n
between Soul and Body'. In the same year Foucher published an article in
the _Journal_ controverting Leibniz; and in the next year Leibniz replied
with an 'Explanation'. A second explanation in the same year appeared in
Basnage's _Histoire des Ouvrages des Savants_, in answer to reflexions by
the editor. M. Pierre Bayle had all these articles before him when he
inserted a note on Leibniz's doctrine in his article on 'Rorarius', in the
first edition of his _Historical and Critical Dictionary_. The point of
connexion between Rorarius and Leibniz was no more than this, that both
held views about the souls of beasts.

Pierre Bayle was the son of a Calvinist pastor, early converted to
Catholicism, but recovered to his old faith after a short time. He held
academic employments in Switzerland and Holland; he promoted and edited the
_Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres_, and he produced that
extraordinary work the _Historical and Critical Dictionary._ The notices it
contains of authors and thinkers are little more than pegs upon which Bayle
could hang his philosophical reflexions. He could write an intelligent
discussion on any opinion; what he could not do was to reconcile the points
of view from which he felt impelled to write upon this author and that.[35]
His was not a systematic mind. So far as he had a philosophical opinion, he
was a Cartesian; in theology he was an orthodox Calvinist. He could not
reconcile his theology with his Cartesianism and he did not try to. He made
a merit of the oppositions of faith to reason and reason to itself, so that
he could throw himself upon a meritorious and voluntary faith.

There is nothing original in this position. It was characteristic of
decadent scholasticism, it squared with Luther's exaggerations about the
impotence of reason in fallen man, and Pascal had given his own highly
personal twist to it. Bayle has been hailed as a forerunner of Voltairean
scepticism. It would be truer to say that a Voltairean sceptic could read
Bayle's discussions in his own sense and for his own purposes if he wished.
But Bayle was not a sceptic. It is hard to say what he was; his whole
position as between faith and reason is hopelessly confused. He was a
scholar, a wit, and a philosophical sparring-partner of so perfectly
convenient a kind that if we had not evidence of his historical reality, we
might have suspected Leibniz of inventing him.

In the first edition of his _Dictionary_, under the