myself, without restraint, at the hours of dinner and supper. All the
rest of the day wandering in the forest, I sought for and found there the
image of the primitive ages of which I boldly traced the history. I
confounded the pitiful lies of men; I dared to unveil their nature; to
follow the progress of time, and the things by which it has been
disfigured; and comparing the man of art with the natural man, to show
them, in their pretended improvement, the real source of all their
misery. My mind, elevated by these contemplations, ascended to the
Divinity, and thence, seeing my fellow creatures follow in the blind
track of their prejudices that of their errors and misfortunes, I cried
out to them, in a feeble voice, which they could not hear: "Madmen! know
that all your evils proceed from yourselves!"

From these meditations resulted the discourse on Inequality, a work more
to the taste of Diderot than any of my other writings, and in which his
advice was of the greatest service to me.

[At the time I wrote this, I had not the least suspicion of the
grand conspiracy of Diderot and Grimm. otherwise I should easily.
have discovered how much the former abused my confidence, by giving
to my writings that severity and melancholy which were not to be
found in them from the moments he ceased to direct me. The passage
of the philosopher, who argues with himself, and stops his ears
against the complaints of a man in distress, is after his manner:
and he gave me others still more extraordinary; which I could never
resolve to make use of. But, attributing, this melancholy to that
he had acquired in the dungeon of Vincennes, and of which there is a
very sufficient dose in his Clairoal, I never once suspected the
least unfriendly dealing. ]