The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into Its Origin and Growth

by J. B. Bury

4.

The Cartesian mechanical theory of the world and the doctrine of invariable law, carried to a logical conclusion, excluded the doctrine of Providence. This doctrine was already in serious danger. Perhaps no article of faith was more insistently attacked by sceptics in the seventeenth century, and none was more vital. The undermining of the theory of Providence is very intimately connected with our subject; for it was just the theory of an active Providence that the theory of Progress was to replace; and it was not till men felt independent of Providence that they could organise a theory of Progress.

Bossuet was convinced that the question of Providence was the most serious and pressing among all the questions of the day that were at issue between orthodox and heretical thinkers. Brunetiere, his fervent admirer, has named him the theologian of Providence, and has shown that in all his writings this doctrine is a leading note. It is sounded in his early sermons in the fifties, and it is the theme of his most ambitious work, the Discourse on Universal History, which appeared in 1681. [Footnote; It has been shown that on one hand he controverts Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus, and on the other the dangerous methods of Richard Simon, one of the precursors of modern biblical criticism. Brunetiere, op. cit. 74-85.] This book, which has received high praise from those who most heartily dissent from its conclusions, is in its main issue a restatement of the view of history which Augustine had worked out in his memorable book. The whole course of human experience has been guided by Providence for the sake of the Church; that is, for the sake of the Church to which Bossuet belonged. Regarded as a philosophy of history the Discourse may seem little more than the theory of the De Civitate Dei brought up to date; but this is its least important aspect. We shall fail to understand it unless we recognise that it was a pragmatical, opportune work, designed for the needs of the time, and with express references to current tendencies of thought.

One main motive of Bossuet in his lifelong concern for Providence was his conviction that the doctrine was the most powerful check on immorality, and that to deny it was to remove the strongest restraint on the evil side of human nature. There is no doubt that the free-living people of the time welcomed the arguments which called Providence in question, and Bossuet believed that to champion Providence was the most efficient means of opposing the libertine tendencies of his day. "Nothing," he declared in one of his sermons (1662), "has appeared more insufferable to the arrogance of libertines than to see themselves continually under the observation of this ever-watchful eye of Providence. They have felt it as an importunate compulsion to recognise that there is in Heaven a superior force which governs all our movements and chastises our loose actions with a severe authority. They have wished to shake off the yoke of this Providence, in order to maintain, in independence, an unteachable liberty which moves them to live at their own fancy, without fear, discipline, or restraint." [Passage from Bossuet, quoted by Brunetiere, op. cit. 58.] Bossuet was thus working in the same cause as the Jansenists.

He had himself come under the influence of Descartes, whose work he always regarded with the deepest respect. The cautiousness of the master had done much to disguise the insidious dangers of his thought, and it was in the hands of those disciples who developed his system and sought to reconcile it at all points with orthodoxy that his ideas displayed their true nature. Malebranche's philosophy revealed the incompatibility of Providence—in the ordinary acceptation—with immutable natural laws. If the Deity acts upon the world, as Malebranche maintained, only by means of general laws, His freedom is abolished, His omnipotence is endangered, He is subject to a sort of fatality. What will become of the Christian belief in the value of prayers, if God cannot adapt or modify, on any given occasion, the general order of nature to the needs of human beings? These are some of the arguments which we find in a treatise composed by Fenelon, with the assistance of Bossuet, to demonstrate that the doctrine of Malebranche is inconsistent with piety and orthodox religion. They were right. Cartesianism was too strong a wine to be decanted into old bottles. [Footnote: Fenelon's Refutation of Malebranche's Traite de la nature et de la grace was not published till 1820. This work of Malebranche also provoked a controversy with Arnauld, who urged similar arguments.]

Malebranche's doctrine of what he calls divine Providence was closely connected with his philosophical optimism. It enabled him to maintain the perfection of the universe. Admitting the obvious truth that the world exhibits many imperfections, and allowing that the Creator could have produced a better result if he had employed other means, Malebranche argued that, in judging the world, we must take into account not only the result but the methods by which it has been produced. It is the best world, he asserts, that could be framed by general and simple methods; and general and simple methods are the most perfect, and alone worthy of the Creator. Therefore, if we take the methods and the result together, a more perfect world is impossible. The argument was ingenious, though full of assumptions, but it was one which could only satisfy a philosopher. It is little consolation to creatures suffering from the actual imperfections of the system into which they are born to be told that the world might have been free from those defects, only in that case they would not have the satisfaction of knowing that it was created and conducted on theoretically superior principles.

Though Malebranche's conception was only a metaphysical theory, metaphysical theories have usually their pragmatic aspects; and the theory that the universe is as perfect as it could be marks a stage in the growth of intellectual optimism which we can trace from the sixteenth century. It was a view which could appeal to the educated public in France, for it harmonised with the general spirit of self-complacency and hopefulness which prevailed among the higher classes of society in the reign of Louis XIV. For them the conditions of life under the new despotism had become far more agreeable than in previous ages, and it was in a spirit of optimism that they devoted themselves to the enjoyment of luxury and elegance. The experience of what the royal authority could achieve encouraged men to imagine that one enlightened will, with a centralised administration at its command, might accomplish endless improvements in civilisation. There was no age had ever been more glorious, no age more agreeable to live in.

The world had begun to abandon the theory of corruption, degeneration, and decay.

Some years later the optimistic theory of the perfection of the universe found an abler exponent in Leibnitz, whom Diderot calls the father of optimism. [Footnote: See particularly Monadologie, ad fin. published posthumously in German 1720, in Latin 1728; Theodicee, Section 341 (1710); and the paper, De rerum originatione radicali, written in 1697, but not published till 1840 (Opera philosophica, ed. Erdmann, p. 147 sqq).] The Creator, before He acted, had considered all possible worlds, and had chosen the best. He might have chosen one in which humanity would have been better and happier, but that would not have been the best possible, for He had to consider the interests of the whole universe, of which the earth with humanity is only an insignificant part. The evils and imperfections of our small world are negligible in comparison with the happiness and perfection of the whole cosmos. Leibnitz, whose theory is deduced from the abstract proposition that the Creator is perfect, does not say that now or at any given moment the universe is as perfect as it could be; its merit lies in its potentialities; it will develop towards perfection throughout infinite time.

The optimism of Leibnitz therefore concerns the universe as a whole, not the earth, and would obviously be quite consistent with a pessimistic view of the destinies of humanity. He does indeed believe that it would be impossible to improve the universal order, "not only for the whole, but for ourselves in particular," and incidentally he notes the possibility that "in the course of time the human race may reach a greater perfection than we can imagine at present." But the significance of his speculation and that of Malebranche lies in the fact that the old theories of degeneration are definitely abandoned.