The Diffusion and Expansion of the Enlightenment 329

The library of the University of Leyden in the Netherlands, 1610.

While some of the most significant works of the Enlightenment were vir­

tually unknown outside the republic of letters, others became the best­

sellers of the age. Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws went through twenty-two

printings—approximately 35,000 copies—in the first eighteen months after

publication in 1748. Buffon’s thirty-volume study, The System of Nature

(1749—1804)—despite its bulk—also enjoyed prodigious success. Voltaire’s

Candide was reprinted eight times the year of its publication in 1759.

Abbe Guillaume Raynal’s The Philosophical and Political History of Euro­

pean Colonies and Commerce in the Two Indies (1770) was reprinted sev­

enty times to supply an eager market. It described the colonization of the

New World, Asia, and Africa, including the development of the slave trade,

which Raynal denounced in no uncertain terms.

The Arts

The philosophes sought the same status and freedom for artists that they

demanded for writers. They believed that the arts had to be not only unfet­

tered by censorship but also subject to critical inquiry. Some philosophes

worked toward a philosophy of art, but they did not espouse a single theory.

The distinguished English portrait painter Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)