History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

In the same way, because Bossuet had been taught that the Jews are the chosen people of God, he, under the title of Universal History, almost confines his attention to them, and treats this obstinate and ignorant race as if they formed the pivot upon which the affairs of the universe had been made to turn.872 His idea of an universal history excludes those nations who were the first to reach civilization, and to some of whom the Hebrews owed the scanty knowledge which they subsequently acquired.873 He says little of the Persians, and less of the Egyptians; nor does he even mention that far greater people between the Indus and the Ganges, whose philosophy formed one of the elements of the school of Alexandria, whose subtle speculations anticipated all the efforts of European metaphysics, and whose sublime inquiries, conducted in their own exquisite language, date from a period when the Jews, stained with every variety of crime, were a plundering and vagabond tribe, wandering on the face of the earth, raising their hand against every man and every man raising his hand against them.

When he enters the more modern period, he allows himself to be governed by the same theological prejudices. So contracted is his view, that he considers the whole history of the church as the history of providential interference; and he takes no notice of the manner in which, contrary to the original scheme, it has been affected by foreign events.874 Thus, for example, the most important fact relating to the early changes in Christianity, is the extent to which its doctrines have been influenced by the African form of the Platonic philosophy.875 But this, Bossuet never mentions; nor does he even hint that any such thing had occurred. It suited his views to look upon the church as a perpetual miracle, and he therefore omits the most important event in its early history.876 To descend a little later: every one acquainted with the progress of civilization will allow, that no small share of it is due to those gleams of light, which, in the midst of surrounding darkness, shot from the great centres of Cordova and Bagdad. These, however, were the work of Mohammedanism; and as Bossuet had been taught that Mohammedanism is a pestilential heresy, he could not bring himself to believe that Christian nations had derived anything from so corrupt a source. The consequence is, that he says nothing of that great religion, the noise of which has filled the world;877 and having occasion to mention its founder, he treats him with scorn, as an impudent impostor, whose pretensions it is hardly fitting to notice.878 The great apostle, who diffused among millions of idolaters the sublime verity of one God, is spoken of by Bossuet with supreme contempt; because Bossuet, with the true spirit of his profession, could see nothing to admire in those whose opinions differed from his own.879 But when he has occasion to mention some obscure member of that class to which he himself belonged, then it is that he scatters his praises with boundless profusion. In his scheme of universal history, Mohammed is not worthy to play a part. He is passed by; but the truly great man, the man to whom the human race is really indebted, is – Martin, bishop of Tours. He it is, says Bossuet, whose unrivalled actions filled the universe with his fame, both during his lifetime and after his death.880 It is true, that not one educated man in fifty has ever heard the name of Martin, bishop of Tours. But Martin performed miracles, and the church had made him a saint; his claims, therefore, to the attention of historians must be far superior to the claims of one who, like Mohammed, was without these advantages. Thus it is that, in the opinion of the only eminent writer on history during the power of Louis XIV., the greatest man Asia has ever produced, and one of the greatest the world has ever seen, is considered in every way inferior to a mean and ignorant monk, whose most important achievement was the erection of a monastery, and who spent the best part of his life in useless solitude, trembling before the superstitious fancies of his weak and ignoble nature.881

Such was the narrow spirit with which the great facts of history were contemplated by a writer, who, when he was confined to his own department, displayed the most towering genius. This contracted view was the inevitable consequence of his attempt to explain the complicated movements of the human race by principles which he had generalized from his own inferior studies.882 Nor need any one be offended, that, from a scientific point of view, I assign to the pursuits of Bossuet a rank lower than that in which they are sometimes placed. It is certain that religious dogmas do, in many cases, influence the affairs of men. But it is equally certain, that as civilization advances, such influence decreases, and that even when the power of those dogmas was at its height, there were many other motives by which the actions of mankind were also governed. And since the study of history is the study of the aggregate of these motives, it is evident that history must be superior to theology; just as the whole is superior to a part. A neglect of this simple consideration has, with a few eminent exceptions, led all ecclesiastical authors into serious errors. It has induced in them a disposition to disregard the immense variety of external events, and to suppose that the course of affairs is regulated by some principles which theology alone can detect. This, indeed, is only the result of a general law of the mind, by which those who have any favourite profession, are apt to exaggerate its capacity; to explain events by its maxims, and as it were, to refract through its medium the occurrences of life.883 Among theologians, however, such prejudices are more dangerous than in any other profession, because among them alone are they fortified by that bold assumption of supernatural authority on which many of the clergy willingly rely.

These professional prejudices, when supported by theological dogmas, in a reign like that of Louis XIV.,884 are sufficient to account for the peculiarities which mark the historical work of Bossuet. Besides this, in his case, the general tendency was aggravated by personal characteristics. His mind was remarkable for a haughtiness, which we find constantly breaking out into a general contempt for mankind.885 At the same time his amazing eloquence, and the effects which it never failed to produce, seemed to justify the overweening confidence that he felt in his own powers. There is, indeed, in some of his greatest efforts, so much of the fire and majesty of genius, that we are reminded of those lofty and burning words with which the prophets of antiquity thrilled their hearers. Bossuet, thus standing, as he supposed, on an eminence which raised him above the ordinary weaknesses of men, loved to taunt them with their follies, and to deride every aspiration of their genius. Every thing like intellectual boldness seemed to gall his own superiority.886 It was this boundless arrogance with which he was filled, which gives to his works some of their most marked peculiarities. It was this, that made him strain every nerve to abase and vilify those prodigious resources of the human understanding, which are often despised by men who are ignorant of them; but which in reality are so great, that no one has yet arisen able to scan them in the whole of their gigantic dimensions. It was this same contempt for the human intellect, that made him deny its capacity to work out for itself the epochs through which it has passed; and, consequently, made him recur to the dogma of supernatural interference. It was this, again, that, in those magnificent orations which are among the greatest wonders of modern art, caused him to exhaust the language of eulogy, not upon intellectual eminence, but upon mere military achievements, upon great conquerors, those pests and destroyers of men, who pass their lives in discovering new ways of slaying their enemies, and in devising new means of aggravating the miseries of the world. And, to descend still lower, it was this same contempt for the dearest interests of mankind, which made him look with reverence upon a king, who considered all those interests as nothing; but who had the merit of enslaving the mind of France, and of increasing the power of that body of men, among whom Bossuet himself was the most distinguished.

In the absence of sufficient evidence respecting the general state of the French at the end of the seventeenth century, it is impossible to ascertain to what extent such notions as these had penetrated the popular mind. But, looking at the manner in which government had broken the spirit of the country, I should be inclined to suppose that the opinions of Bossuet were very acceptable to his own generation. This, however, is a question rather of curiosity than of importance; for only a few years later there appeared the first symptoms of that unprecedented movement, which not merely destroyed the political institutions of France, but effected a greater and more permanent revolution in every department of the national intellect. At the death of Louis XIV., in literature, as well as in politics, in religion, and in morals, everything was ripe for reaction. The materials still existing are so ample, that it would be possible to trace with considerable minuteness the steps of this great process; but it will, I think, be more agreeable to the general scheme of this Introduction, if I pass over some of the intermediate links, and confine myself to those salient instances in which the spirit of the age is most strikingly portrayed.

There is, indeed, something extraordinary in the change which, in France, one generation was able to effect in the method of writing history. The best way, perhaps, to form an idea of this, will be to compare the works of Voltaire with those of Bossuet; because these great authors were probably the most able, and were certainly the most influential, Frenchmen during the period they respectively represented. The first great improvement which we find in Voltaire, as compared with Bossuet, is an increased perception of the dignity of the human intellect. In addition to the circumstances already noticed, we must remember that the reading of Bossuet lay in a direction which prevented him from feeling this. He had not studied those branches of knowledge where great things have been achieved; but he was very conversant with the writings of the saints and fathers, whose speculations are by no means calculated to give us a high opinion of the resources of their own understanding. Thus accustomed to contemplate the workings of the mind in what is, on the whole, the most puerile literature Europe has ever produced, the contempt which Bossuet felt for mankind went on increasing; until it reached that inordinate degree which, in his later works, is painfully conspicuous. But Voltaire, who paid no attention to such things as these, passed his long life in the constant accumulation of real and available knowledge. His mind was essentially modern. Despising unsupported authority, and heedless of tradition, he devoted himself to subjects in which the triumph of the human reason is too apparent to be mistaken. The more his knowledge advanced, the more he admired those vast powers by which the knowledge had been created. Hence his admiration for the intellect of man, so far from diminishing, grew with his growth; and, just in the same proportion, there was strengthened his love of humanity, and his dislike to the prejudices which had long obscured its history. That this, in the march of his mind, was the course it actually followed, will be evident to any one who considers the different spirit of his works, in reference to the different periods of life in which they were produced.

The first historical work of Voltaire was a life of Charles XII., in 1728.887 At this time his knowledge was still scanty, and he was still influenced by the servile traditions of the preceding generation. It is not, therefore, wonderful, that he should express the greatest respect for Charles, who, among the admirers of military fame, will always preserve a certain reputation; though his only merits are, that he ravaged many countries and killed many men. But we find little sympathy with his unfortunate subjects, the accumulations of whose industry supported the royal armies;888 nor is there much pity for those nations who were oppressed by this great robber in the immense line of his conquests from Sweden to Turkey. Indeed, the admiration of Voltaire for Charles is unbounded. He calls him the most extraordinary man the world had ever seen;889 he declares him to be a prince full of honour;890 and while he scarcely blames his infamous murder of Patkul,891 he relates with evident emotion how the royal lunatic, at the head of forty servants, resisted an entire army.892 In the same way, he says, that after the battle of Narva, all the attempts of Charles were unable to prevent medals from being struck at Stockholm in celebration of that event;893 although Voltaire well knew that a man of such extravagant vanity must have been pleased by so durable a homage, and although it is quite certain that if he had not been pleased, the medals would never have been struck: for who would venture, without an object, to offend, in his own capital, one of the most arbitrary and revengeful of princes?

So far, it might appear that little had been gained in the method of writing history.894 But, even thus early, we find one vast improvement. In Voltaire's Life of Charles XII., faulty as it is, there are none of those assumptions of supernatural interference in which Bossuet delighted, and which were natural to the reign of Louis XIV. The absence of this marks the first great stage in the French school of history in the eighteenth century; and we find the same peculiarity in all the subsequent historians, none of whom recurred to a method, which, though suitable for the purposes of theologians, is fatal to all independent inquiries, since it not only prescribes the course the inquirer is bound to take, but actually sets up a limit beyond which he is forbidden to proceed.

That Voltaire should have infringed upon this ancient method only thirteen years after the death of Louis XIV., and that he should have done this in a popular work, abounding with such dangerous adventures as are always found to tempt the mind to an opposite course, is a step of no common merit, and becomes still more worthy of remark, if taken in connexion with another fact of considerable interest. This is, that the life of Charles XII. represents the first epoch, not only in the eighteenth century, but also in the intellect of Voltaire himself.895 After it was published, this great man turned awhile from history, and directed his attention to some of the noblest subjects: to mathematics, to physics, to jurisprudence, to the discoveries of Newton, and to the speculations of Locke. In these things he perceived those capabilities of the human mind, which his own country had formerly witnessed, but of which during the authority of Louis XIV. the memory had been almost lost. Then it was that, with extended knowledge and sharpened intellect, he returned to the great field of history.896 The manner in which he now treated his old subject, showed the change that had come over him. In 1752, appeared his celebrated work on Louis XIV.,897 the very title of which is suggestive of the process through which his mind had passed. His former history was an account of a king; this is an account of an age. To the production of his youth he gave the title of a History of Charles XII.; this he called the Age of Louis XIV. Before, he had detailed the peculiarities of a prince; now, he considered the movements of a people. Indeed, in the introduction to the work, he announces his intention to describe, ‘not the actions of a single man, but the character of men.’898 Nor, in this point of view, is the execution inferior to the design. While he is contented with giving a summary of military achievements, on which Bossuet hung with delight, he enters at great length into those really important matters which, before his time, found no place in the history of France. He has one chapter on commerce and internal government;899 another chapter on finances;900 another on the history of science;901 and three chapters on the progress of the fine arts.902 And though Voltaire did not attach much value to theological disputes, still he knew that they have often played a great part in the affairs of men; he therefore gives several distinct chapters to a relation of ecclesiastical matters during the reign of Louis.903 It is hardly necessary to observe the immense superiority which a scheme like this possessed, not only over the narrow views of Bossuet, but even over his own earlier history. Still it cannot be denied, that we find in it prejudices from which it was difficult for a Frenchman, educated in the reign of Louis XIV., to be entirely free. Not only does Voltaire dwell at needless length upon those amusements and debaucheries of Louis, with which history can have little concern, but he displays an evident disposition to favour the king himself, and to protect his name from the infamy with which it ought to be covered.904

But the next work of Voltaire showed that this was a mere personal feeling, and did not affect his general views as to the part which the acts of princes ought to occupy in history. Four years after the appearance of the Age of Louis XIV., he published his important treatise on the Morals, Manners, and Character of Nations.905 This is not only one of the greatest books which appeared during the eighteenth century, but it still remains the best on the subject to which it refers. The mere reading it displays is immense;906 what, however, is far more admirable, is the skill with which the author connects the various facts, and makes them illustrate each other, sometimes by a single remark, sometimes only by the order and position in which they are placed. Indeed, considered solely as a work of art, it would be difficult to praise it too highly; while, as a symptom of the times, it is important to observe, that it contains no traces of that adulation of royalty which characterized Voltaire in the period of his youth, and which is found in all the best writers during the power of Louis XIV. In the whole of this long and important work, the great historian takes little notice of the intrigues of courts, or of the changes of ministers, or of the fate of kings; but he endeavours to discover and develop the different epochs through which Man has successively passed. ‘I wish,’ he says, ‘to write a history, not of wars, but of society; and to ascertain how men lived in the interior of their families, and what were the arts which they commonly cultivated.’907 For, he adds, ‘my object is the history of the human mind, and not a mere detail of petty facts; nor am I concerned with the history of great lords, who made war upon French kings; but I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilization.’908

It was in this way that Voltaire taught historians to concentrate their attention on matters of real importance, and to neglect those idle details with which history had formerly been filled. But what proves this to be a movement arising as much from the spirit of the age as from the individual author, is, that we find precisely the same tendency in the works of Montesquieu and Turgot, who were certainly the two most eminent of the contemporaries of Voltaire; and both of whom followed a method similar to his, in so far as, omitting descriptions of kings, courts, and battles, they confined themselves to points which illustrate the character of mankind, and the general march of civilization. And such was the popularity of this change in the old routine, that its influence was felt by other historians of inferior, but still of considerable, ability. In 1755, Mallet909 published his interesting, and, at the time it was written, most valuable work, on the history of Denmark;910 in which he professes himself a pupil of the new school. ‘For why,’ he says, ‘should history be only a recital of battles, sieges, intrigues, and negotiations? And why should it contain merely a heap of petty facts and dates, rather than a great picture of the opinions, customs, and even inclinations of a people?’911 Thus too, in 1765, Mably published the first part of his celebrated work on the history of France;912 in the preface to which, he complains that historians ‘have neglected the origin of laws and customs, in favour of sieges and battles.’913 In the same spirit, Velly and Villaret, in their voluminous history of France, express regret that historians should usually relate what happens to the sovereign, in preference to what happens to the people, and should omit the manners and characteristics of a nation, in order to study the acts of a single man.914 Duclos, again, announces that his history is not of war, nor of politics, but of men and manners:915 while, strange to say, even the courtly Hénault declares that his object was to describe laws and manners, which he calls the soul of history, or rather history itself.916

Thus it was, that historians began to shift, as it were, the scene of their labours, and to study subjects connected with those popular interests, on which the great writers under Louis XIV. disdained to waste a thought. I need hardly observe, how agreeable such views were to the general spirit of the eighteenth century, and how well they harmonized with the temper of men who were striving to lay aside their former prejudices, and despise what had once been universally admired. All this was but part of that vast movement, which prepared the way for the Revolution, by unsettling ancient opinions, by encouraging a certain mobility and restlessness of mind, and, above all, by the disrespect it showed for those powerful individuals, hitherto regarded as gods rather than as men, but who now, for the first time, were neglected by the greatest and most popular historians, who passed over even their prominent actions, in order to dwell upon the welfare of nations, and the interests of the people at large.

To return, however, to what was actually effected by Voltaire, there is no doubt that, in his case, this tendency of the time was strengthened by a natural comprehensiveness of mind, which predisposed him to large views, and made him dissatisfied with that narrow range to which history had been hitherto confined.917 Whatever may be thought of the other qualities of Voltaire, it must be allowed that, in his intellect, everything was on a great scale.918 Always prepared for thought, and always ready to generalize, he was averse to the study of individual actions, unless they could be made available for the establishment of some broad and permanent principle. Hence his habit of looking at history with a view to the stages through which the country had passed, rather than with a view to the character of the men by whom the country had been governed. The same tendency appears in his lighter works; and it has been well observed,919 that, even in his dramas, he endeavours to portray, not so much the passions of individuals, as the spirit of epochs. In Mahomet, his subject is a great religion; in Alzire, the conquest of America; in Brutus, the formation of the Roman power; in the Death of Cæsar, the rise of the empire upon the ruins of that power.920

By this determination to look upon the course of events as a great and connected whole, Voltaire was led to several results, which have been complacently adopted by many authors, who, even while using them, revile him from whom they were taken. He was the first historian who, rejecting the ordinary method of investigation, endeavoured, by large general views, to explain the origin of feudality; and, by indicating some of the causes of its decline in the fourteenth century,921 he laid the foundation for a philosophic estimate of that important institution.922 He was the author of a profound remark, afterwards adopted by Constant, to the effect, that licentious religious ceremonies have no connexion with licentious national morals.923 Another observation of his, which has been only partly used by writers on ecclesiastical history, is pregnant with instruction. He says, that one of the reasons why the bishops of Rome acquired an authority so superior to that of the eastern patriarchs, was the greater subtlety of the Greek mind. Nearly all the heresies proceeded from the east; and, with the exception of Honorius I., not a single pope adopted a system condemned by the church. This gave to the papal power an unity and consolidation, which the patriarchal power was unable to reach; and thus the Holy See owes part of its authority to the early dulness of the European fancy.924