Pierre Bayle

"The appearance of this comet caused so many panicked inquiries to be made of Pierre Bayle, one of the Enlightenment's greatest thinkers, that he decided to formally respond to them, hence the present work, which first appeared in 1682. The book's principle task was to undermine the influence of "superstition" in political life, and it was here that Bayle made the notorious suggestion, unique in the history of political thought until then, that a decent society of atheists is possible in principle. There is no other English translation of this book in print - the only other version was printed in 1708. This translation is based on a recently revised critical edition of the complete French text and includes a substantial interpretive essay that both elucidates the arguments of the work and indicates the importance of Bayle in the history of the modern Enlightenment."--BOOK JACKET.

"Pierre Bayle was one of the most important sceptical thinkers of the seventeenth century. His work was a major influence on the development of the ideas of Voltaire, Hume, Montesquieu and Rousseau. Sally L. Jenkinson's new edition presents the reader with a coherent path through Bayle's monumental work. This is the first volume in English to select political writings from Bayle's work and to present its author as a specifically political thinker. Sally L. Jenkinson's translation will be welcomed by scholars and students of the history of ideas, political theory, cultural history and French studies."--Jacket.

Book digitized by Google from the library of Oxford University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.