United States or United States Minor Outlying Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On that matter one may see M. Amyraut's Apology for Calvin: it is true that Calvin appears orthodox on this subject, and that he is by no means one of the extreme Supralapsarians. Thus, when M. Bayle says somewhere that St.
Bayle and Chillingworth, two of the most sceptical of mankind, turned Catholics from sincere conviction. Johnson, incredulous on all other points, was a ready believer in miracles and apparitions. He would not believe in Ossian; but he was willing to believe in the second sight. He would not believe in the earthquake of Lisbon; but he was willing to believe in the Cock Lane ghost.
P. Bayle has endeavored to remedy this state of things by experiments upon the chimney, inasmuch as he could not think of modifying the arrangements of the lamps of commerce "without injury to man" interests, and encountering material difficulties.
M. Bayle raises the further objection, that it is true that our legislators can never invent regulations such as are convenient for all individuals, 'Nulla lex satis commoda omnibus est; id modo quaeritur, si majori parti et in summam prodest. Nothing of all that can apply to God, who is as infinite in power and understanding as in goodness and true greatness.
"They cannot, indeed, claim the merit of being the first in France who opened the eyes of the nation; for Fenelon had taught even to Louis XIV., in his immortal 'Telemaque, the duties of a king; Racine, in his 'Germanicus, had shown the accursed nature of irresponsible despotism; Moliere, in his 'Tartuffe, had exposed the vices of priestly hypocrisy; Pascal, in his 'Provincial Letters, had revealed the wretched sophistries of the Jesuits; Bayle even, in his 'Critical Dictionary, had furnished materials for future sceptics."
M. Bayle goes on: 'There are at the very least two ways whereby man can extricate himself from the snares of equipoise.
It may be, therefore, that having long contended thus against M. Bayle on the matter of the use of reason I shall find after all that his opinions were not fundamentally so remote from mine as his expressions, which have provided matter for our considerations, have led one to believe.
A true philosopher, like an impartial historian, must be of no sect. Locke. Is there no medium between the blind zeal of a sectary and a total indifference to all religion? Bayle. With regard to morality I was not indifferent. Locke. How could you, then, be indifferent with regard to the sanctions religion gives to morality?
See Eusebius, Vopiscus, Lampridius, etc., as quoted by Bayle. See Brucker on this point, vol. ii. p. 141, who refers to various authors. Eusebius takes a more sober view of the question, allowing the substance of the history, but disputing the extraordinary parts. See in Hierocl. 5 and 12. Most of them are imitations of the miracles attributed to Pythagoras. See Philostr. i. 4, 5, viii. 30, 31.
This God would pride himself only on skill; he would prefer to let the whole human kind perish rather than suffer some atoms to go faster or more slowly than general laws require. M. Bayle would not have made this antithesis if he had been informed on the system of general harmony which I assume, which states that the realm of efficient causes and that of final causes are parallel to each other; that God has no less the quality of the best monarch than that of the greatest architect; that matter is so disposed that the laws of motion serve as the best guidance for spirits; and that consequently it will prove that he has attained the utmost good possible, provided one reckon the metaphysical, physical and moral goods together.
Word Of The Day