The Enlightenment - Political Economic and Social Aspects

ISSUE 15: THE ENLIGHTENMENT - POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ASPECTS Article One: Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character - Evert Schoorl Article Two: Empire, Economy and the Dawn of the Enlightenment - Jaap Nieuwstraten Article Three: The Age of Happiness During the Enlightenment 1658-1835 - Peter Buijs Biography: Thomas Robert Malthus 1766-1834 - Elke Weesjes Blog & Author: Catarina Dutilh Novaes New APPS - Elke Weesjes

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CREDITS Editor-in-Chief: Elke Weesjes Executive Editor: Ruth Charnock Design Cover: Michelle Halcomb Lay-Out: Ruth Visser Editorial Board: Mark Fonseca Rendeiro, Anouk Vleugels, Ruth Charnock, Danielle Wiersema Daphne Wiersema Questions and Suggestions: Send an e-mail to: journal@united-academics.org Advertisement : Send an email to: journal@united-academics.org United Academics: Oudezijds Voorburgwal 274 1021 GL Amsterdam The Netherlands 2013-vol.3-issue15

CONTENTS EDITORIAL

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ARTICLE ONE

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ARTICLE TWO

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ARTICLE THREE

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BIOGRAPHY

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BLOG & AUTHOR

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Issue 15: The Enlightenment: Political, Economic and Social Aspects

Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character By: Evert Schoorl

Empire, Economy and the Dawn of the Enlightenment: Some Explorations into Seventeenth-Century Dutch Intellectual History By: Jaap Nieuwstraten

The Age of Happiness: Dutch Opinions on Happiness during the Enlightenment, 1658-1835 By: Peter Buijs

Vilified, Misinterpreted & Celebrated: The Life and Works of Thomas Robert Malthus - 1766-1834 By: Elke Weesjes

New APPS Blog - Catarina Dutilh Novaes By: Elke Weesjes

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EDITORIAL Issue 15 FEBRUARY/MARCH The Enlightenment : Political, Economic and Social Aspects By: Evert Schoorl and Elke Weesjes

W

elcome to the 15th issue of the United Academics Journal of Social Sciences. Our guesteditor is Evert Schoorl, retired director of graduate studies in the economics department at the University of Groningen and author of Jean-Baptiste Say: Revolutionary, Entrepreneur, Economist 1767– 1832 (2012). Evert and I are very happy to present you with this issue dedicated to the Enlightenment.

Although several aspects of the Enlightenment are being discussed, this issue's focus is primarily on economics.

One of the permanent fruits of the Enlightenment was the institutionalization of the new discipline of political economy. Until Adam Smith and his generation, there were no academic chairs in this subject. Instead, the framework was enveloped in the amalgam of the so-called moral and political sciences, where present-day law, geography, psychology, sociology, and economics all had their niche, and were jointly or separately taught according to varied professorial preferences.

One generation later – the generation of Thomas Robert Malthus and Jean-Baptiste Say – the institutionalization of academic economics began to take place. This was a process marked by some upheaval in the European academic world.

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The reverend Malthus was named chair at East India College in 1805, but this was not the start of a broad development of political economy chairs in the United Kingdom.

In their book The Market for Political Economy: The Advent of Economics in British University Culture (1993), Kadish and Tribe have labeled the lack of ‘demand for political economy’ as the most important explanation for this development. So

a leading position in the autonomous development of the discipline of economics, as the UK undoubtedly had, was no guarantee for a parallel institutionalization of political economy chairs.

On the other hand there were countries like Italy and France, where political economy was regarded with suspicion by governments, and the subject was associated with political liberalism. This was

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anathema in the reactionary political climate of the Restoration. Jean-Baptiste Say’s first chair at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers – an institute of higher professional education - in 1819, was cautiously labelled as Industrial Economy. He had to wait until the July revolution of 1830 for a real university professorship in Economie Politique at the Collège de France.

It is uncertain whether Malthus and

Say ever met in person, but their correspondence marked one of the Great Debates in the history of political economy: the discussion regarding the causes and remedies of the post-Napoleonic depression, or the discussion on the validity of Say’s Law. This law states that – simply speaking – the correction of imbalances between supply and demand can best be left to the market, and that effective demand

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will in the long run be able to keep up with enormous increases in output. As such it demonstrates a belief in long-term economic growth, an important issue at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

More than a century later, this question was picked up by John Maynard Keynes in his 1936 General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, in which he took sides with Malthus and his (deficiency of) effective demand approach, and criticized Say’s Law as a kind of metaphor for all that was wrong in classical political economy, and more generally as a simplistic belief in the market mechanism. Even to this day, the question whether we must either save or spend our way out of the crisis is still widely debated.

Besides discussing economics, this issue also explores other aspects of the Enlightenment. Peter Buijs has contributed an article which focuses on the notion of happiness and how this notion underwent a spectacular transformation in the 17th century. He describes how, driven by changes in the material, intellectual and

communicational culture, an elite cadre of philosophers, writers and journalists became convinced that happiness was not only expected in heaven but on earth as well. This significant shift in mentality instigated a lively and continent-wide debate on happiness, in which Dutch writers too participated. Buijs gives a short overview of the Dutch debate on happiness.

Intellectual geniuses like Thomas Hobbes and Baruch de Spinoza are mainly and sometimes solely credited for the transition from the ‘old'; Aristotelian-humanist tradition to the ‘new’ modern ideas of the Enlightenment. In his article Jaap Nieuwstraten demonstrates that a host of lesser-known figures played an important role as well. He focuses on a number of scholars working in the Dutch Republic, who, by responding to contemporary events and conditions characteristic of the Republic, contributed to the downfall of tradition and the rise of new ideas and concepts.

We hope you'll enjoy this very special issue!

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ARTICLE ONE

ARTICLE ONE

Article One

T

he French classical economist JeanBaptiste Say is not commonly referred to as an Enlightenment character. Until recently his legacy belonged to the economists’ community, most members of which only cared about the progress of economic analysis narrowly interpreted. Even Schumpeter’s monumental History of Economic Analysis (1954), while paying attention to broader intellectual movements rather than just simply economic ideas, does not individually put Say in the wider perspective of the history of ideas in the 18th and 19th century.1 Schumpeter discusses Say’s ideas on value and on ‘Say’s Law’, and he praises him for his ideas on entrepreneurship.

But over the past decade several books have established a different picture of Say as an historical figure, and as more than an economist. Robert Palmer, the great American historian of the French revolutionary period, has sketched a picture of Say as ‘an economist in troubled times’. Richard Whatmore has highlighted Say’s republicanism. Evelyn Forget has produced the

first English translation of Say’s first, moderately utopian book Olbie, with excellent comments on his economics. Samuel Hollander, famous for his books on the British classical economists, has also written a volume on Say’s economics. Finally, at the Université Lyon 2 a project has been undertaken to publish Say’s Oeuvres Complètes.2 Say’s life and career Jean-Baptiste Say was born in Lyon in 1767 into a Huguenot family of merchants in cotton and silk fabrics. He received a practical commercial education, and was sent to England by his father in 1785, where he stayed for two years. Back in France he worked for banks and trading firms, but after the Revolution of 1789 his career took a more political and literary turn. He worked for Mirabeau’s Courrier de Provence and published his first pamphlet on the freedom of the press. In 1794 he was one of the founders of the journal La Décade Philosophique, Littéraire et Politique, and became its managing editor. Its title reflected

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

the new revolutionary calendar with its 10day weeks. Considering that its inception was during the Terror, the journal had a remarkable continuity. It not only discussed domestic politics but also demonstrated a broad international outlook with reviews of foreign literature. Political economy was explicitly mentioned as a subject worth studying. The journal was the organ of the movement called Idéologie, the science of ideas and sensations wishing to bridge the gap between the social and the physiological study of man. The label Idéologie had been coined by the economist Destutt de Tracy.

Say himself, being close to the ideas of the mathematician- philosopher Condorcet and the medic Cabanis, might have been a candidate for being guillotined in 1793 or 1794, but the fact that he had participated in the military campaign of 1792 saved him from becoming a suspect. Yet the political influence of the Décade grew slowly but steadily, as even Bonaparte found it opportune to visit the Parisian salons frequented by the editors and to pose as a philosopher-statesman. After his coup of 1799 he nominated Say and a few of his colleagues into the Tribunate, a body designed to discuss – and discuss only – his proposed legislation bills.

For true liberals such as Say and Benjamin Constant this role was a straightjacket, and they were among the first not to be re-nominated as tribuns. Say had published his - still rather Smithian – first edition of the Traité d’Economie Politique in 1803, the liberal ideas of which went against Bonaparte’s dirigist and interventionist policies. The First Consul asked the author to rewrite his treatise, and after his

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refusal to comply even offered him a tax collectorship in one of the provinces. Say also declined this offer, and embarked on a totally different career as the owner of a cotton spinning mill in the northern part of France. For a while this company flourished but from 1810 the general economic decline, the problems of buying raw cotton under the Milan Decree, and Say’s quarrels with his business partner led to losses, and made Say sell his part of the firm in 1812.

Bonaparte had forbidden a second edition of the Traité, which couldnot be published Say until 1814. It had a huge success, and its author was commissioned by the Restoration government to sail to England, and report on the state of Britain’s industrialization. He traveled from London to Glasgow and back, and finally also paid a visit to Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and David Ricardo.

The journey, however, did not bring him the recognition he deserved. He might have been a critic of Bonaparte, but he also was far too liberal for the Bourbons. So his academic career did not take off, and

he was condemned to only teach at the Parisian Athénée, an adults’ evening college.

In vain he applied for the directorship of an insurance company, and tried to get a job as a civil servant. For his living he was obliged to enter – unsuccessfully – upon commercial ventures, and to consume a large part of his not so large fortune. But his textbook sold well, and rapidly a third (1817) and a fourth (1819) edition came out. After 1814 his reputation abroad rose more rapidly than in France, but when in 1819 the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers was reorganized from a collection of machinery into an institute of higher education, he was appointed as its first professor of Economie Industrielle.

In 1820, his Letters to Malthus, on the causes of the post-Napoleonic depression, was published. This pamphlet was immediately received with wide acclaim, and was translated into German and English.

For the rest of his life, Say could devote himself to teaching and publishing. In his first book Olbie (1800), a rather dull utopian treatise about a republic which had

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

just lived though a revolution (like France) and was reinventing its social order, he had recommended the necessity of an economics textbook. In 1803 he had published one himself. All his life he remained an economic journalist as well as an economic theorist. It was not below his status to review new publications on subjects such as slavery, colonialism, and monetary reform.

In 1828-1829 Say published his six volume Cours Complet d’Economie Politique, an elaboration of his Conservatoire lectures. And in 1830, after the July Revolution, he was rewarded with the new university chair of political economy at the Collège de France. Here he taught until his death at the end of 1832, but his health was deteriorating and sometimes his lectures had to be read by someone else.

Say as an 18th century thinker A more important outcome of Say’s British trip in 1814 than his governmental remuneration was the intellectual capital he acquired by his meeting with British economists and philosophers. Until Ricar-

do’s death in 1823, he corresponded with him on the problem of value. He was a self-confessed Benthamite utilitarian, and kept corresponding with Jeremy Bentham.

Although a nineteenth-century economist, Say lived the first half of his life in the eighteenth century, and was steeped with Enlightenment ideas. His younger brother Horace, who died in Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, wrote a plan of education ‘along the ideas of Rousseau, in which I have been brought up myself’ in the seventeen-nineties.3 Jean-Baptiste Say, as a Décade editor, was not so much a thinker as a propagator of the Idéologie movement. He was a follower of Condorcet, and a lifelong believer in progress. This was already evident from his first book Olbie, and still voiced in the last sentence of vol. 6 of his Cours Complet. As a prophet of the Industrial Revolution, Say predicted a continuing economic growth. But he also expected this to go hand in hand with the progress of civilization. For him, the bearers of civilization were first and foremost the members of the

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middle class, the ‘classe mitoyenne’. In his opinion, the very rich were too busy pursuing their expensive hobbies to have any time left for reading, and the poor neither had the time nor the energy for it. But the ‘classe mitoyenne’ had the means and the time for the ‘joys of reading, of traveling, and of friendship’. This expression he used in the first edition of his Traité (1803), and he kept it there in all subsequent editions.

As an economist Say praised Adam Smith, and criticized the Physiocrats. Of the latter, he rejected their ‘system thinking’ – in modern vocabulary we would call this ‘model building’. Say’s growth theory, like Smith’s, was founded on the positive effects of the division of labour. Say supplemented this idea with the labour-saving consequences of new technologies – steam in the first place. In England in 1814 he was impressed by the scale of application of this new machinery. Living one generation after Smith, and witnessing the Industrial Revolution, he can be said to bridge the 18th and 19th century in his economic thinking.

It is remarkable that Say explicitly rec-

ognized Bentham as his great utilitarian influence, as he was already well known with the French utilitarian writings of philosophers such as Helvétius before reading and meeting Bentham. He had been a visitor of the salon of Madame Helvétius and other fashionable Enlightenment gatherings. On the one hand, utility was for him one of the prime foundations of economic value. But on the other he never got around to formulating the concept of marginal utility, so his concept of value and equilibrium price in the market remained flawed.

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

Yet his concept of utility, as an individual measure of the capacity of a good or a service to satisfy human wants, was truly modern. Before him economists, even Adam Smith, departed from a concept of ‘virtue’ as a standard for all members of a community. Say explicitly stated that something valuable to one person, might seem completely worthless to another.

This individualism is one of Say’s Enlightenment characteristics. Other elements of Say’s thinking deserving the label of (Radical) Enlightenment are his republicanism and his agnosticism.

All of these dimensions came together in the editorial programme of La Décade, which in its subtitle proudly mentioned being published ‘by a society of republicans’.

As mentioned above, it was the organ of the Idéologie: ‘This doctrine, with its stress on the analysis of language and of signs and its notion of a perceptible relationship between the physical and the moral, influenced empirical social research in ethnography and hygiene and also affected government administration’.4 But the pio-

neering efforts of the Idéologues were only briefly reflected in the organization of the sciences in the National Institute.

The Institut National des Sciences et des Arts had been organized in 1795 into three 'Classes' for the arts and the sciences. Between the first for 'Physical and Mathematical Sciences' and the third for 'Literature and the Fine Arts’, the Second Class was devoted to the ‘Moral and Political Sciences’. The latter had sections for political economy, history, geography and statistics, as well as morals, social science and legislation, and the Condorcetian subject of 'analysis of feelings and ideas'. With this subdivision it was unlike any other educational establishment in Europe. But the second class was abolished by Bonaparte soon after he gained absolute power, and became disgusted with all philosophy and with the intellectuals he had courted for a while. This institutional setback of the social sciences would seriously harm Say’s later career in economics.

But at the end of the 1790s, when Say was only thirty, his future looked

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bright. He already had a background in commerce, literature, and journalism; his future in economics was not yet clearly visible. About France's economic potential, in the perspective of an industrial revolution, he wrote the following recommendation in 1796: I wish that its agriculture and all branches of industry will be in a state of most brilliant activity; that its seaports full of ships, its canals and rivers covered with boats, its markets clean and well provisioned, will show a picture of abundance.

I wish that every field worker in the country, every city craftsman will have perhaps not an independent property, but at least the perspective of acquiring one in old age, even if it be only a small life annuity. I wish that in every household there be convenient and well maintained utensils, dresses of good tissues, and white linen, giving everywhere the impression not of opulence but of ease; that every person will be able to read, and will have in his chest at least a few books to instruct

himself about manufacturing processes, and a few journals too so as not to be a stranger to the interest of his country […).

I wish that in this great republic there will not be […) one miserable person who might complain being unable to earn, by work and good behaviour, a decent living, and lead a life which the English would call 'comfortable.5 In a footnote Say even suggested the introduction of this word in the French language: ‘After a long day’s effort when we feel the need of restoring our strength, a solid dinner and a glass of good wine are comfortable’. He also recommended the inclusion of this notion in the French dictionary.

Among all his literary and political contributions in the Décade, Say’s perspective for France gives a first glimpse of the economist who wished to convey the message of the Encyclopedists to a wider audience, and would continue to do so with a political programme in his Olbie (1800), and an economic one in his Traité d’Econ-

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

omie Politique (1803). Commenting on his youthful pamphlet of 1789 on the freedom of the press, he wrote that he had wished ‘to open all influence to Enlightenment ideas’.6 So he may rightfully be labeled a worthy Enlightenment character as well as an Idéologie figure.

It is remarkable that Jonathan Israel in Democratic Enlightenment (2011), the last of his three books on ‘Radical Enlightenment’, fails to mention the Décade as an enlightenment organ, and only once, in passing, writes about Cabanis. It may be true that he cares more about ideas than about institutions – for example in belittling the influence of Mme Helvétius’ salon – but the Condorcetian, value-free approach to social science and the role of Say who had started his publishing career with a pamphlet on the freedom of the press and continued with Olbie, deserve more than a footnote in an Israel-like approach of Enlightenment writings.7 Freedom, universalism and progress, three of Israel’s essential elements in his definition of Enlightenment, would continue to be central

themes in Say’s economics. Two others, agnosticism en republicanism, were recurrent subjects in the Décade.

Republicanism and economics Say’s Olbie was published in 1800. In this imaginary 'blessed state' (from the Greek adjective “olbios”), France could easily be recognized. After the overthrow of an absolute monarchy, good laws had not been enough to fulfill the promise of a just and incorrupt republic. Therefore a programme of legislation leading to virtuous manners would benecessary. But for the Olbians their first and foremost necessity was to possess a good textbook of economics: Whoever writes an elementary treatise on political economy, capable of being taught in public schools and understood by all public bureaucrats even of the lowest level, by countrymen and by artisans, would be the saviour of the country.8 In Olbian society, there would be no luxury or conspicuous consumption. And in

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‘The goal of all rules of morality is to gain for human beings all the happiness compatible with their nature.’

principle all trades were equal, while idle incomes were condemned. For the organisation of retirement funds a system of savings banks was institutionalized. As 'great wealth is devastating for good morals', the acts and fortunes of all citizens would be made public information. This would help in making non-financial considerations an incentive for work as well.

Say defined ‘Morale’ as the science of social conduct, and ‘Moralité’ as the exclusively human faculty of considering the rules of social science in one’s behaviour:

‘The goal of all rules of morality is to gain for human beings all the happiness compatible with their nature.’ (This is where eighteenth century Idéologie and modern economics of happiness meet). He continued by distinguishing two motivating forces of human conduct: either the promotion of one’s own safety and welfare, or of the wellbeing of others – self-interest and altruism.

Later, in his economic textbooks, Say would stress the individual appreciation of usefulness of goods and actions. But in Olbie, a work suggesting recipes for social cohesion, he still pretended to be able to distinguish between truly virtuous and useful behaviour, and other acts resulting from passions and false opinions.

The older Say had become a modern political economist, for whom utility instead of virtue was the economic agent's driving force, without however denying the importance of institutions and civilization.

Unfortunately he did not come around to completing his planned treatise of politics, in which he might have explained the

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

relationship between private and public utility. But in later editions of the TraitĂŠ, and in the Cours Complet, the sovereign consumer is entitled to his own values and utilities: Sometimes, vanity is for man an equally imperative need as hunger. He alone judges the importance which goods have for him, and the need he feels for them.

The utility of things, conceived like this, is the first foundation of their value; but the consequence is not that their value is as high as their utility: it is not higher than the level of utility which is attributed by man.9 Say's comments on his own book, written many years later, are revealing about the development of his economic and political ideas: If I were to rewrite my Olbie, I would base it on an entirely different foundation. I would demonstrate that the morality of nations depends on the degree of their in-

struction [‌). I would show that eras one could call enlightened were exceedingly few [‌). I will not give men the honour of believing that they will ever see a time when there will not be tyrants among them; but I see that their work becomes more difficult in proportion as nations become more enlightened; and note that it is

Sometimes, vanity is for man an equally imperative need as hunger.

He alone judges the importance which goods have for him, and the need he feels for them

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not necessary for a nation to be composed of scholars to be what I call enlightened.10 One might say that the older Say was still optimistic about the future, but did no longer believe in change by means of new institutions. The man who had recommended an economics textbook for the Olbians still believed in the progress of civilization, to be realized by a higher level of education for all citizens. Richard Whatmore has given a provocative interpretation of Say’s TraitÊ as essentially a republican tract: [Say’s] view of enlightenment philosophy leads to the conclusion that seeking a purportedly radical public sphere in late eighteenth-century French thought is ultimately a white elephant. Such a project cannot capture the real divisions between philosophes, revolutionaries, and their antagonists, concerning small and large states, forms of government, ancient and modern republicanism, the nature of civilization, the merits of commerce and industry, the kinds of ranks which charac-

terize a modern social order, the civil value of different religions, and the merits of the political and social cultures offered by other nations, particularly Britain, Switzerland, China, and North America. Say believed in a Revolution, the product of a critique of philosophe projects for restoring French glory, which was among the most radical intellectual experiments in modern history: the creation of a republic without social hierarchy in conditions of advanced civilization.11 Is this the same Jean-Baptiste Say whose life and ideas have been sketched above?

Yes and no: the younger Say was a republican revolutionary and a secular, moderate egalitarian. He kept true to these ideals, but in later life his ideas were more concerned with the conditions for economic growth and peace than with restoring French glory, and he saw his own role not as the author of a political blueprint for society, but as the writer of a treatise on the correct economic ideas underlaying its institutional design.

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

Say and the institutionalization of economics in France When we change our focus from ideas to institutions, it becomes clear that the progress of a discipline is not entirely independent from its embedding in universities and learned societies.

As mentioned above, Napoleon’s abolishing of the Classe des Sciences Morales et Politiques of the Institut in 1803 meant a serious impediment to the further development of the social sciences. For practitioners of these sciences it was still possible to become a member of the Institut, counting four classes since its reorganization by Bonaparte: 1. Natural sciences, 2. French literature, 3. History and ancient literature, 4.

Arts. Of course the second class (the Classe de Langue et de Littérature Française) was better known as the Académie Française.

Now for social scientists their merits had to be praised as literary rather than scientific in order to be admitted. Say’s first attempt to become a member was modestly directed at the class of history and ancient literature, to which he presented a copy of

his treatise in 1814.

His old friend and Décade colleague Ginguené, already a member, praised Say’s Traité as a worthy passport of entry. His printed report was first and foremost a diatribe against the former emperor and his hatred of all philosophy: A whole class of the Institut was dedicated to philosophy, especially with regard to the needs of society; the class of moral and political sciences was suppressed.

And effectively, of the six sections composing this useful class, those of history and geography could be transferred elsewhere; but what a danger was the analysis of sensations and ideas, i.e. the idéologie, for him who wished to overturn all ideas; morals, for him who wished no other morals, public or private, than passive obedience? What a dark shadow was the science of legislation, for him who wished no other law but his own will, and political economy, which to him counted for nothing; and he prepared himself to completely overturn, from top to bottom, the entire

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construction of public prosperity, which this science teaches to found, to build-up and to conserve in its entirety and for all classes?12 After continuing on Bonaparte’s bridling of the press, and his hiring of corruptible journalists, Ginguené finally came around to quoting useful examples from Say’s text.

And he concluded on his relevance for the study of economic history: ‘The method

suggested by Mr. Say, applied to historical studies, would result for all these examples in conclusions which, if not precisely exact, would be much nearer to the truth’.

It is clear that Say had hoped to be considered for membership of the Third Class. But for the time being, the Institut was still a bridge too far for him. Scientific homages and membership of academies were to come sooner for him abroad than at home.

At the end of the eighteen-twenties he tried again. He was a respectable Conservatoire professor, although as late as 1823 his lectures had still been under the surveillance of the royal secret police. His old Décade colleague Andrieux was the permanent secretary of the Second Class, which seemed a favourable omen. But from his correspondence with a number of already established ‘Immortals’ (as the forty members of the Académie Française were called) it becomes clear that Say lacked the political antenna and the sense of compromise that would have made him acceptable.

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

To Baron Cuvier, the famous naturalist and an Academy member since 1818, he sent a copy of his fifth edition in October 1826: In soliciting election to the Academy, I have not addressed myself to any cotterie;

in the academy I have only noticed eminent writers of various talents, and only members whom I suppose to be eager to augment the glory of the body they belong to, and to make choices that will be approved in France and abroad; my esteem

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of them is high enough to attribute to them the most perfect independence. On this title I am asking for your vote, if you find me worthy of it.13 A letter from his old colleague in the Tribunat, Pierre Daru (1767-1829), who as a general, politician, and historian had shown a better political survival instinct than Say, gave him little hope as it was very clear about the influence of royal circles on the election of new members. Daru himself posed as an outsider: We countrymen, we don’t allow ourselves to get mixed up in politics. (…) But for the majority [of the voters], my answer is that it will be very compact, I mean very docile.

That is one of the great advantages of the absolute monarchy, for which you authors perhaps do not demonstrate all the respect which it deserves. My conclusion therefore is that in order to reach your goal, you must put your energy into obtaining the votes of the high powers which distribute the seats.14

In the years 1828 and 1829, as the six volumes of his Cours Complet came off the press, Say desperately continued to send presentation copies around to the Académiciens – all in vain.

His old friend Andrieux, as Permanent Secretary of the body of Immortals, became ever more apologizing about the voting of his colleagues, and about his own modest role in this process. He kept repeating that literature was a means and not a goal by itself; that the talents of speaking and writing were nothing, if not applied to ‘teach the people what is most important for them to know, and to combat easy pleasures and vulgar truths.’ This he wrote early in 1828; in September of the following year, he wrote that Say’s Cours Complet put him in a high rank ‘among the Scholars of political economy’. (Unfortunately not among the literati, he seemed to imply.)

A last recognition of Say’s reputation came after the July revolution of 1830. Now he finally got access to the ‘high powers’ mentioned by Daru. The revolution, which made John Stuart Mill travel to Paris in a

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

hurry, was witnessed from a distance by Say who was staying with his brother Louis in Nantes. Already two months later, on September 29, Say was invited to dinner by the new ‘Citizen King’ Louis-Philippe.

Three days later he presented his Cours Complet to the crown prince.

We do not know whether Say had been effectively lobbying with the king for the institution of a new political economy chair at the Collège de France. This institution, founded in 1530, was – and still is – primarily a research institute, where the professors also read public lectures. At any rate, the dossier at the ministry contains a reference to a royal comment on the teaching of political economy in France and other European countries.. On November 16, the ministerial letter asking the professorial advice was dispatched: A number of persons, choosing for their argument a paragraph from a Royal speech with respect to the teaching of political economy in France, and otherwise referring to the development this science

receives in England, in Germany, in Russia, in Poland, and even in Spain, have proposed to me the creation of a chair of political economy at the Collège Royal de France.15 The committee of professors reported on December 6: ‘Today there is no longer any doubt about the usefulness which the teaching of political economy can deliver’.16 The professors did not suggest the name of a candidate for the new chair. A draft note bearing the name of Adolphe Blanqui as a potential candidate is among the papers in the ministerial files, but the Royal Decree of March 3, 1831, was clear in its first article: ‘A chair of Political Economy is created at the Collège de France. Mr. Jean-Baptiste Say is nominated as Professor of this science’.17 Say started lecturing at the Collège in June 1831, and continued to do so for another year. His declining health sometimes urged him to have his lectures read by someone else. The reinstitution of the class of moral and political sciences in the

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Institut came too late for him. The decree of minister Guizot to this effect was dated October 26, 1832. Say died less than three weeks later, on November 15.

Conclusion: Enlightenment and progress in Say’s economics Jean-Baptiste Say was an Enlightenment character even before he became an economist. As Décade editor, and as the author of Olbie, he worked on the diffusion of the Idéologie, and more generally propagated a belief in progress in a secular and republican order of society.

As an economist, he founded his ideas on material progress by his concept of the ‘loi des débouchés’, the law of markets, best known as Say’s Law. In a vulgar interpretation, this law is often formulated as ‘Supply creates its own demand’. As a tautology this version makes sense as well as nonsense. In the first edition of Say’s Traité, the débouchés chapter only counts a few pages, and is essentially a microeconomic statement: you cannot be a demander without also being a supplier.

Jean-Baptiste Say was an Enlightenment character even before he became an economist

Say’s own version of the law is much more sophisticated and appears in his second edition of 1814. Already in May 1812 he had written to his relative Michel Delaroche, a successful businessman in Nantes, about the manuscript version of his new chapter: You will give me your counsel the first time you will write to me. The subject, which was only indicated in my first edition, is still quite novel. I believe it has not only been totally ignored by the governments – who ignore quite a number of

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

other things – but also by the people who run the various industries, in agriculture, in manufacturing and in trade for whom it is nevertheless of high interest.18 One would search for it in vain in Smith and people are commencing to note that even in my first edition there is a whole lot of things and even important principles that are absolutely new.

In the long run, effective demand will be able to keep up with enormous increases in output, brought about by the Industrial Revolution

He still had to wait two more years before he could put this in print. Say’s theory is clear in this second edition: in the long run, effective demand will be able to keep up with enormous increases in output, brought about by the Industrial Revolution. This theory would obtain the approval of David Ricardo, and meet with severe criticism from Malthus and Sismondi. Its relevance would be challenged in the long post-Napoleonic depression, and this debate was also known as the General Glut Controversy. By contrast to the value debate, which interested only the economists community, this debate was of practical relevance to every citizen. Therefore Say’s Letters to Malthus (1820) were an enormous public success.

Say himself continued to believe in his ‘law’ as one of his important original contributions. Therefore he made it appear in the very last sentence of his sixth and last volume of the Cours Complet (1829): The theory of débouchés, by showing that the interests of men and nations are not

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opposed one to another, will necessarily spread the seeds of concord and peace, which will germinate over time, and which will not be the smallest benefactions of the more precise opinion that people will have learned about the economy of society.

Biography In this statement, the belief in progress of Say the idéologue meets the theoretical analysis of Say the economist, and demonstrates the 18th century roots of the 19th century economist.

Endnotes 1 J. A Schumpeter (1954), History of Economic Analysis 2 R.R. Palmer (1997), Jean-Baptiste Say; an economist in troubled times / E. Forget (1999), The Social Economics of Jean-Baptiste Say; Markets and Virtue / R. Whatmore (2000), Republicanism and the French Revolution; an intellectual history of Jean-Baptiste Say’s political economy / S. Hollander (2005), JeanBaptiste Say and the Classical Canon in Economics / A.Tiran, C.Mouchot (a.o. ed. 2006), [J.-B. Say 18031841, variorum edition] Traité d’Economie politique I, II; / Part of Say’s Oeuvres Complètes (in progress) 3 Manuscript of Honoré (called Horace) Say, in RaoulDuval family papers 4 B. Lécuyer & A.R. Oberschall (n.d.), The Idéologues and the Institut, in: International Encyclopedia of the

Evert Schoorl (1940) read economic history at the University of Amsterdam and wrote his dissertation in economics on Jean-Baptiste Say (1980). He was a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Amsterdam and moved to the University of Groningen to become the Director of Graduate Studies in the department of economics and business studies. He has published on the history of Dutch economics in the 19th and 20th century, and was researcher/ editor of the autobiographies of OECD Secretary-general Emile van Lennep, and of the Dutch politician and economist Wim Drees. Privately he is a collector of contemporary and tribal art.

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Jean-Baptiste Say as an Enlightenment Character

Social Sciences vol. 15 p. 40 5 La Décade, 10 germinal, an IV (March 30, 1796) 6 ‘…ouvrir toute l’influence aux Lumières.’ Quoted by Tiran (1995) p 58 7 In a personal communication of December 2011, prof. Israel wrote: You are absolutely right, though I would say in mitigation that the volume was not meant to go beyond the start of the French revolution. The reason I did not mention the Décade at all in DE is that I didnt then know about it. I do now and have been reading it extensively. You will be pleased to hear that it figures extensively in the smaller book I have written on ideology in the French Revolution that will be going to the press soon.

8 Translation by Forget (1999) p. 200 9 Cours Complet, vol. 1 (1828) p. 166 1013 Publications diverses [of J.B. Say], Say's annotated copy, privately bound and including a number of his pamphlets and offprints, in A. Heertje's library.

Probably annotated after 1826; translation from Forget (1999) p. 242 11 R. Whatmore (2000) p. 219 12 RAPPORT fait à la Classe d’Histoire et de Littérature Ancienne de l’Institut, par M. GINGUENÉ, l’un de ses membres, sur le Traité d’économie politique de M. SAY; 7 pp leaflet printed as Extrait du Mercure de France – Juin 1814.

13 Say to Cuvier, 3 October 1826, in: H. Hashimoto (1971), Treatises of Shikoku Christian College p. 225 14 Daru to Say, 2 November 1826; Say papers A 19-27, Bibliothèque Nationale Paris 15 Archives Nationales, dossier F 17-13556, file 24: Chaire d’Economie Politique. In all countries mentioned, a translation of Say’s Traité had been published.

16 Archives Nationales, dossier F 17-13551: Procès verbaux of the professorial nominations.

17 Ibid. dossier F 17-13556, dossier 24; Silvestre de

Sacy, the ministerial administrator, advised to adopt the advice of the professorial committee ‘without mentioning Mr. Blanqui, or anybody else. Approved by the minister.’

Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy (1758 –1838), was a French orientalist, professor of Arabic languages, and Rector of the University of Paris. As a member of the Committee of Public Instruction he was involved in Say’s nomination. In 1816 he had written to Say, thanking him for a copy of the Traité: Silvestre de Sacy to Say, 25 June 1816; Say papers A 57-67.

18 ‘Industry’ in Say’s vocabulary always means ‘human productive activity’.

ARTICLE ONE

ARTICLE TWO

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T

he transition from the age of late humanism to the age of the Early Enlightenment between roughly the middle of the seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries constitutes one of the most important developments in European intellectual history. During this transition, Europe’s intellectual landscape underwent some dramatic changes, from a world in which the Bible and the ancients dominated contemporary scholarship, to a world in which both the Bible and the ancients came under increasing attack and in which the old humanist and Aristotelian precepts came to be replaced by new notions of the law of nature. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that this transition from the ‘old’ Aristotelian-humanist tradition to the ‘new’ modern ideas of the Enlightenment was not only the work of intellectual geniuses like Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) or Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677), but that a host of lesser-known figures played an important role as well. It will do so by focusing on a number of scholars working in the Dutch Republic, who, by responding to contempo-

rary events and conditions characteristic of the Republic, contributed to the downfall of tradition and the rise of new ideas and concepts. Special attention will thereby go out to the Dutch quest for empire, the economic importance of the fishing industry and the impact of empire, critical scholarship and contemporary events on contemporary scholarship. The outcome of this article will show that if we want to improve our understanding of the nature of the transition from the age of late humanism to the age of the Enlightenment, more attention has to be paid to ‘minor’, seemingly ‘traditional’ humanist scholars and intellectuals, instead of primarily focussing on the ‘giants’ of intellectual history.

An empire of war and trade The creation of a large overseas empire which stretched from Nagasaki, Japan to Curaçao, the Caribbean and from Archangelsk in Russia to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, was undoubtedly one of the most impressive achievements of the Dutch in the seventeenth century. Two

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main pillars supported this empire: the Dutch United East India Company or VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie), founded in 1602, and the Dutch West India Company or WIC (West-Indische Compagnie), founded some nineteen years later. From their earliest beginnings, the intent of the VOC and WIC was to function both as trading companies and as instruments of war to be deployed against the King of Spain, the arch-enemy with whom the Dutch were embroiled in a bitter struggle for independence.2 These two functions – to trade and to wage war – were closely interconnected. As Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629), governor-general of the VOC in the East Indies, put it: ‘we cannot make war without trade nor trade without war’.3 In the view of the Dutch scholar Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn (1612-1653), the objectives of the VOC and WIC consisted of driving ‘the common Spanish enemy away from his possessions’, entering ‘into alliances with the peoples of the Indies not yet subjugated by the Spaniards’ and trading ‘all kinds of matter with them’.4 The ben-

efits of these activities for the Dutch were two-fold. First, by attacking the Spaniards and driving them out of the Indies, the VOC and WIC deprived ‘the common Spanish enemy’ of his most important resources, thereby weakening his financial strength and ability to wage war.5 Second, the voyages to the East and West Indies, the spoils captured and the trade conducted by the Dutch brought them great personal

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wealth.6 As will be explained in the next section, Boxhorn believed this personal wealth enhanced the military capacities of the Dutch Republic.

The instruments the Dutch deployed in their war against the King of Spain resulted in a global empire based, primarily, on trade. This achievement caused unease among certain Dutch intellectuals, for had the demise of the Roman Republic in the first century BC not shown that empire and the wealth and luxury that accompanied it spelled doom for political freedom?7 Boxhorn, for one, was certainly aware of the possible dangers luxury posed.8 This, however, did not stop him from ranking the VOC and WIC among the ‘chief bulwarks’ of the Dutch Republic, ‘since through them immense wealth flows to this Republic’.9 Boxhorn was certainly not alone in his positive attitude towards Dutch empire-building. His far more famous Dutch contemporary Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), for example, believed commerce to be essential for the well-being of the Dutch Republic and spent almost his entire adult

life defending the commercial empire the Dutch were building overseas.10 In a unpublished defense of chapter five of Mare liberum (The Free Sea, 1609), Grotius’ famous treatise in which he had asserted the right of the Hollanders to trade and navigate in the East Indies, Grotius explained his motive for writing De iure praedae (On the Law of Prize and Booty, written between 1604-1606), the book of which Mare liberum had originally formed the twelfth chapter.

A few years ago, when I saw that the commerce with that India which is called East was of great importance for the safety of our country and it was quite clear that this commerce could not be maintained without arms while the Portuguese were opposing it through violence and trickery, I gave my attention to stirring up the minds of our fellow-countrymen to guard bravely what had been felicitously begun …11 Two things should be noticed here. First, like Boxhorn, Grotius connected Dutch

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Empire, Economy and the Dawn of the Enlightenment

Empire brought the Dutch not only wealth but also influenced intellectual developments in the Dutch Republic overseas activities with the well-being of the Dutch Republic within the context of the Dutch war against the King of Spain, who was, after all, also the King of Portugal at the time. Second, while Grotius gives the impression that he had acted on his own initiative, he had, in fact, written De iure praedae and Mare liberum at the instigation of the VOC directors to defend the Company’s actions and interests in the East Indies.12 Either way, it still means that it was ultimately the Dutch quest for money and empire which first led Grotius to his studies on natural law, from which

ultimately his famous De iure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace, 1625) would derive. Thus, empire brought the Dutch not only wealth, but also influenced intellectual developments in the Dutch Republic, as will be further demonstrated in section three.

The economic importance of fishing Despite the great economic value scholars like Grotius and Boxhorn attached to the VOC and the WIC, their real impact on the overall Dutch economy was relatively marginal.13 Trade with the Baltic region – the so-called ‘mother trade’ –and the fishing industry carried greater importance.14 This importance did not go unnoticed by contemporaries. Boxhorn, for example, not only had eyes for the economic value of the VOC and the WIC, but also recognized the crucial economic significance of the fishing industry. Thus, he called the capture of herring ‘the particular foundation of Holland’s wealth’. To him, the significance of the herring fisheries lay in the fact that it provided the inhabitants of Holland, who

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were ‘of smaller fortune’, with work and an income. Furthermore, these salutary effects were not confined to the herring fisheries alone, but also affected related industries.

‘It is hard to believe how many thousands of men earn a living in this manner’ [i.e. the capture of herring-JN]. Because besides the fishermen themselves, whose number would be hard to estimate, also those who bind barrels and casks together, who build ships, and who fabricate other things that are necessary to equip these ships, make a considerable profit.’ In other words, serious money was to be made chasing after the humble herring.15 Boxhorn’s analysis of the herring fisheries also applied to Holland’s fishing industry as a whole. In the Interest van Holland (The Interest of Holland, 1662), the Leiden cloth merchant Pieter de la Court (1618-1685) asserted that Holland rested ‘purely’ on ‘the flourishing of fishing,

manufactures and commerce’, with commerce seeming ‘to depend most of all’ on the fishing industry, while both sectors, in turn, were the driving forces behind the manufacturing. Not surprisingly, Pieter, whose brother Johan (1620-1660) might have been a student of Boxhorn in the early 1640s,16 emphasized the spin-off value of the fishing industry; the building and equipping of ships allowed ‘an incredible number of people’ to earn a living.17 But why was it so important that so many people earned a reasonable income?

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Empire, Economy and the Dawn of the Enlightenment

What was the importance of this private wealth for Holland or the Dutch Republic as a whole? To Boxhorn, the possession and acquisition of private wealth by Dutch citizens – either through the VOC and WIC

or the herring fisheries – meant that Dutch public authorities always had access, by means of taxation, to sufficient financial resources to fund the Republic’s military needs.18 The more people with money, the

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larger the potential reservoir from which, through levies and taxes, money could be obtained to finance Dutch armies. Boxhorn, then, linked economic prosperity to the military prowess of the Dutch Republic, which he, as a refugee from the Southern Netherlands, probably believed to be essential to achieving the ultimate goal of the Dutch struggle against the King of Spain, namely the ‘liberation’ of the Southern Netherlands from ‘Spanish tyranny’.19 This zeal for a war of ‘liberation’, so typical of most of the exiles from Brabant and Flanders who made such an important contribution to the Dutch Golden Age,20 was not shared by Pieter de la Court, although he himself was the son of refugees from the Southern Netherlands.21 On the contrary, he principally opposed war and favored peace, believing that war and excessive taxation harmed Holland and its maritime interests.22 The importance of private wealth in Pieter’s thought must therefore be sought somewhere outside the military domain. Since in his ideal version of a broad aristocratic government

only men who are economically independent can participate in politics, we can say that Pieter probably saw private wealth and personal enrichment as a means to the political emancipation of the individual Dutch male citizen.23 However, despite their differing views on war and peace, there is also an interesting similarity between the ideas of Boxhorn and Pieter de la Court, which demonstrates that before the ‘great divide’ of 1650 the Aristotelian-humanist tradition stood under increasing pressure from within. This similarity concerns the instrumentalization of self-interest.

In line with Dutch practice, but contrary to scholarly convention and Aristotelian theory, Boxhorn held that government should be entrusted to the rich and not to people ‘who are of lesser condition’ on the account of that ‘it is likely that those people shall be more devoted to the common good who will suffer more when it is lost’.24 Underlying this maxim was Boxhorn’s negative view of man as an essentially ambitious and greedy animal.25 Man will not strive to

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Empire, Economy and the Dawn of the Enlightenment

do good – let alone pursue the common good – if not seduced or forced to do so.26 An effective means, therefore, to ensure that those in power will rule to the benefit of the common good is to entrust the government of the state to people who have a self-interest in the common good or the res publica, the commonwealth. The Dutch, according to Boxhorn, had understood this logic quite well. His fellow countrymen preferred to give administrative offices to the rich because they believed that people who know that their ‘considerable belongings’ are located in the commonwealth will take better care of it.27 From Boxhorn’s description of human nature and his analysis of political society as being founded upon fear, advantage and necessity it becomes clear that he did not see man as a social being, nor society as a product of nature.28 These ideas, which stood in sharp contrast to the Aristotelian principles that man was a ‘political animal’ and hence political society a natural phenomenon, were shared by Pieter de la Court.29 Like Boxhorn, Pieter also rea-

Man will not strive to do good – let alone pursue the common good – if not seduced or forced to do so soned that the best way to make sure that the people in power ruled according to the common good was to connect their selfinterest to the common interest of political society as such.30 In the Interest, this led Pieter to declare ‘that truly nobody has a greater interest in the well-being of the country [i.e. Holland-JN] than the rulers of this aristocratic government’, for they, as ‘the owners of real estate’, could not, like fishermen or farmers, easily transfer their goods to other countries when things go bad.31 Thus, by making the same instrumental use of the notion of self-interest as Boxhorn, Pieter could legitimize the

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regime of Johan de Witt (1625-1672), the grand-pensionary of Holland, in whose defense Pieter had written the Interest.32 Old worlds, new ideas As we have observed above, empire and the fishing industry not only brought the Dutch wealth, but also influenced intellectual developments in the Dutch Republic.

The influence the Dutch quest for empire exerted on Grotius’ theories of natural law is just one example. Another can be found in the positive evaluation of Chinese culture by the German scholar George Hornius (1620-70), professor of history at Leiden University between 1653 and 1670.33 Making use of the latest information about China – brought back to Europe through the channels of the VOC, among others34 – Hornius judged the Chinese to ‘have fairly accurate ethical and political doctrines’. Indeed, in Hornius’ judgment, Confucius (551-479 BC), ‘the greatest of all Chinese philosophers’, had surpassed the majority of the pagans in moral views.

But most astonishing was the fact that ‘the

entire Chinese empire’, as the only state in the world, was ‘being governed by only philosophers’. Thus, in Hornius’ view the pagan Chinese had succeeded in realizing Plato’s ideal state, which is ruled by philosopher kings, something neither the ancient Greeks nor later European peoples had ever accomplished.35 In the end, Hornius’ positive evaluation of Chinese philosophy and government may have influenced the Dutch intellectual Isaac Vossius (16181689) – son of the famous humanist scholar Gerard Vossius (1577-1649) – whose lavish praise of Chinese culture and philosophy helped to earn him the reputation of being ‘a libertine and intellectual radical’.36 The case of Hornius illustrates that by the middle of the seventeenth century the old masters of the Western intellectual heritage had already lost some of their esteem and authority, and hence some of their grip on contemporary scholarship in the Dutch Republic. This loss did not happen suddenly, but gradually over time, as the result of a mixture of new information about the world, critical scholarship

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Empire, Economy and the Dawn of the Enlightenment

and contemporary events. An example of the undermining effect critical scholarship had on the prestige of the heroes of classical antiquity is the criticism Leiden professor Petrus Cunaeus (1586-1638) leveled in his De republica Hebraeorum (The Hebrew Republic, 1617) against ‘the empty boasts of the Greeks’ about their lawgivers. Not Lycurgus, the legendary founder of Sparta’s mixed constitution, or Solon (c.630-c.560 BC), the famous Athenian statesman, had been the first in human history ‘to write and publish laws’, but Moses, the leader of the ancient Hebrews, who had established a theocracy, a ‘sort of state whose chief and ruler is God alone’.37 Cunaeus was followed in his critical attitude

by Boxhorn, who added insult to injury by making clear that the ancient Greeks had not known this particular form of government.38 Clearly, then, the ancients had not been omniscient, as the discovery of new, previously unknown peoples – another consequence of Dutch overseas expansion – further demonstrated.39 Events in Europe also contributed

to the slow demise of the authority of the classics in the Dutch Republic. For example, the execution of the English King Charles I (1600-1649) and the installation of a non-monarchical regime in its wake inspired the great French scholar Claude Salmasius (1588-1653), who lived and worked at Leiden, to invent a new political concept called ‘stratocracy’ or ‘government by armed forces’ to classify the new regime now controlling England.40 This new political concept was quickly picked up by others in the Dutch Republic. In the Metamorphosis Anglorum (Metamorphosis of the English, 1653), Boxhorn used Salmasius’ analysis of England’s new government to help him to denounce England’s postregicide regime as a historical anomaly.41 Hornius integrated stratocracy in his discussion of the forms of government, finding examples of this type of regime in ancient Rome after the death of Emperor Nero (37-68) and in the Ottoman Empire.42 This application of the term stratocracy to the Ottoman Empire was copied by the Dutch lawyer-diplomat Petrus Valckenier (1641-

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1712) in his ‘t Verwerd Europa (Europe Raped, 1675).43 In this work, Valckenier expressed his admiration for ‘the wondrously big and mighty empire of the Turks, which … by its harsh political and military maxims and foundations, both in religion and

politics’ had not only managed to survive ‘in continuous prosperity’ for several hundred years, but seemed ‘to shall continue in that prosperity, and to grow more and more without stopping, to the terror of all its neighbours’.44

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Within less than three decades, then, a new political concept had made its entry into the age-old discussion about the forms of government and could match or even exceed traditional concepts when evaluating contemporary political regimes. That this ‘intrusion’ and toppling of old concepts was the work of men like Salmasius or Valckenier demonstrates that ostensibly ‘traditional’ authors believed the classical heritage to be insufficient to make sense of the world they were living in. This understanding further undermined the hold of the ancients on contemporary scholarship.

Conclusion: Humanist scholarship and the dawn of the Enlightenment The results of our investigation clearly demonstrate that in the decades around 1650 Dutch intellectuals had, on a range of issues, come to ideas and conclusions that, although influenced by humanist scholarship and integrated into traditional frameworks, deviated from the classical topos of the Aristotelian-humanist tradition. Seen against this background, it is not surpris-

ing that the so-called ‘Crisis of the European Mind’, a phenomenon described by Jonathan Israel as ‘the unprecedented intellectual turmoil which commenced in the mid-seventeenth century with the rise of Cartesianism and the subsequent spread of “mechanical philosophy” or the “mechanistic world-view”’, had its roots in the Dutch Republic.45 For it was there that the French philosopher René Descartes (15961650) worked for more than twenty years

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on his ideas and published most of his important works. Furthermore, it was in the Dutch Republic where his ideas found a favorable reception, both inside and outside the lecture halls of the universities.46 Indeed, it was Dutchmen like Jacob Golius (1596-1667), professor of Arabic and mathematics at Leiden University, and Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), a poet and secretary to two Princes of Orange, who encouraged Descartes to publish his first work, the Discours de la Méthode (Discourse on the Method, 1637). In this work, the French philosopher explained for the first time how, by doubting, man can acquire a knowledge that was beyond doubt, namely that he existed. Thus appeared Descartes’ famous principle of cogito ergo sum (‘I think, therefore I am’).47 Despite fierce opposition, Descartes’ ideas rapidly gained popularity in the Dutch Republic, so much so, that Leiden University, for example, became ‘largely dominated by Descartes’ new philosophy’ in the decades following the ‘first Cartesian war’ at that institute at the end of the 1640s.48

In the Dutch Republic, the superiority and authority of the Aristotelian-humanist tradition was already under attack in the decades around 1650 Thus, in the Dutch Republic, the superiority and authority of the Aristotelian-humanist tradition was already under attack in the decades around 1650, before finally losing its primacy to the ideas of the Enlightenment at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. What should be emphasized here, is that many of those who – deliberately or not – contributed to this demise of the Aristotelian-humanist tradition were not religious, political or philosophical ‘radi-

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cals’. Boxhorn, for example, came from an orthodox Calvinist background and denied, as a true Calvinist, private individuals the right to dispose of their prince-turnedinto-tyrant.49 Hornius, despite his admiration for Chinese culture, did not believe Chinese chronology – which contradicted with Biblical accounts of the history of the world– to be true and defended the authority of the Bible against the criticisms of men like Isaac Vossius.50 Golius and Huygens, supporters of Descartes, can hardly be considered as philosophical ‘radicals’.

To this we can add that most, if not all of these men had enjoyed a humanist education and conducted activities typical of humanist scholarship.51 Yet each of them, in their own particular way, did, willingly or not, help usher in the decline of the old edifice of the Aristotelian-humanist tradition. The evidence thus seems to suggest that the important intellectual changes in early-modern Europe from the 1650s onwards cannot solely be contributed to the ‘giants’ of intellectual history, such as Hobbes or Spinoza, but that a host of

‘minor’, lesser-known figures also played an important role. Therefore, if we want to improve our understanding of the transition from the age of late humanism to the age of the Enlightenment more attention must be paid to ‘minor’, ostensibly ‘traditional’ humanist scholars and intellectuals like Boxhorn or Hornius.

Endnotes 1 I would like to thank Marianne Klerk, Maggie Snow and the editors to this volume for their help on this article.

2 For the VOC, see Femme S. Gaastra, De geschiedenis van de VOC (Walburg Pers, Zutphen 1991) pp. 19-23.

For the WIC, see Henk den Heijer, De geschiedenis van de WIC (Walburg Pers, Zutphen 1994) pp. 28-34.

3 Quoted from Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton University Press, Princeton Oxford 2007) p. 178.

4 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Commentariolus de statu confoederatarum provinciarum Belgii (Johannes Verhoeve, The Hague 1649), VIII.2 pp. 110-111.

5 Ibidem, and also ibidem, VIII.36 p. 131.

6 See, for example, Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Theatrum sive Hollandiae comitatus et urbium Nova Descriptio (Hendrik Hondius, Amsterdam 1632) p. 49.

7 See Arthur Weststeijn, “Republican Empire: Colonialism, commerce and Corruption in the Dutch Golden Age”, in Renaissance Studies, Vol. 26, No. 24 (2012) pp. 491-509. DOI: 10.1111/j.14774658.2012.00824.x.

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Biography Born in Haarlem, The Netherlands, Jaap Nieuwstraten studied history of society at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 2012 he received his Ph.D. in history from the same institute for a thesis on the historical and political thought of the Dutch scholar Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn (1612-1653). Currently, Nieuwstraten is working on the reception and influence of Dutch political thought in England during the period 1688-1702. His main research and teaching interests are in the history of the Dutch Republic and Stuart England, the history of historical thought and the history of political thought.

8 See, for example, Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, “Oratio de Eversionibus Rerumpub. et Earum caussis”, in Poetae satyrici minores … (Isaac Commelinus, Leiden 1633) p. 9.

9 Boxhorn, Commentariolus, VIII.1 p. 110.

10 See Martine Julia van Ittersum, “The Long Goodbye: Hugo Grotius’ Justification of Dutch Expansion Overseas, 1615-1645”, in History of European Ideas, Vol. 36 (2010) pp. 386-411.

11 Hugo Grotius, “Defense of Chapter V of the Mare Liberum”, in idem, The Free Sea (Liberty Fund, Indianapolis 2004) p. 77. Grotius had written his Defense (c. 1615) in reaction to An Abridgement of All Sea-Lawes (1613) of the Scottish jurist William Welwod (1578-1622). See the introduction by David Armitage to Grotius, The Free Sea xviii-xx.

12 The main study on the background of both De iure praedae and Mare liberum is Martine Julia van Ittersum, Profit and Principle: Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies, 1595-1615 (Brill, Leiden Boston 2006).

13 See Piet Emmer and Jos Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld: de geschiedenis van Nederland overzee 1600-1800 (Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam 2012) pp. 125-133.

14 Findlay and O’Rourke, Power and Plenty p. 187.

15 Boxhorn, Theatrum p. 48.

16 For the possible connections between Boxhorn and the brothers De la Court, see Arthur Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age: The Political Thought of Johan & Pieter de la Court (Brill, Leiden Boston 2012) passim. Source: http://www. knir.it/en/arthur-weststeijn.html (Date: 09/02/2012).

17 V.D.H., Interest van Holland, ofte gronden van Hollands-Welvaren (Johannes Cyprianus vander Gracht Amsterdam 1662) v-vi, pp. 10-11, 14 (original italics).

18 See, for example, Boxhorn, Commentariolus,

46

Empire, Economy and the Dawn of the Enlightenment

IX.6, p. 145. For the need of taxation to finance military expenditure, see, for example, Boxhorn, Commentariolus, XII.1 p. 170.

19 In his orations and works from the mid-1630s to the peace of Münster in 1648, Boxhorn repeatedly pointed out that the Dutch from the North were fighting in the Southern Netherlands to liberate their Dutch brethern in the South from Spanish oppression. See, for example, Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Historia obsidionis Bredae (Isaac Commelinus, Leiden 1640) p. 14.

20 See Judith Pollmann, “‘Brabanters do fairly resemble Spaniards after all’: Memory, Propaganda and Identity in the Twelve Years’ Truce”, in Judith Pollmann and Andrew Spicer (eds.), Public Opinion and Changing Identities in the Early Modern Netherlands. Essays in Honour of Alastair Duke (Brill, Leiden Boston 2007) p. 227.

21 For Pieter de la Court’s parents, see Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age p. 25.

22 V.D.H., Interest van Holland pp. 63-65.

23 For Pieter de la Court’s view on the best form of government, see V.H., Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Politike Weeg-schaal (?, Ysselmonde 1662), Vol. 3, III.5 pp. 661-664. Like most – if not all – political thinkers in the seventeenth century, Pieter explicitly excluded women from participating in politics.

24 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Emblemata politica: accedunt dissertationes politicae (Johannes Janssonius, Amsterdam 1651), VI.7 p. 213. In Aristotle’s constitutional typology, rule by the rich, i.e. oligarchy, constitutes one of the three bad forms of government. Aristotle, Politics, 1279a1-1280a1 [III:7-8].

25 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, “Oratio de vera nobilitate”, in idem, Orationes dvae, De vera nobilitate, et Ineptiis saecvli (Justus Livius, Leiden 1635) p. 1, and idem, Institutiones politicae cum commentariis ejusdem et observationibus G. Horni

(Caspar Commelinus, Amsterdam 1668), II.3 p. 290.

26 Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae, I.9 p. 134.

27 Ibidem, I.8 p. 107.

28 For Boxhorn’s analysis of the foundation of political society, see ibidem, I.2 pp. 8-9, 11-13.

29 See Aristotle, Politics, 1252b1-1253a1 [I:2].

30 Jaap Nieuwstraten, “Why the Wealthy should rule: Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn’s Defence of Holland’s Aristocratic Mercantile Regime”, in Jan Hartman, Jaap Nieuwstraten and Michel Reinders (eds.), Public Offices, Personal Demands: Capability in Governance in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne 2009) pp. 148-149.

31 V.D.H., Interest van Holland pp. 21-22 (original italics).

32 For a brief explanation of the background to the Interest, see Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age pp. 55-56.

33 For a discussion of Hornius’ life and works, see Henri Krop, “Hornius, Georgius (1620-70)”, in Wiep van Bunge et al. (eds.), The Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers, Vol. 1 (Thoemmes Press, Bristol 2003) pp. 449-454.

34 Hornius, for example, refered to the Novus atlas Sinensis (New Atlas of China, 1655) of Martino Martini (1614-1661), a Jesuit missionary to China.

Martini worked on this book while travelling back from the East on board a VOC-ship. See Martino Martini, “Preface to the reader”, in idem, De bello Tartarico historia (Balthasar Moretus, Antwerp 1654) pp. 11-12, and Noël Golvers, “Martino Martini sj, his Stay in the Jesuit College of Brussels (1654), and the Production of his Novus Atlas Sinensis”, in Alain Deneef and Xavier Rousseaux (eds.), Quatre siècles de présence jésuite à Bruxelles/Vier eeuwen jezuïeten te Brussel (Prosopon, Brussels 2012) p. 127.

35 George Hornius, Historiae philosophicae libri

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Empire, Economy and the Dawn of the Enlightenment

septem (Johannes Elsevier, Leiden 1655), VI.7 pp. 308310. For Plato’s ideal state ruled by philosopher kings, see Plato, Republic, 471c-502c, 543a.

36 Thijs Weststeijn, “Vossius’ Chinese Utopia”, in Eric Jorink and Dirk van Miert (eds.), Isaac Vossius (16181689) between Science and Scholarship (Brill, Leiden Boston 2012) pp. 207-242, esp. pp. 207-210.

37 Petrus Cunaeus, The Hebrew Republic (Shalom Press, Jerusalem New York 2006), I.1 pp. 11-12.

38 Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae, II.1.5 pp. 258-259.

39 See, for example, Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, “Dedication to the States of Holland”, in idem, Historia universalis (Petrus Leffen, Leiden 1652) iv.

40 Claude Salmasius, Defensio regia (?, [Leiden?]

1649) p. 36. See further Paul W. Blackford, “Stratocracy, a Seventeenth Century Greek Coinage”, in The Classical Journal, Vol. 51, No. 6 (1956) pp. 279-280.

41 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Metamorphosis Anglorum (?, ? 1653) p. 338. Boxhorn had actually copied and inserted certain parts of Salmasius’ Defensio regia in this work. Ibidem pp. 305-340.

42 See Hornsius’ commentaries in Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae, II.1 pp. 262-264.

43 In his discussion of stratocracy, Valckenier closely follows Hornius’ analysis. See Petrus Valckenier, ’t Verwerd Europe (Antoni Schoonenberg and Johannes Rotterdam, Amsterdam 1st ed. 1675, 1742) p. 15, and compare with Hornius’ commentaries in Boxhorn’s Institutiones politicae (see previous footnote).

44 Valckenier, ’t Verwerd Europe pp. 27, 101-105 (original italics).

45 Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750 (Oxford University Press, Oxford 1st ed. 2001, 2002) p. 14.

46 For the early reception of Descartes’ ideas in the Dutch Republic, see Theo Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy,

1637-1650 (Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale Edwardsville 1992). For a more recent study of the relationship between Descartes and the Dutch and their reception of his ideas, see Harold J. Cook, Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (Yale University Press, New Haven London 2007) pp. 226-266.

47 See Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle. Revised and Expanded Edition (Oxford University Press, Oxford 1st ed. 1979, 2003) pp. 143-157. For the influence of Golius and Huygens on Descartes to publish the Discours, see the introduction by Theo Verbeek in René Descartes, Over de methode (Boom, Amsterdam 1st ed. 1977, 2002) p.

10.

48 Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch pp. 46-70, and Wiep van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza: An Essay on Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (Brill, Leiden Boston 2001) pp. 45-46.

49 Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae, II.4.54-56 p. 306, and ibidem, II.4 p. 314.

50 See Thijs Weststeijn, “Spinoza sinicus: An Asian Paragraph in the History of the Radical Enlightenment”, in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 68, No. 4 (2007) pp. 537-561, esp. pp. 544-546.

51 Boxhorn, for example, had studied at Leiden University and edited and published the works of classical authors like Tacitus. For a short discussion of Boxhorn’s life and works, see Robert von Friedeburg, “Boxhorn, Marcus Zuerius (1612-53)”, in Van Bunge et al. (eds.), The Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers, Vol. 1 pp.

146-151.

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ARTICLE ONE

ARTICLE THREE

Article Three

I

n the age of the Enlightenment, happiness was a fashionable topic. We might say that it even became an obsession for the literary class. Religion, morality, science, society, friendship, love: almost everything was judged by its ability to make people happy in this world. In the second half of the eighteenth century this interest also manifested itself politically. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of 1776 significantly considered ‘Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ part of the inalienable rights of man.

This fixation on happiness was also evident in the Dutch Republic. The period 1750-1780 especially was the heyday in the Dutch debate on happiness. The name of the eighteenth-century building Felix Meritis (= happiness by merit) on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam is testimony to this obsession.

In my 2007 PhD-thesis I investigated this eighteenth-century obsession with happiness.1 After an introductory chapter discussing the questions adressed in

my thesis, and giving a general survey of European thought on happiness, a historiographical overview, a sketch of Enlightenment-historiography, a section on sources and method and a short introduction on the concept of happiness respectively, the most important powers behind the debate on happiness are discussed in a second introductory chapter. Introducing a number of hypotheses, I have argued that it was a combination of changes within the

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Dutch Opinions on Happiness during the Enlightenment, 1658-1835

material, the intellectual and the communicational culture, which was responsible for the rise of the Enlightenment debate on happiness.

In the first part of my thesis I examined the existing traditions within this debate.

Happiness in itself was not a new subject and writers could elaborate on both the classical and the Christian traditions. These traditions, however, were not static and subject to several changes. For instance, the classical notion that virtue equates to happiness became an eighteenth-century commonplace. Between 1750 and 1780, this was the most dominant concept of happiness. In addition, many people in the eighteenth-century came to see Christianity as a means to establish happiness on earth, thereby changing the Christian outlook from a vertical to a horizontal perspective. The third, generally held, opinion that happiness was to be found in contentment was embedded in both the Christian and the classical traditions. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, this view was intertwined with the new cult of domesticity.

Writers from the period of the Enlightenment also added new elements to the debate on happiness. These new departures are discussed in the second part of my thesis. Testament to these new developments was, amongst others, the rise of a so-called science of happiness. By analogy to the natural sciences, eighteenth-century writers came to the belief that a science of happiness was possible too. The same laws that governed nature were believed to rule human behavior as well. Once these laws behind human behavior had been unveiled, nothing could obstruct happiness on earth.

A second new trend was the increasing interest in the social and personal aspects of happiness. This focus on the social and the personal was connected to a growing interest in the mechanics of civil society.

Especially from 1750 onwards, these social and personal aspects came to play a more important role in the debate on happiness.

After 1780, the focus on the social and personal dimensions of happiness gained more momentum and a more modern view of happiness became fashionable.

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‘Virtue alone is happiness below’: happiness and the classical tradition2 In the eighteenth century the notion that virtue was considered to be happiness in life gained ground. This vision, which was made popular from the 1730s by the English poet Alexander Pope and others, was based on the classical tradition. The notion of the happiness of virtue was founded on three pillars. Firstly, virtue was seen as

being capable of providing us with a clear conscience and with that, an easy mind.

Secondly, virtue was regarded as an instrument in curbing the passions. Many people in the eighteenth century, especially in the early part, considered the passions to be a serious threat to happiness. And finally, virtue was seen by some as a means to obtaining earthly benefits such as a good health and the friendship of virtuous people. Virtue in itself was primarily seen as acting for the benefit of society as a whole, meanwhile curbing one’s passions, helping the destitute, and limiting one’s level of luxury. Most of the time wealth was not considered to be ‘happiness below’.

Around the middle of the seventeenth century, the notion that virtue equated to happiness had a radical and revolutionary character. This occurred in a realm of ideas in which earthly bliss was considered only possible through the grace of God. This notion not only implied that man was the creator of his own happiness but more importantly, the concept became intertwined with a secularized morality that had

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Dutch Opinions on Happiness during the Enlightenment, 1658-1835

separated itself from Christian thought.

This radical character was affirmed by the fact that the virtue-happiness-equivalence was expressed among others by the philosopher Baruch de Spinoza who, according to Jonathan Israel, can be regarded as the founder of a radical Enlightenment, which had its origins in the urbanized society of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.3 At the end of the seventeenth century earthly bliss was not yet a generally accepted notion. In 1685 the English preacher Richard Lucas was still forced to give an extensive justification for his preoccupation with this topic.4 Because of its radical nature, there was little interest in the virtue-happiness-equivalence until 1750. Moreover, the debate on happiness initially had a more practical hue. Within this realm, there was not much room for virtue. After 1730, this debate gradually changed under the influence of the so-called ‘Spectatorial’ authors of weekly periodicals - for instance De Hollandsche Spectator (1731-1735) (The Dutch Spectator) authored by journalist Justus

van Effen. These periodicals were fashioned after famous early Eighteenth-century English examples like The Tatler and The Spectator of Richard Steele and Joseph Addison. Time and again virtue and happiness were equated in these periodicals. It was also in the 1730s that the English poet Alexander Pope exclaimed in his Essay on Man (1733): ‘Virtue alone is happiness below’, a sentence reiterated many times in the eighteenth century and translated into Dutch in 1783 by novelist Betje Wolff as ‘Deugd alleen is gelukzaligheid!’5 Around 1750, the virtue-happinessequivalence began to lose its radical connotation due to the reconciliation between happiness and religion, and became a legitimate subject to a wider audience. After 1780, the notion of virtue-happiness-equivalence was less prominent in treatises on happiness while at the same time the topic became increasingly popular in personal documents, learned and cultural societies, and even children’s periodicals.

From its very beginning, criticisms of the euphoric equation between hap-

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piness and virtue were also expressed.

They focused on three points. Firstly, the un-Christian character of this notion. Secondly, some writers expressed more philosophical objections based on the conviction that virtue should not be based on personal interest, and finally there was the more practical objection from those authors who simply observed that virtue does not make us happy at all.

These earlier criticisms reveal that the late eighteenth-century Kantian criticism of the equation between happiness and virtue was embedded in earlier developments. In the last decade of the eighteenth century, this Kantian critique was well received by philosophers such as Paulus van Hemert and Johannes Kinker. These Dutch Kantians criticized the euphoric equation between happiness and virtue by separating happiness from morality.

This dismemberment paved the way for a new type of discourse on happiness, in which earthly bliss was no longer connected to abstract notions such as virtue and perfection, but with more personal aspects

such as friendship, love, marriage, and domesticity.

A heaven on earth: happiness and the Christian tradition The search for earthly happiness was at odds with Christianity. The radical changes that occurred within the Christian tradition (and which amounted to a reconciliation between happiness and Christianity) were primarily a reaction to the classicalbased interest in earthly bliss. Preachers in the Dutch Republic such as the vicar Simon Oomius from Purmerland tried to reunite happiness with Christianity.6

The search for earthly happiness was at odds with Christianity

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Dutch Opinions on Happiness during the Enlightenment, 1658-1835

Similar to the development of the virtuehappiness-equivalence, this trend was an international phenomenon. English Protestant theology was an important stimulus, which from the 1640s onwards, shifted its focus from an art of suffering towards an art of contentment.7 In Catholic France a similar development can be distinguished within the debate on Jansenism, in which a more pleasant and earth-oriented religion was propagated.8 The changes within the Christian tradition can also be regarded as a counter-reaction to the rather grim image of earthly life that many ministers preached about in their sermons. The seventeenth century preacher Geeraerdt Brandt de Jonge, for instance, told his audience that God had tried to make earthly life unpleasant for us through ‘many accidents’.9 ‘Therefore’, Brandt continued in his sermon, ‘God strikes the earth with plagues of war, famine, and pestilence, that one would remember how miserable a house, how disastrous a home the world is.’10 Apart from a counter-reaction against this grim image of

earthly life, these changes or adjustments within Christian theology had an apologetic purpose. The clergy from different religious denominations were being counterattacked by atheistic thought, which denounced religion to be incompatible with earthly bliss. In response to that, authors that had based their thoughts on Christian tradition presented Christianity to be the only legitimate vessel for worldly bliss.

This earthly happiness was based on four pillars: (1) the expectation of eternal life in the hereafter (an expectation that, due to the reassurance it gave, also made mortal life easier), (2) the peace of mind religion could give, (3) the comfort religion offered in light of life’s inevitable earthly misfortunes, and (4) contentment as a result of believing in a benevolent providence.

Since 1750, a growing number of authors started to plead for a more here-andnow based religion in which a substantial part of happiness would take place on earth. Frequently, authors regarded earthly happiness to be the most important object of religion. This shift within Christian

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tradition was connected to a wider cultural change. Not only were Enlightenment-ideas more widely disseminated since 1750, but, due to the reconciliation between happiness and religion as well as other factors, the debate on happiness itself had lost its radical character. The pleas for a more earth-oriented religion ran parallel to the critique of a far too gloomy and troubled religious practice. At the end of the eighteenth century, these pleas had subsided and it became a commonplace to preach for a heaven on earth.11 A child of two traditions: contentment Besides the notion that virtue was happiness, the idea that contentment was happiness was the second most dominant view on earthly bliss. This notion was rooted in both the classical and the Christian tradition. Together they furnished the main points of the thought on contentment, which were: (1) the opinion that one must curb his wishes, (2) the idea that happiness is possible in every state of life and (3) the

notion that contentment is a state of inner peace.

Although the notions on contentment were rather static, there were some outstanding developments. Firstly, in the early eighteenth century, Justus van Effen associated contentment with an analysis of human society. Moreover, he detected contentment to be characteristic of a certain social group, the middle class. According to Van Effen, contentment was the hallmark of the rising middle class that differentiated itself from both the thoughtless masses and the amoral elite of regents and nobility.12

The growing awareness of contentment was, in itself, part of the development in the debate on happiness. After 1780, the emphasis within this debate gradually shifted from virtue to contentment. This trend was related to a growing interest in the concept of a civil society separate from the state. Especially after 1750, the focus on a civil society became more paramount and consequently, a social virtue such as contentment, took center stage in the debate. As the decline of the Dutch Republic

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Dutch Opinions on Happiness during the Enlightenment, 1658-1835

became more evident after 1780, the need to recommend contentment grew proportionally. At the end of the eighteenth century, the ideas about contentment had become intertwined with domesticity which, after 1770, could be connected with a feeling of uneasiness about contemporary society.13 New departures: a science of happiness One of the new developments within the debate on happiness was the search for a science of happiness that had its origins in the 1650s. Philosophers, freethinkers, scholars, and other authors on happiness were inspired by the science of their own time. This new science of happiness was primarily based on the role of reason, the observation of man, the search for regularities, and the belief in an unambiguous and quantifiable concept of happiness. This emerging science of happiness was largely influenced by the works of Descartes who is regarded in my dissertation as the starting point of this scientific approach. Early treatises by writers such as Claude Ameline,

Pieter Balling, and Spinoza, were inspired by the rationalistic influence of Cartesianism. With Walter Ehrenfried von Tschirnhaus and foremost John Locke an empiric approach had started. Locke for example, related happiness to pleasure. The English theologian Richard Lucas united both the rationalistic and the empiric aspects and in Enquiry after happiness developed a

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highly systematic approach to happiness.

Theories of natural law constituted an important link between the seventeenthand the eighteenth-century science of happiness. The natural law theories of Christian Wolff and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui were based on seventeenth-century philosophers such as Grotius and Pufendorf.

The work of Levesque de Pouilly also contributed to the development of a science of happiness. His ThĂŠorie des sentiments agrĂŠables (1747) was the basis of an entire range of similar theories on pleasures.

Moreover, he was the first to present his theory explicitly as a natural science.14 During the 1750s, the science of happiness reached a golden age. Besides the ideas of a civil society, the general economic expansion and the break-through of the Enlightenment, the works of philosophers from the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin became another catalyst in the rise of the scientific approach. Authors such as Maupertuis, Formey, and Sulzer wrote treatises that revealed a systematic approach to happiness. Dutch writers such as

Elie Luzac, Willem Emmery de Perponcher Sedlnitzky and Johannes Petsch that were inspired by these Berlin savants followed in their footsteps by publishing scientific works as well. After 1760, these scientific ideas on happiness had become further disseminated through Spectatorial writers and cultural societies.15 After 1780, the interest in the science of happiness went into decline. What happened? Firstly, this was simply due to the fact that authors had grown tired of the subject. Secondly, the debate on happiness started to change. The emphasis on abstract notions such as virtue and perfection shifted to the more social and personal aspects of earthly bliss. Especially after 1780, social and personal aspects became more dominant within the debate on happiness.

However, in cultural societies the interest in a science of happiness survived well into the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, this only confirms the inevitable conclusion that the science of happiness had moved from the epicenter of Enlightenment thought to the periphery of Dutch cultural societies.

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Social aspects of happiness Another important development within the debate on happiness was the growing interest in the social aspects of earthly bliss. The focus on a civil society separate from the state formed the axis of almost all the changes within the debate on happiness, which began in the 1730s and gathered more momentum after 1750. The emphasis on civil society was also a central force behind the pleas for a more earthly religion, the science of happiness, and the social and personal aspects in the debate on happiness. Social changes also played their part in these developments. Increasing prosperity and affluence worked as a catalyst in the debate on happiness in general, and for the social aspects of it in particular.16 At first, interest in the social dimensions was rather abstract and theoretical, but after 1780 it became progressively more practical. This development ran parallel to the growing decline of the Dutch Republic. The waning economic, social, and moral situation in the country demanded practical, more than theoretical

solutions. At the end of the eighteenth century, during the period known as the Batavian Republic, the search for happiness also started to manifest itself politically. In the National Assembly between 1796-1797, delegates debated on the issue of whether or not the pursuit of happiness should be part of the constitution of the new Republic. That, after much discussion, the article on happiness was excluded from the con-

In the National Assembly between 1796-1797, delegates debated on the issue of whether or not the pursuit of happiness should be part of the constitution of the new Republic

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stitution, illustrates the fact that by the end of the eighteenth century the debate on happiness had lost its momentum.17 Personal happiness The focus on the social aspects of happiness had another facade from the 1750s onward in the increasing interest in the personal aspects of happiness such as sociability, friendship, love, marriage, domesticity, health, and wealth. The same factors that had given rise to the growing awareness of the social aspects of happiness were also a stimulus behind the personal aspects.

Moreover, the emphasis on personal aspects was associated with the mounting interest in the self and individual.18 At the end of the eighteenth century, the personal aspects of happiness were, just as in the notion of contentment, interwoven with the emerging trend of domesticity. After 1800, these personal aspects also became the subject matter in treatises on happiness. Until then, these treatises had preserved the abstract character they had had around 1750. The fact that typical Enlight-

enment notions on happiness, such as the virtue-happiness-equivalence and the science of happiness, had faded into the background was connected to the development of a more practical debate on happiness.

Another aspect was the fact that stoicism, which was initially the backbone of the Enlightenment debate on happiness, had lost its impetus. With the growing focus on sensitivity, the callousness of stoicism became less attractive. In short, the abstract treatises on happiness, of which many had been published since the mid-eighteenth century, were no longer attractive to the reading-public of the late-eighteenth century. Kantian philosophy, which had disassociated happiness from morality, paved the way for a new approach to happiness in which the personal aspects of happiness were highlighted and in which we, from an early twenty-first-century perspective, can still recognize ourselves.

The legacy of the Enlightenment In the final chapter of my book, traditions and trends within the Enlightenment de-

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Dutch Opinions on Happiness during the Enlightenment, 1658-1835

bate on happiness are summarized, and the main developments within this debate discussed. Firstly the international character of the debate is stressed and I unveil how this debate began around 1650 as the result of a confrontation between the classical tradition and contemporary science. This international classical-scientific debate had a tense relation with Christian-

Finally, it can be concluded that the loss of the virtuehappiness-equivalence and the science of happiness, actually meant the end of the Enlightenment debate on happiness

ity and, as a consequence, thinkers writing within the Christian tradition started to reunite happiness with Christianity. Due to this reconciliation happiness became, after 1750, a legitimate subject, which was further disseminated socially. This wider dissemination of ideas on happiness is one of the most characteristic features of the eighteenth-century debate on happiness.

It was closely connected to the two major shifts of the happiness-debate, namely the shift from virtue to contentment and the shift from an abstract concept of happiness towards a more personal one.

Finally, it can be concluded that the loss of the virtue-happiness-equivalence and the science of happiness, actually meant the end of the Enlightenment debate on happiness. However, this does not mean that the interest in happiness disappeared altogether. A European intellectual elite indeed lost its interest in the subject, but for a broader public of well-educated citizens happiness remained an interesting and popular subject also after 1800.

Moreover, the values which are so closely

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connected with the Enlightenment debate on happiness – such as the central role it assigns to human dignity and equality and the right it recognizes on happiness in the here and now – has survived till our time.

In this context it is interesting to see that in 2004, the European Union recognized the happiness of the European people in its intended constitution as one of its most important goals. With its focus on the future, the European Union has revived all those eighteenth-century writers that together designed the Age of Happiness.

Endnotes 1 This article is a summary of my dissertation The Age of Happiness (2007) Peter Buijs, De eeuw van het geluk. Nederlandse opvattingen over geluk ten tijde van de Verlichting, 1658-1835 (Verloren, Hilversum 2007) (The Age of Happiness. Dutch Opinions on Happiness during the Enlightenment, 1658-1835 (with a summary in English).

2 Alexander Pope, Essay on Man (J. Wilford, London 1733) Ep. IV, vs 310.

3 Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment.

Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001) passim.

4 Richard Lucas, Onderzoek van ‘s menschen gelukzaligheyd (Barent Bos, Rotterdam 1697 and 1697) pp. 9-35. Onderzoek was a translation of An

Biography Peter Buijs (1958) studied Dutch language and literature at the University of Amsterdam. He received his PhD in 2007 from the University of Utrecht.

He is a senior staff-member of Amsterdam’s Jewish Historical Museum in which he manages the document- and photo-collections. Next to that he is currently working on a book on identity and happiness in Dutch egodocuments.

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Enquiry after Happiness (George Pawlet and Samuel Smith, London 1685).

5 Alexander Pope, Proeve over den mensch (Isaac van Cleef, The Hague 1783) p. 53.

6 Simon Oomius, Opweckinge ende bestieringe, om in allen staet van voor- of tegenspoedt/ met het tegenwoordige vergenoeght te zijn (Jan Kuyper, Amsterdam 1658).

7 Darrin M. McMahon, Happiness. A History (Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2006) p. 502; Ann Thompson, The Art of Suffering and the Impact of Seventeenth-century Anti-Providential Thought (Aldershot, Harpshire 2003) p. 4.

8 Robert Mauzi, L’Idée du bonheur dans la littérature et la pensée Françaises au XVIIIe siècle (Slatkine Reprints, Genève and Paris 1979) pp. 182-199.

9 Geeraerdt Brandt de Jonge, XXXII predicatien over verscheide texten der heilige schriftuure (Barent Bos, Rotterdam 1685) 151. ‘veelerlei ongeval’.

10 Brandt de Jonge, XXXII predicatien, 151.

‘Hierom slaet Godt d’aerde met plaegen van oorlogh/ hongersnoodt en pest/ op dat men gedenken zoude/ hoe ellendigh een huis/ hoe rampzaligh een wooning de weerelt zy.’

11 Buijs, De eeuw van het geluk, pp. 85-116.

12 Justus van Effen, De Misantrope (Uytwerf, Amsterdam 1743) part 2, pp. 124-132.

13 Buijs, De eeuw van het geluk, p. 128; Ellen Krol, De smaak der natie. Opvattingen over huiselijkheid in de Noord-Nederlandse poezie van 1800 tot 1840 (Verloren, Hilversum, 1997) passim.

14 J.L.E. de Pouilly, Theorie der aangenaame aandoeningen (Isaac van Cleef, Den Haag 1786), p. 1.

This was a translation by Betje Wolff.

15 Buijs, De eeuw van het geluk, pp. 164-166.

16 Manfred Riedel, ‘Gesellschaft, bürgerliche’, in: Reinhardt Koselleck, Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe.

Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache

in Deutschland (Arbeitskreises für Moderne Sozialgeschichte, Stuttgart, 1972-1997) pp. 719-720; Marvin B. Becker, The Emergence of Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century. A Privileged Moment in the History of England, Scotland, and France (Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1994) p. XIV. 17 L. de Gou, Het plan van constitutie van 1796.

Chronologische bewerking van het archief van de eerste constitutiecommissie ingesteld bij decreet van de Nationale Vergadering van 15 maart 1796 (…)

Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatien. Kleine serie, 40 (Nijhoff, Den Haag 1975).

18 There is a lot of literature on the history of the self. For two interesting and contrasting visions see Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989) and Jerrold Seigel, The Idea of the Self. Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005).

ARTICLE ONE

BIOGRAPHY

Biography

I

n 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus created a stir when he published An Essay on the Principle of Population. Patricia James - Malthus's biographer - wrote that the publication had brought on the head of a young, gentle and possibly shy man an unprecedented eruption of fury and prejudice. Not only had he undermined the popular utopian notions about the perfectibility of man, he was also widely misunderstood in his views and critique of the Poor Laws. According to Malthus, these laws, which had been in place for over 200 years, alleviated immediate suffering, but were in the long run very damaging for the poor and perpetuated their predicament. Malthus, keen to improve their lot, called for the abolition of the Poor Laws, a proposal which met with a bitter response. Decades after his death, Marx and Engels viciously attacked Malthus. They belittled his theoretical achievements and dismissed him as an apologist for the wealthy aristocracy. A century after his death, Keynes glorified Malthus and predicted that on the bicentenary of his death, "We shall commemo-

rate him with undiminished regard."1 After Keynes death, Malthus's works continued to inspire and fascinate people, so much so that there was a so called "neo-Malthusian" revival in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

However, in 1798, rather than being fascinated, people who looked with hope to the 19th century's utopian potential, were angry and upset; after all, with his theories about overpopulation Malthus had robbed them of their romantic dreams.

Early Life Born on February 13, 1766, at the Rookery, a country house in Surrey, Thomas Robert Malthus was the sixth of seven children: Sydenham, 12, Henrietta Sarah, 9, Eliza Maria, 4, Anne Catherine Lucy, 3, and Mary Catherine Charlotte, 19 months. His younger sister, Mary Anne Catherine was born in 1771 and was the mother of Louisa Bray who wrote the unpublished manuscript Recollections.2 His mother Henrietta was affectionate ,indulgent and very much loved by her children. His father, Daniel was, according to Louisa Bray, a peculiar

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man with eccentric opinions; "with a highly cultivated mind and very fascinating manners, he was cold and reserved in his own family, except towards his eldest daughter and youngest son, whose talents probably early attracted his attention".3 Daniel was an acquaintance and correspondent of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and before baby

Malthus was three weeks old he had met the Genevan philosopher, who after being forced to flee had taken refuge in Britain with his friend Scottish philosopher David Hume.4 Education Malthus was home-schooled by his armchair philosopher father for the first part of his life. His first tutor, Richard Graves, was an ordained graduate of All Souls’ College who lost his fellowship and offended his conventional family by marrying a lower-class girl. Graves took over tutoring from Malthus’s father when the boy was ten. Malthus subsequently attended the Dissenting Academy at Warrington in Lancashire - an institution for Protestant nonconformists - until the school's dissolution in 1783.5 The next year, Malthus entered Jesus College Cambridge where he studied for the clergy but also read mathematics and philosophy. He was known as a serious scholar with weighty intellectual interests.

Yet he was also a popular man with a witty

Biography

thus ignored the advice, took holy orders and practiced for a short period of time at a church in Okewood. He returned to Jesus College as a Fellow in 1793.7 Besides his becoming a Fellow, little is known about Malthus's life between 1788 and1798. This period was filled with drama and political turmoil. In 1793, Louis XVI was guillotined and the French republic declared war on England.

personality and good looks, who wore his sometimes pink powdered hair in little ringlets, whereas most other wore white powdered pigtails.6 Born with a cleft palate, Malthus had a speech impediment which, according to the Master of Jesus College, would affect his chances of rising in the church. Mal-

The Essay Despite the tumult, a number of writers and preachers suggested that calm and idyllic times would follow this period of upheaval. One of these men was the English social philosopher and political journalist William Godwin, author of Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Political Justice and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness (1793). Godwin was particularly optimistic about the future. Following Rousseau's claim that the history of civil society was the history of human sickness, Godwin advanced a doctrine of extreme individualism, arguing that small

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The Life and Works of Thomas Robert Malthus: 1766 - 1834

self-subsisting groups should replace large government and social institutions to ensure the future improvement of society.

He felt that all forms of social organizations were oppressive and that, after their removal, humankind would be freed from ignorance, misery and poverty and live in a world full of morality, happiness and virtue. Regarding any potential population problems Godwin predicted that humans would 'probably cease to propagate' and 'perhaps be immortal' after their liberated rationality eliminated sexual passions. 8 French philosopher and mathematician M. Condorcet had similar views. In his Sketch for a Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind (1794) he too showed striking optimism. He proposed that the human race had gone through great 'epochs' of history, in which humans had been in continuous progress from a state of savagery through levels of increasing enlightenment and happiness. In a future epoch, he argued, inequality between nations, classes, and ultimately individuals would be eliminated, and humans would enjoy intellectu-

al, moral and physical perfection.9 Malthus, unlike his father, did not agree with these utopian views. He wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of M. Godwin, M. Condorcet and Other Writers - which was anonymously published - as a critique of the utopian theories. He attacked Condorcet's theory of the 'indefinite' perfectibility of humankind and thought it was unrealistic to suppose that the capacity for biological improvement had no limits. Similarly he felt that Godwin's notion of human 'immortality' was an invention of the imagination.

Using data from the United States supplied by Benjamin Franklin, Malthus came with a rather damning thesis. His argument concerned two main premises: "first, population when unchecked, grows at a geometrical ratio, doubling itself every twenty-five years or so. Second, subsistence, which meant the minimum standard of living and the amount of food necessary to the life of a human, increases only in an

Biography

arithmetical ratio - in uniform incremental increases. Thus population would quickly exceed levels of subsistence."10 According to Malthus there were two kinds of obstacles that could block this advance; positive checks, i.e. checks which raise the death rate like war famine and plagues; preventative checks, i.e. checks which lower the birth rate like voluntary abstinence from sex and delaying marriage. Malthus didn't think preventative checks were likely to happen and thought he had no or little chance of persuading the lower classes to embrace his argument and abstain from

marriage or childbirth, especially when the Poor Law encouraged couples to have children. 11 Despite the fact that Malthus's conclusions weren't exactly new - Franklin and Sir James Stewart each had previously published similarly foreboding essays - An Essay captured the theory and the attention of Britain. One of the people won over was Prime Minister Pitt. He adopted Malthus's thesis and withdrew a Bill he had introduced that called for the extension of Poor Relief. In line with Malthus's ideas, he too opposed certain welfare handouts to the poor on the supposed grounds that they added to the upward pressures on both prices and population and thereby exacerbated the very conditions that they were meant to relieve.12 Malthus's conclusions regarding the Poor Laws met with criticism and may still be hard to digest for modern readers. Nevertheless, several writers have pointed out that Malthus should not be criticized as a heartless man who has no sympathy for the poor. For example, Patricia James states: "Malthus's concern

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The Life and Works of Thomas Robert Malthus: 1766 - 1834

for the causes which affect the happiness and comfort of the lower orders of society seems more humanitarian. The Poor Laws, according to him, were bad because they diminished both the power and the will to save, and thus weakened one of the strongest incentives to sobriety and industry and consequently to happiness".13 In the five years separating the first from the second edition of the Essay (17981803), Malthus collected much empirical data both by studying the available literature but primarily by travel. The diaries he kept of his travels, edited by Patricia James and published in 1966, are a thorough and detailed record of his observations of life in foreign lands: the health and wealth - or lack thereof - Â of the people, and the prices of various commodities and services, and how they may have been affected by climate, wars and laws.14 'A change of heart' - the Essay's second edition After the publication of the first edition of the Essay, and under influence of his newly

collected data, Malthus's views changed substantially. He didn't only want to adjust the Essay's content, he also had some issues with its methodology. He had formulated his analysis in a deductive form, but became averse to arguments set forth that way. In his book Principles of Political Economy (1820) he makes his disposition on the topic very clear: "The tendency to premature generalization occasions also, in some of the principal writers on political economy, an unwillingness to bring their theories to the test of experience. I should be the last person to lay an undue stress upon isolated facts, or to think that a consistent theory, which would account for the great mass of phenomena observable, was immediately invalidated by a few discordant appearances, the reality and the bearings of which there might not have been an opportunity of fully examining. But certainly no theory can have any pretension to be accepted as correct, which is inconsistent with general experience."15

Biography

Consequently Malthus - in an attempt to putting his own guidelines into practice altered the emphasis of his analysis in the first Essay and learnt that his assumption about the course of the English population was, unlike his views about the behavior of colonial populations in North America, not supported by empirical evidence. He also discovered, having the evidence of the first census before him, that the English population was growing rapidly (the rate of growth was not only high but also rising).

On his travels he had also found evidence that showed that in some European countries, notably in Switzerland, both fertility and mortality had fallen considerably from the levels prevailing in earlier periods. This kind of evidence demonstrated that population behavior in relation to economic opportunity was a much more complex phenomenon than he had anticipated. An important realization was that the relative importance of the preventative checks as opposed to the positive checks was much greater than he had supposed. This is why he decided to put a greater emphasis on

the difference between European patterns of relationship between production and those to be found elsewhere in the world.

E.A. Wrigley, author of Poverty, Progress and Population, describes Malthus's more mature position in the following terms:

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"The material technology at the disposal of a given community sets limits to what it can produce and therefore imposes a ceiling to its possible output, though improvements in technology, investment, and change in the institutional structure of the polity may all enable a growth in output to occur so that the ceiling rather than being fixed, might be regarded as rising gradually in favorable circumstances.

It still represented a constraint upon population growth, however since population if left unhindered was capable of outpacing economic growth. What mattered was how the constraint on numbers operated.

If it operated solely through mortality rising to match a prevailing level of fertility the result would tend to be misery and deprivation. If it operated rather through reduced fertility and occurred before mortality had risen, a much higher equilibrium level of real wages was attainable and might be sustained indefinitely. Fertility within marriage might be high and invariant, but delay in marriage could reduce family size substantially."16

Malthus became increasingly convinced that nuptality in Western Europe responded to economic circumstances and that the so called 'nuptiality valve' could be effective in restraining growth and secure a brighter future for people. As such Malthus in his mature years, adopted a much less black and white and at times guardedly optimistic view of future prospects.17 The second edition of his Essay complete with new title: An Essay on the Principle of Population or a View of its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness, with an Inquiry into Our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils Which It Occasions, was published in 1803. Reviews from leading journals and magazines praised Malthus (whose name now appeared on the previously anonymous work) "for his insight and diligence, if not for his brevity".18 Lord Robbins, in the foreword to The Travel Diaries of T.R. Malthus, describes the first Essay as "a brilliant a priori polemic", and the second edition as "a weighty empirical treatise" bolstered by those careful observations.

Biography

Lord Robbins describes the first Essay as “a brilliant a priori polemic”, and the second edition as “a weighty empirical treatise” bolstered by those careful observations Less than two years later; the Monthly Magazine announced the preparation of a third edition, which appeared in 1806 followed by a fourth edition the next year.

In total 6 editions were to be published between 1798 and 1826.

Causing Controversies In the introduction it was already briefly mentioned that Malthus was both loved and despised. Each new edition of his Essay brought along new controversies. In his

1820 book On Population, William Godwin criticized Malthus's criticisms of his own argument. Other contemporaries also delivered theoretical and political critiques of Malthus and his thinking. Reformist industrialist Robert Owen, essayist William Hazlitt, economist Nassau William Senior and the moralist William Cobbett, to name but a few, opposed Malthus. Many attacked his suggestion that the problems of the poor were caused by their reproductive practices and his belief that poor relief did more harm than good in alleviating those problems. The most vicious attack came from Marx and Engels who perceived Malthus’s “general laws of nature” as a “sell-out” to the bourgeois. They wrote the following in their book Grundrisse Der Politischen Ökonomie (1859) : This baboon [Malthus] thereby implies that the increase of humanity is a purely natural process, which requires external restraints, checks, to prevent it from proceeding in geometrical progression. This geometrical reproduction is the natural re-

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production process of mankind. He would find in history that population proceeds in very different relations, and that overpopulation is likewise a historically determined relation, in no way determined by abstract numbers or by the absolute

‘I saw Mr. Malthus in Paris recently, and I was much happier with his conversation than with his book. He is a respectable man and he gave the impression of not being too displeased with me, in spite of our disagreements.’

(Jean-Baptiste Say)

limit of the productivity of the necessaries of life, but by limits posited rather by specific conditions of production. As well as restricted numerically."19 John Stuart Mill on the other hand strongly defended him in his book Principles of Political Economy (1848) and naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace were equally inspired by Malthus.

During Malthus’s lifetime, his most fierce critic was the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832). His Letters to Malthus (1820) were an astounding success among economists and the public at large20.

The two economists met at least once, in Paris in the summer of 1820. In a letter of August to Sismondi, Say wrote: I saw Mr. Malthus in Paris recently, and I was much happier with his conversation than with his book. He is a respectable man and he gave the impression of not being too displeased with me, in spite of our disagreements. I wish you would say the same about me, my dear Monsieur.

21

Biography

Say more or less accepted Malthus’ ideas on population, but disagreed with him about the self-equilibrating potential of a market economy. Malthus believed in the possibly persistent character of a deficient effective demand, while Say proclaimed a fairly rapid return to a – more or less – full employment equilibrium. Say’s Law, the notion that 'supply creates its own demand', or more precisely that in order to be a demander, one must be a supplier, was known in economic theory before Jean-Baptiste Say. It can be found in Physiocratic literature and in Adam Smith. In its simplest wording, it is no more than a tautology.

Regarding its more sophisticated versions, the real question is not whether the law is true or false, but rather under what conditions it holds. This question gave occasion to much debate among the classical economists. In the post-Napoleonic stagnation, the practical side of the debate was known as the General Glut Controversy. Later in the nineteenth and early twentieth century the law went into relative oblivion, but was revived by Keynes who in his Gener-

al Theory (1936) presented Say's Law as a summary of all that was wrong with classical (or perhaps even all pre-Keynesian) economics. Keynes probably never went deeply into Say himself, but came to the law in a roundabout way through his biographical study of Malthus. It has been said that both of them rebelled against doctrines of macroeconomic self-adjustment and self-equilibration.

Malthus's theories were highly controversial in his own time and have continued to cause debate ever since. Modern critics have been divided between those who claim Malthus's theories have been misunderstood and those who echo earlier critics in charging that his theories supported an economic system based on inequality. Regarding the latter school of criticism Geoffrey M Hodgson notes the following: While to the modern reader Malthus’s social and economic policies are reactionary and conservative, they should be put into the context of his time. Most economists of this period tolerated no more than limited

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social engineering and economic intervention, excepting some relatively minor intercessions deemed to enhance competition, to clear the way for the market, or to promote growth. While Malthus was politically no radical, his aptitude for penetrating causal analysis and his concern for practical policies led to a critique of absolute laisser-faire and ideas that are remarkably similar to those of Keynes.22 Marriage and further career In April 1804 Malthus, aged 38, married his first cousin once removed, Harriet Eckersall. The couple had three children.23 He vacated his Fellowship and was appointed the chair of Modern History and Political Economy at the East India College established at Haileybury for the general education of cadets for the Indian service. He is thus the first English (as opposed to Scottish) professional academic economist. He remained at Haileybury for the rest of his life. Although never creating such a stir as with his Essay, Malthus continued to publish, besides the aforementioned Principles

‘Mr Malthus was a clergyman - a most conscientious one, pure and pious.

We never knew one of this description so entirely free from the vices of his caste’ (Professor William Empson)

of Political Economy which is regarded as his last work of importance, he also wrote works including Observations on the effect of the Corn Laws (1814) and The policy of restricting the importation of Grain (1815). Malthus was elected into the Royal Society in 1818.24 He died on December 29,

Biography

1834, after being taken ill suddenly during a Christmas visit to his parents-in-law at Bath. He was buried in the north aisle of Bath Abbey; a memorial tablet is now in the north porch. He left no descendants beyond his three children. His youngest had died at the age of 17 and the eldest two, Henry and Emily, married late and had no children of their own.25

A few years after Malthus's death Professor William Empson, of Haileybury, wrote the following words that seem an appropriate ending to this short biography: "Mr Malthus was a clergyman - a most conscientious one, pure and pious. We never knew one of this description so entirely free from the vices of his caste [...] Mr Malthus owed the discovery, which will immortalize his name, mainly to his benevolence. Instead of his speculations on population having hardened his heart against the interests of the poor, it was the earnestness and the perseverance with which he set himself to work in behalf of those very interests, that first fixed his attention upon these particular speculations."26

Endnotes 1 Todd G. Buchholz, New Ideas from Dead Economists - An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought (April 2007 Plume New York), 43.

2 The author Patricia James who wrote : Population Malthus, His life and Times (1979) and edited The Travel Diaries of Thomas Robert Malthus (1966) has drawn heavily on this unpublished manuscript.

3 Patricia James, Population Malthus: his life and

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times. (1979 London: Routledge and Kegan Paul) 13.

4 Ibid, pp 11-14.

5 William Petersen, Malthus, (1979 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) pp. 23-24.

6 Todd G. Buchholz, New Ideas from Dead Economists - An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought p. 44.

7 Patricia James, Population Malthus: his life and times. p. 27 8 Brian Dolan, Malthus, Medicine & Morality: Malthusianism After 1798 (RodopI, 2000) p. 12.

9 Keith Michael Baker, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics: introduction: http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_ staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1669&Itemid=27 10 Brian Dolan, Malthus, Medicine & Morality: Malthusianism After 1798, p.13.

11 Todd G. Buchholz, New Ideas from Dead Economists - An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought p. 50.

12 This is quite remarkable considering that Pitt in 1796 had said "Let us make relief a matter of right and honor. This will make a large family a blessing and not a curse; and this will draw a proper line of distinction between those who are to provide for themselves by their labour and those who after enriching their country with a number of children, have claim upon its assistance for their support (James Bonar, Malthus and His Work , London: Macmillan, 1885 p. 127) 13 Patricia James, Population Malthus: his life and times p. 130.

14 Patricia James, The travel diaries of Thomas Robert (1966).

15 Malthus, Principals of political economy, p. 231.

16 E.A. Wrigley, Poverty, Progress, and Population (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) p.

234.

17 Ibid, 7.

18 Todd G. Buchholz, New Ideas, p. 52.

19 Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Penguin edition, transl. Martin Nicolaus, 1973) p. 606.

20 Say (1820), Lettres à M. Malthus sur différens sujets d’Economie Politique, notamment sur les causes de la stagnation générale du commerce; Paris and London (Bossange).

21 Say to Sismondi, 16 August 1820; Hashimoto photocopies collection, Institut Triangle, Université Lyon p. 2.

22 Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 'Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834)' in: Biographical Dictionary of British Economists, edited by Donald Rutherford (2004 Bristol, Thoemmes Continuum) p. 5.

23 Critics loved to jeer at the multiplication of his own offspring, and although the Malthuses had only three children, somehow the 1958 and 1967 Everyman's Library editions of An Essay awarded him eight more.

24 H.J. Habakkuk, Thomas Robert Malthus, F.R.S. (1766-1834) in: Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Jun., 1959), p. 99.

25 Patricia James, Population Malthus, p. 338.

26 Ibid, p 52.

ARTICLE ONE

BLOG & AUTHOR

Blog & Author

J

ohn Protevi, Professor of Philosophy at Louisiana State University, launched a blog called New APPS in September 2010.

He felt that the philosophical blogosphere was too hegemonic and that there was a need for different perspectives, thus he created a platform where a group of professional philosophers could share their (alternative) voices on Arts, Politics, Philosophy and Science (APPS). He brought together a number of people who he either already knew personally, or who he had seen making interesting contributions in the blogosphere.

One of the people he invited was Catarina Dutilh Novaes, assistant professor and Rosalind Franklin fellow at the Department of Theoretical Philosophy of the University of Groningen.

Q & A Catarina Dutilh Novaes.

You joined the blog in October 2010, can you tell me a little bit more about the blog, its content and contributors?

"One of the motivations was that John wanted to create a venue for more commu-

nication between the two main traditions currently in philosophy, the so-called analytic and continental traditions. The blog has contributors from both camps, and many (though not all) of us are interested in both traditions. In this respect I think the blog has been extremely successful, in particular in showing that there is no real, philosophical reason why these two traditions should not talk to each other and cross-fertilize.

Another point in common among the various contributors is that many of us engage actively with other disciplines outside philosophy. Many of us work on the interface with psychology and cognitive science (Berit Brogaard, Helen De Cruz, myself, Mohan Matthen, John), some are very conversant with math and/or linguistics (Mark Lance, Jon Cogburn, Dennis Des Chene), and Eric Schliesser is very active within philosophy of economics. So all of us have a vision of philosophy where active engagement with other disciplines is a must. John Protevi likes to say that philosophy must be ‘empirically responsible’,

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Catarina Dutilh Novaes: New APPS

i.e. philosophical theories should at least be compatible with the current findings of our best sciences, rather than speculative ‘just-so’ stories."

At United Academics we are trying to connect science and society, and we feel that the most appropriate way of doing so is through blogs and online open access journals. We still meet a lot of resistance from the 'old guard' within the academic community. What is your experience with academics and new forms of media like a blog.

"My guess is that a significant number of professional philosophers read blogs quite regularly (but then again, these are the ones I’m in touch with, so it’s hard to quantify! Selection bias…). At this point, blogs play an important role in the organization of the discipline as a whole, mostly as a result of the activities of a very influential blogger, Brian Leiter, who has been active for many years. Another influential philosophical blog is the Feminist Philoso-

phers, who have done so much to bring the issue of gender (im)balance to the fore in debates within the profession.

I have personally never encountered outright rejection of blogging as a form of philosophical practice. In my experience, whenever I meet new people in the profession, most of them already know who I am through my blogging activity (I think it is fair to say that NewAPPS is the second most-read philosophy blog, after the Leiter Reports), and nobody has ever criticized it to my face, so to speak… There is the ques-

Blog & Author

tion of whether blogging can be said to constitute ‘serious’ philosophy or whether it is just an amusing sidekick. Personally, my own philosophical work has benefited tremendously from my interactions with readers through the blog, so to me it is ‘serious work’. But it is not (yet) something that is seen by administrators as ‘counting points’ in a tenure or promotion case, so we are not there yet…"

Which topics generate the most traffic?

"Our most popular posts are those related to issues and controversies in the profession, for example the so-called ‘Synthese affair’ almost 2 years ago – a case where the editors-in-chief of one of the discipline’s main journals appeared to have made severe judgment mistakes and were severely attacked by some members of the profession. Generally, a post attacking a famous philosopher and inciting controversy generates a lot of traffic! People love fights, be they professional philosophers or not…

Posts that have some connection with sex

also tend to attract traffic, but mostly only if they are also somewhat controversial (such as a post by me comparing male circumcision with female genital alteration)."

Does this knowledge then influence future blog posts? Do the New APPS bloggers try to cater to a certain audience based on what attracts readers?

"Responses to the popularity of different topics vary a bit per blogger (some are more

My own philosophical work has benefited tremendously from my interactions with readers through the blog, so to me it is ‘serious work’

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Catarina Dutilh Novaes: New APPS

concerned with traffic than others), but in any case we all agree that we should avoid becoming a kind of philosophical ‘tabloid’ at all costs. So I’d say that for the most part, we do not take traffic into account much in our decisions on what to blog about. We care very much about credibility, and feel that our more polemic posts are taken seriously precisely because they are among very serious, scholarly posts that are not particularly ‘sexy’ in terms of popularity."

This current issue deals with several aspects of the Enlightenment. What would the great thinkers of this era think of a blog: making knowledge available to a wider (non) academic audience: "For me personally, the whole idea of knowledge being accessible is a big concern, both when it comes to content and sheer availability. I studied philosophy in Brazil, and at the time the libraries there had very limited resources, so I had first-hand experience of what it is like not to have easy access to knowledge. The beauty of a blog is

that it is fully accessible to anyone with an internet connection, anywhere in the world (well, not including places where there is censorship of the internet…). I also make my academic writing (papers) freely available on my website, for the same reason.

Open access is a movement that is gathering strength, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the absurd prices that academic presses charge for journal subscriptions are simply unacceptable. If every researcher made their work available on their websites (even if in pre-print version, which is not copyrighted), soon the outrageous prices of journals would be a thing of the past. And this is absolutely in the spirit of the great Enlightenment figures of the 18th century.

In terms of format, blog posts can be seen as short philosophical essays, as the general idea (at least at NewAPPS) is to make them not much longer than 1.000 words. It is a genre in and of itself -- to say something accessible and yet non-trivial in around 1.000 words -- and I for one have very much enjoyed learning the genre. I

Blog & Author

became much more aware of how to write something ‘catchy’, something that would entice the reader to continue reading, to make use of humor, to play with the reader’s emotions. Titles are very important, and my general principle for titles of blog posts is that they should cause some sort of ‘cognitive dissonance’ and thus prickle the reader to read on. I think there is still much room to experiment with alternative media for the expression of philosophical ideas, and for now my own practice is still too much text-based, but it’s a start! Here again, there is an interesting comparison with the Enlightenment philosophers, who experimented with different genres so as to reach wider audiences: short novels, pamphlets, plays etc.

But ultimately, the content has to be worth reading, and at the same time remain reasonably accessible. Not all my blog posts are equally accessible (in some, I am mostly brainstorming about a serious research idea), but I generally aim at writing something that the non-academic but educated person (or the philosophy under-

graduate) could understand, at least partially. But then again, not everything that the Enlightenment philosophers wrote was equally accessible!

Finally, another characteristic of the Enlightenment philosophers was to focus on societally relevant topics such as political philosophy, rather than concentrating exclusively on esoteric metaphysical confabulations. At NewAPPS we are very committed to this societal dimension (hence the P for politics). For example, one of our contributors, Lisa Guenther, is a professional philosopher, as well as an active campaigner against solitary confinement and capital punishment. She holds regular meetings with inmates to discuss philosophy and other topics (see for example her post http://www.newappsblog.com/2013/01/ reading-plato-on-death-row.html), and her posts include her thoughts and experiences on these matters. She makes me proud to be a philosopher! (and her co-blogger) This is a great example of how philosophical engagement with societal problems is not a thing of the past."

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Catarina Dutilh Novaes: New APPS

As you mentioned before, the New APPS is (probably) the second most read philosophy blog. It is clear that Protevi's initiative has been hugely successful. Where do you intend to go from here?

"One of John’s goals was to foster some kind of geographical plurality, as he felt that the philosophical blogosphere was too much focused on the philosophical community in the USA. Besides having a number of North American contributors, the blog has been able to include quite a bit on philosophy in continental Europe as many of the contributors work in Europe. But we would like to include more on philosophy outside of Europe and the US, so in this respect there is room for improvement! Although I have to say that some of us are originally from places other than where we, so that adds a bit of geographical variation to the mix."

Biography Catarina Dutilh Novaes is an assistant professor and Rosalind Franklin fellow at the Department of Theoretical Philosophy of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Groningen.

She is also an external member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy and an editor for the Review of Symbolic Logic. Her main fields of research are history and philosophy of logic. She blogs for New APPS http:// www.newappsblog.com and M-Phi; a blog dedicated to mathematical philosophy http://m-phi.blogspot.com.

UA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES CALL FOR PAPERS CHRISTIANITY & THE WESTERN WORLD UAJSS invites research papers from the various disciplines of the social sciences and humanities that reflect on aspects of Christianity and The Western World.

Papers in (intellectual) history, sociology and theology are welcomed, but also papers exploring the connection between political structures and Christianity will be positively considered.

Deadline: 30 May 2013 See our website www.united-academics.org/journal for submission & guidelines

Send an email to the editor elke.weesjes@united-academics.org

U N I T E D ACADEMICS BOOKSTORE See our website www.united-academics.org/bookstore

GET PUBLISHED contact & Submissions

We wish to emphasize that the United Academics Journal of Social Sciences publishes work of post-graduate and postdoctoral researchers. To encourage the cross-fertilization of disciplines we have chosen a plurality of fields and facilitate a productive interaction between the widest possible range of post-graduate authors and the public. The Social Sciences are the disciplines that explore aspects of human society. This term includes anthropology, archeology, geography, history, law, linguistics, psychology, political science and sociology. To maintain a high academic standard, articles submitted should be based on research undertaken during postgraduate or post-doctoral studies. Articles should be original in approach and subject matter.

Guidelines The journal is dedicated to a specific topic, but we also encourage academics to submit on any facet of Social Sciences. Articles should be sent as an email attachment to: elke.weesjes@united-academics.org.

• Provide a brief abstract of approximately 250 words.

• Articles should be based on original research.

• If you have any ideas for media that you would like to be part of your article, please send them in an attachment along with where you would like them to be placed.

We encourage creativity and feel that the more ideas you have in this context, the better your article will look.

• Articles should be between 2500 and 3500 words, book reviews should be no more than 1000 words and a WIP piece should be no more than 1500-2000 words in length.

• All quotations in the text should be in single quote marks (double for quotes within quotes) and long quotes should be indented without quotation marks.

• Use footnotes. In respect of references, give full details. E.g. Arend Lijphart, the politics of accommodation, pluralism and democracy in the Netherlands in the Netherlands (University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles 1975) 17-18. Subsequent references should give the author’s name, short title and page number.

• Spell out numbers to twenty, centuries and percentages.

• Try to avoid jargon, but where it is particularly relevant or where it is necessary, explain all jargon clearly.

We reserve the right not to publish articles which do not conform to the standards established by the peer review process.