Anticipations of the Enlightenment in England, France and Germany

150 Pages·1987·8.783 MB·English

by  Paul Korshin, Alan Charles Kors (editor)

Anticipations
of
the Enlightenment
in England, France,
and Germany
Edited by
ALAN CHARLES KORS
and
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
- ~J;Jf~J...:l!I: '*'~••Ii?
11111-111-11-1-11-111·11-1-11-11·1-11-11-111-111
Contents
Copyright© 1987 by the University of Pennsylvania Press Editors' Note Vlt
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America Introduction · Alan Charles Kors 1
I. Reading Pierre Bayle in Paris · Elisabeth Labrousse 7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
2. ''A First Being, of Whom We Have No Proof": The Preamble of
eAd~titiecdi pbayti Aonlas no fC thhaer lEesn lKigohrtse nanmde Pnta uinl JE. nKgolarsnhdi,n .F rance, and Germany/ Atheism in Early-Modern France · Alan Charles Kors 17
p. cm. 3. Pierre Nicole,Jansenism, and the Morality of Enlightened
Includes index.
Self-Interest · Dale Van Kley 69
ISBN 0-8122-8057-1
I. Enlightenment. 2. England-Intellectual life-18th century. 4. Shaftesbury's Optimism and Eighteenth-Century Social
3. France-Intellectual life-18th century. 4. Germany
Thought · John Andrew Bernstein 86
lntellcctual life-18th century. I. Kors, Alan Charles.
II. Korshin, Paul]., 1939- 5. Who's Afraid of Christian Wolff? · Thomas P. Saine 102
BIJ02.E65A57 1987 87-17644
940.2'52-dcl9 CIP 6. Scientific Culture in the Early English Enlightenment: Mechanisms,
Industry, and Gentlemanly Facts · Margaret C. Jacob 134
7. Science and Literature in the Early German Enlightenment
Uwe-K. Ketelsen 165
8. The Gallant Novel and the German Enlightenment, 1670-1750
John A. McCarthy 185
v
Contents
9. The Pattern Is Perceived and the Seed Is Sown · P. M. Mitchell 218
Editors' Note
10. Sappho, Souls, and the Salic law of Wit · Jocelyn Harris 232
11. "The Young, the Ignorant, and the Idle": Some Notes on Readers and
the Beginnings of the English Novel · J. Paul Hunter 259
Contributors 283
Index
285
The essays in this collection are the product of a year-long conference at
the University of Pennsylvania on "The Early Enlightenment in England,
France, and Germany" during the year 1981-82. As organizers of the
conference, the format of which was a regular seminar, we invited the con
tributors, as participants, to visit the university for a week each, and to
make several presentations. Those presentations included seminars with
postgraduate students and a formal lecture on the subject of the early En
lightenment in Europe. The Enlightenment itself, especially in France and
Germany, is the subject of intense study, but the pre-Enlightenment, the
period covering the late seventeenth century and the first half of the eigh
teenth century, although scholars have not singled it out for much special
attention, seemed worthy of special notice. Accordingly, we asked the par
ticipants to select a topic relative to the early Enlightenment in their coun
try of interest and dealing with their subject of inquiry-whether history,
history of science, philosophy, or literature-and to lecture on it. The fol
lowing essays, which the participants have revised and enlarged over a pe
riod of two years or so, then, form one of the first organized efforts to
address the pre-Enlightenment and some of the subjects that, in the later
or high Enlightenment, hold center stage.
The conference at the University of Pennsylvania had the generous fi
nancial support of the university's Humanities Coordinating Committee,
Vl Vll
Editors' Note
whose funds came from a National Endowment for the Humanities chal
lenge grant. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Commit Introduction
tee, the National Endowment, our colleague in the Department of Ger
manic Languages, Professor John A. McCarthy, and former provost of the
university Vartan Gregorian in making possible our conference and the es
ALAN CHARLES KORS
says in this book.
Paul J. Korshin
Alan Charles Kors
The Enlightenment is often described as if it had crystallized at some par
ticular moment, often identified with some particular text, from the general
agency of prior "free thought" and "new philosophy." Usually, we presup
pose rather than study the contexts and processes from which the ideas,
values, and modes of expression associated with the Enlightenment acru
ally emerged. We too frequently ignore what Elisabeth Labrousse terms
here "the fascinating vagaries of 'influence' in the history of ideas," to
which one should add, following several of our authors, the vagaries of
influence in the history of literary forms. These essays are an effort to ex
plore those contexts, processes, and, indeed, those "fascinating vagaries."
The organizers of the symposium that occasioned most of the papers in
this collection thought of two names for their undertaking: "Anticipations
of the Enlightenment" and "The Early Enlightenment." Both designations
involve methodological peril and both are vulnerable to charges of begging
a large number of important questions. Any enterprise that appears to
study a period in the light of its consequences invites both serious objec
tion and caviling, for the danger of falsifying both the letter and spirit of a
philosophical, literary, and scientific generation by means of anachronism
is indeed real. Scholars who labor in the rich fields of late ·seventeenth-and
early eighteenth-century studies would have every right to object to any
effort that defined the primary significance of those fields in terms of their
Vlll
Alan Charles Kors Introduction
relationship to the Enlightenments of France, England, and Germany. of the Enlightenment. Elisabeth Labrousse demonstrates how arguments
The problem predominantly addressed by these essays, however, is not generated in a Calvinist c?ntext in B~yle's milieu c~uld a~d would ~e rea~
any failure of seventeenth-century or early eighteenth-century studies to with such different meamng (one thmks of Pococks notion of the multi
address the significance of the Enlightenment, but, rather, the failure of valence" of discourse) in the Paris of Enlightenment salons. In my own
Enlightenment studies adequately to address the phenomena and com essay, the much denigrated Aristot~lian sc~olast.i~s of the late ~event~enth
plexities of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. century in France may be seen as mfluential cntics of Cartesian philoso
What continues to attract the primary interest of most scholars of the phy and theology, who bequeathed a crisis in the first principles of theol
Enlightenment is the revolution of ideas associated with the eighteenth ogy to later generation~. If, judging b:y the E'.nlightenment, one_had deemed
century. This in no way denigrates the "social history" of the Enlighten these Jansenists, Calv1msts, and Anstotehans to have been m some by
ment, which constitutes one of the most vibrant fields of current historical passed backwater of history, critical aspects of the process of the develop
studies, nor the new and fruitful modes of literary analysis, which, ap ment or emergence of major currents of the Enlightenment could not be
plied to Enlightenment texts, have yielded striking and original readings studied, let alone understood. As John A. McCarthy writes, addressing
and reconceptualizations of familiar works. Nonetheless, is there any other the assumption of "decaying" literary forms prior to 1740: "In those brack
field of study in which the intellectual historian and the literary scholar ish waters, ... there was fresh life germinating." And let us put the term
work with such interest in, comprehension of, and appreciation for each "brackish" in quotation marks!
others' labors? Enlightenment studies, as the very term "Enlightenment" There are few "clean breaks" in the intellectual and literary history
does more than suggest, continue to place a primary emphasis upon described in this collection. Writing of Shaftesbury's generation, John An
thought as a particularly dynamic aspect of human behavior in the Europe drew Bernstein observes that "We exaggerate," in light of the Enlighten
of the eighteenth century. The essays in this collection, however, argue ment's effects, "the extent to which the lines of battle were sharply drawn."
that the development of ideas must be related to a longer term and more Most of our authors would agree. They also appear to agree, on the whole,
contextual framework than traditional Enlightenment studies generally on several essential methodological practices: the need to re-contextualize
have accepted. Working from such a perspective, our authors, on the our understanding of certain ideas and forms in the milieux from which
whole, find far more continuity than discontinuity in the learned worlds they first emerged, the better to understand the etiology and the dynamic
they study. of the Enlightenment; the need to search more broadly for evidence and
Because Enlightenment authors themselves sought to contradistin particulars than generally is done by eighteenth-century scholars, who too
guish their epoch categorically from the "orthodox" past, acknowledging often, for our authors, rely on predetermined canon; a focus on the gradual
as a source of their own ideas only, for the most part, what was most new evolution of ideational and literary phenomena; and a concern for the iden
in the seventeenth century, scholars often have begun with a similar as tity and characteristics of the readers as well as the authors of texts.
sumption about influence. What was not a part of the "new philosophy" of In conceptualizing the relationship of the late seventeenth and early
the seventeenth century was somehow (however bizarre the assumption eighteenth centuries to the dramatic changes in mentality and forms of ex
appears when stated baldly) without "positive" influence. The "sources" pression that we associate with the later eighteenth century, our authors
of the Enlightenment were to be sought in those thinkers of prior genera reach often strikingly different conclusions. Some of these differences are
tions who most resembled philosophes, Aufkliirers and the "modern" minds of disagreements of substance; others arise from the variety of ph~nomena
the mid- to late eighteenth century. Most of the scholars represented here and questions addressed. Thus, in Van Kley's and my own studies (both
question the value of such an approach. Two claims, in particular, are vir focused, perhaps not coincidentally, on the sources of the French En
tual leitmotifs of this collection: (I) that too many historians have assumed a lightenment) the very theologies rejected by the later philosophes are shown
pri?ri that certain ~?vements of thought entail or preclude other aspects of to have been dynamic agents in the genesis of Enlightenment concepts and
behef and (2) that 1t 1s an error to read back into prior generations the sharp formulations. In the view of both essays, the creative and critical vitality
divisions effected by the Enlightenment. of seventeenth-century French Catholicism generated important concep
Thus, Dale Van Kley's study identifies the contribution of Augustinian tions that later appear in Enlightenment thought. As Van Kley writes, "It
Jansenism to the most secular strains of the moral and political philosophy is ... most difficult to imagine Jansenism ... having anticipated an ethic
2 3
Alan Charles Kors Introduction
based upon ... enlightened self-interest. Yet something like this hap Germany and England respectively, a gradual evolution of literary forms.
pened." In John Andrew Bernstein's, Thomas P. Saine's, and Margaret C. Reading publics were not, for both scholars, what prior literary historians
Jacob's studies, on the other hand, a slightly different model appears. Here had assumed, and the symbiosis of literary form and an emerging "modern"
the implications of systems or movements of thought quite traditionalist or mentality is subtle and complex. The needs and concerns of an increasingly
moderate in one context are shown to have actualized their "radical" or secularized reading public (or at least of a stratum of that reading public)
"progressive" potential in another. From the perspective of this latter underwent a slow alteration, and authors met those changes by a gradual
model, however, to read back the later developments into the earlier phe adaptation of the means (and indeed substance) of expression. For McCar
nomena is to falsify our understanding of the earlier period, to misstate the thy, essential themes of the German Enlightenment already appear in the
question of historical relationship, and to lose a sense of the complexity supposedly nostalgic "gallant novel" long before the 1740s, and there is a
and particularities of eighteenth-century history. reciprocal influence, not antipathy, between the "old" gallant novel and the
Thus, for Bernstein, a movement generally seen as "traditionalist" - "new" periodicals, the "Moral Weeklies." For Hunter, the "emergence" of
philosophical optimism-is shown to have been consistent historically the novel occurred in the context of a disproportionately young, middling,
with a certain progressivism. The cosmic Great Chain of Being did not and female audience of Londoners with new demands, cultural and psy
have to be antiegalitarian in implication; ontological traditionalism did not chological, upon the written word. There was no sudden creation or gen
have to entail political conservativism; and, in brief, there is, from the evi eration per sautem of some dramatically new "antiaristocratic" form; the
dence, no reason to apply Basil Willey's celebrated model of the "cosmic emergence of the novel is better understood in terms of London's new liter
Tory" to secular politics. Thus, for Saine, while later Aufkliirers sought to ate lives and their loss of folklore, their loneliness, their need for instruc
distance themselves from Christian Wolff's philosophy, they were far more tion in the ways of the world. For both scholars, prior efforts to distinguish
indebted to him than they could realize, and Wolff's implications went far "modernity" categorically from an aristocratic past have not done justice
beyond his own intended goals. Wolff emerges from Saine's essay as the to the richness of the phenomenon of literary change.
would-be pious Lutheran whose conception of the will and whose notion The role of aspects of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century
of the relationship of philosophy and theology dramatically undermined culture more commonly linked to the emergence of Enlightenment phe
traditional Lutheran theology. However "conservative" Wolff might be in nomena is not ignored in this collection, however. Examining the "pioneer
his teleology, the "potential for radical applications of the principles them ing endeavour" of women literary authors before midcentury in Britain,
selves" was now a part of German philosophical culture. Thus, for Jacob, Jocelyn Harris finds the influence of John Locke manifest in the texts she
a scientific culture of the early Enlightenment, preponderantly concerned has studied. The critique of custom, with its dramatic implication that
with practical applications of knowledge, only realized its "radical" poten mere custom is tyranny, raised profound questions in many women's minds
tials when its visions, much later in the century, became linked to social about the "customary" roles of men and ·women, both in social life and, in
and political reform. Similarly, she writes of "the levelling tendencies" of a particular, in the world of letters. For Uwe-K. Ketelsen, it was the "new
scientific education whose "earliest propagators self-consciously sought to theology," increasingly naturalistic and emphasizing physico-theological
reinforce the existing social hierarchy." Labrousse's Bayle is a good ex argument (though not without its mystical side), that exercised a profound
ample of both phenomena: his Calvinism, in the context (indeed, the cru influence on German nature poetry. The new theology introduced scien
cible) of the Refuge, generates perfectly "orthodox" arguments that when tific understanding to the literary culture, which in turn disseminated sci
read (above all, when misread) in another time and place revealed "radi entific knowledge to its own broad audience (and, Ketelsen notes, acted as
cal" potentials from which Bayle himself would have recoiled. a barrier to any "reductionist ... mechanistic materialism" that might be
The "evolutionary emergence model" of the generation of the En a temptation of the new natural philosophy). For P. M. Mitchell, the En
lightenment is another leitmotif of this collection. In the case of Enlighten lightenment itself, it would seem, was not far off in its own understanding
ment literary forms, if I may test your patience with extension of the of its origins. In his synthetic essay, it was indeed "the secularization of
metaphor, the interaction of the evolving species (the novel) with its eco culture,, that "overcame the dominance of revealed and organized reli
logical niche (the reading public) receives fresh attention. McCarthy and J. gion." While recognizing the increasing appeal of rational theology to
Paul Hunter, studying the transformation of literary genres, both see, in Christian minds, Mitchell stresses that the new philosophical emphasis
4 5
Alan Charles Kors CHAPTER 1
upon "the superiority of reason" was "essential to the creation of a new
culture." The revolutionary thought of the late eighteenth century was Reading Pierre Bayle
"the end product of much radical thought which had gone before," the
implications of which increasingly became common property. In the intel in Paris
lectual world, this occasioned the displacement of theologians from a cen
tral position in the learned world, and in the literary world, in particular,
it occasioned the autonomy of literature from theological concern or au
ELISABETH LABROUSSE
thority. In the political world, for Mitchell, it occasioned, in the conse
quences of "the new thought," "the downfall of an established, but no
longer viable, political order."
Finally, let us note the modesty attendant to all of these essays, lest
claims of "models" made in this introduction inflate, or worse, belie the
claims actually made by our authors. Van Kley, for example, does not
identify the Jansenist Nicole as the source of Enlightenment moral philoso
phy; he asserts, rather, that without Jansenist "insistence upon the social
and political utility of self-love, the Enlightenment's moral rehabilitation of
its indulgence would have been considerably more difficult." Bernstein,
for example, ultimately finds the model of "cosmic Toryism" not entirely
misleading, if properly modified by an appreciation of Shaftesbury's sense
of freedom. Ketelsen, for example, while intrigued by the symbiosis of
science, new theology, and literature in the German early eighteenth cen Pierre Bayle quite often is hailed as a forerunner of the Enlightenment,
tury, acknowledges that "it is often difficult to determine whether phe but we should pause to consider how odd, in fact, the concept of "forerun
nomena typical of the literature of this period are really derived from ner" truly is. It should be used with caution, for, by definition, it is purely
natural scientific disciplines or whether it is simply a matter of a common retrospective; it has to do much more with later readers than with the au
occurrence of enlightened rationalism." Harris's women authors excited, thor whom it is supposed to explain.
among their contemporaries, merely "a queer little flurry of interest." If A "forerunner" is deemed to have exercised a powerful influence over
some of these essays are correct in their criticisms of prior historiography the generations that succeeded him and that found in him one of their mas
and scholarship, a certain modesty may be an appropriate intellectual and ters. Here again, however, caution is necessary, for in relation to ideas, an
moral quality in our field. influence is never mechanical. To use an analogy, it has less to do with wax
and seal than with a tennis racket and a tennis ball; that is to say, there are
movement and energy on both sides. To let someone have an influence on
you is, in fact, the result of an unconscious choice on your part, of a sig
nificant selection. Among the mass of books available in Paris in the 1720s,
the Historical and Critical Dictionary occasioned a remarkable resonance in
its readers: this obviously had as much to do with their mentality as with
Bayle's.
Thus, it must be only with these reservations and nuances present in
our minds that we can repeat the usual formula and say that Bayle was one
of the spiritual fathers of the Enlightenment, and, in particular, a powerful
influence of French thought in the eighteenth century. His Dictionary, in
its many editions, was statistically the book most often present in private
6 7
Elisabeth labrousse Reading Pierre Bayle in Paris
libraries of the period in France,1 and the four folio volumes were also cal blunder, such as the due de Saint-Simon or the Regent himself, did not
translated both into English and German. deem it possible to reconsider the decision taken by the Crown more than
Now, let us be mindful not to say that it was Bayle's thought that enjoyed thirty years earlier. "La France toute catholique" was, for better or worse,
this success. To be precise, it was his works, and it is such a corpus of books something felt to be irreversible and to which everyone was adjusted. The
that we ought to consider here. We should not take into account the con tenacious and underground resistance of the Huguenots still living in
crete behavior of the man, Bayle, as his biography shows it, a behavior that France, mostly in the South, was a rural phenomenon, largely ignored by
is far from allowing us to depict him as an ungodly man and disbeliever. the general public. For the government, it was a thorny, quite exasperat
Indeed, in Protestant countries, the corpus of Bayle's works had not ing, but clearly secondary problem, thought to be solvable either by out
been taken universally as evidence of impiety. In 1716, the Dictionary was a bursts of military brutality or by ignoring it, in the foolish hope that time
prize given to the best theological student in Neuchatel, Switzerland. It would heal the wounds and that later generations would cease to favor
could have been naivete, but Pastor Antoine Court, the principal artisan of heresy.
the clandestine restoration of the Reformed churches in France, was a per It would be difficult to exaggerate the naive arrogance of French cul
sistent reader and admirer of Bayle. 2 Later in the century, Count Zinzen ture at any period, but especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth
dorf, the German Pietist, was an avid reader of Bayle who never doubted centuries. The Parisian intelligentsia believed itself to be the center of the
the sincerity of the latter's Christian belief. world. When considering foreign cultures, however, Parisians could make
Without giving excessive weight to these isolated facts, we may still a certain effort of imagination, either in a condescending manner or, in
state, as a methodological principle, that the meaning of Bayle's works is deed, in a utopian and idealizing way, as in the current visions of the "good
ambiguous. Now, the problem we want to consider here is not that of de savage," the "wise Chinese," or the "meditative Englishman." They did
ciding if the "Protestant" or the "Enlightenment" reading of Bayle is the not begin to guess, however, that a similar effort could be called for with
correct or best one. The answer to such a question would depend entirely respect to the Huguenot "Refuge" in the Low Countries. Because French
on the point of view one adopted on whether the "best" reading was the was their spoken and written language, Huguenot refugees were taken to
one that was closest to the author's historical impact. The question we be a part of France, intellectually accessible, even if looked down upon as
shall pose is a more limited one: why was Antoine Court's or Count Zin backward and provincial.
zendorf's reading of Bayle never the way a Catholic Frenchman of the Frenchmen of the eighteenth century therefore believed themselves to
eighteenth century would read him? be on the same plane as the Refuge, despite the time that had elapsed since
First, .let us emphasize the chronological and geographical distances the birth of this particular community, one that quickly had become so
that separated Bayle so significantly from his Enlightenment admirers. very peculiar in relation to French culture. Indeed, it was peculiar not only
When Bayle was still alive, in the last years of his life, between 1700 and because of its fervent Protestantism (in itself enough to represent a distinc
1706, his renown was already established in Europe, but primarily on the tive subculture), but also because of its contacts with northwestern Eu
basis of his broad and accurate scholarship, and his role as a high-level rope; because of its freedoms, unheard of in France; and last, but not least,
popularizer of philosophy and history for the educated general public. It because of the political choices that made the majority of the Refugees
was a generation much later than his own-nearly the generation of his staunch supporters, after 1688, of William III.
contemporaries' grandchildren-that spread his reputation for unbelief in For example, nobody in Paris seemed to realize that there had been no
France, once his works were allowed to enter the kingdom after the death censorship in the Low Countries when Bayle was publishing his books
ofLouix XIV in 1715. there. Parisian readers studiously looked for mental reservations, innuen
Now, this simple fact entails significant displacements. Just to pause at does or tricks in his works, exactly as they did in the case of an author
one point: the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in October 1685, had printed in France. Above all, however, French readers had a complete and
been the central event in the lives of Bayle and his fellow refugees; for his blissful ignorance about the Protestant theology that had been the frame
French readers during the Regency, however, it was an old story, some work of Bayle's discussions. To state this is by no means to take a stand
thing far away in the past, the consequences of which were a situation about his eventual faith or lack of it. It is simply to recognize that Bayle,
taken for granted. Even those who, retrospectively, had seen it as a politi- given his education and the circles in which he lived for practically all of
8 9
Elisabeth Labrousse Reading Pierre Bayle in Paris
his life, could not escape such a framework. The problems that he dis lieved, again understandably, that an ideal of toleration, were it successful
cussed most readily and most often were all theological, and it was with a among the Huguenots, would demobilize them and make them lukewarm,
theological approach that he tackled questions that later readers would be just at a time when it was vital to stir up their hatred of Roman Catholi
prone to think of as purely secular. Indeed, generally speaking, the seven cism and devote the Refuge to the service of William of Orange. Only the
teenth century was "theologico-political"; that is, its political doctrines hoped-for victory of the Allies, he believed, would oblige the French
were based on theological propositions. The "divine right of kings" that crown to restore the Edict of Nantes.
Bayle so consistently had advocated all of his life, for example, had a clear Such a conflict between Bayle and J urieu, however, so very clear and
scriptural basis, above all, in Romans 13. understandable when the problems of the Refuge are taken into account,
In Paris, thirty years later, no one could appreciate the ideological roots was totally and blissfully ignored by public opinion in Paris thirty-five
of Bayle's intense conflict with Pierre J urieu, and there thus was born, in years later. It was not even vaguely suspected that there had been a de
France, the late and absurd legend that Bayle had been MmeJurieu's lover! cisive ideological opposition between the two adversaries: Jurieu was sim
People were at such a loss to comprehend why the two men, erstwhile ply a fanatical villain and Bayle a noble mind.
good friends, had become bitter enemies, that they coined this little anec Now, during the violent polemics of the year 1691, Jurieu had thrown
dote, much more in keeping with a Parisian drawing room of the period pell-mell against Bayle the most deadly charges he could think of: Bayle
than with the possibilities of a love affair in the small Protestant town of was a traitor to the United Provinces, and he was a miscreant, if not an
Sedan between 1675 and 1681. In other words, Parisians reduced every atheist (obviously a dreadful accusation in a community as keenly religious
thing to a personal quarrel because they had not even a glimpse of the theo as the Refuge). When such indictments were known, many years later, in
logico-political oppositions among the Huguenot refugees. Yet, if one the Paris of the Regency, people were prone to take Jurieu's word about
takes into account the specific characters of the Refuge and the moment Bayle, often reversing its value and intent: what the theologian had wanted
when the struggle broke out, the complete and significant doctrinal split to be infamous was generally considered laudatory. Bayle had not even
between the two men becomes obvious. Jurieu condemned the civil tolera been a believer, let alone a fanatic!
tion that Bayle was advocating, but that was, indeed, quite alien to classi From this failure to understand Bayle's Protestant context there fol
cal Calvinism. As for Bayle, he was indignant to see J urieu abandoning lowed, in Regency Paris, a first, fundamental distortion. In almost all of
divine right absolutism in order to authorize and sanctify the "Glorious" his books, Bayle had constantly assailed, directly and indirectly, the Roman
English Revolution. An aspect of Bayle's deep scorn for any tendency to Catholic Church. He criticized the Church of Rome for being complacent
ward utilitarianism was the infamy he attached to "ambulatory doctrines," tOward "idolatry" and "superstition," and he constantly emphasized the fe
that is, to time-serving opinions that changed with the circumstances. rocity of its intolerance. Now in Paris, these attacks were perpetually
Bayle could not forgive Jurieu-formerly, an absolutist-for his sudden understood as if they had been directed against Christianity itself, for in
change of heart, brought about by what we might describe today as com deed Roman Catholicism was practically the only form of Christianity
mon-sense political opportunism. with which Frenchmen were familiar. In other words, what had been writ
Indeed, the core of the matter, and that which gave such sharpness to ten as anti-Catholic controversy was read as anti-Christian polemics.
the disagreement, was that each of the disputants-Bayle as much as Let us illustrate this by considering the famous "paradoxes" of Bayle
Jurieu-was convinced that his adversary's stand was utterly prejudicial to and the interpretation they received. In 1681-four years before the Revo
the central interests of the Refugees, to this return to France for which all, cation, when the Huguenots still were hoping that it would not take place
at least until the Peace of Ryswick, desperately hoped. Refugees were mi Bayle stated that atheism was less dangerous a sin than idolatry. In brief,
grants much more than settlers: they had left family and goods behind his argument ran, God would rather see his existence put into doubt than
them when they escaped, convinced by wishful thinking that the Revo see himself clothed in infamous or ridiculous attributes. This, for Bayle,
cation ultimately would be repealed. Bayle, however, quite reasonably was an indirect way both to attack Rome-a Church Protestants always
thought that if the Refugees were to add a political heresy to their religious were taxing with being idolatrous-and to call for the toleration of "mere"
one, they never would be permitted to return to France, bearers of so heresy. Further, Bayle maintained that our theoretical opinions had no ef
called "republican" ideas about individual rights. As for Jurieu, he be- fect at all on our concrete behavior, so that atheism was not dangerous for so-
10 11
Elisabeth Labrousse Reading Pierre Bayle in Paris
ciety, whose members' actions were all equally determind by self-interest that treated them decently. Bayle also had sought to show that persecution
and vanity. Since heresy was perceived by everyone as a much lesser crime was perfectly senseless, because the means it used-constraint and vio
than atheism, Bayle implicitly was arguing that heresy was neither socially lence-were obviously ineffective to achieve the ends officially sought: to
nor politically harmful. In other words, the Crown of France had no need convince and to persuade. To the contrary, to compel someone forcibly to
to revoke the Edict of Nantes. Later, however, these "paradoxes" were certain acts of religion was a sure way to strengthen the psychological re
oversimplified, and, out of context, were crudely understood as an apol sistance of some of the victims. At most, it could foster hypocrisy, linked
ogy of atheism.
with a bitter hatred for the religion that used such methods.
Years later, Bayle wrote that a society of perfect Christians could not However, Bayle (his Philosophical Commentary, written primarily as a
maintain itself if it were in close geographical contact with less moral theological treatise, made this its central tenet) had required a religions re
neighbors. What he wanted to emphasize was the complete immorality (or spect towards individual conscience, arguing that such a respect was one
amo~ality) of European foreign policies: international relations were purely with the fear of God, in other words, with piety. The use of force, in reli
relat10ns of strength, and ratson d'etat was totally cynical and unethical. gious matters, was no less than a crime of "/Cse majeste divine," for each per
Bayle's argument was the statement of a moral rigorist and of a convinced son's conscience was the seat of his personal, intimate relationship with
pacifist, deeply sickened by the tricks of diplomacy, the cruelties of wars God, on which no one should intrude. Conscience, so to speak, was God's
and the lies of the diverse national propagandas that dressed up those dire exclusive territory; the persecutor, consequently, infringed upon nothing
realities in hypocritical cloaks of self-justification. less than the rights of God. Although Bayle's Philosophical Commentary ap
The example proposed by Bayle, however, was read upside down, as if peared just shortly before Locke's Letter On Toleration, Bayle was, in a way,
he had wanted to undermine the Gospel teachings when he said that a so more archaic than the English philosopher (even though more radical in
ciety true to them would be rapidly conquered and destroyed. In fact, if his scope). For Bayle, the individual had only duties, not rights, and his
there is one characteristic of Bayle evident everywhere in his books, it is foremost duty was to follow the dictates of his conscience. God was the
his puritanical rigorism and loathing of utilitarianism. To him, honesty being with "rights," and it was these divine rights that were violated by
that is, morality-is not "the best policy," because honesty is simply not a persecution.
''policy_" at all. Honesty, morality, has to do with the intention to obey one's It was not for nothing that Bayle wrote a commentary on a verse of the
conscience and the moral law, without any consideration for the outcome Gospel (Luke 14: 2 J), "Compel them to enter." Indeed, it was of great im
or for expediency. Bayle despised those apologies of Christianity, becom portance to him to show that if the compulsion of consciences were legiti
i~g so frequent, that presented the Christian religion as a source of hap mate and ordered by God, then all Christian denominations devoutly
pmess and success both on earth and in the afterlife. Thus, in this case we should use persecution, so that Christendom should be rent perpetually
again .meet with a complete misconception: when read by a utilitarian, the by internal wars. If persecution were legitimate, then what would happen
meanmg of Bayle's text was precisely the reverse of what it was for a to the Christian meekness so clearly favored by the Gospel that, to the
rigorist.
contrary, so obviously forbade injustice and cruelty?
An important part of Bayle's plea for toleration, thus, was primarily
the speech of one Christian directed to other Christians, but this signifi
Even when Bayle's Parisian public were not turning his ideas upside down, cant aspect was quite neglected in the Paris of the 1720s. There, it was
even when they followed his conclusions with a certain fidelity, they still easy to be a firm partisan of religious toleration-haughtily condemning
mis~'.'derstood, though unknowingly, a good part of his argumentation. Spain or the Inquisition, for example-on the sole basis of utilitarianism
Pan~1ans generaHy embraced Bayle's program of religious toleration quite and common sense. As we have seen, Bayle had not omitted this sort of
readily, but they ignored many of the arguments on which such a program argument. Nevertheless, his main originality and emphasis lay elsewhere.
was founded, and what they ignored were precisely Bayle's most original For his Parisian admirers, persecution was useless, absurd, and cruel. Ob
and most essential points. viously, Bayle would agree, but for him, persecution was above all wicked
Bayle had tried to demonstrate that persecution was uncalled for be and impious, and this essential Baylian description was neglected in the
cause religious intolerance created the problems that it was deemed to Parisian salons.
solve. Minorities, he had argued, in fact were loyal to the governments Let us now address Bayle's celebrated discussions of "the problem of
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