Thoughts deep and witty he poured out in volume after volume.
Catholics and Protestants were alike scandalized. Catholic France
spurned him, and Jurieu, the great Reformed divine, called his
cometary views "atheism," and tried hard to have Protestant
Holland condemn him. Though Bayle did not touch immediately the
mass of mankind, he wrought with power upon men who gave themselves
the trouble of thinking. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church
that theologians, instead of taking the initiative in this matter,
left it to Bayle; for, in tearing down the pretended scriptural
doctrine of comets, he tore down much else: of all men in his time,
no one so thoroughly prepared the way for Voltaire.
Bayle's whole argument is rooted in the prophecy of Seneca. He
declares: "Comets are bodies subject to the ordinary law of
Nature, and not prodigies amenable to no law." He shows
historically that there is no reason to regard comets as portents
of earthly evils. As to the fact that such evils occur after the
passage of comets across the sky, he compares the person believing
that comets cause these evils to a woman looking out of a window
into a Paris street and believing that the carriages pass because
she looks out.
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