THE LETl'ER TO M. D'ALEMBERT ON THE THEATRE
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a soft disposition and a spirit of inaction which will deprive the good of great virtues but will keep the bad from meditating great crimes. From these new reflections results a consequence directly opposed to the one I drew from the first,50 namely, that when the people is corrupted, the theatre is good for it, and bad for it when it is itself good. It would, hence, seem that these two contrary effects would destroy one another and the theatre remain indifferent to both. But there is this difference: the effect which reenforces the good and the bad, since it is drawn from the spirit of the plays, is subject, as are they, to countless modifications which reduce it to practically nothing, while the effect which changes the good into bad and the bad into good, resulting from the very existence of a theatre, is a real, constant one which returns every day and must finally prevail. It follows from this that, in order to decide if it is proper or not to establish a theatre in a certain town, we must know in the first place if the morals [manners] are good or bad there, a question concerning which it is perhaps not for me to answer with regard to us. However that may be, all that I can admit about this is that it is true that the drama will not harm us if nothing at all can hann us any more.
VII To forestall the disadvantages which could be born of the actors' example, you would want them to be forced to be decent men. By this means, you say, we would have both theatre and morals [manners], and we would join the advantages of both. Theatre and morals! This would really be something to see,lS1 so much the more so as it would be the first time. But what are the means that you indicate to us for restraining the actors? Severe and well-executed laws. This is to admit at least that the actors must be restrained and that the means of doing it are not easy. Severe laws? The first is not
