The Structure and Form of the French Enlightenment, Volume 2: Esprit Revolutionnaire

by Ira O. Wade

Overview

The author describes the influence on the Enlightenment of the intellectual currents that had been active in France, particularly the historical and humanistic esprit critique and the scientific esprit moderne. The second volume probes the writings of Morelly, Helvetius, Holbach, Mably, and Condorcet as they reveal the transformation of the esprit philosophique into the esprit revolutionnaire.

Originally published in 1978.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691643762
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #1691
Pages:	468
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.20(d)

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The Structure and Form of the French Enlightenment

Volume II: Esprit Révolutionnaire

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By Ira O. Wade

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1977 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-05257-1

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CHAPTER 1

ORGANIC UNITY IN VOLTAIRE

Rien n'est plus difficile que de porter un jugement d'ensemble sur Voltaire. — G. Lanson, Histoire de la littérature française.

In this essay, I would like to investigate Voltaire's inner reality in these terms in an effort to understand his livingness. I have considered Voltaire's intellectual development elsewhere. Here, I am more anxious to show that, having assembled an immense amount of material, Voltaire was forced to organize it in the terms I have described for any critic or any artist. Having organized it in his way, he then had to integrate it into the organizations of others — Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, the Encyclopédie — to create an Enlightenment. In investigating that activity, I feel that I have to ask certain questions continually. What is there in Voltaire's activity which contributes to an understanding of him as an indispensable Enlightenment man? What are the sources of this particular activity and how did they modify Voltaire and Voltaire's time? How does each activity contribute to a better understanding of Voltaire? What difference does that make to us? And I shall have to repeat these questions for Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, and the Encyclopédie.

These questions have been asked time and time again by my predecessors. All my academic language can hardly conceal that in many respects I am doing what any positivistic critic of the twentieth century has attempted in his 'Thomme et l'œuvre." I have, in fact, in my first attempt at this kind of analysis recognized cheerfully my debt to a number of them (particularly Lanson, Brunetière, Bellessort, Morley, Taine, and Faguet.

Despite indiscriminate pronouncements concerning Voltaire's total worth, there have been only very few who have given more than passing consideration to the problem or the way it was organized. I have tried to gather the opinions of the outstanding critics of Voltaire in an article entitled "Towards a New Voltaire" (American Philosophical Society, Transactions: The Search for a New Voltaire, n.s., vol. 48, part 4, 1958, pp. 107 ff.). Even in Voltaire's day, there was a tendency to denigrate his worth, as can be seen in the two remarks of Marivaux: "M. de Voltaire est la perfection des choses communes," and "M. de Voltaire est le premier homme du monde pour dire et penser ce que tout le monde a dit et pensé." Fortunately, all judgments about him have not been so acid, although it must be admitted that he has had his share. Mr. Besterman in the Travaux sur Voltaire, (I, 141-143), has quoted Flaubert in an opinion which seems to me better balanced than that of Marivaux: "Je m'étonne que vous n'admiriez pas cette grande palpitation qui a remué le monde. Est-ce qu'on obtient de tels résultats quand on n'est pas sincère? ... Bref, cet homme-là me semble ardent, acharné, convaincu, superbe. Son "Ecrasons l'infâme" me fait l'effet d'un cri de croisade. Toute son intelligence était une machine de guerre." Flaubert, however, stressed that the key to the understanding of Voltaire can be found in the artistic expression of his personal opinion: "On s'extasie devant la correspondance de Voltaire. Mais il n'a jamais été capable que de cela, le grand homme! C'est-à-dire d'exposer son opinion personnelle; et tout chez lui a été cela." Flaubert acknowledged that Voltaire was "pitoyable" in his theatre and poetry, but he admitted that he had composed a novel "lequel est le résumé de toutes ses oeuvres." The best part of that, Flaubert added, are the four pages devoted to the visit which Candide made to Pococuranté's estate, "où Voltaire exprime encore son opinion personnelle sur à peu près tout." Flaubert calls these four pages "merveilles de la prose. Elles étaient la condensation de soixante volumes écrits et d'un demisiècle d'efforts." Flaubert concludes nonetheless that what was lacking in Voltaire, in spite of his ability to create laughter or weeping, was the art of inducing revery, which incidentally was the grand art of Rousseau, whom Flaubert had just proclaimed that he detested: "Or, j'aime le grand Voltaire autant que je déteste le grand Rousseau."

Since Flaubert's day, there has often been a tendency, in speaking of Voltaire's worth, to place him in the dichotomy of poet or philosopher, artist or thinker. John Morley put it in an epigrammatic way when he wrote in his Voltaire (1909) that "Voltaire went to England [1726] a poet, and returned [1729] a philosopher." This bifurcation of Voltaire into poet and philosopher, artist and thinker, has been thought a sort of touchstone whereby he can be grasped as a reality. Morley left no doubt as to his own stand; for him, Voltaire was the representative man of his age: "Yet Voltaire was the very eye of eighteenth-century illumination. It was he who conveyed to his generation in the multitude of forms the consciousness at once of the power and the rights of human intelligence ..." (p. 5). Thus, Voltaire's tremendous production is indicative of the encyclopedic spirit of curiosity. Morley adds that he was as much the heir of the thought of the past as he was the leader of the thought of his time. He was, Morley added, "a stupendous power, not only because his expression was incomparably lucid, or even because his sight was exquisitely keen and clear, but because he saw many new things, after which the spirits of others were unconsciously groping and for which they were mutely yearning."

Morley's view seems to have been shared in large part by Lanson who wrote in his Histoire (p. 771): "aussi est-il le philosophe qui peut-être a le plus fait pour préparer la forme actuelle de la civilisation." Lanson, however, had a greater understanding of Voltaire the literary artist than did Morley in his Voltaire. The former presented chapters upon Le Goût de Voltaire and L'Art de Voltaire along with those upon Voltaire Historien and La Philosophie de Perney. It is obvious, in spite of Lanson's effort to put together the poet and the philosopher, that in the opinion of the critic, Voltaire's true worth for the twentieth century lay in his thought, particularly as it was directed to political and social matters. His remark in the Histoire (p. 769) seems to give the case away: "Son style n'est nullement artiste. II voit toutes choses du point de vue de la raison; l'idée du vrai est comme la catégorie de son esprit, hors de laquelle il ne peut rien concevoir." It is true that in his Art de la prose and in his later revisions of the Histoire, Lanson made some concessions to the literary artistry of Voltaire. In general, though, Lanson lays greatest stress upon what he calls Voltaire's "oeuvre de demolition de l'ancien régime" and the "reconstruction de la société moderne." His profound statement that "Voltaire nous a donné notre liberté et a préparé notre justice," though undoubtedly exaggerated, still remains one of the wisest judgments ever made about Voltaire.

On the contrary, Faguet, who in a way represents the university attitude toward Voltaire during the opening decades of the twentieth century, is much more negative and categorical in his judgment. In his Voltaire (p. 194) he says: "Voltaire n'a pas été artiste pour une obole." The critic declares, in addition, that "II n'a ni le détachement du philosophe, ni l'élévation philosophique." He concedes that "il aimait passionnément la littérature," but insists that he does not understand literature. Faguet emphasizes that "il n'a point d'idée à lui, ni de conception artistique personnelle, ni même de tempérament artistique distinct et tranché à exprimer dans ses écrits." He is "un très bon écrivain" and knows that "il écrit bien." But his lack of comprehension stems from the fact that he was no poet: "cette complexion même à être un ouvrier infiniment adroit et prestigieux, qui, sans bien sentir l'art, se donne, et même aux autres, l'illusion qu'il est un artiste."

It can be asserted that these judgments, which are certainly important, make no pretense of being total, although they do tend to be arbitrary. It could be argued, I suppose, that all personal opinions tend to the arbitrary and consequently that literary, philosophical, and historical judgments are always arbitrary, sometimes interesting, but rarely true. There are some, however, who would like to develop a criticism which would not depend to such an extent upon personal opinion and possess more truth and less arbitrariness. Such an attempt in Voltaire's case was made in R. Naves's Voltaire: L'Homme et l'œuvre (Paris, 1958), in a section entitled "The Unity of his Thought." Naves notes that there have been those who have insisted that Voltaire constantly contradicted himself. Fréron, for instance, selected Voltaire's quotations out of context and arranged them in contradictory fashion; more serious critics, such as Châteaubriand, insisted that Voltaire eternally upheld the pros and the cons; Nisard often praised him for his thought but attributed to him diabolical intentions ; Faguet characterized all his thinking a chaos of clear ideas. Naves finds these procedures unworthy and maintains that only when viewed from an unhistorical point of view can these impressions be justified. When restored to a historical basis, he insists that there is in Voltaire's thought a psychological unity, everywhere the same impatient desire to know, curious, hostile to all mystery, desirous of clarity. This attitude is presented as the basis for Voltaire's philosophy, which, Naves feels, always demands freedom of the mind. Naves also detects in Voltaire's thinking a critical unity which he defines as a dislike of absolutes, certainties, and all fanatical extremes. He confesses, however, that, despite this inner unity of mind and spirit on Voltaire's part, there is evident an evolution toward a more relaxed, broader taste, and a movement, philosophically, toward determinism. This movement, said Naves, is rather modest in the areas of philosophy and esthetics and is more pronounced in history, where Voltaire confessed that he was himself unaware that his object was the study of civilization. Naves insists that there is a third unity in Voltaire, what he calls a practical or constructive unity — Voltaire's wisdom. Naves confesses that it is his intention to utilize this concept to combat those like Bernardin de St.-Pierre who maintained that Voltaire was concerned with little else than to destroy, or like Bellessort, who asserted: "He founded nothing." Naves does not look with favor upon these criticisms, not so much because they are totally negative. Though fully as severe, a criticism such as Vinet's should be examined with care, in Naves's opinion, because it is characteristic of so many others. Vinet wrote: "Voltaire does not allow for the noblest elements of human nature, faith, the infinite, Providence; he is acquainted with the lower and middle regions of the soul. He came to know only the social side of man; he does not know what man is, face to face with himself, and all the less face to face with the infinite. He lacked a true sense of moral values; in morality, he has instincts, prejudices, habits, but no principles."

We have collected, it seems to me, a sufficient number of opinions, and varied at that, to warrant the view that ever since Voltaire's day there has been much fluctuation as to what constitutes his reality and that there would be a wide diversity of answers if we inquired as to his worth. What kind of a writer are we dealing with — a literary man, a critic, or a thinker ? We could expect very different answers to this question. Some would certainly say a literary man, since Voltaire wrote fifty-four plays, an epic poem, at least two mock epics, twenty-two philosophical tales of varying length, and a large number of formal Horatian poems (satires, épîtres, odes in imitation of Horace), eight or ten poems called "philosophical" poems, an equal number of poems called "contes en vers," and a correspondence of about 20,000 letters. But he also wrote volumes of histories (universal, European, French) and many volumes treating religion, politics, economics, ethics, and natural science. Are we dealing fundamentally with a literary writer, a critic, a philosophical critic, or a thinker ? If we insist that he really is a writer, is he predominantly lyric poet, epic poet, dramatist, writer of satiric "contes," novelist, or correspondent? Or is he a critic interested in encouraging others to write good literature or in discussing what constitutes good literature, history, politics, morality, philosophy, natural science ? Has this latter preoccupation become so dominant in his mind that he has surrendered art for thought, thought for reform, or reform for revolution? More important than all this, perhaps, has he really abandoned his high regard for letters and his desire to be a great poet in an effort to make a new world? A world which has become a world of thought? Where ideas go running around with all the vitality of human beings? Poet, critic, thinker; thinker, reformer, maker, poet ? Is that the way the mind of Voltaire works ? Is that his reality, so much so that only by the power of ideas is reality, and poetry, possible ? Does the critic of Voltaire have to work the same way in order to understand what Voltaire is doing? Is the critic of Voltaire left, after all his efforts, with a new definition of poet, a different sort of critic, a new kind of philosopher, or with an eighteenth-century enlightened man, an "encyclopedic" man, who is convinced that he is now prepared by enlightenment to remake his world, even if he has to destroy the one in which he is living, which turned out not to be such a bad world after all, even in Voltaire's own enlightened estimate. But, of course, Voltaire, who frequently used the metaphor of reading the ultimate answers in the book of life, seems not to have known any more than we do what these ultimate answers are. Still, he thought that it was his job to keep looking for them — just as we do.

It was Voltaire who almost single-handedly collected and brought into the eighteenth century all the currents of literature and thought from which the Enlightenment sprang. From the classical writers of antiquity, he elected to follow Horace and Virgil, Lucretius and Cicero. In that group, Virgil appeared to him the perfect poet, but Horace appealed to him more, perhaps because of his satires and epistles, his ability to converse with his readers with ease and grace, and his role as the classical literary critic. His first acquaintance with Horace probably came from his Latin teacher, Pére Tarteron, who had translated and published the Latin poet into French. Voltaire, however, appreciated more highly the ten-volume translation with commentaries by Dacier. Lucretius appealed to Voltaire because of the De verum natura, which tended particularly toward a kind of Anti-Christian Epicureanism that Voltaire sometimes expressed in his early years, but as far as I can see the influence of Epicurus was a passing one. What attracted Voltaire to Cicero was probably the De natura deorum, which was rather widely read and quoted in the clandestine deistic manuscripts of his time. In later years, Cicero loomed large, because of his authority in moral matters.

From the classical writers of the preceding century, he chose Boileau, Racine, and La Fontaine; Boileau because he was the French Horace with his satires and epistles and his role as critic; Racine because he, like Virgil, was the perfect poet; and La Fontaine because of his gracefulness, his charm, his quiet mirth, but, above all, because of his ability to produce "contes en vers." Voltaire admired all three of these poets because of their command over the language. He never failed to stress their ability to say exactly in poetry what each wanted to say. While they were his masters, though, Voltaire undoubtedly felt a greater affinity to the free-thinking Horatian poets, who were abundant in France in the seventeenth century beginning with Théophile de Viau, Des Barreaux, Blot, De Hénault, Mme. des Houlières, Chaulieu, and La Fare. Voltaire knew the works of all; the two whom he particularly cultivated were Chaulieu and La Fare. Voltaire knew them personally at the Temple. Of these two, he imitated especially Chaulieu. Of the Utopian novelists, he knew the works of Rabelais, Cyrano, and Fénelon, and eventually those of Foigny, Vairasse, Tyssot de Patot, La Hontan, and Gilbert. At first only the Télémaque appealed to him, probably because of the wide popularity it enjoyed, but in the late 1720s and the 1730s, both Cyrano and Rabelais became more important because of Voltaire's infatuation with Swift. Before the end of the Cirey period, all the Utopian novelists were united with the oriental tales to furnish the background for the Contes philosophiques. It was at this time also that Voltaire delved heavily in all the free-thinkers from Montaigne to Bayle: Charron, Naudé, La Mothe le Vayer, and Saint-Evremond. He was particularly attracted at first to Saint-Evremond, but in the 1740s both Montaigne and Bayle commanded his attention.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• CONTENTS, pg. vii
• ABBREVIATIONS, pg. ix
• FOREWORD, pg. 3
• ORGANIC UNITY IN VOLTAIRE, pg. 7
• ORGANIC UNITY IN DIDEROT, pg. 67
• ORGANIC UNITY IN ROUSSEAU, pg. 119
• ORGANIC UNITY IN THE ENCYCLOPÉDIE, pg. 180
• MORELLY AND THE DAWN OF TOTALITARIAN DEMOCRACY, pg. 251
• HELVÉTIUS AND EVERYBODY'S SECRET, pg. 262
• HOLBACH, VOLTAIRE, AND THE DEBATE ON ATHEISM, pg. 298
• RAYNAL, pg. 325
• MABLY, pg. 337
• THE IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN REBELLION, pg. 352
• CONDORCET AND PROGRESS, pg. 363
• THE RESULT, pg. 388
• BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. 417
• INDEX OF NAMES, pg. 437
• INDEX OF IDEAS, pg. 451