Denis Diderot. Editor of the monumental Encyclopedia, Diderot was a major figure in propagating the ideas of the French philosophes. He had diverse interests and penned an incredible variety of literary works. He is shown here in a portrait by Jean-Honor e Fragonard.
Louvre, Paris//© Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY
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The Attack on Religious Intolerance
Voltaire’s lucid prose, biting satire, and clever wit caused his works to be widely read and all the more influential. These two selections present different sides of Voltaire’s attack on religious intolerance. The first is from a straightforward treatise, The Ignorant Philosopher, and the second is from his only real literary masterpiece, the novel Candide, where he used humor to make the same fundamental point about religious intolerance.
Voltaire, The Ignorant Philosopher
The contagion of fanaticism then still subsists…. The author of the Treatise upon Toleration has not mentioned the shocking executions wherein so many unhappy victims perished in the valleys of Piedmont. He has passed over in silence the massacre of six hundred inhabitants of Valtelina, men, women, and children, who were murdered by the Catholics in the month of September, 1620. I will not say it was with the consent and assistance of the archbishop of Milan, Charles Borome, who was made a saint. Some passionate writers have averred this fact, which I am very far from believing; but I say, there is scarce any city or borough in Europe, where blood has not been spilt for religious quarrels; I say, that the human species has been perceptibly diminished, because women and girls were massacred as well as men; I say, that Europe would have had a third larger population, if there had been no theological disputes. In fine, I say, that so far from forgetting these abominable times, we should frequently take a view of them, to inspire an eternal horror for them; and that it is for our age to make reparation by toleration, for this long collection of crimes, which has taken place through the want of toleration, during sixteen barbarous centuries.
Let it not then be said,that there are no traces left of that shocking fanaticism, of the want of toleration; they are still everywhere to be met with, even in those countries that are esteemed the most humane. The Lutheran and Calvinist preachers, were they masters, would, perhaps, be as little inclined to pity, as obdu-rate, as insolent as they upbraid their antagonists with being.
Voltaire, Candide
At last he [Candide] approached a man who had just been addressing a big audience for a whole hour on the subject of charity. The orator peered at him and said:”
What is your business here? Do you support the Good Old Cause?”
”There is not effect without a cause,” replied Candide modestly. “All things are necessarily connected and arranged for the best. It was my fate to be driven from Lady Cunégonde’s presence and made to run the gantlet, and now I have to beg my bread until I can earn it. Things should not have happened otherwise.”
“Do you believe that the Pope is Antichrist, my friend?” said the minister.
“I have never heard anyone say so,” replied Candide; “but whether he is or he isn’t, I want some food.”
”You don’t deserve to eat,” said the other. “Be off with you, you villain, you wretch! Don’t come near me again or you’ll suffer for it.”
The minister’s wife looked out of the window at that moment, and seeing a man who was not sure that the Pope was Antichrist, emptied over his head a chamber pot, which shows to what lengths ladies are driven by religious zeal.
Compare the two approaches that Voltaire uses to address the problem of religious intolerance. Do you think one is more effective? Why?
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Diderot’s most famous contribution to the Enlightenment was the twenty-eight-volume Encyclopedia, or Classified Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, that he edited and called the “great work of his life.” Its purpose, according to Diderot, was to “change the general way of thinking.” It did precisely that in becoming a major weapon of the philosophes’ crusade against the old French society. The contributors included many philosophes who expressed their major concerns. They attacked religious superstition and advocated toleration as well as a program for social, legal, and political improvements that would lead to a society that was more cosmopolitan, more tolerant, more humane, and more reasonable. In later editions, the price of the Encyclopedia was drastically reduced, dramatically increasing its sales and making it available to doctors, clergy, teachers, lawyers, and even military officers. The ideas of the Enlightenment were spread even further as a result.
THE NEW “SCIENCE OF MAN” The Enlightenment belief that Newton’s scientific methods could be used to discover the natural laws underlying all areas of human life led to the emergence in the eighteenth century of what the philosophes called the “science of man,” or what we would call the social sciences. In a number of areas, philosophes arrived at natural laws that they believed governed human actions. If these “natural laws” seem less than universal to us, it reminds us how much the philosophes were people of their times reacting to the conditions they faced. Nevertheless, their efforts did at least lay the foundations for the modern social sciences.
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Diderot Questions Christian Sexual Standards
Denis Diderot was one of the boldest thinkers of the Enlightenment. In his Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville, he constructed a dialogue between Orou, a Tahitian who symbolizes the wisdom of a philosophe, and a chaplain who defends Christian sexual mores. The dialogue gave Diderot the opportunity to criticize the practice of sexual chastity and monogamy.
Denis Diderot, Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville
[Orou, speaking to the Chaplain.] “You are young and healthy and you have just had a good supper. He who sleeps alone sleeps badly; at night a man needs a woman at his side. Here is my wife and here are my daughters. Choose whichever one pleases you most, but if you would like to do me a favor, you will give your preference to my youngest girl, who has not yet had any children….”
The chaplain replied that his religion, his holy orders, his moral standards and his sense of decency all prevented him from accepting Orou’s invitation.
Orou answered: “I don’t know what this thing is that you call religion, but I can only have a low opinion of it because it forbids you to partake of an innocent pleasure to which Nature, the sovereign mistress of us all, invites everybody. It seems to prevent you from bringing one of your fellow creatures into the world, from doing a favor asked of by a father, a mother and their children, from repaying the kindness of a host, and from enriching a nation by giving it an additional citizen…. Look at the distress you have caused to appear on the faces of these four women—they are afraid you have noticed some defect in them that arouses your distaste….”
The Chaplain: “You don’t understand—it’s not that. They are all four of them equally beautiful. But there is my religion! My holy orders! … [God] spoke to our ancestors and gave them laws; he prescribed to them the way in which he wishes to be honored; he ordained that certain actions are good and others he forbade them to do as being evil.”
Orou: “I see. And one of these evil actions which he has forbidden is that of a man who goes to bed with a woman or girl. But in that case, why did he make two sexes?”
The Chaplain: “In order that they might come together—but only when certain conditions are satisfied and only after certain initial ceremonies one man belongs to one woman and only to her; one woman belongs to one man and only to him.”
Orou: “For their whole lives?”
The Chaplain: “For their whole lives….”
Orou: “I find these strange precepts contrary to nature, and contrary to reason…. Furthermore, your laws seem to me to be contrary to the general order of things. For in truth is there anything so senseless as a precept that forbids us to heed the changing impulses that are inherent in our being, or commands that require a degree of constancy which is not possibl
e, that violate the liberty of both male and female by chaining them perpetually to one another? … I don’t know what your great workman [God] is, but I am very happy that he never spoke to our forefathers, and I hope that he never speaks to our children, for if he does, he may tell them the same foolishness, and they may be foolish enough to believe it.”
What attack does Diderot make on Christian sexual standards? What does this passage say about enlightened conceptions of nature and the place of physical pleasure in healthy human life?
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That a science of man was possible was a strong belief of the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776). An important figure in the history of philosophy, Hume has also been called “a pioneering social scientist.” In his Treatise on Human Nature, which he subtitled “An Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects,” Hume argued that observation and reflection, grounded in “systematized common sense,” made conceivable a “science of man.” Careful examination of the experiences that constituted human life would lead to the knowledge of human nature that would make this science possible.
The Physiocrats and Adam Smith have been viewed as founders of the modern discipline of economics. The leader of the Physiocrats was François Quesnay (frahnn-SWAH keh-NAY) (1694–1774), a highly successful French court physician. Quesnay and the Physiocrats claimed they would discover the natural economic laws that governed human society. Their first principle was that land constituted the only source of wealth and that wealth itself could be increased only by agriculture because all other economic activities were unproductive and sterile. Even the state’s revenues should come from a single tax on the land rather than the hodgepodge of inequitable taxes and privileges currently in place. In stressing the economic primacy of agricultural production, the Physiocrats were rejecting the mercantilist emphasis on the significance of money—that is, gold and silver—as the primary determinants of wealth (see Chapter 14).
Their second major “natural law” of economics also represented a repudiation of mercantilism, specifically, its emphasis on a controlled economy for the benefit of the state. Instead, the Physiocrats stressed that the existence of the natural economic forces of supply and demand made it imperative that individuals should be left free to pursue their own economic self-interest. In doing so, all of society would ultimately benefit. Consequently, they argued that the state should in no way interrupt the free play of natural economic forces by government regulation of the economy but rather should just leave it alone, a doctrine that subsequently became known by its French name, laissez-faire (less-ay-FAYR) (noninterference; literally, “let people do as they choose”).
The best statement of laissez-faire was made in 1776 by a Scottish philosopher, Adam Smith (1723–1790), in his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, known simply as The Wealth of Nations. In the process of enunciating three basic principles of economics, Smith presented a strong attack on mercantilism. First, he condemned the mercantilist use of tariffs to protect home industries. If one country can supply another country with a product cheaper than the latter can make it, it is better to purchase than to produce it. To Smith, free trade was a fundamental economic principle. Smith’s second principle was his labor theory of value. Like the Physiocrats, he claimed that gold and silver were not the source of a nation’s true wealth, but unlike the Physiocrats, he did not believe that soil was either. Rather labor—the labor of individual farmers, artisans, and merchants—constituted the true wealth of a nation. Finally, like the Physiocrats, Smith believed that the state should not interfere in economic matters; indeed, he assigned to government only three basic functions: to protect society from invasion (army), defend individuals from injustice and oppression (police), and keep up certain public works, such as roads and canals, that private individuals could not afford. Thus, in Smith’s view, the state should stay out of the lives of individuals. In emphasizing the economic liberty of the individual, the Physiocrats and Adam Smith laid the foundation for what became known in the nineteenth century as economic liberalism.
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Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, selected topics(1776)
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THE LATER ENLIGHTENMENT By the late 1760s, a new generation of philosophes who had grown up with the worldview of the Enlightenment began to move beyond their predecessors’ beliefs. Baron Paul d’Holbach (dawl-BAHK) (1723–1789), a wealthy German aristocrat who settled in Paris, preached a doctrine of strict atheism and materialism. In his System of Nature, written in 1770, he argued that everything in the universe consisted of matter in motion. Human beings were simply machines; God was a product of the human mind and was unnecessary for leading a moral life. People needed only reason to live in this world: “Let us persuade men to be just, beneficent, moderate, sociable; not because the gods demand it, but because they must please men. Let us advise them to abstain from vice and crimes; not because they will be punished in the other world, but because they will suffer for it in this.”5 Holbach shocked almost all of his fellow philosophes with his uncompromising atheism. Most intellectuals remained more comfortable with deism and feared the effect of atheism on society.
Marie-Jean de Condorcet (muh-REE-ZHAHNH duh kohn-dor-SAY) (1743–1794), another French philosophe, made an exaggerated claim for progress. Condorcet was a victim of the turmoil of the French Revolution and wrote his chief work, The Progress of the Human Mind, while in hiding during the Reign of Terror (see Chapter 19). His survey of human history convinced him that humans had progressed through nine stages of history. Now, with the spread of science and reason, humans were about to enter the tenth stage, one of perfection, in which they will see that “there is no limit to the perfecting of the powers of man; that human perfectibility is in reality indefinite, that the progress of this perfectibility … has no other limit than the duration of the globe upon which nature has placed us.” Shortly after composing this work, the prophet of humankind’s perfection died in a French revolutionary prison.
ROUSSEAU AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT No one was more critical of the work of his predecessors than Jean-Jacques Rousseau (ZHAHNH-ZHAHK roo-SOH) (1712– 1778). Born in Geneva, he spent his youth wandering about France and Italy holding various jobs. He went back to school for a while to study music and the classics (he could afford to do so after becoming the paid lover of an older woman). Eventually, he made his way to Paris, where he was introduced into the circles of the philosophes. He never really liked the social life of the cities, however, and frequently withdrew into long periods of solitude.
Rousseau’s political beliefs were presented in two major works. In his Discourse on the Origins of the Inequality of Mankind, Rousseau began with humans in their primitive condition (or state of nature—see Chapter 15), where they were happy. There were no laws, no judges; all people were equal. But what had gone wrong?
The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, thought of saying, This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders; how much misery and horror the human race would have been spared if someone had pulled up the stakes and filled in the ditch, and cried to his fellow men: “Beware of listening to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and that the earth itself belongs to no one!”6
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. By the late 1760s, a new generation of philosophes arose who began to move beyond and even to question the beliefs of their predecessors. Of the philosophes of the late Enlightenment, Rousseau was perhaps the most critical of his predecessors. Shown here is a portrait of Rousseau by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour.
Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva//© Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
To preserve their private property, people adopted laws and governors. In so doing, they rushed headlong not to liberty but into chains. “What then is to be done? Must societies be totally abolished? … Must we return again to the forest
to live among bears?” No, civilized humans could “no longer subsist on plants or acorns or live without laws and magistrates.” Government was an evil, but a necessary one.
In his celebrated treatise The Social Contract, published in 1762, Rousseau tried to harmonize individual liberty with governmental authority. The social contract was basically an agreement on the part of an entire society to be governed by its general will. If any individual wished to follow his own self-interest, he should be compelled to abide by the general will. “This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free,” said Rousseau, because the general will represented a community’s highest aspirations, whatever was best for the entire community. Thus, liberty was achieved through being forced to follow what was best for all people because, he believed, what was best for all was best for each individual. True freedom is adherence to laws that one has imposed on oneself. To Rousseau, because everybody was responsible for framing the general will, the creation of laws could never be delegated to a parliamentary institution:
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