The Enlightenment in France

Frederick B. Artz

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781612778808
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de la France

This is an introduction to the principle writers of the Enlightenment in Eighteenth Century France. French thinkers of this century made a long series of devastating attacks on old ideas, usages, and institutions that had been handed down from the past. And, at the same time, these thinkers proposed a series of thorough-going reforms in social, economic, political, religious, and educational ideas and institutions.France was the center of the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, but there were important thinkers that belonged to the movement in other countries, such as Vico and Beccaria in Italy; Lessing, Herder, and Kant in Germany; and Hume, Adam Smith, and Bentham in Britain. France, though, took the lead, and, outside of France, there were no thinkers of quite the influence of the French writers, Voltaire and Rousseau.The whole climate of opinion was changed in France and the rest of Western Europe by these publicists and propagandists, or as they were commonly called, the Philosophes. The Eighteenth Century in France began with certain currents of opinion in the ascendency, namely, divine right and absolute monarchy, uniformity of religious opinion (Gallicanism in France), a controlled economy (Mercantilism), and Classicism in art and literature. And the Eighteenth Century ended with a widespread belief in some form of representative and Liberal government, with the idea that religion is an individual matter, with Laissez-faire economics, and with growing Romanticism in the arts. This change of opinion was largely due to the Philosophes. Napoleon once said that "cannons destroyed the feudal order but ink destroyed the old monarchy." That is too simple an explanation. The French Revolution was actually the result of both: abuses of all kinds in the political, economic, and social order of the Old Regime and propaganda for all types of change. In spite of the excesses of the French Revolution and the Conservative reaction that followed it, the Philosophes' ideas of Liberalism and democracy went on to mold much of the thinking and institutions of the Western World.

1

THE PRECURSORS
OF THE PHILOSOPHES

1. The More Remote Precursors

The writers of every age, if they pay any attention to the past, are given to choosing from earlier authors those whose views are sympathetic with their own. So we see the Philosophes ranging over the past, and praising writers who in some degree had ideas similar to their own, and borrowing freely from these authors.

Most of the thinkers of the Eighteenth Century were early trained in the Greek and Latin classics which were still the basis of education, and the classics, either in the original languages or in translation, with their generally worldly attitudes were used as examples of more reasonable ways of thinking than those set up by Christianity. The common attitude of Eighteenth Century intellectuals toward antiquity was one of admiration, but they usually opposed a mere antiquarianism, and held that modern man should imitate only what was worth imitating.

An important background for the Philosophes, as for Karl Marx later, was furnished by the ethics and some of the general attitudes of Christianity. One could never imagine the Enlightenment appearing in Asia or Africa. The Christianity against which the Philosophes revolted was ever present in their minds, and some critics have regarded the Philosophes as “Christians in secular dress.” And despite their criticism of Scholasticism, they owed something to Scholastics like Aquinas who had emphasized the value of reason inside Christian theology.

The knowledge of ancient civilization possessed by the Eighteenth Century was often incomplete and inadequate. Archeology, philology, anthropology, economics, sociology, and psychology were only in their beginnings. Pre-history and ancient civilizations before Greece were very imperfectly known. Most of the Philosophes had received a more thorough training in Latin than in Greek, and though Rousseau admired Plato, especially the Republic, the most quoted of ancient writers were Cicero and Lucretius. Cicero (d. 43 B.C.) was admired for his down-to-earth ethics as set forth in the Concerning Duties, his critical attitude toward traditional Roman religion, his belief in the essential equality of all men, his exaltation of law, and his faith in human brotherhood. Lucretius (d. 50 B.C.) was praised for his materialism,—his belief that all man could know is matter, and that all matter is made up of atoms and a void,—and some admired Lucretius for his atheism. Many other classical writers were quoted to prove one point or another.

The Eighteenth Century knowledge of the Middle Ages was woefully inadequate. Liberal Philosophes did know about the critical attitudes of Abelard, Roger Bacon, and the Emperor Frederick II. But they did not know about the worldly ideas of the Goliardic Latin poets and of the vernacular lyrics and chivalric romances of the troubadours, trouvères, and minnesingers. Accurate knowledge of what the Middle Ages were really like did not come till after 1800.

The Philosophes admired the worldliness of the Humanists of the Renaissance—especially of the Italian Humanists. They praised the Humanists’ use of the classics, their detachment from myth, their praise of a life of action, their tendency to prefer ethics to metaphysics, their general worldliness, and their hard-headed eclecticism. And the Humanists prepared men to read Christian documents with skeptical detachment. From the early Protestant polemicists, the Philosophes borrowed the arguments of Luther and Calvin in their attacks on the papacy and many of the practices of Roman Catholicism. For the later Luther, after he came narrowly to define his new faith, and for much of Calvin’s theology the Philosophes showed nothing but raillery and disgust.

Among the vernacular writers of the Renaissance, the Philosophes praised Rabelais (d. 1553) for his robust and wholehearted acceptance of the joy of life, and his revolt against the asceticism, Scholasticism, and superstition of the Middle Ages. But the most admired vernacular writers of the Renaissance were Machiavelli and Montaigne. The Philosophes admired Machiavelli (d. 1527) because he was the first modern writer to consider politics apart from Scholasticism and apart from any other metaphysical system. As Francis Bacon said, “We are beholden to Machiavel who openly and unmasked declared what men do in fact and not what they ought to do.” It was Machiavelli’s Prince that was especially admired, though Rousseau and Diderot preferred the Discourses on Livy with their defense of republicanism. Some found in the Prince what seemed a scientific description of political facts where, without considering theology or moral philosophy, the author described what made governments strong and weak.

Montaigne (d. 1592), though he remained a Catholic for political reasons, was a perfect skeptic, who during the religious wars in France, was contemptuous of both Catholics and Protestants. Montaigne’s skepticism came partly from disgust at the quarrels of Catholics and Protestants and their mutual brutalities, partly from admiration for experimental science which was discovering a great new source of truth independent of revelation, and finally from the tales of travellers who found religions and cultures older than that of the Christians and more to be admired. His thought led to a tolerant skepticism wherein Montaigne was sure of nothing, though his thought was in nowise constructive. The Philosophes cherished Montaigne’s informality, his openminded rationalism, his profound skepticism, and his great contempt for all kinds of fanaticism. Some of Montaigne’s popularity among the Philosophes came also from his charming and quite unpretentious style of writing.

2. Some Foreign Seventeenth Century Precursors

Among the most important precursors of the Philosophes were the great scientists from Copernicus through Galileo to Newton though most of their influence came through philosophers and publicists who funnelled their ideas down to the Philosophes. Most important as a scientific popularizer among the pure scientists was Galileo (d. 1642) who outlined in a popular style the aims of science, emphasizing the value of mathematics and the goal of quantitative formulation of all experience.

The greatest popularizer of scientific ideas in the early Seventeenth Century was Francis Bacon (d. 1626). Bacon was the first philosophic writer of early modern Europe to use the inductive method of thinking in his writings. The method had been used by the scientists of the Sixteenth Century, but Bacon was the first who would found all philosophic labor of the mind on a wholly new basis. If we would ascertain the hidden nature of things, we must not look for it in books, or in preconceived notions and a priori speculations. Above all, thinkers must give up imitating the ancients who with the exception of Democritus and a few others had observed but little and that superficially. Existing knowledge is full of prejudices, superstitions, and old wives’ tales. The only hope of thinkers is to break entirely with Greek and Scholastic thought, to give up the search for final causes, and to accept the inductive method of reasoning.

Bacon was especially severe on Scholasticism of which he wrote, “This degenerate learning did briefly reign among the Schoolmen, who having strong and sharp wits and abundance of leisure and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit spun out to us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books. For the wit and mind of man, if it works upon matter worketh according to the stuff, but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it brings forth cobwebs of learning admirable for the fineness of thread but of no substance or profit.”

Bacon did not discover the scientific method but he made the most lucid and eloquent appeal which had been made so far for its use. The end of the sciences is their practical usefulness to extend the rule of man over nature and to increase man’s comfort and happiness. Bacon himself was a popularizer, not a scientist. He refused to accept the Copernican hypothesis, nor did he know some of the important scientific work of his time. He was ignorant, for example, of the scientific writings of Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and Harvey. He was no mathematician, and for all his prophetic insight, was blind to the potentiality of mathematics in the science of the future. In all these matters he stands in contrast to his younger French contemporary, Descartes. Bacon’s life with its slow rise to political power and to the position of Lord Chancellor of England, and its sudden fall, when he was impeached by Parliament for taking bribes and banished from London, undoubtedly helped to attract attention to his thought. D’Alembert later dedicated the Encyclopedia “to the spirit of Lord Bacon,” and called Bacon “the greatest, most universal, and the most eloquent of philosophers.” The Convention, during the French Revolution, published the works of Bacon at state expense.

Hobbes (d. 1679) was not well known in France. But some knew about his implied atheism and his belief that nature is a machine, that nothing counts but matter and motion, and that the whole of mental life is built upon the foundation of the senses. Hobbes also proclaimed the idea that we could solve our social and moral problems if we only made our social sciences as scientific as mathematics and physics. Hobbes’ doctrine that man is by nature unsocial and the enemy of his fellows, and his fearful description of primitive society found no acceptance in France though the Philosophes did have a keen sense of man’s self-esteem which needs curbing and should be tied to the general interest. Nor did Hobbes’ doctrine of absolute sovereignty, which embodied a conception of absolutism more far-reaching than that ascribed by medieval churchmen to the Church, find any French followers.

While Spinoza (d. 1677) was well known in France, especially to Liberal and Radical thinkers, and though the Philosophes showed little interest in his pantheism or his metaphysics, certain of his ideas filtered through. One was his belief in a rational reading of the Bible. If interpreted literally, the Bible is full of errors and contradictions and impossibilities. Spinoza denied outright the personal God of the Jews and Christians. He also pleaded strongly for toleration and religious freedom as practiced in Holland. Spinoza was the originator of the idea of the historicity of the Bible and the first to develop it with precision and clarity. The nature of things is not to be understood through the Bible, but the Bible is to be understood by the nature of things. Another idea of Spinoza’s was his preference for the great materialists, Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius, and his admiration for Descartes’ idea of one substance underlying all forms of matter. It was known too that Spinoza admired Descartes’ attempt to explain all the world except God and the soul by mechanical and mathematical laws. Spinoza was likewise regarded as something of a martyr for the freedom of thought as he had been put out of his synagogue in Holland for his beliefs. Also his belief in democratic institutions was known in Eighteenth Century France. In this, including his belief in two social contracts, one to form society and another to form the state, was known to Montesquieu and Rousseau. His belief that democracy was the most reasonable form of government, that every man should be given as much liberty as possible, and that liberty should be limited only by such laws as work for the general welfare, made him one of the early prophets of democracy. Some held Spinoza’s name in abhorrence. It was finally Lessing, Herder, Schleiermacher, Goethe, and Novalis who restored him to repute. Novalis called him “the God-intoxicated man.” Some Eighteenth Century writers, especially those favorable to the Church, linked Spinoza with Hobbes, and regarded both as atheists, materialists, and enemies of morality.

Leibniz (d. 1716) was well known in France, partly because some of his writings were written in French. Fontenelle praised him in the Academy of Sciences as a universal genius whose mind ranged over a wide series of fields. Leibniz admired Descartes’ method of systematic doubt, but condemned Descartes’ tendency to ignore sense experience and the whole Cartesian conception of material substance. Leibniz’ God is not like an Oriental despot, but is a sovereign bound by laws which he cannot unmake. God is a kind of constitutional king of the universe. Leibniz was thus something of a deist.

Frenchmen of the Eighteenth Century were interested in Leibniz as a great compromiser who sought to reconcile religion and philosophy, Catholicism with Protestantism, and the principles of Christianity with those of rationalism. Leibniz believed in basic human freedoms, above all in the freedom of each individual to achieve his intellectual and moral improvement. He thus was creating the ground for the “inalienable rights of man.” So Leibniz is regarded by some critics as the “true originator and founder of the philosophy of the Enlightenment.” Actually, Leibniz left two philosophies: one was optimistic and rather shallow, such as would win him popularity and the approbation of princes, and the other, embodied in writings published after his death, which was more profound, coherent, and logical and which resembled the philosophy of Spinoza. It was the earlier Leibniz whose optimistic philosophy was caricatured by Voltaire in Candide. All in all, Leibniz’ influence in Eighteenth Century France was considerable.

The ideas of no two foreign thinkers of the Seventeenth Century were so well known in Eighteenth Century France as the theories of two Englishmen, Locke and Newton. Locke (d. 1704) was the son of a Puritan, was trained in medicine, and became the secretary of Lord Shaftesbury, founder of the Whig party. Because of his Liberal views, he was forced to live in exile in Holland and on the Continent during the reactionary reign of James II. Locke early acquired a dislike of dogmatism and pedantry, and he always wrote very clearly. He was especially admired for not building vast constructions on abstract principles.

Fundamental to Locke’s general position was his famous Essay on Human Understanding published in 1690. Here, he maintained that children entered the world with no innate ideas. At birth the mind is a blank sheet on which experience and reflection, derived from the senses, write their effects. The idea implied the natural equality of all men, and made man the result of his environment. It was just a step to the theory that if you change the environment you will breed another sort of man. From Locke’s views the conclusion could be drawn that the evil we find in man is not natural to him, but is the result of bad experience, bad education, vicious institutions, and old prejudices handed down for generations. Here, as in his other writings, Locke showed himself a conscientious and close observer of facts. So it was said of him that he “raised common sense to the point at which it becomes luminous.”

In his Letter on Toleration of 1689, Locke advocated the toleration of all religious sects except Roman Catholics and atheists. The former were excluded because they maintained a foreign allegiance to the Pope, and the latter because they lacked moral responsibility, and were not bound by oaths. Those who persecute in the name of religion violate the primal Christian commandment of love. Locke believed that religion is a matter of conscience and cannot be forced. Locke, like Newton, remained faithful to the Church of England, and in his Reasonableness of Christianity defended Christianity against its critics.

In his two Treatises on Government of 1690, Locke defended Liberal political ideas. He believed that men entered a contract to set up government to secure personal and property rights. This implies mutual obligations of ruler and ruled. Man gets a right to property by incorporating his labor in some particular object. Like his other works, these treatises on government were written for the common reader. Santayana once said of Locke’s writings that “had Locke’s mind been more profound it might have been less influential.” The first Treatise on Government was a reasoned attack on the idea of the divine right of kings, and the second was a defense of Liberal political ideas and of the two revolutions that had taken place in Seventeenth Century England. Life, liberty, and property are the natural and inalienable rights of every individual. Society and government exist to protect individual rights, including the right to hold property.

Locke, in contrast to Hobbes, believed that the original state of nature was one of “peace, good will, mutual assistance, and preservation,” and he also held that every man had natural rights prior to society and the state. Government had been created by men for their own security both from within and without the community, but political authority always rests on the consent of the people. Thus, sovereignty is in the people. If at any time the ruler is untrue to his trust, authority reverts to the people, and revolution is justified. The government must enforce by penalties the prescriptions embodied in the laws. The legislative is the supreme power in the government. And to protect men’s liberties the powers of the government, executive, legislative and judicial should be separated.

Locke also wrote a treatise Concerning Education (1693) which was widely read. The aim of education is to inculcate virtuous habits, practical wisdom, good breeding, and a body of knowledge. He includes athletics and practice in a practical trade. Corporal punishment and bribery as rewards are to be used sparingly; praise and blame should be the chief stimuli to good behavior. Play should be allowed without restraint. Manners are very important, and are best taught by good example at home. Throughout Locke advocates an appeal to the pupils’ interests rather than the fear of punishment as the chief motive for learning.

In Locke, Liberal political ideas first became associated closely with the scientific movement. He approached social and political questions from the point of view of a Seventeenth Century physicist and treated them exactly as if he were laying plans to dam rivers or to build bridges. All in all, Locke covered many fields—politics, religion, psychology, and education—and everywhere his emphasis was on the Liberal side of things. His works were early translated into a number of Continental languages, and his influence was immense.

Newton (d. 1727) was likewise a towering figure in both Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century thought. He made many of his scientific discoveries before he was thirty, and his great Latin treatise, Principles, the most important single book in the history of science, was published when he was in middle life. Newton’s writings were too abstract, and required too much previous knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, and physics for the average readers — so his ideas were passed on by middlemen. Before 1789, forty books about Newton’s main ideas appeared in English, seventeen in French, three in German, eleven in Latin, one in Portuguese, and one in Italian. Many of these ran through a series of editions.

What Newton stood for was what Galileo, Descartes, and other earlier thinkers had arrived at; i.e., a completely mechanical interpretation of the universe and nature in exact mathematical terms. Newton’s work was a great synthesis of much of the science of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. It was a magnificent relevation of the power of the scientific method, and placed the keystone in the centuries of discoveries in astronomy, mathematics, and physics. In Newton’s writings the map of the universe was redrawn. The universe was now one huge related and universal machine. Newton’s writings showed facts carefully observed and then brilliantly interrelated and interpreted. Newton humbly accepted facts and showed a deep-seated abhorrence of any theory that could not stand the test of facts. Newton remained faithful to the Church of England and accepted Jesus as a divinely inspired mediator between God and man. Being a cautious s...