The Human Condition according to Pierre Bayle

Abstract

Pierre Bayle, the author of a publication titled Pensées diverses sur la comète (1682), translated by J. Ch. Gottsched as Verschiedene Gedanken über einen Kometen (1741) had developed a set of methodological principles, helpful in the eradication of superstition from human knowledge. He paid particular attention to the elimination of a certain superstition that comets are the causes or heralds of future calamities, demonstrating the incongruity of the aforementioned thesis with the laws of common sense as well as experience (historical testimonies). He also criticized the superstition that an atheist cannot be a moral person, and that atheists cannot form a society. He showed that the underlying force of human actions is not the knowledge of religious principles, but of passions, especially self-love.