SOURCE: Weightman, John. “Cultivating the Enlightenment.” New York Review of Books 7, no. 12 (12 January 1967): 4, 6, 8.

In the following review, Weightman argues that Gay fails to provide a wholly new historical perspective in The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, Volume I: The Rise of Modern Paganism, but notes that the book offers an abundance of interesting information and discussion.

The eighteenth-century movement of thought, which is referred to seriously or ironically as the Enlightenment, set out to destroy myths, but it long ago became a myth itself. Since it immediately preceded the Revolution of 1789, it was held to be responsible for that far-reaching phenomenon, and the leading French figures of the siècle des lumières have been praised or blamed accordingly ever since by succeeding generations.

When one has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the writings of the period, it strikes one as odd that its many complexities should so...