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Part 4

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construction, while the mentioned writers demand freedom of culture, thought, freedom of labor, and equality as necessary conditions of human existence, regardless of the defined state structure, the construction of which they did not provide. They have consistently held the idea that the human personality and its freedom can find a favorable, appropriate environment, for example, in states where the authorities were separated or in the immediate republics of the ancient model. Therefore, if we do not find in them systematically developed and consistently carried out political elements of the doctrine that interests us, then the preparatory value for it will be enormous: they give, so to speak, a popular theory of natural individualism, speaking out in defense of humanity. They did not attack as passionately as, for example, no. J. Rousseau or as critical as Montesquieu of absolute statism, they undermined it more significantly by insisting on the freedom of thought and thought and, thus, prepared an individualistic doctrine of the declaration of rights, which was first proclaimed on the other side of the ocean, rooted in the teachings that appeared on the other side of the English Channel and transferred to the grateful journalistic soil France, where the first individualistic furrow was drawn by the religious sectarians of the Huguenots - the Tyranmachs. The above-mentioned writers (compared to Lyange and Lyaboesy) express in clear terms the sympathies of the constitutional monarch, but only in very general terms. With the exception of Holbach 1, they did not penetrate into the theoretical and historical depths of state law, as Montesquieu, Rousseau, Mably and others did.

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ke year.

However, it is difficult to agree with the assessment of their significance in the book of Henri Michel (G/'19%e 4e GeaYu, who calls Voltaire, Holbach, encyclopedists along with the physiocrats, ") ideological defenders of enlightened absolutism. Their positions and their personal attitude towards the rulers could not make political fighters out of them. Even the destructive ideas with which they flooded society, were not systematically used by the authors themselves; but these ideas in themselves contradicted any despotism, including enlightened one: The task of enlightened despotism: guardianship of the individual and the direction of his moral and mental forces, i.e., authoritarian control of the conscience and mind of the individual, and the leaders of the French enlightenment undermined all authority except rationally; approved by the person himself °).

Henri Michel refers to Catherine's Mandate, to the states of Frederick II and Tosiea P, who actually carried out the theory of enlightened absolutism, supported by the mentioned philosophers. But was the negative attitude towards religion, Voltaire’s deism and Holbach’s atheism included in the plan for managing the “good subjects” of the confrontational Catherine, Tosiea or the same philosopher from Sans Souci, as Frederick called himself, despite his well-known aeoricism regarding religion? The same applies to your

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2) For example, the defender of Kalas and the author of the letter on tolerance Voltaire at one time he was the royal histographer, Helvish general tax farmer,

3) Eg. Diderot, having had relations with crowned heads, quotes with pleasure the verses (ut +. TH oepuges sopr!. Raliz. 1821), which are now quoted by anarchists:

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— 319 bodb thoughts. Many of the works of philosophers and publicists could only be seen in the Netherlands.

In Franchy they were published with false titles to hide the author and printer. Another sixteen years after expelling the Jesuits, we meet in Franchy sentences “about tearing books to shreds” 1). And three years before this expulsion, the parliament prohibited the sending to subscribers of the izvetnoy “Epsus1oreye, op PusNoppae ta1zoppyo @ez zsaetsez, e5 2115 ©е 4езтшбИец.” At the same time, the same fate befell Helvesh’s book 4e 1e’YuzrgI it. d., it, d.