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THE SKEPTICS
OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME.
THE SKEPTICS OF THE
ITALIAN
RENAISSANCE. BY JOHN OWEN.
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE RE-
NAISSANCE IN ITALY.
ITALY. By Dr.
JACOB BURCKHARDt. Translated by
S. G. C. MIddlemore.
LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO.
THE SKEPTICS
FRENCH
OF THE
46
RENAISSANCE
BY
JOHN OWEN
RECTOR OF EAST ANSTEY, DEVON
Author of "Evenings with the Skeptics"; "Verse Musings on Nature, Faith and
Freedom"; Editor of Glanvil's "Scepsis Scientifica "

•
ARDVA QVÆ - PVLCRA
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO.
1893
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
INTRODUCTION.
LITTLE need be added here to the Introductory remarks made
in my companion volume on the Italian Skeptics. In this, as
in the preceding volume, the interlocutors are the same, the
intellectual and spiritual idiosyncrasies with which they are
hypothetically credited are alike, the mode of treatment and
other such literary attributes are more or less akin. A
parallelism incidental and unconscious seems to characterize
the two volumes. How far indeed it might be possible on
some such plan as Plutarch's Parallel Lives to attempt a com-
parison of likeness or contrast between some of the chief
personages in both volumes is a suggestion to which the truest
response would be affirmative though its working out in detail
would probably be attended with risk. Thus Dante and
Pascal might be made to pair off as possessing some features
and tendencies strikingly alike. Similarly Pulci and Mon-
taigne, Pomponazzi and Sanchez might be coupled and
induced without much difficulty to go in intellectual double
harness, just as, later on, we have, outside the scope of our
immediate enquiry, such later parallelisms as those between
Gioberti and Malebranche, and Rosmini and Maine de Biran.
But the attempt, however easy in many respects, would not be
altogether void of hazard, while its utility, except as an idle
man's recreation, would be as manifest here as it is in most of
Plutarch's variously assorted literary matches.
vii
viii
Introduction.
What seems more certain as well as more useful in a com-
parative retrospect of the two volumes is their aggregate
lessons or issues; chiefest of these is the fact that the general
scope of the earlier volume, and the free-thinking skeptics
irregularly embraced by it, tends to the impairing, if not to
the exhaustion, of Italian skepticism regarded as an evolu-
tionary process. With the death of Vanini the history of
skeptical free-thought in Italy seems to come to an end. The
'Catholic Reaction,' as the movement has, with doubtful
appropriateness, been described, had already set in. Popes and
Church Councils on the one hand, the courts of princes, the
recently awakened splendour of the nobility of France and
Italy on the other; the aesthetic culture of academies and
learned societies throughout Europe,-all these were causes
which drew after them divers effects in harmony with the
divine environments in which they operated. While in Italy
they combined partly to dwindle, partly to confine to a
narrower grove the outspoken skepticism of e.g. such thinkers
as Pomponazzi and Vanini, in France their operation partook
of a broader, more expansive, more heterogeneous character.
Thus Italy, which had been the foremost to occupy the field
of the European Renaissance in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, resigns in the latter half of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries its supremacy to France. The skepticism
which, with Giordano Bruno as its prophet, it had diffused
over Europe became more and more idealistic in its character.
So much was this the case that it accomplished, so to speak,
the complete circle of physical and metaphysical research and
again became dogmatic and doctrinaire. It is curious and
anomalous, but it is nevertheless true, that Gioberti and
Rosmini are the intellectual and spiritual sons of Giordano
Bruno; at least they are his step-children, the offspring of one
true, one supposititious parent.
The natural outcome of this philosophical genealogy is
manifold. Not only have the professorial chairs in the Italian
Introduction.
ix
Universities during the seventeenth century been filled by
Hegelians, but the free-thought that starts from the Renais-
sance has produced outcomes no less remarkable in other
directions of culture and enlightenment. Thus the naturalism
of e.g. such writers as Marino has frequently tended to dog-
matic negation, while this in its turn, as in the case of
Leopardi, has degenerated into extreme pessimism. But the
evolution in these and in similar cases has taken place on the
straight lines of philosophical continuity and sequence. In a
word, the skepticism of the Italian Renaissance has either
become merged and extinguished by ecclesiastical dogma, or
else, taking another and opposite direction, it has committed
intellectual suicide by sacrificing itself on the altar of intel-
lectual Nihilism and Negation.
In France, on the contrary, as already pointed out, the
philosophy of skepticism and free enquiry takes a much wider
range of culture. Not however that this implies an inferiority
in other departments of philosophical and scientific research,
if at least we except the slight superiority in æsthetic and
artistic productions which seems implied by the names of
Jean Cousin, Palissy, Vouet, Le Brun and Poussin. Were
we to take a crucial instance of the comparative culture of
the two countries and their parallelism in progressive know-
ledge, we might perhaps pair off the mathematical school of
Ramus against that of Galileo and his disciples. During the
seventeenth century, stimulated no doubt by the marvellous
and then recent discoveries in astronomy, no study was more
fashionable even in royal circles than that of mathematics.
The chairs occupied by its professors were invested with
greater splendour than other professorial chairs, 'd' autant,'
as we are told, 'que les mathématiques sont sciences royales
et de tous temps estimées très belles et très nécessaires.'
Though the difference might not have been great, the suc-
cessors in Ramus's mathematical chair, including such famous
names as Henri de Monantheuil, Victe Jacques Martin, Jean
X
Introduction.
Baptiste Morin, Gilles de Roberval, Jean Stilla, and Pierre
Gassendi, were superior to those who followed in the steps
and propagated the teaching of Galileo Galilei. We must
regard as part of this larger learning in mathematics and
physical science, the greater amplitude and diversity of
skeptical free-thought which we have already asserted to
characterize French philosophy. The bearing of this point on
the subject-matter of the present volume is that which its
readers ought especially to bear in mind.
Thus in the plan of selection herein adopted, which was
also the plan of the former volume, the thinkers chosen are
types. They do not represent an unbroken continuity of
thought, nor a close chronological sequence in point of time.
Intellectual principles, standpoints or directions involving
unity or similarity such as might afford a basis for classifica-
tion, may exist in various kinds. These mere tendencies may
stand in relation to the persons who embody and represent
them like a string on which is threaded a number of beads.
The thread of silk, or cotton, or wire, bears no more vital or
essential relation to the beads thereby held together than, let
us say, the Linnæan principle of plant-classification by ex-
ternal structure bears to the vital attributes or true natural
character of the plants thus discriminated.
Thus under the general principle of free scientific enquiry-
a principle uncommitted to any particular method or conclu-
sion-we may have a skepticism wholly free from both
affirmation or negation-in other words, pure Pyrrhonism; or
we may have a skepticism which is adopted in order to obtain
a ground or foothold for some dogmatic principle-the
methodical principle which is known in philosophy as
academic skepticism. We might, on sufficient grounds given,
have adopted this discrimination in the former volume. Thus
no attentive reader could have failed to note the essential
difference between, let us say, Pulci, Machiavelli and Vanini
on the one hand, and Dante, Petrarca and Bruno on the other.
Introduction.
xi
Readers little versed in philosophical thought might have
assigned to the former a kind of philosophical unscrupulous-
ness, a liberty degenerating into libertinism; in other words,
they might have accused them of perversities of ratiocination
which are impossible both in idea and actuality, forgetting
that a principle of thought such as e.g. the pure enquiry for
truth, especially for truth that is absolute, may easily exist
without any definite conclusion or kind of method.
A similar discrimination may obtain in the case of French
skeptical thinkers, and a consideration of the names pertain-
ing to academic and Pyrrhonic skepticism will furnish a proof
of the impartiality with which the names in the following
volume have been selected. Happily for our purpose, the
greater wealth of French philosophic thought in thinkers of
both kinds will render the comparison between them more
demonstrable as well as variedly interesting. We thus have
a kind of dual continuity of French free philosophy.
I.
Pyrrhonic Skeptics.
Montaigne.
Rabelais.
Charron.
Sanchez.
Pascal.
Le Vayer.
Rousseau.
II.
Academic Skeptics.
Descartes.
Peter Ramus.
Pascal.
Malebranche.
Huet of Avranches.
Bayle.
D'Alembert.
Voltaire.
It is not contended that these lists are faultless, or that a
name assigned to one might have equal right to be assigned to
the other. The qualities for which they stand are rather
approximately than distinctly separable. They are in one
case more or less Pyrrhonic, or more Pyrrhonic than academic,
or again more academic than Pyrrhonic. Pascal, to take a
remarkable example, occupies a place in each list. It would
xii
Introduction.
certainly not be easy to say on a full and impartial examina-
tion of the question whether his was more a Pyrrhonic or
an academic skepticism. There was a time in his life when
he was entirely and exclusively the former, but there was
another period when he was wholly the latter. Le Vayer, on
the other hand, started with being an academic skeptic, but
the close of his philosophical career presents him as wholly a
Pyrrhonian. In short, the two methods of skeptical thought
are so closely akin, the line which separates the academic from
the Pyrrhonic thinker is either so faint and imperceptible, or
else is so wavy and uncertain, that it seems impossible to obtain
a clear indication of its position.
Readers of these lists will probably feel some surprise at
what may be termed, especially by way of contrast with
Italian philosophers, the greater affluence of French free-
thinkers. Almost every thinker of importance in French
philosophy during the seventeenth century may claim to be
more or less of a skeptic or free-thinker. There are of course
reasons why the germ of free culture should have produced
such a diversity of mature fruitage in French thought, why
Montaigne, Charron and Rabelais stretch hands of brotherhood
and philosophical reciprocity across the intervening centuries
to the Encyclopædists, to Rousseau, D'Alembert, Diderot and
Voltaire in the eighteenth century, but these reasons we have
no room or time at present to explore. Some of them are
political and economical, others are ecclesiastical and religious;
all of them are so indissolubly connected with the history of
France that to attempt a bare enumeration of them would
involve the writing of French history during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries.
Lastly. It is the author's pleasant duty again to proffer his
thanks to Mr. Wm. Swan Sonnenschein for the continuation
of those invaluable indices with which he most kindly enriched
the earlier volume. Those who are acquainted with the ful-
ness, the learning, the literary and other interests, the varied
Introduction.
xiii
utility of those judicious additamenta to that volume, will be
the first to concede how much they deserve the acknowledg-
ment and gratitude both of author and reader.
JOHN OWEN.
EAST ANSTEY RECTORY,
October 24th, 1893.
MONTAIGNE
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
432
CHAPTER II.
PETER RAMUS .
493
CHARRON
CHAPTER III.
559
CHAPTER IV.
SANCHEZ
. 617
CHAPTER V.
LA MOTHE-LE-VAYER
649
PASCAL.
CHAPTER VI.
. 731
INDEX TO LITERARY REFERENCES
INDEX TO SUBJECTS
809
823
XV
THE SKEPTICS OF THE FRENCH
RENAISSANCE.
VOL. II.
B
20
'Si philosopher c'est doubter, comme ils disent, à plus forte raison niaiser et
fantastiquer, comme je fois, doibt estre doubter.'
Montaigne, Essais, bk. ii. ch. iii.
'But if he should still remain in doubt, where is the harm, or rather why is it
not to be considered a good? The subject is evidently one which admits strong
probabilities on opposite sides. Doubt therefore is the proper sentiment for the
occasion.'
S. Bailey, Essay on Pursuit of Truth, p. 42.
'J'appelle Montaigne "le Français le plus sage qui ait jamais existé.”
Sainte Beuve, Nouveaux Lundis, ii. p. 177.
CHAPTERS I.-II.
MONTAIGNE.
1
MRS. HARRINGTON. As successive exponents of Free-thought
we ought perhaps to have made Montaigne ¹ follow Raymund
of Sabieude, who, we must presume, was his master.
2
TREVOR. In my opinion this was quite unnecessary. The
influence the Spanish professor exercised on Montaigne, though
distinct in quality, was not overwhelmingly great in quantity.
His native independence and intellectual vigour made the
¹ On the subject of Montaigne, the following are the authorities consulted
and cited:-
Essais de Michel de Montaigne avec des Notes de Tous les Commentateurs.
Paris, Didot, 1838. With this ordinary text has been collated those of other
Editions; notably the reprint of the first Edition: Paris 1870:
For the use of English readers references are also made to Hazlitt's improved
version of Cotton's translation. London: J. Templemann, 1842,.
La Theologie Naturelle de Raymond Sebon, Traduit par Messire Michel
Seigneur de Montaigne. Paris 1581.
Lettres inedites de Michel Montaigne et de quelques autres personnages du
16e siècle, par M. Feuillet de Conches, 1863.
Nouveaux Documents inedits ou peu connus sur Montaigne, par Dr. J. F. Payen.
Par. 1850.
Recherches sur Montaigne, par Dr. J. F. Payen.
Le Christianisme de Montaigne, par l'Abbé Labourderie.
Grün, La Vie Publique de Montaigne. Paris 1855.
Bayle St. John, Montaigne the Essayist. 2 vols. London 1857.
Eloge Historique de Michel de Montaigne, par D. Devienne, 1775.
Michel de Montaigne, son origin, sa famille, etc., par Theophile Malvezin.
Bordeaux 1875.
Étude sur les Essais de Montaigne, par Alphonse Leveaux. Paris 1870.
M. Ste Beuve, Nouveaux Lundis, ii. p. 450, vi. p. 239; Causeries du Lundi, iv. 76.
Nisard, Histoire de la Litterature Français. Vol. i.
Dr. Hermann Thimm, Der Skepticismus Montaigne's. Göttingen 1875.
Of Articles in Dictionaries, the only one deserving mention is M. Joubert
in the Nouv. Bio. Gen. Of Articles in English Reviews and Magazines it seems
impossible for English critics to avoid notice of Dean Church's celebrated Essay,
contributed to the Oxford Essays for 1857. Notwithstanding the excessive
laudation bestowed on this production, and its unquestionable merits in several
important particulars, the Essay is wholly vitiated by its untenable stand-
points. To estimate a Free-thinker of the Renaissance, by the prim, gravely
pedantic, and hyper-decorous standard of a typical Oxford Don, and a born
Ecclesiastic, is a twofold mistake which is hard to understand in a critic
possessed of the barest rudiments of literary knowledge and justice.
2 Comp. Evenings with the Skeptics, vol. ii. p. 423.
423
424 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
rôle of disciple to Raymund or any one else quite impossible.
Hence French skepticism, fully formed in the sense of Pyrrhonic
suspense, begins with Montaigne. He is the Sokrates of French
philosophy; wielding the same instrumentality of inquisitive
Nescience as the famous Greek, and differing from him only
in his greater lack of earnestness. His Essais, too, occupy just
the same place in French Free-thought, that the Platonic
dialogues of Search occupy in Greek philosophy.
HARRINGTON. The Essais fully deserves both its classic
position and its general influence, for a more delightful book
it would be impossible to name. If a book is the reflex of the
author's mind and nature; and in Montaigne's case it must
have been so, for he tells us 'his book is himself,' what a
pleasant, thoughtful, chatty, good-humoured old gentleman
he must have been! a perfect model in my opinion of that
rarest of combinations, learning and philosophical culture, with
homely common sense and genuine bon-homie. The only fault
I find in him is that with which he is usually charged,-he
parades too fully and freely what he conceives to be his own
eccentricities, taking a half-humorous pleasure in making him-
self out more weak, capricious, ignorant, foolish and forgetful
than he really was.
MISS LEYCESTER. May not this well-marked characteristic
help to explain what we call his skepticism? He may have
taken a pleasure in minimizing his knowledge and magnifying
his ignorance for the same reason that he exaggerates his
weaknesses and throws a veil over his virtues. I have some-
times thought this is a kind of trick of our skeptics, just as
some valetudinarians take a morbid delight in dilating on their
symptoms, or perhaps as beggars show their sores to elicit
sympathy and charity.
TREVOR. Rather say, Miss Leycester, for the reason that
beggars are beggars-an overt proof that they possess nothing,
and are not ashamed to own it. That a skeptic should claim
the name and the intellectual indigence which it implies, and
notwithstanding, make an open boast of his knowledge, would be
an incongruity too flagrant and self-stultifying to be common.
ARUNDEL. And yet an exaggerated estimate, combined with
a needless parade, of one's own ignorance, may surely be just
Montaigne.
425
as far from the truth as an unreal and ostentatious display
of knowledge. The besetting sin of skepticism, I should say,
is pretentious ignorance-a false and affected agnosticism.
This is one reason which makes me distrust the sincerity of
over-much skeptical profession. In this respect I agree with
Miss Leycester; as a rule
'Methinks our skeptics do protest too much.'
Were they more silent, I should give them more credence.
HARRINGTON. You do Montaigne, at all events, injustice in
this particular. His extreme garrulity is not the quality only
of his belief or unbelief; it is part of the man himself—a
characteristic of his effusive temperament.. Reticence on any
subject was not only distasteful, but utterly repellent to his
nature. What we call his vanity or egotism-the weakness
which I regard as peculiarly his 'besetting sin'-seems fre-
quently but another name for this irrepressible talkativeness,
this overflow of confidential communication. Hence, having
exhausted all other subjects of which he feels and admits his
ignorance, he turns with ever new delight to himself—the
subject which, though abundantly mysterious, he knows best;
and like a child with a mechanical toy, he invites us again
and again to behold that most wonderful of ingenious puzzles
-his own inward being. He opens, so to speak, the outer
case; he exposes the curious machinery within. Piecemeal he
detaches and removes every single wheel or joint or spring.
He takes a childish delight in declaiming on the admirable
beauty, fitness, and exquisite delicacy of adjustment of the
whole mechanism. And when he has exhausted every single
portion of it, with the deftness acquired by long practice, he
puts the whole machine in working order again, and asks,
as he sets it going, with a mixture of triumph at his own skill
and enjoyment of our surprise, if we ever or anywhere saw
such a remarkable and curious piece of mechanical ingenuity
as he has just displayed to us. Moreover, if we put ourselves
back to the environment of Montaigne, we find another
explanation of his somewhat peculiar attitude towards the
theology of his time. It held high authority, and was avowedly,
and very inconveniently adverse to the freedom of thought in
426
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
which Montaigne excelled, and which he delighted in display-
ing in writing that he was, except among familiar associates,
equally candid in speech, we have hardly sufficient evidence.
Even if we suppose that he had himself advanced so far in his
skepticism, as to feel safe towards his Maker in thinking so freely,
it is not likely that he felt anything like the same safety as
regarded his neighbours, or the world at large. He may, there-
fore, have assumed, and I incline to think he did, habitually,
in that portion of his work to which attention is here directed,
assume a manner obviously not inconsistent with, and fairly
attributable to, a lack of earnestness. He probably never lost
sight of the possible expediency of a retreat from a contest not
unlikely in those days to end in martyrdom—which I am con-
vinced he would never have courted, and would, had he been
tried, 'most religiously' have avoided.
MISS LEYCESTER. I must take exception to your ruling,
Charles! No doubt Montaigne is garrulous, il va sans dire, bui
to resolve his vanity, and still worse his skepticism, into mere
uncontrollable loquacity is to confound the symptom with the
disease. Garrulity, when it takes such a form as Montaigne's,
is surely the outward expression of a very intense feeling.
TREVOR. Still Harrington's argument is not so easily dis-
posed of. Random speaking or writing, and such, himself being
witness, was Montaigne's, may, as we all know, easily incur
the suspicion of obnoxious opinions. Indeed so great is the
discursiveness of method and multifariousness of material in
the Essays, that I would almost undertake, by a judicious
selection and juxtaposition of extracts, to bring Montaigne in
guilty of almost every opinion that has been seriously pro-
pounded since the commencement of human thought. But we
had better, I think, postpone the consideration of Montaigne's
character until we have before us the data which I have
accumulated on the subject. Of course he is much more than
the purveyor of easy good-humoured gossip 'about everything
and a few things besides.' For as he is the especial repre-
sentative in France, as Pomponazzi in Italy, or Agrippa in
Germany, of the new learning-the movement of free modern
culture in opposition to medieval ecclesiasticism-Montaigne
in fact, besides being the first of French skeptics, is the earliest
เ
Montaigne.
427
French philosopher.
The Thales of France,' as Justus Lip-
sius calls him, not so much because he can claim to be an
original thinker, still less the exponent of a systematic scheme
of thought or practice, as because being a Frenchman he first
presented in the national form, with those characteristics of
* sweetness and light' which mark the best philosophic thought
of his countrymen, the speculations and opinions of the
ancients, combined in his case into an exquisite 'pot-pourri'
with his own modern instincts and native homely common sense.
MRS. ARUNDEL. But if Montaigne's opinions are so various
as to be contradictory, why not give him the 'benefit of the
doubt,' and proclaim him a sound philosopher and an orthodox
Christian?
DR. TREVOR. Most willingly do I assign him the benefit of
doubt, and that of the most pronounced character; because
I believe him to be, some few disguises notwithstanding, an
arrant unbeliever. Besides which such mutual contradictions
annihilate each other, as we have already seen in our chapter
on Twofold Truth; and, as you know, conflicting testimony
by a witness does not receive the benefit of any one particular
construction; it is refused all credence whatsoever.
MISS LEYCESTER. You recommended Mr. Arundel, if he
wished to take up cudgels for Montaigne's orthodoxy, to read
the Abbé Labourderie's work, Le Christianisme de Montaigne.
I should like to ask him whether the perusal of that book
has satisfied him of Montaigne's Christianity in any generally
accepted sense of the term.
ARUNDEL. I daresay Montaigne's Christianity will form
part of Trevor's dissertation. I will not forestall what he has
to tell us, further than to say that if Montaigne was a Christian
in any but the most superficial sense of the word, the fact
must be shown by some other method than that employed
by the Abbé. Bayle St. John calls his attempt Jesuitical,
because it infers Montaigne's Christianity from some discon-
nected extracts of his translation of Raymund's Natural
Theology. Certainly the ignoring of the direct evidence con-
tained in the Essays, and the appeal to a translation which
he undertook in obedience to his father's injunctions, afford
to my mind a conclusive proof of the weakness of his case.
428
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Moreover, if the matter were so clear as the worthy Abbé
pretends, he need not have wasted some six hundred pages
on its elucidation and establishment.
HARRINGTON. Just imagine what consternation a rigid
application of the Abbé's method would create among our
modern army of translators!
MISS LEYCESTER. No doubt the principle may be pushed
to an undue extreme; still, a translation voluntarily under-
taken does, mostly, imply sympathy to a very considerable
extent. Besides, if the Abbé was quite mistaken in inferring
Montaigne's sympathy with the orthodox parts of the Natural
Theology, we should not be justified in inferring his skepticism
from the freer portions of the same work.
TREVOR. But with the Abbé it is a main argument; with
us it is altogether secondary. Montaigne's skepticism is quite
demonstrable from his own admissions, and needs no corrobora-
tion from any other source whatsoever. As to his Christianity,
it is the crux of his commentators, and for a good reason—it
constitutes the x or 'unknown quantity' of his intellectual
equation. I have solved the problem as well as I can; but
only with the result of discovering in his 'Christianity' the
strongest proof of his religious skepticism. From one point of
view Le Christianisme de Montaigne may be regarded as a
literary feat. I at least should have thought it impossible,
before reading it, that so dull and leaden a book could have
been written on so mercurial a theme.
MISS LEYCESTER. There are certain persons whom M. Gus-
tave Brunet calls 'Montaignologists,'¹ who are trying to do
the same service for the great Essayist which our Chaucer and
Shakespeare societies are endeavouring to effect for those poets.
Do you know whether their researches have thrown any new
light on Montaigne's thought or character ?
TREVOR. So far as I can determine, none worth mention-
no more in fact than the labours of Shakespeare societies have
effected in modifying, to any considerable extent, what has
always been known of our great dramatist's genuine works.
1 'Montaignologue.' M. Ste Beuve has entered a well-merited protest against
the use of this word as peculiarly inappropriate to Montaigne. Causeries du
Lundi, iv. p. 80.
Montaigne.
429
For that kind of literary labour, pushed to the extreme which
it often is now-a-days, I have but scant sympathy. To spend
a lifetime in the accumulation of such dreary scraps of infor-
mation as might be furnished by a man's butcher's bills, or
his signature to unimportant business documents, appears to
me the greatest possible waste of time and energy. It is the
mere scavengery of literature-a kind of Lazarus occupation,
'gathering the crumbs which fall from the rich man's table.'
When I have myself sat at the table and enjoyed the dishes,
the mice are welcome to the crumbs.
"
I
ARUNDEL. I entirely differ from you, Doctor, and would
reply to your quotation by another from the same source.
say of every rich man,' i.e. every famous man in art, science,
or literature, 'Gather up the fragments that remain, that no-
thing be lost.'
TREVOR. According to my experience, such 'gatherings '
mostly result in 'nothing being found.'
HARRINGTON. Your skepticism, Doctor, appears to me
perfectly misplaced. I agree with Arundel. Literary anti-
quarianism is not only justifiable in idea, but has frequently
achieved invaluable results which could never have been
attained by any other process than the patient sifting of
literary 'waste,' to which you have given the uncomplimen-
tary name of 'scavengery.' Take, e.g. Shakespeare. It is
not as modifying his dramas that Shakespeare societies set
themselves to investigate every discoverable record of his life,
and to prosecute their search in the most unlikely places, but
as throwing incidental light on his character and circum-
stances. Emerson, you remember, notes it as an observable
fact that while he was writing Macbeth, he sues Philip Rogers
in the borough court of Stratford for 35s. 10d. for corn de-
livered to him at different times; whence he not unfairly infers
that he was a good husband, with no reputation for eccentricity
or excess. Such casual and homely information was certainly
well worth the pains taken to acquire it.
MISS LEYCESTER. What you call literary antiquarianism is
connected, I presume, with the universal curiosity respecting
the personal habits of all great personages, from royalty down-
wards. In some respects the feeling may have a very adequate
430 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
basis; for it springs, or may spring, from the conviction of the
importance of personal habits or minor circumstances for de-
termining a man's character. In itself it is not a matter of
profound concernment what time such a king used to rise in
the morning, whether he took a cold bath, how much time he
allotted to his duties and how much to his pleasures, etc.; but
the answers to such questions help to determine his royal
qualities; like secondary characteristics in plants or animals,
they contribute to his classification as e.g. among rois faineants
or their opposites. To superficial people it might seem absurd
that a man capable of writing Macbeth should have troubled
himself about 35s. 10d.; and that while inditing the witches'
scene, or depicting Lady Macbeth's 'slumbery agitation,' he
was inwardly debating 'how he might compasse that rogue
Rogers, and procure paymente of his lawfulle debte;' but to
those who study human character in detail, and are aware on
what small issues its larger generalizations depend, will cherish
all these small mementoes as invaluable indications of personal
tendencies.
MRS. HARRINGTON. That is to say, the 'crumbs from a rich
man's table,' even when we have partaken of some of the
dishes, may help to fill up our knowledge of the man's cookery
and his general household economy.
HARRINGTON. More than that, Maria. It may throw a fuller
light on his true character than we could gain from his writ-
ings, even in the case of so communicative a writer as Mon-
taigne. When in the South of France the summer before
last, I got at Bordeaux a work on Montaigne by a local anti-
quary' (the same that I lent to you, Trevor), which gave some
curious disclosures as to his family and ancestors. All his
biographers agree that he was exceptionally vain of his sup-
posed descent from the old feudal possessors of the Seigneury
of Montaigne, and most of them regarded Scaliger's assertion,²
that his father was a 'seller of herrings,' as an unworthy
aspersion on the noble lineage of the great essayist; though,
1 Michel de Montaigne son origine sa famille, par Theophile Malvezin, Bordeaux
1875.
2 Scaligerana Secunda, Art. 'Montaigne' (p. 457).
Montaigne.
431
as Dr. Payne remarked, such a circumstance, if true, was
more to the honour of herring merchants than derogatory
to himself. Now it seems that, spite of Montaigne's allusions
to his long line of feudal ancestors, their warlike avocations,
etc., and his remark, conceived in the essential spirit of
feudalism, that 'the sword was the sole fitting employment
of French nobles,' that his grandfather was a general mer-
chant of Bordeaux, who trafficked in wines, salt fish, and other
commodities. It also appears that the chateau of Montaigne
had only been in the possession of his family for one genera-
tion, his father being the only one of his 'ancestors' born
there; and that, instead of giving their family name to the
Seigneury, they took the name Montaigne from it—their own
family name being the bourgeois and common one of Eyquem.
Now what a flood of light do these facts, only recently dis-
covered, throw upon Montaigne's barefaced assertion, that,
'most of his ancestors were born at the chateau of Montaigne,
and bestowed upon it their affection and their name,' or when
we discover in a record of Montaigne's family, published by
Dr. Payen, a note of his own birth, with the pen drawn across
the surname Eyquem. What a curious comment is thereby
afforded on the 46th Essay of his First Book, in which he
inveighs bitterly against the custom of noble families assum-
ing the name of their seigneuries instead of the proper name
of their families! No doubt we knew, apart from these dis-
coveries, that Montaigne was vain; besides being also 'divers et
ondoyant'; we have his own candid admission of both of these
weaknesses; but I think we may plead that the excess as well
of the vanity as of the waywardness, is demonstrated in a
peculiarly vivid manner by these antiquarian researches.
TREVOR. Perhaps in these cases I ought to admit the ser-
vices of antiquarianism, though it is easy here as elsewhere to
exaggerate them. Shakespeare's being alive to the importance
of securing payment for his corn, does not convey to me a
single trait of character that I was previously ignorant of.
Any diligent reader of his works must have concluded that,
with all his imaginative fervour, he was quite a business man.
As to Montaigne, he so repeatedly reproaches himself with
vanity, folly, and even falsehood, that an additional corrobor-
432 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
ation of the truth of those charges does not seem to me to
amount to much.
MISS LEYCESTER. But this disclosure goes beyond that; for
it reveals, casually and incidentally, a fact respecting which
Montaigne, with all his vaunting of self-analysis and his
eulogiums on his introspective sincerity, is guilty, not only of
a 'suppressio veri,' but of a 'suggestio falsi.' He undoubtedly
wished his contemporaries to believe-what most of his readers
have believed to the present day-that he had a long feudal
pedigree; whereas he was actually descended from a merchant.¹
ARUNDEL. But I thought Montaigne had English blood in
his veins. He certainly claims kindred with our race.²
TREVOR. Merely so far that his surname of Eyquem which,
notwithstanding Harrington and the antiquarians, he does not
seem to me to evince any desire to suppress, was common to
an English family. Some have converted it to Egham, others
to Oakham. But the derivation of Eyquem is too uncertain
to allow us to draw any inference from it. Could it have
been proved the equivalent of Ockam, the coincidence would,
for us, have been interesting.
HARRINGTON. Whatever the merits or demerits of Mon-
taigne, we must allow him one conspicuous attainment-and
that too of a skeptical kind—I mean Ataraxia. This quality
is not only reflected in his Essays, but is engendered by them.
Indeed, I do not know any work so well adapted to create a
placid, genial, many-sided equanimity as Montaigne's Essays.
So far he is an illustration, second only to Sokrates, of the
influence of Pyrrhonic suspense in generating philosophic calm.
ARUNDEL. It seems to me, Harrington, that you are con-
founding two very different things, viz., the Ataraxia resulting
from the perpetual equilibration of divergencies or antagonisms,
whether in speculation or in practice, and mere constitutional
indifference or insouciance. The latter, more than the former,
was, in my opinion, the secret of Montaigne's apathy. He was
1 M. Malvezin op. cit. p. 89, etc. Payen, Nouv. Doc. p. 10; comp. Bayle St.
John, Montaigne the Essayist, vol. i. p. 16.
2 See on this subject Bayle St. John's work, vol. i. p. 9. A recent German
historian of Philosophy goes so far as to call Montaigne a 'sohn eines gebornen
Engländers,' which he certainly was not. Erdmann, Grundriss, etc., i. 552.
Montaigne.
433
one of Nature's stoics, blessed with a "hard heart and sound
digestion." Genuine philosophic calm resembles, in my opinion,
religious composure so far that it is the effect of effort, of watch-
fulness, of a certain amount of earnestness. Even the Pyrrho-
nists themselves admit this. But Montaigne was incapable both
of effort and earnestness. He would have been equally calm,
in the sense of indifferent, had he never heard of Pyrrhon's
philosophy.
TREVOR. I agree with Harrington, in attributing Mon-
taigne's Ataraxia to his philosophy; and I think you are doing
him great injustice. The constitutional insouciance you mention
is a half-brutish stolidity which comes from want of thought.
Now, whatever else Montaigne may have been or not been,
he was indubitably a thinker, and that of a very profound and
logical type. Nor was he by any means destitute of feeling.
Indeed, he was endued with sensibility of a very high order.
He tells us that he was so acutely sympathetic, that he could
never hear any one cough without feeling a desire to imitate
him. No doubt he succeeded in maintaining a stoical com-
posure towards the ills and vicissitudes of life; but this was
attained in the way you commend, by self-discipline, by per-
sistent thought, and reflection, just as in point of fact, his
skeptical Ataraxia was the fruit of his antithetical habit, and
his endeavour to attain on all subjects a just mean, equally
removed from every extravagance and extreme.
I will now begin my paper:
Passing from the Renaissance in Italy, with its many-sided aspects,
its wide-spread results, its sudden creation of a national literature
and language, and its galaxy of illustrious names, to the chief repre-
sentives of the same movement in France, we become conscious both
of resemblances and contrasts. On the one hand some of the general
causes we have considered, as contributing to the progress of Free-
thought in Italy, co-operated also in the growth of Enlightenment in
France. The chief coefficient in the former was also a primary
agent in the latter, viz. the study of the classics. They agreed
moreover, in an antipathy to Scholasticism and dogma, and in a direct
appeal to Nature and simplicity. Both adopted skepticism as a
necessary mode of deliverance from intellectual thraldom. But what
first strikes us as in instituting a comparison between them is, the
preponderance of contrasts over similarities. Montaigne's Essais, the
434 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
first product of the French Renaissance, was published in 1580; and
therefore more than a century after the appearance of the classics of the
Italian Renaissance. Indeed the wave of the Italian Enlightenment
had lost nearly the whole of its original impetus, and was reduced to a
few insignificant eddies when, in reduced volume and energy it began
to break on the coasts of France. But this disparity is not what the
general history and prospects of the Renaissance during the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries would have led us to expect. At the com-
mencement of the thirteenth century the country which of all others
possessed the fairest outlook, in respect of approaching enlightenment
and Free-thought, was Southern France. It was one of the chief
homes of the Troubadours. Placed midway between Spain and Italy, it
received at the same time the declining rays of the now setting sun of
Arab civilization and culture, and the earlier beams of the rising sun
of Italian Classicalism. The Troubadours were not only wandering
minstrels, but they occupied to a considerable extent, just as the old
Greek rhapsodists did, the position of general teachers and purveyors
of Free-thought. They also cultivated, first in Europe, the graces of
style and linguistic expression in a language other than the Latin of
the Schoolmen and the Church; and this of itself constituted a breach
with the old instruments of dogma. Their daring spirit in the interpre-
tation of the same dogmas we have already alluded to. One of the
results of their free-culture and humanistic spirit being the birth and
development of certain heresies which were peculiarly obnoxious to
Rome, not so much on account of their actual conclusions—some of
which were sufficiently strange-as because they were permeated by
the spirit of intellectual independence and anti-sacerdotalism.
But this promise of an early spring-tide of Free-thought for France
was nipped in the bud by the infamous crusade of Innocent III. The
general bearing of that event, for Italian Free-thought, I have already
glanced at, but it possesses also a distinctive meaning in the history of
the French Renaissance. It serves to explain those peculiarities in
the progress of the people and the language by which the history of
France, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, is so markedly
distinguished from that of Italy. It arrested completely those grow-
ing forces which would else have culminated in a Renaissance earlier
even than that of Italy. It postponed for two centuries the growth of
French Enlightenment. What, left to itself, the many-sided culture
of Southern France might have attained, we have no means of knowing,
any more than we can predict the definitive results of any other mis-
chievous interference with the advance of human culture and civiliza-
tion. It has been said that the Troubadours produced no distinguished
name, or epoch-making work. They did not combine to create a Homer,
Montaigne.
435
as did the Ionian rhapsodists of Greece, nor a Dante and Petrarca,
like the popular ministrelsy of South Italy. But such a reproach is
both ungenerous and unjust. Their capacities and possibilities, con-
fessedly brilliant, were cruelly thwarted by Innocent's crusade. It is
idle to speculate on the maturity of a life of which we only possess
the data of a youth of extraordinary promise; but the forecast would
be nothing less than anomalous that did not augur a ripe development
just as brilliant and wonderful. But this violent suppression of the
nascent Free-thought of South France had also the effect of destroying
for many years her commercial energy. The close connexion of a
varied commerce with free culture we have already noticed, both in
the cases of ancient Greece and modern Italy. Before the thirteenth
century the greatest commercial rival of Italy was Southern France.
All its chief towns, Marseilles, Avignon, Arles, Narbonne, Toulouse,
Bordeaux, were thriving centres of a commercial enterprise which
extended its ramifications beyond Italy and Greece to Byzantium and
the East; while the trade and other relations between Southern France
and the North of Spain were of so intimate a character that the two
districts were often regarded and described as portions of one integral
country.¹ I need not point out the resemblance in these conditions,
so favourable to Free-thought, between South-France and Italy.
Indeed the Provençal poetry often manifests an intermixture of foreign
ideas and expressions which proves that the exchange of commodities
with foreign nations was not limited to their material products or
manufactures. But as I have remarked, this commercial activity
was almost totally extinguished by the Pope's crusade. In some of
the provinces wasted by De Montfort and his lieutenants, there were
hardly inhabitants enough left to carry on the most indispensable of
all native industries-the cultivation of the soil. Orthodoxy had
done its work, and for the time had achieved its aims. Heresy was
extirpated according to the formula which the satirist applied to the
Roman armies-'They make a solitude and call it peace.'
We must not however forget, in the similarity of predisposing
conditions, that there were also divergencies, neither small nor unim-
portant, between the Italian and French Renaissance; the result of
which was to give Italy an undoubted superiority as a field of free-
thought. Firstly: the political circumstances of Italy, from the twelfth
to the fifteenth century, were better adapted for the growth of
intellectual freedom than those of France during the same period, as
¹ Comp. Aubertin Hist de la langue et de la litterateur Françaises au Moyen
Age, vol. 1. p. 279.
2 M. Aubertin, op. cit. i. 280.
3 See on the whole subject, Martin, Histoire de France, vol. iv. chap. xxiii.
436
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
being marked by a much greater share of political liberty. We have
already noticed the early rise of the Commons in Italy which took
place before the twelfth century. Partly as a consequence of this,
partly from other causes, the feudalism generated by chivalry never
succeeded in finding a home in Italy except in the Norman kingdom of
Naples. In France, on the other hand, feudalism took root and became
a powerful factor in its political institutions from the time of the first
crusade; accordingly we find that the Commons of France did not
succeed in gaining their independence till the latter end of the
fifteenth century. This difference in political and social conditions
implies necessarily a considerable distinction in respect of aptitude
for mental freedom. In Italy the first-fruits of the national Enlighten-
ment at once took form in the national tongue and became the common
property of all sections of the community. No caste or class distinction
was recognized in respect of intellectual qualities or appreciation of
literary merits, whereas the essence of feudalism, normally developed,
is to create and intensify such distinctions. Chivalry had no doubt its
sentimental and generous side, by means of which its protection was
extended to the poor, oppressed, and the weak; but this protection
generally implied patronage, and was by no means the perfect social
equality that free-culture demands. Even the Troubadours in the
height of their prosperity were divided into classes or orders,¹ and
the members of the highest order were occasionally scions of noble.
houses, so that a spice of feudalism was thus introduced even into 'the
Gay Science. Besides, in the political history of France the influences
of feudalism received a peculiar intensification and corroboration by
their gradual incorporation with the prerogatives of the Crown,
instead of being, as in England and Italy, partly annihilated by
alliance with the Commons. As a general result, Literature and
Enlightenment attained much later in France that freedom and popu-
larity they acquired at their earliest development in Italy. To me the
most pleasing and characteristic picture of the Italian Renaissance
is the muleteers reciting portions of Dante or the sonnets of Petrarca,
or artizans and rustics engaged in singing the songs of Tasso and
Ariosto. No such popular interest in the highest products of the
national literature meets us in France until the commencement of
the sixteenth century, Montaigne's Essais being the first really
popular work in French literature. For three centuries, from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth, the most influential writers in France
were foreign. Next to the Greek and Latin classics, men with a taste
for culture read Dante, Petrarca, Tasso and Ariosto. A glance at the
list of authors quoted by Montaigne reveals the singular poverty of
¹ M. Aubertin, op. cit., p. 298.
Montaigne.
437
French literature in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. While
the Essais are studded with quotations from classical antiquity and
with frequent cullings from the Italian poets, the native writers of
France thought worthy of mention might be counted on the fingers of
one hand, Marot, Ronsard, Amyot and Du Bellay being the chief of
them. Hence the Italian Enlightenment seems more indigenous and
national than the later born Renaissance in France; though, in com-
paring them, allowance should be always made for the deadly wound
the Free-thought of France received from papal tyranny in the begin-
ing of the thirteenth century.
The distinction between the Renaissance in France and in Italy
is further evidenced by the effect of each on its own language. The
Italian tongue is the creation of the cultural awakening of the
nation. Its growth and development are to a considerable extent
coeval with the golden age of its literature. Within the compass of
little more than a century the language was not only half-evolved,
but definitively established by the works of Dante, Petrarca, and
Boccaccio. There is little difference between the pure Tuscan of
these writers and the literary Italian of the present day; whereas
the French of the thirteenth century is almost another language com-
pared with that of its classical epoch-the tongue of Corneille,
Molière, and Racine. Even had it attained its maturity in the Essais
of Montaigne, or the more polished writings of De Balzac-and there
have been French authors of repute who have preferred the 'careless
beauties' of Montaigne to the finished periods of the best French
writers of the nineteenth century-still this would make the final
evolution of the French language some two centuries later than that
of the Italian. Of the causes which contributed to this difference
I have already noted one-the sudden arresting of the growth of
romance, poetry and language by the Languedoc crusade. To this
might be added the disturbed political condition of France during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But there remains another
cause, both of the general distinction between the Italian and French
Renaissance, and of the arrested development of the French language,
which was one of its concomitants. I allude to the difference in
the educational methods of the two countries. Emerging from
the comparative darkness of the middle ages, Italy was the first
European country to throw off the yoke of the Schoolmen, not only as
a system of dogmas, but as a method of education. This it was
enabled to accomplish, in part, by the greater freedom of her Uni-
versity foundations, which again was a consequence of her political
divisions and rivalries. You remember how Petrarca satirizes the
educational systems of his time for their adherence to Aristotle and
VOL. II.
C
i
438
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
dialectic. His invective is a clear indication of the attitude of the
Italian Enlightenment to current methods of instruction. The polemic
of himself, and fellow Free-thinkers, against the antiquated methods
and subjects of teaching, was not lost. With the growth of the
Renaissance, the diffusion of Greek and Latin literature and the rapid
progress of a general spirit of inquiry, the Italian Universities began
to abandon their Scholasticism; or at least they combined with the
theological subjects insisted on by the Church, a continuously larger
admixture of Philosophy, Natural Science, and Belles Lettres. They
were able to accomplish this reformation by the free, and in many
cases municipal, character of their governments. Our recent discus-
sion on Pomponazzi, and our forthcoming examination of Ramus, will
enable you realize the extent of liberty a Professor at Padua enjoyed
in the fifteenth century, and how much greater it was than that of
a Regius Professor at Paris nearly a century later. The ready
eagerness of Italian Universities to embrace all fitting subjects of
instruction, even when quite novel and untried, is incidentally illus-
trated by the establishment of a Dante chair at Florence hardly
more than half a century after the poet's death. Some idea of the
significance of this step, as manifesting an appreciation of novel
teaching, may be gained by asking the question: In how many
English towns and seats of learning does a Shakespeare chair exist
at the present day?
In France, on the other hand, the methods of Scholasticism continued
to survive in her Universities until late in the sixteenth century
(1598). Not only so, but an antiquated uniformity was the charac-
teristic of all her seats of learning. The tendency to centralization,
which was the natural effect of the consolidation of the monarchy,
operated mischievously for its educational establishments. All the
Universities in France conformed their instruction and methods to
those of the University of Paris; and this, under the gradually in-
creasing ascendancy of the French monarchy, had lost its mediæval
reputation for Free-thought and Enlightenment. Clement Marot in
the sixteenth century calls the Professors of Art under whom he had
been educated, 'grands bêtes,' adding, 'je veux perdre ma part de
paradis, s'ils ne m'ont perdu ma jeunesse.'1 The partial significance
of Ramus's struggle with the ruling powers of the University, as we
shall see in our next discussion, was his attempt to impart more elas-
ticity to its routine of instruction; while his stress upon Rhetoric as
the science of graceful and ornate expression, was in reality an effort
to infuse into his pupils something of the humanizing influences of
1 Marot, Euv., Seconde Epistre du Coq à l'Asne.
Montaigne.
439
poetry and Belles Lettres which the Italian Universities had adopted
long before.
We are now in a position to estimate some of those differences that
distinguish the early progress of the Renaissance in Italy and in France.
We see why, in the latter country, the movement betrays symptoms
as of arrested vitality in a living organism; we discern the reason
why it presents, compared with Italy, a less spontaneous and indi-
genous character. We perceive also the justification of the common
classification, which makes Montaigne the chief representative of the
French Renaissance; and as occupying, in the sixteenth, a position
analogous to that which pertains to Petrarca and Boccaccio in the
Italian Enlightenment of the fourteenth, century.
In relation to our special subject, we first of all observe that
Montaigne combines most curiously, in his antecedents and circum-
stances, all the free-thinking influences that were energizing in the
France of the sixteenth century, as well as the special advantages
which South France enjoyed by its proximity to Spain and Italy.
His father, Pierre Eyquem de Montaigne, was the son of a Bor-
deaux merchant (as Harrington just now informed us, and in passing,
I willingly avow my obligations to the work which he mentions),
who seems to have been the first of his ancestors born at the château
of Montaigne. He was evidently a man of much original power, as
well as of that mental independence which is allied with and often
mistaken for eccentricity. Although occupying the position of a
country gentleman, and dwelling mostly at his château in Perigord,
he took an active part in the religious and political questions of his
time. On two occasions he accompanied Francis I. on his Italian
campaigns; and I have no doubt brought home some tincture of that
Free-thought and humanistic culture of which Italy was at that time
the European purveyor. His labours as a Conseiller of the Parlia-
ment of Bordeaux necessitated his acquaintance with the social and
political questions stirring in his own country. That he was a man
of some culture is shown by his interest in learned men, e.g. with
Govea, who for twenty years was president of the College of Guienne
at Bordeaux, and one of the first classical scholars in Europe. That
his sympathies were to a certain extent liberal, seems evidenced by
his enthusiastic approbation of Raymund of Sabieude's Natural
Theology, and his exhortation to his son Michel to translate it from
Latin to French; while his dissatisfaction with the educational
methods of his time, and perhaps also some sympathy with the
republican aspirations of which his son's friend, La Boëtie, was the
¹ M. Malvezin, op. cit., p. 89, etc. Payen, Nouv. Doc., p. 10. Comp. Bayle
St. John, Montaigne the Essayist, vol. i. p. 16, etc.
440
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
most recognised exponent during that century, might be inferred from
the early training to which he subjected his son Michel.
While, then, Montaigne, on his father's side, might claim some
affinity with classicalism, as well as with the general culture which
French seigneurs not unfrequently brought home from their Italian
campaigns, he was connected on his mother's side with the Free-
thought of the Spanish peninsula. His mother's name was Lopes,
and antiquarian research seems to show that she was descended from
a family of Spanish refugees. We know that at the end of the four-
teenth century there were large migrations from Spain and Portugal
to Bordeaux and the south of France of Jews, Protestants and
others, flying from the newly-established Inquisition. There seems
indeed reason for believing that Montaigne's mother's family was of
Jewish extraction; and that its male members pursued the avocations
—so common to Spanish Jews of that age-of merchants and doctors.
That she had Protestant sympathies has not been proved; but the fact
that one of Montaigne's brothers and two of his sisters were Protes-
tants may afford some slight presumption that such was the case. Per-
haps, too, Montaigne's own friendly correspondence with Henry of
Navarre may be taken as evincing a leaning to a Protestantism some-
what less austere and bigoted than that of Calvin or the French
Huguenots. At any rate he seems to have been connected, on his
mother's side, with the Free-thought, and physical science research
for which Spain had long been celebrated. Indeed, he himself dis-
tinctly admits that many of the peculiarities in his own character
were due to his mother's influence.
The child of such parents, Michel de Montaigne may be said to
have inherited a character of sturdy independence which was likely
to pursue its own intellectual course without much deference to the
wishes or prejudices of those about him. He also derived from his
parents and family traditions a predisposition to freedom of thought
and an insuperable dislike to dogma or constraint of every kind.
Michel was the eldest son of his parents, two children born before
him having died before coming to manhood. He was born in the
1538 year 1513(7) Of his early training he has left a particular account. It
was one of the circumstances of his life of which among others he
felt that he had a right to be vain. His father was endowed with
sufficient originality to evolve out of his own experience and reason
a theory of education. Its chief characteristics were a belief in
nature and freedom; a persuasion that education implied evolution,
a gradual unfolding from within instead of a forcible shaping from
without. It was therefore to be free from constraint, harshness, or
compulsion of any kind. The child was to be allured unconsciously
Montaigne.
441
:
and freely into the paths of learning. Montaigne's father was per-
suaded that no instrumentality was fitter for awakening the powers
of a child's mind, and bringing it by degrees into contact with the
greatest minds of antiquity, than the study of Latin; accordingly he
gave him from his earliest infancy in charge of a German tutor well
skilled in Latin, but entirely ignorant of French. Latin was there-
fore Montaigne's mother-tongue, and he could both speak and read it
fluently before he had attained any knowledge of French. His father
pursued the same method in what may be called the social develop-
ment of his son's character. Instead of bringing him up at his own
château and surrounding him with the servants and usages pertaining
to a feudal seigneury, he gave him in charge of the peasantry on his
estate. A peasant woman was selected for his foster-mother, and
peasants also for his god-parents. The principle on which his father
based this novel method of training seems to reveal his popular
sympathies. Let him look,' said he, 'rather to those who stretch.
out their arms towards him than to those whose backs are turned
his way.' To such a superstitious extent did Montaigne senior pur-
sue his chosen method of educating his son's mind, 'in all freedom
and joyousness without any severity or constraint,' that he caused
him to be awakened in the mornings by the sound of some musical
instrument. Montaigne himself, while evidently approving this free
and delicate method of training, thought it ineffectual in his own case,
owing to what he was pleased to denominate his sluggish tempera-
ment, which was so great that he could hardly be induced to join
other children in play. It is certain that his early training tended
to confirm that innate predisposition to a genial good-humoured
electicism to which his Essais so abundantly testify. Between the
surroundings of his childhood-his peasant foster-mother and play-
mates, the tutor who spoke to him only in Latin, the childish sports,
like chess-playing, by which his father meant to teach him Greek-
and the careless, desultory, many-sided opinions which he collected
and gave to the world in his old age, there is a clear self-evident
congruity.
I have already remarked that Montaigne's Free-thought, on his
father's side, is connected with the Italian Renaissance. His father
had certainly imbibed his theory of education from what he had seen
and heard in Italy; and Montaigne himself assures us that it was
only on the removal of these Italian associations that his father con-
sented to forego this system of instruction and send him to school.¹
1 Bayle St. John supposes that he may have derived it in part from a peru-
sal of Rabelais' Chronique Gargantuine, published the year before Michel's
birth. Montaigne the Essayist, i. p. 37.
442
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
We may
take this as an incidental illustration of the differences then
existing between the principles of education current in France and in
Italy; and as some proof that the distinction in university teaching we
have observed to exist between the two countries extended also to
their methods of elementary education. It also demonstrates the
singular susceptibility to new ideas which seems to have marked the
seigneur of Montaigne, and which he bequeathed in abundant measure
to his more celebrated son. Accordingly, at the early age of six
years Michel was sent to the College of Guienne in Bordeaux, where
he had the advantage of the tuition of classical scholars whose re-
putations are even now European. He remained there until he was
thirteen years old, and was supposed to have finished his education ;
though in after life his own retrospect of his school life was by no
means so warmly cherished as the preceding period of home-training.
After quitting the College of Guienne he entered on a course of legal
studies, probably at Toulouse or at Paris. This was doubtless in-
tended as a necessary introduction to those magisterial duties to
which his father destined him. For some years Montaigne was em-
ployed as a member of the Court of Aides in Perigord, and later as a
Conseiller of the Parliament of Bordeaux. The most memorable
incident of this part of his life, in relation to his Free-thought, is his
intimate friendship with La Boëtie, only broken off by the death of
the latter in 1563. How far this close alliance implies a concurrence
with La Boëtie's free political aspirations is one of those obscure
points in his life which none of Montaigne's biographers seem able to
elucidate. Both Montaigne and his father were professedly loyal
supporters of the monarchy; and so far defenders of the Voluntary
Servitude' against which La Boëtie launched his satire. But we
must place on the other side Montaigne's frequently expressed dis-
satisfaction with a court, together with its concomitants; and the
fact that La Boëtie's free opinions in politics were precisely similar
in principle to the liberty which Montaigne advocated in philosophy
and religion. That his legal studies and magisterial functions were
thoroughly distasteful to a man of Montaigne's temperament is self
evident, without his own emphatic corroboration. He had no taste
for jurisprudence, though, as he complained, his father 'plunged him
into it even while a child, up to his very ears.' He 'found it compli-
cated in its forms, violent in its prescriptions, barbarous in its
language-full of contradictions and obscurities.' He demanded why
common language, 'so easy for every other use, becomes obscure and
unintelligible in legal documents?' and he thinks that lawyers
have purposely complicated those matters in order to render themselves
and their functions the more necessary. He is both astonished and
(
Montaigne.
443
aggrieved that France, as he characteristically phrased it, had more
laws than all the rest of the world, and that those laws comprehended
so many barbarities and atrocities.' His humane mind recoiled
especially from the cruelty of legal punishments and the use of the
torture. 'Whatsoever,' he said, 'is beyond the simple punishment
of death seems to me mere cruelty.'
Cherishing these opinions, and withal endowed with powerful
studious proclivities and an indomitable love of freedom, we are not
surprised to find Montaigne taking the most important step of his life,
i.e. retiring from all public functions, at the early age of thirty-seven
years, and determining to spend the rest of his life in studious seclu-
sion. A conjecture has been made, which I regard as highly probable,
that his motive for taking this step may have been in part political.
Dissatisfied with the cruel, high-handed proceedings of Charles IX.,
he may have wished to resign functions which would have made him
an accomplice in the acts of the government. From early manhood
he had been an occasional attendant at the French court, though he
entertained the most sovereign contempt for the mere profession of a
courtier; but from the accession of Charles IX. the government dis-
played such a combination of imbecility and cruelty that a thoughtful
and humane man, as Montaigne was, might reasonably wish to hold
aloof from it. That he did not lose the favour of his sovereign by his
retirement from public vocations is shown by his being created, in
1571, 'chevalier of the order of St. Michael,' a distinction of which
Montaigne was childishly vain. More important than this unphilo-
sophical gewgaw was the literary distinction he acquired in 1569,
as a translator of Raymund of Sabieude's Natural Theology. That
this work was, both on account of its subject and treatment, likely to
exercise a considerable effect on a mind like Montaigne's, our recent
examination of it might serve to prove, even without the corroboration
of his own testimony. It appealed strongly to some of the most
fundamental instincts of Montaigne's intellect. Its stress upon Nature
as a method of truth-discovery, its attempted reduction of theo-
logical truths to their primary constituent elements, its insistence.
on self-diagnosis, its inductive method of rising from the simplest
verities respecting man and nature up to the complicated truths of
theology, its undoubted rationalism and suppression of all exter-
nally authoritative sanctions for truth-all these qualities appealed to
powerful sympathies in Montaigne's disposition, as well as to the
matured convictions of his reason. Besides, the outcome of the
Natural Theology was undoubtedly toleration; and this in Mon-
taigne's estimate was the greatest need of his unhappy country. No
student of Montaigne would dream of making Raymund's work the
444
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
original inciting cause of his own skepticism. On this, as in all
topics of philosophy and literature, his sole appeal was to classical
antiquity. So far as his skepticism was not indigenous, which for
the most part it really was, he derived it from the fountain head of
Sextos Empeirikos and the Greek skeptics. He had long since
passed the moderate standpoint of Raymund before commencing the
translation of his work; but I think it highly probable that in
addition to its own intrinsic interest it possessed a kind of corrobo-
rative value for him. It was a confirmation of some of his chosen
speculations from an unexpected quarter. Montaigne's dislike to
scholastic theology, with its complicated dialectic, was as great as any
aversion could be to a careless Epicurean like himself, nor was his
opinion of theological methods and disputants generally of a very
high character; yet here was a theologian whose arguments were
based upon human reason, and who apparently shared his own con-
tempt for convictions attained in any other manner. His translation
of Raymund's book may also have contributed to set him forward in
his own literary career; for it is noteworthy that his retirement from
public functions followed the publication of his translation with only
the interval of a few months. It helped, moreover, in my judgment, to
form the naïve gracefully negligent style of the Essais; indeed it has
always been to me a matter of astonishment that of the many ad-
mirers of the inimitable careless beauties of the Essais, none have
thought of tracing the formation of its style to the earlier work on
which he was doubtless engaged for several years. From 1569 to
1580 Montaigne was employed mostly in the composition of his
immortal work. He recounts more than once the peculiar genius and
mode of composition of his Essais. Probably no work put together
in such a dilettante hap-hazard fashion ever achieved a celebrity so
immediate and so enduring. His taste for multifarious reading, which
deserved the epithet 'omnivorous' quite as much as Southey's, was
one of the most confirmed of his idiosyncrasies; but he suffered, or
believed himself to suffer, from a defective memory. To remedy this,
he adopted the plan of culling quotations, and writing down his obser-
vations on them, together with the thoughts that further meditation on
them suggested. Having pursued this course for some years, he had
accumulated in his common-place books a considerable quantity of
material. When he finally determined to publish, he gathered his
various disjointed observations, etc. together, and arranged them
under different headings, with as close an approximation to order as-
they seemed to admit, and in this loose desultory manner he contrived
to make an epoch-making work. But there is, we must admit, an unde-
niable affinity between Montaigne's literary method and his skeptic-
Montaigne.
445
(
ism. Averse to any decisive opinion or continuous systematic thought,
his leisurely dips' into various authors, his desultory selections of
striking passages, his occasional meditations, his discursive writing
'by fits and starts' as the humour seized him, harmonized well with an
eclectic many-sidedness that took cognizance of all opinions, and with
a restless vivacious skepticism that was satisfied with none. Soon
after the publication of his Essais, Montaigne started on a tour
through Germany, Switzerland and Italy. This journey he under-
took partly on account of his health, partly as a relaxation after his
sedentary occupations at Montaigne. What might otherwise have
been of no particular importance for our subject, is found to possess a
special significance by our possessing a diary of it written partly by
Montaigne himself. This work presents us with an invaluable sup-
plementary estimate of his character, his daily habits, his likes and
dislikes, both personal and intellectual.¹ It reveals, more uncon-
sciously than the Essais, how deeply seated in his disposition were
those peculiarities which in speculative matters took the form of
skepticism. It paints in hues of extra vividness those strong con-
trasts of qualities which have been a puzzle to his biographers, and
which will remain so as long as they forget the essential dualism or
rather manifoldness of his character. We see represented the strange
union of little-mindedness with magnanimity, egoism with unselfish-
ness, skepticism with superstition, easy morality with reverence for
genuine Christianity, which distinguished him. As a revelation of
personal qualities the diary stands almost on a higher level than the
Essais; while it certainly possesses the advantage of being an uninten-
tional disclosure. It portrays Montaigne in the easy chair and dress-
ing-gown of private life; and is devoid of that suspicion of exaggerating
personal eccentricities from which the Essais are not altogether free.
Without the diary we should not, I think, have estimated so fully the
value he placed on religious observances, e.g. attending mass, though
manifestly less as a means of spiritual benefit than as a social duty,
Nor should we have realized so distinctly the half-sympathetic, half-
contemptuous regard which he bestows on persons of all creeds who
are religious over-much. We should not have known so much of his
love for intellectual freedom and mutual tolerance, nor should we have
learned so fully the sources of his indifference to most of the current
forms of Christianity, Nothing, we find, better pleases him on his
journey than discussing with Huguenot or Calvinist pastors some
minutiæ of their respective creeds; especially those which involved
1 Comp. Ste Beuve's Essay, 'Montaigne en Voyage,' Nouveaux Lundis, vol. ii.
p. 156.
446
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
เ
patent self-contradictions, e.g. Belief in the bodily presence of Christ
in the Sacrament. Nor is his criticism of what may be called the
seamy side' of religious and dogmatic convictions limited to dis-
sentients from his own creed. He is just as ready to note the
irreverence of Pope and Cardinals at a solemnization of high mass as
he is to mark the puzzlement of a Calvinist pastor in trying to
reconcile incompatible beliefs. But of greater significance than any-
thing else, for our purpose, is the amusing indication of that trait in
his disposition which is the ground-principle of his skepticism. He
traverses the towns of Germany and Italy in just the same mood as
he peruses the books in his library. He is as divers et ondoyant'
in a physical as in an intellectual itinerary. Novelty is the main
goal of his effort; perpetual movement from one fresh scene to the
other, disliking to travel the same road twice, and so occupied with
the changeful delights of his route as to hate the idea of arriving at
his destination-precisely the same mood in fact that he evinced in
his search for truth. His diary is also useful as telling us the recep-
tion his Essais met with in the somewhat lax court of Gregory XVI.
The points the council of the Index thought right to animadvert upon
are interesting both as to what they record and what they omit.
Montaigne was bidden to expurgate the following objectionable points,
e g. the use of the word Fortune, the quotation of heretical poets, the
apology for Julian the apostate, the remark that persons while
praying are exempt from vicious inclinations at the time, the opinion
that all punishment beyond the infliction of simple death is cruelty,
his judgment as to the undogmatic education of children, etc. We
may observe that the Pyrrhonism of the book is not mentioned ;
doubtless as being a method of philosophising too common in Rome,
and within the Papal curia itself, to need either notice or reprobation.
However, Montaigne, as a professedly true son of the church, wast
dealt with leniently on his explaining the points inculpated to the
authorities; their correction was finally left to his own judgment, and
it cannot be shown that he erased or modified a single one of the
points suggested to him by his papal critics.
While at Rome, his fellow-citizens at Bordeaux elected him to fill
the office of mayor of that city. Montaigne at first declined the prof-
fered honour; but, at the personal request of Henry III., at last ac-
cepted it. He returned to his chateau at the latter end of 1581, and
commenced his municipal duties, withal warning the Bordelais that
they were not to expect too much of him. The remaining portion of
Montaigne's life we may pass over summarily. His government of
Bordeaux is coeval with one of the most disastrous periods of French
history. We may easily conceive, indeed we have his own attesta-
Montaigne.
447
tion of the fact, how the unhappy wars of religion tended to confirm
his instinctive dislike for dogma. He himself seems to have steered
cautiously through the perils of the time. He studied both his in-
terests and his philosophical instincts in declining an active co-opera-
tion either with the League or with the Huguenots. Both sides,
indeed seem to have recognised his moderation and neutrality; and
were therefore careful not to insist on a partizanship entirely alien
to his character. But towards the end of his life Montaigne discerned,
in my opinion, the disastrous consequence for France of the success
of the League; and this serves to explain in part his closer intercourse
with Henry of Navarre. It was to the accession of this monarch
that Montaigne looked for a cessation of those evils from which
France was suffering; and Henry in his turn seems to have regarded
the old philosopher with singular esteem and affection. The corre-
spondence between Montaigne and Henry has been published; and it is
difficult to say on which of the two famous names it reflects the
greatest lustre. Montaigne died in 1592, after having received the
rites of the Church. The piety and submission of his dying hours
have often been adduced as an undeniable proof of his catholic ortho-
doxy, and as if it were a protest against the free opinions of his
Essais. To me it seems, as I shall presently point out, quite in har-
mony with Montaigne's disposition, with the ordinary tenor of his
life, and with his Pyrrhonic, or rather suspensive, skepticism.
Turn we now to the Essais:
France in the sixteenth century like Italy in the fourteenth and Ger-
many in the fifteenth, was undergoing those convulsive throes which
in the political and religious, as in the animal world, are the indis-
pensable conditions of new life. The age of Montaigne was an age of
transition, and transition implies and necessitates suspense. Older
beliefs were disappearing or becoming modified, newer convictions.
were beginning to struggle to life. It was the winter of barrenness
intervening between autumn and spring.
From this point of view Montaigne's Essais is an epoch-making
work; not only for the history of French skepticism, but for that of
modern literature and civilisation, forming as they do an admirable
reflex of the thought, movement and aspiration which were anima-
ting men's minds at the Renaissance. Moreover they enable us to
estimate, approximately, the amount of culture and learning which
were beginning to diffuse themselves over Southern Europe in the
middle of the sixteenth century. Montaigne, as we have seen, was
not a mere studious recluse. For a considerable part of his life he
was a lawyer, a magistrate, a soldier, and a courtier; indeed, for the
whole of it he was occasionally engaged in public duties of some kind
448
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
or other.¹ There seems, therefore, no reason to suppose that, beyond
his own literary tastes, there was anything peculiar in the extent of
his reading. How great this was, a superficial glance over his pages
will serve to prove. Indeed, his own thoughts, notwithstanding
their vigour and originality, are often in danger of being buried under
the mass of classical lore adduced for their suggestion or illustration.
This peculiarity is animadverted upon by almost every critic of
Montaigne. But we must bear in mind the position which the then
new learning occupied in France. It was nearly the same as it had
been in Italy during the preceding century. Beginning to emerge
from the gloom of medieval superstition, we cannot be surprised if
men's eyes were a little dazzled with the new light which was burst-
ing upon them from Greece and Rome. In the first delirium of dis-
covering the diamond mine of ancient learning, it is hardly wonderful
that discrimination and judgment were often at fault, that every
new stone was proclaimed to be of the first water and of inestimable
value. What would be regarded as pedantry in our days was, in
Montaigne's time, original research. And we may readily suppose
that the samples of ancient wisdom which he and others delighted
to incorporate in their pages operated on the inquiring minds of his
time like the specimens of gold which the early Spanish navigators
exposed to the wondering gaze of their countrymen, as proofs of the
existence of an El Dorado in the New World-infusing into them an
earnest desire to explore the sources of such wealth for themselves.
But the Essais of Montaigne not only reflect the age in which they
were written they also reflect, still more pointedly, if possible, the
mind of the author. Considered from the latter point of view, the
work must, in my opinion, be pronounced unique. In no literature,
ancient or modern, that I am aware of, have we such a perfect ex-
ample of keen and minute self-analysis. All the changes and incon-
sistencies which make up such a large portion of every human
character, are so clearly depicted and vividly coloured in his descrip-
tion of himself, that they seem almost a caricature. The first glance
at the picture reveals such a number of strange, multifarious charac-
teristics of every imaginable kind and every conceivable degree of
strength and weakness, consistency and inconsistency, that to attempt
to evolve from the wondrous whole anything approaching a firm, co-
herent, individual likeness seems utterly impossible. Here we find in
close juxtaposition dogmatism and skepticism, superstitious belief
and unreasoning unbelief. Here we have abject self-detraction by
1 This aspect of Montaigne's life is exhaustively treated in M. Grün's La
Vie Fublique de Montaigne, 1855. Comp. on the same subject Ste Beuve's paper
'Montaigne Maire de Bordeaux,' Noveaux Lundis, vi. p. 239.
Montaigne.
449
the side of inordinate vanity, maxims of sublime wisdom followed
by utterances of stupendous folly, philosophic truths intermingled
with childish errors, deep religious feeling alternating with flagrant
immorality; in short, an inexhaustible storehouse of the greatest
excellencies and most deplorable defects of our common nature. It
is not one individual man that is portrayed, it is a kind of colossal
collective humanity.¹
'A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.'
Our business, then, is to fix as far as possible this human kaleido-
scope.
Out of his self-contradictions we must evolve something like
coherency; out of his versatile moods we must extract the more per-
manent characteristics; from the grimaces and distortions of the
mask we must infer what genuine human features lurk beneath.
But the task is not without difficulty. Not merely is it that out of
innumerable views and opinions piled together at random, like the
wares in a curiosity shop, we have to select those that occur oftenest,
or which are put forward with most emphasis. But there is a
further difficulty, when this is done. Who is to assure us that our
conclusion is true, or that it is one which the subject of them would
approve? For Montaigne has a cynical and avowed disdain for such
a commonplace merit as consistency. He is confessedly the sport and
plaything of every chance thought, or passing emotion. He deli-
berately advances an argument for the pleasure, on another occasion,
of refuting it; and, lest his reader should be perplexed and provoked.
at such a wanton display of unphilosophical frivolity, he coolly avows
his predilection for desultory methods of thought, arising out of
accidental and haphazard occasions; and plainly informs us that we
are to take his utterances as the mere expression of his mood and
thought at the precise moment when they were uttered.²
Amid this heterogeneous mass of incongruities, and in spite of his
1 This characteristic of his Essays was not hidden from Montaigne. Cf.
book ii. chap. 2, Hazlitt's Trans. p. 371, 'Authors have hitherto communicated
themselves to the people by some particular and foreign mark, I the first of
any, by my universal being,' So Ste Beuve calls Montaigne 'Cet homme de
cabinet qui avait en lui l'etoffe de plusieurs hommes,'-Nouveaux Lundis, vol. ii.
p. 177. Compare the same author's imaginary funeral of Montaigne, Port
Royal, ii. p. 451.
2 'Car aussi ce sont icy mes humeurs et opinions; ie les donne pour ce qui
est en ma creance, non pour ce qui est à croire: ie ne vioe icy qu'a descouvrir
moy mesme, qui seray par adventure aultre demain, si nouvel apprentissage
me change.'-Essais, Liv. i. chap. xxv. Edition Didot, p. 62. Comp. Hazlitt,
Trans. p. 60.
450
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
cynical disregard for ordinary modes of systematic exposition, a close
examination enables us, I think, to discern something like a method
and a purpose.
The method, direct, earnest, and determined, is
skepticism: the purpose is toleration-incidental, hesitating, hardly
consciously avowed.
That Montaigne was a skeptic would at first sight seem a super-
fluous assertion. There is hardly a page of his Essays which does not
bear emphatic evidence to the fact: indeed, the work has been for
some centuries the national armoury of the most skeptical nation in
modern Europe; although the weapons contained in it were all forged
and tested in the skeptical schools of ancient Greece. Hence we find
that repeatedly, though in his characteristic, slip-shod, incidental
manner, Montaigne urges the weakness of the reason, the fallacious-
ness of the senses, the untrustworthiness of experience, the un-
certainty of opinion; or else truth is affirmed to be impossible, and
doubt proclaimed as the highest wisdom, or some other customary
argument or affirmation which our researches have shown to be more
or less common to all skeptics. If a collection were made, and put in
something like order, of all the unbelieving suspensive utterances
contained in his Essays, a complete exposition of skepticism might
easily be obtained; but a connected dissertation on such a dangerous
topic was utterly alien both to Montaigne's desultory methods of
thinking and writing, and to his habitual caution, and fear of com-
promising himself with higher powers. Hence, if we set aside the
well-known 12th chapter of the 2nd book, containing his Apology for
Raymund of Sabieude, in which we have a fairly continuous exposition
of Pyrrhonism; and possibly the 10th chapter of the 3rd book, in
which, under the suggestive heading 'Of cripples,' he enters a pro-
test against modern miracles,-his appreciation of skepticism, and his
profound dislike of and contempt for dogmatism, is conveyed by
casual incidental hints, and in a desultory nay, often in an utterly
irrelevant manner. But, apart from these open admissions and
numerous scattered hints, ample evidence of the real bent of Mon-
taigne's thought is furnished by the general tone and drift of his
writings-what might be called the 'circumstantial evidence' of
his skepticism. For myself, I confess that I regard this kind of proof
in the case not only of skepticism, but of every unpopular and con-
traband mode of thought, with even more favour than occasional and
isolated admissions; for it denotes not a momentary mood, such as
might be caused by a mere ebullition of feeling, but the general and
uniform temper of mind of the writer. It is the unconscious witness,
and on this account all the more valuable, of the habitual state and
direction of his intellect.
Montaigne.
451
I propose to arrange what I have to say as to the nature and extent
of Montaigne's skepticism under a few simple heads-taking first
the indirect arguments bearing on the point; and secondly, examining
what I cannot but regard as direct and positive admissions of the
fact, i.e. as positive as any admission of such a fact could be expected
of Montaigne.
2
His treatment of the senses, and the character of their deliverances,
will soon enable us to appreciate the nature of our task. In one
place he informs us 'with a distinctness,' as a recent critic remarks,'
'which leaves nothing to be desired, that it is most absurd to deny
the plain evidence of the senses, e.g. that fire does not burn or the
sun does not give light;
there is no belief or knowledge in
man which can be compared to their plain verdict in respect of
certitude.' He tells us further 'that all knowledge is conveyed to
us by the senses; they are our masters, science begins by them, and
is resolved into them.'3 No doubt, taken by itself, this language is
sufficiently explicit; but a very slight acquaintance with Montaigne's
method, as well as the experience we have attained of the class of
minds to which his own belongs, is enough to warn us that such
general admissions may easily be neutralized and rendered ineffec-
tive by an analysis which denies in parts what has been conceded
as a whole. Sextos Empeirikos, as we have seen, insists on the
trustworthiness of phenomena, as such; but this does not prevent hist
proof that taken simply the senses are liable to perpetual mistakes
and perversions, and are therefore by no means infallible. Similarly
Montaigne qualifies his general admission of the certainty of our
sense-knowledge by a careful scrutiny into the many sources of
their erroneous conclusions. He finds, e.g. in the senses, 'the
greatest foundation and proof of our ignorance.' He dwells on the
possibility, in the case of other beings, of senses varying in kind as
well as degree from those possessed by man. He quotes the familiar
instances of the mistakes of the senses with which Greek skepticism
abounds, e.g. the false impression conveyed by a simultaneous
pressure with the tips of two fingers on a musket-ball. He points
out how the senses are continually imposed upon by imperfections
inherent in the physical structure of their organs, or else in their
modus operandi. He shows that they are perverted by the emotions
and passions of the soul, on which they themselves exercise on the
other hand a prejudicial and deceptive influence. No doubt some
+
¹ Hermann Thimme, Der Skepticismus Montaigne's, Göttingen 1875.
2 Bk. ii. ch. xii.
3 Bk. ii. ch. xii.
4 Bk. ii. ch. xii.
Hazlitt's Trans., p. 275.
Ibid., p. 275.
Ibid., p. 274.
452 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
2
kind of reliance on the senses is imperative. A man 'cannot avoid
owning that the senses are the sovereign lords of his knowledge;
but they are uncertain and falsifiable in all circumstances: 'tis there
he is to fight it out to the last, and if his just forces fail him, as
they do, to supply that defect, with obstinacy, temerity and impu-
dence. In case what the Epicureans say be true "that we have
no knowledge if the senses' appearances be false"; and if that also
be true which the Stoics say, that "the appearances of the senses are
so false that they can furnish us with no manner of knowledge,"
we shall conclude to the disadvantage of these two great dog-
matical sects (and surely of all others), that there is no knowledge
at all.' Whereupon follows an elaborate exposition of the error
and uncertainty of the senses, preceded by the statement that every
man may furnish himself with as many examples as he pleases, so
ordinary are the faults and tricks they put upon us; and closing
with a verdict equally conclusive and important for Montaigne's
skeptical position in this particular: 'We cannot know what things
truly are, in themselves, seeing that nothing comes to us but what is
falsified and altered by the senses. Where the compass, the square
and the rule are crooked, all propositions drawn thence, and all
buildings erected by these guides, must of necessity be defective; the
uncertainty of our senses rendering everything uncertain that they
produce.'
'3 Language of a stronger character it would be impossible
to imagine; and however much some writers, as e.g. Herr Thimme,
may endeavour to lessen its effect by pronouncing much of it
extremely ironical ('stark ironisch'), no candid reader, even after
making the greatest possible allowance for Montaigne's love of
paradox, and his cynical humour, can resist the conclusion that his
distrust of the senses and the information conveyed by them is as
complete as the same belief or unbelief of the extremest skeptic,
whether ancient or modern.
เ
Equally explicit is Montaigne in his contemptuous estimate of the
reason, to which the appeal on behalf of the truth next lies.
Seeing the senses cannot determine our disputes, being full of
¹ Herr Thimme, whose theory of Montaigne's skepticism is that it is a
simulated Pyrrhonism, adopted as a weapon against dogmatism, not against
knowledge (though he nowhere touches on the relation of dogmatism to
knowledge, nor considers the question how far an attack on the former
necessarily includes the latter), remarks on this important passage 'Da haben
wir einen solchen "tour d'escrime" den Montaigne nur gegen die dogmatische
Wissenschaft, keineswegs gegen das Wissen überhaupt führt.'-Der Skepti-
cismus Montaigne's, p. 14.
2 Book ii. chap. xii. Hazlitt, p. 277.
3 Book ii. chap. xii. Ibid., p. 281.
Montaigne.
453
'1
incertainty themselves, it must then be reason that must do it; but
no reason can be erected upon any other foundation than that of
another reason; and so we run back to all infinity.' To the subject
of this short argument Montaigne recurs again and again. The
Impotence of the Reason is in fact a primary and incontrovertible
axiom in his philosophy. We find it stated in every conceivable
variety of form and manner, context and connexion; and enforced
and adorned with a lavish wealth of illustration. Especially does
he seek to prove his point not only by adducing the manifold
and inconsistent opinions of philosophers, but by an introspective
analysis, at once keen and humorous, of the caprice, waywardness,
and instability he finds within himself. Herein Montaigne has
added a new method to those of preceding writers (with the single
exception perhaps of Rabelais); or rather to the objective arguments
gathered from the history of human thought, he adds the personal
subjective criterion so congenial to himself. This masterly piece of
self-analysis Montaigne commences with the ironical confession: 'I
that watch myself as narrowly as I can, and that have my eyes
continually bent upon myself, like one that has no great business
to do elsewhere, dare hardly tell the vanity and weakness I find in
myself.'2 Whereupon he treats us to a long and amusing account
of the caprice and vacillation which he calls his vanity.³ Nor is
this, as is too commonly supposed, the mere outcome of a morbid
egoism which leads him to magnify every infirmity belonging to
himself. For my part I think this quality has been assigned to
wrong motives by his critics. It is not because they are Montaigne's
own idiosyncrasies that these traits are remarkable; but that being
his own he has a greater power of apprehending them than he could
possibly have in the case of any one else. Their importance lies in
the fact that they constitute a subjective corroboration of a large
number of objective phenomena. We shall have to touch upon this
argument again when we come to speak of his confession of ignor-
ance among the positive proofs of his skepticism.
But although Montaigne repeatedly denounces Reason, he would
hardly be consistent if he were devoid of inconsistency on this as
on other subjects. Hence we find occasional passages in which a
¹ Book ii. chap. xii.
Hazlitt, p. 281.
2 Cf. Bk. ii. ch. xii. Hazlitt, p. 263: cf. Book ii. ch. i. Didot, p. 169. 'Nous
sommes tous de loppins et d'une contexture si informe et diverse que chasque
piece, chasque moment faict son jeu ; et se treuve autant de difference de nous
à nous memes que de nous à aultruy,' words which lose their Montaignesque
flavour in a translation.
3 Bɔok ii. chap. i. Hazlitt, p. 154.
VOL. II.
D
454 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
"1
higher estimate of the reason is forced upon him. He tells us, e.g.
that 'every human presupposition and declaration has as much
authority one as another, if reason do not make the difference.'
Moreover when he subordinates the human reason to the Divine, or
human truth to religious verity, as he does in more than one
passage of the Essais, he does not scruple to add that we can only
estimate or attain the Divine through and by means of the human.2
The following passage bearing on this point is too characteristic to
be omitted. 'If it (Divine knowledge) enter not into us by an
extraordinary infusion, if it enters not only by reason but moreover
by human ways (i.e. probably by the senses), it is not in us in its
true dignity and splendour, and yet I am afraid we only have it by
this way.' An interesting example by the way of the conflict of
theological with rationalistic modes of thought of which we have
repeated instances in the Essais.
3
To the credit side of his estimate of reason from the theological
or orthodox point of view, must also be added certain ostensible and
apparently sincere attempts to make his depreciation of reason
subserve the cause of religious dogma. This is the well known
argument of 'methodised skepticism' which Descartes applied to
philosophy, and Augustine, Huet, and so many other ecclesiastical
skeptics to theology. In the rapid development of skepticism which
marked the Renaissance, such an argument occupied necessarily a
prominent place. We have already had occasion to touch upon it
incidentally; but must reserve for the present a full discussion of
its merits and bearings. Although not unduly obtruded on our
notice by Montaigne, it is evident that he laid considerable stress
upon it.
The argument was eminently suited to his position and
temperament; because it enabled him to combine a specious profession
of adherence to the Church, with a private licence of speculation
which was practically unlimited. In this as in all his reasonings,
Montaigne is utterly regardless of caution in his procedure, or
moderation in his statements. He is, as he himself admits, the mere
passive instrument of the dominating thought of the moment, whether
its tendency be religious or profane, superstitious or skeptical.4
1 Book. ii. chap. xii. Hazlitt, p. 251.
? The same argument is distinctly and repeatedly laid down by Raymund
of Sabieude; see Evenings with the Skeptics, vol. ii. pp. 432–466.
³ Bk. ii. ch. xii. Hazlitt, p. 201: with which compare another striking
passage, Bk. ii. ch. xii. Hazlitt, p. 263: 'The things that come to us from
heaven have the sole right and authority of persuasion, the sole mark of
truth: which also we do not see with our own eyes, nor receive by our own means.'
4 'For my part,' says he, 'I must own that the puff of every accident not
Montaigne.
455
Hence his language on human frailty; the necessity of faith as a
substitute for knowledge, the doctrine that truth and wisdom belong
only to God; that principles (of demonstrated knowledge) must be
Divine and intuitive; is so vigorous, and so highly flavoured with
(apparently) genuine fervour and devotional unction, that it might
easily have emanated from a disciple of Calvin, or St. Augustine.
But after making all due abatements both for his exaltation of it
in the interests of philosophy, and for his depreciation of it in the
interests of theology, Montaigne's general treatment of human
reason must be pronounced cynical and contemptuous in the
extreme. He exhausts himself in 'base comparisons' to denote its
unprincipled duplicity, and consequent worthlessness as an arbiter
of truth. He calls it a two-edged sword dangerous to handle by the
unskilful, and as ready to wound the wielder as the adversary
against whom it is unsheathed. It is like the shoe of Theramenes,
which will fit any foot:2 or it is compared to a pot with two handles,
which may be lifted with either, or it is like lead or wax prepared to
receive any impression. Instead of being, what it professes to be, the
guide and ruler of humanity, it is most frequently its veriest slave;
the ready and unscrupulous agent of its superstitious beliefs, its
absurd customs, and its most foolish and nefarious actions.
In short, human reason and judgment is with Montaigne a self-
convicted mass of inconsistencies. It is at once the source of truth
and the cause of error. It both elevates and degrades our human
nature. By its means men are raised to the loftiest pinnacle of
wisdom, or are sunk into the lowest depths of infamy. Those only
are to be esteemed wise who turn a cautious and skeptical ear to its
double-tongued admonitions; and the brutes are in this respect more
fortunate than men, because they lack its uncertain and questionable
guidance.³
only carries me along with it, according to its own inclination; but that
moreover I worry and trouble myself by the instability of my own posture.
-Hazlitt, p. 154.
1 Cf Book ii. ch. xii. (Hazlitt, p. 204; also pp. 257-8.) It will be observed
that the greater part of this 'clandestine dogmatism' as Sainte Beuve calls it,
is found in the famous 'Apology chapter,' which we shall find furnishes the
most convincing proof of Montaigne's skepticism.
2 Erasmus in his Adagia has commented on this proverb. Its origin is in
Plutarch's Life of Nicias, who says that Theramenes was nick-named
'Cothurnus ' from his trimming propensities.
3 Dom Devienne in his Éloge Historique well remarks on this characteristic,
Quoique Montaigne fasse si peu de cas de la Raison, celle qu'il avoit reçue de
la Nature n'en etoit pas moins d'une trempe superieure, et on auroit pu dire
d'elle ce qu'on a dit de l'imagination de Malebranche, qu'elle obligeoit un
ingrat.'-P. 101.
456
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Our Essayist was not at all likely to pass over in silence the vener-
able testimony on behalf of skepticism afforded by the conflicting
beliefs and usages of different portions of the human race, from philo-
sophers downwards, or as Montaigne would suggest, upwards. In-
dependently of the confirmation of his own position derivable from
such a mass of historical evidence, the argument must have had more
than usual interest for a thinker who, like Montaigne, was so keenly
alive to the charms of variety for its own sake, and who regarded,
as we shall see further on, such a divergency in the spiritual world as
the due and proper analogue to the interminable diversity revealed by
the physical world. He repeatedly urges, therefore, the diversity of
opinions, usages, etc., in all departments of human faith and practice.
The familiar instances, adduced by Greek skeptics, of divergent and
conflicting beliefs among different sects and communities, are again
brought forward by Montaigne. The endless diversity in manners
and customs in different countries, are dwelt upon with renewed
emphasis, and with the advantage (by no means ignored by succeeding
skeptics) of the additional illustration afforded by the recent discovery
of a new world. The whole sum of human thoughts and habits is
reduced to custom;¹ from whose tyrannical and universal dominion no
condition of human existence is exempt. Both in religion and in
morals we see the same diversity founded on the same law of custom.
Philosophers and theologians e.g. have exhausted every imaginable
hypothesis in their numberless attempts to define the Deity; and so
great is the power of imagination pertaining to every man, that the
ideas of God will probably vary in exact proportion to the number of
minds who attempt to conceive and define it. Christianity, moreover,
is a 'mere geographical expression,' and 'we are Christians for the
same reasons that we are Germans or Perigordians.2 Ethical maxims
have similarly a purely local origin and value; so that which is good
or seemly among ourselves is esteemed evil or indecorous among
others. Montaigne, as we have said, loves this infinite diversity in
the phenomena of human life. Not only is it the reflex of nature,
but also of the perpetual shiftings and changes he discerns within
himself. A dead level of uniformity in the history of the human
mind, supposing it possible, would have been insufferably tedious to
one whose own mind was for ever undergoing some new modification,
some abrupt and unexpected transformation or transition. He would
have felt as much out of sympathy, with his species and historical
surroundings as the restless ocean wave might be supposed to feel
when wasting its strength on an unwearable cliff. To a nature such
1 Cf. Book i. chap. xxii.
2 Book ii. chap. xii. Hazlitt, p. 203.
8 Cf. Letter to Madame de Duras, book ii. ch. xxxvii. Hazlitt, p. 363.
Montaigne.
457
as Montaigne's, impressionable, mobile, inconstant,-diversity, whence-
soever obtained, was the natural and only proper aliment. With a
mixture of naiveté and cynicism peculiar to himself, he assures us
that he always agreed for the time being with the author he was
reading, no matter what his opinions were, and though he was
perfectly aware that the different ideas he thus tried to assimilate,
conflicted as much as possible with each other.1
With such an outspoken contempt for the faculty, it is only reason-
able to expect a corresponding distrust of its instrument or mode of
expression. Accordingly, Montaigne has several incidental remarks
on the nature and properties of words, and their contribution to the
sum total of incertitude in which all things human are enveloped.
He is, of course, a Nominalist. Words are to him as to all other
skeptics, the mere arbitrary marks or signs of things. 'The name,' he
says, 'is a voice which denotes and signifies the thing; the name is
no part of the thing, or of the substance; 'tis a foreign piece joined
to the thing, and outside of it.'2 Still, his remarks on the subject are
for the most part fragmentary. I have often wondered that among
his Essays there is not one especially devoted to words, apart i.e. from
proper names, and the methods of rhetoric.³ I should have thought
it precisely the kind of subject to have attracted his notice, and for
which his mode of treatment was pre-eminently well qualified. How
he might have revelled in the manifold uncertainties of his theme!
What humorous satire might have been expended on the invincible
tendency of mankind to accept words instead of things. What in-
vective might have been poured on the hollow pretentiousness of mere
verbosity. What examples of cruel wars caused by words, of great
churches severed by a few syllables, of martyrdom inflicted on account
of the difference between two letters, while each step of the argu-
ment might have been illustrated by abundance of instances drawn
from ancient and modern history. A delightful sample of the method
he would have employed in handling this subject he gives us in
chap. 13 of Book iii., when, apropos of Luther and the fact that he
had stirred up more doubts than he had allayed, he says, 'Our con-
testation is verbal. I demand what nature is; what pleasure, circle,
and substitution (i.e. the well-known terms of Luther's technical
1 Book ii. chap. xii. Hazlitt Trans., p. 266.
2 Hazlitt Trans., p. 288-9.
3 These he ridicules in the 46th and 51st chapter of his first book.
4
4 Words as causes of legal disputes Montaigne does mention: 'Most of the
occasions of disturbance in the world are grammatical ones; our suits only
spring from disputes as to the interpretation of laws; and most wars proceed
from the inability of ministers clearly to express the conventions and treaties
of amity of princes.'-Hazlitt Trans., p. 244.
458
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance
theology) are? The question is about words, and is answered accord-
"and
ingly. A stone is a body, but if a man should further urge
what is a body?-substance; "—" and what is substance?" and so on,
he would drive the respondent to the end of his common-place book.
We exchange one word for another, and very often for one less under-
stood. I know better what man is than I know what animal is, or
mortal, or rational. To satisfy one doubt, they give me three: 'tis the
hydra's head. Sokrates asked Menon what virtue was?
"There is,
says Menon, "the virtue of a man and of a woman, of a magistrate
and of a private person, of an old man, and of a child.” "Very well,"
says Sokrates, "we were in quest of one virtue and thou hast brought
us a whole swarm"; we put one question and they return us a whole
hive.' 1
Such seem to me the more prominent among the indirect evidences
of Montaigne's skepticism. If none other existed, we should have
no difficulty in pronouncing a definitive verdict on the matter, especi-
ally with the light thrown on his procedure, by what we have seen of
the similar methods of other skeptics. But there is, besides, an over-
whelming amount of evidence of a direct and positive kind, concern-
ing which the main difficulty is to determine how much of it is meant
for jest, how much for earnest.
Not that Montaigne ever avowed in so many words his skepticism.
Nowhere does he say, 'I am a professed skeptic,' still less 'I am a
disbeliever.' Anything like a distinct declaration of a conviction,
even of a negative kind, involved far too great an effort for the easy
cynical indifference which he cultivated. While he had learnt too
well the proper rôle of a skeptic to commit himself to express nega-
tion, he knew that a definite denial was just as dogmatic, just as
open to the charge of presumption or omniscience, as a positive affirm-
ation. Indeed, of the two, he distrusted the negative more than its
opposite. In either case, he disliked the coarse robustness of thought
and action which is the accompaniment of intense and overmastering
conviction. His experience of himself showed him the easy condi-
tions on which a placid semi-affirmative might be maintained; and the
civil wars of his day demonstrated, as it seemed to him, the excesses
which follow in the train of purely negative principles, whether in
politics or religion. Hence, Luther, with his crude unqualified denial
of some dogmas, and his obtrusive positiveness with respect to others,
was immeasurably more repugnant to Montaigne's temperament than
the easy elastic faith of the cultured and refined Romanist. Erasmus,
and not the monk of Wittenberg, would have been his ideal
1 Book iii. chap. xiii. Hazlitt Trans., p. 495.
Montaigne.
459
Reformation leader, i.e. supposing him to have admitted the need of
Reformation.
2
Montaigne's position was therefore the genuinely skeptical one of
suspense. He took as his motto, not the absolute assertion of negative
skepticism, 'knowledge is impossible,' but the interrogative one of
'Que scais je?' This, moreover, is not only his own motto, engraved
on his seal, etc., it is inscribed in a variety of forms and characters
on the roof-timber of his library. We find it in the forefront of his
Essays, as the human excellence which of all others is most commend-
able. It is evidently the cherished persuasion of his innermost being,
the only avowed conviction with which he can safely be credited.
The reticence he observed, in the face both of belief and disbelief,
he here changes for open-mouthed and fervent profession. It is the
single article of his only creed, the standard by which he estimates
both his own wisdom and that of his fellow men. 'The confession
of ignorance,' says he, 'is one of the fairest and surest testimonies of
judgment that I know. And though he considers it possible to
discriminate between the ignorance which precedes and that which
follows knowledge, yet the latter is so vitiated by the suspicious
source whence it emanates, that he prefers to take refuge as far as
possible in the former; which he calls the 'natural station whence I
so vainly attempted to advance.' I have already glanced at the
religious aspect which Montaigne endeavours to give to this open
profession of Nescience, and which assimilates it to the self-renuncia-
tion of Greek skepticism. The subject is one on which he frequently
expatiates. Man's first sin, he tells us, was curiosity. This is the
fatal fruit of the tree of knowledge, the accursed heritage which
Adam bequeathed to his posterity; thence came pride, presumption,
dogmatism, irreligion; thence the unhallowed claim of a wisdom and
knowledge which truly belong only to God. On the other hand the
virtues of ignorance and simplicity are pre-eminently of a religious
character. Where conscious ignorance exists we may be sure of
finding humility, meekness, docility and submission. It is thus the
climax not only of worldly, but also of Divine and heavenly wisdom.
Montaigne therefore demands, in the interests both of philosophy
and religion a frank and unqualified avowal of Nescience. Most of
the abuses of the world have arisen from the preposterous fear which
³
1 It is an interesting example of Montaigne's indifference, and the cynical
contemptuous manner in which he announces his most cherished opinions, that
this preference of the question rather than the negation, is made immediately
after subjecting it, when considered as the final refuge of Pyrrhonism, to ridi-
cule. Cf. Hazlitt Trans., p. 244.
2 Hazlitt Trans., p. 187.
3 Hazlitt Trans., p. 145.
460
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
besets mankind of making this avowal. It is one at all events from
which Montaigne was singularly exempt. His dread of presumptuous
science, and his appreciation of cautious Nescience, was a feeling
which, as Bayle St. John properly notes, increased towards the end
of his life; being more distinctly marked in his later than in his
earlier Essays. One of his latest utterances on the subject is not
devoid of genuine plaintiveness, though the Montaignesque humour
is by no means lacking. 'Oh, what a soft and delicious pillow and
how healthy, are ignorance and incuriosity for the repose of a well-
formed head."
But if Montaigne is so satisfied with the wisdom and piety of his
conviction of Nescience, he is just as explicit as to the issues of that
consciousness. Sokrates himself cannot exceed the earnestness with
which he disclaims any intention of teaching. As he knows nothing
himself he is totally unable to instruct others. Were we to ask him,
why then indite your Essays? Why cull your choice morsels of
heathen wisdom from ancient Greece and Rome? His answer would
be, 'I write merely to give, by way of occupation and amusement,
utterance to my thoughts, expression to my changeful, vacillating
opinions. I have no desire to teach others. I have neither the
authority nor wish to be believed, being too conscious of my own
ignorance to feel justified in attempting the instruction of other men.'
It is a singular instance of what may be termed the irony of
literature, that the two thinkers who, in ancient Greece and modern
France, were foremost in maintaining their Nescience and disavowing
any power or intention of instructing their age and nation, have
actually been their most influential and permanent teachers. I do
not wish to insist on what seems to me an undoubted probability, that
the influence of Sokrates and Montaigne was in direct ratio of their
skepticism; but I think I may fairly argue that the intellectual and
moral qualities found in alliance with skeptical suspense, the incen-
tive to thought and self-examination that is furnished by a propaganda
of Nescience-the many-sided eclecticism that is the natural outcome
of opposition to particular dogma, had, in both cases, a fructifying
result not easy to overstate.
In connection with Montaigne's repeated admissions of ignorance,
must be placed his no less frequent confessions of fickleness and
incertitude. He strongly objected, he tells us, to form an opinion,
knowing what a grave responsibility he thereby incurred, and how
¹ Hazlitt Trans., p. 477. 'Dogmatising,' says Joseph Glanvil, 'is the great
disturber both of ourselves and the world without us: for while we wed an
opinion, we resolutely engage against every one that opposeth it.'-Scepsis
Scientifica, p. 168.
Montaigne.
461
numerous were the chances of his being wrong. This caution, how-
ever exaggerated, is only what might have been expected of a pro-
fessed skeptic. What follows appears, at first sight, stranger; for he
goes on to assure us that he was just as loth to change an opinion,
but the reason assigned for this unexpected manifestation of dogma-
tism is eminently skeptical; because, as he cynically remarks, his
motives for a change of any particular view might be just as un-
satisfactory as those that had originally counselled its adoption. So
that even the small and fluctuating amount of stable opinion of which
he sometimes admits the possession, qualified, as it no doubt was,
with conditions and reservations of all kinds, was founded on the
skeptical basis of the equal precariousness of all opinions. The
picture suggested to my mind by this interesting specimen of self-
diagnosis is this: Montaigne is like a man who has lost his way in
the twilight, amid a wild and dangerous region. He has arrived at
his present point by tracks and bye-paths, of which he is uncertain
whether they are actual roads or not. Precipices, bogs, traps and
pitfalls appear to surround him on all sides. Not a star can he find in
the clouded sky to guide him; or what appears the momentary gleam.
of some remembered constellation, he suspects may be an ocular
delusion, or some unreal phantasm. True, there are human lights
in the distance, but so many that he knows not which to choose ;
either or all may be, for aught he knows, mere ignes fatui. What
is the benighted wanderer to do? To go forward, even if he knew
whither, were madness; to go backward were just as rash. To many
men such a situation would induce despair. Montaigne however is
not easily driven to desperation. Like a genuine Epicuræan
philosopher, he makes the best of his position. He will quietly
remain where he is. Whereupon he replenishes the little lamp
which has guided him in the twilight. He finds out the most
sheltered spot in his immediate vicinity, opens his wallet of pro-
visions, amuses himself with watching the dark clouds above, the dim
and wavering lights beneath, speculates as to what those lights
mean, whether they are more to be trusted than his own lantern.
Presently he goes to sleep with a drowsy uncertain hope that there
may arrive a morning-dawn, and a sunrise, which will clear up his
path; if so, well; if not, he can but remain where he is. The picture
is perhaps not inviting. I do not conceive it is true of but an
infinitesimally small percentage of humanity; but among that per-
centage we must, I think, give Montaigne a place.
It ought not to appear strange to find side by side with his admis-
sions of uncertainty, a frequent and distinct avowal of credulity.
I need not point out how the two are psychologically related.
462 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Suspense being a perfectly poised balance, a pinch of dust is enough
to determine a preponderance of inclination to either side. Hence, as
we shall find, the undue exclusiveness of skepticism is often balanced,
mercifully shall I say? by as undue a receptivity. Both being pro-
duced by the self-same cause, i.e. indifference, or a certain easy
flexibility of conviction capable, under different circumstances, of
different and opposite effects. Montaigne admits, more than once, that
he receives without question every authority, whether good or bad;
and this for the cynical reason that if they are found good, they are
so much to his own credit, if bad, so much to their own discredit. The
fault is not his but theirs. Certainly the unscrupulous manner in
which he heaps up doubtful authorities, unhistorical instances, etc.,
one on the other, seems to require either justification or apology,
though whether this, the only one Montaigne deigns to offer, be
sufficient, is perhaps questionable. He is however equally credulous
and uncertain in what emanates from himself; so that if on the one
hand he is ready in his reading to accept his author's arguments, no
matter how great the inconsistency thereby involved, he does not in
his writings stipulate for more than just such an easy evanescent
belief in his own reasoning; which he therefore guarantees no further,
than as expressions of the particular moods in which they were
indited.
How much of this kind of language is real, how much of it
humorous, ironical, or affected, I do not profess to decide. That
úncertainty, as the result of a general condition of unstable convic-
tion, was a prominent element in his mental character is sufficiently
obvious. It is marked on every page of his writings and needs no
corroboration from his own overt testimony. His main peculiarity,
and that which imparts the greatest charm to his writings, is his
clear apprehension of facts which mostly lie hidden in the deeper
recesses of the human consciousness, and his ingenuous candour in
bringing them to the surface, and exhibiting them to public gaze in
all their nakedness and deformity. I have already admitted that in
this respect, Montaigne is frequently guilty of exaggeration; but I'am
anxious that such exaggeration should not itself be exaggerated.
Besides which, an attentive reader of Montaigne soon acquires the
power of discriminating approximately between his genuine senti-
ments and the humour or cynicism which is merely their form or
colouring for the time being. We recognise e.g. the humour of his
statement that he had recourse to the public confessions of his
Essays from a regard to the usage of Protestants, who objected to
1 Cf. Hazlitt, trans. p. 39, 'The tales I borrow I charge upon the consciences
of those from whom I have them.'
Montaigne.
463
private (auricular) confessions;¹ and the cynicism of the avowal that
in any matter of dispute he was equally ready to take either side.
'I should easily, in case of need, light up one candle to St. Michael
and another to his dragon, as the old woman did.' 2
(2) But a still stronger admission of skepticism is to be found in
Montaigne's famous apology for Raymund of Sabieude. This is in
fact that portion of his work which has supplied the historians of
philosophy with what they have regarded as a conclusive proof of his
skepticism. Herr Thimme, in his monograph, seems inclined to blame
the almost exclusive stress on this chapter, which has become
customary; and doubts how far it will bear out the verdict of
complete Pyrrhonism which is inferred from it.3 In my opinion his
blame and his doubt are equally unsustainable. It would be just as
reasonable to find fault with a judge who, in directing a jury, should
point out the strongest evidence in the case; and indicate what, if they
believed the witness, their finding must necessarily be. The 'Apology
Chapter' is, as every reader of Montaigne knows, the Essay of the
whole collection. Not only is it by far the longest and most carefully
elaborated, not only is it marked with a gravity and set purpose quite
foreign to the writer's usual manner, but it is of especial importance
as containing an unusual proportion of personal confessions, indica-
tions of opinion, etc., so that his Apology for Raymund may be taken
as his own 'Apologia' as well. Indeed the very occasion of the
Essay, and its object of defending his translation of Raymund's work,
especially considering the character of that work, are of themselves a
sufficient justification of the stress which has been laid upon it. It
is useless to enquire what effect Montaigne's translation of Sabieude
may have had on the development of his own views. Bayle St. John
believes it to have been considerable.5 What is more certain is that
it not only suggested to Montaigne the elaborate account which he
gives of Pyrrhonism, but elicited an expressed preference for the
¹ Cf. Hazlitt, trans. p. 173, also more explicitly p. 391, 'To meet the Hugue-
nots, who condemn our auricular and private confession, I confess myself in
public religiously and purely.'
2 Book iii. chap. i. Hazlitt, p. 365. The anecdote is told in Henry Stephens,
Apologie pour Herodote, vol. ii. p. 325 (Liseux's edition).
3 Der Skepticismus Montaigne's, p. 17.
4 Cf. e.g. Bouillier, Histoire de la Philosophie Cartésienne, i. p. 20: 'C'est dans
l'Apologie de Rémond de Sébonde qu'est, pour ainsi dire, ramassé le scepti-
cisme tout entier de Montaigne. Là il reproduit toutes les objections des
sceptiques avec une verve, avec une malice, et une pérfidie incomparables; là
sous prétexte de défendre la raison et la foi, il ose tout dire contre la raison, il
ose tout insinuer contre la foi.'
5 Bayle St. John's Montaigne the Essayist, ii. p. 95.
464 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
wholesale doubt of that philosophy, rather than for the partial scepti-
cism of other schools, e.g. the Academic. This must always be re-
garded therefore as the culminating proof of Montaigne's skepticism.
And a clearer admission of his own unbelief, short of the open profes-
sion which his character and circumstances alike forbade, it would be
impossible to desire.' 'The Academics,' says he, 'admitted a certain
partiality of judgment. . The Pyrrhonian is more bold and
also somewhat more likely; for this academic inclination . . . what
is it other than a recognition of some more apparent truth in this than
in that? If our understanding be capable of the form, lineaments,
gait, and face of truth, it might as will see it entire as by halves,
springing and imperfect. This appearance of likelihood, which
makes them rather take the left hand than the right, augments it:
multiply this ounce of verisimilitude that turns the scales to a hun-
dred, to a thousand ounces; it will happen in the end that the balance
will itself close the controversy, and determine one choice, one entire
truth. But why do they suffer themselves to incline to and be
swayed by verisimilitude, if they know not the truth?' etc., etc. This
is precisely the argument which we shall find Bishop Huet applied to
the Cartesian doubt; and in my judgment, nothing can be more con-
clusive. Even if this argument, of which I have quoted but a portion,
stood alone in the Essais, I should regard it as the ratiocination of a
man who was in reality, whatever his profession might be, a genuine
and unmitigated skeptic. That historians have relied on these
utterances as overt proofs of unbelief can occasion no surprise, the
surprise would have been justified, if, after such an admission, the
final verdict were deemed uncertain.
Montaigne's philosophy is therefore ipso teste Pyrrhonic skepticism,
as real and unadulterated, bating a slight tincture of Christianity, as
we have it in the pages of Sextos Empeirikos himself. Truth does
not exist for man, or, if it exists, it is undiscoverable. This is the
conviction (if it might be so called) of his reason; it is also the
persuasion and even desire of his feelings. Montaigne does not wish
to possess truth. In common with most skeptics, he considers
enquiry better than acquisition; search preferable to discovery. He
¹ In a note to his excellent article on Montaigne in the Nouvelle Biographie
Generale, M. Joubert remarks: 'On a fait un Montaigne chrietien, on ferait un
Montaigne païen, un Montaigne épicurien; stoïcien, etc. Ce n'est pas l'homme
d'une croyance ou d'une secte qui se peint dans les Essais; c'est l'homme
ondoyant et divers, qui s'y reflète dans toutes ses diversités et ses contradictions;
mais une lecture attentive du chapitre intitule Apologie de Raymond Sebonde
laisse peu de doute sur le fond de la Pensée de l'auteur.' See also by all means
Sainte Beuve's lively analysis of this chapter in volume ii. of his Port-Royal, p.
430, etc., etc.
Montaigne.
465
relates the story of Demokritus found in Plutarch,¹ to illustrate the
indignation a genuine philosopher might feel at being cheated of his
search by an unwelcome 'find.' The story is interesting as illus-
trative of one of the less observed causes of skepticism. 'Demokritus
having eaten figs 2 at his table that tasted of honey fell presently to
considering with himself whence they should derive their unusual
sweetness; and, to be satisfied in it, was about to rise from the table
to see the place whence the figs had been gathered; which his maid
observing, and having understood the cause, smilingly told him that
he need not trouble himself about that, for she had put them into a
vessel in which there had been honey. He was vexed at this
discovery, and complained that she had deprived him of the occasion
of this enquiry, and robbed his curiosity of matter to work upon.
"Go thy way," said he, "thou hast done me an injury; but for all
that, I will seek out the cause as if it were natural"; and would
willingly have found out some true reason for a false and imaginary
effect.'s Montaigne, like Demokritus, is a genuine untiring enquirer.
An universe of solved problems, or in which human faculties were
quite equal to the solution, wherein, therefore, no Essais could have
been indited on the numberless diversities and incongruities of all
existing things, would have been insupportable to Montaigne. He
speaks in terms of mingled contempt and impatience of those human
fools who are for ever shouting forth their evρnka's, though happily
his own philosophy has long ago enabled him to appraise such preten-
sions at their true worth.
(3) The mode in which Montaigne discusses some of the main
doctrines of Christianity, must, I think, also be included under the
more manifest evidences of his skepticism. The dogmas peculiar to
his religion he does not discuss; and except incidentally, never men-
tions. Both immortality and miracles, as widespread beliefs
independent of any Christian origin, he treats at some length, and in
either case in the approved manner of heathen philosophy. Of immor-
tality he says, in effect precisely what Pomponazzi did.
· As a
Christian, I believe; as a philosopher, I do not.' He accepts it on the
ipse dixit of revelation, but considers it unproved, and unproveable
by the reason. 'Let us,' says he, 'ingenuously confess that God alone
has dictated it to us, and faith; for 'tis no lesson of Nature and our
own reason.' 4 He continues in a strain in which a superficial reader
may be unable to decide whether genuine faith, or philosophic irony
is the more predominant: 'whoever shall consider man impartially
1 Sympos., lib. i. quæst. x., Reiske, vol. viii. p. 484.
2 The word is σíkvov, cucumber or gourd seed.
3 Hazlitt, Trans., p. 235.
466
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
and without flattery, will see in him no efficacy or faculty that
relishes of anything but death and earth. The more we give, and
confess to owe, and render, to God, we do it with the greater Christi-
anity,' which is surely nothing else but an expansion of Tertullian's
well known Credo, quia absurdum. The sentiment may be admissi-
ble in the mouth of a devotee. As an utterance of Montaigne's, it
needs no qualification.
se of this
uced from
His treatment of miracles is a still more notable example of his
skeptical equipoise. His ordinary point of view did not permit an
explicit denial of them; even had his character and the circumstances
of the case appeared to justify such a denial. Moreover, he himself
confesses, as we have seen, to a keen and not over fastidious appetite
for the sensational and marvellous. Hence, neither his philosophic
principles nor his inclinations were in favour of rejecting miracles on
mere à priori grounds. He speaks, in one place, with contempt of
the presumption and rashness of discrediting all such marvels in a
lump for the reason that we are unable to comprehend them.¹ But
for his own developed views on the subject, we must refer to the 11th
chapter of the 3rd Book. In this remarkable chapter he complains.
of the compulsion to which his intellect was sometimes subjected by
a popular demand of belief in uncertain marvels. In such cases,
says our essayist 'I find that almost throughout we
ould say
“There is no such thing;" and should myself often make
answer; but I dare not, for they cry, "It is a defect prc
ignorance and weakness of understanding;" and I am for
most part to juggle for company and prate of frivolo s and idle
subjects, which I don't believe a single word of.' Then, a ter instanc-
ing some modern miracles, and pointing out their abnor al develop-
ment from trifling causes, and their enhancement by distance of
time and space, he proceeds, 'To this very hour, all thes miracles and
strange events have concealed themselves from me.
I have never
seen a greater miracle or monster in the world than myself.' In
another sentence the germ of Hume's argument is apparent.
much more natural and likely do I find it, that two men should lie,
than that one man in twelve hours' time should fly with the wind
from east to west;' and sums up his observations on this subject in
the following words: 'Methinks a man is pardonable in disbelieving
a miracle, as much at least as he can divert and elude the verification
of it by ways other than marvellous; and I am of St. Augustine's
opinion, that tis better to lean towards doubt than assurance in things
hard to prove and dangerous to believe.' 2
¹ Hazlitt, Trans. p. 77.
2 Hazlitt, Trans. p. 498.
ed for the
• How
Montaigne.
467
Having now touched upon both the implicit and the more explicit
evidences of Montaigne's skepticism, I will note briefly what seem to
me the motive principles, which influenced and directed his tenden-
cies in this respect.
When I said at the beginning of my paper that the unavowed
object of Montaigne's Essays is toleration, I meant that this is the
logical and only practical outcome of his reasonings. Grant him the
premisses which he assumes, and fixity or uniformity of belief is
utterly chimerical. It is in complete antagonism to all the laws and
forces of Nature. Montaigne was therefore above everything else a
lover of freedom. Not that he was prepared to dare or sacrifice any-
thing in her behalf: of that kind of affection either for persons or
things he was constitutionally incapable. The liberty he loved, that
which he sincerely wished all men to enjoy, was liberty of thought,
and within certain limits, of its expression in word and act. Not-
withstanding his friendship for La Boëtie he suppressed for a time the
Essay of that ardent young republican on Voluntary Servitude, and
misrepresented its purport. Montaigne had in truth no wish, even
if he had the power, to overturn existing authorities in Church and
State. He would rather go occasionally to court and play the courtier,
or pay a visit to Rome and kiss the Pope's toe. The utmost he would
have done would have been to limit the power of Pope and King to
persecute their subjects for trifling eccentricities of belief. Not that
he loved either Huguenots or Lutherans. They were poor ignorant
wretches, full of convictions and certainties of the most vigorous and
overmastering kind, for which they were not only willing but eager
to sacrifice life. It was hardly to be expected that a fastidious
Epicurean like Montaigne could have any kindly feeling for such a
combination of ignorance and dogmatism. He would have no con-
cession made to their absurd crotchets in respect of truth.¹ Still he
was in favour of liberty of conscience; and thought they had better
be left alone.
Writers on Montaigne have pointed out that what seems his
skepticism, is in some cases but the effect of his love of liberty,
and his impetuous disregard of all restraints. To some extent this
is true: Montaigne is not unlike a full-blooded courser, to whom
the mere sight of a barrier awakens an irrepressible desire to surmount
it. Hence his liberty both of thought and action sometimes degener-
ates into licence. Nor is he unconscious of this infirmity, although
he does not think it needs an apology. Thus he tells us, apropos of
liberty of speech, that he takes the liberty to say all that he dares to
¹ Book i. chap. xxvi. with which compare Bɔok ii. chap. xix. 'on Liberty of
Conscience.'
468
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
do; and we might rejoin, if we accept his own account of himself,
that he took the still greater liberty to do all that he dared to say.
His primary rule of conduct was Nature, her laws, dictates and
requirements; and Nature herself was, as he said, unbounded. Hence
for mere social regulations, restraints born of custom and the usages
of civilization, he affected a supreme disdain. In a sentence, which
marks the genuine skeptical enquirer, almost more than any other in
the Essais, he says 'I so love freedom of will and action, that were I
interdicted the remotest corners of the Indies, I should live a little
more uneasy thereat:' words which when duly applied give the key-
note both to his mental and moral character. He would even make such
an unlimited freedom a primary consideration in education. In his
celebrated chapter on this topic, Book i. 25, he says, 'Let the tutor
make his pupil examine and thoroughly sift every thing he reads.
Nothing must come into his head on the mere basis of authority. The
principles of Aristotle are none to him, any more than those of the
Stoics and Epicureans.
Let the diversity of opinions be pro-
pounded to and laid before him, he will himself choose, if he be able;
if not, let him remain in doubt.1
'Che, non men che saver, dubbiar m' aggrata.' ?
2
For not less than knowledge, doubt to me is grateful.
Ritter and other historians have made Montaigne's views of Nature
the ground-principle of his philosophy. To a considerable extent this
is correct. There is no doubt that he was thoroughly permeated by
the new Nature-worship, which entered so largely and with such
overpowering influence into the advanced culture of the period. Not
that he ever shared the sublime intoxication of such men as Giordano
Bruno, Vanini and Campanella. His regard for Nature was not
1 Hazlitt, Trans. p. 62.
2 Dante, Inferno, Canto xi. 93. The same preference for healthy and natural
skepticism to unwholesome, artificial or false knowledge, is expressed by
Erasmus and Lord Bacon. Montaigne, it will be observed, agrees with Thel-
wall, who in discussing the question of education with Coleridge, thought that
the native soil should not be prejudiced in favour of roses and strawberries.
Coleridge, Table Talk, p. 105. But unfortunately for Coleridge's rejoinder,
'native soils' are more often prejudiced by ill applied culture in favour of
the thorns and thistles of dogma than in that of the 'roses and strawberries '
of truth and liberty. Montaigne's views of education seem to have been de-
rived, in the first instance from his father's Italian method and his own early
training; though he may have been indebted for a confirmation of them to
Rabelais. Comp. Dr. F. A. Arnstädt, Francois Rabelais und sein Traite
d'Éducation: Leipzig, 1872, especially chap. x. p. 168. Rabelais and Montaigne
were followed in their advocacy of uncramming, practical, character-develop-
ing education, by Charron, Locke and Rousseau. See Dr. Arnstädt, loc. cit.
:
Montaigne.
469
like theirs, that of a mistress to be passionately loved, the conse-
crated object of devotion and worship, sometimes of rather a rhapso-
dical and incoherent kind, but that of a queen, to be distantly
respected, and intelligently served. Her law is supreme in all
matters, whether of speculation or of practice. Conformity with her
dictates is the sole requirement which can be demanded of humanity,
which therefore makes obedience to lesser authorities of inferior
obligation. As is usual with most of his views, he pushes his idea
of nature-supremacy to excess; especially when he employs it as a
vantage-ground whence he can attack the dogmatism and presump-
tion of mankind, or ridicule the vices and follies of civilization. Not
only does he pronounce the barbarous yet simple and manly state
of the South American savages superior to the polished but effete
civilization of his own time, but even their most offensive practices,
cannibalism, e.g., appeared less worthy of repugnance than the racks
and torments, the worrying with wild beasts, which Montaigne him-
self had witnessed, not only, as he says, 'amongst inveterate and
mortal enemies, but amongst neighbours and fellow-citizens, and
what is worse, under colour of piety and religion.'1 Moreover, he
questions the superiority of man over the lower animals; professing
to find in the latter, not only in germ, but in a certain amount of
development, most human excellencies, mental as well as physical.
Even those emotions which seem peculiarly human are, in his opinion,
probably shared by the brute creation. An elephant, e.g. has evinced
religious emotion, dogs have shown fidelity, lions have manifested
gratitude, etc., etc. Although the authority on which these marvels
are based is not high, it is interesting to find Montaigne and other
skeptics anticipating speculations with which the physical science of
our own day has made us familiar.
2
Before I close my paper, I must say a word on Montaigne's
religion. Like his views on other subjects, it may fairly be de-
scribed as 'an unknown quantity.' His constitutional temperament
made him averse to novelties, especially of a vigorous and trenchant
character, either in religion or politics; and the events of his time
and country were hardly calculated to lessen that aversion. His
motto would probably have been 'Quieta non movere.' The dislike
he occasionally manifests to the sectaries, is in my opinion, easily
accounted for. As a rule they were further removed from that
standard of tolerant indifference which Montaigne regarded as best
1 Hazlitt, Trans. p. 91.
2 See his letter to his wife, Hazlitt, p. 640. 'And in truth, novelty has cost
so dear to this poor State (and yet I know not whether it may not still cost
more), that in all cases and places, I wash my hands of it.'
VOL. II.
E
:
470
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
in all dubious matters. Hence he would have felt much more at
home in the society of scholarly and semi-skeptical cardinals than
in that of Huguenot or Lutheran ministers. What he would have
said to a freer sect which would have combined simplicity of belief
and worship with genuine scholarship and scientific research, we
have no means of knowing. That his instinctive love of liberty můst
have received a shock from the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, I
cannot doubt. But we must remember that the religious intolerance
of the ruling powers may have been made to wear the semblance
of stern political necessity,¹ while that so frequently evinced by the
Huguenots was merely the expression of fervid religious conviction—
a very different matter in Montaigne's estimation.
2
For myself I have little doubt that Montaigne evinced, towards the
end of his life, an increasing appreciation of the simplicity and un-
dogmatic character of the Christianity actually founded by Christ,
though with his usual dualism he contrived to combine this feeling
with a sentimental regard for the imposing ecclesiasticism which
had been its actual embodiment for so many centuries. Thus he not
only prefers the Lord's Prayer above all other forms of devotion, but
thinks that to many men it might suffice; at least he confesses that
he uses no other. He is also convinced that the very essence of
Christianity is in its ethical purity; and therefore that its best
dogmas consist of good actions and a holy life.³ This was, as we
shall find, that particular phase of Montaigne's teaching that was
taken up and elaborated by his disciple Charron; and the intercourse
of these thinkers during the last three years of Montaigne's life
(1589-1592) was well-nigh continuous and unbroken. Like Charron,
too, he expresses an unbounded contempt for the theory that orthodox
belief is superior to virtuous practice, as a qualification for attaining
the rewards of a future life. He relates the story of Diogenes, who,
when pressed by a priest to accept his religion on condition of the
reward of eternal felicity, indignantly answered, 'What! thou
wouldest have me believe that Agesilaus and Epaminondas, who
were so great men, shall be miserable, and that thou who art but a
calf, and canst do nothing to purpose, shalt be happy because thou
art a priest?' In the same direction points his commendation of the
1 Gabriel Naudé, a free-thinker like Montaigne (resembling him also in
other respects), expressly defended the massacre of St. Bartholomew as a
political necessity. See his Considerations Politiques sur les Coups d'Etat,
Rome, 1639, chap. iii. The circumstance is chiefly remarkable as proving how
little the principles of freedom and toleration were then understood even by
their professed defenders.
2 Book i. chap. lvi.
8 Book ii. xii. Comp. Hazlitt, p. 201.
!
Montaigne.
471
Emperor Julian; for he by no means allows that his great moral and
intellectual qualities are rendered nugatory by his renunciation of that
form of Christianity presented for his acceptance. I am aware that
this admiration for morality, and his assertion of it as the main
point of religion, assumes a curious appearance when contrasted with
Montaigne's confessedly lax life; but we must bear in mind that, in
an intellect so completely dualistic, the region of speculation and
sentimental approval might be widely demarcated from that of
positive practice. Besides, Montaigne was so completely the creature
of occasional impulse, that no mere 'lex vivendi' would suffice to
turn him 'from the career of his humour.' What indeed could have
been expected of a man who thus describes what he is pleased, I
suppose ironically, to call his 'virtue.' 'My virtue is a virtue, or
rather an innocence, casual and accidental. If I had been born of a
more irregular complexion (i.e. with more vicious tendencies), I am
afraid I should have made sorry work of it; for I never observed
any great stability in my soul to resist passions were they never so
little vehement.'1 Montaigne, it is clear, was well qualified to
become an inmate of Rabelais' Abbey of Thelemites. Little worthy
excuse, however, can be proferred for Montaigne's ethical weakness.
He was endowed with so much perspicacity, that no man saw more
readily or fully the outcome whether of any given speculation or
practice. He also possessed sufficient self-assertion as to be indepen-
dent of his environment. The only institution capable to a certain
extent of influencing him was the Church; but from this source
Montaigne found no encouragement to harmonize his life with his
religious convictions. On the other hand, the dualism he found in
himself he discovered to exist in the Church. Even if the Church
had not suggested and created it, it derived from its sanction and
example a distinct and infallible authority.
He frequently remarks on the hollowness of the religious profession
of his time, especially among ecclesiastics. He notices e.g. the
prevalent opinion that the profession of religion by men of parts was
only pretended. When at Rome, too, he observes that the Pope and
cardinals are chatting pleasantly with each other during the celebra-
tion of High Mass, and remarks that the rites were more magnificent
than devotional. He is also careful to note how gross immorality
was occasionally allied, among the Italian peasantry, with the most.
fervent devotion. He does not apparently think these inconsistencies
worthy of reprehension; though in his Essais he more than once
discusses hypocrisy in the tone of the austerest of moralists. They
are merely interesting eccentricities, to be noted in his diary, as any
1 Bk. ii. chap. ii. Hazlitt, p. 195.
472
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
other peculiarity or noteworthy phenomenon. But he does not seem
to be aware that the combination in his own life of immorality with
superstitious religious observances is every whit as incongruous, and
compared with the conduct of peasantry, much less defensible. Con-
sidered as the practical issue of a dualism which separates theology
entirely from all secular speculation, Montaigne's conduct affords no
doubt an unsatisfactory comment on the principle of 'twofold truth.'
On the whole, little can be said on the affirmative side of that
frequent theme of French essayists-the Christianity, or religion, of
Montaigne. For while he recognized the ethical purity of Chris-
tianity, and preferred the simpler to the more complex stages in its
historical evolution, there is little to demonstrate his appreciation.
of Christianity as a religion superior to all others. The ground of
his Christianity he expressly tells us, is geographical-the accident
of his birth-place. The same accident might have made him a
Brahmin or Buddhist, a Mussulman or Protestant; and he contem-
plates all such eventualities with the most philosophical indifference.
Besides, he regarded all beliefs as capable of being determined by
the arbitrary choice of those who adopt them. In his own words,
'many people make themselves believe that they believe'; and such
an argument would hardly tend to demonstrate the exclusive sanctity
of any established creed.
Some explanation too, of Montaigne's aberration from morality must
be found in his definition and estimate of Nature. I have admitted
the influence on his intellectual growth of Raymund of Sabieude's
work. Now it is evident that the definition of Nature as a revelation
prior and superior to that of Scripture, might in many cases assume
a most mischievous aspect: that it did so in Montaigne's own case
seems to me to admit of little doubt. Herein, too, our skeptic was
not only pursuing a track set before him by a venerated teacher, but
was in harmony with the general spirit of the time. As we have
seen, one of the most salient products of the Renaissance was a
substitution of natural dictates for theological dogmas. This feature
is distinctly marked in the Essais. Montaigne frequently mentions.
Nature on terms of equality with God, and I need not point out the
extreme licence such a standpoint might be made to justify.
As a per contra to these indications of skepticism, speculative and
practical, Montaigne's fellow-Romanists and defenders urge his atti-
tude of professed obedience and submission to the Church. They string
together the orthodox passages of his Essais, or his translation of the
Natural Theology. They gravely remind us of his regular atten-
dances at Mass, his kissing the Pope's toe, his pilgrimage to Loretto
(when he happened to be in the neighbourhood), his devoutly crossing
Montaigne..
473
himself whenever he yawned, his expressions of disdain for Huguenots
and Neologists of all kinds, his exemplary death, etc.; but I confess
that the combined force of all these arguments in proving Montaigne
an orthodox Romanist does not seem to me very great. Like so many
of the illustrious characters formed by the Renaissance, Montaigne
was in reality a learned and skeptical pagan. His warmest sym-
pathies, personal and literary, were given to the giants of antiquity.
Despising, like Machiavelli, the men and the thought of his own time,
nothing gave him so much enjoyment as retiring to his study and
communing with his beloved ancients. Then he forgot, for the time
being, the religious wars that desolated his country, the tortures and
cruelties perpetrated by Kings and Popes in the holy name of religion,
the insolent and oppressive dogma-mongering that characterized all the
churches of the time, Huguenot no less than Romanist, and banished
tolerance, mutual sympathy from human existence. That Montaigne
was not a Christian in the ecclesiastical sense of the term I am fully
persuaded; but I am far from supposing, as some writers have done,
that he was a conscious hypocrite. He undoubtedly possessed as
strong a sense of natural religion as was compatible with his wayward
character, and he intermingled with it just as much observance of
ecclesiastical rites as his birth in a Romanist country seemed to
demand. That he was susceptible of religious impressions and feel-
ings many pages of his Essais fully prove. That they were lasting, or
were allowed to become obtrusive, his character forbids us to acknow-
ledge. As to the quiet composure with which he met death, that
seems to me to harmonize with the philosophic serenity with which
he encountered the changes and chances of life; and has little effect
either in demonstrating his Christianity or disproving his skepticism.
The scene of his death-bed proves little more than the success that
attended his efforts to imitate the imperturbable calm which he so
much admired in ancient heroes and Stoics, e.g. Sokrates, Cato and
Seneca. Such at least is my own opinion. For those who are inclined
to make large inferences from this and other transient phases in
Montaigne's life as to the strength of his Christianity, I would recom-
mend the adoption of the rule suggested by Ste Beuve, viz. to estimate
Montaigne by the standard of value he himself would attach to the
ratiocination; no readier method could be suggested for proving their
inconclusiveness. Indeed, in the final resort, we cannot do better
than suspend our own judgments and accept Montaigne's own estimate
of himself. His self-delineation as 'divers et ondoyant' has long
attained in this respect the efficacy of a sacramental formula. No
phrase could better describe that combination of waywardness and
mobility that constituted his character, and with the additional remark
474
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
that they indicate in a thinker a peculiarity born of skepticism, we
must allow them to stand as the final verdict on Montaigne.
No account of Montaigne's skepticism would be complete that took
no cognizance of the unique position occupied by his Essais in the
history of French Literature and Free-thought. All works of skepti-
cism have, as we know, a peculiarly awakening force; for the reason
that all enquiry, as Abelard remarked, starts from doubt. Hence, in
the whole of French literature the two works that attained the most
ready and lasting celebrity were Montaigne's Essais and Descartes'
Discourse on Method; and of these the former has had by far the
greatest influence. No work written in the language has so much
right to the appellation of 'classic,' none has permeated so fully not
only the thought and literature, but also the style and language of
the most spirituelle nation in Europe. Nor is this to be wondered at.
It is the outcome of all that is most distinctive in French literature
from its very earliest commencement. It represents the verve and
bonhomie, the witty insolence and audacious candour that cha-
racterized the French Fabliaux of the middle ages; and which was
subsequently reproduced by such prominent writers as La Fontaine
and Voltaire. As the chief product of the French Renaissance it
introduced to the French people and their tongue the many-sided
wisdom of old Greece and Rome. In contributing to this popular
knowledge of the humanities, the Essais effected more than any
work in French literature. Montaigne's perpetual quotations from
classical writers and his pithy comments on them, though sneered at
by Malebranche and others, had the effect of a collection of 'elegant
extracts' from all the greatest writers of antiquity, at a time when
classical knowledge, as a part of popular education, was in its infancy.
The French seigneur in his chateau, the merchant in his office, the
mechanic in his shop, might catch a flavour of them from this 'Brev-
iary of good fellows,' as Cardinal Duperron styled the Essais. Nor
was this all. To the professional student of classical lore, the lawyer
or the cleric, Montaigne's Essais taught discrimination or its rudi-
ments, in ancient learning; for, as Villemain has pointed out, Mon-
taigne is in France the father of classical criticism-'the great critic of
the sixteenth century.' In his well-known chapter on Books (ii. chap.
x.), he gives under the form of his own literary preferences a dis-
criminative judgment of the writers of antiquity which, for the most
part subsequent criticism has confirmed. But especially was Mon-
taigne the purveyor to his countrymen of the skeptical thought of the
ancients; for we must by no means measure the extent of his obliga-
tions, particularly as to skepticism, by his actual quotations. Indeed,
on all subjects Montaigne was better at borrowing than repaying.
Montaigne.
475
Hence the student who comes to the study of the Essais after a wide
course of classical reading, is surprised, not at the number of Mon-
taigne's quotations, but at their fewness. As you remember, he
apologizes in one place for his dislike to quotations. Some might.
suppose such an apology unneeded or ironical, but in point of fact
it is well grounded. The unacknowledged plagiarisms in the Essais
are far in excess of their admitted borrowing. This is especially the
case where the writer has a doubtful reputation. To take one in-
stance; he often cites Sextos Empeirikos, though generally without
naming him. Indeed, I regard Montaigne as having first introduced
the great legislator of Greek skepticism into the French language;
just as, according to Bayle, Gassendi introduced him in Latin to the
learned. It may easily have been, however, that Montaigne was in-
debted for his own knowledge of Sextos to Henry Stephens' translation
of the Hypotyposes, which was published in 1562. At any rate all the
more important of Sextos's arguments may be found in the Essais, and
not unfrequently whole portions of the Hypotyposes are discovered to
have been transferred bodily into its pages;¹ and these plagiarisms,
though inserted in Montaigne's usual irregular manner, are yet selected
with so much skill that they would of themselves enable any diligent
reader to gain a fair knowledge of the distinctive qualities of Greek
skepticism. Nor is it only the ancient skeptics whom Montaigne
thus lays under contribution. He is equally prodigal of excerpts and
reasonings from those nearer his own time. Thus Cornelius Agrippa's
De Vanitate appears to have supplied him with occasional argu-
ments, though Montaigne never mentions him.¹ As thus summarizing
the reasonings of most free-thinkers on the subject, and presenting
them in a popular form, Montaigne must be regarded as the father of
French skepticism. All subsequent free-thinkers of his own nation
have borrowed from him more or less, though in fair requital of his
own plagiarisms, not always acknowledging their obligations. A
natural result of this position is that the Essais may be regarded as
a kind of barometer of French skepticism. It has gone up or come
down in popular estimation just as free-thought has been in the
ascendant or the contrary-both rise' and 'fall,' being also denoted
by the number of its published editions. Immediately on their first
publication, contemporaneous as it was with the full tide of the
Renaissance free-thought, they achieved a considerable popularity,
which continued till about the middle of the following century. Then,
1 This is especially true of portions of the Apology chapter.
2 E.g. in his account of the diversities of opinion as to the seat of the soul,
Book ii. chap. xii. he seems to have copied Agrippa, De Vanitate, etc., chap.
lii.
476
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
by the united opposition of Catholics, Port-Royalists, Pietists and
Philosophers of the Malebranche school, the Essais receded to' zero.'
But in the eighteenth century, under the reign of the Encyclopædists,
they again rose rapidly, until they stood at a higher point of pros-
perity than they had yet attained. With the fall of the Revolution
and the rise of the first Empire, there was another declension in the
value of the Essais; while a final upward movement set in with the
general awakening of interest in her older writers which commenced
in France during the third decade of the present century, and which
still continues. At present Montaigne and his immortal work stand
higher, both in popular and literary estimation, than at any former
period, as is amply testified by the recent literature which has grown
up around them.
But Montaigne's services to the free culture of France has not been
confined to purveying her skepticism. There is no subject on which
succeeding writers have not copied him; and as the contents of the
Essais are of a multifarious, encyclopædic character, Montaigne has
long occupied the position of a kind of general referee on most points
of literature and moral philosophy.1 To enumerate all the great
names in French literature who have borrowed from the Essais would
be to reckon up all their greatest thinkers and writers. Charron's
Sagesse is only a systematic reconstruction of some of the Essais. Le
Vayer borrowed from him, though without acknowledgment, as well
as imitated servilely his method, frequency of classical citations, etc.
Pascal, while he abused him, was not ashamed of an occasional theft
from his pages. Of himself, together with other of the French
'moralists'—thus termed one might suppose more from their 'moral-
izing' than their 'morals '-Montaigne is the parent.
The epi-
grammatic cynicism and misanthropy of Rochefoucauld, the wise
sententiousness of La Bruyère-their desultory method of teaching
by disjointed maxims and pithy sentences, are derived from the
Essais. To the great dramatists of France-Corneille, Molière, Racine,
especially the second-Montaigne has furnished both thought and
language. Indeed his influence on these was so powerful that in one
respect it may be accounted mischievous; for there is little doubt.
that the classical enthusiasm awoke by the Essais tended to repress
the native originality of these writers by inducing a slavish deference
to classical standards. Coming to later times, Montaigne in the
eighteenth century is the paramount teacher of France. Rousseau
1 Comp. on this point Nisard, Histoire de la Litt. de la France, vol. i., and
M. Leveaux's Étude sur les Essais de Montaigne. The principal interest of the
latter work consists in the parallelisms adduced between Montaigne and other
authors.
Montaigne.
477
took from the Essais his method of education, and much else; though,
characteristically, without a thought of acknowledgment. The
encyclopædists and free-thinkers of the same period plundered the
skeptical portions of the Essais without scruple; while during the
present century few of the eminent litterateurs of France could be
named who have not been indebted for somewhat of manner or matter
to him, whom the chief of them has eulogised as 'the wisest French-
man that ever lived.'
A passing word must also be given to the influence exercised by
the Essais on the style and diction of the French language. Like his
book, Montaigne's style is himself. In completest harmony with
his versatility, nay, its very reflection is the careless, informal char-
acter of his diction. Never was instrument more happily attuned to
the moods and requirements of the player. The variety of his themes,
his discursive method of treating them; the complete absence of
anything like plan, system, uniformity-all these are reflected and
expressed by the easy, gracfeul, happy-go-lucky style of his Essais.
He tells us that he waited upon accident for his themes and for the
ideas they suggested, we might also add, and for the language, in
which they were expressed. He took no more pains to study the due
arrangement of words in a sentence than the orderly sequence of
thoughts in an Essay. What came first to hand, whether thought,
quotation, or verbal phrase, was mostly adopted. Provided the words.
clearly indicated his meaning he was fully satisfied; and the remark-
able feature of it is that this accidental language should be so perfect;
that with such an unartificial construction of sentences, the style
should be so limpid and clear, that it is not only impossible to mis-
take the author's meaning, but even to imagine any words by which
that meaning could be better conveyed; so that it has been truly
remarked: 'Montaigne is the man of all others who knows least what
he is going to say, and knows best how to say it.' 1 But while ac-
knowledging this naïveté as the distinguishing characteristic of
Montaigne's language, it is by no means the only one. His style is
varied, flexible and elastic; it partakes largely of the 'divers et on-
doyant' character of the author. He has his grave as well as his
pleasant moods; can tune his instrument to the slow solemn music of
religious and didactic exposition as well as to the wilder dithyrambs
of intellectual restiveness and immoral licence. This is doubtless the
secret, in part, of his immense influence upon all subsequent French
literature. Every student finds in the Essais not only the subject
matter of his choice but the diction best fitted to express it. Char-
1 Grim Diderot Correspondence (Ed. Garnier), i. p. 102.
478
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
!
acteristically, he himself did not value his style any more than he
did his thoughts. He calls it antiquated, provincial, Gascon; says
that when he writes he puts away from him the company and re-
membrance of books, because he found that that they interfered with
his own 'form,' and in the case of good authors depressed his courage.1
But we must here, as elsewhere, make allowance for Montaigne's ex-
cessive self-depreciation, and his humorous exaggeration of personal
peculiarities. His admitted carefulness to preserve the individuality
of his style seems to indicate that he deemed it worth preserving;
and it is worthy of remark that the author whom of all French prose
writers he most eulogises, possesses that 'simple and natural' style
which comes nearest to his own, i.e. Amyot, the translator of Plutarch.
Nor has Montaigne's incomparable language been without effect in
the diffusion of his skepticism. Every philosophy-like a fine lady
-is largely dependant for 'social success' on its dress, style and
mode of presentation; and this is especially the case when Nature has
not been lavish in her original gifts. Hence skepticism, not being
blessed with very prepossessing features or beauty of form, has always
been largely indebted for the measure of its popularity to the arts of
the literary coiffeur and modiste; and Montaigne's seductive graces
of style has invested his philosophy with such attractions that, in my
opinion, Pyrrhonism has never been so well dressed or so artistically
presented as in the Essais. As a teacher of philosophical suspense
he is even superior to Sextos Empeirikos; his quality of ' ondoiement,'
his dégagé turn, the absence of anything like earnestness or intention,
the picturesque disorder of his thoughts, befit the theme better than
the systematic purposeness of the great skeptic.
This may possibly be the reason why so many of his critics, espe-
cially those of recent times, have attempted to minimize Montaigne's
skepticism. It is surely an insufficient conception of it that would
make it the mere reaction against the credulity and superstition of
his own time. For my part I can conceive no age or environment in
which Montaigne would not have been a skeptic, preferring the in-
quisitive suspense of Pyrrhonism to the partial doubt of the Acade-
mics. To a man who wraps himself up in a resolute 'Je ne sçais,' all
times, places, circumstances, philosophies, creeds are alike. Nor can
I agree with those who forget Montaigne's moral laxity in estimating
the extent of his free-thought. Thus, an historian of French liter-
ature 2 has said: 'Le scepticisme de Montaigne proclame la liberté de
¹ Comp. also his well-known words, 'J'écris mon livre à peu d'hommes et à
peu d'années; s'il c'eut été une matierè de durée, il l'eût fallu commettre à un
langage plus ferme.'
2 Nisard, vol. i. p. 443.
Montaigne.
479
la conscience et conserve saine et sauve la moralité des actions.' No
doubt the words are true when spoken of the intent of the Essais and
of the religious side of its author's twofold character; but regarded as
a philosopher, it is just this absence of moral restraint—the power-
lessness to resist any impulse, the inability to repent of his actions
even when he recognized their error or unwisdom-that seems to me
to set the seal on the extent and profundity of his skepticism. I am
hence assured that skepticism was more to him than a mere specula-
tive opinion. No! Montaigne's Pyrrhonism considered philosophi-
cally was complete and unqualified. It is the principal, if not the
sole element in his character; the focus in which all his numerous
mutabilities and inconsistencies meet. He sailed over the summer
seas of knowledge and speculation, now before one wind, now before
another, bound professedly for no particular port, careless of chart or
compass, and only anxious to preserve his craft from striking on recog-
nized rocks or grounding on unknown shallows—the very ideal, in
short, of a skeptical voyage. I have already conceded that there is a
religious aspect of his mind helping to form the complete "Charakter-
bild' of this Proteus, a kind of Sunday (and in my judgment forming
the same proportion) in relation to his working days of philosophy
and worldliness.
But after all, for us as students of French skepticism, Montaigne's
importance lies in his own epoch. Himself and his Essais form the
high-water mark of the free-thought of the French Renaissance.
They promulgate its classical enthusiasm, its reverence for Nature,
its rationalism and anti-sacerdotalism. Considered from this stand-
point, it is not easy to exaggerate the services Montaigne and his
work rendered to the cause of freedom and humanity, not only in
France but in Europe. Amidst the terrible religious bigotry, the
cruel civil wars, the persecutions, tortures, treacheries and crimes of
the sixteenth century, it was at least some credit, and required no
small courage, to rear up a small temple dedicated to philosophy,
toleration and mental freedom, which none of these discordant in-
fluences were able to penetrate,' and though the high priest of that
temple was not a model of religious sanctity or of moral purity, and
though its rites were apt to degenerate into licence, still these excesses
were in part only the inevitable extravagances which oftentimes
accompany a new faith and new hopes-the natural reaction against
a long period of dogmatic tyranny and mental oppression, for which,
¹ On this relation of Montaigne to the social disturbances and civil wars of
the sixteenth century, see some eloquent remarks in Sant René Taillandier's
essay, 'Montaigne in Relation to the Literature of the Sixteenth Century,'
Revue de Deux Mondes, vol. xx. p. 510.
480
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
therefore, these evil agencies are primarily responsible. The first
outburst of liberty, among a race degenerated by long slavery, is not
generally marked by sobriety of thought, propriety of behaviour, or by
spontaneous submission to wholesome social and religious restraints.
*
*
*
ARUNDEL. On the whole, Doctor, I agree with your paper.
Montaigne does seem to me precisely that Protean combination
of skepticism, cynicism, credulity and immorality, you have
delineated. Of all modern thinkers he is facile princeps in the
attributes of instability, and dread of every sort of restraint.
In the latter respect he reminds one of Bacon's 'humorous
minds,' which are so sensible of every restriction as they will
go neere, to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and
shackles.
You cannot be sure of his sincerity even
when he seems most unreserved and explicit. It might be
fairly open to argument whether his genuine convictions
should not be interpreted in the inverse ratio of his ostensible
professions.
TREVOR. So his skepticism would become the ironical ex-
pression of secret but firm conviction; as in the popular
estimate of Sokrates. You would in such a case have no
difficulty in proving Montaigne a dogmatist and an orthodox
believer. The process of course is both artificial and mislead-
ing. Tying a weather vane in the direction you wish does
not tell you which way the wind blows.
In this respect
Montaigne is like Sokrates, a conspicuous instance of the power
of irony, Nescience, and intellectual many-sidedness in enabling
men to cherish in reserve and seclusion their favourite senti-
ments and convictions far from the prying gaze of their
fellow men.
MISS LEYCESTER. Admit irony in this sense, and we might
have a pendant to Rochefoucauld's maxim: As language was
given to men to conceal their thoughts, so creeds were devised
by men to hide their beliefs. But frankly, Dr. Trevor, I think
it is you who have been tying the weather vane in order to
predicate a definite direction of a wind blowing from every
quarter. We are all agreed, I think, that Montaigne truly
describes himself as 'divers et ondoyant'; but the fact seems
Montaigne.
481
to me at least partially to disprove his skepticism. If he was
really so inconstant, why should we lay more stress on his
skepticism than on any other phase of his many-sided char-
acter? The Essais should in my opinion be taken as a whole;
and as constituting what Montaigne himself calls his universal
being. But thus regarded they do not impress one more with
their skepticism or their cynicism than they do with their
strong common sense, or their occasional orthodoxy, or any
other of their innumerable qualities. The Essais is like a
dish prepared of many various materials, and flavoured with
many condiments, but all so harmoniously blended that it is
impossible to say of any one ingredient or flavour that it
predominates over the rest.
HARRINGTON. Then instead of calling Montaigne a skeptic,
you would, I presume, say that he was a cypher-a mere sign,
of which nothing definitive could be asserted; or like the
scholastic 'substance,' an imaginary entity in which qualities
inhere.
MISS LEYCESTER. Not so; Montaigne represents the muta-
bility of every man who has sufficient introspective insight to
discern, and sufficient candour to acknowledge it. Pascal said
of the Essais that he never opened them but he discovered
himself, i.e. the image of his own mutations and inconsistencies.
Introspection, you remember, led Sokrates to doubt his own
identity; and to profess himself uncertain whether he were not
a multiform serpent of Typhon; and Hamlet describes the
result of his own self-analysis almost in the very words of
Montaigne :-'I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could
accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had
not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with
more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.'
TREVOR. In some cases, no doubt, the different qualities in
a composite character may be so evenly blended that not one
is prominent above the rest; but Montaigne, in my judgment,
is not one of them. That he had some settled convictions I
have never denied. He was fully convinced, e.g. of the benefits
of toleration, of the superiority of his favourite mode of edu-
cation, of the necessity of religious and moral restraints for
482
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
ordinary folk, etc., etc.; but I still maintain that the ground
principle of his intellectual character was skepticism; and that
this is evidenced by his religion, his philosophy, his political
conduct and his morality. Hence accepting your simile, I
think that skeptical suspense, with its allied qualities of
moderation, equanimity, etc., constitutes the preponderating
flavour in his mental dish.
Besides, our investigation
of skepticism considers it in relation to dogma. But the latter
implies fixity, permanence, steadfastness; and a mind anta-
gonistic to those qualities, i.e. wavering, doubtful, suspensive,
not in action perhaps so much as in speculation, must needs
be skeptical. Montaigne himself was at least clear-sighted
enough to perceive that his waywardness and vacillation must
needs bear a skeptical construction. You remember the begin-
ning of the 3rd chapter of the 2nd Book: 'Si philosopher
c'est doubter, comme ils disent, à plus forte raison niaiser et
fantastiquer, comme je fois, doibt estre doubter.'
HARRINGTON. The point in Montaigne's character that most
impresses me is what has been rightly called his Paganism.
Setting aside a few casual remarks on Christian dogmas,
enunciated with a coldness very unlike the ardour of his com-
mendations of Pyrrhonism, there is nothing in the whole of
his Essays but what a cultured heathen might have written.
They might stand for scraps of Plutarch, Lucian or Theo-
phrastus, or for fragments of letters by Pliny or Seneca. I
have read the Essais pretty thoroughly, and I have been
unable to find any allusion to the Founder of Christianity, or
to its primary records.
TREVOR. Paganism was, of course, the atmosphere, if not
the very life-blood of the Renaissance. When Roman pontiffs
were themselves heathen-a combination of Bunyan's giants
Pope and Pagan in a single Janus-like personality-it was not
likely that minor personages would be uninfluenced by the
prevailing passion for pagan culture. As to the other char-
acteristic, it is common to all the literature of the period,
theological as well as lay. The beginnings of Christianity,
the personal character of the Founder, etc., had in fact long
since passed, if not out of human knowledge, at least out of
human consciousness, buried under the continual accretion of
Montaigne.
483
ecclesiastical and dogmatic developments. Even Luther, and
Calvin, notwithstanding their undoubted services to the cause
of Christian freedom, contributed very little to direct men's
attention to this the first and most essential aspect of Chris-
tianity. They too must needs systematize. From this point
of view there is but little difference between Calvin's Insti-
tutes and the Summa of Aquinas.
ARUNDEL. Is there not a considerable parallelism, I do not
mean altogether as to genius, although Montaigne was un-
doubtedly a poet, but as to character, temperament, etc.,
between Montaigne and Goethe? Both cold, unimpassioned
intellects; both hiding a considerable amount of vanity under
a semblance of indifference to human opinion; both loving
freedom after a manner, but with a careless Epicuræanism
which refused to hazard anything in her cause; both lovers
of Nature and realistic in their conception and interpretation
of her; both enamoured of inconstancy, for Montaigne con-
fessed that in all subjects he felt 'the delights of changeful
desire.'
'Da fühl ich die Freuden der wechselnden Lust.”
Allowing for differences in race and circumstances, the two
men seem cast in nearly the same mould.
TREVOR. No doubt there are points of similarity, but Goethe
had too much innate reserve to imitate Montaigne's outspoken
and outrageous frankness. Compare for instance the reti-
cence of the Autobiography with the excessive candour of the
Essais. Goethe's general demeanour is that of a king on
state occasions, conscious of being the observed of all observers.
Montaigne, on the other hand, is like a performing clown or
street-tumbler displaying his quaintest antics and postures to
public gaze, and delighted when a more uncouth gambol than
usual obtains its meed of public recognition and applause.
HARRINGTON. Montaigne's highest claim to complete skep-
ticism appears to me to rest on his avowal that, like Lessing
and others, he would rather always inquire than discover—
start on a kind of Columbus-voyage, neither hoping nor ex-
pecting to see land-not that I think he felt much interest in
any enterprise of the kind. By the bye, what a capital story
484
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
is that of Demokritus, leaving a simple solution of a problem
which he knows to be true, to search for one more recondite,
which, if it differs from the other, must needs be false. It is
typical of, but hardly complimentary to, unlimited skepticism.
MISS LEYCESTER. Yet the same inordinate appetite for pure
research may be merely the desire which possesses antiquaries
of ascertaining frivolous and insignificant details. This temper
was satirised in an amusing paper in Ainsworth's Magazine a
few years ago. I chanced to come across the number one day
last week, and the zeal of the antiquary appeared to resemble
the inquiring fervour of the skeptic so much, that I copied
part of it as an illustration of our subject.
DR. TREVOR. Let us have it by all means.
MISS LEYCESTER. (Reading from a pocket-book). 'An anti-
quary was engaged in carefully inspecting a large monument
in a church. After he had copied the inscription, he turned
to a by-stander :-
666
""Do you happen to know, sir, anything of this family ?”
Nothing, but what we read here; you perhaps failed to
observe the line below the original inscription ?”
"Eh?-ah! so I did. Thank you, sir," and to the copy
of the memorial were added the words: "The name is now
extinct."
'Still the copyist did not seem content.
muttered, and then he paused:-
"Extinct!" he
'Suddenly he advanced close to the tablet, examined it all
over, stooped down and scrutinized the under edge, looked
along the side edges, and then fetched the pew opener's chair
to stand upon, while he peeped upon the dusty top and into
the grimy mouths of the guardian angels. Finally he de-
scended and retreated slowly, his eyes still fixed on the monu-
ment, and murmured as he paced mournfully out of church,—
"Well, I think they might as well have added the name
of the stone-mason!
TREVOR.-A genuine enquirer! no doubt, impeded by no
obstacles, and acknowledging no result as final; but rather,
as I think, in the interests of credulity than of skepticism.
Antiquaries, as a rule, are not skeptics. Their prepossessions
and instincts are all the other way. Of course the existence
Montaigne.
485
of a common passion in men of such opposite tendencies is a
psychological fact of great value.
HARRINGTON. Had he discovered the name of the stone-
mason he would not have been satisfied without unearthing
his family and ancestors for several generations. Antiquaries
often resemble misers, hoarding every trifle irrespective of its
value. Skeptics are often spendthrifts and reject everything
as valueless. The same cure applies to each excess: the
adoption of definite standards of value and proportion.
MRS. HARRINGTON. As to which the insuperable difficulty
would still remain. Who is to fix them? But to return to
our subject, there is one undeniable evidence of Montaigne's
Skepticism which Dr. Trevor passed over with an incidental
notice, but which I should have insisted on most strongly.
DR. TREVOR. What was that?
MRS. HARRINGTON. The character of the inscriptions on the
beams and rafters of his library, which are to be seen, I believe,
to this day.¹ When a man, besides adopting a skeptical motto,
surrounds himself with apophthegms and sentences of the same
kind, there can be no question as to his genuine sympathies.
But there seems to me an unconscious irony in this kind of
library-decoration. The claims, nay, the very raison d'être
of the tomes below appear scouted and ridiculed by the in-
scriptions above; just as the devotion of worshippers in a
mediæval cathedral seems mocked by the grinning monkeys
and scowling fiends of the carved work over their heads.
ARUNDEL. On the other hand, Mrs. Harrington, if, as you
suggest, Montaigne's library was his church, it was but right
that his creed, such as it was, should occupy a conspicuous
position in it. I can imagine him sitting at his writing table
composing his Essays; and in the interval between two
sentences, each redolent of cynicism and unbelief, casting a
glance aloft, and deriving fresh inspiration and encouragement
from the skeptical dicta which hovered like a new revelation
above him. Adopting his own irony, he might be represented
in a symbolical picture, after the manner of a medieval saint,
¹ Cf. Hazlitt, Life, p. xvii. But the fullest account of these inscriptions is
that given by Dr. Payen in his Nouveaux Documents sur Montaigne, pp. 56–60.
VOL. II.
F
486 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
intently watching, pen in hand, an angel poised with out-
stretched wings over his head, and bearing a scroll with the
words, 'Solum certum, nihil esse certi.'
'Of things, men are sure about,
Surest of all is, doubt.'
MRS. ARUNDEL. Or you might paint him like one of the
Evangelists, attended by his proper symbol: a chameleon,
perhaps.
HARRINGTON. Whatever we may say of the irony and mani-
fold meanings of the Essais, we must admit, I think, that
sentences carved in wood carry with them an evidence of
sincerity and bonâ fides which it is quite impossible to resist.
For my part I would be content to let the proof of Montaigne's
Skepticism rest on the testimony of his library beams.
DR. TREVOR. I cannot say that I attach greater importance
to these inscriptions than I do to the Essais. Undoubtedly
they have a common purport, and one very distinctly marked;
but so, I contend, have the Essais.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Montaigne's merits as a philosopher and
an essayist must, I suppose, be conceded. As a man I do not
think he can be said to stand high. His disingenuous treat-
ment of La Boëtie,¹ and the cold careless way in which he
mentions the massacre of St. Bartholomew, leave in my opinion
an irretrievable stain on his character.
TREVOR. No doubt, considered from an heroic or even
ordinary ethical point of view, Montaigne must be pronounced
exceedingly imperfect. Still I apprehend it would be a mistake
to suppose that his silence as to the St. Bartholomew is the
least proof of acquiescence. Notwithstanding his personal
friendship with Catherine de Medicis, he was hardly likely
to have known the policy of the Catholic party beforehand;
and when the event was over, the expostulations of a solitary
seigneur, living a recluse life far from the capital, even if
Montaigne had the courage to make them, could not have
been of the slightest service; but his disgust with the times
in which he lived, owing mainly to persecutions and religious
wars, is a feature very distinctly impressed on his pages.
1 Comp. on this point Bayle St. John, op. cit., vol. i. pp. 272–3.
Montaigne.
487
ARUNDEL. He is an instance which seems to me to justify
the old prejudice, that skepticism emasculates a man's cha-
racter, both religious and moral. For the firm bony structure of
dogma and conviction it substitutes a cartilaginous framework
of purposelessness and expediency.
TREVOR. I am glad to hear you admit that the old notion
is a prejudice. With such men as Sokrates, Ramus, Cornelius
Agrippa and Giordano Bruno on our list, it would be difficult
to share any other opinion. There is, of course, a kind of
'give and take' in all questions of human character; and you
can no more expect incompatible excellencies in a man than
in any other production of Nature.
MRS. ARUNDEL. After all our discussion, we seem to have
arrived at the point we started with; and the chief thing we
have ascertained is the impossibility of ascertaining anything
clear on the subject. An appropriate decision, no doubt, but
not quite satisfactory.
TREVOR. On the contrary, Mrs. Arundel, we all say that
Montaigne is a skeptic of the extremest type.
Our only
difficulty has been to extract the simple fact from beneath the
versatility and manysidedness by which it is occasionally
obscured. Like our own Shakspeare, Montaigne is a multi-
tudinous myriad-minded man. Had he been a dramatist, and
assigned his manifold opinions to individual and appropriate
characters, varying from a Roman Pontiff to a débauchée, and
from a Stoic philosopher to a low buffoon, what a large picture
gallery we should have had! Imagine the somewhat parallel
case of Shakspeare writing Essays, and ideally concentrating
in his own personality some twenty or thirty of his most
diverse characters, and expressing, as his own opinions, the
numerous and conflicting views of those characters, the result
might have been productions similar in kind to Montaigne's.
MISS LEYCESTER. I must confess that I like that uncertain
type of character, at least when accompanied by a commanding
intellect. It is continually evolving something fresh, curious
and surprising. As when travelling in a foreign country, one
comes upon a new and unexpected bit of scenery at every turn
of the road. Of course, the contrasts are sometimes rather
sharp, e.g. when you find a dirty mud hovel in close proximity
488
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
to a lordly mansion, or after passing a fertile country you
suddenly come upon a barren moor. But such abrupt changes
only add to the continual excitement of the journey. On the
other hand, what can be more insipid and humdrum than an
ordinary type of civilized humanity, a man, e.g. whose imagi-
nation, vivacity, waywardness and eccentricity are all sacrificed
to the single virtue of consistency. Whose intellect and
feeling are modelled on the plan of a Dutch garden, and for
whom spontaneity and genuine impulse cannot be said to exist.
I would rather have the unrestricted luxuriance which is
Nature's own instinct, than the eternal conformity to con-
ventional pattern which it is the tendency of civilization to
produce.
ARUNDEL. Well done, Miss Leycester! Montaigne and
barbarism for ever!
But
TREVOR. Of course, a community of Shakspeares and Mon-
taignes would be very delightful, if we could get it; although
I have little doubt-such is the lamentable tendency of man-
kind to value mediocrity-we should sooner tire of human
waywardness and eccentricity than of the uniform but orderly
type of character evolved by moral and social restraints.
HARBINGTON. That I think unquestionable.
there is one conspicuous defect in Montaigne's Skepticism
which makes it inferior to most examples of Greek Pyrrhonism.
It seems to have been divorced from genuine search; and
therefore altogether opposed to advance in general human
knowledge. One of the countless inconsistencies in his cha-
racter was his dread of Neologianism of every kind. He
ridiculed the astronomical discoveries of Galileo, despised the
geographical discoveries of the time, deprecated the trans-
lation of the Bible into modern tongues, and in other respects
comported himself as an Obscurantist. I agree so far with
Arundel: with all his merits Montaigne was unquestionably a
coward, possessing the insight he lacked the courage and
fervour of truth.
ARUNDEL. I make Montaigne's cowardice in respect of
scientific research, the effect of his Skepticism. You remember
Sokrates also shared the same contempt for physical science.
TREVOR. I agree with you in thinking Montaigne a timid
Montaigne.
489
man.
But his standpoint towards physical discovery was cer-
tainly not that of an Obscurantist. The golden age of
humanity for him was not in the future, but in the past,
among his beloved ancients. He despaired of a sublimer
wisdom than that of Plato, of better poets than Virgil, Horace,
Ovid, and Lucretius, of eloquence transcending Cicero's, of
moralists possessing a fuller or more varied experience of
humanity than Plutarch and Seneca. The men of his own
time appeared but dwarfs compared with these giants of a
remote past; and Montaigne had but little conception, not to
say appreciation, of any kind of knowledge that he found not
in his favourite authors. Besides, his temper was evidently
soured by the fanaticism and intolerance of the Huguenots.
This was the most salient illustration of Neology that he knew;
and the results in France, for the time being, were not pre-
cisely of that character that would have commended them-
selves to a timid "laudator temporis acti," like himself.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Montaigne being the man he was, I am
at a loss to understand why so many of his biographers eulo-
gise his pious death, as if it were a complete proof of his
religious orthodoxy.
TREVOR. Roman Catholics have generally been very solici-
tous to prove that Montaigne was a true son of the Church,
no doubt on account of his genius; had he been less endowed,
or less influential, they would not be so anxious to claim him.
As to his remarkable death-bed scene, it is, I think, explicable
as the outcome of several predisposing causes. First, We
must take into account his own calm reflective temperament.
Secondly, His own self-discipline, through life, in Stoicism and
philosophical equanimity. Thirdly, His imaginative powers,
which enabled him, when in an emotional frame of mind, to
appreciate very fully the possibilities (to give them no higher
title) of the unseen world. Fourthly, The submission he
had throughout his lifetime exacted from himself to the out-
ward observances and devotional offices of the Church. Fifthly,
His conviction that skeptical suspense, as the voluntary self-
suppression of the reason, was itself a kind of religion. Putting
all these considerations together, I do not think we need feel
490
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
much surprise at the serenity with which Montaigne met his
supreme hour.'
HARRINGTON. In other words, Doctor, he died as he lived,. a
Pagan with a superficial tincture of Christianity-precisely my
own view. For my part, I think we had better not attempt
an exact discrimination of Montaigne's religion. He certainly
was not an orthodox Romanist; and he had an intense dislike
to Huguenots. I think it possible that, as you say, he would
have embraced a freer and more enlightened Christianity such
as he very possibly might have discussed in his many con-
ferences with Henry of Navarre. For the rest, Montaigne's
religion was like his philosophy, like his Essais, like himself,
' divers et ondoyant.'
*
*
#
*
*
63
PETER RAMUS.
'The man who goes alone can start to-day, but he who travels with another
must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get
off.'
THOREAU.
'The pursuit of TRUTH hath been my only care ever since I first understood
the meaning of the word. For this I have forsaken all hopes, all friends, all
desires which might bias me and hinder me from driving right at what I
aimed. For this I have spent my money, my means, my youth, and all I
have, that I might remove from myself that censure of Tertullian suo vitio
quis quid ignorat. If with all this cost and pains my purchase is but ERROR, I
may say, "to err hath cost me more than it hath many to find the Truth;
" and
TRUTH itself shall give me this testimony at last, that if I have missed of her,
it is not my fault but my misfortune.'
J. HALES (of Eton).
'Je supporte sans peine, et même avec joie ces orages, quand je contemple
dans un paisible avenir sous l'influence d'une philosophie plus humaines les
hommes devenus meilleur, plus polis, et plus éclairés.'
RAMUS. Quoted by Waddington, p. 14.
་
CHAPTER II.
PETER RAMUS.
On this occasion, as Dr. Trevor had a sketch of Ramus 1 ready
prepared, the meeting was held at Hilderton Hall.
When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the library after
dinner, they found Miss Trevor entertaining her friends, Mrs.
Harrington and Mrs. Arundel, with some matter of local
interest, while Miss Leycester was seated at the library table
with two or three open volumes before her.
ARUNDEL. What are you studying so intently, Miss Ley-
cester ?
MISS LEYCESTER. Well, I am trying to construct a back-
¹ The following are the authorities consulted and cited in this chapter :—
Works. P. Rami, Scholæ in Liberalis Artes, Basile, 1569. Dialectica Libri
Duo, cum Commentariis G. Dounamie. Lond. 1669.
Extracts from divers works, collected and appended to M. Waddington's
French monograph.
M. Waddington, De Petri Rami vita, scriptis, Philosophia Parisiis 1848.
Idem, Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée) sa vie, ses ecrits, et ses opinions, par C. Wad-
dington. Paris 1885. This is not a translation of the former work, but an
independent and greatly enlarged treatise on the same subject. Except when
the word (Latin) is added, this is the work cited under the head of Waddington
in the following pages.
Gaillard, Histoire de Francois I. Vol. vii. p. 357 etc. and vol. viii.
Niceron, Memoires. Vol. xiii. and xx.
310.
Crevier, Histoire de La Université de Paris. Vols. v. and vi.
Haag, La France Protestante. Art. 'La Ramee.' Vol. vi.
Le Croix du Maine, Les Bibliothéques Françoises. ii. p.
Jules Barni, Les Martyres de La Libre Pensée. P. 107-135.
Emile Saisset, Les Precurseurs de Descartes.
Baillet, Jugements des Savans. v. 125–6, viii. 204–205.
Peter Ramus als Theologe, von P. Lobstein. Strassburg 1878.
Histories. Ritter. Vol. ix.
Histoire des Revolutions de la Philosophie en France, par le Duc de Caraman.
iii. p. 245, etc. Buhle Trans. by Jourdain. ii. 579.
Dictionaries. Dict. des Sciences Philosophiques, Art. 'Ramus.' Nouvelle Bio-
graphie Generale. Bayle, Dict. Moreri, Grand Dict. Historique. Vol. ix.
493
494 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
ground to our proposed historical portrait to-night. I always
like to present every great man to my mind's eye as a single
figure in the foreground of a canvas on which are depicted
the chief personages and events of his time. As a great soldier
used to be painted half-a-century ago as a gigantic figure in
the forefront of a picture, while the battles in which he fought
were arranged as background accessories, and represented by
pigmy combatants contending behind his legs, so by the aid
of Michelet and Martin, I am posing Ramus in front of a
moving panorama of French history from 1500 to 1572.
ARUNDEL. No doubt a mode of studying biography pic-
turesque and instructive; but the objection to it, or perhaps I
should say to the excesses to which it is liable, is implied in your
own words. A giant among pigmies, or Gulliver among Lilli-
putians, always gives a distorted view both of the man and of
his historical surroundings. As a rule, the giant is not quite
so great, nor are the pigmies quite so small. The greatest evil
of our modern hero-worship is fostering this tendency to his-
torical perversion. Our present fashion of a biography which
styles itself the history of so and so and his times,' seems
constructed on the principle that the said times, comprehend-
ing all the celebrities, political mutations, and memorable
events which took place or part in them, were providentially
designed only as a dancing rope, on and by which the great
character was enabled to display his wonderful postures and
superhuman agility.
6
HARRINGTON. For that matter our current literature is not
wanting in examples of quite the opposite error. The great
man, whoever he is, being like Virgil's mariners :-'Rari nantes
in gurgite vasto '-quite immersed in a billowy ocean of con-
temporary history, in which he appears to swim in a forlorn
and desperate manner, only being allowed to show his head
above the waves at irregular intervals on purpose to take
breath-and I suppose to make the occurrence of his name on
the title page not altogether an impertinence or unveracity.
MISS LEYCESTER. At all events, give me the former treat-
ment. Hero-worship, or the giant among pigmies, seems to me
as true a view of the relations between eminent characters
and the mere ordinary human strata in which, like precious
Peter Ramus.
495
stones, they are found embedded, as any other. Take any
period of history and the really great names evolved in it
you may count on the fingers of one hand. In the first half
of the sixteenth century, e.g. there were two 'best French-
men,' to use M. Martin's words, Coligny and Ramus;¹ and both
were murdered in the St. Bartholomew. It seems to me a
necessary law of the universe that real grandeur in Nature and
Humanity is only to be met with at distant intervals of time
and space. No doubt a providential arrangement, lest our
appetites should be cloyed and blunted by a too lavish mag-
nificence. If every one lived in a pine-sheltered cot in an
Alpine valley, with a deep wooded ravine or a mountain five
miles high always in front of him, who would care to travel,
or to buy Alpenstocks and join Alpine clubs?
ARUNDEL. Your exposition of the functions of history, what-
ever its truth, is not devoid of candour. The notion of a his-
torical epoch evolving out of it, with immense labour and cost,
one great man, together with numberlesss approximations,
and therefore failures, may be thus Pinnock-ized:
Question. What is history?
Answer. An enormous machine, whose innumerable wheels,
springs, steam-boilers, and motive-powers, are happily designed
by Providence for the creation and moulding of human giants.
A potter's wheel in short, only on a very large scale.
Question. Is Nature or the Designer of this machine uni-
formly successful?
Answer. By no means; she can only effect the creation or
evolution of a single giant out of perhaps 10,000 failures; still
as her object is the giants, not the failures, that doesn't matter
much.
To all of which I only add, alas! Poor Failures!
TREVOR. Omar Khayyam similarly compassionates the
"earthen vessels" of ordinary humanity.
'Said one among them-"Surely not in vain
My substance of the common earth was ta'en
And to this figure moulded, to be broke,
Or trampled back to shapeless earth again.”: 2
¹ Histoire de France, vol. ix. p. 332, note.
2 Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain lxxx. iv.
496 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
But we must not lose sight of our starting point. Assuming,
Miss Leycester, that you have, with the aid of Michelet and
Martin, constructed your background to my proposed outline
of Ramus, is it too much to ask you to give us some idea of
it?
MISS LEYCESTER. Oh, no; I am quite willing to give you
my hastily-formed impressions. Behind the figure of Ramus,
whom I conceive as a noble-looking man—serene, thoughtful,
and courageous-robed in his professor's gown, with a cap
something like a Turkish fez, on his head, I see the canvas
crowded with all kinds of personages and horrible pictures.
Among the notabilities arranged next behind the main figure
are the crowned heads-the priest and favourite-ridden
Francis I., the good-natured fainéant, Henry II., the poor
scrofulous weakling, Francis II., and the bloodthirsty imbe-
cility, Charles IX. Between them, in the guise of a witch
stirring her cauldron of foul plots, treacheries and assassina-
tions, I discern the sensual and cruel features of Catherine
de Medicis. The smoke from her cauldron, as it disperses in
the remote background of the picture, seems to develop into
battles, murders, and cruelties of all kinds. Here a town is
being sacked, there a widow and orphans are weeping over
a corpse. In another place, in the centre of the background,
are scenes of the St. Bartholomew; while in one corner we
have a panorama of the chief events in Ramus's life. So I see
a boy walking along a country road with a rude direction-post
inscribed à Paris. Next, a pale-looking youth, studying Plato
by lamp-light, while a clock in the room points to 3 A.M. Then
a man hiding under a Cardinal's cloak. Then, again, a college
lecturer addressing a large assemblage of youths; until, in the
last scene, the body of a grey-headed old man, murdered and
disfigured, is seen falling into a courtyard, while the faces
of his brutal assassins appear at an open and blood-stained
window, watching the fall.
TREVOR. Thanks, Miss Leycester. You have given us in
brief a picture of what is, unquestionably, the most terrible
period of French history, next to the Terror of 1789-93; and
one instinctively turns one's eyes from the repulsive accessories
of our historical portrait, in order to let them rest on the placid
Peter Ramus.
497
and indomitable countenance of Ramus; just as, in fact, he
himself did, by withdrawing from the stormy sea of political
and religious dissensions outside, to the learned privacy of his
study.
But you seem well up in his history?
MRS. HARRINGTON. Oh, yes; we have been reading about
him in M. Jules Barni's Les Martyrs de la libre Pensée.
TREVOR. I know the book; but the Ramus-chapter in it
is only an abstract of Waddington's learned and exhaustive
monograph on the subject. Ramus is singularly fortunate in
having found such a well-informed and appreciative biographer;
and we also are to be congratulated on being able to undertake
our study of him with Waddington's book in our hands.
ARUNDEL. Meanwhile, Doctor, I want to ask why you in-
clude him among our Skeptics. I can't say I have gone far
into the subject; but nothing that I have been able to learn
about him seems to warrant such a classification.
TREVOR. I suspect, Arundel, if you or I had happened to
be resident in Paris in the year 1536, when Ramus took his
degree, we should not only have regarded him as a skeptic,
but the greatest skeptic of that age. When we get further
into our subject, you will find that he is a genuine free-thinker,
both in religion and in philosophy. In the latter aspect he
ranks as high as, or higher than, any other name on our list.
He is the most conspicuous representative in modern thought
of the reaction against Aristotelian dogmatism, which for so
many centuries held all philosophical and scientific, and, to a
great extent, theological speculation as well, in bondage. No
doubt some premonitory symptoms of it we have already met
with in Petrarca and Pomponazzi, but for its first clear, fear-
less, uncompromising expression we must refer to Ramus.
HARRINGTON. True, Doctor. Ramus was the Luther of
mediæval Peripateticism, the reformer of scholastic philosophy,
as the Wittenberg monk was of its religion. It is difficult to
determine to which of the two names, or rather the causes
identified with them, modern culture owes most. We are so
much accustomed to regard medieval dogmatism as entirely
ecclesiastical, that we are apt to lose sight of the fact that by
means of Aristotle's works, and the position they finally occu-
pied in the Church, it had become philosophical as well. Not
498
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
only a man's religious belief, but his scientific pursuits, his
metaphysical studies, and even his political convictions, were
tyrannized over by dogma. What between Aristotle's dicta on
the one hand and the Church's decrees on the other, the inde-
pendent thinker was placed between a veritable Scylla and
Charybdis; and it required careful steering to avoid both. We
are happily so used to the Libertas philosophandi, that we can
hardly realize a time when the traversing of a single dictum
of 'The Master' was considered a crime liable to be brought
before law courts, and punishable by death.¹ Imagine e.g.
some English logician, as Archbishop Whately or John
Stuart Mill, arraigned before a Committee of the House of
Lords for dialectical heresy in presuming to contradict Aris-
totle's Organon! And what made the case still worse in the
time of Ramus, the Aristotle he opposed was mainly the
Aristotle of the Schools, and bore the same relation to the
genuine writings of the Stagirite, as the Christianity of the
sixteenth century did to that of the Gospels.
MISS LEYCESTER. In an age when he was much more re-
spected than known, Aristotle's must have been a convenient
name to conjure with, not only for theologians, but also for
laymen. 'Who is this Aristotle ?' one of the French kings
once asked, on the occasion of some Peripatetic commotion.
The answer was-'Sire, he was a Greek who-preferred a
Republic to a monarchy;' a reply, no doubt, as comprehensive
and true as most courtier-like answers when the object is to
hoodwink or prejudice, rather than impart information.
ARUNDEL. We have the same invidious use of him in days
when he had not yet acquired the odour of ecclesiastical ortho-
doxy and sanctity. It was then urged, in opposition to the
attempts to make him a Christian teacher, that he believed in
the eternity of matter, and denied the immortality of the soul.
TREVOR. Nevertheless, the influence of Aristotle on media-
val thought was, as we have seen, beneficial in many ways.
For a time he was the only lamp of pure philosophy to which
the Schoolman had lawful access.
But the lamp that
1 In 1624 an edict was promulgated, which prohibited any attack on the
System of Aristotle under pain of death.
Peter Ramus.
499
is useful or indispensable in darkness is only an eyesore when
the sun has risen, especially if the night be artificially pro-
tracted in order to compel men to see by its feeble rays. In
the sixteenth century that was the position of Aristotle; and
we can hardly be surprised if Ramus, and other far-seeing
spirits, wished to call attention to the dawn, and to put the
lamp out.
HARRINGTON. Only they might have set about their work
with a little more gentleness and consideration, remembering
the undoubted services of the lamp; and albeit not forgetting
that the dawn visits the hill people sooner than it does the
valley folk. I am not so positively certain myself that the
dawn was so far advanced as to make the lamp altogether
needless.
MR. ARUNDEL. Besides-and that is one thing which these
hasty exchangers of 'old lamps for new,' or, rather, night-
lights for sunshine, are apt to forget-eyes long used to lamp-
light require a little preliminary closing and rubbing before
they can see by sunlight.
MRS. HARRINGTON. It seems to me you gentlemen are riding
your simile rather hard.
But what relation was there
between Ramus's philosophical skepticism and his religious
opinions. I presume it was as a disbeliever in Aristotle that
he suffered martyrdom?
TREVOR. Mainly, no doubt; but he did not limit either
his inquiry or his skepticism to philosophy. He became
a Huguenot, and was, I suspect, a man of much broader and
more advanced views than most of his co-religionaries, by
whom he was regarded with distrust. Probably the Calvinists
and Theodore Beza were afraid that the man who could throw
off so easily the yoke of Aristotle's Organon would not be
very patient under that of Calvin's Institutes. . His most
cruel death, with the horrible circumstances attending it, was
due, however, not to any public malice, but to private ven-
geance. If he had not made an enemy of Carpenterius, an
ignorant and unscrupulous fanatic, he might possibly have
escaped the terrors of the St. Bartholomew.
HARRINGTON. I don't think we can be quite sure of that.
It is true Ramus enjoyed the protection of Catherine de
Vorm
500
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Medicis and of the king. Still, the fanaticism of the Parisian
mob had, on the third day of the massacre, quite escaped from
the control of the authorities, who had first impelled it on its
murderous career.¹ As Voltaire sarcastically remarks:
'Quand un Roi veut le Crime, il est trop obeï.'
MRS. HARRINGTON. But I suppose we must absolve them
from direct participation in the deed. The horrible event has
so much bloodshed of its own to answer for, that it seems
superfluous and unjust to charge it with a crime prepetrated
outside of its authority.
HARRINGTON. On the contrary, Maria. I think Charles IX.,
Catherine de Medicis, Henry of Anjou, and the whole wretched
crew by which they were surrounded, are undoubtedly re-
sponsible for the murder of Ramus. They were accessories
before the fact, to all intents and purposes. If a man wilfully
lets loose a reservoir, knowing that in its progress it must
drown some hundreds of people, though he may not know, or
consider, whether it will drown a particular individual, yet if
the individual loses his life in the flood, even though an enemy
pushes him into the water, the man who let the waters out is
at least equally guilty. Had there been no St. Bartholomew
there would have been no murder of Ramus. Given a St.
Bartholomew, and Ramus's life is, ipso facto, endangered, in-
dependently of the malice, or even of the existence, of Car-
penterius.
TREVOR. We shall be better able, perhaps, to mete out to
Ramus's murderers their due proportion of guilt when we have
examined more fully the nature and circumstances of the deed.
At present the discussion is premature. Before considering
our Skeptic's death, we must first contemplate the noble life
which preceded it. Unhappily, there is a close and intimate
¹ M. Waddington, it is true, says, that on the third day of the Massacre,
the popular fury had become calmed, p. 254; but this is denied by Martin,
Histoire de France, ix. p. 331, who says, 'La nuit (i.e. of August 24th) on égorgea
dans les prisons; le lendemain, le surlendemain le massacre continua dans la
ville avec une nouvelle furie.' No doubt the king issued on the 26th an edict
prohibiting further massacres; but, as Herr Soldau remarks, by that time few
Huguenots were left. See La France et la Saint-Barthélemy, translated by
Schmidt, p. 87.
Peter Ramus.
501
relation, not to say congruity, between the two; for the
tempest which finally submerged him was but the last and
worst of a series of storms, with which, so far as his public
career was concerned, he had to contend throughout his life.
Yet if it be the glory of a warrior to die on the field on which
he has fought so bravely, equal honour must be awarded to
the philosopher who, in the cause of truth, yielded his life
in a vain struggle with religious, philosophical, and political
tyranny, and who fittingly closed his career on a blood-stained
field, on which, it might have seemed, the Free-thought of
France had also for the time been utterly vanquished and
overthrown.
*
*
*
*
*
Had either of us been on the direct road leading from Cuth,¹ a
small market town in the district of Vermandois in Picardy (between
Noyon and Soissons), to Paris, on some spring or summer day of the
year 1523, he or she might have chanced to see a boy with a bright
intelligent face, but poorly clad, and carrying a wallet at his back,
trudging with naked feet in the direction of the capital. Such a
sight was in those days not unusual. On any of the main roads lead-
ing to Paris youths, or perhaps I should say, children, from eight to
ten years of age, might not unfrequently have been met with, some-
times in company with the carriers and traders to Paris, sometimes
alone, begging their way to the University, animated by the Divine
hunger of knowledge. But what rendered the spectacle a little more
remarkable in the present instance was the evident poverty and
friendlessness of the boy. We can readily imagine the expressions
of sympathy he met with from the kind-hearted peasant women, from
time to time, as he humbly asked for bread, or to be told the road to
Paris. The child we are thus supposing ourselves to have met was
Peter Ramus (de la Ramée), whose father was a poor labourer dwell-
ing at Cuts, and whose grandfather had been a charcoal-burner. The
family, though reduced, was of noble descent. The grandfather had
once been a landed proprietor, but, like so many others in those
troublous times, his patrimony had been desolated by the wars be-
1 On maps of France this place is generally denominated Cuts, but there are
no less than fourteen ways of spelling the word, which are duly enumerated
by Waddington, Ramus sa vie, etc., p. 286. It is situated on the eastern boun-
dary of the Department of Oise, and a short distance from Noyon, the birth-
place of Calvin.
VOL. II.
G
502
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
tween France and Burgundy; and he was compelled to settle in Cuts,
the district round which was then wild and wooded, and to adopt
the trade of charcoal-burner. Both the present poverty and the
former high descent of the family are discernible in the boy: one
marked by the clothing, which is that of an ordinary peasant's child;
the other by features bold, vivacious and intelligent.
Could we
foresee the destinies of the young scholar, we should find him in the
course of a few years elevated to the foremost rank of the thinkers
and teachers of the sixteenth century. At present, however, this is
a distant and not very probable prospect.
In due time the
boy arrives at his destination, and we can imagine the bewilderment
of the little Picardian at the crowded streets, the great buildings,
the grand spectacles of the capital. Nevertheless he makes the best
of his way to some one or other of the many colleges comprehended
within the university. He craves above all things knowledge, and
the means of attaining it; but he also wants food and shelter. Un-
happily neither can be obtained without money, and little Peter has
none. Years after, when the little bare-footed Picardian had become
the head of a college and the foremost name in the University of
Paris, his persistent attempts to establish gratuitous teaching in the
university were, as we know, stimulated by the remembrance of his
own youthful struggles, when he watched with wistful eye and long-
ing heart the students of the various colleges trooping into lecture
rooms from which his poverty excluded him.2 Doubtless he offered
1 One of the many noble traits in Ramus's character is the fearlessness with
which he avows his humble origin, and the poverty in which his early life
was spent. In the discourse he delivered on his installation to a chair in the
College of France, 1551, he recounts the history of his family, and answers the
reproaches which had been levelled at its poverty in the true spirit of a Chris-
tian and a philosopher. 'I am,' he says, 'a Christian, and have never deemed
poverty an evil. I am not one of those Peripatetics (Aristotelians) who think
that a man cannot do great things unless he possesses great riches.' He adds
the prayer, 'O, Almighty God, this grandson of a charcoal-burner, and son of
a labourer, this man weighed down by so many disgraces, he does not ask
Thee for riches, which would be useless to him for a profession whose only
tools are paper and pen and ink;
and ink; but he implores Thee to grant him throughout
his whole life an honest mind, and a zeal and perseverance which will never
leave him.' Cf. Waddington, p. 18. We may well agree with the Duke of
Anjou in Marlowe's Massacre of Paris,—
'Ne'er was there collier's son so full of pride.'
But it is the pride which is born of humility, and is the genuine mark and
attribute of true nobility of soul.
2 In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there were public gratuitous lec-
tures on philosophy delivered in the Rue du Fuarre. See Crevier, Histoire de
L'Université, vi. p. 92; but these had fallen into disuetude before the accession
Peter Ramus.
503
1
himself as servant to some of the better class of students who could
afford such a luxury; but, so far as we know, without success. His
ill-fortune may perhaps be ascribed, at least in part, to the social dis-
turbances of France and of Paris in the year 1523. Contemporary
chroniclers inform us that the capital was the scene of continual and
frightful disorders; quarrels and murders were of almost daily occur-
rence; so that Ramus's first acquaintance with the city and her
blood-stained streets afforded a gloomy foreboding of his own fate
thirty-nine years after, when his mangled and dying body was drawn
along the same streets and cast into the Seine. But whatever the
cause, the boy's unwearied efforts were unsuccessful. At last, in
despair he turned his face homewards to the labourer's cot in Picardy;
where he was doubtless received with joy by his affectionate mother,
and resumed for a time those rural occupations from which he had
fled to Paris. How long he remained at home on this occasion we do
not know; probably as long as his persistent will was able to suppress
the cravings of intellectual restlessness. In time the latter again
asserted their authority, and young Ramus once more left his father's
house for Paris in quest of knowledge; unluckily this time also with-
out success. At last his mother's brother, a Carpenter in name and
trade, but exceedingly poor, consented to receive him into his house.
Young Peter remained with his uncle for some time, travelling with
him to other parts of France to find employment; and when these
attempts failed, again returned with him to the capital. But the
poor man was unable to maintain himself, and his sister was too poor
to render him any assistance, consequently the boy was once more
turned adrift and compelled to seek a new home. This he providen-
tially found. He engaged himself as servant, being now twelve years
of age, to a student in the College of Navarre, a certain M. de la
Brosse. He had now reached the lowest step of the ladder which
was destined to lead him to learning and fame. Domiciled among
scholars, professors, and university lectures, he at last breathed the
2
of Francis I. (Waddington, p. 410). One of Ramus's projects of university
reform, in after life, was the restoration of these street lectures on philosophy.
See below, and compare on the character of the Schools of the Rue du Fuarre,
MM. Le Clerc et Renan, Hist. Litt. de la France au 14me Siecle, vol. i. p. 284, ii.
79, 80.
1 Cf. Martin, Histoire de France, viii. 40.
2 This was the usual resource of poor students of the University of Paris
in those days. Postel, a celebrated contemporary of Ramus, and a liberal
thinker like himself, began his studious life in the same way.-Waddington,
p. 20. Comp. Mr. Bass-Mullinger's University of Cambridge (pp. 346, 347) for
an interesting account of the manner in which the poor scholars of that uni-
versity were wont to alleviate their poverty.
504 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
atmosphere for which he so ardently panted. The young scholar
immediately set to work with all the indomitable pertinacity which
marked his character, and the next eight or nine years of his life
were years of painful and arduous effort. Looking back on this
period in after life, he gives this noble retrospect of it: 'For many
years I endured servitude of the hardest possible kind, but my mind.
has always been free; that has never been sold or degraded:' a boast
of intellectual freedom of which we shall soon have an opportunity
of estimating the value. His time he divided into two portions. The
day he was compelled to devote to his master's service; the night, he
was urged by a compulsion hardly less severe-the burning thirst
for knowledge-to spend in study. So that throughout the twenty-
four hours the young student often allowed himself only three hours'
sleep.¹ He devised a kind of alarum, like that which Aristotle is
said to have used for the same purpose, to rouse himself at midnight
in order to pursue his studies. The consequence of this severe appli-
cation upon the growing youth was to have been expected; a serious
attack of ophthalmia seized him, and for a long time retarded his
progress. But he no sooner recovered than he again set to work
with renewed ardour. By dint of labours so persevering and un-
ceasing, he was able to pass through the curriculum of liberal arts
required by the College of Navarre; three and a half years being
afterwards devoted to a special course of philosophy. Who his mas-
ters were in other departments of study we have no means of know-
ing. His teacher in philosophy, M. Waddington conjectures to have
been a certain Jean Hennuyer, who was a man of independent and
liberal character," and probably helped Ramus forward in the path
1 On the hardships which the poor students of the university were accus-
tomed to undergo in the sixteenth century, see the article 'Comment se
faisoit une Éducation au XVIe siècle,' in Varietes Historiques et Litteraires
(Bibl. Elzev.), vol. x. pp. 151–160.
2 The liberal arts consisted generally of the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric,
and logic), and the Quadrivium, viz. arithmetic, geometry, music and astro-
nomy. The Faculty of Arts in which Ramus was studying comprehended
grammar, the humanities, and philosophy.
3 For some information on the after career of this worthy man see Wad-
dington, pp. 290, 291. After he left the College of Navarre, he became a
Dominican and Doctor of Theology, and was promoted in 1560 to the Bishopric
of Lisieux. He seems to have been, if the ordinary tradition respecting him is
to be credited, a bishop of the type of which history has left us examples in
the two Borromei, and fiction in Victor Hugo's touching portrait of Monsei-
gneur Myriel. 'Bishop Hennuyer had,' says Waddington, 'many Protestants
in his diocese at the time of the St. Bartholomew, and he manifested as much
zeal to save them from massacre, as he had previously displayed to convert
them in a peaceable manner.
When the Lieutenant of the King com-
2
Peter Ramus.
505
of free-enquiry he had already marked out for himself. To me, I
confess, guesses as to the teachers of a youth like Ramus seem rather
superfluous. He was himself his own best master; and the teachings
of others must have received by his own vigorous analysis and origi-
nal intellect so thorough a recasting, that they could only have re-
tained ultimately the form he chose to assign them. Throughout life
his motto was that of so many other skeptics, 'Unbelief is the begin-
ning of knowledge.'
We come now to the period of Ramus's philosophical conversion.
He had been duly instructed in the logical treatises of Aristotle like
every other of the thousands of youths who were deriving their
mental nutriment from all the learned seminaries and teachers of
municated to him the order to massacre the Huguenots, he replied, "No, no,
sir! I oppose and shall for ever oppose the execution of such an order. I am
the shepherd of Lisieux, and those whom you say you are commanded to kill
are my sheep. Although they are now wandering and have left the fold which
Jesus Christ, the Royal Shepherd, has committed to my care, they may never-
theless return. I do not see in the Gospel that the shepherd should allow the
blood of his sheep to be shed; on the contrary I find that he is obliged to shed
his own blood and to give his life for them." Thereupon the governor de-
manded for his own discharge, a refusal in writing, which the bishop immedi-
ately gave him.' Such was the man who was Ramus's instructor-a fitting
instrument to confirm and cherish, though he might not have originated, the
germs of free-thought in his mind and heart. For a further account of the
good bishop, comp. the Mercure de France, October, 1742, pp.. 2129-2173, in
which is recorded his epitaph. It was afterwards destroyed.
The incident above related was made the subject of a powerful drama in
three acts by L. Sebastien Mercier, in 1772, which was translated into English
a few years after under the title of 'Jean Hennuyer, Bishop of Lisieux; or,
the Massacre of St. Bartholomew."
It should be added to the foregoing remarks, which were founded on the
authorities above cited, that there seems some reason to question the historical
genuineness of this anecdote of Hennuyer; though it can plead the sanction
of a local tradition of long standing. The question was first mooted in the
Mercure de France (vol. ii. of June, 1764), and (vol. i. of Dec., 1746). Its fullest
discussion, as against the anecdote, is to be found in M. Dubois, Recherches sur la
Normandie, pp. 55-78. It may be said to consist of two reasons: 1. A denial
that Hennuyer was a tolerant man, which is based upon his opposition some
years previously to a royal edict granting freedom of worship to Protestants.
2. Some grounds exist for believing that he was not at Lisieux, but at Paris,
at the date of the massacre. Comp. Martin, Histoire de France, vol. ix. p. 341,
note. In his drama, La Saint Barthelemy, M. Remusat adopts a modified
version of the story. Apparently accepting Hennuyer's absence from Lisieux
as proved, he does not reject the old tradition of his opposition to the St.
Bartholomew, but in a striking passage makes the bishop defend his flock
before the King and Catherine de Medicis.-Cf. La Sainte Barthélemy, pp.
306-310.
506 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Europe. Generally these dicta were received with as absolute sub-
mission as any dogma of the Church. Aristotle's Organon was the
Apostle's Creed of philosophy-the wicket gate of all speculative
thought. Its methods and conclusions were to be received, not exa-
mined, still less denied. But Ramus's intellect, as I have said, was
by no means of the passively receptive order, nor was his native
courage likely to be quelled by a mere name, even though so awful
and infallible as that of Aristotle. Accordingly part of his own
private philosophical course was devoted to a searching investigation
of both the truth and utility of Aristotle's logic: but the story must
be told in his own words, it is instructive as illustrating the skep-
tical intellect in the domain of pure philosophy. When I came to
Paris,' he says, 'I fell into the subtleties of sophists, and was taught
the liberal arts by questions and disputes. You (addressing his
readers) may be luckier than I was. Amidst the clamour of the
schools, where I passed so many days, so many months, so many
years, never did I hear a word—one single word—on the applications
of logic. I believed then ("the scholar ought to believe," he inter-
poses sarcastically, "for so Aristotle wishes!") I believed that I
had no cause to distress myself about the nature of logic and the end
it proposed to itself, but that the only thing needful was to make it
the object of our clamour and disputes. Consequently I disputed and
vociferated with all my might.
You will ask me perhaps
when and how I finally discovered a better method? I will tell you,
freely and candidly; so that if the remedy which delivered me from
a condition so wretched should be useful to you, you may employ it
largely. I do not undertake to convince you by the reasoning.¹ I
only wish to explain to you truly and straightforwardly how I came
out from that darkness. Having devoted three years and six months
to the scholastic philosophy according to the rules of our academy-
having read, discussed, and meditated on the different treatises of
the Organon,
when I came to consider the years entirely
occupied in the study of scholastic arts, I wanted to learn how I
should afterwards apply the knowledge I had gained at the cost of
so much labour and fatigue. I soon discovered that all this logic
did not make me more learned in history and antiquity, nor more
skilful in eloquence, nor a better poet, nor wiser in any respect.
Alas! miserable man, how greatly was I astonished! how deeply did I
sigh! How did I accuse my deficiencies, how bemoan the misfortune
1 Compare the well-nigh ipsissima verba in which Descartes describes the
object of his Discours de la Methode: 'My design is not to teach here the
method which every one ought to follow in order to guide well his reason, but
only to show the way in which I tried to guide my own.'
Peter Ramus.
507
of my destiny-the barrenness of a mind which after so many labours.
could neither collect nor even perceive the fruits of that wisdom which
it was alleged was found so abundantly in Aristotle's Logic..
At last I met with Galen's work on the opinions of Hippokrates and
Plato.1
That parallel of Plato and Hippokrates caused me.
great satisfaction; but it inspired me with an ardour still greater to
read all the dialogues of Plato which treat of logic.
It was
then, to speak sooth, that I found the haven so long desired. That
which I especially relished, that which I loved in Plato, was the
method by which Sokrates refuted false opinions, attempting above
everything to elevate his hearers above the senses, the prejudices,
and the testimony of men, in order to lead them to their own natural
sense of right, and liberty of judgment. For it appeared to him
insane that a philosopher should let himself be led by the opinions of
the vulgar, who for the most part are false and deceitful, instead of
applying himself to know only facts and their true causes. In short,
I began to say to myself (I should have hesitated to say it to another),
Well! what is to prevent my Sokratizing a little, and examining,
independently of Aristotle's authority, whether that doctrine of his
logic is the most true and most useful. Perhaps that philosopher has
abused us by his authority; if so, I need not be surprised at my
having studied his books without deriving profit from them, since
they contain none.
What if all that doctrine should be
false!'
Such was the stupendous conclusion to which the young student
had arrived, such was the process employed in attaining it. His
biographer well points out the close similarity between this process
and the method pursued by Descartes nearly a century afterwards.
We, with our gallery of skeptics, can institute a larger comparison;
for we know that a similar method is common to many (I might say
all) free-thinkers who possess sufficient mental originality and in-
dependence to enquire into the nature and authority of beliefs forced
1 The treatise Περι των Ιπποκρατους και Πλατωνος Δογμάτων. Galen opera, Ed.
Kuhn, v. p. 181, etc. The parallel between Hippokrates and Plato which thus
aroused Ramus from his Peripatetic slumber is thus enunciated by Galen in
another work, Oeраπeт. Metodov, I, Opera, Kuhn, x. p. 14. 'Plato thought the
nature of the mind was to be discovered by a similar method to that by which
Hippokrates investigated the nature of the body.' Ramus's attention was also
arrested by the fact that Galen bestows the title of the greatest dialectician
not on Aristotle but on Plato. It may be added that in another place he
ascribes his conversion to Sokratism to the medium of Xenophon: 'Ainsi estant
en cest emoy, je tombé, comme conduit par quelque bon ange, en Xénophon,
puis en Platon, où je cogneus la Philosophie de Socrate.'-Remonstrance au
Conseil Privé, p. 25.
508
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
upon them from without. Besides his Aristotelian skepticism, Ramus
was, as you may. have noticed, on the very verge of the main principle
of modern experimental science, as it was afterwards laid down by
Bacon and Descartes. Unfortunately both the skepticism and the
discovery were too premature to be effective. Aristotle and the School
philosophy had not yet ceased to reign in the universities of Europe,
and the enormous power which they wielded, and the manifold in-
fluences, both lay and clerical, which they commanded, Ramus was
soon able to test for himself.
1
Having thus entered on a path of discovery, Ramus was not the
man to leave the question half investigated, nor, having arrived at
a conclusion, was he at all disposed to shrink from its avowal-no
matter what the consequences might be. He had ascertained, as he
thought, that most of Aristotle's works were spurious, and that the
few which had most claim to genuineness were full of falsehood.
Nothing remained but to announce his conclusions boldly and uncon-
ditionally. This he accordingly did. On taking his degree of Master
of Arts, he was obliged to propound a thesis on some scholastic sub-
ject, which he was required to defend for a whole day against all
comers. He had the temerity, the 'bizarria d' ingegno,' as Tassoni
calls it, to submit as his thesis the extraordinary paradox-All Aris-
totle's writings are false !2 We may imagine the consternation of the
authorities at such unparalleled audacity; and we may not unreason-
ably suppose that some steps were taken to induce the aspiring can-
didate for academical honours to change his subject to one not so
outrageously at variance with all the most cherished traditions and
teachings of the university. If such attempts were made they were
unsuccessful. The day arrived; and Ramus duly expounded hist
thesis, the public enunciation of which was doubtless received with
mingled anger and derision. It seemed too preposterous for belief
that a young student of twenty-one years should thus publicly hurl
his intellectual gauntlet in the teeth, not only of the University of
Paris, but of the whole academical and learned world of Europe.
The thesis however had this advantage for its opponents: it was
one on which every scholar in the university felt himself qualified to
speak. Ramus could have had no lack of adversaries—men who had
made the study of Aristotle the one task of their lives, and who re-
garded his least utterance with a submissive awe which they would
¹ For similar usages in English universities in medieval times, comp. Mr.
Bass-Mullinger's History of the University of Cambridge, p. 356.
2 Quæcumque ab Aristotele dicta essent commentitia esse.' Freigius Vita
P. Rami, pp. 9, 10. Comp. Waddington, p. 28. Bayle, Dict., Art. ‘Ramus,'
note C.
Peter Ramus.
509
not have accorded to any other human teacher. Besides, the com-
prehensive terms of Ramus's proposition left room for a very diver-
sified antagonism. It was not only the Organon which he declared
false, but all the writings of 'the Master.' Each separate work of
Aristotle, so far as then known, was a position from which he might
be assailed. He was therefore in the position of a general who has
a large entrenched camp to defend; or like a redoubtable hero of
romance, he had to keep the tournament lists against all comers.
How the contest ebbed and flowed, what falls or mishaps the champion
of the day sustained, history does not relate. Had it been a physical
contest between two potentates, in which thousands of lives were
sacrificed in settling some miserable squabble, arising perhaps from a
mere breach of etiquette or some equally trivial cause, history would
have taken care to narrate circumstantially the fortunes of the battle;
but the bloodless triumphs of the intellect, and struggles for mental
freedom, she passes by with a glance of contempt,-yet it would not
be too much to say that the real welfare of humanity, the cause of
European civilization, was more concerned in Ramus's daring im-
peachment of philosophical autocracy, than in any material contest
fought in France during his lifetime. For we must not forget
that Ramus's quarrel was in reality not so much with the genuine
Aristotle as with the traditional Peripateticism on which Scholas-
ticism claimed to be based, and by means of which it tyrannized over
the human intellect. What he called Aristotle, was the fictitious
image of him which had obtained currency in the Church before his
authentic works in their original language had become known in the
universities of Europe. Hence Ramus's animadversions on the great
thinker are frequently unfair, or else are founded upon perversions
of Aristotle's real meaning. No doubt his instincts were correct, if
his antagonism was somewhat misdirected. Scholasticism based upon
a pseudo-Aristotle had become an incubus on human thought, and an
obstruction to human progress. And it was against this baneful but
potent enemy, this huge champion of medieval Philistinism, that
Ramus on his degree day 'set the battle in array.'
What is certain is that he was successful. During the whole
spring day 2 (the degrees were generally conferred during Lent) he
¹ Comp. Niceron, Memoires, xiii. p. 262, 'Tous les professeurs qui ne connois-
soient d'autre philosophe qu'Aristote, et qui croyoient qu'on ne pouvoit sans
crime aller contre son autorité, prirent feu, et vinrent attaquer la Thèse avec
toute le force que leur habileté pouvoit leur fournir. Mais le Répondant
repoussa pendant un jour entier leurs attaques avec tant de subtilité et
d'adresse, que tout Paris en fut dans l'étonnement.'
2 In the English universities the 'inception' exercises pertaining to a
master's degree began as early as 7 o'clock in the morning. Comp. Mr. Bass-
Mullinger, ut ante, p. 356.
510 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
defended the difficult position he had chosen; and notwithstanding
the enormous amount of Peripatetic and Scholastic learning brought
to bear on him, he managed to hold his own. So great a skill,
address and dialectical ingenuity did he manifest, that the authorities
had no choice but to 'cap' him; in other words, to confer on him his
degree.
But though he had achieved his triumph and carried off the prize
of the tournay, the excitement and scandal of the day's proceedings
were immense. Not only was Paris alarmed for the honour of her
favourite teacher, to whom she had become a second Stagira, but the
excitement extended itself rapidly to every university town in Europe.
No syllogism in the Organon was clearer than the inference that if
Ramus was right, the teaching in all the universities in Europe was
wrong. If Aristotle's works were spurious¹ it would not be any
longer possible to crush every objection and repress every doubt by
the magic words 'the Master says.' If further they were false, all
Peripatetic teachers were reduced to a still more awkward dilemma.
The rumour of Ramus's success soon reached Italy; where the poet
Tassoni says no doubt on trustworthy information-that though
Ramus had aroused against him all the learned, ‘he defended himself
with so much boldness and subtlety of reply, that the city of Paris
remained stupefied and bewildered.' The only adequate historical
parallel to Ramus's action-the universal consternation it produced,
and in a certain degree the consequences which sprang from it—was
Martin Luther's nailing his Theses to the door of the cathedral
church of Wittenberg.
In order to appreciate the full meaning of this parallel, it will be
well to cast a passing retrospective glance at the growth of Aristo-
telianism during the century immediately preceding Ramus's attack.
We saw, in our discussion on the Schoolmen, the important part which
the Stagirite plays in the history of mediæval free-thought, and the
jealousy with which the Church of the twelfth and following centuries
watched the growth of Aristotelian learning. No doubt the primary
effect which the study of the great thinker, notwithstanding its
imperfect presentation, was calculated to produce on minds brought
up and dieted on religious abstractions, and hemmed in on all sides
1 See the synopsis of the opinions of Ramus and other anti-Aristotelians on
this point in Barth. St. Hilaire's La Logique d'Aristote, i. p. 64, etc.
2'La quale havendo eccitati contra di lui tutti gl' ingegni, tutte le pro-
fessioni, tutte le scuole, egli nondimeno con tanta prontezza, e sottigliezza de
risposte la difese, che fe rimaner confusa e stupita la città di Parigi.'—Tassoni,
Pensieri diversi, x. ch. iii., Waddington, p. 29, note, who quotes from La Croix
du Maine, ii. p. 312.
Peter Ramus. .
511
by formidable barriers of ecclesiastical dogma, was of a wholesome
and generous kind. Still it was not without disadvantages, partly
inherent in, partly incidental to, the circumstances of the case.
Among the former was the despotism which reviving Peripateticism
threatened to exercise over the intellects of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. To employ Bacon's comparison, it seemed as if
Aristotle, like an oriental despot, was resolved to reign alone by
ruthlessly destroying all possible rivals to the throne.' Happily the
Renaissance, which contributed to increase the power and enlarge the
domain of Peripateticism, contained within itself elements destined.
in course of time to abate the mischiefs arising from its exclusive
preponderance. The Platonic schools of Italy, the introduction of
the Greek language, enlarged acquaintance with other Greek thinkers,
nay, the better knowledge of his own works from genuine Greek
copies, all conspired, in course of time, to lessen the autocratic
character he had received. For this the Church was mainly re-
sponsible. Peripateticism, as its adopted child, shared in its own
dogmatic growth and its absolutist tendencies. Hence the conclu-
sions of Aristotle came to possess the same authoritative sanction as
a pope's bull or the decrees of a general council, and thereby they
added to the dogmas of a Church which already possessed far too
many for the intellectual welfare of her children. The sarcasm of
Father Paul is thus amply justified-'The Church would not have
had so many dogmas had Aristotle written less.'2
Another consequence, hardly less mischievous, of this virtual in-
corporation of Aristotle into the dogmatic system of the Church, was
the employment of his logical methods in order to impart a dialectical
form to her teachings. The result of this was to give her conclusions
a ratiocinative and trustworthy appearance they were far from really
possessing, inasmuch as they were founded on premisses often purely
arbitrary, or a priori, but of which, in any case, neither examination
nor question was permitted.3 The Church conceived herself to
1 'Aristoteles, more Ottomanorum regnare se haud tuto posse putaret, nisi
fratres suos omnes contrucidasset.' De Aug. Sci., iii. ch. 4. Ellis and Spedding,
i. p. 563, where see note. Bacon repeats the comparison in his Treatise ‘De
principiis atque originibus.'
2 Voltaire was apparently ignorant who the 'Paul' was to whom this re-
mark is ascribed; for speaking of its repetition by Pallavicini he says: 'Le
Cardinal Pallavicini relève la maxime de je ne sais quel moine Paul qui disait
plaisamment que, sans Aristote, l'eglise aurait manqué de quelques uns de ces
Articles de Foi.'-Dict. Philosoph., Art. 'Université.' Bacon says that the remark
was frequently made of the canons of the Council of Trent, 'That we are
beholden to Aristotle for many Articles of our Faith.'—Apophthegms, 275.
3 In any doctrine of development, whether religious or scientific, no truth is
512
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
possess already the needed materials: what she wanted was a scaffold-
ing by which they might be erected into a loftier, more systematic
superstructure. This the treatises included in the Organon supplied.
Every patristic student must acknowledge the enormous difference,
in respect of dialectical form, between the works of Albert the Great,
Thomas Aquinas and Peter Lombard, and writers of an earlier period.
We have already granted that this stress on formal logic had its
advantages the ceaseless equipoise of arguments pro and con, the
continued compilation and arrangement of syllogisms, the countless
divisions, re-divisions and sub-divisions of every subject and of every
part of each subject, besides the mental training thereby induced,
often supplied the independent thinker with a standpoint of judicial
impartiality which was equivalent to an avowed profession of 'twofold
truth.' Nevertheless every development of the kind threatened still
further to rob Christianity of its original simplicity and freedom, and
to convert the teachings of the Gospel into an arid waste of logical
formulas and dialectical exercitations.
From the year 1366 to the time of Ramus, this growth of Peri-
pateticism is very distinctly marked in the general history of the
Church, and in the various decrees promulgated by the University of
Paris. What its strength was in 1543 we have already seen in the
intense excitement produced by Ramus's attack; and we shall find
still further proofs of the same fact in the remainder of his life.
Already Peripateticism had begun to evince no small amount of
dogmatic presumption and intolerance. As a parallel to the 'Sancte
Sokrates ora pro nobis,' Aristotle, or rather his mediæval ghost, was
also tacitly elevated among Christian saints and martyrs. He was
styled 'the forerunner of Christ in the Gentile, as John the Baptist
in the Jewish world.' He was even said to be worthy of adoration ;
and he narrowly escaped canonization. To some thinkers it appeared
that Christianity itself was in danger of becoming a kind of hallowed
Peripateticism; and Peter de Celle's fear that 'the forest of Aristotle'
more frequently lost sight of than that the whole superstructure depends upon
a few elementary principles which must first be subjected to a rigid and fear-
less examination. Grant Father Newman his premisses, and the whole of his
'Essay on Development' becomes a geometrical demonstration, so far as any
moral argument can have such a coercive force. Similarly, grant an extreme
Darwinian his first principles, and the world in its present form is accounted
for. It was the boast of an early Greek thinker, 'Give me plenty of sun and
mud, and I will undertake to evolve creation.' Archimedes is not the only
boaster of what he would effect with an impossible 'Aòs TOû σTŵ.' And the
fact that there are still such boasters to be found is a melancholy proof of the
irrepressible tendency of able men to supercilious and absurd dogmatism.
Peter Ramus.
513
(wild and luxuriant), 'would end by subverting the altar of Christ,'1
would seem to have been abundantly justified.
Ramus was therefore undoubtedly acting in the interests both of
Christianity and of mental freedom, when he set himself against this
worship of the Stagirite. In addition to mental qualities which fitted
him for the rôle of an iconoclast and a rebel against commonplace,
the character of his education, his probable deficiency in purely
academic teaching and discipline, his early acquaintance with the
Platonic Dialogues, all conspired to free him from the trammels of
Aristotelian dogma, and to urge him to do his utmost to diminish
influences so disastrous to human progress. It was through no want
of ardour on his part that the task was for the present hopeless. The
enemy he attacked had provided against such contingencies by seek-
ing sanctuary at the altar. From a philosophy it had become a
religion; add to which, that it was now in the full prime and vigour
of its age. A century later, when its strength had become impaired,
and it was falling into the decrepitude of old age, the attempt, as we
shall find, was successful.
2
Though Ramus attained both celebrity and influence by his degree-
exercise and the striking circumstances attending it; in a pecuniary
point of view the expenses exhausted not only his own scanty re-
sources, but those of his family. His poor widowed mother sold a
little slice of land she was possessed of, probably 'all her living,' in
order that her gifted son might be enabled to complete his education
—a sacrifice compensated, as well by his subsequent good fortune, as
by the tender solicitude he lavished upon her during the rest of her
life. The young Master of Arts immediately commenced his life-
function of teaching. He gave his first lectures at the College of
Mans, perhaps under the auspices of Hennuyer, who held an office
1 Hist. Litt. de La France au 14me Siecle (Le Clerc and Renan), vol. i. p. 371.
On the subversion of Christian theology by Aristotelian dialectics, comp.
chap. on 'Semi-Skepticism of the Schoolmen.' Evenings with the Skeptics, vol. ii.
p. 246. To Bacon Aristotle was Antichrist.
2 On the expenses pertaining to the Degrees in the different faculties, cf.
Waddington, p. 142, who says of philosophy, 'Ainsi pour la philosophie, la
dépense des écoliers, qui avait été fixée d'abord à quatre ou six écus en tout,
avait fini par s'élever à cinquante-six livres, et même davantage.' So Crevier
on the point remarks, 'Pour parvenir à la maitrise ès-Arts, il en coutoit 56
livres 13 sols; au doctorat en Medicine, 881 livres 5 sols; au doctorat en
Theologie, 1002 livres; le tout sans compter le prix du premier lieu de la
licence, qui se mettoit à l'enchire, et qui se vendoit à proportion de l'estime
qu'en faisoient lesconcurrens.' Histoire de l'Univers., vi. p. 91. There were
other expenses incidental to degree-taking, for which see Dr. A. Budinozky,
Die Universität Faris, etc. pp. 42, 43.
514
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
72
there as well as at the College of Navarre.¹ But, soon after, associat-
ing himself with two friends whom he had imbued with his ideas
on University and Philosophical Reform, the three established them-
selves at the little college of Ave Maria, where under the direction.
of Ramus they instituted courses of public lectures.
'There,' says
Waddington, ' for the first time in the University of Paris, Greek and
Latin authors were read in the same class. For the first time, also,
the study of eloquence was joined to that of philosophy; and the poets
and orators were explained together.' These novel lectures were
attended with the most brilliant success. No doubt the initiation of
this varied and entertaining teaching was part of Ramus's anti-
Aristotelian strategy. He, like other Humanists, had discoveed the
truth that breadth of culture is the best antidote to the exclusive
preponderance of any one mode of thought. The crowded lecture
rooms of Ave Maria were a clear proof that the teaching there
supplied a want which had become urgent in the university. But
like Abelard, and Pomponazzi, the young lecturer had to pay for hist
success. Peripatetic teachers who had spent a lifetime in expound-
ing Aristotle's Logic could hardly view with equanimity the desertion
of their meals of syllogistic dry bones for the richer and more nutri-
tious fare which Ramus and his friends supplied. Thus was ori-
ginated the bitter strife between the Aristotelians and Ramus which
lasted during his life, and was instrumental in compassing his death.
Concurrently with this teaching of others, our Skeptic began to
unteach himself, by submitting to a rigorous analysis all the methods.
and acquirements which his university education had forced upon
him. He estimated that this destructive process cost him as much
time as the converse labour of construction had done.³
In the year 1543, Ramus published two works on the subjects of
Logic and Aristotle. The first of these was called Division of Logic
(Dialectica Partitiones), the second Animadversions on Aristotle
(Aristotelicæ Animadversiones). The object of the latter was, appa-
rently, to put forth in a deliberate form the attacks on Aristotle for
which he had already signalized himself; but the spirit in which this
was done had unhappily little to commend it, for the treatise is full
of the blind and furious invective which marked the controversy of
that age, and was also quite in harmony with Ramus's fierce im-
petuosity. There are some remarkable sentences in the book which
1 According to Du Boulay, Hist. Univ. Par., vi. 952. Ramus was Professor of
Philosophy at these two colleges.
2 Cf. M. Waddington, p. 33.
3 Waddington, p. 34, who adds, 'Grand labeur assurément, et dont peu
d'hommes se sont montrés capables.'
Peter Ramus.
515
show the author's courage and his full recognition of the perils to
which he was exposing himself.¹ He boldly avows that he is not
only prepared to encounter all labours and dangers in order to destroy
the sophisms of his enemies, who are also enemies of the truth, but
he must accept, if need be, a brave and glorious death in the cause.
To take however some precautions against contingencies so dire, he
dedicated the Divisions of Logic to the king, while he chose as
patrons of the Animadversions two future cardinals, Charles of
Bourbon, then Bishop of Nevers, and Charles of Lorraine, who, since
the age of eight years had been Archbishop of Rheims, both of whom
had been Ramus's fellow-students at the College of Navarre.
The excitement evoked by this second attack on Aristotle exceeded
that which attended and followed his defence of his degree-thesis.2
The Rector of the University was the first to step forward to vindi-
cate its philosophical orthodoxy.3 Ramus was cited before the
Provost of Paris as an enemy of religion and a disturber of the public
peace, and like Sokrates, he was further charged with corrupting the
minds of youth by imbuing them with a dangerous love of novelties.
The cause was removed by request to the High Chamber of the
Parliament, whence it was withdrawn by the king into his own
courts. He appointed a Royal Commission to investigate the matter,
consisting of five members; two nominated by Ramus's accusers, two
by himself, while the fifth (De Salignac) was the king's own nominee,
and as it happened a bitter enemy of Ramus. The issue of such an
unequal contest may be imagined.4 Both the friends and his cause
1 'La,' says Waddington, in quoting these sentences, 'Ramus se déclarait
hardiment l'adversaire de la routine, et le defenseur de la liberté de penser
contre les partisans aveugles de l'autorité en philosophie.'-p. 46.
2 This extraordinary panic is thus described in a little-known work, A Dis-
course on Logomachys, by S. Werenfels (Eng. Trans., 1717, pp. 31-37): This
(the publication of Ramus's books) was highly resented by some of the Univer-
sity; who, judging if Aristotle's authority was once called in question, their
own could not be over-secure, chose Anthony Govean, an eminent lawyer, for
their champion, began to rage and rail, and stuck at nothing that might serve
to run down Ramus's Noveltys (as they call'd 'em). When they found all
this would not do, away they trudge puffing and blowing to Parliament, beg
'em by all that was good to forbid the reading of these pernicious books.
Alas, Hannibal was at the gates, and nothing but death and destruction at
hand! Well, even this was not thought a sufficient remedy. Nothing would
serve but his most Christian Majesty Francis I. must be judge in this weighty
debate (and very well worth his while you may be sure 'twas). He submitted
to it, and ordered five Persons to hear the Point debated.'
$ See the Rector's ownsentiments on the question in D'Argentré, Collectio
Judiciarum, i. p. 134.
* See the whole proceedings, which lasted for some time, in Waddington,
pp. 41-58. Bayle, Dict., Art. 'Ramus,' Note D.
515
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
were in a hopeless minority, and were equally subjected to a pitiless
brow-beating. Ultimately, on the 1st of March, 1544, the three anti-
Ramists (for Ramus withdrew his two friends), pronounced their
decision they determined that Ramus had acted rashly, arrogantly
and impudently, inasmuch as he had tried to condemn and vilify that
method of logic which was received among all nations; further, in
order to benefit literature, they decreed that the book should be
suppressed as completely as possible, as well as the other work
entitled Institutions of Logic, which also contained many imperti-
nencies and falsehoods.¹
เ
2
This admirable refutation of a logician,' as M. Waddington terms.
it, was confirmed by a royal mandate, which prohibited under severe
penalties the printing, publication, or sale of the books in question,
and also forbad Ramus to read or lecture in any manner whatsoever,
without the king's express permission; and further enjoined him to
cease employing such slanders and invectives against Aristotle. The
decree was received by the Anti-Ramists with a wild exultation,
which seems utterly preposterous on such an occasion, but which
may serve as a measure of the enlightenment which the University
of Paris possessed in the middle of the sixteenth century, as well as
of the fanaticism arrayed against Ramus. 'When they had succeeded
in tying his tongue and his hands, and taken from him every means
of defence against the attacks of his enemies, then how noisily did
they exult at so fine a victory!' is the sarcasm of his friend and
biographer, Omer Talon. The condemnation, printed in Latin and
in French, was scattered profusely throughout the city; it was
•
1 The sentence is thus given by Du Boulay, Hist. Univ. Paris, vi. 394.
'Nos diligenter perlecto libro et singulus ejus animadversis ac ponderatis sen-
tentiis ita censuimus: Ramum temere, arroganter, et impudenter fecisse, qui
receptam apud omnes nationes logicæ artis rationem, quam ipse præsertim
non teneret, damnare et improbare voluerit; ea autem quæ in Aristotele
reprehendebat, hujusmodi esse, ut hominis cum ignorantiam et stuporem tum
improbitatem et malitiam arguant, quum et multa quæ verissima sunt
criminetur, et pleraque tribuat Aristoteli quæ is nunquam sensit, denique toto
eo libro præter ea mendacia et scurrilem quamdam maledicentiam nihil con-
tineatur: ut republicæ litterariæ plurimum nostra sententia interesse videatur
librum omni ratione supprimi, unaque librum alterum Dialecticarum insti-
tutionum, quod is quoque aliena multa et falsa contineat.' M. Waddington,
p. 47, note.
2 Bayle sarcastically remarks that they made more noise than the most
pompous princes did after the taking of a great town, or the winning of a
very important battle.
3 M. Waddington (Latin), p. 29.
4 For an account of this, the most celebrated of Ramus's disciples, see Baillet,
Jugemens des Savans, viii. 181–183.
Peter Ramus.
517
affixed in every place where it was possible to read it: it was sent
abroad to foreign universities and towns as a triumphant proof of
the orthodox manner in which Paris had refuted the heretical
philosopher, and vindicated her claim to the title conferred upon her,
by Eustache Deschamps, 'Mère de toute science et marâtre d'herésie.'
His books were publicly burnt. Comedies and burlesques were de-.
vised by the students, in which the effigy of Ramus was exposed to
every conceivable indignity; just as the character of his master,
Sokrates, had been misrepresented and treated with contumely and
ridicule in the Athenian theatre.
1
Such was the result of Ramus's first attempts to introduce the
Sokratic philosophy into France. To use his own words, 'I attempted
to make known the philosophy of Sokrates, and discovered that I
had drawn on me at the same time the miserable fate of that philoso-
pher. To resemble him altogether, the hemlock only is wanting.':
One might have expected more consideration for a scholar from the
court of the 'Father of Letters.' But alas! that abode of frivolity
and licence had no desire to acquire or sanction the wisdom of
Sokrates. The only Platonic love to which it was attached was of
another description. It might have quoted Tasso's Aminta,
'Amor, leggan pur gli altri,
Le Socratische carte,
Ch' io in due begl' occhi apprendere quest' arte.'
2
There seems even some reason for believing that, if he had not
been dissuaded, the 'Father of Letters' would have sentenced thẹ
man who of all in France, was best entitled to rank as an eminent
'Son of Letters,' to the Galleys!! We must not suppose that the
eager and impetuous nature of Ramus was proof against all these
hostile influences that were brought to bear on him from every
quarter. Nevertheless, he was compelled to submit. His biographer
tells us that he was wont to recal, for his own support, the example of
his master Sokrates; and when his friends bemoaned his lot, he com-
forted them and himself with the verses of Horace :—
'Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras,
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum,
Grata superveniet quæ non sperabitur, hora.'
Though Ramus was thus silenced, we have clear proof that he
1 M. Waddington, p. 55.
2 A still more striking proof of the inappropriateness of the title, 'Father of
Letters, as applied to Francis I., is furnished by the fact that he on one
occasion signed letters patent for the suppression of printing! Comp. May-
rangues' Rabelais, p. 153.
VOL. II.
Π
518
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
managed in some way to elude his sentence.
He was certainly
lecturing at Ave Maria in the very year of his condemnation; but
he avoided logic and philosophy, and confined himself to eloquence
and mathematics. His patron, Charles of Lorraine, was rapidly
rising in the royal favour, and it might have been by his influence
that an evasion of his sentence was overlooked, or at least condoned.
But early in 1545, an accident procured for him a more influential
position in the university than that which he had lost. One of those
mysterious epidemics which periodically ravaged the great towns of
Europe in the Middle Ages, broke out in Paris. The university was
soon emptied. Professors and students fled in alarm, and refused for
some time to return to the plague-stricken city. While the university
was still suffering from the depression thus produced, the Principal
of the College of Presles, Nicolas Lesage, a very old man, wrote to
Ramus, who had also left Paris, to ask his assistance in restoring the
college, by his tuition. Ramus immediately accepted the offer; and
having made conditions which secured to him freedom of teaching,
he took the virtual command of that college, 'reading himself in' to
his new office by an installation discourse, delivered in December,
1545. He began his lectures on the few fragments of Cicero's
Republic which were then in existence, especially the well-known
'Dream of Scipio,' which gave him an opportunity for expatiating
on his own favourite Platonism, as well as declaiming against his
arch-enemy Aristotle. Notwithstanding the paucity of students then
in residence, his own lecture-room speedily became crowded. The
Doctors of the Sorbonne, not relishing this rapid resurrection of their
old half-slain foe, excited against him his principal, Lesage, alleging
that in the agreement drawn up between himself and Ramus, he
had been unfairly used. A law-suit was the consequence, in which
Ramus was victorious. He obtained from the Parliament a decree
which confirmed him in his office. After this episode, Ramus and
Lesage seem to have lived together peaceably until the death of
the latter, which took place a few years after.
1
Both by his personal character and his teaching, Ramus raised the
College of Presles to a foremost place in the university. He as-
sociated with him his friend, Omer Talon, and together they delivered
two lectures a day; Omer Talon lecturing on philosophy in the morn-
ing, and Ramus on rhetoric in the afternoon, this being the first
1 Few fragments of classical lore held a higher position than this among
those Humanists who desired to assimilate the doctrines of the Church to the
teachings of heathendom. It was the standard proof, from Gentile sources,
of the doctrine of Immortality. Comp. remarks on Petrarca, ante p. 116. Cf.
Burckhardt, Cultur d. Renaissance (Germ.), vol. ii. p. 317.
Peter Ramus.
519
time in the history of the university that two lectures on different
subjects were delivered on the same day. Such academic vitality was
of course, an innovation; and with other novelties in his teaching
which were as inevitable to Ramus as their dull traditional usages
were to his enemies, formed a continual grievance and source of
complaint. But happily, a change was in store for Ramus, which for
a time silenced his foes, and gave him a position of independence, in
which he could not be so easily assailed. Francis I. died; his son
and successor, Henry II., was completely under the control of his
mistress, Diana of Poitiers, and his tutor, Charles of Lorraine. From
the patronage of the latter, Ramus had already derived advantage;
and one of the first acts of the new king was to issue, at the insti-
gation of his Mecenas, a decree reversing the judgment against
Ramus, and, as he himself said, 'setting free both his tongue and his
pen.' This new liberty of writing was immediately utilized by re-
editing the works condemned by Francis I, as well as by publishing
commentaries on the Rhetoric of Cicero, Quintilian, and other Latin
works which formed the subject of his lectures. Unhappily, these
viva voce comments with which he accompanied and illustrated his
classical lectures, were also novelties. Neither Cicero any more than
Aristotle, was to be criticised, much less contradicted; and it was not
in Ramus's nature to treat any author, no matter what his name
or how sacred his authority, with tacit deference and submission;1
whereupon was kindled another storm, provoked in the first instance
by Galland, the Rector of the University, but in which Carpenterius,
the life-long foe of Ramus, and finally his brutal assassin, took part.
This man was chosen to succeed Galland as Rector in 1550, and com-
menced his duties by collecting and devising a number of petty
complaints against Ramus and his fellow-professors, the chief of
these being that they took upon them to expound poets and orators,
instead of confining themselves altogether to philosophy-contrary
to the university statutes. Carpenterius, his accuser, was also his
judge; so it is not surprising that the first issue of the matter was
unfavourable to Ramus. But a still brighter day was dawning.
His Mecenas had succeeded to his uncle's name and dignities, as
Cardinal of Lorraine, and he interposed vigorously in his protegé's
favour, with the result that he was permitted to teach in his own
fashion. Nor did his efforts stop there: in order to give Ramus a
position of more independence, he persuaded the king to create a new
1 The point of view from which Ramus's enemies regarded his criticism of
ancient authorities is thus given by Gaillard, Histoire de Francois I., vol. vii.
p. 361, 'On avait été blessé de voir un Philosophe attaquer Aristote, on le fut
encore de voir un Orateur attaquer Cicéron et un Rhéteur attaquer Quintilien.'
520 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Chair for him in the Royal College (College of France), to which he
was accordingly nominated in August, 1551.
With this further and important promotion, we reach the culmina-
tion of our hero's good fortune. His opening lecture, says M. Wad-
dington, was an event. The University, the Parliament, the Clergy,
were present in crowds. Ramus was equal to the occasion. Before
his enormous audience he recounted in his full, well-modulated voice,
and with the mingled dignity and eloquence of a born orator, the
events of his life, dwelling upon the continued persecutions he had
been forced to endure, but without naming or attacking any one.
Explaining, rather than complaining, how, because he could not
believe in all the utterances of Aristotle, he had been accused of
undermining religion and morality, and because he preferred the
wisdom of Sokrates, he had been termed a Skeptic.¹ He then pro-
ceeded to expound his own views on education and university reform,
with such clearness, learning and eloquence, as to draw down the
plaudits of the assembled multitudes. This discourse he afterwards
printed; and his biographer is enthusiastic in his commendation of
it. He terms it a masterpiece of elegance, simplicity and nobleness,
and thinks it would be difficult to cite in the whole literature of the
sixteenth century a controversial work in which courtesy and refine-
ment are so blended with ardour and vivacity. Thus Ramus began
his teaching at the Royal College under fair auspices. Though as
head of the College of Presles, he was still responsible to the uni-
versity authorities, as Regius Professor he was answerable only to
the king. He enjoyed, therefore, a far greater amount of freedom
than he had ever done before. Here again, as at Presles, his lecture-
room was thronged; nor is this wonderful, for, instead of the hum-
drum routine of merely reading and construing a page of some
classical writer, without an attempt at explanation, which was com-
2
1 The manner in which this accusation is adverted to by Freigius in his
Life of Ramus, seems worth quoting: 'Unius primum accusationem gravis-
simam audivit, Ramum academicum nominantis, et inaudita calumnia des-
cribentis, humanarum divinarumque rerum hostem et inimicum qui de
humanis divinisque legibus addubitaret, deque iis dubita re discipulos suos
doceret: qui lubricos divi Augustini locos suis auditoribus ad effrænatam et
impiam libertatem proponeret, qui (quò facilius incautis animis abuteretur)
omnes logicas disputationes tolleret.' Freigius, Vita Rami, p. 20. Comp. Bayle,
Dict., Art. ‘Ramus,' note F. Whatever the intention of Ramus in his adoption
of the Sokratic elenchus and in his thought-inspiring teachings, it may be
said of him as of Sokrates, that the result of such methods must inevitably
have presented the appearance of skepticism, and such an accusation was not
therefore wholly unjustifiable.
2 M. Waddington, p. 80.
Peter Ramus.
521
mon among the University Professors, Ramus treated the text with
a free handling, a fulness of illustration, and a variety of application
which made the lecture interesting and instructive in the highest
degree.¹ His fame rapidly extended in consequence, and students
from foreign countries flocked to Paris, as in the pristine days of its
prosperity in the thirteenth century.
But Ramus was soon
involved in a new controversy. The Professors at the Royal College
tried to initiate certain reforms in the mode of pronouncing Latin.
Hitherto in France words beginning with Qu were pronounced as if
they began with K,2 and the letter h in such words as mihi was
sounded as if written michi. Ramus with his fellow-Professors
wishing to revert to what they believed the original method of pro-
nunciation, adopted the method still in use in England, as well as in
most Continental universities, of sounding the qu; and when some
ecclesiastic was indicted before Parliament for adopting the new
mode, they defended the cause and obtained the victory, thus adding
to their other academic privileges that of pronouncing Latin in the
way they thought right.
Hardly had this contest (literally literary) been settled, when
Ramus became involved in another dispute with his old adversary
Galland. The subject of this was Rhetoric, which our philosopher
treated in his wonted free manner, and very differently from the
1 Cf. De Gerando, quoted by Haag, La France Protestante, Art. ‘La Ramée,'
'La Ramée avait un avantage sur l'enseignement de l'école; il était intel-
ligible, ses règles se prêtaient facilement, à l'application, ses exercises recevaient
un agrément toujours nouveau et une sorte de vie de l'heureux choix
d'exemples auquel il avait recours.'
2 This controversy of Qu v. K has received more than its fair share of
sarcasm and ridicule. To Montesquieu (Lettres Persanes, 109) the discussion
suggests the remark that 'where there are most wise men there is least
wisdom.' Voltaire in his Philosophical Dictionary (Art. 'Université'), with
what M. Waddington rightly calls his superficial learning, says, that one of
the main grievances against Ramus was the way in which he made his pupils
pronounce the letter Q. The many uncertainties and varieties of opinion as
to the elements of Latin in the sixteenth century are described by Cornelius
Agrippa, De Vanitate, etc., ch. iii., and they also come under the lash of
Rabelais (Gargantua, Book I., ch. xix.). When a grammatical treatise taught
that 'ego amat' should supersede · ego amo,' and such a confusion of cases and
persons, as 'Ego habet bonum vino' was thought a fair caricature of the Latinity
then largely in use, some reformation of the principles of the language could
hardly have been superfluous. Comp. Waddington, p. 89; Bayle, Dict. Art.
Ramus,' note F. Ramus also attempted to reform the orthography of the
French language, by making the spelling conform to pronunciation. Cf.
Crevier, Histoire de la Univ., vi. p. 269. He also introduced into the alphabet
j and v, which were long after called 'Ramist consonants,' and had hitherto
been confounded with i and u.
€
522 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
slavish and pedantic methods then in use. These perpetual conten-
tions between Ramus and his adversaries, in which, however, he was
invariably the defendant, were for the most part regarded by the
public outside the university with the apathy it generally bestows
upon controversies which do not immediately affect its interests.
Rabelais, with his cynical laissez faire skepticism, though disliking
Galland, who had called his Pantagruel 'coarse fables,' could not
understand the moral earnestness of such a man as Ramus, nor the
real purport of his innovations. As a method of settling their dispute
he makes Priapus propose to Jupiter that the two Peters (Galland's
name as well as Ramus's was Pierre) should be petrified.¹ The
subject was also utilized by Joachim du Bellay, who wrote a satirical
poem on the 'Petromacy of the University of Paris.' 2
Ramus would seem to have become wearied of these continual con-
troversies, and adopted a plan of ignoring the attacks made upon him,
which was more effective than the most vehement rejoinders. No
sooner had Galland ceased to bait the old lion, than Carpenterius
began. To neither did Ramus vouchsafe any reply. Both were
clearly foes unworthy of his steel. Galland was a well-meaning,
ignorant fanatic; Carpenterius was an unprincipled charlatan. Of
Turnebus, who was really a learned man, and ultimately an attached
friend, Ramus took more notice, and replied to some strictures which
he published in a courteous and dignified manner. One reproach,
in particular, which his enemies were perpetually hurling at him, is
of interest, as showing their utter misconception of his character.
Like every genuine free-thinker, Ramus was continually revising
and modifying his own conclusions, as well as analysing and censur-
ing those of other teachers. This skepticism trod on the heels of his
conclusions as the shadow cleaves to its substance. He was there-
upon accused of instability and inconstancy. The reply he offers to
this charge is noteworthy as a portrayal of his own intellectual
character, and indicating the mode in which he conceived all truthful
research should be prosecuted. 'Certainly this inconstancy is praised
1 Pantagruel, book IV. Prologue.
2 As an example of this curious poem, and its continual play upon the
common name of Ramus and Galland, the following quotation may have some
interest: it is of Pierre Galland that the author is writing:-
'C'est ceste pierreuse responce,
Plus sèche que pierre de ponce,
Plus dure que pierre marbrine,
Plus fresle que pierre ardoisine,
Plus rude que la pierre grise,
Et plus froide que pierre bise.'
-M. Waddington, p. 96.
Peter Ramus.
523
and celebrated as great constancy by Horace and Apelles, as well as
by philosophers, especially Aristotle, who teach us that philosophy
ought, for truth's sake, to censure not only others but itself also.
Nay, what is more, this constancy, thus accused of inconstancy, is
the very ordinance of God and of Nature; as a difficult and slippery
ascent, by continual walks along which we discover the one only
path to the knowledge of science and learning set out and prepared
for us.
Hence I not only console myself under such an accusation,
but I hope through that philosophic perseverance to obtain a new
victory, without answering any injurious accusation.'1
M. Waddington remarks that his persistent efforts and that philo-
sophical perseverance were not sterile; he published in 1554 a mag-
nificent edition of the Institutions of Logic, and in the next year his
French Treatise on Logic, which is undoubtedly the most important
work on philosophy in the language prior to Descartes' Discourse on
Method.2
Among his other academic innovations, Ramus was the first who
introduced into the University of Paris mathematical teaching at all
worthy of the name. He began by applying his favourite science of
Logic to the first five Books of Euclid. Nothing can show more
forcibly the indomitable energy and perseverance of the man than the
fact that he underwent, in combination with his usual and severe
professorial work, a whole course of mathematical training on pur-
pose to qualify himself to become a teacher of the science. By his
unwearied persistency in this study he acquired the reputation of
being the first mathematician of his time in France. In 1555 he pub-
lished a work on Arithmetic which ran through numberless editions,
and which Gabriel Naudé, in his Advice on the Arrangement of a
Library, pronounced the best work on the subject then in existence.³
Having thus qualified himself by unceasing application, Ramus began,
in 1559, a course of Mathematical Lectures in the College of France.
We have some idea of the wonderful versatility and fecundity of
his intellect, when we find him in that year excusing himself to his
patron (while dedicating to him four different works!) that in conse-
quence of his present difficult studies (mathematics) he was unable
to evince his usual abundance; and yet, says his biographer, he found
means to combine with his laborious study and tuition of mathe-
matics the publication of a crowd of new editions, and among them
1 M. Waddington, pp. 105, 106.
2 In Cousin's opinion, this constitutes the chief merit of Ramus as a philo-
sopher. Cf. Fragments Philosophiques Mod., i. p. 14.
3 Advis pour dresser une Bibliothéque, p. 51 of M. Isidore Liseux's neat little
reprint. Paris, 1876.
524 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
several new works: one of the latter being a Greek Grammar,¹ which
for a century afterwards kept the position it immediately achieved,
as the best in France. Well might Stephen Pasquier, in his review
of the Royal Professors, term Ramus an 'universal mind.' 2
In July, 1559, Henry II. died. Notwithstanding his own weakness
of character and the many abuses of his government, his reign syn-
chronizes with the period of Ramus's greatest prosperity. He had
obtained liberty of speech and of pen, and to some extent of action
as well. He had done much useful work for the University, work
which it is clear no other man in France could have performed.
Whatever, therefore, his opinion of Henry's character, or the defects
of his rule, he could not but be personally grateful for the favour and
protection accorded to himself. Nor was there a sensible diminution
of this court-favour and prosperity either during the short reign of
Francis II., or during the first years of his brother, Charles the
Ninth's, reign. The latter monarch succeeded to the throne in Decem-
ber, 1560-a boy of ten and a half years-under the regency of his
mother, Catherine de Medicis. One of Ramus's first duties under
this reign was to represent the University as a deputation to the
Court, to procure the confirmation and renewal of its privileges, and
the payment of arrears of salary owing to the professors of the Royal
College. So unexpectedly great was his success, that he not only
received the warmest thanks of the University, but one of his most
bitter enemies of former days, De Salignac, the president of the com-
mittee which had condemned his early works on Aristotle, proposed
to erect a statue to him in memory of his services to the University.
Nor was this the only case in which Ramus's nobility of character,
his disinterestedness and moderation, converted former persecutors
into warm friends and allies. Peter Galland, as well as Salignac,
was on terms of cordial friendship with him before he died.
But what was Ramus's religious belief? We have seen that he
was on excellent terms with the court; an eminent ecclesiastic was
his 'Mecænas'; his education, surroundings, and associations were
all Romish. Yet we now know enough of his intellect to feel sure
that he could no more help criticising the dominant theology than he
1 See the eulogy of this work by Lancelot: Preface de la Methode Grecque,
quoted by M. Waddington, p. 348. Ramus wrote grammars of the Greek,
Latin, and French languages. In each case his main efforts were directed to
simplifying and abbreviating the rules. See preface to the French Grammar,
reprinted in M. Waddington's appendix, p. 417, etc.
2 Comp. the still more decisive opinion of La Croix du Main, Biblioth Franc.,
ii. 312, 'C'étoit un homme presque universel, le plus grand philosophe qu'ait eu
l'Université de Paris.'
Peter Ramus.
525
could refrain from attacking the ruling philosophy. In this, as in
all other departments of human thought, he must needs 'Sokratize.'
Besides, the struggles of his fellow-countrymen for religious liberty
must have appealed strongly to the sympathies of a free-thinker like
himself. All the presumptions of the case were so strongly in favour
of Ramus being a Protestant, though unavowed, that a general opinion
to that effect prevailed not only in France, but also in foreign coun-
tries. The connexion between Aristotle and the Church was so
intimate that men could not understand how the implacable foe of
the former could be a consistent friend of the latter. Besides, in
attacking Aristotle, Ramus seemed to have allied himself openly to
Luther and other Protestant leaders, who were determinedly hostile
to the Stagirite and his writings. However, there is ample evidence
to show that until 1561 he was outwardly a member of the Romish
Church, joining in her worship, and using her books of devotion.
We may well suspect that the change which then manifested itself
outwardly, was internally a process of long growth. Those were not
times in which a Royal Professor would be eager to proclaim the first
incipient qualms of doubt as to the truth or purity of Romanism.
The immediate causes which produced the change M. Waddington
says were, (1) The protection which the Church gave to Peripateticism.
(2) The ignorance of the Romish clergy. As to the latter, we are
assured by a contemporary writer that the Huguenots then possessed
almost a monopoly of the knowledge and talent of France. Other
social influences were also at work-most of Ramus's fellow profes-
sors in the Royal College were supposed to be tainted with Protestan-
tism, while the students of his own college were in many cases the
sons of Huguenot parents. Thus in the inner circle of Ramus's life
the growing feeling was distinctly in favour of the new creed; nor
outside that circle, among the nobility, the higher classes of the
Romish clergy, and the commonalty, were the same influences want-
ing. Both the Cardinal of Lorraine and Montluc, Bishop of Valence,
each of whom were friendly to Ramus, were supposed to have Protes-
tant leanings. But whatever the indirect effect of surrounding in-
fluences, and however much Ramus may have been secretly connected
with the Protestant propaganda which was spreading over France,
2
3
¹ He says himself, 'My logical ardour (ardor logicus) made an incursion
into the domain of religion.' M. Waddington, p. 136. Comp. the 'Epistle to
the Reader' in Ramus's Dialecticœ Libri Duo, Ed. Dounam, London, 1669.
2 Cf. M. Waddington, p. 128, with authorities cited in the notes, on the
training of Huguenot ministers. See Gabriel Naudé, Advis pour dresser une
Bibliothèque, p. 37.
³ In the beginning of Charles the Ninth's reign, it was conjectured that a
526
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
{
his final resolution to abandon Romanism dates from that remarkable
event called the Colloquy of Poissy.¹ This was a conference between
the chiefs of the Romanists and Protestants to discuss mutual griev-
ances, and to decide on some measure of toleration. Unhappily it
ended in imparting an additional acerbity to the relations of the two
parties; and in a national point of view was the first of those subtle
machinations of the Guises which culminated in the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew. At this Colloquy of Poissy, the Cardinal of Lorraine,
in answer to Theodore Beza, publicly admitted, that of the fifteen
centuries which had elapsed since the time of Christ, the first was
truly the Age of Gold'-all the others in proportion to their dis-
tance from it had gradually become more and more vicious and cor-
rupt. Of course, the cardinal refused to admit the obvious inference
resulting from such a fact. This deduction was however immediately
made by leading Huguenots, and, among the rest, by Ramus. 'It
was then,' says he, in a letter to the cardinal, who had reproached
him with his change of faith, 'that having to choose between those
different ages, I determined to adhere to the golden age.'³ The
resolution then definitively formed he lost no time in carrying out
with all his wonted vigour. He set to work to inform himself more
fully than he had hitherto done on the origin of Christianity. He
also gradually absented himself from Mass; and by other public and
open means manifested the change which had taken place in his
religion. On the passing of the famous edict of January 17th, 1562,
sixth part of the whole population of France were Huguenots. In Paris itself
the number was great. We are told that upwards of 8,000 used to assemble
at the Pre-au-Clercs at midnight to sing the psalms of Marot's translation.
Crevier, op. cit., vol. vi. p. 65. Cf. H. Martin, Hist. de France, ix.
1 See Martin, Histoire de France, ix. p. 96, etc. etc., for a full and lively
narrative of this Colloquy, and the wily and hypocritical part played in it by
the Cardinal of Lorraine. It may be added that Ramus was by no means the
only convert to Protestantism who attributed his change to the Colloquy of
Poissy. Caraccioli, Bishop of Troyes, was a convert of still greater mark.
The general effect of that conference in strengthening the ranks of the
Huguenots is acknowledged both by Romanist and Huguenot writers. Comp.
e.g. Crevier, vol. vi. p. 127. Puaux, Hist. de la Réformation Française : Bk. IX.
chaps. viii.-xiii.
2 The conversion of Ramus to Protestantism by the Cardinal of Lorraine's
too candid defence of Romanism is an example of those ironical reactionary
conversions, of which the most celebrated literary instance is Boccaccio's well-
known story of Abraham the Jew.
3 Ramus recommends the adoption of the same course to his contempo-
raries: 'Redeamus,' he says, 'ad Apostolorum sæculum: tempora religionis
illa vere aurea fuerunt, nostra autem vix ferrea dicere possumus.'-Comment.
de Rel. Christi., iv. 19.
Peter Ramus.
527
which for the first time granted to the Huguenots freedom of wor-
ship, the students of the College of Presles, in an access of Protestant
zeal, though whether with or without the sanction of the Principal
is not known, tore down the images and statues in the college chapel.
Ramus's adversaries immediately took advantage of this act of in-
discretion to raise a popular emeute. An enquiry into the matter
was ordered, which, so far as is known, had no effect on the position
of Ramus, who continued to discharge his usual functions, and to
remain in Paris until the civil war broke out.
1
Among the subjects which occupied Ramus's busy intellect was
university reform. In 1557, a royal commission was appointed to
investigate this matter, of which he was a member. Its labours came
to an abrupt termination, partly by internal dissensions, but mainly
by political changes; but with Ramus the question took root, and four
years afterwards (1561) bore fruit, in an elaborate conspectus of needed
reforms, which he presented to the king. This scheme seems to
have dealt in a broad, comprehensive and liberal spirit with the most
notable defects both in the constitution and teaching of the univer-
sity; and some of its hints would not be thrown away on university
reformers even of our own day. Of course no notice was taken of
the petition at the time, though some of the reforms indicated by
him were adopted with most beneficial effect in the reigns of Henry
IV. and his successors. This draft on university reform is moreover
interesting as indicating Ramus's own advance in Protestantism; for
it is marked throughout by a spirit of anti-clericalism which gives
one some idea of the sweeping manner in which, if he were an Eng-
lishman of our time, he would deal with clerical fellowships, head-
ships, and other relics of ecclesiastical domination in our own uni-
versities; possibly also of the use in national education to which he
would put our well-endowed cathedral bodies. He also advocates
for all poor scholars gratuitous education. With a lively reminis-
cence of the straits to which, in early years, his own poverty had
1 See the analysis of this scheme in Waddington, p. 141, etc., and two ex-
tracts in the Appendix, p. 409, so also Crevier, Histoire de L'Univers., vi. pp.
90-94. This author who is by no means favourable to Ramus, says of the
scheme, 'Tel est le plan de réforme proposé par Ramus, dans lequel se trouvent
plusieurs bonnes idées dont on a profité dans la suite. Il est aisé d'y recon-
nôitre un homme d'esprit, mais d'un esprit libre, pourtant l'estime des lumi-
ères de son siécle jusqu'au mépris outré de tout ce qui se pratiquoit avant lui.'
2 Comp. Crevier, loc. cit., who after noting the enormous expenses attending
a degree in the different faculties, proceeds, 'Le vœu de Ramus est que ces
éxactions soient supprimées, et que les gages des professeurs soient assignés sur
tant de ventes, et tant de revenus, dit il, que tiennent les moines, les chanoines, abbés,
et évêques.'-P. 91.
528
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
subjected him, he pronounces it'a scandalous thing that the road to
philosophy should be closed and barred against poverty, no matter
how learned or well educated it might be.'¹
On the breaking out of the civil war in 1562, Ramus was compelled
to quit Paris. He obtained a safe-conduct from the Queen Mother;
and took shelter for a short time at Fontainebleau; from thence, how-
ever, he was compelled to flee, to avoid his persecutors, who had dis-
covered his retreat. After wandering about for some months, the
Peace of Amboise, in 1563, enabled him to return to Paris; and, resum-
ing his office at the College of Presles, he began immediately to lecture
on Aristotle and Mathematics. Soon after his return he refused very
brilliant overtures of a chair in the University of Bologna, alleging as
his reason the obligations he was under to the French court,2 and his
desire to complete the course of liberal arts he had commenced in the
College of France. Of this course there were then remaining, accord-
ing to his own evidence, physics, comprehending acoustics, optics, and
astronomy, without reckoning ethics, and politics. Further troubles,
and a cruel death, were destined to cut short this course. In fact, the
political horizon was already becoming continually darker with
threatening clouds, which foreboded a storm of unusual magnitude.
The Jesuits, who had succeeded in overcoming the opposition of Par-
liament and effecting an entrance into France, were growing in
power and influence. The iniquitous compact known as the League
was in process of formation. The Cardinal of Lorraine, who, had he
not been a Guise, might have been termed an anomalous compound of
learning, ambition, hypocrisy, and immorality, had withdrawn his
patronage from Ramus, and become the Mecænas of his virulent enemy
Carpenterius. On the whole, matters were assuming a portentous
appearance for Ramus and the cause of Free-thought which he so
worthily represented.
Hardly had the University settled down to work after the recent
disturbances, when Ramus, together with his colleagues of the Royal
College, were involved in a dispute with Carpenterius. In October,
1565, a professor of mathematics in the college died. The office was
conferred, by means of a court intrigue, upon a very inferior mathe-
matician-a Sicilian, who could speak neither French nor Latin. The
professors were naturally horrified and disgusted. Ramus, as senior
professor, and Dean of the College, remonstrated. In the first instance
1 M. Waddington, p. 142.
2 An extract from the letter he addressed on this occasion to the senate and
people of Bologna seems worth quoting: 'Sum Gallus, et Galliæ regis beneficio
jam multos annos in meis studiis sustentatus: debeo patriæ primum, deinde
regi meo me ipsum totum.'-Freigius p. 34.
Peter Ramus.
529
he addressed himself to the newly-appointed professor, insisting in
forcible terms on the claims of the mathematical chair; but the remon-
strance was unheeded. The new professor began his course, but in
such a manner as to disclose his own utter incapacity, and to excite
the ridicule of his audience. Finding it impossible to retain the
office, he agreed to sell it to Carpenterius. The bargain was effected,
no doubt, by the sanction of the court. Carpenterius, though a more
able man in other respects, was still more ignorant of mathematics
than his Sicilian predecessor; so this arrangement did not mend
matters. Ramus, and his fellow-professor, the learned Lambricus,
again represented the matter to the court and to the parliament; but
ultimately with no result. Carpenterius was a bigoted and furious
Catholic, and had already distinguished himself as an active adherent
of the Guises and the League; add to which, he was utterly devoid of
principle. Against a man so eminently qualified to be a partizan of
tne Guise faction, Ramus's unrivalled learning and his eminent ser-
vices to the University were of course powerless. Accordingly
Carpenterius, though professing with cynical candour his ignorance
of mathematics, as well as of the language in which the best works
on the subject were written, nay more, mocking at the science as
useless child's play, was nevertheless permitted to occupy the mathe-
matical chair in the College of France!¹
2
1
This action of Ramus added fresh fuel to the furious animosity of
his enemy, so violent became his calumnies, so outrageous his trucu-
lence that Ramus was compelled to appeal to the Courts of Justice.
for protection. The appeal was successful; and Carpenterius was
imprisoned. This still further excited his passions, which were now
wrought up to an ungovernable ferocity. On two different occasions
attempts were made to assassinate Ramus; and it was only his own
courage and presence of mind that saved his life. On the sudden
breaking out of the second civil war in 1567, he took refuge in the
Huguenot camp; and on this occasion also he only narrowly escaped
assassination. One cannot help wondering why, under these circum-
stances, he should have clung to Paris so closely as he did; but it is
evident that he was quite unhappy elsewhere,-besides his was a
perfectly fearless nature, despising danger and even death itself when
it seemed inevitable. No sooner, therefore, was a hollow truce patched
1 As M. Gaillard neatly puts it: 'Charpentier se maintient dans sa place et
dans son ignorance.'—Hist. de Francois I., vii. p. 366.
2 In a letter dated January, 1571, he had the brutal candour to threaten
Ramus with the vengeance in store for him: 'Nulla animi attentione consi-
deras quis tuarum contentionum exitus esse possit.'-Dict des Sciences Philoso-
phiques, Art.' Carpenterius.'
530
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
up than he returned to Paris in 1568, but it was to find his place at
the College of Presles occupied, his own library pillaged, and his book-
shelves empty. Nor were these the only bitter ingredients in his cup.
The immediate future was threatening a renewal of the civil war;
accordingly he obtained permission from the king to travel in Switzer-
land and Germany, and to visit the chief academies in those coun-
tries, intending probably to await better times and a more durable
peace. But before leaving Paris he gave a remarkable proof of his
disinterestedness and magnanimity. For, notwithstanding the cruel
treatment he had recently undergone, he made his will-seated, per-
haps, in that very study that had been wrecked, and in sight of his
empty bookshelves-bequeathing the greater part of his hardly-earned
savings to the University,' as an endowment for a mathematical pro-
fessor in the College of France. Even Crevier is struck at the date
of this transaction, and admits that it adds immeasureably to the
glory of the Founder.
I do not know that we need follow Ramus on what might be called
his triumphal progress through the chief university towns of Europe.
Everywhere his fame had preceded him; and he was welcomed with
open arms, not only by co-religionists as a learned Protestant, but by
men of culture as a celebrated thinker on whom they had long since
conferred the title of the French Plato. Several towns and princes
would fain have retained him in their service by presenting him to
professorships magnificently endowed. But Ramus was proof against
these temptations. His patriotism combined with his attachment to
the College of Presles, exercised on him an invincible, and, as it
proved, a fatal fascination; and immediately on the conclusion of the
peace he once more hurriedly returned to Paris and-to death.
During his absence his enemies had been busy. The influence of
1 'Sur ma rente annuelle de sept cents livres à l'hôtel de ville de Paris, j'en
lègue cinq cents pour le traitement d'un Professor de Mathématiques' etc.
See the whole document in Waddington, p. 326, and comp. Crevier Hist. de
l'Université, vi. p. 230. It is satisfactory to learn that some of the most
eminent mathematicians of France occupied the chair thus nobly founded
until the suppression of the University (with much besides) in 1771, e.g. Ro-
berval, Gassendi, etc. Gaillard, remarking on this addition by Ramus to the
foundation of Francis I., by whom he had been so harshly treated, says,' Ainsi
le seul savant méconner par Francois I. est le seul qui ait été digne de l'imiter
et de perfectionner son ouvrage.'-Hist. de Francois I., vii. p. 376. The effect
of Ramus's munificence in foreign countries is incidentally illustrated by
an entry in our Calendar of State Papers, 'Domestic,' 1581-1590 p. 169, where
we read: 'Richard Hakluyt the preacher at Paris to Sir Fr. Walsyngham,
strongly recommends the establishment of a prize-lecture at Oxford on
the Art of Navigation, similar to the one founded at Paris for mathematics,
by that most worthy scholar Peter Ramus.'
Peter Ramus.
531
1
the League siding with Carpenterius, the Jesuits and the Romish
fanatics of the University had procured from the court different de-
crees which forbad the holding of any chair in the University or the
Royal College by any one except Romanists. On his arrival therefore,
Ramus found his Principalship at the College of Presles and his
chair at the Royal College held by two men of whom history has not
thought it worth while to record their names, and whom therefore
M. Waddington calls 'anonymous talents.' Ramus appealed to the
court, and to his former patron the Cardinal of Lorraine, urging his
long services to the University, but in vain. He was compelled to
retire from the offices and chairs he had so long adorned, and to which
he had given an European reputation, and to withdraw into silence
and a private life. As his work at Paris was now clearly at an end,
he had some idea of seeking an asylum for his declining years at
Geneva; and he wrote to Beza to sound him on the subject; but that
redoubtable hierarch--the worthy successor of the murderer of Ser-
vetus-received the proposal so coldly that Ramus could only regard
it as a refusal. However, in 1570 he experienced one parting gleam
from the declining sun of his good fortune before it finally embedded
itself in the murky clouds which already hovered round its setting.
The Cardinal Charles de Bourbon was made Chancellor of the Uni-
versity; and to him Ramus applied with more success. Through his
influence with the Queen Mother he obtained some modifications of
the decree which excluded Ramus from the University. Without
being permitted to interfere in the college teaching, he was allowed
to retain the title of President; and his salary as such was doubled.
His intention now was to complete the teaching he had proposed to
himself by his pen, as he was unable to do so by his tongue. This
scheme was favoured by the court and welcomed with enthusiasm by
all men of thought and culture. With a happy reference to his name
(Ramus being Latin for a branch or twig) as well as to "that golden
twig "2 which guided Eneas through the nether world, contemporary
1 Of the grounds of that prohibition, which were vehemently urged by the
Cardinal of Lorraine and the Rector of the University, Crevier says, 'Le Roi
écouta cette sage et pieuse "representation "'—not 'reclamation,' as M. Wad-
dington quotes the word, p. 222. See Crevier, Hist. de l'Univers., vi. p. 259.
2 'Ille aureus Ramus.' Vergil, Æneid, vi. ver. 137, etc. Besides the pun on
the name, the application of Vergilian topics and phrases to things and per-
sons of a later age was quite in harmony with the mediæval tendency to
allegorise every portion of Vergil's works, treating them-as the English
Puritans did the Hebrew prophets-as authoritative repositories of types,
symbols, mysteries, allegories, etc. The Commentary of Servius-the great
authority in the middle ages on the subject of Vergil—is full of these allegori-
cal renderings. See on the whole subject Prof. Comparetti's learned treatise,
Virgilio nel Medio evo, vol. i. p. 78, etc.
532
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
poets celebrated the scheme of our philosopher as opening up un-
known realms and bright vistas of science. Here e.g. is a rendering
of one attempt of the kind :-
'For Frenchmen all arts their own language contains,
But Pluto their god, who, wealthy, holds hidden
Many millions of treasures to daylight forbidden,
The use of these arts for Elysium retains.
We must have then to enter those regions below
To discover, and cause them in French air to grow,
The Gold Branch of our age, whence its gilding it gains.’¹
Pity that the branch, or to speak more truly, the main trunk, of
French science should have been so soon and so violently lopped off,
and that the gilding of that age should have been to all future ages
stained with blood.
Ramus's conversion to Protestantism, and the continual intercourse
with its leaders which was one result of his tour through Switzerland
and Germany, had given him a foremost position among the Hugue-
nots. Here his freer instincts and broader sympathies brought him
into collision with Beza. Ramus's conception of a Church, as of a
university, was that it should be the abode of Christian liberty. He
therefore disliked the servile subordination on the one hand, and the
hierarchical domination on the other, which the iron hand of Calvin
had imposed on the early Huguenot churches. Among other needed
changes, Ramus endeavoured to weaken the exorbitant power of the
Consistories, and so to secure some measure of freedom for individual
members of the Church. Further, he condemned the tendency to ex-
cessive definition which marked the doctrinal decrees and dogmas of the
chief Protestant synods; especially objecting to the term 'substantial'
which was applied by Beza to the presence of Christ in the Holy
Communion. In short, his aim was decentralisation in the Church's
government, and more liberty and elasticity in her teaching. At the
same time he was not a political Huguenot; his main object was to
restore Christianity to the primitive simplicity and freedom of the
gospel. The times were most inopportune for any movement of the
kind; even had Ramus wielded the theological sceptre of Calvin or
Beza; and M. Waddington, with all his sympathy for his co-religion-
1 M. Waddington, p. 234. Comp. verses in Cayet's Deploration de Ramus,
Waddington, p. 319:-
'That branch of Gold, which through Elysian fields
Guides every man whose mind to wisdom yields.'
Theodore Beza could also play on Ramus's name, though in a manner not
quite so complimentary; he calls him "Ojos "Apnos-the scion or son of Mars.
Peter Ramus.
533
aries, admits that the Huguenots, notwithstanding their zeal for
liberty, had almost as perverted and mischievous a conception of its
character as their opponents.
During the years 1570 and 1571 Ramus applied himself diligently
to his desk, and new works, or re-publications of older ones, were
continually proceeding from his pen. But his days were now rapidly
drawing to a close. Sometime in July, 1572, he received an invitation
from Montluc, Bishop of Valence, to accompany him to Poland, whither
he was going on an embassy from the court of France to procure the
election to the Polish Crown of Henry of Anjou. Montluc was, as I
have already remarked, noted for his liberal sympathies, and enjoyed
the confidence of the Huguenots. It would seem that he had reason
to suspect the approaching massacre of the Protestants, and before
starting gave a hint to the Count Rochefoucauld to be on his guard.
His ostensible object in asking Ramus to accompany him was to pro-
cure the advantage of his superior and persuasive eloquence in the
discharge of a difficult mission; though there was probably com-
bined with that another motive, viz., to save the poor white-haired old
man from the bloody fate he foresaw was in store for him. However
this may be, Ramus felt compelled to refuse the offer. 'An orator,'
he said, 'ought, above everything else, to be an honest man; he should
never sell his eloquence.' To elevate to the throne of Poland a
bigoted Catholic was a task for which he had no sympathy and
to which he would lend no assistance. Montluc started on his
mission on the 17th August: on the 24th sounded the tocsin of St.
Bartholomew.
•
Into the many horrors of that crime you would not wish to enter,
and I have no inclination to lead you. Ramus was probably as much
surprised at the suddenness of the blow as were Coligny, Conde, and
the other Huguenot leaders. We are not told where he was on the
first two days of the Massacre. Probably in his study at the College
of Presles. If so, he must have heard the continual gunshots, the
oaths and shouts of the brutal soldiers, even if he saw nothing of
streets "paved with naked and bloody corpses, and gutters running
with blood."1 No doubt Lambricus, Barrosius, and other friends came,
from time to time, to tell him of the horrors which were being per-
petrated around them. He knew full well that among those assassins
who were imbruing their hands in Huguenot blood were some whɔ
had long expressed a ferocious hatred against himself, and therefore
that his own hour was probably drawing nigh. Indeed, how could
he have hoped to escape, when the best and noblest in France were
VOL. II.
1 Cf. Martin, Histoire de France, vol. ix. p. 326.
I
534
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
being murdered, under every conceivable circumstance of horror and
indignity. However, he does not appear to have made any attempt to
escape. He awaited the event with the dignified bearing, the calm,
high courage, and devout serenity of mind which characterized him
through life.
On the 26th of August, a band of hired assassins led by two men,
one a tailor the other a sergeant, forced their way into the College of
Presles, and proceeded to search the place. Ramus, anticipating what
was to befall him, took refuge in his little study, which was on the
fifth story; and devoted the few remaining moments of his life to
prayer. The murderers were soon on his track; and, discovering his
retreat they broke open the door and burst into the room. They
found him on his knees, with clasped hands and uplifted eyes.
When they entered he rose up, and the dignified mien and venerable
presence of the silvery-haired old philosopher seemed for a moment
to overawe those human furies.¹ He would have spoken to them, but
he soon perceived he had neither pity nor mercy to expect. They
immediately set to work to rob him, and to pillage his study. Profit-
ing by the few seconds which these proceedings allowed him, he
commended his soul to God in the words, 'O my God, against Thee
only have I sinned and done evil in Thy sight. Thy judgments are
justice and truth. Have mercy upon me, and pardon these wretches
who know not what they do.' More he would have said, but could
not. The murderers were impatient. One of the leaders of the band,
with frightful imprecations, shot him in the head, and long after the
bullet mirks were to be seen in the wall. The other plunged his
sword in his body. Blood gushed out in abundance at these horrible
wounds. Then the inhuman brutes seized the half-lifeless body by
the legs and dragged it backwards and forwards on the chamber.
floor.2 Years after, visitants to the College of Presles used to be
shown the room in which the greatest of its Presidents had been so
barbarously treated; and were wont to express surprise at the blood-
stained flooring in terms similar to those of Lady Macbeth: 'Who
would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?'
Nor was this all; they drew the body to the window and hurled it
down a height of one hundred paces into the courtyard of the college.
In its descent it struck against a projecting roof, so that when it
came to the ground it must have been a mere mangled mass of hu-
1 On a previous occasion when his life was attempted by hired assassins,
they were so much impressed with the courage and dignity of his presence,
and the persuasive effect of the words he addressed to them, that they hastily
retired, leaving him unharmed.
2 Waddington (Latin-Edition), p. 94.
Peter Ramus.
535
manity, and I should say entirely lifeless. However the narrative
tells us and we must remember that it comes to us direct from eye-
witnesses—the broken and partly eviscerated remains were still
observed to palpitate feebly. Then there is more outrageous treat-
ment,—to which not only the corpse of Ramus, but those of hundreds
of his murdered fellow Huguenots were exposed during the St. Bar-
tholomew. Cords were tied round his legs, and furious students,
urged on by merciless professors, drew him through the streets to the
Seine; where, after being decapitated, his body was thrown into the
river. Nor was the insatiable fury of his enemies even yet satisfied.
They gave a crown to some watermen to bring his floating corpse to
the bank, and, after expending on it all the nameless barbarities their
hellish imaginations could suggest, they finally hacked it to pieces.¹
It is said that his friend Lambricus, when he heard the
atrocious details of Ramus's death, was so prostrated by grief and
terror that he immediately took to his bed, and died in the course of a
few days.
1
There can, however, be no question that Ramus fell a victim, not
to the public fanaticism which the court let loose against the hapless
Huguenots, but to the diabolical rage and thirst for vengeance of
his inveterate foe Carpenterius. As we have seen, Ramus, notwith-
standing his Protestantism, stood high in court favour as a man of
enormous learning, whose connexion with the University gave it an
European reputation. He had in his possession a safe conduct from
the King and the Queen-Mother at the very time when he was mur-
dered. No; the deed, with all its nefarious circumstances, was the
act of a fellow-professor in the University. He it was who gave
blood-money to the brutal fiends who murdered him. If his threats
and calumnies had been powerless against the undaunted old man, at
least his gold and the assassin's sword might avail something. After
all, it was the orthodox policy of his time and church: 'Gag when
you cannot reply; kill when you cannot intimidate.'
A lesson so
suitable to his base, malicious and cowardly nature was not likely to
be lost; but setting aside his unprincipled and cruel character,
Carpenterius is a natural product of a dogmatism which not only
tyrannizes over the human conscience, but attempts to justify the
foulest crimes against freedom and humanity under the holy name of
1 Comp. De Thou, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. iii. ad an. 1579:-'Carpentario
æmulo, et seditionem movente, immissis sicariis, e cella qua latebat extractus,
et post deprensam pecuniam inflictis aliquot vulneribus, per fenestras in aream
præcipitatus, et effusis visceribus, quæ pueri furentes, magistellorum pari
rabie incitatorum impulsu, per viam et cadaver ipsum scuticis in professoris
opprobrium diverberantes, contumeliose et crudelitur raptaverunt.'
536
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
3
Religion.¹ When Charles IX., Henry of Anjou, and their infamous
mother, could deliberately plan" a St. Bartholomew; when Pope
Gregory could solemnly, as a minister of the Prince of Peace, strike a
medal to commemorate the deed; when the Cardinal of Lorraine
could celebrate High Mass in its glorification, it was not strange that
Carpenterius should hire assassins to murder Ramus, and afterwards
raise a pean of joy over his fiendish work. Not the less must the
name of Carpenterius be placed on the black list of those fanatics
who have done to death the most illustrious of the Free-thinkers of
the world—among such as Anytus, Meletos, De Castel, and Mocenigo—
and as such be condemned to the undying execration of humanity.
4
Thus perished the greatest intellect, the noblest spirit of the
France of the sixteenth century. Years before, when comparing his
lot to that of Sokrates, he said, 'Only the hemlock is wanting.' Alas!
a more cruel fate than the poison-cup fell to his lot. With this ex-
ception, the similarity between the French Plato and his old Greek
master was complete. In many respects, however, Ramus's death
was, as M. Waddington calls it, rather a victory than a defeat. It
1 When Bossuet and others twitted Calvin's followers with his murder of
Servetus, Basnage boldly replied that the Papacy itself, as the system in which
Calvin was brought up, was primarily liable for the deed; but while the argu-
ment must be allowed to be some palliation for Carpenterius's conduct, it is
none whatever for Calvin's, because he had long abjured Romanism.
2 Compare on this subject Soldan, La France et la St. Barthélemy, translated
by Schmidt, esp. pp. 56, 69. In a paper read (April, 1881) at the Congrès des
Sociétés savantes, held at the Sorbonne, M. Colombes sought to prove, from
documents discovered at Simancas, that Catherine de Medicis had conceived
the plan for the St. Bartholomew massacre as early as 1565. M. Colombes has
since published his paper in the form of a pamphlet entitled L'Entrevue de
Bayonne 1565; but his theory has not been accepted by more recent investiga-
tors, e.g. Herr Segesser in his Ludwig Pfyffer und seine Zeit, and by Herr
Baumgarten in his Der Bartholomæusnacht. The truth seems to be that in its
ultimate form, the plan did not long precede the event. How long, it is abso-
lutely impossible to state. The Catholic leaders, well indoctrinated in the
Machiavellian duplicity of Catherine de Medicis, were too astute to register
their infamous schemes in unequivocal language, whether in State papers or
in any other kind of written document.
3 See the rejoicings in Rome on the event. Soldan, op. cit., pp. 106, 107, and
Martin, Histoire de France, vol. ix. An important contribution has recently
been made to the long controversy as to the part which the Pope and the
Roman Curia took in a public celebration, or thanksgiving service, to com-
memorate the destruction of so many heretics, Published under the auspices
of Bodley's Librarian, a tractlet of four leaves has been photo-lithographed,
of which it may suffice to give here the title, viz.: Ordine della solennissima
processione fatta dal Somma Pontifice nella 'alma citta di Roma per la felicissima
nova della destruttione della setta Ugonotana: Rome, 1572.
* See the horrible passages quoted by Waddington, p. 270.
Peter Ramus.
537
was the fitting climax of a long life-battle with error, dogmatism and
ignorance. He himself had counted the cost of such a dangerous
career, and was prepared for the fate which befel him. It was also
the close of a life singularly free from selfishness, from unworthy
passions, and from vice. Amidst a society the most corrupt in Europe,
Ramus maintained his purity unsullied even by the faintest breath of
scandal. Surrounded by foes who would gladly have found him
guilty of some one of the many depravities of his age and country,
no one pretended to discover the smallest deviation from the strict
path of honour, integrity, and moral purity. His life, as his death, was
a genuine sacrifice to knowledge, progress and enlightenment. To
knowledge, and its communication by the best possible methods, he
gave, as we have seen, nearly his whole wealth. His death therefore
filled with horror and consternation the friends of learning, both far
and near.
His fame had long since become European. Wherever
learning was cultivated Ramus and his writings were known. Of the
two thousand martyred Huguenots who fell at the St. Bartholomew,
the name of Ramus was in many cases the only one which a distant
scholar would recognize as familiar to him. Many, therefore, were
the dirges, elegies, and epitaphs which bemoaned his fate; many the
literary tributes which were rendered to his character and learning;
many the anathemas and execrations lavished upon those who directly
or indirectly had robbed the world of such an ornament.
And here, perhaps, will be a fitting place to put before you a few
extracts from M. Waddington's attractive portrait of our subject:-
'Ramus was a tall man, well made, and of good countenance. His
head was large, beard and hair black; he had an enormous forehead,
an aquiline nose, eyes black and piercing; his dark complexion had a
student's pallor, and his features were of manly beauty. His mouth,
whether severe or smiling, had an uncommon fascination; his voice
was at once deep and rich. His manners were simple and severe, as
was also his dress; but this simplicity did not exclude elegance. All
his movements had an air of the greatest distinction. He carried his
head high, walked with a stately gait, and when he spoke it was as a
nobleman, according to Brantome, who boasted the possession "of
a grace superior to every one." He was full of studious ardour, and
indefatigable in his work. He avoided sensual pleasures as the
source of every vice and the scourge of a studious life. He treated
himself harshly: sleeping on a straw mattress, rising before cock-
crow, passing his whole day in reading, writing, and thinking, using
in his meals the greatest possible moderation. For the greater part
of his life he was an entire abstainer from wine, and only began to
use it by medical advice. He had an indomitable courage-prepared
538
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
for every emergency. Without haughtiness in prosperity, misfortune
could neither subdue him, nor take from him his immoveable confidence
in God. He knew how to pardon injuries; and had acquired the diffi-
cult habit of not answering his adversaries, trusting to a long patience.
to overcome the malignity of their attacks. His sentiments were
noble and elevated. He never flattered any one. Content with the
fruit of his labour, and not anxious to enrich himself, he refused more
than once to sell his eloquence. He was always mindful of his early
poverty, and aided poor scholars; distributing part of his wealth to
those who appeared worthy. Every year, when he visited his native
home during the vacations, Ramus carefully informed himself of any
poor children who manifested studious aptitude, brought them up at
his own expense, and educated them at his own college. He was
warmly attached both to his country and his family, especially to his
mother, whom he often visited and gave her many rich presents. He
showed himself very generous to his only sister, Frances. He never
forgot the help which his uncle had given him in early years, in
supporting him in his old age, and leaving him part of his fortune.
An enlightened piety crowned all his virtues.'
'No doubt,' says MM. Haag,' after quoting most of the above extracts,
it is ‘a fair and noble character; but no man was ever perfect. To a
temper too irritable, an excessive obstinacy, and a too great readiness
to contradict others, there were joined in Ramus a want of circum-
spection as well as an extreme presumption which was partly the
cause of his misfortunes. But these defects are excused by the
circumstances in which he passed his early youth, and, as Buhle
remarks,² without those defects he could never have rendered the
services which he conferred on philosophy and science. In other
words, Ramus was, like Luther or Wiclif, an admirably qualified
instrument for the task which he undertook. Leaders of men, the
pioneers of human progress, must necessarily be somewhat differently
constituted from the sequacious crowds which follow passively in
their wake. What in an ordinary man would seem rashness, is in
them elevated to the dignity of sublime courage; obstinacy, in the
former case, would, in the latter assume the rank of noble persistency
of purpose. It would fare ill with humanity if its Ramuses were
composed of its own pliable materials, or its too brittle clay.
The main feature of Ramus's character, and that which gives us a
1 La France Protestante, vol. vi., Art. 'La Ramée.'
2 'Sans ces défauts Ramus ne serait jemais devenu pour la Philosophie et
les sciences ce qu'il devint en effet, et il ne les expia que trop cruellement par
les persécutions qu'il endura, et par la triste mort qu'il subit.'-Hist. de la
Philosophie (par Jourdain). ii. 537.
Peter Ramus.
539
2
right to claim him as a Skeptic, is his Free-thought.¹ He is a zealous
and indomitable foe of all mere authority, traditionalism and anti-
quity, whether in philosophy or in religion. In this respect his
Degree-Thesis gives the clue to the whole of his intellectual career.
And the treatment he then inflicted on Peripateticism he was equally
ready to award to any system of coercive dogma. His final court of
appeal was Reason, which he proclaimed to be the queen and mistress.
of Authority. Hence he is continually persuading men to put aside.
their prejudices, the ready-made opinions forced on them by education,
or any other extraneous influence, and to think freely and inde-
pendently, each for himself. To human cowardice and neglect, in
discharging this duty, he ascribes the backward state of all branches.
of knowledge. If men, he says, would only practise this liberty (of
thought), one century would perhaps suffice to bring to perfection all
the sciences. As M. Waddington remarks, a man with these free
tendencies was not likely to shut himself up in the confines of a
single philosophy. If Ramus professed to adhere to the Sokratic
teaching, it was because this is less a system than a method, less a
particular building than a master-key by which every building might
be opened. When nominated Royal Professor he announced his in-
tention to apply the Sokratic method to all liberal arts: 'I purpose to
treat with all diligence the sciences after the manner of Sokrates, in
searching and proving their utility and in cutting off superfluous
rules and precepts.' 'All my study,' he further says, 'has been to
remove from the road of the liberal arts, thorns, rough stones, and
all impediments and hindrances to the intellect to make the way
plain and straight in order to arrive more easily, not only at their
knowledge, but to their use and practice.'
We have thus indicated the twofold character of Ramus's teaching:
severity of analysis, simplicity and brevity of synthesis. The mere
enunciation of these principles is sufficient to reveal their uncom-
promising hostility to the thoughts and methods of the sixteenth cen-
tury,— to the ponderous systems of the Schoolmen, the endless quibbles,
subtleties and trivialities of medieval logicians, the numberless
1 'Libertatem animi excelsam, amabilem, gloriosam; servitutem autem, ca-
ducam, detestabilem odiosam semper esse duxi,'-Dialecticæ Partitiones.
2 'Nulla auctoritas rationis, sed ratio auctoritatis regina dominaque esse
debet.' - Scholæ Math., 1. iii. p. 78, 'Omnes in eadem nave homines sumus,
natura nempe rationis participes; gubernaculum rationis bono animo regendum
suscepi.'-Dialecticæ Partitiones.
3 Ramus shrewdly urges against the Aristotelians the example of their own
master in this respect. Had Aristotle not exercised his intellect independ-
ently of prior systems of Greek thought, etc., where would have been his
mastership, and what value could be attached to his works?
540
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
technicalities, rules and premisses which oppressed every department
of human investigation. Ramus, with the Sokratic elenchus as his
chosen weapon, was in the position of a powerful backwoodsman
who, armed with his axe, cuts his way step by step into the dark
recesses of some primæval forest. He let in the sunlight where it
was not only never before seen, but where its presence was deemed
an intrusive profanity. The ghosts, dragons, hobgoblins, and other
obscene animals supposed to tenant those hidden regions he either
proved to be fictitious or put to flight. Nor was he content with
merely clearing a path for himself and his own immediate purposes.
In every direction throughout the enormous forest he applied his axe,
clearing away the underwood, lopping off freely and ruthlessly in-
tervening branches, and removing all obstructions to the free march
of humanity through the length and breadth of the overgrown se-
clusion. Unfortunately no successor to the brave pioneer imme-
diately appeared, so that the paths which he cut again became partly
overgrown after his death. Still the marks of his axe were discernible
for some generations, and when other woodmen, such as Bacon and
Descartes, proceeded to re-attempt a similar task, they found they
could not do better than follow, in most cases, the tracks which Ramus
bequeathed to them.
But Ramus was by no means exclusively or even mainly a destruc-
tive or a negative skeptic; he possessed a large share of constructive
instinct as well. As with other academics, his skepticism was but
the needed preliminary to a reformed dogmatism; but his modesty
and caution in building up were as conspicuous as his vigour in pull-
ing down; his imputed inconstancy, in revising and modifying his own
conclusions, was a frequent subject of reproach among his enemies.
We have seen, too, how earnestly he endeavoured to compass the whole
round of the liberal arts, and to introduce into each his favourite
principles of simplicity and usefulness. The service he accomplished
for logic, for rhetoric, for grammar, for mathematics, and so far as he
could, for physical science and theology as well. Each science was
overweighted with dogmas, hypotheses, à priori conclusions, which
were either unfounded, unimportant or incomprehensible, or at least
utterly useless for the practical needs of mankind. Next to truth in
all scientific principles, Ramus endeavoured to ascertain their prac-
tical scope and utility. His stress on the latter point procured for
him the nickname of 'Utilitarian' (usuarius): certainly an honourable
designation in the sixteenth century, when the real use of principles
and dogmas seemed to be the very last thing of which their devisers and
assertors took cognizance. There was then no danger, nor was Ramus
at all likely to be guilty of the error, of pushing the principle to excess.
Peter Ramus.
54I
In order to comprehend with some degree of completeness Ramus's
many-sided intellectual activities, we must consider him: (1) as a
Humanist, (2) as a Theologian. These two aspects make up the sum
total both of his life and character. For the first half of his life his
mental energies were devoted mainly to a study of the ancients, and
to the acquisition and teaching of secular learning. His later years,
especially after his conversion to Protestantism, were very largely
taken up with theological and Biblical studies. These two directions
also summarize his intellectual tendencies; and each throws no small
amount of reflected light on the other. Ramus's Humanism was tem-
pered by religion; and his religion was both corrected and corroborated
by his Humanism.
1. Ramus's attitude to classical learning is strikingly illustrated
by his logical method. When he was induced, by the study of Plato,
to doubt the infallibility of Aristotle's logical treatises, the course
he adopted was this: he did not for a moment question the utility of
the science, nor yet its validity when properly defined; he required
only its re-construction on a freer and broader basis. In order to
effect this he collected from ancient poets, orators and historians their
methods of ratiocination. These he investigated and classified by a
kind of induction, until he had determined the various processes
which the reason employs in arriving at its conclusions.¹ Hence
every rule of his logic is a generalized inference from so many classical
precedents. In short he estimated reason and its methods not as the
prerogative of any one thinker or series of thinkers, but as the com-
mon possession more or less of all humanity. Like a biologist, who
determines the characteristics of living beings from the comparison
of their extinct ancestors of the same type, Ramus in his science of
1 The general character of Ramus's logic was what Prantl would have called
the 'Ciceronian-rhetorical.' He regarded it not so much as a method of truth-
discovery, as of persuasion and exposition; though he is not always consistent
in this respect. That this conception of logic leaves more room for the exer-
cise of free thought and enquiry than the methodical definitions and arid
rules of Aristotle, need hardly be stated. It allows the mind to range over
the whole field of literature, instead of confining it to formal methods. Hence
it has been a conception of logic cherished by many free-thinkers, both ancient
and modern. This was, as Prantl has pointed out, the character of Abelard's
logic; indeed he thinks that if Abelard had lived in the sixteenth century he
would have been a disciple of Ramus (Logik, ii. 188, comp. Remusat's Abelard,
ii. 96). It was also the conception of logic most affected by the Italian Plato-
nists, as e.g. by Laurentius Valla. The earliest definition of its method is that
given by Dionysius the Thracian, who thus defines grammar: è̟µтeiρíav vπáрɣew
τὴν γραμματικὴν τῶν παρὰ ποιηταῖς καὶ συγγραφεῦσιν λεγομένων. Sext. Εmp. adv.
Gram., op., vol. ii. p. 30. Comp. on the character of Ramus's logic, St. Hilaire,
La Logique d'Aristote, ii. p. 246.
542
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
reasoning sets himself to discover the methods of the present by a
searching scrutiny of those of the past.
But in this deference to the logical modes of classical writers,
Ramus never lost sight of his own independence. It was only when
the conclusion approved itself to his own reason and investigation,
that he carefully computed the stages by which it had been reached.
There was no deference to an opinion of Plato or Cicero merely
because he had uttered it; no inclination to shelter himself or his
convictions under the unquestioned authority of great names. Ramus
was indeed singularly free from the servility that marked other
Humanists-the reverence for antiquity because it was antique, and
the excessive adulation of trivial sayings and unimportant teachings
for the sole reason that they emanated from classical authors.
brings to his investigation of secular antiquity, the principle he fear-
lessly applied to sacred antiquity, i.e. Rationalism. This is the test
by which he tries all coinage, whether from the mints of Athens and
Rome, or from that of Palestine. Every coin must have the image
and superscription as well as the genuine ring of truth, before he
admits it to his cabinet. So long as it seems to him to possess these
paramount qualities, he is quite indifferent as to its origin.
He
This mode, of analyzing thought-processes, rather than passively
accepting fully formed opinions and sentiments, coincides with
Ramus's practical tendencies. The thoughts of the ancients had a
double value, when they were adopted as the framework or skeleton-
outline of the thought-methods of all times. Men thus became pos-
sessed not only of the exquisite casting, but also of the mould into
which the metal had been run. The dialectical form of thought was
indeed more valuable than any particular thought it had aided in
shaping, because it might be employed for any indefinite number of
ratiocinations. Ramus thus made classical thought a present actua-
lity; all its best expressions became in his hands living organisms, not
mere dead corpses; he directed attention not so much to the writings
of the ancients, as to the minds whence they were evolved; and hence
rendered Humanism and its reverence for antiquity a worship of the
spirit rather than of the letter.
Ramus also endeavoured persistently to reconcile Humanism with
Christianity. As a rule, Italian Humanism was a culture lying apart
from all religious considerations. In extreme cases it was a simple
Paganism, which did not reject so much as ignore Christianity.
Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, and other giants of antiquity were regarded
as authorities quite powerful enough to stand alone, and not needing
corroboration or sanction from the dictum of any sacred book or
ecclesiastical authority. This as we know was the position of Pe--
Peter Ramus.
543
trarca as it was also of Montaigne. They accepted the utterances of
Gentile philosophers and poets as autocratic self-sufficient represen-
tations of truth. They made no attempt, in any comprehensive spirit,
to reconcile heathen opinions with the doctrines of Christianity, nor
even to discover a common standpoint whence they could be surveyed
with impartiality. There was hence an essential duality in their
mental formation. Their intellects dieted on Plato and Cicero, at least
circumscribed by classical culture, was like a circle whose circum-
ference included but a small segment of the other circle of their
Christian faith; even if the former could be said to traverse the latter
at all. Now it was this attempt at unifying the beliefs and thoughts
of Pagandom with the generally accepted doctrines of the Christian
Church, that gave its peculiar flavour to the classicalism of Ramus.
The universe of thought and of truth was to him essentially one
admitting of no real difference or dichotomy. The subdivisions em-
ployed by Christianity of sacred and profane, heathen and Christian,
found no place in his creed except as successive stages of a common
evolution. Both Paganism and Christianity presented themselves to
him under similar aspects. In both he discerned corruptions and
falsities to be discarded, as well as truths and excellencies to be
appreciated. His standpoint of intellectual independence furnished
him with a neutral territory or judicial court, wherein the claims
of all antagonistic systems could be impartially adjudged; and before.
the supreme tribunal of his reason and spiritual apperception, Chris-
tianity and heathenism being arrayed, are ultimately declared to be
in essentials closely related, nay, in some few particulars, to be even
identical each with the other.
1
2. The nature of this position will be more exactly appreciated by
a cursory glance at Ramus's theology. The general course of his
theological development I have already hinted. Calvinism, as the
predominant type of the Protestantism of the time, was that form of
Anti-Romanism with which he first came in contact, but his free
instincts soon recoiled from a dogmatism hardly less harsh and im-
perious than that of Rome. His own independent inquiries led him, as
I have remarked, to the conviction that the historical development of
Christianity was a 'facilis descensus' of deterioration and corruption.
Ultimately he discovered, both on the question of Church government
and Christian doctrine, considerable affinities with the large-hearted
and semi-rationalist Zwingli, many of whose teachings he in fact
adopted. But the real builder of his theology, as of his philosophy,
2
¹ On the subject of Ramus's theology see the able monograph of P. Lobstein
entitled Petrus Ramus als Theologe, Strassburg, 1878.
2 Comp. P. Lobstein, op. cit., pp. 38, 39.
544
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
was Ramus himself;¹ and in my judgment he may be congratulated
on the result. His Christianity, considering its surroundings, and the
elements out of which it was evolved, was of a singularly free, en-
lightened and tolerant character. Revelation with him was no narrow,
exclusive idea—a special determination of Providence for the behoof
of a fractional part of humanity. He regards the term as synonymous
with truth and reason. Evidences of Christianity he finds every-
where in Nature and in classical antiquity, as well as in the Bible
and the Church. Just as, in his logic, he infers laws of thought from
the ratiocination of all great thinkers indifferently, so he proves the
truths of Christianity, all at least that he regards as essential, by
adducing the similar teachings of heathen authors. Most of the
dogmas of Reformation Protestantism he no doubt retained; but he
explains them for the most part in a free and rationalizing spirit.
His stress on utility and practice made him naturally impatient of
doctrines which, however true, only possessed a speculative character.
Theology he rightly defines as a 'Doctrina bene vivendi,'³ in contra-
diction to the notional dogmas of the Churches, and to the endless
theorizing of the Schoolmen. He also held the idea, perhaps derived
from the Everlasting Gospel' of the Abbot Joachim, of a progressive
revelation, asserting that the Old Testament was the dispensation of
the Father, the New Testament that of the Son -though without
discriminating between the latter and the dispensation of the Holy
Ghost, as the adherents of the Everlasting Gospel did. Ramus also
distinguished between the older and newer dispensations in respect
of their origin and destiny; maintaining against the narrow local
range of Judaism, the universalism of Christianity.5 His free think-
ing proclivities are also marked in his dislike to excessive definition.
Just as he found fault with Beza's term 'substantial' as applied to
Christ's presence in the Eucharist, so he complained of the gross and
material representations of the Trinity which were common to the
religious conceptions, artistic and otherwise, of the time; wherein, as
he said, it was only with extreme difficulty the doctrine could be appre-
hended by the mind. His repugnance to an excessive supernaturalism
is also shown by other traits in his theology, e.g. he merged the event
of a final judgment in the general belief in immortality. Like all
7
1 The autonomous character of Ramus's Protestantism is incidentally illus-
trated by the fact that, although he was acquainted with all the Protestant
leaders of his time, he only names one of them in his Commentaries on the
Christian religion, viz. Peter Martyr.
2 Comp. P. Lobstein, op. cit., p. 11.
4 Ibid., p. 15.
6 Waddington, p. 359.
3 Ibid., p. 7.
5 P. Lobstein, p. 31.
7 Comp. P. Lobstein, p. 32.
Peter Ramus.
545
the reformers, Ramus laid great stress on the Bible as the fount of
genuine Christianity, and the deliverer from Papal tyranny. The
books of the Bible, he thought, should take the places of the pon-
derous tomes of the Schoolmen. In his project of university reform,
provision is made for the study of the Old Testament in Hebrew, and
of the New Testament in Greek. He also contemplated the transla-
tion of the whole Bible into French.1
2
Nothing in Ramus is more surprising to us, and nothing struck
more forcibly his contemporaries, than the wide sweep of his
studies. His restless and penetrating eye looked out over the whole
domain of human knowledge; and his speculations, aspirations and
desires were continually in advance of his powers. He resembles,
in this respect, not a few of our skeptics, of whom a tendency to
eclecticism may be said to be a very general characteristic. Indeed,
to a free-thinker, a high standpoint and a wide horizon is the most
absolutely necessary of all his requirements. But the point on
which Ramus differs from the typical extreme skeptic is his tendency
to construct. A brief comparison with his contemporary, Montaigne,
will enable us to determine his position in this respect. Both set
themselves against dogma, systematic beliefs, and authoritative dicta
of every kind; but while Montaigne did this with the cynical con-
temptuous insouciance of a Pyrrhonist, Ramus set about it with the
sober, methodical, truth-loving spirit of an Academic. Montaigne
despaired of truth. Ramus despaired only of finding it by the anti-
quated processes then employed for the purpose; for the rest, he not
only believed devoutly in its existence, but endeavoured to point the
road to its abode. Montaigne, while secretly employing, openly re-
viled Reason; Ramus thought Reason, as we have seen, the supreme
Court of Appeal on matters of human knowledge, and superior to all
authority. No doubt most of these contrasts are explicable by the
single fact that Ramus was an earnest, God-fearing man, while Mon-
taigne's nature was too superficial to understand what earnestness of
any kind could possibly mean. Ramus, e.g. as soon as he found out
the falseness of Romanism, immediately renounced it. While Mon-
taigne, though ridiculing secretly its dogmas, would yet cross himself
when he sneezed, and was willing to kneel and kiss the Pope's toe.
Ramus's fount of religious truth was the Gospels: Montaigne drew
all his wisdom from heathen sources. In a word, Montaigne was at
1 Comp. Jules Barni, Les Martyres de la Libre Pensée, p. 134.
2 Cf. Niceron, Memoirs, xiii. p. 286: 'Il avoit un génie forte vaste et un sça-
voir profond; il avoit embrassé toutes les Sciences, et ne proposoit pas moins
que de les reformer toutes; mais c'etoit une entreprise que surpassoit ses
forces.'
546
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
heart a Pagan, while Ramus was a devout, but enlightened and
rational Christian. But with all these contrasts, the men were alike
on many points of great importance. Not only were both admirers
of the Sokratic method, and opponents of dogmatism, but they were
further alike in their broad, generous sympathies for every branch of
human culture. They also resembled each other in their detestation
of every form and degree of intolerance. Both were free-thinkers
to the backbone, though one thought freely as a philosopher, and the
other as an easy, good-natured cynic. Both bemoaned the stormy
times in which their lots were cast, and looked onward to the
ameliorations of the future. Finally, both contributed, each from his
own standpoint and in his own way, to the advance of modern cul-
ture. In point of general influence there can be no comparison
between Ramus and Montaigne. As a disseminator of free-thought,
the Essais of the latter outweigh the seventy and odd works of
Ramus which are enumerated by M. Waddington. It was a popular
book pitted against an elaborate but still rather formidable scheme of
philosophy.
Ramus was, we must remember, an Academic. I don't mean now
in the sense of his sharing the skeptical principles of the old Greek
school of that name, but I employ the term in its general sense as
descriptive of the tastes, feelings and sympathies which are engen-
dered by, and find a home within university and college walls.
Without sharing the customary dogmatism, he was still apt to
regard things from the point of view of a professor. His methods,
with all their instincts of freedom, show a trace of ex cathedrâ
formality and positiveness; his style, refined and scholarly, is yet
not without a suspicion of hauteur. The man was clearly not made
for popularity, in any large sense of the word. Crevier tells us that
he inspired either extreme affection or fanatic detestation -no inter-
mediate feeling-a description confirmed equally by his history and
his writings, for both agree to represent him as a singularly noble,
dignified and lofty character, yet, as such persons usually are, some-
what austere, reserved and cold. Although therefore in point of
elevation of character Ramus was superior to Montaigne, yet in the
influence both exercised on free-thought he was immeasurably his
inferior. Ramus's works were, as a rule, known only to academies
and schools: Montaigne's Essais soon became a household book in
most countries of Europe.
To his constructive instincts Ramus owes the glory of being a
founder of a school. Years after his headless corpse was hacked
to pieces on the banks of the Seine, his system of philosophy, and
the various expository works in which it was treated, were received
Peter Ramus.
547
1
3
by enthusiastic disciples, in various seminaries of Europe, with a
subserviency which the old foe of Aristotelian dogmatism must, had
he been alive and consistent, have disallowed. Ramism found
numerous partisans, in France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland,
England 2 and Scotland; and even in Spain and Italy. It became for
a time the philosophy par excellence of Protestantism, in opposition
to the Peripateticism of Romanism. In the march of modern culture
it served at least the purpose of a transition system, bridging and
connecting Scholasticism on the one hand with the modern scientific
methods of Bacon and Descartes on the other.
In any record of European free-thought the name of Ramus must
always occupy a prominent place. His whole life was a long, earnest
struggle for liberty in every department of human faith and know-
ledge, and his death a veritable martyrdom in the same holy cause.
Philosophy, as well as religion, has her own martyrology; Free-
thought has its canonizations; human liberty her precious records,
which she may well style her Acta Sanctorum. Among the most
revered names in her canonization-roll-one of the highest lives in
her Acta Sanctorum-one of the noblest deaths in her martyrology
—are the name, the life, the death, of Peter Ramus.
*
*
*
*
MRS. HARRINGTON. What a painful story that of Ramus is!
When we were discussing among ourselves M. Jules Barni's
chapter about him, we tried to realize what his feelings must
have been, shut up in his study on the two first days of the
massacre, and no doubt expecting momentarily his own doom.
The subject took such a strong hold of Florence that she wrote
some stanzas on it.
1 Among the adopters of Ramism were his fellow skeptic Sanchez, and
Arminius. Through the latter Ramus may be said to have exacted a post-
humous retribution for the repudiation he experienced in his lifetime from
Calvinism. Arminius contributed in no small measure to free modern Chris-
tianity from the intolerable yoke of the Genevan Hildebrand, and to lay the
foundations of a more liberal and tolerant theology. Cf. Nicholl's Life of
Arminius, vol. i. pp. 23, 55.
2 Of the two great English Universities, Cambridge was for many years
the home of Ramism: Oxford, as might have been expected from its blind
devotion to Aristotle, its relentless opponent and persecutor. In 1574, e.g. a
young logician named Bare-bone, essaying to attack the Philosophy of Aris-
totle after the principles of Ramus, was degraded by the Senate, and forced to
quit the University.
3 This is proved by Waddington, ihough denied by Brücker and Bayle.
548
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
TREVOR. By all means let us hear them, Miss Leycester.
I have inflicted so many pages of prose upon you that I am
sure poetry will be a welcome relaxation.
MISS LEYCESTER. Perhaps poetry might, Dr. Trevor; but
that is a title I dare not claim for my humble attempts.
However, I have no objection to read them to you-(reading
from her pocket-book):
REFLECTIONS OF RAMUS IN HIS STUDY IN THE COLLEGE OF PRESLES,
AUGUST 24TH OR 25TH, 1572.
1. I hear it still-that storm of death and hell,
The shriek of agony-the demon-yell-
Now sinking into mournful whispers low,
Now rising high in loud and murd'rous swell.
2. As when in shipwreck-'mid the angry din
Of fierce devouring waves-to shore comes in
In discord ghastly-screams of drowning men
So mingled-sounds this hurricane of sin.
3. So many gone, with whom I bent the knee,
Gulfed in the surges of yon blood-stained sea;
While I upon this islet wait, and watch
The rising waters, till they bear off me.
4. Unfinished my life's work!-Is it then so?
Must not both work and life together go?
I meted not life's term; why mete its work?
Enough, if finished,-what God gave to do.
5. Beyond the present-gloomy, grim and dread,
I can discern-for man and truth outspread
A nobler future, when both shall be free,
And falsehood-like its victims now-be stark and dead.
6. Do not the falling leaves—the trembling prey
Of winter's furious blast-their fear allay
With hopes to come, and dreaming of next spring,
Say, 'Though we die, all will be green in May'?
7. In hope then, God! Thou God who canst not lie,
Hope of Thy truth to come-to Thee I fly
Boding, not fearing death-I wait mine hour,
For Truth I've lived, for Truth too I can die.
MRS. ARUNDEL. Thank you, Miss Leycester. No doubt you
have rendered into your quatrains the most obvious of the
feelings which must have flitted through Ramus's mind on
Peter Ramus.
549
those two awful days. But if you will permit an irreverent
criticism on your verses, I should be inclined to take exception
to Ramus's strong confidence in the future, regarded as a
compensation for present misery. As a rule I distrust the
genuineness of those extra-heroic sentiments. The common
feeling of humanity on the point seems to me better expressed
by Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh.' You remember the
lines-
TREVOR.
'It had not much
Consoled the race of mastodons to know
Before they went to fossil, that anon
Their form would quicken with the elephant;
They were not elephants, but mastodons.'
On the contrary, Mrs. Arundel, Miss Leycester
has not only expressed what is an undoubtedly strong feeling
in all high-souled, magnanimous, and unselfish men, but in
this particular case of Ramus she has merely given a poetic
form to what were clearly his own sentiments. Here are his
own words on the point. They form part of a discourse which
he delivered to his class in 1563.¹ After dwelling on the
misfortunes which had attended his own search for truth, he
proceeds: 'Although these trials have been to me very hard
and very bitter, I cannot recall them without a deep feeling
of joy and of pleasure. Yes! I feel happy in the thought,
that if I have been beaten down by the tempest, if I have had
to encounter so many dangers, my misfortunes will at least
have served to make the road easier and more certain for you.'
MISS LEYCESTER. Though its general purport is the same,
that is not exactly the passage that I had in mind when I
wrote the lines. There is another which I found quoted in
Martin's History of France, in which, like Bacon on his Mount
Pisgah, Ramus scans with prophetic and enraptured eye the
distant future of science and humanity, and sees men in a
state of knowledge and refinement very different from his
experience of them. The passage is this: 'I can bear without
suffering and even with joy these calamities, when I con-
template in a peaceful future, and beneath the sway of a
1 M. Waddington, p. 257.
VOL. II.
K
550
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
more humane philosophy, men who have become better, more
polished, and more enlightened.'¹
HARRINGTON. We must hope too that humanity has made
some progress in disinterestedness and nobility of mind since
'mastodons went to fossil' (if at least primitive man was con-
temporary with the mastodon). As a general principle Mrs.
Browning's teaching seems to me not only ethically imperfect,
but psychically untrue; for surely intense sympathy with the
ills of the present incites and increases, rather than excludes,
eagerness of hope for the future.
ARUNDEL. In your Essay, Doctor, you might have made,
I think, a strong point as to the likeness between Sokrates
and Ramus, in their last hours. Ramus in his study serenely
expecting his murderers, and Sokrates in prison calmly await-
ing the arrival of the sacred ship from Delos.
TREVOR. Very true; that point escaped me—though of
course there are several such instances among the martyrs
of philosophy. Giordano Bruno, e.g. in the Inquisition Prison
at Rome, was seven years awaiting death; and Vanini at
Toulouse expected it long before it came. Campanella, too,
continually thought that his numerous imprisonments and
tortures would end in death.
MRS. HARRINGTON. What a shame that Theodore Beza
should have refused Ramus an asylum at Geneva when he
was so surrounded by perils.
TREVOR. No doubt; but Beza, the successor to Calvin's
despotism, shared also his autocratic and intolerant spirit; he
might have been dubbed Calvin II. His cruel treatment of
Clement Marot and Henry Stephen proves him to have been a
fanatical bigot. After all, what could you expect of a religious
teacher who deliberately pronounced liberty of conscience
to be 'a diabolical dogma'? Ramus was unwelcome to him
both as a philosopher and a theologian. One of Calvin's life
labours had been to repress the nascent Free-thought which
is inevitable to Protestantism and inquiry. Beza might have
feared that Ramus, with his liberal sentiments and wide
sympathies, would have formed a nucleus, round which the
¹ Cf. M. Waddington, p. 14.
Peter Ramus.
551
1
freer opinions and aspirations of the Huguenots would have
converged. Even now, Huguenot and other writers ¹ pretend
that Ramus's object in opposing Beza was to found a party
among them, and call it by his own name-an absurd allegation
which M. Waddington triumphantly refutes.
HARRINGTON. Most thinkers of the present day must, I con-
ceive, regret that the Reformation was not more under the
control of its moderate leaders and broader thinkers, such men,
e.g., as Erasmus, Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Ramus. As it is,
the Protestant Churches started on their march of independ-
ence and progress too much burdened with theological system;
and all their subsequent history to the present day has been
in the direction of dogmatic relaxation. Just as an inex-
perienced traveller, starting on a long journey, encumbers
himself with all kinds of useless packages, which by and by
fall off, and he carries his real necessaries closely packed in a
small knapsack on his shoulders.
ARUNDEL. Your illustration, Harrington, appears to me.
misleading; not only did the Protestant Churches start with
too many dogmas, because they were scions of a Church with
enormous dogmatic possessions, but they were compelled at
starting to consult the various views and wants of all their
respective members. It was not therefore the setting forth of
one man on a journey, but of a large and varied company.
Suppose such a promiscuous company were starting, we know
well what would happen; and how all kinds of superfluous
luxuries would have to be stowed away as indispensable
necessaries. One man must have his store of Liebig's extract,
another his tins of preserved meat, another his private medicine
chest, till by and bye the common luggage would assume
a portentous size. What could such a poor dogma-laden
Church do?
MISS LEYCESTER. I will tell you. She might say to all her
members, 'I will provide necessaries—the simple articles of
diet needful to preserve health, e.g. bread, meat, etc.-such
things as all must have. Those who, for whatever reason, as
weakness or fastidiousness, require artificial food, luxuries,
1 E.g. Bayle and Crevier.
552 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
medicines, must provide them out of their own pockets, and
incorporate them into their own personal luggage.'
Whereas what Churches do, or rather what they did in time
past, was this: They pretended to meet every taste, every
requirement, and every caprice among their motley crew of
members out of their common fund of dogmas; and the
simple fact of any given Church doing this, enables every
puny valetudinarian to come forward and say to his healthy
brother,' You must take my nostrum, or you cannot be right-
you must diet yourself as I am doing, or you will most in-
fallibly be ill. The Church would never have put all these
various medicines and articles of food into her common store,
unless she thought them absolutely necessary for all her mem-
bers.' Let Christian Churches provide the simple bread of the
Gospel. Let them prescribe for every man the two great
commandments of the Law of which the Master said, 'This
do and thou shalt live,' instead of wasting their strength on
metaphysical subtleties and doctrinal refinements.
And
that suggests to me the remark that the Protestant Church,
starting from its mother of Rome with unnecessary luggage,
requires to be amended; for it should have been stated that
the same man who then thought so many packages and parcels
necessary, was brought up originally with very primitive
habits and on an exceedingly simple diet; but living so long
at Rome enervated his character, so that he came to imagine
superfluous luxuries to be absolute necessaries.
ARUNDEL. In idea your theory may be true; but its practice
is another matter. For the whole issue turns on the question,
What are necessaries? or reverting to our simile (which does
not however quite run on four legs, because physical necessities
probably vary more than spiritual) it is a question of constitu-
tion, habit, digestion, and assimilation. Some people can, I
suppose, digest Liebig's extract better than household bread.
I have no sort of doubt in my own mind that the
stress of Christ's teaching is on moral duties and simplicity of
worship, while it is clearly opposed to ritualism. Yet if He
had not provided some formal rites, such as, e.g., the celebration
of the Lord's Supper, I think Christianity would have been
defective both as to the symbolical bond of union which such
Peter Ramus.
553
an institution should possess, and also in regard of its provision
for weaker members.
6
TREVOR. In your comparison, Arundel, of the starting of
the Protestant Churches to a kind of personally conducted'
excursion, in which the tastes of the many had to be consulted,
you do more than justice both to Luther and Calvin. The
systems they formulated and enjoined were merely the opera-
tion of their spiritual faculties on the Bible-text. They no
more thought of consulting the needs of their followers, except
as they themselves determined what those needs should be,
than Napoleon consulted the needs of France in determining
what his own course should be. Both Luther and Calvin
were not over-respectful even to Holy Writ when any of its
statements came into collision with their own views. Your
comparison would hold better of the Church of England, in
whose origin and constitution the attempt to adapt itself to
divergent beliefs and different schools of thought is clearly
traceable. But leaving the question of their origin, what is
important now is that Churches which possess elaborate creeds,
articles and formularies should agree to regard them mainly
as 'Articles of Peace,' and interpret them with the elasticity
which is requisite to respect individual rights of conscience
and the results of modern scientific inquiry, remembering that
to a progressive Church, as to an advancing army, too many
impedimenta are fatal to its mission.
ARUNDEL. I, of course, fully appreciate the latitude which
pertains to our Church by reason of the manifold influences.
and interests which co-operated in her birth, and have to
some extent grown with her growth. Nevertheless, though
I know the wish is useless and perhaps absurd, I cannot
help sometimes making it: that its original dogmatic re-
quirements had been limited to those beliefs on which, as
we know from His own words, Jesus Christ Himself would
have insisted.
HARRINGTON. You will find in Mr. Theodore Martin's Life
an admirably wise remark of the late Prince Consort on this
very point. It is to the effect that the zeal of her founders,
in legislating for posterity, prevented the Church of England
from sharing the development which the State has derived from
554 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
the broad principles of Magna Charta.¹
1 With that remark
I cordially agree; and the twofold liberties of the English
Churchman may be thus paralleled. His civil liberties are a
continuous growth 'broadening down from precedent to pre-
cedent' of the principles of Magna Charta. His liberties as a
Churchman have to a considerable extent been acquired by the
converse process of ignoring articles and enactments which
ought never to have been made, or at least raised to the
position they occupied. In either case there is development:
in the first it is that of a house built with an eye to the future
into which enlargements and modifications are easily intro-
duced; the other is not unlike the gradual transformation of a
feudal castle to meet the very different wants, habits, refine-
ments, etc., of the present day.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Well, and why not let the ancient feudal
castle retain its old form, merely to show in what sort of
houses our ancestors liked to live; we might take up our
abode, e.g., in the inhabitable parts, and leave the dark towers
and dungeons to themselves.
HARRINGTON. That is precisely, I suspect, what a good
many people are doing. The formal abrogation of old dogmas
is difficult even when most desirable. If they are found
antiquated, untrue, or opposed to the milder spirit of modern
enlightenment, they are quietly ignored. How many religious
controversies, e.g., have in past times excited men's passions
to the verge of madness on which it would be impossible to
revive the slightest interest in the present day.
MISS LEYCESTER. So the young man who started from
home, or rather from Rome, with all that luggage, though he
has found that he does not want nearly so many things as he
thought, still travels with the old family valise or 'imperial'
with which he set forth. Only when you look inside, it is
1 'It was a premature decision on the details of Church government and
doctrine, in the absence of a broad and leading principle, and the fact of
their being finally settled for posterity by those into whose hands the conduct
of the Reformation fell, which prevented the Church of England from partici-
pating in that constant and free development which the State has been able
to derive from the broad principles of Magna Charta.'-Life of the Prince
Consort, vol. i.
Peter Ramus.
555
more than half empty; he carries all his real requisites in a
portable hand-bag, and the old valise is clearly more for show
than for use. You know the importance and dignity of ancient
Churches, as of old families, are estimated by the extent and
weight of their luggage.
TREVOR. No doubt, by hotel keepers and hall porters-not
by thinkers and philosophers who know that brass-bound boxes
and trunks may, and occasionally do, contain much useless
lumber. Indeed, there are many dogmas which seem to me
to resemble closely a valuable-looking and heavy portmanteau,
which is after all filled with hay and stones, such as is some-
times left behind by hotel sharpers as compensation for an
unpaid bill. Take, e.g., the two last promulgated by the
Romish Church-the Immaculate Conception and Papal In-
fallibility.
ARUNDEL. Well, as we are plain folk, who do not think
their importance enhanced by the encumbrance of a score of
packages when our actual needs can be compressed into a
portable bag; and as we are able to dispense with the interested
admiration of hotel-keepers and porters, our strictures are not
applicable to us.
But before we leave Ramus, there
is one question I should like to ask: What became of his
wretched foe, Carpenterius?
TREVOR. He survived him only two years, and then died
of a burning kind of fever which caused him intense agony.
The friends of Ramus were eager to pronounce his miserable
fate the Divine vengeance on a murderer.
MRS. HARRINGTON. After all, as you well remarked, Doctor,
Carpenterius was only the product of a system—and one of
the most frightful things connected with the St. Bartholomew,
the crusade against the Albigenses, and other similar blood-
stained pages of history, is that they could by any possibility
have been deemed justifiable on grounds of Christian truth.
The moral degradation of such a conviction-not to mention
its direct opposition to the Spirit of Christ-appears to me
almost worse than the inhuman savagery which was, to a
great extent, its not unnatural expression.
HARRINGTON. And what a stupendous satire on religion
(I do not limit the remark to Christianity, though of course on
556
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
the principle of Corruptio optimi pessima, she is most blame-
worthy in the matter), is the fact that more human lives have
been sacrificed, directly or indirectly, on religious pretexts,
than have been lost by all the purely political wars in which
men have ever engaged. If Lucretius could sneer at the single
sacrifice of Iphigeneia,
'Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum,'
what would he not have said of the countless holocausts
which have since been offered at the shrine, I will not say
of religion, but of the Moloch which has usurped her holy
name and dignity.
TREVOR. True: the St. Bartholomew is a lasting and irre-
futable testimony to the evil effects of excessive dogma, and
the intolerance which is its legitimate offspring. At the same
time political causes played no small part in the event. These,
however, we cannot now consider. Our discussion has already
extended our usual limits; so I propose we now close it.
CHARRON.
ed io rimango in forse
Che 'l nò, e 'l si, nel casso mi tenzona.'
Dante, Inf., Canto viii.
Nous sommes vrais à quester la verité; la posseder appartient à une plus haute
et grande puissance.'
Charron, De la Sagesse, bk. i. ch. xv.
They think this suspension a shame and a weakness, because they know not what
it is, and they perceive not that the greatest men that are have made profession
thereof; they blush and have not the heart freely to say, I know not; so much are
they possessed with the opinion and presumption of science: and they know not
that there is a kind of ignorance and doubt more learned and more certain, more
noble and generous, than all their science and certainty.'
Translation of Charron's Sagesse, by Samson Lennard, p. 225.
'For matters of theory and difficult enquiry appertain not to the vulgar and
lower rank of understandings. But for those who are capable of search after truth,
and are provided with advantages for it, freedom of judgment is necessary in order
to their success. With this the real philosophy begins, and in all its progresses
still more and more disposeth the mind to it, and so delivers it from the vassallage
of customary sayings and opinions.'
Joseph Glanvill, Phil. Pia., p. 72.
558
CHAPTER III.
CHARRON.
TREVOR. Having discussed, at our last meeting, the French
Gospel of Montaigne's Essais, we pass naturally on this occa-
sion to the Acts of its Apostles. Charron¹ is the St. Paul of
Montaignism.
ARUNDEL. And his position in that respect is unique among
modern Skeptics. Leaving out Hume's influence on Kant,
Charron is almost the sole instance in modern times of an
eminent skeptical convert. Indeed, nothing in my opinion
serves to show better the essentially artificial nature of extreme
1 The authorities cited or consulted on the subject of this chapter are:-
De La Sagesse, Livres Trois, par M. Pierre Le Charron. A Bordeaux, par
Simon Millanges, 1601.
This is the first edition of his greatest work, and is excessively rare. It is
much sought after, because it contains passages that were altered in sub-
sequent editions.
A good working edition of this work is Amaury Duval's in the Collection
de Moralistes Français, of which it forms the 7th, 8th, and 9th volumes. It is
the one generally referred to here.
Les Trois Veritez, a Bordeaux, par S. Millanges, 1595.
This is the first edition with Charron's name, an earlier one having being
published anonymously.
Le Petit Traicté de Sagesse, which is partly a summary, partly a defence of
the larger De la Sagesse, may be found in the supplement to Duval's edition,
vol. iii. pp. 257-318.
*** M. Nisard is mistaken in asserting (Hist. de la Litt. Française, i. p. 487)
that Le Petit Traicte, etc., was the original title of the Bordeaux edition of
La Sagesse, and was published in 1601. It was prepared by Charron to be
added to the 2nd edition of his larger work, which the author did not live
to complete. See the Avertissement in Duval's edition, vol. iii. p. 258.
Ste Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, vol. xi. p. 254, etc.
Buhle, Hist. de la Philosophie, traduite par Jourdain, ii. pp. 781–788.
Nisard, Hist. de la Litt., vol. i.
Bayle St. John, Montaigne the Essayist, vol. ii. p. 300, etc.
Bayle, Dict., Art. 'Charron.'
559
560 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
skepticism, and the painfulness of the repression which it
exercises on the intellect, than the infrequency and isolation of
skeptics. In point of fact they are lusûs naturæ, abnormally
engendered themselves, and leaving no issue behind them.
HARRINGTON. You forget the schools of ancient Greece
and India. No doubt skepticism is oftentimes an isolated
phenomenon, for more reasons than one; but it would be an
enormous mistake to estimate its real influence by the number
and eminence of avowed partizans.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Skeptics seem to me dotted irregularly
over the history of human thought like volcanos over the
globe.
MISS LEYCESTER. Possibly for the reason that they are
Nature's means of remedying analogous evils; for both would
seem to be safety-valves for forces imprisoned in one case
within the earth, in the other within the capacities and irre-
pressible yearnings of the human intellect. Hence, though
they are undoubtedly useful, Nature, with her usual economy,
has not created more of either kind of destructive agency than
was really necessary.
TREVOR. Skepticism seems in the ascendant to night. Not
only is it a natural phenomenon, but it is also useful? What
further apology is required? As to Charron, he may no doubt
be called a disciple of Montaigne; at the same time his works
convince me that his breadth of culture, love of freedom and
of Nature were tendencies which would of themselves have
ripened into a considerable latitude of thought, if not into
actual skepticism, without any extraneous aid or suggestion.
In most cases a skeptic, like a poet 'nascitur non fit.'
MRS. HARRINGTON. I have found time to glance over Charron's
life, prefixed to Dean Stanhope's translation, but am dis-
appointed to find so little about his first connexion with
Montaigne.
TREVOR. Stanhope's book, I must tell you, is an uncritical
and untrustworthy exponent of Charron. Not only does the
good dean insert occasional advertisements, as he calls them,
as finger-posts of heresy, but he actually interpolates his
orthodox modifications into his author's text. The book in
fact is a literary centaur-the head and neck of an English
Charron.
561
Divine grafted on the body of a French skeptic. A far better
translation, though that also is imperfect, is the older one by
Samson Lennard. As to the object of your search, the pre-
cise date and circumstances of Charron's first introduction to
Montaigne is a point which none of the biographers of either
have satisfactorily cleared up. Bayle St. John enables us to
arrive at an approximation as to the date, for he tells us that
the National Library of Paris possesses a copy of a work
entitled, Il Catechismo, overa Institutione Christiana, di M.
Bernardino Ochino, da Siena, in forma di Dialogo in Basilea,
1561.¹ On the title-page is Montaigne's signature, with the
words, 'A prohibited book,' and a little below the following
words written by Charron, 'The gift to me of the said lord of
Montaigne in his castle, July 2, 1586.' So that some kind
of literary intimacy seems to have existed a few years prior
to Charron's removal to Bordeaux in 1589; when his inter-
course with Montaigne became close and continuous.
²
MISS LEYCESTER. Please tell us who was the author of
this prohibited book' which Montaigne and Charron were
probably discussing in July, 1586.
ARUNDEL. Ochino was an Italian Protestant, or perhaps
I should say free-thinker, who seems to have exercised con-
siderable influence in that age. All his works are on the
Index ; but he was an enemy to Protestant as well as to
1 For a list of works in which this is included, annotated by Montaigne,
cf. Dr. Payen's Nouveaux Documents sur Montaigne, p. 51. It would seem that
the researches of Dr. Payen and M. G. Brunet have resulted in the discovery
of thirty-two volumes bearing Montaigne's name or some inscription from
his hand. See the above work, p. 55.
2 Ste Beuve affects to question the authenticity of this inscription, but on
what would appear to be inadequate grounds, he says, 'En ce cas Charron
n'aurait guère profité du commerce de son sage ami, puisqu'il était resté
jusqu'en 1598 un predicateur plein de passion' (Causeries du Lundi, xi. p. 239).
But surely three years does not seem too long to allow for the transforma-
tion of an orthodox Romish priest into a skeptical philosopher. Moreover
Charron's sermons are not the mere appeals to the feelings which the de-
scription 'plein de passion' would seem to convey. Like all his writings, they
are marked by ratiocinative power, and that of a high order. Ste Beuve
would appear to have derived his description of Charron's pulpit fervour from
a contemporary record, which, as it describes the author of the De la Sagesse
as an énergumène, is self-convicted of gross exaggeration, if not falsehood. See
Ste Beuve's note, p. 239. An interesting specimen of Charron's sermons may
be found in the appendix to M. Duval's edition of the De la Sagesse.
562
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Romish intolerance; for he bitterly denounced Calvin's judicial
murder of Servetus.¹
HARRINGTON.
A most appropriate instructor for such a
brace of skeptics. By the way, what an enormous service
the Index must have conferred on the freer thinkers of the
Renaissance as well as subsequently. It was a kind of 'Select
Library Catalogue'—a voucher, on the part of infallibility, of
the genuine freedom and breadth of culture of all works
included in its list.
TREVOR. No doubt; the Index has often acted the double
part of a scarecrow. Intended as a deterrent, it served to
show the bolder and more long-sighted birds where congenial
food might be found. In days when Bibliographies did not
exist, and when opinions were not formed by Reviews, such a
catalogue raisonné (and such it was in more senses than one)
must have been of real use. Even now a French or Italian
bookseller will tell you that the way to make a book sell is
to get it placed on the Index. It acts like an abusive article
in an influential modern review. It is an advertisement, a
castigation, and an incentive to study, all in one. Of course
Charron's Wisdom shared the ordinary fate of all true wisdom
in those days. It was placed on the Index in 1705.
MRS. HARRINGTON. I am surprised to find that Charron
was not only a priest and a canon, but a successful popular
preacher as well. Of all professions, that surely is the least
befitting a genuine skeptic. What can be more preposterous
than the attempt to convince others with no settled convic-
tions of one's own?
HARRINGTON. He might have professed 'Twofold Truth,'
and thus kept his Christianity apart from his skepticism; but
for that matter, skepticism itself may easily become, as we
have had reason to learn, the object of a very vigorous and
1 For an account of Ochino, see the monograph of Dr. Benrath, Bernardino
Ochino von Siena, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Reformation, which has
recently been translated into English. The Basle Catechism, a copy of which
Montaigne presented to Charron, is described in pp. 293-298 of the German
edition.
2 On the influence of proscription in stimulating the sale of books, see some
admirable remarks in Diderot, Lettre sur le Commerce de La Librairie. Euv.
Comp. (Ed. Assézat et Tourneux), vol. xviii. p. 66, etc.
Charron.
563
not ineffective propaganda of its own. Sextos Empeirikos,
and Montaigne, for instance, supply us with examples of
skeptical sermons. In these writers we have convincing argu-
ments to prove human Nescience, vigorous persuasives to
apathy and ignorance, and no less vigorous dissuasives from
dogmatism—the "original sin" of skepticism; not to mention
the thrilling descriptions of arapaia-the beatific condition
which constitutes its Nirvana or final consummation; all the
main elements, in short of ordinary pulpit eloquence, flavoured
too with the earnestness and unction which characterize its
best representatives. But, as a matter of fact, Charron's
popularity as a preacher belongs to an earlier portion of his
life, before he had become known as the disciple and teacher
of Montaigne's philosophy.
ARUNDEL. His Sermons were published in 1600; with the
object, as it is said, of calling public attention away from cer-
tain portions of his Book on Wisdom, which were held to
savour of heresy. But it is needless to refer to these little-
known discourses as proofs of his rare pulpit ability. The fact
is sufficiently established by his better-known works, as my
paper will, I think, serve to show. Moreover, his critics hold
that his style was unduly influenced by his pulpit exercitations
With many similarities in thought, method, and occasional
mannerisms, etc., there is a considerable contrast between his
own style and that of his masters. Charron as a rule is grave,
sententious and didactic. Montaigne in his most character-
istic moods is free and unrestrained. The former is at his best
when directly argumentative and hortatory, the latter when
allusive, humorous, and playfully ironical
but we
need not prolong distinctions inherent in the men, as well as
inevitable to two authors--one of whom wrote methodical
systematic treatises, while the best literary form of the other
consisted of pleasant, discursive but somewhat laxly constructed
essays.
HARRINGTON. I think we must not exaggerate Montaigne's
influence over Charron. Even supposing their acquaintance
began about the time when Montaigne gave his neighbour
Ochino's work, that would make Charron forty-five years of
age. By that time the style of every man, both in speaking
564 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
and writing, is fully formed, and is not afterwards altered, ex-
cept in very rare cases and by means of very prepotent influ-
ences.
TREVOR. On that point I am unable to agree with you. The
style is the mere reflex of the mind, and partakes of all its
mutations. It is therefore capable of modification and growth
just as long as the mind is. A growing intellect can no more
have a finished style at forty-five years of age, than it can
boast a maximum of acquirements; and a cramped, ossified,
unchanging style always seems to me a symptom of arrested
mental development.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Your notion of style, Dr. Trevor, seems
to me both novel and unsatisfactory. I cannot for my part
see how a man's style can be materially affected by intellectual
changes of any kind. You say it is the reflex of a man's mind;
I would rather term it, its outward sensible expression. It
seems to me to share the individuality of his character. It is
like his gait, stature, or deportment. He may change his mode
of thought, but his expression of it will remain unaltered; just
as a man may walk or run, but his mode of locomotion will
always be the same.
TREVOR. You would thus reduce style into a kind of fixed
mechanical habit, that once formed cannot be altered. All I
can say is, that that is a dogmatic conception of it which I am
not able to share. Verbal expression seems to me a function of
the intellect, dependent largely upon the volition, taste, and
standard of excellence of the possessors. It may therefore be
fashioned, modified, or transformed at will.
Most great
writers in every language have made their style; and that at
no small cost of labour and patience; though no doubt there
are some, as e.g. Montaigne and Hume, who have allowed theirs
to be unconsciously coloured by their intellectual growth; and
I am far from denying their success.
HARRINGTON. You cannot in my opinion lay down any rule
on the subject. No doubt some writers make their style-with
the result that the making process is painfully obvious. I
humbly submit, at the hazard of making a trite remark, that
the more natural, easy, simple style is best, and whatever
artifice or fashioning is expended on it ought to be in that
Charron.
565
direction. Montaigne's remarks on this point are full of good
sense, and are especially worthy of remembrance in an age of
'fine writing' like the present.
ARUNDEL. So far as Charron is concerned, I think he is an
example of a literary style not being influenced by what was
a considerable mental movement. I at least can discern no
great difference in that respect between his earliest and latest
works. On the other hand, the distinction in thought and
conception between The Three Truths, first published in 1593,
and the De la Sagesse, published in 1601, is very clearly
marked. It is especially seen in the more Pagan and Natural-
istic tone of the later work. In the intervening eight years
Charron had lost a good deal of that ecclesiastical appreciation
of the distinctive features of Christianity, which is so marked
a characteristic of his earlier work; and he had gained quantum
valeat, a much higher estimate of the value of philosophic
doubt. An interesting example of this is the different treat-
ment to which he subjects Pyrrhonists and Academicians in
the two books. In The Three Truths their Agnosticism is re-
garded as synonymous with Atheism. In the latter it is com-
mended as a wise and philosophical preparation for dogma.
Other differences I have to speak of in my paper.
TREVOR. What a capital subject for an 'Imaginary Conver-
sation'—much better than that chosen by Savage Landor of
Montaigne and Scaliger '—would have been Montaigne and
Charron, in one of their frequent conferences during the year
1589. One can imagine the two illustrious thinkers exchang-
ing their varied reminiscences and ideas-Montaigne recount--
ing in that easy humorous style we have in the Essais, with
perhaps a somewhat greater admixture of Gascon provincial-
isms, the narrative of his life, his experiences at court, his
adventures in the field, the history of his magisterial life
among the burgesses of Bordeaux and the conseillers of its.
Parliament-narrating his experiences of men in every walk
of life, and adding his humorous criticism of their countless.
foibles and eccentricities-detailing, with his wonted garrulity,
his reminiscences of the remarkable persons he had known, of
the successive kings of France whose court he had attended, of
the statesmen and soldiers with whom he had come in contact,
เ
"
VOL. II.
L
566
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
of his own eccentric father, his tutors, and his intimate friend
La Boëtie-then passing from men to books-from the dwarfs
of the present to the giants of antiquity-showing to Charron
his treasured copies of the classics, especially of his favourite
authors among them, probably producing from under lock and
key a few rare MSS. and editions which he had found in the
course of his travels-reading choice bits from La Boëtie's MSS.,
while expatiating on the transcendant merits of his early lost
friend-citing favourite passages from his own Essais or from
his translation of Raymund of Sabieude, producing with more
than common eagerness the best-thumbed work in all his
library — Amyot's Translation of Plutarch, with his own
marginal notes and numerous underscored passages, showing
his large collection of common-places from the classics, criticis-
ing the writers of his own country-Clement Marot, Villon,
Ronsard, Du Bellay and the rest-perhaps enjoying a laugh
over Rabelais and his grotesque stories, but not forgetting
his favourite Italian classics-Boccaccio, Ariosto and Tasso.
Charron, too, we may suppose, though much less garrulous
than his master, relating the experiences of his clerical career
his life at the court of Queen Marguerite, his adventures as a
travelling preacher, his association with the leaders of the
League in the early stages of that movement--enumerating and
quoting favourite authors. We can imagine how both thinkers
would compare the results, so closely similar, of their own
independent ratiocination in philosophy, religion and politics.
How, like two mariners who had traversed the same seas, en-
countered the same storms, and had brought their ships to
anchor in the same harbour, they were eager to compare the
results of their skeptical voyage. They would tell how their
ships at starting were overloaded, the dangers they thereby
incurred in heavy gales, and the relief experienced when they
threw some portion of their cargoes overboard. Then, as a
natural sequence, we might imagine both joining in deploring
the unhappy condition of their country, the horror and mis-
chief of religious wars, agreeing in the common cause of religi-
ous bigotry wherever found, i.e. overweening and too-confident
dogma-deprecating such events as the massacre of St. Bar-
tholomew, and the hardly less cruel acts and intentions of
Charron.
567
Huguenots themselves; denouncing Calvin's narrow system
and its natural outcome in the murder of Servetus-possibly
looking forward, as did Ramus, to a future of peace, culture
and tolerance-founding their hopes upon the inevitable di-
versity of all reasoning beings-which with the advance of
self-knowledge and toleration would necessarily be admitted
-or upon the Pyrrhonic maxim that all things are un-
certain or else upon the dualistic hypothesis that Religion
and Philosophy constitute two entirely different provinces of
thought, feeling and conviction. Thus we might imagine
them holding converse while walking in the long summer
evenings among the gardens and vineyards of the Chateau of
Montaigne, or else seated in the winter twilight before the
cheerful fire in his study, while the flames cast their flickering
glow on the ranges of books on their shelves, perhaps too
bringing out into fitful relief the skeptical maxims and
apophthegms carved on the timbers of the ceiling.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Thanks, Dr. Trevor, for your concen-
trated essence' of a supposed 'Montaigne and Charron'
dialogue; but you seem to have drawn somewhat largely on
your imagination for some of their subjects of discourse.
I fail to see what hopes for the future of France and humanity
the two skeptics could have derived from the principles they
severally advocated. Montaigne, e.g. could not have supposed
that a Propaganda based upon his Essais and exemplified by
his life would be likely to be successful, or if successful would
be beneficial to humanity.
TREVOR. I agree with you so far, that Montaigne was not
likely to worry himself about the future of humanity any more
than he did about its present. His bell' eta d'oro had long
passed away; but I have little doubt that, in his nonchalant
manner, he thought its revival a probable contingency of the
future. He deemed it not unlikely that men might, by contact
with their works, be stirred by the same thoughts and prin-
ciples that animated Sokrates or Cicero, Cato or Seneca. All
the leading spirits of the Renaissance cherished similar day-
dreams. They anticipated the continuous growth of that 'new
birth' at whose cradle they were watchers, until it should
become the dominating principle of humanity, quickening and
568
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
controlling its education, its institutions, its thoughts, and its
social habits. The delirium of classicalism which we saw ani-
mated Petrarca and Boccaccio, was shared also by Montaigne and
other French thinkers, though perhaps more soberly expressed.
Thus to take one instance, I have little doubt, that Montaigne
would have decidedly preferred the republican government of
old Rome to the imbecile despotism of the House of Valois. He
was also persuaded that with the advance of general culture,
there would be a corresponding decline of dogmatic assertion
and religious bigotry; and he undoubtedly advocated both in
private and in his published Essais, his favourite principles of
Pyrrhonic suspense and the unlimited diversity of all human
minds so that I am fully justified in supposing that himself
and Charron sometimes took occasion to forecast the future.
ARUNDEL. As to Charron's out-look on the future, he had,
I think, far higher claims than Montaigne to have furnished a
safe prescription for its guidance. His stress upon morality
(Prud'homie) as indispensable to religion, and his denunciations
of the spurious religion that claimed to be divorced from
human duty, has all the character of a Propaganda; and that
of a most earnest and beneficial kind. This is quite the best
feature of Charron's life, as my paper, which I will now begin
to read, will sufficiently demonstrate.
*
܀
*
*
***
*
Peter Charron was born at Paris, in 1541. His father was a
librarian; and Peter was one of twenty-five children. With such a
numerous offspring his father's circumstances were straitened; but
the taste for books, which had probably suggested his profession,
made him fully alive to the advantages of a good education. Peter
was accordingly sent at an early age to the University of Paris, in
which his more celebrated namesake, Peter Ramus, was at this time
a Regius Professor. Young Charron appears to have soon manifested
that taste for letters and philosophy that distinguished him through-
out his life. What the curriculum at the University was for young
scholars at that time our discussion on Ramus has already shown us.
Having acquired Latin and Greek, the young student showed his own
aptitudes by selecting Arts and Philosophy as the course of his
maturer studies. He was thus introduced to Aristotle and Scholas-
ticism; and when we come to examine his writings we shall find
Charron.
569
vell-marked traces of the logical formalism which that discipline
would naturally produce. Having completed the usual course at
Paris, he proceeded to the Universities of Orleans and Bourges in
order to study jurisprudence. He took his degree of Doctor of Laws;
and, returning to Paris, he exercised for some five or six years the
profession of advocate. But he soon grew dissatisfied with his
calling, for which he was in truth singularly ill-qualified. He pos-
sessed neither the flattering arts nor the influential patronage neces-
sary to secure distinction therein; and we may well fear, that, as in
the case of Petrarca, the charms of literature frequently seduced him
from the dry technicalities of his profession. He resolved at last to
abandon Law and betake himself to the Church. Accordingly he
took up again the scholastic studies of his university career, read
and carefully pondered the Fathers of the Church, and entered holy
orders. In his new calling he at once achieved signal success. By
means of his independent spirit, his great learning, his singular
power of illustration, and generally, to use the words of his friend
La Roche-Maillet, 'parce qu'il avoit la langue bien pendue,' he became
known as a popular preacher. Bishops were eager to employ him
to preach special courses of sermons; and he seems to have dis-
charged the functions of what we now call a 'Missioner.' In this
capacity he came to be noticed by the famous Queen Marguerite,
sister of Francis I. who made him her 'Preacher in ordinary.'
Henry of Navarre is also said to have often assisted' at his sermons.
With patrons so distinguished the ecclesiastical career of Charron
was assured. He was appointed 'theologal' in some half-dozen
dioceses, and received a canonry in the church of Bordeaux. But,
notwithstanding his success, Charron was not satisfied. He at
tempted on two different occasions to return to a cloister and devote
the rest of his days to quiet and study. Whether this intention
discloses a Pietistic or merely restless spirit, I cannot profess to
decide. On the whole I am inclined to regard the former as the more
likely. His sermons, which are his earliest productions, seem to re-
veal occasionally the passion and instincts of a religious devotee and
a mystic; at the same time they sometimes also betray a taste for
the free-thought which finally became identified with his name. His
intimate relation with the court of Marguerite, which was itself a
centre of liberal culture and aspiration, seems to show that Charron
was already on the path of free speculation when Montaigne first be-
came acquainted with him. As we have already heard, the date of
this celebrated rencontre is uncertain. Charron, as we have seen, was
officially connected with the town of Bordeaux; he had also, as a
travelling preacher, itinerated more than once through the provinces
570 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
of Guienne and Languedoc. Either of these circumstances might have
brought him into contact with the great Essayist. What seems
certain is that he had some acquaintance with Montaigne in 1586; and
that from the year 1589, when Charron came to reside at Bordeaux,
their intercouse was continuous until the death of Montaigne, who
expired in his friend's arms in 1592. Charron seems to have, in a
great measure, filled up for his old friend the vacuum caused by the
death of La Boëtie. Montaigne made him his heir, allowed him to
adopt his family coat of arms-a concession which has been truly
called 'puerile et surtout peu philosophique '-and bequeathed him
his library. These benefits Charron in his turn requited by making.
the husband of Montaigne's only daughter his residuary legatee.
He must also
celebrated De la
The last years of
The free culture.
What became of Charron after the death of his friend we have no
means of knowing. His time seems to have been spent very largely
in literary work-putting into a systematic form the philosophy of the
Essais and the general teaching he had derived from his personal
intercourse with Montaigne. In 1593 he published (anonymously)
the first edition of his Three Truths; and two years afterwards an
improved edition of the same work with his name.
about this time have planned and begun to write his
Sagesse, the first edition of which appeared in 1601.
Charron's life were greatly disturbed by persecution.
and autonomous morality on which he had based his wisdom were
altogether out of harmony with an age when obscuranticism and
immorality reigned supreme, and the 'wisdom' of the philosophic
Christian was branded as egregious folly. In the midst of the
theological commotion Charron died suddenly, in the street, by an
apoplectic seizure; and his benighted foes were eager to discern in the
event a signal manifestation of Divine anger at the manifold impieties.
contained in his latest work. At the time of his death he was en-
gaged in publishing an amended edition of the Sagesse, which, how-
ever, he did not live to complete. I have been lucky enough to
procure copies both of the edition of 1601 and that of 1604 (published
the year after Charron's death). A careful collation of them con-
vinces me that the second, though it reshapes the matter, and restates
in a somewhat different form the ratiocination of the first, does not
essentially modify it. The skepticism and free-thought of the latter
is as conspicuous as of the former. The statement therefore some-
times made, that Charron yielded to the clamour of the ecclesiastical
fanatics around him, and suppressed all the supposed obnoxious
passages in his first utterance of Wisdom,' is utterly destitute of
foundation.
6
Turning now to Charron's works, at least the two that represent his
Charron.
571
philosophy, Les Trois Verités and the De la Sagesse, we may say, of
his general mode of thought, that it is largely derived from Montaigne.
He is thus indebted to his master for much more than friendship,
a legacy of books, and a borrowed coat of arms. He owes to him the
final stage in the evolution of his philosophy, and thereby his fame
as one of the leading French thinkers of the sixteenth century. Like
Mademoiselle de Gournay, Charron may have been a convert to the
Essais (the first edition of which appeared in 1580), and therefore
several years before the commencement of his literary activity by the
publication of The Three Truths. At least it contains not a few
thoughts and arguments which are also to be found in the Essais.
As its title suggests, this work is divided into three parts, which
may be roughly characterized as: (I.) A philosophy of religion; (II.)
A short treatise on Christian evidence; and (III.) A defence of the
Romish Church. It seems to have been written, in the first instance,
as a reply to Du Plessis Mornay's book on the Church; and its frec
and rationalistic spirit renders it to this day a favourable specimen of
the Roman Catholic side of the controversy. The work secured, on its
first publication, a large amount of attention, and was regarded by
the prominent ecclesiastics of the day as a model of orthodox teaching.
But beneath the demure garb of the priest and the Christian apologist
may be seen the cloven foot of the Pyrrhonian philosopher. The
growing teeth of the skeptic are discernible beneath the well-worn
stumps of the believer. In this respect Charron has a parallel in
Huet of Avranches, whose Demonstratio Evangelica is a similar
attempt to erect an elaborate dogmatism on the shifting sands of
Pyrrhonism.2 Charron's proclivities in this direction are most pro-"
minent in the first part of The Three Truths, in which he asserts, against
Atheists and Free-thinkers, the existence of Deity. Here we have tho
frequent plea of skeptics, especially of his master Montaigne, as to
the equality of beasts with men." He admits that we can have no
demonstration of the being of a God; he adduces, as a proof of human
weakness, the usual skeptical argument, that man cannot know even
1 Même lorsqu'il traite des dogmes et qu'il se livre à un enseignement theo-
logique, ainsi qu'il l'a fait dans son traité des Trois Verités (1594) et dans ses
Discours chrétiens (1600), Charron est sceptique de méthode; c'est-a-dire qu'el in-
siste, avec un certain plaisir et une assez grande force de logique, sur les preuves
de la faiblesse et de l'incapacité humaine: douter, balancer, sursoir, tant
qu'on n'a pas reçu de lumières suffisantes, est l'état favori qu'il propose a
quiconque veut devenir sage.'-Sainte Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, vol. xi. p. 243.
2 On the numerous points of affinity which exist between these renowned, but
skeptical ecclesiastics, see Bartholmèss's interesting work, Huet, ou le Scepti-
cism Théologique, p. 171.
3 Les Trois Verités (1595), p. 5.
572 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
1
what he see and touches; and this reasoning he frequently repeats and
emphasizes in different parts of the treatise. He maintains the para-
dox that the truest knowledge of God consists in perfect ignorance of
him. He vituperates human reason in the same spirit and in the
same language as Montaigne. Nor does he fail to employ the usual but
dangerous expedient of making the recognized deficiencies of reason a
plea for the necessity of faith; indeed, his assertion of that principle
appears to me nearly as strong in The Three Truths as in his Sagesse.
But we must especially note that the root-thought of the first and
chief part of The Three Truths is the standpoint of Montaigne with
regard to religion. Generally this may be described as the assertion
of some general principle-Nature, reason, what not-as prior and
superior to theology. You will find that this was the leading prin-
ciple of Raymund of Sabieude. It was indirectly advocated by Mon-
taigne, but Charron affirms it without equivocation or qualification.
Here are a few sentences from the second chapter of his first Verity:
Religion is the knowledge and service of God: the former which
has regard to the understanding may properly be termed wisdom;
the latter, which exists in the will, is religion. Hence wisdom pre-
codes and is the road to religion, just as knowledge goes before loving
and serving; and as the intellect like a guide marches in front, and
enlightens and points the way to the will. This is the holy conjunc-
tion, the sacred and perfect alliance of wisdom and religion, which
must never be separated. Among the ancients the same men were
professors both of one and the other, philosophers and priests. Things
cannot go on well when there is a divorce between them-when one
plagues and despises the other. It is a monstrosity to see priests
that are ignorant and sçavans that are irreverent, so that wisdom is
handled by the profane, and things sacred by brutes.' When we
come to the Sagesse we shall find the same principle of a superior
moiety of religion still more distinctly asserted; but with the difference
that it is less intellectual and more pointedly ethical. What is in the
above passage called 'Sapience' occupies a large place in the latter
work as 'Prud'homie.' I am far from saying that The Three Truths
are as pronouncedly skeptical as the Sagesse. Taken as a whole, the
former work represents Charron's intellect at a stage when it had
only partly accepted the skepticism of the Essais. Very remarkable.
i.c. is the different estimate of Pyrrhonism in The Three Verities and
the Sagesse. You will remember Montaigne's preference for Pyr-
rhonic suspense over Academic probability. Now this is Charron's
opinion of the former principle, as given in The Three Truths. Speak-
1 Les Trois Verités, Books i. and ii. pp. 20, 171; Book iii. p. 45.
2 Les Trois Verités, p. 5.
Charron.
573
ing of different kinds of Atheists, he says: 'The second kind are
those, who as they do not resolve the existence of Deity in the nega-
tive, so neither do they in the affirmative, but, like the Academics and
Pyrrhonists, who profess always to doubt of all things, hold to neither
side, because say they, truth cannot be found, or else that man is
incapable of it. Or, possibly, by a stupid nonchalance, neither
thinking nor caring about a matter that does not concern them,
letting the world go on its ordinary course without regard for any
unseen thing, or any power or energy beyond that which they touch
with their eyes and fingers. . These men, neither professing
And in another place,
nor believing in God, are truly Atheists.'1
after quoting Sextos Empeirikos and his reasons against God's
existence, Charron proceeds: Who does not see the folly and
impertinence of these arguments, which mete God by the insignifi-
cant measure of man, and indeed are unworthy both of response
and consideration. We must doubtless believe that those who use
them do not speak as of certainties, and are convinced of their
weakness, but they desire to debate, contradict, and dispute about
all things, so as to maintain always their axiom, that there is
nothing certain, and that all things have a double aspect?'2
This is surely a fair criticism of Pyrrhonism, and in my opinion
is conclusive; but the contrast between this judgment and the ex-
travagant eulogy he lavishes on the same principle in his Sagesse is
very remarkable. Here he styles it 'the chief freedom of thought,'
'that fair liberty of judgment,' 'that lordly freedom (liberté seig-
neuriale) of intellect,' the surest position and the happiest state of
the human mind.' He says that Pyrrhonism cannot be heretical,
'they are things opposite.' He finds its analogies in the philo-
¹ Op. cit., p. 10.
2 Op. cit., p. 64.
{
3 Vol. ii. p. 55. He repeats the same argument in Le Petit Traicte, vol. iii.
p. 132.
Charron must be supposed to be here speaking theoretically, and
from the standpoint of the inherent attributes of doubt and heresy. The one
being definitive non-choice, the other definitive choice. As a matter of fact, a
man so learned as Charron must have known that doubt, in the simplest sense
of the term, i.e., not the affirmation of heterodox doctrines, but the non-affirma-
tion of orthodox dogmas--the mere attitude of suspense or neutrality-is held
to constitute a heinous offence by the Romish Church, and one frequently
expiated by a martyr's death. Detailed proofs of such a well-known fact are
needless, but a passing reference may be made to the Decretals of Gregory IX.
t. ii. p. 237: where an infidel is defined as 'he who has not the certitude of
faith'; and infidelity, i.e. mere non-belief, is defined by the Lateran Council of
1315 as an 'heretical contagion,' on which dicta a modern writer well com-
ments: 'Le Pouvoir Spirituel (i.e. the Romish Church) va donc plus loin que
l'extermination de la Liberté de Penser, il proscrit le doute non exprimé,
l'absence de foi cachée au fond du cour.' (V. Guichard, La Liberté de Penser, p.
574 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
sophical principles of all ancient sages, points out the best mode of
acquiring it, viz. to possess an universal mind throwing its outlook.
and consideration over the whole universe, all the while cautiously
admitting I must give you his words-'C'est à peu près et en
quelque sens l'Ataraxie des Pyrrhoniens, qu'ils appellent le Souverain
bien.'1
We must I think admit that Charron's Free-thought
made rapid strides between 1595 and 1601. Nor is this different esti-
mate of Pyrrhonism the only distinction between the earlier and later of
his philosophical works, though it is the one that most concerns us.
Sometimes, in his Three Truths, Charron is just as superstitious as the
most benighted of his co-religionaries of the sixteenth century; and in
spite of his general candour, occasionally sinks into controversial
harshness. Thus he recapitulates the old legends of his church as
to the wonderful and tragic deaths of heretics; not foreseeing that a
time would come when his own sudden death would be regarded by
his enemies as a Divine judgment on the many heresies of his Sagesse.
On the whole, however, The Three Truths contain the same qualities
that we find to characterize the Sagesse; and which made the latter
the most famous work (next to the Essais) in the French literature of
the sixteenth century. The tendencies, at least, are the same. There
is the same stress on mental freedom, on rationalism, on the religion
of conscience and humanity as contrasted with ecclesiasticism. The
same appeal to dictates of nature. We are for ever meeting tracks of
the Essais, though their impressions in point of distinctness are not.
always alike. Charron, like Montaigne, is always ready to acknow-
ledge the merits of an opponent, whether in disposition or in reason-
ing. Thus he admits without qualification that Atheism 'can only
dwell in a soul extremely hardy and brave,'-a common fallacy which
Pascal, perhaps quoting Charron, qualified by the important limita-
tion 'only to a certain extent.’2
The style of The Three Truths is the same grave, closely reasoned
argumentation that we find in his later work, occasionally lit up by
112.) On this subject the late Bishop Thirlwall has the following weighty re-
marks: A single refusal to conform to the expression of orthodox doctrine
has always been held sufficient to establish the charge of hæretica pravitas.
What Inquisitor was ever known to allow the plea of honesty, earnestness, love
of truth, and the like, as a ground of acquittal or a mitigation of punishment?
The prosecutors can only justify their maxims and conduct by claiming for
themselves the prerogatives of the Searcher of hearts, and by practically blas-
pheming the Holy Ghost by imputing their own uncharitableness to His in-
spiration.'—Thirlwall, Remains, iii. p. 491. Comp. on same subject Hofmann,
Lex., Art. Occulti Hæretici.'
1 De la Sagesse (1st ed.), p. 312.
2 Pascal, l'ensées, ed. Faugere, vol. i. p. 221.
Charron.
575
a humorous or satirical vivacity of manner, and sometimes kindling
into fervent invective, but always displaying considerable felicity of
argument and illustration. As might have been expected, he makes
the most of the mutual divisions among the Reformers; and his reply
to their claim of personal inspiration is fairly conclusive.
'For who or what prevents my claiming inspiration for myself in
opposition to them? The Spirit tells me that the Books of Maccabees
are canonical; to Luther he says they are not. The Spirit tells.
Calvin that the Epistle of James is canonical; to Luther he says it is
not, but an epistle of straw. Here is a fine rule to testify of things.' 1
The origin and abode of human truth, which Montaigne half hints
is individual, supernatural and intuitional, Charron, in the last resort,
dutifully places in the Church; but there is nothing in this well-worn
argument which need occupy our attention. On leaving the subject.
of The Three Truths, it is but fair to notice that Charron does not
concede that its reasonings and conclusions are superseded by those
of his treatise on wisdom; inasmuch as there are frequent references
in the latter to the former work as containing a fuller exposition of
his views on the religious side of his subject.
But with all due admission of the excellencies of The Three Truths,
especially considering the time when the book was written, the trea-
tise by which Charron is best known, that which has given him his
name as a philosopher, and branded him as a skeptic, is his great
work De la Sagesse. It is difficult to convey in a few words an
adequate idea of this remarkable production. It purports to be a
system of philosophy, a guide to, some would rather say from, reli
gion, and a complete code of ethics. It is a rade mecum on all con-
conceivable topics of human speculation and practice-a kind of
'whole duty of man' regarded from the standpoint of the skeptical
and Stoic philosopher. In this respect nothing can exceed the wide
sweep of its range. No subject is too sublime, none too difficult, none
too homely and trivial for its discussion. From the nature of Deity,
and the deity of Nature, he passes to such topics as the conduct of a
military campaign, or the proper food and treatment of new-born
children. His canvas is as large, though not so crowded, as Mon-
taigne's. The difference is precisely that of their respective positions,
education, and circumstances. Montaigne, the courtier and country
gentleman, self-educated for the most part, and restrained by no
formal methods, or limits of systematic teaching, expatiates freely over
the whole domain of human knowledge and experience. Charron, on
the other hand, initiated by his college career into the hair-splitting
1 Le Trois Verités, Book iii. p. 154.
576 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
:
dialectics of Scholasticism-receiving perhaps a still stronger impulse
in the direction of formalism from his legal studies-gives his materials.
a more concise, coherent, and methodical form.¹ Indeed his merit in
this particular is almost nullified by its excess, for he has as many
divisions, sub-divisions, and cross-divisions as a Schoolman. The
effect of this elaborate arrangement and concentration, compared with
the discursiveness of his master, has been variously estimated by his
critics. Some have been so far misled by it, as to suppose that
Charron's intellectual capacity was much smaller than that of Mon-
taigne;2 an hypothesis which I think every conscientious stndent of
the De la Sagesse would unhesitatingly reject; while others have
ascribed to its more systematic form that preponderating influence,
compared with the Essais, which they say it has exercised over
the minds of French thinkers.3
Charron begins his work with a Preface in which he defines
Wisdom, and proclaims his object of training men for worldly wisdom
rather than Divine; not that the former is inferior to the latter, for
philosophy is older than theology, as Nature is older than Grace.¹
Nature or Reason being the first and universal law, and the inspired
light of God. The requirements of the philosopher in his pursuit of
wisdom are:-1. Self-knowledge. 2. Freedom of mind (an euphemism.
for Skepticism). 3. Conformity to Nature. 4. Content. Like Mon-
taigne, Charron does not claim infallibility for his researches; he
presents his thoughts, but does not impose them." He defends the
boldness of his work by claiming for Wisdom its due prerogative.
-the right of judging all things, quoting St. Paul (1 Cor. ii. 15), 'He
that is spiritual judgeth all things; yet he himself is judged of no
1 M. Etienne regards this difference of form as the natural growth and con-
solidation which must mark the progress of every philosophical system. Cf.
Essai sur La Mothe le Vayer, p. 66.
2 Bayle St. John says, 'Charron was Montaigne's disciple, but could only
receive a portion of his teaching. This depended on the construction of his
mind, and on its narrower capacity,' etc.—Montaigne the Essayist, ii. p. 303.
3'Avec des qualités beaucoup moins brillantes que Montaigne . . . ilexerça
peut-être sur les esprits un ascendant plus considerable, grace à la methode avec
laquelle il ent presenter des idées d'emprunt, grâce au cadre élégant dans
laquelle il réunit et condensa tout le contenu des immortels Essais, etc.-Dict.
des Sciences Philosophiques, Art. 'Charron '—with which may be compared Ste
Beuve's opinion, Causeries du Lundi, xi. p. 286-speaking of the comparative
circulation of Montaigne's Essais and Charron's Sagesse in the eighteenth cen-
tury, he says, 'Montaigne a dispensé de Charron qui, à bien des egards n'a
fait autre chose que donner une édition didactique des Essais, une table bien
raisonnée des matières, et qui n'avait point ce qui fait vivre.'
4 Pref. De la Sagesse, M. Duval's ed., vol. i. p. xl.
5 Pref., p. xliii.
•
Pref., p. lvii.
Charron.
577
man.'
A text often cited, though not always consistently, by eccle-
siastical skeptics,
The work itself begins with some reflections on the self-knowledge
he has already proclaimed-the sage's first and indispensable require-
ment. The difficulty of this knowledge is shown by the complex
quality of all human lives and actions. Charron is largely indebted
here, as elsewhere, to Montaigne, not only for the substance of his
argument and illustrations, but also for the very terms in which they
are stated. This is, indeed, a prominent feature throughout the
book. The reader soon discovers that Charron's wisdom is not always
a pure native product, much of it being imported from foreign sources.
The Greek skeptics and Montaigne supply him with skepticism.
Seneca and Du-Vair furnish him with Stoicism; Justus Lipsius and
Bodin with political philosophy. These and other authorities are
employed without the least acknowledgment, and in such a free,
natural and unaffected manner as to prove that plagiarism was not
yet recognized as a literary crime. Having shown the need of self-
knowledge, Charron proceeds to the consideration of Man as composed
of Body and Soul. His description of the body displays no small
knowledge of the anatomy and physiology current in his day. When
he comes to treat of the soul, its different powers and faculties, and
the many irreconciliable opinions which have been held concerning it,
his skepticism breaks forth in a quite unmistakable form; and with
an earnestness and directness of purpose, to which Montaigne, with
his cynicism and levity, is a perfect stranger. The senses are with
Charron, as with other skeptics, the sources of human knowledge,
though of course such knowledge is imperfect. Men born without
some of the senses would not of themselves discover the defect-the
only sense absolutely necessary to life being that of feeling. More-
over senses other than our own are quite conceivable. 'Who knows,'
asks Charron,' whether the difficulties we find in most of the works
of Nature, as well as our inability to comprehend certain of our
mental operations, may not be ascribed to the want of some sense
which we do not possess.¹ Whether the senses are absolutely false
or not he will not categorically decide; but he thinks it at least.
certain that they deceive the reason, and are deceived by it in turn.
Behold, he exclaims, what a fine knowledge and certainty a man may
possess, when both his external and internal faculties are full of fals-
ity and weakness.2 Charron places the seat of the soul in the brain,
and lays himself open to the charge of materialism, by affirming thơ
1 De la Sagesse, i. p. 86.
2 De la Sagesse, i. p. 90. Voilà quelle belle science et certitude l'homme
peust avoir, quand le dedans et le dehors est plein de fausseté et de foiblesse.'
578
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
connexion and co-duration of its faculties with the organism. He
makes some approximation to modern psychological discovery when
he affirms that the diverse qualities of the soul are the same in
essence,¹ though differing in power-diversities in case of the mind
being much greater than in that of the body. Similarly, he anticipates
the fundamental axiom of Descartes by affirming that the soul's
existence consists in, and is proved by, its continued activity. Hence
it is unceasingly prying, searching and enquiring, as if urged by an
inextinguishable thirst for knowledge, which is the reason that Homer
calls men äλpηστas, or enterprising.2 Doubt and ambiguity form,
therefore, the proper nourishment of the soul. But all its enterprises
it pursues rashly and lawlessly. It is a kind of restless implement,
changeable, reversible, an instrument of lead or wax, it folds up,
extends itself, agrees with everything, and is more flexible and elastic.
than air or water.3 Apparent reason it discovers everywhere and
in everything, thereby testifying that what is impious, unjust, abom-
inable in one place, is piety, justice, and honour in another. No
desire is more natural than that of knowing the truth; we put forth
all our strength to apprehend it, but our efforts are vain, for Truth
is not a thing to be caught and handled, still less to be possessed by
mankind. It has its abode in the bosom of God. Man knows nothing
rightly, purely, truly as he ought. He is the hapless prey of appear-
ances which are found everywhere, and pertain to falsehood as much
as to truth. Perhaps the greatest argument for truth is the general
consent of mankind; but the majority of men being fools,5 this
cannot be said to be either conclusive or satisfactory. As a proof
that human liability to error increases in a direct ratio with the
advance of knowledge, he points out that great errors are the con-
comitants of great minds, and that gifted races are more difficult to
rule than inferior; illustrating his argument by the fact that there are
more seditions in ten years in Florence than in five hundred in a town
of Switzerland or the Grisons. The diseases of the mind are far more
1 Dela Sagesse, i. p. 117.
2 Vol. i. p. 102.
3 i.
i. P.
122.
4 i. p. 123.
From this, and similar places, Charron has drawn on himself the reproach
of infusing sectarianism into the skeptic philosophy, and thereby depriving
it of one of its main excellencies-its spirit of rigid impartiality and tolerance.
Certainly, to the ordinary Philistine, the man who neither enquires nor doubts,
Charron is not very complimentary. In another place, e.g. (vol. i. p. 402), he
says that 'vox populi,' so far from being identical with 'vox Dei,' ought rather
to be rendered by 'vox stultorum.' Similarly, he maintains that the begin-
ning of wisdom is to beware of popular opinions; and among his favourite
apophthegms is the saying attributed to Pythagoras:— τὰς δὲ λεωφόρους μὴ
βαδίζειν. 'Walk not on the public road.' Cf. Porphyrii Vita Pythagoræ, § 42.
Charron.
579
dangerous and incurable than those of the body. For this suggestive
hypothesis he assigns three causes:-1. The mind is easily affected
by the state of the body. 2. The contagion of popular opinion. 3.
The corruption of the will and the force of the passions. The second
of these causes is the most widely operative; men are governed
by opinion rather than by truth; and as opinions are dictated by
authority, it may be said that 'nous croyons, jugeons, agissons, vivons
et mourons-a credit'-a sufficiently compendious description of
humanity à la skeptique!
After some further discussion of the same kind, Charron compares,
in the manner of Montaigne, the status of men with that of brutes.
He finds that for the most part they are on an equality, and the few
supposed advantages possessed by man are in reality sources of weak-
ness. The attributes most characteristic of humanity are vanity,
inconsistency, weakness and misery. Man is weak even in his
pleasures. So mingled are all things in his lot, 'that even the move-
ments and folds of the visage which serve for laughter serve as well
for weeping.' But weak as a man is towards virtue, he is still more
helpless with respect to truth. He cannot bear its radiance, he
blinks at it like an owl at the sun. 'It is strange,' says Charron,
man has a natural desire to know the truth, and to obtain her. In
his search for her he upsets everything, still he cannot reach her.
Were she to present herself he could not comprehend her. Because
he cannot succeed he is offended; but it is not her fault, for she is
most fair, amiable, and accessible; it is human weakness which cannot
receive such splendour.'3 In his vain pursuit of truth, man employs
two methods, reason and experience, both are weak, vacillating and
uncertain; 4 but what proves man's inherent weakness more than any-
thing else is religion. And here we touch upon the most striking
feature of Charron's teaching. That ordinary skeptics should be in-
different, or disdainful to religion, is only what we might expect; but
here we have a Romish priest, a popular preacher, an ecclesiastical
dignitary, one who attempted on two occasions to join a religious order,
who finds in religion, its ideas, duties, sanctions, and beliefs, the
¹i. p. 249. Comp. Goethe's Mephistopheles-
‹ Hättst du ihm nicht den Schein des Himmelslichts gegeben;
Er nennts Vernunft und brauchts allein
Nur thierischer als jedes Thier zu sein.
Faust, Prolog. im Himmel.
This is, of course, a purely Mephistophelian view, and so far from exhaust-
ing, does not really approach the philosophy of the question.
2 i. p. 256.
3 i. p. 257.
4 i. p. 258)
580 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
crowning proof of the weakness of human reason. He tells us that all
religions have in them something contrary to common-sense.2 Their
differences in respect of doctrine and worship proclaim their human
origin; indeed, they are determined for the most part by geographical
limits; for ‘la nation, le pays, le lieu donne la Religion,' words
which summarize Voltaire's well-known lines:-
'Je le vois trop; les soins qu'on prend de notre enfance
Forment nos sentiments, nos mœurs, notre croyance.
J'eusse été près du Gange esclave des faux dieux,
Chrétienne dans Paris, musulmane en ces lieux.'
What can be more absurd, asks Charron, than the ideas which
religion inculcates, that God, c.g. delights in sacrifices and offer-
ings, or can be represented by the instrumentality of human anthro-
pomorphism ? 5 Even the sacraments, with their material means and
external actions, are but witnesses of human poverty and degradation."
They are useful, just as racks and gibbets are useful, to keep men in
good behaviour,7-in a word, all religions, all acts of ritual and wor-
ship, and everything included by them, are only to be regarded as
concessions to human frailty. Were men really wise, they would be
better off without religion at all; but being what they are, it is an
unfortunate and disagreeable necessity. The usual incentives to
goodness and deterrents from evil which religion proclaims, e.g.
happiness or misery in a future life, Charron thinks quite ineffectual."
Moreover, all religions are, of their own nature, liable to intolerance ;
a dictum which he accompanies with well-deserved strictures on the
policy of the Romish Church in this respect.10
1 Vol. i.
P. 258.
3 Vol. ii. p. 131.
2 Vol. ii. p. 127.
4 Vol. ii. p. 122.
5 Vol. i. p. 261.
6 i. p. 263. His language on this subject is worth quoting:-'Les Sacremens
en matière vile et commune de pain, vin, huile, eau, et en action externe de
mesmes, ne sont' ce pas temoignages de nostre pouvreté et bassesse?' Students
of religious thought and its varieties need not be reminded of the very different
aspect which the material parts of the sacraments present to some devout
thinkers. One of the dominating thoughts in the Religious Development of
J. H. Newman, e.g., was the entirely opposite conception-the doctrine that
‘material phenomena are both the types and the instruments of real things
unseen.' Cf. Newman, Apologia, etc. passim. Comp. Raymund of Sabieude's
Sacramental Scale. Evenings with the Skeptics, vol. ii.
7 i. 264.
8 i. 264.
9 ii. 132.
10 Written a few years after the St. Bartholomew massacre, such passages as
the following have a special significance (vol. ii. p. 154).
เ
Quelles execrables meschancetés n'a produit le zèle de Religion? Mais se
trouve-t-il autre subject ou occasion au monde, qui en aye peu produire de
Charron.
581
After what I have adduced, you can, I think, have no doubt as to
Charron's extreme skepticism. In some respects it is even more
thorough-going than Montaigne's, at least he extends it to subjects
from which it is, in words, carefully excluded by his master. That
the latter should, nevertheless, be deemed the greater skeptic, is
probably owing to the cynical tone of his writings. Montaigne treats
serious subjects with the levity and flippancy of an absoluțe un-
believer, while Charron discusses his skeptical questions with the
gravity and earnestness of a believer. But, notwithstanding the
pronounced character of Charron's skepticism, I do not myself think
that we must class him among absolute skeptics, those who doubt
for doubt's sake. His real intention, in my opinion, was to employ
skepticism as a method and a means, just as it was employed by
Descartes and so many others.
Charron was above all things an ethical reformer; he desired to
propagate a morality which should combine the loftiest ethical teach-
ing both of heathen and Christian times. The need of some effort
in this direction, of presenting a different and higher standard of
human duty than that entertained by all classes of French society
at this period, was too obvious. Contemporary writers are unanimous
as to the religious hypocrisy, the foul, reeking corruption, both
morally and socially, of the time. The court, the nobility and the
clergy vied with each other in their undisguised contempt of all
genuine religion, and in the open profligacy of their lives. The most
elementary principles of Christian ethics were so persistently sub-
ordinated to a superficial observance of religion, or to unhuman greed,
passion and luxury, that it must have seemed to an austere moralist
like Charron as if Christianity had failed in its mission. He there-
fore purposed, in the very spirit of Jesus Christ, to vindicate for
morality its own undoubted prerogative. Instead of making it sub-
ordinate to religion, he proposed to award it the very highest place
in human duty. He would fain infuse into the veins of an effete and
moribund Christianity some of the fresh blood and tonic restoratives
pareilles? Il n'appertient qu'à ce grand et noble subject de causer les p'us
grands et insignes effects-
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum
Quæ peperit sæpe scelerosa atque impia facta.'
And a little further on, speaking of those who have religion without integ-
rity, and who mistake religious zeal for virtue, he says:-'Croyent que toute
chose quelle qu'elle soit, trahison, perfidie, sedition, rebellion et toute offense
à quiconque soit, est non seulement loisible et permise, colorée du zèle et soin
de religion, mais encores louable meritoire et canonisable, si elle sert au pro-
grez et advancement de la religion, et reculement de ses adversaires.'-Vol. ii.
pp. 155, 156.

VOL. II.
M
582
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
of pre-Christian times. To this end he employed his skepticism, to
clear the way, just as he repeatedly recommends missionaries to the
Chinese to employ similarly destructive agencies for the same purpose.
And having accomplished, as he thought, his object of undermining
and gradually exterminating dogmatism and presumption, he at-
tempted to erect a new ethical system of his own on the site of the
ruins. This constructive method consists mainly in the inculcation
of the virtue of Prud'homie.¹ The signification of this comprehen-
sive term is not very easily expressed by a single word. It is one
of the words most frequently employed by the Troubadours of the
twelfth century, and is often used by Joinville in his Memoirs 2 as
descriptive of his master, Saint Louis. It seems to include the vary-
ing meanings which the Greeks included in the word opóvyoɩs, and
which we express by the terms probity or integrity, virtue and
prudence; it denotes a combination of the highest goodness, with the
greatest amount of veracity, both moral and intellectual. According
to Charron, it marks that attribute of the soul or mind which answers
to the perfect health of the body. True Prud'homie,' he says, in
another place, 'which I require of every one who wishes to be wise,
is free and candid, manly and generous, cheerful and pleasant, self-
possessed, uniform and constant; it walks with a firm tread, is bold
and confident, pursuing always its own path, without casting a glance
behind or on either side, without halting, or changing its pace and
3 เ
1 The word is thus spelt in the dictionaries both of the Academy and of
'M. Littré, though the latter remonstrates against the caprice of the former in
spelling Prud'homie with a single m, while Prud'homme is assigned two m's.
See Littré, ad voc.
2 Cf. Index to Joinville's Memoirs, Didot's edition, 1874, and Ste Beuve,
Causeries du Lundi, xi. p. 257. Cf. Littré's Dictionary, ad voc.
³ ii. 225, ‘La santé est au corps ce que la prud'homie est en l'esprit: c'est
la prud'homie du corps, la santé de l'ame.' Michelet seems to think the virtue
of Prud'homie of too negative a quality to accomplish anything great. His
words are worth quoting: 'Nulle education n'est solide, nulle n'est orientée
et ne sait son chemin, si d'abord elle ne pose simplement, nettement, son
principe religieux et social. Rabelais ne l'a pas fait, pas plus que Montaigne,
Fénelon ni Rousseau. Son ideal n'est autre que le leur, l'honnête homme, celui
qu'accepte aussi Molière. Ideal faible et négatif, qui ne peut faire encore le
héros et le citoyen.'-Hist. France, viii. 422. The same objection, couched in
precisely similar language, has been made to the Christian character-the
righteousness enjoined in the Sermon on the Mount-a quality closely allied
to, if not identical with, 'the honest man' of the French moralists. Michelet
only repeats the old reproach of the enemies of Christianity, that it is deficient
in the elements of heroism and patriotism. This is no place to discuss the
whole question. It may be enough to point to the history of Christianity for
a triumphant refutation of such an objection, and to suggest that it is founded
on a wrong conception of the nature of education, which is to lay a strong,
Charron.
583
gait for the wind, the weather, or any other varying circumstance.' ¹
The province of this Prud'homie is the law of nature, that is the equity
and universal reason which enlightens and irradiates within each one
of us.
He who acts according to its impulse acts according to God.
Such are the characteristics which Charron assigns to his Prud'homi
-the attributes of his ideal sage. No doubt, there is a considerable
infusion of Stoicism in this portraiture; but we must recollect that
there is a phase of Christianity closely allied to the stern, self-asserting
qualities, which it is the tendency of the Stoic philosophy to produce;
and that it is precisely this aspect which is best adapted to counteract
certain kinds of religious and moral degeneracy. But Charron is not
satisfied with insisting on this heathen unsanctified virtue of integrity
(so I translate Prud'homie), without identifying or connecting it with
popular Christianity. In the first edition of his work he makes the
original impulse to the virtue of integrity to be Nature, which how-
ever he identified with God. In the second edition, a paragraph is
expressly added in order to make Divine Grace the effective working
power of integrity, comparing the virtue itself to 'organ pipes which
are silent until filled with the wind of God's grace.' Although the
distinction might be mainly nominal, it is clear that Charron pre-
ferred the unsophisticated terms Reason and Nature as the foundation
and motive influence of religious and moral excellence, to the more
usual terminology of Augustinian dogmatism. As he thus connects
Prud'homie with religion, so he is especially careful to point out the
limits of this connexion. Integrity is not to be separated from the
unsuperstitious piety which is a primary law of Nature; but they are`
by no means to be confounded together: piety and probity, religion
and integrity, are in fact two distinct things; they should be joined.
together, but not intermingled, so as, apparently, the existence of one
should be merged and swallowed up in that of the other. Charron,
it is clear, had seen-it was the source of the moral corruption of the
age ³—that ethical laws and principles were submerged and lost in the
firm, and broad foundation for after self-culture; not to build in every case a
towering superstructure. For the best interests of humanity it had been well
if the education of the past had been a little less positive and constructive, and
more suspensive and undogmatic than history shows it to have been.
1 Vol. ii. p. 78.
2
2 It must be remembered that the Christianity from which Charron desires
to keep his Prud'homie, was the vitiated Christianity of his time.
3 On this subject comp. H. Martin's Hist. de France, vols. v., vi., vii. and
viii., passim, or the histories of Michelet or Sismondi. Among other contem-
vary authors, Cornelius Agrippa inveighs in forcible terms against the
corruption of the time, and especially of the French Court, of which he had
some experience. He thus speaks of the state of a town in which the court
had taken up its residence: 'Jam vero recedens e civitate, aula, heu quam
584 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
external observance of religious rites. He desired to preserve his
Stoical virtue from the contamination of the unworthy motives, the
selfish impulses and considerations, which were allowed to prevail in
the debased Christianity then current. Above all he required, like
Pomponazzi, that the integrity he so earnestly advocated should be
self-sufficing and disinterested. That virtue and religion should be
regarded, not as a means to self-interest, but as their own privilege
and their own reward; that the duties suggested by them should
be performed entirely for their own sakes, for their own inherent
nobility and excellence, and not for any extraneous motive, of what-
ever kind. The language in which he urges this seems to me so
noble, so eloquent, so closely argued, as to be worth quoting, es-
pecially as it may serve also as a specimen of qualities which fully
account for his eminence as a preacher.
'Now, in order to complete my subject, consider this: what I wish
and require in my ideal wise man is a true integrity and a true
piety united and joined together in marriage, rather than that either
should exist and maintain itself without the help of the other, and
act by its own private impulse. I would have a man virtuous with-
out heaven and hell. The words are to me horrible and abominable,
"If I were not a Christian, if I were not afraid of God and of being
damned, I would or would not do this!" O coward and miserable
wretch! What thanks dost thou then expect for all that thou doest?
Thou art not wicked, thou darest not, for thou fearest punishment.
I would have thee not merely not to dare, but not even to wish; and
that although thou wert certain of never being called to account.
Thou actest the good man forsooth, in order to be paid, and be
requited with great thanks. I would thou wert so, even though no
one ever knew of it. I would that thou wert virtuous, because
Nature and Reason (that is, God) desired it; because the order and
general economy of the world, of which thou art a part, so required;
because thou wert unable to be otherwise, because thou couldest not
proceed against thyself, thy existence, thy welfare, thy destiny; and
fædam caudam post se relinquit! Hi adulteras comperiunt uxores, illi
stupratas, et vel abductas in scortam filias: alii supplantatos filios, alii corruptos
servos et ancillas. Quid multa? fit luctus ingens, totaque civitatis facies
immutata facta est, sicut facies meretricis. Scio ergo famosam Galliarum
urbem ea causa sic perversam, ut vix aliqua ibi matrona pudica sit, vix filiæ
nubant virgines: quin et Palatinum scortum fuisse summi honoris est, et
seniores matronæ juniorum lenæ sunt; eaque turpitudo sic invaluit, ut nullus
verecundiæ locus sit, vix maritis ipsis uxorum meretricatas curæ est, modo
(ut ait Abraham ad Saram), bene sit illis propter illas vivantque ob gratiam
illarum.'-De Incertitudine et Vanitate, cap. xviii.
Charron.
585
afterwards let come of thy conduct what may. I wish moreover for
the piety and religion, not which originates, causes or engenders that
integrity already born in thee, and forming part of thee, planted as
it is by Nature, but that which sanctions, authorizes and crowns it.
Religion is subsequent to integrity; it is moreover something appre-
hended by hearing (for faith cometh by hearing and by the word of
God), by revelation and instruction; and hence it cannot be a cause.
It is rather integrity which ought to cause and produce religion; for
it is the first, the more ancient and natural, that which teaches us
that we should render to every man his due, preserving for each his
own place.
Those therefore pervert all order who make
integrity follow, and be subordinate to religion.'1 'He who is a good
man,' says Charron elsewhere, 'by mere scrupulosity and religion, is
not so at all: do you avoid and despise such a man.
He who pos-
sesses religion without integrity, is more dangerous than the man.
who has neither the one nor the other.'
No doubt these were bold words. One can readily imagine the
mingled indignation and alarm they must have caused to the de-
bauched nobility and degenerate clergy of France. It was indeed a
novel 'wisdom' which Charron desired to promulgate. It amounted
to a clear and distinct subversion of the popular Catholicism of the
day. That religion, provided it were professedly orthodox, might
exist without integrity, was not merely a widely-diffused belief, it
was the ordinary standard of human action, for clergy and laity alike.
Moreover, the superiority of religion, even in its narrower acceptation,
to all other laws and standards of human duty was the very basis on
which the enormous fabric of Roman Catholicism had been reared.
Yet here we have Charron boldly controverting each position. Ac-
cording to him, religion without integrity is worse than worthless,
and the laws of Nature and Reason, by which integrity is innate in
every man, are both anterior and superior to the religion which can
1 These eloquent sentences form the concluding paragraph of chap. v. pp.
371, 372 (Book ii.), of the first edition of De la Sagesse. They are, however,
found in a diluted and extended form in Charron's own second amended
edition. The editors of M. Duval's edition do not seem to have noticed this,
for to the paragraph which they have inserted in their margin, pp. 156, 157,
they append the following note: 'Ce morceau, l'un des plus fortement pensés,
et des mieux écrits de tout l'ouvrage, a été retranché dans les éditions de 1604
et années suivants, faites à Paris et à Rouen, sous les yeux de la Sorbonne et
du Parlement.' Had they glanced over pp. 150-154 of their own edition, they
would have seen the reason why this paragraph was omitted. No doubt it
is more terse, spirited, and forcible in the first edition, and therefore more
calculated to give offence, but its substance is fairly given in subsequent
editions.
586
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
2
only be communicated by teaching. I quite agree with Sainte Beuve ¹
and others, that these impassioned expressions might under certain
circumstances be liable to abuse; still I think they are more than
justified by the exigencies of the time, and by the imperative need
of some counteracting influence to the immoral Christianity then
prevalent. For my part I classify Charron's noble appeal with the
istern denunciation against 'Religion without Integrity,' which we
have in Isaiah and others of the Hebrew prophets; and in certain
well-known utterances of Jesus Christ; while the principle that
service to God consists mainly in virtue or 'sanctified morality' I
regard as the fundamental law of Christianity as it is laid down in
the Sermon on the Mount. Charron but claimed for his Integrity
the prerogative which Milton assigns to its synonym:-
'She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.'
The mingled boldness and originality of our moral philosopher
brought on him, as might have been expected, no small amount of
obloquy and persecution, and his 'wisdom' produced, as human
3
1 Causeries de Lundi, xi. 258, 9: 'Charron ici, dans sa definition tant de la
probité que de la religion, et du lien qui les unit, a été tout occupé d'evitér à
son homme de bien la crainte des châtiments futurs pour unique principe
d'action, et il a trop oublié la charité et l'amour.'—p. 259.
2 The comment of M. Etienne, in his Essai sur La Mothe le Vayer, on Charron's
bold expressions seems worth quoting: 'Voilà des maximes hardies, dont on
pourra peut-être abuser; mais qu'on les place en leur lieu, dans un livra
destiné aux gens qui pensent; en leur temps, à la suite de la ligue, entre la
meurtre de Henri III et celui de Henri IV; qu'on les place au milieu d'un
siècle de confusion et de troubles, où il se fit tant de mal au nom de la plus
sainte des religions, et l'on comprendra que la danger alors n'était pas à dire
ces paroles, mais à ne les dire pas; on comprendra que la religion même,
en tant qu'elle est faite pour l'humanité, avait besoin du secours de toutes les
facultés humaines; que, pour procurer l'alliance si désirée de la raison et de
la foi, il fallait laisser la raison croître et grandir en liberté, prouver sa force.'
-P. 73.
3 Compare Voltaire :-
'Montaigne, cet auteur charmant
Tour à tour profond et frivole
Dans son chateau paisiblement
Loin de tout frondeur malévole,
Doutait de tout impunement,
Et se moquait tres-librement
Des bavards fourrés de l'Ecole;
Mais quand son élève Charron
Charron.
587
wisdom is occasionally apt to do, a rather abundant crop of con-
troversial folly and malignity. He did what he could to allay the
wounded feelings of friends and unfriends, without, so far as appears,
any compromise of essential principles. A comparison of the first
with the second edition of his work serves to show that the alter-
ations he himself made consisted rather in softening down harsh
expressions, in expanding what seemed too contracted, and explaining
what was doubtful, than in any real modification of opinion.¹ While
his amended edition was going through the press, he died; but the
malice of his enemies continued to rage for some years longer round
the monument of free-thought and disinterested virtue he bequeathed
to the world in the De la Sagesse.2
Plus retenu, plus methodique
De Sagesse donna leçon,
Il fut pres de périr, dit on,
Par la haine theologique.'
But as Sainte Beuve says, 'Charron ne fut nullement près de périr.' In fact,
he had too many powerful friends, both lay and ecclesiastical, to make such
a catastrophe at all probable. This circumstance stood him in good stead
when his amended version of De la Sagesse was about to be published after his
death. See Life, prefixed to M. Duval's edition.
1 As an example of the manner in which the second edition is altered from
the first, may be instanced Charron's account of the doctrine of the immor-
tality of the soul. In the first edition, he said of the doctrine, 'c'etait la chose
la plus utilement creue, la plus faiblement prouvée et establie par raisons et
moyens humains' (first edition, Bk. i. ch. xv.), which he altered in the
second edition to the words, 'la plus utilement creue, aucunement (i.e. in a
certain fashion), assez prouvée par plusieurs raisons naturelles et humaines,
mais proprement et mieux establie par le ressort de la religion que par tout
autre moyen' (second edition, Bk. i. ch. viii., Duval, vol. i. p. 73). The precise
difference between the 'plus faiblement prouvée' of the former, and the
aucunement assez prouvée' of the latter, may be left to causists, but it is
clear that the latter expresses an unsatisfactory, and therefore an infirm proof.
Besides amending the first edition of the Sagesse, Charron issued an abstract
of it called le Petit Traicté de la Sagesse, of which Le Vayer remarks (Prom. vi.,
Œuv. Comp., Dresden, iv. 194), that it is almost ('presque') a refutation of the
larger work. A comparison of the two will satisfy an unprejudiced reader
that the qualification is one urgently needed, and requires to be strongly
emphasized. On the whole subject of Charron's supposed modifications of
the views expressed in the first edition of his Sagesse, compare Bayle, Dict., v.
'Charron,' note 0: apropos of these alterations, which he truly says, are
mostly verbal, Bayle remarks, 'En plusieurs rencontres on ne parâit héretique
que par les manières de s'exprimer.'
2 Charron's principal enemies were the Jesuit Garasse, who, with the un-
measured invective too common to theological controversy, accuses Charron of
brutal atheism!! a physician named Chanet, and a writer, Dupleix. For
some account of these, see Bayle's Dict., Art. 'Charron,' also Ste Beuve, loc. cit.
588
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
But Charron's religion is not exhausted by the stress he laid upon
'Frud'homie.' As he himself tells us, this quality, though of pri-
mary importance, constituted its ethical moiety only, so that his
definition of Religion in the sense of personal conviction, i.e. the
attitude in which he conceived himself to stand towards his Maker,
must still be considered. We find, then, in all his works, in his
sermons as well as in The Three Truths and the Sagesse, occasional
traces of an esoteric phase of feeling, a mystic self-concentration and
devout sentiment, rising occasionally into religious ecstasy, which I
think we must take as his own secret religious standpoint, and which
serves fully to explain his contempt for the outward rites of religious
worship. On this point Charron is in general harmony with many of
our skeptics, with whom an undogmatic mysticism seems accepted as a
compensation to the religious sentiment for the skepticism and nega-
tion of the intellect; but he seems to me in special agreement with
the school of Italian free-thinkers whose influence in the South of
Europe was at this period very remarkable. We have seen that in
1586 Montaigne gave Charron a work of Ochino's-one of the leading
spirits in this movement.
The incident would not be worth notice but for its raising the
question how far Charron may have been indebted to these devout
rationalists for some of the profounder elements in his religious
formation. I do not wish to detract either from the originality of his
intellect or the tenderness and depth of his feeling; but the fact re-
mains that his works present us with some features which have a
striking resemblance to the doctrines of Ochino¹ and Valdez and
other teachers of the same school. Thus Charron was persuaded that
religion, on its human side, was individual. It consisted in a spirit-
ual personal intercourse between the believer and his God. It was
the worship enjoined by Christ'in spirit and in truth.' It was free,
spiritual, undogmatic, independent of verbal forms, as of all outward
acts of worship-the silent adoration of a skeptic, who feared lest
audible expressions or visible observances might involve him in dog-
matic assertion. His standpoint is so well illustrated by his own
words that I must trouble you with a few quotations. In the first of
his collected discourses he has a remarkable sermon on the Know-
6
1 It may be worth noting that in Ochino's Catechism, which Montaigne gave
Charron, we have the following points of affinity with the doctrine of the
latter. A distinct flavour of skepticism after the manner of Descartes. The
self-dependence and autocracy of the human consciousness. The conception of
worship as an exalted state of feeling. The definition of Religion as consisting
of piety and human duty. Comp. Dr. Benrath's work above mentioned, p. 294.
Charron.
589
1
ledge of God,' ¹ in which, after denouncing all formal modes of nam-
ing, defining and worshipping God, and declaring our utter ignorance
of Him, he thus concludes: 'Closing this my first sermon, I exhort
each of you to enter into himself, and to worship God in spirit and
in truth, by all the holiest and highest conceptions and perfect.
imaginations possible-with the conviction that all these, and as
many more as may be, remain infinitely beneath Him who is incom-
prehensible to every creature and who can only be known to Himself.
And so doing, to submit and resign yourself purely and
simply to Him, heartily desiring and demanding to be in His favour,
for that is the sovereign good; and this is true religion.' 2
And in another passage of the same sermon, in which the mystical
element is yet more apparent, after speaking of the dogmatic modes
in which men ordinarily think and speak of God, he continues: 'but
there is another way more noble, fruitful and honourable, more
agreeable to God and safer for ourselves, which does not treat Him
in the fashion of the schools, does not consist of words and precepts
-for all these are rudimentary preparations and crude exercises for
comprehending Him. It is a serious, cordial, humble and silent con-
templation, admiration and worship, born of a holy elevation of soul,
by means of which the mind, having first stirred up with all its force
its imagination, to the highest possible conception, to the greatest,
must complete goodness, power, wisdom, majesty, perfection, conceiv-
able; then recognising that all these imaginations are as nothing,
and that it cannot advance further or mount higher (for it is an abyss
without end, without foundation, without limit), it finally remains, as
in an ecstasy, altogether bewildered and transformed. This method.
puts a stop to discourse and words-seizes the whole soul, fills it and
endues it with a very great reverence, respect, adoration, love, devo-
tion towards that infinitude of perfections within which it remains
altogether captivated and enclosed.' The mental phase and direc-
tion of thought presented to us by these extracts seem to me im-
portant.
³
There are certain recondite profound potentialities, occasional,
perhaps rare moods of feeling, casual outbursts of passion, which
enter into every great human character, producing, it may be, a
somewhat distorting effect on it as a whole; but which, like the aber-
rations in a planet's orbit, must be taken into account in a scientific
1 See M. A. Duval's ed. of De la Sagesse, vol. iii. p. 320. This is the first
sermon in his collection of Discours Chretiens.
2 Loc. cit., p. 348.
³ Loc. cit., p. 340. The conclusion of the passage is still more expressive of
the devout rapture of the mystic.
590 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
determination of its actual course, and the various forces which govern
it. These evidences of deep religious emotion, in the case of a
thinker like Charron, are of especial value as indications of pietistic
feeling and aspiration, such as the general tone of his writings would
have hardly prepared us to expect. It proves at least that the emo-
tional coldness so often, and generally so justly, charged to austere
moralists, has no place in him. Not that I regard his mysticism as
an absorbing passion; it probably occupied just as small a portion of
his life as it did of his actual works. The bent of his intellect was
too rationalistic, his conception of human duty too practical, to allow
much play to mere transcendentalism; but I think these extracts
prove his undoubted capacity for such states of feeling, and are fair
presumptions, notwithstanding his Pyrrhonism, of his real piety.
Although I have now touched upon the principal features of Char-
ron's skepticism as well as of other constituents of his mental char-
acter, something remains to be added on the practical applications of
his theory, which take up the latter half of his Sagesse.
Having moulded his ideal sage, and endued him with the highest
motive principles both of speculation and action, he apportions him
his place and duties in the manifold relations of human existence.
'Nostre livre,' he says, 'instruit à la vie civile et forme un homme
pour le monde.' Accordingly he prescribes for him his conduct in
every conceivable position and under every variety of circumstance,
as ruler or subject, master or servant, married or single, parent or
child, friend or enemy, free or imprisoned, healthy or sick, etc., etc.
He commences with a dissertation on Political Philosophy and the
mutual duties of kings and subjects. Charron's treatment of this
subject has a twofold interest: 1. It enables us to ascertain how far
his undoubted love of freedom in speculation was combined with a
due appreciation of political liberty. 2. It serves to show the influ-
ence which the stormy events of his time had in the formation of his
theories as to statecraft and civil polity. With regard to the first,
Charron makes no approach, any more than does Montaigne himself,
to the undisguised republicanism which marks The Voluntary Servi-
tude of La Boëtie. On the other hand he insists on the autocratic
and independent power which he holds to be the unalienable preroga-
tive of all legitimate princes. Still he no less distinctly lays down
that this power is not to be used selfishly, or for any mere personal
aggrandisement. The supreme law of the prince should be the public.
welfare. 'Salus populi, suprema lex.' The prince, he says, 'should.
think that he has nothing he can properly reckon his own—he owes
himself to his subjects.'1 We may, I think, ascribe to the political
1 Vol. ii. p. 317.

Charron.
591
d social disturbances which marked the whole of his life, the fact
that these counsels of moderation and distinct intimations of the true
basis of constitutional government, are occasionally overpowered by
as distinct recommendations, under given circumstances, of a crafty
and absolutist policy. In cases of secret conspiracy, e.g. he incul-
cates a more than Machiavellian astuteness and treacherous cunning;
but at this, I confess, I am not surprised. Charron's precepts are to
be read and interpreted by the events which were passing around
him. He was thirty-five years of age when the Holy League was
organized with the ostensible object of uniting the chief Catholic
Powers in a crusade against Protestants and heretics. In the earlier
progress of this undertaking Charron seems to have taken so warm
an interest, that he was called 'the eloquent missionary of the
League.' Latterly, however, when his extreme Catholic principles
had become impaired by a growing affection for liberty both civil and
religious, as well as by the discovery that the ultimate object of the
League was the aggrandisement of the Guises, he warmly protested
against its treacherous machinations, as well as the unconstitutional
doctrine it finally promulgated, viz. that in case of incapable sove-
reigns, killing was no murder.¹
Without entering further on the political history of the time, we
may at least allow that Charron's judgment is declared in favour of
that alternative which had most likelihood of political and religious
freedom to recommend it.
But our skeptic is not content with defining the policy of the
ruler to his own subjects, and in every conceivable variety of circum
stance in times of peace. He is equally explicit on the best method
of waging war on a foreign foe. The requisites of a successful
campaign; the comparative advantages of mercenaries and native.
soldiers; the best method of winning battles, of making treaties, and
generally, the manifold duties of a successful general are dwelt upon
with almost as great minuteness as if the author had been brought
up to the noble profession of arms, or had expected that his military
'wisdom' would become the school of successful soldiers for ever
1 Charron's own account of his change of sentiment on the subject of the
League may be seen in a letter found in the appendix to M. Duval's edition of
the De la Sagesse, written, as we are assured, to a Doctor of the Sorbonne in
April, 1589 (just four months before the assassination of Henry III.). In this
interesting fragment Charron vehemently protests against the doctrine men-
tioned in the text, which had indeed been publicly promulgated by a decree of
the Sorbonne in 1587. It seems not improbable that this warm expostulation
to his friend was called forth by this decree. See De la Sagesse, vol. iii. appen-
dix, pp. 349–358.

592 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
after. Most readers of this part of Charron's book would, I thin
be inclined to suggest that a little of that skeptical self-distrust
which he is so fond of recommending, as the panacea for all human
, evils, would be a wholesome ingredient in the discussion of topics so
alien to his own profession and experience. But the art of war con-
stituted at that time so large a part of a monarch's duties, that any
treatment of kingly 'wisdom' which did not include it might, per-
haps, have been considered incomplete; and it was clearly Charron's
intention to make his treatise as full and comprehensive as possible.
Notwithstanding the adverse opinion of some critics, I do not
myself think that Charron's method of Education (Book iii. chap. 14)
owes more to Montaigne than other portions of his system. There
arc, of course, striking resemblances: both lay stress upon the same
elementary principles. Like his master, Charron insists on the
superiority of prudence (Sagesse) to knowledge, of native common
sense to mere book-learning; indeed, he carries this principle to such.
an excess that his highest ideal of human excellence is a kind of
virtuous and intellectual ignoramus-an impossible monstrosity,
which happily could only exist in the imagination of Charron or his
master. Similarly he lays stress on the advantages of the Sokratic
elenchus, on the duty of following Nature, of receiving nothing on
credit or by authority; in short, on the usual rudiments of what may
be called a skeptical, or at least undogmatic, system of education.¹
But intermingled with these characteristic precepts, there are, I am
bound to add, not a few wholesome maxims, the value of which are
recognized in some of the improved methods of teaching employed
in our own day. He attaches importance, e.g. to physical education
-moulding and strengthening the body as well as the mind-making
their studies pleasant to children, encouraging them to ask for
information, and to give their own ideas and impressions on the
different subjects of their education, etc. But taking his system as
a whole, it seems to me to suffer so much from its strongly skeptical
bias as to be only fitted to produce youthful and precocious Mon-
taignes and Charrons-doubtless the result most desiderated by its
author, though in my opinion, one scarcely advantageous to humanity.
I do not think we need investigate further the numerous ramifica-
tions and practical details of this part of our author's Sagesse. In
his desire of thoroughness he, as you may have noticed, pursues
his theme with a minuteness of elaboration which is frequently
excessive, and occasionally even grotesque and ridiculous.² We
are moreover sufficiently acquainted with the main principles of his
2 Cf. e.g. vol. iii. p. 72.
1 See preceding chap., p. 468.
Charron.
593
system; and all that is necessary is to apply them as far as possible
to the practical regulation of human conduct. We might indeed
condense the whole of the third book into a few pithy maxims, e.g.
'In speculation be skeptical and indifferent. In practice be prudent.
and honest. In all things be moderate and self-distrustful. So you
may attain tranquillity of mind, and be able to face death without
alarm.' Such, epitomized, is Charron's 'wisdom.' No doubt it is
the wisdom of Cato and Seneca rather than that of Christ; or rather
t exhibits the stern ethics of Christianity insufficiently qualified by
ts profound pathos, its sublime tenderness, its meekness, gentleness,
nd patience. It is the Christianity that denounced the hypocrisy of
scribes and Pharisees rather than that which manifested love and
ympathy for little children, and was filled with an infinite com-
ssion for the weak, helpless and fallen. Still, as I have already
ggested, its very imperfections, considered as a general code of
igion and ethics, may be said to constitute its special fitness for
forming the French society of his time. Its skeptical suspense
was a needed protest against the overweening dogmatism of the
Catholic on the one hand and the Huguenot on the other; besides
being calculated, as Charron supposed, to prepare the way for the
moral regeneration of his countrymen. Its broad, genial eclecticism
was a necessary outcome of the Renaissance and a much needed sub-
stitution of cosmopolitan culture for the narrow teaching of School-
men and theologians. Its resolute independence of thought, in
principle if not always in application, was probably as great an
approximation to Protestantism as Catholic France was capable of
receiving. Its stern and unselfish morality was the best antidote to
the corruption and profligacy of the age; while the moderation and
indifference it inculcated was an emphatic reproach to a society in
which human passions, feelings, and motives of conduct were fre-
quently carried to a mischievous and ungovernable excess.
We are now, I think, in a position to 'place' our skeptic among
the free-thinkers of his own epoch, whether French or Italian; and
our task is made the easier by his possession of specific qualities
which, taken in the aggregate, mark him from every other free-
thinker. Charron is not a mere colourless skeptic, devoid of all
principles and convictions. His skepticism, as I have pointed out,
is methodical. He acts on the maxim: Disbelieve that you may
believe. Deny that you may affirm. Nor again is he a mere
plagiarist. To regard him, as some critics do, as an echo of Mon-
taigne, reproducing his thoughts without acknowledgment, and using
the Essais merely as the quarry to supply him with materials for
building his own Temple of Wisdom, is doing him the greatest

594 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
possible injustice. The influence of the Essais is more corroborative
than originating. What degree of free-thought Charron might have
attained had he never known Montaigne and his works it is useless.
to ask, but I believe it would not have differed much from his actual
standpoint, which, both in audacity and mental freedom, I regard as
considerably in advance of Montaigne.
The peculiarities which differentiate Charron's skepticism seem to

me:
1. The unrestrained application of his skepticism to all religions.
2. His definition of and stress on Prud'homie.'
(
3. His general sympathy with modern and liberal ideas.
I. Charron derived his skepticism, so far as it was not the native
product of his own restless inquiring intellect, from two source
the Classics, and the Essais of Montaigne. Without possessi
Montaigne's knowledge of antiquity, or sharing his desire to displ
it, Charron's acquaintance with classical authors was very conside
able. There are few writers whom he does not quote either in The
Three Verities or in the Sagesse. He is therefore a child of the
Renaissance equally with his master, and from the same sources he
not unnaturally draws the same conclusion; but his chiefest lesson
was Skepticism; the sages of antiquity agreeing in this respect.
with the philosophy of Montaigne and with his own researches.
All affirm that truth is impossible to man. All the methods and
instruments he can employ in its investigation are self-convicted of
weakness, vacillation and error. The senses, reason, common
opinion, the conclusions of philosophers, laws, social customs are all
shown to be uncertain. Here then naturally faith and revelation
come in. Religion must supply the defects of the reason. Charron
not only allows its mission in this respect, but like so many other
ecclesiastical skeptics, pleads for it. The function of Pyrrhonism is
to prepare the way for faith. The philosophic mind is like white
paper on which anything may be inscribed. But when he comes to
consider what impression is likely to be inscribed on such a skeptical
"tabula rasa," by the ecclesiasticism of Rome, Charron is filled with
doubt and apprehension. Is then, he asks, this Christianity the only
Divine revelation, the sole exponent of the will of God. He has no
choice but to reply in the negative. Christianity only possesses an
existence of a few centuries. It is also limited in space. There
must have been some prior revelation of God's will. And this à priori
necessity is shown to be a fact by the wisdom and enlightenment
of great nations who lived before the coming of Christ. Thus
Charron accepts the theory of Raymund of Sabieude of a Natural
Charron.
595
Religion prior to those contained in the Bible. But it is instructive
to observe the changes which the theory undergoes. Raymund, you
will remember, makes his Natural Theology an introduction to
Romanist dogma. Montaigne and the Italian philosophers gave the
original teaching of Nature a wider and fuller scope, accepting as
its dictates, principles and conduct more or less non-moral and unre-
strained; while Charron makes the outcome of the Natural Reason
to be human duty-the morality of the Stoics. But the problem
remains unsolved: What is the relation of this natural, primary law
of human prudence (Prud'homie) to the demands of Roman ecclesi-
asticism, to the routine of religious worship, prayers, sacrifices,
sacraments? At this point Charron's peculiarity breaks forth. Other
skeptics had questioned or denied the truth of Roman dogma; Charron
throws doubt also on the wisdom and appropriateness of its modes
of worship. All those pious usages were, when well examined, absurd;
they denoted not man's strength but his weakness; they proved not
his truth but his error. I have already hinted that this conception
was confirmed (not improbably, indeed, was first suggested) by the
demonstrated inefficiency of external and ritual worship in the debased.
condition of the sixteenth-century Romanism, to make men good moral
citizens. But another conception aided him in forming the same
conclusion, i.e. his profound conviction of human wretchedness and
shortcoming. Man could no more discover or approach God by his de-
votional efforts than he could attain truth by his intellectual energies.
Outward acts of worship therefore assumed to Charron the likeness
of dogmas-external expressions of theories which he regarded as
inconclusive, and from which he fled to pietistic feeling and aspira-
tion. Possibly, too, his spiritual insight detected the truth that
the ordinary methods by which men approach God are necessarily
unworthy of His own spirituality and infinity. Material buildings,
outward rites, puerile symbols and elements had long arrogated in
the Church a position and sanctity out of all proportion to their
intrinsic importance. Assuming this to be the basis of his reasoning,
Charron's protest against religious rites partakes of the polemical
attitude of Luther and Calvin against the observances of Rome;
but, of course, going far beyond those dogmatists in freedom and
audacity. Charron is thus the only free-thinker on our list who
applies his skepticism to religious worship of every kind; and this,
too, without seeming to consider the doctrines of the Church of Rome,
except so far as they are included in his general estimate of all truth
as uncertain. This characteristic distinguishes him therefore from
those numerous skeptics who attacked the dogmas of the Church, and
passed over her worship in silence.
596 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
1
II. But there was another reason why Charron should have attacked
the external acts of all religions alike. They constituted the weakness
of Romanism. Their performance enabled the evil, immoral man to
claim the title of Religious. They were therefore directly hostile to
Charron's own chosen virtue of Prud'homie. From this point of view
Charron's skepticism is not only defensible but commendable. All
ethical reformers have to contend with an exaggerated estimate of
the moral value and practical efficacy of acts of religious worship.
Charron's Prud'homie partakes of the character of that duty which
Christ himself substituted for 'whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.'
Not that I think Charron had any distinct notion that in rehabilitating
and restoring Prud'homie to its place in human existence he was
bringing back the main characteristic of Christ's own teaching. As I
have already pointed out, the skeptical development, marked by the
advance of the Sagesse above The Three Truths, is accompanied by an
inferior estimate of Christianity. In the latter work Christianity is
contrasted with other religions, and shown to be superior in point of
morality and other qualities ¹; but in the Sagesse a different standpoint.
is adopted, which may be described as an accentuation of Montaigne's
principle, that the religion of any country or people is like its name
-a geographical expression, and that a diversity of nations and
races require a diversity of religions and modes of worship. This is
indeed one of Charron's favourite ideas, and he does not hesitate to
speak in the plural of 'true religions,' meaning, I presume, those that
preserve the essential features of Christianity. Hence I think Dr.
Trevor mistaken in his Essay on Montaigne, when he seemed to say
that the great essayist cherished a fond retrospect of the first pure
form of Christianity as a counteractive to ecclesiastical corruption.
The standpoint of Montaigne and, in a lesser degree, of Charron,
was altogether different. The only Christianity they admitted as
authoritative was its Romanist form; and though they recognized its
evolutionary character, they did not care to discriminate carefully
stages in which truth became gradually transformed to falsehood
and purity to corruption. Their golden age of humanity was pre-
Christian antiquity-the revelation antecedent to all others of Nature,
Reason, and Morality. Charron saw that the virtue of Prud'homie, or
2
1 Les Trois Vérités, Book ii., pp. 107-150. See especially p. 147, where the
distinctive excellencies of Christianity are brought together in a passage of
great eloquence.
2 One exception to this general remark, so far as it applies to Charron's
Sagesse, may be found in a passage pointing out how Christ destroyed the
sacrificial rites, etc., of the Mosaic law :-' Et en fin le fils de Dieu, Docteur de
Vérité, estant venu pour sevrer et desniaiser le monde, les a du tout abolis
etc.'-Vol. i. p. 262.
Charron.
597
integrity, existed as an authoritative principle independently both of
the Jewish and Christian revelations. It was a rule of conduct
taught by pagans, and exemplified by their lives. It was the first
Book of Raymund of Sabieude-the primary Religion of Nature.
Few comments on the degeneracy and baneful influence of Roman-
ism, as it presented itself to the thinkers of the fifteenth and sixteenth
century, are more striking than their eagerness to appeal directly to
Nature as the ultimate sanction of human duty; and their inability, as
a rule, to appreciate the teaching of Christ Himself on this subject.
Montaigne and Charron are on this point followed by all the French
skeptics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some allowance
no doubt, should be made for thinkers like the former, who were formed.
by the Renaissance and who shared its delirium of classicalism. The
ages of pagan virtue, as they conceived them, were on the whole more
enlightened than as well as ethically superior to the 'Ages of Faith.'
They saw antiquity through the coloured glasses of its best literary and
human products. Athens in its best days was a society of men like
Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aristides, etc. Rome was a municipa
lity of citizens resembling Brutus, the Gracchi, Cicero, Cato, and
Seneca. Nay, even setting aside these rarer products of culture, and
having regard only to less civilized communities, they preferred a
state of society more simple and unsophisticated, more natural and
unpretending, more free in thought and speculation, and especially
less contaminated by those peculiarly hateful vices that followed in
the train of dominant ecclesiasticism-hypocrisy, greed, lust, tyranny,
bigotry and cruelty. Even the savage customs of uncivilized races
were preferable to some of the usages of Christianized societies. As
Montaigne remarked, Cannibalism as a social institution was more
humane and less discreditable to civilization than the tortures of the
Inquisition. However much, therefore, some may regret the fact, we
cannot feel surprised that Charron looked back beyond the confines
of Palestine and the time-limits of A.D. for the first indications of a
universal revelation, or that, like Tyndal, he should have made his
Christianity to be 'as old as the creation."
No small merit must, in my opinion, be assigned to Charron in thus
giving to Natural Theology a distinctively ethical aspect. He thus
contrasts favourably with most free-thinkers among his own coun-
trymen, from Montaigne to Rousseau, who have gone to Nature for
their religion. At the same time there is no philosophical attempt to
connect his Prud'homie with the outward rites or profession of
religion. He says vaguely that Prud'homie ought to produce religion,
apparently meaning that the same policy of duty which impels a
man to ethical conduct ought also to stimulate him to the pietistic
VOL. II.
N
598
2. Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
feeling and recognition of the Supreme Being. Without religion, he
says, Prud'homie becomes Atheism; while religion divorced from
Prud'homie becomes what is even worse-hypocrisy, tyranny and
immorality. But he is not very solicitous to make his Prud-homie
claim kindred with ecclesiastical usages or express itself by their
means. Ultimately he seems inclined to leave the two poles of his
belief, God and Morality, standing somewhat apart as external facts,
or truths, though not altogether dissevered in the spiritual conscious-
ness, and he deprecates any attempt to reconcile them as likely to
result in the loss of independence and autonomy, which are the in-
herent prerogatives of each.
M
III. Not the least remarkable feature in Charron's Sagesse are its
numerous approximations to theories and ideas which have become
current in the present century. He seems especially permeated with
evolutionary notions. He has no hesitation in admitting, e.g. that
all religions are growths-the natural developments of certain ele-
mentary truths and feelings. To use his words: 'They all agree in
many things, have for the most part the same principles and founda-
tions, accord as to their subject, hold the same progress and proceed
at the same rate. Further, they have all taken birth nearly in the
same climate and air. All of them invent and supply miracles, pro-
digies, oracles, sacred mysteries, saints, prophets, holy days, certain
articles of faith and belief presumably needful to salvation. All are
in their origin and first commencement small, weak, and humble; but
little by little, through the following and sympathetic acclamation of
adherents, together with the aid of attractive fictions, they have
taken root and become authorized, so that all of them, even the most
absurd, are maintained with affirmation and devotion.' 1 We have
thus the rudiments of Comparative Theology. It illustrates Charron's
free-thought that he readily accepts what must always be an axiom
of every such science, i.c. the co-equality in kind of all the great
religions of the world. I need not point out that such a belief
harmonizes with his opinion already mentioned-that the religions of
nations and races are, like their other characteristics, determined by
given conditions in their surroundings. A fair deduction from these
ratiocinations would be the complete indifference of all religions, but
that is not Charron's conclusion. Against his idea of the intolerance,
superstitions, and absurdities which attach to all religions must be
placed his discrimination between Religion and Superstition. He
frequently, too, urges on his wise man the due observance of the
religious rites prescirbed by the Church as being both obligatory,
¹ De la Sagesse, ed. 1, p. 352.
Charron.
599
regarded as a duty to God, and beneficial to the sage himself.
Charron's modern spirit is especially manifested in his account of the
diversities of thought and life which pertain to the inhabitants of
different countries. The larger portion of the first Book of his
Sagesse (chaps. 37 to 53) is taken up with this congenial theme, on
which Montaigne and Le Vayer also delighted to expatiate. Charron
almost vies with Mr. Buckle in the importance he attaches to man's
physical surroundings, and their influence on his mind no less than
his body. Another resemblance to current theorizing is found in hist
denial that animals are distinct from men in respect of their moral
qualities. He agrees with Montaigne that all the attributes generally
classed as moral have been found in the lower animals, though his
proofs, like those of Montaigne's, will not bear investigation. In-
cidentally, too, I may notice that Charron prefers cremation te
ordinary modes of burial, probably instigated in this, as in other
preferences, by his enthusiasm for classical antiquity.
เ
Charron's skepticism, I have already admitted, is largely due to his
intellectual idiosyncrasy. He was essentially a many-sided thinker.
If we cannot say that he was a believer in two-fold truth, it is only
for the reason that his conception of truth was manifold. He is
almost as เ ondoyant' as his master. His philosophical works.
abound in contradictions. Thus if he ridicules religions as absurd,
he also commends and enjoins them as necessary parts of wisdom.
He both maintains and rejects the notion of Revelation. Christianity
is superior to other religions, and it is not. If he inveighs in one
place against the atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion, he
in another recommends his wise prince to chastise rudely' those
who attempted to make any innovations in the religion of the state.
If he eulogizes Pyrrhonic suspense, he announces his own convictions
in a tone that betrays no trace of hesitancy or uncertainty. If he
disapproves the employment of future rewards and punishments to
influence human action, he nevertheless admits that of all tenets of
the same kind immortality is most usefully believed. If he insists
on the priority of Prud'homie to religion as Nature to Grace, he also
in one instance makes Grace the needed pre-requisite for moral virtue.
It is clear that Charron, though infinitely more methodical than
Montaigne, was not careful to preserve a strict consistency and uni-
formity in his writings. The effect of this would have been to
prevent his free expatiation among the multifarious contents of the
universe and the countless inconsistencies that pertain to humanity.
He claimed in the preface to the first edition of the Sagesse to use in
his writings Academic and philosophical liberty; and he made ample
use of this self-imparted freedom.
600
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
But among all his vacillations and inconsistencies, the uncertain-
ties and mutabilities of his speculation, two main truths stand out
prominently and boldly, like two rocks in a stormy sea, occasionally
submerged beneath the waves and tides, but certain to reappear
sooner or later. These are Religion and Integrity, or God and human
duty-in other words, the two fundamental truths of Christianity
demanded by its Founder. For this reason he appears to me to stand
on a much higher pedestal, as a teacher of humanity, than Montaigne.
It would be impossible to find in the Essais anything like that pane-
gyric on Prud'homie, or that ecstatic contemplation of God, which I
quoted and described to you. Montaigne's commendation of moral
duty is always cold and indifferent, as if it were a needed but pain-
ful sacrifice to social custom and prejudice; whereas nothing can be
more fervent and enthusiastic than Charron's glorification of Prud'-
homie. A still greater distinction would pertain to their respective
estimates of religious feeling. A further difference, moreover, relates
to their degree of skepticism. Montaigne's 'Quoi scais je repre-
sents the skeptic who is so vacillating and frivolous that he does not
care even to pronounce on his own Nescience. Whereas Charron's
motto, 'Je ne scay,' represents the thinker who has determined his
own personal condition of Nescience, and is not afraid to avouch it.
There can be no doubt that Charron was professedly a Pyrrhonist,
though I do not think he made his negation absolute. When the
charge of Pyrrhonic skepticism is preferred against him, he meets it
partly with evasion and partly by alleging that the value of a
principle should be judged by its use, and the results it seems likely
to attain. But the Pyrrhonism he thus pleads guilty to is, in point
of fact, not genuine Pyrrhonism at all; I mean, it is not absolute
suspense in and for its own sake. 'It is needful,' he says, 'to
remove one thing before replacing it by another, to drive forth the
old possessor before establishing the new. Purge out the old leaven,
put off the old man,' he exclaims, with an application of St. Paul's
language which would, I think, have astonished its author not a
little. Having gained this point,' he proceeds, and rendered men
Academics or Pyrrhonists, we may propose the principles of Christi-
anity as a revelation from heaven.' 1 As you may suppose, I am far
from thinking Charron's method free from objection; it suffers from
that fatal dichotomy which we have considered in our discussion on
twofold truth; but I think the end he had in view, the moral re-
generation of his country, was noble, imperatively necessary, and in
the truest sense of the word, Christian.
เ
1 Le Petit Traicté in De la Sagesse, vol. iii. p. 311.
Charron.
601
Considered as a contribution to French literature, the success of
Charron's Wisdom is undoubted. Together with Montaigne's Essays
and Le Vayer's works, it formed the staple of French popular litera-
ture on the subjects of religion and morality during the latter half
of the seventeenth century. If Montaigne's Essais was the breviary
of men of the world, Charron's Wisdom was the gospel of the more
serious and reflective among French thinkers,¹ who were not quite
content with the teaching which the Gascon philosopher seemed to
inculcate, and to leave ordinary moral duty an open question. Both
works were pioneers of new methods of thought and inquiry. Both
ostensibly taking their ground on the outside of medieval Catholic-
ism, and contributed not a little to impair its exclusive authority.
Moreover both tended to the enlargement and secularization of human
thought, which in France, as in Italy, was, as we have seen, the form
which the Reformation mostly assumed. Hence they occupy the same
position in France as the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum, or the
popular writings of Luther in Germany. To call Montaigne and
Charron the French representatives of Luther and Calvin 2 would
seem an exaggeration, almost an historical paradox; but it is certain
that taking the nation throughout, if they cannot claim the title,
there are none others on whom it can be conferred, for the influence
of Ramus, though of a higher kind, was too exclusively academic to
merit it. French Protestantism cannot claim to have been then, any
more than it is now, a really popular movement. It lacks, or appears
to me to lack, the primary attribute of life-growth. There are,
perhaps, reasons of race why Protestantism, with its gravity, its
deeply religious spirit, its resolute attempt to harmonize belief with
practice on the one hand, and with knowledge on the other, is
unsuited for the French nation as a whole. Such wisdom' as
Charron's, therefore, seems to me to represent pretty accurately that
combination of religion and philosophy, of faith and skepticism, of
freedom and restriction, by which Frenchmen have ever been most
¹ As M. Etienne puts it, 'Si Montaigne était le breviaire des libres pen-
seurs, Charron fut leur drapeau.'-Essai sur La Mothe le Vayer, p. 70. An-
other critic quoted by Sainte Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, xi. p. 267, speaks of
persons 'qui prenaient Charron pour Socrate, et l'Apologie de Raimond Sebond
pour l'Evangile.'
2 Most writers make Descartes the real founder of French free-thought, and
ascribe to him an influence in France analogous to that of Luther in Germany,
but we must remember that the critical and destructive portions of his system
had long been anticipated, not only by Montaigne and Charron, but also by
La Vayer, whose Dialogues of Oratius Tubero, published in 1633, preceded by
four years Descartes', Discours de la Methode. See M. Etienne's Essai sur La
Mothe le Vayer, p. 28.
602 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
attracted.¹ Hence it possesses a kind of national significance; for al-
though the book is now hardly anything more than a literary fossil—
an antiquated memorial of advanced speculation some three centuries
since, yet like similar remains in geology, it represents organisms
that still live and move around us. It is typical of modes of thought
and speculation, which seem permanently engrained in the French
character. If Montaigne be, as Sainte Beuve asserts, the wisest
Frenchman that ever lived, Charron's Sagesse, which systematized
him, may claim to be a general exponent of French wisdom; and I
think you will agree with me that Frenchmen might easily have a
worse.
*
*
After the customary vote of thanks :-
*
*
ARUNDEL (rolling up his MS.). Well, ladies and gentlemen,
what do you think of my French Solomon, the author of the
most noteworthy Book of Wisdom' of modern times?
เ
6
MISS LEYCESTER. I should think the better of him if he had
not chosen such a presumptous title. You have pointed out
how well the distinction between Montaigne's query Quoi
scais je?' and Charron's resolute 'Je ne scay' marks the dif-
ferent characters of the men. A similar difference is, I think,
indicated by the titles of their works, Montaigne's tentative
Essais contrasted with Charron's positive Wisdom.
HARRINGTON. Charron's title is but the expression of an
opinion, common, necessarily, to all skeptics,-that wisdom and
skepticism are to a certain extent identical. You could hardly
have expected him to call his favourite mode of thought-folly.
And, taking his work as a whole, I do not think his title arro-
gates more than thoughtful readers would willingly concede.
'Wisdom' seems to me 'justified of her Charron,' if I may ven-
ture to transpose the well-known maxim. What can be nobler,
or more in harmony with the highest instincts of mankind,
than his eloquent inculcation of disinterested virtue and reli-
gion? When will our religious teachers learn to lay due stress
on the fact a fundamental law, I take it, of natural theology—
that virtue is its own reward, and vice its own punishment?
1 Comp. Gabriel Naudé: 'Feu M. le Cardinal Bagni me demanda, un jour
quel etoit le meilleur de tous les livres; je lui dis, qu'après la Bible il me
sembloit, que e'etoit la Sagesse de Charron.'—Naudæana, p. 4.
Charron.
603
ARUNDEL. When they find that people, especially the more
thoughtless and uneducated among the lower classes, are sen-
sibly influenced by such sublime considerations. For many
years I have, in my teaching, dispensed as much as possible
with extraneous rewards and punishments as incentives to
godliness and virtue, but I have found it impossible to do so
altogether. Take a not uncommon case in a country parish—
a concentration of the worst evils of human existence: poverty,
sickness, and friendlessness-and attempt to treat such a case
with the palliatives and tonics which the Stoic philosophy
furnishes; why, you might just as well treat a violent fever
or galloping consumption with homœopathic globules. I re-
member one especial case which came under my notice a few
years ago, in which my patient was sufficiently educated and
thoughtful to understand the argument. Her disease was con-
stitutional and painful. When I first began to visit her I
attempted to console her by the trite reflection that pain and
sickness are necessary incidents in the lot of humanity, the
outcome of natural and often inevitable law. Of course she
acquiesced, with the justifiable remark that such a considera-
tion did not render her lot more easy. I then dwelt on the
duty of patience and resignation as bringing its own reward,
and also its probable effect as an example to other sufferers ;
but I was met with the complaint that she did not know what
she had done to be made a scapegoat for others. I pushed this
kind of Stoic considerations as far as my office as a Christian
minister seemed to warrant; but they were evidently inade-
quate. She at last told me that were it not for the thought
of heaven she would be quite unable to support her trials.
No! Stoicism may serve with men of a certain class―men of
vigorous minds, sanguine temperaments, and comprehensive
views, having their intellectual and moral character braced by
education, self-discipline, and reflection; but when we have
to teach the poor and comfort the sick, we must employ some
more human motive and distinct consolation than its philo-
sophy seems able to impart.
TREVOR. Yet a Stoic or Buddhist might fairly reply that
many a virtuous Pagan had suffered injustice and borne pain
with calmness and equanimity, who had never heard of the
604 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
considerations you speak of. For my own part, I should be
sorry to take away any prop to human virtue, patience, and
gcdness, however unsound or unnecessary it might seem to
o hers. Its value as a prop, we must remember, can only be
estimated by the real additional strength it affords, and those
who have leant on and tested it are better judges of this than
mere onlookers can be. Of course, genuine perfection, the
sublime both in religion and ethics, can only be attained by
making the motives and sanctions in either case as free from
the adulteration of human selfishness as possible. The very
idea of a prop implies imperfection, however inevitable.
But meanwhile we are forgetting Charron, and I must avow
my own dissent from your theory of his skepticism. I do not
think that it is adopted as a mere preliminary to ethical teach-
ing; on the contrary I think it is as complete and absolute as
we could have expected. His occasional concessions to reli-
gious orthodoxy I regard as a kind of arrière pensée—a faint
echo of convictions in which he had been brought up, and
which would sometimes assert themselves in spite of his voli-
tion. Moreover, absolute morality-the categorical imperative
of ethics-is, as we know, a very frequent accompaniment of
unlimited skepticism. Indeed, such an unconditional assertion
is the only harbour of refuge left to the enquirer who has
thrown overboard the ballast of caution and human opinion,
and has abandoned sail and helm to the guidance of free specu-
lation. Such thinkers as Kant and John Stuart Mill found
anchorage there after traversing restlessly the great ocean of
metaphysical and moral science, or rather Nescience. That
Charron's bark finds its way into the same secure haven is no
proof that its course was not determined by similar agency,
but is, I submit, some slight presumption of the contrary.
HARRINGTON. Charron's attitude in respect of religion, i.e.
the imperfection of all religious rites, seems to me strong
prima facie evidence of a skeptical tendency which is practi-
cally unlimited. This, it must be remembered, is the territory
of all others in which, on the hypothesis of his partial skepti-
cism, we might have expected clear indications of caution and
constraint. But I must confess that I am unable to discover
any symptoms of the kind. Besides, whatever his opinions
Charron.
605
may have been as to the religious degeneracy and moral laxity
of his age, it is not on this ground that he finds fault with
religious rites. His animadversions apply with equal force to
all conceivable modes of religious worship. The only religion
that would have satisfied him would have been Quakerism.
ARUNDEL. I am fully aware that absolute morality is fre-
quently found in combination with the utmost latitude of
speculation. Indeed, I regard this compulsory affirmation of
elementary truth, after the reasoning faculties have exercised
their most destructive powers, as a divinely implanted instinct.
Varying Trevor's simile, I should term it a life-boat which is
happily always available after every religious and intellectual
shipwreck. Still, though the combination be natural, I do not
think it inevitable, for immutable morality may be found in
conjunction with ordinary dogmatism, as e.g. in the case of our
own Cudworth,¹ and therefore its forming a principal part of
Charron's creed proves nothing as to the extent of his skepti-
cism. That this was really partial I ground upon his repeated
explanations of the use and purpose of Pyrrhonism, especially
in relation to Christianity. I hardly think we are justified in
rejecting his own evidence, and substituting inferences of our
own on such a point. As to Harrington's objection, I have
already admitted that Charron's language on the subject of
religions sounds dangerous; nevertheless, I think his meaning
is really innocent. He merely expresses in an exaggerated
form what I suppose every reflective man has felt as to the
outward rites of religious worship, i.e. that the object aimed at
is so far above the imperfect means employed that the latter
are apt occasionally to seem trivial and utterly disproportion-
ate. This is what we understand by calling such rites the
means of Grace, language which certainly does not imply
inherent perfection. Of course Charron considers the question
from the point of view of the intellect; but as a matter of
devotional feeling you have a corresponding truth in many
an evangelical hymn and prayer. Express the feeling of Solo-
¹ Among English divines, one of the most powerful advocates of immutable
truth is Dr. Rust, Bishop of Dromore, concerning whom see Hunt, History of
Religious Thought, vols. i. and ii., and Tulloch's Rational Theology, ii. pp. 433–
437.
606 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
mon's prayer at the dedication of the temple, or of the well-
known verse,-
'In vain we tune our feeble songs,
In vain we strive to rise;
Hosannahs languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies,'-
as a logical proposition, and you must perforce use language
not dissimilar to Charron's.
MISS LEYCESTER. I really do not see why Dr. Trevor and
you, Charles, should throw doubt on Charron's substantial
orthodoxy. My theory of him, and I hope no one will try
to make it coherent or consistent-that it has precedents to
justify it our investigations have abundantly proved-is that
he was both a skeptic and an earnest believer. Occasionally,
when he mounted his Pegasus of Reason or Nature, he found
himself carried by his hard-mouthed steed a little farther than
perhaps he wished to go, and he was too honest a man not to
avow the fact. At other times and moods, with his intellect
(kindled by devout rapture) subdued by devotion and religious
sympathy, or else restrained by traditional conscience, his
older beliefs returned with something of their former vigour.
Charron is in fact, like a few more of our skeptics, a díyvxos,
or double-souled man, and for my part I have not the slightest
wish to reconcile his antagonisms. He is much more human
as he is. As to his orthodoxy, even Bayle, who cannot be
accused of any undue prepossession in favour of ecclesiastical
orthodoxy, has no doubt on the point, and says, moreover, that
there is just as little doubt of his piety.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Is it not a little curious that a free-
thinker like Charron should on two occasions have wished to
immure himself within the walls of a convent?
ARUNDEL. His motive may have been either studious leisure,
or a retreat from the political turmoils of the time. In this, as
in other respects, there is a striking parallel between Charron
and Huet of Avranches, who retired to the Jesuit home in
Paris to end his days.
TREVOR. I suspect, too, that there was then, as perhaps
now, more free-thought and inquiry circulating furtively in
monkish cells and craniums than we are aware of, especially
Charron.
607
when the abbot or prior was himself a scholar and a thinker.
It was, however, a fortunate thing for the world that Charron
was refused admission, for (it might have been a reaction from
an unusual access of devotional fervour) we find him almost
directly after sitting at the feet of Montaigne, and probably
planning, or as least acquiring, some of the elements of his
Book of Wisdom.
MRS. HARRINGTON. I have been waiting to hear whether
any of you noticed what seemed to me a contradiction in Mr.
Arundel's paper.
I mean his account of the relation between
Montaigne and Charron. In one place he said that Charron
was a more advanced skeptic than Montaigne, in another, that
he set himself to oppose his master's extravagancies.
ARUNDEL. I plead guilty to the inconsistency, which is,
however, only the shadow thrown by the same attribute in
my subject. Charron was, in my opinion, a more advanced
skeptic than Montaigne: because his negative was more pro-
nounced, as I observed at the end of my paper; and because he
was less cautious and reserved in extending his Pyrrhonism,
theoretically at least, into the subject-matter of religious
creeds and worship. On the other hand, Charron endeavoured
to repress the immorality that was an outcome of the teaching
of the Essais. On this point his relation to Montaigne re-
sembled that of Sokrates to the Sophists-admitting his own
Nescience in speculation, but vigorously reprobating the moral
licence that some ethically weak disciples wished to associate
with it; and maintaining the innate nobility and authority
of virtue, as well as its superiority to the gods themselves.
Indeed, I think Charron has many characteristics in common
with Sokrates, and that he deserves the title of the French
Sokrates' much more than Montaigne.
6
HARRINGTON. One point you incidentally touched upon I
should like to have seen expounded, viz. Charron's assertion
that Atheism can only exist in extremely strong minds—a state-
ment which you think Pascal accepted with a qualification.
I know there has always been in France an idea of this kind,
'Esprits forts' being held to be synonymous with Atheists.
Now I confess my entire inability to see any valid ground for
what I suppose was intended as a laudatory distinction. I
608 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
would rather say with La Bruyère, 'Les esprits forts savent-ils
qu'on les appelle ainsi par ironie?' The strength assumed to
be implied in the rejection of beliefs or rules of conduct pro-
fessed by an overwhelming majority of mankind, is generally
only a subtle form of weakness. The inability of a man to
recognise any traces of a Divine mind in the universe is to
me a proof of helplessness, or of that curious form of human
vanity that loves to proclaim itself eccentric. We may com-
pare it to the similar imbecility that refuses to recognize the
binding nature of social and moral restraints. The profligate
might just as well confound the weakness that cannot control
his passions with the strength supposed to be necessary to
despise social barriers on grounds of intellect or reason.
That there are men born with a deficient religious insight is
just as true as that some are born with deficient perceptions,
mental or physical; but it would be a curious inversion of all
ordinary processes of reasoning to allow them to boast of their
congenital infirmities as proving their superiority to other
men. Once allow this argument, and we might go to lunatic
asylums for our philosophers and sages.
TREVOR. The whole question is much too large for our
short discussions.
I however quite agree with you as
to the inherent weakness of Atheism. It is weak, as all dog-
matism—especially on speculative and inscrutable subjects—
is weak. It denies, categorically, what it cannot prove by
negative demonstration, admitting such a demonstration to be
possible. In any case, the proof of God's non-existence must
be infinitely more difficult than that of His existence. The
Theist has both a standpoint and a presumption of truth in
the undeniable existence of the universe, while the Atheist has
to arrive at his conviction in direct opposition to all the bear-
ings of the argument. The only universe that could demon-
strate the non-existence of God would be one of absolute
vacuity.
As to the religious sense, it seems to be an
instinct unconsciously developed partly from grounds of reason,
partly from impulses of feeling-the capacity for which might
become inheritable among Theistic races. Hence I cannot
agree with you as to the importance to be attached to its pri-
vation in any given case. We must in fairness remember the
•
Charron.
609
myriads of Buddhists who seem quite destitute of the religious
sense so far as this implies belief in Deity.
ARUNDEL. You would then, I suppose, allow men to profess
Agnosticism on the point?
TREVOR. Agnosticism on any point, not absolutely and
imperiously demonstrable, I account a mark of wisdom; but
on the subject of God's existence Agnosticism, or a reverent
ignorance of Him, is quite compatible with religious feelings
and worship. Sokrates, Charron and many more professed
Nescience as their ordinary intellectual condition, and yet
maintained the duty of religious worship. Besides, I may
remind you that faith, taking the most authoritative definition
of it, does not presuppose knowledge, but its opposite; viz.
Nescience; and not a few divines of undeniable orthodoxy have
maintained that our best knowledge of God consists in our
ignorance of Him. Charron, you have told us, held this
opinion. By the way, I noticed in your paper that you called
this a paradox; you must have forgotten that it can claim the
names of Augustine, Erigena, Abelard and Aquinas.
ARUNDEL. But what they meant by not knowing God was
not knowing His qualities, attributes or nature. They knew,
or rather confidently believed in His existence; and would have
been both surprised and horrified to find their reverent dis-
claimer of complete knowledge on such a mysterious subject
classed as Agnosticism. Charron, I may add, treats the nature
of our knowledge of God, in the sermon I have already referred
to, with wonderful declamatory power and audacity; in which
he pushes the negative side of the argument to its extreme
point, but even here he is far removed from absolute suspense.
MISS LEYCESTER. My idea of the matter is that, faith or
belief in God's existence, must in final analysis, mean belief in
it as a probability-made up of manifold ideas, ratiocinations
and feelings, and those dependent in different individuals on
various conditions of temperament, training, etc. But I agree
with Charles, it is more than absurd to make the avowed
absence of all such beliefs a mark of intellectual strength.
How far it is true I cannot say, but I have heard it maintained
that Atheistic races are singularly unprogressive.
MRS. HARRINGTON. There is a very striking proof of
610 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Charron's wisdom which you have omitted to notice, Mr.
Arundel.
ARUNDEL. Very likely. Charron's wisdom is a large mine,
and I do not profess to have done more than extract a few
specimen nuggets.
MRS. HARRINGTON. I mean his warm devotion to the sun.
He was almost a sun-worshipper, was he not? At least he had
a favourite saying with which I fully sympathize. He said,
The sun was his visible god, as God was his invisible sun.’
ARUNDEL. Charron was as much a sun-worshipper as many
an old Pagan philosopher. He undoubtedly thought sun-
worship reasonable, for he confesses as much. Indeed, he
pauses in the midst of a discussion on the Deity to eulogize
that particular form of idolatry.
HARRINGTON. Charron's 'wisdom,' I may observe, is very
largely of the gnomic order. His book is full of terse and
pithy maxims. That you have just quoted is very neatly
expressed.
But he has many others. Sir William
Hamilton's favourite apophthegm-'In the world there is
nothing great but man: and in man nothing great but mind'
-comes from Charron. Very happily, too, he describes the
futility of extreme mysticism, 'Qui veut faire l'ange, fait la
bête '—a dictum, by the way, which confirms Arundel's
bête'—a
opinion that mysticism could not have exercised a prepon-
derating influence over him. His description of the universal
sway of authority, a passage quoted by Arundel, is also a
marvel of concentrated wisdom: 'We believe, judge, work,
live and die-upon credit.' A fair hit at verbose eulogies of
the virtue of silence is contained in the remark, To take
offence at words is a mark either of great weakness or some
touch or guilt of the same malady.'
fact, you can hardly open a page of the Wisdom without
coming across some terse and neat apophthegm. Arundel
called him the French Solomon; at least he is the author of a
fair collection of proverbs.
6
But in point of
TREVOR. With his stress on Prud-homie as a law of Nature,
Charron comes into our subject appropriately after considering
Giordano Bruno and Vanini, in whom Nature-enthusiasm.
takes the form of intoxication. Arundel has told us that
Charron.
611
Charron was a dual thinker, but it is worth noting that his
dualism is not that of the Italian philosophers. It is less free
and more moral. Bruno, Vanini and Campanella made their
antinomies consist of Nature versus Theology-understanding
by the former term Nature in its nakedness, wildness and
totality, unrestrained and undisciplined for the most part by
ethical or social considerations of any kind; whereas Charron
took the social and rational instinct he observed in man as the
antithetical of theology. There was another distinction. The
Italian dualists made the opposite poles of their antinomies
vehemently opposed to each other: Charron made them
complementary. He wished his antitheticals Religion and
Prud'homie happily joined in marriage. In the case of any
projected alliance between ecclesiasticism and the freedom of
Nature, the Italian freethinkers would most decidedly have
forbidden the banns.'
HARRINGTON. I cannot find that Charron's more guarded
interpretation of Nature as a synonym of morality and dis-
interested duty was generally received in France. As Michelet
said of his country's rejection of Calvin, 'Elle ne voulait pas
la Reforme morale.' Hence French philosophy after Charron,
Descartes and Le Vayer adopted the Italian conception of
Nature as inherently licentious, as well as implacably hostile
to theology in its ecclesiastical form. But in this, as in other
respects, France borrows from Italy. The standpoint of
Helvetius and the Encyclopædists of the eighteenth century is
precisely that of the Italian Physicists in the sixteenth.
MISS LEYCESTER. I don't think we need wonder that some
daring spirits favoured a conception of Nature less restrained
and civilized than Charron's, however noble the latter. They
might have questioned whether the virtue of Prud'homie was
so distinctly impressed on primitive races of humanity or on
inferior animals as to make its recognition as a maxim of social
duty imperative. Certainly both Montaigne and Charron de-
lighted to contemplate Nature in her wildest aspects, before the
birth of such virtues as Prud'homie.
ARUNDEL. You seem to me quite mistaken, Miss Leycester.
No doubt Montaigne and Charron delighted to contemplate
Nature in its wildest condition from a well-founded disgust
612 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
with many of the products of civilization. But a Nature
absolutely devoid of elementary rules of morality never even
suggested itself to them as a possibility. On the contrary, the
two thinkers delighted to mark rudimentary stages of moral
feelings and duties in the lower animals; Montaigne, especially,
making them in that respect the superiors of man. As to
Charron, his virtue of integrity is conceived by him as a
categorical imperative--an universal postulate where reasoning
beings are concerned. I think he would have said: 'Given
the existence of two rational beings, and Prud'homie, as a law
of mutual duty, is therein immediately implied.'
TREVOR. I however concur with Harrington. Charron's
conception of Nature as a moral agency does not seem to have
had much influence. His own power, as that of Montaigne's,
must be sought in another direction. Both are leading names
in an unbroken successsion of free-thinkers. Montaigne we
may take as the legislator, while Charron-as became his office
-was the high priest of early French Skepticism, or if you
will allow the doggerel we might say, 'As Moses to Aaron so
was Montaigne to Charron.' To these two thinkers succeed
Le Vayer, and other names of less note. What these early
free-thinkers effected for French philosophy was in preparing
the way for Descartes. The consequence being that when
Descartes issued his proclamation of skepticism, in the Dis-
course on Method, he was only propounding that principle of
individual autonomy in all matters of belief which was the
root-thought both of Montaigne's Essais and Charron's Sagesse.
These two writers, with their successors, also occupy in the
history of French thought a somewhat similar position to
Luther in Germany. They represent that phase of freedom
and anti-sacerdotalism that were outcomes of the Renaissance
in France as in Germany; but without the vehement religious
feeling and dogmatism that characterized the movement in
the latter country. Their co-operation in the common cause
of religious liberty was none the less effective because it was
rendered quietly and unconsciously. Instead of violently break-
ing up the ice of ecclesiastical dogma with hammers and iron
bars as the German reformers did, they, together with Ramus,
merely insinuated a few warm currents of free-thought, liberal
Charron.
613
culture, rationalism and humanity beneath its surface, well
knowing that if they succeeded in that, the ice would break
up of its own accord. An indubitable advantage also pertained
to Montaigne, Charron and others, from the fact of their not
having broken off openly and finally from the Romish Church,
They thereby ministered to the freedom of thought which,
as we know, had already sprung up and assumed rather por-
tentous dimensions, within that communion. They were
purveyors of intellectual necessaries to their beleaguered
brethren, who had no wish, and but little opportunity, to buy
of the enemy who was surrounding and threatening their holy
city. Hundreds would read Montaigne's Essais or Charron's
Sagesse, to whom a work of Luther or Calvin would be an
accursed thing. While as to their effect on the later stages of
the Renaissance, considered as the general progress in Europe
of free-thought and modern science, these writers, and espe-
cially Montaigne, contributed by their breadth of view, their
classical learning, their freedom from prejudice, their genuine
love of liberty, to aid the movement to an extent not easy to
overstate; not however that I myself share on this point the
enthusiasm of a friend who once remarked to me, 'I believe
that Montaigne's Essais has done more for European free-
thought than any work of Luther's.'
*
*
X
VOL. II.
*
*
*
SANCHEZ.
'La raison doit toujours être la maitresse; Dieu même le suit. L'Intelligence
est preferable à la Foi: car la Foi passera, mais l'Intelligence subsistera éternelle-
ment.'-Malebranche, Traité de Morale.
'Double oblivion on him lies
Whom all men know; if to himself
A stranger and unknown, he dies.'
'Quo magis cogito, magis dubito.'
-Translation of Seneca, Thyestes.
'O quantum est hominum qui etiam quæ nesciunt sciunt.'
'Quæ docentur non plus habent virium, quam ab eo, qui docetur, accipiunt.'—
-Favourite Maxims of Sanchez.
MISS LEYCESTER.
CHAPTER IV.
SANCHEZ.¹
So we are to have before our tribunal
to-night a member of your profession, Dr. Trevor.
TREVOR. Yes, and a man who does our profession much
honour. In an age when the science of medicine was mixed
up with astrology, alchemy, divination, charms, and an enor-
mous farrago of superstitious nonsense, Sanchez held up to
his brother physicians the torch of a true Science founded
upon experiment, and a due recognition of natural laws.
HARRINGTON. Some of your medieval doctors afford rather
entertaining reading. I came across the other day a story of
a Jewish medicus, who, previous to manipulating or administer-
ing his drugs, used to offer the prayer: 'God of Abraham,
God of Isaac, God of Jacob. Grant that these drugs may
have the properties which I conceive them to have.'
ARUNDEL. If we can imagine such a prayer efficacious,
it
1 The following are the authorities on the subject of this chapter :-
Françés Sanchez opera medica. His juncti sunt Tractatus quidam Philosophici.
Tolosæ, Lect., 1636.
Fr. Sanchez Tractatus Philosophici. Roterod. 1649, 12mo.
These Philosophical Tractates comprise :-
i. Quod Nihil Scitur.
ii. De Divinatione per Somnum ad Aristotelem.
iii. In Librum Aristotelis Physiognomicon Commentarius.
iv. De Longitudine et brevitate vita. They are reproduced from the collected
edition of his medical works (1636), of which they form the appendix.
The Quod Nihil Scitur is quoted from the more common Franckfort edition
of 1618, which is generally bound up with Maturini Simonii, De Literis Pereun-
tibus Libellus. On this edition see Bayle, Art. 'Sanchez,' Note A.
In addition to the accounts of Sanchez in Brücker, Buhle, Tennemann, and,
best of all, in Ritter, we have now the monograph of Dr. Gerkrath, Franz
Sanchez: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Philosophischen Bewegungen im Anfange
der Neueren Zeit, von Dr. L. Gerkrath, Wien, 1860, which is as exhaustive as
the generality of German monographs, and much more clearly written.
617
618
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
would render the nature of the drug of comparatively small
importance, and his own manipulation quite needless.
MISS LEYCESTER. I daresay the prayer was sincere; while,
in the scientific conceptions of those days, it was certainly
defensible. It was an age of easy transformations. The
philosopher in his laboratory was endeavouring to transmute
lead into gold. The priest at the altar believed that he had
the power to transubstantiate, so that the accidents remained
while the substance was changed. Why should not the
physician in his study have endeavoured to accomplish a
similar feat? 1
TREVOR. Very true, Miss Leycester; but the prayer of the
Jew goes a little further than wishing to effect a kind of
transubstantiation. Its peculiar impudence consists in its
implied demand that the Almighty should acquiesce in his
diagnosis, or at least in his judgment of the proper remedies
to be used.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Dr. Sanchez is, I see, related to Ray-
mond of Sebieude in the two points of having studied medicine,
and being teacher or lecturer in the University of Toulouse.
TREVOR. Yes, but Sanchez remained true to his physic to
the end of his life. As for his connexion with Toulouse,
several of our skeptics share more or less that dangerous
peculiarity; which, as we have seen, Vanini expiated in his
own case by his barbarous martyrdom. Toulouse in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries was hardly the nursing-
mother of free-thought.
HARRINGTON. One notable fact about Sanchez is that he suc-
ceeds in reducing his philosophical principles to a more brief
and compendious definition than any of his fellow-skeptics.
A reduction of a mode of thought to a monosyllable is surely
the ne plus ultra of epitomizing.
1 To no dogma of the Romish Church was the healthy incredulity of
ordinary common sense more vigorously applied than to Transubstantiation.
Swift's well-known narrative of Lord Peter's assertion that dry crusts of
bread were in reality slices of mutton, 'as good as any in Leadenhall Market,'
is only a coarse caricature of similar stories current in the Renaissance. The
Spanish bishop e.g. who deliberately 'transubstantiated' partridges into fish
on a fast day (Poggio, Facetiæ, ccxvi.), may be taken as a general type of these
stories.
Sanchez.
619
MISS LEYCESTER.
What was that?
HARRINGTON. Merely the interrogation 'Quid?' or 'What?'
Like the 'How do I know?' of Montaigne, it both disclaims
knowledge and retorts the enquiry on the enquirer. If you
can imagine a half disdainful half querulous What? appended
to every dogma or definite statement, you will have a fair idea
of the skeptical character.
TREVOR. You say that Sanchez's 'Quid?' is the shortest
possible expression of skeptical suspense. I, however, know
one still shorter-merely the note of interrogation (?), which a
skeptical French doctor, a friend of mine, adopted as his
crest.
HARRINGTON. But that had no articulate form.
TREVOR. No; when he wanted a skeptical reply to an oral
statement, he supplied it with an expressive shrug of the
shoulders. Unlike his countrymen in general, he was a man
of exceedingly few words. To our English friends he was
known by the soubriquet of M. Query. His interrogative crest
was on everything he possessed, and imparted to everything
the skeptical character of its owner. He defended its use in
this way: He said it had been suggested by Rabelais' dying
words ('Je vais chercher un Grande Peut-être ') 'What Rabelais
sought,' he used to exclaim, 'I have found—a great perchance.
It is the only true title of existence, of the universe, of
humanity, of myself. What are we? Where are we? How
came we here? Whither are we bound? What answer can
science or philosophy supply to these questions, except an
eloquent blank? I, a philosopher, take that blank, so expres-
sive, so true, and in an universe where everything may be
questioned, I make it the mark of my knowledge, my belief,
my possessions—of everything, in short. Take human beings,
my fellow-creatures-what are they to me? Mere notes of
interrogation-unknown quantities. I see them, I hear them
talk, but as to knowing-bah! How can I tell what they are,
what they think, what they know? Or, again, take literature,
history, science, books and systems-whatever you like. I find
nothing in them but invisible notes of interrogation. Take
again my furniture, plate, or whatever I have. I sometimes
see you smile, Monsieur Doctor Trayvor, when looking at my
620 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
crest on my supposed silver plate. But what can be more
expressive? I buy silver, and it is possible there may be a
good deal of true metal in it, but may there not also be some
alloy? It is uncertain, and so my crest describes it. It is,
you see, an eloquent crest, and the only true and universal
mark appropriate to all things, for it asserts the true value of
everything, which is doubtful.'
MISS LEYCESTER. But may not the 'Quid' of Sanchez
have had another signification, denoting the enquiring dis-
position of every truth-seeker, and symbolising his position
with respect to every subject matter of investigation?
HARRINGTON. Very true; it may have done so; and in that
case it would express the zetetic or searching attribute common
to all skeptics. The purport in scholasticism of the enquiry,
'Quid?' was, we are told, to ascertain and define the essence
of anything. It was hence esteemed the most profound in
purport of all the Interrogatories of the schoolmen.
ARUNDEL. Your Monsieur Query, Doctor, must have been a
humourist, as well as a skeptic; but his eccentric crest must
surely have been sometimes of an uncomplimentary character,
when it was affixed e.g. to his own prescriptions or legal docu-
ments. I may presume that it was quite useless to probe his
belief by queries as to his own personal identity.
TREVOR. Oh, quite; he was invulnerable to all appeals of
the kind. He discriminated between seeming and being—or
between Phenomena and Noumena with all the subtlety of
Sextus himself.
MRS. HARRINGTON. I should not have liked your French
skeptic as a medical man, Doctor, especially in cases where
promptness and decision were needful.
เ
TREVOR. You would have been perfectly safe in his hands.
His diagnosis was almost miraculous in its intuitive accuracy.
His language was qualified by uncertainty: 'It seems to me
that the disease is so and so,' or that such symptoms indicate
such and such causes,' but I must say that he regarded his
'seemings' with as much faith as if they were infallible;
which, judging by the result, they often were. Of course, in
the prognosis of difficult cases, his doubting attitude always
stood him in good stead.
Sanchez.
621
ti
HARRINGTON. I do not know how far Sanchez brought his
skepticism into the region of his medical practice; but in his
works on medicine he seems arbitrary and dogmatic enough;
though no doubt in advance of the medical science of his day.
MISS LEYCESTER. Sanchez appears to have been a very
youthful skeptic.
HARRINGTON. Yes, according to the best chronology that
our imperfect knowledge of him will allow us to put together.
His main treatise, Nothing Known, was written when he
was only twenty-four years of age, though it was not pub-
lished for seven years afterwards. As a rule, skepticism of a
thorough-going kind is not a characteristic of youth; still
there are notable exceptions. Bruno and Vanini, as well as
Sanchez, were eager to throw off the shackles of authority at
an early age.
ARUNDEL. What playful irony our skeptics employ in put-
ting forth their lucubrations! Just as if the convictions of
humanity were fit subjects for jesting. Take e.g. this title of
Sanchez's book, Of the noble and first Universal Knowledge that
Nothing is known. Instead of being struck by the fatuity of a
science capable of being described in such terms, they proceed
to comment on it as gravely as if it were the most important
and indubitable of all things.
HARRINGTON. I don't think we must refuse to skeptics the
liberty of extracting what they can in the way of sportive
epigrams and facetiousness from their seemingly anomalous
position. A science founded ostensibly upon ignorance cannot
in the nature of things be otherwise than dreary; so it is but
right that it should be enlivened by whatever amount of wit
the subject is capable of. To say the truth they seem inclined
to take every licence in that direction, whether conceded or not.
Montaigne, especially, is never tired of dwelling on the humour
of his paradoxical opinions, as e.g. in his remarks on Pyrrhon,
who had, 'built so pleasant a science out of ignorance.'
TREVOR. The paradox of their position arises from their
disclaiming what are regarded as universal possessions of man-
kind; but which they are not conscious of sharing. A beggar
of a lively turn of mind might consider it a good joke if any
one tried to persuade him that he was a wealthy man.
622 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
ARUNDEL. On the other hand, Doctor, if a man who was
known to have means were to attire himself in rags and pro-
claim his utter destitution, he would be thought a fit subject
for the charitable intervention of his friends-probably also
of the law.
MISS LEYCESTER. But your self-proclaimed beggar is hardly
an analogous case: material wealth is visible and tangible,
and its existence is capable of being demonstrated to others.
Intellectual wealth or poverty can only be truly estimated by
its supposed possessor. One point relating to Sanchez we must
deem matter of congratulation, viz., that living when he did,
and teaching what he taught, he was permitted to die a
natural death.
TREVOR. Very true; and especially as he happened to be
living in the most bigoted and intolerant town in France.
Toulouse has acquired a deservedly ill repute in the history of
free-thought. It is the only town in France-
HARRINGTON. Excuse my interruption, Doctor, but you are
really about to take the wind out of my sails; to prevent
which contretemps, and also the loss of some valuable historical
researches on my part, I will, with your leave, proceed to lay
before you my paper :-
Francis Sanchez was born in Braga in Portugal not later than
1552.¹ His parents were of Jewish extraction. His father, Anto-
nio, was a physician of considerable repute—a circumstance to which
Francis frequently alludes in a tone of pardonable complacency. His
parents emigrated from Portugal when he was very young, and
settled in Bordeaux. The reason of this expatriation is uncertain,
but there was about that time a considerable migration of Jews from
Spain and Portugal, on account of their persecution by the Inquisi-
tion,2 and it is possible that the elder Sanchez and his family were
driven forth by that cause.
1 On the year of his birth. Cf. Gerkrath's work, appendix, p. 143. Lord
Bacon was born in 1562-—ten or twelve years after Sanchez.
2 The Inquisition was introduced into Portugal in 1541 (the first Auto-da-fé
being held in Lisbon in October of that year); and continued its ravages into
the eighteenth century.
Bordeaux was one of the towns in the south
of France in which the Jewish fugitives from Portugal were allowed to settle
by Henry II. Sanchez's family probably belonged to the 'Noveaux Chre-
•
Sanchez.
623
2
3
From his earliest years young Sanchez manifested an intense pas-
sion for Nature, and investigation into natural science.¹ His precocity
in these and other subjects seems sufficiently shown by the fact that
at the early age of twenty-four he was a Doctor, and Professor of
Medicine. He himself tells us, as if it were a remarkable feature of
his education, that he listened to his teachers without, for the time
being, any feeling of doubt or mistrust, and was inclined to regard
knowledge rather as the contents of a well-stored memory than as
the product of the scholar's own thought and research. With early
manhood, however, his philosophical conversion took place. The
native originality of his mind began to assert itself; and instead of
continuing a dependant on the hoarded wealth of others, he deter-
mined to dig for himself in the mine of Nature, and to extract, in his
own furnace, pure metal from the dross. Dr. Gerkrath points out
that the neighbourhood of Bordeaux was at this time favourable to
the growth of free-thought. It was the home of many expatriated
families from Spain and Portugal, whose enforced submission to the
Church was always regarded with distrust by the clergy; and many
of whom, when opportunity offered, became Protestants. It was
also the residence both of Montaigne and Charron, with either or
both of whom it is quite possible that Sanchez might have been
acquainted, though nothing certain is known on the point. That
Montaigne could have exercised any great influence on Sanchez is
impossible. Nor is the converse supposition much more likely. The
men were dissimilar in nature and temperament; while their pursuits
5
tiens' or half-converted Jewish emigrants; from whom also the mother of
Montaigne appears to have descended.
1 'A prima vita, Naturæ contemplationi addictus minutim omnia inquire-
bam.'-Q. N. S., address to the reader, p. 5.
2 Et quamvis initio avidus animus sciendi quocumque oblato cibo conten-
tus esset utcumque post modicum tamen tempus indigestione prehensus revo-
mere cœpit omnia.'—Q. N. S., loc. cit. As a rule, however, Sanchez admits that
intellectual indigestion is rare and difficult to produce. In a subsequent pas-
sage he says: "Jam difficile admodum est semel ebibitum errorem vomere.'-
Q. N. S., p. 122.
3 'Inde initium contemplationis faciens, quo magis cogito, magis dubito, nil
perfecte complecti possum. Despero, persisto tamen.'-Q. N. S., loc. cit. p. 6.
4 Compare on this point M. Malvezin's work Michel de Montaigne, son origin,
sa Famille, p. 125.
5 'It est difficile de supposer,' says Cousin, 'que l'ouvrage du célèbre profes-
seur de Toulouse ne fût pas venu à la connaissance du traducteur de Raymond
de Sebonde et que Montaigne ne l'ait pas lu dans l'intervalle de la première
édition à la seconde des Essais.' He thinks it possible that Sanchez's Quid
may have suggested Montaigne's ' Que sais-je '? Hist. Gen. de la Philosophie,
p. 307, note.
624
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
and their respective modes of approaching philosophical questions are
entirely different. And though the first edition of the Essais ap-
peared in 1580, while Sanchez's Nothing Known was published in
1581, yet the latter, as we know, had lain by its author in MS. since
1576.1 The main connection between the men consists in the skepti-
cism common to both, though here, too, their courses are not quite
parallel.
Sanchez has left us a narrative of the steps by which his dissatis-
faction with the science and learning of the day culminated at last
in pure skepticism; 2 but there is nothing in his own progress to dis-
tinguish it from the similar careers of others in our list. It reminds
one most of Descartes' Discourse on Method, which we may possi-
bly find an opportunity to consider. During the earlier part of his
life, though when is unknown, Sanchez travelled in Italy and spent
some time in Rome. To a mind like his, so ready to react upon
surrounding influences, and withal so original and independent, such
a journey was no doubt pregnant with important consequences. On
his return from Italy, Sanchez settled for some time at Montpellier,
then one of the foremost medical schools in Europe. Here he was
appointed Professor of Medicine when, as I have said, he was only
twenty-four years of age. He therefore filled the position, perhaps
the chair, which Rabelais had occupied with so much éclât some fifty
years before. But Sanchez did not remain here long. The civil wars
which then agitated France compelled him to take refuge in Tou-
louse. Montpellier since 1561 had been in the hands of the Hugue-
nots, and during Sanchez's sojourn there in 1577 the town was fur-
ther developing those Genevan proclivities which finally led to the
expulsion of the Roman Catholic bishop and similar measures of in-
tolerance in 1594.4 These circumstances may account for Sanchez's
removal, for in spite of his skepticism, he does not appear to have
swerved, outwardly at least, from the older creed in which he had
1 Comp. the Dedication. He compares it on account of this delay (seven
years) to a seven months' child; and playfully apologises that had he delayed
the publication two years longer, according to Horace's well-known prescrip-
tion and the usual law of nature with reference to children, he must have de-
stined it not to see the light, but to the fire, the MS. being so injured by worms.
2 Compare the address ' Ad Lectorem,' prefixed to Q. N. S.
3 The Archives of the medical faculty ef Montpellier show that Rabelais
passed his examination as a Bachelor of Medicine, Sept. 16th, 1530; seven
years after he received his degree of Doctor, and obtained great renown by his
Lectures on Hippokrates, whom he read with his class in the original Greek.
4 On the state of Montpellier at this time see the interesting chapter in
Mark Pattison's Casaubon, pp. 85-145. Comp. Moréri, le Grand Dictionnaire
and Le Bas's Dictionnaire Enclyclopédique, ad vocem.
Sanchez.
625
been brought up.¹ Toulouse was, on the other hand, a very hot-bed
of Catholic fanaticism. It was the only town in France in which the
Inquisition had been able to take root. We have already considered
in the case of Vanini the brutal intolerance of which this sacred
citadel of mediæval orthodoxy and scholasticism was capable. Gerk-
rath expresses natural surprise that Sanchez, with his well-known
skeptical and anti-Aristotelian tendencies, should have lived there
the remainder of his life without, so far as is known, any serious
molestation; but there are expressions in his writings which show
that he was sometimes in danger. He was probably a citizen of
Toulouse when Vanini suffered his atrocious fate. He might have
been within hearing of 'that most horrible shriek' which the poor
wretch emitted when his tongue was being torn out. It seems at
least probable that a passage in which Sanchez inveighs bitterly
against the practice of maintaining opinions, not with arguments,
but with reproaches, blows, and even with murder,' may allude to
that or other events of the same kind, but it is clear that he himself
felt no especial vocation for martyrdom, and adopted what precau-
tions he was able to avoid such a fate. So we find him speaking of
the necessity of agreeing sometimes with fools for the sake of peace.
He also declares that his resolution was to avoid controversy as much
as possible, and to lead a quiet life; but the duties of his office occa-
sionally prevented his carrying this determination into effect.
In addition to his own caution, other reasons have been assigned
for Sanchez's immunity from persecution; the scientific nature of his
lectures, his repeated disavowals of wishing to impose his own
opinions upon others, and, a still more probable cause, his profes-
sional services to the citizens. But whatever they were, the causes
must have been powerful which prevented the name of Sanchez from
being added to the noble roll of the martyrs of philosophy.
The first contribution which Sanchez made to philosophy is signifi-
cant. It consisted of objections to the Demonstrations of Euclid-
which he submitted to the famous mathematician Clavius, but whose
elucidations in reply did not, we are told, satisfy the young doubter.
In the year 1577, the appearance of a comet had its usual effect in
those days of spreading a paroxysm of terror through Europe. Like
a genuine philosopher, and like his fellow skeptic Bayle a century
later, Sanchez sought to calm the panic. For this purpose he wrote
a poem, which he published the year following (1578), and of which I
shall by-and-by have to speak, as it is of great importance in enabling
us to estimate his position as a natural philosopher. It contains,
1 One of his favourite maxims was, 'Time cultum Deorum mutare.'
2 See preceding chapter on Vanini.
7
626 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
1
moreover, very distinct intimations of his skepticism. But his chief
skeptical work is the Treatise we have already alluded to; which he
wrote in 1576 and took courage to publish in 1581. This is, besides,
the best known of Sanchez's works. In the remarks I am about to
offer I shall frequently have occasion to refer to it. It is a clearly
written and vivacious book; but rather discursive. Sanchez evidently
does not intend it either as an inculcation of Pyrrhonism, or as his
last word on the subject of skepticism; its purpose is rather that of
Descartes in his Discourse on Method, or of Bacon in the first or
'destructive' part of his Novum Organon,—to make it the basis and
stepping-stone to future and larger enquiries. Like his great English
contemporary, he projected an ideal science of Nature, in which
words should give place to things, and a priori methods of enquiry
to actual experiment and observation. How far he proceeded in his
attempt seems uncertain. Gerkrath thinks that two treatises 2 which
he mentions in his works, but which, so far as is known, were never
published, were intended by him as instalments of this great enter-
prise. Of the remainder of his philosophical writings it is doubtful
how far some of them were published during his lifetime. Besides
the treatise Nothing Known, those which are best suited for our
purpose, and whose authenticity may be considered unquestioned, are
the work already alluded to on Comets, and a treatise on Divina-
tion by Dreams. These will suffice to give us a full and accurate
idea of Sanchez's position, both as a skeptical iconoclast, the foe of
Aristotle and Scholasticism, and also as a natural philosopher-a man
of modern feelings and aspirations-a harbinger of the new dawn of
science and culture of which we are happily privileged to behold the
full daylight. It is perhaps in the latter character that Sanchez
possesses the greatest interest. For among the group of skeptics
1 Comp. Gerk., p. 16. In the dedication to Q. N. S. he says, 'Parturimus
propediem nonnulla alia, quibus hoc prævium esse oportet.'
2 Examen Rerum and De Anima. Gerkrath well remarks that had the for-
mer work been extant it would have been interesting to have compared it
with Bacon's Novum Organon.
3 In Librum Aristotelis Physiognomicon Commentarius; De Longitudine et
Brevitate Vitæ. The former seems a curious work in its bearing on the char-
acter of the times when it was written. Sanchez maintains that the know-
ledge of physiognomy was then imperatively necessary. inasmuch as men had
degenerated into wild beasts, bears, wolves, foxes, etc., retaining only the sem-
blance of humanity as a mask. Comp. Gerkrath, p. 20.
4 De divinatione per somnum ad Aristotelem. Gui Patin prefers this trea-
tise to the Quo nihil scitur. He says, 'Son livret quod nihil scitur est fort
beau. Son traite de Divinatione per insomnia vaut son pesant d'or.' He adds,
'Il a fait aussi un livre Espagnol de la Methode universelle des sciences qui est
forte docte.'-Patiniana, p. 98.
Sanchez.
627
contemporary, or nearly so, with himself, he is undoubtedly the
greatest and most advanced thinker on Natural Science, and the
best methods for its investigation. The contemporary of Bacon,
with whom he has so many affinities, Sanchez is the direct precursor
of Descartes.¹ With these two great leaders of European thought he
shares the same skeptical distrust for the methods and acquirements of
their forefathers-the same disdain for mere authority-the same aspi-
rations for a trustworthy science—the same reverence for the teachings
of Nature; and though last, not least, the same conception of the
partial functions of skepticism as mainly a method, not as an object.
In our treatment of Sanchez the best plan will be to take the main
subjects of his teaching under different heads, as the work Nothing
Known is too unmethodical and discursive to permit our following
it step by step. Of his direct skepticism we may take the following
as his chief arguments:—
1. The weakness of the senses, as also of the mental faculties,
whence he infers that demonstration, whether Aristotelian or other-
wise, is impossible.
2. His Nominalism, or his protest against substituting words for
things as objects of human knowledge.
3. Undue deference to the traditional methods and names, espe-
cially Aristotle, and the medieval system of thought identified with
his name.
The positive convictions of Sanchez, for as you will have guessed
he is no Pyrrhonist, may be ranged under the two heads of (1) Na-
ture; (2) Revelation.
2
1. That all our knowledge is derived from the senses is a funda-
mental point of Sanchez's philosophy, as of all the advanced thought
of his age. Beyond the sphere of their operation all things are in-
volved in error, doubt and perplexity. At the same time the senses
can only apprehend the external parts and aspects of the objects they
investigate. They cannot attain to knowledge, which is a faculty of
the mind. Hence we can just as little discover Nature's secrets by
their sole aid as the fox in the fable could satisfy his hunger from
the long-necked jar which the crane had provided for him. The
senses only teach us the accidents of things-they give us no infor-
mation as to their substance, and the accidents being the grossest
and vilest parts of all things, the knowledge derived from them is
1 This is also the opinion of Gerkrath, who says, speaking of contemporary
thinkers, 'Franz Sanchez war unstreitig der wissenschaftlich bedeutendste,
wenn auch nicht der bekannteste und einflussreichste unter jenen Männern.'
-Franz Sanchez, p. 25.
2 Q. N. S., p. 76. 'Cognitio omnis à sensu trahitur,' etc.
628 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
proportionably inferior; it is also uncertain, for it depends on the
condition of our senses, which vary according to their powers and
capabilities as well as to our state of health. Indeed, this liability
to perpetual change is a permanent and necessary characteristic of
our lot—no man being precisely the same for an hour together—a
fact which of itself renders anything like a final judgment unwar-
rantable. True knowledge is therefore so beset by difficulties at
every stage that for humanity it may be pronounced impossible.
Scaliger had reproached Vives for saying that the investigation of
mind was full of obscurity. Sanchez avows that if Vives is absurd,
he himself is much more so.
In his analysis of cognition, Sanchez anticipates our own Locke;
the 'sensation' and 'reflection' of the latter being represented by
the two-fold knowledge of the senses and the mind maintained by the
former. These two modes of knowledge operate in different spheres;
one is external, the other internal. Still we must beware of making
too great a discrimination between them, for, after all, the act of
knowing is one act-the man who knows is one, and the thing known
is also one.¹ A similar approximation to Locke is also found in
Sanchez's assertion of a third kind of knowledge, made up partly of
sensuous perceptions and partly of intellectual processes. When
human research leaves the region of the senses there is an immediate
plunge into darkness. Sanchez says he has heard of heavenly intelli-
gences, but is unable to form any idea of them. For that matter,
he can form no adequate representation of the atmosphere, though he
can feel it, not such at least as would enable him to distinguish it
from vacuum; so in grasping the notion of the Infinite, we can only
'conceive a certain bounded space, of which no extremity is properly
terminated and perfect, but as if defective; because we have to bear in
mind the idea, that actually it is neither terminated nor terminable,
inasmuch as infinite parts may for ever be added to all its supposed
limits.3 In the midst of light,' proceeds Sanchez, 'we are blind.
Often have I thought about light, but I have always abandoned the
subject as not only unknown, but as wholly incomprehensible.'
What then is perfect knowledge? we may ask. 'It is,' answers
our author, in language that reminds us of Ockam, 'the immediate,
1 Q. N. S., p. 81.
2 Cf. Locke's Essay, Bk. II. chap. xii. 'Of mixed ideas.'
3 Q. N. S., p. 83. Cf. Locke, Essay, ii. 13: 'The power of repeating or doubling
any idea we have of any distance and adding it to the former as often as we
will, without being ever able to come to any stop or stint, let us enlarge it as
much as we will, is that which gives us the idea of Immensity.' Cf. J. S.
Mill's Exam. of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 45.
Sanchez.
629
intuitive apprehension by the mind of all the real qualities of an
object, in the same way that we perceive its superficial qualities by
our senses.'1 In other words, a kind of mystical divination—a
knowledge only conceivable by methods which are out of all relation
to our ordinary existence. Perhaps we must take this impossible
ideal of perfect knowledge as an example of the craving so deeply
impressed upon all systems of earnest thought, for a clearer and
more direct cognition than our ordinary human faculties allow us to
acquire; or, regarding the matter from another point of view, we
may consider it as an expression of that distrust of the common
methods and instruments of knowledge, which is the true rationale of
all philosophic skepticism. The demand is that the intellect should
be placed in immediate contact with the cognoscible object, without
the intervention of any medium or agency of whatever sort.²
To
most thinkers the mere enunciation of such a demand is enough to
expose its absurdity with reference, i.e., to beings constituted and
circumstanced as we are. Sanchez seems to have forgotten when he
defined his perfect knowledge, that the only comparison by which
he could express its chief peculiarity, i.e. its directness, was itself
imperfect; for, according to him, sensuous perception, though direct,
is by no means infallible. Hence an objector might have interposed
the question-'How do you know that direct knowledge is more
trustworthy than that which is mediate, if your only example of the
former is so unsatisfactory?' or 'How do you know that the intellect,
placed in direct contact with knowable objects, will achieve greater
certainty than the senses in a similar position?' These and similar
difficulties of his position Sanchez does not discuss. Possibly the
definition was only intended by him to mark the climax of his dis-
trust of ordinary modes and means of knowledge. No skeptic could,
at any rate, be more explicit than he is on the inherent imperfection
of all sense-deliverances. His chief example is the sense of vision.
The excellence of this depends on the quality of the media through
¹ Suppose e.g. some higher order of beings, gifted with an immediate intui-
tive perception of the chemical constituents, both quantitatively and qualita-
tively, of any object submitted to it, in the same way that we are able to detect
at a glance the difference between two straight lines placed in juxtaposition.
This seems the modus operandi of Sanchez's perfect cognition, though he wisely
does not attempt to specify in detail 'all the real qualities of an object.'
2 With the advance of modern science, there is naturally an increased de-
pendance on instruments of various kinds, and proportionably an increase in
the number of agencies that intervene between the knowing subject and the
object known. It is possible that a future Sextus Empeirikus might object to
much of our physical science, that it is too indirect, too dependant on mechani-
cal aids, to be absolutely demonstrative.
VOL. II.
P
630 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
which it exercises its functions. Air, water, glass, for instance, vary
in quality, and in their power of transmitting accurate representa-
tions of objects seen through them. Colours are also uncertain, and
they are not permanent qualities of the coloured objects, but are
created by light,¹ and therefore they vary as light varies. Besides,
the eye itself cannot be relied upon. Diversity in form and colour is
probably accompanied by difference in power, and it is easily affected
by diseases, etc. But the eye is the most perfect of all our senses;
and if we dare not rely on our vision, there is nothing on which we
can depend. No doubt some protection from individual error in
respect of the senses may be found in repeated and diverse experi-
ments, and in cautious mental judgment; but it must be remembered
that experiments themselves are liable to error, being very difficult
in their treatment as well as unsatisfactory in their results.?
The senses being thus imperfect, it must needs follow that all the
other faculties and powers of man are also imperfect. The senses are
apt to mislead the intellect, and the intellect in turn acts preju-
dicially on the senses. Originally, the mind itself is uncommitted
to any opinion; it is a mere Tabula rasa.' On its surface most 4
objects may be depicted. Like Montaigne, he compares it to wax,
which will take any shape or impression.
(
Sanchez repeatedly bemoans the wretched condition of humanity,
compelled to draw its only knowledge from sources at once so inade-
quate and impure. He attributes it to the will of God; and quotes
on the point the remarkable words of Koheleth, 'He hath set the
world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God
maketh from the beginning to the end.' 5
2. Coming to our second point, Sanchez's Nominalism. In the
battle against Scholasticism waged by the physical philosophers of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in which he was a leading
combatant, if there was one inscription better adapted than another
to be the watchword of the attacking force-a legend to be inscribed
on their banner-it was the three words, 'Things, not words'; or,
1 P. 92: 'Colores non in rebus permanentes esse: sed a luce fieri, variari-
que.' So Bacon: 'Facile colligitur quod color nil aliud sit quam modificatio
imaginis lucis immissæ et receptæ.'
2 Experimentum fallax ubique, difficileque est, quod etsi perfecte habeatur,
solum quid extrinsece fiat, ostendit: naturas autem verum nullo modo.'—
P. 125.
3 Q. N. S., p. 85.
4 Not all, for two reasons. (1) The tablet may be imperfect or unfit. (2)
Many objects are, from their very nature, incapable of being so depicted.
Comp. Q. N. S., p. 97.
5 Ecclesiastes iii. 11. Comp. Q. N. S., p. 75.
Sanchez.
631
"
as the idea is expressed in the motto of our Royal Society, 'Nullius
in verba.' Sanchez, as well as Bacon and Descartes, was fully alive
to the importance of this-the first principle of modern science. In-
deed, his reaction against Scholasticism, as it is placed in the fore-
ground of his treatise, may possibly have been the primary impulse.
which started him in the path of free-enquiry and skepticism. His
work begins by criticising verbal definitions of well-known things.
Take e.g. the old definition of man, as 'rational,' 'mortal,' etc.
Sanchez, like Montaigne, points out that each of these explanatory
terms only obscures, what in itself, and without any definition, is
intelligible enough. So far from ensuring certainty, it only suggests
doubt. Suppose the logician carries his analysis through all the
categories; each single stage is but a new seed-bed of uncertainties.
Even when he has attained the summit of Porphyry's tree, and takes
his stand on the most inclusive of all abstractions, 'being' or 'sub-
stance,' he is not a whit nearer certainty; for who can explain what
'being is? Hence every defining or explanatory term is a nest of
contradictions and absurdities. 'If the various appellations assigned
to a single object, such as man, all mean the same thing, they are
superfluous; but if they mean different things, then the object is not.
the same a statement which, by itself, would almost permit the
inference that Sanchez is prepared in his Nominalism to go the same
length as Hobbes. The reason of the uncertainty of all logical terms
and processes is the uncertainty naturally belonging to words-they
possess neither stability, definiteness, nor precision. All the sciences
relating to words, such as Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, tend only to
pervert knowledge. Words derive their meaning from common con-
sent, than which no standard can be more fluctuating. Sanchez
passes in review the various terms of Aristotle's Logic, and contends
that they are mere empty verbosities. Instead of discussing Nature,
and investigating existing causes, these philosophers are for ever
feigning new ones, and he is esteemed the most learned who feigns
the most both in number and obscurity. Against syllogistic reason-
ing our skeptic declaims with great vehemence and no little power.¹
He maintains that it has been positively hurtful to true science,
because it has deceived men by a plausible semblance of knowledge;
it has drawn their attention from things to words, from Nature to
Logic. The pretended demonstration of the peripatetic philosophers
is utterly fallacious. Perfect knowledge must, as we have seen, be
direct and immediate, whereas the syllogism places a number of
verbal propositions between the hnman mind and the certainty after
¹ Cf. Bacon's Novum Organon, i. 14. The similarities between Sanchez and
Bacon are very striking, and are continually pointed out by Gerkrath.
632
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
1
which it is striving. The strength of a chain is but the strength of
its weakest link,2 and a verbal concatenation, considering the uncer-
tainty necessarily pertaining to all words, cannot but be weak.
Truth can either be stated in a single proposition or not: if it can
immediately and indubitably, all well and good; but if one proposi-
tion cannot define truth, how can a number of others of precisely the
same nature succeed in doing so? As it is, the whole contents of
Aristotle's works consist of definitions of words, and are therefore
placed on a shifting basis. Sanchez, therefore, turns from the great
dogmatist of Greek philosophy to the Pyrrhonians and skeptics, of
whom he of course approves. He also commends Sokrates for his
saying that he knew but one thing, viz., he knew nothing; but takes
exception even to this amount of positive assertion, maintaining that
he should not have said that he knew even nothing—whence we may
see that occasionally Sanchez verges on complete Pyrrhonism. Be-
sides, asks our philosopher, what community or essential connection.
exists between words and things? 3 Names are attached to objects
not as completely indicating their real nature, of which we are of
course ignorant, but often by the merest haphazard or caprice, being
suggested by some accidental or insignificant quality or circumstance.¹
Sanchez refuses to universals any indubitable certainty; they can
only be formed, he says, upon a complete enumeration of all particu-
lars; the absence of this quality in any single case being enough to
vitiate the generalization considered as perfect and all-inclusive.
Thus the irrationality of one man is enough to falsify the assertion;
'all men are rational.’5 The same argument will of course apply
to inductive reasoning, as an absolutely complete induction of every
single instance in the universe is, from the nature of the case,
impossible. He employs a converse argument to prove that we can
have no perfect knowledge of any single particular, for such is the
¹ It seems not improbable that Sanchez had studied Ockam. At least, his
standpoint on this and other subjects is identical with those of the great
Nominalist.
2 Cf. Herbert Spencer's maxim criticised so severely by J. S. Mill: 'That
must be the most certain conclusion which involves the postulate the fewest
times;' a principle which is clearly founded upon a skeptical estimate of
the processes and instruments of human knowledge. H. Spencer, Principles of
Psychology, ii. p. 435.
8 'Quis enim rerum naturas novit, ut secundum eas nomina illis imponat ?
Aut quæ nominibus cum rebus est communitas ?'-Q. N. S., p. 56.
4 Q. N. S., pp. 59, 60.
5 'Ego contra contendo universale falsum omnino esse, nisi omnia quæ sub
eo continentur ita ut sunt et amplectatur et affirmet. Quomodo enim verum
esset, dicere omnem hominem rationalem, si plures autsolus unus irrationalis
sit ? '—Q. N. S., p. 54.
Sanchez.
633
1
intimate connection and intermingling of all existing things, that to
know completely and in all its relations one thing, we must possess
a perfect knowledge of all things, and this being impossible, the
usual conclusion follows. The remedy which Sanchez suggests for
the endless and wordy debates of logicians is to abstain from defini-
tion; and he presents us with an interesting example of the utility
of such a maxim; for having defined science as the perfect know-
ledge of a thing,' he immediately deprecates any further enquiry
into his meaning, and refuses to add another word by way of illustra-
tion or explanation. Words and arguments serve only to obscure
what in itself may be simple and easy. Hence it happens that un-
educated people and children are often wiser than philosophers, for
they are only acquainted with the obvious and common signification
of a word. Logicians, for instance, have puzzled themselves about
the meaning of the word 'Est,' 2 whereas a child has no doubt on
the subject. Thus the human mind in its wanderings in search of
truth is like Odysseus, waylaid by another Circe in the shape of
Dialectics; or, like Æneas, it is forsaking its divinely imposed mission
to dally with Queen Dido.3
3. Besides the wordiness of Scholasticism, Sanchez dislikes the
assumption of authority underlying it. To the native freedom and
independence of the intellect this was just as mischievous as the
frivolities of the logicians; and it operated as injuriously in beguil-
ing men away from the study of Nature. The greatest criminal in
this respect was of course Aristotle, on whom, accordingly, his
heaviest denunciations fall; but, for the most part, it is the baneful
principle he contends against, not the men who may be taken to
represent it. The 'ipse dixit' of any man, no matter how eminent
for genius or learning, is an arrogant and unwarrantable assumption.
The proper study of mankind is not man, but Nature; and the book
of Nature is open as freely to one man as another. Those who, pre-
tending to study Nature, limit their attention to human opinions, act
as foolishly as the dog in the fable, who threw away the substance
to grasp at the shadow. Nature, moreover, has no limits; her
domains are commensurate with infinity; but as long as human
research continues to revolve round a few centre luminaries, human,
and therefore fallible as itself, pursuing for ever their old orbits, and
enjoying their wonted portion of doubly reflected and diluted light,
anything like a knowledge of Nature, or progress in its investigation,
is impossible. If the assumption of superior science, and thereby of
1 'Ergo omnia cognoscere oportet ad unius perfectam cognitionem, illud
autem quis potest?'-Q. N. S., p. 47.
4 Q. N. S., p. 112.
2 Q. N. S., p. 56.
Q. N. S., p. 120.
634
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
authority, is thus unjustified, those who accord it are even more.
blameworthy. Their obsequiousness is pronounced to be slavish and
unworthy of true philosophers. They are like birds who are snared
by the net they see spread to catch them. Their conduct is the less
excusable, because they cannot help seeing the perplexity produced
by the conflicting opinions and the wordy warfares with which the
world is filled. Every authority claims infallibility on its own.
account, and it is clear truth cannot belong to all. Under these
circumstances, what men have to do is to exercise each for himself
his own faculty of reason, to refuse to bind himself to any human
authority, to abandon the wordy lore of the school-men, and to in-
vestigate Nature by personal observation and experiment. As to the
diversity of method, etc., which will result from adopting such a
course, that in the search for truth is hardly a disadvantage; because
a number of dogs hunt their prey much better than a single one.¹
Besides, Nature herself does not present us with only one unvarying
aspect. She reflects in her numberless varieties, moods and muta-
tions, the manifold powers of the human mind. While Sanchez thus
vindicates for himself and his contemporaries the utmost latitude of
speculation, he nevertheless thinks that there must be a certain
amount of definite teaching, and so far, of authority, in the education
of youth; for error once implanted in the mind, and left to grow, is
only eradicated with considerable difficulty. Apparently he would
have secular training to consist entirely of investigations into Nature
and her laws; and the best teachers, he agrees with Montaigne,
should be skeptics-those who know their own ignorance-for the
same reason that the most trustworthy medical men are those who
have themselves suffered the diseases they profess to heal.
Of Sanchez's pre-eminence as a natural philosopher, his poem on
the Comet of 1677 is a convincing proof. In this interesting work,
of which Dr. Gerkrath has given copious extracts, he sets himself to
attack the enormous fabric of astrological superstition current in his
time. Nearly a century later, his fellow skeptic Bayle unsheaths
the sword of reason in the same holy cause. We are hardly able,
perhaps, to realize the immense services which our skeptics thus
conferred, because we cannot conceive the abject terror which the
appearance of a comet then produced among all classes of society.2
In many respects Sanchez's poem is superior to Bayle's Pensées
Diverses, though the latter has the advantage of almost a century's
further growth in enlightenment and scientific progress. Indeed, for
compactness of method, keen incisiveness of argument, comprehensive
1 Q. N. S., Ad Lectorem, p. 9.
2 On this subject cf. a note of Feuerbach, Sämmt. Werke, v. p. 258.
Sanchez.
635
views of Nature, philosophical insight into man's true place in crea-
tion-in a word, for the modern scientific spirit which we should
expect to characterize such a work in our own days, Sanchez's poem
is a very remarkable production. In lines which remind one, both as
to style and argument, of Lucretius,¹ Sanchez points out how action
and counter-action, growth and decay, have their respective provinces
in the economy of Nature. Apparently antagonistic, they are really
complementary of each other; both being equally necessary to its
very existence.
Hence Nature'evolves peace out of war, and new
life out of death. She remains immortal, nourished by the blood of
the dying, and is vitally active, being allied to motion by an eternal
compact.' He further states that individual calamities, even when
actual, are only occasional and temporary aspects of large and uni-
versal laws. The intention of Nature is to secure the advantage and
continuance of the universe, and when judging from our own isolated
standpoint, we interpret it otherwise, it is only because we forget her
eternal and universal character. This immensity of all natural opera-
tions, and insignificance of our human concerns, is a point on which
Sanchez strongly insists. Applying this argument to the fear
excited by the comet, he points out the pride and presumption in-
volved in assuming that natural phenomena are intended as tokens
and warnings for our guidance. Moreover, he insists on the absence.
of any demonstrable connexion between the alleged cause and its
effects. There is nothing common, he urges, between disparates, and
what possible affinity can exist e.g. between the death of a king and
the appearance of a bearded star.2 No doubt prognostication may
sometimes be allowable, but then the causes must be natural, and
within the limit of human observation. Thus we may prophecy the
downfall of a kingdom on the death of a very able king, or we may
foretell famine as a direct consequence of war.
A further objection, not only to the dread inspired by comets, but
1 'Sed fovet æternas inter contraria rixas
Opponitque aliis alia et sic suscitat ignes:
Nam pacem ex bello, vitamque ex funere ducit
Eternumque manet morientum sanguine pasta
Motui et æterno convivit fœdere nupta.'
—Cf. Gerkraft, p. 106.
Comp. similar sentiments of Lucretius, ed. Monro, ii. 77-79, iii. 964.
2 Molière has utilized this argument in his Amants magnifiques, a work
which contributed to give the coup de grace to astrological beliefs in France.
'Quel rapport, quel commerce, quelle correspondence peut-il y avoir entre nous
et les globes éloignés de notre terre d'une distance si effroyable?' But this
argument is as old as Cicero, who asks in his De Divinatione, 'What contagion
can reach us from the planets, whose distance is almost infinite?'
636
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
to the whole fabric of astrological belief, Sanchez finds in the innate
freedom of the human will, and the diversity of action which is the
practical expression of that freedom. In this respect the lawlessness
of the will is quite distinguished from the law-abiding character of
all the operations of Nature. That the former, therefore, should be
determined, or even greatly influenced, by the latter, is in the highest
degree incongruous and improbable. Another consideration he finds
in the well-known weakness and ignorance of mankind; for, granted
that a comet does prognosticate, we are utterly unable to learn the
nature of such prognostication; and though we were certain that it
portended evil, we have no power of warding off or shielding our-
selves from that evil. Every man's fate is unavoidable, and no
amount of prescience on our part can avert it. What, then, he perti-
nently asks, is the use of forecasting the future, even if we had the
power? What is the advantage of those vain astrological prophecies.
and divinations of Campanella and Cardan? A man's wisest course,
he ultimately concludes, is to leave the future to care for itself, and
to concern himself only about the present. Of course if these argu-
ments were carried to their extreme issue, the prophecies of the Old
Testament might not unfairly be brought within their scope, but
Sanchez, both here and in his work on divination, expressly limits.
their operation to secular prediction.¹ In a similar spirit he opposes
himself strongly to divination by dreams, the physical origin of
which he clearly points out. He agrees with Montaigne that he
would rather determine his conduct by the cast of the dice than by
such phantom oracles.
You will perceive that we have in Sanchez a thinker of an advanced
kind, who is wonderfully free from superstitions which were then
held by thinkers of far greater celebrity than himself. Dr. Gerkrath
has pointed out that, in respect of astrology and cognate beliefs, the
unknown physician of Toulouse is immeasurably the superior of our
own Bacon. Indeed, his conceptions of Nature may almost be said
to stand on the level of our own time. He recognizes her immensity,
the eternal and immutable order of her operations, the beneficent.
aim and character of her methods, interpreted as parts of one har-
monious whole; the subordinate position which, in most respects, man
occupies in the scale of existence. In more than one particular he
appears to me even superior to some of our leading scientists of the
present day; for he does not think that the law and order of the
universe render the supposition of a Creator unnecessary; on the
contrary, the Kosmos is to him the visible manifestation of the Divine
1 Cf. Gerkrath, p. 113 note.
2 De Divinatione per Somnum, etc., Tract. Phil., p. 230, etc., etc.
Sanchez.
637
mind;¹ and though our reason inclines to the belief that the universe
is eternal, our faith tells us, on the contrary, that it was created out
of nothing. Sanchez dislikes that shyness of first causes, which it
would seem marked much of the cosmogony of his own time, as it
does also that of ours. Human reason, he thinks, cannot rest in
purely secondary causes as if they were final. It must ascend to the
first cause of all things, which is not the arbitrary will, but the
wisdom of God.2 Nature, as the expression of the Divine perfection,
must needs be perfect itself. Hence all investigation into it is on
that ground a sacred duty; experimental science becomes theology,
for every discovery of Nature's secrets is but a further unveiling of
the mind of the Creator.
3
And this leads me to the last point I have set down for considera-
tion-Sanchez's religious opinions. Bayle, in his exuberant zeal for
Pyrrhonism, pronounces Sanchez a Pyrrhonist; but in my judgment,
in opposition to the balance of testimony. Not that there is no
evidence to be adduced in support of such an opinion, for there is
some considerable amount of a prima facie kind; but it seems to me
rebutted by Sanchez's more deliberate utterances as to his belief.
The title of his book we must set down as Pyrrhonian. His principle
of pure interrogation also bears that character. There are moreover
incidental remarks scattered here and there through his works which
point in the same direction. But on the other hand, we have his
own express declarations as to the sincerity of his belief in the main
doctrines of Christianity; and, what is a still more cogent proof of
his professed orthodoxy, and of his outward conformity to the usages
of the Church, the fact that he was permitted to live unpersecuted in
such a centre of bigotry as Toulouse. In my opinion Sanchez must
be classed with Pomponazzi, as an upholder of Twofold Truth. Not
that he openly avowed such a principle. In all probability he would
even have deprecated its application to himself. But it presents us
1 'Qui ergo in quæstionibus omnibus causas solum naturales et secundas
assignant et quærunt, nec ultra progredi volunt, stulti sunt, et eo magis, quia
id faciunt ne ignari vocentur si ad primam causam supranaturalemque con-
fugiant. Hæc enim est sapientia summa, si demum omnia per intermedias
causas ad primam usque et ultimam deducas.'-De Long. et Brev. Vit., cap. x.
Cf. Ritter, Gesch., x. 242.
2 But in his treatise On the Length and Brevity of Life-the most dog-
matic of all his philosophical works-Sanchez makes the purely arbitrary will
of God, unmodified by any considerations inherent or extraneous, the supreme
law of the universe. See chaps. x. and xi. Tract. Phil., pp. 359, 363. Comp.
Ritter, x. 241.
3 This is also the opinion of Bühle, Hist. de la Phil., ii. 802. Trans. by
Jourdain.
638
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
+
with the readiest mode of reconciling incompatibilities in his intel-
lectual formation. For with all his skepticism, his love for free-
enquiry, his cordial hatred of the School-philosophy, his profound
reverence for Nature and confidence in her teachings, Sanchez was
undoubtedly possessed of a deep religious feeling. Revelation, in
some form or degree, was to him absolute truth; though we hardly
know enough of his secret convictions to pronounce on the extent to
which he would have admitted its claims. Clearly there were phases
of the dogmatic belief of his time which only excited his disgust.
Hence, allowing for a preponderance on the side of Revelation, Sanchez
was essentially a two-souled man. He pushes his argument on the
immutable order of Nature's laws to an extent which would render
belief in miracles, except as an arbitrary unconditional determination,
impossible. Similarly prophecy is, on grounds of reason and Nature,
denied all locus standi. He asserts the connexion of the physical
organization with the mental faculties and the soul, in such terms as
to imperil the immortality of the latter; and yet he not only assents
to, but evidently believes strongly, these truths of Revelation. Apart
from their bearing on his intellectual character, we have no business
to analyse in a narrow or hostile spirit what must seem inconsist-
encies. There are perhaps some reasons for supposing that they
indicate a coercion ab extra, which Sanchez was not brave enough to
resist, a cynical deference which he says wise men must occasionally
pay to fools. If he was the 'grande Pyrrhonien' which Bayle pro-
nounces him, this would be the only possible explanation of his
incongruities. But, as I have said, I do not myself share that
opinion. I believe Sanchez to have been in most points of faith and
practice a sincere Christian; and I regard those utterances on behalf
of ecclesiastical orthodoxy as the outcome of a nature, which on its
emotional and imaginative side was profoundly religious. In a word,
we must take him as another specimen added to those already in our
collection, of the philosophico-religious centaur-the freedom and the
research of a philosopher grafted on the belief of a Christian.
On his intellectual side, Sanchez was above and beyond all things
the explorer of Nature by direct personal investigation and experi-
ment. Nature was the object of his philosophical adoration, as God
was of his religious worship. At the outset of his career he expresses
his determination to 'pursue Nature by the light of reason.'¹ Το
this resolution he adhered. He found in the contemplation of her
varied aspects, and in experimenting on and determining her laws,
the work most congenial to his own tastes. This he moreover re-
1 'Solam sequar ratione Naturam.'-Q. N. S., Ad Lectorem, p. 10.
Sanchez.
639
commends every youth to take up and pursue to the end of his
days.¹
His very conception of God seems in the last resort, to be taken
from Nature, rather than from Revelation. God is primarily to him
the omniscient cause of Nature, the 'Natura naturans' of Scotus.
Erigena. He attributes to him perfection, not because Revelation
assures us that God is perfect, but because such a conclusion is
clearly indicated by the perfection of Nature. It may even be
questioned whether he did not share to a great extent Bruno's
pantheistic tendencies. As we saw in our Bruno discussion, the
Italian idealist visited Toulouse in 1577,2 and gave there some read-
ings in philosophy; so that it is quite possible he may have had
Sanchez for a pupil. The firmer grasp which the latter had of the
principles of physical science, as we now understand them, would have
made an entire agreement with Bruno's metaphysical conclusions
quite impossible. To Sanchez, as to some other thinkers, the nearest
material symbol of Divine energy is the sun, which he believes can
create, i.e. actually form out of nothing, for no thinker in those days
disbelieved the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Like a Greek
Ionic philosopher, give him unlimited sunshine and moisture, and he
will almost dispense with the instrumentality of a Creator. He
considers the objection that the sun is the cause of corruption as well
as of generation, but replies that both are parts of the same process,
and one cannot exist without the other. He apparently extends the
same optimism to moral as well as to physical evil, alleging, like
Spinoza, that evil is only privation, and privation is in essence
Nothing. This view however need not necessarily have clashed with
the teaching of his Church, any more than the same belief did in the
case of Aquinas and others; for here as elsewhere he might have
employed the unconditional imperative of faith. From the point of
view of his skepticism, Sanchez regards God as the alone possessor
of perfect knowledge. His omniscience is the ideal contrast of our
human ignorance, and His infinity the opposite pole of our partial
and limited faculties. As God is thus an imperative deduction from
Nature, so Nature on the other hand leads us to God. Like Raymund
1 'Juvenem ergo nostrum si aliquid scire velit, perpetuo studere expedit,
legere ea quæ ab omnibus dicta sunt, conferre experimento cum rebus usque
ad extremum vitæ terminum.'-Q. N. S., p. 128. Though he follows up his
recommendation by a very disheartening description, from the skeptic's point
of view, of the miseries of a student's life, so as almost to render his suggestion
ironical.
2 See vol. i. p. 269. Comp. Berti, Giordano Bruno, p. 111.
3 Cf. Ritter, Gesch., x. p. 240.
640 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
of Sabieude, Sanchez sees in her various laws and orders of being a
kind of Jacob's ladder, by which a philosopher ascends step by step
to God.¹ Whether a man thus attains the conception of Deity by
the operation of reason on Nature or by faith in Revelation is of no
consequence. He is perfectly free from the narrow-minded theology
which insists on the recognition of Deity by methods and processes.
which she alone must prescribe.
But though Sanchez is occasionally optimistic in dealing with the
problems of Nature and theology, nothing can well be more gloomy
than the picture he draws of the skeptical enquirer, goaded by a
restless yearning for knowledge, but thwarted in his desires and
retarded at every step by obstacles he is utterly unable to surmount,
attacked by diseases which incessant study and application bring in
their train, conscious of his unhappy condition yet unable to forego
the exhilarating but perilous opium-draught of knowledge, occupied
in a ceaseless search for what he knows he can either not find at all
or find in so impure a condition as to be probably worthless. Perhaps
the gloomier shades of the picture were derived from his own experi-
ence, as well as from the undoubted danger which then attended
free-enquiry. The scenes of intolerance to which his residence at
Toulouse accustomed him, form an eloquent commentary on the
dissuasive from enquiry, which we have in Nothing Known. It
must be admitted that his practice does not accord with his preach-
ing, for though he insists that ignorance is the highest bliss, the most
exalted achievement of humanity, in his own case the nostrum is
ineffectual; his dictum Nothing Known is belied by the whole course
of his life, for he pursues knowledge as eagerly and persistently as if
he were certain of attaining not only science, but omniscience.
To conclude—Sanchez must be regarded as one of the most keen-
sighted and advanced thinkers of the seventeenth century. His
position at Toulouse, the rarity of his works (there was only one
edition of Nothing Known published in his lifetime), the danger
2
1 'Præterea philosophus non uno ictu et saltu ad Deum confugit sed per
naturales causas tanquam per gradus, ad eum tandem ascendet: ignarus
contra, sine inferiorum causarum perquisitione, statim ad Deum convolat.'
-De Long. et Brev. Vit., cap. x. Tract. Phil., p. 361, 2.
2 The Lyons edition of 1581. Ritter seems inclined to doubt the existence
of this edition, because taking the date usually assigned for the birth of
Sanchez, 1562, he could then have only been nineteen years of age; and, as he
truly observes, the work is by no means that of so young a man (Gesch., x. 237
note). That the edition exists is now put beyond controversy; and placing
the birth of Sanchez ten years earlier, removes some of the difficulty respecting
his age when he wrote the book. Cf. Gerkrath, p. 143, and Bayle, Dict., Art.
'Sanchez.'
Sanchez.
641
then attendant upon free-enquiry, all combine to render both himself
and his writings unknown except to students of philosophy. His
skepticism, as we have seen, is a distinctive and fundamental
principle of his intellect. He certainly coquetted with Pyrrhonism,
but so also have other thinkers who cannot be accused of carrying
it as far as possible to its ultimate negative conclusion. The radical
opposition to the whole fabric of medieval belief, which appeared to
enlightened thinkers of that age not only justifiable but necessary
imparted to their hostility a more uncompromising and violent
aspect than perhaps they really intended. They proclaimed war to
the knife, but found it expedient in actual conflict to remember the
dictates of justice and mercy. Probably in no age or country are
the settled convictions of men so debased and untrue as to merit
thorough extirpation, supposing such a process feasible. Even when
political revolutions are provoked by centuries of oppression and
misrule, and when the passions of men are excited to an ungovernable
degree of fury, it is found that a reform may easily assume too
sweeping a character. Drastic remedies of this kind are as mischiev-
ous to the social well-being of humanity as to the individual. Hence
a large deduction in respect of earnest positive belief must be made
from Sanchez's somewhat loud professions of skepticism. Like the
methodised skepticism of Descartes, it is merely the chosen instru-
ment of his philosophical designs. He desired to lay by its aid the
foundation of an enquiry like that afterwards prosecuted by Bacon
and Descartes into every department of knowledge. He wished to
free himself and all other thinkers from the thraldom of Scholas-
ticism and mere arbitrary and unverified authority. Incidentally
also he may have sought, by the abasement of the human faculties,
to enhance the reasonable claims of Revelation. Whatever judgment
we may now pass on the congruity of these different objects, we
cannot withhold our meed of approbation from ideas and aspirations,
which do honour to the man, and were calculated to meet the most
pressing needs, both philosophical and religious, of his time.
*
*
*
*
*
*
MISS LEYCESTER. If Sanchez had been the hero of a novel,
instead of a well-authenticated historical character, your ac-
count of him would have been very imperfect.
HARRINGTON. Why?
MISS LEYCESTER. Because your dénouement would have been
unnatural and inartistic; like that of weak novelists who mingle
in their plot all kinds of combustible elements, and yet con-
642 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
trive, by a timid deference to popular feeling, to avoid a final
explosion, and to make all end happily. Sanchez's life was
placed among such perilous circumstances, that his escape from
a violent death seems almost incongruous. We have all the
materials of a tragedy without the looked-for final catastrophe.
A Free-thinker, self-avowed; the author of a skeptical book;
an inhabitant of Toulouse in the beginning of the seventeenth
century; given these premisses, and the martyr's stake seems
almost the inevitable conclusion. I hope he did not purchase
his immunity by a compromise with ecclesiastical dogmatism
unworthy of a true philosopher.
TREVOR. I agree with Harrington's paper. Sanchez would
have made but an indifferent martyr; nevertheless, with such
publications as his Nothing Known, and his other works, before
us, we cannot question his moral courage. That work alone
contains enough free aspiration, as well as direct statements
of a questionable kind, to have consigned a dozen men to the
murderous clutches of the fanatics of Toulouse. We must bear
in mind, however, that towards the end of his life Sanchez
resigned his professorial duties, and limited himself to the
practice of medicine.
ARUNDEL. Does not Sanchez's freedom from persecution
suggest a still closer similarity with Bacon? I don't mean as
to intellectual tendency, or philosophical opinions, but as to
moral character. Bacon, like Sanchez, could never have been
a martyr. There is no principle of his philosophy he would
not have surrendered rather than suffer the slightest incon-
venience to maintain it. He would have suppressed the whole
of his Novum Organon rather than give up, on its account, half
of his courtly establishment of servants. I should regard both
as examples of the relaxation of moral courage which skepti-
cism has undoubtedly a tendency to produce. Take Sanchez's
book for instance. If there really is 'Nothing Known', death,
in defence of a dogma, or an assured conviction of any kind, is
of course the climax of absurdity.
HARRINGTON. But not death in defence of Free-thought.
Suspense and negation have their martyrs as well as assertion
-witness Sokrates and Bruno. I cannot for a moment allow
that Sanchez was devoid of courage; but he was a philosopher
Sanchez.
643
of large and comprehensive views, which he apparently urged
in proper time and place, with fitting caution and moderation.
He was not a poetic and fiery enthusiast, like Giordano Bruno,
who would have dared anything rather than repress a single
conviction of his intellect or phantasy of his imagination; nor,
on the other hand, was he a philosophical libertine like so
many other advanced thinkers of the Renaissance, who pro-
pounded startling theories and reckless assertions, as a mis-
chievous boy throws about fire, merely to frighten timid
people. Besides, Sanchez was fully persuaded of the funda-
mental truth of skepticism, viz. that in no province of a man's
intellectual possessions, in no department of his energies, are
his rights so undeniable and inalienable, so absolute and inde-
feasible, as in his Thought.
TREVOR. I observe that you have not told us much about
the chronology of Sanchez's life. Incidentally it has some
importance, as it shows us that when Vanini suffered martyr-
dom, Sanchez had already retired for some years from the
chair of medicine which he held for the greater part of his
life. I have been at some pains in arranging the main dates
of his life in something like order. Assuming him to have
been born in 1552, and it is self-evident that we cannot assign
that event a later date, and that he lived, as his biographer
Delassus assures us, over seventy years-say seventy-one years,
this will bring us to 1623. Between these two dates the chief
land-marks are his doctor's degree and professorship, at Mont-
pellier, when he was twenty-four years old, and his removal to
Toulouse shortly after, when he was probably twenty-five. We
know that he taught as late as 1612, for there is extant a lec-
ture delivered as part of his course for that year. This will
give us, for his professorial duties at Toulouse thirty-five years,
instead of the twenty-five mentioned by Bayle; and adding
the eleven years which are said to have elapsed between his
retirement from his professorship and his death, will bring us
to 1623, which I hold to be the true date of his death; that
given by Bayle and others, 1632, having probably originated
in a misplacement of the last two figures. If this be so, San-
chez was an old man of sixty-seven when Vanini suffered in
1619; and had most likely long ceased to attract attention by
644 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
doubtful teaching. He was of course in the prime of life,
and had just published his Nothing Known, when Bruno had to
flee from the 'scholastic fury' of Toulouse; ¹ but Sanchez was
a very different man from Bruno.
1
MRS. HARRINGTON. What an obvious handle for a retort
such a title as Nothing Known must have given.
HARRINGTON. So obvious, that it was actually adopted by
an adversary, who, I presume, collected Sanchez's certainties,
negative and positive together, and put them forth with the
title of Something Known (Quod aliquid scitur).2
TREVOR. If the writer of that treatise culled all the dogmas
which might be brought together from Sanchez's medical, as
well as philosophical works, they would form a creed-scien-
tific and religious-of very respectable dimensions.
ARUNDEL. Yes, with a Quid? placed at the end for an
'Amen'; like a grinning death's head introduced into a
festival scene.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Perhaps he reserved his 'quid?' for his
dogmatic foes, Aristotle and the Schoolmen for instance.
HARRINGTON. Not so, for it is a conspicuous pendant to his
own Nothing Known. Sanchez is as cynically indifferent as
Montaigne himself to the certainty or importance which might
be attached to his opinions. If he had limited his symbol to
Scholasticism, it would have been a 'Quidity' of even a more
unsubstantial and questionable kind than its own famous ab-
straction of the same name. But although we may think his
'Quid' a fair subject for humorous remark, it was with him the
quaint expression of a very profound conviction. He starts at
least with the postulate that all things human are uncertain,
however much he may afterwards modify it, from circum-
stances beyond his control.
•
MISS LEYCESTER. Of course Sanchez's poem on the comet
1 See Essay on Giordano Bruno, ante vol. i. p. 270.
2 Cf. Bayle, Dict., Art. 'Sanchez.'
8 His words on this point are almost an echo of Montaigne. ‘Quæ hic
scribo, nec ego intelligo, nec tu lecta intellecta habebis, judicamus tamen
forsan pulchre et vere dicta. Et ego talia existimo. Nil tamen uterque,
scimus.'-Q. N. S., p. 79, with which may be compared his maxim, 'Quæ docentur
non plus habent virium, quam ab eo qui docetur, accipiunt.'
Sanchez.
645
proves him to have been greatly in advance of his time; but
I confess to a feeling of sympathy with the older superstition.
Remembering the dominant ideas of the time, as to astrology
and kindred matters, one must feel that the popular terror on
the subject was fully justified. But I should almost have
thought that the galvanic shock which such a phenomenon
must have imparted, was not devoid of stimulating and whole-
some qualities, and therefore that the suppression of comets by
modern science (I mean their reduction into regular order) is
to be regretted. Monotony is the invariable accompaniment
of unbroken regularity, or, as Abelard puts it, 'Identity is the
mother of satiety,' and the laws of Nature are now regarded
so much like the even motion of a well-oiled machine, that one
almost tires of the unvarying round, and longs for some sudden
catastrophe, or at least a supernatural omen to waken us up.
TREVOR. Had the galvanic shock you speak of operated as
a stimulus to enquire into the causes of such a phenomenon, it
might have been useful. As it was, it only drove people into
the arms of religious superstition. In this country I find
farmers have a notion that a 'comet year,' as being generally
warm and dry, is always productive of a good harvest. In
the Middle Ages a 'comet year' was invariably marked by an
extra harvest for the Church.
HARRINGTON. Moreover, Florence, I do not think that the
regularity of Nature is ever likely to cloy with those who
regard it thoughtfully, simply because it is so thoroughly in-
explicable. The order of Nature is just as mysterious in ulti-
mate analysis as if it were the most eccentric and capricious
of all dis-orders. Besides which, the regularity of Nature is
arranged on such an unlimited scale, and there are in the work-
ing of her laws so many involutions and complexities-direct,
action, at least what seems so to us, existing in a kind of
regulated confusion, with reaction, inter-action, and innumer-
able agencies of every degree of obliqueness-that her orderly
freedom occasionally presents the aspect of wilfulness or licence,
and her law assumes the appearance of pure caprice. Thus, to
the sensitive mind, Nature is for ever new:
VOL. II.
'Durch die Schöpfung floss da Lebensfülle,
Und was nie empfinden wird, empfand.'
Q
646 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
So that we want neither comet, nor earthquake, nor any other
unusual phenomenon to arrest our attention, and excite our
wonder at the perpetual novelties and surprises of Nature.
MISS LEYCESTER. No doubt philosophers and thinkers can
extract their intellectual condiment of awe and wonder from
the larger aspects of Nature; but lesser folk regard for the
most part only phenomena that are rare, isolated, and striking.
To the popular mind a thunder-storm or a comet is far more
wonderful than the rotation of the earth about its axis, or the
courses of the planets round the sun.
MRS. HARRINGTON. As we seem drifting into generalities,
I may as well propose that we close our evening's discussion,
and have some tea.
*
*
*
*
LA MOTHE-LE-VAYER.
'Men erect dogmas into Dagons-the idols of their ignorance and Philistinism
—and like the Philistines of old, they occasionally find them prostrate and shattered
at their feet.'
'Dubius sed non improbus vixi
Incertus morior non perturbatus
Humanum est nescire et errare
Deo confido
Omnipotenti benevolentissimo
Ens entium miserere mei.'
Anon.
Epitaph of John Sheffield in Westminster Abbey.
'Si vis beatus esse cogita koc primum contemnere et contemni; nondum es felix si
te turba non deriscrit.'
Motto of Orasius Tubero.
'Those who only learn and practise established rules in any science or art what-
soever, may be called the people; those who examine and reform those rules, divest-
ing themselves of prejudice, are PHILOSOPHERS.'
Dr. Hey: Heads of Theological Lectures.
CHAPTER V.
LA MOTHE-LE-VAYER.
HARRINGTON. Our present subject, M. La Mothe-le-Vayer,¹
though not a planet of the first order, stands high in the
second rank of French erratic philosophers. Perhaps, indeed,
we ought to assign him a still higher position; for I observe
that Lacroix (Bibliophile Jacob) in his summary of 17th cen-
tury erudition gives him the foremost place among the prose
writers and critics of that period. His estimate of La Mothe-
le-Vayer so entirely justifies the particular and extended notice
that we are about to bestow on him, that I had better quote
it:-'Un érudit universel, très sceptique, sans obstination, et
sans préjugés il ecrit avec beaucoup de finesse et de malice,
quoique d'un manière assez archaique et incorrecte, une quan-
títé de petits ouvrages de critique sur toutes espèces de sujets
1 The chief works of and relating to Le Vayer are these :—
1. Euvres de François de la Mothe-le-Vayer. 7 vols. Dresden 1756. This
is the edition quoted in this chapter.
This collection however does not comprehend the following:-
2. Dialogues par Oratius Tubero. 2 vols, 12mo. Francfort 1716.
3. Soliloques Sceptiques, in the Petite Collection Elzevirienne of M. Isidore
Liseux. A reprint of the Paris edition of 1670.
4. Hexameron Rustique, in the same collection of M. Liseux, after the Paris
edition of 1670.
Essai sur La Mothe-le-Vayer par L. Etienne. Rennes 1819.
Some idea of Le Vayer's philosophy, instead of wading through the Dreslen
collection, may be gathered from an indifferent epitome by Alletz: Philosophie
de la Mothe-le-Vayer. Paris 1783. 12mo.
Vigneule de Marville. Mélanges..
Tallemant des Reaux. Memoires, passim.
· Niceron, Memoires. Vol. xix.
Gui Patin, Lettres. Ed. Reveillé-Parise.
Menagiana. 4 vols. passim. Ed. Paris 1729.
Of Dictionary authorities may be mentioned Moreri, Bayle Dictionnaire des
Sciences Philosophiques, the Dictionnaire Historique of Chandon et Delandine.
619
650
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
ou il montre la variété et l'étendue de ses conaissances his-
toriques et philosophiques.'
MRS. HARRINGTON. What a very long awkward sounding
name! Is there no way of shortening it?
TREVOR. Yes, we can reduce it to its usual dimensions of
Le Vayer; but it is a name, I may remark, from which if its
meaning holds good we may hope for some enlightenment.
For it means 'The Seer,' a term employed, as you know, for a
prophet among the Jews. In fact, I know a friend of a satirical
turn of mind who has prefixed as a motto to Le Vayer's col-
lected works the words of Balaam, 'The man whose eyes are
open hath said.' The family name was originally Le Voyer.
ARUNDEL. Le Vayer seems to have prided himself upon
such an auspicious meaning, for he employs and transforms it
in several different ways. The first book he wrote was under
the pseudonym of Orasius Tubero, of which the former name
is derived from the Greek word (ópáw) to see, while Tubero is
said to express La Mothe, being derived from Tuber, which
means the same as the French 'motte,' a clod or lump of earth.
I should have thought that some allusion was intended to Q.
Ælius Tubero, the friend of Cicero to whom Ænesidemus
dedicated his work on Pyrrho's Skepticism, were it not that
in subsequent works Le Vayer adopted another form of the
pseudonym, calling himself Tubertus Ocella, which has the
same signification.
HARRINGTON. Not altogether, Arundel. The adoption of
the diminutive 'Ocella' as a cognomen might imply a modest
distrust of the seer's vision-which adverse critics would say
was amply justified.
MISS LEYCESTER. I suppose he ranks, in French Skepticism,
next after Montaigne and Charron. If so his name represents
accurately his position, if we pursue our former analogy from
Jewish history; for to the legislator and high priest succeeds
in due course the seer or prophet.
ARUNDEL. The name, with its implication, might easily
seem of evil rather than of good omen, at least for its owner.
The word Skepticism shows us how bodily sight engenders
doubt; and the boast of Le Vayer, or the Seer, is suggestive of
similar distrust in the reality or truth of his vision. I should
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
651
myself assign him another motto, which by the
favourite text of skeptics, 'But now ye say we see.
your sin (i.e. imperfect vision) remaineth.'
way is a
Therefore
MISS LEYCESTER. Leaving the name—is it not remarkable
that of the six French thinkers we have on our list, no less
than five should have been connected directly or indirectly
with the court of 'the eldest son of the Church.' This cannot
mean that courts are as a rule favourable to free-enquiry and
independence of character, for that they confessedly are not.
"
}
TREVOR. The matter is I think easily explicable, and upon
grounds flattering to skeptics. The court of France from the
time of Montaigne to Bayle was undoubtedly orthodox, i.e. in
the pernicious meaning of the term, which makes a supposed
correct belief superior to and a substitute for morality. Still
it affected to patronize learning, and took especial care that
the tutors of Dauphins and other scions of royalty should be
men of parts, which our skeptics undoubtedly were. But
though they were thus connected with the court, they all for-
sook it at the first convenient opportunity, and with similar
expressions of distaste and repugnance. As you have just
remarked, a courtier's life is anything but favourable either to
the cultivation or the promulgation of truth. Pascal said that
Truth is useful to the hearer but disadvantageous to the
speaker, for it makes him to be hated. Those who live with
princes love better their own interests than that of their
masters; hence they do not care to procure an advantage for
him by injuring themselves.' The predilection of the French
court was not for skeptics, qua skeptics, but for learned and
thinking men, in whom a modicum of incredulity is generally
traceable. The same partiality was shared very largely, and
perhaps with more sincerity, by the chief personages in the
kingdom, both lay and cleric. Charron was patronized by the
minister Jeannin, who declared that his Sagesse ought to be
published at the expense and under the patronage of the
government, as a kind of state manual (livre d'etat). Richelieu
was partial to Montaigne's Essais, and accepted the dedication
of Mademoiselle de Gournay's edition. Le Vayer was tutor to
the Duke of Anjou, the brother of Louis XIV.; Huet was
sub-tutor to the Dauphin, the eldest son of the Grand
652 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Monarque; while Gabriel Naudé was the protegée and
librarian of Cardinal Mazarin.
ARUNDEL. You have forgotten Ramus, and his patronage by
the court, and the Cardinal of Lorraine.
As regards
Le Vayer, court life was especially unsuited for his calm,
contemplative and unambitious temper. In his writings he
frequently takes occasion to indemnify himself for the priva-
tions and disquietudes he had thereby endured. In one of his
dialogues e.g. he remarks that if a man could preserve an
equable mind and temper amidst the restlessness of a court
and the distractions of a palace, he would give him leave to
philosophize while propelled violently backwards and forwards
in a swing.
MRS. HARRINGTON. I suppose as Le Vayer succeeds in order
of time to Montaigne and Charron, that he was indebted for
his unbelief and his knowledge to the Essais of the first and
the Sagesse of the second.
ARUNDEL. Montaigne he hardly ever mentions, though he
was a great friend of Mademoiselle de Gournay, the adopted
daughter of the essayist. Charron seems to have been the
authority, among his immediate predecessors, to whom he most
deferred, and whom he quotes oftenest. But skepticism was
then the fashionable philosophy. Those were days when
Mersenne avowed that in Paris there were no less than fifty
thousand Atheists, and that the skeptics were more dangerous
than the Turks-an alarming assertion when the bare
mention of Turkish invasion sent a thrill of horror through all
the inhabitants of western Europe. Le Vayer and Gassendi
were the leaders of a free-thinking school which counted
among its members such men as Gabriel Naudé, Sorbière,
Simon Foucher and Bernier. But it was not among contem-
poraries or his own countrymen that Le Vayer found his
literary progenitor; so far as one man can claim such a title,
we must assign it to Sextus Empeirikus, though he calls
1 So Nicole writes (Lettre xlv.): 'Il faut donc que vous sachiez que la
grande hérésie du monde n'est plus le lutheranisme ou le calvinisme, que c'est
l'athéisme.' But it must be remembered that a very small amount of free-
thought would suffice to frighten P. Mersenne on the one side and Nicole on
the other.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
653
Sokrates his first father, probably because he introduced him
to the method which he found developed by Sextus. The first
Greek edition of Empeirikus appeared just twelve years before
he published his chief skeptical book, The Dialogues of Orasius
Tubero, in 1633.
HARRINGTON. You surprise me, Arundel. I thought we
had traced the influence of Sextus in earlier members of our
skeptical confraternity—notably in the instances of Cornelius
Agrippa and Montaigne.
ARUNDEL. No doubt. There was a Latin version of the
Hypotyposes in existence in the thirteenth century.¹ Bayle
says that Gassendi contributed, in the first instance, to diffuse
the knowledge of that work. After this time it became known,
at least in literary circles, by Henry Stephen's Latin version
published in 1562. What I have just noticed as bearing on
Le Vayer's studies is the date of the first Greek edition
(Princeps), which is 1621. Le Vayer, I may add, is a better
linguist than either Montaigne or Charron. He could read
Greek, though whether sufficiently to be independent of Latin
helps may be considered doubtful.
TREVOR. There can be little doubt of the preponderating
influence of Sextus on Le Vayer's philosophy, but his intellect
was too capacious and his literary appetite too omnivorous to
be satisfied with the single dish of any one teacher's mind,
even though it were as ample and comprehensive as that of
Montaigne or Sextus Empeirikus. Like each of those writers,
his pages are studded with quotations from different authors.
There is, as in the case of Montaigne, almost an affectation in
the way in which trite and trivial scraps of classical lore are
adduced as authorities for remarks just as much truisms as
they are. Disraeli, you remember, in his Curiosities of Litera-
ture, notes him as an example of 'a great quoter.' 3
1 Le Clerc and Renan, Histoire Litteraire de la France au Quatorzième Siècle.
i. p. 426.
2 Dict. Historique, Art. 'Pyrrhon.'
³ Cf. Vigneule Marville, Mélanges d'Histoire et de Litterature: 'On a les
ouvrages de Le Vayer en trois volumes in folio, qui ne sout qu'un amas de ce
qu'il avoit trouvé de meilleur dans le cours de ses lectures '-ii. p. 328. Similarly
Balzac said of him: 'Il vit en faisant le dégât dans les bons livres.' Cf.
Menagiana, ii. p. 184.
654 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
MISS LEYCESTER. Well, Dr. Trevor, you must not forget
the apology you offered in the case of Montaigne for this very
fault. Classical revivalism was not as yet so old that it had
ceased to be regarded as a wonderful and fascinating novelty.
HARRINGTON. Whatever Le Vayer's general acquaintance
with classical literature, I should not consider his imitation of
ancient models very successful, judging at least from Orasius
Tubero, in which he professes to copy them. As philosophical
dialogues they are greatly inferior to those of Cicero and
Lucian, to say nothing of the masterpieces of Plato. It is true
Voltaire praises them, as the first tolerable attempts to indite
Dialogues in French prose, but that is not saying much. Le
Vayer's style and method seem to me utterly unsuited to this
species of literary composition. The language is no doubt
plain enough. You are never at a loss for the author's mean-
ing, but it needs plasticity, ease and lightness. You want it
enlivened by something besides the perpetually recurring
scraps of Seneca or Sextus-some native product of eloquence,
pathos, sarcasm, or humour. His style seems to me tiresomely
grave, sententious and prosaic, better adapted for a didactic
treatise on some ponderous subject than for familiar essays and
dialogues.
ARUNDEL. Compared with skeptical predecessors and con-
temporaries, Le Vayer's 'literary form' certainly does not
show to advantage. Though not deficient in wit and sarcasm,
it lacks the lightness and flexibility of Montaigne's Essais, the
combined vigour and easy flow of Charron's Sagesse, and the
simplicity and point of Descartes' Discourse on Method; but we
must remember that Le Vayer was fully conscious of his un-
attractive style,¹ and affected to despise the graces of eloquence.
Written language, according to him, was intended to express
the writer's meaning and to persuade the reader; provided
it fulfilled those functions, he was satisfied. Besides, to expect
very striking qualities in Le Vayer would be to misapprehend
his character. He is not an original genius, nor brilliant in
any respect, though he is not so deficient in wit and caustic
¹ Cf. ‘Au Lecteur,' prefixed to Observations sur la Composition des Livres,
Euv. Comp., ii. part 1.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
655
humour as your language, estimating him from Orasius Tubero,
would lead one to suppose. Quiet, grave, plodding, methodical
-the impersonation of his own style and method-he is little
more than a fair average representation of the industrious and
thoughtful scholar.
MRS. HARRINGTON. We cannot in reason expect that all the
stars to which we are directing our critical telescopes should
be suns and centres of planetary systems. For my part, I
think we ought to be thankful for an occasional ordinary
human being to discuss, instead of an uninterrupted succession
of intellects of the first order; who must be judged in ecstatics
and superlatives, or else in a critical collapse of speechless notes
of admiration. Occasional shade is as pleasant in literature as
in a summer walk.
TREVOR.
As the ostensible defender of skepticism in our
little conclave—a sort of Advocatus Diaboli as some would call
me-I must point out that Le Vayer presents a case in which
free-thought and enquiry were the means of converting him
from a wild and lax youth to a sober, thoughtful and philo-
sophical manhood.
ARUNDEL. So far as the mere fact is concerned, no doubt
you are right: Le Vayer is a philosophical convert. But we
must not forget that beneath both his wild youth and his
philosophic manhood there runs a continuous under-current of
orthodox religious profession. He never threw off his belief
in the dogmas of Papal Christianity. What we have termed
his conversion was not therefore a change of creed as such,
but of outward life and practice. Unhappily there was so
little moral earnestness or purity in the Church, that it had
lost all real power over thoughtful men like Charron and Le
Vayer. Both were advocates of the secularization of morality,
and its independence of religious sanctions. Both helped to
establish by their works the ethics of honnêtes hommes,¹ the
¹ The peculiar or technical meaning of this phrase so often used by the
French moralists of the seventeenth century is well known. It is explained
by Lord Chesterfield in his Letters to his Godson (Lord Carnarvon's edition) as
follows: 'Honnête homme en français n'est nullement an honest man en Anglais,
mais c'est ce qui nous appelons a gentleman, c'est a dire un homme qui a de
bonnes mœurs, de manières tres polies, douces et nobles, et qui sait se conduire
en toute compagnie, vis à vis d'un chacun' (p. 115).
656 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
half self-evolved, half classically suggested code of moral duty
and practice to which all the independent thinkers of France
adhered up to the time of the Revolution. Nothing can be a
greater reproach to Papal Christianity in France, or a more
indisputable proof that her mission was a virtual failure,¹ than
that men found among skeptics and free-thinkers those moral
restraints and motives which religion (and that, too, Christi-
anity!) failed to afford.
TREVOR. Quite so! Driven from the Church, morality
found refuge in the philosopher's study.
Of course
in regretting the fact you are speaking from your clerical
point of view, as you are justified in doing. But from a
philosophical standpoint, I am not sure that the evil may not
have been pregnant with good. It was one of those cases
in which a misuse of power or privilege engenders a bene-
ficial reaction, if not a complete reformation. Without the
selling of indulgences we should have had no Luther; and
without the depravity of the Church, we should not have had
that recognition of the comparative purity of the heathen
morals and literature which marks the Renaissance, nor should
we have had that series of ethical writers in France which
began with Montaigne. It would be no extreme nor unten-
able hypothesis which regarded Charron and Le Vayer, with
some of their successors, as having effected that divorce of
morality from Papal-religion, which Luther partially effected
for a purer Christianity. We might therefore look upon them
as Reformers-they certainly brought back men's minds to a
more intimate relation with the precepts of Christ, than the
lives and examples of the clergy, from the Pope downwards,
were likely to do.
¹ I.e. as an ethical teacher: this is shown by the place which ethics claimed
in the works of the foremost French writers during the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries. M. Nisard, in his Histoire de la Littérature Francaise, ascribes
this to an innate taste of his countrymen for such studies. But this as the
sole reason of the phenomenon seems questionable. As a part of philosophical
speculation, there is just as much aptitude for ethical studies in Germany and
England. The reason why no distinct set of moralist writers has ever appeared
in these countries is that by the Protestant Reformation and its stress on
Scripture, morality was distinctly allied with religion as an integral portion
of it, which rendered its consideration as a distinct science needless.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
657
HARRINGTON. Nevertheless, Doctor, we must bear in mind
that the reaction, though temporarily healthful, was pushed to
most mischievous extremes. The independent morality so
nobly inculcated by Charron and Le Vayer did not, as a matter
of fact, long preserve her independence. As ecclesiasticism
had failed, some other standard of moral duty had to be found,
and that not an abstract, unrelated entity, such as 'absolute
morality,' but a clear and tangible principle suited to popular
comprehension. The only remaining one was 'Human Nature,
whose assumed dictates were pushed to a barbarous excess by
Rousseau, Helvetius and D'Holbach, and helped to bring
about the complete moral disintegration exemplified in the
Revolution.
ARUNDEL. Exactly so. That is why I maintain that abso-
lute morality can never be a fitting foundation for popular
duty, except when the ordinary standard of human thought
and teaching on the subject has attained considerable eleva-
tion. Your observations quite justify the regret I expressed
just now, and which Trevor thought uncalled for, that the
Church had abrogated her own functions and duties as the
prime moral regenerator of humanity. Hence instead of the
Sermon on the Mount-which should have constituted the life
and teaching of any institution which claimed the name of
Christian-philosophers, and free-thinkers presently had re-
course to Rochefoucauld's Maxims, a veritable satire on
Christian ethics. .
I do not yield to any one in the
sincerity of my conviction both of the truth and utility of
unconditional morality, and I think it useful that it should
be sometimes considered on its own ground as pure absolute
duty; but that fact does not lessen my regret, that Christianity,
which was destined by its Founder to teach and religionize
moral duty, should have come, by some monstrous perversion
of legitimate evolution, to inculcate all kinds of depravity,
lust, and selfishness. The enthusiasm with which Molière's
Tartuffe was received, not to mention earlier and less known
dramas, may be taken as the popular estimate of the morality
of ecclesiastical devoteeism.
HARRINGTON., Le Vayer's Virtue of the Heathen is a con-
siderable contribution to the cause of independent and non-
658
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
ecclesiastical morality.
It represents, I take it, a
phase of a controversy which it would be impossible to revive
in our time. Imagine a discussion now on the salvability
of Aristotle or Plato! Happily the growth of toleration and
large-hearted charity has been so marked in modern times that
not even a clerical assembly could so far stultify and unchris-
tianize itself, as to wish to exclude such a man as Sokrates
from whatever measure of Divine love and knowledge that
may be reserved in the Hereafter for all earnest searchers after
truth.
By-and-by-after the growth of nineteen or
twenty centuries-Christianity, I mean that of the churches,
may approximate to the perfection of her primal existence,
seeing that in Eden innocence and purity she first discoursed
to humanity from the hill sides of Galilee.
ARUNDEL. To your prospects I heartily say Amen; only
don't be sure that religious fanaticism and bigotry are already
things of the past. It is hard to say what clerical assemblies,
when alarmed or irritated, will not do. As to individuals, I
don't suppose we should find many clerics, whose opinion was
worth the breath which enounced, or the ink which indited
it, who would now deliberately assert that the virtues of the
heathens were vices; still, I fear sectarian Christianity has not
yet outgrown its wonted exclusiveness. The distinction of
covenanted and uncovenanted mercies, insisted on by thec-
logians (as if the infinite love of God were a matter of chaf-
fering and barter), still conveys a comfortable doctrine of
superiority and separability, just as the implicit and explicit
faith which Le Vayer reproduces from the Schoolmen, marks a
similar wall of separation on its human side.
What
an ironical commentary, by the way, is furnished by almost
the whole history of the Christian Church on the texts:-
'Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,'
and, 'In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh
righteousness is accepted of Him.'
But we must not
linger further on a subject which I shall have to treat in due
course; so I will, with your permission, begin my paper.
#
*
*
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
659
Le Vayer was born in Paris in 1588, of a family which came
originally from Mans, and some of whose members held positions of
dignity connected with the local administration of different places
in France. His father was Conseiller to the King and deputy to the
Procureur-General of the Parliament. He enjoyed considerable re-
pute for his learning in the Civil and Canon Law, and for mathema-
tical acquirements. He was also esteemed an excellent orator and a
very fair poet. He died in 1625.
Of the youth of his only son Francis, the subject of our study,
we are not told much. Indeed we know nothing of it beyond what
he has chosen to divulge in a few incidental passages in his writings,
and it is rare to find a man who wrote so much, say so little of him-
self. From his own confession 1 we know that it was the wild
and licentious youth which was only too common among scions of the
French nobility and learned professions in the beginning of the seven-
teenth century, and for which the corrupt state of religion and society
was primarily liable. Of this period and its license there are still
unseemly traces and survivals in more than one of Le Vayer's
writings. I cannot, however, help thinking that in his sincere
compunction for youthful indiscretions, he must have exaggerated
their extent. Certainly, the amount of his reading in the classics,
his acquaintance with modern languages and authors, not to mention
the study of law which enabled him at the age of thirty-five to suc-
ceed his father in his responsible office, are quite irreconcilable with
an utterly dissipated and wasted youth.2
What is very noteworthy, as Trevor just now remarked, in the
case of Le Vayer, is his conversion from a disorderly and frivolous.
course of life, to one of moral austerity and severe philosophical
application by means of certain free-thinkers whom he does not
name. The passage is interesting for two reasons: (1) As supplying
a striking contrast to the philosophical conversions of other skeptics.
on our list. (2) As a proof, all the more valuable from its undoubted
genuineness, that earnest free-thought in the beginning of the
seventeenth century afforded a point d'appui for serious-minded
men, which neither the corrupt Romanism nor the narrow Protes-
tantism of the period could furnish. 'As regards the pleasures' says
Le Vayer, which accompany honour and riches, my complexion
makes me capable of every one of them, and I possess natural
inclinations, as powerful perhaps as those of any one, to impel me to
their enjoyment.
I was thus in time past engaged in satisfy-
ing them, when my good genius made me acquainted with certain
¹ Hexameron Rustique (ed. Lisieux), p. 76.
2 Comp. Euv., i. p. 23.
660
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
persons of good sense (personnes de bon esprit) who imparted the
earliest enlightenment to my mind, and revealed to it the first gleams
of true philosophy. Their mode of life, altogether different to mine,
their ideas and feelings opposed to those I had hitherto cultivated,
together with the zeal, and the desire to search for and to cherish, the
truth in all things, which I had always felt, produced from that time
forward a very notable change in my mind.' 1 He goes on to enume-
rate the temptations he, like other converts, had to endure to return
to his forsaken courses, and which he could only master by fleeing
from them, and making a tour through the chief portions of Europe.
His travels confirmed him in his newly adopted skepticism. Indeed,
we shall find as we proceed that Le Vayer's is essentially the un-
belief of the traveller. No one of all the skeptics has employed and
elaborated so fully what might be called the geographical argument
of their philosophy. He said that he regarded his travels as the
period of all his life which was best employed. 'To the gods,' he
adds, 'he owes life, but to philosophy,2 right living.' It is thus clear
that he does not include his deliberate choice of skepticism as among
the uncertainties of his creed.
Le Vayer speaks in other places of the deliverance which he found
in a freer mode of thought, with such gratitude and enthusiasm, as to
compel the inference that his unrestrained youth had also been a time.
of sincere and earnest inquiry. The attitude of suspense would be a
strange remedy, except perhaps on homeopathic principles, for mere
frivolity and licentiousness; though we can easily conceive how philo-
sophical research might, in duly constituted minds, awaken new
desires and aims, and thereby totally change the current of an un-
wholesome existence. What suspense, I suppose, delivers from is the
compulsion of dogma-the feeling that we must decide between two
issues, either of which is unacceptable or unsustainable. In the follow-
ing description of this deliverance, on the part of a skeptical neophyte,
I cannot help thinking that Le Vayer is recording his own sensa-
tions: 'Thus, just as we see in natural things, the corruption of
the one is the generation of the other. I have no sooner lost by
your means' (addressing the philosopher who has converted him)
that foolish belief in knowledge, than I find myself a thorough
skeptic; and as one cloud drives away another whose room it occupies,
so suspensive ignorance instantly replaces pedantic and dogmatic
science. I shall therefore retire (from the colloquy) with that satis-
faction, and mental transport, which you are aware is the property of
those who have suddenly discovered a welcome and perfect repose of
1 Orasius Tubero, i. pp. 230-231.
2 Orasius Tubero, i. p. 233.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
661
mind.' Not to dwell further on this turning-point in Le Vayer's
întellectual existence, we must acknowledge, from our former exam-
ination of Charron, that he possesses precisely those principles, and
acts in exactly the way, which would have characterized a fervent
disciple of that plilosopher.
I have already said that Le Vayer succeeded to his father's office
on his death in 1625. But the dry technicalities of law had as little
charm for him as they had for Charron. 'I have always felt an
aversion,' he once said, 'for the chicane and business of Themis.'
This natural dislike he contrived to minimize by frequent incursions
into his favourite domain of general literature. Probably Montaigne's
Essais, Charron's Sagesse, the works of Plutarch, Seneca, and Sextus,
and other congenial authors, were never far removed from his office-
desk, and in the society of these and kindred spirits among his per-
sonal friends he found a relief from the tedium and monotony of
official duties. It is only in this way that we are able to account for
the varied learning which is the most striking feature of his works.
That he did not resign his office until his subsequent connexion with
the court is clear from the Royal Privilege prefixed to his work on
the Instruction of the Dauphin, published in 1640,2 in which he
is described by his official title. Other relaxations from professional
drudgery Le Vayer found in travelling. In the suites of ambassa-
dors to various countries and capitals he contrived to see the chief
places worth seeing in Europe. Thereby he was enabled to add to
the data, on national and race diversities, which he was continually
accumulating, and on which his skeptical philosophy was based. In
1635 he travelled through Italy, and on another occasion he accom-
panied an embassy to Spain. Of the latter journey he relates the
following anecdote.3 The ambassador De Bautrec and Le Vayer had
gone to see the library of the Escurial. Thanking, subsequently, the
Spanish minister for his good offices, De Bautrec humorously re-
marked, that in requital of the kindness which his Catholic majesty
had conferred on him, he wished in return that all those who had the
management of his finances conducted themselves as the monks of
thẹ Escurial did in the library of which he (the king) had made them
guardians, because that, possessing so great a treasure, not one of
them wished to employ it to his own purpose, nor in fact to take
the slightest advantage of it. Most of these opportunities of foreign
travel were offered to Le Vayer through the influence of Cardinal
Richelieu; who became his patron and whose kind offices he requited
1 Orasius Tubero, ii. p. 172.
VOL. II.
2 Essai, p. 5.
3 Eur., ii. pt. i. p. 375; Comp. Menagiana, iii. p. 50.
R
662
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
in the scholar's coin of dedications, most of his works being inscribed
to him, while some of them were written at his suggestion, and in
order to forward his political or other designs. Le Vayer, I may
add, extended his travels to England; for in his treatise on Games he
said that he had seen in London fencing matches, that the fencers
were a good deal like Roman gladiators, and their combats gave
much pleasure to the English.¹
3
Le Vayer's first important work was the Dialogues of Orasius
Tubero, which was published, if we may believe M. Etienne, in 1633.2
So far as his skepticism is concerned, this work may claim to rank
as about the most important of his writings. M. Etienne, who has
subjected it to a close and discriminating analysis, regards it as
containing, in epitome, the whole of Le Vayer's works-as being the
single theme, of which all his other productions are but so many
variations.4 This remark must refer however only to his skeptical
writings, which, extensive as they are, do not include the whole of
his rather voluminous works; and even if the remark were more
widely applicable than it is, it does not seem to deserve the repro-
bation with which M. Etienne 5 notices it, for it was, at least in those
days, by no means uncommon for a philosophical teacher to announce
his main principles in one treatise, and to follow it up, in its ramifi-
cations and manifold applications, in a series of subsequent volumes.
Le Vayer's position as an erudite scholar, and a plain and sensible
writer of French prose, was conceded in 1638, by the inscription of
his name on the roll of the Academy, then in its infancy, having
been founded three years before by Richelieu. Moreri says," and
other writers have repeated, that he was among the first selected.
This is not altogether correct, because he really obtained his seat on
the death of another member (a M. de Meziriac), but it is so far true
that his name was added to the list before the number forty was
completed for the first time. This recognition of his literary merits
¹Œuv., iii. pt. 2, p. 51.
2 See his elaborate proof of the earlier date. Essai, p. 5.
3 In this case Le Vayer was 45 years of age when he began to publish, not
'nearly fifty,' as his anonymous biographer remarks in the life prefixed to
his works. The same writer adds, on the authority of Gui Patin, who received
the anecdote from Huet, that Le Vayer delayed publishing by the advice of
Père Sirmond, the uncle of P. Antoine Sirmond, and the author of the Defence
of Virtue. That wise and learned man cautioned Le Vayer the first time he
saw him 're vous pressés pas de rien donner au public.'—Œuv., i. p. 29.
4 Essai, pp. 26-47.
5 Essai, p. 28.
• Cf. Dictionnaire Historique, voc. 'Le Vayer.'
7 Eur., i. 32; cf. Etienne, p. 8.
La Mothe-le-Vayer:
663
Le Vayer no doubt owed to the great cardinal, who is said to have
preferred him to Balzac. But Richelieu's critical powers were not
equal to his political insight. Le Vayer was no doubt superior to
Balzac in reading and erudition, but he was considerably his inferior
in the rarer gifts of imagination, poetic culture, and the graces of a
copious and varied as well as an eloquent and brilliant style. To
Richelieu we must also ascribe the suggestion which led to Le Vayer's
writing a system of instruction for the Dauphin. The book was
published in 1640, and the cardinal was so well pleased with it that
two years afterwards, when on his death bed, he is said to have strongly
recommended Le Vayer for the post of tutor to the Dauphin. But
when the time arrived to make the selection, the queen-mother passed
him over on the pretext that he was a married man. Court jealousies
and intrigues were probably at the bottom of the refusal. Mazarin
had succeeded to Richelieu; and as the author of the Life prefixed to
his works remarks, every great man likes to have his own creatures and
favourites. There is no trace in Le Vayer's writings that this event
caused him the least anxiety or disappointment. It does not appear
that he took the trouble personally to solicit the post, for which how-
ever he probably knew that Richelieu, had he lived so long, destined
him. We must hope that the marriage which thus deprived him for
the time of high court preferment may have had other compensations
for our philosopher. His wife was a British lady. She was the
daughter of one Scotchman, who had been Conseillier at Poitiers, and
the widow of another. Le Vayer had a son born to him in 1629 or
30, who afterwards became an abbé, and a distinguished name among
the Littérateurs of the time. His premature death at the age of
thirty-five, was the greatest calamity which disturbed the even
serenity of Le Vayer's life.
In 1647 Le Vayer was appointed by Cardinal Mazarin to the office
of tutor to the young Duke of Anjou, the king's brother; whence it is
inferred that between 1644 and that date his wife must have died.
The success of Le Vayer with his young pupil was so marked that in
1652 the queen-mother confided to his care the completion of the
king's education. In this capacity he became for some years a
courtier, attending his pupil in different royal progresses from one
town to another. He was with him at Rheims, at his coronation, and
continued in his post until the king's marriage in 1660. But though
our philosopher had thus achieved a position of great distinction,
these were far from being the happiest years of his life. The
jealousies, intrigues and contentions of court life were utterly un-
suited to his calm meditative temper. For its licence, frivolity and
fashion, he entertained a stoical contempt. Among other modes"
664
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
which disgusted Le Vayer was that of long pointed shoes.
'I am
offended,' he remarks, at that rounded shoe, made like an extin-
guisher, and whose roundness it is so difficult to preserve.
In
truth I believe that it is the invention of some unfortunate individual
who, being unable to walk straight, pretends that he adopts this gait
in order to take care of the shape of his shoes, and that mysterious
rotundity.'1
He speaks of the preposterous absurdity of
fashion in terms which a growth of two centuries in wisdom and
civilization has not yet made unnecessary. 'To introduce fashions
which torture our members and attempt to correct Nature's own pro-
portions in the structure of the human body, is what we cannot too
forcibly reject, nor too strongly condemn.' No doubt a wise senti-
ment, becoming a philosopher, but tending to show Le Vayer's radical
unfitness for enacting the part of a courtier. He was nearly as
much out of place at the court of Louis XIV. as Diogenes would have
been in that of Alexander the Great. Its elaborate ceremony and
stately formality were insufferably tedious to a man in whom, assum-
ing the truth of metempsychosis, the soul of Seneca had again been
born. By means of his retiring habits, his persistent devotion to
study, and his determined refusal to intermingle more than was
absolutely necessary in affairs and pleasures so uncongenial and
hazardous, he managed to steer safely among the winds, rocks and
quicksands of court life. He says of himself, that he had adopted an
almost Pythagorean silence, and that while his eyes and ears exer-
cised their accustomed functions, his tongue would have brought him
to trouble had it not adopted that taste for a convenient taciturnity
which he had prescribed to it. The consequence of his judicious con-
duct was, that when he retired in 1600, it was with the cordial respect
of the king and all the functionaries of court and state with whom his
office had brought him into contact. Elated with his own escape, Le
Vayer frequently takes occasion to allude in a humorous tone to the
temptations and dangers of a courtier life, and regards the man who
has passed through them in safety in the light of a mariner who, after
traversing dangerous seas and encountering violent tempests, con-
trives to escape shipwreck: e.g. in one of his works on Etymology,
apropos of favourable winds which pretended sorcerers used to sell in
1 'Apropos des bottes' we may remark, that Le Vayer, notwithstanding
court pressure, always maintained a proper and philosophical independence as
to the shape, colour, and material of his boots, as he did of his ordinary apparel.
Tallemant des Reaux says: 'All the world now wear shoes, even half-boots
are out of fashion. It is only La Mothe-le-Vayer, preceptor of the Duke of
Anjou, who wears sometimes boots, sometimes half-boots, but he never was
like other people.'-Memoires, Brussels edition, ii. p. 24.
2 See Lettre lxvi., Eur. Comp., vi. pt. 2, pp. 141-143. Comp. pp. 99–100.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
665
Norway, he says, 'It is just the same at court,' and he adds 'aula
(the Latin word for court) is a great hall or vestibule-the court of a
prince. The word comes from the Greek aulée a wind instrument, the
flute,' playfully intimating that 'the court is so called because to steer
well his bark in it, the pilot ought to know the different winds per-
fectly.' We must of course not suppose that Le Vayer had no
cnemies. This would have been impossible and anomalous for a man
in his elevated position. Indeed his own character and that of his
writings afforded ample scope for courtly ill-nature and calumny.
Besides the Dialogues of Orasius Tubero, published in 1633, a work
ranking next to Montaigne's Essais and Charron's Sagesse, as the
most noteworthy outcome of French skepticism prior to Descartes-
his son had issued more than one edition of his collected works in
which the principles of Orasius Tubero were largely amplified and
applied to most provinces of human knowledge. Nothing was easier
or more natural for an envious courtier than to fling the charges of
skepticism and Atheism¹ against such a writer, and whatever might
be Le Vayer's anxiety to disclaim the latter imputation, he was not
averse to considering the former as a fair and not unwelcome desig-
nation. It is related of him that he once overheard a detracter re-
mark, 'There goes a man without a religion,' Le Vayer immediately
turned on the speaker and replied: 'My friend, I possess so much
religion as to have none of yours,' or as a different version puts it,
'My friend, I have so much religion as to pardon you, instead of
procuring, as I might, your punishment.'
3
But his own modesty, his
1 Cf. Gui Patin, writing on July 13th, 1619, soon after Le Vayer's court
appointment. 'M. de la Mothe-le-Vayer has lately been called to court, and
made preceptor to the Duke of Anjou, brother of the king. He is about sixty
years of age, of medium height, as much a Stoic as a man of the world, he
wishes to be praised, but never praises any one, he is eccentric and capricious
and suspected of the mental vice with which Diagoras and Protagoras were
touched.'—Lettres, ed. Reveillé-Parise, ii. p. 523. Comp. i. p. 460. On the latter
phrase Patin's editor remarks: 'This accusation of Atheism has long weighed
on the fame of La Mothe-le-Vayer but without proof.
At that time,
it needed but a small matter to make an Atheist. The great Descartes him-
self was regarded as such, he who has given so fair a demonstration both of
God and of the soul.' Bayle (art. 'Vayer'), says, 'There is a good deal of freedom
in the Dialogues of Orasius Tubero, but he who should thence conclude that the
author has no religion, would be guilty of rash judgment, for there is a great
difference between writing freely what may be said against the faith, and
believing it firmly.' Gui Patin's own creed was, as Bayle remarked, 'not
overcharged with articles.'
2 Nisard, Histoire de la Litterature Française, iv. p. 42, note. Cf. Etienne,
P. 17.
3 Art. 'La Mothe-le-Vayer,' in Nouvelle Biographie Generale.
666 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
unassuming and retiring manners, nay the self-distrust which I am
bound to say in his case appears to have been the result of his
skeptical disposition, delivered him from snares and enmities which
might have caused great trouble to a man of another temper. As it
was, he could make a similar boast to that of Ramus, when he de-
clared that his enforced servitude had never enslaved his mind. 'The
court which compels me to a certain external constraint will never
unsettle in the slightest degree my mind as to things of importance.'
Indeed, the agitations and trivialities of such a mode of life had con-
firmed his attachment¹ to philosophy and made him despise and
shrink from high social position. He compares himself to the Alpine
plant, Christophoriana, which tries to make itself less conspicuous the
higher its locality. A considerable number of Le Vayer's writings
are connected with his court life, being treatises which he wrote for
his pupils on every one of the sciences then recognised. While these
productions cannot be said to possess any very brilliant qualities of
style, they are clear and perspicuous. They serve to show Le
Vayer's immense erudition, as well as his possession of the art of im-
parting information in a lively and interesting manner; while the
fact of his accumulating materials and carefully inditing so many
works for the sole purpose of instructing his charges proves that he
considered no labour too great in such a cause.
2
After the termination of his court duties Le Vayer seems to have
retired for the remainder of his life into the learned privacy of his
study. Here, in communion with the sages and skeptics of all ages,
he led the tranquil meditative existence which was so grateful to him.
Gabriel Naudé thus describes the effect of his literary environment
on his opinions. 'In the midst of his well-furnished library he sees
himself surrounded by books, written in different ages and in various
languages, of which one says "white," another "black." Struck by
finding this multiplicity, this contradiction of opinions upon all the
subjects which the Deity has left to human discussion, he arrives at
the conclusion that skepticism is of all philosophies the most sensible.3
Happy those who, like him, falter only on the paths of history and of
physics. An enlightened doubt may frequently serve as a torch for
human guidance.' But Le Vayer's philosophy was probably the
¹ Œuv., vi. 2, p. 142.
2 The Actœa spiculata, our Herb Christopher.
3 Naudé, 'Dialogue de Mascurat,' quoted, Euv., i. p. 47. It may be worth
notice that the reflection which Le Vayer himself makes on the multiplicity
of books in a library, is their tendency to produce a distaste for any literary
undertaking, which has been already treated. On which points he commends
Seneca's dictum, that our predecessors have opened the way for us, not closel
it. Observations sur la composition des Livres, ii. p. 1, p. 376.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
667
cause rather than the effect of his continual accumulation of books in
every department of literature. This placid, studious life was not
free from misfortune. In 1664 he lost his only son, the Abbé, who
had long been the pride and ornament of his father's life. As I have
already hinted, he was a man of considerable ability and large literary
attainments. Le Vayer's grief was all the more poignant, because
the misfortune might conceivably have been prevented. It was at-
tributed with some likelihood to injudicious medical treatment. Gui
Patin, writing at the time, thus describes the occurrence:-' We
have here a good man in great trouble. I mean M. La Mothe-le-Vayer,
a celebrated writer, and formerly preceptor of M. the Duke of Orleans.
He had an only son, about thirty-five years of age, who fell ill of a
fever, and to whom MM. Esprit, Brayer and Bodineau administered
on three occasions antimonial wine, and despatched him to the
country whence no one returns.' 1 But in these remarks we must take
into account Gui Patin's usual superabundant candour in criticising
his friends as well as his dislike to the use of antimonial wine-a
dislike, I may add, which, while justified by its indiscriminate use at
that time,2 must not be taken to imply a dread on his part of deple-
tory measures in general. The Abbé had been the personal friend
both of Boileau and Molière. The former dedicated to him his fourth
Satire, commencing:-
'D'où vient, cher Le Vayer, que l'homme le moins sage
Croit toujours seul avoir la sagesse en partage?'
Molière, besides sending to the bereaved father a letter and a sonnet
which do equal credit to his heart and head,3 avenged the supposed
cause of his friend's death by caricaturing the court physicians in
L'Amour Medecin.¹ M. Etienne remarks that this untoward event,
which shattered the hopes of Le Vayer's life, also destroyed his faith
¹ Gui Patin, Lettres (ed. Reveillé-Parisé), iii. p. 184. Cf. Etienne, Essai, p.
58, and note.
2 Thus Boileau instances as a greater difficulty than reckoning up the vari-
ous perversities of mankind, that a man had better count up the victims of
Guenant (the queen's physician) and antimony:-
'Il compteroit plutôt combien dans un printemps
Guenand et l'antimoine ont fait mourir de gens.'
Guenant is the Macroton of Molière's L'Amour Medécin.
3 Cf. Moland, Œuvres de Molière, vol. vii.
* Gui Patin says that the masks worn by the representatives of the court
physicians in the performance of this drama, were made for the purpose of
their easy identification, but this seems needless; the men intended were
sufficiently identified by their gait, gestures, and mode of speech. Cf. Moland,
notice préliminaire to L'Amour Medecin. Molière, Œuv. Comp., iii. p. 516.
668
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
in medical knowledge; and that his chief works after this date are
characterized by more strongly marked incredulity as to the science
and its methods.
1
No doubt the death of his son under such circumstances could.
hardly have generated an increased sense of medical infallibility; but
I cannot agree with M. Etienne, either that medical science is gener-
ally exempted from the analytical processes and doubts of skeptics,
or that there is such a marked difference between Le Vayer's estimate
of the science before and after the melancholy event. Indeed, the
converse of the former proposition seems to me truer. Sextus Empei-
rikus ¹ frequently remarks on the uncertainty of the medical art, e.g..
of particular diseases being driven out rather than healed by induc-
ing others, of the difficulty of discriminating between the cures of
ignorance (i.c. Nature), and those of science, etc., while Montaigne,**
Rabelais, Cornelius Agrippa, Hirnhaym, not to mention other names,
continually insist on its empiricism, and uncertain results. [I would.
have added your own name, Doctor! only that I happen to know that
your skeptical speculation ends where your medical practice begins].
Le Vayer, like other philosophers in similar circumstances, found a
consolation in study. One of his works, called Le Prose Chagrin,3
seems to have been written as a kind of exercise or mental tonic, to
brace himself up after the severity of the blow. It may be described
as a three-parts stoical and one-part Christian treatise on the dis-
appointments of life. Like most of Le Vayer's works, it is not
distinguished by compactness either of form or matter.
collection of desultory remarks arraigning the natural laws, the
inevitable ills, imperfections and trials, which pertain to existence.
As usual, skepticism comes in for its eulogy; and so far as Le Vayer-
is concerned, his belief in its principles is rather confirmed than
weakened by his affliction and the reflections suggested by it. He
had always maintained Ataraxia to be the highest aim of the thinker.
He is now also convinced that its emotional ally, Metriopatheia
(equanimity), is the summum bonum of the afflicted or sentimentalist.
Among the dogmatisms inculpated is that of medicine, and he has
¹ Adv. Math. i. 45, xi. 188, 201, 204.
It is a
2 Cf. Montaigne's ridicule of doctors. Gui Patin remarks: 'Michel de-
Montaigne was too much in a hurry; had he attained ninety-six or a hundred
years before laughing at the art of medicine, he would have had some colour
of reason; but having become sickly at an early age, and not living more than:
seventy years (he should have said fifty-nine), it must be said that he had to
pay too soon for his mockery. Wise travellers do not irritate the village dogs
until they have left them a long way behind, and are in no further danger of
being bitten.'-Lettres, i. 362.
3 (Euv., iii. pt. 1, p. 239.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
669
a few satirical remarks on excessive blood-letting. Though he pro-
fesses at the outset of his treatise, to look for consolation to faith
rather than reason, this seems no more than the external deference
he generally accords to religion; as I have hinted, the conclusions of
the treatise are those of a stoic and skeptic philosopher.
The remainder of Le Vayer's life is, with one exception, almost
devoid of incident. In the retirement of his study, or in the select
society of a few chosen friends, he glided down the declivity of life-
with as little jolting or disturbance as falls to the lot of most men.
His studious ardour was not cooled by the frosts of old age. Up to
his last illness he continued his much loved pursuits; reading his
favourite authors, perusing every new record of geographical science
as it appeared, filling common-place books with quotations, planning.
and writing different works of his own. He had already attained.
a great age. Most of his friends had dropped off, one by one, from
his side. Of these he gives, in one of his letters, a plaintive enumera-
tion. He was almost alone in the world. Under the circumstances
I am not much surprised that Le Vayer should have taken a step
which caused mingled wonder and humorous displeasure among the
philosophers of the time; in other words, he re-married at the advanced
age of seventy-eight years. Bayle regards the step as a kind of weak-
minded reaction induced by the death of his son. Speaking of the
latter event he says: 'He was very much afflicted by it, and his
grief so confounded him that he married again, although he was more
than seventy-five years old, and had never been in the habit of be-·
wailing the loss of his first wife.' Whence it would appear that
his former marriage had not been altogether happy; a supposition
which seems confirmed by portions of his own letters.3 Le Vayer"
survived his second marriage six years, and died at the age of eighty-
four, in 1672.
Notices of our skeptic, in contemporary chronicles, are very rare.
M. Etienne has diligently collected most of those which refer to per-
sonal characteristics, and his estimation in French society. Thus M.
Vigneule-Marville, in his Mélanges d'Histoire et de Litterature, re-
marks: 'The French Academy considered him as one of its chief
members; but the world regarded him as a peevish individual, who
lived according to his own caprice, and as a skeptic philosopher. His
physiognomy and dress proclaimed him to every beholder as an extra-
ordinary man. He walked always with head erect, and eyes fixed ou
the signs of the streets through which he passed. Before I was toldi
1 Letter xcvii., Cuv., vii. p. 44, written apropos of Gassendi's death.
2 Bayle, Dict., art. 'Vayer.' Note G.
3
Comp. Letters lxxxvi. and xl., (Eur., vol. vi.
Uor M
670
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
who he was I took him for an astrologer, or for a searcher of secrets
and of the philosopher's stone. Two stupendous follies crowned the
end of his life. He composed a bad book called Hexaméron Rustique,
and married a young wife (she was over forty!) at the age of seventy-
eight years.' 1 Tallemant des Reaux, in his vivacious but unveracious
Historiettes, bestows on him a few passing notices of an equally un-
complimentary character. From these sources we learn that Le
Vayer was dressed like a surgeon's operator or quack doctor, that he
was ugly, small of stature, and had a habit of continually spitting 2
that he had the appearance of a priest or a charlatan
that he wore black shoes, with a suit of plush 3
It is said
that one day the servant of Gombauld, who knew that his master was
secretly a Protestant and desired his creed not to be known, drove
Le Vayer from the door, taking him for a Huguenot minister 4
All that these trivial details go to prove is the sturdy independence
of Le Vayer's character, and his self-assertion even in the smaller
matters of daily life. We thereby learn that his ordinary conduct
was in complete harmony with his philosophy. Often what is called
eccentricity is only the natural protest of the wise man against the
sequacious folly of the multitude.
Turning now to Le Vayer's writings, I purpose to divide them into
three groups :—
I. The first including the Dialogues of Orasius Tubero, and such
of his remaining works as manifest a directly skeptical purpose.
II. The second will comprehend some of his miscellaneous writings,
in which e.g. his skeptical principles are applied to different subjects
of knowledge.
III. For the third I reserve that work of his which I prefer to all
the rest, as advocating religious tolerance, in an age and country
when and where it was so much needed: I mean his treatise on The
Virtue of the Heathen.
I. The commencement of the seventeenth century was in France,
as throughout Europe, a period of much mental and spiritual disinte-
gration. The various influences which gave birth and an early
maturity to the Renaissance were for the most part still at work, and
continued to produce a large amount of political and religious fer-
mentation. Le Vayer's youth synchronizes with some of the religious
wars which devastated France in the latter part of the sixteenth
1 Vigneule Marville, Mélanges, ii. p. 328.
• Tallemant des Reaux. Ed. Bruxelles, 12mo, iv. p. 33.
↑ Ibid., vol. iv. p. 27.
Ihidyol. iv. p. 265.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
671
century. His manhood was contemporaneous with the social and
political disturbances of the Fronde. Both the religious and political
commotion were in truth parts of the same general movement. By
their struggle for religious and mental freedom the Huguenots were
gradually becoming acquainted with, and enamoured of, political
liberty. Their aspirations in the last particular were largely shared
by the more moderate and liberal among Catholics, and acquired sub-
stantial form by means of the perpetual wars and the autocratic
government and fiscal exactions of Louis XIV.
While the old landmarks both of church and state were thus rudely
shaken, philosophical thought added its quota to the general unsettle-
ment of men's ideas. Montaigne's Essais, Rabelais' works, Ramus's
intrepid spirit and persistent labours, Charron's wisdom and Descartes'
philosophy-not to mention other influences, c.g. those of general
culture, which do not come within the scope of our subject—were all
so many elements and indications of philosophical disturbance. In
the preceding century we saw, in the case of Ramus, that papał
Christianity had found a lay coadjutor in the Aristotelian philosophy.
Both the one and the other had a common interest in opposing free-
dom of thought and enquiry. Now the alliance existed no longer; at
least it had become embarrassing and useless to the chief contracting
power, the Church. Aristotle had been weighed in the balances, and
found wanting. Association with his scholastic disciples and ex-
pounders had hence become a source of weakness rather than of
strength. For the time he had to give place to Sextus Empeirikus,
and Sganarelle, in L'Amour Medecin, when he turned, in his matri-
monial perplexity from Pancratius the Peripatetic, with his wordy
saws and unmeaning distinctions, to Marphurius the Pyrrhonist, with
his uncertainty and suspense, was in reality a type of the human in-
tellect, and of the only alternative which for the time being was
held out for its acceptance; ¹-the modern constructive sciences of
Descartes and Bacon being as yet only in their infancy. We thus
perceive, and this I candidly allow, that skepticism performs the same
functions for a large general philosophical development, as it does for
the mental growth of the individual, i.e. it forms a propedeutik or
preparatory stage to a distinct evolution or undoubted conviction.
One of the chief special features of this gencral movement is
brought forcibly before us by Le Vayer: I mean the various beliefs,
doctrines, opinions, and maxims of antiquity-those precious seeds of
1 In the first dialogue of Orasius Tubero, Le Vayer, with a somewhat un-
usual stretch of magnanimity, allows the dogmatist to remain unconvinced by
the skeptical reasonings of his adversary, and to elect to continue as he is, viz.
a Peripatetic. O. T., i. p. 83.
672 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
enlightenment which, like grains of wheat in an Egyptian mummy,
had so long been buried in the ignorance of the dark ages, but which,
when scattered broadcast by the Renaissance, proved so wonderfully
that they had not lost their vitality. We have already seen how
completely quotation usurped in Montaigne the place of original
thought; not that he was by any means defective in mental power,
but that he deferred too much (notwithstanding his protests on the
subject) to writers whose chief authority in many cases consisted in
their antiquity. Le Vayer is a still greater offender in this respect.¹
No doubt both one and the other endeavoured to assimilate the wis-
dom of the ancients, to give the old coinage a new French stamp and
once more to put it general circulation. But, using the well-known
simile of Bacon, which has been adopted by Le Vayer, both the
one and the other had more of the ant in their composition than was
really advantageous; or, if they were like the bee, and tried to trans-
form their many flowered riches into a new compound, it must be
admitted that the transformation was not always successful. At the
same time a retrospect of the history of modern European literature
may provoke a doubt whether the influx of classical learning in the
Renaissance was not like the full meal hastily devoured by a hungry
man, the digestion and assimilation of which is naturally a much
more elaborate and protracted process; and whether in that case the
part of the ant was not more important for the time than that of the
bee. One fact emerges from the comparison of Le Vayer's quotations
and authorities with those of Montaigne, viz., that the stream of
ancient literature had become perceptibly broader and fuller since.
the publication of the Essais.
Le Vayer also suggests those influences of a not dissimilar kind which
were produced by the more frequent inter-communication of different
เ
1 Apparently without acknowledgment. Cf. Redargutio Phil. Op., Ellis and
Spedding, iii. p. 583. Empirici enim, formicæ more, congerunt tantum et
utuntur. Rationales autem aranearum more, telas ex se conficiunt, apis ratio
media est quæ materiam ex floribus tum horti quam agri elicit, sed simul
etiam eam propia facultate vertit et digerit.' Le Vayer quotes and expands
the simile rather inauspiciously after some severe strictures on plagiarism.
Œuv., ii. pt. 2, p. 518. . . . 'Mais la mouche à miel tient la voie moienne
qui doit être suivie quand elle choisit sa matière au dehors, qu'elle transforme
ensuite, rendant son travail utile et à elle, et à tout le genre humain.' The
simile is a favourite one, it need hardly be added, with poets: so Waller in
his verses which are, however, more musical than Bee-cultural :—
'You know the sweetest of things
From various flowers the bees compose,
Yet no particular taste it brings
Of woodbine or lilac, pink or rose.'
:
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
673
nations. As we have remarked in the case of preceding skeptics, the
intellectual restlessness of the age was frequently manifested by
foreign travels and explorations,-mental disquiet and curiosity thus
transforming itself, as it often does, into physical locomotion. Le Vayer
imitates in this respect Bruno and Vanini. To slake his thirst for
knowledge, or rather to find arguments to support his skepticism, he
traversed Europe, note-book in hand, making enquiries and observa-
tions on the beliefs and customs of different peoples and localities;
and, as we shall find, accepting every novelty in thought or usage as
an additional proof of the nullity of all absolute truth. Added to
this intercourse among the scholars and politicians of different Euro-
pean nations, there was a large and continual influx of extra Euro-
pean travels and discoveries, whith helped to swell still further the
sense of human eccentricity and variability in the estimation of such
thinkers as Le Vayer. The maritime nations of Western Europe
were, during the first half of the seventeenth century, in a perpetual
fever of geographical enterprise. The Spanish had begun to retire
from the field, and their place was occupied by English, Dutch and
Portuguese. This national rivalry had the effect of securing a con-
siderable harvest of geographical lore; and hence whatever merit the
skeptical arguments from differences of creed and opinions might be
said to have, it was now placed on a more substantial basis than had
been hitherto possible.
Le Vayer was particularly fitted by constitution, sympathy, educa-
tion and circumstances to take advantage of these manifold influences.
His youth, we have seen reason to suppose, was a period of intellec-
tual stimulation as well as of moral laxity, and his conversion was
hardly more than the quickening of an innate taste for philosophical
speculation. The literature of his earlier life consisted of the works
of his own predecessors in free-thought. As he was a personal friend
of Mdlle. de Gournay, it seems probable that one element in their
friendship was a common respect or affection for Montaigne. But
Charron is the thinker who appears to have had the greatest share in
his mental development. He quotes his extreme utterances on re-
ligion with approval, calls him-no doubt in allusion to his Sagesse—
the Sage.'¹ There is in truth more than one point of resemblance
between Charron and Le Vayer. Besides the skepticism common to
both, they were men who saw the need, in the existing corruption of
papal Christianity, of an autonomous self-asserting morality. Both
cherished similar opinions and aspirations on the subjects of political
and religious liberty. Both laid stress on the multiplicity of religions
¹ Orasius Tubero, i. p. 394.
674
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
from the philosopher's point of view, and both adhered to Christi-
anity as a national, social and geographical necessity. In style Le
Vayer is no doubt inferior to Charron, as the closet student must
always be inferior to the man who has studied eloquence for a public
and practical purpose; but in both cases it is marked by the same
qualities of clearness of expression and a sedate gravity which
seems to despise the ornate graces of composition. Even in external
appearance and carriage there would seem to have been a marked
similarity. Both were men of grave, reverent demeanour; and if
Charron might be called a born philosopher whom chance or accident
had transmuted into a divine, Le Vayer might be said to have the
hortatory aptitudes of a preacher, though fortune and circumstances
had made him a recluse philosopher. But whatever the effective
sway of Charron and other French free-thinkers of the sixteenth and
seventeeth centuries, La Vayer's intellect was not to be confined by
national bounds, or the limits of his mother tongue. As I have said,
he was a good linguist, and having found the key to the works of
the arch-skeptic Sextus, he drew his nutriment from that fountain-
head.
The manner in which he speaks of Sextus can only be compared to
that of a devotee addressing his favourite saint or tutelary angel.
He styles him 'our venerable Sextus,' 'venerable master,' our be-
loved Sextus,' 'our dear Patron Sextus,'¹ and other terms of endear-
ment which certainly tend to show that extreme skepticism as a
principle of freedom may, in a time of mental thraldom, excite an
affectionate and grateful enthusiasm which would be otherwise in my
opinion. inexplicable.
But while Le Vayer imbibed the doctrines of Sextus as a hungry
man sits down to a feast, there was one point of his teaching on
which he laid particular stress. This was the ten modes of skeptical
suspense which, as you remember, occur in the Hypotyposes-a chap-
ter, by the way, which Le Vayer calls 'ce divin chapitre de dix
moyens.' It is, however, on one of these means, the tenth, i.c. the
argument from the variety of human beliefs and manners, that he
especially insists. While all other aspects of skepticism come in for
occasional recognition and approval, it is on this that he expends his
greatest labour. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that no
skeptic ever elaborated the 'Geographical argument' as much as
Le Vayer. I think it would have sufficed had none of the other
1 Orasius Tubero, i. 125, 129, 152, 160. He calls the Hypotyposes, ' un ines-
timable et divin ecrit qu'il faut lire avec pause et attention,' and a 'livre
d'or.'
2 Orasius Tubero, i. 129.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
675
Tropoi existed as a basis for his skepticism. As I have remarked, it
was peculiarly adapted to Le Vayer's tastes and sympathies. It was
in harmony with his desultory, unsystematic mode of thought, with
his curious inquisitive idiosyncrasy, with his contrasting methods,
with his wide sympathies, and with his rather superficial intellect..
The argument had, for all really useful purposes, been sufficiently in-
sisted on by preceding skeptics; but it received a new stimulus by
fresh discoveries. To every new traveller with his budget of wonders,
Le Vayer gave his most serious attention and unhesitating credence.
The suspense which he professed to award to so many beliefs was it-
self suspended in presence of the marvels recounted of other times.
and foreign peoples. His philosophy was a very Desdemona in the
rapt wonderment and easy faith with which she devoured all kinds.
of improbabilities, merely because they were foreign importations.
The cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.'
In his Geography of the Prince we find the fictions of travellers,
the mythology of poets, the dreams of ancient geographers or natura-
lists; he collects something from every quarter. Pliny and Marco
Polo contribute equally to his geographical stores. The fables of an
Eldorado and Prester John are placed side by side with unquestion--
able facts. It is recorded that when he was at the point of death his
friend Bernier came to see him. 'Well,' said the dying man,' what
news of the great Mogul'! These were almost his last words.' If
the story is not true, it is at least 'well found.' M. Etienne says,
rather ill-naturedly, that Le Vayer 'spent half his life in perusing:
travels, and the other half in arranging his antitheses and contrasts.'
2.
One advantage which the geographical argument possesses, from the
skeptical point of view, is its comprehensiveness; for if humanity ex-
presses its ideas and wants in countless different manners, at least.
there is some kinship implied in the possession of similar wants and
feelings. Between the adoration of a spiritual and universal Being:
and the worship of a fetish, there is no doubt an enormous interval;
still it is one of degree rather than of kind. There is therefore no
domain of human thought to which the geographical argument may not.
be considered applicable. True, the force of the argument cannot be
considered great in the present day; but, quantum valeat, it may be
applied with considerable power to theology, religious worship, ethical
notions, and manners and customs. Our skeptic employs it to prove
¹ Dict. Historique of Chandon et Delandine, art. ' Mothe le Vayer.'
2 Essai, p. 25.
676 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
the impossibility of any single religion as universal truth. He does
not except even Christianity, though he thinks supernatural faith
needed to determine our choice of that to which we shall adhere,
"When we contemplate,' he says,1' as a great ocean the immense and
prodigious number of human religions, we find it impossible, without
faith as a compass directing our mind firmly to the pole of Divine
grace, to avoid errors and tempests more lasting and dangerous than
those of Ulysses, inasmuch as they bring us finally to a spiritual
shipwreck. An old Chinese marble records that since the first man
there have only existed 365 religions; but we can perceive that this
is an unreal number, being that of the days in a year, for the sum
total in such a case cannot be determined.
Now amongst
that infinity of religions, there is no man who does not believe that he
possesses the true, and, condemning all the rest, will not fight for his
altar and hearth to the last drop of his blood.' I am loth to suppose
that Le Vayer was a religious eclectic or cosmopolitan, a believer
unattached; indeed there are too many indications of a distinct pre-
ference for Christianity to allow of such a supposition; but he quotes
with approbation the opinion of Proklus that a philosopher should
not adhere to one particular mode of worshipping the gods-he
should rather be an initiate, and, as it were, a priest in all kinds of
religions. In the same spirit of philosophical Catholicism, he quotes
Themistius: There is more than one road of piety to heaven, and
probably God takes pleasure, just as Nature does everywhere, in such
a variety.' That such a diversity of creeds might have its uses he
seeks to show from his experience of court life: 'Do not we see that
courts are rendered much more illustrious by the difference in
nationality of its officers and the variety of its ministers.
(
12
The Scotch guard, joined with that of France and Switzerland con-
tributes as much to the majesty as the security of a Louvre. Upon
this basis the Romans erected their Pantheon, and the temple of
Solomon received the prayers of all the peoples in the earth.'4 He
adduces the fact of the same king building temples for the idols of
his different wives as apparently an instance of enlightened toleration
as well as a proof of his wisdom.
In the same spirit the Persian kings acted when they bestowed
liberty of worship on the Jews; and the Roman Emperor Severus is
said to have revered equally the images of Jesus Christ, cf Abraham,
Orpheus, and Apollonius. Le Vayer quotes Cardan's saying that not
only a true but even a false religion should be esteemed. But his
2 Orasius Tubero, i. p. 379.
¹ Orasius Tubero, i. p. 377.
3 Orasius Tubero, i. p. 381.
• Comp. 1 Kings viii. 41, 42 and 60 verses.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
677
greatest authority on this subject he finds in Justin Martyr, whose
well-known opinions on the Logos he thus freely renders: 'all those
who follow the right use of the natural reason, though they were even
reputed Atheists, were in reality Christians, because Jesus Christ is
the Divine Word, the Logos, and that natural reason of which all
men are partakers, "which lighteth every man that cometh into the
world." Whence he (Justin) concludes that Socrates, Herakleitus,
and so many others, generally reputed barbarians and without true
religion, were nevertheless really Christians, since they observed
those laws of right reason, which most of the Fathers think sanctified
Melchizedec, Job and his friends, Abraham, Elias, Ananias, and others
of Gentile origin, whom both the Old and the New Testament agree
to canonize; as if moral virtues attracted Divine grace in all those
who practised them, according to that axiom of theology: "To the
man who does what is in him, God does not deny His grace. The
argument is drawn out by Le Vayer to considerable length, and
supported by much geographical and historical learning. But his
authorities are massed together in a haphazard and slovenly manner,
without the least regard to time, place, value, or any other standard
either of method or of criticism. He agrees with Charron that there
is nothing in Nature which has not, at some time or other, been dei-
fied, and that all religions alike have some qualities repugnant to
common sense. As to the authority which in the last resort should
determine the religion of any people, he concurs with Pomponazzi,
Machiavelli and our own Hobbes, that it is the governing power.
Hence he thinks it as wrong for any one to attempt to propagate a
religious belief contrary to that of the nation or people among whom
he may dwell, as to openly inculcate disobedience of its laws. He
agrees with his master Sextus. The true skeptic philosopher should
conform to the authoritative religion of the country in which he lives
just as to its ordinary usages, or to its written laws.
M. Etienne thinks that, in his zeal for toleration and complete
liberty of thought, Le Vayer has suffered himself to be carried be-
yond his own standpoint. Indeed he considers the whole of the
first volume of Orasius Tubero as containing bolder theories and
sentiments than are to be found in any of his subsequent works. But
the difference, if it can be said to exist, is more in form than in
reality. Few writers practised more assiduously than Le Vayer the
art of dressing up the same argument in a slightly different form, so
as to impart to it a fictitious semblance of novelty. Prima facie
there can be no doubt that Le Vayer is guilty of having betrayed the
Christianity he professed, and thereby lays himself open to the re-
¹ Orasius Tubero, i. 381.
2 Comp. preceding chapter on Charron.
VOL. II.
S
$680 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
trarieties of opinion exist on what might seem to be fundamental
necessities of all human existence. Most men suppose that filial piety
is a dictate of Nature, that bodily health is a blessing, that good sense
is of great value, that the mildness of temperate climates is an advan-
tage, that the good government of nations promotes the happiness of
individuals; but judging from the notions and usages of certain peoples
all these opinions are at least disputable.
Sometimes we find special sections devoted to the consideration
of the diversities in one particular of ordinary human conduct, as, c.g.
different usages in respect of eating¹ and drinking, or of marriage,
or of burial; but as a rule Le Vayer prefers an easy discursiveness,
which allows him to roam at will through the rich collection of
human eccentricities and perversities he has so carefully accumulated;
but which is not without disadvantage for the reader in exposing
him to repetitions and redundancies which might have been avoided
with decided benefit to the form of the argument.
4
We need not, I think, follow our skeptic further into this part of
the geographical argument. It will suffice to give one of his frequent
summaries of its main scope. There is nothing,' he says, 'so
frivolous, which may not somewhere be esteemed of great impor-
tance; there is no folly, provided it be well followed, which does not
pass for wisdom; there is no virtue which may not be taken for a
vice, nor a vice which somewhere does not stand for a virtue.'
12
And in another part, after a full discussion of the subject, he
concludes, 'Were we to examine the rest of the field of moral science,
we should find everywhere so much variety as to demonstrate clearly
that there is nothing in it firm and determined, and that our vices
are dependent on our opinions' (quæ putamus verum) as Seneca re-
marked.
No doubt these notions would seem exceedingly
hazardous if we were not aware that for the most part they are
merely an exercise in skeptical rhetoric. For just as in his ostensible
equalization of all the religions and worships in the world, there is
still a real reservation of Christianity, so notwithstanding his free
utterances on morality, we know him, as I have said, to be an austere
follower of Epictetus and Charron-a thinker who was in reality
more a moralist than a philosopher, and who insisted on a rigid per-
formance of human duty independently of the sanctions, the stimulants,
or deterrents of religion.
I have remarked that the geographical argument as such is not
nɔw employed for the same purposes as by Le Vayer; what was then
¹ This forms the subject of the second dialogue of the first volume of Orasius
Tubero.
2 Ibid.,
i.
p.
42.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
68.1.
disputed is now conceded. No one now wishes to contend for the
derivation of the whole human race from a single pair, nor for the
community of beliefs, thoughts and customs which was no doubt a
fair deduction from that opinion. Hence we are not surprised at
any revelations as to the curious ideas or manners of uncivilized
races, which the returning traveller from Central Africa or elsewhere
sometimes places before us in the present day, nor are we thereby
alarmed for the existence of truth, or the perpetuity of Christianity.
And yet the argument, or rather the principle underlying it, still
holds its position in philosophical discussion by being applied to
extra-terrene space. Indeed the infinity of space must imply, if it
does not postulate, infinite possibilities of truth or existence; and
therefore will always be of service to those who compensate by imagi-
nation for the restrictions of the senses, and the laws of our terrestrial
environment. Hamlet's saying,-
'There are more things in heaven and earth,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy:"
1:
is to many minds a general protest against absolute dogmatism. The
well-known application of it by John Stuart Mill in the hypothesis.
of a distant world wherein 2+2 might possibly make five is but an
easy transference of the reasoning from geography to astronomy.
That it might be thus hypothetically extended was seen by Le
Vayer. It is,' he says, a marvellous vanity and audacity for man,
who hardly knows what passes around him, to suppose that he has
a universal knowledge of everything under heaven; and this, though
he can never cast a glance over the whole face of Nature, nor impart
to his mind those complete revolutions which shall be concentric.
with the universe, 'orbes mentis habens concentricos universa.'
He points out the ordinary mode of passing from the known to tho
unknown: 'We first take note of France, then another part of Europe,
then something still more distant, and we imagine that all the rest
are the same, without once giving thought to the immeasurable
extent of this enormous universe.'2 I am aware that, thus employed,
the argument may be of use in repressing exuberant dogmatism or an
affectation of omniscience. At the same time I think its dangerous pro-
perties preponderate. It leaves the door open to an unlimited vista
of skepticism, it attempts to destroy actualities by potentialities, to
weaken facts by surmisings, and for the known to substitute the un-
known. Indeed the infinite, with its mysterious contents is both to
the skeptic and to the transcendentalist a convenient retreat when
pursued by the uncertainty, restlessness or limitation which are in-
1 Orasius Tubero, i. p. 14.
2 Ibid., loc. cit.
682 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
•
evitable conditions of our existence as thinking beings. Like the
dark cell of a medieval sorcerer it enables the metaphysical alchy-
mist to perform any amount of hocus pocus far removed from the
sight or knowledge of the world. I have not the slightest wish to
presume on the little knowledge I think I possess; but to abandon it,
or what is not very dissimilar, to involve it in uncertainty by imagin-
ing a different state of things which may haply exist elsewhere, seems
to me as absurd as if I were requested to throw away the little money
I possess, and to trust instead to a promise, that at some future day,
some unknown friend or other might perchance leave me a fortune.
My answer to such a request would be, 'I respectfully decline to
give up a certainty for a possibility, to resign my acquired experience,
small as it is, for a larger but uncertain sphere of knowledge, and to
exchange the positive conditions of thought and life on our Terra for
the indefinite potentialities which may or may not pertain to Jovians
or Saturnians.'
Returning to Le Vayer: though he lays especial stress on the
argument just discussed, he does not confine himself to it. With
more than the versatile eclecticism peculiar to skeptics, he employs
all its methods in turn. His studies have made him acquainted with
the whole armoury of unbelief, and he selects the weapon which lies.
nearest to his hand, without much attention to its intrinsic fitness,
or to its congruity with the particular arm or mode of warfare he
has last employed. Within the compass of his works may be found
specimens of every form and method of skepticism which the per-
verse ingenuity of man has ever discovered. We have already
noticed how he confounded Academic with Pyrrhonic skepticism,
employing the characteristic arguments of each with perfect indif-
ference. He also imitates the larger work of Sextus by applying the
methods of skepticism to every branch of human science. He has a
collection of 'problems' which are formed on the 'Yes and No' model
of Aquinas and Abelard.¹ He pursues occasionally the verbal
skepticism of William of Ockam. He adopts the two-fold truth of
Pomponazzi and others. He employs the tone of intellectual unrest
and ennui of Cornelius Agrippa. He imitates the cynicism of Mon-
taigne.5 He copies Charron in trying to construct a code of prin-
ciples for everyday guidance. He is like Huet in attempting to
make skepticism an 'evangelical preparation,' an introduction and
propedeutic to Christianity"—while he frequently has recourse to the
1 Eur., v. part ii. p. 220.
4 Le Prose Chagrin, passim.
5 In Hexaméron Rustique.
6
2 Orat. Tub., ii. p. 69.
Comp. Bayle, Art. 'Vayer.'
3 lbid., i. p. 262.
Note F.
By this is meant not that the object of Le Vayer's skepticism was Christian
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
683
เ
6
เ
critical skepticism of Bayle. If we wished to be severe we might call
his collected works a veritable colluvies skepticorum.' In milder
phraseology, they are at least a miscellaneous collection of the methods
of all skeptics of all time. This fact renders it unnecessary to ex-
amine in detail the various reasonings of Le Vayer. We have either
met them already in a more developed form or we shall meet them in
the course of future discussions. In his treatment of Reason he is not
so openly and persistently aggressive as Montaigne, Pascal and Huet.
Ideally, the possession and employment of Reason is a matter of im-
mense importance-a fitting subject for the self-congratulations of
reasoning beings. Practically however it must be regarded as of
doubtful utility, at least it has not prevented the mass of mankind
being 'mostly fools.' Reasonable men are on the contrary rarer than
monsters; as if, says Le Vayer, 'Reason were opposed to the ordinary
course of nature.”¹ Human communities and policies are only a col-
lection and congeries of minds which are common, promiscuous (im-
pertinens) and ill-formed. Gentleman, artizan, prince, magistrate,
labourer, all are in this respect on the same level. They differ in
toga not in mind.' 'It was by pitting their own wiser judgments
against popular folly that Sokrates and so many others came by their
fates.' He concludes that if Reason is beneficial it is in deserts and
solitudes; in the concourse and business of life it is contraband, and
like false coin, does more harm to the possessor than good.' 2 The
original intent, the ideal function, of Reason he assures us is Search
for Truth. It does not matter much to Le Vayer any more than other
skeptics that Truth should be absolutely indiscoverable-a kind of
ignis fatuus which the creator has placed in the world in order to
give human intellects continual employment, as well as, I presume,
dexterity in crossing dialectical bogs and extricating themselves from
mental pitfalls. This is according to our author the acceptation
which is marked on the word. Truth (aletheia) being according to
him derived from two words which imply a Divine wandering or
vagabondage (erratio seu vagatio divina)—a perpetual search for the
unfindable. The same purpose is marked on the word mens, which
according to Cassiodorus and with the approval of Le Vayer comes
from the Greek word for moon, such origin of course denoting a
community of fluctuation, and hence establishing a close connexion
4
dogma, as it was in the case of Huet's skepticism. His object was simply
skeptical ataraxia. At the same time he occasionally touches upon Huet's
position in an off-handed manner, as e.g. Orasius Tubero, i. 345, where he says
that 'epoche (suspense) peut passer pour une heureuse preparation evangélique.'
¹ Orasius Tubero, i. 58.
2 Ibid., i. 60.
♦ Ibid., ii. 234.
s Ibid., i. 78.
684
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
between thinkers and lunatics. The argument itself, we must admit,
is no insuperable bar to the latter inference.
Le Vayer's conclusions are as various as his methods, and are
asserted in a similar haphazard manner. Whenever it is possible
without impeachment of common-sense or self-stultification, he adopt
the Pyrrhonic suspense. So far as his wishes are concerned the
word epoché sums up his philosophical creed,¹ just as his philoso-
phical devotion centres in the name of its greatest teacher. It is the
climax of human attainment, the fruition of all human effort. When
suspense is undesirable we must needs be content with that alloy of
truth called probability. In the first volume of Orasius Tubero,
which his critics maintain to be the most free-spoken portion of all
his writings, he sneers at those who in despair of attaining truth lay
hold on probability, as gentle Ixions, who embrace the cloud for
Juno, and the bulrushes for the nymph.
เ
2
Corpore pro Nimphæ calamos tenuisse palustris.'
But in his second volume he treats probability with much more con-
sideration. 'See then how in the place of truth we substitute the
probable; instead of a criterion certain and arrogant, we content
ourselves with likelihood; in place of signs demonstrative and in-
fallible, we use those only which are gently indicative or suggestive.'
It is quite in harmony with the superficial character of Le Vayer's.
intellect that he seems unable to discern any vital distinction be--
tween the suspense of one class of skeptics and the probability of
another employed as a complete philosophical method. We shall
have to return to this and similar points when we sum up his posi--
tion among our skeptics. Leaving for the present his method to
consider its application, I will only say that he affords a very com-
plete illustration of the shiftiness of the unscrupulous advocate, who
resorts to any tactics which may serve to secure a victory. Hence
I am inclined to agree with M. Etienne when he remarks that,
Montaigne teaches us how to think, Le Vayer only how to argue';
though of course Montaigne's thought is largely argumentative, and
Le Vayer's contentions are not utterly devoid of thought.
II. One result of Le Vayer's wonderful literary fecundity is an
1 'O precieuse époche!' he exclaims, 'ô sûre et agréable retraite d'esprit ”
(Œuv., v. pt. 2, p. 189). Cette belle parole eπexw,' he elsewhere calls it (Oras.
Tub., i. p. 172). Le Vayer compares the different modes of epoché to 'the sly
foxes which carry fire and destruction into the Philistines' corn.' Also to 'the
jawbone of an ass wherewith Samson defeated his enemies.'
2 So M. Etienne, p. 28. So also Bartholmėss, Huet ou le Scepticisme Theolo-
gique, p. 179.
3 Oras. Tub., i. p. 79.
4 Ibid., ii. p. 62.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
685
elaborate, though suo more, a discursive application of his principles-
to every branch of human science then in existence. No modern
skeptic, not even Bayle, has entered so fully into the effects of un-
limited doubt on different systems of dogma. Peripateticism, as a
complete and generally acknowledged philosophy, was now at its last
gasp; but, like all methods of thought which have largely commanded
the assent or administered to the supposed needs of mankind, it died
hard. Le Vayer thought it worth while to give a parting refutation of
the expiring philosophy, by way I suppose of fleshing the double-edged
sword which he had borrowed of his master Sextus. In the second
volume of Orasius Tubero he subjects the main divisions of Peripate-
ticism—its logic, its physics, and its ethics--to a skeptical examina-
tion, with the result, I need hardly add, of demonstrating the
superiority of Sextus to Aristotle. But Le Vayer is not content
with slaying a moribund enemy; he assails with equal courage and suc-
cess the different sciences and modes of knowledge which were rising,
like so many phoenixes, out of the ashes of medieval philosophy.
His treatment of history is instructive, both as exemplifying his
method and its unscrupulous character. We have observed how, in
his geographical argument, his Pyrrhonic suspense is for the time set
aside when he is engaged in accumulating the materials for his
human contrasts and variations. History as well as geography was
then of use. No story was too absurd, no narrative so palpably ficti-
tious, as not to serve his purpose; but when the object had been
attained, when the universal chaos of all human ideas and usages
had conclusively established the impossibility of truth, another con-
ception of history is set forth. We have then duly presented, in
argumentative form, Walpole's well-known verdict. We are assured
that all history is false,¹ the only difference between the best and
worst historians, consisting merely of varying degrees of unveracity.
The very conception of a truthful historian, says Le Vayer, is enough
to prove the impossibility of his existence. If we accept the maxim
of Polybius, that truth is the essence of history, as justice is the
essence of good government, an historian will not be less rare than
the perfect orator which Cicero imagined, or the all-accomplished
architect depicted by Vitruvius.' It is clearly a result of human
1 Other writers besides Horace Walpole (some of them probably from pure
love of paradox) have called attention to the unveracity of history. Sir Philip
Sidney, e.g. remarks, 'So as the other artists, and especially the historian,,
affirming many things, can in the cloudy knowledge of mankind hardly
escape from many lies.'-Apologie for Poetrie. So Dr. Johnson as reported by
Boswell: 'He said of history that we know little of it except a few facts and
dates. The colouring he said was conjectural.'
2
2 Du Peu de Certitude en l'Histoire.' Cuv., v. pt. ii. p. 443.
686 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
infirmity that all historical narration must be more or less tinged
with falsehood. For what is history but the percolation of bygone
times and events, human motives and actions, through the strata of
ignorance or prejudice of the writer. There is no principle which
compels us to accept what history tells us if there is any room for
doubt. The events of early Christianity, even employing the most
trustworthy authorities, are open to dispute. The wars of Troy are
set forth with such a variety of legends and traditions, and em-
bellished with so many contradictory details of mythology and
romance, that we are compelled to suspend our faith in their exist-
ence. Nor are we more certain of later events. The date of the
taking of Constantinople by the Turks is by no means certain. Be-
sides other causes which contribute to this uncertainty, there is
perpetually at work that of individual prepossession-the 'personal
equation' in history. It is most difficult, says our author,¹ to divest
ourselves altogether of our humanity (hominem penitus exuere) so as
to yield nothing to the interests and passions by which it is mostly
swayed. 'I hold it certain that if we possessed the commentaries of
Vercingetorix or of Divitiacus, we should find narratives very different
from Cæsar's; and those old Gauls and Teutons would have imparted
to their wars with Rome aspects altogether contrary to those which
the frst of Roman Emperors has given to them.'
The best means of obviating this excess of individuality is by
adding to it, to secure variety-hence he thinks Greece and Rome
fortunate in possessing so many chronicles of their virtues and
triumphs or else by making due allowance in every case for the
prejudice, religious or national, of the historian. So we must not
bolieve Gentiles when they are speaking of Jews, nor Jews in what
they have written of Christians, nor even Christians when, impelled
by a zeal inconsistent with historical fidelity, they speak ill of Moors
and Mahometans.2 Out of his large repository of historical lore,
Lo Vayer has no difficulty in selecting striking examples of the
mistakes and unveracities of historians. A Spanish biographer, for
example, of Philip IV. made the Elector Palatine pronounce a
brilliant oration to the soldiers at the Battle of Prague when he was
not even present. Among these falsities Le Vayer places the ficti-
tious genealogies of great kings or eminent personages, instancing
the attempts of English historians, mentioned by Matthew Paris, to
trace Alfred the Great to Adam.3 Even the marriage of an historian
would seem occasionally to exercise a detrimental effect, for the
latter portions of De Thou's history differ considerably in tone from
the earlier, because his second wife was distantly related to the
2 Ibid., p. 46.
1 Op. cit., p. 462.
3 Ibid., p. 472.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
687
Guises. The conclusion our skeptic arrives at is that, whatever
other merits or uses history may have, it possesses but little certainty.
I must add that he excepts in terms the writings of the Old and New
Testament as having been dictated by the Holy Ghost.'1
Among Le Vayer's minor treatises is a Skeptical Discourse on
Music, which attempts to introduce doubt and uncertainty into the
principles and functions of that science. Here again we have the
customary display of erudition culled from every available source.
The plan he pursues of devoting half the work to favourable opinions
of music, and the remainder,' the skeptical obverse of the medal,' as
he terms it, to an unfavourable or analytical estimate of it, is pre-
cisely that of Sextus Empeirikus in his treatise Adversus Musicos,”
from which he also derived a considerable portion of his illustrations
and general material. The tendency of Le Vayer's work, which is
however imperfectly wrought out, is the denial of any necessary
à priori affinity between musical sounds on the one hand, and the
human ear or nervous organization on the other. The accidental
character of its origin, and its dependence on the plasticity, physical
and mental, of the human organism, is shown by the variation in the
principles of the science among different races. Nor is man the sole
possessor of a susceptibility to musical sounds, the same sensitiveness
being also manifested by various kinds of lower animals. I need not
point out that in this part of his skeptical investigation Le Vayer
is distinctly on the track of our modern scientists. A definition of
music which would satisfy the demands of our latest instructors
would, I presume, be something of this kind: 'The impinging of
certain aerial vibrations following each other in rhythmical sequences.
or combined in due harmonic proportions on a sensitive mechanism of
the human ear, whence they are transferred by means of certain
nerves to the sensorium. Such physical organizations being adapted
partly by inheritance, partly by education, for responding to them.'
Among his multifarious studies Le Vayer paid considerable atten-
tion to Philology, with especial reference to French and cognate
languages. This was at that time a new science, the product of the
development which the national language and literature had attained.
In the earlier half of the seventeenth century the language was pass-
ing through an important crisis in its growth, it was on the point of
achieving its brilliant maturity. The process was partly destructive
and partly constructive. On the one hand there were foreign accre-
tions to be eliminated; words, phrases and idioms borrowed from
other languages, mostly Italian, which were alien to the genius and
rudimentary principles of the French tongue, and consequently had
1 Op. cit., p. 475. 2 Œuv., v. pt. ii. p. 95. 3 Adv. Math., lib. vi. § 19.
688
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
never been incorporated into the works of its best writers. On the
other hand attempts were made to formulate, codify, and impress
with the stamp of authority, the grammatical rules, words and ex-
pressions which had acquired undisputed currency. What the
language was capable of performing had already been shown by
Descartes' Discourse on Method and the Cid of Corneille, while the
masterpieces of Pascal and Bossuet were not far distant. Sanguine
minds thought the time had come for fixing the forms and usages of
the language, and introducing order and discipline where confusion
and anarchy previously reigned supreme. The guiding principle of
their efforts was, perhaps, the theory that, after the brisk fermenta-
tion of youth, languages, like human beings, should attain a period of
settlement and clarification-their best results and noblest triumphs
being stereotyped and, so to speak, bottled off, sealed, and deposited
in bins for the use of all future ages. To this synthetic and legis-
lative movement the Academy gave the sanction of its name and the
exuberant energies of a youthful institution, eager to justify its
existence by useful activity. Thus acting, it was only carrying into
effect one main object of its establishment. The letters patent by
which Louis XIII. had instituted it describe its chief function as
the 'establishment of certain rules for the French language, so that
it
may
be able to treat of all arts and sciences.'1 It is easy to see
that a purpose so described, however expedient when confined within
due limits, might easily assume the character of an intolerable de-
spotism. Style and speech are just as impatient of uniformity as
any other domain of the human intellect, and an attempt to create
an orthodox standard of linguistic perfection must no doubt sadly in-
terfere with the natural simultaneous processes of growth and decay
which necessarily pertain to every living language. The possibility of
such a danger appeared to the irrepressibly free instincts of Le Vayer
a subject of alarm. He was no more inclined to defer to an infallible
authority in language than to an unbending law or standard of truth
or perfection in any other department of knowledge. We must
admit that Le Vayer's application of his skeptical principles was
being justified to a very considerable extent. The efforts of the
purists of the Academy were both frivolous and mischievous. One
1 Cf. Nisard, Hist. de la Littérature Française, ii. p. 193. Dean Swift, it will
be remembered, made a proposal to Lord Oxford to found a similar society for
the final establishment and consolidation of the English language. To use
his own words, 'What I have most at heart is that some method should be
thought on for ascertaining and fixing our language for ever, after such altera-
tions are made in it as shall be thought requisite.' Swift's Works, Ed. Roscoe,
ii. p. 288.
2 Comp. Etienne, Essai, p. 169, etc.; Nisard, Histoire de la Littérature
Française, ii. p. 207, etc.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
689
of them boasted that in the course of five volumes he had never once
used the conjunction car. Another wished to bind down all the
Academicians by an oath only to employ words which had been
formally sanctioned and accredited by a majority of the Academy.
Vaugelas speaks of a certain company of courtiers who having met
with the phrase a present in a work otherwise elegantly written,
refused to read further because that expression was a sufficient
proof of the bad taste of the author.¹ Even the most original and
spontaneous writers of the French language, who deservedly rank
high among its creators, thought themselves compelled to defer
to this new philological dogmatism. Corneille, for instance, thus
writes, 'I await with much impatience the opinions of the Academy
in order to learn the rules I must follow for the future. As yet I
can only work with mistrust, and I dare not employ with certainty
one single word.' 2 So Balzac, writing to L'Huillier, sarcastically
remarks: 'I felicitate you on having M. de Roncieres as a governor
if the word felicitate is not yet French it will become so next
year, and M. de Vaugelas has promised me not to oppose it when we
plead for its reception into the language.' I need not tell such
admirers of Molière as you are how well the great dramatist casti-
gates the extravagances into which a zeal for linguistic purity be-
trayed the fastidious and shallow-brained hangers-on to the skirts of
French literature, though it requires some acquaintance with the
linguistic controversies of the period to appreciate the full merits
and significance, in this respect, of Les Précieuses Ridicules.
In his vigorous opposition to this pedantry and affectation, Le
Vayer, I have admitted, did useful work. Skepticism, like ridicule,
is an appropriate corrective of human folly, though both one and the
other occasionally meddle with and travesty human wisdom. He
not only opposed the extreme purists, but even those moderate men,
of whom Vaugelas was chief, who endeavoured to steer midway be-
tween the extremes of dogmatism and exclusiveness on the one hand,
and libertinism on the other. Vaugelas thought some standard of
good taste necessary, and agreed with Horace that it should be the
best usage. Even to these moderate and surely reasonable restric-
tions Le Vayer sturdily refused to conform. Language to him was
1 Vaugelas, Remarques sur la Langue Française, quoted by Nisard, Hist. de la
Lit. Fran., ii. p. 210.
2 Etienne, Essai, p. 139.
3 Ibid., p. 145.
4 Le Vayer replies to Vaugelas in his Considerations sur l'Eloquence Fran-
çoise. Œuv., ii. pt. i. p. 189–318. Menage has observed that although Le Vayer
wrote against Vaugelas, there is a considerable difference in the style of those
of his works which were written before the publication of Vaugelas's book
and those written subsequently. Menagiana, iii. p. 392.
690 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
the vehicle of thought. Its value was neither more nor less than the
precise worth of the thought which it expressed. Eloquence he re-
garded, not as the best conceivable expression of the noblest concep-
tions and ideas, but as a spurious polish employed designedly to hide.
poverty of thought and lack of originality. He says that minds ele-
vated above the common level will scorn to notice these finicking
puerilities. He sarcastically recommends his adversaries to confine
themselves to translations; for, as their defect lay in original concep-
tion, and they possessed an excellent elocution, they would then be
able to apply their beautiful language to thoughts ready-made.¹ Le
Vayer's Treatise on French Eloquence, though interesting, is too
lengthy to pursue further. Its fundamental misconception is that
thought and eloquence must necessarily exist apart; that skill in the
employment of words implies a defect in the higher qualities of ratio-
cination and practical power; and the main purport of his reply is:
'The life is more than meat, and the body than raiment.' I will
just give you one extract to show the linguistic niceties which were
then debated with so much earnestness: If we are to believe these
gentlemen,' says Le Vayer, 'God must no longer be supplicated, He
must be content to be prayed to, since the word supplicate is impro-
perly applied to Him. There must be no longer sovereignty in the
world, because it sounds too harshly in their ears, which will only
allow sovereign power. We must no longer speak of veneration,
but only of reverence. Among them, to say lequel, duquel, en
egard, âpreté, with an infinite number of other words in common use,
is to use the tongue of Ancient Gaul.' 2
3
But though we credit Le Vayer with a justifiable application of his
skepticism in opposing these linguistic subtleties, we must not shut
our eyes to the fact that the logical issue of his argument would be,
here as elsewhere, excessive libertinism, an unbounded licence in the
use of all grammatical rules and forms of speech, which would have
rendered the language a very bear garden of anarchy and disorder, a
realm in which every man might linguistically do that which seemed
good in his own eyes.
I do not know that I need add more to this part of my subject.
You will have seen that, broad as are Le Vayer's principles, his appli-
cation of them is just as free and unrestrained, so far at least as
theory is concerned. For every science he asserts and requires abso-
lute freedom; not that he is at all disposed to push the liberty thus
vindicated to practical excess. For just as his freedom in speculative
ethics is very far from inducing licentiousness of conduct, so, notwith-
standing his plea for complete liberty in the employment of his gram-
¹ Œuv., ii. pt. i. 2 Ibid., ii. pt. i. 211. Etienne, Essai, pp. 142 3.
3
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
691
mar and dictionary, he did not exceed the limits of a rather grave,
prolix, and common-place style, as innocent of any striking wayward-
ness or brilliant novelty as if he had imposed on it the most slavish
restrictions.
1
III. Le Vayer's best service to modern culture is his advocacy of
tolerance. This is only what we might expect. In my opinion he is
sometimes open to the charge of pushing that virtue to the extreme
of cynical indifference; though in his time intolerance was probably
a greater evil than indifference. Throughout his voluminous writings
he manifests the same genial sympathetic spirit for the science,
culture and literature of every race that could claim these fruits of
civilisation. But his principal work bearing directly on the study of
tolerance is his well-known treatise On the Virtue of the Heathen.
This, like so many others of his productions, was written at the sug-
gestion of Cardinal Richelieu, as a counteractive to the narrow dog-
matism of Jansenism. Both in its origin and purpose it is related to
a work by Sirmond ¹ on the Defence of Virtue, similarly inspired by
the great minister. The interest which that astute politician and
versatile genius took in a question which might seem purely theologi-
cal is explicable on grounds of ordinary policy, without supposing
him to be influenced by any motive so worthy as a desire for toler-
ance in and for itself. The subject suggested to Le Vayer, and his
treatment of it might be partly ascribed to the predilection of the
Cardinal for classical literature and its authors; but it was due in
still greater measure to the common-place desire to subserve the
dogmatic system of the Church. For, however reluctant the Western
Church at previous periods of her history had generally been to re-
cognise any merit in the words and lives of men outside the pale of
Christianity, the Renaissance had introduced a somewhat better feel-
ing in that respect, so far as the ancients were concerned. Both Pope
Pius V. and Gregory XIII. had, fulminated Bulls against the extreme
position of Jansen's predecessor, Baius, that all 'the deeds of the
heathen were only sins, and the virtues of the ancient philosophers
only vices;' a position which Jansen, with most of his followers, re-
affirmed. If the Bulls of the supreme Pontiff were ever justified it
was surely on this occasion; for a proposition more narrow-minded,
more repugnant to the spirit and teaching of Christ, more opposed to
all rudimentary notions of justice, equity and truth, more abhorrent
to the natural sentiment of our common humanity, it would be im-
possible to formulate. It imputed a harshness of judgment to God
utterly irreconciliable with the Christian conception of Him as the
1 This was P. Antoine Sirmond, the nephew of Pére Sirmond, the king's
confessor.
692 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Father of all mankind. It established the pure accidents of a man's
birth, position and education as momentous responsibilities. It
dignified the extreme intolerance, the barbarous and inhuman cruelty,
of Romish inquisitors, Parisian Sorbonnes, and Toulouse Parlia-
ments, as a mind and temper akin to that of a holy and merciful God.
It was a libel on the Divine attributes, an indelible stain on the
government of the universe. No doubt from the standpoint of eccle-
siastical exclusiveness the admission of Gentile teachers to a perfect
equality with Christians would seem to be dangerous. If men could
be finally saved without the life and teaching recorded in the Gospels,
what need was there of that Revelation? If human Free-will sufficed
to gain the good-will of the Eternal, of what use was Divine Grace?
In effect this was a revivification of the old heresy of Pelagius
against which the Church of the fourth century had victoriously
struggled. The answer to the objections is to my mind easy, and we
have already touched upon it in a previous chapter, i.e. the Christi-
anity of the Gospels did not announce itself as a system so exclusive
that no truth, virtue or excellence could exist outside of it. No
attempt was made by Christ to divide the providence of God into two
realms: one of Nature, the other of Grace. The natural sympathy of
the Samaritan for the fallen wayfarer was a closer approach to the
Spirit of Christ than the religious exclusiveness of Priest and Levite.
Christ's great commandments were ostensibly and pointedly founded
on laws already, in kind, existing in the world, and by which the most
enlightened of the Gentiles had endeavoured to walk. The doctrine.
of the first being last and the last first was a distinct assertion of the
impartiality of God. St. Paul only put the inevitable consequence
of Christ's teaching in another form when he spoke of the Gentiles as
being a law to themselves. Besides, it was not only the salvability
of the Gentile world that was pronounced impossible by the teaching
of Baius and his followers, pre-Christian Judaism was also involved.
in the same penalty. For even if it were alleged that the saints and
prophets of the Old Testament foresaw and believed the essential
dogmas of the Christian Church-an exceedingly doubtful proposi-
tion-it might be argued that this approximation to the speculative
teachings of Christianity was not closer than the relation of the best
heathen morality to its ethical precepts. Indeed, the doctrine which,
-consistently pursued, had the effect of condemning to eternal torments
Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Isaiah, was altogether self-condemned.
It may be allowed that in the grotesque intermingling of heathen
with Christian teaching effected by the Renaissance, some distinct
assertion on behalf of the latter was imperative.¹ St. Vincent Ferrier
1 Cf. Etienne, Essai, p. 120.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
693
in one of his sermons exclaimed, 'Paul says, Preach the Gospel: he
does not say Ovid or Virgil or Horace, but preach the Gospel.'
So far, no doubt, the preacher is justified, but when he proceeds:
'Preach the Gospel, because to preach the words of the damned is itself.
damnation for Jerome says that Aristotle and Plato are in Hell,' we
are made painfully cognisant of the peculiar nature of the evangel
whose cause he pleads. Arnauld's treatise on The Necessity of Faith
is inspired by sentiments just as narrow and exclusive. On the other
hand, the broader and more Catholic position which Le Vayer adopts
in his Virtue of the Heathen had already been asserted by eminent
writers both within and without the Church. A brief glance at a
few of these prior thinkers will be an useful preliminary to the con-
sideration of Le Vayer's book.
Aquinas's Catholic conception of Christianity as the development
and perfection of natural religion, the seeds of which were implanted
in the heart and conscience of all men, had the effect of making
mankind generally sharers in its hopes. What was revealed in the
Gospel was latent in Jewish patriarch and Pagan philosopher. Hence
comes the distinction which we make between implicit and explicit
faith, a distinction on which we shall find Le Vayer basing his
plea for the extension of God's favour to pious and moral heathen.
Aquinas's name was on this as on other points a tower of strength
for liberal thinkers, and was of great service in opposing the reaction
which followed the Reformation. And as his own generous sym-
pathies, his comprehensive intellect, his widely varying studies were
thus instinctively arrayed on the side of Christian tolerance, so was
his powerful reasoning and immense authority a source of great dis-
quiet to Jansenist leaders. St. Cyran complains in the genuine tone
of pietistic Obscurantism, that the great Doctor reasoned too much.'
He was no doubt as much opposed to the charity of his conclusions
as to his employment of a faculty vitiated by the fall. Certainly not
one in our own days could accuse Aquinas of extravagant liberality in
his distribution of the Divine goodness, nor of indifference to the
claims of the Christian Faith; for he expressly limits the effect of
implicit faith to those who lived before the coming of Christ. Since
that event, followed, as he says it was, by the preaching of the Gospel
over the whole world, no qualification will serve to secure the Divine
Favour here and hereafter except explicit faith, i.e. an open and
avowed confession of Christianity.
Turning from the great prose expounder of medieval theology to its
chief poet, from Aquinas to Dante, we find the question influenced by
the advancing tide of the Renaissance. In this movement the con-
tact of Christianity with heathendom took place under circumstances
VOL. II.
T
694
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
very dissimilar from those which governed their earlier connexion in
the second and third centuries. Then it was Christianity — the
thought and power of the Gospel-which overwhelmed the effete philo-
sophy, the moral degradation of the later stages of the Roman Empire.
Now, after some twelve centuries of existence and gradual deteriora-
tion, it was Papal Christianity that had become decrepid and demora-
lized, while the incoming tide of classical learning swept over it like
a fresh, vigorous and life-giving flood. The subject of Dante's Com-
mœdia brought before him with especial prominence the position of
heathen in the future world. You will not need my reminding you how
he decided the general question on the basis of a pure morality, without
overmuch consideration for privileges supposed to be conferred by
an explicit profession of Christianity. Thus Trajan has his abode
in Paradise, Cato occupies the honourable post of guarding the en-
trance to Purgatory, while Virgil is the poet's venerated master and
guide to the very gates of Paradise. On the other hand, popes are
confined in some of the lower circles of Hell; and although Socrates,
Aristotle and Plato are also located in the same region, evidently
against the poet's will and in deference to dogmatic considerations,
Gran duol mi prese al cor, quando lo 'ntesi:
Perocchè gente di molto valore
Connobbi, che 'n quel Limbo eran sospesi.'
-Infern., canto iv., 1. 43-45.
they occupy a part to themselves which in reality is an abode of com-
parative peace and honour. Dante, like Le Vayer, advocates sus-
pense in judging the future state of any individual. His heavenly
spirits advise men :—
'Evoi, mortali, Tenetevi stretti
A giudicar: che noi, che Dio vedemo,
Non conosciamo ancor tutti gli eletti.'
With his intense sympathies for heathen authors, he shows a per-
sonal interest in their fates. So he makes the pathetic appeal-
'Solvetemi, spirando, il gran digiuno
Che lungamente m' ha tenuto in fame
Non trovandoli in terra cibo alcuno.
*
*
*
*
Sapete, come attento io m' apparecchio
Ad ascoltar: sapete quale è quello
Dubbio, che m' è digiun cotanto vecchio.2
'The great fast, so long endured, and which no earthly food could
satisfy the doubt he was unable to solve-both refer to the lot of his
beloved ancients. We may hence see how painfully the feelings of
1 Par., canto xx.
2 Par., canto xix.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
695
:
Christian scholars in the middle ages were exercised by the con-
templation, though but as a possibility, of illustrious heathen suffer-
ing eternal torments for demerits which they could neither have
foreseen nor averted, and how vigorously the natural instincts of men,
not to mention the sense which every Christian would have of the
divine goodness, recalcitrated against such an infamous dogma. This
repugnance was no doubt in direct proportion to the diffusion of
knowledge and culture. The average monk in the cloister, engaged
in his perpetual routine of ignorant and mechanical devotion, varied
by occasional outbursts of sottishness and debauchery, could con-
template without pity the endless perdition of those of whom he only
knew that they were not Christians and ipso facto worthy of damna-
tion Grand Inquisitors sentencing from time to time batches of
unfortunate wretches to a cruel death for want of conformity to the
Christian creed as they chose to interpret it, could regard without
the least horror the eternal sufferings of others who were not partially
but wholly infidels. But it was the scholar, the eager student of
humane literature, men like Dante and Petrarca, who spent days
and nights in the study of Aristotle and Cicero, Plutarch and Seneca,
and who would gladly have sacrificed not a few of the wordy tomes
of Schoolmen and Fathers for a single Dialogue of Plato, to whom
the endless tortures of those leaders of humanity was an idea replete
with horror and anguish. It was just as if they beheld frightful
cruelties practised on close personal friends or near relatives, e.g. on
a beloved father or brother; for these heathen writers stood in a
more intimate mental relation to them than any Christian thinker or
writer. The Church might possess their deference and its dogmas
claim their faith, but it was ancient philosophy that received their
fullest and warmest affections.
We are quite unable to realize this conflict between a cruel belief
exacted by the Church and the human sympathy inspired by the
sages of antiquity in the minds of medieval scholars. In our time
the secrets of the world beyond the grave are discreetly left in the
fathomless mystery which so naturally and inevitably enshrouds
them. The notion of a physical hell may now be said to have lost
most of its power for cultured and spiritually-minded people; and we
can read the Dialogues of Plato, the Ethics of Aristotle, the moral-
izings of Epictetus and Seneca, without the painful accompanying
vista of the eternal tortures of the teachers of such noble doctrines.
But in those days hell-fire-torments grossly material and un-
doubtedly perpetual-was the main dogma of unscrupulous eccle-
siastics. It was the potent wand of monkish alchymists and sorcerers
which could extract gold from the reluctant hand of the miser, terror
696
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
from the heart of the bravest, and a mock religion from the most
impenitent transgressor. The frightful and disgusting pictures of
hell which still defile the walls of Italian churches were then an
ever-present fact to the popular consciousness, and shed a lurid
reflected glare over the pages of every heathen writing, no matter
how great its intrinsic merits or how close the assimilation of its
teachings to those of the Gospel. No doubt these forbidden studies.
occasionally carried with them a remedy for such groundless delu-
sions. The breadth of view which they imparted; the enlarged
knowledge of excellences and virtues not specifically Christian, yet
sharing its highest qualities; the conviction hence arising of God's
impartiality, and the improbability, to say the least, of such an
absolute distinction in His dealings towards Christians and heathens
as the former were inclined to assert; were considerations which
modified considerably hopeless misgivings as to the final lot of
virtuous heathens. How great those misgivings were in certain
minds the example of Dante clearly demonstrates, and if his powerful
intellect was unable to suppress them, it was not likely, unless they
were less dominated by purely theological considerations, that
inferior minds would succeed in the attempt. Of the ordinary
common-sense arguments which were opposed to the dogma of the
eternal misery of all non-Christians, Dante was fully aware; he
describes them in words of which Voltaire's reasoning on the same
point are only a faint echo:-
'Un uom nasce alla riva
Dell' Indo, e quivi non è chi ragioni
Di Cristo, nè chi legga, nè chi scriva
E tutti i suoi voleri ed atti buoni
Sono, quanto ragione umana vede,
Senza peccato in vita, o in sermoni:
Muore non battezzato e senza fede;
Ov'è questa giustizia,¹ che 'l condanna?
Ov' è la colpa sua, s' egli non crede?' 2
•
¹ Pascal's answer to this question may be worth recalling: 'Car il est sans
doute qu'il n'y a rien qui choque plus notre raison que de dire que le péché
du premier homme ait rendu coupâbles ceux qui, étant si eloignés de cette
source, semblent incapables d'y participer
car qu'y a-t-il de plus con-
traire aux règles de notre misérable justice que de damner éternellement un
enfant incapable de volonté, pour un péché
commis six mille ans avant
qu'il fût en être.-Pens., ed. Havet, i. p. 115. Still the epithet 'miserable'
shows that Pascal was content to waive the humane for the dogmatic concep-
tion, it would be a prostitution of ethical language to call the latter, as Pascal
does, Divine Justice. Another extract from the Pensées will serve to show
Pascal's mind on the salvability of the heathen: 'Vocation des gentils par
Jésus-Christ. Ruine des Juifs et des païens par Jesus Christ.'—Pens., Hav., ii.
2 Par., canto xix.
198.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
697
questions, which on the hypothesis of justice as an essential
element in Divine Providence, are themselves their own best answer;
but to which Dante's eagle spirit replies by a poetical paraphrase of
St. Paul's: 'Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against
God'? A better solution, if not of this, yet of similar mysteries,
Dante gives us in a prior passage, in which the limitation of human
knowledge is asserted not from a skeptical but from a religious point
of view-
Colui, che volse il sesto
Allo stremo del mondo, e dentro ad esso
Distinse tanto occulto e manifesto
Non poteo suo valor si fare impresso
In tutto l' universo, che 'l suo verbo
Non rimanesse in infinito eccesso.' 1
Nor are the more liberal thinkers on this subject confined to
Catholics. Le Vayer refers to the great Swiss reformer Zwingli and
his nobly tolerant sentiments as to the possessors of future bliss.
One of the last works of this eminent thinker, who undoubtedly
came much nearer to the simplicity and charity of the Gospel than
his great rival Luther, was an exposition of the Christian faith
addressed to Francis I. In this occurs a passage instinct with
Christian hope and love, and of glowing eloquence, describing what
that monarch might expect to behold in heaven. 'There you may
hope to see the fellowship, the communion and society of all holy,
prudent, faithful, constant, brave and virtuous men who have ever
existed from the beginning of the world. Here you will see the two
Adams, redeemed and Redeemer; here Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, Phineas, Elijah,
Elisha, Isaiah and the God-bearing virgin of whom he prophesied ;
David, Hezekiah, Josiah, the Baptist, Peter and Paul; here you will
behold Herkules, Theseus, Sokrates, Aristides, Antigonus, Numa,
Camillus, the Catos and the Scipios; here, Louis the Picus and your
own ancestors, the Louises, Philips, Pepins, and so many of your
forefathers as have departed hence in the faith. In a word, no good
man has ever existed, nor shall there exist a holy mind, a faithful
soul, from the very foundation of the world to its consummation, whom
you will not see there with God. What more joyous than such a
spectacle, what more delightful, what, in short, more honourable can
even be imagined? What more reasonable than that we should
expend all the energies of our soul on the attainment of such a
life?' 2 Words to which the verdict might fitly be appended-the
1 Par., canto xix. 1. 40-45.
2 Zwingli Opera, ed. Schzzler et Schultess, iv. p. 65.
698 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Apocalyptic vision of a generous and Catholic-minded Christian.
Zwingli would have made heaven as nobly broad and inclusive as
the all-embracing nature of the Divine love. With a magnificent
disdain of religious distinctions, ecclesiastical dogmas and partition.
walls, sectarian animosities and jealousies, he conceived it as the
abode of whatever things were true, honest, just, pure, lovely and
of good report.' At first sight the examples selected to illustrate
heathen virtues appear, with our present extended knowledge of
pagan antiquity, somewhat strangely assorted. But in Zwingli's
time each of these personages was not only credited with a real
personality, but was the recognized exponent of some vigorous moral
teaching or conduct. The selection indeed points to the strong moral
fibre interwoven into his own character, which serves to explain his
estimate of others, and forms the clue both to his doctrine and
conduct.1
Poor Zwingli! The charity that 'hopeth all things,' which he
was willing to extend to human excellencies of whatever kind was
meted to him in but scanty measure. For an excess of liberality
which appeared profane because it started from natural justice rather
than from dogmatic Christianity, he was vehemently denounced both.
by Romanists and Reformers. Bossuet expostulated in his own
eloquent thunder 2 with the attempt to place Jesus Christ on the level
of heathen gods and demi-gods, idolaters and suicides. Luther said
Zwingli had become a pagan, for that he put heathens, idolaters and
Epicuræans in the ranks of the blessed. The former denounced him
as a Pelagian-the greatest since the apostate Julian; the latter,
with cynical cruelty, considering the nature of Zwingli's offence,
despaired of his salvation, and so denied him admission to that
Paradise whose gates he himself had set so wide open.³ We may
however console ourselves with the reflection that it was only
Luther's heaven from which his brother Reformer was excluded, not
the abode of all goodness which his own large-hearted charity and
warm imagination had conceived. Their respective ideals of the
future world varied as their opinions of the conditions requisite for
attaining it. Zwingli's was, in brief, a moral, Luther's an eccle-
siastical heaven. The conditions of the former were mostly practice
of the latter chiefly belief.
1 Readers of Epictetus will not need to be told of the rôle which such a
mythological personage as Herakles played in the writings of the Stoic
moralists. The germ of the conception is probably due to Prodikus. Comp.
Evenings with the Skeptics, Greek Skepticism, series i., vol. i. p. 161.
2 'Histoire de Variations,' etc., chap. ii., Œuv. Comp., viii. p. 32.
9 Bossuet, loc. cit., p. 33.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
699
Le Vayer possibly derived from Montaigne the stress he placed on
one particular example of heathen virtue, i.e. the Emperor Julian.
As you know, he was the character among all eminent pagans whom
the essayist most admired. Leaving his apostasy, which he does not
mention in terms of excessive indignation, but is inclined to class
among several other mistakes on the subject-matter of religion, he
regards him as one of the noblest characters of antiquity: a type of
the pure, unselfish, virtuous, self-reliant Stoic philosopher taken at its
best. Montaigne's vindication of this traditional arch-enemy of the
Church¹ was so warm that the Roman officials to whom he submitted
his Essays for approval suggested some qualification of the eulogium,
but left the point to his conscience. His conscience however refused
to take the hint. Julian is similarly a pet example with Le Vayer
of 'the virtue of the heathen,' and thereby the occasion of similar
suspicions. The subject had come before him in one of his earliest
works- the Instruction of the Prince. Le Vayer had there insisted
on the virtues and talents of the great Apostate, placed him in the
foremost rank of the generals of antiquity, and added that only his
apostasy prevented his being the first of the Cæsars. Our skeptic
was hence accused of collecting the ashes of Julian in order to con-
secrate them, of erecting altars to an apostate. The article 'Julian'
in the second part of The Virtue of the Heathen, is in some measure
a reply to these accusations. Le Vayer, with more deference to
ecclesiastical authority than Montaigne cared to evince, toned down
his Panegyric at least to the extent of refusing to place the Apostate
above the Christian emperors. As you are aware, Montaigne and
Le Vayer are not the only free-thinkers who have taken Julian into
their protection. He is the favourite, and not wholly unworthy
example to the English deists, French philosophers and encyclopædists
of the eighteenth century, of virtue flourishing apart from and in-
dependent of religion. His position in the future world has ever
been a fruitful theme of discussion among theologians. Nor is this
community of interest surprising. Having abjured Christianity in
the not over-inviting form in which it was presented for his accept-
ance, and at the same time insisted on the punctilious performance
of every moral duty, Julian had become a typical example of non-
Christian virtue.
'Perplexed in faith but pure in deeds,'
he had renounced not so much the substance as the form which Jesus
Christ's teaching had assumed in the fourth century. The eternal
fate of such a man, could it be determined, would be a crucial test of
¹ Montaigne, Essais, ii. ch. xix.
700
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
the special qualifications needed to enjoy the favour of God. Would
it be too hazardous to apply as the proximate decision of 'the
Master' on the question: 'Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord!
Lord! shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the
will of My Father which is in heaven '?
Coming now to Le Vayer's treatment of the subject, which I hope
my rather long review of the manner in which preceding writers of
different schools had handled it, will be found to illustrate, we find
that his Virtue of the Heathen is more methodical than most of his
writings. It is divided into two parts, of which the first is taken up
with general considerations on the three states of humanity, viz.
i. Nature, ii. The Law (Judaism), iii. Grace (Christianity); the second
part being devoted to a specific examination of those leaders of
ancient thought who came up most nearly to the level of Christianity.
After a brief preliminary enquiry into the nature of virtue and its
various definitions, he commences with the chief ecclesiastical
authorities. Gregory of Rimini was one of the first to maintain that
an infidel could never be virtuous, because his infidelity hindered the
production of good actions 1-a sentiment which could only have
originated in a profound ignorance of antiquity. With Augustine,
Le Vayer has to face the stern and exclusive dogma from which
Baius and the Jansenists derived their inspiration, he has to meet
the horribile decretum that the virtues of unbelievers (non-Christians)
are only vices, and their best actions but veritable sins. He tries to
accomplish this by adducing certain passages principally from The
City of God, in which the deeds of the heathen are declared praise-
worthy and worthy of imitation, though in relation to God they are
but bastard virtues, and their utmost deserts extend only to temporal
rewards, not to the final blessedness in store for Christians. He
takes especial note of Augustine's remark that Virtue is the love of
God; whence we may conclude, says Le Vayer, that the man who
pursues virtue for its own sake pursues it for the love of God,2 a
deduction no doubt both logical and charitable, but it is not Augus-
tine's. But in truth the dogmatic narrowness of the great Latin
Father is a source of great disquietude to our skeptic. After all the
passages he is able to produce which seem inclined to recognize a
virtue and excellence independent of Christianity, he is fully aware
that these expressions of charity are mere obiter dicta, and as purely
accidental as in Augustine's own belief were the virtues of unbe-
lievers themselves. Le Vayer also recognizes the fact that a direct
1 Œuv., v. pt. i. p. 3.
2 Upon this argument Père Antoine Sirmond based his defence of heathen
virtue. See below.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
701
acknowledgment of heathen excellencies would have been in diame-
trical opposition to his doctrinal system. To counteract therefore the
tendencies of his rigid and cruel dogmatism, and to impair its
authority, he appeals to his Retractations as a proof that Augustine
could never have considered himself infallible, though he carefully
avoids noticing the nature of the opinions withdrawn in that work.
He also adduces a remark of Jerome, the other great luminary of
Latin Christianity, that men might do wise and holy things who
were not Christians.¹ But our author evidently feels that the toler-
ance which can by any force be extracted from the works of Augustine
and Jerome is small in quantity and doubtful in quality, while the
process of extraction is laborious, and analogous to the operation of
drawing blood from a stone. But the enormous and mischievous
influence of the former Father, both at Geneva and among the
Jansenists, left Le Vayer no option but to consider his writings, and
to make the best of whatever precarious support they might be forced
to furnish to his side of the controversy.
Among the Greek Fathers, on the other hand, Le Vayer finds out-
spoken testimony on behalf of his Gentile clients. Justin Martyr,
Clemens Alexandrinus, Basil and Chrysostom are worthy representa-
tives in Christianity of a language and literature, the noblest, freest
and most humane in the world. The works of these Fathers, especially
the first two, prove that the innate freedom of the Greek was not so
readily subjugated by the growing ecclesiasticism of Christianity as
the narrower and harsher instincts of the Latin. Minds inspired by
and dieted on Homer and Hesiod, Eschylus and Sophokles, Aristotle
and Plato, could ill brook both the limitation and induration of ex-
cessive dogma. The genial and sympathetic nature of their feelings
was averse to severity and inhumanity, while the full comprehensive
character of their intellect enabled them to take a wide and varied
survey of every truth presented to them, and made them suspicious
and impatient of one single aspect or point of view. Here, therefore,
our skeptic found numerous passages fitted for his purpose, and
abundantly sufficient to prove that the Virtue of the Heathen was a
belief which though not formulated in a creed was accepted as an
unquestionable truth by the best educated section of the early
Christian Church. For his purpose, Justin Martyr with his well-
known extension of the Logos, which I have already alluded to, to
all pious and virtuous heathen, was a host in himself. Clemens
Alexandrinus, with his opinion that Greek philosophy was a pro-
pædeutik to Christianity, was of scarcely less value. Among these
1 Œuv., v. pt. i. p. 10.
702 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
writers there was no unseemly jealousy as to the sharing of the
Divine goodness by humanity at large;¹ no attempt to sentence
Sokrates to eternal damnation because he was a native of Athens four
centuries B.C., instead of a dweller in Palestine thirty-three years
A.D.; no desire to establish a new abode 2 in the future world some-
where between hell and purgatory, for the especial behoof of virtuous
heathen and with a due regard, as well, to the strict and exclusive
privileges of professing Christians. Le Vayer notices that the root-
thought which dictated these charitable judgments of the Greek
Fathers was the simple conviction of the Divine goodness and justice
a principle, I may add, quite powerful enough to settle the point
in every case where bigotry and dogmatic bias were not preponderat-
ing influences.
But although our author has recourse to every authority, Greek
or Latin, which may subserve his purpose, the main stress of his
argument is placed on Thomas Aquinas. What the opinions of this
renowned Doctor on the question of the salvability of the heathen
were, we have already seen. Le Vayer quotes a number of passages
from his Summa which show his reluctance to limit Divine goodness
and equity by human accidents. He adopts his distinction of implicit
and explicit faith as imparting a flavour of Christianity—a kind of
private baptism-to deeds and lives nominally outside its limits.
That the effect of this distinction ceased with the first promulgation.
of the Gospel, Le Vayer will not allow; not because he disputes the
texts on which Aquinas relied, and which assert that the Gospel was
preached in 'the whole world,' but because since those texts were
written the dimensions of the known world had become much en-
larged, notably by the discovery of the new and well-peopled continent
of America.³ Le Vayer is persuaded that if Aquinas were alive in
the seventeenth century he would have adopted some method of
including all those heathen races within the compass of the Divine
love and protection, perhaps by removing the limit assigned to the
1 Op. cit., pp. 26-38.
2 This was attempted by a certain Archbishop Seyssel. See op. cit., p. 26.
Of this mode of settling the question Le Vayer remarks: 'Il faut prendre
garde en theologie qu'en philosophie de ne pas multiplier les êtres sans
nécessité.'
³ Cf. Dryden, Religio Laici :—
'Tis said the sound of a Messiah's birth
Is gone through all the habitable earth,
But still that text must be confined alone
To what was then inhabited and known,
And what provision could from thence accrue,
To Indian souls, and worlds discovered new?'
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
703
1
2
efficacy of implicit faith. But with all his liberal tendencies, Le
Vayer sometimes argues with what we should regard an excess of
caution. He indeed allows that heathens possessed not only moral
and intellectual, but also theological virtues, i.e. Faith, Hope and
Charity; but those possessions do not seem to have much availed
them, for he more than once intimates his own belief that the majority
of heathen disbelievers were consigned to eternal perdition.3
The second part of The Virtue of the Heathen is only the confirma-
tion by induction of particular instances of the principles laid down
in the first. He passes in review the following leaders of thought in
the ancient world: Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes, Zeno, Pytha-
goras, Epikourus, Pyrrhon, Confucius, Seneca and Julian. Of all
these he adduces whatsoever good report he can collect throughout
the whole of ancient literature, and touches lightly on evidence.
capable of an opposite construction. He returns from his investiga-
tion, like the spies from the Promised Land, with some abnormal
bunches of grapes. To characters already high in human estimation
he adds a little additional colouring, while he endeavours to re-
habilitate the doubtful, e.g. Diogenes and Epikourus. At the same
time he does not attempt to make them absolutely perfect or im-
peccable, nor does he exaggerate their excellencies at the expense of
Christian virtues. He is never forgetful of his customary caution, or
that his book is dedicated to a cardinal of the Romish Church, and
the tacit conclusion after the enumeration of heathen virtues in
every instance is, 'He that is least in the kingdom of God is greater
than he.'
His treatment of Sokrates 4 is an illustration of these liberal
promptings and warm sympathies held in check by considerations of
expediency. Of his martyrdom, e.g. he says there can be little differ-
ence in suffering for the unity of God in the law of nature, and
enduring martyrdom for the faith of Christ under the law of grace.
He is therefore inclined to call Sokrates the proto-martyr of the
Christ expected, as Stephen was the proto-martyr of the Christ come.
On the other hand he deprecates over-laudation, or placing a thinker
who, with all his excellencies, was only a heathen, on the same level
with a Christian saint. He takes Erasmus, e.g. to task for saying
that as often as he perused the narrative of Sokrates' martyrdom he
could hardly forbear crying out, 'O Sancte Sokrates ora pro nobis.'
1 Euv., v. pt. i. p. 90.
2 Ibid., p. 95, Note T.
• Le Vayer especially mentions Pyrrhonists (i.e., negative dogmatists) as
those for whom there could be no hope. Vertu des Païens, Euv, Ibid., p. 94.
Bayle, with his greater catholicity, sneers at him for this. Dict., Art. 'Pyr-
rhon,' Note C.
* Op. cit., p. 109.
704
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
He will not even permit the distinct assertion that Sokrates is among
the blessed. He thinks it rash to affirm anything positively on the
subject; at the same time it is much more rash, and to the rashness
is superadded a want of charity, to pronounce his eternal perdition.
His mood on the point is his favourite grammatical one-the con-
ditional. He would perhaps have said with Dryden :-
'Then those who followed Reason's dictates right
Lived up, and lifted high her natural light,
With Sokrates may see their Maker's face,
While thousand rubric martyrs want a place,' 1
if we may assume, as is probable, that the poet intended the may to
refer to Sokrates as well as his rationalist companions. Le Vayer's
summing up of the merits of Sokrates is not without eloquence. He
speaks of his deserts, before the Divine goodness, in establishing among
men a part of philosophy so useful as morality. What love of virtue,
what horror of vice has he not inspired in minds of every class; and
how many crimes may we say that he has prevented by the principles
and rules of the noble science he has left us. If the punishment and
demerit of a heresiarch be estimated by the positive harm his bad
teaching occasions (which I may say in parenthesis it generally is
not), then the recompense of a good teacher like Sokrates should be
similarly meted by the great utility of his lessons, the measures of
which Le Vayer deduces from the fact that those teachings are con-
fessedly valuable even in the present day.
But, as I have said, notwithstanding his reasoning, and the direc-
tion in which it points, our Pyrrhonist refuses to pronounce on the
eternal beatitude of Sokrates or any other pagan teacher. He con-
ducts us to the verge of some explicit declaration, but there he
abruptly leaves us. All his heathen protegées are finally left, like
so many Mahomet's coffins, suspended midway between earth and
heaven.
These few paragraphs will suffice to indicate Le Vayer's method
in the second part of his work. Each example of heathen wisdom
is treated in a similar fashion. His starting-point and his con-
clusion are the same in each case, and the only variety is due to
difference in the subject-matter. The article on Pyrrhon is more
remarkable than the rest, as containing in a pleasing and succinct
form the summary of our author's philosophy.
The Virtue of the Heathen seems to me to present Le Vayer in
a more favourable aspect than any other of his works. In most of
them he comes before us as a skeptic freighted with uncertainty and
¹ Dryden, Religio Laici.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
705
sophistry. In a few he is too cynical, treating principles of re-
ligious truth and morality with a cold contempt, which I am
persuaded he was far from feeling. Here he is the tolerant sympa-
thetic philosopher, pleading so far and so boldly as he dare for
human goodness in and for itself, without distinction of creed, age,
or country. The hardships and restrictions under which a plea for
tolerance suffered in those days is partly shown by Le Vayer's
caution. He dared not plead, as Zwingli did, and as a liberal thinker
of our time undoubtedly would do, for a free admission of every
virtuous man to a place in heaven. By a mischievous and mistaken
dogma the Church had virtually negatived such a plea. All Le
Vayer therefore contends for is an arrest of judgment; all he urges is
the limitation of knowledge which makes it impossible to pronounce.
in any specific case on the final destiny of virtuous heathen. As to
the fate of those—an enormous majority—who have lived and died
in idolatry and immorality, Le Vayer has no doubt they are eternally
doomed. The degree of their morality constitutes the standard of
their merit. He thinks a moral life affords in every case a fair
presumption of the possession of God's grace in its ordinary mani-
festation; and to those who possess it in that form he believes God
will impart the extraordinary grace necessary to salvation. (The
distinction may remind us that we are approaching the time of
Pascal and the Provincials.) He professes therefore to find a via
media which shall avoid, as equally dangerous, the indiscriminate
bounty which would open the gates of Paradise to Cain and the
devil, and the extreme harshness which would exclude all non-
Christians, however worthy, from a share in the divine goodness,
a middle position between the antinomies of Grace and free will,
which, without limiting God's justice or the natural liberty of man,
might steer clear of Pelagianism. This medium position harmonizes
with his Pyrrhonic philosophy and his dislike to extremes. It is
moreover analogous to the curious commixture of good and evil, of
vice and virtue which exists in the world. Le Vayer points out
that this ethical entanglement is sometimes so great that extreme
opposites are found united in the same character. Virtues are in
fact rather the absence of vices than positive entities existing of
and by themselves.1
The argument is throughout conducted with considerable skill. His
erudition does not here, as in some of his other works, threaten to
overwhelm his ratiocination. True, he sometimes falls into mistakes
from which greater critical discrimination would have saved him.
His treatment of authorities is vague and unsatisfactory. Legen-
1 Eur., v. pt. 1, pp. 103, 104.
705 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
(
dary and mythical history is often appealed to for argumentative
support. Occasionally, too, his reasons are frivolous and beside the
question. On the other hand, his argument sometimes rises to the
dignity of eloquence and genuine human pathos. For example, he
supposes the case of a 'pious Gentile,' a parallel to Dante's-
'Un uom nasce alla riva
Dell' Indo
already quoted, dying immediately after an act of repentance and
devotion. 'Let us imagine one who in the rectitude imparted by
the law of nature, is induced solely by the light of reason, just as
were those ancient philosophers of Greece, and even of Scythia, to
acknowledge one only Creator of all things. I can suppose him on
his knees, with arms crossed toward heaven, using some such prayer
as this, in profound sorrow for the ill he may have done :-"Oh my
God, who knowest the great secret of my soul, I implore Thy mercy
and beseech Thee to lead me to the end for which Thou hast made
me. If I possessed enough light to reach it of myself, there is
nothing I would not do to attain it, and to please Thy Divine
Majesty, which I revere with the profoundest humility. Pardon
my ignorance and make me understand Thy holy wishes, so that I
may obey with all my power those Thou hast given me, for I would
rather die than do anything displeasing to Thee.
Suppose
it happened that immediately after that act of contrition the poor
Gentile chanced to die, whether by some internal malady, or by
some accident from without. Shall we judge him damned?' 1
'Yes!' would be the reply of Augustine, echoed by most of the Latin
Fathers. "Yes!' would be the answer of Calvinists and Jansenists,
on the one hand, and the Council of Trent on the other.
เ
""
Certainly' would be in short the unanimous verdict of the whole
tribe of dogmatists. Certainly not' is the suggested but unex-
pressed answer of Le Vayer. He claims as one ground of decision
in the question, the opinion of eminent Doctors, that God-the freest
of all free agents-cannot be bound down by external symbols of
sacraments, so that He is unable to accept a man without their aid.
You will notice that Le Vayer's caution, and fear of offending
ecclesiastical authorities, has led him to assess the religious attain-
ments of his 'poor Gentile' at a high standard. Christians may
surely hope that a consciousness of God somewhat less distinct,
feelings of dependence less marked, and repentance less perfect,
would not have been disdained by the universal Father. The dogma
which could conclude the eternal misery of a man whose life was
1 Euv., v. pt. 1, p. 89.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
707
moulded by the spirit of that prayer, and who died with its devout
petitions on his lips, is itself irremediably self-condemned. Even
utter ignorance of God, idolatrous worship and immoral practice
among those who had never an opportunity of knowing better, could
still plead the excuse so fully allowed by Christ in the parable,
'No man hath hired us.' Of no less truth and beauty than his
prayer of the 'poor Gentile' is Le Vayer's plea for the difficulties
of exemplary heathens in preserving their life and religion from the
evil influences by which they were surrounded. If they succeeded
their success was not less marvellous than the course of the River
Alpheius, which is said to preserve its own current even after
entering the sea, or like those fresh and potable springs described
by Herodotus which issue from hills of salt in the deserts of Libya.¹
The Virtue of the Heathen forms part of a large controversy into
which we must not enter. Ostensibly undertaken as a protest
against Jansenism and its illiberal dogmas, it may be said to have
subserved the interests of the cultured and moderate section of the
Romish Church. The book was of course a compromise. Its author
was a Pyrrhonist, and its main conclusion suspense.
As such it
failed to conciliate extreme partisans on either side. Le Vayer's
Catholic friends endeavoured to procure some modification of passages
and illustrations in which his pagan leanings were too distinctly
obtruded. You may have noticed, e.g., that he compares Sokrates
to Stephen as a Proto-martyr-certainly a venial error when con-
trasted with the numberless occasions in modern times in which the
death of the Athenian sage is paralleled with the great tragedy of
Calvary; but the juxtaposition was offensive to some of his friends,
and Le Vayer had to explain and limit his meaning by a long note.
On the other hand, the Jansenists put forward Arnauld, the learned
but bigoted author of the Necessity of the Faith, to reply both to
Le Vayer's work and to Sirmond's Defence of Virtue. But whether
or not we accept the attacks of extreme dogmatists as a proof of the
utility of the work, as well as a fair presumption of its truth, we
cannot deny its opportune appearance. Chronologically placed
between the Massacres of St. Bartholomew, the Dragonnades of
Louis XIV. and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, any plea
1 Op. cit., p. 107.
2 This was probably the reason why the book was not a literary success.
The publisher is said to have complained to Le Vayer of the slowness of the
sale. 'Oh, don't trouble yourself,' was the author's reply. 'I know a way to
make it sell.' He forthwith proceeeded to request the ecclesiastical authorities
to prohibit the reading of the book. No sooner did the prohibition become
known than the sale of the book increased, and the edition was soon ex-
hausted.-M. Louvet in Nouvelle Biog. Generale, Art. 'La Mothe-le-Vayer.'
708
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
for toleration could hardly be deemed unnecessary. In one respect
Le Vayer's argument might be said to overshoot the mark. Not
only were the virtue and salvability of heathen called in question,
but those of Christians were equally endangered. The salvation
which Calvinists and Jansenists denied to Sokrates and Aristides,
was refused to themselves by extreme Romanists. If therefore
Le Vayer's treatise afforded a presumption of the eternal blessedness
of the heathen, it tended to establish a fortiori that of Huguenot, or
non-Romanist Christians. We are not of course to expect that
Jansenists would have been favourably affected towards Le Vayer's
book by this consideration, even if it had occurred to them. To the
genuine bigot any kind of intolerance is preferable to toleration.
Zealots may and frequently have changed the form of their bigotry,
but that a tolerant and liberal-minded man should become an arrant
bigot is considerably less likely.
Besides the significance of Le Vayer's book on current contro-
versies, it has a bearing also on his own opinions and predilections.
(1) He is the successor of Charron in claiming for morality an in-
trinsic value of its own, and an independence of the ecclesiastical
Christianity which had become alienated from it. In his assertion
of the absolute sovereignty of morality, Le Vayer is by no means so
outspoken as his master; still the Virtue of the Heathen carries on
and applies the principles which we saw asserted in the Sagesse.
Christianity, the Divine parent of morality (as distinguished from
its human authority), had in process of time become changed, and
now enacted the part of step-mother, who treated it with cruel
indifference, and virtually turned it out of doors. Charron and Le
Vayer took the outcast under their protection, and did their utmost
to secure it a home and an establishment of its own. Besides,
Le Vayer had a real personal interest in the moral worth and sal-
vability of the heathen. Though by birth and circumstances a
Christian, he was by education and sympathies a semi-Pagan.¹ He
found more points of contact and intellectual rapprochement in the
works of Plato and Aristotle, Plutarch and Seneca, than in the
writers of the Old and New Testament. While therefore his learn-
ing and sympathies were enlisted in the defence of heathen morality,
he was in reality vindicating the basis of his own.
I have, I fear, somewhat unduly extended my remarks on this
1 This he himself admits. 'Quelquefois,' he says, 'je prends la licence de
faire venir l'Italien ou l'Espagnol au secours du Grec et du Latin; mais je
veux philosopher en philosophe ancien et païen, in puris naturalibus; je veux
m'adresser à mes amis philosophes et non à un grand public.'-Lettre de
l'Auteur, prefixed to Orasius Tubero.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
709
work of Le Vayer's. My apology must be, (i.) my own intense sym-
pathy with every attempt to inculcate tolerance, not merely as an
expediency suggested by the natural constitution and workings of
the human mind, and its inherent repugnance to all extraneous com-
pulsion; still less as an outcome of skepticism; but as a principle
distinctly related to and taught by Christianity in its pure form;
(ii.) my conviction that the Virtue of the Heathen is in reality the
most valuable part of Le Vayer's intellectual labours: the domain
in which his learning, his charity, and his comprehensiveness have
been most beneficially manifested. Even M. Etienne, who from hist
point of view of a liberal but orthodox Romanism is by no means
uniformly favourable to him, admits that in this instance Le Vayer
has approved himself a genuine philosopher who worthily vindicated
the claims both of philosophy and religion.¹
To conclude. All skepticism is, I conceive, heterogeneous in its
methods. Opposing itself to convictions which, however originated,
have become instinctive to the majority of men, it is compelled to
have recourse to arguments and instruments as multifarious as the
contents and operations of the human mind. Still there are degrees
in this irregularity; for it varies in proportion to the systematic
power, simple directness, and mental acuteness of the individual
skeptic. The multiform character of Le Vayer's skepticism has,
I hope, sufficiently appeared in the course of my remarks. He is,
par excellence, the eclectic of Unbelief, utterly devoid of argumen-
tative principle, borrowing reasons from every available source and
massing them together without method or order. This fact makes
it somewhat difficult to classify him. You might just as well try
to bring one of those monsters, composed by the fertile imagination
of ancient poets of a dozen incoherent properties, taken from as many
different species of living beings, under the category of one distinct
class. The utmost we can attempt under the circumstances is a
proximate determination. We must seize the most strongly marked
or most important characteristic, and arrange the others as far as
possible in orderly subordination to it. Treating Le Vayer in this
way, we find that his philosophy is Pyrrhonism, qualified by
Academic skepticism, and in the interests of religion by two-fold
truth, professing moreover as secondary elements most of the other
methods and arguments of modern skepticism. He calls himself
a Christian skeptic, a designation which I confess I dislike, though
in his case it is appropriate, if we may take it as implying a subor-
dination of his Christianity to his skepticism. He clearly cannot
seriously mean that he intended his unbelief as a preparation for
1 Essai, p. 131.
VOL. II.
U
710 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Christian dogma, as did Huet and Pascal, who might therefore in
contrast with Le Vayer be called 'Skeptical Christians.' For
though the latter professes frequently to except the dogmas of the
Church from the operation of his skeptical analysis, it is impossible
to attach much weight to these professions. There is no hint that
he intended his skepticism as a foundation for theology; no instance
of a direct application of his Pyrrhonism to subserve the cause of
ecclesiastical creeds. The main object of Le Vayer's teaching, its
sole object as regards himself, is simply Ataraxia. As Bartholmèss
well remarks: 1With Le Vayer the religious purpose of skepticism
does not preponderate. Not only in the last of the Five Dialogues,2
wherein he considers the diversity of religions, is he utterly careless
of the interests of the Church, but, in his numerous treatises and
essays, his main desire is "to turn skeptically all medals in order to
see their other side." Doubt is with him at once the method and
the conclusion.' What I think he meant by his self-conferred appella-
tion of Christian skeptic was, that he was a Christian as well as a
skeptic-the first in religion, the second in philosophy—that he had
discovered the means of reconciling the old foes," or in view of their
coincidence in his own personality, that Christianity had in it
necessarily skeptical elements. His contention on this point is a
marked feature of his teachings. He makes a rigid distinction in
nature and operation between Faith and Knowledge. This does not
mean, as it did with Huet of Avranches, that the weakness of Reason
might be assigned as a pretext for delivering her over bound and
blinded to serve the interests of Faith, nor again that their separa-
tion might be regarded as different stages of the same mental
process.4 With Le Vayer the provinces are as distinct as two
different nationalities, each with its separate laws and government.
Christianity has its own certainty called Faith, which is attained
by simple religious intuition. Secular knowledge being depen-
dent on Reason can only attain to uncertainty, or to a probability,
which is in truth but another name for it. But we must not suppose
that religious conviction amounts to complete certainty. The cer-
tainty of religion consists of Faith, and Faith has no sort of relation
with demonstrative certainty, indeed it is the principle most opposed
to it. For once Knowledge is assumed, there is no further room nor
use for Faith, just as hope vanishes when fruition takes its place.
Thus though Reason and Faith belong to different spheres of human
1 Huet, p. 181.
2 I.e. vol. i. of Orasius Tubero.
* Comp. 'Le Prose Chagrine,' Euv., iii. pt. 1, p. 308.
4 Comp. Soliloques Sceptiques (ed. Liseux), p. 15.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
711
6
thought, they agree in the uncertainty which is the common issue of
both their operations. Faith is uncertain naturally by the fact of
being an inferior substitute for sight. Reason is uncertain by means
of the inevitable weakness and limitation of sight. The former is a
name of emotional, the latter of intellectual probability. Are we
then to reject Faith and Reason? No, answers Le Vayer. Although
defective, they are the only certainties in our power.1 Absolute or
demonstrative truth has no existence for us.
To enforce his argu-
ment on the skeptical elements necessarily contained in religious
faith, Le Vayer appeals to Scripture. His main authorities are
Ecclesiastes and St. Paul. The great apostle he places indeed on
the level of Sextus Empeirikus by saluting him as our beloved
skeptic.' The passages employed to justify this startling designation
are St. Paul's well-known disclaimers of knowledge, fleshly wisdom,
and general propositions such as: 'If any man think that he
knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know,'
etc. The Pauline distinction between faith, and sight in the sense
of knowledge, is also made use of. On this point he quotes more
than once Cardinal Cajetan's Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which in-
sists on that distinction in relation to the doctrine of Immortality.2
Aquinas's saying, that human reason and external evidences, as e.g.
He ac-
miracles, detract from the value of faith, is also utilized.
cepts the famous text, 'The just shall live by faith,' as a definition
of skeptical Ataraxia the calm consciousness of a knowledge in-
ferior to human certitude, and a pious acquiescence in that ignor-
ance.3
He allows, however, that Faith may occasionally present
itself in a concentrated form sufficient to overpower every kind of
doubt. This appears to be what he means by grace regarded as an
unconditional half-miraculous intuition. You will remember, e.g., the
passage in which he speaks of the need of grace to pilot us through
4
¹ Orasius Tubero, ii. p. 105. Also referred to by Le Vayer in his Discours
Chrétien de l'Immort. de l' Ame.—Euv., iii. pt. 1, p. 471.
2 Comp. Euv., vi. pt. 2, p. 96. 'Avouons-le franchement, il n'y a que les
vérités revelées, comme sont celles de nôtre croiance': (the limited scope of
Le Vayer's faith is to be borne in mind in all exemptions of revealed truths
from the operation of his skepticism) ‘qui doivent captiver nôtre esprit, et que
nous devions embrasser inelbranlablement, tout le reste est sujet d' l'erreur,' etc.
3 This distinction is thus defined by Pascal: 'La foi est différente de la
preuve; l'une est humaine, l'autre est un don de Dieu. Justus ex fide vivit.
C'est de cette foi que Dieu met lui-même dans le cœur, dont la preuve est sou-
vent l'instrument fides ex auditu, mais cette foi est dans le cœur, et fait dire
non Scio, mais Credo.'-Pens., Havet, i. p. 157.
4 Euv., iii. pt. 1, 481, where faith is declared to be infallible and more en-
lightened than nature or philosophy.
712
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
the immense ocean of diverse religions.¹ But this superhuman in-
tuition is with Le Vayer, as I suspect it was with Montaigne, merely
a Deus ex machina, employed to explain motives and impulses not
easily accounted for in any other way.
The exact amount of assent which a free-thinker like La Vayer
renders to a large and complex system of dogma like that of Romanism,
must necessarily be difficult to determine. Probably it will always
be liable to variation. We have already noticed the modifying con-
siderations he might have employed in toning down dogmas incon-
viently strong, just as a man dilutes spirits in order to make them
drinkable. Besides the necessary inferiority of Faith to Knowledge,
he had always at hand the skeptical principle of the philosopher's
duty to conform to whatever religious worship or political institution
might chance to be established in the nation in which he lived. To
the disorders and abuses of Romanism he was fully alive.² He
quite approves the moral of Boccaccio's story of 'Abraham the Jew.'
With one of his bad puns he says that the disorders of the Church
savour more of καкóλuкos than of Catholic. All the while he pro-
fesses deference to her, and submits his works to her judgment. His
discourse on the Immortality of the Soul, is of importance in esti-
mating his religious position. He collects in it all the presumptive
proofs which appeared to him to favour the belief, and though he
admits that their aggregate force falls far short of demonstration,
he says it is enough to determine his own conviction. On the whole
I agree with M. Etienne in allowing Le Vayer a genuine belief in
some of the doctrines of the Christian faith. As to the extent of
his creed at any one period of his life, we must leave that, where he
probably would himself have left it, where at least he left many
truths of greater value-in his own Purgatory of Suspense.
Le Vayer and his works have passed more completely out of
French literature than even Charron and his Wisdom. During his
lifetime he was much read; and the tone and spirit of his philosophy
are quite in harmony with the best productions of the language. A
few disciples professed to receive him as their philosophical and re-
ligious teacher. But his style was too formal and uncouth to com-
mend arguments otherwise suitable, to a people which has always
placed such stress on literary grace and beauty of form, wit and
vivacity of matter, and an extreme linguistic finish in which the
thought is often sacrificed to its polished expression. Besides which
he had to cope with a formidable rival in Balzac. His jealousy of
the greater popularity of this author breaks out in a very distinct
1 Comp. the anecdote of the King of Muscovy, Orasius Tubero, i. p. 409.
2 Œuv., iii. pt. 1, p. 263–266.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
713
1
form in one of the last published of his works. In my opinion his
main service to modern thought consists in his liberal culture and
large-hearted tolerance. A predecessor of Descartes, his Orasius
Tubero contains many arguments which that thinker put forward in
a clearer and more finished form in his Discourse on Method. He
conveys the torch of free-thought, kindled by Montaigne's Essais,
from Charron, to Pascal, Huet2 and Bayle. As you will have seen,
he also represents in his own person aspects of skepticism which we
are not likely again to find in combination in any individual skeptic,
and so far Le Vayer may claim a distinguished place among his
brethren in our list.
*
*
TREVOR. Thanks, Arundel, for your elaborate essay. It
has, however, raised so many points of interest-and our
sitting has already been a little protracted—that I propose
we suspend further discussion for the night. You are all
engaged, as you know, to come to my house to luncheon to-
morrow. Suppose we assemble an hour earlier to have our
say of criticism on your paper. We shall thus have conferred
on La Mothe-le-Vayer's multiform skepticism the honour of
'sleeping over' it.
Dr. Trevor's proposition was unanimously acceded to.
On the morrow, when the party were again assembled in
Dr. Trevor's library, Mrs. Harrington began the discussion :—
MRS. HARRINGTON. How are we to account for the geo-
graphical argument of skeptics having so completely lost its
power in our days as Mr. Arundel admitted it has. None of
us now, on rising from a new book of travels, think that our
main inference from the diversity of opinions and customs we
have been reading of, is, that truth is impossible. We are not
1 I.e. Hexameron Rustique, 'Cinqueesine Journée.' Ed. Liseux, p. 94. It may,
however, be noticed that Le Vayer is enumerated among Balzac's panegyrists
by M. de Montausier, quoted in the Historiettes of Tallemant des Reaux, Balzac,
vol. iv. p. 207. Balzac's opinion of Le Vayer is seen in his letter to Chapelain,
Jan. 4, 1639, wherein apropos of his reception into the Academy, he writes, "Je
me rejouis de la nouvelle acquisition que l'Academie a faite du Philosophe
(Pyrrhonien) qui en effet est un galant homme, et ne laisse pas d'avoir de
l'esprit, quoiqu'il se serve de la plupart du tems de celui d'autrui."-Balzac,
Lettres à M. Chaplain, p. 153; cf. Menagiana, ii. p. 185.
2 Huet is said to have drawn largely from Orasius Tubero, though he never
quotes it.-Bartholmèss in Dict. des Sci. Phil.
714 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
in the least danger of doubting the existence of God, who is
Spirit, because we have been reading of people who are unable
to conceive Him as such, and who worship some idol or fetish
instead. Nor do we call in question the truth or beauty of the
golden rule of the Gospel because we have been reading of
savages who act on diametrically opposite principles.
TREVOR. Besides the decadence of the belief in the descent
of all mankind from a single pair, which Arundel touched
upon in his paper, we must remember that the general rela-
tions of theology and physical science have been completely
changed since Le Vayer's time. In the middle ages the
apparent, but really fictitious unity of the Romish Church,
tended to make oneness and indivisibility a characteristic of
all forms of truth and results of human investigation. Chris-
tians in the time of Columbus, and other early explorers, would
have been far less surprised if they had found the Aborigines
of America and other countries exactly like themselves in
colour, habits and religious belief than they were at discover-
ing such immense diversities in each of these respects. Now
that the radical difference between various races of men is
fully established, and the supposed unity of all forms of belief
engendered by Romanism and ignorance has lost its power, the
argument from geography has become almost inoperative as re-
gards skepticism, and is only adduced as a plea for toleration.
HARRINGTON. A further answer is to be found in the fact
which Arundel noticed, viz. the transference of the argument
from geography to astronomy, i.e. to the possibilities of infinite
space. We have pretty well exhausted, or think we have,
the beliefs on our own little globe, so we traverse in imagina-
tion, as we are justified in doing, the limitless regions of æther,
and conceive existences, laws, and phenomena altogether dif-
ferent from those of our present experience. By the way,
Arundel, I do not think your analogy as to being asked to
throw away one's cash is a fair objection to the employment
of the space argument. Those who rely upon it only say,
'Use your ready cash by all means, only do not suppose that
there are no riches or circulating mediums in other portions
of the universe than those you possess. Do not assume, e.g.
that Jovians or Saturnians use the gold and silver of our own
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
715
little orb. To me Mill's position on this point is absolutely
impregnable. Under no circumstances can men who inhabit
such an infinitestimally minute space in the universe, for such
an exceedingly brief portion of infinite time, be allowed to
make their own experience the test of all truth. Terrestriality
in space, and actuality in time, are just as unbecoming to a
philosopher as insularity to an Englishman.
ARUNDEL. Only the Englishman by a few continental tours
can rub off some of his insularity, but in the present infancy
of science and aeronautics we are unhappily confined to our
own little globe. I object to the space argument, that it is
not an extension of knowledge. It is in no sense an addition
to what I already know to be told that there may be distant
worlds in which matter has no gravity, or in which two
parallel lines may meet. After all, the only knowledge I can
imagine is excuse the tautology-that which I know, or what
differs from it in degree. I can conceive a world in which the
forces which govern our globe may be reversed, in which, e.g.
water might run up a hill, but such imagination is really no
more to me than an uneasy dream, in which the normal con-
ditions of waking life are altogether suspended, or thrown into
grotesque confusion. When I awake from such a dream all
those absurdities immediately collapse. Similarly when I want
to reason on the abnormal characteristics I have in imagina-
tion ascribed to distant worlds, I find myself unable to do so.
In the sense of confining human knowledge to human experi-
ence, I think the maxim of Protagoras useful: 'Man is the
measure of all things.'
HARRINGTON. But excuse me, Arundel: you mistake the
object of the astronomical or space argument. It is not as an
extension of knowledge that it is useful, but as a preventive
of dogmatism. Of course every man has a right to say, 'I am
unable to conceive this or the other because it has never come
within the limits of my experience.
So far my ex-
perience is my sole measure of all created things.' That may
be granted, it is the old truth of the relativity of all know-
ledge; but when he goes beyond this, and says, 'My experience
is the sole measure of all creation,' thus transforming the rela-
tive to an absolute, the finite to the infinite, a skeptic philo-
716 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
sopher has surely a right to protest against such a proceeding.
He may ask, How can you possibly know this? and may point
to the numberless cases in which human experience, not only
of the individual but of the race, has been totally reversed by
its own progress and development.
ARUNDEL. The human mind has, I fear, an irresistible pro-
pensity to take its imaginations for facts, and to condense its
vague rhetoric into a compact and irresistible logic. Hence
your argument of indefinite possibilities of existence beyond
human ken, so far from closing the door, as you say it does, to
extravagant doctrine, frequently throws it wide open. The
other day I had a talk with a High Church friend on the
presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, which he interpreted
in quite a transubstantiation sense. On my alleging the same-
ness in the perceptible qualities of bread and wine before and
after consecration, I was at once met by the old distinction
between essence and qualities, and was told that there might
be worlds wherein the inseparable conjunction (as we defined
it) between causes and effects might be greatly varied, if not
altogether reversed. I tried to point out the inherent skepti-
cism of the reasoning, and compared John Stuart Mill's hypo-
thesis of a world in which 2 + 2 = 5, as an application in the
domain of philosophy of a precisely similar argument. Indeed,
it may be applied to justify any superstition, no matter how
gross or repugnant to common sense. It seems to me that
when we once leave the path of reason and experience, we
throw the door open equally to unlimited dogmatism and un-
limited skepticism-to superstition on the one hand and un-
belief on the other.
HARRINGTON. I am aware that the argument may be abused
by persons ignorant of its real implication, though I think
such instances will be rare. I have never heard it put for-
ward, as a pretext for belief in witchcraft, that witches may
perchance exist in Jupiter. The argument is purely negative
a disclaimer of human omniscience-and cannot properly
be advanced for purposes of positive knowledge. Hence the
analogy you employed in controverting your friend's Romanism
is only superficial; while his reasoning was the product of a
very shallow sophistry. Your friend insists on a dogma, and
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
717
suggests possibilities in other parts of the universe to support
it. He says: Essence and attributes may not be indissolubly
connected in Jupiter and Saturn, what makes you certain they
are here? Mill on the other hand reasons: 'I know that 2 and
2 are 4 here, for my experience assures me of the fact; but
what they may under different circumstances amount to else-
where I know not. The processes, you see, are converse.
Your friend illegitimately makes the unknown the measure of
the known. Mill calls in question the attempt to make even
the known an absolute standard of the unknown. He would,
I suspect, have disdained to expend ratiocination on the
former process. Had he been so inconceivably foolish as to
have argued 'I believe that 2 and 2 are 5, although they do
not appear so, because they may amount to 5 in Jupiter,' then
the parallel with your Transubstantiationalist would have been
complete. I however concur with you in thinking that a man
who believes transubstantiation has in him the makings of an
extreme skeptic.
ARUNDEL. My objection to Mill is that his argument tends
to involve both known and unknown in a common uncertainty.
My friend did the same thing in a somewhat different manner.
Mill transmitted his unjustifiable hypothesis to distant worlds,
my friend brought his sophistries from the same unknown
regions. The difference is between export and import.
MISS LEYCESTER. In that case, and assuming that the exports
are really absurdities, I agree with Mill. It is very convenient
to have in distant worlds a kind of penal settlement whither
all kinds of absurdities, inconsistencies, and unveracities may
be ideally transported 'for,' I should say, 'the term of their
natural lives.' I know not a few wrong notions and foolish
fancies—habitual criminals against the commonweal of philo-
sophy-which I should like to relegate to such a metaphysical
Botany-Bay. On the other hand importation of absurdities
from distant planets is clearly superfluous with such a large
production as our own fertile earth, industriously cultivated
by unwise men, can raise. Such foreign commodities ought
at least to be made to pay a heavy import duty—but that, I
suppose, would be interfering with toleration, which is the
'free trade' of philosophical and religious opinion.
718
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
TREVOR. It appears to me that we are having a repetition
of the philosophical controversy of Mill v. Mr. Herbert Spencer,
and I fear you are not more likely to come to an agreement
than they were, for, as they did, you start from different
standpoints. For myself I agree with Harrington-we cannot
allow human experience to transcend its own narrow limits.
The single fact that its imperfection and variation in time
past have been in direct proportion to its growth, may be
accepted as a presumption that further extension in space and
time would disclose still more uncertainty.
MISS LEYCESTER. I see that M. Etienne thinks Le Vayer may
have been the original of Marphurius, the Pyrrhonist philo-
sopher, in Molière's L'Amour Forcé. Do you think so, Mr.
Arundel?
ARUNDEL. There is just this much of presumption for it.
The author of Orasius Tubero was clearly the most conspicuous
advocate of Pyrrhonism in 1663, when Molière wrote the play.
Excepting that circumstance there is really nothing to identify
Le Vayer any more than Charron, or Montaigne, or some one
of the many disciples of those teachers, with Marphurius, for
Pyrrhonism was then the fashionable philosophy. More obvious
is the imitation of Trouillagan in Rabelais' Pantagruel, where
the Pyrrhonist has to decide an alternative of precisely the
same kind, and does it in nearly the same manner, Molière's
presentation has, however, the advantage in respect of direct-
ness and of humour; nothing can well be more humorous and
appropriate than the retribution he awards the Pyrrhonist.
MISS LEYCESTER. I think it would enliven our debate if Dr.
Trevor would kindly read the scene to us.
TREVOR. Willingly Miss Leycester. I am not such a
bigoted or exclusive skeptic that I cannot enjoy a joke against
my own philosophy (Reaches down a book from his shelves and
prepares to read Scene viii. of L'Amour Forcé). Sganarelle
I may remind you is in considerable perplexity as to whether
he shall marry. After consulting an Aristotelian philosopher
and getting in return nothing but scraps of Peripateticism, he
has recourse to the Pyrrhonist Marphurius, when the follow-
ing dialogue takes place :-
Mar. What do you want of me, M. Sganarelle?
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
719
Sg. Master Doctor, I need your advice as to a little matter
of business, and I am come for that purpose. (Aside) Ah!
This looks well, he listens attentively, this fellow. (The Peri-
patetic had not listened.)
Mar. Mr. Sganarelle, change if you please that mode of
speaking. Our philosophy bids us never enounce a decisive
proposition, but to speak of everything with uncertainty, and
always to suspend one's judgment. Therefore you should not
say-'I am come,' but 'It seems to me that I am come.'
Sg. Seems to me?
Mar. Yes.
Sg. Parbleu! It may well be that it seems to me, since it
is so.
Mar.
That does not follow, and it might seem to you
without the thing being true.
Sg. How! Is it not true that I am here?
Mar. That is uncertain, and we ought to doubt of every-
thing.
Sg. What? Am I not here? Are you not speaking to me?
Mar. It appears to me that you are here, and it seems to
me that I am speaking to you, but it is not certain that such is
the case.
Sg. Ha! What the d-1. You deceive yourself. Here
am I and there you are clearly enough, and there is no 'seems
to me' at all about it. Let us leave these subtleties, I pray
you, and speak about my business. I come to tell you that I
have a strong desire to get married.
Mar. I know nothing about it.
Sg. But I tell you.
Mar. It may be so.
Sg. The girl I am after is very young and very pretty.
Mar. It is not impossible.
Sg. Shall I do well or ill by marrying her?
Mar. The one or the other.
Sg. (Aside). Ah! Ah! This is another sort of music. (To
Marphurius) I ask you if I shall do well to marry the girl I
tell you about?
Mar. Just as it may turn out.
Sg. Shall I do ill?
720 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Mar. Perhaps.
Sg. Please answer as you ought.
Mar. Such is my purpose.
Sg. I have a strong inclination for the girl.
Mar. That may be.
Sg. Her father has consented.
Mar. It may be so.
Sg. But in marrying her I fear I shall be deceived by her.
Mar. The thing is feasible.
Sg. What do you think about it?
Mar. It is not impossible.
Sg. But what would you do in my place?
Mar. I don't know.
Sg. What do you advise me to do?
Mar. What you please.
Sg. I am out of patience.
Mar. I wash my hands of it.
Sg. To the devil with the old dreamer.
Mar. That will be as it may.
Sg. Thou tormenting plague! I will make thee change
thy note. Thou cur of a mad philosopher (strikes Marphurius
with his stick).
Mar. Oh! oh! oh!
Sg. There, thou art paid for thy trifling, and I am satisfied.
Mar. How! what insolence! to assault me in this way! to
have the audacity to strike a philosopher like me!
Sg. (mimicking Marphurius's voice and manner). Correct, if
you please, that mode of speaking; we must doubt everything,
and you should not say that I have beaten you, but that it
seems to you that I have beaten you.
Mar. Ah! I go to complain to the Commissary of the
district of the blows I have received.
Sg. I wash my hands of it.
Mar. I have the marks on my body.
Sg. It may be so.
Mar. It is thou who hast treated me so.
Sg. It is not impossible.
Mar I will have a summons against thee.
Sg. I know nothing of it.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
721
Mar. And thou wilt be convicted.
Sg. That will be as it may.
No doubt the humour of the scene is irresistible
and never was the stock argument against Pyrrhonism better
expressed. There is only one objection to it. It is utterly
inapplicable. No Pyrrhonist, as we well know, ever denied
that the blows of a stick gave pain, nor any other direct
appeal to the senses. All these patent facts are taken for
granted even by Sextus himself.
HARRINGTON. It would seem that the 'argumentum ba-
culinum,' which Dr. Johnson thought a sufficient reply to
Berkeley, might be used of other modes of thought. I confess
I do not think the worse of any Philosophy which may lay
itself open to that species of rejoinder. All modes of human
thought seem to me to have their own inconsistencies, though
it is not always that they can be made to assume a form so
palpable and ridiculous. The distinction, partly humorous
and grotesque, partly mournful and distracting, between seem-
ing and being, or between the conclusions of the reason and
the facts of common life, is no new truth. After all, man is
greater than logic, and his actual needs and feelings are as a
rule more direct and powerful arguments than airy systems of
thought or ingenious cobwebs of words. That probably is the
lesson Molière intended to teach.
ARUNDEL. I am convinced, however, that Molière had some
well-known scenes of Rabelais in his mind, and not Le Vayer's
philosophy, when he wrote L'Amour Forcé. In fact the play
contains a number of resemblances to Rabelais which have
been duly pointed out by M. Moland in his edition of Molière.
Some of the commentators have supposed that Marphurius
was intended for Descartes-an utterly untenable supposition.
MISS LEYCESTER. Another reason against Le Vayer being
the prototype of Marphurius is Molière's attachment to his son,
who very probably shared to some extent his father's opinions.
At least he edited his work no less than three times.
TREVOR. Passing to the third part of your Essay: Le
Vayer's Tolerance. I agree with your remarks on the un-
seemly jealousy with which Christians too frequently regard
heathendom. The niggardliness of their appreciation of any
722 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
merits which may not bear the stamp of professed Christianity,
seems to me very pitiful and mean, although of course a direct
corollary from dogmatism.
MISS LEYCESTER. I have often thought it like a contrast
between rival manufacturers as to trade marks or brands.
The competing articles may be of precisely the same nature
and may have the same properties, but one asserts its absolute
superiority over the other by being stamped with a particular
mark. The justice of an Aristides, the morality of a Cato, the
martyrdom of a Sokrates, do not differ in kind from the same
virtues and acts in distinguished Christians. But they lack the
brand of professed or avowed Christianity. Hence Augustine,
Calvin and Jansen take the liberty of re-labelling the inculpated
articles as so much religious contraband. On the heathen wine
vessels they mark 'vinegar'; on their provision packets they
stamp the word 'poison.' Taste the rival articles, no palate can
discern the difference. Send both to an analytical chemist,
and their component elements will be found precisely similar.
HARRINGTON. Your comparison is misleading, Florence. It
is by no means a mere matter of trade marks, though such a
distinctive sign does more than proclaim the genuineness of
one particular article. It is in truth a voucher for the char-
cter of the firm 'that supplied it. There is an important
difference in the quality of the rival articles. Heathen morality
is morality per se. Christian morality is morality plus
religion. It is morality hallowed by Divine and absolute
sanctions. Every moral act of the Christian has or ought to
have a peculiar flavour of sacredness and of Godliness. As we
saw in earlier discussions, man stands in the Christian scheme
in the place of God, so that Christianity becomes in a sense,
though not in that of Comte, a 'Religion of Humanity.' I am
aware it is easy to exaggerate the advantages which ethics has
obtained by being thus religionized, still it appears to me
futile to deny their existence. Through Christianity all social
duties have acquired a breadth and elevation, an emotional
no less than an intellectual standpoint-a sacred as well as a
secular sanction-which have added immeasurably to their
lustre and excellence, and by which they satisfy more fully
all our needs and capacities.
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
723
MISS LEYCESTER. I can better explain my meaning by
putting a case: Aristides passing along the streets of Athens
sees a man evidently in deep poverty. He relieves him and
goes on his way without another thought about his charitable
deed: Athanasius while returning home from his cathedral
in Alexandria also sees a case of great destitution, and bestows
his alms with the conviction that he is thereby discharging a
religious duty. May not the charity which dictated the first
action be more unaffected and disinterested, and therefore
purer, than the complex feelings which actuated the second;
and may not the performing obvious acts of duty as if
they were elaborate religious rites add to their ostentation
SO as to detract from their genuine merits.
It appears
to me that Aristides would come nearer to the gospel
standard of not letting the left hand know what the right
hand did.
HARRINGTON. Possibly; though we have not, and cannot
have, data for determining the point. The distinction between
the performance of the same act by Aristides and Athanasius
lies in this. The first does it from a momentary impulse of
pity; the second adds to that motive the persuasion that he
is discharging an universal dictate of social and so far of reli-
gious duty. The feeling in the former case is accidental and
precarious; in the latter it is universal and inevitable. If
Aristides had 'passed by on the other side,' and left the poor
wretch unrelieved, he would have erred against that man.
Had Athanasius, standing on the platform of Christian ethics,
neglected his duty, he would have sinned both against human-
ity and against God. Your parallel, however, derives an
adventitious but unfair advantage from Athanasius's well-
known character, and the probability of his taking a formal
view of simple acts of duty. Suppose we take a less suspicious
example of the benefit of acting from a universal law of duty:
Kant returning from his lecture-room at Königsberg sees a
poor man in distress. After inquiring diligently into his cir-
cumstances, and ascertaining the case to be one of real need,
he relieves the man's wants with the assurance that he is
thereby obeying a principle of universal obligation, so that his
act assumes the form of absolute duty-a model under similar
724 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
circumstances of all human conduct in all time and all space.
An act done on such a basis is surely more complete and
satisfactory to a man of elevated sentiment than one unrelated
to any great principle-the accidental prompting of a moment-
ary, perhaps evanescent, feeling.
TREVOR. But why should the 'virtue' of the poor heathen
Aristides necessarily be of that accidental quality? All his
actions might have been prompted by the same principle of
humanity and kindness, besides which he may have referred
them to God-I don't mean the Olympian Deities of the popu-
lar creed, whose influence could hardly have been of a moral
kind, but that higher, all-creating, all-comprehending Being
whom, as Lactantius said, all the best and wisest of the
heathen really worshipped.
HARRINGTON. Of course if Aristides' charity or justice were
referred to the volition and law of a deity whose character and
attributes were good and holy, there could be no real distinc-
tion between such virtues in his case and the same virtues
in the case of a Christian.
MISS LEYCESTER. I protest, for my part, against over-refine-
ment in distinguishing heathen from Christian morality. Acts
of kindness, deeds of mercy, are done every day in the world
from mere human sympathy by persons who never once think
of asking themselves why they do them, and who have no
power, even if they had the will, to refer them to an infinite
and eternal standard. The element of real value in all such
acts is the pure simplicity and unselfishness of the doer, and
I am inclined to think that this would disappear in proportion
as he was always careful to consider his conduct in reference
to a universal code of action.
ARUNDEL. There is no doubt a considerable amount of spon-
taneous virtue and goodness, just as there is of latent talent,
in the world. A man e.g. may have a natural gift for paint-
ing who is completely ignorant of its rules, while another may
possess a practical knowledge of music who knows nothing of
its theory; nevertheless men who want to be scientific painters
or musicians will set themselves to learn the laws and methods
of those sciences. Reasoning men, Miss Leycester, must be
actuated by rational and universal principles, rules of which
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
725
they know the why and the wherefore, the origin, purport,
and extent. They cannot turn and shift with every transitory
impulse or wave of feeling. A finished sculptor may have first
manifested his aptitude for his vocation by moulding mud-pies
when a child. Still the mud-pie is one thing, and the statue
of Minerva of his manhood, exquisitely modelled on the highest
principles of the art, is another.
Hence I quite agree
with Harrington as to the essential characteristic of Christian
morality, and its distinction from other codes. I am far from
thinking the distinction so great in the eyes of a just God as
to constitute a cause for retributive or penal judgment, either
in this world or the next. I am nevertheless persuaded of its
existence and importance.
At the same time we must
take heed that the religious sanction-the coping stone of
Christian ethics-does not supersede the moral act, which may
be termed the foundation stone. The latter is after all of the
greater importance. Thus in the case supposed by Miss Ley-
cester, it would have mattered less that Athanasius should have
forgotten for the time being the more sacred, or the more
general aspects of his charitable deed, than that he should
have omitted it altogether. The priority of moral acts over
religious service is placed in the very fore-front of Christ's
teaching.
TREVOR. Notwithstanding Le Vayer's tolerance, his treat-
ment of the virtues of the heathen errs not so much on the
side of liberality as on that of excessive caution. In this
respect his work presents a contrast to that of Père Sirmond,
also inspired by Richelieu. The main argument of the latter
treatise goes more directly to the root of the matter than Le
Vayer's Virtue of the Heathen. It is this: The love of God
consists in keeping His commandments. Now if a man keeps
the commandments, even though he does not in form acknow-
ledge God, he can claim the most essential constituents of the
love of God. The argument possesses these merits: (1) It
insists on the most vital element in all religion. (2) It indi-
cates, from the point of view of Christ's own teaching, the final
state of virtuous heathen. No doubt it may be made to appear
deficient as conceivably sanctioning the virtues of an Atheist;
and it is on that ground vigorously attacked by Pascal in the
VOL. II.
X
726 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Tenth Provincial; but Pascal's Christianity, as we shall find,
was not altogether that of the Gospels. I, at least, am eccen-
tric enough to believe that if the case of a virtuous Atheist had
been submitted to the judgment of Christ, He would have
awarded him a higher place than He did the scribes and Phari-
sees, who made the commandment of God of none effect by
their religious tradition.
ARUNDEL. I am not sure that I agree with you. Atheism
was a state of mind so utterly alien from the Semitic instinct,
that I am unable to think of it as occurring to Christ even as a
possibility. It is left out of Christianity for the same reason
that parricide is omitted from the laws of Lycurgus, as too
abnormal to be provided for.
An old divine used to
{
say that faith and works were the two legs of a man's religion;
the absence of either made him deformed, and rendered loco-
motion halting and imperfect. I should say the same of
morality and religion. You may occasionally get one without
the other, but in either case the result is but a lame and im-
potent conclusion. And when both conditions are so imperfect
it seems useless to enter upon the nicely calculated less or
more' of such imperfection.
As to the defects in Le
Vayer's reasoning in the Virtue of the Heathen, we must bear
in mind that they were for the most part inevitable. He went
so far as he could go in the direction of tolerance. If his
patron, Richelieu, was not a bigoted Catholic, and if he disliked
the narrow exclusiveness of Jansenism, there is no reason to
suppose that he would have relished in a work dedicated to
him, pronounced Pelagianism, or a direct contradiction of the
decrees of the Council of Trent.
MRS. HARRINGTON. Christianity should deal with heathen
morality as the early Bishops of Rome dealt with the Pan-
theon, when they converted it into a Christian church. It
should assimilate and sanction whatever is good and true in
other systems, instead of attempting to overthrow them alto-
gether in order to establish itself on their ruins. If in doing
this our missionaries and others would have to abate much of
their exclusiveness and religious arrogance, this would only
tend to bring their methods into closer harmony with that of
the Prophet of Galilee. After all, the first and best Mission-
La Mothe-le-Vayer.
727
ary was Christ Himself, though His spirit and methods have
been strangely caricatured by His disciples-His own meek-
ness and lowliness of heart assuming the form of harsh, aggres-
sive dogma, while His easy yoke has been transformed into
one of iron.
MISS LEYCESTER. Your remark, Maria, suggests to me the
observation that the distinction between heathen and Christian
virtue, pushed to the extreme to which it is often, is utterly
alien from the teaching of Christ. What it seems most closely
allied to in the Gospels is the Pharisaism which regarded with
persistent jealousy Jesus Christ's sitting down to meat with
publicans and sinners. How thinking men of our time can be
so greatly alarmed by the least juxtaposition or comparison
of Christianity with other religions I confess I cannot see.
The feeling surely evinces an entire oblivion of the growth
of Christianity during so many centuries-albeit we must
acknowledge that not all Christianity is Christian any more
than all civilization is really civilizing. Christian apologists
as a class seem to treat the religion they reverence as a fool-
ish mother treats a spoilt child, i.e. killing it with kindness.
Instead of trusting to its natural vigour they are perpetually
defending it from all sorts of imaginary ailments and impos-
sible dangers. I wish all these fussy alarmists about the health
of the most robust religion in the world would read, mark,
learn, and inwardly digest King George's saying apropos of
Watson's Apology, viz. he did not know that the Bible
needed an apology.' As to the greater honour and dignity
they pretend to vindicate for it, it would be well to remember
that truth needs no additional or extrinsic recommendation.
Its authority is inherent, self-asserted, and inalienable: and
further that no stronger claim of prestige or prerogative should
be asserted for Christ's Revelation than that which He has
Himself seen fit to claim for it.
HARRINGTON. You might have put your case stronger,
Florence, by making all that distrust the effect of a very real,
though partly concealed skepticism. In its essentials Christi-
anity is proof against open attack. What tends to weaken it
more than anything else are accretions it has received by un-
728
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
**
scrupulous dogmatists, and senseless or irrational apologies
made on its behalf by timorous defenders.
After a short silence Dr. Trevor said: The luncheon bell
has sounded for some little time, so, if you please, we will
adjourn.
*
*
*
*
*
PASCAL.
'A quoi bon la lente science
Si l'homme ne peut entrevoir,
Après tant d'apre patience
Que les bornes de son savoir.'
Sully Prud'homme, Les vaines Tendresses.
' Dieu m'a ôté la foi humaine pour donner plus de force à la foi Divine.'
Saying attributed to Père Hardouin.
'Voilà la guerre ouverte entre les hommes ou il faut que chacun prenne parti, et
se range nécessairement ou au dogmatisme ou au Pyrrhonisme; car qui pensera
demeurer neutre sera Pyrrhonien par excellence.'
Pascal, Pensées, Ed. Faugère, ii. p. 103.
CHAPTER VI.
PASCAL.
HARRINGTON. It is a pity our Pascal¹ discussion did not
occur about Christmas.
TREVOR. Why so?
HARRINGTON. Because it is the season dedicated to riddles
and enigmas. Of all human puzzles Blaise Pascal is, I think,
the most insoluble. He is a kind of psychological sphinx; a
human hieroglyph-occult, mysterious and utterly undecipher-
able.
MISS LEYCESTER. Please don't frighten us, Charles! We
are assembled on purpose to try our skill, but if you tell us the
riddle is unsolvable, we may just as well decline the discussion.
ARUNDEL. Besides, Harrington is anticipating. His terrible
sphinx may find an Edipus in the doctor's paper, to say
1 The following are the works which have been consulted, and are quoted on
Pascal:-
Pascal, Œuvres Complètes, Ed. Lahure, 2 vols.
Pascal, Pensées par Faugère, 2 vols. 8vo.
Pascal, Pensées par E. Havet, 2 vols. 8vo. This is the Edition of the Pensées
quoted in the following pages, unless that of Faugère is expressly named.
Port Royal v. Dr. H. Reuchlin.
Port Royal par C. A. Sainte Beuve; chiefly vols. ii. and iii.
Pascal's Leben und Geist seiner Schriften v. Dr. H. Reuchlin, 1820.
Port Royal by Rev. Chas. Beard, 2 vols.
Études sur Pascal, par V. Cousin, 6th Edition, 1876.
Études sur Pascal, par M. Vinet.
Le Scepticisme (Enesidème-Pascal-Kant), par E. Saisset.
Études sur Pascal, par l'Abbé Flottes.
Lelut L'Amulette de Pascal.
H. Martin, Histoire de France, liv. lxxiii.
Good and fairly complete Biographies of Pascal may be found in the Nouvelle
Biographie Genérale; Franck, Dict. des Sciences Philosophiques, Ersch and
Grueber, Encyclo., Series iii.
731
732 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
nothing of the keen diagnosis awaiting it from our united
hands.
TREVOR (gravely). For myself: 'I am Trevor, not Edipus.'
Pascal's character is a long-admitted psychological curiosity,
possibly unique in the history of mental science. Bayle calls
him the single paradox of the human species, and thinks he
deserves the characteristic which Lucretius applies to Empe-
dokles of being almost super-human:
'Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus.'
MISS LEYCESTER. But we have had these composite char-
acters before-men, whose minds, like Nebuchadnezzar's image,
are made up of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay interfused and
intermingled in a curious and altogether irregular manner. I
presume Pascal only differed from the rest by having a few
more diversities in his own composition, or perhaps the inter-
fusion was of an unusually fantastic and complex kind.
TREVOR. Not quite that; one element more or less in a
gigantic many-sided human character does not much signify.
The peculiarity in Pascal's case is that there is so much of each
separate element that you might easily construct a whole man
out of it. To recur to your simile. He possesses as much gold
as if he were like another and more material creation of Nebu-
chadnezzar's, all gold; as much silver, as if that was the only
metal in his composition; and as much iron and clay, as if his
entire character were formed out of one or other of those
inferior materials. He is therefore not one image, but an
assemblage of diverse images. He concentrates in his single
personality a whole gallery of statuary. You remember Sidney
Smith's definition of a great man as a kind of conglomerate
humanity; he is not one, but six or seven men; Pascal more
than any other name in modern times answers to that descrip-
tion. He is not one, but six or seven different men; with the
additional peculiarity that they are not six or seven dwarfs
who have been put together to make a giant, but they are each
of them full-grown, well-developed men; nay, even giants of
no ordinary stature; while each also possesses a completeness
of individuality and of vigorous life, as if he existed by and
for himself, and quite independently of all the rest. If we can
Pascal.
733
suppose Dame Nature setting about her noble creations, on the
plan which our cooks employ in concocting their dishes, we
might imagine the original recipe from which Pascal was con-
structed, to have been something of this kind:-'Take an
eminent mathematician, a profound scientist, an original
thinker in ethics and philosophy, a fervid religionist, a thorough
skeptic, a polished man of the world, a dissipated character,¹
a superstitious ascetic, a rare humourist, a melancholy hypo-
chondriac, a brilliant writer of French prose; mix very slightly,
put a thin crust of individuality over all, bake, and serve in’-
what shall we say ?—' a cracked dish.'
MISS LEYCESTER. The last is certainly a novel recommenda-
tion in a cookery receipt. I myself should have said, though
I fear it would not have been quite true of Pascal-a sound
dish. The number and strength of the incompatible ingredi-
ents are quite enough to account for the poor dish fracturing
so soon, without the help of an original flaw.
ARUNDEL (in pretended ecstasy). Wonderful and yet more
wonderful!! What with Miss Leycester's Nebuchadnezzar's
image, Trevor's whole gallery of statuary, and now the Pascal
dish of both, we are likely to have an interesting monstrosity—
a genuine' Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens;' we had better
reserve for ourselves the 'lumen ademptum' to mark the bewilder-
ment which the bare contemplation of such a portent must
produce on an ordinary beholder. I hope, Doctor, you are not
exaggerating the puzzling qualities of the problem in order to
enhance the merits of the solution you are about to offer us.
As to myself, the interest I feel in Pascal is not altogether of a
personal kind. I look upon his skepticism as a curious and
anomalous incident in the history of Jansenism. One would
hardly have expected to find a plant of such a nature, and
manifesting such vigorous growth, in the secluded garden of
Port Royal. On the other hand, skepticism is a natural pro-
duct of Jesuitism, as Pascal himself has abundantly shown in
the Provincials.
¹ This designation may appear to some harsh and exaggerated, but it seems
justified by one episode in Pascal's life, and it is employed by several of his
critics. Thus: e.g. M. Franck in the Dict. des Sciences Philosophiques, speaks
of a work 'Composé à l'epoque de sa plus grande dissipation.'
734 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
HARRINGTON. I think you are premature, Arundel, in sup-
posing that Jansenism contained no principle which could have
ministered to the growth of skepticism. Of course, I do not
know what the Doctor is going to tell us; but you remember
our Augustine discussion, and the moral and intellectual im-
potence which is necessarily implied in every exaggeration of
human weakness.
MRS. ARUNDEL. I am quite surprised to hear what you say
of Pascal's character; indeed, I was not aware that there was
anything even suspicious in his religious belief until I found
we were to discuss him as a skeptic. I have a copy of Pascal's
Thoughts given me by an aunt many years ago, and if the dif-
ferent opinions and sentiments of that book were really Pascal's,
I think there can be no doubt that whatever else he was, he
was not a skeptic, but a very earnest and sincere believer.
TREVOR. Alas! Mrs. Arundel, there are, as I shall soon have
to explain, two Pascals known to fame-an old Pascal, who
existed before 1840 or thereabouts, pious, devout, correct and
orthodox, the oracle of many a pietistic and evangelical circle;
and a new Pascal who came into literary being about the same
date-restless, enquiring, philosophic, skeptical. Pascal the
first, the Pascal of our childhood, with all his undoubted ex-
cellencies, was a literary impostor. His Thoughts so-called,
were in a great measure not of his thinking. Friends with
more piety than honesty suppressed many of his erratic, but
beautiful and original utterances, and substituted religious
commonplaces of their own,¹ or thoughts which they took upon
them to determine Pascal ought to have excogitated-thus
treating his real sentiments not as gipsies, in Sheridan's simile,
treat stolen children, disguising them to make them pass for
their
own, but conversely like impostors of another class, who
palm off adulterations for genuine articles, and give them an
influential name to cover the deceit.
MRS. HARRINGTON. I have read somewhere that Pascal
(I mean Pascal the second) was so grossly superstitious as to
wear a mystical amulet round his neck, as I suppose, a kind of
charm. Even after the warnings we have received of his
wonderful character, this seems to me altogether incredible.
1 This refers to Bossut's Edition, not to that of Port Royal.
Pascal.
735
TREVOR. Nevertheless it is quite true, Mrs. Harrington; nor
when you come to know more about him, will you think it so
utterly incredible; the fact, though striking, is only a single one
among the many eccentricities which go to the forming of this
'incomprehensible monster,' as, with what is clearly a generaliza-
tion derived from his own character, he termed mankind; but
it is not true, so far as is known, that he used it as a charm;
he apparently kept it in memory of what he considered a
stupendous and miraculous occurrence of some kind. But I
agree with you—the amulet is a curious feature considered in
relation to Pascal's skepticism. If a painter wanted a subject to
symbolize human inconsistency, he might paint Pascal writing
one of his extreme skeptical dicta with one hand, while with
the other he is cherishing his amulet; or, adoring on his knees
'the Holy Thorn' which he fully believed cured his niece.
MISS LEYCESTER. I cannot see why any one should presume
to find fault with Pascal's amulet, or, for that matter, with the
small weaknesses of any great man. For my part, I am always
inclined to reverence them, as pledges of a common fallible
humanity. Lessing said of Luther, that he held him in such
reverence that he was glad to find a few defects in his char-
acter to prevent his idolizing him. That is just what I feel.
great man's stupendous qualities I regard with silent awe and
distant worship, but if he has perceptibly a weak point or two
in his character, if he is—
'A creature not too wise or good
For human nature's daily food.'
then, although there is a little diminution of reverence, there is
much more scope for love and sympathy as with a genuine
fellow-man. So far from blaming the weaknesses of such men
as Pascal-wishing the sun were without spots-I think we
ought to be really grateful that there are few men so intoler-
ably great and immaculate that there is no room for common
humanity. We ought to cherish these precious follies, just as
some people do relics and mementos of saints; indeed the lat-
ter only create in me a feeling of despair at their unattainable
virtues as well as a disbelief in their existence, whereas a man's
weakness or error is infinitely more credible. I should like to
736
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
make a collection, if it were possible, of all the intellectual in-
firmities of really great men and women-we have more than
one collection of their tiresome superhuman excellencies-a
museum, e.g. which should contain in some visible form, pic-
torial or otherwise, such mementos as: the demon of Sokrates,
the tub of Diogenes, the grasshopper which Peisistratus hung
before the Akropolis, and the hundred-fold charms and amulets
which the ancients used to ward off evil and to ensure good
fortune; while in modern times we might have Montaigne
kissing the pope's toe, Agrippa's horoscopes, Cardan's familiar
spirit, Glanvil's witches, Pascal's amulet and his adoration of
the holy thorn, Sir Kenelm Digby's sympathetic powder, the
divine voice of Joan of Arc, Bishop Huet's faith in the lique-
faction of St. Januarius's blood, and Lord Bacon's belief in the
transmutation of metals.
HARRINGTON. You needn't stop there, Florence. If your
museum is to contain all the follies of the great and learned,
you will need a large room. You must include such relics as
the Squaring of the Circle, Perpetual Motion, the Philoso-
pher's Stone, the Elixir of Life, the Alchymists' furnaces and
retorts, and the various instruments and methods of magic,
together with a number of other quaint ideas and opinions
long since relegated to the dark sepulchre of oblivion-a more
fitting depository than your museum, perhaps.
TREVOR. On the contrary, I think Miss Leycester is right.
The world, like the temple of Neptune filled with votive tab-
lets, has quite enough mementos of supposed successes, achieve-
ments and victories; a few records and relics of its merited
defeats and failures, leaving out of consideration undeserved
and therefore glorious failures, would be eminently useful in
order to subdue to some extent its overweening faith in human
wisdom. From this point of view, Pascal's amulet and his
other eccentricities are not the least instructive features of his
history, albeit not proofs of consistency,
but we must
admit, consistency in Pascal's character, as in that of Mon-
taigne, would itself be inconsistent.
HARRINGTON. I observe that some of Pascal's biographers,
while they make all his incongruities hinge upon his love of
truth, seem to treat this unquestionable fact as if it were
Pascal.
737
+
enough to harmonize and unify, and so to remove, the various
discords and discrepancies in his character, and thereby they
attempt to prove his virtual consistency; whereas, instead of
removing, it merely serves to explain them, it affords them a
basis and a rationale. Just as Kepler's laws and Newton's
discovery of gravitation harmonized the irregular and seem-
ingly capricious motions of the planets and their satellites not
by destroying the irregularities, but by proving that they were
inevitable, so in Pascal's case (and Blanco White was another
striking instance) the love of truth implanted in a nature like
his impelled him to his various eccentricities. Indeed it is a
fact not sufficiently recognized, but which is amply borne out
by our skeptical researches, that the eager pursuit of truth in
different directions, if unaccompanied by caution, sobriety and
calmness of judgment, necessarily produces a considerable
amount of what to an outsider would seem impetuous way-
wardness and unregulated impulse. This is no doubt the rea-
son why some skeptics are so often branded with the injurious
epithets of restlessness and eccentricity. Consider them from
their centre point of a passionate ardour for truth wherever
it may be found, combined with a disregard of conventional
ideas and opinions, and though the eccentricities are not de-
stroyed, they are accounted for. Of course a well-ordered
community will regard these untoward impulses with suspiicon
and dislike. Where every locomotive is provided with long-
laid rails and sleepers, the aberrations of an erratic machine
like Pascal will find just as much indulgence as we should
bestow on some ill-regulated engine which had a troublesome
propensity for running off the line.
ARUNDEL. That illustrates exactly my view of Pascal. He
seems to me like a locomotive which at different times takes
its departure from different stations; and after getting up
steam rushes madly along for a comparatively short distance,
and then suddenly is thrown, or rather throws itself, off the
rails.
TREVOR. You must except the last stage on the 'line,' viz. that
of religious mysticism. On that he kept the rails to the end.
MISS LEYCESTER. I question whether Pascal was really more
inconsistent than it is the nature and prerogative of every
738
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
human being to be. Of course the motion of large bodies will
seem greater than the corresponding motion of smaller objects.
The wave movement of an inland sea will naturally appear
greater than the ripple on a fish-pond, though both may be
caused by the same breeze. Pascal's movements in an ordinary
man would have attracted no notice, and certainly would not
have been considered eccentric. But what I want to know is,
why, when dealing with that essence of mutability—man—we
should use such terms as eccentricity, irregularity, wayward-
ness, and a few more of those tacit reproaches of mental inde-
pendence with which all languages abound. Why should
Pascal e.g. have been inconsistent? Where is the hard and
fast line which separates consistency from inconsistency?
Who established such a standard, and when and by what
right? Why should not Pascal follow one track to-day and
another to-morrow, if he were so minded? The highest con-
sistency for every human being is when he follows his own
divinely implanted instincts, the promptings of a lively, ear-
nest, albeit perhaps rebellious and turbulent passion after
truth. Any one who has insight to perceive, and courage to
avow it, must admit that he finds within him erratic ideas and
vagrant impulses, thoughts and feelings which are not invari-
ably conformable to established opinions, and which certainly
follow no iron law of unswerving regularity. Among the many
interpretations assigned to 'Hamlet,' I think one of the like-
liest is that Shakespeare intended to represent humanity in the
way in which Montaigne does, taking his own self-experience
as a commentary on the text. 'Certes c'est un subject merveil-
leusement, vain, divers, et ondoyant, que l'homme,' or as Pas-
cal, when he termed man an 'incomprehensible monster.'
What more natural or human than Hamlet's introspection: 'I
am myself indifferent honest, and yet I could accuse me of
such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.
I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to
give them shape, or time to act them in.' Suppose Hamlet's
confession applied to the suggestions of a restive, unquiet intel-
lect, and you would have depicted the mental character of a
Montaigne or a Pascal. Hence I cannot enough admire the im-
Pascal.
739
perturbable hypocrisy which so many biographers evince when
dealing with great characters like Pascal, Montaigne, Goethe,
Heine, etc., utterly ignoring their own vacillations and incon-
sistencies, the trifling extent of which is in due proportion to
the trivial commonplace nature of their minds; they apply to
those giant intellects a vigorous unbending rule of uniformity,
the least departure from which they visit with severe reprehen-
sion or pitying scorn. It is just as if a mouse, after diligently
creeping round and surveying an elephant, were gravely to
pronounce: No doubt it was a stupendous beast, but utterly
devoid of proportion and regularity of structure. Its body was
much too ponderous for its legs, while as a crowning eccentri-
city its tail, or what should have been its tail, was affixed to
its head, and the animal employed it to put food its mouth.'
ARUNDEL. Well, as we are all mice engaged in the contem-
plation of the elephant-Pascal, we had better communicate
our verdict with some reserve, otherwise we shall also fall
under the lash of Miss Leycester's vigorous denunciation.
HARRINGTON. An universe, or for that matter a society, ar-
ranged in accordance with Florence's 'Counsels of Perfection,'
would be intolerable for ordinary, quiet, humdrum folk-the
bulk of humanity in short, to live in. No doubt there are
elements of irregularity in every human character-sallies of
passion, spontaneous impulses in speculation and in action,
tendencies to extremes and excesses of different kinds-which
every well ordered society is in self-defence obliged to repress,
at least when they assume too violent and obtrusive a char-
acter. On the other hand psychology, and therefore human
eccentricity, has its laws. The action and speculation of every
man, no matter how capricious, are dependent on definite
causes, though these are mostly so subtle as to defy detection.
Pascal's violent changes of character were as much the effect
of organic and psychical agencies as the commonplace conduct
of the most automatic of human machines that ever existed.
TREVOR. In our treatment of the skeptics I think we have
as a rule kept ourselves free from the repression of individu-
ality, or the measuring giants by tapes derived from and
adapted for our own pigmy statures, which, as Miss Leycester
truly remarks, is a frequent fault of biographers. Similarly,
740 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
in the paper I am about to read to you, I do not in the least
pretend, as Arundel just now suggested, to solve an insolvable
enigma, or to bring an enormous intellect like Pascal's within
the quiet and unvarying scope of ordinary belief and action.
Of course where psychological causes are evident I have tried to
trace Pascal's changes and opinions to them. But considering
him as a whole, and in relation to the rest of humanity—withal
not forgetting Miss Leycester's parable of the mouse and ele-
phant-I may so far forestal my essay as to say that having
found Pascal a problem, and having, as I hope, thrown some
light on a few of the many problematical points of his character,
it is still as a problem that I am compelled to leave him.
Trevor then began his paper.
*
*
*
*
*
*
Of all the great names we have hitherto met in our progress—and
the course of free-thought flows by great minds just as naturally as
a broad, navigable river flows past great towns-Pascal is probably
that which enjoys most celebrity, not only of a philosophical but.
also of a popular kind. In a considerable degree this is no more
than the tribute justly done to his multifarious excellencies. To the
mathematician he is the discoverer of the calculus of probabilities
and the properties of the cycloid. To the natural philosopher he is
the verifier of Torricelli's discovery of the weight of gaseous bodies
and atmospheric air. To the religious controversalist he is the author
of the most masterly work in modern times on the issues between
Jesuitism and Christianity. To the philosopher he is the profound
thinker and critic to whom must be ascribed many detached thoughts,
reasonings, and intuition-flashes of singular wisdom, audacity and
beauty. While to the philologist and litterateur he is one of the
greatest masters of French style and diction.
But besides the fame which properly belongs to his varied powers,
Pascal enjoys also a spurious renown; for most of his popularity,
especially among religious thinkers, is due to a misconception both
of his character and his works. It is the Pascal of the Thoughts,
not of the Provincials, nor of various discoveries in mathematical
and physical science, that has achieved such a wide-spread celebrity.
When the early editions of the Pensées appeared, the religious world
of Europe was delighted. Here was a work which combined the keen
self-diagnosis of Augustine's Confessions with the mystical depth of
Thomas à Kempis, and whose style in its singular simplicity, direct-
Pascal.
741
1
ness, and purity was superior to the rhetorical inflation of the former,
while its piquant variety contrasted favourably with the pious
monotony of the latter. These eulogies were no doubt well merited,
but-the book was not Pascal's, at least it was only partly his. The
Port-Royalists, with more regard for the character of their community
than for literary veracity, had garbled and falsified the early editions
of the Thoughts by suppressing their skeptical and free-thinking
utterances, and adding a large quantity of pious reflections which
Pascal never wrote. The researches of MM. Faugère, Cousin and
Havet, while restoring the genuine texts, have probably detracted
from Pascal's popularity as a religious thinker,2 but have given to
philosophy and free-thought one of the most remarkable characters
to which they can lay claim, and to psychological science one of
the most puzzling studies which the composite nature of humanity
has ever presented for its contemplation.
Blaise Pascal was born in 1623, of an ancient and noble family.
His father, who held the office of President of the Court of Aids in
Auvergne, was a man of considerable mathematical acquirements,
and of independent spirit. Few of our skeptics have evinced a
greater precocity than the subject of our enquiry. His sister, Madame
Perier, in that charming and affectionate Memoir which will em-
balm his memory to far distant ages, tells us, that he early manifested
proofs of an extraordinary intellect.
In the elementary
lessons on physical science which his father used to give him, ‘he
wanted to know the reason of everything, "rerum cognoscere causas,'
and whenever his young intellect was not content with such reasons
as his father could give, he devised others which seemed more satis-
factory.'
""
This the inborn faculty of enquiry and distrust-the true skeptical
afflatus-remained, with the possible exception of a few episodes,
the presiding genius of his whole intellectual life. Insatiably eager
after truth, and impatient of any but the fullest satisfaction of his
craving appetite and large capacity, his sister says that, 'always
and in everything truth was the sole object of his mind, and nothing
satisfied him but its attainment.'3 The story of his mathematical
precocity is well known, and few incidents in the early life of great
thinkers are more interesting than the picture left us by Madame
Perier-the sickly, pensive child, forbidden by his father to study
or talk of mathematics, shutting himself up in a garret and occupy
ing his leisure moments in scrawling with bits of charcoal his
1 Cf. Cousin, Études sur Pascal, p. 105, etc., etc.
2 Cf. the fragment 'sur Pascal,' in M. Prevost Paradol's Essais, p. 338.
3 Vie, etc., par Mme. Perier. Havet, Pens., i. lxiv.
VOL. II.
Y
742 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
'rounds' and 'bars' (as he termed 'circles' and 'straight lines') upon
the walls and floor, until he had evolved from his twelve-year-old brain
all the axioms, theorems, and problems of Euclid so far as the thirty-
second proposition of the first book. If there is any defect in
Madame Perier's delicious little picture, it is perhaps the Cato-like
austerity of the father, who could witness these proofs of marvellous
genius and application in his child without bestowing upon him some.
slight token of paternal affection. He left the room, we are told, with-
out saying a word, and unbosomed himself in tears of joy to a friend
who lived close by. Acting by the advice of this friend, M. Pascal
allowed his son to read a copy of Euclid, but his own unaided efforts
had already imparted such a mastery of geometrical principles, that
he was able to follow his author, and explain his propositions, by
merely looking at the diagrams.
At the age of sixteen, Pascal wrote a small work on Conic Sections,
which his father sent to Descartes, who received it with the suspicion
and distrust he generally awarded to the labours and inventions of
other thinkers. Sainte Beuve remarks that he was ungenerous enough
to exhibit symptoms of jealousy at the rising genius of Pascal, re-
garding the youth of sixteen years as a possible rival. Further
proof of his proficiency both in mathematics and in physical science
are afforded by his invention, when he was yet only nineteen years of
age, of an arithmetical machine, designed to help his father in the
calculations belonging to his office of Surveyor at Rouen, and which
is affirmed to have been the model which Mr. Babbage brought to
perfection in this country. He also instituted a series of laborious
researches into Torricelli's experiments as to the weight of atmo-
spheric air, and the nature of a vacuum. The possibility of the last
he announced in words which show his freedom from the Aristotelian
and scholastic bonds in which physical science was still confined.
A vacuum, he said, was not an impossibility, neither was it regarded
by Nature with the abhorrence which many people thought. Un-
happily these severe studies, with others of a kindred nature, in
which the young philosopher had been engaged from his earliest
years, had the effect of further enfeebling what had been from the
first only a weak constitution. From the age of eighteen to the end
of his life he assures us he never passed a single day without pain.
The too-hastily matured fruit was destined to a decay not less rapid.
The marvel is, under all the circumstances of the case, that the
maturity attained such excellence, and that it lasted so long as it did.
We have no account of Pascal's religious convictions during these years
of scientific thought and toil. The Pascal family was religious, and
we know that our young thinker had an almost unlimited capacity
Pascal.
743
for religious fervour and devotional feeling.
His sister tells us that
he had never been inclined to free-thinking in religion, and he would
ascribe this to his father's teaching:—that whatever was the object
of Faith could not be that of Reason, much less subject to Reason.
Moreover, his whole mind was at present taken up with the investi-
gation of physical problems. The strange alternations in Pascal's
life had already commenced. As yet the intellect dominated, so far
as its immense capacity could be filled by mere abstract science;
soon we shall find the religious sentiment preponderating, and pre-
paring to avenge by its overmastering influence the neglect in which
it had hitherto been allowed to stagnate.
2
It was in connection with his experiments on the equilibrium of
fluids and the weight of atmospheric air that the future author of
the Provincials first came into contact with the Jesuits. A certain
Father Noel wrote to Pascal a long letter¹ full of objections to the
results he claimed to have obtained by his experiments, and especi-
ally denying the possibility of a vacuum. The letter was couched
in courteous terms, and Pascal replied at some length. Father Noel
rejoined in another letter still more lengthy, and not quite so cour-
teous. This he moreover followed up by a work which bore a title
a little more appropriate to its contents than the author designed,
for it was called the Fullness of Emptiness (La Plein du Vide).3
In this treatise Father Noel announces his intention of clearing
Nature from the novel imputation of a vacuum; and possibly feeling
that his science was no match for Pascal's, he tried to correct the
disparity by vulgar abuse. Accordingly the Dedication and other
parts of the book are full of accusations of ignorance, falsehood and
bad faith, better calculated to irritate than to convince the young
philosopher. So much was this the case, that M. Pascal senior, fear-
ing the effect of these controversial amenities on the excitable mind
of his son, took up his pen in the cause, and with a curious prescience
of the Provincial Letters forewarned Father Noel not to commit
such offences against a young man who, seeing himself provoked
without cause, might by the irritation of the injury, and the rashness
of his youth, be tempted to repel his invective in terms capable of
causing him a lasting repentance. The researches of the younger
philosopher received a final and triumphant confirmation in the ex-
1 See the Letter in vol. ii. p. 180 of Lahure's very neat and compendious
edition of Pascal's complete works.
2 Euv. Comp., ed. Lahure, ii. p. 190.
3 The work is reprinted in Œuv. Comp., p. 199.
4 See 'Lettre de M. Pascal le Père au P. Noël,' in Euv. Comp., p. 234,
etc., etc.
744 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
periments which he commissioned his brother-in-law, M. Perier, to
institute on his behalf in the mountains of the Puy de Dome. The
instructions he gave on that occasion show his clear perception of
the problem to be solved: 'If it should happen,' he said,' that the
height of the quicksilver should be less at the top than at the base
of the mountain, we must conclude that the weight or pressure of
air is the sole cause of it, and not the horror of a vacuum, since it is
very certain that there is much more air at the foot of the mountain
than at its summit, while we cannot say that nature abhors a vacuum
at the foot of a mountain more than at its summit.' The results
which M. Perier obtained were such as to establish completely Pas-
cal's theory, and to ravish the experimenter himself with admiration
and astonishment.¹
This triumph was achieved in 1648; but in 1646 an event had
occurred of more importance to Pascal's inner life and our present
study than his physical researches: in other words, the whole Pascal
family was brought under the influence of Jansenism. On that strange
episode in the history of the Romish Church, the causes which con-
tributed to it, the eminent characters which adorned it, the super-
stition which debased it, or its rapid decline and extinction, you will
not expect to hear anything from me in an Essay on Pascal's skepti-
cism. For the present it will suffice to remind you that its main
principle was the stress upon human weakness and original sin, and
the absolute need of superhuman grace to produce man's recovery
and the ability to perform any good work. This is (as Harrington
has just reminded us) the basis of Augustinian dogma, and we have
already touched upon its relation to skepticism. There can be no
doubt, as we shall presently find, that it operated very largely as a
main element in Pascal's unbelief. First as an originating principle,
secondly as a religious sanction.
The conversion of the Pascal family to Jansenism was brought
about accidentally. A fall by which M. Pascal senior injured his
thigh, introduced him to two brothers who were amateur surgeons
and devoted Jansenists. The intercourse thus commenced quickly
ripened into a warm friendship, destined soon to be cemented by
community of religious feelings and sympathies. The Pascal family
though, as I have said, religious, were not enthusiasts; they were not
yet 'enlightened' (éclairé), to use the technical term for Jansenist per-
fection. This further stage of esoteric excellence they, however, soon
¹ See M. Perier's interesting letter, in Pascal, Euv. Comp., ii. p. 313, and
on the relative importance of Pascal's experiments with those previously insti-
tuted by Torricelli, Galileo and Descartes, comp. Whewell, Induct Phil., ii.
p. 53.
Pascal.
745
attained by means of the zealous ministrations of their new teachers,
and the Jansenist books they lent them. Ste Beuve well points out¹
the effect which these writings were adapted to produce on the keen
religious susceptibilities of the younger Pascal. The following ex-
tracts are striking when read by the light of some of the later
Thoughts. In a little work entitled The Reformation of the Inner
Man, Jansen thus remarks of worldly pleasure, 'Hence comes the
research into the secrets of Nature which do not concern us, which
it is useless to know, and which men do not wish to discover, except
merely for the sake of knowledge. Hence comes that execrable
curiosity of the magic art,' etc., etc. 'Who may express,' he asks in
another place, 'in how many things, though base and despicable, our
curiosity is continually tempted, and how great is often our weakness?
When our ears or eyes are surprised and struck by the novelty of
some object, as of a hare running, of a spider catching flies, and of
many other similar encour ters ("he might have added," suggests
Ste Beuve," the rise of the quicksilver in a tube "), how much our
mind is affected by them, and even violently carried beyond itself.'
Then, in the true pietistic tone, he presently adds, 'And when we
return to ourselves, and elevate ourselves to contemplate that incom-
parable beauty of the Eternal Verity, wherein abides the certain and
saving knowledge of all things, one ought not to find it strange if that
multitude of images and phantoms with which vanity has filled our
mind and heart, attacks us and carries us downward, and seems to
say to us Where are you going, covered as you are with sins, and
so unworthy to approach God. Whither are you going?'2
Such was the mode in which the religious enthusiast spoke of the
worldly learning which had occupied the whole of the younger
Pascal's life, and doubtless a considerable part of that of his father.
Such were the sparks of fervid though narrow-minded Pietism which
fell upon the prepared train of the emotional tenderness and religious
susceptibility of our young philosopher. He quickly took fire, indeed
he was the first to be 'enlightened,' and the 'enlightenment,' though
not abiding, was marked by the intensity of conviction which charac-
terized every stage of his career. From a professional point of view
I cannot help connecting his conversion with the fact that for some
years he had been in declining health, the consequence in part of his
studious ardour, and partly of an originally weak constitution. I do
not wish to imitate Ste Beuve, who with delicate irony suggests that
the abandonment of the world by the female leaders of Port Royal
might have some remote connexion with their having been severely
1 Port Royal, ii. 479–480.
2 Ste Beuve, P. R., ii. 480.
746 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
disfigured by smallpox,¹ and therefore I by no means wish to ascribe
Pascal's conversion to increased physical debility; I only observe it as
a noteworthy circumstance that both on this, and the later occasion
of his re-conversion, the access of religious fervour was undoubtedly
accompanied by nervous disorders of a very marked kind. While it
would be a mistake to attribute the violent mental changes which
make the intellectual career of Pascal unique in human history en-
tirely to nervous disorganization, it would be a still greater error to
ignore the coincidence of those abrupt changes with morbid psychical
states, manifested as the latter are both by physical symptoms and
by mental hallucination and monomania. I have indeed long cherished
the opinion that the intellectual character of Pascal cannot be truth-
fully interpreted except by men who have studied the pathology of
the human mind. Hitherto for the most part he has been regarded
as the sole property of the theologian and the philosopher, it seems
to me that a considerable share in him belongs of right to the student
of morbid and pathological anatomy.
But without attempting the impossible task of weighing the re-
spective shares in which physical and purely spiritual influences had
in Pascal's conversion, it was undoubtedly sincere. He plunged into
the new enthusiasm with all the unrestrained eagerness of his nature.
At once he became the apostle of Jansenism for his family. His
sister Jacqueline was the first fruits of the new domestic propaganda.
His sister Gilberte and her husband followed next; while last of all
his father allowed himself to be persuaded. Nor did the young zealot
confine himself to methods of persuasion. So eager was he to defend
and proclaim his religious orthodoxy, that in combination with two
other Jansenists as young and as hot-headed as himself, he denounced
to the archbishop as a heretic a poor Capuchin friar who entertained
some visionary notions about the Virgin; nor was this all, but in
their exuberant zeal they even attempted to draw him out and en-
trap him, as De Francon did Vanini, by making him commit himself.
Happily the good sense of the bishop in whose diocese the poor
mystic lived, sufficed to quell both the denunciatory zeal of the young.
informers, and, ultimately, the more potent hostility of the Archbishop
of Rouen, who was willing to make a public example of the supposed
heretic.
Meanwhile Pascal was seized with a severe attack of illness, and
what is of especial importance, as I have already hinted, his illness
was clearly of a nervous kind. He suffered from a paralysis of the
¹ Port Royal, ii. p. 467, note, 'Je le rappelle parce que cela m'a paru revenir
assez souvent, mais je ne veux pas dire pourtant qu'on ne donne à Dieu que
ce dont le monde ne veut pas on ne veut plus.'
Pascal.
747
lower limbs, and for some time could not move without crutches.
The same severe nervous disturbance affected his throat, so that he
was unable to swallow except spasmodically, drop by drop. His feet
and legs were cold as death, and he was obliged to resort to all kinds
of artificial methods to keep up the circulation. A continual burning
pain in the bowels, and racking headaches, filled up the cup of the
young thinker's misery. Under the circumstances, study was inter-
dicted, indeed since his conversion it had almost become a forbidden
and unholy thing. To use his sister's words, he had 'learnt from
Christianity to live only for God and to have no other object but Him.'¹
Nevertheless his mathematical and physical science researches still
exercised considerable fascination for him, and in the intervals of
his sickness he repeatedly took up his scientific pursuits, though
every intellectual relapse was afterwards bemoaned as a religious
backsliding of the worst kind, and was expiated by severe ascetic
and religious observances.
When he had somewhat recovered from this nervous attack, he
removed with his sister Jacqueline to Paris in the autumn of 1647,
partly for the change, and partly to procure better medical advice.
Here both brother and sister came into actual contact, for the first
time, with Port Royal, and under the influence of Singlier's powerful
eloquence. The result was to confirm their religious convictions, and
to add new fervour to their Pietistic devotion. Jacqueline Pascal
soon manifested a desire to join the recluses of Port Royal, in which
she was warmly seconded by her brother. She applied to their father
for his consent, which at first he gave, but upon further consideration
withdrew. On his death in 1651, that obstacle was removed, but a
new one appeared, for her brother who had at first so vehemently
applauded her resolve, now refused his consent, and did his utmost
to dissuade her from taking the step.
This conduct is important for us, inasmuch as it denotes a growing
change in Pascal's spiritual and intellectual convictions, as profound
as that which he had just undergone, though of a very different
character. Leopardi said that superabundance of inner life propels
a man into the outer life. Such a propulsion Pascal experienced by
his removal to Paris. The change from his monotonous and solitary
existence in the country to the movement and animation of the
capital-from the companionship of an austere father, and a home
which must latterly have become a Port Royal in miniature, to the
witty, cultured and brilliant society of Parisian salons-from morbid
religious introspection to the free cultivation of philosophy, poetry and
belles lettres—from the devout treatises of Jansen and St. Cyran to
1 Vie de Madame Perier. Pens., Havet, i. lxviii.
748 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance
the Essais of Montaigne and the dramas of Molière-must have been
almost overwhelming, especially on an organization so nervously sen-
sitive to external influences as was Pascal's. We are hardly sur-
prised to find, therefore, that after a residence of some twelve or
eighteen months in Paris, the first enthusiasm of his conversion began
to cool, that the exhortations of Singlier and his sister Jacqueline lost
by degrees their customary effect, that Pascal gradually joined the
gay world, which on its intellectual side possessed so many fascina-
tions for a keen, subtle thinker like himself. His mind was clearly
of too comprehensive a nature, his reasoning faculties too bold, rest-
less and far-sighted to be cooped up for life within the bounds of a
narrow religious system like that of Jansenism. Had his physical
powers been more on a par with those of his intellect, the remainder
of his career would have presented characteristics very different from
those which we shall find it to possess.
Contemporaneously with Pascal's increasing alienation from Port
Royal, and in a great measure the effect of it, was his progress to
comparative health. Excessive religious excitement on a frame so
delicate was not only injurious but absolutely fatal. Mixing quietly
in the society and amusements of Paris would have been the precise
treatment which a physician of our own day would have prescribed
for an overwrought brain like Pascal's, and the result in his case
proves the salutary effect of such advice. His father died in 1651,
and left him in easy circumstances, which enabled him still further
to enjoy the life and gaiety of Paris. For the next three years he
seems to have launched out into amusements and extravagances of
various kinds. He lived in a sumptuous and well-furnished house,
kept a large establishment of servants, was accustomed to take the
air in a coach of four or six horses, collected about him young men
who though witty and fascinating were not always of the most
reputable character,' indulged occasionally in gambling and other
fashionable but frivolous amusements, frequented different salons-
in short, took his part as a man of wealth and fashion in the gay life
of the gayest capital in Europe. How far this course of dissipation
overstepped the bounds of morality is a moot point on which Pascal's
critics differ. Madame Perier and her daughter are anxious to throw
a veil over these few years, and their anxiety is both comprehensible
and pardonable. On the other hand, certain Jesuit writers speak of
Pascal's immorality as a matter beyond dispute. The most we can
2
¹ On Pascal's gay companions, comp. Ste Beuve, Port Royal; and M. Lelut,
L'Amulette de Pascal, note vii. p. 234.
2 Comp. passages quoted in Cousin's Études, from Le Recueil d'Utrecht, pp.
481, 482.
Pascal.
749
say is that the evidence is indirect, and that the case admits only of a
fair presumption, As M. Lelut reminds us, it was an age of gallantry,
and it is probable that one who entered so fully into its spirit shared
to a certain extent in its freedom of manners. Both Cousin and Ste
Beuve ¹-the most impartial of Pascal's critics-intimate not obscurely
their opinion of his guilt. According to the former, Pascal's Discourse
on the Passions of Love betrays a familiarity with its subject not alto-
gether Platonic,² at least no one can read it without perceiving that its
tone of healthy animalism is in completest contrast to the morbid asce-
ticism of later years. Perhaps it would be rash to make Pascal's writ-
ten opinions on the subject the transcript of actual conduct, but certainly
the Discourse contains maxims which supply ample room and verge
enough for the imputed immorality. Hence if his life was character-
ized throughout by purity and moral austerity it was not for want of
a theory which would have lent itself to a very different course of con-
duct. He had moreover admitted to his sister Jacqueline, as appears by
a letter of hers, the existence of what she terms 'horrible attachments,'
though we must remember that to her ascetic disposition and Jansen-
ist training very ordinary and very innocent attachments would
appear 'horrible.' What especially weighs with me in the considera-
tion of this point is Pascal's own temperament, and his nervous or-
ganization—he was essentially a man of extremes. To the dominating
passion of the moment he yielded himself with scarce an attempt at
self-restraint. I quite admit that cæteris paribus, the prepondera-
ting elements in his character would incline to virtue, but the seduc-
tions of a Parisian life were probably beyond his powers of resistance.3
At least, the religious ascetic who could undergo so rapid a trans-
¹ Cousin, Etudes, pp. 479–480. Ste Beuve, P. R., ii. p. 500, note 2.
2 Comp. e.g., 'Les passions qui sont les plus convenable à l'homme et qui en
renferment beaucoup d'autres sont l'amour et l'ambition.
Qu'une
vie est heureuse quand elle commence par l'amour et qu'elle finit par l'ambi-
tion! Si j'avais à eu choisir une, je prendrais celle-la.
A mesure
•
•
•
•
que l'on a plus d'esprit les passions sont plus grande. . . Dans une grande
âme tout est grande.
Nous naissons avec un caractère d'amour dans
nos cœurs, qui se developpe à mesure que l'esprit se perfectionne et qui nous
porte a aimer ce qui nous parait beau sans que l'on nous ait jamais dit ce que
c'est. Qui doute après cela si nous sommes au monde pour autre chose que
pour aimer ?
L'homme n'aime pas à demeurer avec soi; cependant
•
il aime il faut donc qu'il cherche ailleurs de quoi aimer il ne le peut trouver
que dans la beauté.
La beauté est partagée en mille différentes
manières, le sujet le plus propre pour la soutenir c'est une femme.
L'homme est né pour le plaisir; il le sent; il n'en faut point d'autre preuve.
Il suit donc sa raison en se donnant au plaisir.
A force de parler
•
d'amour on devient amoureux. Il n'y a rien si aisé. C'est la passion la plus
naturelle à l'homme.'—Pens., etc., Faugère, i. p. 105, etc.; Cousin, Études, p. 475.
³ The extreme asceticism of Pascal's later years seems to throw a reflected
750 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
its own.
เ
formation into a man of fashion and gaiety, for that evolution is
admitted by all, was clearly capable of other transmutations and
developments equally extravagant and not quite so innocent. But it
would be a great mistake to suppose that Pascal's life was for any
length of time utterly sensual or frivolous; for in addition to other
restraints, his own mental restlessness and love of enquiry demanded
their satisfaction. In connexion with this intellectual stimulus it is
important to note the un-Jansenist tendencies of his thoughts and
studies during this epoch, as shown by several of his smaller works.
Thus in the Preface to his Treatise on the Vacuum,' he adopts the
tone of Cartesian rationalism in the strongest possible contrast with
the fanatical hatred of philosophy which marks the Thoughts, and
more in unison with the views of Nicole and Arnauld. Here Authority
and Reason are each assigned a distinct domain and jurisdiction of
The former rules over the realm of theology, while to
Reason is assigned all the remaining provinces of the human intellect.¹
Reason is also here said to have for its object the search and dis-
covery of hidden truths, and those that depend on it are called
dogmatic. In these researches Pascal claims for Reason complete
liberty both from the prejudices of ancients and the bias of moderns.
Humanity, in its continuous progress, ought to be regarded as an
indivisible being always existing and always learning. Those we
call ancients are in reality neophytes in all things, and compose
properly speaking the infancy of the race,² and as we have added to
their requirements the experience of the centuries which followed
them, it is in ourselves that the antiquity we reverence in others is
to be found. This attribute of progressiveness marks the distinction
between human reason and the instinct of lower animals. Not less
remarkable is the very different manner, compared with that of the
Thoughts, in which Pascal discusses Nature, her power, wisdom and
goodness. Not only in the work just mentioned, but in others of his
minor writings of nearly the same date (e.g. De l'Esprit Geometrique,
de l'Art de Persuader 3) he points out that Nature has wonderfully
provided for the wants of man both intellectual and physical. She
supplies the conceptions on which the mathematician expends his
light on this part of his career. His assertion, e.g., that health had more
dangers for him than sickness is probably more than the hasty utterance of a
hypochondriac. The following passage from Madame Perier is also significant :
'Si je disait quelquefois par occasion que j'avais vu une belle femme, il se
fâchait et me disait qu'il ne fallait jamais tenir ces discours devant des
laquais ni de jeunes gens parce que je ne savais pas quelles pensées je pourrais
exciter par là en eux.' Vie; Pens., Hav., i. lxxxii.
¹ Pens., etc., Faugère, i. p. 93.
³ Faugère, ibid., pp. 121 and 153.
2 Ibid., p. 98.
Pascal.
751
mental labour, she furnishes problems to the philosopher, in a word
she, like a beneficent deity, administers good to all. Indeed Pascal's
enthusiasm here as elsewhere inclines to extremes. In a passage
which has well been compared to J. J. Rousseau, he proclaims Nature
as 'the only good,' and proves his assertion by showing how her
greatest benefits are precisely those which are most common. What
mortals lack is not a substitute for Nature, but simply the best methods
of discerning rightly the advantages she proffers for their acceptance.
These works form a distinct proof that naturalism and rationalism
continued to be potent influences in Pascal's intellect, until they in
common with all other divergent methods and principles were finally
absorbed in the mysticism of the Thoughts. Besides these questions
of philosophy and theology, Pascal again took up his mathematical
and mechanical studies. He corresponded actively with M. Fermat
on questions of geometrical analyses, solved for one of his gay com-
panions a problem about bets, devised sundry wheel conveniences
as e.g. a Bath chair, and prospected the 'omnibus.' Our main con-
cern however is with another department of Pascal's intellectual
activity, for it was during these years of lax life in Paris that he
first became acquainted with Montaigne's Essais. Independently of
the fact that the book would not have been likely to attract the
attention either of the young mathematician immersed in abstract
science, or the young Jansenist convert, bound helplessly to the chariot-
wheels of Calvin's sombre and narrow theology, it is very improbable
that it would have been found among the books of M. Etienne Pascal.
But when the young thinker entered the gay world of Paris, his ac-
quaintance with 'the breviary of the man of fashion' was inevitable.
The book took possession of his mind with a fascination he could not
resist and which he was afterwards never able to shake off. M. Ste
Beuve terms this period of free life and thought 'an interregnum
between two conversions.'1 It seems to me that the period in which
he experienced the awakening effect of Montaigne is very unaptly
designated by a word which implies a throne vacant. Certainly
Montaigne deposed Jansen in Pascal's intellect and affections, but
for the time he reigned as despotically as his predecessor had done.
It would be truer to say that Pascal underwent those conversions,
two religious convulsions by the instrumentality of Port Royal, and
one philosophical awakening by means of Montaigne's Essais. Few
momentous changes in the mental life of great thinkers are more
remarkable than Montaigne's influence on Pascal. Few show more
forcibly the unforeseen and apparently anomalous manner in which
the mind receives and reacts upon influences from without. Cer-
1 Port Royal, ii.
p. 500.
752
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
tainly at first sight, there could be no greater contrasts than the
Gascon Seigneur and Young Pascal. In their temperament, their
education, their surroundings, the whole current of their lives, they
seemed, with the single exception of a fondness for intellectual pur-
suits, radically opposed to each other. While Young Montaigne was
brought up as the foster-child of poor villagers on his father's estate,
and therefore with all imaginable freedom, Pascal was subjected to
the severe restraint of a pious family circle, and the austerity of a
father who was also a stern tutor. While the former was solacing
idle hours in the fields with Ovid's Metamorphoses, the latter was
employed in a garret on his 'bars' and 'rounds.' Looking at their
future as free-thinkers, we might say of Montaigne that he learnt
what freedom was by being suffered to run wild, while Pascal
acquired some idea of it by beating at the bars of his cage. Mon-
taigne was early launched on the world with liberty to do almost as
he pleased, while Pascal only left his abstract studies to be involved
for a time in the religious excesses of Jansenism. Nor is the contrast
less in the characters of the grown men. Montaigne is sprightly
and frivolous; Pascal's earnestness is terrible. Montaigne adopts in
everything the mean, not because it is absolutely the best, still less
because he has arrived at it by laborious argument, but simply be-
cause it is nearest, involves less trouble, and is therefore more suited
to his easy-going temperament-Pascal on the contrary pursues
everything to extremes. In his thoughts and speculations, in his
reveries and fancies, in the employments and various conjunctures
of his life, his ardour admits of no hesitation, compromise or modera-
tion. Further, Montaigne's joyous naturalism is separated by a
measureless interval from the somewhat gloomy fanaticism of his
disciple. The chief point of contact between them was the skepticism
common to both; though with the difference that Montaigne's arose
entirely from philosophical considerations, while Pascal's was the
outcome to a great extent of religious feeling. In this respect Pascal's
philosophic conversion started from precisely the same point as his
Jansenistic enthusiasm, for he discovered that the 'Breviary of men
of fashion' preached the same doctrine which he had already acquired
from the devotional guides of Port Royal, viz., the utter weakness
and fallibility of man. The only difference was, that what in the
one case was a religious sentiment based upon personal experience
and introspection, became in the other a philosophical truth, the
inference of a broad induction in every department of human know-
ledge and history. To an intellect like Pascal's this difference in the
presentation and scope of his old doctrine must have invested it
with additional charms, while its capability of being translated from
Pascal.
753
the region of religious feeling to that of rationalistic philosophy-
from the church to the lecture room or the salon-must have been
regarded by him as a remarkable confirmation of its truth. Of course
in their application of the doctrine the natural divergencies in the
two men betray themselves; for while Pascal regards the weakness
and wretchedness of man with a horror approaching misanthropy
and despair, Montaigne contemplates it with a half-cynical half-
amused glance as a quaint and curious puzzle, demanding and at the
same time defying solution. To this subject I shall have to return
presently when we have the teaching of Pascal's Thoughts before us.
But Pascal found another element in Montaigne's Essais almost
as fascinating as his skepticism, i.e. its rationalism. Notwithstand-
ing the depth of his religious feelings, we have seen that Pascal's
intellect in its natural condition was keen, restless, powerful, inde-
pendent-demanding aliment and satisfaction as imperiously as did
his religious sentiment. Part of the seductive power which mathe-
matics exercised on him came from its claim to prove and demonstrate
unconditionally the problems it undertook. Early in life, as we saw,
Pascal wished to know the causes of things, and was dissatisfied
with those he deemed imperfect. Now whatever Jansenism effected
towards satisfying his religious and emotional needs, it certainly did
nothing to allay purely intellectual cravings. On the other hand,
not only did it disclaim any such intention, but declared by its chief
authorities that to attempt to satisfy the curiosity of the Reason
was an actual sin-an offence against God. During his Jansenist
enthusiasm, therefore, Pascal felt obliged to suppress forcibly his love
for secular knowledge; indeed his own tendency to extremes carried
him further in the direction of intellectual asceticism than other
leaders of the Port Royal thought necessary.
Both Arnauld and
Nicole were philosophers as well as Pascal, and they regarded
Descartes with as much deference as he did Montaigne; but they
were men of well-balanced intellects and dogmatic instincts, and it
is to this fact¹ we must ascribe their refusal to push the Jansenist
doctrine of human fallibility to the skeptical extent which Pascal did.
In the state of mental prostration in which his religious excesses left
him, Pascal found in Epictetus, Charron, and especially in Montaigne's
Essais, a feast of fat things; food of the strong rationalistic kind
which he desiderated and which he devoured with the zest which
comes of long abstinence. Montaigne was clearly better adapted to
supply Pascal's intellectual cravings than Descartes, for indepen-
dently of the personal feeling he entertained against him, Montaigne
as a reasoner was more keen, analytical and thorough-going than
1 Comp. Cousin, Études, pp. 85, 86.
754
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Descartes. Besides, the elaborate construction which the latter was
erecting on the frail basis of his own infallibility was repugnant to
an intellect which regarded every human authority as a stupendous
falsehood; and considered the universe not a fitting object of research,
but of awed and reverent silence.1 So great on the other hand was
Pascal's deference to Montaigne, that he attempted even to copy his
style and manner; at least he remarks of Epictetus, Montaigne and
himself, that their mode of writing is that which is most common,
which is most insinuating, remains longest in the memory, and is
oftenest quoted, because it is composed of reflections originated by
the ordinary intercourse of life. Of course, in respect of chastened
diction, of compact reasoning, of finished neatness and literary polish,
there is as much difference between the garrulous Gascon and the
author of the Provincials as between Pepys' Diary and one of
Addison's most finished contributions to the Spectator.
2
We have thus seen what Pascal's social and literary environment
was during the eventful years 1648-1654. I have dwelt upon this
more at length because it is the seed-time of which we shall bye
and bye reap the harvest of the Provincials and the Thoughts. It
is indeed impossible to lay too much stress upon the varied lessons
which those years had taught him-the deeper insight into his own
nature-the larger acquaintance with the world and 'society,' and
thereby of the characters of his fellow-men-a profounder estimate
of the strange complexities of existence-the more intimate know-
ledge of the theories and practical working of ecclesiastical, political
and social systems, which he thereby acquired. The general result
may
be described as a painful but needed dis-illusion. He had come
to the Parisian world a religious devotee; he retired from it a
religious skeptic. The clear running stream of his pietistic convic-
tions and simple earnest life had become fouled, or at least discoloured,
by the rush into it of more than one swoln 'freshet' and turbulent
confluent, and though it thus attained greater breadth and vigour,
it lost for ever its fresh pristine hue. Like Adam, Pascal had also
learnt wisdom by his fall. Parisian life and Montaigne's Essais
combined had given him the knowledge of good and evil.' His
education as a philosopher and thinker, a student of men as well as
of books, was now complete. He was fully qualified to enter the
1 Cousin, Études, p. 299.
6
2 Under the pseudonym of Salomon de Tultie. This has been discovered
both by the Rev. C. Beard (see his Port Royal, vol. ii. p. 71, note) and by M.
Chavannes, an Amsterdam pastor, to be an anagram of Louis de Montalte,
another pseudonym of Pascal's, under cover of which he wrote the Provincials.
Cf. Havet, Pens., i. 101, note 3.
Pascal.
755
arena of philosophical as well as religious discussion. Both the
Provincial Letters and the Thoughts owed much of their power to
-indeed were only rendered possible by-this Parisian episode in
his career and the many-sided instruction it imparted.
But we are now nearing another of those mental cyclones which
filled so great a space in Pascal's life, and which, as we have al-
ready seen, changed so completely its course. Towards the end of
1654 he was still living the life of fashion, intellectualism and
skepticism in which we have just been contemplating him. He
intended apparently to continue in it for the remainder of his life,
for he thought of buying an appointment, marrying, and settling
down as a citizen of the gay world, when, to use his niece's devout
expression, the Lord who had pursued him so long,' suddenly
stopped him.
เ
One day in the month of October or November, Pascal, according
to his custom, was taking a drive with some friends in his carriage,
drawn by four or six horses, along the bridge of Neuilly. The day
was a fête day, and the streets were crowded with people intent on
its religious observances. Pascal in his pompous equipage, and with
gay companions, was probably not in completest harmony with the
occasion. Perhaps he had come to regard open churches, ringing of
bells, crowds of worshippers, with the apathetic listlessness becoming
a man of quality, the disciple of Montaigne, the associate of the
chevalier de Méré, M. Miton, and other notorious 'men about town
-the frequenter of fashionable salons. His thoughts might possibly
have been engaged in his future prospects-his proposed marriage,
or his hoped-for appointment-when suddenly his career, life itself,
was on the verge of extinction. The two front horses, through some
sudden fright, started, took their bits between their teeth, and
rushed headlong towards a part of the bridge of Neuilly which was
unprotected by a parapet. One moment more, Pascal, his friends,
and his grand equipage would have been plunged in the flood, when
providentially the traces and reins which joined the frightened horses
to their companions snapped, and they alone were precipitated into
the river beneath, leaving the carriage almost suspended on the
brink of the bridge. Such an accident and escape would have pro-
duced considerable effect on a man of fairly strong nerves; on the
feeble frame and sensitive organization of Pascal the effect was
naturally stupendous. He fainted away, and it was some time before
he regained consciousness. This was not the age, nor was Pascal
the man, likely to consider such a deliverance as a not uncommon
accident which might have happened to anyone. As regards himself,
in addition to his own nervous organization, he belonged to a race
1
756
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
in which superstition in some of its grossest forms was part of the
family creed.¹ All the circumstances of the case combined to inten-
sify the marvellous and supernatural character of the event. Such
a nervous shock must have been followed in a case like his by
considerable mental and physical prostration. During this time he
gradually withdrew from the world, took smaller and more retired
lodgings, probably gave up the sumptuous carriage and spirited
horses which had so nearly cost him his life, and in other respects
manifested his full persuasion that God had again called him as
distinctly as he had St. Paul when on his headlong persecuting path
to Damascus.
Under these circumstances of religious awe and nervous excitation
it is not wonderful at least to me that another extraordinary event
occurred which completed this his second conversion. What this
actually was we shall never know. It may have been as M. Lelut
supposes, a vision or hallucination arising from diseased and shaken
nerves, or it may have been what Ste Beuve and others declare it,
a fit of devotional ecstasy such as mystics, illuminati, and extreme
religionists have in all ages been privileged to enjoy. Whatever it
was, we possess the enigmatic record Pascal gave of it in the remark-
able form of the amulet to which we have alluded. This amulet
was found after his death sewn up by himself in the lining of his
waistcoat, and must have been transferred from one garment to
another during the last seven years of his life. It consisted of two
slips, one of paper, the other of parchment, folded closely together,
on each of which was inscribed the same series of religious and
apparently disconnected ejaculations. (You may see fac-similes in
MM. Faugère and Lelut's books there lying on the table.) They
allude to some extraordinary occurrence which befel Pascal on the
night of the 3rd of November at 6.30 p.m., about a fortnight or three
weeks after the Neuilly-Bridge accident. It would be rash, I think,
to make any undue deductions from this remarkable document.2 M.
1 M. Pascal senior was a devout believer in sorcery and witchcraft, and
Blaise himself, when an infant, was thought to have been bewitched. See the
curious narrative in Havet, Pensées, i. p. cii.
2 Pascal's amulet, with its incoherent phrases and ejaculations, has formed
the text for a wonderful variety of comments:-M. Lelut takes every sentence
as a separate stage in the progress of a long vision or hallucination, the
conjoint effect of religious excitement and cerebral disease. See L'Amulette
de Pascal, p. 145, etc. M. Ste Beuve assumes it to be the record of religious
ecstasy. To use his own words, Pascal's conversion was the result' d'une âme
touchée non point d'un cerveau ébranlé.'-P. R., ii. 503. Dr. Reuchlin thinks
the record is not one of mere feeling, but indicates intellectual conviction as
well; he says, 'Gewissen und Vernunft erscheinen auch hier als eine für ihn
unzertrennliche Macht.'-Pascal's Leben, p. 54.
Pascal.
757
Lelut has constructed an ingenious hypothesis of the incident to
which it refers which has the disadvantage of being too elaborate.
At the same time I agree with him, that the physical cause of the
occurrence (I am far from thinking there were no causes of any other
kind) was the nervous shock he had experienced by the Neuilly-
Bridge accident.¹ It is said that for the rest of his life Pascal
always saw an abyss on one side of his chair or his carriage. The
existence of such a hallucination seems to me to have a high proba-
bility from the nature of the case, though the evidence for it is not
so clear as might be wished.
But whatever the incident of the 3rd of November might have
been, it combined with the nervous excitement caused by the accident
to alter entirely his mode of life. He began again to visit Port
Royal, to hold long conferences with his sister Jacqueline, to listen
to Singlier's sermons, in short, to return once more to the Jansenism
which he had forsaken. On his first conversion his was the moving
spirit and guiding hand which led his sister to Port Royal. This
time she assumed the leadership over her brother, and induced him
to forsake finally and for ever the worldly life he had been leading,
for the religious retirement and cloistered peace of her chosen home.
Pascal joined Port Royal, never more to leave it, in the thirty-first or
thirty-second year of his life.2
Thus was accomplished his second religious, or speaking generally
the third great mental, cataclysm of his life. The change was in
this instance rendered easier because it appealed to associations and
sentiments by which he had once been so profoundly stirred, and to
tendencies so deeply rooted in his nature that no amount of neglect
or disuse could have altogether destroyed them. Pascal entered upon
his new life with all the enthusiasm of his nature. He discharged
the duties which the rules of the community imposed upon him-
made his own bed, brought his meals from the kitchen, and refused
to employ servants to do anything which he could possibly do him-
1 It is now said that the accident only accelerated a resolution he had
already been making for the preceding twelve months to quit the world, of
which he is said to have become quite tired (see Letter of Jacqueline Pascal
in Ste Beuve, P. R., ii. p. 504); but we learn from other sources that when
the event happened he was contemplating marriage and settling in Paris.
Pascal's enthusiastic nature might easily have exaggerated momentary qualms
of conscience or fits of ennui which a man of his temperament must have
occasionally experienced, and his sister's ardent nature would lead her to lay
more stress on such confessions than they really merited. At least when a
philosopher thinks four or six horses needful to draw his carriage for an
ordinary airing, contempt for worldly state and grandeur is not the precise
quality which most men would attribute to him.
2 Ste Beuve, P. R., ii. p. 508.
VOL. II.
N
758
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
self. Later on too, his excessive austerities and privations became
so great that they undoubtedly helped to bring the brief remnant of
his life to a close. But at its commencement he declared the change
to have been favourable to his bodily health. Even his asceticism
he asserted to be physically beneficial to him. But in natures such
as Pascal's we must be cautious in receiving their own testimony as
to their health. Disordered nerves have, as is well known, a faculty
of counterfeiting very different states both physical and psychical,
and the ecstasy of the mystic with all its rapture is by no means an
acceptable or trustworthy proof of good physical health.
But the newest and most celebrated convert to Port Royal was not
content to be a passive or idle member of the little community. He
soon began to take an absorbing interest in its growth and prosperity.
At present it was in considerable danger. On the 27th of May,
1653, Pope Innocent X. had formally condemned the five propositions
which were regarded as the four corner and one central pillar of
Jansen's doctrinal system, though they are not contained in so many
words in that writer's inculpated treatise, the Augustinus. This
decree, foreshadowing as it did the ruin of Port Royal, created a
wonderful excitement among the Jesuits. They celebrated the vic-
tory in the same fashion as the Peripatetics of Paris, nearly a century
before, had exulted over Ramus and the condemnation of his Anti-
Aristotelian works.1 Arnauld had also been condemned by the
Sorbonne for maintaining that the five propositions were not to be
found in Jansen's book. The Jesuits had therefore a double triumph
over Port Royal. But into the midst of their hosts, thus clamorously
rejoicing over the twofold victory, there suddenly fell-like a thunder-
bolt out of a clear sky-a terrible bombshell, scattering havoc,
destruction and dismay on every side. In other words, Pascal had
launched against them the first of his Provincial Letters.
This famous work, which still occupies a foremost rank both among
French classics and the controversial writings of modern Europe,
does not come directly within the scope of our inquiry. 1st. It is
a polemical work, written for hostile and party purposes, and every
such work must, from the nature of the case, be an imperfect exponent
of its author's real views. The attention of the controversialist is
absorbed by the system or cause to be attacked, and comparatively
little heed is given to his own conclusions, or the grounds on which
they are based. No painter who wished to represent a man in his
normal condition would choose to depict him on the point of attacking
a fortress, or otherwise carried away by some overmastering passion.
In the Provincials, Pascal as the David of Port Royal, challenges
1 See 'Ramus,' ante., p. 506.
Pascal.
759
and assaults the Philistine Jesuits. In the Thoughts he is the
philosopher and theologian meditating in his easy chair, or at least
in the easiest posture which his asceticism and nervous disorders
would allow him to adopt.
Besides, in the Provincials Pascal is in reality what the Jesuits
styled him—the Secretary of the Port Royal. The Letters are
manifestos of a community rather than the self-revelation of the
author's own mind. Arnauld and Nicole¹ had occasionally a hand
in their composition. In nearly every case they revised and approved
them before they went to press. They sometimes suggested their
subjects, and supplied him with references to controversial books
bearing on those subjects. The incomparable style and diction are
no doubt Pascal's. His also are the keen polished satire, the exquisite
irony, the vigorous declamation, the persuasive eloquence of the
work; but the substance of the arguments belongs generally to the
Port Royal. For our purpose the main interest of the book hinges
on its occasional revelations of Pascal's mind, and the way in which
he considers the dogmatic system of Rome and the Jesuits.
2
In his preparatory studies for the work, in the discussions which
arose out of it, and in his conversations with Port-Royalist friends
concerning it, Pascal had come into fuller contact with Romanist
dogma than he had ever done before. It is true he professes to
consider Jesuitism as an excresence of the Church, but the hypothesis
is merely adopted as a ruse de guerre. The pope had anathematized
Jansen. The Sorbonne had condemned Arnauld. The Jesuits were
continually attacking and calumniating Port Royal. In his eyes all
these authorities were integral parts of a common system. If there
was a difference between Jesuitism and the Church, it was one of
degree, not of kind. All the abuses he discovers and fearlessly
exposes as the outcome of Jesuistry, he had quite keenness enough
to perceive were developments of germs and tendencies deeply seated
in the very constitution of Papal Christianity. The divergences
from the truth and simplicity of the Gospel were as common to one
as to the other. The stress upon words-the trivial and unmeaning
distinctions, as, e.g., between 'proximate Power' and 'efficacious
Grace'-the perverted logic, were only developments of principles he
might have detected in every stage of Romanist dogmatic growth.
Even the chief count in his formidable indictment, that infamous
casuistry, so admirably contrived for reversing all the characteristic
1 Especially the latter. He is said to have improved Letters 2, 8, 13 and 14,
and supplied both plan and materials for the 9th, 11th and 12th. Gartz, in
Ersch und Grueber, Encyclop., Sect. iii. vol. xii., Art. 'Pascal.'
2 Cf. Ste Beuve, P. R., iii. p. 76.
760 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
1
He saw
principles of Christianity, and every precept of its morality, and
licensing every excess of human lust and passion under the holy
name of religion, was only a natural corollary of the execrable
policy which made correct belief of higher importance than purity
of life. Jesuitism, with all its turpitude, was the impure daughter
of an impure mother, and from a philosophical point of view the
Provincial Letters, while ostensibly aimed at the former, were in
reality levelled at the latter. The abuse with which extreme
Romanists have since overwhelmed the book is a sufficient proof
of their recognition of its true significance, and ipso facto an ac-
knowledgment of the truth of Pascal's charges. The controversy of
the Provincials thus imparted to our skeptic an insight into what
we may call the Dogma factory of the Romish Church.
the gradual evolution of authoritative beliefs from germs of a very
mingled and suspicious character. He watched the transformation
of the growth of one seed, so that it should become the apparent
development of another. He noticed the hocus pocus by which
principles changed their names, so that what was in reality worldly
ambition and aggrandisment was denominated a pious regard for the
Church-how greed and avarice were similarly pronounced to be
affection for Christ's poor-how lust and immorality were declared
venial sins, and quite expiable by a little of that gold which had
become the highest of Christian virtues, the panacea for every
disease of the soul. He observed how words were no longer the
signs of, but substitutes for, realities. He noticed how dogmas were
arbitrarily promulgated and as arbitrarily relaxed, how unbelieving
rectitude was crushed while believing turpitude was honoured, how
a Borgia was enthroned, while a Bruno was burnt. In short, he saw
the amalgamation of the various materials in that huge witches'
cauldron of impiety, their gradual concoction by the baleful fires of
human lust and passion, their fatal effect on all who tasted the
poisonous brewage. Indeed, as a powerful 'Dissuasive from Popery,'
I do not know any work in the present day equal to Pascal's Pro-
vincial Letters, to a man capable of understanding the real drift and
purport of its argument. At the same time, through a mistaken idea
of the value of outward unity, the Port-Royalist leaders, the men
who drew up the damning indictment of the Provincial Letters,
had no desire to break abruptly with popery. Indeed, our skeptic,
with all his severe strictures against Jesuit duplicity, is not quite
1 On the other hand moderate and cultured Romanists have not been back-
ward to recognize its merits; e.g., it is related of Bossuet that when asked
what book next to his own works he would rather have written, replied
without hesitation, the Provincial Letters. Reuchlin, Port Royal, i. p. 636.
Pascal.
761
free from disingenuousness in his efforts to prove that there was no
real opposition between the decrees of the Papacy and the char-
acteristic doctrines of Port Royal. Because, e.g., the five inculpated
propositions were not to be found in Jansen's treatise formally and
totidem verbis, both Pascal and Arnauld were not ashamed to argue
with a laxity analogous to that of Peter in Swift's well-known ‘Tale'
that they were not there at all, whereas, to use Bossuet's words,
'They are the very soul of the book.'1 Unworthy of Pascal and
Port Royal are also the subterfuges and puerile distinctions of the
17th and 18th Provincials, which in reality prove no more than the
inconsistent anxiety of the writers to be regarded as part of that
Church against which they produced such a crushing accusation.
The lapse of a few more years, and further matured consideration,
enabled Pascal to brush aside these flimsy casuistical cobwebs; and
he describes such disingenuous subtleties in their true colours as
'abominable in the sight of God and despicable before men.' With
the true earnest conviction of Protestantism he thereupon appeals
from the Church, with its decrees and condemnations, to the tribunal
of Jesus Christ.2 This avowal of manlier sentiment and adoption of
more open tactics produced a rupture between Pascal and Arnauld
which lasted for some years.
Besides, the Jesuit principles whose laxity Pascal depicted in such
strong colours, clearly pointed to and were based upon skepticism—a
skepticism however more ethical than speculative, and which was
hypocritically masked by a semblance of orthodox belief and moral
purity. Indirectly, therefore, Jesuit casuistry pointed in the direction
of Montaigne's unbelief which Pascal himself, while transferring it
from the Essais to his own Thoughts, from the world to the cloister,
and making it contributory to asceticism instead of self-indulgence,
established as the primary article of his creed. Montaigne's fluctua-
ting faith and lax manners made him, in fact, a prototype of the
Escobar-trained Jesuit of the Provincials-minus the hypocrisy-
and we might say of the Essais what La Fontaine said of Escobar's
casuistry :-
'Chemin pierreux est grand rêverie
Montagne sait un chemin de velours.' 3
1 Lettre a Maréchal de Bellefonds. Euv. Comp., x. p. 632: 'Je crois donc
que les propositions sont veritablement dans Jansénius, et qu'elles sont l'âme
de son livre. Tout ce qu'on a dit au contraire me paroît une pure chicane.'
2 Cf. Ste Beuve, P. R., iii. p. 89. Pens., Havet, ii. 118: 'Si mes lettres sont
condamnées à Rome, ce que j'y condamne est condamné dans le Ciel. Ad
tuum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello.'
3 La Fontaine, Ballades, iv. 'Sur Escobar.' Euv. Comp., ed. Hachette, vol. ii.
p. 484.
762
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
What Pascal did was to take the 'chemin de velours' and trans-
mute it into the 'chemin pierreux' of Port-Royal asceticism.
This relation of Pascal to the Jesuits is not altogether unlike that
of the traditional Sokrates to the Sophists. Both men were free-
thinkers; searchers after truth and incredulous of human power to
attain it. But both set themselves vehemently against a libertine
and unprincipled excess of freedom, especially in morality. Both
were opposed to thinkers and teachers who in one case reputedly, in
the other undoubtedly, made the sacred cause of freedom a stalking
horse for interested ambition and degrading selfishness.
But before leaving this part of our subject, we may note in passing
the remarkable difference between Pascal and the only other name in
the history of French Free Thought which is closely connected with
the Jesuits; I mean Bishop Huet of Avranches.
The origin of Pascal's antagonism to the Jesuits was the polemical
attitude which they had assumed towards Port Royal. He was the
defender of his chosen community, the home of his devout and
beloved sister, and of his warmest and closest friends. But this
position became somewhat modified in the course of the controversy.
He discovered that Jesuitism was opposed not only to an isolated
religious community in the France of the seventeenth century, but it
was also opposed to Christianity, to its most essential principles and
teachings, to the dicta of the wisest among the Schoolmen and Fathers.
He found that their casuistry undermined every social law, and re-
laxed every moral restraint. The contest therefore assumed to
Pascal's wonted earnestness, a gravity and importance which could
not be overrated. It was an episode in the perpetual struggle of
Truth against Falsehood, Christianity against Worldliness, God
against Satan.
1
Huet's relation with the Jesuits, as indeed his mental character,
was of a very different nature. Educated in their schools, associated
with them through life, dying among them, his estimate of the order,
their principles, and general practice, was cordially appreciative.
With a much wider range of culture than Pascal's, with emotional and
religious susceptibilities less strongly marked, not to mention an
unusually vigorous constitution, he took a broader, and though a
bishop, a more secular view of things than Pascal's nervous tempera-
ment allowed him to take. What Pascal in his sectarian narrowness
or devout irritability would regard as wrong teaching, a premium
upon duplicity and hypocrisy, Huet would esteem a needful con-
cession to human weakness, to the complexities of modern social
1 'C'est une étrange et longue guerre que celle où la violence essaye d'op-
primer la vérite.'-Prov., Lett. xii.
Pascal.
763
systems, to the ambitious and powerful part which he thought
Jesuitism was destined to play in the future. To Pascal a loophole of
escape from the few truths which he maintained as dogmas would
have appeared a crime, while to Huet any path of freedom from
dogmatic coercion would have been a needed relaxation, a reasonable
discounting of assertions incapable of proof. To Pascal a doctrine of
Probability, whether intellectual or ethical, was eminently repugnant.¹
Truth he could understand: earnest search for it he could appreci-
ate; but an acquiescence in Probability, a position avowedly short of
Truth, he would not tolerate.2 Between absolute conviction and
unqualified negation he could discern no medium point; on the other
hand, to Huet's moderate, calm, self-restrained disposition, Proba-
bility was a point of vantage. It committed the holder of it to no
unalterable decision, either affirmative or negative. Besides which it
was, in very many subjects, the only possible position for a man who
was cautious as well as thoughtful, the only conceivable solution of
many a problem in Nature, or in humanity.3
Both were skeptics, both declared Pyrrhonism true, both pushed the
doctrine of human fallibility to its furthest limits; but while Pascal's
antidote and consolation was an intuitive conviction of and fervent
trust in God, Huet's was belief in the ex cathedra teachings of the
Church.
Both in reality professed Twofold Truth, both erected a barrier
between Reason and Faith, though the opposition in one case was be-
tween intellectual truth and a deep personal sense of religion; in the
other, between the dicta of philosophy and the dogmas of the Church.
Both were unaffectedly pious; though the religion of one was the
narrow, half-sectarian pietism of Port Royal, while Huet's was that
of a liberal Romanist bishop, genial, generous, sympathetic and
large-hearted.
To carry the comparison one step further:
Both 'died in Faith,' Pascal in the terrible throes of an acute
1 Though Pascal was opposed to every doctrine of Probability, it may be
as well to apprise the reader that the skeptical theory of Probability of the
Academics is not identical with the Jesuit notion of Probabilism which Pascal
so ably exposes in the Provincials. In the first case, the most probable opinion
must be followed, and the measure of likelihood in the object is the measure of
due conviction in the subject. In Jesuit Probabilism, on the other hand, the
least probable opinion, or course of conduct, may be followed whenever it suits
our wishes or convenience. Cf. Prov., Letter v. and vi.
2 Est-il probable,' he asks, 'que la probabilité assure?'-Pens., Havet, ii.
97. For him Probability was merely a synonym of worldly complaisance.—
Pens., Hav., ii. 19.
3 Cf. Huet, Traité de la Faiblesse, Liv. ii. chap. 4.
764 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
and painful disease, while Huet placidly slept away with no other
ailment than the natural decline of old age, the death in either
case being the fitting termination of a life, in one instance so full of
mental change and conflict, in the other, so marked by calm and
serenity.
The success of the Provincial Letters was complete. As Ste Beuve
remarks, they exterminated Scholasticism in morals just as Descartes
had in metaphysics. Into the wild undergrowth of dialectic subtlety
and perverse casuistry of Papal Christianity, as into an Indian
jungle with its poisonous creepers, its deadly reptiles, and its
mephitic exhalations, Pascal and his friends cut their way, by the
keen weapon of Christian morality. Since the time of the Provincials
Jesuitism has become the synonym of disingenuousness and equivoca-
tion, the concealment of lust and ambition beneath the saintly garb of
religion. The book has been employed as a convenient repository of
arguments whenever the order has since been attacked.¹ Ste Beuve
ascribes the origin of Jesuit casuistry to Spain, the native country of
its greatest doctors. In truth, it had a far more widely diffused
origin. It was generated of the corruption of the Church, and was
limited only by the bounds of her dominion. We have noticed the
same fatal dichotomy of faith and life in Italy during the sixteenth
century, and have seen how energetically Charron protested against it
in France. It would be truer to say that Jesuit casuistry was the ex
post facta code devised to justify dialectically what had already been
adopted more or less effectively and completely. The disciples of
Loyola were thus not the original founders of ecclesiastical corruption,
which had existed for some centuries before his birth. That honour
must be reserved for dogmatism and hierarchical ambition. They
were its legists, its codifiers, its Numas and Justinians. They brought
together and arranged its rules and precepts in orderly sequence and
logical coherence. They also extended the limits of the science,
applied their false scales and light weights to deeds and motives
whose utter nefariousness had hitherto excluded them from the bene-
fits of recognised ecclesiastical casuistry. The France of Louis XIV.
was a hotbed of these crafty tactics. From the time of Charles IX.
the Jesuits had acquired more power in France than all the other
religious orders put together. They were father confessors to all
the great families in the kingdom, and their easy complaisance in the
exercise of these functions added to their popularity and extended
their influence. The king's confessor, Father Annat, to whom some
of the later Provincial Letters were addressed, was an easy, pliant,
1 Cf. Bayle, Dict., 'Pascal,' note K.
2 This was a frequent subject of satire and raillery among preachers and
Pascal.
765
good-natured director of the royal conscience. Parisian wits were
not slow to comment upon the open licentiousness of the kingly pupil
of the Jesuits.¹ But the corruption of manners was not confined to
the court; it followed like serpent-slime the track of the Jesuits, and
spread through the nobility into even the lowest strata of the
bourgeois. Never therefore was a polemic more happily timed than
the Provincials. Its appeals for purity of life, for religious consis-
tency, touched a chord in the popular conscience, which, however
long disused, was still capable of responding. The extent of its
popularity may be partly estimated by the enthusiasm with which
the representation of Molière's Tartuffe was received in Paris a few
years after Pascal's death. That celebrated comedy is only a
dramatised rendering of the Provincials, just as Racine remarked
jestingly, the Provincials were only comedies.' Both the Tartuffe
and the Onceptive of La Bruyère carried onward the cause and the
teaching which Pascal had initiated in the Provincials, and placed its
argument in a vivid and forcible form before the people."
6
But not only did the Letters set free morality from the bonds,
nominal and lax as they were, of casuistical refinements and logical
subtleties, but they further aided the cause of human liberty by their
•
writers of the time.
The celebrated Père André, e.g. preaching on one
occasion at Paris, thus humorously expounded the position and duties of the
Jesuits: 'Le christianisme est comme une grande salade; les nations en sont
les herbes; le sel, le vinaigre, les macérations, les docteurs; vos estis sal terræ ;
et l'huile, les bons pères Jésuites. Y a-t-il rien de plus doux qu'un bon père
Jésuite? Allez à confesse à un autre, il vous dira: Vous êtes damné si vous
continuez. Un Jésuite adoucira tout. Puis l'huile, pour peu qu'il en tombe
sur un habit, s'y étend, et fait insensiblement une grande tache; mettez un
bon père Jésuite dans une province, elle en sera enfin toute pleine.'-Talle-
mant des Reaux, Memoirs, iv. p. 342.
¹ E.g. apropos of the king's change of mistresses, the following Chanson was
current in Paris:-
"Father Annat is rude,
He tells me, time to time,
That habitual sin
Is a very great crime.
To please him, if I can,
I change La Vallière,
And take La Montespan."
Ste Beuve, P. R., iii. p. 265.
2 Compare Ste Beuve, P.R., iii. chaps. xv. and xvi. It did not require a
profound appreciation of ethical distinctions or of Divine justice to appraise
the qualities and final destiny of what Pascal called 'Escobartine morality."
His own judgment is only the expression of rudimentary popular common-
'Ridicule de dire qu'une récompense éternelle est offerte à des mœurs
escobartines.'-Pens., Hav., ii. 117.
sense.
766
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
stress upon the individual conscience. The tendency of scholastic
morality, as of its philosophy and theology, was to systematise and
refine, to compile directions for every detail of human duty, and to
bring every action within the scope of a definite formula. Not that
this dogmatism really aided Christian morality; on the contrary, it
produced its usual debasing effect for in proportion as definitions
were multiplied and rules became more precise, in the same proportion
were the ethical instincts of Christians weakened and destroyed.
The manipulators of those systems were fully aware of the elastic
nature of words and verbal propositions, and knew how easily the
severity of any injunction might be modified by convenient distinc-
tions; nor were they less alive to the advantage of retaining the
human conscience in its wonted thraldom, by submitting its impulses.
and feelings to an external authoritative direction, and so suppressing
its individuality. Pascal's work is a protest against this degrad-
ing bondage. To decisions of casuists, to the decrees of popes and
councils, to the prescriptions of this or the other ethical quack, it
opposes the individual conscience, the enlightened sentiment of every
genuine Christian, free, independent, self-asserting, acknowledging
responsibility only to God. It is thus a declaration and vindication
of 'Protestantism in morality,' a protest against the confessional
and its numberless abuses, an undermining, though Pascal was not
far-sighted enough to perceive it, of the very foundation stone of
Papal Christianity.
A more indirect but not less meritorious effect of the Provincials
was to present with startling power the enormous abyss which
divided Jesuit casuistry from the moral precepts of Jesus Christ. To
most Romanists, especially those who lacked Jesuit teaching and
guidance, the writings of Escobar, Sanchez and Emmanuel Sa were
unknown. That the principles of popular confessors were lax was an
easy inference from the lives which they regulated; but how lax they
were, or under the same teaching were capable of becoming, was
probably quite unknown to the average French Catholic before the
publication of the Provincials. That supplied an available text-
book on the subject. Thence might be seen in the very words of
acknowledged authorities, the pernicious maxims, the slippery
methods, the pitiful quibbles by which the simple directness of
Christian morality had been disfigured and travestied. I do not
know how far advocates of the doctrine of development would include
moral as well as doctrinal growth within its scope. Some evolution-
ary hypothesis is certainly needed to connect teachers whose only
apparent bond of union consists in the common name of Jesus. In
reality, nothing could be wider apart than their teachings. The
Pascal.
767
doctrine of transubstantiation was not further removed from the
primitive, informal rite of the Passover-supper, than the subtleties of
Escobar are distant from the Sermon on the Mount. The process in
both cases seems to have been a revolution rather than an evolution,
a retrograde instead of a forward movement. The growth was not
that of nature, it was not the development of the oak from the acorn,
it was a kind of diabolical legerdemain which contrived to evoke
thorns from the vine and thistles from the fig-tree.
Leaving now the Provincials, on which I have dwelt a little
longer than I intended on account of its importance in the history of
European thought, I come to Pascal's greatest work, the converging
point of all the studies and tendencies of his life, the stormy sea into
which the stream of his mental existence, with its various tributaries
and confluents, finally pours itself I mean, the Thoughts. Of all
the self-revelations with which our skeptical researches bring us into
contact, there are few so remarkable-not one so affecting—as
Pascal's Thoughts. Descartes' Discourse on Method is a model of
French style, but it is surpassed by the Thoughts. Montaigne's
Essais are marked by keen analysis, which is however affected, and
therefore exaggerated; Pascal's self-diagnosis is keener, and being
unconscious, is also truer than Montaigne's.¹ Huet's Treatise on
the Weakness of the Human Reason is ultra-skeptical and Pyr-
rhonian. Still more so, if that be possible, are Pascal's Thoughts.
Each of the treatises I have named are in different degrees charged
with inconsistencies. Perhaps the most inconsistent of all books
ever published is the Thoughts. We have already seen the many-
sidedness of Montaigne's Essays, but even this must, in my opinion,
yield to the versatility of Pascal's Thoughts. Differing from the
Provincials, which represent the Port Royalist and the advocate,
the Thoughts give us the man himself in all his multiform aspects.
He is the living embodiment of those strange, incoherent, diversiform
utterances. His religious ecstasy, his devout abasement, his esteem
for man's greatness, his disdain of his unworthiness, his regard for
human achievements, his contempt for human fallibility, his incon-
trovertible certainty, his unconditional skepticism, his reverence for
criterions and standards of truth, his profound conviction of their
fallaciousness and worthlessness; in a word, all the contradictions
which make up his composite character are here depicted with the
unfailing force and vividness of his own pencil. The book is thus the
pen-and-ink sketch of himself, rendered with the scrupulous accuracy
1 It is a curious illustration of the unconsciousness of Pascal's self-por-
traiture, that he speaks of Montaigne's attempt as 'Le sot projet qu'il a de
se peindre.'-Pens., Havet, i. p. 80.
768
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
of a high-class photograph, but without its delicate shading. The
fidelity is too great to admit of artistic idealization or refinement.
The furrows and wrinkles, warts and spots, on his intellectual visage
are rather intensified than subdued. The inconsistencies in Mon-
taigne's sketch of himself are striking enough if duly analysed and
considered apart, but with his moderate, equable mode of presenting
them, they seem to shade off insensibly one into the other; at least
there is no feeling of abruptness, no sudden wrench or revulsion of
sentiment in contemplating their differences. With Pascal, on the
other hand, every line and shade in the portraiture is decisive, violent
and abrupt.
The picture consists of Rembrandtesque lights and
shadows-the former too brilliant, the latter too murky, to be natural
or pleasing-passing, or I should say rushing headlong, into each
other, without any gradation or interval whatever.
But the Thoughts are Pascal not only in their striking representa-
tion of his character. They also intimate most forcibly and painfully
the circumstances of his later years. Composed in the quieter in-
tervals of an acute and terrible disease, they bear the impress of their
origin. Their introspection is clinical, their utterances pathological.
Some of the short abrupt sentences-plaintive wails over human
misery-read almost like articulate groans. The unfinished periods,
the half-written words and syllables, seem to represent sudden attacks
or paroxysms of pain. The halting expressions, broken sequences,
disconnected utterances, the argument or line of thought so twisted
and contorted, now snapped off, now clumsily rejoined, now utterly
lost, are but the faithful reflex of a life restless, disjointed and mis-
shapen by disease. The marginal emendations and additions, words
and sentences obliterated, constant use of abbreviations and contrac-
tions, suggest the disquietude and restlessness of the patient. I once
saw the original MS. of the Pensées still preserved in the National
Library at Paris, and I must say I was painfully affected. With my
knowledge of the attendant circumstances in the life of their author,
it appeared to me a visible and tangible record of pain, weariness,
mental excitation and physical prostration. The thought occurred to
me that if it were possible to represent any book by an emblematical
painting it would be this MS. It is, as Cousin calls it, a noble city
in ruins, or better, it is a half-begun city with inexhaustible materials
for its completion-not a Pagan city like Athens or Corinth, but a
city in which the Christianity of its designer is clearly traceable;
although not less clearly his Christianity appears of a novel and
incongruous pattern. In its centre stand two great temples, one
religious, the other skeptical; the first, a church dedicated to Jesus
Christ, the second a 'Dissenting place of worship' erected to Pyrrhon
Pascal.
769
or Montaigne, but neither quite complete. Around are different
buildings-a hospital, an asylum, an alms house-it was evidently
meant to be a city of charity; and there is also the foundations of an
Athenæum, so that it was clearly intended for a city of learning; but
all the buildings are so incomplete that it is difficult to grasp their
design and object. Combined with countless materials strewn about
in inextricable confusion, they seem fragments of noble attempts un-
achieved, parts of an enormous whole of which it is doubtful whether
even the designer has finally determined the use in each particular
instance. Here stands an elegant shaft without base or capital.
There, an ornamented capital without shaft or pedestal. Everywhere
are scattered stones carefully hewn for places they never occupied,
polished marble pillars which never found their right position, de-
corated cornices and pediments which were never erected. The tout
ensemble presents an appearance of dire confusion. In most ancient
ruins of towns once built and inhabited, the streets and boundaries
are still definable amidst the wreck; here, so far as appears, there is
no semblance of plan or design. No doubt a plan is in existence, not,
perhaps, 'drawn to scale' and elaborated by the architect, but vague-
ly and imperfectly conceived in petto. At all events its purport is
not easily inferrible from the fragments before us. Those who think
it easy to arrange the membra disjecta of this literary monstrosity in
something like order, will undoubtedly be undeceived by making the
trial. Even M. Havet's attempt, the best that has ever been made,
perhaps the best which is possible, is by no means satisfactory.
The object of the work is not its least extraordinary feature. It
was suggested by the supposed cure of Pascal's niece, Mdlle. Perier,
by means of 'The Holy Thorn.' Its aim was to establish on a double
basis of philosophy and theology the Port-Royalist belief in miracles,
and its characteristic doctrines, and at the same time to protest
against the Cartesian rationalism which Arnauld and Nicole em-
ployed for the same apologetic purpose: There is, I am free to
confess, a curious irony in the invocation of human imbecility to
supply a basis for gross superstition, in the appeal to what some
would term unreason, in order to escape the methods and decisions
of right reason. Pascal employed his Pyrrhonism to justify belief
in an event on which no sane man of our day would dream of pinning
his faith for an instant, just as Glanvil adduced skepticism in order
to establish the veracity of witchcraft. Those instances, however, do
no more than prove that skepticism is not free from those abuses to
which every good principle is liable.
Turning now to the skepticism which is the most marked character-
istic of the Thoughts, we find it to have been of a very profound and
770 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
cause.
sweeping kind. Every conclusion of philosophy, every dogma of Chris-
tianity, every dictum of morality, is directly or indirectly compre-
hended within its scope. By a careful arrangement of detached passages
a system of Pyrrhonism might be constructed almost rivalling the
Hypotyposes of Sextus Empeirikus, and only differing from it in the
fact that its ostensible basis is religious. For, as we have seen, it
was in the teachings of Port Royal, in the writings of Jansen and
St. Cyran, in the sermons of Singlier, that Pascal first discovered the
truth of skepticism; it was only afterwards on his acquaintance with
Montaigne that his Reason as a thinker was also enlisted in the same
His Pyrrhonism had thus a twofold parentage-the negative
one of Jansenism, and the positive one of rationalism, or independent
thought. It was the offspring in unequal degrees both of Faith and
Reason, of philosophic pride and religious abasement, nourished and
matured on the twofold diet of Montaigne's Essais and the Bible.
There is, notwithstanding, a remarkable unity in Pascal's life, inde-
pendently of that afforded by his devotion to truth, and which con-
sists in the convergence in a common direction and for a common
purpose of all the great influences by which it was affected. His
first feeling of religion, his conversion to Jansenism, his ill-health,
all combined to impress on him the natural weakness of man. This
was the subject of Jansen's books, of Singlier's sermons, and of his
sister Jacqueline's fervent exhortations. This on its ethical side
was what he learnt from the Bible, and on its philosophical side.
from Montaigne's Essais. This, duly pondered, was the lesson both
of his recluse life at home and his gay life in Paris. This was the
language of those violent headaches, those fits of hypochondriacal
melancholy which cost him so many hours of intense agony. We can
thus understand the poignant bitterness with which he speaks of
human misery. We can appreciate the fact that no expression of
that weakness was ever stronger, fuller, more awful in its intensity
than that which Pascal employs to define it. Indeed he even takes
a morbid pleasure in intensifying and exaggerating the doctrine as
an exercise in mental self-mortification. Like the hair shirt he put
on, or the iron-pointed cinctures with which he girded himself, it
became the disciplinary lash which he applied so unsparingly to
subdue the reasoning pride of his intellect; and he delighted in
developing its powers of punishment to its utmost extent, just as a
religious devotee, or flagellant, in order to add to its efficacy, affixes
new cords, or freshly pointed pieces of metal to his discipline.
Taking his stand on human imperfection, of which he regarded
the Fall as the historical explanation, Pascal, like so many other
divines, considered that the senses had thereby become irretrievably
Pascal.
771
disordered and ruined. He does not indeed tell us, as we may find
Glanvil doing, what he considered to have been the power of ante-
lapsarian senses, he takes the safer course of dwelling on their actual
shortcomings, illusions and disorders. By their means, or by wrong
teaching, all the knowledge which a man supposes himself to have,
is uncertain if not false. Their worthlessness arises in part from the
limited scope of their functions. They perceive nothing that is ex-
treme. Too much sound deafens us, too great light blinds us, too
great distance and too great proximity equally obstruct the view;
too great prolixity and too great brevity in a discourse obscure it.
Too much truth confounds us. First principles have too much
evidence for us.
We perceive neither extreme heat nor
excessive cold, 1 etc., etc. Even though within their range they
may be true, the truth is small, narrow, limited and imperfect, so
that we can never implicitly rely upon it. To be added to their in-
abilities are their positive evils, for by their allurements and fascina-
tions they seduce and enslave a man. On the superior faculties they
exercise their deceptive glamour, chaining both the Reason and the
Will to the chariot wheels of their own turbulence and unruly passion,
and sometimes being treated by the Reason and Imagination with the
same indignity.2 The illusion and imperfection which thus springs.
from the tainted sources of human knowledge spreads over the re-
maining faculties. Reason, e.g. is but another source of uncertainty.
Montaigne's great value consists in having exposed so forcibly its
blindness and perpetual mistakes. Pascal cheerfully joins his philo-
sophical teacher in the abuse to which he subjects it. Reason offers
itself as a guide to the senses, but there is no sense which is not
able to deceive and betray it. Although arrogating judicial functions,
it has no power to determine finally and absolutely any one single
truth. For not only do the senses betray it, but the Imagination
does the same thing only more irresistibly. In religion there is no
truth of which Reason can convince us. It is not able to demonstrate
the existence of God, or the immortality of the soul,5 nor any of the
prime verities of the Christian creed. Probably human Reason has
been corrupted by the Fall, else we should never see those extrava-
gancies, perversions, inhuman appetities, manners and customs, we
discern everywhere, for all the religions and sects in the world have
natural reason for their guide. In like manner elementary principles
of secular knowledge transcend the power of the Reason, as they are
felt instinctively and cannot be proved by demonstration. The weak-
ness of Reason is further exemplified by its extreme sensitiveness to
¹ Pens., Havet, i. 5.
2 Pens., i. 44.
3 Pens., i. 98.
5 Pens., i. 155.
4
4 Pens., i. 149, comp. ii. 158.
772 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
external influences. Of this Pascal employs Montaigne's illustration.
The buzzing of a fly is enough to disturb it and render its ratiocina-
tion anomalous and perverted. The sudden sight of a cat or a rat,
the crushing of a piece of charcoal, exasperates it. The tone of voice
imposes on the wisest, and changes the aspect of a discourse or a
poem.
A fine Reason that must be which a wind can alter! '1
The mischief is that though the Reason be weak, fallible and corrupt,
so that we cannot rely on its guidance, we are still by the cruel
irony of our lot compelled to use it, just as we are to employ an ill
servant or take service under a bad master when no other can be had.
It is therefore as great a mistake to exclude it entirely as to trust
it unreservedly. Though a false standard both for our sensations
and ratiocinations, we have no other. Though it tyrannizes over us,
we have no choice but to submit. In disobeying an imperious master
a man is unfortunate, but in disobeying Reason he is a fool.2
•
•
Still more helpless do man's faculties seem when the conduct of
the Imagination is taken into account. Pascal terms it that de-
ceiving part of man. The mistress of error and falsehood. The
enemy of Reason, which takes pleasure in controlling and ruling it,
in order to prove its own paramount influence in everything. It has
established in men a second nature. It has its own happy people,
its own unfortunates, its healthy folk and its sick, its own rich and
its own poor. The Imagination compels the Reason to believe or doubt
or deny. It both suspends the senses and causes them to perceive, it
has its fools and its sages. . . . It cannot make fools wise
but
it renders them happy-which is more than Reason can do, for that
only makes its friends miserable.
Pursuing this ironical
train of thought, Pascal dilates on the effects of Imagination. Judges,
with all persons in authority, have readily availed themselves of its
power. Their scarlet robes, their ermine-in which they arm them-
selves like the furred law-cats of Rabelais 3-the courts in which
they judge the lilies on their tapestries and carpets-all their
stately grandeur is most necessary for their purpose. If doctors of
medicine had not their cloaks and mules, and those of theology their
square caps and enormous robes, they would never have duped man-
kind, which cannot resist such authentic proofs of wisdom and
authority. If judges dispensed true justice, and doctors really pos-
sessed the art of healing, square caps would be superfluous. The
dignity of those sciences would have been sufficient of itself. But
possessing only imaginary sciences, they are obliged to resort to those
vain trappings and ornaments which appeal to the imagination of
those with whom they come in contact, and thus secure for them re-
2 Pens., i. 70.
¹ Pens., i. 33.
3 Cf. Pantagruel, book v., chap. ii.
Pascal.
773
spect. We are not able, says Pascal, even to see a barrister in his
official robes and head-dress without a favourable opinion of his
talents.
The imagination thus disposes of everything; it creates beauty,
justice and happiness.
Although the deceptive faculty
seems to have been given for the express purpose of leading men into
error—it is nevertheless the queen of the universe.
With fallible senses, a corrupt Reason, a deceitful Imagination, it is
clear that we are ill-equipped for the pursuit of truth. Here we again
meet the uncomplimentary sketch of man-his surroundings, endow-
ments and pursuits, with which Montaigne had already made the
world acquainted. Not that it is a mere copy. Montaigne is mainly
a philosopher, Pascal is always at heart a theologian. To the former
man is a curious but superior species of anthropoid ape. To the latter
he is an anomalous hybrid-a cross between the ape and the angel.
Montaigne is never weary of detailing the countless contradictions,
follies and absurdities of humanity-Pascal relieves his sketch, other-
wise quite as dark, with a little bright colour, for to him man's
greatness-a relic of Eden-is as conspicuous as his littleness. It is
in this contrariety, this juxtaposition of incompatible qualities, that
his puzzle consists. Pope's antithetical estimate of man—
'Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd,
The glory, jest and riddle of the world,'
would have been thoroughly approved by Pascal; though it must be
added that he takes care to particularize the weaknesses, contradic-
tions and follies of men, while their greatness is often left in the
obscurity of undeveloped epithets and general terms.
Man is therefore a nexus of controversies:-the greatest paradox
in the universe. With reference to Infinity he is nothing: in
relation to nothingness he is everything Though the most miserable,
he is the greatest object in Nature. If we ask why? Because he is
aware of his misery' is the sarcastic reply. He has a capacity for
knowing truth, yet is unable to discover it; indeed, with all his pre-
tended regard for truth he cherishes a secret aversion for it. He is
the abode of all kinds of wants, feelings, and desires, most of which
are contradictory to and at war with the rest, but none of which is he
able to satisfy. He is the centre of a hideous "comedy of errors," a
nucleus of mockeries, inconsistencies and cross purposes. Removed
by an immense distance from the comprehension of extremes, both
the end of things and their origin are for him hidden in impenetrable
secrecy. So wretched are our destinies that a grain of sand in the
ureter of a man decides the fate of kingdoms. Had the nose of Cleo-
VOL. II.
A A
774 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
patra been a little shorter the whole face of the world had been
changed. Pascal thus professes a disciplinary grudge against
humanity, he is determined to torture it to a sense of its wretched
condition. 'If man boasts,' he says, 'I will humiliate him, if he is
humble I will extol him. I will always contradict him, so that he
may learn what an incomprehensible monster he is.'
In another remarkable passage¹ Pascal thus apostrophises his
enemy. 'What a chimera therefore is man! What a novelty,
what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what
a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of earth; abode of
truth, sink of uncertainty and error; the glory and the scum of the
universe. Who can disentangle that intricacy. Nature confounds
the Pyrrhonists, and Reason confounds the dogmatists. What is to
become of you then, O man, you who investigate your true condition
by your natural reason? You cannot avoid one of these sects, nor
exist in either. Know then, proud man, what a paradox thou art to
thyself. Abase thyself, helpless Reason. Be silent, O imbecile
Nature; learn that man transcends man to a degree that is immea-
surable, and learn of your master, your real condition of which you
are ignorant. Hear God!'
2
Had man never been corrupted, he would in his primal innocence
have enjoyed with a feeling of certainty both truth and happiness, and
if he had never been anything else but corrupt he would have had no
idea either of truth or of happiness. But miserable beings that we
are! and more so than if we never had been great; we have an
idea of happiness and cannot reach it. We perceive within us an
image of truth, and yet possess only falsehood. Incapable both of
absolute ignorance and of certain knowledge, so much only is clear to
us—that we were once in a state of perfection from which we have
unluckily fallen. 'Like a dispossessed king, we are all the more
miserable from having been once so great and so happy.'
3
Such being the condition of man, it is evident no reliance can be
placed upon any conclusion or judgment emanating from him. Of
what value, e.g., can be his opinion? Indeed the vacillation and
bewildering variety of human opinions represent only too accurately
their corrupt source. Even among professed leaders of mankind,
among philosophers themselves, we find no truth, and no guidance.
Their elementary principles are as fatuous as the pretended De omni
scibile of mediæval thinkers. They have confounded the idea of
things, they have misled men on the subject of their happiness.
1
¹ Pens., Havet, i. p. 114.
2 'Apprenez que l'homme passe infinement l'homme.'-Pens., i. p. 114.
8 Pens., Havet, i. p. 115.
Pascal.
775
Their division into numberless sects is a clear proof of their uncer-
tainty and their error. They are also quite ignorant of human
nature. No philosopher e.g. taught that man was born in sin.
Hence they have found no remedy for our evils. One hour's pain is
a better teacher than all the philosophers put together. In a word,
to mock at philosophy is the truest philosophical method.
Nor does Pascal derive his skepticism only from an induction of
men and thought-systems outside of him, it is also a deduction from
his own inner being. Introspection was his primary method-self-
experience his final court of appeal; though as we shall soon find not
a very reliable one. What commended Montaigne's Essais to him
was their close and vivid representation of his own experiences.¹
Pascal sits like an austere judge in the secret tribunal of his inner-
most personality and religious feeling, and there deliberates with
closed doors on the truth and value of everything, whether human
or divine. Like all thinkers of diseased nervous sensibility, he
sometimes exaggerates the worth and the wisdom of his introspective
judgments. No doubt many of his profoundest meditations were
originated and stimulated by intense bodily pain and the morbid
reflection accompanying such pains in natures like his, so that he
often made a pearl out of a tear'; yet his self-judgments occasionally
appear harsh—the outcome of a passionate disdain of the evils and
contradictions he discerns within him. The self (moi) he says
merits hatred for two reasons: it is unjust in itself, in the fact that it
makes itself the centre of all things; it is also disagreeable to others,
because it wishes to subjugate them, for every self is the enemy and
desires to be the tyrant of all others." 2 But we cannot too often
remember in reading the Thoughts, that Pascal's self or le Moi is only
a synonym of l'homme: when he castigates the latter he is indirectly
administering the lash to the former. 'Let man,' he exclaims, 'know
his own worth. Let him value himself, for he has in him a nature
capable of good, but let him not prize on that account the littlenesses
which pertain to it. Let him despise himself because that capacity
is void, but let him not despise on that account a capacity which is
natural. Let him hate himself—let him love himself; he has in him
the faculty of knowing the truth and of happiness, but he has no
truth that is either constant or satisfactory.' I blame equally, he
says, those who only praise men, those who do nothing but blame
him, and those who only bid him amuse himself; and I approve of
those alone who seek while they groan (cherchent en gemissant).
1 'Ce n'est pas dans Montaigne, mais dans moi, que je trouve tout ce que
j'y vois.'-Pens., Havet, ii. 154.
2 Pens., Havet, i. p. 76.
776
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Nothing, he says elsewhere, 'gives repose except the sincere search
for truth.' 'We are quite incapable of not desiring the truth, we are
only incapable of finding it.'1
Pascal is thus clearly an advanced skeptic; but is he a Pyrrhonist?
The growth of critical opinion on this point has been very gradual.
Awakened by the discovery of the genuine text of the Thoughts,
the idea of Pascal's extreme skepticism was at first received with a
shout of indignation. The union of skepticism with devout pietism
seemed too incongruous to be possible. It was next assented to with
sighs of regret. Pascal became an addition to the large gallery of
human monstrosities and intellectual perversities already in exis-
tence. It is now accepted as an indisputable fact by all impartial
and trustworthy critics. It certainly has the highest conceivable
attestation, for it is admitted by Pascal himself, and that in the only
two ways in which a thinker can proclaim his philosophical creed.
He both openly declares that 'Pyrrhonism is the Truth,' and says
that before Christ Pyrrhon is the only sage,' and he tacitly applies
Pyrrhonic doubt, with destructive effect, to all ordinary criterions and
methods of human certainty. In this respect Pascal is a worthy
disciple of Montaigne, whom he truly calls a pure Pyrrhonist; but
the principle would probably never have attained the sway which it.
exercised over him, had it not been so completely in harmony with
his religious feelings. In opposing the Reason or Intellect, and the
pride which characterized that faculty, it was conferring a real
service on religion. It was the hair shirt of penance and humility
with which Pascal delighted to clothe his mind; and therefore the
metaphysical counterpart of those austerities which he practised so
zealously and foolishly on his frail and diseased body.
(
From this standpoint of Pyrrhonism, Pascal consistently denied
the existence of all human and moral truth. He had indeed only
two conceptions of truth. The one was a mathematical demonstra-
tion, the other an emotional conviction; the former was abstract and
valueless, the latter personal and limited. All other alleged truths.
-practical truths relating to human life and conduct-metaphysical
truths, whose proofs were supersensual and indirect, admitting only
a greater or lesser degree of probability-truths of Nature and of
Reason-truths of human laws and social conventions-in a word,
the enormous majority of what men regard as unquestionable verities,
Pascal absolutely denied. They neither appealed to the mathe-
matical instinct, which demanded complete demonstration, nor could
they induce the mystical conviction which was the offspring of devout
¹ Pens., Havet, pp. 11, 12.
Pascal.
777
1
and overmastering feeling; and on the other hand their modera-
tion, their compromising attitude and tendencies—the via media of
probability which they pursued their disclaimer of absolute
veracity, were thoroughly distasteful to Pascal's nature and sym-
pathies, which dwelt in and recognised only extremes: as he himself
said: Total obscurity he could understand, partial obscurity displeased
him ¹ (and no doubt he would have said the same of brilliant and of
partial light). We have already noted his harsh treatment of Reason.
He is even more severe on Nature. Natural religion or proofs of
religious verities from the dictates of Reason or the light of Nature
were most repugnant to his feelings. It was this feature that espe-
cially displeased him in the dogmatic system of Descartes. This was
also a point on which he dissented vehemently from his Port Royal
coadjutors Arnauld and Nicole, who as Cartesians accepted Nature as
a witness to the truth of Revelation. In his fanatical zeal against
Natural Religion he even seems to lose something of his usual veracity;
for he declares it a wonderful thing that a canonical author has
never employed Nature in order to prove God." As to the insuffi-
ciency of Nature to satisfy his own spiritual wants his testimony is
emphatic. This is what I see, and what troubles me. I look
around on all sides, and everywhere I see only obscurity. Nature
does not offer me anything which is not a matter of doubt and rest-
lessness. If I saw nothing that implied a Divine Being, I should
make up my mind not to believe in Him; if I discerned everywhere
traces of a Creator I would repose quietly in that faith; but seeing
too much for denial, and too little for certainty, I am in a state to
be pitied, and one as to which I have a hundred times wished that if
a God established it He would have marked it in some unmistakeable
manner, and that if those indications it gives of Him are deceptive
He would have suppressed them altogether. I wish Nature had said
everything or nothing, so that I might see what side I should take.
Whereas in my present state, ignorant of what I am and what I
ought to do, I know neither my condition nor my duty.'s Nor does
1 Pens., Havet, ii. p. 116. Elsewhere he admits that in popular judgment
'Rien que la médiocrité n'est bon.-Pens., i. p. 73.
2 Pens., Havet, i. 155. 'C'est une chose admirable que jamais auteur canonique
ne s'est servi de la Nature pour prouver Dieu.' M. Havet well asks, 'Com-
ment Pascal a-t-il pu ecrire ces paroles ?'-Pens., Havet, pp. 155–167.
3 Pens., Havet, i. 197. Havet quotes from the Heraclius of Corneille (Act
IV. sc. iv.).
Que veux-tu donc, Nature, et que prétends-tu faire?
De quoi parle à mon cœur ton murmure imparfait ?
Ne me dis rien du tout, ou parle tout-à-fait.'
Voltaire in his Commentary supposes that Pascal imitated Corneille-a
778
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
the social compact, the combination of men in political or other
communities supply a more certain or satisfactory rule of life than
does Nature. Man being naturally lying, deceitful, untrustworthy,
the bond of union in every state must be founded on mutual decep-
tion. The object of the political ruler should be peace, not justice.
Pascal has, I regret to say, no higher conception of political liberty
than is implied in the well-known words :—
'That those should take who have the power, and they should keep who can.'
As for laws, right, justice, there are no universal rules. They
vary with geographical boundaries, climatic and other accidental
conditions. Had the economy of the universe recognised universal
justice, it would never have established that maxim—the most
general of all among men—that every man should follow the customs
of his country. The splendour of the true justice would have sub-
jugated all nations, and legislators would not have taken for a model,
in place of that eternal justice, the imaginations and caprices of
Persians and Germans. One would see it established by all the
political states in the world, and in every period of time-whereas
one hardly sees any justice or injustice which does not change its
quality by changing its climate. Three degrees more elevation of
the pole are enough to reverse all jurisprudence. A meridian decides
what is true--in a few years of possession, fundamental laws change.
Justice has its epochs. The coming in of Saturn or the Lion tells us
the origin of such a crime. A fine justice that which a river bounds.
Truth on this side the Pyrenees, error on that.¹ Theft, incest, the
murder of children and fathers, each has had its place among virtuous
actions. Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should
have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the
water, and that his prince has a quarrel against mine, though I have
no quarrel with him.
There are without doubt natural laws,
but that fine Reason which is itself corrupt, has corrupted every-
thing.'
But if Reason, it may be asked, is so utterly corrupt and helpless
that it can tell us nothing about God or moral duty, is there no
other method of supplying its deficiency, without having recourse to
the Jansenist notion of superhuman compulsory grace. Is there no
argument by which we can persuade men of the world of the fact of
God's existence, and the superiority of a virtuous over a vicious life.
perfectly gratuitous hypothesis. The idea lay at the very root of Pascal's
religious consciousness.
¹ Pens., Havet, i. 37, 38. Comp. p. 70.
Pascal.
779
เ
(
'Yes,' answers Pascal, who thereupon adduces one of the strangest
pieces of reasoning that even apologetic Christianity can claim. This
is the doctrine of even chances-a calculus of probabilities founded
not on truth but on human interest-the method of gamblers when
they play pitch and toss. 'According to the Reason, belief or non-
belief in God—the pro and con, are both quite indifferent. There is
absolutely nothing to determine the question either way.' Must we
then remain neutral, shall we decline to bet on one side and on the
other? No,' replies Pascal, that we cannot do. The question
must be decided; we dare not remain neutral; our interests are at
stake and those interests are infinite. What then must we do?
How must we bet? We must lay our wager on the side of God, of
virtue and of heaven: if we win, we win everything; if we lose, we
lose nothing. Such in brief is the noted 'betting argument' on
which Pascal lays so much stress, regarding it apparently as demon-
strative. We cannot suppose that he intended any contempt for the
momentous issues he thus discusses in the genuine spirit of a
gambler; it is equally impossible to conceal either the skepticism
which prompted the argument or the cynicism with which it is elabo-
rated. Quite befitting the Pascal of the gay world of Paris, the
associate of noted gamblers such as the Chevalier de Meré and M.
Miton, the mathematical Edipus of gambling problems-it seems
strangely out of place in the recluse of Port Royal. Nor is the con-
clusion of the argument satisfactory. For suppose the gambler for
the stake of eternity should ask, How much shall I bet, for I may
wager more than is needful? Pascal's answer is, that is impossible,
for at most you can only stake a finite against an infinite. The
difference is incommensurable between your wager and the prize you
stand a chance of winning. That, says Pascal, is demonstrative, and
if men can receive any truth, they can this.
But this demonstration is in reality so far from being satisfactory,
that the neophyte in this novel art of betting cannot help saying,
Yes, I admit it. But still is there no way of seeing the hidden part
of the game? And to satisfy that rebellious curiosity Pascal sends
him to the Bible, and the Christian religion. Supposing the insight
thus afforded is either insufficient or inapplicable, and the young
enquirer should still plead, 'I am so constituted as to be unable to
believe, what do you tell me to do?' Pascal's final advice is: Do?
Why follow my example, and the examples of others similarly situated
-men who once were in your dilemma, but who have now staked their
whole wealth on the hazard I am recommending to you. Follow their
example of doing everything as if you believed, using holy water,
causing masses to be said, etc. This will naturally produce both
780
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
your belief and your stupid docility (vous abêtira). But that, retorts.
the questioner, is what I fear. And why? asks Pascal, what have you
to lose? What ill can befal you in choosing such a lot? You will
be (the requisite bêtise notwithstanding) faithful, honest, humble,
grateful, kind, sincere, a genuine friend. True, you will not enjoy
those baleful pleasures, ambition, worldly delights, etc., but will you
not have others instead?
I tell you that you will at last
discover that you have wagered for something certain and infinite,
for which you have given nothing. ¹
•
1
Such is Pascal's argument on the even chances of such verities as
God's existence, the future state, and the superiority of virtue.
Whatever conviction it carried to those for whom perhaps it was
specially designed; for the majority of thinking men it is not only
intrinsically weak, but saturated with a cynical and almost revoltiug
contempt for human rights and powers. Cousin thus sums up its
purport.2 'We must renounce Reason, we must in accordance with a
precept of Pascal, which this argument makes quite clear, turn our-
selves into machines,³ we must retire into ourselves, not mentally,
but mechanically, in order to arrive gradually and by slow and
insensible degrees to a belief in God.' That is true, nay more, that
alone is true if we start from Pyrrhonism to seek for God. Here we
have the whole of Faith, I mean all the natural Faith which is allowed
to Pascal by his miserable philosophy. Pascal's master, the Pyrrhonist
Montaigne, had said before him, 'To become philosophers we must
brutalize ourselves.' 4 This, no doubt, is the advice of the foregoing
argument; at the same time it should be remembered that there are
other places in the Thoughts in which Pascal places man midway
between the angel and the brute.5 Cousin holds that Pascal's reason-
ing here is wholly Pyrrhonian. I cannot concede that, though it is
obvious that it is based on pure indifferentism. What seems to me
most offensive in the argument is its cynical recommendation to self-
stultification in order to be virtuous and orthodox. Although a semi-
Pyrrhonist myself, and believing that 'whoso increaseth knowledge
increaseth sorrow,' I should interpret this maxim not of a voluntary
limitation of human powers and aspirations, as much as of the limitless
range of speculation which makes every forward advance an additional
proof of our imperfect attainment.
1 Pens., Havet, i. p. 150. Cf. ii..95, 124.
2 Études, p. 63.
3 Pens., Havet, i. 155, 156. Pascal agreed with Descartes that inferior
animals were mere automata.
'Pour nous assagir il nous faut abêter.' Cf. St. Paul, 1 Cor. iii. 18.
5 Pens., Havet, i. p. 11. Cf. p. 100.
Pascal.
781
1
These illustrations of Pascal's vigorous and almost unlimited skep-
cism may suffice for our purpose. They might easily be extended,
for the whole work is redolent of incredulity. To use Cousin's lan-
guage: 'It gleams forth from every page, and from every line.
Pascal breathes skepticism; he is full of it. He announces it as a
principle, he accepts all its consequences, and he pushes it to its
extreme limit, which is the avowed contempt and almost the fanati-
cal hatred of all philosophy.'
เ
Pascal, too, has adopted Pyrrhonism with his eyes open; he ist
much too clear-sighted not to discern its imperfections as a mode of
thought. He sees clearly that Montaigne, e.g., reasons in a circle.
He admits that a perfectly effective Pyrrhonism is impossible—that
Nature confounds the Pyrrhonists. Still he is not deterred, any
more than was Montaigne, by these contradictions. A philosophy
which should be perfectly free from all weaknesses, incongruities
and imperfections he would probably have regarded as an anomaly
in an universe like ours, and for beings constituted as we are. What
especially recommended Pyrrhonism to him was not its own intrinsic.
merits, as much as the supercilious, self-satisfied opinions and beliefs.
of dogmatists. That which astonishes me more than anything,' he
exclaims, 'is to see that all the world is not astonished at its weak-
ness.' He sarcastically remarks that the fact of the majority being
dogmatists is all the better for Pyrrhonism; which derives from its
enemies its raison d'être and its nourishment. If all were Pyr-
rhonists they would be in fault. I have therefore no difficulty in
supposing that Pascal was fully aware of the dichotomy and incon-
sistency in his mental formation. He knew as well as M. Havet that
the tendency of extreme skepticism is to leave its adherents defenceless
against the tyranny of authority. There seemed no inconsistency to him
in affirming the impotence of the Reason to decide whether there is a
God, and allowing the same Reason to pronounce the Pope deceived on
the subject of Grace. He was aware that an unconditional skepticism
which destroyed every human test and method of certainty was not
prima facie in entire harmony with a conviction for which he could
only plead his own inner consciousness. Whatever we might be,
Pascal himself was not disturbed by a dualism, which appeared to
him founded in the very constitution of the world, and which was
demanded by the needs of his own being. The uncertainty of all
human knowledge only established the certitude of Divine know-
ledge. In the recesses of his own heart, in the clear intuition of his
religious faculties, in the immediate instincts of profound and culti-
1 Cousin, Études, p. 42.
2 Cf. Havet, Pens., i. xv.
782
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
vated feelings, he possessed a test of certainty-a court of final
appeal, which could generally hold its own against the suggestions of
Pyrrhonism. 'We possess,' he says, 'an idea of truth invincible to
all Pyrrhonism.' Hence, looking to the obverse of our medal, we
find that Pascal was a dogmatist as well as a skeptic. What Reason
cannot give he will wrest by Faith. What intellectual processes fail
to yield, he will gain by the categorical imperative of religious intui-
tion. Pascal was therefore a mystical Pyrrhonist, and both in the
extreme degree of his Pyrrhonism and the excessive fervour of his
mysticism, unique among skeptics. Hirnhaym is the skeptical thinker
who approaches him most nearly; but his intuition is based formally
on the dogmas of the Church, whereas Pascal's is the combined pro-
duct of his spiritual feelings and the study of the Bible. However
harshly, therefore, we judge Pascal's skepticism, we cannot deny its
religious and Christian basis. If he was in error, 'the light that led
astray was light from heaven.' If his creed was inconsistent, at
least it administered to his spiritual and devotional cravings. In the
words of Tasso-
'E dall' inganno suo vita riceve.'
1
Outwardly, as you know, he never broke with the Romish
Church. In reality, however, Pascal, like most men of independent
and powerful intellect, had, from his numberless dissonances and
perplexities, beaten out his own theological music and formulated
his own creed. It was neither the creed of the Church, nor the
syntagma of Port Royal as represented by Arnauld and Nicole.
Distinguished from the former by the fewness and simplicity of its
main tenets, and by its Protestant stress on Faith; it was distinct
from the latter by its skepticism, and its exclusive reliance on feel-
ing as the basis of all knowledge. No doubt there is a tacit acknow-
ledgment, both in the Provincials and in the Thoughts, of the creed.
of the Church en bloc; but there is a marked absence of all allusion
to its speculative dogmas. In the later years of his life he had come
to regard Christ, His life and teachings, as the centre-point of all
knowledge whether human or divine. From the judgments and
dogmas of popes and councils he formally appealed 'to the tribunal
of Jesus Christ.' He observes that two laws are sufficient to regulate
the whole Christian republic, alluding no doubt to the first and
second commandment of the Gospels. His stress on the practical
duties of Christianity is shown both by his life, and by the remark-
able 'Profession of Faith' which was found among his papers after
¹ Ste Beuve observes, 'Le caractère principal et profond de Pascal, en effet
est surtout moral.'-Port Royal, iii. 103 (rather theological).
Pascal.
783
his death.¹ He despises reasonable proofs of such dogmas as the
Trinity and the immortality of the soul, because the knowledge of
these things without Jesus Christ is useless and sterile.' 2 He has
thus attained a position in which Christ is no longer the founder of
ecclesiastical dogma, but its real opponent, and the only deliverer
from its thraldom. On the other hand, Pascal, in a remarkable pas-
sage of the seventeenth Provincial, expressly denies that he is a Port
Royalist, and disclaims responsibility for Port Royalist doctrine.3
'I am alone,' he exclaimed of his warfare with the Jesuits; and this
intellectual and spiritual isolation he appears in the Thoughts to regard
as the inalienable lot of every man. 'One must die alone; it is there-
fore necessary to act as if one lived alone.' 4 Pascal's personal creed
consisted in reality of two articles-the Fall and Grace. As he
quaintly puts it, 'the whole Faith consists in Jesus Christ and
Adam.' 5
The fall was the most satisfactory account he could give
1
'PROFESSION OF FAITH.
'I love poverty because Jesus Christ loved it.
'I love wealth, for it enables me to help the poor.
'I keep fidelity with all the world.
'I do not render evil to those who have done me evil, but I wish them a state
like mine, in which one remains unaffected by good or evil on the part of men.
'I try to be just, true, sincere and faithful to all men.
'I have a cordial tenderness for those whom God has joined closely to me, and
whether alone, or in the sight of men, I do all my actions as before God who
will judge them, and to whom I have consecrated them all.
'Such are my convictions, and I bless every day my Redeemer who has in-
spired me with them, and who, of a man full of weakness, misery, lust, pride
and ambition, has made me exempt from all these infirmities, by the power of
His grace, to which all the glory is due, not to myself, who have only misery
and error.'-Faugère, ii. p. 243. Havet, Pens., ii. 129.
2 Havet, Pens., i. 155. So he says of the Incarnation, that'the Church has
as much trouble to show that Jesus Christ was man, as to show that he was
God.'-Pens., Havet, ii. p. 18.
3 Prov. Lett., xvii. Cf. Ste Beuve (P. R., iii. 75), who seems to think that
Pascal was herein guilty of disingenuousness, and availed himself of the
subterfuge that he was not then a resident in Port Royal. But the words will
better bear the meaning assigned them in the text. No student of Pascal need
be reminded of the many occasions in which he acted as well as thought entirely
alone, and in opposition to Arnauld and Nicole, and all his dearest friends.
4 Pens., Havet, i. 197. Cf. Havet's criticism, p. 202, which, however, is super-
ficial. Pascal's thought is not the misanthropical sentiment of La Trappe,
nor does it necessarily exclude intercourse with our fellow man. It is the
simple assertion of a truth which every thinker must have experienced, and
the more deeply as his thought is original and profound. 'On mourra seul'
is a text of which there have been numberless eloquent comments and expan-
sions, but none more eloquent than that of F. Robertson's Sermons, passim.
5 Pens., Havet, ii. 88.
784
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
of the numberless contradictions, weaknesses, and fallacies in man,
which rendered skepticism necessary; while grace or redemption.
was that personal conviction of his own relation to God through
Christ, which was his antidote for, or at least palliative of, that
skepticism. Thus his scheme of theology was, as in Augustine's
case, in one sense the outcome, in another the cause and justification
of his skepticism. At the same time it must, I think, be admitted
that Pascal lays more stress on man's fall than on his recovery. The
first was universal, the second partial and limited; the one was
self-evident, the other hidden and recondite. The former was the
exoteric experience of the race, the latter the esoteric enlighten-
ment' of a few privileged individuals. Pascal has himself the posi-
tive certainty of devout immediate intuition, but he nowhere asserts.
the same privilege for all the redeemed or the elect, still less for the
whole human race.
1
Why Pascal states thus strongly (some would say exaggerates) the
infirmities of human nature, both mental and physical, is not difficult
to explain. Besides the ascetic direction imparted to his religious
feelings by the teaching of Jansen, we must bear in mind that for
the greater part of his life he was a sufferer from some severe nervous
and cerebral affection, which finally during the last four years—the
period when the Thoughts were composed-made his life one long
continued torment. This is not equivalent to pronouncing, as certain.
biographers of Pascal have supposed, that he was a madman or a
fool. The fact itself of his cerebral disease is clearly attested, both by
the symptoms detailed by the graphic pens of his sister and his niece,
and by the report of his autopsy; nor is there any inconsistency
between such a fact, and Pascal's inditing the Provincial Letters
and solving the problem of the Cycloid after the serious commence-
ment of his insidious malady, which, according to his niece, probably
began in 1648. The shades and varieties of mental disease are well-
nigh endless; and so far from its being universally true that every
cerebral disorder involves a diminution of intellectual power, I have
met with cases in which it was actually increased and intensified by
such an affection, just as muscular power is abnormally increased.
by certain nervous complaints. Pascal's was clearly a case of the
same kind, in which the brain appears to have been stimulated and
excited for the time by a disintegration which was destined even-
tually to destroy all its noble powers. Many of his profoundest
thoughts were conceived during the premonitory attacks, and in the
intervals of those horrible headaches and fits of nervous prostration
which were a too certain symptom of cerebral disease, and which his
1 Cf. Lelut, L'Amulette de Pascal, p. 186; Pens., Hav., i. cxii.
Pascal.
785
medical attendants, who richly deserved the lash which Molière
applies to their confrères of the same age, were accustomed to treat
by bleeding and other depletory measures. We learn that Pascal
found an actual sedative for his agonies in abstruse mathematical
calulations and theological cogitations. In my own practice I have
also known instances of a similar kind. I remember one case especi-
ally—that of an eminent mathematician, who found in working out
abstruse questions, a solace for headaches, the severity of which
would else have been, as he often told me, quite intolerable. It
would seem as if the intellectual faculties were gathering all their
powers to resist the slow and insidious progress of an enemy to which
they were finally compelled to succumb. I have therefore no diffi-
culty, from a professional point of view, in believing that Pascal was
a hypochondriac, or that he was liable to such hallucinations as see-
ing an abyss on one side of his chair or his carriage, nor do I conceive
that such facts impair or in the slightest degree detract from the
intellectual value of his Thoughts. At the same time they serve to
explain that intensity of his religious asceticism, and the negative,
pessimistic character of his intellectual proclivities, in which he re-
sembles oriental thinkers. Nor need we be surprised at this; for a
powerful intellect, helplessly struggling in the iron grip of physical
disease, will naturally evolve from its condition conclusions not quite
in harmony with an optimistic view of the universe and its govern-
1 Cf. Lelut, L'Amulette, p. 182, etc. Readers of Molière will hardly need to
be reminded of the exquisite burlesque of the Science of Medicine, contained
in the third interlude of La Malade Imaginaire, in which the whole science is
compendiously defined:-
'Clysterum donare
Postea seignare
Ensuita purgare.'
-Euv. Comp., ed. Moland, vii. p. 298, etc.
2 M. Ste Beuve aptly quotes apropos of Pascal's mathematical opiate the
aphorism of Hippokrates (P. R., iii. p. 314): ‘Duobus laboribus simul obortis,
non in eodem loco, vehementior obscurat alterum.' In this respect mathema-
tics might perhaps be a sphere of mental activity which less than any other
is susceptible of disturbance by incipient cerebral disease. The mechanical,
almost automatic nature of most of its processes, the concentration of the mind
on a few lines of thought instead of its distribution over a wide field, the
abstruse character of its questions, the compact nature of its reasoning, while
tending to coalesce and direct the scattered brain currents into a single channel,
would thereby operate as a sedative, and would make the solution even of
difficult problems not an insuperable task. Pascal's own contempt for pure
mathematical processes is strikingly shown in his letter to Fremat, quoted by
Ste Beuve, P. R., iii. p. 318, in which he says that he sees little difference be-
tween a man who is only a mathematican, and a skilful artizan.'—Cf. loc. cit.,
p. 319, with Ste Beuve's note.
786 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
ment. The grim irony of his fate will present itself so forcibly to
his consciousness. The incongruous relation between powers and
capacities so great, and infirmities comparatively so insignificant-
Pegasus harnessed to a dung-cart-wings of Icarus joined on with
a little wax-will appeal so closely to his experience, that his view
of the world and of himself will inevitably be marked by some
singularity. Sometimes, as in the case of Heine, the feeling of utter
physical weakness will be accompanied by placid acquiescence
flavoured with a little good-humoured cynicism. Sometimes, as in
the example of Leopardi, its expression will be poignant misery and
despair, and a morbid longing after death; or, as in the case of
Schopenhauer, the same Buddhist conception of the universe may be
the effect of a soured disappointed temper. Pascal is an example of
similar pessimist and half-Buddhist tendencies, only governed in
the last resort by strong indomitable trust in God. He paints the
misery of man in colours whose extreme blackness is derived from his
own bitter experience. Life, he considers, like a Hindoo mystic, as
a deceptive illusion, and sees no distinction in kind between dreams
and living scenes. He also decries knowledge and reasoning, and
tends to a Nirvana of devout and rapt contemplation of the Divine.
Being. He despises existence, and habitually concentrates his mind.
on death. For the same reason he manifests a special regard for
those doctrines, aspects, and usages of Christianity which have in
them most scope for humility, asceticism and self-mortification.
1
Pascal died on the 19th of August, 1662, at the early age of thirty-
nine years. His death was in harmony with the extreme devotion
which marked the latter years of his life. He died, as Ste Beuve
says, in a ravishment of joy. For two months previously his disease
had greatly increased. His paroxysms, which were of daily occur-
rence, were intensely painful, and each left behind it an increasing
languor and prostration hardly distinguishable from death itself.
Notwithstanding the daily advance of his insidious and terrible dis-
order, and his increasing weakness, he quitted his own house at the
end of June, and took up his abode in the house of his sister, Madame
Perier. His reason for the change is characteristic and touching.
He had received into his own house a poor homeless family, a man
1 These Buddhist tendencies and practices were no doubt common to most
of the inmates of Port Royal. See details given by Ste Beuve, P."R., iii.
321, 322. Pascal carried these austerities to an excess which that author
rightly stigmatises as 'revolting.' P. R., iii. 320, where see the descriptions
of his iron girdle studded with sharp points. His saying that 'disease is the
natural state of all Christians,' is a sufficient illustration of his perverted
views both of Christianity and of man.
Pascal.
787
with his wife and children. One of the sons had caught the small-
pox, and Pascal was afraid lest his sister, who came every day to see
him, might carry the infection to her own children; and, instead of
removing the poor sick child, he found it more simple, says Ste Beuve,
ill as he himself was, to cause himself to be moved to his sister's
home, thus manifesting a passionate ardour of charity quite in har-
mony with the intensity of his other Christian graces.
It is time to sum up our subject. My conception of Pascal's charac-
ter you will have anticipated from incidental remarks in my essay.
It was a character at once strange and noble, wayward and consistent,
eccentric and sublime—an union of rare and almost impossible con-
trasts. His intellectual faculties, notwithstanding the forcing pro-
cess to which they had been subjected in early life, attained a
maturity of power and excellence which placed him among the fore-
most thinkers of his time. His religious feelings were so true, so
acute and profound, that their embodiment in the Thoughts has ever
since been accepted as the fullest expression of the deep cravings and
emotions of thinking Christians which the literature of Christendom
supplies. But with these greatnesses there are combined, in his
composite personality, littlenesses and perversities which are absurd,
fantastic and almost incredible. 'He had in him,' says Cousin,¹
'something of the child, of the bel esprit, of the hero, and of the fanatic.
He neither took nor did anything by halves.' This is the key both
to the greatness of his merits and to his conspicuous and undoubted
defects. Each of the dominating forces in his character established
in its turn an imperious despotism which bore no rival near the
throne. Hence his religious belief was so fervid that there was no
room for doubt, and occasionally so fanatical that there was no margin
for tolerance. His philosophical skepticism was so keen and compre-
hensive that there was no place for conviction. His worldliness was
for a time so absorbing that it left little inclination for religion; and
again his religious practices and austerities were so excessive that
they added a new source of feebleness to his already weakened con-
stitution. One hardly knows whether to be angry with, or only to
sigh over, the horrible cruelties which he inflicted on his wretched
body, and which co-operated with his disease in hurrying him—like
a religious felo de se-to an early grave. For myself, I confess I
find comfort in the reflection that such painful distortions of religious
duty were not in reality the aberrations of a great intellect, but the
extreme ungoverned impulses of a diseased brain. I regard with
positive satisfaction the evidence of his autopsy, and especially those
'two indentations in his brain, as it were of a finger in wax, which
1 Études, p. 80.
788
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
were found filled with clotted and corrupt blood, and had already
commenced to gangrene the dura mater.' In no other way but by
distinct lesion of the organ of thought would it be easy, in my judg-
ment, to account for a combination of demerits so closely approaching
great excellencies, and virtues so nearly akin to vices. What else
can be said of a chastity which would fain prevent a mother from
receiving the caresses of her own children, and which pretended to
repel the tender cares of his own sister in order to induce a repug-
nance which might quench her love for him. There was thus a want
of evenness, of harmony and homogeneousness in his mental and
emotional nature. He was a striking illustration of the saying that
'men of great parts have no moderation.' In ordinary human charac-
ters there is a principle of 'give and take,' of mutual adjustment and
adaptation among different faculties and passions, not unlike the way
in which the strings and pipes of pianos and organs are, by shar-
pening and flattening, attuned to each other. There is nothing of
this mental 'temperature' in Pascal, and therefore we experience a
sense of dissonance in analysing his incongruities, like listening to
the discordant harmonies of a powerful but ill-tuned and ill-played
organ.
Pascal's skepticism had, as we have seen, a well-defined progress
of birth, maturity and decay, each separate stage being marked, if
not originated, by some convulsive throe or great mental change.
Commencing in Jansenism it found its aliment in Montaigne's Essais,
and attained its climax as a practical principle or modus vivendi
in the years of his gay life in Paris, and as a religious principle or
modus credendi in the Thoughts. Its partial decay may be said to
have been coeval with the weakening of his mental faculties during
the last few months of his life, when it became nearly absorbed,
if not quite extinguished, by religious mysticism. But in its origin
and development Pascal's skepticism is not only rare-it is absolutely
unique. The alliance of Pyrrhonism with Christianity, generally in
the relation of servant and mistress, is not uncommon among Christian
skeptics; we have already met with it in several instances, and we may
not impossibly meet with it again, especially in the cases of Huet and
Hirnhaym. But in Pascal the relation is closer. Here skepticism is
the logical development of one doctrine of Pauline Christianity-the
fall of man. Joseph Glanvil saw that this doctrine might be pressed
into the service of skepticism, but he did not evolve his conclusions
with the pitiless logic which Pascal had acquired from his mathe-
matical studies. Glanvil's mental constitution was of a more normal
and withal robust and healthy kind. To Pascal the Fall was the ruin
of humanity, and of every knowledge and certainty which without it
Pascal.
789
man might have achieved. The Senses, the Reason, the Imagination,
the Will, all were irretrievably disordered by its means; and if Re-
demption gave back the lost certainty, it was by calling into being
a new and miraculous faculty created by and belonging exclusively
to itself.
It would be impossible to say that Pascal openly embraced the
doctrine of Dual Truth as we have seen it put forward by other skep-
tics, ¿.e. as a final settlement of the problems of the universe; yet
the actual result was not very different from what it would have
been had he formulated his reasoning on such a basis. The difference
between Pascal and Pomponazzi was, that what to the former were
mere principles was to the latter the ultimate conclusion derivable
from them. Dualism as a fact, a phenomenon inherent in the uni-
verse and in man, Pascal could not help acknowledging. It forms
the basis of his theology with its two articles of the Fall and Redemp-
tion. He sees its traces everywhere. Man is the opposite pole to
God. Divine justice is contrasted with its miserable human imita-
tion. Nature is opposed to grace, liberty to free-will, reason to feel-
ing, truth to error, heaven to hell; the dichotomy in his own being,
the struggle between body and mind, between health and disease,
between inclination and duty, was thus only the reflex of antagonisms
without, in Nature, in humanity, in religion, everywhere. Not that
he derived any consolation from this fact. It did not suggest to him
a similarity of condition which rendered man, with all his contradic-
tions, a homogeneous portion of the universe. He would, perhaps,
have said that the conviction of his own imperfection served to in-
tensify rather than diminish the inconsistencies he saw elsewhere.
Pascal could not regard these contradictions with the philosophical
acquiescence of a Pomponazzi, or the cynicism of a Montaigne. Partly
his religion and sense of truth, partly nervous irritability forbad.
So far as he could he set himself to destroy these incongruities, to
merge one of the contradictions in its opposite. He arraigned these
antinomies against each other as fell adversaries, one of which must
needs exterminate the other. He could not consider them, as other
skeptics did, different sexes inherently unlike but capable of being
joined together in peaceful wedlock. To rest satisfied, e.g. with the
persuasion that the truth of philosophy was intended to be the false-
hood of religion or vice versa, that Nature was meant to be in eternal
hostility to grace, that man should be for ever opposed to God, was
destructive of all truth, and implied precisely that holding extremes
in equilibrium, that acquiescence in the mean which was so utterly
abhorrent to Pascal's whole nature. No! the adversaries must con-
tend to the bitter end. No truce must be made, still less a lasting
VOL. II.
B B
790
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
peace. One of the foes must vanquish and irretrievably destroy
the other. Either God or man, superstition or atheism, must be
victorious; either Nature or Grace, good or evil must triumph. We
must believe everything, or nothing.
But it is on one of these antagonisms, that in which all other con-
trarieties converge, that which is for ever contending in the recesses
of his own being, that Pascal concentrates his attention. Nowhere
else is the dichotomy more marked; in no instance is the need of
destroying it more urgent and imperative. I mean the struggle be-
tween Faith and Reason.
In none of our skeptics have we this contest-common more or less
to all-carried to such dire extremities. Generally, the belligerents
finally concur in some treaty whereby one is compelled to yield to the
other, or some other amicable adjustment of rival claims and terri-
tories is arrived at; or else the war is languidly prosecuted as if it
mattered little on which side victory was destined to declare itself.
But with Pascal the struggle is fierce, terrible, and protracted. The
combatants are not very unequal in strength and skill, nor in un-
yielding tenacity, and the struggle must be prosecuted until one has
exterminated the other. In one of the most striking of the Thoughts
Pascal proclaimed the conditions of the combat, as well as the absolute
necessity of every mortal engaging in it. In the open war between
Pyrrhonism and Christianity, every man, he said, was compelled to
choose. Neutrality was impossible, for it was equivalent to em-
bracing vehemently one of the sides in the quarrel. In Pascal's case
the final issue is not doubtful. His is a striking example of the
'victory of faith.' Not that it overcomes skepticism by ratiocination
or philosophical argument. It seems to rise superior to it, to attain
a state of rapt ecstatic conviction in which doubt is ignored or
becomes for the time inoperative,—perhaps its materials are even
adroitly converted into the very food and nourishment of faith.
Thus there are men of the type of Augustine, Pascal, and Hirn-
haym to whom religious conviction, in its developed form and full
vigour, is not a matter of reasoning, nor even a powerful but evanes-
cent emotion; it is rather an intense, fierce, consuming passion
dominating over the whole man. To such fervid minds, glowing in a
white heat of religious enthusiasm, the cold methods and conclusions
of philosophy are either consumed to a dry ash and so annihilated,
or else are assimilated with its own vehement sentiment. Hence
Pascal's extreme skepticism became ultimately incorporated with, as
it had been primarily engendered by, his profound religious ardour.
It was but so much fuel added to the fierce glow of ecstatic pietism.
His Pyrrhonism ends in the 'mystery of Jesus,' and his uncertainty
Pascal.
791
terminates in devout assurance. Before his consuming Faith,
Reason, Humanity, Science, Doubt, the world, self, all disappeared.
Nothing was left in his dying consciousness but God.
Some years ago, when in Germany, I heard a Mass of Mozart's,
the Credo of which seemed to me then, and as I recall it, appears to
me even more vividly now, a faithful musical representation of the
inner life of such a thinker as Pascal. I remember it began with a
repetition of loud chords (like Pascal's first conversion) on the word
'Credo,' and proceeded with a variety of phrasing and a gradation
of musical lights and shades through the Apostles' Creed. It seemed
to me as if the inspired composer had intended to mark by his music,
not as ordinarily, the effect of the words on the feelings of an unques-
tioning believer, but the method and measure of credence which a
doubter like Pascal would attach to them; in other words, the ve-
hement insistance of faith, in opposition to the subdued hesitancy of
the intellect. Sometimes the article enunciated was given forth with
full melodious utterance, as if the expression of undoubted conviction;
at other times it was rendered with a timid hesitation, and in soft
tones or a minor key, as if the speaker (for it appeared to me the
confession of a single individual) was not quite so certain, whether of
the truth or importance of the avowed belief. This might of course
have been merely my state of feeling at the time. But what especially
struck me was this: ever and anon there was a recurrence of the
leading chords 'Credo,' ' Credo,' as if to denote either the recovery of
the soul from a transitory lapse into doubt, or else the determined
conviction of religious faith asserting itself vigorously and even
fiercely against the skeptical whispers of the Reason. So the Creed
went on with its joyous outbursts of fervid belief, and its pathetic.
confessions of wavering faith, alternating like the cloud and sunshine.
of an April day, until the close; when it terminated, like Pascal's
fitful and doubtful, but still faithful and truth-loving career, with a
forte and fortissimo 'Credo!''Credo!' at once impatient and defiant
of doubt, and jubilant with the full inexpressible earnestness of
intensely passionate conviction.
*
*
*
*
*
*
ARUNDEL. Thanks, Doctor. Your paper has, at least for me,
thrown considerable light on Pascal. I can now better under-
stand his skepticism, though it is by the analogy which infers
any marvellous attribute from a character composed of mar-
vels. Being the extreme man that he was, it is only natural
that his skepticism should take an extreme form. Indeed I
792 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
should doubt whether in history or in literature there is
another such example of the union of so many excesses, bad
and good, in a single personality. His dogmatism, so far as it
went, was just as extravagant as his skepticism, and his self-
maceration at Port Royal as excessive as the carriage and six
of his gay life in Paris. He was clearly incapable of modera-
tion, sobriety of judgment or self-restraint.
I have
been wondering how far that tendency to excess may have been
the inability to discern the nature of moral or historical proof
which so often besets the mathematical intellect; but in Pas-
cal's case there was more than that-there was an emotional
sensitiveness which was just as impatient of restraint as his
reason was of any conclusion short of absolute demonstration.
In a word he was-both in his excellencies and defects-a born
fanatic.
TREVOR. I should prefer your putting it in another way,
Arundel. Look at it as devotion to truth, and to the only
idea man can form of truth, and you will not judge Pascal
quite so harshly. He regarded truth as one, simple, absolute
and demonstrable, admitting no deficiency, imperfection or
compromise. A half truth in religion or morals he could no
more understand than a proximate or semi-solution of a prob-
lem in Euclid. His motto might have been, as Ste Beuve para-
phrases it, 'Believe all or nothing.'1 Accept for truth or de-
nounce as falsehood. His quarrel with the Jesuits turns
mainly upon this point of different degrees of truth or good-
ness. His utter detestation of a doctrine held by so many
skeptics, notably by Montaigne himself, proves the distinction,
not merely in degree but in kind, between his unbelief and the
common type of Pyrrhonic skepticism.
It seems to
me that however much we blame his religious and emotional
excesses, his intellectual instincts were correct; and therefore
his skepticism, so far as founded on them, justifiable.
HARRINGTON. For my part, I agree with Arundel; with all
its noble qualities Pascal's was an ill-balanced intellect, as in-
1 Causeries du Lundi, ii. p. 180. 'Il (Huet) ne rattachait pas le scepticisme
à la religion avec l'impétuosité de Pascal; il ne disait pas à l'homme avec
tourment "Tout croire, ou ne rien croire." Il n'y a pas de milieu, mortel, il faut
choisir !'
Pascal.
793
deed your paper, Doctor, also admitted. Truth in most matters
of human speculation, like Virtue in Aristotle's Ethics, consists
in a mean.
Neither does the human universe suggest, nor are
human powers capable of adopting, extremes. It is mere idle
folly complaining of this, as Pascal does in the passages you
quoted about 'too much light blinding us,' or his preference
of total to partial obscurity. I am unable to conceive physical
organs which would be omnipotent-even a combination e.g.
of the visual powers of the eagle and the owl would be an
optical impossibility. The only universe which would have
satisfied Pascal's diseased cravings would have been a world of
human Omnisciences and Almighties, the bare designation of
which involves countless absurdities. Nor can I reconcile his
childish plaints of the limitation of human faculties (which
really remind me of children in nursery stories crying for the
moon) with his well known piety and acquiescence in the will
of God. Those faculties are surely best which are most adapted
to fulfil the functions for which they were intended, and suited
to the environment in which they are placed. We can by an
effort of imagination conceive an ideal truth, but experience
teaches us to be satisfied with actual, i.e. partial truth. I never
yet knew a civil or criminal case in which truth was so abso-
lutely on one side that an ingenious advocate could not raise a
quibble to oppose it. The main moral of Pascal's life seems to
me the futility, to use no harsher term, of desiring extreme
excellencies, whether intellectual or of any other kind, and the
inculcation, by so striking an example, of the old lesson of
golden mediocrity.
MISS LEYCESTER. Your theory, Charles, as well as your
criticism of Pascal seems to me the very essence of Philistin-
ism-the reduction of all human conduct and feeling to an
uniform dead level of common-place. Take away minds ani-
mated by efforts and cravings like Pascal's, and what is to be-
come of poor humanity? Why every great virtue and every
noble character exists essentially in extremes, and regards the
mean with the disdain which is even marked in the popular
acceptation of the English word. What would become of the
self-devotion to truth and progress which has distinguished
some of the greatest names in history? What would become
794 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
"
of the piety of the Borromci or of St. Theresa? what of the
numberless deeds of heroism of soldiers and martyrs? what of
the enthusiasm of humanity' of so many philanthropists, if
there was no higher altitude for human effort than the ordi-
nary level pathway which the majority are content to tread?
Suppose every one were frightened by the epithet of 'eccen-
tric,' the human race would hardly have had a noble life or
disinterested action to boast of. We are all naturally in-centric
enough, goodness knows! It is the excentricity, the tendency
to extremes, that furnishes the salt of the earth.' As to
the mediocrity called 'golden,' I cannot imagine how such a
'derangement of epitaphs' ever came into use. Mediocrity,
the most common (the adjective mediocre, as in the case of
mean, shows that the virtue is not highly prized by those who
adhere to it most), and gold, the rarest commodity in the uni-
verse, unless it be that the former has in these days a tendency
to inhere in those with whom the latter is most abundant. As
a true expression of its value, mediocrity should be labelled
'leaden' or 'iron,' the first from the natural heaviness which
makes an upward effort impossible, the second from the hard-
ness which refuses to be impressed by nobility or unselfishness.
What I most admire in Pascal is this very tendency to ex-
tremes. He searches for truth as if he were determined to
wrest it from an unwilling universe. He is pious with the
self-abandoning spirit of a mediæval saint. He is charitable
and loving as if those virtues were the sole ingredients in his
nature. In brief, he disdains commonplace. Like Shelley's
skylark, he is a thorough scorner of the ground.' No medi-
ocre character, or man who adhered to the mean, would have
turned out of his sick couch, and vacated his own house, rather
than disturb a poor child suffering from small-pox. With re-
gard to the universe not suggesting extremes, as I think you
said, the very reverse of that proposition seems to me the fact.
All the extreme ideas we are possessed of are derived from the
universe. Our notions e.g. of infinite, the absolute, etc., are all
suggested by properties of the world without us. Nature in-
deed knows nothing of the mean, if by that be meant a degree
of perfection, utility or completeness of design short of the
very highest, and I suspect the conflict in Pascal's soul was
Pascal.
795
caused by the discordance between the extremes of goodness,
truth, beauty he saw on every side of him, and the conviction,
notwithstanding all his efforts, of his own inability to attain
their full position.
TREVOR. Your last assertion, Miss Leycester, is, I am con-
vinced, unfounded. Pascal's extremes were the idealizations
of his own fervid imagination. He had no notion of searching
Nature to find them. Nature he quite despised as a teacher.
If he had been consistent he might have attributed its creation
to a Demiurge.
HARRINGTON. An old lawyer, as you know, Florence, turns
an instinctively apathetic ear to rhetorical or impassioned
language.
I am quite as ready as you can be to ad-
mit the merit and utility of all such noble examples of and
incitements to self-denial. Still, our question is the relation of
the world and of religion to human powers of thought and
feeling. I maintain that Pascal's extremes misrepresent that
relation. They postulate, and would only be satisfied with, a
world and a humanity altogether different from those of our
experience. You rightly assigned the purport of those great
names and heroic actions by calling them the salt of the world
-no doubt they are so, but that fact does not establish salt or
any other condiment taken by itself as a common or nutritive
article of diet; and however much we regret the fact, and
lament the operation of laws which seem to put a premium on
human imperfection, it is nevertheless quite certain that a
society in which every man vacated his own house in order to
give it up to a homeless family would be quite impossible to
live in, and such acts of devotion to the welfare of others dif-
fuse far greater evils than those they are intended to palliate.
Utopias of all kinds are pleasing objects of contemplation.
They only lack, according to my experience, one indispensable
pre-requisite that of being habitable by ordinary men and
women. You may remember that the imperfection which you
rejoiced in our first conversation to find in great characters,
really belongs to the race; and perhaps it is as well it should
be so, for we can without difficulty conceive an universe and
its laws, as well as an individual, which would be relatively to
us as now constituted
796
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
'too wise and good
For human nature's daily food.'
This possibility is, in fact, what I meant by the universe sug-
gesting to us—the mean. I say that it does so, not so much in
itself, though here also the same truth holds good to a great
extent, as in relation to human powers and uses.
The very
terms you mention as showing that we derive extreme no-
tions from the universe, appear to me to establish the opposite
conclusion; they are negative terms, mere accepted formulas
of man's inability to conceive qualities so far beyond the hori-
zon of his own powers. There is nothing in the universe, nor
in the laws which govern mankind, that compels us to achieve
absolute perfection, nothing that indicates omniscience or
omnipotence as the earthly destiny of our race.
Man can
only acquire limited wisdom; he can only attain limited good-
ness or prudence; he can only enjoy limited happiness, or
health, or riches, or life. He has not a single faculty the ordi-
nary moderate bounds of which he is able to exceed; and the
undue growth of any one power is inevitably attended with a
proportional circumscription and stunting of the rest. In
short, we cannot, any more than Kant's dove, transcend the
atmosphere in which we float, i.e. the medium of limitation
and imperfection by which we are surrounded. We may, and
ought, of course, to use it, as Pascal did, as the means of resist-
ance by which we rise still higher and higher, just as the air
resists the impact of each wing-stroke of the soaring bird; but
to complain, as Pascal does, of the circumscription of every
effort by the bounds of the atmosphere which in reality sus-
tains it, is not only useless and foolish, but is to ignore our
rightful position, and to impugn the Creator's wisdom.
MISS LEYCESTER. Thanks for your suggestive simile. What
poor Pascal did, and what I must admire him for doing, was
testing the power of wings and lungs so far as he could pos-
sibly soar. He only complained, as so many more noble
spirits have done, that the tenuity of the atmosphere, and his
limited powers, did not permit a higher ascent. As it was, his
mounting aspirations far o'ertopped the upward flight of Kant's
dove, or any other earth-born bird. As Shakespere says:—
Pascal.
79.7
'Tis but a base ignoble mind
That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.'
ARUNDEL. There are so many points of interest in Pascal's
wonderful character that one hardly knows which to select
first. One that struck me forcibly was the fact that he suc-
ceeded in pushing the extreme tenet of human corruption to
a reductio ad absurdum. If all man's faculties were entirely
wrecked by the Fall, it is clear that mistrust and skepticism
are not accidents or aberrations, but essential features in his
lot. Thus Augustine and Calvin are, as indeed we have al-
ready proved, the best allies not only of moral helplessness but
of intellectual skepticism as well.
6
TREVOR. True. Pascal adopts the doctrine as an explana-
tion of what he regarded as the astounding dissonance in
human nature. Still with his keen insight to every inconsist-
ency, even when it was necessary to support his argument, he
points out the injustice of the dogma in its ordinary presenta-
tion. 'What,' he asks, can be more contrary to the rules.
of our miserable justice than to punish eternally an infant in-
capable of volition for a fault in which it seems to have so
little share, that it was committed 6,000 years before it came
into being. And yet,' he adds, 'without that mystery, the
most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to our-
selves.'1
HARRINGTON. It would be absurd to criticise the eclecticism
which is in reality the creed of every genuine thinker, else we
might ask why Pascal, who makes Jesus Christ the centre of
all his thoughts and aspirations, here lays such stress on a doc-
trine which is not prominent in his teachings, even if it occurs
in them at all.
TREVOR. Jesus Christ was to Pascal not only the moral
Teacher, the Redeemer of men, the founder of the Christian
Church-a closer and more intimate personal connexion arose.
from the assurance of his fellowship in Christ's sufferings.
Christ was the Divine sufferer whose divinity had hallowed
human pain—the great model of patient endurance—He who
carried self-abnegation to its sublimest point. It was thus the
¹ Pens., Havet, i. 115.
798
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Christ of Calvary, rather than the Preacher on the Mount, be-
fore whom Pascal bowed his troubled head and his frail body.
Indeed, the ascetic aspects of Christianity overshadow and
obscure its ethical or doctrinal teaching in his Thoughts.
And the reason is clear; for though Pascal could find suffering
in the life, and still more in the death of Christ, he could not
discover in His words that direct and dogmatic assertion of the
utter frailty and misery of man which was so congenial to his
own somewhat morbid sympathies. Here, however, St. Paul
came to his help with his scheme of the Fall and Redemption;
and Pascal, influenced by Jansenism, accepted those doctrines
as the chief articles of his creed. I may also observe that
there is a close community of thought and sympathy between
St. Paul and Pascal which has never been sufficiently noticed.
The parallelism extends even to physical organization. I do
not know how far it would be lawful to make the bodily in-
firmities which were so bitterly bemoaned by the great Apostle,
e.g. the continual 'thorn in the flesh,' a cause (humanly
speaking) of the particular stress which he places on the Fall,
but there is no doubt that in Pascal's case his own physical
weakness constituted a strong presumption and ever-present
proof of that doctrine in its most extreme acceptation.
HARRINGTON. You have just given us an example of analo-
gous reasoning capable of very large extension, i.e., to what
extent are personal beliefs affected by physical or mental
organization. In the matter e.g. under discussion you have
observed that both St. Paul and Pascal, being confessedly
valetudinarians, emphasize the fall of man and the misery of
the race. How far would the same rule hold good with other
teachers and schools of thought who have laid great stress on
the same doctrine? Mr. Galton, if you remember, in his
Hereditary Genius, notices the weakly constitutions of Evan-
gelical clergymen, who are more prone than any other class of
divines to exaggerate the doctrine of the Fall and its conse-
quences, and I must say that I have myself known cases in
which the Invalidism of the Individual seemed to have been
transferred to the race. Assuming then a correlation between
types of men and those of doctrines, which of the two is the
prepotent influence?
AR
Pascal.
799
TREVOR. Neither, or rather, both. The influence is no doubt
mutual. The creed helps to mould a man's intellectual, and
thereby indirectly affects his physical, organization; on the
other hand organization, hereditary tendencies, etc., lay hold
of and assimilate those doctrines which are most congenial.
In the long run the mutual interaction of those influences
would, I suspect, be found nearly equal.
ARUNDEL. I can quite understand how long-continued dis-
ease, especially of a nervous kind, should almost unconsciously
intensify the doctrine of the Fall and its consequences. But
that the doctrine was originated in the case of St. Paul by a
consciousness of his infirmities seems to me utterly improbable.
The doctrine is surely the product, in ultimate analysis, of the
sense of want, shortcoming and imperfection, which is com-
mon to most thoughtful men of every school. It indicates the
contention between knowledge and practice, the strife between
duty and inclination, the consciousness of aims we cannot
achieve, of aspirations we cannot realize—in a word it marks
the feeling nearest to every finite being-that of his own
limitation and finite-ness. No doubt Pascal exaggerates the
feeling so enormously as to make his divided existence a tacit
reproach to God's goodness. A cripple may complain that he
cannot use his limbs in walking, but it would be very absurd
if he should suppose himself hardly used because he is unable
to fly.
Nor does it seem to me that a large induction of thinkers of
every race, age and creed, would at all tend to favour an in-
separable connexion between a weak or sickly organism and
an exaggerated view of human misery. What are we to say
e.g. of the 300,000,000 Buddhists who push asceticism and
disdain of existence to its extremest limit? Are they all
invalids? Or take the Skeptics. Out of our muster-roll of
vehement impugners of Reason, and every other human faculty
which is assumed to have certitude for its object, we have only
a single invalid-Pascal himself, whose weakness was clearly
hereditary. Some of the most determined advocates of the
doctrine were men of robust physical and mental health. St.
Augustine and Calvin for instance. Even in the Port Royal,
St. Cyran and Jansen, with most of their disciples, attained a
800 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
fair old age. The connexion would be truer which would make
the earnestness of the belief proportionate to the depth of
spiritual feeling, the introspective power of its holder . . . . Of
course I am far from denying that in Pascal's own case his
view of humanity may not have been distorted by his own
wretched health. All I object to is the attempt to base a
generalization upon insufficient data.
HARRINGTON. It would be extremely difficult to deny the
connexion between religious views and bodily health and
organization in Pascal's case, because it seems so clearly attested
by his autopsy, and the proof is confirmed by his life, and the
notable fact that his worldliness coincides with his better
health in its origin, growth, duration and decay. I would not
say of him, what we hear of similar cases, that he was a saint
because heaven denied him the power to be a sinner; but the
contrast between the mystic devotion of his earlier and later
life, and the intervening period of earthly passion that divides
them, is very striking. Read on the one hand the Discourse
on the Passion of Love of his Parisian life, and on the other
the Mystery of Jesus, of his cloistered existence, and you will
see the distinction between the healthy and the sickly Pascal.¹
I confess I fail to see any adequate reason why at-
tempts to account for intellectual aberration by pathological
causes should be viewed with so much jealousy. Since M.
Lelut's book has appeared, every writer on the subject thinks
it necessary to protest against the notion that Pascal was a
mere visionary or monomaniac, or that he was weak enough
to believe in a hallucination; as if some of the most eminent
thinkers that ever lived had not suffered from affections of a
similar nature.
TREVOR. That, I think, is easily accounted for, It may be
ascribed to two causes, one natural and perpetual, the other
accidental and temporary. As to the first, it is surely both
natural and pardonable that men who have filled the world
¹ Pascal fully recognized the dangerous influence of bodily health on his
spiritual life. To those who asked the reason of the indomitable patience with
which he endured his suffering, as well as the dread he evinced of being cured,
he replied, ‘C'est que je connais les dangers de la santé, et les avantages de la
maladie.' His morbid generalization from his own state was 'La maladie est
l'état naturel des Chretiens.'-Vie de Madame Perier.
Pascal.
801
with the truth and beauty of their conceptions or the unselfish
greatness of their lives, should be supposed to be free from in-
firmities the most deplorable from which any reasoning being
can suffer. If ever sentiment is justifiable in literature it is in
the affectionate reverence and awed regard with which the
failings of such men as Pascal should be viewed. We have
already agreed that both truth and common humanity should
be respected by the recognition of such blemishes, but this is
quite compatible with an unreserved and even enhanced vene-
ration for the men themselves. Ste Beuve, who was so in-
dignant with M. Lelut for daring to hint the possibility of
cerebral disorder in Pascal's case, was compelled some years
after to acknowledge the existence of an undoubted hallucina-
tion in the case of Joan of Arc, though he does so with a
tender, thoughtful grace peculiar to himself, and with the
dread of employing 'the smallest word which could provoke
laughter.' Such literary piety must always exist and be in-
fluential in the world, and its influence is on the whole en-
nobling and healthy, notwithstanding its liability to degenerate
sometimes into a maudlin and servile hero-worship. But (2)
another cause has contributed to foster the unwillingness to
connect mental disease with the hallowed name of Pascal; and
that is ignorance. Researches into psychology and cerebral
pathology since Pascal's time have clearly proved that mental
diseases springing from organic causes are exceedingly various
both in origin and operation; and that there is in reality a
very small line of demarcation between undoubted genius and
some degree of insanity.
I should not like to go so
far as another French doctor, who fully shares and confirms
M. Lelut's opinion respecting Pascal, that 'genius is merely a
form of madness.'
ARUNDEL. A dictum which, if true, would be the apotheo-
sis of stupidity and commonplace. Henceforth we should be
¹ Causeries du Lundi, ii. p. 401. Compare Lelut, Du Demon de Socrate, ed. ii.
p. 54, etc.
2 Moreau (de Tours) in his Psychologie Morbide, Paris 1859. Apropos of this
doctrine Professor Daremberg has well remarked, 'Heureusement notre con-
frère ne parvient ni à indiquer la lesion organique qui donne le génie, ni à
montrer le génie chez les fous.'—La Médicine, Histoire et Doctrines, p. 392.
802 The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
compelled to modify an old proverb, and to pronounce as the
greatest desideratum in human life, 'Mens insana in corpore in-
sano.' I suppose the converse of the proposition would hardly
be admitted, that 'Madness is merely a form of genius.'
HARRINGTON. There is one practical purpose which such a
theory might be made to subserve. Insanity is often, so I have
heard, only the extreme and exaggeration of sane conditions,
just as certain physical diseases are the morbid excess of func-
tional activity, or as vice is the excess of a virtue, and heresy
the exaggeration of some truth. In either case, repress or make
allowance for the exaggeration, and the normal condition will
be thereby attained. But this we are in literature very reluc-
tant to do. We generally accept all an author's deliverances
en bloc without the least attempt at distinguishing his perver-
sities and extravagances from his ordinary moods. The expedi-
ency of 'appealing from Philip drunk to Philip sober,' might
here be employed with advantage whenever the 'sobriety' and
'drunkenness' are clearly attested as distinct states. Similarly
we might appeal from Pascal nervous and dispirited to Pascal
in better moods, or we might by a similar process moderate
and allow for unusual excesses in Montaigne's vanity or
cynicism. Every great mind is a book with two columns,
often more, and is to be read with alternate glances at each
side of the page. Even if the divergencies are not created by
accidental causes as in Pascal's case, they are at least induced
by natural development.
ARUNDEL. But who is to decide on the extravagance on the
one hand, and the normal condition on the other?
HARRINGTON. In some cases no doubt this would be difficult,
although if characters were quite homogeneous the attempt
would be needless. In other cases it would be easy. Take
Pascal for instance. Some of the Thoughts seem so clearly
dictated by severe bodily pain and consequent nervous depres-
sion that in my opinion their diseased origin is unmistakable.
MISS LEYCESTER. A copy of the Thoughts marginally anno-
tated in the way you suggest would we interesting if we could
only rely upon it. Opposite one Thought I suppose you would
write 'severe headache'; opposite another 'mental prostra-
tion,' and so on; but the association would be entirely guess-
Pascal
803
work. Your plan, too, would have the further advantage of
authorizing every pigmy critic to approach the giants of the
world with his own little measuring tape, and pronouncing one
thought abnormal, another extravagant, for no other reason
than that they were far above the level of his mannikin com-
prehension.
TREVOR. Why, as to that, men, whether pigmies or of a
somewhat larger growth, will criticise and estimate giants just
as children are irresistibly attracted by huge objects; and it is
both impossible and unadvisable to attempt to restrain them.
I see a still graver objection to Harrington's proposal, i.e. it
would tend to split up the individuality of a complex character
into two or more distinct personages. Men who grow, and
such ex vi termini, great men invariably are, must pass through
different statures, and the current of a flowing river will not
be the same at any two stages of its course. Still the man is
one, and the river is one, and we can do no more than allow
for clearly attested eccentricities when they quite overtop
every element in the character, whether considered by itself
or regarded as a composite whole. With the application
of your rule to Pascal's Thoughts, I am inclined to agree.
There are some of them which bear indelibly the mark of
physical disease; and if we had the original MS. before us we
might, I think, be able with considerable probability to select
and annotate a still greater number.
ARUNDEL. One of the most convincing proofs of Pascal's
skepticism must always be his abuse of human reason. It is
this display of fanaticism-amounting almost to a hatred of
philosophy—that has excited Cousin's ire, as I think it would
that of most other thinkers who believe in Thought. This is
also the prime characteristic of the mystic-all external light,
even the sun at noon-day, must yield to the divine brilliancy
of spirit-light. This aspect of Pascal's character is well ex-
pressed in Frederick Schlegel's 'Geistes-Licht.' (Miss Leycester
will, I have no doubt, pardon my bad German pronunciation.)
'Geistlich wird umsonst genannt
Wer nicht Geistes Licht erkannt;
Wissen ist des Glauben's Stern,
Andacht alles Wissen's Kern.
804
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
Lehr und lerne Wissenschaft
Fehlt dir des Gefühles Kraft,
Und des Herzen's frommer Sinn
Fält es bald zum Staube hin.' 1
But though I agree with the sentiment of the last four lines,
it appears to me that 'Geistes-Licht '—unless reason supply the
wick-the solid element of the illumination-is mere owl's-
light.
MISS LEYCESTER. You may be right from the standpoint
of reason; but if mystics like Pascal are impatient of human
powers or earthly knowledge, we need not forget that scien-
tists are equally distrustful of intuition or devout feeling.
What can better characterize this deficiency-this heartless-
ness some would call it-of most of our scientific teachers, both
here and in Germany, than the four last lines of the 'Geistes-
Licht,'-
'Science only teach and learn;
Feelings' power you then will spurn,
And the heart's warm instinct must
Fall and crumble soon to dust.'
I don't mean to say that Pascal's belief in 'devotion being
the kernel of all knowledge' is encouraging on all points—it
did not save him from very degrading superstitions. Still no
science can eventually succeed which tramples on the emo-
tional instincts of humanity.
(
MRS. HARRINGTON. But our scientists are surely beginning
to recognize that. Perhaps some of them might not be un-
willing to take 'Andacht alles Wissens Kern' as their motto,
provided they were allowed to explain the Andacht' after
their own manner. For, having expelled the Deity from the
universe, they profess to adminster to our sentimental needs
by such satisfactory compensation as 'cosmic emotion.' I
wonder, by the way, what Pascal would have thought of this
as an object of feeling and devotion-a substitute for the love
of God.
ARUNDEL. Thought of it? Why he would have abjured,
detested and anathematized it with all the impassioned vehe-
mence of his nature. To him it would have been insult added
1 Schlegel, Sämmt. Werke, ix. p. 81.
Pascal.
805
to injury—a stone proffered for bread, a serpent instead of a
fish. His repudiation of all Nature's lessons and influences is
not the least strongly-marked feature of his mind. 'Cosmic
emotion,' we may imagine him saying; 'what relation has
such a sentiment to my own human needs and cravings. I ask
for a personal God; you offer me an impersonal universe. I
desire spirit; you give me matter. I have anxieties to be
soothed, doubts to be allayed, passions to be subdued, affections
to be met and reciprocated, and you tender me infinite pro-
cesses and inexorable laws. I am conscious of misery and
disorder; you bring to my relief a realm of unvarying order.
I feel weakness, not physical only but spiritual; you talk to
me of material forces. I crave a sympathetic friend; you
point to a Kosmos. I say, 'I am ill, dying; take me to a
hospital.' You answer, 'Never mind that; come and see this
lovely picture-gallery.' I want-it is the concentration of all
the cravings of my nature-a God; and you recommend me a
soulless, lifeless, passionless giant.
HARRINGTON. Very true, Arundel, from the Pascal point of
view; which, however, need not bind us. He would have dis-
dained 'cosmic emotion' as being part of Natural Religion; we
should probably maintain that there is much to be said both
for one and the other.
With all our skeptic's un-
doubted excellencies, there is one point in respect of which he
falls considerably beneath some of his predecessors on our list,
e.g. Charron and Le Vayer. I mean his less firm grip of moral
principles, as inherent mainsprings of right and duty. Ste
Beuve said Pascal was 'surtout moral'; I should say he was
'surtout theologique.' Of course we must bear the Provincials
in mind; but his argument with the Jesuits is professedly based
on theological and Protestant considerations. In the whole of
the Provincials he never once rises to the ethical sublime' of
Charron. As a Protestant he maintains that the sum of
morality consists of concupiscence and grace-the sin and its
remedy. His Pyrrhonism is shown by his application of the
geographical argument to morality, in defining it as an un-
regulated sentiment, and in affirming its dependence on a
future life; while in the betting argument he seems to make
¹ Pens., Hav., i. 106.
VOL. II.
เ
C C
806
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
it a question of mere expediency--a kind of honesty-is-the-
best-policy doctrine. I wonder, by the way, whether Paley's
well-known argument in his Moral Philosophy was suggested
by Pascal?
TREVOR. Special suggestion is unnecessary when you have
such a large body of general conviction. Future rewards and
punishments have been continually put forward, not as a
natural outcome of, but as a specific motive for, moral conduct.
But there seems some little difference between the position of
Pascal and that of Paley. Pascal says in the argument you
have referred to: You had better believe, for if things should
turn out as Christianity declares, you will gain everything;
on the other hand, should all be false, you will lose nothing!
Bayle well compares a similar argument of Arnobius,¹ which
is, 'Of two results equally uncertain it is better to choose that
which gives us hope than that which does not.' Of course
either is a direct appeal to human selfishness-it concentrates
our attention not on the inherent nobility, worth or excellence
of the moral act, but on an extraneous result it is declared to
possess. Paley's position is still more directly selfish. Do
justly, deal truly, because, so doing, you will obey a God who
can punish disobedience, and you will have eternal happiness
as a reward.
MISS LEYCESTER. I think we must place Pascal's argumen-
tation on this and other points to the credit of the narrow
creed of Jansenism. Once assume Favouritism as a Divine
attribute, of which irresistible grace is the human expression,
and you must find some method of inducing men who neither
believe the former nor have experienced the latter to lead a
religious and moral life. For myself, the fact of Pascal's
having tried to find, outside of his personal convictions, some
method of leading man to God, is to me a strong proof of the
real catholicity and charity of his feelings. Calvin would
never have devised a method of making men do right apart
from his dogma of irresistible grace. That Pascal's own con-
duct was largely influenced by considerations of future rewards
is what I could never bring myself to believe. The man was
really better and broader than his creed. His charity, I am
1 Dict., Art. 'Pascal,' Note (I.).
Pascal.
807
convinced, was dictated solely by the desire to benefit others,
and a wish to follow humbly in the steps of his Divine Master;
and his heroic virtue and patience proceeded from no other
motive than the sublimest conviction of duty. He would have
acted, I feel sure, in the same way had he been either ignorant
of, or a confirmed disbeliever in, a future existence.
MRS. HARRINGTON. I cannot at all agree with you, Florence,
in regretting, as you appear to do, Pascal's Jansenism. That
Pascal should have been contemporaneous with that particular
phase of Romanism, short-lived as it was, is to me a very
admirable and striking coincidence. It was a faith that em-
bodied and expressed all the peculiarities in his character. He
was by nature and physical constitution adapted for the
cloister. His philosophy and religion were both cloistral; so
were his views on Nature and Humanity. A home, in the full
sense of the word, he could hardly have found in a Romanist
convent; for though he would willingly and of his own accord
adopt the severest asceticism, he could have ill brooked the
external authority of ecclesiastical rule, any more than he could
have tolerated its immorality. Pascal was really a Protestant
monk.
MRS. ARUNDEL. But if Jansenism contained the impulse
which first impelled Pascal in the path of skepticism, why
should not his companions, Nicole and Arnauld, have shared
his development? I suppose they believed the doctrine of
original sin as fully as he did.
ARUNDEL. The same question has been asked more than
once. The answer Trevor suggested is, in effect, that of
Cousin.¹ They were prevented by their philosophical creed
and their personal character. The first, Cartesian rationalism,
protested against extreme or Pyrrhonic skepticism as destruc-
tive of all modes of distinguishing truth from error. As to
the second, they were men of moderation and caution, who
fully discerned the mischiefs which would arise from un-
limited skepticism in the sense of negation. How curiously,
by the way, the relative positions of Pascal and his friends, as
he conceived it, have been inverted by posterity. Pascal
regarded his brother Port-Royalists, on account of their ad-
1 Études, p. 83.
808
The Skeptics of the French Renaissance.
herence to Descartes and their stress on Natural Religion, as
dangerous free-thinkers, who compelled Religion to do homage
to Philosophy, while he made Religion supreme, and humbled
Reason and every other human faculty before her. Now,
Arnauld and Nicole are the cautious rather narrow sectaries,
who best understood the real welfare of Christianity; while
Pascal is the Pyrrhonist, whose opinions are absolutely fatal
both to religion and morality.
HARRINGTON. Pascal is one of five French skeptics who are
nearly all contemporaries. It will help us to distinguish them
if we remember that pursuing the same methods they all
arrived at different results. Thus Charron employed skepti-
cism as a method to inculcate independent morality. Descartes
employed it, also, as a method to form a basis for philosophical
and scientific construction. Le Vayer employed Pyrrhonism
to arrive at Ataraxia. Huet adopted the same philosophy to
form a basis for ecclesiastical dogma. Pascal used it as a
motive and reason for supernatural grace.
MISS LEYCESTER. Why not call the end, in Pascal's case,
mysticism, the merging of the individual, with his scruples
and doubts, in the fulness and certainty of the Infinite Being?
I think, indeed, that ought to be the last thought of our dis-
cussion, as it formed the last paragraph of Dr. Trevor's paper.
Notwithstanding his skepticism, Pascal's final stage is one of
pure, ecstatic, ineffable exaltation. We leave our Christian
pilgrim, to refer to Bunyan's immortal allegory, not in 'Doubt-
ing Castle,' but enjoying the conviction and rapture of the
"Land of Beulah.'¹
*
*
*
*
**
63
1 'In this country the sun shineth night and day; wherefore it was beyond
the valley of the shadow of death, and also out of the reach of Giant Despair!
neither could they, from this place, as much as see Doubting Castle.'—Pilgrim's
Progress, part i.
INDEX.
(A.) INDEX TO LITERARY REFERENCES.
AGRIPPA, Cornelius [1486-1535]: De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum
Invectiva, 4° Antwerp (Joann. Graphæus) 1530: 475 (n2), 521 (n2),
583 (n3).
English tr. by Ja.[mes] SA.[NFORD], 4to London (Henry Wykes) 1569
[black letter]; reprinted 1575; also editions in 8vo London 1676 and 1684.
ALLETZ: Philosophie de La Mothe-le-Vayer, 12° Paris 1783: 649 (n).
D'ARGENTRÉ, Chas. Duplessis [1673-1740]: Collectio Judiciarum, 3 vols. fº
Lutetiæ Parisiorum (Andr. Cailliau) 1727: 515 (n3).
ARNSTÄDT, Dr. Friedr. Aug.: François Rabelais und sein Traité d'Educa-
tion, Leipzig (Barth) 1872: 468 (n).
Has special reference to the relations of Rabelais' pedogical theories to those
of Montaigne, Locke and Rousseau.
AUBERTIN, Chas. [b. 1825]: Histoire de la Langue et de la Littérature Fran-
çaises au Moyen Age, 2 vols. 8vo Paris 1878-79; new edn., 2 vols.
8vo ib. 1885: 435 (nn 1,2), 463 (n).
BACON, Francis, Lord [1561-1626]: Apophthegms, new and old. 12mo
London 1625: 511 (n2).
De Augmentis Scientiarum: 1623: 511 (ul).
A tr. of the Advancement of Learning (1605), revised and enlarged; made
by Ben Jonson, Geo. Herbert and other friends.
Novum Organon 1620: 630 (nn 1, 2), 631 (n).
Redargutio, 672 (nl).
The best edn. of Bacon's Philosophical works is that edited by J. SPEDDING
+R. L. ELLIS + D. D. HEATH, forming vols. i.-iii. of the complete works, 7
vols. 8vo London (Longman) 1857-70.
BAILLET, Adrien: Jugemens des Savants sur les principaux ouvrages des
Auteurs, nouv. édition (the third), 8 vols. 4to Amsterdam 1725 :
493 (n), 516 (n4).
Vols. vii. and viii. contain L'Anti-Baillet by MÉNAGE, and Jugemens des
Savans sur les Auteurs qui ont traité de la Rhétorique, by GIBERT. The 1st
edn. was pub. anon. in 9 vols. 12mo Paris 1685-86, and reprinted in 7 vols. 4to
ib. 1722-30.
de BALZAC, Jean Guez [1594–1655]: Lettres Familières à M. Chapelain,
12mo Leyden (Elzevier) 1656; reprinted 12mo Amsterdam (Elzevier)
1661: 713 (nl).
BARNI, Jules: Les Martyres de la Libre Pensée, second edn., s8° Paris
1880: 493 (n), 545 (nl).
BARTHOLMESS, Christian: Huet, ou le Scepticisme Theologique, 8vo Paris:
571 (n2), 684 (n2), 710 (nl).
BAUMGARTEN, Hermann: Vor der Bartholomäusnacht, 8vo Strassburg
(Trübner) 1882: 536 (n2).
809
810
Index to Literary References.
BAYLE, Pierre [1647-1706]: Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, nouv.
édition, 15 vols., 8vo Paris (Desoer) 1820; tr. sub tit. General
Dictionary, Historical and Critical, 4 vols. f° London 1710; second
edn., 5 vols., f° ib. 1734-37: 493 (n), 508 (n2), 515 (n4), 516 (n2), 520
(nl), 521 (n2), 547 (n3), 551 (n), 559 (n), 587 (nn1,2), 617 (n), 640 (n2)
644 (n2), 649 (n), 653 (n2), 665 (nl), 669 (n2), 682 (n4), 703 (n3), 764
(nl), 806 (n).
This work is also included in a new transl. in A General Dictionary, His-
torical and Critical by REV. J. T. BARNARD + REV. T. BIRCH+J. LOCKMAN,
etc., 10 vols. f London 1734-41; abridged, 4 vols. 12mo ib. 1826. The 3rd
and best edn. of the French work was pub. in 4 vols. f Rotterdam (Mich.
Bohm) 1720.
Pensées Diverses écrites à un Docteur de Sorbonne-in vol. iii. of his
Œuvres Diverses, 4 vols. fº The Hague 1727-31: 634.
Reprinted, with the addition of 150 letters, The Hague (Comp. des Librair-
ies) 1737.
BEARD, Rev. Chas. [1827-88]: History of Port Royal, a contribution to the
history of religion and literature in France, 2 vols. cr. 8vo London
(Williams and Norgate) 1861; new edition 1873: 731 (n), 754 (n2).
BENRATH, Dr. Karl [b. 1845]: Bernardino Ochino von Siena: ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der Reformation, 8vo Leipzig (Fues) 1875: 562 (nl),
588 (n).
An English transl. (by Helen Zimmern) was pub. sub. tit. Bernardino Ochino
of Siena 8vo London (Nisbet) 1876.
BERTI, Domenico [b. 1820]: La Vita di Giordano Bruno da Nola, 8vo
Florence 1868: 639 (n2).
:
BOSSUET, Jac. Benigno [1627-1704] Histoire de Variations de l'Église Pro-
testante [1688]-in his Œuvres Complètes [vol. viii.], 43 vols. 8vo.
Versailles 1815-19: 698 (nn2,3).
BOSWELL, Jas. [1740-95]: Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson: 684 (nl)
There are numerous modern edns., the best being that edited by Dr. G. Birk-
beck HILL, 6 vols. 8vo Oxford (Clarendon Press) 1887. An excellent working
edn. is that by Rev. A. NAPIER, 6 vols. crown 8vo London (" Bohn's Lib."
Bell) 1886, reprinted from a more luxurious edn. of 1885. A well-printed and
cheap library edn. is that by Percy FITZGERALD, 3 vols. 8vo London (“Stan-
dard Authors Series," Sonnenschein) 1874; reprinted 1887.
BOUILLIER, Francisque [b. 1813]: Histoire de la Philosophie Cartésienne,
2 vols. 8vo Paris (Durand) 1854; 3rd edn., 2 vols. 8vo ib. (Dela-
grave) 1868: 463 (n4).
DU BOULAY, Caes. Eg. [BULAAS]: Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, 6 vols.
f° Paris (Fr. Noel and P. de Bresche) 1665-73: 514 (nl), 516 (nl).
Largely used by Crevier in his Hist. de l'Univ. Paris, ut infra.
BRÜCKER, Joh. Jac. [1696-1770]: Historia Critica Philosophiæ, 6 vols. 4to
Leipzig (Weidmann) 1742-67: 547 (n3), 617 (n).
BUDINSZKY, Dr. Alex: Die Universität Paris und die Fremden an derselben
im Mittelalter 8vo Berlin (Hertz) 1876: 513 (n2).
BUHLE, J. G. [1763-1821]: Histoire de la Philosophie moderne depuis la
Renaissance des Lettres jusqu'au Kant, trad. par. A. J. L. Jourdain,
7 vols. 8vo Paris (Fournier) 1816-17 : 493 (n), 538 (n2), 559 (n), 617
(n), 637 (n3).
The original work, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie seit Wiederherstel-
lung der Wissenschaften, was pub. in 6 vols. 8vo Göttingen (Röwer) 1800-5
having been preceded by a Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, 8 pts.
8vo Göttingen (Vandenhoeck) 1796-1804.
BUNYAN, Jno. [1628-88]: The Pilgrim's Progress [1678; 1684]: 808 (n).
The best edition is that by Rev. John BROWN, which contains a critical text
of both Parts, cr. 8vo London (Hodder)_1886. A facsimile reprint of the 1st
edn. of the First Part was pub. in s8vo London (Stock) 1872; reissued 1877.
Index to Literary References.
811
BURCKHARDT, Jacob [b. 1818]: Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, besorgt von
Ludwig Geiger, 2 vols. 8vo Leipzig (Seemann): 518 (n).
First edn. 8vo Basle (Schweighauser) 1860; second edn. 8vo Leipzig
(Seemann) 1869; 3rd. edn. 2 vols. 8vo ib. (id.) 1877–78.
English tr. by S. G. C. MIDDLEMORE, sub. tit. The Civilization of the
Renaissance in Italy, 2 vols. 8vo London (Paul) 1878; second edn., incor-
porating GEIGER'S additions and new matter supplied by the author, in 1 vol.
8vo London (Sonnenschein) 1891, reprinted ib. (id.) 1892.
Calendar of State Papers: Domestic Series 1581-1590, 8vo London (“ Rolls
Series "; Longman, etc.): 530 (n).
DE CARAMAN, Duc: Histoire des Révolutions de la Philosophie en France
pendant le moyen age jusqu'au 16e. Siècle, 3 vols. 8vo Paris 1845–48.
493 (n).
CAYET: Deploration de Ramus, in Waddington's Ramus, ut infra, sub nom.
Waddington: 532 (n).
CHANDON + DELANDINE: Dictionnaire Historique : 649 (n), 675 (nl).
LE CHARRON, Pierre [1541-1603]: De la Sagesse: livres trois, 8vo Bordeaux
(Simon Millanges) 1601 : 559 (n), 574 (nl), 587 (nl).
The 1st edn.: rare, and sought after, as it contains passages that were sup-
pressed or modified or corrected in subsequent editions. 2nd edn. [posthum.
pub.] Paris 1604, which is the edn. on which nearly all later edus. have
been based. 3rd edn. ib. 1607 (contains also the variants of the Bordeaux
edn.). Later, 8vo ib. (Douceur) 1613; 8vo ib. (Louis Faugé) 1640; 12mo
Leyden (Elzevier) 1646, 1656, etc.
ed. Amaury Duval, 3 vols. 8vo, forming vols. vii. viii. and ix. of the
Collection de Moralistes Français, Paris (Chasseriau & Dondey-
Dupré) 1821-26: 559 (n), 561 (n2), 576 (nn 4-6), 577 (nn1, 2), 578
(nn1-4), 579 (nn2-4), 580 (nn1-10), 582 (n3), 583 (nl), 585 (n), 586
(n2), 589 (nn1–3), 590 (n), 591 (n), 592 (n2), 596 (n2), 598 (n).
English tr. by Samson LENNARD sm. 4to London (Edw. Blount & Will.
Aspley) 1658; and another by Geo. STANHOPE, 3 vols. 8vo London 1697, re-
printed 1707.
Discours Chrestiens de la Divinité, Création, Rédemption et Octaves
du Sainct Sacrement, 8vo Paris (P. Bertault) 1604: 571 (nl), 589 (nl).
The 1st. edn. was pub. in 2 pts. sub. titt. L'Octave, contenant huict Discours
du S. Sacrement, 12mo Bordeaux (S. Millanges) 1600, and Discours Crestiens,
seconde partie, ib. (id.) 1601.
Le Petit Traicté de la Sagesse, contained in the Supplement to Duval's
edition of De la Sagesse, vol. iii, pp. 257–318: 559 (n), 572 (n3), 587
(ul), 600 (n).
Partly a summary and partly a defence of De la Sagesse.
Les Trois Veritez, seconde édition s8vo Bordeaux (S. Millanges) 1595:
559 (nl), 571 (nn1, 3), 572 (nnl 2), 573 (nn1-3), 575 (n), 596 (nl).
The 2nd edn., being the 1st with CHARRON's name, a previous one having
been published anonymously, sm. 8vo ib. (id.) 1593, reprinted in 12mo 1594.
CHESTERFIELD, [4th] Earl of [1694–1773]: Letters to his Godson and Suc-
cessor, ed. by Earl of Carnarvon, with memoir, 8vo Oxford (Clar-
endon Press) 1889; reprinted 8vo ib. (id.) 1890: 655 (n).
A different work from his Letters to his [natural] Son, originally pub. 1774,
the best edition of which is that edited by Dr. John BRADSHAW, 3 vols. 8vo
London ["Standard Authors Series," Sonnenschein] 1892.
CHURCH, Dean R. W. [1815-90]:-essay on Montaigne, in the Oxford Essays,
1857, 8vo Oxford (Parker) 1858: 423 (nl).
CICERO, M. Tullius [B.c. 106-43]: De Divinatione libri duo: 635 (n2).
812
Index to Literary References.
COLERIDGE, Saml. Taylor [1772-1834]: Table Talk, 8vo London 1835: 468 (n).
A good edn. is that by Thos. ASHE, c. 8vo London ("Bohn's Lib.," Bell)
1888. It includes also the Omniana.
COLOMBES: L'Entrevue de Bayonne, 1565—a pamphlet reprinted from a
paper read (April 1881) at the Congrès des Sociétés Savantes held
at the Sorbonne : 536 (n2).
COMPARETTI, Prof. Domenico [b. 1835]: Virgilio nel Medio Evo, 2 vols. 8vo
Livorno (Leghorn) 1872: 531 (n2).
Out of print, and fetches about twice its pub. price, which was 12 lire 50. The
German tr. by H. DÜTSCHKE, sub. tit. Virgil im Mittelalter, 8vo Leipzig
(Teubner) 1875, is still in print.
COUSIN, Victor [1792-1868]: Études sur Pascal, 6th edition 1876: 731 (n).
741 (nl), 748 (n2), 749 (nn1, 2) 753 (n), 754 (nl), 780 (n2), 781 (nl), 787
(n), 807 (n).
Fragments Philosophiques Modernes, 8vo Brussels 1840: 523 (n2).
Histoire Générale de la Philosophie, 3 vols. 18mo Brussels 1840: 623
(n5).
The Euvres were pub. in 12 vols. 8vo Paris 1840 sqq. in 3 series: i. Cours
d'Histoire de la Philos. Moderne, 5 vols.; ii. Cours d'Hist. de la Philos. au
18e. Siècle, 3 vols. ; iii. Fragments Philosophiques, 4 vols.
CREVIER, Jean Bapt. Louis [1623–1765]: Histoire de l'Université de Paris,
7 vols, 12mo Paris 1761: 493 (n), 502 (n2), 513 (n2), 521 (n2), 525 (n3),
526 (nl), 527 (nn1, 2), 530 (n), 531 (nl), 551 (n).
Largely based on du BOULLAY's Historia Univ. Parisiensis, ut supra.
DANTE, Alighieri [1265-1321]: Il Paradiso: 694 (nnl, 2), 696 (n2), 697
(nl).
L'Inferno: 468 (n).
An excellent edition of La Divina Commedia is that edited by GIULIANI,
8vo Florence 1880.
DAREMBERG, Prof.: La Médicine : histoire et doctrines, 8vo Paris 1865: 801
(n2).
DELASSUS: Vie de Sanchez: 643.
DESCARTES, René [1596-1650]: Discours de la Méthode pour bien conduire
sa raison et chercher la vérité dans les sciences, 4° Leyden (J. Maire)
1637: 506 (n), 601 (n2).
English tr. by Prof. J. Veitch, sub tit. Method, Meditations and Selections
from the Principles of Descartes [with a histor. and crit. essay] cr. 8vo Edin-
burgh (Blackwood) 1850; 9th edn. cr. 8vo. ib. (id.) 1887.
DE THOU, Jac. Aug. [THUANUS]: vide de Thou, Jac. Aug., infra.
DEVIENNE, Dom: Eloge Historique de Michel de Montaigne, 8° Paris 1775:
423 (nl), 455 (n3).
DIDEROT, Denis [1713-84]: Lettre sur le Commerce de la Librairie in Œuvres,
ed. J. Assézat + Tourneux, 20 vols. 8vo Paris 1875-77: 562 (n2).
DRYDEN, Jno. [1631-1700]: Religio Laici, or a Layman's Faith [a poem],
4 London (Jacob Tonson) 1682: 702 (n3), 704 (n).
Reprinted in his Works, edited by Sir Walter SCOTT [1808], re-edited by Geo.
SAINTSBURY, 17 vols. 8vo Edinburgh (W. Paterson) 1882–93.
DUBOIS, L.: Récherches Archéologiques, Historiques, Biographiques et
Littéraires sur la Normandie, 8vo 1843: 504 (n3).
DU BOULAY, Cæs. Eg. [BULEUS]: vide de Boulay, Cæs. Eg., supra.
EMPEIRIKUS, Sextus: vide Sextus Empeirikus, infra.
Index to Literary References.
813
ERASMUS, Desiderius [1467-1536]: Adagiorum chiliades quattuor [1500]:
455 (n2).
The 1st edn. was pub. sub tit. Desiderii Herasmi roterodami veterum,
maximeque insignium paræmiorum, id est Adagiorum collectanea, 4to Paris
(Aug. Vinc. Caminadus) 1500; it was much enlarged in the edn. in f° Venice
(Aldus) 1508, which was printed under the supervision of the author, then living
in Venice.
ERDMANN, Dr. Joh. Ed.: Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, 2 vols.
8vo Berlin (Hertz) 1866; 2nd. edn. 2 vols. 8vo ib. (id.) 1869–70;
3rd edn. 2 vols. 8vo ib. (id.) 1878: 432 (n2).
English translation, edited by Prof. W. S. HOUGH, 3 vols. 8vo London
(Sonnenschein) 1889; 2nd edn. 3 vols. 8vo. ib. (id.) 1891; 3rd edn. 3 vols. 8vo
ib. (id.) 1892-3.
J.S. [1766-1828]
ERSCH+GRUBER, J.G. [1774-1851] [eds.] Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissen-
schaften und Künste in alphab. Folge, vols. i.—clxvii. 4to. Leipzig
(Brockhaus) 1818-89 in progress: 731 (n), 759 (nl).
ETIENNE, L.: Essai sur La Mothe-le-Vayer: 576 (nl), 586 (n2), 601 (nn1-2),
649 (n), 661 (n2), 662 (nn2,4,5,7), 665 (n2), 667 (nl), 675 (n2), 678 (nl),
684 (n2), 688 (n2), 689 (nn2-3), 690 (n3), 692 (n), 709 (n).
FEUERBACH, Ludw. A. [1804-72]: Sämmtliche Werke, 9 vols. 8vo Leipzig
(O. Wigand) 1846-57: 634 (n2).
FEUILLET DE ČONCHES [ed.]: Lettres inédits de Montaigne etc.: vide Mon-
taigne.
FLOTTES, Abbé: Études sur Pascal: 731 (n).
FRANCK, A. D. [ed.]: Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques, par une
Société de Professeurs et de Savants, 6 vols. 8vo 1844-52: 493 (n),
511 (n2), 529 (n2), 576 (n3), 713 (n2), 731 (n), 733 (nl).
FREIGIUS, Joh. Thos. [1543-83]: P. Kami Vita—in P. Kami Collectanea,
Præfationes, Epistolæ, Orationes, 8vo Marburg 1599: 508 (n2),
520 (nl), 528 (n2).
GAILLARD, Gabr. Henri [1728–1806]: Histoire de François I., 7 vols. 12mo
Paris 1766; 2nd edn. 8 vols. 12mo ib. 1769; 3rd edn. 4 vols. 8vo ib.
(Blaise); later (best edn.) 5 vols. 8vo ib. (Foucault, 1818: 493 (n),
519 (n), 529 (nl), 530 (n).
GALEN, Claudius [2 cent. B.C.]: Opera Omnia, ed. Car. G. Kuhn, 20 vols.
[with Latin transl.] 8vo Leipzig (Cnobloch) 1821-33.
Περι των Ιπποκρατους και Πλατωνος Δογματων: 507 (n).
Θεραπετ. Μεθοδου : 507 (n).
French translation by Ch. Daremberg, 2 vols. 8vo Paris (Baillière) 1854-56.
GERKRATH, Dr. L.: Franz Sanchez: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der philoso-
phischen Bewegungen im Anfange der neueren Zeit: 8vo Vienna
(Braumüller) 1860: 617 (n), 622 (nl), 626 (nnl-3), 636 (nl), 640
(n2).
GLANVIL, Rev. Jos. [1636-80]: Scepsis Scientifica, or Confest Ignorance the
Way to Science, ed. Rev. John Owen, f8vo London (Paul) 1885:
460 (n).
1s. edn. 4to London (E. Coates) 1507.
GOETHE, Joh. Wolfgang [1749-1832]: Faust [a dramatic poem]: 579 (nl).
There have been innumerable editions of this, and at least 35 English trans-
lations.
GRIMM-DIDEROT: Correspondence [1753–1790], ed. Garnier, 16 vols. 8vo
Paris 1829-31: 477 (n).
814
Index to Literary References.
GRÜN: La Vie Publique de Montaigne, 8vo Paris 1855: 423 (nl), 448 (n).
GUICHARD, V.: La Liberté de Penser: 573 (n3).
HAAG, Eug.+Emile: La France Protestante, ou Vie des Protestants Français
qui se sont fait un nom dans l'histoire, 9 vols. 8vo Paris 1856-61:
493 (n), 521 (nl), 538 (nl).
A book full of curious instructive matter, but not wholly trustworthy.
HOFMANN, S. F. G.: Lexicon Bibliographicum, 3 vols. 8vo Leipzig (Weigel)
1832-36; 2nd edn. 2 vols. 8° ib. (Böhme) 1838-39: 573 (n3).
HUET, Bp. Pierre Dan. [of Avranches]: Traité de Faiblesse : 763 (n3).
HUNT, Rev. Jno. [b. 1827]: History of Religious Thought in England [from
the Reformation to A.D. 1800], 8vo London (Isbister) 1870-73; 2nd
edn. 3 vols. 8vo ib. (id.) 1884: 605 (nl).
JANSEN, Cornelius [1585-1638]: The Reformation of the Inner Man: 745.
DE JOINVILLE, Jean, Sire [1224-1319]: Mémoires, ou Histoire et Chronique
du très-chrétien roi Saint Louis, ed. by N. de Wailly, r 8vo Paris
(Didot) 1874: 582 (n2).
The 1st edn. of the text was pub. in 4to, Poitiers (J. & E. de Marnef) 1547.
The above edn. is an extremely handsome one, with an introduction, annota-
tions, and a modern French version.
Fr.
Ant.
LABOURDERIE, Abbé: Le Christianisme de Montaigne : 423 (nl), 427–8.
LA CROIX DU MAINE + DU VERDIER Les Bibliothèques Françoises, ed.
by Rigoley de Juvigny, 6 vols. 4to Paris 1772-73: 493 (n), 524 (n2).
1st. edn. of La Croix du Maine fº Paris (Abel L'Angelier) 1584, of Du Ver-
dier, fo Lyons 1585.
DE LA FONTAINE, Jean [1621-95]: Ballades-in his Œuvres Complètes,
11 vols. and album, 8vo Paris (Hachette) 1883-93: 761 (n3).
LANCELOT, Dom Claude [c.1615-95]: Preface to Ramus' Méthode grecque:
524 (nl).
He wrote a Nouvelle Méthode pour apprendre la Langue grecque of his own,
Paris 1629, repr. Amsterdam 1729; ed. LE CLERC 1819.
LE BAS: Dictionnaire Encyclopédique: 624 (n4).
LE CLERC, Victor: Histoire littéraire de la France au Quatorzième Siècle,
avec discours sur l'état des beaux arts, par E. Renan, 2nd edn. 2
vols. 8vo Paris 1865: 502 (n2), 513 (nl), 653 (nl).
LELUT, F.: L'Amulette de Pascal, pour servir à l'histoire des Hallucinations,
8vo Paris (Baillière) 1848: 731 (n), 748 (nl), 756 (n2), 784 (n),
785 (nl).
LE-VAYER, François DE LA MOTHE [1588-1625]: Œuvres, 7 vols. 8vo
Dresden 1756–59: 649 (n), 659 (n2), 661 (n3), 662 (nn1,3,7), 664 (n2),
666 (nn1,3), 668 (n3), 669 (nn1,3), 672 (n), 682 (nl), 687 (n2),
690 (nn1,2), 700 (nl), 701 (n), 703 (nnl-4), 705 (n), 706 (n),
711 (nn2, 3), 712 (n2).
Considérations sur l'Eloquence Françoise: 689 (n4).
Discours Chrétien d'Immortalité de l'Ame: 711 (nl).
Du Peu de Certitude en l'Histoire: 685 (n2), 686 (nn1–3), 687 (nl).
Le Prose Chagrin: 682 (n4), 710 (n3).
Observations sur la Composition de Livres : 654 (n), 666 (n3).
A previous edn. of the Euvres was published in 15 vols., sm. 12mo Paris 1669.
The above five works are contained in both edns. of the Euvres, ut supra; the
three below are not.
Dialogues par Oratius Tubero, 2 vols. 12mo Frankfort (Trévoux) 1716:
601 (n2), 649 (n), 660 (nnl−2), 661 (nl), 671 (n), 673 (n), 674 (nnl-2),
Index to Literary References.
815
676 (nn1-3), 677 (nl), 678 (n2), 679 (nn1-3), 680 (nnl-2),
682 (nn2-3,6), 683 (nn1-4), 684 (nn1,3-4), 690 (nnl-2), 708 (n),
710 (n2), 711 (n1), 712 (nl).
The "collector's edition" is that in 2 vols. in 1, 4to Frankfort (Jean Sirius),
erroneously dated 1506 (? 1606). The same printer issued another edn. in
sm. 8vo 1604. A good edn. is that in sm. 12mo Mons (Paul de la Flèche) 1671.
Hexaméron Rustique: 12mo Paris (Liseux) 187-: 649 (n), 659 (nl),
682 (n4), 713 (nl).
Edited from the edn. of Paris 1670. The "collector's edition" is that in
sm. 12mo Amsterdam (Le Jeune) 1671, which ranges with the Elzevier volumes.
A similar edn. was pub. in sm. 12mo Cologne (P. Brenussen) in the same
year.
Soliloques Sceptiques, 12mo Paris (Liseux) 187–: 649 (n), 710 (n4).
Edited from the Paris edition, 1670; repr. 12mo Amsterdam 1671.
LEVEAUX, Alphonse: Étude sur les Essais de Montaigne, 8vo Paris 1870:
423 (nl).
LITTRÉ, Emile [1801-81]: Dictionnaire de la Langue Française, 4 vols. and
supplement, 4to Paris 1863–72; new edn. 4to ib. 1874–84: 582 (nnl,2),
LOBSTEIN, Paul [b. 1858]: Petrus Ramus als Theologe: ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie, 8vo Strassburg (Schmidt)
1878: 493 (n), 543 (nn1,2), 544 (nn2,3,4,5,7).
LOCKE, Jno. [1632-1704]: Essay concerning the Human Understanding:
628 (nn2,3).
First edition f London 1690 [an Epitome having been previously printed
anonymously in 1688]. A fairly good current edu. is that in cr. 8vo London
Ward & Lock, Ld.) 1876, reprinted from the edn. of 1758. The Conduct of
the Understanding has been well edited by Prof. T. FoWLER f 8vo Oxford
(Clarendon Press) 1882.
LUCRETIUS [B.C. 95-55]: De Rerum Natura libri vi., ed. with notes and
translation by H. A. J. Monro, 3 vols. 8vo London (Bell) 1864:
Fourth Edition, revised by J. Duff, 3 vols. 8vo ib. (id.) 1886;
635 (nl).
MALVEZIN: Michel de Montaigne: son origine, sa famille, etc., 8vo Bordeaux
1875: 423 (nl), 430 (nÏ), 432 (nl), 439 (n), 623 (n4).
MARLOWE, Christopher [1564-93]: Massacre at Paris, with the Death of the
Duke of Guise, 8vo London, n.d. [circ. 1594]: 502 (nl).
Contained in his Works, edited by A. H. BULLEN, 3 vols. p 8° London
(Nimmo) 88.
MAROT, Clement [? 1497-1544]: Œuvres: 438 (nl).
There were at least 60 editions of the EŒuvres in the 16th cent. (from 1538 to
1597). A good modern edn. is that ed. by P. JANNET+C. d'HÉRICAULT, 4 vols.
Svo Paris 1868-72; re-issued 4 vols. 8vo ib. 1873. A fine edn. by GUIFFREY
is now publishing in parts.
MARTIN, Henri [1810-83]: Histoire de France depuis les Temps les plus
reculés jusqu'en 1789, 17 vols. 8vo Paris (Furne) 1833-54; 4th edn.
19 vols. 8vo ib. (id.) 1855–60: 435 (n3), 495 (nl), 500 (n), 503 (nl),
504 (n3), 525 (n3), 526 (nl), 533 (n), 536 (n3), 582 (n3), 583 (n3).
MARTIN, Sir Theod. [b. 1816]: Life of the Prince Consort, 5 vols. 8vo London
(Smith & Elder) 1875-80: cheap edn. in 1 vol. 4to ib. (i.) 1882:
553, 554 (n).
Mayrangues, Alfred : Rabelais : étude sur le seizième siècle, 8vo Paris, 1868 :
517 (n2).
MENAGIUS, Ægid. [Gilles MENAGE; 1613–92]: Menagiana: ou Bon Mots,
rencontres agréables, pensées judicieuses et observations curieuses
816
Index to Literary References.
de M. Menage, 3rd edn. ed. by De La Monnoye, 4 vols. 12mo Paris
1713, reprinted 1729: 649 (n), 653 (n3), 661 (n3), 689 (n4), 713 (nl).
Originally pub. in 1 vol. 12mo sub. tit. Menagiana, sive excerpta ex ore
Egidii Menagii, Paris (Flor. & Pierre Delaulne) 1693. Second edn. ed. by
Abbé FAYDIT, 2 vols. 12mo ib. 1694. Other edns.: 4 vols. sm. 12mo
Amsterdam 1713-16, 4 vols. sm. 12mo. ib. 1762; 10 vols. 12mo Paris 1789–91.
In the Ducatiana, Paris 1738, vol. ii. pp. 221-289, are some additions to the
edn. of 1715.
MERCIER, L. Sebastien : Jean Hennuyer, Bishop of Lisieux: or the Mas-
sacre of St. Bartholomew, tr. into English c. 1772: 504 (n3).
Mercure de France: Octobre 1742: 504 (n3).
Published monthly in Paris from 1717 to 1799.
MILL, Jno. Stuart [1806-73]: Examination of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophy, 8vo London (Longman) 1865; new edn. 8vo ib. (id.) 1878:
628 (n3).
MOLIÈRE, J. B. P. [1622–73]: Œuvres, ed. Moland, ? vols., 8vo Paris:
667 (nn3-4).
Amants Magnifiques: 635 (n2).
First published in the 8th vol. of Œuvres, edn. of 1862.
L'Amour Médecin : 667 (nn2,4).
First edn. 12mo Paris (Theodore Girard) 1666.
La Malade Imaginaire: 785 (nl).
Eug;
First published in the 7th vol. (dated 1675) of the Euvres, edn. of 1674. A
previous edn., 4to Paris (Chr. Ballard 1673) contains only the Prologue and the
Interludes. A good modern edition of the Euvres of Molière is that ed.
DESPOIS+P. MESNARD, vols. i.-x. 8vo Paris ("Grands Ecrivains d. 1. France,
Hachette: to occupy c. 12 vols.) 1863-93, in prog. The best English transl.
is that by C. Heron WALL, 3 vols. cr. 8vo London ("Bohn's Lib.," Bell)
1876-77.
DE MONTAIGNE, Michel [1533-92]: Essais: reprint of the 1st edition,
Paris 1870: 423 (nl).
avec des notes de tous les commentateurs, Paris (Didot) 1838: 423
(nl), 449 (n2), 452 (n2), 699 (n).
Essays, tr. Chas. Cotton [1759], ed. Wm. Hazlitt, r 8° London (J.
Templeman) 1842: 423 (nl), 449 (nn1,2), 451 (nn2-4), 452 (nn2,3),
453 (nn1-3), 454 (nn1,3,4), 455 (nl), 456 (nn1-3), 457 (nn1,2,4),
458 (n), 459 (nnl-3), 460 (n), 462 (n), 463 (nn1,2), 465 (n3),
466 (nn1,2), 467 (n), 468 (nl), 469 (nnl,2), 470 (nn2,3), 471 (n),
485 (n).
Reprinted r 8vo ib. (id.) 1845. A better edition of COTTON's transl. is that
ed. by W. Carew HAZLITT, 3 vols. 8vo London (Reeves & Turner) 1872-77; re-
issued 3 vols. cr. 8vo ib. ("Bohn's Lib." Bell) 1893. A modern edn. of John
FLORIO'S transl. [1603], edited by Henry MORLEY was pub. in cr. 8vo London
(Routledge) 1885; new edn. 1887.
Lettres inédites de Michel Montaigne et de quelques autres personnages
du 16e siècle, ed. par Feuillet de Conches, 8vo Paris 1863; 423 (nỉ),
[trad.]: La Théologie Naturelle de Raymond Sébon, trad. par Messire
Michel Seigneur de Montaigne, Paris 1581: 423 (nl).
DE MONTESQUIEU, Chas. Secondat, Baron [1689–1755]: Lettres Persanes,
521 (n2).
Originally pub. anonymously, 2 vols. 12mo Amsterdam (P. Brunel) 1721, in
which year at least 4 different edns. were issued. English transl. by Davidson,
with memoir and notes, 2 vols. cr. 8vo London (privately printed, probably for
Nimmo), 1891.
MOREAU (de Tours): Psychologie Morbide, 8vo Paris 1859: 801 (n2).
MORERI, Louis: Grand Dictionnaire Historique, nouvelle edn., dans laquelle
on a refondu les Suppléments del' Abbé Goujet, revue par Drouet,
10 vols. f° Paris 1759: 493 (n), 649 (n).
The 20th and latest edn. The 1st edn. was pub. in 1 vol. fo Lyons 1674.
Index to Literary References.
817
MULLINGER, J. Bass: History of the University of Cambridge, 2 vols. 8vo
Cambridge (University Press) 1873-84: 503 (n2), 508 (nl), 509 (n2).
Covers the period from 1535 to the accession of Charles I.
NAUDÉ, Gabriel [1600-53]: Avis pour Dresser une Bibliothèque, 12mo Paris
(Liseux) 1876: 523 (n3), 525 (n2).
1st edition 8vo Paris 1627; reprinted 8vo ib. 1644.
Considérations Politiques sur les Coups d'Etat, 4to Rome 1639: 470
(nl).
The 1st edn.: it was really printed in Paris, not Rome as stated on title-
page. The preface says that the edn. was limited to 12 copies, but this is not
true, though probably not more than 100 were printed. Reprints in 12mo in
1667 and 1671; also sub tit. Sciences des Princes, 8vo Strassburg 1673, and
3 vols. 12mo Paris 1752, and sub tit. Réflexions sur les moyens dont les plus
grands Princes se sont servis, 12mo Leyden, 1736.
[Dialogue de Mascurat]: Jugement de tout ce qui a été imprimé contre
le Cardinal Mazarin, depuis le 6 janvier jusqu'à la Déclaration du 1
avril, 1649, 4to Paris n.d.: 663 (n3).
Naudæana et Patiniana, 2nd edn., 12mo Amsterdam 1703: 602 (n),
626 (n4).
NEWMAN, Cardinal Jno. Hy. [1801-90]: Apologia pro Vitâ suâ, 8vo London
(Longman) 1864; new edn. cr. 8vo ib. (“Silver Lib." id.) 1890: 580
(n6).
NICERON, Jean Pierre [1685-1738]: Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des
Hommes illustres dans la République des Lettres, 69 vols. 12mo Paris
1727-45: 493 (n), 509 (nl), 545 (n2).
NICHOLS, J.+W.: Life of Arminius-in their transl. of the [Latin] Works of
James Arminius, 3 vols. 8vo 1825-75: 547 (nl).
NICOLE, Pierre: Lettres, 652 (n).
NISARD, D.: Histoire de la Littérature Française, 4 vols. 18mo Brussels
1846; new edn., 4 vols. 8vo ib. 1854-61: 423 (n), 478 (n2), 559 (n),
656 (n), 665 (n2), 688 (nn 1,2), 689 (nl).
NOEL, Père: La Plein du Vide, in Lahure's edn. of Pascal's Œuvres Com-
plètes, ut infra.
Nouvelle Biographie Générale: ed. by Dr. Hoefer, 46 vols. 8vo Paris (Didot)
1855-66: 423 (n), 464 (n), 493 (n), 665 (n3), 707 (n2), 731 (n).
OMAR KHAYYAM [11 cent.]: Rubáiyát, translated by Edward Fitzgerald,
4to Boston [U.S.] 1884: 495 (n2).
1st edn. 1858. Small edn. 4to Boston [U.S.] 1886.
Ordine della solennissima Processione fatta dal Somma Pontifice nella 'alma
citta di Roma per la felicissima nova della destruttione della setta
Ugonotana: Rome 1572-reprint, ed. by Librarian of Bodleian Lib.
Oxford: 536 (113).
OWEN, Rev. Jno.: Evenings with the Skeptics, 2 vols. 8vo London (Long-
man) 1881: 423 (n2), 454 (n2), 513 (nl), 580 (n6), 698 (nl).
PARADOL, Prévost: Essais sur Pascal: 741 (n2).
PASCAL, Blaise [1623-62]: Œuvres Complètes, ed. Lahure, 2 vols. 731 (n),
743 (nnl-4), 744 (n), 761 (nl).
A very neat and compendious edition.
ed. Abbé Bossut, 5 vols. 8vo The Hague (=Paris) 1779: 734 (n).
Lettres Provinciales: 762 (n), 763 (nl), 783 (n3).
The 1st edn. was pub. sub tit. Lettres escrites à un Provincial par un de ses
amis, 4to n.p. and n.d. A good modern edn. is that of J. de SOYRES, with
intro. and notes 8vo London (Bell) 1880. English trans. by Dr. MCCRIE, 12mo
(Chatto) 1875; new edn. ib. (id.) 1888.
818
Index to Literary References.
Pensées, ed. P. Faugère, 2 vols. 8vo Paris 1844: 574 (n2), 731 (n), 749
(n2), 750 (nn1–3), 783 (nl).
Published from the MSS.-Faugère's best edn. is that contained in "Les
Grands Ecrivains," vol. i. Paris (Hachette) 1886 in progress.
ed. Ernest Havet, 2 vols. 8vo Paris 1882: 696 (nl), 711 (n3), ·
731 (n), 754 (n2), 756 (nl), 761 (n2), 763 (n2), 764 (n2), 767 (n),
771 (nn1-5), 772 (nn 1-2), 774 (nn 1-3), 775 (nn1-2), 776 (n), 777
(nn1-3), 778 (n), 780 (nn1, 3, 5), 781 (n2), 783 (nn 1-2, 4-5), 784 (n),
797 (n), 805 (n).
A new edn. was pub. in 1 vol. [pp. 699] 18° Paris (Delagrave) 1892. It is
the best working edn.
PASCAL, Étienne: Lettre au P. Noël-in Lahure's edn. of Pascal's Œuvres
Complètes, ut supra.
PATIN, Gui [1602-72]: Lettres, ed. Reveillé-Parise, 3 vols. 8vo Paris
(J. B. Baillière) 1846: 649 (n), 662 (n3), 663 (nl), 667 (nn1-2), 668
(n2).
The 1st edn. of these curious letters, which are of some value for the history
of literature and of medicine, was in 3 vols. 12mo Cologne 1692; second, 3 vols.
12mo The Hague 1707; third, 5 vols. 12mo Rotterdam 1725 [vols iv.-v. con-
taining new matter, prev. pub. in 2 vols. 8vo Amsterdam 1718].
Naudæana et Patiniana-vide Naudé, supra.
PATTISON, Rev. Mark: Life of Isaac Casaubon [1559-1614], 8vo London
(Longman) 1875; second edn. 8vo Oxford (Clarendon Press) 1892:
624 (n4).
PAUL, St.: First Epistle to the Corinthians, in the New Testament: 780 (n4).
PAYEN, Dr. J. F. [ed.]: Nouveaux Documents inédits ou peu connus sur Mon-
taigne, 8vo Paris (P. Jannet) 1850: 423 (nl), 432 (nl), 439 (n), 485
(n), 561 (nl).
Payen previously pub. Documents inédits ou peu connus sur Montaigne, 8vo
Paris (Techener) 1847, and later Documents inédits sur Montaigne, No 3, 8vo
ib. (P. Jannet) 1855.
[ed.] Recherches sur Montaigne [=Documents Inédits no. 4], 8vo Paris
(Techener) 1856: 423 (nl), 431.
PERIER, Mme. : Vie de Pascal-prefixed to Havet's edn. of Pascal's Pensées,
ut supra: 741 (n3), 747 (n), 749 (n3), 800 (n).
PLUTARCH [b. 66]: Quæ supersunt omnia Opera, Gr. et. Lat. ed. J. I. Reiske,
12 vols. 8vo Leipzig (Weidmann) 1774-82: Life of Nicias, 455 (n2);
Sympos : 465 (n).
DI POGGIO BRACCIOLINI, Gian. Franc. [1380-1459]: Facetiæ, 2 vols. 12mo
Paris (Liseux) 187–: 618 (n).
The 1st dated edn. is that sub tit. Pogii Facetiarum libri iv., sm. 4to, n.p.
or d., 1471; later f° Nüremberg (Ant. Koberger) 1472; f° ib. (Fred. Creussner)
n.d. [before 1475], etc.
PORPHYRIUS [233-c. 304]: Vita Pythagora: 578 (n5).
Contained [with De Abstinentia and Ep. ad Marcellum] in Porphyrii Tyrii
Opuscula Tria, rec. Aug. Nauck 8vo Leipzig (Teubner) 1860.
PRANTL, Dr. Karl [b. 1830]: Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, 4 vols.
8vo Leipzig (Hirzel) 1855–70: 541 (n).
PUAUX, F.: Histoire de la Réformation Française, 4 vols. sm. 8vo Paris
1859-60: 526 (nl).
RABELAIS, François [1495-1553]: Chronique Gargantuine: 441 (n).
Gargantua: 521 (n2).
Pantagruel: 522 (nl), 772 (n3).
Good edns. of Rabelais are those of Bourgaud Desmarets + E. J. B. Rathery.
2 vols. 8vo Paris 1857, new edn. 1874; P. Jannet + L. E. D. Moland, 7 vols.
Index to Literary References.
819
sm. 8vo ib. ("Bibl. Elzévir.,” Jannet), new edn. 1873; C. Marty-Laveaux, vols.
i.-iv. 8vo ib. 1870-81; Prf. A. de Montaiglon+L. Lacour, 3 vols. 8vo ib.
1868-73. English transl. in 2 vols. cr. 8vo London ("Bohn's Lib."; Bell)
1849.
RAMUS, Pierre [DE LA RAMÉE] Avertissement sur la Reformation de l'Uni-
versité au roy, 8vo Paris 1562: 502 (n2), 527.
Animadversiones in Dialecticam Aristotelis libri xx. 8vo Paris 1543 :
514; later, 8vo Lyons 1545; Paris (Matth. David) 1548; 8vo ib. (And.
Wechel) 1556.
Dialecticæ libri duo, cum commentariis G. Dounamie, 8vo London
(Redmayne) 1669: 493 (n), 514, 525 (nl) 539 (nn1-2).
1st edn. sub tit. Institutionum Dialecticarum libri tres, 8vo Paris (Jac.
Boigardus) 1543; 8vo ib. (Andr. Wechel) 1556, repr. 8vo Frankfort 1583; 4to
Cambridge 1584; 8vo London 1589; 8vo Frankfort 1591.
Scholarum Mathematicarum libri xxxi, 4° Basle (Euseb. Episcopium):
493 (n), 539 (n2).
Comment. de Rel. Christi: 526 (n2).
Remonstrance au Conseil Privé : 507 (n).
RAYMUND of Sabieude: Sacramental Scale : 580 (n6).
DE REMUSAT, Chas. Fr. Marie [1797-1875]: Abélard, 2 vols. 8vo Paris 1845:
54 (n).
La Saint Barthélemy [drama] 8vo Paris 1878: 504 (n3).
REUCHLIN, Dr. Herm.: Pascal's Leben und der Geist seiner Schriften, 8vo
Stuttgart (Cotta) 1840: 731 (n), 756 (n2).
Partly based on newly discovered documents.
Geschichte von Port Royal, 2 vols. 8vo Hamburg (Perthes) 1839–44 :
731 (n), 760 (n).
RITTER, Heinr. [1791–1869]: Geschichte der Philosophie, 12 vols. 8vo Ham-
burg (Perthes) 1829-53: 493 (n), 617 (n), 637 (nl), 639 (n3), 640 (n2).
English transl. in 4 vols. 8vo Oxford (Clarendon Press) 1838-46.
ROBERTSON, Rev. Fredk. Wm. [1816-53]: Sermons, 4 vols. cr. 8vo London
(Paul) 1856–63; new edn. 1874–79: 783 (n4).
ST. HILAIRE, J. Barthélemy: La Logique d'Aristote: 510 (nl), 541 (n).
ST. JOHN, Bayle: Montaigne the Essayist: a biography, 2 vols. cr. 8vo
London 1858: 423 (nl), 427, 432 (nnl-2), 439 (n), 441 (n), 463 (n5),
486 (n), 559 (n), 576 (n2).
SAINTE BEUVE, Chas. Aug. [1804-69]: Causeries du Lundi, 15 vols. sm.
8vo Paris 1851–62; Table Général [by G. Pierrot] n.d. [1880] vol. ii.
792 (n), 801 (nl); vol. iv. 423 (nl), 428 (n); vol. xi. 559 (n), 561 (n2),
571 (nl), 576 (n3), 582 (n2), 586 (n1), 587 (n2), 601 (nl).
Nouveaux Lundis, 13 vols. sm. 8vo Paris 1863-70: vol. ii. 423 (nl),
445 (n), 449 (nl); vol. vi. 423 (nl), 448 (n).
Port Royal, 5 vols. 8vo Paris 1840-59: 449 (nl), 464 (n), 731 (n), 745
(nn1-2), 746 (n), 748 (nl), 749 (nl), 751 (n), 756 (n2), 757 (nnl−2),
759 (n2), 761 (n2), 761 (n2), 764 (n3), 782 (n), 785 (n2), 786 (n).
SAISSET, Émile: Les Précurseurs et Disciples de Descartes, 8vo Paris 1862 :
493 (n).
Le Scepticisme (Aenesidème, Pascal, Kant), 8vo Paris: 731 (n).
SANCHEZ, Françés [b.? 1522]: Opera Medica: his juncti sunt` Tractatus
quidam Philosophici, Tolosae, Lect. 1636: 617 (n).
Tractatus Philosophici, 12mo Rotterdam 1649 : 617 (n), 640 (nl).
These Philosophical Tractates are reprinted from the above, of which they
form the Appendix, and comprise
i. Quod Nihil Scitur: 617, 623 (nn1-3), 624 (n2), 626 (nl), 627 (n2), 628
820
Index to Literary References.
(nnl, 3), 630 (nn3-5), 632 (nn3-5), 633 (nn1-4), 634 (nl), 638 (n), 639 (nl),
644 (n3).
Lyons 1581: 640 (n2).
ii. De Divinatione per Somnum ad Aristotelem: 617 (n), 626 (n4), 636 (n2).
iii. In Librum Aristotelis Physiognomicon Commentarius: 617 (n), 626 (n4).
iv. De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitæ: 617 (n), 626 (n3), 637 (nn1-2), 640
(nl).
De Anima [not pub.]: 626 (n2).
Examen Rerum [not pub.]: 626 (n2).
SCALIGER [DE LA SCALA], Jos. Justus [1540-1609]: Scaligerana Secunda
430 (n2).
v. SCHLEGEL, Friedr. [1772-1829]: Sämmtliche Werke, 10 vols. sm. 8vo
Vienna 1822-27: 804 (n).
SEXTUS EMPEIRIKUS: Opera, ex recens. Imm. Bekkeri 8vo Berlin (Reimer)
1842 653.
:
Adversus Gram.: 541 (n).
Adversus Math.: 668 (nl), 687 (n3).
SEGESSER: Ludwig Pfyffer und seine Zeit: 536 (n2).
SIDNEY, Sir Philip [1554-86]: Apologie for Poetry: 685 (nl).
1st edn. 1595. A modern edn. in Prof. Arber's Reprints c 8° 1868.
SOLDAN: La France et la Saint Barthélemy, trad. par Schmidt: 500 (n),
536 (n2).
SPENCER, Herbert [b. 1820]: Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. 8vo London
(Williams) 1855; new edn., 2 vols. 8vo ib. (id.) 1881 : 632 (n2).
STEPHENS, Henry: Apologie pour Herodote, Paris (Liseux) 187–: 463 (n2).
SWIFT, Dean Jonathan [1667-1745]: Works; with a Memoir by Thos.
Roscoe, 2 vols. London (Bohn) 1848; reprinted 1850, 1856, 1859:
688 (nl).
TAILLANDIER, Sant René: article on Montaigne, in the Revue des Deux
Mondes, vol. xx. p. 510 sqq.: 479 (n).
TALLEMENT DES REAUX, Abbé [1619-92]: Les Historiettes pour servir à
l'Histoire du 17e Siècle, publ. par Monmerqué+Tascherau, 6 vols.
8vo Paris 1833-35; par Monmerqué + P. Paris, 9 vols. 8vo ib.
(Techener) 1853-60; new edn., 6 vols. 18mo ib. (id.) 1862: 649 (n),
664 (nl), 670 (nn2, 3-4), 713 (nl), 764 (n2).
TASSONI, Alessandro: Dieci Libri di Pensieri Diversi, 4to Venice (Marc'
Ant. Brogiolo) 1636: 510 (n2).
First edn. was pub. sub tit. Varieta di Pensieri,' 4to Modena (Gio.-Maria
Verdi 1613: it contains only 9 Books. Later edns. of the 10 Books: Carpi
(Girol. Vaschieri) 1620, Venice (Brogiolo) 1627, ib. (il Barezzi) 1646.
TENNEMANN, Wilh. G. [1761-1819]: Geschichte der Philosophie, 11 vols. 8vo
Leipzig (Barth) 1798–1819: 617 (n).
Vol. xi. was pub. by A. WENDT, who in 1829 edited a new edn. of vol. i.
[Pre-Sokratic Philosophy].
THIMME, Dr. Hermann: Der Skepticismus Montaigne's, 8vo Göttingen
1875: 423 (nl), 451 (nl), 452 (nl), 463 (n3).
An Inaugural Dissertation of 29 pages.
THIRLWALL, Bishop Connop [1797–1875]: Remains, Literary and Theological,
edit. J. J. S. Perowne, 3 vols. 8vo London (Daldy) 1876–77: 573 (n3).
DE THOU, Jac. Aug. [THUANUS; 1553-1617]: Historiarum libr. cxxxviii. ab
anno 1543 ad annum 1607 [=Historia sui Temporis], cur. S. Buck-
ley, 7 vols. f° London (Thos. Carte) 1733: 535 (n).
French_transl. by Desfontaines + Lebeau + Le Mascrier + Adam + Leduc, 16
vols. 4to Paris 1734.
Index to Literary References.
821
TULLOCH, Prc. J.: Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England
in 17th Century, 5 vols. 8vo Edinburgh and London (Blackwood)
1872; Second Edition, 1874: 605 (n).
Variétés Historiques et Littéraires: 9 vols. 12mo [Bibliothèque Elzevirienne]
Paris (Jannet): 504 (nl).
DE VAUGELAS, Cl. Favre: Remarques sur la Langue Française, 4to Paris
1647; last edn., 3 vols. 12mo ib. 1738: 689 (nl).
VERGIL [B.C. 70-19]: Eneid, 531 (n2).
VIGNEULE DE MARVILLE, Bonavent. d'Argonne: Mélanges d'Histoire et de
Littérature, fourth edn. 3 vols. 12mo Paris 1725; reprinted 1740:
649 (n), 653 (n3), 670 (nl).
The First Edn. was pub. in 1 vol. 12mo Rouen (Maurry) 1699; reprinted sm.
8vo Rotterdam (Elie Yvans) 1700. Second edn. 3 vols., 12mo Paris (Besoigne
& Prudhomme) 1700-00-01. The 1725 edn. contains the numerous additions
of Abbé BANIER.
VINET, Alex. R. [1797-1847]: Études sur Pascal, sm. 8vo Paris: 731 (n).
English Translation, sub tit.' Studies on Pascal,' cr. 8vo Edinburgh, 1859.
DE VOLTAIRE, F. Arouet [1694-1778]: Dictionnaire Philosophique, 4 vols.
1764; reprinted as part of the Œuvres, 45 vols. 1768–96, 70 vols.
1784-89, 55 vols. 1792-1802, 66 vols. 1819-25, 72 vols. 1823-27, 95
vols. 1824-32, 70 vols. 1829-34, 52 vols. 1877-85 [best edn.] etc.: 521
(n2).
English Translation, sub tit. 'Philosophical Dictionary,' 6 vols. p. 8vo London
1824; reprinted, 2 vols. 8vo ib. (Truelove), n.d.
WADDINGTON, Ch.: De Petri Rami Vita, Scriptis, Philosophia, 8vo Paris
1848: 493 (n), 516 (n3), 534 (n).
Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée): sa vie, ses écrits et ses opinions, 8vo
Paris 1855: 493 (n), 500 (n), 501 (n), 502 (nl), 503 (n2), 504 (n3), 508
(n2), 513 (n2), 514 (nn2, 3), 515 (nnl, 4), 516 (nl), 517 (nl), 520 (n2),
521 (n2), 522 (n2), 523 (n1), 524 (nl), 525 (nn1, 2), 527 (nl), 528 (nl),
530 (n), 531 (nl), 532 (n), 536 (n4), 544 (n6), 547 (n3), 549 (n), 550 (n).
WERENFELS, Saml.: A Discourse on Logomachys, or Controversy about
Words so common among Learned Men, transl. from the Latin, 8vo
London 1717: 515 (n2).
A translation of De Logomachiis.
WHEWELL, Wm. [1794-1866]: Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 2 vols.
8vo Oxford (Parker) 1840: 744 (n).
The Third Edn. was issued in 4 vols., sub tit.' History of Scientific Ideas,'
2 vols., Novum Organon Renovatum,' 1 vol., and ' On the Philosophy of Dis-
covery,' 1 vol., p 8vo Oxford (Parker) 1858-60.
ZWINGLI, Ulrich [1487-1531]: Opera, ed. Melch. Schuler + Joh. Schultess,
10 vols. 8vo Zurich (Schulthess) 1829-41: 697 (n2).
VOL. II.
D D
:
1
1
(B.) INDEX TO SUBJECTS.
Academy, French: founded by Richelieu
662.
AGRIPPA, Cornelius: his Horoscopes 736;
on the Uncertainty of Medicine 668;
influence of Sextus Empeirikus on
653; Montaigne likened to 426.
ALBERTUS MAGNUS: 512.
Albigenses: crusade against 555.
AMYOT: one of the chief early native writers
of France 437; quoted by Montaigne
437.
ANDRÉ, Père: on the Jesuits 764 (n2).
ANYTUS: a fanatical assassin 536.
AQUINAS, St. Thomas 512; his conception
of Christianity 693; on Virtuous in-
fidels 702-3; quoted by Le Vayer 711.
ARIOSTO: his contemporary popularity in
Italy 436; early Study of, in France
436.
ARISTOTLE : his influence on mediæval
thought 498–9; his educational influ-
ence 437-8; replaced by Sextus
Empeirikus 671; his Organon the
'Apostles' Creed' of philosophy 506;
Peter de Celle on 512-3; Le Vayer on
703; Ramus' private investigation of
506-8, Ramus' thesis on 508-10.
'Aristotle's System': attacks on, punish-
able by death 498 (n).
Aristotelianism: growth of, in 14-16 cen-
turies 510-12.
Arles: its commercial importance before 13
century 435.
ARMINIUS: a follower of Ramus 547 (nl).
ARNAULD: condemned by the Sorbonne 758,
759; his share in Pascal's Lettres Pro-
vinciales 759 (and nl); his Necessity
of Faith 693, 707.
AUGUSTINE, St.: his 'methodized Skeptic-
ism' 454; Le Vayer on 700–1.
Avignon: its commercial importance before
13 century 435.
BABBAGE: his arithmetical machine said to
be based on Pascal's 742.
BACON, Lord: his belief in transmutation of
metals 736; likened to Ramus 508.
BALZAC: his Language 437; on the word
féliciter 689; Le Vayer's jealousy of
712-3 (and nl); his opinion of Le
Vayer 713 (nl).
BAIUS: 700; Papal bulls against 691.
BARROSIUS: a friend of Ramus 533.
BASIL, St.: on Virtuous infidels 701-2.
DE BAUTREC (ambassador): anecdote of 661.
DU BELLAY, Joachim one of the chief early
native writers of France 437; his sati-
rical poem on Ramus and Galland 522
(and n2); quoted by Montaigne 437.
BERNIER: a Free-thinker 652.
BEZA, Theodore: his treatment of Ramus
550-1; nicknamed 'Calvin ii.' and
a bigot 550.
BOCCACCIO: his influence on the Italian
language 437; Montaigne likened to
439.
BODIN: unacknowledged use of, by Charron
577.
BOILEAU: a friend of Le Vayer 667.
BORDEAUX: Charron a canon of the Church
in 569, his residence at 623; its com-
mercial importance before 13 century
435;
Jewish refugees in, in middle 16
century 622 (and n2), 623; Migrations
to and from Spain and Port. at end 14
century 440; Montaigne's grandfather
a
merchant in 431; Montaigne's
father at 439-40; Montaigne at school
at 442, a conseiller of the Parliament
at 442, elected Mayor of 446, his
government of 446-7, his residence at
623.
BOSSUET: his opinion of Pascal's Lettres
Provinciales 760 (n).
DE LA BROSSE, M.: Ramus a servant to 503.
BRUNO, Giordano: 550, 611.
CAJETAN, Cardinal: his Commentary on
Ecclesiastes 711.
Cambridge University: the home of Ram-
ism 547 (n2),
CAMPANELLA: 550, 611.
CARACCIOLI, Bishop of Treves: a convert to
Protestantism 526 (ul).
CARDAN: his demon 736; quoted by Le
Vayer 676.
CARPENTERIUS: his hostility to and assassi-
nation of Ramus 499, 500, 519, 522;
823
824
Index to Subjects.
!
elected Rector of the University of
Paris 519; patronized by Charles of
Lorraine 528; further dispute with
Ramus 528; purchases the chair of
mathematics 529; imprisoned 529;
his vengeance on Ramus 535; his
character 535-6: his joy over his as-
sassination of Ramus 536 (and n4).
DE CASTEL: a fanatical assassin 536.
CATHERINE DE' MEDICI: 524; plans the
massacre of St. Bartholomew 536
(and n2).
DE CELLE, Peter: on Aristotle 512-3.
CHANET: an enemy of Charron 587 (n2).
CHARLES IX.: his attitude towards Ramus
524; his cruelty and high-handedness
443; plans the Massacre of St. Barth-
olomew 536.
CHARLES DE BOURBON, Cardinal: 531.
CHARLES of Lorraine: patron of Ramus
518; tutor of Henri ii. 519; espouses
Ramus' cause against Carpenterius
519; his alleged Protestant leanings
525; the part he played at Colloquy
of Poissy 526 (and nl); withdraws
his patronage from Ramus 528; his
character 528; patron of Carpenterius
528; celebrates High Mass in glorifi-
cation of Massacre of St. Bartholomew
536.
CHARPENTIER-see Carpenterius.
CHARRON: Bibliography 559; his birth
and parentage 568; attends Univer-
sity of Paris 568; studies law at Or-
leans and Bourges Universities 569;
practices as advocate in Paris 569;
enters holy orders 569; made Preacher-
in-Ordinary to Queen Marguerite 569 ;
made a canon in the Church of Bor-
deaux 569; made heir to Montaigne
570; his death 570.
His view of Christianity 594–5, of the
Church 596, of Natural Theology 594-
7; an advocate of Cremation 599 ; an
Ethical reformer 581-5, his stress
upon morality 568; a popular
Preacher 562-3; his Prud' homie 582
(and n1)-7, 595, 597-8, 600; a Pyr-
rhonist 600; his Religion 588-90; a
Skeptical convert 559; his Skepticism
571-2, 579-80, 581, 593-4, 595, 596,
598-9, 604; his place in Skepticism
593-4; his Style, 564-5.
Likened to Descartes 581; compared
with Huet of Avranches 571; com-
pared with Montaigne 575-6 (and nn.
2, 3), 581, 599, 600, 607; his friend-
ship with him 561, 569-70; his in-
debtedness to him 571, 594; Mon-
taigne's influence on him 563-4, 576
(and nn. 2, 3), 577, the 'St. Paul of
Montaignism 559, an Imaginary
Conversation with Montaigne 565-
7; likened to Ochino 588 (n); to
Pomponazzi 584; to Raymund of Sa-
bieude 594-5; to Sokrates 609.
His De La Sagesse 570, epitomized
and characterized 575-80, 593–600, its
place in French literature 601-2, its
title 602, comparison between 1st and
2nd editions 585 (n), 587 (and nl), its
practical applications 590-2, its method
of education 592, placed on the Index
Expurgatorius 562. His Sermons
563. His Les Trois Vérités 565, 570,
its character and hidden skepticism,
etc. 571 (and nl)-2, its estimate of
Pyrrhonism 572-4, its style 574-5.
Chaucer Society: results of its labours 428-9.
Chivalry its generous side 436.
CHRYSOSTOM, St. John : on Virtuous infidels
701-2.
:
CICERO: Ramus' commentary on his Rhe-
toric 519; Ramus' lectures on his
Dream of Scipio 518, its position
among Humanists 518 (n).
CLAVIUS: Sanchez submits his Demonstra-
tions of Euclid to 625.
CLEMENT of Alexandria on Virtuous infidels
701-2.
Colloquy of Poissy 526 (and nl).
CONFUCIUS: Le Vayer on 703.
CORNEILLE: his Language compared with
Early-French 437; on the French
language 689; his indebtedness to
Montaigne 476.
Cremation advocated by Charron 599.
Cuth (Cuts) birthplace of Ramus 501.
CYRAN, St. on Thomas Aquinas 693.
DANTE: his contemporary popularity in
Italy 436; his influence on the Italian
language 437; early establishment of
a Dante chair at Florence University
438; early study of, in France 436;
his Christianity 693-7.
DESCARTES: his methodized Skepticism'
454, 464; Charron likened to 581;
likened to Ramus 506 (and n).
D'HOLBACH: on Human Nature 657.
DIANA of Poitiers: mistress of Henri ii.
519.
DIGBY, Sir Kenelm : his sympathetic powder
736.
DIOGENES: his tub 736; Le Vayer on 703.
DU BELLAY, Joachim: see du Bellay, Joa-
chim.
DUPLEIX: an enemy of Charron 587 (n2).
DU VAIR: unacknowledged Use of by Char-
ron 577.
Ecclesiastes: Card. Cajetan's Commentary
on 711; Le Vayer on 711.
Edict of Nantes 526-7.
Education: Early-Italian and Early-French,
compared 437-9.
EMPEIRIKUS, Sextus: his skeptical
mons' 563; replaces Aristotle 671.
EPIKOURUS: Le Vayer on 703.
ERASMUS 551; Le Vayer on 703.
HRIGENA, Scotus: 639.
ser-
Ethics in 16th and 17th centuries in France
656 (n).
Index to Subjects.
825
EYQUEM: the original family name of Mon-
taigne 431; its etymology 432.
Fashionable Dress: Le Vayer on 664.
Fencing: see Le Vayer's work on Games
662.
FERMAT, M.: Pascal's geometrical corre-
spondence with 751.
Feudalism, Early, in France 436; in Naples
436.
Fontainebleau: Ramus at 528.
FOUCHER, Simon: a Free-thinker 652.
FRANCIS ii.: his attitude towards Ramus
524.
GALLAND (Rector of Univ. of Paris): his
disputes with Ramus 519, 521-2; be-
comes a warm friend of Ramus 524.
GARASSE (Jesuit): an enemy of Charron
587 (n2).
GASSENDI: a Free-thinker 652; contributes
to diffusion of knowledge of Sextus
Empeirikus 653.
GEORGE, King: his saying apropos of Wat-
son's Apology 727.
GLANVIL: on Dogmatizing 460 (n); his
Witches 736.
GOETHE likened to Montaigne 483.
DE GOURNAY, Mlle.: a convert to Mon-
taigne's Essais 571; her edition of
them 651; adopted daughter of Mon-
taigne 652; a friend of Le Vayer 673.
Great Men: Intellectual Infirmities of 736.
GREGORY [xiii.], Pope: strikes a medal in
commemoration of Massacre of St.
Bartholomew 536; his part in thanks-
giving service in commemoration of
same 536 (n3); his bull against Baius
691.
of Rimini: on Virtuous infidels 700.
Hell, Idea of: in the Middle Ages 695-6.
HELVETIUS: on Human Nature 657.
HENNUYER, Bp. Jean: probable teacher of
Ramus 504 (and n3), 513-4.
:
HENRI ii. reverses judgment against Ra-
mus 519; appoints a new chair for
him in Collège de France 519-20; his
death 524; his useful works 524.
of Anjou [later Henri iii.]: plaus Mas-
sacre of St. Bartholomew 536.
of Navarre [iv.]: 'assists' Charron at
his sermons 569.
HERAKLES: his rôle in writings of the Stoics
698 (nl).
HIRNHAYM: on the Uncertainty of Medicine
668.
History: Definition of 495; its Unveracity
685 (and p1)-7.
HUET, Bishop of Avranches: sub-tutor to
the Dauphin 651; his mental Charac-
ter and relation to the Jesuits 762;
his credulity 736; his Skepticism and
Pyrrhonism 454, 682 (n6), 763; his
adherence to doctrine of Two-fold
Truth 763; his Death 764; his Trea-
tise on Weakness of Human Reason
767.
Huguenots their number at beginning of
Charles ix.'s reign 525 (n3).
'Inception' Exercises: pertaining to de-
gree of M.A. 509 (n2).
Index Expurgatorius: its effect on the sale
of books 562 (and n2).
INNOCENT iii.: his Crusade 434, its effect on
Troubadours and culture 435, 437, on
commerce 435.
x. his condemnation of Jansenism
758, 759.
Inquisition in Portugal 622 (n2); in Tou-
louse 625.
Italian Language: its growth and develop-
ment 437.
JANSEN on worldly learning 745.
JANUARIUS, St. : liquefaction of his blood
736.
JEANNIN: his opinion of Charron's Sagesse
651.
JEROME, St. on Virtuous infidels 701.
JESUITISM: effect of Pascal's Lettres Pro-
vinciales on 764-5; Père André on
764 (n2).
JOAN of Arc: her divine voice' 736.
JULIAN, Emperor: Le Vayer on 699, 703,
Montaigne on 699.
JUSTIN MARTYR on the Logos quoted by
Le Vayer 677; on Virtuous infidels
701-2.
LA BOETIE: 439; his friendship with Mon-
taigne 442; his death 412; his free
political aspirations and satire on
voluntary servitude' 442.
LA BRUYÈRE : his indebtedness to Montaigne
476.
LAFONTAINE on Escobar's casuistry 761.
LA MOTHE-LE-VAYER: see Le Vayer, La
Mothe.
LAROCHEFOUCAULD: see la Rochefoucauld.
LA ROCHE MAILLET: a friend of Charron
569.
LAMBRICUS: fellow-professor with Ramus
529, 533; his grief at murder and
abuse of body of Ramus 535; his
death 535.
LESAGE, Nicolas: Principal of College of
Presles 518; his lawsuit with Ramus
518.
LESSING: on Luther's defects 735; likened
to Montaigne 483.
LE VAYER, La Mothe: Bibliography 649;
his name 650-1; his birth and parent-
age 659, youth 659, 670-3, legal studies
659, 661, philosophical conversion 655,
659-61, distaste for law 661, travels
in Europe 661, in England 662 ; elected
to the Academy 662-3; marriage 663;
effect of his son's death on him 663,
667, 668, 669; appointed tutor to
Duke of Anjou 651, 663, 665 (nl);
his retirement from Court 664, 666,
826
Index to Subjects.
his experience of Court life 663-4, 665
(nl), 666; his re-marriage at age of
seventy-eight 669; his old age 669;
his death 669, 675.
His character and characteristics
669-70; his Ataraxia and Metriopa-
theia 668, 682 (n6), 710, 711; accused
of Atheism 665 (and nl); his Chris-
tianity 655-8, 673-4, 676, 677-8; his
Classical attainments 653-4, 674; his
Erudition 666, 687; his Ethics 678–9;
his Geographical tastes, inferences
and quotations 674-5, 678-81, 713;
his Historical references and quota-
tions 685-7, 706; on historical un-
veracity 685-7: on Emperor Julian
699; on Linguistic purity 689-91;
his Love of books 666-7, 669; on
Medicine 668-9; his study of modern
(esp. French) Philology 687-91; his
Modesty 665-6; his Philosophical
creed 684; his place among French
Philosophers 649-50; his Pyrrhonism
704, 707, 710, 718; his Quotations
from ancient authors 672 (and n); on
Reason 683; his Skepticism 665 (and
n1), 668, 673-5, 677-9, 681-3, 687, 688,
689, 690, 704-5; his Style 654-5, 712;
his Tolerance 691, 708, 713, 721–7.
Likened to Agrippa 682; likened to
Balzac 663, his jealousy of Balzac
712-3 (and nl); likened to Bayle 683;
to Bruno 673; compared with Char-
ron 653, 654-5, 656, 671, 673-4, 677,
682, 708; to Dante 694; to Descartes
654, 671, 713; to Hobbes 677; to
Huet of Avranches 682; compared
with Huet 683, 710; likened to Ma-
chiavelli 677; compared with Mon-
taigne 653, 654, 670, 682, 683, 684,
712; likened to Ockam 682; compared
with Pascal 683, 710; likened to Pom-
ponazzi 677, 682; to Rabelais 671; to
Ramus 671, compared with Ramus
666; his relation to Sextus Empeiri-
kus 674, 685, a disciple of Sextus and
Sokrates 652-3; likened to Vanini
673; contrasted with Zwingli 705.
His Dialogues of Orasius Tubero
662, 665,670-84, their date 662 (and
n2), his most important work 662; his
Discourse of Music 687; his works on
Etymology 664-5; his treatise on
Games 662; his Geography of the
Prince 675; his Hexaméron Rustique
670; his Instruction of the Prince
661, 663, 699; his Le Prose Chagrin
668-9; his Miscellaneous works 670,
684-91; his Virtue of the Heathen
657-8, 670, 691-709, 721-7.
'Liberal Arts,' The: 504 (n 2).
LIPSIUS, Justus: unacknowledged use of by
Charron 577.
Literary Antiquarianism: its value 429, 431.
LOMBARD, Peter: 512.
LUTHER, Martin: Montaigne's repugnance
to 457, 458; compared with Zwingli,
697.
MARGUERITE, Queen: makes Charron her
Preacher-in-Ordinary 569.
MAROT, Clément : one of the chief early
native writers of France 437; Beza's
cruel treatment of 550; quoted by
Montaigne 437.
MARPHURIUS the Pyrrhonist (Molière): 671,
718.
:
Marseilles its commercial importance be-
fore 13 century 435.
Massacre of St. Bartholomew: planned by
Charles IX., Henri of Anjou and
Catherine de' Medici 536 (and n2);
Ramus assassinated in 533-4; a last-
ing testimony to evil effects of exces-
sive dogmatism and intolerance 556.
MAZARIN, Cardinal: 663.
Mediæval dogmatism: 497-8.
MELANCHTHON, Philip: 551.
MELETOS: a fanatical assassin 536.
MERSENNE: his statement as to skeptics
652.
DE MEZIRIAC, M.: an early member of the
French Academy 662.
MILL, John Stuart: 681, 717-8.
MITON, M.: a friend of Pascal 755.
MOCENIGO: a fanatical assassin 536.
MOLIÈRE: 657; his language compared with
Early-French 437; on
on Linguistic
purity 689; his letter to Le Vayer on
death of his son 667; his indebted-
ness to Montaigne 476; his L'Amour
Forcé 718-21.
DE MONTAIGNE, Michel: Bibliography 423;
his family, family-name, and ances-
tors 430-1, 439-40; his birth and early
training 440-1; his mother's influence
on him 440; sent to school at Bor-
deaux 442; his legal education 442
;
his distaste for and opinion of juris-
prudence 442-3; employed as mem-
ber of Court of Aides in Perigord
442; his retirement from public func-
tions at age of thirty-seven 443;
his possible motive for same 443;
his attendance at Court 443; made
Chevalier of Order of St. Michael
443; translated Raymund of Sa-
bieude's Natural Theology 427, 443,
its effect on him 443, 463, 472, its
character 443-4, its influence on his
Essais 444; his travels in Germany,
Switzerland and Italy 445, 446; at
Rome 446, 471; elected Mayor of
Bordeaux 446; his government of
Bordeaux 446-7; his pious death 447,
489
His Ataraxia 432-3; his Character
424-5, 445; his Christianity 427-8,
445-6, 447, 472-3, 489, 490; his pil-
grimage to Loretto 472; his kissing
the pope's toe 736; his view of
Christianity 456, 470-1, 472; his
Correspondence with Henri of Na-
varre 440, 447, 490; a Coward 488-9;
his avowal of Credulity 461-2; his
Cynicism 462-3; his Desultory read-
Index to Subjects.
827
ing 444-5, 448; his love of Diversity
456-7; his Dualism 471; his opinion.
of the Ecclesiastical profession of his
time 471; his opposition to mediæval
Ecclesiasticism 426; his view of Edu-
cation 468 (and n); his Egoism 445;
an Epicurean 461, 467; his Ethical
weakness and laxity of living 471, 472,
486; his confessions of Fickleness and
incertitude 460-1; his Free-thought
440, 441, 467-8; love of Freedom and
tolerance 443, 445, 481; services to
Free-thought 476, 479; his Garrulity
425-6; his Geniality 441; his Humour
462-3; his view of Immortality 465;
his intellectual Independence 440
his Instability 480-2; his Magnani-
mity 445; on the uncertainty of
Medicine 668; his deficient Memory
444; his view of Miracles 465-6; a
Monarchist 442; the parent of French
;
Moralists' 476; his views of Na-
ture 468 (and n)-9, 472; a Nomin-
alist 457-8; an Obscurantist 488: a
Pagan 482, 490: his leaning to Pro-
testantism 440; his Pyrrhonism 459
(n), 464-5, 479, 482; his account of
Pyrrhonism 446, 463-4; his Quota-
tions (unacknowledged) 437, 474, 475,
672, from Agrippa 475, from Plutarch
465, from Sextus Empeirikus 475; on
Reason 452-5; his Religion 469-70,
472, 490; his estimation of Religious
observances 445; the chief represent-
ative of the French Renaissance 439
his connection with the Italian Re-
naissance 441; his dislike of Scholas-
ticism 444; on the Senses 451-2; his
Skepticism 424 sqq., 444, 451-66,
481-2, 496, 487, divorced from genu-
ine research 488; his Skeptical
mons' 563; his admission of his
Skepticism 463-4: his Stoicism 432-
3, 489; his admiration for the Stoics
473; his Style 477-8; his love of
Toleration 443, 445, 467, 481; his
Vanity 426, 431-2.
;
ser-
Likened to Agrippa 426, to Boc-
caccio 439; contrasted with Bruno
468, with Campanella 468; his friend-
ship with Catherine de' Medici 486;
his friendship with Charron 470, 569–
70, makes Charron his heir 570, com-
pared with Charron 575-6 (and nn 2,
3), likened to Charron 470, 'Ima-
ginary Conversation' with Charron
565-7; Charron's indebtedness to
him; v. Charron; his ridicule of Ga-
lileo 488; likened to Goethe 483, to
Hume 466; his vindication of Em-
peror Julian 446, 470-1, 699; his
friendship with La Boëtie 442, 467;
his treatment of him 486; likened to
Lessing 483; his opinion of Luther
457, 458; likened to Machiavelli 473;
to Petrarch 439; to Pomponazzi 426;
compared with Ramus 544-5; his
relation to Raymund of Sabieude
423-4, his vindication of him 450,
463;
influence of Sextus Empeirikus
on 653, likened to Sextus 478;
likened to Sokrates 424, 432, 460,
Sokrates quoted by 458; likened to
Thales 427; contrasted with Vanini
468.
His Common-place books 444–5; his
Diary of his travels 445, its value as
a guide to his character 445; his
Essais: their character 424; the first
really popular work in France 436;
the high water-mark of French Re-
naissance Free-Thought 479; their
Incongruities 449; their Method 450;
their protest against modern Miracles
450; their Position in French liter-
ature and in free-thought 474; their
first Reception in Rome and the
Council of the Index 446; the first
product of the French Renaissance
433-4; a Reflex of the Renaissance
447, of the mind of the author 448-9;
a barometer of French Skepticism 475
-6; their influence on French Style
and diction 477; their unavowed
object Toleration 467. Likened to
Plato's Dialogues 424. Charron's
Sagesse a reconstruction of 476; Le
Vayer's unacknowledged borrowings
from 476.
'Montaignologists': results of their la-
bours 428-32.
DE MONTAIGNE, Pierre Eyquem: his char-
acter, culture, etc. 431, 439-41; his
visits to Italy 439; Conseiller of
Parliament of Bordeaux 439 ; a
Monarchist 442; his susceptibility to
new ideas 442; his theory of educa-
tion 441.
MONTLUC, Bishop of Valence : his Protes-
tant leanings 525, 533; asks Ramus
to accompany him to Poland 533.
Montpellier: Sanchez Professor of Medi-
cine at 624.
Naples: early Feudalism in 436.
Narbonne its commercial Importance be-
fore 13th century 435.
NAUDÉ, Gabriel: Librarian to Cardinal
Mazarin 652; a Free-thinker 652; his
defence of Massacre of St. Bartholo-
mew 470 (n).
NOEL, Père: on the idea of a vacuum 743.
NICOLE his share in Pascal's Lettres
Provinciales 759 (and n 1).
OCHINO, Bernardino : a free-thinking Pro-
testant 561-2.
Paganism the atmosphere of the Renais-
sance 482.
PANCRATIUS, the Peripatetic (Molière):
671.
PASCAL, Blaise : Bibliography 731; his birth
and parentage 741; his family's con-
828
Index to Subjects.
version to Jansenism 744-6; his
nervous illness 746-7; his removal
to Paris and its effect on him 747-8;
his first contact with the Jesuits 743,
with Port Royal 747; his gay life in
Paris 748-50, 755; his alleged im-
morality 748-50; carriage accident
in Paris and its effect on him 755-6;
his later asceticism 749 (n3); his
return to Jansenism and Port Royal
757-8; his death 763, 786.
His Amulet 735, 736, 756 (and n2);
his Arithmetical machine 742; his
Character 731-40, 741, 787-8, 794-7;
his Christianity 782-4, 786, his view
of Christianity 797-8, 800, his
place in history of Christianity 740;
his mental Disease 784-786 (and
n), 800 (and n)-3; his Dissipation
733 (and n); on God 779-80; his
alleged Hallucination 756 (and n2)
-7; bis adoration of the Holy Thorn
735, 736, 756 (and n2), 769; on
Imagination 772-3; his Jansenism
807, influence of Jansenism on him
784; his place as a Littérateur 740;
on Man 773-5; his Mathematical and
skeptical precocity 741; on Le Moi
775-6; on Nature 751, 777-8, 805;
his place in Philosophy 740; on Pro-
bability 763 (and nnl, 2); his Pro-
fession of faith 783 (n); his Pyrrhon-
ism 763, 770, 776-86, 805-8; his
Pseudonyms 754 (n2); on Reason
771-3, 778-9, 803-4; his Skepticism
741, 763, 769-86, 787, 788-91; his
investigations into Torricelli's vacuum
742, 743-4; an adherent of Twofold
Truth 763, 789.
Compared with Arnauld 777,
likened to him 750; likened to Hirn-
haym 790; compared with Huet of
Avranches 762-4; his first acquaint-
ance with Montaigne's Essais and
their effect on him 751-4, 770, 771,
775, 780; compared with Montaigne
736, 738, 761, 771, likened to him
752-3, 773; his opinion of Mon-
taigne's Essais 481; compared with
Nicole 777, likened to him 750; com-
pared with Paley 806; likened to
Rousseau 751; to Sokrates 762, to
Blanco White 736.
His work on Conics 742; his De
l'Art de Persuader 750-1; his De
l'Esprit Géometrique 750-1; his
Discourse on the Passion of Love
800; his Mystery of Jesus 800; his
Lettres Provinciales: effect of his
Parisian life on 755; their first publi-
cation and effect 758, 764; their
character and style 758-61, 767-9;
their object 769; their success 764;
their effect likened to that of Molière's
Tartuffe 765; their moral effect 765-7;
his Pensées: 740-1, 759; 'cooked
editions of 734 (and n), 741; effect
of his Parisian life on 755; the
original MS. in Bibl. Nat. 768;
likened to Descartes' Discourse on
Method 767, to Huet's Weakness of
Human Reason 767, to Montaigne's
Essais 757; his Treatise on the
Vacuum 750.
PASCAL, Etienne father of Blaise Pascal
741, 742, 743, 744, 747, 748, 756 (nl).
PAUL, St. Le Vayer on 711.
:
Peace of Amboise: 528.
PEISISTRATUS: his grasshopper 736.
PERIER, Mme. : sister of Pascal 741-2, 748,
749 (n3).
:
Monsr. brother-in-law of Pascal
744.
Perigord: Montaigne at 442.
PETRARCA: contemporary popularity of bis
sonnets in Italy 436; early study of
in France 436; his influence on the
Italian language 437; his satires on
educational systems 437-8; Mon-
taigne likened to 439.
Presles, College of: 518.
Pius V. his bull against Baius 691.
PLATO: Montaigne's Essais likened to his
Dialogues 424; Le Vayer on 703.
PLINY quoted by Le Vayer 675.
POLO, Marco: quoted by Le Vayer 675.
POMPONAZZI: Montaigne likened to 426.
PRESTER, John: fable, seriously quoted by
Le Vayer 675.
Protestantism: origin of its numerous sects
551-3.
Prud'homie (integrity) :—see Charron.
PYRRHON: Le Vayer on 703 (and n3), 704.
PYTHAGORAS: Le Vayer on 703.
'QUERY, Monsr.': 619-20.
QUINTILIAN: Ramus' commentary on 519.
RABELAIS: his attitude towards Ramus
522; on the Uncertainty of Medicine
668.
RACINE: his language compared with Early-
French 437; his indebtedness to
Montaigne 476.
RAMUS, Pierre: His parentage 501-2; his
poverty and noble descent 501-2; his
fearless avowal of his humble origin
502 (n); his youthful years 502-4;
his early studies 503-4; his attack of
ophthalmia 504; his philosophical
conversion 505; his private investiga-
tion of Aristotle 506-8; his Master
of Arts thesis 508-10; commences
teaching 513-4; publishes his Dia-
lectica Partitiones and Aristotelicæ
Animadversiones 514; lectures at
College of Presles 518; lawsuit with
Lesage 518; Henri ii. reverses judg-
ment against his books 519; he re-
edits the works condemned by Francis
i. 519; publishes commentaries on
Cicero's Rhetoric, Quintilian, etc.
519; new chair made for him at
Collège de France 519-20; his open-
Index to Subjects.
829
ing lecture 520; his contest as to
Latin pronunciation and spelling 521,
as to rhetoric 521-2; disputes with
Carpenterius and Turnebus 522;
revised editions of his Institutes of
Logic and his Treatise on Logic 523,
his Treatise on Logic his chief merit
523 (n2); introduces mathematical
teaching into Paris University 523;
his study of mathematics 523; his
mathematical lectures 523; his success
in representing the University in de-
putation to the court of Charles ix.
524; his advocacy of gratuitous edu-
cation for poor scholars 527-8; quits
Paris 528; returns to Paris 528;
lectures on Aristotle and mathematics
528; refuses chair at Bologna 528;
loses patronage of Charles of Lor-
raine 528; further dispute with
Carpenterius 528-9; attempts made
to assassinate him 529, 534 (nl); his
flight to the Huguenot camp 529; his
return to Paris 530; his tour through
Switzerland and Germany 530; his
will 530 (and n); his compulsory
retirement from his University chairs
531; allowed to call himself Presi-
dent of the Univ. of Paris 531;
appeals to Cardinal Charles de Bour-
bon 531; asked to accompany Bishop
Montluc to Poland 533; murdered in
Massacre of St. Bartholomew 496,
499-500, 533-4; his body dragged
through Paris, hacked to pieces, and
thrown into the Seine 535.
His Character 537-8, historical
portrait of him 496, Haag's portrait
of him 538, Waddington's portrait of
him 537-8; his Anti-clericalism 527;
his reaction againt Aristotelian dog-
matism 497, his Christianity 542-3,
544, 546; his view of Church govern-
ment 532; his Fame 537; his
Humanism 541-3: a Huguenot 499,
not a political Huguenot 532; as a
Logician 541 (n); an unavowed
Protestant 525-6, an avowed Protes-
tant 526 (and n2), 532, 544 (and al);
his Religious belief 524-5; his stress
on Rhetoric 438-9; hostility to and
reformer of Scholasticism 497, 539-
40; his Skepticism, 497, 539 - 40,
545; his Theology 541, 543-5; his
projects of University Reform 502
(n2), his attempt at same 527.
Likened to Bacon 508, 540; enjoyed
the protection of Catherine de' Medici
499-500; likened to Descartes 506
(and n), 540; compared with Mon-
taigne 544-5, likened to him 543;
likened to Petrarca 512-3; a follower
of Sokrates 539, compared with him
536; likened to Zwingli 543.
His work on Arithmetic 523; his
Aristotelica Animadversiones: its
publication 514, its object and spirit
VOL. II.
514-5, the panic provoked by it 515
(and n2), Royal Commission on it
515 (and n2), its suppression 516
(and nl); his Dialectica Parti-
tiones: its publication 514, its dedi-
cation to the King 515, its suppression
516 (and nl); his Greek Grammar
524; his Latin and French Grammars
524 (nl).
'Ramist Consonants' (j and r in Latin) :
521 (n2).
PYMUND of Sabieude: Montaigne's rela-
tion to 423-4; Montaigne's transla-
tion of his Natural Theology 427,
443, its character 443-4, its effect on
Montaigne 443, on his Essais 444.
Pierre Montaigne's approval of 439.
Renaissance in France: compared with that
of Italy 433-4, 435, 437; influence
of Crusade by Innocent iii. on 434;
its relation to Scholasticism 438.
in Italy: the first to throw off the
Scholastic yoke 437-9.
Rheims Le Vayer at 663.
RICHELIEU, Cardinal: his partiality for
Montaigne's Essais 651; patron of
Le Vayer 661-2, 663, 691.
LA ROCHE FOUCAULD: Montluc's hint to 533;
his indebtedness to Montaigne 476;
his Maxims a satire on Christianity
657.
RONSARD: one of the chief early native
writers of France 437, quoted by
Montaigne 437.
ROUSSEAU: his indebtedness to Montaigne
476-7; on Human Nature 657.
ST. JOHN, BAYLE: on Montaigne 460.
Sale of books increased by ecclesiastical
prohibition 707.
DE SALIGNAC an early enemy of Ramus
524; a friend of Ramus, and proposes
to erect a statue to him 524.
SANCHEZ,
Antonio: father of Francis
Sanchez 622.
Francis Bibliography 617; Chrono-
logy of his life 643-4; a teacher in
university of Toulouse 618; his birth
and parentage 622; his precocity 623;
his philosophical conversion 623; his
early travels in Italy 624; Professor
of Medicine at Montpellier 624, 643;
his removal to Toulouse 624-5, 643;
his latter years 625.
his
On Divination by Dreams 636; his
conception of God 639-40; as a
Natural philosopher and psychologist
625, 626-30, 631, 636-7, 638-9; his
Nominalism 627, 630-3; not a Pyrr-
honist 627, his tendency towards
Pyrrhonism 632, 637, 641;
Religious opinions 637-40, 641; his
hostility towards Scholasticism 626,
630-4; his Skepticism 626, 627, 638;
an adherent of Twofold Truth 637-8.
On Aristotle's Logic 631; likened
to Bacon 627, 631 (and nl), 636, 642;
E E
830
Index to Subjects.
to Bayle 625; to Bruno 639, con-
trasted with him 643, 644; on Cam-
panella 636; on Cardan 636: likened
to Descartes 627, 631, 641; to
Hobbes 631; compared with Locke
628; with Montaigne 624, likened to
him 630, 631, 636, 644; to Ockam
628-9, 632 (nl); to Pomponazzi 637;
a follower of Ramus 547 (nl); com-
pared with Raymund of Sabieude
618, likened to him 639-40; on
Sokrates 632; likened to Spinoza
639.
His poem on the Comet of 1577,
625-6, 644-6, its purpose 634, its
characteristics 634-6; his De Divina-
tione 626 (n4); his De Longitudine
et Brevitate Vita 626 (n3), 637 (n2);
his Demonstrations of Euclid 625;
his Examen Rerum and De Anima
626 (n2); his In Librum Aristot.
Physiognom. Comen. 626 (n3); his
Quod nihil Scitur 624, 640 (n2); its
purpose 626; its title 636.
SCALIGER: on Vives, 628.
Scholasticism in relation to the Italian
Renaissance 437-9, to the French
Renaissance 438.
Seneca Unacknowledged
:
use of, by
Charron 577; Le Vayer on 703.
SEYSSEL, Archbishop: on Virtuous infidels
702 (n2).
Shakespeare Society: result of its labours
428-9.
SINGLIER: his influence on Pascal 747, 748,
757, 770.
SIRMOND, Père: his advice to Le Vayer as
to publishing 662 (n3).
P. Ant. (nephew of above): 691 (and
n); his Defence of Virtue 707.
SOKRATES: his demon 736; Le Vayer on
703-4.
SORBIÈRE: a Free-thinker 652.
STEPHEN, Henry: his Latin translation of
Sextus Empeirikus [1562] 653; Beza's
treatment of 550.
Style: 564-5.
TALON, Omer: a friend of Ramus and
lecturer with him 518.
TASSO his contemporary popularity in
Italy 436; early study of, in France
436.
THALES: Montaigne likened to 427.
THIMME, Herr: his theory of Montaigne's
Skepticism 452 (n).
TORRICELLI: his Vacuum, etc. 742, 743.
Toulouse: its commercial Importance be-
fore 13 century 435; Inquisition in
625; a centre of bigotry in beginning
of 17 century 637, 642; Montaigne's
probable legal studies in 442; Sanchez
settles in 624-5, a teacher at the
University 618.
Troubadours: purveyors of Free-thought
434; influence of Crusade against,
on 434-5; division into orders 436.
Transubstantiation: in the Roman Church
618 (n).
TURNEBUS: his attack on Ramus 522.
Universities, Early-French: their conserva-
tism 438.
Early-Italian: their progressiveness
438-9.
University Reform: Ramus projects of 502
(n2), his attempt at 527.
Students hardships of, in 16 century
504 (nl).
VALLA, Laurentius: his Logic 541 (n).
VANINI: compared with Sokrates 550; his
view of Nature 611.
VIVES: Scaliger on 628.
WATSON: his Apology 727.
ZENO: Le Vayer on 703.
ZWINGLI: 551; his Christianity 697-8.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION
OF
"THE SKEPTICS
OF THE
ITALIAN RENAISSANCE"
BY JOHN OWEN,
RECTOR OF EAST ANSTEY, DULVERTON.
8vo, pp. 480, 10s. 6d. ($3*50.)
LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO.
"A great deal of light has been thrown on the causes of the
Renaissance and its distinctive characteristics in this very
learned and well-written book."-Westminster Review.
Every page overflows with evidence of varied and genuine
learning. An immense amount of information is conveyed in a
readable and entertaining form. The style is never dull and
often eloquent or witty. There is abundance of apposite quota-
tions and striking illustration."-Guardian.
“The Italian Renaissance is conceived quite clearly as a
movement of emancipation in thought, essentially unique, but long
prepared for beneath the surface of mediæval life. Founded on
study both of the thinkers themselves and those who have written
on them."-Athenæum.
"To commend the scholarship or candour of Mr. Owen is
superfluous. . . . Is unique in English literature: a really well-
ordered and harmonious history of Italian thought from the
thirteenth to the seventeenth century. Mr. Owen might well
have styled his book 'A History of Rationalism' or even of
'Thought'."-Academy.
2
An able and even a remarkable contribution to the history
of philosophical thought. It is based on adequate scholarship
and sturdy mental independence. There are graphical and
critical estimates of much discernment, as well as enough high
thinking along other lines, to give the book a deserved vogue in
thoughtful circles.”—Speaker.
"It is singularly attractive, alike for its subject matter and
for the liberality of its treatment of opinions, which are far
removed from the standard of orthodoxy usually in favour with
clergy of the Church of England."—Literary World.
"This is a good book. It is perfectly clear and candid, though
it is deeply learned, and to our knowledge there is nothing else
quite like it. A clear yet profound study of the mental
tendencies of those men from whom modern thought, with all its
conquests or limitations, has arisen,"-Pall Mall Gazette.
"This defect allowed for, it is nothing less than admirable, so
thorough is the writer's acquaintance with his subject, so fresh
his treatment, so vigorous his style."-Westminster Gazette.
"Not only is a wide and minute acquaintance with the
subject displayed, but there is much profound thinking and an
acute and vigorous criticism. The work stimulates thought as
well as imparts instruction.
•
Is enriched with an excellent
and elaborate index to literary references as well as an index of
subjects."-Scotsman.
"There are few students of the Renaissance who will not
find their knowledge increased and their interest intensified, by
a perusal of the book. The volume is admirably published."-
Freeman's Journal.
UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE.
"SKEPTICS OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE."
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
[In Oct., 1893.


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