9 - Denis Diderot

Summary

“Magie”, Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des metiers, translation Steve Harris

The Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, edited between 1751 and 1780 by Denis Diderot (b. 1713; d. 1784) and Jean Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (b. 1717; d. 1783), is the first encyclopaedia published in French. Consisting of 35 volumes and more than 60,000 alphabetically arranged entries (apart from Diderot and d'Alembert, 142 other authors contributed to the work), the Encyclopédie epitomizes the political project of the Enlightenment. We present the entry for the French term magie written by Diderot.

This text again reflects the ambiguity of the historical concept of “magic”. On the one hand, the general evaluation is harsh: Diderot regards “magic” as a “science equally illusory and contemptible”, and as a “daughter of ignorance and pride”. In a similar vein, Agrippa's De occulta philosophia (see Chapter 8) – one of Diderot's prime negative examples – is described as “a confused heap of obscure, ambiguous and inconclusive principles, practices which were generally arbitrary and childish”. On the other hand, Diderot begins by stating that in some distant past, “magic” was the “study of wisdom” and only degenerated over time. Furthermore, he proposes a threefold distinction of “magic” – divine, natural and supernational – that implies some positive aspects. “Divine magic” is characterized by the ability to know the plans of God, work miracles and read people's hearts.