THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY OF WOLFF--SKEPTICAL TENDENCIES FROM ABROAD.
The struggle between the Pietists and the Orthodox subsided on the
appearance of Wolff's demonstrative philosophy. The church was glad
enough to offer the friendly hand to Pietism when she saw her faith
threatened by this ruthless foe; and if the followers of Spener had
refused to accept it, their success would have been far more probable.
Leibnitz was the father of Wolff's system. Descartes had protested
against any external authority for the first principles of belief.
Leibnitz and Spinoza followed him, though in different directions.[28]
Leibnitz had no system in reality, and it is only from certain
well-known views on particular points that we can infer his general
direction of opinion. He sought to prove the conformity of reason with a
belief in revelation on the principle that two truths cannot contradict
each other. His doctrine of monads and preëstablished harmony was
opposed to the scriptural and ecclesiastical doctrine of creation,
inasmuch as by the assumption of the existence of atoms the Creator was
thrown too much in the shade.[29] He wrote his _Théodicée_ for the
benefit of learned and theological circles, and both as a statesman and
author he acquired great celebrity for his vast acquirements and
discriminating mind.
But the philosophy of Leibnitz was confined to the learned; and had it
been left solely to itself, it is probable that it would never have
attracted great attention or possessed much importance in the history of
thought. But Wolff, who studied all his works with the greatest care,
deduced from them certain summaries of argument, which, with such others
of his own as he felt disposed to incorporate with them, he published
and taught. Whatever censure we may cast upon Wolff, we cannot ignore
his good intentions. Even before his birth, he had been consecrated by
his father to the service of God; and when he was old enough to manifest
his own taste, he showed a strong predilection for theological study. He
says of himself: "Having been devoted to the study of theology by a vow,
I also had chosen it for myself; and my intention has all along been to
serve God in the ministry, even when I was already professor at Halle,
until at length against my will I was led away from it, God having
arranged circumstances in such a manner that I could not carry out this
intention. But having lived in my native place, Breslau, among the
Catholics, and having perceived from my very childhood the zeal of the
Lutherans and Roman Catholics against one another, the idea was always
agitating my mind, whether it would not be possible so distinctly to
show the truth in theology that it would not admit of any contradiction.
When afterwards I learned that the mathematicians were so sure of their
ground that every one must acknowledge it to be true, I was anxious to
study mathematics, for the sake of the method, in order to give
diligence to reduce theology to incontrovertible certainty." These
words explain Wolff's whole system. He would make doctrine so plain by
mathematical demonstration that it must be accepted. But the poison of
his theory lay in the assumption that what could not be mathematically
demonstrated was either not true or not fit to be taught. He sets out
with the principle that the human intellect is capable of knowing truth.
He divides his philosophy into two parts: _first_, the _theoretical_:
_second_, the _practical_. The former he subdivides into logic,
metaphysics, and physics; the latter into morals, natural right, and
politics. He admits a revelation, and proves its possibility by
maintaining that God can do whatever he wishes. But this revelation must
have signs in itself, by which it may be known. _First._ It must contain
something necessary for man to know, which he cannot learn in any other
way. _Second._ The things revealed must not be opposed to the divine
perfections, and they must not be self-contradictory: a thing is above
reason and contrary to reason when opposed to these principles. _Third._
A divine revelation can contain neither anything which contradicts
reason and experience, nor anything which may be learned from them, for
God is omniscient,--he knows the general as well as the particular, and
he cannot be deceived. Necessary truths are those the contrary of which
is impossible; accidental truths, those of which the contrary is
impossible only under certain conditions. Now, revelation could not
contradict necessary truths; but it may appear to contradict those which
are accidental. Geometrical truths are necessary; and therefore
revelation could not oppose them; but as accidental truths refer to the
changes of natural things, it follows that these may be apparently
contradicted by revelation; though if we search minutely, we shall at
last be able to lift the veil from the contradictions. _Fourth._
Revelation cannot command anything contrary to the laws of the nature of
existence and of the mind, for whatever is opposed to the laws of nature
is equally opposed to those of reason. _Fifth._ When it can be proved
that he who declares that he has received a divine revelation has
arrived at his knowledge by the natural use of his mental powers, then
his declaration cannot be considered true. _Sixth._ In a revelation all
things ought to be expressed in such words, or by such signs, that he
who is the object of it can clearly recognize the divine action. For God
knows all possible symbolical means of knowledge, and does nothing
without a purpose.
These views Wolff taught from his university-chair in Halle, and
disseminated throughout the land in publications under various titles.
He aimed to reach not only the young theologians and all who were likely
to wield a great public influence, but to so popularize his system that
the unthinking masses might become his followers. He succeeded. Even
Roman Catholics embraced his tenets, and he was accustomed to say, with
evident satisfaction, that his text-books were used at Ingolstadt,
Vienna, and Rome. The glaring defect of his philosophy was his
application of the formal logical process to theology. He reduced the
examination of truth to a purely mechanical operation. The effect was
soon seen. When his students began to fill the pulpits the people heard
cold and stately logic, extended definitions, and frequent mathematical
phrases. Think of the clergy feeding their flocks on such food as the
following: "_God--a being who supports all the world at one time_;"
"_Preëstablished harmony--the eternal union of things_;" "_Ratio
sufficiens--the sufficient ground_;" with many other arid definitions of
the same class. One preacher, in explaining the eighth chapter of
Matthew, thought it necessary, when noticing the fact of Jesus
descending the mountain, to define the term mountain by declaring it to
be "a very elevated place;" and, when discoursing on Jesus stretching
forth his hand and touching the leper, to affirm that "the hand is one
of the members of the body." It is astonishing how quickly the popular
principles and teachings of the followers of Wolff began to supplant
Pietism. In the university and the pulpit there were sad and numerous
evidences of decline. Perhaps no system of philosophy has ever
penetrated the masses as did this of Wolff; for no one has been more
favored with champions who aimed to indoctrinate the unthinking. Old
terms, which had been used by the first Lutherans and Reformed in
common, and by the Pietists with such effectiveness, were now abandoned
for the modern ones of these innovators. Everything that had age on its
side was rejected because of its age. Even the titles of books were
fraught with copious definitions. The Wertheim translation of the Old
Testament was published under the extended name of "_The Divine Writings
before the time of Jesus, the Messiah. The First Part, containing the
Laws of the Israels._" The Wolffian adepts wrote for Moabites, _Moabs_;
for the Apostle Peter, _Peter the Ambassador_.
Wolff's life was full of incident. The first publications he issued
after his appointment to the mathematical professorship were on subjects
within his appropriate sphere of instruction. Here he first acquired his
fundamental principle of mathematical demonstration applied to theology,
and henceforth his mind was bent on philosophical and theological
themes. We are reminded of the same process of mental action in Bishop
Colenso. In a late catalogue of his works, we have counted twelve
mathematical text-books. These are at least an index of his attachment
to mathematical demonstration; and it is not surprising that an
ill-regulated mind should fall into Wolff's error of applying the same
method to the Scriptures. The Bishop's works find their exact prototype
in the "_Reasonable Thoughts of God_," "_Natural Theology_," and "_Moral
Philosophy_," of Christian Wolff. The mathematical professor at Halle
was not long in exposing his views; and on more than one occasion gave
umbrage to his Pietistic associates. His offence reached its climax when
he delivered a public discourse on the Morals of Confucius, which he
applauded most enthusiastically. The Rector of the university, Francke,
requested the use of the manuscript, which the author refused to grant.
Influence was brought to bear against Wolff at court; and when it was
represented that if his teachings were propagated any further they would
produce defection in the army, Frederic William I. issued a decree of
deposition from his chair, and banishment from his dominions within
forty-eight hours, on penalty of death. This occurred in 1723. After
Frederic the Great ascended the throne, and began to countenance the
increasing skeptical tendencies of the day, he recalled him, in 1740, to
his former position. He was received, it is true, with some enthusiasm,
but his success as a lecturer and preacher had passed its zenith. Of his
reception at Halle after his long absence he thus writes, with no little
sense of self-gratulation: "A great multitude of students rode out of
the city to meet me, in order to invite me formally. They were attended
by six glittering postillions. All the villagers along the roadside came
out of their towns, and anxiously awaited my arrival. When we reached
Halle, all the streets and market-places were filled with an immense
concourse of people, and I celebrated my jubilee amidst a universal
jubilee. In the street, opposite the house which I had rented as my
place of residence, there was gathered a band of music, which received
me and my attendants with joyous strains. The press of the multitude was
so great that I could hardly descend from my carriage and find my way to
my rooms. My arrival was announced on the same evening to the professors
and all the dignitaries of the city. On the following day they called
upon me, and gave me warm greetings of welcome and esteem. Among all the
rest I was received and welcomed by Dr. Lange, who wished me the
greatest success, and assured me of his friendship; of course I promised
to visit him in return."
Verily this was an epoch in theological history. It proves how
thoroughly the Wolffian philosophy had impregnated the common classes.
They had learned its principles thoroughly, and the lapse of more than a
century has not fully disabused them of its errors. The philosophy of
Kant was the first to supplant the Wolffian in learned circles; but Kant
has had no such popular interpreter as Wolff was of Leibnitz, and hence
his influence, though deep where prevalent, was felt in a more limited
sphere. Wolff cannot be termed a Rationalist in the common acceptation
of the term, though his doctrines contributed to the growth of
neological thinking. Had he been theologian alone, and applied his
principles to the interpretation of Scripture, he would have done much
of Semler's work. It was, therefore, the latter and not the former whom
we would denominate the father of Rationalism. Moreover, Wolff
manifested a strict observance of the ecclesiastical institutions of
his day, and always professed the warmest attachment to the
church,--which was anything but the fact, as far as the followers of
Semler are concerned. Wolff wrote on a circular announcing some
university celebration the following words, which indicate the habit of
his life: "I see, and would like to be present. Yet as I have purposed
to partake of the Lord's Supper on the same day I do not know whether I
shall be able to be present, inasmuch as I should not like to change my
intention; yet I will consider the matter with my minister. Signed,
Christian Wolff, 1717."
Of the relations of the Wolffian philosophy to the theology of one
century ago, and of its general Rationalistic bearing, Mr. Farrar says,
"The system soon became universally dominant. Its orderly method
possessed the fascination which belongs to any encyclopædic view of
human knowledge. It coincided, too, with the tone of the age. Really
opposed, as Cartesianism has been in France, to the scholasticism which
still reigned, its dogmatic form nevertheless bore such external
similarity to it that it fell in with the old literary tastes. The evil
effects which it subsequently produced in reference to religion were due
only to the point of view which it ultimately induced. Like Locke's work
on the reasonableness of Christianity, it stimulated intellectual
speculation concerning revelation. By suggesting attempts to deduce _à
priori_ the necessary character of religious truths, it turned men's
attention more than ever away from spiritual religion to theology. The
attempt to demonstrate everything caused dogmas to be viewed apart from
their practical aspect; and men being compelled to discard the previous
method of drawing philosophy out of Scripture, an independent philosophy
was created, and Scripture compared with its discoveries. Philosophy no
longer relied on Scripture, but Scripture rested on philosophy. Dogmatic
theology was made a part of metaphysical philosophy. This was the mode
in which Wolff's philosophy ministered indirectly to the creation of the
disposition to make scriptural dogmas submit to reason, which was
denominated Rationalism. The empire of it was undisputed during the
whole of the middle part of the century, until it was expelled, toward
the close, by the partial introduction of Locke's philosophy, and of the
system of Kant, as well as by the growth of classical erudition, and of
a native literature."[30]
Wolff was succeeded by a school of no ordinary ability. But his
disciples did not strictly follow him; they went not only the length
that he did, but much farther. Their thinking and literary labor circled
about inspiration. It was evident that they were intent upon solving the
problem and handing the doctrine over to the world as entitled to
respect and unalterable. Baumgarten was the connecting link between the
Pietism of Spener and the Rationalism of Semler. He was the successor of
Wolff in the university-chair of Halle, and, as such, the eyes of the
people were turned toward him. His acquirements were versatile, for he
studied every subject of theology with poetic enthusiasm. Nor was he a
superficial student merely; and his opponents well knew that in him they
had found no mean adept in philosophy, theology, hermeneutics and
ecclesiastical history. His writings bear a strong impress of
Illuminism, but he contributed most to the formation of Rationalistic
theology by training Semler for his great destructive mission. He
acknowledged the presence of the Holy Spirit in Scripture, but reduced
inspiration to an influence which God exercises over the mental
faculties. Both he and Töllner declared that the Spirit had permitted
each writer to compose according to the peculiar powers of his mind, and
to arrange facts according to his own comprehension of them.
Töllner was a follower of Baumgarten. He was not intent upon any
innovating theories as much as he was desirous to harmonize the old
ecclesiastical system with the new philosophy. He had some views in
common with Wolff; but he totally differed from him in his conception of
mathematical demonstration of theology, and maintained that theology
cannot be mathematically demonstrated, but that its integrity and worth
depend solely upon historical testimony. Does the Christian system have
the authority of history for its defence? If so, it will stand the test
of universal opposition; but, if not, it will fall of its own weight.
The tendency of his deductions was negative, and hence we rank him as no
ordinary agent toward the growth of historic doubt. Here we behold the
germ of such thinking as developed in Strauss' _Life of Jesus_ in the
present century. Töllner held that Scripture is composed of two senses,
the _natural_ and _revealed_. That which is natural is subject to
criticism; but the revealed or spiritual light is always clearer, and
does not call for much inquiry. There may be differences between the
two, but there can be no contradiction. "The revelation in Scripture,"
he says, "is a greater and more perfect means of salvation. Both the
natural light and revelation lead the man who follows them to salvation.
_Scripture only more so._"
The historian cannot fail to observe a systematic and steadfast
development of skepticism in the lands south and west of Germany. Many
causes contributed to its growth in Italy, whose prestige in war,
extensive and still increasing commerce, and ambitious and gifted
rulers, were a powerful stimulus to vigorous thought. The classics
became the favorite study, and all the writings of the ancients were
seized with avidity, to yield, as far as they might, their treasure of
philosophy, history and poetry. Leo X. was notoriously skeptical, and,
as much from sympathy as pride, surrounded himself with the leading
spirits of the literature of the times. With him morality was no
recommendation. Two tendencies took positive form, as the result of the
literary tastes of the court and thinking classes: _first_, a return to
heathenism, produced by the study of the classics; and _second_, a
species of pantheism, produced by philosophy.
We now come to the Deism of England, which not only succeeded in
corrupting the spiritual life of France, but became directly
incorporated into the theology of Germany. It was the so-called
philosophy of common sense. The most thorough German writer on the
subject, Lechler, has well defined it, "The elevation of natural
religion to be the standard and rule of all positive religion, an
elevation which is supported by free examination by means of thinking."
It started on the principle that reason is the source and measure of
truth; and therefore discarded, as its Rationalistic offspring in
Germany, whatever was miraculous or supernatural in Christianity. There
was much earnestness in some of its champions; nor was there any absence
of warm attachment to the morality and religious influence of the
Scriptures. Thus it differed widely from the flippancy and frivolity of
the Deists of France. We cannot, however, consider Lord Herbert's
serious reflections on the publication of his chief work as a fair
specimen of the tone of his coadjutors. They were mostly inferior to him
in this respect, though it would not be safe to say that their influence
on the public mind of England was less baneful than his. Having finished
his book, _Tractatus de Veritate_, he hesitated before committing it to
the press. "Thus filled," he says, "with doubts, I was on a bright
summer day sitting in my room; my window to the south was open; the sun
shone brightly; not a breeze was stirring. I took my book on Truth into
my hand, threw myself on my knees, and prayed devoutly in the words, 'O
thou one God, thou Author of this light which now shines upon me, thou
Giver of all inward light, I implore thee, according to thine infinite
mercy to pardon my request, which is greater than a sinner should make.
I am not sufficiently convinced whether I may publish this book or not.
If its publication shall be for thy glory, I beseech thee to give me a
sign from Heaven. If not, I will suppress it.' I had scarcely finished
these words when a loud, and yet at the same time a gentle sound came
from heaven, not like any sound on earth. This comforted me in such a
manner, and gave me such a satisfaction, that I considered my prayer as
having been heard."
Deism in England began with the predominance given to nature by Bacon.
Locke contributed greatly to its formation by discarding the proof of
Christianity by miracles and supernatural observations, but claimed that
nature is of itself sufficient to teach it. Hence, man can draw all
necessary faith from nature. Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, held that
education is inconsistent with true religion, since the earliest pagan
times manifested a higher state of morality than later periods of
culture and refinement. Hobbes considered religion only a sort of
police force, useful solely as an agent of the State to keep the people
within bounds.
Shaftesbury, the disciple and follower of Locke, addressed himself by
his style to the higher classes. He cultivated the acquaintance of the
rising leaders of skepticism in France and Holland, and continued
through life on terms of cordial intimacy with Bayle, Le Clerc, and
others of kindred spirit. He was relentless in his attacks on revealed
religion. His hostility may be inferred from the fact that Voltaire
termed him even too bitter an opponent of Christianity. Warburton says,
"Mr. Pope told me that, to his knowledge, _The Characteristics_ have
done more harm to revealed religion in England than all the other works
of infidelity together." Collins contributed more than any other author
to the rise of Deism in France. He applied himself to the overthrow of
all faith. Ignoring prophecy, he held that nothing in the Old Testament
has any other than a typical or allegorical bearing upon the New
Testament.
Wollaston's creed was the pursuit of happiness by the practice of reason
and truth. He was the epicurean of the system which he adopted, and
sought to prove that religion is wholly independent of faith. He first
published a brief outline of his views in a limited number of copies,
but afterwards prepared a new and enlarged edition. Twenty thousand
copies were sold, and six other editions found a ready sale between 1724
and 1738. Woolston strove to bring the miracles of Christ into contempt.
Mandeville and Morgan, contemporaries of Woolston, wrote against the
state religion. Of Chubb's views we can gather sufficiently from his
three principles: _First._ That Christ requires of men that, with all
their heart and all their soul, they should follow the eternal and
unchangeable precepts of natural morality. _Second._ That men, if they
transgress the laws of morality, must give proofs of true and genuine
repentance, because without such repentance, forgiveness or pardon is
impossible. _Third._ In order more deeply to impress these principles
upon the minds of men, and give them a greater influence upon their
course of action, Jesus Christ has announced to mankind, that God hath
appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, and
acquit and condemn, reward or punish, according as their conduct has
been guided by the precepts which he has laid down. With Bolingbroke's
name closes the succession of the elder school of English Deists. He
wrote against the antiquity of faith, showing bitter hostility to the
Old Testament. His aim, in addition to this antagonism to revelation,
was to found a selfish philosophy.
Many of the works by these writers were ill-written and lacked depth of
thought. Some were, however, masterpieces of original thinking and
writing. The style of Mandeville, for example, has been eulogized
extravagantly both by Hazlitt and Lord Macaulay.
It cannot be expected that a movement so extensive as this, and
participated in by the leading literary men of the day would be without
its influence abroad. Its first effect was to elicit great opposition;
and numerous replies poured in from every quarter. Toland's
_Christianity Not Mysterious_ was combated in the year 1760 by
fifty-four rejoinders in England, France and Germany. Up to the same
period, Tindal's _Christianity as Old as the World_ was greeted with one
hundred and six opponents. The Germans repulsed these tendencies bravely
at first, and among others was the gifted and versatile Mosheim, who
delivered public lectures against the influx of Deistical speculations.
But gradually translations were made, and the Germans were soon able to
read those works for themselves. All the Deists were rendered into their
language, and some were honored with many translators. True, there were
replies from the theologians of England immediately upon the appearance
of the works of the leading Deists; but many of them were very feeble,
the puny blows doing more harm than good. When these rejoinders came to
be translated they had almost as deleterious an influence as if they had
been panegyrics instead of well-meant thrusts. John Pye Smith says,
"Translations were made of our Deistical writers of that time, and of a
large number of vindications of Christianity which were published by
some English divines of note in reply to Collins, Tindal, Morgan and
their tribe; and which, in addition to their insipid and unimpassioned
character, involved so much of timid apology and unchristian concession
that they rather aided than obstructed the progress of infidelity."
Through the influence of Baumgarten and others Deism now gained great
favor in Germany. Toland was personally welcomed, flattered and honored
at the very court--that of Frederic William I.--which had banished Wolf,
and made adherence to his doctrines a bar to all preferment.
There was a speedy adoption of English Deism by France, though the
French had manifested strong attachment to skepticism as far back as the
illustrious reign of Louis XIV., whose court had dictated religion and
literature to Europe. It was in 1688 that Le Vasser wrote: "People only
speak of reason, good taste, the force of intellect, of the advantage of
those who put themselves above the prejudices of education and of the
society in which they were born. Pyrrhonism is now the fashion above
everything else. People think that the legitimate exercise of the mind
consists in not believing rashly, and in knowing how to doubt many
things. What can be more intolerable and humiliating than to see our
pretended great men boast themselves of believing nothing, and of
calling those people simple and credulous who have not perhaps examined
the first proofs of religion?" The condition of things was no better in
the reign of Louis XV., nor indeed at any time during the eighteenth
century. It could not be expected that Rousseau would overpaint the
picture; yet in his _La Nouvelle Héloïse_ we find this language: "No
disputing is here heard--that is, in the literary coteries--no epigrams
are made; they reason, but not in the stiff professional tone; you find
fine jokes without puns, wit with reason, principles with freaks, sharp
satire and delicate flattery with serious rules of morality. They speak
of everything in order that every one may have to say something, but
they never exhaust the questions raised; from the dread of getting
tedious they bring them forth only occasionally, shorten them hastily,
and never allow a dispute to arise. Every one informs himself, enjoys
himself, and departs from the others pleased. But what is it that is
learned from these interesting conversations? _One learns to defend with
spirit the cause of untruth, to shake with philosophy all the principles
of virtue, to gloss over with fine syllogisms one's passions and
prejudices in order to give a modern shape to error._ When any one
speaks, it is to a certain extent his dress, not himself, that has an
opinion; and the speaker will change it as often as he will change his
profession. Give him a tie-wig to-day, to-morrow a uniform, and the day
after a mitre, and you will have him defend, in succession, the laws,
despotism, and the Inquisition. There is one kind of reason for the
lawyer, another for the financier, and a third for the soldier. Thus, no
one ever says what he thinks, but what, on account of his interest, he
would make others believe; and his zeal for truth is only a mask for
selfishness."
This was the basis upon which Voltaire and Rousseau built in France.
What wonder that the one with his pungent sarcasm, popular style and
display of philosophy, and the other with his morbid sentimentalism,
should become the real monarchs not only of their own land, but of
cultivated circles throughout the Continent? There was not the slightest
sympathy between these two men, for they hated each other cordially, and
each was jealous of the other's fame and genius. Voltaire said one day
to Rousseau, who was showing him an _Ode Addressed to Posterity_, "This
is a letter which will never reach the place of its address." At another
time, Voltaire having read a satire of his own composition to Rousseau,
the latter advised him to "suppress it lest it should be imagined that
he had lost his abilities and preserved only his virulence." But
Voltaire was inordinately ambitious; he longed to rise to fame, as on
the wings of the eagle. "How unworthy, and how dull of appreciation is
sluggish France," thought he. For her rewards he had toiled, and
thought, and racked his brain for years. But she was stern, and would
not honor him. He therefore became disgusted with his native land, and
set out for England, whose scientific and theological literature had
already fired his mind. George I. and the Princess of Wales, afterward
Queen Caroline, distinguished him by their attentions, and relieved his
poverty by securing large subscriptions to his works. It was here that
he commenced to lay up a princely fortune; but it was not until the
close of his long and stirring life that he forswore his miserly habits.
He found in the deistical literature of England everything that could
suit his taste and ambition. "Here," reasoned he to himself, "I find
what I never dreamed of before. France would not tolerate these thoughts
if her own sons had given birth to them; but this is England, and we
Frenchmen respect the thinking of the English mind. I will not translate
much, but I will go to work with hearty earnestness, and reproduce in
French literature what I find worthy of it in these free-thinking
masters. May be, after all, I shall become a great man." The plan
succeeded. Voltaire, on his return, became more outspoken in his
infidelity. His star ascended; and he ruled, not by original but by
borrowed lustre.
Frederic the Great of Prussia was captivated by the skeptical and
literary celebrity of Voltaire. The latter was not long back again in
France before his selfish sensitiveness imagined that all the literary
men of his country had entered into a cabal to deprive him of his fame
and hurl him from the throne of his literary authority. He was therefore
ready to be caught by the most tempting bait; and when Frederic offered
him a pension of twenty-two thousand livres, it was more than the
miserly plagiarist could resist. Of his reception by the king he thus
speaks in his usual style: "I set out for Potsdam in June, 1750.
Astolpha did not meet a kinder reception in the palace of Alcuia. To be
lodged in the same apartments that Marshal Saxe had occupied, to have
the royal cooks at my command when I chose to dine alone, and the royal
coachman when I had an inclination to ride, were trifling favors. Our
suppers were very agreeable. If I am not deceived I think we had much
wit. The king was witty, and gave occasion of wit to others; and what is
still more extraordinary, I never found myself so much at my ease; I
worked two hours a day with his majesty; corrected his works; and never
failed highly to praise whatever was worthy of praise, though I rejected
the dross. I gave him details of all that was necessary in rhetoric and
criticism for his use: he profited by my advice, and his genius assisted
him more effectually than my lessons."
But matters did not move on a great while thus harmoniously, for
Voltaire, becoming complicated in personal difficulties with greater
favorites of Frederic, received the frown of the man he had so much
flattered, and whose purse had been enriching his coffers. The skeptic
returned to France, wrote other works, settled near the romantic shore
of Lake Geneva, and returned honored, great, and feasted to Paris.
Indulging in unaccustomed excesses, his frail and aged body sank beneath
the weight. But Frederic and Voltaire maintained a correspondence many
years after the flatterer's disgrace. Full of trouble, haunted by dreams
of conspiracy and of poverty, successful in achieving more evil than
usually falls to the lot of a single mind, Voltaire passed from the
society of men to the presence of God. It has been truthfully said of
him in proof of his inconsistency, that he was a free thinker at London,
a Cartesian at Versailles, a Christian at Nancy, and an infidel at
Berlin.
Rousseau sought to establish the proposition that the progress of
scientific education has always involved the decay of moral education.
With Lord Herbert he held that barbarism has ever been the condition of
greatest moral power. A sentiment from his _Émile_ furnishes the key to
his creed: "Everything is good when it comes forth from the hand of the
Creator; everything degenerates under man's hand. In the state in which
things now are, a man who from the moment of his birth would live among
others, would, if left to himself, be most disfigured. Prejudices,
authority, constraint, example, all social institutions which now
depress us, would choke nature in him, and nothing would be put in its
stead. He would resemble a young tree which, growing up accidentally in
the street, would soon pine away in consequence of the passers-by
pushing it from all sides, and bending it in all directions." Rousseau
wrote with great earnestness, and possessed the faculty of inspiring his
readers with an enthusiastic admiration of his theories. His romances
misled many thousands, and were the most popular productions of his
times. Though he and Voltaire were the exponents of French Deism, they
were greatly aided in the dissemination of skeptical doctrines by
Diderot, d'Alembert, Helvetius, d'Argent, de la Mettrie, and others.
Bayle, in his Dictionary, appealed to the learned circles; and, not
content to give only historical facts, he ventured upon the origination
or reproduction of those new skeptical opinions which captivated
unthinking multitudes.
The Deism of France was now a coadjutor with that of England in the
devastation of Germany. The throne of Frederic II. was the exponent and
defender of the hollow creed. The military successes of that king gave
him an authority that few monarchs have been able to wield, while his
well-known literary taste and capacity enlisted the admiration of men of
culture throughout the Continent. Born to bear the sword, he surprised
his subjects by the same felicity in the use of the pen; and the man
who could leave to his successors a treasury with a surplus of
seventy-two millions of thalers, an army of two hundred and twenty
thousand men, a kingdom increased by twenty-nine thousand square miles,
and a people grown since his accession from two millions to thrice that
number, was not a king who could be without great moral weight among his
own subjects. And it was known that he was a skeptic, for he made no
secret of it. No traces of the old Pietism of his harsh father were
visible in the son. Gathering around him such men as Voltaire, La
Mettrie, Maupertuis, and others whom his gold could attach to him, he
was the same king in faith and literature that he was in politics.
Claiming to be a Deist, it is probable that he was a very liberal one.
It is more than likely that he was truthful in his description of
himself when he wrote to d'Alembert that he had never lived under the
same roof with religion. He claimed for his meanest subjects the right
to serve God in their own way; but all the power of his example was at
work in drawing the people from the old faith. He hesitated not to
supplant evangelical professors and pastors by free-thinkers, and at any
time to bring ridicule on any religious fact or custom. That
thin-visaged man in top boots and cocked hat, surrounded by his infidels
and his dogs at Sans Souci, dictated faith to Berlin and to Europe. He
would have no one within the sunshine of royalty whom he could not use
as he wished; and just as soon as Voltaire would be himself he became
disgraced. But Frederic lived to see the day when insubordination sprang
up in his army, and in many departments of public life. It came from the
abnegation of evangelical faith. And it is no wonder that when the old
king saw the disastrous effects of his own theories upon his subjects,
he said he would willingly give his best battle to place his people
where he found them at his father's death. But the seed had been sown,
and Prussia was destined to be only a part of the harvest-field of
tares.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Farrar, _Critical History of Free Thought_, p. 214.
[29] Hagenbach, _History of Doctrines_, vol. 2, p. 340.
[30] _Critical History of Free Thought_, pp. 215-216.