Three Deaths and Enlightenment Thought ― Hume, Johnson, Marat

In recent years there has been an extended debate about Enlightenment thought. Though many scholars have concluded that there were several 'Enlightenments,' some continue to make generalizations about the Englightenment and some speak about 'the Enlightment agenda.' After discussing the cult of the deathbed scene in eighteenth-century Britain and France, the author looks at three currents of Enlightment thought implicit in the deathbed 'projects' of David Hume, Samuel Johnson, and Jean Paul Marat. Although Hume and Johnson hold profoundly different views of religion, their political thinking has much in common. Their reformist thought differs radically from what might be called the transformist thought of Marat, who hoped the French would become disinterested citizens whose civil religion was patriotism.

Stephen Miller has published widely on eighteenth-century intellectual history. His articles on Adam Smith, David Hume, Edmund Burke, Joseph Addison, Samuel Johnson, and Edward Gibbon have appeared in a number of journals, including Sewanee Review, Partisan Review, and the Times Literary Supplement. He has also written two books and many articles on a variety of subjects -from American intellectual history to modern French thought. An independent scholar who is a Contributing Editor to the Wilson Quarterly, he has taught at Rutgers University and Beaver College. He has also been a Program Director for the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.