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DAVID DERODON, GEORGE-LOUIS LESAGE
AND THEIR ORTHODOX ATOMS.
IS THERE A CALVINIST WAY TO THINK ABOUT MATTER?
Scientia, vol. II, n. 1 (giugno 2024)
DOI: 10.61010/2974-9433-202401-006
ISSN: 2974-9433
Adrien Miqueu1
Université de Lausanne
adrien.miqueu@unil.ch
Received: 10/05/2023 | Accepted: 2/09/2023 |Published online data: 28/05/2024 Received: 10/05/2023 | Accepted: 2/09/2023 |Published online data: 28/05/2024
Sunto
Gli studi storici hanno dimostrato che i protestanti del XVII secolo avevano
un’anità elettiva con le teorie atomistiche, dovuta alla loro posizione con-
ittuale con il dogma cattolico della transustanziazione. Ma c’è qualcosa in
più nel modo di pensare implicato dall’atomismo che abbia attratto i pensatori
protestanti? E più precisamente i teologi calvinisti? Utilizzando l’opera del te-
ologo riformista David Derodon e la sua successiva rilettura da parte del sico
ginevrino Georges-Louis Lesage, questo articolo si propone di tratteggiare
i contorni di un possibile «stile calvino-atomista» derivante dall’incontro tra
atomismo e teologia calvinista. Al di là della controversia sulla «presenza reale»
di Cristo nell’Eucaristia, è la questione più generale del rapporto tra Dio e la
sua Creazione a governare la congurazione di un atomismo «ortodosso».
Parole chiave: atomismo; Calvinismo; teologia riformata
Abstract
Historiography has shown that seventeenth-century Protestants had an
elective anity for atomic theories because of their conict with the catho-
lic dogma of transubstantiation. But is there something more in the ‘way
of thinking’ that atomism entails that appealed to Protestant thinkers? And
more precisely to Calvinist theologians? Using the work of Reformed the-
ologian David Derodon and its subsequent re-reading by Geneva physicist
Georges-Louis Lesage, this article aims at sketching the outlines of a possible
1 I would like to thank Jean-François Bert and Jérôme Lamy for reading and commenting an earlier
version of this text, the two anonymous reviewers for their useful remarks, as well as the archivists
from the Bibliothèque de Genève for their helpful support.
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«Calvino-atomist style» arising from the meeting of atomistic and Calvinist
theology. Beyond the controversy over the ‘real presence’ of Christ in the
Eucharist, it is the more general question of the relationship between God
and his Creation that governed the conguration of an ‘orthodox’ atomism.
Keywords: atomism; Calvinism; reformed theology
Something peculiar was happening in 18th-century Geneva. Alongside a
highly phenomenological naturalism obsessed with measurement, embodied
in particular by Horace Bénédict de Saussure, a second scientic tradition was
developing: a highly speculative corpuscular physics, focused on nding ‘rst
causes’, in particular those of gravity [Sigrist, 2004, p. 102; Sigrist, 2011, p. 178-
82]. In a tightly knit network of personal and family relations, scientists like
George-Louis Lesage d’Aubigné (1676-1759), Gabriel Cramer (1704-1752),
Jean Jallabert (1712-1768), Jean-Adam Serre (1704-1788), Jean-Louis Calan-
drini (1703-1758), Pierre Prevost (1751-1839) and Jean-André Deluc (1727-
1817), and before them the Genevan Nicolas Fatio de Duillier (1664-1753),
who left for England, defended, at one time or another in their careers, corpus-
cular explanations of gravity based on an atomistic conception of matter2.
Among these scientists, George-Louis Lesage (1724-1803), son of
George-Louis Lesage d’Aubigné, is the best known and most widely dis-
2 Since the XVIIth century, the scientic community in Geneva overlaps almost completely that of
the «patriciens» (the gentry governing the city) and that of the calvinist clergy. A handful of power-
ful families (Turrettini, Trembley, Fatio...) hence controls simultaneously the political, scientic and
religious elds of the city [Montandon, 1975; Bert, 2018a]. All aforementioned physicists studied at
the Academy, a school founded by Calvin to train Calvinist ministers, and some of them share family
ties (Jean Jallabert married Nicolas Fatio’s great-niece, Jean-Louis Calandrini’s sister married Fatio’s
nephew). Before Lesage, corpuscularian views have been mostly exposed in philosophy courses and
in student thesis. The later were often written by the teacher and defended by the student during a
public exam [Borgeaud, 1900, p. 556]. In this way, Jallabert defended in 1731 a collection of Theses
Physico-Mathematicae de Gravitate under Cramer’s supervision, in which a corpuscular theory of
gravitation is exposed. Cramer’s theory can also be found, in a somewhat amended form, in a 1750-
51 philosophy lesson («Sur la nature de la Pesanteur», Bibliothèque de Genève (from now on abbre-
viated as BGE), Ms. fr. 2017. Notes taken by Jacob Francillon and copied by Lesage). Jean-Adam
Serre, later known as a musicologist and miniature painter, defended a similar thesis in 1727 under
Jean-Louis Calandrini. Prevost and Deluc, George-Louis Lesage’s students, exposed their master’s
theory in several published works (among them: Prevost and Lesage, Deux traités de physique mécan-
ique (Paris, Genève: J. J. Paschoud, 1818); Prevost, De l’origine des forces magnétiques (Genève: Barde,
Manget, 1788), Jean-André Deluc, Introduction à la physique terrestre (Paris: Veuve Nyon, 1805)).
Lesage’s father, George-Louis Lesage d’Aubigné, also expounded a similar mechanism in several
popular treatises (notably, Cours abrégé de physique (Genève: Fabri & Barillot, 1732)). Lastly, Fatio
developped his own corpuscular theory from 1684 to his death in unpublished manuscripts, which
circulated in the Genevan circle (see Zehe,1980).
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cussed3. His unnished work is of interest to historians, since Lesage spent
a large part of his life listing and documenting the theories explaining the
causes of gravitation. His aim was to compose a masterly «Critical History of
Gravity», which he felt was a necessary preamble to the exposition of his own
theory. He paid particular attention to corpuscular explanations inspired, like
his own, by Lucretius’ poem. In his work as a historian, always supported by
a physical interest, Lesage becomes a valuable ally in tracing the inuences
of atomism in Geneva. Some of Lesage’s scattered notes point in a direction
where theology is central. In 1802, at the end of his life and still in search of
additional “material” for his great work, Lesage placed a small advertisement
in the Feuille d’avis de Genève: «Lesage, living in the grand’rue, would like to
buy, rent or borrow the following two books, printed in Geneva, in-8vo for-
mat, and especially the rst one: Davidis Derodon, De Atomis, 1662; Nicolaï
Hill, Philosophia Democritea & Theophrastica, 1619»4.
Nicholas Hill (c. 1570 - c. 1610) is a well-known English atomist, but who
is this David Derodon, whom Lesage presents elsewhere as a «famous dialecti-
cian, a clear & very subtle mind, free from many of the errors of his century (&
who admitted the weight of Air, the Laws of Galileo, Inertia, & the Vuide)»5?
Although he is generally missing from histories of atomism6, he is known to
historians of Protestantism in the French region of Dauphiné for his sulphur-
ous reputation7. His reputation - at least in the Protestant world - earned him
a mention in Bayle’s Dictionnaire and in Senebier’s Histoire littéraire [Bayle,
1715, p. 426-29; Senebier, 1786, p. 312-14]. As Lesage noted, he was also the
author of a treatise entitled De Atomis published in 1661 in Nîmes, where he
was teaching, and then in 1662 in Geneva. Lesage apparently went to great
lengths to acquire this volume, as well as any other book by Derodon, since
he wrote to one of his descendants living in Geneva, perhaps after his rst
advertisement had met with no success:
3 Historiography has focused mainly on his unusual archive of 35,000 playing cards, which Lesage
used as an extensive le cabinet and which, it appears, took him so much time that he barely pub-
lished anything during his whole long life (see in particular Bert, 2018a), and on his physics, which
is often presented as a distorted version of Newtonian theory [Aronson, 1964; Chabot, 2003]. In
addition, his pupil and scientic heir Pierre Prevost wrote an imposing biography [Prevost, 1805].
4 All translations from Lesage and Derodon are ours.
5 BGE, Ms. fr. 2012, Georges-Louis Lesage «Histoire de la pesanteur», le 7, playing card.
6 Kurd Lasswitz quotes him briey, but says that he is, like Caspar Wyss, a supporter of mathematical
atoms, which, as we shall see, seems incorrect [Lasswitz, 1890, p. 500].
7 The main source on Derodon’s life remains Arnaud, 1871. On his philosophy, see de Gérando,
1847, p. 125-130.
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To Mr Derodon – Nouer
I am working on a book in which I intend to speak honourably of
what was published by your famous ancestor David DeRodon, some
of which I have seen, but others of which have escaped my research:
I imagine, Sir, that you have some of them. If this is so: Could I hope
from your kindness; to have communication of them, for a few hours?
The one I am most interested in is entitled De Atomis; it was published in
Paris in 16058, and in Geneva in 1662; in both cases in the format in 8°9.
There is no indication, however, that Lesage nally got his hands on Der-
odon’s De Atomis. His notes, taken on playing cards, do reveal, however, that
he read with great attention the theologian’s Philosophia Contracta, published
posthumously in Geneva in 1664. The third part of this philosophy course is,
as tradition dictates, devoted to physics, and Lesage was delighted to nd an
exposition of atomistic physics in it. Derodon entertains a second connection
with the Genevan atomists. He was the teacher of the theologian Jean-Robert
Chouet (1642-1731), who introduced Cartesianism to Geneva [Heyd, 1982].
A professor of philosophy at the Académie, Chouet adopted Cartesian cor-
puscularism after having embraced for a time Derodon’s atomism, and taught
the famous Nicolas Fatio de Duillier (1664-1753), who, before Lesage, had
also worked on a corpuscular theory of gravitation. Derodon also strongly
inuenced the theologian Caspar Wyss (1634-1668), who was also one of
Jean-Robert Chouet’s teachers.
However tenuous it may be, a thread runs between the Genevan atomists.
A web of references, often theological, emerges and simultaneously raises
the questions of place and confession in this atomistic adventure. Historiog-
raphy has shown that the Eucharistic controversies between Catholics and
Protestants encouraged Reformed thinkers to adopt the atomic theory, since
it was fundamentally incompatible with the Catholic dogma of transubstan-
tiation. In 1988, Lauge Olaf Nielsen put forward the hypothesis that the
seventeenth-century atomist revival was marked by the Protestant stamp,
through the works of Daniel Sennert (1572-1637)10, David van Goorle (also
8 Lesage added the following to the folio: «P:S. Since sending this Note, I have realised that the sen-
tence, in Paris in 1605, was the result of a misunderstanding».
9 BGE, Ms. fr. 2012, «Histoire de la pesanteur», le 7, loose leaf.
10 Epitome scientiae naturalis (1618) et De Chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis consensu et dissensu
(1619).
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known by his Latin name of Gorlaeus, 1591-1612)11 and Sébastien Basson
(c. 1580-?)12, who all published independently in the short period between
1618 and 1621 (Nielsen, 1988). To this trio can be added the Calvinist Isaac
Beeckman (1588-1637), who did not publish anything about his atomism
but developed it extensively in his scientic journal and in his correspond-
ence with Descartes and Gassendi, among others13. Does this profusion of
Protestant atomists reveal a deeper dynamic? This is the question asked by
Christoph Lüthy in his article on Sébastien Basson: «Is Basson’s atomism
the consequence of his Calvinism, or vice versa» [Lüthy, 1997, p. 39]? In
another study conducted with Cees Leijenhorst on several seventeenth-cen-
tury Dutch atomists, he cautiously suggests that «there existed confessionally
specic stimuli in favour of atomist metaphysics and physics, which were
present in certain Protestant groups and clearly absent in Catholic circles»
[Leijenhorst - Lüthy, 2002, p. 410].
The case of David Derodon invites us to explore the question further by
extending a remark made by Pietro Redondi, who, in his atomist re-reading
of the Galileo trial, mentions our very David Derodon as having convert-
ed «the ideas of Gassendi to Calvinism», in the same way that «Gassendi
had converted the ideas of Democritus to Christianity» [Redondi, 1983, p.
349]. In what way is Derodon’s atomistic philosophy, beyond the Eucha-
ristic question, properly ‘Calvinistic’? Is there a way of thinking, a scientic
‘style’ that is properly Calvinist, rather than Protestant, that would lead to the
adoption of atomism?
In the rst part, we will show that Derodon’s atomism is indeed the result
of a Calvinist anity linked to the criticism of Catholic and Lutheran inter-
pretations of the Last Supper. Then we will try to show that, in the light of
Lesage’s reading of Derodon, other more specically Calvinist components
– such as Necessitarianism and synthetic thought – underpin the idea of an
«elective anity» between Reformed thought and Democritean atomism.
Atoms and Protestant orthodoxy
11 Exercitationes Philosophicae (1620).
12 Philosophiae Naturalis adversus Aristotelem libri XII (1620).
13 Beeckman’s scientic diary was found in 1905 by Cornelis de Waard, who edited it between 1939
and 1953 (Journal tenu par Isaac Beeckman de 1604 à 1634, 4 vol, The Hague, Nijho).
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David Derodon (or De Rodon), born in Die around 1600, is a turbulent g-
ure whose inuence and legacy have long remained in the historiographical
shadows and have only recently been the subject of initial exploratory work
[Ragni, 2020; Sina, 2010].
Very critical of scholastic physics, like his Dutch atomist counterparts Basson
and Gorlaeus, Derodon nonetheless retained a certain loyalty to Aristotelian
Fig. 1. Portrait of David Derodon (unknown author, undated, on display in the Salle Bonivard of
the Bibliothèque de Genève). Bibliothèque de Genève, inventory number 0143.
logic and a mastery of the peripatetic jargon and of the codes of the Disputatio.
This did not prevent him, as Pierre Bayle wrote, from adopting «the feeling
of the moderns and the hypothesis of atoms, to explain, like Gassendi, several
eects of nature by mechanical principles» [Bayle, 1715, p. 426]. We shall see
later that Derodon did not conceive of atoms in the same way as the French
priest, but for the moment, let us remember that he professed the existence
of ‘physical’ atoms. This distinguishes him, for example, from Caspar Wyss,
a professor of philosophy in Geneva and also Jean-Robert Chouet’s teacher,
who theorised mathematical atoms without extension. To explain this position,
Michael Heyd wrote: «To assert the existence of physical atoms meant to posit
extended entities which were indivisible even by God, an assertion which was
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clearly blasphemous. Mathematical atoms, by contrast, were not extended, had
no parts, and were thus indivisible by denition» [Heyd, 1982, p. 120].
A rst question arises: is it true, as Michael Heyd suggests, that supposing
the existence of physical atoms, indivisible even by God, is «blasphemous»?
A ‘conventional’ history of atomism has in fact equated this philosophy with
atheism, claiming that «the materialism of Democritus as a principle in the
interpretation of nature thus automatically led to an atheistic world-out-
look» [Dijksterhuis, 1961, p. 12]. This solution might be tempting, given
Derodon’s sulphurous reputation and the theological controversies that pit-
ted him against the companies of pastors in Nîmes and Geneva. But how
can it be reconciled with the fact that Derodon was also a merciless oppo-
nent of atheism, whose «Protestant, anti-Papist, & anti-idolatrous zeal» was
admired by the theologian Élie Saurin [Saurin, 1694, p. 871]? How can we
also explain the fact that his course in atomistic philosophy, his Philoso-
phia contracta, was published without a hitch in Geneva by Pierre Chouet,
Jean-Robert’s father?
This leads us to a second question, which is never addressed in biograph-
ical notes or studies of Derodon’s philosophy: why and in what context does
he use the physics of atoms? Where do we nd the details of this physics and
what purpose does it serve? Our thesis is precisely that Derodon’s atoms are
extremely orthodox, and that he cannot therefore be accused of being a blas-
phemous debaucher. On the contrary, Derodon’s atoms are of great doctrinal
help in refuting the Eucharistic doctrines of both Catholics and Lutherans.
Derodon: A Biographical sketch
Let’s start by recalling a few facts about the man, his troubled career and his
supposed taste for provocation. The son of Abel Derodon, a former member
of the Consistoire of Die and fourth regent (teacher below the rank of profes-
sor) at the Académie protestante de Die, David Derodon studied philosophy
in Sedan where, according to Redondi, he assimilated the lessons of Jean Me-
strezat’s critical text published in 1625, Communion à Jésus-Christ dans le sa-
crement de l’eucharistie [Redondi, 1983, p. 346]. He also studied theology in his
hometown, and in 1618 began to stand in for his father as regent. As a young
man, he was found guilty of «ordinary debauchery and dissoluteness», which
included «night runs» and writing satires. Removed from his position as re-
gent at the Académie de Die as a result of these misdemeanours, he converted
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to Catholicism, joined the Jesuits in Vienne, only to return to the Reformed
Church a year later [Arnaud, 1871, p. 341-44]. Although not commonplace,
these troubles were far from exceptional in the Protestant academies of the
seventeenth century, where many professors were dismissed for their taste for
«luxury and pleasure» [Bourchenin, 1883, p. 374-76].
In Die, Derodon seems to have rubbed shoulders with Sébastien Basson,
whith whom he shared a taste for atomic theories and insubordination. Bas-
son was also a regent at the Académie where he also taught philosophy, but
did not hold the rank of professor either. The joint presence of two atomists
at the small Protestant university led Christoph Lüthy to wonder whether
Basson’s Philosophia were «the outgrowth of a local philosophical climate»
[Lüthy, 1997, p. 58]. Lüthy answers in the negative, arguing that the philo-
sophical environment and the content of the lessons given at Die were ex-
actly the same as elsewhere. He does note, however, that Rodolphe Le Fèvre,
second professor of philosophy from 1611 to 1620, showed a slight inclina-
tion towards a corpuscular conception of mixtures, although he remained
absolutely faithful to Aristotle. Generally speaking, the Stagirite remained the
reference in the reformed universities of the seventeenth century, and it was
still his philosophy which served as the basis for the Disputatio de Atomis that
Derodon wrote in 1661. Nevertheless, it seems that there was a Calvinist cli-
mate favorable to corpuscularian theories.
After a somewhat turbulent career in Die, Derodon became professor of
philosophy in Orange in 1639 and then in Nîmes in 1654 - where the young
Jean-Robert Chouet was his pupil. He made a name for himself with a series
of polemical writings against Lutherans, atheists, astrologers and, above all,
Catholics. One of his books, Le Tombeau de la Messe (Nîmes, 1654), led to
him him to exile in 1663 when it was reprinted. In a context of increasing
persecution of the Protestants, the book was publicly burnt and its author,
banished from the Kingdom of France for ten years, found refuge in Geneva,
where he died shortly afterwards.
Theological controversies: necessitarianism and God’s action in the world
In his theological work, Derodon took a strong stance against the doctrine
of continual or continuous creation, which Pierre Bayle describes in detail in his
notice on the theologian:
«un être tiré du néant par la vertu innie du créateur ne peut avoir en
lui-même aucune cause de son existence: il ne peut donc continuer
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d’exister que par la même vertu qui l’a produit au commencement: il
est donc créé dans tous les momens de la durée; c’est-à-dire il n’existe
à chaque moment, qu’à cause que Dieu continuë de vouloir ce qu’il a
voulu, lorsque cet être a commencé d’exister» [Bayle, 1715, p. 428-29].
This thesis of constant divine action, which was widespread among Catho-
lics at the time, is found in particular in Descartes, for whom the objects of
nature could not endure in the absence of a continuous creation by God. This
position gave rise to the occasionalism of Malebranche and early Cartesians
such as Louis de La Forge and Gérauld de Cordemoy, who attributed all ac-
tion to God and none to creatures. God is the “one true cause” and creatures
are merely occasions through which he acts. This position implies the idea of
an ‘immanent’ God, almost merged with nature.
Calvinism, on the other hand, argues for the transcendence of the divine
and its radical separation from the physical world. This is precisely the po-
sition defended by Derodon, who denies that «the preservation of creatures
is a continual creation» [Arnaud, 1871, p. 356]. Things were created once
and for all, according to rules laid down by a Creator who intervenes - al-
most - no more in the world. This leads Derodon to teach a more radical
and controversial thesis, even in the Reformed world, about God’s freedom
in the act of creation. In his view, while God remained free in his actions, he
was not completely free in his decision whether or not to create the world.
The act of creation was, in his view, a ‘necessary’ consequence of his wisdom
and divinity [Heyd, 1979, p. 527]. This teaching of a ‘rationalist’ and ‘ne-
cessitarian’ version of Creation is known to us from a letter that the young
Genevan Jean-Robert Chouet sent to his uncle Louis Tronchin (1629-1705)
in 1662, while he was studying with Derodon in Nîmes14. The Moderator
of the Compagnie de Nîmes, Claude Bruguier, taught an even more radical
version. For him, God had no freedom over all his creative acts, and not just
over the initial decision to create: God could not have made a world dierent
from this one, because he could only create a world adapted to his divine
perfection [Heyd, 1979, p. 528]. Although he did not go so far, Derodon
nevertheless taught that God’s creative power was limited to the actualisation
of possible entities. For example, God could not create a «re that does not
heat», or «a non-rational man», because these would present a contradiction
14 BGE, Arch. Tronchin 47, f. 25.
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in their essence [Heyd, 1979, p. 534]. Derodon thus explained that essences,
as possible beings, were co-eternal with God. Here we nd a sort of echo of
the medieval ‘problem of universals’: does a concept with a universal charac-
ter, i.e. one that transcends the particular object (the concept of ‘sphericity’,
‘the animal’, etc.), have an existence ‘in itself’ (in the real world or in a world
of ideas, which would be a realist position) or is it merely a convention of
language (nominalist position)?
This position was heterodox enough for the Company of Pastors in Geneva
to forbid Derodon to teach theology, when he came to the city in 1663, and
to allow him to «teach only pure philosophy without any mixture of theolo-
gy»15. This warning does, however, give an idea of what would be tolerated
without hindrance: Derodon’s philosophy, and therefore his atomistic phys-
ics. The course was published in Geneva in 1664, the year of his death, un-
der the title Philosophia Contracta. In the third volume, Physica, Lesage found
this detailed exposition of orthodox atomism. Inuenced by contemporary
neo-atomism and the Aristotelian tradition, the theologian described matter
as an assembly of the four elements, themselves made up of atoms of dierent
shapes, sizes, movements and arrangements. But he suggests that all atoms
are made of the same essence: the dierences between elements arise from
dierences in the arrangement, movement and shape of the atoms [Derodon,
1664, p. 18-19]. The «eective cause» of this primary matter of which atoms
are made is obviously God [Derodon, 1664, p. 8]. He also explained, in the
ancient atomists’ fashion, the origin of sensible impressions by the combina-
tion and contact of corpuscles [Derodon, 1664, p. 193-205]. His atomism was
therefore a ‘physical atomism’, which led him to reject the concept of ‘math-
ematical atoms’ with both logical and mathematical arguments [Derodon,
1661, p. 19].
Although Derodon’s teaching in Geneva remained conned to the private
sphere, it enjoyed a certain reputation. Vincent Minutoli (1639-1709), Pierre
Bayle’s Geneva correspondent, reported that the doctor and scholar Jacob
Spon (1647-1685) «had the advantage, in addition to the ordinary teachers
who were Mr Puerari and Wys, of being able to study under the famous
Mr de Rodon, who having recently retired there lived as a private man, and
what was considerable was that this same Mr de Rodon was the one who
15 Registre de la Compagnie des pasteurs (1661), cit. in Arnaud, 1871, p. 361.
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had taught philosophy to Mr Spon the father»16. Jacob’s father, Charles Spon
(1609-1684), also a doctor and scholar, was in 1625 and 1626 «in Paris, table
companion and disciple of the famous philosopher Mr Derodon»17. In his eu-
logy for Charles Spon, Pierre Bayle wrote that Derodon «was a great master.
[...] Everyone knows the reputation that M. de Rodon has acquired among
Protestants, having taught philosophy in Die, Orange or Nîmes»18. Let us also
mention the French pastor and theologian Elie Saurin, who met Derodon in
Geneva in 1664: «I often discussed various matters with him, and I always
found him perfectly orthodox» [Saurin, 1694, p. 867].
After his death, the volumes of the Physica were published without a hitch
by Pierre Chouet (1610-1676), father of Jean-Robert, whose family had pub-
lished the complete works of Calvin in 1617 and had a contractual partnership
with the Academy [Borgeaud, 1900, p. 409]. Louis Tronchin, then rector of
the Académie, even wrote the preface, which was ultimately not published.
On the surviving draft, he «praised the philosopher’s talents and the usefulness
of his work for theology», and stated that Derodon «had wished to give one
last testimony to his orthodoxy, just before his death [...] to cut short prej-
udice»19. There is no doubt about the theological validation of atomism in
Geneva.
Eucharistic polemics: the atom as a combat sport
The orthodoxy of Derodon’s ‘physical’ atomism vis-à-vis Calvinism must
lead us to the question of its purpose. To do this, we need to look beyond
his academic works, to a second category of writings mentioned above, but
neglected in analyses of Derodon’s physics: his polemical texts against Catho-
lics. Written in French rather than Latin, they were aimed at a slightly wider,
albeit erudite, audience. We can thus temper Gérando’s description of Dero-
don as a scholastic ‘school’ writer cut o from the world [de Gérando, 1847,
p. 125]. One might even go so far as to say that he was quite the opposite: an
informed polemicist who used rhetoric and physics to defend his confessional
views. As he states in the preface to La Lumière de la raison, a text against athe-
16 Letter from Vincent Minutoli to Pierre Bayle, Geneva, 15 February 1686. Available on <http://
bayle-correspondance.univ-st-etienne.fr/?Lettre-517-Vincent-Minutoli-a>
17 Letter from Jacob Spon to Pierre Bayle, Lyon, June-July 1684. Available on <http://bayle-corre-
spondance.univ-st-etienne.fr/?Lettre-297-Jacob-Spon-a-Pierre>
18 Pierre Bayle, «Éloge de Monsieur Spon le Père», Nouvelles de la République des Lettres (July 1684),
p. 499.
19 Cit. in Fatio, 2015, p. 175 (our translation).
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ists: «je n’êcri pas tant pour les Grands hommes, que ce ne soit aussi pour les
mediocres en sçavoir» [Derodon, 1665].
With Le Tombeau de la Messe (Nîmes, 1654), already mentioned, but also
Dispute de l’eucharistie (Genève, 1655) and Dispute de la messe ou discours sur
ces paroles : Ceci est mon corps (Nîmes, 1662), Derodon violently attacked the
dogma of transubstantiation. As mentioned above, this was one of the favour-
ite areas of confrontation between Catholics and Protestants in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. The way in which Derodon mobilises the atomist
doctrine precisely in this debate seems be an appropriate way of reading his
atomism. Let us look at his Dispute de l’Eucharistie. Right from the introduc-
tion, Derodon denes the doctrine of the Reformed Church:
By consecration (which is nothing other than the blessing of the bread
and wine by prayer or thanksgiving) the bread and wine are made sac-
raments and exhibitive signs to the faithful of the body and blood of
Jesus Christ and of all his benets; without the bread & wine being
changed as to substance, but only as to use; & without the body &
blood of Jesus Christ, being with, or in the bread & wine, nor under the
accidens of these, far from having to be adored, sacriced, & eaten by
mouth. [Derodon, 1655, p. 1].
Derodon is opposed, rstly, to the «doctrine of the Roman Church» which
holds that «by consecration [...] the bread and wine are transubstantiated, that
is to say changed substantially into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, so that
the substance of the bread and wine does not remain, but only their accidens»
[Derodon, 1655, p. 2]. But he also opposes, when he species that the body
of Christ is not found «in the bread», the Lutheran doctrine of ‘impanation’
which postulates the ubiquity of bodies and in this case the simultaneous pres-
ence of the bread and the body of Christ in the same space - a point refuted
by the Calvinists [Leijenhorst, 2001]. Atomism, which is incompatible with
the theory of ubiquity, thus enabled Derodon to challenge the Eucharistic
doctrines of Catholics and Lutherans in one fell swoop.
His arguments, which are of course multifaceted, are developed on three
levels:
• exegetical, by working on the meaning and translation of each word
in the phrase «This is my body», where the verb ‘to be’ is said to have a
«real» meaning for Catholics, but only a ‘sacramental’ meaning for Cal-
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vinists;
• theological, on the meaning to be given to the Eucharist: a ‘sacrice’ for
Catholics, which Protestants consider to be one of the “papist idolatries”
and prefer to stick to the register of commemoration;
• and nally, physical, by working on the notions of ‘place’ and ‘substance’.
While these angles of attack are recurrent in disputes between Protestants
and Catholics, the physical dimension is not systematically present. Derodon
devotes the entire rst part of the book to the rst two types of argument,
which are relatively traditional, before getting to his physical demonstration.
Still faithful to the Aristotelian model, he begins by demonstrating «that tran-
substantiation destroys the nature of accidents» [Derodon, 1655, p. 169-77]
and that «qualities are substances or ways of being substances» [Derodon,
1655, p. 190-223]. He gradually incorporates corpuscular explanations into
this scholastic dissertation, and the text eventually becomes a full-blown ex-
position of Gassendi’s philosophy. In particular, he explains uidity by the
classical analogy of grains of sand, and the hardness of bodies by the fact that
their parts «touch and press against each other in such a way that, since they
remain closely united, they cannot move around each other». For Derodon,
this union of the parts is due in particular to «the hooked gures of the parts,
which cause the parts to unite so strongly that they cannot move one around
the other». From this development, Derodon deduces that «rmness & uid-
ity depend absolutely on the close union & desunion of the parts; & conse-
quently they are manners of being which cannot subsist in any way without
a subject» [Derodon, 1655, p. 220].
This brings us back to the question of transubstantiation, which assumes
that the accidents, the qualities, remain without substance, ‘without subject’,
during the exchange of substances. Derodon’s presentation shows that the
qualities of uidity and rmness derive directly from the arrangement of the
particles that make up the substance, and therefore that replacing the sub-
stance with another does not preserve these qualities. He adds: «Since humid-
ity is a kind of uidity, [...] it follows that the uidity and humidity of wine,
and the rmness and dryness of bread, cannot be without the substance of
bread and wine, even by divine virtue» [Derodon, 1655, p. 221].
In this debate on the origin and nature of the qualities of bodies, the ques-
tion of the “mixture” occupies a crucial place: what happens to the qualities
of the elements that make up a mixed body? Where do the new qualities of
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the mixture, distinct from those of its components, come from? Aristotelian
doctrine proposes to distinguish between ‘actual’ and ‘potential’ properties:
the components of a mixture are no longer present ‘in actuality’, but only ‘in
potency’20. Derodon attacks this view by asserting that according to the at-
omistic view, the elements of the mixture remain present ‘actually’ at all time
[Derodon, 1655, p. 350].
Derodon deals with the Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity in the same way.
He refers to an argument he might have heard, according to which «At high
noon, when the weather is calm, the air is completely illuminated, and the
light of the Sun penetrates the air to such an extent that light and air are in the
same place» [Derodon, 1655, p. 369]. To this proof that localisation is not an
intrinsic and exclusive property of bodies, he replies «that there is an incred-
ible quantity of small insensible voids in all parts of the world, & principally
in the air; & that the small luminous bodies, of which the light of the Sun is
composed, the small odoriferous bodies, the visible images of the corporeal
objects, the small igneous bodies, etc. are stued in these small insensible
voids of the air» [Derodon, 1655, p. 380].
Derodon uses the expression «the visible images of corporeal objects» to
demonstrate his knowledge of the Democritean theory of vision, according
to which simulacra, thin layers of atoms, detach themselves from objects to
strike our eyes. He also adopted the corpuscular explanation of light, heat
and odours, concluding that all these elements lodge themselves in the empty
spaces between atoms, and that therefore «there is no penetration of dimen-
sions, & that for this reason we are not required to place several bodies in the
same place» [Derodon, 1655, p. 380].
He also devotes the tenth chapter to «objections to the position of one
body in several places and several bodies in one place». The argument then
becomes more theological, since the objections to which Derodon responds
are based on Scripture. For example, the episode from the Acts of the Apostles
where Jesus appears to Paul on the road to Damascus, linked together with
the seemingly contradicting prophecy «that heaven must contain him until
the day of the restoration of all things», is taken by Lutheran as a proof of Je-
sus’ ubiquity. This time, Derodon quibbles over the precise description of the
apparition, arguing that Jesus manifested himself in the sky and not on solid
20 Aristoteles, De Generatione et Corruptione, X, 5. On this topic, see the seminal work of Anneliese
Maier, in particular «The Theory of the Elements and the Problem of their Participation in Com-
pounds» [Maier, 1982, p. 124-142].
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ground [Derodon, 1655, p. 381-94].
It is by means of an atomistic explanation, even if the word is never used,
that Derodon decides to attack the Catholic and Lutheran doctrines of the
Eucharist. What used to be a matter of natural philosophy, the ancient debate
on the structure of matter, is now mobilised in a doctrinal debate as it was the
case with the Dutch atomists.
On the trail of a Calvinist atom
In order to go beyond this analysis of the adoption of atomism as a tool for
defending the Calvinist interpretation of the Eucharist, we must try to clari-
fy ‘which’ atomism Derodon was promoting. Reading Lesage’s notes on his
predecessor will be instructive in this respect. Lesage worked all his life on a
causal, mechanical and corpuscular theory of gravitation. According to him,
gravity is created by the impulsions of thousands of «ultramondane corpus-
Fig.2: Plate from Lesage’s Essai de Chymie Méchanique (1758) illustrating his corpuscular
mechanism responsible of both gravity and chemical anities. Gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque
nationale de France.
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cules», subtle atoms moving extremely fast in straight lines and in all direc-
tions. Two bodies will be pushed towards each other because each will shield
part of this hail of particles, giving the impression that the bodies are mutually
attracted. Lesage’s way of thinking is characteristic, since he advocated a sci-
ence that was above all ‘speculative’, based on rst principles postulated a prio-
ri, and more specically based on a single cause from which the consequences
of phenomena can be deduced ‘synthetically’. It is within this framework that
Derodon’s philosophy nds troubling homologies.
And Lesage read Derodon
Lesage probably did not read Derodon until the end of his life. It is therefore
impossible to attribute to this reading the direction that the physicist’s work
may have taken. Nevertheless, it is interesting to look at the few surviving
reading notes, concerning the Philosophia contracta (Geneva, 1664) and the
Quaestiones physicae (Orange, 1659), in order to get an idea of what Lesage
nally found in this predecessor. Although there is nothing in his notes to
indicate that he nally got his hands on the treatise De Atomis, we can as-
sume that he would not have found it to his liking. In fact, De Atomis is a
very detailed exposition of the arguments for and against atomism, but Dero-
don never expresses his personal view. The conclusion actually states that his
opinion would be given in a future «dispute», but this one never saw the light
of day [Heyd, 1982, p. 122]. In the Philosophia contracta, Lesage seems to have
stopped, in particular, at the article «De Gravitate et Levitate», at the heart of
his subject [Derodon, 1664, p. 104-10]. The part he found most striking was
copied on the back of the same card on which he had written a short bio-
graphical note of Derodon:
Il termine cet Article; par les mots suivans (contre le prétendu besoin
d’une Déclinaison dans les routes des Atomes pourvû qu’ils fussent diri-
gés vers le Globe terrestre).
Sine tali Declinatione; possent Atomi, sibi invicem occurrere, & cohe-
rescere. Quia; cum moveantur recta è Coelo versus Terram; moventur
per lineas rectas continuo ad se invicem accedentes, & sibi occurrentes
necessario antequam perveniant in Terram.21
Derodon here refutes the supposed atomic ‘swerve’ - the Epicurean clina-
21 BGE, Ms. fr. 2012, «Histoire de la pesanteur», le 7, playing card, recto.
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men - which endows matter with a certain contingency. This idea seems to
have been important to Lesage, since this extract is also copied onto a loose
leaf and followed by this comment: «This article is entitled De Gravitate &
Levitate. And in it he takes the most reasonable view on all points»22. Lesage
is particularly pleased to note that Derodon, by relating Gravity «to some ex-
ternal Cause», does not endow matter with any intrinsic activity.
The search for causes is a central element of Lesage’s scientic programme.
Far from empiricism, he asserted that «natural philosophy is rather the sci-
ence of Causes than that of Facts»23. Moreover, according to him, this search
must be conducted a priori and in a speculative manner: rst causes must be
postulated and their consequences deduced by synthesis and compared with
observed phenomena. In his Lucrèce Newtonien, Lesage explains that all the
cosmological laws, like Kepler’s, «could have been an easy consequence of
the system of Atoms» [Lesage, 1784, p. 15]. These «synthetic demonstrations
of the Laws of the Fall of the Grave», provided they are correctly carried out,
are in his opinion superior to «analytical demonstrations, in which one would
have based oneself solely on phenomena» - which is always possible, but «very
dicult, because of the inevitable inaccuracy of this kind of experiment» [Les-
age, 1784, p. 16-17]. Reasoning, on the other hand, by virtue of the Protestant
lumen naturale which endows the human mind with the capacity to under-
stand the world rationally on its own, guarantees the accuracy of the solution:
«the consequences of the collision of Atoms would have been absolutely une-
quivocal in favour of the only true principle» [Lesage, 1784, p. 4].
It has been shown that the search for rst causes had a certain Calvinist
avour in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As Charles Lohr explains,
Calvinist theologians «regarded their science as essentially speculative and […]
took the glory of God and predestination as their point of departure. Reformed
dogmatics began with God as the rst cause and nal goal of all things, and treat-
ed his eternal decrees of providence and predestination before taking up his
government of the world in time» [Lohr, 1998, p. 374].
This attitude distinguishes them from the Lutherans, who started from the
ends (for example, eternal beatitude) and worked their way back to the means
put in place by God to achieve this, leading to the rst principles. The idea of
universal and systematic knowledge, deriving from a single rst principle, thus
22 Ibid., feuillet.
23 BGE, Ms. fr. 2052a, «5e partie de mes propres réexions. Anomalies» packet, playing card.
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became fundamental to Calvinist thought. François Laplanche has also shown
that Derodon’s apologetics tted in perfectly with this seventeenth-century
Reformed trend of «demonstrating faith». One of the characteristics of this
«collective mentality» was precisely the «order of demonstration», starting
with «truths that do not exceed the power of reason: the existence of God and
his Providence, the Creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, the
necessity of religion» [Laplanche, 1983, p. 50].
The possibility of an orthodox atom
George-Louis Lesage’s reading of Derodon begins to point us in the direction
of what might be a Calvinist way of thinking about matter. Not only is that
atoms t in this causal approach, it is Democritean atoms that are favoured. For
what is at stake here relates to the profound problem of reductionism and its
tension with the existence of contingent phenomena. As Chomin Cunchillos
has suggested, three types of explanation can be oered:
1. everything is determined from the beginning and contingency is an
illusion;
2. the origin is determined and «the appearance of these [contingent] be-
haviours is the product of the intervention of a force external to nature
(extra-natural), which leads to a supernaturalist nalism», which Cunchil-
los describes loosely as the «Christian position»;
3. contingent behaviour exists, and «necessarily, it must be traced back to
the origin, as Epicurus did», by placing contingency within the atom.
The atom is no longer passive but an ‘agent’, a «focus of action capable of
generating forces which, in turn, can change the state of motion inherit-
ed from previous situations» [Cunchillos, 1997, p. 361-363].
It is in this second attitude that lie the theological stakes of mechanism,
as Keith Hutchison pointed out: «the mechanists’ conception of matter as
totally barren was used to oer a guarantee that supernatural activity was
ever-present in the universe» [Hutchison, 1983, p. 207]. The third solution,
an Epicurean one that would proceed from an integral naturalism, is the one
rejected by most Christian thinkers. In a text against atheism, Derodon makes
a virulent criticism of the Epicureans: he refutes the plurality of worlds, that
«atoms, which with time by a fortuitous concurrence, have composed the
world in the state it is at present», and that the world would exist from all
eternity [Derodon, 1665, p. 121-25, 104-105]. «Matter, therefore, not being
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an intellectual and free agent» [Derodon, 1665, p. 106], could not suddenly
set itself in motion to form the world, when it had remained at rest for a nite
or innite time.
This position is echoed by Lesage, who writes in Lucrèce Newtonien that
Epicurus «disgured» Democritus’ movement of atoms by assuming their
perfect parallelism and introducing an internal declination of the atoms - the
clinamen - to make their meeting possible. For both Lesage and Derodon,
this capacity for action conferred on matter is a slope towards atheism, be-
cause it makes God superuous. Lesage prefers Democritus’ solution, which
is ultimately simpler and more economical, of a movement of atoms that is
«uniform in all directions». And it is indeed the «greater abstract simplicity»
of the Democritus system that appeals to Lesage. The idea of an economy of
laws is thus rooted in a necessitarian and rationalist vision of knowledge. As
Lesage states, «it was impossible not to fall into these explanations; as soon as
one wanted to press the necessary consequences of this system» [Lesage, 1784,
p. 24-25].
Some Newtonians, such as Samuel Clarke, solved the problem of univer-
sal gravitation by postulating that it was the immediate action of God. The
consequence of this postulate, which certainly avoids endowing matter with
a capacity for action, is to make the divinity immanent and almost merged
with its creation. This variation on ‘continuous creation’ is rejected by Der-
odon and Lesage. The latter insists that «the rst-mover has acted on matter
only once» and proposes to characterise accordingly his whole philosophy
by the neologism of «semelgician»24. Moreover, in line with the doctrine of
predestination, Lesage imagines that what looks like chance is in reality «very
regular, in the eyes of the Supreme Intelligence», since everything «ows, by
invariable laws, from a rst disposition, in conformity with a certain Unity of
plan»25. The resulting system is one of absolute determinism, in line with that
advocated by Democritus.
It seems to us, therefore, that an analysis of Derodon’s philosophy and its
re-reading by Lesage, could enable us to identify a particular Calvinist way
of understanding the world and matter. The stances took by the theologian
from Die, in the philosophical and theological controversies he got meddled
in, makes it possible to locate him on one side or the other in the pairs of
24 BGE, Ms. fr. 2053, sachet 9, playing card.
25 Ibid., playing card.
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oppositions that structured the debate on ideas (necessitarianism/voluntarism;
atoms/continuum; synthesis/analysis, etc.), a position that was perhaps still
operative among the Calvinist atomists of the eighteenth century.
Style and thêmata
Does the atomism of Lesage, Derodon, but also of Nicolas Fatio and Pierre
Prevost, conceal recurring patterns whose origins could be detected in a pre-
cise Calvinist theology? Dealing with the concepts of discontinuity, neces-
sitarianism and synthesis, are we faced with Gerald Holton’s thêmata, those
«unveriable, unfalsiable, and yet not-quite-arbitrary hypotheses» at work
in the genesis of a scientic theory - Holton places the theory above all else -,
at once «constraining» and «stimulating» [Holton, 1975, p. 13]? Jean-François
Bert has raised the possibility of pursuing this approach to «determine the
place that religious beliefs play in the major philosophical presuppositions,
transmitted by education, culture or traditional representations», and above all
to «see how ‘religious’ thêmata are sometimes actively mobilised by scientists
to produce scientic types of reasoning» [Bert, 2018b]. Could we then use the
themata of divine transcendence, mechanical and causal action, or the primacy
of deductive explanation, to explain the genesis of Genevan atomistics? Hol-
ton also refers to atomism as a particularly crucial thêma in the history of sci-
entic thought «that has experienced a cycle of changing acceptability». For
Holton, nobody ever accepted the experimental proofs of atoms, but rather
«the thematic hypothesis of atomism» [Holton, 1975, p. 99].
Bert also asks: «Does belonging to a religion determine a specic approach, or
explain the development of a certain style of reasoning»? This reection links
themata to the notion of ‘thought style’ (Denkstil) formulated in the 1930s by
the Polish physician and epistemologist Ludwik Fleck. The style dictates the
acceptable questions, explanations and methods, whether literary or technical,
and is produced by a ‘thought collective’ - Denkkollectiv - bringing together
people who discuss the same questions in the same terms. Fleck also proposes
a genealogical and evolutionary vision of thought styles. These do not follow
one another in the manner of incommensurable paradigms, but are trans-
formed, reinforced or disappear, so that «every thought style contains vestiges
of the historical, evolutionary development of various elements from another
style» [Fleck, 1979, p. 100]. A central element of Fleck’s thinking is the notion
of «unarticulated» hypotheses, of which the scientist is unaware but which
profoundly aect his way of doing science. The whole point of this topic of
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style is to be able to play with scales, to navigate between the micro scale and
the broader movements of the history of thought.
A «calvino-atomist style»
Can we sketch out, from what emerges from Derodon’s philosophy and its
appropriation by Lesage, the elements of a style that we would dare to call
«Calvino-atomist»? Several themes emerge: ‘democritean’, ‘intellectualist’,
‘rationalist’, ‘necessitarist’, derived from ‘synthetic’ knowledge, and linked to
the vision of a ‘transcendent’ and ‘omniscient’ (but not absolutely ‘omnipo-
tent’) god. These terms contrast with worldviews that may be, alternatively
or simultaneously: ‘Epicurean’, ‘voluntarist’, ‘empirical’, ‘contingent’, derived
from ‘analytical’ knowledge, and linked to the vision of an ‘immanent’ and
‘omnipotent’ god. Let’s elucidate these terms. As we saw briey above, Der-
odon taught that the act of creation was a necessary consequence of divine
wisdom, that God was not absolutely free to create or not to create the world.
This position, which can be described as ‘intellectualist’ or ‘rationialist’ and
which assumes elements of ‘necessity’ in creation, is opposed to ‘voluntarism’,
according to which creation is absolutely ‘contingent’ and dependent on di-
vine will [Osler, 1994, p. 11]. These two competing positions were at the
heart of medieval theological debates, where Thomas Aquinas and William
of Ockham respectively represented the voluntarist and intellectualist camps.
Thomas Aquinas set out to purge Aristotelianism of all deterministic and ne-
cessitarian elements, particularly present in its Averroist version, in order to
guarantee God’s total freedom and omnipotence. A necessitarian theology
preserves God’s omnipotence, but in a version constrained by the rules of
logic: God is omniscient, he knows in advance the chain of causes and can act
freely, in compliance with the physical rules that he himself has established.
These two theological positions lead to two theories of knowledge. In a
rationalist world governed by logical necessity, it is possible to use reason to
decipher phenomena and above all to produce ‘synthetic’ knowledge, derived
from rst principles [Osler, 1994, p. 19-20]. This is what Derodon propos-
es, for example in the introduction to the Dispute de l’Eucharistie, where he
explains that he uses «the lights of reason» to uncover «the disguises of error
and falsehood [...] with the clear-cut weapons of solid reasoning» [Derodon,
1655, vi]. His aim was to bring the doctrinal question of the real presence of
Christ in the host back into the realm of philosophy. This rationalist stance,
combined with his necessitarian vision of God’s action in the world, made it
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possible for him to develop a synthetic knowledge of nature based on cor-
puscular physics. On the other hand, a voluntarist world governed by con-
tingency alone cannot be understood in terms of the «abstract simplicity» of
which Lesage spoke. Systematic knowledge is not excluded, but is necessarily
‘empirical’ and ‘nominalistic’, proceeding from an ‘analytical’ order of knowl-
edge [Osler, 1994, p. 19-20]. It is, it seems to us, in this duality that it would
be possible to distinguish atomism as it developed among certain Calvinists,
from the perhaps more properly Catholic atomism of a Gassendi or an Em-
manuel Maignan (1601-1676). This clergyman from Toulouse, a member of
the Minimes order, endowed his atoms with an intrinsic capacity for move-
ment - «by principle and by itself, and not by accident»26 - and even with a
natural anity to come together, a ‘sympathy’ or an ‘appetite’, put there by
God in a providentialist perspective.
Margaret Osler has rightly asked a simple yet rarely mentioned question
about Gassendi: why did he choose Epicurus rather than another ancient phi-
losopher? In her view, it was precisely because Epicurus’ philosophy lends
itself to a voluntarist reformulation. In the Syntagma philosophicum, Gassendi
presents a voluntarist and providential view of God’s action in the world [Os-
ler, 1994, p. 40-56]: God is the only ecient cause, omnipotent and free from
all necessity. Moreover, the primary role accorded by the Epicureans to the
senses as the only means of accessing reality is precisely in line with an analyt-
ical knowledge based on contingency. As Keith Hutchison has also pointed
out, Gassendi preserved, in an attenuated form, a kind of Epicurean swerve
that gave autonomy to atoms. Calvin, on the other hand - and to a lesser ex-
tent Luther - rejected the slightest shred of power inherent in creatures and
matter [Hutchison, 1983].
As we have already seen, voluntarism led to the ‘occasionalism’ of the ear-
ly Cartesians, such as Malebranche and Cordemoy, for whom God was the
only ecient cause. Derodon, in his controversy on continuous creation, is
opposed to occasionalism - even if the term did not exist yet - which has the
eect of enslaving God to his creation. Occasionalism is in itself compatible
with atomism, but the result is a theological position that diers from that of
the Calvinists. For Cordemoy, following Descartes’ view on causality, «God
has become the First Principle by which not only everything exists, but also
everything acts» [Prost, 1907, p. 97]. But unlike Descartes, who tended to
26 Cursus Philosophicus (1673), chap. XIII, Prop. XVI, p. 342, cit. in Libral, 2020, p. 194.
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subject «human activity to Providence to such an extent that the initiative in
this activity ended up disappearing, and man was no more than an instrument
in the hands of God», Cordemoy succeeded in distinguishing the existence of
beings from that of their creator by means of his atomism. For him, «existence
entails the individuality of what is», so «from the moment that bodies and
spirits exist, they are independent of their substance from God». All move-
ment, tendency, impulse and direction come from God, but they manifest
themselves in beings only with their consent: «God only acts in us if we give
him the opportunity to do so [...]. We have the merit and the demerit of our
conduct» [Prost, 1907, p. 94-98]. As Joseph Prost concludes, «occasionalism
presented itself as a system of contingency» [Prost, 1907, p. 99]. The calvinist
dogma of unconditional election, based on the Sola Gratia principle, could
not work with the view defended by Cordemoy. Véronique Le Ru also con-
siders that «the divinisation of causal eciency by La Forge, Cordemoy and
then Malebranche leads to a sceptical refusal to consider causes and forces
other than in terms of their eects, which produces a secularisation of science
that allows itself to establish laws, without taking causes into account» [Le Ru,
2003, p. 183]. It was this radical hypotheses non ngo that the Genevan atomists
challenged, insisting on the search for causes in physics [Sigrist, 2011, p. 115].
We can therefore appreciate the extent to which the causal research approach
is linked to a dened theological position.
Conclusion
Taking theology and the notions of thêmata and Denkstil as starting points
helps to rene the map of atomistics in the seventeenth century, and to dis-
tinguish a Derodon from a Gassendi. By playing with pairs of philosophical
oppositions, it becomes possible to sketch out what a “Calvinist atomism”
might be, in relation to a “Catholic atomism”, in terms of necessity, presence
of God in the world and modes of access to knowledge. Osler’s summary of
Gassendi’s thought is particularly illuminating: «Gassendi described a world
utterly contingent on divine will. This contingency expressed itself in his con-
viction that empirical methods are the only way to acquire knowledge about
the natural world» [Osler, 1994, p. 222]
On the contrary, Derodon, and then Lesage (but also, as it remains to be
shown, Fatio, Prevost and the Genevan atomists), approached creation as a
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matter of ‘necessity’, ordered by reason and comprehensible by an ‘intellectu-
alist’ and ‘synthetic’ approach.
The reception of Derodon’s atomism, as well as its mobilisation in con-
fessional controversies, made it clear that it was by no means a heterodox
theory in a Calvinist context. By oering a clear-cut denition of the con-
cepts of ‘place’ and ‘body’ that is resolutely incompatible with the Lutheran
and Catholic doctrines of the Eucharist, atomistics combines physical and
theological considerations in a speculative register. Far from basing himself
on experience and analysis, Derodon postulated the discrete nature of bodies
– in the purest Democritean tradition. Even though the eighteenth century
was no longer the time for Eucharistic disputes, the speculative legacy of
the Calvinist neo-atomism of the previous century would be carried for-
ward once again by Reformed scholars, anxious to reconcile their theological
necessitarianism with a synthetic search for the primary causes of physical
phenomena.
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losophie à Die, Orange, Nîmes et Genève, «Mémoires de l’Académie du Gard»
(1871), p. 341-67.
Bayle 1715 = Bayle Pierre, Dictionnaire historique et critique, vol. 3, 3rd ed.,
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