Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:86 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY he solved the problem of his own existence, this picture of an erudite scholar systematically and unemotionally peeling off the foibles of the learned world as the only solution for the perplexing problems of the life, seems credible and direct. Since the essay presenting it is brilliantly written, with some of Bayle's own penetrating analyses, we can be sure that it will have its day in court. Is it out of place to announce with this review that the Soc/$tg Arigdoise des science, lettres, e$ arts has purchased the house where Bayle was born at Carla-Bayle, and plans to make it into a monument-museumhonoring the philosopher? The house is in bad repair and there is a great need for funds; gifts of any size may be sent to the Socigtd, C.C.P. Toulouse 114-19, France. I presume that they are deductible. JoH~ B. WOLF University o] Illinois, Chicago Circle Entretiens sur les sciences. By Bernard Lamy. Edition critique pr~sent~e par FranCois Girbal & Pierre Clair. (u 5 of the series Le mouvement des idJes au XVII ~ si~cle) (Paris, 1966.Pp. 448. F 36.--) Father Bernard Lamy, 1640-1715, an Oratorian who was a contemporary of Malebranche, wrote his Entreticns sur les sciences not for the savants but for young gentlemen of the time who might have wanted to enter into the intellectual world. The work was first written be= tween 1676-80, and published by 1684. It developed through three stages in Lamy's lifetime, and was a popular exposition of modem learning throughout the eighteenth century. (It was last published in French in 1768, and in Spanish in 1800.) Drs. Clair and Girbal have provided a most useful edition of this minor classic, giving the variants from the different versions done by Lamy. The editors, who know the Oratorian and Jansenist currents of the time well, have included lots of informative notes. In these they have stressed the possible influence of Lamy's text on two of its important readers, Montesquieu and Rousseau, providing many clues to be followed out. The editors have also republished in their introduction the original review of Lamy's work by Pierre Bayle from the Nouvells de la R$publique des Lettres of August, 1684. The Entretien8 should be of interest to anyone concerned with late seventeenth-century thought. Although Lamy was not a particularly original thinker, his presentation of what was known provides an important picture of the world of learning of his time. Lamy was a Malebranchist first of all, tremendously impressed by the metaphysics and epistemology of his colleague, by the relevance of this philosophy to mathematical and scientific studies, and by the religious orientation of Malebranche's scientific thought. Lamy was also a Cartesian with re= gard to method and logic, greatly influenced by Amauld's and Nicole's Port-Royal Logic. But Lamy was also an eclectic who saw merit in the empirical work of his time, admiring Gassendi's efforts as well as those of Galileo, Boyle and of the Royal Society. For Lamy there should be no conflict between science and religion. A good deal of the Entreticns is devoted to explaining what mathematics and the sciences are about, and how they should be studied. Lamy was a great advocate and popularizer of the 'new science', the mechanistic approach from Galileo down to Malebranche and Newton. For him scientific study should lead to a better understanding of the Divine World. "Nous lotions la Science... lots qu'elle est plac6es dans une gme qui aime Dieu, qui est la v6rit6, & par consequent le v6ritable objet de la Science" (p. 47). In a world in which it is alleged that science was at war with religion, Lamy along with his hero Malebranche, and the philosophical Jansenists, sought not only for a harmony of the 'new science' and a Christian world view, but for the religious use of this science in a religious understanding of the world. Lamy's presentation, in an unexciting dialogue form, reveals many interesting facets of both his own outlook as well as of that of his contemporaries. Lamy's Cartesian methodology clearly shows the...