FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115  
116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   >>   >|  
sovereign pontiffs, against bishops, against all the orders of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, that have covered priest, altar, and creed with opprobrium. If the pope, the bishops, the priests, the simple faithful, the whole church, if its mysteries, its sacraments, its temples, its ceremonies, have fallen into contempt, yours, yours, is the handiwork."[130] Bourdaloue more than half a century before had taunted the free-thinkers of his day with falseness and inconsistency in taking sides with the Jansenists, whose superstitions they notoriously held in open contempt. The motive for the alliance was tolerably obvious. The Jansenists, apart from their theology, were above all else the representatives of opposition to authority. It was for this that Lewis XIV. counted them worse than atheists. The Jesuits, it has been well said in keeping down their enemies by force, became the partisans of absolute government, and upheld it on every occasion. The Jansenists, after they had been crushed by violence, began to feel to what excesses power might be brought. From being speculative enemies to freedom as a theory, they became, through the education of persecution, the partisans of freedom in practice. The quarrel of Molinists and Jansenists, from a question of theology, grew into a question of human liberty.[131] Circumstances had now changed. The free-thinkers were becoming strong enough to represent opposition to authority on their own principles and in their own persons. Diderot's vigorous remonstrance with the bishop of Auxerre incidentally marks for us the definite rupture of philosophic sympathy for the Jansenist champions. "It is your disputatiousness," he said, "which within the last forty years has made far more unbelievers than all the productions of philosophy." As we cannot too clearly realise, it was the flagrant social incompetence of the church which brought what they called Philosophy, that is to say Liberalism, into vogue and power. Locke's Essay had been translated in 1700, but it had made no mark, and as late as 1725 the first edition of the translation remained unsold. It was the weakness and unsightly decrepitude of the ecclesiastics which opened the way for the thinkers. This victory, however, was not yet. Diderot had still a dismal wilderness to traverse. He was not without secret friends even in the camp of his enemies. After his reply to Pere Berthier's attack on the Prospectus, he received an ano
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115  
116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Jansenists

 

thinkers

 
enemies
 

opposition

 
authority
 

theology

 

partisans

 

church

 

bishops

 

Diderot


freedom

 
question
 

brought

 

contempt

 
Auxerre
 
vigorous
 
bishop
 

remonstrance

 

persons

 
represent

principles
 

incidentally

 

rupture

 

Jansenist

 
champions
 
sympathy
 

philosophic

 

definite

 

disputatiousness

 

productions


unbelievers
 

philosophy

 

translated

 

wilderness

 

dismal

 

traverse

 

opened

 

victory

 

secret

 
friends

Prospectus

 
attack
 
received
 

Berthier

 

ecclesiastics

 
decrepitude
 

Liberalism

 
Philosophy
 

flagrant

 
social