Background
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle was born on February 11, 1657, in Rouen, France. His father was an advocate settled in Rouen.
(Surveying the night sky, a charming philosopher and his h...)
Surveying the night sky, a charming philosopher and his hostess, the Marquise, are considering thep ossibility of travelers from the moon. "What if they were skillful enough to navigate on the outer surface of our air, and from there, through their curiosity to see us, they angled for us like fish? Would that please you?" asks the philosopher. "Why not?" the Marquise replies. "As for me, I'd put myself into their nets of my own volition just to have the pleasure of seeing those who caught me."
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1990
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle was born on February 11, 1657, in Rouen, France. His father was an advocate settled in Rouen.
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle was educated at the college of the Jesuits in his native city, and distinguished himself by the extraordinary precocity and versatility of his talents.
His attention was first directed to poetry and more than once he competed for prizes of the French Academy, but never with success.
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle visited Paris from time to time and established intimate relations with the abbe de Saint Pierre, the abbe Vertot and the mathematician Pierre Varignon.
He witnessed, in 1680, the total failure of his tragedy A spar.
In 1686 his famous allegory of Rome and Geneva, slightly disguised as the rival princesses Mreo and Eenegu, in the Relation de Pile de Borneo, gave proof of his daring in religious matters.
It consisted of two essays, the first of which was designed to prove that oracles were not given by the supernatural agency of demons, and the second that they did not cease with the birth of Christ.
To the following year (1688) belongs his Digression sur les anciens et les modernes, in which he took the modern side in the controversy then raging; his Doutes sur le systeme physique des causes occasionnelles (against Malebranche) appeared shortly afterwards. In 1691 he was received into the French Academy in spite of the determined efforts of the partisans of the ancients in this quarrel, especially of Racine and Boileau, who on four previous occasions had secured his rejection.
This was first printed in the Nouvelles de la republique des lettres (January 1685) and, as Vie de Corneille, was included in all the editions of Fontenelle's (Euvres.
The other important works of Fontenelle are his Elements de la geometrie de I'infini (1727) and his Apologie des tourbillons (1752).
It is not in virtue of his great age alone that this can be said of him; he actually had much in common with the beaux esprits of the 17 th century, as well as with the philosophes of the 18th.
But it is to the latter rather than to the former period that he properly belongs. He has no claim to be regarded as a genius; but, as Sainte- Beuve has said, he well deserves a place " dans la classe des esprits infiniment distingubs "-distinguished, however, it ought to be added by intelligence rather than by intellect, and less by the power of saying much than by the power of saying a little well.
In personal character he has sometimes been described as having been revoltingly heartless; and it is abundantly plain that he was singularly incapable of feeling strongly the more generous emotions-a misfortune, or a fault, which revealed itself in many ways. "
Ilfaut avoir de Pdme pour avoir du goUt. "
But the cynical expressions of such a man are not to be taken too literally; and the mere fact that he lived and died in the esteem of many friends suffices to show that the theoretical selfishness which he sometimes professed cannot have been consistently and at all times carried into practice. There have been several collective editions of Fontenelle's works, the first being printed in 3 vols.
at the Hague in 1728-1729.
Some of his separate works have been very frequently reprinted and also translated.
The Plurality des mondes was translated into modern Greek in 1794.
Sainte-Beuve has an interesting essay on Fontenelle, with several useful references, in the Causeries.
By contrasting the views of various periods and persons, Fontenelle criticized traditional and conventional ideas, dogmatic opinions, and intellectual smugness and thus prepared the attack of the 18th century upon authoritarianism.
(Surveying the night sky, a charming philosopher and his h...)
1990