Pierre, author of the Historical and Critical Dictionary, was born on the 18th November, 1647, at Carlat, a village in the county of Foix, in France. His father, Jean Bayle, a Calvinist minister, took upon himself the early education of his son, and instructed him in Latin and Greek. The young Bayle was afterwards sent to Puylaurens, where he continued his studies with equal ardour and success. He completed his rhetorical studies in this academy, and went in 1669 to Toulouse, to study philosophy under the Jesuits. There, embarrassed by some objections raised against his religious belief, he abjured Calvinism for Catholicism, which for a short time appeared to him the more rational system; but renewed reflection and more thorough investigation soon brought him back to his former faith. Immediately on his restoration to the reformed church, he went to Geneva, and adopted the principles of Cartesianism in preference to the Peripatetic scholasticism which he had learnt from the Jesuits; and there also he formed lasting friendships with the celebrated professors of theology, Pictet and Leger, and especially with a young man named Basnage, who afterwards distinguished himself as an author and minister of the gospel. In the year 1675, a chair of philosophy was vacant at the Sedan academy. Pressed by Basnage, who had then finished his theological studies in this town, and who had obtained for his friend the help of Juriel his master, Bayle competed for the place and obtained it. He occupied this post for six years, to the satisfaction of all, and even of Juriel himself; who, in spite of his envious character, could not withhold from him his esteem. In 1681, five years before the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the Calvinist university of Sedan was broken up, and Bayle went with Juriel to Rotterdam, where M. de Paets founded for them l'Ecole illustre. The public teaching with which Bayle was there intrusted comprehended philosophy and history. His lectures, and particularly his numerous publications, soon attracted general attention; all the savants of Europe corresponded with him, and the learned Queen Christina of Sweden wrote to him with her own hand. But he did not long enjoy this celebrity undisturbed. His colleague Juriel persecuted him with cruel animosity. He denounced him as an atheist to the consistory, and as a conspirator to the public authorities. His intrigues, after having for a long time proved futile, at length succeeded. In 1693 the magistrates of Rotterdam removed Bayle from his office, and forbade him to give private instructions. His misfortune appears to have affected him but little; he rather congratulated himself at having escaped from the cabals and parties so common in the academies. In spite of the persecutions which disturbed his latter years, he was so happy in the enjoyment of independence, that when, in 1706, the Count of Albemarle asked him as a favour to come and live in his house at the Hague, Bayle refused.

But he was now suffering from the malady which at last proved fatal to him. An affection of the chest, for which he refused to seek any remedies, as he considered it incurable, made rapid progress, which he observed with perfect calmness. His activity was never for a moment inter- rupted; his labours proceeded as perseveringly as when he was in perfect health, till death overtook him, pen in hand, on the 28th December 1706, in the fifty-ninth year of his age.

The lives of few literary men have been so completely occupied as that of Bayle. From his twentieth year he scarcely allowed himself a moment's repose. To those who were astonished at the rapidity with which his publications succeeded each other, he answers, in the preface to the second volume of his dictionary, "Diversions, parties of pleasure, games, collections, country excursions, visits, and such other recreations as are said by many men of letters to be necessary, have no charms for me; I lose no time. I do not even spend any in domestic cares, or in endeavouring to attain anything whatever, nor in solicitations, nor in any other affairs. In this way an author accomplishes much in a few years."

He wrote with extreme facility, and rarely revised his first copy. "I never (says he) make a rough draft of an article; I commence and finish it without stopping." What he chiefly sought in the expressions in which he clothed his thoughts was clearness, and his style is rather lively and flowing, than elegant and chaste.

His erudition was immense, and at once exact and profound. His logic was equal to his learning, for he was one of those rare geniuses with whom retentiveness of memory does not weaken the reasoning powers. Unfortunately these extraordinary talents were often wasted on profitless paradox and bewildering scepticism. The subtlety of his reasoning faculties led him to doubt the most universally acknowledged facts. All the important questions which philosophy proposes to solve entangle themselves, according to Bayle, in inextricable difficulties. The proposition that there is one God does not, according to him, possess indisputable evidence. Nature is an impenetrable deep. "Man," he says, "is the stumbling-block of the true and the false, and nothing is so difficult for reason alone to penetrate, as what we call a rational animal. What do we know of the nature and destiny of souls? arguments have been equally advanced for their materiality and immateriality, for their mortality and immortality. The principles on which morality rests are still less certain than those which give to the physical sciences their tottering base and their uncertain foundation." He gives a true character of himself when he says (Lettre au P. Taurnemene), "I am only Jupiter, the cloud-compeller; my talent is to form doubts, but they are to me only doubts." His scepticism enveloped every thing. He does not attack openly and directly the dogmas which he impugns; his method is to oppose to the system which supports certain doctrines some other system, ancient or modern, which denies them, and thus to break the contradictory doctrines against each other, leaving the truth buried under their ruins.

The great work of Bayle is the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, which, with much that is of little interest or value, contains a large number of articles remarkable for erudition and critical discernment, and has exercised no inconsiderable influence on the literature and philosophy of Europe. The first edition was published in 1699 in 2 vols. fol. Of the twelve subsequent editions, the best are, that of Des Maizeaux (with life of Bayle), Basle and Amst. 1740, 4 tom. fol.; and that of Beuchot, Paris, 1820, &c., 16 tom. 8vo. The latter is enriched with the critical remarks of various authors. The English translation by Birch and Lockman, Lond. 10 vols. fol. 1734-41, contains considerable additions to the original. The Œuvres Diverses of Bayle were published in 1727-31, 4 tom. fol. at the Hague; and his Lettres Choisies at Rotterd. 1714, and Amst. 1729, 3 tom. 12mo.

(See Durevert, Histoire de Bayle, &c., Amst. 1716; G. F. Schetterbeck, Diss. de P. Baylo, Tubing. 1719, 4to; Feuerbach, Pierre Bayle, &c., Ansp. 1838, 8vo; Damiron, Bayly in the Mem. de l'Acad. des Sciences Mor. et Polit., tom. xi. p. 319; Tennebaum, Geschichte der Philos.; St Beure, in the Rev. des Deux Mondes, Dec. 1835.)