Joseph de Maistre: Essay for the generating principle of political constitutions and other human institutions (1809)

1753-1821

A Savoyard philosopher and diplomat, Joseph de Maistre, is a perfect example of a counterrevolutionary thinker. In his Essai sur le principe générateur des constitutions politiques et des autres institutions humaines, De Maistre outright states that one really cannot create constitutions out of thin air and that anyone attempting to do so will ultimately fail. The primary reason for this supposed fact lies, according to de Maistre, in the general truth that no great things have had great beginnings – this truth is apparently confirmed by experience. Thus, great empires, like Rome, have had humble beginnings, and while there has been no legitimate vote for the first king of a monarchic family, such dynasties have shown their legitimacy by their endurance.

De Maistre links the generation of constitutions with the generation of names. All constitutions involve names of, for instance, government officials with certain duties and powers. In a constitution created by a conscious choice, such names tend to be pompous and ultimately sound quite ridiculous, de Maistre suggests. In a naturally created constitution, on the other hand, the etymology of the names belies the humble origin of these offices – name has grown to its purpose. Then again, de Maistre warns us of confusing names with writing. True constitutions always have important practices that have not been written anywhere – a monarch cannot willy-nilly sentence people to death, but this has not been inscribed in any written document. Written constitutions can at best describe the living practices of a nation, although even such solidification of habits is often detrimental to the welfare of state.

One might object that endurance by itself is no criterion for the goodness of constitution – a state that has the power to maintain its authority might not be a happy one for its subjects. Yet, de Maistre is saying precisely that no popular vote could decide whether a state or indeed any social institution is good. The endurance of an institution, on the other hand, is for him a sign that it has developed through a divine plan, which works sometimes against particular human wishes. Human beings have no right to make constitutions for themselves, since God knows the requirements of human beings better, and especially in case of large countries, monarchies fare better than republics. Humans lack even the right to name the important offices of a state – Adam had the right to give names to things, but this right was forfeited after the Fall.

It is then no wonder that de Maistre sees religion as an essential element of a good state – the most religious states have endured longest, de Maistre suggests. Indeed, religion is for de Maistre the true source of civilization. He is eager to point out that while secular states have merely subjugated American natives, missionaries have been instrumental in turning them into productive citizens. And just like constitutions should be based on tradition, similarly de Maistre thinks that a true religion is always founded of tradition, instead of basing it on some arbitrary declaration of principles – the only such declaration that has lasted is Ten Commandments, which was of divine origin. And it goes without saying that such catholic religion must be ruled by a single person, because it has even more subjects than any secular state.

One must wonder why then France as such a state based on catholic Christianity could have fallen. Here de Maistre makes some speculations concerning philosophy of history. He assumes that great evil can only appear amidst great goodness – and great evil apparently means, in addition to general immorality, especially anti-clerical philosophy. While Greek polytheism was not a great religion, its Epicurean criticism was also of no consequence. Then again, the greatest catholic country ever also had the bitterest rivals of the true source of civilization, namely, the Enlightenment philosophers. Together with the general depravity of manners, de Maistre concludes, Enlightenment was enough to plunge France into chaos.

De Maistre’s conclusions are truly quite in line with his principles, but it is just his principles that we might question. Even if we admitted that God controls the human history and the development of constitutions, we might well ask why these sudden revolutions were not also part of the divine plan. De Maistre does rely on certain general truths, which he supposedly can justify empirically, such as the meager beginning of all great things. One can contest such justification and ask whether de Maistre’s generalization really works, but one can also assume that divinity is not restricted by such empirical generalisations – surely God can bend the rules he himself has set out for history.

Charles Fourier (1808): Theory of the four movements and the general destinies

1772-1837

At times one reads a work where the conclusion appear to be - if not completely correct - at least plausible, but the argument is so flawed that one has difficulties to say what to think about the whole. This is particularly true of Fourier’s Théorie des quatre mouvements et des destinées générales, which presents an interesting view of an ideal society, but fails to argue for it in a convincing manner.

The book itself is merely a prospect for a much larger series of works - it just advertises interesting facets of Fourier’s theory, without giving a complete justification for it. Still, even from this brief glimpse it is quite possible to see what Fourier is up to and especially where he must fail. Indeed, what else but a failure could be a work which tried to reduce four types of processes - mechanical movement of planets and stars, organic movement of living beings, animal movement and social movement of humans - into a single all-encompassing formula.

The metaphysical basis of Fourier’s theory is broadly Platonistic. We have three principles accounting for everything in the world: passive matter, divinity, which in Fourier’s ideas becomes little more than just a force providing existence and movement to the universe, and finally a mathematical schema, which God supposedly follows in forming the universe out of the matter. It is especially the third element or the schema of the world, which interests Fourier.

Although Fourier doesn’t express himself in this manner, we might say that Fourier sees the importance of Gaussian distribution for every level of universe - whenever some quality can be expressed as a quantitative scale between two extremes, most of the instances of this quality occur in the middle of the scale, while towards the extremes the instances become less and less frequent.

In the prospect, Fourier is especially interested of expressing human passions in this Gaussian manner. Fourier takes the example of florists. Let us assume that all florists have a passion for flowers. Now, most of the florists are especially interested of certain common middle-of-the-road flowers, which we ordinarily call beautiful, like daffodils, and only quite few florists are interested of certain specialties, like cactuses.

Fourier’s example shows already the problematic nature of his theory. He is keen to see Gaussian distribution everywhere, but in some cases, like with passion for flowers, it is hard to say what would be the two extremes, between which the distribution should exist. In fact, it would seem that flowers and therefore also our passions for them could be measured according to various criteria, leading to quite complex distributions. Indeed, although Gaussian distribution is a real phenomenon, in practice Fourier tries to fit it in too many places, making the more intricate parts of his theory into a mere Pythagorean number magic.

The important consequence of this rather far-fetched theory derives from a further metaphysical assumption - God is good and he has reasons for creating what he does. In the particular case of human passions this means that all the passions within our hearts are good by nature - whatever flowers a florist would want to grow, it is a part of a greater good. Indeed, it is just this variety of passions, which the society should embrace - everyone should be able to follow the calling of her heart. Now, because our society does not do this, but emphasises only the so-called middle-of-the-road passions, it is clearly far from a perfect society, Fourier concludes.

In a perfect society, then, we would have people passionately dedicated to all types of creativity. In fact, Fourier says, in a perfect society each village would have its own Homer and Moliere - and each village would also be filled with all kinds of flowers, one might add. But it is quite evident that in addition to being an example of all types of industries, florists and their passions are also a euphemism for something else, namely, sexuality. Indeed, Fourier is quite willing to admit, while in his time people became bored in their life-long marriages with their first love, in a perfect society we would admit that some people have more diverse tastes and like to sample a variety of persons with different characters.

We might say that this part of Fourier’s world is at least partly already in existence - although the ideal of a single life-long relationship is still endorsed by many, in practice people tend to do what Fourier thinks is more of the norm, that is, they spend their youth trying several people and only after cooling of their passions settle for a single person. We are still somewhat judgemental about people who never settle for anyone or settle for a number of people, but it has become a more viable option. Finally, Fourier even seems to have rightly foreseen the breaking of gender norms, both in sexuality and in life in general - while his main theory is ridiculously classified according to genders, down to having two different types of florists for male and female, he does accept as a biological fact that some members of one gender would have passions suitable for a member of the other gender.

Although the development of this part of our culture has progressed to the direction Fourier fathomed, we are still far from his perfect society when it comes to other parts. Notably, Fourier’s ideal society covers the whole globe and it appears to be heavily state organised - or at least the globe is segregated into small villages or cantons with intricate social structures and containing just enough persons for the development of all types of passions (here we see a perfect example of Fourier’s number magic). Of course, this is not meant to be a centralised dictatorship, but government merely provides the opportunity for every passion to flourish and the rest is done by human nature and its inherent needs.

A further element in Fourier’s theory is that we really don’t have to strive for the perfect society, but it is something that will happen eventually, in the course of time. You see, it is not just the range of human passions where Fourier applies the Gaussian distribution, but the whole human history. Here the distribution gets an evaluative character. The times of imperfect society, where human passions are stilted, are rare in comparison with the time of perfect society. In fact, it is the time of the extreme youth and the extreme old age of humanity in general, where the imperfection exists. This is just what God does even in case of individuals, who are at their prime in the middle of their life, and the longevity of this prime time exceeds the sufferings of the other ages (one might ask whether the inevitable corruption at the end doesn’t bring a sour taste to the life of the perfect age).

In yet another numerological outburst, Fourier suggests that his period is the fifth in the order of times, while the perfect society would start to appear around eighth period. At least in this prospect, Fourier is quite silent about the states between the current and the perfect society (and he has nothing to say about the future periods), but he does make some feeble attempts to account for the earlier history. The first period of human development already begun in a sense from a perfect society, because original humans could follow their passions without any cultural restrictions. Then again, due to the primitive nature of the first society, this paradisaical state of nature quickly succumbed to the forces of nature, such as ferocious beasts, and led to the second period of savagery. Fourier doesn’t really describe this second period that much, because “everyone knows what savagery is all about”, but he appears to refer to a kind of tribal life which native Americans were thought to live in westerns.

Savagery or second period was then replaced by the patriarchal life, found in the Old Testament tales of Abraham and Jacob. Fourier has almost nothing but scorn towards this supposed period, where all power resided in the hands of few men - it was certainly no paradise for women. Patriarchy was then replaced by barbarism - another nebulous period, but apparently Islam with its possibility of polygamy and supposed repression of women should represent that period of time. As one can already see, it is quite hard to put the whole of human history into the shackles of Fourier’s periods, since the assumedly fourth-period Islam was still a living factor in the fifth period Fourier thought he was living, or civilisation. In fact, Fourier himself admits as much, stating that many nations are actually combinations of many periods, for instance, China shows characteristics of patriarchy, barbarism and civilisation.

It is the period of civilisation, which Fourier describes in greatest detail in his prospect. It is in a sense progress, because monogamous marriages were improvement of the life of women, which according to Fourier has often been the sign of process in history. Of course, monogamy is still far from the sexual plurality Fourier endorses, wherefore civilisation cannot be the last stage of human history.

Indeed, Fourier continues, he is living at the declining period of civilisation, which began around the time when European nations started to navigate around the globe. It is especially the economic development where Fourier sees signs of decline. Embezzlements, financial speculations and series of bankruptcies all speak of an upcoming catastrophe, and philosophers like Adam Smith, Fourier ironically notes, speak highly of the economic savagery, which is destroying the civilisation and plunging world into a time of economic feudalism, in which stockbrokers and bankers live like parasites from the work of others.

Although Fourier’s furor against the speculators sounds quite moralistic, he is merely pointing out the flaws in a society, which allows such economical roguery - the individuals themselves are just living as well as they can in an perverted society. As an antidote Fourier regards the inevitably oncoming global government, which should put an end to such misuse of economy through instigation of a new world order. The main obstacle for this eventual unification in Fourier’s eyes has been Great Britain, which has through its position as the world’s foremost sea power used diplomatic means to keep Europe unifying under a single rule. Fourier at a time when Napoleon had been able to unite the nations of continental Europe against Britain, and Fourier was convinced that whichever side won, it would instigate first a European and then a global world order - a most far-fetched speculation in Fourier’s work.

Jean-Robert Argand: Essay on a manner of representing imaginary quantities through geometric constructions (1806)

(1768-1822)

Originally, one meant by a number something made out of several units - thus, unit itself was not yet a number, but the first number was 2. It goes without saying that all these numbers were what nowadays are called natural numbers, and in addition to 1, the important 0 was also missing from the list.

In addition to numbers, one also spoke of magnitudes or quantities. While numbers were sets of discrete units, quantities were more like continuous wholes, which divided always into further quantities. Still, there appeared to be a clear relation between numbers and quantities. One could express the relations between quantities through relations between number - or so it was thought at first. It became soon apparent that some quantities - such as a side and diagonal of a square - had a relation that could not be expressed through any numbers.

This development took European mathematics from natural numbers to fractions and then to certain irrationals. The set of irrationals known increased when mathematicians started to wonder about the relations between the circumference and diameter of a circle, but the inclusion of zero to the list of numbers or quantities had to wait until Europeans came in contact with this Indian invention through Arabs.

Although negative numbers are usually presented nowadays as the first increment to natural numbers, their introduction to mathematics in Europe happened rather late, during 15th century. Even then, it took centuries before they were fully accepted by mathematicians. Negative numbers did have obvious uses, for instance, when speaking of debts, but they seemed still problematic, because one apparently could not apply same operations to them as with positive numbers.

Particularly, taking roots of negative numbers appeared an absurdity. Yet, the calculations appeared to work in the sense that one could do calculations with these roots or imaginary numbers and results were still consistent. The only question was what meaning to give to these quantities.

An answer to this problem was given by a dilettante mathematician Argand in his work Essai sur une manière de représenter les quantités imaginaires par des constructions géométriques. Argands’s idea was to return the question back to geometry, but to add a new element to the equation, that is, direction.

Picture, Argand says, a positive quantity - say, 1 - as a line heading to a certain direction from some point of origin. Then, we could represent the corresponding negative number (-1) as a line of same size, but moving from the same point of origin to opposite direction. How to account then for the roots of -1?

Argand’s idea is simply to note that number one has the same relation to the square root of -1 as this root has to to -1, that is, if we use the i to represent the square root of -1, then i/1 = -1/i. In layman’s terms, i is is an sense just in the middle of -1 and 1. In terms of size, i is then represented by a line of same size as 1 and -1, but its direction, beginning from the same starting point, goes perpendicular to -1 and 1.

This simple move to two-dimensions and the inclusion of direction to the notion of quantity allows Argand then to represent imaginary numbers and their combinations with ordinary numbers of quantities - in effect, these are then lines moving to various diagonal directions.

The majority of Argand’s essay is spent on justification of this innovation - he attempts to show that e.g. some interesting trigonometric truths can be derived from this assumption. Yet, the major result of the essay is not any of these rather bland proofs, but the innovation itself. This is the first time, when an actual meaning is given to such a seemingly fictional kind of mathematics. We might take this as a beginning of period, when seemingly more and more useless and abstruse mathematical notions find their applications. It is also the first time when a mathematician has in sense proven that a consistent set of truths actually has a point of reference - a semantics is combined to mathematical syntax.

Maine de Biran: Considerations on the influence of habit (1800 and 1802)

1766-1824

Marie-François-Pierre-Gonthier Maine de Biran - or as he is usually called, Maine de Biran - counted himself in the so-called ideological tradition of philosophy, continuing and building upon the works of Condillac and Cabanis - at least in his first major work, Mémoires sur l'influence de l'habitude, published in two parts. The word “ideology” does not refer to any political set of opinions, but to the Lockean habit of calling the basic elements of human consciousness ideas.

Although Maine de Biran identifies his work with the tradition beginning with Locke and Condillac, he is also extremely critical of the somewhat speculative manner in which the two gentlemen carried out their project. Instead, he is eager to follow Cabanis in his attempt to ground human mentality in concrete physiological studies. Thus, his first task is to differentiate between sensations and perceptions in physiological terms and not just by defining perceptions as a clearer form of perceptions. In fact, Maine de Biran appears at times even to suggest that when sensations have more clarity, perceptions are less clear, and vice versa.

In the first book, Maine de Biran suggests a quite concrete physiological difference between sensations and perceptions, sensation being an affection of sensory organ, while perception is formed by brain acting upon such affections. In the second book, the difference is laid out in more abstract terms - while sensations are passive, perceptions are active, just like nervous system consists of affective and motive nerves. In effect, Maine de Biran is giving a new physiological twist on the old idea of the difference between cognition and volition.

Since sensations and perceptions are two quite different and even opposed states of human mind, it is quite easy to see why making one stronger will weaken the other - if we are overwhelmed by strong sensory effects, we are far more likely to lose our ability to perceive the objects around us clearly. Then again, when the force of new sensations subsides, for instance, when we become accustomed to them, it is far easier to e.g. distinguish objects around us.

The example above shows us also an example of the supposed main topic of the book - the influence of habit. Indeed, it is just this habit of having sensations that allows us to have more control over our perceptions. This habit makes it easier for us to decide what aspects of our sensory field do we want to concentrate on, just like practicing any activity will make that activity easier for us.

Yet, Maine de Biran continues, habit is not just a positive force. This is especially the case with our imagination fathoming combinations between two quite distinct things: for instance, whenever we’ve seen one event following another, we easily conclude that one is the cause of the other, although there wouldn’t actually be any connection between them.

If imagination is involuntary and passive association of our ideas, the corresponding active movement from one idea to another Maine de Biran calls memory. Memory, he says, is essentially based on taking some sounds or inscriptions as signs of our ideas, and through their means actively recollecting the ideas associated with them. The recollection might stop at the level of mere signs, and then we are dealing with mechanic memory, that is, with mere repetition of a string of signs or words, known by heart. Then again, words might recollect, not ideas, but mere unclear feelings, and then we are dealing with sensitive memory - this is the faculty of poets and mystic philosophers.

The perfect mode of memory or representative memory works in many cases in close cooperation with the two other modes of memory. For instance, Maine de Biran points out that when we use words from ethics, such as good or virtue, we do attach to these words clear representations, but also certain affective emotions. Further complications arise from the fact that the representative memory has to sometimes deal with abstractions like time and space, which refer to a number of ideas.

A further level of habituation generates judgements - that is, a judgement is born when we frequently associate some ideas and signs together. If this association is made quite passively, the judgement is mechanical - like when we repeat the multiplication table by rote - but when we actually follow the train of ideas and signs we are dealing with a reflective judgement. Finally, the effect of habituation on judgements might again be either passive and harmful or active and beneficial. We might associate judgements which have nothing to do with one another, which leads to faulty reasoning. It is then no wonder that Maine de Biran concludes with the thought of representing all judgements in a Leibnizian-style universal calcul, which would allow perfect reasoning, like in mathematics.

François-René de Chateaubriand: Genius of Christianity - Cult

The topic of the last book in Chateaubriand’s apology is supposed to concern the cult of Christianity. In essence, the book divides into two different strands of argument. Firstly, Chateaubriand continues the theme he touched already in the previous book, namely, the experiential side of religion. While in the last book he mentioned the ability of churches to provide human beings with a feeling of infinity, here he emphasizes burial rituals as a way to face the impending reality of death.

This part of Chateaubriand’s argument is probably the most important. Religions interest people, because they offer vivid emotions – the lure of hope, love and self-certainty is rather understandable. Even more interesting are the mystical experiences, like the inexplicable feeling of being filled with divinity. These experiences are certainly not felt by all members of a religious community, but they could be quite important for people who are most ardent followers of some religion.

Even if these strong experiences and emotions are the core of religion, one must still wonder why they should be coupled with any strict dogmas. Even if a religious mystic would describe her experiences through certain concepts that would seem to commit her to some clear dogmas – such as the existence of divinities – there literally would be no need to take these concepts as referring to anything. Chateaubriand’s strongest argument then leads at once to a quite different outcome from what he envisioned – to a notion of religion without any dogmas, that is, to a sort of embracing the mysterious without any need for explaining it with some theories.

Chateaubriand’s second argument concerns more the supposed benefits Christianity has provided in the development of society. One might be a bit skeptical about the beneficence of some of the things Chateaubriand mentions, such as the founding of militaristic religious orders, but some developments, such as the disapproval of infanticide and the abolition of slavery, are clearly positive (although Bible has also been used for justifying the enslavement of Africans). In a manner fitting to a romantic age, he even speculates of the possibility that the spiritual being of humanity would directly cause changes in the material state of both humanity itself and nature in general – barbaric paganism, with the massacre of innocent Christians, caused the destruction of Roman Empire and the spread of atheism might as well destroy Europe. This speculation is, of course, quite unbelievable, but also against the very dogmas of Catholic Christianity – no lesser authority than Augustine stated already that the coming and goings of earthly empires have nothing to do with the fate of the heavenly kingdom.

Chateaubriand’s laudations are probably far from impartial – he ignores all the havoc caused in the name of Christianity and is silent about any positive effects of other religions or Enlightenment. Still, it is true that religions might at least have the potential for good effects – religious experiences might e.g. make people more charitable toward one another. Yet again, we might well ask, firstly, why this religion need be Christianity in particular. Secondly, we might also question whether these beneficent effects should be connected with any religious dogmas at all. Indeed, a religion without dogmas could satisfy the need for more humane society a lot better than any religion with strict dogmas that might always leave out some human beings outside their influence.

François-René de Chateaubriand: Genius of Christianity – Art and literature

When it comes to art, Chateaubriand's outlook is clearly literary – he has almost nothing to say about fine arts, when compared to his extensive take on poetry. Furthermore, even here we could as well repeat most of the criticism we launched against Chateaubriand's take on poetry. He is especially careful to point out that Christianity provides e.g. good topics for paintings. This appears rather pathetic defense of Christianity, because surely the worth of a painting lies in something else than merely their topic, even if a good topic does make it easier to make an aesthetic impression. Most original is probably Chateaubriand's take on architecture, where he points out how e.g. Gothic churches provide a more concrete experience of infinity than Greek temples.

Chateaubriand's take on literature is not that much better. He divides his topic intro three classes: history, rhetoric and philosophy or science. Of these, we might be quick with the rhetoric. Chateaubriand is especially keen to show that people like Church Fathers were good writers. This is again part of Chateaubriand's general strategy to show that Christianity is especially good religion for producing beauty.

History and science are a different matter. Chateaubriand does have a somewhat antiquated notion of history – it is more a literary effort of describing certain series of actual events in an aesthetic fashion than a research into past events. His defense of Christianity as a source of good histories is rather halfhearted. Chateaubriand merely states that Christian historians have been as proficient as Pagan historians and points out in a familiar manner how the Christian nations have had interesting fates worthy of a historian.

Chateaubriand's plea for the worth of Christianity in case of science and philosophy is the least convincing. In this case, religion either seems like a detriment to the work of scientists and philosophers or then at best apparently contributes nothing to their progress. Chateaubriand relies on name dropping, mentioning all the famous mathematicians, scientists, philosophers etc. who were clearly at least religious in general or even Christian in particular. In case of philosophy, he is especially keen to point out that times of heightened Christianity were those with great philosophers. One is somewhat perplexed that Chateaubriand has then nothing to say about the philosophy of Middle Ages, since that was the time with most Christian and even Catholic philosophers, but is satisfied with such modern names as Leibniz and Clarke. The basic problem is, of course, that Chateaubriand is already evaluating the worth of a philosophic work with lenses of a Catholic Christian.

The most convincing part of the third book of the Genius of Christianity is then the one not mentioned in the title of the book. This part has as its topic what Chateaubriand calls harmonies. In practice, these include, on the one hand, harmonies between religious buildings and nature, and secondly, between religious feasts and human life. The first continues Chateaubriand's interest on architecture. Places of Christian worship are not just capable of connecting us to divinity, he says, but they also exist in harmony with the surrounding nature, and even when they are becoming ruins, they show the power of divinity over the nature. The second topic opens up the discussion to the fourth book, which covers the cult of Christianity. Together, they contains ingredients of most importance in Chateaubriand's book – it is the practice and personal experience that has the greatest ability to make people Christian. This is a topic that I shall deal in more detail in the next post.

François-René de Chateaubriand: Genius of Christianity – Christian poetry

In the second part of Genius of Christianity Chateaubriand begins the tactic that will have most repercussions in the history of ideas. Ironically, this inheritance has little to do with philosophy of religion and more with aesthetics, which is in line with the topic of the second part – poetry. While attempting to uphold Christianity, Chateaubriand influenced the romantic movement of literature.

Chateaubriand's tactic plays on many levels, but his main line of offence is simple – Christian poetry simply is better than pagan poetry. Of course, this strategy also fails on many levels. For instance, Chateaubriand fails to take into account all poetry that falls outside either Greek or Jewish influence – there's no mention of e.g. Indian or Chinese poetry.

Chateaubriand suggests, firstly, that Bible itself is somehow deeper and more beautiful poetry than anything produced by Greeks – for instance, Chateaubriand praises the simplicity of the beginning of Genesis story of creation, which with few phrases creates a fantastic image of a world coming into being. One might answer that Homer has his beautiful phrases as well, but the most telling objection to Chateaubriand's tactic is irrelevance – who cares if Bible is more beautiful than Iliad, if we want to know which is truer?

The worth of Chateaubriand's suggestion lies more in his general opinion that all Christian poetry is beautiful. Here he is emphasising especially the usefulness of Christianity – Christian religion has the characteristic of bringing forth more beauty in the world. This is, undoubtedly, more of a pragmatic justification of the practice of believing its tenets, but quite in line with the general stance of Chateaubriand's book.

One might really question the selection of poetic works Chateaubriand takes to be representative of Christian poetry. It is surprising that Dante's Divine Comedy is barely mentioned, while Milton's Paradise Lost is given ample attention. Equally mysterious from modern viewpoint seems the negligence of Shakespeare's literary work and the inclusion of so many French tragedies from authors barely remembered today.

A more interesting line of criticism lies in Chateaubriand's peculiar reason for upholding the greatness of Christian poetry. Chateaubriand appears to say that Christian poetry has a better mixture of characters and topics to use. For instance, Chateaubriand sets the Homeric heros against the knights of the chivalric poetry. While the former are merely self-serving barbarians, the latter fight for a greater cause, namely, the honour of God. Similarly, the Paradise is according to Chateaubriand a mythologically more moral place than Elysian Fields, since getting to former lies not so much in heroics, but in living a good life.

Chateaubriand's argumentation seems here equally shaky. Sure, one could say that Christian poetry deals with more moral topics and has morally better characters. Still, this is no guarantee that a work dealing with such moral matters would itself be aesthetically more worthwhile. We'll see if Chateaubriand's case is more convincing with other arts and literature.