[32.] “Man’s preëminent advantage is his organism.” Luzac says: “This no more proves that organization is the chief merit of man, than that the form of a musical instrument constitutes the chief merit of the musician. In proportion to the goodness of the instrument, the musician charms by his art, and the case is the same with the soul. In proportion to the soundness of the body, the soul is in better condition to exert her faculties.”[38]
[33.] “Such is, I think, the generation of intelligence.” Luzac argues against this statement thus: “But if thought and all the faculties of the soul depended only on the organization as some pretend, how could the imagination draw a long chain of consequences from the objects it has embraced?”[39]
[34.] Pyrrhonism is “the doctrine of Pyrrho of Elis which has been transmitted chiefly by his disciple Timon. More generally, radical Scepticism in general.”[40]
[35.] Pierre Bayle was born at Carlat in 1647. Although the child of Protestant parents, he was converted by the Jesuits. After his reconversion to Protestantism, he was driven out of France, and took refuge first in Geneva, and then in Holland. In 1675 he became professor of philosophy at the Protestant College of Sedan, and in 1681 professor of philosophy and history at Rotterdam. In 1693 he was forced to resign from his position on account of his religious views.
Bayle was one of the leading French sceptics of the time. He was a Cartesian, but questioned both the certainty of one’s own existence, and the knowledge derived from it. He declared that religion is contrary to the human reason, but that this fact does not necessarily destroy faith. He distinguished religion not only from science, but also from morality, and vigorously opposed those who considered a certain religion necessary for morality. He did not openly attack Christianity, yet all that he wrote awakened doubt, and his work exerted an extensive influence for scepticism.
His principal work is the “Dictionnaire historique et critique,” published 1695–1697, and containing a vast amount of knowledge, expressed in a piquant and popular style. This fact made the book widely read both by scholars and by superficial readers.
[36.] Arnobius the Elder was born at Sicca Venerea in Numidia, in the latter part of the third century A. D. He was at first an opponent of Christianity, but was afterwards converted, and wrote “Adversus Gentes” as an apology for Christianity. In this work, he tries to answer the complaints made against Christians on the ground that the disasters of the time were due to their impiety; vindicates the divinity of Christ; and discusses the nature of the human soul. He concludes that the soul is not immortal, for he believes that the belief in the immortality of the soul would have a deteriorating influence on morality. For translation of his work compare Vol. XIX of the “Ante-Nicene Christian Library.”[41]
[37.] “There exists no soul or sensitive substance without remorse.” Condillac had said: “There is something in animals besides motion. They are not pure machines: they feel.”[42] La Mettrie also attributed remorse to animals, but believed that they are none the less machines. Luzac said in comment: “What renders these systems completely ridiculous, is, that the persons who pronounce men machines, give them properties which belie their assertion. If beings are but machines, why do they grant a natural law, an internal sense, a kind of dread? These are ideas which can not be excited by objects which operate on our senses.”[43]
[38.] “Nature has created us solely to be happy.” This is a statement of the doctrine, which La Mettrie develops in his principal ethical work “Discours sur le Bonheur.” He teaches that happiness rests upon bodily pleasure and pain. In “L’histoire naturelle de l’âme,” La Mettrie states that all the passions can be developed from two fundamental passions, of which they are but modifications, love and hatred, or desire and aversion.[44] Like La Mettrie, Helvetius makes corporeal pleasure and pain the ruling motives for man’s conduct. Thus he writes: “Pleasure and pain are and always will be the only principles of action in man.”[45]... “Remorse is nothing more than a foresight of bodily pain to which some crime has exposed us.”[46] He definitely makes happiness the end of human action. “The end of man is self-preservation and the attainment of a happy existence.... Man, to find happiness, should save up his pleasures, and refuse all those which might change into pains.... The passions always have happiness as an object: they are legitimate and natural, and can not be called good or bad except on account of their influence on human beings. To lead men to virtue, we must show them the advantages of virtuous actions.”[47] Holbach, finally, goes further than La Mettrie or Helvetius, and makes purely mechanical impulses the motives of man’s action. “The passions are ways of being or modifications of the internal organs, attracted or repulsed by objects, and are consequently subject in their own way to the physical laws of attraction and repulsion.”[48]
[39.] “Ixions of Christianity.” Ixion, for his treachery, stricken with madness, was cast into Erebus, where he was continually scourged while bound to a fiery wheel, and forced to cry: “Benefactors should be honored.”