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nce had inspired the foundation of the Royal Society, so now his name was invoked by the founders of the Encyclopaedia. [Footnote: See d'Alembert's tribute to him in the Discours preliminaire.] Beneath all philosophical speculation there is an undercurrent of emotion, and in the French philosophers of the eighteenth century this emotional force was strong and even violent. They aimed at practical results. Their work was a calculated campaign to transform the principles and the spirit of governments and to destroy sacerdotalism. The problem for the human race being to reach a state of felicity by its own powers, these thinkers believed that it was soluble by the gradual triumph of reason over prejudice and knowledge over ignorance. Violent revolution was far from their thoughts; by the diffusion of knowledge they hoped to create a public opinion which would compel governments to change the tenor of their laws and administration and make the happiness of the people their guiding principle. The optimistic confidence that man is perfectible, which means capable of indefinite improvement, inspired the movement as a whole, however greatly particular thinkers might differ in their views. Belief in Progress was their sustaining faith, although, occupied by the immediate problems of amelioration, they left it rather vague and ill-defined. The word itself is seldom pronounced in their writings. The idea is treated as subordinate to the other ideas in the midst of which it had grown up: Reason, Nature, Humanity, Illumination (lumieres). It has not yet entered upon an independent life of its own and received a distinct label, though it is already a vital force. In reviewing the influences which were forming a new public opinion during the forty years before the Revolution, it is convenient for the present purpose to group together the thinkers (including Voltaire) associated with the Encyclopaedia, who represented a critical and consciously aggressive force against traditional theories and existing institutions. The constructive thinker Rousseau was not less aggressive, but he stands apart and opposed, by his hostility to modern civilisation. Thirdly, we must distinguish the school of Economists, also reformers and optimists, but of more conservative temper than the typical Encyclopaedists. 2. The Encyclopaedia (1751-1765) has rightly been pronounced the central work of the rationalistic movement which made the France of
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