1. Calvin, Institutes, IV.xx.22ff. See also Skinner, vol. 2, pp. 16-19, 303ff. When they were persecuted later in the century some of them went back again to theories justifying rebellion, resembling the theory of Locke's second treatise. See Puaux, Dodge.
2. On the history of Calvinism in France see Chadwick, pp. 153-70, Grant, Ligou, Whiteman.
4. My information on Bayle's life comes from Labrousse.
5. On the intentions of the Miscellaneous Reflections see Rex, Bayle, pp. 35ff. Mandeville may have been one of Bayle's students; see James, "Mandeville and Bayle". On Jansenist views on the possibility of a society of atheists see Sedgwick, pp. 143-5. The origin of this line of thought is perhaps Augustine's account of the Roman appetite for glory as the basis for the success of their State; see De civitate dei, V.13.
6. See HCD, art. "Manicheans", pp. 144ff.
7. Ibid., art. "Paulicians", pp. 166ff.
8. On scepticism see Burnyeat, Penelhum, Popkin.
9. See Sextus Empiricus, Outlines, I.xii.25ff. "[N]o one of the conflicting judgments takes precedence of any other as being more probable" (ibid., I.iv.10, trans. Bury). Cf. I.xxxiii.222, 226-7. It does not seem to me that no assertion is more probable than its contradictory.
10. "Leibniz reports that if one asserted something, Bayle would proceed to analyze the assertion, and question it, until one was ready to give up and assert its opposite, and Bayle would then proceed to analyze this assertion and question it, and so on. This critical analysis, Leibniz reported, never ended as long as the opponent remained present" (Popkin, Pyrrhonism, pp. 27-8). He must have been hard to live with.
11. "I confess I hardly ever read history to find out what happened, but only to know what each nation and party says about what happened" (CG, 10 b23ff).
12. Notice the "hardly ever" in the passage quoted in the last note; a few pages later (pp. 11-12) he tries to define the possibilities of arriving at certainty in history. When he calls himself an "historical Pyrrhonist" I think this is provocative exaggeration.
14. See Popkin, Pyrrhonism, pp. 149ff. I cannot agree with Popkin that Bayle did not really care about the problems or want to solve them (p. 153). I do not agree, either, that Bayle aimed at undoing "the very effort to find rationality in the universe" (p. 26): my impression is that Bayle's general aim (if he had one) was to eliminate assertions and theories which could not withstand criticism. If very little could, that was not the critic's fault. General destruction may have been the result, but it was not the aim, and I do not think Bayle rejoiced in it.
15. See e.g. S, chs. 29-31, and cf. the Réponse du nouveau converti, OD, vol. 2, pp. 562ff. Bayle says that there is among Christians a "perpetuity of faith in persecution" (an allusion to the title of Arnauld's book on the Eucharist), which suggests that God has abandoned the Christian people as he abandoned the Jews. This is strong language, but not incompatible with Calvinism.
16. For other treatments of Bayle's views of the rights of conscience see Rex, Bayle; Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, vol. 2, chs. 18, 19; and Jossua.
17. The critic is quoted at 218 b43-53 (in section 1 all references in this form will be to NL unless otherwise indicated).
18. See the use of these terms in 218 a32-3, 51-3, 219 b23-8, 61, 66, 220 a63-b3, b60-1, 222 b66-7, CP 434 a33-5.
19. Or rather - since Bayle holds that earthly rulers may rightly risk injustices to private individuals for some social benefit (220 b31-47) - those who have a moral right do not deserve to be punished for exercising it, though sometimes they may rightly be subjected to undeserved punishment. Moral and legal rights may not correspond.
20. If there are rights which do not arise from duties Bayle never mentions them. He seems to think that we have such rights against one another as are necessary to perform our duties.
21. 228 a38-40, 227 b59-60, CP 433 b26-32. The right is a moral liberty, not implying any duty on the part of others to help, or even to refrain from intentional counter-action (cf. Hart, "Bentham", p. 176).
22. The duty to obey conscience is basic, and other duties are secondary. The real duty to obey conscience makes it really a duty to do what one mistakenly believes to be a (secondary) duty. See below, p.000.
23. See 224 b7-11, and cf. CP 433 a64-9.
24. 225 a39-40 (not absolutely), 218 a51-2 (effectively), 220 a4-9, 54-7 (relatively), 225 a53-63 (wrongly acquired, unjustly exercised).
25. Bayle held the doctrine of non-resistance (see above, Introduction). See the pamphlet attributed to Bayle, Avis aux réfugiez, in OD, vol. 2, pp. 592ff. See Dodge, pp. 97-9; and Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, vol. 2, pp. 490-6.
26. 218 a3-b8, 225 a53-63; cf. CP 434 a49-51. For the passage in Grotius to which Bayle refers, see Grotius, De iure belli ac pacis, vol. 2, p. 643.
27. 225 a38-50. The doorkeeper's duty determines the rights of those wishing to enter: with respect to the doorkeeper those who lose their tickets lose their right and those who find them acquire the right (220 a4-9, cf. 52-7), because the doorkeeper ought to exclude the former and admit the latter (219 b23-8).
28. Writing of the thesis of NL as if he were not its author, Bayle says, "To say that the fraud acquires all the rights of a faithful messenger relatively to the servant to whom he presents the master's orders is an expression rather awkward. . . if the author means merely that the servant was obliged to receive the impostor, and could not do him the least harm without perfidy towards his master, then I altogether agree" (CP 433 b60-434 a5). So, simply stated, the meaning is that the person imposed on does wrong not to perform the seeming duty.
30. For a survey of Bayle's views on the eternal truths see Leibniz, Theodicy, pp. 239ff. Bayle opposes what seems to be Descartes's opinion that God could have created an altogether different set of moral laws.
31. Similarly, Malebranche envisages an infinity of moral truths of which only some are known to us; see his Traité de morale, pp. 19-20. (On Bayle's interest in this book see Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, vol. 2, p. 261.)
32. See CP 436 a61-b25, 442 b36-40; cf. 219 b1-10. This is Bayle's version of the traditional thesis that legislation, including the moral law, does not bind unless it is promulgated. Compare Thomas Aquinas, Summa, 1-2, q.90 a.4. Discovery by use of the "natural light" counts as revelation; see CP 370 a43. Compare Thomas Aquinas, Summa, 1-2, q.90 a.4 ad 1; and Hobbes, p. 396.
33. ". . . this man in commune over which we wearied ourselves when they explained those universals" (221 a71-b1). Cf. Gilson, Jean Duns Scot, pp. 84ff.
36. 222 b63-223 b29, 224 a57-225 a32. The point in Bayle's terminology is that the condition is not merely a conditio sine qua non, but the "whole foundation and essence" of the rights of truth, the essence being the attribute which is necessary and sufficient for the thing to be what it is (222 a52-b22). Cf. Descartes, principle 53, vol. 1, p. 240.
41. See S 500 a30-40 (that error acquires the rights of truth means that those who believe it have the obligations they would have to truth).
42. For stages 1-3 see 422 b45-425 a64 (references in this form will from now on be to CP unless otherwise indicated).
45. See CP pt. 2, ch. 10; and S, especially chs. 10-19 and 22-3.
46. In scholastic terminology "physical" did not always imply "material". Sometimes the contrast is not with "immaterial" but with "free" - the physical is what comes about not by free choice but by nature. Sometimes the contrast is between "physical" and "objective" being - see next note.
47. "Objective" here means "as an object of perception or thought": "Objective reality" means the reality something has as such an object; see Descartes, vol. 1, p. 162. See also Dalbiez, Wells. Mental acts and dispositions also have "physical" or natural being (428 a38-46), the reality they have as modifications of the thinking subject; this is equivalent to Descartes's "subjective" being (i.e. being in a subject as modes); cf. Descartes, loc. cit., and see vol. 2, p. 157.
48. On belief see below, p. 000
49. On the similar Stoic doctrine see Cicero, De finibus, III.xii.41ff. Anselm said that the annihilation of the whole universe would be less evil than any sin; Cur deus homo, I.21. More recent philosophers say that moral reasons are (perhaps not always) conclusive or overriding.
50. See Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, vol. 2, pp. 268-75.
51. 422 b45-423 a7, 424 a34-42, 425 a59. To despise what one believes (even mistakenly) to be God's will is to despise God; cf. 432 b37-40. See above, Essay I, sect. 1.
52. 425 a47-64, 425 b19-22. Contrast the law against murder, from which dispensation is possible (433 a5-20). Cf. 374 b13.
54. Precipitation and mistake of means, if they are moral evils, are much less than the evil of disobedience to conscience (424 a71-b5). In fact they are not moral evils because there is no conscious wrongdoing; see below, sect. 4.1.
56. Since this case, in which the person who obeys conscience mistreats someone who really deserves good treatment, is the one in which the thesis is most improbable, we can conclude universally that to avoid the greater evil we must always obey our consciences. What if it were a case of executing someone mistakenly believed to be a criminal? Would the moral evil of disobeying conscience outrank the "merely physical" evil of that person's death? Bayle would presumably say "Yes", which would be implausible. The argument from the beggar example perhaps tacitly relies on the idea that one can be expected to put up with a certain amount of ill-treatment.
57. 429 b36-7. Jansen and Arnauld did not regard errors of faith as errors of law (which they took in this context to mean natural law), but still they denied that ignorance of faith excuses wrongdoing. They held that ignorance of truths of faith is a punishment for Adam's sin, and for that reason no excuse for resulting sins; see above, Essay I, sect. 4.
58. Compare Thomas Aquinas, Summa, 1-2, q.19 a.6, and see above, p. 000. Bayle sees that the propositions that it is wrong not to obey conscience, and that it is not wrong to obey it, are not equivalent. See 427 a32-41, 430 a19-23, 433 b26-41.
59. The argument presented above in sect. 1, from NL, already implies that an act done in obedience to erroneous conscience is not a sin; the arguments presented in this section, from CP, are another way to the same conclusion.
60. 428 a3-13. "As good as" presumably implies that some acts done in error may deserve praise and moral credit; this is not an implication Bayle draws out, but see S 508 b4, 17, 39, 57-8. The most that traditional scholasticism would concede is that some wrong acts done in error may be excused, not that they might deserve praise.
62. The proposition that moral merit and demerit depend on free choice, and the scholastic theory of the voluntary in involuntary in human acts, seem to have been common to most schools of thought at the time, Protestant as well as Catholic; see S 524 a8-10, S 536 b41. On the reconciliation of the doctrine of predestination with philosophical morality see 439 a37-b9. But it was contentious to say that moral merit and demerit depend on the "objective quality" of voluntary acts, i.e. on the moral quality of the act as the agent sees it; see above, Essay I, n. 56.
63. 219 a26-7, and see above, n. 50.
64. 423 b69-424 a6, 424 b8-51, 428 b21-36, 429 a45-50, 432 b7-14. Abelard says something similar: "God considers only the mind in rewarding good or evil, not the results of the deeds. . . . Works. . . are all indifferent in themselves" (p. 45; cf. pp. 13, 15, 25, 27, 29, 47, 49, 53). St Augustine says: "Even if a man finds no opportunity to lie with the wife of another, but. . . would if he got the chance, he is no less guilty than if he were caught in the act" (De libero arbitrio, I.iii.8. According to Thomas Aquinas the external act is not morally indifferent ("the interior act of will and the external act, as considered morally, are one act"), but if completion of the act is prevented by some chance, that makes no difference to the reward or punishment due; see Summa, 1-2, q.20 a.3 and a.4. In effect, Bayle takes the view that completion as much as non-completion is a matter of chance, since it always depends on other factors besides the agent's choice, so that the external act never makes any difference to the praise or blame due; and he takes that to mean that external acts have no moral value. For fourteenth-century discussion of this question see Duns Scotus, God and Creatures, pp. 399ff., and Adams and Wood.
65. 428 a38-46, 428 b13-21, S 537 a56-61. The reference to Thomas Aquinas at 537 b1 is incorrect; presumably it should be to Summa, 1-2, q.19 a.2. Bayle misrepresents St Thomas's position. See Summa, 1-2, q.18 a.6, where he distinguishes the object from the end the agent has in mind. By "the object" St Thomas means either the consequence of the external action or the things which the action affects - "the subjects to which it tends" in Bayle's phrase - which may not be what the agent has in mind, and therefore not something "objective" in Bayle's sense. In 1-2, q.18 a.4 St Thomas says that for an act to be morally good it must be good both in its end and in its object - so it is not enough to be good "objectively".
66. 428 a48-51, 428 b2-3, 429 b4-11, S 526 b67-70, S 529 b33-5, 54-7.
68. For examples of judgement by reference to dispositions see NL 220 b11, 424 a16-25, 37-42, 56-61, 428 a51-3, 468 b17-24. Sometimes Bayle puts it in terms of the dispositions God "sees" in the soul: 425 b63-5, 426 a25-9, 428 a56, 432 b31-44, 61- 8. According to Hume when we praise or blame acts "the ultimate object [of evaluation]. . . is the motive that produced them", the action being relevant merely as a sign of the disposition (see Raphael, sect. 512 and 628). Bayle may also have thought this, but I think he thought rather that the object of praise or blame is the act of the will, though (for some reason) he thought that the quality of a choice is most easily conveyed by reference to the disposition to make such choices.
69. S 529 b3-9, S 537 a1-61 (a miser who loves fake gold pieces loves gold; a lover of ancient medals, or of beauty, who has poor judgement really loves these objects). It seems strange to say that someone loves X if he loves Y because he thinks it is X - in fact he loves Y. The disposition manifested in the choice is the same, and that, in Bayle's view, is apparently what reveals the moral quality of the choice.
70. 428 b10-12, S 529 b17-18, 42-4, 70-a5, S 533 a31-36 (leave the man altogether the same, and substitute the truth in place of what he now loves, which is false, and he will love this object as he loved the other). See above, p. 000.
71. Utilitarian considerations are relevant to human judgement, but God judges by real intrinsic value. Human judges cannot search the heart and are concerned chiefly to repress harmful consequences: 432 b5-15, S 517 b21-9, NL 220 b31-47. Cf. Abelard, pp. 39-45. See above, n. 19.
72. For the second argument see CP pt. 2, ch. 10. For Bayle's views on the generality of laws see Riley, who shows that Bayle at first entertained, and later rejected, Malebranche's novel idea that it would be unworthy of God's wisdom for him to make exceptions to physical laws. There was no novelty, however, in the idea that moral laws are general; see Thomas Aquinas, Summa, 1-2, q.94 a.2. To some moral laws God might make particular exceptions (as when he ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son), but others were supposed to be absolutely exceptionless; see above, n. 52. It was also supposed that in his treatment of mankind God follows certain general policies, with occasional exceptions; see above, p. 000.
73. 434 b6, 11, 56, 61-5, 435 b59-63, S 509 b10-13.
74. 437 a24-7, 69-72, 436 b42-71.
75. 435 b20-436 a27 (a king who commands his judges to punish the guilty and acquit the innocent obliges and therefore authorises them to behave thus to those who seem guilty or innocent, and the judges are not to blame if, after proper inquiry, they acquit some who are really guilty and punish some who are really innocent), S 516 a52-517 a31 (the judges are not to blame, just as physicians are not to blame for killing some of their patients), S 509 b42-510 b6.
76. S 509 a29, S 509 b61-2, S 510 b55-6, S 511 a37, S 513 a52-65, S 513 b36, 46.
77. 392 b1-31, 434 b5-435 a65.
79. 437 a2-13, 437 b54-438 b43. Grace does not provide any criterion (439 a9-32, and S ch. 23). God can give inspirations together with the certain knowledge of being inspired by God, as he inspired the prophets (454 a7-20, S 545 a27-35). But ordinarily grace is "imperceptible", "unknown", "invisible". See S 545 a18-22, S 545 b14-19.
81. 433 b38-41, S 540 a1-4. Their act is good if done in good faith. But Bayle thinks that the belief that one must persecute is unlikely to be held in good faith, especially by those who act on it and find themselves doing things which they must know are wrong (540 a7-33).
82. "God has imposed on us a duty proportioned to our power, namely to seek the truth, and to take our stand on what seems true after sincere inquiry, to love this apparent truth, and to rule ourselves by its precepts however difficult they may be" (437 b38-45). See also 436 b30-5, 437 a18-24, 438 b48-51, 62-66, S 503 a46-52. Similarly Malebranche says that "love of order" (i.e. of the system of truths of practical reason) is the fundamental, in fact the only, virtue; see Malebranche, pp. 19, 24, 28.
83. 442 a57-b23. This is less exacting than what Thomas Aquinas says in Summa, 1-2, q.6 a.8, namely that ignorance is voluntary if there is something we ought to know and could find out (whether we know that this is so or not); see above, Essay I, n. 148.
84. See above, sect. 1.2. On this account, the moral law consists, strictly speaking, of one basic imperative and a number of practical truths which are not themselves imperatives. But in Bayle's time this distinction would not have been regarded as important.
85. See Hunter for a forceful Humean attack on Conscience as an infallible agency distinct from the person. (This is not Bayle's notion of conscience, nor as far as I know that of any of his contemporaries or predecessors - no one thought of it as infallible, or as distinct from the self.) Other recent writers say that conscience does not make judgements but merely enforces them. "[C]onscience is not a special unerring faculty for making ethical judgments. . . . One's conscience is a sanction against doing what one believes to be wrong" (McGuire, p. 259). "Conscience. . . does not tell the agent what is right or wrong. . . either in individual concrete instances or as a matter of principle. . . . The role of conscience is purely and simply to $enforce$ our moral knowledge or belief" (Fuss, pp. 116-18). In my view conscience not only enforces but also judges. My conscience is myself, considered as judging what is right to do in a particular instance and/or enforcing the decision. "I told myself" does not imply a speaker distinct from myself, and neither does "My conscience told me". That one can have a dialogue with oneself is perhaps puzzling, but it is a fact.
86. 437 b45-8, 440 b44-7, 441 a39-43, 441 b18-66. Cf. Jurieu, as reported in Popkin, Pyrrhonism, p. 167.
87. On mathematical and metaphysical certainty see 437 a6, 437 b58-60.
88. There are self-evident general moral propositions; although Bayle does not actually say so, he seems to hold that they are as evident and certain as the propositions of mathematics. See 368 b47-55, 369 a9-13, 370 a35-43, 370 a59-b1. But a judgement of conscience is not a universal proposition but a judgement of the rightness or wrongness of some particular act, and for such judgements there is no criterion.
89. On suspense of practical judgement see NL 226 b9-16, NL 228 a15-51, 427 a47-b21, 436 a28-41, 440 b63-441 a21.
90. For the terms "true for me" and "relative truth" see NL 219 a2-32. According to Bayle these are scholastic expressions which mean simply what seems to me to be true (NL 219 a32-8).
91. 441 a65-b3; cf. 438 b53-4. Bayle suggests an analogy between his doctrine of conscience and Descartes's doctrine of sensation: just as sensation is given not as a means to absolute truth but only to preserve the composite of body and soul from death, so conscience is given not as a means to absolute truth but to preserve the soul from damnation; see Descartes, vol. 1, pp. 193-4, and cf. 440 b12-40, 441 a46-57.
92. By "fallibilism" I mean that any proposition which seems true may actually be false, by "scepticism" that one should always suspend judgement, by "relativism" that two people (for example, from different cultures) may make assertions which negate one another yet may both be right. Fallibilism does not imply scepticism except on the assumption that we must suspend judgement except where there is no possibility of error, which is not true. On fallibilism see Chisholm, "Fallibilism". For Bayle's fallibilism see above, n. 79. See also 377 a34-b16 (we all know by experience that we are prone to error, and see - or think we see - the falsity of much we used to think true; this gives rise to a general mistrust of our present opinions, which - even before we have any particular reason for doubting - ought to make us ready to listen, for example, to missionaries from Australia (on the strange beliefs of the Australians see DHC, art. "Sadeur")); and 414 b39-65.
93. "It is sometimes permitted to have zeal for opinions one has not examined" (NL 226 b35-44 (not ironic, I think)). See below, sect. 4.2, on opinionatedness.
94. 443 a9-15 (although God is content that we should search and then act on what seems true, he wants us to correct our beliefs, and to correct one another, when possible).
95. Or "involuntary", "invincible", "sincere" or "in good faith", expressions Bayle treats as equivalent. For examples of his use of these terms see 427 b30, 430 a69-b2, 435 b13-15, 30-31, 437 b42-3, 438 b63.
97. Physical results are morally irrelevant; see above, n. 64. Anything that depends on luck is morally irrelevant: S 529 b41-57, S 543 a56-b5 (heaven is not won at cross and pile - a game of chance), NL 226 a51-5. (Contrast Williams, Moral Luck, pp. 20ff. Bayle would deny Williams's claim that a decision made by an unjustifiable process of deliberation can be justified by a successful outcome. On "moral luck" see also Nagel, N. Richards, Parker, and Jensen.)
98. Compare Aristotle's notion of a chance event as one of a kind that could have been intentional, but was not, being (under the description suggesting intention) produced by some cause per accidens (Phys., II.5, 197 a5-8). On the conception of a moral good see above, sect. 2.1.
99. Occasionally Bayle says that acts done in accordance with conscience may be sinful; see S 498 a22-32. His principles really imply that such an act cannot be a sin, even if there is culpable error. I suspect that he did not himself consistently see this implication, but his main line of argument does not depend on it - for that it is enough that heretics should think themselves obliged to persecute.
100. Bayle does not say this explicitly, but it seems reasonable to attribute it to him in view of S 524 a4-7 and S 536 a71-b3, and the general uniformity of his treatment of the morality of mental acts with that of acts of other kinds (see e.g. 442 a31-44).
103. S 531 a48-532 a10, S 535 b51-536 a22.
105. S 532 b29-32, S 531 b20-1, 442 a31-3, 536 b44-9.
106. 442 b51-3. Others held that we are responsible for acts which we cannot help doing, given our present dispositions, if those dispositions were formed by acts we could have chosen not to do, even if it did not occur to us at the time that the acts were bad or that we were forming a disposition. See Aristotle, EN, III.5.
109. Bayle holds that belief is voluntary not directly but indirectly, inasmuch as various voluntary acts and omissions may result in belief; see 385 b35-386 b24, 418 b2-3, S 520 a42-b18. From the argument for point 5 above it would then follow that error itself is never culpable, but only certain acts and omissions of self-deception or negligence, which deserve blame even if the resulting belief is true: the error stands to those acts and omissions as acts done in error stand to the error. See above, Essay I, n. 101. But we are not to blame even for such acts and omissions if they are the unavoidable results of certain dispositions (laziness, envy, etc.), but only for prior acts or omissions from which those dispositions result - and not even for those, if they are in turn the consequence of prior dispositions. We deserve blame or credit only for original, undetermined acts of free choice done with awareness of their moral quality. Bayle does not draw all of these conclusions, but they seem to follow from his premisses.
110. S 528 a68-71. Arnauld also thought that naturally necessary acts cannot be morally good or bad; see below, Appendix, n. 4.
112. S 526 b1-5, 29-35, S 526 b63-527 a1, S 528 a17-23, b21-24. Bayle seems to think that the mere personal influence of parents and others is an original source of beliefs. Contrast Hume's opinion that trust in testimony is the result of experience; see his "Of miracles".
113. 396 b26-35, 397 a34-44, 442 b42-6, 443 b17-216 ("It is not for being more intelligent. . . but for the stronger intention of using all one's forces to know and do what God wills"), S 532 a13-16, 23-5.
114. S 531 a41-51, 69-b3, S 532 b4-7, 43-6, S 533 a56-b32.
115. Perhaps he should say: for the previous choices which fostered or weakened such zeal. See above, n. 109.
117. 527 b53-7 (there is no less sin in propagating orthodoxy believing it heretical than vice versa), 532 b58-533 a16 (remaining in true religion from bad motives as bad as remaining in false religion from those motives). Compare Locke: "The great division among Christians is about opinions. Every sect has its set of them, and that is called orthodoxy; and he that professes his assent to them, though with an implicit faith and without examining, is orthodox and in the way to salvation; but, if he examines, and thereupon questions any one of them, he is presently suspected of heresy, and, if he oppose them or hold the contrary, he is presently condemned as in a damnable error and in the sure way to perdition. Of this one may say that there is nor can be nothing more wrong. For he that examines, and upon a fair examination embraces an error for the truth, has done his duty more than he who embraces the profession of the truth (for the truths themselves he does not embrace) without having examined whether it be true or no" (Bourne, vol. 1, p. 306).
119. 430 a10-18, S 511 b54-67 and n., S 517 a41-b3.
120. 437 a2-6, b57-60, 438 a54-b4.
121. S 546 b10-22, S 547 b57-548 a62. See also DHC, art. "Synergists", rem. C, vol. 13, pp. 315-17.
122. S chs. 10-12 illustrate the difficulties with a survey of the disputes among the various parties of Catholics and Protestants. See S 542 a64-543 a31.
123. S 514 b17-20 (almost all Christians suppose that our ignorance is due to sin).
124. 437 a41-50. See above, Essay I, sect. 4.
125. 437 b1-13. The answer seems to beg the question: it was God's right to make the choice.
126. S 526 b28-63, S 528 a10-16. See above, Essay I, n. 129.
127. 437 a53-72, S 534 a41-66, S 514 b20-515 a6.
128. S 526 a28-b39. Religious belief is mostly due to "the imperious force of education": S 525 a17-32, S 522 a37-40, S 526 a11-17, S 543 a20, 440 a33-60 (if we had been born in China we would have followed the Chinese religion, if the Chinese had been born in England they would have been Christians).
129. 439 b29-36, S 534 b69-535 b2.
130. S 548 a63-b22; DHC, art. "Synergists", rem. B, vol. 13, p. 313.
131. 440 a1-32 (not even the devil can doubt what he believes God has affirmed).
133. S ch. 11. On preoccupation see DHC, art. "Pellisson", rem. D, E, vol. 11, pp. 528-30. On unfair controversy see art. "Chrysippe", rem. G, vol. 5, pp. 167-9. At the time there was great interest in Chinese philosophers; see Rowbotham, pp. 249ff.
134. 438 a32-b26, S 521 a4-b10, 499 a15-26. See DHC, art. "Nicolle", rem. C, vol. 11, pp. 141-6; NL 334 a33-b5. This dispute encourages Pyrrhonism and religious indifference: NL 334 b9-15; S 499 a25-6; art. "Nicolle", p. 145.
137. S 525 b53-66, S 528 b56-529 a68, S 532 a32-61, NL 249 b2-43. Parents and ministers do not encourage critical examination; see S 530 a6-b2, S 532 a62-7, S 547 a41-b8.
138. On temerity see 378 b62-379 a2, S 544 a39-60, S 545 a1-4, S 545 b67-546 a36. According to "philosophical minds" the proper use of reason requires suspense of judgement until indubitable evidence forces assent: DHC, art. "Nicolle", p. 145. Bayle does not agree with this (although he thinks there should be a proper inquiry - it is not good enough to be right by chance; see 435 b24-31, 544 a52-65). And he may not agree with the proposition that what is false cannot seem, or even be, evident; see Popkin, "Bayle's Place".
139. S 530 b58-531 a40, S 534 b1-53.
140. 438 a45-55, S 533 b33-44, S 544 a69-b12; cf. S 542 b19-37. See above, sect. 3.3. See also NL Letter 12 (especially 244 a41-b19, 245 a62-b17, 245 b30-44), directed against Arnauld (see his Oeuvres, vol. 14, pp. 711-23) In this letter Bayle argues that we may have to judge people's motives without certainty, and generalises to the conclusion that Descartes's rules are not applicable outside speculative philosophy. Descartes and the ancient sceptics would have agreed that in practical matters one must act on propositions which are uncertain.
141. A distinction had often been drawn between certainty of evidence and certainty of adherence (see Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q.14 a.1; Ockham, in Baudry, pp. 43-4; Hooker, "Sermon", prefixed to Ecclesiastical Polity, vol. 1, pp. 2-3; Chillingworth, pp. 27-9, 86). Traditionally it was held that those who have faith have "certainty of adherence", that is, that they cling firmly by act of will to truths for which they may not have evidence. (Not everyone held that faith requires certainty of any kind: "God desires that. . . the strength of our faith be equal or proportionable to the credibility of the motives to it" (Chillingworth, p. 27).) Since the truths of faith include some speculative propositions, it was traditionally held that Christians must be certain (with certainty of adherence) of some speculative truths. Recently Arnauld's associate, Nicole, in controversy with the Calvinists, had said that choice of religion requires certainty of evidence (see above, n. 138). Bayle reasserts the earlier position (cf. Jurieu, in Popkin, Pyrrhonism, pp. 166-8). He accepts that faith includes speculative elements and that it is a kind of certainty (DHC, art. "Pyrrho", rem. B, first para., vol. 12, p. 101), but not that it requires indubitable evidence. On this see NL 334 b30-55 and DHC, art. "Nicolle", rem. C, pp. 145-6. According to Bayle the dispute over the rule of faith (see above, n. 134) leads to religious scepticism only on the assumption that the right use of reason requires that a religious commitment be based on certainty of evidence. He presents the dispute over the rule of faith as an antinomy that can be resolved only by adopting his view that in moral and religious matters conscience (which does not wait for evident certainty) is a sufficient guide; see 438 a47-52 and b44-51, and S 499 a28 ("it is necessary to come over to my system").
143. See above, n. 79. On the other hand, having true beliefs is no assurance of grace, since it is possible to achieve probable knowledge of religious truths without grace ("historical faith"). See S 543 b27-544 a28.
145. The main passages relating to this argument are: CG 87 b28-88 a11, CG 94 a22-b2, 375 b66-376 a72, CP pt. 1, ch. 10, 425 a65-427 a41, 434 a59-435 b19, CP pt. 2, ch. 11, 461 b8-36, S chs. 1, 2, 20.
146. Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, preached a sermon on this text "according to the principles of St Augustine" in the presence of the king shortly after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The sermon, not now extant, is said to have made a great impression. See Truchet, vol. 2, p. 46. Perhaps this incident gave Bayle his theme. On the influence of "the principles of St Augustine" see Orcibal, Louis XIV, pp. 114-15; the pamphlet La Conformité mentioned there is the source of the passages from Augustine which Bayle discusses in CP pt. 3. For passages from Augustine on compulsion see Lecler, vol. 1, pp. 57-9. But some of the most striking of these passages are not among those quoted by Bayle in CP pt. 3, or among those quoted by Arnauld in his Apologie pour les Catholiques, Oeuvres, vol. 14, pp. 717ff.
147. 376 a23-55, 376 b1-52, 378 a45-b23.
148. 378 b24-380 b25, S 539 a53-b9; DHC, art. "Japon", rem. E, vol. 8, pp. 328-9.
149. 382 b12-69, 389 b50-64, 390 a67-391 a1.
151. 361 a43-65, 375 b22-376 b63, 378 a67-b4, 382 b70-383 a46, 402 a51-b26, 454 a39-b32, 456 b14-458 a59, S chs. 26-8.
152. 376 a5-15, 380 b15-25, S 512 a24-9, S 513 a35-6. Why is Jesus not to blame for saying something that could be mistaken for a command to persecute, since if he was God he must have foreseen the mistake? Bayle would presumably answer that God has in fact clearly forbidden persecution, and the mistake is due to the self-deception of persecutors, for which God is no more to blame than for the other sins of mankind; see above, n. 81.
153. "We can coerce you because we are in the right, but you cannot coerce us because you are in the wrong": Bayle calls this the "perpetual motion machine" because every time it is knocked down it rises again. See S 506 a46-50, S 507 b20-9, 359 b32-35, 389 b13-20, 392 a19-23, 421 b40-57, S 539 a19-36. For illustrations see the passages quoted from Augustine and Bayle's comments in pt. 3, chs. 12, 20, 32, 33. This "perpetual motion machine" cannot be dismissed as absurd; it always arises again because there is something in it. See below, Essay III, sect. 1.
154. CG 87 b63-88 a6, CG 94 a33-58, 391 b36-40, 51-8.
155. 444 a1-b8, 375 b66-376 a8, 462 a41-8, S 508 a16-25.
156. 391 b47-392 a10, 461 b13-28 (Bayle turns against Bossuet his words about the helplessness of the Church), S 506 a20-b19 (it is contrary to all appearances that God should have left his Church so helpless), S 507 b52-66, S 538 a11-49 (what would become of God's wisdom, goodness and justice if he had put the same weapons into the hands of the Church and its persecutors? See also S 507 b35-42). Compare Thucydides V.xvii.90, III.x.84.
157. 391 b59-67 (true Christians could not justly blame their persecutors, or expect them to stop). See above, sect. 1.1.
158. Pt. 2, ch. 10, 443 b36-58, S chs. 3-20. In S chs. 5-7 (and cf. chs. 9, 22) Bayle examines the responsibility of each functionary, supposing the ruler entrusts the coercion of heretics to officials, as he can rightly do. Bayle argues that provided all act with due care and in good faith neither the ruler nor his judges nor their theological advisers are to blame if the wrong people are coerced. He concludes (S 513 a19-34) that if all these functions are carried out by one person that person is not to blame. Only God, if he had commanded persecution, would be responsible for persecution of the truth. (See above, n. 152). Heretic persecutors acting in good faith are blameless, and may even deserve praise (see above, n. 60).
160. CG 88 a8-11 (a sort of Law of Nations should be established among religions, to which the true religion should be subject as much as others), 444 b9-15 (if the true Church had a right to persecute it ought to lie forever dormant).
161. CG 93 b66-94 a3, 376 a57-60, S 506 b20-58. In CP pt. 1, chs. 1-3, Bayle argues that the interpretation of scripture must be guided by natural law, and that persecution is contrary to natural law and to the spirit of the Gospel.
163. NL 227 a66, 391 b4, 64, 392 a30-7, 397 a70-b7, 421 b14-16, 422 a22-3, 467 a23-4, S 507 a29-50. The principles are common in the sense that they are to be accepted by all parties and applied in the same sense, so as to give the same practical conclusions. Appeal to principles which are not common is a petitio principii.
164. Bayle thinks that by explicit command God may on occasion suspend moral rules, except the rule (equivalent to the basic commandment) that one must do what one believes is one's duty; see above, n. 52.
165. 430 b42-8, 60-7; and see above.
166. S 539 b43-65, S 540 a7-33.
167. 430 b69-431 a2, S 540 a34-52; and see above, n. 94.
170. Bayle says that since the "compel them" command is general, if it derogates from any moral rule it derogates from them all; 402 b14-17. But it is "general" in the sense of indefinite or vague, not specifying the means to be used. It does not specify whether and how other rules of morality are affected.
171. 384 b6-385 a18. If a community does provide for the enforcement of religion it is on the rash assumption that they will never change their minds. Such provisions are ultra vires: 384 b45-66.
172. 496 a12-41. That the will cannot literally be forced was a Stoic commonplace. See Augustine, De civitate dei, V.10, and cf. I.18, on rape. See below, Appendix.
173. 382 b39-48 (that of tempter is one of the Devil's most odious qualities), 362 b63-7, 406 a25-62, 406 b6-9, 55-63, 409 a61-b15 (to offer heretics a pardon is worse than remorseless killing, because it tempts to religious hypocrisy (the worst sin - cf. 379 b9-11)), 425 b67-71.
174. During the eighteenth century English dissenters and Whigs stretched the terms "persecution" and "punishment" and "liberty of conscience" until even quite incidental temptation, anything that would make membership of one sect more or less advantageous than membership of another, could be represented as a violation of liberty of conscience. The interpretation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been influenced by similar ideas.
175. This is the view of Sidgwick, p. 208, and Kant, Virtue, pp. 52-3.
176. "Whatsoever a company of people gathered together may judge tending to the public good. . . that they have liberty to do, so long as it is not sinful, and they may put this into the ministerial power, to attend to it. . . [including] what may be done in a lawful way for the preserving of their religion as well as for the feeding of their bodies" (Philip Nye, quoted in Woodhouse, pp. 159-60). Compare the antagonist whom Locke quotes in his Second Letter, p. 11.
177. Locke, for example, held that only the magistrate and his agents may use force, and that whatever the magistrate does as magistrate is done by coercive means. See Toleration, pp. 11-12, 16, 17, 23. This view was common among Dutch Protestants in the seventeenth century; see Nobbs, pp. 256-7.
178. "The civil authority is the keeper of the whole law where outward discipline is concerned. Just as it prohibits and punishes by force murder, theft, and similar offences against the second table of the Ten Commandments, so it must, all the more, prohibit and punish outward offences against the first table, that is, the worship of idols, blasphemous doctrine, perjury, and open profanation of divinely instituted ceremonies" (Melanchthon, quoted in Lecler, vol. 1, p. 246; and see pp. 156-7, 245-8). Compare Calvin, pp. 847, 1495.
179. Locke: "The law maker hath nothing to do with moral virtues and vices, nor ought to enjoin the duties of the second table any otherwise than barely as they are subservient to the good and preservation of mankind under government. For, could public societies well subsist, or men enjoy peace or safety, without the enforcing of those duties. . . the law-maker ought. . . leave the practice of these entirely to the discretion and consciences of his people" (Bourne, vol. 1, pp. 181-2; cf. Toleration, pp. 36-7, 41-3, 10-13). Cf. Walaeus in Nobbs, p. 12. This view goes back to Marsilius of Padua.
180. 408 b41-53 (punishable as felony and sedition, not as a sin against moral and metaphysical obligation; Gospel precepts are not political laws except those without which human society could not subsist), 412 a13-43, 416 b61-417 a3, 418 a18-24, S 559 b66-560 a7.
181. 408 b54-63 (the sovereign does not lose the power to punish murder even if it is done in obedience to conscience), 431 a8-17 (the ruler need consider conscience only when public peace is not at stake), 433 b12-18, NL 220 b31-38 (the aim of human justice is the welfare of society, and it does not always examine whether those punished deserve it). Compare Locke: "such a private person is to abstain from the actions that he judges unlawful; and he is to undergo the punishment, which is not unlawful for him to bear [whether it is deserved or not]; the private judgement of any person concerning a law enacted in political matters, for the public good, does not take away the obligation of that law, nor deserve a dispensation" (Toleration, p. 43). See also Bourne, vol. 1, pp. 178-9.
182. 412 a19-28 (a sect which breaks the bonds of society ought to be driven away), 431 b43-52 (in such cases the sovereign does not consider the claims of conscience), 416 a43-6.
184. 416 a67-b34, 417 b4-11, S 560 b23-54. Cf. Acronius and Walaeus in Nobbs, p. 20.
185. 468 a43-64 (this is the great and capital reason which puts a difference between civil and religious matters, with respect to the sovereign's jurisdiction), 417 a4-18, 432 a26-36. Bayle seems to admit that there is some force in the objection that the judges should not punish those who "only do their duty" by obeying their consciences; cf. 432 a20-3.
186. 428 b37-66, 429 b25-9, 472 b61-493 a5 ("493" is a misprint), 379 a55-60, b7-12, 409 a10-19.
187. God alone is the searcher of hearts: 395 b46-7, S 514 a54-65, S 517 b9-33 (this is why ignorance of law does not excuse at human tribunals, but does at God"s). This reason was commonly given for restricting the ruler to outward matters. See Luther, Secular Authority, p. 253; Hobbes, pp. 501, 576; Grotius, II.iv.3, vol. 2, p. 221; Nobbs, pp. 78-9. See above, n. 71.
188. See above, n. 19. This assumes that moral evil does not, after all, always outrank physical evil; see above, n. 49.
191. 411 b54-5, 412 b5-6, 413 b2-13, S 560 a50-2. Bayle calls this policy "non-toleration". This does not mean persecution. It is what Paley later called "partial toleration", which he explained as unmolested profession and exercise of religion but with exclusion from positions of trust in the State; see Henriques, pp. 69-70.
192. Locke, Toleration, pp. 45-7; Bayle, DHC, art. "Milton", rem. O, vol. 10, pp. 459-60.
193. 431 a34-42. Some held that atheists have no conscience. Bayle does not seem to mean this (422 b56 acknowledges that atheists may have consciences), but rather that an atheist cannot claim that his conscience represents any authority greater than that of human laws; cf. 431 a46-7.
194. 431 a24-30. Bayle is not being altogether frank: he did not himself believe that atheism undermines the foundations of society. See PD, pp. 75-122, and CPD, pp. 351-71.
196. 361 a14-43, 412 b53-413 a2.
197. 361 a10-16 (the false religion of the papists, considered simply as false, is not a just reason for laws against them), 412 a47-9, 412 b43-8.
198. 361 a66-b12, 385 a25-37, S 560 a21-7. A Catholic ruler may take similar precautions against Protestants; cf. Avis, OD, vol. 2, pp. 612ff.
199. 359 a9-13 (no reprisals), 412 b14-26, 414 a47-58 (public display not essential to religious liberty).
202. See 377 a38-40 (everyone on growing older sees, "or believes he sees", the falsity of many things he had believed).
204. See Cicero, Academica, II.xx.66-7.
206. Religion requires not the certainty of evidence, but an absoluteness of commitment going beyond evidence. See above, n. 141. This is not necessarily fideism, as I understand that term. The fideist rejects reason in matters of religion because it conflicts with faith, or at least is ready to reject it if it does. Bayle thought that faith and reason are at many points irreconcilable, and that in those cases faith must be preferred; still, he thought that reason approves the commitment of faith (see RQP, 767 a38-43, 770 a26-42), and that faith does not demand that reason be rejected altogether (EMT, 44 b20-49, 45 a7-35, 48 b22-49). It is not clear that he was ready to abandon reason if he had come to think that a choice had to be made. On the other hand, I do not think that he eventually abandoned faith and that his later expressions of adherence to Christianity are insincere. I believe myself that the conflicts between faith and reason which Bayle presents are so severe that a choice must be made and that one must choose reason, but I do not think he thought that the conflict forced a choice.
207. RQP 770 b51-771 a48, EMT 42 a40-61. The point of emphasising these conflicts is, I believe, to highlight the nature of faith and the kind of commitment it demands and to produce docility, not to "ruin" reason or insinuate scepticism. Note that it is not Bayle himself who says he erects faith on the ruins of reason: RQP 836 b13, 41-57.
208. See EMT 16 b11-21 (in philosophy we may be unable to decide, or we may declare for the side on which there is the greater weight of reasons).
209. See DHC, art. "Pyrrho", rem. B, vol. 12, p. 101.
210. See EMT 16 b2-5 on degrees of evidence.
211. The best analyses known to me of Bayle's position on these topics are Brush, pp. 299-305, 315-320 and James, "Bayle on Belief", pp. 395-404. Brush calls Bayle a sceptic, but seems to use the term more broadly than I do. To be generally uncertain, and to say that any judgement may be mistaken, is not scepticism in the classical sense unless intended to lead to suspense of judgement. I do not agree with Penelhum that Bayle is a "conformist" (in his special sense) whose faith is an undogmatic piety (pp. 25-6); see above, n. 141.
212. RQP 771 a26-38. Perhaps they only seem to conflict: EMT 47 b47-48 a4.
213. RQP 763 a34-9, 770 a52-b8.
214. RQP 765 b6-22, 767 a18-31. See above, Essay I, n. 107.
215. Notice in CP pt. 1, ch. 1 the rejection of the position of the Socinians (p. 367, third para.), and the acknowledgement (368 b47-8) that the principle that interpretation of scripture is to be guided by the natural light may require qualification (though not with respect to moral principles - this is perhaps a point on which Bayle changed his mind). He gives examples of the more evident rational principles with which scripture interpretation must not conflict (e.g. p. 367, third para.), as if ready to concede that there may be others less evident which revelation may set aside. Part of his later position on the relation of faith and reason is outlined in pt. 1, ch. 1, at 370 a1-18.
216. The "compel them" text occurs in a parable, and this interpretation is against the general spirit of the gospel; see CP pt. 1, ch. 3.
218. Already in pt. 2 (which I suppose was written not long after pt. 1, ch. 1) he remarks on the conflict of maxims of reason with faith and with one another. See 407 a26-30, 415 a41-b4. And see in the Supplément, published within two years, S 522 b47-523 a8, S 546 a55-b64.
220. See e.g. Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q.16 a.2.
221. For criticism of positions like Bayle's see Cohen, Goldstick, Govier, "Conscientiousness", Kordig and Wilcox. It seems to me that Bayle's position escapes these criticisms because of the distinctions between "good" and "right" and between the basic commandment and the secondary duties. See above, sect. 3.