Ethics: Origin and Development by Pëtr Kropotkin & Pëtr Kropotkin

Author:Pëtr Kropotkin & Pëtr Kropotkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: anti-egoist, classical, egoist, ethics
Published: 1922-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8: Development of Moral Teachings in the Modern Era (17th and l8th Centuries) (continued)

The liberation of science from the Church’s yoke — and consequently also of ethical teachings, — came about in France approximately at the same time as in England. The French thinker, René Descartes, took the same lead in this movement as did Francis Bacon in England, and their principal works appeared almost simultaneously.[124]

But due to various causes, the French movement took a somewhat different turn from the English; and in France, libertarian ideas penetrated to much wider circles and exercised a much deeper influence throughout Europe than the movement originated by Bacon, which created a revolution in science and in scientific speculation.

The liberating movement in France began at the end of the sixteenth century, but it followed a path different from that in England where it took the form of the Protestant movement and of the peasant and townsfolk revolution. In France the Revolution broke out only at the end of the eighteenth century, but libertarian ideas began to spread widely in French society long before the Revolution. Literature was the chief conductor of these ideas. The first to express libertarian ideas in French literature was Rabelais (1483(?)-1553), whom Michel Montaigne followed in spirit.

Montaigne was one of the most brilliant of French writers. He was the first to express in a light, easily readable form, precisely from the standpoint of “plain common sense,” bold and most “heretical” views about religion.

Montaigne’s famous book, “Essais,” which appeared in 1583, met with great success; it went through many editions and was read everywhere in Europe, and later even the prominent writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries willingly recognized Montaigne as one of their teachers. Montaigne’s book aided considerably in the liberation of ethics from the old scholastic dogmas.

In his “Essais” Montaigne gave nothing but a series of frank confessions about his own character and the motives of his judgments and acts, and also about the character of the people of his circle, for he was intimate with the best society. And he judged human actions as a refined, somewhat humanitarian Epicurean, whose egotism was softened by a slight tinge of philosophy; he exposed the religious hypocrisy behind which other epicurean egoists and their religious mentors are accustomed to hide. Thus, owing to his great literary talent, he prepared the soil for that critical, sarcastic tone with respect to religion, which later, in the eighteenth century, permeated the whole of French literature. Unfortunately, neither Montaigne, nor his followers up to the present time, have subjected to the same sort of popular, sarcastic critique from within, the machine of the state government, which has now taken the place of the hierarchy of the Church in ruling the social life of men.

A somewhat more serious inquiry, but still in the same style, was undertaken somewhat later by the theologian and father-confessor of Queen Margaret, Pierre Charron (1541–1603). His book “Traité de la Sagesse” (Treatise on Wisdom), appeared in 1601 and at once became popular.

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