The want of ensemble vanished in the free and varied course of conversation.[23] We have to remember then that Diderot was in this respect of the Socratic type, though he was unlike Socrates, in being the disseminator of positive and constructive ideas.

His personality exerted a decisive force and influence.

In reading the testimony of his friends, we think of the young Aristides saying to Socrates: "I always made progress whenever I was in your neighbourhood, even if I were only in the same house, without being in the same room; but my advancement was greater if I were in the same room with you, and greater still if I could keep my eyes fixed upon you."[24] It has been well said that Diderot, like Socrates, had about him a something daemonic.

He was possessed, and so had the first secret of possessing others.

But then to reach excellence in literature, one must also have self-possession; a double current of impulse and deliberation; a free stream of ideas spontaneously obeying a sense or order, harmony, and form.