Monadology

III

BAYLE’S DICTIONARY AND THE ARTICLE RORARIUS

Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) is known chiefly as the author of the Dictionary The Historical and Critical Dictionary, first published in 1697, was a massive work of scholarship that used biographical entries as a springboard for skeptical philosophical arguments. which bears his name. In many striking respects he resembles Leibniz. Both writers were adherents of the reformed religion This refers to the Protestant tradition, specifically those following the teachings of John Calvin., and both were especially interested in and deeply concerned with the particular points at issue between the Catholic Church and the Reformers, and keenly anxious to discover a middle path original: "via media"; a theological or political middle ground aimed at finding a compromise between opposing parties. which might effect a reconciliation.

Bayle was the son of a minister of the Reformed Church and to the distress of his family had been converted in his student days to Catholicism. The conversion had endured however only seventeen months and he had then returned to the communion of the Reformed Church. He was particularly obnoxious to the Catholics on this account In the 17th century, "relapsed" converts were often subject to severe legal penalties and social ostracization.. In 1675 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in the Protestant Academy of Sedan, but in 1681 the Academy was suppressed by Louis XIV, and he avoided prosecution by removing to Holland, where later he accepted an appointment as Professor in the University of Rotterdam. His Historical and Critical Dictionary is not a dictionary in the