Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/172

 ISO DEVELOPMENT OF CARTESIANISM. the journal, NoiivcUcs de la Ripiiblique des Lettres from 1684, and his Historical and Critical Dictiofiary, in two volumes, 1695 and 1697. Nowhere do the most opposite antitheses dwell in such close proximity as in the mind of Bayle. Along with an ever watchful doubt he harbors a most active zeal for knowledge, with a sincere spirit of belief (which has been wrongly disputed by Lange, Zeller, and Piinjer) a demoniacal pleasure in bringing to light absurdi- ties in the doctrines of faith, with absolute confidence in t he infallibility _of j:flnsci^nce-a«-^ntirelyf>es-sii»ist4C vie w^o f human morality. His strength lies in criticism and polem- ics'^ ETswork in the latter (aside from his hostility to fanaticism and the persecution of those differing in faith) being directed chiefly against optimism and the deistic religion of reason, which holds the Christian dogmas capable of proof, or, at least, faith and knowledge capable of recon- ciliation. The doctrines of faith are not only above reason, incomprehensible, but contrary to reason ; and it is just on this that our merit in accepting them depends. The mysteries of the Gospel do not seek success before the judgment seat of thought, they demand the blind sub- mission of the reason ; nay, if they were objects of knowl- edge they would cease to be mysteries. Thus we must choose between religion and philosophy, for they cannot be combined. For one who is convinced of the untrust- worthiness of the reason and her lack of competence in things supernatural, it is in no wise contradictory or impos- sible to receive as true things which she declares to be false ; he will thank God for the gift of a faith which is entirely independent of the clearness of its objects and of its agreement with the axioms of philosophy. Even, when in purely scientific questions he calls attention to difficul- ties and shows contradictions on every hand, Bayle by no means intends to hold up principles with contradictory implications as false, but only as uncertain.* The reason, how the creatures, who are not the authors of their own existence, can be the authors of their own actions, but, at the same time, inadmissible to think of God as the cause of evil. He seeks only to show the indemonstrability and incomprehensibility of freedom, not to reject it. For he sees in it the condition of morality, and calls attention to the fact that the difficulties in which those who
 * Thus, in regard to the problem of freedom, he finds it hard to comprehend,