ABSTRACT
The first version of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury’s (1671-1713) Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit was published without permission probably by the Irish-born deist John Toland (1670-1722) in 1699.1 In 1711, an authorized edition of Shaftesbury’s text appeared grouped together with his other writings in a collection titled Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions and Times, etc (ESMV, p. 6). Since 1743, when he translated Stanyan’s Grecian History (Histoire de Grèce), Diderot had made a living writing translations of important English scholars, principally for the publisher and bookseller Briasson (Wilson, pp. 48-52). Although the reasons for taking on the Shaftesbury translation are still unknown, Diderot’s translation of the Inquiry is the first major work in which he adumbrates his own thought and interests.2,3 The first edition of his translation, Principes de la
1 “Préface” to Denis Diderot’s and Anthony Shaftesbury’s Essai sur le mérite et la vertu, ed. Jean-Pierre Jackson (Paris, 1998), p.6.
