Xenophanes

Summary

[In ‘Xenophanes’, Bayle explores two notions that were subjects of controversy in classical, Christian, and heretical writings: ‘acatalepsy’ (or ‘scepticism’), and ‘evil’. The first, examined in Remark (L), is raised in the context of the postulate: ‘Xenophanes believed in the incomprehensibility of all things.’ The second concerned harm (le mal) – meaning both ‘the crimes of humankind’ and ‘the unhappiness of humankind’. In Remark (E), Bayle explores gross moral evil, including war, mass slaughter, extortion, great superstitions, and the abuse of the innocent. He asks if the belief that there are two warring empires in the universe, namely, the evil empire and God's empire, can be sustained either theologically or philosophically. In Remarks (F), (H) and (K), Bayle turns to ‘happiness’, asking if ‘the sweet things of life’ equal its ‘bitter draughts’. He infers that if philosophers were to deepen their knowledge of empirical psychology they could well improve their moral insight.]

enophanes, a Greek philosopher, native of Colophon who was, some tell us, a disciple of Archelaus. On this account he should have been a contemporary of Socrates. Others will have it that he taught himself all that he knew and that he lived at the same time as Anaximander. In that case he would have flourished before Socrates, and at about the sixtieth Olympiad as Diogenes Laertius asserts. He lived a long time, since verses are cited in which he declares 1. that his works were applauded in Greece for sixty-seven years; and 2. that he began to be famous at the age of twenty-five [(A)].