Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/704

 668 number of philosophical histories were written, the usual object of which was, under cover of a kind of allegory, to satirize and attack the existing institutions and government of France. The most famous of these was the Histoire dcs Indes, nominally written by the Abb6 Raynal (1711-1796), but really the joint work of many members of the Philosophe party, especially Diderot. Side by side with this really or nominally philosophical school of history there existed another and less ambitious school, which contented itself with the older and simpler view of the science. The Abbe&quot; de Vertot (1655-1735) belongs almost as much to the 17th a 3 to the 18th century; but his principal works, especially the famous Histoire des Chevaliers de Matte, date from the later period, as do also the Revolutions Romaines. Vertot is above all things a literary historian, and the well-known &quot; Mon sie&quot;ge est fait,&quot; whether true or not, certainly ex presses his system. Of the same school, though far more comprehensive, was the laborious Ilollin (1661-1741), whose works in the original or translated were long the chief historical manuals of Europe. In the same class, too, far superior as is his literary power, must be ranked the historical works of Voltaire, Charles XII., Pierre le Grand, &c. A very perfect example of the historian who is literary first of all is supplied by Rulhiere (1735-1791), whose Revolution en Russie en 1762 is one of the little master pieces of history, while his larger and posthumous work on the last days of the Polish kingdom exhibits perhaps some of the defects of this class of historians. Lastly must be mentioned the memoirs and correspondence of the period, the materials of history if not history itself. The century opened with the most famous of all of these, the memoirs of the Due de St Simon (1G78-1755), an extraordinary series of pictures of the court of Louis XIV. and the Regency, written in an unequal and incorrect style, but with something of the irregular excellence of the great 16th century writers, and most striking in the sombre bitterness of its tone. The subsequent and less remarkable memoirs of the century are so numerous that it is almost impossible to select a few for reference, and altogether impossible to mention all. Of those bearing on public history the memoirs of De Staal, of D Argenson, of Duclos, of Weber, of Madame de Genlis, of Besenval, of Madame Campan, may perhaps be selected for mention ; of those bearing on literary and private history, the memoirs of Madame d Epinay, and the innumerable writings having reference to Voltaire and to the Philosophe party generally. Here, too, may be mentioned a remarkable class of literature, consisting of purely private and almost confidential letters, which were written at this time with very remarkable literary excellence. As specimens may be selected those of Mademoiselle Aisse (1693-1733), which are models of easy and unaffected ten derness, and those of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, the com panion of Madame duDeffand and afterwards of D Alembert. These latter, in their extraordinary fervour and passion, not merely contrast strongly with the generally languid and frivo lous gallantry of the age, but also constitute one of its most remarkable literary monuments. It has been said of them that they &quot; burn the paper,&quot; and the expression is not exag gerated. While the imaginative works of the period were quite unable, with perhaps the exception of Man-on Lescaut and the Nouvdle Heloise to express depth or heat of passion, these letters, written straight from the heart, equal anythingthat poet or novelist has ever elaborated. Of lighter letters the charming correspondence of Diderot with Madem oiselle Voland deserves special mention. But the correspond ence, like the memoirs of this century, defies justice to be done to it in any cursory or limited mention. In this con nexion, however, it may be well to mention some of the most remarkable works of the time, the Confessions, Reveries, and 2 J romenades d un Solitaire of Rousseau. In these [LITERATURE. works, especially in the Confessions, there is not merely exhibited passion as fervid though perhaps less unaffected than that of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, there appear in them two literary characteristics which, if not entirely novel (no literary characteristic is ever entirely novel), were for the first time brought out deliberately by powers of the first order, were for the first time made the^mainspring of literary interest, and thereby set an example which for more than a century has been persistently followed, and which has pro duced some of the finest results of modern literature. The first of these was the elaborate and unsparing analysis and display of the motives, the weaknesses, and the failings of individual character. This process, which Rousseau un flinchingly performed on himself, has been followed usually in respect to fictitious characters by his successors. Up to his time character-handling had been mainly abandoned to the dramatist, the satirist, the historian, the moralist, and the preacher, whose purposes led them to use bright or dark colours, bold outlines, and strongly contrasted lights and shades. Rousseau set the example of drawing a character in all its complexity, of showing the mixture of meanness and nobleness, and the intricate processes which lead to the commission of acts the simplest in appearance. The other novelty was the feeling for natural beauty and the elaborate description of it, the credit of which latter must, it has been agreed by all impartial critics, be assigned rather to Rousseau than to any other writer. His influence in this direction was, however, soon taken up and continued by Bernard in de St Pierre, some of whose works have been already alluded to. In sentiment as well as in literary history Bernardin de St Pierre is the connecting link between Rousseau and Chateaubriand, and thus occupies a position of considerable interest. In particular the author of Paul ct Viryinie set himself to develop the example of description which Rousseau had set, and his word-paintings, though less powerful than those of his model, are more abundant, more elaborate, and animated by a more amiable spirit. ISlk Century Philosophy.- The Anglomania which dis tinguished the time was nowhere more strongly shown than in the cast and direction of its philosophical speculations. As Montesquieu and Voltaire had imported into France a vivid theoretical admiration for the British constitution and for British theories in politics, so Voltaire, Diderot, and a crowd of others popularized and continued in France the philosophical ideas of Hobbes and Locke and even Berkeley, the theological ideas of Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, and the English deists, and the physical discoveries of Newton. Descartes, Frenchman and genius as he was, and though his principles in physics and philosophy were long clung to in the schools, was completely abandoned by the more adventurous and progressive spirits. At no time indeed, owing to the confusion of thought and purpose to which we have already alluded, was the word philosophy used with greater looseness than at this time. L T sing it as we have hitherto used it in the sense of metaphysics, the majority of the Philosophes have very little claim to their title. They were all more or less partisans of materialism, but few of them were contented with arguing materialism out on purely philosophical grounds, or with purely philosophical applications. They usually busied themselves with deduc ing it from physical considerations, and with applying it to ethical and theological conclusions. There were some who manifested, however, an aptitude for purely philo sophical argument, and one who confined himself strictly thereto. Among the former the most remarkable are La Mettrie (1709-1751) and Diderot. La Mettrie in his works L Homme Machine, L JIomme Plante, &amp;lt;kc., applied a lively and vigorous imagination, a considerable familiarity with physics and medicine, and a brilliant but unequal stylo to the task of advocating materialistic ideas on the constitu-