Entre foi et sciences. Les Mémoires de Trévoux et le mouvement scientifique dans les années 50

Abstract

Contrary to thair traditional image, the Jesuit journalists were not obscurantist and backward-looking, rejecting all aspects of the Enlightenment. As we can see by studying the Journal de Trévoux' s attitude towards science, opposition to the Philosophes did not mean a refusal of, or lack of interest in, the Enlighten¬ ment as a whole. This is particularly clear in the 1750s, an important decade for scientific progress and the high point of the journal. Nevertheless, there were limits that these most eminent members of the Society of Jesus would not cross, concerning the divine. In their eyes, Enlightenment was not before us, a Promethean conquest, but behind us, in the form of revelation. The attitude of this journal therefore raises the question of the definition not only of the Counter-Enlightenment but also of the Enlightenment itself.