* Goldmann, Lucien, Le dieu caché (Paris, Gallimard, 1955)Google Scholar, English translation: The Hidden God (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964)Google Scholar.

(1) This particular tenet of Jansenism rendered it vulnerable in the bitter controversy between Jansenists and Jesuits, over the “six principles” declared to be heretical, and attributed to Jansenius. The Jesuits made the most of Jansenist ‘leanings’ towards Calvinist heresy.

(2) Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London, Allen and Unwin, 1930)Google Scholar.

(3) Cf. Giddens, Anthony, Marx, , Weber, and the Development of Capitalism, Sociology, IV (1970), 289–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(4) Although he has suffered in the recent climate of Marxian anti-humanism, associated with the structuralism of Althusser, L. et al. Cf. Glucksmann, Miriam, A Hard Look at Lucien Goldmann, New Left Review, LVI (1969), 49–62Google Scholar.

(5) Lukács, Georges, Die Seele und die Formen (Berlin 1911)Google Scholar.

(6) Weber, , op. cit. p. 89Google Scholar.

(7) Ibid. p. 90.

(8) I am only interested in this paper in interprethe thesis of the relationship between Calvinism and Capitalism as it is argued by Weber. It may be possible to recast the thesis, perhaps after the manner of some of its later adherents, and to avoid dilemma Capitwhich I describe here. For example Carlo Antoni severely criticises Weber for interposing a psychological moment in the manner in which he does, and argues that in so doing, he underestimates the power of beliefs. He claims that the relationship can be understood when the beliefs of Calvin are given a literal interpretation. In this assessment he is at variance with Weber himself, and also with Ernest Gellner who believes as we shall see that it is difficult to see the meaningfulness of the relationship between Calvinism and Capitwhich alism if Calvinist beliefs are taken literally.

(9) Gellner, Ernest, Concepts and Society, in Wilson, B. (ed.), Rationality (Oxford, Blackwell, 1971)Google Scholar.

(10) Goldmann, , The Human Sciences and Philosophy (London, Jonathan Cape, 1969)Google Scholar.

(11) Goldmann, , Hidden God, op. cit. p. 8Google Scholar.

(12) Goldmann rebukes Lukács for having sceptitaken as his exemplar of the “tragic vision” a minor writer, Paul Ernst, rather than men of the stature of Pascal, Racine and Kant.

(13) Goldmann uses the term “noblesse de robe” to denote a sociological category, and not simply to refer to those holders of certain legal offices who were granted patent of nobility. The translation of Hidden God contains an appendix which explains the various terms and titles used in the book, and the organisation of the legal and administrative structures of 17th-century France.

(14) Goldmann defends Pascal's own attribution of a malicious demon to Montaigne rather than its author, Descartes, on the grounds that a fully coherent scepticism would have invented him, and it is the logical construct of coherent scepticism that Pascal is attacking, not its incomplete expression in Montaigne.

(15) It is arguable that Goldmann distorts the Pensées in order to make his case, by emphasizing the fragments that deal with man and the world, rather than those which are concerned with the ’proofs’ of the Christian revelation. For a different interpretation of Pascal, which nevertheless places the wager at the centre of the Pensées, see Broome, J. H., Pascal (London 1965)Google Scholar.

(16) Goldmann, , Hidden God, p. 8Google Scholar.

(17) Interestingly, Weber uses the identical phrase to describe Calvinist's relationship to the world.

(18) Hidden God, p. 112.

(19) Goldmann asserts that this latter source of support had but superficial relations with Port-Royal Jansenism, and that none of them actually withdrew.

(20) Weber, , Sociology of Religion, in Gerth, H. and Mills, L. Wright, From Max Weber (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948), p. 280Google Scholar.

(21) Weber, , The Religion of China (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

(22) Cf. Moore, Barrington Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (London 1964), chap, iv, on ChinaGoogle Scholar.

(23) Levenson, J., Review of Weber's Religion of China, ap. Journal of Economic History, XIII (1953), 127–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(24) Weber, , Protestant Ethic…, p. 103Google Scholar.

(25) Pascal, Blaise, Écrits sur la grâce (Paris 1947)Google Scholar.

(26) “There are only three kinds of person; those who, having found God, Penseek Him; thos who, not having found Him, spend their time seeking Him; and those who live without having found Him and without seeking for Him either. The are both blessed and happy. The last both mad and unhappy, and the second unhappy, but reasonable”. Pascal, , Penséek sies (Lafuma Edition, 1952)Google Scholar, Fragment 257.

(27) Protestant ethic…, p. 225.

(28) It must be said that the Jansenist attitude to other men was less harsh than the Calvinist. For while the latter tended to view his fellows with deep suspicion, since even the most apparently virtuous might prove to be among the damned, the Jansenist took the opposite view; that since any man might prove to be among the elect, he should be treated with charity, however lowly or sinful he might appear to be. Both attitudes are equally compatible with the doctrine of predestination. Yet Weber explains that of the Calvinists in terms of the logic of their creed. Perhaps doctrinal differences alone cannot explain these attitudinal differences.

(29) Protestant Ethic…, p. 81.

(30) Cf. Smelser, N., The Theory of Collective Behaviour (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962)Google Scholar, for an account of the logic of this type of explanation.

(31) E.g. Tawney, R., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London 1964)Google Scholar.

(32) Cf. Tawney, , op. cit. pp. 92 sqGoogle Scholar.

(33) This point was made by Gabriel Pearson, in a seminar on Goldmann's sociology of literature. at Essex University.

(34) Tawney, , op. cit. pp. 92 sqGoogle Scholar.

(35) Ibid. p. 122.

(36) Ibid.

(37) Ibid.

(38) Eberhard, W., Conquerors and Rulers (Leiden 1965), p. 127Google Scholar.

(39) Weber in his Religions of India considered Buddhism to be unsuited to perform this ideological task.

(40) Ebekhard, , op. cit. pp. 127–128Google Scholar.

(41) Weber, Politics as a Vocation, in Gerth and Mills, op. cit.

(42) Ibid. p. 123.

(43) The harmonious, morally anodyne world of Talcott Parsons is completely alien to Weber, and it is one of the ironies of modern sociology that he has been so successful in fathering his sociology of culture on Weber.

(44) Protestant Ethic… p. 182.

(45) Hugues, H. Stuart, Consciousness and Society (London, MacGibon and Kee, 1959)Google Scholar.

(46) Ibid.

(47) Mitzmann, A., The Iron Cage (New York, Knopf, 1971)Google Scholar.

(48) Weber, , Politics as a Vocation, op. cit. 1952)Google Scholar.

(49) Fragment 229 (Lafuma Edition,