CHARRON, PIERRE (1S11-1603), French philosopher, was born in Paris. He entered the Church, and was appointed preacher in ordinary to Marguerite, wife of Henry IV. of Navarre. At Bordeaux he met Montaigne, whose intimate friend he became.
In 1594 Charron published (at first anonymously, afterwards under the name of "Benoit Vaillant, Advocate of the Holy Faith," and also, in 1594, in his own name) Les Trois Verites, in which he seeks to prove that there is a God and a true religion, that the true religion is the Christian, and that the true Church is the Roman Catholic. It is chiefly an answer to the famous Protes tant work entitled Le Traite de l'Eglise by Du Plessis Mornay. It was followed in 1600 by Discours chrestiens, a book of very eloquent sermons. In 1601 Charron published at Bordeaux the famous De la sagesse, a complete popular system of moral philos ophy. Usually it is coupled with the Essays of Montaigne, to which the author is under very extensive obligations in it. Charron suddenly stood forth as the representative of the most complete intellectual scepticism. The De la sagesse brought upon its author the most violent attacks. It received, however, the warm support of Henry IV. and of the president Pierre Jeannin (1540-1622).
Charron's psychology is sensationalist. With sense all our knowl edge commences. The soul, located in the ventricles of the brain, is affected by the temperament of the individual; the dry tem perament brings intelligence; the moist, memory; the hot, imagi nation. The immortality of the soul is the most universal of beliefs, but the most feebly supported by reason. As to man's power of attaining truth, he plainly declares that none of our faculties enable us to distinguish truth from error. On a pessi mistic view of human nature Charron founded a moral system that may be summarized as follows: Man comes into the world to endure; let him endure then, and that in silence. Our compassion should be like that of God, who succours the suffering without sharing in their pain. Avoid vulgar errors; cherish universal sym pathy. Let no passion or attachment become too powerful for restraint. Follow the customs and laws which surround you. Morality has no connection with religion. Reason is the ultimate criterion.
Charron holds that all religions grow from small beginnings and increase by popular contagion; all teach that God is to be appeased by prayers, presents, vows, but especially, and most irrationally, by human suffering. Each is said by its devotees to have been given by inspiration. In fact, however, a man is a Christian, Jew, or Mohammedan, before he knows he is a man. But while he openly declares religion to be "strange to common sense," the practical result at which Charron arrives is that one is not to sit in judgment on his faith, but to be "simple and obedient," and to allow himself to be led by public authority. Another rule is to avoid superstition, which he defines as the be lief that God is like a hard judge, and that therefore He must be flattered and importuned, and won over by pain and sacrifice. True piety is the knowledge of God and of one's self, the latter knowledge being necessary to the former. It leads to spiritual worship; for external ceremony is merely for our advantage, not for His glory. Charron is thus the founder of modern secularism. His political views are neither original nor independent. He pours scorn on the common herd, declares the sovereign to be the source of law, and asserts that popular freedom is dangerous.
A summary and defence of the Sagesse appeared in 1606. In 1607 Michel de la Rochemaillet prefixed to an edition of the Sagesse a Life. His complete works, with this Life, were published in i635. An excel lent abridgment of the Sagesse is given in Tennemann's Philosophie, vol. ix.; an edition with notes by A. Duval appeared in 1824.
See H. T. Buckle, Intro. to History of Civilization in England, vol. ii. p. 19 (1869) ; Abbe Lezat, De la predication sous Henri IV. (1871) ; Liebscher, Charron u. sein Werk, De la sagesse (Leipzig, 189o) ; J. Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance (1893) ; W. E. H. Lecky, Rationalism in Europe (new ed. 191o) ; J. B. Sabrie, De l'humanisme 913 au rationalisme, Pierre Charron (1) ; J. M. Robertson, A Short History of Free Thought, vol. i. p. 48o (3rd. ed. 1915).