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| Victor Hugo |
In his work Quatrevingt-Treize,
a title usually translated as “Ninety-three” (it refers to 1793, the year of the
Reign of Terror and the Vendée), Victor Hugo introduces a character named
Cimourdain, a former priest who has lost his faith because of science:
Science had demolished his faith; the dogma had
vanished in him... He knew everything about science and he knew nothing about
life.
Apart from the fact
that the second sentence is quite debatable (no one can know everything about
science), the first raises the confrontation between science and faith, which
began with the Enlightenment and reached its maximum philosophical effect in
the nineteenth century, Victor Hugo‘s time. He is probably projecting his
prejudices into a historical anachronism.
