Natural Disasters and the Debate on the Unity or Plurality

of Enlightenments

Nathaniel Wolloch

The Eighteenth Century, Volume 57, Number 3, Fall 2016, pp. 325-342 (Article)

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ecy.2016.0021

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https://muse.jhu.edu/article/635602

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 Natural Disasters and the Debate on the Unity
or Plurality of Enlightenments

Nathaniel Wolloch
Tel Aviv University

When Alexander Pope wrote his famous Epitaph Intended for Sir Isaac Newton
(ca. 1730)—­“Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night, / God said, Let New-
ton be! and all was light”—­he was voicing one of the main credos of the En-
lightenment, building on the legacy of the Scientific Revolution—­that human
beings were capable of mastering nature and harnessing it for their benefit.1 At
the same time, in his Essay on Man (1733–34), Pope was also wary of human
pride and presumption. The ability to control nature was limited, and in the
face of providentially ordained unmanageable forces, the best approach was
acquiescence, since “One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.”2 In the second
half of the eighteenth century this Leibnizian optimism was to be severely chal-
lenged, particularly following the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon and Voltaire’s fa-
mous poem quickly written in reaction. This was followed by one of the most
significant intellectual debates of the Enlightenment, with Jean-­Jacques Rous-
seau, in his “Letter on Optimism” (1756), espousing a persistent belief in the
overall benignity of providentially ordained nature, and Voltaire clinging to
his pessimism, eventually giving it voice in Candide (1759).3 Nevertheless, in
their approach to natural disasters as manifested by the Lisbon earthquake,
both seemed to share the basic Enlightenment belief that it was primarily the
human reaction to natural occurrences rather than these occurrences in them-
selves, which influenced the fate of human beings. This was true specifically
in cases when natural disasters overpowered what, by the eighteenth century,
seemed an ever-­increasing ability to control nature.
Humanity’s relationship with nature was therefore ambivalent—­on the one
hand, it was premised on ever-­increasing mastery and manipulation, yet on the
other hand, every once in a while, nature reminded human beings, mainly in
the form of natural disasters, that their power over it was limited. For Enlight-
enment intellectuals this posed a challenge—­were the ideals of the Enlighten-
ment, and its belief in the power of human reason, a sufficient basis for the

The Eighteenth Century, vol. 57, no. 3 Copyright © 2016 University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

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 326 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

ultimate triumph not only over nature, but more importantly, over human so-
cial failings? Most eighteenth-­century savants recognized the limits of human
power, yet maintained a persistent belief in furthering it to the greatest extent
possible. While some were willing to accept at least a partial role for the tradi-
tional belief in providential intervention, and in the portentous aspect of recal-
citrant nature, it seems that the majority insisted that a modern enlightened
approach to natural disasters had to be rational and secular. This outlook was
shared by both the moderates and the radicals of the Enlightenment. Discuss-
ing the Enlightenment view of natural disasters can therefore help elucidate the
issue of the difference between the Moderate and the Radical Enlightenments.
One prominent example of the Moderate Enlightenment was Adam Smith,
who evinced his skepticism regarding a superstitious attitude toward nature
when he wrote about Livy’s tales of Roman belief in portents: “But that which
is the peculiar excellency of Livy’s Stile is the Grandeur and majesty which he
maintains thro’ the whole of his works. . . . Tis probably to keep up this gravity,
that he pays so much attention to the ceremonies of Religion and the omens and
Portents, which he never omitts. For it is not to be supposed that he had any
belief in them himself in an age when the vulgar Religion was altogether dis-
regarded except as a Politicall Institution by the wiser Sort.”4 Elsewhere, Smith
famously utilized the example of a putative devastating earthquake in China as
the premise for his belief in human morality—­while human beings invariably
would be more troubled by the knowledge that they were about to lose a finger
than on hearing that millions had perished in a distant earthquake, not even
the most immoral person, given the choice, would decline to sacrifice this fin-
ger to save all those people.5 The significance of human reaction was manifest
precisely in those cases where human command of the natural environment
reached its limit. This was not dissimilar to Voltaire’s reaction, although Smith
seemed more optimistic. Both found no use in the traditional religious view of
nature. For Voltaire the best reaction was to tend to one’s garden, for Smith it
rather meant finding a purpose in the social fabric of human existence.
Voltaire and Smith were prominent figures of the Moderate Enlightenment,
yet the Radical Enlightenment approach to nature was similar. In one of the
foundational texts of the latter, the Tractatus Theologico-­Politicus (1670), Baruch
Spinoza clearly stated: “To what lengths will the folly of the multitude not carry
them? They have no sound conception either of God or of Nature, they con-
fuse God’s decisions with human decisions, and they imagine Nature to be so
limited that they believe man to be its chief part.”6 While this did not directly
address natural disasters, it criticized the basic assumption of portentous at-
titudes toward these, as toward nature in general. The idea that God would,
through the agency of nature, intervene in human occurrences, was perceived
as a form of superstition. The radical approach, however, though usually con-
sistent, included different outlooks. For example, in what seemed probably a
straightforward rather than ironic assertion, the radical and thoroughly rational

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 WOLLOCH—­NATURAL DISASTERS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS 327

Neapolitan historian Pietro Giannone described the eruption of Mount Vesuvius

in 1631, noting how the wind drove away the poisonous exhalations after heaven
was “pacified by the publick Penances.”7 Subsequently, however, the more com-
mon and outspoken radical approach was espoused by the revolutionary phi-
losopher Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney, who claimed that
while nature’s laws were constant, human conduct was not. Disasters such as
famine or pestilence were not providentially ordained, but rather resulted from
human actions, and therefore human beings were directly responsible for their
own condition.8 The Abbé Raynal, another radical, similarly claimed that natural
calamities such as crashing meteorites, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions insti-
gated superstitious beliefs. They “excite and keep up terror in the minds of men.
This terror has been diffused, and received the sanction of every system of super-
stition.”9 The radicals, therefore, in most cases regarded natural disasters as exam-
ples of how human failings exacerbated what, given a more enlightened society,
might have been less calamitous consequences. Other differences notwithstand-
ing, this does not seem prima facie a different approach than that of the moderates.
Does this similarity indicate a broader affinity between these different mani-
festations of the Enlightenment? In recent years, scholars have been consistently
concerned whether or not the Enlightenment was a unified phenomenon. A de-
tailed survey of this debate is beyond the scope of the present discussion, but
it could be said that most scholars in the past generation have tended toward
a view of a plurality of Enlightenments, in place of the more traditional grand
narrative of a monolithic European Enlightenment. Some, however, have per-
sisted, though in a more updated and nuanced manner, to insist on the unified
interpretation. One prominent example is John Robertson, who has depicted
the shared interests and influences between the Italian and Scottish Enlighten-
ments.10 A different approach, which will be of more interest here, has been
painstakingly outlined in recent years by Jonathan Israel.11 In his volumes on
the intellectual history of the Enlightenment, Israel has opted for a more expan-
sive chronological interpretation of the Enlightenment as spanning the long
eighteenth century, rather than the more restricted timespan of Robertson’s
survey. Israel has also differentiated sharply between the levels of commitment
to Enlightenment ideals among eighteenth-­century intellectuals. Both scholars,
however, have gone against the predominant current advocating a plurality of
Enlightenments, espousing instead a pan-­European view of the Enlightenment.
The opposite interpretation has been outlined with particular sophistication
by J. G. A. Pocock, who has written: “There is no single or unifiable phenom-
enon describable as ‘the Enlightenment,’ but it is the definite article rather than
the noun which is to be avoided.” According to Pocock the meanings of the
term “Enlightenment” constantly shift. Referring to the Enlightenment is an
unavoidable but regrettable reification, and the use of qualifying adjectives is
the reminder “that the keyword ‘Enlightenment’ is ours to use and should not
master us.”12 Pocock has devoted particular attention to the British Enlight-

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 328 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

enment in general, and the English Enlightenment in particular, emphasizing

figures such as Smith and Edward Gibbon. He has depicted these as part of the
“Conservative Enlightenment,” in effect a Protestant Enlightenment actuated
by an attempt to avoid religious enthusiasm, both Catholic and even more so
Puritan. The latter was blamed as a principal cause of the English civil war, fear
of which was a prime motivator of this form of Enlightenment. Fear of enthusi-
asm also extended to libertine extremism, and the Conservative Enlightenment
was therefore expectedly articulated by the intellectual elite, including the uni-
versity and the clerical establishments. As an antidote to enthusiasm, it posited
the furtherance of civility and politeness, manifested in increasing commercial
relations between people and nations.13 Pocock’s Conservative Enlightenment
is therefore a particular case of the Moderate Enlightenment, and according
to him should not be equated with the Radical Enlightenment, nor with most
manifestations of the Enlightenment in predominantly Catholic countries such
as France. Throughout, Pocock’s interpretation is based on sensitivity toward
the specific historical contexts in which different manifestations of the Enlight-
enment developed, an approach to intellectual history which he has famously
championed for many years.
According to Israel, however, there is no plurality of Enlightenments, but
rather different manifestations of the same phenomenon divided according
to their level of adherence to commonly recognized characteristics of the En-
lightenment. He recognizes three main strands in eighteenth-­century intellec-
tual culture—­the Moderate Enlightenment, the Radical Enlightenment, and
the Counter Enlightenment. These were pan-­European, and therefore not dif-
ferentiated along Pocock’s contextual lines. Of these forms of Enlightenment
the radical, rooted in late seventeenth-­century Spinozism, served as the main
conduit for what eventually became modern tolerant, liberal, and egalitarian
democracy. This is a generally convincing and amply argued thesis, present-
ing the Enlightenment in a unified, or semi-­unified, manner. In what follows I
would, however, like to suggest a corrective to Israel’s interpretation which, if
anything, would tend to emphasize even more the unity of the Enlightenment.
What seems less convincing in Israel’s approach is the insistence on the sec-
ondary importance of Moderate Enlightenment figures such as Charles-­Louis
de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, David Hume, Smith, Gib-
bon, and others. Israel does not deny their prominence, but he does suggest that
they were less important than radical thinkers in promoting modern democratic
ideals, and occasionally even opposed democracy. He sees the Enlightenment as
“a partly unitary phenomenon.”14 The Radical Enlightenment was committed to
the betterment of humanity by a revolutionary process—­first the overthrowing
of the past in ideas, and then in the practical realm. Nevertheless, in certain in-
stances political revolution could come first. As Israel puts it, “All Enlightenment
by definition is closely linked to revolution.” The Moderate Enlightenment, on
the other hand, adopted a more practical approach, compromising with tradi-

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 WOLLOCH—­NATURAL DISASTERS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS 329

tion and political authority, and occasionally even with the common providen-
tial religious outlook.15 The rift between the moderates and radicals explained
their differing reactions to the French Revolution. The “real revolution” resulted
from the attempt to implement the ideals of the Radical Enlightenment. These
were betrayed during the Terror by Maximilien Robespierre and his followers,
and after a brief reprise, the revolution finally ended with the rise of Napoleon
Bonaparte. Yet ultimately the main cause of the revolution was an intellectual
one, following the radical proponents of republican democracy.16 For many
moderates, on the other hand, not least the British and French such as Voltaire,
Montesquieu, Hume, Smith, Edmund Burke, and others, the truly significant
revolution had been that of 1688, and those of them who lived to see 1789 re-
acted accordingly, refusing to see the French Revolution as the apotheosis of the
Enlightenment.17 Eighteenth-­century society was predominantly religious, and
anti-­religious opinions were usually expressed only privately. Thus a moderate
like Montesquieu, initially attacked from both conservative and radical sides,
became acceptable among conservatives toward the end of the century.18 Fur-
thermore, the moderates regarded the masses as incapable of comprehending
philosophical Enlightenment, and thus did not promote enlightened education
for all. By the 1780s, the Moderate Enlightenment had failed in its social and po-
litical reforms, and was replaced by the Counter Enlightenment as the mainstay
of social conservatism.19 Israel thus depicts the Enlightenment not as completely
unified, yet nevertheless as centering around one specific philosophical-­political
position, most clearly followed by the Radical Enlightenment.
Where the moderates differed from the radicals, as Israel continually em-
phasizes, is in not accepting the democratic political implications of this cul-
tural program. Nevertheless, he exaggerates in undervaluing the shared basic
outlook common to the majority of prominent eighteenth-­century enlightened
intellectuals. The Radical Enlightenment did indeed outline some of the lofti-
est aspirations of modern civilization. Yet as Israel himself is amply aware,
many of these aspirations were then, and still remain now, regrettably only
partially fulfilled. Furthermore, when considering the Enlightenment strictly
as a historical phenomenon, its more moderate manifestations were more pre-
dominant than its radical ones, a fact which even Israel himself concedes, at
least regarding developments prior to the late eighteenth century. Therefore,
any discussion of the Enlightenment by default should designate primarily the
Moderate Enlightenment. Qualification is required only when dealing with the
Radical Enlightenment, or with the opposition of the Counter Enlightenment.
The Radical Enlightenment may have aimed higher, yet the Moderate Enlight-
enment hit the mark more often.
To substantiate this claim, we will return to the issue of natural disasters.
This might seem an inauspicious starting point for a general discussion about
the nature of the Enlightenment, but in fact it demonstrates many of the key
relevant issues. We will do so mainly by taking a brief look at one significant

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 330 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

figure of the Moderate Enlightenment—­Gibbon. Israel quite rightly perceives

Gibbon as a representative of the Moderate Enlightenment, and consequently
(though unjustifiably) devotes him little attention.20 Gibbon’s conservative po-
litical beliefs are well known and need not detain us here. His approach to the
study of history, on the other hand, was a veritable scholarly revolution (I use
this term precisely to answer Israel’s insistence on the revolutionary compo-
nent of the Enlightenment), heralding modern historiography. Moreover, his
insistence on discussing religious phenomena in a rational and often caustic
manner was also actuated by an enlightened outlook, despite his conservative
leanings, and drew significant attention during his lifetime, much of it equat-
ing him, to his consternation, with contemporaneous radicals. A combination
of both growing hermeneutic sophistication and philosophical criticism was in
any case a mainstay of eighteenth-­century historiography. Gibbon and other
Enlightenment historians applied reason to historiography both as a measure
by which to critically examine sources, and as a criterion by which to judge the
morality or immorality of historical phenomena.21
One of the most oft-­debated and still unresolved aspects of Gibbon’s thought
remains his attitude toward religion.22 This is vital to understanding his atti-
tude toward natural disasters. Significant recent contributions to the study of
his view of religion have been made by Pocock and by David Womersley.23
In his recent book on this topic, Pocock has questioned the claim that Gibbon
regarded Christianity as a central cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.24 Ac-
cording to Pocock’s perspective, it is unclear to what extent Gibbon aimed his
criticism at Christianity in general, not just at certain occurrences in ecclesiasti-
cal history. Consequently, the traditional view of Gibbon as a straightforward
critic of Christianity is questionable.25 Gibbon devoted most of his attention to
those aspects of the rise and influence of Christianity which were amenable
to strict historical examination, and he dealt with theological issues mostly at
the level of innuendo. Pocock implies that Gibbon evidently did not believe in
the traditional religious narrative, yet with Humean skepticism he suspended
judgment on this issue, and this irreligious perspective did not seriously impact
his historical work. His silence on matters of sacred history was critically inter-
preted as irreligion by some conservative contemporaries.26 Gibbon’s relatively
more direct treatment of matters of faith, for example in chapters 20 and 21 of
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–89) also retained this
overall approach. In typical Enlightenment fashion, Gibbon regarded Christian
theology as a debate beyond human comprehension, though he did not mock
it as Voltaire did.27 Pocock regards Gibbon not as a deist but as a skeptic, an un-
believer but not a “Spinozistic” atheist, and thus as belonging to the Moderate
Enlightenment.28 Pocock also claims that had Gibbon discussed the abuses of
the Christian church in a later era than that examined in the famous fifteenth
and sixteenth chapters, his claims would have been accepted less critically by
protestant readers. Yet by the time he turned to a historical discussion of the

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 WOLLOCH—­NATURAL DISASTERS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS 331

clergy in later volumes of The Decline and Fall, his popular image overshadowed
his historiographical endeavor.29
The discrepancy between Gibbon’s popular image as a nonbeliever and
his actual discussions of religion has also been addressed by Womersley, who
has noted that Gibbon’s public attitude toward religion, whatever his actual
opinions (probably skeptical), was influenced by his quest for literary fame.
Initially provocative, once he encountered the hostile religious criticism of the
first volume of The Decline and Fall, he took great care in the following volumes,
in occasionally subtle ways, to avoid excessive irreverence. Nevertheless, he
was never able to erase this public image of himself, and later found to his great
consternation that he was being accused of contributing to the French Revolu-
tion.30 It is interesting to note here that Israel mentions Gibbon’s well-­known
autobiographical claim to have been shocked, when visiting Paris, by the in-
tolerant atheism of the philosophes.31 Yet this was the older Gibbon attempting
to revise his public image and distance himself from the radicals. In his actual
journal of this visit, however, he in fact had not criticized the philosophes at all.32
Similarly, though Gibbon was no doubt a political conservative, in this respect
too his early attitude seems to have been relatively more radical, and his con-
servatism intensified gradually, particularly after 1789. Thus, a quarter century
earlier he seemed almost contemptuous of aristocrats, writing in his journal of
the royalty he had seen that he “had looked on them with the same indiffer-
ence as on the pettiest bourgeoisie.”33 Therefore, Israel’s reliance on Gibbon’s
autobiographical statements as a measure of his commitment to Enlightenment
ideals is insufficient.
That said, Gibbon’s attitude toward religion, as evinced by the discussions
of both Pocock and Womersley, places him clearly within the mainstream of the
Moderate Enlightenment, and thus in line with Israel’s general interpretation of
his views. On the other hand, one of Gibbon’s most original contributions was
evident in his adherence to self-­imposed exacting criteria for evaluating histori-
cal topics, including certain aspects of religious superstition which received his
constant disapproval. Such criticism was of course common in the Moderate
Enlightenment, yet what distinguished Gibbon’s approach was the anchoring
of this criticism in historiography. The possible enlightening potential of his-
torical writing, specifically in criticizing past injustices, was premised on the
historian’s conscientious adherence to the truth, arrived at by uncompromising
professionalism.34 The application of a rational approach to the study of history
had preoccupied Gibbon for many years. In one of his early journals he wrote
straightforwardly: “In the search for historical truth, we must consider the au-
thority and the plausibility, the character of the author himself and of the events
which he relates.”35 In other words, the historian had to be rationally attuned
to the subjective aspects of historical sources. Nevertheless, there was also a
significant subjective aspect to Gibbon’s own historiography.36 It was here that
Gibbon’s Enlightenment agenda superseded the requirements for objectivity.

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 332 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

While still a young man Gibbon had claimed that the historian, particularly of
a great personage, could be excused for manipulating incommodious facts—­
“But while moving away from the truth, he still respects it; he only distances
himself from it regretfully; he permits himself only mild errors, insensible and
necessary.”37 Simply recording historical facts was insufficient. More important
was the historian’s duty to promote the enlightenment of humanity, and to
criticize past occurrences and figures, mainly when they had acted cruelly or
promoted superstition and despotism. In a similar tone, Gibbon’s contempo-
rary William Robertson, another figure of the Moderate Enlightenment, wrote
of “that indignation which became an historian.”38
Both these aspects of Gibbon’s scholarship—­his rational investigation of
sources and his criticism of past immorality—­were evident in his criticism of
religious superstition. Here precisely Gibbon’s Moderate Enlightenment intel-
lectual approach contrasts with Israel’s claims. This is particularly evident re-
garding Gibbon’s consideration of natural disasters. Scholars have long been
aware of the Enlightenment discussion of natural disasters, principally, as
noted above, following the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and Voltaire’s famous reac-
tion to it. Yet, as Gibbon’s example proves, this preoccupation was much more
wide ranging.39 According to Israel eighteenth-­century attitudes toward natural
disasters clearly exemplified the discrepancies between the different types of
Enlightenment. There were only three possible approaches to this issue—­either
natural disasters arose purely from natural causes (the Radical Enlightenment
approach), or they were divinely ordained, with no natural cause whatsoever
(the Counter Enlightenment approach), or they occasionally occurred because
of natural causes, and at other times due to divine intervention (the Moderate
Enlightenment approach). The latter approach was most common, but also the
least consistent philosophically, but in any event there was no option outside
of these three very specific possibilities. Israel is quite categorical on this point,
writing: “Between these three irreconcilable positions no compromise was pos-
sible, philosophically, theologically, or scientifically. There was no spectrum of
intermediate positions; and of the three, the moderate mainstream certainly
had to work hardest to sound coherent.”40
Nevertheless, when we examine Gibbon’s position regarding natural di-
sasters, Israel’s claim seems unconvincing. Gibbon perhaps did not state out-
right that divine explanations of natural disasters were completely erroneous,
but he did discuss them in emphatically skeptical fashion. He considered it
important to examine the history of theological ideas even when he did not
personally believe in them. As Pocock has noted, he did so in the tradition of
Pierre Bayle and others, “who had found that the way to disarm belief was not
to annihilate it but to relativise it.”41 In repeated ironical innuendos, Gibbon
left no doubt that he regarded a superstitious approach to natural disasters as
symptomatic of cultural debility. The question whether natural disasters were
caused by divine or natural causes (and the latter seemed the obvious explana-

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 WOLLOCH—­NATURAL DISASTERS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS 333

tion) was in fact not particularly important. What was important was that a
superstitious approach to such disasters was practically harmful, and therefore
unenlightened. Gibbon gave full vent to this viewpoint in several passages in
The Decline and Fall. In a detailed discussion of the comets, earthquakes, and
plague in the age of Justinian, he unequivocally emphasized naturalistic expla-
nations, influenced by the natural history researches of contemporaries such as
Georges-­Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, one of his favorite authors.42 Volcanic
eruptions and earthquakes were

caused by subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled by the union and fer-
mentation of iron and sulphur. But their times and effects appear to lie beyond
the reach of human curiosity, and the philosopher will discreetly abstain from the
prediction of earthquakes, till he has counted the drops of water that silently fil-
trate on the inflammable mineral, and measured the caverns which encrease by
resistance the explosion of the imprisoned air. Without assigning the cause, his-
tory will distinguish the periods in which these calamitous events have been rare
or frequent, and will observe, that this fever of the earth raged with uncommon
violence during the reign of Justinian.43

Similarly, the gradual physical destruction of the city of Rome had been
caused among other reasons by natural disasters, particularly inundations
and fires, and these too Gibbon explained as resulting from natural forces,
without resorting to any divine agency.44 These two discussions appeared
in the fourth and sixth volumes of The Decline and Fall respectively, both
published in 1788. In the earlier volumes Gibbon had allowed himself more
licence in insinuating criticism of superstitious accounts of natural disas-
ters. In the first volume he discussed the great plague of 250–65 A.D. as
resulting mainly from natural causes, even if he did not categorically deny
a divine element: “Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the order of the
universe with the fate of man, that this gloomy period of history has been
decorated with inundations, earthquakes, uncommon meteors, preternatu-
ral darkness, and a crowd of prodigies fictitious or exaggerated.” If exag-
gerated then perhaps they might still be valid to some extent? Nothing in
Gibbon’s approach suggests that this was more than ironic innuendo. And
he immediately continued: “But a long and general famine was a calam-
ity of a more serious kind. It was the inevitable consequence of rapine and
oppression, which extirpated the produce of the present, and the hope of
future harvests. Famine is almost always followed by epidemical diseases,
the effect of scanty and unwholesome food.”45 The truly devastating conse-
quences of natural disasters were the result of superstition and oppression,
in other words of the lack of Enlightenment. In the second volume of The
Decline and Fall, Gibbon let loose his ironical criticism as he discussed the
massive earthquakes that occurred in 365 A.D.:

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 334 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

This calamity, the report of which was magnified from one province to another,
astonished and terrified the subjects of Rome; and their affrighted imagination
enlarged the real extent of a momentary evil. They recollected the preceding earth-
quakes, which had subverted the cities of Palestine and Bithynia: they considered
these alarming strokes as the prelude only of still more dreadful calamities, and
their fearful vanity was disposed to confound the symptoms of a declining empire,
and a sinking world. It was the fashion of the times, to attribute every remarkable
event to the particular will of the Deity; the alterations of nature were connected,
by an invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical opinions of the human
mind; and the most sagacious divines could distinguish, according to the colour
of their respective prejudices, that the establishment of heresy tended to produce
an earthquake; or that a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the progress of
sin and error. Without presuming to discuss the truth or propriety of these lofty
speculations, the historian may content himself with an observation, which seems
to be justified by experience, that man has much more to fear from the passions of
his fellow-­creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements. The mischievous
effects of an earthquake, or deluge, a hurricane, or the eruption of a volcano, bear
a very inconsiderable proportion to the ordinary calamities of war; as they are now
moderated by the prudence or humanity of the princes of Europe, who amuse
their own leisure, and exercise the courage of their subjects, in the practice of the
military art.46

Religious attitudes toward natural disasters were perhaps “lofty speculations,”

but anyone attuned to Gibbon’s irony should realize the derisive import of this
expression. His approach to natural disasters was clearly rational and scien-
tific, devoid of any divine agency. Moreover, religious superstition and political
despotism, as so often in both Moderate and Radical Enlightenment discourse,
were here intertwined. According to Israel’s categorical assertions Gibbon’s
approach to natural disasters should situate him squarely within the camp of
the Radical Enlightenment, yet as Israel rightly perceives, Gibbon was a mod-
erate. This should not necessarily undermine Israel’s whole argument, but it
does suggest that the lines dividing the Radical and Moderate Enlightenments
were not always as clear as he claims. The Moderate Enlightenment was often
much more comprehensive in its enunciation of Enlightenment ideals than he
suggests. This enlightened attitude often found expression in scholarly praxis.
One of the most significant legacies of the Enlightenment was its transforma-
tion of the scholarly and scientific spheres, particularly regarding what Hume
famously termed the “science of man.” The effect of this intellectual develop-
ment in shaping the modern world has been no less significant than political
revolutions, and often was inseparably intertwined with them. Of course, Israel
is clear that his concept of revolution includes the revolution of ideas, though
not always necessarily prior to actual political revolutions. Yet nonviolent revo-
lution of this type was indebted to the Moderate as much as to the Radical

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 WOLLOCH—­NATURAL DISASTERS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS 335

Enlightenment. Not just Gibbon in the field of historical scholarship, but others
such as Montesquieu in the field of nascent sociological and political research,
or Smith in political economy, had a profound impact in shaping the modern
democratic world.
Smith, in fact, is an interesting example, since his impact on the subsequent
shaping of modern democracies, via political economy, was clearly crucial. This
is a topic to which Israel devotes relatively little attention, perhaps because
he rightly considers it a contribution of the Moderate Enlightenment.47 Smith,
of course, has traditionally been associated with the formation of liberal eco-
nomics and the view of homo economicus attempting to maximize utility and
following self-­interest in a calculated manner. Yet, as Smith scholars are well
aware and recent scholarship has amply proved, Smith’s outlook was much
more sophisticated, and included an inherent ethical deliberation intertwined
with his political-­economic interests.48 While a detailed overview is beyond the
scope of the present discussion, it should be pointed out that Smith’s impact
on the rise of modern liberal free societies was to a large extent an unintended
consequence of his Moderate Enlightenment attempt to ameliorate the condi-
tion of the laboring class, and of Great Britain in general, by criticizing the ills of
unenlightened mercantilism, and advocating for such things as the importance
of public education. There is every reason to assume that Smith would have
frowned at the idea of complete democracy, as his friend Gibbon did. Smith
died in 1790 and did not get the chance (and perhaps did not wish) to com-
ment on the developments of the French Revolution. Like Gibbon, he aimed
at a fundamental change of society enacted through institutional reform, not
political revolution.
We have already seen that Smith, though perhaps less openly than Gibbon,
was critical of religious superstition like other Moderate Enlightenment figures,
and specifically criticized a superstitious and portentous attitude toward na-
ture. He did however recognize the significant role that this view of nature
had played in cultural history. In his History of Astronomy (ca. 1750) he noted
how early societies, when confronted with natural phenomena that they were
unable to explain in a logical and causal manner, reacted with wonder. This
was in fact a universal human propensity: “We wonder at all extraordinary
and uncommon objects, at all the rarer phaenomena of nature, at meteors, com-
ets, eclipses, at singular plants and animals, and at every thing, in short, with
which we have before been either little or not at all acquainted; and we still
wonder, though forewarned of what we are to see.”49 A portentous attitude to-
ward nature was the result of insufficient scientific understanding. Once, how-
ever, this scientific and causal understanding was attained, the human mind
regained its composure, and the tense sense of wonder at inexplicable nature
was dispelled.50 “Thus,” he writes, “the eclipses of the sun and moon, which
once, more than all the other appearances in the heavens, excited the terror and
amazement of mankind, seem now no longer to be wonderful, since the con-

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 336 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

necting chain has been found out which joins them to the ordinary course of
things.”51 Smith regarded this rise of scientific explanations of nature as a posi-
tive historical process. Systems of nature were to be discussed in accordance
with the extent to which they “fitted to sooth the imagination, and to render the
theatre of nature a more coherent, and therefore a more magnificent spectacle,
than otherwise it would have appeared to be.”52 Dispelling portentous and un-
scientific considerations toward nature was therefore, for Smith as for Gibbon,
a central aspect of the historical enlightenment of the human race. In a way,
it was an unintended consequence of natural phenomena that, though in the
short term were sometimes devastating, in the long term challenged human
comprehension, and provided a spur to philosophical and scientific progress,
and ultimately to social and political progress as well.
As we have already noted, the crucial role of Moderate Enlightenment fig-
ures such as Smith and Gibbon in shaping modern liberal democracy was to
a large extent unintended, and even contrary to their political beliefs (in the
case of Gibbon these beliefs are clear, in that of Smith somewhat less so). This
is in a way ironic, since, of course, the law of unintended consequences is a
central component of modern liberal ideology, underlining how the selfish mo-
tivations of individuals could be transformed into positive contributions at the
collective social level. From Bernard de Mandeville and Giambattista Vico, if
not earlier, through Smith’s Invisible Hand, to Friedrich Hegel’s cunning of
reason and on to Karl Marx, this was one of the most influential innovations of
the long eighteenth century.53 Yet it was primarily an innovation of Moderate
Enlightenment philosophers (Mandeville notwithstanding). This emphasizes
the fact that these, just as much as their radical counterparts, contributed to the
rise of modern democracy. Outcomes are here more significant than intentions.
Taking all this into account, Israel’s generalizing approach to the Enlighten-
ment in itself remains convincing. Nevertheless, if the aim is to single out the
most historically representative type of Enlightenment, the Moderate seems a
better candidate than the Radical. More caution is needed in emphasizing the
predominance of the Radical over the Moderate Enlightenment, in a fashion
that makes figures such as Gibbon all but marginal. Gibbon’s was a crucial con-
tribution to the development of modern rational modes of analyzing human
society.54 This was a central contribution of the Moderate as much as of the
Radical Enlightenment.55 That is not to say that Israel, and many other scholars,
have not given ample attention to scholarly developments. Israel specifically
recognizes reorganized academic knowledge as a vehicle for propagating En-
lightenment, although he emphasizes the Leibnizian-­Wolffian system in this
respect more than British and French intellectual developments. According to
Israel, the great scale of eighteenth-­century German academic culture, in which
this moderate philosophical system was continually preoccupied with refut-
ing Spinozism, was precisely what unintentionally contributed to propagating
radical ideas.56 This ironic unintended propagation of ideas would not, by the

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 WOLLOCH—­NATURAL DISASTERS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS 337

way, have surprised Gibbon.57 In any event, rising modern scholarly activity,
often undertaken by moderates such as Gibbon and Smith, was a subtle yet
influential means of changing cultural perceptions and revolutionizing minds,
in a manner quite different from more forthright political exclamations.
The one point which Israel proves conclusively is that the intentional further-
ing of democracy was the province of the radicals, not the moderates. Yet in
almost every other respect there was much more that united than separated the
Moderate and Radical Enlightenments. From Israel’s perspective, however, a
central figure such as Gibbon receives very little attention, in contrast with the
meticulous and nuanced study presented in recent years by Pocock.58 It seems
unjust to fault Israel for lacunae of this sort, which are bound to occur in such
a broad historical survey. In general, most of his assertions are convincing. The
claim that philosophical ideas, the “revolution of the mind,” when considered
in their social and economic context, were the prime engine of positive change
in the eighteenth century is one bound to appeal to intellectual historians. Yet
Israel’s insistence on clearly demarcating the difference between the Radical
and Moderate Enlightenments seems more problematic. The Moderate and
Radical Enlightenments shared many aims—­combating superstition and des-
potism, and advocating for greater rationality and tolerance—­though on the
question of democracy they were clearly divided. Nevertheless, they both ulti-
mately contributed to this latter aim—­the radicals intentionally, the moderates
unintentionally. Gibbon may have been abhorred by the French Revolution,
and by the radical impious image he had unintentionally gained for himself,
mainly through the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the Decline and Fall. Nev-
ertheless, he too was unintentionally part of the historical process that led to the
political implementation of enlightened ideas.
Much of the criticism that in recent years has been aimed at Israel’s inter-
pretation of the Enlightenment has tended to emphasize his approach as too
generalizing and unattuned to the nuances offered by greater sensitivity to the
multifaceted aspects of the Enlightenment. The criticism offered here is, how-
ever, different, claiming that the Enlightenment should be viewed in an even
more generalizing manner than that asserted by Israel. Even on the question
of democracy, if outcomes rather than intentions are considered, the Moder-
ate and Radical Enlightenments made similar contributions in the long, if not
in the short, run. Gibbon’s view of natural disasters is a clear example, as is
Smith’s view of portentous considerations of natural phenomena. Contrary to
Israel’s claim, these prove that the Moderate Enlightenment could demonstrate
opinions that according to his own criteria were inherently radical. Again, this
is not to say that there was no dividing line between these two manifestations
of the Enlightenment, only that it was occasionally more obfuscated than Israel
claims.
Much of the potency of the Enlightenment stems from the fact that it is not
only a historiographical topic, but also a cultural phenomenon that continues to

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 338 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

influence contemporary civilization. Nowadays the term “radical” in popular,

often pseudo-­intellectual discourse has gained completely different associa-
tions from those that historians identify with the eighteenth-­century Radical
Enlightenment. Precisely for this reason, Israel’s insistence on the moral pri-
macy of radical ideals risks being misinterpreted, intentionally or not, by those
aiming to promote radical agendas, whether from right or left, which have
nothing to do with a true Enlightenment vision as he perspicaciously depicts
it. It is doubtful whether most extremists today are willing or able to make the
distinction between a gradual and sustained revolution of the mind, and actual
violent political revolution.
Israel asserts that by the late eighteenth century the Moderate Enlighten-
ment failed in implementing significant social change and therefore became
marginalized, while the Radical Enlightenment took over as the main engine
instigating such change.59 The radical philosophes themselves hoped that revo-
lutionary transformation of society would be achieved by the agency of phi-
losophy rather than violent revolution.60 Such caution has, however, become
increasingly rare among modern revolutionaries. As Israel recognizes in his
recent intellectual history of the French Revolution, the danger of a just revolu-
tion being hijacked by unscrupulous megalomaniacs became evident already
in the eighteenth century, specifically through the agency of Robespierre.61 The
French Revolution, in this as in many other respects, was the blueprint for all
modern revolutions. The grave danger inherent in indiscriminate fanaticism
has therefore been tragically evident since the late eighteenth century. This has
raised unjust criticism of the Enlightenment itself as somehow the “dialectical”
source of un-­Enlightenment, whereas what has in fact repeatedly happened
is the inability to sufficiently implement its aims. In this respect Israel’s en-
dorsement of Enlightenment philosophy seems very convincing and apt for
the unsettling political atmosphere of the twenty-­first-­century global world.
Today, however, radical enlightened ideas remain important as signifiers of
what society should strive for, rather than as a viable blueprint for successfully
implementing enlightened ideals. In fact, this was already the situation in the
eighteenth century. Ultimately, the best way to achieve the goals of the Radical
Enlightenment is through the means offered by the Moderate Enlightenment,
slow and often unintended though they might be.

NOTES
I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for The Eighteenth Century: Theory and
Interpretation for their very helpful remarks.

1. Alexander Pope, “Epitaph Intended for Sir Isaac Newton” [ca. 1730], in The Complete
Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Cambridge Edition, ed. Henry W. Boynton (Boston and
New York, 1903), 135.
2. Pope, An Essay on Man [1733–34], in The Complete Poetical Works, 137–55, 141, I:294.

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 WOLLOCH—­NATURAL DISASTERS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS 339

3. Jean-­Jacques Rousseau, letter to Voltaire, 18 August 1756, in Correspondance générale

de J.-­J. Rousseau, ed. Théophile Dufour (Paris, 1924), 2:303–24. Also see R. A. Leigh, “Rous-
seau’s Letter to Voltaire on Optimism,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 30
(1964): 247–309; Leigh, “From the Inégalité to Candide: Notes on a Desultory Dialogue
between Rousseau and Voltaire (1755–1759),” in The Age of the Enlightenment: Studies Pre-
sented to Theodore Besterman, ed. W. H. Barber et al. (Edinburgh, 1967), 66–92; George R.
Havens, “Voltaire, Rousseau, and the ‘Lettre sur la Providence,’” PMLA 59 (1944): 109–30.
For Voltaire’s pessimism see Henry Vyverberg, Historical Pessimism in the French Enlight-
enment (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), 170–88.
4. Adam Smith, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, ed. J. C. Bryce (Indianapolis,
1985), 109.
5. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments [1759], ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L.
Macfie (Oxford, 1976), 134–39.
6. Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-­Politicus (Gebhardt Edition, 1925) [1670], trans.
Samuel Shirley (Leiden, 1989), 125.
7. Pietro Giannone, The Civil History of the Kingdom of Naples [1723], trans. James Ogil-
vie, 2 vols. (London, 1729–31), 2:735.
8. C. F. Volney, The Ruins, or a Survey of the Revolutions of Empires [1791], trans. anon.
(Exeter, 1823), 20–27, 38–40.
9. See Abbé Raynal, Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of
the Europeans in the East and West Indies . . . By the Abbé Raynal [1770–80], trans. J. O.
Justamond, 2nd edition, 6 vols. (London, 1798; repr. New York, 1969), 2:379–81. This may
have been one of the radical passages composed by Denis Diderot as a collaborator with
Raynal in this work.
10. John Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples 1680–1760
(Cambridge, 2005).
11. Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity
1650–1750 (Oxford, 2001); Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the
Emancipation of Man 1670–1752 (Oxford, 2006); Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical En-
lightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton, 2010); Democratic
Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750–1790 (Oxford, 2011); Israel,
Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man
to Robespierre (Princeton, 2014).
12. J. G. A. Pocock, “Historiography and Enlightenment: A View of Their History,”
Modern Intellectual History 5 (2008): 83–96, 83–84, 91, 93–95. Also see Pocock, Barbarism
and Religion, vol. 5: Religion: The First Triumph (Cambridge, 2010), 215–19, 313–14. The
important debate between Israel and Pocock in the symposium on Barbarism and Religion
in the Journal of the History of Ideas was published too late to be considered in detail in this
article, although it serves to corroborate the argument developed here (“Symposium on
J. G. A. Pocock’s Barbarism and Religion,” Journal of the History of Ideas 77, no. 1 [January
2016]: 99–171).
13. Pocock, “Clergy and Commerce: The Conservative Enlightenment in England,”
L’Età dei lumi: Studi storici sul Settecento Europeo in Onore di Franco Venturi, 2 vols. (Naples,
1985), 1:523–62; Pocock, “Conservative Enlightenment and Democratic Revolutions: The
American and French Cases in British Perspective,” Government and Opposition 24 (1989):
81–105.
14. For a summary of his interpretation see Israel’s introduction to Democratic Enlight-
enment (1–35).
15. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 6–8; also 808–21, 924–33, 937–51.
16. Israel, Revolutionary Ideas, 695–708.
17. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 11–12, 16–17.
18. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 19–20, 31–32.
19. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 27–30.

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 340 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

20. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 16–17, 212, 225, 230, 860, 873, 916, 926; Revolution-
ary Ideas, 1, 87, 92, 329–30.
21. On Enlightenment historiography, see Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 2: Nar-
ratives of Civil Government (Cambridge, 1999); Arnaldo Momigliano, “Gibbon’s Contribu-
tion to Historical Method,” Studies in Historiography (London, 1966), 40–55. Also see Mark
Salber Phillips, Society and Sentiment: Genres of Historical Writing in Britain, 1740–1820
(Princeton, 2000); Karen O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment: Cosmopolitan History from
Voltaire to Gibbon (Cambridge, 1997); and for significant remarks on Gibbon, also Joseph
M. Levine, Humanism and History: Origins of Modern English Historiography (Ithaca and
London, 1987), 15–16, 178–93; and Levine, The Autonomy of History: Truth and Method from
Erasmus to Gibbon (Chicago and London, 1999), 123–25, 157–82.
22. For a few examples of varying interpretations of this issue, see Paul Turnbull, “The
‘Supposed Infidelity’ of Edward Gibbon,” Historical Journal 25 (1982): 23–41; David Woot-
ton, “Narrative, Irony, and Faith in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall,” in “Edward Gibbon: Bi-
centenary Essays,” ed. David Womersley, John Burrow, and John Greville Agard Pocock,
special issue, Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 355 (1997): 203–34; B. W. Young,
“‘Scepticism in Excess’: Gibbon and Eighteenth-­Century Christianity,” Historical Journal
41 (1998): 179–99; and Patricia B. Craddock, Edward Gibbon, Luminous Historian 1772–1794
(Baltimore and London, 1989), 60–65.
23. Womersley, “Gibbon’s Religious Character,” in History, Religion, and Culture: Brit-
ish Intellectual History 1750–1950, ed. Stefan Collini, Richard Whatmore, and Brian Young
(Cambridge, 2000), 69–88; Womersley, Gibbon and the ‘Watchmen of the Holy City’: The His-
torian and his Reputation, 1776–1815 (Oxford, 2002); and also Womersley, The Transforma-
tion of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 1988).
24. Pocock, Religion: The First Triumph, 274; also Pocock, “Superstition and Enthusi-
asm in Gibbon’s History of Religion,” Eighteenth Century Life 8 (1982): 83–94; and Pocock,
“Gibbon and the Primitive Church,” in History, Religion, and Culture: British Intellectual
History 1750–1950, 48–68.
25. Pocock, Religion: The First Triumph, 286–88, 306–8, 313–14.
26. Pocock, Religion: The First Triumph, 308–10, 320.
27. Pocock, Religion: The First Triumph, 372–84.
28. Pocock, Religion: The First Triumph, 316.
29. Pocock, Religion: The First Triumph, 366–71.
30. See Womersley, “Gibbon’s Religious Character”; Gibbon and the ‘Watchmen of the
Holy City’; and The Transformation of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
31. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 212; also see Gibbon, The Autobiographies of Ed-
ward Gibbon, ed. John Murray (London, 1896), 204, 262.
32. Gibbon, “Le séjour de Gibbon a Paris du 28 Janvier au 9 Mai 1763,” in Miscellanea
Gibboniana, ed. Gavin R. de Beer, Georges A. Bonnard, and Louis Junod (Lausanne, 1952),
93–107.
33. “Je les ai vus avec autant d’indifference que le plus petit bourgeois” (Gibbon, Gib-
bon’s Journey from Geneva to Rome: His Journal from 20 April to 2 October 1764, ed. Bonnard
[London, 1961], 222–23). Also see Womersley, Gibbon and the ‘Watchmen of the Holy City,’
201–2.
34. See Gibbon, “A Vindication of Some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chap-
ters of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” [1779], in The History
of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [1776–88], ed. Womersley, 3 vols. (Harmonds­
worth, 1995), 3: 1106–84, 1175.
35. “Dans la recherche de la Verité historique, nous devons considerer l’autorité et la
vraisemblance, le Caractère de l’Ecrivain lui-­mème et celui des faits qu’il rapporte” (Gib-
bon, Le journal de Gibbon a Lausanne 17 Août 1763–19 Avril 1764, ed. Bonnard [Lausanne,
1945], 110).
36. See the remarks in Leo Braudy, Narrative Form in History and Fiction (Princeton,

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 WOLLOCH—­NATURAL DISASTERS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS 341

1970), 213–71; and Peter W. Cosgrove, “Undermining the Text: Edward Gibbon, Alexan-
der Pope, and the Anti-­Authenticating Footnote,” Annotation and Its Texts, ed. Stephen A.
Barney (New York and Oxford, 1991), 130–51.
37. “Mais en s’écartant de la vérité, il la respecte toujours; il ne s’en éloigne qu’à regret;
il ne se permet que des erreurs douces, insensibles et nécessaires” (Gibbon, “Mémoire
sur la monarchie des Mèdes” [ca. 1765–70], in The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon,
Esq., with Memoirs of his Life and Writings, ed. John, Lord Sheffield, 3 vols. [London, 1814
(1815)], 3:56–149, 130).
38. William Robertson, The History of Scotland During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of
King James VI [1759], 14th ed., 2 vols. (London, 1794), 1:377–78.
39. For Enlightenment attitudes toward nature, see Nathaniel Wolloch, History and
Nature in the Enlightenment: Praise of the Mastery of Nature in Eighteenth-­Century Histori-
cal Literature (Farnham and Burlington, 2011); Wolloch, “Edward Gibbon’s Cosmology,”
International Journal of the Classical Tradition 17 (2010): 165–77. Also see Charles W. J. With-
ers, Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason (Chicago and
London, 2007), esp. 125–29; and for two classic overviews, see the relevant sections on
the eighteenth century in Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in
England 1500–1800 (Harmondsworth, 1984); and Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian
Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth
Century (Berkeley, 1967), 499–705.
40. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 33–5, 39–55, 43–44.
41. Pocock, “Perceptions of Modernity in Early Modern Historical Thinking,” Intel-
lectual History Review 17 (2007): 55–63, 61.
42. See Pocock, Narratives of Civil Government, 362.
43. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 2:770–77, 772.
44. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 3:1065–68.
45. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 1:294.
46. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 1:1023–24.
47. See Israel, Revolution of the Mind, 106–21.
48. For just a few significant examples from the now large literature on this topic,
see Charles L. Griswold, Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1999);
Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment
(Cambridge, Mass., and London, 2001); D. D. Raphael, The Impartial Spectator: Adam
Smith’s Moral Philosophy (Oxford, 2006); Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (London, 2010);
and Jack Russell Weinstein, Adam Smith’s Pluralism: Rationality, Education, and the Moral
Sentiments (New Haven and London, 2013).
49. Adam Smith, “History of Astronomy,” in Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W. P.
D. Wightman (Oxford, 1980), 33–105, 33.
50. Adam Smith, “History of Astronomy,” 39–50.
51. Adam Smith, “History of Astronomy,” 43.
52. Adam Smith, “History of Astronomy,” 46.
53. See Amos Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages
to the Seventeenth Century (Princeton, 1986), 202–13; Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions
and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton, 1977); and
Craig Smith, “The Scottish Enlightenment, Unintended Consequences and the Science of
Man,” Journal of Scottish Philosophy 7 (2009): 9–28.
54. Among the many studies of Gibbon’s scholarly methodology, see in particular
Womersley, Transformation of the Decline and Fall. Also of interest is P. R. Ghosh, “Gibbon
Observed,” Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991): 132–56; Charlotte Roberts, “The Marmo-
real Edward Gibbon: The Autobiographies and the Ruins of Rome,” Journal for Eighteenth-­
Century Studies 34 (2011): 357–78; and Robert Mankin, “Edward Gibbon: Historian in
Space,” A Companion to Enlightenment Historiography, ed. Sophie Bourgault and Robert
Sparling (Leiden and Boston, 2013), 25–59.

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 342 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

55. See the remarks outlining the occasionally unclear demarcation between the Mod-
erate and Radical Enlightenments in Darrin M. McMahon, “What are Enlightenments?,”
Modern Intellectual History 4 (2007): 601–16, 613–16.
56. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 176–82. Compare the remarks at 465–70, on
the moderate and conservative leanings in eighteenth-­ century American academic
institutions.
57. In “A Vindication of Some Passages,” Gibbon wrote: “The polemic, who involves
himself and his antagonists in a cloud of argumentation, sometimes relates the origin
and progress of the heresy which he confutes; and the preacher who declaims against the
luxury, describes the manners, of the age” (1152).
58. It is interesting, though perhaps only fortuitous, that Pocock’s and Israel’s multi-­
volume studies, the most significant recent contributions to Enlightenment studies, have
appeared almost simultaneously in the past fifteen years or so.
59. See Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 943.
60. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 819–21.
61. See Israel, Revolutionary Ideas.

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