History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

Among the many points on which metaphysicians have wasted their strength, that of free-will has provoked the hottest disputes. And what has increased the acerbity of their language, is, that this, which is eminently a metaphysical question, has been taken up by theologians, who have treated it with that warmth for which they are remarkable.979 From the time of Pelagius, if not earlier,980 Christianity has been divided into two great sects, which, though in some respects uniting by insensible shades, have always preserved the broad features of their original difference. By one sect, the freedom of the will is virtually, and often expressly, denied; for it is asserted, not only that we cannot of our own will effect anything meritorious, but that whatever good we may do will be useless, since the Deity has predestined some men to perdition, others to salvation. By the other sect, the freedom of the will is as strongly upheld; good works are declared essential to salvation; and the opposite party is accused of exaggerating that state of grace of which faith is a necessary accompaniment.981

These opposite principles, when pushed to their logical consequences, must lead the first sect into antinomianism,982 and the second sect into the doctrine of supererogatory works.983 But since on such subjects, men feel far more than they reason, it usually happens that they prefer following some common and accredited standard, or appealing to some ancient name:984 and they, therefore, generally class themselves on the one side under Augustin, Calvin, and Jansenius; on the other side under Pelagius, Arminius, and Molina.

Now, it is an interesting fact, that the doctrines which in England are called Calvinistic, have been always connected with a democratic spirit; while those of Arminianism have found most favour among the aristocratic or protective party. In the republics of Switzerland, of North America, and of Holland, Calvinism was always the popular creed.985 On the other hand, in those evil days, immediately after the death of Elizabeth, when our liberties were in imminent peril; when the Church of England, aided by the crown, attempted to subjugate the consciences of men; and when the monstrous claim of the divine right of episcopacy was first put forward;986– then it was that Arminianism became the cherished doctrine of the ablest and most ambitious of the ecclesiastical party.987 And in that sharp retribution which followed, the Puritans and Independents, by whom the punishment was inflicted, were, with scarcely an exception, Calvinists:988 nor should we forget, that the first open movement against Charles proceeded from Scotland, where the principles of Calvin had long been in the ascendant.

This different tendency of these two creeds is so clearly marked, that an inquiry into its causes becomes a necessary part of general history, and as we shall presently see, is intimately connected with the history of the French Revolution.

The first circumstance by which we must be struck is, that Calvinism is a doctrine for the poor, and Arminianism for the rich. A creed which insists upon the necessity of faith, must be less costly than one which insists upon the necessity of works. In the former case, the sinner seeks salvation by the strength of his belief; in the latter case, he seeks it by the fullness of his contributions. And as those contributions, wherever the clergy have much power, always flow in the same direction, we find that in countries which favour the Arminian doctrine of works, the priests are better paid, and the churches more richly ornamented, than they are where Calvinism has the upper hand. Indeed it is evident to the most vulgar calculation, that a religion which concentrates our charity upon ourselves, is less expensive than one which directs our charity to others.

This is the first great practical divergence of the two creeds: a divergence which may be verified by any one who is acquainted with the histories of different Christian nations, or who has even travelled in countries where the different tenets are professed. It is also observable, that the Church of Rome, whose worship is addressed mainly to the senses, and who delights in splendid cathedrals and pompous ceremonies, has always displayed against the Calvinists an animosity far greater than she has done against any other Protestant sect.989

Out of these circumstances, inevitably arose the aristocratic tendency of Arminianism, and the democratic tendency of Calvinism. The people love pomp and pageantry as much as the nobles do, but they do not love to pay for them. Their untutored minds are easily captivated by the array of a numerous priesthood, and by the gorgeousness of a well-appointed temple. Still, they know full well that these things absorb a large part of that wealth which would otherwise flow into their own cottages. On the other hand, the aristocracy, by their standing, their habits, and the traditions of their education, naturally contract a taste for expense, which makes them unite splendour with religion, and connect pomp with piety. Besides this, they have an intuitive and well-founded belief that their own interests are associated with the interests of the priesthood, and that whatever weakens the one will hasten the downfall of the other. Hence it is, that every Christian democracy has simplified its external worship; every Christian aristocracy has embellished it. By a parity of reasoning, the more any society tends to equality, the more likely it is that its theological opinions will be Calvinistic; while the more a society tends towards inequality, the greater the probability of those opinions being Arminian.

It would be easy to push this contrast still further, and to show that Calvinism is more favourable to the sciences, Arminianism to the arts;990 and that, on the same principle, the first is better suited to thinkers, the other to scholars.991 But without pretending to trace the whole of this divergence, it is very important to observe, that the professors of the former religion are more likely to acquire habits of independent thinking than those of the latter. And this on two distinct grounds. In the first place, even the most ordinary of the Calvinistic party are, by the very terms of their creed, led, in religious matters, to fix their attention on their own minds rather than on the minds of others. They, therefore, as a body, are intellectually more narrow than their opponents, but less servile; their views, though generalized from a smaller field, are more independent; they are less attached to antiquity, and more heedless of those traditions to which the Arminian scholars attach great importance. In the second place, those who associate metaphysics with their religion are led by Calvinism into the doctrine of necessity;992 a theory which, though often misunderstood, is pregnant with great truths, and is better calculated than any other system to develop the intellect, because it involves that clear conception of law, the attainment of which is the highest point the human understanding can reach.

These considerations will enable the reader to see the immense importance of that revival of Jansenism, which took place in the French church during the eighteenth century. For, Jansenism being essentially Calvinistic,993 those tendencies appeared in France by which Calvinism is marked. There appeared the inquisitive, democratic, and insubordinate spirit, which has always accompanied that creed. A further confirmation of the truth of the principles just laid down is, that Jansenism originated with a native of the Dutch Republic;994 that it was introduced into France during the glimpse of freedom which preceded the power of Louis XIV.;995 that it was forcibly repressed in his arbitrary reign;996 and that before the middle of the eighteenth century, it again arose, as the natural product of a state of society by which the French Revolution was brought about.

The connexion between the revival of Jansenism and the destruction of the Jesuits, is obvious. After the death of Louis XIV., the Jansenists rapidly gained ground, even in the Sorbonne;997 and by the middle of the eighteenth century, they had organized a powerful party in the French parliament.998 About the same period, their influence began to show itself in the executive government, and among the officers of the crown. Machault, who held the important post of controller-general, was known to favour their opinions;999 and a few years after his retirement, Choiseul was called to the head of affairs; a man of considerable ability, by whom they were openly protected.1000 Their views were likewise supported by Laverdy, controller-general in 1764, and by Terray, controller of finances in 1769.1001 The procureur-general, Gilbert des Voisins, was a Jansenist;1002 so also was one of his successors, Chauvelin;1003 and so was the advocate-general Pelletier de Saint-Fargeau;1004 and so too was Camus, the well-known advocate of the clergy.1005 Turgot, the greatest statesman of the age, is said to have embraced the same opinions;1006 while Necker, who on two different occasions possessed almost supreme power, was notoriously a rigid Calvinist. To this may be added, that not only Necker, but also Rousseau, to whom a large share in causing the Revolution is justly ascribed, were born in Geneva, and drew their earliest ideas from that great nursery of the Calvinistic theology.

In such a state of things as this, it was impossible that a body like the Jesuits should hold their ground. They were the last defenders of authority and tradition, and it was natural that they should fall in an age when statesmen were sceptics, and theologians were Calvinists. Even the people had already marked them for destruction; and when Damiens, in 1757, attempted to assassinate the king, it was generally believed that they were the instigators of the act.1007 This we now know to be false; but the existence of such a rumour is evidence of the state of the popular mind. At all events, the doom of the Jesuits was fixed. In April 1761, parliament ordered their constitutions to be laid before them.1008 In August, they were forbidden to receive novices, their colleges were closed, and a number of their most celebrated works were publicly burned by the common hangman.1009 Finally, in 1762, another edict appeared, by which the Jesuits were condemned without even being heard in their own defence;1010 their property was directed to be sold, and their order secularized; they were declared ‘unfit to be admitted into a well-governed country,’ and their institute and society were formally abolished.1011

Such was the way in which this great society, long the terror of the world, fell before the pressure of public opinion. What makes its fall the more remarkable, is, that the pretext which was alleged to justify the examination of its constitutions, was one so slight, that no former government would have listened to it for a single moment. This immense spiritual corporation was actually tried by a temporal court for ill faith in a mercantile transaction, and for refusing to pay a sum of money said to be due!1012 The most important body in the Catholic church, the spiritual leaders of France, the educators of her youth, and the confessors of her kings, were brought to the bar, and sued in their collective capacity, for the fraudulent repudiation of a common debt!1013 So marked was the predisposition of affairs, that it was not found necessary to employ for the destruction of the Jesuits any of those arts by which the popular mind is commonly inflamed. The charge upon which they were sentenced, was not that they had plotted against the state; nor that they had corrupted the public morals; nor that they wished to subvert religion. These were the accusations which were brought in the seventeenth century, and which suited the genius of that age. But in the eighteenth century, all that was required was some trifling accident, that might serve as a pretence to justify what the nation had already determined. To ascribe, therefore, this great event to the bankruptcy of a trader, or the intrigues of a mistress,1014 is to confuse the cause of an act with the pretext under which the act is committed. In the eyes of the men of the eighteenth century, the real crime of the Jesuits was, that they belonged to the past rather than to the present, and that by defending the abuses of ancient establishments, they obstructed the progress of mankind. They stood in the way of the age, and the age swept them from its path. This was the real cause of their abolition: a cause not likely to be perceived by those writers, who, under the guise of historians, are only collectors of the prattle and gossip of courts; and who believe that the destinies of great nations can be settled in the ante-chambers of ministers, and in the councils of kings.

After the fall of the Jesuits, there seemed to be nothing remaining which could save the French church from immediate destruction.1015 The old theological spirit had been for some time declining, and the clergy were suffering from their own decay even more than from the attacks made upon them. The advance of knowledge was producing in France the same results as those which I have pointed out in England; and the increasing attractions of science drew off many illustrious men, who in a preceding age would have been active members of the spiritual profession. That splendid eloquence, for which the French clergy had been remarkable, was now dying away, and there were no longer heard the voices of those great orators, at whose bidding the temples had formerly been filled.1016 Massillon was the last of that celebrated race who had so enthralled the mind, and the magic of whose fascination it is even now hard to withstand. He died in 1742; and after him the French clergy possessed no eminent men of any kind, neither thinkers, nor orators, nor writers.1017 Nor did there seem the least possibility of their recovering their lost position. While society was advancing they were receding. All the sources of their power were dried up. They had no active leaders; they had lost the confidence of government; they had forfeited the respect of the people; they had become a mark for the gibes of the age.1018

It does, at first sight, seem strange that, under these circumstances, the French clergy should have been able, for nearly thirty years after the abolition of the Jesuits, to maintain their standing, so as to interfere with impunity in public affairs.1019 The truth, however, is, that this temporary reprieve of the ecclesiastical order was owing to that movement which I have already noticed, and by virtue of which the French intellect, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, changed the ground of its attack, and, directing its energies against political abuses, neglected in some degree those spiritual abuses to which its attention had been hitherto confined. The result was, that in France the government enforced a policy which the great thinkers had indeed originated, but respecting which they were becoming less eager. The most eminent Frenchmen were beginning their attacks upon the state, and in the heat of their new warfare they slackened their opposition to the church. But in the mean time, the seeds they had sown germinated in the state itself. So rapid was the march of affairs, that those anti-ecclesiastical opinions which, a few years earlier, were punished as the paradoxes of designing men, were now taken up and put into execution by senators and ministers. The rulers of France carried into effect principles which had hitherto been simply a matter of theory; and thus it happened, as is always the case, that practical statesmen only apply and work out ideas which have long before been suggested by more advanced thinkers.

Hence it followed, that at no period during the eighteenth century did the speculative classes and practical classes thoroughly combine against the church: since, in the first half of the century, the clergy were principally assailed by the literature, and not by the government; in the latter half of the century, by the government, and not by the literature. Some of the circumstances of this singular transition have been already stated, and I hope clearly brought before the mind of the reader. I now purpose to complete the generalization, by proving that a corresponding change was taking place in all other branches of inquiry; and that, while in the first period attention was chiefly directed towards mental phenomena, it was in the second period more directed towards physical phenomena. From this, the political movement received a vast accession of strength. For the French intellect, shifting the scene of its labours, diverted the thoughts of men from the internal to the external, and concentrating attention upon their material rather than upon their spiritual wants, turned against the encroachments of the state an hostility formerly reserved for the encroachments of the church. Whenever a tendency arises to prefer what comes from without to what comes from within, and thus to aggrandize matter at the expense of mind, there will also be a tendency to believe that an institution which hampers our opinions is less hurtful than one which controls our acts. Precisely in the same way, men who reject the fundamental truths of religion, will care little for the extent to which those truths are perverted. Men who deny the existence of the Deity and the immortality of the soul, will take no heed of the way in which a gross and formal worship obscures those sublime doctrines. All the idolatry, all the ceremonials, all the pomp, all the dogmas, and all the traditions by which religion is retarded, will give them no disquietude, because they consider the opinions that are checked to be equally false with those that are favoured. Why should they, to whom transcendental truths are unknown, labour to remove the superstitions which darken the truths? Such a generation, so far from attacking ecclesiastical usurpations, would rather look on the clergy as convenient tools to ensnare the ignorant and control the vulgar. Therefore it is that we rarely hear of a sincere atheist being a zealous polemic. But if that should occur, which a century ago occurred in France; if it should happen that men of great energy, and actuated by the feelings I have described, were to find themselves in the presence of a political despotism, – they would direct against it the whole of their powers; and they would act with the more determined vigour, because, believing that their all was at stake, temporal happiness would be to them not only the first, but also the sole consideration.

It is from this point of view that the progress of those atheistical opinions, which now rose in France, becomes a matter of great though painful interest. And the date at which they appeared, fully corroborates what I have just said respecting the change that took place in the middle of the eighteenth century. The first great work in which they were openly promulgated, was the celebrated Encyclopædia, published in 1751.1020 Before that time such degrading opinions, though occasionally broached, were not held by any men of ability; nor could they in the preceding state of society have made much impression upon the age. But during the latter half of the eighteenth century, they affected every department of French literature. Between 1758 and 1770, atheistical tenets rapidly gained ground;1021 and in 1770 was published the famous work, called the System of Nature; the success, and, unhappily, the ability of which, makes its appearance an important epoch in the history of France. Its popularity was immense;1022 and the views it contains are so clearly and methodically arranged, as to have earned for it the name of the code of atheism.1023 Five years later, the Archbishop of Toulouse, in a formal address to the king on behalf of the clergy, declared that atheism had now become the prevailing opinion.1024 This, like all similar assertions, must have been an exaggeration; but that there was a large amount of truth in it, is known to whoever has studied the mental habits of the generation immediately preceding the Revolution. Among the inferior class of writers, Damilaville, Deleyre, Maréchal, Naigeon, Toussaint, were active supporters of that cold and gloomy dogma, which, in order to extinguish the hope of a future life, blots out from the mind of man the glorious instincts of his own immortality.1025 And, strange to say, several even of the higher intellects were unable to escape the contagion. Atheism was openly advocated by Condorcet, by D'Alembert, by Diderot, by Helvétius, by Lalande, by Laplace, by Mirabeau, and by Saint Lambert.1026 Indeed, so thoroughly did all this harmonize with the general temper, that in society men boasted of what, in other countries, and in other days, has been a rare and singular error, an eccentric taint, which those affected by it were willing to conceal. In 1764 Hume met, at the house of Baron d'Holbach, a party of the most celebrated Frenchmen then residing in Paris. The great Scotchman, who was no doubt aware of the prevailing opinion, took occasion to raise an argument as to the existence of an atheist, properly so called; for his own part, he said, he had never chanced to meet with one. ‘You have been somewhat unfortunate,’ replied Holbach; ‘but at the present moment you are sitting at table with seventeen of them.’1027

This, sad as it is, only forms a single aspect of that immense movement, by which, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, the French intellect was withdrawn from the study of the internal, and concentrated upon that of the external world. Of this tendency, we find an interesting instance in the celebrated work of Helvétius, unquestionably the ablest and most influential treatise on morals which France produced at this period. It was published in 1758;1028 and, although it bears the title of an essay on ‘the Mind,’ it does not contain a single passage from which we could infer that the mind, in the sense in which the word is commonly used, has any existence. In this work, which, during fifty years, was the code of French morals, principles are laid down which bear exactly the same relation to ethics that atheism bears to theology. Helvétius, at the beginning of his inquiry, assumes, as an incontestable fact, that the difference between man and other animals is the result of a difference in their external form; and that if, for example, our wrists, instead of ending with hands and flexible fingers, had merely ended like a horse's foot, we should have always remained wanderers on the face of the earth, ignorant of every art, entirely defenceless, and having no other concern but to avoid the attacks of wild beasts, and find the needful supply of our daily food.1029 That the structure of our bodies is the sole cause of our boasted superiority, becomes evident, when we consider that our thoughts are simply the product of two faculties, which we have in common with all other animals; namely, the faculty of receiving impressions from external objects, and the faculty of remembering those impressions after they are received.1030 From this, says Helvétius, it follows, that the internal powers of man being the same as those of all other animals, our sensibility and our memory would be useless, if it were not for those external peculiarities by which we are eminently distinguished, and to which we owe every thing that is most valuable.1031 These positions being laid down, it is easy to deduce all the essential principles of moral actions. For, memory being merely one of the organs of physical sensibility,1032 and judgment being only a sensation,1033 all notions of duty and of virtue must be tested by their relation to the senses; in other words, by the gross amount of physical enjoyment to which they give rise. This is the true basis of moral philosophy. To take any other view, is to allow ourselves to be deceived by conventional expressions, which have no foundation except in the prejudices of ignorant men. Our vices and our virtues are solely the result of our passions; and our passions are caused by our physical sensibility to pain and to pleasure.1034 It was in this way that the sense of justice first arose. To physical sensibility men owe pleasure and pain; hence the feeling of their own interests, and hence the desire of living together in societies. Being assembled in society, there grew up the notion of a general interest, since, without it, society could not hold together; and, as actions are only just or unjust in proportion as they minister to this general interest, a measure was established, by which justice is discriminated from injustice.1035 With the same inflexible spirit, and with great fullness of illustration, Helvétius examines the origin of those other feelings which regulate human actions. Thus, he says that both ambition and friendship are entirely the work of physical sensibility. Men yearn after fame, on account either of the pleasure which they expect the mere possession of it will give, or else as the means of subsequently procuring other pleasures.1036 As to friendship, the only use of it is to increase our pleasures or mitigate our pains; and it is with this object that a man longs to hold communion with his friend.1037 Beyond this, life has nothing to offer. To love what is good for the sake of the goodness, is as impossible as to love what is bad for the sake of the evil.1038 The mother who weeps for the loss of her child, is solely actuated by selfishness; she mourns because a pleasure is taken from her, and because she sees a void difficult to fill up.1039 So it is, that the loftiest virtues, as well as the meanest vices, are equally caused by the pleasure we find in the exercise of them.1040 This is the great mover and originator of all. Every thing that we have, and every thing that we are, we owe to the external world; nor is Man himself aught else except what he is made by the objects which surround him.1041