CHAPTER VII.

PROXIMATE CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AFTER THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Recapitulation of preceding views 323

Difference between certainty and precision 324-326

The intellect of France began to attack the state about 1750 326-327

Rise of the political economists 327-330

Influence of Rousseau 330-331

Just at the same time the government began to attack the church 332-334

And to favour religious toleration 334-336

Abolition of the Jesuits 336-346

Calvinism is democratic; Arminianism is aristocratic 339-342

Jansenism being allied to Calvinism, its revival in France aided the democratic movement, and secured the overthrow of the Jesuits, whose doctrines are Arminian 343-345

After the fall of the Jesuits the ruin of the French clergy was inevitable 347-348

But was averted for a time by the most eminent Frenchmen directing their hostility against the state rather than against the church 349-351

Connexion between this movement and the rise of atheism 351-353

Same tendency exhibited in Helvétius 353-357

And in Condillac 357-360

The ablest Frenchmen concentrate their attention on the external world 360-361

Effects of this on the sciences of heat, light, and electricit 361-363

Also on chemistry and geology 364-373

In England during the same period there was a dearth of great thinkers 374-375

But in France immense impetus was given to zoology by Cuvier and Bichat 375-376

Bichat's views respecting the tissues 377-421

Connexion between these views and subsequent discoveries 383-386

Relation between inventions, discoveries, and method; and immense importance of Bichat's method 386-389

Bichat's work on life 390-395

Great and successful efforts made by the French in Botany 395-399

And in mineralogy by De Lisle and Haüy 399-403

Analogy between this and Pinel's work on insanity 403-404

All these vast results were part of the causes of the French Revolution 405

Physical science is essentially democratic 406-410

The same democratic tendency was observable in changes of dress 410-412

And in the establishment of clubs 412-415

Influence of the American Rebellion 415-418

Summary of the causes of the French Revolution 418-420

General reflections 420-424