[75] Miscellanies ii., 18. We have used for the most part the translation of the writings of Clement, published in the Ante-Nicene Library, by Messrs. Clarke, Edinburgh, 1869. The Greek text is corrupt.
[76] Περὶ Ἀποχῆς Τῶν Εμψύχων
[77] “The first book discussed alleged contradictions and other marks of human fallibility in the Scriptures; the third treated of Scriptural interpretation, and, strangely enough, repudiated the allegories of Origen; the fourth examined the ancient history of the Jews; and, the twelfth and thirteenth maintained the point now generally admitted by scholars—that Daniel is not a prophecy, but a retrospective history of the age of Antiochus Epiphanes.”—Donaldson (Hist. of Gr. Lit.)
[78] In justice to the old Greek Theology which, as it really was, has enough to answer for, it must be remarked that its Demonology, or belief in the powers of subordinate divinities—in the first instance merely the internunciaries, or mediators, or angels between Heaven and Earth—was a very different thing from the Diabolism of Christian theology, a fact which, perhaps, can be adequately recognised by those only who happen to be acquainted with the history of that most widely-spread and most fearful of all superstitions. Necessarily, from the vague and, for the most part, merely secular character of the earlier theologies, the infernal horrors, with the frightful creed, tortures, burnings, &c., which characterised the faith of Christendom, were wholly unknown to the religion of Apollo and of Jupiter.
[79] Neo or New-Platonism may be briefly defined as a spiritual development of the Socratic or Platonic teaching. In the hands of some of its less judicious and rational advocates it tended to degenerate into puerile, though harmless, superstition. With the superior intellects of a Plotinus, Porphyry, Longinus, Hypatia, or Proclus, on the other hand, it was, in the main at least, a sublime attempt at the purification and spiritualisation of the established orthodox creed. It occupied a position midway between the old and the new religion, which was so soon to celebrate its triumph over its effete rival. That Christianity, on its spiritual side (whatever the ingratitude of its later authorities), owes far more than is generally acknowledged to both the old and newer Platonism, is sufficiently apparent to the attentive student of theological history.
[80] Author of a Treatise on the Abandonment of the Flesh Diet, 1709. He died in the year 1737.
[81] Voltaire might have added the examples of the Greek Coenobites. There is at least one celebrated and long-established religious community, in the Sinaitic peninsula, which has always rigidly excluded all flesh from their diet. Like the community of La Trappe, these religious Vegetarians are notoriously the most free from disease and most long-lived of their countrymen.
[82] Article Viande (Dict. Phil.) In other passages in his writings the philosopher of Ferney, we may here remark, expresses his sympathy with the humane diet. See especially his Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations (introduction), and his Romance of La Princesse de Babylone.
[83] Οἰκειώσις strictly means adoption, admission to intimacy and family life, or “domestication.”
[84] The founder of the new Academy at Athens, and the vigorous opponent of the Stoics.
[85] That unreasoning arrogance of human selfishness, which pretends that all other living beings have come into existence for the sole pleasure and benefit of man, has often been exposed by the wiser, and therefore more humble, thinkers of our race. Pope has well rebuked this sort of monstrous arrogance:—
And, as a commentary upon these truly philosophic verses, we may quote the words of a recent able writer, answering the objection, “Why were sheep and oxen created, if not for the use of man? replies to the same effect as Porphyry 1600 years ago:” It is only pride and imbecility in man to imagine all things made for his sole use. There exist millions of suns and their revolving orbs which the eye of man has never perceived. Myriads of animals enjoy their pastime unheeded and unseen by him—many are injurious and destructive to him. All exist for purposes but partially known. Yet we must believe, in general, that all were created for their own enjoyment, for mutual advantage, and for the preservation of universal harmony in Nature. If, merely because we can eat sheep pleasantly, we are to believe that they exist only to supply us with food, we may as well say that man was created solely for various parasitical animals to feed on, “because they do feed on him.”—(Fruits and Farinacea: the Proper Food of Man. By J. Smith. Edited by Professor Newman. Heywood, Manchester; Pitman, London.) See, also, amongst other philosophic writers, the remarks of Joseph Ritson in his “Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food a Moral Duty”—(Phillips, London, 1802). As to Oxen and Sheep, it must be further remarked that they have been made what they are by the intervention of man alone. The original and wild stocks (especially that of sheep) are very different from the metamorphosed and almost helpless domesticated varieties. Naturam violant, pacem appellant.
[86] The Artificer or Creator, par excellence. In the Platonic language, the usual distinguishing name of the subordinate creator of our imperfect world.
[87] Cf. Ovid’s Metam., xv.; Plutarch’s Essay on Flesh-Eating; Thomson’s Seasons.
[88] Περὶ Ἐποχῆς κ. τ. λ. In the number of the traditionary reformers and civilisers of the earlier nations, the name of Orpheus has always held a foremost place. In early Christian times Orpheus and the literature with which his name is connected occupy a very prominent and important position, and some celebrated forged prophecies passed current as the utterances of that half-legendary hero. Horace adopts the popular belief as to his radical dietetic reform in the following verses:—
Virgil assigns him a place in the first rank of the Just in the Elysian paradise.—Æn. vi.
[89] In his witty satire, the Misopogon or Beard-Hater—“a sort of inoffensive retaliation, which it would be in the power of few princes to employ”—directed against the luxurious people of Antioch, who had ridiculed his frugal meals and simple mode of living, “he himself mentions his vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual appetite” of that orthodox but corrupt Christian city. When they complained of the high prices of flesh-meats, “Julian publicly declared that a frugal city ought to be satisfied with a regular supply of wine, oil, and bread.”—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxiv.
[90] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxii. The philosophical fable of Julian—The Cæsars—has been pronounced by the same historian to be “one of the most agreeable and instructive productions of ancient wit.” Its purpose is to estimate the merits or demerits of the various Emperors from Augustus to Constantine. As for the Enemy of the Beard, it may be ranked, for sarcastic wit, almost with the Jupiter in Tragedy of Lucian.
[91] Article, “Chrysostom,” in the Penny Cyclopædia.
[92] Baur’s Life and Work of St. Paul. Part ii., chap. 3.
[93] We here take occasion to observe that, while final appeals to our sacred Scriptures to determine any sociological question—whether of slavery, polygamy, war, or of dietetics—cannot be too strongly deprecated, a candid and impartial inquirer, nevertheless, will gladly recognise traces of a consciousness of the unspiritual nature of the sacrificial altar and shambles. He will gladly recognise that if—as might be expected in so various a collection of sacred writings produced by different minds in different ages—frequent sanction of the materialist mode of living may be urged on the one side; on the other hand, the inspiration of the more exalted minds is in accord with the practice of the true spiritual life. Cf. Gen. i., 29, 30; Isaiah i., 11–17, and xi., 9 Ps. l., 9–14; Ps. lxxxi., 14–17; Ps. civ., 14, 15; Prov. xxiii., 2, 3, 20, 21; Prov. xxvii., 25–27: Prov. xxx., 8, 22; Prov. xxxi., 4; Eccl. vi., 7; Matt. vi. 31; 1 Cor. viii., 13, and ix., 25; Rom. viii., 5–8, 12, 13; Phil. iii., 19, and iv., 8; James ii., 13, 4, and iv., 1–3; 1 Pet. ii., 11. Perhaps, next to the alleged authority of Gen. ix. (noticed and refuted by Tertullian, as already quoted), the trance-vision of St. Peter is most often urged by the bibliolaters (or those who revere the letter rather than the true inspiration of the Sacred Books) as a triumphant proof of biblical sanction of materialism. Yet, unless, indeed, literalism is to over-ride the most ordinary rules of common sense, as well as of criticism, all that can be extracted from the “Vision” (in which were presented to the sleeper “all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts and creeping things,” which it will hardly be contented he was expected to eat) is the fact of a mental illumination, by which the Jewish Apostle recognises the folly of his countrymen in arrogating to themselves the exclusive privileges of the “Chosen People.” Besides, as has already been pointed out, the earliest traditions concur in representing St. Peter as always a strict abstinent, insomuch that he is stated to have celebrated the “Eucharist” with nothing but bread and salt.—Clement Hom., xiv., 1.
[94] Homily, lxix. on Mat. xxii., 1–14.
[95] The male sex, according to our ideas, might have been more properly apostrophised; and St. Chrysostom may seem, in this passage and elsewhere, to be somewhat partial in his invective. Candour, indeed, forces us to remark that the “Golden-mouthed,” in common with many others of the Fathers, and with the Greek and Eastern world in general, depreciated the qualities, both moral and mental, of the feminine sex. That the weaker are what the stronger choose to make them, is an obvious truth generally ignored in all ages and countries—by modern satirists and other writers, as well as by a Simonides or Solomon. The partial severity of the Archbishop of Constantinople, it is proper to add, may be justified, in some measure, by the contemporary history of the Court of Byzantium, where the beautiful and licentious empress Eudoxia ruled supreme.
[96] St. Chrysostom seems to have derived this forcible appeal from Seneca. Compare the remarks of the latter, Ep. cx.: “At, mehercule, ista solicite scrutata varieque condita, cum subierint ventrem, una atque cadem fæditas occupabit. Vis ciborum voluptatem contemnere? Exitum specta.”
[97] The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, Translated by Members of the English Church. Parker, Oxford. See Hom. vii. on Phil. ii. for a forcible representation of the inferiority, in many points, of our own to other species.
[98] For example, we may refer to the fact of trials of “criminal” dogs, and other non-human beings, with all the formalities of ordinary courts of justice, and in the gravest manner recorded by credible witnesses. The convicted “felons” were actually hanged with all the circumstances of human executions. Instances of such trials are recorded even so late as the sixteenth century.
[99] His biographer, Marinus, writes in terms of the highest admiration of his virtues as well as of his genius, and of the perfection to which he had attained by his unmaterialistic diet and manner of living. He seems to have had a remarkably cosmopolitan mind, since he regarded with equal respect the best parts of all the then existing religious systems; and he is said even to have paid solemn honours to all the most illustrious, or rather most meritorious, of his philosophic predecessors. That his intellect, sublime and exalted as it was, had contracted the taint of superstition must excite our regret, though scarcely our wonder, in the absence of the light of modern science; nor can there be any difficulty in perceiving how the miracles and celestial apparitions—which form a sort of halo around the great teachers—originated, viz., in the natural enthusiasm of his zealous but uncritical disciples. One of his principal works is On the Theology of Plato, in six books. Another of his productions was a Commentary on the Works and Days of Hesiod. Both are extant. He died at an advanced age in 485, having hastened his end by excessive asceticism.
[100] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xl. This testimony of the great historian to the merits of the last of the New-Platonists is all the more weighty as coming from an authority notoriously the most unimpassioned and unenthusiastic, perhaps, of all writers. Compare his remarkable expression of personal feeling—guardedly stated as it is—upon the question of kreophagy in his chapter on the history and manners of the Tartar nations (chap. xxvi).
[101] Trattato della Vita Sobria, 1548.
[102] Sævior armis Luxuria. We may be tempted to ask ourselves whether we are reading denunciations of the gluttony and profusion of the sixteenth century or contemporary reports of public dinners in our own country, e.g., of the Lord Mayor’s annual dinner. The vast amount of slaughter of all kinds of victims to supply the various dishes of one of these exhibitions of national gluttony can be adequately described only by the use of the Homeric word hecatomb—slaughter of hundreds.
[103] Amorevole Esortazione a Seguire La Vita Ordinata e Sobria.
[104] Cornaro’s heterodoxy in dietetics was not allowed, as may well be supposed, to pass unchallenged by his contemporaries. One of his countrymen, a person of some note, Sperone Speroni, published a reply under the title of “Contra la Sobrietà;” but soon afterwards recanting his errors (rimettendosi spontaneamente nel buon sentiero) he wrote a Discourse in favour of Temperance. About the same time there appeared in Paris an “Anti-Cornaro,” written “against all the rules of good taste,” and which the editors of the Biographie Universelle characterise as full of remarks “tout à fait oiseuses.”
[105] More points out very forcibly that to hang for theft is tantamount to offering a premium for murder. Two hundred and fifty years later Beccaria and other humanitarians vainly advanced similar objections to the criminal code of christian Europe. It is hardly necessary to remark that this Draconian bloodthirstiness of English criminal law remained to belie the name of “civilisation” so recently as fifty years ago.
[106] Erasmus (who, to lash satirically and more effectively the various follies and crimes of men places the genius of Folly itself in the pulpit) seems to have shared the feeling of his friend in regard to the character of “sport.” “When they (the ‘sportsmen’) have run down their victims, what strange pleasure they have in cutting them up! Cows and sheep may be slaughtered by common butchers, but those animals that are killed in hunting must be mangled by none under a gentleman, who will fall down on his knees, and drawing out a slashing dagger (for a common knife is not good enough) after several ceremonies shall dissect all the joints as artistically as the best skilled anatomist, while all who stand round shall look very intently and seem to be mightily surprised with the novelty, though they have seen the same thing a hundred times before; and he that can but dip his finger and taste of the blood shall think his own bettered by it. And yet the constant feeding on such diet does but assimilate them to the nature (?) of those animals they eat,” &c.—Encomium Moriæ, or Praise of Folly. If we recall to mind that three centuries and a half have passed away since More and Erasmus raised their voices against the sanguinary pursuits of hunting, and that it is still necessary to reiterate the denunciation, we shall justly deplore the slow progress of the human mind in all that constitutes true morality and refinement of feeling.
[107] Utopia II.
[108] For a full and eloquent exposition of the social evils which threaten the country from the natural but mischievous greed of landowners and farmers, our readers are referred, in particular, to Professor Newman’s admirable Lectures upon this aspect of the Vegetarian creed, delivered before the Society at various times. (Heywood: Manchester.)
[109] Utopia. Translated into English by Ralph Robinson, Fellow of Corpus Christi College. London: 1556; reprinted by Edward Arber, 1869. We have used this English edition as more nearly representing the style of Sir Thomas More than a modern version. It is a curious fact that no edition of the Utopia was published in England during the author’s lifetime—or, indeed, before that of Robinson, in 1551. It was first printed at Louvain; and, after revision by the author, it was reprinted at Basle, under the auspices of Erasmus, still in the original Latin.
[110] “With plaintive cries, all covered with blood, and in the attitude of a suppliant.” See the story of the death of Silvia’s deer (Æneis, viii.)—the most touching episode in the whole epic of Virgil. The affection of the Tuscan girl for her favourite, her anxious care of her, and the deep indignation excited amongst her people by the murder of the deer by the son of Æneas and his intruding followers—the cause of the war that ensued—are depicted with rare grace and feeling.
[111] “It was in the slaughter, in the primæval times, of wild beasts (I suppose) the knife first was stained with the warm life-blood.”—See Ovid Metam. xv.
[112] Christian theology, to which doubtless Montaigne here refers, the force of truth compels us to note, has always uttered a very “uncertain sound” in regard to the rights and even to the frightful sufferings of the non-human species. Excepting, indeed, two or three isolated passages in the Jewish and Christian sacred Scriptures which, according to the theologians, bear a somewhat equivocal meaning, it is not easy to discover what particular theological or ecclesiastical maxims Montaigne could adduce.
[113] We use the term in deference to universal custom, although Francis Bacon protested 250 years ago that “Antiquity, as we call it, is the young state of the world; for those times are ancient when the world is ancient, and not those we vulgarly account ancient by computing backwards—so that the present time is the real Antiquity.”—Advancement of Learning, I. See also Novum Organum.
[114] Compare Shakspere’s eloquent indignation:—
[115] With these just and common-sense arguments of Montaigne compare the very remarkable treatise (remarkable both by the profession and by the age of the author) of Hieronymus or Jerome Rorarius, published under the title—“That the [so-called] irrational animals often make use of reason better than men.” (Quod Animalia Bruta Sæpe Utantur Ratione Melius Homine.) It was given to the world by the celebrated physician, Gabriel Naudé, in 1648, one hundred years after it was written, and, as pointed out by Lange, it is therefore earlier than the Essais of Montaigne. “It is distinguished,” according to Lange, “by its severe and serious tone, and by the assiduous emphasising of just such traits of the lower animals as are most generally denied to them, as being products of the higher faculties of the soul. With their virtues the vices of men are set in sharp contrast. We can therefore understand that the MS., although written by a priest, who was a friend both of Pope and Emperor, had to wait so long for publication.” (Hist. of Materialism. Vol. i., 225. Eng. Trans.) It is noteworthy that the title, as well as the arguments, of the book of Rorarius reveals its original inspiration—the Essay of Plutarch. Equally heterodox upon this subject is the De La Sagesse of Montaigne’s friend, Pierre Charron.
[116] Essais de Michel de Montaigne, II., 12.
[117] See Article in English Cyclopædia.
[118] See Elémens de la Philosophie de Newton. The whole passage breathes the true spirit of humanity and philosophy, and deserves to be quoted in full in this place: “Il y a surtout dans l’homme une disposition à la compassion aussi généralement répandue que nos autres instincts. Newton avait cultivé ce sentiment d’humanité, et il l’etendait jusqu’aux animaux. Il était fortement convaincu avec Locke, que Dieu a donné aux animaux une mésure d’idées, et les mêmes sentiments qu’à nous. Il ne pouvait penser que Dieu, qui ne fait rien en vain, eût donné aux animaux des organes de sentiment, afin qu’elles n’eussent point de sentiment. Il trouvait une contradiction bien affreuse à croire que les animaux sentent, et à les faire souffrir. Sa morale s’accordait en ce point avec sa philosophie. Il ne cédait qu’avec répugnance à l’usage barbare de nous nourrir du sang et de la chair des êtres semblables à nous, que nous caressons tous les jours. Il ne permit jamais dans sa maison qu’on les fit mourir par des morts lentes et recherchées, pour en rendre la nourriture plus délicieuse. Cette compassion qu’il avait pour les animaux se tournait en vraie charité pour les hommes. En effet, sans l’humanité—vertu qui comprend toutes les vertus—on ne mériterait guère le nom de philosophe.”—Elémens v. An expression of feeling in sufficiently striking contrast to the ordinary ideas. Compare Essay on the Human Understanding, ii., 2.
[119] History of Materialism.—We may here observe that Descartes seems to have adopted his extraordinary theory as to the non-human races as a sort of dernier resort. In a letter to one of his friends (Louis Racine) he declares himself driven to his theory by the rigour of the dilemma, that (seeing the innocence of the victims of man’s selfishness) it is necessary either that they should he insensible to suffering, or that God, who has made them, should be unjust. Upon which Gleïzès makes the following reflection: “This reasoning is conclusive. One must either be a Cartesian, or allow that man is very vile. Nothing is more rigorous than this consequence.”—(Thalysie Ou La Nouvelle Existence). La Fontaine has well illustrated the absurdity of the animated machine theory in Fables x. 1.
[120] See “Elémens de la Philosophie de Newton.”
[121] Suspecta mihi semper fuerit (he writes) ipsa hominis φιλαυτία.
[122] See Gassendi’s Letter, Viro Clarissimo et Philosopho ac Medico Expertissimo Joanni Baptistæ Helmontio Amico Suo Singulari. Dated, Amsterdam, 1629.
[123] Physics. Book II. De Virtutibus.
[124] See Philosophiæ Epicuri Syntagma. De Sobrietate contra Gulam. (“View of the Philosophy of Epikurus: On Sobriety as opposed to Gluttony.”) Part III. Florentiæ, 1727. Folio. Vol. III.
[125] Advancement of Learning, iv., 2. Bacon’s suggestion seems to imply that human beings were still vivisected, for the “good” of science, in his time. Celsus, the well-known Latin physician of the second century, had protested against this cold-blooded barbarity of deliberately cutting up a living human body. The wretched victims of the vivisecting knife were, it seems, slaves, criminals, and captives, who were handed over by the authorities to the physiological “laboratory.” Harvey, Bacon’s contemporary, is notorious (and, it ought to be added, infamous) for the number and the unrelenting severity of his experiments upon the non-human slaves, which, though constantly alleged by modern vivisectors to have been the means by which he discovered the “circulation of the blood,” have been clearly proved to have served merely as demonstrations in physiology to his pupils. But we no longer wonder at Harvey’s indifference to the horrible suffering of which he was the cause, when we read the similar atrocities of vivisection and “pathology” of our own time. From the cold-blooded cruelties of Harvey, who was accustomed to amuse Charles I. and his family with his demonstrations, it is a pleasant relief to turn to the better feeling of Shakspere on that subject. See his Cymbeline (i., 6), where the Queen, who is experimenting in poisons, tells her physician,
and is reminded that she would “from this practice but make hard her heart.” Such a rebuke is in keeping with the true feeling which inspired the poet to picture the undeserved pangs of the hunted Deer in As You Like It, ii., 1.
[126] Advancement of Learning. viii., 2.
[127] See Acetaria (page 170). By John Evelyn.
[128] The tract of Samuel Hartlib, entitled, A Design for Plenty, by a Universal Planting of Fruit Trees, which appeared during the Commonwealth Government, no doubt suggested to Evelyn his kindred publication. Hartlib (of a distinguished German family) settled in this country somewhere about the year 1630. By his writings, in advocacy of better agriculture and horticulture, he has deserved a grateful commemoration from after-times. Cromwell gave him a pension of £300, which was taken away by Charles II., and he died in poverty and neglect. It was to him Milton dedicated his Tractate on Education.
[129] Locke (one of the very highest names in Philosophy) had already exhorted English mothers to make their children abstain “wholly from flesh,” at least until the completion of the fourth or fifth year. He strongly recommends a very sparing amount of flesh for after years; and thinks that many maladies may be traceable to the foolish indulgence of mothers in respect to diet.—See Thoughts on Education, 1690.
[130] He quotes, amongst others, Tertullian De Jejuniis (On Fasting), cap. iv.; Jerome (Adv. Jovin); Clemens of Alexandria (Strom. vii.); Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel), who cites several abstinents from amongst the philosophers of the old theologies.
[131] Acetaria (“A Discourse of Salads”). Dedicated to Lord Somers, of Evesham, Lord High Chancellor of England, and President of the Royal Society, London, 1699.
[132] Translated by Cowper from the Latin poems of Milton. In a note to the original poem Thomas Warton justly remarks that “Milton’s panegyrics on temperance both in eating and in drinking, resulting from his own practice, are frequent.”
[133] Paradise Lost, v. and xi. Cf. Queen Mab.
[134] Le sang humain abruti ne pouvait plus s’élever aux choses intellectuelles. See Discours sur L’Histoire Universelle, a historical sketch which, though necessarily infected by the theological prejudices of the bishop, is, for the rest, considering the period in which it was written, a meritorious production as one of the earliest attempts at a sort of “philosophy of history.”
[135] Penny Cyclopædia, Article Mandeville.
[136] Upon which Ritson aptly remarks: “The sheep is not so much ‘designed’ for the man as the man is for the tiger, this animal being naturally carnivorous, which man is not. But nature, and justice, and humanity are not always one and the same thing.” To this remark we may add with equal force, that almost all the living beings upon whom our species preys have been so artificially changed from their natural condition for the gratification of its selfish appetite as to be with difficulty identified with the original stocks. So much for this theory of creative design.
[137] Fable of the Bees, i. 187, &c.
[138] Fable xxxvi., Pythagoras and the Countryman. This fable of Gay may have been suggested by that of Æsop—preserved by Plutarch—who represents a wolf watching a number of shepherds eating a sheep, and saying to himself—“If I were doing what you are now about, what an uproar you would make!” See also the instructive fable of La Fontaine—L’Homme et la Couleuvre, one of the finest in the whole twelve Books (Livre x., 2), in which the Cow and Ox accuse the base ingratitude of Man for the cruel neglect, and, finally, for the barbarous slaughter of his fellow-labourers. The Cow, appealed to by the Adder, replies:—
[139] The Wild Boar and the Ram. For admirable rebukes of human arrogance, see The Elephant and the Bookseller and The Man and the Flea.
[140] He was at one time so corpulent that he could not get in and out of his carriage in visiting his patients at Bath.
[141] One of the many excellences of the non-flesh dietary is this essential quality of fruits and vegetables, that they contain in themselves sufficient liquid to allow one to dispense with a large proportion of all extraneous drinks, and certainly with all alcoholic kinds. Hence it is at once the easiest and the surest preventive of all excessive drinking. Much convincing testimony has been collected to this effect by the English and German Vegetarian Societies.
[142] It is neither necessary nor possible for everyone to practise so extreme abstemiousness; but it is instructive to compare it for a moment with the ordinary and prevalent indulgence in eating.
[143] A Life of George Cheyne, M.D., Parker and Churchill, 1846. See also Biog. Britannica.
[144] Dr. Samuel Johnson gave up wine by the advice of Cheyne, and drank tea with Mrs. Thrale and Boswell till he died, æt. 75.
[145] Bayle, the author of the great Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (1690), to whom belongs the lasting honour of having inaugurated the critical method in history and philosophy, which has since led to such extensive and important results, seems also to have been the first explicitly to state the difficulties of that greatest crux of Theology—the problem of the existence, or rather dominance, of Evil. His rival Le Clerc, in his Bibliothéque, took up the orthodox cudgels. Lord Shaftesbury, the celebrated theologian and moralist, wrote his dialogue—The Moralists (1709)—in direct answer to Bayle, followed the next year by the Theodike or Vindication of the Deity of Leibnitz. Two of the most able and distinguished of the Anti-Optimists are Voltaire and Schopenhauer, the former of whom never wearies of using his unrivalled powers of irony and sarcasm on the Tout est Bien theory. As for the latter philosopher, he has carried his Anti-Optimism to the extremes of Pessimism.