History and social thought
Order, purity, clarity: such were the Classical ideals. They had dominated traditional theology as represented by its last great master, Jacques-BĂ©nigne Bossuet. His Politique tirĂ©e des propres paroles de lâĂcriture sainte (âStatecraft Drawn from the Very Words of the Holy Scripturesâ) and Discours sur lâhistoire universelle offered a worldview and a history based on the Old Testament. Bossuet believed in the unity of knowledge as so many branches of Christian truth. His compelling logic and magisterial writing had a strong influence. When, however, the hypotheses were tested and found wanting, the very comprehensiveness of the system ensured that its collapse was complete. Bossuet had encouraged Richard Simon when he set out to refute Protestantism through historical study of the Bible but was shocked when he saw where it led. Inevitably, scholarship revealed inconsistencies and raised questions about the way that the Bible should be treated: if unreliable as history, then how sound was the basis for theology? Simonâs works were banned in 1678, but Dutch printers ensured their circulation. No censorship could prevent the development of historical method, which was making a place for itself in the comprehensive search for truth. With Edward Gibbon (himself following the example of the 17th-century giants of church history), Jean Mabillon, and Louis Tillemont historians were to become more skilled and scrupulous in the use of evidence. The philosophes characteristically believed that history was becoming a science because it was subject to philosophical method. It also was subject to the prevailing materialist bias, which is why, scholarly though individual writers like David Hume might be, the Enlightenment was in some respects vulnerable to fresh insights about manâsuch as those of Ătienne Bonnot de Condillac, who believed that human beings could be molded for their own goodâand further research into the pastâwhich, for Claude-Adrien HelvĂ©tius, was simply the worthless veneration of ancient laws and customs.
In 1703 Baron de Lahontan introduced the idea of the ânoble savage,â who led a moral life in the light of natural religion. In relative terms, the uniquely God-given character of European values was questioned; Louis XIVâs persecution of the Huguenots and Jansenists offered an unappealing example. Philosophers were provided, through the device of voyages imaginaires, with new insights and standards of reference. As Archbishop FĂ©nelon was to show in TĂ©lĂ©maque (1699)âwhere the population of his imaginary republic of Salente was engaged in farming and the ruler, renouncing war, sought to increase the wealth of the kingdomâa utopian idyll could be a vehicle for criticism of contemporary institutions. A bishop and sentimental aristocrat, heir to the tradition of Christian agrarianism, might seem an unlikely figure to appear in the pantheon of the Enlightenment. But his readers encountered views about the obligations as well as rights of subjects that plainly anticipate its universalism, as in the Dialogue des morts: âEach individual owes incomparably more to the human race, the great fatherland, than to the country in which he is born.â