Abstract
In this chapter, I try to reconstruct the pathway that goes from disbelief to irreligion. Better to say, the pathway that leads from the skeptical premises sketched in Montaigne’s Essais to the atheistic conclusions we find in Meslier’s Mémoire. In the first section, after a brief introduction, I reflect on Montaigne’s writing, paying special attention to the unfinished, discordant, and—above all—implicit character that he gives to his Essais . In the second section, I reconstruct Meslier’s reading strategies, showing how the priest uses those few books that were available to him. In the third and final section, I make a brief comparison between the Essais and the Mémoire. In short, I try to show how different skeptical passages of Montaigne leave us on the verge of disbelief and how they are transformed by Meslier to extract from them irreligious conclusions. My work is located at the intersection of two areas of study that, in recent decades, have begun to change our perception of the history of modern philosophy: skepticism and clandestine literature.
The Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía published a Spanish version of this text under the title “El camino de la duda. De la incredulidad de Montaigne a la irreligión de Meslier” (vol. 44, n° 2, 2018). I am grateful for the courtesy of the Editorial Board of RLF, which has authorized the publication of this version in English.
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Notes
- 1.
John Spink, “« Pyrrhonien » et « Sceptique » synonymes de « Matérialiste » dans la littérature clandestine”, in Olivier Bloch (ed.), Le matérialisme du XVIIIe siècle et la littérature clandestine, Paris, Vrin, 1982, pp. 143–148.
- 2.
Sébastien Charles, “Ceticismo e clandestinidade”, Sképsis, 3–4, 2008, pp. 95–108.
- 3.
Miguel Benítez, “La duda como método: escepticismo y materialismo en la literatura clandestina”, El Basilisco, 15, 1983, pp. 44–61.
- 4.
Sébastien Charles, “Ceticismo e clandestinidade”, op.cit., pp. 96–97.
- 5.
Miguel Benítez, “La duda como método: escepticismo y materialismo en la literatura clandestina”, op.cit., p. 45.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
Fernando Bahr, “Introducción”, in Dudas de los pirrónicos, Buenos Aires, El Cuenco de Plata, 2017, p. 10.
- 8.
Cf. Gianni Paganini, “Avant la Promenade du sceptique: pyrrhonisme et clandestinité de Bayle à Diderot”, in Gianni Paganini (ed.), Scepticisme, clandestinité et libre pensée, Paris, Honoré Campion, 2002, p. 22.
- 9.
Especially because skepticism was no longer conceived as a path to ataraxia, as in Antiquity, or as the best ally of faith, as in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries, but became a tool for criticism, even of religious truths.
- 10.
I follow here the thesis developed by Bayod Brau, who conceives Montaigne as a “paradoxical author”. Cf. Jordi Bayod Brau, “Montaigne, «auteur paradoxal» y la Encyclopédie”, in Miguel Ángel Granada (ed.), Filósofos, filosofía y filosofías en la Encyclopédie de Diderot y D’Alembert, Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, 2009, pp.133–148.
- 11.
In this regard, the beginning of the essay De la vanité (III, 9) is always eloquent: “Who does not see that I have taken a road along which I shall go, without stopping and effort, as long as there is ink and paper in the world?” Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays , Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1965, p. 721.
- 12.
Donald Frame maintains that beyond the possible philosophies to which the essayist could have adhered throughout his life (Stoicism, Skepticism, and Epicureanism, according to the classical thesis of Pierre Villey: Les sources et l’évolution des Essais de Montaigne, Paris, Hachette, 1908, 2 vols.), Montaigne always exhibited a “Skeptical temper” (Donald Frame, Montaigne’s Discovery of Man, New York, Columbia University Press, 1955, p. 7).
- 13.
The metaphor belongs to François de La Mothe Le Vayer, Dialogues faites à l’imitation des anciens, Paris, Fayard, 1988, p. 11.
- 14.
Santiago Kovadloff explores this idea: “Montaigne no hace pie”, Cuadernos hispanoamericanos, 646, 2004, pp. 71–76.
- 15.
Montaigne, The Complete Essays , op.cit., p. 2.
- 16.
Jesús Navarro has analysed in detail the evolution of the concept of “reader” throughout the successive editions of the Essais . In his view, Montaigne’s text was originally intended only for relatives and friends; its intended audience gradually expanded. Thus, little by little, it loses its “domestic and private” character, becoming a text whose potential reader is anyone who possess l’humaine condition. In the same sense, the Essais stop being a mere reminder of its author, a textual representation of a corporality, to become an embodied text. The distant reader, who does not know Montaigne personally, will find him only through his book. While I agree on the growing universalization of Montaigne’s discourse—which has made it a literary classic—my interpretation differs in part with that of Navarro. This is because, though many of the ideas of the Essais are available to a very broad audience, some of them, the most radical and unorthodox, will be understood only by a small group of readers. Cf. Jesús Navarro Reyes, Pensar sin certezas. Montaigne y el arte de conversar, Madrid, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007.
- 17.
Montaigne, The Complete Essays , op.cit., p. 2.
- 18.
A context aggravated by other phenomena, such as the witch-hunt and the actions of the Inquisition, which after the Council of Trent (1545–1563) begins to exercise greater control over individual opinions.
- 19.
Ibid., p. 30.
- 20.
Ibid., p. 2.
- 21.
Ibid., p. 177.
- 22.
Ibid., p. 114.
- 23.
Ibid., p. 86.
- 24.
Cf. Pierre Manent, Montaigne. La vie sans loi, Paris, Flammarion, 2014.
- 25.
Montaigne, The Complete Essays, op.cit., p. 86. According to this view, perhaps we can consider Montaigne as a first silent explorer of the position explicitly assumed later by the libertins érudits, whose opinion is resumed in the famous phrase that Gabriel Naudé took from Cesare Cremonini: Intus ut libet, foris ut moris est. On the relationship between Montaigne and the libertins, see Giovanni Dotoli, Les libertines et Montaigne. Montaigne Studies XIX, Chicago, University of Chicago, 2007; on the philosophical-political attitude assumed by the libertins, see René Pintard, Le libertinage érudit dans la primère moitié du XVIIe siècle, Paris, Boivin, 1943, 2 vols.
- 26.
Montaigne, The Complete Essays , op.cit., p. 629.
- 27.
On this issue, see the two classic studies by Géralde Nakam: Montaigne et son temps, les evenements et les Essais , Paris, Nizet, 1982, and Les Essais de Montaigne, miroir et proces de leur temps: Temoignage historique et creation litteraire, Paris, Honore Champion, 2001. Also, the recent biography by Philippe Desan, Montaigne. Une biographie politique, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2014.
- 28.
On this subject, see the chapter “On Experience ”, The Complete Essays, p. 815–857.
- 29.
Montaigne, The Complete Essays , op.cit., p. 229.
- 30.
Ibid., p. 750.
- 31.
“I have read in Livy a hundred things that another man has not read in him. Plutarch has read in him a hundred besides the ones I could read, and perhaps besides what the author had put in”. Ibid., p. 115.
- 32.
Ibid., p. 93.
- 33.
Ibid, p. 834.
- 34.
Jean Meslier, Oeuvres completes, Paris, Antrophos, 1972, vol. III, p. 392.
- 35.
Maurice Dommanget, Le curé Meslier, athée, communiste et révolutionnaire sous Louis XIV [1965], Paris, Éditions Coda, 2008, p. 49. As Miguel Benítez also points out: “Despite his isolation, there is no doubt that Meslier fed his reflections through readings that reaffirmed him in his first feelings” (Miguel Benítez, Les yeux de la raison. Le matérialisme athée de Jean Meslier, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2012, p. 64). All translations of this book are mine.
- 36.
For a more detailed commentary on these readings, see Miguel Benítez, Les yeux de la raison, op.cit., pp. 59–85. According to the hypothesis of this scholar, many of the Meslier’s readings would have been provided by Rémy Leroux, notary and esprit libertin to whom the priest would have left one of the copies of his Mémoire, and to whom, therefore, we owe the diffusion of the manuscript during the first half of the Eighteenth-century.
- 37.
Based on the references included by Meslier, Marc Bredel produced a list of 46 books. Cf. Marc Bredel, Jean Meslier l’enrage: prêtre athée et revolutionnaire sous Louis XIV, Paris, Balland, 1983, pp. 259–260.
- 38.
Miguel Benítez developed this idea. Cf. Les yeux de la raison, op.cit., p. 234.
- 39.
As is well known, Meslier wrote a series of critical notes to these works of Fénelon and Tournemine. Even if this notes had also circulated clandestinely during the Eighteenth century, they were edited by the first time by Jean Deprun, under the title of Anti-Fénelon , in the edition of the Oeuvres complètes de Jean Meslier (vol. III, 1972, pp. 207–366). I made a Spanish translation of this notes: Anti-Fénelon . Notas sobre la Demostración de la existencia de Dios de Fénelon y las Reflexiones sobre el ateísmo del padre Tournemine, texto establecido por Jean Deprun, traducción, introducción y notas de Manuel Tizziani, Buenos Aires, El Cuenco de Plata, 2018.
- 40.
René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Pierre Bayle are also considered to be possible sources for Meslier. However, various recent studies have shown that this is doubtful.
- 41.
Meslier read the edition of the Essais made by Michel Blageart in 1649, that is, almost a quarter of a century before they were introduced in the Index librorum prohibitorum, on January 28, 1676.
- 42.
Miguel Benítez, Les yeux de la raison, op.cit., p. 223.
- 43.
It is this feature, possibly, that led many scholars to think that Meslier could be included among the “Cartesians”, even when he shows great dissidences with that school. A paradigmatic example of this is an interpretation developed by Jean Deprun, who characterized him as a “left-wing Malebranchean”.
- 44.
Miguel Benítez, Les yeux de la raison, op.cit., p. 64.
- 45.
In fact, the writing of the Mémoire could have extended over more than a decade, between 1718 and 1729. The first date coincides with the edition of the Oeuvres philosophiques by Fénelon, to which Meslier not only responds in his notes but also in the Seventh and Eighth Proofs of the Mémoire. Indeed, there is textual evidence that indicates that Meslier had begun to write his text during the Regency of Felipe de Orléans (1715–1723), perhaps because he had conceived that the death of Louis XIV left the French monarchy in a weaker position. In addition, the Mémoire continued to be drafted and corrected until the time of Meslier’s death, which occurred in the middle of 1729, as shown by the fact that the three manuscripts found by Roland Desné in the National Library of France (fr. 19458, fr. 19459, and fr. 19460) possess various additions written in the priest’s own hand.
- 46.
Cf. Miguel Benítez, Les yeux de la raison, op.cit., pp. 63–64.
- 47.
Ibid., p. 66.
- 48.
Ibid., p. 69.
- 49.
Olivier Lutaud, Des révolutions d’Angleterre à la Révolution francaise: le tyrannicide et ‘Killing no murder’, La Haye, Martinus Nyhoff, 1973, p. 138.
- 50.
Rolf Engelsing, Der Bürger als Leser: Lesergeschichte in Deutschland, 1500–1800, Stuttgart, Metzler, 1974.
- 51.
Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, “Introducción”, in Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier (eds.), Historia de la lectura en el mundo occidental, Madrid, Taurus, 2004, p. 49. The translation is mine.
- 52.
Cf. Roger Chartier, “Libros y lectores”, in Vicenzo Ferrone and Daniel Roche (ed.), Diccionario histórico de la Ilustración, Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 1998, pp. 243–249.
- 53.
Reinhart Wittmann, “¿Hubo una revolución de la lectura a finales del siglo XVIII?”, in Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier (eds.), Historia de la lectura en el mundo occidental, Madrid, Taurus, 2004, pp. 495–537.
- 54.
Maurice Dommanget, Le curé Meslier, athée, communiste et révolutionnaire sous Louis XIV, op.cit., pp. 95–132.
- 55.
Ibid., pp. 99–100. The translation is mine.
- 56.
Andrew Morehouse indicated the importance of Apology a long time ago: “It should be noted that in him [Meslier] the Pyrrhonism of Montaigne and his followers in the seventeenth century took root, blossomed, and flourished. The influence of the Essais is everywhere in evidence, and that of the Apologie de Raymond Sebond is profound. Many of Meslier’s remarks on the miracles and on the resemblances to Christian rites and beliefs in other religions can be traced to this essay” (Andrew Morehouse, Voltaire and Jean Meslier, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1936, p. 3).
- 57.
Suffice it to remember here the thesis of Pierre Villey (Les sources et l’évolution des Essais de Montaigne, op.cit.), for whom the Apology was written by Montaigne in the mid–1570s, in the midst of a deep crise pyrrhonienne. This thesis has had a huge impact, and its traces can be found in scholars such as Richard Popkin (see The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle , Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 44–63).
- 58.
In an article published three decades ago, Alberto Maestroni (“Meslier lettore di Fénelon”, Rivista critica di Storia della Filosofia, 38, 1983, pp. 131–158) details the presence of Malebranche and Fénelon in the last two Proofs of the Mémoire. Relying on the edition of the Oeuvres complètes, he establishes that the Recherche is cited by Meslier in 19 occasions, occupying 791 lines in the text, while the Démonstration is cited on 22 occasions, occupying 401 lines. Following this same method, I was able to find 41 references to Montaigne, occupying 661 lines of the text. However, unlike Malebranche and Fénelon, it should be noted once again that the Essais are cited by Meslier all over his work, and always in a positive way.
- 59.
Expressions such as: the “judicieux Français, le sieur de Montaigne”, the “judicieux sieur de Montaigne”, “dit fort judicieusement le sieur de Montaigne”, “Voici ce que dit le judicieux sieur de Montaigne”, “notre judicieux Français, le sieur de Montaigne”, “dit le judicieux Montaigne”, etc., are usual.
- 60.
Miguel Benítez, Les yeux de la raison, op.cit., p. 71.
- 61.
As Montaigne admits toward the end of his life, despite the stealth, both Catholics and Protestants mistreated him: “I fell into the disadvantages that moderation produces in such diseases. They beat me up everywhere: for the Ghibelline, I was Guelph; for Guelph, Ghibelline”. Montaigne, The Complete Essays, op.cit., p. 798.
- 62.
A third reference, not taken up by Meslier, can be found in the opening pages of “De ménager sa volonté” (III, 10).
- 63.
Montaigne, The Complete Essays, op.cit., p. 379–380. It should be noted that this passage seems to have had some impact not only on Meslier, but also on some of his contemporaries, including the author of the Doutes des pyrrhoniens (Buenos Aires, El Cuenco de Plata, 2017, pp. 124–126). Indeed, this anonymous manuscript culminates with an extensive quote from “the wise Montaigne,” a quote whose central lines are those transcribed here.
- 64.
Montaigne, The Complete Essays , op.cit., p. 477.
- 65.
Jean Meslier, Testament: Memoir of the Thoughts and Sentiments of Jean Meslier, Amherst, Prometheus Books, 2009, p. 49. The italics are from the original.
- 66.
Ibid., p. 51.
- 67.
Ibid., p. 455.
- 68.
Richard Popkin , The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes , Assen, Van Gorcum, 1960.
- 69.
Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1979; and The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle , Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.
- 70.
Plínio Junqueira Smith and Otávio Bueno, “Skepticism in Latin America”, in The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/skepticism-latin-america/, accessed: 20 October 2018.
- 71.
Ezequiel de Olaso, “El escepticismo antiguo en la génesis y desarrollo de la filosofía moderna”, in Ezequiel de Olaso (ed.), Del Renacimiento a la Ilustración I, Madrid, Trotta, 1994, pp. 133–161.
- 72.
Gustave Lanson. “Questions diverses sur l’histoire de l’esprit philosophique en France avant 1750”, Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, 19, 1912, pp. 1–29; 293–317.
- 73.
Ira Wade, The Clandestine Organisation and Diffusion of philosophic Ideas in France from 1700 to 1750, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1938.
- 74.
Fernando Bahr, “Introducción”, op.cit., p. 8.
- 75.
Miguel Benítez, La cara oculta de las Luces. Investigaciones sobre los manuscritos filosóficos clandestinos de los siglos XVII y XVIII, Valencias, Biblioteca Valenciana, 2003.
- 76.
Works to which I can add newer readings of the genesis of modernity and Enlightenment, such as those carried out by Stephen Toulmin (Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1990) and Jonathan Israel (Radical Enlightenment . Philosophy and Making of Modernity 1650–1750, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001).
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Tizziani, M. (2021). Doubt, Disbelief, and Irreligion: From Montaigne’s Skepticism to Meslier’s Atheism. In: Rosaleny, V.R., Smith, P.J. (eds) Sceptical Doubt and Disbelief in Modern European Thought. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 233. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55362-3_8
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