Essay on the Life of Seneca

Essay on the Life of Seneca (French: Essai sur Sénèque) was one of the final works of Denis Diderot.

It contains an analysis of the life and works of Seneca, criticism of La Mettrie and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, autobiographical notes, and a tribute to modern America.

These were still unpublished, but Rousseau had begun public readings from his book prior to his death on July 2, 1778, and it was expected that they would now be published.

d'Épinay and himself from the charges made by Rousseau in the Confessions:If, by a bizarrerie without exception, there should ever appear a work where honest people are pitilessly torn to pieces by a clever criminal [un artificieux scélérat]...look ahead and ask yourselves if an impudent fellow...who has confessed to a thousand misdeeds, can be...worthy of belief.

What can calumny cost such a man?-what can one crime more or less add to the secret turpitude of a life hidden during more than fifty years behind the thickest mask of hypocrisy?...Detest the ingrate who speaks evil of his benefactors; detest the atrocious man who does not hesitate to blacken his old friends; detest the coward who leaves on his tomb the revelation of secrets confided to him...As for me, I swear that my eyes shall never be sullied by reading his work; I protest that I would prefer his invectives to his praise.

[15][20][21] Diderot's essay contains a passionate tribute to modern America; he hails the American Revolution which gave rise to a new nation in 1776, and its lessons for tyrants in Europe.

Furbank, in his 1992 book, describes this part of the essay as mainly "empty rodomontade, a string of resounding sentiments aiming not at conviction but at applause.

The enthusiasm that possesses him, the demon who agitates him, never quit him; he is the Pythian priestess, forever seated on the tripod...Such is the motive and such are the means by which the prime architect of the Encyclopédie, past master of the art of inflating compilations, has been able to blow up to 520 pages an essay that would not contain a hundred if all that is irrelevant to the justification of Seneca were cut out.

"[26] Meister commented that the criticism had angered Rousseau's supporters; whereas "the best friends of M. Diderot, who most have the right of sharing the just resentment that dictated the note, find it useless and out of place.

[27] Following centuries of constant oppression, may the revolution that has just come to pass beyond the seas, by offering all the inhabitants of Europe a refuge against fanaticism and tyranny, teach those who govern their fellowmen the legitimate use of their authority!

May these worthy Americans, who have preferred to see their wives ill-used, their children killed, their houses destroyed, their fields laid waste, their cities burned, and themselves shed their blood and die, rather than lose the smallest part of their freedom, may they forestall the enormous increase and the unequal distribution of wealth, luxury, indolence, the corruption of morals, and see to the maintenance of their freedom and the preservation of their government.