LAUSR

as an astute participant in the scholarly world, and as a writer who was keenly aware of how his works were likely to be received and understood. If he deliberately produced a text from which it was impossible to draw positive conclusions, as van der Lugt implies, it does not seem unreasonable to expect an explanation of why he might have attempted this, and of what Bayle’s ambiguity might have meant in context. Yet the answer, it seems, may only push the author towards a rather unfashionable restatement of Bayle’s “radicalism”.