t,
economics, finance, education, all worked out in detail, and all aiming
at the increase of pleasure and the diminution of pain. The Abbe's
nimble intelligence had a weak side, which must have somewhat
compromised his influence. He was so confident in the reasonableness of
his projects that he always believed that if they were fairly considered
the ruling powers could not fail to adopt them in their own interests.
It is the nature of a reformer to be sanguine, but the optimism of
Saint-Pierre touched naivete. Thousands might have agreed with his view
that the celibacy of the Catholic clergy was an unwholesome institution,
but when he drew up a proposal for its abolition and imagined that the
Pope, unable to resist his arguments, would immediately adopt it, they
might be excused for putting him down as a crank who could hardly be
taken seriously. The form in which he put forward his memorable scheme
for the abolition of war exhibits the same sanguine simplicity. All his
plans, Rousseau observed, showed a clear vision of what their effects
would be, "but he judged like a child of means to bring them about." But
his abilities were great, and his actual influence was considerable. It
would have been greater if he had possessed the gift of style.

2.

He was not the first to plan a definite scheme for establishing a
perpetual peace. Long ago Emeric Cruce had given to the world a proposal
for a universal league, including not only the Christian nations of
Europe, but the Turks, Persians, and Tartars, which by means of a court
of arbitration sitting at Venice should ensure the settlement of all
disputes by peaceful means. [Footnote: Le Nouveau Cynee (Paris, 1623).
It has recently been reprinted with an English translation by T. W.
Balch, Philadelphia (1909).] The consequence of universal peace, he
said, will be the arrival of "that beautiful century which the ancient
theologians promise after there have rolled by six thousand years. For
they say that then the world will live happily and in repose. Now it
happens that that time has nearly expired, and even if it is not, it
depends only on the Princes to give beforehand this happiness to their
peoples." Later in the century, others had ventilated similar projects
in obscure publications, but the Abbe does not refer to any of his
predecessors.

He was not blinded by the superficial brilliancy of the reign of Louis
XIV. to the general misery which the ambitious war-policy of