recovering their lost position. While society was advancing, they were receding. All the sources of their power were dried up. They had no active leaders; they had lost the confidence of government; they had forfeited the respect of the people; they had become a mark for the gibes of the age.67

It does, at first sight, seem strange that, under these circumstances, the French clergy should have been able, for nearly thirty years after the abolition of the Jesuits, to maintain their standing, so as to interfere with impunity in public affairs.68 The truth, however, is, that this temporary reprieve of the ecclesiastical order was owing to that movement which I have already noticed, and by virtue of which the French intellect, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, changed the ground of its attack, and, directing its energies against political abuses, neglected in some degree those spiritual abuses to which its attention had been hitherto confined. The result was, that in France the government enforced a policy which the great thinkers had indeed originated, but respecting which they were becoming less eager. The most eminent Frenchmen were beginning their attacks upon the state, and in the heat of their new warfare they slackened their opposition to the church. But in the mean time, the seeds

that in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Christianity itself was assailed, not one champion of note appeared in its ranks; and when the convocation of the clergy, in 1770, published their famous anathema against the dangers of unbelief, and offered rewards for the best essays in defence of the Christian faith, the productions called forth were so despicable that they sensibly injured the cause of religion." Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. i. pp. 180, 181.

67 In 1766, the Rev. William Cole writes to Alban Butler: "I travelled to Paris through Lille and Cambray in their public voitures, and was greatly scandalized and amazed at the open and unreserved disrespect, both of the trading and military people, for their clergy and religious establishment. When I got to Paris, it was much worse.' Ellis's Original Letters, second series, vol. iv. p. 485. See also Walpole's Letters to Lady Ossory, vol. ii. p. 513, edit. 1848; and the complaint made at Besançon in 1761, in Lepan, Vie de Voltaire, p. 113.

68 And also to retain their immense property, which, when the Revolution occurred, was estimated at 80,000,000l. English money, bringing in a yearly revenue of "somewhat under 75,000,000 francs." Alison's Europe, vol. i. p. 183, vol. ii. p. 20, vol. xiv. pp. 122, 123.

they had sown germinated in the state itself. So rapid was the march of affairs, that those anti-ecclesiastical opinions which, a few years earlier, were punished as the paradoxes of designing men, were now taken up and put into execution by senators and ministers. The rulers of France carried into effect principles which had hitherto been simply a matter of theory; and thus it happened, as is always the case, that practical statesmen only apply and work out ideas which have long before been suggested by more advanced thinkers.

Hence it followed, that at no period during the eighteenth century did the speculative classes and practical classes thoroughly combine against the church: since, in the first half of the century, the clergy were principally assailed by the literature, and not by the government; in the latter half of the century, by the government, and not by the literature. Some of the circumstances of this singular transition have been already stated, and I hope clearly brought before the mind of the reader. I now purpose to complete the generalization, by proving that a corresponding change was taking place in all other branches of inquiry; and that, while in the first period attention was chiefly directed towards mental phenomena, it was in the second period more directed towards physical phenomena. From this, the political movement received a vast accession of strength. For the French intellect, shifting the scene of its labours, diverted the thoughts of men from the internal to the external, and concentrating attention upon their material rather than upon their spiritual wants, turned against the encroachments of the state an hostility formerly reserved for the encroachments of the church. Whenever a tendency arises to prefer what comes from without to what comes from within, and thus to aggrandize matter at the expense of mind, there will also be a tendency to believe that an institution which hampers our opinions is less hurtful than one which controls our acts. Precisely in the same way, men who reject the fundamental truths of religion, will care little for the extent to which those truths are perverted. Men who 3 E

VOL. I.

deny the existence of the Deity and the immortality of the soul, will take no heed of the way in which a gross and formal worship obscures those sublime doctrines. All the idolatry, all the ceremonials, all the pomp, all the dogmas, and all the traditions by which religion is retarded, will give them no disquietude, because they consider the opinions that are checked to be equally false with those that are favoured. Why should they, to whom transcendental truths are unknown, labour to remove the superstitions which darken the truths? Such a generation, so far from attacking ecclesiastical usurpations, would rather look on the clergy as convenient tools to ensnare the ignorant and control the vulgar. Therefore it is that we rarely hear of a sincere atheist being a zealous polemic. But if that should occur, which a century ago occurred in France; if it should happen that men of great energy, and actuated by the feelings I have described, were to find themselves in the presence of a political despotism,-they would direct against it the whole of their powers; and they would act with the more determined vigour, because, believing that their all was at stake, temporal happiness would be to them not only the first, but also the sole consideration.

It is from this point of view that the progress of those atheistical opinions, which now rose in France, becomes a matter of great though painful interest. And the date at which they appeared, fully corroborates what I have just said respecting the change that took place in the middle of the eighteenth century. The first great work in which they were openly promulgated, was the celebrated Encyclopædia, published in 1751.69 Before that time such degrading opinions, though occasionally broached, were not held by any men of ability; nor could they in the preceding state of society have made much impression

69 M. Barante (Littérature Française au XVIII Siècle, p. 94) says, "On arriva bientôt à tout nier; déjà l'incrédulité avait rejeté les preuves divines de la révélation, et avait abjuré les devoirs et les souvenirs chrétiens; on vit alors l'athéisme lever un front plus hardi, et proclamer que tout sentiment religieux était une rêverie et un désordre de l'esprit humain. C'est de l'époque de l'Encyclopédie que datent les écrits où cette opinion est le plus expressément professée. Ils furent peu imités." This last sentence is erroneous, I am sorry to say.

upon the age. But during the latter half of the eighteenth century, they affected every department of French literature. Between 1758 and 1770, atheistical tenets rapidly gained ground;70 and in 1770 was published the famous work, called the System of Nature; the success, and, unhappily, the ability of which, make its appearance an important epoch in the history of France. Its popularity. was immense ;71 and the views it contains are so clearly and methodically arranged, as to have earned for it the name of the code of atheism.72 Five years later, the Archbishop of Toulouse, in a formal address to the king on behalf of the clergy, declared that atheism had now become the prevailing opinion.73 This, like all similar assertions, must have been an exaggeration; but that there was a large amount of truth in it, is known to whoever has studied the mental habits of the generation immediately preceding the Revolution. Among the inferior class of writers, Damilaville, Deleyre, Maréchal, Naigeon, Toussaint, were active supporters of that cold and gloomy dogma, which, in order to extinguish the hope of a future life, blots out from the mind of man the glorious instincts

70 Dans un intervalle de douze années, de 1758 à 1770, la littérature française fut souillée par un grand nombre d'ouvrages où l'athéisme étoit ouvertement professé." Lacretelle, XVIII Siècle, vol. ii. p. 310.

"Voltaire, who wrote against it, mentions its diffusion among all classes, and says it was read by "des savants, des ignorants, des femmes." Dict. Philos. article Dieu, section iv., in Euvres de Voltaire, vol. xxxviii. p. 366: see also vol. lxvii. p. 260; Longchamp et Wagnière, Mém. sur Voltaire, vol. i. pp. 13, 334; Lettres inédites de Voltaire, vol. ii. pp. 210, 216; and a letter from him in Correspond. de Dudeffand, vol. ii. p. 329. Compare Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. xi. p. 320: " mit ungetheiltem Beifalle aufgenommen worden und grossen Einfluss gehabt hat."

66

72 Le code monstrueux d'athéisme." Biog. Univ. vol. xxix. p. 88. Morellet, who in such matters was by no means a harsh judge, says, Le Système de la Nature, surtout, est un catéchisme d'athéisme complet." Mém. de Morellet, vol. i. p. 133. Stäudlin (Gesch. der theolog. Wissenschaften, vol. ii. p. 440) calls it "ein System des entschiedenen Atheismus:" while Tennemann, who has given by far the best account of it I have met with, says, "Es machte bei seinem Erscheinen gewaltiges Aufsehen, und ist fast immer als das Handbuch des Atheismus betrachtet worden." Gesch. der Philos. vol. xi. p. 349.

73 "Le monstrueux athéisme est devenu l'opinion dominante." Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. iii. p. 16: the address of the archbishop with a deputation, "muni des pouvoirs de l'assemblée générale du clergé," in September 1775.

of his own immortality.74 And, strange to say, several even of the higher intellects were unable to escape the contagion. Atheism was openly advocated by Condorcet, by D'Alembert, by Diderot, by Helvétius, by Lalande, by Laplace, by Mirabeau, and by Saint Lambert.75 Indeed, so thoroughly did all this harmonize with the general temper, that in society men boasted of what, in other countries, and in other days, has been a rare and singular error, an eccentric taint, which those affected by it were willing to conceal. In 1764 Hume met, at the house of Baron d'Holbach, a party of the most celebrated Frenchmen then residing in Paris. The great Scotchman, who was no doubt aware of the prevailing opinion, took occasion to raise an argument as to the existence of an atheist, properly so called; for his own part, he said, he had never chanced to meet with one. "You have been somewhat unfortunate," replied Holbach; "but at the present moment you are sitting at table with seventeen of them."76

This, sad as it is, only forms a single aspect of that immense movement, by which, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, the French intellect was withdrawn from the study of the internal, and concentrated upon that of the external world. Of this tendency, we find an interesting instance in the celebrated work of Helvétius, unquestionably the ablest and most influential treatise on morals which France produced at this period.

"Biog. Univ. vol. x. pp. 471, 669, vol. xxvii. p. 8, vol. xxx. p. 542; Mém. de Brissot, vol. i. p. 305; Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 77.

75 Mem. of Mallet du Pan, vol. i. p. 50; Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. v. p. 127; Barruel, Hist. du Jacobin. vol. i. pp. 104, 135, 225, vol. ii. p. 23, vol. iii. p. 200; Life of Romilly, vol. i. pp. 46, 145; Stäudlin, Theolog. Wissenschaften, vol. ii. p. 440; Georgel, Mém. vol. ii. pp. 250, 350; Grimm, Correspond. vol. xv. p. 87; Mém. de Morellet, vol. i. p. 130; Lepan, Vie de Voltaire, p. 369; Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. xi. p. 350; Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. ii. pp. 177, 297; Mém. de Genlis, vol. v. p. 180; Hitchcock's Geol. p. 263; Mém. d'Epinay, vol. ii. pp. 63, 66, 76.

76 This was related to Romilly by Diderot. Life of Romilly, vol. i. pp. 131, 132 see also Burton's Life of Hume, vol. ii. p. 220. Priestley, who visited France in 1774, says, that "all the philosophical persons to whom I was introduced at Paris (were) unbelievers in Christianity, and even professed atheists." Priestley's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 74. See also a letter by Horace Walpole, written from Paris in 1765 (Walpole's Letters, edit. 1840, vol. v. p. 96): "their avowed doctrine is atheism."