Norman L. Torrey

From Philosopedia.org

Torrey, Norman L. (1894–1980)

A professor of French at Columbia University, Torrey was author of Spirit of Voltaire (1938) and co-editor with Otis Fellows of Diderot Studies (1953). Active in New York City humanist circles, Torrey wrote about humanism in 1956 to Warren Allen Smith:

I was a student of Irving Babbitt but reacted against his brand, becoming a naturalistic humanist. My idea of humanism is a development of my special interest in French literature and history of ideas. A clear notion of the growth of humanism can be found in the Preliminary Discourse (1750) of the first great Encyclopedia, edited by Diderot and d’Alembert. The spirit of the enterprise was modeled after Alexander Pope’s couplet, “Know thyself. Presume not God to scan; / The proper study of mankind is Man.” In the Preliminary Discourse, d’Alembert explains the French Enlightenment, represented by Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, as the natural fulfillment of the Renaissance, which he understood as the rebirth of pagan philosophy and culture. The first step in this return, after the Dark Ages, to the wisdom of the Greeks and the Romans was of necessity the thorough understanding of the languages of those peoples.

The sixteenth century Humanists (with a capital H), were a group of scholars, composers of grammars and dictionaries, jealous pedants whose unsavory reputation as wranglers was compensated for by the genuine contribution they made to the comprehension of such authors as Cicero, Lucian, and Lucretius. The full development of this pagan culture took place two centuries later. D’Alembert connects it with the “light of reason” and the rise of the scientific spirit, but cannot yet use the word humanist in its modern sense. The appeal to humanity, however, and to the inalienable rights of man, becomes more and more frequent both in France and America; for example in our Declaration of Independence. In Montesquieu’s plea to the Spanish Inquisitors, he urges them, since they have shown that they cannot be Christians, to at least be men.

Voltaire likewise reminded man of his essential dignity and righted many an injustice in the name of humanity. With an assist from Jefferson, the century was fittingly summed up in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, one of the great humanist documents of all time. It has taken another two centuries for the word humanist to recapture its fundamental historical meaning. There is every indication that the present decade of the twentieth century is witnessing this victory.

He wrote the following:

The Spirit of Voltaire (1938)

The Age of Enlightenment: An Anthology of Eighteenth Century French Literature (1942, with Otis E. Fellows)

Diderot Studies (1949, with Otis E. Fellows)

Tournants Dangereux (1953, with Otis E. Fellows)

Les Philosophes (1960)

Voltaire and the English Deists (1967)

The Age of Enlightenment: An Anthology of Eighteenth-Century French Literature, 2nd edition (1971, with Otis E. Fellows)

Voltaire, Candide, or Optimism (1985)

Voltaire and the Enlightenment: Selections from Voltaire (2007)

Diderot Studies (2007, with Otis E. Fellows)

Torrey was an active member of secular humanist groups in New York City. For the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 8, he wrote the selection on Voltaire. He was married to Elizabeth Seelye Bixler Torrey (1899-1976). She was the third dean and professor at Yale University School of Nursing from 1944 to 1959.