ABSTRACT
The article Bayle devotes to Spinoza is unquestionably among the best known and historically most infl uential in the Dictionnaire. Yet, Bayle’s criticisms of the Ethics have not been well received by scholars. Even those most sympathetic to Bayle have tended to see his objections as something of an embarrassment. Elizabeth Labrousse concedes that Bayle’s criticisms “never attain the authentic thought of Spinoza, but combat a phantom.”1 According to Geneviève Brykman if we once set aside Bayle’s fi ery rhetoric, we are left with only a single objection-and that addressed not to the Ethics itself, but to immanentist systems in general-plus a humble complaint concerning the ambiguous use of a term. It is small wonder she should conclude that Spinoza “emerges unscathed from these manoeuvres.”2 Gianluca Mori characterizes Bayle’s rejection of Spinoza’s substance monism as the “least original” element of the article, suggesting that even if the criticisms are in some sense “sincere,” they were conceived by Bayle as little more than a vehicle for insinuating his own preferred brand of atheism.3 For his part, Edwin Curley sees Bayle’s line of argument as “suspicious” and suggests that the true target of the article may be the mysteries of orthodox Christianity.4
