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J.B. Moyle, Translator - "The Institutes of Justinian"

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Books: The Idea of Progress

J >> J.B. Bury >> The Idea of Progress




The genius of Pascal made the fortunes of Jansenism. He outlived his
Cartesianism and became its most influential spokesman. His
Provinciales (1656) rendered abstruse questions of theology more or
less intelligible, and invited the general public to pronounce an
opinion on them. His lucid exposition interested every one in the
abstruse problem, Is man's freedom such as not to render grace
superfluous? But Pascal perceived that casuistry was not the only
enemy that menaced the true spirit of religion for which Jansenism
stood. He came to realise that Cartesianism, to which he was at
first drawn, was profoundly opposed to the fundamental views of
Christianity. His Pensees are the fragments of a work which he
designed in defence of religion, and it is easy to see that this
defence was to be specially directed against the ideas of Descartes.

Pascal was perfectly right about the Cartesian conception of the
Universe, though Descartes might pretend to mitigate its tendencies,
and his fervent disciple, Malebranche, might attempt to prove that
it was more or less reconcilable with orthodox doctrine. We need not
trouble about the special metaphysical tenets of Descartes. The two
axioms which he launched upon the world--the supremacy of reason,
and the invariability of natural laws--struck directly at the
foundations of orthodoxy. Pascal was attacking Cartesianism when he
made his memorable attempt to discredit the authority of reason, by
showing that it is feeble and deceptive. It was a natural
consequence of his changed attitude that he should speak (in the
Pensees) in a much less confident tone about the march of science
than he had spoken in the passage which I quoted above. And it was
natural that he should be pessimistic about social improvement, and
that, keeping his eyes fixed on his central fact that Christianity
is the goal of history, he should take only a slight and subsidiary
interest in amelioration.

The preponderant influence of Jansenism only began to wane during
the last twenty years of the seventeenth century, and till then it
seems to have been successful in counteracting the diffusion of the
Cartesian ideas. Cartesianism begins to become active and powerful
when Jansenism is beginning to decline. And it is just then that the
idea of Progress begins definitely to emerge. The atmosphere in
France was favourable for its reception.

4.

The Cartesian mechanical theory of the world and the doctrine of
invariable law, carried to a logical conclusion, excluded the
doctrine of Providence. This doctrine was already in serious danger.
Perhaps no article of faith was more insistently attacked by
sceptics in the seventeenth century, and none was more vital. The
undermining of the theory of Providence is very intimately connected
with our subject; for it was just the theory of an active Providence
that the theory of Progress was to replace; and it was not till men
felt independent of Providence that they could organise a theory of
Progress.

Bossuet was convinced that the question of Providence was the most
serious and pressing among all the questions of the day that were at
issue between orthodox and heretical thinkers. Brunetiere, his
fervent admirer, has named him the theologian of Providence, and has
shown that in all his writings this doctrine is a leading note. It
is sounded in his early sermons in the fifties, and it is the theme
of his most ambitious work, the Discourse on Universal History,
which appeared in 1681. [Footnote; It has been shown that on one
hand he controverts Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus, and on
the other the dangerous methods of Richard Simon, one of the
precursors of modern biblical criticism. Brunetiere, op. cit. 74-
85.] This book, which has received high praise from those who most
heartily dissent from its conclusions, is in its main issue a
restatement of the view of history which Augustine had worked out in
his memorable book. The whole course of human experience has been
guided by Providence for the sake of the Church; that is, for the
sake of the Church to which Bossuet belonged. Regarded as a
philosophy of history the Discourse may seem little more than the
theory of the De Civitate Dei brought up to date; but this is its
least important aspect. We shall fail to understand it unless we
recognise that it was a pragmatical, opportune work, designed for
the needs of the time, and with express references to current
tendencies of thought.

One main motive of Bossuet in his lifelong concern for Providence
was his conviction that the doctrine was the most powerful check on
immorality, and that to deny it was to remove the strongest
restraint on the evil side of human nature. There is no doubt that
the free-living people of the time welcomed the arguments which
called Providence in question, and Bossuet believed that to champion
Providence was the most efficient means of opposing the libertine
tendencies of his day. "Nothing," he declared in one of his sermons
(1662), "has appeared more insufferable to the arrogance of
libertines than to see themselves continually under the observation
of this ever-watchful eye of Providence. They have felt it as an
importunate compulsion to recognise that there is in Heaven a
superior force which governs all our movements and chastises our
loose actions with a severe authority. They have wished to shake off
the yoke of this Providence, in order to maintain, in independence,
an unteachable liberty which moves them to live at their own fancy,
without fear, discipline, or restraint." [Passage from Bossuet,
quoted by Brunetiere, op. cit. 58.] Bossuet was thus working in the
same cause as the Jansenists.

He had himself come under the influence of Descartes, whose work he
always regarded with the deepest respect. The cautiousness of the
master had done much to disguise the insidious dangers of his
thought, and it was in the hands of those disciples who developed
his system and sought to reconcile it at all points with orthodoxy
that his ideas displayed their true nature. Malebranche's philosophy
revealed the incompatibility of Providence--in the ordinary
acceptation--with immutable natural laws. If the Deity acts upon the
world, as Malebranche maintained, only by means of general laws, His
freedom is abolished, His omnipotence is endangered, He is subject
to a sort of fatality. What will become of the Christian belief in
the value of prayers, if God cannot adapt or modify, on any given
occasion, the general order of nature to the needs of human beings?
These are some of the arguments which we find in a treatise composed
by Fenelon, with the assistance of Bossuet, to demonstrate that the
doctrine of Malebranche is inconsistent with piety and orthodox
religion. They were right. Cartesianism was too strong a wine to be
decanted into old bottles. [Footnote: Fenelon's Refutation of
Malebranche's Traite de la nature et de la grace was not published
till 1820. This work of Malebranche also provoked a controversy with
Arnauld, who urged similar arguments.]

Malebranche's doctrine of what he calls divine Providence was
closely connected with his philosophical optimism. It enabled him to
maintain the perfection of the universe. Admitting the obvious truth
that the world exhibits many imperfections, and allowing that the
Creator could have produced a better result if he had employed other
means, Malebranche argued that, in judging the world, we must take
into account not only the result but the methods by which it has
been produced. It is the best world, he asserts, that could be
framed by general and simple methods; and general and simple methods
are the most perfect, and alone worthy of the Creator. Therefore, if
we take the methods and the result together, a more perfect world is
impossible. The argument was ingenious, though full of assumptions,
but it was one which could only satisfy a philosopher. It is little
consolation to creatures suffering from the actual imperfections of
the system into which they are born to be told that the world might
have been free from those defects, only in that case they would not
have the satisfaction of knowing that it was created and conducted
on theoretically superior principles.

Though Malebranche's conception was only a metaphysical theory,
metaphysical theories have usually their pragmatic aspects; and the
theory that the universe is as perfect as it could be marks a stage
in the growth of intellectual optimism which we can trace from the
sixteenth century. It was a view which could appeal to the educated
public in France, for it harmonised with the general spirit of self-
complacency and hopefulness which prevailed among the higher classes
of society in the reign of Louis XIV. For them the conditions of
life under the new despotism had become far more agreeable than in
previous ages, and it was in a spirit of optimism that they devoted
themselves to the enjoyment of luxury and elegance. The experience
of what the royal authority could achieve encouraged men to imagine
that one enlightened will, with a centralised administration at its
command, might accomplish endless improvements in civilisation.
There was no age had ever been more glorious, no age more agreeable
to live in.

The world had begun to abandon the theory of corruption,
degeneration, and decay.

Some years later the optimistic theory of the perfection of the
universe found an abler exponent in Leibnitz, whom Diderot calls the
father of optimism. [Footnote: See particularly Monadologie, ad fin.
published posthumously in German 1720, in Latin 1728; Theodicee,
Section 341 (1710); and the paper, De rerum originatione radicali,
written in 1697, but not published till 1840 (Opera philosophica,
ed. Erdmann, p. 147 sqq).] The Creator, before He acted, had
considered all possible worlds, and had chosen the best. He might
have chosen one in which humanity would have been better and
happier, but that would not have been the best possible, for He had
to consider the interests of the whole universe, of which the earth
with humanity is only an insignificant part. The evils and
imperfections of our small world are negligible in comparison with
the happiness and perfection of the whole cosmos. Leibnitz, whose
theory is deduced from the abstract proposition that the Creator is
perfect, does not say that now or at any given moment the universe
is as perfect as it could be; its merit lies in its potentialities;
it will develop towards perfection throughout infinite time.

The optimism of Leibnitz therefore concerns the universe as a whole,
not the earth, and would obviously be quite consistent with a
pessimistic view of the destinies of humanity. He does indeed
believe that it would be impossible to improve the universal order,
"not only for the whole, but for ourselves in particular," and
incidentally he notes the possibility that "in the course of time
the human race may reach a greater perfection than we can imagine at
present." But the significance of his speculation and that of
Malebranche lies in the fact that the old theories of degeneration
are definitely abandoned.

CHAPTER IV

THE DOCTRINE OF DEGENERATION: THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS

1.

Outside the circle of systematic thinkers the prevalent theory of
degeneration was being challenged early in the seventeenth century.
The challenge led to a literary war, which was waged for about a
hundred years in France and England; over the comparative merits of
the ancients and the moderns. It was in the matter of literature,
and especially poetry, that the quarrel was most acrimonious, and
that the interest of the public was most keenly aroused, but the
ablest disputants extended the debate to the general field of
knowledge. The quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns used commonly to
be dismissed as a curious and rather ridiculous episode in the
history of literature. [Footnote: The best and fullest work on the
subject is Rigault's "Histoire de la querelle des Anciens et des
Modernes" (1856).] Auguste Comte was, I think, one of the first to
call attention to some of its wider bearings.

The quarrel, indeed, has considerable significance in the history of
ideas. It was part of the rebellion against the intellectual yoke of
the Renaissance; the cause of the Moderns, who were the aggressors,
represented the liberation of criticism from the authority of the
dead; and, notwithstanding the perversities of taste of which they
were guilty, their polemic, even on the purely literary side, was
distinctly important, as M. Brunetiere has convincingly shown,
[Footnote: See his "L'evolution des genres dans l'histoire de la
litterature."] in the development of French criticism. But the form
in which the critical questions were raised forced the debate to
touch upon a problem of greater moment. The question, Can the men of
to-day contend on equal terms with the illustrious ancients, or are
they intellectually inferior? implied the larger issue, Has nature
exhausted her powers; is she no longer capable of producing men
equal in brains and vigour to those whom she once produced; is
humanity played out, or are her forces permanent and inexhaustible?

The assertion of the permanence of the powers of nature by the
champions of the Moderns was the direct contradiction of the theory
of degeneration, and they undoubtedly contributed much towards
bringing that theory into discredit. When we grasp this it will not
be surprising to find that the first clear assertions of a doctrine
of progress in knowledge were provoked by the controversy about the
Ancients and Moderns.

Although the great scene of the controversy was France, the question
had been expressly raised by an Italian, no less a person than
Alessandro Tassoni, the accomplished author of that famous ironical
poem, "La Secchia rapita," which caricatured the epic poets of his
day. He was bent on exposing the prejudices of his time and uttering
new doctrine, and he created great scandal in Italy by his attacks
on Petrarch, as well as on Homer and Aristotle. The earliest
comparison of the merits of the ancients and the moderns will be
found in a volume of Miscellaneous Thoughts which he published in
1620. [Footnote: Dieci libri di pensieri diversi (Carpi, 1620). The
first nine books had appeared in 1612. The tenth contains the
comparison. Rigault was the first to connect this work with the
history of the controversy.] He speaks of the question as a matter
of current dispute, [Footnote: It was incidental to the controversy
which arose over the merits of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. That the
subject had been discussed long before may be inferred from a remark
of Estienne in his Apology for Herodotus, that while some of his
contemporaries carry their admiration of antiquity to the point of
superstition, others depreciate and trample it underfoot.] on which
he proposes to give an impartial decision by instituting a
comprehensive comparison in all fields, theoretical, imaginative,
and practical.

He begins by criticising the a priori argument that, as arts are
brought to perfection by experience and long labour, the modern age
must necessarily have the advantage. This reasoning, he says, is
unsound, because the same arts and studies are not always
uninterruptedly pursued by the most powerful intellects, but pass
into inferior hands, and so decline or are even extinguished, as was
the case in Italy in the decrepitude of the Roman Empire, when for
many centuries the arts fell below mediocrity. Or, to phrase it
otherwise, the argument would be admissible only if there were no
breaches of continuity. [Footnote: Tassoni argues that a decline in
all pursuits is inevitable when a certain point of excellence has
been reached, quoting Velleius Paterculus (i. 17): difficilisque in
perfecto mora est naturaliterque quod procedere non potest recedit.]

In drawing his comparison Tassoni seeks to make good his claim that
he is not an advocate. But while he awards superiority here and
there to the ancients, the moderns on the whole have much the best
of it. He takes a wide enough survey, including the material side of
civilisation, even costume, in contrast with some of the later
controversialists, who narrowed the field of debate to literature
and art.

Tassoni's Thoughts were translated into French, and the book was
probably known to Boisrobert, a dramatist who is chiefly remembered
for the part he took in founding the Academie francaise. He
delivered a discourse before that body immediately after its
institution (February 26, 1635), in which he made a violent and
apparently scurrilous attack on Homer. This discourse kindled the
controversy in France, and even struck a characteristic note. Homer-
-already severely handled by Tassoni--was to be the special target
for the arrows of the Moderns, who felt that, if they could succeed
in discrediting him, their cause would be won.

Thus the gauntlet was flung--and it is important to note this--
before the appearance of the Discourse of Method (1637); but the
influence of Descartes made itself felt throughout the controversy,
and the most prominent moderns were men who had assimilated
Cartesian ideas. This seems to be true even of Desmarets de Saint
Sorlin, who, a good many years after the discourse of Boisrobert,
opened the campaign. Saint Sorlin had become a fanatical Christian;
that was one reason for hating the ancients. [Footnote: For the
views of Saint Sorlin see the Preface to his Clovis and his Traite
pour juger des poefes grecs, latins, et francais, chap. iv. (1670).
Cp. Rigault, Hist. de la querelle, p. 106. The polemic of Saint
Sorlin extended over about five years (1669-73).] He was also, like
Boisrobert, a bad poet; that was another. His thesis was that the
history of Christianity offered subjects far more inspiring to a
poet than those which had been treated by Homer and Sophocles, and
that Christian poetry must bear off the palm from pagan. His own
Clovis and Mary Magdalene or the Triumph of Grace were the
demonstration of Homer's defeat. Few have ever heard of these
productions; how many have read them? Curiously, about the same time
an epic was being composed in England which might have given to the
foolish contentions of Saint Sorlin some illusory plausibility.

But the literary dispute does not concern us here. What does concern
us is that Saint Sorlin was aware of the wider aspects of the
question, though he was not seriously interested in them. Antiquity,
he says, was not so happy or so learned or so rich or so stately as
the modern age, which is really the mature old age, and as it were
the autumn of the world, possessing the fruits and the spoils of all
the past centuries, with the power to judge of the inventions,
experiences, and errors of predecessors, and to profit by all that.
The ancient world was a spring which had only a few flowers. Nature
indeed, in all ages, produces perfect works but it is not so with
the creations of man, which require correction; and the men who live
latest must excel in happiness and knowledge. Here we have both the
assertion of the permanence of the forces of nature and the idea,
already expressed by Bacon and others, that the modern age has
advantages over antiquity comparable to those of old age over
childhood.

2.

How seriously the question between the Moderns and the Ancients--on
whose behalf Boileau had come forward and crossed swords with Saint
Sorlin--was taken is shown by the fact that Saint Sorlin, before his
death, solemnly bequeathed the championship of the Moderns to a
younger man, Charles Perrault. We shall see how he fulfilled the
trust. It is illustrated too by a book which appeared in the
seventies, Les Entretiens d'Ariste et Eugene, by Bouhours, a mundane
and popular Jesuit Father. In one of these dialogues the question is
raised, but with a curious caution and evasiveness, which suggests
that the author was afraid to commit himself; he did not wish to
make enemies. [Footnote: Rigault notes that he makes one
contribution to the subject, the idea that the torch of civilisation
has passed from country to country, in different ages, e.g. from
Greece to Rome, and recently from Italy to France. In the last
century the Italians were first in doctrine and politesse. The
present century is for France what the last was for Italy: "We have
all the esprit and all the science, all other countries are
barbarous in comparison" (p. 239, ed. 1782, Amsterdam). But, as we
shall see, he had been anticipated by Hakewill, whose work was
unknown to Rigault.]

The general atmosphere in France, in the reign of Louis XIV., was
propitious to the cause of the Moderns. Men felt that it was a great
age, comparable to the age of Augustus, and few would have preferred
to have lived at any other time. Their literary artists, Corneille,
and then Racine and Moliere, appealed so strongly to their taste
that they could not assign to them any rank but the first. They were
impatient of the claims to unattainable excellence advanced for the
Greeks and Romans. "The ancients," said Moliere, "are the ancients,
we are the people of to-day." This might be the motto of Descartes,
and it probably expressed a very general feeling.

It was in 1687 that Charles Perrault--who is better remembered for
his collection of fairy-tales than for the leading role which he
played in this controversy--published his poem on "The Age of Louis
the Great." The enlightenment of the present age surpasses that of
antiquity,--this is the theme.


La docte Antiquite dans toute sa duree
A l'egal de nos jours ne fut point eclairee.


Perrault adopts a more polite attitude to "la belle antiquite" than
Saint Sorlin, but his criticism is more insidious. Greek and Roman
men of genius, he suggests, were all very well in their own times,
and might be considered divine by our ancestors. But nowadays Plato
is rather tiresome; and the "inimitable Homer" would have written a
much better epic if he had lived in the reign of Louis the Great.
The important passage, however, in the poem is that in which the
permanent power of nature to produce men of equal talent in every
age is affirmed.


A former les esprits comme a former les corps
La Nature en tout temps fait les mesmes efforts;
Son etre est immuable, et cette force aisee
Dont elle produit tout ne s'est point epuisee;
.....
De cette mesme main les forces infinies
Produisent en tout temps de semblables genies.


The "Age of Louis the Great" was a brief declaration of faith.
Perrault followed it up by a comprehensive work, his Comparison of
the Ancients and the Moderns (Parallele des Anciens et des
Modernes), which appeared in four parts during the following years
(1688-1696). Art, eloquence, poetry the sciences, and their
practical applications are all discussed at length; and the
discussion is thrown into the form of conversations between an
enthusiastic champion of the modern age, who conducts the debate,
and a devotee of antiquity, who finds it difficult not to admit the
arguments of his opponent, yet obstinately persists in his own
views.

Perrault bases his thesis on those general considerations which we
have met incidentally in earlier writers, and which were now almost
commonplaces among those who paid any attention to the matter.
Knowledge advances with time and experience; perfection is not
necessarily associated with antiquity; the latest comers have
inherited from their predecessors and added new acquisitions of
their own. But Perrault has thought out the subject methodically,
and he draws conclusions which have only to be extended to amount to
a definite theory of the progress of knowledge.

A particular difficulty had done much to hinder a general admission
of progressive improvement in the past. The proposition that the
posterior is better and the late comers have the advantage seemed to
be incompatible with an obvious historical fact. We are superior to
the men of the dark ages in knowledge and arts. Granted. But will
you say that the men of the tenth century were superior to the
Greeks and Romans? To this question--on which Tassoni had already
touched--Perrault replies: Certainly not. There are breaches of
continuity. The sciences and arts are like rivers, which flow for
part of their course underground, and then, finding an opening,
spring forth as abundant as when they plunged beneath the earth.
Long wars, for instance, may force peoples to neglect studies and
throw all their vigour into the more urgent needs of self-
preservation; a period of ignorance may ensue but with peace and
felicity knowledge and inventions will begin again and make further
advances. [Footnote: The passages in Perrault's Parallele specially
referred to in the text will be found in vol. i. pp. 35-7, 60-61,
67, 231-3.]

It is to be observed that he does not, claim any superiority in
talents or brain power for the moderns. On the contrary, he takes
his stand on the principle which he had asserted in the "Age of
Louis the Great," that nature is immutable. She still produces as
great men as ever, but she does not produce greater. The lions of
the deserts of Africa in our days do not differ in fierceness from
those the days of Alexander the Great, and the best men of all times
are equal in vigour. It is their work and productions that are
unequal, and, given equally favourable conditions, the latest must
be the best. For science and the arts depend upon the accumulation
of knowledge, and knowledge necessarily increases as time goes on.