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AFTERWORD It Should Be Manifest by Now That the Skeptieisms Of AFTERWORD It should be manifest by now that the skeptieisms of Montaigne and Bayle differ remarkably if one inquires into the details of their thought. This is especially true because Bayle is a philosopher interested in the technicalities of argument and proof as the essayist never had been. Is it possible to imagine Montaigne breaking his head over substantial forms? When he does allude to epistemology, he makes it quite cIear that he is a Pyrrhonist and a fideist, regarding all purely human knowledge as no stronger than the sense information on which it is founded. The fecundity of the universe makes him particularly aware of the immense variety of possibilities in a way not too dissimilar to the fJhilosophy of Heraditus. The real interest of his skeptieism, however, does not lie in his theory, but in the human reality of the observing mind as it turns from intellection to self-awareness. Bayle's philosophical point of view is mu ch more complex. His skepticism concerned totally different questions from those that had caused Montaigne's doubts, for he attacked the fortress of reason itself rather than the reliability of the senses. He also daimed that he was less a Pyrrhonist than Montaigne, and with good reason; in the long run despite the strength of skeptical arguments, arguments that he analyzed in much greater detail than the essayist, he never fully acceded to the condusions of the Pyrrhonists, primarily because he saw that other arguments, notably those of the Cartesians, seemed every bit as convineing, even more so. He could not give his un­ qualified assent to any system ofphilosophy, even the Pyrrhonists', be­ cause he regarded the truth as something too varied and too diverse to be contained by any theory. Quite frequently the objections he raised against particular philosophies amounted to accusing them of oversimplifying reality. Spinoza's attempt to unify the totality of existence into one substance seemed to him the greatest error in AFTERWORD philosophy, and one of the most common ones. The comments in which we find him expressing his personal opinion usually reveal him preferring the more complicated theory to the simpler one. Substance must be divided into the uncreated and the created, and the second must then be subdivided into the extended and the thinking, for there are good enough reasons to establish each division. Bayle recognized, of course, that with each complication he introduced he exposed himself to weighty objections, and that the totality of those objections was enormous. But he seldom concerned himself with totalities. To him it seemed wiser to approach each matter individually even though he knew full well that each separate conclusion suffered from the objections that could be raised against it. He quickly con­ ceded that the truth was incomprehensible, but somehow or other that did not me an that it was unattainable. Pyrrhonistic indecision seemed more dangerous to him than an honest confession ofbaffiement. Above all, he was determined to pursue his piecemeal inquiries with the greatest diligence and the most careful, penetrating dialectic. It is inconceivable that he could have written "0 que c'est un doux et mol chevet, et sain, que l'ignorance et l'incuriosite, a reposer une teste bien faicte" (III:xiii, I050-5Ic). Both Montaigne and Bayle endorsed a form of religious fideism and argued that skepticism prepared the mind to receive grace. But again we find that Montaigne's fideism is complete, whereas Bayle's is most properly termed semi-fideism. The Catholic and the Protestant agreed that God was incomprehensible, as they agreed in accepting the doctrines by which their respective churches interpreted him. But in his later years the essayist arrived at a firm and confident faith in the goodness of God, especially in His creation nature, which was a beneficent guide for the man who knew how to follow its precepts. All the vanity and pettiness of man could be compensated for if one lea;ned to accept the gifts of life with due gratitude. They were great gifts and could be the source of a truly harmonious and exalting sense of being. Montaigne was far from sharing the Calvinist austerity that was part of Bayle's upbringing. For the Protestant refugee the world was a vale of tears and the watchword for enduring in it was "Patience" (DHC 2 Vorstius, Conrad P, 481 r). God's goodness was an article of faith, but of all the articles it was the one he found the least passib le to comprehend or to experience. In general there seems to be a connection between skepticism and a pessimistic evaluation of human nature. The weakness apparent in 33° AFTERWORD human reason extends further to the follies of human conduct. In Montaigne this is true, almost without reservation, for the "Apologie de Raimond Sebond," where his thought take s some very bitter turns. However, in later years, without losing his firm awareness of the vanity of human nature, he does become so reconciled to that vanity that he can see beyond it and admire the moral grandeur of a Socrates or the resilient fortitude of the ignorant. Examining himself and then the people around him, he arrived at a peculiar brand of gay wisdom that Bayle may never have known. For the latter the facts ofhistoryrevealed only too clearly human superstition, iniquity, factiousness, folly, depravity, and inconsistency. The weighty volumes of the Dictionnaire constitute a documented indictment of the human race. Amid all the diversity of languages, mores, and manners, Bayle found that one thing made man everywhere recognizable; there are few good men anywhere. The conclusions of the Dictionnaire can be summed up in the sentence "Il y a de l'homme partout" (Innocent XII C, 369 I), which means that passion and vanity reign supreme in history. What better proof can there be for human irrationality and immorality than the record of obloquy man has written in history? Observing himself, Montaigne found repeated evidence of human weakness and instability; but he also found the human condition satisfying despite its limitations; observing history, Bayle found almost exclusively signs of depravity; his extreme pessimism knew no mitigation, exeept perhaps the eonviction that God is good; and that convietion had to be maintained in the face of the facts. The differenees between the essayist and the seholar are great. In philosophy their common allegiance to some form of skepticism turns out on examination to be a quite superficial resemblanee. The faet that they were both fideistic Christians eannot reduce the funda­ mental divergencies in the quality of their religions. Montaigne's optimistic art of living finds no eounterpart in Bayle's works. There are, however, certain similarities in their points of view that can be traced to their skepticism. For both reas on was more likely to be able to determine moral precepts than philosophical truths. The belief in an inna te ethieal sense was not seriously threatened by the skeptieism ofeither man. The naturalist morality ofBook III of the Essais and the constantly recurring theme of the virtuous atheist in the Pensees diverses and elsewhere show both thinkers deeply concerned with a secular ethic. Where they parted company was that Bayle saw no grounds to expect that reason could actually affect moral conduct AFTERWORD 33 1 to any appreeiable extent while Montaigne eould not forget the example of Socrates, who may have been able to live aeeording to the dietates of his rational eonscienee. Another similarity between Montaigne and Bayle, and this is a very deep-rooted one, is their abiding political conservatism. This seems to be a eonstant in the skeptieal temperament, at least until the eighteenth eentury; for all the dassical skepties from Pyrrho to Sextus Empirieus were also loath to advoeate ehange or reform. As an em­ pirieal rule of eonduet they espoused the adherenee to the eustoms of their eountries. For them the ethieal eode of a land might be inde­ fensible as a theory, but it was also a faet, and skepties have respeet for the facts they live with. Montaigne and Bayle, eaeh in his way, put great emphasis on experience and facts, against whieh they measured the theories they so distrusted. True skepticism as a philosophy is largely a thing of the past today, for it would be foUy to deny the aehievements of seienee. Professional philosophers and theologians may be eoneerned to point out the limitations inherent in pragmatic empiricism, but hardly any would eare to argue against its solidity. Skeptieism, however, still has a meaning; for it is an attitude about the mind; and its greatest virtues are intelleetual ones. Above all the doubting mind is a modest one. Montaigne sought to learn for himself and from himself. Re feIt keenly that the truths he diseovered were his own; and ifhe yearned to share them with mankind, he did not presume to impose them on others. Bayle, for whom doetrines of faith were very important, plaeed the sanetity of eonseience above any belief and preaehed toleranee above all. Both despised the assuranee and eruelty of dogmatie arrogance. They were skepties, and as such, respeeters of men. APPENDIX 1 THE SENTENCES INSCRIBED ON THE CEILING OF MONTAIGNE'S STUDY These sayings have been reproduced in Galy and Lapeyre, Mon­ taigne ehe;;. lui (Perigueux: J. Bonnet, 1861), Paul Bonnefon (Revue d'Histoire Littiraire de la France, II [1895], 320-327), Grace Norton, Studies in Montaigne (New York: Macmillan, 1904), Pierre Villey's 1930 edition of the Essais, Maurice Rat's Classiques Garnier edition, and Bulletin de la Sociil! des Amis de Montaigne, 3rd Series, number 17-18.
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