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Following the analysis presented in the previous chapter, further aspects of French historiography in the second half of the eighteenth century will now be explored. In parallel and in opposition to works that were influenced by the esprit philosophique to a greater or lesser degree, a historiographical trend of apologetic religious works developed which sought to contest the diffusion of "philosophism", deism, and atheism. It is worth pausing, therefore, to examine separately those general histories of philosophy which had an apologetic, polemical intent, while bearing in mind that the historiographical landscape did not merely consist of a schematic opposition between the party of staunch philosophes and the party of ardent dévots. Indeed, intermediate positions frequently appeared which cannot be rigidly classified on either of the two sides. Batteux, for example, was dealt with in the previous chapter because his philosophical outlook is close to that of Condillac, but this does not mean that his historiographical work was lacking in apologetic concerns. In effect, putting aside this ideological contrast, it is often possible to see a common speculative and epistemological basis to the different works. In this way, Vernière's remark on current attitudes to Spinozism can also be applied to the historiography of philosophy: to envisage the existence of 'sects with well-defined characteristics and modes of thought which are irredeemably different from one another means failing to recognize the deep intellectual unity of the period, and replace the fluctuating life of the soul which the history of ideas must express with an academic schematism" (Vernière, p. 446).

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-9966-9_3

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