ws. He had Bossuet in mind when he said "we will
speak of the Jews as we would speak of Scythians or Greeks, weighing
probabilities and discussing facts." In his new perspective the
significance of Hebrew history is for the first time reduced to moderate
limits.

But it was not only in this particular, though central, point that
Voltaire challenged Bossuet's view. He eliminated final causes
altogether, and Providence plays no part on his historical stage. Here
his work reinforced the teaching of Montesquieu. Otherwise Montesquieu
and Voltaire entirely differed in their methods. Voltaire concerned
himself only with the causal enchainment of events and the immediate
motives of men. His interpretation of history was confined to the
discovery of particular causes; he did not consider the operation of
those larger general causes which Montesquieu investigated. Montesquieu
sought to show that the vicissitudes of societies were subject to law;
Voltaire believed that events were determined by chance where they
were not consciously guided by human reason. The element of chance is
conspicuous even in legislation: "almost all laws have been instituted
to meet passing needs, like remedies applied fortuitously, which have
cured one patient and kill others."

On Voltaire's theory, the development of humanity might at any moment
have been diverted into a different course; but whatever course it
took the nature of human reason would have ensured a progress in
civilisation. Yet the reader of the Essay and Louis XIV. might well
have come away with a feeling that the security of Progress is frail
and precarious. If fortune has governed events, if the rise and fall
of empires, the succession of religions, the revolutions of states, and
most of the great crises of history were decided by accidents, is there
any cogent ground for believing that human reason, the principle to
which Voltaire attributes the advance of civilisation, will prevail in
the long run? Civilisation has been organised here and there, now and
then, up to a certain point; there have been eras of rapid progress,
but how can we be sure that these are not episodes, themselves also
fortuitous? For growth has been followed by decay, progress by regress;
can it be said that history, authorises the conclusion that reason will
ever gain such an ascendancy that the play of chance will no longer
be able to thwart her will? Is such a conclusion more than a hope,
unsanctioned by th