A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson
16. Of the new Epicureans, the most famous in his day was
1527 words | Chapter 102
Saint-Evremond, [673] who, exiled from France for his politics,
maintained both in London and in Paris, by his writings, a leadership
in polite letters. In England he greatly influenced young men like
Bolingbroke; and a translation (attributed to Dryden) of one of his
writings seems to have given Bishop Butler the provocation to the
first and weakest chapter of his Analogy. [674] As to his skepticism
there was no doubt in his own day; and his compliments to Christianity
are much on a par with those paid later by the equally conforming and
unbelieving Shaftesbury, whom he also anticipated in his persuasive
advocacy of toleration. [675] Regnard, the dramatist, had a similar
private repute as an "Epicurean." And even among the nominally orthodox
writers of the time in France a subtle skepticism touches nearly all
opinion. La Bruyère is almost the only lay classic of the period
who is pronouncedly religious; and his essay on the freethinkers,
[676] against whom his reasoning is so forcibly feeble, testifies to
their numbers and to the stress of debate set up by them. Even he, too,
writes as a deist against atheists, hardly as a believing Christian. If
he were a believer he certainly found no comfort in his faith: whatever
were his capacity for good feeling, no great writer of his age betrays
such bitterness of spirit, such suffering from the brutalities of life,
such utter disillusionment, such unfaith in men. And a certain doubt
is cast upon all his professions of opinion by the sombre avowal:
"A man born a Christian and a Frenchman finds himself constrained
[677] in satire: the great subjects are forbidden him: he takes them
up at times, and then turns aside to little things, which he elevates
by his ... genius and his style." [678]
M. Lanson remarks that "we must not let ourselves be abused by
the last chapter [Des esprits forts], a collection of philosophic
reflections and reasonings, where La Bruyère mingles Plato,
Descartes, and Pascal in a vague Christian spiritualism. This
chapter, evidently sincere, but without individuality, and
containing only the reflex of the thoughts of others, is not a
conclusion to which the whole work conducts. It marks, on the
contrary, the lack of conclusion and of general views. What is
more, with the chapter On the Sovereign, placed in the middle of
the volume, it is destined to disarm the temporal and spiritual
powers, to serve as passport for the independent freedom of
observation in the rest of the Caractères" (p. 599).
On this it may be remarked that the essay in question is not so
much Christian as theistic; but the suggestion as to the object
is plausible. Taine (Essais de critique et d'histoire, ed. 1901)
first remarks (p. 11) on the "christianisme" of the essay, and then
decides (p. 12) that "he merely exposes in brief and imperious
style the reasonings of the school of Descartes." It should be
noted, however, that in this essay La Bruyère does not scruple to
write: "If all religion is a respectful fear of God, what is to be
thought of those who dare to wound him in his most living image,
which is the sovereign?" (§ 27 in ed. Walckenaer, p. 578. Pascal
holds the same tone. Vie, par Madame Perier.) This appears first
in the fourth edition; and many other passages were inserted in
that and later issues: the whole is an inharmonious mosaic.
Concerning La Bruyère, the truth would seem to be that the
inconsequences in the structure of his essays were symptomatic of
variability in his moods and opinions. Taine and Lanson are struck
by the premonitions of the revolution in his famous picture of
the peasants, and other passages; and the latter remarks (p. 603)
that "the points touched by La Bruyère are precisely those where
the writers of the next age undermined the old order: La Bruyère
is already philosophe in the sense which Voltaire and Diderot
gave to that term." But we cannot be sure that the plunges into
convention were not real swervings of a vacillating spirit. It
is difficult otherwise to explain his recorded approbation of
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The Dialogues sur le Quiétisme, published posthumously under his
name (1699), appear to be spurious. This was emphatically asserted
by contemporaries (Sentiments critiques sur les Caractères de
M. de la Bruyère, 1701, p. 447; Apologie de M. de la Bruyère,
1701, p. 357, both cited by Walckenaer) who on other points
were in opposition. Baron Walckenaer (Étude, ed. cited, p. 76
sq.) pronounces that they were the work of Elliès du Pin, a doctor
of the Sorbonne, and gives good reasons for the attribution. The
Abbé d'Olivet in his Histoire de l'Académie française declares that
La Bruyère only drafted them, and that du Pin edited them; but
the internal evidence is against their containing anything of La
Bruyère's draught. They are indeed so feeble that no admirer cares
to accept them as his. (Cp. note to Suard's Notice sur la personne
et les écrits de la Bruyère, in Didot ed. 1865, p. 20.) Written
against Madame Guyon, they were not worth his while.
If the apologetics of Huet and Pascal, Bossuet and Fénelon, had any
influence on the rationalistic spirit, it was but in the direction of
making it more circumspect, never of driving it out. It is significant
that whereas in the year of the issue of the Demonstratio the Duchesse
d'Orléans could write that "every young man either is or affects to
be an atheist," Le Vassor wrote in 1688: "People talk only of reason,
of good taste, of force of mind, of the advantage of those who can
raise themselves above the prejudices of education and of the society
in which one is born. Pyrrhonism is the fashion in many things: men
say that rectitude of mind consists in 'not believing lightly' and
in being 'ready to doubt.'" [679] Pascal and Huet between them had
only multiplied doubters. On both lines, obviously, freethought was
the gainer; and in a Jesuit treatise, Le Monde condamné par luymesme,
published in 1695, the Préface contre l'incrédulité des libertins sets
out with the avowal that "to draw the condemnation of the world out
of its own mouth, it is necessary to attack first the incredulity of
the unbelievers (libertins), who compose the main part of it, and who
under some appearance of Christianity conceal a mind either Judaic
[read deistic] or pagan." Such was France to a religious eye at the
height of the Catholic triumph over Protestantism. The statement that
the libertins formed the majority of "the world" is of course a furious
extravagance. But there must have been a good deal of unbelief to have
moved a priest to such an explosion. And the unbelief must have been
as much a product of revulsion from religious savagery as a result
of direct critical impulse, for there was as yet no circulation
of positively freethinking literature. For a time, indeed, there
was a general falling away in French intellectual prestige, [680]
the result, not of the mere "protective spirit" in literature, as
is sometimes argued, but of the immense diversion of national energy
under Louis XIV to militarism; [681] and the freethinkers lost some
of the confidence as well as some of the competence they had exhibited
in the days of Molière. [682] There had been too little solid thinking
done to preclude a reaction when the king, led by Madame de Maintenon,
went about to atone for his debaucheries by an old age of piety. "The
king had been put in such fear of hell that he believed that all who
had not been instructed by the Jesuits were damned. To ruin anyone
it was necessary only to say, 'He is a Huguenot, or a Jansenist,'
and the thing was done." [683] In this state of things there spread
in France the revived doctrine or temper of Quietism, set up by the
Spanish priest, Miguel de Molinos (1640-1697), whose Spiritual Guide,
published in Spanish in 1675, appeared in 1681 in Italian at Rome,
where he was a highly influential confessor. It was soon translated
into Latin, French, and Dutch. In 1685 he was cited before the
Inquisition; in 1687 the book was condemned to be burned, and he
was compelled to retract sixty-eight propositions declared to be
heretical; whereafter, nonetheless, he was imprisoned till his death
in 1696. In France, whence the attack on him had begun, his teaching
made many converts, notably Madame Guyon, and may be said to have
created a measure of religious revival. But when Fénelon took it up
(1697), modifying the terminology of Molinos to evade the official
condemnation, he was bitterly attacked by Bossuet as putting forth
doctrine incompatible with Christianity; the prelates fought for two
years; and finally the Pope condemned Fénelon's book, whereupon he
submitted, limiting his polemic to attacks on the Jansenists. Thus
the gloomy orthodoxy of the court and the mysticism of the new school
alike failed to affect the general intelligence; there was no real
building up of belief; and the forward movement at length recommenced.
Chapters
1. Chapter 1
2. 1. Influence of Montaigne and Charron. Gui Patin. Naudé. La
3. 4. Vogue of freethinking. Malherbe. Joan Fontanier. Théophile
4. 15. Developments in France. The polemic of Abbadie. Persecution
5. 16. St. Evremond. Regnard. La Bruyère. Spread of
6. 1. Boulainvilliers. Strifes in the Church. Fénelon and Ramsay.
7. 11. Progress of tolerance. Marie Huber. Resistance of bigotry.
8. 13. New politics. The less famous freethinkers: Burigny;
9. 14. N.-A. Boulanger. Dumarsais. Prémontval. Solidity of much
10. 18. Freethought in the Académie. Beginnings in classical
11. 22. Study of Nature. Fontenelle. Lenglet du Fresnoy. De
12. 27. The conventional myth and the facts. Necker. Abbé Grégoire.
13. 28. Religious and political forces of revolt. The polemic
14. 30. The polemic of Mallet du Pan. Saner views of Barante.
15. 33. Napoleon 292
16. 1. Moral Decline under Lutheranism. Freethought before the
17. 12. English and French influences. The scientific movement.
18. 14. Mauvillon. Nicolai. Riem. Schade. Basedow. Eberhard.
19. 18. Vogue of deism. Wieland. Cases of Isenbiehl and Steinbuhler.
20. 22. Influence of Kant. The sequel. Hamann. Chr. A. Crusius.
21. 25. Austria. Jahn. Joseph II. Beethoven 351
22. 1. Course of the Reformation. Subsequent wars.
23. 5. Upper-class indifference. Gustavus III. Kjellgren and
24. 6. Revival of thought in Denmark. Struensee. Mary
25. 2. Russia. Nikon. Peter the Great. Kantemir. Catherine 363
26. 3. Subsequent scientific thought. General revival of
27. 4. Beccaria. Algarotti. Filangieri. Galiani. Genovesi.
28. 9. Portugal. Pombal 377
29. 6. Palmer. Houston. Deism and Unitarianism 385
30. 3. Pietist persecution. Richard Carlile. John Clarke.
31. 7. Charles Bradlaugh and Secularism. Imprisonment of
32. 8. New literary developments. Lecky. Conway. Winwood
33. 9. Freethought in France. Social schemes. Fourier.
34. 10. Bigotry in Spain. Popular freethought in Catholic
35. 11. Fluctuations in Germany. Persistence of religious
36. 15. Clerical rationalism in Protestant countries.
37. 17. The United States. Ingersoll. Lincoln. Stephen
38. 1. Rationalism in Germany. The Schleiermacher reaction:
39. 7. Strauss's second Life of Jesus. His politics. His
40. 8. Fluctuating progress of criticism. Important issues
41. 10. Falling-off in German candidates for the ministry as in
42. 11. Attack and defence in England. The Tractarian reaction.
43. 12. New Testament criticism in France. Renan and Havet 439
44. 3. Béranger. De Musset. Victor Hugo. Leconte de Lisle. The
45. 4. Poetry in England. Shelley. Coleridge. The romantic
46. 7. Orthodoxy and conformity. Bain's view of Carlyle,
47. 8. The literary influence. Ruskin. Arnold. Intellectual
48. 9. English fiction from Miss Edgeworth to the present
49. 15. The Scandinavian States 457
50. 1. Progress in cosmology. Laplace and modern astronomy.
51. 8. Triumph of evolutionism. Spencer. Clifford. Huxley 466
52. 1. Eighteenth-century sociology. Salverte. Charles
53. 2. Progress in England. Orthodoxy of Hallam. Carlyle.
54. 4. Mythology and anthropology. Tylor. Spencer. Avebury.
55. 9. Philosophy in Britain. Bentham. James Mill. Grote.
56. 12. J. S. Mill 489
57. CHAPTER XIII
58. 1638. Kepler's indecisive Mysterium Cosmographicum appeared only in
59. 1. The Latin letter of Gaspar Schopp (Scioppius), dated February
60. 2. There are preserved two extracts from Roman news-letters
61. 3. There has been found, by a Catholic investigator, a double entry
62. episode is well vouched; and the argument from the silence of
63. 1649. As M. Desdouits staked his case on the absence of allusion to
64. CHAPTER XIV
65. 1662. [376] Under the Commonwealth (1656) James Naylor, the Quaker,
66. 1683. Dr. Rust, Discourse on the Use of Reason in ... Religion,
67. 1685. Duke of Buckingham, A Short Discourse upon the Reasonableness
68. 1691. John Ray, Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the
69. 1695. John Edwards, B.D., Some Thoughts concerning the Several Causes
70. 1696. Sir C. Wolseley, The Unreasonableness of Atheism Demonstrated.
71. 1696. Dr. Nichols' Conference with a Theist. Pt. I. (Answer to
72. 1696. J. Edwards, D.D., A Demonstration of the Evidence and
73. 1696. E. Pelling, Discourse ... on the Existence of God. (Pt. II in
74. 1697. Stephen Eye, A Discourse concerning Natural and Revealed
75. 1697. Bishop Gastrell, The Certainty and Necessity of Religion.
76. 1698. Dr. J. Harris, A Refutation of Atheistical Objections. (Boyle
77. 1698. Thos. Emes, The Atheist turned Deist, and the Deist turned
78. 1699. J. Bradley, An Impartial View of the Truth of Christianity.
79. 1700. Bishop Bradford, The Credibility of the Christian Revelation.
80. 1702. Dr. Stanhope, The Truth and Excellency of the Christian
81. 1705. Ed. Pelling, Discourse concerning the existence of God. Part
82. 1705. Dr. Samuel Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes
83. 1706. Th. Wise, B.D., A Confutation of the Reason and Philosophy of
84. 1706. T. Oldfield, Mille Testes; against the Atheists, Deists, and
85. 1707. Dr. J. Hancock, Arguments to prove the Being of a God. (Boyle
86. CHAPTER XV
87. 1. We have seen France, in the first quarter of the seventeenth
88. 2. On the other hand, the resort on the part of the Catholics to a
89. 3. Between the negative development of the doctrine of Montaigne and
90. 4. The general tendency is revealed on the one hand by the series
91. 5. Equally freethinking was his brilliant predecessor and early
92. 6. Even in the apologetic reasoning of the greatest French prose
93. 7. A similar fatality attended the labours of the learned Huet, Bishop
94. 8. Meanwhile the philosophy of Descartes, if less strictly propitious
95. 9. Yet another philosophic figure of the reign of Louis XIV, the Jesuit
96. 10. Yet another new departure was made in the France of Louis XIV
97. 11. Such an evolution could not occur in France without affecting the
98. 12. As Meyer was one of the most intimate friends of Spinoza, being
99. 13. The appearance in 1678 of a Dutch treatise "against all sorts of
100. 14. No greater service was rendered in that age to the spread of
101. 15. Meantime, Spinoza had reinforced the critical movement in France,
102. 16. Of the new Epicureans, the most famous in his day was
103. CHAPTER XVI
104. 405. It is noteworthy that a volume of controversial sermons
105. 1752. The Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken. Four vols.
106. 1765. W. Dudgeon, Philosophical Works (reprints of those of 1732,
107. 1772. E. Evanson, The Doctrines of a Trinity and the
108. 1773. ---- Three Discourses (1. Upon the Man after God's own
109. 1781. W. Nicholson, The Doubts of the Infidels. (Rep. by R.
110. 1782. W. Turner, Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a
111. 1785. Dr. G. Hoggart Toulmin, The Antiquity and Duration of the
112. 1792. E. Evanson, The Dissonance of the Four Evangelists.
113. 1795. Dr. J. A. O'Keefe, On the Progress of the Human
114. 1797. John C. Davies, The Scripturian's Creed. Prosecuted and
115. 1797. The latter writer states (2nd ed. p. 126) that "infidelity is
116. CHAPTER XVII
117. 1. The fruits of the intellectual movement of the seventeenth
118. 2. At the same time the continuous output of apologetics testified
119. 3. There was thus no adaptation on the side of the Church to the forces
120. 4. As the new intellectual movement began to find expression, then, it
121. 5. A continuous development may be traced throughout the
122. 6. One of the most comprehensive freethinking works of the century, the
123. 7. Apart from this direct influence, too, others of the cloth bore
124. 8. With the ground prepared as we have seen, freethought was bound
125. 9. It is thus a complete mistake on the part of Buckle to affirm
126. 10. The rest of Voltaire's long life was a sleepless and dexterous
127. 11. It is difficult to realize how far the mere demand for
128. 12. A new era of propaganda and struggle had visibly begun. In
129. 1700. Lettre d'Hypocrate à Damagète, attributed to the Comte de
130. 1700. [Claude Gilbert.] Histoire de Calejava, ou de l'isle des hommes
131. 1704. [Gueudeville.] Dialogues de M. le Baron de la Houtan et d'un
132. 1709. Lettre sur l'enthousiasme (Fr. tr. of Shaftesbury, by Samson).
133. 1710. [Tyssot de Patot, Symon.] Voyages et Avantures de Jaques Massé.
134. 1710. Essai sur l'usage de la raillerie (Fr. tr. of Shaftesbury, by
135. 1712. [Deslandes, A. F. B.] Reflexions sur les grands hommes qui sont
136. 1714. Discours sur la liberté de penser [French tr. of Collins's
137. 1720. Same work rep. under the double title: De tribus impostoribus:
138. 1724. [Lévesque de Burigny.] Histoire de la philosophie payenne. La
139. 1730. [Bernard, J.-F.] Dialogues critiques et philosophiques. "Par
140. 1731. Réfutation des erreurs de Benoît de Spinoza, par Fénelon, le P.
141. 1734. [Voltaire.] Lettres philosophiques. 4 edd. within the year.
142. 1734. [Longue, Louis-Pierre de.] Les Princesses Malabares, ou le
143. 1737. Marquis D'Argens. La Philosophie du Bon Sens. (Berlin: 8th
144. 1738. [Marie Huber.] Lettres sur la religion essentielle à l'homme,
145. 1739. ----, Suite to the foregoing, "servant de réponse aux
146. 1741. [Deslandes.] Pigmalion, ou la Statue animée. [Condemned to be
147. 1741. ----, De la Certitude des connaissances humaines ... traduit de
148. 1743. Nouvelles libertés de penser. Amsterdam. [Edited by Dumarsais.
149. 1745. [Lieut. De la Serre.] La vraie religion traduite de l'Ecriture
150. 1745. [La Mettrie.] Histoire naturelle de l'âme. [Condemned to be
151. 1748. [P. Estève.] L'Origine de l'Univers expliquée par un principe
152. 1748. [Benoît de Maillet.] Telliamed, ou Entretiens d'un philosophe
153. 1751. [Mirabaud, J. B. de.] Le Monde, son origine et son antiquité.
154. 1752. [Gouvest, J. H. Maubert de.] Lettres Iroquoises. "Irocopolis,
155. 1752. [Génard, F.] L'École de l'homme, ou Parallèle des Portraits du
156. 1753. [Baume-Desdossat, Canon of Avignon.] La Christiade. [Book
157. 1753. Astruc, Jean. Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il
158. 1754. Prémontval, A. I. le Guay de. Le Diogène de d'Alembert, ou
159. 1754. Burigny, J. L. Théologie payenne. 2 tom. (New ed. of his
160. 1754. Beausobre, L. de (the younger). Pyrrhonisme du Sage. Berlin.
161. 1755. Recherches philosophiques sur la liberté de l'homme. Trans. of
162. 1755. Analyse raisonnée de Bayle. 4 tom. [By the Abbé de Marsy.
163. 1755. [Deleyre.] Analyse de la philosophie de Bacon. (Largely an
164. 1757. Prémontval. Vues Philosophiques. (Amsterdam.)
165. 1759. Translation of Hume's Natural History of Religion and
166. 1761. [N.-A. Boulanger. [1020]] Recherches sur l'origine du
167. 1761. Rep. of De la Serre's La vraie religion as Examen de la
168. 1761. [D'Holbach.] Le Christianisme dévoilé. [Imprint: "Londres,
169. 1762. Rousseau. Émile. [Publicly burned at Paris and at Geneva.
170. 1762. Robinet, J. B. De la nature. Vol. i. (Vol. ii in 1764; iii and
171. 1764. [Voltaire.] Dictionnaire philosophique portatif. [1021] [First
172. 1764. Lettres secrètes de M. de Voltaire. [Holland. Collection of
173. 1764. L'Évangile de la Raison. Ouvrage posthume de M. D. M----y. [Ed.
174. 1765. Recueil Nécessaire, avec L'Évangile de la Raison, 2 tom.
175. 1766. Boulanger, N. A. L'Antiquité dévoilée. [1023] 3 tom. [Recast by
176. 1766. Voyage de Robertson aux terres australes. Traduit sur le
177. 1766. De Prades. Abrégé de l'histoire ecclésiastique de Fleury.
178. 1766. [Burigny.] Examen critique des Apologistes de la religion
179. 1766. [Abbé Millot.] Histoire philosophique de l'homme. [Naturalistic
180. 1767. Doutes sur la religion (attributed to Gueroult de Pival), suivi
181. 1767. Lettre de Thrasybule à Leucippe. [Published under the name of
182. 1767. [D'Holbach.] L'Imposture sacerdotale, ou Recueil de pièces sur
183. 1767. Reprint of Le Christianisme dévoilé. [Condemned to be burnt,
184. 1768. Meister, J. H. De l'origine des principes religieux.
185. 1768. Catalogue raisonné des esprits forts, depuis le curé
186. 1768. [D'Holbach.] La Contagion sacrée, ou histoire naturelle de
187. 1768. ---- Lettres philosophiques sur l'origine des préjugés,
188. 1768. ---- Lettres à Eugénie, ou preservatif contre les
189. 1768. ---- Théologie Portative. "Par l'abbé Bernier." [Also
190. 1768. Traité des trois Imposteurs. (See 1719 and 1720.) Rep.
191. 1768. Naigeon, J. A. Le militaire philosophe. [Adaptation of a
192. 1768. Examen des prophéties qui servent de fondement à la
193. 1768. Robinet. Considérations philosophiques.
194. 1769. [Diderot. Also ascribed to Castillon.] Histoire générale
195. 1769. [Mirabaud.] Opinions des anciens sur les juifs, and
196. 1769. [Isoard-Delisle, otherwise Delisle de Sales.] De la
197. 1769. [Seguier de Saint-Brisson.] Traité des Droits de Génie,
198. 1770. ---- Examen critique de la vie et des ouvrages de Saint
199. 1770. ---- Essai sur les Préjugés. (Not by Dumarsais, whose name
200. 1770. Recueil Philosophique. 2 tom. [Edited by Naigeon. Contains
201. 1770. Analyse de Bayle. Rep. of the four vols. of De Marsy, with
202. 1770. Raynal (with Diderot and others). Histoire philosophique
203. 1772. Le Bon Sens. [Adaptation from Meslier by Diderot and
204. 1773. Helvétius. De l'Homme. Ouvrage posthume. 2 tom. [Condemned to
205. 1774. Abauzit, F. Réflexions impartiales sur les Évangiles, suivies
206. 1774. New edition of Theologie Portative. 2 tom. [Condemned to be
207. 1775. [Voltaire.] Histoire de Jenni, ou Le Sage et l'Athée. [Attack
208. 1777. Examen critique du Nouveau Testament, "par M. Fréret." [Not
209. 1779. Vie d'Apollonius de Tyane par Philostrate, avec les
210. 1780. Clootz, Anacharsis. La Certitude des preuves du Mahométisme.
211. 1780. Second ed. of Raynal's Histoire philosophique, with
212. 1784. Pougens, M. C. J. de. Récréations de philosophie et de
213. 1788. Pastoret. Moïse considéré comme legislateur et comme
214. 1788. Maréchal. Almanach des honnêtes gens. [Author imprisoned;
215. 1789. Cerutti (Jesuit Father). Bréviaire Philosophique, ou Histoire
216. 1795. La Fable de Christ dévoilée; ou Lettre du muphti de
217. 1798. Maréchal. Pensées libres sur les prêtres. A Rome, et se
218. 13. It will be noted that after 1770--coincidently, indeed, with a
219. 14. One of the most remarkable of the company in some respects is
220. 15. Though the bibliographers claim to have traced the authorship in
221. 16. Above the scattered band of minor combatants rises a group of
222. 17. An interlude in the critical campaign, little noticed at the time,
223. 18. In the select Parisian arena of the Académie, the intellectual
224. 19. In 1759 there came a check. The Encyclopédie, which had been
225. 20. Voltaire could not compass, as he for a time schemed, the election
226. 21. Alongside of the more strictly literary or humanist movement,
227. 22. A more general influence, naturally, attached to the
228. 23. But science, like theology, had its schisms, and the rationalizing
229. 24. Over all of these men, and even in some measure over Voltaire,
230. 25. With Diderot were specially associated, in different ways,
231. 26. The death of d'Holbach (1789) brings us to the French
232. 27. No part of the history of freethought has been more distorted
233. 28. The anti-atheistic and anti-philosophic legend was born of the
234. 29. If any careful attempt be made to analyse the situation, the
235. 30. A survey of the work and attitude of the leading French
236. 31. While the true causation of the Revolution is thus kept clear,
237. 32. Among many other illustrations of the passion for persecution in
238. 33. This section would not be complete even in outline without some
239. CHAPTER XVIII
240. 1. When two generations of Protestant strife had turned to naught the
241. 2. While, however, clerical action could drive such a movement under
242. 1662. Th. Gegenbauer. Preservatio wider die Pest der heutigen
243. 1668. J. Musæus. Examen Cherburianismi. Contra E. Herbertum de
244. 1668. Anton Reiser. De origine, progressu, et incremento Antitheismi
245. 1677. Val. Greissing. Corona Transylvani; Exerc. 2, de Atheismo,
246. 1689. Th. Undereyck. Der Närrische Atheist in seiner Thorheit
247. 1697. A. H. Grosse. An Atheismus necessario ducat ad corruptionem
248. 1708. Loescher. Prænotiones Theologicæ contra Naturalistarum et
249. 1708. Rechenberg. Fundamenta veræ religionis Prudentum, adversus
250. 1710. J. C. Wolfius. Dissertatio de Atheismi falso suspectis.
251. 1713. Anon. Widerlegung der Atheisten, Deisten, und neuen Zweifeler.
252. 3. For a community in which the reading class was mainly clerical and
253. 4. Other culture-conditions concurred to set up a spirit of rationalism
254. 5. After the collapse of the popular movement of Matthias Knutzen,
255. 6. A personality of a very different kind emerges in the same period
256. 7. Among the pupils of Thomasius at Halle was Theodore Louis Lau,
257. 8. While Thomasius was still at work, a new force arose of a more
258. 9. Even before the generation of active pressure from English and
259. 10. To the same period belong the first activities of Johann Christian
260. 11. Even from decorous and official exponents of religion, however,
261. 12. Alongside of home-made heresy there had come into play a new
262. 13. Frederick, though reputed a Voltairean freethinker par excellence,
263. 14. The social vogue of deistic thought could now be traced in much of
264. 15. If it be true that even the rationalizing defenders of Christianity
265. 16. Much more notorious than any other German deist of his time was
266. 17. Alongside of these propagators of popular rationalism stood
267. 18. Deism was now as prevalent in educated Germany as in France or
268. 19. Meanwhile, the drift of the age of Aufklärung was apparent in
269. 20. No less certain is the unbelief of Schiller (1759-1805), whom
270. 21. The critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) may be said
271. 22. The total performance of Kant thus left Germany with a powerful
272. 23. Some philosophic opposition there was to Kant, alike on
273. 24. It is true that the progressive work was not all done by the
274. 25. The emancipation, too, was limited in area in the German-speaking
275. CHAPTER XIX
276. 1. Traces of new rationalistic life are to be seen in the Scandinavian
277. 2. For long, the only personality making powerfully for culture was
278. 3. In Sweden, meantime, there had occurred some reflex of the
279. 4. That there was, however, in eighteenth-century Sweden a considerable
280. 5. According to one of Swedenborg's biographers, the worldliness of
281. 6. In Denmark, on the other hand, the stagnation of nearly a hundred
282. 1. In Poland, where, as we saw, Unitarian heresy had spread
283. 2. In Russia the possibilities of modern freethought emerge only in
284. 1. Returning to Italy, no longer the leader of European thought, but
285. 2. First came the great work of Vico, the Principles of a New Science
286. 3. It is noteworthy, indeed, that the "New Science," as Vico boasted,
287. 1763. Thenceforth for many years there raged, "under the eyes of Pope
288. 4. Between 1737 and 1798 may be counted twenty-eight Italian writers
289. 1. For the rest of Europe during the eighteenth century, we have
290. 2. Still all freethinking in Spain ran immense risks, even under
291. 3. Another grandee, Don Christophe Ximenez de Gongora, Duke of
292. 4. In another case, a freethinking priest skilfully anticipated
293. 5. Out of a long series of other men of letters persecuted by the
294. 6. Another savant of the same period, Don Joseph de Clavijo y Faxardo,
295. 7. Still in the same reign, the Jesuit Francisco de Ista, author of an
296. 8. It is plain that the combined power of the Church, the orders,
297. 9. Portugal in the same period, despite the anti-clerical policy
298. CHAPTER XX
299. 1. Perhaps the most signal of all the proofs of the change wrought
300. 2. The rise of rationalism in the colonies must be traced in the main
301. 3. Similarly prudent was Jefferson, who, like Franklin and Paine,
302. 4. Nothing in American culture-history more clearly proves the last
303. 5. Its immediate effect was much greater in Britain, where his Rights
304. 6. The habit of reticence or dissimulation among American public men
305. CHAPTER XXI
306. 1. In Great Britain and America, the new movements of popular
307. 2. In France and elsewhere, the reverberation of the attack
308. 3. German "rationalism," proceeding from English deism, moving
309. 4. The literary compromise of Lessing, claiming for all religions
310. 5. In England, the neo-Christianity of the school of Coleridge,
311. 6. The utilitarianism of the school of Bentham, carried into
312. 7. Comtism, making little direct impression on the "constructive"
313. 8. German philosophy, Kantian and post-Kantian, in particular
314. 9. German atheism and scientific "materialism"--represented
315. 10. Revived English deism, involving destructive criticism
316. 12. Colenso's preliminary attack on the narrative of the
317. 13. The later or scientific "higher criticism" of the Old
318. 14. New historical criticism of Christian origins, in particular
319. 15. Exhibition of rationalism within the churches, as in Germany,
320. 16. Association of rationalistic doctrine with the Socialist
321. 17. Communication of doubt and moral questioning through poetry and
322. 4. The comprehension of all science in the Evolution Theory,
323. 7. Sociology, as outlined by Comte, Buckle, Spencer, Winwood Reade,
324. 8. Comparative Hierology; the methodical application of principles
325. 9. Above all, the later development of Anthropology (in the wide
326. 1. Penal laws, still operative in Britain and Germany against
327. 2. Class interests, involving in the first half of the century
328. 3. Commercial pressure thus set up, and always involved in the
329. 4. In England, identification of orthodox Dissent with political
330. 5. Concessions by the clergy, especially in England and the United
331. 6. Above all, the production of new masses of popular ignorance
332. 7. On this basis, business-like and in large part secular-minded
333. 1. If any one circumstance more than another differentiates the life
334. 2. Meantime, new writers arose to carry into fuller detail the attacks
335. 3. As the years went on, the persecution in England grew still fiercer;
336. 4. In this evolution political activities played an important
337. 5. Holyoake had been a missionary and martyr in the movement
338. 6. This date broadly coincides with the maximum domination of
339. 7. In 1858 there was elected to the presidency of the London Secular
340. 8. The special energy of the English secularist movement in the ninth
341. 9. In the first half of the century popular forms of freethought
342. 10. In other Catholic countries the course of popular culture in
343. 11. In Germany, as we have seen, the relative selectness of culture,
344. 12. Under the widely-different political conditions in Russia and
345. 13. "Free-religious" societies, such as have been noted in Germany,
346. 14. Alongside of the lines of movement before sketched, there has
347. 15. A partly similar evolution has taken place among the Protestant
348. 16. The history of popular freethought in Sweden yields a good
349. 17. Only in the United States has the public lecture platform been
350. 1. At the beginning of the century, educated men in general
351. 2. Gradually that had developed a greater precision of method,
352. 3. No less remarkable was the check to the few attempts which had
353. 4. But as regards the gospel history in general, the first Leben
354. 5. For a time there was undoubtedly "reaction," engineered with the
355. 6. Another expert of Baur's school, Albrecht Schwegler, author of
356. 7. In 1864, after an abstention of twenty years from discussion of
357. 1870. In what is now recognized as the national manner, he wrote two
358. 8. And it was long before even Strauss's early method of scientific
359. 9. In New Testament criticism, though the strict critical method of
360. 10. The movement of Biblical and other criticism in Germany has had
361. 11. On a less extensive scale than in Germany, critical study of the
362. 12. In France systematic criticism of the sacred books recommenced
363. 1. The whole imaginative literature of Europe, in the generation
364. 2. The literary history of France since his death decides the question,
365. 3. In French poetry the case is hardly otherwise. Béranger, who
366. 4. In England it was due above all to Shelley that the very age of
367. 5. One of the best-beloved names in English literature, Charles Lamb,
368. 6. While a semi-Bohemian like Lamb could thus dare to challenge the
369. 7. This attitude of orthodoxy, threatening ostracism to any avowed
370. 8. Thus for a whole generation honest and narrow-minded believers were
371. 9. In English fiction, the beginning of the end of genuine faith
372. 10. Among the most artistically gifted of the English story-writers and
373. 11. Though Shelley was anathema to English Christians in his own
374. 12. Of the imaginative literature of the United States, as of that of
375. 13. Of the vast modern output of belles lettres in continental Europe,
376. 1850. "If I could only go out on crutches!" he exclaimed; adding:
377. 14. But perhaps the most considerable evidence, in belles lettres,
378. 15. In the Scandinavian States, again, there are hardly any
379. 1. The power of intellectual habit and tradition had preserved
380. 2. From France came likewise the impulse to a naturalistic handling
381. 3. In England the influence of the French stimulus in physiology
382. 4. A more general effect, however, was probably wrought by the science
383. 5. Still more rousing, finally, was the effect of the science of
384. 6. Other anticipations of Darwin's doctrine in England and elsewhere
385. 7. "Contempt and abhorrence" had in fact at all times constituted
386. 8. Thus the idea of a specific creation of all forms of life by an
387. 1. A rationalistic treatment of human history had been explicit or
388. 2. In England the anti-revolution reaction was visible in this as
389. 3. All study of economics and of political history fostered such
390. 4. Two lines of scientific study, it would appear, must be thoroughly
391. 1. The philosophy of Kant, while giving the theological class a new
392. 2. In respect of his formal championship of Christianity Hegel's
393. 3. From the collisions of philosophic systems in Germany there
394. 4. Arnold Ruge (1802-1880), who was of the same philosophical school,
395. 5. On Feuerbach's Essence of Religion followed the resounding explosion
396. 6. In France the course of thought had been hardly less
397. 7. On retrospect, the whole official French philosophy of the period,
398. 8. The most energetic and characteristic philosophy produced in the new
399. 9. In Britain, where abstract philosophy after Berkeley had been mainly
400. 10. When English metaphysical philosophy revived with Sir William
401. 11. The effect of the ethical pressure of the deistic attack on
402. 12. A powerful and wholesome stimulus was given to English thought
403. 1598. Chapman spells the name Harriots.
404. 1587. Reprinted in 1592, 1604, and 1617.
405. 128. Cp. Bayle, art. Vorstius, Note N. By his theological opponents and
406. 1573. Ritter, Geschichte der deutschen Union, i, 19. Cp. Menzel,
407. 1646. (Gangræna, p. 151.) The Hanserd Knollys collection, above
408. 1614. Epist. Ded.
409. 1705. (Pref. to pt. i, ed. 1725.)
410. 1876. See citations in Land's note to his lecture in Spinoza: Four
411. 1663. From the withholding of court favour it proceeded to subsidies
412. 169. Most of the Guardian papers cited are by Berkeley. They are
413. 1903. pp. 36-37.
414. 1750. Forbes in his youth had been famed as one of the hardest drinkers
415. Introduction to the History of the Jews; a Vindication of Biblical
416. 1764. It was no fewer than four times ordered to be destroyed in the
417. 19. Jahrhunderts, 2te Aufl. 1848, i, 218-20.
418. 1768. Tn the latter entry, Yvon is described as "poursuivi comme
419. 193. Mrs. Dunlop, the friend of Burns, recommending its perusal to
420. 1841. Many of the utterances here set forth are irreconcilable with
421. 282. The Concordat was bitterly resented by the freethinkers in the
422. 1686. Other German and French periodicals soon followed that of
423. 24. "Before Thomasius," writes Bielfeld, "an old woman could not have
424. 1785. The Letters purport to be written by one of the Moroccan embassy
425. 1684. After a youth of poverty and struggle he settled at Copenhagen in
426. 139. Cp. Rambaud, Hist. de Russie, 2e édit. pp. 249, 259,
427. 32. Ripley, who was one of the American transcendentalist group and
Reading Tips
Use arrow keys to navigate
Press 'N' for next chapter
Press 'P' for previous chapter