Denis Diderot's Supplement to Bougainville's "Voyage" (1772) is a prime example of the eighteenth-century vogue of primitivism which was spurred by Rousseau's thesis of the "noble savage" and which generated such novels as St. Pierre's Paul and Virginia and Chateaubriand's Atala. Diderot's book makes a case for the simple, natural ways of a South Sea Island culture as reported by Bougainville, a French explorer. The central portion of the story presents an imaginary dialogue between a French chaplain and a native of Tahiti (Orou) in which a comparison is made between the customs and institutions of Europe and those of Tahiti. The way of life of the islanders is eloquently defended, and that of the Europeans discredited. According to the Tahitian, man's natural instincts, which are equated with the laws of nature, are interpreted as justifying complete freedom in sexual relations. Their observance of community property is defended as minimizing personal conflicts and legal entanglements and promoting a general concern for the welfare of the community as a whole.
Unlike most of the earlier utopian documents, Diderot's presents an account of a place on the map and its existing society. The report is secondhand and is colored by the imagination of a philosophical primitivist.
The exploration of a South Sea utopian commonwealth is of limited scope because of the author's overriding preoccupation with the sexual relations of the natives, leaving almost entirely unexplained such concerns as governmental organization, legal system, distribution of labor, and methods of warfare. Regarding the economy, we are simply told that there is no private property.
