History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

996

Brienne, who knew Louis XIV. personally, says, ‘Jansénisme, l'horreur du roi.’ Mém. de Brienne, vol. ii. p. 240. Compare Duclos, Mém. Secrets, vol. i. p. 112. At the end of his reign he promoted a bishop on the avowed ground of his opposition to the Jansenists; this was in 1713. Lettres inédites de Maintenon, vol. ii. pp. 396, 406; and see further vol. i. pp. 220, 222.

997

‘La Sorbonne, moliniste sous Louis XIV, fut janséniste sous le régent, et toujours divisée.’ Duvernet, Hist. de la Sorbonne, vol. ii. p. 225.

998

On the strength of the Jansenists in the parliament of Paris, see Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. i. p. 352, vol. ii. p. 176; Flassan, Diplomatie, vol. vi. p. 486; Mém. de Georgel, vol. ii. p. 262; Mém. de Bouillé, vol. i. p. 67; Palmer's Treatise on the Church, vol. i. pp. 327, 328.

999

Lavallée, Hist. des Français, vol. iii. p. 439.

1000

Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. i. pp. 31, 145.

1001

Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 385; Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. liv. p. 275; Mém. de Georgel, vol. i. pp. 49–51.

1002

Duvernet, Vie de Voltaire, p. 90.

1003

Lacretelle, XVIIIe Siècle, vol. ii. p. 119; Lavallée, vol. iii. p. 477.

1004

Mém. de Georgel, vol. i. p. 57.

1005

La Fayette, Mém. vol. ii. p. 53; Dumont, Souvenirs, p. 154; Georgel, vol. ii. p. 353, vol. iii. p. 10.

1006

Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. iii. p. 137.

1007

‘The Jesuits are charged by the vulgar as promoters of that attempt.’ Letter from Stanley, written in 1761, in Chatham Correspond. vol. ii. p. 127. Compare Campan, Mém. de Marie Antoinette, vol. iii. pp. 19, 21; Sismondi, Hist. des Franç. vol. xxix. pp. 111, 227.

1008

Lavallée, Hist. des Français, vol. iii. p. 476.

1009

Flassan, Diplomatie Franç. vol. vi. p. 491.

1010

‘Sans que les accusés eussent été entendus.’ Lavallée, vol. iii. p. 477. ‘Pas un seul n'a été entendu dans leur cause.’ Barruel sur l'Hist. du Jacobinisme, vol. ii. p. 264.

1011

Lavallée, iii. p. 477; Flassan, vi. pp. 504, 505; Sismondi, xxix. p. 234; and the letters written by Diderot, who, though he was in Paris at the time, gives rather an incomplete account, Mém. de Diderot, vol. ii. pp. 127, 130–132.

1012

Flassan, Hist. de la Diplomatie, vol. vi. pp. 486–488.

1013

‘Enfin ils furent mis en cause, et le parlement de Paris eut l'étonnement et la joie de voir les jésuites amenés devant lui comme de vils banqueroutiers.’ Lacretelle, XVIIIe Siècle, vol. ii. p. 252. ‘Condemned in France as fraudulent traders.’ Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. iv. p. 451.

1014

Several writers attribute the destruction of the Jesuits to the exertions of Madame de Pompadour!

1015

Choiseul is reported to have said of the Jesuits: ‘leur éducation détruite, tous les autres corps religieux tomberont d'eux-mêmes.’ Barruel, Hist. du Jacobinisme, vol. i. p. 63.

1016

In 1771, Horace Walpole writes from Paris that the churches and convents were become so empty, as to ‘appear like abandoned theatres destined to destruction;’ and this he contrasts with his former experience of a different state of things. Walpole's Letters, vol. v. p. 310, edit. 1840.

1017

‘So low had the talents of the once illustrious church of France fallen, that in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Christianity itself was assailed, not one champion of note appeared in its ranks; and when the convocation of the clergy, in 1770, published their famous anathema against the dangers of unbelief, and offered rewards for the best essays in defence of the Christian faith, the productions called forth were so despicable that they sensibly injured the cause of religion.’ Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. i. pp. 180, 181.

1018

In 1766, the Rev. William Cole writes to Alban Butler: ‘I travelled to Paris through Lille and Cambray in their public voitures, and was greatly scandalized and amazed at the open and unreserved disrespect, both of the trading and military people, for their clergy and religious establishment. When I got to Paris, it was much worse.’ Ellis's Original Letters, second series, vol. iv. p. 485. See also Walpole's Letters to Lady Ossory, vol. ii. p. 513, edit. 1848; and the complaint made at Besançon in 1761, in Lepan, Vie de Voltaire, p. 113.

1019

And also to retain their immense property, which, when the Revolution occurred, was estimated at 80,000,000l. English money, bringing in a yearly revenue of ‘somewhat under 75,000,000 francs.’ Alison's Europe, vol. i. p. 183, vol. ii. p. 20, vol. xiv. pp. 122, 123.

1020

M. Barante (Littérature Française au XVIIIe Siècle, p. 94) says, ‘On arriva bientôt à tout nier; déjà l'incrédulité avait rejeté les preuves divines de la révélation, et avait abjuré les devoirs et les souvenirs chrétiens; on vit alors l'athéisme lever un front plus hardi, et proclamer que tout sentiment religieux était une rêverie et un désordre de l'esprit humain. C'est de l'époque de l'Encyclopédie que datent les écrits où cette opinion est le plus expressément professée. Ils furent peu imités.’ This last sentence is erroneous, I am sorry to say.

1021

‘Dans un intervalle de douze années, de 1758 à 1770, la littérature française fut souillée par un grand nombre d'ouvrages où l'athéisme étoit ouvertement professé.’ Lacretelle, XVIIIe Siècle, vol. ii. p. 310.

1022

Voltaire, who wrote against it, mentions its diffusion among all classes, and says it was read by ‘des savants, des ignorants, des femmes.’ Dict. Philos. article Dieu, section iv., in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xxxviii. p. 366: see also vol. lxvii. p. 260; Longchamp et Wagnière, Mém. sur Voltaire, vol. i. pp. 13, 334; Lettres inédites de Voltaire, vol. ii. pp. 210, 216; and a letter from him in Correspond. de Dudeffand, vol. ii. p. 329. Compare Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. xi. p. 320: ‘mit ungetheiltem Beifalle aufgenommen worden und grossen Einfluss gehabt hat.’

1023

‘Le code monstrueux d'athéisme.’ Biog. Univ. vol. xxix. p. 88. Morellet, who in such matters was by no means a harsh judge, says, ‘Le Système de la Nature, surtout, est un catéchisme d'athéisme complet.’ Mém. de Morellet, vol. i. p. 133. Stäudlin (Gesch. der theolog. Wissenschaften, vol. ii. p. 440) calls it ‘ein System des entschiedenen Atheismus:’ while Tennemann, who has given by far the best account of it I have met with, says, ‘Es machte bei seinem Erscheinen gewaltiges Aufsehen, und ist fast immer als das Handbuch des Atheismus betrachtet worden.’ Gesch. der Philos. vol. xi. p. 349.

1024

‘Le monstrueux athéisme est devenu l'opinion dominante.’ Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. iii. p. 16: the address of the archbishop with a deputation, ‘muni des pouvoirs de l'assemblée générale du clergé,’ in September 1775.

1025

Biog. Univ. vol. x. pp. 471, 669, vol. xxvii. p. 8, vol. xxx. p. 542; Mém. de Brissot, vol. i. p. 305; Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 77.

1026

Mem. of Mallet du Pan, vol. i. p. 50; Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. v. p. 127; Barruel, Hist. du Jacobin., vol. i. pp. 104, 135, 225, vol. ii. p. 23, vol. iii. p. 200; Life of Romilly, vol. i. pp. 46, 145; Stäudlin, Theolog. Wissenschaften, vol. ii. p. 440; Georgel, Mém. vol. ii. pp. 250, 350; Grimm, Correspond. vol. xv. p. 87; Mém. de Morellet, vol. i. p. 130; Lepan, Vie de Voltaire, p. 369; Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. xi. p. 350; Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. ii. pp. 177, 297; Mém. de Genlis, vol. v. p. 180; Hitchcock's Geol. p. 263; Mém. d'Epinay, vol. ii. pp. 63, 66, 76.

1027

This was related to Romilly by Diderot. Life of Romilly, vol. i. pp. 131, 132: see also Burton's Life of Hume, vol. ii. pp. 220. Priestley, who visited France in 1774, says, that ‘all the philosophical persons to whom I was introduced at Paris (were) unbelievers in Christianity, and even professed atheists.’ Priestley's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 74. See also a letter by Horace Walpole, written from Paris in 1765 (Walpole's Letters, edit. 1840, vol. v. p. 96): ‘their avowed doctrine is atheism.’

1028

Biog. Univ. vol. xx. p. 29.

1029

‘Si la nature, au lieu de mains et de doigts flexibles, eût terminé nos poignets par un pied de cheval; qui doute que les hommes, sans art, sans habitations, sans défense contre les animaux, tout occupés du soin de pourvoir à leur nourriture et d'éviter les bêtes féroces, ne fussent encore errants dans les forêts comme des troupeaux fugitifs?’ Helvétius, De l'Esprit, vol. i. p. 2. Had Helvétius ever read the attack of Aristotle against Anaxagoras for asserting that διὰ τὸ χεῖοας ἔχειν, φρονιμώώτατον εῖναι τῶν ζώων τὸν ἄνθρωπον? Cudworth, Intellect. Syst. vol. iii. p. 311.

1030

De l'Esprit, vol. i. p. 2.

1031

Ibid. vol. i. p. 4.

1032

‘En effet la mémoire ne peut être qu'un des organes de la sensibilité physique.’ vol. i. p. 6. Compare what M. Lepelletier says on this, in his Physiologie Médicale, vol. iii. p. 272.

1033

‘D'où je conclus que tout jugement n'est qu'une sensation.’ De l'Esprit, vol. i. p. 10; ‘juger, comme je l'ai déjà prouvé, n'est proprement que sentir.’ p. 41.

1034

‘Né sensible à la douleur et au plaisir, c'est à la sensibilité physique que l'homme doit ses passions; et à ses passions, qu'il doit tous ses vices et toutes ses vertus.’ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 53; and see vol. i. p. 239.

1035

‘Une fois parvenu à cette vérité, je découvre facilement la source des vertus humaines; je voie que sans la sensibilité à la douleur et au plaisir physique, les hommes, sans désirs, sans passions, également indifférents à tout, n'eussent point connu d'intérêt personnel; que sans intérêt personnel ils ne se fussent point rassemblés en société, n'eussent point fait entr'eux de conventions, qu'il n'y eût point eu d'intérêt général, par conséquent point d'actions justes ou injustes; et qu'ainsi la sensibilité physique et l'intérêt personnel ont été les auteurs de toute justice.’ Ibid. vol. i. p. 278.

1036

De l'Esprit, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20, 30, 34, 293, 294, 318. Compare Epicurus, in Diog. Laert. de Vit. Philos. lib. x. seg. 120, vol. i. p. 654.

1037

De l'Esprit, vol. ii. p. 45. He sums up: ‘il s'ensuit que l'amitié, ainsi que l'avarice, l'orgueil, l'ambition et les autres passions, est l'effet immédiat de la sensibilité physique.’

1038

‘Il lui est aussi impossible d'aimer le bien pour le bien, que d'aimer le mal pour le mal.’ Ibid. vol. i. p. 73.

1039

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 249.

1040

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 58.

1041

‘Nous sommes uniquement ce que nous font les objets qui nous environnent.’ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 306.

1042

Saint Surin, a zealous opponent of Helvétius, admits that ‘les étrangers les plus éminents par leurs dignités ou par leurs lumières, désiraient d'être introduits chez un philosophe dont le nom retentissait dans toute l'Europe.’ Biog. Univ. vol. xx. p. 33.

1043

Brissot (Mémoires, vol. i. p. 339) says, that in 1775, ‘le système d'Helvétius avait alors la plus grande vogue.’ Turgot, who wrote against it, complains that it was praised ‘avec une sorte de fureur’ (Œuvres de Turgot, vol. ix. p. 297); and Georgel (Mémoires, vol. ii. p. 256) says, ‘ce livre, écrit avec un style plein de chaleur et d'images, se trouvoit sur toutes les toilettes.’

1044

‘D'ailleurs le siècle de Louis XV se reconnut dans l'ouvrage d'Helvétius, et on prête à Mme. Dudeffand ce mot fin et profond: “C'est un homme qui a dit le secret de tout le monde.”’ Cousin, Hist. de la Philos. I. série, vol. iii. p. 201. Compare Corresp. de Dudeffand, vol. i. p. xxii.; and a similar sentiment in Mém. de Roland, vol. i. p. 104. The relation of Helvétius's work to the prevailing philosophy is noticed in Comte's Philos. Pos. vol. iii. pp. 791, 792. vol. v. pp. 744, 745.

1045

Biog. Univ. vol. ix. p. 399.

1046

‘Condillac est le métaphysicien français du XVIIIe siècle.’ Cousin, Hist. de la Philos. I. série, vol. iii. p. 83.

1047

‘Traité des Sensations,’ which, as M. Cousin says, is, ‘sans comparaison, le chef-d'œuvre de Condillac.’ Hist. de la Philos. II. série, vol. ii. p. 77.

1048

On the immense influence of Condillac, compare Renouard, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 355; Cuvier, Eloges, vol. iii. p. 387; Broussais, Cours de Phrénologie, pp. 45, 68–71, 829; Pinel, Alién. Mentale, p. 94; Brown's Philos. of the Mind, p. 212.

1049

Whether or not Locke held that reflection is an independent as well as a separate faculty, is uncertain; because passages could be quoted from his writings to prove either the affirmative or the negative. Dr. Whewell justly remarks, that Locke uses the word so vaguely as to ‘allow his disciples to make of his doctrines what they please.’ History of Moral Philosophy, 1852, p. 71.

1050

‘Locke distingue deux sources de nos idées, les sens et la réflexion. Il seroit plus exact de n'en reconnoître qu'une, soit parceque la réflexion n'est dans son principe que la sensation même, soit parce qu'elle est moins la source des idées que le canal par lequel elles découlent des sens.’ Condillac, Traité des Sensations, p. 13: see also, at pp. 19, 216, the way in which sensation becomes reflection; and the summing up, at p. 416, ‘que toutes nos connoissances viennent des sens, et particulièrement du toucher.’

1051

He says of Mallebranche (Traité des Sensations, p. 312), ‘ne pouvant comprendre comment nous formerions nous-mêmes ces jugemens, il les attribue à Dieu; manière de raisonner fort commode, et presque toujours la ressource des philosophes.’

1052

‘Mais à peine j'arrête la vue sur un objet, que les sensations particulières que j'en reçois sont l'attention même que je lui donne.’ Traité des Sensations, p. 16.

1053

‘Ne sont que différentes manières d'être attentif.’ p. 122.

1054

‘Dès qu'il y a double attention, il y a comparaison; car être attentif à deux idées ou les comparer, c'est la même chose.’ p. 17.

1055

‘Dès qu'il y a comparaison, il y a jugement.’ p. 65.

1056

‘La mémoire n'est donc que la sensation transformée.’ p. 17. Compare p. 61.

1057

‘L'imagination est la mémoire même, parvenue à toute la vivacité dont elle est susceptible.’ p. 78. ‘Or j'ai appelé imagination cette mémoire vive qui fait paroître présent ce qui est absent.’ p. 245.

1058

‘Il résulte de cette vérité, que la nature commence tout en nous: aussi ai-je démontré que, dans le principe ou dans le commencement, nos connoissances sont uniquement son ouvrage, que nous ne nous instruisons que d'après ses leçons, et que tout l'art de raisonner consisté à continuer comme elle nous a fait commencer.’ p. 178.

1059

Compare Powell on Radiant Heat, p. 261, in Second Rep. of Brit. Assoc.; Whewell's History of Sciences, vol. ii. p. 526; and his Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 339, 340. Prevost was professor at Geneva; but his great views were followed up in France by Dulong and Petit; and the celebrated theory of dew by Dr. Wells is merely an application of them. Herschel's Nat. Philosophy, pp. 163, 315, 316. Respecting the further prosecution of these inquiries, and our present knowledge of radiant heat, see Liebig and Kopp's Reports, vol. i. p. 79, vol. iii. p. 30, vol. iv. p. 45.

1060

On Fourier's mathematical theory of conduction, see Comte, Philos. Positive, vol. i. pp. 142, 175, 345, 346, 351, vol. ii. pp. 453, 551; Prout's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 203, 204; Kelland on Heat, p. 6, in Brit. Assoc. for 1841; Erman's Siberia, vol. i. p. 243; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. i. p. 169; Hitchcock's Geology, p. 198; Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, ii. 696, 697.

1061

Coulomb's memoirs on electricity and magnetism were published from 1782 to 1789. Fifth Report of Brit. Assoc. p. 4. Compare Liebig and Kopp's Reports, vol. iii. p. 128; and on his relation to Œpinus, who wrote in 1759, see Whewell's Induc. Sciences, vol. iii. pp. 24–26, 35, 36, and Haüy, Traité de Minéralogie, vol. iii. p. 44, vol. iv. p. 14. There is a still fuller account of what was effected by Coulomb in M. Pouillet's able work, Elémens de Physique, vol. i. part ii. pp. 63–79, 130–135.

1062

Fresnel belongs to the present century; but M. Biot says that the researches of Malus began before the passage of the Rhine in 1797. Biot's Life of Malus, in Biog. Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 412.

1063

Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 484, 514; Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1832, p. 314; Leslie's Nat. Philos. p. 83; Whewell's Hist. of Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 408–410; Philos. of Sciences, vol. i. p. 350, vol. ii. p. 25; Herschel's Nat. Philos. p. 258.

1064

The struggle between these rival theories, and the ease with which a man of such immense powers as Young was put down, and, as it were, suppressed, by those ignorant pretenders who presumed to criticize him, will be related in another part of this work, as a valuable illustration of the history and habits of the English mind. At present the controversy is finished, so far as the advocates of emission are concerned; but there are still difficulties on the other side, which should have prevented Dr. Whewell from expressing himself with such extreme positiveness on an unexhausted subject. This able writer says: ‘The undulatory theory of light; the only discovery which can stand by the side of the theory of universal gravitation, as a doctrine belonging to the same order, for its generality, its fertility, and its certainty.’ Whewell's Hist. of the Induc. Sciences, vol. ii. p. 425; see also p. 508.

1065

As to the supposed impossibility of conceiving the existence of matter without properties which give rise to forces (note in Paget's Lectures on Pathology, 1853, vol. i. p. 61), there are two reasons which prevent me from attaching much weight to it. First, a conception which, in one stage of knowledge, is called impossible, becomes, in a later stage, perfectly easy, and so natural as to be often termed necessary. Secondly, however indissoluble the connexion may appear between force and matter, it was not found fatal to the dynamical theory of Leibnitz; it has not prevented other eminent thinkers from holding similar views; and the arguments of Berkeley, though constantly attacked, have never been refuted.

1066

Every chemical decomposition being only a new form of composition. Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, vol. i. pp. 455, 456, 498: ‘de tout cela il résulte, que la dissolution est un cas particulier des combinaisons.’

1067

What is erroneously called the atomic theory, is, properly speaking, an hypothesis, and not a theory: but hypothesis though it be, it is by its aid that we wield the doctrine of definite proportions, the corner stone of chemistry.

1068

Many of them being still fettered, in geology, by the hypothesis of catastrophes; in chemistry, by the hypothesis of vital forces.

1069

See, for instance, Cuvier, Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. pp. 32–34, 40; Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, p. 282; Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 184, 185; Brande's Chemistry, vol. i. pp. lxxxv.–lxxxix. 302; Thomson's Animal Chemistry, pp. 520, 634, and a great part of the second volume of his History of Chemistry; also Müller's Physiol. vol. i. pp. 90, 323.

1070

According to Mr. Harcourt (Brit. Assoc. Report for 1839, p. 10), Cavendish has this merit, so far as England is concerned: ‘He, first of all his contemporaries, did justice to the rival theory recently proposed by Lavoisier.’

1071

La chimie française. Thomson's Hist. of Chemistry, vol. ii. pp. 101, 130. On the excitement caused by Lavoisier's views, see a letter which Jefferson wrote in Paris, in 1789, printed partly in Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. pp. 314, 315; and at length in Jefferson's Correspond. vol. ii. pp. 453–455.

1072

‘The first attempt to form a systematic chemical nomenclature was made by Lavoisier, Berthollet, G. de Morveau, and Fourcroy, soon after the discovery of oxygen gas.’ Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 127. Cuvier (Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. p. 39) and Robin et Verdeil (Chimie Anatomique, vol. i. pp. 602, 603) ascribe the chief merit to De Morveau. Thomson says (Hist. of Chemistry, vol. ii. p. 133): ‘This new nomenclature very soon made its way into every part of Europe, and became the common language of chemists, in spite of the prejudices entertained against it, and the opposition which it every where met with.’

1073

The famous central heat of Buffon is often supposed to have been taken from Leibnitz; but, though vaguely taught by the ancients, the real founder of the doctrine appears to have been Descartes. See Bordas Demoulin, Cartésianisme, Paris, 1843, vol. i. p. 312. There is an unsatisfactory note on this in Prichard's Physical Hist. vol. i. p. 100. Compare Experimental Hist. of Cold, tit. 17, in Boyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 308; Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii. p. 100. On the central heat of the Pythagoreans, see Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. i. p. 149; and as to the central fire mentioned in the so-called Oracles of Zoroaster, see Beausobre, Hist. de Manichée, vol. ii. p. 152. But the complete ignorance of the ancients respecting geology made these views nothing but guesses. Compare some sensible remarks in Matter's Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. p. 282.