Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte, and Historic Certainties Respecting the Early History of America

by Richard Whately

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Genres: History, Philosophy

198 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1985

About the author

English rhetorician, logician, economist, academic and theologian who also served as a reforming Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. He was a leading Broad Churchman, a prolific and combative author over a wide range of topics. Whately was an important figure in the revival of Aristotelian logic in the early nineteenth century. Whately's view of rhetoric as essentially a method for persuasion became an orthodoxy, challenged in mid-century by Henry Noble Day.

Reviews

[Jason Goetz]

One of the more brilliant pieces of skeptic history, this (very short) piece presents the hypothesis that Napoleon was a creation of British politicians and newspapers rather than an actual person. The idea is that there are such completely contradictory views of him as a person that he is not merely polarizing--in which case there would be some way to find common factual ground underneath the disparate opinions of him--but fabricated.

The book's title evokes Horace Walpole's Historic Doubts Concerning the Reign of King Richard III, and resembles it in style.

[Matt Smart]

Although it is old this is an excellent satirical which exposes the absurdities of the socalled "ultimate proof against miracles" which was presented by Hume. It takes some time to understand but once the arguments are clear it is a powerful argument.

[Rory Fox]

With more than a dozen editions between 1819 and 1860, this short work was popular with the Victorians, as it provided a satirical refutation of David Hume’s attack upon Miracles and his questioning of the rationality of religious belief.

The book applies Hume’s rigorous standards on the credibility of evidence, to the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. By casting doubt on the existence of Napoleon, the author (satirically) casts doubt upon Hume’s criteria, as there must be something wrong with criteria which can lead to some a ridiculous outcome. At the time of the first edition of this book Napoleon was still alive, and that makes the deliberate absurdity of its conclusions even more pointed.

The author notes that there are three main factors which Hume thinks are important for the credibility of evidence and they are all lacking in the case of Napoleon.

Firstly, witnesses must be credible and have the scope to gain correct information. But the average person’s beliefs about Napoleon rest on what they have read in the Newspapers? And those who claim to have seen or spoken to Napoleon, what proof have they that the person they saw, really was Napoleon?

Secondly, there is the question of whether anyone has an “interest” in slanting evidence to create a story of Napoleon. On that note, the author thinks it is very interesting to look at how the English come out of the story. Napoleon conquerors every kingdom except the English. The English beat him at sea, and then they lead the victory at Waterloo. And they alone are entrusted with securing him after his defeat. If someone was inventing a fable to glorify the English, they would struggle to invent a better story than the life of Napoleon.

Thirdly, the credibility of evidence depends on whether sources agree in their testimony. The author notes that there is an extraordinary amount of disagreement about Napoleon. Sources contradict on whether he led the charge at the battle of Lodi. Sources disagree by 4 hours on the time of the battle of Waterloo. There are contradictory claims about the battle of Borodino, and even the great naval victory of Trafalgar is contradicted by French sources which proclaim it as a French naval victory.

The result of all this is that the life of Napoleon fails to meet Humes criteria for being credible.

Furthermore, there is an unmistakable ‘fantastical’ element to his life, as if he is a mythical character. He does nothing by halves. He raises and destroys kings, and entire nations. He commands enormous armies, and suffers enormous setbacks, like losing half a million soldiers in Russia. Yet he bounces back. In fact he raises, and loses five enormous armies. Isn’t that the kind of extraordinary story which we find in fairy tales and epics?

Even the politics of his story have an unreal element. He promised the poles his support, but then he refused to establish their kingdom, yet they lauded him and supported him to the end. This is “incredible” and “unbelievable” as it is unlike what we know normally takes place in history.

The author concludes his satire by asking the crucial question; “how can anyone rationally believe all this about Napoleon, and yet refuse to believe in miracles?”

Overall this is a clever satire, which is very readable. The force of its argument is sometimes questionable as history has settled some of the issues raised by the author. But that creates its own irony as Hume implied that history becomes less credible over time, due to the length of the chains of evidence.

The original text is clear, but as it was written more than 200 years ago, there are allusions in the text which would have benefited from footnotes to help modern readers.

[Catherine]

Funny, that so many people don’t understand the point of this book. The author was NOT trying to disprove the existence of Napoleon. Rather, if the same logic and arguments Hume and his ilk used to “discredit” the Bible as an historically accurate document were applied to even present-day history such as the existence and exploits of Buonaparte, they would disprove his very existence...EVEN WHILE HE WAS STILL ALIVE.

This is a presupposition apologetic against the biased “logic” of Hume and his homeboys. It is a RIOTOUS piece of satire with both a common sense defense of the authenticity of the Biblical narrative...and tremendous entertainment value mocking the savagely inconsistent rule book of humanistic logic and rhetoric.

Because of its exaggerated satirical form, this should be is an EASY and ENTERTAINING read for modern non-intellectuals. It’s kinda sad that so many reviews seem to miss the rather obvious point of the book. 10th grade comprehension and appreciation level. If you don’t understand it...you need to work on your reading comprehension and adult literacy.

[Leah Angstman]

This is ... interesting. I thought it would be a debunking of some of Napoleon's feats with some actual facts or firsthand accounts, but it is, rather, a conspiracy hoax on whether or not Napoleon even existed and partook in any of the things "the newspapers" claim he's been involved in. Written in 1819, when Napoleon was *still alive* on the island of St. Helena, this book argues how everything you hear about him is secondhand and exaggerated, so, perhaps ... he never even existed? On par with the best conspiracy theories (the Holocaust didn't happen, the moon landing was filmed in a studio, the second shooter on the grassy knoll, UFOs in rural America, &c.), this shows there were people in 1819 who didn't even believe in the events obviously happening around them. It's either extreme PTSD or some serious willful ignorance. Moral of the story: People have always been stupid; it's not a new occurrence.

[George Davies]

An interesting read and provides insights into some of the fallacies of Hume's line of thinking. They are not anymore criticisms of Hume as they are Whately's own reflections and musings. Whately does not seek to disprove Hume it appears, he simply warns reader of his shortcomings and at points lack of applicability to other cases at points of Hume's own work.