initiative force in the literature of English deism, which began to
be translated after 1740, [1290] and was widely circulated till, in
the last third of the century, it was superseded by the French. The
English answers to the deists were frequently translated likewise,
and notoriously helped to promote deism [1291]--another proof that
it was not their influence that had changed the balance of activity
in England. Under a freethinking king, even clergymen began guardedly
to accept the deistic methods; and the optimism of Shaftesbury began
to overlay the optimism of Leibnitz; [1292] while a French scientific
influence began with La Mettrie, [1293] Maupertuis, and Robinet. Even
the Leibnitzian school, proceeding on the principle of immortal
monads, developed a doctrine of the immortality of the souls of animals
[1294]--a position not helpful to orthodoxy. There was thus a general
stirring of doubt among educated people, [1295] and we find mention
in Goethe's Autobiography of an old gentleman of Frankfort who avowed,
as against the optimists, "Even in God I find defects (Fehler)." [1296]
On the other hand, there were instances in Germany of the phenomenon,
already seen in England in Newton and Boyle, of men of science
devoting themselves to the defence of the faith. The most notable
cases were those of the mathematician Euler and the biologist von
Haller. The latter wrote Letters (to his Daughter) On the most
important Truths of Revelation (1772) [1297] and other apologetic
works. Euler in 1747 published at Berlin, where he was professor,
his Defence of Revelation against the Reproaches of Freethinkers;
[1298] and in 1769 his Letters to a German Princess, of which the
argument notably coincides with part of that of Berkeley against
the freethinking mathematicians. Haller's position comes to the same
thing. All three men, in fact, grasped at the argument of despair--the
inadequacy of the human faculties to sound the mystery of things;
and all alike were entirely unable to see that it logically cancelled
their own judgments. Even a theologian, contemplating Haller's theorem
of an incomprehensible omnipotence countered in its merciful plan
of salvation by the set of worms it sought to save, comments on the
childishness of the philosophy which confidently described the plans
of deity in terms of what it declared to be the blank ignorance of
the worms in question. [1299] Euler and Haller, like some later men of
science, kept their scientific method for the mechanical or physical
problems of their scientific work, and brought to the deepest problems
of all the self-will, the emotionalism, and the irresponsibility of
the ignorant average man. Each did but express in his own way the
resentment of the undisciplined mind at attacks upon its prejudices;
and Haller's resort to poetry as a vehicle for his religion gives the
measure of his powers on that side. Thus in Germany as in England the
"answer" to the freethinkers was a failure. Men of science playing
at theology and theologians playing at science alike failed to turn
the tide of opinion, now socially favoured by the known deism of the
king. German orthodoxy, says a recent Christian apologist, fell "with
a rapidity reminding one of the capture of Jericho." [1300] Goethe,
writing of the general attitude to Christianity about 1768, sums up
that "the Christian religion wavered between its own historic-positive
base and a pure deism, which, grounded on morality, was in turn to
re-establish ethics." [1301]
Frederick's attitude, said an early Kantian, had had "an almost
magical influence" on popular opinion (Willich, Elements of the
Critical Philosophy, 1798, p. 2). With this his French teachers
must have had much to do. Lord Morley pronounces (Voltaire,
4th ed. p. 123) that French deism "never made any impression on
Germany," and that "the teaching of Leibnitz and Wolff stood like a
fortified wall against the French invasion." This is contradicted
by much German testimony; in particular by Lange's (Gesch. des
Mater. i, 318), though he notes that French materialism could not
get the upper hand. Laukhard, who expressed the highest admiration
for Tindal, as having wholly delivered him from dogmatism, avowed
that Voltaire, whom everybody read, had perhaps done more harm
to priest religion than all the books of the English and German
deists together (Leben, 1792-1802, Th. i, p. 268).
Tholuck gravely affirms (Abriss, p. 33) that the acquaintance
with the French "deistery and frivolity" in Germany belongs to
a "somewhat later period than that of the English." Naturally
it did. The bulk of the English deistic literature was printed
before the printing of the French had begun! French MSS. would
reach German princes, but not German pastors. But Tholuck sadly
avows that the French deism (of the serious and pre-Voltairean
portions of which he seems to have known nothing) had a
"frightful" influence on the upper classes, though not on the
clergy (p. 34). Following him, Kahnis writes (Internal History,
p. 41) that "English and French Deism met with a very favourable
reception in Germany--the latter chiefly in the higher circles,
the former rather among the educated middle classes." (He
should have added, "the younger theologians.") Baur, even
in speaking disparagingly of the French as compared with the
English influence, admits (Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 2te
Aufl. p. 347) that the former told upon Germany. Cp. Tennemann,
Bohn. tr. pp. 385, 388. Hagenbach shows great ignorance of English
deism, but he must have known something of German; and he writes
(tr. p. 57) that "the imported deism," both English and French,
"soon swept through the rifts of the Church, and gained supreme
control of literature." Cp. pp. 67-68. See Croom Robertson's
Hobbes, pp. 225-26, as to the persistence of a succession of
Hobbes and Locke in Germany in the teeth of the Wolffian school,
which soon lost ground after 1740. It is further noteworthy that
Brucker's copious Historia Critica Philosophiæ (1742-44), which as
a mere learned record has great merit, and was long the standard
authority in Germany, gives great praise to Locke and little space
to Wolff. (See Enfield's abstract, pp. 614, 619 sq.) The Wolffian
philosophy, too, had been rejected and disparaged by both Herder
and Kant--who were alike deeply influenced by Rousseau--in the
third quarter of the century; and was generally discredited,
save in the schools, when Kant produced the Critique of Pure
Reason. See below, pp. 337, 345.