tive consists in holding the Pope's stirrup, and the basin for him
to dip his hands at mass.

The English serve their monarch on the knee; but then they
depose him, imprison him, behead him.

Men who are vowed to poverty, obtain, by the very virtue
of that vow, an estate of two hundred thousand crowns yearly
revenue; and by means of their humility, become absolute sov-
ereigns.

At Rome they rigorously condemn pluralities of benefices,
while at the same instant they will issue bulls to enable some
German to hold half a dozen bishoprics at once. It is, say
they, because the German bishops have no church cures. The



VOLTAIRE 15467

chancellor of France is the second person in the State, and yet
he is never permitted to eat at the king's table; at least it has
never happened hitherto: while a colonel, who is scarce a gentle-
man, enjoys that honor. An intendant's lady is a queen in her
husband's province, and at court no more than a simple country
madam.

Men convicted of the heinous sin of nonconformity are pub-
licly burnt: whilst the second Eclogue of Virgil, in which is that
warm declaration of love which Corydon makes the beauteous
Alexis, " Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin, ^* is gravely
expounded in every college; and pupils are asked to note that
though Corydon was fair and Amyntas swarthy, yet still Amyntas
had the preference.

Should a poor, harmless philosopher, who never dreamed of
doing the least harm to any one, take it into his head that the
earth moves, that light comes from the sun, that matter might
have other properties than those we are acquainted with, imme-
diately the hue and cry is raised against him; he is an impious
disturber of the public peace : though his persecutors have trans-
lated and published, in iisuin Delphini, Lucretius, and Cicero's
^Tusculan Questions,* which are two complete bodies of irre-
ligion.

Our courts of justice have rejected the belief in evil spirits,
and witches are subjects of laughter: but Gaufredy and Grand-
ier were both burnt for witchcraft; and lately, by a majority of
voices, a monk was condemned to the stake by one of our Parlia-
ments for having bewitched a young damsel of eighteen years by
breathing upon her.

The skeptical philosophy of Bayle was persecuted even in
Holland. La Motte le Vayer, a still greater skeptic, though not
near so good a philosopher, was preceptor to Louis XIV. and his
brother. Gourville was hanged in effigy at Paris, whilst he was
the ambassador of France in Germany.

The famous atheist Spinoza lived and died in peace. Vanini,
whose only crime was writing against Aristotle, was burnt for an
atheist; in this character he has the honor to fill a considerable
space in the history of the republic of letters, as well as in all
the dictionaries, — those enormous archives of lies, with a small
mixture of tnith. Do but open those books, you will find it
recorded that Vanini not only taught atheism in his writings, but
also that twelve professors of the same creed had actually set



15468



VOLTAIRE



out from Naples to make proselytes for their gospel. Then open
Vanini's books, and you will be astonished to find that they con-
tain so many proofs of the existence of a Deity. See here what
he says in his ^Amphitheatrum,^ a work condemned upon hear-
say because it is wholly unknown : — *^ God is his own sole prin-
ciple and boundary, without end, without beginning, having no
need of either; and the father of all beginning and of every end:
he exists forever, but in no space of time; there is no duration, a
parte a7itc, — that is to say, which is past, — nor futurity, which
will come hereafter: he is present everywhere, without occupying
any place; immovable, yet without stopping, and rapid without
motion: he is all, but without inclusion of all; he is in every-
thing, but without being excluded from other beings; good with-
out quality; and whilst he produces all the various changes in
nature, he is himself unvaried and immutable : his will is his
power; he is simplicity itself: there is no such thing as mere
possibility; all in him is real: he is the first, the middle, and the
last act; in one word, he is all: yet he is above all kings, with-
out them, within them, beyond them, eternally before them, yet
present with them.^^ After such a confession of his faith was
Vanini denounced as an atheist ! On what grounds ? The simple
deposition of a fellow called Francon. In vain did his works
bear witness for him. A single enemy robbed him at one stroke
of life and reputation.

The little book called the *■ Cymballum Mundi * — a cold imita-
tion of Lucian, without the slightest, the most distant relation to
Christianity — has in like manner been condemned to the flames;
yet Rabelais has been printed cum privilegio, and the ^ Turkish
Spy ^ and even the * Persian Letters ' suffered to pass unmolested,
— particularly the latter, that ingenious, diverting, and daring per-
formance which contains an entire letter in defense of suicide;
another in which are the words, " If we suppose such a thing as
religion '* ; another where it is said in express terms, that the bish-
ops have properly no other function but that of dispensing with
the laws; another which calls the Pope a magician who endeavors
to persuade us that three and one are the same, and that the
bread we eat is not bread. The Abbe de St. Pierre, a man possi-
bly deceived but ever upright, and whose works Cardinal Du Bois
used to call the ^^ Dreams of a Good Citizen, ^^ — this Abbe de
St. Pierre, I say, was excluded from the French Academy, neviine
contradicente, for having in a political work advocated boards of



VOLTAIRE 15469

council in place of secretaries of State, and for saying that the
finances had been shamefully managed towards the close of that
glorious reign. The author of the *■ Persian Letters ' made men-
tion of Louis XIV. only to tell the world that the King was a
magician who undertook to persuade his subjects that paper was
gold and silver; who preferred the Turkish to all other forms
of government; who held a man that handed him a napkin in
higher esteem than one who had won him battles; who had given
a pension to a runaway who had fled a matter of two leagues
from the field of battle without once looking behind him, and
a considerable position to another who had run four leagues;
who was miserably poor, although his finances are inexhaustible.
What did this same author say of Louis XIV., the protector of
the French Academy ? for on the reputation of this book he was
admitted into their number. We may add to this, what crowns
the inconsistency, that this body received him amongst them
chiefly for having made them ridiculous; for of all the books
in which authors have laughed at their company, in none are
they worse handled than in the ^ Persian Letters. ^ Listen : ^^ The
members who compose this body have nothing to do but to prate
everlastingly; panegyric flows naturally out of that babbling of
theirs, which is truly world without end, *^ etc. After being treated
in this manner, they praised him for his skill in drawing a strong
likeness.

Were I disposed to treat the contrarieties of the republic of
letters, I must write the history of all the literati, and of all the
wits who have ever existed. Or had I a mind to consider the
inconsistencies of society, I must write a history of the human
race. An Asiatic traveling in Europe might take us all for
pagans. The very days of our week pay tribute to Mars, Mer-
cury, Jupiter, and Venus; the marriage of Cupid and Psyche is
painted in a palace belonging to the Pope ! If this Asiatic at-
tended our opera, he could not doubt that it was a festival in
honor of the heathen gods. Were he to study our manners, he
would be still more astonished. Spain excludes all foreigners
from the smallest commerce, directly or indirectly, with her
American settlements, whilst those very Americans carry on,
through Spanish factors, a trade to the amount of fifty millions
per annum; so that Spain could never grow rich were it not for
the violation of that law, which still stands though perpetually
trampled upon. Another government encourages an India com-
pany, while its theologians declare its dividends criminal before



154/0 VOLTAIRE

God. Our Asiatic would behold the seats of judges, the com-
mand of armies, the places of counselors of State, bought with
money: nor could he comprehend the assertion of the patents
entitling them to hold these places, that these have been granted
without caballing, fee, or reward, and purely on the score of merit,
whilst the valuable consideration given is plainly disclosed in their
letters of provision! What would he think to see our players at
the same instant paid by the sovereign and excommunicated by
the clergy? Suppose he were to ask why a lieutenant-general —
who is only a roturier, a man of the common class, though he
may have won battles — should, in the estimation of the court, be
ranked with a peasant, whilst an echevin or city sheriff is held as
noble as the Montmorencies ? Why, when all regular shows are
prohibited in the week consecrated to edification, should mounte-
banks be tolerated whose language is offensive to the least deli-
cate ear ? In short, he would see our laws in direct opposition to
our customs. Yet were we to travel into Asia, we should come
upon like inconsistencies.

Men are everywhere fools: they make laws much as we re-
pair breaches in walls. In one place the eldei brcuiers contrive
to leave the younger mere beggars; in others they share aW:'.
At one time the Church authorizes duels, at another she anatne-
matizes them. The partisans and enemies of Aristotle have been
excommunicated each in turn; as have the wearers of long hair
or short hair. In the known world no law has been discovered
able to redress a very silly piece of folly, which is gaming. The
laws of play are the only ones which admit of neither exception,
relaxation, imposition, nor variation. An ex-lackey, if he plays
at lansquenet with a king, and happens to win, is paid without
the least hesitation; in every other respect the law is a sword,
with which the stronger cuts the weaker in pieces.

Yet the world gets on as if it were constituted in the wisest
manner imaginable! Irregularity is a part of ourselves. Our
political world is much like our globe: though ugly enough, it
manages to get on. It would be folly to wish that all the
mountains, seas, and rivers were drawn in regular geometrical
figures: it would be a still greater folly to expect consummate
wisdom from men; as if one should suggest giving wings to
dogs, or horns to eagles. Indeed, these pretended oppositions
that we call contradictions are necessary ingredients in the
composition of man; who like the rest of nature is what he has
to be.



VOLTAIRE 15471

ON READING
From the < Philosophical Dictionary >

THERE is this good in a large library, that it frightens the be-
holder! Two hundred thousand volumes are enough to
discourage a man tempted to print a book. But unfortu-
nately he very soon says to himself, ^* Most of those books are
not read, and perhaps mine will beP^ He compares himself to
the drop of water that complained of being confounded and lost
in the ocean; a genie took pity on it, and made an oyster swal-
low it. It became one of the finest pearls in the ocean, and in
time the chief ornament of the great Mogul's throne. Those who
are mere compilers, imitators, commentators, pickers of phrases,
critics by the week, — in short, those on whom no genie will take
pity, — will forever remain the drop of water.

Our man, then, is working in his garret in hopes of becoming
the pearl.

It is true that in that immense collection of books there are
about one hundred and ninety-nine thousand that will never be
read, at least never read through; but one may need to consult
some of them once in his life. And it is a great advantage to
the seeker to find without delay, under his hand, in the palace
of kings, the volume and the page he is looking for. The library
is one of the noblest of institutions. There has never been an
expense more magnificent and more useful.

The public library of the French king is the finest in the
world; less indeed as to number and rarity of volumes, than in
the facility and politeness with which the librarians lend them
to all the learned. That collection is unquestionably the most
precious monument there is in France.

Let not that astonishing multitude of books daunt the stu-
dent. Paris contains seven hundred thousand people; one cannot
live with them all, and must make choice of three or four
friends, — and we ought not to complain more of a superfluity of
books than of men.

A man who wishes to know something of his own being, and
who has no time to lose, is much puzzled. He feels that he
ought at once to read Hobbes and Spinoza; Bayle, who has writ-
ten against them; Leibnitz, who has opposed Bayle; Clarke, who
has disputed the theories of Leibnitz; Malebranche, who differs



1^472 VOLTAIRE

with all of them; Locke, who is supposed to have confounded
Malebranche; Stillingfleet, who thinks he has vanquished Locke;
Cudworth, who sets himself up above all because no one can un-
derstand him ! One would die of old age before he could go
through a hundredth part of the metaphysical romance!



THE IGNORANT PHILOSOPHER
From the < Philosophical Dictionary*

WHO art thou ? Whence art thou ? What is thy business
here ? What will become of thee ? — These are questions
which confront us all, but which not a man of us can
answer. I ask the plants what power occasions their growth;
and how the same soil produces fruits so diiferent. Insensible
and mute, these leave me to my ignorance. I interrogate that
crowd of animals endowed with motion, able to communicate,
who enjoy my very sensations; who possess some ideas, some
memory, all the passions. They know even less than I what
they are, why they are, what they shall be. I am a weak
animal: I come into the world without knowledge, strength, or
instinct. I cannot even crawl to my mother's breast, as can
other animals. I acquire a few ideas, as I acquire a little
strength, when my organs begin to develop. This strength in-
creases to a certain degree, and then daily decreases. So the
power of conceiving ideas increases to a certain degree, and then
insensibly disappears. What is the nature of that crescent force ?
I know not; and those who have spent their lives in search of
this unsearchable cause know no more than I. What is that
other power which creates images in my brain ? w^hich preserves
them in my memory ? Those who spend their lives in seeking
for this knowledge have sought it in vain. We are as ignorant
of first principles as we were in our cradles. Have I learned
anything from the books of the past two thousand years ? Some-
times a desire arises in us to understand in what manner we
think. I have interrogated my reason, imploring it to explain.
The question confounds it. I have tried to discover if the same
springs of action which enable me to digest or to walk are those
whereby I develop ideas. I cannot conceive how or wherefore
these ideas flee, when hunger makes my body languish, and how
they spring up again when I have eaten I have observed so



VOLTAIRE 15473

great a difference in my thinking when I am well fed or ill fed,
that I have believed there was a substance in me which reasoned,
and another substance which digested. But on endeavoring to
prove to myself taat we are two, I have been sure that I am
only one; and the contradiction confuses me.

I have asked some of my fellow-creatures who with great
industry cultivate the earth, our common source of life, if they
felt themselves to be double beings; if they had discovered in
their philosophy that they possessed an immortal substance that
was yet formed of nothing, existed without extent, acted on their
nerves without touching them, and actually preceded their crea-
tion. They thought I was laughing at them, and went about
their business with not so much as a reply. Seeing then that
an immense number of men had not the least idea of the diffi-
culties that distressed me, nor perplexed themselves with what
was said in the schools, — of Being in the abstract, of matter and
spirit, etc., — observing too that they often diverted themselves
with my eagerness to learn, I suspected it to be unnecessary that
we should know these things. I concluded that nature gives
to every being what is proper for him; and I came to think
that those things which we could not obtain were not designed
for us. Notwithstanding this depressing conclusion, however, I
cannot suppress the desire of being instructed; and my disap-
pointed curiosity is ever insatiable.

We must renounce common-sense, or else concede that we
know nothing save by experience; and certainly if it be by ex-
perience alone — by a series of trials and through long reflection
— that we acquire some feeble and slight ideas of body, of space^
of time, of infinity, even of God, it is not likely that the author
of our nature placed these ideas in the brain of every foetus, in
order that only a small number of men should afterwards make
use of them.

Having no ideas, then, save by experience, it is not possible
that we should ever know what matter is. We touch and we
see the properties of that substance. But even the word sub-
stance, tJiat zvhich is beneath, hints to us that this thing beneath
will be unknown to us forever. Whatever we discover of its ap-
pearance, this substance, this foundation, will ever elude us. For
the same reason we shall never of ourselves know what spirit is.
The word originally signified breath, and by its use we express

vaguely and grossly that which inspires thinking. But if, even
XXVI — 968



15474 VOLTAIRE

by a miracle, — which is not to be expected, — we should achieve
some slight idea of the substance of this spirit, we should be
no further advanced; and we could never imagine how this sub-
stance received sentiments and thoughts. We know that we
possess a modicum of intelligence ; but how do we acquire it ?
It is a secret of Nature which she has not divulged to any
mortal. . . .

I find at this time, in this period, — which is the dawn of
reason, — that some of the hydra heads of fanaticism are again
springing up. Their poison however is apparently less mortal,
their jaws less voracious, than of yore. Less blood is spilled for
the sake of dogma than was long wasted on account of plenary
indulgences sold at market. But fanaticism still lives. Every
man who searches for truth incurs the danger of persecution.
Are we then to remain idle in mental darkness ? Or must we
light a flambeau at which envy and calumny may rekindle their
torches ? For my own part, I would no more conceal truth in
the face of these monsters than I would go without food for fear
of being poisoned.



CLIMATE
From the < Philosophical Dictionary*

IT is certain that the sun and the atmosphere stamp themselves
on all the productions of nature, from man to mushrooms.

In the grand age of Louis XIV., the ingenious Fontenelle
remarked : —

^* It might be suggested that the torrid and the two frigid
zones are not well suited to the sciences. Down to the present
day, these have not traveled beyond Egypt and Mauritania on
the one side, nor on the other beyond Sweden. Perhaps it is not
mere chance that their range is between Mount Atlas and the
Baltic Sea. But whether these are the limits appointed to them
by nature, or whether we may hope to see great authors among
Laplanders or negroes, is not disclosed.'^

Chardin, one of the few travelers who reason and investi-
gate, goes still further than Fontenelle, when speaking of Persia.
^^ The temperature of warm climates,*^ he says, ^^ enervates the
mind as well as the body, and dissipates that fire which the



VOLTAIRE 15475

imagination requires for invention. In such climates men are
incapable of the long study and intense application necessary to
the production of first-rate works in the liberal and mechanic
arts," etc. But Chardin did not recollect that Sadi and Lokman
were Persians, nor that Archimedes belonged to Sicily, where
the heat is greater than in three-fourths of Persia. He forgot
that Pythagoras once taught geometry to the Brahmins. The
Abbe Dubos supported and developed the opinion of Chardin. A
century and a half earlier, Bodin made this idea the foundation
of a system in his ^ Republic ^ and in his *■ Method of History ^ :
he asserts that climate determines the principle both of the
government and the religion of nations. Diodorus of Sicily held
the same opinion long before Bodin. The author of the ^ Spirit
of Laws,* without quoting authorities, carried this idea farther
than Chardin and Bodin. Certain classes believed him to have
first suggested it, and imputed it to him as a crime. This was
quite in character with the classes referred to. There are men
everywhere who possess more zeal than understanding.

We might ask these believers in climatic influences, why the
emperor Julian, in his ^Misopogon,* says that what pleased him
in the Parisians was the gravity of their characters and the
severity of their manners; and why these Parisians, without the
slightest change of climate, are now like playful children whom
the government punishes and smiles upon at the same moment,
and who themselves at the next moment also smile, and sing
lampoons upon their masters. Why are the Egyptians, who are
described as still more grave than the Parisians, at present the
most lazy, frivolous, and cowardly of peoples, after having con-
quered the whole world for their pleasure, under a king called
Sesostris ? Why are there no longer Anacreons, Aristotles, or
Zeuxises, at Athens ? Whence comes it that Rome, instead of
its Ciceros, Catos, and Livys, breeds citizens who dare not speak
their minds, and a brutalized populace whose supreme happiness
consists in having oil cheap and in gazing at processions ?

Cicero, in his letters, is occasionally very jocose concerning
the English. He desires his brother Quintus, Caesar's lieutenant,
to inform him whether he finds any great philosophers among
them in his expedition to Britain. How little he suspected that
that country would one day produce mathematicians beyond his
comprehension! Yet the climate has not altered, and the sky of
London is as cloudy now as it was then.



15476



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Ever>nhing changes, both in bodies and minds, by time. Per-
haps the Americans will in some future period cross the sea to
instruct Europeans in the arts. Climate has some influence, gov-
ernment a hundred times more; religion and government com-
bined, more still.

Certainly climate influences religion in respect to ceremonies
and usages. A legislator could have experienced no difficulty in
inducing the Indians to bathe in the Ganges at certain appear-
ances of the moon. Bathing is a high gratification to them.
Had a like purification been proposed to the people who inhabit
the banks of the Dwina, near Archangel, the proposer would
have been stoned. Forbid pork to an Arab, who, after eating
this meat (miserable and disgusting in Arabia), would be afflicted
with leprosy, he will obey you with joy; prohibit it to a West-
phalian, and he will be tempted to knock you down. Abstinence
from wine is a good precept of religion in Arabia, where orange,
citron, and lemon waters are necessary to health. Mahomet
would not have forbidden wine in Switzerland, especially before
going into battle.

Religions have always turned upon two pivots, — forms or
ceremonies, and faith: forms and ceremonies depend much on
climate; faith not at all. A doctrine will be received with equal
readiness under the equator or at the pole; it will be equally
rejected at Batavia and the Orcades; while it will be maintained
unguibiis et rostro — with tooth and nail — at Salamanca. This de-
pends not on sun and atmosphere, but solely upon opinion, that
fickle empress of the world. Certain libations of wine will be
naturally enjoined in a country abounding in vineyards; and it
would never occur to the legislative mind to institute sacred mys-
teries which could not be celebrated without wine, in such a coun-
try as Norway. The burning of incense is expressly commanded
in a court where beasts are killed in honor of the divinity, and
for the priests' supper. This slaughter-house, called a temple,
would be a place of abominable infection were it not contin-