The Crisis of the European Mind 1680-1715

by Paul Hazard

  Now, what is Nature? The question sounded peremptorily, as did all questions in those days, in the ears of those doughty men who, to whichever camp they belonged, would tolerate no subterfuges, no evasions. They hungered after truth, and both sides alike were battling for the light. The more involved the problem, the more honour in attempting its solution. What, then, is Nature?

  It was at once recognized that the word was given all manner of interpretations and that in consequence there was “terrible confusion between what it signified in the mouths of the ignorant, and what it stood for in the mouths of the learned”. Nature is very sensible. Nature does nothing in vain. Nature never does more than it sets out to do. Nature invariably does what is best. Nature always takes the shortest cut. Nature is never overburdened by the too much, or cramped by the too little. Nature is self-preserving. Nature is the healer of ills. Nature is ever mindful of the preservation of the Universe. Nature abhors a vacuum. What a host of miscellaneous tags, and what a motley set of meanings to apply to one and the same thing: author of Nature; the essence of anything; the order of things; a kind of semi-divinity, and so on and so forth.[7]

  There was no coming to terms, try as they might. But men’s minds were sorely troubled. Robert Boyle, who deplored this confusion in the sort of language we have just recalled, and who urges people for heaven’s sake to introduce a little order into their various interpretations of the word, was really not so much seeking for a definition of it, as voicing a protest, the protest of the Christian conscience fearful lest men should slip into the habit of putting Nature in the place of God. Against the obviously absurd idea that men are naturally good, Pierre Bayle entered his protest. Nature? To begin with, no one has ever accurately noted precisely how the hearts of men react to its influence. “There is hardly any word more vaguely and loosely used than the word Nature. It occurs in all sorts of contexts, meaning now one thing and now another, but it is scarcely ever used with one precise and definite connotation. Be that as it may, every clear-headed person will agree that, if we want to be quite sure that such and such a thing has been implanted in us by Nature, we should satisfy ourselves that the young are conscious of it and influenced by it without any external mention of its existence. I do not know that anyone has ever carried out an experiment in order to discover what takes place in the mind of a man who has never been taught anything at all. If some people had brought up a number of children and had been content to feed them, without teaching them a single thing, we should then see what unassisted Nature was capable of; but as a matter of fact all the people we know have been bamboozled from the cradle upwards and made to believe anything.” Later, when their eyes are opened and they come to look around them, men cannot help seeing that Nature and Goodness are anything but synonymous. “We perceive in the human race very many evil things, without having any grounds for supposing that they were not put there by Nature. I see the most god-fearing and affectionate of parents who take the utmost care to have their children instructed in the truths of the Gospel, but who are nevertheless unable to repress in them the desire for revenge, or for praise, or for gambling, or for illicit love.”[8] And further, “I warn you that Mr. Sherlock imagines that the general consent of mankind is the voice of Nature, and that it therefore carries with it the infallible attribute of truth. That proves too much, for, if anything is to be regarded as the voice of Nature, it is the voice that bids us indulge our appetite for revenge and unhallowed love, just as we satisfy the cravings of hunger and thirst”.[9] Something more than all this talk about Nature was required to make us feel that we were the temples of Goodness and Virtue.

  All the same, the Deists were satisfied that they were freely acting as indicated by the Unseen Power that ensured the preservation and order of the Universe. When they worshipped their non-mysterious God, they had the feeling that they were acting in due accordance with a positive law. Sometimes they went the length of holding that it was the revealed religions which misrepresented the true God, by substituting for the divine idea, images drawn, not from Nature but from art invented by self-interested and deceiving men, and perpetuated by superstition.

  Among the Deists a new and advanced group of freethinkers came into being.[10] This is the line they took. They defined freedom of thought as “The use of the understanding, in endeavouring to find out the meaning of any proposition whatsoever, in considering the nature of the evidence for or against it, and in judging of it according to the seeming force or weakness of the evidence”.

  The verdict of this tribunal of the conscience is not invariably unfavourable. When a testimony seems sufficiently well-founded; when a fact is established in accordance with the rules of evidence, it is accepted. Your freethinker discards whatever seems to him to be false, but retains whatever seems to him to be true; far from being a sceptic, he believes in the power of reason to furnish the foundations of Truth and Justice.

  Thence he derives the inward force which inspires him: the idea that he is possessed of a principle so manifestly true that nothing further could possibly put its truth in a stronger light, lends him confidence and assurance: he has solved the great secret which the weaker brethren will never comprehend. With infinite satisfaction he keeps repeating over and over again the magic formula which assures him of his power over men and things: I am free to think as I will. Not a single person in the whole world but has made mistakes; but so far as he is concerned, he, at any rate, will make no more; at the far end of the strict examination to which he subjects everything that presents itself to his vision or to his understanding, he discovers, as a reward for the courage which led him to cast off the shackles of superstition, the True and the Good. The certitude he derives from the exercise of his reason brings him the same sort of tranquillity and happiness as religious folk once used to derive from their faith: neque decipitur ratio, neque decipit unquam; think freely, and all the rest shall be added unto you. Think freely and you shall taste of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Meanwhile, the faint-hearted, the servile will continue to linger in outer darkness, far from the earthly paradise. “Nothing is more foolish than to imagine there is any danger in allowing men freely to examine the bases of received opinions; nothing is more foolish than to suspect the good intentions of those who avail themselves of this freedom. Until men have a better guide than reason it is their duty to follow this light whithersoever it leads them.”

  To think freely is not only a happiness in itself, but, furthermore, it tells us how to order our lives, with happiness as our goal. It is only by dint of thinking that man can read the secret of human life and tell himself that misery and misfortune are the offspring of vice, whereas pleasure and happy days are always the reward of virtue. Cicero knew that well enough when he expatiated on the blessedness of the man who cheerfully does his duty; who carefully regulates his whole conduct, who obeys the law, not because he is afraid of it, but because he looks on it as a thing excellent in itself. The freethinker gets it into his head that he is merely doing what his enlightened desire, the logical power of his own reason, bids him do: he is the master of his fate, as he is of the universe.

  The first to proclaim these definitions of Freethought was Anthony Collins; first, in his polemical writings and, subsequently, in greater detail, in his famous Discourse on Freethinking, 1713. Thenceforth, the words freethinker and libre-penseur became current coin in the human vocabulary. There was a gentleman, recognized as such by everyone, an old Etonian and a Cambridge man, possessed, according to Locke, of a house in the country and a library in town, and of friends everywhere; a man of irreproachable character, a perfect example of that respectability which his compatriots regarded as the leading social virtue, and this gentleman it was who came in for the mixed inheritance of the freethinkers and the Deists, and produced from it a clear analysis of the aims and principles it involved. It was about this time that the freethinkers came to be regarded as intellectually and socially the élite; and that this élite began to look with pity or
contempt on all who professed any kind of religious belief, although the believers still held the lead in numbers and influence. Anthony Collins refers to Samuel Clarke in terms of the utmost disdain: Samuel Clarke held orthodox views, and that was enough to damn him. “There is one thing which I am very much surprised to find in Mr. Clarke, and of which I did not think him capable, and this is an insinuation that I believe too little. For I did imagine that the usage he had had of the like kind, would have given him an opportunity to consider, that such reflections are capable of being made by anybody, and so derive no credit on their author, and that they can please no man of candour and ingenuity. However, I shall not make that return which such an insinuation does suggest and would justify, but instead thereof will give him on this occasion a testimony in his favour, before I finally take my leave of him; that I verily think he neither believes too little, nor too much; but that he is perfectly, and exactly orthodox, and in all likelihood will continue so.”

  Such is the line of thought which conduces to the view that orthodox folk are not only incapable of thinking for themselves, like the mentally backward, but that they are positive hindrances to progress; while the freethinkers, on the other hand, are regarded, not merely as sound reasoners, but as people who make a definite contribution to the well-being of society. No more are these latter to be looked on as feather-brained voluptuaries, as pleasure-seeking egoists, or as worthless riff-raff, or as a set of despicable adventurers. Such a freethinker as Collins exhibited an integrity and a dignity that even his opponents were forced to respect.

  Without troubling himself about the finer shades of meaning, which never worried him because he never suspected their existence; without entering into his adversary’s arguments, Collins, stubbornly driving straight ahead, finds a great deal to deny, but also a great deal to affirm. He reverses the signals; he puts negatives in the place of positives, and vice versa he declares that necessity is a doctrine of freedom and that materialism ensures the triumph of the spirit. As early as 1714, Louis XIV being still alive, a French version of his work was made current, and it was apparently a success, seeing that a second edition was called for in 1717. As the translator justly observed, its appeal was universal. Some people had said that the book was only suited to the English, that it would take a deal of explaining to make it intelligible to foreigners, and that no translation would stand a chance. That was obviously incorrect. “Truth, thought, reason belong to every country.” “The matter of the discourse concerns people of all kinds.” And be it noted—it is not the least interesting thing about it—that Collins adorns his freethinkers’ chapels with his own collection of Saints. The followers of Reason will be able to venerate the great men who, down the aisles of time, helped to establish the new cult; Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Plutarch, Varro, Cato the Censor, Cicero, Cato of Utica, Seneca, Solomon, the Prophets, Josephus the Historian, Origen, Minutius Felix, Lord Bacon, Hobbes and, besides Synesius Bishop of Africa, Archbishop Tillotson, who is undeniably a Christian apologist, though his sermons tend to enthrone Freethought, with Religion and virtues as assessors, whereof the practice contributes mightily to the peace and happiness of society. Besides all these freethinkers on whose merits he enlarges, Collins could add an account of a number of other heroes whom he contents himself with merely naming, lest he should take up too much time and space. Among them he includes Erasmus, Montaigne, Scaliger, Descartes, Gassendi, Grotius, Herbert of Cherbury, Milton, Marsham, Spencer, Cudworth, Sir William Temple and Locke. In short, he concludes, it is difficult, if not impossible, to name a man in any way distinguished for worth and intelligence, any man who has left anything of a name behind him, without having to recognize that he has also given evidence of freedom of thought. On the other hand, it would be equally impossible to pick out an opponent of freethinking, however socially important, however distinguished, who had not some sort of mental twist, was not something of a fanatic; or was not ambitious, cruel, addicted to detestable vices, or who, to put the whole thing in a nutshell, was not always prepared to do anything, no matter what, under the pretext of glorifying God and serving the Church—impossible, I say, to find any opponent of freethought who has not left behind him memorials of his brute ignorance, who has not been the slave of priests, of women, or of chance.

  It was all very well, this calendar of lay saints, but what was also needed was a form of initiation whereby the adepts might be officially received and appointed to their appropriate groups. Some sort of ritual was wanted, some new ceremonial. These, it seems, were the needs arising from the ideas whose development we have been contemplating.

  Who, asked Swift, would apply the description of “philosopher” to Toland apart from his one and only theme, namely, his aversion to Christianity? It was that, his anti-Christian bias, that eventually led him to found a society which he intended to be a counter-blast to the Church. He wrote a hymn which, although it was addressed to Philosophy and not to God, was none the less a hymn: “Philosophy, thou Guide of Life! thou Searcher out of Virtue! thou Expeller of Vice! What, not only would become of us, but even what would be the life of Man without thee? Thou hast founded Cities, thou hast gathered dispersed Mankind into a Society of Life. Thou hast united them to each other, first by a participation of the same abode, afterwards by wedlock, and finally by a communion of letters and words. Thou hast been the Giver of Laws, and the Mistress of Manners and Discipline. We have recourse to these, we implore thy Aid, we devote ourselves entirely to thee. One day spent well, and according to thy dictates, is to be preferred to a prevaricating immortality. Whose riches should we rather use than thine? Thou, I say, that hast granted us a perfect Tranquillity of Life, and has exempted us from the Terrors of Death!”

  He detests, he avers, any sort of religion professed by man; nevertheless, he draws up a form of service for a new society whereby men are to become better and wiser, a society which will procure them perfect happiness and supreme content. His love of humanity prompts him to found a Socratic Society, of whose moral principles, objects and philosophy he gives us a broad idea. The members shall meet in secret; it shall have its chants, its libations, its love-feasts. There shall be a settled ritual; a President who shall recite verses, to which the faithful shall sing the responses. Let us accompany John Toland to the meeting house of these comrades, these brethren. What is this we hear?

  The President: May all happiness attend our meeting.

  The rest answer: We institute a Socratic Society.

  The President: May Philosophy flourish.

  Response: And the politer Arts.

  The President: Attend with silence. Let this assembly, and all that is to be thought, spoke, and done therein, be consecrated to Truth, Liberty, Health, the triple wish of the wise.

  Response: Both now and for evermore.

  The President: Let us be called Equals and Brothers.

  Response: Companions, too, and Friends.

  Behold, then, the very man who, of all others, was most furiously bent on destroying the Church, building a chapel to his own design. We must not forget that the London Grand Lodge of Freemasons was opened in 1717; and that the first French Lodge was founded in 1725.

  [1]Bibliothèque anglaise, 1717, I, 318.

  [2]Le P. Buffier, Éléments de métaphysique à la portée de tout le monde, 1725, p. 92. (Metaphysics for everyone.)

  [3]De la Véritable Religion, Bk. I, chap. 7.

  [4]Religio Laïci, 1682, lines 42-63.

  [5]Richard Blackmore, Essays on Several Subjects, 1716, Preface, I.

  [6]St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, Prima secundae, quaestio 91, art. 2— Ibid., quaestio 94, art. 4 and 6.

  [7]Robert Boyle, De ipsa natura, sive libera in receptam naturae notionem disquisitio, Londini, 1686.

  [8], [9]Pierre Bayle, Réponse aux questions d’un Provincial, vol. II, ch. cv. Ce que c’est proprement qu’une chose qui émane de la nature. Si pour savoir qu’une chose est bonne il suffit de savoir que la nature nous l’a
pprend.— Ibid., ch. cxl.

  [10]Anthony Collins, A Discourse on Freethinking, London, 1713. Discours sur la liberté de penser, écrit à l’occasion d’une nouvelle secte d’esprits forts, ou de gens qui pensent librement. Traduit de l’anglais, à Londres, 1714. Discours sur la liberté de penser et de raisonner sur les matières les plus importantes. Ecrit à l’occasion de l’accroissement d’une nouvelle secte d’esprits forts, ou de gens qui pensent librement. Traduit de l’anglais, Seconde édition, revue et corrigée. A Londres, 1717.

  III

  NATURAL LAW

  DIVINE Right: here too, as with religion, the whole structure is as simple as it is grandiose. The Polity was based on words taken from Holy Writ and what foundation could be more firm than that? “Hearken, Israel, the Lord our God is the only God. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul and with thy whole strength.” The love of God bound men to love one another, and thus the social order came into being. The primary example of government is paternal authority. Monarchy, which derives from it, is the most general, the oldest, and the most natural form of government, for, by reason of their human state, men are all in the position of subjects; and paternal rule, which accustoms them to obey, accustoms them also to acknowledge one head. Monarchy is the best form of government and, of monarchies, the best is that in which the succession, confined to the heirs male, devolves upon the eldest son of each generation.[1]

  Thus does the Bishop of Meaux, the Dauphin’s tutor, rear the canopy which is to shelter the future King’s royal person. His person is sacred, and no one on earth may dispute his authority. Not that the King’s Majesty is exempt from all control. On the contrary, God’s law lays upon the King obligations more strict and more onerous than any imposed on the humblest of mortals. The King’s authority is absolute, but it is the authority of a father. It is absolute, but it must conform to reason. It operates through general ordinances, and not according to the caprice of the moment. If the man who is invested with enormous power makes an ill use of it, let him tremble and beware, for terrible is the account he will be called upon to render on the Day of Judgment. Howbeit, though answerable to God, he is not answerable to his subjects. Not for him to seek counsel of them, or to act on their advice. And in truth, to give to those whose duty it is to render obedience, power to interfere with those appointed by God to command, would be to offend against God and logic. So strict is this law that, even if the King declared himself an infidel, were he even to persecute his people, it would still be their duty to submit. To the violence of their princes the people can but reply with respectful and dutiful remonstrance, while praying for their change of heart. God, in His heavenly abode, holds the reins of all kingdoms of the earth; kings rule their subjects in accordance with His inscrutable will; their subjects uncomplainingly obey; and such transitory events as seem to sound a discordant note will, when, ceasing to view them with the eyes of the flesh, we come at last to understand their mutual interaction, swell, and not mar, the universal harmony.