Bayle, Pierre

a native of Langue doc; first Protestant (as the son of a Calvin ist minister), then Catholic, then sceptic; Profe or of Philosophy at Padua, then at Rotter dam, and finally retired to the Boompjes in the latter city; known chiefly as the author of the famous Dictionnaire Hist or i que et Critique , to the composition of which he consecrated his energies with a zeal worthy of a religious devotee, and which became the fountain-head of the sceptical philosophy that flooded France on the eve of the Revolution; pronounced by a competent judge in these matters, a mere "imbroglio of historical, philosophical, and anti-theological marine stores" (1647-1700).