Rameau's Nephew and First Satire (Oxford World's Classics) by Denis Diderot Page B

singing master, the dancing master, are perfectly respectable people, although their conduct deviates in several respects from the universal conscience, and abounds in moral idioms. The more ancient an institution, the greater the number of its idioms; the worse the suffering in a particular age, the more the idioms multiply. The man is worth what his occupation is worth, and vice versa; in the final analysis, their worth is the same. So people make their own occupation seem as significant as possible.
    ME : What I’m hearing clearly through that tangle of words is that there are few honourably exercised occupations, or that there are few honourable men exercising them.
    HIM : Alright, we’ll agree there are none at all; but on the other hand, there are few who are scoundrels outside of their shop; and everything would go on quite nicely were it not for certain individuals who are called hardworking, reliable, punctilious in their duties, strict, or what amounts to it; always in their shop, working at their job from dawn to dusk, and doing nothing else. Result: they’re the only ones to earn a fortune, and a fine reputation.
    ME : Through force of idiom.
    HIM : Exactly. I see you’re with me. Now, an idiom common to all conditions—for there are idioms common to all nations and all ages, just as there are common follies—a common idiom is to acquire as large a clientele as possible; a common folly is to believe that the most capable man is the one with the most clients. There you have two exceptions to the rule of universal morality which we must accept. It’s a kind of good will. It doesn’t mean much in itself, but it acquires value through public opinion. There was a saying that ‘a fine reputation was worth more than a belt of gold’. However, a man with a fine reputation may not own a gold belt, whereas nowadays I see that someone who owns a gold belt seldom lacks a fine reputation. One should, as far as possible, possess both the reputation and the belt. And that is my object when I resort to what you call cheap tricks, base little subterfuges. I teach my lesson, and I teach it well; that’s the absolute standard. I make people believe that I still have more lessons to get to than there are hours in the day. That’s the idiom.
    ME : And you really do teach well?
    HIM : Yes, not badly, tolerably well. The ground-bass theory of the dear uncle has made everything much simpler. In the past I used to steal my pupil’s money: yes, I stole it, no doubt about that. Today I earn it, at least as well as others do.
    ME : And did you steal it without any qualms?
    HIM : Oh, without any qualms. You know the saying: ‘if one thief steals from another, the devil laughs.’ The parents were dripping with money acquired God knows how; they werecourtiers, tax farmers, wholesalers, bankers, businessmen. I helped them to make restitution, I and countless others who, like me, were employed by them. In nature all the species prey on one another; in society all the classes do the same. We mete out justice to one another without benefit of the law. La Deschamps in the past, and today la Guimard, avenge the King by cheating the tax farmer; it’s the dressmaker, the jeweller, the upholsterer, the linen maid, the swindler, the lady’s maid, the cook, the harness-maker, who avenge the tax farmer by cheating la Deschamps. Amidst all this, only the imbecile or the idler suffers a loss without exacting his price from someone else: which only serves him right. Whence you may deduce that these exceptions to the universal conscience, or these moral idioms people make such a fuss about, labelling them illicit benefits, are of no consequence; the only thing that matters is to see clearly.
    ME : I admire that in you.
    HIM : And then there’s poverty. The voice of conscience and of honour sounds very faint when the belly screams. I’ll simply say that if ever I grow rich, I will certainly have to make restitution, and I’m quite determined