Note 13 — Chapter XV · FRENCH AND DUTCH FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Le Vayer’s Dialogues of Oratius Tubero (1633) is philosophically his most important work;13 but its tranquil Pyrrhonism was not calculated to affect greatly the current thought of his day; and he ranked rather as a man of all-round learning14 than as a polemist, being reputed “a little contradictory, but in no way bigoted or obstinate, all opinions being to him nearly indifferent, excepting those of which faith does not permit us to doubt.”15 The last phrase tells of the fact that it affects to negate: Le Vayer’s general skepticism was well known.16 He was not indeed an original thinker, most of his ideas being echoes from the skeptics of antiquity;17 and it has been not unjustly said of him that he is rather of the sixteenth century than of the seventeenth.18