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Conscience and reason: the natural law theory of Jean Barbeyrac*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Tim Hochstrasser
Tim Hochstrasser
Affiliation:
Downing College, Cambridge
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Abstract

Jean Barbeyrac is best known as the leading eighteenth-century translator in French of the major writings on natural law by Pufendorf, Grotius and Cumberland. This article attempts to expound and assess Barbeyrac's independent contribution to the natural law tradition as it may be recovered both from these editions of the works of others and also from other writings. It is argued that Barbeyrac's intellectual context in the Huguenot diaspora and his distinctive reading of Locke, Bayle, and Pufendorf led him to develop an original equation of the authority of conscience with the authority of reason. The rationalist natural law theory he developed inevitably identified the role assigned to God within it and the scope of resistance to legal civil authority as central issues for debate which remained problematic for Barbeyrac throughout his career. These important ethical subjects remained unresolved in the general development of natural jurisprudence in the early eighteenth century, as exemplified in Barbeyrac's attempt to refute Leibniz's telling critique of Pufendorf.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 289 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 The main biographical source for Barbeyrac is Meylan, P., Jean Barbeyrac (1674–1744) et Us débuts de I'enseignement du droit dans l' ancienne Académic de Lausanne (Lausanne, 1937)Google Scholar. This draws on Barbeyrac's own memoir first published in German in a series of lives of famous jurists: Rathlef, E. L. (ed.), Geschichte Jetztlebender Gelehrten (Zelle, 1740), pp. 1–65Google Scholar. Additional information on Barbeyrac's years in Berlin is found in Othmer, S., Berlin und die Verbreitung des Naturrechts in Europa. Kultur und sozialgeschichtliche Studien zu Jean Barbeyracs Pufendorf-Übersetzungen und einer Analyse seiner Leserschafl (Berlin, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, the best coverage of Barbeyrac's immediate intellectual context is provided in Dufour, A., Le Manage dans l' école romande du droit naturel au xviiie siecle (Geneva, 1976), pp. 1–35Google Scholar. Although this work focuses on Barbeyrac's contribution to private as opposed to public law, it emphasizes the degree to which the principle of free examination of a text in a rational light was developed within the framework of attempts to dismantle the Consensus Helvetian (1674). Quotations from Barbeyrac are left in the original French except where there is a recognised English translation: for instance all references to Barbeyrac's edition of Pufendorf's De Jure Naturae et Gentium (hereafter referred to as De Jure Naturae) are drawn from the fifth edition of Basil Kennett's English translation (1749).

2 For Leibniz's, Opinion on the principles of Pufendorf (1706) seeGoogle ScholarLeibniz, G. W., Political writings, ed. Riley, P. (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 64–75Google Scholar.

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17 See Moore, , ‘Natural law and Pyrrhonian controversy’, pp. 22–4Google Scholar for a detailed account of how Barbeyrac came to isolate Pyrrhonism as the leading feature of Bayle's philosophy. It should perhaps be stressed that, although Bayle was generally unsympathetic towards modern natural law theory, he had a high regard for Grotius, and especially for his argument that some moral imperatives could be identified intuitionally by reason alone: see Labrousse, E., Pierre Bayle (2 vols., The Hague, 1963–1969), II, 268ffGoogle Scholar.

18 Barbeyrac to Le Clerc, 10 Apr. 1706: Universiteits-Bibliotheek Amsterdam MS RK C3.

19 Barbeyrac to Desmaizeaux, 22 Dec. 1706: British Library Additional MSS 4281, fos. 20–1.

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24 Ibid. p. xvii.

25 Barbeyrac, , Science of morality, p. 4 (citing Locke's Essay, book in, ch. 11, §17)Google Scholar.

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28 Ibid. pp. 4–5 (citing Essay, book IV, ch. 4, §8).

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30 Ibid. book II, ch. 3, §x, p. 126, note 2.

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32 Ibid. (Barbeyrac's paraphrase of a passage from Seneca, Epistolae No. 94).

33 For Cumberland see Haakonssen, K., ‘The character and obligation of natural law according to Richard Cumberland’, in Unsocial sociability – natural law and the eighteenth century discourse on politics and society, eds. Hont, I. & Bodeker, H. E. (London, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

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41 See, for example, Tillotson, J., Sermons sur diverses matières importantes ed. Barbeyrac, J. (2 vols., Amsterdam, 1718), IIGoogle Scholar, Préface du Traducteur, xx. Locke introduced Barbeyrac to these sermons as away of improving Barbeyrac's English. He was so impressed by them as examples of rational theology that he later prepared a French edition (see Préface du Traducteur, passim).

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48 Ibid. XI, 69 (a second review in successive volumes).

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49 Ibid.

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55 Ibid. p. 83 (I Corinthians, rv, 5–6).

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58 We know that Barbeyrac began the composition of his Science of morality in 1703 after his translation and notes to Pufendorfs De Jure Naturae had been sent to the compositor in Amsterdam (Meylan, , Barbeyrac, pp. 60–1)Google Scholar. Although he persistently complained of the difficulties he had in Berlin in obtaining copies of recent publications, nevertheless many of the sources on which he relies were published in and around this time, notably Pierre Coste's translation of Locke's Essay in 1700 and Le Clerc's two volumes of occasional essays, Parrhasiana in 1699 and 1701. He was in correspondence with both Locke and Le Clerc during the time of the composition of this History of morality: letters to Locke (26 July 1704, Bodleian Library MS Locke c. 3, f. 14) and to Le Clerc (10 Apr. 1706, Universiteits-Bibliotheek, Amsterdam, MS RK C3) contain expressions of thanks for advice received at the time of the composition of the Science of morality.

59 Clerc, J. Le, Parrhasiana (2 vols., Amsterdam, 1699, 1701), 11, 91–2Google Scholar.

60 Barbeyrac, , Science of morality, pp. 83–4Google Scholar, quoting ibid. pp. 117–18. The citation from Locke uses material in § 185 of Some thoughts concerning education. In his letter to Locke of 6 Jan. 1703 (Bod. Lib. MS, Locke c. 3, fos. 142–3) he explains that this endorsement was an important stimulus to him in taking up the project in the first place: ‘Mais je travaille présentement à une Traduction, dont je fonde la plus grande partie du succés sur l'approbation avantageuse que vous avés donné à Poriginal dans votre Traité de l'Education’ (fo. 143).

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62 See Pufendorf, S., ‘De origine et progressu disciplinae juris naturalis’, in Specimen ContToversiarum circa Ius Naturale ipsi nuper motarum (Uppsala, 1678)Google Scholar. For a full list of these Histories of morality and a survey of examples in both French and German see Hochstrasser, , Natural law theory, pp. 1–2, 58–66, 206–16, 223–38, 260–6, 282–99Google Scholar.

63 Barbeyrac, , Science of morality, p. 12Google Scholar.

64 Barbeyrac to Desmaizeaux, 22 Dec. 1706: BL Add. MSS 4281, fo. 21.

65 A large extract from the Phaedo is used to back up this point: see Barbeyrac, , Science of morality, p. 52Google Scholar.

66 Ibid. p. 58.

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68 Clerc, J. Le, Préface, Bibliothèque Choisie, I (1701)Google Scholar(translated in Golden, S. A., Le Clerc (New York, 1972), p. 41)Google Scholar.

69 Reviewers of Barbeyrac's editions of Pufendorf who clearly emphasize the value of the books as text books that transcended social barriers include, Bernard, J., ‘Les Devoirs de l'Homme et du Citoyen’, Journal des Sfavans, LIX (1716), 110Google Scholar, and Clerc, J. Le, ‘Article XI: Le Droit de la nature et des gens’, Bibltothèqtu Choisie, IX (1706), 398Google Scholar. General support is also found in unlikely places: e.g. [Arouet], F.-M. d e Voltaire, Oeuvres completes ed. Moland, L. (52 vols., Paris, 1879), XXVI, 505Google Scholar. (Lettre sur les Francois à S. A. Mgr. le Prince de **** sur Rabelais et sur d'autres auteurs accusés d'avoir mal parlé de la religion Chrétienne, 1767.)

70 Rathlef, (ed.), Geschichte Jetztlebender Gelehrten, p. 28Google Scholar.

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79 Bayle, P., Réponse aux questions d' un provincial, II, cxxxviiGoogle Scholar(translated in Labrousse, , Bayle, p. 61)Google Scholar.