Elie Luzac (19 October 1721 in Noordwijk – 11 May 1796 in Leiden) was a Dutch jurist, journalist, writer of philosophical, historical and political literature, and book-seller, who was considered an important ideologue of the "democratic wing" of the Orangist movement, both after the Orangist restoration in the Dutch Republic in 1748, and during the Patriottentijd.
Personal life
Luzac was the son of Elie Luzac, a Huguenot from Bergerac, who had a boarding school in Noordwijk, and Anna Maria Cabrolle. He was a nephew of Etienne and Jean Luzac senior, both booksellers, and a cousin of Jean Luzac, also a publisher and journalist. He was three times married, first with Augustine Ernestine Tick in Hamburg on 3 November 1750; next to a miss Massuet; and finally to the widow Cabryn-In 't Hout.
He studied the Classics under Tiberius Hemsterhuis and mathematics and physics under Pieter van Musschenbroek and Johan Lulofs at Leiden University. During these studies he became a follower of the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff, which he would remain all his life.
Career
After he finished his formal studies he wrote a so-called Disquisitio politico-moralis about the question Num civis innocens irae hostis longe potentioris juste permitti possit, ut excidium totius civitatis evitetur in 1749. But only in 1759 did he receive a law degree with the dissertation Specimen juris inaugurale de modo procedendi extra ordinem in causis criminalibus.
He practiced law, but was more attracted to the study of jurisprudence, especially Natural law, and in 1753 he published a "Leibnizian" natural-law treatise entitled le Bonheur ou nouveau système de jurisprudence naturelle, followed in 1756 by Recherches sur quelques principes des connoissances humaines along the same lines. The wish to give these ideas a wider circulation encouraged him in 1759 to found a new literary magazine, entitled the Nederlandsche Letter Courant. This folded in 1763, but he continued writing articles in two other periodicals, the Bibliothèque Impartiale and the Bibliothèque des Sciences.
In this period he also published a work on Ethics entitled Verhandeling over de volmaking der zedeleer door de Openbaring (1761) and commented on Montesquieu's l'Esprit des Lois in his Remarques philosophiques et politiques d'un Anonyme sur l'Esprit des Lois (1765). He was critical of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, with whom he conducted a polemic in his Lettre d'un Anonyme à M.J.J. Rousseau (opposing Contrat Social;1766) and Seconde lettre d'un anonyme à M.J.J. Rousseau (opposing Emile; 1767).
In his Briefwisseling van Philagathos en Philalethes over de leer van het zedelijk gevoel (1771) he opposed "moral feeling" as the basis of ethics, and in 1772 he edited and published the works of his hero Christian Wollf under the title Les Institutions du Droit de la Nature et des Gens de Wolff. His own ideas in this matter were laid down in Du Droit Naturel civil et politique, en forme d'entretiens, which was only partially and posthumously published in 1802.
Starting in 1742 Luzac worked as a publisher in Leiden. He published 'L'homme machine by the Materialist philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie which brought him to the unwelcome attention of the censors in the form of the Consistory of the Walloon church congregation in Leiden, that accused him of defending "materialism". He defended himself in l'Homme plus que machine (1748) and l'Essai sur la liberté de produire ses sentimens (1749) In later years, after the traditional freedom of the press in the Republic appeared under threat by a 1765 law introducing censorship, he expanded on the legal and philosophical justifications of the Freedom of speech in Request van Cornelis van Hoogeveen .... Benevens een Memorie Tot apui van 't Request bij hetzelve gevoegd (1770), and possibly also the anonymous pamphlet Brief van een Regent van eene Hollandsche Stad, rakende de Drukpers, though this is not certain.
Luzac himself made good use of the freedom of expression and the press. He was an ardent partisan of the cause of the "democrats" who were in league with the Orangists during the popular revolt of 1747, but where other "democrats" were disappointed in the stadtholder William IV, he remained loyal even after the latter's death in 1751. In 1754 he anonymously published Het gedrag der Stadhoudersgezinden, verdedigt door Mr. A.V.K. Rechtsgeleerden, a polemic against the critics of the stadtholderate. This pamphlet was banned and publicly burned in Amsterdam by the city government, and a bounty was promised for the denunciation of its author.