WorkDenis Diderot

Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage

Diderot's fictional sequel to a real voyage — using Tahiti to ask whether Europe's morals are nature's or just its own; published twelve years after he died.

by Denis Diderot110 passages held

French, the original language

Original title: Supplément au voyage de Bougainville
First published: 1796(published posthumously)
Original language: French

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Overview

In 1771 the navigator Louis-Antoine de Bougainville published the account of his voyage round the world, and its pages on Tahiti — where the visitors found a people who seemed to live without shame, property or Christian marriage — set Europe talking. Diderot answered the next year with an invented appendix to it. His Supplement pretends to be the part Bougainville left out: a farewell speech an old Tahitian delivers to the departing French, foretelling the disease, greed and priests they will bring back, and a conversation between two Europeans who use the island to turn every settled question about sex, marriage and morality inside out. The device lets Diderot ask whether European rules are the demands of nature or merely local custom dressed as nature, and whether the shame and jealousy his readers took for granted were doing anyone good. He did not print it. It passed first through Grimm's handwritten Correspondance littéraire, read by a few dozen subscribers, and reached the public only in 1796 — twelve years after Diderot's death, and seven after the Revolution had made its questions about law and nature suddenly literal. It has since been read as one of the earliest European texts to turn the traveller's tale back on the traveller, using the newly "discovered" world to put the discovering one on trial.

Key concepts

What is the Supplement, and is it real?

A fiction. Bougainville's account of his real 1771 voyage set Europe talking about Tahiti, and Diderot answered with an invented appendix, the part he pretends Bougainville left out. It contains an old Tahitian's farewell speech and a dialogue between two Europeans. The frame of a genuine voyage lets Diderot smuggle radical questions about sex, law and empire in under the cover of travel writing.

What is the old Tahitian's farewell speech?

The book's fiercest passage: an aged islander addresses the departing French and foretells what their return will bring, disease, greed, theft of the island's freedom, and priests to police desires that were free. He indicts the visitors for calling their arrival civilization. The speech turns the traveller's tale around, letting the discovered people pronounce judgment on the discoverers rather than the reverse.

What does Diderot mean by natural law here?

The genuine demands of human nature, as opposed to the local customs a society mistakes for them. Diderot uses Tahiti to test which European rules, monogamy, sexual shame, private property, actually follow from nature and which are merely habits dressed in nature's authority. Natural law becomes a blade for cutting the two apart, and much of what his readers assumed was natural fails the test.

Why did Diderot choose Tahiti?

Because it offered a real, newly reported society that seemed to live without shame, property or Christian marriage, a mirror in which Europe's rules could be seen as one arrangement among others. The contrast lets him ask whether those rules are nature's or merely France's. Tahiti is less an anthropological subject than a device for defamiliarizing home and forcing its certainties into the open.

Why did the book appear only in 1796?

Because Diderot did not print it. Written around 1772, it first passed through Grimm's handwritten Correspondance litteraire, read by a few dozen subscribers, and reached the public only in 1796, twelve years after his death. By then the Revolution had made its questions about law, nature and empire suddenly literal, so the dialogue arrived into a world newly prepared to take it seriously.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Nature's law, or only our own?

Are Europe's rules about sex, marriage and shame the demands of nature, or local customs disguised as nature? Diderot uses Tahiti to prise the two apart and ask which is which.

The device of an invented appendix lets Diderot set European morality beside a Tahiti that seems to live without shame, property or Christian marriage, and ask what the difference proves. His two speakers turn every settled question inside out: is monogamy natural or merely habitual, is sexual shame doing anyone good, are jealousy and chastity nature's demands or arrangements a particular society calls nature to protect them? He does not simply crown the islanders; the point is critical, not utopian, forcing the reader to notice how much of what they took for the voice of nature is the accent of home. The Revolution would soon make the questions literal.

natural law
morality
ethics
marriage
social norms
shame
desire
human nature
culture
cultural relativism

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The traveller's tale turned back

What if the discovered world judged the discoverers? Diderot puts Europe on trial through an old Tahitian's farewell, foretelling the disease, greed and priests the visitors will bring.

Diderot pretends to supply the part Bougainville left out: a farewell speech in which an old Tahitian foresees exactly what European contact will bring, sickness, robbery, the missionary's rules, and indicts the visitors for calling this civilization. It is among the earliest European texts to reverse the traveller's tale, using the newly discovered world to put the discovering one on trial rather than the other way round. Written around 1772 and kept for private circulation, it appeared only in 1796, twelve years after Diderot's death and seven after a revolution had made its questions about law, nature and empire suddenly practical.

colonialism
civilization
authority
property
progress
religion
sexual morality
naturalism

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 110
distinct concepts: 242
by passages held, corpus-wide: #177

What this book thinks together

Every arc around the wheel is one concept in this book. A ribbon joins two the text reaches for together, and its width is how many of its passages hold both. Strongest: morality with nature.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 9 pairings. 27 shared passages in all. 31 weaker pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
morality	nature	6
nature	property	4
civilization	nature	3
human nature	morality	3
morality	property	3
colonialism	ethics	2
colonialism	property	2
ethics	natural law	2
morality	natural law	2

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1746 Philosophical Thoughts (Pensées philosophiques)
Diderot's first substantial book, from before his turn to materialism: a deist still arguing here for a God nature might warrant. The form — numbered fragments — is lifted from Pascal and pointed against him.
FR
1773 Conversation of a Father with His Children (Entretien d'un père avec ses enfants)
A semi-autobiographical dialogue rather than a treatise, staging Diderot's own family in Langres to weigh law against conscience; one of the moral fictions he sent out through Grimm's private newsletter rather than into print.
FR
1796 Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage (Supplément au voyage de Bougainville) you are here FR
1805 Rameau's Nephew (Le neveu de Rameau)
A satirical dialogue between a level-headed philosopher and a brilliant scoundrel — the most unsettling and least classifiable thing Diderot wrote, and the one he kept out of print entirely.
FR
On the Sufficiency of Natural Religion (De la suffisance de la religion naturelle)
A companion to the Philosophical Thoughts from Diderot's deist years, disowned by silence as his materialism took hold; it reached print only in 1770, and only under a dead man's name.
FR

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