:15:05.600 material just made me so angry on his behalf. 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:08.419 So it's 1764. He's been at this for almost two 00:15:08.419 --> 00:15:10.840 decades. He's finally finishing the proof sheets 00:15:10.840 --> 00:15:12.840 for the last volumes. And he finds something 00:15:12.840 --> 00:15:15.879 wrong. He discovers that his own publisher, LeBrayton, 00:15:15.980 --> 00:15:17.379 the guy who started the whole thing, who was 00:15:17.379 --> 00:15:20.539 making a fortune from it, had panicked. LeBrayton 00:15:20.539 --> 00:15:22.460 was terrified of getting thrown in the best deal. 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:25.779 So secretly, after Diderot had done the final 00:15:25.779 --> 00:15:28.240 edits for the day, LeBrayton and his foreman 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:30.509 went through the proofs and just... cut out anything 00:15:30.509 --> 00:15:32.710 they thought was too dangerous they censored 00:15:32.710 --> 00:15:35.429 him behind his back and they didn't just cross 00:15:35.429 --> 00:15:37.509 things out they burned the original manuscripts 00:15:37.509 --> 00:15:41.210 oh so diderot discovers that his life's work 00:15:41.210 --> 00:15:45.889 has been in his words irreparably mutilated he 00:15:45.889 --> 00:15:48.429 felt the entire project was a waste 20 years 00:15:48.429 --> 00:15:51.049 of his life and he felt like he'd failed because 00:15:51.049 --> 00:15:53.649 the final version was this neutered censored 00:15:53.649 --> 00:15:56.149 thing which is so tragic because even in its 00:15:56.149 --> 00:15:59.149 censored form The encyclopedia was a bombshell. 00:15:59.289 --> 00:16:00.850 It helped pave the way for the French Revolution. 00:16:01.429 --> 00:16:04.549 But for him, personally, it was a betrayal. A 00:16:04.549 --> 00:16:06.850 huge betrayal. Yeah. And I think that experience, 00:16:07.169 --> 00:16:09.330 the prison, the constant censorship, his own 00:16:09.330 --> 00:16:11.870 publisher gutting his work, that's what pushes 00:16:11.870 --> 00:16:14.590 him into this double life. Right. He realizes 00:16:14.590 --> 00:16:16.730 that if he wants to write what he really thinks, 00:16:16.850 --> 00:16:19.710 his pure, unfiltered ideas, he can't publish 00:16:19.710 --> 00:16:22.129 them. Not while he's alive. It's just too dangerous. 00:16:22.370 --> 00:16:25.299 So he starts writing for The Drawer. I love that 00:16:25.299 --> 00:16:27.419 concept. He basically gives up on his own time 00:16:27.419 --> 00:16:30.480 and decides to place a bet on the future. On 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:34.000 us. He had that amazing quote, posterity is for 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.139 the philosopher what the other world is for the 00:16:36.139 --> 00:16:38.399 man of religion. He stopped caring about reviews 00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:40.519 in Paris and started writing for an audience 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:44.799 in 2026. And... The works he hid in that drawer, 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:48.379 they are his absolute masterpieces. Let's get 00:16:48.379 --> 00:16:50.299 into a few of them because they are just wild. 00:16:50.539 --> 00:16:53.399 The first one is The Nun, La Rue Jus. And this 00:16:53.399 --> 00:16:55.559 started out as a prank. A very elaborate practical 00:16:55.559 --> 00:16:59.220 joke, yes. In 1760... Diderot and some friends 00:16:59.220 --> 00:17:01.559 wanted to lure a buddy of theirs, the Marquis 00:17:01.559 --> 00:17:03.740 de Coimere, back to Paris from his country estate. 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:06.519 So they invented a fake nun. They started sending 00:17:06.519 --> 00:17:08.359 the Marquis these desperate letters from a nun 00:17:08.359 --> 00:17:10.740 who claimed she was being held in a convent against 00:17:10.740 --> 00:17:12.960 her will and needed his help to get out. That 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:16.299 is just so manipulative and so extra. It's very 00:17:16.299 --> 00:17:19.359 extra. But as Diderot is writing these letters, 00:17:19.480 --> 00:17:21.720 creating this voice for this young woman, he 00:17:21.720 --> 00:17:24.799 gets completely sucked into this story. It stops 00:17:24.799 --> 00:17:27.180 being a joke and it starts becoming a novel. 00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:30.720 And the novel's protagonist, Suzanne, she's forced 00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:33.039 into the convent by her parents. Right, because 00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:35.460 she's illegitimate. Her mother is trying to pay 00:17:35.460 --> 00:17:38.259 for her own sin of adultery by sacrificing her 00:17:38.259 --> 00:17:40.240 daughter to the church. And the stuff she goes 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:42.319 through in the convent is not just, you know, 00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:46.140 I'm bored. It's dark. It's about abuse, psychological 00:17:46.140 --> 00:17:49.440 torture, sexual repression. It's a blistering 00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:52.599 critique of the whole system. Diderot is arguing 00:17:52.599 --> 00:17:54.319 that when you lock people away from society, 00:17:54.599 --> 00:17:57.569 you violate their nature. And that isolation 00:17:57.569 --> 00:18:01.230 creates this toxic, abusive hierarchy. Suzanne 00:18:01.230 --> 00:18:03.589 has one mother superior who abuses her physically, 00:18:03.710 --> 00:18:05.730 and then another one at a different convent who's 00:18:05.730 --> 00:18:08.150 a lesbian and tries to seduce her, eventually 00:18:08.150 --> 00:18:11.069 going mad from her own repressed desires. It's 00:18:11.069 --> 00:18:13.609 an argument that cloistered life is dehumanizing. 00:18:13.670 --> 00:18:15.490 And of course, that stayed in the drawer. If 00:18:15.490 --> 00:18:16.849 he had published that, he would have been straight 00:18:16.849 --> 00:18:19.230 back in Vincent's. Immediately, without a doubt. 00:18:19.329 --> 00:18:21.170 And then you have what many people think is his 00:18:21.170 --> 00:18:23.950 greatest work, Rameau's Nephew. This one is a 00:18:23.950 --> 00:18:26.319 dialogue, right? A conversation between a character 00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:29.059 named Diderot and this real -life guy, the nephew 00:18:29.059 --> 00:18:31.559 of a famous composer. Jean -Francois Rameau. 00:18:31.680 --> 00:18:34.400 And this character, the nephew, he's fascinating. 00:18:34.619 --> 00:18:37.519 He's basically the anti -Diderot. How so? He's 00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:40.720 a mooch. He's a parasite. A total cynic. He's 00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:43.779 brilliant and talented, but completely lazy. 00:18:44.059 --> 00:18:46.740 He believes in absolutely nothing except satisfying 00:18:46.740 --> 00:18:50.039 his own appetites. His philosophy is, why be 00:18:50.039 --> 00:18:52.309 good? It doesn't pay. I'd rather have a full 00:18:52.309 --> 00:18:54.490 belly. So he's a direct challenge to that whole 00:18:54.490 --> 00:18:56.509 enlightenment idea that nature is fundamentally 00:18:56.509 --> 00:18:59.130 good, the way Rousseau saw it. A complete challenge. 00:18:59.329 --> 00:19:02.630 The nephew basically argues that in nature, species 00:19:02.630 --> 00:19:05.529 eat each other. And in society, men eat each 00:19:05.529 --> 00:19:07.910 other using laws and money. He's a pure hedonist. 00:19:08.029 --> 00:19:10.930 He says, hurrah for wisdom, to drink good wines, 00:19:11.089 --> 00:19:14.210 gorge on choice foods, tumble pretty women. And 00:19:14.210 --> 00:19:15.890 what's so compelling is that the Diderot character 00:19:15.890 --> 00:19:17.650 in the book doesn't really win the argument. 00:19:17.990 --> 00:19:20.799 He doesn't. Diderot, the author, allows this 00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:24.019 awful, cynical character to make incredibly good 00:19:24.019 --> 00:19:26.900 points. It shows that he was willing to debate 00:19:26.900 --> 00:19:31.079 himself, to seriously question his own most cherished 00:19:31.079 --> 00:19:33.700 values. And the journey of this manuscript is 00:19:33.700 --> 00:19:36.359 just as crazy as the content. It's a miracle 00:19:36.359 --> 00:19:38.640 we even have it. The original manuscript was 00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:42.000 lost. It was found smuggled to Russia, given 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:44.759 to the German poet Schiller, who gave it to Goethe. 00:19:45.109 --> 00:19:47.690 Goethe loved it so much he translated it into 00:19:47.690 --> 00:19:50.950 German in 1805. And the French had to retranslate 00:19:50.950 --> 00:19:53.509 it back from German? Years later, they had to 00:19:53.509 --> 00:19:55.549 retranslate the German version back into French 00:19:55.549 --> 00:19:57.710 because the original was still lost. It just 00:19:57.710 --> 00:19:59.970 shows you how precarious this entire legacy was. 00:20:00.210 --> 00:20:02.750 And then, quickly, there's Jacques the Fatalist. 00:20:02.910 --> 00:20:05.789 The plot is complex, but the style feels incredibly 00:20:05.789 --> 00:20:08.190 modern. He's breaking the fourth wall constantly. 00:20:08.589 --> 00:20:10.930 Long before it was cool. Yeah. It's a novel that 00:20:10.930 --> 00:20:13.410 knows it's a novel. Diderot just stops the story 00:20:13.410 --> 00:20:16.210 to talk directly to you, the reader. He makes 00:20:16.210 --> 00:20:18.069 fun of the cliches of novels. He'll say something 00:20:18.069 --> 00:20:19.930 like, I could make the characters get into a 00:20:19.930 --> 00:20:21.589 sword fight right now, but that seems boring, 00:20:21.730 --> 00:20:24.250 so I won't. He's playing with the idea of determinism. 00:20:24.289 --> 00:20:26.470 Are our lives written in advance like a book? 00:20:26.609 --> 00:20:29.990 Exactly. And he's exploring that idea by constantly 00:20:29.990 --> 00:20:32.549 reminding you that he is literally writing the 00:20:32.549 --> 00:20:35.450 book you're reading. It anticipates postmodernism 00:20:35.450 --> 00:20:38.309 by 200 years. It's incredible. So you've got 00:20:38.309 --> 00:20:41.329 the smutty satirist, the encyclopedist, the secret 00:20:41.329 --> 00:20:44.920 radical novelist. But we can't talk about Diderot 00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:47.599 without talking about his patron, because for 00:20:47.599 --> 00:20:50.779 a guy who hated authority, he got very, very 00:20:50.779 --> 00:20:53.519 close to one of the most powerful autocrats in 00:20:53.519 --> 00:20:55.559 the world. Empress Catherine the Great of Russia. 00:20:55.700 --> 00:20:59.640 This relationship is just so bizarre. So Diderot 00:20:59.640 --> 00:21:02.180 is famous, but he's still broke. He needs to 00:21:02.180 --> 00:21:04.700 come up with a dowry for his daughter. And Catherine 00:21:04.700 --> 00:21:06.869 hears about this. Well, Catherine was kind of 00:21:06.869 --> 00:21:08.690 collecting European intellectuals like they were 00:21:08.690 --> 00:21:12.250 trading cards. She wanted to be seen as an enlightened 00:21:12.250 --> 00:21:14.809 despot. She wanted the credibility that came 00:21:14.809 --> 00:21:16.369 from hanging out with the French philosophers. 00:21:16.670 --> 00:21:18.809 So she makes him an offer. An incredible offer. 00:21:18.869 --> 00:21:20.930 She offers to buy his entire personal library 00:21:20.930 --> 00:21:24.970 for a huge sum, 15 ,000 lever. Which is a fortune 00:21:24.970 --> 00:21:26.890 back then. A life -changing amount of money. 00:21:27.009 --> 00:21:29.809 But here's the kicker. She tells him he can keep 00:21:29.809 --> 00:21:32.970 all the books. She then appoints him as the salaried 00:21:32.970 --> 00:21:35.569 caretaker of his own library. That's the greatest 00:21:35.569 --> 00:21:38.109 arts grant of all time. Here's a ton of money 00:21:38.109 --> 00:21:40.309 and you can keep all your stuff. It completely 00:21:40.309 --> 00:21:43.069 saved him financially. But there was a catch. 00:21:44.130 --> 00:21:46.450 Eventually she wanted to meet the man she was 00:21:46.450 --> 00:21:51.869 bankrolling. So in 1773, Diderot, who hates to 00:21:51.869 --> 00:21:53.809 travel and is getting older, has to make this 00:21:53.809 --> 00:21:56.809 long, miserable trek. all the way to St. Petersburg. 00:21:57.109 --> 00:21:58.970 And the meetings they had, they weren't these 00:21:58.970 --> 00:22:01.690 formal court things. They met almost every day, 00:22:01.750 --> 00:22:04.210 just the two of them. Man to man, as he put it. 00:22:04.630 --> 00:22:07.420 And Diderot. Well, Diderot didn't really have 00:22:07.420 --> 00:22:09.900 a courtly filter. He was an enthusiastic talker. 00:22:09.940 --> 00:22:12.579 There's that famous anecdote. Yes. Catherine 00:22:12.579 --> 00:22:14.599 wrote that in his excitement, he would get so 00:22:14.599 --> 00:22:16.660 animated in their conversations that he would 00:22:16.660 --> 00:22:19.039 keep slapping her on the thighs. He's slapping 00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:21.839 the Empress of Russia on the leg. Repeatedly. 00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:23.859 She said she had to put a small table between 00:22:23.859 --> 00:22:26.319 them just to protect her legs from bruising. 00:22:26.599 --> 00:22:29.019 That's amazing. But beyond the comedy, there 00:22:29.019 --> 00:22:31.339 was a real political clash happening there. A 00:22:31.339 --> 00:22:34.920 massive one. Diderot... being Diderot, drafted 00:22:34.920 --> 00:22:38.279 these grand plans for Russia. He told her she 00:22:38.279 --> 00:22:40.920 should abdicate the throne, give power to the 00:22:40.920 --> 00:22:43.539 people, create a legal system that applied to 00:22:43.539 --> 00:22:46.559 everyone equally. He basically pitched a full 00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:49.160 -blown democracy to an absolute monarch. And 00:22:49.160 --> 00:22:51.339 I can imagine how the autocrat of all the Russians 00:22:51.339 --> 00:22:54.380 responded to that. She listened politely, smiled, 00:22:54.740 --> 00:22:57.640 and then completely dismissed it. She had this 00:22:57.640 --> 00:22:59.599 famous line where she told him his theories were 00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:02.619 fine for writing on paper, which endures anything, 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:05.859 but you had to write on human skin, which is 00:23:05.859 --> 00:23:09.400 far more ticklish. Wow. That is a devastatingly 00:23:09.400 --> 00:23:11.539 effective put down. It is. It's basically, that's 00:23:11.539 --> 00:23:13.619 nice, philosopher, but I have to deal with the 00:23:13.619 --> 00:23:16.160 real world. It really shows the limits of the 00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:17.819 Enlightenment when it came face to face with 00:23:17.819 --> 00:23:20.359 real power. He didn't change Russia. But he did 00:23:20.359 --> 00:23:22.460 pretty much invent modern art criticism. We should 00:23:22.460 --> 00:23:25.779 touch on his salons. Yes, quickly. Before Diderot, 00:23:25.920 --> 00:23:28.559 art criticism as a genre didn't really exist. 00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:30.799 He would go to the big art exhibitions at the 00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:32.539 Louvre and then write these long, incredibly 00:23:32.539 --> 00:23:34.619 vivid descriptions for a private newsletter that 00:23:34.619 --> 00:23:36.720 went out to European royalty. And since there 00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:39.480 was no photography, his words had to do all the 00:23:39.480 --> 00:23:42.019 work. He had to make you see the painting. He 00:23:42.019 --> 00:23:44.240 would use his imagination to bring the canvas 00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:46.500 to life. He'd talk about the composition, the 00:23:46.500 --> 00:23:48.740 emotion, the lighting. He treated painting like 00:23:48.740 --> 00:23:51.200 it was a piece of drama. And speaking of drama, 00:23:51.299 --> 00:23:53.759 he also came up with the idea of the fourth wall 00:23:53.759 --> 00:23:56.799 in theater. He did. He argued that actors should 00:23:56.799 --> 00:23:59.559 stop playing to the audience, winking and gesturing. 00:23:59.839 --> 00:24:02.240 He said they should act as if there's an invisible 00:24:02.240 --> 00:24:05.500 wall between the stage and the seats and just 00:24:05.500 --> 00:24:07.619 be completely absorbed in the reality of the 00:24:07.619 --> 00:24:09.640 scene. Which is now the standard for realistic 00:24:09.640 --> 00:24:12.700 acting. It's the standard. But it was a new idea 00:24:12.700 --> 00:24:15.019 then. It seems like everywhere you look in the 00:24:15.019 --> 00:24:17.740 18th century, Diderot is there planting some 00:24:17.740 --> 00:24:19.740 seed that's going to grow into something huge 00:24:19.740 --> 00:24:22.799 100 years later. Evolution, postmodern novels, 00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:26.140 art criticism, democracy. But he never got to 00:24:26.140 --> 00:24:28.910 see any of those trees grow. He died in July 00:24:28.910 --> 00:24:32.630 1784, just five years before the storming of 00:24:32.630 --> 00:24:35.549 the Bastille. And his end was just as chaotic 00:24:35.549 --> 00:24:39.529 as his life. It was. Fittingly so. He died of 00:24:39.529 --> 00:24:42.650 pulmonary thrombosis. The story is his last meal 00:24:42.650 --> 00:24:45.390 was an apricot, and his last words were, the 00:24:45.390 --> 00:24:47.789 first step towards philosophy is incredulity. 00:24:47.910 --> 00:24:50.130 Sectical right to the very end. But the real 00:24:50.130 --> 00:24:53.029 chaos came after his death. He was buried in 00:24:53.029 --> 00:24:56.109 a church. But during the revolution in 1793, 00:24:56.490 --> 00:24:59.750 grave robbers broke into the crypts looking for 00:24:59.750 --> 00:25:02.150 lead to melt down for bullets. And they just 00:25:02.150 --> 00:25:05.950 tossed his remains. His remains were unearthed 00:25:05.950 --> 00:25:07.869 and most likely just thrown into a mass grave, 00:25:08.069 --> 00:25:11.190 lost forever. So the ultimate materialist, the 00:25:11.190 --> 00:25:13.309 man who believed we are just matter in motion, 00:25:13.450 --> 00:25:15.950 literally dissolved back into the earth completely 00:25:15.950 --> 00:25:18.890 anonymously. It's an incredible irony, but in 00:25:18.890 --> 00:25:21.990 a way it fits his own philosophy perfectly. Everything 00:25:21.990 --> 00:25:24.410 changes. Everything passes. Nothing remains but 00:25:24.410 --> 00:25:26.069 the whole. So let's bring it all together. Why 00:25:26.069 --> 00:25:29.069 does Diderot matter to us today, to you, listening 00:25:29.069 --> 00:25:31.289 to this deep dive? I think Diderot is the patron 00:25:31.289 --> 00:25:34.190 saint of the deep dive itself. He wasn't a specialist. 00:25:34.450 --> 00:25:36.190 He wasn't a guy who just stayed in his lane. 00:25:36.309 --> 00:25:38.750 He was interested in everything. He validated 00:25:38.750 --> 00:25:41.349 the idea that you can be deeply curious about 00:25:41.349 --> 00:25:43.849 how stockings are woven and how the universe 00:25:43.849 --> 00:25:47.089 began and the right way to act in a play. He 00:25:47.089 --> 00:25:49.170 just represents the pure joy of learning and 00:25:49.170 --> 00:25:51.579 connecting things. And he also represents the 00:25:51.579 --> 00:25:54.039 resilience of knowledge, right? He fought to 00:25:54.039 --> 00:25:56.500 keep ideas alive when the most powerful forces 00:25:56.500 --> 00:25:59.420 in his world wanted to burn them. Exactly. He 00:25:59.420 --> 00:26:02.200 worked to democratize knowledge, to take it out 00:26:02.200 --> 00:26:04.359 of the hands of just the elites and the priests 00:26:04.359 --> 00:26:06.359 and try to give it to everyone. It brings us 00:26:06.359 --> 00:26:09.339 back to his whole idea of immortality. He didn't 00:26:09.339 --> 00:26:12.279 believe in a soul or an afterlife. But he did 00:26:12.279 --> 00:26:14.859 believe in the scattering of ideas. He basically 00:26:14.859 --> 00:26:17.519 put his consciousness into a drawer, hoping that 00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:21.059 250 years later would open it up and reassemble 00:26:21.059 --> 00:26:23.539 him just by reading his words. And in a way, 00:26:23.539 --> 00:26:25.240 that's what we've done. Every time you use a 00:26:25.240 --> 00:26:27.819 cross -reference to check a fact, or you question 00:26:27.819 --> 00:26:29.940 a piece of dogma, or you look for the connection 00:26:29.940 --> 00:26:32.019 between art and science, you're kind of putting 00:26:32.019 --> 00:26:34.220 Diderot back together. So here's the final thought. 00:26:34.539 --> 00:26:36.480 Diderot will bet that posterity would be his 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:39.410 Evan. Have we, by reading his secret works and 00:26:39.410 --> 00:26:42.029 by using this vast, interconnected world of knowledge 00:26:42.029 --> 00:26:44.069 he fought for, have we actually given him the 00:26:44.069 --> 00:26:47.089 afterlife he wanted? Or, in our modern age of 00:26:47.089 --> 00:26:49.109 just information overload, have we lost that 00:26:49.109 --> 00:26:51.029 unity of nature he was trying so hard to find 00:26:51.029 --> 00:26:51.650 in the first place?