Pierre Bayle, Tome I: Du Pays de Foix à la cité d'Erasme (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 111 Friedmann had relied mainly on the same sources available in 1890 to Stein; now he adds evidence taken from these later publications. He is able to specify more closely the presence of Leibniz's own principles at least in germ in his early writings, as well as the only gradual discovery by Leibniz of the metaphysical teachings of the Ethics. But the use of the new materials is made quite firmly within the structure of the original edition. The author confirms and extends his position, without going so far as to consider a fundamental recasting of the whole comparative argument. He retains his scrupulous honesty toward Leibniz, but it remains a deliberate policy used toward a distinguished foreigner. Spinoza remains at the sympathetic center of this study, and the temptation is resisted to think through the entire matter again in a Leibnizian perspective. Perhaps the real value of Friedmann's work would have been lost in making a profound transformation. It is well to have, in a somewhat up-dated form, this challenge to the conventional notion of Leibniz. He is presented here no longer as the somewhat fatuous optimist but as a man and thinker who was harried by a lifelong vocation for assuaging our human miseries and our doubts about God. This Leibniz does not have uncritical confidence in the good Lord but makes a metaphysical arrangement whereby the law of the best exerts its primacy over the divine will itself, thus giving us poor mortals a metaphysical and pre-divine assurance. We are left with a Leibniz who is less a defender of freedom and moral heroism than is Spinoza, precisely because he is more committed than Spinoza to the vision of harmony of the whole. There is room enough for someone else to reflect upon this spiritual comparison and intellectual struggle from a basis taken in the thought of Leibniz. If Friedmann's new edition provokes such a thorough reorientation, it will not only justify itself but also function in a manner proper to the handiwork of a finite monad. JAMES COLLINS St. Louis University Pierre Bayle, Tome 1: Du Pays de Foix fi la citd d'Erasme. By Elisabeth Labrousse. (Archives internationales d'histoire des idles; La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963. Pp. x + 280. 31.50 G.) Although scholarly evaluations of Pierre Bayle have frequently been at variance one with another during the past century and a half, it may not be said that Bayle has been neglected by historians of literature and philosophy, or that his importance has often gone unrecognized. The substantial literature on him already overshadows that on Fontenelle, and if the present trend continues, Bayle may one day be pushed forward into the ranks of the major figures in French literature to take his place along with Descartes and Bossuet. It seems astonishing that the only full-length biography we have had of him dated from the second quarter of the eighteenth century, when the famous Vie de M r Bayle by DesMaizeaux first appeared at the head of the Dictionnaire historique et critique. For its day, DesMaizeaux's work was an exceptionally good biography, and scholars ever since have been grateful that the author conscientiously collected documents and information from Bayle's friends and that he was in close touch with the philosophical and theological issues of Bayle's generation. One might well take a moment to acknowledge his accomplishment, for, although both his documentation and his discussion of controversies will retain a certain usefulness, the Vie de M" Bayle in other respects has 112 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY finally been made obsolete, and the splendid new biography by Mine Labrousse which now takes its place will doubtless be with us as long as the old. Her work stands very much on its own terms as an accomplished biography which will be read henceforth by everyone interested in Bayle. But for scholars who are even partially familiar with the territory she explores, her volume will also bring the pleasure of seeing her surmount the obstacles which had defeatcd all other would-be biographers of Bayle. The most formidable of these was the chaotic state of Bayle's correspondence...