Abstract
A new humanism thus developed, based on reason, imagination, and emotion. Thinkers had arrived at the conclusion that they could discover legislation for any area of life: the animal kingdom, music, morality, government. The vogue for encyclopaedias as collections of basic knowledge responded to this desire to re-evaluate the given in the world. A fresh view of these structural rules, especially a view colored by one’s sensitivity to beauty and to wrong, had two results in practice. Discrepancies between this theoretical knowledge and reality were revealed. And inventions of ideas and things were prompted. Again, encyclopaedias spoke to the need. They gathered in a convenient format improvements, whether in gardening, drama, or geometry, that had already been effected but were not widely known. Also, as contributors realized the difference between actuality and the ideal state suggested by the information they were outlining, they asked for reform.
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References
Correspondance inédite de Condorcet et de Turgot: 1770–1779, ed. Charles Henry (Paris: Charavay, 1882), pp. 205–206.
Bertrand defends the reliability of the Bible as a guide to salvation at least once. He says it is perfectly clear on all matters necessary for salvation, and that obscure passages contain nothing essential (“Hermeneutique”). Cf. also Haller’s profession of faith in his refutation of Voltaire: “Toute ma religion est renfermée dans l’Ecriture sainte, Se la conviction la plus inébranlable est tout mon savoir.” The letter is in Lettres de feu Mr. de Hatter… Voltaire , F.L. Koenig, trans. (Berne, 1780), p. 3.
M. Bouchard, De l’Humanisme à l’Encyclopédie… Louis XV (Paris: Hachette, 1929), PP- 797–799. The Supplément did not actually differ greatly in tone from the Encyclopédie on this point. If various Encyclopédie contributors were atheists and materialists, they hid the philosophy for the most part. What appeared in print often criticized the forms while respecting the substance.
The Supplément follows in this respect a marked current in eighteenth-century morality. Cf. the article “Humanité” in the Encyclopédie and Diderot’s emotion at the story of a forgiving son in Le Neveu de Rameau : “Ah! mon cher Rameau, cet homme regardait cet intervalle comme le plus heureux de sa vie; c’est les larmes aux yeux qu’il m’en parlait; et moi, je sens, en vous faisant ce récit, mon coeur se troubler de joie et le plaisir me couper la parole” (Oeuvres romanesques , ed. H. Bénac [Paris: Garnier Frères, 1962 ], p. 432).
For example, Letter LXXX in Lettres persanes , ed. P. Vernière (Paris: Gamier Frères, i960), pp. 169–171.
Alphonse Aulard, Histoire politique de la Révolution française… (1789–1804) (Paris: Armand Colin, 1901), pp. 6–13, summarizes the sentiment about the prevailing form of government among such pre-Revolutionary writers as Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Mably. In general, these writers were not overtly anti-monarchist, but they did spread republican ideas (e.g., that the king is a citizen) which sapped the monarchy.
Lester Crocker, Nature and Culture: Ethical Thought in the French Enlightenment (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1963), pp. 454–455, recalls that optimism in the eighteenth century was not about man, but about what could be done with him. He corroborates what appears to be true in the Supplément , that the thinking class, in different degrees, despised the people.
Dated December 4, 1765, in Corr ., ed, Roth, V, 208.
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© 1977 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Hardesty, K. (1977). Utility and Reform. In: The Supplément to the Encyclopédie. Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 89. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9660-1_4
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