contains of authors and thinkers are little more than pegs upon which Bayle
could hang his philosophical reflexions. He could write an intelligent
discussion on any opinion; what he could not do was to reconcile the points
of view from which he felt impelled to write upon this author and that.[35]
His was not a systematic mind. So far as he had a philosophical opinion, he
was a Cartesian; in theology he was an orthodox Calvinist. He could not
reconcile his theology with his Cartesianism and he did not try to. He made
a merit of the oppositions of faith to reason and reason to itself, so that
he could throw himself upon a meritorious and voluntary faith.

There is nothing original in this position. It was characteristic of
decadent scholasticism, it squared with Luther's exaggerations about the
impotence of reason in fallen man, and Pascal had given his own highly
personal twist to it. Bayle has been hailed as a forerunner of Voltairean
scepticism. It would be truer to say that a Voltairean sceptic could read
Bayle's discussions in his own sense and for his own purposes if he wished.
But Bayle was not a sceptic. It is hard to say what he was; his whole
position as between faith and reason is hopelessly confused. He was a
scholar, a wit, and a philosophical sparring-partner of so perfectly
convenient a kind that if we had not evidence of his historical reality, we
might have suspected Leibniz of inventing him.

In the first edition of his _Dictionary_, under the article 'Rorarius',
Bayle gave a very fair account of Leibniz's doctrine concerning the souls
of animals, as it could be collected from his article in the _Journal des
Savants_, 27 June 1695. He then proceeded to comment upon it in the
following terms:

'There are some things in Mr. Leibniz's hypothesis that are liable to some
difficulties, though they show the great extent of his genius. He will have