{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39124/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39124","id":"gutenberg_39124","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39124","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: French Literature","Category: History - European","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Freethinkers -- Biography","Voltaire, 1694-1778"],"text":"Produced by David Widger.\n\n\n\n\n               *VOLTAIRE: A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND WORKS*\n\n                  _WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS_\n\n                                  _By_\n\n                     *J. M. Wheeler & G. W. Foote.*\n\n\n                                _London_\n\n                                 _1891_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    INTRODUCTION\n    PREFACE\n    EARLY LIFE\n    HEGIRA TO ENGLAND\n    EXAMPLES FROM ENGLAND\n    AT CIREY\n    \"CANDIDE\"\n    THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA\n    LAST DAYS\n    HIS CHARACTER AND SERVICES\n    TRIBUTES TO VOLTAIRE\n    SELECTIONS FROM VOLTAIRE'S WORKS\n    History\n    Wars\n    Politics\n    The Population Question\n    Nature's Way\n    Prayer\n    Doubt and Speculation\n    Dr. Pangloss and the Dervish\n    Motives for Conduct\n    Self-Love\n    Go From Your Village\n    Religious Prejudices\n    Sacred History\n    Dupe And Rogue\n    \"Delenda Est Carthago\"\n    Jesus and Mohammed\n    How Faiths Spread\n    Superstition\n    The Bible\n    Transubstantiation\n    Dreams and Ghosts\n    Mortifying the Flesh\n    Heaven\n    Magic\n    DETACHED THOUGHTS\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nMy share in this little book on Voltaire is a very minor one. My old\nfriend and colleague, Mr. J. M. Wheeler, had written the greater part of\nthe following pages before he brought the enterprise to my attention. I\nwent through his copy with him, and assisted him in making some\nalterations and additions. I also read the printer's proofs, and\nsuggested some further improvements--if I may call them so without\negotism. This is all I have done. The credit for all the rest belongs to\nhim. My name is placed on the title-page for two reasons. The first is,\nthat I may now, as on other occasions, be associated with a dear friend\nand colleague in this tribute to Voltaire. The second is, that whatever\ninfluence I possess may be used in helping this volume to the\ncirculation it deserves.\n\n  G. W. FOOTE.\n\nNovember, 1891\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nHe would be a bold person who should attempt to say something entirely\nnew on Voltaire. His life has often been written, and many are the\ndisquisitions on his character and influence. This little book, which at\nthe bicentenary of his birth I offer as a Freethinker's tribute to the\nmemory of the great liberator, has no other pretension than that of\nbeing a compilation seeking to display in brief compass something of the\nman's work and influence. But it has its own point of view. It is as a\nFreethinker, a reformer, and an apostle of reason and universal\ntoleration that I esteem Voltaire, and I have considered him mainly\nunder this aspect. For the sketch of the salient points of his career I\nam indebted to many sources, including Condorcet, Duvernet,\nDesnoisterres, Parton, Espinasse, Collins, and Saintsbury, to whom the\nreader, desirous of fuller information, is referred. Mr. John Morley's\nable work and Col. Hamley's sketch may also be recommended.\n\nThat we are this year celebrating the bicentenary of Voltaire's birth\nshould remind us of how far our age has advanced from his, and also of\nhow much we owe to our predecessors. The spread of democracy and the\nadvance of science which distinguish our time both owe very-much to the\nbrilliant iconoclasts of the last century, of whom Voltaire was the\nchief. In judging the work of the laughing sage of France we must\nremember that in his day the feudal laws still obtained in France, and a\nman might be clapped in prison for life without any trial. The poor were\nheld to be born into the world for the service of the rich, and it was\ntheir duty to be subject to their masters, not only to the good and\ngentle, but also to the froward. Justice was as easily bought as jewels.\nThe Church was omnipotent and freethought a crime. If Voltaire's\ninfluence is no longer what it was, it is because he has altered that.\nWe can no longer keenly feel the evils against which he contended. His\nwork is, however, by no means fully accomplished. While any remnant of\nsuperstition, intolerance, and oppression remains, his unremitting\nwarfare against _l'infame_ should be an inspiration to all who are\nfighting for the liberation and progress of humanity.\n\nNov. 1894. J. M. WHEELER.\n\n\n\n\nEARLY LIFE\n\n\nTwo hundred years ago, on November 21st, 1604, a child emerged on the\nworld at Paris. The baptismal register on the following day gave the\nname Francois Marie Arouet, and the youth afterwards christened himself\nVoltaire.(1) The flesh was so weakly that the babe was _ondovc_ (the\nterm employed for informal sprinkling with water at home), lest there\nmight be no time for the ecclesiastical rite.\n\n    1.  He was a younger son. The name Voltaire is, perhaps, an\n    anagram of the Arouet 1. j. (le jeune) the u being converted\n    into r, and the j into r. In like manner, an old college- tutor\n    of his, Pere Thoulie, transformed himself, by a similar\n    anagrammatic process, into the Abbe Olivet-- omitting the\n    unnecessary h from his original name. This method of reforming a\n    plebeian name into one more distinguished-looking seems not to\n    have been uncommon in those times, as Jean Baptiste Pocquelin\n    took the name of Moliere, and Charles Secondat that of\n    Montesquieu.\n\nSomething may have been wrong with the performance of the sacred\nceremony, since the child certainly grew up to think more of \"the world,\nthe flesh, and the devil\" than of the other trinity of Father, Son, and\nHoly Ghost. His father was a respectable attorney, and his mother came\nof noble family. His godfather and early preceptor was the Abbe de\nChateauneuf, who made no pietist of him, but introduced him to his\nfriend, the famous Ninon l'Enclos, the antiquated Aspasia who is said to\nhave inspired a passion in the l'Abbe Gedouin at the age of eighty, and\nwho was sufficiently struck with young Voltaire to leave him a legacy of\ntwo thousand francs, wherewith to provide himself a library.\n\nVoltaire showed when quite a child an unsurpassed facility for\nverse-making. He was educated at a Jesuit college, and the followers of\nJesus have ever since reproached him with Jesuitism. Possibly he did\nimbibe some of their \"policy\" in the propaganda of his ideas. Certainly\nhe saw sufficient of the hypocrisy and immorality of religious\nprofessors to disgust him with the black business, and he said in\nafter-life that the Jesuits had taught him nothing worth learning.\n\nHe learnt a certain amount of Latin and a parcel of stupidities. But,\nindifferent as this education was, it served to encourage his already\nmarked literary tendency. Voltaire is said to have told his father when\nhe left college, at the age of fifteen, \"I wish to be a man of letters,\nand nothing else.\" \"That,\" M. Arouet is reported to have replied, \"is\nthe profession of a man who wishes to be a burden to his family and to\ndie of starvation.\" He would have no such nonsense. Francois must study\nlaw; and to Paris he went with that intent. For three years he was\nsupposed to do so, but he bestowed more attention on the gay society of\nthe Temple, to which his godfather introduced him, \"the most amusing\nfellow in the world,\" and which was presided over by the Abbe de\nChaulieu. The time which he was compelled to spend in law studies, and\nat the desk of a _procureur_, was by no means lost to his future\nfortunes, whether in the pursuit of fame or wealth. During that hated\napprenticeship he doubtless caught up some knowledge of law and\nbusiness, which stood him in good stead in after years. He tells us that\nhis father thought him lost, because he mixed with good society and\nwrote verses. For these he got sufficient reputation to be first exiled\nto Tulle, then to Sully, and finally thrown into the Bastille on\nsuspicion of having written lampoons on the government. The current\nstory tells how the Regent, walking one day in the Palais Royal, met\nVoltaire, and accosted him by offering to bet that he would show him\nwhat he had never seen before. \"What is that?\" asked Voltaire. \"The\nBastille.\" \"Ah, monseigneur! I will take the Bastille as seen.\" On the\nnext morning, in May, 1717, Voltaire was arrested in his bedroom and\nlodged in the Bastille.\n\nAfter nearly a year's imprisonment, during which he gave the finishing\ntouches to his tragedy of _OEdipus_, and sketched the epic _Henriade_,\nin which he depicts the massacre of Bartholomew, the horrors of\nreligious bigotry, and the triumph of toleration under Henry IV., he was\nreleased and conducted to the Regent. While Voltaire awaited audience\nthere was a thunderstorm. \"Things could not go on worse,\" he said aloud,\n\"if there was a Regency above.\" His conductor, introducing him to the\nRegent, said, repeating the remark, \"I bring you a young man whom your\nHighness has just released from the Bastille, and whom you should send\nback again.\" The Regent laughed, and promised, if he behaved well, to\nprovide for him. \"I thank your Highness for taking charge of my board,\"\nreturned Voltaire, \"but I beseech you not to trouble yourself any more\nabout my lodging.\"\n\nIn his first play, _OEdipe_, appeared the celebrated couplet:\n\n    _\"Nos pretres ne sont pas ce qu'un vain peuple pense!_\n\n    _Notre credulite fait toute leur science.\" (1)_\n\n    1. \"Our priests are not what foolish people suppose; all their\n    science is derived from our credulity.\"\n\nThese lines were afterwards noted by Condorcet as \"the first signal of a\nwar, which not even the death of Voltaire could extinguish.\" It was at\nthis period that he first took the name of Arouet de Voltaire. He\nproduced two more tragedies, _Artemire_ and _Mariamne_; a comedy, _The\nBabbler_; and prepared his world-famous _Henriade._ A portrait, painted\nby Largilliere at about this period, has often been engraved. It\nexhibits a handsome young gentleman, full of grace and spirit, with a\nsmiling mouth, animated eyes, intellectual forehead, and a fine hand in\na fine ruffle.\n\n\n\n\nHEGIRA TO ENGLAND\n\n\nThe story of how Voltaire came to England is worth the telling, as it\nillustrates the condition of things in France in the early part of last\ncentury. Voltaire left France for England, which his acquaintance with\nLord Bolingbroke induced him to desire to visit. It was his Hegira,\nwhence he returned a full-fledged Prophet of the French. He went a poet,\nhe returned a philosopher. Dining at the Duke of Sully's table he\npresumed to differ from the Chevalier de Rohan--Chabot, a relative of\nCardinal Rohan. The aristocrat asked, \"Who is that young fellow who\ntalks so loudly?\" \"Monsieur le Chevalier,\" replied Voltaire, \"it is a\nman who does not bear a great name but who knows how to honor the name\nhe does bear.\"(1) It was insufferable that the son of a bourgeois should\nthus speak his mind to a Rohan. A few days afterwards, when again dining\nwith the Duke, he was called out by a false message, and seized and\ncaned by ruffians until a voice cried \"Enough.\" That word was a fresh\nblow, for the young poet recognised the voice of the Chevalier. He\nreturned to the Duke and asked him to assist in obtaining redress. His\ngrace shrugged his shoulders and took no further notice of this insult\nto his guest. Voltaire never visited the Duke again, and, it is said,\nerased his ancestor's name from the _Henriade_. He was equally\nunsuccessful in seeking redress from the Regent. \"You are a poet, and\nyou have had a good thrashing; what can be more natural?\" He retired, to\nstudy English and fencing; and reappeared with a challenge to the\nChevalier, who accepted it, but informed his relations. It was against\nthe law for a commoner to challenge a nobleman. Next morning, instead of\nmeeting de Rohan, he met officers armed with a _lettre de cachet_\nconsigning him to the Bastille. After nearly a month's incarceration he\nwas liberated on condition that he left the country. Having no wish to\nspend a second year in prison, he had himself applied for permission to\nvisit England. Voltaire felt keenly the indignity to which he had been\nsubjected. In a letter of instruction written from England to his agent\nhe says: \"If my debtors profit by my misfortune and absence to refuse\npayment, you must not trouble to bring them to reason: 'tis but a\ntrifle.\" Yet a book has been written on Voltaire's avarice.\n\n    1.  Some of the accounts say that Voltaire said, \"You, my lord,\n    are the last of your house; I am the first of mine.\"\n\nVoltaire was conducted to Calais and arrived in England on Whit-Monday,\n1726. He landed near Greenwich and witnessed the Fair. All seemed\nbright. The park and river were full of animation. Here there was no\nBastille, no fear of the persecution of the great or the spies of the\npolice. He had excellent introductions. Bolingbroke he had met in exile\nat La Source in 1721, and he had learnt to regard the illustrious\nEnglishman who possessed \"all the learning of his country and all the\npoliteness of ours.\" Voltaire, like Pope, may be said to have been, at\nany rate for a time, an eager disciple of the exiled English statesman.\nNow Voltaire was the exile; Bolingbroke, for a while, the host, at\nDawley, near Uxbridge. But he had other English friends, notably Mr.\n(afterwards Sir Everard) Falkener, an English merchant trading in the\nLevant, from whose house at Wandsworth most of his letters are dated.\nFor Sir Everard, Voltaire always retained the warmest feelings of\nfriendship, and forty years later returned hospitality to his sons.\n\nVoltaire spent two years and eight months in England, living during part\nof the time in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, and during another part at\nWandsworth. This visit was probably the most important event in his\nlife. It was here he lit the torch of Freethought with which he fired\nthe continent. Here he mastered the arguments of the English deists,\nBolingbroke, Toland, Tindal, Shaftesbury, Chubb, Collins, and Woolston,\nwhich he afterwards used with such effect. Here he saw the benefits of\nparliamentary government. Here he imbibed the philosophy of Locke and\nthe science of Newton. Indeed it may be said there is hardly one of\nVoltaire's important works but bears traces of his visit to our country.\nYet of this momentous epoch of his life the records are scanty. When he\ngrew famous every letter and anecdote was preserved, but in 1727\nVoltaire was but a young man of promise. Carlyle, in the tenth book of\nhis _Frederick the Great_, says: \"But mere inanity and darkness visible\nreign in all his Biographies over this period of his life, which was\nabove all others worth investigating.\" Messrs. J. C. Collins and A.\nBallantyne have since done much to elucidate this noteworthy period.\n\nPope was one of the persons Voltaire desired to see. He had already\ndescribed him as \"the most elegant, most correct, and most harmonious\npoet they ever had in England.\" Pope could only speak French with\ndifficulty, and Voltaire could not make himself understood. The result\nbeing unsatisfactory, Voltaire did not seek further company until he had\nacquired the language. An anecdote in Chetworth's _History of the Stage_\nrelates that he was in the habit of attending the theatre with the play\nin his hand. By this method he obtained more proficiency in the language\nin a week than he could otherwise have obtained in a month. Madame de\nGenlis had the audacity to assert that Voltaire never knew English, yet\nit is certain he could, before he was many months in this country, both\nspeak and write it with facility. By Nov. 16, 1726, he wrote to Pope,\nafter that poet's accident while driving near Bolingbroke's estate at\nDawley. In writing to his friend Thieriot, in France, he sometimes used\nEnglish, for the same reason, he said, that Boileau wrote in Latin--not\nto be understood by too curious people. Voltaire is said to have once\nfound his knowledge of English of practical use. The French were\nunpopular, and in one of his rambles he was menaced by a mob. He said:\n\"Brave Englishmen, am I not already unhappy enough in not having been\nborn among you?\" His eloquence had such success that, according to\nLongchamp and Wagniere, the people wished to carry him on their\nshoulders to his house.\n\nWhile in this country he wrote in English a portion of his tragedy\n_Brutus_, inspired by and dedicated to Bolingbroke,\n\nand two essays, one on the Civil Wars of France, and one on Epic Poetry.\nIn the introduction to the essays he expresses his conception of his own\nposition as a man of letters in a foreign country. As these essays,\nalthough popular at the time, are now rare, I transcribe a paragraph or\ntwo from them:\n\n\"The true aim of a relation is to instruct men, not to gratify their\nmalice. We should be busied chiefly in giving a faithful account of all\nthe useful things and extraordinary persons, whom to know, and to\nimitate, would be a benefit to our country. A traveller who writes in\nthat spirit is a merchant of a nobler kind, who imports into his native\ncountry the arts and virtues of other nations.\"\n\nIn his _Essay on Epic Poetry_ Voltaire shows he had made a study of\nMilton, though his criticism can scarcely, be considered an advance upon\nthat of Addison. He displays constant admiration for Tasso, to whom he\nwas perhaps attracted by his sufferings at the hands of an ignoble\nnobility. He says:\n\n\"The taste of the English and of the French, though averse to any\nmachinery grounded upon enchantment, must forgive, nay commend, that of\nArmida, since it is the source of so many beauties. Besides, she is a\nMahometan, and the Christian religion allows us to believe that those\ninfidels are under the immediate influence of the devil.\" In this essay\nappears the first mention of the story of Newton and the apple tree.\n\nVoltaire closely studied all branches of English literature. He read\nShakespeare, and admired his \"genius\" while censuring his\n\"irregularity.\" He was the first to introduce him to his countrymen,\nthough he subsequently sought to lessen what he considered their\nexorbitantly high opinion. The works of Dryden, Waller, Prior, Congreve,\nWycherley, Vanbrugh, Rochester and Addison were all devoured, and he\ntook an especial interest in Butler's witty _Hudibras_. He was\nacquainted with the popular sermons of Archbishop Tillotson and the\nspeculations of Berkeley. He had read the works of Shaftesbury, Tindal,\nChubb, Garth, Mandeville and Woolston.\n\nVoltaire became acquainted with most of the celebrities in England. He\nvisited the witty Congreve, who begged his guest to consider him not as\nan author but as a gentleman. Voltaire answered with spirit: \"If you had\nthe misfortune to be merely a gentleman, I should never have come to see\nyou.\" He knew James Thomson of _The Seasons_, and \"discovered in him a\ngreat genius and a great simplicity.\" With didactic Young, of the _Night\nThoughts_, who glorified God with his \"egoism turned heavenward,\" he\nformed a friendship which remained unbroken despite their differences of\nopinion on religion. He pushed among his English friends the\nsubscription list for the _Henriade_, which proved a great\nsuccess--although King George II. was not fond of \"boetry\"--reaching\nthree editions in a short period. The money thus obtained formed the\nfoundation of the fortune which Voltaire accumulated, not by his\nwritings, but by his ability in finance. At that time, in France, as our\nauthor remarked, \"to make the smallest fortune it was better to say four\nwords to the mistress of a king than to write a hundred volumes.\" His\nsojourn in England may be said to have secured him both independence of\nmind and independence of fortune.\n\nWhat pleased him most in England was liberty of discussion. In the year\nin which he came over, Elwall was acquitted on a charge of blasphemy,\nthe collected works of Toland were published, and also Collins's _Scheme\nof Literal Prophecy_, and the First Discourse of Woolston on Miracles.\nThe success of this last work, which boldly applied wit and ridicule to\nthe Gospel narrative, struck him with admiration. In the very month,\nhowever, when Voltaire left England (March 1729) Woolston was tried and\nsentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine of L100. Voltaire\nvolunteered a third of the sum, but the brave prisoner refused to give\nan assurance that he would not offend again, and died in prison in 1733.\nVoltaire always spoke of Woolston with the greatest respect.\n\nVoltaire retained his esteem for England and the English to the last.\nOliver Goldsmith relates that he was in his company one evening when one\nof the party undertook to revile the English language and literature.\nDiderot defended them, but not brilliantly. Voltaire listened awhile in\nsilence, which was, as Goldsmith remarks, surprising, for it was one of\nhis favorite topics. However, about midnight, \"Voltaire appeared at last\nroused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He began his\ndefence with the utmost elegance mixed with spirit, and now and then he\nlet fall his finest strokes of raillery upon his antagonist; and his\nharangue lasted until three in the morning. I must confess that, whether\nfrom national partiality or from the elegant sensibility of his manner,\nI never was more charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory\nas he gained in this dispute.\"\n\nVoltaire corresponded with English friends to the latest period of his\nlife. Among his correspondents were Lord and Lady Bolingbroke, Sir E.\nFalkener, Swift, Hume, Robertson, Horace Walpole, George Colman and Lord\nChatham. We find him asking Falkener to send him the _London Magazine_\nfor the past three years. To the same friend he wrote from Potsdam in\n1752, hoping that his _Vindication of Bolingbroke_ was translated, as it\nwould annoy the priests, \"whom I have hated, hate, and shall hate till\ndoomsday.\" In the next year, writing from Berlin, he says: \"I hope to\ncome over myself, in order to print my true works, and to be buried in\nthe land of freedom. I require no subscription, I desire no benefit. If\nmy works are neatly printed, and cheaply sold, I am satisfied.\"\n\nTo Thieriot he said: \"Had I not been obliged to look after my affairs in\nFrance, depend upon it I would have spent the rest of my days in\nLondon.\" Long afterwards he wrote to his friend Keate: \"Had I not fixed\nthe seat of my retreat in the free corner of Geneva, I would certainly\nlive in the free corner of England; I have been for thirty years the\ndisciple of your ways of thinking.\" At the age of seventy he translated\nShakespeare's _Julius Coesar_. Mr. Collins says: \"The kindness and\nhospitality which he received he never forgot, and he took every\nopportunity of repaying it. To be an Englishman was always a certain\npassport to his courteous consideration.\" He compared the English to\ntheir own beer, \"the froth atop, dregs at bottom, but the bulk\nexcellent.\" When Martin Sherlock visited him at Ferney in 1776, he found\nthe old man, then in his eighty-third year, still full of his visit to\nEngland. His gardens were laid out in English fashion, his favorite\nbooks were the English classics, the subject to which he persistently\ndirected conversation was the English nation.\n\nThe memory of Voltaire has been but scurvily treated in the land he\nloved so well. For over a century, calumny and obloquy were poured upon\nhim. Johnson said of Rousseau: \"I would sooner sign a sentence for his\ntransportation than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey\nthese many years.\" _Boswell_: \"Sir, do you think him as bad a man as\nVoltaire?\" _Johnson_: \"Why, sir, it is difficult to settle the\nproportion of iniquity between them.\" And this represents an opinion\nwhich long endured among the religious classes. But it is at length\nbeing recognised that, with all his imperfections, which were after all\nthose of the age in which he lived, he devoted his brilliant genius to\nthe cause of truth and the progress of humanity. He made his exile in\nEngland an occasion for accumulating those stores of intelligence with\nwhich he so successfully combated the prejudices of the past and\npromulgated the principles of freedom, and justified his being ranked\nforemost among the liberators of the human mind.\n\n\n\n\nEXAMPLES FROM ENGLAND\n\n\nSeveral incidents combined to direct Voltaire's attention to clericalism\nas the enemy of progress and humanity. Soon after his return to France,\nthe famous actress, Adrienne Lecouvreur, for whom he had a high esteem,\nand who had represented the heroines of his plays, died. The clergy of\nParis refused her Christian burial because of her profession, and her\ncorpse was put in a ditch in a cattle-field on the banks of the Seine.\nVoltaire, who regarded the theatre as one of the most potent instruments\nof culture and civilisation, at once avenged and consecrated her memory\nin a fine ode, burning with the fire of a deep pathos, in which he takes\noccasion to contrast the treatment in England of Mrs. Oldfield, the\nactress, who was buried in Westminster Abbey. Mr. Lecky says: \"The man\nwho did more than any other to remove the stigma that rested upon actors\nwas unquestionably Voltaire. There is, indeed, something singularly\nnoble in the untiring zeal with which he directs poetry and eloquence,\nthe keenest wit, and the closest reasoning to the defence of those who\nhad so long been friendless and despised.\"\n\nWhen Voltaire published his _Letters on the English Nation_ the copies\nwere seized by the Government and the publisher was thrown into the\nBastille. The author would have again tasted the discomforts of that\nabode if he had not had timely warning from his friend D'Argental, and\ntaken refuge in Lorraine, and afterwards on the Rhine, while his book\nwas torn to pieces and burned in Paris by the public executioner, as\noffensive to religion, good morals, and respect for authority. Voltaire\nhad apparently good reason to apprehend treatment of unusual rigor if he\nhad obeyed the summons to give himself up into custody, as he took good\ncare not to do. \"I have a mortal aversion to prison,\" he wrote to\nD'Argental. \"I am ill; a confined air would have killed me, and I should\nprobably have been thrust into a dungeon.\"\n\nVoltaire's _Letters on the English_ reads at the present day as so mild\na production that it is hard to understand its suppression. Yet it was a\ntrue instinct which detected that the work was directed against the\nprinciple of authority. The introduction of English thought was destined\nto become an explosive element shattering the feudalism of Europe. There\nwere, moreover, some hard hits at the state of things in France. \"The\nEnglish nation,\" says Voltaire, \"is the only one which has succeeded in\nrestricting the power of kings by resisting it.\" Again: \"How I love the\nEnglish boldness, how I love men who say what they think!\"\n\nVoltaire gives a peculiar reason for the non-appreciation by the English\nof Moliere's _Tartuffe_, the original of Mawworm if not of Uriah Heep.\nHe says they are not pleased with the portrayal of characters they do\nnot know. \"One there hardly knows the name of devotee, but they know\nwell that of honest man. One does not see there imbeciles who put their\nsouls into others' hands, nor those petty ambitious men who establish a\ndespotic sway over women formerly wanton and always weak, and over men\nyet more weak and contemptible.\" We fancy Voltaire must have seen\nsociety mainly as found among the Freethinkers. Could he give so\nfavorable a verdict did he visit us now? The same remark applies to his\nstatement that there was \"no privilege of hunting in the grounds of a\ncitizen, who, at the same time, is not permitted to fire a gun in his\nown field.\" But this, as well as the more important passage that \"no one\nis exempted from taxation for being a nobleman or priest,\" was probably\nintended exclusively for the benefit of his compatriots. He was,\nhowever, not without a little touch of ridicule at the incongruities he\ndetected in our countrymen. Thus he notes in one of his letters: \"They\nlearn Vanini and translate Lucretius for Monsieur le Dauphin to get by\nheart, and then, while they deride the polytheism of the ancients, they\nworship the Congregation of the Saints.\"\n\nThose educated in the current delusion that Voltaire was a mere mocker\nwill be surprised to find the temperate way in which he speaks of the\nQuakers. Here, where there was such excellent opportunity for raillery,\nVoltaire shows he had a genuine admiration for their simplicity of life,\nthe courage of their convictions, their freedom from priestcraft, and\ntheir distaste for warfare. In these _Letters,_ as in all his writings,\nhe proves how far he was the embodiment of the new era by his boldly\nexpressed preference for industrial over military pursuits.\n\nIn his remarks on the Church of England, Voltaire, however, gives an\nunmistakable touch of his quality: \"One cannot have public employment in\nEngland or Ireland, without being of the number of faithful Anglicans.\nThis reason, which is an excellent proof, has converted so many\nNonconformists that not a twentieth part of the nation is out of the\npale of the dominant church.\"\n\nAfter alluding to the \"holy zeal\" of ministers against dissenters, and\nof the lower House of Convocation, who \"from time to time burnt impious\nbooks, that is, books against themselves,\" he says: \"When they learn\nthat, in France, young fellows noted only for debauchery and raised to\nthe prelacy by female intrigue, openly pursue their amours, compose\nlove-songs, give every day elaborate delicate suppers, then go to\nimplore the illumination of the Holy Spirit, boldly calling themselves\nthe successors of the Apostles--they thank God they are Protestants. But\nthey are abominable heretics, to be burnt by all the devils, as Master\nFrancois Rabelais says; and that is why I do not meddle with their\naffairs.\"\n\nThe Presbyterians fare little better, for Voltaire relates that, when\nKing Charles surrendered to the Scots, they made that unfortunate\nmonarch undergo four sermons a day. To them it is owing that only\ngenteel people play cards on Sunday: \"the rest of the nation go either\nto church, to the tavern, or to see their mistresses.\"\n\nHis admiration for English philosophy was startling to the French mind.\nLocke's Essay became his philosophical gospel. \"For thirty years,\" he\nwrites in 1768, \"I have been persecuted by a crowd of fanatics because I\nsaid that Locke is the Hercules of Metaphysics, who has fixed the\nboundaries of the human mind.\"\n\n\n\n\nAT CIREY\n\n\nA common admiration for Locke and Newton cemented his attachment to the\nMarquise du Chatelet, a lady distinguished from others of her age by her\nlove of the sciences. With her Voltaire lived for over fifteen years at\nthe Chateau of Cirey, in Campagne, \"far from the madding crowd's ignoble\nstrife,\" and, as Voltaire phrased it, \"nine miles from a lemon.\"\nVoltaire was at the outset forty and Madame twenty-seven, neither\nhandsome nor well-formed, yet pleasing. She united learning with a zest\nfor pleasure, and with the handsome fortune which Voltaire brought to\nthe establishment was enabled to satisfy both tastes. Life at Cirey was\nvaried by jaunts to Paris, Brussels and Sceaux, at which last place he\nwrote _Zadig_, one of his lightest and most characteristic burlesque\nstories.\n\nMadame du Chatelet has been much laughed at; but in the days when ladies\ntake prizes in mathematics, that should be a thing of the past. Hard\nintellectual labor rather than the pursuit of pleasure characterised\nlife at Cirey, or rather its inmates found their pleasure in their work.\nMadame would be translating Newton or studying Leibnitz. Her\nmathematical tutor worked at physical science in a gallery which had\nbeen built expressly for him. Voltaire would be aiding each in turn, or,\never faithful to his first love the drama, occupied with the writing or\nproduction of a tragedy or comedy for the theatre also attached to the\npremises. His production was as ever incessant. At the time of his first\nsettlement there, Pope's _Essay on Man_ had been published. It suggested\na _Discourse on Man_, in which he sought not to justify the ways of God\nto man, but to make man contented with his lot, not vainly inquiring\ninto the why and wherefore of things. With Madame he wrote _Elements of\nthe Newtonian Philosophy_, a work highly praised by Lord Brougham, who\nsays: \"The power of explaining an abstract subject in easy and accurate\nlanguage, language not in any way beneath the dignity of science, though\nquite suited to the comprehension of uninformed persons, is\nunquestionably shown in a manner which only makes it a matter of regret\nthat the singularly gifted author did not carry his torch into all the\nrecesses of natural philosophy.\" The French Government, despite the\ninfluence of aristocratic friends, refused to print a work opposed to\nthe system of Descartes, and the volume had to be printed in Holland.\nFor Madame, who despised the \"old almanack\" histories then current, in\nplace of which Voltaire aimed at producing something more profitable to\nthe readers, he wrote his _Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations_,\nin which for the first time in modern literature he applied philosophy\nto the teaching of history. He dissipated the dull dreams and deceits of\nthe monks, and fixed attention on the real condition of things. With\nVoltaire, the commonest invention which improves the human lot is of\nmore importance than battles and sieges. He gives importance to the\nphysical and intellectual improvement of man. Brougham remarks that\nVoltaire's Philosophy of History was written as a prelude to the Essay\non the Spirit of Nations, but the whole work deserves that title. Buckle\nclasses him with Bolingbroke and Montesquieu, the fathers of modern\nhistory, and all sceptics; and even now, says Lecky, no historian can\nread him without profit. Other contributions to history were the\n_History of Charles XII._, a masterpiece of vivid and vigorous\nnarrative, and _The Age of Louis XIV_. It was here he wrote his too\nfamous _Pucelle_, which he afterwards described as \"piggery,\" as well as\nsome of the most famous of his plays, including. _Ilzire, Zuline,\nL'Enfant Prodigue, Mahomet and Merope_, the best of his tragedies. With\nthat impish spirit in which he ever delighted, he induced the Pope to\naccept the dedication of his play of _Mahomet_, and then laughed at his\ninfallible Holiness for being unable to see that the shafts supposed to\nbe directed at the impostor of Arabia were really aimed at fanaticism in\nanother quarter.\n\nTo his first and last love, the French theatre, Voltaire contributed\nnearly sixty pieces, the majority of which are tragedies. _Zaire_ and\n_Merope_ suffice to show the excellence he obtained in the classic\ndrama. The first-named was written in three weeks, a wonderful _tour de\nforce. Olympic_--written in old age--occupied but six days, though in\nthis we must agree with the friend who told the author that he should\nnot have rested on the seventh day. Voltaire's plays indeed contain\noccasional fine passages, but they have not the rich delineation of\ncharacter necessary for works of the first rank. It has been well\nremarked that in his dramas, as in history, he sought to portray not so\nmuch individuals as epochs. In _Mahomet_ his subject is a great\nfanaticism; in _Alzire_, the conquest of America; in _Brutus_, the\nformation of the Roman power; in the _Death of Coesar_, the rise of the\nempire or the ruin of that power. It is noteworthy that, despite his\nexcess of comic talent, Voltaire preferred to devote his mind to tragedy\nrather than to comedy, in which one might have fancied he would have\nexcelled. In truth, his desire to support the dignity of the stage stood\nin the way of his shining in comedy. Voltaire also at this period wrote\na _Life of Moliere_, in which he mingled criticism with biography.\n\nMadame de Grafigny, who visited at Cirey, says he was so greedy of his\ntime, so intent upon his work, that it was sometimes necessary to tear\nhim from his desk for supper. \"But when at table, he always has\nsomething to tell, very facetious, very odd, very droll, which would\noften not sound well except in his mouth, and which shows him still as\nhe has painted himself for us--\n\n    _Toujours un pied dans le cercueil,_\n\n    _De l'autre faisant des gambades.\"(1)_\n\n      1. Ever one foot in the grave,\n\n    And gambolling with the other.\n\n\"To be seated beside him at supper, how delightful!\" she adds. Voltaire\nat Cirey was out of harm's way, and could and did devote himself to his\nnatural bent in literary work. Madame du Chatelet was sometimes \"gey ill\nto live with.\" but she preserved him from many annoyances and helped him\nsomewhat at Court. Thanks to the Duc de Richelieu, his patron and\ndebtor, he was appointed historiographer-royal in 1745, with a salary of\ntwo thousand livres attached, and in the following year was elected one\nof the Forty of the French Academy.\n\nHis life with Madame du Chatelet had shown him the possibility of woman\nbeing man's intellectual companion. With what scorn does he make a lady,\nwho claims equal rights in the matter of divorce with her husband, say:\n\n\"My husband replies that he is my head and my superior, that he is\ntaller than me by more than an inch, that he is hairy as a bear, and\nthat, consequently, I owe him everything and that he owes me nothing.\"\nThis was long before woman's rights were thought of.\n\nVoltaire and Frederick the Great.\n\nWhile still at Cirey, Voltaire received many a flattering invitation\nfrom the Prince Royal of Prussia. Their correspondence, in the words of\nCarlyle, \"sparkles notably with epistolary grace and vivacity,\" though\nnow mainly interesting as an illustration of two memorable characters\nand of their century. Voltaire helped him with his _Anti-Machiavelli_,\nremarking afterwards that had Machiavelli had a prince for a pupil, the\nvery first thing he would have advised him to do would have been so to\nwrite. Frederick was bent on having the personal acquaintance and\nattendance of the renowned poet and philosopher. Much incense and mutual\nadmiration passed, and at length, when he ascended the throne, Voltaire\npaid him several visits. On one occasion it was a diplomatic one, to\ncement a union between France and Prussia. Macaulay sneers at this\n\"childish craving for political distinction,\" and Frederick remarks that\nhe brought no credentials with him. The correspondence and mutual\nadmiration continued. Carlyle characteristically says: \"Admiration\nsincere on both sides, most so on the Prince's, and extravagantly\nexpressed on both sides, most so on Voltaire's.\" In one of his letters,\nFrederick says \"there can be in nature but one God and one Voltaire.\" If\nVoltaire was more extravagant than this, at least the paint was laid on\nmore delicately. Frederick's flattery, indeed, was not very carefully\ndone. Thus, in writing to Voltaire he says: \"You are like the white\nelephant for which the King of Persia and the Great Mogul make war; and\nthe possession of which forms one of their titles. If you come here you\nwill see at the head of mine, 'Frederick by the Grace of God, King of\nPrussia, Elector of Brandenburg, Possessor of Voltaire, &c., &c.'\" But\nthe Marquise du Chatelet considered that no King should displace a lady.\nShe loved him; _\"jamais pour deux\"_ she says; and perhaps, at the bottom\nof her heart, regretted the reputation which must have been ever a\nrival. At her death, Frederick renewed his invitation, expressing\nhimself as now \"one of your oldest friends,\" and Voltaire, cut loose\nfrom his moorings, submitted to be tempted to the atmosphere of a court\nwhich he had before found little suited to a lover of truth, justice,\nand liberty.\n\nThe first of these visits, in September 1740, is thus satirically\ndescribed by Voltaire: \"I was conducted into his majesty's apartment, in\nwhich I found nothing but four bare walls. By the light of a wax candle\nI perceived a small truckle bed, two feet and a half wide, in a closet,\nupon which lay a little man, wrapped up in a morning gown of blue cloth.\nIt was his majesty, who lay sweating and shaking, beneath a beggarly\ncoverlet, in a violent ague fit. I made my bow, and began my\nacquaintance by feeling his pulse, as if I had been his first physician.\nThe fit left him, and he rose, dressed himself, and sat down to table\nwith Algarotti, Keizerling, Maupertuis, the ambassador to the\nstates-general, and myself; where, at supper, we treated most profoundly\non the immortality of the soul, natural liberty, and the _Androgynes_ of\nPlato.\" Frederick says, in a letter to Jordan, dated September 24th: \"I\nhave at length seen Voltaire, whom I was so anxious to become acquainted\nwith; but, alas! I saw him when I was under the influence of my fever,\nand when my mind and my body were equally languid. Now, with persons\nlike him, one must not be ill; on the contrary, one must be very well,\nand even, if possible, in better health than usual. He has the eloquence\nof Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, and the wisdom of Agrippa: he unites,\nin a word, all that is desirable of the virtues and talents of three of\nthe greatest men of antiquity. His intellect is always at work; and\nevery drop of ink that falls from his pen, is transformed at once into\nwit. He declaimed to us _Mahomet_, an admirable tragedy he has composed,\nwhich transported us with delight: for myself, I could only admire in\nsilence.\"\n\nThe intercourse and disruption of the friendship between Voltaire and\nFrederick--\"the two original men of their century,\" as Carlyle calls\nthem--has been inimitably told by that great writer whose temperament\nand training enabled him to do so much justice to the one and so little\nto the other. Voltaire must be excused for wishing to lead the King in\nthe path of reason and enlightened toleration to peace. But the Court of\nPotsdam was in truth no place for him, and the Frenchmen not unnaturally\nregarded him as a deserter. Macaulay says: \"We have no hesitation in\nsaying that the poorest author of that time in London, sleeping in a\nhulk, dining in a cellar with a cravat of paper and a skewer for a\nshirt-pin, was a happier man than any of the literary inmates of\nFrederick's Court.\" Voltaire's position was sure to excite jealousy, and\nhis scathing wit was bound to get him in trouble. He could touch up the\nKing's French verses for a consideration, but could not be kept from\nlaughing at his poetry. \"I have here a bundle of the King's dirty linen\nto bleach,\" he said once, pointing to the MSS. sent to him for\ncorrection; and the bearers of course conveyed the sarcasm to his\nMajesty. On the other side Voltaire heard from Julien Offray de la\nMettrie, author of _Man a Machine_, whom Voltaire called the most frank\natheist in Europe, that the King had said: \"I still want Voltaire for\nanother year--one sucks the orange before throwing away the skin.\" That\norange-skin stuck in Voltaire's throat, and when atheist La Mettrie died\n11th November,\n\n1751, from eating a pie supposed to be of pheasant but in reality of\neagle and pork, Voltaire observes: \"I should have liked to put to La\nMettrie, in the article of death, fresh inquiries about the orange-skin.\nThat fine soul, on the point of quitting the world, would not have dared\nto-lie. There is much reason to suppose that he spoke the truth.\"\nVoltaire could neither submit to the domination of the Court coterie nor\nto that of their master. He offended Frederick, not so much by writing\nas by publishing his merciless ridicule of Maupertuis, the President of\nthe Berlin Academy of Sciences--an institution suggested by Voltaire,\nwho had indeed recommended Maupertuis as President--in his inimitable\n_Diatribe of Doctor Akakia, Physician to the Pope_, which Macaulay says,\neven at this time of day, it is not easy for any person who has the\nleast perception of the ridiculous to read without laughing till he\ncries. But a public insult to the President of his Academy was an insult\nto the King, and the work was publicly burnt and Voltaire placed under\narrest. But the matter blew over, though Voltaire sent back his cross\nand key of office, which the King returned. Voltaire wisely tried to rid\nhimself of the intolerable constraint, and made ill-health the pretext\nof flight, going first to Plombieres to take the waters. But he could\nnot resist sending another shot at poor Maupertuis; and the King,\nperhaps considering he had forfeited claim to consideration, resolved to\npunish him. At Frankfort, nominally a free city but really dominated by\na Prussian resident, he was arrested, together with his niece Madame\nDenis, and detained in an inn, even after he had given up his gold key\nas chamberlain, his cross and ribbon of the Order of Merit, and his copy\nof a privately printed volume of the royal rhymester's poetry, for which\nhe was ordered to be arrested. The volume was evidently the most\nimportant article in such mischievous hands, especially as it was said\nto contain satires on reigning potentates. Voltaire had left it at\nLeipsic, and had to wait, guarded by soldiers, till it arrived, and also\ntill the King's permission was accorded him to pass on to France.\nVoltaire relieved his rage by composing what he called _Memoirs of the\nLife of M. de Voltaire_, in which all the king's faults and foibles,\nreal and imaginary, as well as his literary pretensions, were\nunsparingly ridiculed. Frederick forgave Voltaire for having been\nill-used by him, and some time after took the first step in\nreconciliation by sending him back the volume of poems. An amicable\ncorrespondence was renewed, though probably each felt they were better\nat a distance. Voltaire, even while he kept in his desk this libellous\n_Life_ which perhaps he never, intended to publish, was generous and\nfar-sighted enough to seek to make peace between Prussia and France at a\ntime when Frederick was at the lowest ebb of his fortunes; while\nFrederick was great enough to permit the free circulation of the libel\nin Berlin. Morley says: \"To have really contributed in the humblest\ndegree, for instance, to a peace between Prussia and her enemies, in\n1759, would have been an immeasurably greater performance for mankind\nthan any given book which Voltaire could have written. And, what is\nstill better worth observing, Voltaire's books would not have been the\npowers they were but for this constant desire in him to come into the\nclosest contact with the practical affairs of the world.\" \"What\nsovereign in Europe do you fear the most?\" was once asked of Frederick,\nwho frankly replied \"_Le roi Voltaire_,\" for here he knew was a\npotentate whose kingdom had no bounds, and who would transmit his\ninfluence to posterity. Frederick lived to pronounce a panegyric upon\nhim before the Berlin Academy, in the year of his death. \"The renown of\nVoltaire,\" he predicted, \"will grow from age to age, transmitting his\nname to immortality.\"\n\n\n\n\n\"CANDIDE\"\n\n\nAfter this disastrous termination of court life Voltaire determined to\ntry complete independence. Permission to establish himself in France\nbeing refused, he purchased an estate near Geneva. His residence here\nbrought him into correspondence, at first amicable, with the most famous\nof her citizens, Jean Jacques Rousseau. There was a natural\nincompatibility of temper which speedily led to a quarrel. Both were\nsensitive, and Rousseau could not bear even kindly-meant banter. On\nRousseau's _Social Contract_ Voltaire said it so convinced him of the\nbeauty of man in a state of nature that, after reading it, he ran round\nme room on all fours. His reply to Rousseau's rebuke for his pessimist\npoem on the earthquake of Lisbon was the immortal _Candide_, and\nRousseau's revenge was to say, slightingly, that he had not read it.\nWhen Rousseau thought fit to include Voltaire in the imaginary\nmachinations against him, with which he absurdly changed Hume, Voltaire\nwrote to D'Alembert: \"I have nothing to reproach myself with, save\nhaving thought and spoken too well of him.\"\n\nVoltaire at first seems to have been captivated by the doctrine of\nPope's _Essay on Man._ He, however, afterwards wrote: \"Those who exclaim\nthat all is well are charlatans. Shaftesbury, who first made the fable\nfashionable, was a very unhappy man. I have seen Bolingbroke a prey to\nvexation and rage, and Pope, whom he induced to put this sorry jest into\nverse, was as much to be pitied as any man I have ever known, misshapen\nin body, dissatisfied in mind, always ill, always a burden to himself,\nand harassed by a hundred enemies to his very last moment. Give me, at\nleast, the names of some happy men who will tell me 'All is well.'\" His\noptimism got injured during his journey through life, and was completely\nshattered by the earthquake at Lisbon in 1755. On this subject he\nproduced a grave poem, notable for its confession of the difficult\nreconciling the evil of the world with the Beneficence of God? The same\nsubject was dealt with in grotesque fashion in _Candide_, one of the\nwisest as well as one of the wittiest of works. A philosophy was never\nmore triumphantly reasoned and ridiculed out of court than is optimism\nin _Candide_. Incident crowds on incident, argument jostles satire,\nillustration succeeds raillery, all to show the miseries of existence\ndisprove this being the best of all possible worlds. At one moment we\nare forced to tears at contemplating the atrocities of inhumanity; the\nnext we are forced to laugh at its absurdities. Prudes may be shocked at\nsome incidents. Voltaire said he was not born to sing the praises of\nsaints. He was himself no saint, but rather one of those sinners who had\ndone the world more good than all its saints. But the influence of the\nwork is profoundly good. It is purely humanitarian, War, persecution for\nreligion, slavery, torture, and all forms of cruelty are made hateful by\na recital of their facts; and all this is done in so charming, even\nflippant a manner, that we are laughing all the while we are most\nprofoundly moved. Schopenhauer and Hartmann both enjoyed life, while\nVoltaire was an invalid most of his days; but they never threw into\ntheir pessimism the gaiety of _Candide_. And his peculiarity is, that he\nmakes all man's lower instincts ridiculous as well as detestable.\n\nThis character appears in all his work, but, as a fantastic tale,\n_Candide_ stands alone. It brings out Voltaire's most characteristic\nqualities: his keen eye for whimsicalities and weaknesses; his\nabhorrence of cruelty and iniquity in high places; his contempt for\nshams and absence of all veneration for the majesty of nonsensical\ncustom. For mordant satire it is surpassed by _Gulliver's Travels_. But\nit is briefer; the touch is lighter, and instinct not with morose\nmisanthropy, but hearty philanthropy. The characters are gross\ncaricatures. Was there ever so preposterous an absurdity as Dr.\nPangloss? And the incidents are improbable. Was ever so luckless a hero\nas Candide? What a succession of misfortunes! Candide travels the world\nin search of his lost beloved Cunegonde, meeting war, the Inquisition,\ntorture, shipwreck, piracy, and slavery, with all their attendant\nhorrors. Even the earthquake of Lisbon is brought in; yet with whimsical\npertinacity, Pangloss clings to his flimsy philosophy.\n\nWhen he re-meets Candide, who had left his tutor as dead, he thus\nrelates his adventures: \"But,\" my dear Pangloss, \"how happens it that I\nsee you again?\" said Candide. \"It is true,\" answered Pangloss, \"you saw\nme hanged; I ought properly to have been burnt; but, you remember, it\nrained in torrents when they were going to roast me. The storm was so\nviolent they despaired of kindling the fire; so I was hanged, because\nthey could do no better. A surgeon bought my body, carried it home, and\ndissected me. He made first a crucial incision from the navel to the\nneck. One could not have been more badly hanged than I. The executioner\nof the Holy Inquisition was a sub-deacon, and truly burnt people\ncapitally, but, as for hanging, he was a novice; the cord was wet, and\nnot slipping properly, the noose did not join--in short, I still\ncontinued to breathe. The crucial incision made me shriek so that my\nsurgeon fell back, and, imagining it was the devil he was dissecting,\nran away in mortal fear, tumbling downstairs in his fright. His wife,\nhearing the noise, flew from the next room, and saw me stretched upon\nthe table with my crucial incision. Still more terrified than her\nhusband, she ran down also, and fell upon him. When they had a little\nrecovered themselves, I heard her say to the surgeon, 'My dear, how\ncould you think of dissecting a heretic? Don't you know that the devil\nis always in them? I'll run directly to a priest, to come and exorcise\nthe evil spirit.' I trembled from head to foot at hearing her talk in\nthis manner, and exerted what little strength I had left to cry out,\n'Have pity on me!' At length, the Portuguese barber took courage, sewed\nup my wound, and his wife even nursed me. I was upon my legs in about a\nfortnight. The barber got me a place as lacquey to a Knight of Malta,\nwho was going to Venice; but finding my master had no money to pay me my\nwages, I entered into the service of a Venetian merchant, and went with\nhim to Constantinople. One day I took the fancy to enter a mosque, where\nI saw no one but an old Iman and a very pretty young female devotee, who\nwas saying her prayers. Her neck was quite bare, and in her bosom she\nhad a fine nosegay of tulips, roses, anemones, ranunculuses, hyacinths,\nand auriculas. She let fall her bouquet. I ran to take it up, and\npresented it to her with a bow. I was so long in replacing it, that the\nIman began to be angry, and, perceiving I was a Christian, he cried out\nfor help. They took me before the Cadi, who ordered me to receive one\nhundred bastinadoes, and sent me to the galleys. We were continually\nwhipt, and received twenty lashes a day, when the concatenation of\nsublunary events brought you on board our galley to ransom us from\nslavery.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear Pangloss,\" said Candide to him, \"now you have been\nhanged, dissected, whipped, and tugging at the oar, do you continue to\nthink that everything in this world happens for the best?\" \"I have\nalways abided by my first opinion,\" replied Pangloss; \"for, after all, I\nam a philosopher; it would not become me to retract. Leibnitz could not\nbe wrong, and 'pre-established harmony' is, besides, the finest thing in\nthe world, as well as a 'plenum' and the 'materia subtilis'.\"\n\nWhen Cunegonde is at last found, she is no longer beautiful--but\nsunburnt, blear-eyed, haggard, withered, and scrofulous. Though ready to\nfulfil his promise, her brother, a baron whom Candide has rescued from\nslavery, declares that sister of his shall never marry a person of less\nrank than a baron. The book is a mass of seeming extravagance, with a\ndeep vein of gold beneath. All flows so smoothly, the reader fancies\nsuch fantastic nonsense could not only be easily written, but easily\nimproved. Yet when he notices how every sally and absurdity adds to the\neffect, how every lightest touch tells, he sees that only the most\nconsummate wit and genius could thus deftly dissect a philosophy of the\nuniverse for the amusement of the multitude.\n\nVoltaire tried to save England from the judicial murder of Admiral Byng,\nwho was sacrificed to national pride and political faction in 1757, yet\nhow lightly he touches the history in a sentence: \"Dans ce pays ci il\nest bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.\"\nThe pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war had no charms for\nVoltaire. He shows it in its true colors as multitudinous murder and\nrapine. Religious intolerance and hypocrisy, court domination and\nintrigue, the evils attendant on idlers, soldiers and priests, are all\nsketched in lightest outline, and the reader of this fantastic story\nfinds he has traversed the history of last century, seen it at its\nworst, and seen, too, the forces that tended to make it better, and is\nready to exclaim: Would we had another Voltaire now!\n\nThe philosophy of _Candide_ is that of Secularism. The world as we find\nit abounds in misery and suffering. If any being is responsible for it,\nhis benevolence can only be vindicated by limiting his power, or his\npower credited by limiting his goodness. Our part is simply to make the\nbest of things and improve this world here and now. \"Work, then, without\ndisputing; it is the only way to render life supportable.\"\n\nCarlyle did much to impair the influence of Voltaire in England. Yet\nwhat is Carlyle's essential doctrine but \"Do the work nearest hand,\" and\nwhat is this but a translation of the conclusion of _Candide_: \"Il faut\ncultiver notre jardin\"?\n\nThose who forget how far more true it is that man is an irrational\nanimal than that he is a rational one, may wonder how Voltaire, having\nin _Candide_ sapped the foundations of belief in an all-good God by a\nportrayal of the evils afflicting mankind, could yet remain a Theist.\nThe truth seems to be that Voltaire had neither taste nor talents for\nmetaphysics. In the _Ignorant Philosopher_ Voltaire seeks to answer\nSpinoza, without fully understanding his monistic position. He appears\nto have remained a dualist or modern Manichean--an opinion which James\nMill considered was the only Theistic view consistent with the facts.\nWriting to D'Alembert on the 15th of August, 1767, Voltaire says: \"Give\nmy compliments to the Devil, for it is he who governs the world.\" It is\ncurious that on the day he was writing these lines, one Napoleon\nBonaparte had just entered upon the world.\n\nVoltaire appears to have been satisfied with the design argument as\nproving a deity, though he considered speculation as to the nature of\ndeity useless. He showed the Positivist spirit in his rejection of\nmetaphysical subtleties. \"When,\" he writes, \"we have well disputed over\nspirit and matter, we end ever by no advance. No philosopher has been\nable to raise by his own efforts the veil which nature has spread over\nthe first principles of things.\" Again: \"I do not know the _quo modo_,\ntrue. I prefer to stop short rather than to lose myself.\" Also:\n\"Philosophy consists in stopping where physics fail us. I observe the\neffects of nature, but I confess I know no more than you do about first\nprinciples.\" But a deist he ever remained.\n\nBaron de Gleichen, who visited him in 1757, relates that a young author,\nat his wits' end for the means of living, knocked one day at the poet's\ndoor, and to recommend himself said: \"I am an apprentice atheist at your\nservice.\" Voltaire replied: \"I have the honor to be a master deist; but\nthough our trades are opposed, I will give you some supper to-night and\nsome work to-morrow. I wish to avail myself of your arms and not of your\nhead.\"\n\nHe thought both atheism and fanaticism inimical to society; but, said\nhe, \"the atheist, in his error, preserves reason, which cuts his claws,\nwhile those of the fanatic are sharpened in the incessant madness which\nafflicts him.\"\n\nVoltaire seems to have been at bottom agnostic holding on to the narrow\nledge of theism and afraid to drop.\n\nHe says: \"For myself, I am sure of nothing. I believe that there is an\nintelligence, a creative power, a God. I express an opinion to-day; I\ndoubt of it to-morrow; the day after I repudiate it. All honest\nphilosophers have confessed to me, when they were warmed with wine, that\nthe great Being has not given to them one particle more evidence than to\nme.\" He believed in the immortality of the soul, yet expresses himself\ndubiously, saying to Madame du Deffand that he knew a man who believed\nthat when a bee died it ceased to hum. That man was himself.\n\nOn the appearance, however, in 1770 of the Baron d'Holbach's _System of\nNature_--in which he was very considerably helped by Diderot--Voltaire\ntook alarm at its openly pronounced atheism. \"The book,\" he wrote,\n\n\"has made all the philosophers execrable in the eyes of the King and his\ncourt. Through this fatal work philosophy is lost for ever in the eyes\nof all magistrates and fathers of families.\" He accordingly took in hand\nto combat its atheism, which he does in the article _Dieu_ in the\n_Philosophical Dictionary_, and in his _History of Jenni_ (Johnny), a\nlad supposed to be led on a course of vice by atheism and reclaimed to\nvirtue by the design argument. Voltaire's real attitude seems fairly\nexpressed in his celebrated mot: \"S'il n'y avait pas un dieu, il\nfraudrait l'inventer\"--\"If there was not a God it would be necessary to\ninvent one,\" which, Morin remarks, was exactly what had been done.\nMorley says: \"It was not the truth of the theistic belief in itself that\nVoltaire prized, but its supposed utility as an assistant to the\npolice.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE ENCYCLOPAEDIA\n\n\nVoltaire was a great stimulator of the French _Encyclopaedia_, a work\ndesigned to convey to the many the information of the few. Here again\nthe inspiration was English. It was the success of the _Cyclopcedia of\nArts and Sciences_, edited by the Freethinker Ephraim Chambers, in 1728,\nwhich suggested the yet more famous work carried out by Diderot and\nD'Alembert, with the assistance of such men as Helvetius, Buffon,\nTurgot, and Condorcet. Voltaire took an ardent interest in the work, and\ncontributed many important articles. The leading contributors were all\nFreethinkers, but they were under the necessity of advancing their ideas\nin a tentative way on account of the vigilant censorship. Voltaire not\nonly wrote for the _Encyclopaedia_, but gave valuable hints and\nsuggestions to Diderot and D'Alembert, as well as much sound advice. He\ncautioned them, for instance, against patriotic bias. \"Why,\" he asks\nD'Alembert, \"do you say that the sciences are more indebted to France\nthan to any other nation? Is it to the French that we are indebted for\nthe quadrant, the fire-engine, the theory of light, inoculation, the\nseed-sower? _Parbleu!_ you are jesting! We have invented only the\nwheelbarrow.\"\n\nVoltaire wrote the section on History. The first page contained a\nVoltairean definition of sacred history which even an ignorant censor\ncould hardly be expected to pass. \"Sacred History is a series of\noperations, divine and miraculous, by which it pleased God formerly to\nconduct the Jewish nation, and to-day to exercise our faith.\" The iron\nhand beneath the velvet glove was too evident for this to pass the\ncensorship. Vexatious delay and the enforced excision of important\narticles attended the progress of the work.\n\nIt was the attempted suppression of _l'Encyclopcedie_ which showed\nVoltaire that the time had come for battle.\n\nIn 1757 a new edict was issued, threatening with death any one who\nwrote, printed, or sold any work attacking religion or the royal\nauthority. The same edict assigned the penalty of the galleys to whoever\npublished writings without legal permit. Within six months advocate\nBarbier recorded in his diary some terrible sentences. La Marteliere,\nverse-writer, for printing clandestinely Voltaire's _Pucelle_ and other\n\"such\" works, received nine years in the galleys; eight printers and\nbinders employed in the same printing office, the pillory and three\nyears' banishment. Up to the period of the Revolution nothing could be\nlegally printed in France, and no book could be imported, without\nGovernment authorisation. Mr. Lecky says, in his _History of England in\nthe Eighteenth Century_: \"During the whole of the reign of Lewis XV.\nthere was scarcely a work of importance which was not burnt or\nsuppressed, while the greater number of the writers who were at this\ntime the special, almost the only, glory of France were imprisoned,\nbanished, or fined.\" Voltaire determined to render the bigots odious and\ncontemptible, and henceforth waged incessant war, continued to the day\nof his death. In satire on one of the bigots he issued his _Narrative of\nthe Sickness, Confession, Death and Reappearance of the Jesuit\nBerthier_, as rich a burlesque as that which Swift had written\npredicting and describing the death of the astrologer Partridge, in\naccordance with the prediction. Every sentence is a hit. A priest of a\nrival order is hastily summoned to confess the dying Jesuit, who is\ncondemned to penance in purgatory for 333,333 years, 3 months, 3 weeks,\nand 3 days, and then will only be let out if some brother Jesuit be\nfound humble and good enough to be willing to apply all his merits to\nFather Berthier. Even putting his enemy in purgatory, he only condemned\nthe Jesuit every morning to mix the chocolate of a Jansenist, read aloud\nat dinner a Provincial Letter, and employ the rest of the day in mending\nthe chemises of the nuns of Port Royal.\n\nFrom Ferney he poured forth a wasp-swarm of such writings under all\nsorts of pen-names, and dated from London, Amsterdam, Berne, or Geneva.\nHe had sufficient stimulus in the bigotry, intolerance, and atrocious\niniquities perpetrated in the name of religion.\n\nVoltaire, moreover, determined himself to uphold the work of the\n_Encyclopaedia_ in more popular form. He put forward first his\n_Questions upon the Encyclopaedia_, in which he deals with some\nimportant articles of that work, with others of his own. This was the\nfoundation of the most important of all his works, the _Philosophical\nDictionary_, which he is said to have projected in the days when he was\nwith Frederick at Berlin. In this work he showed how a dictionary could\nbe made the most amusing reading in the world. Under an alphabetical\narrangement, he brought together a vast variety of sparkling essays on\nall sorts of subjects connected with literature, science, politics and\nreligion. Some of his headings were mere stalking-horses, under cover of\nwhich he shot at the enemy. Some are concerned with matters now out of\ndate; but, on the whole, the work presents a vivid picture of his\nversatile genius. An abridged edition, containing articles of abiding\ninterest, would be a service to Free-thought at the present day.\n\nHere is a slight specimen of his style taken from the article on\nFanaticism: \"Some one spreads a rumor in the world that there is a giant\nin existence 70 feet high. Very soon all the doctors discuss the\nquestions what color his hair must be, what is the size of his thumb,\nwhat the dimensions of his nails; there is outcry, caballing, fighting;\nthose who maintain that the giant's little finger is only an inch and a\nhalf in diameter, bring those to the stake who affirm that the little\nfinger is a foot thick. 'But, gentlemen, does your giant exist?' says a\nbystander, modestly.\n\n\"'What a horrible doubt!' cry all the disputants; 'what blasphemy! what\nabsurdity!' Then they all make a little truce to stone the bystander,\nand, after having assassinated him in due form, in a manner the most\nedifying, they fight among themselves, as before, on the subject of the\nlittle finger and the nails.\"\n\n\"L'Infame.\"\n\nVoltaire had other provocations to his attack on the bigots, and as he\ngreatly concerned himself with these, they must be briefly mentioned. In\n1761 a tragedy of mingled judicial bigotry, ignorance, and cruelty was\nenacted in Languedoc. On October 13th of that year, Marc Antoine, the\nson of Jean Calas, a respectable Protestant merchant in Toulouse, a\nyoung man of dissolute habits, who had lived the life of a scapegrace,\nhanged himself in his father's shop while the family were upstairs. The\npriestly party got hold of the case and turned it into a religious\ncrime. The Huguenot parents were charged with murdering their son to\nprevent his turning Catholic. Solemn services were held for the repose\nof the soul of Marc Antoine, and his body was borne to the grave with\nmore than royal pomp, as that of a martyr to the holy cause of religion.\nIn the church of the White Penitents a hired skeleton was exhibited,\nholding in one hand a branch of palm, emblem of martyrdom, and in the\nother an inscription, in large letters, \"abjuration of heresy.'' The\npopulace, who were accustomed yearly to celebrate with rejoicing the\nMassacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572, were excited against the\nfamily. The father, who for sixty years had lived without reproach, was\narrested, with his wife and children. The court before whom the case was\nbrought, at first was disposed to put the whole family to the torture,\nnever doubting that the murder would be confessed by one or other of\nthem. But they ended by only condemning the father to be tortured, in\norder to extract a confession of guilt before being broken on the wheel,\nafter which his body was to be burned and the ashes scattered to the\nwinds. He was submitted first to the _question ordinaire_. In sight of\nthe rack he was asked to reveal his crime. His answer was that no crime\nhad been committed. He was stretched on the rack until every limb was\ndislocated and the body drawn out several inches beyond. He was then\nsubjected to the _question extraordinaire_. This consisted in pouring\nwater into his mouth from a horn, while his nose was pinched, till his\nbody was swollen to twice its size, and the sufferer endured the anguish\nof a hundred drownings. He submitted without flinching to all the\nexcruciating agony. Finally, he was placed upon a tumbril and carried\nthrough the howling mob to the place of execution. \"I am innocent.\" he\nmuttered from time to time. At the scaffold he was exhorted to confess\nby a priest: \"What!\" said he, \"you, too, believe a father can kill his\nown son!\" They bound him to a wooden cross, and the executioner, with an\niron bar, broke each of his limbs in two places, striking eleven blows\nin all, and then left him for two hours to die. The executioner\nmercifully strangled him at last, before burning the body at the stake.\nTo the last he persisted in his innocence: he had no confession to make.\nBy his unutterable agony he saved the lives of his wife and family. Two\ndaughters were thrown into a convent, and the property was confiscated.\nThe widow and son escaped, and were provided for by Voltaire.\n\nHe spared no time, trouble, or money to arrive at the truth, and that\nonce reached, he was as assiduous in his search for justice. He went to\nwork with an energy and thoroughness all his own. He interested the\nPompadour herself in the case. By his own efforts he forced justice to\nbe heard. \"The worst of the worthy sort of people,\" he said, \"is that\nthey are such cowards. A man groans over his wrong, shuts his lips,\ntakes his supper, and forgets.\" Voltaire was not of that fibre. Wrong\nwent as a knife to his heart. He suffered with the victim, and might\nhave justly used the words of Shelley, who compared himself unto \"a\nnerve, o'er which do creep the else unfelt oppressions of the world.\"\nVoltaire had to fire others with his own fervor. He issued pamphlet\nafter pamphlet in which the shameful story was told with pathetic\nsimplicity. He employed the best lawyers he could find to vindicate the\nmemory of the murdered man. For three years he left no stone unturned,\nuntil all that was possible was done to right the foul wrong of those in\nauthority. During this time no smile escaped him of which he did not\nreproach himself as a crime. Carlyle speaks of this as \"Voltaire's\nnoblest outburst, into mere transcendant blaze of pity, virtuous wrath,\nand determination to bring rescue and help against the whole world.\"\n\nHe had his pamphlets on the Calas case, seven in number, translated and\npublished in England and Germany, where they produced a profound effect.\nA subscription for the Calas family was headed by the young Queen of\nGeorge III. When at length judgment was given, reversing the sentence,\nhe wrote to Damilaville: \"My dear brother, there is, then, justice upon\nthe earth! There is, then, such a thing as humanity! Men are not all\nwicked rascals, as they say! It is the day of your triumph, my dear\nbrother; you have served the family better than anyone.\"\n\nIt was while the Calas case was pending that Voltaire composed his noble\n_Treatise on Toleration_, a work which, besides its great effect in\nEurope, caused Catherine II. to promise, if not to grant, universal\nreligious toleration throughout the vast empire she governed.\n\nThis Calas case was scarce ended when another, almost as bad an\nexhibition of intolerance, occurred. Sirven, a respectable Protestant\nland surveyor, had a Catholic housekeeper, who, with the assent of the\nBishop of Castres, spirited away his daughter for the good of her soul,\nand placed her in a convent, with a view to her conversion. She returned\nto her parents in a state of insanity, her body covered with the marks\nof the whip. She never recovered from the cruelties she had endured at\nthe convent. One day, when her father was absent on his professional\nduties, she threw herself into a well, at the bottom of which she was\nfound drowned. It was obvious to the authorities that the parents had\nmurdered their child because she wished to become a Roman Catholic. They\nmost wisely did not appear, and were sentenced to be hanged when they\ncould be caught. In their flight the married daughter gave premature\nbirth to a child, and Madame Sirven died in despair.\n\nIt took Voltaire eight years to get this abominable sentence reversed,\nand to turn wrong into right. He was now between seventy and eighty\nyears of age, yet he threw himself into the cause of the Sirvens with\nthe zeal and energy which has vindicated Calas; appealing to Paris and\nEurope, issuing pamphlets, feeing lawyers, and raising a handsome\nsubscription for the family.\n\nAnother case was that of the Chevalier de la Barre. In 1766 a crucifix\nwas injured--perhaps wantonly, perhaps by accident. The Bishop of Amiens\ncalled for vengeance. Two young officers were accused; one escaped, and\nobtained by Voltaire's request a commission in the Prussian service. The\nother, La Barre, was tortured to confess, and then condemned to have his\ntongue cut out, his hand cut off, and to be burned alive. Voltaire,\nseventy years old, devoted himself with untiring energy to save him.\nFailing in that, he wrote one of his little pamphlets, a simple, graphic\n_Narrative of the Death of Chevalier de la Barre_, which stirred every\nhumane heart in France. For twelve years this infidel vindicated the\nmemory of the murdered man and exposed his oppressors. One of the\nauthorities concerned in this judicial atrocity threatened Voltaire with\nvengeance for holding them up to the execration of Europe. Voltaire\nreplied by a Chinese anecdote. \"I forbid you,\" said a tyrannical emperor\nto the historiographer, \"to speak a word more of me.\" The mandarin began\nto write. \"What are you doing now?\" asked the emperor. \"I am writing\ndown the order that your majesty has just given me.\" Voltaire had sought\nto save Admiral Byng. He contended in a similar case at home. Count\nLally had failed to save India from the English, had been taken\nprisoner, but allowed to go to Paris to clear his name from charges made\nagainst him. The French people, infuriate at the loss of their\npossession, demanded a victim, and Lally, after a process tainted with\nevery kind of illegality, was condemned to death on the vague charge of\nabuse of authority. The murdered man's son, known in the Revolution as\nLally Tollendal, was joined by Voltaire in the honorable work of\nprocuring revision of the proceedings, and one of the last crowning\ntriumphs of Voltaire's days was the news brought to him on his dying bed\nthat his long effort had availed.\n\n\"Ecrasez L'infame.\"\n\nThese are samples of what was occuring when Voltaire was exhorting his\nfriends to _crush the infamous_--a phrase which gave rise to much\nmisunderstanding, and which priests have even alleged was applied to\nJesus, their idol. A sufficient disproof, if any were needed, is that\nVoltaire treats \"l'infame\" as feminine. _Si vous pouvez ecraser\nl'infame, ecrasez-la, et aimez-moi.\" That oft-repeated phrase was\ndirected at no person. Nor was it, as some Protestants have alleged,\ndirected only at Roman Catholicism. As Voltaire saw and said, \"fanatic\nPapists and fanatic Calvanism are tarred with one brush.\" \"L'infame\" was\nChristian superstition claiming supernatural authority and enforcing its\nclaim, as it has ever sought to do, by pains and penalties. He meant by\nit the whole spirit of exclusiveness, intolerance, and bigotry,\npersecuting and privileged orthodoxy, which he saw-as the outcome of the\ndivine faith. Practically, as D. F. Strauss justly remarked, \"when\nVoltaire writes to D'Alembert that he wishes to see the 'Infame' reduced\nin France to the same condition in which she finds herself in England,\nand when Frederick writes to Voltaire that philosophers flourished\namongst the Greeks and Romans, because their religion had no\ndogmas--'*mais les dogmes de notre infame gatent tout_'--it is clear we\nmust understand by the 'Infame,' whose destruction was the watchword of\nthe Voltairian circle, the Christian Church, without distinction of\ncommunions, Catholic or Protestant.\"\n\nThe Catholic Joseph de Maistre shrieks: \"With a fury without example,\nthis insolent blasphemer declared himself the personal enemy of the\nSavior of men, dared from the depths of his nothingness to give him a\nname of ridicule, and that adorable law which the Man-God brought to\nearth he called 'l'infame.'\" This is a judgment worthy of a bigot, who\ndares not look into the reason why his creed is detested. Let us try and\nunderstand this insolent blasphemer to-day.\n\nVoltaire looked deep into the heart of the atrocities that wrung his\nevery nerve with anguish. They were not new: only the humanity and\ncourage that assailed them were new. They were the natural outcome of\nwhat had been Christian teaching. It was not simply that, as a matter of\nfact, priests and theologians were the opponents of every kind of\nrational progress, but their intolerance was the logical result of their\ncreed. These atrocities could not have been perpetrated had not priests\nand magistrates had behind them a credulous and fanatical populace,\nwhose minds were suborned from childhood to believing that they had\nthemselves the one and divine faith, and that all heretics were enemies\nof God. He saw that to destroy the intolerance he must sap the\nsuperstition from which it sprang. He saw that the core of the Christian\nsuperstition lay in Bibliolatry, and that while Christians believed they\nhad an exclusive and infallibly divine revelation, they would deem all\nopposition to their own beliefs a sin, meriting punishment. Mr. Morley\nsays, with truth: \"If we find ourselves walking amid a generation of\ncruel, unjust, and darkened spirits, we may be assured that it is their\nbeliefs on what they deem highest that have made them so. There is no\ncounting with certainty on the justice of men who are capable of\nfashioning and worshipping an unjust divinity; nor on their humanity, so\nlong as they incorporate inhuman motives in their most sacred dogma; nor\non their reasonableness, while they rigorously decline to accept reason\nas a test of truth.\"\n\nVoltaire warred on Christian superstition because he keenly felt its\nevils. He saw that intolerance naturally flowed from the exclusive and\ndogmatic claims which alone differentiated it from other faiths. Its\ninducements to right-doing he found to be essentially ignoble, appealing\neither to brutal fear of punishment or base expectation of reward, and\nin each case alike mercenary. He saw that terrorism engendered\nbrutality, that a savage will think nothing of slaughtering hundreds to\nappease his angry God. He saw that it had been a fine religion for\npriests and monks--those caterpillars of the commonwealth, living on the\nfat of the land while pretending to hold the keys of heaven, a race of\nparasites on the people, who toil not neither do they spin, and whose\ndirect interest lay in fostering their dupes ignorance and credulity.\nThe Christian tree was judged, as its founder said it should be, by its\nfruits. Men do not gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles. He\nsaw Christianity as Tacitus described it--\"a maleficent superstition.\"\nIt was a upas tree, to be cut down; and hence he reiterated his terrible\n_Delenda est Carthago,_ \"Ecrasez l'Infame\"--\"Destroy the monster.\"\n\nHe wrote to D'Alembert from Ferney: \"For forty years I have endured the\noutrages of bigots and scoundrels. I have found there is nothing to gain\nby moderation, and that it is a deception. I must wage war openly and\ndie nobly, 'on a crowd of bigots slaughtered at my feet.'\" His war was\nrelentless and unremitting. He assailed \"l'Infame\" with every weapon\nwhich learning, wit, industry, and indignation could supply.\n\nFrederick wrote to him from the midst of his own wars: \"Your zeal burns\nagainst the Jesuits and superstitions. You do well to combat error, but\ndo you credit that the world will change? The human mind is weak.\nThree-fourths of mankind are formed to be the slaves of the absurdest\nfanaticism. The fear of the devil and hell is fascinating to them, and\nthey detest the sage who wishes to enlighten them. I look in vain among\nthem for the image of God, of which the theologians assure us they carry\nthe imprint.\" Madame du Deffand wrote in a similar strain. She assured\nhim that every person of sense thought as he did; why then continue? No\nremonstrance moved him. He had enlisted for the war, and might have said\nwith Luther: _Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders_.\n\nMuch nonsense has been written about Voltaire's employment of ridicule\nagainst religious beliefs. I am reminded of Bishop South's remark to a\ndull brother bishop, who reproved him for sprinkling his sermon with\nwitticisms. \"Now, my lord, do you really mean to say that, if God had\ngiven you any wit, you would not have used it?\" Voltaire ridiculed what\nhe esteemed ridiculous. But there is nothing more galling to\nsuperstitionists than to find that others find food for mirth in their\nabsurdities.\n\n\"You mock at sacred things,\" said the Jesuits to Pascal when he exposed\ntheir casuistry. Doubtless the priests of Baal said the same when Elijah\nasked them whether their God was asleep, or peradventure on a journey.\nThe artifice of inculcating a solemn and reverential manner of treating\nabsurdities is the perennial recipe for sanctifying and perpetuating\nsuperstition. \"Priests of all persuasions,\" says Oliver Goldsmith, \"are\nenemies to ridicule, because they know it to be a formidable antagonist\nto fanaticism, and they preach up gravity to conceal their own\nshallowness of imposture.\" Approach the mysteries of the faith with\nreverence and you concede half the battle. Christian missionaries do not\nthus treat the fetishism and sorcery of heathen lands. To overcome it\nthey must expose its absurdities. Ridicule has been a weapon in the\nhands of all the great liberators, Luther, Erasmus, Rabelais, Bruno,\nSwift, but none used it more effectively than Voltaire. Buckle well\nsays; \"He used ridicule, not as the test of truth, but as the scourge of\nfolly.\" And he adds: \"His irony, his wit, his pungent and telling\nsarcasms produce more effect than the gravest arguments could have done;\nand there can be no doubt he was fully justified in using those great\nresources with which nature had endowed him, since by their aid he\nadvanced the interests of truth, and relieved men from some of their\nmost inveterate prejudices.\" Victor Hugo puts the case in poetic fashion\nwhen he declares that Voltaire was irony incarnate for the salvation of\nmankind. \"Ridicule is not argument\"! Well, it is a pointed form of\npolemic, the _argumentum ad absurdum_. \"Mustapha,\" said Voltaire, \"does\nnot believe, but he believes that he believes.\" To shame him out of\nhypocrisy, there is nothing better than laughter; and if a true\nbeliever, laughter will best free him from terror of his bogey devil and\nno less bogey god. Ridicule can hurt no reality. You cannot make fun of\nthe multiplication table. The fun begins when the theologians assert\nthat three times one are one. Shaftesbury, who maintained that ridicule\nwas a test of truth, remarked with justice, \"'tis the persecuting spirit\nthat has raised the bantering one.\" Ridicule is the natural retort to\nthose who seek not to convert but to convict and punish. Ridicule comes\nlike a stream of sunlight to dissipate the fogs of preconceived\nprejudice. A laugh, if no argument, is a splendid preparative. Often, in\nVoltaire, ridicule takes an argumentative form. Thus, alluding to a\nMonsieur Esprit's book on the Falsity of Human Virtues, he says: \"That\ngreat genius, Mons. Esprit, tells us that neither Cato, Aristotle,\nMarcus Aurelius, nor Epictetus were good men, and a good reason why,\ngood men are only found among Christians. Again, among the Christians,\nCatholics alone are virtuous, and of the Catholics, the Jesuits, enemies\nof the Oratorians, must be excepted. Therefore, there is scarce any\nvirtue on earth, except among the enemies of the Jesuits.\"\n\nAll his characteristic scorn and ridicule come out when dealing with the\nfetish book of his adversaries. The _Philosophical Dictionary_ is full\nof wit upon biblical subjects. I content myself with an excerpt from the\nless known _Sermon of Fifty_: \"If Moses changed the waters into blood,\nthe sages of Pharoah did the same. He made frogs come upon the land;\nthis also they were able to do. But when lice were concerned, they were\nvanquished; in the matter of lice, the Jews knew more and could do more\nthan the other nations.\"\n\n\"Finally, Adonai caused every first-born in Egypt to die, in order that\nhis people might be at their ease. For his people the sea is cloven in\ntwain; and we must confess it is the least that could be done on this\noccasion. All the other marvels are of the same stamp. The Jews wander\nin the desert. Some husbands complain of their wives. Immediately water\nis found, which makes every woman who has been faithless to her husband\nswell and burst. In the desert the Jews have neither bread nor dough,\nbut quails and manna are rained upon them. Their clothes are preserved\nunworn for forty years; as the children grow, their clothes grow with\nthem. Samson, because he had not undergone the operation of shaving,\ndefeats a thousand Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass. He ties\ntogether three hundred foxes, which, as a matter of course, come quite\nreadily to his hand.\n\n\"There is scarcely a page in which tales of this sort are not found. The\nghost of Samuel appears, summoned by the voice of a witch. The shadow of\na dial--as if miserable creatures like the Jews had dials--goes back ten\ndegrees at the prayer of Hezekiah, who, with great judgment, asks for\nthis sign. God gives him the choice of making the hour advance or\nrecede, and the learned Hezekiah thinks that it is not difficult to make\nthe shadow advance, but very difficult to make it recede. Elijah mounts\nto heaven in a chariot of fire; children sing in a hot and raging\nfurnace. I should never stop if I entered into the detail of all the\nmonstrous extravagances with which this book swarms. Never was common\nsense outraged so vehemently and indecently.\" Noticing the comparison in\nthe Song of Solomon, \"Her nose is like the tower of Damascus,\" etc., he\nsays: \"This, I own, is not in the style of the Eclogues of the author of\nthe AEneid; but all have not a like style, and a Jew is not obliged to\nwrite like Virgil.\"\n\nThis, it may be objected, is caricature and not criticism. But all that\nVoltaire sought was that his blows should tell. He did not expect to be\ntaken _au pied du lettre_. Some of his biblical criticism is faulty, but\nit is hard for the reader to recover from the tone of banter and\ncontempt with which he treats the sacred book. When the idol is\nshattered, it is not much use saying its mouth was not quite so big and\nugly as it was represented to be. Priests have never yet been troubled\nby dull criticism. They left Tindal and Chubb alone; but when Woolston,\nAnnet and Paine added liveliness to their infidelity, they loudly called\nfor the police.\n\nLeslie Stephen well says: \"Men have venerated this or that grotesque\nmonstrosity because they have always approached it with half-shut eyes\nand grovelling on their faces in the dust: a single hearty laugh will\nencourage them to stand erect and to learn the latest of lessons--that\nof seeing what lies before them. And if your holy religion does really\ndepend upon preserving the credit of Jonah's whale, upon justifying all\nthe atrocities of the Jews, and believing that a census was punished by\na plague, ridicule is not only an effective but an appropriate mode of\nargument.\"\n\nVoltaire is often sneered at as a mere destructive. The charge is not\ntrue, and, even if it were, he would none the less deserve the\nadmiration of posterity for his destructive work. It is as necessary for\nthe gardener to clear away the rubbish and keep down the weeds as to sow\nand water. Mr. Morley justly observes: \"He had imagination enough and\nintelligence enough to perceive that they are the most pestilent of all\nthe enemies of mankind, the sombre hierarchs of misology, who take away\nthe keys of knowledge, thrusting truth down to the second place, and\ndiscrowning sovereign reason to be the serving drudge of superstition or\nsocial usuage.\"\n\nVoltaire was the arch iconoclast of his age, a mere destructive, if you\nwill. Buckie truly remarks: \"All great reforms have consisted, not in\nmaking something new, but in unmaking something old.\" W. J. Fox\neloquently said: \"The destruction of tyranny is political freedom. The\ndestruction of bigotry is spiritual and mental emancipation. Positive\nand negative are mere forms. Creation and destruction, as we call them,\nare just one and the same work, the work which man has to do--the\nextraction of good from evil.\"\n\nMuch has been made of the pseudonymous character of his attacks on\nChristianity, and of the subterfuges and fibs with which he sought to\nevade responsibility. One might as well complain of ironclads wearing\narmor in warfare.\n\nIt was the necessity of his position. He wanted to do his work, not to\nbecome a martyr, leaving it to unknown hands. It should be remembered\nthat Voltaire had sometimes to bribe publishers to bring out his\nwritings; and, in such circumstances, the pseudonymity is surely open to\nno suspicion of baseness. His poem on _Natural Religion_ was condemned\nto the flames by the decree of the Parliament of Paris, 23rd January,\n1759. His _Important Examination of the Scriptures_, which he falsely\nattributed to Lord Bolingbroke, was condemned with five other of his\npieces by a decree of the Court of Rome, 29th November, 1771. Could the\nauthor have been caught, he would have had a good chance, if not of\nsharing the fate of his book, at least of permanent lodgment in the\nBastille, of which he had already sufficient taste. He knew that\nalthough Bolingbroke had no hand in its composition he largely shared\nits ideas, and he obtained at once publicity and security by attributing\nit to the dead friend who, Morley says, \"was the direct progenitor of\nVoltaire's opinions in religion.\" If he stuck at no subterfuge to\nachieve his work, his lies injured no one. One of the funniest was the\nsigning one of his heterodox publications as the Archbishop of\nCanterbury, a lie which may remind us of the drunken Sheridan announcing\nhimself as William Wilberforce. Voltaire had been Bastilled twice, and\nverily believed that another taste would end his days. \"I am,\" he said,\n\"a friend of truth, but no friend at all to martyrdom.\" Shelter behind\nany ambush was necessary in such guerilla warfare as his. Over fifty of\nhis works were condemned, and placed upon the Index. Voltaire used no\nfewer than one hundred and thirty different pen-names, which have\nenabled bibliographers to display their erudition.(1) But for this\nunderground method, he might have been laid by the heels instead of\nliving to old age, with the satisfaction of seeing the world becoming a\nlittle more humane and tolerant through his efforts. In such warfare the\nonly test is success, and the fact remains that Voltaire's blows told.\nHe cleared the course for modern science, and it is not for those who\nbenefit by his labors to sneer because he did not become a martyr in the\nstruggle.\n\n    1. Special mention should be made of the _Bibliographie\n    Voltairienne_ of M. L. Querard, and _Voltaire: Bibliographie de\n    ses OEuvres_, in four volumes, by M. G. Bengesco, 1882- 1890.\n\nCondorcet says: \"His zeal against a religion which he regarded as the\ncause of the fanaticism which has desolated Europe since its birth, of\nthe superstition which had burst about it, and as the source of the\nmischief which the enemies of human nature still continued to do, seemed\nto double his activity and his forces. 'I am tired,' he said one day,\n'of hearing it repeated that twelve men were enough to establish\nChristianity. I want to show them that one will be enough to destroy\nit.'\" What one man could do he did. But it took not twelve legendary\napostles, but the labor of countless thousands of men, through many\nages, to build up the great complex of Christianity, and it will need\nthe labors of as many to destroy it. Voltaire himself came to see this,\nand wrote, in the year before his death, \"I now perceive that we must\nstill wait three or four hundred years. One day it cannot but be that\ngood men will win their cause; but before that glorious day arrives, how\nmany disgusts have we to undergo, how many dark persecutions, without\nreckoning the La Barres of whom they will make an _auto de fe_ from time\nto time.\"\n\nJohn Morley remarks: \"The meaner partisans of an orthodoxy, which can\nonly make wholly sure of itself by injustice to adversaries, has always\nloved to paint the Voltairean school in the characters of demons,\nenjoying their work of destruction with a sportive and impish delight.\nThey may have rejoiced in their strength so long as they cherished the\nillusion that those who first kindled the torch should also complete the\nlong course and bear the lamp to the goal. When the gravity of the\nenterprise showed itself before them, they remained alert with all\ncourage, but they ceased to fancy that courage necessarily makes men\nhappy. The mantle of philosophy was rent in a hundred places, and bitter\nwinds entered at a hundred holes; but they only drew it the more closely\naround them.\"\n\nIt may remain an inspiration to others, as it assuredly is a proof of\nthe temperance and moderation of his own life, that much of Voltaire's\nbest work was done after he had reached his sixtieth year. _Candide_,\nhis masterpiece, was written at the age of sixty-four. Four years later\nhe produced his _Sermon of the Fifty_, and he was sixty-nine when he\npublished his epoch-making _Treatise upon Toleration_, and _Saul_, the\nwittiest of his burlesque dramas. At the age of seventy he issued his\nmost important work, the _Philosophical Dictionary_, and his burlesque\nupon existing superstitions, which he entitled _Pot-Pourri_. This was,\nindeed, the period of his greatest literary activity against \"l'Infame.\"\nHis _Questions on the Miracles_, his _Examination of Lord Bolingbroke_,\nthe _Questions of Zapata_, the _Dinner of Count de Boulainvilliers_ (the\ncharming _resume_ of Voltaire's religious opinions, which had the honor\nto be burnt by the hand of the hangman), the _Canonisation of St.\nCucufin_, the romance of the _Princess of Babylon_, the _A. B. and C._,\nthe collection of _Ancient Gospels_, and his _God and Men_, all being\nissued while he was between seventy and seventy-five. It was at this\ntime he edited the _Recueil Necessaire avec l'Evangile de la Raison_, a\ncollection of anti-Christian tracts dated Leipsic and London, but\nprinted at Amsterdam. He was eighty when he put forth his _White Bull_\n(one of the funniest of his pieces, which was translated by Jeremy\nBentham), and his ridiculous skit on Bababec and the Fakirs; eighty-two\nwhen he wrote _The Bible Explained_ and _A Christian against Six Jews_;\nand eighty-three when he published his _History of the Establishment of\nChristianity_.\n\nIt was thus in the last twenty years of his long life that Voltaire did\nhis best work for the destruction of prejudice and the spread of\nenlightenment. At the same time he maintained a large correspondence,\nboth with the principal sovereigns of Europe, whom he urged in the\ndirection of tolerance, and with the leading writers, whom he wished to\ncombine in a great and systematic attempt to sap the creed he believed\nto be at the root of superstition and intolerance.\n\nIt is in his lengthy and varied correspondence with intimates, extending\nover sixty years, that Voltaire most truly reveals himself. He is\ntherein his own minute biographer, revealing not only his actions, but\ntheir actuation. We see him therein not merely the prince of\n_persifleurs_, but the serious sensitive thinker, keenly alive to\nfriendship, love, and work for the higher interests of humanity. His\nletters are among the most varied, interesting, and delightful of any\nleft by a great man of letters. Like all his other productions, they\ndisplay the fertility of his genius. Over ten thousand separate letters\nare catalogued by Bengesco. Their very extent prevents their being\nwidely read, but they reveal the perennial brightness of his mind, his\ndelight in work, his love of literature and liberty, his constant gaiety\nand goodness of heart, with here and there only a flash of indignation\nand contempt. They are imbued with the spirit of friendship, abound in\nanecdotes and pleasantries, mingled with a passionate earnestness for\nthe interest of mankind. Constantly we find him endeavoring to elevate\nthe literary class, to raise the drama, continually seeking to encourage\ntalent, to relieve suffering, and to defend the oppressed.\n\n\n\n\nLAST DAYS\n\n\nWith the authorities at Geneva Voltaire had got into dispute, owing to\nhis attempt to establish a private theatre in the territory still\ndominated by the ghost of Calvin. Moreover, he was continually reminding\nthem of Servetus. When D'Alembert's article on Geneva appeared the\ncitizens were enraged, and Voltaire thought proper to also purchase an\nestate near Lausanne, in the Vaud Canton, which was somewhat less\naustere in theatrical matters. Here Gibbon was also residing at the\ntime.\n\nStupid stories have been told of Gibbon's attempts to see Voltaire, and\nof their mutual laughter at each other's ugliness. Voltaire is said to\nhave refused himself to the young Englishman, which is very unlikely,\nand that he replied: \"You are like the Christian God: he permits one to\neat and drink, but will never show himself.\" It is said that he got\nVoltaire's mare let loose on purpose to see the old man chase after him.\nVoltaire sent a servant to charge him twelve sous for seeing the great\nbeast, whereupon he gave twenty-four, with the remark, \"that will pay\nfor a second visit.\" Gibbon himself, speaking of the winter of 1757-58,\nwhich he spent in the neighborhood of Lausanne, says: \"My desire of\nbeholding Voltaire, whom I then rated above his real magnitude, was\neasily gratified. He received me with civility as an English youth, but\nI cannot boast of any peculiar notice or distinction. The highest\ngratification which I derived from Voltaire's residence at Lausanne was\nthe uncommon circumstance of hearing a great poet declaim his own\nproductions on the stage. He had formed a company of gentlemen and\nladies, some of whom were not destitute of talents. My ardor, which soon\nbecame conspicuous, seldom failed of procuring me a ticket.... The wit\nand philosophy of Voltaire, his table and theatre, refined in a visible\ndegree the manners of Lausanne; and, however addicted to study, I\nenjoyed my share of the amusements of society.\"\n\nThis taste for directing theatrical representations was shared, perhaps\nwe might say followed, by his great German admirer Goethe. It was\nVoltaire's relaxation. One of his most particular friends was the great\nactor Le Kain. The drama was with him an instrument of education. He\nbelieved it to be a means both of softening and refining manners, and\nalso of dispersing intolerance and superstition.\n\nVoltaire soon afterwards purchased a third estate at Ferney, just a\nlittle over the French border, and here, eventually, he lived _en grande\nseigneur_, and was known as the \"patriarch of Ferney.\" A philosopher, he\nsaid, with hounds at his heels, like a fox should never trust to one\nhole. Accordingly, he had within easy distance the choice of three\ndistinct governments wherein to find a place of refuge, for, as Carlyle\nremarks, he \"had to keep his eyes open and always have covert within\nreach, under pain of being torn to pieces, while he went about in the\nflesh, or rather in the bones, poor lean being.\" He now had wealth,\nindependence, and an assurance of safety, and had come to that time of\nlife when most men who are able think they may fairly retire from their\nlabors. But now was the time when he, casting aside all other pleasures\nand ambitions, threw himself with unflagging energy and unsurpassed\nindustry into the great task of his life. It was from Ferney he issued\nall the remarkable works of his later years.\n\nAt Ferney, the old church obstructing his view of the Alps, he built a\nnew one, and got into trouble for doing so. He had inscribed on it, \"Deo\nerexit Voltaire, 1761,\" a phrase which betrayed rather patronage than\ndevotion.\n\n\"It is,\" he remarked, \"the only church dedicated to God alone; all the\nothers are dedicated to saints. For my part, I would rather worship the\nmaster than the valets.\" On another occasion, he said: \"Yes, I adore\nGod; but not monsieur his son, and madame his mother.\" It was observed\nof the inscription that he had only a single word between himself and\nGod. From the wall of his church he also built a tomb for himself. \"The\nwicked will say that I am neither inside nor outside,\" he remarked. Of\nthe church he remarked: \"The wicked will say, no doubt, that I am\nbuilding this church in order to throw down the one which conceals a\nbeautiful prospect, and to have a grand avenue; but I let the impious\ntalk, and go on working out my salvation.\" If the wicked made the\nremarks predicted, they doubtless spoke the truth. It was even reported\nthat Voltaire personally superintended the removal of the old ruinous\none, saying, \"Take away that gibbet\" when pointing to the crucifix. The\n_cure_ of Moens, the parish adjoining Ferney, cited Voltaire before the\necclesiastical official of Gex as guilty of impiety and sacrilege, and\nWagniere, Voltaire's secretary, says: \"Those gentlemen indulged the\nconfident hope that M. de Voltaire would be burned, or at least hanged,\nfor the greater glory of God and the edification of the faithful. This\nthey said publicly.\" Voltaire was enabled to strike terror to his\npersecutor by producing a royal ordinance of 1627 forbidding a _cure_ to\nserve either as prosecutor or judge in such cases. The church remains,\nbut the celebrated inscription was effaced during the Restoration of the\nMonarchy.\n\nFerney became an asylum for the oppressed both from France and\nSwitzerland. Many of these Voltaire located in and about his chateau,\nbut, as their number increased, he built nice stone houses, and, in a\nlittle time, the miserable hamlet which before his arrival had been a\nwilderness, became a prosperous colony of twelve hundred individuals and\na veritable free State. There were both Protestants and Catholics among\nthem, but such was the unanimity in which they lived under his\nprotection, that we are told no one could conceive that different\nreligions existed among them. Among this colony he established the\nmanufacture of weaving and of watches, by means of which his people\npresently became wealthy; the Empress Catherine II., even when engaged\nin her Turkish campaigns, paying her _bon ami_ Voltaire the compliment\nof assisting the Ferney colony by an order for watches to the value of\nsome thousand roubles. He pushed the work of his colonists into repute\nthroughout the world, and was justified in saying to the Duke of\nRichelieu, \"Give me a fair chance, and I am the man to build a city.\"\n\nThough everywhere maligned as an infidel and a scoffer, his life was one\nlong act of benevolence. The watches of Ferney became known as those of\nGeneva. \"Fifteen years ago,\" said a visitor, \"there were barely at\nFerney three or four cottages and forty inhabitants; now it is\nastonishing to see a numerous and civilised colony, a theatre, and more\nthan a hundred pretty houses.\" \"His charities,\" says General Hamley,\n\"were munificent. When the Order of Jesuits was suppressed he took one\nof the body, Father Adam, into his house, and made him his almoner, a\npost which was far from being a sinecure.\" Hearing that Mademoiselle\nCorneille, the grandniece of the poet, was in poverty, Voltaire, in the\nmost delicate manner, invited her to his house, treated her as a\nrelation, and gave her an education suitable to her descent. \"It is,\" he\nsaid, \"the duty of an old soldier to be useful to the daughter of his\ngeneral.\" That she might not feel under personal obligation, he devoted\nto her dowry the profits of his _Commentaries on Corneille_.\n\n\"A description is given of him in his last days at Ferney, seated under\na vine, on the occasion of a _fete_, and receiving the congratulations\nand complimentary gifts of his tenantry and neighbors, when a young\nlady, whom he had adopted, brought him in a basket a pair of white doves\nwith pink beaks, as her offering. He afterwards entertained about 200\nguests at a splendid repast, followed by illuminations, songs, and\ndances, and was himself so carried away in an access of gaiety as to\nthrow his hat into the air. But his merriment ended in a tempest of\nwrath; for learning, in the course of the evening, that the two doves\nwhich had figured so prettily in the _fete_ had been killed for the\ntable, his indignation at the stolid cruelty which could shed the blood\nof the creatures they had all just admired and caressed, knew no\nbounds.\"\n\nDiderot, who shares with Voltaire the glory of being the intellectual\nlandmark of last century, and who equalled him as an artist and excelled\nhim as a philosopher, only met Voltaire a little before his death. The\nfame of Voltaire's wealth had kept him from Ferney. Speaking of Voltaire\nin old age, Diderot says: \"He is like one of those old haunted castles,\nwhich are falling into ruins in every part; but you easily perceive that\nit is inhabited by some ancient magician.\" Diderot was the better\ncritic, and controverted the patriarch as to the merits of Shakespeare,\nwhom he compared to the statue of Saint Christopher at Notre\nDame--unshapely and rude; but: such a colossus that ordinary petty men\ncould pass between his legs without touching him.\n\nLate in life, Voltaire adopted Reine Philiberte de Vericourt, a young\ngirl of noble but poor family, whom he had rescued from a convent life,\ninstalled in his own house, and married to the Marquis de Villette. Her\npet name was _Belle et Bonne_, and no one had more to do with the\nhappiness of the last years of Voltaire than she. She watched by the\ndying Voltaire's bedside, and Lady Morgan thus records her report: \"To\nhis last moment everything he said and did breathed the benevolence and\ngoodness of his character. All announced in him tranquility, peace,\nresignation; except a little moment of ill-humor which he showed to the\n_cure_ of St. Sulpice when he begged him to withdraw, and said, 'Let me\ndie in peace.'\"\n\nVoltaire himself wrote to Mme. du Deffand: \"They say sometimes of a man,\n'He died like a dog'; but, truly, a dog is very happy to die without all\nthe ceremony with which they persecute the last moments of our lives. If\nthey had a little charity for us, they would let us die without saying\nanything about it. The worst is that we are then surrounded by\nhypocrites, who worry us to make us think as they do not in the least\nthink; or else by imbeciles, who desire us to be as stupid as they are.\nAll this is very disgusting. The only pleasure of life at Geneva is that\npeople can die there as they like; many worthy persons summon no priest\nat all. People kill themselves if they please, without any one\nobjecting; or they await the last moment, and no one troubles them about\nit.\"\n\nUnder suffering, age, and impending death, Voltaire's bearing, as\nCarlyle acknowledges, \"one must say is rather beautiful.\" Voltaire had\nall his life \"enjoyed\" bad health. He had always a feeble constitution,\nand was a confirmed invalid for the greater part of his life, suffering\nfrom bladder disorder, and a variety of other diseases that would have\nsoon finished an ordinary man. We may say he was sustained by his work,\nwhich was ever gay, even when most pessimistic. \"My eyes are as red as a\ndrunkard's,\" he writes, \"and I have not the honor to be one.\" His wit\nlasted in old age. A visitor to Ferney, hearing him praise Haller\nenthusiastically, told him that Haller did not do him equal justice.\n\"Ah,\" said Voltaire, lightly, \"perhaps we are both mistaken.\" To Bailly,\nthe astronomer, he wrote, at the age of eighty-one: \"A hundred thanks\nfor the book of medicine which you sent me, together with your own\n[_History of Ancient Astronomy_], when I was very unwell. I have not\nopened the first. The second I have read and feel much better.\" He kept\nhimself at work with coffee. His interest was ever in his work. At the\nvery last, the new dictionary he had proposed to the Academy was on his\nmind; it was not proceeding as rapidly as his indefatigable spirit\ndesired. \"J'ai fait un pen de bien; c'est mon meilleur ouvrage\"--\"I have\ndone a little good; that is my best work,\" was one of his latest\nutterances.\n\nHis physicians gave their opinion that he might have lived even longer\nthan he did had he not been lured to Paris by his niece (unprepossessing\nMadame Denis) to superintend the production of his last tragedy _Irene_.\nAsked at the barrier if there was anything contraband in the carriage,\nhe replied, \"Only myself.\" On entering Paris he received a shock in the\nnews that his friend Le Kain, the actor, had been buried the day before.\nHe was visited by Benjamin Franklin, who brought his grandson, whom they\ndesired to kneel for the patriarch's blessing. Pronouncing in English\nthe words, \"God, Liberty, Toleration\"--\"this,\" said Voltaire, \"is the\nmost suitable benediction for the grandson of Franklin.\" Poems,\naddresses and deputations came thick upon him, and his hotel was\nthronged with visitors of rank and eminence. The popular voice hailed\nthe aged patriarch, especially as the defender of Calas, the apostle of\nuniversal toleration; and this title was more gratifying to him than any\nother.\n\nIn one house where Voltaire called on his last visit to Paris, the\nmistress reproached him for the obstinacy with which, in extreme old age\n(over eighty-three), he continued to assail the Church and its beliefs.\n\"Be moderate and generous,\" said she, \"after the victory. What can you\nfear now from such adversaries? The fanatics are prostrate (_a terre_).\nThey can no longer injure. Their reign is over.\" Voltaire replied: \"You\nare in error, madame; it is a fire that is covered but not extinguished.\nThose fanatics, those Tartuffes, are mad dogs. They are muzzled, but\nthey have not lost their teeth. It is true they bite no more; but on the\nfirst opportunity, if their teeth are not drawn, you will see if they\nwill not bite.\" All that one man could do was done by Voltaire. More\nthan any other, he helped to muzzle the mad dog of religious\nintolerance, lassoing it dexterously with his finespun silken thread,\nsince replaced by a stronger cord. But the beast even yet is not dead;\nits teeth are not all drawn. Give it a chance and it will still bite.\nWhat we have to thank Voltaire for is, that he has left works which, as\nhe himself said, are \"scissors and files to file the teeth and pare the\ntalons of the monsters.\"\n\nVoltaire was, as he said, stifled in roses. He sat up at night\nperfecting _Irene_, and his unwearied activity induced him at his great\nage to begin a Dictionary upon a novel plan which he prevailed upon the\nFrench Academy to take up. At the performance of his tragedy he was\ncrowned with laurel in his box, amid the plaudits of the audience. To\nkeep himself up under the excitement, he exceeded even his usual excess\nof coffee. These labors and dissipation brought on spitting of blood,\nand sleeplessness, to obviate which he took opium. Condorcet says the\nservant mistook one of the doses, which threw him into a state of\nlethargy, from which he never recovered. He lingered for some time, but\nat length expired on the 30th of May, 1778, in his eighty-fourth year.\n\nOf course lying tales of dying horrors were floated, and disbelieved in\nby all who knew him. He wished to rest in his own churchyard, and let\nthe _abbe_ Gaultier and the _cure_ de St. Sulpice squabble as to who\nshould have, the honor of his conversion. His secretary, being alone\nwith him, begged him to state what his view continued to be when he\nbelieved himself dying; and received this written declaration: \"I die\nadoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, detesting\nsuperstition\"--\"Je meurs eti adorant dieu, en aimant mes amis, en ne\nbaissant pas mes ennemis, de testant superstition.\" This dying\ndeclaration may be seen at the _Bibliotheque Nationale_, Paris (Fr.\n11,460), written, signed and dated by him in a still firm hand,\nFebruary, 1778.\n\nInto the stories told of Voltaire's dying moments and many similar\nlegends, my colleague, Mr. G. W. Foote, has fully entered in his\n_Infidel Deathbeds_. He quotes the following extract from a letter by\nDr. Burard, who, as assistant physician, was constantly about Voltaire\nin his last moments:\n\n\"I feel happy in being able, while paying homage to truth, to destroy\nthe effect of the lying stories which have been told respecting the last\nmoments of Mons. de Voltaire. I was, by office, one of those who were\nappointed to watch the whole progress of his illness, with MM.\nTron-chin, Lorry, and Try, his medical attendants. I never left him for\nan instant during his last moments, and I can certify that we invariably\nobserved in him the same strength of character, though his disease was\nnecessarily attended with horrible pain. (Here follow the details of his\ncase.) We positively forbade him to speak, in order to prevent the\nincrease of a spitting of blood, with which he was attacked; still he\ncontinued to communicate with us by means of little cards, on which he\nwrote his questions; we replied to him verbally, and if he was not\nsatisfied, he always made his observations to us in writing. He\ntherefore retained his faculties up to the last moment, and the\nfooleries which have been attributed to him are deserving of the\ngreatest contempt. It could not even be said that such or such person\nhad related any circnmstance of his death, as being witness to it; for\nat the last, admission to his chamber was forbidden to any person. Those\nwho came to obtain intelligence respecting the patient, waited in the\nsaloon, and other apartments at hand. The proposition, therefore, which\nhas been put in the mouth of Marshal Richelieu is as unfounded as the\nrest.\n\n\"Paris, April 3rd, 1819.\n\n\"(Signed) Burard.\"\n\nThe actual facts are thus told by Mr. Parton: \"Ten minutes before he\nbreathed his last he roused from his slumber, took the hand of his\nvalet, pressed it, and said to him: 'Adieu, my dear Morand; I am dying.'\nThese were his last words.\"\n\nD'Alembert, in a letter to Frederick, written after Voltaire's death,\nthus recorded the impression made on him by the dying man. Having\ndescribed the stupefying effects of the opium which left his head clear\nonly for brief intervals, D'Alembert, who saw him during one of them,\nproceeds: \"He recognised me and even spoke to me some friendly words.\nBut the moment after he fell back into his state of stupor, for he was\nalmost always dying. He awoke only to complain and to say 'he had come\nto Paris to die.'\" Throughout his illness, D'Alembert adds, \"he\nexhibited, to the extent which his condition permitted, much tranquility\nof mind, although he seemed to regret life. I saw him again the day\nbefore his death, and to some friendly words of mine he replied,\npressing my hand, 'You are my consolation.'\"\n\nIt is certain the heads of the French Church did not consider that\nVoltaire had made a death-bed conversion, for they refused his body\nburial in consecrated ground. They had anathematised him when alive and\nproscribed him when dead. He had prepared a tomb for himself under the\nsky, where he had grown old and done good, but he was cheated out of his\nrights, and it was decided that he who built the church had no right to\nhave his bones bleach in the cemetery. Letters were sent to the Bishop\nof Annecy, in whose diocese Ferney was, enjoining him to prohibit the\n_cure_ thereof from giving Voltaire's remains Christian burial in his\nown churchyard. Voltaire's nephew, the _abbe_ Mignot, held a ruined\nabbey at Scillieres, in Champagne, a hundred miles or so from Paris; and\nhere the body was secretly hurried off and interred. On the very day of\ninterment the Bishop of the diocese wrote to the Prior forbidding the\nburial. There was even some talk of having the body exhumed, and the\nclergy clamored for the expulsion of the Prior. Grimm relates that \"the\nplayers were forbidden to act M. de Voltaire's pieces till further\norders, the editors of the public papers to speak of his death in any\nterms, either favorable or unfavorable, and the preceptors of the\ncolleges to suffer any of their scholars to learn his verses.\"\n\nIn 1791, by a decree of the National Assembly and amid the acclamation\nof the people, his body was brought and placed in the Pantheon, where it\nrested beside that of Rousseau. At the Restoration in 1814 some bigoted\nRoyalist stole away the bones, which were thrown into a hole with lime\npoured on them.\n\nIn person Voltaire was always slim, with the long head which, Carlyle\nsays, \"is the best sign of intelligence.\" His thinness is commemorated\nby the poor but well-known epigram attributed to Young, and identifying\nhim at once with \"Satan, Death, and Sin.\" In old age he became a mere\nskeleton, with eyes of great brilliancy peering beneath his wig. He was\nsober and temperate save in coffee, which he drank as inveterately as\nJohnson did tea. Conversation and literature were, as with Johnson, the\ngods of his idolatry.\n\n\n\n\nHIS CHARACTER AND SERVICES\n\n\nBolingbroke finely said of Marlborough: \"He was so great a man that I\nforget his errors.\" One can as justly say the same of Voltaire. I have\nscant sympathy with those who, dealing with great men, seek every\nopportunity of bringing them down to the common level. Voltaire was by\nno means a faultless character. He was far indeed from being an\nimmaculate hero: he had the failings of his age and of his training. But\nthey form no essential part of his work. How much has been made of the\ncoarseness and immorality of Luther by men like Father Anderdon! All men\nhave the defects of their qualities. Condorcet, in his _Life of\nVoltaire_, has placed on record this just criticism: \"The happy\nqualities of Voltaire were often obscured and distorted by a natural\nmobility, aggravated by the habit of writing tragedies. He passed in a\nmoment from anger to sympathetic emotion; from indignation to\npleasantry. His passions, naturally violent, sometimes transported him\ntoo far; and his excessive mobility deprived him of the advantages\nordinarily attached to passionate tempers--firmness in conduct--courage\nwhich no terrors can withhold from action, and which no dangers,\nanticipated beforehand, can shake by their actual presence. Voltaire has\noften been seen to expose himself rashly to the storm--seldom to meet it\nwith fortitude. These alternations of audacity and weakness have often\nafflicted his friends, and prepared unworthy triumphs for his envenomed\nenemies.\"\n\nHe was too ready to lash the curs who barked at his heels, thereby\nstimulating them to further noise. Scandalous ex-Jesuit Desfontaines,\nL'Ane de Mirepoix, Thersites Freron and the rest, would be forgotten had\nhe not condescended to apply the whip. Voltaire was always something of\na spoilt child, over-sensitive to every reproach. His petulance impelled\nhim to absurd displays of weakness and frenzy, which he was the first to\nregret. He was generous even to his enemies when they were in trouble.\nThe weaknesses of Voltaire were, like his smile, on the surface, but\nthere was a great human heart beating beneath.\n\nThe restlessness of Voltaire has been contrasted with the repose of\nGoethe, and Gallic fury with calm Teutonic strength. But which of the\ntwo men did most for humanity? Voltaire might have been as calm as\nGoethe had he been indifferent to everything but his own culture and\ncomfort. No! he loved the fight. When the battle of freedom raged, there\nwas he in the thick of it, considering not his reputation, but what he\ncould do to crush the infamous. An enemy said of him: \"He is the first\nman in the world at writing down what other people have thought.\" Mr.\nMorley justly considers this high and sufficient praise.\n\nThe life of a writer was defined by Pope as \"a warfare upon earth.\"\nNever was this truer than in the case of Voltaire, who himself said:\n\"_La vie a'un homme de lettres est un combat perpetuel et on meurt les\narmes a la main._\" He was ever in the midst of the fight, and usually\nalone and surrounded by enemies. And his unfailing resources not merely\nkept them at bay, but compelled their surrender of an immense territory.\nHis was a life of creation and contest. In the war against despotism and\nChristianity he achieved a new kingship of public opinion, and proved\nthat the pen was indeed mightier than the sword.\n\nHeine said: \"We should forgive our enemies--but not until they are\nhung.\" Voltaire forgave his when he had gibbeted them in his writings.\nPeople who find it difficult to understand his bitterness against\n\"L'Infame\" should remember the revolting cruelty of which religious\nbigotry was still capable in his day. The Revocation of the Edict of\nNantes, the prolonged horrors of the Thirty Years' War, and the Massacre\nof St. Bartholomew vibrated still. Condorcet wrote: \"The blood of many\nmillions of men, massacred in the name of God, still steams up to heaven\naround us. The earth on which we tread is everywhere covered with the\nbones of the victims of barbarous intolerance.\" His rhetoric expressed\nthe feeling of a generation who knew by experience the evils of\nreligious bigotry and fanaticism.\n\nIt is as a champion of Freethought that Voltaire deserves chiefly to be\nremembered. In that capacity I can only find words of praise. Complaints\nof his flippancy, his _persiflage_, his ridicule, his scurrility, his\netc., came, and still come, from the enemy, and show that his blows told\nand tell. If he did not crush the infamous he at least crippled it. No\ndoubt, under different circumstances,\n\nVoltaire would have fought differently. But he would never have thought\nof treating atrocities without indignation, or absurdities without\nridicule. Gravity is a part of the game of imposture, and there is\nnothing the hypocrites and humbugs resent so much as having their solemn\npretensions laughed at. .\n\nHe knew the subtle power of ridicule. It was the most effective weapon,\nnot only for the time and the nation in which he wrote, but for our time\nalso. His blows were all dealt with grace and agility; his pills were\nsugar-coated. Grimm well said of him: \"He makes arrows of every kind of\nwood, brilliant and rapid in their flight, but with a keen, unerring\npoint. Under his sparkling pen, erudition ceases to be ponderous and\nbecomes full of life. If he cannot sweep the grand chords of the lyre,\nhe can j strike on golden medals his favorite maxims, and is j\nirreproachable in the lighter order of poetry.\" But, I contend, there\nwas a fundamental earnestness in his character; he was the apostle of\nplain every-day common sense and good feeling.\n\nVoltaire is judged by the character which distinguishes him from other\nwriters, his light touch and superficial raillery. Because he is _par\nexcellence_ a _persifleur_, he is set down as merely a _persifleur_.\nNever was there a greater mistake. It is forgotten that he did not write\nwitty tales and squibs only; that he made France acquainted with the\nphilosophy of Locke and the science of Newton; that he wrote the _Age of\nLouis XIV._, the _History of the Parliament of Paris_, and the _Essay on\nManners_ (which revived the historic method), and that he wrote more\nthan twenty tragedies which transformed the French theatre. Voltaire was\nno mere mocker: his _manner_ was that of a _persifleur_, but his matter\nwas as solid as that of any theologian.\n\nM. Louis de Brouckere, of the University of Brussels, justly claims for\nVoltaire a double share in the formation of modern culture and the\ndevelopment of modern science. He contributed to it directly by his\npersonal works, and indirectly by antagonising the forces retarding\nknowledge and creating an intellectual environment eminently favorable\nto the formation of synthetic knowledge, and a new public opinion common\nto the intellectual _elite_ of Europe.\n\nVoltaire knew how to marshal against reigning prejudices and errors all\nthe resources of vast learning and an incomparable wit; but no one more\nclearly than he saw that the doctrines he destroyed must be replaced by\nothers, that humanity cannot get along without a body of common beliefs;\nand he contributed more than any one else to the elaboration of the new\nintellectual code by uniting and harmonising the efforts of special\n_savants_ and isolated thinkers, by giving them a clear consciousness\nthat what they aimed at was the same thing and common to them all.\n\nHe never slackened his efforts to appease the quarrels which broke out\nin the camp of the philosophers, to group all his _spiritual brothers_\nin one compact bundle, capable of joint action, to unite them in a laic\n_church_ which could be utilised to oppose existing churches. The words\nI here italicise were underlined by him; they are found on every page of\nhis correspondence, and he loses no opportunity to reiterate them and\nexplain their meaning precisely.\n\nIf the publication of the _Encyclopoedia_ was the work of Diderot, the\nunion of the group of men who rendered that publication possible was, in\ngreat measure, the work of Voltaire. If Condorcet wrote just before his\ndeath his immortal _Sketch_, Voltaire took a preponderating part in the\ncreation of the intellectual atmosphere in which Condorcet lived and\ncould develop his genius.\n\nVoltaire was assuredly not so coarse as Luther, nor even as his\ncontemporary Warburton. He carried lighter guns than Luther, but was\nmore alert and equally persistent. His war against superstition and\nintolerance was life-long. Luther smote powerful blows at the church\nwith a bludgeon; Voltaire made delicate passes with a rapier. Catholics\noften declaim against the coarseness of the monk-trained Protestant\nchampion. They also protest against the trickery of the Jesuit-trained\nFreethinker. It is sufficient to say Luther could not have done his work\nhad he not been coarse. Nor could Voltaire have done his had he not been\na tricksy spirit. Judged by his work, he was one of the best of men,\nbecause he did most good to his fellows, and because in his heart was\nthe most burning love of truth, of justice and toleration. In the words\nof Lecky, he did \"more to destroy the greatest of human curses than any\nother of the sons of men.\" His numerous volumes are the fruit and\nexposition of a spirit of encyclopaedic curiosity. He assimilated all\nthe thought and learning of his time, and brought to bear on it a wit\nand common sense that was all his own.\n\nVoltaire is never so passionately in earnest as when he speaks against\ncruelty and oppression. Every sentence quivers with humanity. He\ndenounces war as no \"moralist for hire\" in a pulpit has ever done, as a\nscourge of the poor, the weak, and the helpless, to whom he is ever\ntender. Whenever he sees tyranny or injustice, he attacks it. He wrote\nagainst torture when its employment was an established principle of law.\nHe denounced duelling when that form of murder was the chief feature of\nthe code of honor. He waged warfare upon war when, it was considered\nman's highest glory.\n\nHis attacks on the judicial iniquity of torture--so often callously\nemployed on those supposed instruments of Satan, heretics and\nwitches--were incessant, and it was owing to his influence that the\npractice was abolished in France by Turgot, his friend, as it had been\nin Prussia by Frederick, and in Russia by Catherine, his disciples. He\nadvocated the abolition of mutilation, and all forms of cruelty in\npunishment. He satirised the folly of punishing murder and robbery by\nthe same capital penalty, and thus making assassination the interest of\nthe thief; the barbarity of confiscating the property of children for\nthe crime of the father; and the intricacies and consequent injustice of\nlegal methods. He sought to abolish the sale of offices, to equalise\ntaxation, and to restrict the power of priests to prescribe degrading\npenances and excessive abstinences. He wrote with fervor against the\nremnants of serfdom, and defended the rights of the serfs in the Jura\nagainst their monastic oppressors. Mr. Lecky says: \"His keen and\nluminous intellect judged with admirable precision most of the popular\ndelusions of his time. He exposed with great force the common error\nwhich confounds all wealth with the precious metals. He wrote against\nsumptuary laws. He refuted Rousseau's doctrine of the evil of all\nluxury.\"\n\nVoltaire's work went deeper than political reform. He dealt with ideas,\nnot institutions. In a little treatise called the _Voyage of Reason_,\nwhich he wrote as late as 1774, he enumerates with exultation the\ntriumphs of reforms which he himself had witnessed. He had previously\nwritten, in 1764: \"Everything I see scatters the seeds of a revolution\nwhich will indubitably arrive, and which I shall not have the happiness\nto witness.\" Buckle notes that \"the further he advanced in years, the\nmore pungent were his sarcasms against ministers, the more violent were\nhis invectives against despotism\"; and it was said of him in the early\ndays of the Revolution, when it was sanguine but not yet sanguinary, \"He\ndid not see what has been done, but he did all that we see.\"\n\nHe teaches no mystery, but the open secret of Secularism--_il faut\ncultiver notre jardin_ (we must cultivate our garden). \"Life,\" he said,\n\"is thickly sown with thorns. I know no other remedy than to pass\nrapidly over them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is\ntheir power to harm us.\" Economy, he declared, is the source of\nliberality, and this maxim he reduced to practice. He ridiculed all\npretences; those of the physician as well as of the metaphysician. \"What\nhave you undertaken?\" he said, smiling, to a young man, who answered\nthat he was studying medicine. \"Why, to convey drugs of which you know\nlittle into a body of which you know less!\" \"Regimen,\" said he, \"is\nbetter than physic. Everyone should be his own physician. Eat with\nmoderation what you know by experience agrees with your constitution.\nNothing is good for the body but what we can digest. What medicine can\nprocure digestion? Exercise. What recruit strength? Sleep. What\nalleviate incurable evils? Patience.\"\n\nThe tone of Voltaire is not fervid or heroic, like, for instance, that\nof Carlyle; but he worked, as Carlyle did not, for a great cause. He\nfelt for suffering outside himself. Without mysticism or fanaticism,\naiming at no remote or impracticable ideal, he ever insisted on meeting\nthe problems of life with practical good sense, toleration, and\nhumanity. He sought always for clear ideas, tangible results, and as Mr.\nLecky says, \"labored steadily within the limits of his ideals and of his\nsympathies, to make the world wiser, happier, and better place than he\nfound it.\"\n\nVoltaire wrote: \"My motto is, 'Straight to the fact,'\" and this was a\ncharacteristic which equally marked him and Frederick. He had a horror\nof phrases. \"Your fine phrases,\" said one to him. \"My fine phrases!\nLearn that I never made one in my life.\" His style is indeed marked by\nrestraint and simplicity of diction. He wrote to D'Alembert: \"You will\nnever succeed in delivering men from error by means of metaphysics. You\nmust prove the truth by facts.\" As an instance of his apt mingling of\nfact with reason and ridicule, take his treatment of the doctrine of the\nResurrection in the _Philosophical Dictionary_. \"A Breton soldier goes\nto Canada. He finds by chance he falls short of food. He is forced to\neat an Iroquois he has killed over-night. This Iroquois had nourished\nhimself on Jesuits during two or three months, a great part of his body\nhas become Jesuit. So there is the body of this soldier composed of\nIroquois, Jesuit, and whatever he had eaten before. How will each resume\nprecisely what belonged to him?\"\n\nMagnify his failings as you may, you cannot obliterate his one\ntranscendent merit, his humanity ever responsive to every claim of\nsuffering or wrong. He stood for the rights of conscience, for the\ndignity of human reason, for the gospel of Freethought.\n\nVoltaire may not be placed with the great inspiring teachers of mankind.\nBut it must be acknowledged that, as Mr. George Saintsbury, no mean\ncritic, says: \"In literary craftsmanship, at once versatile and\naccomplished, he has no superior and scarcely a rival.\"\n\nHe declared that he loved the whole of the nine Muses, and that the\ndoors of the soul should be open to all sciences and all sentiments. He\nemployed every species of composition--poetry, prose, tragedy, comedy,\nhistory, dialogue, epistle, essay or epigram--as it suited his purpose,\nand he excelled in all. Argument or raillery came alike. He made reason\namusing, and none like him could ridicule the ridiculous. His charm as a\nwriter has been the occasion of the obloquy attached to his name by\nbigots. They can never forgive that he forced people to smile at their\nsuperstition.\n\nMuch, of course, of Voltaire's multitudinous work was directed to\nimmediate ends, and but for his grace of style would be of little\npresent interest. But after all winnowings by the ever-swaying fan of\ntime much is left of enduring value. The name of Voltaire will ever be a\nmighty one in literature: a glorious example of what a man may achieve\nwho is strong in his love of humanity.\n\n\n\n\nTRIBUTES TO VOLTAIRE\n\n\nAs a contrast to the views of Dr. Johnson and De Maistre, which for\ngenerations represented the current opinion of Protestants and\nCatholics, I bring together a few independent testimonies. As time goes\non his admirers increase in volume, while his detractors now are mainly\nthose who have an interest in or secret sympathy with the abuses he\ndestroyed. And first, I will give the testimony of Goldsmith who had met\nhim. It was written while Voltaire was alive, but when a false report of\nhis death had been received in England. \"Should you look for the\ncharacter of Voltaire among the journalists and illiterate writers of\nthe age, you will find him there characterised as a monster, with a head\nturned to wisdom, and a heart inclining to vice--the powers of his mind\nand the baseness of his principles forming a detestable contrast. But\nseek for his character among writers like himself, and you will find him\nvery differently described. You perceive him, in their accounts,\npossessed of good nature, humanity, greatness of soul, fortitude, and\nalmost every virtue: in this description those who might be supposed\nbest acquainted with his character are unanimous. The royal Prussian,\nD'Argens, Diderot, D'Alembert, and Fontenelle conspire in drawing the\npicture, in describing the friend of man, and the patron of every rising\ngenius.\"\n\nLord Byron's lines on Voltaire and Gibbon (_Childe Harold_, iii.,\n105-107) are well known. He says:\n\n    They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim\n    Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile\n    Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame\n    Of Heaven again assail'd, if Heaven the while\n    On man and man's research could deign do more than smile.\n\n    The one was fire and fickleness, a child\n    Most mutable in wishes, but in mind\n    A wit as various,--gay, grave, sage, or wild,--\n    Historian, bard, philosopher, combined;\n    He multiplied himself among mankind,\n    The Proteus of their talents:\n    But his own\n    Breathed most in ridicule,--which, as the wind,\n    Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,--\n    Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.\n\n    The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought,\n    And having wisdom with each studious year,\n    In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought,\n    And shaped his weapon with an edge severe,\n    Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer;\n    The lord of iron,--that master-spell,\n    Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear,\n    And doom'd him to the zealot's ready Hell,\n    Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.\n\nWarton, the learned critic and author of a _History of Poetry_\n(Dissertation I.) remarked: \"Voltaire, a writer of much deeper research\nthan is imagined, and the first who has displayed the literature and\ncustoms of the dark ages with any degree of penetration and\ncomprehension.\" Robertson, the historian, similarly observed that, had\nVoltaire only given his authorities, \"many of his readers who only\nconsider him as an entertaining and lively writer would have found that\nhe is a learned and well informed historian.\"\n\nLord Holland wrote, in his account of the _Life and Writings of Lope de\nVega_: \"Till Voltaire appeared there was no nation more ignorant of its\nneighbors' literature than the French. He first exposed and then\ncorrected this neglect in his countrymen. There is no writer to whom the\nauthors of other nations, especially of England, are so indebted for the\nextension of their fame in France, and, through France, in Europe. There\nis no critic who has employed more time, wit, ingenuity, and diligence\nin promoting the literary intercourse between country and country, and\nin celebrating in one language the triumphs of another. His enemies\nwould fain persuade us that such exuberance of wit implies a want of\ninformation; but they only succeed in showing that a want of wit by no\nmeans implies an exuberance of information.\"\n\nGoethe said: \"Voltaire will ever be regarded as the greatest name in\nliterature in modern times, and perhaps even in all ages, as the most\nastonishing creation of nature, in which she united, in one frail human\norganisation, all the varieties of talent, all the glories of genius,\nall the potencies of thought. If you wish depth, genius, imagination,\ntaste, reason, sensibility, philosophy, elevation, originality, nature,\nintellect, fancy, rectitude, facility, flexibility, precision, art,\nabundance, variety, fertility, warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an\neagle sweep of vision, vast understanding, instruction rich, tone\nexcellent, urbanity, suavity, delicacy, correctness, purity, cleanness,\neloquence, harmony, brilliancy, rapidity, gaiety, pathos, sublimity and\nuniversality--perfection indeed--behold Voltaire.\"\n\nLord Brougham, in his _Lives of Men of Letters and Science who\nflourished in the time of George III_., devotes a considerable section\nto Voltaire. After censuring \"the manner in which he devoted himself to\ncrying down the sacred things of his country,\" he continues: \"But,\nthough it would be exceedingly wrong to pass over this great and\nprevailing fault without severe reprobation, it would be equally unjust,\nnay, ungrateful, ever to forget the immense obligations under which\nVoltaire has laid mankind by his writings, the pleasure derived from his\nfancy and his wit, the amusement which his singular and original humor\nbestows, even the copious instruction with which his historical works\nare pregnant, and the vast improvement in the manner of writing history\nwhich we owe to him. Yet, great as these services are--among the\ngreatest that can be rendered by a man of letters--they are really of\nfar inferior value to the benefits which have resulted from his long and\narduous struggle against oppression, especially against tyranny in the\nworst form which it can assume, the persecution of opinion, the\ninfraction of the sacred right to exercise the reason upon all subjects,\nunfettered by prejudice, uncontrolled by authority, whether of great\nnames or of temporal power.\"\n\nMacaulay, in his _Essay on Frederick the Great_, observes: \"In truth, of\nall the intellectual weapons which have ever been wielded by man, the\nmost terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots and tyrants, who had\nnever been moved by the wailing and cursing of millions, turned pale at\nhis name.\"\n\nCarlyle, in his depreciatory essay, acknowledged: \"Perhaps there is no\nwriter, not a mere compiler, but writing from his own invention or\nelaboration, who has left so many volumes behind him; and if to the\nmerely arithmetical we add a critical estimate, the singularity is still\ngreater; for these volumes are not written without an appearance of due\ncare and preparation; perhaps there is not one altogether feeble and\nconfused treatise, nay, one feeble and confused sentence to be found in\nthem.\" And at the end he admits: \"He gave the death-stab to modern\nSuperstition! _That_ horrid incubus, which dwelt in darkness, shunning\nthe light, is passing away; with all its racks and poison chalices, and\nfoul sleeping-draughts, is passing away without return. It was a most\nweighty service.\"\n\nOne of the strangest of tributes to Voltaire is that from Ruskin, the\ndisciple of Carlyle. In his _Fors Clavigera_ (vol. viii., p. 76) he\nsays: \"There are few stronger adversaries to St. George than Voltaire.\nBut my scholars are welcome to read as much of Voltaire as they like.\nHis voice is mighty among the ages.\"\n\nDr. D. F. Strauss wrote: \"Voltaire's historical significance has been\nillustrated by the observation of Goethe that, as in families whose\nexistence has been of long duration, Nature sometimes at length produces\nan individual who sums up in himself the collective qualities of all his\nancestors, so it happens also with nations, whose collective merits (and\ndemerits) sometimes appear epitomised in one individual person. Thus in\nLouis XIV. stood forth the highest figure of a French monarch. Thus, in\nVoltaire, the highest conceivable and congenial representative of French\nauthorship. We may extend the observation farther, if, instead of the\nFrench nation only, we take into view the whole European generation on\nwhich Voltaire's influence was exercised. From this point of view we may\ncall Voltaire emphatically the representative writer of the eighteenth\ncentury, as Goethe called him, in the highest sense, the representative\nwriter of France.\"\n\nVictor Hugo, in the magnificent oration which he pronounced on the\ncentenary of Voltaire's death, said: \"Voltaire waged the splendid kind\nof warfare, the war of one alone against all--that is to say, the grand\nwarfare; the war of thought against matter; the war of reason against\nprejudice; the war of the just against the unjust; the war of the\noppressed against the oppressor; the war of goodness; the war of\nkindness. He had the tenderness of a woman and the wrath of a hero. He\nwas a great mind and an immense heart. He conquered the old code and the\nold dogma. He conquered the feudal lord, the Gothic judge, the Roman\npriest. He raised the populace to the dignity of people. He taught,\npacified, and civilised. He fought for Sirven and Montbailly, as for\nCalas and La Barre. He accepted all the menaces, all the persecutions,\ncalumny, and exile. He was indefatigable and immovable. He conquered\nviolence by a smile, despotism by sarcasm, infallibility by irony,\nobstinacy by perseverance, ignorance by truth.\"\n\nBuckle, in his _History of Civilisation_ (vol. ii., p. 304) says: \"It\nwould be impossible to relate all the original remarks of Voltaire,\nwhich, when he made them, were attacked as dangerous paradoxes, and are\nnow valued as sober truths. He was the first historian who recommended\nuniversal freedom of trade; and although he expresses himself with great\ncaution, still, the mere announcement of the idea is a popular history\nforms an epoch in the progress of the French mind. He is the originator\nof that important distinction between the increase of population and the\nincrease of food, to which political economy has been greatly indebted,\na principle adopted several years later by Townsend, and then used by\nMalthus as the basis of his celebrated work. He has, moreover, the merit\nof being the first who dispelled the childish admiration with which the\nMiddle Ages had been hitherto regarded. In his works the Middle Ages are\nfor the first time represented as what they really were--a period of\nignorance, ferocity, and licentiousness; a period when injuries were\nunredressed, crime unpunished, and superstition unrebuked.\" Again (page\n308): \"No one reasoned more closely than Voltaire when reasoning suited\nhis purpose. But he had to deal with men impervious to argument; men\nwhose inordinate reverence for antiquity had only left them two ideas,\nnamely, that everything old is right, and that everything new is wrong.\nTo argue against these opinions would be idle indeed; the only other\nresource was to make them ridiculous, and weaken their influence by\nholding up their authors to contempt. This was one of the tasks Voltaire\nset himself to perform; and he did it well. He therefore used ridicule,\nnot as the test of truth, but as the scourge of folly. And with such\neffect was the punishment administered that not only did the pedants and\ntheologians of his own time wince under the lash, but even their\nsuccessors feel their ears tingle when they read his biting words; and\nthey revenge themselves by reviling the memory of the great writer whose\nworks are as a thorn in their side, and whose very name they hold in\nundisguised abhorrence.\"\n\nMr. Lecky, in his _History of Rationalism in Europe_ (vol. ii., p. 66)\nsays: \"Voltaire was at all times the unflinching opponent of\npersecution. No matter how powerful was the persecutor, no matter how\ninsignificant was the victim, the same scathing eloquence was launched\nagainst the crime, and the indignation of Europe was soon concentrated\nupon the oppressor. The fearful storm of sarcasm and invective that\navenged the murder of Calas, the magnificent dream in the _Philosophical\nDictionary_ reviewing the history of persecution from the slaughtered\nCanaanites to the latest victim who had perished at the stake, the\nindelible stigma branded upon the persecutors of every age and of every\ncreed, all attested the intense and passionate earnestness with which\nVoltaire addressed himself to his task. On other subjects a jest or a\ncaprice could often turn him aside. When attacking intolerance he\nemployed, indeed, every weapon; but he employed them all with the\nconcentrated energy of a profound conviction. His success was equal to\nhis zeal; the spirit of intolerance sank blasted beneath his genius.\nWherever his influence passed, the arm of the inquisitor was palsied,\nthe chain of the captive riven, the prison door flung open. Beneath his\nwithering irony, persecution appeared not only criminal but loathsome,\nand since his time it has ever shrunk from observation and masked its\nfeatures under other names. He died, leaving a reputation that is indeed\nfar from spotless, but having done more to destroy the greatest of human\ncurses than any other of the sons of men.\"\n\nMr. Lecky, in his _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_ (v.,\n312), observes: \"No previous writer can compare with him in the wideness\nand justness of his conceptions of history, and even now no historian\ncan read without profit his essays on the subject. No one before had so\nstrongly urged that history should not be treated as a collection of\npictures or anecdotes relating to courts or battles, but should be made\na record and explanation of the true development of nations, of the\ncauses of their growth and decay, of their characteristic virtues and\nvices, of the changes that pass over their laws, customs, opinions,\nsocial and economical conditions, and over the relative importance and\nwell-being of their different classes... (p. 315). Untiring industry, an\nextraordinary variety of interests and aptitudes, a judgment at once\nsound, moderate, and independent, a rare power of seizing in every\nsubject the essential argument or facts, a disposition to take no old\nopinions on trust and to leave no new opinions unexamined, combined in\nhim with the most extraordinary literary talent. Never, perhaps, was\nthere an intellect at once so luminous, versatile, and flexible, which\nproduced so much, which could deal with such a vast range of difficult\nsubjects without being ever obscure, tangled, or dull.\"\n\nColonel Hamley wrote: \"But after the winnowings of generations, a wide\nand deep repute still remains to him; nor will any diminution which it\nmay have suffered be without compensation, for, with the fading of old\nprejudices, and with better knowledge, his name will be regarded with\nincreased liking and respect. Yet it must not be supposed that he is\nhere held up as a pattern man. He was, indeed, an infinitely better one\nthan the religious bigots of that time. He believed, with far better\neffect on his practice than they could boast, in a Supreme Ruler. He was\nthe untiring and eloquent advocate at the bar of the universe of the\nrights of humanity.\"\n\nMr. Swinburne has well expressed this characteristic. \"Voltaire's great\nwork,\" he says, \"was to have done more than any other man on record to\nmake the instinct of cruelty not only detestable, but ludicrous; and so\nto accomplish what the holiest and the wisest of saints and philosophers\nhad failed to achieve: to attack the most hideous and pernicious of\nhuman vices with a more effective weapon than preaching and\ndenunciation: to make tyrants and torturers look not merely horrible and\nhateful, but pitiful and ridiculous.\"\n\nEdgar Quinet, in his lectures on the Church, says: \"I watch for forty\nyears the reign of one man who is himself the spiritual direction, not\nof his country, but of his age. From the corner of his chamber he\ngoverns the realm of mind. Everyday intellects are regulated by his; one\nword written by his hand traverses Europe. Princes love and kings fear\nhim. Nations repeat the words that fall from his pen. Who exercises this\nincredible power which has nowhere been seen since the Middle Ages? Is\nhe another Gregory VII? Is he a Pope? No--Voltaire.\"\n\nAnd Lamartine, in similar strain, remarks: \"If we judge of men by what\nthey have _done_, then Voltaire is incontestibly the greatest writer of\nmodern Europe. No one has caused, through the powerful influence of his\ngenius alone and the perseverance of his will, so great a commotion in\nthe minds of men. His pen aroused a sleeping world, and shook a far\nmightier empire than that of Charlemagne, the European empire of a\ntheocracy. His genius was not _force_, but _light_. Heaven had destined\nhim not to destroy, but to illuminate; and wherever he trod, light\nfollowed him, for Reason--which is light--had destined him to be, first\nher poet, then her apostle, and lastly her idol.\"\n\nMr. Alexander A. Knox, writing in the _Nineteenth Century_ (October\n1882), says: \"That the man's aspirations were in the main noble and\nhonorable to humanity, I am sure. I am equally so that few men have\nexercised so great an influence upon their fellow creatures.... The\nwonderful old man! When he was past eighty years of age he set to work,\nlike another Jeremy Bentham, to abolish the admission of hearsay\nevidence into French legal proceedings. But his great work was that by\nhis wit and irony he broke down the _principle of authority_ which had\nbeen so foully abused in France. Would the most strictly religious man\nwish to see religion as it was in France in the eighteenth century?\nWould the greatest stickler for authority wish to find a country\ngoverned as France was governed in the days of Voltaire?\"\n\nDu Bois-Reymond, the eminent German scientist, remarks: \"Voltaire is so\nlittle to us at present because the things he fought for, 'toleration,\nspiritual freedom, human dignity, justice,' have become, as it were, the\nair we breathe, and do not think of except when we are deprived of it.\"\n\nCol. R. G. Ingersoll, in his fine _Oration on Voltaire_, observes:\n\"Voltaire was perfectly equipped for his work. A perfect master of the\nFrench language, knowing all its moods, tenses, and declinations--in\nfact and in feeling playing upon it as skilfully as Paganini on his\nviolin, finding expression for every thought and fancy, writing on the\nmost serious subjects with the gaiety of a harlequin, plucking jests\nfrom the mouth of death, graceful as the waving of willows, dealing in\ndouble meanings that covered the asp with flowers and flattery, master\nof satire and compliment, mingling them often in the same line, always\ninterested himself, therefore interesting others, handling thoughts,\nquestions, subjects as a juggler does balls, keeping them in the air\nwith perfect ease, dressing old words in new meanings, charming,\ngrotesque, pathetic, mingling mirth with tears, wit and wisdom, and\nsometimes wickedness, logic and laughter. With a woman's instinct,\nknowing the sensitive nerves--just where to touch--hating arrogance of\nplace, the stupidity, of the solemn, snatching masks from priest and\nking, knowing the springs of action and ambition's ends, perfectly\nfamiliar with the great world, the intimate of kings and their\nfavorites, sympathising with the oppressed and imprisoned, with the\nunfortunate and poor, hating tyranny, despising superstition, and loving\nliberty with all his heart. Such was Voltaire, writing _OEdipus_ at\nseventeen, _Irene_ at eighty-three, and crowding between these two\ntragedies the accomplishment of a thousand lives.\"\n\nThe Right Hon. John Morley testifies: \"Voltaire was the very eye of\nmodern illumination. It was he who conveyed to his generation in a\nmultitude of forms the consciousness at once of the power and the rights\nof human intelligence. Another might well have said of him what he\nmagnanimously said of his famous contemporary, Montesquieu, that\nhumanity had lost its title-deeds, and he had recovered them. The\nfour-score volumes which he wrote are the monument, as they were the\ninstrument, of a new renascence. They are the fruit and representation\nof a spirit of encyclopaedic curiosity and productiveness. Hardly a page\nof all these countless leaves is common form. Hardly a sentence is there\nwhich did not come forth alive from Voltaire's own mind, or which was\nsaid because some one else had said it before. Voltaire was a stupendous\npower, not only because his expression was incomparably lucid, or even\nbecause his sight was exquisitely keen and clear, but because he saw\nmany new things, after which the spirits of others were unconsciously\ngroping and dumbly yearning. Nor was this all. Voltaire was ever in the\nfront and centre of the fight. His life was not a mere chapter in a\nhistory of literature. He never counted truth a treasure to be\ndiscreetly hidden in a napkin. He made it a perpetual war cry, and\nemblazoned it on a banner that was many a time rent, but was never out\nof the field.\" We may fitly conclude with Browning's incisive lines in\n_The Two Poets of Croisie_:--\n\n    _\"Ay, sharpest, shrewdest steel that ever stabbed_\n\n    _To death Imposture through the armour joints.\"_\n\n\n\n\nSELECTIONS FROM VOLTAIRE'S WORKS\n\n\n\n\nHistory\n\n\nThe world is old, but history is of yesterday.--_Melanges Historiques_.\n\nIf you would put to profit the present time, one must not spend his life\nin propagating ancient fables.--_Ibid_.\n\nA mature man who has serious business does not repeat the tales of his\nnurse.--_Ibid_.\n\nSearch through all nations and you will not find one whose history does\nnot begin with stories worthy of the Four Sons of Aymon and of Robert\nthe Devil.--_Politique et Legislation._\n\nAncient histories are enigmas proposed by antiquity to posterity, which\nunderstands them not--_Dict. Phil._ (Art. \"Histoire\").\n\nA real fact is of more value than a hundred antitheses.--_Melanges\nHistoriques_.\n\nI have a droll idea. It is that only people who have written tragedies\ncan throw interest into our dry and barbarous history. There is\nnecessary in a history, as in a drama, exposition, knotty plot, and\n_denouement_, with agreeable episode.--_Corr. gen._ 1740.\n\nThey have made but the history of the kings, not that of the nation. It\nseems that during fourteen hundred years there were only kings,\nministers, and generals among the Gauls. But our morals, our laws, our\ncustoms, our intelligence--are these then nothing?--_Corr_., 1740.\n\nIs fraud sanctified by being antiquated?--_Sottisier_.\n\nI have ever esteemed it charlatanry to paint, other than by facts,\npublic men with whom we have had no connection.--_Corr. gen._, 1752.\n\nIf one surveys the history of the world, one finds weaknesses punished,\nbut great crimes fortunate, and the world is a vast scene of brigandages\nabandoned to fortune.--_Essai sur les Moeurs_, c. 191.\n\nSince the ancient Romans, I have known no nation enriched by\nvictories.--_Contant d' Orville_, i. 337.\n\nTo buy peace from an enemy is to furnish him with the sinews of\nwar.--_Ibid_, p. 334.\n\nThe grand art of surprising, killing, and robbing is a heroism of the\nhighest antiquity.--_Dial_. 24.\n\nMurderers are punished, unless they kill in grand company to the sound\nof trumpets; that is the rule.--_Dict. Phil_. (Art. \"Droit\").\n\nWe formerly made war in order to eat; but in the long run, all the\nadmirable institutions degenerate.--_Dial._ 24.\n\nIt suffices often that a mad Minister of State shall have bitten another\nMinister for the rabies to be communicated in a few months to five\nhundred thousand men.--_Ibid_.\n\nIn this world there (are) only offensive wars; defensive ones are only\nresistance to armed robbers.--_Ibid._\n\nTwenty volumes in folio never yet made a revolution. It is the portable\nlittle shilling books that are to be feared. If the Gospel cost twelve\nhundred sesterces, the Christian religion would never have been\nestablished.--_Correspondence with D1 Alembert_, 1765.\n\n\n\n\nWars\n\n\nC.: What, you do not admit there are just wars?\n\nA.: I have never known any of the kind; to me it appears contradictory\nand impossible.\n\nC.: What! when the Pope Alexander VI. and his infamous son Borgia\npillaged the Roman States, strangled and poisoned the lords of the land,\nwhile according them indulgences: was it not permissible to arm against\nthese monsters?\n\nA.: Do you not see that it was these monsters who made war? Those who\ndefended themselves from aggression but sustained it. There are\nconstantly only offensive wars in this world; the defensive is nothing\nbut resistance to armed robbers.\n\nC.: You mock us. Two princes dispute an heritage, their right is\nlitigious, their reasons equally plausible; it is necessary then that\nwar should decide, and this war is just on both sides.\n\nA.: It is you who mock. It is physically impossible that both are right,\nand it is absurd and barbarous that the people should perish because one\nof these two princes has reasoned badly. Let them fight together in a\nclosed field if they wish, but that an entire people should be\nsacrificed to their interests, there is the horror.--_l' A.B.C._\n\n\n\n\nPolitics\n\n\nThey have discovered in their fine politics the art of causing those to\ndie of hunger who, by cultivating the earth, give the means of life to\nothers.--_Sottisier._\n\nSociety has been too long like a game of cards, where the rogues cheat\nthe dupes, while sensible people dare not warn the losers that they are\ndeceived.--_Questions sur les Miracles_.\n\nThey have only inculcated belief in absurdities to men in order to\nsubdue them.--_Ibid._\n\nThe most tolerable of all governments is doubtless the republican, since\nthat approaches the nearest towards natural equality.--_Idees\nRepublicaines._\n\nA Republican is ever more attached to his country than a subject to his,\nfor the same reason that one loves better his own possessions than those\nof a master.--_Pensees sur le Gouvernement._\n\nGive too much power to anybody and be sure they will abuse it. Were the\nmonks of La Trappe spread throughout the world, let them confess\nprincesses, educate youth, preach and write, and in about ten years they\nwould be similar to the Jesuits, and it would be necessary to repress\nthem.--_Mel. Balance Egale_.\n\nWhat are politics beyond the art of lying a propos?--_Contant\nD'Orville_.\n\n\"Reasons of State\" is a phrase invented to serve as excuse for\ntyrants.--_Commentaire sur le traite des Delits._\n\nThe best government is that where there are the fewest useless\nmen.--Dial. 4.\n\nMan is born free. The best government is that which most preserves to\neach mortal this gift of nature.--_Histoire de Russie_.\n\nTo be free, to have only equals, is the true life, the natural life of\nman; all other is an unworthy artifice, a poor comedy, where one plays\nthe role of master, the other of slave, this one a parasite, and that\nother a pander.--_Dial. 24._\n\nWhy is liberty so rare? Because it is the best possession.--_Dict.\nPhil_. (\"Venise\").\n\nThose who say that all men are equal, say truth if they mean that men\nhave an equal right to liberty, to the property of their own goods, and\nthe protection of the laws. They are much deceived if they think that\nmen should be equal in their employments, since they are not so by their\nfaculties.--_Essai sur les Moeurs_, i.\n\nDespotism is the punishment of the bad conduct of men. If a community is\nmastered by one man or by several, it is plainly because it has not the\ncourage and ability necessary for self-government.--_Idees\nRepublic-aines_, 1765.\n\nI do not give myself up to my fellow-citizens without reserve. I do not\ngive them the power to kill or to rob me by plurality of votes. I submit\nto help them, and to be aided, to do justice, and to receive it. No\nother agreement.--_Notes on Rousseau's \"Social Contract\"_\n\n\n\n\nThe Population Question\n\n\n_The Man of Forty Crowns_: I have heard much talk of population. Were we\nto take it into our heads to beget double the number of children we now\ndo; were our country doubly peopled, so that we had forty millions of\ninhabitants instead of twenty, what would happen?\n\n_The Geometrician_: Each would have, instead of forty, but twenty crowns\nto live upon; or the land would have to produce the double of what it\nnow does; or there would be the double of the nation's industry, or of\ngain from foreign countries; or one half of the nation sent to America;\nor the one half of the nation should eat the other.--_The Man of Forty\nCrowns._\n\n\n\n\nNature's Way\n\n\nNature cares very little for individuals. There are other insects which\ndo not live above one day, but of which the species is perpetual. Nature\nresembles those great princes who reckon as nothing the loss of four\nhundred thousand men, so they but accomplish their august designs.--\n_The Man of Forty Crowns._\n\n\n\n\nPrayer\n\n\nWhen the man of forty crowns saw himself the father of a son, he began\nto think himself a man of some weight in the state; he hoped to furnish,\nat least, ten subjects to the king, who should all prove useful. He made\nthe best baskets in the world, and his wife was an excellent sempstress.\nShe was born in the neighborhood of a rich abbey of a hundred thousand\nlivres a year. Her husband asked me, one day, why those gentlemen, who\nwere so few in number, had swallowed so many of the forty crown lots?\n\"Are they more useful to their country than I am?\"--\"No, dear\nneighbor.\"--\"Do they, like me, contribute at least to the population of\nit?\"--\"No, not to appearance, at least.\"--\"Do they cultivate the land?\nDo they defend the state when it is attacked?\"--\"No, they pray to God\nfor us.\"--\"Well, then, I will pray to God for them, and let us go\nsnacks.\"--_The Man of Forty Crowns._\n\n\n\n\nDoubt and Speculation\n\n\n_The Man of Forty Crowns_: I have sometimes a great mind to laugh at all\nI have been told.\n\n_The Geometrician_: And a very good mind it is. I advise you to doubt of\neverything, except that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two\nright ones, and that triangles which have the same bases and height are\nequal to one another; or like propositions, as, for example, that two\nand two make four.\n\n_The Man of Forty Crowns_: Yes; I hold it very wise to doubt; but I am\ncurious since I have made my fortune and have leisure. I could wish,\nwhen my will moves my arm or my leg, to discover the spring, for surely\nthere is one, by which my will moves them. I wonder sometimes why I can\nlift or lower my eyes, yet cannot move my ears. I think--and I wish I\ncould know a little how--I mean,--there, to have my thought palpable to\nme, to touch it, as it were. That would surely be very curious. I want\nto find out whether I think from myself, or whether it is God that gives\nme my ideas; whether my soul came into my body at six weeks, or at one\nday old; how it lodged itself in my brain; whether I think much when in\na profound sleep, or in a lethargy. I torture my brains to know how one\nbody impels another. My sensations are no less a wonder to me; I find\nsomething divine in them, and especially in pleasure. I have striven\nsometimes to imagine a new sense, but could never arrive at it.\nGeometricians know all these things; kindly be so good as to teach me.\n\n_The Geometrician_: Alas! We are as ignorant as you. Apply to the\nSorbonne.\n\n\n\n\nDr. Pangloss and the Dervish\n\n\nIn the neighborhood lived a very famous dervish, who was deemed the best\nphilosopher in Turkey; him they went to consult. Pangloss was spokesman\nand addressed him thus:--\n\n\"Master, we come to beg you to tell us why so strange an animal as man\nhas been formed?\"\n\n\"Why do you trouble your head about it?\" said the dervish; \"is it any\nbusiness of yours?\"\n\n\"But, reverend father,\" said Candide, \"there is a horrible amount of\nevil on the earth.\"\n\n\"What signifies it,\" says the dervish, \"whether there is evil or good?\nWhen His Highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble whether the rats\naboard are comfortable or not?\"\n\n\"What is to be done, then?\" says Pangloss.\n\n\"Be silent,\" answers the dervish.\n\n\"I flattered myself,\" replied Pangloss, \"to have reasoned a little with\nyou on causes and effects, the best of possible worlds, the origin of\nevil, the nature of the soul, and on pre-established harmony.\"\n\nAt these words the dervish shut the door in their faces.--_Candide_.\n\n\n\n\nMotives for Conduct\n\n\n_Countess_: Apropos, I have forgotten to ask your opinion upon a matter\nwhich I read yesterday in a story by these good Mohammedans, which much\nstruck me. Hassan, son of Ali, being bathing, one of his slaves threw\nover him by accident some boiling water. His servants wished to impale\nthe culprit. Hassan, instead, gave him twenty pieces of gold. \"There\nis,\" said he, \"a degree of glory in Paradise for those who repay\nservices, a greater one for those who forgive evil, and a still greater\none for those who recompense involuntary evil.\" What think you of his\naction and his speech?\n\n_The Count_: I recognise there my good Moslems of the first ages.\n\n_Abbe_: And I, my good Christians.\n\n_M. Freret_: And I am sorry that the scalded Hassan, son of Ali, should\nhave given twenty pieces of gold in order to have glory in Paradise. I\ndo not like interested fine actions. I should have wished that Hassan\nhad been sufficiently virtuous and humane to have consoled the despair\nof the slave without even dreaming of being placed in the third rank in\nParadise.--_Le Diner du Comte de Boulainvilliers_.\n\n\n\n\nSelf-Love\n\n\nSelf-love and all its off-shoots are as necessary to man as the blood\nwhich flows in his veins. Those who would take away his passions because\nthey are dangerous resemble those who would deplete a man of all his\nblood lest he should fall into apoplexy.--_Traite de Metaphysique._\n\n\n\n\nGo From Your Village\n\n\nA stupid said: \"I must think like my _bonze_ (priest), for all my\nvillage agrees with him.\" Go from your village, poor man, and you will\nfind ten thousand others who have each their _bonze_, and who all think\ndifferently.\n\n\n\n\nReligious Prejudices\n\n\nIf your nurse has told you that Ceres presides over corn, or that Vishnu\nor Sakyamuni became men several times, or that Odin awaits you in his\nhall towards Jutland, or that Mohammed or some other travelled to\nHeaven; if, moreover, your preceptor deepens in your brain what the\nnurse, has engraved, you will hold it all your life. Should your\njudgment rise against these prejudices, your neighbors, above all your\nfemale neighbors, will cry out at the impiety and frighten you. Your\ndervish, fearing the diminution of his revenue, may accuse you before\nthe Cadi, and this Cadi impale you if he can, since he desires to rule\nover fools, believing fools obey better than others; and this will\nendure till your neighbors, and the dervish, and the Cadi begin to\nunderstand that folly is good for nothing and that persecution is\nabominable.--_Dictionnaire Philosophique_.\n\n\n\n\nSacred History\n\n\nI abandon to the declaimer Bossuet the politics of the Kings of Judah\nand Samaria, who only understood assassination, beginning with their\nKing David (who took to the trade of brigand to make himself king, and\nassassinated Uriah when he was his master); and to wise Solomon, who\nbegan by assassinating Adonijah, his own brother, at the foot of the\naltar. I am tired of the absurd pedantry which consecrates the history\nof such a people to the instruction of children.--_l'A.B.C._\n\n\n\n\nDupe And Rogue\n\n\nAre there theologians of good faith? Yes, as there have been men who\nbelieved themselves sorcerers.--_Le Diner du Comte de Boulainvilliers._\n\nEnthusiasm begins, roguery ends. It is with religion as with gambling.\nOne begins by being dupe, one ends by being rogue.--_Le Diner du Comte\nde Boulainvilliers._\n\nEvery country has its bonzes. But I recognise that there are as many of\nthem deceived as deceivers. The majority are those blinded by enthusiasm\nin their youth, and who never recover sight; there are others who have\npreserved one eye, and see all squintingly. These are the stupid\ncharlatans.--_Entre deux Chinois._\n\n\n\n\n\"Delenda Est Carthago\"\n\n\nTheology must absolutely be destroyed, just as judicial astrology,\nmagic, the divining rod, and the Star Chamber have been\ndestroyed.--_l'A.B.C._\n\n\n\n\nJesus and Mohammed\n\n\n_L'Abbe_: How could Christianity have established itself so high if it\nhad nothing but fanaticism and fraud at its base?\n\n_Le Comte_: And how did Mohammedanism establish itself. Mohammed at\nleast could write and fight, and Jesus knew neither writing nor\nself-defence. Mohammed had the courage of Alexander, with the mind of\nNuma; and your Jesus, sweat, blood, and water. Mohammedanism has never\nchanged, while you have changed your religion twenty times. There is\nmore difference between it, as it is to-day, from what it was in the\nfirst ages, than there is between your customs and those of King\nDagobert.--_Le Diner du Comte de Boulainvilliers._\n\n\n\n\nHow Faiths Spread\n\n\nBut how do you think, then, that my religion became established? Like\nall the rest. A man of strong imagination made himself followed by some\npersons of weak imagination. The flock increased; fanaticism commences,\nfraud achieves. A powerful man comes; he sees a crowd, ready bridled and\nwith a bit in its teeth; he mounts and leads it.--_Dial, et entr. ph.,\nDialogue 19._\n\n\n\n\nSuperstition\n\n\nThe superstitious man is to the knave what the slave is to the tyrant;\nnay, further, the superstitious man is governed by the fanatic, and\nbecomes one.--_Dict. Phil. (Art. \"Superstition\")_.\n\n\n\n\nThe Bible\n\n\nIf there are many difficulties we cannot solve, mysteries we cannot\ncomprehend, adventures which we cannot credit, prodigies which display\nthe credulity of the human mind, and contradictions which it is\nimpossible to reconcile, it is in order to exercise our faith and\nto-humiliate our reason.--_Dict. Phil._ (Art. \"Contradictions\").\n\n\n\n\nTransubstantiation\n\n\nJulius II. makes and eats God; but with armor on his back and helmet on\nhis head he wades in blood and carnage. Leo X. holds God in his body,\nhis mistresses in his arms, and the money extorted by the sale of\nindulgences in his coffers, and those of his sister.--_Dict. Phil._\n(Art. \"Eucharist\").\n\n\n\n\nDreams and Ghosts\n\n\nHave you not found, like me, that they are the origin of the opinion so\ngenerally diffused throughout antiquity touching spectres and manes? A\nman deeply afflicted at the death of his wife, or his son, sees them in\nhis sleep; they have the same characteristics; he speaks to them, they\nreply; they have certainly appeared to him. Other men have had similar\ndreams. It is impossible, then, to doubt that the dead return; but it is\ncertain at the same time that these dead--whether buried or reduced to\nashes, or lost at sea--could not reappear in their bodies. It is, then,\ntheir soul that has been seen. This soul must be extended, light,\nimpalpable, since in speaking with it we cannot embrace it. _Effugit\nimago per levibus vetitis_ (Virgil). It is moulded, designed upon the\nbody which it habited, since it perfectly resembles it. It is given the\nname of shade or manes, and from all this a confused idea remains in the\nhead, which perpetuates itself all the better because nobody understands\nit.--_Dict. Phil._ (Art. \"Somnambulists and Dreams\" ).\n\n\n\n\nMortifying the Flesh\n\n\nHad vanity never any share in the public mortifications which attended\nthe eyes of the multitude? \"I scourge myself, but 'tis to expiate your\nfaults; I go stark naked, but 'tis to reproach the luxury of your\ngarments; I feed on herbs and snails to correct your vice of gluttony; I\nput an iron ring on my body to make you blush at your lewdness.\nReverence me as a man cherished by the gods, who can draw down their\nfavors on you. When accustomed to reverence, it will not be hard to obey\nme; I become your master in the name of the gods; and if you transgress\nmy will in the least particular, I will have you impaled to appease the\nwrath of heaven.\" If the first fakirs did not use these words, they\nprobably had them engraven at the bottom of their hearts.--_Dict. Phil._\n(Art. \"Austerities\").\n\n\n\n\nHeaven\n\n\n_Kon._: What is meant by \"the heaven and the earth: mount up to heaven,\nbe worthy of heaven\"?\n\n_Cu Su._: 'Tis but stupidity, there is no heaven; each planet is\nsurrounded by its atmosphere, and rolls in space around its sun. Each\nsun is the centre of several planets which travel continually around it.\nThere is no up nor down, ascension nor descent. You perceive that if the\ninhabitants of the moon said that some one ascended to the earth, that\none must render himself worthy of earth, he would talk nonsense. We do\nso likewise when we say we must be worthy of heaven; it is as if we said\nwe must be worthy of air, worthy of the constellation of the Dragon,\nworthy of space.--_Catechisme chinois._\n\n\n\n\nMagic\n\n\nAll the fathers of the Church, without exception, believed in the power\nof magic. The Church always condemned magic, but she always believed it;\nshe excommunicated sorcerers, not as deluded madmen, but as men who\nreally had intercourse with devils.--_Dict. Phil._ (Art.\n\"Superstition\").\n\n\n\n\nDETACHED THOUGHTS\n\n\nThere are vices which it is better to ignore than to punish.\n\nOne should not pronounce a word in public which an honest woman cannot\nrepeat.\n\nI know no great men but those who have rendered great services to\nhumanity.\n\nHonor has ever achieved greater things than interest.\n\nOccupation and work are the only resources against misfortune.\n\nMy maxim is to fulfil all my duties to-day, because I am not sure of\nliving to-morrow.\n\nMost men die before having lived.\n\nIt is necessary to combat nature and fortune till the last moment, and\nto never despair till one is dead.\n\nWork without disputing; it is the only way to render life supportable.\n\nPassions are the winds that swell the sails of the ship. It is true,\nthey sometimes sink her, but without them she could not sail at all. The\nbile makes us sick and choleric; but without the bile we could not live.\nEverything in this world is dangerous, and yet everything in it is\nnecessary.\n\nWe should introduce into our existence all imaginable modes, and open\nevery door of the minds to all kinds of knowledge, and all sorts of\nfeelings. So long as it does not all go in pell-mell, there is room\nenough for all.\n\nIt is the part of a man like you [Vauvenargues] to have preferences, but\nno exclusions.\n\nThe unwise value every word in an author of repute.\n\nOpinion governs the world, and philosophers in the long run govern\nopinion.\n\nWe enjoin mankind to conquer their passions. Make the experiment of only\ndepriving a man, in the habit of taking it, of his pinch of snuff.\n\nDo we not nearly all resemble the aged General of ninety years, who,\nseeing some young fellows larking with the girls, said to them angrily:\n\"Gentlemen, is that the example which I give you?\"\n\nPassions are diseases. To cure a man of a criminal intention, we should\ngive him not counsel, but a dose of physic.\n\nWomen are like windmills, fixed while they revolve.\n\nI fear lest marriage may not rather be one of the seven deadly sins than\none of the seven sacraments.\n\nDivorce is probably of about the same date as marriage.\n\nI believe, however, that marriage is several weeks the elder.\n\nWar is an epitome of all wickedness.\n\nThe race of preachers inveigh against little vices, and pass over great\nones in silence. They never sermonise against war.\n\nWhat strange rage possesses some people to insist on our all being\nmiserable? They are like a quack, who would fain have us believe we are\nill, in order to sell us his pills. Keep thy drugs, my friend, and leave\nme my health.\n\nCan one change their character? Yes, if one changes their body.\n\nMen are fools, but ecclesiastics are their leaders.\n\nI do not believe even eye-witnesses when they tell me things opposed to\ncommon sense.\n\nThe fanatics begin with humility and kindness, and have all ended with\npride and carnage.\n\nThe Pope is an idol, whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed.\n\nWhat an immense book might be composed on all the things once believed,\nof which it is necessary to doubt.\n\nThat which can be explained in many ways does not merit being explained\nin any.\n\nTheology is in religion what poison is among food.\n\nTheology has only served to upset brains, and sometimes States.\n\nThat which is an eternal subject of dispute is an eternal inutility.\n\nTo pray is to flatter oneself that one will change entire nature with\nwords.\n\nNames of sects; names of error. Truth has no sect.\n\nNo man is called an Euclidian.\n\nHenry IV., after his victories, his abjuration, and his coronation,\ncaused a cross to be erected in Rome, with the following inscription:\n_In hoc signa vincis_. The wood of the cross was the carriage of a\ncannon.\n\nA revolution has been accomplished in the human mind which nothing again\ncan ever arrest.\n\nIt is never by metaphysics that you will succeed in delivering men from\nerror; you must prove the truth by facts.\n\nIf fortune brings to pass one of a hundred events predicted by roguery,\nall the others are forgotten, and that one remains as a pledge of the\nfavor of God, and as the proof of a prodigy.\n\nEvery one is born with a nose and five fingers, and no one is born with\na knowledge of God. This may be deplorable or not, but it is certainly\nthe human condition.\n\nIf God made us in his own image, we have well returned him the\ncompliment.\n\nNature preserves the species, and cares but very little for individuals.\n\nTo fast, to pray, a priest's virtue; to succor, virtue of a citizen.\n\nWhen Bellerophon, mounted on Pegasus, wished to ascend to heaven to\ndiscover the secrets of the gods, a fly stung Pegasus, and he was\nthrown.\n\n\"Why do you receive so many fools in your order?\" was said to a Jesuit.\n\"We need saints.\"\n\nRousseau [J. B.] having shown his antagonist [Voltaire] his _Ode to\nPosterity_, the latter said: \"My friend, here is a letter which will\nnever reach its address.\"\n\nIf a tulip could speak, and said, \"My vegetation and I are two distinct\nbeings, evidently joined together,\" would you not mock at the tulip?\n\nWhy all these pleasantries on religion? They are never made on morality.\n\nA fanatic of good faith, always a dangerous kind of man.\n\nThe consolation of life is to say out what one thinks.\n\n                                  ----","title":"Voltaire: A Sketch of His Life and Works","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":30630}