Fauchet, Claude

FATALISM: The doctrine that all events are determined by fate, instead of by natural causes, and that nothing that man can will or do affects the course of events. While in the fatalistic view of the world everything is ruled by necessity, this is quite a different kind of necessity from that of Determinism (q.v.), with which fatalism is often confused. Indeed, fatalism and determinism are diametrically opposed to one another. The determinist, or necessitarian, says that events take place with necessity, but that they are made necessary by events immediately preceding, to which they stand in a relation of cause and effect. The fatalist, on the other hand, eliminates natural causes entirely. In his view the ultimate result will remain the same, no matter how much the antecedent causes be varied. For example, believing that a blind fate has decreed his death at a certain time, the fatalistic soldier goes into the battle with the firm conviction that he will not meet his death a moment sooner than if he had stayed at home. While fatalism bears a resemblance to predestination it is essentially a heathen view, and leaves no room for freedom of the will or for any personal relation between man and God the Father. Fatalism appears in Greek philosophy, and sometimes in modern pantheism, but it has found its fullest expression in the fanaticism of Mohammedanism.

Bibliography: Abbt: Plouquet, Examen du fataliame, Paris,

1757; A. Monod, Le Fatalisme, ib. 1858; B. Conta. Theorqe du fatalisme, Brussels, 1877; D. Bosurgi, IL Fata- lisrno e liberth morale, Catania, 1893; A. Lalande, in Revue philosophique, xlii (1896), 225 sqq.

FAUCHET, fo'shg', CLAUDE (Abby Fauchet): French bishop and revolutionist; b. at Domes (21 m. s.s.e. of Nevers), Department of Ni6vre, Sept. 22, 1744; executed in Paris Oct. 31, 1793. He devoted himself to the Church and soon became famous as an orator. He was grand vicar of the archbishop of Bourges, preacher to the king, and abb6 of Montfort-Lacarre, in Brittany. In 1788 he was deprived of his office as preacher to the king on account of his revolutionary views; and on July 14, 1789 he was one of the leaders in the attack on the Bastile. He was a member of the Commune, and was chosen by that body to deliver an loge civique de Benjamin Franklin (Paris, 1790). His De la religion nationale (Paris, 1789), led to his appointment as constitutional bishop of Calvados in 1791. The same year he was elected deputy to the legislative assembly, afterward to the convention. At first a Jacobin, he was forced by the execution of the king, which he had opposed, to side with the Girondists. He was arrested on July 18, 1793, and guillotined with the Girondist deputies on Oct. 31. Besides publishing a number of revolutionary addresses, he edited La Bouche de Fer and the Journal des Amis. His (Euvres choisies are in J. P. Migne's Collection . . . des oratettrs saerds, Vol. lxvi.