Journalist, author who occupies himself with publishing summaries of and judgments on works on literature, on scholarship, and on arts and manufactures, as they appear; from which you see that a person of this kind would never do anything if other people were to rest. He would not, however, be without merit, if he were to have the talents necessary for the task he assigns himself. He would have at heart the progress of the human mind; he would love the truth, and would link everything to these two objectives.

A journal includes such a great variety of subjects that it is impossible that one man alone could create a bad journal. A person is never a great master of geometry, a great poet, a great historian, and a great philosopher at the same time: no one is well-versed in everything.

A journal should be the work of a group of well-educated persons; otherwise, people would notice the grossest of blunders of all kinds in it. The Journal de Trévoux which I will mention here among an infinite number of others with which we are inundated, is not exempt from this flaw; and if ever I had the time and the courage, I could publish a catalogue, which would not be

short of the signs of ignorance which you find there concerning Geometry, concerning Literature, concerning Chemistry, etc. The Journalists of Trévoux seem to particularly lack the tiniest smattering of knowledge of the last field mentioned.

But it is not enough that a journalist should have knowledge: he must also be just; without this good trait, he will praise to the clouds mediocre works, and he will put down others for which he should have saved his praises. The more important the subject, the more difficult this will show itself to be; and if he should have some love for religion, for instance, he will feel that it is not permissible for just any writer to take on the question of God, and he will come down hard on all those who, with mediocre talents, dare to take on this sacred duty, and will place his hand beneath the sacred thing to uphold it.

He should have a solid and substantial talent for judging logic, taste, perceptiveness, a good disposition to have in criticism.

His craft is not that of causing laughter, but of analyzing and educating. A journalist who aims to cause laughter is a journalist who should be laughed at.

He should be light-hearted, if the subject-matter permits, but he should leave elsewhere the nasty tone which always reveals partisanship.

If he should examine a mediocre work, he should specify the hard questions which the author should have spent his time on; he should go into them further himself; he should make observations; people should say of him that he made a good summary of a bad book.

His interest should be completely separate from those of the bookseller and of the writer.

He should not take from an author the noteworthy parts of his work in order to appropriate them himself and he should keep himself far from adding to this injustice that of exaggerating the faults in the weak parts which he will have the alertness to emphasize.

He should not stray from the consideration which he owes to superior talents and to persons of genius; only an idiot could be the enemy of a Voltaire, of a Montesquieu, of a Buffon, and of some others of the same quality.

He should know to note their faults, but also to not pretend to not notice the fine things that redeem them.

He should make it his highest priority to keep himself free of the mania for stealing the virtue of creation from his fellow-citizen and his contemporary, in order to transfer the honor of it to someone of another country or another century.

He should never take trickery which is part of [the writer's] craft for the essence of the craft; he should quote with precision, and never disguise or change anything.

If he gives in to enthusiasm, he should choose his timing well.

He should discuss things in terms of principles, and not in terms of his particular taste, or of the

passing circumstances of the times, of the mindset of his country or of his class, or of current prejudices.

He should write simply, purely, clearly, and easily, and avoid all false airs of eloquence and of erudition.

He should praise without blandness, and criticize without insult.

He should strive above all to make us familiar with foreign works.

But I see that in taking these observations further, I would only be repeating what we have said in the article Criticism. See this Article .