Menace. This is the outward sign of anger or resentment. There are some [types of menace] that are permitted; these are the ones that precede injury, and can intimidate the aggressor and stop him. There are some that are illicit; these are the ones that follow evil. If vengeance is permitted only of God, the menace that forewarns of it is ridiculous in man. Licit or illicit, it is always indecent. The terms menace and to menace have been used metaphorically in a hundred diverse manners. We will say, very rightly, for example, when the government of a people declares itself against philosophy, that it’s bad: it menaces the people with an imminent stupidity. When honorable people are prosecuted on stage, they are menaced with a more violent persecution; one first seeks to debase them in the eyes of the people, and one makes use of, for this effect, an Anite [Anytus], a Milite [Meletus], [1] or some other defamed personage, who has no esteem whatsoever to lose. The loss of the patriotic spirit menaces the state with total dissolution.

Translator's Note

1. [ Anite and Milite refer to Anytus and Meletus from the Apology [of Socrates] by Plato. These two individuals initiated the charges against Socrates that led to Socrates’ death by drinking the poisonous hemlock brew. Voltaire also refers to these personages in his article “Socrate” from his Dictionnaire Philosophique , where he uses the spellings “Anitus” and “Mélitus.” In a French translation of Cicero’s work, Traité des Loix , p. 44 (translated by Monsieur Morabin, Paris, 1719), the same spelling of “Anite” (“Anite et Mélite”) is used as Diderot uses in his article. Malcolm Eden, an Encyclopédie translator, was able to find this direct reference. I could not, however, find a direct reference to the name “Milite,” which is the way Diderot translated the Greek name “Μέλητός” (“Meletus,” “Mélitus,” “Mélite”) in his Encyclopédie article “Menace.” In translating “Μέλητός” as “Milite,” the Greek “έ” (epsilon) in the first syllable (“Μ έ λητός,” the “έ” pronounced as the “e” in “set”) is instead pronounced as the Greek “η” (ita) in the second syllable (“Μέλ η τός,” the “η” pronounced as the “ee” in “meet”). So, Diderot appears to have chosen to translate the “έ” (epsilon) in “Μ έ λητός” as if it were the vowel “η” (ita), which is pronounced as the “ee” in “meet.” Although a transition in pronunciation of “η” ( eta to ita ) is discussed in the Encyclopédie article on the letter “E”, there is no mention of a similar transition of the vowel “έ” (epsilon): “The pronunciation of eta has varied: the modern Greeks pronounce [it as] ita ; and there are savants who have adopted this pronunciation, in reading the books of the ancients.” See [E]. Tyler Griffith, an Encyclopédie translator, referred me to the article on the letter “E” in the Encyclopédie in connection with the Greek letter eta/ita (“η”). I cannot be certain, however, as to why Diderot chose the spelling “M i lite” over “M é lite” or “M é litus” other than the closer resemblance in sound to the French verb “militer” (to militate), in which the “i” is also pronounced as the “ee” in “seek” (M i lite). The Encyclopedists certainly were militating through their writing against the then-current regime in France. It may have been a play on words on the part of Diderot. Additionally, the ablative form of the Latin noun miles , meaning soldier (milite—abl.) , is spelled the same as the name Milite. ]