The Period of the Enlightenment in France

French Illuminism and the "Encyclopedie"

France borrowed Illuminism from England, the land of its birth. This adoption of Illuminism was brought about by the great admiration which the French world of culture felt toward all things English. French thinkers preferred Locke to Descartes because the former traced philosophical problems back to their original basis, sensation. They admired Newton's mechanism and the English Constitution. In a word, the cultured French created for themselves the English myth. Letters, ties of friendship, and frequent trips across the Channel by noted Frenchmen of the times, such as Voltaire, are manifest proof of this lofty esteem for things English.

However, French thinkers did not receive Illuminism passively. France was always the land of clear and distinct ideas (Descartes); and as soon as Illuminism made its appearance there, French philosophers were able and quick to elicit the extreme consequences hidden beneath the surface of Illuminist thought. Promptly divining the far-reaching conclusions that could be drawn from Illuminism, the French adopted it as an efficacious and speedy means of relieving France from all the evils that had befallen her after the demise of the Sun King, Louis XIV. Thus if England was the birthplace of the new philosophy of the Enlightenment, France was to become the classic home of Illuminism.

The French Illuminists placed full confidence in "reason," which they understood to mean common sense, a factor equally distributed among men. Neglect of the use of common sense has produced in the world class distinctions, differences in knowledge and language; it has fomented hatred and wars. Reason must undertake the task of abolishing or reducing these differences to a minimum; it must assume the office of formulating a universal knowledge and establishing a universal organization of peaceful peoples governed by universal laws.

Nature should be the starting point in the process of effecting this new organization. But "nature" for French Illuminism meant human nature devoid of all moral and religious restraint. French Illuminism was hence eminently anti-historical and naturalistic, and consequently tended to give rise to countless problems of both a doctrinal and practical nature, the solutions to which are most contrary to historical tradition and the teachings of Christian philosophy.

In the doctrinal field, Descartes, a Rationalist and spiritualist, was replaced by John Locke, whose empiricism was rapidly reduced to simple sensism by the French philosophers. Newton's physical mechanism took the place of traditional metaphysics. Not only is the world a self-made machine, but man himself is a self-moving machine with no dependence whatsoever upon any principle superior to matter. Julien Offroy de La Mettrie (1709-1751), author of L'homme machine; and more important still, Paul Heinrich Holbach (1723-1789), German by birth but French by education and author of Le Systeme de la nature; and Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771), author of De l'esprit and De l'homme, were the most outstanding protagonists of this atheistic materialism.

Of course not all French Illuminists were atheists as were La Mettrie and Holbach. Many of them, notably Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, proposed Deism in place of atheism, if not for speculative reasons, at least as a support and foundation for moral activity. Belief in God, in the immortality of the soul, and in a retribution in the life to come were affirmed in opposition to atheism. Voltaire, who fought as ardently against atheism as he did against the Church, wrote: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him. But all nature proclaims that He exists."

In the field of religion, French Illuminism battled against the Catholic Church, its dogmas, its discipline, its hierarchy. The Church was judged responsible for all the errors of the past. In this bitter struggle against the Church, atheists like La Mettrie and Deists like Voltaire made common cause and cried out: "Crush the infamous!"

In politics, a new organization, English in pattern, was called forth to effect the reforms demanded by reason. This rational state was outlined by Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1775) in his book L'esprit de lois (The Spirit of Laws), which was widely read and made a great impression on the thinkers of the times.

To spread and popularize these ideas, French Illuminism made use of a very powerful medium, the Dictionnaire Raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers, or Encyclopedie, as it came to be called. This work, which can be considered fundamental and which spread throughout France and the rest of Europe, was published between 1751 and 1780 in thirty-five volumes, including supplements, illustrations and indexes. The directors of the Encyclopedie were Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (1717?-1783), who wrote the famous Discours preliminaire as a preface, and Denis Diderot (1713-1784). However, many other Illuminists also contributed to the Encyclopedie, and for this reason this group of writers came to be known as the Encyclopedists. The most famous of the Encyclopedists were Voltaire and Rousseau.

The most prominent figure of French Illuminism and of European contemporary culture is Francois Marie Arouet, who took the name Voltaire (1694-1778). He was the author of many works, the most interesting from the point of view of philosophy being the following: Lettres anglaises ou philosophiques, Metaphysique de Newton, Elements de la philosophie de Newton, and Dictionnaire philosophique


The Sensationalism of Abbe de Condillac

A typical philosopher of French Illuminism was Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715-1780), a member of a distinguished legal family of Grenoble. Although ordained a Catholic priest, Condillac never exercised the priestly powers. For about ten years he was tutor t the ducal court of the Infant Ferdinand de Bourbon at Parma. His most significant philosophical work is the Traite des sensations.

Locke had distinguished two sources of our ideas, sensation and reflection. Condillac accepted only the former, and considered reflection as an activity following upon and connected with sensation. Moreover, Locke presupposed certain faculties of the soul, such as thinking, remembering, reasoning, to be innate and did not investigate their origin. The task of Condillac was to show how these activities originate in sensation alone.

To this end he took as an example a statue, endowed like man with a soul, but deprived of any sensation ("tabula rasa") because the soul is enclosed in marble. The statue is first given the use of the sense of smell, the least important of the five senses. A rose is presented to the statue. The statue has the "sensation" of odor; indeed, it is entirely identified with the odor of rose. From this simple olfactory sensation, Condillac believed he could derive all the so-called spiritual faculties. Indeed, when the statue turns its entire capacity for feeling upon the impression of the rose, attention is achieved.

A faint sensation (produced when the rose is withdrawn) gives rise to memory; a vivid memory produces imagination. Through memory the statue can compare an actual sensation with a past one, and from this comparison arises judgment. The practical development of the spirit proceeds in parallel fashion with its theoretical unfolding.

From a pleasant or painful sensation the sentiment of pleasure or pain arises. The remembrance of a pleasant sensation gives rise to desire; a vivid desire produces passion; a stable desire is transformed into will. The statue acquires all these faculties with the use of one sense only. By granting to the statue the use of the other senses, the number of objects is extended, the quantity of the ideas is increased, but not the forms of activity by which it apprehends.

According to Condillac, neither olfactory nor gustatory nor auditory nor even visual sensations give to the statue the idea of spatial extent upon which our knowledge of the corporeal world is founded. Only touch is capable of giving the spirit an idea of the external world, of one's own body and the bodies of others, because of the resistance which our physical efforts meet in the exterior world.

It is to be noted, however, that this is not a proof of the reality of the external world; the statue still remains in the world of sensations, which are subjective modifications. The external world is dogmatically presupposed; we are face to face with metaphysical Skepticism.