We soar to the airiest heights of verbal analysis and pure formalism.
Nothing can be better, so far as it goes, than the picture of the philosopher.

Diderot begins by contrasting him with the crowd of people, and clever people, who insist on passing judgment all day long.

"They ignore the scope and limits of the human mind; they think it capable of knowing everything; hence they think it a disgrace not to pronounce judgment, and imagine that intelligence consists in that and nothing else.

The philosopher believes that it consists in judging rightly.

He is better pleased with himself when he has suspended his faculty of coming to a conclusion, than if he had come to a conclusion without the proper grounds.