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diff --git a/old/35622-0.txt b/old/35622-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5354457 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/35622-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8807 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 (of 10), by +François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 (of 10) + From "The Works of Voltaire - A Contemporary Version" + +Author: François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +Commentator: John Morley + Tobias Smollett + H.G. Leigh + +Translator: William F. Fleming + +Release Date: March 28, 2011 [EBook #35622] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY *** + + + + +Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe +at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously +made available by the Internet Archive.) + + + + + +A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY + +VOLUME II + +By + +VOLTAIRE + + + + +EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION + +THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE + +A CONTEMPORARY VERSION + + + With Notes by Tobias Smollett, Revised and Modernized + New Translations by William F. Fleming, and an + Introduction by Oliver H.G. Leigh + + +A CRITIQUE AND BIOGRAPHY + +BY + +THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY + +FORTY-THREE VOLUMES + + + One hundred and sixty-eight designs, comprising reproductions + of rare old engravings, steel plates, photogravures, + and curious fac-similes + + +VOLUME VI + +E.R. DuMONT + +PARIS--LONDON--NEW YORK--CHICAGO + +1901 + + + +_THE WORKS of VOLTAIRE_ + + _"Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundred + years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it + with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED. + Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the + sweetness of the present civilization."_ + + _VICTOR HUGO._ + + + + +LIST OF PLATES--VOL. II + +THE BASTILLE--_Frontispiece_ + +AN ASTROLOGER + +A TYPE OF BEAUTY + +ALEXANDER'S TRIUMPH + + + +[Illustration: The Bastille.--"For four hundred years the symbol of +oppression. Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a +perpetual threat, it was the last and often the first argument of king +and priest."] + + + * * * * * + +VOLTAIRE + +A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY + +IN TEN VOLUMES + +VOL II. + +APPEARANCE--CALENDS + + + * * * * * + + +APPEARANCE. + + +Are all appearances deceitful? Have our senses been given us only to +keep us in continual delusion? Is everything error? Do we live in a +dream, surrounded by shadowy chimeras? We see the sun setting when he is +already below the horizon; before he has yet risen we see him appear. A +square tower seems to be round. A straight stick, thrust into the water, +seems to be bent. + +You see your face in a mirror and the image appears to be behind the +glass: it is, however, neither behind nor before it. This glass, which +to the sight and the touch is so smooth and even, is no other than an +unequal congregation of projections and cavities. The finest and fairest +skin is a kind of bristled network, the openings of which are +incomparably larger than the threads, and enclose an infinite number of +minute hairs. Under this network there are liquors incessantly passing, +and from it there issue continual exhalations which cover the whole +surface. What we call large is to an elephant very small, and what we +call small is to insects a world. The same motion which would be rapid +to a snail would be very slow in the eye of an eagle. This rock, which +is impenetrable by steel, is a sieve consisting of more pores than +matter, and containing a thousand avenues of prodigious width leading to +its centre, in which are lodged multitudes of animals, which may, for +aught we know, think themselves the masters of the universe. + +Nothing is either as it appears to be, or in the place where we believe +it to be. Several philosophers, tired of being constantly deceived by +bodies, have in their spleen pronounced that bodies do not exist, and +that there is nothing real but our minds. As well might they have +concluded that, all appearances being false, and the nature of the soul +being as little known as that of the matter, there is no reality in +either body or soul. Perhaps it is this despair of knowing anything +which has caused some Chinese philosophers to say that nothing is the +beginning and the end of all things. This philosophy, so destructive to +being, was well known in Molière's time. Doctor Macphurius represents +the school; when teaching Sganarelle, he says, "You must not say, 'I am +come,' but 'it seems to me that I am come'; for it may seem to you, +without such being really the case." But at the present day a comic +scene is not an argument, though it is sometimes better than an +argument; and there is often as much pleasure in seeking after truth as +in laughing at philosophy. + +You do not see the network, the cavities, the threads, the inequalities, +the exhalations of that white and delicate skin which you idolize. +Animals a thousand times less than a mite discern all these objects +which escape your vision; they lodge, feed, and travel about in them, as +in an extensive country, and those on the right arm are perfectly +ignorant that there are creatures of their own species on the left. If +you were so unfortunate as to see what they see, your charming skin +would strike you with horror. + +The harmony of a concert, to which you listen with delight, must have on +certain classes of minute animals the effect of terrible thunder; and +perhaps it kills them. We see, touch, hear, feel things only in the way +in which they ought to be seen, touched, heard, or felt by ourselves. + +All is in due proportion. The laws of optics, which show you an object +in the water where it is not, and break a right line, are in entire +accordance with those which make the sun appear to you with a diameter +of two feet, although it is a million times larger than the earth. To +see it in its true dimensions would require an eye collecting his rays +at an angle as great as his disk, which is impossible. Our senses, then, +assist much more than they deceive us. + +Motion, time, hardness, softness, dimensions, distance, approximation, +strength, weakness, appearances, of whatever kind, all is relative. And +who has created these relations? + + + + +APROPOS. + + +All great successes, of whatever kind, are founded upon things done or +said apropos. + +Arnold of Brescia, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague did not come quite +apropos; the people were not then sufficiently enlightened; the +invention of printing had not then laid the abuses complained of before +the eyes of every one. But when men began to read--when the populace, +who were solicitous to escape purgatory, but at the same time wished not +to pay too dear for indulgences, began to open their eyes, the reformers +of the sixteenth century came quite apropos, and succeeded. + +It has been elsewhere observed that Cromwell under Elizabeth or Charles +the Second, or Cardinal de Retz when Louis XIV. governed by himself, +would have been very ordinary persons. + +Had Cæsar been born in the time of Scipio Africanus he would not have +subjugated the Roman commonwealth; nor would Mahomet, could he rise +again at the present day, be more than sheriff of Mecca. But if +Archimedes and Virgil were restored, one would still be the best +mathematician, the other the best poet of his country. + + + + +ARABS; + +AND, OCCASIONALLY, ON THE BOOK OF JOB. + + +If any one be desirous of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the +antiquities of Arabia, it may be presumed that he will gain no more +information than about those of Auvergne and Poitou. It is, however, +certain, that the Arabs were of some consequence long before Mahomet. +The Jews themselves say that Moses married an Arabian woman, and his +father-in-law Jethro seems to have been a man of great good sense. + +Mecca is considered, and not without reason, as one of the most ancient +cities in the world. It is, indeed, a proof of its antiquity that +nothing but superstition could occasion the building of a town on such a +spot, for it is in a sandy desert, where the water is brackish, so that +the people die of hunger and thirst. The country a few miles to the east +is the most delightful upon earth, the best watered and the most +fertile. There the Arabs should have built, and not at Mecca. But it was +enough for some charlatan, some false prophet, to give out his reveries, +to make of Mecca a sacred spot and the resort of neighboring nations. +Thus it was that the temple of Jupiter Ammon was built in the midst of +sands. Arabia extends from northeast to southwest, from the desert of +Jerusalem to Aden or Eden, about the fiftieth degree of north latitude. +It is an immense country, about three times as large as Germany. It is +very likely that its deserts of sand were brought thither by the waters +of the ocean, and that its marine gulfs were once fertile lands. + +The belief in this nation's antiquity is favored by the circumstance +that no historian speaks of its having been subjugated. It was not +subdued even by Alexander, nor by any king of Syria, nor by the Romans. +The Arabs, on the contrary, subjugated a hundred nations, from the Indus +to the Garonne; and, having afterwards lost their conquests, they +retired into their own country and did not mix with any other people. + +Having never been subject to nor mixed with other nations it is more +than probable that they have preserved their manners and their language. +Indeed, Arabic is, in some sense, the mother tongue of all Asia as far +as the Indus; or rather, the prevailing tongue, for mother tongues have +never existed. Their genius has never changed. They still compose their +"Nights' Entertainments," as they did when they imagined one Bac or +Bacchus, who passed through the Red Sea with three millions of men, +women, and children; who stopped the sun and moon, and made streams of +wine issue forth with a blow of his rod, which, when he chose, he +changed into a serpent. + +A nation so isolated, and whose blood remains unmixed, cannot change its +character. The Arabs of the desert have always been given to robbery, +and those inhabiting the towns been fond of fables, poetry, and +astronomy. It is said, in the historical preface to the Koran, that when +any one of their tribes had a good poet the other tribes never failed to +send deputies to that one on which God had vouchsafed to bestow so great +a gift. + +The tribes assembled every year, by representatives, in an open place +named Ocad, where verses were recited, nearly in the same way as is now +done at Rome in the garden of the academy of the Arcadii, and this +custom continued until the time of Mahomet. In his time, each one posted +his verses on the door of the temple of Mecca. Labid, son of Rabia, was +regarded as the Homer of Mecca; but, having seen the second chapter of +the Koran, which Mahomet had posted, he fell on his knees before him, +and said, "O Mahomet, son of Abdallah, son of Motalib, son of Achem, +thou art a greater poet than I--thou art doubtless the prophet of God." + +The Arabs of Maden, Naïd, and Sanaa were no less generous than those of +the desert were addicted to plunder. Among them, one friend was +dishonored if he had refused his assistance to another. In their +collection of verses, entitled _"Tograid",_ it is related that, "one +day, in the temple of Mecca, three Arabs were disputing on generosity +and friendship, and could not agree as to which, among those who then +set the greatest examples of these virtues, deserved the preference. +Some were for Abdallah, son of Giafar, uncle to Mahomet; others for +Kais, son of Saad; and others for Arabad, of the tribe of As. After a +long dispute they agreed to send a friend of Abdallah to him, a friend +of Kais to Kais, and a friend of Arabad to Arabad, to try them all +three, and to come and make their report to the assembly. + +"Then the friend of Abdallah went and said to him, 'Son of the uncle of +Mahomet, I am on a journey and am destitute of everything.' Abdallah was +mounted on his camel loaded with gold and silk; he dismounted with all +speed, gave him his camel, and returned home on foot. + +"The second went and made application to his friend Kais, son of Saad. +Kais was still asleep, and one of his domestics asked the traveller what +he wanted. The traveller answered that he was the friend of Kais, and +needed his assistance. The domestic said to him, 'I will not wake my +master; but here are seven thousand pieces of gold, which are all that +we at present have in the house. Take also a camel from the stable, and +a slave; these will, I think, be sufficient for you until you reach your +own house.' When Kais awoke, he chid the domestic for not having given +more. + +"The third repaired to his friend Arabad, of the tribe of As. Arabad was +blind, and was coming out of his house, leaning on two slaves, to pray +to God in the temple of Mecca. As soon as he heard his friend's voice, +he said to him, 'I possess nothing but my two slaves; I beg that you +will take and sell them; I will go to the temple as well as I can, with +my stick.' + +"The three disputants, having returned to the assembly, faithfully +related what had happened. Many praises were bestowed on Abdallah, son +of Giafar--on Kais, son of Saad--and on Arabad, of the tribe of As, but +the preference was given to Arabad." + +The Arabs have several tales of this kind, but our western nations have +none. Our romances are not in this taste. We have, indeed, several which +turn upon trick alone, as those of Boccaccio, _"Guzman d'Alfarache,"_ +"Gil Bias," etc. + +_On Job, the Arab._ + +It is clear that the Arabs at least possessed noble and exalted ideas. +Those who are most conversant with the oriental languages think that the +Book of Job, which is of the highest antiquity, was composed by an Arab +of Idumaea. The most clear and indubitable proof is that the Hebrew +translator has left in his translation more than a hundred Arabic words, +which, apparently, he did not understand. + +Job, the hero of the piece, could not be a Hebrew, for he says, in the +forty-second chapter, that having been restored to his former +circumstances, he divided his possessions equally among his sons and +daughters, which is directly contrary to the Hebrew law. + +It is most likely that, if this book had been composed after the period +at which we place Moses, the author--who speaks of so many things and is +not sparing of examples--would have mentioned some one of the +astonishing prodigies worked by Moses, which were, doubtless, known to +all the nations of Asia. + +In the very first chapter Satan appears before God and asks permission +to tempt Job. _Satan_ was unknown in the Pentateuch; it was a Chaldæan +word; a fresh proof that the Arabian author was in the neighborhood of +Chaldæa. + +It has been thought that he might be a Jew because the Hebrew +translator has put Jehovah instead of El, or Bel, or Sadai. But what man +of the least information does not know that the word Jehovah was common +to the PhÅ“nicians, the Syrians, the Egyptians, and every people of +the neighboring countries? + +A yet stronger proof--one to which there is no reply--is the knowledge +of astronomy which appears in the Book of Job. Mention is here made of +the constellations which we call Arcturus, Orion, the Pleiades, and even +of those of "the chambers of the south." Now, the Hebrews had no +knowledge of the sphere; they had not even a term to express astronomy; +but the Arabs, like the Chaldæans, have always been famed for their +skill in this science. + +It does, then, seem to be thoroughly proved that the Book of Job cannot +have been written by a Jew, and that it was anterior to all the Jewish +books, Philo and Josephus were too prudent to count it among those of +the Hebrew canon. It is incontestably an Arabian parable or allegory. + +This is not all. We derive from it some knowledge of the customs of the +ancient world, and especially of Arabia. Here we read of trading with +the Indies; a commerce which the Arabs have in all ages carried on, but +which the Jews never even heard of. + +Here, too, we see that the art of writing was in great cultivation, and +that they already made great books. + +It cannot be denied that the commentator Calmet, profound as he is, +violates all the rules of logic in pretending that Job announces the +immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, when he says: + +"For I know that my Redeemer liveth. And though after my skin--worms +destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. But ye should say, +Why persecute we him?--seeing the root of the matter is found in me. Be +ye afraid of the sword; for wrath bringeth the punishment of the sword, +that ye may know there is a judgment." + +Can anything be understood by those words, other than his hope of being +cured? The immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body at +the last day, are truths so indubitably announced in the New Testament, +and so clearly proved by the fathers and the councils, that there is no +need to attribute the first knowledge of them to an Arab. These great +mysteries are not explained in any passage of the Hebrew Pentateuch; how +then can they be explained in a single verse of Job and that in so +obscure a manner? Calmet has no better reason for seeing in the words of +Job the immortality of the soul, and the general resurrection, than he +would have for discovering a disgraceful disease in the malady with +which he was afflicted. Neither physics nor logic take the part of this +commentator. + +As for this allegorical Book of Job: it being manifestly Arabian, we are +at liberty to say that it has neither justness, method, nor precision. +Yet it is perhaps the most ancient book that has been written, and the +most valuable monument that has been found on this side the Euphrates. + + + + +ARARAT. + + +This is a mountain of Armenia, on which the ark rested. The question has +long been agitated, whether the deluge was universal--whether it +inundated the whole earth without exception, or only the portion of the +earth which was then known. Those who have thought that it extended only +to the tribes then existing, have founded their opinion on the inutility +of flooding unpeopled lands, which reason seems very plausible. As for +us, we abide by the Scripture text, without pretending to explain it. +But we shall take greater liberty with Berosus, an ancient Chaldæan +writer, of whom there are fragments preserved by Abydenus, quoted by +Eusebius, and repeated word for word by George Syncellus. From these +fragments we find that the Orientals of the borders of the Euxine, in +ancient times, made Armenia the abode of their gods. In this they were +imitated by the Greeks, who placed their deities on Mount Olympus. Men +have always confounded human with divine things. Princes built their +citadels on mountains; therefore they were also made the dwelling place +of the gods, and became sacred. The summit of Mount Ararat is concealed +by mists; therefore the gods hid themselves in those mists, sometimes +vouchsafing to appear to mortals in fine weather. + +A god of that country, believed to have been Saturn, appeared one day to +Xixuter, tenth king of Chaldæa, according to the computation of +Africanus, Abydenus, and Apollodorus, and said to him: + +"On the fifteenth day of the month Oesi, mankind shall be destroyed by a +deluge. Shut up close all your writings in Sipara, the city of the sun, +that the memory of things may not be lost. Build a vessel; enter it with +your relatives and friends; take with you birds and beasts; stock it +with provisions, and, when you are asked, 'Whither are you going in that +vessel?' answer, 'To the gods, to beg their favor for mankind.'" + +Xixuter built his vessel, which was two stadii wide, and five long; that +it, its width was two hundred and fifty geometrical paces, and its +length six hundred and twenty-five. This ship, which was to go upon the +Black Sea, was a slow sailer. The flood came. When it had ceased Xixuter +let some of his birds fly out, but, finding nothing to eat, they +returned to the vessel. A few days afterwards he again set some of his +birds at liberty, and they returned with mud in their claws. At last +they went and returned no more. Xixuter did likewise: he quitted his +ship, which had perched upon a mountain of Armenia, and he was seen no +more; the gods took him away. + +There is probably something historic in this fable. The Euxine +overflowed its banks, and inundated some portions of territory, and the +king of Chaldæa hastened to repair the damage. We have in Rabelais tales +no less ridiculous, founded on some small portion of truth. The ancient +historians are, for the most part, serious Rabelais. + +As for Mount Ararat, it has been asserted that it was one of the +mountains of Phrygia, and that it was called by a name answering that of +ark, because it was enclosed by three rivers. + +There are thirty opinions respecting this mountain. How shall we +distinguish the true one? That which the monks now call Ararat, was, +they say, one of the limits of the terrestrial paradise--a paradise of +which we find but few traces. It is a collection of rocks and +precipices, covered with eternal snows. Tournefort went thither by order +of Louis XIV. to seek for plants. He says that the whole neighborhood is +horrible, and the mountain itself still more so; that he found snow four +feet thick, and quite crystallized, and that there are perpendicular +precipices on every side. + +The Dutch traveller, John Struys, pretends that he went thither also. He +tells us that he ascended to the very top, to cure a hermit afflicted +with a rupture. + +"His hermitage," says he, "was so distant from the earth that we did not +reach it until the close of the seventh day, though each day we went +five leagues." If, in this journey, he was constantly ascending, this +Mount Ararat must be thirty-five leagues high. In the time of the +Giants' war, a few Ararats piled one upon another would have made the +ascent to the moon quite easy. John Struys, moreover, assures us that +the hermit whom he cured presented him with a cross made of the wood of +Noah's ark. Tournefort had not this advantage. + + + + +ARIANISM. + + +The great theological disputes, for twelve hundred years, were all +Greek. What would Homer, Sophocles, Demosthenes, Archimedes, have said, +had they witnessed the subtle cavillings which have cost so much blood. + +Arius has, even at this day, the honor of being regarded as the inventor +of his opinion, as Calvin is considered to have been the founder of +Calvinism. The pride in being the head of a sect is the second of this +world's vanities; for that of conquest is said to be the first. However, +it is certain that neither Arius nor Calvin is entitled to the +melancholy glory of invention. The quarrel about the Trinity existed +long before Arius took part in it, in the disputatious town of +Alexandria, where it had been beyond the power of Euclid to make men +think calmly and justly. There never was a people more frivolous than +the Alexandrians; in this respect they far exceeded even the Parisians. + +There must already have been warm disputes about the Trinity; since the +patriarch, who composed the "Alexandrian Chronicle," preserved at +Oxford, assures us that the party embraced by Arius was supported by two +thousand priests. + +We will here, for the reader's convenience, give what is said of Arius +in a small book which every one may not have at hand: Here is an +incomprehensible question, which, for more than sixteen hundred years, +has furnished exercise for curiosity, for sophistic subtlety, for +animosity, for the spirit of cabal, for the fury of dominion, for the +rage of persecution, for blind and sanguinary fanaticism, for barbarous +credulity, and which has produced more horrors than the ambition of +princes, which ambition has occasioned very many. Is Jesus the Word? If +He be the Word, did He emanate from God in time or before time? If He +emanated from God, is He coeternal and consubstantial with Him, or is He +of a similar substance? Is He distinct from Him, or is He not? Is He +made or begotten? Can He beget in his turn? Has He paternity? or +productive virtue without paternity? Is the Holy Ghost made? or +begotten? or produced? or proceeding from the Father? or proceeding from +the Son? or proceeding from both? Can He beget? can He produce? is His +hypostasis consubstantial with the hypostasis of the Father and the Son? +and how is it that, having the same nature--the same essence as the +Father and the Son, He cannot do the same things done by these persons +who are Himself? + +These questions, so far above reason, certainly needed the decision of +an infallible church. The Christians sophisticated, cavilled, hated, and +excommunicated one another, for some of these dogmas inaccessible to +human intellect, before the time of Arius and Athanasius. The Egyptian +Greeks were remarkably clever; they would split a hair into four, but on +this occasion they split it only into three. Alexandros, bishop of +Alexandria, thought proper to preach that God, being necessarily +individual--single--a monad in the strictest sense of the word, this +monad is triune. + +The priest Arius, whom we call Arius, was quite scandalized by +Alexandros's monad, and explained the thing in quite a different way. He +cavilled in part like the priest Sabellius, who had cavilled like the +Phrygian Praxeas, who was a great caviller. Alexandros quickly assembled +a small council of those of his own opinion, and excommunicated his +priest. Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, took the part of Arius. Thus the +whole Church was in a flame. + +The Emperor Constantine was a villain; I confess it--a parricide, who +had smothered his wife in a bath, cut his son's throat, assassinated his +father-in-law, his brother-in-law, and his nephew; I cannot deny it--a +man puffed up with pride and immersed in pleasure; granted--a detestable +tyrant, like his children; _transeat_--but he was a man of sense. He +would not have obtained the empire, and subdued all his rivals, had he +not reasoned justly. + +When he saw the flames of civil war lighted among the scholastic brains, +he sent the celebrated Bishop Osius with dissuasive letters to the two +belligerent parties. "You are great fools," he expressly tells them in +this letter, "to quarrel about things which you do not understand. It is +unworthy the gravity of your ministry to make so much noise about so +trifling a matter." + +By "so trifling a matter," Constantine meant not what regards the +Divinity, but the incomprehensible manner in which they were striving to +explain the nature of the Divinity. The Arabian patriarch, who wrote the +history of the Church of Alexandria, makes Osius, on presenting the +emperor's letter, speak in nearly the following words: + +"My brethren, Christianity is just beginning to enjoy the blessings of +peace, and you would plunge it into eternal discord. The emperor has but +too much reason to tell you that you quarrel about a very trifling +matter. Certainly, had the object of the dispute been essential, Jesus +Christ, whom we all acknowledge as our legislator, would have mentioned +it. God would not have sent His Son on earth, to return without teaching +us our catechism. Whatever He has not expressly told us is the work of +men and error is their portion. Jesus has commanded you to love one +another, and you begin by hating one another and stirring up discord in +the empire. Pride alone has given birth to these disputes, and Jesus, +your Master, has commanded you to be humble. Not one among you can know +whether Jesus is made or begotten. And in what does His nature concern +you, provided your own is to be just and reasonable? What has the vain +science of words to do with the morality which should guide your +actions? You cloud our doctrines with mysteries--you, who were designed +to strengthen religion by your virtues. Would you leave the Christian +religion a mass of sophistry? Did Christ come for this? Cease to +dispute, humble yourselves, edify one another, clothe the naked, feed +the hungry, and pacify the quarrels of families, instead of giving +scandal to the whole empire by your dissensions." + +But Osius addressed an obstinate audience. The Council of Nice was +assembled and the Roman Empire was torn by a spiritual civil war. This +war brought on others and mutual persecution has continued from age to +age, unto this day. + +The melancholy part of the affair was that as soon as the council was +ended the persecution began; but Constantine, when he opened it, did not +yet know how he should act, nor upon whom the persecution should fall. +He was not a Christian, though he was at the head of the Christians. +Baptism alone then constituted Christianity, and he had not been +baptized; he had even rebuilt the Temple of Concord at Rome. It was, +doubtless, perfectly indifferent to him whether Alexander of Alexandria, +or Eusebius of Nicomedia, and the priest Arius, were right or wrong; it +is quite evident, from the letter given above, that he had a profound +contempt for the dispute. + +But there happened that which always happens and always will happen in +every court. The enemies of those who were afterwards named Arians +accused Eusebius of Nicomedia of having formerly taken part with +Licinius against the emperor. "_I_ have proofs of it," said Constantine +in his letter to the Church of Nicomedia, "from the priests and deacons +in his train whom I have taken," etc. + +Thus, from the time of the first great council, intrigue, cabal, and +persecution were established, together with the tenets of the Church, +without the power to derogate from their sanctity. Constantine gave the +chapels of those who did not believe in the consubstantiality to those +who did believe in it; confiscated the property of the dissenters to his +own profit, and used his despotic power to exile Arius and his +partisans, who were not then the strongest. It has even been said that +of his own private authority he condemned to death whosoever should not +burn the writings of Arius; but this is not true. Constantine, prodigal +as he was of human blood, did not carry his cruelty to so mad and absurd +an excess as to order his executioners to assassinate the man who should +keep an heretical book, while he suffered the heresiarch to live. + +At court everything soon changes. Several non-consubstantial bishops, +with some of the eunuchs and the women, spoke in favor of Arius, and +obtained the reversal of the _lettre de cachet_. The same thing has +repeatedly happened in our modern courts on similar occasions. + +The celebrated Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, known by his writings, which +evince no great discernment, strongly accused Eustatius, bishop of +Antioch, of being a Sabellian; and Eustatius accused Eusebius of being +an Arian. A council was assembled at Antioch; Eusebius gained his cause; +Eustatius was displaced; and the See of Antioch was offered to Eusebius, +who would not accept it; the two parties armed against each other, and +this was the prelude to controversial warfare. Constantine, who had +banished Arius for not believing in the consubstantial Son, now banished +Eustatius for believing in Him; nor are such revolutions uncommon. + +St. Athanasius was then bishop of Alexandria. He would not admit Arius, +whom the emperor had sent thither, into the town, saying that "Arius was +excommunicated; that an excommunicated man ought no longer to have +either home or country; that he could neither eat nor sleep anywhere; +and that it was better to obey God than man." A new council was +forthwith held at Tyre, and new _lettres de cachet_ were issued. +Athanasius was removed by the Tyrian fathers and banished to Trèves. +Thus Arius, and Athanasius, his greatest enemy, were condemned in turn +by a man who was not yet a Christian: + +The two factions alike employed artifice, fraud, and calumny, according +to the old and eternal usage. Constantine left them to dispute and +cabal, for he had other occupations. It was at that time that this _good +prince_ assassinated his son, his wife, and his nephew, the young +Licinius, the hope of the empire, who was not yet twelve years old. + +Under Constantine, Arius' party was constantly victorious. The opposite +party has unblushingly written that one day St. Macarius, one of the +most ardent followers of Athanasius, knowing that Arius was on the way +to the cathedral of Constantinople, followed by several of his brethren, +prayed so ardently to God to confound this heresiarch that God could not +resist the prayer; and immediately all Arius' bowels passed through his +fundament--which is impossible. But at length Arius died. + +Constantine followed him a year afterwards, and it is said he died of +leprosy. Julian, in his "Cæsars," says that baptism, which this emperor +received a few hours before his death, cured no one of this distemper. + +As his children reigned after him the flattery of the Roman people, who +had long been slaves, was carried to such an excess that those of the +old religion made him a god, and those of the new made him a saint. His +feast was long kept, together with that of his mother. + +After his death, the troubles caused by the single word "consubstantial" +agitated the empire with renewed violence. Constantius, son and +successor to Constantine, imitated all his father's cruelties, and, +like him, held councils--which councils anathematized one another. +Athanasius went over all Europe and Asia to support his party, but the +Eusebians overwhelmed him. Banishment, imprisonment, tumult, murder, and +assassination signalized the close of the reign of Constantius. Julian, +the Church's mortal enemy, did his utmost to restore peace to the +Church, but was unsuccessful. Jovian, and after him Valentinian, gave +entire liberty of conscience, but the two parties accepted it only as +the liberty to exercise their hatred and their fury. + +Theodosius declared for the Council of Nice, but the Empress Justina, +who reigned in Italy, Illyria, and Africa, as guardian of the young +Valentinian, proscribed the great Council of Nice; and soon after the +Goths, Vandals, and Burgundians, who spread themselves over so many +provinces, finding Arianism established in them, embraced it in order to +govern the conquered nations by the religion of those nations. + +But the Nicæan faith having been received by the Gauls, their conqueror, +Clovis, followed that communion for the very same reason that the other +barbarians had professed the faith of Arius. + +In Italy, the great Theodoric kept peace between the two parties, and at +last the Nicæan formula prevailed in the east and in the west. Arianism +reappeared about the middle of the sixteenth century, favored by the +religious disputes which then divided Europe; and it reappeared, armed +with new strength and a still greater incredulity. Forty gentlemen of +Vicenza formed an academy, in which such tenets only were established as +appeared necessary to make men Christians. Jesus was acknowledged as the +Word, as Saviour, and as Judge; but His divinity, His consubstantiality, +and even the Trinity, were denied. + +Of these dogmatizers, the principal were Lælius Socinus, Ochin, Pazuta, +and Gentilis, who were joined by Servetus. The unfortunate dispute of +the latter with Calvin is well known; they carried on for some time an +interchange of abuse by letter. Servetus was so imprudent as to pass +through Geneva, on his way to Germany. Calvin was cowardly enough to +have him arrested, and barbarous enough to have him condemned to be +roasted by a slow fire--the same punishment which Calvin himself had +narrowly escaped in France. Nearly all the theologians of that time were +by turns persecuting and persecuted, executioners and victims. + +The same Calvin solicited the death of Gentilis at Geneva. He found five +advocates to subscribe that Gentilis deserved to perish in the flames. +Such horrors were worthy of that abominable age. Gentilis was put in +prison, and was on the point of being burned like Servetus, but he was +better advised than the Spaniard; he retracted, bestowed the most +ridiculous praises on Calvin, and was saved. But he had afterwards the +ill fortune, through not having made terms with a bailiff of the canton +of Berne, to be arrested as an Arian. There were witnesses who deposed +that he had said that the words _trinity, essence, hypostasis_ were not +to be found in the Scriptures, and on this deposition the judges, who +were as ignorant of the meaning of _hypostasis_ as himself, condemned +him, without at all arguing the question, to lose his head. + +Faustus Socinus, nephew to Lælius Socinus, and his companions were more +fortunate in Germany. They penetrated into Silesia and Poland, founded +churches there, wrote, preached, and were successful, but at length, +their religion being divested of almost every mystery, and a +philosophical and peaceful, rather than a militant sect, they were +abandoned; and the Jesuits, who had more influence, persecuted and +dispersed them. + +The remains of this sect in Poland, Germany, and Holland keep quiet and +concealed; but in England the sect has reappeared with greater strength +and éclat. The great Newton and Locke embraced it. Samuel Clarke, the +celebrated rector of St. James, and author of an excellent book on the +existence of God, openly declared himself an Arian, and his disciples +are very numerous. He would never attend his parish church on the day +when the Athanasian Creed was recited. In the course of this work will +be seen the subtleties which all these obstinate persons, who were not +so much Christians as philosophers, opposed to the purity of the +Catholic faith. + +Although among the theologians of London there was a large flock of +Arians, the public mind there has been more occupied by the great +mathematical truths discovered by Newton, and the metaphysical wisdom of +Locke. Disputes on consubstantiality appear very dull to philosophers. +The same thing happened to Newton in England as to Corneille in France, +whose _"Pertharite,"_ "_Théodore,_" and _"Recueil de Vers"_ were +forgotten, while _"Cinna"_ was alone thought of. Newton was looked upon +as God's interpreter, in the calculation of fluxions, the laws of +gravitation, and the nature of light. On his death, his pall was borne +by the peers and the chancellor of the realm, and his remains were laid +near the tombs of the kings--than whom he is more revered. Servetus, who +is said to have discovered the circulation of the blood, was roasted by +a slow fire, in a little town of the Allobroges, ruled by a theologian +of Picardy. + + + + +ARISTEAS. + + +Shall men forever be deceived in the most indifferent as well as the +most serious things? A pretended Aristeas would make us believe that he +had the Old Testament translated into Greek for the use of Ptolemy +Philadelphus--just as the Duke de Montausier had commentaries written on +the best Latin authors for the dauphin, who made no use of them. + +According to this Aristeas, Ptolemy, burning with desire to be +acquainted with the Jewish books, and to know those laws which the +meanest Jew in Alexandria could have translated for fifty crowns, +determined to send a solemn embassy to the high-priest of the Jews of +Jerusalem; to deliver a hundred and twenty thousand Jewish slaves, whom +his father, Ptolemy Soter, had made prisoners in Judæa, and in order to +assist them in performing the journey agreeably, to give them about +forty crowns each of our money--amounting in the whole to fourteen +millions four hundred thousand of our livres, or about five hundred and +seventy-six thousand pounds. + +Ptolemy did not content himself with this unheard-of liberality. He sent +to the temple a large table of massive gold, enriched all over with +precious stones, and had engraved upon it a chart of the Meander, a +river of Phrygia, the course of which river was marked with rubies and +emeralds. It is obvious how charming such a chart of the Meander must +have been to the Jews. This table was loaded with two immense golden +vases, still more richly worked. He also gave thirty other golden and an +infinite number of silver vases. Never was a book so dearly paid for; +the whole Vatican library might be had for a less amount. + +Eleazar, the pretended high-priest of Jerusalem, sent ambassadors in his +turn, who presented only a letter written upon fine vellum in characters +of gold. It was an act worthy of the Jews, to give a bit of parchment +for about thirty millions of livres. Ptolemy was so much delighted with +Eleazar's style that he shed tears of joy. + +The ambassador dined with the king and the chief priests of Egypt. When +grace was to be said, the Egyptians yielded the honor to the Jews. With +these ambassadors came seventy-two interpreters, six from each of the +twelve tribes, who had all learned Greek perfectly at Jerusalem. It is +really a pity that of these twelve tribes ten were entirely lost, and +had disappeared from the face of the earth so many ages before; but +Eleazar, the high-priest, found them again, on purpose to send +translators to Ptolemy. + +The seventy-two interpreters were shut up in the island of Pharos. Each +of them completed his translation in seventy-two days, and all the +translations were found to be word for word alike. This is called the +Septuagint or translation of the seventy, though it should have been +called the translation of the seventy-two. + +As soon as the king had received these books he worshipped them--he was +so good a Jew. Each interpreter received three talents of gold, and +there were sent to the high-sacrificer--in return for his parchment--ten +couches of silver, a crown of gold, censers and cups of gold, a vase of +thirty talents of silver--that is, of the weight of about sixty thousand +crowns--with ten purple robes, and a hundred pieces of the finest linen. + +Nearly all this fine story is faithfully repeated by the historian +Josephus, who never exaggerates anything. St. Justin improves upon +Josephus. He says that Ptolemy applied to King Herod, and not to the +high-priest Eleazar. He makes Ptolemy send two ambassadors to +Herod--which adds much to the marvellousness of the tale, for we know +that Herod was not born until long after the reign of Ptolemy +Philadelphus. + +It is needless to point out the profusion of anachronisms in these and +all such romances, or the swarm of contradictions and enormous blunders +into which the Jewish author falls in every sentence; yet this fable was +regarded for ages as an incontestable truth; and, the better to exercise +the credulity of the human mind, every writer who repeated it added or +retrenched in his own way, so that, to believe it all, it was necessary +to believe it in a hundred different ways. Some smile at these +absurdities which whole nations have swallowed, while others sigh over +the imposture. The infinite diversity of these falsehoods multiplies the +followers of Democritus and Heraclitus. + + + + +ARISTOTLE. + + +It is not to be believed that Alexander's preceptor, chosen by Philip, +was wrong-headed and pedantic. Philip was assuredly a judge, being +himself well informed, and the rival of Demosthenes in eloquence. + +_Aristotle's Logic._ + +Aristotle's logic--his art of reasoning--is so much the more to be +esteemed as he had to deal with the Greeks, who were continually holding +captious arguments, from which fault his master Plato was even less +exempt than others. + +Take, for example, the article by which, in the _"Phædon"_ Plato proves +the immortality of the soul: + +"Do you not say that death is the opposite of life? Yes. And that they +spring from each other? Yes. What, then, is it that springs from the +living? The dead. And what from the dead? The living. It is, then, from +the dead that all living creatures arise. Consequently, souls exist +after death in the infernal regions." + +Sure and unerring rules were wanted to unravel this extraordinary +nonsense, which, through Plato's reputation, fascinated the minds of +men. It was necessary to show that Plato gave a loose meaning to all his +words. + +Death does not spring from life, but the living man ceases to live. The +living springs not from the dead, but from a living man who subsequently +dies. Consequently, the conclusion that all living things spring from +dead ones is ridiculous. + +From this conclusion you draw another, which is no way included in the +premises, that souls are in the infernal regions after death. It should +first have been proved that dead bodies are in the infernal regions, and +that the souls accompany them. + +There is not a correct word in your argument. You should have said--That +which thinks has no parts; that which has no parts is indestructible: +therefore, the thinking faculty in us, having no parts, is +indestructible. Or--the body dies because it is divisible; the soul is +indivisible; therefore it does not die. Then you would at least have +been understood. + +It is the same with all the captious reasonings of the Greeks. A master +taught rhetoric to his disciple on condition that he should pay him +after the first cause that he gained. The disciple intended never to pay +him. He commenced an action against his master, saying: "I will never +pay you anything, for, if I lose my cause I was not to pay you until I +had gained it, and if I gain it my demand is that I may not pay you." + +The master retorted, saying: "If you lose you must pay; if you gain you +must also pay; for our bargain is that you shall pay me after the first +cause that you have gained." + +It is evident that all this turns on an ambiguity. Aristotle teaches how +to remove it, by putting the necessary terms in the argument: + +A sum is not due until the day appointed for its payment. The day +appointed is that when a cause shall have been gained. No cause has yet +been gained. Therefore the day appointed has not yet arrived. Therefore +the disciple does not yet owe anything. + +But _not yet_ does not mean _never_. So that the disciple instituted a +ridiculous action. The master, too, had no right to demand anything, +since the day appointed had not arrived. He must wait until the disciple +had pleaded some other cause. + +Suppose a conquering people were to stipulate that they would restore to +the conquered only one-half of their ships; then, having sawed them in +two, and having thus given back the exact half, were to pretend that +they had fulfilled the treaty. It is evident that this would be a very +criminal equivocation. + +Aristotle did, then, render a great service to mankind by preventing all +ambiguity; for this it is which causes all misunderstandings in +philosophy, in theology, and in public affairs. The pretext for the +unfortunate war of 1756 was an equivocation respecting Acadia. + +It is true that natural good sense, combined with the habit of +reasoning, may dispense with Aristotle's rules. A man who has a good ear +and voice may sing well without musical rules, but it is better to know +them. + +_His Physics._ + +They are but little understood, but it is more than probable that +Aristotle understood himself, and was understood in his own time. We are +strangers to the language of the Greeks; we do not attach to the same +words the same ideas. + +For instance, when he says, in his seventh chapter, that the principles +of bodies are matter, privation, and form, he seems to talk egregious +nonsense; but such is not the case. Matter, with him, is the first +principle of everything--the subject of everything--indifferent to +everything. Form is essential to its becoming any certain thing. +Privation is that which distinguishes any being from all those things +which are not in it. Matter may, indifferently, become a rose or an +apple; but, when it is an apple or a rose it is deprived of all that +would make it silver or lead. Perhaps this truth was not worth the +trouble of repeating; but we have nothing here but what is quite +intelligible, and nothing at all impertinent. + +The "act of that which is in power" also seems a ridiculous phrase, +though it is no more so than the one just noticed. Matter may become +whatever you will--fire, earth, water, vapor, metal, mineral, animal, +tree, flower. This is all that is meant by the expression, _act in +power_. So that there was nothing ridiculous to the Greeks in saying +that motion was an act of power, since matter may be moved; and it is +very likely that Aristotle understood thereby that motion was not +essential to matter. + +Aristotle's physics must necessarily have been very bad in detail. This +was common to all philosophers until the time when the Galileos, the +Torricellis, the Guerickes, the Drebels, and the Academy del Cimento +began to make experiments. Natural philosophy is a mine which cannot be +explored without instruments that were unknown to the ancients. They +remained on the brink of the abyss, and reasoned upon without seeing its +contents. + +_Aristotle's Treatise on Animals._ + +His researches relative to animals formed, on the contrary, the best +book of antiquity, because here Aristotle made use of his eyes. +Alexander furnished him with all the rare animals of Europe, Asia, and +Africa. This was one fruit of his conquests. In this way that hero spent +immense sums, which at this day would terrify all the guardians of the +royal treasury, and which should immortalize Alexander's glory, of which +we have already spoken. + +At the present day a hero, when he has the misfortune to make war, can +scarcely give any encouragement to the sciences; he must borrow money of +a Jew, and consult other Jews in order to make the substance of his +subjects flow into his coffer of the Danaides, whence it escapes through +a thousand openings. Alexander sent to Aristotle elephants, +rhinoceroses, tigers, lions, crocodiles, gazelles, eagles, ostriches, +etc.; and we, when by chance a rare animal is brought to our fairs, go +and admire it for sixpence, and it dies before we know anything about +it. + +_Of the Eternal World._ + +Aristotle expressly maintains, in his book on heaven, chap, xi., that +the world is eternal. This was the opinion of all antiquity, excepting +the Epicureans. He admitted a God--a first mover--and defined Him to be +"one, eternal, immovable, indivisible, without qualities." + +He must, therefore, have regarded the world as emanating from God, as +the light emanates from the sun, and is co-existent with it. About the +celestial spheres he was as ignorant as all the rest of the +philosophers. Copernicus was not yet come. + +_His Metaphysics._ + +God being the first mover, He gives motion to the soul. But what is God, +and what is the soul, according to him? The soul is an _entelechia_. "It +is," says he, "a principle and an act--a nourishing, feeling, and +reasoning power." This can only mean that we have the faculties of +nourishing ourselves, of feeling, and of reasoning. The Greeks no more +knew what an _entelechia_ was than do the South Sea islanders; nor have +our doctors any more knowledge of what a soul is. + +_His Morals._ + +Aristotle's morals, like all others, are good, for there are not two +systems of morality. Those of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Pythagoras, of +Aristotle, of Epictetus, of Antoninus, are absolutely the same. God has +placed in every breast the knowledge of good, with some inclination for +evil. + +Aristotle says that to be virtuous three things are necessary--nature, +reason, and habit; and nothing is more true. Without a good disposition, +virtue is too difficult; reason strengthens it; and habit renders good +actions as familiar as a daily exercise to which one is accustomed. + +He enumerates all the virtues, and does not fail to place friendship +among them. He distinguishes friendship between equals, between +relatives, between guests, and between lovers. Friendship springing from +the rights of hospitality is no longer known among us. That which, among +the ancients, was the sacred bond of society is, with us, nothing but an +innkeeper's reckoning; and as for lovers, it is very rarely nowadays +that virtue has anything to do with love. We think we owe nothing to a +woman to whom we have a thousand times promised everything. + +It is a melancholy reflection that our first thinkers have never ranked +friendship among the virtues--have rarely recommended friendship; but, +on the contrary, have often seemed to breathe enmity, like tyrants, who +dread all associations. + +It is, moreover, with very good reason that Aristotle places all the +virtues between the two extremes. He was, perhaps, the first who +assigned them this place. He expressly says that piety is the medium +between atheism and superstition. + +_His Rhetoric._ + +It was probably his rules for rhetoric and poetry that Cicero and +Quintilian had in view. Cicero, in his "Orator" says that "no one had +more science, sagacity, invention, or judgment." Quintilian goes so far +as to praise, not only the extent of his knowledge, but also the suavity +of his elocution--_suavitatem eloquendi._ + +Aristotle would have an orator well informed respecting laws, finances, +treaties, fortresses, garrisons, provisions, and merchandise. The +orators in the parliaments of England, the diets of Poland, the states +of Sweden, the _pregadi_ of Venice, etc., would not find these lessons +of Aristotle unprofitable; to other nations, perhaps, they would be so. +He would have his orator know the passions and manners of men, and the +humors of every condition. + +I think there is not a single nicety of the art which has escaped him. +He particularly commends the citing of instances where public affairs +are spoken of; nothing has so great an effect on the minds of men. + +What he says on this subject proves that he wrote his "Rhetoric" long +before Alexander was appointed captain-general of the Greeks against the +great king. + +"If," says he, "any one had to prove to the Greeks that it is to their +interest to oppose the enterprises of the king of Persia, and to prevent +him from making himself master of Egypt, he should first remind them +that Darius Ochus would not attack Greece until Egypt was in his power; +he should remark that Xerxes had pursued the same course; he should add +that it was not to be doubted that Darius Codomannus would do the same; +and that, therefore, they must not suffer him to take possession of +Egypt." + +He even permits, in speeches delivered to great assemblies, the +introduction of parables and fables; they always strike the multitude. +He relates some ingenious ones, which are of the highest antiquity, as +the horse that implored the assistance of man to avenge himself on the +stag, and became a slave through having sought a protector. + +It may be remarked that, in the second book, where he treats of arguing +from the greater to the less, he gives an example which plainly shows +what was the opinion of Greece, and probably of Asia, respecting the +extent of the power of the gods. + +"If," says he, "it be true that the gods themselves, enlightened as they +are, cannot know everything, much less can men." This passage clearly +proves that omniscience was not then attributed to the Divinity. It was +conceived that the gods could not know what was not; the future was not, +therefore it seemed impossible that they should know it. This is the +opinion of the Socinians at the present day. + +But to return to Aristotle's "Rhetoric." What I shall chiefly remark on +in his book on elocution and diction is the good sense with which he +condemns those who would be poets in prose. He would have pathos, but he +banishes bombast, and proscribes useless epithets. Indeed, Demosthenes +and Cicero, who followed his precepts, never affected the poetic style +in their speeches. "The style," says Aristotle, "must always be +conformable to the subject." + +Nothing can be more misplaced than to speak of physics poetically, and +lavish figure and ornament where there should be only method, clearness, +and truth. It is the quackery of a man who would pass off false systems +under cover of an empty noise of words. Weak minds are caught by the +bait, and strong minds disdain it. + +Among us the funeral oration has taken possession of the poetic style in +prose; but this branch of oratory, consisting almost entirely of +exaggeration, seems privileged to borrow the ornaments of poetry. + +The writers of romances have sometimes taken this licence. La Calprenède +was, I think, the first who thus transposed the limits of the arts, and +abused this facility. The author of "Telemachus" was pardoned through +consideration for Homer, whom he imitated, though he could not make +verses, and still more in consideration of his morality, in which he +infinitely surpasses Homer, who has none at all. But he owed his +popularity chiefly to the criticism on the pride of Louis XIV. and the +harshness of Louvois, which, it was thought, were discoverable in +"Telemachus." + +Be this as it may, nothing can be a better proof of Aristotle's good +sense and good taste than his having assigned to everything its proper +place. + +_Aristotle on Poetry._ + +Where, in our modern nations, shall we find a natural philosopher, a +geometrician, a metaphysician, or even a moralist who has spoken well on +the subject of poetry? They teem with the names of Homer, Virgil, +Sophocles, Ariosto, Tasso, and so many others who have charmed the world +by the harmonious productions of their genius, but they feel not their +beauties; or if they feel them they would annihilate them. + +How ridiculous is it in Pascal to say: "As we say poetical beauty, we +should likewise say geometrical beauty, and medicinal beauty. Yet we do +not say so, and the reason is that we well know what is the object of +geometry, and what is the object of medicine, but we do not know in what +the peculiar charm--which is the object of poetry--consists. We know not +what that natural model is which must be imitated; and for want of this +knowledge we have invented certain fantastic terms, as age of gold, +wonder of the age, fatal wreath, fair star, etc. And this jargon we call +poetic beauty." + +The pitifulness of this passage is sufficiently obvious. We know that +there is nothing beautiful in a medicine, nor in the properties of a +triangle; and that we apply the term "beautiful" only to that which +raises admiration in our minds and gives pleasure to our senses. Thus +reasons Aristotle; and Pascal here reasons very ill. Fatal wreath, fair +star, have never been poetic beauties. If he wished to know what is +poetic beauty, he had only to read. + +Nicole wrote against the stage, about which he had not a single idea; +and was seconded by one Dubois, who was as ignorant of the _belles +lettres_ as himself. + +Even Montesquieu, in his amusing "Persian Letters," has the petty vanity +to think that Homer and Virgil are nothing in comparison with one who +imitates with spirit and success Dufrénoy's _"Siamois,"_ and fills his +book with bold assertions, without which it would not have been read. +"What," says he, "are epic poems? I know them not. I despise the lyric +as much as I esteem the tragic poets." He should not, however, have +despised Pindar and Horace quite so much. Aristotle did not despise +Pindar. + +Descartes did, it is true, write for Queen Christina a little +_divertissement_ in verse, which was quite worthy of his _matière +cannelée_. + +Malebranche could not distinguish Corneille's _"Qu'il mourût"_ from a +line of Jodèle's or Garnier's. + +What a man, then, was Aristotle, who traced the rules of tragedy with +the same hand with which he had laid down those of dialectics, of +morals, of politics, and lifted, as far as he found it possible, the +great veil of nature! + +To his fourth chapter on poetry Boileau is indebted for these fine +lines: + + _Il n'est point de serpent, ni de monstre odieux_ + _Qui, par l'art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux._ + _D'un pinceau délicat l'artifice agréable_ + _Du plus affreux object fait un objet aimable;_ + _Ainsi, pour nous charmer, la tragédie eut pleurs_ + _D'Å’dipe tout-sanglant fit parler les douleurs._ + + Each horrid shape, each object of affright, + Nice imitation teaches to delight; + So does the skilful painter's pleasing art + Attractions to the darkest form impart; + So does the tragic Muse, dissolved in tears. + With tales of woe and sorrow charm our ears. + +Aristotle says: "Imitation and harmony have produced poetry. We see +terrible animals, dead or dying men, in a picture, with +pleasure--objects which in nature would inspire us only with fear and +sorrow. The better they are imitated the more complete is our +satisfaction." + +This fourth chapter of Aristotle's reappears almost entire in Horace and +Boileau. The laws which he gives in the following chapters are at this +day those of our good writers, excepting only what relates to the +choruses and music. His idea that tragedy was instituted to purify the +passions has been warmly combated; but if he meant, as I believe he did, +that an incestuous love might be subdued by witnessing the misfortune of +Phædra, or anger be repressed by beholding the melancholy example of +Ajax, there is no longer any difficulty. + +This philosopher expressly commands that there be always the heroic in +tragedy and the ridiculous in comedy. This is a rule from which it is, +perhaps, now becoming too customary to depart. + + + + +ARMS--ARMIES. + + +It is worthy of consideration that there have been and still are, upon +the earth societies without armies. The Brahmins, who long governed +nearly all the great Indian Chersonesus; the primitives, called Quakers, +who governed Pennsylvania; some American tribes, some in the centre of +Africa, the Samoyedes, the Laplanders, the Kamchadales, have never +marched with colors flying to destroy their neighbors. + +The Brahmins were the most considerable of all these pacific nations; +their caste, which is so ancient, which is still existing, and compared +with which all other institutions are quite recent, is a prodigy which +cannot be sufficiently admired. Their religion and their policy always +concurred in abstaining from the shedding of blood, even of that of the +meanest animal. Where such is the regime, subjugation is easy; they have +been subjugated, but have not changed. + +The Pennsylvanians never had an army; they always held war in +abhorrence. + +Several of the American tribes did not know what an army was until the +Spaniards came to exterminate them all. The people on the borders of the +Icy Sea are ignorant alike of armies, of the god of armies, of +battalions, and of squadrons. + +Besides these populations, the priests and monks do not bear arms in +any country--at least when they observe the laws of their institution. + +It is only among Christians that there have been religious societies +established for the purpose of fighting--as the Knights Templars, the +Knights of St. John, the Knights of the Teutonic Order, the Knights +Swordbearers. These religious orders were instituted in imitation of the +Levites, who fought like the rest of the Jewish tribes. + +Neither armies nor arms were the same in antiquity as at present. The +Egyptians hardly ever had cavalry. It would have been of little use in a +country intersected by canals, inundated during five months of the year, +and miry during five more. The inhabitants of a great part of Asia used +chariots of war. + +They are mentioned in the annals of China. Confucius says that in his +time each governor of a province furnished to the emperor a thousand war +chariots, each drawn by four horses. The Greeks and Trojans fought in +chariots drawn by two horses. + +Cavalry and chariots were unknown to the Jews in a mountainous tract, +where their first king, when he was elected, had nothing but she-asses. +Thirty sons of Jair, princes of thirty cities, according to the text +(Judges, x, 4), rode each upon an ass. Saul, afterwards king of Judah, +had only she-asses; and the sons of David all fled upon mules when +Absalom had slain his brother Amnon. Absalom was mounted on a mule in +the battle which he fought against his father's troops; which proves, +according to the Jewish historians, either that mares were beginning to +be used in Palestine, or that they were already rich enough there to buy +mules from the neighboring country. + +The Greeks made but little use of cavalry. It was chiefly with the +Macedonian phalanx that Alexander gained the battles which laid Persia +at his feet. It was the Roman infantry that subjugated the greater part +of the world. At the battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar had but one thousand +horsemen. + +It is not known at what time the Indians and the Africans first began to +march elephants at the head of their armies. We cannot read without +surprise of Hannibal's elephants crossing the Alps, which were much +harder to pass then than they are now. + +There have long been disputes about the disposition of the Greek and +Roman armies, their arms, and their evolutions. Each one has given his +plan of the battles of Zama and Pharsalia. + +The commentator Calmet, a Benedictine, has printed three great volumes +of his "Dictionary of the Bible," in which, the better to explain God's +commandments, are inserted a hundred engravings, where you see plans of +battles and sieges in copper-plate. The God of the Jews was the God of +armies, but Calmet was not His secretary; he cannot have known, but by +revelation, how the armies of the Amalekites, the Moabites, the Syrians, +and the Philistines were arranged on the days of general murder. These +plates of carnage, designed at a venture, made his hook five or six +louis dearer, but made it no better. + +It is a great question whether the Franks, whom the Jesuit Daniel calls +French by anticipation, used bows and arrows in their armies, and +whether they had helmets and cuirasses. + +Supposing that they went to combat almost naked, and armed, as they are +said to have been, with only a small carpenter's ax, a sword, and a +knife, we must infer that the Romans, masters of Gaul, so easily +conquered by Clovis, had lost all their ancient valor, and that the +Gauls were as willing to be subject to a small number of Franks as to a +small number of Romans. Warlike accoutrements have since changed, as +everything else changes. + +In the days of knights, squires, and varlets, the armed forces of +Germany, France, Italy, England, and Spain consisted almost entirely of +horsemen, who, as well as their horses, were covered with steel. The +infantry performed the functions rather of pioneers than of soldiers. +But the English always had good archers among their foot, which +contributed, in a great measure, to their gaining almost every battle. + +Who would believe that armies nowadays do but make experiments in +natural philosophy? A soldier would be much astonished if some learned +man were to say to him: + +"My friend, you are a better machinist than Archimedes. Five parts of +saltpetre, one of sulphur, and one of _carbo ligneus_ have been +separately prepared. Your saltpetre dissolved, well filtered, well +evaporated, well crystallized, well turned, well dried, has been +incorporated with the yellow purified sulphur. These two ingredients, +mixed with powdered charcoal, have, by means of a little vinegar, or +solution of sal-ammoniac, or urine, formed large balls, which balls have +been reduced _in pulverem pyrium_ by a mill. The effect of this mixture +is a dilatation, which is nearly as four thousand to unity; and the lead +in your barrel exhibits another effect, which is the product of its bulk +multiplied by its velocity. + +"The first who discovered a part of this mathematical secret was a +Benedictine named Roger Bacon. The invention was perfected, in Germany, +in the fourteenth century, by another Benedictine named Schwartz. So +that you owe to two monks the art of being an excellent murderer, when +you aim well, and your powder is good. + +"Du Cange has in vain pretended that, in 1338, the registers of the +_Chambre des Comptes_, at Paris, mention a bill paid for gunpowder. Do +not believe it. It was artillery which is there spoken of--a name +attached to ancient as well as to modern warlike machines. + +"Gunpowder entirely superseded the Greek fire, of which the Moors still +made use. In fine, you are the depositary of an art, which not only +imitates the thunder, but is also much more terrible." + +There is, however, nothing but truth in this speech. Two monks have, in +reality, changed the face of the earth. + +Before cannon were known, the northern nations had subjugated nearly the +whole hemisphere, and could come again, like famishing wolves, to seize +upon the lands as their ancestors had done. + +In all armies, the victory, and consequently the fate of kingdoms, was +decided by bodily strength and agility--a sort of sanguinary fury--a +desperate struggle, man to man. Intrepid men took towns by scaling their +walls. During the decline of the Roman Empire there was hardly more +discipline in the armies of the North than among carnivorous beasts +rushing on their prey. + +Now a single frontier fortress would suffice to stop the armies of +Genghis or Attila. It is not long since a victorious army of Russians +were unavailably consumed before Custrin, which is nothing more than a +little fortress in a marsh. + +In battle, the weakest in body may, with well-directed artillery, +prevail against the stoutest. At the battle of Fontenoy a few cannon +were sufficient to compel the retreat of the whole English column, +though it had been master of the field. + +The combatants no longer close. The soldier has no longer that ardor, +that impetuosity, which is redoubled in the heat of action, when the +fight is hand to hand. Strength, skill, and even the temper of the +weapons, are useless. Rarely is a charge with the bayonet made in the +course of a war, though the bayonet is the most terrible of weapons. + +In a plain, frequently surrounded by redoubts furnished with heavy +artillery, two armies advance in silence, each division taking with it +flying artillery. The first lines lire at one another and after one +another: they are victims presented in turn to the bullets. Squadrons at +the wings are often exposed to a cannonading while waiting for the +general's orders. They who first tire of this manÅ“uvre, which gives +no scope for the display of impetuous bravery, disperse and quit the +field; and are rallied, if possible, a few miles off. The victorious +enemies besiege a town, which sometimes costs them more men, money, and +time than they would have lost by several battles. The progress made is +rarely rapid; and at the end of five or six years, both sides, being +equally exhausted, are compelled to make peace. + +Thus, at all events, the invention of artillery and the new mode of +warfare have established among the respective powers an equality which +secures mankind from devastations like those of former times, and +thereby renders war less fatal in its consequences, though it is still +prodigiously so. + +The Greeks in all ages, the Romans in the time of Sulla, and the other +nations of the west and south, had no standing army; every citizen was a +soldier, and enrolled himself in time of war. It is, at this day, +precisely the same in Switzerland. Go through the whole country, and +you will not find a battalion, except at the time of the reviews. If it +goes to war, you all at once see eighty thousand men in arms. + +Those who usurped the supreme power after Sulla always had a permanent +force, paid with the money of the citizens, to keep the citizens in +subjection, much more than to subjugate other nations. The bishop of +Rome himself keeps a small army in his pay. Who, in the time of the +apostles, would have said that the servant of the servants of God should +have regiments, and have them in Rome? + +Nothing is so much feared in England as a great standing army. The +janissaries have raised the sultans to greatness, but they have also +strangled them. The sultans would have avoided the rope, if instead of +these large bodies of troops, they had established small ones. + + + + +AROT AND MAROT. + +WITH A SHORT REVIEW OF THE KORAN. + + +This article may serve to show how much the most learned men may be +deceived, and to develop some useful truths. In the _"Dictionnaire +Encyclopédique"_ there is the following passage concerning Arot and +Marot: + +"These are the names of two angels, who, the impostor Mahomet said, had +been sent from God to teach man, and to order him to abstain from +murder, false judgments, and excesses of every kind. This false prophet +adds that a very beautiful woman, having invited these two angels to her +table, made them drink wine, with which being heated, they solicited her +as lovers; that she feigned to yield to their passion, provided they +would first teach her the words by pronouncing which they said it was +easy to ascend to heaven; that having obtained from them what she asked, +she would not keep her promise; and that she was then taken up into +heaven, where, having related to God what had passed, she was changed +into the morning star called Lucifer or Aurora, and the angels were +severely punished. Hence it was, according to Mahomet, that God took +occasion to forbid wine to men." + +It would be in vain to seek in the Koran for a single word of this +absurd story and pretended reason for Mahomet's forbidding his followers +the use of wine. He forbids it only in the second and fifth chapters. + +"They will question thee about wine and strong liquors: thou shalt +answer, that it is a great sin. The just, who believe and do good works, +must not be reproached with having drunk, and played at games of chance, +before games of chance were forbidden." + +It is averred by all the Mahometans that their prophet forbade wine and +liquors solely to preserve their health and prevent quarrels, in the +burning climate of Arabia. The use of any fermented liquor soon affects +the head, and may destroy both health and reason. + +The fable of Arot and Marot descending from heaven, and wanting to lie +with an Arab woman, after drinking wine with her, is not in any +Mahometan author. It is to be found only among the impostures which +various Christian writers, more indiscreet than enlightened, have +printed against the Mussulman religion, through a zeal which is not +according to knowledge. The names of Arot and Marot are in no part of +the Koran. It is one Sylburgius who says, in an old book which nobody +reads, that he anathematizes the angels Arot, Marot, Safah, and Merwah. + +Observe, kind reader, that Safah and Merwah are two little hills near +Mecca; so that our learned Sylburgius has taken two hills for two +angels. Thus it was with every writer on Mahometanism among us, almost +without exception, until the intelligent Reland gave us clear ideas of +the Mussulman belief, and the learned Sale, after living twenty-four +years in and about Arabia, at length enlightened us by his faithful +translation of the Koran, and his most instructive preface. + +Gagnier himself, notwithstanding his Arabic professorship at Oxford, has +been pleased to put forth a few falsehoods concerning Mahomet, as if we +had need of lies to maintain the truth of our religion against a false +prophet. He gives us at full length Mahomet's journey through the seven +heavens on the mare Alborac, and even ventures to cite the fifty-third +sura or chapter; but neither in this fifty-third sura, nor in any other, +is there so much as an allusion to this pretended journey through the +heavens. + +This strange story is related by Abulfeda, seven hundred years after +Mahomet. It is taken, he says, from ancient manuscripts which were +current in Mahomet's time. But it is evident that they were not +Mahomet's; for, after his death, Abubeker gathered together all the +leaves of the Koran, in the presence of all the chiefs of tribes, and +nothing was inserted in the collection that did not appear to be +authentic. + +Besides, the chapter concerning the journey to heaven, not only is not +in the Koran, but is in a very different style, and is at least four +times as long as any of the received chapters. Compare all the other +chapters of the Koran with this, and you will find a prodigious +difference. It begins thus: + +"One night, I fell asleep between the two hills of Safah and Merwah. +That night was very dark, but so still that the dogs were not heard to +bark, nor the cocks to crow. All at once, the angel Gabriel appeared +before me in the form in which the Most High God created him. His skin +was white as snow. His fair hair, admirably disposed, fell in ringlets +over his shoulders; his forehead was clear, majestic, and serene, his +teeth beautiful and shining, and his legs of a saffron hue; his garments +were glittering with pearls, and with thread of pure gold. On his +forehead was a plate of gold, on which were written two lines, brilliant +and dazzling with light; in the first were these words, 'There is no God +but God'; and in the second these, 'Mahomet is God's Apostle.' On +beholding this, I remained the most astonished and confused of men. I +observed about him seventy thousand little boxes or bags of musk and +saffron. He had five hundred pairs of wings; and the distance from one +wing to another was five hundred years' journey. + +"Thus did Gabriel appear before me. He touched me, and said, 'Arise, +thou sleeper!' I was seized with fear and trembling, and starting up, +said to him, 'Who art thou?' He answered, 'God have mercy upon thee! I +am thy brother Gabriel.' 'O my dearly beloved Gabriel,' said I, 'I ask +thy pardon; is it a revelation of something new, or is it some +afflicting threat that thou bringest me?' 'It is something new,' +returned he; 'rise, my dearly beloved, and tie thy mantle over thy +shoulders; thou wilt have need of it, for thou must this night pay a +visit to thy Lord.' So saying, Gabriel, taking my hand, raised me from +the ground, and having mounted me on the mare Alborac, led her himself +by the bridle." + +In fine, it is averred by the Mussulmans that this chapter, which has no +authenticity, was imagined by Abu-Horaïrah, who is said to have been +contemporary with the prophet. What should we say of a Turk who should +come and insult our religion by telling us that we reckon among our +sacred books the letters of St. Paul to Seneca, and Seneca's letters to +St. Paul; the acts of Pilate; the life of Pilate's wife; the letters of +the pretended King Abgarus to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ's answer to +the same; the story of St. Peter's challenge to Simon the magician; the +predictions of the sibyls; the testament of the twelve patriarchs; and +so many other books of the same kind? + +We should answer the Turk by saying that he was very ill informed and +that not one of these works was regarded as authentic. The Turk will +make the same answer to us, when to confound him we reproach him with +Mahomet's journey to the seven heavens. He will tell us that this is +nothing more than a pious fraud of latter times, and that this journey +is not in the Koran. Assuredly I am not here comparing truth with +error--Christianity with Mahometanism--the Gospel with the Koran; but +false tradition with false tradition--abuse with abuse--absurdity with +absurdity. + +This absurdity has been carried to such a length that Grotius charges +Mahomet with having said that God's hands are cold, for he has felt +them; that God is carried about in a chair; and that, in Noah's ark, the +rat was produced from the elephant's dung, and the cat from the lion's +breath. + +Grotius reproaches Mahomet with having imagined that Jesus Christ was +taken up into heaven instead of suffering execution. He forgets that +there were entire heretical communions of primitive Christians who +spread this opinion, which was preserved in Syria and Arabia until +Mahomet's time. + +How many times has it been repeated that Mahomet had accustomed a pigeon +to eat grain out of his ear, and made his followers believe that this +pigeon brought him messages from God? + +Is it not enough for us that we are persuaded of the falseness of his +sect, and invincibly convinced by faith of the truth of our own, without +losing our time in calumniating the Mahometans, who have established +themselves from Mount Caucasus to Mount Atlas, and from the confines of +Epirus to the extremities of India? We are incessantly writing bad books +against them, of which they know nothing. We cry out that their religion +has been embraced by so many nations only because it flatters the +senses. But where is the sensuality in ordering abstinence from the wine +and liquors in which we indulge to such excess; in pronouncing to every +one an indispensable command to give to the poor each year two and a +half per cent, of his income, to fast with the greatest rigor, to +undergo a painful operation in the earliest stage of puberty, to make, +over arid sands a pilgrimage of sometimes five hundred leagues, and to +pray to God five times a day, even when in the field? + +But, say you, they are allowed four wives in this world, and in the next +they will have celestial brides. Grotius expressly says: "It must have +required a great share of stupidity to admit reveries so gross and +disgusting." + +We agree with Grotius that the Mahometans have been prodigal of +reveries. The man who was constantly receiving the chapters of his Koran +from the angel Gabriel was worse than a visionary; he was an impostor, +who supported his seductions by his courage; but certainly there is +nothing either stupid or sensual in reducing to four the unlimited +number of wives whom the princes, the satraps, the nabobs, and the +omrahs of the East kept in their seraglios. It is said that Solomon had +three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines. The Arabs, like the +Jews, were at liberty to marry two sisters; Mahomet was the first who +forbade these marriages. Where, then, is the grossness? + +And with regard to the celestial brides, where is the impurity? Certes, +there is nothing impure in marriage, which is acknowledged to have been +ordained on earth, and blessed by God Himself. The incomprehensible +mystery of generation is the seal of the Eternal Being. It is the +clearest mark of His power that He has created pleasure, and through +that very pleasure perpetuated all sensible beings. + +If we consult our reason alone it will tell us that it is very likely +that the Eternal Being, who does nothing in vain, will not cause us to +rise again with our organs to no purpose. It will not be unworthy of the +Divine Majesty to feed us with delicious fruits if he cause us to rise +again with stomachs to receive them. The Holy Scriptures inform us +that, in the beginning, God placed the first man and the first woman in +a paradise of delights. They were then in a state of innocence and +glory, incapable of experiencing disease or death. This is nearly the +state in which the just will be when, after their resurrection, they +shall be for all eternity what our first parents were for a few days. +Those, then, must be pardoned, who have thought that, having a body, +that body will be constantly satisfied. Our fathers of the Church had no +other idea of the heavenly Jerusalem. St. Irenæus says, "There each vine +shall bear ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand clusters, and +each cluster ten thousand grapes." + +Several fathers of the Church have, indeed, thought that the blessed in +heaven would enjoy all their senses. St. Thomas says that the sense of +seeing will be infinitely perfect; that the elements will be so too; +that the surface of the earth will be transparent as glass, the water +like crystal, the air like the heavens, and the fire like the stars. St. +Augustine, in his "Christian Doctrine," says that the sense of hearing +will enjoy the pleasures of singing and of speech. + +One of our great Italian theologians, named Piazza, in his "Dissertation +on Paradise," informs us that the elect will forever sing and play the +guitar: "They will have," says he, "three nobilities--three advantages, +viz.: desire without excitement, caresses without wantonness, and +voluptuousness without excess"--_"tres nobilitates; illecebra sine +titillatione, blanditia sine mollitudine, et voluptas sine +exuberantia."_ + +St. Thomas assures us that the smell of the glorified bodies will be +perfect, and will not be diminished by perspiration. _"Corporibus +gloriosi serit odor ultima perfectione, nullo modo per humidum +repressus."_ This question has been profoundly treated by a great many +other doctors. + +Suarez, in his "Wisdom," thus expresses himself concerning taste: "It is +not difficult for God purposely to make some rapid humor act on the +organ of taste." _"Non est Deo difficile facere ut sapidus humor sit +intra organum gustus, qui sensum illum intentionaliter afficere."_ + +And, to conclude, St. Prosper, recapitulating the whole, pronounces that +the blessed shall find gratification without satiety, and enjoy health +without disease. _"Saturitas sine fastidio, et tota sanitas sine +morbo._" + +It is not then so much to be wondered at that the Mahometans have +admitted the use of the five senses in their paradise. They say that the +first beatitude will be the union with God; but this does not exclude +the rest. Mahomet's paradise is a fable; but; once more be it observed, +there is in it neither contradiction nor impurity. + +Philosophy requires clear and precise ideas, which Grotius had not. He +quotes a great deal, and makes a show of reasoning which will not bear +a close examination. The unjust imputations cast on the Mahometans would +suffice to make a very large book. They have subjugated one of the +largest and most beautiful countries upon earth; to drive them from it +would have been a finer exploit than to abuse them. + +The empress of Russia supplies a great example. She takes from them Azov +and Tangarok, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Georgia; she pushes her conquests +to the ramparts of Erzerum; she sends against them fleets from the +remotest parts of the Baltic, and others covering the Euxine; but she +does not say in her manifestos that a pigeon whispered in Mahomet's ear. + + + + +ART OF POETRY. + + +A MAN + + +A man of almost universal learning--a man even of genius, who joins +philosophy with imagination, uses, in his excellent article +"Encyclopedia," these remarkable words: "If we except this Perrault, and +some others, whose merits the versifier Boileau was not capable of +appreciating." + +This philosopher is right in doing justice to Claude Perrault, the +learned translator of Vitruvius, a man useful in more arts than one, and +to whom we are indebted for the fine front of the Louvre and for other +great monuments; but justice should also be rendered to Boileau. Had he +been only a versifier, he would scarcely have been known; he would not +have been one of the few great men who will hand down the age of Louis +XIV. to posterity. His tart satires, his fine epistles, and above all, +his art of poetry, are masterpieces of reasoning as well as +poetry--_"sapere est principium et fons."_ The art of versifying is, +indeed, prodigiously difficult, especially in our language, where +alexandrines follow one another two by two; where it is rare to avoid +monotony; where it is absolutely necessary to rhyme; where noble and +pleasing rhymes are too limited in number; and where a word out of its +place, or a harsh syllable, is sufficient to spoil a happy thought. It +is like dancing in fetters on a rope; the greatest success is of itself +nothing. + +Boileau's art of poetry is to be admired, because he always says true +and useful things in a pleasing manner, because he always gives both +precept and example, and because he is varied, passing with perfect +ease, and without ever failing in purity of language, "From grave to +gay, from lively to severe." + +His reputation among men of taste is proved by the fact that his verses +are known by heart; and to philosophers it must be pleasing to find that +he is almost always in the right. + +As we have spoken of the preference which may sometimes be given to the +moderns over the ancients, we will here venture to presume that +Boileau's art of poetry is superior to that of Horace. Method is +certainly a beauty in a didactic poem; and Horace has no method. We do +not mention this as a reproach; for his poem is a familiar epistle to +the Pisos, and not a regular work like the "Georgics": but there is this +additional merit in Boileau, a merit for which philosophers should give +him credit. + +The Latin art of poetry does not seem nearly so finely labored as the +French. Horace expresses himself, almost throughout, in the free and +familiar tone of his other epistles. He displays an extreme clearness of +understanding and a refined taste, in verses which are happy and +spirited, but often without connection, and sometimes destitute of +harmony; he has not the elegance and correctness of Virgil. His work is +good, but Boileau's appears to be still better: and, if we except the +tragedies of Racine, which have the superior merit of treating the +passions and surmounting all the difficulties of the stage, Despréaux's +"Art of Poetry" is, indisputably, the poem that does most honor to the +French language. + +It is lamentable when philosophers are enemies to poetry. Literature +should be like the house of Mæcenas--_"est locus unicuique suus."_ The +author of the "Persian Letters"--so easy to write and among which some +are very pretty, others very bold, others indifferent, and others +frivolous--this author, I say, though otherwise much to be recommended, +yet having never been able to make verses, although he possesses +imagination and often superiority of style, makes himself amends by +saying that "contempt is heaped upon poetry," that "lyric poetry is +harmonious extravagance." Thus do men often seek to depreciate the +talents which they cannot attain. + +"We cannot reach it," says Montaigne; "let us revenge ourselves by +speaking ill of it." But Montaigne, Montesquieu's predecessor and master +in imagination and philosophy, thought very differently of poetry. + +Had Montesquieu been as just as he was witty, he could not but have felt +that several of our fine odes and good operas are worth infinitely more +than the pleasantries of Rica to Usbeck, imitated from Dufrénoy's +_"Siamois,"_ and the details of what passed in Usbeck's seraglio at +Ispahan. + +We shall speak more fully of this too frequent injustice, in the article +on "Criticism." + + + + +ARTS--FINE ARTS. + +[ARTICLE DEDICATED TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA.] + + +Sire: The small society of amateurs, a part of whom are laboring at +these rhapsodies at Mount Krapak, will say nothing to your majesty on +the art of war. It is heroic, or--it may be--an abominable art. If there +were anything fine in it, we would tell your majesty, without fear of +contradiction, that you are the finest man in Europe. + +You know, sire, the four ages of the arts. Almost everything sprung up +and was brought to perfection under Louis XIV.; after which many of +these arts, banished from France, went to embellish and enrich the rest +of Europe, at the fatal period of the destruction of the celebrated +edict of Henry IV.--pronounced _irrevocable_, yet so easily revoked. +Thus, the greatest injury which Louis XIV. could do to himself did good +to other princes against his will: this is proved by what you have said +in your history of Brandenburg. + +If that monarch were known only from his banishment of six or seven +hundred thousand useful citizens--from his irruption into Holland, +whence he was soon forced to retreat--from his greatness, which stayed +him at the bank, while his troops were swimming across the Rhine; if +there were no other monuments of his glory than the prologues to his +operas, followed by the battle of Hochstet, his person and his reign +would go down to posterity with but little éclat. But the encouragement +of all the fine arts by his taste and munificence; the conferring of so +many benefits on the literary men of other countries; the rise of his +kingdom's commerce at his voice; the establishment of so many +manufactories; the building of so many fine citadels; the construction +of so many admirable ports; the union of the two seas by immense labor, +etc., still oblige Europe to regard Louis XIV. and his age with respect. + +And, above all, those great men, unique in every branch of art and +science, whom nature then produced at one time, will render his reign +eternally memorable. The age was greater than Louis XIV., but it shed +its glory upon him. + +Emulation in art has changed the face of the continent, from the +Pyrenees to the icy sea. There is hardly a prince in Germany who has not +made useful and glorious establishments. + +What have the Turks done for glory? Nothing. They have ravaged three +empires and twenty kingdoms; but any one city of ancient Greece will +always have a greater reputation than all the Ottoman cities together. + +See what has been done in the course of a few years at St. Petersburg, +which was a bog at the beginning of the seventeenth century. All the +arts are there assembled, while in the country of Orpheus, Linus, and +Homer, they are annihilated. + +_That the Recent Birth of the Arts does not Prove the Recent Formation +of the Globe._ + +All philosophers have thought matter eternal; but the arts appear to be +new. Even the art of making bread is of recent origin. The first Romans +ate boiled grain; those conquerors of so many nations had neither +windmills nor watermills. This truth seems, at first sight, to +controvert the doctrine of the antiquity of the globe as it now is, or +to suppose terrible revolutions in it. Irruptions of barbarians can +hardly annihilate arts which have become necessary. Suppose that an army +of negroes were to come upon us, like locusts, from the mountains of +southern Africa, through Monomotapa, Monoëmugi, etc., traversing +Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and all Europe, ravaging +and overturning everything in its way; there would still be a few +bakers, tailors, shoemakers, and carpenters left; the necessary arts +would revive; luxury alone would be annihilated. Such was the case at +the fall of the Roman Empire; even the art of writing became very rare; +nearly all those arts which contributed to render life agreeable were +for a long time extinct. Now, we are inventing new ones every day. + +From all this, no well-grounded inference can be drawn against the +antiquity of the globe. For, supposing that a flood of barbarians had +entirely swept away the arts of writing and making bread; supposing even +that we had had bread, or pens, ink, and paper, only for ten years--the +country which could exist for ten years without eating bread or writing +down its thoughts could exist for an age, or a hundred thousand ages, +without these helps. + +It is quite clear that man and the other animals can very well subsist +without bakers, without romance-writers, and without divines, as witness +America, and as witness also three-fourths of our own continent. The +recent birth of the arts among us does not prove the recent formation of +the globe, as was pretended by Epicurus, one of our predecessors in +reverie, who supposed that, by chance, the declination of atoms one day +formed our earth. Pomponatius used to say: _"Se il mondo non é eterno, +per tutti santi é molto vecchio"_--"If this world be not eternal, by all +the saints, it is very old." + +_Slight Inconveniences Attached to the Arts._ + +Those who handle lead and quicksilver are subject to dangerous colics, +and very serious affections of the nerves. Those who use pen and ink are +attacked by vermin, which they have continually to shake off; these +vermin are some ex-Jesuits, who employ themselves in manufacturing +libels. You, Sire, do not know this race of animals; they are driven +from your states, as well as from those of the empress of Russia, the +king of Sweden, and the king of Denmark, my other protectors. The +ex-Jesuits Polian and Nonotte, who like me cultivate the fine arts, +persecute me even unto Mount Krapak, crushing me under the weight of +their reputation, and that of their genius, the specific gravity of +which is still greater. Unless your majesty vouchsafe to assist me +against these great men, I am undone. + + + + +ASMODEUS. + + +No one at all versed in antiquity is ignorant that the Jews knew nothing +of the angels but what they gleaned from the Persians and Chaldæans, +during captivity. It was they, who, according to Calmet, taught them +that there are seven principal angels before the throne of the Lord. +They also taught them the names of the devils. He whom we call Asmodeus, +was named Hashmodaï or Chammadaï. "We know," says Calmet, "that there +are various sorts of devils, some of them princes and master-demons, the +rest subalterns." + +How was it that this Hashmodaï was sufficiently powerful to twist the +necks of seven young men who successively espoused the beautiful Sarah, +a native of Rages, fifteen leagues from Ecbatana? The Medes must have +been seven times as great as the Persians. The good principle gives a +husband to this maiden; and behold! the bad principle, this king of +demons, Hashmodaï, destroys the work of the beneficent principle seven +times in succession. + +But Sarah was a Jewess, daughter of the Jew Raguel, and a captive in the +country of Ecbatana. How could a Median demon have such power over +Jewish bodies? It has been thought that Asmodeus or Chammadaï was a Jew +likewise; that he was the old serpent which had seduced Eve; and that he +was passionately fond of women, sometimes seducing them, and sometimes +killing their husbands through an excess of love and jealousy. + +Indeed the Greek version of the Book of Tobit gives us to understand +that Asmodeus was in love with Sarah--_"oti daimonion philei autein."_ +It was the opinion of all the learned of antiquity that the genii, +whether good or evil, had a great inclination for our virgins, and the +fairies for our youths. Even the Scriptures, accommodating themselves to +our weakness, and condescending to speak in the language of the vulgar, +say, figuratively, that "the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that +they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." + +But the angel Raphael, the conductor of young Tobit, gives him a reason +more worthy of his ministry, and better calculated to enlighten the +person whom he is guiding. He tells him that Sarah's seven husbands were +given up to the cruelty of Asmodeus, only because, like horses or mules, +they had married her for their pleasure alone. "Her husband," says the +angel, "must observe continence with her for three days, during which +time they must pray to God together." + +This instruction would seem to have been quite sufficient to keep off +Asmodeus; but Raphael adds that it is also necessary to have the heart +of a fish grilled over burning coals. Why, then, was not this infallible +secret afterwards resorted to in order to drive the devil from the +bodies of women? Why did the apostles, who were sent on purpose to cast +out devils never lay a fish's heart upon the gridiron? Why was not this +expedient made use of in the affair of Martha Brossier; that of the nuns +of Loudun; that of the mistresses of Urban Gandier; that of La Cadière; +that of Father Girard; and those of a thousand other demoniacs in the +times when there were demoniacs? + +The Greeks and Romans, who had so many philters wherewith to make +themselves beloved, had others to cure love; they employed herbs and +roots. The _agnus castus_ had great reputation. The moderns have +administered it to young nuns, on whom it has had but little effect. +Apollo, long ago, complained to Daphne that, physician as he was, he +had never yet met with a simple that would cure love: + + _Heu mihi! quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis._ + What balm can heal the wounds that love has made? + +The smoke of sulphur was tried; but Ovid, who was a great master, +declares that this recipe was useless: + + _Nec fugiat viro sulphure victus amor._ + Sulphur--believe me--drives not love away. + +The smoke from the heart or liver of a fish was more efficacious against +Asmodeus. The reverend father Calmet is consequently in great trouble, +being unable to comprehend how this fumigation could act upon a pure +spirit. But he might have taken courage from the recollection that all +the ancients gave bodies to the angels and demons. They were very +slender bodies; as light as the small particles that rise from a broiled +fish; they were like smoke; and the smoke from a fried fish acted upon +them by sympathy. + +Not only did Asmodeus flee, but Gabriel went and chained him in Upper +Egypt, where he still is. He dwells in a grotto near the city of Saata +or Taata. Paul Lucas saw and spoke to him. They cut this serpent in +pieces, and the pieces immediately joined again. To this fact Calmet +cites the testimony of Paul Lucas, which testimony I must also cite. It +is thought that Paul Lucas's theory may be joined with that of the +vampires, in the next compilation of the Abbé Guyon. + + + + +ASPHALTUS. + +ASPHALTIC LAKE.--SODOM. + + +Asphaltus is a Chaldæan word, signifying a species of bitumen. There is +a great deal of it in the countries watered by the Euphrates; it is also +to be found in Europe, but of a bad quality. An experiment was made by +covering the tops of the watch-houses on each side of one of the gates +of Geneva; the covering did not last a year, and the mine has been +abandoned. However, when mixed with rosin, it may be used for lining +cisterns; perhaps it will some day be applied to a more useful purpose. + +The real asphaltus is that which was obtained in the vicinity of +Babylon, and with which it is said that the Greek fire was fed. Several +lakes are full of asphaltus, or a bitumen resembling it, as others are +strongly impregnated with nitre. There is a great lake of nitre in the +desert of Egypt, which extends from lake MÅ“ris to the entrance of the +Delta; and it has no other name than the Nitre Lake. + +The Lake Asphaltites, known by the name of Sodom, was long famed for its +bitumen; but the Turks now make no use of it, either because the mine +under the water is diminished, because its quality is altered, or +because there is too much difficulty in drawing it from under the water. +Oily particles of it, and sometimes large masses, separate and float on +the surface; these are gathered together, mixed up, and sold for balm of +Mecca. + +Flavius Josephus, who was of that country, says that, in his time, there +were no fish in the lake of Sodom, and the water was so light that the +heaviest bodies would not go to the bottom. It seems that he meant to +say so heavy instead of so light. It would appear that he had not made +the experiment. After all, a stagnant water, impregnated with salts and +compact matter, its specific matter being then greater than that of the +body of a man or a beast, might force it to float. Josephus's error +consists in assigning a false cause to a phenomenon which may be +perfectly true. + +As for the want of fish, it is not incredible. It is, however, likely +that this lake, which is fifty or sixty miles long, is not all +asphaltic, and that while receiving the waters of the Jordan it also +receives the fishes of that river; but perhaps the Jordan, too, is +without fish, and they are to be found only in the upper lake of +Tiberias. + +Josephus adds, that the trees which grow on the borders of the Dead Sea +bear fruits of the most beautiful appearance, but which fall into dust +if you attempt to taste them. This is less probable; and disposes one to +believe that Josephus either had not been on the spot, for has +exaggerated according to his own and his countrymen's custom. No soil +seems more calculated to produce good as well as beautiful fruits than a +salt and sulphurous one, like that of Naples, of Catania, and of Sodom. + +The Holy Scriptures speak of five cities being destroyed by fire from +heaven. On this occasion natural philosophy bears testimony in favor of +the Old Testament, although the latter has no need of it, and they are +sometimes at variance. We have instances of earthquakes, accompanied by +thunder and lightning, which have destroyed much more considerable towns +than Sodom and Gomorrah. + +But the River Jordan necessarily discharging itself into this lake +without an outlet, this Dead Sea, in the same manner as the Caspian, +must have existed as long as there has been a River Jordan; therefore, +these towns could never stand on the spot now occupied by the lake of +Sodom. The Scripture, too, says nothing at all about this ground being +changed into a lake; it says quite the contrary: "Then the Lord rained +upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of +heaven. And Abraham got up early in the morning, and he looked toward +Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld; +and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." + +These five towns, Sodom, Gomorrah, Zeboin, Adamah, and Segor, must then +have been situated on the borders of the Dead Sea. How, it will be +asked, in a desert so uninhabitable as it now is, where there are to be +found only a few hordes of plundering Arabs, could there be five cities, +so opulent as to be immersed in luxury, and even in those shameful +pleasures which are the last effect of the refinement of the debauchery +attached to wealth? + +It may be answered that the country was then much better. + +Other critics will say--how could five towns exist at the extremities of +a lake, the water of which, before their destruction, was not potable? +The Scripture itself informs us that all this land was asphaltic before +the burning of Sodom: "And the vale of Sodom was full of slime-pits; and +the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there." + +Another objection is also stated. Isaiah and Jeremiah say that Sodom and +Gomorrah shall never be rebuilt; but Stephen, the geographer, speaks of +Sodom and Gomorrah on the coast of the Dead Sea; and the "History of the +Councils" mentions bishops of Sodom and Segor. To this it may be +answered that God filled these towns, when rebuilt, with less guilty +inhabitants; for at that time there was no bishop _in partibus_. + +But, it will be said, with what water could these new inhabitants quench +their thirst? All the wells are brackish; you find asphaltus and +corrosive salt on first striking a spade into the ground. + +It will be answered that some Arabs still subsist there, and may be +habituated to drinking very bad water; that the Sodom and Gomorrah of +the Eastern Empire were wretched hamlets, and that at that time there +were many bishops whose whole diocese consisted in a poor village. It +may also be said that the people who colonized these villages prepared +the asphaltus, and carried on a useful trade in it. + +The arid and burning desert, extending from Segor to the territory of +Jerusalem, produces balm and aromatic herbs for the same reason that it +supplies naphtha, corrosive salt and sulphur. + +It is said that petrifaction takes place in this desert with astonishing +rapidity; and this, according to some natural philosophers, makes the +petrifaction of Lot's wife Edith a very plausible story. + +But it is said that this woman, "having looked back, became a pillar of +salt." This, then, was not a natural petrifaction, operated by asphaltus +and salt, but an evident miracle. Flavius Josephus says that he saw this +pillar. St. Justin and St. Irenæus speak of it as a prodigy, which in +their time was still existing. + +These testimonies have been looked upon as ridiculous fables. It would, +however, be very natural for some Jews to amuse themselves with cutting +a heap of asphaltus into a rude figure, and calling it Lot's wife. I +have seen cisterns of asphaltus, very well made, which may last a long +time. But it must be owned that St. Irenæus goes a little too far when +he says that Lot's wife remained in the country of Sodom no longer in +corruptible flesh, but as a permanent statue of salt, her feminine +nature still producing the ordinary effect: _"Uxor remansit in Sodomis, +jam non caro corruptibilis sed statua salis semper manens, et per +naturalia ea quæsunt consuetudmis hominis ostendens."_ + +St. Irenæus does not seem to express himself with all the precision of +a good naturalist when he says Lot's wife is no longer of corruptible +flesh, but still retains her feminine nature. + +In the poem of Sodom, attributed to Tertullian, this is expressed with +still greater energy: + + _Dicitur et vivens alio sub corpore se us,_ + _Mirifice solito dispungere sanguine menses._ + +This was translated by a poet of the time of Henry II., in his Gallic +style: + + _La femme à Loth, quoique sel devenue,_ + _Est femme encore; car elle a sa menstrue._ + +The land of aromatics was also the land of fables. Into the deserts of +Arabia Petræa the ancient mythologists pretend that Myrrha, the +granddaughter of a statue, fled after committing incest with her father, +as Lot's daughters did with theirs, and that she was metamorphosed into +the tree that bears myrrh. Other profound mythologists assure us that +she fled into Arabia Felix; and this opinion is as well supported as the +other. + +Be this as it may, not one of our travellers has yet thought fit to +examine the soil of Sodom, with its asphaltus, its salt, its trees and +their fruits, to weigh the water of the lake, to analyze it, to +ascertain whether bodies of greater specific gravity than common water +float upon its surface, and to give us a faithful account of the natural +history of the country. Our pilgrims to Jerusalem do not care to go and +make these researches; this desert has become infested by wandering +Arabs, who range as far as Damascus, and retire into the caverns of the +mountains, the authority of the pasha of Damascus having hitherto been +inadequate to repress them. Thus the curious have but little information +about anything concerning the Asphaltic Lake. + +As to Sodom, it is a melancholy reflection for the learned that, among +so many who may be deemed natives, not one has furnished us with any +notion whatever of this capital city. + + + + +ASS. + + +We will add a little to the article "Ass" in the "Encyclopædia," +concerning Lucian's ass, which became golden in the hands of Apuleius. +The pleasantest part of the adventure, however, is in Lucian: That a +lady fell in love with this gentleman while he was an ass, but would +have nothing more to say to him when he was but a man. These +metamorphoses were very common throughout antiquity. Silenus's ass had +spoken; and the learned had thought that he explained himself in Arabic; +for he was probably a man turned into an ass by the power of Bacchus, +and Bacchus, we know, was an Arab. + +Virgil speaks of the transformation of MÅ“ris into a wolf, as a thing +of very ordinary occurrence: + + _Saepe lupum fieri MÅ“rim, et se condere silvis._ + Oft changed to wolf, he seeks the forest shade. + +Was this doctrine of metamorphoses derived from the old fables of Egypt, +which gave out that the gods had changed themselves into animals in the +war against the giants? + +The Greeks, great imitators and improvers of the Oriental fables, +metamorphosed almost all the gods into men or into beasts, to make them +succeed the better in their amorous designs. If the gods changed +themselves into bulls, horses, swans, doves, etc., why should not men +have undergone the same operation? + +Several commentators, forgetting the respect due to the Holy Scriptures, +have cited the example of Nebuchadnezzar changed into an ox; but this +was a miracle--a divine vengeance--a thing quite out of the course of +nature, which ought not to be examined with profane eyes, and cannot +become an object of our researches. + +Others of the learned, perhaps with equal indiscretion, avail themselves +of what is related in the Gospel of the Infancy. An Egyptian maiden +having entered the chamber of some women, saw there a mule with a silken +cloth over his back, and an ebony pendant at his neck. + +These women were in tears, kissing him and giving him to eat. The mule +was their own brother. Some sorceresses had deprived him of the human +figure; but the Master of Nature soon restored it. + +Although this gospel is apocryphal, the very name that it bears prevents +us from examining this adventure in detail; only it may serve to show +how much metamorphoses were in vogue almost throughout the earth. The +Christians who composed their gospel were undoubtedly honest men. They +did not seek to fabricate a romance; they related with simplicity what +they had heard. The church, which afterwards rejected their gospel, +together with forty-nine others, did not accuse its authority of impiety +and prevarication; those obscure individuals addressed the populace in +language comformable with the prejudices of the age in which they lived. +China was perhaps the only country exempt from these superstitions. + +The adventure of the companions of Ulysses, changed into beasts by +Circe, was much more ancient than the dogma of the metempsychosis, +broached in Greece and Italy by Pythagoras. + +On what can the assertion be founded that there is no universal error +which is not the abuse of some truth; that there have been quacks only +because there have been true physicians; and that false prodigies have +been believed only because there have been true ones? + +Were there any certain testimonies that men had become wolves, oxen, +horses, or asses? This universal error had for its principle only the +love of the marvellous and the natural inclination to superstition. + +One erroneous opinion is enough to fill the whole world with fables. An +Indian doctor sees that animals have feeling and memory. He concludes +that they have a soul. Men have one likewise. What becomes of the soul +of man after death? What becomes of that of the beast? They must go +somewhere. They go into the nearest body that is beginning to be formed. +The soul of a Brahmin takes up its abode in the body of an elephant, the +soul of an ass is that of a little Brahmin. Such is the dogma of the +metempsychosis, which was built upon simple deduction. + +But it is a wide step from this dogma to that of metamorphosis. We have +no longer a soul without a tenement, seeking a lodging; but one body +changed into another, the soul remaining as before. Now, we certainly +have not in nature any example of such legerdemain. + +Let us then inquire into the origin of so extravagant yet so general an +opinion. If some father had characterized his son, sunk in ignorance and +filthy debauchery, as a hog, a horse, or an ass, and afterwards made him +do penance with an ass's cap on his head, and some servant girl of the +neighborhood gave it out that this young man had been turned into an ass +as a punishment for his faults, her neighbors would repeat it to other +neighbors, and from mouth to mouth this story, with a thousand +embellishments, would make the tour of the world. An ambiguous +expression would suffice to deceive the whole earth. + +Here then let us confess, with Boileau, that ambiguity has been the +parent of most of our ridiculous follies. Add to this the power of +magic, which has been acknowledged as indisputable in all nations, and +you will no longer be astonished at anything. + +One word more on asses. It is said that in Mesopotamia they are warlike +and that Mervan, the twenty-first caliph, was surnamed "the Ass" for his +valor. + +The patriarch Photius relates, in the extract from the Life of Isidorus, +that Ammonius had an ass which had a great taste for poetry, and would +leave his manger to go and hear verses. The fable of Midas is better +than the tale of Photius. + +_Machiavelli's Golden Ass._ + +Machiavelli's ass is but little known. The dictionaries which speak of +it say that it was a production of his youth; it would seem, however, +that he was of mature age; for he speaks in it of the misfortunes which +he had formerly and for a long time experienced. The work is a satire on +his contemporaries. The author sees a number of Florentines, of whom one +is changed into a cat, another into a dragon, a third into a dog that +bays the moon, a fourth into a fox who does not suffer himself to be +caught; each character is drawn under the name of an animal. The +factions of the house of Medicis and their enemies are doubtless figured +therein; and the key to this comic apocalypse would admit us to the +secrets of Pope Leo and the troubles of Florence. This poem is full of +morality and philosophy. It ends with the very rational reflections of +a large hog, which addresses man in nearly the following terms: + + Ye naked bipeds, without beaks or claws. + Hairless, and featherless, and tender-hided, + Weeping ye come into the world--because + Ye feel your evil destiny decided; + Nature has given you industrious paws; + You, like the parrots, are with speech provided; + But have ye honest hearts?--Alas! alas! + In this we swine your bipedships surpass! + + Man is far worse than we--more fierce, more wild-- + Coward or madman, sinning every minute; + By frenzy and by fear in turn beguiled, + He dreads the grave, yet plunges headlong in it; + If pigs fall out, they soon are reconciled; + Their quarrel's ended ere they well begin it. + If crime with manhood always must combine, + Good Lord! let me forever be a swine. + +This is the original of Boileau's "Satire on Man," and La Fontaine's +fable of the "Companions of Ulysses"; but it is quite likely that +neither La Fontaine nor Boileau had ever heard of Machiavelli's ass. + +_The Ass of Verona._ + +I must speak the truth, and not deceive my readers. I do not very +clearly know whether the Ass of Verona still exists in all his splendor; +but the travellers who saw him forty or fifty years ago agree in saying +that the relics were enclosed in the body of an artificial ass made on +purpose, which was in the keeping of forty monks of Our Lady of the +Organ, at Verona, and was carried in procession twice a year. This was +one of the most ancient relics of the town. According to the tradition, +this ass, having carried our Lord in his entry into Jerusalem, did not +choose to abide any longer in that city, but trotted over the sea--which +for that purpose became as hard as his hoof--by way of Cyprus, Rhodes, +Candia, Malta, and Sicily. There he went to sojourn at Aquilea; and at +last he settled at Verona, where he lived a long while. + +This fable originated in the circumstance that most asses have a sort of +black cross on their backs. There possibly might be an old ass in the +neighborhood of Verona, on whose back the populace remarked a finer +cross than his brethren could boast of; some good old woman would be at +hand to say that this was the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem; +and the ass would be honored with a magnificent funeral. The feast +established at Verona passed into other countries, and was especially +celebrated in France. In the mass was sung: + + _Orientis partibus_ + _Adventabit asinus,_ + _Pulcher et fortissimus._ + +There was a long procession, headed by a young woman with a child in her +arms, mounted on an ass, representing the Virgin Mary going into Egypt. +At the end of the mass the priest, instead of saying _Ite missa est_, +brayed three times with all his might, and the people answered in +chorus. + +We have books on the feast of the ass, and the feast of fools; they +furnish material towards a universal history of the human mind. + + + + +ASSASSIN--ASSASSINATION. + + +SECTION I. + +A name corrupted from the word Ehissessin. Nothing is more common to +those who go into a distant country than to write, repeat, and +understand incorrectly in their own language what they have +misunderstood in a language entirely foreign to them, and afterwards to +deceive their countrymen as well as themselves. Error flies from mouth +to mouth, from pen, to pen, and to destroy it requires ages. + +In the time of the Crusades there was a wretched little people of +mountaineers inhabiting the caverns near the road to Damascus. These +brigands elected a chief, whom they named Cheik Elchassissin. It is said +that this honorific title of _cheik_ originally signified _old_, as with +us the title of _seigneur_ comes from _senior_, elder, and the word +_graf_, a count, signifies _old_ among the Germans; for, in ancient +times almost every people conferred the civil command upon the old men. +Afterwards, the command having become hereditary, the title of _cheik, +graf, seigneur, or count_ has been given to children; and the Germans +call a little master of four years old, _the count_--that is, the _old +gentleman_. + +The Crusaders named the old man of the Arabian mountains, the Old Man of +the Hill, and imagined him to be a great prince, because he had caused a +count of Montserrat and some other crusading nobles to be robbed and +murdered on the highway. These people were called _the assassins_, and +their cheik the king of the vast country of _the assassins_. This vast +territory is five or six leagues long by two or three broad, being part +of Anti-Libanus, a horrible country, full of rocks, like almost all +Palestine, but intersected by pleasant meadowlands, which feed numerous +flocks, as is attested by all who have made the journey from Aleppo to +Damascus. + +The cheik or senior of these _assassins_ could be nothing more than a +chief of banditti; for there was at that time a sultan of Damascus who +was very powerful. + +Our romance-writers of that day, as fond of chimeras as the Crusaders, +thought proper to relate that in 1236 this great prince of the +assassins, fearing that Louis IX., of whom he had never heard, would put +himself at the head of a crusade, and come and take from him his +territory, sent two great men of his court from the caverns of +Anti-Libanus to Paris to assassinate that king; but that having the next +day heard how generous and amiable a prince Louis was, he immediately +sent out to sea two more great men to countermand the assassination. I +say out to sea, for neither the two emissaries sent to kill Louis, nor +the two others sent to save him, could make the voyage without embarking +at Joppa, which was then in the power of the Crusaders, which rendered +the enterprise doubly marvellous. The two first must have found a +Crusaders' vessel ready to convey them in an amicable manner, and the +two last must have found another. + +However, a hundred authors, one after another, have related this +adventure, though Joinville, a contemporary, who was on the spot, says +nothing about it--_"Et voilà justement comme on écrit l'histoire."_ + +The Jesuit Maimbourg, the Jesuit Daniel, twenty other Jesuits, and +Mézeray--though he was not a Jesuit--have repeated this absurdity. The +Abbé Véli, in his history of France, tells it over again with perfect +complaisance, without any discussion, without any examination, and on +the word of one William of Nangis, who wrote about sixty years after +this fine affair is said to have happened at a time when history was +composed from nothing but town talk. + +If none but true and useful things were recorded, our immense historical +libraries would be reduced to a very narrow compass; but we should know +more, and know it better. + +For six hundred years the story has been told over and over again, of +the Old Man of the Hill--_le vieux de la montagne_--who, in his +delightful gardens, intoxicated his young elect with voluptuous +pleasures, made them believe that they were in paradise, and sent them +to the ends of the earth to assassinate kings in order to merit an +eternal paradise. + + Near the Levantine shores there dwelt of old + An aged ruler, feared in every land; + Not that he owned enormous heaps of gold, + Not that vast armies marched at his command,-- + But on his people's minds he things impressed, + Which filled with desperate courage every breast + The boldest of his subjects first he took, + Of paradise to give them a foretaste-- + The paradise his lawgiver had painted; + With every joy the lying prophet's book + Within his falsely-pictured heaven had placed, + They thought their senses had become acquainted. + And how was this effected? 'Twas by wine-- + Of this they drank till every sense gave way, + And, while in drunken lethargy they lay, + Were borne, according to their chief's design, + To sports of pleasantness--to sunshine glades, + Delightful gardens and inviting shades. + Young tender beauties were abundant there, + In earliest bloom, and exquisitely fair; + These gayly thronged around the sleeping men, + Who, when at length they were awake again, + Wondering to see the beauteous objects round, + Believed that some way they'd already found + Those fields of bliss, in every beauty decked, + The false Mahomet promised his elect. + Acquaintance quickly made, the Turks advance; + The maidens join them in a sprightly dance; + Sweet music charms them as they trip along; + And every feathered warbler adds his song. + The joys that could for every sense suffice. + Were found within this earthly paradise. + Wine, too, was there--and its effects the same; + These people drank, till they could drink no more, + Were earned to the place from whence they came. + And what resulted from this trickery? + These men believed that they should surely be + Again transported to that place of pleasure, + If, without fear of suffering or of death, + They showed devotion to Mahomet's faith, + And to their prince obedience without measure. + Thus might their sovereign with reason say, + And that, now his device had made them so, + His was the mightiest empire here below.... + +All this might be very well in one of La Fontaine's tales--setting apart +the weakness of the verse; and there are a hundred historical anecdotes +which could be tolerated there only. + + +SECTION II. + + +Assassination being, next to poisoning, the crime most cowardly and most +deserving of punishment, it is not astonishing that it has found an +apologist in a man whose singular reasoning is, in some things, at +variance with the reason of the rest of mankind. + +In a romance entitled "Emilius," he imagines that he is the guardian of +a young man, to whom he is very careful to give an education such as is +received in the military school--teaching him languages, geometry, +tactics, fortification, and the history of his country. He does not seek +to inspire him with love for his king and his country, but contents +himself with making him a joiner. He would have this gentleman-joiner, +when he has received a blow or a challenge, instead of returning it and +fighting, "prudently assassinate the man." Molière does, it is true, say +jestingly, in _"L'Amour Peintre,"_ "assassination is the safest"; but +the author of this romance asserts that it is the most just and +reasonable. He says this very seriously, and, in the immensity of his +paradoxes, this is one of the three or four things which he first says. +The same spirit of wisdom and decency which makes him declare that a +preceptor should often accompany his pupil to a place of prostitution, +makes him decide that this disciple should be an assassin. So that the +education which Jean Jacques would give to a young man consists in +teaching him how to handle the plane, and in fitting him for salivation +and the rope. + +We doubt whether fathers of families will be eager to give such +preceptors to their children. It seems to us that the romance of Emilius +departs rather too much from the maxims of Mentor in "Telemachus"; but +it must also be acknowledged that our age has in all things very much +varied from the great age of Louis XIV. + +Happily, none of these horrible infatuations are to be found in the +"Encyclopædia." It often displays a philosophy seemingly bold, but never +that atrocious and extravagant babbling which two or three fools have +called philosophy, and two or three ladies, eloquence. + + + + +ASTROLOGY. + + +Astrology might rest on a better foundation than magic. For if no one +has seen farfadets, or lemures, or dives, or peris, or demons, or +cacodemons, the predictions of astrologers have often been found true. +Let two astrologers be consulted on the life of an infant, and on the +weather; if one of them say that the child shall five to the age of man, +the other that he shall not; if one foretell rain and the other fair +weather, it is quite clear that there will be a prophet. + +The great misfortune of astrologers is that the heavens have changed +since the rules of the art were laid down. The sun, which at the equinox +was in the Ram in the time of the Argonauts, is now in the Bull; and +astrologers, most unfortunately for their art, now attribute to one +house of the sun that which visibly belongs to another. Still, this is +not a demonstrative argument against astrology. The masters of the art +are mistaken; but it is not proved that the art cannot exist. + +There would be no absurdity in saying, "Such a child was born during the +moon's increase, in a stormy season, at the rising of a certain star; +its constitution was bad, and its life short and miserable, which is the +ordinary lot of weak temperaments; another, on the contrary, was born +when the moon was at the full, and the sun in all his power, in calm +weather, at the rising of another particular star; his constitution was +good, and his life long and happy." If such observations had been +frequently repeated, and found just, experience might, at the end of a +few thousand centuries, have formed an art which it would have been +difficult to call in question; it would have been thought, not without +some appearance of truth, that men are like trees and vegetables, which +must be planted only in certain seasons. It would have been of no +service against the astrologers to say, "My son was born in fine +weather, yet he died in his cradle." The astrologer would have answered, +"It often happens that trees planted in the proper season perish +prematurely; I will answer for the stars, but not for the particular +conformation which you communicated to your child; astrology operates +only when there is no cause opposed to the good which they have power to +work." + +[Illustration: An Astrologer.] + +Nor would astrology have suffered any more discredit from it being said: +"Of two children who were born in the same minute, one became a king, +the other nothing more than churchwarden of his parish;" for a defence +would easily have been made by showing that the peasant made his fortune +in becoming churchwarden, just as much as the prince did in becoming +king. + +And if it were alleged that a bandit, hung up by order of Sixtus the +Fifth, was born at the same time as Sixtus, who, from being a swineherd, +became pope, the astrologers would say that there was a mistake of a few +seconds, and that, according to the rules, the same star could not +bestow the tiara and the gallows. It was, then, only because +long-accumulated experience gave the lie to the predictions that men at +length perceived that the art was illusory; but their credulity was of +long duration. + +One of the most famous mathematicians of Europe, named Stoffler, who +flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, foretold a +universal deluge for the year 1524. This deluge was to happen in the +month of February, and nothing can be more plausible, for Saturn, +Jupiter, and Mars were then in conjunction in the sign of the Fishes. +Every nation in Europe, Asia, and Africa that heard of the prediction +was in consternation. The whole world expected the deluge, in spite of +the rainbow. Several contemporary authors relate that the inhabitants of +the maritime provinces of Germany hastened to sell their lands, at any +price, to such as had more money and less credulity than themselves. +Each one provided himself with a boat to serve as an ark. A doctor of +Toulouse, in particular, named Auriol, had an ark built for himself, his +family, and friends; and the same precautions were taken in a great part +of Italy. At last the month of February arrived, and not a drop of rain +fell, never was a month more dry, never were the astrologers more +embarrassed. However, we neither discouraged nor neglected them; almost +all our princes continued to consult them. + +I have not the honor to be a prince; nevertheless, the celebrated Count +de Boulainvilliers and an Italian, named Colonna, who had great +reputation at Paris, both foretold to me that I should assuredly die at +the age of thirty-two. I have already been so malicious as to deceive +them thirty years in their calculation--for which I most humbly ask +their pardon. + + + + +ASTRONOMY, + +WITH A FEW MORE REFLECTIONS ON ASTROLOGY. + + +M. Duval, who, if I mistake not, was librarian to the Emperor Francis +I., gives us an account of the manner in which, in his childhood, pure +instinct gave him the first ideas of astronomy. He was contemplating the +moon which, as it declined towards the west, seemed to touch the trees +of a wood. He doubted not that he should find it behind the trees, and, +on running thither, was astonished to see it at the extremity of the +horizon. + +The following days his curiosity prompted him to watch the course of +this luminary, and he was still more surprised to find that it rose and +set at various hours. The different forms which it took from week to +week, and its total disappearance for some nights, also contributed to +fix his attention. All that a child could do was to observe and to +admire, and this was doing much; not one in ten thousand has this +curiosity and perseverance. + +He studied, as he could, for three years, with no other book than the +heavens, no other master than his eyes. He observed that the stars did +not change their relative positions; but the brilliancy of the planet +Venus having caught his attention, it seemed to him to have a particular +course, like that of the moon. He watched it every night; it disappeared +for a long time; and at length he saw it become the morning instead of +the evening star. The course of the sun, which from month to month, rose +and set in different parts of the heavens, did not escape him. He marked +the solstices with two staves, without knowing what the solstices were. + +It appears to me that some profit might be derived from this example, +in teaching astronomy to a child of ten or twelve years of age, and with +much greater facility than this extraordinary child, of whom I have +spoken, taught himself its first elements. + +It is a very attractive spectacle for a mind disposed to the +contemplation of nature to see that the different phases of the moon are +precisely the same as those of a globe round which a lighted candle is +moved, showing here a quarter, here the half of its surface, and +becoming invisible when an opaque body is interposed between it and the +candle. In this manner it was that Galileo explained the true principles +of astronomy before the doge and senators of Venice on St. Mark's tower; +he demonstrated everything to the eyes. + +Indeed, not only a child, but even a man of mature age, who has seen the +constellations only on maps or globes, finds it difficult to recognize +them in the heavens. In a little time the child will quite well +comprehend the causes of the sun's apparent course, and the daily +revolutions of the fixed stars. + +He will, in particular, discover the constellations with the aid of +these four Latin lines, made by an astronomer about fifty years ago, and +which are not sufficiently known: + +_Delta Aries, Perseum Taurus, Geminique Capellam; Nil Cancer, Plaustrum +Leo, Virgo Coman, atque Bootem, Libra Anguem, Anguiferum fert Scorpios; +Antinoum Arcus; Delphinum Caper, Amphora Equos, Cepheida Pisces._ + +Nothing should be said to him about the systems of Ptolemy and Tycho +Brahe, because they are false; they can never be of any other service +than to explain some passages in ancient authors, relating to the errors +of antiquity. For instance, in the second book of Ovid's +_"Metamorphoses"_ the sun says to Phaëton: + + _Adde, quod assidua rapitur vertigine cÅ“lum;_ + _Nitor in adversum; nec me, qui cætera, vincit_ + _Impetus; et rapido contrarius evehor orbi._ + + A rapid motion carries round the heavens; + But I--and I alone--resist its force, + Marching secure in my opposing path. + +This idea of a first mover turning the heavens round in twenty-four +hours with an impossible motion, and of the sun, though acted upon by +this first motion, yet imperceptibly advancing from west to east by a +motion peculiar to itself, and without a cause, would but embarrass a +young beginner. + +It is sufficient for him to know that, whether the earth revolves on its +own axis and round the sun, or the sun completes his revolution in a +year, appearances are nearly the same, and that, in astronomy, we are +obliged to judge of things by our eyes before we examine them as natural +philosophers. + +He will soon know the cause of the eclipses of the sun and the moon, and +why they do not occur every night. It will at first appear to him that, +the moon being every month in opposition to and in conjunction with the +sun, we should have an eclipse of the sun and one of the moon every +month. But when he finds that these two luminaries are not in the same +plane and are seldom in the same line with the earth, he will no longer +be surprised. + +He will easily be made to understand how it is that eclipses have been +foretold, by knowing the exact circle in which the apparent motion of +the sun and the real motion of the moon are accomplished. He will be +told that observers found by experience and calculation the number of +times that these two bodies are precisely in the same line with the +earth in the space of nineteen years and a few hours, after which they +seem to recommence the same course; so that, making the necessary +allowances for the little inequalities that occurred during those +nineteen years, the exact day, hour, and minute of an eclipse of the sun +or moon were foretold. These first elements are soon acquired by a child +of clear conceptions. + +Not even the precession of the equinoxes will terrify him. It will be +enough to tell him that the sun has constantly appeared to advance in +his annual course, one degree in seventy-two years, towards the east; +and this is what Ovid meant to express: _"Contrarius evehor +orbi"_;--"Marching secure in my opposing path." + +Thus the Ram, which the sun formerly entered at the beginning of spring, +is now in the place where the Bull was then. This change which has taken +place in the heavens, and the entrance of the sun into other +constellations than those which he formerly occupied, were the +strongest arguments against the pretended rules of judicial astrology. +It does not, however, appear that this proof was employed before the +present century to destroy this universal extravagance which so long +infected all mankind, and is still in great vogue in Persia. + +A man born, according to the almanac, when the sun was in the sign of +the Lion, was necessarily to be courageous; but, unfortunately, he was +in reality born under the sign of the Virgin. So that Gauric and Michael +Morin should have changed all the rules of their art. + +It is indeed odd that all the laws of astrology were contrary to those +of astronomy. The wretched charlatans of antiquity and their stupid +disciples, who have been so well received and so well paid by all the +princes of Europe, talked of nothing but Mars and Venus, stationary and +retrograde. Such as had Mars stationary were always to conquer. Venus +stationary made all lovers happy. Nothing was worse than to be born +under Venus retrograde. But the fact is that these planets have never +been either retrograde or stationary, which a very slight knowledge of +optics would have sufficed to show. + +How, then, can it have been that, in spite of physics and geometry, the +ridiculous chimera of astrology is entertained even to this day, so that +we have seen men distinguished for their general knowledge, and +especially profound in history, who have all their lives been infatuated +by so despicable an error? But the error was ancient, and that was +enough. + +The Egyptians, the Chaldæans, the Jews, foretold the future; therefore, +it may be foretold now. Serpents were charmed and spirits were raised in +those days; therefore, spirits may be raised and serpents charmed now. +It is only necessary to know the precise formula made use of for the +purpose. If predictions are at an end, it is the fault, not of the art, +but of the artist. Michael Morin and his secret died together. It is +thus that the alchemists speak of the philosopher's stone; if, say they, +we do not now find it, it is because we do not yet know precisely how to +seek it; but it is certainly in Solomon's collar-bone. And, with this +glorious certainty, more than two hundred families in France and Germany +have ruined themselves. + +It is not then to be wondered at that the whole world has been duped by +astrology. The wretched argument, "there are false prodigies, therefore +there are true ones," is neither that of a philosopher, nor of a man +acquainted with the world. "That is false and absurd, therefore it will +be believed by the multitude," is a much truer maxim. + +It is still less astonishing that so many men, raised in other things so +far above the vulgar; so many princes, so many popes, whom it would have +been impossible to mislead in the smallest affair of interest, have been +so ridiculously seduced by this astrological nonsense. They were very +proud and very ignorant. The stars were for them alone; the rest of the +world a rabble, with whom the stars had nothing to do. They were like +the prince who trembled at the sight of a comet, and said gravely to +those who did not fear it, "You may behold it without concern; you are +not princes." + +The famous German leader, Wallenstein, was one of those infatuated by +this chimera; he called himself a prince, and consequently thought that +the zodiac had been made on purpose for him. He never besieged a town, +nor fought a battle, until he had held a council with the heavens; but, +as this great man was very ignorant, he placed at the head of this +council a rogue of an Italian, named Seni, keeping him a coach and six, +and giving him a pension of twenty thousand livres. Seni, however, never +foresaw that Wallenstein would be assassinated by order of his most +gracious sovereign, and that he himself would return to Italy on foot. + +It is quite evident that nothing can be known of the future, otherwise +than by conjectures. These conjectures may be so well-founded as to +approach certainty. You see a shark swallow a little boy; you may wager +ten thousand to one that he will be devoured; but you cannot be +absolutely sure of it, after the adventures of Hercules, Jonas, and +Orlando Furioso, who each lived so long in a fish's belly. + +It cannot be too often repeated that Albertus Magnus and Cardinal +d'Ailli both made the horoscope of Jesus Christ. It would appear that +they read in the stars how many devils he would cast out of the bodies +of the possessed, and what sort of death he was to die. But it was +unfortunate that these learned astrologers _foretold_ all these things +so long _after_ they happened. + +We shall elsewhere see that in a sect which passes for Christian, it is +believed to be impossible for the Supreme Intelligence to see the future +otherwise than by supreme conjecture; for, as the future does not exist, +it is, say they, a contradiction in terms to talk of seeing at the +present time that which is not. + + + + +ATHEISM. + + +SECTION I. + + +_On the Comparison so Often Made between Atheism and Idolatry._ + +It seems to me that, in the _"Dictionnaire Encyclopédique,"_ a more +powerful refutation might have been brought against the Jesuit +Richeome's opinion concerning atheists and idolaters--an opinion +formerly maintained by St. Thomas, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyprian, +and Tertullian--an opinion which Arnobius placed in a strong light when +he said to the pagans, "Do you not blush to reproach us with contempt +for your gods? Is it not better to believe in no god than to impute to +them infamous actions?"--an opinion long before established by +Plutarch, who stated that he would rather have it said that there was +no Plutarch than that there was a Plutarch, inconstant, choleric, and +vindictive--an opinion, too, fortified by all the dialectical efforts of +Bayle. + +Such is the ground of dispute, placed in a very striking point of view +by the Jesuit Richeome, and made still more specious by the way in which +Bayle sets it off: + +"There are two porters at the door of a house. You ask to speak to the +master. He is not at home, answers one. He is at home, answers the +other, but is busied in making false money, false contracts, daggers, +and poisons, to destroy those who have only accomplished his designs. +The atheist resembles the former of these porters, the pagan the latter. +It is then evident that the pagan offends the Divinity more grievously +than the atheist." + +With the permission of Father Richeome, and that of Bayle himself, this +is not at all the state of the question. For the first porter to be like +the atheist, he must say, not "My master is not here," but "I have no +master; he who you pretend is my master does not exist. My comrade is a +blockhead to tell you that the gentleman is engaged in mixing poisons +and wetting poniards to assassinate those who have executed his will. +There is no such being in the world." + +Richeome, therefore, has reasoned very ill; and Bayle, in his rather +diffuse discourses, has so far forgotten himself as to do Richeome the +honor of making a very lame comment upon him. + +Plutarch seems to express himself much better, in declaring that he +prefers those who say there is no Plutarch to those who assert that +Plutarch is unfit for society. Indeed, of what consequence to him was +its being said that he was not in the world? But it was of great +consequence that his reputation should not be injured. With the Supreme +Being it is otherwise. + +Still Plutarch does not come to the real point in discussion. It is only +asked who most offends the Supreme Being--he who denies Him, or he who +disfigures Him? It is impossible to know, otherwise than by revelation, +whether God is offended at the vain discourses which men hold about Him. + +Philosophers almost always fall unconsciously into the ideas of the +vulgar, in supposing that God is jealous of His glory, wrathful, and +given to revenge, and in taking rhetorical figures for real ideas. That +which interests the whole world is to know whether it is not better to +admit a rewarding and avenging God, recompensing hidden good actions, +and punishing secret crimes, than to admit no God at all. + +Bayle exhausts himself in repeating all the infamous things imputed to +the gods of antiquity. His adversaries answer him by unmeaning +commonplaces. The partisans and the enemies of Bayle have almost always +fought without coming to close quarters. They all agree that Jupiter +was an adulterer, Venus a wanton, Mercury a rogue. But this, I conceive, +ought not to be considered; the religion of the ancient Romans should be +distinguished from Ovid's _"Metamorphoses."_ It is quite certain that +neither they nor even the Greeks ever had a temple dedicated to Mercury +the Rogue, Venus the Wanton, or Jupiter the Adulterer. + +The god whom the Romans called _"Deus optimus maximus"_--most good, most +great--was not believed to have encouraged Clodius to lie with Cæsar's +wife, nor Cæsar to become the minion of King Nicomedes. + +Cicero does not say that Mercury incited Verres to rob Sicily, though, +in the fable, Mercury had stolen Apollo's cows. The real religion of the +ancients was that Jupiter, most good and just, with the secondary +divinities, punished perjury in the infernal regions. Thus, the Romans +were long the most religious observers of their oaths. It was in no wise +ordained that they should believe in Leda's two eggs, in the +transformation of Inachus's daughter into a cow, or in Apollo's love for +Hyacinthus. Therefore it must not be said that the religion of Numa was +dishonoring to the Divinity. So that, as but too often happens, there +has been a long dispute about a chimera. + +Then, it is asked, can a people of atheists exist? I consider that a +distinction must be made between the people, properly so called, and a +society of philosophers above the people. It is true that, in every +country, the populace require the strongest curb; and that if Bayle had +had but five or six hundred peasants to govern, he would not have failed +to announce to them a rewarding and avenging God. But Bayle would have +said nothing about them to the Epicureans, who were people of wealth, +fond of quiet, cultivating all the social virtues, and friendship in +particular, shunning the dangers and embarrassments of public +affairs--leading, in short, a life of ease and innocence. The dispute, +so far as it regards policy and society, seems to me to end here. + +As for people entirely savage, they can be counted neither among the +theists nor among the atheists. To ask them what is their creed would be +like asking them if they are for Aristotle or Democritus. They know +nothing; they are no more atheists than they are peripatetics. + +But, it may be insisted, that they live in society, though they have no +God, and that, therefore, society may subsist without religion. + +In this case I shall reply that wolves live so; and that an assemblage +of barbarous cannibals, as you suppose them to be, is not a society. +And, further, I will ask you if, when you have lent your money to any +one of your society, you would have neither your debtor, nor your +attorney, nor your notary, nor your judge, believe in a God? + + +SECTION II. + +_Modern Atheists.--Arguments of the Worshippers of God._ + +We are intelligent beings, and intelligent beings cannot have been +formed by a blind, brute, insensible being; there is certainly some +difference between a clod and the ideas of Newton. Newton's +intelligence, then, came from some other intelligence. + +When we see a fine machine, we say there is a good machinist, and that +he has an excellent understanding. The world is assuredly an admirable +machine; therefore there is in the world, somewhere or other, an +admirable intelligence. This argument is old, but is not therefore the +worse. + +All animated bodies are composed of levers and pulleys, which act +according to the laws of mechanics; of liquors, which are kept in +perpetual circulation by the laws of hydrostatics; and the reflection +that all these beings have sentiment which has no relation to their +organization, fills us with wonder. + +The motions of the stars, that of our little earth round the sun--all +are operated according to the laws of the profoundest mathematics. How +could it be that Plato, who knew not one of these laws--the eloquent but +chimerical Plato, who said that the foundation of the earth was an +equilateral triangle, and that of water a right-angled triangle--the +strange Plato, who said there could be but five worlds, because there +were but five regular bodieshow, I say, was it that Plato, who was not +even acquainted with spherical trigonometry, had nevertheless so fine a +genius, so happy an instinct, as to call God the Eternal +Geometrician--to feel that there exists a forming Intelligence? Spinoza +himself confesses it. It is impossible to controvert this truth, which +surrounds us and presses us on all sides. + +_Argument of the Atheists._ + +I have, however, known refractory individuals, who have said that there +is no forming intelligence, and that motion alone has formed all that we +see and all that we are. They say boldly that the combination of this +universe was possible because it exists; therefore it was possible for +motion of itself to arrange it. Take four planets only--Mars, Venus, +Mercury, and the Earth; let us consider them solely in the situations in +which they now are; and let us see how many probabilities we have that +motion will bring them again to those respective places. There are but +twenty-four chances in this combination; that is, it is only twenty-four +to one that these planets will not be found in the same situations with +respect to one another. To these four globes add that of Jupiter; and it +is then only a hundred and twenty to one that Jupiter, Mars, Venus, +Mercury, and our globe will not be placed in the same positions in which +we now see them. + +Lastly, add Saturn; and there will then be only seven hundred and twenty +chances to one against putting these planets in their present +arrangement, according to their given distances. It is, then, +demonstrated that once, at least, in seven hundred and twenty cases, +chance might place these planets in their present order. + +Then take all the secondary planets, all their motions, all the beings +that vegetate, live, feel, think, act, on all these globes; you have +only to increase the number of chances; multiply this number to all +eternity--to what our weakness calls _infinity_--there will still be an +unit in favor of the formation of the world, such as it is, by motion +alone; therefore it is possible that, in all eternity, the motion of +matter alone has produced the universe as it exists. Nay, this +combination must, in eternity, of necessity happen. Thus, say they, not +only it is possible that the world is as it is by motion alone, but it +was impossible that it should not be so after infinite combinations. + +_Answer._ + +All this supposition seems to me to be prodigiously chimerical, for two +reasons: the first is, that in this universe there are intelligent +beings, and you cannot prove it possible for motion alone to produce +understanding. The second is, that, by your own confession, the chances +are infinity to unity, that an intelligent forming cause produced the +universe. Standing alone against infinity, a unit makes but a poor +figure. + +Again Spinoza himself admits this intelligence; it is the basis of his +system. You have not read him, but you must read him. Why would you go +further than he, and, through a foolish pride, plunge into the abyss +where Spinoza dared not to descend? Are you not aware of the extreme +folly of saying that it is owing to a blind cause that the square of the +revolution of one planet is always to the squares of the others as the +cube of its distance is to the cubes of the distances of the others from +the common centre? Either the planets are great geometricians, or the +Eternal Geometrician has arranged the planets. + +But where is the Eternal Geometrician? Is He in one place, or in all +places, without occupying space? I know not. Has He arranged all things +of His own substance? I know not. Is He immense, without quantity and +without quality? I know not. All I know is, that we must adore Him and +be just. + +_New Objection of a Modern Atheist._ + +Can it be said that the conformation of animals is according to their +necessities? What are those necessities? Self-preservation and +propagation. Now, is it astonishing that, of the infinite combinations +produced by chance, those only have survived which had organs adapted +for their nourishment and the continuation of their species? Must not +all others necessarily have perished? + +_Answer._ + +This argument, taken from Lucretius, is sufficiently refuted by the +sensation given to animals and the intelligence given to man. How, as +has just been said in the preceding paragraph, should combinations +produced by chance produce this sensation and this intelligence? Yes, +doubtless, the members of animals are made for all their necessities +with an incomprehensible art, and you have not the boldness to deny it. +You do not mention it. You feel that you can say nothing in answer to +this great argument which Nature brings against you. The disposition of +the wing of a fly, or of the feelers of a snail, is sufficient to +confound you. + +_An Objection of Maupertuis._ + +The natural philosophers of modern times have done nothing more than +extend these pretended arguments; this they have sometimes done even to +minuteness and indecency. They have found God in the folds of a +rhinoceros's hide; they might, with equal reason, have denied His +existence on account of the tortoise's shell. + +_Answer._ + +What reasoning! The tortoise and the rhinoceros, and all the different +species, prove alike in their infinite varieties the same cause, the +same design, the same end, which are preservation, generation, and +death. Unity is found in this immense variety; the hide and the shell +bear equal testimony. What! deny God, because a shell is not like a +skin! And journalists have lavished upon this coxcombry praises which +they have withheld from Newton and Locke, both worshippers of the +Divinity from thorough examination and conviction! + +_Another of Maupertuis's Objections._ + +Of what service are beauty and fitness in the construction of a serpent? +Perhaps, you say, it has uses of which we are ignorant. Let us then, at +least, be silent, and not admire an animal which we know only by the +mischief it does. + +_Answer._ + +Be you silent, also, since you know no more of its utility than myself; +or acknowledge that, in reptiles, everything is admirably proportioned. +Some of them are venomous; you have been so too. The only subject at +present under consideration is the prodigious art which has formed +serpents, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and bipeds. This art is evident +enough. You ask, Why is not the serpent harmless? And why have you not +been harmless? Why have you been a persecutor? which, in a philosopher, +is the greatest of crimes. This is quite another question; it is that of +physical and moral evil. It has long been asked, Why are there so many +serpents, and so many wicked men worse than serpents? If flies could +reason, they would complain to God of the existence of spiders; but they +would, at the same time, acknowledge what Minerva confessed to Arachne +in the fable, that they arrange their webs in a wonderful manner. + +We cannot, then, do otherwise than acknowledge an ineffable +Intelligence, which Spinoza himself admitted. We must own that it is +displayed as much in the meanest insect as in the planets. And with +regard to moral and physical evil, what can be done or said? Let us +console ourselves by the enjoyment of physical and moral good, and adore +the Eternal Being, who has ordained the one and permitted the other. + +One word more on this topic. Atheism is the vice of some intelligent +men, and superstition is the vice of fools. And what is the vice of +knaves?--Hypocrisy. + + +SECTION III. + +_Unjust Accusation.--Justification of Vanini._ + +Formerly, whoever was possessed of a secret in any art was in danger of +passing for a sorcerer; every new sect was charged with murdering +infants in its mysteries; and every philosopher who departed from the +jargon of the schools was accused of atheism by knaves and fanatics, and +condemned by blockheads. + +Anaxagorus dares to assert that the sun is not conducted by Apollo, +mounted in a chariot and four; he is condemned as an atheist, and +compelled to fly. + +Aristotle is accused of atheism by a priest, and not being powerful +enough to punish his accuser, he retires to Chalcis. But the death of +Socrates is the greatest blot on the page of Grecian history. + +Aristophanes--he whom commentators admire because he was a Greek, +forgetting that Socrates was also a Greek--Aristophanes was the first +who accustomed the Athenians to regard Socrates as an atheist. + +This comic poet, who is neither comic nor poetical, would not, among us, +have been permitted to exhibit his farces at the fair of St. Lawrence. +He appears to me to be much lower and more despicable than Plutarch +represents him. Let us see what the wise Plutarch says of this buffoon: +"The language of Aristophanes bespeaks his miserable quackery; it is +made up of the lowest and most disgusting puns; he is not even pleasing +to the people; and to men of judgment and honor he is insupportable; his +arrogance is intolerable, and all good men detest his malignity." + +This, then, is the jack-pudding whom Madame Dacier, an admirer of +Socrates, ventures to admire! Such was the man who, indirectly, prepared +the poison by which infamous judges put to death the most virtuous man +in Greece. + +The tanners, cobblers, and seamstresses of Athens applauded a farce in +which Socrates was represented lifted in the air in a hamper, announcing +that there was no God, and boasting of having stolen a cloak while he +was teaching philosophy. A whole people, whose government sanctioned +such infamous licences, well deserved what has happened to them, to +become slaves to the Romans, and, subsequently, to the Turks. The +Russians, whom the Greeks of old would have called barbarians, would +neither have poisoned Socrates, nor have condemned Alcibiades to death. + +We pass over the ages between the Roman commonwealth and our own times. +The Romans, much more wise than the Greeks, never persecuted a +philosopher for his opinions. Not so the barbarous nations which +succeeded the Roman Empire. No sooner did the Emperor Frederick II. +begin to quarrel with the popes, than he was accused of being an +atheist, and being the author of the book of "The Three Impostors," +conjointly with his chancellor De Vincis. + +Does our high-chancellor, de l'Hôpital, declare against persecution? He +is immediately charged with atheism--_"Homo doctus, sed vetus atheus."_ +There was a Jesuit, as much beneath Aristophanes as Aristophanes is +beneath Homer--a wretch, whose name has become ridiculous even among +fanatics--the Jesuit Garasse, who found atheists everywhere. He bestows +the name upon all who are the objects of his virulence. He calls +Theodore Beza an atheist. It was he, too, that led the public into error +concerning Vanini. + +The unfortunate end of Vanini does not excite our pity and indignation +like that of Socrates, because Vanini was only a foreign pedant, without +merit; however, Vanini was not, as was pretended, an atheist; he was +quite the contrary. + +He was a poor Neapolitan priest, a theologian and preacher by trade, an +outrageous disputer on quiddities and universals, and _"utrum chimæra +bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones."_ But there was +nothing in him tending to atheism. His notion of God is that of the +soundest and most approved theology: "God is the beginning and the end, +the father of both, without need of either, eternal without time, in no +one place, yet present everywhere. To him there is neither past nor +future; he is within and without everything; he has created all, and +governs all; he is immutable, infinite without parts; his power is his +will." This is not very philosophical, but it is the most approved +theology. + +Vanini prided himself on reviving Plato's fine idea, adopted by +Averroës, that God had created a chain of beings from the smallest to +the greatest, the last link of which was attached to his eternal throne; +an idea more sublime than true, but as distant from atheism as being +from nothing. + +He travelled to seek his fortune and to dispute; but, unfortunately, +disputation leads not to fortune; a man makes himself as many +irreconcilable enemies as he finds men of learning or of pedantry to +argue against. Vanini's ill-fortune had no other source. His heat and +rudeness in disputation procured him the hatred of some theologians; and +having quarrelled with one Franconi, this Franconi, the friend of his +enemies, charged him with being an atheist and teaching atheism. + +Franconi, aided by some witnesses, had the barbarity, when confronted +with the accused, to maintain what he had advanced. Vanini, on the +stool, being asked what he thought of the existence of a God, answered +that he, with the Church, adored a God in three persons. Taking a straw +from the ground, "This," said he, "is sufficient to prove that there is +a creator." He then delivered a very fine discourse on vegetation and +motion, and the necessity of a Supreme Being, without whom there could +be neither motion nor vegetation. + +The president Grammont, who was then at Toulouse, repeats this discourse +in his history of France, now so little known; and the same Grammont, +through some unaccountable prejudice, asserts that Vanini said all this +"through vanity, or through fear, rather than from inward conviction." + +On what could this atrocious, rash judgment of the president be founded? +It is evident, from Vanini's answer, that he could not but be acquitted +of the charge of atheism. But what followed? This unfortunate foreign +priest also dabbled in medicine. There was found in his house a large +live toad, which he kept in a vessel of water; he was forthwith accused +of being a sorcerer. It was maintained that this toad was the god which +he adored. An impious meaning was attributed to several passages of his +books, a thing which is both common and easy, by taking objections for +answers, giving some bad sense to a loose phrase, and perverting an +innocent expression. At last, the faction which oppressed him forced +from his judges the sentence which condemned him to die. + +In order to justify this execution it was necessary to charge the +unfortunate man with the most enormous of crimes. The grey friar--the +_very_ grey friar Marsenne, was so besotted as to publish that "Vanini +set out from Naples, with twelve of his apostles, to convert the whole +world to atheism." What a pitiful tale! How should a poor priest have +twelve men in his pay? How should he persuade twelve Neapolitans to +travel at great expense, in order to spread this revolting doctrine at +the peril of their lives? Would a king himself have it in his power to +pay twelve preachers of atheism? No one before Father Marsenne had +advanced so enormous an absurdity. But after him it was repeated; the +journals and historical dictionaries caught it, and the world, which +loves the extraordinary, has believed the fable without examination. + +Even Bayle, in his miscellaneous thoughts (_Pensées Diverses_), speaks +of Vanini as of an atheist. He cites his example in support of his +paradox, that "a society of atheists might exist." He assures us that +Vanini was a man of very regular morals, and that he was a martyr to +his philosophical opinions. On both these points he is equally mistaken. +Vanini informs us in his "Dialogues," written in imitation of Erasmus, +that he had a mistress named Isabel. He was as free in his writings as +in his conduct; but he was not an atheist. + +A century after his death, the learned Lacroze, and he who took the name +of Philaletes, endeavored to justify him. But as no one cares anything +about the memory of an unfortunate Neapolitan, scarcely any one has read +these apologies. + +The Jesuit Hardouin, more learned and no less rash than Garasse, in his +book entitled _"Athei Detecti"_ charges the Descartes, the Arnaulds, the +Pascals, the Malebranches, with atheism. Happily, Vanini's fate was not +theirs. + + +SECTION IV. + +A word on the question in morals, agitated by Bayle, "Whether a society +of atheists can exist." Here let us first observe the enormous +self-contradictions of men in disputation. Those who have been most +violent in opposing the opinion of Bayle, those who have denied with the +greatest virulence the possibility of a society of atheists, are the +very men who have since maintained with equal ardor that atheism is the +religion of the Chinese government. + +They have most assuredly been mistaken concerning the government of +China; they had only to read the edicts of the emperors of that vast +country, and they would have seen that those edicts are sermons, in +which a Supreme Being--governing, avenging, and rewarding--is +continually spoken of. + +But, at the same time, they are no less deceived respecting the +impossibility of a society of atheists; nor can I conceive how Bayle +could forget a striking instance which might have rendered his cause +victorious. + +In what does the apparent impossibility of a society of atheists +consist? In this: It is judged that men without some restraint could not +live together; that laws have no power against secret crimes; and that +it is necessary to have an avenging God--punishing, in this world or in +the next, such as escape human justice. + +The laws of Moses, it is true, did not teach the doctrine of a life to +come, did not threaten with chastisements after death, nor even teach +the primitive Jews the immortality of the soul; but the Jews, far from +being atheists, far from believing that they could elude the divine +vengeance, were the most religious of men. They believed not only in the +existence of an eternal God, but that He was always present among them; +they trembled lest they should be punished in themselves, their wives, +their children, their posterity to the fourth generation. This was a +very powerful check. + +But among the Gentiles various sects had no restraint; the Skeptics +doubted of everything; the Academics suspended their judgment on +everything; the Epicureans were persuaded that the Divinity could not +meddle in human affairs, and in their hearts admitted no Divinity. They +were convinced that the soul is not a substance, but a faculty which is +born and perishes with the body; consequently, they had no restraint but +that of morality and honor. The Roman senators and knights were in +reality atheists; for to men who neither feared nor hoped anything from +them, the gods could not exist. The Roman senate, then, in the time of +Cæsar and Cicero, was in fact an assembly of atheists. + +That great orator, in his oration for Cluentius, says to the whole +assembled senate: "What does he lose by death? We reject all the silly +fables about the infernal regions. What, then, can death take from him? +Nothing but the susceptibility of sorrow." + +Does not Cæsar, wishing to save the life of his friend Catiline, +threatened by the same Cicero, object that to put a criminal to death is +not to punish him--that death is nothing--that it is but the termination +of our ills--a moment rather fortunate than calamitous? Did not Cicero +and the whole senate yield to this reasoning? The conquerors and +legislators of all the known world then, evidently, formed a society of +men who feared nothing from the gods, but were real atheists. + +Bayle next examines whether idolatry is more dangerous than +atheism--whether it is a greater crime not to believe in the Divinity +than to have unworthy notions of it; in this he thinks with +Plutarch--that it is better to have no opinion than a bad opinion; but, +without offence to Plutarch, it was infinitely better that the Greeks +should fear Ceres, Neptune, and Jupiter than that they should fear +nothing at all. It is clear that the sanctity of oaths is necessary; and +that those are more to be trusted who think a false oath will be +punished, than those who think they may take a false oath with impunity. +It cannot be doubted that, in an organized society, it is better to have +even a bad religion than no religion at all. + +It appears then that Bayle should rather have examined whether atheism +or fanaticism is the most dangerous. Fanaticism is certainly a thousand +times the most to be dreaded; for atheism inspires no sanguinary +passion, but fanaticism does; atheism does not oppose crime, but +fanaticism prompts to its commission. Let us suppose, with the author of +the _"Commentarium Return Gallicarum,"_ that the High-Chancellor de +l'Hôpital was an atheist; he made none but wise laws; he recommended +only moderation and concord. The massacres of St. Bartholomew were +committed by fanatics. Hobbes passed for an atheist; yet he led a life +of innocence and quiet, while the fanatics of his time deluged England, +Scotland, and Ireland with blood. Spinoza was not only an atheist--he +taught atheism; but assuredly he had no part in the judicial +assassination of Barneveldt; nor was it he who tore in pieces the two +brothers De Witt, and ate them off the gridiron. + +Atheists are, for the most part, men of learning, bold but bewildered, +who reason ill and, unable to comprehend the creation, the origin of +evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the +eternity of things and of necessity. + +The ambitious and the voluptuous have but little time to reason; they +have other occupations than that of comparing Lucretius with Socrates. +Such is the case with us and our time. + +It was otherwise with the Roman senate, which was composed almost +entirely of theoretical and practical atheists, that is, believing +neither in Providence nor in a future state; this senate was an assembly +of philosophers, men of pleasure, and ambitious men, who were all very +dangerous, and who ruined the commonwealth. Under the emperors, +Epicureanism prevailed. The atheists of the senate had been factious in +the times of Sulla and of Cæsar; in those of Augustus and Tiberius, they +were atheistical slaves. + +I should not wish to come in the way of an atheistical prince, whose +interest it should be to have me pounded in a mortar; I am quite sure +that I should be so pounded. Were I a sovereign, I would not have to do +with atheistical courtiers, whose interest it was to poison me; I should +be under the necessity of taking an antidote every day. It is then +absolutely necessary for princes and people that the idea of a Supreme +Being--creating, governing, rewarding, and punishing--be profoundly +engraved on their minds. + +There are, nations of atheists, says Bayle in his "Thoughts on Comets." +The Kaffirs, the Hottentots, and many other small populations, have no +god; they neither affirm nor deny that there is one; they have never +heard of Him; tell them that there is one, and they will easily believe +it; tell them that all is done by the nature of things, and they will +believe you just the same. To pretend that they are atheists would be +like saying they are anti-Cartesians. They are neither for Descartes nor +against him; they are no more than children; a child is neither atheist +nor deist; he is nothing. + +From all this, what conclusion is to be drawn? That atheism is a most +pernicious monster in those who govern; that it is the same in the men +of their cabinet, since it may extend itself from the cabinet to those +in office; that, although less to be dreaded than fanaticism, it is +almost always fatal to virtue. And especially, let it be added, that +there are fewer atheists now than ever--since philosophers have become +persuaded that there is no vegetative being without a germ, no germ +without a design, etc., and that the corn in our fields does not spring +from rottenness. + +Unphilosophical geometricians have rejected final causes, but true +philosophers admit them; and, as it is elsewhere observed, a catechist +announces God to children, and Newton demonstrates Him to the wise. + +If there be atheists, who are to blame? Who but the mercenary tyrants of +our souls, who, while disgusting us with their knavery, urge some weak +spirits to deny the God whom such monsters dishonor? How often have the +people's bloodsuckers forced overburdened citizens to revolt against the +king! + +Men who have fattened on our substance, cry out to us: "Be persuaded +that an ass spoke; believe that a fish swallowed a man, and threw him up +three days after, safe and sound, on the shore; doubt not that the God +of the universe ordered one Jewish prophet to eat excrement, and another +to buy two prostitutes, and have bastards by them;" such are the words +put into the mouth of the God of purity and truth! Believe a hundred +things either visibly abominable or mathematically impossible; otherwise +the God of Mercy will burn you in hell-fire, not only for millions of +millions of ages, but for all eternity, whether you have a body or have +not a body. + +These brutal absurdities are revolting to rash and weak minds, as well +as to firm and wise ones. They say: "Our teachers represent God to us as +the most insensate and barbarous of all beings; therefore, there is no +God." But they ought to say, "Our teachers represent God as furious and +ridiculous, therefore God is the reverse of what they describe Him; He +is as wise and good as they say He is foolish and wicked." Thus do the +wise decide. But, if a fanatic hears them, he denounces them to a +magistrate--a sort of priest's officer, which officer has them burned +alive, thinking that he is therein imitating and avenging the Divine +Majesty which he insults. + + + + +ATHEIST. + + +SECTION I. + +There were once many atheists among the Christians; they are now much +fewer. It at first appears to be a paradox, but examination proves it to +be a truth, that theology often threw men's minds into atheism, until +philosophy at length drew them out of it. It must indeed have been +pardonable to doubt of the Divinity, when His only announcers disputed +on His nature. Nearly all the first Fathers of the Church made God +corporeal, and others, after them, giving Him no extent, lodged Him in a +part of heaven. According to some, He had created the world in Time; +while, according to others, He had created Time itself. Some gave Him a +Son like to Himself; others would not grant that the Son was like to the +Father. It was also disputed in what way a third person proceeded from +the other two. + +It was agitated whether the Son had been, while on earth, composed of +two persons. So that the question undesignedly became, whether there +were five persons in the Divinity--three in heaven and two for Jesus +Christ upon earth; or four persons, reckoning Christ upon earth as only +one; or three persons, considering Christ only as God. There were +disputes about His mother, His descent into hell and into limbo; the +manner in which the body of the God-man was eaten, and the blood of the +God-man was drunk; on grace; on the saints, and a thousand other +matters. When the confidants of the Divinity were seen so much at +variance among themselves anathematizing one another from age to age, +but all agreeing in an immoderate thirst for riches and grandeur--while, +on the other hand, were beheld the prodigious number of crimes and +miseries which afflicted the earth, and of which many were caused by the +very disputes of these teachers of souls--it must be confessed that it +was allowable for rational men to doubt the existence of a being so +strangely announced, and for men of sense to imagine that a God, who +could of His own free will make so many beings miserable, did not exist. + +Suppose, for example, a natural philosopher of the fifteenth century +reading these words in "St. Thomas's Dream": _"Virtus cÅ“li, loco +spermatis, sufficit cum elementis et putrefactione ad generationem +animalium imperfectorum."_ "The virtue of heaven instead of seed is +sufficient, with the elements and putrefaction, for the generation of +imperfect animals." Our philosopher would reason thus: "If corruption +suffices with the elements to produce unformed animals, it would appear +that a little more corruption, with a little more heat, would also +produce animals more complete. The virtue of heaven is here no other +than the virtue of nature. I shall then think, with Epicurus and St. +Thomas, that men may have sprung from the slime of the earth and the +rays of the sun--a noble origin, too, for beings so wretched and so +wicked. Why should I admit a creating God, presented to me under so many +contradictory and revolting aspects?" But at length physics arose, and +with them philosophy. Then it was clearly discovered that the mud of the +Nile produced not a single insect, nor a single ear of corn, and men +were found to acknowledge throughout, germs, relations, means, and an +astonishing correspondence among all beings. The particles of light have +been followed, which go from the sun to enlighten the globe and the ring +of Saturn, at the distance of three hundred millions of leagues; then, +coming to the earth, form two opposite angles in the eye of the minutest +insect, and paint all nature on its retina. A philosopher was given to +the world who discovered the simple and sublime laws by which the +celestial globes move in the immensity of space. Thus the work of the +universe, now that it is better known, bespeaks a workman, and so many +never-varying laws announce a lawgiver. Sound philosophy, therefore, has +destroyed atheism, to which obscure theology furnished weapons of +defence. + +But one resource was left for the small number of difficult minds, +which, being more forcibly struck by the pretended injustices of a +Supreme Being than by his wisdom, were obstinate in denying this first +mover. Nature has existed from all eternity; everything in nature is in +motion, therefore everything in it continually changes. And if +everything is forever changing, all possible combinations must take +place; therefore the present combinations of all things may have been +the effect of this eternal motion and change alone. Take six dice, and +it is 46,655 to one that you do not throw six times six. But still there +is that one chance in 46,656. So, in the infinity of ages, any one of +the infinite number of combinations, as that of the present arrangement +of the universe, is not impossible. + +Minds, otherwise rational, have been misled by these arguments; but they +have not considered that there is infinity against them, and that there +certainly is not infinity against the existence of God. They should, +moreover, consider that if everything were changing, the smallest things +could not remain unchanged, as they have so long done. They have at +least no reason to advance why new species are not formed every day. On +the contrary, it is very probable that a powerful hand, superior to +these continual changes, keeps all species within the bounds it, has +prescribed them. Thus the philosopher, who acknowledges a God, has a +number of probabilities on his side, while the atheist has only doubts. + +It is evident that in morals it is much better to acknowledge a God than +not to admit one. It is certainly to the interest of all men that there +should be a Divinity to punish what human, justice cannot repress; but +it is also clear that it were better to acknowledge no God than to +worship a barbarous one, and offer Him human victims, as so many nations +have done. + +We have one striking example, which places this truth beyond a doubt. +The Jews, under Moses, had no idea of the immortality of the soul, nor +of a future state. Their lawgiver announced to them, from God, only +rewards and punishments purely temporal; they, therefore, had only this +life to provide for. Moses commands the Levites to kill twenty-three +thousand of their brethren for having had a golden or gilded calf. On +another occasion twenty-four thousand of them are massacred for having +had commerce with the young women of the country; and twelve thousand +are struck dead because some few of them had wished to support the ark, +which was near falling. It may, with perfect reverence for the decrees +of Providence, be affirmed, humanly speaking, that it would have been +much better for these fifty-nine thousand men, who believed in no future +state, to have been absolute atheists and have lived, than to have been +massacred in the name of the God whom they acknowledged. + +It is quite certain that atheism is not taught in the schools of the +learned of China, but many of those learned men are atheists, for they +are indifferent philosophers. Now it would undoubtedly be better to live +with them at Pekin, enjoying the mildness of their manners and their +laws, than to be at Goa, liable to groan in irons, in the prisons of the +inquisition, until brought out in a brimstone-colored garment, +variegated with devils, to perish in the flames. + +They who have maintained that a society of atheists may exist have then +been right, for it is laws that form society, and these atheists, being +moreover philosophers, may lead a very wise and happy life under the +shade of those laws. They will certainly live in society more easily +than superstitious fanatics. People one town with Epicureans such as +Simonides, Protagoras, Des Barreux, Spinoza; and another with Jansenists +and Molinists. In which do you think there will be the most quarrels and +tumults? Atheism, considering it only with relation to this life, would +be very dangerous among a ferocious people, and false ideas of the +Divinity would be no less pernicious. Most of the great men of this +world live as if they were atheists. Every man who has lived with his +eyes open knows that the knowledge of a God, His presence, and His +justice, has not the slightest influence over the wars, the treaties, +the objects of ambition, interest or pleasure, in the pursuit of which +they are wholly occupied. Yet we do not see that they grossly violate +the rules established in society. It is much more agreeable to pass our +lives among them than among the superstitious and fanatical. I do, it is +true, expect more justice from one who believes in a God than from one +who has no such belief; but from the superstitious I look only for +bitterness and persecution. Atheism and fanaticism are two monsters +which may tear society in pieces; but the atheist preserves his reason, +which checks his propensity to mischief, while the fanatic is under the +influence of a madness which is constantly urging him on. + + +SECTION II. + +In England, as everywhere else, there have been, and there still are, +many atheists by principle; for there are none but young, inexperienced +preachers, very ill-informed of what passes in the world, who affirm +that there cannot be atheists. I have known some in France, who were +quite good natural philosophers; and have, I own, been very much +surprised that men who could so ably develop the secret springs of +nature should obstinately refuse to acknowledge the hand which so +evidently puts those springs in action. + +It appears to me that one of the principles which leads them to +materialism is that they believe in the plentitude and infinity of the +universe, and the eternity of matter. It must be this which misleads +them, for almost all the Newtonians whom I have met admit the void and +the termination of matter, and consequently admit a God. + +Indeed, if matter be infinite, as so many philosophers, even including +Descartes, pretend, it has of itself one of the attributes of the +Supreme Being: if a void be impossible, matter exists of necessity; it +has existed from all eternity. With these principles, therefore, we may +dispense with God, creating, modifying, and preserving matter. + +I am aware that Descartes, and most of the schools which have believed +in the _plenum_, and the infinity of matter, have nevertheless admitted +a God; but this is only because men scarcely ever reason or act upon +their principles. + +Had men reasoned, consequently, Epicurus and his apostle Lucretius must +have been the most religious assertors of the Providence which they +combated; for when they admitted the void and the termination of matter, +a truth of which they had only an imperfect glimpse, it necessarily +followed that matter was the being of necessity, existing by itself, +since it was not indefinite. They had, therefore, in their own +philosophy, and in their own despite, a demonstration that there is a +Supreme Being, necessary, infinite, the fabricator of the universe. +Newton's philosophy, which admits and proves the void and finite matter, +also demonstratively proves the existence of a God. + +Thus I regard true philosophers as the apostles of the Divinity. Each +class of men requires its particular ones; a parish catechist tells +children that there is a God, but Newton proves it to the wise. + +In London, under Charles II. after Cromwell's wars, as at Paris under +Henry IV. after the war of the Guises, people took great pride in being +atheists; having passed from the excess of cruelty to that of pleasure, +and corrupted their minds successively by war and by voluptuousness, +they reasoned very indifferently. Since then the more nature has been +studied the better its Author has been known. + +One thing I will venture to believe, which is, that of all religions, +theism is the most widely spread in the world. It is the prevailing +religion of China; it is that of the wise among the Mahometans; and, +among Christian philosophers, eight out of ten are of the same opinion. +It has penetrated even into the schools of theology, into the cloisters, +into the conclave; it is a sort of sect without association, without +worship, without ceremonies, without disputes, and without zeal, spread +through the world without having been preached. Theism, like Judaism, is +to be found amidst all religions; but it is singular that the latter, +which is the extreme of superstition, abhorred by the people and +contemned by the wise, is everywhere tolerated for money; while the +former, which is the opposite of superstition, unknown to the people, +and embraced by philosophers alone, is publicly exercised nowhere but in +China. There is no country in Europe where there are more theists than +in England. Some persons ask whether they have a religion or not. + +There are two sorts of theists. The one sort think that God made the +world without giving man rules for good and evil. It is clear that these +should have no other name than that of philosophers. + +The others believe that God gave to man a natural law. These, it is +certain, have a religion, though they have no external worship. They +are, with reference to the Christian religion, peaceful enemies, which +she carries in her bosom; they renounce without any design of destroying +her. All other sects desire to predominate, like political bodies, which +seek to feed on the substance of others, and rise upon their ruin; +theism has always lain quiet. Theists have never been found caballing in +any state. + +There was in London a society of theists, who for some time continued to +meet together. They had a small book of their laws, in which religion, +on which so many ponderous volumes have been written, occupied only two +pages. Their principal axiom was this: "Morality is the same among all +men; therefore it comes from God. Worship is various; therefore it is +the work of man." + +The second axiom was: "Men, being all brethren, and acknowledging the +same God, it is execrable that brethren should persecute brethren, +because they testify their love for the common father in a different +manner. Indeed," said they, "what upright man would kill his elder +brother because one of them had saluted their father after the Chinese +and the other after the Dutch fashion, especially while it was undecided +in what way the father wished their reverence to be made to him? Surely +he who should act thus would be a bad brother rather than a good son." + +I am well aware that these maxims lead directly to "the abominable and +execrable dogma of toleration"; but I do no more than simply relate the +fact. I am very careful not to become a controversialist. It must, +however, be admitted that if the different sects into which Christians +have been divided had possessed this moderation, Christianity would have +been disturbed by fewer disorders, shaken by fewer revolutions, and +stained with less blood. + +Let us pity the theists for combating our holy revelation. But whence +comes it that so many Calvinists, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Nestorians, +Arians, partisans of Rome, and enemies of Rome, have been so sanguinary, +so barbarous, and so miserable, now persecuting, now persecuted? It is +because they have been the multitude. Whence is it that theists, though +in error, have never done harm to mankind? Because they have been +philosophers. The Christian religion has cost the human species +seventeen millions of men, reckoning only one million per century, who +have perished either by the hands of the ordinary executioner, or by +those of executioners paid and led to battle--all for the salvation of +souls and the greater glory of God. + +I have heard men express astonishment that a religion so moderate, and +so apparently conformable to reason, as theism, has not been spread +among the people. Among the great and little vulgar may be found pious +herb-women, Molinist duchesses, scrupulous seamstresses who would go to +the stake for anabaptism, devout hackney-coachmen, most determined in +the cause of Luther or of Arius, but no theists; for theism cannot so +much be called a religion as a system of philosophy, and the vulgar, +whether great or little, are not philosophers. + +Locke was a declared theist. I was astonished to find, in that great +philosopher's chapter on innate ideas, that men have all different ideas +of justice. Were such the case, morality would no longer be the same; +the voice of God would not be heard by man; natural religion would be at +an end. I am willing to believe, with him, that there are nations in +which men eat their fathers, and where to lie with a neighbor's wife is +to do him a friendly office; but if this be true it does not prove that +the law, "Do not unto others that which you would not have others do +unto you," is not general. For if a father be eaten, it is when he has +grown old, is too feeble to crawl along, and would otherwise be eaten by +the enemy. And, I ask, what father would not furnish a good meal to his +son rather than to the enemies of his nation? Besides, he who eats his +father hopes that he in turn shall be eaten by his children. + +If a service be rendered to a neighbor by lying with his wife, it is +when he cannot himself have a child, and is desirous of having one; +otherwise he would be very angry. In both these cases, and in all +others, the natural law, "Do not to another that which you would not +have another do to you," remains unbroken. All the other rules, so +different and so varied, may be referred to this. When, therefore, the +wise metaphysician, Locke, says that men have no innate ideas, that they +have different ideas of justice and injustice, he assuredly does not +mean to assert that God has not given to all men that instinctive +self-love by which they are of necessity guided. + + + + +ATOMS. + + +Epicurus, equally great as a genius, and respectable in his morals; and +after him Lucretius, who forced the Latin language to express +philosophical ideas, and--to the great admiration of Rome--to express +them in verse--Epicurus and Lucretius, I say, admitted atoms and the +void. Gassendi supported this doctrine, and Newton demonstrated it. In +vain did a remnant of Cartesianism still combat for the plenum; in vain +did Leibnitz, who had at first adopted the rational system of Epicurus, +Lucretius, Gassendi, and Newton, change his opinion respecting the void +after he had embroiled himself with his master Newton. The plenum is now +regarded as a chimera. + +In this Epicurus and Lucretius appear to have been true philosophers, +and their intermediaries, who have been so much ridiculed, were no other +than the unresisting space in which Newton has demonstrated that the +planets move round their orbits in times proportioned to their areas. +Thus it was not Epicurus' intermediaries, but his opponents, that were +ridiculous. But when Epicurus afterwards tells us that his atoms +declined in the void by chance; that this declination formed men and +animals by chance; that the eyes were placed in the upper part of the +head and the feet at the end of the legs by chance; that ears were not +given to hear, but that the declination of atoms having fortuitously +composed ears, men fortuitously made use of them to hear with--this +madness, called physics, has been very justly turned into ridicule. + +Sound philosophy, then, has long distinguished what is good in Epicurus +and Lucretius, from their chimeras, founded on imagination and +ignorance. The most submissive minds have adopted the doctrine of +creation in time, and the most daring have admitted that of creation +before all time. Some have received with faith a universe produced from +nothing; others, unable to comprehend this doctrine in physics, have +believed that all beings were emanations from the Great--the Supreme and +Universal Being; but all have rejected the fortuitous concurrence of +atoms; all have acknowledged that chance is a word without meaning. What +we call chance can be no other than the unknown cause of a known effect. +Whence comes it then, that philosophers are still accused of thinking +that the stupendous and indescribable arrangement of the universe is a +production of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms--an effect of chance? +Neither Spinoza nor any one else has advanced this absurdity. + +Yet the son of the great Racine says, in his poem on Religion: + + _O toi! qui follement fais ton Dieu du hasard,_ + _Viens me développer ce nid qu'avec tant d'art,_ + _Au même ordre toujours architecte fidèle,_ + _A l'aide de son bee maçonne l'hirondelle;_ + _Comment, pour élever ce hardi bâtiment,_ + _A-t-elle en le broyant arrondi son ciment?_ + + Oh ye, who raise Creation out of chance, + As erst Lucretius from th' atomic dance! + Come view with me the swallow's curious nest, + Where beauty, art, and order, shine confessed. + How could rude chance, forever dark and blind, + Preside within the little builder's mind? + Could she, with accidents unnumbered crowned, + Its mass concentrate, and its structure round! + +These lines are assuredly thrown away. No one makes chance his God; no +one has said that while a swallow "tempers his clay, it takes the form +of his abode by chance." On the contrary, it is said that "he makes his +nest by the laws of necessity," which is the opposite of chance. + +The only question now agitated is, whether the author of nature has +formed primordial parts unsusceptible of division, or if all is +continually dividing and changing into other elements. The first system +seems to account for everything, and the second, hitherto at least, for +nothing. + +If the first elements of things were not indestructible one element +might at last swallow up all the rest, and change them into its own +substance. Hence, perhaps it was that Empedocles imagined that +everything came from fire, and would be destroyed by fire. + +This question of atoms involves another, that of the divisibility of +matter _ad infinitum_. The word _atom_ signifies _without parts--not to +be divided._ You divide it in thought, for if you were to divide it in +reality it would no longer be an atom. + +You may divide a grain of gold into eighteen millions of visible parts; +a grain of copper dissolved in spirit of sal ammoniac has exhibited +upwards of twenty-two thousand parts; but when you have arrived at the +last element the atom escapes the microscope, and you can divide no +further except in imagination. + +The infinite divisibility of atoms is like some propositions in +geometry. You may pass an infinity of curves between a circle and its +tangent, supposing the circle and the tangent to be lines without +breadth; but there are no such lines in nature. + +You likewise establish that asymptotes will approach one another without +ever meeting; but it is under the supposition that they are lines +having length without breadth--things which have only a speculative +existence. + +So, also, we represent unity by a line, and divide this line and this +unity into as many fractions as you please; but this infinity of +fractions will never be any other than our unity and our line. + +It is not strictly demonstrated that atoms are indivisible, but it +appears that they are not divided by the laws of nature. + + + + +AVARICE. + + +Avarities, _amor habendi_--desire of having, avidity, covetousness. +Properly speaking, avarice is the desire of accumulating, whether in +grain, movables, money, or curiosities. There were avaricious men long +before coin was invented. + +We do not call a man avaricious who has four and twenty coach horses, +yet will not lend one to his friend: or who, having two thousand bottles +of Burgundy in his cellar, will not send you half a dozen, when he knows +you to be in want of them. If he show you a hundred thousand crowns' +worth of diamonds you do not think of asking him to present you with one +worth twenty livres; you consider him as a man of great magnificence, +but not at all avaricious. + +He who in finance, in army contracts, and great undertakings gained two +millions each year, and who, when possessed of forty-three millions, +besides his houses at Paris and his movables, expended fifty thousand +crowns per annum for his table, and sometimes lent money to noblemen at +five per cent, interest, did not pass, in the minds of the people, for +an avaricious man. He had, however, all his life burned with the thirst +of gain; the demon of covetousness was perpetually tormenting him; he +continued to accumulate to the last day of his life. This passion, which +was constantly gratified, has never been called avarice. He did not +expend a tenth part of his income, yet he had the reputation of a +generous man, too fond of splendor. + +A father of a family who, with an income of twenty thousand livres, +expends only five or six, and accumulates his savings to portion his +children, has the reputation among his neighbors of being avaricious, +mean, stingy, a niggard, a miser, a grip-farthing; and every abusive +epithet that can be thought of is bestowed upon him. + +Nevertheless this good citizen is much more to be honored than the +CrÅ“sus I have just mentioned; he expends three times as much in +proportion. But the cause of the great difference between their +reputations is this: + +Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because there is +nothing to be gained by him. The physician, the apothecary, the +wine-merchant, the draper, the grocer, the saddler, and a few girls gain +a good deal by our Croesus, who is truly avaricious. But with our close +and economical citizen there is nothing to be done. Therefore he is +loaded with maledictions. + +As for those among the avaricious who deprive themselves of the +necessaries of life, we leave them to Plautus and Molière. + + + + +AUGURY. + + +Must not a man be very thoroughly possessed by the demon of etymology to +say, with Pezron and others, that the Roman word _augurium_ came from +the Celtic words _au_ and _gur_? According to these learned men _au_ +must, among the Basques and Bas-Bretons, have signified _the liver_, +because _asu_, which, (say they) signified _left_, doubtless stood for +the liver, which is on the _right_ side; and _gur_ meant _man_, or +_yellow_, or _red_, in that Celtic tongue of which we have not one +memorial. Truly this is powerful reasoning. + +Absurd curiosity (for we must call things by their right names) has been +carried so far as to seek Hebrew and Chaldee derivations from certain +Teutonic and Celtic words. This, Bochart never fails to do. It is +astonishing with what confidence these men of genius have proved that +expressions used on the banks of the Tiber were borrowed from the patois +of the savages of Biscay. Nay, they even assert that this patois was one +of the first idioms of the primitive language--the parent of all other +languages throughout the world. They have only to proceed, and say that +all the various notes of birds come from the cry of the two first +parrots, from which every other species of birds has been produced. + +The religious folly of auguries was originally founded on very sound and +natural observations. The birds of passage have always marked the +progress of the seasons. We see them come in flocks in the spring, and +return in the autumn. The cuckoo is heard only in fine weather, which +his note seems to invite. The swallows, skimming along the ground, +announce rain. Each climate has its bird, which is in effect its augury. + +Among the observing part of mankind there were, no doubt, knaves who +persuaded fools that there was something divine in these animals, and +that their flight presaged our destinies, which were written on the +wings of a sparrow just as clearly as in the stars. + +The commentators on the allegorical and interesting story of Joseph sold +by his brethren, and made Pharaoh's prime minister for having explained +his dreams, infer that Joseph was skilled in the science of auguries, +from the circumstance that Joseph's steward is commanded to say to his +brethren, "Is not this it (the silver cup) in which my lord drinketh? +and whereby indeed he divineth?" Joseph, having caused his brethren to +be brought back before him, says to them: "What deed is this that ye +have done? Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?" + +Judah acknowledges, in the name of his brethren, that Joseph is a great +diviner, and that God has inspired him: "God hath found out the iniquity +of thy servants." At that time they took Joseph for an Egyptian lord. It +is evident from the text that they believe the God of the Egyptians and +of the Jews had discovered to this minister the theft of his cup. + +Here, then, we have auguries or divination clearly established in the +Book of Genesis; so clearly that it is afterwards forbidden in +Leviticus: "Ye shall not eat anything with the blood; neither shall ye +use enchantment nor observe times. Ye shall not round the corners of +your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard." + +As for the superstition of seeing the future in a cup, it still exists, +and is called seeing in a glass. The individual must never have known +pollution; he must turn towards the east, and pronounce the words, +_Abraxa per dominum nostrum_, after which he will see in a glass of +water whatever he pleases. Children were usually chosen for this +operation. They must retain their hair; a shaven head, or one wearing a +wig, can see nothing in a glass. This pastime was much in vogue in +France during the regency of the duke of Orleans, and still more so in +the times preceding. + +As for auguries, they perished with the Roman Empire. Only the bishops +have retained the augurial staff, called the crosier; which was the +distinctive mark of the dignity of augur; so that the symbol of +falsehood has become the symbol of truth. + +There were innumerable kinds of divinations, of which several have +reached our latter ages. This curiosity to read the future is a malady +which only philosophy can cure, for the weak minds that still practise +these pretended arts of divination--even the fools who give themselves +to the devils--all make religion subservient to these profanations, by +which it is outraged. + +It is an observation worthy of the wise, that Cicero, who was one of the +college of augurs, wrote a book for the sole purpose of turning auguries +into ridicule; but they have likewise remarked that Cicero, at the end +of his book, says that "superstition should be destroyed, but not +religion. For," he adds, "the beauty of the universe, and the order of +the heavenly bodies force us to acknowledge an eternal and powerful +nature. We must maintain the religion which is joined with the knowledge +of this nature, by utterly extirpating superstition, for it is a monster +which pursues and presses us on every side. The meeting with a pretended +diviner, a presage, an immolated victim, a bird, a Chaldæan, an +aruspice, a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, an event accidentally +corresponding with what has been foretold to us, everything disturbs and +makes us uneasy; sleep itself, which should make us forget all these +pains and fears, serves but to redouble them by frightful images." + +Cicero thought he was addressing only a few Romans, but he was speaking +to all men and all ages. + +Most of the great men of Rome no more believed in auguries than +Alexander VI., Julius II., and Leo X., believed in Our Lady of Loretto +and the blood of St. Januarius. However, Suetonius relates that +Octavius, surnamed Augustus, was so weak as to believe that a fish, +which leaped from the sea upon the shore at Actium, foreboded that he +should gain the battle. He adds that, having afterwards met an +ass-driver, he asked him the name of his ass; and the man having +answered that his ass was named Nicholas, which signifies conqueror of +nations, he had no longer any doubts about the victory; and that he +afterwards had brazen statues erected to the ass-driver, the ass, and +the jumping fish. He further assures us that these statues were placed +in the Capitol. + +It is very likely that this able tyrant laughed at the superstitions of +the Romans, and that his ass, the driver, and the fish, were nothing +more than a joke. But it is no less likely that, while he despised all +the follies of the vulgar, he had a few of his own. The barbarous and +dissimulating Louis XI. had a firm faith in the cross of St. Louis. +Almost all princes, excepting such as have had time to read, and read to +advantage, are in some degree infected with superstition. + + + + +AUGUSTINE. + + +Augustine, a native of Tagaste, is here to be considered, not as a +bishop, a doctor, a father of the Church, but simply as a man. This is a +question in physics, respecting the climate of Africa. + +When a youth, Augustine was a great libertine, and the spirit was no +less quick in him than the flesh. He says that before he was twenty +years old he had learned arithmetic, geometry and music without a +master. + +Does not this prove that, in Africa, which we now call Barbary, both +minds and bodies advance to maturity more rapidly than among us? + +These valuable advantages of St. Augustine would lead one to believe +that Empedocles was not altogether in the wrong when he regarded fire as +the principle of nature. It is assisted, but by subordinate agents. It +is like a king governing the actions of all his subjects, and sometimes +inflaming the imaginations of his people rather too much. It is not +without reason that Syphax says to Juba, in the Cato of Addison, that +the sun which rolls its fiery car over African heads places a deeper +tinge upon the cheeks, and a fiercer flame within their hearts. That the +dames of Zama are vastly superior to the pale beauties of the north: + + The glowing dames of Zama's royal court + Have faces flushed with more exalted charms; + Were you with these, my prince, you'd soon forget + The pale unripened beauties of the north. + +Where shall we find in Paris, Strasburg, Ratisbon, or Vienna young men +who have learned arithmetic, the mathematics and music without +assistance, and who have been fathers at fourteen? + +Doubtless it is no fable that Atlas, prince of Mauritania, called by the +Greeks the son of heaven, was a celebrated astronomer, and constructed a +celestial sphere such as the Chinese have had for so many ages. The +ancients, who expressed everything in allegory, likened this prince to +the mountain which bears his name, because it lifts its head above the +clouds, which have been called the heavens by all mankind who have +judged of things only from the testimony of their eyes. + +These Moors cultivated the sciences with success, and taught Spain and +Italy for five centuries. Things are greatly altered. The country of +Augustine is now but a den of pirates, while England, Italy, Germany, +and France, which were involved in barbarism, are greater cultivators of +the arts than ever the Arabians were. + +Our only object, then, in this article is to show how changeable a scene +this world is. Augustine, from a debauchee, becomes an orator and a +philosopher; he puts himself forward in the world; he teaches rhetoric; +he turns Manichæan, and from Manichæanism passes to Christianity. He +causes himself to be baptized, together with one of his bastards, named +Deodatus; he becomes a bishop, and a father of the Church. His system of +grace has been reverenced for eleven hundred years as an article of +faith. At the end of eleven hundred years some Jesuits find means to +procure an anathema against Augustine's system, word for word, under the +names of Jansenius, St. Cyril, Arnaud, and Quesnel. We ask if this +revolution is not, in its kind, as great as that of Africa, and if there +be anything permanent upon earth? + + + + +AUGUSTUS (OCTAVIUS). + + +_The Morals of Augustus._ + +Manners can be known only from facts, which facts must be incontestable. +It is beyond doubt that this man, so immoderately praised as the +restorer of morals and of laws, was long one of the most infamous +debauchees in the Roman commonwealth. His epigram on Fulvia, written +after the horrors of the proscriptions, proves that he was no less a +despiser of decency in his language than he was a barbarian in his +conduct. This abominable epigram is one of the strongest testimonies to +Augustus' infamous immorality. Sextus Pompeius also reproached him with +shameful weaknesses: _"Effeminatum infectatus est."_ Antony, before the +triumvirate, declared that Cæsar, great-uncle to Augustus, had adopted +him as his son only because he had been subservient to his pleasures; +_"Adopt ionem avunculi stupro meritum."_ + +Lucius Cæsar charged him with the same crime, and even asserted that he +had been base enough to sell himself to Hirtius for a very considerable +sum. He was so shameless as to take the wife of a consul from her +husband in the midst of a supper; he took her to a neighboring closet, +staid with her there for some time, and brought her back to table +without himself, the woman, or her husband blushing at all at the +proceeding. + +We have also a letter from Antony to Augustus, couched in these terms: +_"Ita valeas ut hanc epistolam cum leges, non inieris Testullam, aut +Terentillam, aut Russillam, aut Salviam, aut omnes. Anne refert ubi et +in quam arrigas?"_ We are afraid to translate this licentious letter. + +Nothing is better known than the scandalous feast of five of the +companions of his pleasures with five of the principal women of Rome. +They were dressed up as gods and goddesses, and imitated all the +immodesties invented in fable--_"Bum nova Divorum cÅ“nat adulteria."_ +And on the stage he was publicly designated by this famous line: + + _Videsne ut cinaedus orbem digito temperet?_ + +Almost every Latin author that speaks of Ovid asserts that Augustus had +the insolence to banish that Roman knight, who was a much better man +than himself, merely because the other had surprised him in an incest +with his own daughter Julia; and that he sent his daughter into exile +only through jealousy. This is the more likely, as Caligula published +aloud that his mother was born from the incest of Augustus with Julia. +So says Suetonius, in his life of Caligula. + +We know that Augustus repudiated the mother of Julia the very day she +was brought to bed of her, and on the same day took Livia from her +husband when she was pregnant of Tiberius--another monster, who +succeeded him. Such was the man to whom Horace said: _"Res Italas armis +tuteris, moribus ornes, Legibus emendes...."_ + +It is hard to repress our indignation at reading at the commencement of +the Georgics that Augustus is one of the greatest of divinities; and +that it is not known what place he will one day deign to occupy in +heaven; whether he will reign in the air, or become the protector of +cities, or vouchsafe to accept the empire of the seas: + + _An Deus immensi venias maris, ac tua nauta_ + _Numina sola celant tibi servial ultima Thule._ + +Ariosto speaks with much more sense as well as grace, when he says in +his fine thirty-fifth canto: + + _Non fu si santo ne benigno Augusto_ + _Come la tromba di Virgilio sonna;_ + _L'aver avuto in poesia buon gusto_ + _La proscriptione iniqua gli perdona._ + + Augustus was not quite so mild and chaste + As he's by honest Virgil represented; + But then, the tyrant had poetic taste; + With this the poet fully was contented. + + +_The Cruelties of Augustus._ + +If Augustus was long abandoned to the most shameful and frantic +dissipation, his cruelty was no less uniform and deliberate. His +proscriptions were published in the midst of feasting and revelry; he +proscribed more than three hundred senators, two thousand knights, and +one hundred obscure but wealthy heads of families, whose only crime was +their being rich, Antony and Octavius had them killed, solely that they +might get possession of their money; in which they differed not the +least from highway robbers, who are condemned to the wheel. + +Octavius, immediately after the Persian war, gave his veterans all the +lands belonging to the citizens of Mantua and Cremona, thus recompensing +murder by depredation. + +It is but too certain that the world was ravaged, from the Euphrates to +the extremities of Spain, by this man without shame, without faith, +honor, or probity, knavish, ungrateful, avaricious, blood-thirsty, cool +in the commission of crime, who, in any well-regulated republic, would +have been condemned to the greatest of punishments for the first of his +offences. + +Nevertheless, the government of Augustus is still admired, because under +him Rome tasted peace, pleasure and abundance. Seneca says of him: +_"Clementiam non voco lassam crudelitatem"_--"I do not call exhausted +cruelty clemency." + +It is thought that Augustus became milder when crime was no longer +necessary to him; and that, being absolute master, he saw that he had no +other interest than to appear just. But it appears to me that he still +was pitiless rather than clement; for, after the battle of Actium, he +had Antony's son murdered at the feet of Cæsar's statue; and he was so +barbarous as to have young Cæsarion, the son of Cæsar and Cleopatra, +beheaded, though he had recognized him as king of Egypt. + +Suspecting one day that the prætor Quintus Gallius had come to an +audience with a poinard under his robe, he had him put to the torture in +his presence; and, in his indignation at hearing that senator call him a +tyrant, he tore out his eyes with his own hands; at least, so says +Suetonius. + +We know that Cæsar, his adopted father, was great enough to pardon +almost all his enemies; but I do not find that Augustus pardoned one of +his. I have great doubts of his pretended clemency to Cinna. This affair +is mentioned neither by Suetonius nor by Tacitus. Suetonius, who speaks +of all the conspiracies against Augustus, would not have failed to +mention the most memorable. The singularity of giving a consulship to +Cinna in return for the blackest perfidy would not have escaped every +contemporary historian. Dion Cassius speaks of it only after Seneca; and +this passage in Seneca has the appearance rather of declamation than of +historical truth. Besides, Seneca lays the scene in Gaul, and Dion at +Rome; this contradiction deprives the occurrence of all remaining +verisimilitude. Not one of our Roman histories, compiled in haste and +without selection, has discussed this interesting fact. Lawrence +Echard's History has appeared to enlightened men to be as faulty as it +is mutilated; writers have rarely been guided by the spirit of +examination. + +Cinna might be suspected, or convicted, by Augustus of some infidelity; +and, when the affair had been cleared up, he might honor him with the +vain title of consul; but it is not at all probable that Cinna sought by +a conspiracy to seize the supreme authority--he, who had never commanded +an army, was supported by no party, and was a man of no consideration in +the empire. It is not very likely that a mere subordinate courtier would +think of succeeding a sovereign who had been twenty years firmly +established on his throne, and had heirs; nor is it more likely that +Augustus would make him consul immediately after the conspiracy. + +If Cinna's adventure be true, Augustus pardoned him only because he +could not do otherwise, being overcome by the reasoning or the +importunities of Livia, who had acquired great influence over him, and +persuaded him, says Seneca, that pardon would do him more service than +chastisement. It was then only through policy that he, for once, was +merciful; it certainly was not through generosity. + +Shall we give a robber credit for clemency, because, being enriched and +secure, enjoying in peace the fruits of his rapine, he is not every day +assassinating the sons and grandsons of the proscribed, while they are +kneeling to and worshipping him? After being a barbarian he was a +prudent politician. It is worthy of remark that posterity never gave +him the title of virtuous, which was bestowed on Titus, on Trajan, and +the Antonines. It even became customary in the compliments paid to +emperors on their accession, to wish that they might be more fortunate +than Augustus, and more virtuous than Trajan. It is now, therefore, +allowable to consider Augustus as a clever and fortunate monster. + +Louis Racine, son of the great Racine, and heir to a part of his +talents, seems to forget himself when he says, in his "Reflections on +Poetry," that "Horace and Virgil spoiled Augustus; they exhausted their +art in poisoning the mind of Augustus by their praises." These +expressions would lead one to believe that the eulogies so meanly +lavished by these two great poets, corrupted this emperor's fine +disposition. But Louis Racine very well knew that Augustus was an +exceedingly bad man, regarding crime and virtue with indifference, +availing himself alike of the horrors of the one and the appearances of +the other, attentive solely to his own interest, employing bloodshed and +peace, arms and laws, religion and pleasure, only to make himself master +of the earth, and sacrificing everything to himself. Louis Racine only +shows us that Virgil and Horace had servile souls. + +He is, unfortunately, too much in the right when he reproaches Corneille +with having dedicated _"Cinna"_ to the financier Montoron, and said to +that receiver. "What you most especially have in common with Augustus +is the generosity with which," etc., for, though Augustus was the most +wicked of Roman citizens, it must be confessed that the first of the +emperors, the master, the pacificator, the legislator of the then known +world, should not be placed absolutely on a level with a clerk to a +comptroller-general in Gaul. + +The same Louis Racine, in justly condemning the mean adulation of +Corneille, and the baseness of the aged Horace and Virgil, marvellously +lays hold of this passage in Massillon's _"Petit Carême!"_ "It is no +less culpable to fail in truth towards monarchs than to be wanting in +fidelity; the same penalty should be imposed on adulation as on revolt." + +I ask your pardon, Father Massillon; but this stroke of yours is very +oratorical, very preacher-like, very exaggerated. The League and the +Fronde have, if I am not deceived, done more harm than Quinault's +prologues. There is no way of condemning Quinault as a rebel. _"Est +modus in rebus."_ Father Massillon, which is wanting in all +manufacturers of sermons. + + + + +AVIGNON. + + +Avignon and its country are monuments of what the abuse of religion, +ambition, knavery, and fanaticism united can effect. This little +country, after a thousand vicissitudes, had, in the twelfth century, +passed into the hands of the counts of Toulouse, descended from +Charlemagne by the female side. + +Raymond VI., count of Toulouse, whose forefathers had been the principal +heroes in the crusades, was stripped of his states by a crusade which +the pope stirred up against him. The cause of the crusade was the desire +of having his spoils; the pretext was that in several of his towns the +citizens thought nearly as has been thought for upwards of two hundred +years in England, Sweden, Denmark, three-fourths of Switzerland, +Holland, and half of Germany. + +This was hardly a sufficient reason for _giving_, in the name of God, +the states of the count of Toulouse to the first occupant, and for +devoting to slaughter and fire his subjects, crucifix in hand, and white +cross on shoulder. All that is related of the most savage people falls +far short of the barbarities committed in this war, called holy. The +ridiculous atrocity of some religious ceremonies always, accompanied +these horrid excesses. It is known that Raymond VI. was dragged to a +church of St. Giles's, before a legate, naked to the waist, without hose +or sandals, with a rope about his neck, which was held by a deacon, +while another deacon flogged him, and a third sung _miserere_ with some +monks--and all the while the legate was at dinner. Such was the origin +of the right of the popes over Avignon. + +Count Raymond, who had submitted to the flagellation in order to +preserve his states, underwent this ignominy to no purpose whatever. He +had to defend by arms what he had thought to preserve by suffering a few +stripes; he saw his towns laid in ashes, and died in 1213 amid the +vicissitudes of the most sanguinary war. + +His son, Raymond VII., was not, like his father, suspected of heresy; +but he was the son of a heretic, and was to be stripped of all his +possessions, by virtue of the Decretals; such was the law. The crusade, +therefore, was continued against him; he was excommunicated in the +churches, on Sundays and holidays, to the sound of bells and with tapers +extinguished. + +A legate who was in France during the minority of St. Louis raised +tenths there to maintain this war in Languedoc and Provence. Raymond +defended himself with courage; but the heads of the hydra of fanaticism +were incessantly reappearing to devour him. + +The pope at last made peace because all his money had been expended in +war. Raymond VII. came and signed the treaty before the portal of the +cathedral of Paris. He was forced to pay ten thousand marks of silver to +the legate, two thousand to the abbey of Citeaux, five hundred to the +abbey of Clairvaux, a thousand to that of Grand-Selve, and three hundred +to that of Belleperche---all for the salvation of his soul, as is +specified in the treaty. So it was that the Church always negotiated. + +It is very remarkable that in this document the count of Toulouse +constantly puts the legate before the king: "I swear and promise to the +legate and to the king faithfully to observe all these things, and to +cause them to be observed by my vassals and subjects," etc. + +This was not all. He ceded to Pope Gregory IX. the country of Venaissin +beyond the Rhône, and the sovereignty of seventy-three castles on this +side the same river. The pope adjudged this fine to himself by a +particular act, desirous that, in a public instrument, the +acknowledgment of having exterminated so many Christians for the purpose +of seizing upon his neighbor's goods, should not appear in so glaring a +light. Besides, he demanded what Raymond could not grant, without the +consent of the Emperor Frederick II. The count's lands, on the left bank +of the Rhône, were an imperial fief, and Frederick II. never sanctioned +this exaction. + +Alphonso, brother of St. Louis, having married this unfortunate prince's +daughter, by whom he had no children, all the states of Raymond VII. in +Languedoc, devolved to the crown of France, as had been stipulated in +the marriage contract. + +The country of Venaissin, which is in Provence, had been magnanimously +given up by the Emperor Frederick II. to the count of Toulouse. His +daughter Joan, before her death, had disposed of them by will in favor +of Charles of Anjou, count of Provence, and king of Naples. + +Philip the Bold, son of St. Louis, being pressed by Pope Gregory IX., +gave the country of Venaissin to the Roman church in 1274. It must be +confessed that Philip the Bold gave what in no way belonged to him; that +this cession was absolutely null and void, and that no act ever was more +contrary to all law. + +It is the same with the town of Avignon. Joan of France, queen of +Naples, descended from the brother of St. Louis, having been, with but +too great an appearance of justice, accused of causing her husband to be +strangled, desired the protection of Pope Clement VI., whose see was +then the town of Avignon, in Joan's domains. She was countess of +Provence. In 1347 the Provencals made her swear, on the gospel, that she +would sell none of her sovereignties. She had scarcely taken this oath +before she went and sold Avignon to the pope. The authentic act was not +signed until June 14, 1348; the sum stipulated for was eighty thousand +florins of gold. The pope declared her innocent of her husband's murder, +but never paid her. Joan's receipt has never been produced. She +protested juridically four several times against this deceitful +purchase. + +So that Avignon and its country were never considered to have been +dismembered from Provence, otherwise than by a rapine, which was the +more manifest, as it had been sought to cover it with the cloak of +religion. + +When Louis XI. acquired Provence he acquired it with all the rights +appertaining thereto; and, as appears by a letter from John of Foix to +that monarch, had in 1464 resolved to enforce them. But the intrigues of +the court of Rome were always so powerful that the kings of France +condescended to allow it the enjoyment of this small province. They +never acknowledged in the popes a lawful possession, but only a simple +enjoyment. + +In the treaty of Pisa, made by Louis XIV. with Alexander VII., in 1664, +it is said that, "every obstacle shall be removed, in order that the +pope may enjoy Avignon as before." The pope, then, had this province +only as cardinals have pensions from the king, which pensions are +discretional. Avignon and its country were a constant source of +embarrassment to the French government; they afforded a refuge to all +the bankrupts and smugglers, though very little profit thence accrued to +the pope. + +Louis XIV. twice resumed his rights; but it was rather to chastise the +pope than to reunite Avignon and its country with his crown. At length +Louis XV. did justice to his dignity and to his subjects. The gross and +indecent conduct of Pope Rezzonico (Clement XIII.) forced him in 1768 to +revive the rights of his crown. This pope had acted as if he belonged +to the fourteenth century. He was, however, with the applause of all +Europe, convinced that he lived in the eighteenth. + +When the officer bearing the king's orders entered Avignon, he went +straight to the legate's apartment, without being announced, and said to +him, "Sir, the king takes possession of his town." There is some +difference between this proceeding and a count of Toulouse being flogged +by a deacon, while a legate is at dinner. Things, we see, change with +times. + + + + +AUSTERITIES. + +MORTIFICATIONS. FLAGELLATIONS. + + +Suppose that some chosen individuals, lovers of study, united together +after a thousand catastrophes had happened to the world, and employed +themselves in worshipping God and regulating the time of the year, as is +said of the ancient Brahmins and Magi; all this is perfectly good and +honest. They might, by their frugal life, set an example to the rest of +the world; they might abstain, during the celebration of their feasts, +from all intoxicating liquors, and all commerce with their wives; they +might be clothed modestly and decently; if they were wise, other men +consulted them; if they were just, they were loved and reverenced. But +did not superstition, brawling, and vanity soon take the place of the +virtues? + +Was not the first madman that flogged himself publicly to appease the +gods the original of the priests of the Syrian goddess, who flogged +themselves in her honor; of the priests of Isis, who did the same on +certain days; of the priests of Dodona, named Salii, who inflicted +wounds on themselves; of the priests of Bellona, who struck themselves +with sabres; of the priests of Diana, who drew blood from their backs +with rods; of the priests of Cybele, who made themselves eunuchs; of the +fakirs of India, who loaded themselves with chains? Has the hope of +obtaining abundant alms nothing at all to do with the practice of these +austerities? + +Is there not some similarity between the beggars, who make their legs +swell by a certain application and cover their bodies with sores, in +order to force a few pence from the passengers, and the impostors of +antiquity, who seated themselves upon nails, and sold the holy nails to +the devout of their country? + +And had vanity never any share in promoting these public mortifications, +which attracted the eyes of the multitude? "I scourge myself, but it is +to expiate your faults; I go naked, but it is to reproach you with the +richness of your garments; I feed on herbs and snails, but it is to +correct in you the vice of gluttony; I wear an iron ring to make you +blush at your lewdness. Reverence me as one cherished by the gods, and +who will bring down their favors upon you. When you shall be accustomed +to reverence me, you will not find it hard to obey me; I will be your +master, in the name of the gods; and then, if any one of you disobey my +will in the smallest particular, I will have you impaled to appease the +wrath of heaven." + +If the first fakirs did not pronounce these words, it is very probable +that they had them engraved at the bottom of their hearts. + +Human sacrifices, perhaps, had their origin in these frantic +austerities. Men who drew their blood in public with rods, and mangled +their arms and thighs to gain consideration, would easily make imbecile +savages believe that they must sacrifice to the gods whatever was +dearest to them; that to have a fair wind, they must immolate a +daughter; to avert pestilence, precipitate a son from a rock; to have +infallibly a good harvest, throw a daughter into the Nile. + +These Asiatic superstitions gave rise to the flagellations which we have +imitated from the Jews. Their devotees still flog themselves, and flog +one another, as the priests of Egypt and Syria did of old. Among us the +abbots flogged their monks, and the confessors their penitents--of both +sexes. St. Augustine wrote to Marcellinus, the tribune, that "the +Donatists must be whipped as schoolmasters whip their scholars." + +It is said that it was not until the tenth century that monks and nuns +began to scourge themselves on certain days of the year. The custom of +scourging sinners as a penance was so well established that St. Louis's +confessor often gave him the whip. Henry II. was flogged by the monks +of Canterbury (in 1207). Raymond, count of Toulouse, with a rope round +his neck, was flogged by a deacon, at the door of St. Giles's church, as +has before been said. + +The chaplains to Louis VIII., king of France, were condemned by the +pope's legate to go at the four great feasts to the door of the +cathedral of Paris, and present rods to the canons, that they might flog +them in expiation for the crime of the king, their master, who had +accepted the crown of England, which the pope had taken from him by +virtue of the plenitude of his power. Indeed, the pope showed great +indulgence in not having the king himself whipped, but contenting +himself with commanding him, on pain of damnation, to pay to the +apostolic chamber the amount of two years' revenue. + +From this custom is derived that which still exists, of arming all the +grand-penitentiaries in St. Peter's at Rome with long wands instead of +rods, with which they give gentle taps to the penitents, lying all their +length on the floor. In this manner it was that Henry IV., of France, +had his posteriors flogged by Cardinal Ossat and Duperron. So true is it +that we have scarcely yet emerged from barbarism. + +At the commencement of the thirteenth century fraternities of penitents +were formed at Perosia and Bologna. Young men almost naked, with a rod +in one hand and a small crucifix in the other, flogged themselves in +the streets; while the women peeped through the window-blinds and +whipped themselves in their chambers. + +These flagellators inundated Europe; there are many of them still to be +found in Italy, in Spain, and even in France, at Perpignan. At the +beginning of the sixteenth century it was very common for confessors to +whip the posteriors of their penitents. A history of the Low Countries, +composed by Meteren, relates that a cordelier named Adriacem, a great +preacher at Bruges, used to whip his female penitents quite naked. + +The Jesuit Edmund Auger, confessor to Henry III., persuaded that +unfortunate prince to put himself at the head of the flagellators. + +Flogging the posteriors is practised in various convents of monks and +nuns; from which custom there have sometimes resulted strange +immodesties, over which _we_ must throw a veil, in order to spare the +blushes of such as wear the _sacred_ veil, and whose sex and profession +are worthy of our highest regard. + + + + +AUTHORS. + + +Author is a generic term, which, like the names of all other +professions, may signify author of the good, or of the bad; of the +respectable, or of the ridiculous; of the useful, or the agreeable; or +lastly, the producer of disgusting trash. + +This name is also common to different things. We say equally the author +of nature and the author of the songs of the Pont Neuf, or of the +literary age. The author of a good work should beware of three +things--title, dedication, and preface. Others should take care of the +fourth, which is writing at all. + +As to the title, if the author has the wish to put his name to it, which +is often very dangerous, it should at least be under a modest form; it +is not pleasant to see a pious work, full of lessons of humanity, by Sir +or My Lord. The reader; who is always malicious, and who often is +wearied, usually turns into ridicule a book that is announced with so +much ostentation. The author of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" did not +put his name to it. + +But the apostles, you will say, put their names to their works; that is +not true, they were too modest. The apostle Matthew never entitled his +book the Gospel of St. Matthew; it is a homage that has been paid to him +since. St. Luke himself, who collected all that he had heard said, and +who dedicated his book to Theophilus, did not call it the Gospel of St. +Luke. St. John alone mentions himself in the Apocalypse; and it is +supposed that this book was written by Cerinthus, who took the name of +John to give authority to his production. + +However it may have been in past ages, it appears to me very bold in +authors now to put names and titles at the head of their works. The +bishops never fail to do so, and the thick quartos which they give us +under the title of mandaments are decorated with armorial bearings and +the insignia of their station; a word, no doubt, is said about Christian +humility, but this word is often followed by atrocious calumnies against +those who are of another communion or party. We only speak here, +however, of poor profane authors. The duke de la Rochefoucauld did not +announce his thoughts as the production of _Monseigneur le dud de la +Rochefoucauld, pair de France_. Some persons who only make compilations +in which there may be fine things, will find it injudicious to announce +them as the work of A.B., professor of the university of ----, doctor of +divinity, member of this or of that academy, and so on. So many +dignities do not render the book better. It will still be wished that it +was shorter, more philosophical, less filled with old stories. With +respect to titles and quality, nobody cares about them. + +Dedications are often only offerings from interested baseness to +disdainful vanity. Who would believe that Rohaut, _soi-disant_ +physician, in his dedication to the duke of Guise, told him that his +ancestors had maintained, at the expense of their blood, political +truth, the fundamental laws of the state, and the rights of sovereigns? +Le Balafré and the duke of Mayenne would be a little surprised if this +epistle were read to them in the other world. And what would Henry IV. +say? Most of the dedications in England are made for money, just as the +capuchins present us with salad on condition of our giving them drink. + +Men of letters in France are ignorant of this shameful abasement, and +have never exhibited so much meanness, except some unfortunates, who +call themselves men of letters in the same sense that sign-daubers boast +of being of the profession of Raphael, and that the coachman of +Vertamont was a poet. + +Prefaces are another rock. "The _I_ is hateful," says Pascal. Speak of +yourself as little as you can, for you ought to be aware that the +self-love of the reader is as great as your own. He will never pardon +you for wishing to oblige him to esteem you. It is for your book to +speak to him, should it happen to be read among the crowd. + +"The illustrious suffrages with which my piece has been honored will +make me dispense with answering my adversaries--the applauses of the +public." Erase all that, sir; believe me you have had no illustrious +suffrages; your piece is eternally forgotten. + +"Some censors have pretended that there are too many events in the third +act; and that in the fourth the princess is too late in discovering the +tender sentiments of her heart for her lover. To that I answer--" Answer +nothing, my friend, for nobody has spoken-, or will speak of thy +princess. Thy piece has fallen because it is tiresome, and written in +flat and barbarous verse; thy preface is a prayer for the dead, but it +will not revive them. + +Others attest that all Europe has not understood their treatises on +compatibility--on the Supralapsarians--on the difference which should be +made between the Macedonian and Valentinian heresies, etc. Truly, I +believe that nobody understands them, since nobody reads them. + +We are inundated with this trash and with continual repetition; with +insipid romances which copy their predecessors; with new systems founded +on ancient reveries; and little histories taken from larger ones. + +Do you wish to be an author? Do you wish to make a book? Recollect that +it must be new and useful, or at least agreeable. Why from your +provincial retreat would you assassinate me with another quarto, to +teach me that a king ought to be just, and that Trajan was more virtuous +than Caligula? You insist upon printing the sermons which have lulled +your little obscure town to repose, and will put all our histories under +contributions to extract from them the life of a prince of whom you can +say nothing new. + +If you have written a history of your own time, doubt not but you will +find some learned chronologist, or newspaper commentator, who will +relieve you as to a date, a Christian name, or a squadron which you have +wrongly placed at the distance of three hundred paces from the place +where if really stood. Be grateful, and correct these important errors +forthwith. + +If an ignoramus, or an empty fool, pretend to criticise this thing or +the other, you may properly confute him; but name him rarely, for fear +of soiling your writings. If you are attacked on your style, never +answer; your work alone should reply. + +If you are said to be sick, content yourself that you are well, without +wishing to prove to the people that you are in perfect health; and, +above all, remember that the world cares very little whether you are +well or ill. + +A hundred authors compile to get their bread, and twenty fools extract, +criticise, apologize, and satirize these compilations to get bread also, +because they have no profession. All these people repair on Fridays to +the lieutenant of the police at Paris to demand permission to sell their +drugs. They have audience immediately after the courtesans, who do not +regard them, because they know that they are poor customers. + +They return with a tacit permission to sell and distribute throughout +the kingdom their stories; their collection of bon-mots; the life of the +unfortunate Régis; the translation of a German poem; new discoveries on +eels; a new copy of verses; a treatise on the origin of bells, or on the +loves of the toads. A bookseller buys their productions for ten crowns; +they give five of them to the journalist, on condition that he will +speak well of them in his newspaper. The critic takes their money, and +says all the ill he can of their books. The aggrieved parties go to +complain to the Jew, who protects the wife of the journalist, and the +scene closes by the critic being carried to Fort Evêque; and these are +they who call themselves authors! + +These poor people are divided into two or three bands, and go begging +like mendicant friars; but not having taken vows their society lasts +only for a few days, for they betray one another like priests who run +after the same benefice, though they have no benefice to hope for. But +they still call themselves authors! + +The misfortune of these men is that their fathers did not make them +learn a trade, which is a great defect in modern policy. Every man of +the people who can bring up his son in a useful art, and does not, +merits punishment. The son of a mason becomes a Jesuit at seventeen; he +is chased from society at four and twenty, because the levity of his +manners is too glaring. Behold him without bread! He turns journalist, +he cultivates the lowest kind of literature, and becomes the contempt +and horror of even the mob. And such as these, again, call themselves +authors! + +The only authors are they who have succeeded in a genuine art, be it +epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, or philosophy, and who teach or +delight mankind. The others, of whom we have spoken, are, among men of +letters, like bats among the birds. We cite, comment, criticise, +neglect, forget, and, above all, despise an author who is an author +_only_. + +Apropos of citing an author, I must amuse myself with relating a +singular mistake of the reverend Father Viret, cordelier and professor +of theology. He read in the "Philosophy of History" of the good abbé +Bazin that no author ever cited a passage of Moses before Longinus, who +lived and died in the time of the Emperor Aurelian. Forthwith the zeal +of St. Francis was kindled in him. Viret cries out that it is not true; +that several writers have said that there had been a Moses, that even +Josephus had spoken at length upon him, and that the Abbé Bazin is a +wretch who would destroy the seven sacraments. But, dear Father Viret, +you ought to inform yourself of the meaning of the word, to _cite_. +There is a great deal of difference between mentioning an author and +citing him. To speak, to make mention of an author, is to say that he +has lived--that he has written in such a time; to cite is to give one of +his passages--as Moses says in his Exodus--as Moses has written in his +Genesis. Now the Abbé Brazin affirms that no foreign writers--that none +even of the Jewish prophets have ever quoted a single passage of Moses, +though he was a divine author. Truly, Father Viret, you are very +malicious, but we shall know at least, by this little paragraph, that +_you_ have been an author. + +The most voluminous authors that we have had in France are the +comptrollers-general of the finances. Ten great volumes might be made of +their declarations, since the reign of Louis XIV. Parliaments have been +sometimes the critics of these works, and have found erroneous +propositions and contradictions in them. But where are the good authors +who have not been censured? + + + + +AUTHORITY. + + +Miserable human beings, whether in green robes or in turbans, whether in +black gowns or in surplices, or in mantles and bands, never seek to +employ authority where nothing is concerned but reason, or consent to be +reviled in all ages as the most impertinent of men, as well as to endure +public hatred as the most unjust. + +You have been told a hundred times of the insolent absurdity with which +you condemned Galileo, and I speak to you of it for the hundred and +first. I would have it inscribed over the door of your holy office. + +Seven cardinals, assisted by certain minorite friars, threw into prison +the master of thinking in Italy, at the age of seventy; and made him +live upon bread and water because he instructed mankind in that of which +they were ignorant. + +Having passed a decree in favor of the categories of Aristotle, the +above junta learnedly and equitably doomed to the penalty of the galleys +whoever should dare to be of another opinion from the Stagyrite, of +whom two councils had burned the books. + +Further, a Faculty, which possessed very small faculties, made a decree +_against_ innate ideas, and afterwards another _for_ them, without the +said Faculty being informed, except by its beadles, of what an idea was. + +In neighboring schools legal proceedings were commenced against the +circulation of the blood. A process was issued against inoculation, and +the parties cited by summons. + +One and twenty volumes of thoughts in folio have been seized, in which +it was wickedly and falsely said that triangles have always three +angles; that a father was older than his son; that Rhea Silvia lost her +virginity before her accouchement; and that farina differs from oak +leaves. + +In another year the following question was decided: _"Utrum chimæra +bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones?"_ and decided +in the affirmative. These judges, of course, considered themselves much +superior to Archimedes, Euclid, Cicero, or Pliny, and strutted about the +Universities accordingly. + + + + +AXIS. + + +How is it that the axis of the earth is not perpendicular to the +equator? Why is it raised toward the north and inclined towards the +south pole, in a position which does not appear natural, and which +seems the consequence of some derangement, or the result of a period of +a prodigious number of years? + +Is it true that the ecliptic continually inclines by an insensible +movement towards the equator and that the angle formed by these two +lines has a little diminished in two thousand years? + +Is it true that the ecliptic has been formerly perpendicular to the +equator, that the Egyptians have said so, and that Herodotus has related +it? This motion of the ecliptic would form a period of about two +millions of years. It is not that which astounds us, for the axis of the +earth has an imperceptible movement in about twenty-six thousand years +which occasions the precession of the equinoxes. It is as easy for +nature to produce a rotation of twenty thousand as of two hundred and +sixty ages. + +We are deceived when we are told that the Egyptians had, according to +Herodotus, a tradition that the ecliptic had been formerly perpendicular +to the equator. The tradition of which Herodotus speaks has no relation +to the coincidence of the equinoctial and ecliptic lines; that is quite +another affair. + +The pretended scholars of Egypt said that the sun in the space of eleven +thousand years had set twice in the east and risen twice in the west. +When the equator and the ecliptic coincided, and when the days were +everywhere equal to the nights the sun did not on that account change +its setting and rising, but the earth turned on its axis from west to +east, as at this day. This idea of making the sun set in the east is a +chimera only worthy of the brains of the priests of Egypt and shows the +profound ignorance of those jugglers who have had so much reputation. +The tale should be classed with those of the satyrs who sang and danced +in the train of Osiris; with the little boys whom they would not feed +till after they had run eight leagues, to teach them to conquer the +world; with the two children who cried _bec_ in asking for bread and who +by that means discovered that the Phrygian was the original language; +with King Psammeticus, who gave his daughter to a thief who had +dexterously stolen his money, etc. + +Ancient history, ancient astronomy, ancient physics, ancient medicine +(up to Hippocrates), ancient geography, ancient metaphysics, all are +nothing but ancient absurdities which ought to make us feel the +happiness of being born in later times. + +There is, no doubt, more truth in two pages of the French Encyclopædia +in relation to physics than in all the library of Alexandria, the loss +of which is so much regretted. + + + + +BABEL. + + +SECTION I. + +Babel signifies among the Orientals, God the Father, the power of God, +the gate of God, according to the way in which the word is pronounced. +It appears, therefore, that Babylon was the city of God, the holy city. +Every capital of a state was a city of God, the sacred city. The Greeks +called them all Hieropolis, and there were more than thirty of this +name. The tower of Babel, then, signifies the tower of God the Father. + +Josephus says truly that Babel signifies confusion; Calmet says, with +others, that Bilba, in Chaldæan, signifies confounded, but all the +Orientals have been of a contrary opinion. The word confusion would be a +strange etymon for the capital of a vast empire. I very much like the +opinion of Rabelais, who pretends that Paris was formerly called Lutetia +on account of the ladies' white legs. + +Be that as it may, commentators have tormented themselves to know to +what height men had raised this famous tower of Babel. St. Jerome gives +it twenty thousand feet. The ancient Jewish book entitled _"Jacult"_ +gave it eighty-one thousand. Paul Lucas has seen the remains of it and +it is a fine thing to be as keen-sighted as Paul Lucas, but these +dimensions are not the only difficulties which have exercised the +learned. + +People have wished to know how the children of Noah, after having +divided among themselves the islands of the nations and established +themselves in various lands, with each one his particular language, +families, and people, should all find themselves in the plain of +Shinaar, to build there a tower saying, "Let us make us a name lest we +be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." + +The Book of Genesis speaks of the states which the sons of Noah founded. +It has related how the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia, all came to +Shinaar speaking one language only, and purposing the same thing. + +The Vulgate places the Deluge in the year of the world 1656, and the +construction of the tower of Babel 1771, that is to say, one hundred and +fifteen years after the destruction of mankind, and even during the life +of Noah. + +Men then must have multiplied with prodigious celerity; all the arts +revived in a very little time. When we reflect on the great number of +trades which must have been employed to raise a tower so high we are +amazed at so stupendous a work. + +The patriarch Abraham was born, according to the Bible, about four +hundred years after the deluge, and already we see a line of powerful +kings in Egypt and in Asia. Bochart and other sages have pleasantly +filled their great books with PhÅ“nician and Chaldæan words and +systems which they do not understand. They have learnedly taken Thrace +for Cappadocia, Greece for Crete, and the island of Cyprus for Tyre; +they sport in an ocean of ignorance which has neither bottom nor shore. +It would have been shorter for them to have avowed that God, after +several ages, has given us sacred books to render us better men and not +to make us geographers, chronologists, or etymologists. + +Babel is Babylon. It was founded, according to the Persian historians, +by a prince named Tamurath. The only knowledge we have of its +antiquities consists in the astronomical observations of nineteen +hundred and three years, sent by Callisthenes by order of Alexander, to +his preceptor Aristotle. To this certainty is joined the extreme +probability that a nation which had made a series of celestial +observations for nearly two thousand years had congregated and formed a +considerable power several ages before the first of these observations. + +It is a pity that none of the calculations of the ancient profane +authors agree with our sacred ones, and that none of the names of the +princes who reigned after the different epochs assigned to the Deluge +have been known by either Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians, or Greeks. + +It is no less a pity that there remains not on the earth among the +profane authors one vestige of the famous tower of Babel; nothing of +this story of the confusion of tongues is found in any book. This +memorable adventure was as unknown to the whole universe as the names of +Noah, Methuselah, Cain, and Adam and Eve. + +This difficulty tantalizes our curiosity. Herodotus, who travelled so +much, speaks neither of Noah, or Shem, Reu, Salah, or Nimrod. The name +of Nimrod is unknown to all profane antiquity; there are only a few +Arabs and some modern Persians who have made mention of Nimrod in +falsifying the books of the Jews. + +Nothing remains to conduct us through these ancient ruins, unknown to +all the nations of the universe during so many ages, but faith in the +Bible, and happily that is an infallible guide. + +Herodotus, who has mingled many fables with some truths, pretends that +in his time, which was that of greatest power of the Persian sovereigns +of Babylon, all the women of the immense city were obliged to go once in +their lives to the temple of Mylitta, a goddess who was thought to be +the same as Aphrodite, or Venus, in order to prostitute themselves to +strangers, and that the law commanded them to receive money as a sacred +tribute, which was paid over to the priesthood of the goddess. + +But even this Arabian tale is more likely than that which the same +author tells of Cyrus dividing the Indus into three hundred and sixty +canals, which all discharged themselves into the Caspian Sea! What +should we say of Mézeray if he had told us that Charlemagne divided the +Rhine into three hundred and sixty canals, which fell into the +Mediterranean, and that all the ladies of his court were obliged once in +their lives to present themselves at the church of St. Genevieve to +prostitute themselves to all comers for money? + +It must be remarked that such a fable is still more absurd in relation +to the time of Xerxes, in which Herodotus lived, than it would be in +that of Charlemagne. The Orientals were a thousand times more jealous +than the Franks and Gauls. The wives of all the great lords were +carefully guarded by eunuchs. This custom existed from time immemorial. +It is seen even in the Jewish history that when that little nation +wished like the others to have a king, Samuel, to dissuade them from it +and to retain his authority, said "that a king would tyrannize over them +and that he would take the tenths of their vines and corn to give to his +eunuchs." The kings accomplished this prediction, for it is written in +the First Book of Kings that King Ahab had eunuchs, and in the Second +that Joram, Jehu, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah had them also. + +The eunuchs of Pharaoh are spoken of a long time previously in the Book +of Genesis, and it is said that Potiphar, to whom Joseph was sold, was +one of the king's eunuchs. It is clear, therefore, that there were great +numbers of eunuchs at Babylon to guard the women. It was not then a duty +for them to prostitute themselves to the first comer, nor was Babylon, +the city of God, a vast brothel as it has been pretended. + +These tales of Herodotus, as well as all others in the same taste, are +now so decried by all people of sense--reason has made so great progress +that even old women and children will no longer believe such +extravagances--_"Non est vetula quæ credat nec pueri credunt, nisi qui +nondum ære lavantur."_ + +There is in our days only one man who, not partaking of the spirit of +the age in which he lives, would justify the fable of Herodotus. The +infamy appears to him a very simple affair. He would prove that the +Babylonian princesses prostituted themselves through piety, to the +first passengers, because it is said in the holy writings that the +Ammonites made their children pass through the fire in presenting them +to Moloch. But what relation has this custom of some barbarous +hordes--this superstition of passing their children through the flames, +or even of burning them on piles, in honor of I know not whom--of +Moloch; these Iroquois horrors of a petty, infamous people to a +prostitution so incredible in a nation known to be the most jealous and +orderly of the East? Would what passes among the Iroquois be among us a +proof of the customs of the courts of France and of Spain? + +He also brings, in further proof, the Lupercal feast among the Romans +during which he says the young people of quality and respectable +magistrates ran naked through the city with whips in their hands, with +which they struck the pregnant women of quality, who unblushingly +presented themselves to them in the hope of thereby obtaining a happy +deliverance. + +Now, in the first place, it is not said that these Romans of quality ran +quite naked, on the contrary, Plutarch expressly observes, in his +remarks on the custom, that they were covered from the waist downwards. + +Secondly, it seems by the manner in which this defender of infamous +customs expresses himself that the Roman ladies stripped naked to +receive these blows of the whip, which is absolutely false. + +Thirdly, the Lupercal feast has no relation whatever to the pretended +law of Babylon, which commands the wives and daughters of the king, the +satraps, and the magi to sell and prostitute themselves to strangers out +of pure devotion. + +When an author, without knowing either the human mind or the manners of +nations, has the misfortune to be obliged to compile from passages of +old authors, who are almost all contradictory, he should advance his +opinions with modesty and know how to doubt, and to shake off the dust +of the college. Above all he should never express himself with +outrageous insolence. + +Herodotus, or Ctesias, or Diodorus of Sicily, relate a fact: you have +read it in Greek, therefore this fact is true. This manner of reasoning, +which is not that of Euclid, is surprising enough in the time in which +we live; but all minds will not be instructed with equal facility; and +there are always more persons who compile than people who think. + +We will say nothing here of the confusion of tongues which took place +during the construction of the tower of Babel. It is a miracle, related +in the Holy Scriptures. We neither explain, nor even examine any +miracles, and as the authors of that great work, the Encyclopædia, +believed them, we also believe them with a lively and sincere faith. + +We will simply affirm that the fall of the Roman Empire has produced +more confusion and a greater number of new languages than that of the +tower of Babel. From the reign of Augustus till the time of the +Attilas, the Clovises, and the Gondiberts, during six ages, _"terra erat +unius labii"_--"the known earth was of one language." They spoke the +same Latin at the Euphrates as at Mount Atlas. The laws which governed a +hundred nations were written in Latin and the Greek served for +amusement, whilst the barbarous jargon of each province was only for the +populace. They pleaded in Latin at once in the tribunals of Africa and +of Rome. An inhabitant of Cornwall departed for Asia Minor sure of being +understood everywhere in his route. It was at least one good effected by +the rapacity of the Romans that people found themselves as well +understood on the Danube as on the Guadalquiver. At the present time a +Bergamask who travels into the small Swiss cantons, from which he is +only separated by a mountain, has the same need of an interpreter as if +he were in China. This is one of the greatest plagues of modern life. + + +SECTION II. + +Vanity has always raised stately monuments. It was through vanity that +men built the lofty tower of Babel. "Let us go and raise a tower, the +summit of which shall touch the skies, and render our name celebrated +before we are scattered upon the face of the earth." The enterprise was +undertaken hi the time of a patriarch named Phaleg, who counted the good +man Noah for his fifth ancestor. It will be seen that architecture, and +all the arts which accompany it, had made great progress in five +generations. St. Jerome, the same who has seen fauns and satyrs, has not +seen the tower of Babel any more than I have, but he assures us that it +was twenty thousand feet high. This is a trifle. The ancient book, +_"Jacult"_ written by one of the most learned Jews, demonstrates the +height to be eighty-one thousand Jewish feet, and every one knows that +the Jewish foot was nearly as long as the Greek. These dimensions are +still more likely than those of Jerome. This tower remains, but it is no +longer quite so high; several quite veracious travellers have seen it. +I, who have not seen it, will talk as little of it as of my grandfather +Adam, with whom I never had the honor of conversing. But consult the +reverend father Calmet; he is a man of fine wit and a profound +philosopher and will explain the thing to you. I do not know why it is +said, in Genesis, that Babel signifies confusion, for, as I have already +observed, _ba_ answers to father in the eastern languages, and _bel_ +signifies God. Babel means the city of God, the holy city. But it is +incontestable that Babel means confusion, possibly because the +architects were confounded after having raised their work to eighty-one +thousand feet, perhaps, because the languages were then confounded, as +from that time the Germans no longer understood the Chinese, although, +according to the learned Bochart, it is clear that the Chinese is +originally the same language as the High German. + + + + +BACCHUS. + + +Of all the true or fabulous personages of profane antiquity Bacchus is +to us the most important. I do not mean for the fine invention which is +attributed to him by all the world except the Jews, but for the +prodigious resemblance of his fabulous history to the true adventures of +Moses. + +The ancient poets have placed the birth of Bacchus in Egypt; he is +exposed on the Nile and it is from that event that he is named Mises by +the first Orpheus, which, in Egyptian, signifies "saved from the +waters," according to those who pretend to understand the ancient +Egyptian tongue, which is no longer known. He is brought up near a +mountain of Arabia called Nisa, which is believed to be Mount Sinai. It +is pretended that a goddess ordered him to go and destroy a barbarous +nation and that he passed through the Red Sea on foot, with a multitude +of men, women, and children. Another time the river Orontes suspended +its waters right and left to let him pass, and the Hydaspes did the +same. He commanded the sun to stand still; two luminous rays proceeded +from his head. He made a fountain of wine spout up by striking the +ground with his thyrsis, and engraved his laws on two tables of marble. +He wanted only to have afflicted Egypt with ten plagues, to be the +perfect copy of Moses. + +Vossius is, I think, the first who has extended this parallel. The +bishop of Avranches, Huet, has pushed it quite as far, but he adds, in +his "Evangelical Demonstrations" that Moses is not only Bacchus, but +that he is also Osiris and Typhon. He does not halt in this fine path. +Moses, according to him, is Æsculapius, Amphion, Apollo, Adonis, and +even Priapus. It is pleasant enough that Huet founds his proof that +Moses is Adonis in their both keeping sheep: _"Et formosus oves, ad +flumina pavit Adonis."_ + +He contends that he is Priapus because Priapus is sometimes painted with +an ass, and the Jews were supposed, among the Gentiles, to adore an ass. +He gives another proof, not very canonical, which is that the rod of +Moses might be compared to the sceptre of Priapus. _"Sceptrum tribuitur +Priapo, virga Most."_ Neither is this demonstration in the manner of +Euclid. + +We will not here speak of the more modern Bacchuses, such as he who +lived two hundred years before the Trojan war, and whom the Greeks +celebrated as a son of Jupiter, shut up in his thigh. We will pause at +him who was supposed to be born on the confines of Egypt and to have +performed so many prodigies. Our respect for the sacred Jewish books +will not permit us to doubt that the Egyptians, the Arabs, and even the +Greeks, have imitated the history of Moses. The difficulty consists +solely in not knowing how they could be instructed in this +incontrovertible history. With respect to the Egyptians, it is very +likely that they never recorded these miracles of Moses, which would +have covered them with shame. If they had said a word of it the +historians, Josephus and Philo, would not have failed to have taken +advantage of it Josephus, in his answer to Appion, made a point of +citing all the Egyptian authors who have mentioned Moses, and he finds +none who relate one of these miracles. No Jew has ever quoted any +Egyptian author who has said a word of the ten plagues of Egypt, of the +miraculous passage through the Red Sea, etc. It could not be among the +Egyptians, therefore, that this scandalous parallel was formed between +the divine Moses and the profane Bacchus. + +It is very clear that if a single Egyptian author had said a word of the +great miracles of Moses all the synagogue of Alexandria, all the +disputatious church of that famous town would have quoted such word, and +have triumphed at it, every one after his manner. Athenagorus, Clement, +Origen, who have said so many useless things, would have related this +important passage a thousand times and it would have been the strongest +argument of all the fathers. The whole have kept a profound silence; +they Had, therefore, nothing to say. But how was it possible for any +Egyptian to speak of the exploits of a man who caused all the first born +of the families of Egypt to be killed; who turned the Nile to blood, and +who drowned in the Red Sea their king and all his army? + +All our historians agree that one Clodowick, a Sicambrian, subjugated +Gaul with a handful of barbarians. The English are the first to say that +the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans came by turns to exterminate a +part of their nation. If they had not avowed this truth all Europe would +have exclaimed against its concealment. The universe should exclaim in +the same manner at the amazing prodigies of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, +Samson, and of so many leaders and prophets. The universe is silent +notwithstanding. Amazing mystery! On one side it is palpable mat all is +true, since it is found in the holy writings, which are approved by the +Church; on the other it is evident that no people have ever mentioned +it. Let us worship Providence, and submit ourselves in all things. + +The Arabs, who have always loved the marvellous, were probably the first +authors of the fables invented of Bacchus, afterwards adopted and +embellished by the Greeks. But how came the stories of the Arabs and +Greeks to agree so well with those of the Jews? It is known that the +Hebrews never communicated their books to any one till the time of the +Ptolemies; they regarded such communication as a sacrilege, and +Josephus, to justify their obstinacy in concealing the Pentateuch from +the rest of the world, says that God punished all foreigners who dared +to speak of the Jewish histories. If we are to believe him, the +historian Theopompus, for only designing to mention them in his work, +became deranged for thirty days, and the tragic poet Theodectes was +struck blind for having introduced the name of the Jews into one of his +tragedies. Such are the excuses that Flavius Josephus gives in his +answer to Appion for the history of the Jews being so long unknown. + +These books were of such prodigious scarcity that we only hear of one +copy under King Josiah, and this copy had been lost for a long time and +was found in the bottom of a chest on the report of Shaphan, scribe to +the Pontiff Hilkiah, who carried it to the king. + +This circumstance happened, according to the Second Book of Kings, six +hundred and twenty-four years before our vulgar era, four hundred years +after Homer, and in the most flourishing times of Greece. The Greeks +then scarcely knew that there were any Hebrews in the world. The +captivity of the Jews at Babylon still more augmented their ignorance of +their own books. Esdras must have restored them at the end of seventy +years and for already more than five hundred years the fable of Bacchus +had been current among the Greeks. + +If the Greeks had founded their fables on the Jewish history they would +have chosen facts more interesting to mankind, such as the adventures of +Abraham, those of Noah, of Methuselah, of Seth, Enoch, Cain, and Eve; of +the fatal serpent and of the tree of knowledge, all which names have +ever been unknown to them. There was only a slight knowledge of the +Jewish people until a long time after the revolution that Alexander +produced in Asia and in Europe; the historian Josephus avows it in +formal terms. This is the manner in which he expresses himself in the +commencement of his reply to Appion, who (by way of parenthesis) was +dead when he answered him, for Appion died under the Emperor Claudius, +and Josephus wrote under Vespasian. + +"As the country we inhabit is distant from the sea we do not apply +ourselves to commerce and have no communication with other nations. We +content ourselves with cultivating our lands, which are very fertile, +and we labor chiefly to bring up our children properly, because nothing +appears to us so necessary as to instruct them in the knowledge of our +holy laws and in true piety, which inspires them with the desire of +observing them. The above reasons, added to others already mentioned, +and this manner of life which is peculiar to us, show why we have had no +communication with the Greeks, like the Egyptians and PhÅ“nicians. Is +it astonishing that our nation, so distant from the sea, not affecting +to write anything, and living in the way which I have related, has been +little known?" + +After such an authentic avowal from a Jew, the most tenacious of the +honor of his nation that has ever written, it will be seen that it is +impossible for the ancient Greeks to have taken the fable of Bacchus +from the holy books of the Hebrews, any more than the sacrifice of +Iphigenia, that of the son of Idomeneus, the labors of Hercules, the +adventure of Eurydice, and others. The quantity of ancient tales which +resemble one another is prodigious. How is it that the Greeks have put +into fables what the Hebrews have put into histories? Was it by the +gift of invention; was it by a facility of imitation, or in consequence +of the accordance of fine minds? To conclude: God has permitted it--a +truth which ought to suffice. + +Of what consequence is it that the Arabs and Greeks have said the same +things as the Jews? We read the Old Testament only to prepare ourselves +for the New, and in neither the one nor the other do we seek anything +but lessons of benevolence, moderation, gentleness, and true charity. + + + + +BACON (ROGER). + + +It is generally thought that Roger Bacon, the famous monk of the +thirteenth century, was a very great man and that he possessed true +knowledge, because he was persecuted and condemned to prison by a set of +ignoramuses. It is a great prejudice in his favor, I own. But does it +not happen every day that quacks gravely condemn other quacks, and that +fools make other fools pay the penalty of folly? This, our world, has +for a long time resembled the compact edifices in which he who believes +in the eternal Father anathematizes him who believes in the Holy Ghost; +circumstances which are not very rare even in these days. Among the +things which render Friar Bacon commendable we must first reckon his +imprisonment, and then the noble boldness with which he declared that +all the books of Aristotle were fit only to be burned and that at a time +when the learned respected Aristotle much more than the Jansenists +respect St. Augustine. Has Roger Bacon, however, done anything better +than the Poetics, the Rhetoric, and the Logic of Aristotle? These three +immortal works clearly prove that Aristotle was a very great and fine +genius--penetrating, profound, and methodical; and that he was only a +bad natural philosopher because it was impossible to penetrate into the +depths of physical science without the aid of instruments. + +Does Roger Bacon, in his best work, in which he treats of light and +vision, express himself much more clearly than Aristotle when he says +light is created by means of multiplying its luminous species, which +action is called univocal and conformable to the agent? He also mentions +another equivocal multiplication, by which light engenders heat and heat +putrefaction. + +Roger Bacon likewise tells us that life may be prolonged by means of +spermaceti, aloes, and dragons' flesh, and that the philosopher's stone +would render us immortal. It is thought that besides these fine secrets +he possessed all those of judicial astrology, without exception, as he +affirms very positively in his _"Opus Majus,"_ that the head of man is +subject to the influences of the ram, his neck to those of the bull, and +his arms to the power of the twins. He even demonstrates these fine +things from experience, and highly praises a great astrologer at Paris +who says that he hindered a surgeon from putting a plaster on the leg +of an invalid, because the sun was then in the sign of Aquarius, and +Aquarius is fatal to legs to which plasters are applied. + +It is an opinion quite generally received that Roger was the inventor of +gunpowder. It is certain that it was in his time that important +discovery was made, for I always remark that the spirit of invention is +of all times and that the doctors, or sages, who govern both mind and +body are generally profoundly ignorant, foolishly prejudiced, or at war +with common sense. It is usually among obscure men that artists are +found animated with a superior instinct, who invent admirable things on +which the learned afterwards reason. + +One thing that surprises me much is that Friar Bacon knew not the +direction of the magnetic needle, which, in his time, began to be +understood in Italy, but in lieu thereof he was acquainted with the +Secret of the hazel rod and many such things Of which he treats in his +"Dignity of the Experimental Art." + +Yet, notwithstanding this pitiable number of absurdities and chimeras, +it must be confessed that Roger Bacon was an admirable man for his age. +What age? you will ask--that of feudal government and of the schoolmen. +Figure to yourself Samoyedes and Ostiacs who read Aristotle. Such were +we at that time. + +Roger Bacon knew a little of geometry and optics, which made him pass +for a sorcerer at Rome and Paris. He was, however, really acquainted +with the matter contained in the Arabian _"Alhazen,"_ for in those days +little was known except through the Arabs. They were the physicians and +astrologers of all the Christian kings. The king's fool was always a +native; his doctor an Arab or a Jew. + +Transport this Bacon to the times in which we live and he would be, no +doubt, a great man. He was gold, encrusted with the rust of the times in +which he lived, this gold would now be quickly purified. Poor creatures +that we are! How many ages have passed away in acquiring a little +reason! + + + + +BANISHMENT. + + +Banishment for a term of years, or for life: a penalty inflicted on +delinquents, or on individuals who are wished to be considered as such. + +Not long ago it was the custom to banish from within the limits of the +jurisdiction, for petty thefts, forgeries, and assaults, the result of +which was that the offender became a great robber, forger, or murderer +in some other jurisdiction. This is like throwing into a neighbor's +field the stones that incommode us in our own. + +Those who have written on the laws of nations have tormented themselves +greatly to determine whether a man who has been banished from his +country can justly be said still to belong to that country. It might +almost as well be asked whether a gambler, who has been driven away from +the gaming-table, is still one of the players at that table. + +If by the law of nature a man is permitted to choose his country, still +more is the man who has lost the rights of a citizen at liberty to +choose himself a new country. May he bear arms against his former +fellow-citizens? Of this we have a thousand examples. How many French +Protestants, naturalized in England, Holland, or Germany, have served, +not only against France, but against armies in which their relatives, +their own brothers, have fought? The Greeks in the armies of the king of +Persia fought against the Greeks, their old fellow-countrymen. The Swiss +in the service of Holland have fired upon the Swiss in the service of +France. This is even worse than fighting against those who have banished +you, for, after all, drawing the sword in revenge does not seem so bad +as drawing it for hire. + + + + +BAPTISM. + +_A Greek Word, Signifying Immersion._ + + +SECTION I. + +We do not speak of baptism as theologians; we are but poor men of +letters, who shall never enter the sanctuary. The Indians plunge, and +have from time immemorial plunged, into the Ganges. Mankind, always +guided by their senses, easily imagined that what purified the body +likewise purified the soul. In the subterranean apartments under the +Egyptian temples there were large tubs for the priests and the +initiated. + + _O nimium faciles qui tristia crimina cædis_ + _Fluminea tolli posse putatis aqua!_ + +Old Baudier, when he was eighty, made the following comic translation of +these lines: + + _C'est une drôle de maxime,_ + _Qu'une lessive efface un crime._ + One can't but think it somewhat droll, + Pump-water thus should cleanse a soul. + +Every sign being of itself indifferent, God vouchsafed to consecrate +this custom amongst the Hebrew people. All foreigners that came to +settle in Palestine were baptized; they were called domiciliary +proselytes. + +They were not forced to receive circumcision, but only to embrace the +seven precepts of the Noachides, and to sacrifice to no strange god. The +proselytes of justice were circumcised and baptized; the female +proselytes were also baptized, quite naked, in the presence of three +men. The most devout among the Jews went and received baptism from the +hands of the prophets most venerated by the people. Hence it was that +they flocked to St. John, who baptized in the Jordan. + +Jesus Christ Himself, who never baptized any one, deigned to receive +baptism from St. John. This custom, which had long been an accessory of +the Jewish religion, received new dignity, new value from our Saviour, +and became the chief rite, the principal seal of Christianity. However, +the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were Jews. 'The Christians of +Palestine long continued to circumcise. St. John's Christians never +received baptism from Christ. + +Several other Christian societies applied a cautery to the baptized, +with a red-hot iron, being determined to the performance of this +extraordinary operation by the words of St. John the Baptist, related by +St. Luke: "I baptize you with water, but He that cometh after me shall +baptize you with fire." + +This was practised by the Seleucians, the Herminians, and some others. +The words, "He shall baptize you with fire," have never been explained. +There are several opinions concerning the baptism by fire which is +mentioned by St. Luke and St. Matthew. Perhaps the most likely opinion +is that it was an allusion to the ancient custom of the devotees to the +Syrian goddess, who, after plunging into water, imprinted characters on +their bodies with a hot iron. With miserable man all was superstition, +but Jesus substituted for these ridiculous superstitions a sacred +ceremony--a divine and efficacious symbol. + +In the first ages of Christianity nothing was more common than to +postpone the receiving of baptism until the last agony. Of this the +example of the Emperor Constantine is a very strong proof. St. Andrew +had not been baptized when he was made bishop of Milan. The custom of +deferring the use of the sacred bath until the hour of death was soon +abolished. + +_Baptism of the Dead._ + +The dead also were baptized. This is established by the passage of St. +Paul to the Corinthians: "If we rise not again what shall they do that +receive baptism from the dead?" Here is a point of fact. Either the +dead themselves were baptized, or baptism was received in their names, +as indulgences have since been received for the deliverance of the souls +of friends and relatives out of purgatory. + +St. Epiphanius and St. Chrysostom inform us that it was a custom in some +Christian societies, and principally among the Marcionites, to put a +living man under the dead man's bed; he was then asked if he would be +baptized; the living man answered yes, and the corpse was taken and +plunged into a tub of water. This custom was soon condemned. St. Paul +mentions it but he does not condemn it; on the contrary he cites it as +an invincible argument to prove resurrection. + +_Baptism by Aspersion._ + +The Greeks always retained baptism by immersion. The Latins, about the +close of the eighth century, having extended their religion into Gaul +and Germany and seeing that immersion might be fatal to infants in cold +countries, substituted simple aspersion and thus drew upon themselves +frequent anathemas from the Greek Church. + +St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was asked if those were really baptized +who had only had their bodies sprinkled all over. He answers, in his +seventy-sixth letter, that several churches did not believe the +sprinkled to be Christians; that, for his own part, he believes that +they are so, but that they have infinitely less grace than those who +have been thrice dipped, according to custom. + +A person was initiated among the Christians as soon as he was dipped; +until then he was only a catechumen. To be initiated it was necessary to +have sponsors to answer to the Church for the fidelity of the new +Christians and that the mysteries should not be divulged. Hence it was +that in the first ages the Gentiles had, in general, as little knowledge +of the Christian mysteries as the Christians had of the mysteries of +Isis and the Eleusinian Ceres. + +Cyril of Alexandria, in his writing against the Emperor Julian, +expresses himself thus: "I would speak of baptism but that I fear my +words would reach them who are not initiated." At that time there was no +worship without its mysteries, its associations, its catechumens, its +initiated, and its professed. Each sect required new virtues and +recommended to its penitents a new life--_"initium novæ vitæ"_--whence +the word initiation. The initiation of Christians, whether male or +female, consisted in their being plunged quite naked into a tub of cold +water, to which sign was attached the remission of all their sins. But +the difference between Christian baptism and the Greek, Syrian, +Egyptian, and Roman ceremonies was the difference between truth and +falsehood. Jesus Christ was the High Priest of the new law. + +In the second century infants began to be baptized; it was natural that +the Christians should desire their children, who would have been damned +without this sacrament, to be provided with it. It was at length +concluded that they must receive it at the expiration of eight days, +because that was the period at which, among the Jews, they were +circumcised. In the Greek Church this is still the custom. + +Such as died in the first week were damned, according to the most +rigorous fathers of the Church. But Peter Chrysologos, in the fifth +century, imagined limbo, a sort of mitigated hell, or properly, the +border, the outskirt of hell, whither all infants dying without baptism +go and where the patriarchs remained until Jesus Christ's descent into +hell. So that the opinion that Jesus Christ descended into limbo, and +not into hell, has since then prevailed. + +It was agitated whether a Christian in the deserts of Arabia might be +baptized with sand, this was answered in the negative. It was asked if +rosewater might be used, it was decided that pure water would be +necessary but that muddy water might be made use of. It is evident that +all this discipline depended on the discretion of the first pastors who +established it. + +The Anabaptists and some other communions out of the pale have thought +that no one should be baptized without a thorough knowledge of the +merits of the case. You require, say they, a promise to be of the +Christian society, but a child can make no engagement. You give it a +sponsor, but this is an abuse of an ancient custom. The precaution was +requisite in the first establishment. When strangers, adult men and +women, came and presented themselves to be received into the society +and share in the alms there was needed a guarantee to answer for their +fidelity; it was necessary to make sure of them; they swore they would +be Jews, but an infant is in a diametrically opposite case. It has often +happened, that a child baptized by Greeks at Constantinople has +afterwards been circumcised by Turks, a Christian at eight days old and +a Mussulman at thirty years, he has betrayed the oaths of his godfather. + +This is one reason which the Anabaptists might allege; it would hold +good in Turkey, but it has never been admitted in Christian countries +where baptism insures a citizen's condition. We must conform to the +rights and laws of our country. + +The Greeks re-baptize such of the Latins as pass from one of our Latin +communions to the Greek communion. In the last century it was the custom +for these catechumens to pronounce the following words: "I spit upon my +father and my mother who had me ill baptized." This custom still exists, +and will, perhaps, long continue to exist in the provinces. + +_Notions of Rigid Unitarians Concerning Baptism._ + +It is evident to whosoever is willing to reason without prejudice that +baptism is neither a mark of grace conferred nor a seal of alliance, but +simply a mark of profession. + +That baptism is not necessary, neither by necessity of precept, nor by +necessity of means. That it was not instituted by Christ and that it +may be omitted by the Christian without his suffering any inconvenience +therefrom. + +That baptism should be administered neither to children, nor to adults, +nor, in general, to any individual whatsoever. + +That baptism might be of service in the early infancy of Christianity to +those who quitted paganism in order to make their profession of faith +public and give an authentic mark of it, but that now it is absolutely +useless and altogether indifferent. + + +SECTION II. + +Baptism, immersion in water, abstersion, purification by water, is of +the highest antiquity. To be cleanly was to be pure before the gods. No +priest ever dared to approach the altar with a soil upon his body. The +natural inclination to transfer to the soul that which appertains to the +body led to the belief that lustrations and ablutions took away the +stains of the soul as they removed those of the garments and that +washing the body washed the soul also. Hence the ancient custom of +bathing in the Ganges, the waters of which were thought to be sacred; +hence the lustrations so frequent among every people. The Oriental +nations, inhabiting hot countries, were the most religiously attached to +these customs. + +The Jews were obliged to bathe after any pollution--after touching an +unclean animal, touching a corpse, and on many other occasions. + +When the Jews received among them a stranger converted to their +religion they baptized, after circumcising him, and if it was a woman +she was simply baptized--that is, dipped in water in the presence of +three witnesses. This immersion was reputed to give the persons baptized +a new birth, a new life; they became at once Jewish and pure. Children +born before this baptism had no share in the inheritance of their +brethren, born after them of a regenerated father and mother. So that, +with the Jews, to be baptized and to be born again were the same thing, +and this idea has remained attached to baptism down to the present day. +Thus, when John, the forerunner, began to baptize in the Jordan he did +but follow an immemorial usage. The priests of the law did not call him +to account for this baptizing as for anything new, but they accused him +of arrogating to himself a right which belonged exclusively to them --as +Roman Catholic priests would have a right to complain if a layman took +upon himself to say mass. John was doing a lawful thing but was doing it +unlawfully. + +John wished to have disciples, and he had them. He was chief of a sect +among the lower orders of the people and it cost him his life. It even +appears that Jesus was at first among his disciples, since he was +baptized by him in the Jordan, and John sent some of his own party to +Him a short time before His death. + +The historian Josephus speaks of John but not of Jesus--an incontestable +proof that in his time John the Baptist had a greater reputation than +He whom he baptized. A great multitude followed him, says that +celebrated historian, and the Jews seemed disposed to undertake whatever +he should command them. + +From this passage it appears that John was not only the chief of a sect, +but the chief of a party. Josephus adds that he caused Herod some +uneasiness. He did indeed make himself formidable to Herod, who, at +length, put him to death, but Jesus meddled with none but the Pharisees. +Josephus, therefore, mentions John as a man who had stirred up the Jews +against King Herod; as one whose zeal had made him a state criminal, but +Jesus, not having approached the court, was unknown to the historian +Josephus. + +The sect of John the Baptist differed widely in discipline from that of +Jesus. In the Acts of the Apostles we see that twenty years after the +execution of Jesus, Apollos of Alexandria, though become a Christian, +knew no baptism but that of John, nor had any idea of the Holy Ghost. +Several travellers, and among others Chardin, the most accredited of +all, say that in Persia there still are disciples of John, called Sabis, +who baptize in his name and acknowledge Jesus as a prophet, but not as a +god. + +As for Jesus Christ Himself He received baptism but conferred it on no +one; His apostles baptized the catechumens, or circumcised them as +occasion required; this is evident from the operation of circumcision +performed by Paul on his disciple Timothy. + +It also appears that when the apostles baptized it was always in the +name of Jesus Christ alone. The Acts of the Apostles do not mention any +one baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--whence it +may be concluded that the author of the Acts of the Apostles knew +nothing of Matthew's gospel, in which it is said: "Go and teach all +nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and +of the Holy Ghost." The Christian religion had not yet received its +form. Even the Symbol, which was called the Symbol of the Apostles, was +not made until after their time, of this no one has any doubt. In Paul's +Epistle to the Corinthians we find a very singular custom which was then +introduced--that of baptizing the dead, but the rising Church soon +reserved baptism for the living alone; at first none were baptized but +adults, and the ceremony was often deferred until the age of fifty, or +the last sickness, that the individual might carry with him into the +other world the unimpaired virtue of a baptism recently performed. + +Now, all children are baptized: none but the Anabaptists reserve this +ceremony for the mature age; they plunge their whole bodies into the +water. The Quakers, who compose a very numerous society in England and +in America, do not use baptism: the reason is that Jesus Christ did not +baptize any of His disciples, and their aim is to be Christians only as +His disciples were--which occasions a very wide difference between them +and other communions. + +_Addition to the Article "Baptism" by Abbé Nicaise._ + +The Emperor Julian, the philosopher, in his immortal "Satire on the +Cæsars," puts these words into the mouth of Constantius, son of +Constantine: "Whosoever feels himself guilty of rape, murder, plunder, +sacrilege, and every most abominable crime, so soon as I have washed him +with this water, he shall be clean and pure." + +It was, indeed, this fatal doctrine that occasioned the Christian +emperors, and the great men of the empire, to defer their baptism until +death. They thought they had found the secret of living criminal and +dying virtuous. + +How strange an idea--that a pot of water should wash away every crime! +Now, all children are baptized because an idea no less absurd supposes +them all criminal; they are all saved until they have the use of reason +and the power to become guilty! Cut their throats, then, as quickly as +possible, to insure their entrance into paradise. This is so just a +consequence that there was once a devout sect that went about poisoning +and killing all newly-baptized infants. These devout persons reasoned +with perfect correctness, saying: "We do these little innocents the +greatest possible good; we prevent them from being wicked and unhappy in +this life and we give them life eternal." + + + + +BARUCH, OR BARAK, AND DEBORAH; + +AND, INCIDENTALLY, ON CHARIOTS OF WAR. + + +We have no intention here to inquire at what time Baruch was chief of +the Jewish people; why, being chief, he allowed his army to be commanded +by a woman; whether this woman, named Deborah, had married Lapidoth; +whether she was the friend or relative of Baruch, or perhaps his +daughter or his mother; nor on what day the battle of Tabor, in Galilee, +was fought between this Deborah and Sisera, captain-general of the +armies of King Jabin--which Sisera commanded in Galilee an army of three +hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and three thousand chariots +of war, according to the historian Josephus. + +We shall at present leave out of the question this Jabin, king of a +village called Azor, who had more troops than the Grand Turk. We very +much pity the fate of his grand-vizier Sisera, who, having lost the +battle in Galilee, leaped from his chariot and four that he might fly +more swiftly on foot. He went and begged the hospitality of a holy +Jewish woman, who gave him some milk and drove a great cart-nail through +his head while he was asleep. We are very sorry for it, but this is not +the matter to be discussed. We wish to speak of chariots of war. + +The battle was fought at the foot of Mount Tabor, near the river Kishon. +Mount Tabor is a steep mountain, the branches of which, somewhat less +in height, extend over a great part of Galilee. Between this mountain +and the neighboring rocks there is a small plain, covered with great +flint-stones and impracticable for cavalry. The extent of this plain is +four or five hundred paces. We may venture to believe that Sisera did +not here draw up his three hundred thousand men in order of battle; his +three thousand chariots would have found it difficult to manÅ“uvre on +such a field. + +We may believe that the Hebrews had no chariots of war in a country +renowned only for asses, but the Asiatics made use of them in the great +plains. Confucius, or rather Confutze, says positively that, from time +immemorial, each of the viceroys of the provinces was expected to +furnish to the emperor a thousand war-chariots, each drawn by four +horses. Chariots must have been in use long before the Trojan war, for +Homer does not speak of them as a new invention, but these chariots were +not armed like those of Babylon, neither the wheels nor the axles were +furnished with steel blades. + +At first this invention must have been very formidable on large plains, +especially when the chariots were numerous, driven with impetuosity, and +armed with long pikes and scythes, but when they became familiar it +seemed so easy to avoid their shock that they fell into general disuse. + +In the war of 1741 it was proposed to renew and reform this ancient +invention. A minister of state had one of these chariots constructed and +it was tried. It was asserted that in large plains, like that of +Lützen, they might be used with advantage by concealing them behind the +cavalry, the squadrons of which would open to let them pass and then +follow them, but the generals judged that this manÅ“uvre would be +useless, and even dangerous, now that battles are gained by cannon only. +It was replied that there would be as many cannon hi the army using the +chariots of war to defend them as in the enemy's army to destroy them. +It was added that these chariots would, in the first instance, be +sheltered from the cannon behind the battalions or squadrons, that the +latter would open and let the chariots run with impetuosity and that +this unexpected attack might have a prodigious effect. The generals +advanced nothing in opposition to these arguments, but they would not +revive this game of the ancient Persians. + + + + +BATTALION. + + +Let us observe that the arrangements, the marching, and the evolutions +of battalions, nearly as they are now practised, were revived in Europe +by one who was not a military man--by Machiavelli, a secretary at +Florence. Battalions three, four, and five deep; battalions advancing +upon the enemy; battalions in square to avoid being cut off in a rout; +battalions four deep sustained by others in column; battalions flanked +by cavalry--all are his. He taught Europe the art of war; it had long +been practised without being known. + +The grand duke would have had his secretary teach his troops their +exercises according to his new method. But Machiavelli was too prudent +to do so; he had no wish to see the officers and soldiers laugh at a +general in a black cloak; he reserved himself for the council. + +There is something singular in the qualities which he requires in a +soldier. He must first have _gagliardia_, which signifies _alert vigor_; +he must have a quick and sure eye--in which there must also be a little +gayety; a strong neck, a wide breast, a muscular arm, round loins, but +little belly, with spare legs and feet--all indicating strength and +agility. But above all the soldier must have honor, and must be led by +honor alone. "War," says he, "is but too great a corrupter of morals," +and he reminds us of the Italian proverb: War makes thieves, and peace +finds them gibbets. + +Machiavelli had but a poor opinion of the French infantry, and until the +battle of Rocroi it must be confessed that it was very bad. A strange +man this Machiavelli! He amused himself with making verses, writing +plays, showing his cabinet the art of killing with regularity, and +teaching princes the art of perjuring themselves, assassinating, and +poisoning as occasion required--a great art which Pope Alexander VI., +and his bastard Cæsar Borgia, practised in wonderful perfection without +the aid of his lessons. + +Be it observed that in all Machiavelli's works on so many different +subjects there is not one word which renders virtue amiable--not one +word proceeding from the heart. The same remark has been made on +Boileau. He does not, it is true, make virtue lovely, but he represents +it as necessary. + + + + +BAYLE. + + +Why has Louis Racine treated Bayle like a dangerous man, with a cruel +heart, in an epistle to Jean Baptiste Rousseau, which, although printed, +is but little known? + +He compares Bayle, whose logical acuteness detected the errors of +opposing systems, to Marius sitting upon the ruins of Carthage: + + _Ainsi d'un Å“il content Marius, dans sa fuite,_ + _Contemplait les débris de Carthage détruite._ + Thus exiled Marius, with contented gaze, + Thy ruins, Carthage, silently surveys. + +Here is a simile which exhibits very little resemblance, or, as Pope +says, a simile dissimilar. Marius had not destroyed reason and +arguments, nor did he contentedly view its ruins, but, on the contrary, +he was penetrated with an elevated sentiment of melancholy on +contemplating the vicissitudes of human affairs, when he made the +celebrated answer: "Say to the proconsul of Africa that thou hast seen +Marius seated on the ruins of Carthage." + +We ask in what Marius resembled Bayle? Louis Racine, if he thinks fit, +may apply the epithets "hard-hearted" and "cruel" to Marius, to Sulla, +to the triumvirs, but, in reference to Bayle the phrases "detestable +pleasure," "cruel heart," "terrible man," should not be put in a +sentence written by Louis Racine against one who is only proved to have +weighed the arguments of the Manichæans, the Paulicians, the Arians, the +Eutychians, against those of their adversaries. Louis Racine proportions +not the punishment to the offence. He should remember that Bayle +combated Spinoza, who was too much of a philosopher, and Jurieu, who was +none at all. He should respect the good manners of Bayle and learn to +reason from him. But he was a Jansenist, that is to say, he knew the +words of the language of Jansenism and employed them at random. You may +properly call cruel and terrible a powerful man who commands his slaves, +on pain of death, to go and reap corn where he has sown thistles; who +gives to some of them too much food, and suffers others to die of +hunger; who kills his eldest son to leave a large fortune to the +younger. All that is frightful and cruel, Louis Racine! It is said that +such is the god of thy Jansenists, but I do not believe it. Oh slaves of +party, people attacked with the jaundice, you constantly see everything +yellow! + +And to whom has the unthinking heir of a father who had a hundred times +more taste than he has philosophy, addressed this miserable epistle +against the virtuous Bayle? To Rousseau--a poet who thinks still less; +to a man whose principal merit has consisted in epigrams which are +revolting to the most indulgent reader; to a man to whom it was alike +whether he sang Jesus Christ or Giton. Such was the apostle to whom +Louis Racine denounced Bayle as a miscreant. What motive could the +author of "Phædra" and "Iphigenia" have for falling into such a +prodigious error? Simply this, that Rousseau had made verses for the +Jansenists, whom he then believed to be in high credit. + +Such is the rage of faction let loose upon Bayle, but you do not hear +any of the dogs who have howled against him bark against Lucretius, +Cicero, Seneca, Epicurus, nor against the numerous philosophers of +antiquity. It is all reserved for Bayle; he is their fellow citizen--he +is of their time--his glory irritates them. Bayle is read and Nicole is +not read; behold the source of the Jansenist hatred! Bayle is studied, +but neither the reverend Father Croiset, nor the reverend Father +Caussin; hence Jesuitical denouncement! + +In vain has a Parliament of France done him the greatest honor in +rendering his will valid, notwithstanding the severity of the law. The +madness of party knows neither honor nor justice. I have not inserted +this article to make the eulogy of the best of dictionaries, which would +not be becoming here, and of which Bayle is not in need; I have written +it to render, if I can, the spirit of party odious and ridiculous. + + + + +BDELLIUM. + + +We are very much puzzled to know what this Bdellium is which is found +near the shores of the Pison, a river of the terrestrial paradise which +turns into the country of the Havilah, where there is gold. Calmet +relates that, according to several commentators, Bdellium is the +carbuncle, but that it may also be crystal. Then it is the gum of an +Arabian tree and afterwards we are told that capers are intended. Many +others affirm that it signifies pearls. Nothing but the etymologies of +Bochart can throw a light on this question. I wish that all these +commentators had been upon the spot. + +The excellent gold which is obtained in this country, says Calmet, shows +evidently that this is the country of Colchis and the golden fleece is a +proof of it. It is a pity that things have changed so much for +Mingrelia; that beautiful country, so famous for the loves of Medea and +Jason, now produces gold and Bdellium no more than bulls which vomit +fire and flame, and dragons which guard the fleece. Everything changes +in this world; and if we do not skilfully cultivate our lands, and if +the state remain always in debt, we shall become a second Mingrelia. + + + + +BEARD. + + +Certain naturalists assure us that the secretion which produces the +beard is the same as that which perpetuates mankind. An entire +hemisphere testifies against this fraternal union. The Americans, of +whatever country, color, or stature they may be, have neither beards on +their chins, nor any hair on their bodies, except their eyebrows and the +hair of their heads, I have legal attestations of official men who have +lived, conversed, and combated with thirty nations of South America, and +they attest that they have never seen a hair on their bodies; and they +laugh, as they well may, at writers who, copying one another, say that +the Americans are only without hair because they pull it out with +pincers; as if Christopher Columbus, Fernando Cortes, and the other +adventurers had loaded themselves with the little tweezers with which +our ladies remove their superfluous hairs, and had distributed them in +all the countries of America. + +I believed for a long time that the Esquimaux were excepted from the +general laws of the new world; but I am assured that they are as free +from hair as the others. However, they have children in Chile, Peru, and +Canada, as well as in our bearded continent. There is, then, a specific +difference between these bipeds and ourselves, in the same way as their +lions, which are divested of the mane, and in other respects differ from +the lions of Africa. + +It is to be remarked that the Orientals have never varied in their +consideration for the beard. Marriage among them has always existed, and +that period is still the epoch of life from which they no longer shave +the beard. The long dress and the beard impose respect. The Westerns +have always been changing the fashion of the chin. Mustaches were worn +under Louis XIV. towards the year 1672. Under Louis XIII. a little +pointed beard prevailed. In the time of Henry IV. it was square. Charles +V., Julius II., and Francis I. restored the large beard to honor in +their courts, which had been a long time in fashion. Gownsmen, through +gravity and respect for the customs of their fathers, shaved themselves; +while the courtiers, in doublets and little mantles, wore their beards +as long as they could. When a king in those days sent a lawyer as an +ambassador, his comrades would laugh at him if he suffered his beard to +grow, besides mocking him in the chamber of accounts or of +requests,--But quite enough upon beards. + + + + +BEASTS. + + +What a pity and what a poverty of spirit to assert that beasts are +machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which effect all their +operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, etc. + +What is this bird, who makes its nest in a semicircle when he attaches +it to a wall; and in a circle on a tree--this bird does all in the same +blind manner! The hound, which you have disciplined for three months, +does he not know more at the end of this time than he did before? Does +the canary, to which you play an air, repeat ft directly? Do you not +employ a considerable time in teaching it? Have you not seen that he +sometimes mistakes it, and that be corrects himself? + +Is it because I speak to you that you judge I have sentiment, memory, +and ideas? Well, suppose I do not speak to you; you see me enter my room +with an afflicted air, I seek a paper with disquietude, I open the +bureau in which I recollect to have shut it, I hid it and read it with +joy. You pronounce that I have felt the sentiment of affliction and of +joy; that I have memory and knowledge. + +Extend the same judgment to the dog who has lost his master, who has +sought hum everywhere with grievous cries, and who enters the house +agitated and restless, goes upstairs and down, from room to room, and at +last finds in the closet the master whom he loves, and testifies his joy +by the gentleness of his cries, by his leaps and his caresses. + +Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in +friendship, they nail him to a table and dissect him living to show the +mesenteric veins. You discover in him the same organs of sentiment which +are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the +springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he +nerves, and is he incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this +impertinent contradiction in mature. + +But the masters of this school ask, what is the soul of beasts? I do not +understand tins question. A tree has the faculty of receiving in its +fibres the sap which circulates, of evolving its buds, its leaves, and +its fruits. You will ask me what is the soul of this tree? It has +received these gifts. The animal has received those of sentiment, +memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts; who +has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to +grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun. + +The souls of beasts are _substantial forms_, says Aristotle; and after +Aristotle, the Arabian school; and after the Arabian school, the +Angelical school; and after the Angelical school, the Sorbonne; and +after the Sorbonne, every one in the world. + +The souls of beasts are material, exclaim other philosophers. These have +not been more fortunate than the former. They are in vain asked what is +a material soul? They say that it is a matter which has sensation; but +who has given it this sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say, +it is composed of a matter which gives sensation to matter. They cannot +get out of this circle. + +Listen to one kind of beasts reasoning upon another; their soul is a +spiritual being, which dies with the body; but what proof have you of +it? What idea have you of this spiritual being, which has sentiment, +memory, and its share of ideas and combinations, but which can never +tell what made a child of six years old? On what ground do you imagine +that this being, which is not corporeal, perishes with the body? The +greatest beasts are those who have suggested that this soul is neither +body nor spiritan excellent system! We can only understand by spirit +something unknown, which is not body. Thus the system of these gentlemen +amounts to this, that the soul of beasts is a substance which is neither +body, nor something which is not body. Whence can proceed so many +contradictory errors? From the custom which men have of examining what a +thing is before they know whether it exists. They call the speech the +effect of a breath of mind, the soul of a sigh. What is the soul? It is +a name which I have given to this valve which rises and falls, which +lets the air in, relieves itself, and sends it through a pipe when I +move the lungs. + +There is not, then, a soul distinct from the machine. But what moves the +lungs of animals? I have already said, the power that moves the stars. +The philosopher who said, _"Deus est animâ brutorum."_--God is the soul +of the brutes--is right; but he should have gone much further. + + + + +BEAUTIFUL (THE). + + +Since we have quoted Plato on love, why should we not quote him on "the +beautiful," since beauty causes love. It is curious to know how a Greek +spoke of the beautiful more than two thousand years since. + +"The man initiated into the sacred mysteries, when he sees a beautiful +face accompanied by a divine form, a something more than mortal, feels a +secret emotion, and I know not what respectful fear. He regards this +figure as a divinity.... When the influence of beauty enters into his +soul by his eyes he burns; the wings of his soul are bedewed; they lose +the hardness which retains their germs and liquefy themselves; these +germs, swelling beneath the roots of its wings, they expand from every +part of the soul (for soul had wings formerly)," etc. + +I am willing to believe that nothing is finer than this discourse of the +divine Plato; but it does not give us very clear ideas of the nature of +the beautiful. + +Ask a toad what is beauty--the great beauty _To Kalon_; he will answer +that it is the female with two great round eyes coming out of her little +head, her large flat mouth, her yellow belly, and brown back. Ask a +negro of Guinea; beauty is to him a black, oily skin, sunken eyes, and a +flat nose. Ask the devil; he will tell you that the beautiful consists +in a pair of horns, four claws, and a tail. Then consult the +philosophers; they will answer you with jargon; they must have something +conformable to the archetype of the essence of the beautiful--to the _To +Kalon_. + +I was once attending a tragedy near a philosopher. "How beautiful that +is," said he. "What do you find beautiful?" asked I. "It is," said he, +"that the author has attained his object." The next day he took his +medicine, which did him some good. "It has attained its object," cried I +to him; "it is a beautiful medicine." He comprehended that it could not +be said that a medicine is beautiful, and that to apply to anything +the epithet beautiful it must cause admiration and pleasure. He admitted +that the tragedy had inspired him with these two sentiments, and that it +was the _To Kalon_, the beautiful. + +We made a journey to England. The same piece was played, and, although +ably translated, it made all the spectators yawn. "Oh, oh!" said he, +"the _To Kalon_ is not the same with the English as with the French." He +concluded after many reflections that "the beautiful" is often merely +relative, as that which is decent at Japan is indecent at Rome; and that +which is the fashion at Paris is not so at Pekin; and he was thereby +spared the trouble of composing a long treatise on the beautiful. + +[Illustration: A beautiful face accompanied by a divine form.] + +There are actions which the whole world considers fine. A challenge +passed between two of Cæsar's officers, mortal enemies, not to shed each +other's blood behind a thicket by tierce and quarte, as among us, but to +decide which of them would best defend the camp of the Romans, about to +be attacked by the barbarians. One of the two, after having repulsed the +enemy, was near falling; the other flew to his assistance, saved his +life, and gained the victory. A friend devotes himself to death for his +friend, a son for his father. The Algonquin, the French, the Chinese, +will mutually say that all this is very beautiful, that such actions +give them pleasure, and that they admire them. + +They will say the same of great moral maxims; of that of Zoroaster: "If +in doubt that an action be just, desist;" of that of Confucius: "Forget +injuries; never forget benefits." + +The negro, with round eyes and flattened nose, who would not give the +ladies of our court the name of beautiful, would give it without +hesitation to these actions and these maxims. Even the wicked man +recognizes the beauty of the virtues which he cannot imitate. The +beautiful, which only strikes the senses, the imagination, and what is +called the spirit, is then often uncertain; the beauty which strikes the +heart is not. You will find a number of people who will tell you they +have found nothing beautiful in three-fourths of the "Iliad"; but nobody +will deny that the devotion of Codrus for his people was fine, supposing +it was true. + +Brother Attinet, a Jesuit, a native of Dijon, was employed as designer +in the country house of the Emperor Camhi, at the distance of some +leagues from Pekin. + +"This country house," says he, in one of his letters to M. Dupont, "is +larger than the town of Dijon. It is divided into a thousand habitations +on one line; each one has its courts, its parterres, its gardens, and +its waters; the front of each is ornamented with gold varnish and +paintings. In the vast enclosures of the park, hills have been raised by +hand from twenty to sixty feet high. The valleys are watered by an +infinite number of canals, which run a considerable distance to join and +form lakes and seas. We float on these seas in boats varnished and +gilt, from twelve to thirteen fathoms long and four wide. These barks +have magnificent saloons, and the borders of the canals are covered with +houses, all in different tastes. Every house has its gardens and +cascades. You go from one valley to another by alleys, alternately +ornamented with pavilions and grottoes. No two valleys are alike; the +largest of all is surrounded by a colonnade, behind which are gilded +buildings. All the apartments of these houses correspond in magnificence +with the outside. All the canals have bridges at stated distances; these +bridges are bordered with balustrades of white marble sculptured in +basso-relievo. + +"In the middle of the great sea is raised a rock, and on this rock is a +square pavilion, in which are more than a hundred apartments. From this +square pavilion there is a view of all the palaces, all the houses, and +all the gardens of this immense enclosure, and there are more than four +hundred of them. + +"When the emperor gives a fête all these buildings are illuminated in an +instant, and from every house there are fireworks. + +"This is not all; at the end of what they call the sea is a great fair, +held by the emperor's officers. Vessels come from the great sea to +arrive at this fair. The courtiers disguise themselves as merchants and +artificers of all sorts; one keeps a coffee house, another a tavern; one +takes the profession of a thief, another that of the officer who +pursues him. The emperor and all the ladies of the court come to buy +stuffs, the false merchants cheat them as much as they can; they tell +them that it is shameful to dispute so much about the price, and that +they are poor customers. Their majesties reply that the merchants are +knaves; the latter are angry and affect to depart; they are appeased; +the emperor buys all and makes lotteries of it for all his court. +Farther on are spectacles of all sorts." + +When brother Attinet came from China to Versailles he found it small and +dull. The Germans, who were delighted to stroll about its groves, were +astonished that brother Attinet was so difficult. This is another reason +which determines me not to write a treatise on the beautiful. + + + + +BEES. + + +The bees may be regarded as superior to the human race in this, that +from their own substance they produce another which is useful; while, of +all our secretions, there is not one good for anything; nay, there is +not one which does not render mankind disagreeable. + +I have been charmed to find that the swarms which turn out of the hive +are much milder than our sons when they leave college. The young bees +then sting no one; or at least but rarely and in extraordinary cases. +They suffer themselves to be carried quietly in the bare hand to the +hive which is destined for them. But no sooner have they learned in +their new habitation to know their interests than they become like us +and make war. I have seen very peaceable bees go for six months to labor +in a neighboring meadow covered with flowers which secreted them. When +the mowers came they rushed furiously from their hive upon those who +were about to steal their property and put them to flight. + +We find in the Proverbs attributed to Solomon that "there are four +things, the least upon earth, but which are wiser than the wise men--the +ants, a little people who lay up food during the harvest; the hares, a +weak people who lie on stones; the grasshoppers, who have no kings and +who journey in flocks; and the lizards, which work with their hands and +dwell in the palaces of kings." I know not how Solomon forgot the bees, +whose instinct seems very superior to that of hares, which do not lie on +stone; or of lizards, with whose genius I am not acquainted. Moreover, I +shall always prefer a bee to a grasshopper. + +The bees have, in all ages, furnished the poet with descriptions, +comparisons, allegories, and fables. Mandeville's celebrated "Fable of +the Bees" made a great noise in England. Here is a short sketch of it: + + Once the bees, in worldly things, + Had a happy government; + And their laborers and their kings + Made them wealthy and content; + But some greedy drones at last + Found their way into their hive; + Those, in idleness to thrive, + Told the bees they ought to fast. + Sermons were _their_ only labors; + Work they preached unto their neighbors. + In their language they would say, + "You shall surely go to heaven, + When to us you've freely given + Wax and honey all away."-- + Foolishly the bees believed, + Till by famine undeceived; + When their misery was complete, + All the strange delusion vanished! + Now the drones are killed or banished, + And the bees again may eat. + +Mandeville goes much further; he asserts that bees cannot live at their +ease in a great and powerful hive without many vices. "No kingdom, no +state," says he, "can flourish without vices. Take away the vanity of +ladies of quality, and there will be no more fine manufactures of silk, +no more employment for men and women in a thousand different branches; a +great part of the nation will be reduced to beggary. Take away the +avarice of our merchants, and the fleets of England will be annihilated. +Deprive artists of envy, and emulation will cease; we shall sink back +into primitive rudeness and ignorance." + +It is quite true that a well-governed society turns every vice to +account; but it is not true that these vices are necessary to the +well-being of the world. Very good remedies may be made from poisons, +but poisons do not contribute to the support of life. By thus reducing +the "Fable of the Bees" to its just value, it might be made a work of +moral utility. + + + + +BEGGAR--MENDICANT + + +Every country where begging, where mendicity, is a profession, is ill +governed. Beggary, as I have elsewhere said, is a vermin that clings to +opulence. Yes; but let it be shaken off; let the hospitals be for +sickness and age alone, and let the shops be for the young and vigorous. + +The following is an extract from a sermon composed by a preacher ten +years ago for the parish of St. Leu and St. Giles, which is the parish +of the beggars and the convulsionaries: "_Pauper es +evangelicantur_"--"the gospel is preached to the poor." + +"My dear brethren the beggars, what is meant by the word _gospel_? It +signifies _good news_. It is, then, good news that I come to tell you; +and what is it? It is that if you are idlers you will die on a +dung-hill. Know that there have been idle kings, so at least we are +told, and they at last had not where to lay their heads. If you work, +you will be as happy as other men. + +"The preachers at St. Eustache and St. Roche may deliver to the rich +very fine sermons in a flowery style, which procure for the auditors a +light slumber with an easy digestion, and for the orator a thousand +crowns; but I address those whom hunger keeps awake. Work for your +bread, I say; for the Scripture says that he who does not work deserves +not to eat. Our brother in adversity, Job, who was for some time in your +condition, says that man is born to labor as the bird is to fly. Look +at this immense city; every one is busy; the judges rise at four in the +morning to administer justice to you and send you to the galleys when +your idleness has caused you to thieve rather awkwardly. + +"The king works; he attends his council every day; and he has made +campaigns. Perhaps you will say he is none the richer. Granted; but that +is not his fault. The financiers know, better than you or I do, that not +one-half his revenue ever enters his coffers. He has been obliged to +sell his plate in order to defend us against our enemies. We should aid +him in our turn. The Friend of Man (_l'Ami des Hommes_) allows him only +seventy-five millions per annum. Another friend all at once gives him +seven hundred and forty. But of all these Job's comforters, not one will +advance him a single crown. It is necessary to invent a thousand +ingenious ways of drawing this crown from our pockets, which, before it +reaches his own, is diminished by at least one-half. + +"Work, then, my dear brethren; act for yourselves, for I forewarn you +that if you do not take care of yourselves, no one will take care of +you; you will be treated as the king has been in several grave +remonstrances; people will say, 'God help you.' + +"We will go into the provinces, you will answer; we skill be fed by the +lords of the land, by the farmers, by the curates. Do not flatter +yourselves, my dear brethren, that you shall eat at their tables; they +have for the most part enough to do to feed themselves, notwithstanding +the 'Method of Rapidly Getting Rich by Agriculture' and fifty other +works of the same kind, published every day at Paris for the use of the +people in the country, with the cultivation of which the authors never +had anything to do. + +"I behold among you young men of some talent, who say that they will +make verses, that they will write pamphlets, like Chisiac, Normotte, or +Patouillet; that they will work for the _'Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques'_ +that they will write sheets for Fréron, funeral orations for bishops, +songs for the comic opera. Any of these would at least be an occupation. +When a man is writing for the _'Année Littéraire,'_ he is not robbing on +the highway, he is only robbing his creditors. But do better, my dear +brethren in Jesus Christ--my dear beggars, who, by passing your lives in +asking charity, run the risk of the galleys; do better; enter one of the +four mendicant orders; you will then be not only rich, but honored +also." + + + + +BEKKER, + +"THE WORLD BEWITCHED," THE DEVIL, THE BOOK OF ENOCH, AND SORCERERS. + + +This Balthazar Bekker, a very good man, a great enemy of the everlasting +hell and the devil, and a still greater of precision, made a great deal +of noise in his time by his great book, "The World Bewitched." + +One Jacques-George de Chaufepied, a pretended continuator of Bayle, +assures us that Bekker learned Greek at Gascoigne. Niceron has good +reasons for believing that it was at Franeker. This historical point has +occasioned much doubt and trouble at court. + +The fact is that in the time of Bekker, a minister of the Holy +Gospel--as they say in Holland--the devil was still in prodigious credit +among divines of all sorts in the middle of the seventeenth century, in +spite of the good spirits which were beginning to enlighten the world. +Witchcraft, possessions, and everything else attached to that fine +divinity, were in vogue throughout Europe and frequently had fatal +results. + +A century had scarcely elapsed since King James himself--called by Henry +IV. _Master_ James--that great enemy of the Roman communion and the +papal power, had published his "Demonology" (what a book for a king!) +and in it had admitted sorceries, incubuses, and succubuses, and +acknowledged the power of the devil, and of the pope, who, according to +him, had just as good a right to drive Satan from the bodies of the +possessed as any other priest. And we, miserable Frenchmen, who boast of +having recovered some small part of our senses, in what a horrid sink of +stupid barbarism were we then immersed! Not a parliament, not a +presidential court, but was occupied in trying sorcerers; not a great +jurisconsult who did not write memorials on possessions by the devil. +France resounded with the cries of poor imbecile creatures whom the +judges, after making them believe that they had danced round a cauldron, +tortured and put to death without pity, in horrible torments. Catholics +and Protestants were alike infected with this absurd and frightful +superstition; the pretext being that in one of the Christian gospels it +is said that disciples were sent to cast out devils. It was a sacred +duty to put girls to the torture in order to make them confess that they +had lain with Satan, and that they had fallen in love with him in the +form of a goat. All the particulars of the meetings of the girls with +this goat were detailed in the trials of the unfortunate individuals. +They were burned at last, whether they confessed or denied; and France +was one vast theatre of judicial carnage. + +I have before me a collection of these infernal proceedings, made by a +counsellor of the Parliament of Bordeaux, named De Langre, and addressed +to Monseigneur Silleri, chancellor of France, without Monseigneur +Silleri's having ever thought of enlightening those infamous +magistrates. But, indeed, it would have been necessary to begin by +enlightening the chancellor himself. What was France at that time? A +continual St. Bartholomew--from the massacre of Vassy to the +assassination of Marshal d'Ancre and his innocent wife. + +Will it be believed that in the time of this very Bekker, a poor girl +named Magdalen Chaudron, who had been persuaded that she was a witch, +was burned at Geneva? + +The following is a very exact summary of the procès-verbal of this +absurd and horrid act, which is not the last monument of the kind: + +"Michelle, having met the devil as she was going out of the town, the +devil gave her a kiss, received her homage, and imprinted on her upper +lip and her right breast the mark which it is his custom to affix on all +persons whom he recognizes as his favorites. This seal of the devil is a +small sign-manual, which, as demonological jurisconsults affirm, renders +the skin insensible. + +"The devil ordered Michelle Chaudron to bewitch two girls; and she +immediately obeyed her lord. The relatives of the young women judicially +charged her with devilish practices, and the girls themselves were +interrogated and confronted with the accused. They testified that they +constantly felt a swarming of ants in certain parts of their bodies, and +that they were possessed. The physicians were then called in, or at +least those who then passed as physicians. They visited the girls and +sought on Michelle's body for the devil's seal, which the procès-verbal +calls the _satanic marks_. They thrust a large needle into the spot, and +this of itself was a grievous torture. Blood flowed from the puncture; +and Michelle made known by her cries that satanic marks do not produce +insensibility. The judges, seeing no satisfactory evidence that Michelle +Chaudron was a witch, had her put to the torture, which never fails to +bring forth proofs. The unfortunate girl, yielding at length to the +violence of her tortures, confessed whatever was required of her. + +"The physicians again sought for the satanic mark. They found it in a +small dark spot on one of her thighs. They applied the needle; but the +torture had been so excessive that the poor, expiring creature scarcely +felt the wound; she did not cry out; therefore the crime was +satisfactorily proved. But, as manners were becoming less rude, she was +not burned until she had been hanged." + +Every tribunal in Christian Europe still rings with similar +condemnations; so long did this barbarous imbecility endure, that even +in our own day, at Würzburg, in Franconia, there was a witch burned in +1750. And what a witch! A young woman of quality, the abbess of a +convent! and in our own times, under the empire of Maria Theresa of +Austria! + +These horrors, by which Europe was so long filled, determined Bekker to +fight against the devil. In vain was he told, in prose and verse, that +he was doing wrong to attack him, seeing that he was extremely like him, +being horribly ugly; nothing could stop him. He began with absolutely +denying the power of Satan; and even grew so bold as to maintain that he +does not exist. "If," said he, "there were a devil, he would revenge the +war which I make upon him." + +Bekker reasoned but too well in saying that if the devil existed he +would punish him. His brother ministers took Satan's part and suspended +Bekker; for heretics will also excommunicate; and in the article of +cursing, Geneva mimics Rome. + +Bekker enters on his subject in the second volume. According to him, the +serpent which seduced our first parents was not a devil, but a real +serpent; as Balaam's ass was a real ass, and as the whale that swallowed +Jonah was a real whale. It was so decidedly a real serpent, that all its +species, which had before walked on their feet, were condemned to crawl +on their bellies. No serpent, no animal of any kind, is called Satan, or +Beelzebub, or devil, in the Pentateuch. There is not so much as an +allusion to Satan. The Dutch destroyer of Satan does, indeed, admit the +existence of angels; but at the same time he assures us that it cannot +be proved by reasoning. "And if there are any," says he, in the eighth +chapter of his second volume, "it is hard to say what they are. The +Scripture tells us nothing about their nature, nor in what the nature of +a spirit consists. The Bible was made, not for angels, but for men; +Jesus was made a man for us, not an angel." + +If Bekker has so many scruples concerning angels, it is not to be +wondered at that he has some concerning devils; and it is very amusing +to see into what contortions he puts his mind in order to avail himself +of such texts as appear to be in his favor and to evade such as are +against him. + +He does his utmost to prove that the devil had nothing to do with the +afflictions of Job; and here he is even more prolix than the friends of +that holy man. + +There is great probability that he was condemned only through the +ill-humor of his judges at having lost so much time in reading his work. +If the devil himself had been forced to read Bekker's "World Bewitched" +he could never have forgiven the fault of having so prodigiously wearied +him. + +One of our Dutch divine's greatest difficulties is to explain these +words: "Jesus was transported by the spirit into the desert to be +tempted by the devil." No text can be clearer. A divine may write +against Beelzebub as much as he pleases, but he must of necessity admit +his existence; he may then explain the difficult texts if he can. + +Whoever desires to know precisely what the devil is may be informed by +referring to the Jesuit Scott; no one has spoken of him more at length; +he is much worse than Bekker. + +Consulting history, where the ancient origin of the devil is to be found +in the doctrine of the Persians, Ahrimanes, the bad principle, corrupts +all that the good principle had made salutary. Among the Egyptians, +Typhon does all the harm he can; while Oshireth, whom we call Osiris, +does, together with Isheth, or Isis, all the good of which he is +capable. + +Before the Egyptians and Persians, Mozazor, among the Indians, had +revolted against God and become the devil, but God had at last pardoned +him. If Bekker and the Socinians had known this anecdote of the fall of +the Indian angels and their restoration, they would have availed +themselves of it to support their opinion that hell is not perpetual, +and to give hopes of salvation to such of the damned as read their +books. + +The Jews, as has already been observed, never spoke of the fall of the +angels in the Old Testament; but it is mentioned in the New. + +About the period of the establishment of Christianity a book was +attributed to "Enoch, the seventh man after Adam," concerning the devil +and his associates. Enoch gives us the names of the leaders of the +rebellious and the faithful angels, but he does not say that war was in +heaven; on the contrary, the fight was upon a mountain of the earth, and +it was for the possession of young women. + +St. Jude cites this book in his Epistle: "And the angels, which kept not +their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in +everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great +day.... Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain.... And +Enoch, also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these...." + +St. Peter in his second Epistle alludes to the Book of Enoch when he +says: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down +to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness...." + +Bekker must have found it difficult to resist passages so formal. +However, he was even more inflexible on the subject of devils than on +that of angels; he would not be subdued by the Book of Enoch, the +seventh man from Adam; he maintained that there was no more a devil than +there was a book of Enoch. He said that the devil was imitated from +ancient mythology, that it was an old story revived, and that we are +nothing more than plagiarists. + +We may at the present day be asked why we call that Lucifer the _evil +spirit_, whom the Hebrew version, and the book attributed to Enoch, +named Samyaza. It is because we understand Latin better than Hebrew. + +But whether Lucifer be the planet Venus, or the Samyaza of Enoch, or the +Satan of the Babylonians, or the Mozazor of the Indians, or the Typhon +of the Egyptians, Bekker was right in saying that so enormous a power +ought not to be attributed to him as that with which, even down to our +own times, he has been believed to be invested. It is too much to have +immolated to him a woman of quality of Würzburg, Magdalen Chaudron, the +curate of Gaupidi, the wife of Marshal d'Ancre, and more than a hundred +thousand other wizards and witches, in the space of thirteen hundred +years, in Christian states. Had Belthazar Bekker been content with +paring the devil's nails, he would have been very well received; but +when a curate would annihilate the devil he loses his cure. + + + + +BELIEF. + + +We shall see at the article "Certainty" that we ought often to be very +uncertain of what we are certain of; and that we may fail in good sense +when deciding according to what is called _common_ sense. But what is it +that we call _believing_? + +A Turk comes and says to me, "I believe that the angel Gabriel often +descended from the empyrean, to bring Mahomet leaves of the Koran, +written on blue vellum." + +Well, Mustapha, and on what does thy shaven head found its belief of +this incredible thing? + +"On this: That there are the greatest probabilities that I have not been +deceived in the relation of these improbable prodigies; that Abubeker, +the father-in-law, Ali, the son-in-law, Aisha, or Aisse, the daughter, +Omar, and Osman, certified the truth of the fact in the presence of +fifty thousand men--gathered together all the leaves, read them to the +faithful, and attested that not a word had been altered. + +"That we have never had but one Koran, which has never been contradicted +by another Koran. That God has never permitted the least alteration to +be made in this book. + +"That its doctrine and precepts are the perfection of reason. Its +doctrine consists in the unity of God, for Whom we must live and die; in +the immortality of the soul; the eternal rewards of the just and +punishments of the wicked; and the mission of our great prophet +Mahomet, proved by victories. + +"Its precepts are: To be just and valiant; to give alms to the poor; to +abstain from that enormous number of women whom the Eastern princes, and +in particular the petty Jewish kings, took to themselves without +scruple; to renounce the good wines of Engaddi and Tadmor, which those +drunken Hebrews have so praised in their books; to pray to God five +times a day, etc. + +"This sublime religion has been confirmed by the miracle of all others +the finest, the most constant, and best verified in the history of the +world; that Mahomet, persecuted by the gross and absurd scholastic +magistrates who decreed his arrest, and obliged to quit his country, +returned victorious; that he made his imbecile and sanguinary enemies +his footstool; that he all his life fought the battles of the Lord; that +with a small number he always triumphed over the greater number; that he +and his successors have converted one-half of the earth; and that, with +God's help, we shall one day convert the other half." + +Nothing can be arrayed in more dazzling colors. Yet Mustapha, while +believing so firmly, always feels some small shadows of doubt arising in +his soul when he hears any difficulties started respecting the visits of +the angel Gabriel; the sura or chapter brought from heaven to declare +that the great prophet was not a cuckold; or the mare Borak, which +carried him in one night from Mecca to Jerusalem. Mustapha stammers; he +makes very bad answers, at which he blushes; yet he not only tells you +that he believes, but would also persuade you to believe. You press +Mustapha; he still gapes and stares, and at last goes away to wash +himself in honor of Allah, beginning his ablution at the elbow and +ending with the forefinger. + +Is Mustapha really persuaded--convinced of all that he has told us? Is +he perfectly sure that Mahomet was sent by God, as he is sure that the +city of Stamboul exists? as he is sure that the Empress Catherine II. +sent a fleet from the remotest seas of the North to land troops in +Peloponnesus--a thing as astonishing as the journey from Mecca to +Jerusalem in one night--and that this fleet destroyed that of the +Ottomans in the Dardanelles? + +The truth is that Mustapha believes what he does not believe. He has +been accustomed to pronounce, with his mollah, certain words which he +takes for ideas. To _believe_ is very often to _doubt_. + +"Why do you believe that?" says Harpagon. "I believe it because I +believe it," answers Master Jacques; and most men might return the same +answer. + +Believe me fully, my dear reader, when I say one must not believe too +easily. But what shall we say of those who would persuade others of what +they themselves do not believe? and what of the monsters who persecute +their brethren in the humble and rational doctrine of doubt and +self-distrust? + + + + +BETHSHEMESH. + +_Of the Fifty Thousand and Seventy Jews Struck with Sudden Death for +Having Looked Upon the Ark; of the Five Golden Emeroids Paid by the +Philistines; and of Dr. Kennicott's Incredulity._ + + +Men of the world will perhaps be astonished to find this word the +subject of an article; but we here address only the learned and ask +their instruction. + +Bethshemesh was a village belonging to God's people, situated, according +to commentators, two miles north of Jerusalem. The PhÅ“nicians having, +in Samuel's time, beaten the Jews, and taken from them their Ark of +alliance in the battle, in which they killed thirty thousand of their +men, were severely punished for it by the Lord: + +_"Percussit eos in secretiori parte natium, et ebullierunt villæ et +agri.... et nati sunt mures, et facta est confusio mortis magna in +civitate."_ Literally: "He struck them in the most secret part of the +buttocks; and the fields and the farmhouses were troubled.... and there +sprung up mice; and there was a great confusion of death in the city." + +The prophets of the PhÅ“nicians, or Philistines, having informed them +that they could deliver themselves from the scourge only by giving to +the Lord five golden mice and five golden emeroids, and sending him back +the Jewish Ark, they fulfilled this order, and, according to the express +command of their prophets sent back the Ark with the mice and emeroids +on a wagon drawn by two cows, with each a sucking calf and without a +driver. + +These two cows of themselves took the Ark straight to Bethshemesh. The +men of Bethshemesh approached the Ark in order to look at it, which +liberty was punished yet more severely than the profanation by the +PhÅ“nicians had been. The Lord struck with sudden death seventy men of +the people, and fifty thousand of the populace. + +The reverend Doctor Kennicott, an Irishman, printed in 1768 a French +commentary on this occurrence and dedicated it to the bishop of Oxford. +At the head of this commentary he entitles himself Doctor of Divinity, +member of the Royal Society of London, of the Palatine Academy, of the +Academy of Göttingen, and of the Academy of Inscriptions at Paris. All +that I know of the matter is that he is not of the Academy of +Inscriptions at Paris. Perhaps he is one of its correspondents. His vast +erudition may have deceived him, but titles are distinct from things. + +He informs the public that his pamphlet is sold at Paris by Saillant and +Molini, at Rome by Monaldini, at Venice by Pasquali, at Florence by +Cambiagi, at Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey, at The Hague by Gosse, at +Leyden by Jaquau, and in London by Beckett, who receives subscriptions. + +In this pamphlet he pretends to prove that the Scripture text has been +corrupted. Here we must be permitted to differ with him. Nearly all +Bibles agree in these expressions: seventy men of the people and fifty +thousand of the populace--_"De populo septuaginta viros, et quinquaginta +millia plebis."_ The reverend Doctor Kennicott says to the right +reverend the lord bishop of Oxford that formerly there were strong +prejudices in favor of the Hebrew text, but that for seventeen years his +lordship and himself have been freed from their prejudices, after the +deliberate and attentive perusal of this chapter. + +In this we differ from Dr. Kennicott, and the more we read this chapter +the more we reverence the ways of the Lord, which are not our ways. It +is impossible, says Kennicott, for the candid reader not to feel +astonished and affected at the contemplation of fifty thousand men +destroyed in one village--men, too, employed in gathering the harvest. + +This does, it is true, suppose a hundred thousand persons, at least, in +that village, but should the doctor forget that the Lord had promised +Abraham that his posterity should be as numerous as the sands of the +sea? + +The Jews and the Christians, adds he, have not scrupled to express their +repugnance to attach faith to this destruction of fifty thousand and +seventy men. + +We answer that we are Christians and have no repugnance to attach faith +to whatever is in the Holy Scriptures. We answer, with the reverend +Father Calmet, that "if we were to reject whatever is extraordinary and +beyond the reach of our conception we must reject the whole Bible." We +are persuaded that the Jews, being under the guidance of God himself, +could experience no events but such as were stamped with the seal of the +Divinity and quite different from what happened to other men. We will +even venture to advance that the death of these fifty thousand and +seventy men is one of the least surprising things in the Old Testament. + +We are struck with astonishment still more reverential when Eve's +serpent and Balaam's ass talk; when the waters of the cataracts are +swelled by rain fifteen cubits above all the mountains; when we behold +the plagues of Egypt, and the six hundred and thirty thousand fighting +Jews flying on foot through the divided and suspended sea; when Joshua +stops the sun and moon at noonday; when Samson slays a thousand +Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass.... In those divine times all +was miracle, without exception, and we have the profoundest reverence +for all these miracles--for that ancient world which was not our world; +for that nature which was not our nature; for a divine book, in which +there can be nothing human. + +But we are astonished at the liberty which Dr. Kennicott takes of +calling those deists and atheists, who, while they revere the Bible more +than he does, differ from him in opinion. Never will it be believed that +a man with such ideas is of the Academy of Medals and Inscriptions. He +is, perhaps, of the Academy of Bedlam, the most ancient of all, and +whose colonies extend throughout the earth. + + + + +BILHAH--BASTARDS + + +Bilhah, servant to Rachel, and Zilpah, servant to Leah, each bore the +patriarch Jacob two children, and, be it observed, that they inherited +like legitimate sons, as well as the eight other male children whom +Jacob had by the two sisters Leah and Rachel. It is true that all their +inheritance consisted in a blessing; whereas, William the Bastard +inherited Normandy. + +Thierri, a bastard of Clovis, inherited the best part of Gaul, invaded +by his father. Several kings of Spain and Naples have been bastards. In +Spain bastards have always inherited. King Henry of Transtamare was not +considered as an illegitimate king, though he was an illegitimate child, +and this race of bastards, founded in the house of Austria, reigned in +Spain until Philip V. + +The line of Aragon, who reigned in Naples in the time of Louis XII., +were bastards. Count de Dunois signed himself "the bastard of Orleans," +and letters were long preserved of the duke of Normandy, king of +England, which were signed "William the Bastard." + +In Germany it is otherwise; the descent must be pure; bastards never +inherit fiefs, nor have any estate. In France, as has long been the +case, a king's bastard cannot be a priest without a dispensation from +Rome, but he becomes a prince without any difficulty as soon as the king +acknowledges him to be the offspring of his sire, even though he be the +bastard of an adulterous father and mother. It is the same in Spain. The +bastard of a king of England may be a duke but not a prince. Jacob's +bastards were neither princes nor dukes; they had no lands, the reason +being that their father had none, but they were afterwards called +_patriarchs_, which may be rendered _arch-fathers_. + +It has been asked whether the bastards of the popes might be popes in +turn. Pope John XI. was, it is true, a bastard of Pope Sergius III., and +of the famous Marozia; but an instance is not a law. + + + + +BISHOP. + + +Samuel Ornik, a native of Basle, was, as is well known, a very amiable +young man, who, moreover, knew his German and Greek New Testament by +heart. At the age of twenty his parents sent him to travel. He was +commissioned to carry books to the coadjutor at Paris in the time of the +Fronde. He arrived at the archbishop's gate and was told by the Swiss +that _monseigneur_ saw no one. "My dear fellow," said Ornik, "you are +very rude to your countrymen; the apostles allowed every one to +approach, and Jesus Christ desired that little children should come unto +him. I have nothing to ask of your master; on the contrary, I bring him +something." "Enter, then," said the Swiss. + +He waited an hour in the first ante-chamber. Being quite artless he +attacked with questions a domestic who was very fond of telling all he +knew about his master. "He must be pretty rich," said Ornik, "to have +such a swarm of pages and footmen running in and out of the house." "I +don't know," answered the other, "what his income is, but I hear Joli +and the Abbé Charier say that he is two millions in debt." "But who is +that lady who came out of a cabinet and is passing by?" "That is Madame +de Pomereu, one of his mistresses." "She is really very pretty, but I +have not read that the apostles had such company in their bedchambers in +a morning." "Ah! that, I believe, is monsieur, about to give audience." +"Say _sa grandeur, monseigneur_." "Well, with all my heart...." Ornik +saluted _sa grandeur_, presented his books, and was received with a most +gracious smile. _Sa grandeur_ said three words to him, and stepped into +his carriage, escorted by fifty horsemen. In stepping in, monseigneur +dropped a sheath and Ornik was astonished that monseigneur should carry +so large an inkhorn. "Do you not see," said the talker, "that it is his +dagger? every one that goes to parliament wears his dagger?" Ornik +uttered an exclamation of astonishment, and departed. + +He went through France and was edified by town after town. From thence +he passed into Italy. In the papal territories he met a bishop with an +income of only a thousand crowns, who went on foot. Ornik, being +naturally kind, offered him a place in his cambiatura. "Signor, you are +no doubt going to comfort the sick?" "Sir, I am going to my master." +"Your master? He, no doubt, is Jesus Christ." "Sir, he is Cardinal +Azolino; I am his almoner. He gives me a very poor salary, but he has +promised to place me with Donna Olimpia, the favorite sister-in-law of +_nostro signore_." "What! are you in the pay of a cardinal? But do you +not know that there were no cardinals in the time of Jesus Christ and +St. John?" "Is it possible!" exclaimed the Italian prelate. "Nothing is +more true; you have read it in the Gospel." "I have never read it," +replied the bishop; "I know only the office of Our Lady." "I tell you +there were neither cardinals nor bishops, and when there were bishops +the priests were almost their equals, as St. Jerome, in several places, +assures us." "Holy Virgin" said the Italian, "I knew nothing about it; +and what of the popes?" "There were no popes either." The good bishop +crossed himself, thinking he was with the evil one, and leaped from the +side of his companion. + + + + +BLASPHEMY. + + +This is a Greek word signifying _an attack on reputation_. We find +blasphemia in Demosthenes. In the Greek Church it was used only to +express an injury done to God. The Romans never made use of this +expression, apparently not thinking that God's honor could be offended +like that of men. + +There scarcely exists one synonym. Blasphemy does not altogether convey +the idea of sacrilege. We say of a man who has taken God's name in +vain, who, in the violence of anger, has sworn--as it is expressed--by +the name of God, that he has _blasphemed_; but we do not say that he has +committed sacrilege. The sacrilegious man is he who perjures himself on +the gospel, who extends his rapacity to sacred things, who imbrues his +hands in the blood of priests. + +Great sacrileges have always been punished with death in all nations, +especially those accompanied by bloodshed. The author of the +_"Institutes au Droit Criminel"_ reckons among divine high treasons in +the second degree, the non-observance of Sundays and holidays. He should +have said the non-observance attended with marked contempt, for simple +negligence is a sin, but not, as he calls it, a sacrilege. It is absurd +to class together, as this author does, simony, the carrying off of a +nun, and the forgetting to go to vespers on a holiday. It is one great +instance of the errors committed by writers on jurisprudence, who, not +having been called upon to make laws, take upon themselves to interpret +those of the state. + +Blasphemies uttered in intoxication, in anger, in the excess of +debauchery, or in the heat of unguarded conversation have been subjected +by legislators to much lighter penalties. For instance, the advocate +whom we have already cited says that the laws of France condemn simple +blasphemers to a fine for the first offence, which is doubled for the +second, tripled for the third, and quadrupled for the fourth offence; +for the fifth relapse the culprit is set in the pillory, for the sixth +relapse he is pilloried, and has his upper lip burned off with a hot +iron, and for the seventh he loses his tongue. He should have added that +this was an ordinance of the year 1666. + +Punishments are almost always arbitrary, which is a great defect in +jurisprudence. But this defect opens the way for clemency and +compassion, and this compassion is no other than the strictest justice, +for it would be horrible to punish a youthful indiscretion as poisoners +and parricides are punished. A sentence of death for an offence which +deserves nothing more than correction is no other than an assassination +committed with the sword of justice. + +Is it not to the purpose here to remark that what has been blasphemy in +one country has often been piety in another? + +Suppose a Tyrian merchant landed at the port of Canope: he might be +scandalized on seeing an onion, a cat, or a goat carried in procession; +he might speak indecorously of Isheth, Oshireth, and Horeth, or might +turn aside his head and not fall on his knees at the sight of a +procession with the parts of human generation larger than life; he might +express his opinion at supper, or even sing some song in which the +Tyrian sailors made a jest of the Egyptian absurdities. He might be +overheard by the maid of the inn, whose conscience would not suffer her +to conceal so enormous a crime; she would run and denounce the offender +to the nearest shoen that bore the image of the truth on his breast, and +it is known how this image of truth was made. The tribunal of the +shoens, or shotim, would condemn the Tyrian blasphemer to a dreadful +death, and confiscate his vessel. Yet this merchant might be considered +at Tyre as one of the most pious persons in PhÅ“nicia. + +Numa sees that his little horde of Romans is a Collection of Latin +freebooters who steal right and left all they can find--oxen, sheep, +fowls, and girls. He tells them that he has spoken with the nymph Egeria +in a cavern, and that the nymph has been employed by Jupiter to give him +laws. The senators treat him at first as a blasphemer and threaten to +throw him headlong from the Tarpeian rock. Numa makes himself a powerful +party; he gains over some seniors who go with him into Egeria's grotto. +She talks to them and converts them; they convert the senate and the +people. In a little time Numa is no longer a blasphemer, the name is +given only to such as doubt the existence of the nymph. + +In our own times it is unfortunate that what is blasphemy at Rome, at +our Lady of Loretto, and within the walls of San Gennaro, is piety in +London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, Copenhagen, Berne, Basel, and +Hamburg. It is yet more unfortunate that even in the same country, in +the same town, in the same street, people treat one another as +blasphemers. + +Nay, of the ten thousand Jews living at Rome there is not one who does +not regard the pope as the chief of the blasphemers, while the hundred +thousand Christians who inhabit Rome, in place of two millions of +Jovians who filled it in Trajan's time, firmly believe that the Jews +meet in their synagogues on Saturday for the purpose of blaspheming. + +A Cordelier has no hesitation in applying the epithet of blasphemer to a +Dominican who says that the Holy Virgin was born in original sin, +notwithstanding that the Dominicans have a bull from the pope which +permits them to teach the maculate conception in their convents, and +that, besides this bull, they have in their forum the express +declaration of St. Thomas Aquinas. + +The first origin of the schism of three-fourths of Switzerland and a +part of Lower Germany was a quarrel in the cathedral church of Frankfort +between a Cordelier, whose name I forget, and a Dominican named Vigand. + +Both were drunk, according to the custom of that day. The drunken +Cordelier, who was preaching, thanked God that he was not a Jacobin, +swearing that it was necessary to exterminate the blaspheming Jacobins +who believed that the Holy Virgin had been born in mortal sin, and +delivered from sin only by the merits of her son. The drunken Jacobin +cried out: "Thou hast lied; thou thyself art a blasphemer." The +Cordelier descended from the pulpit with a great iron crucifix in his +hand, laid it about his adversary, and left him almost dead on the spot. + +To revenge this outrage the Dominicans worked many miracles in Germany +and Switzerland; these miracles were designed to prove their faith. +They at length found means to imprint the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ +on one of their lay brethren named Jetzer. This operation was performed +at Berne by the Holy Virgin herself, but she borrowed the hand of the +sub-prior, who dressed himself in female attire and put a glory round +his head. The poor little lay brother, exposed all bloody to the +veneration of the people on the altar of the Dominicans at Berne, at +last cried out murder! sacrilege! The monks, in order to quiet him as +quickly as possible administered to him a host sprinkled with corrosive +sublimate, but the excess of the dose made him discharge the host from +his stomach. + +The monks then accused him to the bishop of Lausanne of horrible +sacrilege. The indignant people of Berne in their turn accused the +monks, and four of them were burned at Berne on the 13th of May, 1509, +at the Marsilly gate. Such was the termination of this abominable +affair, which determined the people of Berne to choose a religion, bad +indeed in Catholic eyes, but which delivered them from the Cordeliers +and the Jacobins. The number of similar sacrileges is incredible. Such +are the effects of party spirit. + +The Jesuits maintained for a hundred years that the Jansenists were +blasphemers, and proved it by a thousand _lettres-de-cachet_; the +Jansenists by upwards of four thousand volumes demonstrated that it was +the Jesuits who blasphemed. The writer of the _"Gazettes +Ecclésiastiques"_ pretends that all honest men blaspheme against him, +while he himself blasphemes from his garret on high against every honest +man in the kingdom. The gazette-writer's publisher blasphemes in return +and complains that he is starving. He would find it better to be honest +and polite. + +One thing equally remarkable and consoling is that never in any country +of the earth, among the wildest idolaters, has any man been considered +as a blasphemer for acknowledging one supreme, eternal, and all-powerful +God. It certainly was not for having acknowledged this truth that +Socrates was condemned to the hemlock, for the doctrine of a Supreme God +was announced in all the Grecian mysteries. It was a faction that +destroyed Socrates; he was accused, at a venture, of not recognizing the +_secondary_ gods, and on this point it was that he was accused as a +blasphemer. + +The first Christians were accused of blasphemy for the same reason, but +the partisans of the ancient religion of the empire, the Jovians, who +reproached the primitive Christians with blasphemy, were at length +condemned as blasphemers themselves, under Theodosius II. Dryden says: + + This side to-day, to-morrow t'other burns, + And they're all Gods Almighty in their turns. + + + + +BODY. + + +Body and matter are here the same thing although there is hardly any +such thing as synonym in the most rigorous sense of the word. There have +been persons who by this word "body" have understood "spirit" also. +They have said spirit originally signifies breath; only a body can +breathe, therefore body and spirit may, after all, be the same thing. In +this sense La Fontaine said to the celebrated Duke de la Rochefoucauld: +_"J'entens les esprits corps et pétris de matière."_ In the same sense +he says to Madame Sablière: + + _Je subtiliserais un morceau de matière,_ + _Quintessence d'atome, extrait de la lumière,_ + _je ne sais quoiplus vif et plus subtil encor...._ + +No one thought of harassing good Monsieur La Fontaine, or bringing him +to trial for his expressions. Were a poor philosopher, or even a poet, +to say as much nowadays, how many would there be to fall on him! How +many scribblers to sell their extracts for sixpence! How many knaves, +for the sole purpose of making mischief, to cry philosopher! +peripatetic! disciple of Gassendi! pupil of Locke, and the primitive +fathers! damnable! + +As we know not what a spirit is, so also we are ignorant of what a body +is; we see various properties, but what is the subject in which those +properties reside? "There is nothing but body," said Democritus and +Epicurus; "there is no such thing as body," said the disciples of Zeno, +of Elia. + +Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne, is the last who, by a hundred captious +sophisms, has pretended to prove that bodies do not exist. They have, +says he, neither color, nor smell, nor heat; all these modalities are +in your sensations, not in the objects. He might have spared himself +the trouble of proving this truth for it was already sufficiently known. +But thence he passed to extent and solidity, which are essential to +body, and thinks he proves that there is no extent in a piece of green +cloth because the cloth is not in reality green, the sensation of green +being in ourselves only, therefore the sensation of extent is likewise +in ourselves only. Having thus destroyed extent he concludes that +solidity, which is attached to it, falls of itself, and therefore that +there is nothing in the world but our ideas. So that, according to this +doctor, ten thousand men killed by ten thousand cannon shots are in +reality nothing more than ten thousand apprehensions of our +understanding, and when a female becomes pregnant it is only one idea +lodged in another idea from which a third idea will be produced. + +Surely, the bishop of Cloyne might have saved himself from falling into +this excessive absurdity. He thinks he shows that there is no extent +because a body has appeared to him four times as large through a glass +as to his naked eye, and four times as small through another glass. +Hence he concludes, that, since a body cannot be at the same time four +feet, sixteen feet, and but one foot in extent, there is no extent, +therefore there is nothing. He had only to take any measure and say: of +whatever extent this body may appear to me to be, it extends to so many +of these measures. + +We might very easily see that extent and solidity were quite different +from sound, color, taste, smell. It is quite clear that these are +sensations excited in us by the configuration of parts, but extent is +not a sensation. When this lighted coal goes out, I am no longer warm; +when the air is no longer struck, I cease to hear; when this rose +withers, I no longer smell it: but the coal, the air, and the rose have +extent without me. Berkeley's paradox is not worth refuting. + +Thus argued Zeno and Parmenides of old, and very clever they were; they +would prove to you that a tortoise went along as swiftly as Achilles, +for there was no such thing as motion; they discussed a hundred other +questions equally important. Most of the Greeks made philosophy a +juggle, and they transmitted their art to our schoolmen. Bayle himself +was occasionally one of the set and embroidered cobwebs like the rest. +In his article, "Zeno," against the divisible extent of matter and the +contiguity of bodies he ventures to say what would not be tolerated in +any six-months geometrician. + +It is worth knowing how Berkeley was drawn into this paradox. A long +while ago I had some conversation with him, and he told me that his +opinion originated in our being unable to conceive what the subject of +this extension is, and certainly, in his book, he triumphs when he asks +Hylas what this subject, this substratum, this substance is? It is the +extended body, answers Hylas. Then the bishop, under the name of +Philonous, laughs at him, and poor Hylas, finding that he has said that +extension is the subject of extension, and has therefore talked +nonsense, remains quite confused, acknowledges that he understands +nothing at all of the matter; that there is no such thing as body; that +the natural world does not exist, and that there is none but an +intellectual world. + +Hylas should only have said to Philonous: We know nothing of the subject +of this extension, solidity, divisibility, mobility, figure, etc.; I +know no more of it than I do of the subject of thought, feeling, and +will, but the subject does not the less exist for it has essential +properties of which it cannot be deprived. + +We all resemble the greater part of the Parisian ladies who live well +without knowing what is put in their ragouts; just so do we enjoy bodies +without knowing of what they are composed. Of what does a body consist? +Of parts, and these parts resolve themselves into other parts. What are +these last parts? They, too, are bodies; you divide incessantly without +making any progress. + +In short, a subtle philosopher, observing that a picture was made of +ingredients of which no single ingredient was a picture, and a house of +materials of which no one material was a house, imagined that bodies are +composed of an infinity of small things which are not bodies, and these +are called monads. This system is not without its merits, and, were it +revealed, I should think it very possible. These little beings would be +so many mathematical points, a sort of souls, waiting only for a +tenement: here would be a continual metempsychosis. This system is as +good as another; I like it quite as well as the declination of atoms, +the substantial forms, the versatile grace, or the vampires. + + + + +BOOKS. + + +SECTION I. + +You despise books; you, whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of +ambition, the pursuit of pleasure, or in indolence, but remember that +all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by +books. All Africa, to the limits of Ethiopia and Nigritia obeys the book +of the Koran after bowing to the book of the Gospel. China is ruled by +the moral book of Confucius, and a great part of India by the Veda. +Persia was governed for ages by the books of one of the Zoroasters. + +In a lawsuit or criminal process, your property, your honor, perhaps +your life, depends on the interpretation of a book which you never read. +It is, however, with books as with men, a very small number play a great +part, the rest are confounded with the multitude. + +By whom are mankind led in all civilized countries? By those who can +read and write. You are acquainted with neither Hippocrates, nor +Boerhaave, nor Sydenham, but you place your body in the hands of those +who can read them. You leave your soul entirely to the care of those +who are paid for reading the Bible, although there are not fifty of them +who have read it through with attention. + +The world is now so entirely governed by books that they who command in +the city of the Scipios and the Catos have resolved that the books of +their law shall be for themselves alone; they are their sceptre, which +they have made it high treason in their subjects to touch without an +express permission. In other countries it has been forbidden to think in +print without letters-patent. + +There are nations in which thought is considered merely as an article of +commerce, the operations of the human understanding being valued only at +so much per sheet. If the bookseller happens to desire a privilege for +his merchandise whether he is selling "Rabelais," or the "Fathers of the +Church," the magistrate grants the privilege without answering for the +contents of the book. + +In another country the liberty of explaining yourself by books is one of +the most inviolable prerogatives. There you may print whatever you +please, on pain of being tiresome, and of being punished if you have too +much abused your natural right. + +Before the admirable invention of printing, books were scarcer and +dearer than jewels. There were scarcely any books in our barbarous +nations, either before Charlemagne or after him, until the time of +Charles V., king of France, called the Wise, and from this time to +Francis I. the scarcity was extreme. The Arabs alone had them from the +eighth to the thirteenth century of our era. China was full of them when +we could neither read nor write. + +Copyists were much employed in the Roman Empire from the time of the +Scipios until the irruption of the barbarians. This was a very +ungrateful employment. The dealers always paid authors and copyists very +ill. It required two years of assiduous labor for a copyist to +transcribe the whole Bible well on vellum, and what time and trouble to +copy correctly in Greek and Latin the works of Origen, Clement of +Alexandria and all the others writers called Fathers! + +St. Hieronymos, or Hieronymus, whom we call Jerome, says, in one of his +satirical letters against Rufinus that he has ruined himself with buying +the works of Origen, against whom he wrote with so much bitterness and +violence. "Yes," says he, "I have read Origen, if it be a crime I +confess that I am guilty and that I exhausted my purse in buying his +works at Alexandria." + +The Christian societies of the three first centuries had fifty-four +gospels, of which, until Diocletian's time scarcely two or three copies +found their way among the Romans of the old religion. + +Among the Christians it was an unpardonable crime to show the gospels to +the Gentiles; they did not even lend them to the catechumens. + +When Lucian (insulting our religion of which he knew very little) +relates that "a troop of beggars took him up into a fourth story where +they were invoking the Father through the Son, and foretelling +misfortunes to the emperor and the empire," he does not say that they +showed him a single book. No Roman historian, no Roman author whomsoever +makes mention of the gospels. + +When a Christian, who was unfortunately rash and unworthy of his holy +religion had publicly torn in pieces and trampled under foot an edict of +the Emperor Diocletian, and had thus drawn down upon Christianity that +persecution which succeeded the greatest toleration, the Christians were +then obliged to give up their gospels and written authors to the +magistrates, which before then had never been done. Those who gave up +their books through fear of imprisonment, or even of death, were held by +the rest of the Christians to be sacrilegious apostates, they received +the surname of _traditores_, whence we have the word "traitor," and +several bishops asserted that they should be rebaptized, which +occasioned a dreadful schism. + +The poems of Homer were long so little known that Pisistratus was the +first who put them in order and had them transcribed at Athens about +five hundred years before the Christian era. + +Perhaps there was not at this time in all the East a dozen copies of the +Veda and the Zend-Avesta. + +In 1700 you would not have found a single book in all Rome, excepting +the missals and a few Bibles in the hands of papas drunk with brandy. + +The complaint now is of their too great abundance. But it is not for +readers to complain, the remedy is in their own hands; nothing forces +them to read. Nor for authors, they who make the multitude of books have +not to complain of being pressed. Notwithstanding this enormous quantity +how few people read! But if they read, and read with advantage, should +we have to witness the deplorable infatuations to which the vulgar are +still every day a prey? + +The reason that books are multiplied in spite of the general law that +beings shall not be multiplied without necessity, is that books are made +from books. A new history of France or Spain is manufactured from +several volumes already printed, without adding anything new. All +dictionaries are made from dictionaries; almost all new geographical +books are made from other books of geography; St. Thomas's Dream has +brought forth two thousand large volumes of divinity, and the same race +of little worms that have devoured the parent are now gnawing the +children. + + _Écrive qui voudra, chacun a son métier_ + _Peut perdre impunément de l'encre et du papier._ + + Write, write away; each writer at his pleasure + May squander ink and paper without measure. + + +SECTION II. + +It is sometimes very dangerous to make a book. Silhouète, before he +could suspect that he should one day be comptroller-general of the +finances, published a translation of Warburton's "Alliance of Church +and State," and his father-in-law, Astuce the physician, gave to the +public the "Memoirs," in which the author of the Pentateuch might have +found all the astonishing things which happened so long before his time. + +The very day that Silhouète came into office, some good friend of his +sought out a copy of each of these books by the father-in-law and +son-in-law, in order to denounce them to the parliament and have them +condemned to the flames, according to custom. They immediately bought up +all the copies in the kingdom, whence it is that they are now extremely +rare. + +There is hardly a single philosophical or theological book in which +heresies and impieties may not be found by misinterpreting, or adding +to, or subtracting from, the sense. + +Theodore of Mopsuestes ventured to call the "Canticle of Canticles," "a +collection of impurities." Grotius pulls it in pieces and represents it +as horrid, and Chatillon speaks of it as "a scandalous production." + +Perhaps it will hardly be believed that Dr. Tamponet one day said to +several others: "I would engage to find a multitude of heresies in the +Lord's Prayer if this prayer, which we know to have come from the Divine +mouth, were now for the first time published by a Jesuit." + +I would proceed thus: "Our Father, who art in heaven--" a proposition +inclining to heresy, since God is everywhere. Nay, we find in this +expression the leaven of Socinianism, for here is nothing at all said of +the Trinity. + +"Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven--" +another proposition tainted with heresy, for it said again and again in +the Scriptures that God reigns eternally. Moreover it is very rash to +ask that His will may be done, since nothing is or can be done but by +the will of God. + +"Give us this day our daily bread"--a proposition directly contrary to +what Jesus Christ uttered on another occasion: "Take no thought, saying +what shall we eat? or what shall we drink?... for after all these things +do the Gentiles seek.... But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His +righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." + +"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors--" a rash +proposition, which compares man to God, destroys gratuitous +predestination, and teaches that God is bound to do to us as we do to +others. Besides, how can the author say that we forgive our debtors? We +have never forgiven them a single crown. No convent in Europe ever +remitted to its farmers the payment of a sou. To dare to say the +contrary is a formal heresy. + +"Lead us not into temptation--" a proposition scandalous and manifestly +heretical, for there is no tempter but the devil, and it is expressly +said in St. James' Epistle: "God is no tempter of the wicked; He tempts +no man."--_"Deus enim intentator malorum est; ipse autem neminem +tentat."_ + +You see, then, said Doctor Tamponet, that there is nothing, though ever +so venerable, to which a bad sense may not be given. What book, then, +shall not be liable to human censure when even the Lord's Prayer may be +attacked, by giving a diabolical interpretation to all the divine words +that compose it? + +As for me, I tremble at the thought of making a book. Thank God, I have +never published anything; I have not even--like brothers La Rue, Du +Ceveau, and Folard--had any of my theatrical pieces played, it would be +too dangerous. + +If you publish, a parish curate accuses you of heresy; a stupid +collegian denounces you; a fellow that cannot read condemns you; the +public laugh at you; your bookseller abandons you, and your wine +merchant gives you no more credit. I always add to my paternoster, +"Deliver me, O God, from the itch of bookmaking." + +O ye who, like myself, lay black on white and make clean paper dirty! +call to mind the following verses which I remember to have read, and by +which we should have been corrected: + + _Tout ce fatras fat du chauvre en son temps,_ + _Linge il devint par l'art des tisserands;_ + _Puis en lambeaux des pilons le pressèrent_ + _Il fut papier. Cent cerveaux à l'envers_ + _De visions à l'envi le chargèrent;_ + _Puis on le brûle; il vole dans les airs,_ + _Il est fumée aussi bien que la gloire._ + _De nos travaux voilà quelle est l'histoire,_ + _Tout est fumée, et tout nous fait sentir_ + _Ce grand néant qui doit nous engloutir._ + + This miscellaneous rubbish once was flax, + Till made soft linen by the honest weaver; + But when at length it dropped from people's backs, + 'Twas turned to paper, and became receiver + Of all that fifty motley brains could fashion; + So now 'tis burned without the least compassion; + It now, like glory, terminates in smoke; + Thus all our toils are nothing but a joke-- + All ends in smoke; each nothing that we follow + Tells of the nothing that must all things swallow. + + +SECTION III. + +Books are now multiplied to such a degree that it is impossible not only +to read them all but even to know their number and their titles. +Happily, one is not obliged to read all that is published, and +Caramuel's plan for writing a hundred folio volumes and employing the +spiritual and temporal power of princes to compel their subjects to read +them, has not been put in execution. Ringelburg, too, had formed the +design of composing about a thousand different volumes, but, even had he +lived long enough to publish them he would have fallen far short of +Hermes Trismegistus, who, according to Jamblicus, composed thirty-six +thousand five hundred and twenty-five books. Supposing the truth of this +fact, the ancients had no less reason than the moderns to complain of +the multitude of books. + +It is, indeed, generally agreed that a small number of choice books is +sufficient. Some propose that we should confine ourselves to the Bible +or Holy Scriptures, as the Turks limit themselves to the Koran. But +there is a great difference between the feelings of reverence +entertained by the Mahometans for their Koran and those of the +Christians for the Scriptures. The veneration testified by the former +when speaking of the Koran cannot be exceeded. It is, say they, the +greatest of all miracles; nor are all the men in existence put together +capable of anything at all approaching it; it is still more wonderful +that the author had never studied, nor read any book. The Koran alone is +worth sixty thousand miracles (the number of its verses, or +thereabouts); one rising from the dead would not be a stronger proof of +the truth of a religion than the composition of the Koran. It is so +perfect that it ought not to be regarded as a work of creation. + +The Christians do indeed say that their Scriptures were inspired by the +Holy Ghost, yet not only is it acknowledged by Cardinal Cajetan and +Bellarmine that errors have found their way into them through the +negligence and ignorance of the book-sellers and the rabbis, who added +the points, but they are considered as a book too dangerous for the +hands of the majority of the faithful. This is expressed by the fifth +rule of the Index, a congregation at Rome, whose office it is to examine +what books are to be forbidden. It is as follows: + +"Since it is evident that if the reading of the Bible, translated into +the vulgar tongue, were permitted to every one indiscriminately the +temerity of mankind would cause more evil than good to arise +therefrom--we will that it be referred to the judgment of the bishop or +inquisitor, who, with the advice of the curate or confessor, shall have +power to grant permission to read the Bible rendered in the vulgar +tongue by Catholic writers, to those to whom they shall judge that such +reading will do no harm; they must have this permission in writing and +shall not be absolved until they have returned their Bible into the +hands of the ordinary. As for such book-sellers as shall sell Bibles in +the vulgar tongue to those who have not this written permission, or in +any other way put them into their hands, they shall lose the price of +the books (which the bishop shall employ for pious purposes), and shall +moreover be punished by arbitrary penalties. Nor shall regulars read or +buy these books without the permission of their superiors." + +Cardinal Duperron also asserted that the Scriptures, in the hands of the +unlearned, were a two-edged knife which might wound them, to avoid which +it was better that they should hear them from the mouth of the Church, +with the solutions and interpretations of such passages as appear to the +senses to be full of absurdity and contradiction, than that they should +read them by themselves without any solution or interpretation. He +afterwards made a long enumeration of these absurdities in terms so +unqualified that Jurieu was not afraid to declare that he did not +remember to have read anything so frightful or so scandalous in any +Christian author. + +Jurieu, who was so violent t in his invectives against Cardinal +Duperron, had himself to sustain similar reproaches from the Catholics. +"I heard that minister," says Pap, in speaking of him, "teaching the +public that all the characteristics of the Holy Scriptures on which +those pretended reformers had founded their persuasion of their +divinity, did not appear to him to be sufficient. 'Let it not be +inferred,' said Jurieu, 'that I wish to take from the light and strength +of the characteristics of Scripture, but I will venture to affirm that +there is not one of them which may not be eluded by the profane. There +is not one of them that amounts to a proof; not one to which something +may not be said in answer, and, considered altogether, although they +have greater power than separately to work a moral conviction--that is, +a proof on which to found a certainty excluding every doubt--I own that +nothing seems to me to be more opposed to reason than to say that these +characteristics are of themselves capable of producing such a +certainty." + +It is not then astonishing that the Jews and the first Christians, who, +we find in the Acts of the Apostles, confined themselves in their +meetings to the reading of the Bible, were, as will be seen in the +article "Heresy," divided into different sects. For this reading was +afterwards substituted that of various apocryphal works, or at least of +extracts from them. The author of the "Synopsis of Scripture," which we +find among the works of St. Athanasius, expressly avows that there are +in the apocryphal books things most true and inspired by God which have +been selected and extracted for the perusal of the faithful. + + + + +BOURGES. + + +Our questions have but little to do with geography, but we shall, +perhaps, be permitted to express in a few words our astonishment +respecting the town of Bourges. The Trévoux Dictionary asserts that "it +is one of the most ancient in Europe; that it was the seat of empire of +the Gauls, and gave laws to the Celts." + +I will not combat the antiquity of any town or of any family. But was +there ever an empire of Gaul? had the Celts kings? This rage for +antiquity is a malady which is not easily cured. In Gaul, in Germany, +and in the North there is nothing ancient but the soil, the trees, and +the animals. If you will have antiquities go to Asia, and even there +they are hardly to be found. Man is ancient, but monuments are new; this +has already been said in more articles than one. + +If to be born within a certain stone or wooden limit more ancient than +another were a real good it would be no more than reasonable to date the +foundation of the town from the giants' war, but since this vanity is in +no wise advantageous let it be renounced. This is all I have to say +about Bourges. + + + + +BRACHMANS--BRAHMINS. + + +Courteous reader, observe, in the first place, that Father Thomassin, +one of the most learned men of modern Europe, derives the Brachmans +from the Jewish word _barac_, by a _c_--supposing, of course, that the +Jews had a _c_. This _barac_, says he, signified _to fly_; and the +Brachmans fled from the towns--supposing that there were any towns. + +Or, if you like it better, Brachmans comes from _barak_ by a _k_, +meaning to _bless_ or to _pray_. But why might not the Biscayans name +the Brahmins from the word _bran_? which expresses--I will not say what. +They had as good a right as the Hebrews. Really, this is a strange sort +of erudition. By rejecting it entirely, we should know less, but we +should know it better. + +Is it not likely that the Brahmins were the first legislators, the first +philosophers, the first divines, of the earth? Do not the few remaining +monuments of ancient history form a great presumption in their favor? +since the first Greek philosophers went to them to learn mathematics; +and the most ancient curiosities, those collected by the emperors of +China, are all Indian, as is attested by the relations in Du Halde's +collection. + +Of the Shastah, we shall speak elsewhere. It is the first theological +book of the Brahmins, written about fifteen hundred years before the +Vedah, and anterior to all other books. + +Their annals make no mention of any war undertaken by them at any time. +The words "arms," "killing," "maiming," are to be found neither in the +fragments of the Shastah that have reached us, nor in the Yajurvedah, +nor in the Kormovedah. At least, I can affirm that I have not seen them +in either of these two latter collections; and it is most singular that +the Shastah, which speaks of a conspiracy in heaven, makes no mention of +any war in the great peninsula between the Indus and Ganges. + +[Illustration: India was unknown until after Alexander's conquests.] + +The Hebrews, who were unknown until so late a period, never name the +Brahmins; they knew nothing of India till after Alexander's conquests +and their own settling in that Egypt of which they had spoken so ill. +The name of India is to be found only in the book of Esther, and in that +of Job, who was not a Hebrew. We find a singular contrast between the +sacred books of the Hebrews and those of the Indians. The Indian books +announce only peace and mildness; they forbid the killing of animals: +but the Hebrew books speak of nothing but the slaughter and massacre of +men and beasts; all are butchered in the name of the Lord; it is quite +another order of things. + +We are incontestably indebted to the Brahmins for the idea of the fall +of celestial beings revolting against the Sovereign of Nature; and it +was probably from them that the Greeks took the fable of the Titans; and +lastly, from them it was that the Jews, in the first century of our era, +took the idea of Lucifer's revolt. + +How could these Indians suppose a rebellion in heaven without having +seen one on earth? Such a leap from the human to the divine nature is +difficult of comprehension. We usually step from what is known to what +is unknown. + +A war of giants would not be imagined, until some men more robust than +the rest had been seen to tyrannize over their fellow-men. To imagine +the like in heaven, the Brahmins must either have experienced violent +discords among themselves, or at least have witnessed them among their +neighbors. + +Be that as it may, it is an astonishing phenomenon that a society of men +who had never made war should have invented a sort of war carried on in +imaginary space, or in a globe distant from our own, or in what is +called the firmament--the empyrean. But let it be carefully observed, +that in this revolt of the celestial beings against their Sovereign, +there were no blows given, no celestial blood spilled, no mountains +thrown at one another's heads, no angels deft in twain, as in Milton's +sublime and grotesque poem. + +According to the Shastah, it was only a formal disobedience of the +orders of the Most High, which God punished by relegating the rebellious +angels to a vast place of darkness called Onderah, for the term of a +whole mononthour. A mononthour is a hundred and twenty-six millions of +our years. But God vouchsafed to pardon the guilty at the end of five +thousand years, and their Onderah was nothing more than a purgatory. + +He turned them into _Mhurd_, or men, and placed them on our globe, on +condition that they should not eat animals, nor cohabit with the males +of their new species, on pain of returning to the Onderah. + +These are the principal articles of the Brahmin faith, which has endured +without intermission from time immemorial to the present day. + +This is but a small part of the ancient cosmogony of the Brahmins. Their +rites, their pagods, prove that among them all was allegorical. They +still represent Virtue in the form of a woman with ten arms, combating +ten mortal sins typified by monsters. Our missionaries were acute enough +to take this image of Virtue for that of the devil, and affirm that the +devil is worshipped in India. We have never visited that people but to +enrich ourselves and calumniate them. + +_The Metempsychosis of the Brahmins._ + +The doctrine of the metempsychosis comes from an ancient law of feeding +on cow's milk as well as on vegetables, fruits, and rice. It seemed +horrible to the Brahmins to kill and eat their feeder; and they had soon +the same respect for goats, sheep, and all other animals: they believed +them to be animated by the rebellious angels, who were completing their +purification in the bodies of beasts as well as in those of men. The +nature of the climate seconded, or rather originated this law. A burning +atmosphere creates a necessity for refreshing food, and inspires horror +for our custom of stowing carcasses in our stomachs. + +The opinion that beasts have souls was general throughout the East, and +we find vestiges of it in the ancient sacred writings. In the book of +Genesis, God forbids men to eat "their flesh with their blood and their +soul." Such is the import of the Hebrew text. "I will avenge," says he, +"the blood of your souls on the claws of beasts and the hands of men." +In Leviticus he says, "The soul of the flesh is in the blood." He does +more; he makes a solemn compact with man and with all animals, which +supposes an intelligence in the latter. + +In much later times, Ecclesiasticus formally says, "God shows that man +is like to the beasts; for men die like beasts; their condition is +equal; as man dies, so also dies the beast. They breathe alike. There is +nothing in man more than in the beast." Jonah, when he went to preach at +Nineveh, made both men and beasts fast. + +All ancient authors, sacred books as well as profane, attribute +knowledge to the beasts; and several make them speak. It is not then to +be wondered at that the Brahmins, and after them the Pythagoreans, +believed that souls passed successively into the bodies of beasts and of +men; consequently they persuaded themselves, or at least they said, that +the souls of the guilty angels, in order to finish their purgation, +belonged sometimes to beasts, sometimes to men. This is a part of the +romance of the Jesuit Bougeant, who imagined that the devils are spirits +sent into the bodies of animals. Thus, in our day, and at the extremity +of the west, a Jesuit unconsciously revives an article of the faith of +the most ancient Oriental priests. + +_The Self-burning of Men and Women among the Brahmins._ + +The Brahmins of the present day, who do all that the ancient Brahmins +did, have, we know, retained this horrible custom. Whence is it that, +among a people who have never shed the blood of men or of animals, the +finest act of devotion is a public self-burning? Superstition, the great +uniter of contraries, is the only source of these frightful sacrifices, +the custom of which is much more ancient than the laws of any known +people. + +The Brahmins assert that their great prophet Brahma, the son of God, +descended among men, and had seyeral wives; and that after his death, +the wife who loved him the most burned herself on his funeral pile, that +she might join him in heaven. Did this woman really burn herself, as it +is said that Portia, the wife of Brutus, swallowed burning coals, in +order to be reunited to her husband? or is this a fable invented by the +priests? Was there a Brahma, who really gave himself out as a prophet +and son of God? It is likely that there was a Brahma, as there +afterwards were a Zoroaster and a Bacchus. Fable seized upon their +history, as she has everywhere constantly done. + +No sooner does the wife of the son of God burn herself, than ladies of +meaner condition must burn themselves likewise. But how are they to +find their husbands again, who are become horses, elephants, hawks, +etc.? How are they to distinguish the precise beast, which the defunct +animates? how recognize him and be still his wife? This difficulty does +not in the least embarrass the Hindoo theologians; they easily find a +_distinguo_--a solution _in sensu composito_--_in sensu diviso_. The +metempsychosis is only for common people; for other souls they have a +sublimer doctrine. These souls, being those of the once rebel angels, go +about purifying themselves; those of the women who immolate themselves +are beatified, and find their husbands ready-purified. In short, the +priests are right, and the women burn themselves. + +This dreadful fanaticism has existed for more than four thousand years, +amongst a mild people, who would fear to kill a grasshopper. The priests +cannot force a widow to burn herself; for the invariable law is, that +the self-devotion must be absolutely voluntary. The longest married of +the wives of the deceased has the first refusal of the honor of mounting +the funeral-pile; if she is not inclined, the second presents herself; +and so of the rest. It is said, that on one occasion seventeen burned +themselves at once on the pile of a rajah: but these sacrifices are now +very rare; the faith has become weaker since the Mahometans have +governed a great part of the country, and the Europeans traded with the +rest. + +Still, there is scarcely a governor of Madras or Pondicherry who has +not seen some Indian woman voluntarily perish in the flames. Mr. Holwell +relates that a young widow of nineteen, of singular beauty, and the +mother of three children, burned herself in the presence of Mrs. +Russell, wife of the admiral then in the Madras roads. She resisted the +tears and the prayers of all present; Mrs. Russell conjured her, in the +name of her children, not to leave them orphans. The Indian woman +answered, "God, who has given them birth, will take care of them." She +then arranged everything herself, set fire to the pile with her own +hand, and consummated her sacrifice with as much serenity as one of our +nuns lights the tapers. + +Mr. Charnock, an English merchant, one day seeing one of these +astonishing victims, young and lovely, on her way to the funeral-pile, +dragged her away by force when she was about to set fire to it, and, +with the assistance of some of his countrymen, carried her of! and +married her. The people regarded this act as the most horrible +sacrilege. + +Why do husbands never burn themselves, that they may join their wives? +Why has a sex, naturally weak and timid, always had this frantic +resolution? Is it because tradition does not say that a man ever married +a daughter of Brahma, while it does affirm that an Indian woman was +married to a son of that divinity? Is it because women are more +superstitious than men? Or is it because their imaginations are weaker, +more tender, and more easily governed? + +The ancient Brahmins sometimes burned themselves to prevent the pains +and the languor of old age; but, above all, to make themselves admired. +Calanus would not, perhaps, have placed himself on the pile, but for the +purpose of being gazed at by Alexander. The Christian renegade +Peregrinus burned himself in public, for the same reason that a madman +goes about the streets dressed like an Armenian, to attract the notice +of the populace. + +Is there not also an unfortunate mixture of vanity in this terrible +sacrifice of the Indian women? Perhaps, if a law were passed that the +burning should take place in the presence of one waiting woman only, +this abominable custom would be forever destroyed. + +One word more: A few hundreds of Indian women, at most, have furnished +this horrid spectacle; but our inquisitions, our atrocious madmen +calling themselves judges, have put to death in the flames more than a +hundred thousand of our brethren--men, women, and children--for things +which no one has understood. Let us pity and condemn the Brahmins; but +let us not forget our miserable selves! + +Truly, we have forgotten one very essential point in this short article +on the Brahmins, which is, that their sacred books are full of +contradictions; but the people know nothing of them, and the doctors +have solutions ready--senses figured and figurative, allegories, types, +express declarations of Birma, Brahma, and Vishnu, sufficient to shut +the mouth of any reasoner. + + + + +BREAD-TREE. + + +The bread-tree grows in the Philippine islands, and principally in those +of Guam and Tinian, as the cocoa-tree grows in the Indies. These two +trees, alone, if they could be multiplied in our climate, would furnish +food and drink sufficient for all mankind. + +The bread-tree is taller and more bulky than our common apple-trees; its +leaves are black, its fruit is yellow, and equal in dimensions to the +largest apple. The rind is hard; and the cuticle is a sort of soft, +white paste, which has the taste of the best French rolls; but it must +be eaten fresh, as it keeps only twenty-four hours, after which it +becomes dry, sour and disagreeable; but, as a compensation, the trees +are loaded with them eight months of the year. The natives of the +islands have no other food; they are all tall, stout, well made, +sufficiently fleshy, and in the vigorous health which is necessarily +produced by the use of one wholesome aliment alone: and it is to negroes +that nature has made this present. + +Corn is assuredly not the food of the greater part of the world. Maize +and cassava are the food of all America. We have whole provinces in +which the peasants eat none but chestnut bread, which is more nourishing +and of better flavor than the rye or barley bread on which so many feed, +and is much better than the rations given to the soldiers. Bread is +unknown in all southern Africa. The immense Indian Archipelago, Siam, +Laos, Pegu, Cochin-China, Tonquin, part of China, the Malabar and +Coromandel coasts, and the banks of the Ganges, produce rice, which is +easier of cultivation, and for which wheat is neglected. Corn is +absolutely unknown for the space of five hundred leagues on the coast of +the Icy Sea. + +The missionaries have sometimes been in great tribulation, in countries +where neither bread nor wine is to be found. The inhabitants told them +by interpreters: "You would baptize us with a few drops of water, in a +burning climate, where we are obliged to plunge every day into the +rivers; you would confess us, yet you understand not our language; you +would have us communicate, yet you want the two necessary ingredients, +bread and wine. It is therefore evident that your universal religion +cannot have been made for us." The missionaries replied, very justly, +that good will is the one thing needful; that they should be plunged +into the water without any scruple; that bread and wine should be +brought from Goa; and that, as for the language, the missionaries would +learn it in a few years. + + + + +BUFFOONERY--BURLESQUE--LOW COMEDY. + + +He was a very subtle schoolman, who first said that we owe the origin of +the word "buffoon" to a little Athenian sacrificer called _Bupho_, who, +being tired of his employment, absconded, and never returned. The +Areopagus, as they could not punish the priest, proceeded against his +hatchet. This farce, which was played every year in the temple of +Jupiter, is said to have been called _"buffoonery."_ This story is not +entitled to much credit Buffoon was not a proper name; _bouphonos_ +signifies an immolator of oxen. The Greeks never called any jest +_bouphonia_. This ceremony, frivolous as it appears, might have an +origin wise and humane, worthy of true Athenians. + +Once a year, the subaltern sacrificer, or more properly the holy +butcher, when on the point of immolating an ox, fled as if struck with +horror, to put men in mind that in wiser and happier times only flowers +and fruits were offered to the gods, and that the barbarity of +immolating innocent and useful animals was not introduced until there +were priests desirous of fattening on their blood and living at the +expense of the people. In this idea there is no buffoonery. + +This word "buffoon" has long been received among the Italians and the +Spaniards, signifying _mimus, scurra, joculator_--a mimic, a jester, a +player of tricks. Ménage, after Salmasius, derives it from _bocca +infiata_--a bloated face; and it is true that a round face and swollen +cheeks are requisite in a buffoon. The Italians say _bufo magro_--a +meagre buffoon, to express a poor jester who cannot make you laugh. + +Buffoon and buffoonery appertain to low comedy, to mountebanking, to all +that can amuse the populace. In this it was--to the shame of the human +mind be it spoken--that tragedy had its beginning: Thespis was a +buffoon before Sophocles was a great man. + +In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish and English +tragedies were all degraded by disgusting buffooneries. The courts were +still more disgraced by buffoons than the stage. So strong was the rust +of barbarism, that men had no taste for more refined pleasures. Boileau +says of Molière: + + _C'est par-là que Molière, illustrant ses écrits,_ + _Peut-être de son art eût emporté le prix,_ + _Si, moins ami du peuple en ses doctes peintures,_ + _Il n'eût fait quelquefois, grimacer ses figures,_ + _Quitté pour le bouffon l'agréable et fin,_ + _Et sans honte à Terence allié Tabarin._ + _Dans ce sac ridicule où Scapin s'enveloppe,_ + _Je ne reconnais plus l'auteur du Misanthrope._ + + Molière in comic genius had excelled, + And might, perhaps, have stood unparalleled, + Had he his faithful portraits ne'er allowed + To gape and grin to gratify the crowd; + Deserting wit for low grimace and jest, + And showing Terence in a motley vest. + Who in the sack, where Scapin plays the fool, + Will find the genius of the comic school? + +But it must be considered that Raphael condescended to paint grotesque +figures. Molière would not have descended so low, if all his spectators +had been such men as Louis XIV., Condé, Turenne, La Rochefoucauld, +Montausier, Beauvilliers, and such women as Montespan and Thianges; but +he had also to please the whole people of Paris, who were yet quite +unpolished. The citizen liked broad farce, and he paid for it. Scarron's +"Jodelets" were all the rage. We are obliged to place ourselves on the +level of our age, before we can rise above it; and, after all, we like +to laugh now and then. What is Homer's "Battle of the Frogs and Mice," +but a piece of buffoonery--a burlesque poem? + +Works of this kind give no reputation, but they may take from that which +we already enjoy. + +Buffoonery is not always in the burlesque style, "The Physician in Spite +of Himself," and the "Rogueries of Scapin," are not in the style of +Scarron's "Jodelets." Molière does not, like Scarron, go in search of +slang terms; his lowest characters do not play the mountebank. +Buffoonery is in the thing, not in the expression. + +Boileau's "Lutrin" was at first called a burlesque poem, but it was the +subject that was burlesque; the style was pleasing and refined, and +sometimes even heroic. + +The Italians had another kind of burlesque, much superior to ours--that +of Aretin, of Archbishop La Caza, of Berni, Mauro, and Dolce. It often +sacrifices decorum to pleasantry, but obscene words are wholly banished +from it. The subject of Archbishop La Caza's _"Capitolo del Forno"_ is, +indeed, that which sends the Desfontaines to the Bicêtre, and the +Deschaufours to the Place de Grève: but there is not one word offensive +to the ear of chastity; you have to divine the meaning. + +Three or four Englishmen have excelled in this way: Butler, in his +"Hudibras," which was the civil war excited by the Puritans turned into +ridicule; Dr. Garth, in his "Dispensary"; Prior, in his "Alma," in +which he very pleasantly makes a jest of his subject and Phillips, in +his "Splendid Shilling." + +Butler is as much above Scarron as a man accustomed to good company is +above a singer at a pot-house. The hero of "Hudibras" was a real +personage, one Sir Samuel Luke, who had been a captain in the armies of +Fairfax and Cromwell. See the commencement of the poem, in the article +"Prior," "Butler," and "Swift." + +Garth's poem on the physicians and apothecaries is not so much in the +burlesque style as Boileau's "Lutrin": it has more imagination, variety, +and naivete than the "Lutrin"; and, which is rather astonishing, it +displays profound erudition, embellished with all the graces of +refinement. It begins thus: + + Speak, Goddess, since 'tis thou that best canst tell + How ancient leagues to modern discord fell; + And why physicians were so cautious grown + Of others' lives, and lavish of their own. + +Prior, whom we have seen a plenipotentiary in France before the Peace of +Utrecht, assumed the office of mediator between the philosophers who +dispute about the soul. This poem is in the style of "Hudibras," called +doggerel rhyme, which is the _stilo Berniesco_ of the Italians. + +The great first question is, whether the soul is all in all, or is +lodged behind the nose and eyes in a corner which it never quits. +According to the latter system, Prior compares it to the pope, who +constantly remains at Rome, whence he sends his nuncios and spies to +learn all that is doing in Christendom. + +Prior, after making a jest of several systems, proposes his own. He +remarks that the two-legged animal, new-born, throws its feet about as +much as possible, when its nurse is so stupid as to swaddle it: thence +he judges that the soul enters it by the feet; that about fifteen it +reaches the middle; then it ascends to the heart; then to the head, +which it quits altogether when the animal ceases to live. + +At the end of this singular poem, full of ingenious versification, and +of ideas alike subtle and pleasing, we find this charming line of +Fontenelle: _"Il est des hochets pour tout âge."_ Prior begs of fortune +to "Give us play-things for old age." + +Yet it is quite certain that Fontenelle did not take this line from +Prior, nor Prior from Fontenelle. Prior's work is twenty years anterior, +and Fontenelle did not understand English. The poem terminates with this +conclusion: + + For Plato's fancies what care I? + I hope you would not have me die + Like simple Cato in the play, + For anything that he can say: + E'en let him of ideas speak + To heathens, in his native Greek. + If to be sad is to be wise, + I do most heartily despise + Whatever Socrates has said, + Or Tully writ, or Wanley read. + Dear Drift, to set our matters right, + Remove these papers from my sight; + Burn Mat's Descartes and Aristotle-- + Here, Jonathan,--your master's bottle. + +In all these poems, let us distinguish the pleasant, the lively, the +natural, the familiar--from the grotesque, the farcical, the low, and, +above all, the stiff and forced. These various shades are discriminated +by the connoisseurs, who alone, in the end, decide the fate of every +work. + +La Fontaine would sometimes descend to the burlesque style--Phædrus +never; but the latter has not the grace and unaffected softness of La +Fontaine, though he has greater precision and purity. + + + + +BULGARIANS. + + +These people were originally Huns, who settled near the Volga; and +Volgarians was easily changed into Bulgarians. + +About the end of the seventh century, they, like all the other nations +inhabiting Sarmatia, made irruptions towards the Danube, and inundated +the Roman Empire. They passed through Moldavia and Wallachia, whither +their old fellow-countrymen, the Russians, carried their victorious arms +in 1769, under the Empress Catherine II. + +Having crossed the Danube, they settled in part of Dacia and Moesia, +giving their name to the countries which are still called Bulgaria. +Their dominion extended to Mount Hæmus and the Euxine Sea. + +In Charlemagne's time, the Emperor Nicephorus, successor to Irene, was +so imprudent as to march against them after being vanquished by the +Saracens; and he was in like manner defeated by the Bulgarians. Their +king, named Krom, cut off his head, and made use of his skull as a +drinking-cup at his table, according to the custom of that people in +common with all the northern nations. + +It is related that, in the ninth century, one Bogoris, who was making +war upon the Princess Theodora, mother and guardian to the Emperor +Michael, was so charmed with that empress's noble answer to his +declaration of war, that he turned Christian. + +The Bulgarians, who were less complaisant, revolted against him; but +Bogoris, having shown them a crucifix, they all immediately received +baptism. So say the Greek writers of the lower empire, and so say our +compilers after them: _"Et voilà justement comme on écrit l'histoire."_ + +Theodora, say they, was a very religious princess, even passing her +latter years in a convent. Such was her love for the Greek Catholic +religion that she put to death in various ways a hundred thousand men +accused of Manichæism--"this being," says the modest continuator of +Echard, "the most impious, the most detestable, the most dangerous, the +most abominable of all heresies, for ecclesiastical censures were +weapons of no avail against men who acknowledged not the church." + +It is said that the Bulgarians, seeing that all the Manichæans suffered +death, immediately conceived an inclination for their religion, and +thought it the best, since it was the most persecuted one: but this, for +Bulgarians, would be extraordinarily acute. + +At that time, the great schism broke out more violently than ever +between the Greek church, under the Patriarch Photius, and the Latin +church, under Pope Nicholas I. The Bulgarians took part with the Greek +church; and from that time, probably, it was that they were treated in +the west as heretics, with the addition of that fine epithet, which has +clung to them to the present day. + +In 871, the Emperor Basil sent them a preacher, named Peter of Sicily, +to save them from the heresy of Manichæism; and it is added, that they +no sooner heard him than they turned Manichæans. It is not very +surprising that the Bulgarians, who drank out of the skulls of their +enemies, were not extraordinary theologians any more than Peter of +Sicily. + +It is singular that these barbarians, who could neither write nor read, +should have been regarded as very knowing heretics, with whom it was +dangerous to dispute. They certainly had other things to think of than +controversy, since they carried on a sanguinary war against the emperors +of Constantinople for four successive centuries, and even besieged the +capital of the empire. + +At the commencement of the thirteenth century, the Emperor Alexis, +wishing to make himself recognized by the Bulgarians, their king, +Joannic, replied, that he would never be his vassal. Pope Innocent III. +was careful to seize this opportunity of attaching the kingdom of +Bulgaria to himself: he sent a legate to Joannic, to anoint him king; +and pretended that he had conferred the kingdom upon him, and that he +could never more hold it but from the holy see. + +This was the most violent period of the crusades. The indignant +Bulgarians entered into an alliance with the Turks, declared war against +the pope and his crusaders, took the pretended Emperor Baldwin prisoner, +had his head cut off, and made a bowl of his skull, after the manner of +Krom. This was quite enough to make the Bulgarians abhorred by all +Europe. It was no longer necessary to call them Manichæans, a name which +was at that time given to every class of heretics: for Manichæan, +Patarin, and Vaudois were the same thing. These terms were lavished upon +whosoever would not submit to the Roman church. + + + + +BULL. + + +A quadruped, armed with horns, having cloven feet, strong legs, a slow +pace, a thick body, a hard skin, a tail not quite so long as that of the +horse, with some long hairs at the end. Its blood has been looked upon +as a poison, but it is no more so than that of other animals; and the +ancients, who wrote that Themistocles and others poisoned themselves +with bull's blood, were false both to nature and to history. Lucian, who +reproaches Jupiter with having placed the bull's horns above his eyes, +reproaches him unjustly; for the eye of a bull being large, round, and +open, he sees very well where he strikes; and if his eyes had been +placed higher than his horns, he could not have seen the grass which he +crops. + +Phalaris's bull, or the Brazen Bull, was a bull of cast metal, found in +Sicily, and supposed to have been used by Phalaris to enclose and burn +such as he chose to punish--a very unlikely species of cruelty. The +bulls of Medea guarded the Golden Fleece. The bull of Marathon was tamed +by Hercules. + +Then there were the bull which carried off Europa, the bull of Mithras, +and the bull of Osiris; there are the Bull, a sign of the zodiac, and +the Bull's Eye, a star of the first magnitude, and lastly, there are +bull-fights, common in Spain. + + + + +BULL (PAPAL). + + +This word designates the bull, or seal of gold, silver, wax, or lead, +attached to any instrument or charter. The lead hanging to the rescripts +despatched in the Roman court bears on one side the head of St. Peter on +the right, and that of St. Paul on the left; and, on the reverse, the +name of the reigning pope, with the year of his pontificate. The bull is +written on parchment. In the greeting, the pope takes no title but that +of "Servant of the Servants of God," according to the holy words of +Jesus to His Disciples--"Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be +your servant." + +Some heretics assert that, by this formula, humble in appearance, the +popes mean to express a sort of feudal system, of which God is chief; +whose high vassals, Peter and Paul, are represented by their servant +the pontiff; while the lesser vassals are all secular princes, whether +emperors, kings, or dukes. + +They doubtless found this assertion on the famous bull _In cÅ“na +Domini,_ which is publicly read at Rome by a cardinal-deacon every year, +on Holy Thursday, in the presence of the pope, attended by the rest of +the cardinals and bishops. After the ceremony, his holiness casts a +lighted torch into the public square in token of anathema. + +This bull is, to be found in Tome i., p. 714 of the _Bullaire_, +published at Lyons in 1673, and at page 118 of the edition of 1727. The +oldest is dated 1536. Paul III., without noticing the origin of the +ceremony, here says that it is an ancient custom of the sovereign +pontiffs to publish this excommunication on Holy Thursday, in order to +preserve the purity of the Christian religion, and maintain union among +the faithful. It contains twenty-four paragraphs, in which the pope +excommunicates: + +1. Heretics, all who favor them, and all who read their books. + +2. Pirates, especially such as dare to cruise on the seas belonging to +the sovereign pontiff. + +3. Those who impose fresh tolls on their lands. + +10. Those who, in any way whatsoever, prevent the execution of the +apostolical letters, whether they grant pardons or inflict penalties. + +11. All lay judges who judge ecclesiastics, and bring them before their +tribunal, whether that tribunal is called an audience, a chancery, a +council, or a parliament. + +12. All chancellors, counsellors, ordinary or extraordinary, of any king +or prince whatsoever, all presidents of chanceries, councils, or +parliaments, as also all attorneys-general, who call ecclesiastical +causes before them, or prevent the execution of the apostolical letters, +even though it be on pretext of preventing some violence. + +In the same paragraph, the pope reserves to himself alone the power of +absolving the said chancellors, counsellors, attorneys-general, and the +rest of the excommunicated; who cannot receive absolution until they +have publicly revoked their acts, and have erased them from the records. + +20. Lastly, the pope excommunicates all such as shall presume to give +absolution to the excommunicated as aforesaid: and, in order that no one +may plead ignorance, he orders: + +21. That this bull be published, and posted on the gate of the basilic +of the Prince of the Apostles, and on that of St. John of Lateran. + +22. That all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, by virtue +of their holy obedience, shall have this bull solemnly published at +least once a year. + +24. He declares that whosoever dares to go against the provisions of +this bull, must know that he is incurring the displeasure of Almighty +God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. + +The other subsequent bulls, called also _In cÅ“na Domini_, are only +duplicates of the first. For instance, the article 21 of that of Pius +V., dated 1567, adds to the paragraph 3 of the one that we have quoted, +that all princes who lay new impositions on their states, of what nature +soever, or increase the old ones, without obtaining permission from the +Holy See, are excommunicated _ipso facto_. The third bull _In cÅ“na +Domini_ of 1610, contains thirty paragraphs, in which Paul V. renews the +provisions of the two preceding. + +The fourth and last bull _In cÅ“na Domini_ which we find in the +_Bullaire_, is dated April 1, 1672. In it Urban VIII. announces that, +after the example of his predecessors, in order inviolably to maintain +the integrity of the faith, and public justice and tranquillity, he +wields the spiritual sword of ecclesiastical discipline to +excommunicate, on the day which is the anniversary of the Supper of our +Lord: + +1. Heretics. + +2. Such as appeal from the pope to a future council; and the rest as in +the three former. + +It is said that the one which is read now, is of a more recent date, and +contains some additions. + +The History of Naples, by Giannone, shows us what disorders the +ecclesiastics stirred up in that kingdom, and what vexations they +exercised against the king's subjects, even refusing them absolution and +the sacraments, in order to effect the reception of this bull, which has +at last been solemnly proscribed there, as well as in Austrian +Lombardy, in the states of the empress-queen, in those of the Duke of +Parma, and elsewhere. + +In 1580, the French clergy chose the time between the sessions of the +parliament of Paris, to have the same bull _In cÅ“na Domini_ +published. But it was opposed by the procureur-general; and the _Chambre +des Vacations_, under the presidency of the celebrated and unfortunate +Brisson, on October 4, passed a decree, enjoining all governors to +inform themselves, if possible, what archbishops, bishops, or +grand-vicars, had received either this bull or a copy of it entitled +_Litteræ processus_, and who had sent it to them to be published; to +prevent the publication, if it had not yet taken place; to obtain the +copies and send them to the chamber; or, if they had been published, to +summon the archbishops, the bishops, or their grand-vicars, to appear on +a certain day before the chamber, to answer to the suit of the +procureur-general; and, in the meantime, to seize their temporal +possessions and place them in the hands of the king; to forbid all +persons obstructing the execution of this decree, on pain of punishment +as traitors and enemies to the state; with orders that the decree be +printed and that the copies, collated by notaries, have the full force +of the original. + +In doing this, the parliament did but feebly imitate Philip the Fair. +The bull _Ausculta Fili_, of Dec. 5, 1301, was addressed to him by +Boniface VIII., who, after exhorting the king to listen with docility, +says to him: "God has established us over all kings and all kingdoms, to +root up, and destroy, and throw down, to build, and to plant, in His +name and by His doctrine. Do not, then, suffer yourself to be persuaded +that you have no superior, and that you are not subject to the head of +the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Whosoever thinks this, is a madman; and +whosoever obstinately maintains it, is an infidel, separated from the +flock of the Good Shepherd." The pope then enters into long details +respecting the government of France, even reproaching the king for +having altered the coin. + +Philip the Fair had this bull burned at Paris, and its execution +published on sound of trumpet throughout the city, by Sunday, Feb. 11, +1302. The pope, in a council which he held at Rome the same year, made a +great noise, and broke out into threats against Philip the Fair; but he +did no more than threaten. The famous decretal, _Unam Sanctam_ is, +however, considered as the work of his council; it is, in substance, as +follows: + +"We believe and confess a holy, catholic, and apostolic church, out of +which there is no salvation; we also acknowledge its unity, that it is +one only body, with one only head, and not with two, like a monster. +This only head is Jesus Christ, and St. Peter his vicar, and the +successor of St. Peter. Therefore, the Greeks, or others, who say that +they are not subject to that successor, must acknowledge that they are +not of the flock of Christ, since He himself has said (John, x, 16) +'that there is but one fold and one shepherd.' + +"We learn that in this church, and under its power, are two swords, the +spiritual and the temporal: of these, one is to be used by the church +and by the hand of the pontiff; the other, by the church and by the hand +of kings and warriors, in pursuance of the orders or with the permission +of the pontiff. Now, one of these swords must be subject to the other, +temporal to spiritual power; otherwise, they would not be ordinate, and +the apostles say they must be so. (Rom. xiii, 1.) According to the +testimony of truth, spiritual power must institute and judge temporal +power; and thus is verified with regard to the church, the prophecy of +Jeremiah (i. 10): 'I have this day set thee over the nations and over +the kingdoms.'" + +On the other hand, Philip the Fair assembled the states-general; and the +commons, in the petition which they presented to that monarch, said, in +so many words: "It is a great abomination for us to hear that this +Boniface stoutly interprets like a _Boulgare_ (dropping the _l_ and the +_a_) these words of spirituality (Matt., xvi. 19): 'Whatever thou shalt +bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven;' if this signified that if a +man be put into a temporal prison, God will imprison him in heaven." + +Clement V., successor to Boniface VIII., revoked and annulled the odious +decision of the bull _Unam Sanctam_, which extends the power of the +popes to the temporalities of kings, and condemns as heretics all who do +not acknowledge this chimerical power. Boniface's pretension, indeed, +ought to be condemned as heresy, according to this maxim of theologians: +"Not only is it a sin against the rules of the faith, and a heresy, to +deny what the faith teaches us, but also to set up as part of the faith +that which is no part of it." (Joan. Maj. m. 3 sent. dist. 37. q. 26.) + +Other popes, before Boniface VIII., had arrogated to themselves the +right of property over different kingdoms. The bull is well known, in +which Gregory VII. says to the King of Spain: "I would have you to know, +that the kingdom of Spain, by ancient ecclesiastical ordinances, was +given in property to St. Peter and the holy Roman church." + +Henry II. of England asked permission of Pope Adrian IV. to invade +Ireland. The pontiff gave him leave, on condition that he imposed on +every Irish family a tax of one _carolus_ for the Holy See, and held +that kingdom as a fief of the Roman church. "For," wrote Adrian, "it +cannot be doubted that every island upon which Jesus Christ, the sun of +justice, has arisen, and which has received the lessons of the Christian +faith, belongs of right to St. Peter and to the holy and sacred Roman +church." + +_Bulls of the Crusade and of Composition._ + +If an African or an Asiatic of sense were told that in that part of +Europe where some men have forbidden others to eat flesh on Saturdays, +the pope gives them leave to eat it, by a bull, for the sum of two +rials, and that another bull grants permission to keep stolen money, +what would this African or Asiatic say? He would, at least, agree with +us, that every country has its customs; and that in this world, by +whatever names things may be called, or however they may be disguised, +all is done for money. + +There are two bulls under the name of _La Cruzada_--the Crusade; one of +the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, the other of that of Philip V. The +first of these sells permission to eat what is called the _grossura_, +viz., tripes, livers, kidneys, gizzards, sweet-breads, lights, plucks, +cauls, heads, necks, and feet. + +The second bull, granted by Pope Urban VIII., gives leave to eat meat +throughout Lent, and absolves from every crime except heresy. + +Not only are these bulls sold, but people are ordered to buy them; and, +as is but right, they cost more in Peru and Mexico than in Spain; they +are there sold for a piastre. It is reasonable that the countries which +produce gold and silver should pay more than others. + +The pretext for these bulls is, making war upon the Moors. There are +persons, difficult of conviction, who cannot see what livers and kidneys +have to do with a war against the Africans; and they add, that Jesus +Christ never ordered war to be made on the Mahometans on pain of +excommunication. + +The bull giving permission to keep another's goods is galled the bull of +_Composition_. It is farmed; and has long brought considerable sums +throughout Spain, the Milanese, Naples, and Sicily. The highest bidders +employ the most eloquent of the monks to preach this bull. Sinners who +have robbed the king, the state, or private individuals, go to these +preachers, confess to them, and show them what a sad thing it would be +to make restitution of the whole. They offer the monks five, six, and +sometimes seven per cent., in order to keep the rest with a safe +conscience; and, as soon as the composition is made, they receive +absolution. + +The preaching brother who wrote the "Travels through Spain and Italy" +(_Voyage d'Espagne et d'Italie_), published at Paris, _avec privilège_ +by Jean-Baptiste de l'Épime, speaking of this bull, thus expresses +himself: "Is it not very gracious to come off at so little cost, and be +at liberty to steal more, when one has occasion for a larger sum?" + +_Bull Unigenitus._ + +The bull _In cÅ“na Domini_ was an indignity offered to all Catholic +sovereigns, and they at length proscribed it in their states; but the +bull _Unigenitus_ was a trouble to France alone. The former attacked the +rights of the princes and magistrates of Europe, and they maintained +those rights; the latter proscribed only some maxims of piety and +morals, which gave no concern to any except the parties interested in +the transient affair; but these interested parties soon filled all +France. It was at first a quarrel between the all-powerful Jesuits and +the remains of the crushed Port-Royal. + +Quesnel, a preacher of the Oratory, refugee in Holland, had dedicated a +commentary on the New Testament to Cardinal de Noailles, then bishop of +Châlons-sur-Marne. It met the bishop's approbation and was well received +by all readers of that sort of books. + +One Letellier, a Jesuit, a confessor to Louis XIV. and an enemy to +Cardinal de Noailles, resolved to mortify him by having the book, which +was dedicated to him, and of which he had a very high opinion, condemned +at Rome. + +This Jesuit, the son of an attorney at Vire in Lower Normandy, had all +that fertility of expedient for which his father's profession is +remarkable. Not content with embroiling Cardinal de Noailles with the +pope, he determined to have him disgraced by the king his master. To +ensure the success of this design, he had mandaments composed against +him by his emissaries, and got them signed by four bishops; he also +indited letters to the king, which he made them sign. + +These manÅ“uvres, which would have been punished in any of the +tribunals, succeeded at court: the king was soured against the +cardinal, and Madame de Maintenon abandoned him. + +Here was a series of intrigues, in which, from one end of the kingdom to +the other, every one took a part. The more unfortunate France at that +time became in a disastrous war, the more the public mind was heated by +a theological quarrel. + +During these movements, Letellier had the condemnation of Quesnel's +book, of which the monarch had never read a page, demanded from Rome by +Louis XIV. himself. Letellier and two other Jesuits, named Doucin and +Lallemant, extracted one hundred and three propositions, which Pope +Clement XI. was to condemn. The court of Rome struck out two of them, +that it might, at least, have the honor of appearing to judge for +itself. + +Cardinal Fabroni, in whose hands the affair was placed, and who was +devoted to the Jesuits, had the bull drawn up by a Cordelier named +Father Palerno, Elio a Capuchin, Terrovi a Barnabite, and Castelli a +Servite, to whom was added a Jesuit named Alfaro. + +Clement XI. let them proceed in their own way. His only object was to +please the king of France, who had long been displeased with him, on +account of his recognizing the Archduke Charles, afterwards emperor, as +King of Spain. To make his peace with the king, it cost him only a piece +of parchment sealed with lead, concerning a question which he himself +despised. + +Clement XI. did not wait to be solicited; he sent the bull, and was +quite astonished to learn that it was received throughout France with +hisses and groans. "What!" said he to Cardinal Carpegno, "a bull is +earnestly asked of me; I give it freely, and every one makes a jest of +it!" + +Every one was indeed surprised to see a pope, in the name of Jesus +Christ, condemning as heretical, tainted with heresy, and offensive to +pious ears, this proposition: "It is good to read books of piety on +Sundays, especially the Holy Scriptures;" and this: "The fear of an +unjust excommunication should not prevent us from doing our duty." + +The partisans of the Jesuits were themselves alarmed at these censures, +but they dared not speak. The wise and disinterested exclaimed against +the scandal, and the rest of the nation against the absurdity. + +Nevertheless, Letellier still triumphed, until the death of Louis XIV.; +he was held in abhorrence, but he governed. This wretch tried every +means to procure the suspension of Cardinal de Noailles; but after the +death of his penitent, the incendiary was banished. The duke of Orleans, +during his regency, extinguished these quarrels by making a jest of +them. They have since thrown out a few sparks; but they are at last +forgotten, probably forever. Their duration, for more than half a +century, was quite long enough. Yet, happy indeed would mankind be, if +they were divided only by foolish questions unproductive of bloodshed! + + + + +CÆSAR. + + +It is not as the husband of so many women and the wife of so many men; +as the conqueror of Pompey and the Scipios; as the satirist who turned +Cato into ridicule; as the robber of the public treasury, who employed +the money of the Romans to reduce the Romans to subjection; as he who, +clement in his triumphs, pardoned the vanquished; as the man of +learning, who reformed the calendar; as the tyrant and the father of his +country, assassinated by his friends and his bastard son; that I shall +here speak of Cæsar. I shall consider this extraordinary man only in my +quality of descendant from the poor barbarians whom he subjugated. + +You will not pass through a town in France, in Spain, on the banks of +the Rhine, or on the English coast opposite to Calais, in which you will +not find good people who boast of having had Cæsar there. Some of the +townspeople of Dover are persuaded that Cæsar built their castle; and +there are citizens of Paris who believe that the great _châtelet_ is one +of his fine works. Many a country squire in France shows you an old +turret which serves him for a dove-cote, and tells you that Cæsar +provided a lodging for his pigeons. Each province disputes with its +neighbor the honor of having been the first to which Cæsar applied the +lash; it was not by that road, but by this, that he came to cut our +throats, embrace our wives and daughters, impose laws upon us by +interpreters, and take from us what little money we had. + +The Indians are wiser. We have already seen that they have a confused +knowledge that a great robber, named Alexander, came among them with +other robbers; but they scarcely ever speak of him. + +An Italian antiquarian, passing a few years ago through Vannes in +Brittany, was quite astonished to hear the learned men of Vannes boast +of Cæsar's stay in their town. "No doubt," said he, "you have monuments +of that great man?" "Yes," answered the most notable among them, "we +will show you the place where that hero had the whole senate of our +province hanged, to the number of six hundred." + +"Some ignorant fellows, who had found a hundred beams under ground, +advanced in the journals in 1755 that they were the remains of a bridge +built by Cæsar; but I proved to them in my dissertation of 1756 that +they were the gallows on which that hero had our parliament tied up. +What other town in Gaul can say as much? We have the testimony of the +great Cæsar himself. He says in his Commentaries' that we 'are fickle +and prefer liberty to slavery.' He charges us with having been so +insolent as to take hostages of the Romans, to whom we had given +hostages, and to be unwilling to return them unless our own were given +up. He taught us good behavior." + +"He did well," replied the virtuoso, "his right was incontestable. It +was, however, disputed, for you know that when he vanquished the +emigrant Swiss, to the number of three hundred and sixty-eight thousand, +and there were not more than a hundred and ten thousand left, he had a +conference in Alsace with a German king named Ariovistus, and Ariovistus +said to him: 'I come to plunder Gaul, and I will not suffer any one to +plunder it but myself;' after which these good Germans, who were come to +lay waste the country, put into the hands of their witches two Roman +knights, ambassadors from Cæsar; and these witches were on the point of +burning them and offering them to their gods, when Cæsar came and +delivered them by a victory. We must confess that the right on both +sides was equal, and that Tacitus had good reason for bestowing so many +praises on the manners of the ancient Germans." + +This conversation gave rise to a very warm dispute between the learned +men of Vannes and the antiquarian. Several of the Bretons could not +conceive what was the virtue of the Romans in deceiving one after +another all the nations of Gaul, in making them by turns the instruments +of their own ruin, in butchering one-fourth of the people, and reducing +the other three-fourths to slavery. + +"Oh! nothing can be finer," returned the antiquarian. "I have in my +pocket a medal representing Cæsar's triumph at the Capitol; it is in the +best preservation." He showed the medal. A Breton, a tittle rude, took +it and threw it into the river, exclaiming: "Oh! that I could so serve +all who use their power and their skill to oppress their fellow-men! +Rome deceived us, disunited us, butchered us, chained us; and at this +day Rome still disposes of many of our benefices; and is it possible +that we have so long and in so many ways been a country of slaves?" + +To the conversation between the Italian antiquarian and the Breton I +shall only add that Perrot d'Ablancourt, the translator of Cæsar's +"Commentaries," in his dedication to the great Condé, makes use of these +words: "Does it not seem to you, sir, as if you were reading the life of +some Christian philosopher?" Cæsar a Christian philosopher! I wonder he +has not been made a saint. Writers of dedications are remarkable for +saying fine things and much to the purpose. + + + + +CALENDS. + + +The feast of the Circumcision, which the church celebrates on the first +of January, has taken the place of another called the Feast of the +Calends, of Asses, of Fools, or of Innocents, according to the different +places where, and the different days on which, it was held. It was most +commonly at Christmas, the Circumcision, or the Epiphany. + +In the cathedral of Rouen there was on Christmas day a procession, in +which ecclesiastics, chosen for the purpose, represented the prophets of +the Old Testament, who foretold the birth of the Messiah, and--which +may have given the feast its name--Balaam appeared, mounted on a +she-ass; but as Lactantius' poem, and the "Book of Promises," under the +name of St. Prosper, say that Jesus in the manger was recognized by the +ox and the ass, according to the passage Isaiah: "The ox knoweth his +owner, and the ass his master's crib" (a circumstance, however, which +neither the gospel nor the ancient fathers have remarked), it is more +likely that, from this opinion, the Feast of the Ass took its name. + +Indeed, the Jesuit, Theophilus Raynaud, testifies that on St. Stephen's +day there was sung a hymn of the ass, which was also called the Prose of +Fools; and that on St. John's day another was sung, called the Prose of +the Ox. In the library of the chapter of Sens there is preserved a +manuscript of vellum with miniature figures representing the ceremonies +of the Feast of Fools. The text contains a description of it, including +this Prose of the Ass; it was sung by two choirs, who imitated at +intervals and as the burden of the song, the braying of that animal. + +There was elected in the cathedral churches a bishop or archbishop of +the Fools, which election was confirmed by all sorts of buffooneries, +played off by way of consecration. This bishop officiated pontifically +and gave his blessing to the people, before whom he appeared bearing the +mitre, the crosier, and even the archiepiscopal cross. In those +churches which held immediately from the Holy See, a pope of the Fools +was elected, who officiated in all the decorations of papacy. All the +clergy assisted in the mass, some dressed in women's apparel, others as +buffoons, or masked in a grotesque and ridiculous manner. Not content +with singing licentious songs in the choir, they sat and played at dice +on the altar, at the side of the officiator. When the mass was over they +ran, leaped, and danced about the church, uttering obscene words, +singing immodest songs, and putting themselves in a thousand indecent +postures, sometimes exposing themselves almost naked. They then had +themselves drawn about the streets in tumbrels full of filth, that they +might throw it at the mob which gathered round them. The looser part of +the seculars would mix among the clergy, that they might play some +fool's part in the ecclesiastical habit. + +This feast was held in the same manner in the convents of monks and +nuns, as Naudé testifies in his complaint to Gassendi, in 1645, in which +he relates that at Antibes, in the Franciscan monastery, neither the +officiating monks nor the guardian went to the choir on the day of the +Innocents. The lay brethren occupied their places on that day, and, +clothed in sacerdotal decorations, torn and turned inside out, made a +sort of office. They held books turned upside down, which they seemed to +be reading through spectacles, the glasses of which were made of orange +peel; and muttered confused words, or uttered strange cries, +accompanied by extravagant contortions. + +The second register of the church of Autun, by the secretary Rotarii, +which ends with 1416, says, without specifying the day, that at the +Feast of Fools an ass was led along with a clergyman's cape on his back, +the attendants singing: "He haw! Mr. Ass, he haw!" + +Ducange relates a sentence of the officialty of Viviers, upon one +William, who, having been elected fool-bishop in 1400, had refused to +perform the solemnities and to defray the expenses customary on such +occasions. + +And, to conclude, the registers of St. Stephen, at Dijon, in 1521, +without mentioning the day, that the vicars ran about the streets with +drums, fifes, and other instruments, and carried lamps before the +_pré-chantre_ of the Fools, to whom the honor of the feast principally +belonged. But the parliament of that city, by a decree of January 19, +1552, forbade the celebration of this feast, which had already been +condemned by several councils, and especially by a circular of March 11, +1444, sent to all the clergy in the kingdom by the Paris university. +This letter, which we find at the end of the works of Peter of Blois, +says that this feast was, in the eyes of the clergy, so well imagined +and so Christian, that those who sought to suppress it were looked on as +excommunicated; and the Sorbonne doctor, John des Lyons, in his +discourse against the paganism of the Roiboit, informs us that a doctor +of divinity publicly maintained at Auxerre, about the close of the +fifteenth century, that "the feast of Fools was no less pleasing to God +than the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; +besides, that it was of much higher antiquity in the church." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 +(of 10), by François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY *** + +***** This file should be named 35622-0.txt or 35622-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/6/2/35622/ + +Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe +at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously +made available by the Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/35622-0.zip b/old/35622-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..01b4bd7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/35622-0.zip diff --git a/old/35622-8.txt b/old/35622-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffb5164 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/35622-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8807 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 (of 10), by +François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 (of 10) + From "The Works of Voltaire - A Contemporary Version" + +Author: François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +Commentator: John Morley + Tobias Smollett + H.G. Leigh + +Translator: William F. Fleming + +Release Date: March 28, 2011 [EBook #35622] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY *** + + + + +Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe +at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously +made available by the Internet Archive.) + + + + + +A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY + +VOLUME II + +By + +VOLTAIRE + + + + +EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION + +THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE + +A CONTEMPORARY VERSION + + + With Notes by Tobias Smollett, Revised and Modernized + New Translations by William F. Fleming, and an + Introduction by Oliver H.G. Leigh + + +A CRITIQUE AND BIOGRAPHY + +BY + +THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY + +FORTY-THREE VOLUMES + + + One hundred and sixty-eight designs, comprising reproductions + of rare old engravings, steel plates, photogravures, + and curious fac-similes + + +VOLUME VI + +E.R. DuMONT + +PARIS--LONDON--NEW YORK--CHICAGO + +1901 + + + + _The WORKS of VOLTAIRE_ + + _"Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundred + years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it + with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED. + Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the + sweetness of the present civilization."_ + + _VICTOR HUGO._ + + + +LIST OF PLATES--VOL. II + +THE BASTILLE--_Frontispiece_ + +AN ASTROLOGER + +A TYPE OF BEAUTY + +ALEXANDER'S TRIUMPH + + +[Illustration: The Bastille.--"For four hundred years the symbol of +oppression. Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a +perpetual threat, it was the last and often the first argument of king +and priest."] + + + * * * * * + +VOLTAIRE + +A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY + +IN TEN VOLUMES + +VOL II. + +APPEARANCE--CALENDS + + + * * * * * + + +APPEARANCE. + + +Are all appearances deceitful? Have our senses been given us only to +keep us in continual delusion? Is everything error? Do we live in a +dream, surrounded by shadowy chimeras? We see the sun setting when he is +already below the horizon; before he has yet risen we see him appear. A +square tower seems to be round. A straight stick, thrust into the water, +seems to be bent. + +You see your face in a mirror and the image appears to be behind the +glass: it is, however, neither behind nor before it. This glass, which +to the sight and the touch is so smooth and even, is no other than an +unequal congregation of projections and cavities. The finest and fairest +skin is a kind of bristled network, the openings of which are +incomparably larger than the threads, and enclose an infinite number of +minute hairs. Under this network there are liquors incessantly passing, +and from it there issue continual exhalations which cover the whole +surface. What we call large is to an elephant very small, and what we +call small is to insects a world. The same motion which would be rapid +to a snail would be very slow in the eye of an eagle. This rock, which +is impenetrable by steel, is a sieve consisting of more pores than +matter, and containing a thousand avenues of prodigious width leading to +its centre, in which are lodged multitudes of animals, which may, for +aught we know, think themselves the masters of the universe. + +Nothing is either as it appears to be, or in the place where we believe +it to be. Several philosophers, tired of being constantly deceived by +bodies, have in their spleen pronounced that bodies do not exist, and +that there is nothing real but our minds. As well might they have +concluded that, all appearances being false, and the nature of the soul +being as little known as that of the matter, there is no reality in +either body or soul. Perhaps it is this despair of knowing anything +which has caused some Chinese philosophers to say that nothing is the +beginning and the end of all things. This philosophy, so destructive to +being, was well known in Molière's time. Doctor Macphurius represents +the school; when teaching Sganarelle, he says, "You must not say, 'I am +come,' but 'it seems to me that I am come'; for it may seem to you, +without such being really the case." But at the present day a comic +scene is not an argument, though it is sometimes better than an +argument; and there is often as much pleasure in seeking after truth as +in laughing at philosophy. + +You do not see the network, the cavities, the threads, the inequalities, +the exhalations of that white and delicate skin which you idolize. +Animals a thousand times less than a mite discern all these objects +which escape your vision; they lodge, feed, and travel about in them, as +in an extensive country, and those on the right arm are perfectly +ignorant that there are creatures of their own species on the left. If +you were so unfortunate as to see what they see, your charming skin +would strike you with horror. + +The harmony of a concert, to which you listen with delight, must have on +certain classes of minute animals the effect of terrible thunder; and +perhaps it kills them. We see, touch, hear, feel things only in the way +in which they ought to be seen, touched, heard, or felt by ourselves. + +All is in due proportion. The laws of optics, which show you an object +in the water where it is not, and break a right line, are in entire +accordance with those which make the sun appear to you with a diameter +of two feet, although it is a million times larger than the earth. To +see it in its true dimensions would require an eye collecting his rays +at an angle as great as his disk, which is impossible. Our senses, then, +assist much more than they deceive us. + +Motion, time, hardness, softness, dimensions, distance, approximation, +strength, weakness, appearances, of whatever kind, all is relative. And +who has created these relations? + + + + +APROPOS. + + +All great successes, of whatever kind, are founded upon things done or +said apropos. + +Arnold of Brescia, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague did not come quite +apropos; the people were not then sufficiently enlightened; the +invention of printing had not then laid the abuses complained of before +the eyes of every one. But when men began to read--when the populace, +who were solicitous to escape purgatory, but at the same time wished not +to pay too dear for indulgences, began to open their eyes, the reformers +of the sixteenth century came quite apropos, and succeeded. + +It has been elsewhere observed that Cromwell under Elizabeth or Charles +the Second, or Cardinal de Retz when Louis XIV. governed by himself, +would have been very ordinary persons. + +Had Cæsar been born in the time of Scipio Africanus he would not have +subjugated the Roman commonwealth; nor would Mahomet, could he rise +again at the present day, be more than sheriff of Mecca. But if +Archimedes and Virgil were restored, one would still be the best +mathematician, the other the best poet of his country. + + + + +ARABS; + +AND, OCCASIONALLY, ON THE BOOK OF JOB. + + +If any one be desirous of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the +antiquities of Arabia, it may be presumed that he will gain no more +information than about those of Auvergne and Poitou. It is, however, +certain, that the Arabs were of some consequence long before Mahomet. +The Jews themselves say that Moses married an Arabian woman, and his +father-in-law Jethro seems to have been a man of great good sense. + +Mecca is considered, and not without reason, as one of the most ancient +cities in the world. It is, indeed, a proof of its antiquity that +nothing but superstition could occasion the building of a town on such a +spot, for it is in a sandy desert, where the water is brackish, so that +the people die of hunger and thirst. The country a few miles to the east +is the most delightful upon earth, the best watered and the most +fertile. There the Arabs should have built, and not at Mecca. But it was +enough for some charlatan, some false prophet, to give out his reveries, +to make of Mecca a sacred spot and the resort of neighboring nations. +Thus it was that the temple of Jupiter Ammon was built in the midst of +sands. Arabia extends from northeast to southwest, from the desert of +Jerusalem to Aden or Eden, about the fiftieth degree of north latitude. +It is an immense country, about three times as large as Germany. It is +very likely that its deserts of sand were brought thither by the waters +of the ocean, and that its marine gulfs were once fertile lands. + +The belief in this nation's antiquity is favored by the circumstance +that no historian speaks of its having been subjugated. It was not +subdued even by Alexander, nor by any king of Syria, nor by the Romans. +The Arabs, on the contrary, subjugated a hundred nations, from the Indus +to the Garonne; and, having afterwards lost their conquests, they +retired into their own country and did not mix with any other people. + +Having never been subject to nor mixed with other nations it is more +than probable that they have preserved their manners and their language. +Indeed, Arabic is, in some sense, the mother tongue of all Asia as far +as the Indus; or rather, the prevailing tongue, for mother tongues have +never existed. Their genius has never changed. They still compose their +"Nights' Entertainments," as they did when they imagined one Bac or +Bacchus, who passed through the Red Sea with three millions of men, +women, and children; who stopped the sun and moon, and made streams of +wine issue forth with a blow of his rod, which, when he chose, he +changed into a serpent. + +A nation so isolated, and whose blood remains unmixed, cannot change its +character. The Arabs of the desert have always been given to robbery, +and those inhabiting the towns been fond of fables, poetry, and +astronomy. It is said, in the historical preface to the Koran, that when +any one of their tribes had a good poet the other tribes never failed to +send deputies to that one on which God had vouchsafed to bestow so great +a gift. + +The tribes assembled every year, by representatives, in an open place +named Ocad, where verses were recited, nearly in the same way as is now +done at Rome in the garden of the academy of the Arcadii, and this +custom continued until the time of Mahomet. In his time, each one posted +his verses on the door of the temple of Mecca. Labid, son of Rabia, was +regarded as the Homer of Mecca; but, having seen the second chapter of +the Koran, which Mahomet had posted, he fell on his knees before him, +and said, "O Mahomet, son of Abdallah, son of Motalib, son of Achem, +thou art a greater poet than I--thou art doubtless the prophet of God." + +The Arabs of Maden, Naïd, and Sanaa were no less generous than those of +the desert were addicted to plunder. Among them, one friend was +dishonored if he had refused his assistance to another. In their +collection of verses, entitled _"Tograid",_ it is related that, "one +day, in the temple of Mecca, three Arabs were disputing on generosity +and friendship, and could not agree as to which, among those who then +set the greatest examples of these virtues, deserved the preference. +Some were for Abdallah, son of Giafar, uncle to Mahomet; others for +Kais, son of Saad; and others for Arabad, of the tribe of As. After a +long dispute they agreed to send a friend of Abdallah to him, a friend +of Kais to Kais, and a friend of Arabad to Arabad, to try them all +three, and to come and make their report to the assembly. + +"Then the friend of Abdallah went and said to him, 'Son of the uncle of +Mahomet, I am on a journey and am destitute of everything.' Abdallah was +mounted on his camel loaded with gold and silk; he dismounted with all +speed, gave him his camel, and returned home on foot. + +"The second went and made application to his friend Kais, son of Saad. +Kais was still asleep, and one of his domestics asked the traveller what +he wanted. The traveller answered that he was the friend of Kais, and +needed his assistance. The domestic said to him, 'I will not wake my +master; but here are seven thousand pieces of gold, which are all that +we at present have in the house. Take also a camel from the stable, and +a slave; these will, I think, be sufficient for you until you reach your +own house.' When Kais awoke, he chid the domestic for not having given +more. + +"The third repaired to his friend Arabad, of the tribe of As. Arabad was +blind, and was coming out of his house, leaning on two slaves, to pray +to God in the temple of Mecca. As soon as he heard his friend's voice, +he said to him, 'I possess nothing but my two slaves; I beg that you +will take and sell them; I will go to the temple as well as I can, with +my stick.' + +"The three disputants, having returned to the assembly, faithfully +related what had happened. Many praises were bestowed on Abdallah, son +of Giafar--on Kais, son of Saad--and on Arabad, of the tribe of As, but +the preference was given to Arabad." + +The Arabs have several tales of this kind, but our western nations have +none. Our romances are not in this taste. We have, indeed, several which +turn upon trick alone, as those of Boccaccio, _"Guzman d'Alfarache,"_ +"Gil Bias," etc. + + +_On Job, the Arab._ + +It is clear that the Arabs at least possessed noble and exalted ideas. +Those who are most conversant with the oriental languages think that the +Book of Job, which is of the highest antiquity, was composed by an Arab +of Idumaea. The most clear and indubitable proof is that the Hebrew +translator has left in his translation more than a hundred Arabic words, +which, apparently, he did not understand. + +Job, the hero of the piece, could not be a Hebrew, for he says, in the +forty-second chapter, that having been restored to his former +circumstances, he divided his possessions equally among his sons and +daughters, which is directly contrary to the Hebrew law. + +It is most likely that, if this book had been composed after the period +at which we place Moses, the author--who speaks of so many things and is +not sparing of examples--would have mentioned some one of the +astonishing prodigies worked by Moses, which were, doubtless, known to +all the nations of Asia. + +In the very first chapter Satan appears before God and asks permission +to tempt Job. _Satan_ was unknown in the Pentateuch; it was a Chaldæan +word; a fresh proof that the Arabian author was in the neighborhood of +Chaldæa. + +It has been thought that he might be a Jew because the Hebrew +translator has put Jehovah instead of El, or Bel, or Sadai. But what man +of the least information does not know that the word Jehovah was common +to the Phoenicians, the Syrians, the Egyptians, and every people of +the neighboring countries? + +A yet stronger proof--one to which there is no reply--is the knowledge +of astronomy which appears in the Book of Job. Mention is here made of +the constellations which we call Arcturus, Orion, the Pleiades, and even +of those of "the chambers of the south." Now, the Hebrews had no +knowledge of the sphere; they had not even a term to express astronomy; +but the Arabs, like the Chaldæans, have always been famed for their +skill in this science. + +It does, then, seem to be thoroughly proved that the Book of Job cannot +have been written by a Jew, and that it was anterior to all the Jewish +books, Philo and Josephus were too prudent to count it among those of +the Hebrew canon. It is incontestably an Arabian parable or allegory. + +This is not all. We derive from it some knowledge of the customs of the +ancient world, and especially of Arabia. Here we read of trading with +the Indies; a commerce which the Arabs have in all ages carried on, but +which the Jews never even heard of. + +Here, too, we see that the art of writing was in great cultivation, and +that they already made great books. + +It cannot be denied that the commentator Calmet, profound as he is, +violates all the rules of logic in pretending that Job announces the +immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, when he says: + +"For I know that my Redeemer liveth. And though after my skin--worms +destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. But ye should say, +Why persecute we him?--seeing the root of the matter is found in me. Be +ye afraid of the sword; for wrath bringeth the punishment of the sword, +that ye may know there is a judgment." + +Can anything be understood by those words, other than his hope of being +cured? The immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body at +the last day, are truths so indubitably announced in the New Testament, +and so clearly proved by the fathers and the councils, that there is no +need to attribute the first knowledge of them to an Arab. These great +mysteries are not explained in any passage of the Hebrew Pentateuch; how +then can they be explained in a single verse of Job and that in so +obscure a manner? Calmet has no better reason for seeing in the words of +Job the immortality of the soul, and the general resurrection, than he +would have for discovering a disgraceful disease in the malady with +which he was afflicted. Neither physics nor logic take the part of this +commentator. + +As for this allegorical Book of Job: it being manifestly Arabian, we are +at liberty to say that it has neither justness, method, nor precision. +Yet it is perhaps the most ancient book that has been written, and the +most valuable monument that has been found on this side the Euphrates. + + + + +ARARAT. + + +This is a mountain of Armenia, on which the ark rested. The question has +long been agitated, whether the deluge was universal--whether it +inundated the whole earth without exception, or only the portion of the +earth which was then known. Those who have thought that it extended only +to the tribes then existing, have founded their opinion on the inutility +of flooding unpeopled lands, which reason seems very plausible. As for +us, we abide by the Scripture text, without pretending to explain it. +But we shall take greater liberty with Berosus, an ancient Chaldæan +writer, of whom there are fragments preserved by Abydenus, quoted by +Eusebius, and repeated word for word by George Syncellus. From these +fragments we find that the Orientals of the borders of the Euxine, in +ancient times, made Armenia the abode of their gods. In this they were +imitated by the Greeks, who placed their deities on Mount Olympus. Men +have always confounded human with divine things. Princes built their +citadels on mountains; therefore they were also made the dwelling place +of the gods, and became sacred. The summit of Mount Ararat is concealed +by mists; therefore the gods hid themselves in those mists, sometimes +vouchsafing to appear to mortals in fine weather. + +A god of that country, believed to have been Saturn, appeared one day to +Xixuter, tenth king of Chaldæa, according to the computation of +Africanus, Abydenus, and Apollodorus, and said to him: + +"On the fifteenth day of the month Oesi, mankind shall be destroyed by a +deluge. Shut up close all your writings in Sipara, the city of the sun, +that the memory of things may not be lost. Build a vessel; enter it with +your relatives and friends; take with you birds and beasts; stock it +with provisions, and, when you are asked, 'Whither are you going in that +vessel?' answer, 'To the gods, to beg their favor for mankind.'" + +Xixuter built his vessel, which was two stadii wide, and five long; that +it, its width was two hundred and fifty geometrical paces, and its +length six hundred and twenty-five. This ship, which was to go upon the +Black Sea, was a slow sailer. The flood came. When it had ceased Xixuter +let some of his birds fly out, but, finding nothing to eat, they +returned to the vessel. A few days afterwards he again set some of his +birds at liberty, and they returned with mud in their claws. At last +they went and returned no more. Xixuter did likewise: he quitted his +ship, which had perched upon a mountain of Armenia, and he was seen no +more; the gods took him away. + +There is probably something historic in this fable. The Euxine +overflowed its banks, and inundated some portions of territory, and the +king of Chaldæa hastened to repair the damage. We have in Rabelais tales +no less ridiculous, founded on some small portion of truth. The ancient +historians are, for the most part, serious Rabelais. + +As for Mount Ararat, it has been asserted that it was one of the +mountains of Phrygia, and that it was called by a name answering that of +ark, because it was enclosed by three rivers. + +There are thirty opinions respecting this mountain. How shall we +distinguish the true one? That which the monks now call Ararat, was, +they say, one of the limits of the terrestrial paradise--a paradise of +which we find but few traces. It is a collection of rocks and +precipices, covered with eternal snows. Tournefort went thither by order +of Louis XIV. to seek for plants. He says that the whole neighborhood is +horrible, and the mountain itself still more so; that he found snow four +feet thick, and quite crystallized, and that there are perpendicular +precipices on every side. + +The Dutch traveller, John Struys, pretends that he went thither also. He +tells us that he ascended to the very top, to cure a hermit afflicted +with a rupture. + +"His hermitage," says he, "was so distant from the earth that we did not +reach it until the close of the seventh day, though each day we went +five leagues." If, in this journey, he was constantly ascending, this +Mount Ararat must be thirty-five leagues high. In the time of the +Giants' war, a few Ararats piled one upon another would have made the +ascent to the moon quite easy. John Struys, moreover, assures us that +the hermit whom he cured presented him with a cross made of the wood of +Noah's ark. Tournefort had not this advantage. + + + + +ARIANISM. + + +The great theological disputes, for twelve hundred years, were all +Greek. What would Homer, Sophocles, Demosthenes, Archimedes, have said, +had they witnessed the subtle cavillings which have cost so much blood. + +Arius has, even at this day, the honor of being regarded as the inventor +of his opinion, as Calvin is considered to have been the founder of +Calvinism. The pride in being the head of a sect is the second of this +world's vanities; for that of conquest is said to be the first. However, +it is certain that neither Arius nor Calvin is entitled to the +melancholy glory of invention. The quarrel about the Trinity existed +long before Arius took part in it, in the disputatious town of +Alexandria, where it had been beyond the power of Euclid to make men +think calmly and justly. There never was a people more frivolous than +the Alexandrians; in this respect they far exceeded even the Parisians. + +There must already have been warm disputes about the Trinity; since the +patriarch, who composed the "Alexandrian Chronicle," preserved at +Oxford, assures us that the party embraced by Arius was supported by two +thousand priests. + +We will here, for the reader's convenience, give what is said of Arius +in a small book which every one may not have at hand: Here is an +incomprehensible question, which, for more than sixteen hundred years, +has furnished exercise for curiosity, for sophistic subtlety, for +animosity, for the spirit of cabal, for the fury of dominion, for the +rage of persecution, for blind and sanguinary fanaticism, for barbarous +credulity, and which has produced more horrors than the ambition of +princes, which ambition has occasioned very many. Is Jesus the Word? If +He be the Word, did He emanate from God in time or before time? If He +emanated from God, is He coeternal and consubstantial with Him, or is He +of a similar substance? Is He distinct from Him, or is He not? Is He +made or begotten? Can He beget in his turn? Has He paternity? or +productive virtue without paternity? Is the Holy Ghost made? or +begotten? or produced? or proceeding from the Father? or proceeding from +the Son? or proceeding from both? Can He beget? can He produce? is His +hypostasis consubstantial with the hypostasis of the Father and the Son? +and how is it that, having the same nature--the same essence as the +Father and the Son, He cannot do the same things done by these persons +who are Himself? + +These questions, so far above reason, certainly needed the decision of +an infallible church. The Christians sophisticated, cavilled, hated, and +excommunicated one another, for some of these dogmas inaccessible to +human intellect, before the time of Arius and Athanasius. The Egyptian +Greeks were remarkably clever; they would split a hair into four, but on +this occasion they split it only into three. Alexandros, bishop of +Alexandria, thought proper to preach that God, being necessarily +individual--single--a monad in the strictest sense of the word, this +monad is triune. + +The priest Arius, whom we call Arius, was quite scandalized by +Alexandros's monad, and explained the thing in quite a different way. He +cavilled in part like the priest Sabellius, who had cavilled like the +Phrygian Praxeas, who was a great caviller. Alexandros quickly assembled +a small council of those of his own opinion, and excommunicated his +priest. Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, took the part of Arius. Thus the +whole Church was in a flame. + +The Emperor Constantine was a villain; I confess it--a parricide, who +had smothered his wife in a bath, cut his son's throat, assassinated his +father-in-law, his brother-in-law, and his nephew; I cannot deny it--a +man puffed up with pride and immersed in pleasure; granted--a detestable +tyrant, like his children; _transeat_--but he was a man of sense. He +would not have obtained the empire, and subdued all his rivals, had he +not reasoned justly. + +When he saw the flames of civil war lighted among the scholastic brains, +he sent the celebrated Bishop Osius with dissuasive letters to the two +belligerent parties. "You are great fools," he expressly tells them in +this letter, "to quarrel about things which you do not understand. It is +unworthy the gravity of your ministry to make so much noise about so +trifling a matter." + +By "so trifling a matter," Constantine meant not what regards the +Divinity, but the incomprehensible manner in which they were striving to +explain the nature of the Divinity. The Arabian patriarch, who wrote the +history of the Church of Alexandria, makes Osius, on presenting the +emperor's letter, speak in nearly the following words: + +"My brethren, Christianity is just beginning to enjoy the blessings of +peace, and you would plunge it into eternal discord. The emperor has but +too much reason to tell you that you quarrel about a very trifling +matter. Certainly, had the object of the dispute been essential, Jesus +Christ, whom we all acknowledge as our legislator, would have mentioned +it. God would not have sent His Son on earth, to return without teaching +us our catechism. Whatever He has not expressly told us is the work of +men and error is their portion. Jesus has commanded you to love one +another, and you begin by hating one another and stirring up discord in +the empire. Pride alone has given birth to these disputes, and Jesus, +your Master, has commanded you to be humble. Not one among you can know +whether Jesus is made or begotten. And in what does His nature concern +you, provided your own is to be just and reasonable? What has the vain +science of words to do with the morality which should guide your +actions? You cloud our doctrines with mysteries--you, who were designed +to strengthen religion by your virtues. Would you leave the Christian +religion a mass of sophistry? Did Christ come for this? Cease to +dispute, humble yourselves, edify one another, clothe the naked, feed +the hungry, and pacify the quarrels of families, instead of giving +scandal to the whole empire by your dissensions." + +But Osius addressed an obstinate audience. The Council of Nice was +assembled and the Roman Empire was torn by a spiritual civil war. This +war brought on others and mutual persecution has continued from age to +age, unto this day. + +The melancholy part of the affair was that as soon as the council was +ended the persecution began; but Constantine, when he opened it, did not +yet know how he should act, nor upon whom the persecution should fall. +He was not a Christian, though he was at the head of the Christians. +Baptism alone then constituted Christianity, and he had not been +baptized; he had even rebuilt the Temple of Concord at Rome. It was, +doubtless, perfectly indifferent to him whether Alexander of Alexandria, +or Eusebius of Nicomedia, and the priest Arius, were right or wrong; it +is quite evident, from the letter given above, that he had a profound +contempt for the dispute. + +But there happened that which always happens and always will happen in +every court. The enemies of those who were afterwards named Arians +accused Eusebius of Nicomedia of having formerly taken part with +Licinius against the emperor. "_I_ have proofs of it," said Constantine +in his letter to the Church of Nicomedia, "from the priests and deacons +in his train whom I have taken," etc. + +Thus, from the time of the first great council, intrigue, cabal, and +persecution were established, together with the tenets of the Church, +without the power to derogate from their sanctity. Constantine gave the +chapels of those who did not believe in the consubstantiality to those +who did believe in it; confiscated the property of the dissenters to his +own profit, and used his despotic power to exile Arius and his +partisans, who were not then the strongest. It has even been said that +of his own private authority he condemned to death whosoever should not +burn the writings of Arius; but this is not true. Constantine, prodigal +as he was of human blood, did not carry his cruelty to so mad and absurd +an excess as to order his executioners to assassinate the man who should +keep an heretical book, while he suffered the heresiarch to live. + +At court everything soon changes. Several non-consubstantial bishops, +with some of the eunuchs and the women, spoke in favor of Arius, and +obtained the reversal of the _lettre de cachet_. The same thing has +repeatedly happened in our modern courts on similar occasions. + +The celebrated Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, known by his writings, which +evince no great discernment, strongly accused Eustatius, bishop of +Antioch, of being a Sabellian; and Eustatius accused Eusebius of being +an Arian. A council was assembled at Antioch; Eusebius gained his cause; +Eustatius was displaced; and the See of Antioch was offered to Eusebius, +who would not accept it; the two parties armed against each other, and +this was the prelude to controversial warfare. Constantine, who had +banished Arius for not believing in the consubstantial Son, now banished +Eustatius for believing in Him; nor are such revolutions uncommon. + +St. Athanasius was then bishop of Alexandria. He would not admit Arius, +whom the emperor had sent thither, into the town, saying that "Arius was +excommunicated; that an excommunicated man ought no longer to have +either home or country; that he could neither eat nor sleep anywhere; +and that it was better to obey God than man." A new council was +forthwith held at Tyre, and new _lettres de cachet_ were issued. +Athanasius was removed by the Tyrian fathers and banished to Trèves. +Thus Arius, and Athanasius, his greatest enemy, were condemned in turn +by a man who was not yet a Christian: + +The two factions alike employed artifice, fraud, and calumny, according +to the old and eternal usage. Constantine left them to dispute and +cabal, for he had other occupations. It was at that time that this _good +prince_ assassinated his son, his wife, and his nephew, the young +Licinius, the hope of the empire, who was not yet twelve years old. + +Under Constantine, Arius' party was constantly victorious. The opposite +party has unblushingly written that one day St. Macarius, one of the +most ardent followers of Athanasius, knowing that Arius was on the way +to the cathedral of Constantinople, followed by several of his brethren, +prayed so ardently to God to confound this heresiarch that God could not +resist the prayer; and immediately all Arius' bowels passed through his +fundament--which is impossible. But at length Arius died. + +Constantine followed him a year afterwards, and it is said he died of +leprosy. Julian, in his "Cæsars," says that baptism, which this emperor +received a few hours before his death, cured no one of this distemper. + +As his children reigned after him the flattery of the Roman people, who +had long been slaves, was carried to such an excess that those of the +old religion made him a god, and those of the new made him a saint. His +feast was long kept, together with that of his mother. + +After his death, the troubles caused by the single word "consubstantial" +agitated the empire with renewed violence. Constantius, son and +successor to Constantine, imitated all his father's cruelties, and, +like him, held councils--which councils anathematized one another. +Athanasius went over all Europe and Asia to support his party, but the +Eusebians overwhelmed him. Banishment, imprisonment, tumult, murder, and +assassination signalized the close of the reign of Constantius. Julian, +the Church's mortal enemy, did his utmost to restore peace to the +Church, but was unsuccessful. Jovian, and after him Valentinian, gave +entire liberty of conscience, but the two parties accepted it only as +the liberty to exercise their hatred and their fury. + +Theodosius declared for the Council of Nice, but the Empress Justina, +who reigned in Italy, Illyria, and Africa, as guardian of the young +Valentinian, proscribed the great Council of Nice; and soon after the +Goths, Vandals, and Burgundians, who spread themselves over so many +provinces, finding Arianism established in them, embraced it in order to +govern the conquered nations by the religion of those nations. + +But the Nicæan faith having been received by the Gauls, their conqueror, +Clovis, followed that communion for the very same reason that the other +barbarians had professed the faith of Arius. + +In Italy, the great Theodoric kept peace between the two parties, and at +last the Nicæan formula prevailed in the east and in the west. Arianism +reappeared about the middle of the sixteenth century, favored by the +religious disputes which then divided Europe; and it reappeared, armed +with new strength and a still greater incredulity. Forty gentlemen of +Vicenza formed an academy, in which such tenets only were established as +appeared necessary to make men Christians. Jesus was acknowledged as the +Word, as Saviour, and as Judge; but His divinity, His consubstantiality, +and even the Trinity, were denied. + +Of these dogmatizers, the principal were Lælius Socinus, Ochin, Pazuta, +and Gentilis, who were joined by Servetus. The unfortunate dispute of +the latter with Calvin is well known; they carried on for some time an +interchange of abuse by letter. Servetus was so imprudent as to pass +through Geneva, on his way to Germany. Calvin was cowardly enough to +have him arrested, and barbarous enough to have him condemned to be +roasted by a slow fire--the same punishment which Calvin himself had +narrowly escaped in France. Nearly all the theologians of that time were +by turns persecuting and persecuted, executioners and victims. + +The same Calvin solicited the death of Gentilis at Geneva. He found five +advocates to subscribe that Gentilis deserved to perish in the flames. +Such horrors were worthy of that abominable age. Gentilis was put in +prison, and was on the point of being burned like Servetus, but he was +better advised than the Spaniard; he retracted, bestowed the most +ridiculous praises on Calvin, and was saved. But he had afterwards the +ill fortune, through not having made terms with a bailiff of the canton +of Berne, to be arrested as an Arian. There were witnesses who deposed +that he had said that the words _trinity, essence, hypostasis_ were not +to be found in the Scriptures, and on this deposition the judges, who +were as ignorant of the meaning of _hypostasis_ as himself, condemned +him, without at all arguing the question, to lose his head. + +Faustus Socinus, nephew to Lælius Socinus, and his companions were more +fortunate in Germany. They penetrated into Silesia and Poland, founded +churches there, wrote, preached, and were successful, but at length, +their religion being divested of almost every mystery, and a +philosophical and peaceful, rather than a militant sect, they were +abandoned; and the Jesuits, who had more influence, persecuted and +dispersed them. + +The remains of this sect in Poland, Germany, and Holland keep quiet and +concealed; but in England the sect has reappeared with greater strength +and éclat. The great Newton and Locke embraced it. Samuel Clarke, the +celebrated rector of St. James, and author of an excellent book on the +existence of God, openly declared himself an Arian, and his disciples +are very numerous. He would never attend his parish church on the day +when the Athanasian Creed was recited. In the course of this work will +be seen the subtleties which all these obstinate persons, who were not +so much Christians as philosophers, opposed to the purity of the +Catholic faith. + +Although among the theologians of London there was a large flock of +Arians, the public mind there has been more occupied by the great +mathematical truths discovered by Newton, and the metaphysical wisdom of +Locke. Disputes on consubstantiality appear very dull to philosophers. +The same thing happened to Newton in England as to Corneille in France, +whose _"Pertharite,"_ "_Théodore,_" and _"Recueil de Vers"_ were +forgotten, while _"Cinna"_ was alone thought of. Newton was looked upon +as God's interpreter, in the calculation of fluxions, the laws of +gravitation, and the nature of light. On his death, his pall was borne +by the peers and the chancellor of the realm, and his remains were laid +near the tombs of the kings--than whom he is more revered. Servetus, who +is said to have discovered the circulation of the blood, was roasted by +a slow fire, in a little town of the Allobroges, ruled by a theologian +of Picardy. + + + + +ARISTEAS. + + +Shall men forever be deceived in the most indifferent as well as the +most serious things? A pretended Aristeas would make us believe that he +had the Old Testament translated into Greek for the use of Ptolemy +Philadelphus--just as the Duke de Montausier had commentaries written on +the best Latin authors for the dauphin, who made no use of them. + +According to this Aristeas, Ptolemy, burning with desire to be +acquainted with the Jewish books, and to know those laws which the +meanest Jew in Alexandria could have translated for fifty crowns, +determined to send a solemn embassy to the high-priest of the Jews of +Jerusalem; to deliver a hundred and twenty thousand Jewish slaves, whom +his father, Ptolemy Soter, had made prisoners in Judæa, and in order to +assist them in performing the journey agreeably, to give them about +forty crowns each of our money--amounting in the whole to fourteen +millions four hundred thousand of our livres, or about five hundred and +seventy-six thousand pounds. + +Ptolemy did not content himself with this unheard-of liberality. He sent +to the temple a large table of massive gold, enriched all over with +precious stones, and had engraved upon it a chart of the Meander, a +river of Phrygia, the course of which river was marked with rubies and +emeralds. It is obvious how charming such a chart of the Meander must +have been to the Jews. This table was loaded with two immense golden +vases, still more richly worked. He also gave thirty other golden and an +infinite number of silver vases. Never was a book so dearly paid for; +the whole Vatican library might be had for a less amount. + +Eleazar, the pretended high-priest of Jerusalem, sent ambassadors in his +turn, who presented only a letter written upon fine vellum in characters +of gold. It was an act worthy of the Jews, to give a bit of parchment +for about thirty millions of livres. Ptolemy was so much delighted with +Eleazar's style that he shed tears of joy. + +The ambassador dined with the king and the chief priests of Egypt. When +grace was to be said, the Egyptians yielded the honor to the Jews. With +these ambassadors came seventy-two interpreters, six from each of the +twelve tribes, who had all learned Greek perfectly at Jerusalem. It is +really a pity that of these twelve tribes ten were entirely lost, and +had disappeared from the face of the earth so many ages before; but +Eleazar, the high-priest, found them again, on purpose to send +translators to Ptolemy. + +The seventy-two interpreters were shut up in the island of Pharos. Each +of them completed his translation in seventy-two days, and all the +translations were found to be word for word alike. This is called the +Septuagint or translation of the seventy, though it should have been +called the translation of the seventy-two. + +As soon as the king had received these books he worshipped them--he was +so good a Jew. Each interpreter received three talents of gold, and +there were sent to the high-sacrificer--in return for his parchment--ten +couches of silver, a crown of gold, censers and cups of gold, a vase of +thirty talents of silver--that is, of the weight of about sixty thousand +crowns--with ten purple robes, and a hundred pieces of the finest linen. + +Nearly all this fine story is faithfully repeated by the historian +Josephus, who never exaggerates anything. St. Justin improves upon +Josephus. He says that Ptolemy applied to King Herod, and not to the +high-priest Eleazar. He makes Ptolemy send two ambassadors to +Herod--which adds much to the marvellousness of the tale, for we know +that Herod was not born until long after the reign of Ptolemy +Philadelphus. + +It is needless to point out the profusion of anachronisms in these and +all such romances, or the swarm of contradictions and enormous blunders +into which the Jewish author falls in every sentence; yet this fable was +regarded for ages as an incontestable truth; and, the better to exercise +the credulity of the human mind, every writer who repeated it added or +retrenched in his own way, so that, to believe it all, it was necessary +to believe it in a hundred different ways. Some smile at these +absurdities which whole nations have swallowed, while others sigh over +the imposture. The infinite diversity of these falsehoods multiplies the +followers of Democritus and Heraclitus. + + + + +ARISTOTLE. + + +It is not to be believed that Alexander's preceptor, chosen by Philip, +was wrong-headed and pedantic. Philip was assuredly a judge, being +himself well informed, and the rival of Demosthenes in eloquence. + +_Aristotle's Logic._ + +Aristotle's logic--his art of reasoning--is so much the more to be +esteemed as he had to deal with the Greeks, who were continually holding +captious arguments, from which fault his master Plato was even less +exempt than others. + +Take, for example, the article by which, in the _"Phædon"_ Plato proves +the immortality of the soul: + +"Do you not say that death is the opposite of life? Yes. And that they +spring from each other? Yes. What, then, is it that springs from the +living? The dead. And what from the dead? The living. It is, then, from +the dead that all living creatures arise. Consequently, souls exist +after death in the infernal regions." + +Sure and unerring rules were wanted to unravel this extraordinary +nonsense, which, through Plato's reputation, fascinated the minds of +men. It was necessary to show that Plato gave a loose meaning to all his +words. + +Death does not spring from life, but the living man ceases to live. The +living springs not from the dead, but from a living man who subsequently +dies. Consequently, the conclusion that all living things spring from +dead ones is ridiculous. + +From this conclusion you draw another, which is no way included in the +premises, that souls are in the infernal regions after death. It should +first have been proved that dead bodies are in the infernal regions, and +that the souls accompany them. + +There is not a correct word in your argument. You should have said--That +which thinks has no parts; that which has no parts is indestructible: +therefore, the thinking faculty in us, having no parts, is +indestructible. Or--the body dies because it is divisible; the soul is +indivisible; therefore it does not die. Then you would at least have +been understood. + +It is the same with all the captious reasonings of the Greeks. A master +taught rhetoric to his disciple on condition that he should pay him +after the first cause that he gained. The disciple intended never to pay +him. He commenced an action against his master, saying: "I will never +pay you anything, for, if I lose my cause I was not to pay you until I +had gained it, and if I gain it my demand is that I may not pay you." + +The master retorted, saying: "If you lose you must pay; if you gain you +must also pay; for our bargain is that you shall pay me after the first +cause that you have gained." + +It is evident that all this turns on an ambiguity. Aristotle teaches how +to remove it, by putting the necessary terms in the argument: + +A sum is not due until the day appointed for its payment. The day +appointed is that when a cause shall have been gained. No cause has yet +been gained. Therefore the day appointed has not yet arrived. Therefore +the disciple does not yet owe anything. + +But _not yet_ does not mean _never_. So that the disciple instituted a +ridiculous action. The master, too, had no right to demand anything, +since the day appointed had not arrived. He must wait until the disciple +had pleaded some other cause. + +Suppose a conquering people were to stipulate that they would restore to +the conquered only one-half of their ships; then, having sawed them in +two, and having thus given back the exact half, were to pretend that +they had fulfilled the treaty. It is evident that this would be a very +criminal equivocation. + +Aristotle did, then, render a great service to mankind by preventing all +ambiguity; for this it is which causes all misunderstandings in +philosophy, in theology, and in public affairs. The pretext for the +unfortunate war of 1756 was an equivocation respecting Acadia. + +It is true that natural good sense, combined with the habit of +reasoning, may dispense with Aristotle's rules. A man who has a good ear +and voice may sing well without musical rules, but it is better to know +them. + +_His Physics._ + +They are but little understood, but it is more than probable that +Aristotle understood himself, and was understood in his own time. We are +strangers to the language of the Greeks; we do not attach to the same +words the same ideas. + +For instance, when he says, in his seventh chapter, that the principles +of bodies are matter, privation, and form, he seems to talk egregious +nonsense; but such is not the case. Matter, with him, is the first +principle of everything--the subject of everything--indifferent to +everything. Form is essential to its becoming any certain thing. +Privation is that which distinguishes any being from all those things +which are not in it. Matter may, indifferently, become a rose or an +apple; but, when it is an apple or a rose it is deprived of all that +would make it silver or lead. Perhaps this truth was not worth the +trouble of repeating; but we have nothing here but what is quite +intelligible, and nothing at all impertinent. + +The "act of that which is in power" also seems a ridiculous phrase, +though it is no more so than the one just noticed. Matter may become +whatever you will--fire, earth, water, vapor, metal, mineral, animal, +tree, flower. This is all that is meant by the expression, _act in +power_. So that there was nothing ridiculous to the Greeks in saying +that motion was an act of power, since matter may be moved; and it is +very likely that Aristotle understood thereby that motion was not +essential to matter. + +Aristotle's physics must necessarily have been very bad in detail. This +was common to all philosophers until the time when the Galileos, the +Torricellis, the Guerickes, the Drebels, and the Academy del Cimento +began to make experiments. Natural philosophy is a mine which cannot be +explored without instruments that were unknown to the ancients. They +remained on the brink of the abyss, and reasoned upon without seeing its +contents. + +_Aristotle's Treatise on Animals._ + +His researches relative to animals formed, on the contrary, the best +book of antiquity, because here Aristotle made use of his eyes. +Alexander furnished him with all the rare animals of Europe, Asia, and +Africa. This was one fruit of his conquests. In this way that hero spent +immense sums, which at this day would terrify all the guardians of the +royal treasury, and which should immortalize Alexander's glory, of which +we have already spoken. + +At the present day a hero, when he has the misfortune to make war, can +scarcely give any encouragement to the sciences; he must borrow money of +a Jew, and consult other Jews in order to make the substance of his +subjects flow into his coffer of the Danaides, whence it escapes through +a thousand openings. Alexander sent to Aristotle elephants, +rhinoceroses, tigers, lions, crocodiles, gazelles, eagles, ostriches, +etc.; and we, when by chance a rare animal is brought to our fairs, go +and admire it for sixpence, and it dies before we know anything about +it. + +_Of the Eternal World._ + +Aristotle expressly maintains, in his book on heaven, chap, xi., that +the world is eternal. This was the opinion of all antiquity, excepting +the Epicureans. He admitted a God--a first mover--and defined Him to be +"one, eternal, immovable, indivisible, without qualities." + +He must, therefore, have regarded the world as emanating from God, as +the light emanates from the sun, and is co-existent with it. About the +celestial spheres he was as ignorant as all the rest of the +philosophers. Copernicus was not yet come. + +_His Metaphysics._ + +God being the first mover, He gives motion to the soul. But what is God, +and what is the soul, according to him? The soul is an _entelechia_. "It +is," says he, "a principle and an act--a nourishing, feeling, and +reasoning power." This can only mean that we have the faculties of +nourishing ourselves, of feeling, and of reasoning. The Greeks no more +knew what an _entelechia_ was than do the South Sea islanders; nor have +our doctors any more knowledge of what a soul is. + +_His Morals._ + +Aristotle's morals, like all others, are good, for there are not two +systems of morality. Those of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Pythagoras, of +Aristotle, of Epictetus, of Antoninus, are absolutely the same. God has +placed in every breast the knowledge of good, with some inclination for +evil. + +Aristotle says that to be virtuous three things are necessary--nature, +reason, and habit; and nothing is more true. Without a good disposition, +virtue is too difficult; reason strengthens it; and habit renders good +actions as familiar as a daily exercise to which one is accustomed. + +He enumerates all the virtues, and does not fail to place friendship +among them. He distinguishes friendship between equals, between +relatives, between guests, and between lovers. Friendship springing from +the rights of hospitality is no longer known among us. That which, among +the ancients, was the sacred bond of society is, with us, nothing but an +innkeeper's reckoning; and as for lovers, it is very rarely nowadays +that virtue has anything to do with love. We think we owe nothing to a +woman to whom we have a thousand times promised everything. + +It is a melancholy reflection that our first thinkers have never ranked +friendship among the virtues--have rarely recommended friendship; but, +on the contrary, have often seemed to breathe enmity, like tyrants, who +dread all associations. + +It is, moreover, with very good reason that Aristotle places all the +virtues between the two extremes. He was, perhaps, the first who +assigned them this place. He expressly says that piety is the medium +between atheism and superstition. + +_His Rhetoric._ + +It was probably his rules for rhetoric and poetry that Cicero and +Quintilian had in view. Cicero, in his "Orator" says that "no one had +more science, sagacity, invention, or judgment." Quintilian goes so far +as to praise, not only the extent of his knowledge, but also the suavity +of his elocution--_suavitatem eloquendi._ + +Aristotle would have an orator well informed respecting laws, finances, +treaties, fortresses, garrisons, provisions, and merchandise. The +orators in the parliaments of England, the diets of Poland, the states +of Sweden, the _pregadi_ of Venice, etc., would not find these lessons +of Aristotle unprofitable; to other nations, perhaps, they would be so. +He would have his orator know the passions and manners of men, and the +humors of every condition. + +I think there is not a single nicety of the art which has escaped him. +He particularly commends the citing of instances where public affairs +are spoken of; nothing has so great an effect on the minds of men. + +What he says on this subject proves that he wrote his "Rhetoric" long +before Alexander was appointed captain-general of the Greeks against the +great king. + +"If," says he, "any one had to prove to the Greeks that it is to their +interest to oppose the enterprises of the king of Persia, and to prevent +him from making himself master of Egypt, he should first remind them +that Darius Ochus would not attack Greece until Egypt was in his power; +he should remark that Xerxes had pursued the same course; he should add +that it was not to be doubted that Darius Codomannus would do the same; +and that, therefore, they must not suffer him to take possession of +Egypt." + +He even permits, in speeches delivered to great assemblies, the +introduction of parables and fables; they always strike the multitude. +He relates some ingenious ones, which are of the highest antiquity, as +the horse that implored the assistance of man to avenge himself on the +stag, and became a slave through having sought a protector. + +It may be remarked that, in the second book, where he treats of arguing +from the greater to the less, he gives an example which plainly shows +what was the opinion of Greece, and probably of Asia, respecting the +extent of the power of the gods. + +"If," says he, "it be true that the gods themselves, enlightened as they +are, cannot know everything, much less can men." This passage clearly +proves that omniscience was not then attributed to the Divinity. It was +conceived that the gods could not know what was not; the future was not, +therefore it seemed impossible that they should know it. This is the +opinion of the Socinians at the present day. + +But to return to Aristotle's "Rhetoric." What I shall chiefly remark on +in his book on elocution and diction is the good sense with which he +condemns those who would be poets in prose. He would have pathos, but he +banishes bombast, and proscribes useless epithets. Indeed, Demosthenes +and Cicero, who followed his precepts, never affected the poetic style +in their speeches. "The style," says Aristotle, "must always be +conformable to the subject." + +Nothing can be more misplaced than to speak of physics poetically, and +lavish figure and ornament where there should be only method, clearness, +and truth. It is the quackery of a man who would pass off false systems +under cover of an empty noise of words. Weak minds are caught by the +bait, and strong minds disdain it. + +Among us the funeral oration has taken possession of the poetic style in +prose; but this branch of oratory, consisting almost entirely of +exaggeration, seems privileged to borrow the ornaments of poetry. + +The writers of romances have sometimes taken this licence. La Calprenède +was, I think, the first who thus transposed the limits of the arts, and +abused this facility. The author of "Telemachus" was pardoned through +consideration for Homer, whom he imitated, though he could not make +verses, and still more in consideration of his morality, in which he +infinitely surpasses Homer, who has none at all. But he owed his +popularity chiefly to the criticism on the pride of Louis XIV. and the +harshness of Louvois, which, it was thought, were discoverable in +"Telemachus." + +Be this as it may, nothing can be a better proof of Aristotle's good +sense and good taste than his having assigned to everything its proper +place. + +_Aristotle on Poetry._ + +Where, in our modern nations, shall we find a natural philosopher, a +geometrician, a metaphysician, or even a moralist who has spoken well on +the subject of poetry? They teem with the names of Homer, Virgil, +Sophocles, Ariosto, Tasso, and so many others who have charmed the world +by the harmonious productions of their genius, but they feel not their +beauties; or if they feel them they would annihilate them. + +How ridiculous is it in Pascal to say: "As we say poetical beauty, we +should likewise say geometrical beauty, and medicinal beauty. Yet we do +not say so, and the reason is that we well know what is the object of +geometry, and what is the object of medicine, but we do not know in what +the peculiar charm--which is the object of poetry--consists. We know not +what that natural model is which must be imitated; and for want of this +knowledge we have invented certain fantastic terms, as age of gold, +wonder of the age, fatal wreath, fair star, etc. And this jargon we call +poetic beauty." + +The pitifulness of this passage is sufficiently obvious. We know that +there is nothing beautiful in a medicine, nor in the properties of a +triangle; and that we apply the term "beautiful" only to that which +raises admiration in our minds and gives pleasure to our senses. Thus +reasons Aristotle; and Pascal here reasons very ill. Fatal wreath, fair +star, have never been poetic beauties. If he wished to know what is +poetic beauty, he had only to read. + +Nicole wrote against the stage, about which he had not a single idea; +and was seconded by one Dubois, who was as ignorant of the _belles +lettres_ as himself. + +Even Montesquieu, in his amusing "Persian Letters," has the petty vanity +to think that Homer and Virgil are nothing in comparison with one who +imitates with spirit and success Dufrénoy's _"Siamois,"_ and fills his +book with bold assertions, without which it would not have been read. +"What," says he, "are epic poems? I know them not. I despise the lyric +as much as I esteem the tragic poets." He should not, however, have +despised Pindar and Horace quite so much. Aristotle did not despise +Pindar. + +Descartes did, it is true, write for Queen Christina a little +_divertissement_ in verse, which was quite worthy of his _matière +cannelée_. + +Malebranche could not distinguish Corneille's _"Qu'il mourût"_ from a +line of Jodèle's or Garnier's. + +What a man, then, was Aristotle, who traced the rules of tragedy with +the same hand with which he had laid down those of dialectics, of +morals, of politics, and lifted, as far as he found it possible, the +great veil of nature! + +To his fourth chapter on poetry Boileau is indebted for these fine +lines: + + _Il n'est point de serpent, ni de monstre odieux_ + _Qui, par l'art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux._ + _D'un pinceau délicat l'artifice agréable_ + _Du plus affreux object fait un objet aimable;_ + _Ainsi, pour nous charmer, la tragédie eut pleurs_ + _D'OEdipe tout-sanglant fit parler les douleurs._ + + Each horrid shape, each object of affright, + Nice imitation teaches to delight; + So does the skilful painter's pleasing art + Attractions to the darkest form impart; + So does the tragic Muse, dissolved in tears. + With tales of woe and sorrow charm our ears. + +Aristotle says: "Imitation and harmony have produced poetry. We see +terrible animals, dead or dying men, in a picture, with +pleasure--objects which in nature would inspire us only with fear and +sorrow. The better they are imitated the more complete is our +satisfaction." + +This fourth chapter of Aristotle's reappears almost entire in Horace and +Boileau. The laws which he gives in the following chapters are at this +day those of our good writers, excepting only what relates to the +choruses and music. His idea that tragedy was instituted to purify the +passions has been warmly combated; but if he meant, as I believe he did, +that an incestuous love might be subdued by witnessing the misfortune of +Phædra, or anger be repressed by beholding the melancholy example of +Ajax, there is no longer any difficulty. + +This philosopher expressly commands that there be always the heroic in +tragedy and the ridiculous in comedy. This is a rule from which it is, +perhaps, now becoming too customary to depart. + + + + +ARMS--ARMIES. + + +It is worthy of consideration that there have been and still are, upon +the earth societies without armies. The Brahmins, who long governed +nearly all the great Indian Chersonesus; the primitives, called Quakers, +who governed Pennsylvania; some American tribes, some in the centre of +Africa, the Samoyedes, the Laplanders, the Kamchadales, have never +marched with colors flying to destroy their neighbors. + +The Brahmins were the most considerable of all these pacific nations; +their caste, which is so ancient, which is still existing, and compared +with which all other institutions are quite recent, is a prodigy which +cannot be sufficiently admired. Their religion and their policy always +concurred in abstaining from the shedding of blood, even of that of the +meanest animal. Where such is the regime, subjugation is easy; they have +been subjugated, but have not changed. + +The Pennsylvanians never had an army; they always held war in +abhorrence. + +Several of the American tribes did not know what an army was until the +Spaniards came to exterminate them all. The people on the borders of the +Icy Sea are ignorant alike of armies, of the god of armies, of +battalions, and of squadrons. + +Besides these populations, the priests and monks do not bear arms in +any country--at least when they observe the laws of their institution. + +It is only among Christians that there have been religious societies +established for the purpose of fighting--as the Knights Templars, the +Knights of St. John, the Knights of the Teutonic Order, the Knights +Swordbearers. These religious orders were instituted in imitation of the +Levites, who fought like the rest of the Jewish tribes. + +Neither armies nor arms were the same in antiquity as at present. The +Egyptians hardly ever had cavalry. It would have been of little use in a +country intersected by canals, inundated during five months of the year, +and miry during five more. The inhabitants of a great part of Asia used +chariots of war. + +They are mentioned in the annals of China. Confucius says that in his +time each governor of a province furnished to the emperor a thousand war +chariots, each drawn by four horses. The Greeks and Trojans fought in +chariots drawn by two horses. + +Cavalry and chariots were unknown to the Jews in a mountainous tract, +where their first king, when he was elected, had nothing but she-asses. +Thirty sons of Jair, princes of thirty cities, according to the text +(Judges, x, 4), rode each upon an ass. Saul, afterwards king of Judah, +had only she-asses; and the sons of David all fled upon mules when +Absalom had slain his brother Amnon. Absalom was mounted on a mule in +the battle which he fought against his father's troops; which proves, +according to the Jewish historians, either that mares were beginning to +be used in Palestine, or that they were already rich enough there to buy +mules from the neighboring country. + +The Greeks made but little use of cavalry. It was chiefly with the +Macedonian phalanx that Alexander gained the battles which laid Persia +at his feet. It was the Roman infantry that subjugated the greater part +of the world. At the battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar had but one thousand +horsemen. + +It is not known at what time the Indians and the Africans first began to +march elephants at the head of their armies. We cannot read without +surprise of Hannibal's elephants crossing the Alps, which were much +harder to pass then than they are now. + +There have long been disputes about the disposition of the Greek and +Roman armies, their arms, and their evolutions. Each one has given his +plan of the battles of Zama and Pharsalia. + +The commentator Calmet, a Benedictine, has printed three great volumes +of his "Dictionary of the Bible," in which, the better to explain God's +commandments, are inserted a hundred engravings, where you see plans of +battles and sieges in copper-plate. The God of the Jews was the God of +armies, but Calmet was not His secretary; he cannot have known, but by +revelation, how the armies of the Amalekites, the Moabites, the Syrians, +and the Philistines were arranged on the days of general murder. These +plates of carnage, designed at a venture, made his hook five or six +louis dearer, but made it no better. + +It is a great question whether the Franks, whom the Jesuit Daniel calls +French by anticipation, used bows and arrows in their armies, and +whether they had helmets and cuirasses. + +Supposing that they went to combat almost naked, and armed, as they are +said to have been, with only a small carpenter's ax, a sword, and a +knife, we must infer that the Romans, masters of Gaul, so easily +conquered by Clovis, had lost all their ancient valor, and that the +Gauls were as willing to be subject to a small number of Franks as to a +small number of Romans. Warlike accoutrements have since changed, as +everything else changes. + +In the days of knights, squires, and varlets, the armed forces of +Germany, France, Italy, England, and Spain consisted almost entirely of +horsemen, who, as well as their horses, were covered with steel. The +infantry performed the functions rather of pioneers than of soldiers. +But the English always had good archers among their foot, which +contributed, in a great measure, to their gaining almost every battle. + +Who would believe that armies nowadays do but make experiments in +natural philosophy? A soldier would be much astonished if some learned +man were to say to him: + +"My friend, you are a better machinist than Archimedes. Five parts of +saltpetre, one of sulphur, and one of _carbo ligneus_ have been +separately prepared. Your saltpetre dissolved, well filtered, well +evaporated, well crystallized, well turned, well dried, has been +incorporated with the yellow purified sulphur. These two ingredients, +mixed with powdered charcoal, have, by means of a little vinegar, or +solution of sal-ammoniac, or urine, formed large balls, which balls have +been reduced _in pulverem pyrium_ by a mill. The effect of this mixture +is a dilatation, which is nearly as four thousand to unity; and the lead +in your barrel exhibits another effect, which is the product of its bulk +multiplied by its velocity. + +"The first who discovered a part of this mathematical secret was a +Benedictine named Roger Bacon. The invention was perfected, in Germany, +in the fourteenth century, by another Benedictine named Schwartz. So +that you owe to two monks the art of being an excellent murderer, when +you aim well, and your powder is good. + +"Du Cange has in vain pretended that, in 1338, the registers of the +_Chambre des Comptes_, at Paris, mention a bill paid for gunpowder. Do +not believe it. It was artillery which is there spoken of--a name +attached to ancient as well as to modern warlike machines. + +"Gunpowder entirely superseded the Greek fire, of which the Moors still +made use. In fine, you are the depositary of an art, which not only +imitates the thunder, but is also much more terrible." + +There is, however, nothing but truth in this speech. Two monks have, in +reality, changed the face of the earth. + +Before cannon were known, the northern nations had subjugated nearly the +whole hemisphere, and could come again, like famishing wolves, to seize +upon the lands as their ancestors had done. + +In all armies, the victory, and consequently the fate of kingdoms, was +decided by bodily strength and agility--a sort of sanguinary fury--a +desperate struggle, man to man. Intrepid men took towns by scaling their +walls. During the decline of the Roman Empire there was hardly more +discipline in the armies of the North than among carnivorous beasts +rushing on their prey. + +Now a single frontier fortress would suffice to stop the armies of +Genghis or Attila. It is not long since a victorious army of Russians +were unavailably consumed before Custrin, which is nothing more than a +little fortress in a marsh. + +In battle, the weakest in body may, with well-directed artillery, +prevail against the stoutest. At the battle of Fontenoy a few cannon +were sufficient to compel the retreat of the whole English column, +though it had been master of the field. + +The combatants no longer close. The soldier has no longer that ardor, +that impetuosity, which is redoubled in the heat of action, when the +fight is hand to hand. Strength, skill, and even the temper of the +weapons, are useless. Rarely is a charge with the bayonet made in the +course of a war, though the bayonet is the most terrible of weapons. + +In a plain, frequently surrounded by redoubts furnished with heavy +artillery, two armies advance in silence, each division taking with it +flying artillery. The first lines lire at one another and after one +another: they are victims presented in turn to the bullets. Squadrons at +the wings are often exposed to a cannonading while waiting for the +general's orders. They who first tire of this manoeuvre, which gives +no scope for the display of impetuous bravery, disperse and quit the +field; and are rallied, if possible, a few miles off. The victorious +enemies besiege a town, which sometimes costs them more men, money, and +time than they would have lost by several battles. The progress made is +rarely rapid; and at the end of five or six years, both sides, being +equally exhausted, are compelled to make peace. + +Thus, at all events, the invention of artillery and the new mode of +warfare have established among the respective powers an equality which +secures mankind from devastations like those of former times, and +thereby renders war less fatal in its consequences, though it is still +prodigiously so. + +The Greeks in all ages, the Romans in the time of Sulla, and the other +nations of the west and south, had no standing army; every citizen was a +soldier, and enrolled himself in time of war. It is, at this day, +precisely the same in Switzerland. Go through the whole country, and +you will not find a battalion, except at the time of the reviews. If it +goes to war, you all at once see eighty thousand men in arms. + +Those who usurped the supreme power after Sulla always had a permanent +force, paid with the money of the citizens, to keep the citizens in +subjection, much more than to subjugate other nations. The bishop of +Rome himself keeps a small army in his pay. Who, in the time of the +apostles, would have said that the servant of the servants of God should +have regiments, and have them in Rome? + +Nothing is so much feared in England as a great standing army. The +janissaries have raised the sultans to greatness, but they have also +strangled them. The sultans would have avoided the rope, if instead of +these large bodies of troops, they had established small ones. + + + + +AROT AND MAROT. + +WITH A SHORT REVIEW OF THE KORAN. + + +This article may serve to show how much the most learned men may be +deceived, and to develop some useful truths. In the _"Dictionnaire +Encyclopédique"_ there is the following passage concerning Arot and +Marot: + +"These are the names of two angels, who, the impostor Mahomet said, had +been sent from God to teach man, and to order him to abstain from +murder, false judgments, and excesses of every kind. This false prophet +adds that a very beautiful woman, having invited these two angels to her +table, made them drink wine, with which being heated, they solicited her +as lovers; that she feigned to yield to their passion, provided they +would first teach her the words by pronouncing which they said it was +easy to ascend to heaven; that having obtained from them what she asked, +she would not keep her promise; and that she was then taken up into +heaven, where, having related to God what had passed, she was changed +into the morning star called Lucifer or Aurora, and the angels were +severely punished. Hence it was, according to Mahomet, that God took +occasion to forbid wine to men." + +It would be in vain to seek in the Koran for a single word of this +absurd story and pretended reason for Mahomet's forbidding his followers +the use of wine. He forbids it only in the second and fifth chapters. + +"They will question thee about wine and strong liquors: thou shalt +answer, that it is a great sin. The just, who believe and do good works, +must not be reproached with having drunk, and played at games of chance, +before games of chance were forbidden." + +It is averred by all the Mahometans that their prophet forbade wine and +liquors solely to preserve their health and prevent quarrels, in the +burning climate of Arabia. The use of any fermented liquor soon affects +the head, and may destroy both health and reason. + +The fable of Arot and Marot descending from heaven, and wanting to lie +with an Arab woman, after drinking wine with her, is not in any +Mahometan author. It is to be found only among the impostures which +various Christian writers, more indiscreet than enlightened, have +printed against the Mussulman religion, through a zeal which is not +according to knowledge. The names of Arot and Marot are in no part of +the Koran. It is one Sylburgius who says, in an old book which nobody +reads, that he anathematizes the angels Arot, Marot, Safah, and Merwah. + +Observe, kind reader, that Safah and Merwah are two little hills near +Mecca; so that our learned Sylburgius has taken two hills for two +angels. Thus it was with every writer on Mahometanism among us, almost +without exception, until the intelligent Reland gave us clear ideas of +the Mussulman belief, and the learned Sale, after living twenty-four +years in and about Arabia, at length enlightened us by his faithful +translation of the Koran, and his most instructive preface. + +Gagnier himself, notwithstanding his Arabic professorship at Oxford, has +been pleased to put forth a few falsehoods concerning Mahomet, as if we +had need of lies to maintain the truth of our religion against a false +prophet. He gives us at full length Mahomet's journey through the seven +heavens on the mare Alborac, and even ventures to cite the fifty-third +sura or chapter; but neither in this fifty-third sura, nor in any other, +is there so much as an allusion to this pretended journey through the +heavens. + +This strange story is related by Abulfeda, seven hundred years after +Mahomet. It is taken, he says, from ancient manuscripts which were +current in Mahomet's time. But it is evident that they were not +Mahomet's; for, after his death, Abubeker gathered together all the +leaves of the Koran, in the presence of all the chiefs of tribes, and +nothing was inserted in the collection that did not appear to be +authentic. + +Besides, the chapter concerning the journey to heaven, not only is not +in the Koran, but is in a very different style, and is at least four +times as long as any of the received chapters. Compare all the other +chapters of the Koran with this, and you will find a prodigious +difference. It begins thus: + +"One night, I fell asleep between the two hills of Safah and Merwah. +That night was very dark, but so still that the dogs were not heard to +bark, nor the cocks to crow. All at once, the angel Gabriel appeared +before me in the form in which the Most High God created him. His skin +was white as snow. His fair hair, admirably disposed, fell in ringlets +over his shoulders; his forehead was clear, majestic, and serene, his +teeth beautiful and shining, and his legs of a saffron hue; his garments +were glittering with pearls, and with thread of pure gold. On his +forehead was a plate of gold, on which were written two lines, brilliant +and dazzling with light; in the first were these words, 'There is no God +but God'; and in the second these, 'Mahomet is God's Apostle.' On +beholding this, I remained the most astonished and confused of men. I +observed about him seventy thousand little boxes or bags of musk and +saffron. He had five hundred pairs of wings; and the distance from one +wing to another was five hundred years' journey. + +"Thus did Gabriel appear before me. He touched me, and said, 'Arise, +thou sleeper!' I was seized with fear and trembling, and starting up, +said to him, 'Who art thou?' He answered, 'God have mercy upon thee! I +am thy brother Gabriel.' 'O my dearly beloved Gabriel,' said I, 'I ask +thy pardon; is it a revelation of something new, or is it some +afflicting threat that thou bringest me?' 'It is something new,' +returned he; 'rise, my dearly beloved, and tie thy mantle over thy +shoulders; thou wilt have need of it, for thou must this night pay a +visit to thy Lord.' So saying, Gabriel, taking my hand, raised me from +the ground, and having mounted me on the mare Alborac, led her himself +by the bridle." + +In fine, it is averred by the Mussulmans that this chapter, which has no +authenticity, was imagined by Abu-Horaïrah, who is said to have been +contemporary with the prophet. What should we say of a Turk who should +come and insult our religion by telling us that we reckon among our +sacred books the letters of St. Paul to Seneca, and Seneca's letters to +St. Paul; the acts of Pilate; the life of Pilate's wife; the letters of +the pretended King Abgarus to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ's answer to +the same; the story of St. Peter's challenge to Simon the magician; the +predictions of the sibyls; the testament of the twelve patriarchs; and +so many other books of the same kind? + +We should answer the Turk by saying that he was very ill informed and +that not one of these works was regarded as authentic. The Turk will +make the same answer to us, when to confound him we reproach him with +Mahomet's journey to the seven heavens. He will tell us that this is +nothing more than a pious fraud of latter times, and that this journey +is not in the Koran. Assuredly I am not here comparing truth with +error--Christianity with Mahometanism--the Gospel with the Koran; but +false tradition with false tradition--abuse with abuse--absurdity with +absurdity. + +This absurdity has been carried to such a length that Grotius charges +Mahomet with having said that God's hands are cold, for he has felt +them; that God is carried about in a chair; and that, in Noah's ark, the +rat was produced from the elephant's dung, and the cat from the lion's +breath. + +Grotius reproaches Mahomet with having imagined that Jesus Christ was +taken up into heaven instead of suffering execution. He forgets that +there were entire heretical communions of primitive Christians who +spread this opinion, which was preserved in Syria and Arabia until +Mahomet's time. + +How many times has it been repeated that Mahomet had accustomed a pigeon +to eat grain out of his ear, and made his followers believe that this +pigeon brought him messages from God? + +Is it not enough for us that we are persuaded of the falseness of his +sect, and invincibly convinced by faith of the truth of our own, without +losing our time in calumniating the Mahometans, who have established +themselves from Mount Caucasus to Mount Atlas, and from the confines of +Epirus to the extremities of India? We are incessantly writing bad books +against them, of which they know nothing. We cry out that their religion +has been embraced by so many nations only because it flatters the +senses. But where is the sensuality in ordering abstinence from the wine +and liquors in which we indulge to such excess; in pronouncing to every +one an indispensable command to give to the poor each year two and a +half per cent, of his income, to fast with the greatest rigor, to +undergo a painful operation in the earliest stage of puberty, to make, +over arid sands a pilgrimage of sometimes five hundred leagues, and to +pray to God five times a day, even when in the field? + +But, say you, they are allowed four wives in this world, and in the next +they will have celestial brides. Grotius expressly says: "It must have +required a great share of stupidity to admit reveries so gross and +disgusting." + +We agree with Grotius that the Mahometans have been prodigal of +reveries. The man who was constantly receiving the chapters of his Koran +from the angel Gabriel was worse than a visionary; he was an impostor, +who supported his seductions by his courage; but certainly there is +nothing either stupid or sensual in reducing to four the unlimited +number of wives whom the princes, the satraps, the nabobs, and the +omrahs of the East kept in their seraglios. It is said that Solomon had +three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines. The Arabs, like the +Jews, were at liberty to marry two sisters; Mahomet was the first who +forbade these marriages. Where, then, is the grossness? + +And with regard to the celestial brides, where is the impurity? Certes, +there is nothing impure in marriage, which is acknowledged to have been +ordained on earth, and blessed by God Himself. The incomprehensible +mystery of generation is the seal of the Eternal Being. It is the +clearest mark of His power that He has created pleasure, and through +that very pleasure perpetuated all sensible beings. + +If we consult our reason alone it will tell us that it is very likely +that the Eternal Being, who does nothing in vain, will not cause us to +rise again with our organs to no purpose. It will not be unworthy of the +Divine Majesty to feed us with delicious fruits if he cause us to rise +again with stomachs to receive them. The Holy Scriptures inform us +that, in the beginning, God placed the first man and the first woman in +a paradise of delights. They were then in a state of innocence and +glory, incapable of experiencing disease or death. This is nearly the +state in which the just will be when, after their resurrection, they +shall be for all eternity what our first parents were for a few days. +Those, then, must be pardoned, who have thought that, having a body, +that body will be constantly satisfied. Our fathers of the Church had no +other idea of the heavenly Jerusalem. St. Irenæus says, "There each vine +shall bear ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand clusters, and +each cluster ten thousand grapes." + +Several fathers of the Church have, indeed, thought that the blessed in +heaven would enjoy all their senses. St. Thomas says that the sense of +seeing will be infinitely perfect; that the elements will be so too; +that the surface of the earth will be transparent as glass, the water +like crystal, the air like the heavens, and the fire like the stars. St. +Augustine, in his "Christian Doctrine," says that the sense of hearing +will enjoy the pleasures of singing and of speech. + +One of our great Italian theologians, named Piazza, in his "Dissertation +on Paradise," informs us that the elect will forever sing and play the +guitar: "They will have," says he, "three nobilities--three advantages, +viz.: desire without excitement, caresses without wantonness, and +voluptuousness without excess"--_"tres nobilitates; illecebra sine +titillatione, blanditia sine mollitudine, et voluptas sine +exuberantia."_ + +St. Thomas assures us that the smell of the glorified bodies will be +perfect, and will not be diminished by perspiration. _"Corporibus +gloriosi serit odor ultima perfectione, nullo modo per humidum +repressus."_ This question has been profoundly treated by a great many +other doctors. + +Suarez, in his "Wisdom," thus expresses himself concerning taste: "It is +not difficult for God purposely to make some rapid humor act on the +organ of taste." _"Non est Deo difficile facere ut sapidus humor sit +intra organum gustus, qui sensum illum intentionaliter afficere."_ + +And, to conclude, St. Prosper, recapitulating the whole, pronounces that +the blessed shall find gratification without satiety, and enjoy health +without disease. _"Saturitas sine fastidio, et tota sanitas sine +morbo._" + +It is not then so much to be wondered at that the Mahometans have +admitted the use of the five senses in their paradise. They say that the +first beatitude will be the union with God; but this does not exclude +the rest. Mahomet's paradise is a fable; but; once more be it observed, +there is in it neither contradiction nor impurity. + +Philosophy requires clear and precise ideas, which Grotius had not. He +quotes a great deal, and makes a show of reasoning which will not bear +a close examination. The unjust imputations cast on the Mahometans would +suffice to make a very large book. They have subjugated one of the +largest and most beautiful countries upon earth; to drive them from it +would have been a finer exploit than to abuse them. + +The empress of Russia supplies a great example. She takes from them Azov +and Tangarok, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Georgia; she pushes her conquests +to the ramparts of Erzerum; she sends against them fleets from the +remotest parts of the Baltic, and others covering the Euxine; but she +does not say in her manifestos that a pigeon whispered in Mahomet's ear. + + + + +ART OF POETRY. + + +A MAN + + +A man of almost universal learning--a man even of genius, who joins +philosophy with imagination, uses, in his excellent article +"Encyclopedia," these remarkable words: "If we except this Perrault, and +some others, whose merits the versifier Boileau was not capable of +appreciating." + +This philosopher is right in doing justice to Claude Perrault, the +learned translator of Vitruvius, a man useful in more arts than one, and +to whom we are indebted for the fine front of the Louvre and for other +great monuments; but justice should also be rendered to Boileau. Had he +been only a versifier, he would scarcely have been known; he would not +have been one of the few great men who will hand down the age of Louis +XIV. to posterity. His tart satires, his fine epistles, and above all, +his art of poetry, are masterpieces of reasoning as well as +poetry--_"sapere est principium et fons."_ The art of versifying is, +indeed, prodigiously difficult, especially in our language, where +alexandrines follow one another two by two; where it is rare to avoid +monotony; where it is absolutely necessary to rhyme; where noble and +pleasing rhymes are too limited in number; and where a word out of its +place, or a harsh syllable, is sufficient to spoil a happy thought. It +is like dancing in fetters on a rope; the greatest success is of itself +nothing. + +Boileau's art of poetry is to be admired, because he always says true +and useful things in a pleasing manner, because he always gives both +precept and example, and because he is varied, passing with perfect +ease, and without ever failing in purity of language, "From grave to +gay, from lively to severe." + +His reputation among men of taste is proved by the fact that his verses +are known by heart; and to philosophers it must be pleasing to find that +he is almost always in the right. + +As we have spoken of the preference which may sometimes be given to the +moderns over the ancients, we will here venture to presume that +Boileau's art of poetry is superior to that of Horace. Method is +certainly a beauty in a didactic poem; and Horace has no method. We do +not mention this as a reproach; for his poem is a familiar epistle to +the Pisos, and not a regular work like the "Georgics": but there is this +additional merit in Boileau, a merit for which philosophers should give +him credit. + +The Latin art of poetry does not seem nearly so finely labored as the +French. Horace expresses himself, almost throughout, in the free and +familiar tone of his other epistles. He displays an extreme clearness of +understanding and a refined taste, in verses which are happy and +spirited, but often without connection, and sometimes destitute of +harmony; he has not the elegance and correctness of Virgil. His work is +good, but Boileau's appears to be still better: and, if we except the +tragedies of Racine, which have the superior merit of treating the +passions and surmounting all the difficulties of the stage, Despréaux's +"Art of Poetry" is, indisputably, the poem that does most honor to the +French language. + +It is lamentable when philosophers are enemies to poetry. Literature +should be like the house of Mæcenas--_"est locus unicuique suus."_ The +author of the "Persian Letters"--so easy to write and among which some +are very pretty, others very bold, others indifferent, and others +frivolous--this author, I say, though otherwise much to be recommended, +yet having never been able to make verses, although he possesses +imagination and often superiority of style, makes himself amends by +saying that "contempt is heaped upon poetry," that "lyric poetry is +harmonious extravagance." Thus do men often seek to depreciate the +talents which they cannot attain. + +"We cannot reach it," says Montaigne; "let us revenge ourselves by +speaking ill of it." But Montaigne, Montesquieu's predecessor and master +in imagination and philosophy, thought very differently of poetry. + +Had Montesquieu been as just as he was witty, he could not but have felt +that several of our fine odes and good operas are worth infinitely more +than the pleasantries of Rica to Usbeck, imitated from Dufrénoy's +_"Siamois,"_ and the details of what passed in Usbeck's seraglio at +Ispahan. + +We shall speak more fully of this too frequent injustice, in the article +on "Criticism." + + + + +ARTS--FINE ARTS. + +[ARTICLE DEDICATED TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA.] + + +Sire: The small society of amateurs, a part of whom are laboring at +these rhapsodies at Mount Krapak, will say nothing to your majesty on +the art of war. It is heroic, or--it may be--an abominable art. If there +were anything fine in it, we would tell your majesty, without fear of +contradiction, that you are the finest man in Europe. + +You know, sire, the four ages of the arts. Almost everything sprung up +and was brought to perfection under Louis XIV.; after which many of +these arts, banished from France, went to embellish and enrich the rest +of Europe, at the fatal period of the destruction of the celebrated +edict of Henry IV.--pronounced _irrevocable_, yet so easily revoked. +Thus, the greatest injury which Louis XIV. could do to himself did good +to other princes against his will: this is proved by what you have said +in your history of Brandenburg. + +If that monarch were known only from his banishment of six or seven +hundred thousand useful citizens--from his irruption into Holland, +whence he was soon forced to retreat--from his greatness, which stayed +him at the bank, while his troops were swimming across the Rhine; if +there were no other monuments of his glory than the prologues to his +operas, followed by the battle of Hochstet, his person and his reign +would go down to posterity with but little éclat. But the encouragement +of all the fine arts by his taste and munificence; the conferring of so +many benefits on the literary men of other countries; the rise of his +kingdom's commerce at his voice; the establishment of so many +manufactories; the building of so many fine citadels; the construction +of so many admirable ports; the union of the two seas by immense labor, +etc., still oblige Europe to regard Louis XIV. and his age with respect. + +And, above all, those great men, unique in every branch of art and +science, whom nature then produced at one time, will render his reign +eternally memorable. The age was greater than Louis XIV., but it shed +its glory upon him. + +Emulation in art has changed the face of the continent, from the +Pyrenees to the icy sea. There is hardly a prince in Germany who has not +made useful and glorious establishments. + +What have the Turks done for glory? Nothing. They have ravaged three +empires and twenty kingdoms; but any one city of ancient Greece will +always have a greater reputation than all the Ottoman cities together. + +See what has been done in the course of a few years at St. Petersburg, +which was a bog at the beginning of the seventeenth century. All the +arts are there assembled, while in the country of Orpheus, Linus, and +Homer, they are annihilated. + +_That the Recent Birth of the Arts does not Prove the Recent Formation +of the Globe._ + +All philosophers have thought matter eternal; but the arts appear to be +new. Even the art of making bread is of recent origin. The first Romans +ate boiled grain; those conquerors of so many nations had neither +windmills nor watermills. This truth seems, at first sight, to +controvert the doctrine of the antiquity of the globe as it now is, or +to suppose terrible revolutions in it. Irruptions of barbarians can +hardly annihilate arts which have become necessary. Suppose that an army +of negroes were to come upon us, like locusts, from the mountains of +southern Africa, through Monomotapa, Monoëmugi, etc., traversing +Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and all Europe, ravaging +and overturning everything in its way; there would still be a few +bakers, tailors, shoemakers, and carpenters left; the necessary arts +would revive; luxury alone would be annihilated. Such was the case at +the fall of the Roman Empire; even the art of writing became very rare; +nearly all those arts which contributed to render life agreeable were +for a long time extinct. Now, we are inventing new ones every day. + +From all this, no well-grounded inference can be drawn against the +antiquity of the globe. For, supposing that a flood of barbarians had +entirely swept away the arts of writing and making bread; supposing even +that we had had bread, or pens, ink, and paper, only for ten years--the +country which could exist for ten years without eating bread or writing +down its thoughts could exist for an age, or a hundred thousand ages, +without these helps. + +It is quite clear that man and the other animals can very well subsist +without bakers, without romance-writers, and without divines, as witness +America, and as witness also three-fourths of our own continent. The +recent birth of the arts among us does not prove the recent formation of +the globe, as was pretended by Epicurus, one of our predecessors in +reverie, who supposed that, by chance, the declination of atoms one day +formed our earth. Pomponatius used to say: _"Se il mondo non é eterno, +per tutti santi é molto vecchio"_--"If this world be not eternal, by all +the saints, it is very old." + +_Slight Inconveniences Attached to the Arts._ + +Those who handle lead and quicksilver are subject to dangerous colics, +and very serious affections of the nerves. Those who use pen and ink are +attacked by vermin, which they have continually to shake off; these +vermin are some ex-Jesuits, who employ themselves in manufacturing +libels. You, Sire, do not know this race of animals; they are driven +from your states, as well as from those of the empress of Russia, the +king of Sweden, and the king of Denmark, my other protectors. The +ex-Jesuits Polian and Nonotte, who like me cultivate the fine arts, +persecute me even unto Mount Krapak, crushing me under the weight of +their reputation, and that of their genius, the specific gravity of +which is still greater. Unless your majesty vouchsafe to assist me +against these great men, I am undone. + + + + +ASMODEUS. + + +No one at all versed in antiquity is ignorant that the Jews knew nothing +of the angels but what they gleaned from the Persians and Chaldæans, +during captivity. It was they, who, according to Calmet, taught them +that there are seven principal angels before the throne of the Lord. +They also taught them the names of the devils. He whom we call Asmodeus, +was named Hashmodaï or Chammadaï. "We know," says Calmet, "that there +are various sorts of devils, some of them princes and master-demons, the +rest subalterns." + +How was it that this Hashmodaï was sufficiently powerful to twist the +necks of seven young men who successively espoused the beautiful Sarah, +a native of Rages, fifteen leagues from Ecbatana? The Medes must have +been seven times as great as the Persians. The good principle gives a +husband to this maiden; and behold! the bad principle, this king of +demons, Hashmodaï, destroys the work of the beneficent principle seven +times in succession. + +But Sarah was a Jewess, daughter of the Jew Raguel, and a captive in the +country of Ecbatana. How could a Median demon have such power over +Jewish bodies? It has been thought that Asmodeus or Chammadaï was a Jew +likewise; that he was the old serpent which had seduced Eve; and that he +was passionately fond of women, sometimes seducing them, and sometimes +killing their husbands through an excess of love and jealousy. + +Indeed the Greek version of the Book of Tobit gives us to understand +that Asmodeus was in love with Sarah--_"oti daimonion philei autein."_ +It was the opinion of all the learned of antiquity that the genii, +whether good or evil, had a great inclination for our virgins, and the +fairies for our youths. Even the Scriptures, accommodating themselves to +our weakness, and condescending to speak in the language of the vulgar, +say, figuratively, that "the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that +they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." + +But the angel Raphael, the conductor of young Tobit, gives him a reason +more worthy of his ministry, and better calculated to enlighten the +person whom he is guiding. He tells him that Sarah's seven husbands were +given up to the cruelty of Asmodeus, only because, like horses or mules, +they had married her for their pleasure alone. "Her husband," says the +angel, "must observe continence with her for three days, during which +time they must pray to God together." + +This instruction would seem to have been quite sufficient to keep off +Asmodeus; but Raphael adds that it is also necessary to have the heart +of a fish grilled over burning coals. Why, then, was not this infallible +secret afterwards resorted to in order to drive the devil from the +bodies of women? Why did the apostles, who were sent on purpose to cast +out devils never lay a fish's heart upon the gridiron? Why was not this +expedient made use of in the affair of Martha Brossier; that of the nuns +of Loudun; that of the mistresses of Urban Gandier; that of La Cadière; +that of Father Girard; and those of a thousand other demoniacs in the +times when there were demoniacs? + +The Greeks and Romans, who had so many philters wherewith to make +themselves beloved, had others to cure love; they employed herbs and +roots. The _agnus castus_ had great reputation. The moderns have +administered it to young nuns, on whom it has had but little effect. +Apollo, long ago, complained to Daphne that, physician as he was, he +had never yet met with a simple that would cure love: + + _Heu mihi! quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis._ + What balm can heal the wounds that love has made? + +The smoke of sulphur was tried; but Ovid, who was a great master, +declares that this recipe was useless: + + _Nec fugiat viro sulphure victus amor._ + Sulphur--believe me--drives not love away. + +The smoke from the heart or liver of a fish was more efficacious against +Asmodeus. The reverend father Calmet is consequently in great trouble, +being unable to comprehend how this fumigation could act upon a pure +spirit. But he might have taken courage from the recollection that all +the ancients gave bodies to the angels and demons. They were very +slender bodies; as light as the small particles that rise from a broiled +fish; they were like smoke; and the smoke from a fried fish acted upon +them by sympathy. + +Not only did Asmodeus flee, but Gabriel went and chained him in Upper +Egypt, where he still is. He dwells in a grotto near the city of Saata +or Taata. Paul Lucas saw and spoke to him. They cut this serpent in +pieces, and the pieces immediately joined again. To this fact Calmet +cites the testimony of Paul Lucas, which testimony I must also cite. It +is thought that Paul Lucas's theory may be joined with that of the +vampires, in the next compilation of the Abbé Guyon. + + + + +ASPHALTUS. + +ASPHALTIC LAKE.--SODOM. + + +Asphaltus is a Chaldæan word, signifying a species of bitumen. There is +a great deal of it in the countries watered by the Euphrates; it is also +to be found in Europe, but of a bad quality. An experiment was made by +covering the tops of the watch-houses on each side of one of the gates +of Geneva; the covering did not last a year, and the mine has been +abandoned. However, when mixed with rosin, it may be used for lining +cisterns; perhaps it will some day be applied to a more useful purpose. + +The real asphaltus is that which was obtained in the vicinity of +Babylon, and with which it is said that the Greek fire was fed. Several +lakes are full of asphaltus, or a bitumen resembling it, as others are +strongly impregnated with nitre. There is a great lake of nitre in the +desert of Egypt, which extends from lake Moeris to the entrance of the +Delta; and it has no other name than the Nitre Lake. + +The Lake Asphaltites, known by the name of Sodom, was long famed for its +bitumen; but the Turks now make no use of it, either because the mine +under the water is diminished, because its quality is altered, or +because there is too much difficulty in drawing it from under the water. +Oily particles of it, and sometimes large masses, separate and float on +the surface; these are gathered together, mixed up, and sold for balm of +Mecca. + +Flavius Josephus, who was of that country, says that, in his time, there +were no fish in the lake of Sodom, and the water was so light that the +heaviest bodies would not go to the bottom. It seems that he meant to +say so heavy instead of so light. It would appear that he had not made +the experiment. After all, a stagnant water, impregnated with salts and +compact matter, its specific matter being then greater than that of the +body of a man or a beast, might force it to float. Josephus's error +consists in assigning a false cause to a phenomenon which may be +perfectly true. + +As for the want of fish, it is not incredible. It is, however, likely +that this lake, which is fifty or sixty miles long, is not all +asphaltic, and that while receiving the waters of the Jordan it also +receives the fishes of that river; but perhaps the Jordan, too, is +without fish, and they are to be found only in the upper lake of +Tiberias. + +Josephus adds, that the trees which grow on the borders of the Dead Sea +bear fruits of the most beautiful appearance, but which fall into dust +if you attempt to taste them. This is less probable; and disposes one to +believe that Josephus either had not been on the spot, for has +exaggerated according to his own and his countrymen's custom. No soil +seems more calculated to produce good as well as beautiful fruits than a +salt and sulphurous one, like that of Naples, of Catania, and of Sodom. + +The Holy Scriptures speak of five cities being destroyed by fire from +heaven. On this occasion natural philosophy bears testimony in favor of +the Old Testament, although the latter has no need of it, and they are +sometimes at variance. We have instances of earthquakes, accompanied by +thunder and lightning, which have destroyed much more considerable towns +than Sodom and Gomorrah. + +But the River Jordan necessarily discharging itself into this lake +without an outlet, this Dead Sea, in the same manner as the Caspian, +must have existed as long as there has been a River Jordan; therefore, +these towns could never stand on the spot now occupied by the lake of +Sodom. The Scripture, too, says nothing at all about this ground being +changed into a lake; it says quite the contrary: "Then the Lord rained +upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of +heaven. And Abraham got up early in the morning, and he looked toward +Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld; +and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." + +These five towns, Sodom, Gomorrah, Zeboin, Adamah, and Segor, must then +have been situated on the borders of the Dead Sea. How, it will be +asked, in a desert so uninhabitable as it now is, where there are to be +found only a few hordes of plundering Arabs, could there be five cities, +so opulent as to be immersed in luxury, and even in those shameful +pleasures which are the last effect of the refinement of the debauchery +attached to wealth? + +It may be answered that the country was then much better. + +Other critics will say--how could five towns exist at the extremities of +a lake, the water of which, before their destruction, was not potable? +The Scripture itself informs us that all this land was asphaltic before +the burning of Sodom: "And the vale of Sodom was full of slime-pits; and +the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there." + +Another objection is also stated. Isaiah and Jeremiah say that Sodom and +Gomorrah shall never be rebuilt; but Stephen, the geographer, speaks of +Sodom and Gomorrah on the coast of the Dead Sea; and the "History of the +Councils" mentions bishops of Sodom and Segor. To this it may be +answered that God filled these towns, when rebuilt, with less guilty +inhabitants; for at that time there was no bishop _in partibus_. + +But, it will be said, with what water could these new inhabitants quench +their thirst? All the wells are brackish; you find asphaltus and +corrosive salt on first striking a spade into the ground. + +It will be answered that some Arabs still subsist there, and may be +habituated to drinking very bad water; that the Sodom and Gomorrah of +the Eastern Empire were wretched hamlets, and that at that time there +were many bishops whose whole diocese consisted in a poor village. It +may also be said that the people who colonized these villages prepared +the asphaltus, and carried on a useful trade in it. + +The arid and burning desert, extending from Segor to the territory of +Jerusalem, produces balm and aromatic herbs for the same reason that it +supplies naphtha, corrosive salt and sulphur. + +It is said that petrifaction takes place in this desert with astonishing +rapidity; and this, according to some natural philosophers, makes the +petrifaction of Lot's wife Edith a very plausible story. + +But it is said that this woman, "having looked back, became a pillar of +salt." This, then, was not a natural petrifaction, operated by asphaltus +and salt, but an evident miracle. Flavius Josephus says that he saw this +pillar. St. Justin and St. Irenæus speak of it as a prodigy, which in +their time was still existing. + +These testimonies have been looked upon as ridiculous fables. It would, +however, be very natural for some Jews to amuse themselves with cutting +a heap of asphaltus into a rude figure, and calling it Lot's wife. I +have seen cisterns of asphaltus, very well made, which may last a long +time. But it must be owned that St. Irenæus goes a little too far when +he says that Lot's wife remained in the country of Sodom no longer in +corruptible flesh, but as a permanent statue of salt, her feminine +nature still producing the ordinary effect: _"Uxor remansit in Sodomis, +jam non caro corruptibilis sed statua salis semper manens, et per +naturalia ea quæsunt consuetudmis hominis ostendens."_ + +St. Irenæus does not seem to express himself with all the precision of +a good naturalist when he says Lot's wife is no longer of corruptible +flesh, but still retains her feminine nature. + +In the poem of Sodom, attributed to Tertullian, this is expressed with +still greater energy: + + _Dicitur et vivens alio sub corpore se us,_ + _Mirifice solito dispungere sanguine menses._ + +This was translated by a poet of the time of Henry II., in his Gallic +style: + + _La femme à Loth, quoique sel devenue,_ + _Est femme encore; car elle a sa menstrue._ + +The land of aromatics was also the land of fables. Into the deserts of +Arabia Petræa the ancient mythologists pretend that Myrrha, the +granddaughter of a statue, fled after committing incest with her father, +as Lot's daughters did with theirs, and that she was metamorphosed into +the tree that bears myrrh. Other profound mythologists assure us that +she fled into Arabia Felix; and this opinion is as well supported as the +other. + +Be this as it may, not one of our travellers has yet thought fit to +examine the soil of Sodom, with its asphaltus, its salt, its trees and +their fruits, to weigh the water of the lake, to analyze it, to +ascertain whether bodies of greater specific gravity than common water +float upon its surface, and to give us a faithful account of the natural +history of the country. Our pilgrims to Jerusalem do not care to go and +make these researches; this desert has become infested by wandering +Arabs, who range as far as Damascus, and retire into the caverns of the +mountains, the authority of the pasha of Damascus having hitherto been +inadequate to repress them. Thus the curious have but little information +about anything concerning the Asphaltic Lake. + +As to Sodom, it is a melancholy reflection for the learned that, among +so many who may be deemed natives, not one has furnished us with any +notion whatever of this capital city. + + + + +ASS. + + +We will add a little to the article "Ass" in the "Encyclopædia," +concerning Lucian's ass, which became golden in the hands of Apuleius. +The pleasantest part of the adventure, however, is in Lucian: That a +lady fell in love with this gentleman while he was an ass, but would +have nothing more to say to him when he was but a man. These +metamorphoses were very common throughout antiquity. Silenus's ass had +spoken; and the learned had thought that he explained himself in Arabic; +for he was probably a man turned into an ass by the power of Bacchus, +and Bacchus, we know, was an Arab. + +Virgil speaks of the transformation of Moeris into a wolf, as a thing +of very ordinary occurrence: + + _Saepe lupum fieri Moerim, et se condere silvis._ + Oft changed to wolf, he seeks the forest shade. + +Was this doctrine of metamorphoses derived from the old fables of Egypt, +which gave out that the gods had changed themselves into animals in the +war against the giants? + +The Greeks, great imitators and improvers of the Oriental fables, +metamorphosed almost all the gods into men or into beasts, to make them +succeed the better in their amorous designs. If the gods changed +themselves into bulls, horses, swans, doves, etc., why should not men +have undergone the same operation? + +Several commentators, forgetting the respect due to the Holy Scriptures, +have cited the example of Nebuchadnezzar changed into an ox; but this +was a miracle--a divine vengeance--a thing quite out of the course of +nature, which ought not to be examined with profane eyes, and cannot +become an object of our researches. + +Others of the learned, perhaps with equal indiscretion, avail themselves +of what is related in the Gospel of the Infancy. An Egyptian maiden +having entered the chamber of some women, saw there a mule with a silken +cloth over his back, and an ebony pendant at his neck. + +These women were in tears, kissing him and giving him to eat. The mule +was their own brother. Some sorceresses had deprived him of the human +figure; but the Master of Nature soon restored it. + +Although this gospel is apocryphal, the very name that it bears prevents +us from examining this adventure in detail; only it may serve to show +how much metamorphoses were in vogue almost throughout the earth. The +Christians who composed their gospel were undoubtedly honest men. They +did not seek to fabricate a romance; they related with simplicity what +they had heard. The church, which afterwards rejected their gospel, +together with forty-nine others, did not accuse its authority of impiety +and prevarication; those obscure individuals addressed the populace in +language comformable with the prejudices of the age in which they lived. +China was perhaps the only country exempt from these superstitions. + +The adventure of the companions of Ulysses, changed into beasts by +Circe, was much more ancient than the dogma of the metempsychosis, +broached in Greece and Italy by Pythagoras. + +On what can the assertion be founded that there is no universal error +which is not the abuse of some truth; that there have been quacks only +because there have been true physicians; and that false prodigies have +been believed only because there have been true ones? + +Were there any certain testimonies that men had become wolves, oxen, +horses, or asses? This universal error had for its principle only the +love of the marvellous and the natural inclination to superstition. + +One erroneous opinion is enough to fill the whole world with fables. An +Indian doctor sees that animals have feeling and memory. He concludes +that they have a soul. Men have one likewise. What becomes of the soul +of man after death? What becomes of that of the beast? They must go +somewhere. They go into the nearest body that is beginning to be formed. +The soul of a Brahmin takes up its abode in the body of an elephant, the +soul of an ass is that of a little Brahmin. Such is the dogma of the +metempsychosis, which was built upon simple deduction. + +But it is a wide step from this dogma to that of metamorphosis. We have +no longer a soul without a tenement, seeking a lodging; but one body +changed into another, the soul remaining as before. Now, we certainly +have not in nature any example of such legerdemain. + +Let us then inquire into the origin of so extravagant yet so general an +opinion. If some father had characterized his son, sunk in ignorance and +filthy debauchery, as a hog, a horse, or an ass, and afterwards made him +do penance with an ass's cap on his head, and some servant girl of the +neighborhood gave it out that this young man had been turned into an ass +as a punishment for his faults, her neighbors would repeat it to other +neighbors, and from mouth to mouth this story, with a thousand +embellishments, would make the tour of the world. An ambiguous +expression would suffice to deceive the whole earth. + +Here then let us confess, with Boileau, that ambiguity has been the +parent of most of our ridiculous follies. Add to this the power of +magic, which has been acknowledged as indisputable in all nations, and +you will no longer be astonished at anything. + +One word more on asses. It is said that in Mesopotamia they are warlike +and that Mervan, the twenty-first caliph, was surnamed "the Ass" for his +valor. + +The patriarch Photius relates, in the extract from the Life of Isidorus, +that Ammonius had an ass which had a great taste for poetry, and would +leave his manger to go and hear verses. The fable of Midas is better +than the tale of Photius. + +_Machiavelli's Golden Ass._ + +Machiavelli's ass is but little known. The dictionaries which speak of +it say that it was a production of his youth; it would seem, however, +that he was of mature age; for he speaks in it of the misfortunes which +he had formerly and for a long time experienced. The work is a satire on +his contemporaries. The author sees a number of Florentines, of whom one +is changed into a cat, another into a dragon, a third into a dog that +bays the moon, a fourth into a fox who does not suffer himself to be +caught; each character is drawn under the name of an animal. The +factions of the house of Medicis and their enemies are doubtless figured +therein; and the key to this comic apocalypse would admit us to the +secrets of Pope Leo and the troubles of Florence. This poem is full of +morality and philosophy. It ends with the very rational reflections of +a large hog, which addresses man in nearly the following terms: + + Ye naked bipeds, without beaks or claws. + Hairless, and featherless, and tender-hided, + Weeping ye come into the world--because + Ye feel your evil destiny decided; + Nature has given you industrious paws; + You, like the parrots, are with speech provided; + But have ye honest hearts?--Alas! alas! + In this we swine your bipedships surpass! + + Man is far worse than we--more fierce, more wild-- + Coward or madman, sinning every minute; + By frenzy and by fear in turn beguiled, + He dreads the grave, yet plunges headlong in it; + If pigs fall out, they soon are reconciled; + Their quarrel's ended ere they well begin it. + If crime with manhood always must combine, + Good Lord! let me forever be a swine. + +This is the original of Boileau's "Satire on Man," and La Fontaine's +fable of the "Companions of Ulysses"; but it is quite likely that +neither La Fontaine nor Boileau had ever heard of Machiavelli's ass. + +_The Ass of Verona._ + +I must speak the truth, and not deceive my readers. I do not very +clearly know whether the Ass of Verona still exists in all his splendor; +but the travellers who saw him forty or fifty years ago agree in saying +that the relics were enclosed in the body of an artificial ass made on +purpose, which was in the keeping of forty monks of Our Lady of the +Organ, at Verona, and was carried in procession twice a year. This was +one of the most ancient relics of the town. According to the tradition, +this ass, having carried our Lord in his entry into Jerusalem, did not +choose to abide any longer in that city, but trotted over the sea--which +for that purpose became as hard as his hoof--by way of Cyprus, Rhodes, +Candia, Malta, and Sicily. There he went to sojourn at Aquilea; and at +last he settled at Verona, where he lived a long while. + +This fable originated in the circumstance that most asses have a sort of +black cross on their backs. There possibly might be an old ass in the +neighborhood of Verona, on whose back the populace remarked a finer +cross than his brethren could boast of; some good old woman would be at +hand to say that this was the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem; +and the ass would be honored with a magnificent funeral. The feast +established at Verona passed into other countries, and was especially +celebrated in France. In the mass was sung: + + _Orientis partibus_ + _Adventabit asinus,_ + _Pulcher et fortissimus._ + +There was a long procession, headed by a young woman with a child in her +arms, mounted on an ass, representing the Virgin Mary going into Egypt. +At the end of the mass the priest, instead of saying _Ite missa est_, +brayed three times with all his might, and the people answered in +chorus. + +We have books on the feast of the ass, and the feast of fools; they +furnish material towards a universal history of the human mind. + + + + +ASSASSIN--ASSASSINATION. + + +SECTION I. + +A name corrupted from the word Ehissessin. Nothing is more common to +those who go into a distant country than to write, repeat, and +understand incorrectly in their own language what they have +misunderstood in a language entirely foreign to them, and afterwards to +deceive their countrymen as well as themselves. Error flies from mouth +to mouth, from pen, to pen, and to destroy it requires ages. + +In the time of the Crusades there was a wretched little people of +mountaineers inhabiting the caverns near the road to Damascus. These +brigands elected a chief, whom they named Cheik Elchassissin. It is said +that this honorific title of _cheik_ originally signified _old_, as with +us the title of _seigneur_ comes from _senior_, elder, and the word +_graf_, a count, signifies _old_ among the Germans; for, in ancient +times almost every people conferred the civil command upon the old men. +Afterwards, the command having become hereditary, the title of _cheik, +graf, seigneur, or count_ has been given to children; and the Germans +call a little master of four years old, _the count_--that is, the _old +gentleman_. + +The Crusaders named the old man of the Arabian mountains, the Old Man of +the Hill, and imagined him to be a great prince, because he had caused a +count of Montserrat and some other crusading nobles to be robbed and +murdered on the highway. These people were called _the assassins_, and +their cheik the king of the vast country of _the assassins_. This vast +territory is five or six leagues long by two or three broad, being part +of Anti-Libanus, a horrible country, full of rocks, like almost all +Palestine, but intersected by pleasant meadowlands, which feed numerous +flocks, as is attested by all who have made the journey from Aleppo to +Damascus. + +The cheik or senior of these _assassins_ could be nothing more than a +chief of banditti; for there was at that time a sultan of Damascus who +was very powerful. + +Our romance-writers of that day, as fond of chimeras as the Crusaders, +thought proper to relate that in 1236 this great prince of the +assassins, fearing that Louis IX., of whom he had never heard, would put +himself at the head of a crusade, and come and take from him his +territory, sent two great men of his court from the caverns of +Anti-Libanus to Paris to assassinate that king; but that having the next +day heard how generous and amiable a prince Louis was, he immediately +sent out to sea two more great men to countermand the assassination. I +say out to sea, for neither the two emissaries sent to kill Louis, nor +the two others sent to save him, could make the voyage without embarking +at Joppa, which was then in the power of the Crusaders, which rendered +the enterprise doubly marvellous. The two first must have found a +Crusaders' vessel ready to convey them in an amicable manner, and the +two last must have found another. + +However, a hundred authors, one after another, have related this +adventure, though Joinville, a contemporary, who was on the spot, says +nothing about it--_"Et voilà justement comme on écrit l'histoire."_ + +The Jesuit Maimbourg, the Jesuit Daniel, twenty other Jesuits, and +Mézeray--though he was not a Jesuit--have repeated this absurdity. The +Abbé Véli, in his history of France, tells it over again with perfect +complaisance, without any discussion, without any examination, and on +the word of one William of Nangis, who wrote about sixty years after +this fine affair is said to have happened at a time when history was +composed from nothing but town talk. + +If none but true and useful things were recorded, our immense historical +libraries would be reduced to a very narrow compass; but we should know +more, and know it better. + +For six hundred years the story has been told over and over again, of +the Old Man of the Hill--_le vieux de la montagne_--who, in his +delightful gardens, intoxicated his young elect with voluptuous +pleasures, made them believe that they were in paradise, and sent them +to the ends of the earth to assassinate kings in order to merit an +eternal paradise. + + Near the Levantine shores there dwelt of old + An aged ruler, feared in every land; + Not that he owned enormous heaps of gold, + Not that vast armies marched at his command,-- + But on his people's minds he things impressed, + Which filled with desperate courage every breast + The boldest of his subjects first he took, + Of paradise to give them a foretaste-- + The paradise his lawgiver had painted; + With every joy the lying prophet's book + Within his falsely-pictured heaven had placed, + They thought their senses had become acquainted. + And how was this effected? 'Twas by wine-- + Of this they drank till every sense gave way, + And, while in drunken lethargy they lay, + Were borne, according to their chief's design, + To sports of pleasantness--to sunshine glades, + Delightful gardens and inviting shades. + Young tender beauties were abundant there, + In earliest bloom, and exquisitely fair; + These gayly thronged around the sleeping men, + Who, when at length they were awake again, + Wondering to see the beauteous objects round, + Believed that some way they'd already found + Those fields of bliss, in every beauty decked, + The false Mahomet promised his elect. + Acquaintance quickly made, the Turks advance; + The maidens join them in a sprightly dance; + Sweet music charms them as they trip along; + And every feathered warbler adds his song. + The joys that could for every sense suffice. + Were found within this earthly paradise. + Wine, too, was there--and its effects the same; + These people drank, till they could drink no more, + Were earned to the place from whence they came. + And what resulted from this trickery? + These men believed that they should surely be + Again transported to that place of pleasure, + If, without fear of suffering or of death, + They showed devotion to Mahomet's faith, + And to their prince obedience without measure. + Thus might their sovereign with reason say, + And that, now his device had made them so, + His was the mightiest empire here below.... + +All this might be very well in one of La Fontaine's tales--setting apart +the weakness of the verse; and there are a hundred historical anecdotes +which could be tolerated there only. + + +SECTION II. + + +Assassination being, next to poisoning, the crime most cowardly and most +deserving of punishment, it is not astonishing that it has found an +apologist in a man whose singular reasoning is, in some things, at +variance with the reason of the rest of mankind. + +In a romance entitled "Emilius," he imagines that he is the guardian of +a young man, to whom he is very careful to give an education such as is +received in the military school--teaching him languages, geometry, +tactics, fortification, and the history of his country. He does not seek +to inspire him with love for his king and his country, but contents +himself with making him a joiner. He would have this gentleman-joiner, +when he has received a blow or a challenge, instead of returning it and +fighting, "prudently assassinate the man." Molière does, it is true, say +jestingly, in _"L'Amour Peintre,"_ "assassination is the safest"; but +the author of this romance asserts that it is the most just and +reasonable. He says this very seriously, and, in the immensity of his +paradoxes, this is one of the three or four things which he first says. +The same spirit of wisdom and decency which makes him declare that a +preceptor should often accompany his pupil to a place of prostitution, +makes him decide that this disciple should be an assassin. So that the +education which Jean Jacques would give to a young man consists in +teaching him how to handle the plane, and in fitting him for salivation +and the rope. + +We doubt whether fathers of families will be eager to give such +preceptors to their children. It seems to us that the romance of Emilius +departs rather too much from the maxims of Mentor in "Telemachus"; but +it must also be acknowledged that our age has in all things very much +varied from the great age of Louis XIV. + +Happily, none of these horrible infatuations are to be found in the +"Encyclopædia." It often displays a philosophy seemingly bold, but never +that atrocious and extravagant babbling which two or three fools have +called philosophy, and two or three ladies, eloquence. + + + + +ASTROLOGY. + + +Astrology might rest on a better foundation than magic. For if no one +has seen farfadets, or lemures, or dives, or peris, or demons, or +cacodemons, the predictions of astrologers have often been found true. +Let two astrologers be consulted on the life of an infant, and on the +weather; if one of them say that the child shall five to the age of man, +the other that he shall not; if one foretell rain and the other fair +weather, it is quite clear that there will be a prophet. + +The great misfortune of astrologers is that the heavens have changed +since the rules of the art were laid down. The sun, which at the equinox +was in the Ram in the time of the Argonauts, is now in the Bull; and +astrologers, most unfortunately for their art, now attribute to one +house of the sun that which visibly belongs to another. Still, this is +not a demonstrative argument against astrology. The masters of the art +are mistaken; but it is not proved that the art cannot exist. + +There would be no absurdity in saying, "Such a child was born during the +moon's increase, in a stormy season, at the rising of a certain star; +its constitution was bad, and its life short and miserable, which is the +ordinary lot of weak temperaments; another, on the contrary, was born +when the moon was at the full, and the sun in all his power, in calm +weather, at the rising of another particular star; his constitution was +good, and his life long and happy." If such observations had been +frequently repeated, and found just, experience might, at the end of a +few thousand centuries, have formed an art which it would have been +difficult to call in question; it would have been thought, not without +some appearance of truth, that men are like trees and vegetables, which +must be planted only in certain seasons. It would have been of no +service against the astrologers to say, "My son was born in fine +weather, yet he died in his cradle." The astrologer would have answered, +"It often happens that trees planted in the proper season perish +prematurely; I will answer for the stars, but not for the particular +conformation which you communicated to your child; astrology operates +only when there is no cause opposed to the good which they have power to +work." + +[Illustration: An Astrologer.] + +Nor would astrology have suffered any more discredit from it being said: +"Of two children who were born in the same minute, one became a king, +the other nothing more than churchwarden of his parish;" for a defence +would easily have been made by showing that the peasant made his fortune +in becoming churchwarden, just as much as the prince did in becoming +king. + +And if it were alleged that a bandit, hung up by order of Sixtus the +Fifth, was born at the same time as Sixtus, who, from being a swineherd, +became pope, the astrologers would say that there was a mistake of a few +seconds, and that, according to the rules, the same star could not +bestow the tiara and the gallows. It was, then, only because +long-accumulated experience gave the lie to the predictions that men at +length perceived that the art was illusory; but their credulity was of +long duration. + +One of the most famous mathematicians of Europe, named Stoffler, who +flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, foretold a +universal deluge for the year 1524. This deluge was to happen in the +month of February, and nothing can be more plausible, for Saturn, +Jupiter, and Mars were then in conjunction in the sign of the Fishes. +Every nation in Europe, Asia, and Africa that heard of the prediction +was in consternation. The whole world expected the deluge, in spite of +the rainbow. Several contemporary authors relate that the inhabitants of +the maritime provinces of Germany hastened to sell their lands, at any +price, to such as had more money and less credulity than themselves. +Each one provided himself with a boat to serve as an ark. A doctor of +Toulouse, in particular, named Auriol, had an ark built for himself, his +family, and friends; and the same precautions were taken in a great part +of Italy. At last the month of February arrived, and not a drop of rain +fell, never was a month more dry, never were the astrologers more +embarrassed. However, we neither discouraged nor neglected them; almost +all our princes continued to consult them. + +I have not the honor to be a prince; nevertheless, the celebrated Count +de Boulainvilliers and an Italian, named Colonna, who had great +reputation at Paris, both foretold to me that I should assuredly die at +the age of thirty-two. I have already been so malicious as to deceive +them thirty years in their calculation--for which I most humbly ask +their pardon. + + + + +ASTRONOMY, + +WITH A FEW MORE REFLECTIONS ON ASTROLOGY. + + +M. Duval, who, if I mistake not, was librarian to the Emperor Francis +I., gives us an account of the manner in which, in his childhood, pure +instinct gave him the first ideas of astronomy. He was contemplating the +moon which, as it declined towards the west, seemed to touch the trees +of a wood. He doubted not that he should find it behind the trees, and, +on running thither, was astonished to see it at the extremity of the +horizon. + +The following days his curiosity prompted him to watch the course of +this luminary, and he was still more surprised to find that it rose and +set at various hours. The different forms which it took from week to +week, and its total disappearance for some nights, also contributed to +fix his attention. All that a child could do was to observe and to +admire, and this was doing much; not one in ten thousand has this +curiosity and perseverance. + +He studied, as he could, for three years, with no other book than the +heavens, no other master than his eyes. He observed that the stars did +not change their relative positions; but the brilliancy of the planet +Venus having caught his attention, it seemed to him to have a particular +course, like that of the moon. He watched it every night; it disappeared +for a long time; and at length he saw it become the morning instead of +the evening star. The course of the sun, which from month to month, rose +and set in different parts of the heavens, did not escape him. He marked +the solstices with two staves, without knowing what the solstices were. + +It appears to me that some profit might be derived from this example, +in teaching astronomy to a child of ten or twelve years of age, and with +much greater facility than this extraordinary child, of whom I have +spoken, taught himself its first elements. + +It is a very attractive spectacle for a mind disposed to the +contemplation of nature to see that the different phases of the moon are +precisely the same as those of a globe round which a lighted candle is +moved, showing here a quarter, here the half of its surface, and +becoming invisible when an opaque body is interposed between it and the +candle. In this manner it was that Galileo explained the true principles +of astronomy before the doge and senators of Venice on St. Mark's tower; +he demonstrated everything to the eyes. + +Indeed, not only a child, but even a man of mature age, who has seen the +constellations only on maps or globes, finds it difficult to recognize +them in the heavens. In a little time the child will quite well +comprehend the causes of the sun's apparent course, and the daily +revolutions of the fixed stars. + +He will, in particular, discover the constellations with the aid of +these four Latin lines, made by an astronomer about fifty years ago, and +which are not sufficiently known: + +_Delta Aries, Perseum Taurus, Geminique Capellam; Nil Cancer, Plaustrum +Leo, Virgo Coman, atque Bootem, Libra Anguem, Anguiferum fert Scorpios; +Antinoum Arcus; Delphinum Caper, Amphora Equos, Cepheida Pisces._ + +Nothing should be said to him about the systems of Ptolemy and Tycho +Brahe, because they are false; they can never be of any other service +than to explain some passages in ancient authors, relating to the errors +of antiquity. For instance, in the second book of Ovid's +_"Metamorphoses"_ the sun says to Phaëton: + + _Adde, quod assidua rapitur vertigine coelum;_ + _Nitor in adversum; nec me, qui cætera, vincit_ + _Impetus; et rapido contrarius evehor orbi._ + + A rapid motion carries round the heavens; + But I--and I alone--resist its force, + Marching secure in my opposing path. + +This idea of a first mover turning the heavens round in twenty-four +hours with an impossible motion, and of the sun, though acted upon by +this first motion, yet imperceptibly advancing from west to east by a +motion peculiar to itself, and without a cause, would but embarrass a +young beginner. + +It is sufficient for him to know that, whether the earth revolves on its +own axis and round the sun, or the sun completes his revolution in a +year, appearances are nearly the same, and that, in astronomy, we are +obliged to judge of things by our eyes before we examine them as natural +philosophers. + +He will soon know the cause of the eclipses of the sun and the moon, and +why they do not occur every night. It will at first appear to him that, +the moon being every month in opposition to and in conjunction with the +sun, we should have an eclipse of the sun and one of the moon every +month. But when he finds that these two luminaries are not in the same +plane and are seldom in the same line with the earth, he will no longer +be surprised. + +He will easily be made to understand how it is that eclipses have been +foretold, by knowing the exact circle in which the apparent motion of +the sun and the real motion of the moon are accomplished. He will be +told that observers found by experience and calculation the number of +times that these two bodies are precisely in the same line with the +earth in the space of nineteen years and a few hours, after which they +seem to recommence the same course; so that, making the necessary +allowances for the little inequalities that occurred during those +nineteen years, the exact day, hour, and minute of an eclipse of the sun +or moon were foretold. These first elements are soon acquired by a child +of clear conceptions. + +Not even the precession of the equinoxes will terrify him. It will be +enough to tell him that the sun has constantly appeared to advance in +his annual course, one degree in seventy-two years, towards the east; +and this is what Ovid meant to express: _"Contrarius evehor +orbi"_;--"Marching secure in my opposing path." + +Thus the Ram, which the sun formerly entered at the beginning of spring, +is now in the place where the Bull was then. This change which has taken +place in the heavens, and the entrance of the sun into other +constellations than those which he formerly occupied, were the +strongest arguments against the pretended rules of judicial astrology. +It does not, however, appear that this proof was employed before the +present century to destroy this universal extravagance which so long +infected all mankind, and is still in great vogue in Persia. + +A man born, according to the almanac, when the sun was in the sign of +the Lion, was necessarily to be courageous; but, unfortunately, he was +in reality born under the sign of the Virgin. So that Gauric and Michael +Morin should have changed all the rules of their art. + +It is indeed odd that all the laws of astrology were contrary to those +of astronomy. The wretched charlatans of antiquity and their stupid +disciples, who have been so well received and so well paid by all the +princes of Europe, talked of nothing but Mars and Venus, stationary and +retrograde. Such as had Mars stationary were always to conquer. Venus +stationary made all lovers happy. Nothing was worse than to be born +under Venus retrograde. But the fact is that these planets have never +been either retrograde or stationary, which a very slight knowledge of +optics would have sufficed to show. + +How, then, can it have been that, in spite of physics and geometry, the +ridiculous chimera of astrology is entertained even to this day, so that +we have seen men distinguished for their general knowledge, and +especially profound in history, who have all their lives been infatuated +by so despicable an error? But the error was ancient, and that was +enough. + +The Egyptians, the Chaldæans, the Jews, foretold the future; therefore, +it may be foretold now. Serpents were charmed and spirits were raised in +those days; therefore, spirits may be raised and serpents charmed now. +It is only necessary to know the precise formula made use of for the +purpose. If predictions are at an end, it is the fault, not of the art, +but of the artist. Michael Morin and his secret died together. It is +thus that the alchemists speak of the philosopher's stone; if, say they, +we do not now find it, it is because we do not yet know precisely how to +seek it; but it is certainly in Solomon's collar-bone. And, with this +glorious certainty, more than two hundred families in France and Germany +have ruined themselves. + +It is not then to be wondered at that the whole world has been duped by +astrology. The wretched argument, "there are false prodigies, therefore +there are true ones," is neither that of a philosopher, nor of a man +acquainted with the world. "That is false and absurd, therefore it will +be believed by the multitude," is a much truer maxim. + +It is still less astonishing that so many men, raised in other things so +far above the vulgar; so many princes, so many popes, whom it would have +been impossible to mislead in the smallest affair of interest, have been +so ridiculously seduced by this astrological nonsense. They were very +proud and very ignorant. The stars were for them alone; the rest of the +world a rabble, with whom the stars had nothing to do. They were like +the prince who trembled at the sight of a comet, and said gravely to +those who did not fear it, "You may behold it without concern; you are +not princes." + +The famous German leader, Wallenstein, was one of those infatuated by +this chimera; he called himself a prince, and consequently thought that +the zodiac had been made on purpose for him. He never besieged a town, +nor fought a battle, until he had held a council with the heavens; but, +as this great man was very ignorant, he placed at the head of this +council a rogue of an Italian, named Seni, keeping him a coach and six, +and giving him a pension of twenty thousand livres. Seni, however, never +foresaw that Wallenstein would be assassinated by order of his most +gracious sovereign, and that he himself would return to Italy on foot. + +It is quite evident that nothing can be known of the future, otherwise +than by conjectures. These conjectures may be so well-founded as to +approach certainty. You see a shark swallow a little boy; you may wager +ten thousand to one that he will be devoured; but you cannot be +absolutely sure of it, after the adventures of Hercules, Jonas, and +Orlando Furioso, who each lived so long in a fish's belly. + +It cannot be too often repeated that Albertus Magnus and Cardinal +d'Ailli both made the horoscope of Jesus Christ. It would appear that +they read in the stars how many devils he would cast out of the bodies +of the possessed, and what sort of death he was to die. But it was +unfortunate that these learned astrologers _foretold_ all these things +so long _after_ they happened. + +We shall elsewhere see that in a sect which passes for Christian, it is +believed to be impossible for the Supreme Intelligence to see the future +otherwise than by supreme conjecture; for, as the future does not exist, +it is, say they, a contradiction in terms to talk of seeing at the +present time that which is not. + + + + +ATHEISM. + + +SECTION I. + + +_On the Comparison so Often Made between Atheism and Idolatry._ + +It seems to me that, in the _"Dictionnaire Encyclopédique,"_ a more +powerful refutation might have been brought against the Jesuit +Richeome's opinion concerning atheists and idolaters--an opinion +formerly maintained by St. Thomas, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyprian, +and Tertullian--an opinion which Arnobius placed in a strong light when +he said to the pagans, "Do you not blush to reproach us with contempt +for your gods? Is it not better to believe in no god than to impute to +them infamous actions?"--an opinion long before established by +Plutarch, who stated that he would rather have it said that there was +no Plutarch than that there was a Plutarch, inconstant, choleric, and +vindictive--an opinion, too, fortified by all the dialectical efforts of +Bayle. + +Such is the ground of dispute, placed in a very striking point of view +by the Jesuit Richeome, and made still more specious by the way in which +Bayle sets it off: + +"There are two porters at the door of a house. You ask to speak to the +master. He is not at home, answers one. He is at home, answers the +other, but is busied in making false money, false contracts, daggers, +and poisons, to destroy those who have only accomplished his designs. +The atheist resembles the former of these porters, the pagan the latter. +It is then evident that the pagan offends the Divinity more grievously +than the atheist." + +With the permission of Father Richeome, and that of Bayle himself, this +is not at all the state of the question. For the first porter to be like +the atheist, he must say, not "My master is not here," but "I have no +master; he who you pretend is my master does not exist. My comrade is a +blockhead to tell you that the gentleman is engaged in mixing poisons +and wetting poniards to assassinate those who have executed his will. +There is no such being in the world." + +Richeome, therefore, has reasoned very ill; and Bayle, in his rather +diffuse discourses, has so far forgotten himself as to do Richeome the +honor of making a very lame comment upon him. + +Plutarch seems to express himself much better, in declaring that he +prefers those who say there is no Plutarch to those who assert that +Plutarch is unfit for society. Indeed, of what consequence to him was +its being said that he was not in the world? But it was of great +consequence that his reputation should not be injured. With the Supreme +Being it is otherwise. + +Still Plutarch does not come to the real point in discussion. It is only +asked who most offends the Supreme Being--he who denies Him, or he who +disfigures Him? It is impossible to know, otherwise than by revelation, +whether God is offended at the vain discourses which men hold about Him. + +Philosophers almost always fall unconsciously into the ideas of the +vulgar, in supposing that God is jealous of His glory, wrathful, and +given to revenge, and in taking rhetorical figures for real ideas. That +which interests the whole world is to know whether it is not better to +admit a rewarding and avenging God, recompensing hidden good actions, +and punishing secret crimes, than to admit no God at all. + +Bayle exhausts himself in repeating all the infamous things imputed to +the gods of antiquity. His adversaries answer him by unmeaning +commonplaces. The partisans and the enemies of Bayle have almost always +fought without coming to close quarters. They all agree that Jupiter +was an adulterer, Venus a wanton, Mercury a rogue. But this, I conceive, +ought not to be considered; the religion of the ancient Romans should be +distinguished from Ovid's _"Metamorphoses."_ It is quite certain that +neither they nor even the Greeks ever had a temple dedicated to Mercury +the Rogue, Venus the Wanton, or Jupiter the Adulterer. + +The god whom the Romans called _"Deus optimus maximus"_--most good, most +great--was not believed to have encouraged Clodius to lie with Cæsar's +wife, nor Cæsar to become the minion of King Nicomedes. + +Cicero does not say that Mercury incited Verres to rob Sicily, though, +in the fable, Mercury had stolen Apollo's cows. The real religion of the +ancients was that Jupiter, most good and just, with the secondary +divinities, punished perjury in the infernal regions. Thus, the Romans +were long the most religious observers of their oaths. It was in no wise +ordained that they should believe in Leda's two eggs, in the +transformation of Inachus's daughter into a cow, or in Apollo's love for +Hyacinthus. Therefore it must not be said that the religion of Numa was +dishonoring to the Divinity. So that, as but too often happens, there +has been a long dispute about a chimera. + +Then, it is asked, can a people of atheists exist? I consider that a +distinction must be made between the people, properly so called, and a +society of philosophers above the people. It is true that, in every +country, the populace require the strongest curb; and that if Bayle had +had but five or six hundred peasants to govern, he would not have failed +to announce to them a rewarding and avenging God. But Bayle would have +said nothing about them to the Epicureans, who were people of wealth, +fond of quiet, cultivating all the social virtues, and friendship in +particular, shunning the dangers and embarrassments of public +affairs--leading, in short, a life of ease and innocence. The dispute, +so far as it regards policy and society, seems to me to end here. + +As for people entirely savage, they can be counted neither among the +theists nor among the atheists. To ask them what is their creed would be +like asking them if they are for Aristotle or Democritus. They know +nothing; they are no more atheists than they are peripatetics. + +But, it may be insisted, that they live in society, though they have no +God, and that, therefore, society may subsist without religion. + +In this case I shall reply that wolves live so; and that an assemblage +of barbarous cannibals, as you suppose them to be, is not a society. +And, further, I will ask you if, when you have lent your money to any +one of your society, you would have neither your debtor, nor your +attorney, nor your notary, nor your judge, believe in a God? + + +SECTION II. + +_Modern Atheists.--Arguments of the Worshippers of God._ + +We are intelligent beings, and intelligent beings cannot have been +formed by a blind, brute, insensible being; there is certainly some +difference between a clod and the ideas of Newton. Newton's +intelligence, then, came from some other intelligence. + +When we see a fine machine, we say there is a good machinist, and that +he has an excellent understanding. The world is assuredly an admirable +machine; therefore there is in the world, somewhere or other, an +admirable intelligence. This argument is old, but is not therefore the +worse. + +All animated bodies are composed of levers and pulleys, which act +according to the laws of mechanics; of liquors, which are kept in +perpetual circulation by the laws of hydrostatics; and the reflection +that all these beings have sentiment which has no relation to their +organization, fills us with wonder. + +The motions of the stars, that of our little earth round the sun--all +are operated according to the laws of the profoundest mathematics. How +could it be that Plato, who knew not one of these laws--the eloquent but +chimerical Plato, who said that the foundation of the earth was an +equilateral triangle, and that of water a right-angled triangle--the +strange Plato, who said there could be but five worlds, because there +were but five regular bodieshow, I say, was it that Plato, who was not +even acquainted with spherical trigonometry, had nevertheless so fine a +genius, so happy an instinct, as to call God the Eternal +Geometrician--to feel that there exists a forming Intelligence? Spinoza +himself confesses it. It is impossible to controvert this truth, which +surrounds us and presses us on all sides. + +_Argument of the Atheists._ + +I have, however, known refractory individuals, who have said that there +is no forming intelligence, and that motion alone has formed all that we +see and all that we are. They say boldly that the combination of this +universe was possible because it exists; therefore it was possible for +motion of itself to arrange it. Take four planets only--Mars, Venus, +Mercury, and the Earth; let us consider them solely in the situations in +which they now are; and let us see how many probabilities we have that +motion will bring them again to those respective places. There are but +twenty-four chances in this combination; that is, it is only twenty-four +to one that these planets will not be found in the same situations with +respect to one another. To these four globes add that of Jupiter; and it +is then only a hundred and twenty to one that Jupiter, Mars, Venus, +Mercury, and our globe will not be placed in the same positions in which +we now see them. + +Lastly, add Saturn; and there will then be only seven hundred and twenty +chances to one against putting these planets in their present +arrangement, according to their given distances. It is, then, +demonstrated that once, at least, in seven hundred and twenty cases, +chance might place these planets in their present order. + +Then take all the secondary planets, all their motions, all the beings +that vegetate, live, feel, think, act, on all these globes; you have +only to increase the number of chances; multiply this number to all +eternity--to what our weakness calls _infinity_--there will still be an +unit in favor of the formation of the world, such as it is, by motion +alone; therefore it is possible that, in all eternity, the motion of +matter alone has produced the universe as it exists. Nay, this +combination must, in eternity, of necessity happen. Thus, say they, not +only it is possible that the world is as it is by motion alone, but it +was impossible that it should not be so after infinite combinations. + +_Answer._ + +All this supposition seems to me to be prodigiously chimerical, for two +reasons: the first is, that in this universe there are intelligent +beings, and you cannot prove it possible for motion alone to produce +understanding. The second is, that, by your own confession, the chances +are infinity to unity, that an intelligent forming cause produced the +universe. Standing alone against infinity, a unit makes but a poor +figure. + +Again Spinoza himself admits this intelligence; it is the basis of his +system. You have not read him, but you must read him. Why would you go +further than he, and, through a foolish pride, plunge into the abyss +where Spinoza dared not to descend? Are you not aware of the extreme +folly of saying that it is owing to a blind cause that the square of the +revolution of one planet is always to the squares of the others as the +cube of its distance is to the cubes of the distances of the others from +the common centre? Either the planets are great geometricians, or the +Eternal Geometrician has arranged the planets. + +But where is the Eternal Geometrician? Is He in one place, or in all +places, without occupying space? I know not. Has He arranged all things +of His own substance? I know not. Is He immense, without quantity and +without quality? I know not. All I know is, that we must adore Him and +be just. + +_New Objection of a Modern Atheist._ + +Can it be said that the conformation of animals is according to their +necessities? What are those necessities? Self-preservation and +propagation. Now, is it astonishing that, of the infinite combinations +produced by chance, those only have survived which had organs adapted +for their nourishment and the continuation of their species? Must not +all others necessarily have perished? + +_Answer._ + +This argument, taken from Lucretius, is sufficiently refuted by the +sensation given to animals and the intelligence given to man. How, as +has just been said in the preceding paragraph, should combinations +produced by chance produce this sensation and this intelligence? Yes, +doubtless, the members of animals are made for all their necessities +with an incomprehensible art, and you have not the boldness to deny it. +You do not mention it. You feel that you can say nothing in answer to +this great argument which Nature brings against you. The disposition of +the wing of a fly, or of the feelers of a snail, is sufficient to +confound you. + +_An Objection of Maupertuis._ + +The natural philosophers of modern times have done nothing more than +extend these pretended arguments; this they have sometimes done even to +minuteness and indecency. They have found God in the folds of a +rhinoceros's hide; they might, with equal reason, have denied His +existence on account of the tortoise's shell. + +_Answer._ + +What reasoning! The tortoise and the rhinoceros, and all the different +species, prove alike in their infinite varieties the same cause, the +same design, the same end, which are preservation, generation, and +death. Unity is found in this immense variety; the hide and the shell +bear equal testimony. What! deny God, because a shell is not like a +skin! And journalists have lavished upon this coxcombry praises which +they have withheld from Newton and Locke, both worshippers of the +Divinity from thorough examination and conviction! + +_Another of Maupertuis's Objections._ + +Of what service are beauty and fitness in the construction of a serpent? +Perhaps, you say, it has uses of which we are ignorant. Let us then, at +least, be silent, and not admire an animal which we know only by the +mischief it does. + +_Answer._ + +Be you silent, also, since you know no more of its utility than myself; +or acknowledge that, in reptiles, everything is admirably proportioned. +Some of them are venomous; you have been so too. The only subject at +present under consideration is the prodigious art which has formed +serpents, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and bipeds. This art is evident +enough. You ask, Why is not the serpent harmless? And why have you not +been harmless? Why have you been a persecutor? which, in a philosopher, +is the greatest of crimes. This is quite another question; it is that of +physical and moral evil. It has long been asked, Why are there so many +serpents, and so many wicked men worse than serpents? If flies could +reason, they would complain to God of the existence of spiders; but they +would, at the same time, acknowledge what Minerva confessed to Arachne +in the fable, that they arrange their webs in a wonderful manner. + +We cannot, then, do otherwise than acknowledge an ineffable +Intelligence, which Spinoza himself admitted. We must own that it is +displayed as much in the meanest insect as in the planets. And with +regard to moral and physical evil, what can be done or said? Let us +console ourselves by the enjoyment of physical and moral good, and adore +the Eternal Being, who has ordained the one and permitted the other. + +One word more on this topic. Atheism is the vice of some intelligent +men, and superstition is the vice of fools. And what is the vice of +knaves?--Hypocrisy. + + +SECTION III. + +_Unjust Accusation.--Justification of Vanini._ + +Formerly, whoever was possessed of a secret in any art was in danger of +passing for a sorcerer; every new sect was charged with murdering +infants in its mysteries; and every philosopher who departed from the +jargon of the schools was accused of atheism by knaves and fanatics, and +condemned by blockheads. + +Anaxagorus dares to assert that the sun is not conducted by Apollo, +mounted in a chariot and four; he is condemned as an atheist, and +compelled to fly. + +Aristotle is accused of atheism by a priest, and not being powerful +enough to punish his accuser, he retires to Chalcis. But the death of +Socrates is the greatest blot on the page of Grecian history. + +Aristophanes--he whom commentators admire because he was a Greek, +forgetting that Socrates was also a Greek--Aristophanes was the first +who accustomed the Athenians to regard Socrates as an atheist. + +This comic poet, who is neither comic nor poetical, would not, among us, +have been permitted to exhibit his farces at the fair of St. Lawrence. +He appears to me to be much lower and more despicable than Plutarch +represents him. Let us see what the wise Plutarch says of this buffoon: +"The language of Aristophanes bespeaks his miserable quackery; it is +made up of the lowest and most disgusting puns; he is not even pleasing +to the people; and to men of judgment and honor he is insupportable; his +arrogance is intolerable, and all good men detest his malignity." + +This, then, is the jack-pudding whom Madame Dacier, an admirer of +Socrates, ventures to admire! Such was the man who, indirectly, prepared +the poison by which infamous judges put to death the most virtuous man +in Greece. + +The tanners, cobblers, and seamstresses of Athens applauded a farce in +which Socrates was represented lifted in the air in a hamper, announcing +that there was no God, and boasting of having stolen a cloak while he +was teaching philosophy. A whole people, whose government sanctioned +such infamous licences, well deserved what has happened to them, to +become slaves to the Romans, and, subsequently, to the Turks. The +Russians, whom the Greeks of old would have called barbarians, would +neither have poisoned Socrates, nor have condemned Alcibiades to death. + +We pass over the ages between the Roman commonwealth and our own times. +The Romans, much more wise than the Greeks, never persecuted a +philosopher for his opinions. Not so the barbarous nations which +succeeded the Roman Empire. No sooner did the Emperor Frederick II. +begin to quarrel with the popes, than he was accused of being an +atheist, and being the author of the book of "The Three Impostors," +conjointly with his chancellor De Vincis. + +Does our high-chancellor, de l'Hôpital, declare against persecution? He +is immediately charged with atheism--_"Homo doctus, sed vetus atheus."_ +There was a Jesuit, as much beneath Aristophanes as Aristophanes is +beneath Homer--a wretch, whose name has become ridiculous even among +fanatics--the Jesuit Garasse, who found atheists everywhere. He bestows +the name upon all who are the objects of his virulence. He calls +Theodore Beza an atheist. It was he, too, that led the public into error +concerning Vanini. + +The unfortunate end of Vanini does not excite our pity and indignation +like that of Socrates, because Vanini was only a foreign pedant, without +merit; however, Vanini was not, as was pretended, an atheist; he was +quite the contrary. + +He was a poor Neapolitan priest, a theologian and preacher by trade, an +outrageous disputer on quiddities and universals, and _"utrum chimæra +bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones."_ But there was +nothing in him tending to atheism. His notion of God is that of the +soundest and most approved theology: "God is the beginning and the end, +the father of both, without need of either, eternal without time, in no +one place, yet present everywhere. To him there is neither past nor +future; he is within and without everything; he has created all, and +governs all; he is immutable, infinite without parts; his power is his +will." This is not very philosophical, but it is the most approved +theology. + +Vanini prided himself on reviving Plato's fine idea, adopted by +Averroës, that God had created a chain of beings from the smallest to +the greatest, the last link of which was attached to his eternal throne; +an idea more sublime than true, but as distant from atheism as being +from nothing. + +He travelled to seek his fortune and to dispute; but, unfortunately, +disputation leads not to fortune; a man makes himself as many +irreconcilable enemies as he finds men of learning or of pedantry to +argue against. Vanini's ill-fortune had no other source. His heat and +rudeness in disputation procured him the hatred of some theologians; and +having quarrelled with one Franconi, this Franconi, the friend of his +enemies, charged him with being an atheist and teaching atheism. + +Franconi, aided by some witnesses, had the barbarity, when confronted +with the accused, to maintain what he had advanced. Vanini, on the +stool, being asked what he thought of the existence of a God, answered +that he, with the Church, adored a God in three persons. Taking a straw +from the ground, "This," said he, "is sufficient to prove that there is +a creator." He then delivered a very fine discourse on vegetation and +motion, and the necessity of a Supreme Being, without whom there could +be neither motion nor vegetation. + +The president Grammont, who was then at Toulouse, repeats this discourse +in his history of France, now so little known; and the same Grammont, +through some unaccountable prejudice, asserts that Vanini said all this +"through vanity, or through fear, rather than from inward conviction." + +On what could this atrocious, rash judgment of the president be founded? +It is evident, from Vanini's answer, that he could not but be acquitted +of the charge of atheism. But what followed? This unfortunate foreign +priest also dabbled in medicine. There was found in his house a large +live toad, which he kept in a vessel of water; he was forthwith accused +of being a sorcerer. It was maintained that this toad was the god which +he adored. An impious meaning was attributed to several passages of his +books, a thing which is both common and easy, by taking objections for +answers, giving some bad sense to a loose phrase, and perverting an +innocent expression. At last, the faction which oppressed him forced +from his judges the sentence which condemned him to die. + +In order to justify this execution it was necessary to charge the +unfortunate man with the most enormous of crimes. The grey friar--the +_very_ grey friar Marsenne, was so besotted as to publish that "Vanini +set out from Naples, with twelve of his apostles, to convert the whole +world to atheism." What a pitiful tale! How should a poor priest have +twelve men in his pay? How should he persuade twelve Neapolitans to +travel at great expense, in order to spread this revolting doctrine at +the peril of their lives? Would a king himself have it in his power to +pay twelve preachers of atheism? No one before Father Marsenne had +advanced so enormous an absurdity. But after him it was repeated; the +journals and historical dictionaries caught it, and the world, which +loves the extraordinary, has believed the fable without examination. + +Even Bayle, in his miscellaneous thoughts (_Pensées Diverses_), speaks +of Vanini as of an atheist. He cites his example in support of his +paradox, that "a society of atheists might exist." He assures us that +Vanini was a man of very regular morals, and that he was a martyr to +his philosophical opinions. On both these points he is equally mistaken. +Vanini informs us in his "Dialogues," written in imitation of Erasmus, +that he had a mistress named Isabel. He was as free in his writings as +in his conduct; but he was not an atheist. + +A century after his death, the learned Lacroze, and he who took the name +of Philaletes, endeavored to justify him. But as no one cares anything +about the memory of an unfortunate Neapolitan, scarcely any one has read +these apologies. + +The Jesuit Hardouin, more learned and no less rash than Garasse, in his +book entitled _"Athei Detecti"_ charges the Descartes, the Arnaulds, the +Pascals, the Malebranches, with atheism. Happily, Vanini's fate was not +theirs. + + +SECTION IV. + +A word on the question in morals, agitated by Bayle, "Whether a society +of atheists can exist." Here let us first observe the enormous +self-contradictions of men in disputation. Those who have been most +violent in opposing the opinion of Bayle, those who have denied with the +greatest virulence the possibility of a society of atheists, are the +very men who have since maintained with equal ardor that atheism is the +religion of the Chinese government. + +They have most assuredly been mistaken concerning the government of +China; they had only to read the edicts of the emperors of that vast +country, and they would have seen that those edicts are sermons, in +which a Supreme Being--governing, avenging, and rewarding--is +continually spoken of. + +But, at the same time, they are no less deceived respecting the +impossibility of a society of atheists; nor can I conceive how Bayle +could forget a striking instance which might have rendered his cause +victorious. + +In what does the apparent impossibility of a society of atheists +consist? In this: It is judged that men without some restraint could not +live together; that laws have no power against secret crimes; and that +it is necessary to have an avenging God--punishing, in this world or in +the next, such as escape human justice. + +The laws of Moses, it is true, did not teach the doctrine of a life to +come, did not threaten with chastisements after death, nor even teach +the primitive Jews the immortality of the soul; but the Jews, far from +being atheists, far from believing that they could elude the divine +vengeance, were the most religious of men. They believed not only in the +existence of an eternal God, but that He was always present among them; +they trembled lest they should be punished in themselves, their wives, +their children, their posterity to the fourth generation. This was a +very powerful check. + +But among the Gentiles various sects had no restraint; the Skeptics +doubted of everything; the Academics suspended their judgment on +everything; the Epicureans were persuaded that the Divinity could not +meddle in human affairs, and in their hearts admitted no Divinity. They +were convinced that the soul is not a substance, but a faculty which is +born and perishes with the body; consequently, they had no restraint but +that of morality and honor. The Roman senators and knights were in +reality atheists; for to men who neither feared nor hoped anything from +them, the gods could not exist. The Roman senate, then, in the time of +Cæsar and Cicero, was in fact an assembly of atheists. + +That great orator, in his oration for Cluentius, says to the whole +assembled senate: "What does he lose by death? We reject all the silly +fables about the infernal regions. What, then, can death take from him? +Nothing but the susceptibility of sorrow." + +Does not Cæsar, wishing to save the life of his friend Catiline, +threatened by the same Cicero, object that to put a criminal to death is +not to punish him--that death is nothing--that it is but the termination +of our ills--a moment rather fortunate than calamitous? Did not Cicero +and the whole senate yield to this reasoning? The conquerors and +legislators of all the known world then, evidently, formed a society of +men who feared nothing from the gods, but were real atheists. + +Bayle next examines whether idolatry is more dangerous than +atheism--whether it is a greater crime not to believe in the Divinity +than to have unworthy notions of it; in this he thinks with +Plutarch--that it is better to have no opinion than a bad opinion; but, +without offence to Plutarch, it was infinitely better that the Greeks +should fear Ceres, Neptune, and Jupiter than that they should fear +nothing at all. It is clear that the sanctity of oaths is necessary; and +that those are more to be trusted who think a false oath will be +punished, than those who think they may take a false oath with impunity. +It cannot be doubted that, in an organized society, it is better to have +even a bad religion than no religion at all. + +It appears then that Bayle should rather have examined whether atheism +or fanaticism is the most dangerous. Fanaticism is certainly a thousand +times the most to be dreaded; for atheism inspires no sanguinary +passion, but fanaticism does; atheism does not oppose crime, but +fanaticism prompts to its commission. Let us suppose, with the author of +the _"Commentarium Return Gallicarum,"_ that the High-Chancellor de +l'Hôpital was an atheist; he made none but wise laws; he recommended +only moderation and concord. The massacres of St. Bartholomew were +committed by fanatics. Hobbes passed for an atheist; yet he led a life +of innocence and quiet, while the fanatics of his time deluged England, +Scotland, and Ireland with blood. Spinoza was not only an atheist--he +taught atheism; but assuredly he had no part in the judicial +assassination of Barneveldt; nor was it he who tore in pieces the two +brothers De Witt, and ate them off the gridiron. + +Atheists are, for the most part, men of learning, bold but bewildered, +who reason ill and, unable to comprehend the creation, the origin of +evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the +eternity of things and of necessity. + +The ambitious and the voluptuous have but little time to reason; they +have other occupations than that of comparing Lucretius with Socrates. +Such is the case with us and our time. + +It was otherwise with the Roman senate, which was composed almost +entirely of theoretical and practical atheists, that is, believing +neither in Providence nor in a future state; this senate was an assembly +of philosophers, men of pleasure, and ambitious men, who were all very +dangerous, and who ruined the commonwealth. Under the emperors, +Epicureanism prevailed. The atheists of the senate had been factious in +the times of Sulla and of Cæsar; in those of Augustus and Tiberius, they +were atheistical slaves. + +I should not wish to come in the way of an atheistical prince, whose +interest it should be to have me pounded in a mortar; I am quite sure +that I should be so pounded. Were I a sovereign, I would not have to do +with atheistical courtiers, whose interest it was to poison me; I should +be under the necessity of taking an antidote every day. It is then +absolutely necessary for princes and people that the idea of a Supreme +Being--creating, governing, rewarding, and punishing--be profoundly +engraved on their minds. + +There are, nations of atheists, says Bayle in his "Thoughts on Comets." +The Kaffirs, the Hottentots, and many other small populations, have no +god; they neither affirm nor deny that there is one; they have never +heard of Him; tell them that there is one, and they will easily believe +it; tell them that all is done by the nature of things, and they will +believe you just the same. To pretend that they are atheists would be +like saying they are anti-Cartesians. They are neither for Descartes nor +against him; they are no more than children; a child is neither atheist +nor deist; he is nothing. + +From all this, what conclusion is to be drawn? That atheism is a most +pernicious monster in those who govern; that it is the same in the men +of their cabinet, since it may extend itself from the cabinet to those +in office; that, although less to be dreaded than fanaticism, it is +almost always fatal to virtue. And especially, let it be added, that +there are fewer atheists now than ever--since philosophers have become +persuaded that there is no vegetative being without a germ, no germ +without a design, etc., and that the corn in our fields does not spring +from rottenness. + +Unphilosophical geometricians have rejected final causes, but true +philosophers admit them; and, as it is elsewhere observed, a catechist +announces God to children, and Newton demonstrates Him to the wise. + +If there be atheists, who are to blame? Who but the mercenary tyrants of +our souls, who, while disgusting us with their knavery, urge some weak +spirits to deny the God whom such monsters dishonor? How often have the +people's bloodsuckers forced overburdened citizens to revolt against the +king! + +Men who have fattened on our substance, cry out to us: "Be persuaded +that an ass spoke; believe that a fish swallowed a man, and threw him up +three days after, safe and sound, on the shore; doubt not that the God +of the universe ordered one Jewish prophet to eat excrement, and another +to buy two prostitutes, and have bastards by them;" such are the words +put into the mouth of the God of purity and truth! Believe a hundred +things either visibly abominable or mathematically impossible; otherwise +the God of Mercy will burn you in hell-fire, not only for millions of +millions of ages, but for all eternity, whether you have a body or have +not a body. + +These brutal absurdities are revolting to rash and weak minds, as well +as to firm and wise ones. They say: "Our teachers represent God to us as +the most insensate and barbarous of all beings; therefore, there is no +God." But they ought to say, "Our teachers represent God as furious and +ridiculous, therefore God is the reverse of what they describe Him; He +is as wise and good as they say He is foolish and wicked." Thus do the +wise decide. But, if a fanatic hears them, he denounces them to a +magistrate--a sort of priest's officer, which officer has them burned +alive, thinking that he is therein imitating and avenging the Divine +Majesty which he insults. + + + + +ATHEIST. + + +SECTION I. + +There were once many atheists among the Christians; they are now much +fewer. It at first appears to be a paradox, but examination proves it to +be a truth, that theology often threw men's minds into atheism, until +philosophy at length drew them out of it. It must indeed have been +pardonable to doubt of the Divinity, when His only announcers disputed +on His nature. Nearly all the first Fathers of the Church made God +corporeal, and others, after them, giving Him no extent, lodged Him in a +part of heaven. According to some, He had created the world in Time; +while, according to others, He had created Time itself. Some gave Him a +Son like to Himself; others would not grant that the Son was like to the +Father. It was also disputed in what way a third person proceeded from +the other two. + +It was agitated whether the Son had been, while on earth, composed of +two persons. So that the question undesignedly became, whether there +were five persons in the Divinity--three in heaven and two for Jesus +Christ upon earth; or four persons, reckoning Christ upon earth as only +one; or three persons, considering Christ only as God. There were +disputes about His mother, His descent into hell and into limbo; the +manner in which the body of the God-man was eaten, and the blood of the +God-man was drunk; on grace; on the saints, and a thousand other +matters. When the confidants of the Divinity were seen so much at +variance among themselves anathematizing one another from age to age, +but all agreeing in an immoderate thirst for riches and grandeur--while, +on the other hand, were beheld the prodigious number of crimes and +miseries which afflicted the earth, and of which many were caused by the +very disputes of these teachers of souls--it must be confessed that it +was allowable for rational men to doubt the existence of a being so +strangely announced, and for men of sense to imagine that a God, who +could of His own free will make so many beings miserable, did not exist. + +Suppose, for example, a natural philosopher of the fifteenth century +reading these words in "St. Thomas's Dream": _"Virtus coeli, loco +spermatis, sufficit cum elementis et putrefactione ad generationem +animalium imperfectorum."_ "The virtue of heaven instead of seed is +sufficient, with the elements and putrefaction, for the generation of +imperfect animals." Our philosopher would reason thus: "If corruption +suffices with the elements to produce unformed animals, it would appear +that a little more corruption, with a little more heat, would also +produce animals more complete. The virtue of heaven is here no other +than the virtue of nature. I shall then think, with Epicurus and St. +Thomas, that men may have sprung from the slime of the earth and the +rays of the sun--a noble origin, too, for beings so wretched and so +wicked. Why should I admit a creating God, presented to me under so many +contradictory and revolting aspects?" But at length physics arose, and +with them philosophy. Then it was clearly discovered that the mud of the +Nile produced not a single insect, nor a single ear of corn, and men +were found to acknowledge throughout, germs, relations, means, and an +astonishing correspondence among all beings. The particles of light have +been followed, which go from the sun to enlighten the globe and the ring +of Saturn, at the distance of three hundred millions of leagues; then, +coming to the earth, form two opposite angles in the eye of the minutest +insect, and paint all nature on its retina. A philosopher was given to +the world who discovered the simple and sublime laws by which the +celestial globes move in the immensity of space. Thus the work of the +universe, now that it is better known, bespeaks a workman, and so many +never-varying laws announce a lawgiver. Sound philosophy, therefore, has +destroyed atheism, to which obscure theology furnished weapons of +defence. + +But one resource was left for the small number of difficult minds, +which, being more forcibly struck by the pretended injustices of a +Supreme Being than by his wisdom, were obstinate in denying this first +mover. Nature has existed from all eternity; everything in nature is in +motion, therefore everything in it continually changes. And if +everything is forever changing, all possible combinations must take +place; therefore the present combinations of all things may have been +the effect of this eternal motion and change alone. Take six dice, and +it is 46,655 to one that you do not throw six times six. But still there +is that one chance in 46,656. So, in the infinity of ages, any one of +the infinite number of combinations, as that of the present arrangement +of the universe, is not impossible. + +Minds, otherwise rational, have been misled by these arguments; but they +have not considered that there is infinity against them, and that there +certainly is not infinity against the existence of God. They should, +moreover, consider that if everything were changing, the smallest things +could not remain unchanged, as they have so long done. They have at +least no reason to advance why new species are not formed every day. On +the contrary, it is very probable that a powerful hand, superior to +these continual changes, keeps all species within the bounds it, has +prescribed them. Thus the philosopher, who acknowledges a God, has a +number of probabilities on his side, while the atheist has only doubts. + +It is evident that in morals it is much better to acknowledge a God than +not to admit one. It is certainly to the interest of all men that there +should be a Divinity to punish what human, justice cannot repress; but +it is also clear that it were better to acknowledge no God than to +worship a barbarous one, and offer Him human victims, as so many nations +have done. + +We have one striking example, which places this truth beyond a doubt. +The Jews, under Moses, had no idea of the immortality of the soul, nor +of a future state. Their lawgiver announced to them, from God, only +rewards and punishments purely temporal; they, therefore, had only this +life to provide for. Moses commands the Levites to kill twenty-three +thousand of their brethren for having had a golden or gilded calf. On +another occasion twenty-four thousand of them are massacred for having +had commerce with the young women of the country; and twelve thousand +are struck dead because some few of them had wished to support the ark, +which was near falling. It may, with perfect reverence for the decrees +of Providence, be affirmed, humanly speaking, that it would have been +much better for these fifty-nine thousand men, who believed in no future +state, to have been absolute atheists and have lived, than to have been +massacred in the name of the God whom they acknowledged. + +It is quite certain that atheism is not taught in the schools of the +learned of China, but many of those learned men are atheists, for they +are indifferent philosophers. Now it would undoubtedly be better to live +with them at Pekin, enjoying the mildness of their manners and their +laws, than to be at Goa, liable to groan in irons, in the prisons of the +inquisition, until brought out in a brimstone-colored garment, +variegated with devils, to perish in the flames. + +They who have maintained that a society of atheists may exist have then +been right, for it is laws that form society, and these atheists, being +moreover philosophers, may lead a very wise and happy life under the +shade of those laws. They will certainly live in society more easily +than superstitious fanatics. People one town with Epicureans such as +Simonides, Protagoras, Des Barreux, Spinoza; and another with Jansenists +and Molinists. In which do you think there will be the most quarrels and +tumults? Atheism, considering it only with relation to this life, would +be very dangerous among a ferocious people, and false ideas of the +Divinity would be no less pernicious. Most of the great men of this +world live as if they were atheists. Every man who has lived with his +eyes open knows that the knowledge of a God, His presence, and His +justice, has not the slightest influence over the wars, the treaties, +the objects of ambition, interest or pleasure, in the pursuit of which +they are wholly occupied. Yet we do not see that they grossly violate +the rules established in society. It is much more agreeable to pass our +lives among them than among the superstitious and fanatical. I do, it is +true, expect more justice from one who believes in a God than from one +who has no such belief; but from the superstitious I look only for +bitterness and persecution. Atheism and fanaticism are two monsters +which may tear society in pieces; but the atheist preserves his reason, +which checks his propensity to mischief, while the fanatic is under the +influence of a madness which is constantly urging him on. + + +SECTION II. + +In England, as everywhere else, there have been, and there still are, +many atheists by principle; for there are none but young, inexperienced +preachers, very ill-informed of what passes in the world, who affirm +that there cannot be atheists. I have known some in France, who were +quite good natural philosophers; and have, I own, been very much +surprised that men who could so ably develop the secret springs of +nature should obstinately refuse to acknowledge the hand which so +evidently puts those springs in action. + +It appears to me that one of the principles which leads them to +materialism is that they believe in the plentitude and infinity of the +universe, and the eternity of matter. It must be this which misleads +them, for almost all the Newtonians whom I have met admit the void and +the termination of matter, and consequently admit a God. + +Indeed, if matter be infinite, as so many philosophers, even including +Descartes, pretend, it has of itself one of the attributes of the +Supreme Being: if a void be impossible, matter exists of necessity; it +has existed from all eternity. With these principles, therefore, we may +dispense with God, creating, modifying, and preserving matter. + +I am aware that Descartes, and most of the schools which have believed +in the _plenum_, and the infinity of matter, have nevertheless admitted +a God; but this is only because men scarcely ever reason or act upon +their principles. + +Had men reasoned, consequently, Epicurus and his apostle Lucretius must +have been the most religious assertors of the Providence which they +combated; for when they admitted the void and the termination of matter, +a truth of which they had only an imperfect glimpse, it necessarily +followed that matter was the being of necessity, existing by itself, +since it was not indefinite. They had, therefore, in their own +philosophy, and in their own despite, a demonstration that there is a +Supreme Being, necessary, infinite, the fabricator of the universe. +Newton's philosophy, which admits and proves the void and finite matter, +also demonstratively proves the existence of a God. + +Thus I regard true philosophers as the apostles of the Divinity. Each +class of men requires its particular ones; a parish catechist tells +children that there is a God, but Newton proves it to the wise. + +In London, under Charles II. after Cromwell's wars, as at Paris under +Henry IV. after the war of the Guises, people took great pride in being +atheists; having passed from the excess of cruelty to that of pleasure, +and corrupted their minds successively by war and by voluptuousness, +they reasoned very indifferently. Since then the more nature has been +studied the better its Author has been known. + +One thing I will venture to believe, which is, that of all religions, +theism is the most widely spread in the world. It is the prevailing +religion of China; it is that of the wise among the Mahometans; and, +among Christian philosophers, eight out of ten are of the same opinion. +It has penetrated even into the schools of theology, into the cloisters, +into the conclave; it is a sort of sect without association, without +worship, without ceremonies, without disputes, and without zeal, spread +through the world without having been preached. Theism, like Judaism, is +to be found amidst all religions; but it is singular that the latter, +which is the extreme of superstition, abhorred by the people and +contemned by the wise, is everywhere tolerated for money; while the +former, which is the opposite of superstition, unknown to the people, +and embraced by philosophers alone, is publicly exercised nowhere but in +China. There is no country in Europe where there are more theists than +in England. Some persons ask whether they have a religion or not. + +There are two sorts of theists. The one sort think that God made the +world without giving man rules for good and evil. It is clear that these +should have no other name than that of philosophers. + +The others believe that God gave to man a natural law. These, it is +certain, have a religion, though they have no external worship. They +are, with reference to the Christian religion, peaceful enemies, which +she carries in her bosom; they renounce without any design of destroying +her. All other sects desire to predominate, like political bodies, which +seek to feed on the substance of others, and rise upon their ruin; +theism has always lain quiet. Theists have never been found caballing in +any state. + +There was in London a society of theists, who for some time continued to +meet together. They had a small book of their laws, in which religion, +on which so many ponderous volumes have been written, occupied only two +pages. Their principal axiom was this: "Morality is the same among all +men; therefore it comes from God. Worship is various; therefore it is +the work of man." + +The second axiom was: "Men, being all brethren, and acknowledging the +same God, it is execrable that brethren should persecute brethren, +because they testify their love for the common father in a different +manner. Indeed," said they, "what upright man would kill his elder +brother because one of them had saluted their father after the Chinese +and the other after the Dutch fashion, especially while it was undecided +in what way the father wished their reverence to be made to him? Surely +he who should act thus would be a bad brother rather than a good son." + +I am well aware that these maxims lead directly to "the abominable and +execrable dogma of toleration"; but I do no more than simply relate the +fact. I am very careful not to become a controversialist. It must, +however, be admitted that if the different sects into which Christians +have been divided had possessed this moderation, Christianity would have +been disturbed by fewer disorders, shaken by fewer revolutions, and +stained with less blood. + +Let us pity the theists for combating our holy revelation. But whence +comes it that so many Calvinists, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Nestorians, +Arians, partisans of Rome, and enemies of Rome, have been so sanguinary, +so barbarous, and so miserable, now persecuting, now persecuted? It is +because they have been the multitude. Whence is it that theists, though +in error, have never done harm to mankind? Because they have been +philosophers. The Christian religion has cost the human species +seventeen millions of men, reckoning only one million per century, who +have perished either by the hands of the ordinary executioner, or by +those of executioners paid and led to battle--all for the salvation of +souls and the greater glory of God. + +I have heard men express astonishment that a religion so moderate, and +so apparently conformable to reason, as theism, has not been spread +among the people. Among the great and little vulgar may be found pious +herb-women, Molinist duchesses, scrupulous seamstresses who would go to +the stake for anabaptism, devout hackney-coachmen, most determined in +the cause of Luther or of Arius, but no theists; for theism cannot so +much be called a religion as a system of philosophy, and the vulgar, +whether great or little, are not philosophers. + +Locke was a declared theist. I was astonished to find, in that great +philosopher's chapter on innate ideas, that men have all different ideas +of justice. Were such the case, morality would no longer be the same; +the voice of God would not be heard by man; natural religion would be at +an end. I am willing to believe, with him, that there are nations in +which men eat their fathers, and where to lie with a neighbor's wife is +to do him a friendly office; but if this be true it does not prove that +the law, "Do not unto others that which you would not have others do +unto you," is not general. For if a father be eaten, it is when he has +grown old, is too feeble to crawl along, and would otherwise be eaten by +the enemy. And, I ask, what father would not furnish a good meal to his +son rather than to the enemies of his nation? Besides, he who eats his +father hopes that he in turn shall be eaten by his children. + +If a service be rendered to a neighbor by lying with his wife, it is +when he cannot himself have a child, and is desirous of having one; +otherwise he would be very angry. In both these cases, and in all +others, the natural law, "Do not to another that which you would not +have another do to you," remains unbroken. All the other rules, so +different and so varied, may be referred to this. When, therefore, the +wise metaphysician, Locke, says that men have no innate ideas, that they +have different ideas of justice and injustice, he assuredly does not +mean to assert that God has not given to all men that instinctive +self-love by which they are of necessity guided. + + + + +ATOMS. + + +Epicurus, equally great as a genius, and respectable in his morals; and +after him Lucretius, who forced the Latin language to express +philosophical ideas, and--to the great admiration of Rome--to express +them in verse--Epicurus and Lucretius, I say, admitted atoms and the +void. Gassendi supported this doctrine, and Newton demonstrated it. In +vain did a remnant of Cartesianism still combat for the plenum; in vain +did Leibnitz, who had at first adopted the rational system of Epicurus, +Lucretius, Gassendi, and Newton, change his opinion respecting the void +after he had embroiled himself with his master Newton. The plenum is now +regarded as a chimera. + +In this Epicurus and Lucretius appear to have been true philosophers, +and their intermediaries, who have been so much ridiculed, were no other +than the unresisting space in which Newton has demonstrated that the +planets move round their orbits in times proportioned to their areas. +Thus it was not Epicurus' intermediaries, but his opponents, that were +ridiculous. But when Epicurus afterwards tells us that his atoms +declined in the void by chance; that this declination formed men and +animals by chance; that the eyes were placed in the upper part of the +head and the feet at the end of the legs by chance; that ears were not +given to hear, but that the declination of atoms having fortuitously +composed ears, men fortuitously made use of them to hear with--this +madness, called physics, has been very justly turned into ridicule. + +Sound philosophy, then, has long distinguished what is good in Epicurus +and Lucretius, from their chimeras, founded on imagination and +ignorance. The most submissive minds have adopted the doctrine of +creation in time, and the most daring have admitted that of creation +before all time. Some have received with faith a universe produced from +nothing; others, unable to comprehend this doctrine in physics, have +believed that all beings were emanations from the Great--the Supreme and +Universal Being; but all have rejected the fortuitous concurrence of +atoms; all have acknowledged that chance is a word without meaning. What +we call chance can be no other than the unknown cause of a known effect. +Whence comes it then, that philosophers are still accused of thinking +that the stupendous and indescribable arrangement of the universe is a +production of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms--an effect of chance? +Neither Spinoza nor any one else has advanced this absurdity. + +Yet the son of the great Racine says, in his poem on Religion: + + _O toi! qui follement fais ton Dieu du hasard,_ + _Viens me développer ce nid qu'avec tant d'art,_ + _Au même ordre toujours architecte fidèle,_ + _A l'aide de son bee maçonne l'hirondelle;_ + _Comment, pour élever ce hardi bâtiment,_ + _A-t-elle en le broyant arrondi son ciment?_ + + Oh ye, who raise Creation out of chance, + As erst Lucretius from th' atomic dance! + Come view with me the swallow's curious nest, + Where beauty, art, and order, shine confessed. + How could rude chance, forever dark and blind, + Preside within the little builder's mind? + Could she, with accidents unnumbered crowned, + Its mass concentrate, and its structure round! + +These lines are assuredly thrown away. No one makes chance his God; no +one has said that while a swallow "tempers his clay, it takes the form +of his abode by chance." On the contrary, it is said that "he makes his +nest by the laws of necessity," which is the opposite of chance. + +The only question now agitated is, whether the author of nature has +formed primordial parts unsusceptible of division, or if all is +continually dividing and changing into other elements. The first system +seems to account for everything, and the second, hitherto at least, for +nothing. + +If the first elements of things were not indestructible one element +might at last swallow up all the rest, and change them into its own +substance. Hence, perhaps it was that Empedocles imagined that +everything came from fire, and would be destroyed by fire. + +This question of atoms involves another, that of the divisibility of +matter _ad infinitum_. The word _atom_ signifies _without parts--not to +be divided._ You divide it in thought, for if you were to divide it in +reality it would no longer be an atom. + +You may divide a grain of gold into eighteen millions of visible parts; +a grain of copper dissolved in spirit of sal ammoniac has exhibited +upwards of twenty-two thousand parts; but when you have arrived at the +last element the atom escapes the microscope, and you can divide no +further except in imagination. + +The infinite divisibility of atoms is like some propositions in +geometry. You may pass an infinity of curves between a circle and its +tangent, supposing the circle and the tangent to be lines without +breadth; but there are no such lines in nature. + +You likewise establish that asymptotes will approach one another without +ever meeting; but it is under the supposition that they are lines +having length without breadth--things which have only a speculative +existence. + +So, also, we represent unity by a line, and divide this line and this +unity into as many fractions as you please; but this infinity of +fractions will never be any other than our unity and our line. + +It is not strictly demonstrated that atoms are indivisible, but it +appears that they are not divided by the laws of nature. + + + + +AVARICE. + + +Avarities, _amor habendi_--desire of having, avidity, covetousness. +Properly speaking, avarice is the desire of accumulating, whether in +grain, movables, money, or curiosities. There were avaricious men long +before coin was invented. + +We do not call a man avaricious who has four and twenty coach horses, +yet will not lend one to his friend: or who, having two thousand bottles +of Burgundy in his cellar, will not send you half a dozen, when he knows +you to be in want of them. If he show you a hundred thousand crowns' +worth of diamonds you do not think of asking him to present you with one +worth twenty livres; you consider him as a man of great magnificence, +but not at all avaricious. + +He who in finance, in army contracts, and great undertakings gained two +millions each year, and who, when possessed of forty-three millions, +besides his houses at Paris and his movables, expended fifty thousand +crowns per annum for his table, and sometimes lent money to noblemen at +five per cent, interest, did not pass, in the minds of the people, for +an avaricious man. He had, however, all his life burned with the thirst +of gain; the demon of covetousness was perpetually tormenting him; he +continued to accumulate to the last day of his life. This passion, which +was constantly gratified, has never been called avarice. He did not +expend a tenth part of his income, yet he had the reputation of a +generous man, too fond of splendor. + +A father of a family who, with an income of twenty thousand livres, +expends only five or six, and accumulates his savings to portion his +children, has the reputation among his neighbors of being avaricious, +mean, stingy, a niggard, a miser, a grip-farthing; and every abusive +epithet that can be thought of is bestowed upon him. + +Nevertheless this good citizen is much more to be honored than the +Croesus I have just mentioned; he expends three times as much in +proportion. But the cause of the great difference between their +reputations is this: + +Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because there is +nothing to be gained by him. The physician, the apothecary, the +wine-merchant, the draper, the grocer, the saddler, and a few girls gain +a good deal by our Croesus, who is truly avaricious. But with our close +and economical citizen there is nothing to be done. Therefore he is +loaded with maledictions. + +As for those among the avaricious who deprive themselves of the +necessaries of life, we leave them to Plautus and Molière. + + + + +AUGURY. + + +Must not a man be very thoroughly possessed by the demon of etymology to +say, with Pezron and others, that the Roman word _augurium_ came from +the Celtic words _au_ and _gur_? According to these learned men _au_ +must, among the Basques and Bas-Bretons, have signified _the liver_, +because _asu_, which, (say they) signified _left_, doubtless stood for +the liver, which is on the _right_ side; and _gur_ meant _man_, or +_yellow_, or _red_, in that Celtic tongue of which we have not one +memorial. Truly this is powerful reasoning. + +Absurd curiosity (for we must call things by their right names) has been +carried so far as to seek Hebrew and Chaldee derivations from certain +Teutonic and Celtic words. This, Bochart never fails to do. It is +astonishing with what confidence these men of genius have proved that +expressions used on the banks of the Tiber were borrowed from the patois +of the savages of Biscay. Nay, they even assert that this patois was one +of the first idioms of the primitive language--the parent of all other +languages throughout the world. They have only to proceed, and say that +all the various notes of birds come from the cry of the two first +parrots, from which every other species of birds has been produced. + +The religious folly of auguries was originally founded on very sound and +natural observations. The birds of passage have always marked the +progress of the seasons. We see them come in flocks in the spring, and +return in the autumn. The cuckoo is heard only in fine weather, which +his note seems to invite. The swallows, skimming along the ground, +announce rain. Each climate has its bird, which is in effect its augury. + +Among the observing part of mankind there were, no doubt, knaves who +persuaded fools that there was something divine in these animals, and +that their flight presaged our destinies, which were written on the +wings of a sparrow just as clearly as in the stars. + +The commentators on the allegorical and interesting story of Joseph sold +by his brethren, and made Pharaoh's prime minister for having explained +his dreams, infer that Joseph was skilled in the science of auguries, +from the circumstance that Joseph's steward is commanded to say to his +brethren, "Is not this it (the silver cup) in which my lord drinketh? +and whereby indeed he divineth?" Joseph, having caused his brethren to +be brought back before him, says to them: "What deed is this that ye +have done? Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?" + +Judah acknowledges, in the name of his brethren, that Joseph is a great +diviner, and that God has inspired him: "God hath found out the iniquity +of thy servants." At that time they took Joseph for an Egyptian lord. It +is evident from the text that they believe the God of the Egyptians and +of the Jews had discovered to this minister the theft of his cup. + +Here, then, we have auguries or divination clearly established in the +Book of Genesis; so clearly that it is afterwards forbidden in +Leviticus: "Ye shall not eat anything with the blood; neither shall ye +use enchantment nor observe times. Ye shall not round the corners of +your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard." + +As for the superstition of seeing the future in a cup, it still exists, +and is called seeing in a glass. The individual must never have known +pollution; he must turn towards the east, and pronounce the words, +_Abraxa per dominum nostrum_, after which he will see in a glass of +water whatever he pleases. Children were usually chosen for this +operation. They must retain their hair; a shaven head, or one wearing a +wig, can see nothing in a glass. This pastime was much in vogue in +France during the regency of the duke of Orleans, and still more so in +the times preceding. + +As for auguries, they perished with the Roman Empire. Only the bishops +have retained the augurial staff, called the crosier; which was the +distinctive mark of the dignity of augur; so that the symbol of +falsehood has become the symbol of truth. + +There were innumerable kinds of divinations, of which several have +reached our latter ages. This curiosity to read the future is a malady +which only philosophy can cure, for the weak minds that still practise +these pretended arts of divination--even the fools who give themselves +to the devils--all make religion subservient to these profanations, by +which it is outraged. + +It is an observation worthy of the wise, that Cicero, who was one of the +college of augurs, wrote a book for the sole purpose of turning auguries +into ridicule; but they have likewise remarked that Cicero, at the end +of his book, says that "superstition should be destroyed, but not +religion. For," he adds, "the beauty of the universe, and the order of +the heavenly bodies force us to acknowledge an eternal and powerful +nature. We must maintain the religion which is joined with the knowledge +of this nature, by utterly extirpating superstition, for it is a monster +which pursues and presses us on every side. The meeting with a pretended +diviner, a presage, an immolated victim, a bird, a Chaldæan, an +aruspice, a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, an event accidentally +corresponding with what has been foretold to us, everything disturbs and +makes us uneasy; sleep itself, which should make us forget all these +pains and fears, serves but to redouble them by frightful images." + +Cicero thought he was addressing only a few Romans, but he was speaking +to all men and all ages. + +Most of the great men of Rome no more believed in auguries than +Alexander VI., Julius II., and Leo X., believed in Our Lady of Loretto +and the blood of St. Januarius. However, Suetonius relates that +Octavius, surnamed Augustus, was so weak as to believe that a fish, +which leaped from the sea upon the shore at Actium, foreboded that he +should gain the battle. He adds that, having afterwards met an +ass-driver, he asked him the name of his ass; and the man having +answered that his ass was named Nicholas, which signifies conqueror of +nations, he had no longer any doubts about the victory; and that he +afterwards had brazen statues erected to the ass-driver, the ass, and +the jumping fish. He further assures us that these statues were placed +in the Capitol. + +It is very likely that this able tyrant laughed at the superstitions of +the Romans, and that his ass, the driver, and the fish, were nothing +more than a joke. But it is no less likely that, while he despised all +the follies of the vulgar, he had a few of his own. The barbarous and +dissimulating Louis XI. had a firm faith in the cross of St. Louis. +Almost all princes, excepting such as have had time to read, and read to +advantage, are in some degree infected with superstition. + + + + +AUGUSTINE. + + +Augustine, a native of Tagaste, is here to be considered, not as a +bishop, a doctor, a father of the Church, but simply as a man. This is a +question in physics, respecting the climate of Africa. + +When a youth, Augustine was a great libertine, and the spirit was no +less quick in him than the flesh. He says that before he was twenty +years old he had learned arithmetic, geometry and music without a +master. + +Does not this prove that, in Africa, which we now call Barbary, both +minds and bodies advance to maturity more rapidly than among us? + +These valuable advantages of St. Augustine would lead one to believe +that Empedocles was not altogether in the wrong when he regarded fire as +the principle of nature. It is assisted, but by subordinate agents. It +is like a king governing the actions of all his subjects, and sometimes +inflaming the imaginations of his people rather too much. It is not +without reason that Syphax says to Juba, in the Cato of Addison, that +the sun which rolls its fiery car over African heads places a deeper +tinge upon the cheeks, and a fiercer flame within their hearts. That the +dames of Zama are vastly superior to the pale beauties of the north: + + The glowing dames of Zama's royal court + Have faces flushed with more exalted charms; + Were you with these, my prince, you'd soon forget + The pale unripened beauties of the north. + +Where shall we find in Paris, Strasburg, Ratisbon, or Vienna young men +who have learned arithmetic, the mathematics and music without +assistance, and who have been fathers at fourteen? + +Doubtless it is no fable that Atlas, prince of Mauritania, called by the +Greeks the son of heaven, was a celebrated astronomer, and constructed a +celestial sphere such as the Chinese have had for so many ages. The +ancients, who expressed everything in allegory, likened this prince to +the mountain which bears his name, because it lifts its head above the +clouds, which have been called the heavens by all mankind who have +judged of things only from the testimony of their eyes. + +These Moors cultivated the sciences with success, and taught Spain and +Italy for five centuries. Things are greatly altered. The country of +Augustine is now but a den of pirates, while England, Italy, Germany, +and France, which were involved in barbarism, are greater cultivators of +the arts than ever the Arabians were. + +Our only object, then, in this article is to show how changeable a scene +this world is. Augustine, from a debauchee, becomes an orator and a +philosopher; he puts himself forward in the world; he teaches rhetoric; +he turns Manichæan, and from Manichæanism passes to Christianity. He +causes himself to be baptized, together with one of his bastards, named +Deodatus; he becomes a bishop, and a father of the Church. His system of +grace has been reverenced for eleven hundred years as an article of +faith. At the end of eleven hundred years some Jesuits find means to +procure an anathema against Augustine's system, word for word, under the +names of Jansenius, St. Cyril, Arnaud, and Quesnel. We ask if this +revolution is not, in its kind, as great as that of Africa, and if there +be anything permanent upon earth? + + + + +AUGUSTUS (OCTAVIUS). + + +_The Morals of Augustus._ + +Manners can be known only from facts, which facts must be incontestable. +It is beyond doubt that this man, so immoderately praised as the +restorer of morals and of laws, was long one of the most infamous +debauchees in the Roman commonwealth. His epigram on Fulvia, written +after the horrors of the proscriptions, proves that he was no less a +despiser of decency in his language than he was a barbarian in his +conduct. This abominable epigram is one of the strongest testimonies to +Augustus' infamous immorality. Sextus Pompeius also reproached him with +shameful weaknesses: _"Effeminatum infectatus est."_ Antony, before the +triumvirate, declared that Cæsar, great-uncle to Augustus, had adopted +him as his son only because he had been subservient to his pleasures; +_"Adopt ionem avunculi stupro meritum."_ + +Lucius Cæsar charged him with the same crime, and even asserted that he +had been base enough to sell himself to Hirtius for a very considerable +sum. He was so shameless as to take the wife of a consul from her +husband in the midst of a supper; he took her to a neighboring closet, +staid with her there for some time, and brought her back to table +without himself, the woman, or her husband blushing at all at the +proceeding. + +We have also a letter from Antony to Augustus, couched in these terms: +_"Ita valeas ut hanc epistolam cum leges, non inieris Testullam, aut +Terentillam, aut Russillam, aut Salviam, aut omnes. Anne refert ubi et +in quam arrigas?"_ We are afraid to translate this licentious letter. + +Nothing is better known than the scandalous feast of five of the +companions of his pleasures with five of the principal women of Rome. +They were dressed up as gods and goddesses, and imitated all the +immodesties invented in fable--_"Bum nova Divorum coenat adulteria."_ +And on the stage he was publicly designated by this famous line: + + _Videsne ut cinaedus orbem digito temperet?_ + +Almost every Latin author that speaks of Ovid asserts that Augustus had +the insolence to banish that Roman knight, who was a much better man +than himself, merely because the other had surprised him in an incest +with his own daughter Julia; and that he sent his daughter into exile +only through jealousy. This is the more likely, as Caligula published +aloud that his mother was born from the incest of Augustus with Julia. +So says Suetonius, in his life of Caligula. + +We know that Augustus repudiated the mother of Julia the very day she +was brought to bed of her, and on the same day took Livia from her +husband when she was pregnant of Tiberius--another monster, who +succeeded him. Such was the man to whom Horace said: _"Res Italas armis +tuteris, moribus ornes, Legibus emendes...."_ + +It is hard to repress our indignation at reading at the commencement of +the Georgics that Augustus is one of the greatest of divinities; and +that it is not known what place he will one day deign to occupy in +heaven; whether he will reign in the air, or become the protector of +cities, or vouchsafe to accept the empire of the seas: + + _An Deus immensi venias maris, ac tua nauta_ + _Numina sola celant tibi servial ultima Thule._ + +Ariosto speaks with much more sense as well as grace, when he says in +his fine thirty-fifth canto: + + _Non fu si santo ne benigno Augusto_ + _Come la tromba di Virgilio sonna;_ + _L'aver avuto in poesia buon gusto_ + _La proscriptione iniqua gli perdona._ + + Augustus was not quite so mild and chaste + As he's by honest Virgil represented; + But then, the tyrant had poetic taste; + With this the poet fully was contented. + + +_The Cruelties of Augustus._ + +If Augustus was long abandoned to the most shameful and frantic +dissipation, his cruelty was no less uniform and deliberate. His +proscriptions were published in the midst of feasting and revelry; he +proscribed more than three hundred senators, two thousand knights, and +one hundred obscure but wealthy heads of families, whose only crime was +their being rich, Antony and Octavius had them killed, solely that they +might get possession of their money; in which they differed not the +least from highway robbers, who are condemned to the wheel. + +Octavius, immediately after the Persian war, gave his veterans all the +lands belonging to the citizens of Mantua and Cremona, thus recompensing +murder by depredation. + +It is but too certain that the world was ravaged, from the Euphrates to +the extremities of Spain, by this man without shame, without faith, +honor, or probity, knavish, ungrateful, avaricious, blood-thirsty, cool +in the commission of crime, who, in any well-regulated republic, would +have been condemned to the greatest of punishments for the first of his +offences. + +Nevertheless, the government of Augustus is still admired, because under +him Rome tasted peace, pleasure and abundance. Seneca says of him: +_"Clementiam non voco lassam crudelitatem"_--"I do not call exhausted +cruelty clemency." + +It is thought that Augustus became milder when crime was no longer +necessary to him; and that, being absolute master, he saw that he had no +other interest than to appear just. But it appears to me that he still +was pitiless rather than clement; for, after the battle of Actium, he +had Antony's son murdered at the feet of Cæsar's statue; and he was so +barbarous as to have young Cæsarion, the son of Cæsar and Cleopatra, +beheaded, though he had recognized him as king of Egypt. + +Suspecting one day that the prætor Quintus Gallius had come to an +audience with a poinard under his robe, he had him put to the torture in +his presence; and, in his indignation at hearing that senator call him a +tyrant, he tore out his eyes with his own hands; at least, so says +Suetonius. + +We know that Cæsar, his adopted father, was great enough to pardon +almost all his enemies; but I do not find that Augustus pardoned one of +his. I have great doubts of his pretended clemency to Cinna. This affair +is mentioned neither by Suetonius nor by Tacitus. Suetonius, who speaks +of all the conspiracies against Augustus, would not have failed to +mention the most memorable. The singularity of giving a consulship to +Cinna in return for the blackest perfidy would not have escaped every +contemporary historian. Dion Cassius speaks of it only after Seneca; and +this passage in Seneca has the appearance rather of declamation than of +historical truth. Besides, Seneca lays the scene in Gaul, and Dion at +Rome; this contradiction deprives the occurrence of all remaining +verisimilitude. Not one of our Roman histories, compiled in haste and +without selection, has discussed this interesting fact. Lawrence +Echard's History has appeared to enlightened men to be as faulty as it +is mutilated; writers have rarely been guided by the spirit of +examination. + +Cinna might be suspected, or convicted, by Augustus of some infidelity; +and, when the affair had been cleared up, he might honor him with the +vain title of consul; but it is not at all probable that Cinna sought by +a conspiracy to seize the supreme authority--he, who had never commanded +an army, was supported by no party, and was a man of no consideration in +the empire. It is not very likely that a mere subordinate courtier would +think of succeeding a sovereign who had been twenty years firmly +established on his throne, and had heirs; nor is it more likely that +Augustus would make him consul immediately after the conspiracy. + +If Cinna's adventure be true, Augustus pardoned him only because he +could not do otherwise, being overcome by the reasoning or the +importunities of Livia, who had acquired great influence over him, and +persuaded him, says Seneca, that pardon would do him more service than +chastisement. It was then only through policy that he, for once, was +merciful; it certainly was not through generosity. + +Shall we give a robber credit for clemency, because, being enriched and +secure, enjoying in peace the fruits of his rapine, he is not every day +assassinating the sons and grandsons of the proscribed, while they are +kneeling to and worshipping him? After being a barbarian he was a +prudent politician. It is worthy of remark that posterity never gave +him the title of virtuous, which was bestowed on Titus, on Trajan, and +the Antonines. It even became customary in the compliments paid to +emperors on their accession, to wish that they might be more fortunate +than Augustus, and more virtuous than Trajan. It is now, therefore, +allowable to consider Augustus as a clever and fortunate monster. + +Louis Racine, son of the great Racine, and heir to a part of his +talents, seems to forget himself when he says, in his "Reflections on +Poetry," that "Horace and Virgil spoiled Augustus; they exhausted their +art in poisoning the mind of Augustus by their praises." These +expressions would lead one to believe that the eulogies so meanly +lavished by these two great poets, corrupted this emperor's fine +disposition. But Louis Racine very well knew that Augustus was an +exceedingly bad man, regarding crime and virtue with indifference, +availing himself alike of the horrors of the one and the appearances of +the other, attentive solely to his own interest, employing bloodshed and +peace, arms and laws, religion and pleasure, only to make himself master +of the earth, and sacrificing everything to himself. Louis Racine only +shows us that Virgil and Horace had servile souls. + +He is, unfortunately, too much in the right when he reproaches Corneille +with having dedicated _"Cinna"_ to the financier Montoron, and said to +that receiver. "What you most especially have in common with Augustus +is the generosity with which," etc., for, though Augustus was the most +wicked of Roman citizens, it must be confessed that the first of the +emperors, the master, the pacificator, the legislator of the then known +world, should not be placed absolutely on a level with a clerk to a +comptroller-general in Gaul. + +The same Louis Racine, in justly condemning the mean adulation of +Corneille, and the baseness of the aged Horace and Virgil, marvellously +lays hold of this passage in Massillon's _"Petit Carême!"_ "It is no +less culpable to fail in truth towards monarchs than to be wanting in +fidelity; the same penalty should be imposed on adulation as on revolt." + +I ask your pardon, Father Massillon; but this stroke of yours is very +oratorical, very preacher-like, very exaggerated. The League and the +Fronde have, if I am not deceived, done more harm than Quinault's +prologues. There is no way of condemning Quinault as a rebel. _"Est +modus in rebus."_ Father Massillon, which is wanting in all +manufacturers of sermons. + + + + +AVIGNON. + + +Avignon and its country are monuments of what the abuse of religion, +ambition, knavery, and fanaticism united can effect. This little +country, after a thousand vicissitudes, had, in the twelfth century, +passed into the hands of the counts of Toulouse, descended from +Charlemagne by the female side. + +Raymond VI., count of Toulouse, whose forefathers had been the principal +heroes in the crusades, was stripped of his states by a crusade which +the pope stirred up against him. The cause of the crusade was the desire +of having his spoils; the pretext was that in several of his towns the +citizens thought nearly as has been thought for upwards of two hundred +years in England, Sweden, Denmark, three-fourths of Switzerland, +Holland, and half of Germany. + +This was hardly a sufficient reason for _giving_, in the name of God, +the states of the count of Toulouse to the first occupant, and for +devoting to slaughter and fire his subjects, crucifix in hand, and white +cross on shoulder. All that is related of the most savage people falls +far short of the barbarities committed in this war, called holy. The +ridiculous atrocity of some religious ceremonies always, accompanied +these horrid excesses. It is known that Raymond VI. was dragged to a +church of St. Giles's, before a legate, naked to the waist, without hose +or sandals, with a rope about his neck, which was held by a deacon, +while another deacon flogged him, and a third sung _miserere_ with some +monks--and all the while the legate was at dinner. Such was the origin +of the right of the popes over Avignon. + +Count Raymond, who had submitted to the flagellation in order to +preserve his states, underwent this ignominy to no purpose whatever. He +had to defend by arms what he had thought to preserve by suffering a few +stripes; he saw his towns laid in ashes, and died in 1213 amid the +vicissitudes of the most sanguinary war. + +His son, Raymond VII., was not, like his father, suspected of heresy; +but he was the son of a heretic, and was to be stripped of all his +possessions, by virtue of the Decretals; such was the law. The crusade, +therefore, was continued against him; he was excommunicated in the +churches, on Sundays and holidays, to the sound of bells and with tapers +extinguished. + +A legate who was in France during the minority of St. Louis raised +tenths there to maintain this war in Languedoc and Provence. Raymond +defended himself with courage; but the heads of the hydra of fanaticism +were incessantly reappearing to devour him. + +The pope at last made peace because all his money had been expended in +war. Raymond VII. came and signed the treaty before the portal of the +cathedral of Paris. He was forced to pay ten thousand marks of silver to +the legate, two thousand to the abbey of Citeaux, five hundred to the +abbey of Clairvaux, a thousand to that of Grand-Selve, and three hundred +to that of Belleperche---all for the salvation of his soul, as is +specified in the treaty. So it was that the Church always negotiated. + +It is very remarkable that in this document the count of Toulouse +constantly puts the legate before the king: "I swear and promise to the +legate and to the king faithfully to observe all these things, and to +cause them to be observed by my vassals and subjects," etc. + +This was not all. He ceded to Pope Gregory IX. the country of Venaissin +beyond the Rhône, and the sovereignty of seventy-three castles on this +side the same river. The pope adjudged this fine to himself by a +particular act, desirous that, in a public instrument, the +acknowledgment of having exterminated so many Christians for the purpose +of seizing upon his neighbor's goods, should not appear in so glaring a +light. Besides, he demanded what Raymond could not grant, without the +consent of the Emperor Frederick II. The count's lands, on the left bank +of the Rhône, were an imperial fief, and Frederick II. never sanctioned +this exaction. + +Alphonso, brother of St. Louis, having married this unfortunate prince's +daughter, by whom he had no children, all the states of Raymond VII. in +Languedoc, devolved to the crown of France, as had been stipulated in +the marriage contract. + +The country of Venaissin, which is in Provence, had been magnanimously +given up by the Emperor Frederick II. to the count of Toulouse. His +daughter Joan, before her death, had disposed of them by will in favor +of Charles of Anjou, count of Provence, and king of Naples. + +Philip the Bold, son of St. Louis, being pressed by Pope Gregory IX., +gave the country of Venaissin to the Roman church in 1274. It must be +confessed that Philip the Bold gave what in no way belonged to him; that +this cession was absolutely null and void, and that no act ever was more +contrary to all law. + +It is the same with the town of Avignon. Joan of France, queen of +Naples, descended from the brother of St. Louis, having been, with but +too great an appearance of justice, accused of causing her husband to be +strangled, desired the protection of Pope Clement VI., whose see was +then the town of Avignon, in Joan's domains. She was countess of +Provence. In 1347 the Provencals made her swear, on the gospel, that she +would sell none of her sovereignties. She had scarcely taken this oath +before she went and sold Avignon to the pope. The authentic act was not +signed until June 14, 1348; the sum stipulated for was eighty thousand +florins of gold. The pope declared her innocent of her husband's murder, +but never paid her. Joan's receipt has never been produced. She +protested juridically four several times against this deceitful +purchase. + +So that Avignon and its country were never considered to have been +dismembered from Provence, otherwise than by a rapine, which was the +more manifest, as it had been sought to cover it with the cloak of +religion. + +When Louis XI. acquired Provence he acquired it with all the rights +appertaining thereto; and, as appears by a letter from John of Foix to +that monarch, had in 1464 resolved to enforce them. But the intrigues of +the court of Rome were always so powerful that the kings of France +condescended to allow it the enjoyment of this small province. They +never acknowledged in the popes a lawful possession, but only a simple +enjoyment. + +In the treaty of Pisa, made by Louis XIV. with Alexander VII., in 1664, +it is said that, "every obstacle shall be removed, in order that the +pope may enjoy Avignon as before." The pope, then, had this province +only as cardinals have pensions from the king, which pensions are +discretional. Avignon and its country were a constant source of +embarrassment to the French government; they afforded a refuge to all +the bankrupts and smugglers, though very little profit thence accrued to +the pope. + +Louis XIV. twice resumed his rights; but it was rather to chastise the +pope than to reunite Avignon and its country with his crown. At length +Louis XV. did justice to his dignity and to his subjects. The gross and +indecent conduct of Pope Rezzonico (Clement XIII.) forced him in 1768 to +revive the rights of his crown. This pope had acted as if he belonged +to the fourteenth century. He was, however, with the applause of all +Europe, convinced that he lived in the eighteenth. + +When the officer bearing the king's orders entered Avignon, he went +straight to the legate's apartment, without being announced, and said to +him, "Sir, the king takes possession of his town." There is some +difference between this proceeding and a count of Toulouse being flogged +by a deacon, while a legate is at dinner. Things, we see, change with +times. + + + + +AUSTERITIES. + +MORTIFICATIONS. FLAGELLATIONS. + + +Suppose that some chosen individuals, lovers of study, united together +after a thousand catastrophes had happened to the world, and employed +themselves in worshipping God and regulating the time of the year, as is +said of the ancient Brahmins and Magi; all this is perfectly good and +honest. They might, by their frugal life, set an example to the rest of +the world; they might abstain, during the celebration of their feasts, +from all intoxicating liquors, and all commerce with their wives; they +might be clothed modestly and decently; if they were wise, other men +consulted them; if they were just, they were loved and reverenced. But +did not superstition, brawling, and vanity soon take the place of the +virtues? + +Was not the first madman that flogged himself publicly to appease the +gods the original of the priests of the Syrian goddess, who flogged +themselves in her honor; of the priests of Isis, who did the same on +certain days; of the priests of Dodona, named Salii, who inflicted +wounds on themselves; of the priests of Bellona, who struck themselves +with sabres; of the priests of Diana, who drew blood from their backs +with rods; of the priests of Cybele, who made themselves eunuchs; of the +fakirs of India, who loaded themselves with chains? Has the hope of +obtaining abundant alms nothing at all to do with the practice of these +austerities? + +Is there not some similarity between the beggars, who make their legs +swell by a certain application and cover their bodies with sores, in +order to force a few pence from the passengers, and the impostors of +antiquity, who seated themselves upon nails, and sold the holy nails to +the devout of their country? + +And had vanity never any share in promoting these public mortifications, +which attracted the eyes of the multitude? "I scourge myself, but it is +to expiate your faults; I go naked, but it is to reproach you with the +richness of your garments; I feed on herbs and snails, but it is to +correct in you the vice of gluttony; I wear an iron ring to make you +blush at your lewdness. Reverence me as one cherished by the gods, and +who will bring down their favors upon you. When you shall be accustomed +to reverence me, you will not find it hard to obey me; I will be your +master, in the name of the gods; and then, if any one of you disobey my +will in the smallest particular, I will have you impaled to appease the +wrath of heaven." + +If the first fakirs did not pronounce these words, it is very probable +that they had them engraved at the bottom of their hearts. + +Human sacrifices, perhaps, had their origin in these frantic +austerities. Men who drew their blood in public with rods, and mangled +their arms and thighs to gain consideration, would easily make imbecile +savages believe that they must sacrifice to the gods whatever was +dearest to them; that to have a fair wind, they must immolate a +daughter; to avert pestilence, precipitate a son from a rock; to have +infallibly a good harvest, throw a daughter into the Nile. + +These Asiatic superstitions gave rise to the flagellations which we have +imitated from the Jews. Their devotees still flog themselves, and flog +one another, as the priests of Egypt and Syria did of old. Among us the +abbots flogged their monks, and the confessors their penitents--of both +sexes. St. Augustine wrote to Marcellinus, the tribune, that "the +Donatists must be whipped as schoolmasters whip their scholars." + +It is said that it was not until the tenth century that monks and nuns +began to scourge themselves on certain days of the year. The custom of +scourging sinners as a penance was so well established that St. Louis's +confessor often gave him the whip. Henry II. was flogged by the monks +of Canterbury (in 1207). Raymond, count of Toulouse, with a rope round +his neck, was flogged by a deacon, at the door of St. Giles's church, as +has before been said. + +The chaplains to Louis VIII., king of France, were condemned by the +pope's legate to go at the four great feasts to the door of the +cathedral of Paris, and present rods to the canons, that they might flog +them in expiation for the crime of the king, their master, who had +accepted the crown of England, which the pope had taken from him by +virtue of the plenitude of his power. Indeed, the pope showed great +indulgence in not having the king himself whipped, but contenting +himself with commanding him, on pain of damnation, to pay to the +apostolic chamber the amount of two years' revenue. + +From this custom is derived that which still exists, of arming all the +grand-penitentiaries in St. Peter's at Rome with long wands instead of +rods, with which they give gentle taps to the penitents, lying all their +length on the floor. In this manner it was that Henry IV., of France, +had his posteriors flogged by Cardinal Ossat and Duperron. So true is it +that we have scarcely yet emerged from barbarism. + +At the commencement of the thirteenth century fraternities of penitents +were formed at Perosia and Bologna. Young men almost naked, with a rod +in one hand and a small crucifix in the other, flogged themselves in +the streets; while the women peeped through the window-blinds and +whipped themselves in their chambers. + +These flagellators inundated Europe; there are many of them still to be +found in Italy, in Spain, and even in France, at Perpignan. At the +beginning of the sixteenth century it was very common for confessors to +whip the posteriors of their penitents. A history of the Low Countries, +composed by Meteren, relates that a cordelier named Adriacem, a great +preacher at Bruges, used to whip his female penitents quite naked. + +The Jesuit Edmund Auger, confessor to Henry III., persuaded that +unfortunate prince to put himself at the head of the flagellators. + +Flogging the posteriors is practised in various convents of monks and +nuns; from which custom there have sometimes resulted strange +immodesties, over which _we_ must throw a veil, in order to spare the +blushes of such as wear the _sacred_ veil, and whose sex and profession +are worthy of our highest regard. + + + + +AUTHORS. + + +Author is a generic term, which, like the names of all other +professions, may signify author of the good, or of the bad; of the +respectable, or of the ridiculous; of the useful, or the agreeable; or +lastly, the producer of disgusting trash. + +This name is also common to different things. We say equally the author +of nature and the author of the songs of the Pont Neuf, or of the +literary age. The author of a good work should beware of three +things--title, dedication, and preface. Others should take care of the +fourth, which is writing at all. + +As to the title, if the author has the wish to put his name to it, which +is often very dangerous, it should at least be under a modest form; it +is not pleasant to see a pious work, full of lessons of humanity, by Sir +or My Lord. The reader; who is always malicious, and who often is +wearied, usually turns into ridicule a book that is announced with so +much ostentation. The author of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" did not +put his name to it. + +But the apostles, you will say, put their names to their works; that is +not true, they were too modest. The apostle Matthew never entitled his +book the Gospel of St. Matthew; it is a homage that has been paid to him +since. St. Luke himself, who collected all that he had heard said, and +who dedicated his book to Theophilus, did not call it the Gospel of St. +Luke. St. John alone mentions himself in the Apocalypse; and it is +supposed that this book was written by Cerinthus, who took the name of +John to give authority to his production. + +However it may have been in past ages, it appears to me very bold in +authors now to put names and titles at the head of their works. The +bishops never fail to do so, and the thick quartos which they give us +under the title of mandaments are decorated with armorial bearings and +the insignia of their station; a word, no doubt, is said about Christian +humility, but this word is often followed by atrocious calumnies against +those who are of another communion or party. We only speak here, +however, of poor profane authors. The duke de la Rochefoucauld did not +announce his thoughts as the production of _Monseigneur le dud de la +Rochefoucauld, pair de France_. Some persons who only make compilations +in which there may be fine things, will find it injudicious to announce +them as the work of A.B., professor of the university of ----, doctor of +divinity, member of this or of that academy, and so on. So many +dignities do not render the book better. It will still be wished that it +was shorter, more philosophical, less filled with old stories. With +respect to titles and quality, nobody cares about them. + +Dedications are often only offerings from interested baseness to +disdainful vanity. Who would believe that Rohaut, _soi-disant_ +physician, in his dedication to the duke of Guise, told him that his +ancestors had maintained, at the expense of their blood, political +truth, the fundamental laws of the state, and the rights of sovereigns? +Le Balafré and the duke of Mayenne would be a little surprised if this +epistle were read to them in the other world. And what would Henry IV. +say? Most of the dedications in England are made for money, just as the +capuchins present us with salad on condition of our giving them drink. + +Men of letters in France are ignorant of this shameful abasement, and +have never exhibited so much meanness, except some unfortunates, who +call themselves men of letters in the same sense that sign-daubers boast +of being of the profession of Raphael, and that the coachman of +Vertamont was a poet. + +Prefaces are another rock. "The _I_ is hateful," says Pascal. Speak of +yourself as little as you can, for you ought to be aware that the +self-love of the reader is as great as your own. He will never pardon +you for wishing to oblige him to esteem you. It is for your book to +speak to him, should it happen to be read among the crowd. + +"The illustrious suffrages with which my piece has been honored will +make me dispense with answering my adversaries--the applauses of the +public." Erase all that, sir; believe me you have had no illustrious +suffrages; your piece is eternally forgotten. + +"Some censors have pretended that there are too many events in the third +act; and that in the fourth the princess is too late in discovering the +tender sentiments of her heart for her lover. To that I answer--" Answer +nothing, my friend, for nobody has spoken-, or will speak of thy +princess. Thy piece has fallen because it is tiresome, and written in +flat and barbarous verse; thy preface is a prayer for the dead, but it +will not revive them. + +Others attest that all Europe has not understood their treatises on +compatibility--on the Supralapsarians--on the difference which should be +made between the Macedonian and Valentinian heresies, etc. Truly, I +believe that nobody understands them, since nobody reads them. + +We are inundated with this trash and with continual repetition; with +insipid romances which copy their predecessors; with new systems founded +on ancient reveries; and little histories taken from larger ones. + +Do you wish to be an author? Do you wish to make a book? Recollect that +it must be new and useful, or at least agreeable. Why from your +provincial retreat would you assassinate me with another quarto, to +teach me that a king ought to be just, and that Trajan was more virtuous +than Caligula? You insist upon printing the sermons which have lulled +your little obscure town to repose, and will put all our histories under +contributions to extract from them the life of a prince of whom you can +say nothing new. + +If you have written a history of your own time, doubt not but you will +find some learned chronologist, or newspaper commentator, who will +relieve you as to a date, a Christian name, or a squadron which you have +wrongly placed at the distance of three hundred paces from the place +where if really stood. Be grateful, and correct these important errors +forthwith. + +If an ignoramus, or an empty fool, pretend to criticise this thing or +the other, you may properly confute him; but name him rarely, for fear +of soiling your writings. If you are attacked on your style, never +answer; your work alone should reply. + +If you are said to be sick, content yourself that you are well, without +wishing to prove to the people that you are in perfect health; and, +above all, remember that the world cares very little whether you are +well or ill. + +A hundred authors compile to get their bread, and twenty fools extract, +criticise, apologize, and satirize these compilations to get bread also, +because they have no profession. All these people repair on Fridays to +the lieutenant of the police at Paris to demand permission to sell their +drugs. They have audience immediately after the courtesans, who do not +regard them, because they know that they are poor customers. + +They return with a tacit permission to sell and distribute throughout +the kingdom their stories; their collection of bon-mots; the life of the +unfortunate Régis; the translation of a German poem; new discoveries on +eels; a new copy of verses; a treatise on the origin of bells, or on the +loves of the toads. A bookseller buys their productions for ten crowns; +they give five of them to the journalist, on condition that he will +speak well of them in his newspaper. The critic takes their money, and +says all the ill he can of their books. The aggrieved parties go to +complain to the Jew, who protects the wife of the journalist, and the +scene closes by the critic being carried to Fort Evêque; and these are +they who call themselves authors! + +These poor people are divided into two or three bands, and go begging +like mendicant friars; but not having taken vows their society lasts +only for a few days, for they betray one another like priests who run +after the same benefice, though they have no benefice to hope for. But +they still call themselves authors! + +The misfortune of these men is that their fathers did not make them +learn a trade, which is a great defect in modern policy. Every man of +the people who can bring up his son in a useful art, and does not, +merits punishment. The son of a mason becomes a Jesuit at seventeen; he +is chased from society at four and twenty, because the levity of his +manners is too glaring. Behold him without bread! He turns journalist, +he cultivates the lowest kind of literature, and becomes the contempt +and horror of even the mob. And such as these, again, call themselves +authors! + +The only authors are they who have succeeded in a genuine art, be it +epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, or philosophy, and who teach or +delight mankind. The others, of whom we have spoken, are, among men of +letters, like bats among the birds. We cite, comment, criticise, +neglect, forget, and, above all, despise an author who is an author +_only_. + +Apropos of citing an author, I must amuse myself with relating a +singular mistake of the reverend Father Viret, cordelier and professor +of theology. He read in the "Philosophy of History" of the good abbé +Bazin that no author ever cited a passage of Moses before Longinus, who +lived and died in the time of the Emperor Aurelian. Forthwith the zeal +of St. Francis was kindled in him. Viret cries out that it is not true; +that several writers have said that there had been a Moses, that even +Josephus had spoken at length upon him, and that the Abbé Bazin is a +wretch who would destroy the seven sacraments. But, dear Father Viret, +you ought to inform yourself of the meaning of the word, to _cite_. +There is a great deal of difference between mentioning an author and +citing him. To speak, to make mention of an author, is to say that he +has lived--that he has written in such a time; to cite is to give one of +his passages--as Moses says in his Exodus--as Moses has written in his +Genesis. Now the Abbé Brazin affirms that no foreign writers--that none +even of the Jewish prophets have ever quoted a single passage of Moses, +though he was a divine author. Truly, Father Viret, you are very +malicious, but we shall know at least, by this little paragraph, that +_you_ have been an author. + +The most voluminous authors that we have had in France are the +comptrollers-general of the finances. Ten great volumes might be made of +their declarations, since the reign of Louis XIV. Parliaments have been +sometimes the critics of these works, and have found erroneous +propositions and contradictions in them. But where are the good authors +who have not been censured? + + + + +AUTHORITY. + + +Miserable human beings, whether in green robes or in turbans, whether in +black gowns or in surplices, or in mantles and bands, never seek to +employ authority where nothing is concerned but reason, or consent to be +reviled in all ages as the most impertinent of men, as well as to endure +public hatred as the most unjust. + +You have been told a hundred times of the insolent absurdity with which +you condemned Galileo, and I speak to you of it for the hundred and +first. I would have it inscribed over the door of your holy office. + +Seven cardinals, assisted by certain minorite friars, threw into prison +the master of thinking in Italy, at the age of seventy; and made him +live upon bread and water because he instructed mankind in that of which +they were ignorant. + +Having passed a decree in favor of the categories of Aristotle, the +above junta learnedly and equitably doomed to the penalty of the galleys +whoever should dare to be of another opinion from the Stagyrite, of +whom two councils had burned the books. + +Further, a Faculty, which possessed very small faculties, made a decree +_against_ innate ideas, and afterwards another _for_ them, without the +said Faculty being informed, except by its beadles, of what an idea was. + +In neighboring schools legal proceedings were commenced against the +circulation of the blood. A process was issued against inoculation, and +the parties cited by summons. + +One and twenty volumes of thoughts in folio have been seized, in which +it was wickedly and falsely said that triangles have always three +angles; that a father was older than his son; that Rhea Silvia lost her +virginity before her accouchement; and that farina differs from oak +leaves. + +In another year the following question was decided: _"Utrum chimæra +bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones?"_ and decided +in the affirmative. These judges, of course, considered themselves much +superior to Archimedes, Euclid, Cicero, or Pliny, and strutted about the +Universities accordingly. + + + + +AXIS. + + +How is it that the axis of the earth is not perpendicular to the +equator? Why is it raised toward the north and inclined towards the +south pole, in a position which does not appear natural, and which +seems the consequence of some derangement, or the result of a period of +a prodigious number of years? + +Is it true that the ecliptic continually inclines by an insensible +movement towards the equator and that the angle formed by these two +lines has a little diminished in two thousand years? + +Is it true that the ecliptic has been formerly perpendicular to the +equator, that the Egyptians have said so, and that Herodotus has related +it? This motion of the ecliptic would form a period of about two +millions of years. It is not that which astounds us, for the axis of the +earth has an imperceptible movement in about twenty-six thousand years +which occasions the precession of the equinoxes. It is as easy for +nature to produce a rotation of twenty thousand as of two hundred and +sixty ages. + +We are deceived when we are told that the Egyptians had, according to +Herodotus, a tradition that the ecliptic had been formerly perpendicular +to the equator. The tradition of which Herodotus speaks has no relation +to the coincidence of the equinoctial and ecliptic lines; that is quite +another affair. + +The pretended scholars of Egypt said that the sun in the space of eleven +thousand years had set twice in the east and risen twice in the west. +When the equator and the ecliptic coincided, and when the days were +everywhere equal to the nights the sun did not on that account change +its setting and rising, but the earth turned on its axis from west to +east, as at this day. This idea of making the sun set in the east is a +chimera only worthy of the brains of the priests of Egypt and shows the +profound ignorance of those jugglers who have had so much reputation. +The tale should be classed with those of the satyrs who sang and danced +in the train of Osiris; with the little boys whom they would not feed +till after they had run eight leagues, to teach them to conquer the +world; with the two children who cried _bec_ in asking for bread and who +by that means discovered that the Phrygian was the original language; +with King Psammeticus, who gave his daughter to a thief who had +dexterously stolen his money, etc. + +Ancient history, ancient astronomy, ancient physics, ancient medicine +(up to Hippocrates), ancient geography, ancient metaphysics, all are +nothing but ancient absurdities which ought to make us feel the +happiness of being born in later times. + +There is, no doubt, more truth in two pages of the French Encyclopædia +in relation to physics than in all the library of Alexandria, the loss +of which is so much regretted. + + + + +BABEL. + + +SECTION I. + +Babel signifies among the Orientals, God the Father, the power of God, +the gate of God, according to the way in which the word is pronounced. +It appears, therefore, that Babylon was the city of God, the holy city. +Every capital of a state was a city of God, the sacred city. The Greeks +called them all Hieropolis, and there were more than thirty of this +name. The tower of Babel, then, signifies the tower of God the Father. + +Josephus says truly that Babel signifies confusion; Calmet says, with +others, that Bilba, in Chaldæan, signifies confounded, but all the +Orientals have been of a contrary opinion. The word confusion would be a +strange etymon for the capital of a vast empire. I very much like the +opinion of Rabelais, who pretends that Paris was formerly called Lutetia +on account of the ladies' white legs. + +Be that as it may, commentators have tormented themselves to know to +what height men had raised this famous tower of Babel. St. Jerome gives +it twenty thousand feet. The ancient Jewish book entitled _"Jacult"_ +gave it eighty-one thousand. Paul Lucas has seen the remains of it and +it is a fine thing to be as keen-sighted as Paul Lucas, but these +dimensions are not the only difficulties which have exercised the +learned. + +People have wished to know how the children of Noah, after having +divided among themselves the islands of the nations and established +themselves in various lands, with each one his particular language, +families, and people, should all find themselves in the plain of +Shinaar, to build there a tower saying, "Let us make us a name lest we +be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." + +The Book of Genesis speaks of the states which the sons of Noah founded. +It has related how the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia, all came to +Shinaar speaking one language only, and purposing the same thing. + +The Vulgate places the Deluge in the year of the world 1656, and the +construction of the tower of Babel 1771, that is to say, one hundred and +fifteen years after the destruction of mankind, and even during the life +of Noah. + +Men then must have multiplied with prodigious celerity; all the arts +revived in a very little time. When we reflect on the great number of +trades which must have been employed to raise a tower so high we are +amazed at so stupendous a work. + +The patriarch Abraham was born, according to the Bible, about four +hundred years after the deluge, and already we see a line of powerful +kings in Egypt and in Asia. Bochart and other sages have pleasantly +filled their great books with Phoenician and Chaldæan words and +systems which they do not understand. They have learnedly taken Thrace +for Cappadocia, Greece for Crete, and the island of Cyprus for Tyre; +they sport in an ocean of ignorance which has neither bottom nor shore. +It would have been shorter for them to have avowed that God, after +several ages, has given us sacred books to render us better men and not +to make us geographers, chronologists, or etymologists. + +Babel is Babylon. It was founded, according to the Persian historians, +by a prince named Tamurath. The only knowledge we have of its +antiquities consists in the astronomical observations of nineteen +hundred and three years, sent by Callisthenes by order of Alexander, to +his preceptor Aristotle. To this certainty is joined the extreme +probability that a nation which had made a series of celestial +observations for nearly two thousand years had congregated and formed a +considerable power several ages before the first of these observations. + +It is a pity that none of the calculations of the ancient profane +authors agree with our sacred ones, and that none of the names of the +princes who reigned after the different epochs assigned to the Deluge +have been known by either Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians, or Greeks. + +It is no less a pity that there remains not on the earth among the +profane authors one vestige of the famous tower of Babel; nothing of +this story of the confusion of tongues is found in any book. This +memorable adventure was as unknown to the whole universe as the names of +Noah, Methuselah, Cain, and Adam and Eve. + +This difficulty tantalizes our curiosity. Herodotus, who travelled so +much, speaks neither of Noah, or Shem, Reu, Salah, or Nimrod. The name +of Nimrod is unknown to all profane antiquity; there are only a few +Arabs and some modern Persians who have made mention of Nimrod in +falsifying the books of the Jews. + +Nothing remains to conduct us through these ancient ruins, unknown to +all the nations of the universe during so many ages, but faith in the +Bible, and happily that is an infallible guide. + +Herodotus, who has mingled many fables with some truths, pretends that +in his time, which was that of greatest power of the Persian sovereigns +of Babylon, all the women of the immense city were obliged to go once in +their lives to the temple of Mylitta, a goddess who was thought to be +the same as Aphrodite, or Venus, in order to prostitute themselves to +strangers, and that the law commanded them to receive money as a sacred +tribute, which was paid over to the priesthood of the goddess. + +But even this Arabian tale is more likely than that which the same +author tells of Cyrus dividing the Indus into three hundred and sixty +canals, which all discharged themselves into the Caspian Sea! What +should we say of Mézeray if he had told us that Charlemagne divided the +Rhine into three hundred and sixty canals, which fell into the +Mediterranean, and that all the ladies of his court were obliged once in +their lives to present themselves at the church of St. Genevieve to +prostitute themselves to all comers for money? + +It must be remarked that such a fable is still more absurd in relation +to the time of Xerxes, in which Herodotus lived, than it would be in +that of Charlemagne. The Orientals were a thousand times more jealous +than the Franks and Gauls. The wives of all the great lords were +carefully guarded by eunuchs. This custom existed from time immemorial. +It is seen even in the Jewish history that when that little nation +wished like the others to have a king, Samuel, to dissuade them from it +and to retain his authority, said "that a king would tyrannize over them +and that he would take the tenths of their vines and corn to give to his +eunuchs." The kings accomplished this prediction, for it is written in +the First Book of Kings that King Ahab had eunuchs, and in the Second +that Joram, Jehu, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah had them also. + +The eunuchs of Pharaoh are spoken of a long time previously in the Book +of Genesis, and it is said that Potiphar, to whom Joseph was sold, was +one of the king's eunuchs. It is clear, therefore, that there were great +numbers of eunuchs at Babylon to guard the women. It was not then a duty +for them to prostitute themselves to the first comer, nor was Babylon, +the city of God, a vast brothel as it has been pretended. + +These tales of Herodotus, as well as all others in the same taste, are +now so decried by all people of sense--reason has made so great progress +that even old women and children will no longer believe such +extravagances--_"Non est vetula quæ credat nec pueri credunt, nisi qui +nondum ære lavantur."_ + +There is in our days only one man who, not partaking of the spirit of +the age in which he lives, would justify the fable of Herodotus. The +infamy appears to him a very simple affair. He would prove that the +Babylonian princesses prostituted themselves through piety, to the +first passengers, because it is said in the holy writings that the +Ammonites made their children pass through the fire in presenting them +to Moloch. But what relation has this custom of some barbarous +hordes--this superstition of passing their children through the flames, +or even of burning them on piles, in honor of I know not whom--of +Moloch; these Iroquois horrors of a petty, infamous people to a +prostitution so incredible in a nation known to be the most jealous and +orderly of the East? Would what passes among the Iroquois be among us a +proof of the customs of the courts of France and of Spain? + +He also brings, in further proof, the Lupercal feast among the Romans +during which he says the young people of quality and respectable +magistrates ran naked through the city with whips in their hands, with +which they struck the pregnant women of quality, who unblushingly +presented themselves to them in the hope of thereby obtaining a happy +deliverance. + +Now, in the first place, it is not said that these Romans of quality ran +quite naked, on the contrary, Plutarch expressly observes, in his +remarks on the custom, that they were covered from the waist downwards. + +Secondly, it seems by the manner in which this defender of infamous +customs expresses himself that the Roman ladies stripped naked to +receive these blows of the whip, which is absolutely false. + +Thirdly, the Lupercal feast has no relation whatever to the pretended +law of Babylon, which commands the wives and daughters of the king, the +satraps, and the magi to sell and prostitute themselves to strangers out +of pure devotion. + +When an author, without knowing either the human mind or the manners of +nations, has the misfortune to be obliged to compile from passages of +old authors, who are almost all contradictory, he should advance his +opinions with modesty and know how to doubt, and to shake off the dust +of the college. Above all he should never express himself with +outrageous insolence. + +Herodotus, or Ctesias, or Diodorus of Sicily, relate a fact: you have +read it in Greek, therefore this fact is true. This manner of reasoning, +which is not that of Euclid, is surprising enough in the time in which +we live; but all minds will not be instructed with equal facility; and +there are always more persons who compile than people who think. + +We will say nothing here of the confusion of tongues which took place +during the construction of the tower of Babel. It is a miracle, related +in the Holy Scriptures. We neither explain, nor even examine any +miracles, and as the authors of that great work, the Encyclopædia, +believed them, we also believe them with a lively and sincere faith. + +We will simply affirm that the fall of the Roman Empire has produced +more confusion and a greater number of new languages than that of the +tower of Babel. From the reign of Augustus till the time of the +Attilas, the Clovises, and the Gondiberts, during six ages, _"terra erat +unius labii"_--"the known earth was of one language." They spoke the +same Latin at the Euphrates as at Mount Atlas. The laws which governed a +hundred nations were written in Latin and the Greek served for +amusement, whilst the barbarous jargon of each province was only for the +populace. They pleaded in Latin at once in the tribunals of Africa and +of Rome. An inhabitant of Cornwall departed for Asia Minor sure of being +understood everywhere in his route. It was at least one good effected by +the rapacity of the Romans that people found themselves as well +understood on the Danube as on the Guadalquiver. At the present time a +Bergamask who travels into the small Swiss cantons, from which he is +only separated by a mountain, has the same need of an interpreter as if +he were in China. This is one of the greatest plagues of modern life. + + +SECTION II. + +Vanity has always raised stately monuments. It was through vanity that +men built the lofty tower of Babel. "Let us go and raise a tower, the +summit of which shall touch the skies, and render our name celebrated +before we are scattered upon the face of the earth." The enterprise was +undertaken hi the time of a patriarch named Phaleg, who counted the good +man Noah for his fifth ancestor. It will be seen that architecture, and +all the arts which accompany it, had made great progress in five +generations. St. Jerome, the same who has seen fauns and satyrs, has not +seen the tower of Babel any more than I have, but he assures us that it +was twenty thousand feet high. This is a trifle. The ancient book, +_"Jacult"_ written by one of the most learned Jews, demonstrates the +height to be eighty-one thousand Jewish feet, and every one knows that +the Jewish foot was nearly as long as the Greek. These dimensions are +still more likely than those of Jerome. This tower remains, but it is no +longer quite so high; several quite veracious travellers have seen it. +I, who have not seen it, will talk as little of it as of my grandfather +Adam, with whom I never had the honor of conversing. But consult the +reverend father Calmet; he is a man of fine wit and a profound +philosopher and will explain the thing to you. I do not know why it is +said, in Genesis, that Babel signifies confusion, for, as I have already +observed, _ba_ answers to father in the eastern languages, and _bel_ +signifies God. Babel means the city of God, the holy city. But it is +incontestable that Babel means confusion, possibly because the +architects were confounded after having raised their work to eighty-one +thousand feet, perhaps, because the languages were then confounded, as +from that time the Germans no longer understood the Chinese, although, +according to the learned Bochart, it is clear that the Chinese is +originally the same language as the High German. + + + + +BACCHUS. + + +Of all the true or fabulous personages of profane antiquity Bacchus is +to us the most important. I do not mean for the fine invention which is +attributed to him by all the world except the Jews, but for the +prodigious resemblance of his fabulous history to the true adventures of +Moses. + +The ancient poets have placed the birth of Bacchus in Egypt; he is +exposed on the Nile and it is from that event that he is named Mises by +the first Orpheus, which, in Egyptian, signifies "saved from the +waters," according to those who pretend to understand the ancient +Egyptian tongue, which is no longer known. He is brought up near a +mountain of Arabia called Nisa, which is believed to be Mount Sinai. It +is pretended that a goddess ordered him to go and destroy a barbarous +nation and that he passed through the Red Sea on foot, with a multitude +of men, women, and children. Another time the river Orontes suspended +its waters right and left to let him pass, and the Hydaspes did the +same. He commanded the sun to stand still; two luminous rays proceeded +from his head. He made a fountain of wine spout up by striking the +ground with his thyrsis, and engraved his laws on two tables of marble. +He wanted only to have afflicted Egypt with ten plagues, to be the +perfect copy of Moses. + +Vossius is, I think, the first who has extended this parallel. The +bishop of Avranches, Huet, has pushed it quite as far, but he adds, in +his "Evangelical Demonstrations" that Moses is not only Bacchus, but +that he is also Osiris and Typhon. He does not halt in this fine path. +Moses, according to him, is Æsculapius, Amphion, Apollo, Adonis, and +even Priapus. It is pleasant enough that Huet founds his proof that +Moses is Adonis in their both keeping sheep: _"Et formosus oves, ad +flumina pavit Adonis."_ + +He contends that he is Priapus because Priapus is sometimes painted with +an ass, and the Jews were supposed, among the Gentiles, to adore an ass. +He gives another proof, not very canonical, which is that the rod of +Moses might be compared to the sceptre of Priapus. _"Sceptrum tribuitur +Priapo, virga Most."_ Neither is this demonstration in the manner of +Euclid. + +We will not here speak of the more modern Bacchuses, such as he who +lived two hundred years before the Trojan war, and whom the Greeks +celebrated as a son of Jupiter, shut up in his thigh. We will pause at +him who was supposed to be born on the confines of Egypt and to have +performed so many prodigies. Our respect for the sacred Jewish books +will not permit us to doubt that the Egyptians, the Arabs, and even the +Greeks, have imitated the history of Moses. The difficulty consists +solely in not knowing how they could be instructed in this +incontrovertible history. With respect to the Egyptians, it is very +likely that they never recorded these miracles of Moses, which would +have covered them with shame. If they had said a word of it the +historians, Josephus and Philo, would not have failed to have taken +advantage of it Josephus, in his answer to Appion, made a point of +citing all the Egyptian authors who have mentioned Moses, and he finds +none who relate one of these miracles. No Jew has ever quoted any +Egyptian author who has said a word of the ten plagues of Egypt, of the +miraculous passage through the Red Sea, etc. It could not be among the +Egyptians, therefore, that this scandalous parallel was formed between +the divine Moses and the profane Bacchus. + +It is very clear that if a single Egyptian author had said a word of the +great miracles of Moses all the synagogue of Alexandria, all the +disputatious church of that famous town would have quoted such word, and +have triumphed at it, every one after his manner. Athenagorus, Clement, +Origen, who have said so many useless things, would have related this +important passage a thousand times and it would have been the strongest +argument of all the fathers. The whole have kept a profound silence; +they Had, therefore, nothing to say. But how was it possible for any +Egyptian to speak of the exploits of a man who caused all the first born +of the families of Egypt to be killed; who turned the Nile to blood, and +who drowned in the Red Sea their king and all his army? + +All our historians agree that one Clodowick, a Sicambrian, subjugated +Gaul with a handful of barbarians. The English are the first to say that +the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans came by turns to exterminate a +part of their nation. If they had not avowed this truth all Europe would +have exclaimed against its concealment. The universe should exclaim in +the same manner at the amazing prodigies of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, +Samson, and of so many leaders and prophets. The universe is silent +notwithstanding. Amazing mystery! On one side it is palpable mat all is +true, since it is found in the holy writings, which are approved by the +Church; on the other it is evident that no people have ever mentioned +it. Let us worship Providence, and submit ourselves in all things. + +The Arabs, who have always loved the marvellous, were probably the first +authors of the fables invented of Bacchus, afterwards adopted and +embellished by the Greeks. But how came the stories of the Arabs and +Greeks to agree so well with those of the Jews? It is known that the +Hebrews never communicated their books to any one till the time of the +Ptolemies; they regarded such communication as a sacrilege, and +Josephus, to justify their obstinacy in concealing the Pentateuch from +the rest of the world, says that God punished all foreigners who dared +to speak of the Jewish histories. If we are to believe him, the +historian Theopompus, for only designing to mention them in his work, +became deranged for thirty days, and the tragic poet Theodectes was +struck blind for having introduced the name of the Jews into one of his +tragedies. Such are the excuses that Flavius Josephus gives in his +answer to Appion for the history of the Jews being so long unknown. + +These books were of such prodigious scarcity that we only hear of one +copy under King Josiah, and this copy had been lost for a long time and +was found in the bottom of a chest on the report of Shaphan, scribe to +the Pontiff Hilkiah, who carried it to the king. + +This circumstance happened, according to the Second Book of Kings, six +hundred and twenty-four years before our vulgar era, four hundred years +after Homer, and in the most flourishing times of Greece. The Greeks +then scarcely knew that there were any Hebrews in the world. The +captivity of the Jews at Babylon still more augmented their ignorance of +their own books. Esdras must have restored them at the end of seventy +years and for already more than five hundred years the fable of Bacchus +had been current among the Greeks. + +If the Greeks had founded their fables on the Jewish history they would +have chosen facts more interesting to mankind, such as the adventures of +Abraham, those of Noah, of Methuselah, of Seth, Enoch, Cain, and Eve; of +the fatal serpent and of the tree of knowledge, all which names have +ever been unknown to them. There was only a slight knowledge of the +Jewish people until a long time after the revolution that Alexander +produced in Asia and in Europe; the historian Josephus avows it in +formal terms. This is the manner in which he expresses himself in the +commencement of his reply to Appion, who (by way of parenthesis) was +dead when he answered him, for Appion died under the Emperor Claudius, +and Josephus wrote under Vespasian. + +"As the country we inhabit is distant from the sea we do not apply +ourselves to commerce and have no communication with other nations. We +content ourselves with cultivating our lands, which are very fertile, +and we labor chiefly to bring up our children properly, because nothing +appears to us so necessary as to instruct them in the knowledge of our +holy laws and in true piety, which inspires them with the desire of +observing them. The above reasons, added to others already mentioned, +and this manner of life which is peculiar to us, show why we have had no +communication with the Greeks, like the Egyptians and Phoenicians. Is +it astonishing that our nation, so distant from the sea, not affecting +to write anything, and living in the way which I have related, has been +little known?" + +After such an authentic avowal from a Jew, the most tenacious of the +honor of his nation that has ever written, it will be seen that it is +impossible for the ancient Greeks to have taken the fable of Bacchus +from the holy books of the Hebrews, any more than the sacrifice of +Iphigenia, that of the son of Idomeneus, the labors of Hercules, the +adventure of Eurydice, and others. The quantity of ancient tales which +resemble one another is prodigious. How is it that the Greeks have put +into fables what the Hebrews have put into histories? Was it by the +gift of invention; was it by a facility of imitation, or in consequence +of the accordance of fine minds? To conclude: God has permitted it--a +truth which ought to suffice. + +Of what consequence is it that the Arabs and Greeks have said the same +things as the Jews? We read the Old Testament only to prepare ourselves +for the New, and in neither the one nor the other do we seek anything +but lessons of benevolence, moderation, gentleness, and true charity. + + + + +BACON (ROGER). + + +It is generally thought that Roger Bacon, the famous monk of the +thirteenth century, was a very great man and that he possessed true +knowledge, because he was persecuted and condemned to prison by a set of +ignoramuses. It is a great prejudice in his favor, I own. But does it +not happen every day that quacks gravely condemn other quacks, and that +fools make other fools pay the penalty of folly? This, our world, has +for a long time resembled the compact edifices in which he who believes +in the eternal Father anathematizes him who believes in the Holy Ghost; +circumstances which are not very rare even in these days. Among the +things which render Friar Bacon commendable we must first reckon his +imprisonment, and then the noble boldness with which he declared that +all the books of Aristotle were fit only to be burned and that at a time +when the learned respected Aristotle much more than the Jansenists +respect St. Augustine. Has Roger Bacon, however, done anything better +than the Poetics, the Rhetoric, and the Logic of Aristotle? These three +immortal works clearly prove that Aristotle was a very great and fine +genius--penetrating, profound, and methodical; and that he was only a +bad natural philosopher because it was impossible to penetrate into the +depths of physical science without the aid of instruments. + +Does Roger Bacon, in his best work, in which he treats of light and +vision, express himself much more clearly than Aristotle when he says +light is created by means of multiplying its luminous species, which +action is called univocal and conformable to the agent? He also mentions +another equivocal multiplication, by which light engenders heat and heat +putrefaction. + +Roger Bacon likewise tells us that life may be prolonged by means of +spermaceti, aloes, and dragons' flesh, and that the philosopher's stone +would render us immortal. It is thought that besides these fine secrets +he possessed all those of judicial astrology, without exception, as he +affirms very positively in his _"Opus Majus,"_ that the head of man is +subject to the influences of the ram, his neck to those of the bull, and +his arms to the power of the twins. He even demonstrates these fine +things from experience, and highly praises a great astrologer at Paris +who says that he hindered a surgeon from putting a plaster on the leg +of an invalid, because the sun was then in the sign of Aquarius, and +Aquarius is fatal to legs to which plasters are applied. + +It is an opinion quite generally received that Roger was the inventor of +gunpowder. It is certain that it was in his time that important +discovery was made, for I always remark that the spirit of invention is +of all times and that the doctors, or sages, who govern both mind and +body are generally profoundly ignorant, foolishly prejudiced, or at war +with common sense. It is usually among obscure men that artists are +found animated with a superior instinct, who invent admirable things on +which the learned afterwards reason. + +One thing that surprises me much is that Friar Bacon knew not the +direction of the magnetic needle, which, in his time, began to be +understood in Italy, but in lieu thereof he was acquainted with the +Secret of the hazel rod and many such things Of which he treats in his +"Dignity of the Experimental Art." + +Yet, notwithstanding this pitiable number of absurdities and chimeras, +it must be confessed that Roger Bacon was an admirable man for his age. +What age? you will ask--that of feudal government and of the schoolmen. +Figure to yourself Samoyedes and Ostiacs who read Aristotle. Such were +we at that time. + +Roger Bacon knew a little of geometry and optics, which made him pass +for a sorcerer at Rome and Paris. He was, however, really acquainted +with the matter contained in the Arabian _"Alhazen,"_ for in those days +little was known except through the Arabs. They were the physicians and +astrologers of all the Christian kings. The king's fool was always a +native; his doctor an Arab or a Jew. + +Transport this Bacon to the times in which we live and he would be, no +doubt, a great man. He was gold, encrusted with the rust of the times in +which he lived, this gold would now be quickly purified. Poor creatures +that we are! How many ages have passed away in acquiring a little +reason! + + + + +BANISHMENT. + + +Banishment for a term of years, or for life: a penalty inflicted on +delinquents, or on individuals who are wished to be considered as such. + +Not long ago it was the custom to banish from within the limits of the +jurisdiction, for petty thefts, forgeries, and assaults, the result of +which was that the offender became a great robber, forger, or murderer +in some other jurisdiction. This is like throwing into a neighbor's +field the stones that incommode us in our own. + +Those who have written on the laws of nations have tormented themselves +greatly to determine whether a man who has been banished from his +country can justly be said still to belong to that country. It might +almost as well be asked whether a gambler, who has been driven away from +the gaming-table, is still one of the players at that table. + +If by the law of nature a man is permitted to choose his country, still +more is the man who has lost the rights of a citizen at liberty to +choose himself a new country. May he bear arms against his former +fellow-citizens? Of this we have a thousand examples. How many French +Protestants, naturalized in England, Holland, or Germany, have served, +not only against France, but against armies in which their relatives, +their own brothers, have fought? The Greeks in the armies of the king of +Persia fought against the Greeks, their old fellow-countrymen. The Swiss +in the service of Holland have fired upon the Swiss in the service of +France. This is even worse than fighting against those who have banished +you, for, after all, drawing the sword in revenge does not seem so bad +as drawing it for hire. + + + + +BAPTISM. + +_A Greek Word, Signifying Immersion._ + + +SECTION I. + +We do not speak of baptism as theologians; we are but poor men of +letters, who shall never enter the sanctuary. The Indians plunge, and +have from time immemorial plunged, into the Ganges. Mankind, always +guided by their senses, easily imagined that what purified the body +likewise purified the soul. In the subterranean apartments under the +Egyptian temples there were large tubs for the priests and the +initiated. + + _O nimium faciles qui tristia crimina cædis_ + _Fluminea tolli posse putatis aqua!_ + +Old Baudier, when he was eighty, made the following comic translation of +these lines: + + _C'est une drôle de maxime,_ + _Qu'une lessive efface un crime._ + One can't but think it somewhat droll, + Pump-water thus should cleanse a soul. + +Every sign being of itself indifferent, God vouchsafed to consecrate +this custom amongst the Hebrew people. All foreigners that came to +settle in Palestine were baptized; they were called domiciliary +proselytes. + +They were not forced to receive circumcision, but only to embrace the +seven precepts of the Noachides, and to sacrifice to no strange god. The +proselytes of justice were circumcised and baptized; the female +proselytes were also baptized, quite naked, in the presence of three +men. The most devout among the Jews went and received baptism from the +hands of the prophets most venerated by the people. Hence it was that +they flocked to St. John, who baptized in the Jordan. + +Jesus Christ Himself, who never baptized any one, deigned to receive +baptism from St. John. This custom, which had long been an accessory of +the Jewish religion, received new dignity, new value from our Saviour, +and became the chief rite, the principal seal of Christianity. However, +the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were Jews. 'The Christians of +Palestine long continued to circumcise. St. John's Christians never +received baptism from Christ. + +Several other Christian societies applied a cautery to the baptized, +with a red-hot iron, being determined to the performance of this +extraordinary operation by the words of St. John the Baptist, related by +St. Luke: "I baptize you with water, but He that cometh after me shall +baptize you with fire." + +This was practised by the Seleucians, the Herminians, and some others. +The words, "He shall baptize you with fire," have never been explained. +There are several opinions concerning the baptism by fire which is +mentioned by St. Luke and St. Matthew. Perhaps the most likely opinion +is that it was an allusion to the ancient custom of the devotees to the +Syrian goddess, who, after plunging into water, imprinted characters on +their bodies with a hot iron. With miserable man all was superstition, +but Jesus substituted for these ridiculous superstitions a sacred +ceremony--a divine and efficacious symbol. + +In the first ages of Christianity nothing was more common than to +postpone the receiving of baptism until the last agony. Of this the +example of the Emperor Constantine is a very strong proof. St. Andrew +had not been baptized when he was made bishop of Milan. The custom of +deferring the use of the sacred bath until the hour of death was soon +abolished. + +_Baptism of the Dead._ + +The dead also were baptized. This is established by the passage of St. +Paul to the Corinthians: "If we rise not again what shall they do that +receive baptism from the dead?" Here is a point of fact. Either the +dead themselves were baptized, or baptism was received in their names, +as indulgences have since been received for the deliverance of the souls +of friends and relatives out of purgatory. + +St. Epiphanius and St. Chrysostom inform us that it was a custom in some +Christian societies, and principally among the Marcionites, to put a +living man under the dead man's bed; he was then asked if he would be +baptized; the living man answered yes, and the corpse was taken and +plunged into a tub of water. This custom was soon condemned. St. Paul +mentions it but he does not condemn it; on the contrary he cites it as +an invincible argument to prove resurrection. + +_Baptism by Aspersion._ + +The Greeks always retained baptism by immersion. The Latins, about the +close of the eighth century, having extended their religion into Gaul +and Germany and seeing that immersion might be fatal to infants in cold +countries, substituted simple aspersion and thus drew upon themselves +frequent anathemas from the Greek Church. + +St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was asked if those were really baptized +who had only had their bodies sprinkled all over. He answers, in his +seventy-sixth letter, that several churches did not believe the +sprinkled to be Christians; that, for his own part, he believes that +they are so, but that they have infinitely less grace than those who +have been thrice dipped, according to custom. + +A person was initiated among the Christians as soon as he was dipped; +until then he was only a catechumen. To be initiated it was necessary to +have sponsors to answer to the Church for the fidelity of the new +Christians and that the mysteries should not be divulged. Hence it was +that in the first ages the Gentiles had, in general, as little knowledge +of the Christian mysteries as the Christians had of the mysteries of +Isis and the Eleusinian Ceres. + +Cyril of Alexandria, in his writing against the Emperor Julian, +expresses himself thus: "I would speak of baptism but that I fear my +words would reach them who are not initiated." At that time there was no +worship without its mysteries, its associations, its catechumens, its +initiated, and its professed. Each sect required new virtues and +recommended to its penitents a new life--_"initium novæ vitæ"_--whence +the word initiation. The initiation of Christians, whether male or +female, consisted in their being plunged quite naked into a tub of cold +water, to which sign was attached the remission of all their sins. But +the difference between Christian baptism and the Greek, Syrian, +Egyptian, and Roman ceremonies was the difference between truth and +falsehood. Jesus Christ was the High Priest of the new law. + +In the second century infants began to be baptized; it was natural that +the Christians should desire their children, who would have been damned +without this sacrament, to be provided with it. It was at length +concluded that they must receive it at the expiration of eight days, +because that was the period at which, among the Jews, they were +circumcised. In the Greek Church this is still the custom. + +Such as died in the first week were damned, according to the most +rigorous fathers of the Church. But Peter Chrysologos, in the fifth +century, imagined limbo, a sort of mitigated hell, or properly, the +border, the outskirt of hell, whither all infants dying without baptism +go and where the patriarchs remained until Jesus Christ's descent into +hell. So that the opinion that Jesus Christ descended into limbo, and +not into hell, has since then prevailed. + +It was agitated whether a Christian in the deserts of Arabia might be +baptized with sand, this was answered in the negative. It was asked if +rosewater might be used, it was decided that pure water would be +necessary but that muddy water might be made use of. It is evident that +all this discipline depended on the discretion of the first pastors who +established it. + +The Anabaptists and some other communions out of the pale have thought +that no one should be baptized without a thorough knowledge of the +merits of the case. You require, say they, a promise to be of the +Christian society, but a child can make no engagement. You give it a +sponsor, but this is an abuse of an ancient custom. The precaution was +requisite in the first establishment. When strangers, adult men and +women, came and presented themselves to be received into the society +and share in the alms there was needed a guarantee to answer for their +fidelity; it was necessary to make sure of them; they swore they would +be Jews, but an infant is in a diametrically opposite case. It has often +happened, that a child baptized by Greeks at Constantinople has +afterwards been circumcised by Turks, a Christian at eight days old and +a Mussulman at thirty years, he has betrayed the oaths of his godfather. + +This is one reason which the Anabaptists might allege; it would hold +good in Turkey, but it has never been admitted in Christian countries +where baptism insures a citizen's condition. We must conform to the +rights and laws of our country. + +The Greeks re-baptize such of the Latins as pass from one of our Latin +communions to the Greek communion. In the last century it was the custom +for these catechumens to pronounce the following words: "I spit upon my +father and my mother who had me ill baptized." This custom still exists, +and will, perhaps, long continue to exist in the provinces. + +_Notions of Rigid Unitarians Concerning Baptism._ + +It is evident to whosoever is willing to reason without prejudice that +baptism is neither a mark of grace conferred nor a seal of alliance, but +simply a mark of profession. + +That baptism is not necessary, neither by necessity of precept, nor by +necessity of means. That it was not instituted by Christ and that it +may be omitted by the Christian without his suffering any inconvenience +therefrom. + +That baptism should be administered neither to children, nor to adults, +nor, in general, to any individual whatsoever. + +That baptism might be of service in the early infancy of Christianity to +those who quitted paganism in order to make their profession of faith +public and give an authentic mark of it, but that now it is absolutely +useless and altogether indifferent. + + +SECTION II. + +Baptism, immersion in water, abstersion, purification by water, is of +the highest antiquity. To be cleanly was to be pure before the gods. No +priest ever dared to approach the altar with a soil upon his body. The +natural inclination to transfer to the soul that which appertains to the +body led to the belief that lustrations and ablutions took away the +stains of the soul as they removed those of the garments and that +washing the body washed the soul also. Hence the ancient custom of +bathing in the Ganges, the waters of which were thought to be sacred; +hence the lustrations so frequent among every people. The Oriental +nations, inhabiting hot countries, were the most religiously attached to +these customs. + +The Jews were obliged to bathe after any pollution--after touching an +unclean animal, touching a corpse, and on many other occasions. + +When the Jews received among them a stranger converted to their +religion they baptized, after circumcising him, and if it was a woman +she was simply baptized--that is, dipped in water in the presence of +three witnesses. This immersion was reputed to give the persons baptized +a new birth, a new life; they became at once Jewish and pure. Children +born before this baptism had no share in the inheritance of their +brethren, born after them of a regenerated father and mother. So that, +with the Jews, to be baptized and to be born again were the same thing, +and this idea has remained attached to baptism down to the present day. +Thus, when John, the forerunner, began to baptize in the Jordan he did +but follow an immemorial usage. The priests of the law did not call him +to account for this baptizing as for anything new, but they accused him +of arrogating to himself a right which belonged exclusively to them--as +Roman Catholic priests would have a right to complain if a layman took +upon himself to say mass. John was doing a lawful thing but was doing it +unlawfully. + +John wished to have disciples, and he had them. He was chief of a sect +among the lower orders of the people and it cost him his life. It even +appears that Jesus was at first among his disciples, since he was +baptized by him in the Jordan, and John sent some of his own party to +Him a short time before His death. + +The historian Josephus speaks of John but not of Jesus--an incontestable +proof that in his time John the Baptist had a greater reputation than +He whom he baptized. A great multitude followed him, says that +celebrated historian, and the Jews seemed disposed to undertake whatever +he should command them. + +From this passage it appears that John was not only the chief of a sect, +but the chief of a party. Josephus adds that he caused Herod some +uneasiness. He did indeed make himself formidable to Herod, who, at +length, put him to death, but Jesus meddled with none but the Pharisees. +Josephus, therefore, mentions John as a man who had stirred up the Jews +against King Herod; as one whose zeal had made him a state criminal, but +Jesus, not having approached the court, was unknown to the historian +Josephus. + +The sect of John the Baptist differed widely in discipline from that of +Jesus. In the Acts of the Apostles we see that twenty years after the +execution of Jesus, Apollos of Alexandria, though become a Christian, +knew no baptism but that of John, nor had any idea of the Holy Ghost. +Several travellers, and among others Chardin, the most accredited of +all, say that in Persia there still are disciples of John, called Sabis, +who baptize in his name and acknowledge Jesus as a prophet, but not as a +god. + +As for Jesus Christ Himself He received baptism but conferred it on no +one; His apostles baptized the catechumens, or circumcised them as +occasion required; this is evident from the operation of circumcision +performed by Paul on his disciple Timothy. + +It also appears that when the apostles baptized it was always in the +name of Jesus Christ alone. The Acts of the Apostles do not mention any +one baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--whence it +may be concluded that the author of the Acts of the Apostles knew +nothing of Matthew's gospel, in which it is said: "Go and teach all +nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and +of the Holy Ghost." The Christian religion had not yet received its +form. Even the Symbol, which was called the Symbol of the Apostles, was +not made until after their time, of this no one has any doubt. In Paul's +Epistle to the Corinthians we find a very singular custom which was then +introduced--that of baptizing the dead, but the rising Church soon +reserved baptism for the living alone; at first none were baptized but +adults, and the ceremony was often deferred until the age of fifty, or +the last sickness, that the individual might carry with him into the +other world the unimpaired virtue of a baptism recently performed. + +Now, all children are baptized: none but the Anabaptists reserve this +ceremony for the mature age; they plunge their whole bodies into the +water. The Quakers, who compose a very numerous society in England and +in America, do not use baptism: the reason is that Jesus Christ did not +baptize any of His disciples, and their aim is to be Christians only as +His disciples were--which occasions a very wide difference between them +and other communions. + +_Addition to the Article "Baptism" by Abbé Nicaise._ + +The Emperor Julian, the philosopher, in his immortal "Satire on the +Cæsars," puts these words into the mouth of Constantius, son of +Constantine: "Whosoever feels himself guilty of rape, murder, plunder, +sacrilege, and every most abominable crime, so soon as I have washed him +with this water, he shall be clean and pure." + +It was, indeed, this fatal doctrine that occasioned the Christian +emperors, and the great men of the empire, to defer their baptism until +death. They thought they had found the secret of living criminal and +dying virtuous. + +How strange an idea--that a pot of water should wash away every crime! +Now, all children are baptized because an idea no less absurd supposes +them all criminal; they are all saved until they have the use of reason +and the power to become guilty! Cut their throats, then, as quickly as +possible, to insure their entrance into paradise. This is so just a +consequence that there was once a devout sect that went about poisoning +and killing all newly-baptized infants. These devout persons reasoned +with perfect correctness, saying: "We do these little innocents the +greatest possible good; we prevent them from being wicked and unhappy in +this life and we give them life eternal." + + + + +BARUCH, OR BARAK, AND DEBORAH; + +AND, INCIDENTALLY, ON CHARIOTS OF WAR. + + +We have no intention here to inquire at what time Baruch was chief of +the Jewish people; why, being chief, he allowed his army to be commanded +by a woman; whether this woman, named Deborah, had married Lapidoth; +whether she was the friend or relative of Baruch, or perhaps his +daughter or his mother; nor on what day the battle of Tabor, in Galilee, +was fought between this Deborah and Sisera, captain-general of the +armies of King Jabin--which Sisera commanded in Galilee an army of three +hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and three thousand chariots +of war, according to the historian Josephus. + +We shall at present leave out of the question this Jabin, king of a +village called Azor, who had more troops than the Grand Turk. We very +much pity the fate of his grand-vizier Sisera, who, having lost the +battle in Galilee, leaped from his chariot and four that he might fly +more swiftly on foot. He went and begged the hospitality of a holy +Jewish woman, who gave him some milk and drove a great cart-nail through +his head while he was asleep. We are very sorry for it, but this is not +the matter to be discussed. We wish to speak of chariots of war. + +The battle was fought at the foot of Mount Tabor, near the river Kishon. +Mount Tabor is a steep mountain, the branches of which, somewhat less +in height, extend over a great part of Galilee. Between this mountain +and the neighboring rocks there is a small plain, covered with great +flint-stones and impracticable for cavalry. The extent of this plain is +four or five hundred paces. We may venture to believe that Sisera did +not here draw up his three hundred thousand men in order of battle; his +three thousand chariots would have found it difficult to manoeuvre on +such a field. + +We may believe that the Hebrews had no chariots of war in a country +renowned only for asses, but the Asiatics made use of them in the great +plains. Confucius, or rather Confutze, says positively that, from time +immemorial, each of the viceroys of the provinces was expected to +furnish to the emperor a thousand war-chariots, each drawn by four +horses. Chariots must have been in use long before the Trojan war, for +Homer does not speak of them as a new invention, but these chariots were +not armed like those of Babylon, neither the wheels nor the axles were +furnished with steel blades. + +At first this invention must have been very formidable on large plains, +especially when the chariots were numerous, driven with impetuosity, and +armed with long pikes and scythes, but when they became familiar it +seemed so easy to avoid their shock that they fell into general disuse. + +In the war of 1741 it was proposed to renew and reform this ancient +invention. A minister of state had one of these chariots constructed and +it was tried. It was asserted that in large plains, like that of +Lützen, they might be used with advantage by concealing them behind the +cavalry, the squadrons of which would open to let them pass and then +follow them, but the generals judged that this manoeuvre would be +useless, and even dangerous, now that battles are gained by cannon only. +It was replied that there would be as many cannon hi the army using the +chariots of war to defend them as in the enemy's army to destroy them. +It was added that these chariots would, in the first instance, be +sheltered from the cannon behind the battalions or squadrons, that the +latter would open and let the chariots run with impetuosity and that +this unexpected attack might have a prodigious effect. The generals +advanced nothing in opposition to these arguments, but they would not +revive this game of the ancient Persians. + + + + +BATTALION. + + +Let us observe that the arrangements, the marching, and the evolutions +of battalions, nearly as they are now practised, were revived in Europe +by one who was not a military man--by Machiavelli, a secretary at +Florence. Battalions three, four, and five deep; battalions advancing +upon the enemy; battalions in square to avoid being cut off in a rout; +battalions four deep sustained by others in column; battalions flanked +by cavalry--all are his. He taught Europe the art of war; it had long +been practised without being known. + +The grand duke would have had his secretary teach his troops their +exercises according to his new method. But Machiavelli was too prudent +to do so; he had no wish to see the officers and soldiers laugh at a +general in a black cloak; he reserved himself for the council. + +There is something singular in the qualities which he requires in a +soldier. He must first have _gagliardia_, which signifies _alert vigor_; +he must have a quick and sure eye--in which there must also be a little +gayety; a strong neck, a wide breast, a muscular arm, round loins, but +little belly, with spare legs and feet--all indicating strength and +agility. But above all the soldier must have honor, and must be led by +honor alone. "War," says he, "is but too great a corrupter of morals," +and he reminds us of the Italian proverb: War makes thieves, and peace +finds them gibbets. + +Machiavelli had but a poor opinion of the French infantry, and until the +battle of Rocroi it must be confessed that it was very bad. A strange +man this Machiavelli! He amused himself with making verses, writing +plays, showing his cabinet the art of killing with regularity, and +teaching princes the art of perjuring themselves, assassinating, and +poisoning as occasion required--a great art which Pope Alexander VI., +and his bastard Cæsar Borgia, practised in wonderful perfection without +the aid of his lessons. + +Be it observed that in all Machiavelli's works on so many different +subjects there is not one word which renders virtue amiable--not one +word proceeding from the heart. The same remark has been made on +Boileau. He does not, it is true, make virtue lovely, but he represents +it as necessary. + + + + +BAYLE. + + +Why has Louis Racine treated Bayle like a dangerous man, with a cruel +heart, in an epistle to Jean Baptiste Rousseau, which, although printed, +is but little known? + +He compares Bayle, whose logical acuteness detected the errors of +opposing systems, to Marius sitting upon the ruins of Carthage: + + _Ainsi d'un oeil content Marius, dans sa fuite,_ + _Contemplait les débris de Carthage détruite._ + Thus exiled Marius, with contented gaze, + Thy ruins, Carthage, silently surveys. + +Here is a simile which exhibits very little resemblance, or, as Pope +says, a simile dissimilar. Marius had not destroyed reason and +arguments, nor did he contentedly view its ruins, but, on the contrary, +he was penetrated with an elevated sentiment of melancholy on +contemplating the vicissitudes of human affairs, when he made the +celebrated answer: "Say to the proconsul of Africa that thou hast seen +Marius seated on the ruins of Carthage." + +We ask in what Marius resembled Bayle? Louis Racine, if he thinks fit, +may apply the epithets "hard-hearted" and "cruel" to Marius, to Sulla, +to the triumvirs, but, in reference to Bayle the phrases "detestable +pleasure," "cruel heart," "terrible man," should not be put in a +sentence written by Louis Racine against one who is only proved to have +weighed the arguments of the Manichæans, the Paulicians, the Arians, the +Eutychians, against those of their adversaries. Louis Racine proportions +not the punishment to the offence. He should remember that Bayle +combated Spinoza, who was too much of a philosopher, and Jurieu, who was +none at all. He should respect the good manners of Bayle and learn to +reason from him. But he was a Jansenist, that is to say, he knew the +words of the language of Jansenism and employed them at random. You may +properly call cruel and terrible a powerful man who commands his slaves, +on pain of death, to go and reap corn where he has sown thistles; who +gives to some of them too much food, and suffers others to die of +hunger; who kills his eldest son to leave a large fortune to the +younger. All that is frightful and cruel, Louis Racine! It is said that +such is the god of thy Jansenists, but I do not believe it. Oh slaves of +party, people attacked with the jaundice, you constantly see everything +yellow! + +And to whom has the unthinking heir of a father who had a hundred times +more taste than he has philosophy, addressed this miserable epistle +against the virtuous Bayle? To Rousseau--a poet who thinks still less; +to a man whose principal merit has consisted in epigrams which are +revolting to the most indulgent reader; to a man to whom it was alike +whether he sang Jesus Christ or Giton. Such was the apostle to whom +Louis Racine denounced Bayle as a miscreant. What motive could the +author of "Phædra" and "Iphigenia" have for falling into such a +prodigious error? Simply this, that Rousseau had made verses for the +Jansenists, whom he then believed to be in high credit. + +Such is the rage of faction let loose upon Bayle, but you do not hear +any of the dogs who have howled against him bark against Lucretius, +Cicero, Seneca, Epicurus, nor against the numerous philosophers of +antiquity. It is all reserved for Bayle; he is their fellow citizen--he +is of their time--his glory irritates them. Bayle is read and Nicole is +not read; behold the source of the Jansenist hatred! Bayle is studied, +but neither the reverend Father Croiset, nor the reverend Father +Caussin; hence Jesuitical denouncement! + +In vain has a Parliament of France done him the greatest honor in +rendering his will valid, notwithstanding the severity of the law. The +madness of party knows neither honor nor justice. I have not inserted +this article to make the eulogy of the best of dictionaries, which would +not be becoming here, and of which Bayle is not in need; I have written +it to render, if I can, the spirit of party odious and ridiculous. + + + + +BDELLIUM. + + +We are very much puzzled to know what this Bdellium is which is found +near the shores of the Pison, a river of the terrestrial paradise which +turns into the country of the Havilah, where there is gold. Calmet +relates that, according to several commentators, Bdellium is the +carbuncle, but that it may also be crystal. Then it is the gum of an +Arabian tree and afterwards we are told that capers are intended. Many +others affirm that it signifies pearls. Nothing but the etymologies of +Bochart can throw a light on this question. I wish that all these +commentators had been upon the spot. + +The excellent gold which is obtained in this country, says Calmet, shows +evidently that this is the country of Colchis and the golden fleece is a +proof of it. It is a pity that things have changed so much for +Mingrelia; that beautiful country, so famous for the loves of Medea and +Jason, now produces gold and Bdellium no more than bulls which vomit +fire and flame, and dragons which guard the fleece. Everything changes +in this world; and if we do not skilfully cultivate our lands, and if +the state remain always in debt, we shall become a second Mingrelia. + + + + +BEARD. + + +Certain naturalists assure us that the secretion which produces the +beard is the same as that which perpetuates mankind. An entire +hemisphere testifies against this fraternal union. The Americans, of +whatever country, color, or stature they may be, have neither beards on +their chins, nor any hair on their bodies, except their eyebrows and the +hair of their heads, I have legal attestations of official men who have +lived, conversed, and combated with thirty nations of South America, and +they attest that they have never seen a hair on their bodies; and they +laugh, as they well may, at writers who, copying one another, say that +the Americans are only without hair because they pull it out with +pincers; as if Christopher Columbus, Fernando Cortes, and the other +adventurers had loaded themselves with the little tweezers with which +our ladies remove their superfluous hairs, and had distributed them in +all the countries of America. + +I believed for a long time that the Esquimaux were excepted from the +general laws of the new world; but I am assured that they are as free +from hair as the others. However, they have children in Chile, Peru, and +Canada, as well as in our bearded continent. There is, then, a specific +difference between these bipeds and ourselves, in the same way as their +lions, which are divested of the mane, and in other respects differ from +the lions of Africa. + +It is to be remarked that the Orientals have never varied in their +consideration for the beard. Marriage among them has always existed, and +that period is still the epoch of life from which they no longer shave +the beard. The long dress and the beard impose respect. The Westerns +have always been changing the fashion of the chin. Mustaches were worn +under Louis XIV. towards the year 1672. Under Louis XIII. a little +pointed beard prevailed. In the time of Henry IV. it was square. Charles +V., Julius II., and Francis I. restored the large beard to honor in +their courts, which had been a long time in fashion. Gownsmen, through +gravity and respect for the customs of their fathers, shaved themselves; +while the courtiers, in doublets and little mantles, wore their beards +as long as they could. When a king in those days sent a lawyer as an +ambassador, his comrades would laugh at him if he suffered his beard to +grow, besides mocking him in the chamber of accounts or of +requests,--But quite enough upon beards. + + + + +BEASTS. + + +What a pity and what a poverty of spirit to assert that beasts are +machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which effect all their +operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, etc. + +What is this bird, who makes its nest in a semicircle when he attaches +it to a wall; and in a circle on a tree--this bird does all in the same +blind manner! The hound, which you have disciplined for three months, +does he not know more at the end of this time than he did before? Does +the canary, to which you play an air, repeat ft directly? Do you not +employ a considerable time in teaching it? Have you not seen that he +sometimes mistakes it, and that be corrects himself? + +Is it because I speak to you that you judge I have sentiment, memory, +and ideas? Well, suppose I do not speak to you; you see me enter my room +with an afflicted air, I seek a paper with disquietude, I open the +bureau in which I recollect to have shut it, I hid it and read it with +joy. You pronounce that I have felt the sentiment of affliction and of +joy; that I have memory and knowledge. + +Extend the same judgment to the dog who has lost his master, who has +sought hum everywhere with grievous cries, and who enters the house +agitated and restless, goes upstairs and down, from room to room, and at +last finds in the closet the master whom he loves, and testifies his joy +by the gentleness of his cries, by his leaps and his caresses. + +Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in +friendship, they nail him to a table and dissect him living to show the +mesenteric veins. You discover in him the same organs of sentiment which +are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the +springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he +nerves, and is he incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this +impertinent contradiction in mature. + +But the masters of this school ask, what is the soul of beasts? I do not +understand tins question. A tree has the faculty of receiving in its +fibres the sap which circulates, of evolving its buds, its leaves, and +its fruits. You will ask me what is the soul of this tree? It has +received these gifts. The animal has received those of sentiment, +memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts; who +has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to +grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun. + +The souls of beasts are _substantial forms_, says Aristotle; and after +Aristotle, the Arabian school; and after the Arabian school, the +Angelical school; and after the Angelical school, the Sorbonne; and +after the Sorbonne, every one in the world. + +The souls of beasts are material, exclaim other philosophers. These have +not been more fortunate than the former. They are in vain asked what is +a material soul? They say that it is a matter which has sensation; but +who has given it this sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say, +it is composed of a matter which gives sensation to matter. They cannot +get out of this circle. + +Listen to one kind of beasts reasoning upon another; their soul is a +spiritual being, which dies with the body; but what proof have you of +it? What idea have you of this spiritual being, which has sentiment, +memory, and its share of ideas and combinations, but which can never +tell what made a child of six years old? On what ground do you imagine +that this being, which is not corporeal, perishes with the body? The +greatest beasts are those who have suggested that this soul is neither +body nor spiritan excellent system! We can only understand by spirit +something unknown, which is not body. Thus the system of these gentlemen +amounts to this, that the soul of beasts is a substance which is neither +body, nor something which is not body. Whence can proceed so many +contradictory errors? From the custom which men have of examining what a +thing is before they know whether it exists. They call the speech the +effect of a breath of mind, the soul of a sigh. What is the soul? It is +a name which I have given to this valve which rises and falls, which +lets the air in, relieves itself, and sends it through a pipe when I +move the lungs. + +There is not, then, a soul distinct from the machine. But what moves the +lungs of animals? I have already said, the power that moves the stars. +The philosopher who said, _"Deus est animâ brutorum."_--God is the soul +of the brutes--is right; but he should have gone much further. + + + + +BEAUTIFUL (THE). + + +Since we have quoted Plato on love, why should we not quote him on "the +beautiful," since beauty causes love. It is curious to know how a Greek +spoke of the beautiful more than two thousand years since. + +"The man initiated into the sacred mysteries, when he sees a beautiful +face accompanied by a divine form, a something more than mortal, feels a +secret emotion, and I know not what respectful fear. He regards this +figure as a divinity.... When the influence of beauty enters into his +soul by his eyes he burns; the wings of his soul are bedewed; they lose +the hardness which retains their germs and liquefy themselves; these +germs, swelling beneath the roots of its wings, they expand from every +part of the soul (for soul had wings formerly)," etc. + +I am willing to believe that nothing is finer than this discourse of the +divine Plato; but it does not give us very clear ideas of the nature of +the beautiful. + +Ask a toad what is beauty--the great beauty _To Kalon_; he will answer +that it is the female with two great round eyes coming out of her little +head, her large flat mouth, her yellow belly, and brown back. Ask a +negro of Guinea; beauty is to him a black, oily skin, sunken eyes, and a +flat nose. Ask the devil; he will tell you that the beautiful consists +in a pair of horns, four claws, and a tail. Then consult the +philosophers; they will answer you with jargon; they must have something +conformable to the archetype of the essence of the beautiful--to the _To +Kalon_. + +I was once attending a tragedy near a philosopher. "How beautiful that +is," said he. "What do you find beautiful?" asked I. "It is," said he, +"that the author has attained his object." The next day he took his +medicine, which did him some good. "It has attained its object," cried I +to him; "it is a beautiful medicine." He comprehended that it could not +be said that a medicine is beautiful, and that to apply to anything +the epithet beautiful it must cause admiration and pleasure. He admitted +that the tragedy had inspired him with these two sentiments, and that it +was the _To Kalon_, the beautiful. + +We made a journey to England. The same piece was played, and, although +ably translated, it made all the spectators yawn. "Oh, oh!" said he, +"the _To Kalon_ is not the same with the English as with the French." He +concluded after many reflections that "the beautiful" is often merely +relative, as that which is decent at Japan is indecent at Rome; and that +which is the fashion at Paris is not so at Pekin; and he was thereby +spared the trouble of composing a long treatise on the beautiful. + +[Illustration: A beautiful face accompanied by a divine form.] + +There are actions which the whole world considers fine. A challenge +passed between two of Cæsar's officers, mortal enemies, not to shed each +other's blood behind a thicket by tierce and quarte, as among us, but to +decide which of them would best defend the camp of the Romans, about to +be attacked by the barbarians. One of the two, after having repulsed the +enemy, was near falling; the other flew to his assistance, saved his +life, and gained the victory. A friend devotes himself to death for his +friend, a son for his father. The Algonquin, the French, the Chinese, +will mutually say that all this is very beautiful, that such actions +give them pleasure, and that they admire them. + +They will say the same of great moral maxims; of that of Zoroaster: "If +in doubt that an action be just, desist;" of that of Confucius: "Forget +injuries; never forget benefits." + +The negro, with round eyes and flattened nose, who would not give the +ladies of our court the name of beautiful, would give it without +hesitation to these actions and these maxims. Even the wicked man +recognizes the beauty of the virtues which he cannot imitate. The +beautiful, which only strikes the senses, the imagination, and what is +called the spirit, is then often uncertain; the beauty which strikes the +heart is not. You will find a number of people who will tell you they +have found nothing beautiful in three-fourths of the "Iliad"; but nobody +will deny that the devotion of Codrus for his people was fine, supposing +it was true. + +Brother Attinet, a Jesuit, a native of Dijon, was employed as designer +in the country house of the Emperor Camhi, at the distance of some +leagues from Pekin. + +"This country house," says he, in one of his letters to M. Dupont, "is +larger than the town of Dijon. It is divided into a thousand habitations +on one line; each one has its courts, its parterres, its gardens, and +its waters; the front of each is ornamented with gold varnish and +paintings. In the vast enclosures of the park, hills have been raised by +hand from twenty to sixty feet high. The valleys are watered by an +infinite number of canals, which run a considerable distance to join and +form lakes and seas. We float on these seas in boats varnished and +gilt, from twelve to thirteen fathoms long and four wide. These barks +have magnificent saloons, and the borders of the canals are covered with +houses, all in different tastes. Every house has its gardens and +cascades. You go from one valley to another by alleys, alternately +ornamented with pavilions and grottoes. No two valleys are alike; the +largest of all is surrounded by a colonnade, behind which are gilded +buildings. All the apartments of these houses correspond in magnificence +with the outside. All the canals have bridges at stated distances; these +bridges are bordered with balustrades of white marble sculptured in +basso-relievo. + +"In the middle of the great sea is raised a rock, and on this rock is a +square pavilion, in which are more than a hundred apartments. From this +square pavilion there is a view of all the palaces, all the houses, and +all the gardens of this immense enclosure, and there are more than four +hundred of them. + +"When the emperor gives a fête all these buildings are illuminated in an +instant, and from every house there are fireworks. + +"This is not all; at the end of what they call the sea is a great fair, +held by the emperor's officers. Vessels come from the great sea to +arrive at this fair. The courtiers disguise themselves as merchants and +artificers of all sorts; one keeps a coffee house, another a tavern; one +takes the profession of a thief, another that of the officer who +pursues him. The emperor and all the ladies of the court come to buy +stuffs, the false merchants cheat them as much as they can; they tell +them that it is shameful to dispute so much about the price, and that +they are poor customers. Their majesties reply that the merchants are +knaves; the latter are angry and affect to depart; they are appeased; +the emperor buys all and makes lotteries of it for all his court. +Farther on are spectacles of all sorts." + +When brother Attinet came from China to Versailles he found it small and +dull. The Germans, who were delighted to stroll about its groves, were +astonished that brother Attinet was so difficult. This is another reason +which determines me not to write a treatise on the beautiful. + + + + +BEES. + + +The bees may be regarded as superior to the human race in this, that +from their own substance they produce another which is useful; while, of +all our secretions, there is not one good for anything; nay, there is +not one which does not render mankind disagreeable. + +I have been charmed to find that the swarms which turn out of the hive +are much milder than our sons when they leave college. The young bees +then sting no one; or at least but rarely and in extraordinary cases. +They suffer themselves to be carried quietly in the bare hand to the +hive which is destined for them. But no sooner have they learned in +their new habitation to know their interests than they become like us +and make war. I have seen very peaceable bees go for six months to labor +in a neighboring meadow covered with flowers which secreted them. When +the mowers came they rushed furiously from their hive upon those who +were about to steal their property and put them to flight. + +We find in the Proverbs attributed to Solomon that "there are four +things, the least upon earth, but which are wiser than the wise men--the +ants, a little people who lay up food during the harvest; the hares, a +weak people who lie on stones; the grasshoppers, who have no kings and +who journey in flocks; and the lizards, which work with their hands and +dwell in the palaces of kings." I know not how Solomon forgot the bees, +whose instinct seems very superior to that of hares, which do not lie on +stone; or of lizards, with whose genius I am not acquainted. Moreover, I +shall always prefer a bee to a grasshopper. + +The bees have, in all ages, furnished the poet with descriptions, +comparisons, allegories, and fables. Mandeville's celebrated "Fable of +the Bees" made a great noise in England. Here is a short sketch of it: + + Once the bees, in worldly things, + Had a happy government; + And their laborers and their kings + Made them wealthy and content; + But some greedy drones at last + Found their way into their hive; + Those, in idleness to thrive, + Told the bees they ought to fast. + Sermons were _their_ only labors; + Work they preached unto their neighbors. + In their language they would say, + "You shall surely go to heaven, + When to us you've freely given + Wax and honey all away."-- + Foolishly the bees believed, + Till by famine undeceived; + When their misery was complete, + All the strange delusion vanished! + Now the drones are killed or banished, + And the bees again may eat. + +Mandeville goes much further; he asserts that bees cannot live at their +ease in a great and powerful hive without many vices. "No kingdom, no +state," says he, "can flourish without vices. Take away the vanity of +ladies of quality, and there will be no more fine manufactures of silk, +no more employment for men and women in a thousand different branches; a +great part of the nation will be reduced to beggary. Take away the +avarice of our merchants, and the fleets of England will be annihilated. +Deprive artists of envy, and emulation will cease; we shall sink back +into primitive rudeness and ignorance." + +It is quite true that a well-governed society turns every vice to +account; but it is not true that these vices are necessary to the +well-being of the world. Very good remedies may be made from poisons, +but poisons do not contribute to the support of life. By thus reducing +the "Fable of the Bees" to its just value, it might be made a work of +moral utility. + + + + +BEGGAR--MENDICANT + + +Every country where begging, where mendicity, is a profession, is ill +governed. Beggary, as I have elsewhere said, is a vermin that clings to +opulence. Yes; but let it be shaken off; let the hospitals be for +sickness and age alone, and let the shops be for the young and vigorous. + +The following is an extract from a sermon composed by a preacher ten +years ago for the parish of St. Leu and St. Giles, which is the parish +of the beggars and the convulsionaries: "_Pauper es evangelicantur_" +--"the gospel is preached to the poor." + +"My dear brethren the beggars, what is meant by the word _gospel_? It +signifies _good news_. It is, then, good news that I come to tell you; +and what is it? It is that if you are idlers you will die on a +dung-hill. Know that there have been idle kings, so at least we are +told, and they at last had not where to lay their heads. If you work, +you will be as happy as other men. + +"The preachers at St. Eustache and St. Roche may deliver to the rich +very fine sermons in a flowery style, which procure for the auditors a +light slumber with an easy digestion, and for the orator a thousand +crowns; but I address those whom hunger keeps awake. Work for your +bread, I say; for the Scripture says that he who does not work deserves +not to eat. Our brother in adversity, Job, who was for some time in your +condition, says that man is born to labor as the bird is to fly. Look +at this immense city; every one is busy; the judges rise at four in the +morning to administer justice to you and send you to the galleys when +your idleness has caused you to thieve rather awkwardly. + +"The king works; he attends his council every day; and he has made +campaigns. Perhaps you will say he is none the richer. Granted; but that +is not his fault. The financiers know, better than you or I do, that not +one-half his revenue ever enters his coffers. He has been obliged to +sell his plate in order to defend us against our enemies. We should aid +him in our turn. The Friend of Man (_l'Ami des Hommes_) allows him only +seventy-five millions per annum. Another friend all at once gives him +seven hundred and forty. But of all these Job's comforters, not one will +advance him a single crown. It is necessary to invent a thousand +ingenious ways of drawing this crown from our pockets, which, before it +reaches his own, is diminished by at least one-half. + +"Work, then, my dear brethren; act for yourselves, for I forewarn you +that if you do not take care of yourselves, no one will take care of +you; you will be treated as the king has been in several grave +remonstrances; people will say, 'God help you.' + +"We will go into the provinces, you will answer; we skill be fed by the +lords of the land, by the farmers, by the curates. Do not flatter +yourselves, my dear brethren, that you shall eat at their tables; they +have for the most part enough to do to feed themselves, notwithstanding +the 'Method of Rapidly Getting Rich by Agriculture' and fifty other +works of the same kind, published every day at Paris for the use of the +people in the country, with the cultivation of which the authors never +had anything to do. + +"I behold among you young men of some talent, who say that they will +make verses, that they will write pamphlets, like Chisiac, Normotte, or +Patouillet; that they will work for the _'Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques'_ +that they will write sheets for Fréron, funeral orations for bishops, +songs for the comic opera. Any of these would at least be an occupation. +When a man is writing for the _'Année Littéraire,'_ he is not robbing on +the highway, he is only robbing his creditors. But do better, my dear +brethren in Jesus Christ--my dear beggars, who, by passing your lives in +asking charity, run the risk of the galleys; do better; enter one of the +four mendicant orders; you will then be not only rich, but honored +also." + + + + +BEKKER, + +"THE WORLD BEWITCHED," THE DEVIL, THE BOOK OF ENOCH, AND SORCERERS. + + +This Balthazar Bekker, a very good man, a great enemy of the everlasting +hell and the devil, and a still greater of precision, made a great deal +of noise in his time by his great book, "The World Bewitched." + +One Jacques-George de Chaufepied, a pretended continuator of Bayle, +assures us that Bekker learned Greek at Gascoigne. Niceron has good +reasons for believing that it was at Franeker. This historical point has +occasioned much doubt and trouble at court. + +The fact is that in the time of Bekker, a minister of the Holy +Gospel--as they say in Holland--the devil was still in prodigious credit +among divines of all sorts in the middle of the seventeenth century, in +spite of the good spirits which were beginning to enlighten the world. +Witchcraft, possessions, and everything else attached to that fine +divinity, were in vogue throughout Europe and frequently had fatal +results. + +A century had scarcely elapsed since King James himself--called by Henry +IV. _Master_ James--that great enemy of the Roman communion and the +papal power, had published his "Demonology" (what a book for a king!) +and in it had admitted sorceries, incubuses, and succubuses, and +acknowledged the power of the devil, and of the pope, who, according to +him, had just as good a right to drive Satan from the bodies of the +possessed as any other priest. And we, miserable Frenchmen, who boast of +having recovered some small part of our senses, in what a horrid sink of +stupid barbarism were we then immersed! Not a parliament, not a +presidential court, but was occupied in trying sorcerers; not a great +jurisconsult who did not write memorials on possessions by the devil. +France resounded with the cries of poor imbecile creatures whom the +judges, after making them believe that they had danced round a cauldron, +tortured and put to death without pity, in horrible torments. Catholics +and Protestants were alike infected with this absurd and frightful +superstition; the pretext being that in one of the Christian gospels it +is said that disciples were sent to cast out devils. It was a sacred +duty to put girls to the torture in order to make them confess that they +had lain with Satan, and that they had fallen in love with him in the +form of a goat. All the particulars of the meetings of the girls with +this goat were detailed in the trials of the unfortunate individuals. +They were burned at last, whether they confessed or denied; and France +was one vast theatre of judicial carnage. + +I have before me a collection of these infernal proceedings, made by a +counsellor of the Parliament of Bordeaux, named De Langre, and addressed +to Monseigneur Silleri, chancellor of France, without Monseigneur +Silleri's having ever thought of enlightening those infamous +magistrates. But, indeed, it would have been necessary to begin by +enlightening the chancellor himself. What was France at that time? A +continual St. Bartholomew--from the massacre of Vassy to the +assassination of Marshal d'Ancre and his innocent wife. + +Will it be believed that in the time of this very Bekker, a poor girl +named Magdalen Chaudron, who had been persuaded that she was a witch, +was burned at Geneva? + +The following is a very exact summary of the procès-verbal of this +absurd and horrid act, which is not the last monument of the kind: + +"Michelle, having met the devil as she was going out of the town, the +devil gave her a kiss, received her homage, and imprinted on her upper +lip and her right breast the mark which it is his custom to affix on all +persons whom he recognizes as his favorites. This seal of the devil is a +small sign-manual, which, as demonological jurisconsults affirm, renders +the skin insensible. + +"The devil ordered Michelle Chaudron to bewitch two girls; and she +immediately obeyed her lord. The relatives of the young women judicially +charged her with devilish practices, and the girls themselves were +interrogated and confronted with the accused. They testified that they +constantly felt a swarming of ants in certain parts of their bodies, and +that they were possessed. The physicians were then called in, or at +least those who then passed as physicians. They visited the girls and +sought on Michelle's body for the devil's seal, which the procès-verbal +calls the _satanic marks_. They thrust a large needle into the spot, and +this of itself was a grievous torture. Blood flowed from the puncture; +and Michelle made known by her cries that satanic marks do not produce +insensibility. The judges, seeing no satisfactory evidence that Michelle +Chaudron was a witch, had her put to the torture, which never fails to +bring forth proofs. The unfortunate girl, yielding at length to the +violence of her tortures, confessed whatever was required of her. + +"The physicians again sought for the satanic mark. They found it in a +small dark spot on one of her thighs. They applied the needle; but the +torture had been so excessive that the poor, expiring creature scarcely +felt the wound; she did not cry out; therefore the crime was +satisfactorily proved. But, as manners were becoming less rude, she was +not burned until she had been hanged." + +Every tribunal in Christian Europe still rings with similar +condemnations; so long did this barbarous imbecility endure, that even +in our own day, at Würzburg, in Franconia, there was a witch burned in +1750. And what a witch! A young woman of quality, the abbess of a +convent! and in our own times, under the empire of Maria Theresa of +Austria! + +These horrors, by which Europe was so long filled, determined Bekker to +fight against the devil. In vain was he told, in prose and verse, that +he was doing wrong to attack him, seeing that he was extremely like him, +being horribly ugly; nothing could stop him. He began with absolutely +denying the power of Satan; and even grew so bold as to maintain that he +does not exist. "If," said he, "there were a devil, he would revenge the +war which I make upon him." + +Bekker reasoned but too well in saying that if the devil existed he +would punish him. His brother ministers took Satan's part and suspended +Bekker; for heretics will also excommunicate; and in the article of +cursing, Geneva mimics Rome. + +Bekker enters on his subject in the second volume. According to him, the +serpent which seduced our first parents was not a devil, but a real +serpent; as Balaam's ass was a real ass, and as the whale that swallowed +Jonah was a real whale. It was so decidedly a real serpent, that all its +species, which had before walked on their feet, were condemned to crawl +on their bellies. No serpent, no animal of any kind, is called Satan, or +Beelzebub, or devil, in the Pentateuch. There is not so much as an +allusion to Satan. The Dutch destroyer of Satan does, indeed, admit the +existence of angels; but at the same time he assures us that it cannot +be proved by reasoning. "And if there are any," says he, in the eighth +chapter of his second volume, "it is hard to say what they are. The +Scripture tells us nothing about their nature, nor in what the nature of +a spirit consists. The Bible was made, not for angels, but for men; +Jesus was made a man for us, not an angel." + +If Bekker has so many scruples concerning angels, it is not to be +wondered at that he has some concerning devils; and it is very amusing +to see into what contortions he puts his mind in order to avail himself +of such texts as appear to be in his favor and to evade such as are +against him. + +He does his utmost to prove that the devil had nothing to do with the +afflictions of Job; and here he is even more prolix than the friends of +that holy man. + +There is great probability that he was condemned only through the +ill-humor of his judges at having lost so much time in reading his work. +If the devil himself had been forced to read Bekker's "World Bewitched" +he could never have forgiven the fault of having so prodigiously wearied +him. + +One of our Dutch divine's greatest difficulties is to explain these +words: "Jesus was transported by the spirit into the desert to be +tempted by the devil." No text can be clearer. A divine may write +against Beelzebub as much as he pleases, but he must of necessity admit +his existence; he may then explain the difficult texts if he can. + +Whoever desires to know precisely what the devil is may be informed by +referring to the Jesuit Scott; no one has spoken of him more at length; +he is much worse than Bekker. + +Consulting history, where the ancient origin of the devil is to be found +in the doctrine of the Persians, Ahrimanes, the bad principle, corrupts +all that the good principle had made salutary. Among the Egyptians, +Typhon does all the harm he can; while Oshireth, whom we call Osiris, +does, together with Isheth, or Isis, all the good of which he is +capable. + +Before the Egyptians and Persians, Mozazor, among the Indians, had +revolted against God and become the devil, but God had at last pardoned +him. If Bekker and the Socinians had known this anecdote of the fall of +the Indian angels and their restoration, they would have availed +themselves of it to support their opinion that hell is not perpetual, +and to give hopes of salvation to such of the damned as read their +books. + +The Jews, as has already been observed, never spoke of the fall of the +angels in the Old Testament; but it is mentioned in the New. + +About the period of the establishment of Christianity a book was +attributed to "Enoch, the seventh man after Adam," concerning the devil +and his associates. Enoch gives us the names of the leaders of the +rebellious and the faithful angels, but he does not say that war was in +heaven; on the contrary, the fight was upon a mountain of the earth, and +it was for the possession of young women. + +St. Jude cites this book in his Epistle: "And the angels, which kept not +their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in +everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great +day.... Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain.... And +Enoch, also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these...." + +St. Peter in his second Epistle alludes to the Book of Enoch when he +says: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down +to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness...." + +Bekker must have found it difficult to resist passages so formal. +However, he was even more inflexible on the subject of devils than on +that of angels; he would not be subdued by the Book of Enoch, the +seventh man from Adam; he maintained that there was no more a devil than +there was a book of Enoch. He said that the devil was imitated from +ancient mythology, that it was an old story revived, and that we are +nothing more than plagiarists. + +We may at the present day be asked why we call that Lucifer the _evil +spirit_, whom the Hebrew version, and the book attributed to Enoch, +named Samyaza. It is because we understand Latin better than Hebrew. + +But whether Lucifer be the planet Venus, or the Samyaza of Enoch, or the +Satan of the Babylonians, or the Mozazor of the Indians, or the Typhon +of the Egyptians, Bekker was right in saying that so enormous a power +ought not to be attributed to him as that with which, even down to our +own times, he has been believed to be invested. It is too much to have +immolated to him a woman of quality of Würzburg, Magdalen Chaudron, the +curate of Gaupidi, the wife of Marshal d'Ancre, and more than a hundred +thousand other wizards and witches, in the space of thirteen hundred +years, in Christian states. Had Belthazar Bekker been content with +paring the devil's nails, he would have been very well received; but +when a curate would annihilate the devil he loses his cure. + + + + +BELIEF. + + +We shall see at the article "Certainty" that we ought often to be very +uncertain of what we are certain of; and that we may fail in good sense +when deciding according to what is called _common_ sense. But what is it +that we call _believing_? + +A Turk comes and says to me, "I believe that the angel Gabriel often +descended from the empyrean, to bring Mahomet leaves of the Koran, +written on blue vellum." + +Well, Mustapha, and on what does thy shaven head found its belief of +this incredible thing? + +"On this: That there are the greatest probabilities that I have not been +deceived in the relation of these improbable prodigies; that Abubeker, +the father-in-law, Ali, the son-in-law, Aisha, or Aisse, the daughter, +Omar, and Osman, certified the truth of the fact in the presence of +fifty thousand men--gathered together all the leaves, read them to the +faithful, and attested that not a word had been altered. + +"That we have never had but one Koran, which has never been contradicted +by another Koran. That God has never permitted the least alteration to +be made in this book. + +"That its doctrine and precepts are the perfection of reason. Its +doctrine consists in the unity of God, for Whom we must live and die; in +the immortality of the soul; the eternal rewards of the just and +punishments of the wicked; and the mission of our great prophet +Mahomet, proved by victories. + +"Its precepts are: To be just and valiant; to give alms to the poor; to +abstain from that enormous number of women whom the Eastern princes, and +in particular the petty Jewish kings, took to themselves without +scruple; to renounce the good wines of Engaddi and Tadmor, which those +drunken Hebrews have so praised in their books; to pray to God five +times a day, etc. + +"This sublime religion has been confirmed by the miracle of all others +the finest, the most constant, and best verified in the history of the +world; that Mahomet, persecuted by the gross and absurd scholastic +magistrates who decreed his arrest, and obliged to quit his country, +returned victorious; that he made his imbecile and sanguinary enemies +his footstool; that he all his life fought the battles of the Lord; that +with a small number he always triumphed over the greater number; that he +and his successors have converted one-half of the earth; and that, with +God's help, we shall one day convert the other half." + +Nothing can be arrayed in more dazzling colors. Yet Mustapha, while +believing so firmly, always feels some small shadows of doubt arising in +his soul when he hears any difficulties started respecting the visits of +the angel Gabriel; the sura or chapter brought from heaven to declare +that the great prophet was not a cuckold; or the mare Borak, which +carried him in one night from Mecca to Jerusalem. Mustapha stammers; he +makes very bad answers, at which he blushes; yet he not only tells you +that he believes, but would also persuade you to believe. You press +Mustapha; he still gapes and stares, and at last goes away to wash +himself in honor of Allah, beginning his ablution at the elbow and +ending with the forefinger. + +Is Mustapha really persuaded--convinced of all that he has told us? Is +he perfectly sure that Mahomet was sent by God, as he is sure that the +city of Stamboul exists? as he is sure that the Empress Catherine II. +sent a fleet from the remotest seas of the North to land troops in +Peloponnesus--a thing as astonishing as the journey from Mecca to +Jerusalem in one night--and that this fleet destroyed that of the +Ottomans in the Dardanelles? + +The truth is that Mustapha believes what he does not believe. He has +been accustomed to pronounce, with his mollah, certain words which he +takes for ideas. To _believe_ is very often to _doubt_. + +"Why do you believe that?" says Harpagon. "I believe it because I +believe it," answers Master Jacques; and most men might return the same +answer. + +Believe me fully, my dear reader, when I say one must not believe too +easily. But what shall we say of those who would persuade others of what +they themselves do not believe? and what of the monsters who persecute +their brethren in the humble and rational doctrine of doubt and +self-distrust? + + + + +BETHSHEMESH. + +_Of the Fifty Thousand and Seventy Jews Struck with Sudden Death for +Having Looked Upon the Ark; of the Five Golden Emeroids Paid by the +Philistines; and of Dr. Kennicott's Incredulity._ + + +Men of the world will perhaps be astonished to find this word the +subject of an article; but we here address only the learned and ask +their instruction. + +Bethshemesh was a village belonging to God's people, situated, according +to commentators, two miles north of Jerusalem. The Phoenicians having, +in Samuel's time, beaten the Jews, and taken from them their Ark of +alliance in the battle, in which they killed thirty thousand of their +men, were severely punished for it by the Lord: + +_"Percussit eos in secretiori parte natium, et ebullierunt villæ et +agri.... et nati sunt mures, et facta est confusio mortis magna in +civitate."_ Literally: "He struck them in the most secret part of the +buttocks; and the fields and the farmhouses were troubled.... and there +sprung up mice; and there was a great confusion of death in the city." + +The prophets of the Phoenicians, or Philistines, having informed them +that they could deliver themselves from the scourge only by giving to +the Lord five golden mice and five golden emeroids, and sending him back +the Jewish Ark, they fulfilled this order, and, according to the express +command of their prophets sent back the Ark with the mice and emeroids +on a wagon drawn by two cows, with each a sucking calf and without a +driver. + +These two cows of themselves took the Ark straight to Bethshemesh. The +men of Bethshemesh approached the Ark in order to look at it, which +liberty was punished yet more severely than the profanation by the +Phoenicians had been. The Lord struck with sudden death seventy men of +the people, and fifty thousand of the populace. + +The reverend Doctor Kennicott, an Irishman, printed in 1768 a French +commentary on this occurrence and dedicated it to the bishop of Oxford. +At the head of this commentary he entitles himself Doctor of Divinity, +member of the Royal Society of London, of the Palatine Academy, of the +Academy of Göttingen, and of the Academy of Inscriptions at Paris. All +that I know of the matter is that he is not of the Academy of +Inscriptions at Paris. Perhaps he is one of its correspondents. His vast +erudition may have deceived him, but titles are distinct from things. + +He informs the public that his pamphlet is sold at Paris by Saillant and +Molini, at Rome by Monaldini, at Venice by Pasquali, at Florence by +Cambiagi, at Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey, at The Hague by Gosse, at +Leyden by Jaquau, and in London by Beckett, who receives subscriptions. + +In this pamphlet he pretends to prove that the Scripture text has been +corrupted. Here we must be permitted to differ with him. Nearly all +Bibles agree in these expressions: seventy men of the people and fifty +thousand of the populace--_"De populo septuaginta viros, et quinquaginta +millia plebis."_ The reverend Doctor Kennicott says to the right +reverend the lord bishop of Oxford that formerly there were strong +prejudices in favor of the Hebrew text, but that for seventeen years his +lordship and himself have been freed from their prejudices, after the +deliberate and attentive perusal of this chapter. + +In this we differ from Dr. Kennicott, and the more we read this chapter +the more we reverence the ways of the Lord, which are not our ways. It +is impossible, says Kennicott, for the candid reader not to feel +astonished and affected at the contemplation of fifty thousand men +destroyed in one village--men, too, employed in gathering the harvest. + +This does, it is true, suppose a hundred thousand persons, at least, in +that village, but should the doctor forget that the Lord had promised +Abraham that his posterity should be as numerous as the sands of the +sea? + +The Jews and the Christians, adds he, have not scrupled to express their +repugnance to attach faith to this destruction of fifty thousand and +seventy men. + +We answer that we are Christians and have no repugnance to attach faith +to whatever is in the Holy Scriptures. We answer, with the reverend +Father Calmet, that "if we were to reject whatever is extraordinary and +beyond the reach of our conception we must reject the whole Bible." We +are persuaded that the Jews, being under the guidance of God himself, +could experience no events but such as were stamped with the seal of the +Divinity and quite different from what happened to other men. We will +even venture to advance that the death of these fifty thousand and +seventy men is one of the least surprising things in the Old Testament. + +We are struck with astonishment still more reverential when Eve's +serpent and Balaam's ass talk; when the waters of the cataracts are +swelled by rain fifteen cubits above all the mountains; when we behold +the plagues of Egypt, and the six hundred and thirty thousand fighting +Jews flying on foot through the divided and suspended sea; when Joshua +stops the sun and moon at noonday; when Samson slays a thousand +Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass.... In those divine times all +was miracle, without exception, and we have the profoundest reverence +for all these miracles--for that ancient world which was not our world; +for that nature which was not our nature; for a divine book, in which +there can be nothing human. + +But we are astonished at the liberty which Dr. Kennicott takes of +calling those deists and atheists, who, while they revere the Bible more +than he does, differ from him in opinion. Never will it be believed that +a man with such ideas is of the Academy of Medals and Inscriptions. He +is, perhaps, of the Academy of Bedlam, the most ancient of all, and +whose colonies extend throughout the earth. + + + + +BILHAH--BASTARDS + + +Bilhah, servant to Rachel, and Zilpah, servant to Leah, each bore the +patriarch Jacob two children, and, be it observed, that they inherited +like legitimate sons, as well as the eight other male children whom +Jacob had by the two sisters Leah and Rachel. It is true that all their +inheritance consisted in a blessing; whereas, William the Bastard +inherited Normandy. + +Thierri, a bastard of Clovis, inherited the best part of Gaul, invaded +by his father. Several kings of Spain and Naples have been bastards. In +Spain bastards have always inherited. King Henry of Transtamare was not +considered as an illegitimate king, though he was an illegitimate child, +and this race of bastards, founded in the house of Austria, reigned in +Spain until Philip V. + +The line of Aragon, who reigned in Naples in the time of Louis XII., +were bastards. Count de Dunois signed himself "the bastard of Orleans," +and letters were long preserved of the duke of Normandy, king of +England, which were signed "William the Bastard." + +In Germany it is otherwise; the descent must be pure; bastards never +inherit fiefs, nor have any estate. In France, as has long been the +case, a king's bastard cannot be a priest without a dispensation from +Rome, but he becomes a prince without any difficulty as soon as the king +acknowledges him to be the offspring of his sire, even though he be the +bastard of an adulterous father and mother. It is the same in Spain. The +bastard of a king of England may be a duke but not a prince. Jacob's +bastards were neither princes nor dukes; they had no lands, the reason +being that their father had none, but they were afterwards called +_patriarchs_, which may be rendered _arch-fathers_. + +It has been asked whether the bastards of the popes might be popes in +turn. Pope John XI. was, it is true, a bastard of Pope Sergius III., and +of the famous Marozia; but an instance is not a law. + + + + +BISHOP. + + +Samuel Ornik, a native of Basle, was, as is well known, a very amiable +young man, who, moreover, knew his German and Greek New Testament by +heart. At the age of twenty his parents sent him to travel. He was +commissioned to carry books to the coadjutor at Paris in the time of the +Fronde. He arrived at the archbishop's gate and was told by the Swiss +that _monseigneur_ saw no one. "My dear fellow," said Ornik, "you are +very rude to your countrymen; the apostles allowed every one to +approach, and Jesus Christ desired that little children should come unto +him. I have nothing to ask of your master; on the contrary, I bring him +something." "Enter, then," said the Swiss. + +He waited an hour in the first ante-chamber. Being quite artless he +attacked with questions a domestic who was very fond of telling all he +knew about his master. "He must be pretty rich," said Ornik, "to have +such a swarm of pages and footmen running in and out of the house." "I +don't know," answered the other, "what his income is, but I hear Joli +and the Abbé Charier say that he is two millions in debt." "But who is +that lady who came out of a cabinet and is passing by?" "That is Madame +de Pomereu, one of his mistresses." "She is really very pretty, but I +have not read that the apostles had such company in their bedchambers in +a morning." "Ah! that, I believe, is monsieur, about to give audience." +"Say _sa grandeur, monseigneur_." "Well, with all my heart...." Ornik +saluted _sa grandeur_, presented his books, and was received with a most +gracious smile. _Sa grandeur_ said three words to him, and stepped into +his carriage, escorted by fifty horsemen. In stepping in, monseigneur +dropped a sheath and Ornik was astonished that monseigneur should carry +so large an inkhorn. "Do you not see," said the talker, "that it is his +dagger? every one that goes to parliament wears his dagger?" Ornik +uttered an exclamation of astonishment, and departed. + +He went through France and was edified by town after town. From thence +he passed into Italy. In the papal territories he met a bishop with an +income of only a thousand crowns, who went on foot. Ornik, being +naturally kind, offered him a place in his cambiatura. "Signor, you are +no doubt going to comfort the sick?" "Sir, I am going to my master." +"Your master? He, no doubt, is Jesus Christ." "Sir, he is Cardinal +Azolino; I am his almoner. He gives me a very poor salary, but he has +promised to place me with Donna Olimpia, the favorite sister-in-law of +_nostro signore_." "What! are you in the pay of a cardinal? But do you +not know that there were no cardinals in the time of Jesus Christ and +St. John?" "Is it possible!" exclaimed the Italian prelate. "Nothing is +more true; you have read it in the Gospel." "I have never read it," +replied the bishop; "I know only the office of Our Lady." "I tell you +there were neither cardinals nor bishops, and when there were bishops +the priests were almost their equals, as St. Jerome, in several places, +assures us." "Holy Virgin" said the Italian, "I knew nothing about it; +and what of the popes?" "There were no popes either." The good bishop +crossed himself, thinking he was with the evil one, and leaped from the +side of his companion. + + + + +BLASPHEMY. + + +This is a Greek word signifying _an attack on reputation_. We find +blasphemia in Demosthenes. In the Greek Church it was used only to +express an injury done to God. The Romans never made use of this +expression, apparently not thinking that God's honor could be offended +like that of men. + +There scarcely exists one synonym. Blasphemy does not altogether convey +the idea of sacrilege. We say of a man who has taken God's name in +vain, who, in the violence of anger, has sworn--as it is expressed--by +the name of God, that he has _blasphemed_; but we do not say that he has +committed sacrilege. The sacrilegious man is he who perjures himself on +the gospel, who extends his rapacity to sacred things, who imbrues his +hands in the blood of priests. + +Great sacrileges have always been punished with death in all nations, +especially those accompanied by bloodshed. The author of the +_"Institutes au Droit Criminel"_ reckons among divine high treasons in +the second degree, the non-observance of Sundays and holidays. He should +have said the non-observance attended with marked contempt, for simple +negligence is a sin, but not, as he calls it, a sacrilege. It is absurd +to class together, as this author does, simony, the carrying off of a +nun, and the forgetting to go to vespers on a holiday. It is one great +instance of the errors committed by writers on jurisprudence, who, not +having been called upon to make laws, take upon themselves to interpret +those of the state. + +Blasphemies uttered in intoxication, in anger, in the excess of +debauchery, or in the heat of unguarded conversation have been subjected +by legislators to much lighter penalties. For instance, the advocate +whom we have already cited says that the laws of France condemn simple +blasphemers to a fine for the first offence, which is doubled for the +second, tripled for the third, and quadrupled for the fourth offence; +for the fifth relapse the culprit is set in the pillory, for the sixth +relapse he is pilloried, and has his upper lip burned off with a hot +iron, and for the seventh he loses his tongue. He should have added that +this was an ordinance of the year 1666. + +Punishments are almost always arbitrary, which is a great defect in +jurisprudence. But this defect opens the way for clemency and +compassion, and this compassion is no other than the strictest justice, +for it would be horrible to punish a youthful indiscretion as poisoners +and parricides are punished. A sentence of death for an offence which +deserves nothing more than correction is no other than an assassination +committed with the sword of justice. + +Is it not to the purpose here to remark that what has been blasphemy in +one country has often been piety in another? + +Suppose a Tyrian merchant landed at the port of Canope: he might be +scandalized on seeing an onion, a cat, or a goat carried in procession; +he might speak indecorously of Isheth, Oshireth, and Horeth, or might +turn aside his head and not fall on his knees at the sight of a +procession with the parts of human generation larger than life; he might +express his opinion at supper, or even sing some song in which the +Tyrian sailors made a jest of the Egyptian absurdities. He might be +overheard by the maid of the inn, whose conscience would not suffer her +to conceal so enormous a crime; she would run and denounce the offender +to the nearest shoen that bore the image of the truth on his breast, and +it is known how this image of truth was made. The tribunal of the +shoens, or shotim, would condemn the Tyrian blasphemer to a dreadful +death, and confiscate his vessel. Yet this merchant might be considered +at Tyre as one of the most pious persons in Phoenicia. + +Numa sees that his little horde of Romans is a Collection of Latin +freebooters who steal right and left all they can find--oxen, sheep, +fowls, and girls. He tells them that he has spoken with the nymph Egeria +in a cavern, and that the nymph has been employed by Jupiter to give him +laws. The senators treat him at first as a blasphemer and threaten to +throw him headlong from the Tarpeian rock. Numa makes himself a powerful +party; he gains over some seniors who go with him into Egeria's grotto. +She talks to them and converts them; they convert the senate and the +people. In a little time Numa is no longer a blasphemer, the name is +given only to such as doubt the existence of the nymph. + +In our own times it is unfortunate that what is blasphemy at Rome, at +our Lady of Loretto, and within the walls of San Gennaro, is piety in +London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, Copenhagen, Berne, Basel, and +Hamburg. It is yet more unfortunate that even in the same country, in +the same town, in the same street, people treat one another as +blasphemers. + +Nay, of the ten thousand Jews living at Rome there is not one who does +not regard the pope as the chief of the blasphemers, while the hundred +thousand Christians who inhabit Rome, in place of two millions of +Jovians who filled it in Trajan's time, firmly believe that the Jews +meet in their synagogues on Saturday for the purpose of blaspheming. + +A Cordelier has no hesitation in applying the epithet of blasphemer to a +Dominican who says that the Holy Virgin was born in original sin, +notwithstanding that the Dominicans have a bull from the pope which +permits them to teach the maculate conception in their convents, and +that, besides this bull, they have in their forum the express +declaration of St. Thomas Aquinas. + +The first origin of the schism of three-fourths of Switzerland and a +part of Lower Germany was a quarrel in the cathedral church of Frankfort +between a Cordelier, whose name I forget, and a Dominican named Vigand. + +Both were drunk, according to the custom of that day. The drunken +Cordelier, who was preaching, thanked God that he was not a Jacobin, +swearing that it was necessary to exterminate the blaspheming Jacobins +who believed that the Holy Virgin had been born in mortal sin, and +delivered from sin only by the merits of her son. The drunken Jacobin +cried out: "Thou hast lied; thou thyself art a blasphemer." The +Cordelier descended from the pulpit with a great iron crucifix in his +hand, laid it about his adversary, and left him almost dead on the spot. + +To revenge this outrage the Dominicans worked many miracles in Germany +and Switzerland; these miracles were designed to prove their faith. +They at length found means to imprint the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ +on one of their lay brethren named Jetzer. This operation was performed +at Berne by the Holy Virgin herself, but she borrowed the hand of the +sub-prior, who dressed himself in female attire and put a glory round +his head. The poor little lay brother, exposed all bloody to the +veneration of the people on the altar of the Dominicans at Berne, at +last cried out murder! sacrilege! The monks, in order to quiet him as +quickly as possible administered to him a host sprinkled with corrosive +sublimate, but the excess of the dose made him discharge the host from +his stomach. + +The monks then accused him to the bishop of Lausanne of horrible +sacrilege. The indignant people of Berne in their turn accused the +monks, and four of them were burned at Berne on the 13th of May, 1509, +at the Marsilly gate. Such was the termination of this abominable +affair, which determined the people of Berne to choose a religion, bad +indeed in Catholic eyes, but which delivered them from the Cordeliers +and the Jacobins. The number of similar sacrileges is incredible. Such +are the effects of party spirit. + +The Jesuits maintained for a hundred years that the Jansenists were +blasphemers, and proved it by a thousand _lettres-de-cachet_; the +Jansenists by upwards of four thousand volumes demonstrated that it was +the Jesuits who blasphemed. The writer of the _"Gazettes +Ecclésiastiques"_ pretends that all honest men blaspheme against him, +while he himself blasphemes from his garret on high against every honest +man in the kingdom. The gazette-writer's publisher blasphemes in return +and complains that he is starving. He would find it better to be honest +and polite. + +One thing equally remarkable and consoling is that never in any country +of the earth, among the wildest idolaters, has any man been considered +as a blasphemer for acknowledging one supreme, eternal, and all-powerful +God. It certainly was not for having acknowledged this truth that +Socrates was condemned to the hemlock, for the doctrine of a Supreme God +was announced in all the Grecian mysteries. It was a faction that +destroyed Socrates; he was accused, at a venture, of not recognizing the +_secondary_ gods, and on this point it was that he was accused as a +blasphemer. + +The first Christians were accused of blasphemy for the same reason, but +the partisans of the ancient religion of the empire, the Jovians, who +reproached the primitive Christians with blasphemy, were at length +condemned as blasphemers themselves, under Theodosius II. Dryden says: + + This side to-day, to-morrow t'other burns, + And they're all Gods Almighty in their turns. + + + + +BODY. + + +Body and matter are here the same thing although there is hardly any +such thing as synonym in the most rigorous sense of the word. There have +been persons who by this word "body" have understood "spirit" also. +They have said spirit originally signifies breath; only a body can +breathe, therefore body and spirit may, after all, be the same thing. In +this sense La Fontaine said to the celebrated Duke de la Rochefoucauld: +_"J'entens les esprits corps et pétris de matière."_ In the same sense +he says to Madame Sablière: + + _Je subtiliserais un morceau de matière,_ + _Quintessence d'atome, extrait de la lumière,_ + _je ne sais quoiplus vif et plus subtil encor...._ + +No one thought of harassing good Monsieur La Fontaine, or bringing him +to trial for his expressions. Were a poor philosopher, or even a poet, +to say as much nowadays, how many would there be to fall on him! How +many scribblers to sell their extracts for sixpence! How many knaves, +for the sole purpose of making mischief, to cry philosopher! +peripatetic! disciple of Gassendi! pupil of Locke, and the primitive +fathers! damnable! + +As we know not what a spirit is, so also we are ignorant of what a body +is; we see various properties, but what is the subject in which those +properties reside? "There is nothing but body," said Democritus and +Epicurus; "there is no such thing as body," said the disciples of Zeno, +of Elia. + +Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne, is the last who, by a hundred captious +sophisms, has pretended to prove that bodies do not exist. They have, +says he, neither color, nor smell, nor heat; all these modalities are +in your sensations, not in the objects. He might have spared himself +the trouble of proving this truth for it was already sufficiently known. +But thence he passed to extent and solidity, which are essential to +body, and thinks he proves that there is no extent in a piece of green +cloth because the cloth is not in reality green, the sensation of green +being in ourselves only, therefore the sensation of extent is likewise +in ourselves only. Having thus destroyed extent he concludes that +solidity, which is attached to it, falls of itself, and therefore that +there is nothing in the world but our ideas. So that, according to this +doctor, ten thousand men killed by ten thousand cannon shots are in +reality nothing more than ten thousand apprehensions of our +understanding, and when a female becomes pregnant it is only one idea +lodged in another idea from which a third idea will be produced. + +Surely, the bishop of Cloyne might have saved himself from falling into +this excessive absurdity. He thinks he shows that there is no extent +because a body has appeared to him four times as large through a glass +as to his naked eye, and four times as small through another glass. +Hence he concludes, that, since a body cannot be at the same time four +feet, sixteen feet, and but one foot in extent, there is no extent, +therefore there is nothing. He had only to take any measure and say: of +whatever extent this body may appear to me to be, it extends to so many +of these measures. + +We might very easily see that extent and solidity were quite different +from sound, color, taste, smell. It is quite clear that these are +sensations excited in us by the configuration of parts, but extent is +not a sensation. When this lighted coal goes out, I am no longer warm; +when the air is no longer struck, I cease to hear; when this rose +withers, I no longer smell it: but the coal, the air, and the rose have +extent without me. Berkeley's paradox is not worth refuting. + +Thus argued Zeno and Parmenides of old, and very clever they were; they +would prove to you that a tortoise went along as swiftly as Achilles, +for there was no such thing as motion; they discussed a hundred other +questions equally important. Most of the Greeks made philosophy a +juggle, and they transmitted their art to our schoolmen. Bayle himself +was occasionally one of the set and embroidered cobwebs like the rest. +In his article, "Zeno," against the divisible extent of matter and the +contiguity of bodies he ventures to say what would not be tolerated in +any six-months geometrician. + +It is worth knowing how Berkeley was drawn into this paradox. A long +while ago I had some conversation with him, and he told me that his +opinion originated in our being unable to conceive what the subject of +this extension is, and certainly, in his book, he triumphs when he asks +Hylas what this subject, this substratum, this substance is? It is the +extended body, answers Hylas. Then the bishop, under the name of +Philonous, laughs at him, and poor Hylas, finding that he has said that +extension is the subject of extension, and has therefore talked +nonsense, remains quite confused, acknowledges that he understands +nothing at all of the matter; that there is no such thing as body; that +the natural world does not exist, and that there is none but an +intellectual world. + +Hylas should only have said to Philonous: We know nothing of the subject +of this extension, solidity, divisibility, mobility, figure, etc.; I +know no more of it than I do of the subject of thought, feeling, and +will, but the subject does not the less exist for it has essential +properties of which it cannot be deprived. + +We all resemble the greater part of the Parisian ladies who live well +without knowing what is put in their ragouts; just so do we enjoy bodies +without knowing of what they are composed. Of what does a body consist? +Of parts, and these parts resolve themselves into other parts. What are +these last parts? They, too, are bodies; you divide incessantly without +making any progress. + +In short, a subtle philosopher, observing that a picture was made of +ingredients of which no single ingredient was a picture, and a house of +materials of which no one material was a house, imagined that bodies are +composed of an infinity of small things which are not bodies, and these +are called monads. This system is not without its merits, and, were it +revealed, I should think it very possible. These little beings would be +so many mathematical points, a sort of souls, waiting only for a +tenement: here would be a continual metempsychosis. This system is as +good as another; I like it quite as well as the declination of atoms, +the substantial forms, the versatile grace, or the vampires. + + + + +BOOKS. + + +SECTION I. + +You despise books; you, whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of +ambition, the pursuit of pleasure, or in indolence, but remember that +all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by +books. All Africa, to the limits of Ethiopia and Nigritia obeys the book +of the Koran after bowing to the book of the Gospel. China is ruled by +the moral book of Confucius, and a great part of India by the Veda. +Persia was governed for ages by the books of one of the Zoroasters. + +In a lawsuit or criminal process, your property, your honor, perhaps +your life, depends on the interpretation of a book which you never read. +It is, however, with books as with men, a very small number play a great +part, the rest are confounded with the multitude. + +By whom are mankind led in all civilized countries? By those who can +read and write. You are acquainted with neither Hippocrates, nor +Boerhaave, nor Sydenham, but you place your body in the hands of those +who can read them. You leave your soul entirely to the care of those +who are paid for reading the Bible, although there are not fifty of them +who have read it through with attention. + +The world is now so entirely governed by books that they who command in +the city of the Scipios and the Catos have resolved that the books of +their law shall be for themselves alone; they are their sceptre, which +they have made it high treason in their subjects to touch without an +express permission. In other countries it has been forbidden to think in +print without letters-patent. + +There are nations in which thought is considered merely as an article of +commerce, the operations of the human understanding being valued only at +so much per sheet. If the bookseller happens to desire a privilege for +his merchandise whether he is selling "Rabelais," or the "Fathers of the +Church," the magistrate grants the privilege without answering for the +contents of the book. + +In another country the liberty of explaining yourself by books is one of +the most inviolable prerogatives. There you may print whatever you +please, on pain of being tiresome, and of being punished if you have too +much abused your natural right. + +Before the admirable invention of printing, books were scarcer and +dearer than jewels. There were scarcely any books in our barbarous +nations, either before Charlemagne or after him, until the time of +Charles V., king of France, called the Wise, and from this time to +Francis I. the scarcity was extreme. The Arabs alone had them from the +eighth to the thirteenth century of our era. China was full of them when +we could neither read nor write. + +Copyists were much employed in the Roman Empire from the time of the +Scipios until the irruption of the barbarians. This was a very +ungrateful employment. The dealers always paid authors and copyists very +ill. It required two years of assiduous labor for a copyist to +transcribe the whole Bible well on vellum, and what time and trouble to +copy correctly in Greek and Latin the works of Origen, Clement of +Alexandria and all the others writers called Fathers! + +St. Hieronymos, or Hieronymus, whom we call Jerome, says, in one of his +satirical letters against Rufinus that he has ruined himself with buying +the works of Origen, against whom he wrote with so much bitterness and +violence. "Yes," says he, "I have read Origen, if it be a crime I +confess that I am guilty and that I exhausted my purse in buying his +works at Alexandria." + +The Christian societies of the three first centuries had fifty-four +gospels, of which, until Diocletian's time scarcely two or three copies +found their way among the Romans of the old religion. + +Among the Christians it was an unpardonable crime to show the gospels to +the Gentiles; they did not even lend them to the catechumens. + +When Lucian (insulting our religion of which he knew very little) +relates that "a troop of beggars took him up into a fourth story where +they were invoking the Father through the Son, and foretelling +misfortunes to the emperor and the empire," he does not say that they +showed him a single book. No Roman historian, no Roman author whomsoever +makes mention of the gospels. + +When a Christian, who was unfortunately rash and unworthy of his holy +religion had publicly torn in pieces and trampled under foot an edict of +the Emperor Diocletian, and had thus drawn down upon Christianity that +persecution which succeeded the greatest toleration, the Christians were +then obliged to give up their gospels and written authors to the +magistrates, which before then had never been done. Those who gave up +their books through fear of imprisonment, or even of death, were held by +the rest of the Christians to be sacrilegious apostates, they received +the surname of _traditores_, whence we have the word "traitor," and +several bishops asserted that they should be rebaptized, which +occasioned a dreadful schism. + +The poems of Homer were long so little known that Pisistratus was the +first who put them in order and had them transcribed at Athens about +five hundred years before the Christian era. + +Perhaps there was not at this time in all the East a dozen copies of the +Veda and the Zend-Avesta. + +In 1700 you would not have found a single book in all Rome, excepting +the missals and a few Bibles in the hands of papas drunk with brandy. + +The complaint now is of their too great abundance. But it is not for +readers to complain, the remedy is in their own hands; nothing forces +them to read. Nor for authors, they who make the multitude of books have +not to complain of being pressed. Notwithstanding this enormous quantity +how few people read! But if they read, and read with advantage, should +we have to witness the deplorable infatuations to which the vulgar are +still every day a prey? + +The reason that books are multiplied in spite of the general law that +beings shall not be multiplied without necessity, is that books are made +from books. A new history of France or Spain is manufactured from +several volumes already printed, without adding anything new. All +dictionaries are made from dictionaries; almost all new geographical +books are made from other books of geography; St. Thomas's Dream has +brought forth two thousand large volumes of divinity, and the same race +of little worms that have devoured the parent are now gnawing the +children. + + _Écrive qui voudra, chacun a son métier_ + _Peut perdre impunément de l'encre et du papier._ + + Write, write away; each writer at his pleasure + May squander ink and paper without measure. + + +SECTION II. + +It is sometimes very dangerous to make a book. Silhouète, before he +could suspect that he should one day be comptroller-general of the +finances, published a translation of Warburton's "Alliance of Church +and State," and his father-in-law, Astuce the physician, gave to the +public the "Memoirs," in which the author of the Pentateuch might have +found all the astonishing things which happened so long before his time. + +The very day that Silhouète came into office, some good friend of his +sought out a copy of each of these books by the father-in-law and +son-in-law, in order to denounce them to the parliament and have them +condemned to the flames, according to custom. They immediately bought up +all the copies in the kingdom, whence it is that they are now extremely +rare. + +There is hardly a single philosophical or theological book in which +heresies and impieties may not be found by misinterpreting, or adding +to, or subtracting from, the sense. + +Theodore of Mopsuestes ventured to call the "Canticle of Canticles," "a +collection of impurities." Grotius pulls it in pieces and represents it +as horrid, and Chatillon speaks of it as "a scandalous production." + +Perhaps it will hardly be believed that Dr. Tamponet one day said to +several others: "I would engage to find a multitude of heresies in the +Lord's Prayer if this prayer, which we know to have come from the Divine +mouth, were now for the first time published by a Jesuit." + +I would proceed thus: "Our Father, who art in heaven--" a proposition +inclining to heresy, since God is everywhere. Nay, we find in this +expression the leaven of Socinianism, for here is nothing at all said of +the Trinity. + +"Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven--" +another proposition tainted with heresy, for it said again and again in +the Scriptures that God reigns eternally. Moreover it is very rash to +ask that His will may be done, since nothing is or can be done but by +the will of God. + +"Give us this day our daily bread"--a proposition directly contrary to +what Jesus Christ uttered on another occasion: "Take no thought, saying +what shall we eat? or what shall we drink?... for after all these things +do the Gentiles seek.... But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His +righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." + +"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors--" a rash +proposition, which compares man to God, destroys gratuitous +predestination, and teaches that God is bound to do to us as we do to +others. Besides, how can the author say that we forgive our debtors? We +have never forgiven them a single crown. No convent in Europe ever +remitted to its farmers the payment of a sou. To dare to say the +contrary is a formal heresy. + +"Lead us not into temptation--" a proposition scandalous and manifestly +heretical, for there is no tempter but the devil, and it is expressly +said in St. James' Epistle: "God is no tempter of the wicked; He tempts +no man."--_"Deus enim intentator malorum est; ipse autem neminem +tentat."_ + +You see, then, said Doctor Tamponet, that there is nothing, though ever +so venerable, to which a bad sense may not be given. What book, then, +shall not be liable to human censure when even the Lord's Prayer may be +attacked, by giving a diabolical interpretation to all the divine words +that compose it? + +As for me, I tremble at the thought of making a book. Thank God, I have +never published anything; I have not even--like brothers La Rue, Du +Ceveau, and Folard--had any of my theatrical pieces played, it would be +too dangerous. + +If you publish, a parish curate accuses you of heresy; a stupid +collegian denounces you; a fellow that cannot read condemns you; the +public laugh at you; your bookseller abandons you, and your wine +merchant gives you no more credit. I always add to my paternoster, +"Deliver me, O God, from the itch of bookmaking." + +O ye who, like myself, lay black on white and make clean paper dirty! +call to mind the following verses which I remember to have read, and by +which we should have been corrected: + + _Tout ce fatras fat du chauvre en son temps,_ + _Linge il devint par l'art des tisserands;_ + _Puis en lambeaux des pilons le pressèrent_ + _Il fut papier. Cent cerveaux à l'envers_ + _De visions à l'envi le chargèrent;_ + _Puis on le brûle; il vole dans les airs,_ + _Il est fumée aussi bien que la gloire._ + _De nos travaux voilà quelle est l'histoire,_ + _Tout est fumée, et tout nous fait sentir_ + _Ce grand néant qui doit nous engloutir._ + + This miscellaneous rubbish once was flax, + Till made soft linen by the honest weaver; + But when at length it dropped from people's backs, + 'Twas turned to paper, and became receiver + Of all that fifty motley brains could fashion; + So now 'tis burned without the least compassion; + It now, like glory, terminates in smoke; + Thus all our toils are nothing but a joke-- + All ends in smoke; each nothing that we follow + Tells of the nothing that must all things swallow. + + +SECTION III. + +Books are now multiplied to such a degree that it is impossible not only +to read them all but even to know their number and their titles. +Happily, one is not obliged to read all that is published, and +Caramuel's plan for writing a hundred folio volumes and employing the +spiritual and temporal power of princes to compel their subjects to read +them, has not been put in execution. Ringelburg, too, had formed the +design of composing about a thousand different volumes, but, even had he +lived long enough to publish them he would have fallen far short of +Hermes Trismegistus, who, according to Jamblicus, composed thirty-six +thousand five hundred and twenty-five books. Supposing the truth of this +fact, the ancients had no less reason than the moderns to complain of +the multitude of books. + +It is, indeed, generally agreed that a small number of choice books is +sufficient. Some propose that we should confine ourselves to the Bible +or Holy Scriptures, as the Turks limit themselves to the Koran. But +there is a great difference between the feelings of reverence +entertained by the Mahometans for their Koran and those of the +Christians for the Scriptures. The veneration testified by the former +when speaking of the Koran cannot be exceeded. It is, say they, the +greatest of all miracles; nor are all the men in existence put together +capable of anything at all approaching it; it is still more wonderful +that the author had never studied, nor read any book. The Koran alone is +worth sixty thousand miracles (the number of its verses, or +thereabouts); one rising from the dead would not be a stronger proof of +the truth of a religion than the composition of the Koran. It is so +perfect that it ought not to be regarded as a work of creation. + +The Christians do indeed say that their Scriptures were inspired by the +Holy Ghost, yet not only is it acknowledged by Cardinal Cajetan and +Bellarmine that errors have found their way into them through the +negligence and ignorance of the book-sellers and the rabbis, who added +the points, but they are considered as a book too dangerous for the +hands of the majority of the faithful. This is expressed by the fifth +rule of the Index, a congregation at Rome, whose office it is to examine +what books are to be forbidden. It is as follows: + +"Since it is evident that if the reading of the Bible, translated into +the vulgar tongue, were permitted to every one indiscriminately the +temerity of mankind would cause more evil than good to arise +therefrom--we will that it be referred to the judgment of the bishop or +inquisitor, who, with the advice of the curate or confessor, shall have +power to grant permission to read the Bible rendered in the vulgar +tongue by Catholic writers, to those to whom they shall judge that such +reading will do no harm; they must have this permission in writing and +shall not be absolved until they have returned their Bible into the +hands of the ordinary. As for such book-sellers as shall sell Bibles in +the vulgar tongue to those who have not this written permission, or in +any other way put them into their hands, they shall lose the price of +the books (which the bishop shall employ for pious purposes), and shall +moreover be punished by arbitrary penalties. Nor shall regulars read or +buy these books without the permission of their superiors." + +Cardinal Duperron also asserted that the Scriptures, in the hands of the +unlearned, were a two-edged knife which might wound them, to avoid which +it was better that they should hear them from the mouth of the Church, +with the solutions and interpretations of such passages as appear to the +senses to be full of absurdity and contradiction, than that they should +read them by themselves without any solution or interpretation. He +afterwards made a long enumeration of these absurdities in terms so +unqualified that Jurieu was not afraid to declare that he did not +remember to have read anything so frightful or so scandalous in any +Christian author. + +Jurieu, who was so violent t in his invectives against Cardinal +Duperron, had himself to sustain similar reproaches from the Catholics. +"I heard that minister," says Pap, in speaking of him, "teaching the +public that all the characteristics of the Holy Scriptures on which +those pretended reformers had founded their persuasion of their +divinity, did not appear to him to be sufficient. 'Let it not be +inferred,' said Jurieu, 'that I wish to take from the light and strength +of the characteristics of Scripture, but I will venture to affirm that +there is not one of them which may not be eluded by the profane. There +is not one of them that amounts to a proof; not one to which something +may not be said in answer, and, considered altogether, although they +have greater power than separately to work a moral conviction--that is, +a proof on which to found a certainty excluding every doubt--I own that +nothing seems to me to be more opposed to reason than to say that these +characteristics are of themselves capable of producing such a +certainty." + +It is not then astonishing that the Jews and the first Christians, who, +we find in the Acts of the Apostles, confined themselves in their +meetings to the reading of the Bible, were, as will be seen in the +article "Heresy," divided into different sects. For this reading was +afterwards substituted that of various apocryphal works, or at least of +extracts from them. The author of the "Synopsis of Scripture," which we +find among the works of St. Athanasius, expressly avows that there are +in the apocryphal books things most true and inspired by God which have +been selected and extracted for the perusal of the faithful. + + + + +BOURGES. + + +Our questions have but little to do with geography, but we shall, +perhaps, be permitted to express in a few words our astonishment +respecting the town of Bourges. The Trévoux Dictionary asserts that "it +is one of the most ancient in Europe; that it was the seat of empire of +the Gauls, and gave laws to the Celts." + +I will not combat the antiquity of any town or of any family. But was +there ever an empire of Gaul? had the Celts kings? This rage for +antiquity is a malady which is not easily cured. In Gaul, in Germany, +and in the North there is nothing ancient but the soil, the trees, and +the animals. If you will have antiquities go to Asia, and even there +they are hardly to be found. Man is ancient, but monuments are new; this +has already been said in more articles than one. + +If to be born within a certain stone or wooden limit more ancient than +another were a real good it would be no more than reasonable to date the +foundation of the town from the giants' war, but since this vanity is in +no wise advantageous let it be renounced. This is all I have to say +about Bourges. + + + + +BRACHMANS--BRAHMINS. + + +Courteous reader, observe, in the first place, that Father Thomassin, +one of the most learned men of modern Europe, derives the Brachmans +from the Jewish word _barac_, by a _c_--supposing, of course, that the +Jews had a _c_. This _barac_, says he, signified _to fly_; and the +Brachmans fled from the towns--supposing that there were any towns. + +Or, if you like it better, Brachmans comes from _barak_ by a _k_, +meaning to _bless_ or to _pray_. But why might not the Biscayans name +the Brahmins from the word _bran_? which expresses--I will not say what. +They had as good a right as the Hebrews. Really, this is a strange sort +of erudition. By rejecting it entirely, we should know less, but we +should know it better. + +Is it not likely that the Brahmins were the first legislators, the first +philosophers, the first divines, of the earth? Do not the few remaining +monuments of ancient history form a great presumption in their favor? +since the first Greek philosophers went to them to learn mathematics; +and the most ancient curiosities, those collected by the emperors of +China, are all Indian, as is attested by the relations in Du Halde's +collection. + +Of the Shastah, we shall speak elsewhere. It is the first theological +book of the Brahmins, written about fifteen hundred years before the +Vedah, and anterior to all other books. + +Their annals make no mention of any war undertaken by them at any time. +The words "arms," "killing," "maiming," are to be found neither in the +fragments of the Shastah that have reached us, nor in the Yajurvedah, +nor in the Kormovedah. At least, I can affirm that I have not seen them +in either of these two latter collections; and it is most singular that +the Shastah, which speaks of a conspiracy in heaven, makes no mention of +any war in the great peninsula between the Indus and Ganges. + +[Illustration: India was unknown until after Alexander's conquests.] + +The Hebrews, who were unknown until so late a period, never name the +Brahmins; they knew nothing of India till after Alexander's conquests +and their own settling in that Egypt of which they had spoken so ill. +The name of India is to be found only in the book of Esther, and in that +of Job, who was not a Hebrew. We find a singular contrast between the +sacred books of the Hebrews and those of the Indians. The Indian books +announce only peace and mildness; they forbid the killing of animals: +but the Hebrew books speak of nothing but the slaughter and massacre of +men and beasts; all are butchered in the name of the Lord; it is quite +another order of things. + +We are incontestably indebted to the Brahmins for the idea of the fall +of celestial beings revolting against the Sovereign of Nature; and it +was probably from them that the Greeks took the fable of the Titans; and +lastly, from them it was that the Jews, in the first century of our era, +took the idea of Lucifer's revolt. + +How could these Indians suppose a rebellion in heaven without having +seen one on earth? Such a leap from the human to the divine nature is +difficult of comprehension. We usually step from what is known to what +is unknown. + +A war of giants would not be imagined, until some men more robust than +the rest had been seen to tyrannize over their fellow-men. To imagine +the like in heaven, the Brahmins must either have experienced violent +discords among themselves, or at least have witnessed them among their +neighbors. + +Be that as it may, it is an astonishing phenomenon that a society of men +who had never made war should have invented a sort of war carried on in +imaginary space, or in a globe distant from our own, or in what is +called the firmament--the empyrean. But let it be carefully observed, +that in this revolt of the celestial beings against their Sovereign, +there were no blows given, no celestial blood spilled, no mountains +thrown at one another's heads, no angels deft in twain, as in Milton's +sublime and grotesque poem. + +According to the Shastah, it was only a formal disobedience of the +orders of the Most High, which God punished by relegating the rebellious +angels to a vast place of darkness called Onderah, for the term of a +whole mononthour. A mononthour is a hundred and twenty-six millions of +our years. But God vouchsafed to pardon the guilty at the end of five +thousand years, and their Onderah was nothing more than a purgatory. + +He turned them into _Mhurd_, or men, and placed them on our globe, on +condition that they should not eat animals, nor cohabit with the males +of their new species, on pain of returning to the Onderah. + +These are the principal articles of the Brahmin faith, which has endured +without intermission from time immemorial to the present day. + +This is but a small part of the ancient cosmogony of the Brahmins. Their +rites, their pagods, prove that among them all was allegorical. They +still represent Virtue in the form of a woman with ten arms, combating +ten mortal sins typified by monsters. Our missionaries were acute enough +to take this image of Virtue for that of the devil, and affirm that the +devil is worshipped in India. We have never visited that people but to +enrich ourselves and calumniate them. + + +_The Metempsychosis of the Brahmins._ + +The doctrine of the metempsychosis comes from an ancient law of feeding +on cow's milk as well as on vegetables, fruits, and rice. It seemed +horrible to the Brahmins to kill and eat their feeder; and they had soon +the same respect for goats, sheep, and all other animals: they believed +them to be animated by the rebellious angels, who were completing their +purification in the bodies of beasts as well as in those of men. The +nature of the climate seconded, or rather originated this law. A burning +atmosphere creates a necessity for refreshing food, and inspires horror +for our custom of stowing carcasses in our stomachs. + +The opinion that beasts have souls was general throughout the East, and +we find vestiges of it in the ancient sacred writings. In the book of +Genesis, God forbids men to eat "their flesh with their blood and their +soul." Such is the import of the Hebrew text. "I will avenge," says he, +"the blood of your souls on the claws of beasts and the hands of men." +In Leviticus he says, "The soul of the flesh is in the blood." He does +more; he makes a solemn compact with man and with all animals, which +supposes an intelligence in the latter. + +In much later times, Ecclesiasticus formally says, "God shows that man +is like to the beasts; for men die like beasts; their condition is +equal; as man dies, so also dies the beast. They breathe alike. There is +nothing in man more than in the beast." Jonah, when he went to preach at +Nineveh, made both men and beasts fast. + +All ancient authors, sacred books as well as profane, attribute +knowledge to the beasts; and several make them speak. It is not then to +be wondered at that the Brahmins, and after them the Pythagoreans, +believed that souls passed successively into the bodies of beasts and of +men; consequently they persuaded themselves, or at least they said, that +the souls of the guilty angels, in order to finish their purgation, +belonged sometimes to beasts, sometimes to men. This is a part of the +romance of the Jesuit Bougeant, who imagined that the devils are spirits +sent into the bodies of animals. Thus, in our day, and at the extremity +of the west, a Jesuit unconsciously revives an article of the faith of +the most ancient Oriental priests. + +_The Self-burning of Men and Women among the Brahmins._ + +The Brahmins of the present day, who do all that the ancient Brahmins +did, have, we know, retained this horrible custom. Whence is it that, +among a people who have never shed the blood of men or of animals, the +finest act of devotion is a public self-burning? Superstition, the great +uniter of contraries, is the only source of these frightful sacrifices, +the custom of which is much more ancient than the laws of any known +people. + +The Brahmins assert that their great prophet Brahma, the son of God, +descended among men, and had seyeral wives; and that after his death, +the wife who loved him the most burned herself on his funeral pile, that +she might join him in heaven. Did this woman really burn herself, as it +is said that Portia, the wife of Brutus, swallowed burning coals, in +order to be reunited to her husband? or is this a fable invented by the +priests? Was there a Brahma, who really gave himself out as a prophet +and son of God? It is likely that there was a Brahma, as there +afterwards were a Zoroaster and a Bacchus. Fable seized upon their +history, as she has everywhere constantly done. + +No sooner does the wife of the son of God burn herself, than ladies of +meaner condition must burn themselves likewise. But how are they to +find their husbands again, who are become horses, elephants, hawks, +etc.? How are they to distinguish the precise beast, which the defunct +animates? how recognize him and be still his wife? This difficulty does +not in the least embarrass the Hindoo theologians; they easily find a +_distinguo_--a solution _in sensu composito_--_in sensu diviso_. The +metempsychosis is only for common people; for other souls they have a +sublimer doctrine. These souls, being those of the once rebel angels, go +about purifying themselves; those of the women who immolate themselves +are beatified, and find their husbands ready-purified. In short, the +priests are right, and the women burn themselves. + +This dreadful fanaticism has existed for more than four thousand years, +amongst a mild people, who would fear to kill a grasshopper. The priests +cannot force a widow to burn herself; for the invariable law is, that +the self-devotion must be absolutely voluntary. The longest married of +the wives of the deceased has the first refusal of the honor of mounting +the funeral-pile; if she is not inclined, the second presents herself; +and so of the rest. It is said, that on one occasion seventeen burned +themselves at once on the pile of a rajah: but these sacrifices are now +very rare; the faith has become weaker since the Mahometans have +governed a great part of the country, and the Europeans traded with the +rest. + +Still, there is scarcely a governor of Madras or Pondicherry who has +not seen some Indian woman voluntarily perish in the flames. Mr. Holwell +relates that a young widow of nineteen, of singular beauty, and the +mother of three children, burned herself in the presence of Mrs. +Russell, wife of the admiral then in the Madras roads. She resisted the +tears and the prayers of all present; Mrs. Russell conjured her, in the +name of her children, not to leave them orphans. The Indian woman +answered, "God, who has given them birth, will take care of them." She +then arranged everything herself, set fire to the pile with her own +hand, and consummated her sacrifice with as much serenity as one of our +nuns lights the tapers. + +Mr. Charnock, an English merchant, one day seeing one of these +astonishing victims, young and lovely, on her way to the funeral-pile, +dragged her away by force when she was about to set fire to it, and, +with the assistance of some of his countrymen, carried her of! and +married her. The people regarded this act as the most horrible +sacrilege. + +Why do husbands never burn themselves, that they may join their wives? +Why has a sex, naturally weak and timid, always had this frantic +resolution? Is it because tradition does not say that a man ever married +a daughter of Brahma, while it does affirm that an Indian woman was +married to a son of that divinity? Is it because women are more +superstitious than men? Or is it because their imaginations are weaker, +more tender, and more easily governed? + +The ancient Brahmins sometimes burned themselves to prevent the pains +and the languor of old age; but, above all, to make themselves admired. +Calanus would not, perhaps, have placed himself on the pile, but for the +purpose of being gazed at by Alexander. The Christian renegade +Peregrinus burned himself in public, for the same reason that a madman +goes about the streets dressed like an Armenian, to attract the notice +of the populace. + +Is there not also an unfortunate mixture of vanity in this terrible +sacrifice of the Indian women? Perhaps, if a law were passed that the +burning should take place in the presence of one waiting woman only, +this abominable custom would be forever destroyed. + +One word more: A few hundreds of Indian women, at most, have furnished +this horrid spectacle; but our inquisitions, our atrocious madmen +calling themselves judges, have put to death in the flames more than a +hundred thousand of our brethren--men, women, and children--for things +which no one has understood. Let us pity and condemn the Brahmins; but +let us not forget our miserable selves! + +Truly, we have forgotten one very essential point in this short article +on the Brahmins, which is, that their sacred books are full of +contradictions; but the people know nothing of them, and the doctors +have solutions ready--senses figured and figurative, allegories, types, +express declarations of Birma, Brahma, and Vishnu, sufficient to shut +the mouth of any reasoner. + + + + +BREAD-TREE. + + +The bread-tree grows in the Philippine islands, and principally in those +of Guam and Tinian, as the cocoa-tree grows in the Indies. These two +trees, alone, if they could be multiplied in our climate, would furnish +food and drink sufficient for all mankind. + +The bread-tree is taller and more bulky than our common apple-trees; its +leaves are black, its fruit is yellow, and equal in dimensions to the +largest apple. The rind is hard; and the cuticle is a sort of soft, +white paste, which has the taste of the best French rolls; but it must +be eaten fresh, as it keeps only twenty-four hours, after which it +becomes dry, sour and disagreeable; but, as a compensation, the trees +are loaded with them eight months of the year. The natives of the +islands have no other food; they are all tall, stout, well made, +sufficiently fleshy, and in the vigorous health which is necessarily +produced by the use of one wholesome aliment alone: and it is to negroes +that nature has made this present. + +Corn is assuredly not the food of the greater part of the world. Maize +and cassava are the food of all America. We have whole provinces in +which the peasants eat none but chestnut bread, which is more nourishing +and of better flavor than the rye or barley bread on which so many feed, +and is much better than the rations given to the soldiers. Bread is +unknown in all southern Africa. The immense Indian Archipelago, Siam, +Laos, Pegu, Cochin-China, Tonquin, part of China, the Malabar and +Coromandel coasts, and the banks of the Ganges, produce rice, which is +easier of cultivation, and for which wheat is neglected. Corn is +absolutely unknown for the space of five hundred leagues on the coast of +the Icy Sea. + +The missionaries have sometimes been in great tribulation, in countries +where neither bread nor wine is to be found. The inhabitants told them +by interpreters: "You would baptize us with a few drops of water, in a +burning climate, where we are obliged to plunge every day into the +rivers; you would confess us, yet you understand not our language; you +would have us communicate, yet you want the two necessary ingredients, +bread and wine. It is therefore evident that your universal religion +cannot have been made for us." The missionaries replied, very justly, +that good will is the one thing needful; that they should be plunged +into the water without any scruple; that bread and wine should be +brought from Goa; and that, as for the language, the missionaries would +learn it in a few years. + + + + +BUFFOONERY--BURLESQUE--LOW COMEDY. + + +He was a very subtle schoolman, who first said that we owe the origin of +the word "buffoon" to a little Athenian sacrificer called _Bupho_, who, +being tired of his employment, absconded, and never returned. The +Areopagus, as they could not punish the priest, proceeded against his +hatchet. This farce, which was played every year in the temple of +Jupiter, is said to have been called _"buffoonery."_ This story is not +entitled to much credit Buffoon was not a proper name; _bouphonos_ +signifies an immolator of oxen. The Greeks never called any jest +_bouphonia_. This ceremony, frivolous as it appears, might have an +origin wise and humane, worthy of true Athenians. + +Once a year, the subaltern sacrificer, or more properly the holy +butcher, when on the point of immolating an ox, fled as if struck with +horror, to put men in mind that in wiser and happier times only flowers +and fruits were offered to the gods, and that the barbarity of +immolating innocent and useful animals was not introduced until there +were priests desirous of fattening on their blood and living at the +expense of the people. In this idea there is no buffoonery. + +This word "buffoon" has long been received among the Italians and the +Spaniards, signifying _mimus, scurra, joculator_--a mimic, a jester, a +player of tricks. Ménage, after Salmasius, derives it from _bocca +infiata_--a bloated face; and it is true that a round face and swollen +cheeks are requisite in a buffoon. The Italians say _bufo magro_--a +meagre buffoon, to express a poor jester who cannot make you laugh. + +Buffoon and buffoonery appertain to low comedy, to mountebanking, to all +that can amuse the populace. In this it was--to the shame of the human +mind be it spoken--that tragedy had its beginning: Thespis was a +buffoon before Sophocles was a great man. + +In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish and English +tragedies were all degraded by disgusting buffooneries. The courts were +still more disgraced by buffoons than the stage. So strong was the rust +of barbarism, that men had no taste for more refined pleasures. Boileau +says of Molière: + + _C'est par-là que Molière, illustrant ses écrits,_ + _Peut-être de son art eût emporté le prix,_ + _Si, moins ami du peuple en ses doctes peintures,_ + _Il n'eût fait quelquefois, grimacer ses figures,_ + _Quitté pour le bouffon l'agréable et fin,_ + _Et sans honte à Terence allié Tabarin._ + _Dans ce sac ridicule où Scapin s'enveloppe,_ + _Je ne reconnais plus l'auteur du Misanthrope._ + + Molière in comic genius had excelled, + And might, perhaps, have stood unparalleled, + Had he his faithful portraits ne'er allowed + To gape and grin to gratify the crowd; + Deserting wit for low grimace and jest, + And showing Terence in a motley vest. + Who in the sack, where Scapin plays the fool, + Will find the genius of the comic school? + +But it must be considered that Raphael condescended to paint grotesque +figures. Molière would not have descended so low, if all his spectators +had been such men as Louis XIV., Condé, Turenne, La Rochefoucauld, +Montausier, Beauvilliers, and such women as Montespan and Thianges; but +he had also to please the whole people of Paris, who were yet quite +unpolished. The citizen liked broad farce, and he paid for it. Scarron's +"Jodelets" were all the rage. We are obliged to place ourselves on the +level of our age, before we can rise above it; and, after all, we like +to laugh now and then. What is Homer's "Battle of the Frogs and Mice," +but a piece of buffoonery--a burlesque poem? + +Works of this kind give no reputation, but they may take from that which +we already enjoy. + +Buffoonery is not always in the burlesque style, "The Physician in Spite +of Himself," and the "Rogueries of Scapin," are not in the style of +Scarron's "Jodelets." Molière does not, like Scarron, go in search of +slang terms; his lowest characters do not play the mountebank. +Buffoonery is in the thing, not in the expression. + +Boileau's "Lutrin" was at first called a burlesque poem, but it was the +subject that was burlesque; the style was pleasing and refined, and +sometimes even heroic. + +The Italians had another kind of burlesque, much superior to ours--that +of Aretin, of Archbishop La Caza, of Berni, Mauro, and Dolce. It often +sacrifices decorum to pleasantry, but obscene words are wholly banished +from it. The subject of Archbishop La Caza's _"Capitolo del Forno"_ is, +indeed, that which sends the Desfontaines to the Bicêtre, and the +Deschaufours to the Place de Grève: but there is not one word offensive +to the ear of chastity; you have to divine the meaning. + +Three or four Englishmen have excelled in this way: Butler, in his +"Hudibras," which was the civil war excited by the Puritans turned into +ridicule; Dr. Garth, in his "Dispensary"; Prior, in his "Alma," in +which he very pleasantly makes a jest of his subject and Phillips, in +his "Splendid Shilling." + +Butler is as much above Scarron as a man accustomed to good company is +above a singer at a pot-house. The hero of "Hudibras" was a real +personage, one Sir Samuel Luke, who had been a captain in the armies of +Fairfax and Cromwell. See the commencement of the poem, in the article +"Prior," "Butler," and "Swift." + +Garth's poem on the physicians and apothecaries is not so much in the +burlesque style as Boileau's "Lutrin": it has more imagination, variety, +and naivete than the "Lutrin"; and, which is rather astonishing, it +displays profound erudition, embellished with all the graces of +refinement. It begins thus: + + Speak, Goddess, since 'tis thou that best canst tell + How ancient leagues to modern discord fell; + And why physicians were so cautious grown + Of others' lives, and lavish of their own. + +Prior, whom we have seen a plenipotentiary in France before the Peace of +Utrecht, assumed the office of mediator between the philosophers who +dispute about the soul. This poem is in the style of "Hudibras," called +doggerel rhyme, which is the _stilo Berniesco_ of the Italians. + +The great first question is, whether the soul is all in all, or is +lodged behind the nose and eyes in a corner which it never quits. +According to the latter system, Prior compares it to the pope, who +constantly remains at Rome, whence he sends his nuncios and spies to +learn all that is doing in Christendom. + +Prior, after making a jest of several systems, proposes his own. He +remarks that the two-legged animal, new-born, throws its feet about as +much as possible, when its nurse is so stupid as to swaddle it: thence +he judges that the soul enters it by the feet; that about fifteen it +reaches the middle; then it ascends to the heart; then to the head, +which it quits altogether when the animal ceases to live. + +At the end of this singular poem, full of ingenious versification, and +of ideas alike subtle and pleasing, we find this charming line of +Fontenelle: _"Il est des hochets pour tout âge."_ Prior begs of fortune +to "Give us play-things for old age." + +Yet it is quite certain that Fontenelle did not take this line from +Prior, nor Prior from Fontenelle. Prior's work is twenty years anterior, +and Fontenelle did not understand English. The poem terminates with this +conclusion: + + For Plato's fancies what care I? + I hope you would not have me die + Like simple Cato in the play, + For anything that he can say: + E'en let him of ideas speak + To heathens, in his native Greek. + If to be sad is to be wise, + I do most heartily despise + Whatever Socrates has said, + Or Tully writ, or Wanley read. + Dear Drift, to set our matters right, + Remove these papers from my sight; + Burn Mat's Descartes and Aristotle-- + Here, Jonathan,--your master's bottle. + +In all these poems, let us distinguish the pleasant, the lively, the +natural, the familiar--from the grotesque, the farcical, the low, and, +above all, the stiff and forced. These various shades are discriminated +by the connoisseurs, who alone, in the end, decide the fate of every +work. + +La Fontaine would sometimes descend to the burlesque style--Phædrus +never; but the latter has not the grace and unaffected softness of La +Fontaine, though he has greater precision and purity. + + + + +BULGARIANS. + + +These people were originally Huns, who settled near the Volga; and +Volgarians was easily changed into Bulgarians. + +About the end of the seventh century, they, like all the other nations +inhabiting Sarmatia, made irruptions towards the Danube, and inundated +the Roman Empire. They passed through Moldavia and Wallachia, whither +their old fellow-countrymen, the Russians, carried their victorious arms +in 1769, under the Empress Catherine II. + +Having crossed the Danube, they settled in part of Dacia and Moesia, +giving their name to the countries which are still called Bulgaria. +Their dominion extended to Mount Hæmus and the Euxine Sea. + +In Charlemagne's time, the Emperor Nicephorus, successor to Irene, was +so imprudent as to march against them after being vanquished by the +Saracens; and he was in like manner defeated by the Bulgarians. Their +king, named Krom, cut off his head, and made use of his skull as a +drinking-cup at his table, according to the custom of that people in +common with all the northern nations. + +It is related that, in the ninth century, one Bogoris, who was making +war upon the Princess Theodora, mother and guardian to the Emperor +Michael, was so charmed with that empress's noble answer to his +declaration of war, that he turned Christian. + +The Bulgarians, who were less complaisant, revolted against him; but +Bogoris, having shown them a crucifix, they all immediately received +baptism. So say the Greek writers of the lower empire, and so say our +compilers after them: _"Et voilà justement comme on écrit l'histoire."_ + +Theodora, say they, was a very religious princess, even passing her +latter years in a convent. Such was her love for the Greek Catholic +religion that she put to death in various ways a hundred thousand men +accused of Manichæism--"this being," says the modest continuator of +Echard, "the most impious, the most detestable, the most dangerous, the +most abominable of all heresies, for ecclesiastical censures were +weapons of no avail against men who acknowledged not the church." + +It is said that the Bulgarians, seeing that all the Manichæans suffered +death, immediately conceived an inclination for their religion, and +thought it the best, since it was the most persecuted one: but this, for +Bulgarians, would be extraordinarily acute. + +At that time, the great schism broke out more violently than ever +between the Greek church, under the Patriarch Photius, and the Latin +church, under Pope Nicholas I. The Bulgarians took part with the Greek +church; and from that time, probably, it was that they were treated in +the west as heretics, with the addition of that fine epithet, which has +clung to them to the present day. + +In 871, the Emperor Basil sent them a preacher, named Peter of Sicily, +to save them from the heresy of Manichæism; and it is added, that they +no sooner heard him than they turned Manichæans. It is not very +surprising that the Bulgarians, who drank out of the skulls of their +enemies, were not extraordinary theologians any more than Peter of +Sicily. + +It is singular that these barbarians, who could neither write nor read, +should have been regarded as very knowing heretics, with whom it was +dangerous to dispute. They certainly had other things to think of than +controversy, since they carried on a sanguinary war against the emperors +of Constantinople for four successive centuries, and even besieged the +capital of the empire. + +At the commencement of the thirteenth century, the Emperor Alexis, +wishing to make himself recognized by the Bulgarians, their king, +Joannic, replied, that he would never be his vassal. Pope Innocent III. +was careful to seize this opportunity of attaching the kingdom of +Bulgaria to himself: he sent a legate to Joannic, to anoint him king; +and pretended that he had conferred the kingdom upon him, and that he +could never more hold it but from the holy see. + +This was the most violent period of the crusades. The indignant +Bulgarians entered into an alliance with the Turks, declared war against +the pope and his crusaders, took the pretended Emperor Baldwin prisoner, +had his head cut off, and made a bowl of his skull, after the manner of +Krom. This was quite enough to make the Bulgarians abhorred by all +Europe. It was no longer necessary to call them Manichæans, a name which +was at that time given to every class of heretics: for Manichæan, +Patarin, and Vaudois were the same thing. These terms were lavished upon +whosoever would not submit to the Roman church. + + + + +BULL. + + +A quadruped, armed with horns, having cloven feet, strong legs, a slow +pace, a thick body, a hard skin, a tail not quite so long as that of the +horse, with some long hairs at the end. Its blood has been looked upon +as a poison, but it is no more so than that of other animals; and the +ancients, who wrote that Themistocles and others poisoned themselves +with bull's blood, were false both to nature and to history. Lucian, who +reproaches Jupiter with having placed the bull's horns above his eyes, +reproaches him unjustly; for the eye of a bull being large, round, and +open, he sees very well where he strikes; and if his eyes had been +placed higher than his horns, he could not have seen the grass which he +crops. + +Phalaris's bull, or the Brazen Bull, was a bull of cast metal, found in +Sicily, and supposed to have been used by Phalaris to enclose and burn +such as he chose to punish--a very unlikely species of cruelty. The +bulls of Medea guarded the Golden Fleece. The bull of Marathon was tamed +by Hercules. + +Then there were the bull which carried off Europa, the bull of Mithras, +and the bull of Osiris; there are the Bull, a sign of the zodiac, and +the Bull's Eye, a star of the first magnitude, and lastly, there are +bull-fights, common in Spain. + + + + +BULL (PAPAL). + + +This word designates the bull, or seal of gold, silver, wax, or lead, +attached to any instrument or charter. The lead hanging to the rescripts +despatched in the Roman court bears on one side the head of St. Peter on +the right, and that of St. Paul on the left; and, on the reverse, the +name of the reigning pope, with the year of his pontificate. The bull is +written on parchment. In the greeting, the pope takes no title but that +of "Servant of the Servants of God," according to the holy words of +Jesus to His Disciples--"Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be +your servant." + +Some heretics assert that, by this formula, humble in appearance, the +popes mean to express a sort of feudal system, of which God is chief; +whose high vassals, Peter and Paul, are represented by their servant +the pontiff; while the lesser vassals are all secular princes, whether +emperors, kings, or dukes. + +They doubtless found this assertion on the famous bull _In coena +Domini,_ which is publicly read at Rome by a cardinal-deacon every year, +on Holy Thursday, in the presence of the pope, attended by the rest of +the cardinals and bishops. After the ceremony, his holiness casts a +lighted torch into the public square in token of anathema. + +This bull is, to be found in Tome i., p. 714 of the _Bullaire_, +published at Lyons in 1673, and at page 118 of the edition of 1727. The +oldest is dated 1536. Paul III., without noticing the origin of the +ceremony, here says that it is an ancient custom of the sovereign +pontiffs to publish this excommunication on Holy Thursday, in order to +preserve the purity of the Christian religion, and maintain union among +the faithful. It contains twenty-four paragraphs, in which the pope +excommunicates: + +1. Heretics, all who favor them, and all who read their books. + +2. Pirates, especially such as dare to cruise on the seas belonging to +the sovereign pontiff. + +3. Those who impose fresh tolls on their lands. + +10. Those who, in any way whatsoever, prevent the execution of the +apostolical letters, whether they grant pardons or inflict penalties. + +11. All lay judges who judge ecclesiastics, and bring them before their +tribunal, whether that tribunal is called an audience, a chancery, a +council, or a parliament. + +12. All chancellors, counsellors, ordinary or extraordinary, of any king +or prince whatsoever, all presidents of chanceries, councils, or +parliaments, as also all attorneys-general, who call ecclesiastical +causes before them, or prevent the execution of the apostolical letters, +even though it be on pretext of preventing some violence. + +In the same paragraph, the pope reserves to himself alone the power of +absolving the said chancellors, counsellors, attorneys-general, and the +rest of the excommunicated; who cannot receive absolution until they +have publicly revoked their acts, and have erased them from the records. + +20. Lastly, the pope excommunicates all such as shall presume to give +absolution to the excommunicated as aforesaid: and, in order that no one +may plead ignorance, he orders: + +21. That this bull be published, and posted on the gate of the basilic +of the Prince of the Apostles, and on that of St. John of Lateran. + +22. That all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, by virtue +of their holy obedience, shall have this bull solemnly published at +least once a year. + +24. He declares that whosoever dares to go against the provisions of +this bull, must know that he is incurring the displeasure of Almighty +God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. + +The other subsequent bulls, called also _In coena Domini_, are only +duplicates of the first. For instance, the article 21 of that of Pius +V., dated 1567, adds to the paragraph 3 of the one that we have quoted, +that all princes who lay new impositions on their states, of what nature +soever, or increase the old ones, without obtaining permission from the +Holy See, are excommunicated _ipso facto_. The third bull _In coena +Domini_ of 1610, contains thirty paragraphs, in which Paul V. renews the +provisions of the two preceding. + +The fourth and last bull _In coena Domini_ which we find in the +_Bullaire_, is dated April 1, 1672. In it Urban VIII. announces that, +after the example of his predecessors, in order inviolably to maintain +the integrity of the faith, and public justice and tranquillity, he +wields the spiritual sword of ecclesiastical discipline to +excommunicate, on the day which is the anniversary of the Supper of our +Lord: + +1. Heretics. + +2. Such as appeal from the pope to a future council; and the rest as in +the three former. + +It is said that the one which is read now, is of a more recent date, and +contains some additions. + +The History of Naples, by Giannone, shows us what disorders the +ecclesiastics stirred up in that kingdom, and what vexations they +exercised against the king's subjects, even refusing them absolution and +the sacraments, in order to effect the reception of this bull, which has +at last been solemnly proscribed there, as well as in Austrian +Lombardy, in the states of the empress-queen, in those of the Duke of +Parma, and elsewhere. + +In 1580, the French clergy chose the time between the sessions of the +parliament of Paris, to have the same bull _In coena Domini_ +published. But it was opposed by the procureur-general; and the _Chambre +des Vacations_, under the presidency of the celebrated and unfortunate +Brisson, on October 4, passed a decree, enjoining all governors to +inform themselves, if possible, what archbishops, bishops, or +grand-vicars, had received either this bull or a copy of it entitled +_Litteræ processus_, and who had sent it to them to be published; to +prevent the publication, if it had not yet taken place; to obtain the +copies and send them to the chamber; or, if they had been published, to +summon the archbishops, the bishops, or their grand-vicars, to appear on +a certain day before the chamber, to answer to the suit of the +procureur-general; and, in the meantime, to seize their temporal +possessions and place them in the hands of the king; to forbid all +persons obstructing the execution of this decree, on pain of punishment +as traitors and enemies to the state; with orders that the decree be +printed and that the copies, collated by notaries, have the full force +of the original. + +In doing this, the parliament did but feebly imitate Philip the Fair. +The bull _Ausculta Fili_, of Dec. 5, 1301, was addressed to him by +Boniface VIII., who, after exhorting the king to listen with docility, +says to him: "God has established us over all kings and all kingdoms, to +root up, and destroy, and throw down, to build, and to plant, in His +name and by His doctrine. Do not, then, suffer yourself to be persuaded +that you have no superior, and that you are not subject to the head of +the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Whosoever thinks this, is a madman; and +whosoever obstinately maintains it, is an infidel, separated from the +flock of the Good Shepherd." The pope then enters into long details +respecting the government of France, even reproaching the king for +having altered the coin. + +Philip the Fair had this bull burned at Paris, and its execution +published on sound of trumpet throughout the city, by Sunday, Feb. 11, +1302. The pope, in a council which he held at Rome the same year, made a +great noise, and broke out into threats against Philip the Fair; but he +did no more than threaten. The famous decretal, _Unam Sanctam_ is, +however, considered as the work of his council; it is, in substance, as +follows: + +"We believe and confess a holy, catholic, and apostolic church, out of +which there is no salvation; we also acknowledge its unity, that it is +one only body, with one only head, and not with two, like a monster. +This only head is Jesus Christ, and St. Peter his vicar, and the +successor of St. Peter. Therefore, the Greeks, or others, who say that +they are not subject to that successor, must acknowledge that they are +not of the flock of Christ, since He himself has said (John, x, 16) +'that there is but one fold and one shepherd.' + +"We learn that in this church, and under its power, are two swords, the +spiritual and the temporal: of these, one is to be used by the church +and by the hand of the pontiff; the other, by the church and by the hand +of kings and warriors, in pursuance of the orders or with the permission +of the pontiff. Now, one of these swords must be subject to the other, +temporal to spiritual power; otherwise, they would not be ordinate, and +the apostles say they must be so. (Rom. xiii, 1.) According to the +testimony of truth, spiritual power must institute and judge temporal +power; and thus is verified with regard to the church, the prophecy of +Jeremiah (i. 10): 'I have this day set thee over the nations and over +the kingdoms.'" + +On the other hand, Philip the Fair assembled the states-general; and the +commons, in the petition which they presented to that monarch, said, in +so many words: "It is a great abomination for us to hear that this +Boniface stoutly interprets like a _Boulgare_ (dropping the _l_ and the +_a_) these words of spirituality (Matt., xvi. 19): 'Whatever thou shalt +bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven;' if this signified that if a +man be put into a temporal prison, God will imprison him in heaven." + +Clement V., successor to Boniface VIII., revoked and annulled the odious +decision of the bull _Unam Sanctam_, which extends the power of the +popes to the temporalities of kings, and condemns as heretics all who do +not acknowledge this chimerical power. Boniface's pretension, indeed, +ought to be condemned as heresy, according to this maxim of theologians: +"Not only is it a sin against the rules of the faith, and a heresy, to +deny what the faith teaches us, but also to set up as part of the faith +that which is no part of it." (Joan. Maj. m. 3 sent. dist. 37. q. 26.) + +Other popes, before Boniface VIII., had arrogated to themselves the +right of property over different kingdoms. The bull is well known, in +which Gregory VII. says to the King of Spain: "I would have you to know, +that the kingdom of Spain, by ancient ecclesiastical ordinances, was +given in property to St. Peter and the holy Roman church." + +Henry II. of England asked permission of Pope Adrian IV. to invade +Ireland. The pontiff gave him leave, on condition that he imposed on +every Irish family a tax of one _carolus_ for the Holy See, and held +that kingdom as a fief of the Roman church. "For," wrote Adrian, "it +cannot be doubted that every island upon which Jesus Christ, the sun of +justice, has arisen, and which has received the lessons of the Christian +faith, belongs of right to St. Peter and to the holy and sacred Roman +church." + +_Bulls of the Crusade and of Composition._ + +If an African or an Asiatic of sense were told that in that part of +Europe where some men have forbidden others to eat flesh on Saturdays, +the pope gives them leave to eat it, by a bull, for the sum of two +rials, and that another bull grants permission to keep stolen money, +what would this African or Asiatic say? He would, at least, agree with +us, that every country has its customs; and that in this world, by +whatever names things may be called, or however they may be disguised, +all is done for money. + +There are two bulls under the name of _La Cruzada_ --the Crusade; one of +the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, the other of that of Philip V. The +first of these sells permission to eat what is called the _grossura_, +viz., tripes, livers, kidneys, gizzards, sweet-breads, lights, plucks, +cauls, heads, necks, and feet. + +The second bull, granted by Pope Urban VIII., gives leave to eat meat +throughout Lent, and absolves from every crime except heresy. + +Not only are these bulls sold, but people are ordered to buy them; and, +as is but right, they cost more in Peru and Mexico than in Spain; they +are there sold for a piastre. It is reasonable that the countries which +produce gold and silver should pay more than others. + +The pretext for these bulls is, making war upon the Moors. There are +persons, difficult of conviction, who cannot see what livers and kidneys +have to do with a war against the Africans; and they add, that Jesus +Christ never ordered war to be made on the Mahometans on pain of +excommunication. + +The bull giving permission to keep another's goods is galled the bull of +_Composition_. It is farmed; and has long brought considerable sums +throughout Spain, the Milanese, Naples, and Sicily. The highest bidders +employ the most eloquent of the monks to preach this bull. Sinners who +have robbed the king, the state, or private individuals, go to these +preachers, confess to them, and show them what a sad thing it would be +to make restitution of the whole. They offer the monks five, six, and +sometimes seven per cent., in order to keep the rest with a safe +conscience; and, as soon as the composition is made, they receive +absolution. + +The preaching brother who wrote the "Travels through Spain and Italy" +(_Voyage d'Espagne et d'Italie_), published at Paris, _avec privilège_ +by Jean-Baptiste de l'Épime, speaking of this bull, thus expresses +himself: "Is it not very gracious to come off at so little cost, and be +at liberty to steal more, when one has occasion for a larger sum?" + +_Bull Unigenitus._ + +The bull _In coena Domini_ was an indignity offered to all Catholic +sovereigns, and they at length proscribed it in their states; but the +bull _Unigenitus_ was a trouble to France alone. The former attacked the +rights of the princes and magistrates of Europe, and they maintained +those rights; the latter proscribed only some maxims of piety and +morals, which gave no concern to any except the parties interested in +the transient affair; but these interested parties soon filled all +France. It was at first a quarrel between the all-powerful Jesuits and +the remains of the crushed Port-Royal. + +Quesnel, a preacher of the Oratory, refugee in Holland, had dedicated a +commentary on the New Testament to Cardinal de Noailles, then bishop of +Châlons-sur-Marne. It met the bishop's approbation and was well received +by all readers of that sort of books. + +One Letellier, a Jesuit, a confessor to Louis XIV. and an enemy to +Cardinal de Noailles, resolved to mortify him by having the book, which +was dedicated to him, and of which he had a very high opinion, condemned +at Rome. + +This Jesuit, the son of an attorney at Vire in Lower Normandy, had all +that fertility of expedient for which his father's profession is +remarkable. Not content with embroiling Cardinal de Noailles with the +pope, he determined to have him disgraced by the king his master. To +ensure the success of this design, he had mandaments composed against +him by his emissaries, and got them signed by four bishops; he also +indited letters to the king, which he made them sign. + +These manoeuvres, which would have been punished in any of the +tribunals, succeeded at court: the king was soured against the +cardinal, and Madame de Maintenon abandoned him. + +Here was a series of intrigues, in which, from one end of the kingdom to +the other, every one took a part. The more unfortunate France at that +time became in a disastrous war, the more the public mind was heated by +a theological quarrel. + +During these movements, Letellier had the condemnation of Quesnel's +book, of which the monarch had never read a page, demanded from Rome by +Louis XIV. himself. Letellier and two other Jesuits, named Doucin and +Lallemant, extracted one hundred and three propositions, which Pope +Clement XI. was to condemn. The court of Rome struck out two of them, +that it might, at least, have the honor of appearing to judge for +itself. + +Cardinal Fabroni, in whose hands the affair was placed, and who was +devoted to the Jesuits, had the bull drawn up by a Cordelier named +Father Palerno, Elio a Capuchin, Terrovi a Barnabite, and Castelli a +Servite, to whom was added a Jesuit named Alfaro. + +Clement XI. let them proceed in their own way. His only object was to +please the king of France, who had long been displeased with him, on +account of his recognizing the Archduke Charles, afterwards emperor, as +King of Spain. To make his peace with the king, it cost him only a piece +of parchment sealed with lead, concerning a question which he himself +despised. + +Clement XI. did not wait to be solicited; he sent the bull, and was +quite astonished to learn that it was received throughout France with +hisses and groans. "What!" said he to Cardinal Carpegno, "a bull is +earnestly asked of me; I give it freely, and every one makes a jest of +it!" + +Every one was indeed surprised to see a pope, in the name of Jesus +Christ, condemning as heretical, tainted with heresy, and offensive to +pious ears, this proposition: "It is good to read books of piety on +Sundays, especially the Holy Scriptures;" and this: "The fear of an +unjust excommunication should not prevent us from doing our duty." + +The partisans of the Jesuits were themselves alarmed at these censures, +but they dared not speak. The wise and disinterested exclaimed against +the scandal, and the rest of the nation against the absurdity. + +Nevertheless, Letellier still triumphed, until the death of Louis XIV.; +he was held in abhorrence, but he governed. This wretch tried every +means to procure the suspension of Cardinal de Noailles; but after the +death of his penitent, the incendiary was banished. The duke of Orleans, +during his regency, extinguished these quarrels by making a jest of +them. They have since thrown out a few sparks; but they are at last +forgotten, probably forever. Their duration, for more than half a +century, was quite long enough. Yet, happy indeed would mankind be, if +they were divided only by foolish questions unproductive of bloodshed! + + + + +CÆSAR. + + +It is not as the husband of so many women and the wife of so many men; +as the conqueror of Pompey and the Scipios; as the satirist who turned +Cato into ridicule; as the robber of the public treasury, who employed +the money of the Romans to reduce the Romans to subjection; as he who, +clement in his triumphs, pardoned the vanquished; as the man of +learning, who reformed the calendar; as the tyrant and the father of his +country, assassinated by his friends and his bastard son; that I shall +here speak of Cæsar. I shall consider this extraordinary man only in my +quality of descendant from the poor barbarians whom he subjugated. + +You will not pass through a town in France, in Spain, on the banks of +the Rhine, or on the English coast opposite to Calais, in which you will +not find good people who boast of having had Cæsar there. Some of the +townspeople of Dover are persuaded that Cæsar built their castle; and +there are citizens of Paris who believe that the great _châtelet_ is one +of his fine works. Many a country squire in France shows you an old +turret which serves him for a dove-cote, and tells you that Cæsar +provided a lodging for his pigeons. Each province disputes with its +neighbor the honor of having been the first to which Cæsar applied the +lash; it was not by that road, but by this, that he came to cut our +throats, embrace our wives and daughters, impose laws upon us by +interpreters, and take from us what little money we had. + +The Indians are wiser. We have already seen that they have a confused +knowledge that a great robber, named Alexander, came among them with +other robbers; but they scarcely ever speak of him. + +An Italian antiquarian, passing a few years ago through Vannes in +Brittany, was quite astonished to hear the learned men of Vannes boast +of Cæsar's stay in their town. "No doubt," said he, "you have monuments +of that great man?" "Yes," answered the most notable among them, "we +will show you the place where that hero had the whole senate of our +province hanged, to the number of six hundred." + +"Some ignorant fellows, who had found a hundred beams under ground, +advanced in the journals in 1755 that they were the remains of a bridge +built by Cæsar; but I proved to them in my dissertation of 1756 that +they were the gallows on which that hero had our parliament tied up. +What other town in Gaul can say as much? We have the testimony of the +great Cæsar himself. He says in his Commentaries' that we 'are fickle +and prefer liberty to slavery.' He charges us with having been so +insolent as to take hostages of the Romans, to whom we had given +hostages, and to be unwilling to return them unless our own were given +up. He taught us good behavior." + +"He did well," replied the virtuoso, "his right was incontestable. It +was, however, disputed, for you know that when he vanquished the +emigrant Swiss, to the number of three hundred and sixty-eight thousand, +and there were not more than a hundred and ten thousand left, he had a +conference in Alsace with a German king named Ariovistus, and Ariovistus +said to him: 'I come to plunder Gaul, and I will not suffer any one to +plunder it but myself;' after which these good Germans, who were come to +lay waste the country, put into the hands of their witches two Roman +knights, ambassadors from Cæsar; and these witches were on the point of +burning them and offering them to their gods, when Cæsar came and +delivered them by a victory. We must confess that the right on both +sides was equal, and that Tacitus had good reason for bestowing so many +praises on the manners of the ancient Germans." + +This conversation gave rise to a very warm dispute between the learned +men of Vannes and the antiquarian. Several of the Bretons could not +conceive what was the virtue of the Romans in deceiving one after +another all the nations of Gaul, in making them by turns the instruments +of their own ruin, in butchering one-fourth of the people, and reducing +the other three-fourths to slavery. + +"Oh! nothing can be finer," returned the antiquarian. "I have in my +pocket a medal representing Cæsar's triumph at the Capitol; it is in the +best preservation." He showed the medal. A Breton, a tittle rude, took +it and threw it into the river, exclaiming: "Oh! that I could so serve +all who use their power and their skill to oppress their fellow-men! +Rome deceived us, disunited us, butchered us, chained us; and at this +day Rome still disposes of many of our benefices; and is it possible +that we have so long and in so many ways been a country of slaves?" + +To the conversation between the Italian antiquarian and the Breton I +shall only add that Perrot d'Ablancourt, the translator of Cæsar's +"Commentaries," in his dedication to the great Condé, makes use of these +words: "Does it not seem to you, sir, as if you were reading the life of +some Christian philosopher?" Cæsar a Christian philosopher! I wonder he +has not been made a saint. Writers of dedications are remarkable for +saying fine things and much to the purpose. + + + + +CALENDS. + + +The feast of the Circumcision, which the church celebrates on the first +of January, has taken the place of another called the Feast of the +Calends, of Asses, of Fools, or of Innocents, according to the different +places where, and the different days on which, it was held. It was most +commonly at Christmas, the Circumcision, or the Epiphany. + +In the cathedral of Rouen there was on Christmas day a procession, in +which ecclesiastics, chosen for the purpose, represented the prophets of +the Old Testament, who foretold the birth of the Messiah, and--which +may have given the feast its name--Balaam appeared, mounted on a +she-ass; but as Lactantius' poem, and the "Book of Promises," under the +name of St. Prosper, say that Jesus in the manger was recognized by the +ox and the ass, according to the passage Isaiah: "The ox knoweth his +owner, and the ass his master's crib" (a circumstance, however, which +neither the gospel nor the ancient fathers have remarked), it is more +likely that, from this opinion, the Feast of the Ass took its name. + +Indeed, the Jesuit, Theophilus Raynaud, testifies that on St. Stephen's +day there was sung a hymn of the ass, which was also called the Prose of +Fools; and that on St. John's day another was sung, called the Prose of +the Ox. In the library of the chapter of Sens there is preserved a +manuscript of vellum with miniature figures representing the ceremonies +of the Feast of Fools. The text contains a description of it, including +this Prose of the Ass; it was sung by two choirs, who imitated at +intervals and as the burden of the song, the braying of that animal. + +There was elected in the cathedral churches a bishop or archbishop of +the Fools, which election was confirmed by all sorts of buffooneries, +played off by way of consecration. This bishop officiated pontifically +and gave his blessing to the people, before whom he appeared bearing the +mitre, the crosier, and even the archiepiscopal cross. In those +churches which held immediately from the Holy See, a pope of the Fools +was elected, who officiated in all the decorations of papacy. All the +clergy assisted in the mass, some dressed in women's apparel, others as +buffoons, or masked in a grotesque and ridiculous manner. Not content +with singing licentious songs in the choir, they sat and played at dice +on the altar, at the side of the officiator. When the mass was over they +ran, leaped, and danced about the church, uttering obscene words, +singing immodest songs, and putting themselves in a thousand indecent +postures, sometimes exposing themselves almost naked. They then had +themselves drawn about the streets in tumbrels full of filth, that they +might throw it at the mob which gathered round them. The looser part of +the seculars would mix among the clergy, that they might play some +fool's part in the ecclesiastical habit. + +This feast was held in the same manner in the convents of monks and +nuns, as Naudé testifies in his complaint to Gassendi, in 1645, in which +he relates that at Antibes, in the Franciscan monastery, neither the +officiating monks nor the guardian went to the choir on the day of the +Innocents. The lay brethren occupied their places on that day, and, +clothed in sacerdotal decorations, torn and turned inside out, made a +sort of office. They held books turned upside down, which they seemed to +be reading through spectacles, the glasses of which were made of orange +peel; and muttered confused words, or uttered strange cries, +accompanied by extravagant contortions. + +The second register of the church of Autun, by the secretary Rotarii, +which ends with 1416, says, without specifying the day, that at the +Feast of Fools an ass was led along with a clergyman's cape on his back, +the attendants singing: "He haw! Mr. Ass, he haw!" + +Ducange relates a sentence of the officialty of Viviers, upon one +William, who, having been elected fool-bishop in 1400, had refused to +perform the solemnities and to defray the expenses customary on such +occasions. + +And, to conclude, the registers of St. Stephen, at Dijon, in 1521, +without mentioning the day, that the vicars ran about the streets with +drums, fifes, and other instruments, and carried lamps before the +_pré-chantre_ of the Fools, to whom the honor of the feast principally +belonged. But the parliament of that city, by a decree of January 19, +1552, forbade the celebration of this feast, which had already been +condemned by several councils, and especially by a circular of March 11, +1444, sent to all the clergy in the kingdom by the Paris university. +This letter, which we find at the end of the works of Peter of Blois, +says that this feast was, in the eyes of the clergy, so well imagined +and so Christian, that those who sought to suppress it were looked on as +excommunicated; and the Sorbonne doctor, John des Lyons, in his +discourse against the paganism of the Roiboit, informs us that a doctor +of divinity publicly maintained at Auxerre, about the close of the +fifteenth century, that "the feast of Fools was no less pleasing to God +than the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; +besides, that it was of much higher antiquity in the church." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 +(of 10), by François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY *** + +***** This file should be named 35622-8.txt or 35622-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/6/2/35622/ + +Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe +at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously +made available by the Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 (of 10) + From "The Works of Voltaire - A Contemporary Version" + +Author: François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +Commentator: John Morley + Tobias Smollett + H.G. Leigh + +Translator: William F. Fleming + +Release Date: March 28, 2011 [EBook #35622] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY *** + + + + +Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe +at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously +made available by the Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY</h1> + +<h3>VOLUME II</h3> + +<h4>By</h4> + +<h2>VOLTAIRE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4>EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION</h4> + +<h3>THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE</h3> + +<h4>A CONTEMPORARY VERSION</h4> + + +<h5>With Notes by Tobias Smollett, Revised and Modernized</h5> + +<h5>New Translations by William F. Fleming, and an</h5> + +<h5>Introduction by Oliver H.G. Leigh</h5> + + +<h4>A CRITIQUE AND BIOGRAPHY</h4> + +<h5>BY</h5> + +<h4>THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY</h4> + +<h5>FORTY-THREE VOLUMES</h5> + + +<h5>One hundred and sixty-eight designs, comprising reproductions</h5> + +<h5>of rare old engravings, steel plates, photogravures,</h5> + +<h5>and curious fac-similes</h5> + + +<h4>VOLUME VI</h4> + + +<h4>E.R. DuMONT</h4> + +<h4>PARIS—LONDON—NEW YORK—CHICAGO</h4> + +<h4>1901</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3><i>The WORKS of VOLTAIRE</i></h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>"Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundred +years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it +with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED. +Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the +sweetness of the present civilization."</i></p> + +<p style="margin-left: 35em;"> +<i>VICTOR HUGO.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="caption"><a name="LIST_OF_PLATES" id="LIST_OF_PLATES"></a>LIST OF PLATES—VOL. II +</p> +<p class="small_2"> +<a href="#The_Bastille">THE BASTILLE—<i>Frontispiece</i></a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#A_Type_of_Beauty">A TYPE OF BEAUTY</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#An_Astrologer">AN ASTROLOGER</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Alexanders_Triumph">ALEXANDER'S TRIUMPH</a> +</p> + + +<p style="margin-left: 34em;"><a href="#TABLE_OF_CONTENTS">Table of Contents</a></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 446px;"> +<a name="The_Bastille" id="The_Bastille"></a> +<img src="images/img_01_bastille.jpg" width="446" alt="The Bastille." title="" /> +<span class="caption_fig">"For four hundred years the symbol of +oppression. Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a +perpetual threat, it was the last and often the first argument of king +and priest."</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<h4>VOLTAIRE</h4> + +<h3>A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY.</h3> + +<h4>IN TEN VOLUMES</h4> + +<h4>VOL. II</h4> + +<h4>APPEARANCE—CALENDS</h4> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="APPEARANCE" id="APPEARANCE"></a>APPEARANCE.</h3> + + +<p>Are all appearances deceitful? Have our senses been given us only to +keep us in continual delusion? Is everything error? Do we live in a +dream, surrounded by shadowy chimeras? We see the sun setting when he is +already below the horizon; before he has yet risen we see him appear. A +square tower seems to be round. A straight stick, thrust into the water, +seems to be bent.</p> + +<p>You see your face in a mirror and the image appears to be behind the +glass: it is, however, neither behind nor before it. This glass, which +to the sight and the touch is so smooth and even, is no other than an +unequal congregation of projections and cavities. The finest and fairest +skin is a kind of bristled network, the openings of which are +incomparably larger than the threads, and enclose an infinite number of +minute hairs. Under this network there are liquors incessantly passing, +and from it there issue continual exhalations which cover the whole +surface. What we call large is to an elephant very small, and what we +call small is to insects a world. The same motion which would be rapid +to a snail would be very slow in the eye of an eagle. This rock, which +is impenetrable by steel, is a sieve consisting of more pores than +matter, and containing a thousand avenues of prodigious width leading to +its centre, in which are lodged multitudes of animals, which may, for +aught we know, think themselves the masters of the universe.</p> + +<p>Nothing is either as it appears to be, or in the place where we believe +it to be. Several philosophers, tired of being constantly deceived by +bodies, have in their spleen pronounced that bodies do not exist, and +that there is nothing real but our minds. As well might they have +concluded that, all appearances being false, and the nature of the soul +being as little known as that of the matter, there is no reality in +either body or soul. Perhaps it is this despair of knowing anything +which has caused some Chinese philosophers to say that nothing is the +beginning and the end of all things. This philosophy, so destructive to +being, was well known in Molière's time. Doctor Macphurius represents +the school; when teaching Sganarelle, he says, "You must not say, 'I am +come,' but 'it seems to me that I am come'; for it may seem to you, +without such being really the case." But at the present day a comic +scene is not an argument, though it is sometimes better than an +argument; and there is often as much pleasure in seeking after truth as +in laughing at philosophy.</p> + +<p>You do not see the network, the cavities, the threads, the inequalities, +the exhalations of that white and delicate skin which you idolize. +Animals a thousand times less than a mite discern all these objects +which escape your vision; they lodge, feed, and travel about in them, as +in an extensive country, and those on the right arm are perfectly +ignorant that there are creatures of their own species on the left. If +you were so unfortunate as to see what they see, your charming skin +would strike you with horror.</p> + +<p>The harmony of a concert, to which you listen with delight, must have on +certain classes of minute animals the effect of terrible thunder; and +perhaps it kills them. We see, touch, hear, feel things only in the way +in which they ought to be seen, touched, heard, or felt by ourselves.</p> + +<p>All is in due proportion. The laws of optics, which show you an object +in the water where it is not, and break a right line, are in entire +accordance with those which make the sun appear to you with a diameter +of two feet, although it is a million times larger than the earth. To +see it in its true dimensions would require an eye collecting his rays +at an angle as great as his disk, which is impossible. Our senses, then, +assist much more than they deceive us.</p> + +<p>Motion, time, hardness, softness, dimensions, distance, approximation, +strength, weakness, appearances, of whatever kind, all is relative. And +who has created these relations?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="APROPOS" id="APROPOS"></a>APROPOS.</h3> + + +<p>All great successes, of whatever kind, are founded upon things done or +said apropos.</p> + +<p>Arnold of Brescia, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague did not come quite +apropos; the people were not then sufficiently enlightened; the +invention of printing had not then laid the abuses complained of before +the eyes of every one. But when men began to read—when the populace, +who were solicitous to escape purgatory, but at the same time wished not +to pay too dear for indulgences, began to open their eyes, the reformers +of the sixteenth century came quite apropos, and succeeded.</p> + +<p>It has been elsewhere observed that Cromwell under Elizabeth or Charles +the Second, or Cardinal de Retz when Louis XIV. governed by himself, +would have been very ordinary persons.</p> + +<p>Had Cæsar been born in the time of Scipio Africanus he would not have +subjugated the Roman commonwealth; nor would Mahomet, could he rise +again at the present day, be more than sheriff of Mecca. But if +Archimedes and Virgil were restored, one would still be the best +mathematician, the other the best poet of his country.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ARABS" id="ARABS"></a>ARABS;</h3> + +<h5>AND, OCCASIONALLY, ON THE BOOK OF JOB.</h5> + + +<p>If any one be desirous of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the +antiquities of Arabia, it may be presumed that he will gain no more +information than about those of Auvergne and Poitou. It is, however, +certain, that the Arabs were of some consequence long before Mahomet. +The Jews themselves say that Moses married an Arabian woman, and his +father-in-law Jethro seems to have been a man of great good sense.</p> + +<p>Mecca is considered, and not without reason, as one of the most ancient +cities in the world. It is, indeed, a proof of its antiquity that +nothing but superstition could occasion the building of a town on such a +spot, for it is in a sandy desert, where the water is brackish, so that +the people die of hunger and thirst. The country a few miles to the east +is the most delightful upon earth, the best watered and the most +fertile. There the Arabs should have built, and not at Mecca. But it was +enough for some charlatan, some false prophet, to give out his reveries, +to make of Mecca a sacred spot and the resort of neighboring nations. +Thus it was that the temple of Jupiter Ammon was built in the midst of +sands. Arabia extends from northeast to southwest, from the desert of +Jerusalem to Aden or Eden, about the fiftieth degree of north latitude. +It is an immense country, about three times as large as Germany. It is +very likely that its deserts of sand were brought thither by the waters +of the ocean, and that its marine gulfs were once fertile lands.</p> + +<p>The belief in this nation's antiquity is favored by the circumstance +that no historian speaks of its having been subjugated. It was not +subdued even by Alexander, nor by any king of Syria, nor by the Romans. +The Arabs, on the contrary, subjugated a hundred nations, from the Indus +to the Garonne; and, having afterwards lost their conquests, they +retired into their own country and did not mix with any other people.</p> + +<p>Having never been subject to nor mixed with other nations it is more +than probable that they have preserved their manners and their language. +Indeed, Arabic is, in some sense, the mother tongue of all Asia as far +as the Indus; or rather, the prevailing tongue, for mother tongues have +never existed. Their genius has never changed. They still compose their +"Nights' Entertainments," as they did when they imagined one Bac or +Bacchus, who passed through the Red Sea with three millions of men, +women, and children; who stopped the sun and moon, and made streams of +wine issue forth with a blow of his rod, which, when he chose, he +changed into a serpent.</p> + +<p>A nation so isolated, and whose blood remains unmixed, cannot change its +character. The Arabs of the desert have always been given to robbery, +and those inhabiting the towns been fond of fables, poetry, and +astronomy. It is said, in the historical preface to the Koran, that when +any one of their tribes had a good poet the other tribes never failed to +send deputies to that one on which God had vouchsafed to bestow so great +a gift.</p> + +<p>The tribes assembled every year, by representatives, in an open place +named Ocad, where verses were recited, nearly in the same way as is now +done at Rome in the garden of the academy of the Arcadii, and this +custom continued until the time of Mahomet. In his time, each one posted +his verses on the door of the temple of Mecca. Labid, son of Rabia, was +regarded as the Homer of Mecca; but, having seen the second chapter of +the Koran, which Mahomet had posted, he fell on his knees before him, +and said, "O Mahomet, son of Abdallah, son of Motalib, son of Achem, +thou art a greater poet than I—thou art doubtless the prophet of God."</p> + +<p>The Arabs of Maden, Naïd, and Sanaa were no less generous than those of +the desert were addicted to plunder. Among them, one friend was +dishonored if he had refused his assistance to another. In their +collection of verses, entitled <i>"Tograid",</i> it is related that, "one +day, in the temple of Mecca, three Arabs were disputing on generosity +and friendship, and could not agree as to which, among those who then +set the greatest examples of these virtues, deserved the preference. +Some were for Abdallah, son of Giafar, uncle to Mahomet; others for +Kais, son of Saad; and others for Arabad, of the tribe of As. After a +long dispute they agreed to send a friend of Abdallah to him, a friend +of Kais to Kais, and a friend of Arabad to Arabad, to try them all +three, and to come and make their report to the assembly.</p> + +<p>"Then the friend of Abdallah went and said to him, 'Son of the uncle of +Mahomet, I am on a journey and am destitute of everything.' Abdallah was +mounted on his camel loaded with gold and silk; he dismounted with all +speed, gave him his camel, and returned home on foot.</p> + +<p>"The second went and made application to his friend Kais, son of Saad. +Kais was still asleep, and one of his domestics asked the traveller what +he wanted. The traveller answered that he was the friend of Kais, and +needed his assistance. The domestic said to him, 'I will not wake my +master; but here are seven thousand pieces of gold, which are all that +we at present have in the house. Take also a camel from the stable, and +a slave; these will, I think, be sufficient for you until you reach your +own house.' When Kais awoke, he chid the domestic for not having given +more.</p> + +<p>"The third repaired to his friend Arabad, of the tribe of As. Arabad was +blind, and was coming out of his house, leaning on two slaves, to pray +to God in the temple of Mecca. As soon as he heard his friend's voice, +he said to him, 'I possess nothing but my two slaves; I beg that you +will take and sell them; I will go to the temple as well as I can, with +my stick.'</p> + +<p>"The three disputants, having returned to the assembly, faithfully +related what had happened. Many praises were bestowed on Abdallah, son +of Giafar—on Kais, son of Saad—and on Arabad, of the tribe of As, but +the preference was given to Arabad."</p> + +<p>The Arabs have several tales of this kind, but our western nations have +none. Our romances are not in this taste. We have, indeed, several which +turn upon trick alone, as those of Boccaccio, <i>"Guzman d'Alfarache,"</i> +"Gil Bias," etc.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>On Job, the Arab.</i></p> + +<p>It is clear that the Arabs at least possessed noble and exalted ideas. +Those who are most conversant with the oriental languages think that the +Book of Job, which is of the highest antiquity, was composed by an Arab +of Idumaea. The most clear and indubitable proof is that the Hebrew +translator has left in his translation more than a hundred Arabic words, +which, apparently, he did not understand.</p> + +<p>Job, the hero of the piece, could not be a Hebrew, for he says, in the +forty-second chapter, that having been restored to his former +circumstances, he divided his possessions equally among his sons and +daughters, which is directly contrary to the Hebrew law.</p> + +<p>It is most likely that, if this book had been composed after the period +at which we place Moses, the author—who speaks of so many things and is +not sparing of examples—would have mentioned some one of the +astonishing prodigies worked by Moses, which were, doubtless, known to +all the nations of Asia.</p> + +<p>In the very first chapter Satan appears before God and asks permission +to tempt Job. <i>Satan</i> was unknown in the Pentateuch; it was a Chaldæan +word; a fresh proof that the Arabian author was in the neighborhood of +Chaldæa.</p> + +<p>It has been thought that he might be a Jew because the Hebrew +translator has put Jehovah instead of El, or Bel, or Sadai. But what man +of the least information does not know that the word Jehovah was common +to the Phœnicians, the Syrians, the Egyptians, and every people of +the neighboring countries?</p> + +<p>A yet stronger proof—one to which there is no reply—is the knowledge +of astronomy which appears in the Book of Job. Mention is here made of +the constellations which we call Arcturus, Orion, the Pleiades, and even +of those of "the chambers of the south." Now, the Hebrews had no +knowledge of the sphere; they had not even a term to express astronomy; +but the Arabs, like the Chaldæans, have always been famed for their +skill in this science.</p> + +<p>It does, then, seem to be thoroughly proved that the Book of Job cannot +have been written by a Jew, and that it was anterior to all the Jewish +books, Philo and Josephus were too prudent to count it among those of +the Hebrew canon. It is incontestably an Arabian parable or allegory.</p> + +<p>This is not all. We derive from it some knowledge of the customs of the +ancient world, and especially of Arabia. Here we read of trading with +the Indies; a commerce which the Arabs have in all ages carried on, but +which the Jews never even heard of.</p> + +<p>Here, too, we see that the art of writing was in great cultivation, and +that they already made great books.</p> + +<p>It cannot be denied that the commentator Calmet, profound as he is, +violates all the rules of logic in pretending that Job announces the +immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, when he says:</p> + +<p>"For I know that my Redeemer liveth. And though after my skin—worms +destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. But ye should say, +Why persecute we him?—seeing the root of the matter is found in me. Be +ye afraid of the sword; for wrath bringeth the punishment of the sword, +that ye may know there is a judgment."</p> + +<p>Can anything be understood by those words, other than his hope of being +cured? The immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body at +the last day, are truths so indubitably announced in the New Testament, +and so clearly proved by the fathers and the councils, that there is no +need to attribute the first knowledge of them to an Arab. These great +mysteries are not explained in any passage of the Hebrew Pentateuch; how +then can they be explained in a single verse of Job and that in so +obscure a manner? Calmet has no better reason for seeing in the words of +Job the immortality of the soul, and the general resurrection, than he +would have for discovering a disgraceful disease in the malady with +which he was afflicted. Neither physics nor logic take the part of this +commentator.</p> + +<p>As for this allegorical Book of Job: it being manifestly Arabian, we are +at liberty to say that it has neither justness, method, nor precision. +Yet it is perhaps the most ancient book that has been written, and the +most valuable monument that has been found on this side the Euphrates.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ARARAT" id="ARARAT"></a>ARARAT.</h3> + + +<p>This is a mountain of Armenia, on which the ark rested. The question has +long been agitated, whether the deluge was universal—whether it +inundated the whole earth without exception, or only the portion of the +earth which was then known. Those who have thought that it extended only +to the tribes then existing, have founded their opinion on the inutility +of flooding unpeopled lands, which reason seems very plausible. As for +us, we abide by the Scripture text, without pretending to explain it. +But we shall take greater liberty with Berosus, an ancient Chaldæan +writer, of whom there are fragments preserved by Abydenus, quoted by +Eusebius, and repeated word for word by George Syncellus. From these +fragments we find that the Orientals of the borders of the Euxine, in +ancient times, made Armenia the abode of their gods. In this they were +imitated by the Greeks, who placed their deities on Mount Olympus. Men +have always confounded human with divine things. Princes built their +citadels on mountains; therefore they were also made the dwelling place +of the gods, and became sacred. The summit of Mount Ararat is concealed +by mists; therefore the gods hid themselves in those mists, sometimes +vouchsafing to appear to mortals in fine weather.</p> + +<p>A god of that country, believed to have been Saturn, appeared one day to +Xixuter, tenth king of Chaldæa, according to the computation of +Africanus, Abydenus, and Apollodorus, and said to him:</p> + +<p>"On the fifteenth day of the month Oesi, mankind shall be destroyed by a +deluge. Shut up close all your writings in Sipara, the city of the sun, +that the memory of things may not be lost. Build a vessel; enter it with +your relatives and friends; take with you birds and beasts; stock it +with provisions, and, when you are asked, 'Whither are you going in that +vessel?' answer, 'To the gods, to beg their favor for mankind.'"</p> + +<p>Xixuter built his vessel, which was two stadii wide, and five long; that +it, its width was two hundred and fifty geometrical paces, and its +length six hundred and twenty-five. This ship, which was to go upon the +Black Sea, was a slow sailer. The flood came. When it had ceased Xixuter +let some of his birds fly out, but, finding nothing to eat, they +returned to the vessel. A few days afterwards he again set some of his +birds at liberty, and they returned with mud in their claws. At last +they went and returned no more. Xixuter did likewise: he quitted his +ship, which had perched upon a mountain of Armenia, and he was seen no +more; the gods took him away.</p> + +<p>There is probably something historic in this fable. The Euxine +overflowed its banks, and inundated some portions of territory, and the +king of Chaldæa hastened to repair the damage. We have in Rabelais tales +no less ridiculous, founded on some small portion of truth. The ancient +historians are, for the most part, serious Rabelais.</p> + +<p>As for Mount Ararat, it has been asserted that it was one of the +mountains of Phrygia, and that it was called by a name answering that of +ark, because it was enclosed by three rivers.</p> + +<p>There are thirty opinions respecting this mountain. How shall we +distinguish the true one? That which the monks now call Ararat, was, +they say, one of the limits of the terrestrial paradise—a paradise of +which we find but few traces. It is a collection of rocks and +precipices, covered with eternal snows. Tournefort went thither by order +of Louis XIV. to seek for plants. He says that the whole neighborhood is +horrible, and the mountain itself still more so; that he found snow four +feet thick, and quite crystallized, and that there are perpendicular +precipices on every side.</p> + +<p>The Dutch traveller, John Struys, pretends that he went thither also. He +tells us that he ascended to the very top, to cure a hermit afflicted +with a rupture.</p> + +<p>"His hermitage," says he, "was so distant from the earth that we did not +reach it until the close of the seventh day, though each day we went +five leagues." If, in this journey, he was constantly ascending, this +Mount Ararat must be thirty-five leagues high. In the time of the +Giants' war, a few Ararats piled one upon another would have made the +ascent to the moon quite easy. John Struys, moreover, assures us that +the hermit whom he cured presented him with a cross made of the wood of +Noah's ark. Tournefort had not this advantage.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ARIANISM" id="ARIANISM"></a>ARIANISM.</h3> + + +<p>The great theological disputes, for twelve hundred years, were all +Greek. What would Homer, Sophocles, Demosthenes, Archimedes, have said, +had they witnessed the subtle cavillings which have cost so much blood.</p> + +<p>Arius has, even at this day, the honor of being regarded as the inventor +of his opinion, as Calvin is considered to have been the founder of +Calvinism. The pride in being the head of a sect is the second of this +world's vanities; for that of conquest is said to be the first. However, +it is certain that neither Arius nor Calvin is entitled to the +melancholy glory of invention. The quarrel about the Trinity existed +long before Arius took part in it, in the disputatious town of +Alexandria, where it had been beyond the power of Euclid to make men +think calmly and justly. There never was a people more frivolous than +the Alexandrians; in this respect they far exceeded even the Parisians.</p> + +<p>There must already have been warm disputes about the Trinity; since the +patriarch, who composed the "Alexandrian Chronicle," preserved at +Oxford, assures us that the party embraced by Arius was supported by two +thousand priests.</p> + +<p>We will here, for the reader's convenience, give what is said of Arius +in a small book which every one may not have at hand: Here is an +incomprehensible question, which, for more than sixteen hundred years, +has furnished exercise for curiosity, for sophistic subtlety, for +animosity, for the spirit of cabal, for the fury of dominion, for the +rage of persecution, for blind and sanguinary fanaticism, for barbarous +credulity, and which has produced more horrors than the ambition of +princes, which ambition has occasioned very many. Is Jesus the Word? If +He be the Word, did He emanate from God in time or before time? If He +emanated from God, is He coeternal and consubstantial with Him, or is He +of a similar substance? Is He distinct from Him, or is He not? Is He +made or begotten? Can He beget in his turn? Has He paternity? or +productive virtue without paternity? Is the Holy Ghost made? or +begotten? or produced? or proceeding from the Father? or proceeding from +the Son? or proceeding from both? Can He beget? can He produce? is His +hypostasis consubstantial with the hypostasis of the Father and the Son? +and how is it that, having the same nature—the same essence as the +Father and the Son, He cannot do the same things done by these persons +who are Himself?</p> + +<p>These questions, so far above reason, certainly needed the decision of +an infallible church. The Christians sophisticated, cavilled, hated, and +excommunicated one another, for some of these dogmas inaccessible to +human intellect, before the time of Arius and Athanasius. The Egyptian +Greeks were remarkably clever; they would split a hair into four, but on +this occasion they split it only into three. Alexandros, bishop of +Alexandria, thought proper to preach that God, being necessarily +individual—single—a monad in the strictest sense of the word, this +monad is triune.</p> + +<p>The priest Arius, whom we call Arius, was quite scandalized by +Alexandros's monad, and explained the thing in quite a different way. He +cavilled in part like the priest Sabellius, who had cavilled like the +Phrygian Praxeas, who was a great caviller. Alexandros quickly assembled +a small council of those of his own opinion, and excommunicated his +priest. Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, took the part of Arius. Thus the +whole Church was in a flame.</p> + +<p>The Emperor Constantine was a villain; I confess it—a parricide, who +had smothered his wife in a bath, cut his son's throat, assassinated his +father-in-law, his brother-in-law, and his nephew; I cannot deny it—a +man puffed up with pride and immersed in pleasure; granted—a detestable +tyrant, like his children; <i>transeat</i>—but he was a man of sense. He +would not have obtained the empire, and subdued all his rivals, had he +not reasoned justly.</p> + +<p>When he saw the flames of civil war lighted among the scholastic brains, +he sent the celebrated Bishop Osius with dissuasive letters to the two +belligerent parties. "You are great fools," he expressly tells them in +this letter, "to quarrel about things which you do not understand. It is +unworthy the gravity of your ministry to make so much noise about so +trifling a matter."</p> + +<p>By "so trifling a matter," Constantine meant not what regards the +Divinity, but the incomprehensible manner in which they were striving to +explain the nature of the Divinity. The Arabian patriarch, who wrote the +history of the Church of Alexandria, makes Osius, on presenting the +emperor's letter, speak in nearly the following words:</p> + +<p>"My brethren, Christianity is just beginning to enjoy the blessings of +peace, and you would plunge it into eternal discord. The emperor has but +too much reason to tell you that you quarrel about a very trifling +matter. Certainly, had the object of the dispute been essential, Jesus +Christ, whom we all acknowledge as our legislator, would have mentioned +it. God would not have sent His Son on earth, to return without teaching +us our catechism. Whatever He has not expressly told us is the work of +men and error is their portion. Jesus has commanded you to love one +another, and you begin by hating one another and stirring up discord in +the empire. Pride alone has given birth to these disputes, and Jesus, +your Master, has commanded you to be humble. Not one among you can know +whether Jesus is made or begotten. And in what does His nature concern +you, provided your own is to be just and reasonable? What has the vain +science of words to do with the morality which should guide your +actions? You cloud our doctrines with mysteries—you, who were designed +to strengthen religion by your virtues. Would you leave the Christian +religion a mass of sophistry? Did Christ come for this? Cease to +dispute, humble yourselves, edify one another, clothe the naked, feed +the hungry, and pacify the quarrels of families, instead of giving +scandal to the whole empire by your dissensions."</p> + +<p>But Osius addressed an obstinate audience. The Council of Nice was +assembled and the Roman Empire was torn by a spiritual civil war. This +war brought on others and mutual persecution has continued from age to +age, unto this day.</p> + +<p>The melancholy part of the affair was that as soon as the council was +ended the persecution began; but Constantine, when he opened it, did not +yet know how he should act, nor upon whom the persecution should fall. +He was not a Christian, though he was at the head of the Christians. +Baptism alone then constituted Christianity, and he had not been +baptized; he had even rebuilt the Temple of Concord at Rome. It was, +doubtless, perfectly indifferent to him whether Alexander of Alexandria, +or Eusebius of Nicomedia, and the priest Arius, were right or wrong; it +is quite evident, from the letter given above, that he had a profound +contempt for the dispute.</p> + +<p>But there happened that which always happens and always will happen in +every court. The enemies of those who were afterwards named Arians +accused Eusebius of Nicomedia of having formerly taken part with +Licinius against the emperor. "<i>I</i> have proofs of it," said Constantine +in his letter to the Church of Nicomedia, "from the priests and deacons +in his train whom I have taken," etc.</p> + +<p>Thus, from the time of the first great council, intrigue, cabal, and +persecution were established, together with the tenets of the Church, +without the power to derogate from their sanctity. Constantine gave the +chapels of those who did not believe in the consubstantiality to those +who did believe in it; confiscated the property of the dissenters to his +own profit, and used his despotic power to exile Arius and his +partisans, who were not then the strongest. It has even been said that +of his own private authority he condemned to death whosoever should not +burn the writings of Arius; but this is not true. Constantine, prodigal +as he was of human blood, did not carry his cruelty to so mad and absurd +an excess as to order his executioners to assassinate the man who should +keep an heretical book, while he suffered the heresiarch to live.</p> + +<p>At court everything soon changes. Several non-consubstantial bishops, +with some of the eunuchs and the women, spoke in favor of Arius, and +obtained the reversal of the <i>lettre de cachet</i>. The same thing has +repeatedly happened in our modern courts on similar occasions.</p> + +<p>The celebrated Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, known by his writings, which +evince no great discernment, strongly accused Eustatius, bishop of +Antioch, of being a Sabellian; and Eustatius accused Eusebius of being +an Arian. A council was assembled at Antioch; Eusebius gained his cause; +Eustatius was displaced; and the See of Antioch was offered to Eusebius, +who would not accept it; the two parties armed against each other, and +this was the prelude to controversial warfare. Constantine, who had +banished Arius for not believing in the consubstantial Son, now banished +Eustatius for believing in Him; nor are such revolutions uncommon.</p> + +<p>St. Athanasius was then bishop of Alexandria. He would not admit Arius, +whom the emperor had sent thither, into the town, saying that "Arius was +excommunicated; that an excommunicated man ought no longer to have +either home or country; that he could neither eat nor sleep anywhere; +and that it was better to obey God than man." A new council was +forthwith held at Tyre, and new <i>lettres de cachet</i> were issued. +Athanasius was removed by the Tyrian fathers and banished to Trèves. +Thus Arius, and Athanasius, his greatest enemy, were condemned in turn +by a man who was not yet a Christian:</p> + +<p>The two factions alike employed artifice, fraud, and calumny, according +to the old and eternal usage. Constantine left them to dispute and +cabal, for he had other occupations. It was at that time that this <i>good +prince</i> assassinated his son, his wife, and his nephew, the young +Licinius, the hope of the empire, who was not yet twelve years old.</p> + +<p>Under Constantine, Arius' party was constantly victorious. The opposite +party has unblushingly written that one day St. Macarius, one of the +most ardent followers of Athanasius, knowing that Arius was on the way +to the cathedral of Constantinople, followed by several of his brethren, +prayed so ardently to God to confound this heresiarch that God could not +resist the prayer; and immediately all Arius' bowels passed through his +fundament—which is impossible. But at length Arius died.</p> + +<p>Constantine followed him a year afterwards, and it is said he died of +leprosy. Julian, in his "Cæsars," says that baptism, which this emperor +received a few hours before his death, cured no one of this distemper.</p> + +<p>As his children reigned after him the flattery of the Roman people, who +had long been slaves, was carried to such an excess that those of the +old religion made him a god, and those of the new made him a saint. His +feast was long kept, together with that of his mother.</p> + +<p>After his death, the troubles caused by the single word "consubstantial" +agitated the empire with renewed violence. Constantius, son and +successor to Constantine, imitated all his father's cruelties, and, +like him, held councils—which councils anathematized one another. +Athanasius went over all Europe and Asia to support his party, but the +Eusebians overwhelmed him. Banishment, imprisonment, tumult, murder, and +assassination signalized the close of the reign of Constantius. Julian, +the Church's mortal enemy, did his utmost to restore peace to the +Church, but was unsuccessful. Jovian, and after him Valentinian, gave +entire liberty of conscience, but the two parties accepted it only as +the liberty to exercise their hatred and their fury.</p> + +<p>Theodosius declared for the Council of Nice, but the Empress Justina, +who reigned in Italy, Illyria, and Africa, as guardian of the young +Valentinian, proscribed the great Council of Nice; and soon after the +Goths, Vandals, and Burgundians, who spread themselves over so many +provinces, finding Arianism established in them, embraced it in order to +govern the conquered nations by the religion of those nations.</p> + +<p>But the Nicæan faith having been received by the Gauls, their conqueror, +Clovis, followed that communion for the very same reason that the other +barbarians had professed the faith of Arius.</p> + +<p>In Italy, the great Theodoric kept peace between the two parties, and at +last the Nicæan formula prevailed in the east and in the west. Arianism +reappeared about the middle of the sixteenth century, favored by the +religious disputes which then divided Europe; and it reappeared, armed +with new strength and a still greater incredulity. Forty gentlemen of +Vicenza formed an academy, in which such tenets only were established as +appeared necessary to make men Christians. Jesus was acknowledged as the +Word, as Saviour, and as Judge; but His divinity, His consubstantiality, +and even the Trinity, were denied.</p> + +<p>Of these dogmatizers, the principal were Lælius Socinus, Ochin, Pazuta, +and Gentilis, who were joined by Servetus. The unfortunate dispute of +the latter with Calvin is well known; they carried on for some time an +interchange of abuse by letter. Servetus was so imprudent as to pass +through Geneva, on his way to Germany. Calvin was cowardly enough to +have him arrested, and barbarous enough to have him condemned to be +roasted by a slow fire—the same punishment which Calvin himself had +narrowly escaped in France. Nearly all the theologians of that time were +by turns persecuting and persecuted, executioners and victims.</p> + +<p>The same Calvin solicited the death of Gentilis at Geneva. He found five +advocates to subscribe that Gentilis deserved to perish in the flames. +Such horrors were worthy of that abominable age. Gentilis was put in +prison, and was on the point of being burned like Servetus, but he was +better advised than the Spaniard; he retracted, bestowed the most +ridiculous praises on Calvin, and was saved. But he had afterwards the +ill fortune, through not having made terms with a bailiff of the canton +of Berne, to be arrested as an Arian. There were witnesses who deposed +that he had said that the words <i>trinity, essence, hypostasis</i> were not +to be found in the Scriptures, and on this deposition the judges, who +were as ignorant of the meaning of <i>hypostasis</i> as himself, condemned +him, without at all arguing the question, to lose his head.</p> + +<p>Faustus Socinus, nephew to Lælius Socinus, and his companions were more +fortunate in Germany. They penetrated into Silesia and Poland, founded +churches there, wrote, preached, and were successful, but at length, +their religion being divested of almost every mystery, and a +philosophical and peaceful, rather than a militant sect, they were +abandoned; and the Jesuits, who had more influence, persecuted and +dispersed them.</p> + +<p>The remains of this sect in Poland, Germany, and Holland keep quiet and +concealed; but in England the sect has reappeared with greater strength +and éclat. The great Newton and Locke embraced it. Samuel Clarke, the +celebrated rector of St. James, and author of an excellent book on the +existence of God, openly declared himself an Arian, and his disciples +are very numerous. He would never attend his parish church on the day +when the Athanasian Creed was recited. In the course of this work will +be seen the subtleties which all these obstinate persons, who were not +so much Christians as philosophers, opposed to the purity of the +Catholic faith.</p> + +<p>Although among the theologians of London there was a large flock of +Arians, the public mind there has been more occupied by the great +mathematical truths discovered by Newton, and the metaphysical wisdom of +Locke. Disputes on consubstantiality appear very dull to philosophers. +The same thing happened to Newton in England as to Corneille in France, +whose <i>"Pertharite,"</i> "<i>Théodore,</i>" and <i>"Recueil de Vers"</i> were +forgotten, while <i>"Cinna"</i> was alone thought of. Newton was looked upon +as God's interpreter, in the calculation of fluxions, the laws of +gravitation, and the nature of light. On his death, his pall was borne +by the peers and the chancellor of the realm, and his remains were laid +near the tombs of the kings—than whom he is more revered. Servetus, who +is said to have discovered the circulation of the blood, was roasted by +a slow fire, in a little town of the Allobroges, ruled by a theologian +of Picardy.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ARISTEAS" id="ARISTEAS"></a>ARISTEAS.</h3> + + +<p>Shall men forever be deceived in the most indifferent as well as the +most serious things? A pretended Aristeas would make us believe that he +had the Old Testament translated into Greek for the use of Ptolemy +Philadelphus—just as the Duke de Montausier had commentaries written on +the best Latin authors for the dauphin, who made no use of them.</p> + +<p>According to this Aristeas, Ptolemy, burning with desire to be +acquainted with the Jewish books, and to know those laws which the +meanest Jew in Alexandria could have translated for fifty crowns, +determined to send a solemn embassy to the high-priest of the Jews of +Jerusalem; to deliver a hundred and twenty thousand Jewish slaves, whom +his father, Ptolemy Soter, had made prisoners in Judæa, and in order to +assist them in performing the journey agreeably, to give them about +forty crowns each of our money—amounting in the whole to fourteen +millions four hundred thousand of our livres, or about five hundred and +seventy-six thousand pounds.</p> + +<p>Ptolemy did not content himself with this unheard-of liberality. He sent +to the temple a large table of massive gold, enriched all over with +precious stones, and had engraved upon it a chart of the Meander, a +river of Phrygia, the course of which river was marked with rubies and +emeralds. It is obvious how charming such a chart of the Meander must +have been to the Jews. This table was loaded with two immense golden +vases, still more richly worked. He also gave thirty other golden and an +infinite number of silver vases. Never was a book so dearly paid for; +the whole Vatican library might be had for a less amount.</p> + +<p>Eleazar, the pretended high-priest of Jerusalem, sent ambassadors in his +turn, who presented only a letter written upon fine vellum in characters +of gold. It was an act worthy of the Jews, to give a bit of parchment +for about thirty millions of livres. Ptolemy was so much delighted with +Eleazar's style that he shed tears of joy.</p> + +<p>The ambassador dined with the king and the chief priests of Egypt. When +grace was to be said, the Egyptians yielded the honor to the Jews. With +these ambassadors came seventy-two interpreters, six from each of the +twelve tribes, who had all learned Greek perfectly at Jerusalem. It is +really a pity that of these twelve tribes ten were entirely lost, and +had disappeared from the face of the earth so many ages before; but +Eleazar, the high-priest, found them again, on purpose to send +translators to Ptolemy.</p> + +<p>The seventy-two interpreters were shut up in the island of Pharos. Each +of them completed his translation in seventy-two days, and all the +translations were found to be word for word alike. This is called the +Septuagint or translation of the seventy, though it should have been +called the translation of the seventy-two.</p> + +<p>As soon as the king had received these books he worshipped them—he was +so good a Jew. Each interpreter received three talents of gold, and +there were sent to the high-sacrificer—in return for his parchment—ten +couches of silver, a crown of gold, censers and cups of gold, a vase of +thirty talents of silver—that is, of the weight of about sixty thousand +crowns—with ten purple robes, and a hundred pieces of the finest linen.</p> + +<p>Nearly all this fine story is faithfully repeated by the historian +Josephus, who never exaggerates anything. St. Justin improves upon +Josephus. He says that Ptolemy applied to King Herod, and not to the +high-priest Eleazar. He makes Ptolemy send two ambassadors to +Herod—which adds much to the marvellousness of the tale, for we know +that Herod was not born until long after the reign of Ptolemy +Philadelphus.</p> + +<p>It is needless to point out the profusion of anachronisms in these and +all such romances, or the swarm of contradictions and enormous blunders +into which the Jewish author falls in every sentence; yet this fable was +regarded for ages as an incontestable truth; and, the better to exercise +the credulity of the human mind, every writer who repeated it added or +retrenched in his own way, so that, to believe it all, it was necessary +to believe it in a hundred different ways. Some smile at these +absurdities which whole nations have swallowed, while others sigh over +the imposture. The infinite diversity of these falsehoods multiplies the +followers of Democritus and Heraclitus.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ARISTOTLE" id="ARISTOTLE"></a>ARISTOTLE.</h3> + + +<p>It is not to be believed that Alexander's preceptor, chosen by Philip, +was wrong-headed and pedantic. Philip was assuredly a judge, being +himself well informed, and the rival of Demosthenes in eloquence.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Aristotle's Logic.</i></p> + +<p>Aristotle's logic—his art of reasoning—is so much the more to be +esteemed as he had to deal with the Greeks, who were continually holding +captious arguments, from which fault his master Plato was even less +exempt than others.</p> + +<p>Take, for example, the article by which, in the <i>"Phædon"</i> Plato proves +the immortality of the soul:</p> + +<p>"Do you not say that death is the opposite of life? Yes. And that they +spring from each other? Yes. What, then, is it that springs from the +living? The dead. And what from the dead? The living. It is, then, from +the dead that all living creatures arise. Consequently, souls exist +after death in the infernal regions."</p> + +<p>Sure and unerring rules were wanted to unravel this extraordinary +nonsense, which, through Plato's reputation, fascinated the minds of +men. It was necessary to show that Plato gave a loose meaning to all his +words.</p> + +<p>Death does not spring from life, but the living man ceases to live. The +living springs not from the dead, but from a living man who subsequently +dies. Consequently, the conclusion that all living things spring from +dead ones is ridiculous.</p> + +<p>From this conclusion you draw another, which is no way included in the +premises, that souls are in the infernal regions after death. It should +first have been proved that dead bodies are in the infernal regions, and +that the souls accompany them.</p> + +<p>There is not a correct word in your argument. You should have said—That +which thinks has no parts; that which has no parts is indestructible: +therefore, the thinking faculty in us, having no parts, is +indestructible. Or—the body dies because it is divisible; the soul is +indivisible; therefore it does not die. Then you would at least have +been understood.</p> + +<p>It is the same with all the captious reasonings of the Greeks. A master +taught rhetoric to his disciple on condition that he should pay him +after the first cause that he gained. The disciple intended never to pay +him. He commenced an action against his master, saying: "I will never +pay you anything, for, if I lose my cause I was not to pay you until I +had gained it, and if I gain it my demand is that I may not pay you."</p> + +<p>The master retorted, saying: "If you lose you must pay; if you gain you +must also pay; for our bargain is that you shall pay me after the first +cause that you have gained."</p> + +<p>It is evident that all this turns on an ambiguity. Aristotle teaches how +to remove it, by putting the necessary terms in the argument:</p> + +<p>A sum is not due until the day appointed for its payment. The day +appointed is that when a cause shall have been gained. No cause has yet +been gained. Therefore the day appointed has not yet arrived. Therefore +the disciple does not yet owe anything.</p> + +<p>But <i>not yet</i> does not mean <i>never</i>. So that the disciple instituted a +ridiculous action. The master, too, had no right to demand anything, +since the day appointed had not arrived. He must wait until the disciple +had pleaded some other cause.</p> + +<p>Suppose a conquering people were to stipulate that they would restore to +the conquered only one-half of their ships; then, having sawed them in +two, and having thus given back the exact half, were to pretend that +they had fulfilled the treaty. It is evident that this would be a very +criminal equivocation.</p> + +<p>Aristotle did, then, render a great service to mankind by preventing all +ambiguity; for this it is which causes all misunderstandings in +philosophy, in theology, and in public affairs. The pretext for the +unfortunate war of 1756 was an equivocation respecting Acadia.</p> + +<p>It is true that natural good sense, combined with the habit of +reasoning, may dispense with Aristotle's rules. A man who has a good ear +and voice may sing well without musical rules, but it is better to know +them.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>His Physics.</i></p> + +<p>They are but little understood, but it is more than probable that +Aristotle understood himself, and was understood in his own time. We are +strangers to the language of the Greeks; we do not attach to the same +words the same ideas.</p> + +<p>For instance, when he says, in his seventh chapter, that the principles +of bodies are matter, privation, and form, he seems to talk egregious +nonsense; but such is not the case. Matter, with him, is the first +principle of everything—the subject of everything—indifferent to +everything. Form is essential to its becoming any certain thing. +Privation is that which distinguishes any being from all those things +which are not in it. Matter may, indifferently, become a rose or an +apple; but, when it is an apple or a rose it is deprived of all that +would make it silver or lead. Perhaps this truth was not worth the +trouble of repeating; but we have nothing here but what is quite +intelligible, and nothing at all impertinent.</p> + +<p>The "act of that which is in power" also seems a ridiculous phrase, +though it is no more so than the one just noticed. Matter may become +whatever you will—fire, earth, water, vapor, metal, mineral, animal, +tree, flower. This is all that is meant by the expression, <i>act in +power</i>. So that there was nothing ridiculous to the Greeks in saying +that motion was an act of power, since matter may be moved; and it is +very likely that Aristotle understood thereby that motion was not +essential to matter.</p> + +<p>Aristotle's physics must necessarily have been very bad in detail. This +was common to all philosophers until the time when the Galileos, the +Torricellis, the Guerickes, the Drebels, and the Academy del Cimento +began to make experiments. Natural philosophy is a mine which cannot be +explored without instruments that were unknown to the ancients. They +remained on the brink of the abyss, and reasoned upon without seeing its +contents.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Aristotle's Treatise on Animals.</i></p> + +<p>His researches relative to animals formed, on the contrary, the best +book of antiquity, because here Aristotle made use of his eyes. +Alexander furnished him with all the rare animals of Europe, Asia, and +Africa. This was one fruit of his conquests. In this way that hero spent +immense sums, which at this day would terrify all the guardians of the +royal treasury, and which should immortalize Alexander's glory, of which +we have already spoken.</p> + +<p>At the present day a hero, when he has the misfortune to make war, can +scarcely give any encouragement to the sciences; he must borrow money of +a Jew, and consult other Jews in order to make the substance of his +subjects flow into his coffer of the Danaides, whence it escapes through +a thousand openings. Alexander sent to Aristotle elephants, +rhinoceroses, tigers, lions, crocodiles, gazelles, eagles, ostriches, +etc.; and we, when by chance a rare animal is brought to our fairs, go +and admire it for sixpence, and it dies before we know anything about +it.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Of the Eternal World.</i></p> + +<p>Aristotle expressly maintains, in his book on heaven, chap, xi., that +the world is eternal. This was the opinion of all antiquity, excepting +the Epicureans. He admitted a God—a first mover—and defined Him to be +"one, eternal, immovable, indivisible, without qualities."</p> + +<p>He must, therefore, have regarded the world as emanating from God, as +the light emanates from the sun, and is co-existent with it. About the +celestial spheres he was as ignorant as all the rest of the +philosophers. Copernicus was not yet come.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>His Metaphysics.</i></p> + +<p>God being the first mover, He gives motion to the soul. But what is God, +and what is the soul, according to him? The soul is an <i>entelechia</i>. "It +is," says he, "a principle and an act—a nourishing, feeling, and +reasoning power." This can only mean that we have the faculties of +nourishing ourselves, of feeling, and of reasoning. The Greeks no more +knew what an <i>entelechia</i> was than do the South Sea islanders; nor have +our doctors any more knowledge of what a soul is.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>His Morals.</i></p> + +<p>Aristotle's morals, like all others, are good, for there are not two +systems of morality. Those of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Pythagoras, of +Aristotle, of Epictetus, of Antoninus, are absolutely the same. God has +placed in every breast the knowledge of good, with some inclination for +evil.</p> + +<p>Aristotle says that to be virtuous three things are necessary—nature, +reason, and habit; and nothing is more true. Without a good disposition, +virtue is too difficult; reason strengthens it; and habit renders good +actions as familiar as a daily exercise to which one is accustomed.</p> + +<p>He enumerates all the virtues, and does not fail to place friendship +among them. He distinguishes friendship between equals, between +relatives, between guests, and between lovers. Friendship springing from +the rights of hospitality is no longer known among us. That which, among +the ancients, was the sacred bond of society is, with us, nothing but an +innkeeper's reckoning; and as for lovers, it is very rarely nowadays +that virtue has anything to do with love. We think we owe nothing to a +woman to whom we have a thousand times promised everything.</p> + +<p>It is a melancholy reflection that our first thinkers have never ranked +friendship among the virtues—have rarely recommended friendship; but, +on the contrary, have often seemed to breathe enmity, like tyrants, who +dread all associations.</p> + +<p>It is, moreover, with very good reason that Aristotle places all the +virtues between the two extremes. He was, perhaps, the first who +assigned them this place. He expressly says that piety is the medium +between atheism and superstition.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>His Rhetoric.</i></p> + +<p>It was probably his rules for rhetoric and poetry that Cicero and +Quintilian had in view. Cicero, in his "Orator" says that "no one had +more science, sagacity, invention, or judgment." Quintilian goes so far +as to praise, not only the extent of his knowledge, but also the suavity +of his elocution—<i>suavitatem eloquendi.</i></p> + +<p>Aristotle would have an orator well informed respecting laws, finances, +treaties, fortresses, garrisons, provisions, and merchandise. The +orators in the parliaments of England, the diets of Poland, the states +of Sweden, the <i>pregadi</i> of Venice, etc., would not find these lessons +of Aristotle unprofitable; to other nations, perhaps, they would be so. +He would have his orator know the passions and manners of men, and the +humors of every condition.</p> + +<p>I think there is not a single nicety of the art which has escaped him. +He particularly commends the citing of instances where public affairs +are spoken of; nothing has so great an effect on the minds of men.</p> + +<p>What he says on this subject proves that he wrote his "Rhetoric" long +before Alexander was appointed captain-general of the Greeks against the +great king.</p> + +<p>"If," says he, "any one had to prove to the Greeks that it is to their +interest to oppose the enterprises of the king of Persia, and to prevent +him from making himself master of Egypt, he should first remind them +that Darius Ochus would not attack Greece until Egypt was in his power; +he should remark that Xerxes had pursued the same course; he should add +that it was not to be doubted that Darius Codomannus would do the same; +and that, therefore, they must not suffer him to take possession of +Egypt."</p> + +<p>He even permits, in speeches delivered to great assemblies, the +introduction of parables and fables; they always strike the multitude. +He relates some ingenious ones, which are of the highest antiquity, as +the horse that implored the assistance of man to avenge himself on the +stag, and became a slave through having sought a protector.</p> + +<p>It may be remarked that, in the second book, where he treats of arguing +from the greater to the less, he gives an example which plainly shows +what was the opinion of Greece, and probably of Asia, respecting the +extent of the power of the gods.</p> + +<p>"If," says he, "it be true that the gods themselves, enlightened as they +are, cannot know everything, much less can men." This passage clearly +proves that omniscience was not then attributed to the Divinity. It was +conceived that the gods could not know what was not; the future was not, +therefore it seemed impossible that they should know it. This is the +opinion of the Socinians at the present day.</p> + +<p>But to return to Aristotle's "Rhetoric." What I shall chiefly remark on +in his book on elocution and diction is the good sense with which he +condemns those who would be poets in prose. He would have pathos, but he +banishes bombast, and proscribes useless epithets. Indeed, Demosthenes +and Cicero, who followed his precepts, never affected the poetic style +in their speeches. "The style," says Aristotle, "must always be +conformable to the subject."</p> + +<p>Nothing can be more misplaced than to speak of physics poetically, and +lavish figure and ornament where there should be only method, clearness, +and truth. It is the quackery of a man who would pass off false systems +under cover of an empty noise of words. Weak minds are caught by the +bait, and strong minds disdain it.</p> + +<p>Among us the funeral oration has taken possession of the poetic style in +prose; but this branch of oratory, consisting almost entirely of +exaggeration, seems privileged to borrow the ornaments of poetry.</p> + +<p>The writers of romances have sometimes taken this licence. La Calprenède +was, I think, the first who thus transposed the limits of the arts, and +abused this facility. The author of "Telemachus" was pardoned through +consideration for Homer, whom he imitated, though he could not make +verses, and still more in consideration of his morality, in which he +infinitely surpasses Homer, who has none at all. But he owed his +popularity chiefly to the criticism on the pride of Louis XIV. and the +harshness of Louvois, which, it was thought, were discoverable in +"Telemachus."</p> + +<p>Be this as it may, nothing can be a better proof of Aristotle's good +sense and good taste than his having assigned to everything its proper +place.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Aristotle on Poetry.</i></p> + +<p>Where, in our modern nations, shall we find a natural philosopher, a +geometrician, a metaphysician, or even a moralist who has spoken well on +the subject of poetry? They teem with the names of Homer, Virgil, +Sophocles, Ariosto, Tasso, and so many others who have charmed the world +by the harmonious productions of their genius, but they feel not their +beauties; or if they feel them they would annihilate them.</p> + +<p>How ridiculous is it in Pascal to say: "As we say poetical beauty, we +should likewise say geometrical beauty, and medicinal beauty. Yet we do +not say so, and the reason is that we well know what is the object of +geometry, and what is the object of medicine, but we do not know in what +the peculiar charm—which is the object of poetry—consists. We know not +what that natural model is which must be imitated; and for want of this +knowledge we have invented certain fantastic terms, as age of gold, +wonder of the age, fatal wreath, fair star, etc. And this jargon we call +poetic beauty."</p> + +<p>The pitifulness of this passage is sufficiently obvious. We know that +there is nothing beautiful in a medicine, nor in the properties of a +triangle; and that we apply the term "beautiful" only to that which +raises admiration in our minds and gives pleasure to our senses. Thus +reasons Aristotle; and Pascal here reasons very ill. Fatal wreath, fair +star, have never been poetic beauties. If he wished to know what is +poetic beauty, he had only to read.</p> + +<p>Nicole wrote against the stage, about which he had not a single idea; +and was seconded by one Dubois, who was as ignorant of the <i>belles +lettres</i> as himself.</p> + +<p>Even Montesquieu, in his amusing "Persian Letters," has the petty vanity +to think that Homer and Virgil are nothing in comparison with one who +imitates with spirit and success Dufrénoy's <i>"Siamois,"</i> and fills his +book with bold assertions, without which it would not have been read. +"What," says he, "are epic poems? I know them not. I despise the lyric +as much as I esteem the tragic poets." He should not, however, have +despised Pindar and Horace quite so much. Aristotle did not despise +Pindar.</p> + +<p>Descartes did, it is true, write for Queen Christina a little +<i>divertissement</i> in verse, which was quite worthy of his <i>matière +cannelée</i>.</p> + +<p>Malebranche could not distinguish Corneille's <i>"Qu'il mourût"</i> from a +line of Jodèle's or Garnier's.</p> + +<p>What a man, then, was Aristotle, who traced the rules of tragedy with +the same hand with which he had laid down those of dialectics, of +morals, of politics, and lifted, as far as he found it possible, the +great veil of nature!</p> + +<p>To his fourth chapter on poetry Boileau is indebted for these fine +lines:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Il n'est point de serpent, ni de monstre odieux</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Qui, par l'art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>D'un pinceau délicat l'artifice agréable</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Du plus affreux object fait un objet aimable;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Ainsi, pour nous charmer, la tragédie eut pleurs</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>D'Œdipe tout-sanglant fit parler les douleurs.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Each horrid shape, each object of affright,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nice imitation teaches to delight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">So does the skilful painter's pleasing art</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Attractions to the darkest form impart;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">So does the tragic Muse, dissolved in tears.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With tales of woe and sorrow charm our ears.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Aristotle says: "Imitation and harmony have produced poetry. We see +terrible animals, dead or dying men, in a picture, with +pleasure—objects which in nature would inspire us only with fear and +sorrow. The better they are imitated the more complete is our +satisfaction."</p> + +<p>This fourth chapter of Aristotle's reappears almost entire in Horace and +Boileau. The laws which he gives in the following chapters are at this +day those of our good writers, excepting only what relates to the +choruses and music. His idea that tragedy was instituted to purify the +passions has been warmly combated; but if he meant, as I believe he did, +that an incestuous love might be subdued by witnessing the misfortune of +Phædra, or anger be repressed by beholding the melancholy example of +Ajax, there is no longer any difficulty.</p> + +<p>This philosopher expressly commands that there be always the heroic in +tragedy and the ridiculous in comedy. This is a rule from which it is, +perhaps, now becoming too customary to depart.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ARMS_ARMIES" id="ARMS_ARMIES"></a>ARMS—ARMIES.</h3> + + +<p>It is worthy of consideration that there have been and still are, upon +the earth societies without armies. The Brahmins, who long governed +nearly all the great Indian Chersonesus; the primitives, called Quakers, +who governed Pennsylvania; some American tribes, some in the centre of +Africa, the Samoyedes, the Laplanders, the Kamchadales, have never +marched with colors flying to destroy their neighbors.</p> + +<p>The Brahmins were the most considerable of all these pacific nations; +their caste, which is so ancient, which is still existing, and compared +with which all other institutions are quite recent, is a prodigy which +cannot be sufficiently admired. Their religion and their policy always +concurred in abstaining from the shedding of blood, even of that of the +meanest animal. Where such is the regime, subjugation is easy; they have +been subjugated, but have not changed.</p> + +<p>The Pennsylvanians never had an army; they always held war in +abhorrence.</p> + +<p>Several of the American tribes did not know what an army was until the +Spaniards came to exterminate them all. The people on the borders of the +Icy Sea are ignorant alike of armies, of the god of armies, of +battalions, and of squadrons.</p> + +<p>Besides these populations, the priests and monks do not bear arms in +any country—at least when they observe the laws of their institution.</p> + +<p>It is only among Christians that there have been religious societies +established for the purpose of fighting—as the Knights Templars, the +Knights of St. John, the Knights of the Teutonic Order, the Knights +Swordbearers. These religious orders were instituted in imitation of the +Levites, who fought like the rest of the Jewish tribes.</p> + +<p>Neither armies nor arms were the same in antiquity as at present. The +Egyptians hardly ever had cavalry. It would have been of little use in a +country intersected by canals, inundated during five months of the year, +and miry during five more. The inhabitants of a great part of Asia used +chariots of war.</p> + +<p>They are mentioned in the annals of China. Confucius says that in his +time each governor of a province furnished to the emperor a thousand war +chariots, each drawn by four horses. The Greeks and Trojans fought in +chariots drawn by two horses.</p> + +<p>Cavalry and chariots were unknown to the Jews in a mountainous tract, +where their first king, when he was elected, had nothing but she-asses. +Thirty sons of Jair, princes of thirty cities, according to the text +(Judges, x, 4), rode each upon an ass. Saul, afterwards king of Judah, +had only she-asses; and the sons of David all fled upon mules when +Absalom had slain his brother Amnon. Absalom was mounted on a mule in +the battle which he fought against his father's troops; which proves, +according to the Jewish historians, either that mares were beginning to +be used in Palestine, or that they were already rich enough there to buy +mules from the neighboring country.</p> + +<p>The Greeks made but little use of cavalry. It was chiefly with the +Macedonian phalanx that Alexander gained the battles which laid Persia +at his feet. It was the Roman infantry that subjugated the greater part +of the world. At the battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar had but one thousand +horsemen.</p> + +<p>It is not known at what time the Indians and the Africans first began to +march elephants at the head of their armies. We cannot read without +surprise of Hannibal's elephants crossing the Alps, which were much +harder to pass then than they are now.</p> + +<p>There have long been disputes about the disposition of the Greek and +Roman armies, their arms, and their evolutions. Each one has given his +plan of the battles of Zama and Pharsalia.</p> + +<p>The commentator Calmet, a Benedictine, has printed three great volumes +of his "Dictionary of the Bible," in which, the better to explain God's +commandments, are inserted a hundred engravings, where you see plans of +battles and sieges in copper-plate. The God of the Jews was the God of +armies, but Calmet was not His secretary; he cannot have known, but by +revelation, how the armies of the Amalekites, the Moabites, the Syrians, +and the Philistines were arranged on the days of general murder. These +plates of carnage, designed at a venture, made his hook five or six +louis dearer, but made it no better.</p> + +<p>It is a great question whether the Franks, whom the Jesuit Daniel calls +French by anticipation, used bows and arrows in their armies, and +whether they had helmets and cuirasses.</p> + +<p>Supposing that they went to combat almost naked, and armed, as they are +said to have been, with only a small carpenter's ax, a sword, and a +knife, we must infer that the Romans, masters of Gaul, so easily +conquered by Clovis, had lost all their ancient valor, and that the +Gauls were as willing to be subject to a small number of Franks as to a +small number of Romans. Warlike accoutrements have since changed, as +everything else changes.</p> + +<p>In the days of knights, squires, and varlets, the armed forces of +Germany, France, Italy, England, and Spain consisted almost entirely of +horsemen, who, as well as their horses, were covered with steel. The +infantry performed the functions rather of pioneers than of soldiers. +But the English always had good archers among their foot, which +contributed, in a great measure, to their gaining almost every battle.</p> + +<p>Who would believe that armies nowadays do but make experiments in +natural philosophy? A soldier would be much astonished if some learned +man were to say to him:</p> + +<p>"My friend, you are a better machinist than Archimedes. Five parts of +saltpetre, one of sulphur, and one of <i>carbo ligneus</i> have been +separately prepared. Your saltpetre dissolved, well filtered, well +evaporated, well crystallized, well turned, well dried, has been +incorporated with the yellow purified sulphur. These two ingredients, +mixed with powdered charcoal, have, by means of a little vinegar, or +solution of sal-ammoniac, or urine, formed large balls, which balls have +been reduced <i>in pulverem pyrium</i> by a mill. The effect of this mixture +is a dilatation, which is nearly as four thousand to unity; and the lead +in your barrel exhibits another effect, which is the product of its bulk +multiplied by its velocity.</p> + +<p>"The first who discovered a part of this mathematical secret was a +Benedictine named Roger Bacon. The invention was perfected, in Germany, +in the fourteenth century, by another Benedictine named Schwartz. So +that you owe to two monks the art of being an excellent murderer, when +you aim well, and your powder is good.</p> + +<p>"Du Cange has in vain pretended that, in 1338, the registers of the +<i>Chambre des Comptes</i>, at Paris, mention a bill paid for gunpowder. Do +not believe it. It was artillery which is there spoken of—a name +attached to ancient as well as to modern warlike machines.</p> + +<p>"Gunpowder entirely superseded the Greek fire, of which the Moors still +made use. In fine, you are the depositary of an art, which not only +imitates the thunder, but is also much more terrible."</p> + +<p>There is, however, nothing but truth in this speech. Two monks have, in +reality, changed the face of the earth.</p> + +<p>Before cannon were known, the northern nations had subjugated nearly the +whole hemisphere, and could come again, like famishing wolves, to seize +upon the lands as their ancestors had done.</p> + +<p>In all armies, the victory, and consequently the fate of kingdoms, was +decided by bodily strength and agility—a sort of sanguinary fury—a +desperate struggle, man to man. Intrepid men took towns by scaling their +walls. During the decline of the Roman Empire there was hardly more +discipline in the armies of the North than among carnivorous beasts +rushing on their prey.</p> + +<p>Now a single frontier fortress would suffice to stop the armies of +Genghis or Attila. It is not long since a victorious army of Russians +were unavailably consumed before Custrin, which is nothing more than a +little fortress in a marsh.</p> + +<p>In battle, the weakest in body may, with well-directed artillery, +prevail against the stoutest. At the battle of Fontenoy a few cannon +were sufficient to compel the retreat of the whole English column, +though it had been master of the field.</p> + +<p>The combatants no longer close. The soldier has no longer that ardor, +that impetuosity, which is redoubled in the heat of action, when the +fight is hand to hand. Strength, skill, and even the temper of the +weapons, are useless. Rarely is a charge with the bayonet made in the +course of a war, though the bayonet is the most terrible of weapons.</p> + +<p>In a plain, frequently surrounded by redoubts furnished with heavy +artillery, two armies advance in silence, each division taking with it +flying artillery. The first lines lire at one another and after one +another: they are victims presented in turn to the bullets. Squadrons at +the wings are often exposed to a cannonading while waiting for the +general's orders. They who first tire of this manœuvre, which gives +no scope for the display of impetuous bravery, disperse and quit the +field; and are rallied, if possible, a few miles off. The victorious +enemies besiege a town, which sometimes costs them more men, money, and +time than they would have lost by several battles. The progress made is +rarely rapid; and at the end of five or six years, both sides, being +equally exhausted, are compelled to make peace.</p> + +<p>Thus, at all events, the invention of artillery and the new mode of +warfare have established among the respective powers an equality which +secures mankind from devastations like those of former times, and +thereby renders war less fatal in its consequences, though it is still +prodigiously so.</p> + +<p>The Greeks in all ages, the Romans in the time of Sulla, and the other +nations of the west and south, had no standing army; every citizen was a +soldier, and enrolled himself in time of war. It is, at this day, +precisely the same in Switzerland. Go through the whole country, and +you will not find a battalion, except at the time of the reviews. If it +goes to war, you all at once see eighty thousand men in arms.</p> + +<p>Those who usurped the supreme power after Sulla always had a permanent +force, paid with the money of the citizens, to keep the citizens in +subjection, much more than to subjugate other nations. The bishop of +Rome himself keeps a small army in his pay. Who, in the time of the +apostles, would have said that the servant of the servants of God should +have regiments, and have them in Rome?</p> + +<p>Nothing is so much feared in England as a great standing army. The +janissaries have raised the sultans to greatness, but they have also +strangled them. The sultans would have avoided the rope, if instead of +these large bodies of troops, they had established small ones.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AROT_AND_MAROT" id="AROT_AND_MAROT"></a>AROT AND MAROT.</h3> + +<h5>WITH A SHORT REVIEW OF THE KORAN.</h5> + + +<p>This article may serve to show how much the most learned men may be +deceived, and to develop some useful truths. In the <i>"Dictionnaire +Encyclopédique"</i> there is the following passage concerning Arot and +Marot:</p> + +<p>"These are the names of two angels, who, the impostor Mahomet said, had +been sent from God to teach man, and to order him to abstain from +murder, false judgments, and excesses of every kind. This false prophet +adds that a very beautiful woman, having invited these two angels to her +table, made them drink wine, with which being heated, they solicited her +as lovers; that she feigned to yield to their passion, provided they +would first teach her the words by pronouncing which they said it was +easy to ascend to heaven; that having obtained from them what she asked, +she would not keep her promise; and that she was then taken up into +heaven, where, having related to God what had passed, she was changed +into the morning star called Lucifer or Aurora, and the angels were +severely punished. Hence it was, according to Mahomet, that God took +occasion to forbid wine to men."</p> + +<p>It would be in vain to seek in the Koran for a single word of this +absurd story and pretended reason for Mahomet's forbidding his followers +the use of wine. He forbids it only in the second and fifth chapters.</p> + +<p>"They will question thee about wine and strong liquors: thou shalt +answer, that it is a great sin. The just, who believe and do good works, +must not be reproached with having drunk, and played at games of chance, +before games of chance were forbidden."</p> + +<p>It is averred by all the Mahometans that their prophet forbade wine and +liquors solely to preserve their health and prevent quarrels, in the +burning climate of Arabia. The use of any fermented liquor soon affects +the head, and may destroy both health and reason.</p> + +<p>The fable of Arot and Marot descending from heaven, and wanting to lie +with an Arab woman, after drinking wine with her, is not in any +Mahometan author. It is to be found only among the impostures which +various Christian writers, more indiscreet than enlightened, have +printed against the Mussulman religion, through a zeal which is not +according to knowledge. The names of Arot and Marot are in no part of +the Koran. It is one Sylburgius who says, in an old book which nobody +reads, that he anathematizes the angels Arot, Marot, Safah, and Merwah.</p> + +<p>Observe, kind reader, that Safah and Merwah are two little hills near +Mecca; so that our learned Sylburgius has taken two hills for two +angels. Thus it was with every writer on Mahometanism among us, almost +without exception, until the intelligent Reland gave us clear ideas of +the Mussulman belief, and the learned Sale, after living twenty-four +years in and about Arabia, at length enlightened us by his faithful +translation of the Koran, and his most instructive preface.</p> + +<p>Gagnier himself, notwithstanding his Arabic professorship at Oxford, has +been pleased to put forth a few falsehoods concerning Mahomet, as if we +had need of lies to maintain the truth of our religion against a false +prophet. He gives us at full length Mahomet's journey through the seven +heavens on the mare Alborac, and even ventures to cite the fifty-third +sura or chapter; but neither in this fifty-third sura, nor in any other, +is there so much as an allusion to this pretended journey through the +heavens.</p> + +<p>This strange story is related by Abulfeda, seven hundred years after +Mahomet. It is taken, he says, from ancient manuscripts which were +current in Mahomet's time. But it is evident that they were not +Mahomet's; for, after his death, Abubeker gathered together all the +leaves of the Koran, in the presence of all the chiefs of tribes, and +nothing was inserted in the collection that did not appear to be +authentic.</p> + +<p>Besides, the chapter concerning the journey to heaven, not only is not +in the Koran, but is in a very different style, and is at least four +times as long as any of the received chapters. Compare all the other +chapters of the Koran with this, and you will find a prodigious +difference. It begins thus:</p> + +<p>"One night, I fell asleep between the two hills of Safah and Merwah. +That night was very dark, but so still that the dogs were not heard to +bark, nor the cocks to crow. All at once, the angel Gabriel appeared +before me in the form in which the Most High God created him. His skin +was white as snow. His fair hair, admirably disposed, fell in ringlets +over his shoulders; his forehead was clear, majestic, and serene, his +teeth beautiful and shining, and his legs of a saffron hue; his garments +were glittering with pearls, and with thread of pure gold. On his +forehead was a plate of gold, on which were written two lines, brilliant +and dazzling with light; in the first were these words, 'There is no God +but God'; and in the second these, 'Mahomet is God's Apostle.' On +beholding this, I remained the most astonished and confused of men. I +observed about him seventy thousand little boxes or bags of musk and +saffron. He had five hundred pairs of wings; and the distance from one +wing to another was five hundred years' journey.</p> + +<p>"Thus did Gabriel appear before me. He touched me, and said, 'Arise, +thou sleeper!' I was seized with fear and trembling, and starting up, +said to him, 'Who art thou?' He answered, 'God have mercy upon thee! I +am thy brother Gabriel.' 'O my dearly beloved Gabriel,' said I, 'I ask +thy pardon; is it a revelation of something new, or is it some +afflicting threat that thou bringest me?' 'It is something new,' +returned he; 'rise, my dearly beloved, and tie thy mantle over thy +shoulders; thou wilt have need of it, for thou must this night pay a +visit to thy Lord.' So saying, Gabriel, taking my hand, raised me from +the ground, and having mounted me on the mare Alborac, led her himself +by the bridle."</p> + +<p>In fine, it is averred by the Mussulmans that this chapter, which has no +authenticity, was imagined by Abu-Horaïrah, who is said to have been +contemporary with the prophet. What should we say of a Turk who should +come and insult our religion by telling us that we reckon among our +sacred books the letters of St. Paul to Seneca, and Seneca's letters to +St. Paul; the acts of Pilate; the life of Pilate's wife; the letters of +the pretended King Abgarus to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ's answer to +the same; the story of St. Peter's challenge to Simon the magician; the +predictions of the sibyls; the testament of the twelve patriarchs; and +so many other books of the same kind?</p> + +<p>We should answer the Turk by saying that he was very ill informed and +that not one of these works was regarded as authentic. The Turk will +make the same answer to us, when to confound him we reproach him with +Mahomet's journey to the seven heavens. He will tell us that this is +nothing more than a pious fraud of latter times, and that this journey +is not in the Koran. Assuredly I am not here comparing truth with +error—Christianity with Mahometanism—the Gospel with the Koran; but +false tradition with false tradition—abuse with abuse—absurdity with +absurdity.</p> + +<p>This absurdity has been carried to such a length that Grotius charges +Mahomet with having said that God's hands are cold, for he has felt +them; that God is carried about in a chair; and that, in Noah's ark, the +rat was produced from the elephant's dung, and the cat from the lion's +breath.</p> + +<p>Grotius reproaches Mahomet with having imagined that Jesus Christ was +taken up into heaven instead of suffering execution. He forgets that +there were entire heretical communions of primitive Christians who +spread this opinion, which was preserved in Syria and Arabia until +Mahomet's time.</p> + +<p>How many times has it been repeated that Mahomet had accustomed a pigeon +to eat grain out of his ear, and made his followers believe that this +pigeon brought him messages from God?</p> + +<p>Is it not enough for us that we are persuaded of the falseness of his +sect, and invincibly convinced by faith of the truth of our own, without +losing our time in calumniating the Mahometans, who have established +themselves from Mount Caucasus to Mount Atlas, and from the confines of +Epirus to the extremities of India? We are incessantly writing bad books +against them, of which they know nothing. We cry out that their religion +has been embraced by so many nations only because it flatters the +senses. But where is the sensuality in ordering abstinence from the wine +and liquors in which we indulge to such excess; in pronouncing to every +one an indispensable command to give to the poor each year two and a +half per cent, of his income, to fast with the greatest rigor, to +undergo a painful operation in the earliest stage of puberty, to make, +over arid sands a pilgrimage of sometimes five hundred leagues, and to +pray to God five times a day, even when in the field?</p> + +<p>But, say you, they are allowed four wives in this world, and in the next +they will have celestial brides. Grotius expressly says: "It must have +required a great share of stupidity to admit reveries so gross and +disgusting."</p> + +<p>We agree with Grotius that the Mahometans have been prodigal of +reveries. The man who was constantly receiving the chapters of his Koran +from the angel Gabriel was worse than a visionary; he was an impostor, +who supported his seductions by his courage; but certainly there is +nothing either stupid or sensual in reducing to four the unlimited +number of wives whom the princes, the satraps, the nabobs, and the +omrahs of the East kept in their seraglios. It is said that Solomon had +three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines. The Arabs, like the +Jews, were at liberty to marry two sisters; Mahomet was the first who +forbade these marriages. Where, then, is the grossness?</p> + +<p>And with regard to the celestial brides, where is the impurity? Certes, +there is nothing impure in marriage, which is acknowledged to have been +ordained on earth, and blessed by God Himself. The incomprehensible +mystery of generation is the seal of the Eternal Being. It is the +clearest mark of His power that He has created pleasure, and through +that very pleasure perpetuated all sensible beings.</p> + +<p>If we consult our reason alone it will tell us that it is very likely +that the Eternal Being, who does nothing in vain, will not cause us to +rise again with our organs to no purpose. It will not be unworthy of the +Divine Majesty to feed us with delicious fruits if he cause us to rise +again with stomachs to receive them. The Holy Scriptures inform us +that, in the beginning, God placed the first man and the first woman in +a paradise of delights. They were then in a state of innocence and +glory, incapable of experiencing disease or death. This is nearly the +state in which the just will be when, after their resurrection, they +shall be for all eternity what our first parents were for a few days. +Those, then, must be pardoned, who have thought that, having a body, +that body will be constantly satisfied. Our fathers of the Church had no +other idea of the heavenly Jerusalem. St. Irenæus says, "There each vine +shall bear ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand clusters, and +each cluster ten thousand grapes."</p> + +<p>Several fathers of the Church have, indeed, thought that the blessed in +heaven would enjoy all their senses. St. Thomas says that the sense of +seeing will be infinitely perfect; that the elements will be so too; +that the surface of the earth will be transparent as glass, the water +like crystal, the air like the heavens, and the fire like the stars. St. +Augustine, in his "Christian Doctrine," says that the sense of hearing +will enjoy the pleasures of singing and of speech.</p> + +<p>One of our great Italian theologians, named Piazza, in his "Dissertation +on Paradise," informs us that the elect will forever sing and play the +guitar: "They will have," says he, "three nobilities—three advantages, +viz.: desire without excitement, caresses without wantonness, and +voluptuousness without excess"—<i>"tres nobilitates; illecebra sine +titillatione, blanditia sine mollitudine, et voluptas sine +exuberantia."</i></p> + +<p>St. Thomas assures us that the smell of the glorified bodies will be +perfect, and will not be diminished by perspiration. <i>"Corporibus +gloriosi serit odor ultima perfectione, nullo modo per humidum +repressus."</i> This question has been profoundly treated by a great many +other doctors.</p> + +<p>Suarez, in his "Wisdom," thus expresses himself concerning taste: "It is +not difficult for God purposely to make some rapid humor act on the +organ of taste." <i>"Non est Deo difficile facere ut sapidus humor sit +intra organum gustus, qui sensum illum intentionaliter afficere."</i></p> + +<p>And, to conclude, St. Prosper, recapitulating the whole, pronounces that +the blessed shall find gratification without satiety, and enjoy health +without disease. <i>"Saturitas sine fastidio, et tota sanitas sine +morbo.</i>"</p> + +<p>It is not then so much to be wondered at that the Mahometans have +admitted the use of the five senses in their paradise. They say that the +first beatitude will be the union with God; but this does not exclude +the rest. Mahomet's paradise is a fable; but; once more be it observed, +there is in it neither contradiction nor impurity.</p> + +<p>Philosophy requires clear and precise ideas, which Grotius had not. He +quotes a great deal, and makes a show of reasoning which will not bear +a close examination. The unjust imputations cast on the Mahometans would +suffice to make a very large book. They have subjugated one of the +largest and most beautiful countries upon earth; to drive them from it +would have been a finer exploit than to abuse them.</p> + +<p>The empress of Russia supplies a great example. She takes from them Azov +and Tangarok, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Georgia; she pushes her conquests +to the ramparts of Erzerum; she sends against them fleets from the +remotest parts of the Baltic, and others covering the Euxine; but she +does not say in her manifestos that a pigeon whispered in Mahomet's ear.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ART_OF_POETRY" id="ART_OF_POETRY"></a>ART OF POETRY.</h3> + + +<h5>A MAN</h5> + + +<p>A man of almost universal learning—a man even of genius, who joins +philosophy with imagination, uses, in his excellent article +"Encyclopedia," these remarkable words: "If we except this Perrault, and +some others, whose merits the versifier Boileau was not capable of +appreciating."</p> + +<p>This philosopher is right in doing justice to Claude Perrault, the +learned translator of Vitruvius, a man useful in more arts than one, and +to whom we are indebted for the fine front of the Louvre and for other +great monuments; but justice should also be rendered to Boileau. Had he +been only a versifier, he would scarcely have been known; he would not +have been one of the few great men who will hand down the age of Louis +XIV. to posterity. His tart satires, his fine epistles, and above all, +his art of poetry, are masterpieces of reasoning as well as +poetry—<i>"sapere est principium et fons."</i> The art of versifying is, +indeed, prodigiously difficult, especially in our language, where +alexandrines follow one another two by two; where it is rare to avoid +monotony; where it is absolutely necessary to rhyme; where noble and +pleasing rhymes are too limited in number; and where a word out of its +place, or a harsh syllable, is sufficient to spoil a happy thought. It +is like dancing in fetters on a rope; the greatest success is of itself +nothing.</p> + +<p>Boileau's art of poetry is to be admired, because he always says true +and useful things in a pleasing manner, because he always gives both +precept and example, and because he is varied, passing with perfect +ease, and without ever failing in purity of language, "From grave to +gay, from lively to severe."</p> + +<p>His reputation among men of taste is proved by the fact that his verses +are known by heart; and to philosophers it must be pleasing to find that +he is almost always in the right.</p> + +<p>As we have spoken of the preference which may sometimes be given to the +moderns over the ancients, we will here venture to presume that +Boileau's art of poetry is superior to that of Horace. Method is +certainly a beauty in a didactic poem; and Horace has no method. We do +not mention this as a reproach; for his poem is a familiar epistle to +the Pisos, and not a regular work like the "Georgics": but there is this +additional merit in Boileau, a merit for which philosophers should give +him credit.</p> + +<p>The Latin art of poetry does not seem nearly so finely labored as the +French. Horace expresses himself, almost throughout, in the free and +familiar tone of his other epistles. He displays an extreme clearness of +understanding and a refined taste, in verses which are happy and +spirited, but often without connection, and sometimes destitute of +harmony; he has not the elegance and correctness of Virgil. His work is +good, but Boileau's appears to be still better: and, if we except the +tragedies of Racine, which have the superior merit of treating the +passions and surmounting all the difficulties of the stage, Despréaux's +"Art of Poetry" is, indisputably, the poem that does most honor to the +French language.</p> + +<p>It is lamentable when philosophers are enemies to poetry. Literature +should be like the house of Mæcenas—<i>"est locus unicuique suus."</i> The +author of the "Persian Letters"—so easy to write and among which some +are very pretty, others very bold, others indifferent, and others +frivolous—this author, I say, though otherwise much to be recommended, +yet having never been able to make verses, although he possesses +imagination and often superiority of style, makes himself amends by +saying that "contempt is heaped upon poetry," that "lyric poetry is +harmonious extravagance." Thus do men often seek to depreciate the +talents which they cannot attain.</p> + +<p>"We cannot reach it," says Montaigne; "let us revenge ourselves by +speaking ill of it." But Montaigne, Montesquieu's predecessor and master +in imagination and philosophy, thought very differently of poetry.</p> + +<p>Had Montesquieu been as just as he was witty, he could not but have felt +that several of our fine odes and good operas are worth infinitely more +than the pleasantries of Rica to Usbeck, imitated from Dufrénoy's +<i>"Siamois,"</i> and the details of what passed in Usbeck's seraglio at +Ispahan.</p> + +<p>We shall speak more fully of this too frequent injustice, in the article +on "Criticism."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ARTS_FINE_ARTS" id="ARTS_FINE_ARTS"></a>ARTS—FINE ARTS.</h3> + +<h5>[ARTICLE DEDICATED TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA.]</h5> + + +<p>Sire: The small society of amateurs, a part of whom are laboring at +these rhapsodies at Mount Krapak, will say nothing to your majesty on +the art of war. It is heroic, or—it may be—an abominable art. If there +were anything fine in it, we would tell your majesty, without fear of +contradiction, that you are the finest man in Europe.</p> + +<p>You know, sire, the four ages of the arts. Almost everything sprung up +and was brought to perfection under Louis XIV.; after which many of +these arts, banished from France, went to embellish and enrich the rest +of Europe, at the fatal period of the destruction of the celebrated +edict of Henry IV.—pronounced <i>irrevocable</i>, yet so easily revoked. +Thus, the greatest injury which Louis XIV. could do to himself did good +to other princes against his will: this is proved by what you have said +in your history of Brandenburg.</p> + +<p>If that monarch were known only from his banishment of six or seven +hundred thousand useful citizens—from his irruption into Holland, +whence he was soon forced to retreat—from his greatness, which stayed +him at the bank, while his troops were swimming across the Rhine; if +there were no other monuments of his glory than the prologues to his +operas, followed by the battle of Hochstet, his person and his reign +would go down to posterity with but little éclat. But the encouragement +of all the fine arts by his taste and munificence; the conferring of so +many benefits on the literary men of other countries; the rise of his +kingdom's commerce at his voice; the establishment of so many +manufactories; the building of so many fine citadels; the construction +of so many admirable ports; the union of the two seas by immense labor, +etc., still oblige Europe to regard Louis XIV. and his age with respect.</p> + +<p>And, above all, those great men, unique in every branch of art and +science, whom nature then produced at one time, will render his reign +eternally memorable. The age was greater than Louis XIV., but it shed +its glory upon him.</p> + +<p>Emulation in art has changed the face of the continent, from the +Pyrenees to the icy sea. There is hardly a prince in Germany who has not +made useful and glorious establishments.</p> + +<p>What have the Turks done for glory? Nothing. They have ravaged three +empires and twenty kingdoms; but any one city of ancient Greece will +always have a greater reputation than all the Ottoman cities together.</p> + +<p>See what has been done in the course of a few years at St. Petersburg, +which was a bog at the beginning of the seventeenth century. All the +arts are there assembled, while in the country of Orpheus, Linus, and +Homer, they are annihilated.</p> + +<p class="caption"><i>That the Recent Birth of the Arts does not Prove the Recent Formation +of the Globe.</i></p> + +<p>All philosophers have thought matter eternal; but the arts appear to be +new. Even the art of making bread is of recent origin. The first Romans +ate boiled grain; those conquerors of so many nations had neither +windmills nor watermills. This truth seems, at first sight, to +controvert the doctrine of the antiquity of the globe as it now is, or +to suppose terrible revolutions in it. Irruptions of barbarians can +hardly annihilate arts which have become necessary. Suppose that an army +of negroes were to come upon us, like locusts, from the mountains of +southern Africa, through Monomotapa, Monoëmugi, etc., traversing +Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and all Europe, ravaging +and overturning everything in its way; there would still be a few +bakers, tailors, shoemakers, and carpenters left; the necessary arts +would revive; luxury alone would be annihilated. Such was the case at +the fall of the Roman Empire; even the art of writing became very rare; +nearly all those arts which contributed to render life agreeable were +for a long time extinct. Now, we are inventing new ones every day.</p> + +<p>From all this, no well-grounded inference can be drawn against the +antiquity of the globe. For, supposing that a flood of barbarians had +entirely swept away the arts of writing and making bread; supposing even +that we had had bread, or pens, ink, and paper, only for ten years—the +country which could exist for ten years without eating bread or writing +down its thoughts could exist for an age, or a hundred thousand ages, +without these helps.</p> + +<p>It is quite clear that man and the other animals can very well subsist +without bakers, without romance-writers, and without divines, as witness +America, and as witness also three-fourths of our own continent. The +recent birth of the arts among us does not prove the recent formation of +the globe, as was pretended by Epicurus, one of our predecessors in +reverie, who supposed that, by chance, the declination of atoms one day +formed our earth. Pomponatius used to say: <i>"Se il mondo non é eterno, +per tutti santi é molto vecchio"</i>—"If this world be not eternal, by all +the saints, it is very old."</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Slight Inconveniences Attached to the Arts.</i></p> + +<p>Those who handle lead and quicksilver are subject to dangerous colics, +and very serious affections of the nerves. Those who use pen and ink are +attacked by vermin, which they have continually to shake off; these +vermin are some ex-Jesuits, who employ themselves in manufacturing +libels. You, Sire, do not know this race of animals; they are driven +from your states, as well as from those of the empress of Russia, the +king of Sweden, and the king of Denmark, my other protectors. The +ex-Jesuits Polian and Nonotte, who like me cultivate the fine arts, +persecute me even unto Mount Krapak, crushing me under the weight of +their reputation, and that of their genius, the specific gravity of +which is still greater. Unless your majesty vouchsafe to assist me +against these great men, I am undone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ASMODEUS" id="ASMODEUS"></a>ASMODEUS.</h3> + + +<p>No one at all versed in antiquity is ignorant that the Jews knew nothing +of the angels but what they gleaned from the Persians and Chaldæans, +during captivity. It was they, who, according to Calmet, taught them +that there are seven principal angels before the throne of the Lord. +They also taught them the names of the devils. He whom we call Asmodeus, +was named Hashmodaï or Chammadaï. "We know," says Calmet, "that there +are various sorts of devils, some of them princes and master-demons, the +rest subalterns."</p> + +<p>How was it that this Hashmodaï was sufficiently powerful to twist the +necks of seven young men who successively espoused the beautiful Sarah, +a native of Rages, fifteen leagues from Ecbatana? The Medes must have +been seven times as great as the Persians. The good principle gives a +husband to this maiden; and behold! the bad principle, this king of +demons, Hashmodaï, destroys the work of the beneficent principle seven +times in succession.</p> + +<p>But Sarah was a Jewess, daughter of the Jew Raguel, and a captive in the +country of Ecbatana. How could a Median demon have such power over +Jewish bodies? It has been thought that Asmodeus or Chammadaï was a Jew +likewise; that he was the old serpent which had seduced Eve; and that he +was passionately fond of women, sometimes seducing them, and sometimes +killing their husbands through an excess of love and jealousy.</p> + +<p>Indeed the Greek version of the Book of Tobit gives us to understand +that Asmodeus was in love with Sarah—<i>"oti daimonion philei autein."</i> +It was the opinion of all the learned of antiquity that the genii, +whether good or evil, had a great inclination for our virgins, and the +fairies for our youths. Even the Scriptures, accommodating themselves to +our weakness, and condescending to speak in the language of the vulgar, +say, figuratively, that "the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that +they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."</p> + +<p>But the angel Raphael, the conductor of young Tobit, gives him a reason +more worthy of his ministry, and better calculated to enlighten the +person whom he is guiding. He tells him that Sarah's seven husbands were +given up to the cruelty of Asmodeus, only because, like horses or mules, +they had married her for their pleasure alone. "Her husband," says the +angel, "must observe continence with her for three days, during which +time they must pray to God together."</p> + +<p>This instruction would seem to have been quite sufficient to keep off +Asmodeus; but Raphael adds that it is also necessary to have the heart +of a fish grilled over burning coals. Why, then, was not this infallible +secret afterwards resorted to in order to drive the devil from the +bodies of women? Why did the apostles, who were sent on purpose to cast +out devils never lay a fish's heart upon the gridiron? Why was not this +expedient made use of in the affair of Martha Brossier; that of the nuns +of Loudun; that of the mistresses of Urban Gandier; that of La Cadière; +that of Father Girard; and those of a thousand other demoniacs in the +times when there were demoniacs?</p> + +<p>The Greeks and Romans, who had so many philters wherewith to make +themselves beloved, had others to cure love; they employed herbs and +roots. The <i>agnus castus</i> had great reputation. The moderns have +administered it to young nuns, on whom it has had but little effect. +Apollo, long ago, complained to Daphne that, physician as he was, he +had never yet met with a simple that would cure love:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Heu mihi! quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">What balm can heal the wounds that love has made?</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<p>The smoke of sulphur was tried; but Ovid, who was a great master, +declares that this recipe was useless:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Nec fugiat viro sulphure victus amor.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sulphur—believe me—drives not love away.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The smoke from the heart or liver of a fish was more efficacious against +Asmodeus. The reverend father Calmet is consequently in great trouble, +being unable to comprehend how this fumigation could act upon a pure +spirit. But he might have taken courage from the recollection that all +the ancients gave bodies to the angels and demons. They were very +slender bodies; as light as the small particles that rise from a broiled +fish; they were like smoke; and the smoke from a fried fish acted upon +them by sympathy.</p> + +<p>Not only did Asmodeus flee, but Gabriel went and chained him in Upper +Egypt, where he still is. He dwells in a grotto near the city of Saata +or Taata. Paul Lucas saw and spoke to him. They cut this serpent in +pieces, and the pieces immediately joined again. To this fact Calmet +cites the testimony of Paul Lucas, which testimony I must also cite. It +is thought that Paul Lucas's theory may be joined with that of the +vampires, in the next compilation of the Abbé Guyon.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ASPHALTUS" id="ASPHALTUS"></a>ASPHALTUS.</h3> + +<h5>ASPHALTIC LAKE.—SODOM.</h5> + + +<p>Asphaltus is a Chaldæan word, signifying a species of bitumen. There is +a great deal of it in the countries watered by the Euphrates; it is also +to be found in Europe, but of a bad quality. An experiment was made by +covering the tops of the watch-houses on each side of one of the gates +of Geneva; the covering did not last a year, and the mine has been +abandoned. However, when mixed with rosin, it may be used for lining +cisterns; perhaps it will some day be applied to a more useful purpose.</p> + +<p>The real asphaltus is that which was obtained in the vicinity of +Babylon, and with which it is said that the Greek fire was fed. Several +lakes are full of asphaltus, or a bitumen resembling it, as others are +strongly impregnated with nitre. There is a great lake of nitre in the +desert of Egypt, which extends from lake Mœris to the entrance of the +Delta; and it has no other name than the Nitre Lake.</p> + +<p>The Lake Asphaltites, known by the name of Sodom, was long famed for its +bitumen; but the Turks now make no use of it, either because the mine +under the water is diminished, because its quality is altered, or +because there is too much difficulty in drawing it from under the water. +Oily particles of it, and sometimes large masses, separate and float on +the surface; these are gathered together, mixed up, and sold for balm of +Mecca.</p> + +<p>Flavius Josephus, who was of that country, says that, in his time, there +were no fish in the lake of Sodom, and the water was so light that the +heaviest bodies would not go to the bottom. It seems that he meant to +say so heavy instead of so light. It would appear that he had not made +the experiment. After all, a stagnant water, impregnated with salts and +compact matter, its specific matter being then greater than that of the +body of a man or a beast, might force it to float. Josephus's error +consists in assigning a false cause to a phenomenon which may be +perfectly true.</p> + +<p>As for the want of fish, it is not incredible. It is, however, likely +that this lake, which is fifty or sixty miles long, is not all +asphaltic, and that while receiving the waters of the Jordan it also +receives the fishes of that river; but perhaps the Jordan, too, is +without fish, and they are to be found only in the upper lake of +Tiberias.</p> + +<p>Josephus adds, that the trees which grow on the borders of the Dead Sea +bear fruits of the most beautiful appearance, but which fall into dust +if you attempt to taste them. This is less probable; and disposes one to +believe that Josephus either had not been on the spot, for has +exaggerated according to his own and his countrymen's custom. No soil +seems more calculated to produce good as well as beautiful fruits than a +salt and sulphurous one, like that of Naples, of Catania, and of Sodom.</p> + +<p>The Holy Scriptures speak of five cities being destroyed by fire from +heaven. On this occasion natural philosophy bears testimony in favor of +the Old Testament, although the latter has no need of it, and they are +sometimes at variance. We have instances of earthquakes, accompanied by +thunder and lightning, which have destroyed much more considerable towns +than Sodom and Gomorrah.</p> + +<p>But the River Jordan necessarily discharging itself into this lake +without an outlet, this Dead Sea, in the same manner as the Caspian, +must have existed as long as there has been a River Jordan; therefore, +these towns could never stand on the spot now occupied by the lake of +Sodom. The Scripture, too, says nothing at all about this ground being +changed into a lake; it says quite the contrary: "Then the Lord rained +upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of +heaven. And Abraham got up early in the morning, and he looked toward +Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld; +and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace."</p> + +<p>These five towns, Sodom, Gomorrah, Zeboin, Adamah, and Segor, must then +have been situated on the borders of the Dead Sea. How, it will be +asked, in a desert so uninhabitable as it now is, where there are to be +found only a few hordes of plundering Arabs, could there be five cities, +so opulent as to be immersed in luxury, and even in those shameful +pleasures which are the last effect of the refinement of the debauchery +attached to wealth?</p> + +<p>It may be answered that the country was then much better.</p> + +<p>Other critics will say—how could five towns exist at the extremities of +a lake, the water of which, before their destruction, was not potable? +The Scripture itself informs us that all this land was asphaltic before +the burning of Sodom: "And the vale of Sodom was full of slime-pits; and +the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there."</p> + +<p>Another objection is also stated. Isaiah and Jeremiah say that Sodom and +Gomorrah shall never be rebuilt; but Stephen, the geographer, speaks of +Sodom and Gomorrah on the coast of the Dead Sea; and the "History of the +Councils" mentions bishops of Sodom and Segor. To this it may be +answered that God filled these towns, when rebuilt, with less guilty +inhabitants; for at that time there was no bishop <i>in partibus</i>.</p> + +<p>But, it will be said, with what water could these new inhabitants quench +their thirst? All the wells are brackish; you find asphaltus and +corrosive salt on first striking a spade into the ground.</p> + +<p>It will be answered that some Arabs still subsist there, and may be +habituated to drinking very bad water; that the Sodom and Gomorrah of +the Eastern Empire were wretched hamlets, and that at that time there +were many bishops whose whole diocese consisted in a poor village. It +may also be said that the people who colonized these villages prepared +the asphaltus, and carried on a useful trade in it.</p> + +<p>The arid and burning desert, extending from Segor to the territory of +Jerusalem, produces balm and aromatic herbs for the same reason that it +supplies naphtha, corrosive salt and sulphur.</p> + +<p>It is said that petrifaction takes place in this desert with astonishing +rapidity; and this, according to some natural philosophers, makes the +petrifaction of Lot's wife Edith a very plausible story.</p> + +<p>But it is said that this woman, "having looked back, became a pillar of +salt." This, then, was not a natural petrifaction, operated by asphaltus +and salt, but an evident miracle. Flavius Josephus says that he saw this +pillar. St. Justin and St. Irenæus speak of it as a prodigy, which in +their time was still existing.</p> + +<p>These testimonies have been looked upon as ridiculous fables. It would, +however, be very natural for some Jews to amuse themselves with cutting +a heap of asphaltus into a rude figure, and calling it Lot's wife. I +have seen cisterns of asphaltus, very well made, which may last a long +time. But it must be owned that St. Irenæus goes a little too far when +he says that Lot's wife remained in the country of Sodom no longer in +corruptible flesh, but as a permanent statue of salt, her feminine +nature still producing the ordinary effect: <i>"Uxor remansit in Sodomis, +jam non caro corruptibilis sed statua salis semper manens, et per +naturalia ea quæsunt consuetudmis hominis ostendens."</i></p> + +<p>St. Irenæus does not seem to express himself with all the precision of +a good naturalist when he says Lot's wife is no longer of corruptible +flesh, but still retains her feminine nature.</p> + +<p>In the poem of Sodom, attributed to Tertullian, this is expressed with +still greater energy:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Dicitur et vivens alio sub corpore se us,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Mirifice solito dispungere sanguine menses.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This was translated by a poet of the time of Henry II., in his Gallic +style:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>La femme à Loth, quoique sel devenue,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Est femme encore; car elle a sa menstrue.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The land of aromatics was also the land of fables. Into the deserts of +Arabia Petræa the ancient mythologists pretend that Myrrha, the +granddaughter of a statue, fled after committing incest with her father, +as Lot's daughters did with theirs, and that she was metamorphosed into +the tree that bears myrrh. Other profound mythologists assure us that +she fled into Arabia Felix; and this opinion is as well supported as the +other.</p> + +<p>Be this as it may, not one of our travellers has yet thought fit to +examine the soil of Sodom, with its asphaltus, its salt, its trees and +their fruits, to weigh the water of the lake, to analyze it, to +ascertain whether bodies of greater specific gravity than common water +float upon its surface, and to give us a faithful account of the natural +history of the country. Our pilgrims to Jerusalem do not care to go and +make these researches; this desert has become infested by wandering +Arabs, who range as far as Damascus, and retire into the caverns of the +mountains, the authority of the pasha of Damascus having hitherto been +inadequate to repress them. Thus the curious have but little information +about anything concerning the Asphaltic Lake.</p> + +<p>As to Sodom, it is a melancholy reflection for the learned that, among +so many who may be deemed natives, not one has furnished us with any +notion whatever of this capital city.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ASS" id="ASS"></a>ASS.</h3> + + +<p>We will add a little to the article "Ass" in the "Encyclopædia," +concerning Lucian's ass, which became golden in the hands of Apuleius. +The pleasantest part of the adventure, however, is in Lucian: That a +lady fell in love with this gentleman while he was an ass, but would +have nothing more to say to him when he was but a man. These +metamorphoses were very common throughout antiquity. Silenus's ass had +spoken; and the learned had thought that he explained himself in Arabic; +for he was probably a man turned into an ass by the power of Bacchus, +and Bacchus, we know, was an Arab.</p> + +<p>Virgil speaks of the transformation of Mœris into a wolf, as a thing +of very ordinary occurrence:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Saepe lupum fieri Mœrim, et se condere silvis.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Oft changed to wolf, he seeks the forest shade.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Was this doctrine of metamorphoses derived from the old fables of Egypt, +which gave out that the gods had changed themselves into animals in the +war against the giants?</p> + +<p>The Greeks, great imitators and improvers of the Oriental fables, +metamorphosed almost all the gods into men or into beasts, to make them +succeed the better in their amorous designs. If the gods changed +themselves into bulls, horses, swans, doves, etc., why should not men +have undergone the same operation?</p> + +<p>Several commentators, forgetting the respect due to the Holy Scriptures, +have cited the example of Nebuchadnezzar changed into an ox; but this +was a miracle—a divine vengeance—a thing quite out of the course of +nature, which ought not to be examined with profane eyes, and cannot +become an object of our researches.</p> + +<p>Others of the learned, perhaps with equal indiscretion, avail themselves +of what is related in the Gospel of the Infancy. An Egyptian maiden +having entered the chamber of some women, saw there a mule with a silken +cloth over his back, and an ebony pendant at his neck.</p> + +<p>These women were in tears, kissing him and giving him to eat. The mule +was their own brother. Some sorceresses had deprived him of the human +figure; but the Master of Nature soon restored it.</p> + +<p>Although this gospel is apocryphal, the very name that it bears prevents +us from examining this adventure in detail; only it may serve to show +how much metamorphoses were in vogue almost throughout the earth. The +Christians who composed their gospel were undoubtedly honest men. They +did not seek to fabricate a romance; they related with simplicity what +they had heard. The church, which afterwards rejected their gospel, +together with forty-nine others, did not accuse its authority of impiety +and prevarication; those obscure individuals addressed the populace in +language comformable with the prejudices of the age in which they lived. +China was perhaps the only country exempt from these superstitions.</p> + +<p>The adventure of the companions of Ulysses, changed into beasts by +Circe, was much more ancient than the dogma of the metempsychosis, +broached in Greece and Italy by Pythagoras.</p> + +<p>On what can the assertion be founded that there is no universal error +which is not the abuse of some truth; that there have been quacks only +because there have been true physicians; and that false prodigies have +been believed only because there have been true ones?</p> + +<p>Were there any certain testimonies that men had become wolves, oxen, +horses, or asses? This universal error had for its principle only the +love of the marvellous and the natural inclination to superstition.</p> + +<p>One erroneous opinion is enough to fill the whole world with fables. An +Indian doctor sees that animals have feeling and memory. He concludes +that they have a soul. Men have one likewise. What becomes of the soul +of man after death? What becomes of that of the beast? They must go +somewhere. They go into the nearest body that is beginning to be formed. +The soul of a Brahmin takes up its abode in the body of an elephant, the +soul of an ass is that of a little Brahmin. Such is the dogma of the +metempsychosis, which was built upon simple deduction.</p> + +<p>But it is a wide step from this dogma to that of metamorphosis. We have +no longer a soul without a tenement, seeking a lodging; but one body +changed into another, the soul remaining as before. Now, we certainly +have not in nature any example of such legerdemain.</p> + +<p>Let us then inquire into the origin of so extravagant yet so general an +opinion. If some father had characterized his son, sunk in ignorance and +filthy debauchery, as a hog, a horse, or an ass, and afterwards made him +do penance with an ass's cap on his head, and some servant girl of the +neighborhood gave it out that this young man had been turned into an ass +as a punishment for his faults, her neighbors would repeat it to other +neighbors, and from mouth to mouth this story, with a thousand +embellishments, would make the tour of the world. An ambiguous +expression would suffice to deceive the whole earth.</p> + +<p>Here then let us confess, with Boileau, that ambiguity has been the +parent of most of our ridiculous follies. Add to this the power of +magic, which has been acknowledged as indisputable in all nations, and +you will no longer be astonished at anything.</p> + +<p>One word more on asses. It is said that in Mesopotamia they are warlike +and that Mervan, the twenty-first caliph, was surnamed "the Ass" for his +valor.</p> + +<p>The patriarch Photius relates, in the extract from the Life of Isidorus, +that Ammonius had an ass which had a great taste for poetry, and would +leave his manger to go and hear verses. The fable of Midas is better +than the tale of Photius.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Machiavelli's Golden Ass.</i></p> + +<p>Machiavelli's ass is but little known. The dictionaries which speak of +it say that it was a production of his youth; it would seem, however, +that he was of mature age; for he speaks in it of the misfortunes which +he had formerly and for a long time experienced. The work is a satire on +his contemporaries. The author sees a number of Florentines, of whom one +is changed into a cat, another into a dragon, a third into a dog that +bays the moon, a fourth into a fox who does not suffer himself to be +caught; each character is drawn under the name of an animal. The +factions of the house of Medicis and their enemies are doubtless figured +therein; and the key to this comic apocalypse would admit us to the +secrets of Pope Leo and the troubles of Florence. This poem is full of +morality and philosophy. It ends with the very rational reflections of +a large hog, which addresses man in nearly the following terms:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ye naked bipeds, without beaks or claws.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Hairless, and featherless, and tender-hided,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Weeping ye come into the world—because</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Ye feel your evil destiny decided;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nature has given you industrious paws;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">You, like the parrots, are with speech provided;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But have ye honest hearts?—Alas! alas!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">In this we swine your bipedships surpass!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Man is far worse than we—more fierce, more wild—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Coward or madman, sinning every minute;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By frenzy and by fear in turn beguiled,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">He dreads the grave, yet plunges headlong in it;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">If pigs fall out, they soon are reconciled;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Their quarrel's ended ere they well begin it.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">If crime with manhood always must combine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Good Lord! let me forever be a swine.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This is the original of Boileau's "Satire on Man," and La Fontaine's +fable of the "Companions of Ulysses"; but it is quite likely that +neither La Fontaine nor Boileau had ever heard of Machiavelli's ass.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>The Ass of Verona.</i></p> + +<p>I must speak the truth, and not deceive my readers. I do not very +clearly know whether the Ass of Verona still exists in all his splendor; +but the travellers who saw him forty or fifty years ago agree in saying +that the relics were enclosed in the body of an artificial ass made on +purpose, which was in the keeping of forty monks of Our Lady of the +Organ, at Verona, and was carried in procession twice a year. This was +one of the most ancient relics of the town. According to the tradition, +this ass, having carried our Lord in his entry into Jerusalem, did not +choose to abide any longer in that city, but trotted over the sea—which +for that purpose became as hard as his hoof—by way of Cyprus, Rhodes, +Candia, Malta, and Sicily. There he went to sojourn at Aquilea; and at +last he settled at Verona, where he lived a long while.</p> + +<p>This fable originated in the circumstance that most asses have a sort of +black cross on their backs. There possibly might be an old ass in the +neighborhood of Verona, on whose back the populace remarked a finer +cross than his brethren could boast of; some good old woman would be at +hand to say that this was the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem; +and the ass would be honored with a magnificent funeral. The feast +established at Verona passed into other countries, and was especially +celebrated in France. In the mass was sung:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Orientis partibus</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Adventabit asinus,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Pulcher et fortissimus.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>There was a long procession, headed by a young woman with a child in her +arms, mounted on an ass, representing the Virgin Mary going into Egypt. +At the end of the mass the priest, instead of saying <i>Ite missa est</i>, +brayed three times with all his might, and the people answered in +chorus.</p> + +<p>We have books on the feast of the ass, and the feast of fools; they +furnish material towards a universal history of the human mind.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ASSASSIN_ASSASSINATION" id="ASSASSIN_ASSASSINATION"></a>ASSASSIN—ASSASSINATION.</h3> + + +<h5>SECTION I.</h5> + +<p>A name corrupted from the word Ehissessin. Nothing is more common to +those who go into a distant country than to write, repeat, and +understand incorrectly in their own language what they have +misunderstood in a language entirely foreign to them, and afterwards to +deceive their countrymen as well as themselves. Error flies from mouth +to mouth, from pen, to pen, and to destroy it requires ages.</p> + +<p>In the time of the Crusades there was a wretched little people of +mountaineers inhabiting the caverns near the road to Damascus. These +brigands elected a chief, whom they named Cheik Elchassissin. It is said +that this honorific title of <i>cheik</i> originally signified <i>old</i>, as with +us the title of <i>seigneur</i> comes from <i>senior</i>, elder, and the word +<i>graf</i>, a count, signifies <i>old</i> among the Germans; for, in ancient +times almost every people conferred the civil command upon the old men. +Afterwards, the command having become hereditary, the title of <i>cheik, +graf, seigneur, or count</i> has been given to children; and the Germans +call a little master of four years old, <i>the count</i>—that is, the <i>old +gentleman</i>.</p> + +<p>The Crusaders named the old man of the Arabian mountains, the Old Man of +the Hill, and imagined him to be a great prince, because he had caused a +count of Montserrat and some other crusading nobles to be robbed and +murdered on the highway. These people were called <i>the assassins</i>, and +their cheik the king of the vast country of <i>the assassins</i>. This vast +territory is five or six leagues long by two or three broad, being part +of Anti-Libanus, a horrible country, full of rocks, like almost all +Palestine, but intersected by pleasant meadowlands, which feed numerous +flocks, as is attested by all who have made the journey from Aleppo to +Damascus.</p> + +<p>The cheik or senior of these <i>assassins</i> could be nothing more than a +chief of banditti; for there was at that time a sultan of Damascus who +was very powerful.</p> + +<p>Our romance-writers of that day, as fond of chimeras as the Crusaders, +thought proper to relate that in 1236 this great prince of the +assassins, fearing that Louis IX., of whom he had never heard, would put +himself at the head of a crusade, and come and take from him his +territory, sent two great men of his court from the caverns of +Anti-Libanus to Paris to assassinate that king; but that having the next +day heard how generous and amiable a prince Louis was, he immediately +sent out to sea two more great men to countermand the assassination. I +say out to sea, for neither the two emissaries sent to kill Louis, nor +the two others sent to save him, could make the voyage without embarking +at Joppa, which was then in the power of the Crusaders, which rendered +the enterprise doubly marvellous. The two first must have found a +Crusaders' vessel ready to convey them in an amicable manner, and the +two last must have found another.</p> + +<p>However, a hundred authors, one after another, have related this +adventure, though Joinville, a contemporary, who was on the spot, says +nothing about it—<i>"Et voilà justement comme on écrit l'histoire."</i></p> + +<p>The Jesuit Maimbourg, the Jesuit Daniel, twenty other Jesuits, and +Mézeray—though he was not a Jesuit—have repeated this absurdity. The +Abbé Véli, in his history of France, tells it over again with perfect +complaisance, without any discussion, without any examination, and on +the word of one William of Nangis, who wrote about sixty years after +this fine affair is said to have happened at a time when history was +composed from nothing but town talk.</p> + +<p>If none but true and useful things were recorded, our immense historical +libraries would be reduced to a very narrow compass; but we should know +more, and know it better.</p> + +<p>For six hundred years the story has been told over and over again, of +the Old Man of the Hill—<i>le vieux de la montagne</i>—who, in his +delightful gardens, intoxicated his young elect with voluptuous +pleasures, made them believe that they were in paradise, and sent them +to the ends of the earth to assassinate kings in order to merit an +eternal paradise.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Near the Levantine shores there dwelt of old</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">An aged ruler, feared in every land;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Not that he owned enormous heaps of gold,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Not that vast armies marched at his command,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But on his people's minds he things impressed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Which filled with desperate courage every breast</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The boldest of his subjects first he took,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Of paradise to give them a foretaste—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The paradise his lawgiver had painted;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With every joy the lying prophet's book</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Within his falsely-pictured heaven had placed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">They thought their senses had become acquainted.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And how was this effected? 'Twas by wine—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Of this they drank till every sense gave way,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And, while in drunken lethargy they lay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Were borne, according to their chief's design,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">To sports of pleasantness—to sunshine glades,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Delightful gardens and inviting shades.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Young tender beauties were abundant there,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">In earliest bloom, and exquisitely fair;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">These gayly thronged around the sleeping men,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Who, when at length they were awake again,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Wondering to see the beauteous objects round,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Believed that some way they'd already found</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Those fields of bliss, in every beauty decked,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The false Mahomet promised his elect.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Acquaintance quickly made, the Turks advance;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The maidens join them in a sprightly dance;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sweet music charms them as they trip along;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And every feathered warbler adds his song.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The joys that could for every sense suffice.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Were found within this earthly paradise.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Wine, too, was there—and its effects the same;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">These people drank, till they could drink no more,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Were earned to the place from whence they came.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And what resulted from this trickery?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">These men believed that they should surely be</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Again transported to that place of pleasure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">If, without fear of suffering or of death,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">They showed devotion to Mahomet's faith,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And to their prince obedience without measure.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Thus might their sovereign with reason say,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And that, now his device had made them so,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">His was the mightiest empire here below....</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>All this might be very well in one of La Fontaine's tales—setting apart +the weakness of the verse; and there are a hundred historical anecdotes +which could be tolerated there only.</p> + + +<h5>SECTION II.</h5> + + +<p>Assassination being, next to poisoning, the crime most cowardly and most +deserving of punishment, it is not astonishing that it has found an +apologist in a man whose singular reasoning is, in some things, at +variance with the reason of the rest of mankind.</p> + +<p>In a romance entitled "Emilius," he imagines that he is the guardian of +a young man, to whom he is very careful to give an education such as is +received in the military school—teaching him languages, geometry, +tactics, fortification, and the history of his country. He does not seek +to inspire him with love for his king and his country, but contents +himself with making him a joiner. He would have this gentleman-joiner, +when he has received a blow or a challenge, instead of returning it and +fighting, "prudently assassinate the man." Molière does, it is true, say +jestingly, in <i>"L'Amour Peintre,"</i> "assassination is the safest"; but +the author of this romance asserts that it is the most just and +reasonable. He says this very seriously, and, in the immensity of his +paradoxes, this is one of the three or four things which he first says. +The same spirit of wisdom and decency which makes him declare that a +preceptor should often accompany his pupil to a place of prostitution, +makes him decide that this disciple should be an assassin. So that the +education which Jean Jacques would give to a young man consists in +teaching him how to handle the plane, and in fitting him for salivation +and the rope.</p> + +<p>We doubt whether fathers of families will be eager to give such +preceptors to their children. It seems to us that the romance of Emilius +departs rather too much from the maxims of Mentor in "Telemachus"; but +it must also be acknowledged that our age has in all things very much +varied from the great age of Louis XIV.</p> + +<p>Happily, none of these horrible infatuations are to be found in the +"Encyclopædia." It often displays a philosophy seemingly bold, but never +that atrocious and extravagant babbling which two or three fools have +called philosophy, and two or three ladies, eloquence.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ASTROLOGY" id="ASTROLOGY"></a>ASTROLOGY.</h3> + + +<p>Astrology might rest on a better foundation than magic. For if no one +has seen farfadets, or lemures, or dives, or peris, or demons, or +cacodemons, the predictions of astrologers have often been found true. +Let two astrologers be consulted on the life of an infant, and on the +weather; if one of them say that the child shall five to the age of man, +the other that he shall not; if one foretell rain and the other fair +weather, it is quite clear that there will be a prophet.</p> + +<p>The great misfortune of astrologers is that the heavens have changed +since the rules of the art were laid down. The sun, which at the equinox +was in the Ram in the time of the Argonauts, is now in the Bull; and +astrologers, most unfortunately for their art, now attribute to one +house of the sun that which visibly belongs to another. Still, this is +not a demonstrative argument against astrology. The masters of the art +are mistaken; but it is not proved that the art cannot exist.</p> + +<p>There would be no absurdity in saying, "Such a child was born during the +moon's increase, in a stormy season, at the rising of a certain star; +its constitution was bad, and its life short and miserable, which is the +ordinary lot of weak temperaments; another, on the contrary, was born +when the moon was at the full, and the sun in all his power, in calm +weather, at the rising of another particular star; his constitution was +good, and his life long and happy." If such observations had been +frequently repeated, and found just, experience might, at the end of a +few thousand centuries, have formed an art which it would have been +difficult to call in question; it would have been thought, not without +some appearance of truth, that men are like trees and vegetables, which +must be planted only in certain seasons. It would have been of no +service against the astrologers to say, "My son was born in fine +weather, yet he died in his cradle." The astrologer would have answered, +"It often happens that trees planted in the proper season perish +prematurely; I will answer for the stars, but not for the particular +conformation which you communicated to your child; astrology operates +only when there is no cause opposed to the good which they have power to +work."</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 399px;"> +<a name="An_Astrologer" id="An_Astrologer"></a> +<img src="images/img_02_astrologer.jpg" width="399" alt="An Astrologer." title="" /> +<span class="caption_fig">An Astrologer.</span> +</div> + + +<p>Nor would astrology have suffered any more discredit from it being said: +"Of two children who were born in the same minute, one became a king, +the other nothing more than churchwarden of his parish;" for a defence +would easily have been made by showing that the peasant made his fortune +in becoming churchwarden, just as much as the prince did in becoming +king.</p> + +<p>And if it were alleged that a bandit, hung up by order of Sixtus the +Fifth, was born at the same time as Sixtus, who, from being a swineherd, +became pope, the astrologers would say that there was a mistake of a few +seconds, and that, according to the rules, the same star could not +bestow the tiara and the gallows. It was, then, only because +long-accumulated experience gave the lie to the predictions that men at +length perceived that the art was illusory; but their credulity was of +long duration.</p> + +<p>One of the most famous mathematicians of Europe, named Stoffler, who +flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, foretold a +universal deluge for the year 1524. This deluge was to happen in the +month of February, and nothing can be more plausible, for Saturn, +Jupiter, and Mars were then in conjunction in the sign of the Fishes. +Every nation in Europe, Asia, and Africa that heard of the prediction +was in consternation. The whole world expected the deluge, in spite of +the rainbow. Several contemporary authors relate that the inhabitants of +the maritime provinces of Germany hastened to sell their lands, at any +price, to such as had more money and less credulity than themselves. +Each one provided himself with a boat to serve as an ark. A doctor of +Toulouse, in particular, named Auriol, had an ark built for himself, his +family, and friends; and the same precautions were taken in a great part +of Italy. At last the month of February arrived, and not a drop of rain +fell, never was a month more dry, never were the astrologers more +embarrassed. However, we neither discouraged nor neglected them; almost +all our princes continued to consult them.</p> + +<p>I have not the honor to be a prince; nevertheless, the celebrated Count +de Boulainvilliers and an Italian, named Colonna, who had great +reputation at Paris, both foretold to me that I should assuredly die at +the age of thirty-two. I have already been so malicious as to deceive +them thirty years in their calculation—for which I most humbly ask +their pardon.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ASTRONOMY" id="ASTRONOMY"></a>ASTRONOMY,</h3> + +<h5>WITH A FEW MORE REFLECTIONS ON ASTROLOGY.</h5> + + +<p>M. Duval, who, if I mistake not, was librarian to the Emperor Francis +I., gives us an account of the manner in which, in his childhood, pure +instinct gave him the first ideas of astronomy. He was contemplating the +moon which, as it declined towards the west, seemed to touch the trees +of a wood. He doubted not that he should find it behind the trees, and, +on running thither, was astonished to see it at the extremity of the +horizon.</p> + +<p>The following days his curiosity prompted him to watch the course of +this luminary, and he was still more surprised to find that it rose and +set at various hours. The different forms which it took from week to +week, and its total disappearance for some nights, also contributed to +fix his attention. All that a child could do was to observe and to +admire, and this was doing much; not one in ten thousand has this +curiosity and perseverance.</p> + +<p>He studied, as he could, for three years, with no other book than the +heavens, no other master than his eyes. He observed that the stars did +not change their relative positions; but the brilliancy of the planet +Venus having caught his attention, it seemed to him to have a particular +course, like that of the moon. He watched it every night; it disappeared +for a long time; and at length he saw it become the morning instead of +the evening star. The course of the sun, which from month to month, rose +and set in different parts of the heavens, did not escape him. He marked +the solstices with two staves, without knowing what the solstices were.</p> + +<p>It appears to me that some profit might be derived from this example, +in teaching astronomy to a child of ten or twelve years of age, and with +much greater facility than this extraordinary child, of whom I have +spoken, taught himself its first elements.</p> + +<p>It is a very attractive spectacle for a mind disposed to the +contemplation of nature to see that the different phases of the moon are +precisely the same as those of a globe round which a lighted candle is +moved, showing here a quarter, here the half of its surface, and +becoming invisible when an opaque body is interposed between it and the +candle. In this manner it was that Galileo explained the true principles +of astronomy before the doge and senators of Venice on St. Mark's tower; +he demonstrated everything to the eyes.</p> + +<p>Indeed, not only a child, but even a man of mature age, who has seen the +constellations only on maps or globes, finds it difficult to recognize +them in the heavens. In a little time the child will quite well +comprehend the causes of the sun's apparent course, and the daily +revolutions of the fixed stars.</p> + +<p>He will, in particular, discover the constellations with the aid of +these four Latin lines, made by an astronomer about fifty years ago, and +which are not sufficiently known:</p> + +<p><i>Delta Aries, Perseum Taurus, Geminique Capellam; Nil Cancer, Plaustrum +Leo, Virgo Coman, atque Bootem, Libra Anguem, Anguiferum fert Scorpios; +Antinoum Arcus; Delphinum Caper, Amphora Equos, Cepheida Pisces.</i></p> + +<p>Nothing should be said to him about the systems of Ptolemy and Tycho +Brahe, because they are false; they can never be of any other service +than to explain some passages in ancient authors, relating to the errors +of antiquity. For instance, in the second book of Ovid's +<i>"Metamorphoses"</i> the sun says to Phaëton:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Adde, quod assidua rapitur vertigine cœlum;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Nitor in adversum; nec me, qui cætera, vincit</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Impetus; et rapido contrarius evehor orbi.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">A rapid motion carries round the heavens;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But I—and I alone—resist its force,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Marching secure in my opposing path.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This idea of a first mover turning the heavens round in twenty-four +hours with an impossible motion, and of the sun, though acted upon by +this first motion, yet imperceptibly advancing from west to east by a +motion peculiar to itself, and without a cause, would but embarrass a +young beginner.</p> + +<p>It is sufficient for him to know that, whether the earth revolves on its +own axis and round the sun, or the sun completes his revolution in a +year, appearances are nearly the same, and that, in astronomy, we are +obliged to judge of things by our eyes before we examine them as natural +philosophers.</p> + +<p>He will soon know the cause of the eclipses of the sun and the moon, and +why they do not occur every night. It will at first appear to him that, +the moon being every month in opposition to and in conjunction with the +sun, we should have an eclipse of the sun and one of the moon every +month. But when he finds that these two luminaries are not in the same +plane and are seldom in the same line with the earth, he will no longer +be surprised.</p> + +<p>He will easily be made to understand how it is that eclipses have been +foretold, by knowing the exact circle in which the apparent motion of +the sun and the real motion of the moon are accomplished. He will be +told that observers found by experience and calculation the number of +times that these two bodies are precisely in the same line with the +earth in the space of nineteen years and a few hours, after which they +seem to recommence the same course; so that, making the necessary +allowances for the little inequalities that occurred during those +nineteen years, the exact day, hour, and minute of an eclipse of the sun +or moon were foretold. These first elements are soon acquired by a child +of clear conceptions.</p> + +<p>Not even the precession of the equinoxes will terrify him. It will be +enough to tell him that the sun has constantly appeared to advance in +his annual course, one degree in seventy-two years, towards the east; +and this is what Ovid meant to express: <i>"Contrarius evehor +orbi"</i>;—"Marching secure in my opposing path."</p> + +<p>Thus the Ram, which the sun formerly entered at the beginning of spring, +is now in the place where the Bull was then. This change which has taken +place in the heavens, and the entrance of the sun into other +constellations than those which he formerly occupied, were the +strongest arguments against the pretended rules of judicial astrology. +It does not, however, appear that this proof was employed before the +present century to destroy this universal extravagance which so long +infected all mankind, and is still in great vogue in Persia.</p> + +<p>A man born, according to the almanac, when the sun was in the sign of +the Lion, was necessarily to be courageous; but, unfortunately, he was +in reality born under the sign of the Virgin. So that Gauric and Michael +Morin should have changed all the rules of their art.</p> + +<p>It is indeed odd that all the laws of astrology were contrary to those +of astronomy. The wretched charlatans of antiquity and their stupid +disciples, who have been so well received and so well paid by all the +princes of Europe, talked of nothing but Mars and Venus, stationary and +retrograde. Such as had Mars stationary were always to conquer. Venus +stationary made all lovers happy. Nothing was worse than to be born +under Venus retrograde. But the fact is that these planets have never +been either retrograde or stationary, which a very slight knowledge of +optics would have sufficed to show.</p> + +<p>How, then, can it have been that, in spite of physics and geometry, the +ridiculous chimera of astrology is entertained even to this day, so that +we have seen men distinguished for their general knowledge, and +especially profound in history, who have all their lives been infatuated +by so despicable an error? But the error was ancient, and that was +enough.</p> + +<p>The Egyptians, the Chaldæans, the Jews, foretold the future; therefore, +it may be foretold now. Serpents were charmed and spirits were raised in +those days; therefore, spirits may be raised and serpents charmed now. +It is only necessary to know the precise formula made use of for the +purpose. If predictions are at an end, it is the fault, not of the art, +but of the artist. Michael Morin and his secret died together. It is +thus that the alchemists speak of the philosopher's stone; if, say they, +we do not now find it, it is because we do not yet know precisely how to +seek it; but it is certainly in Solomon's collar-bone. And, with this +glorious certainty, more than two hundred families in France and Germany +have ruined themselves.</p> + +<p>It is not then to be wondered at that the whole world has been duped by +astrology. The wretched argument, "there are false prodigies, therefore +there are true ones," is neither that of a philosopher, nor of a man +acquainted with the world. "That is false and absurd, therefore it will +be believed by the multitude," is a much truer maxim.</p> + +<p>It is still less astonishing that so many men, raised in other things so +far above the vulgar; so many princes, so many popes, whom it would have +been impossible to mislead in the smallest affair of interest, have been +so ridiculously seduced by this astrological nonsense. They were very +proud and very ignorant. The stars were for them alone; the rest of the +world a rabble, with whom the stars had nothing to do. They were like +the prince who trembled at the sight of a comet, and said gravely to +those who did not fear it, "You may behold it without concern; you are +not princes."</p> + +<p>The famous German leader, Wallenstein, was one of those infatuated by +this chimera; he called himself a prince, and consequently thought that +the zodiac had been made on purpose for him. He never besieged a town, +nor fought a battle, until he had held a council with the heavens; but, +as this great man was very ignorant, he placed at the head of this +council a rogue of an Italian, named Seni, keeping him a coach and six, +and giving him a pension of twenty thousand livres. Seni, however, never +foresaw that Wallenstein would be assassinated by order of his most +gracious sovereign, and that he himself would return to Italy on foot.</p> + +<p>It is quite evident that nothing can be known of the future, otherwise +than by conjectures. These conjectures may be so well-founded as to +approach certainty. You see a shark swallow a little boy; you may wager +ten thousand to one that he will be devoured; but you cannot be +absolutely sure of it, after the adventures of Hercules, Jonas, and +Orlando Furioso, who each lived so long in a fish's belly.</p> + +<p>It cannot be too often repeated that Albertus Magnus and Cardinal +d'Ailli both made the horoscope of Jesus Christ. It would appear that +they read in the stars how many devils he would cast out of the bodies +of the possessed, and what sort of death he was to die. But it was +unfortunate that these learned astrologers <i>foretold</i> all these things +so long <i>after</i> they happened.</p> + +<p>We shall elsewhere see that in a sect which passes for Christian, it is +believed to be impossible for the Supreme Intelligence to see the future +otherwise than by supreme conjecture; for, as the future does not exist, +it is, say they, a contradiction in terms to talk of seeing at the +present time that which is not.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ATHEISM" id="ATHEISM"></a>ATHEISM.</h3> + + +<h5>SECTION I.</h5> + + +<h4><i>On the Comparison so Often Made between Atheism and Idolatry.</i></h4> + +<p>It seems to me that, in the <i>"Dictionnaire Encyclopédique,"</i> a more +powerful refutation might have been brought against the Jesuit +Richeome's opinion concerning atheists and idolaters—an opinion +formerly maintained by St. Thomas, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyprian, +and Tertullian—an opinion which Arnobius placed in a strong light when +he said to the pagans, "Do you not blush to reproach us with contempt +for your gods? Is it not better to believe in no god than to impute to +them infamous actions?"—an opinion long before established by +Plutarch, who stated that he would rather have it said that there was +no Plutarch than that there was a Plutarch, inconstant, choleric, and +vindictive—an opinion, too, fortified by all the dialectical efforts of +Bayle.</p> + +<p>Such is the ground of dispute, placed in a very striking point of view +by the Jesuit Richeome, and made still more specious by the way in which +Bayle sets it off:</p> + +<p>"There are two porters at the door of a house. You ask to speak to the +master. He is not at home, answers one. He is at home, answers the +other, but is busied in making false money, false contracts, daggers, +and poisons, to destroy those who have only accomplished his designs. +The atheist resembles the former of these porters, the pagan the latter. +It is then evident that the pagan offends the Divinity more grievously +than the atheist."</p> + +<p>With the permission of Father Richeome, and that of Bayle himself, this +is not at all the state of the question. For the first porter to be like +the atheist, he must say, not "My master is not here," but "I have no +master; he who you pretend is my master does not exist. My comrade is a +blockhead to tell you that the gentleman is engaged in mixing poisons +and wetting poniards to assassinate those who have executed his will. +There is no such being in the world."</p> + +<p>Richeome, therefore, has reasoned very ill; and Bayle, in his rather +diffuse discourses, has so far forgotten himself as to do Richeome the +honor of making a very lame comment upon him.</p> + +<p>Plutarch seems to express himself much better, in declaring that he +prefers those who say there is no Plutarch to those who assert that +Plutarch is unfit for society. Indeed, of what consequence to him was +its being said that he was not in the world? But it was of great +consequence that his reputation should not be injured. With the Supreme +Being it is otherwise.</p> + +<p>Still Plutarch does not come to the real point in discussion. It is only +asked who most offends the Supreme Being—he who denies Him, or he who +disfigures Him? It is impossible to know, otherwise than by revelation, +whether God is offended at the vain discourses which men hold about Him.</p> + +<p>Philosophers almost always fall unconsciously into the ideas of the +vulgar, in supposing that God is jealous of His glory, wrathful, and +given to revenge, and in taking rhetorical figures for real ideas. That +which interests the whole world is to know whether it is not better to +admit a rewarding and avenging God, recompensing hidden good actions, +and punishing secret crimes, than to admit no God at all.</p> + +<p>Bayle exhausts himself in repeating all the infamous things imputed to +the gods of antiquity. His adversaries answer him by unmeaning +commonplaces. The partisans and the enemies of Bayle have almost always +fought without coming to close quarters. They all agree that Jupiter +was an adulterer, Venus a wanton, Mercury a rogue. But this, I conceive, +ought not to be considered; the religion of the ancient Romans should be +distinguished from Ovid's <i>"Metamorphoses."</i> It is quite certain that +neither they nor even the Greeks ever had a temple dedicated to Mercury +the Rogue, Venus the Wanton, or Jupiter the Adulterer.</p> + +<p>The god whom the Romans called <i>"Deus optimus maximus"</i>—most good, most +great—was not believed to have encouraged Clodius to lie with Cæsar's +wife, nor Cæsar to become the minion of King Nicomedes.</p> + +<p>Cicero does not say that Mercury incited Verres to rob Sicily, though, +in the fable, Mercury had stolen Apollo's cows. The real religion of the +ancients was that Jupiter, most good and just, with the secondary +divinities, punished perjury in the infernal regions. Thus, the Romans +were long the most religious observers of their oaths. It was in no wise +ordained that they should believe in Leda's two eggs, in the +transformation of Inachus's daughter into a cow, or in Apollo's love for +Hyacinthus. Therefore it must not be said that the religion of Numa was +dishonoring to the Divinity. So that, as but too often happens, there +has been a long dispute about a chimera.</p> + +<p>Then, it is asked, can a people of atheists exist? I consider that a +distinction must be made between the people, properly so called, and a +society of philosophers above the people. It is true that, in every +country, the populace require the strongest curb; and that if Bayle had +had but five or six hundred peasants to govern, he would not have failed +to announce to them a rewarding and avenging God. But Bayle would have +said nothing about them to the Epicureans, who were people of wealth, +fond of quiet, cultivating all the social virtues, and friendship in +particular, shunning the dangers and embarrassments of public +affairs—leading, in short, a life of ease and innocence. The dispute, +so far as it regards policy and society, seems to me to end here.</p> + +<p>As for people entirely savage, they can be counted neither among the +theists nor among the atheists. To ask them what is their creed would be +like asking them if they are for Aristotle or Democritus. They know +nothing; they are no more atheists than they are peripatetics.</p> + +<p>But, it may be insisted, that they live in society, though they have no +God, and that, therefore, society may subsist without religion.</p> + +<p>In this case I shall reply that wolves live so; and that an assemblage +of barbarous cannibals, as you suppose them to be, is not a society. +And, further, I will ask you if, when you have lent your money to any +one of your society, you would have neither your debtor, nor your +attorney, nor your notary, nor your judge, believe in a God?</p> + + +<h5>SECTION II.</h5> + +<p class="caption"><i>Modern Atheists.—Arguments of the Worshippers of God.</i></p> + +<p>We are intelligent beings, and intelligent beings cannot have been +formed by a blind, brute, insensible being; there is certainly some +difference between a clod and the ideas of Newton. Newton's +intelligence, then, came from some other intelligence.</p> + +<p>When we see a fine machine, we say there is a good machinist, and that +he has an excellent understanding. The world is assuredly an admirable +machine; therefore there is in the world, somewhere or other, an +admirable intelligence. This argument is old, but is not therefore the +worse.</p> + +<p>All animated bodies are composed of levers and pulleys, which act +according to the laws of mechanics; of liquors, which are kept in +perpetual circulation by the laws of hydrostatics; and the reflection +that all these beings have sentiment which has no relation to their +organization, fills us with wonder.</p> + +<p>The motions of the stars, that of our little earth round the sun—all +are operated according to the laws of the profoundest mathematics. How +could it be that Plato, who knew not one of these laws—the eloquent but +chimerical Plato, who said that the foundation of the earth was an +equilateral triangle, and that of water a right-angled triangle—the +strange Plato, who said there could be but five worlds, because there +were but five regular bodieshow, I say, was it that Plato, who was not +even acquainted with spherical trigonometry, had nevertheless so fine a +genius, so happy an instinct, as to call God the Eternal +Geometrician—to feel that there exists a forming Intelligence? Spinoza +himself confesses it. It is impossible to controvert this truth, which +surrounds us and presses us on all sides.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Argument of the Atheists.</i></p> + +<p>I have, however, known refractory individuals, who have said that there +is no forming intelligence, and that motion alone has formed all that we +see and all that we are. They say boldly that the combination of this +universe was possible because it exists; therefore it was possible for +motion of itself to arrange it. Take four planets only—Mars, Venus, +Mercury, and the Earth; let us consider them solely in the situations in +which they now are; and let us see how many probabilities we have that +motion will bring them again to those respective places. There are but +twenty-four chances in this combination; that is, it is only twenty-four +to one that these planets will not be found in the same situations with +respect to one another. To these four globes add that of Jupiter; and it +is then only a hundred and twenty to one that Jupiter, Mars, Venus, +Mercury, and our globe will not be placed in the same positions in which +we now see them.</p> + +<p>Lastly, add Saturn; and there will then be only seven hundred and twenty +chances to one against putting these planets in their present +arrangement, according to their given distances. It is, then, +demonstrated that once, at least, in seven hundred and twenty cases, +chance might place these planets in their present order.</p> + +<p>Then take all the secondary planets, all their motions, all the beings +that vegetate, live, feel, think, act, on all these globes; you have +only to increase the number of chances; multiply this number to all +eternity—to what our weakness calls <i>infinity</i>—there will still be an +unit in favor of the formation of the world, such as it is, by motion +alone; therefore it is possible that, in all eternity, the motion of +matter alone has produced the universe as it exists. Nay, this +combination must, in eternity, of necessity happen. Thus, say they, not +only it is possible that the world is as it is by motion alone, but it +was impossible that it should not be so after infinite combinations.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Answer.</i></p> + +<p>All this supposition seems to me to be prodigiously chimerical, for two +reasons: the first is, that in this universe there are intelligent +beings, and you cannot prove it possible for motion alone to produce +understanding. The second is, that, by your own confession, the chances +are infinity to unity, that an intelligent forming cause produced the +universe. Standing alone against infinity, a unit makes but a poor +figure.</p> + +<p>Again Spinoza himself admits this intelligence; it is the basis of his +system. You have not read him, but you must read him. Why would you go +further than he, and, through a foolish pride, plunge into the abyss +where Spinoza dared not to descend? Are you not aware of the extreme +folly of saying that it is owing to a blind cause that the square of the +revolution of one planet is always to the squares of the others as the +cube of its distance is to the cubes of the distances of the others from +the common centre? Either the planets are great geometricians, or the +Eternal Geometrician has arranged the planets.</p> + +<p>But where is the Eternal Geometrician? Is He in one place, or in all +places, without occupying space? I know not. Has He arranged all things +of His own substance? I know not. Is He immense, without quantity and +without quality? I know not. All I know is, that we must adore Him and +be just.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>New Objection of a Modern Atheist.</i></p> + +<p>Can it be said that the conformation of animals is according to their +necessities? What are those necessities? Self-preservation and +propagation. Now, is it astonishing that, of the infinite combinations +produced by chance, those only have survived which had organs adapted +for their nourishment and the continuation of their species? Must not +all others necessarily have perished?</p> + +<p class="caption"><i>Answer.</i></p> + +<p>This argument, taken from Lucretius, is sufficiently refuted by the +sensation given to animals and the intelligence given to man. How, as +has just been said in the preceding paragraph, should combinations +produced by chance produce this sensation and this intelligence? Yes, +doubtless, the members of animals are made for all their necessities +with an incomprehensible art, and you have not the boldness to deny it. +You do not mention it. You feel that you can say nothing in answer to +this great argument which Nature brings against you. The disposition of +the wing of a fly, or of the feelers of a snail, is sufficient to +confound you.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>An Objection of Maupertuis.</i></p> + +<p>The natural philosophers of modern times have done nothing more than +extend these pretended arguments; this they have sometimes done even to +minuteness and indecency. They have found God in the folds of a +rhinoceros's hide; they might, with equal reason, have denied His +existence on account of the tortoise's shell.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Answer.</i></p> + +<p>What reasoning! The tortoise and the rhinoceros, and all the different +species, prove alike in their infinite varieties the same cause, the +same design, the same end, which are preservation, generation, and +death. Unity is found in this immense variety; the hide and the shell +bear equal testimony. What! deny God, because a shell is not like a +skin! And journalists have lavished upon this coxcombry praises which +they have withheld from Newton and Locke, both worshippers of the +Divinity from thorough examination and conviction!</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Another of Maupertuis's Objections.</i></p> + +<p>Of what service are beauty and fitness in the construction of a serpent? +Perhaps, you say, it has uses of which we are ignorant. Let us then, at +least, be silent, and not admire an animal which we know only by the +mischief it does.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Answer.</i></p> + +<p>Be you silent, also, since you know no more of its utility than myself; +or acknowledge that, in reptiles, everything is admirably proportioned. +Some of them are venomous; you have been so too. The only subject at +present under consideration is the prodigious art which has formed +serpents, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and bipeds. This art is evident +enough. You ask, Why is not the serpent harmless? And why have you not +been harmless? Why have you been a persecutor? which, in a philosopher, +is the greatest of crimes. This is quite another question; it is that of +physical and moral evil. It has long been asked, Why are there so many +serpents, and so many wicked men worse than serpents? If flies could +reason, they would complain to God of the existence of spiders; but they +would, at the same time, acknowledge what Minerva confessed to Arachne +in the fable, that they arrange their webs in a wonderful manner.</p> + +<p>We cannot, then, do otherwise than acknowledge an ineffable +Intelligence, which Spinoza himself admitted. We must own that it is +displayed as much in the meanest insect as in the planets. And with +regard to moral and physical evil, what can be done or said? Let us +console ourselves by the enjoyment of physical and moral good, and adore +the Eternal Being, who has ordained the one and permitted the other.</p> + +<p>One word more on this topic. Atheism is the vice of some intelligent +men, and superstition is the vice of fools. And what is the vice of +knaves?—Hypocrisy.</p> + + +<h5>SECTION III.</h5> + +<h4><i>Unjust Accusation.—Justification of Vanini.</i></h4> + +<p>Formerly, whoever was possessed of a secret in any art was in danger of +passing for a sorcerer; every new sect was charged with murdering +infants in its mysteries; and every philosopher who departed from the +jargon of the schools was accused of atheism by knaves and fanatics, and +condemned by blockheads.</p> + +<p>Anaxagorus dares to assert that the sun is not conducted by Apollo, +mounted in a chariot and four; he is condemned as an atheist, and +compelled to fly.</p> + +<p>Aristotle is accused of atheism by a priest, and not being powerful +enough to punish his accuser, he retires to Chalcis. But the death of +Socrates is the greatest blot on the page of Grecian history.</p> + +<p>Aristophanes—he whom commentators admire because he was a Greek, +forgetting that Socrates was also a Greek—Aristophanes was the first +who accustomed the Athenians to regard Socrates as an atheist.</p> + +<p>This comic poet, who is neither comic nor poetical, would not, among us, +have been permitted to exhibit his farces at the fair of St. Lawrence. +He appears to me to be much lower and more despicable than Plutarch +represents him. Let us see what the wise Plutarch says of this buffoon: +"The language of Aristophanes bespeaks his miserable quackery; it is +made up of the lowest and most disgusting puns; he is not even pleasing +to the people; and to men of judgment and honor he is insupportable; his +arrogance is intolerable, and all good men detest his malignity."</p> + +<p>This, then, is the jack-pudding whom Madame Dacier, an admirer of +Socrates, ventures to admire! Such was the man who, indirectly, prepared +the poison by which infamous judges put to death the most virtuous man +in Greece.</p> + +<p>The tanners, cobblers, and seamstresses of Athens applauded a farce in +which Socrates was represented lifted in the air in a hamper, announcing +that there was no God, and boasting of having stolen a cloak while he +was teaching philosophy. A whole people, whose government sanctioned +such infamous licences, well deserved what has happened to them, to +become slaves to the Romans, and, subsequently, to the Turks. The +Russians, whom the Greeks of old would have called barbarians, would +neither have poisoned Socrates, nor have condemned Alcibiades to death.</p> + +<p>We pass over the ages between the Roman commonwealth and our own times. +The Romans, much more wise than the Greeks, never persecuted a +philosopher for his opinions. Not so the barbarous nations which +succeeded the Roman Empire. No sooner did the Emperor Frederick II. +begin to quarrel with the popes, than he was accused of being an +atheist, and being the author of the book of "The Three Impostors," +conjointly with his chancellor De Vincis.</p> + +<p>Does our high-chancellor, de l'Hôpital, declare against persecution? He +is immediately charged with atheism—<i>"Homo doctus, sed vetus atheus."</i> +There was a Jesuit, as much beneath Aristophanes as Aristophanes is +beneath Homer—a wretch, whose name has become ridiculous even among +fanatics—the Jesuit Garasse, who found atheists everywhere. He bestows +the name upon all who are the objects of his virulence. He calls +Theodore Beza an atheist. It was he, too, that led the public into error +concerning Vanini.</p> + +<p>The unfortunate end of Vanini does not excite our pity and indignation +like that of Socrates, because Vanini was only a foreign pedant, without +merit; however, Vanini was not, as was pretended, an atheist; he was +quite the contrary.</p> + +<p>He was a poor Neapolitan priest, a theologian and preacher by trade, an +outrageous disputer on quiddities and universals, and <i>"utrum chimæra +bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones."</i> But there was +nothing in him tending to atheism. His notion of God is that of the +soundest and most approved theology: "God is the beginning and the end, +the father of both, without need of either, eternal without time, in no +one place, yet present everywhere. To him there is neither past nor +future; he is within and without everything; he has created all, and +governs all; he is immutable, infinite without parts; his power is his +will." This is not very philosophical, but it is the most approved +theology.</p> + +<p>Vanini prided himself on reviving Plato's fine idea, adopted by +Averroës, that God had created a chain of beings from the smallest to +the greatest, the last link of which was attached to his eternal throne; +an idea more sublime than true, but as distant from atheism as being +from nothing.</p> + +<p>He travelled to seek his fortune and to dispute; but, unfortunately, +disputation leads not to fortune; a man makes himself as many +irreconcilable enemies as he finds men of learning or of pedantry to +argue against. Vanini's ill-fortune had no other source. His heat and +rudeness in disputation procured him the hatred of some theologians; and +having quarrelled with one Franconi, this Franconi, the friend of his +enemies, charged him with being an atheist and teaching atheism.</p> + +<p>Franconi, aided by some witnesses, had the barbarity, when confronted +with the accused, to maintain what he had advanced. Vanini, on the +stool, being asked what he thought of the existence of a God, answered +that he, with the Church, adored a God in three persons. Taking a straw +from the ground, "This," said he, "is sufficient to prove that there is +a creator." He then delivered a very fine discourse on vegetation and +motion, and the necessity of a Supreme Being, without whom there could +be neither motion nor vegetation.</p> + +<p>The president Grammont, who was then at Toulouse, repeats this discourse +in his history of France, now so little known; and the same Grammont, +through some unaccountable prejudice, asserts that Vanini said all this +"through vanity, or through fear, rather than from inward conviction."</p> + +<p>On what could this atrocious, rash judgment of the president be founded? +It is evident, from Vanini's answer, that he could not but be acquitted +of the charge of atheism. But what followed? This unfortunate foreign +priest also dabbled in medicine. There was found in his house a large +live toad, which he kept in a vessel of water; he was forthwith accused +of being a sorcerer. It was maintained that this toad was the god which +he adored. An impious meaning was attributed to several passages of his +books, a thing which is both common and easy, by taking objections for +answers, giving some bad sense to a loose phrase, and perverting an +innocent expression. At last, the faction which oppressed him forced +from his judges the sentence which condemned him to die.</p> + +<p>In order to justify this execution it was necessary to charge the +unfortunate man with the most enormous of crimes. The grey friar—the +<i>very</i> grey friar Marsenne, was so besotted as to publish that "Vanini +set out from Naples, with twelve of his apostles, to convert the whole +world to atheism." What a pitiful tale! How should a poor priest have +twelve men in his pay? How should he persuade twelve Neapolitans to +travel at great expense, in order to spread this revolting doctrine at +the peril of their lives? Would a king himself have it in his power to +pay twelve preachers of atheism? No one before Father Marsenne had +advanced so enormous an absurdity. But after him it was repeated; the +journals and historical dictionaries caught it, and the world, which +loves the extraordinary, has believed the fable without examination.</p> + +<p>Even Bayle, in his miscellaneous thoughts (<i>Pensées Diverses</i>), speaks +of Vanini as of an atheist. He cites his example in support of his +paradox, that "a society of atheists might exist." He assures us that +Vanini was a man of very regular morals, and that he was a martyr to +his philosophical opinions. On both these points he is equally mistaken. +Vanini informs us in his "Dialogues," written in imitation of Erasmus, +that he had a mistress named Isabel. He was as free in his writings as +in his conduct; but he was not an atheist.</p> + +<p>A century after his death, the learned Lacroze, and he who took the name +of Philaletes, endeavored to justify him. But as no one cares anything +about the memory of an unfortunate Neapolitan, scarcely any one has read +these apologies.</p> + +<p>The Jesuit Hardouin, more learned and no less rash than Garasse, in his +book entitled <i>"Athei Detecti"</i> charges the Descartes, the Arnaulds, the +Pascals, the Malebranches, with atheism. Happily, Vanini's fate was not +theirs.</p> + + +<h5>SECTION IV.</h5> + +<p>A word on the question in morals, agitated by Bayle, "Whether a society +of atheists can exist." Here let us first observe the enormous +self-contradictions of men in disputation. Those who have been most +violent in opposing the opinion of Bayle, those who have denied with the +greatest virulence the possibility of a society of atheists, are the +very men who have since maintained with equal ardor that atheism is the +religion of the Chinese government.</p> + +<p>They have most assuredly been mistaken concerning the government of +China; they had only to read the edicts of the emperors of that vast +country, and they would have seen that those edicts are sermons, in +which a Supreme Being—governing, avenging, and rewarding—is +continually spoken of.</p> + +<p>But, at the same time, they are no less deceived respecting the +impossibility of a society of atheists; nor can I conceive how Bayle +could forget a striking instance which might have rendered his cause +victorious.</p> + +<p>In what does the apparent impossibility of a society of atheists +consist? In this: It is judged that men without some restraint could not +live together; that laws have no power against secret crimes; and that +it is necessary to have an avenging God—punishing, in this world or in +the next, such as escape human justice.</p> + +<p>The laws of Moses, it is true, did not teach the doctrine of a life to +come, did not threaten with chastisements after death, nor even teach +the primitive Jews the immortality of the soul; but the Jews, far from +being atheists, far from believing that they could elude the divine +vengeance, were the most religious of men. They believed not only in the +existence of an eternal God, but that He was always present among them; +they trembled lest they should be punished in themselves, their wives, +their children, their posterity to the fourth generation. This was a +very powerful check.</p> + +<p>But among the Gentiles various sects had no restraint; the Skeptics +doubted of everything; the Academics suspended their judgment on +everything; the Epicureans were persuaded that the Divinity could not +meddle in human affairs, and in their hearts admitted no Divinity. They +were convinced that the soul is not a substance, but a faculty which is +born and perishes with the body; consequently, they had no restraint but +that of morality and honor. The Roman senators and knights were in +reality atheists; for to men who neither feared nor hoped anything from +them, the gods could not exist. The Roman senate, then, in the time of +Cæsar and Cicero, was in fact an assembly of atheists.</p> + +<p>That great orator, in his oration for Cluentius, says to the whole +assembled senate: "What does he lose by death? We reject all the silly +fables about the infernal regions. What, then, can death take from him? +Nothing but the susceptibility of sorrow."</p> + +<p>Does not Cæsar, wishing to save the life of his friend Catiline, +threatened by the same Cicero, object that to put a criminal to death is +not to punish him—that death is nothing—that it is but the termination +of our ills—a moment rather fortunate than calamitous? Did not Cicero +and the whole senate yield to this reasoning? The conquerors and +legislators of all the known world then, evidently, formed a society of +men who feared nothing from the gods, but were real atheists.</p> + +<p>Bayle next examines whether idolatry is more dangerous than +atheism—whether it is a greater crime not to believe in the Divinity +than to have unworthy notions of it; in this he thinks with +Plutarch—that it is better to have no opinion than a bad opinion; but, +without offence to Plutarch, it was infinitely better that the Greeks +should fear Ceres, Neptune, and Jupiter than that they should fear +nothing at all. It is clear that the sanctity of oaths is necessary; and +that those are more to be trusted who think a false oath will be +punished, than those who think they may take a false oath with impunity. +It cannot be doubted that, in an organized society, it is better to have +even a bad religion than no religion at all.</p> + +<p>It appears then that Bayle should rather have examined whether atheism +or fanaticism is the most dangerous. Fanaticism is certainly a thousand +times the most to be dreaded; for atheism inspires no sanguinary +passion, but fanaticism does; atheism does not oppose crime, but +fanaticism prompts to its commission. Let us suppose, with the author of +the <i>"Commentarium Return Gallicarum,"</i> that the High-Chancellor de +l'Hôpital was an atheist; he made none but wise laws; he recommended +only moderation and concord. The massacres of St. Bartholomew were +committed by fanatics. Hobbes passed for an atheist; yet he led a life +of innocence and quiet, while the fanatics of his time deluged England, +Scotland, and Ireland with blood. Spinoza was not only an atheist—he +taught atheism; but assuredly he had no part in the judicial +assassination of Barneveldt; nor was it he who tore in pieces the two +brothers De Witt, and ate them off the gridiron.</p> + +<p>Atheists are, for the most part, men of learning, bold but bewildered, +who reason ill and, unable to comprehend the creation, the origin of +evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the +eternity of things and of necessity.</p> + +<p>The ambitious and the voluptuous have but little time to reason; they +have other occupations than that of comparing Lucretius with Socrates. +Such is the case with us and our time.</p> + +<p>It was otherwise with the Roman senate, which was composed almost +entirely of theoretical and practical atheists, that is, believing +neither in Providence nor in a future state; this senate was an assembly +of philosophers, men of pleasure, and ambitious men, who were all very +dangerous, and who ruined the commonwealth. Under the emperors, +Epicureanism prevailed. The atheists of the senate had been factious in +the times of Sulla and of Cæsar; in those of Augustus and Tiberius, they +were atheistical slaves.</p> + +<p>I should not wish to come in the way of an atheistical prince, whose +interest it should be to have me pounded in a mortar; I am quite sure +that I should be so pounded. Were I a sovereign, I would not have to do +with atheistical courtiers, whose interest it was to poison me; I should +be under the necessity of taking an antidote every day. It is then +absolutely necessary for princes and people that the idea of a Supreme +Being—creating, governing, rewarding, and punishing—be profoundly +engraved on their minds.</p> + +<p>There are, nations of atheists, says Bayle in his "Thoughts on Comets." +The Kaffirs, the Hottentots, and many other small populations, have no +god; they neither affirm nor deny that there is one; they have never +heard of Him; tell them that there is one, and they will easily believe +it; tell them that all is done by the nature of things, and they will +believe you just the same. To pretend that they are atheists would be +like saying they are anti-Cartesians. They are neither for Descartes nor +against him; they are no more than children; a child is neither atheist +nor deist; he is nothing.</p> + +<p>From all this, what conclusion is to be drawn? That atheism is a most +pernicious monster in those who govern; that it is the same in the men +of their cabinet, since it may extend itself from the cabinet to those +in office; that, although less to be dreaded than fanaticism, it is +almost always fatal to virtue. And especially, let it be added, that +there are fewer atheists now than ever—since philosophers have become +persuaded that there is no vegetative being without a germ, no germ +without a design, etc., and that the corn in our fields does not spring +from rottenness.</p> + +<p>Unphilosophical geometricians have rejected final causes, but true +philosophers admit them; and, as it is elsewhere observed, a catechist +announces God to children, and Newton demonstrates Him to the wise.</p> + +<p>If there be atheists, who are to blame? Who but the mercenary tyrants of +our souls, who, while disgusting us with their knavery, urge some weak +spirits to deny the God whom such monsters dishonor? How often have the +people's bloodsuckers forced overburdened citizens to revolt against the +king!</p> + +<p>Men who have fattened on our substance, cry out to us: "Be persuaded +that an ass spoke; believe that a fish swallowed a man, and threw him up +three days after, safe and sound, on the shore; doubt not that the God +of the universe ordered one Jewish prophet to eat excrement, and another +to buy two prostitutes, and have bastards by them;" such are the words +put into the mouth of the God of purity and truth! Believe a hundred +things either visibly abominable or mathematically impossible; otherwise +the God of Mercy will burn you in hell-fire, not only for millions of +millions of ages, but for all eternity, whether you have a body or have +not a body.</p> + +<p>These brutal absurdities are revolting to rash and weak minds, as well +as to firm and wise ones. They say: "Our teachers represent God to us as +the most insensate and barbarous of all beings; therefore, there is no +God." But they ought to say, "Our teachers represent God as furious and +ridiculous, therefore God is the reverse of what they describe Him; He +is as wise and good as they say He is foolish and wicked." Thus do the +wise decide. But, if a fanatic hears them, he denounces them to a +magistrate—a sort of priest's officer, which officer has them burned +alive, thinking that he is therein imitating and avenging the Divine +Majesty which he insults.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ATHEIST" id="ATHEIST"></a>ATHEIST.</h3> + + +<h5>SECTION I.</h5> + +<p>There were once many atheists among the Christians; they are now much +fewer. It at first appears to be a paradox, but examination proves it to +be a truth, that theology often threw men's minds into atheism, until +philosophy at length drew them out of it. It must indeed have been +pardonable to doubt of the Divinity, when His only announcers disputed +on His nature. Nearly all the first Fathers of the Church made God +corporeal, and others, after them, giving Him no extent, lodged Him in a +part of heaven. According to some, He had created the world in Time; +while, according to others, He had created Time itself. Some gave Him a +Son like to Himself; others would not grant that the Son was like to the +Father. It was also disputed in what way a third person proceeded from +the other two.</p> + +<p>It was agitated whether the Son had been, while on earth, composed of +two persons. So that the question undesignedly became, whether there +were five persons in the Divinity—three in heaven and two for Jesus +Christ upon earth; or four persons, reckoning Christ upon earth as only +one; or three persons, considering Christ only as God. There were +disputes about His mother, His descent into hell and into limbo; the +manner in which the body of the God-man was eaten, and the blood of the +God-man was drunk; on grace; on the saints, and a thousand other +matters. When the confidants of the Divinity were seen so much at +variance among themselves anathematizing one another from age to age, +but all agreeing in an immoderate thirst for riches and grandeur—while, +on the other hand, were beheld the prodigious number of crimes and +miseries which afflicted the earth, and of which many were caused by the +very disputes of these teachers of souls—it must be confessed that it +was allowable for rational men to doubt the existence of a being so +strangely announced, and for men of sense to imagine that a God, who +could of His own free will make so many beings miserable, did not exist.</p> + +<p>Suppose, for example, a natural philosopher of the fifteenth century +reading these words in "St. Thomas's Dream": <i>"Virtus cœli, loco +spermatis, sufficit cum elementis et putrefactione ad generationem +animalium imperfectorum."</i> "The virtue of heaven instead of seed is +sufficient, with the elements and putrefaction, for the generation of +imperfect animals." Our philosopher would reason thus: "If corruption +suffices with the elements to produce unformed animals, it would appear +that a little more corruption, with a little more heat, would also +produce animals more complete. The virtue of heaven is here no other +than the virtue of nature. I shall then think, with Epicurus and St. +Thomas, that men may have sprung from the slime of the earth and the +rays of the sun—a noble origin, too, for beings so wretched and so +wicked. Why should I admit a creating God, presented to me under so many +contradictory and revolting aspects?" But at length physics arose, and +with them philosophy. Then it was clearly discovered that the mud of the +Nile produced not a single insect, nor a single ear of corn, and men +were found to acknowledge throughout, germs, relations, means, and an +astonishing correspondence among all beings. The particles of light have +been followed, which go from the sun to enlighten the globe and the ring +of Saturn, at the distance of three hundred millions of leagues; then, +coming to the earth, form two opposite angles in the eye of the minutest +insect, and paint all nature on its retina. A philosopher was given to +the world who discovered the simple and sublime laws by which the +celestial globes move in the immensity of space. Thus the work of the +universe, now that it is better known, bespeaks a workman, and so many +never-varying laws announce a lawgiver. Sound philosophy, therefore, has +destroyed atheism, to which obscure theology furnished weapons of +defence.</p> + +<p>But one resource was left for the small number of difficult minds, +which, being more forcibly struck by the pretended injustices of a +Supreme Being than by his wisdom, were obstinate in denying this first +mover. Nature has existed from all eternity; everything in nature is in +motion, therefore everything in it continually changes. And if +everything is forever changing, all possible combinations must take +place; therefore the present combinations of all things may have been +the effect of this eternal motion and change alone. Take six dice, and +it is 46,655 to one that you do not throw six times six. But still there +is that one chance in 46,656. So, in the infinity of ages, any one of +the infinite number of combinations, as that of the present arrangement +of the universe, is not impossible.</p> + +<p>Minds, otherwise rational, have been misled by these arguments; but they +have not considered that there is infinity against them, and that there +certainly is not infinity against the existence of God. They should, +moreover, consider that if everything were changing, the smallest things +could not remain unchanged, as they have so long done. They have at +least no reason to advance why new species are not formed every day. On +the contrary, it is very probable that a powerful hand, superior to +these continual changes, keeps all species within the bounds it, has +prescribed them. Thus the philosopher, who acknowledges a God, has a +number of probabilities on his side, while the atheist has only doubts.</p> + +<p>It is evident that in morals it is much better to acknowledge a God than +not to admit one. It is certainly to the interest of all men that there +should be a Divinity to punish what human, justice cannot repress; but +it is also clear that it were better to acknowledge no God than to +worship a barbarous one, and offer Him human victims, as so many nations +have done.</p> + +<p>We have one striking example, which places this truth beyond a doubt. +The Jews, under Moses, had no idea of the immortality of the soul, nor +of a future state. Their lawgiver announced to them, from God, only +rewards and punishments purely temporal; they, therefore, had only this +life to provide for. Moses commands the Levites to kill twenty-three +thousand of their brethren for having had a golden or gilded calf. On +another occasion twenty-four thousand of them are massacred for having +had commerce with the young women of the country; and twelve thousand +are struck dead because some few of them had wished to support the ark, +which was near falling. It may, with perfect reverence for the decrees +of Providence, be affirmed, humanly speaking, that it would have been +much better for these fifty-nine thousand men, who believed in no future +state, to have been absolute atheists and have lived, than to have been +massacred in the name of the God whom they acknowledged.</p> + +<p>It is quite certain that atheism is not taught in the schools of the +learned of China, but many of those learned men are atheists, for they +are indifferent philosophers. Now it would undoubtedly be better to live +with them at Pekin, enjoying the mildness of their manners and their +laws, than to be at Goa, liable to groan in irons, in the prisons of the +inquisition, until brought out in a brimstone-colored garment, +variegated with devils, to perish in the flames.</p> + +<p>They who have maintained that a society of atheists may exist have then +been right, for it is laws that form society, and these atheists, being +moreover philosophers, may lead a very wise and happy life under the +shade of those laws. They will certainly live in society more easily +than superstitious fanatics. People one town with Epicureans such as +Simonides, Protagoras, Des Barreux, Spinoza; and another with Jansenists +and Molinists. In which do you think there will be the most quarrels and +tumults? Atheism, considering it only with relation to this life, would +be very dangerous among a ferocious people, and false ideas of the +Divinity would be no less pernicious. Most of the great men of this +world live as if they were atheists. Every man who has lived with his +eyes open knows that the knowledge of a God, His presence, and His +justice, has not the slightest influence over the wars, the treaties, +the objects of ambition, interest or pleasure, in the pursuit of which +they are wholly occupied. Yet we do not see that they grossly violate +the rules established in society. It is much more agreeable to pass our +lives among them than among the superstitious and fanatical. I do, it is +true, expect more justice from one who believes in a God than from one +who has no such belief; but from the superstitious I look only for +bitterness and persecution. Atheism and fanaticism are two monsters +which may tear society in pieces; but the atheist preserves his reason, +which checks his propensity to mischief, while the fanatic is under the +influence of a madness which is constantly urging him on.</p> + + +<h5>SECTION II.</h5> + +<p>In England, as everywhere else, there have been, and there still are, +many atheists by principle; for there are none but young, inexperienced +preachers, very ill-informed of what passes in the world, who affirm +that there cannot be atheists. I have known some in France, who were +quite good natural philosophers; and have, I own, been very much +surprised that men who could so ably develop the secret springs of +nature should obstinately refuse to acknowledge the hand which so +evidently puts those springs in action.</p> + +<p>It appears to me that one of the principles which leads them to +materialism is that they believe in the plentitude and infinity of the +universe, and the eternity of matter. It must be this which misleads +them, for almost all the Newtonians whom I have met admit the void and +the termination of matter, and consequently admit a God.</p> + +<p>Indeed, if matter be infinite, as so many philosophers, even including +Descartes, pretend, it has of itself one of the attributes of the +Supreme Being: if a void be impossible, matter exists of necessity; it +has existed from all eternity. With these principles, therefore, we may +dispense with God, creating, modifying, and preserving matter.</p> + +<p>I am aware that Descartes, and most of the schools which have believed +in the <i>plenum</i>, and the infinity of matter, have nevertheless admitted +a God; but this is only because men scarcely ever reason or act upon +their principles.</p> + +<p>Had men reasoned, consequently, Epicurus and his apostle Lucretius must +have been the most religious assertors of the Providence which they +combated; for when they admitted the void and the termination of matter, +a truth of which they had only an imperfect glimpse, it necessarily +followed that matter was the being of necessity, existing by itself, +since it was not indefinite. They had, therefore, in their own +philosophy, and in their own despite, a demonstration that there is a +Supreme Being, necessary, infinite, the fabricator of the universe. +Newton's philosophy, which admits and proves the void and finite matter, +also demonstratively proves the existence of a God.</p> + +<p>Thus I regard true philosophers as the apostles of the Divinity. Each +class of men requires its particular ones; a parish catechist tells +children that there is a God, but Newton proves it to the wise.</p> + +<p>In London, under Charles II. after Cromwell's wars, as at Paris under +Henry IV. after the war of the Guises, people took great pride in being +atheists; having passed from the excess of cruelty to that of pleasure, +and corrupted their minds successively by war and by voluptuousness, +they reasoned very indifferently. Since then the more nature has been +studied the better its Author has been known.</p> + +<p>One thing I will venture to believe, which is, that of all religions, +theism is the most widely spread in the world. It is the prevailing +religion of China; it is that of the wise among the Mahometans; and, +among Christian philosophers, eight out of ten are of the same opinion. +It has penetrated even into the schools of theology, into the cloisters, +into the conclave; it is a sort of sect without association, without +worship, without ceremonies, without disputes, and without zeal, spread +through the world without having been preached. Theism, like Judaism, is +to be found amidst all religions; but it is singular that the latter, +which is the extreme of superstition, abhorred by the people and +contemned by the wise, is everywhere tolerated for money; while the +former, which is the opposite of superstition, unknown to the people, +and embraced by philosophers alone, is publicly exercised nowhere but in +China. There is no country in Europe where there are more theists than +in England. Some persons ask whether they have a religion or not.</p> + +<p>There are two sorts of theists. The one sort think that God made the +world without giving man rules for good and evil. It is clear that these +should have no other name than that of philosophers.</p> + +<p>The others believe that God gave to man a natural law. These, it is +certain, have a religion, though they have no external worship. They +are, with reference to the Christian religion, peaceful enemies, which +she carries in her bosom; they renounce without any design of destroying +her. All other sects desire to predominate, like political bodies, which +seek to feed on the substance of others, and rise upon their ruin; +theism has always lain quiet. Theists have never been found caballing in +any state.</p> + +<p>There was in London a society of theists, who for some time continued to +meet together. They had a small book of their laws, in which religion, +on which so many ponderous volumes have been written, occupied only two +pages. Their principal axiom was this: "Morality is the same among all +men; therefore it comes from God. Worship is various; therefore it is +the work of man."</p> + +<p>The second axiom was: "Men, being all brethren, and acknowledging the +same God, it is execrable that brethren should persecute brethren, +because they testify their love for the common father in a different +manner. Indeed," said they, "what upright man would kill his elder +brother because one of them had saluted their father after the Chinese +and the other after the Dutch fashion, especially while it was undecided +in what way the father wished their reverence to be made to him? Surely +he who should act thus would be a bad brother rather than a good son."</p> + +<p>I am well aware that these maxims lead directly to "the abominable and +execrable dogma of toleration"; but I do no more than simply relate the +fact. I am very careful not to become a controversialist. It must, +however, be admitted that if the different sects into which Christians +have been divided had possessed this moderation, Christianity would have +been disturbed by fewer disorders, shaken by fewer revolutions, and +stained with less blood.</p> + +<p>Let us pity the theists for combating our holy revelation. But whence +comes it that so many Calvinists, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Nestorians, +Arians, partisans of Rome, and enemies of Rome, have been so sanguinary, +so barbarous, and so miserable, now persecuting, now persecuted? It is +because they have been the multitude. Whence is it that theists, though +in error, have never done harm to mankind? Because they have been +philosophers. The Christian religion has cost the human species +seventeen millions of men, reckoning only one million per century, who +have perished either by the hands of the ordinary executioner, or by +those of executioners paid and led to battle—all for the salvation of +souls and the greater glory of God.</p> + +<p>I have heard men express astonishment that a religion so moderate, and +so apparently conformable to reason, as theism, has not been spread +among the people. Among the great and little vulgar may be found pious +herb-women, Molinist duchesses, scrupulous seamstresses who would go to +the stake for anabaptism, devout hackney-coachmen, most determined in +the cause of Luther or of Arius, but no theists; for theism cannot so +much be called a religion as a system of philosophy, and the vulgar, +whether great or little, are not philosophers.</p> + +<p>Locke was a declared theist. I was astonished to find, in that great +philosopher's chapter on innate ideas, that men have all different ideas +of justice. Were such the case, morality would no longer be the same; +the voice of God would not be heard by man; natural religion would be at +an end. I am willing to believe, with him, that there are nations in +which men eat their fathers, and where to lie with a neighbor's wife is +to do him a friendly office; but if this be true it does not prove that +the law, "Do not unto others that which you would not have others do +unto you," is not general. For if a father be eaten, it is when he has +grown old, is too feeble to crawl along, and would otherwise be eaten by +the enemy. And, I ask, what father would not furnish a good meal to his +son rather than to the enemies of his nation? Besides, he who eats his +father hopes that he in turn shall be eaten by his children.</p> + +<p>If a service be rendered to a neighbor by lying with his wife, it is +when he cannot himself have a child, and is desirous of having one; +otherwise he would be very angry. In both these cases, and in all +others, the natural law, "Do not to another that which you would not +have another do to you," remains unbroken. All the other rules, so +different and so varied, may be referred to this. When, therefore, the +wise metaphysician, Locke, says that men have no innate ideas, that they +have different ideas of justice and injustice, he assuredly does not +mean to assert that God has not given to all men that instinctive +self-love by which they are of necessity guided.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ATOMS" id="ATOMS"></a>ATOMS.</h3> + + +<p>Epicurus, equally great as a genius, and respectable in his morals; and +after him Lucretius, who forced the Latin language to express +philosophical ideas, and—to the great admiration of Rome—to express +them in verse—Epicurus and Lucretius, I say, admitted atoms and the +void. Gassendi supported this doctrine, and Newton demonstrated it. In +vain did a remnant of Cartesianism still combat for the plenum; in vain +did Leibnitz, who had at first adopted the rational system of Epicurus, +Lucretius, Gassendi, and Newton, change his opinion respecting the void +after he had embroiled himself with his master Newton. The plenum is now +regarded as a chimera.</p> + +<p>In this Epicurus and Lucretius appear to have been true philosophers, +and their intermediaries, who have been so much ridiculed, were no other +than the unresisting space in which Newton has demonstrated that the +planets move round their orbits in times proportioned to their areas. +Thus it was not Epicurus' intermediaries, but his opponents, that were +ridiculous. But when Epicurus afterwards tells us that his atoms +declined in the void by chance; that this declination formed men and +animals by chance; that the eyes were placed in the upper part of the +head and the feet at the end of the legs by chance; that ears were not +given to hear, but that the declination of atoms having fortuitously +composed ears, men fortuitously made use of them to hear with—this +madness, called physics, has been very justly turned into ridicule.</p> + +<p>Sound philosophy, then, has long distinguished what is good in Epicurus +and Lucretius, from their chimeras, founded on imagination and +ignorance. The most submissive minds have adopted the doctrine of +creation in time, and the most daring have admitted that of creation +before all time. Some have received with faith a universe produced from +nothing; others, unable to comprehend this doctrine in physics, have +believed that all beings were emanations from the Great—the Supreme and +Universal Being; but all have rejected the fortuitous concurrence of +atoms; all have acknowledged that chance is a word without meaning. What +we call chance can be no other than the unknown cause of a known effect. +Whence comes it then, that philosophers are still accused of thinking +that the stupendous and indescribable arrangement of the universe is a +production of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms—an effect of chance? +Neither Spinoza nor any one else has advanced this absurdity.</p> + +<p>Yet the son of the great Racine says, in his poem on Religion:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>O toi! qui follement fais ton Dieu du hasard,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Viens me développer ce nid qu'avec tant d'art,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Au même ordre toujours architecte fidèle,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>A l'aide de son bee maçonne l'hirondelle;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Comment, pour élever ce hardi bâtiment,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>A-t-elle en le broyant arrondi son ciment?</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Oh ye, who raise Creation out of chance,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">As erst Lucretius from th' atomic dance!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Come view with me the swallow's curious nest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Where beauty, art, and order, shine confessed.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">How could rude chance, forever dark and blind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Preside within the little builder's mind?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Could she, with accidents unnumbered crowned,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Its mass concentrate, and its structure round!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>These lines are assuredly thrown away. No one makes chance his God; no +one has said that while a swallow "tempers his clay, it takes the form +of his abode by chance." On the contrary, it is said that "he makes his +nest by the laws of necessity," which is the opposite of chance.</p> + +<p>The only question now agitated is, whether the author of nature has +formed primordial parts unsusceptible of division, or if all is +continually dividing and changing into other elements. The first system +seems to account for everything, and the second, hitherto at least, for +nothing.</p> + +<p>If the first elements of things were not indestructible one element +might at last swallow up all the rest, and change them into its own +substance. Hence, perhaps it was that Empedocles imagined that +everything came from fire, and would be destroyed by fire.</p> + +<p>This question of atoms involves another, that of the divisibility of +matter <i>ad infinitum</i>. The word <i>atom</i> signifies <i>without parts—not to +be divided.</i> You divide it in thought, for if you were to divide it in +reality it would no longer be an atom.</p> + +<p>You may divide a grain of gold into eighteen millions of visible parts; +a grain of copper dissolved in spirit of sal ammoniac has exhibited +upwards of twenty-two thousand parts; but when you have arrived at the +last element the atom escapes the microscope, and you can divide no +further except in imagination.</p> + +<p>The infinite divisibility of atoms is like some propositions in +geometry. You may pass an infinity of curves between a circle and its +tangent, supposing the circle and the tangent to be lines without +breadth; but there are no such lines in nature.</p> + +<p>You likewise establish that asymptotes will approach one another without +ever meeting; but it is under the supposition that they are lines +having length without breadth—things which have only a speculative +existence.</p> + +<p>So, also, we represent unity by a line, and divide this line and this +unity into as many fractions as you please; but this infinity of +fractions will never be any other than our unity and our line.</p> + +<p>It is not strictly demonstrated that atoms are indivisible, but it +appears that they are not divided by the laws of nature.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AVARICE" id="AVARICE"></a>AVARICE.</h3> + + +<p>Avarities, <i>amor habendi</i>—desire of having, avidity, covetousness. +Properly speaking, avarice is the desire of accumulating, whether in +grain, movables, money, or curiosities. There were avaricious men long +before coin was invented.</p> + +<p>We do not call a man avaricious who has four and twenty coach horses, +yet will not lend one to his friend: or who, having two thousand bottles +of Burgundy in his cellar, will not send you half a dozen, when he knows +you to be in want of them. If he show you a hundred thousand crowns' +worth of diamonds you do not think of asking him to present you with one +worth twenty livres; you consider him as a man of great magnificence, +but not at all avaricious.</p> + +<p>He who in finance, in army contracts, and great undertakings gained two +millions each year, and who, when possessed of forty-three millions, +besides his houses at Paris and his movables, expended fifty thousand +crowns per annum for his table, and sometimes lent money to noblemen at +five per cent, interest, did not pass, in the minds of the people, for +an avaricious man. He had, however, all his life burned with the thirst +of gain; the demon of covetousness was perpetually tormenting him; he +continued to accumulate to the last day of his life. This passion, which +was constantly gratified, has never been called avarice. He did not +expend a tenth part of his income, yet he had the reputation of a +generous man, too fond of splendor.</p> + +<p>A father of a family who, with an income of twenty thousand livres, +expends only five or six, and accumulates his savings to portion his +children, has the reputation among his neighbors of being avaricious, +mean, stingy, a niggard, a miser, a grip-farthing; and every abusive +epithet that can be thought of is bestowed upon him.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless this good citizen is much more to be honored than the +Crœsus I have just mentioned; he expends three times as much in +proportion. But the cause of the great difference between their +reputations is this:</p> + +<p>Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because there is +nothing to be gained by him. The physician, the apothecary, the +wine-merchant, the draper, the grocer, the saddler, and a few girls gain +a good deal by our Croesus, who is truly avaricious. But with our close +and economical citizen there is nothing to be done. Therefore he is +loaded with maledictions.</p> + +<p>As for those among the avaricious who deprive themselves of the +necessaries of life, we leave them to Plautus and Molière.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AUGURY" id="AUGURY"></a>AUGURY.</h3> + + +<p>Must not a man be very thoroughly possessed by the demon of etymology to +say, with Pezron and others, that the Roman word <i>augurium</i> came from +the Celtic words <i>au</i> and <i>gur</i>? According to these learned men <i>au</i> +must, among the Basques and Bas-Bretons, have signified <i>the liver</i>, +because <i>asu</i>, which, (say they) signified <i>left</i>, doubtless stood for +the liver, which is on the <i>right</i> side; and <i>gur</i> meant <i>man</i>, or +<i>yellow</i>, or <i>red</i>, in that Celtic tongue of which we have not one +memorial. Truly this is powerful reasoning.</p> + +<p>Absurd curiosity (for we must call things by their right names) has been +carried so far as to seek Hebrew and Chaldee derivations from certain +Teutonic and Celtic words. This, Bochart never fails to do. It is +astonishing with what confidence these men of genius have proved that +expressions used on the banks of the Tiber were borrowed from the patois +of the savages of Biscay. Nay, they even assert that this patois was one +of the first idioms of the primitive language—the parent of all other +languages throughout the world. They have only to proceed, and say that +all the various notes of birds come from the cry of the two first +parrots, from which every other species of birds has been produced.</p> + +<p>The religious folly of auguries was originally founded on very sound and +natural observations. The birds of passage have always marked the +progress of the seasons. We see them come in flocks in the spring, and +return in the autumn. The cuckoo is heard only in fine weather, which +his note seems to invite. The swallows, skimming along the ground, +announce rain. Each climate has its bird, which is in effect its augury.</p> + +<p>Among the observing part of mankind there were, no doubt, knaves who +persuaded fools that there was something divine in these animals, and +that their flight presaged our destinies, which were written on the +wings of a sparrow just as clearly as in the stars.</p> + +<p>The commentators on the allegorical and interesting story of Joseph sold +by his brethren, and made Pharaoh's prime minister for having explained +his dreams, infer that Joseph was skilled in the science of auguries, +from the circumstance that Joseph's steward is commanded to say to his +brethren, "Is not this it (the silver cup) in which my lord drinketh? +and whereby indeed he divineth?" Joseph, having caused his brethren to +be brought back before him, says to them: "What deed is this that ye +have done? Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?"</p> + +<p>Judah acknowledges, in the name of his brethren, that Joseph is a great +diviner, and that God has inspired him: "God hath found out the iniquity +of thy servants." At that time they took Joseph for an Egyptian lord. It +is evident from the text that they believe the God of the Egyptians and +of the Jews had discovered to this minister the theft of his cup.</p> + +<p>Here, then, we have auguries or divination clearly established in the +Book of Genesis; so clearly that it is afterwards forbidden in +Leviticus: "Ye shall not eat anything with the blood; neither shall ye +use enchantment nor observe times. Ye shall not round the corners of +your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard."</p> + +<p>As for the superstition of seeing the future in a cup, it still exists, +and is called seeing in a glass. The individual must never have known +pollution; he must turn towards the east, and pronounce the words, +<i>Abraxa per dominum nostrum</i>, after which he will see in a glass of +water whatever he pleases. Children were usually chosen for this +operation. They must retain their hair; a shaven head, or one wearing a +wig, can see nothing in a glass. This pastime was much in vogue in +France during the regency of the duke of Orleans, and still more so in +the times preceding.</p> + +<p>As for auguries, they perished with the Roman Empire. Only the bishops +have retained the augurial staff, called the crosier; which was the +distinctive mark of the dignity of augur; so that the symbol of +falsehood has become the symbol of truth.</p> + +<p>There were innumerable kinds of divinations, of which several have +reached our latter ages. This curiosity to read the future is a malady +which only philosophy can cure, for the weak minds that still practise +these pretended arts of divination—even the fools who give themselves +to the devils—all make religion subservient to these profanations, by +which it is outraged.</p> + +<p>It is an observation worthy of the wise, that Cicero, who was one of the +college of augurs, wrote a book for the sole purpose of turning auguries +into ridicule; but they have likewise remarked that Cicero, at the end +of his book, says that "superstition should be destroyed, but not +religion. For," he adds, "the beauty of the universe, and the order of +the heavenly bodies force us to acknowledge an eternal and powerful +nature. We must maintain the religion which is joined with the knowledge +of this nature, by utterly extirpating superstition, for it is a monster +which pursues and presses us on every side. The meeting with a pretended +diviner, a presage, an immolated victim, a bird, a Chaldæan, an +aruspice, a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, an event accidentally +corresponding with what has been foretold to us, everything disturbs and +makes us uneasy; sleep itself, which should make us forget all these +pains and fears, serves but to redouble them by frightful images."</p> + +<p>Cicero thought he was addressing only a few Romans, but he was speaking +to all men and all ages.</p> + +<p>Most of the great men of Rome no more believed in auguries than +Alexander VI., Julius II., and Leo X., believed in Our Lady of Loretto +and the blood of St. Januarius. However, Suetonius relates that +Octavius, surnamed Augustus, was so weak as to believe that a fish, +which leaped from the sea upon the shore at Actium, foreboded that he +should gain the battle. He adds that, having afterwards met an +ass-driver, he asked him the name of his ass; and the man having +answered that his ass was named Nicholas, which signifies conqueror of +nations, he had no longer any doubts about the victory; and that he +afterwards had brazen statues erected to the ass-driver, the ass, and +the jumping fish. He further assures us that these statues were placed +in the Capitol.</p> + +<p>It is very likely that this able tyrant laughed at the superstitions of +the Romans, and that his ass, the driver, and the fish, were nothing +more than a joke. But it is no less likely that, while he despised all +the follies of the vulgar, he had a few of his own. The barbarous and +dissimulating Louis XI. had a firm faith in the cross of St. Louis. +Almost all princes, excepting such as have had time to read, and read to +advantage, are in some degree infected with superstition.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AUGUSTINE" id="AUGUSTINE"></a>AUGUSTINE.</h3> + + +<p>Augustine, a native of Tagaste, is here to be considered, not as a +bishop, a doctor, a father of the Church, but simply as a man. This is a +question in physics, respecting the climate of Africa.</p> + +<p>When a youth, Augustine was a great libertine, and the spirit was no +less quick in him than the flesh. He says that before he was twenty +years old he had learned arithmetic, geometry and music without a +master.</p> + +<p>Does not this prove that, in Africa, which we now call Barbary, both +minds and bodies advance to maturity more rapidly than among us?</p> + +<p>These valuable advantages of St. Augustine would lead one to believe +that Empedocles was not altogether in the wrong when he regarded fire as +the principle of nature. It is assisted, but by subordinate agents. It +is like a king governing the actions of all his subjects, and sometimes +inflaming the imaginations of his people rather too much. It is not +without reason that Syphax says to Juba, in the Cato of Addison, that +the sun which rolls its fiery car over African heads places a deeper +tinge upon the cheeks, and a fiercer flame within their hearts. That the +dames of Zama are vastly superior to the pale beauties of the north:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The glowing dames of Zama's royal court</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Have faces flushed with more exalted charms;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Were you with these, my prince, you'd soon forget</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The pale unripened beauties of the north.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Where shall we find in Paris, Strasburg, Ratisbon, or Vienna young men +who have learned arithmetic, the mathematics and music without +assistance, and who have been fathers at fourteen?</p> + +<p>Doubtless it is no fable that Atlas, prince of Mauritania, called by the +Greeks the son of heaven, was a celebrated astronomer, and constructed a +celestial sphere such as the Chinese have had for so many ages. The +ancients, who expressed everything in allegory, likened this prince to +the mountain which bears his name, because it lifts its head above the +clouds, which have been called the heavens by all mankind who have +judged of things only from the testimony of their eyes.</p> + +<p>These Moors cultivated the sciences with success, and taught Spain and +Italy for five centuries. Things are greatly altered. The country of +Augustine is now but a den of pirates, while England, Italy, Germany, +and France, which were involved in barbarism, are greater cultivators of +the arts than ever the Arabians were.</p> + +<p>Our only object, then, in this article is to show how changeable a scene +this world is. Augustine, from a debauchee, becomes an orator and a +philosopher; he puts himself forward in the world; he teaches rhetoric; +he turns Manichæan, and from Manichæanism passes to Christianity. He +causes himself to be baptized, together with one of his bastards, named +Deodatus; he becomes a bishop, and a father of the Church. His system of +grace has been reverenced for eleven hundred years as an article of +faith. At the end of eleven hundred years some Jesuits find means to +procure an anathema against Augustine's system, word for word, under the +names of Jansenius, St. Cyril, Arnaud, and Quesnel. We ask if this +revolution is not, in its kind, as great as that of Africa, and if there +be anything permanent upon earth?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AUGUSTUS_OCTAVIUS" id="AUGUSTUS_OCTAVIUS"></a>AUGUSTUS (OCTAVIUS).</h3> + + +<h5><i>The Morals of Augustus.</i></h5> + +<p>Manners can be known only from facts, which facts must be incontestable. +It is beyond doubt that this man, so immoderately praised as the +restorer of morals and of laws, was long one of the most infamous +debauchees in the Roman commonwealth. His epigram on Fulvia, written +after the horrors of the proscriptions, proves that he was no less a +despiser of decency in his language than he was a barbarian in his +conduct. This abominable epigram is one of the strongest testimonies to +Augustus' infamous immorality. Sextus Pompeius also reproached him with +shameful weaknesses: <i>"Effeminatum infectatus est."</i> Antony, before the +triumvirate, declared that Cæsar, great-uncle to Augustus, had adopted +him as his son only because he had been subservient to his pleasures; +<i>"Adopt ionem avunculi stupro meritum."</i></p> + +<p>Lucius Cæsar charged him with the same crime, and even asserted that he +had been base enough to sell himself to Hirtius for a very considerable +sum. He was so shameless as to take the wife of a consul from her +husband in the midst of a supper; he took her to a neighboring closet, +staid with her there for some time, and brought her back to table +without himself, the woman, or her husband blushing at all at the +proceeding.</p> + +<p>We have also a letter from Antony to Augustus, couched in these terms: +<i>"Ita valeas ut hanc epistolam cum leges, non inieris Testullam, aut +Terentillam, aut Russillam, aut Salviam, aut omnes. Anne refert ubi et +in quam arrigas?"</i> We are afraid to translate this licentious letter.</p> + +<p>Nothing is better known than the scandalous feast of five of the +companions of his pleasures with five of the principal women of Rome. +They were dressed up as gods and goddesses, and imitated all the +immodesties invented in fable—<i>"Bum nova Divorum cœnat adulteria."</i> +And on the stage he was publicly designated by this famous line:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Videsne ut cinaedus orbem digito temperet?</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Almost every Latin author that speaks of Ovid asserts that Augustus had +the insolence to banish that Roman knight, who was a much better man +than himself, merely because the other had surprised him in an incest +with his own daughter Julia; and that he sent his daughter into exile +only through jealousy. This is the more likely, as Caligula published +aloud that his mother was born from the incest of Augustus with Julia. +So says Suetonius, in his life of Caligula.</p> + +<p>We know that Augustus repudiated the mother of Julia the very day she +was brought to bed of her, and on the same day took Livia from her +husband when she was pregnant of Tiberius—another monster, who +succeeded him. Such was the man to whom Horace said: <i>"Res Italas armis +tuteris, moribus ornes, Legibus emendes...."</i></p> + +<p>It is hard to repress our indignation at reading at the commencement of +the Georgics that Augustus is one of the greatest of divinities; and +that it is not known what place he will one day deign to occupy in +heaven; whether he will reign in the air, or become the protector of +cities, or vouchsafe to accept the empire of the seas:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>An Deus immensi venias maris, ac tua nauta</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Numina sola celant tibi servial ultima Thule.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Ariosto speaks with much more sense as well as grace, when he says in +his fine thirty-fifth canto:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Non fu si santo ne benigno Augusto</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Come la tromba di Virgilio sonna;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>L'aver avuto in poesia buon gusto</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>La proscriptione iniqua gli perdona.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Augustus was not quite so mild and chaste</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">As he's by honest Virgil represented;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">But then, the tyrant had poetic taste;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">With this the poet fully was contented.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>The Cruelties of Augustus.</i></p> + +<p>If Augustus was long abandoned to the most shameful and frantic +dissipation, his cruelty was no less uniform and deliberate. His +proscriptions were published in the midst of feasting and revelry; he +proscribed more than three hundred senators, two thousand knights, and +one hundred obscure but wealthy heads of families, whose only crime was +their being rich, Antony and Octavius had them killed, solely that they +might get possession of their money; in which they differed not the +least from highway robbers, who are condemned to the wheel.</p> + +<p>Octavius, immediately after the Persian war, gave his veterans all the +lands belonging to the citizens of Mantua and Cremona, thus recompensing +murder by depredation.</p> + +<p>It is but too certain that the world was ravaged, from the Euphrates to +the extremities of Spain, by this man without shame, without faith, +honor, or probity, knavish, ungrateful, avaricious, blood-thirsty, cool +in the commission of crime, who, in any well-regulated republic, would +have been condemned to the greatest of punishments for the first of his +offences.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the government of Augustus is still admired, because under +him Rome tasted peace, pleasure and abundance. Seneca says of him: +<i>"Clementiam non voco lassam crudelitatem"</i>—"I do not call exhausted +cruelty clemency."</p> + +<p>It is thought that Augustus became milder when crime was no longer +necessary to him; and that, being absolute master, he saw that he had no +other interest than to appear just. But it appears to me that he still +was pitiless rather than clement; for, after the battle of Actium, he +had Antony's son murdered at the feet of Cæsar's statue; and he was so +barbarous as to have young Cæsarion, the son of Cæsar and Cleopatra, +beheaded, though he had recognized him as king of Egypt.</p> + +<p>Suspecting one day that the prætor Quintus Gallius had come to an +audience with a poinard under his robe, he had him put to the torture in +his presence; and, in his indignation at hearing that senator call him a +tyrant, he tore out his eyes with his own hands; at least, so says +Suetonius.</p> + +<p>We know that Cæsar, his adopted father, was great enough to pardon +almost all his enemies; but I do not find that Augustus pardoned one of +his. I have great doubts of his pretended clemency to Cinna. This affair +is mentioned neither by Suetonius nor by Tacitus. Suetonius, who speaks +of all the conspiracies against Augustus, would not have failed to +mention the most memorable. The singularity of giving a consulship to +Cinna in return for the blackest perfidy would not have escaped every +contemporary historian. Dion Cassius speaks of it only after Seneca; and +this passage in Seneca has the appearance rather of declamation than of +historical truth. Besides, Seneca lays the scene in Gaul, and Dion at +Rome; this contradiction deprives the occurrence of all remaining +verisimilitude. Not one of our Roman histories, compiled in haste and +without selection, has discussed this interesting fact. Lawrence +Echard's History has appeared to enlightened men to be as faulty as it +is mutilated; writers have rarely been guided by the spirit of +examination.</p> + +<p>Cinna might be suspected, or convicted, by Augustus of some infidelity; +and, when the affair had been cleared up, he might honor him with the +vain title of consul; but it is not at all probable that Cinna sought by +a conspiracy to seize the supreme authority—he, who had never commanded +an army, was supported by no party, and was a man of no consideration in +the empire. It is not very likely that a mere subordinate courtier would +think of succeeding a sovereign who had been twenty years firmly +established on his throne, and had heirs; nor is it more likely that +Augustus would make him consul immediately after the conspiracy.</p> + +<p>If Cinna's adventure be true, Augustus pardoned him only because he +could not do otherwise, being overcome by the reasoning or the +importunities of Livia, who had acquired great influence over him, and +persuaded him, says Seneca, that pardon would do him more service than +chastisement. It was then only through policy that he, for once, was +merciful; it certainly was not through generosity.</p> + +<p>Shall we give a robber credit for clemency, because, being enriched and +secure, enjoying in peace the fruits of his rapine, he is not every day +assassinating the sons and grandsons of the proscribed, while they are +kneeling to and worshipping him? After being a barbarian he was a +prudent politician. It is worthy of remark that posterity never gave +him the title of virtuous, which was bestowed on Titus, on Trajan, and +the Antonines. It even became customary in the compliments paid to +emperors on their accession, to wish that they might be more fortunate +than Augustus, and more virtuous than Trajan. It is now, therefore, +allowable to consider Augustus as a clever and fortunate monster.</p> + +<p>Louis Racine, son of the great Racine, and heir to a part of his +talents, seems to forget himself when he says, in his "Reflections on +Poetry," that "Horace and Virgil spoiled Augustus; they exhausted their +art in poisoning the mind of Augustus by their praises." These +expressions would lead one to believe that the eulogies so meanly +lavished by these two great poets, corrupted this emperor's fine +disposition. But Louis Racine very well knew that Augustus was an +exceedingly bad man, regarding crime and virtue with indifference, +availing himself alike of the horrors of the one and the appearances of +the other, attentive solely to his own interest, employing bloodshed and +peace, arms and laws, religion and pleasure, only to make himself master +of the earth, and sacrificing everything to himself. Louis Racine only +shows us that Virgil and Horace had servile souls.</p> + +<p>He is, unfortunately, too much in the right when he reproaches Corneille +with having dedicated <i>"Cinna"</i> to the financier Montoron, and said to +that receiver. "What you most especially have in common with Augustus +is the generosity with which," etc., for, though Augustus was the most +wicked of Roman citizens, it must be confessed that the first of the +emperors, the master, the pacificator, the legislator of the then known +world, should not be placed absolutely on a level with a clerk to a +comptroller-general in Gaul.</p> + +<p>The same Louis Racine, in justly condemning the mean adulation of +Corneille, and the baseness of the aged Horace and Virgil, marvellously +lays hold of this passage in Massillon's <i>"Petit Carême!"</i> "It is no +less culpable to fail in truth towards monarchs than to be wanting in +fidelity; the same penalty should be imposed on adulation as on revolt."</p> + +<p>I ask your pardon, Father Massillon; but this stroke of yours is very +oratorical, very preacher-like, very exaggerated. The League and the +Fronde have, if I am not deceived, done more harm than Quinault's +prologues. There is no way of condemning Quinault as a rebel. <i>"Est +modus in rebus."</i> Father Massillon, which is wanting in all +manufacturers of sermons.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AVIGNON" id="AVIGNON"></a>AVIGNON.</h3> + + +<p>Avignon and its country are monuments of what the abuse of religion, +ambition, knavery, and fanaticism united can effect. This little +country, after a thousand vicissitudes, had, in the twelfth century, +passed into the hands of the counts of Toulouse, descended from +Charlemagne by the female side.</p> + +<p>Raymond VI., count of Toulouse, whose forefathers had been the principal +heroes in the crusades, was stripped of his states by a crusade which +the pope stirred up against him. The cause of the crusade was the desire +of having his spoils; the pretext was that in several of his towns the +citizens thought nearly as has been thought for upwards of two hundred +years in England, Sweden, Denmark, three-fourths of Switzerland, +Holland, and half of Germany.</p> + +<p>This was hardly a sufficient reason for <i>giving</i>, in the name of God, +the states of the count of Toulouse to the first occupant, and for +devoting to slaughter and fire his subjects, crucifix in hand, and white +cross on shoulder. All that is related of the most savage people falls +far short of the barbarities committed in this war, called holy. The +ridiculous atrocity of some religious ceremonies always, accompanied +these horrid excesses. It is known that Raymond VI. was dragged to a +church of St. Giles's, before a legate, naked to the waist, without hose +or sandals, with a rope about his neck, which was held by a deacon, +while another deacon flogged him, and a third sung <i>miserere</i> with some +monks—and all the while the legate was at dinner. Such was the origin +of the right of the popes over Avignon.</p> + +<p>Count Raymond, who had submitted to the flagellation in order to +preserve his states, underwent this ignominy to no purpose whatever. He +had to defend by arms what he had thought to preserve by suffering a few +stripes; he saw his towns laid in ashes, and died in 1213 amid the +vicissitudes of the most sanguinary war.</p> + +<p>His son, Raymond VII., was not, like his father, suspected of heresy; +but he was the son of a heretic, and was to be stripped of all his +possessions, by virtue of the Decretals; such was the law. The crusade, +therefore, was continued against him; he was excommunicated in the +churches, on Sundays and holidays, to the sound of bells and with tapers +extinguished.</p> + +<p>A legate who was in France during the minority of St. Louis raised +tenths there to maintain this war in Languedoc and Provence. Raymond +defended himself with courage; but the heads of the hydra of fanaticism +were incessantly reappearing to devour him.</p> + +<p>The pope at last made peace because all his money had been expended in +war. Raymond VII. came and signed the treaty before the portal of the +cathedral of Paris. He was forced to pay ten thousand marks of silver to +the legate, two thousand to the abbey of Citeaux, five hundred to the +abbey of Clairvaux, a thousand to that of Grand-Selve, and three hundred +to that of Belleperche—-all for the salvation of his soul, as is +specified in the treaty. So it was that the Church always negotiated.</p> + +<p>It is very remarkable that in this document the count of Toulouse +constantly puts the legate before the king: "I swear and promise to the +legate and to the king faithfully to observe all these things, and to +cause them to be observed by my vassals and subjects," etc.</p> + +<p>This was not all. He ceded to Pope Gregory IX. the country of Venaissin +beyond the Rhône, and the sovereignty of seventy-three castles on this +side the same river. The pope adjudged this fine to himself by a +particular act, desirous that, in a public instrument, the +acknowledgment of having exterminated so many Christians for the purpose +of seizing upon his neighbor's goods, should not appear in so glaring a +light. Besides, he demanded what Raymond could not grant, without the +consent of the Emperor Frederick II. The count's lands, on the left bank +of the Rhône, were an imperial fief, and Frederick II. never sanctioned +this exaction.</p> + +<p>Alphonso, brother of St. Louis, having married this unfortunate prince's +daughter, by whom he had no children, all the states of Raymond VII. in +Languedoc, devolved to the crown of France, as had been stipulated in +the marriage contract.</p> + +<p>The country of Venaissin, which is in Provence, had been magnanimously +given up by the Emperor Frederick II. to the count of Toulouse. His +daughter Joan, before her death, had disposed of them by will in favor +of Charles of Anjou, count of Provence, and king of Naples.</p> + +<p>Philip the Bold, son of St. Louis, being pressed by Pope Gregory IX., +gave the country of Venaissin to the Roman church in 1274. It must be +confessed that Philip the Bold gave what in no way belonged to him; that +this cession was absolutely null and void, and that no act ever was more +contrary to all law.</p> + +<p>It is the same with the town of Avignon. Joan of France, queen of +Naples, descended from the brother of St. Louis, having been, with but +too great an appearance of justice, accused of causing her husband to be +strangled, desired the protection of Pope Clement VI., whose see was +then the town of Avignon, in Joan's domains. She was countess of +Provence. In 1347 the Provencals made her swear, on the gospel, that she +would sell none of her sovereignties. She had scarcely taken this oath +before she went and sold Avignon to the pope. The authentic act was not +signed until June 14, 1348; the sum stipulated for was eighty thousand +florins of gold. The pope declared her innocent of her husband's murder, +but never paid her. Joan's receipt has never been produced. She +protested juridically four several times against this deceitful +purchase.</p> + +<p>So that Avignon and its country were never considered to have been +dismembered from Provence, otherwise than by a rapine, which was the +more manifest, as it had been sought to cover it with the cloak of +religion.</p> + +<p>When Louis XI. acquired Provence he acquired it with all the rights +appertaining thereto; and, as appears by a letter from John of Foix to +that monarch, had in 1464 resolved to enforce them. But the intrigues of +the court of Rome were always so powerful that the kings of France +condescended to allow it the enjoyment of this small province. They +never acknowledged in the popes a lawful possession, but only a simple +enjoyment.</p> + +<p>In the treaty of Pisa, made by Louis XIV. with Alexander VII., in 1664, +it is said that, "every obstacle shall be removed, in order that the +pope may enjoy Avignon as before." The pope, then, had this province +only as cardinals have pensions from the king, which pensions are +discretional. Avignon and its country were a constant source of +embarrassment to the French government; they afforded a refuge to all +the bankrupts and smugglers, though very little profit thence accrued to +the pope.</p> + +<p>Louis XIV. twice resumed his rights; but it was rather to chastise the +pope than to reunite Avignon and its country with his crown. At length +Louis XV. did justice to his dignity and to his subjects. The gross and +indecent conduct of Pope Rezzonico (Clement XIII.) forced him in 1768 to +revive the rights of his crown. This pope had acted as if he belonged +to the fourteenth century. He was, however, with the applause of all +Europe, convinced that he lived in the eighteenth.</p> + +<p>When the officer bearing the king's orders entered Avignon, he went +straight to the legate's apartment, without being announced, and said to +him, "Sir, the king takes possession of his town." There is some +difference between this proceeding and a count of Toulouse being flogged +by a deacon, while a legate is at dinner. Things, we see, change with +times.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AUSTERITIES" id="AUSTERITIES"></a>AUSTERITIES.</h3> + +<h5>MORTIFICATIONS. FLAGELLATIONS.</h5> + + +<p>Suppose that some chosen individuals, lovers of study, united together +after a thousand catastrophes had happened to the world, and employed +themselves in worshipping God and regulating the time of the year, as is +said of the ancient Brahmins and Magi; all this is perfectly good and +honest. They might, by their frugal life, set an example to the rest of +the world; they might abstain, during the celebration of their feasts, +from all intoxicating liquors, and all commerce with their wives; they +might be clothed modestly and decently; if they were wise, other men +consulted them; if they were just, they were loved and reverenced. But +did not superstition, brawling, and vanity soon take the place of the +virtues?</p> + +<p>Was not the first madman that flogged himself publicly to appease the +gods the original of the priests of the Syrian goddess, who flogged +themselves in her honor; of the priests of Isis, who did the same on +certain days; of the priests of Dodona, named Salii, who inflicted +wounds on themselves; of the priests of Bellona, who struck themselves +with sabres; of the priests of Diana, who drew blood from their backs +with rods; of the priests of Cybele, who made themselves eunuchs; of the +fakirs of India, who loaded themselves with chains? Has the hope of +obtaining abundant alms nothing at all to do with the practice of these +austerities?</p> + +<p>Is there not some similarity between the beggars, who make their legs +swell by a certain application and cover their bodies with sores, in +order to force a few pence from the passengers, and the impostors of +antiquity, who seated themselves upon nails, and sold the holy nails to +the devout of their country?</p> + +<p>And had vanity never any share in promoting these public mortifications, +which attracted the eyes of the multitude? "I scourge myself, but it is +to expiate your faults; I go naked, but it is to reproach you with the +richness of your garments; I feed on herbs and snails, but it is to +correct in you the vice of gluttony; I wear an iron ring to make you +blush at your lewdness. Reverence me as one cherished by the gods, and +who will bring down their favors upon you. When you shall be accustomed +to reverence me, you will not find it hard to obey me; I will be your +master, in the name of the gods; and then, if any one of you disobey my +will in the smallest particular, I will have you impaled to appease the +wrath of heaven."</p> + +<p>If the first fakirs did not pronounce these words, it is very probable +that they had them engraved at the bottom of their hearts.</p> + +<p>Human sacrifices, perhaps, had their origin in these frantic +austerities. Men who drew their blood in public with rods, and mangled +their arms and thighs to gain consideration, would easily make imbecile +savages believe that they must sacrifice to the gods whatever was +dearest to them; that to have a fair wind, they must immolate a +daughter; to avert pestilence, precipitate a son from a rock; to have +infallibly a good harvest, throw a daughter into the Nile.</p> + +<p>These Asiatic superstitions gave rise to the flagellations which we have +imitated from the Jews. Their devotees still flog themselves, and flog +one another, as the priests of Egypt and Syria did of old. Among us the +abbots flogged their monks, and the confessors their penitents—of both +sexes. St. Augustine wrote to Marcellinus, the tribune, that "the +Donatists must be whipped as schoolmasters whip their scholars."</p> + +<p>It is said that it was not until the tenth century that monks and nuns +began to scourge themselves on certain days of the year. The custom of +scourging sinners as a penance was so well established that St. Louis's +confessor often gave him the whip. Henry II. was flogged by the monks +of Canterbury (in 1207). Raymond, count of Toulouse, with a rope round +his neck, was flogged by a deacon, at the door of St. Giles's church, as +has before been said.</p> + +<p>The chaplains to Louis VIII., king of France, were condemned by the +pope's legate to go at the four great feasts to the door of the +cathedral of Paris, and present rods to the canons, that they might flog +them in expiation for the crime of the king, their master, who had +accepted the crown of England, which the pope had taken from him by +virtue of the plenitude of his power. Indeed, the pope showed great +indulgence in not having the king himself whipped, but contenting +himself with commanding him, on pain of damnation, to pay to the +apostolic chamber the amount of two years' revenue.</p> + +<p>From this custom is derived that which still exists, of arming all the +grand-penitentiaries in St. Peter's at Rome with long wands instead of +rods, with which they give gentle taps to the penitents, lying all their +length on the floor. In this manner it was that Henry IV., of France, +had his posteriors flogged by Cardinal Ossat and Duperron. So true is it +that we have scarcely yet emerged from barbarism.</p> + +<p>At the commencement of the thirteenth century fraternities of penitents +were formed at Perosia and Bologna. Young men almost naked, with a rod +in one hand and a small crucifix in the other, flogged themselves in +the streets; while the women peeped through the window-blinds and +whipped themselves in their chambers.</p> + +<p>These flagellators inundated Europe; there are many of them still to be +found in Italy, in Spain, and even in France, at Perpignan. At the +beginning of the sixteenth century it was very common for confessors to +whip the posteriors of their penitents. A history of the Low Countries, +composed by Meteren, relates that a cordelier named Adriacem, a great +preacher at Bruges, used to whip his female penitents quite naked.</p> + +<p>The Jesuit Edmund Auger, confessor to Henry III., persuaded that +unfortunate prince to put himself at the head of the flagellators.</p> + +<p>Flogging the posteriors is practised in various convents of monks and +nuns; from which custom there have sometimes resulted strange +immodesties, over which <i>we</i> must throw a veil, in order to spare the +blushes of such as wear the <i>sacred</i> veil, and whose sex and profession +are worthy of our highest regard.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AUTHORS" id="AUTHORS"></a>AUTHORS.</h3> + + +<p>Author is a generic term, which, like the names of all other +professions, may signify author of the good, or of the bad; of the +respectable, or of the ridiculous; of the useful, or the agreeable; or +lastly, the producer of disgusting trash.</p> + +<p>This name is also common to different things. We say equally the author +of nature and the author of the songs of the Pont Neuf, or of the +literary age. The author of a good work should beware of three +things—title, dedication, and preface. Others should take care of the +fourth, which is writing at all.</p> + +<p>As to the title, if the author has the wish to put his name to it, which +is often very dangerous, it should at least be under a modest form; it +is not pleasant to see a pious work, full of lessons of humanity, by Sir +or My Lord. The reader; who is always malicious, and who often is +wearied, usually turns into ridicule a book that is announced with so +much ostentation. The author of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" did not +put his name to it.</p> + +<p>But the apostles, you will say, put their names to their works; that is +not true, they were too modest. The apostle Matthew never entitled his +book the Gospel of St. Matthew; it is a homage that has been paid to him +since. St. Luke himself, who collected all that he had heard said, and +who dedicated his book to Theophilus, did not call it the Gospel of St. +Luke. St. John alone mentions himself in the Apocalypse; and it is +supposed that this book was written by Cerinthus, who took the name of +John to give authority to his production.</p> + +<p>However it may have been in past ages, it appears to me very bold in +authors now to put names and titles at the head of their works. The +bishops never fail to do so, and the thick quartos which they give us +under the title of mandaments are decorated with armorial bearings and +the insignia of their station; a word, no doubt, is said about Christian +humility, but this word is often followed by atrocious calumnies against +those who are of another communion or party. We only speak here, +however, of poor profane authors. The duke de la Rochefoucauld did not +announce his thoughts as the production of <i>Monseigneur le dud de la +Rochefoucauld, pair de France</i>. Some persons who only make compilations +in which there may be fine things, will find it injudicious to announce +them as the work of A.B., professor of the university of ——, doctor of +divinity, member of this or of that academy, and so on. So many +dignities do not render the book better. It will still be wished that it +was shorter, more philosophical, less filled with old stories. With +respect to titles and quality, nobody cares about them.</p> + +<p>Dedications are often only offerings from interested baseness to +disdainful vanity. Who would believe that Rohaut, <i>soi-disant</i> +physician, in his dedication to the duke of Guise, told him that his +ancestors had maintained, at the expense of their blood, political +truth, the fundamental laws of the state, and the rights of sovereigns? +Le Balafré and the duke of Mayenne would be a little surprised if this +epistle were read to them in the other world. And what would Henry IV. +say? Most of the dedications in England are made for money, just as the +capuchins present us with salad on condition of our giving them drink.</p> + +<p>Men of letters in France are ignorant of this shameful abasement, and +have never exhibited so much meanness, except some unfortunates, who +call themselves men of letters in the same sense that sign-daubers boast +of being of the profession of Raphael, and that the coachman of +Vertamont was a poet.</p> + +<p>Prefaces are another rock. "The <i>I</i> is hateful," says Pascal. Speak of +yourself as little as you can, for you ought to be aware that the +self-love of the reader is as great as your own. He will never pardon +you for wishing to oblige him to esteem you. It is for your book to +speak to him, should it happen to be read among the crowd.</p> + +<p>"The illustrious suffrages with which my piece has been honored will +make me dispense with answering my adversaries—the applauses of the +public." Erase all that, sir; believe me you have had no illustrious +suffrages; your piece is eternally forgotten.</p> + +<p>"Some censors have pretended that there are too many events in the third +act; and that in the fourth the princess is too late in discovering the +tender sentiments of her heart for her lover. To that I answer—" Answer +nothing, my friend, for nobody has spoken-, or will speak of thy +princess. Thy piece has fallen because it is tiresome, and written in +flat and barbarous verse; thy preface is a prayer for the dead, but it +will not revive them.</p> + +<p>Others attest that all Europe has not understood their treatises on +compatibility—on the Supralapsarians—on the difference which should be +made between the Macedonian and Valentinian heresies, etc. Truly, I +believe that nobody understands them, since nobody reads them.</p> + +<p>We are inundated with this trash and with continual repetition; with +insipid romances which copy their predecessors; with new systems founded +on ancient reveries; and little histories taken from larger ones.</p> + +<p>Do you wish to be an author? Do you wish to make a book? Recollect that +it must be new and useful, or at least agreeable. Why from your +provincial retreat would you assassinate me with another quarto, to +teach me that a king ought to be just, and that Trajan was more virtuous +than Caligula? You insist upon printing the sermons which have lulled +your little obscure town to repose, and will put all our histories under +contributions to extract from them the life of a prince of whom you can +say nothing new.</p> + +<p>If you have written a history of your own time, doubt not but you will +find some learned chronologist, or newspaper commentator, who will +relieve you as to a date, a Christian name, or a squadron which you have +wrongly placed at the distance of three hundred paces from the place +where if really stood. Be grateful, and correct these important errors +forthwith.</p> + +<p>If an ignoramus, or an empty fool, pretend to criticise this thing or +the other, you may properly confute him; but name him rarely, for fear +of soiling your writings. If you are attacked on your style, never +answer; your work alone should reply.</p> + +<p>If you are said to be sick, content yourself that you are well, without +wishing to prove to the people that you are in perfect health; and, +above all, remember that the world cares very little whether you are +well or ill.</p> + +<p>A hundred authors compile to get their bread, and twenty fools extract, +criticise, apologize, and satirize these compilations to get bread also, +because they have no profession. All these people repair on Fridays to +the lieutenant of the police at Paris to demand permission to sell their +drugs. They have audience immediately after the courtesans, who do not +regard them, because they know that they are poor customers.</p> + +<p>They return with a tacit permission to sell and distribute throughout +the kingdom their stories; their collection of bon-mots; the life of the +unfortunate Régis; the translation of a German poem; new discoveries on +eels; a new copy of verses; a treatise on the origin of bells, or on the +loves of the toads. A bookseller buys their productions for ten crowns; +they give five of them to the journalist, on condition that he will +speak well of them in his newspaper. The critic takes their money, and +says all the ill he can of their books. The aggrieved parties go to +complain to the Jew, who protects the wife of the journalist, and the +scene closes by the critic being carried to Fort Evêque; and these are +they who call themselves authors!</p> + +<p>These poor people are divided into two or three bands, and go begging +like mendicant friars; but not having taken vows their society lasts +only for a few days, for they betray one another like priests who run +after the same benefice, though they have no benefice to hope for. But +they still call themselves authors!</p> + +<p>The misfortune of these men is that their fathers did not make them +learn a trade, which is a great defect in modern policy. Every man of +the people who can bring up his son in a useful art, and does not, +merits punishment. The son of a mason becomes a Jesuit at seventeen; he +is chased from society at four and twenty, because the levity of his +manners is too glaring. Behold him without bread! He turns journalist, +he cultivates the lowest kind of literature, and becomes the contempt +and horror of even the mob. And such as these, again, call themselves +authors!</p> + +<p>The only authors are they who have succeeded in a genuine art, be it +epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, or philosophy, and who teach or +delight mankind. The others, of whom we have spoken, are, among men of +letters, like bats among the birds. We cite, comment, criticise, +neglect, forget, and, above all, despise an author who is an author +<i>only</i>.</p> + +<p>Apropos of citing an author, I must amuse myself with relating a +singular mistake of the reverend Father Viret, cordelier and professor +of theology. He read in the "Philosophy of History" of the good abbé +Bazin that no author ever cited a passage of Moses before Longinus, who +lived and died in the time of the Emperor Aurelian. Forthwith the zeal +of St. Francis was kindled in him. Viret cries out that it is not true; +that several writers have said that there had been a Moses, that even +Josephus had spoken at length upon him, and that the Abbé Bazin is a +wretch who would destroy the seven sacraments. But, dear Father Viret, +you ought to inform yourself of the meaning of the word, to <i>cite</i>. +There is a great deal of difference between mentioning an author and +citing him. To speak, to make mention of an author, is to say that he +has lived—that he has written in such a time; to cite is to give one of +his passages—as Moses says in his Exodus—as Moses has written in his +Genesis. Now the Abbé Brazin affirms that no foreign writers—that none +even of the Jewish prophets have ever quoted a single passage of Moses, +though he was a divine author. Truly, Father Viret, you are very +malicious, but we shall know at least, by this little paragraph, that +<i>you</i> have been an author.</p> + +<p>The most voluminous authors that we have had in France are the +comptrollers-general of the finances. Ten great volumes might be made of +their declarations, since the reign of Louis XIV. Parliaments have been +sometimes the critics of these works, and have found erroneous +propositions and contradictions in them. But where are the good authors +who have not been censured?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AUTHORITY" id="AUTHORITY"></a>AUTHORITY.</h3> + + +<p>Miserable human beings, whether in green robes or in turbans, whether in +black gowns or in surplices, or in mantles and bands, never seek to +employ authority where nothing is concerned but reason, or consent to be +reviled in all ages as the most impertinent of men, as well as to endure +public hatred as the most unjust.</p> + +<p>You have been told a hundred times of the insolent absurdity with which +you condemned Galileo, and I speak to you of it for the hundred and +first. I would have it inscribed over the door of your holy office.</p> + +<p>Seven cardinals, assisted by certain minorite friars, threw into prison +the master of thinking in Italy, at the age of seventy; and made him +live upon bread and water because he instructed mankind in that of which +they were ignorant.</p> + +<p>Having passed a decree in favor of the categories of Aristotle, the +above junta learnedly and equitably doomed to the penalty of the galleys +whoever should dare to be of another opinion from the Stagyrite, of +whom two councils had burned the books.</p> + +<p>Further, a Faculty, which possessed very small faculties, made a decree +<i>against</i> innate ideas, and afterwards another <i>for</i> them, without the +said Faculty being informed, except by its beadles, of what an idea was.</p> + +<p>In neighboring schools legal proceedings were commenced against the +circulation of the blood. A process was issued against inoculation, and +the parties cited by summons.</p> + +<p>One and twenty volumes of thoughts in folio have been seized, in which +it was wickedly and falsely said that triangles have always three +angles; that a father was older than his son; that Rhea Silvia lost her +virginity before her accouchement; and that farina differs from oak +leaves.</p> + +<p>In another year the following question was decided: <i>"Utrum chimæra +bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones?"</i> and decided +in the affirmative. These judges, of course, considered themselves much +superior to Archimedes, Euclid, Cicero, or Pliny, and strutted about the +Universities accordingly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AXIS" id="AXIS"></a>AXIS.</h3> + + +<p>How is it that the axis of the earth is not perpendicular to the +equator? Why is it raised toward the north and inclined towards the +south pole, in a position which does not appear natural, and which +seems the consequence of some derangement, or the result of a period of +a prodigious number of years?</p> + +<p>Is it true that the ecliptic continually inclines by an insensible +movement towards the equator and that the angle formed by these two +lines has a little diminished in two thousand years?</p> + +<p>Is it true that the ecliptic has been formerly perpendicular to the +equator, that the Egyptians have said so, and that Herodotus has related +it? This motion of the ecliptic would form a period of about two +millions of years. It is not that which astounds us, for the axis of the +earth has an imperceptible movement in about twenty-six thousand years +which occasions the precession of the equinoxes. It is as easy for +nature to produce a rotation of twenty thousand as of two hundred and +sixty ages.</p> + +<p>We are deceived when we are told that the Egyptians had, according to +Herodotus, a tradition that the ecliptic had been formerly perpendicular +to the equator. The tradition of which Herodotus speaks has no relation +to the coincidence of the equinoctial and ecliptic lines; that is quite +another affair.</p> + +<p>The pretended scholars of Egypt said that the sun in the space of eleven +thousand years had set twice in the east and risen twice in the west. +When the equator and the ecliptic coincided, and when the days were +everywhere equal to the nights the sun did not on that account change +its setting and rising, but the earth turned on its axis from west to +east, as at this day. This idea of making the sun set in the east is a +chimera only worthy of the brains of the priests of Egypt and shows the +profound ignorance of those jugglers who have had so much reputation. +The tale should be classed with those of the satyrs who sang and danced +in the train of Osiris; with the little boys whom they would not feed +till after they had run eight leagues, to teach them to conquer the +world; with the two children who cried <i>bec</i> in asking for bread and who +by that means discovered that the Phrygian was the original language; +with King Psammeticus, who gave his daughter to a thief who had +dexterously stolen his money, etc.</p> + +<p>Ancient history, ancient astronomy, ancient physics, ancient medicine +(up to Hippocrates), ancient geography, ancient metaphysics, all are +nothing but ancient absurdities which ought to make us feel the +happiness of being born in later times.</p> + +<p>There is, no doubt, more truth in two pages of the French Encyclopædia +in relation to physics than in all the library of Alexandria, the loss +of which is so much regretted.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BABEL" id="BABEL"></a>BABEL.</h3> + + +<h5>SECTION I.</h5> + +<p>Babel signifies among the Orientals, God the Father, the power of God, +the gate of God, according to the way in which the word is pronounced. +It appears, therefore, that Babylon was the city of God, the holy city. +Every capital of a state was a city of God, the sacred city. The Greeks +called them all Hieropolis, and there were more than thirty of this +name. The tower of Babel, then, signifies the tower of God the Father.</p> + +<p>Josephus says truly that Babel signifies confusion; Calmet says, with +others, that Bilba, in Chaldæan, signifies confounded, but all the +Orientals have been of a contrary opinion. The word confusion would be a +strange etymon for the capital of a vast empire. I very much like the +opinion of Rabelais, who pretends that Paris was formerly called Lutetia +on account of the ladies' white legs.</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, commentators have tormented themselves to know to +what height men had raised this famous tower of Babel. St. Jerome gives +it twenty thousand feet. The ancient Jewish book entitled <i>"Jacult"</i> +gave it eighty-one thousand. Paul Lucas has seen the remains of it and +it is a fine thing to be as keen-sighted as Paul Lucas, but these +dimensions are not the only difficulties which have exercised the +learned.</p> + +<p>People have wished to know how the children of Noah, after having +divided among themselves the islands of the nations and established +themselves in various lands, with each one his particular language, +families, and people, should all find themselves in the plain of +Shinaar, to build there a tower saying, "Let us make us a name lest we +be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."</p> + +<p>The Book of Genesis speaks of the states which the sons of Noah founded. +It has related how the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia, all came to +Shinaar speaking one language only, and purposing the same thing.</p> + +<p>The Vulgate places the Deluge in the year of the world 1656, and the +construction of the tower of Babel 1771, that is to say, one hundred and +fifteen years after the destruction of mankind, and even during the life +of Noah.</p> + +<p>Men then must have multiplied with prodigious celerity; all the arts +revived in a very little time. When we reflect on the great number of +trades which must have been employed to raise a tower so high we are +amazed at so stupendous a work.</p> + +<p>The patriarch Abraham was born, according to the Bible, about four +hundred years after the deluge, and already we see a line of powerful +kings in Egypt and in Asia. Bochart and other sages have pleasantly +filled their great books with Phœnician and Chaldæan words and +systems which they do not understand. They have learnedly taken Thrace +for Cappadocia, Greece for Crete, and the island of Cyprus for Tyre; +they sport in an ocean of ignorance which has neither bottom nor shore. +It would have been shorter for them to have avowed that God, after +several ages, has given us sacred books to render us better men and not +to make us geographers, chronologists, or etymologists.</p> + +<p>Babel is Babylon. It was founded, according to the Persian historians, +by a prince named Tamurath. The only knowledge we have of its +antiquities consists in the astronomical observations of nineteen +hundred and three years, sent by Callisthenes by order of Alexander, to +his preceptor Aristotle. To this certainty is joined the extreme +probability that a nation which had made a series of celestial +observations for nearly two thousand years had congregated and formed a +considerable power several ages before the first of these observations.</p> + +<p>It is a pity that none of the calculations of the ancient profane +authors agree with our sacred ones, and that none of the names of the +princes who reigned after the different epochs assigned to the Deluge +have been known by either Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians, or Greeks.</p> + +<p>It is no less a pity that there remains not on the earth among the +profane authors one vestige of the famous tower of Babel; nothing of +this story of the confusion of tongues is found in any book. This +memorable adventure was as unknown to the whole universe as the names of +Noah, Methuselah, Cain, and Adam and Eve.</p> + +<p>This difficulty tantalizes our curiosity. Herodotus, who travelled so +much, speaks neither of Noah, or Shem, Reu, Salah, or Nimrod. The name +of Nimrod is unknown to all profane antiquity; there are only a few +Arabs and some modern Persians who have made mention of Nimrod in +falsifying the books of the Jews.</p> + +<p>Nothing remains to conduct us through these ancient ruins, unknown to +all the nations of the universe during so many ages, but faith in the +Bible, and happily that is an infallible guide.</p> + +<p>Herodotus, who has mingled many fables with some truths, pretends that +in his time, which was that of greatest power of the Persian sovereigns +of Babylon, all the women of the immense city were obliged to go once in +their lives to the temple of Mylitta, a goddess who was thought to be +the same as Aphrodite, or Venus, in order to prostitute themselves to +strangers, and that the law commanded them to receive money as a sacred +tribute, which was paid over to the priesthood of the goddess.</p> + +<p>But even this Arabian tale is more likely than that which the same +author tells of Cyrus dividing the Indus into three hundred and sixty +canals, which all discharged themselves into the Caspian Sea! What +should we say of Mézeray if he had told us that Charlemagne divided the +Rhine into three hundred and sixty canals, which fell into the +Mediterranean, and that all the ladies of his court were obliged once in +their lives to present themselves at the church of St. Genevieve to +prostitute themselves to all comers for money?</p> + +<p>It must be remarked that such a fable is still more absurd in relation +to the time of Xerxes, in which Herodotus lived, than it would be in +that of Charlemagne. The Orientals were a thousand times more jealous +than the Franks and Gauls. The wives of all the great lords were +carefully guarded by eunuchs. This custom existed from time immemorial. +It is seen even in the Jewish history that when that little nation +wished like the others to have a king, Samuel, to dissuade them from it +and to retain his authority, said "that a king would tyrannize over them +and that he would take the tenths of their vines and corn to give to his +eunuchs." The kings accomplished this prediction, for it is written in +the First Book of Kings that King Ahab had eunuchs, and in the Second +that Joram, Jehu, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah had them also.</p> + +<p>The eunuchs of Pharaoh are spoken of a long time previously in the Book +of Genesis, and it is said that Potiphar, to whom Joseph was sold, was +one of the king's eunuchs. It is clear, therefore, that there were great +numbers of eunuchs at Babylon to guard the women. It was not then a duty +for them to prostitute themselves to the first comer, nor was Babylon, +the city of God, a vast brothel as it has been pretended.</p> + +<p>These tales of Herodotus, as well as all others in the same taste, are +now so decried by all people of sense—reason has made so great progress +that even old women and children will no longer believe such +extravagances—<i>"Non est vetula quæ credat nec pueri credunt, nisi qui +nondum ære lavantur."</i></p> + +<p>There is in our days only one man who, not partaking of the spirit of +the age in which he lives, would justify the fable of Herodotus. The +infamy appears to him a very simple affair. He would prove that the +Babylonian princesses prostituted themselves through piety, to the +first passengers, because it is said in the holy writings that the +Ammonites made their children pass through the fire in presenting them +to Moloch. But what relation has this custom of some barbarous +hordes—this superstition of passing their children through the flames, +or even of burning them on piles, in honor of I know not whom—of +Moloch; these Iroquois horrors of a petty, infamous people to a +prostitution so incredible in a nation known to be the most jealous and +orderly of the East? Would what passes among the Iroquois be among us a +proof of the customs of the courts of France and of Spain?</p> + +<p>He also brings, in further proof, the Lupercal feast among the Romans +during which he says the young people of quality and respectable +magistrates ran naked through the city with whips in their hands, with +which they struck the pregnant women of quality, who unblushingly +presented themselves to them in the hope of thereby obtaining a happy +deliverance.</p> + +<p>Now, in the first place, it is not said that these Romans of quality ran +quite naked, on the contrary, Plutarch expressly observes, in his +remarks on the custom, that they were covered from the waist downwards.</p> + +<p>Secondly, it seems by the manner in which this defender of infamous +customs expresses himself that the Roman ladies stripped naked to +receive these blows of the whip, which is absolutely false.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, the Lupercal feast has no relation whatever to the pretended +law of Babylon, which commands the wives and daughters of the king, the +satraps, and the magi to sell and prostitute themselves to strangers out +of pure devotion.</p> + +<p>When an author, without knowing either the human mind or the manners of +nations, has the misfortune to be obliged to compile from passages of +old authors, who are almost all contradictory, he should advance his +opinions with modesty and know how to doubt, and to shake off the dust +of the college. Above all he should never express himself with +outrageous insolence.</p> + +<p>Herodotus, or Ctesias, or Diodorus of Sicily, relate a fact: you have +read it in Greek, therefore this fact is true. This manner of reasoning, +which is not that of Euclid, is surprising enough in the time in which +we live; but all minds will not be instructed with equal facility; and +there are always more persons who compile than people who think.</p> + +<p>We will say nothing here of the confusion of tongues which took place +during the construction of the tower of Babel. It is a miracle, related +in the Holy Scriptures. We neither explain, nor even examine any +miracles, and as the authors of that great work, the Encyclopædia, +believed them, we also believe them with a lively and sincere faith.</p> + +<p>We will simply affirm that the fall of the Roman Empire has produced +more confusion and a greater number of new languages than that of the +tower of Babel. From the reign of Augustus till the time of the +Attilas, the Clovises, and the Gondiberts, during six ages, <i>"terra erat +unius labii"</i>—"the known earth was of one language." They spoke the +same Latin at the Euphrates as at Mount Atlas. The laws which governed a +hundred nations were written in Latin and the Greek served for +amusement, whilst the barbarous jargon of each province was only for the +populace. They pleaded in Latin at once in the tribunals of Africa and +of Rome. An inhabitant of Cornwall departed for Asia Minor sure of being +understood everywhere in his route. It was at least one good effected by +the rapacity of the Romans that people found themselves as well +understood on the Danube as on the Guadalquiver. At the present time a +Bergamask who travels into the small Swiss cantons, from which he is +only separated by a mountain, has the same need of an interpreter as if +he were in China. This is one of the greatest plagues of modern life.</p> + + +<h5>SECTION II.</h5> + +<p>Vanity has always raised stately monuments. It was through vanity that +men built the lofty tower of Babel. "Let us go and raise a tower, the +summit of which shall touch the skies, and render our name celebrated +before we are scattered upon the face of the earth." The enterprise was +undertaken hi the time of a patriarch named Phaleg, who counted the good +man Noah for his fifth ancestor. It will be seen that architecture, and +all the arts which accompany it, had made great progress in five +generations. St. Jerome, the same who has seen fauns and satyrs, has not +seen the tower of Babel any more than I have, but he assures us that it +was twenty thousand feet high. This is a trifle. The ancient book, +<i>"Jacult"</i> written by one of the most learned Jews, demonstrates the +height to be eighty-one thousand Jewish feet, and every one knows that +the Jewish foot was nearly as long as the Greek. These dimensions are +still more likely than those of Jerome. This tower remains, but it is no +longer quite so high; several quite veracious travellers have seen it. +I, who have not seen it, will talk as little of it as of my grandfather +Adam, with whom I never had the honor of conversing. But consult the +reverend father Calmet; he is a man of fine wit and a profound +philosopher and will explain the thing to you. I do not know why it is +said, in Genesis, that Babel signifies confusion, for, as I have already +observed, <i>ba</i> answers to father in the eastern languages, and <i>bel</i> +signifies God. Babel means the city of God, the holy city. But it is +incontestable that Babel means confusion, possibly because the +architects were confounded after having raised their work to eighty-one +thousand feet, perhaps, because the languages were then confounded, as +from that time the Germans no longer understood the Chinese, although, +according to the learned Bochart, it is clear that the Chinese is +originally the same language as the High German.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BACCHUS" id="BACCHUS"></a>BACCHUS.</h3> + + +<p>Of all the true or fabulous personages of profane antiquity Bacchus is +to us the most important. I do not mean for the fine invention which is +attributed to him by all the world except the Jews, but for the +prodigious resemblance of his fabulous history to the true adventures of +Moses.</p> + +<p>The ancient poets have placed the birth of Bacchus in Egypt; he is +exposed on the Nile and it is from that event that he is named Mises by +the first Orpheus, which, in Egyptian, signifies "saved from the +waters," according to those who pretend to understand the ancient +Egyptian tongue, which is no longer known. He is brought up near a +mountain of Arabia called Nisa, which is believed to be Mount Sinai. It +is pretended that a goddess ordered him to go and destroy a barbarous +nation and that he passed through the Red Sea on foot, with a multitude +of men, women, and children. Another time the river Orontes suspended +its waters right and left to let him pass, and the Hydaspes did the +same. He commanded the sun to stand still; two luminous rays proceeded +from his head. He made a fountain of wine spout up by striking the +ground with his thyrsis, and engraved his laws on two tables of marble. +He wanted only to have afflicted Egypt with ten plagues, to be the +perfect copy of Moses.</p> + +<p>Vossius is, I think, the first who has extended this parallel. The +bishop of Avranches, Huet, has pushed it quite as far, but he adds, in +his "Evangelical Demonstrations" that Moses is not only Bacchus, but +that he is also Osiris and Typhon. He does not halt in this fine path. +Moses, according to him, is Æsculapius, Amphion, Apollo, Adonis, and +even Priapus. It is pleasant enough that Huet founds his proof that +Moses is Adonis in their both keeping sheep: <i>"Et formosus oves, ad +flumina pavit Adonis."</i></p> + +<p>He contends that he is Priapus because Priapus is sometimes painted with +an ass, and the Jews were supposed, among the Gentiles, to adore an ass. +He gives another proof, not very canonical, which is that the rod of +Moses might be compared to the sceptre of Priapus. <i>"Sceptrum tribuitur +Priapo, virga Most."</i> Neither is this demonstration in the manner of +Euclid.</p> + +<p>We will not here speak of the more modern Bacchuses, such as he who +lived two hundred years before the Trojan war, and whom the Greeks +celebrated as a son of Jupiter, shut up in his thigh. We will pause at +him who was supposed to be born on the confines of Egypt and to have +performed so many prodigies. Our respect for the sacred Jewish books +will not permit us to doubt that the Egyptians, the Arabs, and even the +Greeks, have imitated the history of Moses. The difficulty consists +solely in not knowing how they could be instructed in this +incontrovertible history. With respect to the Egyptians, it is very +likely that they never recorded these miracles of Moses, which would +have covered them with shame. If they had said a word of it the +historians, Josephus and Philo, would not have failed to have taken +advantage of it Josephus, in his answer to Appion, made a point of +citing all the Egyptian authors who have mentioned Moses, and he finds +none who relate one of these miracles. No Jew has ever quoted any +Egyptian author who has said a word of the ten plagues of Egypt, of the +miraculous passage through the Red Sea, etc. It could not be among the +Egyptians, therefore, that this scandalous parallel was formed between +the divine Moses and the profane Bacchus.</p> + +<p>It is very clear that if a single Egyptian author had said a word of the +great miracles of Moses all the synagogue of Alexandria, all the +disputatious church of that famous town would have quoted such word, and +have triumphed at it, every one after his manner. Athenagorus, Clement, +Origen, who have said so many useless things, would have related this +important passage a thousand times and it would have been the strongest +argument of all the fathers. The whole have kept a profound silence; +they Had, therefore, nothing to say. But how was it possible for any +Egyptian to speak of the exploits of a man who caused all the first born +of the families of Egypt to be killed; who turned the Nile to blood, and +who drowned in the Red Sea their king and all his army?</p> + +<p>All our historians agree that one Clodowick, a Sicambrian, subjugated +Gaul with a handful of barbarians. The English are the first to say that +the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans came by turns to exterminate a +part of their nation. If they had not avowed this truth all Europe would +have exclaimed against its concealment. The universe should exclaim in +the same manner at the amazing prodigies of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, +Samson, and of so many leaders and prophets. The universe is silent +notwithstanding. Amazing mystery! On one side it is palpable mat all is +true, since it is found in the holy writings, which are approved by the +Church; on the other it is evident that no people have ever mentioned +it. Let us worship Providence, and submit ourselves in all things.</p> + +<p>The Arabs, who have always loved the marvellous, were probably the first +authors of the fables invented of Bacchus, afterwards adopted and +embellished by the Greeks. But how came the stories of the Arabs and +Greeks to agree so well with those of the Jews? It is known that the +Hebrews never communicated their books to any one till the time of the +Ptolemies; they regarded such communication as a sacrilege, and +Josephus, to justify their obstinacy in concealing the Pentateuch from +the rest of the world, says that God punished all foreigners who dared +to speak of the Jewish histories. If we are to believe him, the +historian Theopompus, for only designing to mention them in his work, +became deranged for thirty days, and the tragic poet Theodectes was +struck blind for having introduced the name of the Jews into one of his +tragedies. Such are the excuses that Flavius Josephus gives in his +answer to Appion for the history of the Jews being so long unknown.</p> + +<p>These books were of such prodigious scarcity that we only hear of one +copy under King Josiah, and this copy had been lost for a long time and +was found in the bottom of a chest on the report of Shaphan, scribe to +the Pontiff Hilkiah, who carried it to the king.</p> + +<p>This circumstance happened, according to the Second Book of Kings, six +hundred and twenty-four years before our vulgar era, four hundred years +after Homer, and in the most flourishing times of Greece. The Greeks +then scarcely knew that there were any Hebrews in the world. The +captivity of the Jews at Babylon still more augmented their ignorance of +their own books. Esdras must have restored them at the end of seventy +years and for already more than five hundred years the fable of Bacchus +had been current among the Greeks.</p> + +<p>If the Greeks had founded their fables on the Jewish history they would +have chosen facts more interesting to mankind, such as the adventures of +Abraham, those of Noah, of Methuselah, of Seth, Enoch, Cain, and Eve; of +the fatal serpent and of the tree of knowledge, all which names have +ever been unknown to them. There was only a slight knowledge of the +Jewish people until a long time after the revolution that Alexander +produced in Asia and in Europe; the historian Josephus avows it in +formal terms. This is the manner in which he expresses himself in the +commencement of his reply to Appion, who (by way of parenthesis) was +dead when he answered him, for Appion died under the Emperor Claudius, +and Josephus wrote under Vespasian.</p> + +<p>"As the country we inhabit is distant from the sea we do not apply +ourselves to commerce and have no communication with other nations. We +content ourselves with cultivating our lands, which are very fertile, +and we labor chiefly to bring up our children properly, because nothing +appears to us so necessary as to instruct them in the knowledge of our +holy laws and in true piety, which inspires them with the desire of +observing them. The above reasons, added to others already mentioned, +and this manner of life which is peculiar to us, show why we have had no +communication with the Greeks, like the Egyptians and Phœnicians. Is +it astonishing that our nation, so distant from the sea, not affecting +to write anything, and living in the way which I have related, has been +little known?"</p> + +<p>After such an authentic avowal from a Jew, the most tenacious of the +honor of his nation that has ever written, it will be seen that it is +impossible for the ancient Greeks to have taken the fable of Bacchus +from the holy books of the Hebrews, any more than the sacrifice of +Iphigenia, that of the son of Idomeneus, the labors of Hercules, the +adventure of Eurydice, and others. The quantity of ancient tales which +resemble one another is prodigious. How is it that the Greeks have put +into fables what the Hebrews have put into histories? Was it by the +gift of invention; was it by a facility of imitation, or in consequence +of the accordance of fine minds? To conclude: God has permitted it—a +truth which ought to suffice.</p> + +<p>Of what consequence is it that the Arabs and Greeks have said the same +things as the Jews? We read the Old Testament only to prepare ourselves +for the New, and in neither the one nor the other do we seek anything +but lessons of benevolence, moderation, gentleness, and true charity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BACON_ROGER" id="BACON_ROGER"></a>BACON (ROGER).</h3> + + +<p>It is generally thought that Roger Bacon, the famous monk of the +thirteenth century, was a very great man and that he possessed true +knowledge, because he was persecuted and condemned to prison by a set of +ignoramuses. It is a great prejudice in his favor, I own. But does it +not happen every day that quacks gravely condemn other quacks, and that +fools make other fools pay the penalty of folly? This, our world, has +for a long time resembled the compact edifices in which he who believes +in the eternal Father anathematizes him who believes in the Holy Ghost; +circumstances which are not very rare even in these days. Among the +things which render Friar Bacon commendable we must first reckon his +imprisonment, and then the noble boldness with which he declared that +all the books of Aristotle were fit only to be burned and that at a time +when the learned respected Aristotle much more than the Jansenists +respect St. Augustine. Has Roger Bacon, however, done anything better +than the Poetics, the Rhetoric, and the Logic of Aristotle? These three +immortal works clearly prove that Aristotle was a very great and fine +genius—penetrating, profound, and methodical; and that he was only a +bad natural philosopher because it was impossible to penetrate into the +depths of physical science without the aid of instruments.</p> + +<p>Does Roger Bacon, in his best work, in which he treats of light and +vision, express himself much more clearly than Aristotle when he says +light is created by means of multiplying its luminous species, which +action is called univocal and conformable to the agent? He also mentions +another equivocal multiplication, by which light engenders heat and heat +putrefaction.</p> + +<p>Roger Bacon likewise tells us that life may be prolonged by means of +spermaceti, aloes, and dragons' flesh, and that the philosopher's stone +would render us immortal. It is thought that besides these fine secrets +he possessed all those of judicial astrology, without exception, as he +affirms very positively in his <i>"Opus Majus,"</i> that the head of man is +subject to the influences of the ram, his neck to those of the bull, and +his arms to the power of the twins. He even demonstrates these fine +things from experience, and highly praises a great astrologer at Paris +who says that he hindered a surgeon from putting a plaster on the leg +of an invalid, because the sun was then in the sign of Aquarius, and +Aquarius is fatal to legs to which plasters are applied.</p> + +<p>It is an opinion quite generally received that Roger was the inventor of +gunpowder. It is certain that it was in his time that important +discovery was made, for I always remark that the spirit of invention is +of all times and that the doctors, or sages, who govern both mind and +body are generally profoundly ignorant, foolishly prejudiced, or at war +with common sense. It is usually among obscure men that artists are +found animated with a superior instinct, who invent admirable things on +which the learned afterwards reason.</p> + +<p>One thing that surprises me much is that Friar Bacon knew not the +direction of the magnetic needle, which, in his time, began to be +understood in Italy, but in lieu thereof he was acquainted with the +Secret of the hazel rod and many such things Of which he treats in his +"Dignity of the Experimental Art."</p> + +<p>Yet, notwithstanding this pitiable number of absurdities and chimeras, +it must be confessed that Roger Bacon was an admirable man for his age. +What age? you will ask—that of feudal government and of the schoolmen. +Figure to yourself Samoyedes and Ostiacs who read Aristotle. Such were +we at that time.</p> + +<p>Roger Bacon knew a little of geometry and optics, which made him pass +for a sorcerer at Rome and Paris. He was, however, really acquainted +with the matter contained in the Arabian <i>"Alhazen,"</i> for in those days +little was known except through the Arabs. They were the physicians and +astrologers of all the Christian kings. The king's fool was always a +native; his doctor an Arab or a Jew.</p> + +<p>Transport this Bacon to the times in which we live and he would be, no +doubt, a great man. He was gold, encrusted with the rust of the times in +which he lived, this gold would now be quickly purified. Poor creatures +that we are! How many ages have passed away in acquiring a little +reason!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BANISHMENT" id="BANISHMENT"></a>BANISHMENT.</h3> + + +<p>Banishment for a term of years, or for life: a penalty inflicted on +delinquents, or on individuals who are wished to be considered as such.</p> + +<p>Not long ago it was the custom to banish from within the limits of the +jurisdiction, for petty thefts, forgeries, and assaults, the result of +which was that the offender became a great robber, forger, or murderer +in some other jurisdiction. This is like throwing into a neighbor's +field the stones that incommode us in our own.</p> + +<p>Those who have written on the laws of nations have tormented themselves +greatly to determine whether a man who has been banished from his +country can justly be said still to belong to that country. It might +almost as well be asked whether a gambler, who has been driven away from +the gaming-table, is still one of the players at that table.</p> + +<p>If by the law of nature a man is permitted to choose his country, still +more is the man who has lost the rights of a citizen at liberty to +choose himself a new country. May he bear arms against his former +fellow-citizens? Of this we have a thousand examples. How many French +Protestants, naturalized in England, Holland, or Germany, have served, +not only against France, but against armies in which their relatives, +their own brothers, have fought? The Greeks in the armies of the king of +Persia fought against the Greeks, their old fellow-countrymen. The Swiss +in the service of Holland have fired upon the Swiss in the service of +France. This is even worse than fighting against those who have banished +you, for, after all, drawing the sword in revenge does not seem so bad +as drawing it for hire.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BAPTISM" id="BAPTISM"></a>BAPTISM.</h3> + +<h4><i>A Greek Word, Signifying Immersion.</i></h4> + + +<h5>SECTION I.</h5> + +<p>We do not speak of baptism as theologians; we are but poor men of +letters, who shall never enter the sanctuary. The Indians plunge, and +have from time immemorial plunged, into the Ganges. Mankind, always +guided by their senses, easily imagined that what purified the body +likewise purified the soul. In the subterranean apartments under the +Egyptian temples there were large tubs for the priests and the +initiated.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>O nimium faciles qui tristia crimina cædis</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Fluminea tolli posse putatis aqua!</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Old Baudier, when he was eighty, made the following comic translation of +these lines:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>C'est une drôle de maxime,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Qu'une lessive efface un crime.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">One can't but think it somewhat droll,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pump-water thus should cleanse a soul.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Every sign being of itself indifferent, God vouchsafed to consecrate +this custom amongst the Hebrew people. All foreigners that came to +settle in Palestine were baptized; they were called domiciliary +proselytes.</p> + +<p>They were not forced to receive circumcision, but only to embrace the +seven precepts of the Noachides, and to sacrifice to no strange god. The +proselytes of justice were circumcised and baptized; the female +proselytes were also baptized, quite naked, in the presence of three +men. The most devout among the Jews went and received baptism from the +hands of the prophets most venerated by the people. Hence it was that +they flocked to St. John, who baptized in the Jordan.</p> + +<p>Jesus Christ Himself, who never baptized any one, deigned to receive +baptism from St. John. This custom, which had long been an accessory of +the Jewish religion, received new dignity, new value from our Saviour, +and became the chief rite, the principal seal of Christianity. However, +the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were Jews. 'The Christians of +Palestine long continued to circumcise. St. John's Christians never +received baptism from Christ.</p> + +<p>Several other Christian societies applied a cautery to the baptized, +with a red-hot iron, being determined to the performance of this +extraordinary operation by the words of St. John the Baptist, related by +St. Luke: "I baptize you with water, but He that cometh after me shall +baptize you with fire."</p> + +<p>This was practised by the Seleucians, the Herminians, and some others. +The words, "He shall baptize you with fire," have never been explained. +There are several opinions concerning the baptism by fire which is +mentioned by St. Luke and St. Matthew. Perhaps the most likely opinion +is that it was an allusion to the ancient custom of the devotees to the +Syrian goddess, who, after plunging into water, imprinted characters on +their bodies with a hot iron. With miserable man all was superstition, +but Jesus substituted for these ridiculous superstitions a sacred +ceremony—a divine and efficacious symbol.</p> + +<p>In the first ages of Christianity nothing was more common than to +postpone the receiving of baptism until the last agony. Of this the +example of the Emperor Constantine is a very strong proof. St. Andrew +had not been baptized when he was made bishop of Milan. The custom of +deferring the use of the sacred bath until the hour of death was soon +abolished.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Baptism of the Dead.</i></p> + +<p>The dead also were baptized. This is established by the passage of St. +Paul to the Corinthians: "If we rise not again what shall they do that +receive baptism from the dead?" Here is a point of fact. Either the +dead themselves were baptized, or baptism was received in their names, +as indulgences have since been received for the deliverance of the souls +of friends and relatives out of purgatory.</p> + +<p>St. Epiphanius and St. Chrysostom inform us that it was a custom in some +Christian societies, and principally among the Marcionites, to put a +living man under the dead man's bed; he was then asked if he would be +baptized; the living man answered yes, and the corpse was taken and +plunged into a tub of water. This custom was soon condemned. St. Paul +mentions it but he does not condemn it; on the contrary he cites it as +an invincible argument to prove resurrection.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Baptism by Aspersion.</i></p> + +<p>The Greeks always retained baptism by immersion. The Latins, about the +close of the eighth century, having extended their religion into Gaul +and Germany and seeing that immersion might be fatal to infants in cold +countries, substituted simple aspersion and thus drew upon themselves +frequent anathemas from the Greek Church.</p> + +<p>St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was asked if those were really baptized +who had only had their bodies sprinkled all over. He answers, in his +seventy-sixth letter, that several churches did not believe the +sprinkled to be Christians; that, for his own part, he believes that +they are so, but that they have infinitely less grace than those who +have been thrice dipped, according to custom.</p> + +<p>A person was initiated among the Christians as soon as he was dipped; +until then he was only a catechumen. To be initiated it was necessary to +have sponsors to answer to the Church for the fidelity of the new +Christians and that the mysteries should not be divulged. Hence it was +that in the first ages the Gentiles had, in general, as little knowledge +of the Christian mysteries as the Christians had of the mysteries of +Isis and the Eleusinian Ceres.</p> + +<p>Cyril of Alexandria, in his writing against the Emperor Julian, +expresses himself thus: "I would speak of baptism but that I fear my +words would reach them who are not initiated." At that time there was no +worship without its mysteries, its associations, its catechumens, its +initiated, and its professed. Each sect required new virtues and +recommended to its penitents a new life—<i>"initium novæ vitæ"</i>—whence +the word initiation. The initiation of Christians, whether male or +female, consisted in their being plunged quite naked into a tub of cold +water, to which sign was attached the remission of all their sins. But +the difference between Christian baptism and the Greek, Syrian, +Egyptian, and Roman ceremonies was the difference between truth and +falsehood. Jesus Christ was the High Priest of the new law.</p> + +<p>In the second century infants began to be baptized; it was natural that +the Christians should desire their children, who would have been damned +without this sacrament, to be provided with it. It was at length +concluded that they must receive it at the expiration of eight days, +because that was the period at which, among the Jews, they were +circumcised. In the Greek Church this is still the custom.</p> + +<p>Such as died in the first week were damned, according to the most +rigorous fathers of the Church. But Peter Chrysologos, in the fifth +century, imagined limbo, a sort of mitigated hell, or properly, the +border, the outskirt of hell, whither all infants dying without baptism +go and where the patriarchs remained until Jesus Christ's descent into +hell. So that the opinion that Jesus Christ descended into limbo, and +not into hell, has since then prevailed.</p> + +<p>It was agitated whether a Christian in the deserts of Arabia might be +baptized with sand, this was answered in the negative. It was asked if +rosewater might be used, it was decided that pure water would be +necessary but that muddy water might be made use of. It is evident that +all this discipline depended on the discretion of the first pastors who +established it.</p> + +<p>The Anabaptists and some other communions out of the pale have thought +that no one should be baptized without a thorough knowledge of the +merits of the case. You require, say they, a promise to be of the +Christian society, but a child can make no engagement. You give it a +sponsor, but this is an abuse of an ancient custom. The precaution was +requisite in the first establishment. When strangers, adult men and +women, came and presented themselves to be received into the society +and share in the alms there was needed a guarantee to answer for their +fidelity; it was necessary to make sure of them; they swore they would +be Jews, but an infant is in a diametrically opposite case. It has often +happened, that a child baptized by Greeks at Constantinople has +afterwards been circumcised by Turks, a Christian at eight days old and +a Mussulman at thirty years, he has betrayed the oaths of his godfather.</p> + +<p>This is one reason which the Anabaptists might allege; it would hold +good in Turkey, but it has never been admitted in Christian countries +where baptism insures a citizen's condition. We must conform to the +rights and laws of our country.</p> + +<p>The Greeks re-baptize such of the Latins as pass from one of our Latin +communions to the Greek communion. In the last century it was the custom +for these catechumens to pronounce the following words: "I spit upon my +father and my mother who had me ill baptized." This custom still exists, +and will, perhaps, long continue to exist in the provinces.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Notions of Rigid Unitarians Concerning Baptism.</i></p> + +<p>It is evident to whosoever is willing to reason without prejudice that +baptism is neither a mark of grace conferred nor a seal of alliance, but +simply a mark of profession.</p> + +<p>That baptism is not necessary, neither by necessity of precept, nor by +necessity of means. That it was not instituted by Christ and that it +may be omitted by the Christian without his suffering any inconvenience +therefrom.</p> + +<p>That baptism should be administered neither to children, nor to adults, +nor, in general, to any individual whatsoever.</p> + +<p>That baptism might be of service in the early infancy of Christianity to +those who quitted paganism in order to make their profession of faith +public and give an authentic mark of it, but that now it is absolutely +useless and altogether indifferent.</p> + + +<h5>SECTION II.</h5> + +<p>Baptism, immersion in water, abstersion, purification by water, is of +the highest antiquity. To be cleanly was to be pure before the gods. No +priest ever dared to approach the altar with a soil upon his body. The +natural inclination to transfer to the soul that which appertains to the +body led to the belief that lustrations and ablutions took away the +stains of the soul as they removed those of the garments and that +washing the body washed the soul also. Hence the ancient custom of +bathing in the Ganges, the waters of which were thought to be sacred; +hence the lustrations so frequent among every people. The Oriental +nations, inhabiting hot countries, were the most religiously attached to +these customs.</p> + +<p>The Jews were obliged to bathe after any pollution—after touching an +unclean animal, touching a corpse, and on many other occasions.</p> + +<p>When the Jews received among them a stranger converted to their +religion they baptized, after circumcising him, and if it was a woman +she was simply baptized—that is, dipped in water in the presence of +three witnesses. This immersion was reputed to give the persons baptized +a new birth, a new life; they became at once Jewish and pure. Children +born before this baptism had no share in the inheritance of their +brethren, born after them of a regenerated father and mother. So that, +with the Jews, to be baptized and to be born again were the same thing, +and this idea has remained attached to baptism down to the present day. +Thus, when John, the forerunner, began to baptize in the Jordan he did +but follow an immemorial usage. The priests of the law did not call him +to account for this baptizing as for anything new, but they accused him +of arrogating to himself a right which belonged exclusively to them —as +Roman Catholic priests would have a right to complain if a layman took +upon himself to say mass. John was doing a lawful thing but was doing it +unlawfully.</p> + +<p>John wished to have disciples, and he had them. He was chief of a sect +among the lower orders of the people and it cost him his life. It even +appears that Jesus was at first among his disciples, since he was +baptized by him in the Jordan, and John sent some of his own party to +Him a short time before His death.</p> + +<p>The historian Josephus speaks of John but not of Jesus—an incontestable +proof that in his time John the Baptist had a greater reputation than +He whom he baptized. A great multitude followed him, says that +celebrated historian, and the Jews seemed disposed to undertake whatever +he should command them.</p> + +<p>From this passage it appears that John was not only the chief of a sect, +but the chief of a party. Josephus adds that he caused Herod some +uneasiness. He did indeed make himself formidable to Herod, who, at +length, put him to death, but Jesus meddled with none but the Pharisees. +Josephus, therefore, mentions John as a man who had stirred up the Jews +against King Herod; as one whose zeal had made him a state criminal, but +Jesus, not having approached the court, was unknown to the historian +Josephus.</p> + +<p>The sect of John the Baptist differed widely in discipline from that of +Jesus. In the Acts of the Apostles we see that twenty years after the +execution of Jesus, Apollos of Alexandria, though become a Christian, +knew no baptism but that of John, nor had any idea of the Holy Ghost. +Several travellers, and among others Chardin, the most accredited of +all, say that in Persia there still are disciples of John, called Sabis, +who baptize in his name and acknowledge Jesus as a prophet, but not as a +god.</p> + +<p>As for Jesus Christ Himself He received baptism but conferred it on no +one; His apostles baptized the catechumens, or circumcised them as +occasion required; this is evident from the operation of circumcision +performed by Paul on his disciple Timothy.</p> + +<p>It also appears that when the apostles baptized it was always in the +name of Jesus Christ alone. The Acts of the Apostles do not mention any +one baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—whence it +may be concluded that the author of the Acts of the Apostles knew +nothing of Matthew's gospel, in which it is said: "Go and teach all +nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and +of the Holy Ghost." The Christian religion had not yet received its +form. Even the Symbol, which was called the Symbol of the Apostles, was +not made until after their time, of this no one has any doubt. In Paul's +Epistle to the Corinthians we find a very singular custom which was then +introduced—that of baptizing the dead, but the rising Church soon +reserved baptism for the living alone; at first none were baptized but +adults, and the ceremony was often deferred until the age of fifty, or +the last sickness, that the individual might carry with him into the +other world the unimpaired virtue of a baptism recently performed.</p> + +<p>Now, all children are baptized: none but the Anabaptists reserve this +ceremony for the mature age; they plunge their whole bodies into the +water. The Quakers, who compose a very numerous society in England and +in America, do not use baptism: the reason is that Jesus Christ did not +baptize any of His disciples, and their aim is to be Christians only as +His disciples were—which occasions a very wide difference between them +and other communions.</p> + +<p class="caption"><i>Addition to the Article "Baptism" by Abbé Nicaise.</i></p> + +<p>The Emperor Julian, the philosopher, in his immortal "Satire on the +Cæsars," puts these words into the mouth of Constantius, son of +Constantine: "Whosoever feels himself guilty of rape, murder, plunder, +sacrilege, and every most abominable crime, so soon as I have washed him +with this water, he shall be clean and pure."</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, this fatal doctrine that occasioned the Christian +emperors, and the great men of the empire, to defer their baptism until +death. They thought they had found the secret of living criminal and +dying virtuous.</p> + +<p>How strange an idea—that a pot of water should wash away every crime! +Now, all children are baptized because an idea no less absurd supposes +them all criminal; they are all saved until they have the use of reason +and the power to become guilty! Cut their throats, then, as quickly as +possible, to insure their entrance into paradise. This is so just a +consequence that there was once a devout sect that went about poisoning +and killing all newly-baptized infants. These devout persons reasoned +with perfect correctness, saying: "We do these little innocents the +greatest possible good; we prevent them from being wicked and unhappy in +this life and we give them life eternal."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BARUCH_OR_BARAK_AND_DEBORAH" id="BARUCH_OR_BARAK_AND_DEBORAH"></a>BARUCH, OR BARAK, AND DEBORAH;</h3> + +<h5>AND, INCIDENTALLY, ON CHARIOTS OF WAR.</h5> + + +<p>We have no intention here to inquire at what time Baruch was chief of +the Jewish people; why, being chief, he allowed his army to be commanded +by a woman; whether this woman, named Deborah, had married Lapidoth; +whether she was the friend or relative of Baruch, or perhaps his +daughter or his mother; nor on what day the battle of Tabor, in Galilee, +was fought between this Deborah and Sisera, captain-general of the +armies of King Jabin—which Sisera commanded in Galilee an army of three +hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and three thousand chariots +of war, according to the historian Josephus.</p> + +<p>We shall at present leave out of the question this Jabin, king of a +village called Azor, who had more troops than the Grand Turk. We very +much pity the fate of his grand-vizier Sisera, who, having lost the +battle in Galilee, leaped from his chariot and four that he might fly +more swiftly on foot. He went and begged the hospitality of a holy +Jewish woman, who gave him some milk and drove a great cart-nail through +his head while he was asleep. We are very sorry for it, but this is not +the matter to be discussed. We wish to speak of chariots of war.</p> + +<p>The battle was fought at the foot of Mount Tabor, near the river Kishon. +Mount Tabor is a steep mountain, the branches of which, somewhat less +in height, extend over a great part of Galilee. Between this mountain +and the neighboring rocks there is a small plain, covered with great +flint-stones and impracticable for cavalry. The extent of this plain is +four or five hundred paces. We may venture to believe that Sisera did +not here draw up his three hundred thousand men in order of battle; his +three thousand chariots would have found it difficult to manœuvre on +such a field.</p> + +<p>We may believe that the Hebrews had no chariots of war in a country +renowned only for asses, but the Asiatics made use of them in the great +plains. Confucius, or rather Confutze, says positively that, from time +immemorial, each of the viceroys of the provinces was expected to +furnish to the emperor a thousand war-chariots, each drawn by four +horses. Chariots must have been in use long before the Trojan war, for +Homer does not speak of them as a new invention, but these chariots were +not armed like those of Babylon, neither the wheels nor the axles were +furnished with steel blades.</p> + +<p>At first this invention must have been very formidable on large plains, +especially when the chariots were numerous, driven with impetuosity, and +armed with long pikes and scythes, but when they became familiar it +seemed so easy to avoid their shock that they fell into general disuse.</p> + +<p>In the war of 1741 it was proposed to renew and reform this ancient +invention. A minister of state had one of these chariots constructed and +it was tried. It was asserted that in large plains, like that of +Lützen, they might be used with advantage by concealing them behind the +cavalry, the squadrons of which would open to let them pass and then +follow them, but the generals judged that this manœuvre would be +useless, and even dangerous, now that battles are gained by cannon only. +It was replied that there would be as many cannon hi the army using the +chariots of war to defend them as in the enemy's army to destroy them. +It was added that these chariots would, in the first instance, be +sheltered from the cannon behind the battalions or squadrons, that the +latter would open and let the chariots run with impetuosity and that +this unexpected attack might have a prodigious effect. The generals +advanced nothing in opposition to these arguments, but they would not +revive this game of the ancient Persians.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BATTALION" id="BATTALION"></a>BATTALION.</h3> + + +<p>Let us observe that the arrangements, the marching, and the evolutions +of battalions, nearly as they are now practised, were revived in Europe +by one who was not a military man—by Machiavelli, a secretary at +Florence. Battalions three, four, and five deep; battalions advancing +upon the enemy; battalions in square to avoid being cut off in a rout; +battalions four deep sustained by others in column; battalions flanked +by cavalry—all are his. He taught Europe the art of war; it had long +been practised without being known.</p> + +<p>The grand duke would have had his secretary teach his troops their +exercises according to his new method. But Machiavelli was too prudent +to do so; he had no wish to see the officers and soldiers laugh at a +general in a black cloak; he reserved himself for the council.</p> + +<p>There is something singular in the qualities which he requires in a +soldier. He must first have <i>gagliardia</i>, which signifies <i>alert vigor</i>; +he must have a quick and sure eye—in which there must also be a little +gayety; a strong neck, a wide breast, a muscular arm, round loins, but +little belly, with spare legs and feet—all indicating strength and +agility. But above all the soldier must have honor, and must be led by +honor alone. "War," says he, "is but too great a corrupter of morals," +and he reminds us of the Italian proverb: War makes thieves, and peace +finds them gibbets.</p> + +<p>Machiavelli had but a poor opinion of the French infantry, and until the +battle of Rocroi it must be confessed that it was very bad. A strange +man this Machiavelli! He amused himself with making verses, writing +plays, showing his cabinet the art of killing with regularity, and +teaching princes the art of perjuring themselves, assassinating, and +poisoning as occasion required—a great art which Pope Alexander VI., +and his bastard Cæsar Borgia, practised in wonderful perfection without +the aid of his lessons.</p> + +<p>Be it observed that in all Machiavelli's works on so many different +subjects there is not one word which renders virtue amiable—not one +word proceeding from the heart. The same remark has been made on +Boileau. He does not, it is true, make virtue lovely, but he represents +it as necessary.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BAYLE" id="BAYLE"></a>BAYLE.</h3> + + +<p>Why has Louis Racine treated Bayle like a dangerous man, with a cruel +heart, in an epistle to Jean Baptiste Rousseau, which, although printed, +is but little known?</p> + +<p>He compares Bayle, whose logical acuteness detected the errors of +opposing systems, to Marius sitting upon the ruins of Carthage:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Ainsi d'un œil content Marius, dans sa fuite,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Contemplait les débris de Carthage détruite.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Thus exiled Marius, with contented gaze,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Thy ruins, Carthage, silently surveys.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here is a simile which exhibits very little resemblance, or, as Pope +says, a simile dissimilar. Marius had not destroyed reason and +arguments, nor did he contentedly view its ruins, but, on the contrary, +he was penetrated with an elevated sentiment of melancholy on +contemplating the vicissitudes of human affairs, when he made the +celebrated answer: "Say to the proconsul of Africa that thou hast seen +Marius seated on the ruins of Carthage."</p> + +<p>We ask in what Marius resembled Bayle? Louis Racine, if he thinks fit, +may apply the epithets "hard-hearted" and "cruel" to Marius, to Sulla, +to the triumvirs, but, in reference to Bayle the phrases "detestable +pleasure," "cruel heart," "terrible man," should not be put in a +sentence written by Louis Racine against one who is only proved to have +weighed the arguments of the Manichæans, the Paulicians, the Arians, the +Eutychians, against those of their adversaries. Louis Racine proportions +not the punishment to the offence. He should remember that Bayle +combated Spinoza, who was too much of a philosopher, and Jurieu, who was +none at all. He should respect the good manners of Bayle and learn to +reason from him. But he was a Jansenist, that is to say, he knew the +words of the language of Jansenism and employed them at random. You may +properly call cruel and terrible a powerful man who commands his slaves, +on pain of death, to go and reap corn where he has sown thistles; who +gives to some of them too much food, and suffers others to die of +hunger; who kills his eldest son to leave a large fortune to the +younger. All that is frightful and cruel, Louis Racine! It is said that +such is the god of thy Jansenists, but I do not believe it. Oh slaves of +party, people attacked with the jaundice, you constantly see everything +yellow!</p> + +<p>And to whom has the unthinking heir of a father who had a hundred times +more taste than he has philosophy, addressed this miserable epistle +against the virtuous Bayle? To Rousseau—a poet who thinks still less; +to a man whose principal merit has consisted in epigrams which are +revolting to the most indulgent reader; to a man to whom it was alike +whether he sang Jesus Christ or Giton. Such was the apostle to whom +Louis Racine denounced Bayle as a miscreant. What motive could the +author of "Phædra" and "Iphigenia" have for falling into such a +prodigious error? Simply this, that Rousseau had made verses for the +Jansenists, whom he then believed to be in high credit.</p> + +<p>Such is the rage of faction let loose upon Bayle, but you do not hear +any of the dogs who have howled against him bark against Lucretius, +Cicero, Seneca, Epicurus, nor against the numerous philosophers of +antiquity. It is all reserved for Bayle; he is their fellow citizen—he +is of their time—his glory irritates them. Bayle is read and Nicole is +not read; behold the source of the Jansenist hatred! Bayle is studied, +but neither the reverend Father Croiset, nor the reverend Father +Caussin; hence Jesuitical denouncement!</p> + +<p>In vain has a Parliament of France done him the greatest honor in +rendering his will valid, notwithstanding the severity of the law. The +madness of party knows neither honor nor justice. I have not inserted +this article to make the eulogy of the best of dictionaries, which would +not be becoming here, and of which Bayle is not in need; I have written +it to render, if I can, the spirit of party odious and ridiculous.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BDELLIUM" id="BDELLIUM"></a>BDELLIUM.</h3> + + +<p>We are very much puzzled to know what this Bdellium is which is found +near the shores of the Pison, a river of the terrestrial paradise which +turns into the country of the Havilah, where there is gold. Calmet +relates that, according to several commentators, Bdellium is the +carbuncle, but that it may also be crystal. Then it is the gum of an +Arabian tree and afterwards we are told that capers are intended. Many +others affirm that it signifies pearls. Nothing but the etymologies of +Bochart can throw a light on this question. I wish that all these +commentators had been upon the spot.</p> + +<p>The excellent gold which is obtained in this country, says Calmet, shows +evidently that this is the country of Colchis and the golden fleece is a +proof of it. It is a pity that things have changed so much for +Mingrelia; that beautiful country, so famous for the loves of Medea and +Jason, now produces gold and Bdellium no more than bulls which vomit +fire and flame, and dragons which guard the fleece. Everything changes +in this world; and if we do not skilfully cultivate our lands, and if +the state remain always in debt, we shall become a second Mingrelia.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BEARD" id="BEARD"></a>BEARD.</h3> + + +<p>Certain naturalists assure us that the secretion which produces the +beard is the same as that which perpetuates mankind. An entire +hemisphere testifies against this fraternal union. The Americans, of +whatever country, color, or stature they may be, have neither beards on +their chins, nor any hair on their bodies, except their eyebrows and the +hair of their heads, I have legal attestations of official men who have +lived, conversed, and combated with thirty nations of South America, and +they attest that they have never seen a hair on their bodies; and they +laugh, as they well may, at writers who, copying one another, say that +the Americans are only without hair because they pull it out with +pincers; as if Christopher Columbus, Fernando Cortes, and the other +adventurers had loaded themselves with the little tweezers with which +our ladies remove their superfluous hairs, and had distributed them in +all the countries of America.</p> + +<p>I believed for a long time that the Esquimaux were excepted from the +general laws of the new world; but I am assured that they are as free +from hair as the others. However, they have children in Chile, Peru, and +Canada, as well as in our bearded continent. There is, then, a specific +difference between these bipeds and ourselves, in the same way as their +lions, which are divested of the mane, and in other respects differ from +the lions of Africa.</p> + +<p>It is to be remarked that the Orientals have never varied in their +consideration for the beard. Marriage among them has always existed, and +that period is still the epoch of life from which they no longer shave +the beard. The long dress and the beard impose respect. The Westerns +have always been changing the fashion of the chin. Mustaches were worn +under Louis XIV. towards the year 1672. Under Louis XIII. a little +pointed beard prevailed. In the time of Henry IV. it was square. Charles +V., Julius II., and Francis I. restored the large beard to honor in +their courts, which had been a long time in fashion. Gownsmen, through +gravity and respect for the customs of their fathers, shaved themselves; +while the courtiers, in doublets and little mantles, wore their beards +as long as they could. When a king in those days sent a lawyer as an +ambassador, his comrades would laugh at him if he suffered his beard to +grow, besides mocking him in the chamber of accounts or of +requests,—But quite enough upon beards.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BEASTS" id="BEASTS"></a>BEASTS.</h3> + + +<p>What a pity and what a poverty of spirit to assert that beasts are +machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which effect all their +operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, etc.</p> + +<p>What is this bird, who makes its nest in a semicircle when he attaches +it to a wall; and in a circle on a tree—this bird does all in the same +blind manner! The hound, which you have disciplined for three months, +does he not know more at the end of this time than he did before? Does +the canary, to which you play an air, repeat ft directly? Do you not +employ a considerable time in teaching it? Have you not seen that he +sometimes mistakes it, and that be corrects himself?</p> + +<p>Is it because I speak to you that you judge I have sentiment, memory, +and ideas? Well, suppose I do not speak to you; you see me enter my room +with an afflicted air, I seek a paper with disquietude, I open the +bureau in which I recollect to have shut it, I hid it and read it with +joy. You pronounce that I have felt the sentiment of affliction and of +joy; that I have memory and knowledge.</p> + +<p>Extend the same judgment to the dog who has lost his master, who has +sought hum everywhere with grievous cries, and who enters the house +agitated and restless, goes upstairs and down, from room to room, and at +last finds in the closet the master whom he loves, and testifies his joy +by the gentleness of his cries, by his leaps and his caresses.</p> + +<p>Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in +friendship, they nail him to a table and dissect him living to show the +mesenteric veins. You discover in him the same organs of sentiment which +are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the +springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he +nerves, and is he incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this +impertinent contradiction in mature.</p> + +<p>But the masters of this school ask, what is the soul of beasts? I do not +understand tins question. A tree has the faculty of receiving in its +fibres the sap which circulates, of evolving its buds, its leaves, and +its fruits. You will ask me what is the soul of this tree? It has +received these gifts. The animal has received those of sentiment, +memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts; who +has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to +grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun.</p> + +<p>The souls of beasts are <i>substantial forms</i>, says Aristotle; and after +Aristotle, the Arabian school; and after the Arabian school, the +Angelical school; and after the Angelical school, the Sorbonne; and +after the Sorbonne, every one in the world.</p> + +<p>The souls of beasts are material, exclaim other philosophers. These have +not been more fortunate than the former. They are in vain asked what is +a material soul? They say that it is a matter which has sensation; but +who has given it this sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say, +it is composed of a matter which gives sensation to matter. They cannot +get out of this circle.</p> + +<p>Listen to one kind of beasts reasoning upon another; their soul is a +spiritual being, which dies with the body; but what proof have you of +it? What idea have you of this spiritual being, which has sentiment, +memory, and its share of ideas and combinations, but which can never +tell what made a child of six years old? On what ground do you imagine +that this being, which is not corporeal, perishes with the body? The +greatest beasts are those who have suggested that this soul is neither +body nor spiritan excellent system! We can only understand by spirit +something unknown, which is not body. Thus the system of these gentlemen +amounts to this, that the soul of beasts is a substance which is neither +body, nor something which is not body. Whence can proceed so many +contradictory errors? From the custom which men have of examining what a +thing is before they know whether it exists. They call the speech the +effect of a breath of mind, the soul of a sigh. What is the soul? It is +a name which I have given to this valve which rises and falls, which +lets the air in, relieves itself, and sends it through a pipe when I +move the lungs.</p> + +<p>There is not, then, a soul distinct from the machine. But what moves the +lungs of animals? I have already said, the power that moves the stars. +The philosopher who said, <i>"Deus est animâ brutorum."</i>—God is the soul +of the brutes—is right; but he should have gone much further.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BEAUTIFUL_THE" id="BEAUTIFUL_THE"></a>BEAUTIFUL (THE).</h3> + + +<p>Since we have quoted Plato on love, why should we not quote him on "the +beautiful," since beauty causes love. It is curious to know how a Greek +spoke of the beautiful more than two thousand years since.</p> + +<p>"The man initiated into the sacred mysteries, when he sees a beautiful +face accompanied by a divine form, a something more than mortal, feels a +secret emotion, and I know not what respectful fear. He regards this +figure as a divinity.... When the influence of beauty enters into his +soul by his eyes he burns; the wings of his soul are bedewed; they lose +the hardness which retains their germs and liquefy themselves; these +germs, swelling beneath the roots of its wings, they expand from every +part of the soul (for soul had wings formerly)," etc.</p> + +<p>I am willing to believe that nothing is finer than this discourse of the +divine Plato; but it does not give us very clear ideas of the nature of +the beautiful.</p> + +<p>Ask a toad what is beauty—the great beauty <i>To Kalon</i>; he will answer +that it is the female with two great round eyes coming out of her little +head, her large flat mouth, her yellow belly, and brown back. Ask a +negro of Guinea; beauty is to him a black, oily skin, sunken eyes, and a +flat nose. Ask the devil; he will tell you that the beautiful consists +in a pair of horns, four claws, and a tail. Then consult the +philosophers; they will answer you with jargon; they must have something +conformable to the archetype of the essence of the beautiful—to the <i>To +Kalon</i>.</p> + +<p>I was once attending a tragedy near a philosopher. "How beautiful that +is," said he. "What do you find beautiful?" asked I. "It is," said he, +"that the author has attained his object." The next day he took his +medicine, which did him some good. "It has attained its object," cried I +to him; "it is a beautiful medicine." He comprehended that it could not +be said that a medicine is beautiful, and that to apply to anything +the epithet beautiful it must cause admiration and pleasure. He admitted +that the tragedy had inspired him with these two sentiments, and that it +was the <i>To Kalon</i>, the beautiful.</p> + +<p>We made a journey to England. The same piece was played, and, although +ably translated, it made all the spectators yawn. "Oh, oh!" said he, +"the <i>To Kalon</i> is not the same with the English as with the French." He +concluded after many reflections that "the beautiful" is often merely +relative, as that which is decent at Japan is indecent at Rome; and that +which is the fashion at Paris is not so at Pekin; and he was thereby +spared the trouble of composing a long treatise on the beautiful.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 364px;"> +<a name="A_Type_of_Beauty" id="A_Type_of_Beauty"></a> +<img src="images/img_03_beauty.jpg" width="364" alt="A Type of Beauty.—A beautiful face accompanied by a divine form." title="" /> +<span class="caption_fig">A Type of Beauty.—A beautiful face accompanied by a divine form.</span> +</div> + + +<p>There are actions which the whole world considers fine. A challenge +passed between two of Cæsar's officers, mortal enemies, not to shed each +other's blood behind a thicket by tierce and quarte, as among us, but to +decide which of them would best defend the camp of the Romans, about to +be attacked by the barbarians. One of the two, after having repulsed the +enemy, was near falling; the other flew to his assistance, saved his +life, and gained the victory. A friend devotes himself to death for his +friend, a son for his father. The Algonquin, the French, the Chinese, +will mutually say that all this is very beautiful, that such actions +give them pleasure, and that they admire them.</p> + +<p>They will say the same of great moral maxims; of that of Zoroaster: "If +in doubt that an action be just, desist;" of that of Confucius: "Forget +injuries; never forget benefits."</p> + +<p>The negro, with round eyes and flattened nose, who would not give the +ladies of our court the name of beautiful, would give it without +hesitation to these actions and these maxims. Even the wicked man +recognizes the beauty of the virtues which he cannot imitate. The +beautiful, which only strikes the senses, the imagination, and what is +called the spirit, is then often uncertain; the beauty which strikes the +heart is not. You will find a number of people who will tell you they +have found nothing beautiful in three-fourths of the "Iliad"; but nobody +will deny that the devotion of Codrus for his people was fine, supposing +it was true.</p> + +<p>Brother Attinet, a Jesuit, a native of Dijon, was employed as designer +in the country house of the Emperor Camhi, at the distance of some +leagues from Pekin.</p> + +<p>"This country house," says he, in one of his letters to M. Dupont, "is +larger than the town of Dijon. It is divided into a thousand habitations +on one line; each one has its courts, its parterres, its gardens, and +its waters; the front of each is ornamented with gold varnish and +paintings. In the vast enclosures of the park, hills have been raised by +hand from twenty to sixty feet high. The valleys are watered by an +infinite number of canals, which run a considerable distance to join and +form lakes and seas. We float on these seas in boats varnished and +gilt, from twelve to thirteen fathoms long and four wide. These barks +have magnificent saloons, and the borders of the canals are covered with +houses, all in different tastes. Every house has its gardens and +cascades. You go from one valley to another by alleys, alternately +ornamented with pavilions and grottoes. No two valleys are alike; the +largest of all is surrounded by a colonnade, behind which are gilded +buildings. All the apartments of these houses correspond in magnificence +with the outside. All the canals have bridges at stated distances; these +bridges are bordered with balustrades of white marble sculptured in +basso-relievo.</p> + +<p>"In the middle of the great sea is raised a rock, and on this rock is a +square pavilion, in which are more than a hundred apartments. From this +square pavilion there is a view of all the palaces, all the houses, and +all the gardens of this immense enclosure, and there are more than four +hundred of them.</p> + +<p>"When the emperor gives a fête all these buildings are illuminated in an +instant, and from every house there are fireworks.</p> + +<p>"This is not all; at the end of what they call the sea is a great fair, +held by the emperor's officers. Vessels come from the great sea to +arrive at this fair. The courtiers disguise themselves as merchants and +artificers of all sorts; one keeps a coffee house, another a tavern; one +takes the profession of a thief, another that of the officer who +pursues him. The emperor and all the ladies of the court come to buy +stuffs, the false merchants cheat them as much as they can; they tell +them that it is shameful to dispute so much about the price, and that +they are poor customers. Their majesties reply that the merchants are +knaves; the latter are angry and affect to depart; they are appeased; +the emperor buys all and makes lotteries of it for all his court. +Farther on are spectacles of all sorts."</p> + +<p>When brother Attinet came from China to Versailles he found it small and +dull. The Germans, who were delighted to stroll about its groves, were +astonished that brother Attinet was so difficult. This is another reason +which determines me not to write a treatise on the beautiful.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BEES" id="BEES"></a>BEES.</h3> + + +<p>The bees may be regarded as superior to the human race in this, that +from their own substance they produce another which is useful; while, of +all our secretions, there is not one good for anything; nay, there is +not one which does not render mankind disagreeable.</p> + +<p>I have been charmed to find that the swarms which turn out of the hive +are much milder than our sons when they leave college. The young bees +then sting no one; or at least but rarely and in extraordinary cases. +They suffer themselves to be carried quietly in the bare hand to the +hive which is destined for them. But no sooner have they learned in +their new habitation to know their interests than they become like us +and make war. I have seen very peaceable bees go for six months to labor +in a neighboring meadow covered with flowers which secreted them. When +the mowers came they rushed furiously from their hive upon those who +were about to steal their property and put them to flight.</p> + +<p>We find in the Proverbs attributed to Solomon that "there are four +things, the least upon earth, but which are wiser than the wise men—the +ants, a little people who lay up food during the harvest; the hares, a +weak people who lie on stones; the grasshoppers, who have no kings and +who journey in flocks; and the lizards, which work with their hands and +dwell in the palaces of kings." I know not how Solomon forgot the bees, +whose instinct seems very superior to that of hares, which do not lie on +stone; or of lizards, with whose genius I am not acquainted. Moreover, I +shall always prefer a bee to a grasshopper.</p> + +<p>The bees have, in all ages, furnished the poet with descriptions, +comparisons, allegories, and fables. Mandeville's celebrated "Fable of +the Bees" made a great noise in England. Here is a short sketch of it:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Once the bees, in worldly things,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Had a happy government;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And their laborers and their kings</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Made them wealthy and content;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But some greedy drones at last</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Found their way into their hive;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Those, in idleness to thrive,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Told the bees they ought to fast.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Sermons were <i>their</i> only labors;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Work they preached unto their neighbors.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">In their language they would say,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">"You shall surely go to heaven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">When to us you've freely given</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Wax and honey all away."—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Foolishly the bees believed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Till by famine undeceived;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">When their misery was complete,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">All the strange delusion vanished!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Now the drones are killed or banished,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And the bees again may eat.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Mandeville goes much further; he asserts that bees cannot live at their +ease in a great and powerful hive without many vices. "No kingdom, no +state," says he, "can flourish without vices. Take away the vanity of +ladies of quality, and there will be no more fine manufactures of silk, +no more employment for men and women in a thousand different branches; a +great part of the nation will be reduced to beggary. Take away the +avarice of our merchants, and the fleets of England will be annihilated. +Deprive artists of envy, and emulation will cease; we shall sink back +into primitive rudeness and ignorance."</p> + +<p>It is quite true that a well-governed society turns every vice to +account; but it is not true that these vices are necessary to the +well-being of the world. Very good remedies may be made from poisons, +but poisons do not contribute to the support of life. By thus reducing +the "Fable of the Bees" to its just value, it might be made a work of +moral utility.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BEGGAR_MENDICANT" id="BEGGAR_MENDICANT"></a>BEGGAR—MENDICANT</h3> + + +<p>Every country where begging, where mendicity, is a profession, is ill +governed. Beggary, as I have elsewhere said, is a vermin that clings to +opulence. Yes; but let it be shaken off; let the hospitals be for +sickness and age alone, and let the shops be for the young and vigorous.</p> + +<p>The following is an extract from a sermon composed by a preacher ten +years ago for the parish of St. Leu and St. Giles, which is the parish +of the beggars and the convulsionaries: "<i>Pauper es +evangelicantur</i>"—"the gospel is preached to the poor."</p> + +<p>"My dear brethren the beggars, what is meant by the word <i>gospel</i>? It +signifies <i>good news</i>. It is, then, good news that I come to tell you; +and what is it? It is that if you are idlers you will die on a +dung-hill. Know that there have been idle kings, so at least we are +told, and they at last had not where to lay their heads. If you work, +you will be as happy as other men.</p> + +<p>"The preachers at St. Eustache and St. Roche may deliver to the rich +very fine sermons in a flowery style, which procure for the auditors a +light slumber with an easy digestion, and for the orator a thousand +crowns; but I address those whom hunger keeps awake. Work for your +bread, I say; for the Scripture says that he who does not work deserves +not to eat. Our brother in adversity, Job, who was for some time in your +condition, says that man is born to labor as the bird is to fly. Look +at this immense city; every one is busy; the judges rise at four in the +morning to administer justice to you and send you to the galleys when +your idleness has caused you to thieve rather awkwardly.</p> + +<p>"The king works; he attends his council every day; and he has made +campaigns. Perhaps you will say he is none the richer. Granted; but that +is not his fault. The financiers know, better than you or I do, that not +one-half his revenue ever enters his coffers. He has been obliged to +sell his plate in order to defend us against our enemies. We should aid +him in our turn. The Friend of Man (<i>l'Ami des Hommes</i>) allows him only +seventy-five millions per annum. Another friend all at once gives him +seven hundred and forty. But of all these Job's comforters, not one will +advance him a single crown. It is necessary to invent a thousand +ingenious ways of drawing this crown from our pockets, which, before it +reaches his own, is diminished by at least one-half.</p> + +<p>"Work, then, my dear brethren; act for yourselves, for I forewarn you +that if you do not take care of yourselves, no one will take care of +you; you will be treated as the king has been in several grave +remonstrances; people will say, 'God help you.'</p> + +<p>"We will go into the provinces, you will answer; we skill be fed by the +lords of the land, by the farmers, by the curates. Do not flatter +yourselves, my dear brethren, that you shall eat at their tables; they +have for the most part enough to do to feed themselves, notwithstanding +the 'Method of Rapidly Getting Rich by Agriculture' and fifty other +works of the same kind, published every day at Paris for the use of the +people in the country, with the cultivation of which the authors never +had anything to do.</p> + +<p>"I behold among you young men of some talent, who say that they will +make verses, that they will write pamphlets, like Chisiac, Normotte, or +Patouillet; that they will work for the <i>'Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques'</i> +that they will write sheets for Fréron, funeral orations for bishops, +songs for the comic opera. Any of these would at least be an occupation. +When a man is writing for the <i>'Année Littéraire,'</i> he is not robbing on +the highway, he is only robbing his creditors. But do better, my dear +brethren in Jesus Christ—my dear beggars, who, by passing your lives in +asking charity, run the risk of the galleys; do better; enter one of the +four mendicant orders; you will then be not only rich, but honored +also."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BEKKER" id="BEKKER"></a>BEKKER,</h3> + +<h5>"THE WORLD BEWITCHED," THE DEVIL, THE BOOK OF ENOCH, AND SORCERERS.</h5> + + +<p>This Balthazar Bekker, a very good man, a great enemy of the everlasting +hell and the devil, and a still greater of precision, made a great deal +of noise in his time by his great book, "The World Bewitched."</p> + +<p>One Jacques-George de Chaufepied, a pretended continuator of Bayle, +assures us that Bekker learned Greek at Gascoigne. Niceron has good +reasons for believing that it was at Franeker. This historical point has +occasioned much doubt and trouble at court.</p> + +<p>The fact is that in the time of Bekker, a minister of the Holy +Gospel—as they say in Holland—the devil was still in prodigious credit +among divines of all sorts in the middle of the seventeenth century, in +spite of the good spirits which were beginning to enlighten the world. +Witchcraft, possessions, and everything else attached to that fine +divinity, were in vogue throughout Europe and frequently had fatal +results.</p> + +<p>A century had scarcely elapsed since King James himself—called by Henry +IV. <i>Master</i> James—that great enemy of the Roman communion and the +papal power, had published his "Demonology" (what a book for a king!) +and in it had admitted sorceries, incubuses, and succubuses, and +acknowledged the power of the devil, and of the pope, who, according to +him, had just as good a right to drive Satan from the bodies of the +possessed as any other priest. And we, miserable Frenchmen, who boast of +having recovered some small part of our senses, in what a horrid sink of +stupid barbarism were we then immersed! Not a parliament, not a +presidential court, but was occupied in trying sorcerers; not a great +jurisconsult who did not write memorials on possessions by the devil. +France resounded with the cries of poor imbecile creatures whom the +judges, after making them believe that they had danced round a cauldron, +tortured and put to death without pity, in horrible torments. Catholics +and Protestants were alike infected with this absurd and frightful +superstition; the pretext being that in one of the Christian gospels it +is said that disciples were sent to cast out devils. It was a sacred +duty to put girls to the torture in order to make them confess that they +had lain with Satan, and that they had fallen in love with him in the +form of a goat. All the particulars of the meetings of the girls with +this goat were detailed in the trials of the unfortunate individuals. +They were burned at last, whether they confessed or denied; and France +was one vast theatre of judicial carnage.</p> + +<p>I have before me a collection of these infernal proceedings, made by a +counsellor of the Parliament of Bordeaux, named De Langre, and addressed +to Monseigneur Silleri, chancellor of France, without Monseigneur +Silleri's having ever thought of enlightening those infamous +magistrates. But, indeed, it would have been necessary to begin by +enlightening the chancellor himself. What was France at that time? A +continual St. Bartholomew—from the massacre of Vassy to the +assassination of Marshal d'Ancre and his innocent wife.</p> + +<p>Will it be believed that in the time of this very Bekker, a poor girl +named Magdalen Chaudron, who had been persuaded that she was a witch, +was burned at Geneva?</p> + +<p>The following is a very exact summary of the procès-verbal of this +absurd and horrid act, which is not the last monument of the kind:</p> + +<p>"Michelle, having met the devil as she was going out of the town, the +devil gave her a kiss, received her homage, and imprinted on her upper +lip and her right breast the mark which it is his custom to affix on all +persons whom he recognizes as his favorites. This seal of the devil is a +small sign-manual, which, as demonological jurisconsults affirm, renders +the skin insensible.</p> + +<p>"The devil ordered Michelle Chaudron to bewitch two girls; and she +immediately obeyed her lord. The relatives of the young women judicially +charged her with devilish practices, and the girls themselves were +interrogated and confronted with the accused. They testified that they +constantly felt a swarming of ants in certain parts of their bodies, and +that they were possessed. The physicians were then called in, or at +least those who then passed as physicians. They visited the girls and +sought on Michelle's body for the devil's seal, which the procès-verbal +calls the <i>satanic marks</i>. They thrust a large needle into the spot, and +this of itself was a grievous torture. Blood flowed from the puncture; +and Michelle made known by her cries that satanic marks do not produce +insensibility. The judges, seeing no satisfactory evidence that Michelle +Chaudron was a witch, had her put to the torture, which never fails to +bring forth proofs. The unfortunate girl, yielding at length to the +violence of her tortures, confessed whatever was required of her.</p> + +<p>"The physicians again sought for the satanic mark. They found it in a +small dark spot on one of her thighs. They applied the needle; but the +torture had been so excessive that the poor, expiring creature scarcely +felt the wound; she did not cry out; therefore the crime was +satisfactorily proved. But, as manners were becoming less rude, she was +not burned until she had been hanged."</p> + +<p>Every tribunal in Christian Europe still rings with similar +condemnations; so long did this barbarous imbecility endure, that even +in our own day, at Würzburg, in Franconia, there was a witch burned in +1750. And what a witch! A young woman of quality, the abbess of a +convent! and in our own times, under the empire of Maria Theresa of +Austria!</p> + +<p>These horrors, by which Europe was so long filled, determined Bekker to +fight against the devil. In vain was he told, in prose and verse, that +he was doing wrong to attack him, seeing that he was extremely like him, +being horribly ugly; nothing could stop him. He began with absolutely +denying the power of Satan; and even grew so bold as to maintain that he +does not exist. "If," said he, "there were a devil, he would revenge the +war which I make upon him."</p> + +<p>Bekker reasoned but too well in saying that if the devil existed he +would punish him. His brother ministers took Satan's part and suspended +Bekker; for heretics will also excommunicate; and in the article of +cursing, Geneva mimics Rome.</p> + +<p>Bekker enters on his subject in the second volume. According to him, the +serpent which seduced our first parents was not a devil, but a real +serpent; as Balaam's ass was a real ass, and as the whale that swallowed +Jonah was a real whale. It was so decidedly a real serpent, that all its +species, which had before walked on their feet, were condemned to crawl +on their bellies. No serpent, no animal of any kind, is called Satan, or +Beelzebub, or devil, in the Pentateuch. There is not so much as an +allusion to Satan. The Dutch destroyer of Satan does, indeed, admit the +existence of angels; but at the same time he assures us that it cannot +be proved by reasoning. "And if there are any," says he, in the eighth +chapter of his second volume, "it is hard to say what they are. The +Scripture tells us nothing about their nature, nor in what the nature of +a spirit consists. The Bible was made, not for angels, but for men; +Jesus was made a man for us, not an angel."</p> + +<p>If Bekker has so many scruples concerning angels, it is not to be +wondered at that he has some concerning devils; and it is very amusing +to see into what contortions he puts his mind in order to avail himself +of such texts as appear to be in his favor and to evade such as are +against him.</p> + +<p>He does his utmost to prove that the devil had nothing to do with the +afflictions of Job; and here he is even more prolix than the friends of +that holy man.</p> + +<p>There is great probability that he was condemned only through the +ill-humor of his judges at having lost so much time in reading his work. +If the devil himself had been forced to read Bekker's "World Bewitched" +he could never have forgiven the fault of having so prodigiously wearied +him.</p> + +<p>One of our Dutch divine's greatest difficulties is to explain these +words: "Jesus was transported by the spirit into the desert to be +tempted by the devil." No text can be clearer. A divine may write +against Beelzebub as much as he pleases, but he must of necessity admit +his existence; he may then explain the difficult texts if he can.</p> + +<p>Whoever desires to know precisely what the devil is may be informed by +referring to the Jesuit Scott; no one has spoken of him more at length; +he is much worse than Bekker.</p> + +<p>Consulting history, where the ancient origin of the devil is to be found +in the doctrine of the Persians, Ahrimanes, the bad principle, corrupts +all that the good principle had made salutary. Among the Egyptians, +Typhon does all the harm he can; while Oshireth, whom we call Osiris, +does, together with Isheth, or Isis, all the good of which he is +capable.</p> + +<p>Before the Egyptians and Persians, Mozazor, among the Indians, had +revolted against God and become the devil, but God had at last pardoned +him. If Bekker and the Socinians had known this anecdote of the fall of +the Indian angels and their restoration, they would have availed +themselves of it to support their opinion that hell is not perpetual, +and to give hopes of salvation to such of the damned as read their +books.</p> + +<p>The Jews, as has already been observed, never spoke of the fall of the +angels in the Old Testament; but it is mentioned in the New.</p> + +<p>About the period of the establishment of Christianity a book was +attributed to "Enoch, the seventh man after Adam," concerning the devil +and his associates. Enoch gives us the names of the leaders of the +rebellious and the faithful angels, but he does not say that war was in +heaven; on the contrary, the fight was upon a mountain of the earth, and +it was for the possession of young women.</p> + +<p>St. Jude cites this book in his Epistle: "And the angels, which kept not +their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in +everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great +day.... Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain.... And +Enoch, also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these...."</p> + +<p>St. Peter in his second Epistle alludes to the Book of Enoch when he +says: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down +to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness...."</p> + +<p>Bekker must have found it difficult to resist passages so formal. +However, he was even more inflexible on the subject of devils than on +that of angels; he would not be subdued by the Book of Enoch, the +seventh man from Adam; he maintained that there was no more a devil than +there was a book of Enoch. He said that the devil was imitated from +ancient mythology, that it was an old story revived, and that we are +nothing more than plagiarists.</p> + +<p>We may at the present day be asked why we call that Lucifer the <i>evil +spirit</i>, whom the Hebrew version, and the book attributed to Enoch, +named Samyaza. It is because we understand Latin better than Hebrew.</p> + +<p>But whether Lucifer be the planet Venus, or the Samyaza of Enoch, or the +Satan of the Babylonians, or the Mozazor of the Indians, or the Typhon +of the Egyptians, Bekker was right in saying that so enormous a power +ought not to be attributed to him as that with which, even down to our +own times, he has been believed to be invested. It is too much to have +immolated to him a woman of quality of Würzburg, Magdalen Chaudron, the +curate of Gaupidi, the wife of Marshal d'Ancre, and more than a hundred +thousand other wizards and witches, in the space of thirteen hundred +years, in Christian states. Had Belthazar Bekker been content with +paring the devil's nails, he would have been very well received; but +when a curate would annihilate the devil he loses his cure.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BELIEF" id="BELIEF"></a>BELIEF.</h3> + + +<p>We shall see at the article "Certainty" that we ought often to be very +uncertain of what we are certain of; and that we may fail in good sense +when deciding according to what is called <i>common</i> sense. But what is it +that we call <i>believing</i>?</p> + +<p>A Turk comes and says to me, "I believe that the angel Gabriel often +descended from the empyrean, to bring Mahomet leaves of the Koran, +written on blue vellum."</p> + +<p>Well, Mustapha, and on what does thy shaven head found its belief of +this incredible thing?</p> + +<p>"On this: That there are the greatest probabilities that I have not been +deceived in the relation of these improbable prodigies; that Abubeker, +the father-in-law, Ali, the son-in-law, Aisha, or Aisse, the daughter, +Omar, and Osman, certified the truth of the fact in the presence of +fifty thousand men—gathered together all the leaves, read them to the +faithful, and attested that not a word had been altered.</p> + +<p>"That we have never had but one Koran, which has never been contradicted +by another Koran. That God has never permitted the least alteration to +be made in this book.</p> + +<p>"That its doctrine and precepts are the perfection of reason. Its +doctrine consists in the unity of God, for Whom we must live and die; in +the immortality of the soul; the eternal rewards of the just and +punishments of the wicked; and the mission of our great prophet +Mahomet, proved by victories.</p> + +<p>"Its precepts are: To be just and valiant; to give alms to the poor; to +abstain from that enormous number of women whom the Eastern princes, and +in particular the petty Jewish kings, took to themselves without +scruple; to renounce the good wines of Engaddi and Tadmor, which those +drunken Hebrews have so praised in their books; to pray to God five +times a day, etc.</p> + +<p>"This sublime religion has been confirmed by the miracle of all others +the finest, the most constant, and best verified in the history of the +world; that Mahomet, persecuted by the gross and absurd scholastic +magistrates who decreed his arrest, and obliged to quit his country, +returned victorious; that he made his imbecile and sanguinary enemies +his footstool; that he all his life fought the battles of the Lord; that +with a small number he always triumphed over the greater number; that he +and his successors have converted one-half of the earth; and that, with +God's help, we shall one day convert the other half."</p> + +<p>Nothing can be arrayed in more dazzling colors. Yet Mustapha, while +believing so firmly, always feels some small shadows of doubt arising in +his soul when he hears any difficulties started respecting the visits of +the angel Gabriel; the sura or chapter brought from heaven to declare +that the great prophet was not a cuckold; or the mare Borak, which +carried him in one night from Mecca to Jerusalem. Mustapha stammers; he +makes very bad answers, at which he blushes; yet he not only tells you +that he believes, but would also persuade you to believe. You press +Mustapha; he still gapes and stares, and at last goes away to wash +himself in honor of Allah, beginning his ablution at the elbow and +ending with the forefinger.</p> + +<p>Is Mustapha really persuaded—convinced of all that he has told us? Is +he perfectly sure that Mahomet was sent by God, as he is sure that the +city of Stamboul exists? as he is sure that the Empress Catherine II. +sent a fleet from the remotest seas of the North to land troops in +Peloponnesus—a thing as astonishing as the journey from Mecca to +Jerusalem in one night—and that this fleet destroyed that of the +Ottomans in the Dardanelles?</p> + +<p>The truth is that Mustapha believes what he does not believe. He has +been accustomed to pronounce, with his mollah, certain words which he +takes for ideas. To <i>believe</i> is very often to <i>doubt</i>.</p> + +<p>"Why do you believe that?" says Harpagon. "I believe it because I +believe it," answers Master Jacques; and most men might return the same +answer.</p> + +<p>Believe me fully, my dear reader, when I say one must not believe too +easily. But what shall we say of those who would persuade others of what +they themselves do not believe? and what of the monsters who persecute +their brethren in the humble and rational doctrine of doubt and +self-distrust?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BETHSHEMESH" id="BETHSHEMESH"></a>BETHSHEMESH.</h3> + +<h4><i>Of the Fifty Thousand and Seventy Jews Struck with Sudden Death for +Having Looked Upon the Ark; of the Five Golden Emeroids Paid by the +Philistines; and of Dr. Kennicott's Incredulity.</i></h4> + + +<p>Men of the world will perhaps be astonished to find this word the +subject of an article; but we here address only the learned and ask +their instruction.</p> + +<p>Bethshemesh was a village belonging to God's people, situated, according +to commentators, two miles north of Jerusalem. The Phœnicians having, +in Samuel's time, beaten the Jews, and taken from them their Ark of +alliance in the battle, in which they killed thirty thousand of their +men, were severely punished for it by the Lord:</p> + +<p><i>"Percussit eos in secretiori parte natium, et ebullierunt villæ et +agri.... et nati sunt mures, et facta est confusio mortis magna in +civitate."</i> Literally: "He struck them in the most secret part of the +buttocks; and the fields and the farmhouses were troubled.... and there +sprung up mice; and there was a great confusion of death in the city."</p> + +<p>The prophets of the Phœnicians, or Philistines, having informed them +that they could deliver themselves from the scourge only by giving to +the Lord five golden mice and five golden emeroids, and sending him back +the Jewish Ark, they fulfilled this order, and, according to the express +command of their prophets sent back the Ark with the mice and emeroids +on a wagon drawn by two cows, with each a sucking calf and without a +driver.</p> + +<p>These two cows of themselves took the Ark straight to Bethshemesh. The +men of Bethshemesh approached the Ark in order to look at it, which +liberty was punished yet more severely than the profanation by the +Phœnicians had been. The Lord struck with sudden death seventy men of +the people, and fifty thousand of the populace.</p> + +<p>The reverend Doctor Kennicott, an Irishman, printed in 1768 a French +commentary on this occurrence and dedicated it to the bishop of Oxford. +At the head of this commentary he entitles himself Doctor of Divinity, +member of the Royal Society of London, of the Palatine Academy, of the +Academy of Göttingen, and of the Academy of Inscriptions at Paris. All +that I know of the matter is that he is not of the Academy of +Inscriptions at Paris. Perhaps he is one of its correspondents. His vast +erudition may have deceived him, but titles are distinct from things.</p> + +<p>He informs the public that his pamphlet is sold at Paris by Saillant and +Molini, at Rome by Monaldini, at Venice by Pasquali, at Florence by +Cambiagi, at Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey, at The Hague by Gosse, at +Leyden by Jaquau, and in London by Beckett, who receives subscriptions.</p> + +<p>In this pamphlet he pretends to prove that the Scripture text has been +corrupted. Here we must be permitted to differ with him. Nearly all +Bibles agree in these expressions: seventy men of the people and fifty +thousand of the populace—<i>"De populo septuaginta viros, et quinquaginta +millia plebis."</i> The reverend Doctor Kennicott says to the right +reverend the lord bishop of Oxford that formerly there were strong +prejudices in favor of the Hebrew text, but that for seventeen years his +lordship and himself have been freed from their prejudices, after the +deliberate and attentive perusal of this chapter.</p> + +<p>In this we differ from Dr. Kennicott, and the more we read this chapter +the more we reverence the ways of the Lord, which are not our ways. It +is impossible, says Kennicott, for the candid reader not to feel +astonished and affected at the contemplation of fifty thousand men +destroyed in one village—men, too, employed in gathering the harvest.</p> + +<p>This does, it is true, suppose a hundred thousand persons, at least, in +that village, but should the doctor forget that the Lord had promised +Abraham that his posterity should be as numerous as the sands of the +sea?</p> + +<p>The Jews and the Christians, adds he, have not scrupled to express their +repugnance to attach faith to this destruction of fifty thousand and +seventy men.</p> + +<p>We answer that we are Christians and have no repugnance to attach faith +to whatever is in the Holy Scriptures. We answer, with the reverend +Father Calmet, that "if we were to reject whatever is extraordinary and +beyond the reach of our conception we must reject the whole Bible." We +are persuaded that the Jews, being under the guidance of God himself, +could experience no events but such as were stamped with the seal of the +Divinity and quite different from what happened to other men. We will +even venture to advance that the death of these fifty thousand and +seventy men is one of the least surprising things in the Old Testament.</p> + +<p>We are struck with astonishment still more reverential when Eve's +serpent and Balaam's ass talk; when the waters of the cataracts are +swelled by rain fifteen cubits above all the mountains; when we behold +the plagues of Egypt, and the six hundred and thirty thousand fighting +Jews flying on foot through the divided and suspended sea; when Joshua +stops the sun and moon at noonday; when Samson slays a thousand +Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass.... In those divine times all +was miracle, without exception, and we have the profoundest reverence +for all these miracles—for that ancient world which was not our world; +for that nature which was not our nature; for a divine book, in which +there can be nothing human.</p> + +<p>But we are astonished at the liberty which Dr. Kennicott takes of +calling those deists and atheists, who, while they revere the Bible more +than he does, differ from him in opinion. Never will it be believed that +a man with such ideas is of the Academy of Medals and Inscriptions. He +is, perhaps, of the Academy of Bedlam, the most ancient of all, and +whose colonies extend throughout the earth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BILHAH_BASTARDS" id="BILHAH_BASTARDS"></a>BILHAH—BASTARDS</h3> + + +<p>Bilhah, servant to Rachel, and Zilpah, servant to Leah, each bore the +patriarch Jacob two children, and, be it observed, that they inherited +like legitimate sons, as well as the eight other male children whom +Jacob had by the two sisters Leah and Rachel. It is true that all their +inheritance consisted in a blessing; whereas, William the Bastard +inherited Normandy.</p> + +<p>Thierri, a bastard of Clovis, inherited the best part of Gaul, invaded +by his father. Several kings of Spain and Naples have been bastards. In +Spain bastards have always inherited. King Henry of Transtamare was not +considered as an illegitimate king, though he was an illegitimate child, +and this race of bastards, founded in the house of Austria, reigned in +Spain until Philip V.</p> + +<p>The line of Aragon, who reigned in Naples in the time of Louis XII., +were bastards. Count de Dunois signed himself "the bastard of Orleans," +and letters were long preserved of the duke of Normandy, king of +England, which were signed "William the Bastard."</p> + +<p>In Germany it is otherwise; the descent must be pure; bastards never +inherit fiefs, nor have any estate. In France, as has long been the +case, a king's bastard cannot be a priest without a dispensation from +Rome, but he becomes a prince without any difficulty as soon as the king +acknowledges him to be the offspring of his sire, even though he be the +bastard of an adulterous father and mother. It is the same in Spain. The +bastard of a king of England may be a duke but not a prince. Jacob's +bastards were neither princes nor dukes; they had no lands, the reason +being that their father had none, but they were afterwards called +<i>patriarchs</i>, which may be rendered <i>arch-fathers</i>.</p> + +<p>It has been asked whether the bastards of the popes might be popes in +turn. Pope John XI. was, it is true, a bastard of Pope Sergius III., and +of the famous Marozia; but an instance is not a law.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BISHOP" id="BISHOP"></a>BISHOP.</h3> + + +<p>Samuel Ornik, a native of Basle, was, as is well known, a very amiable +young man, who, moreover, knew his German and Greek New Testament by +heart. At the age of twenty his parents sent him to travel. He was +commissioned to carry books to the coadjutor at Paris in the time of the +Fronde. He arrived at the archbishop's gate and was told by the Swiss +that <i>monseigneur</i> saw no one. "My dear fellow," said Ornik, "you are +very rude to your countrymen; the apostles allowed every one to +approach, and Jesus Christ desired that little children should come unto +him. I have nothing to ask of your master; on the contrary, I bring him +something." "Enter, then," said the Swiss.</p> + +<p>He waited an hour in the first ante-chamber. Being quite artless he +attacked with questions a domestic who was very fond of telling all he +knew about his master. "He must be pretty rich," said Ornik, "to have +such a swarm of pages and footmen running in and out of the house." "I +don't know," answered the other, "what his income is, but I hear Joli +and the Abbé Charier say that he is two millions in debt." "But who is +that lady who came out of a cabinet and is passing by?" "That is Madame +de Pomereu, one of his mistresses." "She is really very pretty, but I +have not read that the apostles had such company in their bedchambers in +a morning." "Ah! that, I believe, is monsieur, about to give audience." +"Say <i>sa grandeur, monseigneur</i>." "Well, with all my heart...." Ornik +saluted <i>sa grandeur</i>, presented his books, and was received with a most +gracious smile. <i>Sa grandeur</i> said three words to him, and stepped into +his carriage, escorted by fifty horsemen. In stepping in, monseigneur +dropped a sheath and Ornik was astonished that monseigneur should carry +so large an inkhorn. "Do you not see," said the talker, "that it is his +dagger? every one that goes to parliament wears his dagger?" Ornik +uttered an exclamation of astonishment, and departed.</p> + +<p>He went through France and was edified by town after town. From thence +he passed into Italy. In the papal territories he met a bishop with an +income of only a thousand crowns, who went on foot. Ornik, being +naturally kind, offered him a place in his cambiatura. "Signor, you are +no doubt going to comfort the sick?" "Sir, I am going to my master." +"Your master? He, no doubt, is Jesus Christ." "Sir, he is Cardinal +Azolino; I am his almoner. He gives me a very poor salary, but he has +promised to place me with Donna Olimpia, the favorite sister-in-law of +<i>nostro signore</i>." "What! are you in the pay of a cardinal? But do you +not know that there were no cardinals in the time of Jesus Christ and +St. John?" "Is it possible!" exclaimed the Italian prelate. "Nothing is +more true; you have read it in the Gospel." "I have never read it," +replied the bishop; "I know only the office of Our Lady." "I tell you +there were neither cardinals nor bishops, and when there were bishops +the priests were almost their equals, as St. Jerome, in several places, +assures us." "Holy Virgin" said the Italian, "I knew nothing about it; +and what of the popes?" "There were no popes either." The good bishop +crossed himself, thinking he was with the evil one, and leaped from the +side of his companion.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BLASPHEMY" id="BLASPHEMY"></a>BLASPHEMY.</h3> + + +<p>This is a Greek word signifying <i>an attack on reputation</i>. We find +blasphemia in Demosthenes. In the Greek Church it was used only to +express an injury done to God. The Romans never made use of this +expression, apparently not thinking that God's honor could be offended +like that of men.</p> + +<p>There scarcely exists one synonym. Blasphemy does not altogether convey +the idea of sacrilege. We say of a man who has taken God's name in +vain, who, in the violence of anger, has sworn—as it is expressed—by +the name of God, that he has <i>blasphemed</i>; but we do not say that he has +committed sacrilege. The sacrilegious man is he who perjures himself on +the gospel, who extends his rapacity to sacred things, who imbrues his +hands in the blood of priests.</p> + +<p>Great sacrileges have always been punished with death in all nations, +especially those accompanied by bloodshed. The author of the +<i>"Institutes au Droit Criminel"</i> reckons among divine high treasons in +the second degree, the non-observance of Sundays and holidays. He should +have said the non-observance attended with marked contempt, for simple +negligence is a sin, but not, as he calls it, a sacrilege. It is absurd +to class together, as this author does, simony, the carrying off of a +nun, and the forgetting to go to vespers on a holiday. It is one great +instance of the errors committed by writers on jurisprudence, who, not +having been called upon to make laws, take upon themselves to interpret +those of the state.</p> + +<p>Blasphemies uttered in intoxication, in anger, in the excess of +debauchery, or in the heat of unguarded conversation have been subjected +by legislators to much lighter penalties. For instance, the advocate +whom we have already cited says that the laws of France condemn simple +blasphemers to a fine for the first offence, which is doubled for the +second, tripled for the third, and quadrupled for the fourth offence; +for the fifth relapse the culprit is set in the pillory, for the sixth +relapse he is pilloried, and has his upper lip burned off with a hot +iron, and for the seventh he loses his tongue. He should have added that +this was an ordinance of the year 1666.</p> + +<p>Punishments are almost always arbitrary, which is a great defect in +jurisprudence. But this defect opens the way for clemency and +compassion, and this compassion is no other than the strictest justice, +for it would be horrible to punish a youthful indiscretion as poisoners +and parricides are punished. A sentence of death for an offence which +deserves nothing more than correction is no other than an assassination +committed with the sword of justice.</p> + +<p>Is it not to the purpose here to remark that what has been blasphemy in +one country has often been piety in another?</p> + +<p>Suppose a Tyrian merchant landed at the port of Canope: he might be +scandalized on seeing an onion, a cat, or a goat carried in procession; +he might speak indecorously of Isheth, Oshireth, and Horeth, or might +turn aside his head and not fall on his knees at the sight of a +procession with the parts of human generation larger than life; he might +express his opinion at supper, or even sing some song in which the +Tyrian sailors made a jest of the Egyptian absurdities. He might be +overheard by the maid of the inn, whose conscience would not suffer her +to conceal so enormous a crime; she would run and denounce the offender +to the nearest shoen that bore the image of the truth on his breast, and +it is known how this image of truth was made. The tribunal of the +shoens, or shotim, would condemn the Tyrian blasphemer to a dreadful +death, and confiscate his vessel. Yet this merchant might be considered +at Tyre as one of the most pious persons in Phœnicia.</p> + +<p>Numa sees that his little horde of Romans is a Collection of Latin +freebooters who steal right and left all they can find—oxen, sheep, +fowls, and girls. He tells them that he has spoken with the nymph Egeria +in a cavern, and that the nymph has been employed by Jupiter to give him +laws. The senators treat him at first as a blasphemer and threaten to +throw him headlong from the Tarpeian rock. Numa makes himself a powerful +party; he gains over some seniors who go with him into Egeria's grotto. +She talks to them and converts them; they convert the senate and the +people. In a little time Numa is no longer a blasphemer, the name is +given only to such as doubt the existence of the nymph.</p> + +<p>In our own times it is unfortunate that what is blasphemy at Rome, at +our Lady of Loretto, and within the walls of San Gennaro, is piety in +London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, Copenhagen, Berne, Basel, and +Hamburg. It is yet more unfortunate that even in the same country, in +the same town, in the same street, people treat one another as +blasphemers.</p> + +<p>Nay, of the ten thousand Jews living at Rome there is not one who does +not regard the pope as the chief of the blasphemers, while the hundred +thousand Christians who inhabit Rome, in place of two millions of +Jovians who filled it in Trajan's time, firmly believe that the Jews +meet in their synagogues on Saturday for the purpose of blaspheming.</p> + +<p>A Cordelier has no hesitation in applying the epithet of blasphemer to a +Dominican who says that the Holy Virgin was born in original sin, +notwithstanding that the Dominicans have a bull from the pope which +permits them to teach the maculate conception in their convents, and +that, besides this bull, they have in their forum the express +declaration of St. Thomas Aquinas.</p> + +<p>The first origin of the schism of three-fourths of Switzerland and a +part of Lower Germany was a quarrel in the cathedral church of Frankfort +between a Cordelier, whose name I forget, and a Dominican named Vigand.</p> + +<p>Both were drunk, according to the custom of that day. The drunken +Cordelier, who was preaching, thanked God that he was not a Jacobin, +swearing that it was necessary to exterminate the blaspheming Jacobins +who believed that the Holy Virgin had been born in mortal sin, and +delivered from sin only by the merits of her son. The drunken Jacobin +cried out: "Thou hast lied; thou thyself art a blasphemer." The +Cordelier descended from the pulpit with a great iron crucifix in his +hand, laid it about his adversary, and left him almost dead on the spot.</p> + +<p>To revenge this outrage the Dominicans worked many miracles in Germany +and Switzerland; these miracles were designed to prove their faith. +They at length found means to imprint the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ +on one of their lay brethren named Jetzer. This operation was performed +at Berne by the Holy Virgin herself, but she borrowed the hand of the +sub-prior, who dressed himself in female attire and put a glory round +his head. The poor little lay brother, exposed all bloody to the +veneration of the people on the altar of the Dominicans at Berne, at +last cried out murder! sacrilege! The monks, in order to quiet him as +quickly as possible administered to him a host sprinkled with corrosive +sublimate, but the excess of the dose made him discharge the host from +his stomach.</p> + +<p>The monks then accused him to the bishop of Lausanne of horrible +sacrilege. The indignant people of Berne in their turn accused the +monks, and four of them were burned at Berne on the 13th of May, 1509, +at the Marsilly gate. Such was the termination of this abominable +affair, which determined the people of Berne to choose a religion, bad +indeed in Catholic eyes, but which delivered them from the Cordeliers +and the Jacobins. The number of similar sacrileges is incredible. Such +are the effects of party spirit.</p> + +<p>The Jesuits maintained for a hundred years that the Jansenists were +blasphemers, and proved it by a thousand <i>lettres-de-cachet</i>; the +Jansenists by upwards of four thousand volumes demonstrated that it was +the Jesuits who blasphemed. The writer of the <i>"Gazettes +Ecclésiastiques"</i> pretends that all honest men blaspheme against him, +while he himself blasphemes from his garret on high against every honest +man in the kingdom. The gazette-writer's publisher blasphemes in return +and complains that he is starving. He would find it better to be honest +and polite.</p> + +<p>One thing equally remarkable and consoling is that never in any country +of the earth, among the wildest idolaters, has any man been considered +as a blasphemer for acknowledging one supreme, eternal, and all-powerful +God. It certainly was not for having acknowledged this truth that +Socrates was condemned to the hemlock, for the doctrine of a Supreme God +was announced in all the Grecian mysteries. It was a faction that +destroyed Socrates; he was accused, at a venture, of not recognizing the +<i>secondary</i> gods, and on this point it was that he was accused as a +blasphemer.</p> + +<p>The first Christians were accused of blasphemy for the same reason, but +the partisans of the ancient religion of the empire, the Jovians, who +reproached the primitive Christians with blasphemy, were at length +condemned as blasphemers themselves, under Theodosius II. Dryden says:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">This side to-day, to-morrow t'other burns,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And they're all Gods Almighty in their turns.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BODY" id="BODY"></a>BODY.</h3> + + +<p>Body and matter are here the same thing although there is hardly any +such thing as synonym in the most rigorous sense of the word. There have +been persons who by this word "body" have understood "spirit" also. +They have said spirit originally signifies breath; only a body can +breathe, therefore body and spirit may, after all, be the same thing. In +this sense La Fontaine said to the celebrated Duke de la Rochefoucauld: +<i>"J'entens les esprits corps et pétris de matière."</i> In the same sense +he says to Madame Sablière:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Je subtiliserais un morceau de matière,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Quintessence d'atome, extrait de la lumière,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>je ne sais quoiplus vif et plus subtil encor....</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>No one thought of harassing good Monsieur La Fontaine, or bringing him +to trial for his expressions. Were a poor philosopher, or even a poet, +to say as much nowadays, how many would there be to fall on him! How +many scribblers to sell their extracts for sixpence! How many knaves, +for the sole purpose of making mischief, to cry philosopher! +peripatetic! disciple of Gassendi! pupil of Locke, and the primitive +fathers! damnable!</p> + +<p>As we know not what a spirit is, so also we are ignorant of what a body +is; we see various properties, but what is the subject in which those +properties reside? "There is nothing but body," said Democritus and +Epicurus; "there is no such thing as body," said the disciples of Zeno, +of Elia.</p> + +<p>Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne, is the last who, by a hundred captious +sophisms, has pretended to prove that bodies do not exist. They have, +says he, neither color, nor smell, nor heat; all these modalities are +in your sensations, not in the objects. He might have spared himself +the trouble of proving this truth for it was already sufficiently known. +But thence he passed to extent and solidity, which are essential to +body, and thinks he proves that there is no extent in a piece of green +cloth because the cloth is not in reality green, the sensation of green +being in ourselves only, therefore the sensation of extent is likewise +in ourselves only. Having thus destroyed extent he concludes that +solidity, which is attached to it, falls of itself, and therefore that +there is nothing in the world but our ideas. So that, according to this +doctor, ten thousand men killed by ten thousand cannon shots are in +reality nothing more than ten thousand apprehensions of our +understanding, and when a female becomes pregnant it is only one idea +lodged in another idea from which a third idea will be produced.</p> + +<p>Surely, the bishop of Cloyne might have saved himself from falling into +this excessive absurdity. He thinks he shows that there is no extent +because a body has appeared to him four times as large through a glass +as to his naked eye, and four times as small through another glass. +Hence he concludes, that, since a body cannot be at the same time four +feet, sixteen feet, and but one foot in extent, there is no extent, +therefore there is nothing. He had only to take any measure and say: of +whatever extent this body may appear to me to be, it extends to so many +of these measures.</p> + +<p>We might very easily see that extent and solidity were quite different +from sound, color, taste, smell. It is quite clear that these are +sensations excited in us by the configuration of parts, but extent is +not a sensation. When this lighted coal goes out, I am no longer warm; +when the air is no longer struck, I cease to hear; when this rose +withers, I no longer smell it: but the coal, the air, and the rose have +extent without me. Berkeley's paradox is not worth refuting.</p> + +<p>Thus argued Zeno and Parmenides of old, and very clever they were; they +would prove to you that a tortoise went along as swiftly as Achilles, +for there was no such thing as motion; they discussed a hundred other +questions equally important. Most of the Greeks made philosophy a +juggle, and they transmitted their art to our schoolmen. Bayle himself +was occasionally one of the set and embroidered cobwebs like the rest. +In his article, "Zeno," against the divisible extent of matter and the +contiguity of bodies he ventures to say what would not be tolerated in +any six-months geometrician.</p> + +<p>It is worth knowing how Berkeley was drawn into this paradox. A long +while ago I had some conversation with him, and he told me that his +opinion originated in our being unable to conceive what the subject of +this extension is, and certainly, in his book, he triumphs when he asks +Hylas what this subject, this substratum, this substance is? It is the +extended body, answers Hylas. Then the bishop, under the name of +Philonous, laughs at him, and poor Hylas, finding that he has said that +extension is the subject of extension, and has therefore talked +nonsense, remains quite confused, acknowledges that he understands +nothing at all of the matter; that there is no such thing as body; that +the natural world does not exist, and that there is none but an +intellectual world.</p> + +<p>Hylas should only have said to Philonous: We know nothing of the subject +of this extension, solidity, divisibility, mobility, figure, etc.; I +know no more of it than I do of the subject of thought, feeling, and +will, but the subject does not the less exist for it has essential +properties of which it cannot be deprived.</p> + +<p>We all resemble the greater part of the Parisian ladies who live well +without knowing what is put in their ragouts; just so do we enjoy bodies +without knowing of what they are composed. Of what does a body consist? +Of parts, and these parts resolve themselves into other parts. What are +these last parts? They, too, are bodies; you divide incessantly without +making any progress.</p> + +<p>In short, a subtle philosopher, observing that a picture was made of +ingredients of which no single ingredient was a picture, and a house of +materials of which no one material was a house, imagined that bodies are +composed of an infinity of small things which are not bodies, and these +are called monads. This system is not without its merits, and, were it +revealed, I should think it very possible. These little beings would be +so many mathematical points, a sort of souls, waiting only for a +tenement: here would be a continual metempsychosis. This system is as +good as another; I like it quite as well as the declination of atoms, +the substantial forms, the versatile grace, or the vampires.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BOOKS" id="BOOKS"></a>BOOKS.</h3> + + +<h5>SECTION I.</h5> + +<p>You despise books; you, whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of +ambition, the pursuit of pleasure, or in indolence, but remember that +all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by +books. All Africa, to the limits of Ethiopia and Nigritia obeys the book +of the Koran after bowing to the book of the Gospel. China is ruled by +the moral book of Confucius, and a great part of India by the Veda. +Persia was governed for ages by the books of one of the Zoroasters.</p> + +<p>In a lawsuit or criminal process, your property, your honor, perhaps +your life, depends on the interpretation of a book which you never read. +It is, however, with books as with men, a very small number play a great +part, the rest are confounded with the multitude.</p> + +<p>By whom are mankind led in all civilized countries? By those who can +read and write. You are acquainted with neither Hippocrates, nor +Boerhaave, nor Sydenham, but you place your body in the hands of those +who can read them. You leave your soul entirely to the care of those +who are paid for reading the Bible, although there are not fifty of them +who have read it through with attention.</p> + +<p>The world is now so entirely governed by books that they who command in +the city of the Scipios and the Catos have resolved that the books of +their law shall be for themselves alone; they are their sceptre, which +they have made it high treason in their subjects to touch without an +express permission. In other countries it has been forbidden to think in +print without letters-patent.</p> + +<p>There are nations in which thought is considered merely as an article of +commerce, the operations of the human understanding being valued only at +so much per sheet. If the bookseller happens to desire a privilege for +his merchandise whether he is selling "Rabelais," or the "Fathers of the +Church," the magistrate grants the privilege without answering for the +contents of the book.</p> + +<p>In another country the liberty of explaining yourself by books is one of +the most inviolable prerogatives. There you may print whatever you +please, on pain of being tiresome, and of being punished if you have too +much abused your natural right.</p> + +<p>Before the admirable invention of printing, books were scarcer and +dearer than jewels. There were scarcely any books in our barbarous +nations, either before Charlemagne or after him, until the time of +Charles V., king of France, called the Wise, and from this time to +Francis I. the scarcity was extreme. The Arabs alone had them from the +eighth to the thirteenth century of our era. China was full of them when +we could neither read nor write.</p> + +<p>Copyists were much employed in the Roman Empire from the time of the +Scipios until the irruption of the barbarians. This was a very +ungrateful employment. The dealers always paid authors and copyists very +ill. It required two years of assiduous labor for a copyist to +transcribe the whole Bible well on vellum, and what time and trouble to +copy correctly in Greek and Latin the works of Origen, Clement of +Alexandria and all the others writers called Fathers!</p> + +<p>St. Hieronymos, or Hieronymus, whom we call Jerome, says, in one of his +satirical letters against Rufinus that he has ruined himself with buying +the works of Origen, against whom he wrote with so much bitterness and +violence. "Yes," says he, "I have read Origen, if it be a crime I +confess that I am guilty and that I exhausted my purse in buying his +works at Alexandria."</p> + +<p>The Christian societies of the three first centuries had fifty-four +gospels, of which, until Diocletian's time scarcely two or three copies +found their way among the Romans of the old religion.</p> + +<p>Among the Christians it was an unpardonable crime to show the gospels to +the Gentiles; they did not even lend them to the catechumens.</p> + +<p>When Lucian (insulting our religion of which he knew very little) +relates that "a troop of beggars took him up into a fourth story where +they were invoking the Father through the Son, and foretelling +misfortunes to the emperor and the empire," he does not say that they +showed him a single book. No Roman historian, no Roman author whomsoever +makes mention of the gospels.</p> + +<p>When a Christian, who was unfortunately rash and unworthy of his holy +religion had publicly torn in pieces and trampled under foot an edict of +the Emperor Diocletian, and had thus drawn down upon Christianity that +persecution which succeeded the greatest toleration, the Christians were +then obliged to give up their gospels and written authors to the +magistrates, which before then had never been done. Those who gave up +their books through fear of imprisonment, or even of death, were held by +the rest of the Christians to be sacrilegious apostates, they received +the surname of <i>traditores</i>, whence we have the word "traitor," and +several bishops asserted that they should be rebaptized, which +occasioned a dreadful schism.</p> + +<p>The poems of Homer were long so little known that Pisistratus was the +first who put them in order and had them transcribed at Athens about +five hundred years before the Christian era.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there was not at this time in all the East a dozen copies of the +Veda and the Zend-Avesta.</p> + +<p>In 1700 you would not have found a single book in all Rome, excepting +the missals and a few Bibles in the hands of papas drunk with brandy.</p> + +<p>The complaint now is of their too great abundance. But it is not for +readers to complain, the remedy is in their own hands; nothing forces +them to read. Nor for authors, they who make the multitude of books have +not to complain of being pressed. Notwithstanding this enormous quantity +how few people read! But if they read, and read with advantage, should +we have to witness the deplorable infatuations to which the vulgar are +still every day a prey?</p> + +<p>The reason that books are multiplied in spite of the general law that +beings shall not be multiplied without necessity, is that books are made +from books. A new history of France or Spain is manufactured from +several volumes already printed, without adding anything new. All +dictionaries are made from dictionaries; almost all new geographical +books are made from other books of geography; St. Thomas's Dream has +brought forth two thousand large volumes of divinity, and the same race +of little worms that have devoured the parent are now gnawing the +children.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Écrive qui voudra, chacun a son métier</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Peut perdre impunément de l'encre et du papier.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Write, write away; each writer at his pleasure</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">May squander ink and paper without measure.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5>SECTION II.</h5> + +<p>It is sometimes very dangerous to make a book. Silhouète, before he +could suspect that he should one day be comptroller-general of the +finances, published a translation of Warburton's "Alliance of Church +and State," and his father-in-law, Astuce the physician, gave to the +public the "Memoirs," in which the author of the Pentateuch might have +found all the astonishing things which happened so long before his time.</p> + +<p>The very day that Silhouète came into office, some good friend of his +sought out a copy of each of these books by the father-in-law and +son-in-law, in order to denounce them to the parliament and have them +condemned to the flames, according to custom. They immediately bought up +all the copies in the kingdom, whence it is that they are now extremely +rare.</p> + +<p>There is hardly a single philosophical or theological book in which +heresies and impieties may not be found by misinterpreting, or adding +to, or subtracting from, the sense.</p> + +<p>Theodore of Mopsuestes ventured to call the "Canticle of Canticles," "a +collection of impurities." Grotius pulls it in pieces and represents it +as horrid, and Chatillon speaks of it as "a scandalous production."</p> + +<p>Perhaps it will hardly be believed that Dr. Tamponet one day said to +several others: "I would engage to find a multitude of heresies in the +Lord's Prayer if this prayer, which we know to have come from the Divine +mouth, were now for the first time published by a Jesuit."</p> + +<p>I would proceed thus: "Our Father, who art in heaven—" a proposition +inclining to heresy, since God is everywhere. Nay, we find in this +expression the leaven of Socinianism, for here is nothing at all said of +the Trinity.</p> + +<p>"Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven—" +another proposition tainted with heresy, for it said again and again in +the Scriptures that God reigns eternally. Moreover it is very rash to +ask that His will may be done, since nothing is or can be done but by +the will of God.</p> + +<p>"Give us this day our daily bread"—a proposition directly contrary to +what Jesus Christ uttered on another occasion: "Take no thought, saying +what shall we eat? or what shall we drink?... for after all these things +do the Gentiles seek.... But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His +righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."</p> + +<p>"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors—" a rash +proposition, which compares man to God, destroys gratuitous +predestination, and teaches that God is bound to do to us as we do to +others. Besides, how can the author say that we forgive our debtors? We +have never forgiven them a single crown. No convent in Europe ever +remitted to its farmers the payment of a sou. To dare to say the +contrary is a formal heresy.</p> + +<p>"Lead us not into temptation—" a proposition scandalous and manifestly +heretical, for there is no tempter but the devil, and it is expressly +said in St. James' Epistle: "God is no tempter of the wicked; He tempts +no man."—<i>"Deus enim intentator malorum est; ipse autem neminem +tentat."</i></p> + +<p>You see, then, said Doctor Tamponet, that there is nothing, though ever +so venerable, to which a bad sense may not be given. What book, then, +shall not be liable to human censure when even the Lord's Prayer may be +attacked, by giving a diabolical interpretation to all the divine words +that compose it?</p> + +<p>As for me, I tremble at the thought of making a book. Thank God, I have +never published anything; I have not even—like brothers La Rue, Du +Ceveau, and Folard—had any of my theatrical pieces played, it would be +too dangerous.</p> + +<p>If you publish, a parish curate accuses you of heresy; a stupid +collegian denounces you; a fellow that cannot read condemns you; the +public laugh at you; your bookseller abandons you, and your wine +merchant gives you no more credit. I always add to my paternoster, +"Deliver me, O God, from the itch of bookmaking."</p> + +<p>O ye who, like myself, lay black on white and make clean paper dirty! +call to mind the following verses which I remember to have read, and by +which we should have been corrected:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Tout ce fatras fat du chauvre en son temps,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Linge il devint par l'art des tisserands;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Puis en lambeaux des pilons le pressèrent</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Il fut papier. Cent cerveaux à l'envers</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>De visions à l'envi le chargèrent;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Puis on le brûle; il vole dans les airs,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Il est fumée aussi bien que la gloire.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>De nos travaux voilà quelle est l'histoire,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Tout est fumée, et tout nous fait sentir</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Ce grand néant qui doit nous engloutir.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">This miscellaneous rubbish once was flax,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Till made soft linen by the honest weaver;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But when at length it dropped from people's backs,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'Twas turned to paper, and became receiver</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Of all that fifty motley brains could fashion;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">So now 'tis burned without the least compassion;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">It now, like glory, terminates in smoke;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Thus all our toils are nothing but a joke—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">All ends in smoke; each nothing that we follow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Tells of the nothing that must all things swallow.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<h5>SECTION III.</h5> + +<p>Books are now multiplied to such a degree that it is impossible not only +to read them all but even to know their number and their titles. +Happily, one is not obliged to read all that is published, and +Caramuel's plan for writing a hundred folio volumes and employing the +spiritual and temporal power of princes to compel their subjects to read +them, has not been put in execution. Ringelburg, too, had formed the +design of composing about a thousand different volumes, but, even had he +lived long enough to publish them he would have fallen far short of +Hermes Trismegistus, who, according to Jamblicus, composed thirty-six +thousand five hundred and twenty-five books. Supposing the truth of this +fact, the ancients had no less reason than the moderns to complain of +the multitude of books.</p> + +<p>It is, indeed, generally agreed that a small number of choice books is +sufficient. Some propose that we should confine ourselves to the Bible +or Holy Scriptures, as the Turks limit themselves to the Koran. But +there is a great difference between the feelings of reverence +entertained by the Mahometans for their Koran and those of the +Christians for the Scriptures. The veneration testified by the former +when speaking of the Koran cannot be exceeded. It is, say they, the +greatest of all miracles; nor are all the men in existence put together +capable of anything at all approaching it; it is still more wonderful +that the author had never studied, nor read any book. The Koran alone is +worth sixty thousand miracles (the number of its verses, or +thereabouts); one rising from the dead would not be a stronger proof of +the truth of a religion than the composition of the Koran. It is so +perfect that it ought not to be regarded as a work of creation.</p> + +<p>The Christians do indeed say that their Scriptures were inspired by the +Holy Ghost, yet not only is it acknowledged by Cardinal Cajetan and +Bellarmine that errors have found their way into them through the +negligence and ignorance of the book-sellers and the rabbis, who added +the points, but they are considered as a book too dangerous for the +hands of the majority of the faithful. This is expressed by the fifth +rule of the Index, a congregation at Rome, whose office it is to examine +what books are to be forbidden. It is as follows:</p> + +<p>"Since it is evident that if the reading of the Bible, translated into +the vulgar tongue, were permitted to every one indiscriminately the +temerity of mankind would cause more evil than good to arise +therefrom—we will that it be referred to the judgment of the bishop or +inquisitor, who, with the advice of the curate or confessor, shall have +power to grant permission to read the Bible rendered in the vulgar +tongue by Catholic writers, to those to whom they shall judge that such +reading will do no harm; they must have this permission in writing and +shall not be absolved until they have returned their Bible into the +hands of the ordinary. As for such book-sellers as shall sell Bibles in +the vulgar tongue to those who have not this written permission, or in +any other way put them into their hands, they shall lose the price of +the books (which the bishop shall employ for pious purposes), and shall +moreover be punished by arbitrary penalties. Nor shall regulars read or +buy these books without the permission of their superiors."</p> + +<p>Cardinal Duperron also asserted that the Scriptures, in the hands of the +unlearned, were a two-edged knife which might wound them, to avoid which +it was better that they should hear them from the mouth of the Church, +with the solutions and interpretations of such passages as appear to the +senses to be full of absurdity and contradiction, than that they should +read them by themselves without any solution or interpretation. He +afterwards made a long enumeration of these absurdities in terms so +unqualified that Jurieu was not afraid to declare that he did not +remember to have read anything so frightful or so scandalous in any +Christian author.</p> + +<p>Jurieu, who was so violent t in his invectives against Cardinal +Duperron, had himself to sustain similar reproaches from the Catholics. +"I heard that minister," says Pap, in speaking of him, "teaching the +public that all the characteristics of the Holy Scriptures on which +those pretended reformers had founded their persuasion of their +divinity, did not appear to him to be sufficient. 'Let it not be +inferred,' said Jurieu, 'that I wish to take from the light and strength +of the characteristics of Scripture, but I will venture to affirm that +there is not one of them which may not be eluded by the profane. There +is not one of them that amounts to a proof; not one to which something +may not be said in answer, and, considered altogether, although they +have greater power than separately to work a moral conviction—that is, +a proof on which to found a certainty excluding every doubt—I own that +nothing seems to me to be more opposed to reason than to say that these +characteristics are of themselves capable of producing such a +certainty."</p> + +<p>It is not then astonishing that the Jews and the first Christians, who, +we find in the Acts of the Apostles, confined themselves in their +meetings to the reading of the Bible, were, as will be seen in the +article "Heresy," divided into different sects. For this reading was +afterwards substituted that of various apocryphal works, or at least of +extracts from them. The author of the "Synopsis of Scripture," which we +find among the works of St. Athanasius, expressly avows that there are +in the apocryphal books things most true and inspired by God which have +been selected and extracted for the perusal of the faithful.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BOURGES" id="BOURGES"></a>BOURGES.</h3> + + +<p>Our questions have but little to do with geography, but we shall, +perhaps, be permitted to express in a few words our astonishment +respecting the town of Bourges. The Trévoux Dictionary asserts that "it +is one of the most ancient in Europe; that it was the seat of empire of +the Gauls, and gave laws to the Celts."</p> + +<p>I will not combat the antiquity of any town or of any family. But was +there ever an empire of Gaul? had the Celts kings? This rage for +antiquity is a malady which is not easily cured. In Gaul, in Germany, +and in the North there is nothing ancient but the soil, the trees, and +the animals. If you will have antiquities go to Asia, and even there +they are hardly to be found. Man is ancient, but monuments are new; this +has already been said in more articles than one.</p> + +<p>If to be born within a certain stone or wooden limit more ancient than +another were a real good it would be no more than reasonable to date the +foundation of the town from the giants' war, but since this vanity is in +no wise advantageous let it be renounced. This is all I have to say +about Bourges.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BRACHMANS_BRAHMINS" id="BRACHMANS_BRAHMINS"></a>BRACHMANS—BRAHMINS.</h3> + + +<p>Courteous reader, observe, in the first place, that Father Thomassin, +one of the most learned men of modern Europe, derives the Brachmans +from the Jewish word <i>barac</i>, by a <i>c</i>—supposing, of course, that the +Jews had a <i>c</i>. This <i>barac</i>, says he, signified <i>to fly</i>; and the +Brachmans fled from the towns—supposing that there were any towns.</p> + +<p>Or, if you like it better, Brachmans comes from <i>barak</i> by a <i>k</i>, +meaning to <i>bless</i> or to <i>pray</i>. But why might not the Biscayans name +the Brahmins from the word <i>bran</i>? which expresses—I will not say what. +They had as good a right as the Hebrews. Really, this is a strange sort +of erudition. By rejecting it entirely, we should know less, but we +should know it better.</p> + +<p>Is it not likely that the Brahmins were the first legislators, the first +philosophers, the first divines, of the earth? Do not the few remaining +monuments of ancient history form a great presumption in their favor? +since the first Greek philosophers went to them to learn mathematics; +and the most ancient curiosities, those collected by the emperors of +China, are all Indian, as is attested by the relations in Du Halde's +collection.</p> + +<p>Of the Shastah, we shall speak elsewhere. It is the first theological +book of the Brahmins, written about fifteen hundred years before the +Vedah, and anterior to all other books.</p> + +<p>Their annals make no mention of any war undertaken by them at any time. +The words "arms," "killing," "maiming," are to be found neither in the +fragments of the Shastah that have reached us, nor in the Yajurvedah, +nor in the Kormovedah. At least, I can affirm that I have not seen them +in either of these two latter collections; and it is most singular that +the Shastah, which speaks of a conspiracy in heaven, makes no mention of +any war in the great peninsula between the Indus and Ganges.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 526px;"> +<a name="Alexanders_Triumph" id="Alexanders_Triumph"></a> +<img src="images/img_04_alexander.jpg" width="526" alt="Alexander's Triumph.—India was unknown until after Alexander's conquests." title="" /> +<span class="caption_fig">Alexander's Triumph.—India was unknown until after Alexander's conquests.</span> +</div> + + +<p>The Hebrews, who were unknown until so late a period, never name the +Brahmins; they knew nothing of India till after Alexander's conquests +and their own settling in that Egypt of which they had spoken so ill. +The name of India is to be found only in the book of Esther, and in that +of Job, who was not a Hebrew. We find a singular contrast between the +sacred books of the Hebrews and those of the Indians. The Indian books +announce only peace and mildness; they forbid the killing of animals: +but the Hebrew books speak of nothing but the slaughter and massacre of +men and beasts; all are butchered in the name of the Lord; it is quite +another order of things.</p> + +<p>We are incontestably indebted to the Brahmins for the idea of the fall +of celestial beings revolting against the Sovereign of Nature; and it +was probably from them that the Greeks took the fable of the Titans; and +lastly, from them it was that the Jews, in the first century of our era, +took the idea of Lucifer's revolt.</p> + +<p>How could these Indians suppose a rebellion in heaven without having +seen one on earth? Such a leap from the human to the divine nature is +difficult of comprehension. We usually step from what is known to what +is unknown.</p> + +<p>A war of giants would not be imagined, until some men more robust than +the rest had been seen to tyrannize over their fellow-men. To imagine +the like in heaven, the Brahmins must either have experienced violent +discords among themselves, or at least have witnessed them among their +neighbors.</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, it is an astonishing phenomenon that a society of men +who had never made war should have invented a sort of war carried on in +imaginary space, or in a globe distant from our own, or in what is +called the firmament—the empyrean. But let it be carefully observed, +that in this revolt of the celestial beings against their Sovereign, +there were no blows given, no celestial blood spilled, no mountains +thrown at one another's heads, no angels deft in twain, as in Milton's +sublime and grotesque poem.</p> + +<p>According to the Shastah, it was only a formal disobedience of the +orders of the Most High, which God punished by relegating the rebellious +angels to a vast place of darkness called Onderah, for the term of a +whole mononthour. A mononthour is a hundred and twenty-six millions of +our years. But God vouchsafed to pardon the guilty at the end of five +thousand years, and their Onderah was nothing more than a purgatory.</p> + +<p>He turned them into <i>Mhurd</i>, or men, and placed them on our globe, on +condition that they should not eat animals, nor cohabit with the males +of their new species, on pain of returning to the Onderah.</p> + +<p>These are the principal articles of the Brahmin faith, which has endured +without intermission from time immemorial to the present day.</p> + +<p>This is but a small part of the ancient cosmogony of the Brahmins. Their +rites, their pagods, prove that among them all was allegorical. They +still represent Virtue in the form of a woman with ten arms, combating +ten mortal sins typified by monsters. Our missionaries were acute enough +to take this image of Virtue for that of the devil, and affirm that the +devil is worshipped in India. We have never visited that people but to +enrich ourselves and calumniate them.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>The Metempsychosis of the Brahmins.</i></p> + +<p>The doctrine of the metempsychosis comes from an ancient law of feeding +on cow's milk as well as on vegetables, fruits, and rice. It seemed +horrible to the Brahmins to kill and eat their feeder; and they had soon +the same respect for goats, sheep, and all other animals: they believed +them to be animated by the rebellious angels, who were completing their +purification in the bodies of beasts as well as in those of men. The +nature of the climate seconded, or rather originated this law. A burning +atmosphere creates a necessity for refreshing food, and inspires horror +for our custom of stowing carcasses in our stomachs.</p> + +<p>The opinion that beasts have souls was general throughout the East, and +we find vestiges of it in the ancient sacred writings. In the book of +Genesis, God forbids men to eat "their flesh with their blood and their +soul." Such is the import of the Hebrew text. "I will avenge," says he, +"the blood of your souls on the claws of beasts and the hands of men." +In Leviticus he says, "The soul of the flesh is in the blood." He does +more; he makes a solemn compact with man and with all animals, which +supposes an intelligence in the latter.</p> + +<p>In much later times, Ecclesiasticus formally says, "God shows that man +is like to the beasts; for men die like beasts; their condition is +equal; as man dies, so also dies the beast. They breathe alike. There is +nothing in man more than in the beast." Jonah, when he went to preach at +Nineveh, made both men and beasts fast.</p> + +<p>All ancient authors, sacred books as well as profane, attribute +knowledge to the beasts; and several make them speak. It is not then to +be wondered at that the Brahmins, and after them the Pythagoreans, +believed that souls passed successively into the bodies of beasts and of +men; consequently they persuaded themselves, or at least they said, that +the souls of the guilty angels, in order to finish their purgation, +belonged sometimes to beasts, sometimes to men. This is a part of the +romance of the Jesuit Bougeant, who imagined that the devils are spirits +sent into the bodies of animals. Thus, in our day, and at the extremity +of the west, a Jesuit unconsciously revives an article of the faith of +the most ancient Oriental priests.</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>The Self-burning of Men and Women among the Brahmins.</i></p> + +<p>The Brahmins of the present day, who do all that the ancient Brahmins +did, have, we know, retained this horrible custom. Whence is it that, +among a people who have never shed the blood of men or of animals, the +finest act of devotion is a public self-burning? Superstition, the great +uniter of contraries, is the only source of these frightful sacrifices, +the custom of which is much more ancient than the laws of any known +people.</p> + +<p>The Brahmins assert that their great prophet Brahma, the son of God, +descended among men, and had seyeral wives; and that after his death, +the wife who loved him the most burned herself on his funeral pile, that +she might join him in heaven. Did this woman really burn herself, as it +is said that Portia, the wife of Brutus, swallowed burning coals, in +order to be reunited to her husband? or is this a fable invented by the +priests? Was there a Brahma, who really gave himself out as a prophet +and son of God? It is likely that there was a Brahma, as there +afterwards were a Zoroaster and a Bacchus. Fable seized upon their +history, as she has everywhere constantly done.</p> + +<p>No sooner does the wife of the son of God burn herself, than ladies of +meaner condition must burn themselves likewise. But how are they to +find their husbands again, who are become horses, elephants, hawks, +etc.? How are they to distinguish the precise beast, which the defunct +animates? how recognize him and be still his wife? This difficulty does +not in the least embarrass the Hindoo theologians; they easily find a +<i>distinguo</i>—a solution <i>in sensu composito</i>—<i>in sensu diviso</i>. The +metempsychosis is only for common people; for other souls they have a +sublimer doctrine. These souls, being those of the once rebel angels, go +about purifying themselves; those of the women who immolate themselves +are beatified, and find their husbands ready-purified. In short, the +priests are right, and the women burn themselves.</p> + +<p>This dreadful fanaticism has existed for more than four thousand years, +amongst a mild people, who would fear to kill a grasshopper. The priests +cannot force a widow to burn herself; for the invariable law is, that +the self-devotion must be absolutely voluntary. The longest married of +the wives of the deceased has the first refusal of the honor of mounting +the funeral-pile; if she is not inclined, the second presents herself; +and so of the rest. It is said, that on one occasion seventeen burned +themselves at once on the pile of a rajah: but these sacrifices are now +very rare; the faith has become weaker since the Mahometans have +governed a great part of the country, and the Europeans traded with the +rest.</p> + +<p>Still, there is scarcely a governor of Madras or Pondicherry who has +not seen some Indian woman voluntarily perish in the flames. Mr. Holwell +relates that a young widow of nineteen, of singular beauty, and the +mother of three children, burned herself in the presence of Mrs. +Russell, wife of the admiral then in the Madras roads. She resisted the +tears and the prayers of all present; Mrs. Russell conjured her, in the +name of her children, not to leave them orphans. The Indian woman +answered, "God, who has given them birth, will take care of them." She +then arranged everything herself, set fire to the pile with her own +hand, and consummated her sacrifice with as much serenity as one of our +nuns lights the tapers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Charnock, an English merchant, one day seeing one of these +astonishing victims, young and lovely, on her way to the funeral-pile, +dragged her away by force when she was about to set fire to it, and, +with the assistance of some of his countrymen, carried her of! and +married her. The people regarded this act as the most horrible +sacrilege.</p> + +<p>Why do husbands never burn themselves, that they may join their wives? +Why has a sex, naturally weak and timid, always had this frantic +resolution? Is it because tradition does not say that a man ever married +a daughter of Brahma, while it does affirm that an Indian woman was +married to a son of that divinity? Is it because women are more +superstitious than men? Or is it because their imaginations are weaker, +more tender, and more easily governed?</p> + +<p>The ancient Brahmins sometimes burned themselves to prevent the pains +and the languor of old age; but, above all, to make themselves admired. +Calanus would not, perhaps, have placed himself on the pile, but for the +purpose of being gazed at by Alexander. The Christian renegade +Peregrinus burned himself in public, for the same reason that a madman +goes about the streets dressed like an Armenian, to attract the notice +of the populace.</p> + +<p>Is there not also an unfortunate mixture of vanity in this terrible +sacrifice of the Indian women? Perhaps, if a law were passed that the +burning should take place in the presence of one waiting woman only, +this abominable custom would be forever destroyed.</p> + +<p>One word more: A few hundreds of Indian women, at most, have furnished +this horrid spectacle; but our inquisitions, our atrocious madmen +calling themselves judges, have put to death in the flames more than a +hundred thousand of our brethren—men, women, and children—for things +which no one has understood. Let us pity and condemn the Brahmins; but +let us not forget our miserable selves!</p> + +<p>Truly, we have forgotten one very essential point in this short article +on the Brahmins, which is, that their sacred books are full of +contradictions; but the people know nothing of them, and the doctors +have solutions ready—senses figured and figurative, allegories, types, +express declarations of Birma, Brahma, and Vishnu, sufficient to shut +the mouth of any reasoner.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BREAD-TREE" id="BREAD-TREE"></a>BREAD-TREE.</h3> + + +<p>The bread-tree grows in the Philippine islands, and principally in those +of Guam and Tinian, as the cocoa-tree grows in the Indies. These two +trees, alone, if they could be multiplied in our climate, would furnish +food and drink sufficient for all mankind.</p> + +<p>The bread-tree is taller and more bulky than our common apple-trees; its +leaves are black, its fruit is yellow, and equal in dimensions to the +largest apple. The rind is hard; and the cuticle is a sort of soft, +white paste, which has the taste of the best French rolls; but it must +be eaten fresh, as it keeps only twenty-four hours, after which it +becomes dry, sour and disagreeable; but, as a compensation, the trees +are loaded with them eight months of the year. The natives of the +islands have no other food; they are all tall, stout, well made, +sufficiently fleshy, and in the vigorous health which is necessarily +produced by the use of one wholesome aliment alone: and it is to negroes +that nature has made this present.</p> + +<p>Corn is assuredly not the food of the greater part of the world. Maize +and cassava are the food of all America. We have whole provinces in +which the peasants eat none but chestnut bread, which is more nourishing +and of better flavor than the rye or barley bread on which so many feed, +and is much better than the rations given to the soldiers. Bread is +unknown in all southern Africa. The immense Indian Archipelago, Siam, +Laos, Pegu, Cochin-China, Tonquin, part of China, the Malabar and +Coromandel coasts, and the banks of the Ganges, produce rice, which is +easier of cultivation, and for which wheat is neglected. Corn is +absolutely unknown for the space of five hundred leagues on the coast of +the Icy Sea.</p> + +<p>The missionaries have sometimes been in great tribulation, in countries +where neither bread nor wine is to be found. The inhabitants told them +by interpreters: "You would baptize us with a few drops of water, in a +burning climate, where we are obliged to plunge every day into the +rivers; you would confess us, yet you understand not our language; you +would have us communicate, yet you want the two necessary ingredients, +bread and wine. It is therefore evident that your universal religion +cannot have been made for us." The missionaries replied, very justly, +that good will is the one thing needful; that they should be plunged +into the water without any scruple; that bread and wine should be +brought from Goa; and that, as for the language, the missionaries would +learn it in a few years.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BUFFOONERY_BURLESQUEmdashLOW_COMEDY" id="BUFFOONERY_BURLESQUEmdashLOW_COMEDY"></a>BUFFOONERY—BURLESQUE—LOW COMEDY.</h3> + + +<p>He was a very subtle schoolman, who first said that we owe the origin of +the word "buffoon" to a little Athenian sacrificer called <i>Bupho</i>, who, +being tired of his employment, absconded, and never returned. The +Areopagus, as they could not punish the priest, proceeded against his +hatchet. This farce, which was played every year in the temple of +Jupiter, is said to have been called <i>"buffoonery."</i> This story is not +entitled to much credit Buffoon was not a proper name; <i>bouphonos</i> +signifies an immolator of oxen. The Greeks never called any jest +<i>bouphonia</i>. This ceremony, frivolous as it appears, might have an +origin wise and humane, worthy of true Athenians.</p> + +<p>Once a year, the subaltern sacrificer, or more properly the holy +butcher, when on the point of immolating an ox, fled as if struck with +horror, to put men in mind that in wiser and happier times only flowers +and fruits were offered to the gods, and that the barbarity of +immolating innocent and useful animals was not introduced until there +were priests desirous of fattening on their blood and living at the +expense of the people. In this idea there is no buffoonery.</p> + +<p>This word "buffoon" has long been received among the Italians and the +Spaniards, signifying <i>mimus, scurra, joculator</i>—a mimic, a jester, a +player of tricks. Ménage, after Salmasius, derives it from <i>bocca +infiata</i>—a bloated face; and it is true that a round face and swollen +cheeks are requisite in a buffoon. The Italians say <i>bufo magro</i>—a +meagre buffoon, to express a poor jester who cannot make you laugh.</p> + +<p>Buffoon and buffoonery appertain to low comedy, to mountebanking, to all +that can amuse the populace. In this it was—to the shame of the human +mind be it spoken—that tragedy had its beginning: Thespis was a +buffoon before Sophocles was a great man.</p> + +<p>In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish and English +tragedies were all degraded by disgusting buffooneries. The courts were +still more disgraced by buffoons than the stage. So strong was the rust +of barbarism, that men had no taste for more refined pleasures. Boileau +says of Molière:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>C'est par-là que Molière, illustrant ses écrits,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Peut-être de son art eût emporté le prix,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Si, moins ami du peuple en ses doctes peintures,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Il n'eût fait quelquefois, grimacer ses figures,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Quitté pour le bouffon l'agréable et fin,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Et sans honte à Terence allié Tabarin.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Dans ce sac ridicule où Scapin s'enveloppe,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Je ne reconnais plus l'auteur du Misanthrope.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Molière in comic genius had excelled,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And might, perhaps, have stood unparalleled,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Had he his faithful portraits ne'er allowed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To gape and grin to gratify the crowd;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Deserting wit for low grimace and jest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And showing Terence in a motley vest.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who in the sack, where Scapin plays the fool,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Will find the genius of the comic school?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But it must be considered that Raphael condescended to paint grotesque +figures. Molière would not have descended so low, if all his spectators +had been such men as Louis XIV., Condé, Turenne, La Rochefoucauld, +Montausier, Beauvilliers, and such women as Montespan and Thianges; but +he had also to please the whole people of Paris, who were yet quite +unpolished. The citizen liked broad farce, and he paid for it. Scarron's +"Jodelets" were all the rage. We are obliged to place ourselves on the +level of our age, before we can rise above it; and, after all, we like +to laugh now and then. What is Homer's "Battle of the Frogs and Mice," +but a piece of buffoonery—a burlesque poem?</p> + +<p>Works of this kind give no reputation, but they may take from that which +we already enjoy.</p> + +<p>Buffoonery is not always in the burlesque style, "The Physician in Spite +of Himself," and the "Rogueries of Scapin," are not in the style of +Scarron's "Jodelets." Molière does not, like Scarron, go in search of +slang terms; his lowest characters do not play the mountebank. +Buffoonery is in the thing, not in the expression.</p> + +<p>Boileau's "Lutrin" was at first called a burlesque poem, but it was the +subject that was burlesque; the style was pleasing and refined, and +sometimes even heroic.</p> + +<p>The Italians had another kind of burlesque, much superior to ours—that +of Aretin, of Archbishop La Caza, of Berni, Mauro, and Dolce. It often +sacrifices decorum to pleasantry, but obscene words are wholly banished +from it. The subject of Archbishop La Caza's <i>"Capitolo del Forno"</i> is, +indeed, that which sends the Desfontaines to the Bicêtre, and the +Deschaufours to the Place de Grève: but there is not one word offensive +to the ear of chastity; you have to divine the meaning.</p> + +<p>Three or four Englishmen have excelled in this way: Butler, in his +"Hudibras," which was the civil war excited by the Puritans turned into +ridicule; Dr. Garth, in his "Dispensary"; Prior, in his "Alma," in +which he very pleasantly makes a jest of his subject and Phillips, in +his "Splendid Shilling."</p> + +<p>Butler is as much above Scarron as a man accustomed to good company is +above a singer at a pot-house. The hero of "Hudibras" was a real +personage, one Sir Samuel Luke, who had been a captain in the armies of +Fairfax and Cromwell. See the commencement of the poem, in the article +"Prior," "Butler," and "Swift."</p> + +<p>Garth's poem on the physicians and apothecaries is not so much in the +burlesque style as Boileau's "Lutrin": it has more imagination, variety, +and naivete than the "Lutrin"; and, which is rather astonishing, it +displays profound erudition, embellished with all the graces of +refinement. It begins thus:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Speak, Goddess, since 'tis thou that best canst tell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">How ancient leagues to modern discord fell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And why physicians were so cautious grown</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Of others' lives, and lavish of their own.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Prior, whom we have seen a plenipotentiary in France before the Peace of +Utrecht, assumed the office of mediator between the philosophers who +dispute about the soul. This poem is in the style of "Hudibras," called +doggerel rhyme, which is the <i>stilo Berniesco</i> of the Italians.</p> + +<p>The great first question is, whether the soul is all in all, or is +lodged behind the nose and eyes in a corner which it never quits. +According to the latter system, Prior compares it to the pope, who +constantly remains at Rome, whence he sends his nuncios and spies to +learn all that is doing in Christendom.</p> + +<p>Prior, after making a jest of several systems, proposes his own. He +remarks that the two-legged animal, new-born, throws its feet about as +much as possible, when its nurse is so stupid as to swaddle it: thence +he judges that the soul enters it by the feet; that about fifteen it +reaches the middle; then it ascends to the heart; then to the head, +which it quits altogether when the animal ceases to live.</p> + +<p>At the end of this singular poem, full of ingenious versification, and +of ideas alike subtle and pleasing, we find this charming line of +Fontenelle: <i>"Il est des hochets pour tout âge."</i> Prior begs of fortune +to "Give us play-things for old age."</p> + +<p>Yet it is quite certain that Fontenelle did not take this line from +Prior, nor Prior from Fontenelle. Prior's work is twenty years anterior, +and Fontenelle did not understand English. The poem terminates with this +conclusion:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">For Plato's fancies what care I?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I hope you would not have me die</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Like simple Cato in the play,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">For anything that he can say:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">E'en let him of ideas speak</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">To heathens, in his native Greek.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">If to be sad is to be wise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I do most heartily despise</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Whatever Socrates has said,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Or Tully writ, or Wanley read.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dear Drift, to set our matters right,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Remove these papers from my sight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Burn Mat's Descartes and Aristotle—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Here, Jonathan,—your master's bottle.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In all these poems, let us distinguish the pleasant, the lively, the +natural, the familiar—from the grotesque, the farcical, the low, and, +above all, the stiff and forced. These various shades are discriminated +by the connoisseurs, who alone, in the end, decide the fate of every +work.</p> + +<p>La Fontaine would sometimes descend to the burlesque style—Phædrus +never; but the latter has not the grace and unaffected softness of La +Fontaine, though he has greater precision and purity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BULGARIANS" id="BULGARIANS"></a>BULGARIANS.</h3> + + +<p>These people were originally Huns, who settled near the Volga; and +Volgarians was easily changed into Bulgarians.</p> + +<p>About the end of the seventh century, they, like all the other nations +inhabiting Sarmatia, made irruptions towards the Danube, and inundated +the Roman Empire. They passed through Moldavia and Wallachia, whither +their old fellow-countrymen, the Russians, carried their victorious arms +in 1769, under the Empress Catherine II.</p> + +<p>Having crossed the Danube, they settled in part of Dacia and Moesia, +giving their name to the countries which are still called Bulgaria. +Their dominion extended to Mount Hæmus and the Euxine Sea.</p> + +<p>In Charlemagne's time, the Emperor Nicephorus, successor to Irene, was +so imprudent as to march against them after being vanquished by the +Saracens; and he was in like manner defeated by the Bulgarians. Their +king, named Krom, cut off his head, and made use of his skull as a +drinking-cup at his table, according to the custom of that people in +common with all the northern nations.</p> + +<p>It is related that, in the ninth century, one Bogoris, who was making +war upon the Princess Theodora, mother and guardian to the Emperor +Michael, was so charmed with that empress's noble answer to his +declaration of war, that he turned Christian.</p> + +<p>The Bulgarians, who were less complaisant, revolted against him; but +Bogoris, having shown them a crucifix, they all immediately received +baptism. So say the Greek writers of the lower empire, and so say our +compilers after them: <i>"Et voilà justement comme on écrit l'histoire."</i></p> + +<p>Theodora, say they, was a very religious princess, even passing her +latter years in a convent. Such was her love for the Greek Catholic +religion that she put to death in various ways a hundred thousand men +accused of Manichæism—"this being," says the modest continuator of +Echard, "the most impious, the most detestable, the most dangerous, the +most abominable of all heresies, for ecclesiastical censures were +weapons of no avail against men who acknowledged not the church."</p> + +<p>It is said that the Bulgarians, seeing that all the Manichæans suffered +death, immediately conceived an inclination for their religion, and +thought it the best, since it was the most persecuted one: but this, for +Bulgarians, would be extraordinarily acute.</p> + +<p>At that time, the great schism broke out more violently than ever +between the Greek church, under the Patriarch Photius, and the Latin +church, under Pope Nicholas I. The Bulgarians took part with the Greek +church; and from that time, probably, it was that they were treated in +the west as heretics, with the addition of that fine epithet, which has +clung to them to the present day.</p> + +<p>In 871, the Emperor Basil sent them a preacher, named Peter of Sicily, +to save them from the heresy of Manichæism; and it is added, that they +no sooner heard him than they turned Manichæans. It is not very +surprising that the Bulgarians, who drank out of the skulls of their +enemies, were not extraordinary theologians any more than Peter of +Sicily.</p> + +<p>It is singular that these barbarians, who could neither write nor read, +should have been regarded as very knowing heretics, with whom it was +dangerous to dispute. They certainly had other things to think of than +controversy, since they carried on a sanguinary war against the emperors +of Constantinople for four successive centuries, and even besieged the +capital of the empire.</p> + +<p>At the commencement of the thirteenth century, the Emperor Alexis, +wishing to make himself recognized by the Bulgarians, their king, +Joannic, replied, that he would never be his vassal. Pope Innocent III. +was careful to seize this opportunity of attaching the kingdom of +Bulgaria to himself: he sent a legate to Joannic, to anoint him king; +and pretended that he had conferred the kingdom upon him, and that he +could never more hold it but from the holy see.</p> + +<p>This was the most violent period of the crusades. The indignant +Bulgarians entered into an alliance with the Turks, declared war against +the pope and his crusaders, took the pretended Emperor Baldwin prisoner, +had his head cut off, and made a bowl of his skull, after the manner of +Krom. This was quite enough to make the Bulgarians abhorred by all +Europe. It was no longer necessary to call them Manichæans, a name which +was at that time given to every class of heretics: for Manichæan, +Patarin, and Vaudois were the same thing. These terms were lavished upon +whosoever would not submit to the Roman church.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BULL" id="BULL"></a>BULL.</h3> + + +<p>A quadruped, armed with horns, having cloven feet, strong legs, a slow +pace, a thick body, a hard skin, a tail not quite so long as that of the +horse, with some long hairs at the end. Its blood has been looked upon +as a poison, but it is no more so than that of other animals; and the +ancients, who wrote that Themistocles and others poisoned themselves +with bull's blood, were false both to nature and to history. Lucian, who +reproaches Jupiter with having placed the bull's horns above his eyes, +reproaches him unjustly; for the eye of a bull being large, round, and +open, he sees very well where he strikes; and if his eyes had been +placed higher than his horns, he could not have seen the grass which he +crops.</p> + +<p>Phalaris's bull, or the Brazen Bull, was a bull of cast metal, found in +Sicily, and supposed to have been used by Phalaris to enclose and burn +such as he chose to punish—a very unlikely species of cruelty. The +bulls of Medea guarded the Golden Fleece. The bull of Marathon was tamed +by Hercules.</p> + +<p>Then there were the bull which carried off Europa, the bull of Mithras, +and the bull of Osiris; there are the Bull, a sign of the zodiac, and +the Bull's Eye, a star of the first magnitude, and lastly, there are +bull-fights, common in Spain.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BULL_PAPAL" id="BULL_PAPAL"></a>BULL (PAPAL).</h3> + + +<p>This word designates the bull, or seal of gold, silver, wax, or lead, +attached to any instrument or charter. The lead hanging to the rescripts +despatched in the Roman court bears on one side the head of St. Peter on +the right, and that of St. Paul on the left; and, on the reverse, the +name of the reigning pope, with the year of his pontificate. The bull is +written on parchment. In the greeting, the pope takes no title but that +of "Servant of the Servants of God," according to the holy words of +Jesus to His Disciples—"Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be +your servant."</p> + +<p>Some heretics assert that, by this formula, humble in appearance, the +popes mean to express a sort of feudal system, of which God is chief; +whose high vassals, Peter and Paul, are represented by their servant +the pontiff; while the lesser vassals are all secular princes, whether +emperors, kings, or dukes.</p> + +<p>They doubtless found this assertion on the famous bull <i>In cœna +Domini,</i> which is publicly read at Rome by a cardinal-deacon every year, +on Holy Thursday, in the presence of the pope, attended by the rest of +the cardinals and bishops. After the ceremony, his holiness casts a +lighted torch into the public square in token of anathema.</p> + +<p>This bull is, to be found in Tome i., p. 714 of the <i>Bullaire</i>, +published at Lyons in 1673, and at page 118 of the edition of 1727. The +oldest is dated 1536. Paul III., without noticing the origin of the +ceremony, here says that it is an ancient custom of the sovereign +pontiffs to publish this excommunication on Holy Thursday, in order to +preserve the purity of the Christian religion, and maintain union among +the faithful. It contains twenty-four paragraphs, in which the pope +excommunicates:</p> + +<p>1. Heretics, all who favor them, and all who read their books.</p> + +<p>2. Pirates, especially such as dare to cruise on the seas belonging to +the sovereign pontiff.</p> + +<p>3. Those who impose fresh tolls on their lands.</p> + +<p>10. Those who, in any way whatsoever, prevent the execution of the +apostolical letters, whether they grant pardons or inflict penalties.</p> + +<p>11. All lay judges who judge ecclesiastics, and bring them before their +tribunal, whether that tribunal is called an audience, a chancery, a +council, or a parliament.</p> + +<p>12. All chancellors, counsellors, ordinary or extraordinary, of any king +or prince whatsoever, all presidents of chanceries, councils, or +parliaments, as also all attorneys-general, who call ecclesiastical +causes before them, or prevent the execution of the apostolical letters, +even though it be on pretext of preventing some violence.</p> + +<p>In the same paragraph, the pope reserves to himself alone the power of +absolving the said chancellors, counsellors, attorneys-general, and the +rest of the excommunicated; who cannot receive absolution until they +have publicly revoked their acts, and have erased them from the records.</p> + +<p>20. Lastly, the pope excommunicates all such as shall presume to give +absolution to the excommunicated as aforesaid: and, in order that no one +may plead ignorance, he orders:</p> + +<p>21. That this bull be published, and posted on the gate of the basilic +of the Prince of the Apostles, and on that of St. John of Lateran.</p> + +<p>22. That all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, by virtue +of their holy obedience, shall have this bull solemnly published at +least once a year.</p> + +<p>24. He declares that whosoever dares to go against the provisions of +this bull, must know that he is incurring the displeasure of Almighty +God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.</p> + +<p>The other subsequent bulls, called also <i>In cœna Domini</i>, are only +duplicates of the first. For instance, the article 21 of that of Pius +V., dated 1567, adds to the paragraph 3 of the one that we have quoted, +that all princes who lay new impositions on their states, of what nature +soever, or increase the old ones, without obtaining permission from the +Holy See, are excommunicated <i>ipso facto</i>. The third bull <i>In cœna +Domini</i> of 1610, contains thirty paragraphs, in which Paul V. renews the +provisions of the two preceding.</p> + +<p>The fourth and last bull <i>In cœna Domini</i> which we find in the +<i>Bullaire</i>, is dated April 1, 1672. In it Urban VIII. announces that, +after the example of his predecessors, in order inviolably to maintain +the integrity of the faith, and public justice and tranquillity, he +wields the spiritual sword of ecclesiastical discipline to +excommunicate, on the day which is the anniversary of the Supper of our +Lord:</p> + +<p>1. Heretics.</p> + +<p>2. Such as appeal from the pope to a future council; and the rest as in +the three former.</p> + +<p>It is said that the one which is read now, is of a more recent date, and +contains some additions.</p> + +<p>The History of Naples, by Giannone, shows us what disorders the +ecclesiastics stirred up in that kingdom, and what vexations they +exercised against the king's subjects, even refusing them absolution and +the sacraments, in order to effect the reception of this bull, which has +at last been solemnly proscribed there, as well as in Austrian +Lombardy, in the states of the empress-queen, in those of the Duke of +Parma, and elsewhere.</p> + +<p>In 1580, the French clergy chose the time between the sessions of the +parliament of Paris, to have the same bull <i>In cœna Domini</i> +published. But it was opposed by the procureur-general; and the <i>Chambre +des Vacations</i>, under the presidency of the celebrated and unfortunate +Brisson, on October 4, passed a decree, enjoining all governors to +inform themselves, if possible, what archbishops, bishops, or +grand-vicars, had received either this bull or a copy of it entitled +<i>Litteræ processus</i>, and who had sent it to them to be published; to +prevent the publication, if it had not yet taken place; to obtain the +copies and send them to the chamber; or, if they had been published, to +summon the archbishops, the bishops, or their grand-vicars, to appear on +a certain day before the chamber, to answer to the suit of the +procureur-general; and, in the meantime, to seize their temporal +possessions and place them in the hands of the king; to forbid all +persons obstructing the execution of this decree, on pain of punishment +as traitors and enemies to the state; with orders that the decree be +printed and that the copies, collated by notaries, have the full force +of the original.</p> + +<p>In doing this, the parliament did but feebly imitate Philip the Fair. +The bull <i>Ausculta Fili</i>, of Dec. 5, 1301, was addressed to him by +Boniface VIII., who, after exhorting the king to listen with docility, +says to him: "God has established us over all kings and all kingdoms, to +root up, and destroy, and throw down, to build, and to plant, in His +name and by His doctrine. Do not, then, suffer yourself to be persuaded +that you have no superior, and that you are not subject to the head of +the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Whosoever thinks this, is a madman; and +whosoever obstinately maintains it, is an infidel, separated from the +flock of the Good Shepherd." The pope then enters into long details +respecting the government of France, even reproaching the king for +having altered the coin.</p> + +<p>Philip the Fair had this bull burned at Paris, and its execution +published on sound of trumpet throughout the city, by Sunday, Feb. 11, +1302. The pope, in a council which he held at Rome the same year, made a +great noise, and broke out into threats against Philip the Fair; but he +did no more than threaten. The famous decretal, <i>Unam Sanctam</i> is, +however, considered as the work of his council; it is, in substance, as +follows:</p> + +<p>"We believe and confess a holy, catholic, and apostolic church, out of +which there is no salvation; we also acknowledge its unity, that it is +one only body, with one only head, and not with two, like a monster. +This only head is Jesus Christ, and St. Peter his vicar, and the +successor of St. Peter. Therefore, the Greeks, or others, who say that +they are not subject to that successor, must acknowledge that they are +not of the flock of Christ, since He himself has said (John, x, 16) +'that there is but one fold and one shepherd.'</p> + +<p>"We learn that in this church, and under its power, are two swords, the +spiritual and the temporal: of these, one is to be used by the church +and by the hand of the pontiff; the other, by the church and by the hand +of kings and warriors, in pursuance of the orders or with the permission +of the pontiff. Now, one of these swords must be subject to the other, +temporal to spiritual power; otherwise, they would not be ordinate, and +the apostles say they must be so. (Rom. xiii, 1.) According to the +testimony of truth, spiritual power must institute and judge temporal +power; and thus is verified with regard to the church, the prophecy of +Jeremiah (i. 10): 'I have this day set thee over the nations and over +the kingdoms.'"</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Philip the Fair assembled the states-general; and the +commons, in the petition which they presented to that monarch, said, in +so many words: "It is a great abomination for us to hear that this +Boniface stoutly interprets like a <i>Boulgare</i> (dropping the <i>l</i> and the +<i>a</i>) these words of spirituality (Matt., xvi. 19): 'Whatever thou shalt +bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven;' if this signified that if a +man be put into a temporal prison, God will imprison him in heaven."</p> + +<p>Clement V., successor to Boniface VIII., revoked and annulled the odious +decision of the bull <i>Unam Sanctam</i>, which extends the power of the +popes to the temporalities of kings, and condemns as heretics all who do +not acknowledge this chimerical power. Boniface's pretension, indeed, +ought to be condemned as heresy, according to this maxim of theologians: +"Not only is it a sin against the rules of the faith, and a heresy, to +deny what the faith teaches us, but also to set up as part of the faith +that which is no part of it." (Joan. Maj. m. 3 sent. dist. 37. q. 26.)</p> + +<p>Other popes, before Boniface VIII., had arrogated to themselves the +right of property over different kingdoms. The bull is well known, in +which Gregory VII. says to the King of Spain: "I would have you to know, +that the kingdom of Spain, by ancient ecclesiastical ordinances, was +given in property to St. Peter and the holy Roman church."</p> + +<p>Henry II. of England asked permission of Pope Adrian IV. to invade +Ireland. The pontiff gave him leave, on condition that he imposed on +every Irish family a tax of one <i>carolus</i> for the Holy See, and held +that kingdom as a fief of the Roman church. "For," wrote Adrian, "it +cannot be doubted that every island upon which Jesus Christ, the sun of +justice, has arisen, and which has received the lessons of the Christian +faith, belongs of right to St. Peter and to the holy and sacred Roman +church."</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Bulls of the Crusade and of Composition.</i></p> + +<p>If an African or an Asiatic of sense were told that in that part of +Europe where some men have forbidden others to eat flesh on Saturdays, +the pope gives them leave to eat it, by a bull, for the sum of two +rials, and that another bull grants permission to keep stolen money, +what would this African or Asiatic say? He would, at least, agree with +us, that every country has its customs; and that in this world, by +whatever names things may be called, or however they may be disguised, +all is done for money.</p> + +<p>There are two bulls under the name of <i>La Cruzada</i> —the Crusade; one of +the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, the other of that of Philip V. The +first of these sells permission to eat what is called the <i>grossura</i>, +viz., tripes, livers, kidneys, gizzards, sweet-breads, lights, plucks, +cauls, heads, necks, and feet.</p> + +<p>The second bull, granted by Pope Urban VIII., gives leave to eat meat +throughout Lent, and absolves from every crime except heresy.</p> + +<p>Not only are these bulls sold, but people are ordered to buy them; and, +as is but right, they cost more in Peru and Mexico than in Spain; they +are there sold for a piastre. It is reasonable that the countries which +produce gold and silver should pay more than others.</p> + +<p>The pretext for these bulls is, making war upon the Moors. There are +persons, difficult of conviction, who cannot see what livers and kidneys +have to do with a war against the Africans; and they add, that Jesus +Christ never ordered war to be made on the Mahometans on pain of +excommunication.</p> + +<p>The bull giving permission to keep another's goods is galled the bull of +<i>Composition</i>. It is farmed; and has long brought considerable sums +throughout Spain, the Milanese, Naples, and Sicily. The highest bidders +employ the most eloquent of the monks to preach this bull. Sinners who +have robbed the king, the state, or private individuals, go to these +preachers, confess to them, and show them what a sad thing it would be +to make restitution of the whole. They offer the monks five, six, and +sometimes seven per cent., in order to keep the rest with a safe +conscience; and, as soon as the composition is made, they receive +absolution.</p> + +<p>The preaching brother who wrote the "Travels through Spain and Italy" +(<i>Voyage d'Espagne et d'Italie</i>), published at Paris, <i>avec privilège</i> +by Jean-Baptiste de l'Épime, speaking of this bull, thus expresses +himself: "Is it not very gracious to come off at so little cost, and be +at liberty to steal more, when one has occasion for a larger sum?"</p> + + +<p class="caption"><i>Bull Unigenitus.</i></p> + +<p>The bull <i>In cœna Domini</i> was an indignity offered to all Catholic +sovereigns, and they at length proscribed it in their states; but the +bull <i>Unigenitus</i> was a trouble to France alone. The former attacked the +rights of the princes and magistrates of Europe, and they maintained +those rights; the latter proscribed only some maxims of piety and +morals, which gave no concern to any except the parties interested in +the transient affair; but these interested parties soon filled all +France. It was at first a quarrel between the all-powerful Jesuits and +the remains of the crushed Port-Royal.</p> + +<p>Quesnel, a preacher of the Oratory, refugee in Holland, had dedicated a +commentary on the New Testament to Cardinal de Noailles, then bishop of +Châlons-sur-Marne. It met the bishop's approbation and was well received +by all readers of that sort of books.</p> + +<p>One Letellier, a Jesuit, a confessor to Louis XIV. and an enemy to +Cardinal de Noailles, resolved to mortify him by having the book, which +was dedicated to him, and of which he had a very high opinion, condemned +at Rome.</p> + +<p>This Jesuit, the son of an attorney at Vire in Lower Normandy, had all +that fertility of expedient for which his father's profession is +remarkable. Not content with embroiling Cardinal de Noailles with the +pope, he determined to have him disgraced by the king his master. To +ensure the success of this design, he had mandaments composed against +him by his emissaries, and got them signed by four bishops; he also +indited letters to the king, which he made them sign.</p> + +<p>These manœuvres, which would have been punished in any of the +tribunals, succeeded at court: the king was soured against the +cardinal, and Madame de Maintenon abandoned him.</p> + +<p>Here was a series of intrigues, in which, from one end of the kingdom to +the other, every one took a part. The more unfortunate France at that +time became in a disastrous war, the more the public mind was heated by +a theological quarrel.</p> + +<p>During these movements, Letellier had the condemnation of Quesnel's +book, of which the monarch had never read a page, demanded from Rome by +Louis XIV. himself. Letellier and two other Jesuits, named Doucin and +Lallemant, extracted one hundred and three propositions, which Pope +Clement XI. was to condemn. The court of Rome struck out two of them, +that it might, at least, have the honor of appearing to judge for +itself.</p> + +<p>Cardinal Fabroni, in whose hands the affair was placed, and who was +devoted to the Jesuits, had the bull drawn up by a Cordelier named +Father Palerno, Elio a Capuchin, Terrovi a Barnabite, and Castelli a +Servite, to whom was added a Jesuit named Alfaro.</p> + +<p>Clement XI. let them proceed in their own way. His only object was to +please the king of France, who had long been displeased with him, on +account of his recognizing the Archduke Charles, afterwards emperor, as +King of Spain. To make his peace with the king, it cost him only a piece +of parchment sealed with lead, concerning a question which he himself +despised.</p> + +<p>Clement XI. did not wait to be solicited; he sent the bull, and was +quite astonished to learn that it was received throughout France with +hisses and groans. "What!" said he to Cardinal Carpegno, "a bull is +earnestly asked of me; I give it freely, and every one makes a jest of +it!"</p> + +<p>Every one was indeed surprised to see a pope, in the name of Jesus +Christ, condemning as heretical, tainted with heresy, and offensive to +pious ears, this proposition: "It is good to read books of piety on +Sundays, especially the Holy Scriptures;" and this: "The fear of an +unjust excommunication should not prevent us from doing our duty."</p> + +<p>The partisans of the Jesuits were themselves alarmed at these censures, +but they dared not speak. The wise and disinterested exclaimed against +the scandal, and the rest of the nation against the absurdity.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Letellier still triumphed, until the death of Louis XIV.; +he was held in abhorrence, but he governed. This wretch tried every +means to procure the suspension of Cardinal de Noailles; but after the +death of his penitent, the incendiary was banished. The duke of Orleans, +during his regency, extinguished these quarrels by making a jest of +them. They have since thrown out a few sparks; but they are at last +forgotten, probably forever. Their duration, for more than half a +century, was quite long enough. Yet, happy indeed would mankind be, if +they were divided only by foolish questions unproductive of bloodshed!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CAESAR" id="CAESAR"></a>CÆSAR.</h3> + + +<p>It is not as the husband of so many women and the wife of so many men; +as the conqueror of Pompey and the Scipios; as the satirist who turned +Cato into ridicule; as the robber of the public treasury, who employed +the money of the Romans to reduce the Romans to subjection; as he who, +clement in his triumphs, pardoned the vanquished; as the man of +learning, who reformed the calendar; as the tyrant and the father of his +country, assassinated by his friends and his bastard son; that I shall +here speak of Cæsar. I shall consider this extraordinary man only in my +quality of descendant from the poor barbarians whom he subjugated.</p> + +<p>You will not pass through a town in France, in Spain, on the banks of +the Rhine, or on the English coast opposite to Calais, in which you will +not find good people who boast of having had Cæsar there. Some of the +townspeople of Dover are persuaded that Cæsar built their castle; and +there are citizens of Paris who believe that the great <i>châtelet</i> is one +of his fine works. Many a country squire in France shows you an old +turret which serves him for a dove-cote, and tells you that Cæsar +provided a lodging for his pigeons. Each province disputes with its +neighbor the honor of having been the first to which Cæsar applied the +lash; it was not by that road, but by this, that he came to cut our +throats, embrace our wives and daughters, impose laws upon us by +interpreters, and take from us what little money we had.</p> + +<p>The Indians are wiser. We have already seen that they have a confused +knowledge that a great robber, named Alexander, came among them with +other robbers; but they scarcely ever speak of him.</p> + +<p>An Italian antiquarian, passing a few years ago through Vannes in +Brittany, was quite astonished to hear the learned men of Vannes boast +of Cæsar's stay in their town. "No doubt," said he, "you have monuments +of that great man?" "Yes," answered the most notable among them, "we +will show you the place where that hero had the whole senate of our +province hanged, to the number of six hundred."</p> + +<p>"Some ignorant fellows, who had found a hundred beams under ground, +advanced in the journals in 1755 that they were the remains of a bridge +built by Cæsar; but I proved to them in my dissertation of 1756 that +they were the gallows on which that hero had our parliament tied up. +What other town in Gaul can say as much? We have the testimony of the +great Cæsar himself. He says in his Commentaries' that we 'are fickle +and prefer liberty to slavery.' He charges us with having been so +insolent as to take hostages of the Romans, to whom we had given +hostages, and to be unwilling to return them unless our own were given +up. He taught us good behavior."</p> + +<p>"He did well," replied the virtuoso, "his right was incontestable. It +was, however, disputed, for you know that when he vanquished the +emigrant Swiss, to the number of three hundred and sixty-eight thousand, +and there were not more than a hundred and ten thousand left, he had a +conference in Alsace with a German king named Ariovistus, and Ariovistus +said to him: 'I come to plunder Gaul, and I will not suffer any one to +plunder it but myself;' after which these good Germans, who were come to +lay waste the country, put into the hands of their witches two Roman +knights, ambassadors from Cæsar; and these witches were on the point of +burning them and offering them to their gods, when Cæsar came and +delivered them by a victory. We must confess that the right on both +sides was equal, and that Tacitus had good reason for bestowing so many +praises on the manners of the ancient Germans."</p> + +<p>This conversation gave rise to a very warm dispute between the learned +men of Vannes and the antiquarian. Several of the Bretons could not +conceive what was the virtue of the Romans in deceiving one after +another all the nations of Gaul, in making them by turns the instruments +of their own ruin, in butchering one-fourth of the people, and reducing +the other three-fourths to slavery.</p> + +<p>"Oh! nothing can be finer," returned the antiquarian. "I have in my +pocket a medal representing Cæsar's triumph at the Capitol; it is in the +best preservation." He showed the medal. A Breton, a tittle rude, took +it and threw it into the river, exclaiming: "Oh! that I could so serve +all who use their power and their skill to oppress their fellow-men! +Rome deceived us, disunited us, butchered us, chained us; and at this +day Rome still disposes of many of our benefices; and is it possible +that we have so long and in so many ways been a country of slaves?"</p> + +<p>To the conversation between the Italian antiquarian and the Breton I +shall only add that Perrot d'Ablancourt, the translator of Cæsar's +"Commentaries," in his dedication to the great Condé, makes use of these +words: "Does it not seem to you, sir, as if you were reading the life of +some Christian philosopher?" Cæsar a Christian philosopher! I wonder he +has not been made a saint. Writers of dedications are remarkable for +saying fine things and much to the purpose.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CALENDS" id="CALENDS"></a>CALENDS.</h3> + + +<p>The feast of the Circumcision, which the church celebrates on the first +of January, has taken the place of another called the Feast of the +Calends, of Asses, of Fools, or of Innocents, according to the different +places where, and the different days on which, it was held. It was most +commonly at Christmas, the Circumcision, or the Epiphany.</p> + +<p>In the cathedral of Rouen there was on Christmas day a procession, in +which ecclesiastics, chosen for the purpose, represented the prophets of +the Old Testament, who foretold the birth of the Messiah, and—which +may have given the feast its name—Balaam appeared, mounted on a +she-ass; but as Lactantius' poem, and the "Book of Promises," under the +name of St. Prosper, say that Jesus in the manger was recognized by the +ox and the ass, according to the passage Isaiah: "The ox knoweth his +owner, and the ass his master's crib" (a circumstance, however, which +neither the gospel nor the ancient fathers have remarked), it is more +likely that, from this opinion, the Feast of the Ass took its name.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the Jesuit, Theophilus Raynaud, testifies that on St. Stephen's +day there was sung a hymn of the ass, which was also called the Prose of +Fools; and that on St. John's day another was sung, called the Prose of +the Ox. In the library of the chapter of Sens there is preserved a +manuscript of vellum with miniature figures representing the ceremonies +of the Feast of Fools. The text contains a description of it, including +this Prose of the Ass; it was sung by two choirs, who imitated at +intervals and as the burden of the song, the braying of that animal.</p> + +<p>There was elected in the cathedral churches a bishop or archbishop of +the Fools, which election was confirmed by all sorts of buffooneries, +played off by way of consecration. This bishop officiated pontifically +and gave his blessing to the people, before whom he appeared bearing the +mitre, the crosier, and even the archiepiscopal cross. In those +churches which held immediately from the Holy See, a pope of the Fools +was elected, who officiated in all the decorations of papacy. All the +clergy assisted in the mass, some dressed in women's apparel, others as +buffoons, or masked in a grotesque and ridiculous manner. Not content +with singing licentious songs in the choir, they sat and played at dice +on the altar, at the side of the officiator. When the mass was over they +ran, leaped, and danced about the church, uttering obscene words, +singing immodest songs, and putting themselves in a thousand indecent +postures, sometimes exposing themselves almost naked. They then had +themselves drawn about the streets in tumbrels full of filth, that they +might throw it at the mob which gathered round them. The looser part of +the seculars would mix among the clergy, that they might play some +fool's part in the ecclesiastical habit.</p> + +<p>This feast was held in the same manner in the convents of monks and +nuns, as Naudé testifies in his complaint to Gassendi, in 1645, in which +he relates that at Antibes, in the Franciscan monastery, neither the +officiating monks nor the guardian went to the choir on the day of the +Innocents. The lay brethren occupied their places on that day, and, +clothed in sacerdotal decorations, torn and turned inside out, made a +sort of office. They held books turned upside down, which they seemed to +be reading through spectacles, the glasses of which were made of orange +peel; and muttered confused words, or uttered strange cries, +accompanied by extravagant contortions.</p> + +<p>The second register of the church of Autun, by the secretary Rotarii, +which ends with 1416, says, without specifying the day, that at the +Feast of Fools an ass was led along with a clergyman's cape on his back, +the attendants singing: "He haw! Mr. Ass, he haw!"</p> + +<p>Ducange relates a sentence of the officialty of Viviers, upon one +William, who, having been elected fool-bishop in 1400, had refused to +perform the solemnities and to defray the expenses customary on such +occasions.</p> + +<p>And, to conclude, the registers of St. Stephen, at Dijon, in 1521, +without mentioning the day, that the vicars ran about the streets with +drums, fifes, and other instruments, and carried lamps before the +<i>pré-chantre</i> of the Fools, to whom the honor of the feast principally +belonged. But the parliament of that city, by a decree of January 19, +1552, forbade the celebration of this feast, which had already been +condemned by several councils, and especially by a circular of March 11, +1444, sent to all the clergy in the kingdom by the Paris university. +This letter, which we find at the end of the works of Peter of Blois, +says that this feast was, in the eyes of the clergy, so well imagined +and so Christian, that those who sought to suppress it were looked on as +excommunicated; and the Sorbonne doctor, John des Lyons, in his +discourse against the paganism of the Roiboit, informs us that a doctor +of divinity publicly maintained at Auxerre, about the close of the +fifteenth century, that "the feast of Fools was no less pleasing to God +than the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; +besides, that it was of much higher antiquity in the church."</p> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + + +<p class="caption"><a name="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS"></a>TABLE OF CONTENTS</p> +<p class="small"> +<br /> +<a href="#LIST_OF_PLATES"><b>LIST OF PLATES—VOL. II</b></a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#APPEARANCE"><b>APPEARANCE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#APROPOS"><b>APROPOS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ARABS"><b>ARABS;</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ARARAT"><b>ARARAT.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ARIANISM"><b>ARIANISM.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ARISTEAS"><b>ARISTEAS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ARISTOTLE"><b>ARISTOTLE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ARMS_ARMIES"><b>ARMS—ARMIES.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AROT_AND_MAROT"><b>AROT AND MAROT.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ART_OF_POETRY"><b>ART OF POETRY.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ARTS_FINE_ARTS"><b>ARTS—FINE ARTS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ASMODEUS"><b>ASMODEUS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ASPHALTUS"><b>ASPHALTUS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ASS"><b>ASS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ASSASSIN_ASSASSINATION"><b>ASSASSIN—ASSASSINATION.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ASTROLOGY"><b>ASTROLOGY.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ASTRONOMY"><b>ASTRONOMY,</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ATHEISM"><b>ATHEISM.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ATHEIST"><b>ATHEIST.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ATOMS"><b>ATOMS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AVARICE"><b>AVARICE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AUGURY"><b>AUGURY.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AUGUSTINE"><b>AUGUSTINE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AUGUSTUS_OCTAVIUS"><b>AUGUSTUS (OCTAVIUS).</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AVIGNON"><b>AVIGNON.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AUSTERITIES"><b>AUSTERITIES.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AUTHORS"><b>AUTHORS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AUTHORITY"><b>AUTHORITY.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#AXIS"><b>AXIS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BABEL"><b>BABEL.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BACCHUS"><b>BACCHUS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BACON_ROGER"><b>BACON (ROGER).</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BANISHMENT"><b>BANISHMENT.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BAPTISM"><b>BAPTISM.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BARUCH_OR_BARAK_AND_DEBORAH"><b>BARUCH, OR BARAK, AND DEBORAH;</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BATTALION"><b>BATTALION.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BAYLE"><b>BAYLE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BDELLIUM"><b>BDELLIUM.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BEARD"><b>BEARD.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BEASTS"><b>BEASTS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BEAUTIFUL_THE"><b>BEAUTIFUL (THE).</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BEES"><b>BEES.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BEGGAR_MENDICANT"><b>BEGGAR—MENDICANT</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BEKKER"><b>BEKKER,</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BELIEF"><b>BELIEF.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BETHSHEMESH"><b>BETHSHEMESH.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BILHAH_BASTARDS"><b>BILHAH—BASTARDS</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BISHOP"><b>BISHOP.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BLASPHEMY"><b>BLASPHEMY.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BODY"><b>BODY.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BOOKS"><b>BOOKS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BOURGES"><b>BOURGES.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BRACHMANS_BRAHMINS"><b>BRACHMANS—BRAHMINS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BREAD-TREE"><b>BREAD-TREE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BUFFOONERY_BURLESQUEmdashLOW_COMEDY"><b>BUFFOONERY—BURLESQUE—LOW COMEDY.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BULGARIANS"><b>BULGARIANS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BULL"><b>BULL.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BULL_PAPAL"><b>BULL (PAPAL).</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CAESAR"><b>CÆSAR.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CALENDS"><b>CALENDS.</b></a><br /> +</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 +(of 10), by François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY *** + +***** This file should be named 35622-h.htm or 35622-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/6/2/35622/ + +Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe +at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously +made available by the Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 (of 10) + From "The Works of Voltaire - A Contemporary Version" + +Author: Francois-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +Commentator: John Morley + Tobias Smollett + H.G. Leigh + +Translator: William F. Fleming + +Release Date: March 28, 2011 [EBook #35622] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY *** + + + + +Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe +at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously +made available by the Internet Archive.) + + + + + +A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY + +VOLUME II + +By + +VOLTAIRE + + + + +EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION + +THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE + +A CONTEMPORARY VERSION + + + With Notes by Tobias Smollett, Revised and Modernized + New Translations by William F. Fleming, and an + Introduction by Oliver H.G. Leigh + + +A CRITIQUE AND BIOGRAPHY + +BY + +THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY + +FORTY-THREE VOLUMES + + + One hundred and sixty-eight designs, comprising reproductions + of rare old engravings, steel plates, photogravures, + and curious fac-similes + + +VOLUME VI + +E.R. DuMONT + +PARIS--LONDON--NEW YORK--CHICAGO + +1901 + + + + _The WORKS of VOLTAIRE_ + + _"Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundred + years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it + with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED. + Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the + sweetness of the present civilization."_ + + _VICTOR HUGO._ + + + +LIST OF PLATES--VOL. II + +THE BASTILLE--_Frontispiece_ + +AN ASTROLOGER + +A TYPE OF BEAUTY + +ALEXANDER'S TRIUMPH + + +[Illustration: The Bastille.--"For four hundred years the symbol of +oppression. Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a +perpetual threat, it was the last and often the first argument of king +and priest."] + + + * * * * * + +VOLTAIRE + +A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY + +IN TEN VOLUMES + +VOL II. + +APPEARANCE--CALENDS + + + * * * * * + + +APPEARANCE. + + +Are all appearances deceitful? Have our senses been given us only to +keep us in continual delusion? Is everything error? Do we live in a +dream, surrounded by shadowy chimeras? We see the sun setting when he is +already below the horizon; before he has yet risen we see him appear. A +square tower seems to be round. A straight stick, thrust into the water, +seems to be bent. + +You see your face in a mirror and the image appears to be behind the +glass: it is, however, neither behind nor before it. This glass, which +to the sight and the touch is so smooth and even, is no other than an +unequal congregation of projections and cavities. The finest and fairest +skin is a kind of bristled network, the openings of which are +incomparably larger than the threads, and enclose an infinite number of +minute hairs. Under this network there are liquors incessantly passing, +and from it there issue continual exhalations which cover the whole +surface. What we call large is to an elephant very small, and what we +call small is to insects a world. The same motion which would be rapid +to a snail would be very slow in the eye of an eagle. This rock, which +is impenetrable by steel, is a sieve consisting of more pores than +matter, and containing a thousand avenues of prodigious width leading to +its centre, in which are lodged multitudes of animals, which may, for +aught we know, think themselves the masters of the universe. + +Nothing is either as it appears to be, or in the place where we believe +it to be. Several philosophers, tired of being constantly deceived by +bodies, have in their spleen pronounced that bodies do not exist, and +that there is nothing real but our minds. As well might they have +concluded that, all appearances being false, and the nature of the soul +being as little known as that of the matter, there is no reality in +either body or soul. Perhaps it is this despair of knowing anything +which has caused some Chinese philosophers to say that nothing is the +beginning and the end of all things. This philosophy, so destructive to +being, was well known in Moliere's time. Doctor Macphurius represents +the school; when teaching Sganarelle, he says, "You must not say, 'I am +come,' but 'it seems to me that I am come'; for it may seem to you, +without such being really the case." But at the present day a comic +scene is not an argument, though it is sometimes better than an +argument; and there is often as much pleasure in seeking after truth as +in laughing at philosophy. + +You do not see the network, the cavities, the threads, the inequalities, +the exhalations of that white and delicate skin which you idolize. +Animals a thousand times less than a mite discern all these objects +which escape your vision; they lodge, feed, and travel about in them, as +in an extensive country, and those on the right arm are perfectly +ignorant that there are creatures of their own species on the left. If +you were so unfortunate as to see what they see, your charming skin +would strike you with horror. + +The harmony of a concert, to which you listen with delight, must have on +certain classes of minute animals the effect of terrible thunder; and +perhaps it kills them. We see, touch, hear, feel things only in the way +in which they ought to be seen, touched, heard, or felt by ourselves. + +All is in due proportion. The laws of optics, which show you an object +in the water where it is not, and break a right line, are in entire +accordance with those which make the sun appear to you with a diameter +of two feet, although it is a million times larger than the earth. To +see it in its true dimensions would require an eye collecting his rays +at an angle as great as his disk, which is impossible. Our senses, then, +assist much more than they deceive us. + +Motion, time, hardness, softness, dimensions, distance, approximation, +strength, weakness, appearances, of whatever kind, all is relative. And +who has created these relations? + + + + +APROPOS. + + +All great successes, of whatever kind, are founded upon things done or +said apropos. + +Arnold of Brescia, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague did not come quite +apropos; the people were not then sufficiently enlightened; the +invention of printing had not then laid the abuses complained of before +the eyes of every one. But when men began to read--when the populace, +who were solicitous to escape purgatory, but at the same time wished not +to pay too dear for indulgences, began to open their eyes, the reformers +of the sixteenth century came quite apropos, and succeeded. + +It has been elsewhere observed that Cromwell under Elizabeth or Charles +the Second, or Cardinal de Retz when Louis XIV. governed by himself, +would have been very ordinary persons. + +Had Caesar been born in the time of Scipio Africanus he would not have +subjugated the Roman commonwealth; nor would Mahomet, could he rise +again at the present day, be more than sheriff of Mecca. But if +Archimedes and Virgil were restored, one would still be the best +mathematician, the other the best poet of his country. + + + + +ARABS; + +AND, OCCASIONALLY, ON THE BOOK OF JOB. + + +If any one be desirous of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the +antiquities of Arabia, it may be presumed that he will gain no more +information than about those of Auvergne and Poitou. It is, however, +certain, that the Arabs were of some consequence long before Mahomet. +The Jews themselves say that Moses married an Arabian woman, and his +father-in-law Jethro seems to have been a man of great good sense. + +Mecca is considered, and not without reason, as one of the most ancient +cities in the world. It is, indeed, a proof of its antiquity that +nothing but superstition could occasion the building of a town on such a +spot, for it is in a sandy desert, where the water is brackish, so that +the people die of hunger and thirst. The country a few miles to the east +is the most delightful upon earth, the best watered and the most +fertile. There the Arabs should have built, and not at Mecca. But it was +enough for some charlatan, some false prophet, to give out his reveries, +to make of Mecca a sacred spot and the resort of neighboring nations. +Thus it was that the temple of Jupiter Ammon was built in the midst of +sands. Arabia extends from northeast to southwest, from the desert of +Jerusalem to Aden or Eden, about the fiftieth degree of north latitude. +It is an immense country, about three times as large as Germany. It is +very likely that its deserts of sand were brought thither by the waters +of the ocean, and that its marine gulfs were once fertile lands. + +The belief in this nation's antiquity is favored by the circumstance +that no historian speaks of its having been subjugated. It was not +subdued even by Alexander, nor by any king of Syria, nor by the Romans. +The Arabs, on the contrary, subjugated a hundred nations, from the Indus +to the Garonne; and, having afterwards lost their conquests, they +retired into their own country and did not mix with any other people. + +Having never been subject to nor mixed with other nations it is more +than probable that they have preserved their manners and their language. +Indeed, Arabic is, in some sense, the mother tongue of all Asia as far +as the Indus; or rather, the prevailing tongue, for mother tongues have +never existed. Their genius has never changed. They still compose their +"Nights' Entertainments," as they did when they imagined one Bac or +Bacchus, who passed through the Red Sea with three millions of men, +women, and children; who stopped the sun and moon, and made streams of +wine issue forth with a blow of his rod, which, when he chose, he +changed into a serpent. + +A nation so isolated, and whose blood remains unmixed, cannot change its +character. The Arabs of the desert have always been given to robbery, +and those inhabiting the towns been fond of fables, poetry, and +astronomy. It is said, in the historical preface to the Koran, that when +any one of their tribes had a good poet the other tribes never failed to +send deputies to that one on which God had vouchsafed to bestow so great +a gift. + +The tribes assembled every year, by representatives, in an open place +named Ocad, where verses were recited, nearly in the same way as is now +done at Rome in the garden of the academy of the Arcadii, and this +custom continued until the time of Mahomet. In his time, each one posted +his verses on the door of the temple of Mecca. Labid, son of Rabia, was +regarded as the Homer of Mecca; but, having seen the second chapter of +the Koran, which Mahomet had posted, he fell on his knees before him, +and said, "O Mahomet, son of Abdallah, son of Motalib, son of Achem, +thou art a greater poet than I--thou art doubtless the prophet of God." + +The Arabs of Maden, Naid, and Sanaa were no less generous than those of +the desert were addicted to plunder. Among them, one friend was +dishonored if he had refused his assistance to another. In their +collection of verses, entitled _"Tograid",_ it is related that, "one +day, in the temple of Mecca, three Arabs were disputing on generosity +and friendship, and could not agree as to which, among those who then +set the greatest examples of these virtues, deserved the preference. +Some were for Abdallah, son of Giafar, uncle to Mahomet; others for +Kais, son of Saad; and others for Arabad, of the tribe of As. After a +long dispute they agreed to send a friend of Abdallah to him, a friend +of Kais to Kais, and a friend of Arabad to Arabad, to try them all +three, and to come and make their report to the assembly. + +"Then the friend of Abdallah went and said to him, 'Son of the uncle of +Mahomet, I am on a journey and am destitute of everything.' Abdallah was +mounted on his camel loaded with gold and silk; he dismounted with all +speed, gave him his camel, and returned home on foot. + +"The second went and made application to his friend Kais, son of Saad. +Kais was still asleep, and one of his domestics asked the traveller what +he wanted. The traveller answered that he was the friend of Kais, and +needed his assistance. The domestic said to him, 'I will not wake my +master; but here are seven thousand pieces of gold, which are all that +we at present have in the house. Take also a camel from the stable, and +a slave; these will, I think, be sufficient for you until you reach your +own house.' When Kais awoke, he chid the domestic for not having given +more. + +"The third repaired to his friend Arabad, of the tribe of As. Arabad was +blind, and was coming out of his house, leaning on two slaves, to pray +to God in the temple of Mecca. As soon as he heard his friend's voice, +he said to him, 'I possess nothing but my two slaves; I beg that you +will take and sell them; I will go to the temple as well as I can, with +my stick.' + +"The three disputants, having returned to the assembly, faithfully +related what had happened. Many praises were bestowed on Abdallah, son +of Giafar--on Kais, son of Saad--and on Arabad, of the tribe of As, but +the preference was given to Arabad." + +The Arabs have several tales of this kind, but our western nations have +none. Our romances are not in this taste. We have, indeed, several which +turn upon trick alone, as those of Boccaccio, _"Guzman d'Alfarache,"_ +"Gil Bias," etc. + + +_On Job, the Arab._ + +It is clear that the Arabs at least possessed noble and exalted ideas. +Those who are most conversant with the oriental languages think that the +Book of Job, which is of the highest antiquity, was composed by an Arab +of Idumaea. The most clear and indubitable proof is that the Hebrew +translator has left in his translation more than a hundred Arabic words, +which, apparently, he did not understand. + +Job, the hero of the piece, could not be a Hebrew, for he says, in the +forty-second chapter, that having been restored to his former +circumstances, he divided his possessions equally among his sons and +daughters, which is directly contrary to the Hebrew law. + +It is most likely that, if this book had been composed after the period +at which we place Moses, the author--who speaks of so many things and is +not sparing of examples--would have mentioned some one of the +astonishing prodigies worked by Moses, which were, doubtless, known to +all the nations of Asia. + +In the very first chapter Satan appears before God and asks permission +to tempt Job. _Satan_ was unknown in the Pentateuch; it was a Chaldaean +word; a fresh proof that the Arabian author was in the neighborhood of +Chaldaea. + +It has been thought that he might be a Jew because the Hebrew +translator has put Jehovah instead of El, or Bel, or Sadai. But what man +of the least information does not know that the word Jehovah was common +to the Phoenicians, the Syrians, the Egyptians, and every people of +the neighboring countries? + +A yet stronger proof--one to which there is no reply--is the knowledge +of astronomy which appears in the Book of Job. Mention is here made of +the constellations which we call Arcturus, Orion, the Pleiades, and even +of those of "the chambers of the south." Now, the Hebrews had no +knowledge of the sphere; they had not even a term to express astronomy; +but the Arabs, like the Chaldaeans, have always been famed for their +skill in this science. + +It does, then, seem to be thoroughly proved that the Book of Job cannot +have been written by a Jew, and that it was anterior to all the Jewish +books, Philo and Josephus were too prudent to count it among those of +the Hebrew canon. It is incontestably an Arabian parable or allegory. + +This is not all. We derive from it some knowledge of the customs of the +ancient world, and especially of Arabia. Here we read of trading with +the Indies; a commerce which the Arabs have in all ages carried on, but +which the Jews never even heard of. + +Here, too, we see that the art of writing was in great cultivation, and +that they already made great books. + +It cannot be denied that the commentator Calmet, profound as he is, +violates all the rules of logic in pretending that Job announces the +immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, when he says: + +"For I know that my Redeemer liveth. And though after my skin--worms +destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. But ye should say, +Why persecute we him?--seeing the root of the matter is found in me. Be +ye afraid of the sword; for wrath bringeth the punishment of the sword, +that ye may know there is a judgment." + +Can anything be understood by those words, other than his hope of being +cured? The immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body at +the last day, are truths so indubitably announced in the New Testament, +and so clearly proved by the fathers and the councils, that there is no +need to attribute the first knowledge of them to an Arab. These great +mysteries are not explained in any passage of the Hebrew Pentateuch; how +then can they be explained in a single verse of Job and that in so +obscure a manner? Calmet has no better reason for seeing in the words of +Job the immortality of the soul, and the general resurrection, than he +would have for discovering a disgraceful disease in the malady with +which he was afflicted. Neither physics nor logic take the part of this +commentator. + +As for this allegorical Book of Job: it being manifestly Arabian, we are +at liberty to say that it has neither justness, method, nor precision. +Yet it is perhaps the most ancient book that has been written, and the +most valuable monument that has been found on this side the Euphrates. + + + + +ARARAT. + + +This is a mountain of Armenia, on which the ark rested. The question has +long been agitated, whether the deluge was universal--whether it +inundated the whole earth without exception, or only the portion of the +earth which was then known. Those who have thought that it extended only +to the tribes then existing, have founded their opinion on the inutility +of flooding unpeopled lands, which reason seems very plausible. As for +us, we abide by the Scripture text, without pretending to explain it. +But we shall take greater liberty with Berosus, an ancient Chaldaean +writer, of whom there are fragments preserved by Abydenus, quoted by +Eusebius, and repeated word for word by George Syncellus. From these +fragments we find that the Orientals of the borders of the Euxine, in +ancient times, made Armenia the abode of their gods. In this they were +imitated by the Greeks, who placed their deities on Mount Olympus. Men +have always confounded human with divine things. Princes built their +citadels on mountains; therefore they were also made the dwelling place +of the gods, and became sacred. The summit of Mount Ararat is concealed +by mists; therefore the gods hid themselves in those mists, sometimes +vouchsafing to appear to mortals in fine weather. + +A god of that country, believed to have been Saturn, appeared one day to +Xixuter, tenth king of Chaldaea, according to the computation of +Africanus, Abydenus, and Apollodorus, and said to him: + +"On the fifteenth day of the month Oesi, mankind shall be destroyed by a +deluge. Shut up close all your writings in Sipara, the city of the sun, +that the memory of things may not be lost. Build a vessel; enter it with +your relatives and friends; take with you birds and beasts; stock it +with provisions, and, when you are asked, 'Whither are you going in that +vessel?' answer, 'To the gods, to beg their favor for mankind.'" + +Xixuter built his vessel, which was two stadii wide, and five long; that +it, its width was two hundred and fifty geometrical paces, and its +length six hundred and twenty-five. This ship, which was to go upon the +Black Sea, was a slow sailer. The flood came. When it had ceased Xixuter +let some of his birds fly out, but, finding nothing to eat, they +returned to the vessel. A few days afterwards he again set some of his +birds at liberty, and they returned with mud in their claws. At last +they went and returned no more. Xixuter did likewise: he quitted his +ship, which had perched upon a mountain of Armenia, and he was seen no +more; the gods took him away. + +There is probably something historic in this fable. The Euxine +overflowed its banks, and inundated some portions of territory, and the +king of Chaldaea hastened to repair the damage. We have in Rabelais tales +no less ridiculous, founded on some small portion of truth. The ancient +historians are, for the most part, serious Rabelais. + +As for Mount Ararat, it has been asserted that it was one of the +mountains of Phrygia, and that it was called by a name answering that of +ark, because it was enclosed by three rivers. + +There are thirty opinions respecting this mountain. How shall we +distinguish the true one? That which the monks now call Ararat, was, +they say, one of the limits of the terrestrial paradise--a paradise of +which we find but few traces. It is a collection of rocks and +precipices, covered with eternal snows. Tournefort went thither by order +of Louis XIV. to seek for plants. He says that the whole neighborhood is +horrible, and the mountain itself still more so; that he found snow four +feet thick, and quite crystallized, and that there are perpendicular +precipices on every side. + +The Dutch traveller, John Struys, pretends that he went thither also. He +tells us that he ascended to the very top, to cure a hermit afflicted +with a rupture. + +"His hermitage," says he, "was so distant from the earth that we did not +reach it until the close of the seventh day, though each day we went +five leagues." If, in this journey, he was constantly ascending, this +Mount Ararat must be thirty-five leagues high. In the time of the +Giants' war, a few Ararats piled one upon another would have made the +ascent to the moon quite easy. John Struys, moreover, assures us that +the hermit whom he cured presented him with a cross made of the wood of +Noah's ark. Tournefort had not this advantage. + + + + +ARIANISM. + + +The great theological disputes, for twelve hundred years, were all +Greek. What would Homer, Sophocles, Demosthenes, Archimedes, have said, +had they witnessed the subtle cavillings which have cost so much blood. + +Arius has, even at this day, the honor of being regarded as the inventor +of his opinion, as Calvin is considered to have been the founder of +Calvinism. The pride in being the head of a sect is the second of this +world's vanities; for that of conquest is said to be the first. However, +it is certain that neither Arius nor Calvin is entitled to the +melancholy glory of invention. The quarrel about the Trinity existed +long before Arius took part in it, in the disputatious town of +Alexandria, where it had been beyond the power of Euclid to make men +think calmly and justly. There never was a people more frivolous than +the Alexandrians; in this respect they far exceeded even the Parisians. + +There must already have been warm disputes about the Trinity; since the +patriarch, who composed the "Alexandrian Chronicle," preserved at +Oxford, assures us that the party embraced by Arius was supported by two +thousand priests. + +We will here, for the reader's convenience, give what is said of Arius +in a small book which every one may not have at hand: Here is an +incomprehensible question, which, for more than sixteen hundred years, +has furnished exercise for curiosity, for sophistic subtlety, for +animosity, for the spirit of cabal, for the fury of dominion, for the +rage of persecution, for blind and sanguinary fanaticism, for barbarous +credulity, and which has produced more horrors than the ambition of +princes, which ambition has occasioned very many. Is Jesus the Word? If +He be the Word, did He emanate from God in time or before time? If He +emanated from God, is He coeternal and consubstantial with Him, or is He +of a similar substance? Is He distinct from Him, or is He not? Is He +made or begotten? Can He beget in his turn? Has He paternity? or +productive virtue without paternity? Is the Holy Ghost made? or +begotten? or produced? or proceeding from the Father? or proceeding from +the Son? or proceeding from both? Can He beget? can He produce? is His +hypostasis consubstantial with the hypostasis of the Father and the Son? +and how is it that, having the same nature--the same essence as the +Father and the Son, He cannot do the same things done by these persons +who are Himself? + +These questions, so far above reason, certainly needed the decision of +an infallible church. The Christians sophisticated, cavilled, hated, and +excommunicated one another, for some of these dogmas inaccessible to +human intellect, before the time of Arius and Athanasius. The Egyptian +Greeks were remarkably clever; they would split a hair into four, but on +this occasion they split it only into three. Alexandros, bishop of +Alexandria, thought proper to preach that God, being necessarily +individual--single--a monad in the strictest sense of the word, this +monad is triune. + +The priest Arius, whom we call Arius, was quite scandalized by +Alexandros's monad, and explained the thing in quite a different way. He +cavilled in part like the priest Sabellius, who had cavilled like the +Phrygian Praxeas, who was a great caviller. Alexandros quickly assembled +a small council of those of his own opinion, and excommunicated his +priest. Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, took the part of Arius. Thus the +whole Church was in a flame. + +The Emperor Constantine was a villain; I confess it--a parricide, who +had smothered his wife in a bath, cut his son's throat, assassinated his +father-in-law, his brother-in-law, and his nephew; I cannot deny it--a +man puffed up with pride and immersed in pleasure; granted--a detestable +tyrant, like his children; _transeat_--but he was a man of sense. He +would not have obtained the empire, and subdued all his rivals, had he +not reasoned justly. + +When he saw the flames of civil war lighted among the scholastic brains, +he sent the celebrated Bishop Osius with dissuasive letters to the two +belligerent parties. "You are great fools," he expressly tells them in +this letter, "to quarrel about things which you do not understand. It is +unworthy the gravity of your ministry to make so much noise about so +trifling a matter." + +By "so trifling a matter," Constantine meant not what regards the +Divinity, but the incomprehensible manner in which they were striving to +explain the nature of the Divinity. The Arabian patriarch, who wrote the +history of the Church of Alexandria, makes Osius, on presenting the +emperor's letter, speak in nearly the following words: + +"My brethren, Christianity is just beginning to enjoy the blessings of +peace, and you would plunge it into eternal discord. The emperor has but +too much reason to tell you that you quarrel about a very trifling +matter. Certainly, had the object of the dispute been essential, Jesus +Christ, whom we all acknowledge as our legislator, would have mentioned +it. God would not have sent His Son on earth, to return without teaching +us our catechism. Whatever He has not expressly told us is the work of +men and error is their portion. Jesus has commanded you to love one +another, and you begin by hating one another and stirring up discord in +the empire. Pride alone has given birth to these disputes, and Jesus, +your Master, has commanded you to be humble. Not one among you can know +whether Jesus is made or begotten. And in what does His nature concern +you, provided your own is to be just and reasonable? What has the vain +science of words to do with the morality which should guide your +actions? You cloud our doctrines with mysteries--you, who were designed +to strengthen religion by your virtues. Would you leave the Christian +religion a mass of sophistry? Did Christ come for this? Cease to +dispute, humble yourselves, edify one another, clothe the naked, feed +the hungry, and pacify the quarrels of families, instead of giving +scandal to the whole empire by your dissensions." + +But Osius addressed an obstinate audience. The Council of Nice was +assembled and the Roman Empire was torn by a spiritual civil war. This +war brought on others and mutual persecution has continued from age to +age, unto this day. + +The melancholy part of the affair was that as soon as the council was +ended the persecution began; but Constantine, when he opened it, did not +yet know how he should act, nor upon whom the persecution should fall. +He was not a Christian, though he was at the head of the Christians. +Baptism alone then constituted Christianity, and he had not been +baptized; he had even rebuilt the Temple of Concord at Rome. It was, +doubtless, perfectly indifferent to him whether Alexander of Alexandria, +or Eusebius of Nicomedia, and the priest Arius, were right or wrong; it +is quite evident, from the letter given above, that he had a profound +contempt for the dispute. + +But there happened that which always happens and always will happen in +every court. The enemies of those who were afterwards named Arians +accused Eusebius of Nicomedia of having formerly taken part with +Licinius against the emperor. "_I_ have proofs of it," said Constantine +in his letter to the Church of Nicomedia, "from the priests and deacons +in his train whom I have taken," etc. + +Thus, from the time of the first great council, intrigue, cabal, and +persecution were established, together with the tenets of the Church, +without the power to derogate from their sanctity. Constantine gave the +chapels of those who did not believe in the consubstantiality to those +who did believe in it; confiscated the property of the dissenters to his +own profit, and used his despotic power to exile Arius and his +partisans, who were not then the strongest. It has even been said that +of his own private authority he condemned to death whosoever should not +burn the writings of Arius; but this is not true. Constantine, prodigal +as he was of human blood, did not carry his cruelty to so mad and absurd +an excess as to order his executioners to assassinate the man who should +keep an heretical book, while he suffered the heresiarch to live. + +At court everything soon changes. Several non-consubstantial bishops, +with some of the eunuchs and the women, spoke in favor of Arius, and +obtained the reversal of the _lettre de cachet_. The same thing has +repeatedly happened in our modern courts on similar occasions. + +The celebrated Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, known by his writings, which +evince no great discernment, strongly accused Eustatius, bishop of +Antioch, of being a Sabellian; and Eustatius accused Eusebius of being +an Arian. A council was assembled at Antioch; Eusebius gained his cause; +Eustatius was displaced; and the See of Antioch was offered to Eusebius, +who would not accept it; the two parties armed against each other, and +this was the prelude to controversial warfare. Constantine, who had +banished Arius for not believing in the consubstantial Son, now banished +Eustatius for believing in Him; nor are such revolutions uncommon. + +St. Athanasius was then bishop of Alexandria. He would not admit Arius, +whom the emperor had sent thither, into the town, saying that "Arius was +excommunicated; that an excommunicated man ought no longer to have +either home or country; that he could neither eat nor sleep anywhere; +and that it was better to obey God than man." A new council was +forthwith held at Tyre, and new _lettres de cachet_ were issued. +Athanasius was removed by the Tyrian fathers and banished to Treves. +Thus Arius, and Athanasius, his greatest enemy, were condemned in turn +by a man who was not yet a Christian: + +The two factions alike employed artifice, fraud, and calumny, according +to the old and eternal usage. Constantine left them to dispute and +cabal, for he had other occupations. It was at that time that this _good +prince_ assassinated his son, his wife, and his nephew, the young +Licinius, the hope of the empire, who was not yet twelve years old. + +Under Constantine, Arius' party was constantly victorious. The opposite +party has unblushingly written that one day St. Macarius, one of the +most ardent followers of Athanasius, knowing that Arius was on the way +to the cathedral of Constantinople, followed by several of his brethren, +prayed so ardently to God to confound this heresiarch that God could not +resist the prayer; and immediately all Arius' bowels passed through his +fundament--which is impossible. But at length Arius died. + +Constantine followed him a year afterwards, and it is said he died of +leprosy. Julian, in his "Caesars," says that baptism, which this emperor +received a few hours before his death, cured no one of this distemper. + +As his children reigned after him the flattery of the Roman people, who +had long been slaves, was carried to such an excess that those of the +old religion made him a god, and those of the new made him a saint. His +feast was long kept, together with that of his mother. + +After his death, the troubles caused by the single word "consubstantial" +agitated the empire with renewed violence. Constantius, son and +successor to Constantine, imitated all his father's cruelties, and, +like him, held councils--which councils anathematized one another. +Athanasius went over all Europe and Asia to support his party, but the +Eusebians overwhelmed him. Banishment, imprisonment, tumult, murder, and +assassination signalized the close of the reign of Constantius. Julian, +the Church's mortal enemy, did his utmost to restore peace to the +Church, but was unsuccessful. Jovian, and after him Valentinian, gave +entire liberty of conscience, but the two parties accepted it only as +the liberty to exercise their hatred and their fury. + +Theodosius declared for the Council of Nice, but the Empress Justina, +who reigned in Italy, Illyria, and Africa, as guardian of the young +Valentinian, proscribed the great Council of Nice; and soon after the +Goths, Vandals, and Burgundians, who spread themselves over so many +provinces, finding Arianism established in them, embraced it in order to +govern the conquered nations by the religion of those nations. + +But the Nicaean faith having been received by the Gauls, their conqueror, +Clovis, followed that communion for the very same reason that the other +barbarians had professed the faith of Arius. + +In Italy, the great Theodoric kept peace between the two parties, and at +last the Nicaean formula prevailed in the east and in the west. Arianism +reappeared about the middle of the sixteenth century, favored by the +religious disputes which then divided Europe; and it reappeared, armed +with new strength and a still greater incredulity. Forty gentlemen of +Vicenza formed an academy, in which such tenets only were established as +appeared necessary to make men Christians. Jesus was acknowledged as the +Word, as Saviour, and as Judge; but His divinity, His consubstantiality, +and even the Trinity, were denied. + +Of these dogmatizers, the principal were Laelius Socinus, Ochin, Pazuta, +and Gentilis, who were joined by Servetus. The unfortunate dispute of +the latter with Calvin is well known; they carried on for some time an +interchange of abuse by letter. Servetus was so imprudent as to pass +through Geneva, on his way to Germany. Calvin was cowardly enough to +have him arrested, and barbarous enough to have him condemned to be +roasted by a slow fire--the same punishment which Calvin himself had +narrowly escaped in France. Nearly all the theologians of that time were +by turns persecuting and persecuted, executioners and victims. + +The same Calvin solicited the death of Gentilis at Geneva. He found five +advocates to subscribe that Gentilis deserved to perish in the flames. +Such horrors were worthy of that abominable age. Gentilis was put in +prison, and was on the point of being burned like Servetus, but he was +better advised than the Spaniard; he retracted, bestowed the most +ridiculous praises on Calvin, and was saved. But he had afterwards the +ill fortune, through not having made terms with a bailiff of the canton +of Berne, to be arrested as an Arian. There were witnesses who deposed +that he had said that the words _trinity, essence, hypostasis_ were not +to be found in the Scriptures, and on this deposition the judges, who +were as ignorant of the meaning of _hypostasis_ as himself, condemned +him, without at all arguing the question, to lose his head. + +Faustus Socinus, nephew to Laelius Socinus, and his companions were more +fortunate in Germany. They penetrated into Silesia and Poland, founded +churches there, wrote, preached, and were successful, but at length, +their religion being divested of almost every mystery, and a +philosophical and peaceful, rather than a militant sect, they were +abandoned; and the Jesuits, who had more influence, persecuted and +dispersed them. + +The remains of this sect in Poland, Germany, and Holland keep quiet and +concealed; but in England the sect has reappeared with greater strength +and eclat. The great Newton and Locke embraced it. Samuel Clarke, the +celebrated rector of St. James, and author of an excellent book on the +existence of God, openly declared himself an Arian, and his disciples +are very numerous. He would never attend his parish church on the day +when the Athanasian Creed was recited. In the course of this work will +be seen the subtleties which all these obstinate persons, who were not +so much Christians as philosophers, opposed to the purity of the +Catholic faith. + +Although among the theologians of London there was a large flock of +Arians, the public mind there has been more occupied by the great +mathematical truths discovered by Newton, and the metaphysical wisdom of +Locke. Disputes on consubstantiality appear very dull to philosophers. +The same thing happened to Newton in England as to Corneille in France, +whose _"Pertharite,"_ "_Theodore,_" and _"Recueil de Vers"_ were +forgotten, while _"Cinna"_ was alone thought of. Newton was looked upon +as God's interpreter, in the calculation of fluxions, the laws of +gravitation, and the nature of light. On his death, his pall was borne +by the peers and the chancellor of the realm, and his remains were laid +near the tombs of the kings--than whom he is more revered. Servetus, who +is said to have discovered the circulation of the blood, was roasted by +a slow fire, in a little town of the Allobroges, ruled by a theologian +of Picardy. + + + + +ARISTEAS. + + +Shall men forever be deceived in the most indifferent as well as the +most serious things? A pretended Aristeas would make us believe that he +had the Old Testament translated into Greek for the use of Ptolemy +Philadelphus--just as the Duke de Montausier had commentaries written on +the best Latin authors for the dauphin, who made no use of them. + +According to this Aristeas, Ptolemy, burning with desire to be +acquainted with the Jewish books, and to know those laws which the +meanest Jew in Alexandria could have translated for fifty crowns, +determined to send a solemn embassy to the high-priest of the Jews of +Jerusalem; to deliver a hundred and twenty thousand Jewish slaves, whom +his father, Ptolemy Soter, had made prisoners in Judaea, and in order to +assist them in performing the journey agreeably, to give them about +forty crowns each of our money--amounting in the whole to fourteen +millions four hundred thousand of our livres, or about five hundred and +seventy-six thousand pounds. + +Ptolemy did not content himself with this unheard-of liberality. He sent +to the temple a large table of massive gold, enriched all over with +precious stones, and had engraved upon it a chart of the Meander, a +river of Phrygia, the course of which river was marked with rubies and +emeralds. It is obvious how charming such a chart of the Meander must +have been to the Jews. This table was loaded with two immense golden +vases, still more richly worked. He also gave thirty other golden and an +infinite number of silver vases. Never was a book so dearly paid for; +the whole Vatican library might be had for a less amount. + +Eleazar, the pretended high-priest of Jerusalem, sent ambassadors in his +turn, who presented only a letter written upon fine vellum in characters +of gold. It was an act worthy of the Jews, to give a bit of parchment +for about thirty millions of livres. Ptolemy was so much delighted with +Eleazar's style that he shed tears of joy. + +The ambassador dined with the king and the chief priests of Egypt. When +grace was to be said, the Egyptians yielded the honor to the Jews. With +these ambassadors came seventy-two interpreters, six from each of the +twelve tribes, who had all learned Greek perfectly at Jerusalem. It is +really a pity that of these twelve tribes ten were entirely lost, and +had disappeared from the face of the earth so many ages before; but +Eleazar, the high-priest, found them again, on purpose to send +translators to Ptolemy. + +The seventy-two interpreters were shut up in the island of Pharos. Each +of them completed his translation in seventy-two days, and all the +translations were found to be word for word alike. This is called the +Septuagint or translation of the seventy, though it should have been +called the translation of the seventy-two. + +As soon as the king had received these books he worshipped them--he was +so good a Jew. Each interpreter received three talents of gold, and +there were sent to the high-sacrificer--in return for his parchment--ten +couches of silver, a crown of gold, censers and cups of gold, a vase of +thirty talents of silver--that is, of the weight of about sixty thousand +crowns--with ten purple robes, and a hundred pieces of the finest linen. + +Nearly all this fine story is faithfully repeated by the historian +Josephus, who never exaggerates anything. St. Justin improves upon +Josephus. He says that Ptolemy applied to King Herod, and not to the +high-priest Eleazar. He makes Ptolemy send two ambassadors to +Herod--which adds much to the marvellousness of the tale, for we know +that Herod was not born until long after the reign of Ptolemy +Philadelphus. + +It is needless to point out the profusion of anachronisms in these and +all such romances, or the swarm of contradictions and enormous blunders +into which the Jewish author falls in every sentence; yet this fable was +regarded for ages as an incontestable truth; and, the better to exercise +the credulity of the human mind, every writer who repeated it added or +retrenched in his own way, so that, to believe it all, it was necessary +to believe it in a hundred different ways. Some smile at these +absurdities which whole nations have swallowed, while others sigh over +the imposture. The infinite diversity of these falsehoods multiplies the +followers of Democritus and Heraclitus. + + + + +ARISTOTLE. + + +It is not to be believed that Alexander's preceptor, chosen by Philip, +was wrong-headed and pedantic. Philip was assuredly a judge, being +himself well informed, and the rival of Demosthenes in eloquence. + +_Aristotle's Logic._ + +Aristotle's logic--his art of reasoning--is so much the more to be +esteemed as he had to deal with the Greeks, who were continually holding +captious arguments, from which fault his master Plato was even less +exempt than others. + +Take, for example, the article by which, in the _"Phaedon"_ Plato proves +the immortality of the soul: + +"Do you not say that death is the opposite of life? Yes. And that they +spring from each other? Yes. What, then, is it that springs from the +living? The dead. And what from the dead? The living. It is, then, from +the dead that all living creatures arise. Consequently, souls exist +after death in the infernal regions." + +Sure and unerring rules were wanted to unravel this extraordinary +nonsense, which, through Plato's reputation, fascinated the minds of +men. It was necessary to show that Plato gave a loose meaning to all his +words. + +Death does not spring from life, but the living man ceases to live. The +living springs not from the dead, but from a living man who subsequently +dies. Consequently, the conclusion that all living things spring from +dead ones is ridiculous. + +From this conclusion you draw another, which is no way included in the +premises, that souls are in the infernal regions after death. It should +first have been proved that dead bodies are in the infernal regions, and +that the souls accompany them. + +There is not a correct word in your argument. You should have said--That +which thinks has no parts; that which has no parts is indestructible: +therefore, the thinking faculty in us, having no parts, is +indestructible. Or--the body dies because it is divisible; the soul is +indivisible; therefore it does not die. Then you would at least have +been understood. + +It is the same with all the captious reasonings of the Greeks. A master +taught rhetoric to his disciple on condition that he should pay him +after the first cause that he gained. The disciple intended never to pay +him. He commenced an action against his master, saying: "I will never +pay you anything, for, if I lose my cause I was not to pay you until I +had gained it, and if I gain it my demand is that I may not pay you." + +The master retorted, saying: "If you lose you must pay; if you gain you +must also pay; for our bargain is that you shall pay me after the first +cause that you have gained." + +It is evident that all this turns on an ambiguity. Aristotle teaches how +to remove it, by putting the necessary terms in the argument: + +A sum is not due until the day appointed for its payment. The day +appointed is that when a cause shall have been gained. No cause has yet +been gained. Therefore the day appointed has not yet arrived. Therefore +the disciple does not yet owe anything. + +But _not yet_ does not mean _never_. So that the disciple instituted a +ridiculous action. The master, too, had no right to demand anything, +since the day appointed had not arrived. He must wait until the disciple +had pleaded some other cause. + +Suppose a conquering people were to stipulate that they would restore to +the conquered only one-half of their ships; then, having sawed them in +two, and having thus given back the exact half, were to pretend that +they had fulfilled the treaty. It is evident that this would be a very +criminal equivocation. + +Aristotle did, then, render a great service to mankind by preventing all +ambiguity; for this it is which causes all misunderstandings in +philosophy, in theology, and in public affairs. The pretext for the +unfortunate war of 1756 was an equivocation respecting Acadia. + +It is true that natural good sense, combined with the habit of +reasoning, may dispense with Aristotle's rules. A man who has a good ear +and voice may sing well without musical rules, but it is better to know +them. + +_His Physics._ + +They are but little understood, but it is more than probable that +Aristotle understood himself, and was understood in his own time. We are +strangers to the language of the Greeks; we do not attach to the same +words the same ideas. + +For instance, when he says, in his seventh chapter, that the principles +of bodies are matter, privation, and form, he seems to talk egregious +nonsense; but such is not the case. Matter, with him, is the first +principle of everything--the subject of everything--indifferent to +everything. Form is essential to its becoming any certain thing. +Privation is that which distinguishes any being from all those things +which are not in it. Matter may, indifferently, become a rose or an +apple; but, when it is an apple or a rose it is deprived of all that +would make it silver or lead. Perhaps this truth was not worth the +trouble of repeating; but we have nothing here but what is quite +intelligible, and nothing at all impertinent. + +The "act of that which is in power" also seems a ridiculous phrase, +though it is no more so than the one just noticed. Matter may become +whatever you will--fire, earth, water, vapor, metal, mineral, animal, +tree, flower. This is all that is meant by the expression, _act in +power_. So that there was nothing ridiculous to the Greeks in saying +that motion was an act of power, since matter may be moved; and it is +very likely that Aristotle understood thereby that motion was not +essential to matter. + +Aristotle's physics must necessarily have been very bad in detail. This +was common to all philosophers until the time when the Galileos, the +Torricellis, the Guerickes, the Drebels, and the Academy del Cimento +began to make experiments. Natural philosophy is a mine which cannot be +explored without instruments that were unknown to the ancients. They +remained on the brink of the abyss, and reasoned upon without seeing its +contents. + +_Aristotle's Treatise on Animals._ + +His researches relative to animals formed, on the contrary, the best +book of antiquity, because here Aristotle made use of his eyes. +Alexander furnished him with all the rare animals of Europe, Asia, and +Africa. This was one fruit of his conquests. In this way that hero spent +immense sums, which at this day would terrify all the guardians of the +royal treasury, and which should immortalize Alexander's glory, of which +we have already spoken. + +At the present day a hero, when he has the misfortune to make war, can +scarcely give any encouragement to the sciences; he must borrow money of +a Jew, and consult other Jews in order to make the substance of his +subjects flow into his coffer of the Danaides, whence it escapes through +a thousand openings. Alexander sent to Aristotle elephants, +rhinoceroses, tigers, lions, crocodiles, gazelles, eagles, ostriches, +etc.; and we, when by chance a rare animal is brought to our fairs, go +and admire it for sixpence, and it dies before we know anything about +it. + +_Of the Eternal World._ + +Aristotle expressly maintains, in his book on heaven, chap, xi., that +the world is eternal. This was the opinion of all antiquity, excepting +the Epicureans. He admitted a God--a first mover--and defined Him to be +"one, eternal, immovable, indivisible, without qualities." + +He must, therefore, have regarded the world as emanating from God, as +the light emanates from the sun, and is co-existent with it. About the +celestial spheres he was as ignorant as all the rest of the +philosophers. Copernicus was not yet come. + +_His Metaphysics._ + +God being the first mover, He gives motion to the soul. But what is God, +and what is the soul, according to him? The soul is an _entelechia_. "It +is," says he, "a principle and an act--a nourishing, feeling, and +reasoning power." This can only mean that we have the faculties of +nourishing ourselves, of feeling, and of reasoning. The Greeks no more +knew what an _entelechia_ was than do the South Sea islanders; nor have +our doctors any more knowledge of what a soul is. + +_His Morals._ + +Aristotle's morals, like all others, are good, for there are not two +systems of morality. Those of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Pythagoras, of +Aristotle, of Epictetus, of Antoninus, are absolutely the same. God has +placed in every breast the knowledge of good, with some inclination for +evil. + +Aristotle says that to be virtuous three things are necessary--nature, +reason, and habit; and nothing is more true. Without a good disposition, +virtue is too difficult; reason strengthens it; and habit renders good +actions as familiar as a daily exercise to which one is accustomed. + +He enumerates all the virtues, and does not fail to place friendship +among them. He distinguishes friendship between equals, between +relatives, between guests, and between lovers. Friendship springing from +the rights of hospitality is no longer known among us. That which, among +the ancients, was the sacred bond of society is, with us, nothing but an +innkeeper's reckoning; and as for lovers, it is very rarely nowadays +that virtue has anything to do with love. We think we owe nothing to a +woman to whom we have a thousand times promised everything. + +It is a melancholy reflection that our first thinkers have never ranked +friendship among the virtues--have rarely recommended friendship; but, +on the contrary, have often seemed to breathe enmity, like tyrants, who +dread all associations. + +It is, moreover, with very good reason that Aristotle places all the +virtues between the two extremes. He was, perhaps, the first who +assigned them this place. He expressly says that piety is the medium +between atheism and superstition. + +_His Rhetoric._ + +It was probably his rules for rhetoric and poetry that Cicero and +Quintilian had in view. Cicero, in his "Orator" says that "no one had +more science, sagacity, invention, or judgment." Quintilian goes so far +as to praise, not only the extent of his knowledge, but also the suavity +of his elocution--_suavitatem eloquendi._ + +Aristotle would have an orator well informed respecting laws, finances, +treaties, fortresses, garrisons, provisions, and merchandise. The +orators in the parliaments of England, the diets of Poland, the states +of Sweden, the _pregadi_ of Venice, etc., would not find these lessons +of Aristotle unprofitable; to other nations, perhaps, they would be so. +He would have his orator know the passions and manners of men, and the +humors of every condition. + +I think there is not a single nicety of the art which has escaped him. +He particularly commends the citing of instances where public affairs +are spoken of; nothing has so great an effect on the minds of men. + +What he says on this subject proves that he wrote his "Rhetoric" long +before Alexander was appointed captain-general of the Greeks against the +great king. + +"If," says he, "any one had to prove to the Greeks that it is to their +interest to oppose the enterprises of the king of Persia, and to prevent +him from making himself master of Egypt, he should first remind them +that Darius Ochus would not attack Greece until Egypt was in his power; +he should remark that Xerxes had pursued the same course; he should add +that it was not to be doubted that Darius Codomannus would do the same; +and that, therefore, they must not suffer him to take possession of +Egypt." + +He even permits, in speeches delivered to great assemblies, the +introduction of parables and fables; they always strike the multitude. +He relates some ingenious ones, which are of the highest antiquity, as +the horse that implored the assistance of man to avenge himself on the +stag, and became a slave through having sought a protector. + +It may be remarked that, in the second book, where he treats of arguing +from the greater to the less, he gives an example which plainly shows +what was the opinion of Greece, and probably of Asia, respecting the +extent of the power of the gods. + +"If," says he, "it be true that the gods themselves, enlightened as they +are, cannot know everything, much less can men." This passage clearly +proves that omniscience was not then attributed to the Divinity. It was +conceived that the gods could not know what was not; the future was not, +therefore it seemed impossible that they should know it. This is the +opinion of the Socinians at the present day. + +But to return to Aristotle's "Rhetoric." What I shall chiefly remark on +in his book on elocution and diction is the good sense with which he +condemns those who would be poets in prose. He would have pathos, but he +banishes bombast, and proscribes useless epithets. Indeed, Demosthenes +and Cicero, who followed his precepts, never affected the poetic style +in their speeches. "The style," says Aristotle, "must always be +conformable to the subject." + +Nothing can be more misplaced than to speak of physics poetically, and +lavish figure and ornament where there should be only method, clearness, +and truth. It is the quackery of a man who would pass off false systems +under cover of an empty noise of words. Weak minds are caught by the +bait, and strong minds disdain it. + +Among us the funeral oration has taken possession of the poetic style in +prose; but this branch of oratory, consisting almost entirely of +exaggeration, seems privileged to borrow the ornaments of poetry. + +The writers of romances have sometimes taken this licence. La Calprenede +was, I think, the first who thus transposed the limits of the arts, and +abused this facility. The author of "Telemachus" was pardoned through +consideration for Homer, whom he imitated, though he could not make +verses, and still more in consideration of his morality, in which he +infinitely surpasses Homer, who has none at all. But he owed his +popularity chiefly to the criticism on the pride of Louis XIV. and the +harshness of Louvois, which, it was thought, were discoverable in +"Telemachus." + +Be this as it may, nothing can be a better proof of Aristotle's good +sense and good taste than his having assigned to everything its proper +place. + +_Aristotle on Poetry._ + +Where, in our modern nations, shall we find a natural philosopher, a +geometrician, a metaphysician, or even a moralist who has spoken well on +the subject of poetry? They teem with the names of Homer, Virgil, +Sophocles, Ariosto, Tasso, and so many others who have charmed the world +by the harmonious productions of their genius, but they feel not their +beauties; or if they feel them they would annihilate them. + +How ridiculous is it in Pascal to say: "As we say poetical beauty, we +should likewise say geometrical beauty, and medicinal beauty. Yet we do +not say so, and the reason is that we well know what is the object of +geometry, and what is the object of medicine, but we do not know in what +the peculiar charm--which is the object of poetry--consists. We know not +what that natural model is which must be imitated; and for want of this +knowledge we have invented certain fantastic terms, as age of gold, +wonder of the age, fatal wreath, fair star, etc. And this jargon we call +poetic beauty." + +The pitifulness of this passage is sufficiently obvious. We know that +there is nothing beautiful in a medicine, nor in the properties of a +triangle; and that we apply the term "beautiful" only to that which +raises admiration in our minds and gives pleasure to our senses. Thus +reasons Aristotle; and Pascal here reasons very ill. Fatal wreath, fair +star, have never been poetic beauties. If he wished to know what is +poetic beauty, he had only to read. + +Nicole wrote against the stage, about which he had not a single idea; +and was seconded by one Dubois, who was as ignorant of the _belles +lettres_ as himself. + +Even Montesquieu, in his amusing "Persian Letters," has the petty vanity +to think that Homer and Virgil are nothing in comparison with one who +imitates with spirit and success Dufrenoy's _"Siamois,"_ and fills his +book with bold assertions, without which it would not have been read. +"What," says he, "are epic poems? I know them not. I despise the lyric +as much as I esteem the tragic poets." He should not, however, have +despised Pindar and Horace quite so much. Aristotle did not despise +Pindar. + +Descartes did, it is true, write for Queen Christina a little +_divertissement_ in verse, which was quite worthy of his _matiere +cannelee_. + +Malebranche could not distinguish Corneille's _"Qu'il mourut"_ from a +line of Jodele's or Garnier's. + +What a man, then, was Aristotle, who traced the rules of tragedy with +the same hand with which he had laid down those of dialectics, of +morals, of politics, and lifted, as far as he found it possible, the +great veil of nature! + +To his fourth chapter on poetry Boileau is indebted for these fine +lines: + + _Il n'est point de serpent, ni de monstre odieux_ + _Qui, par l'art imite, ne puisse plaire aux yeux._ + _D'un pinceau delicat l'artifice agreable_ + _Du plus affreux object fait un objet aimable;_ + _Ainsi, pour nous charmer, la tragedie eut pleurs_ + _D'OEdipe tout-sanglant fit parler les douleurs._ + + Each horrid shape, each object of affright, + Nice imitation teaches to delight; + So does the skilful painter's pleasing art + Attractions to the darkest form impart; + So does the tragic Muse, dissolved in tears. + With tales of woe and sorrow charm our ears. + +Aristotle says: "Imitation and harmony have produced poetry. We see +terrible animals, dead or dying men, in a picture, with +pleasure--objects which in nature would inspire us only with fear and +sorrow. The better they are imitated the more complete is our +satisfaction." + +This fourth chapter of Aristotle's reappears almost entire in Horace and +Boileau. The laws which he gives in the following chapters are at this +day those of our good writers, excepting only what relates to the +choruses and music. His idea that tragedy was instituted to purify the +passions has been warmly combated; but if he meant, as I believe he did, +that an incestuous love might be subdued by witnessing the misfortune of +Phaedra, or anger be repressed by beholding the melancholy example of +Ajax, there is no longer any difficulty. + +This philosopher expressly commands that there be always the heroic in +tragedy and the ridiculous in comedy. This is a rule from which it is, +perhaps, now becoming too customary to depart. + + + + +ARMS--ARMIES. + + +It is worthy of consideration that there have been and still are, upon +the earth societies without armies. The Brahmins, who long governed +nearly all the great Indian Chersonesus; the primitives, called Quakers, +who governed Pennsylvania; some American tribes, some in the centre of +Africa, the Samoyedes, the Laplanders, the Kamchadales, have never +marched with colors flying to destroy their neighbors. + +The Brahmins were the most considerable of all these pacific nations; +their caste, which is so ancient, which is still existing, and compared +with which all other institutions are quite recent, is a prodigy which +cannot be sufficiently admired. Their religion and their policy always +concurred in abstaining from the shedding of blood, even of that of the +meanest animal. Where such is the regime, subjugation is easy; they have +been subjugated, but have not changed. + +The Pennsylvanians never had an army; they always held war in +abhorrence. + +Several of the American tribes did not know what an army was until the +Spaniards came to exterminate them all. The people on the borders of the +Icy Sea are ignorant alike of armies, of the god of armies, of +battalions, and of squadrons. + +Besides these populations, the priests and monks do not bear arms in +any country--at least when they observe the laws of their institution. + +It is only among Christians that there have been religious societies +established for the purpose of fighting--as the Knights Templars, the +Knights of St. John, the Knights of the Teutonic Order, the Knights +Swordbearers. These religious orders were instituted in imitation of the +Levites, who fought like the rest of the Jewish tribes. + +Neither armies nor arms were the same in antiquity as at present. The +Egyptians hardly ever had cavalry. It would have been of little use in a +country intersected by canals, inundated during five months of the year, +and miry during five more. The inhabitants of a great part of Asia used +chariots of war. + +They are mentioned in the annals of China. Confucius says that in his +time each governor of a province furnished to the emperor a thousand war +chariots, each drawn by four horses. The Greeks and Trojans fought in +chariots drawn by two horses. + +Cavalry and chariots were unknown to the Jews in a mountainous tract, +where their first king, when he was elected, had nothing but she-asses. +Thirty sons of Jair, princes of thirty cities, according to the text +(Judges, x, 4), rode each upon an ass. Saul, afterwards king of Judah, +had only she-asses; and the sons of David all fled upon mules when +Absalom had slain his brother Amnon. Absalom was mounted on a mule in +the battle which he fought against his father's troops; which proves, +according to the Jewish historians, either that mares were beginning to +be used in Palestine, or that they were already rich enough there to buy +mules from the neighboring country. + +The Greeks made but little use of cavalry. It was chiefly with the +Macedonian phalanx that Alexander gained the battles which laid Persia +at his feet. It was the Roman infantry that subjugated the greater part +of the world. At the battle of Pharsalia, Caesar had but one thousand +horsemen. + +It is not known at what time the Indians and the Africans first began to +march elephants at the head of their armies. We cannot read without +surprise of Hannibal's elephants crossing the Alps, which were much +harder to pass then than they are now. + +There have long been disputes about the disposition of the Greek and +Roman armies, their arms, and their evolutions. Each one has given his +plan of the battles of Zama and Pharsalia. + +The commentator Calmet, a Benedictine, has printed three great volumes +of his "Dictionary of the Bible," in which, the better to explain God's +commandments, are inserted a hundred engravings, where you see plans of +battles and sieges in copper-plate. The God of the Jews was the God of +armies, but Calmet was not His secretary; he cannot have known, but by +revelation, how the armies of the Amalekites, the Moabites, the Syrians, +and the Philistines were arranged on the days of general murder. These +plates of carnage, designed at a venture, made his hook five or six +louis dearer, but made it no better. + +It is a great question whether the Franks, whom the Jesuit Daniel calls +French by anticipation, used bows and arrows in their armies, and +whether they had helmets and cuirasses. + +Supposing that they went to combat almost naked, and armed, as they are +said to have been, with only a small carpenter's ax, a sword, and a +knife, we must infer that the Romans, masters of Gaul, so easily +conquered by Clovis, had lost all their ancient valor, and that the +Gauls were as willing to be subject to a small number of Franks as to a +small number of Romans. Warlike accoutrements have since changed, as +everything else changes. + +In the days of knights, squires, and varlets, the armed forces of +Germany, France, Italy, England, and Spain consisted almost entirely of +horsemen, who, as well as their horses, were covered with steel. The +infantry performed the functions rather of pioneers than of soldiers. +But the English always had good archers among their foot, which +contributed, in a great measure, to their gaining almost every battle. + +Who would believe that armies nowadays do but make experiments in +natural philosophy? A soldier would be much astonished if some learned +man were to say to him: + +"My friend, you are a better machinist than Archimedes. Five parts of +saltpetre, one of sulphur, and one of _carbo ligneus_ have been +separately prepared. Your saltpetre dissolved, well filtered, well +evaporated, well crystallized, well turned, well dried, has been +incorporated with the yellow purified sulphur. These two ingredients, +mixed with powdered charcoal, have, by means of a little vinegar, or +solution of sal-ammoniac, or urine, formed large balls, which balls have +been reduced _in pulverem pyrium_ by a mill. The effect of this mixture +is a dilatation, which is nearly as four thousand to unity; and the lead +in your barrel exhibits another effect, which is the product of its bulk +multiplied by its velocity. + +"The first who discovered a part of this mathematical secret was a +Benedictine named Roger Bacon. The invention was perfected, in Germany, +in the fourteenth century, by another Benedictine named Schwartz. So +that you owe to two monks the art of being an excellent murderer, when +you aim well, and your powder is good. + +"Du Cange has in vain pretended that, in 1338, the registers of the +_Chambre des Comptes_, at Paris, mention a bill paid for gunpowder. Do +not believe it. It was artillery which is there spoken of--a name +attached to ancient as well as to modern warlike machines. + +"Gunpowder entirely superseded the Greek fire, of which the Moors still +made use. In fine, you are the depositary of an art, which not only +imitates the thunder, but is also much more terrible." + +There is, however, nothing but truth in this speech. Two monks have, in +reality, changed the face of the earth. + +Before cannon were known, the northern nations had subjugated nearly the +whole hemisphere, and could come again, like famishing wolves, to seize +upon the lands as their ancestors had done. + +In all armies, the victory, and consequently the fate of kingdoms, was +decided by bodily strength and agility--a sort of sanguinary fury--a +desperate struggle, man to man. Intrepid men took towns by scaling their +walls. During the decline of the Roman Empire there was hardly more +discipline in the armies of the North than among carnivorous beasts +rushing on their prey. + +Now a single frontier fortress would suffice to stop the armies of +Genghis or Attila. It is not long since a victorious army of Russians +were unavailably consumed before Custrin, which is nothing more than a +little fortress in a marsh. + +In battle, the weakest in body may, with well-directed artillery, +prevail against the stoutest. At the battle of Fontenoy a few cannon +were sufficient to compel the retreat of the whole English column, +though it had been master of the field. + +The combatants no longer close. The soldier has no longer that ardor, +that impetuosity, which is redoubled in the heat of action, when the +fight is hand to hand. Strength, skill, and even the temper of the +weapons, are useless. Rarely is a charge with the bayonet made in the +course of a war, though the bayonet is the most terrible of weapons. + +In a plain, frequently surrounded by redoubts furnished with heavy +artillery, two armies advance in silence, each division taking with it +flying artillery. The first lines lire at one another and after one +another: they are victims presented in turn to the bullets. Squadrons at +the wings are often exposed to a cannonading while waiting for the +general's orders. They who first tire of this manoeuvre, which gives +no scope for the display of impetuous bravery, disperse and quit the +field; and are rallied, if possible, a few miles off. The victorious +enemies besiege a town, which sometimes costs them more men, money, and +time than they would have lost by several battles. The progress made is +rarely rapid; and at the end of five or six years, both sides, being +equally exhausted, are compelled to make peace. + +Thus, at all events, the invention of artillery and the new mode of +warfare have established among the respective powers an equality which +secures mankind from devastations like those of former times, and +thereby renders war less fatal in its consequences, though it is still +prodigiously so. + +The Greeks in all ages, the Romans in the time of Sulla, and the other +nations of the west and south, had no standing army; every citizen was a +soldier, and enrolled himself in time of war. It is, at this day, +precisely the same in Switzerland. Go through the whole country, and +you will not find a battalion, except at the time of the reviews. If it +goes to war, you all at once see eighty thousand men in arms. + +Those who usurped the supreme power after Sulla always had a permanent +force, paid with the money of the citizens, to keep the citizens in +subjection, much more than to subjugate other nations. The bishop of +Rome himself keeps a small army in his pay. Who, in the time of the +apostles, would have said that the servant of the servants of God should +have regiments, and have them in Rome? + +Nothing is so much feared in England as a great standing army. The +janissaries have raised the sultans to greatness, but they have also +strangled them. The sultans would have avoided the rope, if instead of +these large bodies of troops, they had established small ones. + + + + +AROT AND MAROT. + +WITH A SHORT REVIEW OF THE KORAN. + + +This article may serve to show how much the most learned men may be +deceived, and to develop some useful truths. In the _"Dictionnaire +Encyclopedique"_ there is the following passage concerning Arot and +Marot: + +"These are the names of two angels, who, the impostor Mahomet said, had +been sent from God to teach man, and to order him to abstain from +murder, false judgments, and excesses of every kind. This false prophet +adds that a very beautiful woman, having invited these two angels to her +table, made them drink wine, with which being heated, they solicited her +as lovers; that she feigned to yield to their passion, provided they +would first teach her the words by pronouncing which they said it was +easy to ascend to heaven; that having obtained from them what she asked, +she would not keep her promise; and that she was then taken up into +heaven, where, having related to God what had passed, she was changed +into the morning star called Lucifer or Aurora, and the angels were +severely punished. Hence it was, according to Mahomet, that God took +occasion to forbid wine to men." + +It would be in vain to seek in the Koran for a single word of this +absurd story and pretended reason for Mahomet's forbidding his followers +the use of wine. He forbids it only in the second and fifth chapters. + +"They will question thee about wine and strong liquors: thou shalt +answer, that it is a great sin. The just, who believe and do good works, +must not be reproached with having drunk, and played at games of chance, +before games of chance were forbidden." + +It is averred by all the Mahometans that their prophet forbade wine and +liquors solely to preserve their health and prevent quarrels, in the +burning climate of Arabia. The use of any fermented liquor soon affects +the head, and may destroy both health and reason. + +The fable of Arot and Marot descending from heaven, and wanting to lie +with an Arab woman, after drinking wine with her, is not in any +Mahometan author. It is to be found only among the impostures which +various Christian writers, more indiscreet than enlightened, have +printed against the Mussulman religion, through a zeal which is not +according to knowledge. The names of Arot and Marot are in no part of +the Koran. It is one Sylburgius who says, in an old book which nobody +reads, that he anathematizes the angels Arot, Marot, Safah, and Merwah. + +Observe, kind reader, that Safah and Merwah are two little hills near +Mecca; so that our learned Sylburgius has taken two hills for two +angels. Thus it was with every writer on Mahometanism among us, almost +without exception, until the intelligent Reland gave us clear ideas of +the Mussulman belief, and the learned Sale, after living twenty-four +years in and about Arabia, at length enlightened us by his faithful +translation of the Koran, and his most instructive preface. + +Gagnier himself, notwithstanding his Arabic professorship at Oxford, has +been pleased to put forth a few falsehoods concerning Mahomet, as if we +had need of lies to maintain the truth of our religion against a false +prophet. He gives us at full length Mahomet's journey through the seven +heavens on the mare Alborac, and even ventures to cite the fifty-third +sura or chapter; but neither in this fifty-third sura, nor in any other, +is there so much as an allusion to this pretended journey through the +heavens. + +This strange story is related by Abulfeda, seven hundred years after +Mahomet. It is taken, he says, from ancient manuscripts which were +current in Mahomet's time. But it is evident that they were not +Mahomet's; for, after his death, Abubeker gathered together all the +leaves of the Koran, in the presence of all the chiefs of tribes, and +nothing was inserted in the collection that did not appear to be +authentic. + +Besides, the chapter concerning the journey to heaven, not only is not +in the Koran, but is in a very different style, and is at least four +times as long as any of the received chapters. Compare all the other +chapters of the Koran with this, and you will find a prodigious +difference. It begins thus: + +"One night, I fell asleep between the two hills of Safah and Merwah. +That night was very dark, but so still that the dogs were not heard to +bark, nor the cocks to crow. All at once, the angel Gabriel appeared +before me in the form in which the Most High God created him. His skin +was white as snow. His fair hair, admirably disposed, fell in ringlets +over his shoulders; his forehead was clear, majestic, and serene, his +teeth beautiful and shining, and his legs of a saffron hue; his garments +were glittering with pearls, and with thread of pure gold. On his +forehead was a plate of gold, on which were written two lines, brilliant +and dazzling with light; in the first were these words, 'There is no God +but God'; and in the second these, 'Mahomet is God's Apostle.' On +beholding this, I remained the most astonished and confused of men. I +observed about him seventy thousand little boxes or bags of musk and +saffron. He had five hundred pairs of wings; and the distance from one +wing to another was five hundred years' journey. + +"Thus did Gabriel appear before me. He touched me, and said, 'Arise, +thou sleeper!' I was seized with fear and trembling, and starting up, +said to him, 'Who art thou?' He answered, 'God have mercy upon thee! I +am thy brother Gabriel.' 'O my dearly beloved Gabriel,' said I, 'I ask +thy pardon; is it a revelation of something new, or is it some +afflicting threat that thou bringest me?' 'It is something new,' +returned he; 'rise, my dearly beloved, and tie thy mantle over thy +shoulders; thou wilt have need of it, for thou must this night pay a +visit to thy Lord.' So saying, Gabriel, taking my hand, raised me from +the ground, and having mounted me on the mare Alborac, led her himself +by the bridle." + +In fine, it is averred by the Mussulmans that this chapter, which has no +authenticity, was imagined by Abu-Horairah, who is said to have been +contemporary with the prophet. What should we say of a Turk who should +come and insult our religion by telling us that we reckon among our +sacred books the letters of St. Paul to Seneca, and Seneca's letters to +St. Paul; the acts of Pilate; the life of Pilate's wife; the letters of +the pretended King Abgarus to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ's answer to +the same; the story of St. Peter's challenge to Simon the magician; the +predictions of the sibyls; the testament of the twelve patriarchs; and +so many other books of the same kind? + +We should answer the Turk by saying that he was very ill informed and +that not one of these works was regarded as authentic. The Turk will +make the same answer to us, when to confound him we reproach him with +Mahomet's journey to the seven heavens. He will tell us that this is +nothing more than a pious fraud of latter times, and that this journey +is not in the Koran. Assuredly I am not here comparing truth with +error--Christianity with Mahometanism--the Gospel with the Koran; but +false tradition with false tradition--abuse with abuse--absurdity with +absurdity. + +This absurdity has been carried to such a length that Grotius charges +Mahomet with having said that God's hands are cold, for he has felt +them; that God is carried about in a chair; and that, in Noah's ark, the +rat was produced from the elephant's dung, and the cat from the lion's +breath. + +Grotius reproaches Mahomet with having imagined that Jesus Christ was +taken up into heaven instead of suffering execution. He forgets that +there were entire heretical communions of primitive Christians who +spread this opinion, which was preserved in Syria and Arabia until +Mahomet's time. + +How many times has it been repeated that Mahomet had accustomed a pigeon +to eat grain out of his ear, and made his followers believe that this +pigeon brought him messages from God? + +Is it not enough for us that we are persuaded of the falseness of his +sect, and invincibly convinced by faith of the truth of our own, without +losing our time in calumniating the Mahometans, who have established +themselves from Mount Caucasus to Mount Atlas, and from the confines of +Epirus to the extremities of India? We are incessantly writing bad books +against them, of which they know nothing. We cry out that their religion +has been embraced by so many nations only because it flatters the +senses. But where is the sensuality in ordering abstinence from the wine +and liquors in which we indulge to such excess; in pronouncing to every +one an indispensable command to give to the poor each year two and a +half per cent, of his income, to fast with the greatest rigor, to +undergo a painful operation in the earliest stage of puberty, to make, +over arid sands a pilgrimage of sometimes five hundred leagues, and to +pray to God five times a day, even when in the field? + +But, say you, they are allowed four wives in this world, and in the next +they will have celestial brides. Grotius expressly says: "It must have +required a great share of stupidity to admit reveries so gross and +disgusting." + +We agree with Grotius that the Mahometans have been prodigal of +reveries. The man who was constantly receiving the chapters of his Koran +from the angel Gabriel was worse than a visionary; he was an impostor, +who supported his seductions by his courage; but certainly there is +nothing either stupid or sensual in reducing to four the unlimited +number of wives whom the princes, the satraps, the nabobs, and the +omrahs of the East kept in their seraglios. It is said that Solomon had +three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines. The Arabs, like the +Jews, were at liberty to marry two sisters; Mahomet was the first who +forbade these marriages. Where, then, is the grossness? + +And with regard to the celestial brides, where is the impurity? Certes, +there is nothing impure in marriage, which is acknowledged to have been +ordained on earth, and blessed by God Himself. The incomprehensible +mystery of generation is the seal of the Eternal Being. It is the +clearest mark of His power that He has created pleasure, and through +that very pleasure perpetuated all sensible beings. + +If we consult our reason alone it will tell us that it is very likely +that the Eternal Being, who does nothing in vain, will not cause us to +rise again with our organs to no purpose. It will not be unworthy of the +Divine Majesty to feed us with delicious fruits if he cause us to rise +again with stomachs to receive them. The Holy Scriptures inform us +that, in the beginning, God placed the first man and the first woman in +a paradise of delights. They were then in a state of innocence and +glory, incapable of experiencing disease or death. This is nearly the +state in which the just will be when, after their resurrection, they +shall be for all eternity what our first parents were for a few days. +Those, then, must be pardoned, who have thought that, having a body, +that body will be constantly satisfied. Our fathers of the Church had no +other idea of the heavenly Jerusalem. St. Irenaeus says, "There each vine +shall bear ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand clusters, and +each cluster ten thousand grapes." + +Several fathers of the Church have, indeed, thought that the blessed in +heaven would enjoy all their senses. St. Thomas says that the sense of +seeing will be infinitely perfect; that the elements will be so too; +that the surface of the earth will be transparent as glass, the water +like crystal, the air like the heavens, and the fire like the stars. St. +Augustine, in his "Christian Doctrine," says that the sense of hearing +will enjoy the pleasures of singing and of speech. + +One of our great Italian theologians, named Piazza, in his "Dissertation +on Paradise," informs us that the elect will forever sing and play the +guitar: "They will have," says he, "three nobilities--three advantages, +viz.: desire without excitement, caresses without wantonness, and +voluptuousness without excess"--_"tres nobilitates; illecebra sine +titillatione, blanditia sine mollitudine, et voluptas sine +exuberantia."_ + +St. Thomas assures us that the smell of the glorified bodies will be +perfect, and will not be diminished by perspiration. _"Corporibus +gloriosi serit odor ultima perfectione, nullo modo per humidum +repressus."_ This question has been profoundly treated by a great many +other doctors. + +Suarez, in his "Wisdom," thus expresses himself concerning taste: "It is +not difficult for God purposely to make some rapid humor act on the +organ of taste." _"Non est Deo difficile facere ut sapidus humor sit +intra organum gustus, qui sensum illum intentionaliter afficere."_ + +And, to conclude, St. Prosper, recapitulating the whole, pronounces that +the blessed shall find gratification without satiety, and enjoy health +without disease. _"Saturitas sine fastidio, et tota sanitas sine +morbo._" + +It is not then so much to be wondered at that the Mahometans have +admitted the use of the five senses in their paradise. They say that the +first beatitude will be the union with God; but this does not exclude +the rest. Mahomet's paradise is a fable; but; once more be it observed, +there is in it neither contradiction nor impurity. + +Philosophy requires clear and precise ideas, which Grotius had not. He +quotes a great deal, and makes a show of reasoning which will not bear +a close examination. The unjust imputations cast on the Mahometans would +suffice to make a very large book. They have subjugated one of the +largest and most beautiful countries upon earth; to drive them from it +would have been a finer exploit than to abuse them. + +The empress of Russia supplies a great example. She takes from them Azov +and Tangarok, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Georgia; she pushes her conquests +to the ramparts of Erzerum; she sends against them fleets from the +remotest parts of the Baltic, and others covering the Euxine; but she +does not say in her manifestos that a pigeon whispered in Mahomet's ear. + + + + +ART OF POETRY. + + +A MAN + + +A man of almost universal learning--a man even of genius, who joins +philosophy with imagination, uses, in his excellent article +"Encyclopedia," these remarkable words: "If we except this Perrault, and +some others, whose merits the versifier Boileau was not capable of +appreciating." + +This philosopher is right in doing justice to Claude Perrault, the +learned translator of Vitruvius, a man useful in more arts than one, and +to whom we are indebted for the fine front of the Louvre and for other +great monuments; but justice should also be rendered to Boileau. Had he +been only a versifier, he would scarcely have been known; he would not +have been one of the few great men who will hand down the age of Louis +XIV. to posterity. His tart satires, his fine epistles, and above all, +his art of poetry, are masterpieces of reasoning as well as +poetry--_"sapere est principium et fons."_ The art of versifying is, +indeed, prodigiously difficult, especially in our language, where +alexandrines follow one another two by two; where it is rare to avoid +monotony; where it is absolutely necessary to rhyme; where noble and +pleasing rhymes are too limited in number; and where a word out of its +place, or a harsh syllable, is sufficient to spoil a happy thought. It +is like dancing in fetters on a rope; the greatest success is of itself +nothing. + +Boileau's art of poetry is to be admired, because he always says true +and useful things in a pleasing manner, because he always gives both +precept and example, and because he is varied, passing with perfect +ease, and without ever failing in purity of language, "From grave to +gay, from lively to severe." + +His reputation among men of taste is proved by the fact that his verses +are known by heart; and to philosophers it must be pleasing to find that +he is almost always in the right. + +As we have spoken of the preference which may sometimes be given to the +moderns over the ancients, we will here venture to presume that +Boileau's art of poetry is superior to that of Horace. Method is +certainly a beauty in a didactic poem; and Horace has no method. We do +not mention this as a reproach; for his poem is a familiar epistle to +the Pisos, and not a regular work like the "Georgics": but there is this +additional merit in Boileau, a merit for which philosophers should give +him credit. + +The Latin art of poetry does not seem nearly so finely labored as the +French. Horace expresses himself, almost throughout, in the free and +familiar tone of his other epistles. He displays an extreme clearness of +understanding and a refined taste, in verses which are happy and +spirited, but often without connection, and sometimes destitute of +harmony; he has not the elegance and correctness of Virgil. His work is +good, but Boileau's appears to be still better: and, if we except the +tragedies of Racine, which have the superior merit of treating the +passions and surmounting all the difficulties of the stage, Despreaux's +"Art of Poetry" is, indisputably, the poem that does most honor to the +French language. + +It is lamentable when philosophers are enemies to poetry. Literature +should be like the house of Maecenas--_"est locus unicuique suus."_ The +author of the "Persian Letters"--so easy to write and among which some +are very pretty, others very bold, others indifferent, and others +frivolous--this author, I say, though otherwise much to be recommended, +yet having never been able to make verses, although he possesses +imagination and often superiority of style, makes himself amends by +saying that "contempt is heaped upon poetry," that "lyric poetry is +harmonious extravagance." Thus do men often seek to depreciate the +talents which they cannot attain. + +"We cannot reach it," says Montaigne; "let us revenge ourselves by +speaking ill of it." But Montaigne, Montesquieu's predecessor and master +in imagination and philosophy, thought very differently of poetry. + +Had Montesquieu been as just as he was witty, he could not but have felt +that several of our fine odes and good operas are worth infinitely more +than the pleasantries of Rica to Usbeck, imitated from Dufrenoy's +_"Siamois,"_ and the details of what passed in Usbeck's seraglio at +Ispahan. + +We shall speak more fully of this too frequent injustice, in the article +on "Criticism." + + + + +ARTS--FINE ARTS. + +[ARTICLE DEDICATED TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA.] + + +Sire: The small society of amateurs, a part of whom are laboring at +these rhapsodies at Mount Krapak, will say nothing to your majesty on +the art of war. It is heroic, or--it may be--an abominable art. If there +were anything fine in it, we would tell your majesty, without fear of +contradiction, that you are the finest man in Europe. + +You know, sire, the four ages of the arts. Almost everything sprung up +and was brought to perfection under Louis XIV.; after which many of +these arts, banished from France, went to embellish and enrich the rest +of Europe, at the fatal period of the destruction of the celebrated +edict of Henry IV.--pronounced _irrevocable_, yet so easily revoked. +Thus, the greatest injury which Louis XIV. could do to himself did good +to other princes against his will: this is proved by what you have said +in your history of Brandenburg. + +If that monarch were known only from his banishment of six or seven +hundred thousand useful citizens--from his irruption into Holland, +whence he was soon forced to retreat--from his greatness, which stayed +him at the bank, while his troops were swimming across the Rhine; if +there were no other monuments of his glory than the prologues to his +operas, followed by the battle of Hochstet, his person and his reign +would go down to posterity with but little eclat. But the encouragement +of all the fine arts by his taste and munificence; the conferring of so +many benefits on the literary men of other countries; the rise of his +kingdom's commerce at his voice; the establishment of so many +manufactories; the building of so many fine citadels; the construction +of so many admirable ports; the union of the two seas by immense labor, +etc., still oblige Europe to regard Louis XIV. and his age with respect. + +And, above all, those great men, unique in every branch of art and +science, whom nature then produced at one time, will render his reign +eternally memorable. The age was greater than Louis XIV., but it shed +its glory upon him. + +Emulation in art has changed the face of the continent, from the +Pyrenees to the icy sea. There is hardly a prince in Germany who has not +made useful and glorious establishments. + +What have the Turks done for glory? Nothing. They have ravaged three +empires and twenty kingdoms; but any one city of ancient Greece will +always have a greater reputation than all the Ottoman cities together. + +See what has been done in the course of a few years at St. Petersburg, +which was a bog at the beginning of the seventeenth century. All the +arts are there assembled, while in the country of Orpheus, Linus, and +Homer, they are annihilated. + +_That the Recent Birth of the Arts does not Prove the Recent Formation +of the Globe._ + +All philosophers have thought matter eternal; but the arts appear to be +new. Even the art of making bread is of recent origin. The first Romans +ate boiled grain; those conquerors of so many nations had neither +windmills nor watermills. This truth seems, at first sight, to +controvert the doctrine of the antiquity of the globe as it now is, or +to suppose terrible revolutions in it. Irruptions of barbarians can +hardly annihilate arts which have become necessary. Suppose that an army +of negroes were to come upon us, like locusts, from the mountains of +southern Africa, through Monomotapa, Monoemugi, etc., traversing +Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and all Europe, ravaging +and overturning everything in its way; there would still be a few +bakers, tailors, shoemakers, and carpenters left; the necessary arts +would revive; luxury alone would be annihilated. Such was the case at +the fall of the Roman Empire; even the art of writing became very rare; +nearly all those arts which contributed to render life agreeable were +for a long time extinct. Now, we are inventing new ones every day. + +From all this, no well-grounded inference can be drawn against the +antiquity of the globe. For, supposing that a flood of barbarians had +entirely swept away the arts of writing and making bread; supposing even +that we had had bread, or pens, ink, and paper, only for ten years--the +country which could exist for ten years without eating bread or writing +down its thoughts could exist for an age, or a hundred thousand ages, +without these helps. + +It is quite clear that man and the other animals can very well subsist +without bakers, without romance-writers, and without divines, as witness +America, and as witness also three-fourths of our own continent. The +recent birth of the arts among us does not prove the recent formation of +the globe, as was pretended by Epicurus, one of our predecessors in +reverie, who supposed that, by chance, the declination of atoms one day +formed our earth. Pomponatius used to say: _"Se il mondo non e eterno, +per tutti santi e molto vecchio"_--"If this world be not eternal, by all +the saints, it is very old." + +_Slight Inconveniences Attached to the Arts._ + +Those who handle lead and quicksilver are subject to dangerous colics, +and very serious affections of the nerves. Those who use pen and ink are +attacked by vermin, which they have continually to shake off; these +vermin are some ex-Jesuits, who employ themselves in manufacturing +libels. You, Sire, do not know this race of animals; they are driven +from your states, as well as from those of the empress of Russia, the +king of Sweden, and the king of Denmark, my other protectors. The +ex-Jesuits Polian and Nonotte, who like me cultivate the fine arts, +persecute me even unto Mount Krapak, crushing me under the weight of +their reputation, and that of their genius, the specific gravity of +which is still greater. Unless your majesty vouchsafe to assist me +against these great men, I am undone. + + + + +ASMODEUS. + + +No one at all versed in antiquity is ignorant that the Jews knew nothing +of the angels but what they gleaned from the Persians and Chaldaeans, +during captivity. It was they, who, according to Calmet, taught them +that there are seven principal angels before the throne of the Lord. +They also taught them the names of the devils. He whom we call Asmodeus, +was named Hashmodai or Chammadai. "We know," says Calmet, "that there +are various sorts of devils, some of them princes and master-demons, the +rest subalterns." + +How was it that this Hashmodai was sufficiently powerful to twist the +necks of seven young men who successively espoused the beautiful Sarah, +a native of Rages, fifteen leagues from Ecbatana? The Medes must have +been seven times as great as the Persians. The good principle gives a +husband to this maiden; and behold! the bad principle, this king of +demons, Hashmodai, destroys the work of the beneficent principle seven +times in succession. + +But Sarah was a Jewess, daughter of the Jew Raguel, and a captive in the +country of Ecbatana. How could a Median demon have such power over +Jewish bodies? It has been thought that Asmodeus or Chammadai was a Jew +likewise; that he was the old serpent which had seduced Eve; and that he +was passionately fond of women, sometimes seducing them, and sometimes +killing their husbands through an excess of love and jealousy. + +Indeed the Greek version of the Book of Tobit gives us to understand +that Asmodeus was in love with Sarah--_"oti daimonion philei autein."_ +It was the opinion of all the learned of antiquity that the genii, +whether good or evil, had a great inclination for our virgins, and the +fairies for our youths. Even the Scriptures, accommodating themselves to +our weakness, and condescending to speak in the language of the vulgar, +say, figuratively, that "the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that +they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." + +But the angel Raphael, the conductor of young Tobit, gives him a reason +more worthy of his ministry, and better calculated to enlighten the +person whom he is guiding. He tells him that Sarah's seven husbands were +given up to the cruelty of Asmodeus, only because, like horses or mules, +they had married her for their pleasure alone. "Her husband," says the +angel, "must observe continence with her for three days, during which +time they must pray to God together." + +This instruction would seem to have been quite sufficient to keep off +Asmodeus; but Raphael adds that it is also necessary to have the heart +of a fish grilled over burning coals. Why, then, was not this infallible +secret afterwards resorted to in order to drive the devil from the +bodies of women? Why did the apostles, who were sent on purpose to cast +out devils never lay a fish's heart upon the gridiron? Why was not this +expedient made use of in the affair of Martha Brossier; that of the nuns +of Loudun; that of the mistresses of Urban Gandier; that of La Cadiere; +that of Father Girard; and those of a thousand other demoniacs in the +times when there were demoniacs? + +The Greeks and Romans, who had so many philters wherewith to make +themselves beloved, had others to cure love; they employed herbs and +roots. The _agnus castus_ had great reputation. The moderns have +administered it to young nuns, on whom it has had but little effect. +Apollo, long ago, complained to Daphne that, physician as he was, he +had never yet met with a simple that would cure love: + + _Heu mihi! quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis._ + What balm can heal the wounds that love has made? + +The smoke of sulphur was tried; but Ovid, who was a great master, +declares that this recipe was useless: + + _Nec fugiat viro sulphure victus amor._ + Sulphur--believe me--drives not love away. + +The smoke from the heart or liver of a fish was more efficacious against +Asmodeus. The reverend father Calmet is consequently in great trouble, +being unable to comprehend how this fumigation could act upon a pure +spirit. But he might have taken courage from the recollection that all +the ancients gave bodies to the angels and demons. They were very +slender bodies; as light as the small particles that rise from a broiled +fish; they were like smoke; and the smoke from a fried fish acted upon +them by sympathy. + +Not only did Asmodeus flee, but Gabriel went and chained him in Upper +Egypt, where he still is. He dwells in a grotto near the city of Saata +or Taata. Paul Lucas saw and spoke to him. They cut this serpent in +pieces, and the pieces immediately joined again. To this fact Calmet +cites the testimony of Paul Lucas, which testimony I must also cite. It +is thought that Paul Lucas's theory may be joined with that of the +vampires, in the next compilation of the Abbe Guyon. + + + + +ASPHALTUS. + +ASPHALTIC LAKE.--SODOM. + + +Asphaltus is a Chaldaean word, signifying a species of bitumen. There is +a great deal of it in the countries watered by the Euphrates; it is also +to be found in Europe, but of a bad quality. An experiment was made by +covering the tops of the watch-houses on each side of one of the gates +of Geneva; the covering did not last a year, and the mine has been +abandoned. However, when mixed with rosin, it may be used for lining +cisterns; perhaps it will some day be applied to a more useful purpose. + +The real asphaltus is that which was obtained in the vicinity of +Babylon, and with which it is said that the Greek fire was fed. Several +lakes are full of asphaltus, or a bitumen resembling it, as others are +strongly impregnated with nitre. There is a great lake of nitre in the +desert of Egypt, which extends from lake Moeris to the entrance of the +Delta; and it has no other name than the Nitre Lake. + +The Lake Asphaltites, known by the name of Sodom, was long famed for its +bitumen; but the Turks now make no use of it, either because the mine +under the water is diminished, because its quality is altered, or +because there is too much difficulty in drawing it from under the water. +Oily particles of it, and sometimes large masses, separate and float on +the surface; these are gathered together, mixed up, and sold for balm of +Mecca. + +Flavius Josephus, who was of that country, says that, in his time, there +were no fish in the lake of Sodom, and the water was so light that the +heaviest bodies would not go to the bottom. It seems that he meant to +say so heavy instead of so light. It would appear that he had not made +the experiment. After all, a stagnant water, impregnated with salts and +compact matter, its specific matter being then greater than that of the +body of a man or a beast, might force it to float. Josephus's error +consists in assigning a false cause to a phenomenon which may be +perfectly true. + +As for the want of fish, it is not incredible. It is, however, likely +that this lake, which is fifty or sixty miles long, is not all +asphaltic, and that while receiving the waters of the Jordan it also +receives the fishes of that river; but perhaps the Jordan, too, is +without fish, and they are to be found only in the upper lake of +Tiberias. + +Josephus adds, that the trees which grow on the borders of the Dead Sea +bear fruits of the most beautiful appearance, but which fall into dust +if you attempt to taste them. This is less probable; and disposes one to +believe that Josephus either had not been on the spot, for has +exaggerated according to his own and his countrymen's custom. No soil +seems more calculated to produce good as well as beautiful fruits than a +salt and sulphurous one, like that of Naples, of Catania, and of Sodom. + +The Holy Scriptures speak of five cities being destroyed by fire from +heaven. On this occasion natural philosophy bears testimony in favor of +the Old Testament, although the latter has no need of it, and they are +sometimes at variance. We have instances of earthquakes, accompanied by +thunder and lightning, which have destroyed much more considerable towns +than Sodom and Gomorrah. + +But the River Jordan necessarily discharging itself into this lake +without an outlet, this Dead Sea, in the same manner as the Caspian, +must have existed as long as there has been a River Jordan; therefore, +these towns could never stand on the spot now occupied by the lake of +Sodom. The Scripture, too, says nothing at all about this ground being +changed into a lake; it says quite the contrary: "Then the Lord rained +upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of +heaven. And Abraham got up early in the morning, and he looked toward +Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld; +and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." + +These five towns, Sodom, Gomorrah, Zeboin, Adamah, and Segor, must then +have been situated on the borders of the Dead Sea. How, it will be +asked, in a desert so uninhabitable as it now is, where there are to be +found only a few hordes of plundering Arabs, could there be five cities, +so opulent as to be immersed in luxury, and even in those shameful +pleasures which are the last effect of the refinement of the debauchery +attached to wealth? + +It may be answered that the country was then much better. + +Other critics will say--how could five towns exist at the extremities of +a lake, the water of which, before their destruction, was not potable? +The Scripture itself informs us that all this land was asphaltic before +the burning of Sodom: "And the vale of Sodom was full of slime-pits; and +the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there." + +Another objection is also stated. Isaiah and Jeremiah say that Sodom and +Gomorrah shall never be rebuilt; but Stephen, the geographer, speaks of +Sodom and Gomorrah on the coast of the Dead Sea; and the "History of the +Councils" mentions bishops of Sodom and Segor. To this it may be +answered that God filled these towns, when rebuilt, with less guilty +inhabitants; for at that time there was no bishop _in partibus_. + +But, it will be said, with what water could these new inhabitants quench +their thirst? All the wells are brackish; you find asphaltus and +corrosive salt on first striking a spade into the ground. + +It will be answered that some Arabs still subsist there, and may be +habituated to drinking very bad water; that the Sodom and Gomorrah of +the Eastern Empire were wretched hamlets, and that at that time there +were many bishops whose whole diocese consisted in a poor village. It +may also be said that the people who colonized these villages prepared +the asphaltus, and carried on a useful trade in it. + +The arid and burning desert, extending from Segor to the territory of +Jerusalem, produces balm and aromatic herbs for the same reason that it +supplies naphtha, corrosive salt and sulphur. + +It is said that petrifaction takes place in this desert with astonishing +rapidity; and this, according to some natural philosophers, makes the +petrifaction of Lot's wife Edith a very plausible story. + +But it is said that this woman, "having looked back, became a pillar of +salt." This, then, was not a natural petrifaction, operated by asphaltus +and salt, but an evident miracle. Flavius Josephus says that he saw this +pillar. St. Justin and St. Irenaeus speak of it as a prodigy, which in +their time was still existing. + +These testimonies have been looked upon as ridiculous fables. It would, +however, be very natural for some Jews to amuse themselves with cutting +a heap of asphaltus into a rude figure, and calling it Lot's wife. I +have seen cisterns of asphaltus, very well made, which may last a long +time. But it must be owned that St. Irenaeus goes a little too far when +he says that Lot's wife remained in the country of Sodom no longer in +corruptible flesh, but as a permanent statue of salt, her feminine +nature still producing the ordinary effect: _"Uxor remansit in Sodomis, +jam non caro corruptibilis sed statua salis semper manens, et per +naturalia ea quaesunt consuetudmis hominis ostendens."_ + +St. Irenaeus does not seem to express himself with all the precision of +a good naturalist when he says Lot's wife is no longer of corruptible +flesh, but still retains her feminine nature. + +In the poem of Sodom, attributed to Tertullian, this is expressed with +still greater energy: + + _Dicitur et vivens alio sub corpore se us,_ + _Mirifice solito dispungere sanguine menses._ + +This was translated by a poet of the time of Henry II., in his Gallic +style: + + _La femme a Loth, quoique sel devenue,_ + _Est femme encore; car elle a sa menstrue._ + +The land of aromatics was also the land of fables. Into the deserts of +Arabia Petraea the ancient mythologists pretend that Myrrha, the +granddaughter of a statue, fled after committing incest with her father, +as Lot's daughters did with theirs, and that she was metamorphosed into +the tree that bears myrrh. Other profound mythologists assure us that +she fled into Arabia Felix; and this opinion is as well supported as the +other. + +Be this as it may, not one of our travellers has yet thought fit to +examine the soil of Sodom, with its asphaltus, its salt, its trees and +their fruits, to weigh the water of the lake, to analyze it, to +ascertain whether bodies of greater specific gravity than common water +float upon its surface, and to give us a faithful account of the natural +history of the country. Our pilgrims to Jerusalem do not care to go and +make these researches; this desert has become infested by wandering +Arabs, who range as far as Damascus, and retire into the caverns of the +mountains, the authority of the pasha of Damascus having hitherto been +inadequate to repress them. Thus the curious have but little information +about anything concerning the Asphaltic Lake. + +As to Sodom, it is a melancholy reflection for the learned that, among +so many who may be deemed natives, not one has furnished us with any +notion whatever of this capital city. + + + + +ASS. + + +We will add a little to the article "Ass" in the "Encyclopaedia," +concerning Lucian's ass, which became golden in the hands of Apuleius. +The pleasantest part of the adventure, however, is in Lucian: That a +lady fell in love with this gentleman while he was an ass, but would +have nothing more to say to him when he was but a man. These +metamorphoses were very common throughout antiquity. Silenus's ass had +spoken; and the learned had thought that he explained himself in Arabic; +for he was probably a man turned into an ass by the power of Bacchus, +and Bacchus, we know, was an Arab. + +Virgil speaks of the transformation of Moeris into a wolf, as a thing +of very ordinary occurrence: + + _Saepe lupum fieri Moerim, et se condere silvis._ + Oft changed to wolf, he seeks the forest shade. + +Was this doctrine of metamorphoses derived from the old fables of Egypt, +which gave out that the gods had changed themselves into animals in the +war against the giants? + +The Greeks, great imitators and improvers of the Oriental fables, +metamorphosed almost all the gods into men or into beasts, to make them +succeed the better in their amorous designs. If the gods changed +themselves into bulls, horses, swans, doves, etc., why should not men +have undergone the same operation? + +Several commentators, forgetting the respect due to the Holy Scriptures, +have cited the example of Nebuchadnezzar changed into an ox; but this +was a miracle--a divine vengeance--a thing quite out of the course of +nature, which ought not to be examined with profane eyes, and cannot +become an object of our researches. + +Others of the learned, perhaps with equal indiscretion, avail themselves +of what is related in the Gospel of the Infancy. An Egyptian maiden +having entered the chamber of some women, saw there a mule with a silken +cloth over his back, and an ebony pendant at his neck. + +These women were in tears, kissing him and giving him to eat. The mule +was their own brother. Some sorceresses had deprived him of the human +figure; but the Master of Nature soon restored it. + +Although this gospel is apocryphal, the very name that it bears prevents +us from examining this adventure in detail; only it may serve to show +how much metamorphoses were in vogue almost throughout the earth. The +Christians who composed their gospel were undoubtedly honest men. They +did not seek to fabricate a romance; they related with simplicity what +they had heard. The church, which afterwards rejected their gospel, +together with forty-nine others, did not accuse its authority of impiety +and prevarication; those obscure individuals addressed the populace in +language comformable with the prejudices of the age in which they lived. +China was perhaps the only country exempt from these superstitions. + +The adventure of the companions of Ulysses, changed into beasts by +Circe, was much more ancient than the dogma of the metempsychosis, +broached in Greece and Italy by Pythagoras. + +On what can the assertion be founded that there is no universal error +which is not the abuse of some truth; that there have been quacks only +because there have been true physicians; and that false prodigies have +been believed only because there have been true ones? + +Were there any certain testimonies that men had become wolves, oxen, +horses, or asses? This universal error had for its principle only the +love of the marvellous and the natural inclination to superstition. + +One erroneous opinion is enough to fill the whole world with fables. An +Indian doctor sees that animals have feeling and memory. He concludes +that they have a soul. Men have one likewise. What becomes of the soul +of man after death? What becomes of that of the beast? They must go +somewhere. They go into the nearest body that is beginning to be formed. +The soul of a Brahmin takes up its abode in the body of an elephant, the +soul of an ass is that of a little Brahmin. Such is the dogma of the +metempsychosis, which was built upon simple deduction. + +But it is a wide step from this dogma to that of metamorphosis. We have +no longer a soul without a tenement, seeking a lodging; but one body +changed into another, the soul remaining as before. Now, we certainly +have not in nature any example of such legerdemain. + +Let us then inquire into the origin of so extravagant yet so general an +opinion. If some father had characterized his son, sunk in ignorance and +filthy debauchery, as a hog, a horse, or an ass, and afterwards made him +do penance with an ass's cap on his head, and some servant girl of the +neighborhood gave it out that this young man had been turned into an ass +as a punishment for his faults, her neighbors would repeat it to other +neighbors, and from mouth to mouth this story, with a thousand +embellishments, would make the tour of the world. An ambiguous +expression would suffice to deceive the whole earth. + +Here then let us confess, with Boileau, that ambiguity has been the +parent of most of our ridiculous follies. Add to this the power of +magic, which has been acknowledged as indisputable in all nations, and +you will no longer be astonished at anything. + +One word more on asses. It is said that in Mesopotamia they are warlike +and that Mervan, the twenty-first caliph, was surnamed "the Ass" for his +valor. + +The patriarch Photius relates, in the extract from the Life of Isidorus, +that Ammonius had an ass which had a great taste for poetry, and would +leave his manger to go and hear verses. The fable of Midas is better +than the tale of Photius. + +_Machiavelli's Golden Ass._ + +Machiavelli's ass is but little known. The dictionaries which speak of +it say that it was a production of his youth; it would seem, however, +that he was of mature age; for he speaks in it of the misfortunes which +he had formerly and for a long time experienced. The work is a satire on +his contemporaries. The author sees a number of Florentines, of whom one +is changed into a cat, another into a dragon, a third into a dog that +bays the moon, a fourth into a fox who does not suffer himself to be +caught; each character is drawn under the name of an animal. The +factions of the house of Medicis and their enemies are doubtless figured +therein; and the key to this comic apocalypse would admit us to the +secrets of Pope Leo and the troubles of Florence. This poem is full of +morality and philosophy. It ends with the very rational reflections of +a large hog, which addresses man in nearly the following terms: + + Ye naked bipeds, without beaks or claws. + Hairless, and featherless, and tender-hided, + Weeping ye come into the world--because + Ye feel your evil destiny decided; + Nature has given you industrious paws; + You, like the parrots, are with speech provided; + But have ye honest hearts?--Alas! alas! + In this we swine your bipedships surpass! + + Man is far worse than we--more fierce, more wild-- + Coward or madman, sinning every minute; + By frenzy and by fear in turn beguiled, + He dreads the grave, yet plunges headlong in it; + If pigs fall out, they soon are reconciled; + Their quarrel's ended ere they well begin it. + If crime with manhood always must combine, + Good Lord! let me forever be a swine. + +This is the original of Boileau's "Satire on Man," and La Fontaine's +fable of the "Companions of Ulysses"; but it is quite likely that +neither La Fontaine nor Boileau had ever heard of Machiavelli's ass. + +_The Ass of Verona._ + +I must speak the truth, and not deceive my readers. I do not very +clearly know whether the Ass of Verona still exists in all his splendor; +but the travellers who saw him forty or fifty years ago agree in saying +that the relics were enclosed in the body of an artificial ass made on +purpose, which was in the keeping of forty monks of Our Lady of the +Organ, at Verona, and was carried in procession twice a year. This was +one of the most ancient relics of the town. According to the tradition, +this ass, having carried our Lord in his entry into Jerusalem, did not +choose to abide any longer in that city, but trotted over the sea--which +for that purpose became as hard as his hoof--by way of Cyprus, Rhodes, +Candia, Malta, and Sicily. There he went to sojourn at Aquilea; and at +last he settled at Verona, where he lived a long while. + +This fable originated in the circumstance that most asses have a sort of +black cross on their backs. There possibly might be an old ass in the +neighborhood of Verona, on whose back the populace remarked a finer +cross than his brethren could boast of; some good old woman would be at +hand to say that this was the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem; +and the ass would be honored with a magnificent funeral. The feast +established at Verona passed into other countries, and was especially +celebrated in France. In the mass was sung: + + _Orientis partibus_ + _Adventabit asinus,_ + _Pulcher et fortissimus._ + +There was a long procession, headed by a young woman with a child in her +arms, mounted on an ass, representing the Virgin Mary going into Egypt. +At the end of the mass the priest, instead of saying _Ite missa est_, +brayed three times with all his might, and the people answered in +chorus. + +We have books on the feast of the ass, and the feast of fools; they +furnish material towards a universal history of the human mind. + + + + +ASSASSIN--ASSASSINATION. + + +SECTION I. + +A name corrupted from the word Ehissessin. Nothing is more common to +those who go into a distant country than to write, repeat, and +understand incorrectly in their own language what they have +misunderstood in a language entirely foreign to them, and afterwards to +deceive their countrymen as well as themselves. Error flies from mouth +to mouth, from pen, to pen, and to destroy it requires ages. + +In the time of the Crusades there was a wretched little people of +mountaineers inhabiting the caverns near the road to Damascus. These +brigands elected a chief, whom they named Cheik Elchassissin. It is said +that this honorific title of _cheik_ originally signified _old_, as with +us the title of _seigneur_ comes from _senior_, elder, and the word +_graf_, a count, signifies _old_ among the Germans; for, in ancient +times almost every people conferred the civil command upon the old men. +Afterwards, the command having become hereditary, the title of _cheik, +graf, seigneur, or count_ has been given to children; and the Germans +call a little master of four years old, _the count_--that is, the _old +gentleman_. + +The Crusaders named the old man of the Arabian mountains, the Old Man of +the Hill, and imagined him to be a great prince, because he had caused a +count of Montserrat and some other crusading nobles to be robbed and +murdered on the highway. These people were called _the assassins_, and +their cheik the king of the vast country of _the assassins_. This vast +territory is five or six leagues long by two or three broad, being part +of Anti-Libanus, a horrible country, full of rocks, like almost all +Palestine, but intersected by pleasant meadowlands, which feed numerous +flocks, as is attested by all who have made the journey from Aleppo to +Damascus. + +The cheik or senior of these _assassins_ could be nothing more than a +chief of banditti; for there was at that time a sultan of Damascus who +was very powerful. + +Our romance-writers of that day, as fond of chimeras as the Crusaders, +thought proper to relate that in 1236 this great prince of the +assassins, fearing that Louis IX., of whom he had never heard, would put +himself at the head of a crusade, and come and take from him his +territory, sent two great men of his court from the caverns of +Anti-Libanus to Paris to assassinate that king; but that having the next +day heard how generous and amiable a prince Louis was, he immediately +sent out to sea two more great men to countermand the assassination. I +say out to sea, for neither the two emissaries sent to kill Louis, nor +the two others sent to save him, could make the voyage without embarking +at Joppa, which was then in the power of the Crusaders, which rendered +the enterprise doubly marvellous. The two first must have found a +Crusaders' vessel ready to convey them in an amicable manner, and the +two last must have found another. + +However, a hundred authors, one after another, have related this +adventure, though Joinville, a contemporary, who was on the spot, says +nothing about it--_"Et voila justement comme on ecrit l'histoire."_ + +The Jesuit Maimbourg, the Jesuit Daniel, twenty other Jesuits, and +Mezeray--though he was not a Jesuit--have repeated this absurdity. The +Abbe Veli, in his history of France, tells it over again with perfect +complaisance, without any discussion, without any examination, and on +the word of one William of Nangis, who wrote about sixty years after +this fine affair is said to have happened at a time when history was +composed from nothing but town talk. + +If none but true and useful things were recorded, our immense historical +libraries would be reduced to a very narrow compass; but we should know +more, and know it better. + +For six hundred years the story has been told over and over again, of +the Old Man of the Hill--_le vieux de la montagne_--who, in his +delightful gardens, intoxicated his young elect with voluptuous +pleasures, made them believe that they were in paradise, and sent them +to the ends of the earth to assassinate kings in order to merit an +eternal paradise. + + Near the Levantine shores there dwelt of old + An aged ruler, feared in every land; + Not that he owned enormous heaps of gold, + Not that vast armies marched at his command,-- + But on his people's minds he things impressed, + Which filled with desperate courage every breast + The boldest of his subjects first he took, + Of paradise to give them a foretaste-- + The paradise his lawgiver had painted; + With every joy the lying prophet's book + Within his falsely-pictured heaven had placed, + They thought their senses had become acquainted. + And how was this effected? 'Twas by wine-- + Of this they drank till every sense gave way, + And, while in drunken lethargy they lay, + Were borne, according to their chief's design, + To sports of pleasantness--to sunshine glades, + Delightful gardens and inviting shades. + Young tender beauties were abundant there, + In earliest bloom, and exquisitely fair; + These gayly thronged around the sleeping men, + Who, when at length they were awake again, + Wondering to see the beauteous objects round, + Believed that some way they'd already found + Those fields of bliss, in every beauty decked, + The false Mahomet promised his elect. + Acquaintance quickly made, the Turks advance; + The maidens join them in a sprightly dance; + Sweet music charms them as they trip along; + And every feathered warbler adds his song. + The joys that could for every sense suffice. + Were found within this earthly paradise. + Wine, too, was there--and its effects the same; + These people drank, till they could drink no more, + Were earned to the place from whence they came. + And what resulted from this trickery? + These men believed that they should surely be + Again transported to that place of pleasure, + If, without fear of suffering or of death, + They showed devotion to Mahomet's faith, + And to their prince obedience without measure. + Thus might their sovereign with reason say, + And that, now his device had made them so, + His was the mightiest empire here below.... + +All this might be very well in one of La Fontaine's tales--setting apart +the weakness of the verse; and there are a hundred historical anecdotes +which could be tolerated there only. + + +SECTION II. + + +Assassination being, next to poisoning, the crime most cowardly and most +deserving of punishment, it is not astonishing that it has found an +apologist in a man whose singular reasoning is, in some things, at +variance with the reason of the rest of mankind. + +In a romance entitled "Emilius," he imagines that he is the guardian of +a young man, to whom he is very careful to give an education such as is +received in the military school--teaching him languages, geometry, +tactics, fortification, and the history of his country. He does not seek +to inspire him with love for his king and his country, but contents +himself with making him a joiner. He would have this gentleman-joiner, +when he has received a blow or a challenge, instead of returning it and +fighting, "prudently assassinate the man." Moliere does, it is true, say +jestingly, in _"L'Amour Peintre,"_ "assassination is the safest"; but +the author of this romance asserts that it is the most just and +reasonable. He says this very seriously, and, in the immensity of his +paradoxes, this is one of the three or four things which he first says. +The same spirit of wisdom and decency which makes him declare that a +preceptor should often accompany his pupil to a place of prostitution, +makes him decide that this disciple should be an assassin. So that the +education which Jean Jacques would give to a young man consists in +teaching him how to handle the plane, and in fitting him for salivation +and the rope. + +We doubt whether fathers of families will be eager to give such +preceptors to their children. It seems to us that the romance of Emilius +departs rather too much from the maxims of Mentor in "Telemachus"; but +it must also be acknowledged that our age has in all things very much +varied from the great age of Louis XIV. + +Happily, none of these horrible infatuations are to be found in the +"Encyclopaedia." It often displays a philosophy seemingly bold, but never +that atrocious and extravagant babbling which two or three fools have +called philosophy, and two or three ladies, eloquence. + + + + +ASTROLOGY. + + +Astrology might rest on a better foundation than magic. For if no one +has seen farfadets, or lemures, or dives, or peris, or demons, or +cacodemons, the predictions of astrologers have often been found true. +Let two astrologers be consulted on the life of an infant, and on the +weather; if one of them say that the child shall five to the age of man, +the other that he shall not; if one foretell rain and the other fair +weather, it is quite clear that there will be a prophet. + +The great misfortune of astrologers is that the heavens have changed +since the rules of the art were laid down. The sun, which at the equinox +was in the Ram in the time of the Argonauts, is now in the Bull; and +astrologers, most unfortunately for their art, now attribute to one +house of the sun that which visibly belongs to another. Still, this is +not a demonstrative argument against astrology. The masters of the art +are mistaken; but it is not proved that the art cannot exist. + +There would be no absurdity in saying, "Such a child was born during the +moon's increase, in a stormy season, at the rising of a certain star; +its constitution was bad, and its life short and miserable, which is the +ordinary lot of weak temperaments; another, on the contrary, was born +when the moon was at the full, and the sun in all his power, in calm +weather, at the rising of another particular star; his constitution was +good, and his life long and happy." If such observations had been +frequently repeated, and found just, experience might, at the end of a +few thousand centuries, have formed an art which it would have been +difficult to call in question; it would have been thought, not without +some appearance of truth, that men are like trees and vegetables, which +must be planted only in certain seasons. It would have been of no +service against the astrologers to say, "My son was born in fine +weather, yet he died in his cradle." The astrologer would have answered, +"It often happens that trees planted in the proper season perish +prematurely; I will answer for the stars, but not for the particular +conformation which you communicated to your child; astrology operates +only when there is no cause opposed to the good which they have power to +work." + +[Illustration: An Astrologer.] + +Nor would astrology have suffered any more discredit from it being said: +"Of two children who were born in the same minute, one became a king, +the other nothing more than churchwarden of his parish;" for a defence +would easily have been made by showing that the peasant made his fortune +in becoming churchwarden, just as much as the prince did in becoming +king. + +And if it were alleged that a bandit, hung up by order of Sixtus the +Fifth, was born at the same time as Sixtus, who, from being a swineherd, +became pope, the astrologers would say that there was a mistake of a few +seconds, and that, according to the rules, the same star could not +bestow the tiara and the gallows. It was, then, only because +long-accumulated experience gave the lie to the predictions that men at +length perceived that the art was illusory; but their credulity was of +long duration. + +One of the most famous mathematicians of Europe, named Stoffler, who +flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, foretold a +universal deluge for the year 1524. This deluge was to happen in the +month of February, and nothing can be more plausible, for Saturn, +Jupiter, and Mars were then in conjunction in the sign of the Fishes. +Every nation in Europe, Asia, and Africa that heard of the prediction +was in consternation. The whole world expected the deluge, in spite of +the rainbow. Several contemporary authors relate that the inhabitants of +the maritime provinces of Germany hastened to sell their lands, at any +price, to such as had more money and less credulity than themselves. +Each one provided himself with a boat to serve as an ark. A doctor of +Toulouse, in particular, named Auriol, had an ark built for himself, his +family, and friends; and the same precautions were taken in a great part +of Italy. At last the month of February arrived, and not a drop of rain +fell, never was a month more dry, never were the astrologers more +embarrassed. However, we neither discouraged nor neglected them; almost +all our princes continued to consult them. + +I have not the honor to be a prince; nevertheless, the celebrated Count +de Boulainvilliers and an Italian, named Colonna, who had great +reputation at Paris, both foretold to me that I should assuredly die at +the age of thirty-two. I have already been so malicious as to deceive +them thirty years in their calculation--for which I most humbly ask +their pardon. + + + + +ASTRONOMY, + +WITH A FEW MORE REFLECTIONS ON ASTROLOGY. + + +M. Duval, who, if I mistake not, was librarian to the Emperor Francis +I., gives us an account of the manner in which, in his childhood, pure +instinct gave him the first ideas of astronomy. He was contemplating the +moon which, as it declined towards the west, seemed to touch the trees +of a wood. He doubted not that he should find it behind the trees, and, +on running thither, was astonished to see it at the extremity of the +horizon. + +The following days his curiosity prompted him to watch the course of +this luminary, and he was still more surprised to find that it rose and +set at various hours. The different forms which it took from week to +week, and its total disappearance for some nights, also contributed to +fix his attention. All that a child could do was to observe and to +admire, and this was doing much; not one in ten thousand has this +curiosity and perseverance. + +He studied, as he could, for three years, with no other book than the +heavens, no other master than his eyes. He observed that the stars did +not change their relative positions; but the brilliancy of the planet +Venus having caught his attention, it seemed to him to have a particular +course, like that of the moon. He watched it every night; it disappeared +for a long time; and at length he saw it become the morning instead of +the evening star. The course of the sun, which from month to month, rose +and set in different parts of the heavens, did not escape him. He marked +the solstices with two staves, without knowing what the solstices were. + +It appears to me that some profit might be derived from this example, +in teaching astronomy to a child of ten or twelve years of age, and with +much greater facility than this extraordinary child, of whom I have +spoken, taught himself its first elements. + +It is a very attractive spectacle for a mind disposed to the +contemplation of nature to see that the different phases of the moon are +precisely the same as those of a globe round which a lighted candle is +moved, showing here a quarter, here the half of its surface, and +becoming invisible when an opaque body is interposed between it and the +candle. In this manner it was that Galileo explained the true principles +of astronomy before the doge and senators of Venice on St. Mark's tower; +he demonstrated everything to the eyes. + +Indeed, not only a child, but even a man of mature age, who has seen the +constellations only on maps or globes, finds it difficult to recognize +them in the heavens. In a little time the child will quite well +comprehend the causes of the sun's apparent course, and the daily +revolutions of the fixed stars. + +He will, in particular, discover the constellations with the aid of +these four Latin lines, made by an astronomer about fifty years ago, and +which are not sufficiently known: + +_Delta Aries, Perseum Taurus, Geminique Capellam; Nil Cancer, Plaustrum +Leo, Virgo Coman, atque Bootem, Libra Anguem, Anguiferum fert Scorpios; +Antinoum Arcus; Delphinum Caper, Amphora Equos, Cepheida Pisces._ + +Nothing should be said to him about the systems of Ptolemy and Tycho +Brahe, because they are false; they can never be of any other service +than to explain some passages in ancient authors, relating to the errors +of antiquity. For instance, in the second book of Ovid's +_"Metamorphoses"_ the sun says to Phaeton: + + _Adde, quod assidua rapitur vertigine coelum;_ + _Nitor in adversum; nec me, qui caetera, vincit_ + _Impetus; et rapido contrarius evehor orbi._ + + A rapid motion carries round the heavens; + But I--and I alone--resist its force, + Marching secure in my opposing path. + +This idea of a first mover turning the heavens round in twenty-four +hours with an impossible motion, and of the sun, though acted upon by +this first motion, yet imperceptibly advancing from west to east by a +motion peculiar to itself, and without a cause, would but embarrass a +young beginner. + +It is sufficient for him to know that, whether the earth revolves on its +own axis and round the sun, or the sun completes his revolution in a +year, appearances are nearly the same, and that, in astronomy, we are +obliged to judge of things by our eyes before we examine them as natural +philosophers. + +He will soon know the cause of the eclipses of the sun and the moon, and +why they do not occur every night. It will at first appear to him that, +the moon being every month in opposition to and in conjunction with the +sun, we should have an eclipse of the sun and one of the moon every +month. But when he finds that these two luminaries are not in the same +plane and are seldom in the same line with the earth, he will no longer +be surprised. + +He will easily be made to understand how it is that eclipses have been +foretold, by knowing the exact circle in which the apparent motion of +the sun and the real motion of the moon are accomplished. He will be +told that observers found by experience and calculation the number of +times that these two bodies are precisely in the same line with the +earth in the space of nineteen years and a few hours, after which they +seem to recommence the same course; so that, making the necessary +allowances for the little inequalities that occurred during those +nineteen years, the exact day, hour, and minute of an eclipse of the sun +or moon were foretold. These first elements are soon acquired by a child +of clear conceptions. + +Not even the precession of the equinoxes will terrify him. It will be +enough to tell him that the sun has constantly appeared to advance in +his annual course, one degree in seventy-two years, towards the east; +and this is what Ovid meant to express: _"Contrarius evehor +orbi"_;--"Marching secure in my opposing path." + +Thus the Ram, which the sun formerly entered at the beginning of spring, +is now in the place where the Bull was then. This change which has taken +place in the heavens, and the entrance of the sun into other +constellations than those which he formerly occupied, were the +strongest arguments against the pretended rules of judicial astrology. +It does not, however, appear that this proof was employed before the +present century to destroy this universal extravagance which so long +infected all mankind, and is still in great vogue in Persia. + +A man born, according to the almanac, when the sun was in the sign of +the Lion, was necessarily to be courageous; but, unfortunately, he was +in reality born under the sign of the Virgin. So that Gauric and Michael +Morin should have changed all the rules of their art. + +It is indeed odd that all the laws of astrology were contrary to those +of astronomy. The wretched charlatans of antiquity and their stupid +disciples, who have been so well received and so well paid by all the +princes of Europe, talked of nothing but Mars and Venus, stationary and +retrograde. Such as had Mars stationary were always to conquer. Venus +stationary made all lovers happy. Nothing was worse than to be born +under Venus retrograde. But the fact is that these planets have never +been either retrograde or stationary, which a very slight knowledge of +optics would have sufficed to show. + +How, then, can it have been that, in spite of physics and geometry, the +ridiculous chimera of astrology is entertained even to this day, so that +we have seen men distinguished for their general knowledge, and +especially profound in history, who have all their lives been infatuated +by so despicable an error? But the error was ancient, and that was +enough. + +The Egyptians, the Chaldaeans, the Jews, foretold the future; therefore, +it may be foretold now. Serpents were charmed and spirits were raised in +those days; therefore, spirits may be raised and serpents charmed now. +It is only necessary to know the precise formula made use of for the +purpose. If predictions are at an end, it is the fault, not of the art, +but of the artist. Michael Morin and his secret died together. It is +thus that the alchemists speak of the philosopher's stone; if, say they, +we do not now find it, it is because we do not yet know precisely how to +seek it; but it is certainly in Solomon's collar-bone. And, with this +glorious certainty, more than two hundred families in France and Germany +have ruined themselves. + +It is not then to be wondered at that the whole world has been duped by +astrology. The wretched argument, "there are false prodigies, therefore +there are true ones," is neither that of a philosopher, nor of a man +acquainted with the world. "That is false and absurd, therefore it will +be believed by the multitude," is a much truer maxim. + +It is still less astonishing that so many men, raised in other things so +far above the vulgar; so many princes, so many popes, whom it would have +been impossible to mislead in the smallest affair of interest, have been +so ridiculously seduced by this astrological nonsense. They were very +proud and very ignorant. The stars were for them alone; the rest of the +world a rabble, with whom the stars had nothing to do. They were like +the prince who trembled at the sight of a comet, and said gravely to +those who did not fear it, "You may behold it without concern; you are +not princes." + +The famous German leader, Wallenstein, was one of those infatuated by +this chimera; he called himself a prince, and consequently thought that +the zodiac had been made on purpose for him. He never besieged a town, +nor fought a battle, until he had held a council with the heavens; but, +as this great man was very ignorant, he placed at the head of this +council a rogue of an Italian, named Seni, keeping him a coach and six, +and giving him a pension of twenty thousand livres. Seni, however, never +foresaw that Wallenstein would be assassinated by order of his most +gracious sovereign, and that he himself would return to Italy on foot. + +It is quite evident that nothing can be known of the future, otherwise +than by conjectures. These conjectures may be so well-founded as to +approach certainty. You see a shark swallow a little boy; you may wager +ten thousand to one that he will be devoured; but you cannot be +absolutely sure of it, after the adventures of Hercules, Jonas, and +Orlando Furioso, who each lived so long in a fish's belly. + +It cannot be too often repeated that Albertus Magnus and Cardinal +d'Ailli both made the horoscope of Jesus Christ. It would appear that +they read in the stars how many devils he would cast out of the bodies +of the possessed, and what sort of death he was to die. But it was +unfortunate that these learned astrologers _foretold_ all these things +so long _after_ they happened. + +We shall elsewhere see that in a sect which passes for Christian, it is +believed to be impossible for the Supreme Intelligence to see the future +otherwise than by supreme conjecture; for, as the future does not exist, +it is, say they, a contradiction in terms to talk of seeing at the +present time that which is not. + + + + +ATHEISM. + + +SECTION I. + + +_On the Comparison so Often Made between Atheism and Idolatry._ + +It seems to me that, in the _"Dictionnaire Encyclopedique,"_ a more +powerful refutation might have been brought against the Jesuit +Richeome's opinion concerning atheists and idolaters--an opinion +formerly maintained by St. Thomas, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyprian, +and Tertullian--an opinion which Arnobius placed in a strong light when +he said to the pagans, "Do you not blush to reproach us with contempt +for your gods? Is it not better to believe in no god than to impute to +them infamous actions?"--an opinion long before established by +Plutarch, who stated that he would rather have it said that there was +no Plutarch than that there was a Plutarch, inconstant, choleric, and +vindictive--an opinion, too, fortified by all the dialectical efforts of +Bayle. + +Such is the ground of dispute, placed in a very striking point of view +by the Jesuit Richeome, and made still more specious by the way in which +Bayle sets it off: + +"There are two porters at the door of a house. You ask to speak to the +master. He is not at home, answers one. He is at home, answers the +other, but is busied in making false money, false contracts, daggers, +and poisons, to destroy those who have only accomplished his designs. +The atheist resembles the former of these porters, the pagan the latter. +It is then evident that the pagan offends the Divinity more grievously +than the atheist." + +With the permission of Father Richeome, and that of Bayle himself, this +is not at all the state of the question. For the first porter to be like +the atheist, he must say, not "My master is not here," but "I have no +master; he who you pretend is my master does not exist. My comrade is a +blockhead to tell you that the gentleman is engaged in mixing poisons +and wetting poniards to assassinate those who have executed his will. +There is no such being in the world." + +Richeome, therefore, has reasoned very ill; and Bayle, in his rather +diffuse discourses, has so far forgotten himself as to do Richeome the +honor of making a very lame comment upon him. + +Plutarch seems to express himself much better, in declaring that he +prefers those who say there is no Plutarch to those who assert that +Plutarch is unfit for society. Indeed, of what consequence to him was +its being said that he was not in the world? But it was of great +consequence that his reputation should not be injured. With the Supreme +Being it is otherwise. + +Still Plutarch does not come to the real point in discussion. It is only +asked who most offends the Supreme Being--he who denies Him, or he who +disfigures Him? It is impossible to know, otherwise than by revelation, +whether God is offended at the vain discourses which men hold about Him. + +Philosophers almost always fall unconsciously into the ideas of the +vulgar, in supposing that God is jealous of His glory, wrathful, and +given to revenge, and in taking rhetorical figures for real ideas. That +which interests the whole world is to know whether it is not better to +admit a rewarding and avenging God, recompensing hidden good actions, +and punishing secret crimes, than to admit no God at all. + +Bayle exhausts himself in repeating all the infamous things imputed to +the gods of antiquity. His adversaries answer him by unmeaning +commonplaces. The partisans and the enemies of Bayle have almost always +fought without coming to close quarters. They all agree that Jupiter +was an adulterer, Venus a wanton, Mercury a rogue. But this, I conceive, +ought not to be considered; the religion of the ancient Romans should be +distinguished from Ovid's _"Metamorphoses."_ It is quite certain that +neither they nor even the Greeks ever had a temple dedicated to Mercury +the Rogue, Venus the Wanton, or Jupiter the Adulterer. + +The god whom the Romans called _"Deus optimus maximus"_--most good, most +great--was not believed to have encouraged Clodius to lie with Caesar's +wife, nor Caesar to become the minion of King Nicomedes. + +Cicero does not say that Mercury incited Verres to rob Sicily, though, +in the fable, Mercury had stolen Apollo's cows. The real religion of the +ancients was that Jupiter, most good and just, with the secondary +divinities, punished perjury in the infernal regions. Thus, the Romans +were long the most religious observers of their oaths. It was in no wise +ordained that they should believe in Leda's two eggs, in the +transformation of Inachus's daughter into a cow, or in Apollo's love for +Hyacinthus. Therefore it must not be said that the religion of Numa was +dishonoring to the Divinity. So that, as but too often happens, there +has been a long dispute about a chimera. + +Then, it is asked, can a people of atheists exist? I consider that a +distinction must be made between the people, properly so called, and a +society of philosophers above the people. It is true that, in every +country, the populace require the strongest curb; and that if Bayle had +had but five or six hundred peasants to govern, he would not have failed +to announce to them a rewarding and avenging God. But Bayle would have +said nothing about them to the Epicureans, who were people of wealth, +fond of quiet, cultivating all the social virtues, and friendship in +particular, shunning the dangers and embarrassments of public +affairs--leading, in short, a life of ease and innocence. The dispute, +so far as it regards policy and society, seems to me to end here. + +As for people entirely savage, they can be counted neither among the +theists nor among the atheists. To ask them what is their creed would be +like asking them if they are for Aristotle or Democritus. They know +nothing; they are no more atheists than they are peripatetics. + +But, it may be insisted, that they live in society, though they have no +God, and that, therefore, society may subsist without religion. + +In this case I shall reply that wolves live so; and that an assemblage +of barbarous cannibals, as you suppose them to be, is not a society. +And, further, I will ask you if, when you have lent your money to any +one of your society, you would have neither your debtor, nor your +attorney, nor your notary, nor your judge, believe in a God? + + +SECTION II. + +_Modern Atheists.--Arguments of the Worshippers of God._ + +We are intelligent beings, and intelligent beings cannot have been +formed by a blind, brute, insensible being; there is certainly some +difference between a clod and the ideas of Newton. Newton's +intelligence, then, came from some other intelligence. + +When we see a fine machine, we say there is a good machinist, and that +he has an excellent understanding. The world is assuredly an admirable +machine; therefore there is in the world, somewhere or other, an +admirable intelligence. This argument is old, but is not therefore the +worse. + +All animated bodies are composed of levers and pulleys, which act +according to the laws of mechanics; of liquors, which are kept in +perpetual circulation by the laws of hydrostatics; and the reflection +that all these beings have sentiment which has no relation to their +organization, fills us with wonder. + +The motions of the stars, that of our little earth round the sun--all +are operated according to the laws of the profoundest mathematics. How +could it be that Plato, who knew not one of these laws--the eloquent but +chimerical Plato, who said that the foundation of the earth was an +equilateral triangle, and that of water a right-angled triangle--the +strange Plato, who said there could be but five worlds, because there +were but five regular bodieshow, I say, was it that Plato, who was not +even acquainted with spherical trigonometry, had nevertheless so fine a +genius, so happy an instinct, as to call God the Eternal +Geometrician--to feel that there exists a forming Intelligence? Spinoza +himself confesses it. It is impossible to controvert this truth, which +surrounds us and presses us on all sides. + +_Argument of the Atheists._ + +I have, however, known refractory individuals, who have said that there +is no forming intelligence, and that motion alone has formed all that we +see and all that we are. They say boldly that the combination of this +universe was possible because it exists; therefore it was possible for +motion of itself to arrange it. Take four planets only--Mars, Venus, +Mercury, and the Earth; let us consider them solely in the situations in +which they now are; and let us see how many probabilities we have that +motion will bring them again to those respective places. There are but +twenty-four chances in this combination; that is, it is only twenty-four +to one that these planets will not be found in the same situations with +respect to one another. To these four globes add that of Jupiter; and it +is then only a hundred and twenty to one that Jupiter, Mars, Venus, +Mercury, and our globe will not be placed in the same positions in which +we now see them. + +Lastly, add Saturn; and there will then be only seven hundred and twenty +chances to one against putting these planets in their present +arrangement, according to their given distances. It is, then, +demonstrated that once, at least, in seven hundred and twenty cases, +chance might place these planets in their present order. + +Then take all the secondary planets, all their motions, all the beings +that vegetate, live, feel, think, act, on all these globes; you have +only to increase the number of chances; multiply this number to all +eternity--to what our weakness calls _infinity_--there will still be an +unit in favor of the formation of the world, such as it is, by motion +alone; therefore it is possible that, in all eternity, the motion of +matter alone has produced the universe as it exists. Nay, this +combination must, in eternity, of necessity happen. Thus, say they, not +only it is possible that the world is as it is by motion alone, but it +was impossible that it should not be so after infinite combinations. + +_Answer._ + +All this supposition seems to me to be prodigiously chimerical, for two +reasons: the first is, that in this universe there are intelligent +beings, and you cannot prove it possible for motion alone to produce +understanding. The second is, that, by your own confession, the chances +are infinity to unity, that an intelligent forming cause produced the +universe. Standing alone against infinity, a unit makes but a poor +figure. + +Again Spinoza himself admits this intelligence; it is the basis of his +system. You have not read him, but you must read him. Why would you go +further than he, and, through a foolish pride, plunge into the abyss +where Spinoza dared not to descend? Are you not aware of the extreme +folly of saying that it is owing to a blind cause that the square of the +revolution of one planet is always to the squares of the others as the +cube of its distance is to the cubes of the distances of the others from +the common centre? Either the planets are great geometricians, or the +Eternal Geometrician has arranged the planets. + +But where is the Eternal Geometrician? Is He in one place, or in all +places, without occupying space? I know not. Has He arranged all things +of His own substance? I know not. Is He immense, without quantity and +without quality? I know not. All I know is, that we must adore Him and +be just. + +_New Objection of a Modern Atheist._ + +Can it be said that the conformation of animals is according to their +necessities? What are those necessities? Self-preservation and +propagation. Now, is it astonishing that, of the infinite combinations +produced by chance, those only have survived which had organs adapted +for their nourishment and the continuation of their species? Must not +all others necessarily have perished? + +_Answer._ + +This argument, taken from Lucretius, is sufficiently refuted by the +sensation given to animals and the intelligence given to man. How, as +has just been said in the preceding paragraph, should combinations +produced by chance produce this sensation and this intelligence? Yes, +doubtless, the members of animals are made for all their necessities +with an incomprehensible art, and you have not the boldness to deny it. +You do not mention it. You feel that you can say nothing in answer to +this great argument which Nature brings against you. The disposition of +the wing of a fly, or of the feelers of a snail, is sufficient to +confound you. + +_An Objection of Maupertuis._ + +The natural philosophers of modern times have done nothing more than +extend these pretended arguments; this they have sometimes done even to +minuteness and indecency. They have found God in the folds of a +rhinoceros's hide; they might, with equal reason, have denied His +existence on account of the tortoise's shell. + +_Answer._ + +What reasoning! The tortoise and the rhinoceros, and all the different +species, prove alike in their infinite varieties the same cause, the +same design, the same end, which are preservation, generation, and +death. Unity is found in this immense variety; the hide and the shell +bear equal testimony. What! deny God, because a shell is not like a +skin! And journalists have lavished upon this coxcombry praises which +they have withheld from Newton and Locke, both worshippers of the +Divinity from thorough examination and conviction! + +_Another of Maupertuis's Objections._ + +Of what service are beauty and fitness in the construction of a serpent? +Perhaps, you say, it has uses of which we are ignorant. Let us then, at +least, be silent, and not admire an animal which we know only by the +mischief it does. + +_Answer._ + +Be you silent, also, since you know no more of its utility than myself; +or acknowledge that, in reptiles, everything is admirably proportioned. +Some of them are venomous; you have been so too. The only subject at +present under consideration is the prodigious art which has formed +serpents, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and bipeds. This art is evident +enough. You ask, Why is not the serpent harmless? And why have you not +been harmless? Why have you been a persecutor? which, in a philosopher, +is the greatest of crimes. This is quite another question; it is that of +physical and moral evil. It has long been asked, Why are there so many +serpents, and so many wicked men worse than serpents? If flies could +reason, they would complain to God of the existence of spiders; but they +would, at the same time, acknowledge what Minerva confessed to Arachne +in the fable, that they arrange their webs in a wonderful manner. + +We cannot, then, do otherwise than acknowledge an ineffable +Intelligence, which Spinoza himself admitted. We must own that it is +displayed as much in the meanest insect as in the planets. And with +regard to moral and physical evil, what can be done or said? Let us +console ourselves by the enjoyment of physical and moral good, and adore +the Eternal Being, who has ordained the one and permitted the other. + +One word more on this topic. Atheism is the vice of some intelligent +men, and superstition is the vice of fools. And what is the vice of +knaves?--Hypocrisy. + + +SECTION III. + +_Unjust Accusation.--Justification of Vanini._ + +Formerly, whoever was possessed of a secret in any art was in danger of +passing for a sorcerer; every new sect was charged with murdering +infants in its mysteries; and every philosopher who departed from the +jargon of the schools was accused of atheism by knaves and fanatics, and +condemned by blockheads. + +Anaxagorus dares to assert that the sun is not conducted by Apollo, +mounted in a chariot and four; he is condemned as an atheist, and +compelled to fly. + +Aristotle is accused of atheism by a priest, and not being powerful +enough to punish his accuser, he retires to Chalcis. But the death of +Socrates is the greatest blot on the page of Grecian history. + +Aristophanes--he whom commentators admire because he was a Greek, +forgetting that Socrates was also a Greek--Aristophanes was the first +who accustomed the Athenians to regard Socrates as an atheist. + +This comic poet, who is neither comic nor poetical, would not, among us, +have been permitted to exhibit his farces at the fair of St. Lawrence. +He appears to me to be much lower and more despicable than Plutarch +represents him. Let us see what the wise Plutarch says of this buffoon: +"The language of Aristophanes bespeaks his miserable quackery; it is +made up of the lowest and most disgusting puns; he is not even pleasing +to the people; and to men of judgment and honor he is insupportable; his +arrogance is intolerable, and all good men detest his malignity." + +This, then, is the jack-pudding whom Madame Dacier, an admirer of +Socrates, ventures to admire! Such was the man who, indirectly, prepared +the poison by which infamous judges put to death the most virtuous man +in Greece. + +The tanners, cobblers, and seamstresses of Athens applauded a farce in +which Socrates was represented lifted in the air in a hamper, announcing +that there was no God, and boasting of having stolen a cloak while he +was teaching philosophy. A whole people, whose government sanctioned +such infamous licences, well deserved what has happened to them, to +become slaves to the Romans, and, subsequently, to the Turks. The +Russians, whom the Greeks of old would have called barbarians, would +neither have poisoned Socrates, nor have condemned Alcibiades to death. + +We pass over the ages between the Roman commonwealth and our own times. +The Romans, much more wise than the Greeks, never persecuted a +philosopher for his opinions. Not so the barbarous nations which +succeeded the Roman Empire. No sooner did the Emperor Frederick II. +begin to quarrel with the popes, than he was accused of being an +atheist, and being the author of the book of "The Three Impostors," +conjointly with his chancellor De Vincis. + +Does our high-chancellor, de l'Hopital, declare against persecution? He +is immediately charged with atheism--_"Homo doctus, sed vetus atheus."_ +There was a Jesuit, as much beneath Aristophanes as Aristophanes is +beneath Homer--a wretch, whose name has become ridiculous even among +fanatics--the Jesuit Garasse, who found atheists everywhere. He bestows +the name upon all who are the objects of his virulence. He calls +Theodore Beza an atheist. It was he, too, that led the public into error +concerning Vanini. + +The unfortunate end of Vanini does not excite our pity and indignation +like that of Socrates, because Vanini was only a foreign pedant, without +merit; however, Vanini was not, as was pretended, an atheist; he was +quite the contrary. + +He was a poor Neapolitan priest, a theologian and preacher by trade, an +outrageous disputer on quiddities and universals, and _"utrum chimaera +bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones."_ But there was +nothing in him tending to atheism. His notion of God is that of the +soundest and most approved theology: "God is the beginning and the end, +the father of both, without need of either, eternal without time, in no +one place, yet present everywhere. To him there is neither past nor +future; he is within and without everything; he has created all, and +governs all; he is immutable, infinite without parts; his power is his +will." This is not very philosophical, but it is the most approved +theology. + +Vanini prided himself on reviving Plato's fine idea, adopted by +Averroes, that God had created a chain of beings from the smallest to +the greatest, the last link of which was attached to his eternal throne; +an idea more sublime than true, but as distant from atheism as being +from nothing. + +He travelled to seek his fortune and to dispute; but, unfortunately, +disputation leads not to fortune; a man makes himself as many +irreconcilable enemies as he finds men of learning or of pedantry to +argue against. Vanini's ill-fortune had no other source. His heat and +rudeness in disputation procured him the hatred of some theologians; and +having quarrelled with one Franconi, this Franconi, the friend of his +enemies, charged him with being an atheist and teaching atheism. + +Franconi, aided by some witnesses, had the barbarity, when confronted +with the accused, to maintain what he had advanced. Vanini, on the +stool, being asked what he thought of the existence of a God, answered +that he, with the Church, adored a God in three persons. Taking a straw +from the ground, "This," said he, "is sufficient to prove that there is +a creator." He then delivered a very fine discourse on vegetation and +motion, and the necessity of a Supreme Being, without whom there could +be neither motion nor vegetation. + +The president Grammont, who was then at Toulouse, repeats this discourse +in his history of France, now so little known; and the same Grammont, +through some unaccountable prejudice, asserts that Vanini said all this +"through vanity, or through fear, rather than from inward conviction." + +On what could this atrocious, rash judgment of the president be founded? +It is evident, from Vanini's answer, that he could not but be acquitted +of the charge of atheism. But what followed? This unfortunate foreign +priest also dabbled in medicine. There was found in his house a large +live toad, which he kept in a vessel of water; he was forthwith accused +of being a sorcerer. It was maintained that this toad was the god which +he adored. An impious meaning was attributed to several passages of his +books, a thing which is both common and easy, by taking objections for +answers, giving some bad sense to a loose phrase, and perverting an +innocent expression. At last, the faction which oppressed him forced +from his judges the sentence which condemned him to die. + +In order to justify this execution it was necessary to charge the +unfortunate man with the most enormous of crimes. The grey friar--the +_very_ grey friar Marsenne, was so besotted as to publish that "Vanini +set out from Naples, with twelve of his apostles, to convert the whole +world to atheism." What a pitiful tale! How should a poor priest have +twelve men in his pay? How should he persuade twelve Neapolitans to +travel at great expense, in order to spread this revolting doctrine at +the peril of their lives? Would a king himself have it in his power to +pay twelve preachers of atheism? No one before Father Marsenne had +advanced so enormous an absurdity. But after him it was repeated; the +journals and historical dictionaries caught it, and the world, which +loves the extraordinary, has believed the fable without examination. + +Even Bayle, in his miscellaneous thoughts (_Pensees Diverses_), speaks +of Vanini as of an atheist. He cites his example in support of his +paradox, that "a society of atheists might exist." He assures us that +Vanini was a man of very regular morals, and that he was a martyr to +his philosophical opinions. On both these points he is equally mistaken. +Vanini informs us in his "Dialogues," written in imitation of Erasmus, +that he had a mistress named Isabel. He was as free in his writings as +in his conduct; but he was not an atheist. + +A century after his death, the learned Lacroze, and he who took the name +of Philaletes, endeavored to justify him. But as no one cares anything +about the memory of an unfortunate Neapolitan, scarcely any one has read +these apologies. + +The Jesuit Hardouin, more learned and no less rash than Garasse, in his +book entitled _"Athei Detecti"_ charges the Descartes, the Arnaulds, the +Pascals, the Malebranches, with atheism. Happily, Vanini's fate was not +theirs. + + +SECTION IV. + +A word on the question in morals, agitated by Bayle, "Whether a society +of atheists can exist." Here let us first observe the enormous +self-contradictions of men in disputation. Those who have been most +violent in opposing the opinion of Bayle, those who have denied with the +greatest virulence the possibility of a society of atheists, are the +very men who have since maintained with equal ardor that atheism is the +religion of the Chinese government. + +They have most assuredly been mistaken concerning the government of +China; they had only to read the edicts of the emperors of that vast +country, and they would have seen that those edicts are sermons, in +which a Supreme Being--governing, avenging, and rewarding--is +continually spoken of. + +But, at the same time, they are no less deceived respecting the +impossibility of a society of atheists; nor can I conceive how Bayle +could forget a striking instance which might have rendered his cause +victorious. + +In what does the apparent impossibility of a society of atheists +consist? In this: It is judged that men without some restraint could not +live together; that laws have no power against secret crimes; and that +it is necessary to have an avenging God--punishing, in this world or in +the next, such as escape human justice. + +The laws of Moses, it is true, did not teach the doctrine of a life to +come, did not threaten with chastisements after death, nor even teach +the primitive Jews the immortality of the soul; but the Jews, far from +being atheists, far from believing that they could elude the divine +vengeance, were the most religious of men. They believed not only in the +existence of an eternal God, but that He was always present among them; +they trembled lest they should be punished in themselves, their wives, +their children, their posterity to the fourth generation. This was a +very powerful check. + +But among the Gentiles various sects had no restraint; the Skeptics +doubted of everything; the Academics suspended their judgment on +everything; the Epicureans were persuaded that the Divinity could not +meddle in human affairs, and in their hearts admitted no Divinity. They +were convinced that the soul is not a substance, but a faculty which is +born and perishes with the body; consequently, they had no restraint but +that of morality and honor. The Roman senators and knights were in +reality atheists; for to men who neither feared nor hoped anything from +them, the gods could not exist. The Roman senate, then, in the time of +Caesar and Cicero, was in fact an assembly of atheists. + +That great orator, in his oration for Cluentius, says to the whole +assembled senate: "What does he lose by death? We reject all the silly +fables about the infernal regions. What, then, can death take from him? +Nothing but the susceptibility of sorrow." + +Does not Caesar, wishing to save the life of his friend Catiline, +threatened by the same Cicero, object that to put a criminal to death is +not to punish him--that death is nothing--that it is but the termination +of our ills--a moment rather fortunate than calamitous? Did not Cicero +and the whole senate yield to this reasoning? The conquerors and +legislators of all the known world then, evidently, formed a society of +men who feared nothing from the gods, but were real atheists. + +Bayle next examines whether idolatry is more dangerous than +atheism--whether it is a greater crime not to believe in the Divinity +than to have unworthy notions of it; in this he thinks with +Plutarch--that it is better to have no opinion than a bad opinion; but, +without offence to Plutarch, it was infinitely better that the Greeks +should fear Ceres, Neptune, and Jupiter than that they should fear +nothing at all. It is clear that the sanctity of oaths is necessary; and +that those are more to be trusted who think a false oath will be +punished, than those who think they may take a false oath with impunity. +It cannot be doubted that, in an organized society, it is better to have +even a bad religion than no religion at all. + +It appears then that Bayle should rather have examined whether atheism +or fanaticism is the most dangerous. Fanaticism is certainly a thousand +times the most to be dreaded; for atheism inspires no sanguinary +passion, but fanaticism does; atheism does not oppose crime, but +fanaticism prompts to its commission. Let us suppose, with the author of +the _"Commentarium Return Gallicarum,"_ that the High-Chancellor de +l'Hopital was an atheist; he made none but wise laws; he recommended +only moderation and concord. The massacres of St. Bartholomew were +committed by fanatics. Hobbes passed for an atheist; yet he led a life +of innocence and quiet, while the fanatics of his time deluged England, +Scotland, and Ireland with blood. Spinoza was not only an atheist--he +taught atheism; but assuredly he had no part in the judicial +assassination of Barneveldt; nor was it he who tore in pieces the two +brothers De Witt, and ate them off the gridiron. + +Atheists are, for the most part, men of learning, bold but bewildered, +who reason ill and, unable to comprehend the creation, the origin of +evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the +eternity of things and of necessity. + +The ambitious and the voluptuous have but little time to reason; they +have other occupations than that of comparing Lucretius with Socrates. +Such is the case with us and our time. + +It was otherwise with the Roman senate, which was composed almost +entirely of theoretical and practical atheists, that is, believing +neither in Providence nor in a future state; this senate was an assembly +of philosophers, men of pleasure, and ambitious men, who were all very +dangerous, and who ruined the commonwealth. Under the emperors, +Epicureanism prevailed. The atheists of the senate had been factious in +the times of Sulla and of Caesar; in those of Augustus and Tiberius, they +were atheistical slaves. + +I should not wish to come in the way of an atheistical prince, whose +interest it should be to have me pounded in a mortar; I am quite sure +that I should be so pounded. Were I a sovereign, I would not have to do +with atheistical courtiers, whose interest it was to poison me; I should +be under the necessity of taking an antidote every day. It is then +absolutely necessary for princes and people that the idea of a Supreme +Being--creating, governing, rewarding, and punishing--be profoundly +engraved on their minds. + +There are, nations of atheists, says Bayle in his "Thoughts on Comets." +The Kaffirs, the Hottentots, and many other small populations, have no +god; they neither affirm nor deny that there is one; they have never +heard of Him; tell them that there is one, and they will easily believe +it; tell them that all is done by the nature of things, and they will +believe you just the same. To pretend that they are atheists would be +like saying they are anti-Cartesians. They are neither for Descartes nor +against him; they are no more than children; a child is neither atheist +nor deist; he is nothing. + +From all this, what conclusion is to be drawn? That atheism is a most +pernicious monster in those who govern; that it is the same in the men +of their cabinet, since it may extend itself from the cabinet to those +in office; that, although less to be dreaded than fanaticism, it is +almost always fatal to virtue. And especially, let it be added, that +there are fewer atheists now than ever--since philosophers have become +persuaded that there is no vegetative being without a germ, no germ +without a design, etc., and that the corn in our fields does not spring +from rottenness. + +Unphilosophical geometricians have rejected final causes, but true +philosophers admit them; and, as it is elsewhere observed, a catechist +announces God to children, and Newton demonstrates Him to the wise. + +If there be atheists, who are to blame? Who but the mercenary tyrants of +our souls, who, while disgusting us with their knavery, urge some weak +spirits to deny the God whom such monsters dishonor? How often have the +people's bloodsuckers forced overburdened citizens to revolt against the +king! + +Men who have fattened on our substance, cry out to us: "Be persuaded +that an ass spoke; believe that a fish swallowed a man, and threw him up +three days after, safe and sound, on the shore; doubt not that the God +of the universe ordered one Jewish prophet to eat excrement, and another +to buy two prostitutes, and have bastards by them;" such are the words +put into the mouth of the God of purity and truth! Believe a hundred +things either visibly abominable or mathematically impossible; otherwise +the God of Mercy will burn you in hell-fire, not only for millions of +millions of ages, but for all eternity, whether you have a body or have +not a body. + +These brutal absurdities are revolting to rash and weak minds, as well +as to firm and wise ones. They say: "Our teachers represent God to us as +the most insensate and barbarous of all beings; therefore, there is no +God." But they ought to say, "Our teachers represent God as furious and +ridiculous, therefore God is the reverse of what they describe Him; He +is as wise and good as they say He is foolish and wicked." Thus do the +wise decide. But, if a fanatic hears them, he denounces them to a +magistrate--a sort of priest's officer, which officer has them burned +alive, thinking that he is therein imitating and avenging the Divine +Majesty which he insults. + + + + +ATHEIST. + + +SECTION I. + +There were once many atheists among the Christians; they are now much +fewer. It at first appears to be a paradox, but examination proves it to +be a truth, that theology often threw men's minds into atheism, until +philosophy at length drew them out of it. It must indeed have been +pardonable to doubt of the Divinity, when His only announcers disputed +on His nature. Nearly all the first Fathers of the Church made God +corporeal, and others, after them, giving Him no extent, lodged Him in a +part of heaven. According to some, He had created the world in Time; +while, according to others, He had created Time itself. Some gave Him a +Son like to Himself; others would not grant that the Son was like to the +Father. It was also disputed in what way a third person proceeded from +the other two. + +It was agitated whether the Son had been, while on earth, composed of +two persons. So that the question undesignedly became, whether there +were five persons in the Divinity--three in heaven and two for Jesus +Christ upon earth; or four persons, reckoning Christ upon earth as only +one; or three persons, considering Christ only as God. There were +disputes about His mother, His descent into hell and into limbo; the +manner in which the body of the God-man was eaten, and the blood of the +God-man was drunk; on grace; on the saints, and a thousand other +matters. When the confidants of the Divinity were seen so much at +variance among themselves anathematizing one another from age to age, +but all agreeing in an immoderate thirst for riches and grandeur--while, +on the other hand, were beheld the prodigious number of crimes and +miseries which afflicted the earth, and of which many were caused by the +very disputes of these teachers of souls--it must be confessed that it +was allowable for rational men to doubt the existence of a being so +strangely announced, and for men of sense to imagine that a God, who +could of His own free will make so many beings miserable, did not exist. + +Suppose, for example, a natural philosopher of the fifteenth century +reading these words in "St. Thomas's Dream": _"Virtus coeli, loco +spermatis, sufficit cum elementis et putrefactione ad generationem +animalium imperfectorum."_ "The virtue of heaven instead of seed is +sufficient, with the elements and putrefaction, for the generation of +imperfect animals." Our philosopher would reason thus: "If corruption +suffices with the elements to produce unformed animals, it would appear +that a little more corruption, with a little more heat, would also +produce animals more complete. The virtue of heaven is here no other +than the virtue of nature. I shall then think, with Epicurus and St. +Thomas, that men may have sprung from the slime of the earth and the +rays of the sun--a noble origin, too, for beings so wretched and so +wicked. Why should I admit a creating God, presented to me under so many +contradictory and revolting aspects?" But at length physics arose, and +with them philosophy. Then it was clearly discovered that the mud of the +Nile produced not a single insect, nor a single ear of corn, and men +were found to acknowledge throughout, germs, relations, means, and an +astonishing correspondence among all beings. The particles of light have +been followed, which go from the sun to enlighten the globe and the ring +of Saturn, at the distance of three hundred millions of leagues; then, +coming to the earth, form two opposite angles in the eye of the minutest +insect, and paint all nature on its retina. A philosopher was given to +the world who discovered the simple and sublime laws by which the +celestial globes move in the immensity of space. Thus the work of the +universe, now that it is better known, bespeaks a workman, and so many +never-varying laws announce a lawgiver. Sound philosophy, therefore, has +destroyed atheism, to which obscure theology furnished weapons of +defence. + +But one resource was left for the small number of difficult minds, +which, being more forcibly struck by the pretended injustices of a +Supreme Being than by his wisdom, were obstinate in denying this first +mover. Nature has existed from all eternity; everything in nature is in +motion, therefore everything in it continually changes. And if +everything is forever changing, all possible combinations must take +place; therefore the present combinations of all things may have been +the effect of this eternal motion and change alone. Take six dice, and +it is 46,655 to one that you do not throw six times six. But still there +is that one chance in 46,656. So, in the infinity of ages, any one of +the infinite number of combinations, as that of the present arrangement +of the universe, is not impossible. + +Minds, otherwise rational, have been misled by these arguments; but they +have not considered that there is infinity against them, and that there +certainly is not infinity against the existence of God. They should, +moreover, consider that if everything were changing, the smallest things +could not remain unchanged, as they have so long done. They have at +least no reason to advance why new species are not formed every day. On +the contrary, it is very probable that a powerful hand, superior to +these continual changes, keeps all species within the bounds it, has +prescribed them. Thus the philosopher, who acknowledges a God, has a +number of probabilities on his side, while the atheist has only doubts. + +It is evident that in morals it is much better to acknowledge a God than +not to admit one. It is certainly to the interest of all men that there +should be a Divinity to punish what human, justice cannot repress; but +it is also clear that it were better to acknowledge no God than to +worship a barbarous one, and offer Him human victims, as so many nations +have done. + +We have one striking example, which places this truth beyond a doubt. +The Jews, under Moses, had no idea of the immortality of the soul, nor +of a future state. Their lawgiver announced to them, from God, only +rewards and punishments purely temporal; they, therefore, had only this +life to provide for. Moses commands the Levites to kill twenty-three +thousand of their brethren for having had a golden or gilded calf. On +another occasion twenty-four thousand of them are massacred for having +had commerce with the young women of the country; and twelve thousand +are struck dead because some few of them had wished to support the ark, +which was near falling. It may, with perfect reverence for the decrees +of Providence, be affirmed, humanly speaking, that it would have been +much better for these fifty-nine thousand men, who believed in no future +state, to have been absolute atheists and have lived, than to have been +massacred in the name of the God whom they acknowledged. + +It is quite certain that atheism is not taught in the schools of the +learned of China, but many of those learned men are atheists, for they +are indifferent philosophers. Now it would undoubtedly be better to live +with them at Pekin, enjoying the mildness of their manners and their +laws, than to be at Goa, liable to groan in irons, in the prisons of the +inquisition, until brought out in a brimstone-colored garment, +variegated with devils, to perish in the flames. + +They who have maintained that a society of atheists may exist have then +been right, for it is laws that form society, and these atheists, being +moreover philosophers, may lead a very wise and happy life under the +shade of those laws. They will certainly live in society more easily +than superstitious fanatics. People one town with Epicureans such as +Simonides, Protagoras, Des Barreux, Spinoza; and another with Jansenists +and Molinists. In which do you think there will be the most quarrels and +tumults? Atheism, considering it only with relation to this life, would +be very dangerous among a ferocious people, and false ideas of the +Divinity would be no less pernicious. Most of the great men of this +world live as if they were atheists. Every man who has lived with his +eyes open knows that the knowledge of a God, His presence, and His +justice, has not the slightest influence over the wars, the treaties, +the objects of ambition, interest or pleasure, in the pursuit of which +they are wholly occupied. Yet we do not see that they grossly violate +the rules established in society. It is much more agreeable to pass our +lives among them than among the superstitious and fanatical. I do, it is +true, expect more justice from one who believes in a God than from one +who has no such belief; but from the superstitious I look only for +bitterness and persecution. Atheism and fanaticism are two monsters +which may tear society in pieces; but the atheist preserves his reason, +which checks his propensity to mischief, while the fanatic is under the +influence of a madness which is constantly urging him on. + + +SECTION II. + +In England, as everywhere else, there have been, and there still are, +many atheists by principle; for there are none but young, inexperienced +preachers, very ill-informed of what passes in the world, who affirm +that there cannot be atheists. I have known some in France, who were +quite good natural philosophers; and have, I own, been very much +surprised that men who could so ably develop the secret springs of +nature should obstinately refuse to acknowledge the hand which so +evidently puts those springs in action. + +It appears to me that one of the principles which leads them to +materialism is that they believe in the plentitude and infinity of the +universe, and the eternity of matter. It must be this which misleads +them, for almost all the Newtonians whom I have met admit the void and +the termination of matter, and consequently admit a God. + +Indeed, if matter be infinite, as so many philosophers, even including +Descartes, pretend, it has of itself one of the attributes of the +Supreme Being: if a void be impossible, matter exists of necessity; it +has existed from all eternity. With these principles, therefore, we may +dispense with God, creating, modifying, and preserving matter. + +I am aware that Descartes, and most of the schools which have believed +in the _plenum_, and the infinity of matter, have nevertheless admitted +a God; but this is only because men scarcely ever reason or act upon +their principles. + +Had men reasoned, consequently, Epicurus and his apostle Lucretius must +have been the most religious assertors of the Providence which they +combated; for when they admitted the void and the termination of matter, +a truth of which they had only an imperfect glimpse, it necessarily +followed that matter was the being of necessity, existing by itself, +since it was not indefinite. They had, therefore, in their own +philosophy, and in their own despite, a demonstration that there is a +Supreme Being, necessary, infinite, the fabricator of the universe. +Newton's philosophy, which admits and proves the void and finite matter, +also demonstratively proves the existence of a God. + +Thus I regard true philosophers as the apostles of the Divinity. Each +class of men requires its particular ones; a parish catechist tells +children that there is a God, but Newton proves it to the wise. + +In London, under Charles II. after Cromwell's wars, as at Paris under +Henry IV. after the war of the Guises, people took great pride in being +atheists; having passed from the excess of cruelty to that of pleasure, +and corrupted their minds successively by war and by voluptuousness, +they reasoned very indifferently. Since then the more nature has been +studied the better its Author has been known. + +One thing I will venture to believe, which is, that of all religions, +theism is the most widely spread in the world. It is the prevailing +religion of China; it is that of the wise among the Mahometans; and, +among Christian philosophers, eight out of ten are of the same opinion. +It has penetrated even into the schools of theology, into the cloisters, +into the conclave; it is a sort of sect without association, without +worship, without ceremonies, without disputes, and without zeal, spread +through the world without having been preached. Theism, like Judaism, is +to be found amidst all religions; but it is singular that the latter, +which is the extreme of superstition, abhorred by the people and +contemned by the wise, is everywhere tolerated for money; while the +former, which is the opposite of superstition, unknown to the people, +and embraced by philosophers alone, is publicly exercised nowhere but in +China. There is no country in Europe where there are more theists than +in England. Some persons ask whether they have a religion or not. + +There are two sorts of theists. The one sort think that God made the +world without giving man rules for good and evil. It is clear that these +should have no other name than that of philosophers. + +The others believe that God gave to man a natural law. These, it is +certain, have a religion, though they have no external worship. They +are, with reference to the Christian religion, peaceful enemies, which +she carries in her bosom; they renounce without any design of destroying +her. All other sects desire to predominate, like political bodies, which +seek to feed on the substance of others, and rise upon their ruin; +theism has always lain quiet. Theists have never been found caballing in +any state. + +There was in London a society of theists, who for some time continued to +meet together. They had a small book of their laws, in which religion, +on which so many ponderous volumes have been written, occupied only two +pages. Their principal axiom was this: "Morality is the same among all +men; therefore it comes from God. Worship is various; therefore it is +the work of man." + +The second axiom was: "Men, being all brethren, and acknowledging the +same God, it is execrable that brethren should persecute brethren, +because they testify their love for the common father in a different +manner. Indeed," said they, "what upright man would kill his elder +brother because one of them had saluted their father after the Chinese +and the other after the Dutch fashion, especially while it was undecided +in what way the father wished their reverence to be made to him? Surely +he who should act thus would be a bad brother rather than a good son." + +I am well aware that these maxims lead directly to "the abominable and +execrable dogma of toleration"; but I do no more than simply relate the +fact. I am very careful not to become a controversialist. It must, +however, be admitted that if the different sects into which Christians +have been divided had possessed this moderation, Christianity would have +been disturbed by fewer disorders, shaken by fewer revolutions, and +stained with less blood. + +Let us pity the theists for combating our holy revelation. But whence +comes it that so many Calvinists, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Nestorians, +Arians, partisans of Rome, and enemies of Rome, have been so sanguinary, +so barbarous, and so miserable, now persecuting, now persecuted? It is +because they have been the multitude. Whence is it that theists, though +in error, have never done harm to mankind? Because they have been +philosophers. The Christian religion has cost the human species +seventeen millions of men, reckoning only one million per century, who +have perished either by the hands of the ordinary executioner, or by +those of executioners paid and led to battle--all for the salvation of +souls and the greater glory of God. + +I have heard men express astonishment that a religion so moderate, and +so apparently conformable to reason, as theism, has not been spread +among the people. Among the great and little vulgar may be found pious +herb-women, Molinist duchesses, scrupulous seamstresses who would go to +the stake for anabaptism, devout hackney-coachmen, most determined in +the cause of Luther or of Arius, but no theists; for theism cannot so +much be called a religion as a system of philosophy, and the vulgar, +whether great or little, are not philosophers. + +Locke was a declared theist. I was astonished to find, in that great +philosopher's chapter on innate ideas, that men have all different ideas +of justice. Were such the case, morality would no longer be the same; +the voice of God would not be heard by man; natural religion would be at +an end. I am willing to believe, with him, that there are nations in +which men eat their fathers, and where to lie with a neighbor's wife is +to do him a friendly office; but if this be true it does not prove that +the law, "Do not unto others that which you would not have others do +unto you," is not general. For if a father be eaten, it is when he has +grown old, is too feeble to crawl along, and would otherwise be eaten by +the enemy. And, I ask, what father would not furnish a good meal to his +son rather than to the enemies of his nation? Besides, he who eats his +father hopes that he in turn shall be eaten by his children. + +If a service be rendered to a neighbor by lying with his wife, it is +when he cannot himself have a child, and is desirous of having one; +otherwise he would be very angry. In both these cases, and in all +others, the natural law, "Do not to another that which you would not +have another do to you," remains unbroken. All the other rules, so +different and so varied, may be referred to this. When, therefore, the +wise metaphysician, Locke, says that men have no innate ideas, that they +have different ideas of justice and injustice, he assuredly does not +mean to assert that God has not given to all men that instinctive +self-love by which they are of necessity guided. + + + + +ATOMS. + + +Epicurus, equally great as a genius, and respectable in his morals; and +after him Lucretius, who forced the Latin language to express +philosophical ideas, and--to the great admiration of Rome--to express +them in verse--Epicurus and Lucretius, I say, admitted atoms and the +void. Gassendi supported this doctrine, and Newton demonstrated it. In +vain did a remnant of Cartesianism still combat for the plenum; in vain +did Leibnitz, who had at first adopted the rational system of Epicurus, +Lucretius, Gassendi, and Newton, change his opinion respecting the void +after he had embroiled himself with his master Newton. The plenum is now +regarded as a chimera. + +In this Epicurus and Lucretius appear to have been true philosophers, +and their intermediaries, who have been so much ridiculed, were no other +than the unresisting space in which Newton has demonstrated that the +planets move round their orbits in times proportioned to their areas. +Thus it was not Epicurus' intermediaries, but his opponents, that were +ridiculous. But when Epicurus afterwards tells us that his atoms +declined in the void by chance; that this declination formed men and +animals by chance; that the eyes were placed in the upper part of the +head and the feet at the end of the legs by chance; that ears were not +given to hear, but that the declination of atoms having fortuitously +composed ears, men fortuitously made use of them to hear with--this +madness, called physics, has been very justly turned into ridicule. + +Sound philosophy, then, has long distinguished what is good in Epicurus +and Lucretius, from their chimeras, founded on imagination and +ignorance. The most submissive minds have adopted the doctrine of +creation in time, and the most daring have admitted that of creation +before all time. Some have received with faith a universe produced from +nothing; others, unable to comprehend this doctrine in physics, have +believed that all beings were emanations from the Great--the Supreme and +Universal Being; but all have rejected the fortuitous concurrence of +atoms; all have acknowledged that chance is a word without meaning. What +we call chance can be no other than the unknown cause of a known effect. +Whence comes it then, that philosophers are still accused of thinking +that the stupendous and indescribable arrangement of the universe is a +production of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms--an effect of chance? +Neither Spinoza nor any one else has advanced this absurdity. + +Yet the son of the great Racine says, in his poem on Religion: + + _O toi! qui follement fais ton Dieu du hasard,_ + _Viens me developper ce nid qu'avec tant d'art,_ + _Au meme ordre toujours architecte fidele,_ + _A l'aide de son bee maconne l'hirondelle;_ + _Comment, pour elever ce hardi batiment,_ + _A-t-elle en le broyant arrondi son ciment?_ + + Oh ye, who raise Creation out of chance, + As erst Lucretius from th' atomic dance! + Come view with me the swallow's curious nest, + Where beauty, art, and order, shine confessed. + How could rude chance, forever dark and blind, + Preside within the little builder's mind? + Could she, with accidents unnumbered crowned, + Its mass concentrate, and its structure round! + +These lines are assuredly thrown away. No one makes chance his God; no +one has said that while a swallow "tempers his clay, it takes the form +of his abode by chance." On the contrary, it is said that "he makes his +nest by the laws of necessity," which is the opposite of chance. + +The only question now agitated is, whether the author of nature has +formed primordial parts unsusceptible of division, or if all is +continually dividing and changing into other elements. The first system +seems to account for everything, and the second, hitherto at least, for +nothing. + +If the first elements of things were not indestructible one element +might at last swallow up all the rest, and change them into its own +substance. Hence, perhaps it was that Empedocles imagined that +everything came from fire, and would be destroyed by fire. + +This question of atoms involves another, that of the divisibility of +matter _ad infinitum_. The word _atom_ signifies _without parts--not to +be divided._ You divide it in thought, for if you were to divide it in +reality it would no longer be an atom. + +You may divide a grain of gold into eighteen millions of visible parts; +a grain of copper dissolved in spirit of sal ammoniac has exhibited +upwards of twenty-two thousand parts; but when you have arrived at the +last element the atom escapes the microscope, and you can divide no +further except in imagination. + +The infinite divisibility of atoms is like some propositions in +geometry. You may pass an infinity of curves between a circle and its +tangent, supposing the circle and the tangent to be lines without +breadth; but there are no such lines in nature. + +You likewise establish that asymptotes will approach one another without +ever meeting; but it is under the supposition that they are lines +having length without breadth--things which have only a speculative +existence. + +So, also, we represent unity by a line, and divide this line and this +unity into as many fractions as you please; but this infinity of +fractions will never be any other than our unity and our line. + +It is not strictly demonstrated that atoms are indivisible, but it +appears that they are not divided by the laws of nature. + + + + +AVARICE. + + +Avarities, _amor habendi_--desire of having, avidity, covetousness. +Properly speaking, avarice is the desire of accumulating, whether in +grain, movables, money, or curiosities. There were avaricious men long +before coin was invented. + +We do not call a man avaricious who has four and twenty coach horses, +yet will not lend one to his friend: or who, having two thousand bottles +of Burgundy in his cellar, will not send you half a dozen, when he knows +you to be in want of them. If he show you a hundred thousand crowns' +worth of diamonds you do not think of asking him to present you with one +worth twenty livres; you consider him as a man of great magnificence, +but not at all avaricious. + +He who in finance, in army contracts, and great undertakings gained two +millions each year, and who, when possessed of forty-three millions, +besides his houses at Paris and his movables, expended fifty thousand +crowns per annum for his table, and sometimes lent money to noblemen at +five per cent, interest, did not pass, in the minds of the people, for +an avaricious man. He had, however, all his life burned with the thirst +of gain; the demon of covetousness was perpetually tormenting him; he +continued to accumulate to the last day of his life. This passion, which +was constantly gratified, has never been called avarice. He did not +expend a tenth part of his income, yet he had the reputation of a +generous man, too fond of splendor. + +A father of a family who, with an income of twenty thousand livres, +expends only five or six, and accumulates his savings to portion his +children, has the reputation among his neighbors of being avaricious, +mean, stingy, a niggard, a miser, a grip-farthing; and every abusive +epithet that can be thought of is bestowed upon him. + +Nevertheless this good citizen is much more to be honored than the +Croesus I have just mentioned; he expends three times as much in +proportion. But the cause of the great difference between their +reputations is this: + +Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because there is +nothing to be gained by him. The physician, the apothecary, the +wine-merchant, the draper, the grocer, the saddler, and a few girls gain +a good deal by our Croesus, who is truly avaricious. But with our close +and economical citizen there is nothing to be done. Therefore he is +loaded with maledictions. + +As for those among the avaricious who deprive themselves of the +necessaries of life, we leave them to Plautus and Moliere. + + + + +AUGURY. + + +Must not a man be very thoroughly possessed by the demon of etymology to +say, with Pezron and others, that the Roman word _augurium_ came from +the Celtic words _au_ and _gur_? According to these learned men _au_ +must, among the Basques and Bas-Bretons, have signified _the liver_, +because _asu_, which, (say they) signified _left_, doubtless stood for +the liver, which is on the _right_ side; and _gur_ meant _man_, or +_yellow_, or _red_, in that Celtic tongue of which we have not one +memorial. Truly this is powerful reasoning. + +Absurd curiosity (for we must call things by their right names) has been +carried so far as to seek Hebrew and Chaldee derivations from certain +Teutonic and Celtic words. This, Bochart never fails to do. It is +astonishing with what confidence these men of genius have proved that +expressions used on the banks of the Tiber were borrowed from the patois +of the savages of Biscay. Nay, they even assert that this patois was one +of the first idioms of the primitive language--the parent of all other +languages throughout the world. They have only to proceed, and say that +all the various notes of birds come from the cry of the two first +parrots, from which every other species of birds has been produced. + +The religious folly of auguries was originally founded on very sound and +natural observations. The birds of passage have always marked the +progress of the seasons. We see them come in flocks in the spring, and +return in the autumn. The cuckoo is heard only in fine weather, which +his note seems to invite. The swallows, skimming along the ground, +announce rain. Each climate has its bird, which is in effect its augury. + +Among the observing part of mankind there were, no doubt, knaves who +persuaded fools that there was something divine in these animals, and +that their flight presaged our destinies, which were written on the +wings of a sparrow just as clearly as in the stars. + +The commentators on the allegorical and interesting story of Joseph sold +by his brethren, and made Pharaoh's prime minister for having explained +his dreams, infer that Joseph was skilled in the science of auguries, +from the circumstance that Joseph's steward is commanded to say to his +brethren, "Is not this it (the silver cup) in which my lord drinketh? +and whereby indeed he divineth?" Joseph, having caused his brethren to +be brought back before him, says to them: "What deed is this that ye +have done? Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?" + +Judah acknowledges, in the name of his brethren, that Joseph is a great +diviner, and that God has inspired him: "God hath found out the iniquity +of thy servants." At that time they took Joseph for an Egyptian lord. It +is evident from the text that they believe the God of the Egyptians and +of the Jews had discovered to this minister the theft of his cup. + +Here, then, we have auguries or divination clearly established in the +Book of Genesis; so clearly that it is afterwards forbidden in +Leviticus: "Ye shall not eat anything with the blood; neither shall ye +use enchantment nor observe times. Ye shall not round the corners of +your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard." + +As for the superstition of seeing the future in a cup, it still exists, +and is called seeing in a glass. The individual must never have known +pollution; he must turn towards the east, and pronounce the words, +_Abraxa per dominum nostrum_, after which he will see in a glass of +water whatever he pleases. Children were usually chosen for this +operation. They must retain their hair; a shaven head, or one wearing a +wig, can see nothing in a glass. This pastime was much in vogue in +France during the regency of the duke of Orleans, and still more so in +the times preceding. + +As for auguries, they perished with the Roman Empire. Only the bishops +have retained the augurial staff, called the crosier; which was the +distinctive mark of the dignity of augur; so that the symbol of +falsehood has become the symbol of truth. + +There were innumerable kinds of divinations, of which several have +reached our latter ages. This curiosity to read the future is a malady +which only philosophy can cure, for the weak minds that still practise +these pretended arts of divination--even the fools who give themselves +to the devils--all make religion subservient to these profanations, by +which it is outraged. + +It is an observation worthy of the wise, that Cicero, who was one of the +college of augurs, wrote a book for the sole purpose of turning auguries +into ridicule; but they have likewise remarked that Cicero, at the end +of his book, says that "superstition should be destroyed, but not +religion. For," he adds, "the beauty of the universe, and the order of +the heavenly bodies force us to acknowledge an eternal and powerful +nature. We must maintain the religion which is joined with the knowledge +of this nature, by utterly extirpating superstition, for it is a monster +which pursues and presses us on every side. The meeting with a pretended +diviner, a presage, an immolated victim, a bird, a Chaldaean, an +aruspice, a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, an event accidentally +corresponding with what has been foretold to us, everything disturbs and +makes us uneasy; sleep itself, which should make us forget all these +pains and fears, serves but to redouble them by frightful images." + +Cicero thought he was addressing only a few Romans, but he was speaking +to all men and all ages. + +Most of the great men of Rome no more believed in auguries than +Alexander VI., Julius II., and Leo X., believed in Our Lady of Loretto +and the blood of St. Januarius. However, Suetonius relates that +Octavius, surnamed Augustus, was so weak as to believe that a fish, +which leaped from the sea upon the shore at Actium, foreboded that he +should gain the battle. He adds that, having afterwards met an +ass-driver, he asked him the name of his ass; and the man having +answered that his ass was named Nicholas, which signifies conqueror of +nations, he had no longer any doubts about the victory; and that he +afterwards had brazen statues erected to the ass-driver, the ass, and +the jumping fish. He further assures us that these statues were placed +in the Capitol. + +It is very likely that this able tyrant laughed at the superstitions of +the Romans, and that his ass, the driver, and the fish, were nothing +more than a joke. But it is no less likely that, while he despised all +the follies of the vulgar, he had a few of his own. The barbarous and +dissimulating Louis XI. had a firm faith in the cross of St. Louis. +Almost all princes, excepting such as have had time to read, and read to +advantage, are in some degree infected with superstition. + + + + +AUGUSTINE. + + +Augustine, a native of Tagaste, is here to be considered, not as a +bishop, a doctor, a father of the Church, but simply as a man. This is a +question in physics, respecting the climate of Africa. + +When a youth, Augustine was a great libertine, and the spirit was no +less quick in him than the flesh. He says that before he was twenty +years old he had learned arithmetic, geometry and music without a +master. + +Does not this prove that, in Africa, which we now call Barbary, both +minds and bodies advance to maturity more rapidly than among us? + +These valuable advantages of St. Augustine would lead one to believe +that Empedocles was not altogether in the wrong when he regarded fire as +the principle of nature. It is assisted, but by subordinate agents. It +is like a king governing the actions of all his subjects, and sometimes +inflaming the imaginations of his people rather too much. It is not +without reason that Syphax says to Juba, in the Cato of Addison, that +the sun which rolls its fiery car over African heads places a deeper +tinge upon the cheeks, and a fiercer flame within their hearts. That the +dames of Zama are vastly superior to the pale beauties of the north: + + The glowing dames of Zama's royal court + Have faces flushed with more exalted charms; + Were you with these, my prince, you'd soon forget + The pale unripened beauties of the north. + +Where shall we find in Paris, Strasburg, Ratisbon, or Vienna young men +who have learned arithmetic, the mathematics and music without +assistance, and who have been fathers at fourteen? + +Doubtless it is no fable that Atlas, prince of Mauritania, called by the +Greeks the son of heaven, was a celebrated astronomer, and constructed a +celestial sphere such as the Chinese have had for so many ages. The +ancients, who expressed everything in allegory, likened this prince to +the mountain which bears his name, because it lifts its head above the +clouds, which have been called the heavens by all mankind who have +judged of things only from the testimony of their eyes. + +These Moors cultivated the sciences with success, and taught Spain and +Italy for five centuries. Things are greatly altered. The country of +Augustine is now but a den of pirates, while England, Italy, Germany, +and France, which were involved in barbarism, are greater cultivators of +the arts than ever the Arabians were. + +Our only object, then, in this article is to show how changeable a scene +this world is. Augustine, from a debauchee, becomes an orator and a +philosopher; he puts himself forward in the world; he teaches rhetoric; +he turns Manichaean, and from Manichaeanism passes to Christianity. He +causes himself to be baptized, together with one of his bastards, named +Deodatus; he becomes a bishop, and a father of the Church. His system of +grace has been reverenced for eleven hundred years as an article of +faith. At the end of eleven hundred years some Jesuits find means to +procure an anathema against Augustine's system, word for word, under the +names of Jansenius, St. Cyril, Arnaud, and Quesnel. We ask if this +revolution is not, in its kind, as great as that of Africa, and if there +be anything permanent upon earth? + + + + +AUGUSTUS (OCTAVIUS). + + +_The Morals of Augustus._ + +Manners can be known only from facts, which facts must be incontestable. +It is beyond doubt that this man, so immoderately praised as the +restorer of morals and of laws, was long one of the most infamous +debauchees in the Roman commonwealth. His epigram on Fulvia, written +after the horrors of the proscriptions, proves that he was no less a +despiser of decency in his language than he was a barbarian in his +conduct. This abominable epigram is one of the strongest testimonies to +Augustus' infamous immorality. Sextus Pompeius also reproached him with +shameful weaknesses: _"Effeminatum infectatus est."_ Antony, before the +triumvirate, declared that Caesar, great-uncle to Augustus, had adopted +him as his son only because he had been subservient to his pleasures; +_"Adopt ionem avunculi stupro meritum."_ + +Lucius Caesar charged him with the same crime, and even asserted that he +had been base enough to sell himself to Hirtius for a very considerable +sum. He was so shameless as to take the wife of a consul from her +husband in the midst of a supper; he took her to a neighboring closet, +staid with her there for some time, and brought her back to table +without himself, the woman, or her husband blushing at all at the +proceeding. + +We have also a letter from Antony to Augustus, couched in these terms: +_"Ita valeas ut hanc epistolam cum leges, non inieris Testullam, aut +Terentillam, aut Russillam, aut Salviam, aut omnes. Anne refert ubi et +in quam arrigas?"_ We are afraid to translate this licentious letter. + +Nothing is better known than the scandalous feast of five of the +companions of his pleasures with five of the principal women of Rome. +They were dressed up as gods and goddesses, and imitated all the +immodesties invented in fable--_"Bum nova Divorum coenat adulteria."_ +And on the stage he was publicly designated by this famous line: + + _Videsne ut cinaedus orbem digito temperet?_ + +Almost every Latin author that speaks of Ovid asserts that Augustus had +the insolence to banish that Roman knight, who was a much better man +than himself, merely because the other had surprised him in an incest +with his own daughter Julia; and that he sent his daughter into exile +only through jealousy. This is the more likely, as Caligula published +aloud that his mother was born from the incest of Augustus with Julia. +So says Suetonius, in his life of Caligula. + +We know that Augustus repudiated the mother of Julia the very day she +was brought to bed of her, and on the same day took Livia from her +husband when she was pregnant of Tiberius--another monster, who +succeeded him. Such was the man to whom Horace said: _"Res Italas armis +tuteris, moribus ornes, Legibus emendes...."_ + +It is hard to repress our indignation at reading at the commencement of +the Georgics that Augustus is one of the greatest of divinities; and +that it is not known what place he will one day deign to occupy in +heaven; whether he will reign in the air, or become the protector of +cities, or vouchsafe to accept the empire of the seas: + + _An Deus immensi venias maris, ac tua nauta_ + _Numina sola celant tibi servial ultima Thule._ + +Ariosto speaks with much more sense as well as grace, when he says in +his fine thirty-fifth canto: + + _Non fu si santo ne benigno Augusto_ + _Come la tromba di Virgilio sonna;_ + _L'aver avuto in poesia buon gusto_ + _La proscriptione iniqua gli perdona._ + + Augustus was not quite so mild and chaste + As he's by honest Virgil represented; + But then, the tyrant had poetic taste; + With this the poet fully was contented. + + +_The Cruelties of Augustus._ + +If Augustus was long abandoned to the most shameful and frantic +dissipation, his cruelty was no less uniform and deliberate. His +proscriptions were published in the midst of feasting and revelry; he +proscribed more than three hundred senators, two thousand knights, and +one hundred obscure but wealthy heads of families, whose only crime was +their being rich, Antony and Octavius had them killed, solely that they +might get possession of their money; in which they differed not the +least from highway robbers, who are condemned to the wheel. + +Octavius, immediately after the Persian war, gave his veterans all the +lands belonging to the citizens of Mantua and Cremona, thus recompensing +murder by depredation. + +It is but too certain that the world was ravaged, from the Euphrates to +the extremities of Spain, by this man without shame, without faith, +honor, or probity, knavish, ungrateful, avaricious, blood-thirsty, cool +in the commission of crime, who, in any well-regulated republic, would +have been condemned to the greatest of punishments for the first of his +offences. + +Nevertheless, the government of Augustus is still admired, because under +him Rome tasted peace, pleasure and abundance. Seneca says of him: +_"Clementiam non voco lassam crudelitatem"_--"I do not call exhausted +cruelty clemency." + +It is thought that Augustus became milder when crime was no longer +necessary to him; and that, being absolute master, he saw that he had no +other interest than to appear just. But it appears to me that he still +was pitiless rather than clement; for, after the battle of Actium, he +had Antony's son murdered at the feet of Caesar's statue; and he was so +barbarous as to have young Caesarion, the son of Caesar and Cleopatra, +beheaded, though he had recognized him as king of Egypt. + +Suspecting one day that the praetor Quintus Gallius had come to an +audience with a poinard under his robe, he had him put to the torture in +his presence; and, in his indignation at hearing that senator call him a +tyrant, he tore out his eyes with his own hands; at least, so says +Suetonius. + +We know that Caesar, his adopted father, was great enough to pardon +almost all his enemies; but I do not find that Augustus pardoned one of +his. I have great doubts of his pretended clemency to Cinna. This affair +is mentioned neither by Suetonius nor by Tacitus. Suetonius, who speaks +of all the conspiracies against Augustus, would not have failed to +mention the most memorable. The singularity of giving a consulship to +Cinna in return for the blackest perfidy would not have escaped every +contemporary historian. Dion Cassius speaks of it only after Seneca; and +this passage in Seneca has the appearance rather of declamation than of +historical truth. Besides, Seneca lays the scene in Gaul, and Dion at +Rome; this contradiction deprives the occurrence of all remaining +verisimilitude. Not one of our Roman histories, compiled in haste and +without selection, has discussed this interesting fact. Lawrence +Echard's History has appeared to enlightened men to be as faulty as it +is mutilated; writers have rarely been guided by the spirit of +examination. + +Cinna might be suspected, or convicted, by Augustus of some infidelity; +and, when the affair had been cleared up, he might honor him with the +vain title of consul; but it is not at all probable that Cinna sought by +a conspiracy to seize the supreme authority--he, who had never commanded +an army, was supported by no party, and was a man of no consideration in +the empire. It is not very likely that a mere subordinate courtier would +think of succeeding a sovereign who had been twenty years firmly +established on his throne, and had heirs; nor is it more likely that +Augustus would make him consul immediately after the conspiracy. + +If Cinna's adventure be true, Augustus pardoned him only because he +could not do otherwise, being overcome by the reasoning or the +importunities of Livia, who had acquired great influence over him, and +persuaded him, says Seneca, that pardon would do him more service than +chastisement. It was then only through policy that he, for once, was +merciful; it certainly was not through generosity. + +Shall we give a robber credit for clemency, because, being enriched and +secure, enjoying in peace the fruits of his rapine, he is not every day +assassinating the sons and grandsons of the proscribed, while they are +kneeling to and worshipping him? After being a barbarian he was a +prudent politician. It is worthy of remark that posterity never gave +him the title of virtuous, which was bestowed on Titus, on Trajan, and +the Antonines. It even became customary in the compliments paid to +emperors on their accession, to wish that they might be more fortunate +than Augustus, and more virtuous than Trajan. It is now, therefore, +allowable to consider Augustus as a clever and fortunate monster. + +Louis Racine, son of the great Racine, and heir to a part of his +talents, seems to forget himself when he says, in his "Reflections on +Poetry," that "Horace and Virgil spoiled Augustus; they exhausted their +art in poisoning the mind of Augustus by their praises." These +expressions would lead one to believe that the eulogies so meanly +lavished by these two great poets, corrupted this emperor's fine +disposition. But Louis Racine very well knew that Augustus was an +exceedingly bad man, regarding crime and virtue with indifference, +availing himself alike of the horrors of the one and the appearances of +the other, attentive solely to his own interest, employing bloodshed and +peace, arms and laws, religion and pleasure, only to make himself master +of the earth, and sacrificing everything to himself. Louis Racine only +shows us that Virgil and Horace had servile souls. + +He is, unfortunately, too much in the right when he reproaches Corneille +with having dedicated _"Cinna"_ to the financier Montoron, and said to +that receiver. "What you most especially have in common with Augustus +is the generosity with which," etc., for, though Augustus was the most +wicked of Roman citizens, it must be confessed that the first of the +emperors, the master, the pacificator, the legislator of the then known +world, should not be placed absolutely on a level with a clerk to a +comptroller-general in Gaul. + +The same Louis Racine, in justly condemning the mean adulation of +Corneille, and the baseness of the aged Horace and Virgil, marvellously +lays hold of this passage in Massillon's _"Petit Careme!"_ "It is no +less culpable to fail in truth towards monarchs than to be wanting in +fidelity; the same penalty should be imposed on adulation as on revolt." + +I ask your pardon, Father Massillon; but this stroke of yours is very +oratorical, very preacher-like, very exaggerated. The League and the +Fronde have, if I am not deceived, done more harm than Quinault's +prologues. There is no way of condemning Quinault as a rebel. _"Est +modus in rebus."_ Father Massillon, which is wanting in all +manufacturers of sermons. + + + + +AVIGNON. + + +Avignon and its country are monuments of what the abuse of religion, +ambition, knavery, and fanaticism united can effect. This little +country, after a thousand vicissitudes, had, in the twelfth century, +passed into the hands of the counts of Toulouse, descended from +Charlemagne by the female side. + +Raymond VI., count of Toulouse, whose forefathers had been the principal +heroes in the crusades, was stripped of his states by a crusade which +the pope stirred up against him. The cause of the crusade was the desire +of having his spoils; the pretext was that in several of his towns the +citizens thought nearly as has been thought for upwards of two hundred +years in England, Sweden, Denmark, three-fourths of Switzerland, +Holland, and half of Germany. + +This was hardly a sufficient reason for _giving_, in the name of God, +the states of the count of Toulouse to the first occupant, and for +devoting to slaughter and fire his subjects, crucifix in hand, and white +cross on shoulder. All that is related of the most savage people falls +far short of the barbarities committed in this war, called holy. The +ridiculous atrocity of some religious ceremonies always, accompanied +these horrid excesses. It is known that Raymond VI. was dragged to a +church of St. Giles's, before a legate, naked to the waist, without hose +or sandals, with a rope about his neck, which was held by a deacon, +while another deacon flogged him, and a third sung _miserere_ with some +monks--and all the while the legate was at dinner. Such was the origin +of the right of the popes over Avignon. + +Count Raymond, who had submitted to the flagellation in order to +preserve his states, underwent this ignominy to no purpose whatever. He +had to defend by arms what he had thought to preserve by suffering a few +stripes; he saw his towns laid in ashes, and died in 1213 amid the +vicissitudes of the most sanguinary war. + +His son, Raymond VII., was not, like his father, suspected of heresy; +but he was the son of a heretic, and was to be stripped of all his +possessions, by virtue of the Decretals; such was the law. The crusade, +therefore, was continued against him; he was excommunicated in the +churches, on Sundays and holidays, to the sound of bells and with tapers +extinguished. + +A legate who was in France during the minority of St. Louis raised +tenths there to maintain this war in Languedoc and Provence. Raymond +defended himself with courage; but the heads of the hydra of fanaticism +were incessantly reappearing to devour him. + +The pope at last made peace because all his money had been expended in +war. Raymond VII. came and signed the treaty before the portal of the +cathedral of Paris. He was forced to pay ten thousand marks of silver to +the legate, two thousand to the abbey of Citeaux, five hundred to the +abbey of Clairvaux, a thousand to that of Grand-Selve, and three hundred +to that of Belleperche---all for the salvation of his soul, as is +specified in the treaty. So it was that the Church always negotiated. + +It is very remarkable that in this document the count of Toulouse +constantly puts the legate before the king: "I swear and promise to the +legate and to the king faithfully to observe all these things, and to +cause them to be observed by my vassals and subjects," etc. + +This was not all. He ceded to Pope Gregory IX. the country of Venaissin +beyond the Rhone, and the sovereignty of seventy-three castles on this +side the same river. The pope adjudged this fine to himself by a +particular act, desirous that, in a public instrument, the +acknowledgment of having exterminated so many Christians for the purpose +of seizing upon his neighbor's goods, should not appear in so glaring a +light. Besides, he demanded what Raymond could not grant, without the +consent of the Emperor Frederick II. The count's lands, on the left bank +of the Rhone, were an imperial fief, and Frederick II. never sanctioned +this exaction. + +Alphonso, brother of St. Louis, having married this unfortunate prince's +daughter, by whom he had no children, all the states of Raymond VII. in +Languedoc, devolved to the crown of France, as had been stipulated in +the marriage contract. + +The country of Venaissin, which is in Provence, had been magnanimously +given up by the Emperor Frederick II. to the count of Toulouse. His +daughter Joan, before her death, had disposed of them by will in favor +of Charles of Anjou, count of Provence, and king of Naples. + +Philip the Bold, son of St. Louis, being pressed by Pope Gregory IX., +gave the country of Venaissin to the Roman church in 1274. It must be +confessed that Philip the Bold gave what in no way belonged to him; that +this cession was absolutely null and void, and that no act ever was more +contrary to all law. + +It is the same with the town of Avignon. Joan of France, queen of +Naples, descended from the brother of St. Louis, having been, with but +too great an appearance of justice, accused of causing her husband to be +strangled, desired the protection of Pope Clement VI., whose see was +then the town of Avignon, in Joan's domains. She was countess of +Provence. In 1347 the Provencals made her swear, on the gospel, that she +would sell none of her sovereignties. She had scarcely taken this oath +before she went and sold Avignon to the pope. The authentic act was not +signed until June 14, 1348; the sum stipulated for was eighty thousand +florins of gold. The pope declared her innocent of her husband's murder, +but never paid her. Joan's receipt has never been produced. She +protested juridically four several times against this deceitful +purchase. + +So that Avignon and its country were never considered to have been +dismembered from Provence, otherwise than by a rapine, which was the +more manifest, as it had been sought to cover it with the cloak of +religion. + +When Louis XI. acquired Provence he acquired it with all the rights +appertaining thereto; and, as appears by a letter from John of Foix to +that monarch, had in 1464 resolved to enforce them. But the intrigues of +the court of Rome were always so powerful that the kings of France +condescended to allow it the enjoyment of this small province. They +never acknowledged in the popes a lawful possession, but only a simple +enjoyment. + +In the treaty of Pisa, made by Louis XIV. with Alexander VII., in 1664, +it is said that, "every obstacle shall be removed, in order that the +pope may enjoy Avignon as before." The pope, then, had this province +only as cardinals have pensions from the king, which pensions are +discretional. Avignon and its country were a constant source of +embarrassment to the French government; they afforded a refuge to all +the bankrupts and smugglers, though very little profit thence accrued to +the pope. + +Louis XIV. twice resumed his rights; but it was rather to chastise the +pope than to reunite Avignon and its country with his crown. At length +Louis XV. did justice to his dignity and to his subjects. The gross and +indecent conduct of Pope Rezzonico (Clement XIII.) forced him in 1768 to +revive the rights of his crown. This pope had acted as if he belonged +to the fourteenth century. He was, however, with the applause of all +Europe, convinced that he lived in the eighteenth. + +When the officer bearing the king's orders entered Avignon, he went +straight to the legate's apartment, without being announced, and said to +him, "Sir, the king takes possession of his town." There is some +difference between this proceeding and a count of Toulouse being flogged +by a deacon, while a legate is at dinner. Things, we see, change with +times. + + + + +AUSTERITIES. + +MORTIFICATIONS. FLAGELLATIONS. + + +Suppose that some chosen individuals, lovers of study, united together +after a thousand catastrophes had happened to the world, and employed +themselves in worshipping God and regulating the time of the year, as is +said of the ancient Brahmins and Magi; all this is perfectly good and +honest. They might, by their frugal life, set an example to the rest of +the world; they might abstain, during the celebration of their feasts, +from all intoxicating liquors, and all commerce with their wives; they +might be clothed modestly and decently; if they were wise, other men +consulted them; if they were just, they were loved and reverenced. But +did not superstition, brawling, and vanity soon take the place of the +virtues? + +Was not the first madman that flogged himself publicly to appease the +gods the original of the priests of the Syrian goddess, who flogged +themselves in her honor; of the priests of Isis, who did the same on +certain days; of the priests of Dodona, named Salii, who inflicted +wounds on themselves; of the priests of Bellona, who struck themselves +with sabres; of the priests of Diana, who drew blood from their backs +with rods; of the priests of Cybele, who made themselves eunuchs; of the +fakirs of India, who loaded themselves with chains? Has the hope of +obtaining abundant alms nothing at all to do with the practice of these +austerities? + +Is there not some similarity between the beggars, who make their legs +swell by a certain application and cover their bodies with sores, in +order to force a few pence from the passengers, and the impostors of +antiquity, who seated themselves upon nails, and sold the holy nails to +the devout of their country? + +And had vanity never any share in promoting these public mortifications, +which attracted the eyes of the multitude? "I scourge myself, but it is +to expiate your faults; I go naked, but it is to reproach you with the +richness of your garments; I feed on herbs and snails, but it is to +correct in you the vice of gluttony; I wear an iron ring to make you +blush at your lewdness. Reverence me as one cherished by the gods, and +who will bring down their favors upon you. When you shall be accustomed +to reverence me, you will not find it hard to obey me; I will be your +master, in the name of the gods; and then, if any one of you disobey my +will in the smallest particular, I will have you impaled to appease the +wrath of heaven." + +If the first fakirs did not pronounce these words, it is very probable +that they had them engraved at the bottom of their hearts. + +Human sacrifices, perhaps, had their origin in these frantic +austerities. Men who drew their blood in public with rods, and mangled +their arms and thighs to gain consideration, would easily make imbecile +savages believe that they must sacrifice to the gods whatever was +dearest to them; that to have a fair wind, they must immolate a +daughter; to avert pestilence, precipitate a son from a rock; to have +infallibly a good harvest, throw a daughter into the Nile. + +These Asiatic superstitions gave rise to the flagellations which we have +imitated from the Jews. Their devotees still flog themselves, and flog +one another, as the priests of Egypt and Syria did of old. Among us the +abbots flogged their monks, and the confessors their penitents--of both +sexes. St. Augustine wrote to Marcellinus, the tribune, that "the +Donatists must be whipped as schoolmasters whip their scholars." + +It is said that it was not until the tenth century that monks and nuns +began to scourge themselves on certain days of the year. The custom of +scourging sinners as a penance was so well established that St. Louis's +confessor often gave him the whip. Henry II. was flogged by the monks +of Canterbury (in 1207). Raymond, count of Toulouse, with a rope round +his neck, was flogged by a deacon, at the door of St. Giles's church, as +has before been said. + +The chaplains to Louis VIII., king of France, were condemned by the +pope's legate to go at the four great feasts to the door of the +cathedral of Paris, and present rods to the canons, that they might flog +them in expiation for the crime of the king, their master, who had +accepted the crown of England, which the pope had taken from him by +virtue of the plenitude of his power. Indeed, the pope showed great +indulgence in not having the king himself whipped, but contenting +himself with commanding him, on pain of damnation, to pay to the +apostolic chamber the amount of two years' revenue. + +From this custom is derived that which still exists, of arming all the +grand-penitentiaries in St. Peter's at Rome with long wands instead of +rods, with which they give gentle taps to the penitents, lying all their +length on the floor. In this manner it was that Henry IV., of France, +had his posteriors flogged by Cardinal Ossat and Duperron. So true is it +that we have scarcely yet emerged from barbarism. + +At the commencement of the thirteenth century fraternities of penitents +were formed at Perosia and Bologna. Young men almost naked, with a rod +in one hand and a small crucifix in the other, flogged themselves in +the streets; while the women peeped through the window-blinds and +whipped themselves in their chambers. + +These flagellators inundated Europe; there are many of them still to be +found in Italy, in Spain, and even in France, at Perpignan. At the +beginning of the sixteenth century it was very common for confessors to +whip the posteriors of their penitents. A history of the Low Countries, +composed by Meteren, relates that a cordelier named Adriacem, a great +preacher at Bruges, used to whip his female penitents quite naked. + +The Jesuit Edmund Auger, confessor to Henry III., persuaded that +unfortunate prince to put himself at the head of the flagellators. + +Flogging the posteriors is practised in various convents of monks and +nuns; from which custom there have sometimes resulted strange +immodesties, over which _we_ must throw a veil, in order to spare the +blushes of such as wear the _sacred_ veil, and whose sex and profession +are worthy of our highest regard. + + + + +AUTHORS. + + +Author is a generic term, which, like the names of all other +professions, may signify author of the good, or of the bad; of the +respectable, or of the ridiculous; of the useful, or the agreeable; or +lastly, the producer of disgusting trash. + +This name is also common to different things. We say equally the author +of nature and the author of the songs of the Pont Neuf, or of the +literary age. The author of a good work should beware of three +things--title, dedication, and preface. Others should take care of the +fourth, which is writing at all. + +As to the title, if the author has the wish to put his name to it, which +is often very dangerous, it should at least be under a modest form; it +is not pleasant to see a pious work, full of lessons of humanity, by Sir +or My Lord. The reader; who is always malicious, and who often is +wearied, usually turns into ridicule a book that is announced with so +much ostentation. The author of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" did not +put his name to it. + +But the apostles, you will say, put their names to their works; that is +not true, they were too modest. The apostle Matthew never entitled his +book the Gospel of St. Matthew; it is a homage that has been paid to him +since. St. Luke himself, who collected all that he had heard said, and +who dedicated his book to Theophilus, did not call it the Gospel of St. +Luke. St. John alone mentions himself in the Apocalypse; and it is +supposed that this book was written by Cerinthus, who took the name of +John to give authority to his production. + +However it may have been in past ages, it appears to me very bold in +authors now to put names and titles at the head of their works. The +bishops never fail to do so, and the thick quartos which they give us +under the title of mandaments are decorated with armorial bearings and +the insignia of their station; a word, no doubt, is said about Christian +humility, but this word is often followed by atrocious calumnies against +those who are of another communion or party. We only speak here, +however, of poor profane authors. The duke de la Rochefoucauld did not +announce his thoughts as the production of _Monseigneur le dud de la +Rochefoucauld, pair de France_. Some persons who only make compilations +in which there may be fine things, will find it injudicious to announce +them as the work of A.B., professor of the university of ----, doctor of +divinity, member of this or of that academy, and so on. So many +dignities do not render the book better. It will still be wished that it +was shorter, more philosophical, less filled with old stories. With +respect to titles and quality, nobody cares about them. + +Dedications are often only offerings from interested baseness to +disdainful vanity. Who would believe that Rohaut, _soi-disant_ +physician, in his dedication to the duke of Guise, told him that his +ancestors had maintained, at the expense of their blood, political +truth, the fundamental laws of the state, and the rights of sovereigns? +Le Balafre and the duke of Mayenne would be a little surprised if this +epistle were read to them in the other world. And what would Henry IV. +say? Most of the dedications in England are made for money, just as the +capuchins present us with salad on condition of our giving them drink. + +Men of letters in France are ignorant of this shameful abasement, and +have never exhibited so much meanness, except some unfortunates, who +call themselves men of letters in the same sense that sign-daubers boast +of being of the profession of Raphael, and that the coachman of +Vertamont was a poet. + +Prefaces are another rock. "The _I_ is hateful," says Pascal. Speak of +yourself as little as you can, for you ought to be aware that the +self-love of the reader is as great as your own. He will never pardon +you for wishing to oblige him to esteem you. It is for your book to +speak to him, should it happen to be read among the crowd. + +"The illustrious suffrages with which my piece has been honored will +make me dispense with answering my adversaries--the applauses of the +public." Erase all that, sir; believe me you have had no illustrious +suffrages; your piece is eternally forgotten. + +"Some censors have pretended that there are too many events in the third +act; and that in the fourth the princess is too late in discovering the +tender sentiments of her heart for her lover. To that I answer--" Answer +nothing, my friend, for nobody has spoken-, or will speak of thy +princess. Thy piece has fallen because it is tiresome, and written in +flat and barbarous verse; thy preface is a prayer for the dead, but it +will not revive them. + +Others attest that all Europe has not understood their treatises on +compatibility--on the Supralapsarians--on the difference which should be +made between the Macedonian and Valentinian heresies, etc. Truly, I +believe that nobody understands them, since nobody reads them. + +We are inundated with this trash and with continual repetition; with +insipid romances which copy their predecessors; with new systems founded +on ancient reveries; and little histories taken from larger ones. + +Do you wish to be an author? Do you wish to make a book? Recollect that +it must be new and useful, or at least agreeable. Why from your +provincial retreat would you assassinate me with another quarto, to +teach me that a king ought to be just, and that Trajan was more virtuous +than Caligula? You insist upon printing the sermons which have lulled +your little obscure town to repose, and will put all our histories under +contributions to extract from them the life of a prince of whom you can +say nothing new. + +If you have written a history of your own time, doubt not but you will +find some learned chronologist, or newspaper commentator, who will +relieve you as to a date, a Christian name, or a squadron which you have +wrongly placed at the distance of three hundred paces from the place +where if really stood. Be grateful, and correct these important errors +forthwith. + +If an ignoramus, or an empty fool, pretend to criticise this thing or +the other, you may properly confute him; but name him rarely, for fear +of soiling your writings. If you are attacked on your style, never +answer; your work alone should reply. + +If you are said to be sick, content yourself that you are well, without +wishing to prove to the people that you are in perfect health; and, +above all, remember that the world cares very little whether you are +well or ill. + +A hundred authors compile to get their bread, and twenty fools extract, +criticise, apologize, and satirize these compilations to get bread also, +because they have no profession. All these people repair on Fridays to +the lieutenant of the police at Paris to demand permission to sell their +drugs. They have audience immediately after the courtesans, who do not +regard them, because they know that they are poor customers. + +They return with a tacit permission to sell and distribute throughout +the kingdom their stories; their collection of bon-mots; the life of the +unfortunate Regis; the translation of a German poem; new discoveries on +eels; a new copy of verses; a treatise on the origin of bells, or on the +loves of the toads. A bookseller buys their productions for ten crowns; +they give five of them to the journalist, on condition that he will +speak well of them in his newspaper. The critic takes their money, and +says all the ill he can of their books. The aggrieved parties go to +complain to the Jew, who protects the wife of the journalist, and the +scene closes by the critic being carried to Fort Eveque; and these are +they who call themselves authors! + +These poor people are divided into two or three bands, and go begging +like mendicant friars; but not having taken vows their society lasts +only for a few days, for they betray one another like priests who run +after the same benefice, though they have no benefice to hope for. But +they still call themselves authors! + +The misfortune of these men is that their fathers did not make them +learn a trade, which is a great defect in modern policy. Every man of +the people who can bring up his son in a useful art, and does not, +merits punishment. The son of a mason becomes a Jesuit at seventeen; he +is chased from society at four and twenty, because the levity of his +manners is too glaring. Behold him without bread! He turns journalist, +he cultivates the lowest kind of literature, and becomes the contempt +and horror of even the mob. And such as these, again, call themselves +authors! + +The only authors are they who have succeeded in a genuine art, be it +epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, or philosophy, and who teach or +delight mankind. The others, of whom we have spoken, are, among men of +letters, like bats among the birds. We cite, comment, criticise, +neglect, forget, and, above all, despise an author who is an author +_only_. + +Apropos of citing an author, I must amuse myself with relating a +singular mistake of the reverend Father Viret, cordelier and professor +of theology. He read in the "Philosophy of History" of the good abbe +Bazin that no author ever cited a passage of Moses before Longinus, who +lived and died in the time of the Emperor Aurelian. Forthwith the zeal +of St. Francis was kindled in him. Viret cries out that it is not true; +that several writers have said that there had been a Moses, that even +Josephus had spoken at length upon him, and that the Abbe Bazin is a +wretch who would destroy the seven sacraments. But, dear Father Viret, +you ought to inform yourself of the meaning of the word, to _cite_. +There is a great deal of difference between mentioning an author and +citing him. To speak, to make mention of an author, is to say that he +has lived--that he has written in such a time; to cite is to give one of +his passages--as Moses says in his Exodus--as Moses has written in his +Genesis. Now the Abbe Brazin affirms that no foreign writers--that none +even of the Jewish prophets have ever quoted a single passage of Moses, +though he was a divine author. Truly, Father Viret, you are very +malicious, but we shall know at least, by this little paragraph, that +_you_ have been an author. + +The most voluminous authors that we have had in France are the +comptrollers-general of the finances. Ten great volumes might be made of +their declarations, since the reign of Louis XIV. Parliaments have been +sometimes the critics of these works, and have found erroneous +propositions and contradictions in them. But where are the good authors +who have not been censured? + + + + +AUTHORITY. + + +Miserable human beings, whether in green robes or in turbans, whether in +black gowns or in surplices, or in mantles and bands, never seek to +employ authority where nothing is concerned but reason, or consent to be +reviled in all ages as the most impertinent of men, as well as to endure +public hatred as the most unjust. + +You have been told a hundred times of the insolent absurdity with which +you condemned Galileo, and I speak to you of it for the hundred and +first. I would have it inscribed over the door of your holy office. + +Seven cardinals, assisted by certain minorite friars, threw into prison +the master of thinking in Italy, at the age of seventy; and made him +live upon bread and water because he instructed mankind in that of which +they were ignorant. + +Having passed a decree in favor of the categories of Aristotle, the +above junta learnedly and equitably doomed to the penalty of the galleys +whoever should dare to be of another opinion from the Stagyrite, of +whom two councils had burned the books. + +Further, a Faculty, which possessed very small faculties, made a decree +_against_ innate ideas, and afterwards another _for_ them, without the +said Faculty being informed, except by its beadles, of what an idea was. + +In neighboring schools legal proceedings were commenced against the +circulation of the blood. A process was issued against inoculation, and +the parties cited by summons. + +One and twenty volumes of thoughts in folio have been seized, in which +it was wickedly and falsely said that triangles have always three +angles; that a father was older than his son; that Rhea Silvia lost her +virginity before her accouchement; and that farina differs from oak +leaves. + +In another year the following question was decided: _"Utrum chimaera +bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones?"_ and decided +in the affirmative. These judges, of course, considered themselves much +superior to Archimedes, Euclid, Cicero, or Pliny, and strutted about the +Universities accordingly. + + + + +AXIS. + + +How is it that the axis of the earth is not perpendicular to the +equator? Why is it raised toward the north and inclined towards the +south pole, in a position which does not appear natural, and which +seems the consequence of some derangement, or the result of a period of +a prodigious number of years? + +Is it true that the ecliptic continually inclines by an insensible +movement towards the equator and that the angle formed by these two +lines has a little diminished in two thousand years? + +Is it true that the ecliptic has been formerly perpendicular to the +equator, that the Egyptians have said so, and that Herodotus has related +it? This motion of the ecliptic would form a period of about two +millions of years. It is not that which astounds us, for the axis of the +earth has an imperceptible movement in about twenty-six thousand years +which occasions the precession of the equinoxes. It is as easy for +nature to produce a rotation of twenty thousand as of two hundred and +sixty ages. + +We are deceived when we are told that the Egyptians had, according to +Herodotus, a tradition that the ecliptic had been formerly perpendicular +to the equator. The tradition of which Herodotus speaks has no relation +to the coincidence of the equinoctial and ecliptic lines; that is quite +another affair. + +The pretended scholars of Egypt said that the sun in the space of eleven +thousand years had set twice in the east and risen twice in the west. +When the equator and the ecliptic coincided, and when the days were +everywhere equal to the nights the sun did not on that account change +its setting and rising, but the earth turned on its axis from west to +east, as at this day. This idea of making the sun set in the east is a +chimera only worthy of the brains of the priests of Egypt and shows the +profound ignorance of those jugglers who have had so much reputation. +The tale should be classed with those of the satyrs who sang and danced +in the train of Osiris; with the little boys whom they would not feed +till after they had run eight leagues, to teach them to conquer the +world; with the two children who cried _bec_ in asking for bread and who +by that means discovered that the Phrygian was the original language; +with King Psammeticus, who gave his daughter to a thief who had +dexterously stolen his money, etc. + +Ancient history, ancient astronomy, ancient physics, ancient medicine +(up to Hippocrates), ancient geography, ancient metaphysics, all are +nothing but ancient absurdities which ought to make us feel the +happiness of being born in later times. + +There is, no doubt, more truth in two pages of the French Encyclopaedia +in relation to physics than in all the library of Alexandria, the loss +of which is so much regretted. + + + + +BABEL. + + +SECTION I. + +Babel signifies among the Orientals, God the Father, the power of God, +the gate of God, according to the way in which the word is pronounced. +It appears, therefore, that Babylon was the city of God, the holy city. +Every capital of a state was a city of God, the sacred city. The Greeks +called them all Hieropolis, and there were more than thirty of this +name. The tower of Babel, then, signifies the tower of God the Father. + +Josephus says truly that Babel signifies confusion; Calmet says, with +others, that Bilba, in Chaldaean, signifies confounded, but all the +Orientals have been of a contrary opinion. The word confusion would be a +strange etymon for the capital of a vast empire. I very much like the +opinion of Rabelais, who pretends that Paris was formerly called Lutetia +on account of the ladies' white legs. + +Be that as it may, commentators have tormented themselves to know to +what height men had raised this famous tower of Babel. St. Jerome gives +it twenty thousand feet. The ancient Jewish book entitled _"Jacult"_ +gave it eighty-one thousand. Paul Lucas has seen the remains of it and +it is a fine thing to be as keen-sighted as Paul Lucas, but these +dimensions are not the only difficulties which have exercised the +learned. + +People have wished to know how the children of Noah, after having +divided among themselves the islands of the nations and established +themselves in various lands, with each one his particular language, +families, and people, should all find themselves in the plain of +Shinaar, to build there a tower saying, "Let us make us a name lest we +be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." + +The Book of Genesis speaks of the states which the sons of Noah founded. +It has related how the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia, all came to +Shinaar speaking one language only, and purposing the same thing. + +The Vulgate places the Deluge in the year of the world 1656, and the +construction of the tower of Babel 1771, that is to say, one hundred and +fifteen years after the destruction of mankind, and even during the life +of Noah. + +Men then must have multiplied with prodigious celerity; all the arts +revived in a very little time. When we reflect on the great number of +trades which must have been employed to raise a tower so high we are +amazed at so stupendous a work. + +The patriarch Abraham was born, according to the Bible, about four +hundred years after the deluge, and already we see a line of powerful +kings in Egypt and in Asia. Bochart and other sages have pleasantly +filled their great books with Phoenician and Chaldaean words and +systems which they do not understand. They have learnedly taken Thrace +for Cappadocia, Greece for Crete, and the island of Cyprus for Tyre; +they sport in an ocean of ignorance which has neither bottom nor shore. +It would have been shorter for them to have avowed that God, after +several ages, has given us sacred books to render us better men and not +to make us geographers, chronologists, or etymologists. + +Babel is Babylon. It was founded, according to the Persian historians, +by a prince named Tamurath. The only knowledge we have of its +antiquities consists in the astronomical observations of nineteen +hundred and three years, sent by Callisthenes by order of Alexander, to +his preceptor Aristotle. To this certainty is joined the extreme +probability that a nation which had made a series of celestial +observations for nearly two thousand years had congregated and formed a +considerable power several ages before the first of these observations. + +It is a pity that none of the calculations of the ancient profane +authors agree with our sacred ones, and that none of the names of the +princes who reigned after the different epochs assigned to the Deluge +have been known by either Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians, or Greeks. + +It is no less a pity that there remains not on the earth among the +profane authors one vestige of the famous tower of Babel; nothing of +this story of the confusion of tongues is found in any book. This +memorable adventure was as unknown to the whole universe as the names of +Noah, Methuselah, Cain, and Adam and Eve. + +This difficulty tantalizes our curiosity. Herodotus, who travelled so +much, speaks neither of Noah, or Shem, Reu, Salah, or Nimrod. The name +of Nimrod is unknown to all profane antiquity; there are only a few +Arabs and some modern Persians who have made mention of Nimrod in +falsifying the books of the Jews. + +Nothing remains to conduct us through these ancient ruins, unknown to +all the nations of the universe during so many ages, but faith in the +Bible, and happily that is an infallible guide. + +Herodotus, who has mingled many fables with some truths, pretends that +in his time, which was that of greatest power of the Persian sovereigns +of Babylon, all the women of the immense city were obliged to go once in +their lives to the temple of Mylitta, a goddess who was thought to be +the same as Aphrodite, or Venus, in order to prostitute themselves to +strangers, and that the law commanded them to receive money as a sacred +tribute, which was paid over to the priesthood of the goddess. + +But even this Arabian tale is more likely than that which the same +author tells of Cyrus dividing the Indus into three hundred and sixty +canals, which all discharged themselves into the Caspian Sea! What +should we say of Mezeray if he had told us that Charlemagne divided the +Rhine into three hundred and sixty canals, which fell into the +Mediterranean, and that all the ladies of his court were obliged once in +their lives to present themselves at the church of St. Genevieve to +prostitute themselves to all comers for money? + +It must be remarked that such a fable is still more absurd in relation +to the time of Xerxes, in which Herodotus lived, than it would be in +that of Charlemagne. The Orientals were a thousand times more jealous +than the Franks and Gauls. The wives of all the great lords were +carefully guarded by eunuchs. This custom existed from time immemorial. +It is seen even in the Jewish history that when that little nation +wished like the others to have a king, Samuel, to dissuade them from it +and to retain his authority, said "that a king would tyrannize over them +and that he would take the tenths of their vines and corn to give to his +eunuchs." The kings accomplished this prediction, for it is written in +the First Book of Kings that King Ahab had eunuchs, and in the Second +that Joram, Jehu, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah had them also. + +The eunuchs of Pharaoh are spoken of a long time previously in the Book +of Genesis, and it is said that Potiphar, to whom Joseph was sold, was +one of the king's eunuchs. It is clear, therefore, that there were great +numbers of eunuchs at Babylon to guard the women. It was not then a duty +for them to prostitute themselves to the first comer, nor was Babylon, +the city of God, a vast brothel as it has been pretended. + +These tales of Herodotus, as well as all others in the same taste, are +now so decried by all people of sense--reason has made so great progress +that even old women and children will no longer believe such +extravagances--_"Non est vetula quae credat nec pueri credunt, nisi qui +nondum aere lavantur."_ + +There is in our days only one man who, not partaking of the spirit of +the age in which he lives, would justify the fable of Herodotus. The +infamy appears to him a very simple affair. He would prove that the +Babylonian princesses prostituted themselves through piety, to the +first passengers, because it is said in the holy writings that the +Ammonites made their children pass through the fire in presenting them +to Moloch. But what relation has this custom of some barbarous +hordes--this superstition of passing their children through the flames, +or even of burning them on piles, in honor of I know not whom--of +Moloch; these Iroquois horrors of a petty, infamous people to a +prostitution so incredible in a nation known to be the most jealous and +orderly of the East? Would what passes among the Iroquois be among us a +proof of the customs of the courts of France and of Spain? + +He also brings, in further proof, the Lupercal feast among the Romans +during which he says the young people of quality and respectable +magistrates ran naked through the city with whips in their hands, with +which they struck the pregnant women of quality, who unblushingly +presented themselves to them in the hope of thereby obtaining a happy +deliverance. + +Now, in the first place, it is not said that these Romans of quality ran +quite naked, on the contrary, Plutarch expressly observes, in his +remarks on the custom, that they were covered from the waist downwards. + +Secondly, it seems by the manner in which this defender of infamous +customs expresses himself that the Roman ladies stripped naked to +receive these blows of the whip, which is absolutely false. + +Thirdly, the Lupercal feast has no relation whatever to the pretended +law of Babylon, which commands the wives and daughters of the king, the +satraps, and the magi to sell and prostitute themselves to strangers out +of pure devotion. + +When an author, without knowing either the human mind or the manners of +nations, has the misfortune to be obliged to compile from passages of +old authors, who are almost all contradictory, he should advance his +opinions with modesty and know how to doubt, and to shake off the dust +of the college. Above all he should never express himself with +outrageous insolence. + +Herodotus, or Ctesias, or Diodorus of Sicily, relate a fact: you have +read it in Greek, therefore this fact is true. This manner of reasoning, +which is not that of Euclid, is surprising enough in the time in which +we live; but all minds will not be instructed with equal facility; and +there are always more persons who compile than people who think. + +We will say nothing here of the confusion of tongues which took place +during the construction of the tower of Babel. It is a miracle, related +in the Holy Scriptures. We neither explain, nor even examine any +miracles, and as the authors of that great work, the Encyclopaedia, +believed them, we also believe them with a lively and sincere faith. + +We will simply affirm that the fall of the Roman Empire has produced +more confusion and a greater number of new languages than that of the +tower of Babel. From the reign of Augustus till the time of the +Attilas, the Clovises, and the Gondiberts, during six ages, _"terra erat +unius labii"_--"the known earth was of one language." They spoke the +same Latin at the Euphrates as at Mount Atlas. The laws which governed a +hundred nations were written in Latin and the Greek served for +amusement, whilst the barbarous jargon of each province was only for the +populace. They pleaded in Latin at once in the tribunals of Africa and +of Rome. An inhabitant of Cornwall departed for Asia Minor sure of being +understood everywhere in his route. It was at least one good effected by +the rapacity of the Romans that people found themselves as well +understood on the Danube as on the Guadalquiver. At the present time a +Bergamask who travels into the small Swiss cantons, from which he is +only separated by a mountain, has the same need of an interpreter as if +he were in China. This is one of the greatest plagues of modern life. + + +SECTION II. + +Vanity has always raised stately monuments. It was through vanity that +men built the lofty tower of Babel. "Let us go and raise a tower, the +summit of which shall touch the skies, and render our name celebrated +before we are scattered upon the face of the earth." The enterprise was +undertaken hi the time of a patriarch named Phaleg, who counted the good +man Noah for his fifth ancestor. It will be seen that architecture, and +all the arts which accompany it, had made great progress in five +generations. St. Jerome, the same who has seen fauns and satyrs, has not +seen the tower of Babel any more than I have, but he assures us that it +was twenty thousand feet high. This is a trifle. The ancient book, +_"Jacult"_ written by one of the most learned Jews, demonstrates the +height to be eighty-one thousand Jewish feet, and every one knows that +the Jewish foot was nearly as long as the Greek. These dimensions are +still more likely than those of Jerome. This tower remains, but it is no +longer quite so high; several quite veracious travellers have seen it. +I, who have not seen it, will talk as little of it as of my grandfather +Adam, with whom I never had the honor of conversing. But consult the +reverend father Calmet; he is a man of fine wit and a profound +philosopher and will explain the thing to you. I do not know why it is +said, in Genesis, that Babel signifies confusion, for, as I have already +observed, _ba_ answers to father in the eastern languages, and _bel_ +signifies God. Babel means the city of God, the holy city. But it is +incontestable that Babel means confusion, possibly because the +architects were confounded after having raised their work to eighty-one +thousand feet, perhaps, because the languages were then confounded, as +from that time the Germans no longer understood the Chinese, although, +according to the learned Bochart, it is clear that the Chinese is +originally the same language as the High German. + + + + +BACCHUS. + + +Of all the true or fabulous personages of profane antiquity Bacchus is +to us the most important. I do not mean for the fine invention which is +attributed to him by all the world except the Jews, but for the +prodigious resemblance of his fabulous history to the true adventures of +Moses. + +The ancient poets have placed the birth of Bacchus in Egypt; he is +exposed on the Nile and it is from that event that he is named Mises by +the first Orpheus, which, in Egyptian, signifies "saved from the +waters," according to those who pretend to understand the ancient +Egyptian tongue, which is no longer known. He is brought up near a +mountain of Arabia called Nisa, which is believed to be Mount Sinai. It +is pretended that a goddess ordered him to go and destroy a barbarous +nation and that he passed through the Red Sea on foot, with a multitude +of men, women, and children. Another time the river Orontes suspended +its waters right and left to let him pass, and the Hydaspes did the +same. He commanded the sun to stand still; two luminous rays proceeded +from his head. He made a fountain of wine spout up by striking the +ground with his thyrsis, and engraved his laws on two tables of marble. +He wanted only to have afflicted Egypt with ten plagues, to be the +perfect copy of Moses. + +Vossius is, I think, the first who has extended this parallel. The +bishop of Avranches, Huet, has pushed it quite as far, but he adds, in +his "Evangelical Demonstrations" that Moses is not only Bacchus, but +that he is also Osiris and Typhon. He does not halt in this fine path. +Moses, according to him, is AEsculapius, Amphion, Apollo, Adonis, and +even Priapus. It is pleasant enough that Huet founds his proof that +Moses is Adonis in their both keeping sheep: _"Et formosus oves, ad +flumina pavit Adonis."_ + +He contends that he is Priapus because Priapus is sometimes painted with +an ass, and the Jews were supposed, among the Gentiles, to adore an ass. +He gives another proof, not very canonical, which is that the rod of +Moses might be compared to the sceptre of Priapus. _"Sceptrum tribuitur +Priapo, virga Most."_ Neither is this demonstration in the manner of +Euclid. + +We will not here speak of the more modern Bacchuses, such as he who +lived two hundred years before the Trojan war, and whom the Greeks +celebrated as a son of Jupiter, shut up in his thigh. We will pause at +him who was supposed to be born on the confines of Egypt and to have +performed so many prodigies. Our respect for the sacred Jewish books +will not permit us to doubt that the Egyptians, the Arabs, and even the +Greeks, have imitated the history of Moses. The difficulty consists +solely in not knowing how they could be instructed in this +incontrovertible history. With respect to the Egyptians, it is very +likely that they never recorded these miracles of Moses, which would +have covered them with shame. If they had said a word of it the +historians, Josephus and Philo, would not have failed to have taken +advantage of it Josephus, in his answer to Appion, made a point of +citing all the Egyptian authors who have mentioned Moses, and he finds +none who relate one of these miracles. No Jew has ever quoted any +Egyptian author who has said a word of the ten plagues of Egypt, of the +miraculous passage through the Red Sea, etc. It could not be among the +Egyptians, therefore, that this scandalous parallel was formed between +the divine Moses and the profane Bacchus. + +It is very clear that if a single Egyptian author had said a word of the +great miracles of Moses all the synagogue of Alexandria, all the +disputatious church of that famous town would have quoted such word, and +have triumphed at it, every one after his manner. Athenagorus, Clement, +Origen, who have said so many useless things, would have related this +important passage a thousand times and it would have been the strongest +argument of all the fathers. The whole have kept a profound silence; +they Had, therefore, nothing to say. But how was it possible for any +Egyptian to speak of the exploits of a man who caused all the first born +of the families of Egypt to be killed; who turned the Nile to blood, and +who drowned in the Red Sea their king and all his army? + +All our historians agree that one Clodowick, a Sicambrian, subjugated +Gaul with a handful of barbarians. The English are the first to say that +the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans came by turns to exterminate a +part of their nation. If they had not avowed this truth all Europe would +have exclaimed against its concealment. The universe should exclaim in +the same manner at the amazing prodigies of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, +Samson, and of so many leaders and prophets. The universe is silent +notwithstanding. Amazing mystery! On one side it is palpable mat all is +true, since it is found in the holy writings, which are approved by the +Church; on the other it is evident that no people have ever mentioned +it. Let us worship Providence, and submit ourselves in all things. + +The Arabs, who have always loved the marvellous, were probably the first +authors of the fables invented of Bacchus, afterwards adopted and +embellished by the Greeks. But how came the stories of the Arabs and +Greeks to agree so well with those of the Jews? It is known that the +Hebrews never communicated their books to any one till the time of the +Ptolemies; they regarded such communication as a sacrilege, and +Josephus, to justify their obstinacy in concealing the Pentateuch from +the rest of the world, says that God punished all foreigners who dared +to speak of the Jewish histories. If we are to believe him, the +historian Theopompus, for only designing to mention them in his work, +became deranged for thirty days, and the tragic poet Theodectes was +struck blind for having introduced the name of the Jews into one of his +tragedies. Such are the excuses that Flavius Josephus gives in his +answer to Appion for the history of the Jews being so long unknown. + +These books were of such prodigious scarcity that we only hear of one +copy under King Josiah, and this copy had been lost for a long time and +was found in the bottom of a chest on the report of Shaphan, scribe to +the Pontiff Hilkiah, who carried it to the king. + +This circumstance happened, according to the Second Book of Kings, six +hundred and twenty-four years before our vulgar era, four hundred years +after Homer, and in the most flourishing times of Greece. The Greeks +then scarcely knew that there were any Hebrews in the world. The +captivity of the Jews at Babylon still more augmented their ignorance of +their own books. Esdras must have restored them at the end of seventy +years and for already more than five hundred years the fable of Bacchus +had been current among the Greeks. + +If the Greeks had founded their fables on the Jewish history they would +have chosen facts more interesting to mankind, such as the adventures of +Abraham, those of Noah, of Methuselah, of Seth, Enoch, Cain, and Eve; of +the fatal serpent and of the tree of knowledge, all which names have +ever been unknown to them. There was only a slight knowledge of the +Jewish people until a long time after the revolution that Alexander +produced in Asia and in Europe; the historian Josephus avows it in +formal terms. This is the manner in which he expresses himself in the +commencement of his reply to Appion, who (by way of parenthesis) was +dead when he answered him, for Appion died under the Emperor Claudius, +and Josephus wrote under Vespasian. + +"As the country we inhabit is distant from the sea we do not apply +ourselves to commerce and have no communication with other nations. We +content ourselves with cultivating our lands, which are very fertile, +and we labor chiefly to bring up our children properly, because nothing +appears to us so necessary as to instruct them in the knowledge of our +holy laws and in true piety, which inspires them with the desire of +observing them. The above reasons, added to others already mentioned, +and this manner of life which is peculiar to us, show why we have had no +communication with the Greeks, like the Egyptians and Phoenicians. Is +it astonishing that our nation, so distant from the sea, not affecting +to write anything, and living in the way which I have related, has been +little known?" + +After such an authentic avowal from a Jew, the most tenacious of the +honor of his nation that has ever written, it will be seen that it is +impossible for the ancient Greeks to have taken the fable of Bacchus +from the holy books of the Hebrews, any more than the sacrifice of +Iphigenia, that of the son of Idomeneus, the labors of Hercules, the +adventure of Eurydice, and others. The quantity of ancient tales which +resemble one another is prodigious. How is it that the Greeks have put +into fables what the Hebrews have put into histories? Was it by the +gift of invention; was it by a facility of imitation, or in consequence +of the accordance of fine minds? To conclude: God has permitted it--a +truth which ought to suffice. + +Of what consequence is it that the Arabs and Greeks have said the same +things as the Jews? We read the Old Testament only to prepare ourselves +for the New, and in neither the one nor the other do we seek anything +but lessons of benevolence, moderation, gentleness, and true charity. + + + + +BACON (ROGER). + + +It is generally thought that Roger Bacon, the famous monk of the +thirteenth century, was a very great man and that he possessed true +knowledge, because he was persecuted and condemned to prison by a set of +ignoramuses. It is a great prejudice in his favor, I own. But does it +not happen every day that quacks gravely condemn other quacks, and that +fools make other fools pay the penalty of folly? This, our world, has +for a long time resembled the compact edifices in which he who believes +in the eternal Father anathematizes him who believes in the Holy Ghost; +circumstances which are not very rare even in these days. Among the +things which render Friar Bacon commendable we must first reckon his +imprisonment, and then the noble boldness with which he declared that +all the books of Aristotle were fit only to be burned and that at a time +when the learned respected Aristotle much more than the Jansenists +respect St. Augustine. Has Roger Bacon, however, done anything better +than the Poetics, the Rhetoric, and the Logic of Aristotle? These three +immortal works clearly prove that Aristotle was a very great and fine +genius--penetrating, profound, and methodical; and that he was only a +bad natural philosopher because it was impossible to penetrate into the +depths of physical science without the aid of instruments. + +Does Roger Bacon, in his best work, in which he treats of light and +vision, express himself much more clearly than Aristotle when he says +light is created by means of multiplying its luminous species, which +action is called univocal and conformable to the agent? He also mentions +another equivocal multiplication, by which light engenders heat and heat +putrefaction. + +Roger Bacon likewise tells us that life may be prolonged by means of +spermaceti, aloes, and dragons' flesh, and that the philosopher's stone +would render us immortal. It is thought that besides these fine secrets +he possessed all those of judicial astrology, without exception, as he +affirms very positively in his _"Opus Majus,"_ that the head of man is +subject to the influences of the ram, his neck to those of the bull, and +his arms to the power of the twins. He even demonstrates these fine +things from experience, and highly praises a great astrologer at Paris +who says that he hindered a surgeon from putting a plaster on the leg +of an invalid, because the sun was then in the sign of Aquarius, and +Aquarius is fatal to legs to which plasters are applied. + +It is an opinion quite generally received that Roger was the inventor of +gunpowder. It is certain that it was in his time that important +discovery was made, for I always remark that the spirit of invention is +of all times and that the doctors, or sages, who govern both mind and +body are generally profoundly ignorant, foolishly prejudiced, or at war +with common sense. It is usually among obscure men that artists are +found animated with a superior instinct, who invent admirable things on +which the learned afterwards reason. + +One thing that surprises me much is that Friar Bacon knew not the +direction of the magnetic needle, which, in his time, began to be +understood in Italy, but in lieu thereof he was acquainted with the +Secret of the hazel rod and many such things Of which he treats in his +"Dignity of the Experimental Art." + +Yet, notwithstanding this pitiable number of absurdities and chimeras, +it must be confessed that Roger Bacon was an admirable man for his age. +What age? you will ask--that of feudal government and of the schoolmen. +Figure to yourself Samoyedes and Ostiacs who read Aristotle. Such were +we at that time. + +Roger Bacon knew a little of geometry and optics, which made him pass +for a sorcerer at Rome and Paris. He was, however, really acquainted +with the matter contained in the Arabian _"Alhazen,"_ for in those days +little was known except through the Arabs. They were the physicians and +astrologers of all the Christian kings. The king's fool was always a +native; his doctor an Arab or a Jew. + +Transport this Bacon to the times in which we live and he would be, no +doubt, a great man. He was gold, encrusted with the rust of the times in +which he lived, this gold would now be quickly purified. Poor creatures +that we are! How many ages have passed away in acquiring a little +reason! + + + + +BANISHMENT. + + +Banishment for a term of years, or for life: a penalty inflicted on +delinquents, or on individuals who are wished to be considered as such. + +Not long ago it was the custom to banish from within the limits of the +jurisdiction, for petty thefts, forgeries, and assaults, the result of +which was that the offender became a great robber, forger, or murderer +in some other jurisdiction. This is like throwing into a neighbor's +field the stones that incommode us in our own. + +Those who have written on the laws of nations have tormented themselves +greatly to determine whether a man who has been banished from his +country can justly be said still to belong to that country. It might +almost as well be asked whether a gambler, who has been driven away from +the gaming-table, is still one of the players at that table. + +If by the law of nature a man is permitted to choose his country, still +more is the man who has lost the rights of a citizen at liberty to +choose himself a new country. May he bear arms against his former +fellow-citizens? Of this we have a thousand examples. How many French +Protestants, naturalized in England, Holland, or Germany, have served, +not only against France, but against armies in which their relatives, +their own brothers, have fought? The Greeks in the armies of the king of +Persia fought against the Greeks, their old fellow-countrymen. The Swiss +in the service of Holland have fired upon the Swiss in the service of +France. This is even worse than fighting against those who have banished +you, for, after all, drawing the sword in revenge does not seem so bad +as drawing it for hire. + + + + +BAPTISM. + +_A Greek Word, Signifying Immersion._ + + +SECTION I. + +We do not speak of baptism as theologians; we are but poor men of +letters, who shall never enter the sanctuary. The Indians plunge, and +have from time immemorial plunged, into the Ganges. Mankind, always +guided by their senses, easily imagined that what purified the body +likewise purified the soul. In the subterranean apartments under the +Egyptian temples there were large tubs for the priests and the +initiated. + + _O nimium faciles qui tristia crimina caedis_ + _Fluminea tolli posse putatis aqua!_ + +Old Baudier, when he was eighty, made the following comic translation of +these lines: + + _C'est une drole de maxime,_ + _Qu'une lessive efface un crime._ + One can't but think it somewhat droll, + Pump-water thus should cleanse a soul. + +Every sign being of itself indifferent, God vouchsafed to consecrate +this custom amongst the Hebrew people. All foreigners that came to +settle in Palestine were baptized; they were called domiciliary +proselytes. + +They were not forced to receive circumcision, but only to embrace the +seven precepts of the Noachides, and to sacrifice to no strange god. The +proselytes of justice were circumcised and baptized; the female +proselytes were also baptized, quite naked, in the presence of three +men. The most devout among the Jews went and received baptism from the +hands of the prophets most venerated by the people. Hence it was that +they flocked to St. John, who baptized in the Jordan. + +Jesus Christ Himself, who never baptized any one, deigned to receive +baptism from St. John. This custom, which had long been an accessory of +the Jewish religion, received new dignity, new value from our Saviour, +and became the chief rite, the principal seal of Christianity. However, +the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were Jews. 'The Christians of +Palestine long continued to circumcise. St. John's Christians never +received baptism from Christ. + +Several other Christian societies applied a cautery to the baptized, +with a red-hot iron, being determined to the performance of this +extraordinary operation by the words of St. John the Baptist, related by +St. Luke: "I baptize you with water, but He that cometh after me shall +baptize you with fire." + +This was practised by the Seleucians, the Herminians, and some others. +The words, "He shall baptize you with fire," have never been explained. +There are several opinions concerning the baptism by fire which is +mentioned by St. Luke and St. Matthew. Perhaps the most likely opinion +is that it was an allusion to the ancient custom of the devotees to the +Syrian goddess, who, after plunging into water, imprinted characters on +their bodies with a hot iron. With miserable man all was superstition, +but Jesus substituted for these ridiculous superstitions a sacred +ceremony--a divine and efficacious symbol. + +In the first ages of Christianity nothing was more common than to +postpone the receiving of baptism until the last agony. Of this the +example of the Emperor Constantine is a very strong proof. St. Andrew +had not been baptized when he was made bishop of Milan. The custom of +deferring the use of the sacred bath until the hour of death was soon +abolished. + +_Baptism of the Dead._ + +The dead also were baptized. This is established by the passage of St. +Paul to the Corinthians: "If we rise not again what shall they do that +receive baptism from the dead?" Here is a point of fact. Either the +dead themselves were baptized, or baptism was received in their names, +as indulgences have since been received for the deliverance of the souls +of friends and relatives out of purgatory. + +St. Epiphanius and St. Chrysostom inform us that it was a custom in some +Christian societies, and principally among the Marcionites, to put a +living man under the dead man's bed; he was then asked if he would be +baptized; the living man answered yes, and the corpse was taken and +plunged into a tub of water. This custom was soon condemned. St. Paul +mentions it but he does not condemn it; on the contrary he cites it as +an invincible argument to prove resurrection. + +_Baptism by Aspersion._ + +The Greeks always retained baptism by immersion. The Latins, about the +close of the eighth century, having extended their religion into Gaul +and Germany and seeing that immersion might be fatal to infants in cold +countries, substituted simple aspersion and thus drew upon themselves +frequent anathemas from the Greek Church. + +St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was asked if those were really baptized +who had only had their bodies sprinkled all over. He answers, in his +seventy-sixth letter, that several churches did not believe the +sprinkled to be Christians; that, for his own part, he believes that +they are so, but that they have infinitely less grace than those who +have been thrice dipped, according to custom. + +A person was initiated among the Christians as soon as he was dipped; +until then he was only a catechumen. To be initiated it was necessary to +have sponsors to answer to the Church for the fidelity of the new +Christians and that the mysteries should not be divulged. Hence it was +that in the first ages the Gentiles had, in general, as little knowledge +of the Christian mysteries as the Christians had of the mysteries of +Isis and the Eleusinian Ceres. + +Cyril of Alexandria, in his writing against the Emperor Julian, +expresses himself thus: "I would speak of baptism but that I fear my +words would reach them who are not initiated." At that time there was no +worship without its mysteries, its associations, its catechumens, its +initiated, and its professed. Each sect required new virtues and +recommended to its penitents a new life--_"initium novae vitae"_--whence +the word initiation. The initiation of Christians, whether male or +female, consisted in their being plunged quite naked into a tub of cold +water, to which sign was attached the remission of all their sins. But +the difference between Christian baptism and the Greek, Syrian, +Egyptian, and Roman ceremonies was the difference between truth and +falsehood. Jesus Christ was the High Priest of the new law. + +In the second century infants began to be baptized; it was natural that +the Christians should desire their children, who would have been damned +without this sacrament, to be provided with it. It was at length +concluded that they must receive it at the expiration of eight days, +because that was the period at which, among the Jews, they were +circumcised. In the Greek Church this is still the custom. + +Such as died in the first week were damned, according to the most +rigorous fathers of the Church. But Peter Chrysologos, in the fifth +century, imagined limbo, a sort of mitigated hell, or properly, the +border, the outskirt of hell, whither all infants dying without baptism +go and where the patriarchs remained until Jesus Christ's descent into +hell. So that the opinion that Jesus Christ descended into limbo, and +not into hell, has since then prevailed. + +It was agitated whether a Christian in the deserts of Arabia might be +baptized with sand, this was answered in the negative. It was asked if +rosewater might be used, it was decided that pure water would be +necessary but that muddy water might be made use of. It is evident that +all this discipline depended on the discretion of the first pastors who +established it. + +The Anabaptists and some other communions out of the pale have thought +that no one should be baptized without a thorough knowledge of the +merits of the case. You require, say they, a promise to be of the +Christian society, but a child can make no engagement. You give it a +sponsor, but this is an abuse of an ancient custom. The precaution was +requisite in the first establishment. When strangers, adult men and +women, came and presented themselves to be received into the society +and share in the alms there was needed a guarantee to answer for their +fidelity; it was necessary to make sure of them; they swore they would +be Jews, but an infant is in a diametrically opposite case. It has often +happened, that a child baptized by Greeks at Constantinople has +afterwards been circumcised by Turks, a Christian at eight days old and +a Mussulman at thirty years, he has betrayed the oaths of his godfather. + +This is one reason which the Anabaptists might allege; it would hold +good in Turkey, but it has never been admitted in Christian countries +where baptism insures a citizen's condition. We must conform to the +rights and laws of our country. + +The Greeks re-baptize such of the Latins as pass from one of our Latin +communions to the Greek communion. In the last century it was the custom +for these catechumens to pronounce the following words: "I spit upon my +father and my mother who had me ill baptized." This custom still exists, +and will, perhaps, long continue to exist in the provinces. + +_Notions of Rigid Unitarians Concerning Baptism._ + +It is evident to whosoever is willing to reason without prejudice that +baptism is neither a mark of grace conferred nor a seal of alliance, but +simply a mark of profession. + +That baptism is not necessary, neither by necessity of precept, nor by +necessity of means. That it was not instituted by Christ and that it +may be omitted by the Christian without his suffering any inconvenience +therefrom. + +That baptism should be administered neither to children, nor to adults, +nor, in general, to any individual whatsoever. + +That baptism might be of service in the early infancy of Christianity to +those who quitted paganism in order to make their profession of faith +public and give an authentic mark of it, but that now it is absolutely +useless and altogether indifferent. + + +SECTION II. + +Baptism, immersion in water, abstersion, purification by water, is of +the highest antiquity. To be cleanly was to be pure before the gods. No +priest ever dared to approach the altar with a soil upon his body. The +natural inclination to transfer to the soul that which appertains to the +body led to the belief that lustrations and ablutions took away the +stains of the soul as they removed those of the garments and that +washing the body washed the soul also. Hence the ancient custom of +bathing in the Ganges, the waters of which were thought to be sacred; +hence the lustrations so frequent among every people. The Oriental +nations, inhabiting hot countries, were the most religiously attached to +these customs. + +The Jews were obliged to bathe after any pollution--after touching an +unclean animal, touching a corpse, and on many other occasions. + +When the Jews received among them a stranger converted to their +religion they baptized, after circumcising him, and if it was a woman +she was simply baptized--that is, dipped in water in the presence of +three witnesses. This immersion was reputed to give the persons baptized +a new birth, a new life; they became at once Jewish and pure. Children +born before this baptism had no share in the inheritance of their +brethren, born after them of a regenerated father and mother. So that, +with the Jews, to be baptized and to be born again were the same thing, +and this idea has remained attached to baptism down to the present day. +Thus, when John, the forerunner, began to baptize in the Jordan he did +but follow an immemorial usage. The priests of the law did not call him +to account for this baptizing as for anything new, but they accused him +of arrogating to himself a right which belonged exclusively to them--as +Roman Catholic priests would have a right to complain if a layman took +upon himself to say mass. John was doing a lawful thing but was doing it +unlawfully. + +John wished to have disciples, and he had them. He was chief of a sect +among the lower orders of the people and it cost him his life. It even +appears that Jesus was at first among his disciples, since he was +baptized by him in the Jordan, and John sent some of his own party to +Him a short time before His death. + +The historian Josephus speaks of John but not of Jesus--an incontestable +proof that in his time John the Baptist had a greater reputation than +He whom he baptized. A great multitude followed him, says that +celebrated historian, and the Jews seemed disposed to undertake whatever +he should command them. + +From this passage it appears that John was not only the chief of a sect, +but the chief of a party. Josephus adds that he caused Herod some +uneasiness. He did indeed make himself formidable to Herod, who, at +length, put him to death, but Jesus meddled with none but the Pharisees. +Josephus, therefore, mentions John as a man who had stirred up the Jews +against King Herod; as one whose zeal had made him a state criminal, but +Jesus, not having approached the court, was unknown to the historian +Josephus. + +The sect of John the Baptist differed widely in discipline from that of +Jesus. In the Acts of the Apostles we see that twenty years after the +execution of Jesus, Apollos of Alexandria, though become a Christian, +knew no baptism but that of John, nor had any idea of the Holy Ghost. +Several travellers, and among others Chardin, the most accredited of +all, say that in Persia there still are disciples of John, called Sabis, +who baptize in his name and acknowledge Jesus as a prophet, but not as a +god. + +As for Jesus Christ Himself He received baptism but conferred it on no +one; His apostles baptized the catechumens, or circumcised them as +occasion required; this is evident from the operation of circumcision +performed by Paul on his disciple Timothy. + +It also appears that when the apostles baptized it was always in the +name of Jesus Christ alone. The Acts of the Apostles do not mention any +one baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--whence it +may be concluded that the author of the Acts of the Apostles knew +nothing of Matthew's gospel, in which it is said: "Go and teach all +nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and +of the Holy Ghost." The Christian religion had not yet received its +form. Even the Symbol, which was called the Symbol of the Apostles, was +not made until after their time, of this no one has any doubt. In Paul's +Epistle to the Corinthians we find a very singular custom which was then +introduced--that of baptizing the dead, but the rising Church soon +reserved baptism for the living alone; at first none were baptized but +adults, and the ceremony was often deferred until the age of fifty, or +the last sickness, that the individual might carry with him into the +other world the unimpaired virtue of a baptism recently performed. + +Now, all children are baptized: none but the Anabaptists reserve this +ceremony for the mature age; they plunge their whole bodies into the +water. The Quakers, who compose a very numerous society in England and +in America, do not use baptism: the reason is that Jesus Christ did not +baptize any of His disciples, and their aim is to be Christians only as +His disciples were--which occasions a very wide difference between them +and other communions. + +_Addition to the Article "Baptism" by Abbe Nicaise._ + +The Emperor Julian, the philosopher, in his immortal "Satire on the +Caesars," puts these words into the mouth of Constantius, son of +Constantine: "Whosoever feels himself guilty of rape, murder, plunder, +sacrilege, and every most abominable crime, so soon as I have washed him +with this water, he shall be clean and pure." + +It was, indeed, this fatal doctrine that occasioned the Christian +emperors, and the great men of the empire, to defer their baptism until +death. They thought they had found the secret of living criminal and +dying virtuous. + +How strange an idea--that a pot of water should wash away every crime! +Now, all children are baptized because an idea no less absurd supposes +them all criminal; they are all saved until they have the use of reason +and the power to become guilty! Cut their throats, then, as quickly as +possible, to insure their entrance into paradise. This is so just a +consequence that there was once a devout sect that went about poisoning +and killing all newly-baptized infants. These devout persons reasoned +with perfect correctness, saying: "We do these little innocents the +greatest possible good; we prevent them from being wicked and unhappy in +this life and we give them life eternal." + + + + +BARUCH, OR BARAK, AND DEBORAH; + +AND, INCIDENTALLY, ON CHARIOTS OF WAR. + + +We have no intention here to inquire at what time Baruch was chief of +the Jewish people; why, being chief, he allowed his army to be commanded +by a woman; whether this woman, named Deborah, had married Lapidoth; +whether she was the friend or relative of Baruch, or perhaps his +daughter or his mother; nor on what day the battle of Tabor, in Galilee, +was fought between this Deborah and Sisera, captain-general of the +armies of King Jabin--which Sisera commanded in Galilee an army of three +hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and three thousand chariots +of war, according to the historian Josephus. + +We shall at present leave out of the question this Jabin, king of a +village called Azor, who had more troops than the Grand Turk. We very +much pity the fate of his grand-vizier Sisera, who, having lost the +battle in Galilee, leaped from his chariot and four that he might fly +more swiftly on foot. He went and begged the hospitality of a holy +Jewish woman, who gave him some milk and drove a great cart-nail through +his head while he was asleep. We are very sorry for it, but this is not +the matter to be discussed. We wish to speak of chariots of war. + +The battle was fought at the foot of Mount Tabor, near the river Kishon. +Mount Tabor is a steep mountain, the branches of which, somewhat less +in height, extend over a great part of Galilee. Between this mountain +and the neighboring rocks there is a small plain, covered with great +flint-stones and impracticable for cavalry. The extent of this plain is +four or five hundred paces. We may venture to believe that Sisera did +not here draw up his three hundred thousand men in order of battle; his +three thousand chariots would have found it difficult to manoeuvre on +such a field. + +We may believe that the Hebrews had no chariots of war in a country +renowned only for asses, but the Asiatics made use of them in the great +plains. Confucius, or rather Confutze, says positively that, from time +immemorial, each of the viceroys of the provinces was expected to +furnish to the emperor a thousand war-chariots, each drawn by four +horses. Chariots must have been in use long before the Trojan war, for +Homer does not speak of them as a new invention, but these chariots were +not armed like those of Babylon, neither the wheels nor the axles were +furnished with steel blades. + +At first this invention must have been very formidable on large plains, +especially when the chariots were numerous, driven with impetuosity, and +armed with long pikes and scythes, but when they became familiar it +seemed so easy to avoid their shock that they fell into general disuse. + +In the war of 1741 it was proposed to renew and reform this ancient +invention. A minister of state had one of these chariots constructed and +it was tried. It was asserted that in large plains, like that of +Luetzen, they might be used with advantage by concealing them behind the +cavalry, the squadrons of which would open to let them pass and then +follow them, but the generals judged that this manoeuvre would be +useless, and even dangerous, now that battles are gained by cannon only. +It was replied that there would be as many cannon hi the army using the +chariots of war to defend them as in the enemy's army to destroy them. +It was added that these chariots would, in the first instance, be +sheltered from the cannon behind the battalions or squadrons, that the +latter would open and let the chariots run with impetuosity and that +this unexpected attack might have a prodigious effect. The generals +advanced nothing in opposition to these arguments, but they would not +revive this game of the ancient Persians. + + + + +BATTALION. + + +Let us observe that the arrangements, the marching, and the evolutions +of battalions, nearly as they are now practised, were revived in Europe +by one who was not a military man--by Machiavelli, a secretary at +Florence. Battalions three, four, and five deep; battalions advancing +upon the enemy; battalions in square to avoid being cut off in a rout; +battalions four deep sustained by others in column; battalions flanked +by cavalry--all are his. He taught Europe the art of war; it had long +been practised without being known. + +The grand duke would have had his secretary teach his troops their +exercises according to his new method. But Machiavelli was too prudent +to do so; he had no wish to see the officers and soldiers laugh at a +general in a black cloak; he reserved himself for the council. + +There is something singular in the qualities which he requires in a +soldier. He must first have _gagliardia_, which signifies _alert vigor_; +he must have a quick and sure eye--in which there must also be a little +gayety; a strong neck, a wide breast, a muscular arm, round loins, but +little belly, with spare legs and feet--all indicating strength and +agility. But above all the soldier must have honor, and must be led by +honor alone. "War," says he, "is but too great a corrupter of morals," +and he reminds us of the Italian proverb: War makes thieves, and peace +finds them gibbets. + +Machiavelli had but a poor opinion of the French infantry, and until the +battle of Rocroi it must be confessed that it was very bad. A strange +man this Machiavelli! He amused himself with making verses, writing +plays, showing his cabinet the art of killing with regularity, and +teaching princes the art of perjuring themselves, assassinating, and +poisoning as occasion required--a great art which Pope Alexander VI., +and his bastard Caesar Borgia, practised in wonderful perfection without +the aid of his lessons. + +Be it observed that in all Machiavelli's works on so many different +subjects there is not one word which renders virtue amiable--not one +word proceeding from the heart. The same remark has been made on +Boileau. He does not, it is true, make virtue lovely, but he represents +it as necessary. + + + + +BAYLE. + + +Why has Louis Racine treated Bayle like a dangerous man, with a cruel +heart, in an epistle to Jean Baptiste Rousseau, which, although printed, +is but little known? + +He compares Bayle, whose logical acuteness detected the errors of +opposing systems, to Marius sitting upon the ruins of Carthage: + + _Ainsi d'un oeil content Marius, dans sa fuite,_ + _Contemplait les debris de Carthage detruite._ + Thus exiled Marius, with contented gaze, + Thy ruins, Carthage, silently surveys. + +Here is a simile which exhibits very little resemblance, or, as Pope +says, a simile dissimilar. Marius had not destroyed reason and +arguments, nor did he contentedly view its ruins, but, on the contrary, +he was penetrated with an elevated sentiment of melancholy on +contemplating the vicissitudes of human affairs, when he made the +celebrated answer: "Say to the proconsul of Africa that thou hast seen +Marius seated on the ruins of Carthage." + +We ask in what Marius resembled Bayle? Louis Racine, if he thinks fit, +may apply the epithets "hard-hearted" and "cruel" to Marius, to Sulla, +to the triumvirs, but, in reference to Bayle the phrases "detestable +pleasure," "cruel heart," "terrible man," should not be put in a +sentence written by Louis Racine against one who is only proved to have +weighed the arguments of the Manichaeans, the Paulicians, the Arians, the +Eutychians, against those of their adversaries. Louis Racine proportions +not the punishment to the offence. He should remember that Bayle +combated Spinoza, who was too much of a philosopher, and Jurieu, who was +none at all. He should respect the good manners of Bayle and learn to +reason from him. But he was a Jansenist, that is to say, he knew the +words of the language of Jansenism and employed them at random. You may +properly call cruel and terrible a powerful man who commands his slaves, +on pain of death, to go and reap corn where he has sown thistles; who +gives to some of them too much food, and suffers others to die of +hunger; who kills his eldest son to leave a large fortune to the +younger. All that is frightful and cruel, Louis Racine! It is said that +such is the god of thy Jansenists, but I do not believe it. Oh slaves of +party, people attacked with the jaundice, you constantly see everything +yellow! + +And to whom has the unthinking heir of a father who had a hundred times +more taste than he has philosophy, addressed this miserable epistle +against the virtuous Bayle? To Rousseau--a poet who thinks still less; +to a man whose principal merit has consisted in epigrams which are +revolting to the most indulgent reader; to a man to whom it was alike +whether he sang Jesus Christ or Giton. Such was the apostle to whom +Louis Racine denounced Bayle as a miscreant. What motive could the +author of "Phaedra" and "Iphigenia" have for falling into such a +prodigious error? Simply this, that Rousseau had made verses for the +Jansenists, whom he then believed to be in high credit. + +Such is the rage of faction let loose upon Bayle, but you do not hear +any of the dogs who have howled against him bark against Lucretius, +Cicero, Seneca, Epicurus, nor against the numerous philosophers of +antiquity. It is all reserved for Bayle; he is their fellow citizen--he +is of their time--his glory irritates them. Bayle is read and Nicole is +not read; behold the source of the Jansenist hatred! Bayle is studied, +but neither the reverend Father Croiset, nor the reverend Father +Caussin; hence Jesuitical denouncement! + +In vain has a Parliament of France done him the greatest honor in +rendering his will valid, notwithstanding the severity of the law. The +madness of party knows neither honor nor justice. I have not inserted +this article to make the eulogy of the best of dictionaries, which would +not be becoming here, and of which Bayle is not in need; I have written +it to render, if I can, the spirit of party odious and ridiculous. + + + + +BDELLIUM. + + +We are very much puzzled to know what this Bdellium is which is found +near the shores of the Pison, a river of the terrestrial paradise which +turns into the country of the Havilah, where there is gold. Calmet +relates that, according to several commentators, Bdellium is the +carbuncle, but that it may also be crystal. Then it is the gum of an +Arabian tree and afterwards we are told that capers are intended. Many +others affirm that it signifies pearls. Nothing but the etymologies of +Bochart can throw a light on this question. I wish that all these +commentators had been upon the spot. + +The excellent gold which is obtained in this country, says Calmet, shows +evidently that this is the country of Colchis and the golden fleece is a +proof of it. It is a pity that things have changed so much for +Mingrelia; that beautiful country, so famous for the loves of Medea and +Jason, now produces gold and Bdellium no more than bulls which vomit +fire and flame, and dragons which guard the fleece. Everything changes +in this world; and if we do not skilfully cultivate our lands, and if +the state remain always in debt, we shall become a second Mingrelia. + + + + +BEARD. + + +Certain naturalists assure us that the secretion which produces the +beard is the same as that which perpetuates mankind. An entire +hemisphere testifies against this fraternal union. The Americans, of +whatever country, color, or stature they may be, have neither beards on +their chins, nor any hair on their bodies, except their eyebrows and the +hair of their heads, I have legal attestations of official men who have +lived, conversed, and combated with thirty nations of South America, and +they attest that they have never seen a hair on their bodies; and they +laugh, as they well may, at writers who, copying one another, say that +the Americans are only without hair because they pull it out with +pincers; as if Christopher Columbus, Fernando Cortes, and the other +adventurers had loaded themselves with the little tweezers with which +our ladies remove their superfluous hairs, and had distributed them in +all the countries of America. + +I believed for a long time that the Esquimaux were excepted from the +general laws of the new world; but I am assured that they are as free +from hair as the others. However, they have children in Chile, Peru, and +Canada, as well as in our bearded continent. There is, then, a specific +difference between these bipeds and ourselves, in the same way as their +lions, which are divested of the mane, and in other respects differ from +the lions of Africa. + +It is to be remarked that the Orientals have never varied in their +consideration for the beard. Marriage among them has always existed, and +that period is still the epoch of life from which they no longer shave +the beard. The long dress and the beard impose respect. The Westerns +have always been changing the fashion of the chin. Mustaches were worn +under Louis XIV. towards the year 1672. Under Louis XIII. a little +pointed beard prevailed. In the time of Henry IV. it was square. Charles +V., Julius II., and Francis I. restored the large beard to honor in +their courts, which had been a long time in fashion. Gownsmen, through +gravity and respect for the customs of their fathers, shaved themselves; +while the courtiers, in doublets and little mantles, wore their beards +as long as they could. When a king in those days sent a lawyer as an +ambassador, his comrades would laugh at him if he suffered his beard to +grow, besides mocking him in the chamber of accounts or of +requests,--But quite enough upon beards. + + + + +BEASTS. + + +What a pity and what a poverty of spirit to assert that beasts are +machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which effect all their +operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, etc. + +What is this bird, who makes its nest in a semicircle when he attaches +it to a wall; and in a circle on a tree--this bird does all in the same +blind manner! The hound, which you have disciplined for three months, +does he not know more at the end of this time than he did before? Does +the canary, to which you play an air, repeat ft directly? Do you not +employ a considerable time in teaching it? Have you not seen that he +sometimes mistakes it, and that be corrects himself? + +Is it because I speak to you that you judge I have sentiment, memory, +and ideas? Well, suppose I do not speak to you; you see me enter my room +with an afflicted air, I seek a paper with disquietude, I open the +bureau in which I recollect to have shut it, I hid it and read it with +joy. You pronounce that I have felt the sentiment of affliction and of +joy; that I have memory and knowledge. + +Extend the same judgment to the dog who has lost his master, who has +sought hum everywhere with grievous cries, and who enters the house +agitated and restless, goes upstairs and down, from room to room, and at +last finds in the closet the master whom he loves, and testifies his joy +by the gentleness of his cries, by his leaps and his caresses. + +Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in +friendship, they nail him to a table and dissect him living to show the +mesenteric veins. You discover in him the same organs of sentiment which +are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the +springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he +nerves, and is he incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this +impertinent contradiction in mature. + +But the masters of this school ask, what is the soul of beasts? I do not +understand tins question. A tree has the faculty of receiving in its +fibres the sap which circulates, of evolving its buds, its leaves, and +its fruits. You will ask me what is the soul of this tree? It has +received these gifts. The animal has received those of sentiment, +memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts; who +has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to +grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun. + +The souls of beasts are _substantial forms_, says Aristotle; and after +Aristotle, the Arabian school; and after the Arabian school, the +Angelical school; and after the Angelical school, the Sorbonne; and +after the Sorbonne, every one in the world. + +The souls of beasts are material, exclaim other philosophers. These have +not been more fortunate than the former. They are in vain asked what is +a material soul? They say that it is a matter which has sensation; but +who has given it this sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say, +it is composed of a matter which gives sensation to matter. They cannot +get out of this circle. + +Listen to one kind of beasts reasoning upon another; their soul is a +spiritual being, which dies with the body; but what proof have you of +it? What idea have you of this spiritual being, which has sentiment, +memory, and its share of ideas and combinations, but which can never +tell what made a child of six years old? On what ground do you imagine +that this being, which is not corporeal, perishes with the body? The +greatest beasts are those who have suggested that this soul is neither +body nor spiritan excellent system! We can only understand by spirit +something unknown, which is not body. Thus the system of these gentlemen +amounts to this, that the soul of beasts is a substance which is neither +body, nor something which is not body. Whence can proceed so many +contradictory errors? From the custom which men have of examining what a +thing is before they know whether it exists. They call the speech the +effect of a breath of mind, the soul of a sigh. What is the soul? It is +a name which I have given to this valve which rises and falls, which +lets the air in, relieves itself, and sends it through a pipe when I +move the lungs. + +There is not, then, a soul distinct from the machine. But what moves the +lungs of animals? I have already said, the power that moves the stars. +The philosopher who said, _"Deus est anima brutorum."_--God is the soul +of the brutes--is right; but he should have gone much further. + + + + +BEAUTIFUL (THE). + + +Since we have quoted Plato on love, why should we not quote him on "the +beautiful," since beauty causes love. It is curious to know how a Greek +spoke of the beautiful more than two thousand years since. + +"The man initiated into the sacred mysteries, when he sees a beautiful +face accompanied by a divine form, a something more than mortal, feels a +secret emotion, and I know not what respectful fear. He regards this +figure as a divinity.... When the influence of beauty enters into his +soul by his eyes he burns; the wings of his soul are bedewed; they lose +the hardness which retains their germs and liquefy themselves; these +germs, swelling beneath the roots of its wings, they expand from every +part of the soul (for soul had wings formerly)," etc. + +I am willing to believe that nothing is finer than this discourse of the +divine Plato; but it does not give us very clear ideas of the nature of +the beautiful. + +Ask a toad what is beauty--the great beauty _To Kalon_; he will answer +that it is the female with two great round eyes coming out of her little +head, her large flat mouth, her yellow belly, and brown back. Ask a +negro of Guinea; beauty is to him a black, oily skin, sunken eyes, and a +flat nose. Ask the devil; he will tell you that the beautiful consists +in a pair of horns, four claws, and a tail. Then consult the +philosophers; they will answer you with jargon; they must have something +conformable to the archetype of the essence of the beautiful--to the _To +Kalon_. + +I was once attending a tragedy near a philosopher. "How beautiful that +is," said he. "What do you find beautiful?" asked I. "It is," said he, +"that the author has attained his object." The next day he took his +medicine, which did him some good. "It has attained its object," cried I +to him; "it is a beautiful medicine." He comprehended that it could not +be said that a medicine is beautiful, and that to apply to anything +the epithet beautiful it must cause admiration and pleasure. He admitted +that the tragedy had inspired him with these two sentiments, and that it +was the _To Kalon_, the beautiful. + +We made a journey to England. The same piece was played, and, although +ably translated, it made all the spectators yawn. "Oh, oh!" said he, +"the _To Kalon_ is not the same with the English as with the French." He +concluded after many reflections that "the beautiful" is often merely +relative, as that which is decent at Japan is indecent at Rome; and that +which is the fashion at Paris is not so at Pekin; and he was thereby +spared the trouble of composing a long treatise on the beautiful. + +[Illustration: A beautiful face accompanied by a divine form.] + +There are actions which the whole world considers fine. A challenge +passed between two of Caesar's officers, mortal enemies, not to shed each +other's blood behind a thicket by tierce and quarte, as among us, but to +decide which of them would best defend the camp of the Romans, about to +be attacked by the barbarians. One of the two, after having repulsed the +enemy, was near falling; the other flew to his assistance, saved his +life, and gained the victory. A friend devotes himself to death for his +friend, a son for his father. The Algonquin, the French, the Chinese, +will mutually say that all this is very beautiful, that such actions +give them pleasure, and that they admire them. + +They will say the same of great moral maxims; of that of Zoroaster: "If +in doubt that an action be just, desist;" of that of Confucius: "Forget +injuries; never forget benefits." + +The negro, with round eyes and flattened nose, who would not give the +ladies of our court the name of beautiful, would give it without +hesitation to these actions and these maxims. Even the wicked man +recognizes the beauty of the virtues which he cannot imitate. The +beautiful, which only strikes the senses, the imagination, and what is +called the spirit, is then often uncertain; the beauty which strikes the +heart is not. You will find a number of people who will tell you they +have found nothing beautiful in three-fourths of the "Iliad"; but nobody +will deny that the devotion of Codrus for his people was fine, supposing +it was true. + +Brother Attinet, a Jesuit, a native of Dijon, was employed as designer +in the country house of the Emperor Camhi, at the distance of some +leagues from Pekin. + +"This country house," says he, in one of his letters to M. Dupont, "is +larger than the town of Dijon. It is divided into a thousand habitations +on one line; each one has its courts, its parterres, its gardens, and +its waters; the front of each is ornamented with gold varnish and +paintings. In the vast enclosures of the park, hills have been raised by +hand from twenty to sixty feet high. The valleys are watered by an +infinite number of canals, which run a considerable distance to join and +form lakes and seas. We float on these seas in boats varnished and +gilt, from twelve to thirteen fathoms long and four wide. These barks +have magnificent saloons, and the borders of the canals are covered with +houses, all in different tastes. Every house has its gardens and +cascades. You go from one valley to another by alleys, alternately +ornamented with pavilions and grottoes. No two valleys are alike; the +largest of all is surrounded by a colonnade, behind which are gilded +buildings. All the apartments of these houses correspond in magnificence +with the outside. All the canals have bridges at stated distances; these +bridges are bordered with balustrades of white marble sculptured in +basso-relievo. + +"In the middle of the great sea is raised a rock, and on this rock is a +square pavilion, in which are more than a hundred apartments. From this +square pavilion there is a view of all the palaces, all the houses, and +all the gardens of this immense enclosure, and there are more than four +hundred of them. + +"When the emperor gives a fete all these buildings are illuminated in an +instant, and from every house there are fireworks. + +"This is not all; at the end of what they call the sea is a great fair, +held by the emperor's officers. Vessels come from the great sea to +arrive at this fair. The courtiers disguise themselves as merchants and +artificers of all sorts; one keeps a coffee house, another a tavern; one +takes the profession of a thief, another that of the officer who +pursues him. The emperor and all the ladies of the court come to buy +stuffs, the false merchants cheat them as much as they can; they tell +them that it is shameful to dispute so much about the price, and that +they are poor customers. Their majesties reply that the merchants are +knaves; the latter are angry and affect to depart; they are appeased; +the emperor buys all and makes lotteries of it for all his court. +Farther on are spectacles of all sorts." + +When brother Attinet came from China to Versailles he found it small and +dull. The Germans, who were delighted to stroll about its groves, were +astonished that brother Attinet was so difficult. This is another reason +which determines me not to write a treatise on the beautiful. + + + + +BEES. + + +The bees may be regarded as superior to the human race in this, that +from their own substance they produce another which is useful; while, of +all our secretions, there is not one good for anything; nay, there is +not one which does not render mankind disagreeable. + +I have been charmed to find that the swarms which turn out of the hive +are much milder than our sons when they leave college. The young bees +then sting no one; or at least but rarely and in extraordinary cases. +They suffer themselves to be carried quietly in the bare hand to the +hive which is destined for them. But no sooner have they learned in +their new habitation to know their interests than they become like us +and make war. I have seen very peaceable bees go for six months to labor +in a neighboring meadow covered with flowers which secreted them. When +the mowers came they rushed furiously from their hive upon those who +were about to steal their property and put them to flight. + +We find in the Proverbs attributed to Solomon that "there are four +things, the least upon earth, but which are wiser than the wise men--the +ants, a little people who lay up food during the harvest; the hares, a +weak people who lie on stones; the grasshoppers, who have no kings and +who journey in flocks; and the lizards, which work with their hands and +dwell in the palaces of kings." I know not how Solomon forgot the bees, +whose instinct seems very superior to that of hares, which do not lie on +stone; or of lizards, with whose genius I am not acquainted. Moreover, I +shall always prefer a bee to a grasshopper. + +The bees have, in all ages, furnished the poet with descriptions, +comparisons, allegories, and fables. Mandeville's celebrated "Fable of +the Bees" made a great noise in England. Here is a short sketch of it: + + Once the bees, in worldly things, + Had a happy government; + And their laborers and their kings + Made them wealthy and content; + But some greedy drones at last + Found their way into their hive; + Those, in idleness to thrive, + Told the bees they ought to fast. + Sermons were _their_ only labors; + Work they preached unto their neighbors. + In their language they would say, + "You shall surely go to heaven, + When to us you've freely given + Wax and honey all away."-- + Foolishly the bees believed, + Till by famine undeceived; + When their misery was complete, + All the strange delusion vanished! + Now the drones are killed or banished, + And the bees again may eat. + +Mandeville goes much further; he asserts that bees cannot live at their +ease in a great and powerful hive without many vices. "No kingdom, no +state," says he, "can flourish without vices. Take away the vanity of +ladies of quality, and there will be no more fine manufactures of silk, +no more employment for men and women in a thousand different branches; a +great part of the nation will be reduced to beggary. Take away the +avarice of our merchants, and the fleets of England will be annihilated. +Deprive artists of envy, and emulation will cease; we shall sink back +into primitive rudeness and ignorance." + +It is quite true that a well-governed society turns every vice to +account; but it is not true that these vices are necessary to the +well-being of the world. Very good remedies may be made from poisons, +but poisons do not contribute to the support of life. By thus reducing +the "Fable of the Bees" to its just value, it might be made a work of +moral utility. + + + + +BEGGAR--MENDICANT + + +Every country where begging, where mendicity, is a profession, is ill +governed. Beggary, as I have elsewhere said, is a vermin that clings to +opulence. Yes; but let it be shaken off; let the hospitals be for +sickness and age alone, and let the shops be for the young and vigorous. + +The following is an extract from a sermon composed by a preacher ten +years ago for the parish of St. Leu and St. Giles, which is the parish +of the beggars and the convulsionaries: "_Pauper es evangelicantur_" +--"the gospel is preached to the poor." + +"My dear brethren the beggars, what is meant by the word _gospel_? It +signifies _good news_. It is, then, good news that I come to tell you; +and what is it? It is that if you are idlers you will die on a +dung-hill. Know that there have been idle kings, so at least we are +told, and they at last had not where to lay their heads. If you work, +you will be as happy as other men. + +"The preachers at St. Eustache and St. Roche may deliver to the rich +very fine sermons in a flowery style, which procure for the auditors a +light slumber with an easy digestion, and for the orator a thousand +crowns; but I address those whom hunger keeps awake. Work for your +bread, I say; for the Scripture says that he who does not work deserves +not to eat. Our brother in adversity, Job, who was for some time in your +condition, says that man is born to labor as the bird is to fly. Look +at this immense city; every one is busy; the judges rise at four in the +morning to administer justice to you and send you to the galleys when +your idleness has caused you to thieve rather awkwardly. + +"The king works; he attends his council every day; and he has made +campaigns. Perhaps you will say he is none the richer. Granted; but that +is not his fault. The financiers know, better than you or I do, that not +one-half his revenue ever enters his coffers. He has been obliged to +sell his plate in order to defend us against our enemies. We should aid +him in our turn. The Friend of Man (_l'Ami des Hommes_) allows him only +seventy-five millions per annum. Another friend all at once gives him +seven hundred and forty. But of all these Job's comforters, not one will +advance him a single crown. It is necessary to invent a thousand +ingenious ways of drawing this crown from our pockets, which, before it +reaches his own, is diminished by at least one-half. + +"Work, then, my dear brethren; act for yourselves, for I forewarn you +that if you do not take care of yourselves, no one will take care of +you; you will be treated as the king has been in several grave +remonstrances; people will say, 'God help you.' + +"We will go into the provinces, you will answer; we skill be fed by the +lords of the land, by the farmers, by the curates. Do not flatter +yourselves, my dear brethren, that you shall eat at their tables; they +have for the most part enough to do to feed themselves, notwithstanding +the 'Method of Rapidly Getting Rich by Agriculture' and fifty other +works of the same kind, published every day at Paris for the use of the +people in the country, with the cultivation of which the authors never +had anything to do. + +"I behold among you young men of some talent, who say that they will +make verses, that they will write pamphlets, like Chisiac, Normotte, or +Patouillet; that they will work for the _'Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques'_ +that they will write sheets for Freron, funeral orations for bishops, +songs for the comic opera. Any of these would at least be an occupation. +When a man is writing for the _'Annee Litteraire,'_ he is not robbing on +the highway, he is only robbing his creditors. But do better, my dear +brethren in Jesus Christ--my dear beggars, who, by passing your lives in +asking charity, run the risk of the galleys; do better; enter one of the +four mendicant orders; you will then be not only rich, but honored +also." + + + + +BEKKER, + +"THE WORLD BEWITCHED," THE DEVIL, THE BOOK OF ENOCH, AND SORCERERS. + + +This Balthazar Bekker, a very good man, a great enemy of the everlasting +hell and the devil, and a still greater of precision, made a great deal +of noise in his time by his great book, "The World Bewitched." + +One Jacques-George de Chaufepied, a pretended continuator of Bayle, +assures us that Bekker learned Greek at Gascoigne. Niceron has good +reasons for believing that it was at Franeker. This historical point has +occasioned much doubt and trouble at court. + +The fact is that in the time of Bekker, a minister of the Holy +Gospel--as they say in Holland--the devil was still in prodigious credit +among divines of all sorts in the middle of the seventeenth century, in +spite of the good spirits which were beginning to enlighten the world. +Witchcraft, possessions, and everything else attached to that fine +divinity, were in vogue throughout Europe and frequently had fatal +results. + +A century had scarcely elapsed since King James himself--called by Henry +IV. _Master_ James--that great enemy of the Roman communion and the +papal power, had published his "Demonology" (what a book for a king!) +and in it had admitted sorceries, incubuses, and succubuses, and +acknowledged the power of the devil, and of the pope, who, according to +him, had just as good a right to drive Satan from the bodies of the +possessed as any other priest. And we, miserable Frenchmen, who boast of +having recovered some small part of our senses, in what a horrid sink of +stupid barbarism were we then immersed! Not a parliament, not a +presidential court, but was occupied in trying sorcerers; not a great +jurisconsult who did not write memorials on possessions by the devil. +France resounded with the cries of poor imbecile creatures whom the +judges, after making them believe that they had danced round a cauldron, +tortured and put to death without pity, in horrible torments. Catholics +and Protestants were alike infected with this absurd and frightful +superstition; the pretext being that in one of the Christian gospels it +is said that disciples were sent to cast out devils. It was a sacred +duty to put girls to the torture in order to make them confess that they +had lain with Satan, and that they had fallen in love with him in the +form of a goat. All the particulars of the meetings of the girls with +this goat were detailed in the trials of the unfortunate individuals. +They were burned at last, whether they confessed or denied; and France +was one vast theatre of judicial carnage. + +I have before me a collection of these infernal proceedings, made by a +counsellor of the Parliament of Bordeaux, named De Langre, and addressed +to Monseigneur Silleri, chancellor of France, without Monseigneur +Silleri's having ever thought of enlightening those infamous +magistrates. But, indeed, it would have been necessary to begin by +enlightening the chancellor himself. What was France at that time? A +continual St. Bartholomew--from the massacre of Vassy to the +assassination of Marshal d'Ancre and his innocent wife. + +Will it be believed that in the time of this very Bekker, a poor girl +named Magdalen Chaudron, who had been persuaded that she was a witch, +was burned at Geneva? + +The following is a very exact summary of the proces-verbal of this +absurd and horrid act, which is not the last monument of the kind: + +"Michelle, having met the devil as she was going out of the town, the +devil gave her a kiss, received her homage, and imprinted on her upper +lip and her right breast the mark which it is his custom to affix on all +persons whom he recognizes as his favorites. This seal of the devil is a +small sign-manual, which, as demonological jurisconsults affirm, renders +the skin insensible. + +"The devil ordered Michelle Chaudron to bewitch two girls; and she +immediately obeyed her lord. The relatives of the young women judicially +charged her with devilish practices, and the girls themselves were +interrogated and confronted with the accused. They testified that they +constantly felt a swarming of ants in certain parts of their bodies, and +that they were possessed. The physicians were then called in, or at +least those who then passed as physicians. They visited the girls and +sought on Michelle's body for the devil's seal, which the proces-verbal +calls the _satanic marks_. They thrust a large needle into the spot, and +this of itself was a grievous torture. Blood flowed from the puncture; +and Michelle made known by her cries that satanic marks do not produce +insensibility. The judges, seeing no satisfactory evidence that Michelle +Chaudron was a witch, had her put to the torture, which never fails to +bring forth proofs. The unfortunate girl, yielding at length to the +violence of her tortures, confessed whatever was required of her. + +"The physicians again sought for the satanic mark. They found it in a +small dark spot on one of her thighs. They applied the needle; but the +torture had been so excessive that the poor, expiring creature scarcely +felt the wound; she did not cry out; therefore the crime was +satisfactorily proved. But, as manners were becoming less rude, she was +not burned until she had been hanged." + +Every tribunal in Christian Europe still rings with similar +condemnations; so long did this barbarous imbecility endure, that even +in our own day, at Wuerzburg, in Franconia, there was a witch burned in +1750. And what a witch! A young woman of quality, the abbess of a +convent! and in our own times, under the empire of Maria Theresa of +Austria! + +These horrors, by which Europe was so long filled, determined Bekker to +fight against the devil. In vain was he told, in prose and verse, that +he was doing wrong to attack him, seeing that he was extremely like him, +being horribly ugly; nothing could stop him. He began with absolutely +denying the power of Satan; and even grew so bold as to maintain that he +does not exist. "If," said he, "there were a devil, he would revenge the +war which I make upon him." + +Bekker reasoned but too well in saying that if the devil existed he +would punish him. His brother ministers took Satan's part and suspended +Bekker; for heretics will also excommunicate; and in the article of +cursing, Geneva mimics Rome. + +Bekker enters on his subject in the second volume. According to him, the +serpent which seduced our first parents was not a devil, but a real +serpent; as Balaam's ass was a real ass, and as the whale that swallowed +Jonah was a real whale. It was so decidedly a real serpent, that all its +species, which had before walked on their feet, were condemned to crawl +on their bellies. No serpent, no animal of any kind, is called Satan, or +Beelzebub, or devil, in the Pentateuch. There is not so much as an +allusion to Satan. The Dutch destroyer of Satan does, indeed, admit the +existence of angels; but at the same time he assures us that it cannot +be proved by reasoning. "And if there are any," says he, in the eighth +chapter of his second volume, "it is hard to say what they are. The +Scripture tells us nothing about their nature, nor in what the nature of +a spirit consists. The Bible was made, not for angels, but for men; +Jesus was made a man for us, not an angel." + +If Bekker has so many scruples concerning angels, it is not to be +wondered at that he has some concerning devils; and it is very amusing +to see into what contortions he puts his mind in order to avail himself +of such texts as appear to be in his favor and to evade such as are +against him. + +He does his utmost to prove that the devil had nothing to do with the +afflictions of Job; and here he is even more prolix than the friends of +that holy man. + +There is great probability that he was condemned only through the +ill-humor of his judges at having lost so much time in reading his work. +If the devil himself had been forced to read Bekker's "World Bewitched" +he could never have forgiven the fault of having so prodigiously wearied +him. + +One of our Dutch divine's greatest difficulties is to explain these +words: "Jesus was transported by the spirit into the desert to be +tempted by the devil." No text can be clearer. A divine may write +against Beelzebub as much as he pleases, but he must of necessity admit +his existence; he may then explain the difficult texts if he can. + +Whoever desires to know precisely what the devil is may be informed by +referring to the Jesuit Scott; no one has spoken of him more at length; +he is much worse than Bekker. + +Consulting history, where the ancient origin of the devil is to be found +in the doctrine of the Persians, Ahrimanes, the bad principle, corrupts +all that the good principle had made salutary. Among the Egyptians, +Typhon does all the harm he can; while Oshireth, whom we call Osiris, +does, together with Isheth, or Isis, all the good of which he is +capable. + +Before the Egyptians and Persians, Mozazor, among the Indians, had +revolted against God and become the devil, but God had at last pardoned +him. If Bekker and the Socinians had known this anecdote of the fall of +the Indian angels and their restoration, they would have availed +themselves of it to support their opinion that hell is not perpetual, +and to give hopes of salvation to such of the damned as read their +books. + +The Jews, as has already been observed, never spoke of the fall of the +angels in the Old Testament; but it is mentioned in the New. + +About the period of the establishment of Christianity a book was +attributed to "Enoch, the seventh man after Adam," concerning the devil +and his associates. Enoch gives us the names of the leaders of the +rebellious and the faithful angels, but he does not say that war was in +heaven; on the contrary, the fight was upon a mountain of the earth, and +it was for the possession of young women. + +St. Jude cites this book in his Epistle: "And the angels, which kept not +their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in +everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great +day.... Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain.... And +Enoch, also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these...." + +St. Peter in his second Epistle alludes to the Book of Enoch when he +says: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down +to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness...." + +Bekker must have found it difficult to resist passages so formal. +However, he was even more inflexible on the subject of devils than on +that of angels; he would not be subdued by the Book of Enoch, the +seventh man from Adam; he maintained that there was no more a devil than +there was a book of Enoch. He said that the devil was imitated from +ancient mythology, that it was an old story revived, and that we are +nothing more than plagiarists. + +We may at the present day be asked why we call that Lucifer the _evil +spirit_, whom the Hebrew version, and the book attributed to Enoch, +named Samyaza. It is because we understand Latin better than Hebrew. + +But whether Lucifer be the planet Venus, or the Samyaza of Enoch, or the +Satan of the Babylonians, or the Mozazor of the Indians, or the Typhon +of the Egyptians, Bekker was right in saying that so enormous a power +ought not to be attributed to him as that with which, even down to our +own times, he has been believed to be invested. It is too much to have +immolated to him a woman of quality of Wuerzburg, Magdalen Chaudron, the +curate of Gaupidi, the wife of Marshal d'Ancre, and more than a hundred +thousand other wizards and witches, in the space of thirteen hundred +years, in Christian states. Had Belthazar Bekker been content with +paring the devil's nails, he would have been very well received; but +when a curate would annihilate the devil he loses his cure. + + + + +BELIEF. + + +We shall see at the article "Certainty" that we ought often to be very +uncertain of what we are certain of; and that we may fail in good sense +when deciding according to what is called _common_ sense. But what is it +that we call _believing_? + +A Turk comes and says to me, "I believe that the angel Gabriel often +descended from the empyrean, to bring Mahomet leaves of the Koran, +written on blue vellum." + +Well, Mustapha, and on what does thy shaven head found its belief of +this incredible thing? + +"On this: That there are the greatest probabilities that I have not been +deceived in the relation of these improbable prodigies; that Abubeker, +the father-in-law, Ali, the son-in-law, Aisha, or Aisse, the daughter, +Omar, and Osman, certified the truth of the fact in the presence of +fifty thousand men--gathered together all the leaves, read them to the +faithful, and attested that not a word had been altered. + +"That we have never had but one Koran, which has never been contradicted +by another Koran. That God has never permitted the least alteration to +be made in this book. + +"That its doctrine and precepts are the perfection of reason. Its +doctrine consists in the unity of God, for Whom we must live and die; in +the immortality of the soul; the eternal rewards of the just and +punishments of the wicked; and the mission of our great prophet +Mahomet, proved by victories. + +"Its precepts are: To be just and valiant; to give alms to the poor; to +abstain from that enormous number of women whom the Eastern princes, and +in particular the petty Jewish kings, took to themselves without +scruple; to renounce the good wines of Engaddi and Tadmor, which those +drunken Hebrews have so praised in their books; to pray to God five +times a day, etc. + +"This sublime religion has been confirmed by the miracle of all others +the finest, the most constant, and best verified in the history of the +world; that Mahomet, persecuted by the gross and absurd scholastic +magistrates who decreed his arrest, and obliged to quit his country, +returned victorious; that he made his imbecile and sanguinary enemies +his footstool; that he all his life fought the battles of the Lord; that +with a small number he always triumphed over the greater number; that he +and his successors have converted one-half of the earth; and that, with +God's help, we shall one day convert the other half." + +Nothing can be arrayed in more dazzling colors. Yet Mustapha, while +believing so firmly, always feels some small shadows of doubt arising in +his soul when he hears any difficulties started respecting the visits of +the angel Gabriel; the sura or chapter brought from heaven to declare +that the great prophet was not a cuckold; or the mare Borak, which +carried him in one night from Mecca to Jerusalem. Mustapha stammers; he +makes very bad answers, at which he blushes; yet he not only tells you +that he believes, but would also persuade you to believe. You press +Mustapha; he still gapes and stares, and at last goes away to wash +himself in honor of Allah, beginning his ablution at the elbow and +ending with the forefinger. + +Is Mustapha really persuaded--convinced of all that he has told us? Is +he perfectly sure that Mahomet was sent by God, as he is sure that the +city of Stamboul exists? as he is sure that the Empress Catherine II. +sent a fleet from the remotest seas of the North to land troops in +Peloponnesus--a thing as astonishing as the journey from Mecca to +Jerusalem in one night--and that this fleet destroyed that of the +Ottomans in the Dardanelles? + +The truth is that Mustapha believes what he does not believe. He has +been accustomed to pronounce, with his mollah, certain words which he +takes for ideas. To _believe_ is very often to _doubt_. + +"Why do you believe that?" says Harpagon. "I believe it because I +believe it," answers Master Jacques; and most men might return the same +answer. + +Believe me fully, my dear reader, when I say one must not believe too +easily. But what shall we say of those who would persuade others of what +they themselves do not believe? and what of the monsters who persecute +their brethren in the humble and rational doctrine of doubt and +self-distrust? + + + + +BETHSHEMESH. + +_Of the Fifty Thousand and Seventy Jews Struck with Sudden Death for +Having Looked Upon the Ark; of the Five Golden Emeroids Paid by the +Philistines; and of Dr. Kennicott's Incredulity._ + + +Men of the world will perhaps be astonished to find this word the +subject of an article; but we here address only the learned and ask +their instruction. + +Bethshemesh was a village belonging to God's people, situated, according +to commentators, two miles north of Jerusalem. The Phoenicians having, +in Samuel's time, beaten the Jews, and taken from them their Ark of +alliance in the battle, in which they killed thirty thousand of their +men, were severely punished for it by the Lord: + +_"Percussit eos in secretiori parte natium, et ebullierunt villae et +agri.... et nati sunt mures, et facta est confusio mortis magna in +civitate."_ Literally: "He struck them in the most secret part of the +buttocks; and the fields and the farmhouses were troubled.... and there +sprung up mice; and there was a great confusion of death in the city." + +The prophets of the Phoenicians, or Philistines, having informed them +that they could deliver themselves from the scourge only by giving to +the Lord five golden mice and five golden emeroids, and sending him back +the Jewish Ark, they fulfilled this order, and, according to the express +command of their prophets sent back the Ark with the mice and emeroids +on a wagon drawn by two cows, with each a sucking calf and without a +driver. + +These two cows of themselves took the Ark straight to Bethshemesh. The +men of Bethshemesh approached the Ark in order to look at it, which +liberty was punished yet more severely than the profanation by the +Phoenicians had been. The Lord struck with sudden death seventy men of +the people, and fifty thousand of the populace. + +The reverend Doctor Kennicott, an Irishman, printed in 1768 a French +commentary on this occurrence and dedicated it to the bishop of Oxford. +At the head of this commentary he entitles himself Doctor of Divinity, +member of the Royal Society of London, of the Palatine Academy, of the +Academy of Goettingen, and of the Academy of Inscriptions at Paris. All +that I know of the matter is that he is not of the Academy of +Inscriptions at Paris. Perhaps he is one of its correspondents. His vast +erudition may have deceived him, but titles are distinct from things. + +He informs the public that his pamphlet is sold at Paris by Saillant and +Molini, at Rome by Monaldini, at Venice by Pasquali, at Florence by +Cambiagi, at Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey, at The Hague by Gosse, at +Leyden by Jaquau, and in London by Beckett, who receives subscriptions. + +In this pamphlet he pretends to prove that the Scripture text has been +corrupted. Here we must be permitted to differ with him. Nearly all +Bibles agree in these expressions: seventy men of the people and fifty +thousand of the populace--_"De populo septuaginta viros, et quinquaginta +millia plebis."_ The reverend Doctor Kennicott says to the right +reverend the lord bishop of Oxford that formerly there were strong +prejudices in favor of the Hebrew text, but that for seventeen years his +lordship and himself have been freed from their prejudices, after the +deliberate and attentive perusal of this chapter. + +In this we differ from Dr. Kennicott, and the more we read this chapter +the more we reverence the ways of the Lord, which are not our ways. It +is impossible, says Kennicott, for the candid reader not to feel +astonished and affected at the contemplation of fifty thousand men +destroyed in one village--men, too, employed in gathering the harvest. + +This does, it is true, suppose a hundred thousand persons, at least, in +that village, but should the doctor forget that the Lord had promised +Abraham that his posterity should be as numerous as the sands of the +sea? + +The Jews and the Christians, adds he, have not scrupled to express their +repugnance to attach faith to this destruction of fifty thousand and +seventy men. + +We answer that we are Christians and have no repugnance to attach faith +to whatever is in the Holy Scriptures. We answer, with the reverend +Father Calmet, that "if we were to reject whatever is extraordinary and +beyond the reach of our conception we must reject the whole Bible." We +are persuaded that the Jews, being under the guidance of God himself, +could experience no events but such as were stamped with the seal of the +Divinity and quite different from what happened to other men. We will +even venture to advance that the death of these fifty thousand and +seventy men is one of the least surprising things in the Old Testament. + +We are struck with astonishment still more reverential when Eve's +serpent and Balaam's ass talk; when the waters of the cataracts are +swelled by rain fifteen cubits above all the mountains; when we behold +the plagues of Egypt, and the six hundred and thirty thousand fighting +Jews flying on foot through the divided and suspended sea; when Joshua +stops the sun and moon at noonday; when Samson slays a thousand +Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass.... In those divine times all +was miracle, without exception, and we have the profoundest reverence +for all these miracles--for that ancient world which was not our world; +for that nature which was not our nature; for a divine book, in which +there can be nothing human. + +But we are astonished at the liberty which Dr. Kennicott takes of +calling those deists and atheists, who, while they revere the Bible more +than he does, differ from him in opinion. Never will it be believed that +a man with such ideas is of the Academy of Medals and Inscriptions. He +is, perhaps, of the Academy of Bedlam, the most ancient of all, and +whose colonies extend throughout the earth. + + + + +BILHAH--BASTARDS + + +Bilhah, servant to Rachel, and Zilpah, servant to Leah, each bore the +patriarch Jacob two children, and, be it observed, that they inherited +like legitimate sons, as well as the eight other male children whom +Jacob had by the two sisters Leah and Rachel. It is true that all their +inheritance consisted in a blessing; whereas, William the Bastard +inherited Normandy. + +Thierri, a bastard of Clovis, inherited the best part of Gaul, invaded +by his father. Several kings of Spain and Naples have been bastards. In +Spain bastards have always inherited. King Henry of Transtamare was not +considered as an illegitimate king, though he was an illegitimate child, +and this race of bastards, founded in the house of Austria, reigned in +Spain until Philip V. + +The line of Aragon, who reigned in Naples in the time of Louis XII., +were bastards. Count de Dunois signed himself "the bastard of Orleans," +and letters were long preserved of the duke of Normandy, king of +England, which were signed "William the Bastard." + +In Germany it is otherwise; the descent must be pure; bastards never +inherit fiefs, nor have any estate. In France, as has long been the +case, a king's bastard cannot be a priest without a dispensation from +Rome, but he becomes a prince without any difficulty as soon as the king +acknowledges him to be the offspring of his sire, even though he be the +bastard of an adulterous father and mother. It is the same in Spain. The +bastard of a king of England may be a duke but not a prince. Jacob's +bastards were neither princes nor dukes; they had no lands, the reason +being that their father had none, but they were afterwards called +_patriarchs_, which may be rendered _arch-fathers_. + +It has been asked whether the bastards of the popes might be popes in +turn. Pope John XI. was, it is true, a bastard of Pope Sergius III., and +of the famous Marozia; but an instance is not a law. + + + + +BISHOP. + + +Samuel Ornik, a native of Basle, was, as is well known, a very amiable +young man, who, moreover, knew his German and Greek New Testament by +heart. At the age of twenty his parents sent him to travel. He was +commissioned to carry books to the coadjutor at Paris in the time of the +Fronde. He arrived at the archbishop's gate and was told by the Swiss +that _monseigneur_ saw no one. "My dear fellow," said Ornik, "you are +very rude to your countrymen; the apostles allowed every one to +approach, and Jesus Christ desired that little children should come unto +him. I have nothing to ask of your master; on the contrary, I bring him +something." "Enter, then," said the Swiss. + +He waited an hour in the first ante-chamber. Being quite artless he +attacked with questions a domestic who was very fond of telling all he +knew about his master. "He must be pretty rich," said Ornik, "to have +such a swarm of pages and footmen running in and out of the house." "I +don't know," answered the other, "what his income is, but I hear Joli +and the Abbe Charier say that he is two millions in debt." "But who is +that lady who came out of a cabinet and is passing by?" "That is Madame +de Pomereu, one of his mistresses." "She is really very pretty, but I +have not read that the apostles had such company in their bedchambers in +a morning." "Ah! that, I believe, is monsieur, about to give audience." +"Say _sa grandeur, monseigneur_." "Well, with all my heart...." Ornik +saluted _sa grandeur_, presented his books, and was received with a most +gracious smile. _Sa grandeur_ said three words to him, and stepped into +his carriage, escorted by fifty horsemen. In stepping in, monseigneur +dropped a sheath and Ornik was astonished that monseigneur should carry +so large an inkhorn. "Do you not see," said the talker, "that it is his +dagger? every one that goes to parliament wears his dagger?" Ornik +uttered an exclamation of astonishment, and departed. + +He went through France and was edified by town after town. From thence +he passed into Italy. In the papal territories he met a bishop with an +income of only a thousand crowns, who went on foot. Ornik, being +naturally kind, offered him a place in his cambiatura. "Signor, you are +no doubt going to comfort the sick?" "Sir, I am going to my master." +"Your master? He, no doubt, is Jesus Christ." "Sir, he is Cardinal +Azolino; I am his almoner. He gives me a very poor salary, but he has +promised to place me with Donna Olimpia, the favorite sister-in-law of +_nostro signore_." "What! are you in the pay of a cardinal? But do you +not know that there were no cardinals in the time of Jesus Christ and +St. John?" "Is it possible!" exclaimed the Italian prelate. "Nothing is +more true; you have read it in the Gospel." "I have never read it," +replied the bishop; "I know only the office of Our Lady." "I tell you +there were neither cardinals nor bishops, and when there were bishops +the priests were almost their equals, as St. Jerome, in several places, +assures us." "Holy Virgin" said the Italian, "I knew nothing about it; +and what of the popes?" "There were no popes either." The good bishop +crossed himself, thinking he was with the evil one, and leaped from the +side of his companion. + + + + +BLASPHEMY. + + +This is a Greek word signifying _an attack on reputation_. We find +blasphemia in Demosthenes. In the Greek Church it was used only to +express an injury done to God. The Romans never made use of this +expression, apparently not thinking that God's honor could be offended +like that of men. + +There scarcely exists one synonym. Blasphemy does not altogether convey +the idea of sacrilege. We say of a man who has taken God's name in +vain, who, in the violence of anger, has sworn--as it is expressed--by +the name of God, that he has _blasphemed_; but we do not say that he has +committed sacrilege. The sacrilegious man is he who perjures himself on +the gospel, who extends his rapacity to sacred things, who imbrues his +hands in the blood of priests. + +Great sacrileges have always been punished with death in all nations, +especially those accompanied by bloodshed. The author of the +_"Institutes au Droit Criminel"_ reckons among divine high treasons in +the second degree, the non-observance of Sundays and holidays. He should +have said the non-observance attended with marked contempt, for simple +negligence is a sin, but not, as he calls it, a sacrilege. It is absurd +to class together, as this author does, simony, the carrying off of a +nun, and the forgetting to go to vespers on a holiday. It is one great +instance of the errors committed by writers on jurisprudence, who, not +having been called upon to make laws, take upon themselves to interpret +those of the state. + +Blasphemies uttered in intoxication, in anger, in the excess of +debauchery, or in the heat of unguarded conversation have been subjected +by legislators to much lighter penalties. For instance, the advocate +whom we have already cited says that the laws of France condemn simple +blasphemers to a fine for the first offence, which is doubled for the +second, tripled for the third, and quadrupled for the fourth offence; +for the fifth relapse the culprit is set in the pillory, for the sixth +relapse he is pilloried, and has his upper lip burned off with a hot +iron, and for the seventh he loses his tongue. He should have added that +this was an ordinance of the year 1666. + +Punishments are almost always arbitrary, which is a great defect in +jurisprudence. But this defect opens the way for clemency and +compassion, and this compassion is no other than the strictest justice, +for it would be horrible to punish a youthful indiscretion as poisoners +and parricides are punished. A sentence of death for an offence which +deserves nothing more than correction is no other than an assassination +committed with the sword of justice. + +Is it not to the purpose here to remark that what has been blasphemy in +one country has often been piety in another? + +Suppose a Tyrian merchant landed at the port of Canope: he might be +scandalized on seeing an onion, a cat, or a goat carried in procession; +he might speak indecorously of Isheth, Oshireth, and Horeth, or might +turn aside his head and not fall on his knees at the sight of a +procession with the parts of human generation larger than life; he might +express his opinion at supper, or even sing some song in which the +Tyrian sailors made a jest of the Egyptian absurdities. He might be +overheard by the maid of the inn, whose conscience would not suffer her +to conceal so enormous a crime; she would run and denounce the offender +to the nearest shoen that bore the image of the truth on his breast, and +it is known how this image of truth was made. The tribunal of the +shoens, or shotim, would condemn the Tyrian blasphemer to a dreadful +death, and confiscate his vessel. Yet this merchant might be considered +at Tyre as one of the most pious persons in Phoenicia. + +Numa sees that his little horde of Romans is a Collection of Latin +freebooters who steal right and left all they can find--oxen, sheep, +fowls, and girls. He tells them that he has spoken with the nymph Egeria +in a cavern, and that the nymph has been employed by Jupiter to give him +laws. The senators treat him at first as a blasphemer and threaten to +throw him headlong from the Tarpeian rock. Numa makes himself a powerful +party; he gains over some seniors who go with him into Egeria's grotto. +She talks to them and converts them; they convert the senate and the +people. In a little time Numa is no longer a blasphemer, the name is +given only to such as doubt the existence of the nymph. + +In our own times it is unfortunate that what is blasphemy at Rome, at +our Lady of Loretto, and within the walls of San Gennaro, is piety in +London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, Copenhagen, Berne, Basel, and +Hamburg. It is yet more unfortunate that even in the same country, in +the same town, in the same street, people treat one another as +blasphemers. + +Nay, of the ten thousand Jews living at Rome there is not one who does +not regard the pope as the chief of the blasphemers, while the hundred +thousand Christians who inhabit Rome, in place of two millions of +Jovians who filled it in Trajan's time, firmly believe that the Jews +meet in their synagogues on Saturday for the purpose of blaspheming. + +A Cordelier has no hesitation in applying the epithet of blasphemer to a +Dominican who says that the Holy Virgin was born in original sin, +notwithstanding that the Dominicans have a bull from the pope which +permits them to teach the maculate conception in their convents, and +that, besides this bull, they have in their forum the express +declaration of St. Thomas Aquinas. + +The first origin of the schism of three-fourths of Switzerland and a +part of Lower Germany was a quarrel in the cathedral church of Frankfort +between a Cordelier, whose name I forget, and a Dominican named Vigand. + +Both were drunk, according to the custom of that day. The drunken +Cordelier, who was preaching, thanked God that he was not a Jacobin, +swearing that it was necessary to exterminate the blaspheming Jacobins +who believed that the Holy Virgin had been born in mortal sin, and +delivered from sin only by the merits of her son. The drunken Jacobin +cried out: "Thou hast lied; thou thyself art a blasphemer." The +Cordelier descended from the pulpit with a great iron crucifix in his +hand, laid it about his adversary, and left him almost dead on the spot. + +To revenge this outrage the Dominicans worked many miracles in Germany +and Switzerland; these miracles were designed to prove their faith. +They at length found means to imprint the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ +on one of their lay brethren named Jetzer. This operation was performed +at Berne by the Holy Virgin herself, but she borrowed the hand of the +sub-prior, who dressed himself in female attire and put a glory round +his head. The poor little lay brother, exposed all bloody to the +veneration of the people on the altar of the Dominicans at Berne, at +last cried out murder! sacrilege! The monks, in order to quiet him as +quickly as possible administered to him a host sprinkled with corrosive +sublimate, but the excess of the dose made him discharge the host from +his stomach. + +The monks then accused him to the bishop of Lausanne of horrible +sacrilege. The indignant people of Berne in their turn accused the +monks, and four of them were burned at Berne on the 13th of May, 1509, +at the Marsilly gate. Such was the termination of this abominable +affair, which determined the people of Berne to choose a religion, bad +indeed in Catholic eyes, but which delivered them from the Cordeliers +and the Jacobins. The number of similar sacrileges is incredible. Such +are the effects of party spirit. + +The Jesuits maintained for a hundred years that the Jansenists were +blasphemers, and proved it by a thousand _lettres-de-cachet_; the +Jansenists by upwards of four thousand volumes demonstrated that it was +the Jesuits who blasphemed. The writer of the _"Gazettes +Ecclesiastiques"_ pretends that all honest men blaspheme against him, +while he himself blasphemes from his garret on high against every honest +man in the kingdom. The gazette-writer's publisher blasphemes in return +and complains that he is starving. He would find it better to be honest +and polite. + +One thing equally remarkable and consoling is that never in any country +of the earth, among the wildest idolaters, has any man been considered +as a blasphemer for acknowledging one supreme, eternal, and all-powerful +God. It certainly was not for having acknowledged this truth that +Socrates was condemned to the hemlock, for the doctrine of a Supreme God +was announced in all the Grecian mysteries. It was a faction that +destroyed Socrates; he was accused, at a venture, of not recognizing the +_secondary_ gods, and on this point it was that he was accused as a +blasphemer. + +The first Christians were accused of blasphemy for the same reason, but +the partisans of the ancient religion of the empire, the Jovians, who +reproached the primitive Christians with blasphemy, were at length +condemned as blasphemers themselves, under Theodosius II. Dryden says: + + This side to-day, to-morrow t'other burns, + And they're all Gods Almighty in their turns. + + + + +BODY. + + +Body and matter are here the same thing although there is hardly any +such thing as synonym in the most rigorous sense of the word. There have +been persons who by this word "body" have understood "spirit" also. +They have said spirit originally signifies breath; only a body can +breathe, therefore body and spirit may, after all, be the same thing. In +this sense La Fontaine said to the celebrated Duke de la Rochefoucauld: +_"J'entens les esprits corps et petris de matiere."_ In the same sense +he says to Madame Sabliere: + + _Je subtiliserais un morceau de matiere,_ + _Quintessence d'atome, extrait de la lumiere,_ + _je ne sais quoiplus vif et plus subtil encor...._ + +No one thought of harassing good Monsieur La Fontaine, or bringing him +to trial for his expressions. Were a poor philosopher, or even a poet, +to say as much nowadays, how many would there be to fall on him! How +many scribblers to sell their extracts for sixpence! How many knaves, +for the sole purpose of making mischief, to cry philosopher! +peripatetic! disciple of Gassendi! pupil of Locke, and the primitive +fathers! damnable! + +As we know not what a spirit is, so also we are ignorant of what a body +is; we see various properties, but what is the subject in which those +properties reside? "There is nothing but body," said Democritus and +Epicurus; "there is no such thing as body," said the disciples of Zeno, +of Elia. + +Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne, is the last who, by a hundred captious +sophisms, has pretended to prove that bodies do not exist. They have, +says he, neither color, nor smell, nor heat; all these modalities are +in your sensations, not in the objects. He might have spared himself +the trouble of proving this truth for it was already sufficiently known. +But thence he passed to extent and solidity, which are essential to +body, and thinks he proves that there is no extent in a piece of green +cloth because the cloth is not in reality green, the sensation of green +being in ourselves only, therefore the sensation of extent is likewise +in ourselves only. Having thus destroyed extent he concludes that +solidity, which is attached to it, falls of itself, and therefore that +there is nothing in the world but our ideas. So that, according to this +doctor, ten thousand men killed by ten thousand cannon shots are in +reality nothing more than ten thousand apprehensions of our +understanding, and when a female becomes pregnant it is only one idea +lodged in another idea from which a third idea will be produced. + +Surely, the bishop of Cloyne might have saved himself from falling into +this excessive absurdity. He thinks he shows that there is no extent +because a body has appeared to him four times as large through a glass +as to his naked eye, and four times as small through another glass. +Hence he concludes, that, since a body cannot be at the same time four +feet, sixteen feet, and but one foot in extent, there is no extent, +therefore there is nothing. He had only to take any measure and say: of +whatever extent this body may appear to me to be, it extends to so many +of these measures. + +We might very easily see that extent and solidity were quite different +from sound, color, taste, smell. It is quite clear that these are +sensations excited in us by the configuration of parts, but extent is +not a sensation. When this lighted coal goes out, I am no longer warm; +when the air is no longer struck, I cease to hear; when this rose +withers, I no longer smell it: but the coal, the air, and the rose have +extent without me. Berkeley's paradox is not worth refuting. + +Thus argued Zeno and Parmenides of old, and very clever they were; they +would prove to you that a tortoise went along as swiftly as Achilles, +for there was no such thing as motion; they discussed a hundred other +questions equally important. Most of the Greeks made philosophy a +juggle, and they transmitted their art to our schoolmen. Bayle himself +was occasionally one of the set and embroidered cobwebs like the rest. +In his article, "Zeno," against the divisible extent of matter and the +contiguity of bodies he ventures to say what would not be tolerated in +any six-months geometrician. + +It is worth knowing how Berkeley was drawn into this paradox. A long +while ago I had some conversation with him, and he told me that his +opinion originated in our being unable to conceive what the subject of +this extension is, and certainly, in his book, he triumphs when he asks +Hylas what this subject, this substratum, this substance is? It is the +extended body, answers Hylas. Then the bishop, under the name of +Philonous, laughs at him, and poor Hylas, finding that he has said that +extension is the subject of extension, and has therefore talked +nonsense, remains quite confused, acknowledges that he understands +nothing at all of the matter; that there is no such thing as body; that +the natural world does not exist, and that there is none but an +intellectual world. + +Hylas should only have said to Philonous: We know nothing of the subject +of this extension, solidity, divisibility, mobility, figure, etc.; I +know no more of it than I do of the subject of thought, feeling, and +will, but the subject does not the less exist for it has essential +properties of which it cannot be deprived. + +We all resemble the greater part of the Parisian ladies who live well +without knowing what is put in their ragouts; just so do we enjoy bodies +without knowing of what they are composed. Of what does a body consist? +Of parts, and these parts resolve themselves into other parts. What are +these last parts? They, too, are bodies; you divide incessantly without +making any progress. + +In short, a subtle philosopher, observing that a picture was made of +ingredients of which no single ingredient was a picture, and a house of +materials of which no one material was a house, imagined that bodies are +composed of an infinity of small things which are not bodies, and these +are called monads. This system is not without its merits, and, were it +revealed, I should think it very possible. These little beings would be +so many mathematical points, a sort of souls, waiting only for a +tenement: here would be a continual metempsychosis. This system is as +good as another; I like it quite as well as the declination of atoms, +the substantial forms, the versatile grace, or the vampires. + + + + +BOOKS. + + +SECTION I. + +You despise books; you, whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of +ambition, the pursuit of pleasure, or in indolence, but remember that +all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by +books. All Africa, to the limits of Ethiopia and Nigritia obeys the book +of the Koran after bowing to the book of the Gospel. China is ruled by +the moral book of Confucius, and a great part of India by the Veda. +Persia was governed for ages by the books of one of the Zoroasters. + +In a lawsuit or criminal process, your property, your honor, perhaps +your life, depends on the interpretation of a book which you never read. +It is, however, with books as with men, a very small number play a great +part, the rest are confounded with the multitude. + +By whom are mankind led in all civilized countries? By those who can +read and write. You are acquainted with neither Hippocrates, nor +Boerhaave, nor Sydenham, but you place your body in the hands of those +who can read them. You leave your soul entirely to the care of those +who are paid for reading the Bible, although there are not fifty of them +who have read it through with attention. + +The world is now so entirely governed by books that they who command in +the city of the Scipios and the Catos have resolved that the books of +their law shall be for themselves alone; they are their sceptre, which +they have made it high treason in their subjects to touch without an +express permission. In other countries it has been forbidden to think in +print without letters-patent. + +There are nations in which thought is considered merely as an article of +commerce, the operations of the human understanding being valued only at +so much per sheet. If the bookseller happens to desire a privilege for +his merchandise whether he is selling "Rabelais," or the "Fathers of the +Church," the magistrate grants the privilege without answering for the +contents of the book. + +In another country the liberty of explaining yourself by books is one of +the most inviolable prerogatives. There you may print whatever you +please, on pain of being tiresome, and of being punished if you have too +much abused your natural right. + +Before the admirable invention of printing, books were scarcer and +dearer than jewels. There were scarcely any books in our barbarous +nations, either before Charlemagne or after him, until the time of +Charles V., king of France, called the Wise, and from this time to +Francis I. the scarcity was extreme. The Arabs alone had them from the +eighth to the thirteenth century of our era. China was full of them when +we could neither read nor write. + +Copyists were much employed in the Roman Empire from the time of the +Scipios until the irruption of the barbarians. This was a very +ungrateful employment. The dealers always paid authors and copyists very +ill. It required two years of assiduous labor for a copyist to +transcribe the whole Bible well on vellum, and what time and trouble to +copy correctly in Greek and Latin the works of Origen, Clement of +Alexandria and all the others writers called Fathers! + +St. Hieronymos, or Hieronymus, whom we call Jerome, says, in one of his +satirical letters against Rufinus that he has ruined himself with buying +the works of Origen, against whom he wrote with so much bitterness and +violence. "Yes," says he, "I have read Origen, if it be a crime I +confess that I am guilty and that I exhausted my purse in buying his +works at Alexandria." + +The Christian societies of the three first centuries had fifty-four +gospels, of which, until Diocletian's time scarcely two or three copies +found their way among the Romans of the old religion. + +Among the Christians it was an unpardonable crime to show the gospels to +the Gentiles; they did not even lend them to the catechumens. + +When Lucian (insulting our religion of which he knew very little) +relates that "a troop of beggars took him up into a fourth story where +they were invoking the Father through the Son, and foretelling +misfortunes to the emperor and the empire," he does not say that they +showed him a single book. No Roman historian, no Roman author whomsoever +makes mention of the gospels. + +When a Christian, who was unfortunately rash and unworthy of his holy +religion had publicly torn in pieces and trampled under foot an edict of +the Emperor Diocletian, and had thus drawn down upon Christianity that +persecution which succeeded the greatest toleration, the Christians were +then obliged to give up their gospels and written authors to the +magistrates, which before then had never been done. Those who gave up +their books through fear of imprisonment, or even of death, were held by +the rest of the Christians to be sacrilegious apostates, they received +the surname of _traditores_, whence we have the word "traitor," and +several bishops asserted that they should be rebaptized, which +occasioned a dreadful schism. + +The poems of Homer were long so little known that Pisistratus was the +first who put them in order and had them transcribed at Athens about +five hundred years before the Christian era. + +Perhaps there was not at this time in all the East a dozen copies of the +Veda and the Zend-Avesta. + +In 1700 you would not have found a single book in all Rome, excepting +the missals and a few Bibles in the hands of papas drunk with brandy. + +The complaint now is of their too great abundance. But it is not for +readers to complain, the remedy is in their own hands; nothing forces +them to read. Nor for authors, they who make the multitude of books have +not to complain of being pressed. Notwithstanding this enormous quantity +how few people read! But if they read, and read with advantage, should +we have to witness the deplorable infatuations to which the vulgar are +still every day a prey? + +The reason that books are multiplied in spite of the general law that +beings shall not be multiplied without necessity, is that books are made +from books. A new history of France or Spain is manufactured from +several volumes already printed, without adding anything new. All +dictionaries are made from dictionaries; almost all new geographical +books are made from other books of geography; St. Thomas's Dream has +brought forth two thousand large volumes of divinity, and the same race +of little worms that have devoured the parent are now gnawing the +children. + + _Ecrive qui voudra, chacun a son metier_ + _Peut perdre impunement de l'encre et du papier._ + + Write, write away; each writer at his pleasure + May squander ink and paper without measure. + + +SECTION II. + +It is sometimes very dangerous to make a book. Silhouete, before he +could suspect that he should one day be comptroller-general of the +finances, published a translation of Warburton's "Alliance of Church +and State," and his father-in-law, Astuce the physician, gave to the +public the "Memoirs," in which the author of the Pentateuch might have +found all the astonishing things which happened so long before his time. + +The very day that Silhouete came into office, some good friend of his +sought out a copy of each of these books by the father-in-law and +son-in-law, in order to denounce them to the parliament and have them +condemned to the flames, according to custom. They immediately bought up +all the copies in the kingdom, whence it is that they are now extremely +rare. + +There is hardly a single philosophical or theological book in which +heresies and impieties may not be found by misinterpreting, or adding +to, or subtracting from, the sense. + +Theodore of Mopsuestes ventured to call the "Canticle of Canticles," "a +collection of impurities." Grotius pulls it in pieces and represents it +as horrid, and Chatillon speaks of it as "a scandalous production." + +Perhaps it will hardly be believed that Dr. Tamponet one day said to +several others: "I would engage to find a multitude of heresies in the +Lord's Prayer if this prayer, which we know to have come from the Divine +mouth, were now for the first time published by a Jesuit." + +I would proceed thus: "Our Father, who art in heaven--" a proposition +inclining to heresy, since God is everywhere. Nay, we find in this +expression the leaven of Socinianism, for here is nothing at all said of +the Trinity. + +"Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven--" +another proposition tainted with heresy, for it said again and again in +the Scriptures that God reigns eternally. Moreover it is very rash to +ask that His will may be done, since nothing is or can be done but by +the will of God. + +"Give us this day our daily bread"--a proposition directly contrary to +what Jesus Christ uttered on another occasion: "Take no thought, saying +what shall we eat? or what shall we drink?... for after all these things +do the Gentiles seek.... But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His +righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." + +"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors--" a rash +proposition, which compares man to God, destroys gratuitous +predestination, and teaches that God is bound to do to us as we do to +others. Besides, how can the author say that we forgive our debtors? We +have never forgiven them a single crown. No convent in Europe ever +remitted to its farmers the payment of a sou. To dare to say the +contrary is a formal heresy. + +"Lead us not into temptation--" a proposition scandalous and manifestly +heretical, for there is no tempter but the devil, and it is expressly +said in St. James' Epistle: "God is no tempter of the wicked; He tempts +no man."--_"Deus enim intentator malorum est; ipse autem neminem +tentat."_ + +You see, then, said Doctor Tamponet, that there is nothing, though ever +so venerable, to which a bad sense may not be given. What book, then, +shall not be liable to human censure when even the Lord's Prayer may be +attacked, by giving a diabolical interpretation to all the divine words +that compose it? + +As for me, I tremble at the thought of making a book. Thank God, I have +never published anything; I have not even--like brothers La Rue, Du +Ceveau, and Folard--had any of my theatrical pieces played, it would be +too dangerous. + +If you publish, a parish curate accuses you of heresy; a stupid +collegian denounces you; a fellow that cannot read condemns you; the +public laugh at you; your bookseller abandons you, and your wine +merchant gives you no more credit. I always add to my paternoster, +"Deliver me, O God, from the itch of bookmaking." + +O ye who, like myself, lay black on white and make clean paper dirty! +call to mind the following verses which I remember to have read, and by +which we should have been corrected: + + _Tout ce fatras fat du chauvre en son temps,_ + _Linge il devint par l'art des tisserands;_ + _Puis en lambeaux des pilons le presserent_ + _Il fut papier. Cent cerveaux a l'envers_ + _De visions a l'envi le chargerent;_ + _Puis on le brule; il vole dans les airs,_ + _Il est fumee aussi bien que la gloire._ + _De nos travaux voila quelle est l'histoire,_ + _Tout est fumee, et tout nous fait sentir_ + _Ce grand neant qui doit nous engloutir._ + + This miscellaneous rubbish once was flax, + Till made soft linen by the honest weaver; + But when at length it dropped from people's backs, + 'Twas turned to paper, and became receiver + Of all that fifty motley brains could fashion; + So now 'tis burned without the least compassion; + It now, like glory, terminates in smoke; + Thus all our toils are nothing but a joke-- + All ends in smoke; each nothing that we follow + Tells of the nothing that must all things swallow. + + +SECTION III. + +Books are now multiplied to such a degree that it is impossible not only +to read them all but even to know their number and their titles. +Happily, one is not obliged to read all that is published, and +Caramuel's plan for writing a hundred folio volumes and employing the +spiritual and temporal power of princes to compel their subjects to read +them, has not been put in execution. Ringelburg, too, had formed the +design of composing about a thousand different volumes, but, even had he +lived long enough to publish them he would have fallen far short of +Hermes Trismegistus, who, according to Jamblicus, composed thirty-six +thousand five hundred and twenty-five books. Supposing the truth of this +fact, the ancients had no less reason than the moderns to complain of +the multitude of books. + +It is, indeed, generally agreed that a small number of choice books is +sufficient. Some propose that we should confine ourselves to the Bible +or Holy Scriptures, as the Turks limit themselves to the Koran. But +there is a great difference between the feelings of reverence +entertained by the Mahometans for their Koran and those of the +Christians for the Scriptures. The veneration testified by the former +when speaking of the Koran cannot be exceeded. It is, say they, the +greatest of all miracles; nor are all the men in existence put together +capable of anything at all approaching it; it is still more wonderful +that the author had never studied, nor read any book. The Koran alone is +worth sixty thousand miracles (the number of its verses, or +thereabouts); one rising from the dead would not be a stronger proof of +the truth of a religion than the composition of the Koran. It is so +perfect that it ought not to be regarded as a work of creation. + +The Christians do indeed say that their Scriptures were inspired by the +Holy Ghost, yet not only is it acknowledged by Cardinal Cajetan and +Bellarmine that errors have found their way into them through the +negligence and ignorance of the book-sellers and the rabbis, who added +the points, but they are considered as a book too dangerous for the +hands of the majority of the faithful. This is expressed by the fifth +rule of the Index, a congregation at Rome, whose office it is to examine +what books are to be forbidden. It is as follows: + +"Since it is evident that if the reading of the Bible, translated into +the vulgar tongue, were permitted to every one indiscriminately the +temerity of mankind would cause more evil than good to arise +therefrom--we will that it be referred to the judgment of the bishop or +inquisitor, who, with the advice of the curate or confessor, shall have +power to grant permission to read the Bible rendered in the vulgar +tongue by Catholic writers, to those to whom they shall judge that such +reading will do no harm; they must have this permission in writing and +shall not be absolved until they have returned their Bible into the +hands of the ordinary. As for such book-sellers as shall sell Bibles in +the vulgar tongue to those who have not this written permission, or in +any other way put them into their hands, they shall lose the price of +the books (which the bishop shall employ for pious purposes), and shall +moreover be punished by arbitrary penalties. Nor shall regulars read or +buy these books without the permission of their superiors." + +Cardinal Duperron also asserted that the Scriptures, in the hands of the +unlearned, were a two-edged knife which might wound them, to avoid which +it was better that they should hear them from the mouth of the Church, +with the solutions and interpretations of such passages as appear to the +senses to be full of absurdity and contradiction, than that they should +read them by themselves without any solution or interpretation. He +afterwards made a long enumeration of these absurdities in terms so +unqualified that Jurieu was not afraid to declare that he did not +remember to have read anything so frightful or so scandalous in any +Christian author. + +Jurieu, who was so violent t in his invectives against Cardinal +Duperron, had himself to sustain similar reproaches from the Catholics. +"I heard that minister," says Pap, in speaking of him, "teaching the +public that all the characteristics of the Holy Scriptures on which +those pretended reformers had founded their persuasion of their +divinity, did not appear to him to be sufficient. 'Let it not be +inferred,' said Jurieu, 'that I wish to take from the light and strength +of the characteristics of Scripture, but I will venture to affirm that +there is not one of them which may not be eluded by the profane. There +is not one of them that amounts to a proof; not one to which something +may not be said in answer, and, considered altogether, although they +have greater power than separately to work a moral conviction--that is, +a proof on which to found a certainty excluding every doubt--I own that +nothing seems to me to be more opposed to reason than to say that these +characteristics are of themselves capable of producing such a +certainty." + +It is not then astonishing that the Jews and the first Christians, who, +we find in the Acts of the Apostles, confined themselves in their +meetings to the reading of the Bible, were, as will be seen in the +article "Heresy," divided into different sects. For this reading was +afterwards substituted that of various apocryphal works, or at least of +extracts from them. The author of the "Synopsis of Scripture," which we +find among the works of St. Athanasius, expressly avows that there are +in the apocryphal books things most true and inspired by God which have +been selected and extracted for the perusal of the faithful. + + + + +BOURGES. + + +Our questions have but little to do with geography, but we shall, +perhaps, be permitted to express in a few words our astonishment +respecting the town of Bourges. The Trevoux Dictionary asserts that "it +is one of the most ancient in Europe; that it was the seat of empire of +the Gauls, and gave laws to the Celts." + +I will not combat the antiquity of any town or of any family. But was +there ever an empire of Gaul? had the Celts kings? This rage for +antiquity is a malady which is not easily cured. In Gaul, in Germany, +and in the North there is nothing ancient but the soil, the trees, and +the animals. If you will have antiquities go to Asia, and even there +they are hardly to be found. Man is ancient, but monuments are new; this +has already been said in more articles than one. + +If to be born within a certain stone or wooden limit more ancient than +another were a real good it would be no more than reasonable to date the +foundation of the town from the giants' war, but since this vanity is in +no wise advantageous let it be renounced. This is all I have to say +about Bourges. + + + + +BRACHMANS--BRAHMINS. + + +Courteous reader, observe, in the first place, that Father Thomassin, +one of the most learned men of modern Europe, derives the Brachmans +from the Jewish word _barac_, by a _c_--supposing, of course, that the +Jews had a _c_. This _barac_, says he, signified _to fly_; and the +Brachmans fled from the towns--supposing that there were any towns. + +Or, if you like it better, Brachmans comes from _barak_ by a _k_, +meaning to _bless_ or to _pray_. But why might not the Biscayans name +the Brahmins from the word _bran_? which expresses--I will not say what. +They had as good a right as the Hebrews. Really, this is a strange sort +of erudition. By rejecting it entirely, we should know less, but we +should know it better. + +Is it not likely that the Brahmins were the first legislators, the first +philosophers, the first divines, of the earth? Do not the few remaining +monuments of ancient history form a great presumption in their favor? +since the first Greek philosophers went to them to learn mathematics; +and the most ancient curiosities, those collected by the emperors of +China, are all Indian, as is attested by the relations in Du Halde's +collection. + +Of the Shastah, we shall speak elsewhere. It is the first theological +book of the Brahmins, written about fifteen hundred years before the +Vedah, and anterior to all other books. + +Their annals make no mention of any war undertaken by them at any time. +The words "arms," "killing," "maiming," are to be found neither in the +fragments of the Shastah that have reached us, nor in the Yajurvedah, +nor in the Kormovedah. At least, I can affirm that I have not seen them +in either of these two latter collections; and it is most singular that +the Shastah, which speaks of a conspiracy in heaven, makes no mention of +any war in the great peninsula between the Indus and Ganges. + +[Illustration: India was unknown until after Alexander's conquests.] + +The Hebrews, who were unknown until so late a period, never name the +Brahmins; they knew nothing of India till after Alexander's conquests +and their own settling in that Egypt of which they had spoken so ill. +The name of India is to be found only in the book of Esther, and in that +of Job, who was not a Hebrew. We find a singular contrast between the +sacred books of the Hebrews and those of the Indians. The Indian books +announce only peace and mildness; they forbid the killing of animals: +but the Hebrew books speak of nothing but the slaughter and massacre of +men and beasts; all are butchered in the name of the Lord; it is quite +another order of things. + +We are incontestably indebted to the Brahmins for the idea of the fall +of celestial beings revolting against the Sovereign of Nature; and it +was probably from them that the Greeks took the fable of the Titans; and +lastly, from them it was that the Jews, in the first century of our era, +took the idea of Lucifer's revolt. + +How could these Indians suppose a rebellion in heaven without having +seen one on earth? Such a leap from the human to the divine nature is +difficult of comprehension. We usually step from what is known to what +is unknown. + +A war of giants would not be imagined, until some men more robust than +the rest had been seen to tyrannize over their fellow-men. To imagine +the like in heaven, the Brahmins must either have experienced violent +discords among themselves, or at least have witnessed them among their +neighbors. + +Be that as it may, it is an astonishing phenomenon that a society of men +who had never made war should have invented a sort of war carried on in +imaginary space, or in a globe distant from our own, or in what is +called the firmament--the empyrean. But let it be carefully observed, +that in this revolt of the celestial beings against their Sovereign, +there were no blows given, no celestial blood spilled, no mountains +thrown at one another's heads, no angels deft in twain, as in Milton's +sublime and grotesque poem. + +According to the Shastah, it was only a formal disobedience of the +orders of the Most High, which God punished by relegating the rebellious +angels to a vast place of darkness called Onderah, for the term of a +whole mononthour. A mononthour is a hundred and twenty-six millions of +our years. But God vouchsafed to pardon the guilty at the end of five +thousand years, and their Onderah was nothing more than a purgatory. + +He turned them into _Mhurd_, or men, and placed them on our globe, on +condition that they should not eat animals, nor cohabit with the males +of their new species, on pain of returning to the Onderah. + +These are the principal articles of the Brahmin faith, which has endured +without intermission from time immemorial to the present day. + +This is but a small part of the ancient cosmogony of the Brahmins. Their +rites, their pagods, prove that among them all was allegorical. They +still represent Virtue in the form of a woman with ten arms, combating +ten mortal sins typified by monsters. Our missionaries were acute enough +to take this image of Virtue for that of the devil, and affirm that the +devil is worshipped in India. We have never visited that people but to +enrich ourselves and calumniate them. + + +_The Metempsychosis of the Brahmins._ + +The doctrine of the metempsychosis comes from an ancient law of feeding +on cow's milk as well as on vegetables, fruits, and rice. It seemed +horrible to the Brahmins to kill and eat their feeder; and they had soon +the same respect for goats, sheep, and all other animals: they believed +them to be animated by the rebellious angels, who were completing their +purification in the bodies of beasts as well as in those of men. The +nature of the climate seconded, or rather originated this law. A burning +atmosphere creates a necessity for refreshing food, and inspires horror +for our custom of stowing carcasses in our stomachs. + +The opinion that beasts have souls was general throughout the East, and +we find vestiges of it in the ancient sacred writings. In the book of +Genesis, God forbids men to eat "their flesh with their blood and their +soul." Such is the import of the Hebrew text. "I will avenge," says he, +"the blood of your souls on the claws of beasts and the hands of men." +In Leviticus he says, "The soul of the flesh is in the blood." He does +more; he makes a solemn compact with man and with all animals, which +supposes an intelligence in the latter. + +In much later times, Ecclesiasticus formally says, "God shows that man +is like to the beasts; for men die like beasts; their condition is +equal; as man dies, so also dies the beast. They breathe alike. There is +nothing in man more than in the beast." Jonah, when he went to preach at +Nineveh, made both men and beasts fast. + +All ancient authors, sacred books as well as profane, attribute +knowledge to the beasts; and several make them speak. It is not then to +be wondered at that the Brahmins, and after them the Pythagoreans, +believed that souls passed successively into the bodies of beasts and of +men; consequently they persuaded themselves, or at least they said, that +the souls of the guilty angels, in order to finish their purgation, +belonged sometimes to beasts, sometimes to men. This is a part of the +romance of the Jesuit Bougeant, who imagined that the devils are spirits +sent into the bodies of animals. Thus, in our day, and at the extremity +of the west, a Jesuit unconsciously revives an article of the faith of +the most ancient Oriental priests. + +_The Self-burning of Men and Women among the Brahmins._ + +The Brahmins of the present day, who do all that the ancient Brahmins +did, have, we know, retained this horrible custom. Whence is it that, +among a people who have never shed the blood of men or of animals, the +finest act of devotion is a public self-burning? Superstition, the great +uniter of contraries, is the only source of these frightful sacrifices, +the custom of which is much more ancient than the laws of any known +people. + +The Brahmins assert that their great prophet Brahma, the son of God, +descended among men, and had seyeral wives; and that after his death, +the wife who loved him the most burned herself on his funeral pile, that +she might join him in heaven. Did this woman really burn herself, as it +is said that Portia, the wife of Brutus, swallowed burning coals, in +order to be reunited to her husband? or is this a fable invented by the +priests? Was there a Brahma, who really gave himself out as a prophet +and son of God? It is likely that there was a Brahma, as there +afterwards were a Zoroaster and a Bacchus. Fable seized upon their +history, as she has everywhere constantly done. + +No sooner does the wife of the son of God burn herself, than ladies of +meaner condition must burn themselves likewise. But how are they to +find their husbands again, who are become horses, elephants, hawks, +etc.? How are they to distinguish the precise beast, which the defunct +animates? how recognize him and be still his wife? This difficulty does +not in the least embarrass the Hindoo theologians; they easily find a +_distinguo_--a solution _in sensu composito_--_in sensu diviso_. The +metempsychosis is only for common people; for other souls they have a +sublimer doctrine. These souls, being those of the once rebel angels, go +about purifying themselves; those of the women who immolate themselves +are beatified, and find their husbands ready-purified. In short, the +priests are right, and the women burn themselves. + +This dreadful fanaticism has existed for more than four thousand years, +amongst a mild people, who would fear to kill a grasshopper. The priests +cannot force a widow to burn herself; for the invariable law is, that +the self-devotion must be absolutely voluntary. The longest married of +the wives of the deceased has the first refusal of the honor of mounting +the funeral-pile; if she is not inclined, the second presents herself; +and so of the rest. It is said, that on one occasion seventeen burned +themselves at once on the pile of a rajah: but these sacrifices are now +very rare; the faith has become weaker since the Mahometans have +governed a great part of the country, and the Europeans traded with the +rest. + +Still, there is scarcely a governor of Madras or Pondicherry who has +not seen some Indian woman voluntarily perish in the flames. Mr. Holwell +relates that a young widow of nineteen, of singular beauty, and the +mother of three children, burned herself in the presence of Mrs. +Russell, wife of the admiral then in the Madras roads. She resisted the +tears and the prayers of all present; Mrs. Russell conjured her, in the +name of her children, not to leave them orphans. The Indian woman +answered, "God, who has given them birth, will take care of them." She +then arranged everything herself, set fire to the pile with her own +hand, and consummated her sacrifice with as much serenity as one of our +nuns lights the tapers. + +Mr. Charnock, an English merchant, one day seeing one of these +astonishing victims, young and lovely, on her way to the funeral-pile, +dragged her away by force when she was about to set fire to it, and, +with the assistance of some of his countrymen, carried her of! and +married her. The people regarded this act as the most horrible +sacrilege. + +Why do husbands never burn themselves, that they may join their wives? +Why has a sex, naturally weak and timid, always had this frantic +resolution? Is it because tradition does not say that a man ever married +a daughter of Brahma, while it does affirm that an Indian woman was +married to a son of that divinity? Is it because women are more +superstitious than men? Or is it because their imaginations are weaker, +more tender, and more easily governed? + +The ancient Brahmins sometimes burned themselves to prevent the pains +and the languor of old age; but, above all, to make themselves admired. +Calanus would not, perhaps, have placed himself on the pile, but for the +purpose of being gazed at by Alexander. The Christian renegade +Peregrinus burned himself in public, for the same reason that a madman +goes about the streets dressed like an Armenian, to attract the notice +of the populace. + +Is there not also an unfortunate mixture of vanity in this terrible +sacrifice of the Indian women? Perhaps, if a law were passed that the +burning should take place in the presence of one waiting woman only, +this abominable custom would be forever destroyed. + +One word more: A few hundreds of Indian women, at most, have furnished +this horrid spectacle; but our inquisitions, our atrocious madmen +calling themselves judges, have put to death in the flames more than a +hundred thousand of our brethren--men, women, and children--for things +which no one has understood. Let us pity and condemn the Brahmins; but +let us not forget our miserable selves! + +Truly, we have forgotten one very essential point in this short article +on the Brahmins, which is, that their sacred books are full of +contradictions; but the people know nothing of them, and the doctors +have solutions ready--senses figured and figurative, allegories, types, +express declarations of Birma, Brahma, and Vishnu, sufficient to shut +the mouth of any reasoner. + + + + +BREAD-TREE. + + +The bread-tree grows in the Philippine islands, and principally in those +of Guam and Tinian, as the cocoa-tree grows in the Indies. These two +trees, alone, if they could be multiplied in our climate, would furnish +food and drink sufficient for all mankind. + +The bread-tree is taller and more bulky than our common apple-trees; its +leaves are black, its fruit is yellow, and equal in dimensions to the +largest apple. The rind is hard; and the cuticle is a sort of soft, +white paste, which has the taste of the best French rolls; but it must +be eaten fresh, as it keeps only twenty-four hours, after which it +becomes dry, sour and disagreeable; but, as a compensation, the trees +are loaded with them eight months of the year. The natives of the +islands have no other food; they are all tall, stout, well made, +sufficiently fleshy, and in the vigorous health which is necessarily +produced by the use of one wholesome aliment alone: and it is to negroes +that nature has made this present. + +Corn is assuredly not the food of the greater part of the world. Maize +and cassava are the food of all America. We have whole provinces in +which the peasants eat none but chestnut bread, which is more nourishing +and of better flavor than the rye or barley bread on which so many feed, +and is much better than the rations given to the soldiers. Bread is +unknown in all southern Africa. The immense Indian Archipelago, Siam, +Laos, Pegu, Cochin-China, Tonquin, part of China, the Malabar and +Coromandel coasts, and the banks of the Ganges, produce rice, which is +easier of cultivation, and for which wheat is neglected. Corn is +absolutely unknown for the space of five hundred leagues on the coast of +the Icy Sea. + +The missionaries have sometimes been in great tribulation, in countries +where neither bread nor wine is to be found. The inhabitants told them +by interpreters: "You would baptize us with a few drops of water, in a +burning climate, where we are obliged to plunge every day into the +rivers; you would confess us, yet you understand not our language; you +would have us communicate, yet you want the two necessary ingredients, +bread and wine. It is therefore evident that your universal religion +cannot have been made for us." The missionaries replied, very justly, +that good will is the one thing needful; that they should be plunged +into the water without any scruple; that bread and wine should be +brought from Goa; and that, as for the language, the missionaries would +learn it in a few years. + + + + +BUFFOONERY--BURLESQUE--LOW COMEDY. + + +He was a very subtle schoolman, who first said that we owe the origin of +the word "buffoon" to a little Athenian sacrificer called _Bupho_, who, +being tired of his employment, absconded, and never returned. The +Areopagus, as they could not punish the priest, proceeded against his +hatchet. This farce, which was played every year in the temple of +Jupiter, is said to have been called _"buffoonery."_ This story is not +entitled to much credit Buffoon was not a proper name; _bouphonos_ +signifies an immolator of oxen. The Greeks never called any jest +_bouphonia_. This ceremony, frivolous as it appears, might have an +origin wise and humane, worthy of true Athenians. + +Once a year, the subaltern sacrificer, or more properly the holy +butcher, when on the point of immolating an ox, fled as if struck with +horror, to put men in mind that in wiser and happier times only flowers +and fruits were offered to the gods, and that the barbarity of +immolating innocent and useful animals was not introduced until there +were priests desirous of fattening on their blood and living at the +expense of the people. In this idea there is no buffoonery. + +This word "buffoon" has long been received among the Italians and the +Spaniards, signifying _mimus, scurra, joculator_--a mimic, a jester, a +player of tricks. Menage, after Salmasius, derives it from _bocca +infiata_--a bloated face; and it is true that a round face and swollen +cheeks are requisite in a buffoon. The Italians say _bufo magro_--a +meagre buffoon, to express a poor jester who cannot make you laugh. + +Buffoon and buffoonery appertain to low comedy, to mountebanking, to all +that can amuse the populace. In this it was--to the shame of the human +mind be it spoken--that tragedy had its beginning: Thespis was a +buffoon before Sophocles was a great man. + +In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish and English +tragedies were all degraded by disgusting buffooneries. The courts were +still more disgraced by buffoons than the stage. So strong was the rust +of barbarism, that men had no taste for more refined pleasures. Boileau +says of Moliere: + + _C'est par-la que Moliere, illustrant ses ecrits,_ + _Peut-etre de son art eut emporte le prix,_ + _Si, moins ami du peuple en ses doctes peintures,_ + _Il n'eut fait quelquefois, grimacer ses figures,_ + _Quitte pour le bouffon l'agreable et fin,_ + _Et sans honte a Terence allie Tabarin._ + _Dans ce sac ridicule ou Scapin s'enveloppe,_ + _Je ne reconnais plus l'auteur du Misanthrope._ + + Moliere in comic genius had excelled, + And might, perhaps, have stood unparalleled, + Had he his faithful portraits ne'er allowed + To gape and grin to gratify the crowd; + Deserting wit for low grimace and jest, + And showing Terence in a motley vest. + Who in the sack, where Scapin plays the fool, + Will find the genius of the comic school? + +But it must be considered that Raphael condescended to paint grotesque +figures. Moliere would not have descended so low, if all his spectators +had been such men as Louis XIV., Conde, Turenne, La Rochefoucauld, +Montausier, Beauvilliers, and such women as Montespan and Thianges; but +he had also to please the whole people of Paris, who were yet quite +unpolished. The citizen liked broad farce, and he paid for it. Scarron's +"Jodelets" were all the rage. We are obliged to place ourselves on the +level of our age, before we can rise above it; and, after all, we like +to laugh now and then. What is Homer's "Battle of the Frogs and Mice," +but a piece of buffoonery--a burlesque poem? + +Works of this kind give no reputation, but they may take from that which +we already enjoy. + +Buffoonery is not always in the burlesque style, "The Physician in Spite +of Himself," and the "Rogueries of Scapin," are not in the style of +Scarron's "Jodelets." Moliere does not, like Scarron, go in search of +slang terms; his lowest characters do not play the mountebank. +Buffoonery is in the thing, not in the expression. + +Boileau's "Lutrin" was at first called a burlesque poem, but it was the +subject that was burlesque; the style was pleasing and refined, and +sometimes even heroic. + +The Italians had another kind of burlesque, much superior to ours--that +of Aretin, of Archbishop La Caza, of Berni, Mauro, and Dolce. It often +sacrifices decorum to pleasantry, but obscene words are wholly banished +from it. The subject of Archbishop La Caza's _"Capitolo del Forno"_ is, +indeed, that which sends the Desfontaines to the Bicetre, and the +Deschaufours to the Place de Greve: but there is not one word offensive +to the ear of chastity; you have to divine the meaning. + +Three or four Englishmen have excelled in this way: Butler, in his +"Hudibras," which was the civil war excited by the Puritans turned into +ridicule; Dr. Garth, in his "Dispensary"; Prior, in his "Alma," in +which he very pleasantly makes a jest of his subject and Phillips, in +his "Splendid Shilling." + +Butler is as much above Scarron as a man accustomed to good company is +above a singer at a pot-house. The hero of "Hudibras" was a real +personage, one Sir Samuel Luke, who had been a captain in the armies of +Fairfax and Cromwell. See the commencement of the poem, in the article +"Prior," "Butler," and "Swift." + +Garth's poem on the physicians and apothecaries is not so much in the +burlesque style as Boileau's "Lutrin": it has more imagination, variety, +and naivete than the "Lutrin"; and, which is rather astonishing, it +displays profound erudition, embellished with all the graces of +refinement. It begins thus: + + Speak, Goddess, since 'tis thou that best canst tell + How ancient leagues to modern discord fell; + And why physicians were so cautious grown + Of others' lives, and lavish of their own. + +Prior, whom we have seen a plenipotentiary in France before the Peace of +Utrecht, assumed the office of mediator between the philosophers who +dispute about the soul. This poem is in the style of "Hudibras," called +doggerel rhyme, which is the _stilo Berniesco_ of the Italians. + +The great first question is, whether the soul is all in all, or is +lodged behind the nose and eyes in a corner which it never quits. +According to the latter system, Prior compares it to the pope, who +constantly remains at Rome, whence he sends his nuncios and spies to +learn all that is doing in Christendom. + +Prior, after making a jest of several systems, proposes his own. He +remarks that the two-legged animal, new-born, throws its feet about as +much as possible, when its nurse is so stupid as to swaddle it: thence +he judges that the soul enters it by the feet; that about fifteen it +reaches the middle; then it ascends to the heart; then to the head, +which it quits altogether when the animal ceases to live. + +At the end of this singular poem, full of ingenious versification, and +of ideas alike subtle and pleasing, we find this charming line of +Fontenelle: _"Il est des hochets pour tout age."_ Prior begs of fortune +to "Give us play-things for old age." + +Yet it is quite certain that Fontenelle did not take this line from +Prior, nor Prior from Fontenelle. Prior's work is twenty years anterior, +and Fontenelle did not understand English. The poem terminates with this +conclusion: + + For Plato's fancies what care I? + I hope you would not have me die + Like simple Cato in the play, + For anything that he can say: + E'en let him of ideas speak + To heathens, in his native Greek. + If to be sad is to be wise, + I do most heartily despise + Whatever Socrates has said, + Or Tully writ, or Wanley read. + Dear Drift, to set our matters right, + Remove these papers from my sight; + Burn Mat's Descartes and Aristotle-- + Here, Jonathan,--your master's bottle. + +In all these poems, let us distinguish the pleasant, the lively, the +natural, the familiar--from the grotesque, the farcical, the low, and, +above all, the stiff and forced. These various shades are discriminated +by the connoisseurs, who alone, in the end, decide the fate of every +work. + +La Fontaine would sometimes descend to the burlesque style--Phaedrus +never; but the latter has not the grace and unaffected softness of La +Fontaine, though he has greater precision and purity. + + + + +BULGARIANS. + + +These people were originally Huns, who settled near the Volga; and +Volgarians was easily changed into Bulgarians. + +About the end of the seventh century, they, like all the other nations +inhabiting Sarmatia, made irruptions towards the Danube, and inundated +the Roman Empire. They passed through Moldavia and Wallachia, whither +their old fellow-countrymen, the Russians, carried their victorious arms +in 1769, under the Empress Catherine II. + +Having crossed the Danube, they settled in part of Dacia and Moesia, +giving their name to the countries which are still called Bulgaria. +Their dominion extended to Mount Haemus and the Euxine Sea. + +In Charlemagne's time, the Emperor Nicephorus, successor to Irene, was +so imprudent as to march against them after being vanquished by the +Saracens; and he was in like manner defeated by the Bulgarians. Their +king, named Krom, cut off his head, and made use of his skull as a +drinking-cup at his table, according to the custom of that people in +common with all the northern nations. + +It is related that, in the ninth century, one Bogoris, who was making +war upon the Princess Theodora, mother and guardian to the Emperor +Michael, was so charmed with that empress's noble answer to his +declaration of war, that he turned Christian. + +The Bulgarians, who were less complaisant, revolted against him; but +Bogoris, having shown them a crucifix, they all immediately received +baptism. So say the Greek writers of the lower empire, and so say our +compilers after them: _"Et voila justement comme on ecrit l'histoire."_ + +Theodora, say they, was a very religious princess, even passing her +latter years in a convent. Such was her love for the Greek Catholic +religion that she put to death in various ways a hundred thousand men +accused of Manichaeism--"this being," says the modest continuator of +Echard, "the most impious, the most detestable, the most dangerous, the +most abominable of all heresies, for ecclesiastical censures were +weapons of no avail against men who acknowledged not the church." + +It is said that the Bulgarians, seeing that all the Manichaeans suffered +death, immediately conceived an inclination for their religion, and +thought it the best, since it was the most persecuted one: but this, for +Bulgarians, would be extraordinarily acute. + +At that time, the great schism broke out more violently than ever +between the Greek church, under the Patriarch Photius, and the Latin +church, under Pope Nicholas I. The Bulgarians took part with the Greek +church; and from that time, probably, it was that they were treated in +the west as heretics, with the addition of that fine epithet, which has +clung to them to the present day. + +In 871, the Emperor Basil sent them a preacher, named Peter of Sicily, +to save them from the heresy of Manichaeism; and it is added, that they +no sooner heard him than they turned Manichaeans. It is not very +surprising that the Bulgarians, who drank out of the skulls of their +enemies, were not extraordinary theologians any more than Peter of +Sicily. + +It is singular that these barbarians, who could neither write nor read, +should have been regarded as very knowing heretics, with whom it was +dangerous to dispute. They certainly had other things to think of than +controversy, since they carried on a sanguinary war against the emperors +of Constantinople for four successive centuries, and even besieged the +capital of the empire. + +At the commencement of the thirteenth century, the Emperor Alexis, +wishing to make himself recognized by the Bulgarians, their king, +Joannic, replied, that he would never be his vassal. Pope Innocent III. +was careful to seize this opportunity of attaching the kingdom of +Bulgaria to himself: he sent a legate to Joannic, to anoint him king; +and pretended that he had conferred the kingdom upon him, and that he +could never more hold it but from the holy see. + +This was the most violent period of the crusades. The indignant +Bulgarians entered into an alliance with the Turks, declared war against +the pope and his crusaders, took the pretended Emperor Baldwin prisoner, +had his head cut off, and made a bowl of his skull, after the manner of +Krom. This was quite enough to make the Bulgarians abhorred by all +Europe. It was no longer necessary to call them Manichaeans, a name which +was at that time given to every class of heretics: for Manichaean, +Patarin, and Vaudois were the same thing. These terms were lavished upon +whosoever would not submit to the Roman church. + + + + +BULL. + + +A quadruped, armed with horns, having cloven feet, strong legs, a slow +pace, a thick body, a hard skin, a tail not quite so long as that of the +horse, with some long hairs at the end. Its blood has been looked upon +as a poison, but it is no more so than that of other animals; and the +ancients, who wrote that Themistocles and others poisoned themselves +with bull's blood, were false both to nature and to history. Lucian, who +reproaches Jupiter with having placed the bull's horns above his eyes, +reproaches him unjustly; for the eye of a bull being large, round, and +open, he sees very well where he strikes; and if his eyes had been +placed higher than his horns, he could not have seen the grass which he +crops. + +Phalaris's bull, or the Brazen Bull, was a bull of cast metal, found in +Sicily, and supposed to have been used by Phalaris to enclose and burn +such as he chose to punish--a very unlikely species of cruelty. The +bulls of Medea guarded the Golden Fleece. The bull of Marathon was tamed +by Hercules. + +Then there were the bull which carried off Europa, the bull of Mithras, +and the bull of Osiris; there are the Bull, a sign of the zodiac, and +the Bull's Eye, a star of the first magnitude, and lastly, there are +bull-fights, common in Spain. + + + + +BULL (PAPAL). + + +This word designates the bull, or seal of gold, silver, wax, or lead, +attached to any instrument or charter. The lead hanging to the rescripts +despatched in the Roman court bears on one side the head of St. Peter on +the right, and that of St. Paul on the left; and, on the reverse, the +name of the reigning pope, with the year of his pontificate. The bull is +written on parchment. In the greeting, the pope takes no title but that +of "Servant of the Servants of God," according to the holy words of +Jesus to His Disciples--"Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be +your servant." + +Some heretics assert that, by this formula, humble in appearance, the +popes mean to express a sort of feudal system, of which God is chief; +whose high vassals, Peter and Paul, are represented by their servant +the pontiff; while the lesser vassals are all secular princes, whether +emperors, kings, or dukes. + +They doubtless found this assertion on the famous bull _In coena +Domini,_ which is publicly read at Rome by a cardinal-deacon every year, +on Holy Thursday, in the presence of the pope, attended by the rest of +the cardinals and bishops. After the ceremony, his holiness casts a +lighted torch into the public square in token of anathema. + +This bull is, to be found in Tome i., p. 714 of the _Bullaire_, +published at Lyons in 1673, and at page 118 of the edition of 1727. The +oldest is dated 1536. Paul III., without noticing the origin of the +ceremony, here says that it is an ancient custom of the sovereign +pontiffs to publish this excommunication on Holy Thursday, in order to +preserve the purity of the Christian religion, and maintain union among +the faithful. It contains twenty-four paragraphs, in which the pope +excommunicates: + +1. Heretics, all who favor them, and all who read their books. + +2. Pirates, especially such as dare to cruise on the seas belonging to +the sovereign pontiff. + +3. Those who impose fresh tolls on their lands. + +10. Those who, in any way whatsoever, prevent the execution of the +apostolical letters, whether they grant pardons or inflict penalties. + +11. All lay judges who judge ecclesiastics, and bring them before their +tribunal, whether that tribunal is called an audience, a chancery, a +council, or a parliament. + +12. All chancellors, counsellors, ordinary or extraordinary, of any king +or prince whatsoever, all presidents of chanceries, councils, or +parliaments, as also all attorneys-general, who call ecclesiastical +causes before them, or prevent the execution of the apostolical letters, +even though it be on pretext of preventing some violence. + +In the same paragraph, the pope reserves to himself alone the power of +absolving the said chancellors, counsellors, attorneys-general, and the +rest of the excommunicated; who cannot receive absolution until they +have publicly revoked their acts, and have erased them from the records. + +20. Lastly, the pope excommunicates all such as shall presume to give +absolution to the excommunicated as aforesaid: and, in order that no one +may plead ignorance, he orders: + +21. That this bull be published, and posted on the gate of the basilic +of the Prince of the Apostles, and on that of St. John of Lateran. + +22. That all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, by virtue +of their holy obedience, shall have this bull solemnly published at +least once a year. + +24. He declares that whosoever dares to go against the provisions of +this bull, must know that he is incurring the displeasure of Almighty +God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. + +The other subsequent bulls, called also _In coena Domini_, are only +duplicates of the first. For instance, the article 21 of that of Pius +V., dated 1567, adds to the paragraph 3 of the one that we have quoted, +that all princes who lay new impositions on their states, of what nature +soever, or increase the old ones, without obtaining permission from the +Holy See, are excommunicated _ipso facto_. The third bull _In coena +Domini_ of 1610, contains thirty paragraphs, in which Paul V. renews the +provisions of the two preceding. + +The fourth and last bull _In coena Domini_ which we find in the +_Bullaire_, is dated April 1, 1672. In it Urban VIII. announces that, +after the example of his predecessors, in order inviolably to maintain +the integrity of the faith, and public justice and tranquillity, he +wields the spiritual sword of ecclesiastical discipline to +excommunicate, on the day which is the anniversary of the Supper of our +Lord: + +1. Heretics. + +2. Such as appeal from the pope to a future council; and the rest as in +the three former. + +It is said that the one which is read now, is of a more recent date, and +contains some additions. + +The History of Naples, by Giannone, shows us what disorders the +ecclesiastics stirred up in that kingdom, and what vexations they +exercised against the king's subjects, even refusing them absolution and +the sacraments, in order to effect the reception of this bull, which has +at last been solemnly proscribed there, as well as in Austrian +Lombardy, in the states of the empress-queen, in those of the Duke of +Parma, and elsewhere. + +In 1580, the French clergy chose the time between the sessions of the +parliament of Paris, to have the same bull _In coena Domini_ +published. But it was opposed by the procureur-general; and the _Chambre +des Vacations_, under the presidency of the celebrated and unfortunate +Brisson, on October 4, passed a decree, enjoining all governors to +inform themselves, if possible, what archbishops, bishops, or +grand-vicars, had received either this bull or a copy of it entitled +_Litterae processus_, and who had sent it to them to be published; to +prevent the publication, if it had not yet taken place; to obtain the +copies and send them to the chamber; or, if they had been published, to +summon the archbishops, the bishops, or their grand-vicars, to appear on +a certain day before the chamber, to answer to the suit of the +procureur-general; and, in the meantime, to seize their temporal +possessions and place them in the hands of the king; to forbid all +persons obstructing the execution of this decree, on pain of punishment +as traitors and enemies to the state; with orders that the decree be +printed and that the copies, collated by notaries, have the full force +of the original. + +In doing this, the parliament did but feebly imitate Philip the Fair. +The bull _Ausculta Fili_, of Dec. 5, 1301, was addressed to him by +Boniface VIII., who, after exhorting the king to listen with docility, +says to him: "God has established us over all kings and all kingdoms, to +root up, and destroy, and throw down, to build, and to plant, in His +name and by His doctrine. Do not, then, suffer yourself to be persuaded +that you have no superior, and that you are not subject to the head of +the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Whosoever thinks this, is a madman; and +whosoever obstinately maintains it, is an infidel, separated from the +flock of the Good Shepherd." The pope then enters into long details +respecting the government of France, even reproaching the king for +having altered the coin. + +Philip the Fair had this bull burned at Paris, and its execution +published on sound of trumpet throughout the city, by Sunday, Feb. 11, +1302. The pope, in a council which he held at Rome the same year, made a +great noise, and broke out into threats against Philip the Fair; but he +did no more than threaten. The famous decretal, _Unam Sanctam_ is, +however, considered as the work of his council; it is, in substance, as +follows: + +"We believe and confess a holy, catholic, and apostolic church, out of +which there is no salvation; we also acknowledge its unity, that it is +one only body, with one only head, and not with two, like a monster. +This only head is Jesus Christ, and St. Peter his vicar, and the +successor of St. Peter. Therefore, the Greeks, or others, who say that +they are not subject to that successor, must acknowledge that they are +not of the flock of Christ, since He himself has said (John, x, 16) +'that there is but one fold and one shepherd.' + +"We learn that in this church, and under its power, are two swords, the +spiritual and the temporal: of these, one is to be used by the church +and by the hand of the pontiff; the other, by the church and by the hand +of kings and warriors, in pursuance of the orders or with the permission +of the pontiff. Now, one of these swords must be subject to the other, +temporal to spiritual power; otherwise, they would not be ordinate, and +the apostles say they must be so. (Rom. xiii, 1.) According to the +testimony of truth, spiritual power must institute and judge temporal +power; and thus is verified with regard to the church, the prophecy of +Jeremiah (i. 10): 'I have this day set thee over the nations and over +the kingdoms.'" + +On the other hand, Philip the Fair assembled the states-general; and the +commons, in the petition which they presented to that monarch, said, in +so many words: "It is a great abomination for us to hear that this +Boniface stoutly interprets like a _Boulgare_ (dropping the _l_ and the +_a_) these words of spirituality (Matt., xvi. 19): 'Whatever thou shalt +bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven;' if this signified that if a +man be put into a temporal prison, God will imprison him in heaven." + +Clement V., successor to Boniface VIII., revoked and annulled the odious +decision of the bull _Unam Sanctam_, which extends the power of the +popes to the temporalities of kings, and condemns as heretics all who do +not acknowledge this chimerical power. Boniface's pretension, indeed, +ought to be condemned as heresy, according to this maxim of theologians: +"Not only is it a sin against the rules of the faith, and a heresy, to +deny what the faith teaches us, but also to set up as part of the faith +that which is no part of it." (Joan. Maj. m. 3 sent. dist. 37. q. 26.) + +Other popes, before Boniface VIII., had arrogated to themselves the +right of property over different kingdoms. The bull is well known, in +which Gregory VII. says to the King of Spain: "I would have you to know, +that the kingdom of Spain, by ancient ecclesiastical ordinances, was +given in property to St. Peter and the holy Roman church." + +Henry II. of England asked permission of Pope Adrian IV. to invade +Ireland. The pontiff gave him leave, on condition that he imposed on +every Irish family a tax of one _carolus_ for the Holy See, and held +that kingdom as a fief of the Roman church. "For," wrote Adrian, "it +cannot be doubted that every island upon which Jesus Christ, the sun of +justice, has arisen, and which has received the lessons of the Christian +faith, belongs of right to St. Peter and to the holy and sacred Roman +church." + +_Bulls of the Crusade and of Composition._ + +If an African or an Asiatic of sense were told that in that part of +Europe where some men have forbidden others to eat flesh on Saturdays, +the pope gives them leave to eat it, by a bull, for the sum of two +rials, and that another bull grants permission to keep stolen money, +what would this African or Asiatic say? He would, at least, agree with +us, that every country has its customs; and that in this world, by +whatever names things may be called, or however they may be disguised, +all is done for money. + +There are two bulls under the name of _La Cruzada_ --the Crusade; one of +the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, the other of that of Philip V. The +first of these sells permission to eat what is called the _grossura_, +viz., tripes, livers, kidneys, gizzards, sweet-breads, lights, plucks, +cauls, heads, necks, and feet. + +The second bull, granted by Pope Urban VIII., gives leave to eat meat +throughout Lent, and absolves from every crime except heresy. + +Not only are these bulls sold, but people are ordered to buy them; and, +as is but right, they cost more in Peru and Mexico than in Spain; they +are there sold for a piastre. It is reasonable that the countries which +produce gold and silver should pay more than others. + +The pretext for these bulls is, making war upon the Moors. There are +persons, difficult of conviction, who cannot see what livers and kidneys +have to do with a war against the Africans; and they add, that Jesus +Christ never ordered war to be made on the Mahometans on pain of +excommunication. + +The bull giving permission to keep another's goods is galled the bull of +_Composition_. It is farmed; and has long brought considerable sums +throughout Spain, the Milanese, Naples, and Sicily. The highest bidders +employ the most eloquent of the monks to preach this bull. Sinners who +have robbed the king, the state, or private individuals, go to these +preachers, confess to them, and show them what a sad thing it would be +to make restitution of the whole. They offer the monks five, six, and +sometimes seven per cent., in order to keep the rest with a safe +conscience; and, as soon as the composition is made, they receive +absolution. + +The preaching brother who wrote the "Travels through Spain and Italy" +(_Voyage d'Espagne et d'Italie_), published at Paris, _avec privilege_ +by Jean-Baptiste de l'Epime, speaking of this bull, thus expresses +himself: "Is it not very gracious to come off at so little cost, and be +at liberty to steal more, when one has occasion for a larger sum?" + +_Bull Unigenitus._ + +The bull _In coena Domini_ was an indignity offered to all Catholic +sovereigns, and they at length proscribed it in their states; but the +bull _Unigenitus_ was a trouble to France alone. The former attacked the +rights of the princes and magistrates of Europe, and they maintained +those rights; the latter proscribed only some maxims of piety and +morals, which gave no concern to any except the parties interested in +the transient affair; but these interested parties soon filled all +France. It was at first a quarrel between the all-powerful Jesuits and +the remains of the crushed Port-Royal. + +Quesnel, a preacher of the Oratory, refugee in Holland, had dedicated a +commentary on the New Testament to Cardinal de Noailles, then bishop of +Chalons-sur-Marne. It met the bishop's approbation and was well received +by all readers of that sort of books. + +One Letellier, a Jesuit, a confessor to Louis XIV. and an enemy to +Cardinal de Noailles, resolved to mortify him by having the book, which +was dedicated to him, and of which he had a very high opinion, condemned +at Rome. + +This Jesuit, the son of an attorney at Vire in Lower Normandy, had all +that fertility of expedient for which his father's profession is +remarkable. Not content with embroiling Cardinal de Noailles with the +pope, he determined to have him disgraced by the king his master. To +ensure the success of this design, he had mandaments composed against +him by his emissaries, and got them signed by four bishops; he also +indited letters to the king, which he made them sign. + +These manoeuvres, which would have been punished in any of the +tribunals, succeeded at court: the king was soured against the +cardinal, and Madame de Maintenon abandoned him. + +Here was a series of intrigues, in which, from one end of the kingdom to +the other, every one took a part. The more unfortunate France at that +time became in a disastrous war, the more the public mind was heated by +a theological quarrel. + +During these movements, Letellier had the condemnation of Quesnel's +book, of which the monarch had never read a page, demanded from Rome by +Louis XIV. himself. Letellier and two other Jesuits, named Doucin and +Lallemant, extracted one hundred and three propositions, which Pope +Clement XI. was to condemn. The court of Rome struck out two of them, +that it might, at least, have the honor of appearing to judge for +itself. + +Cardinal Fabroni, in whose hands the affair was placed, and who was +devoted to the Jesuits, had the bull drawn up by a Cordelier named +Father Palerno, Elio a Capuchin, Terrovi a Barnabite, and Castelli a +Servite, to whom was added a Jesuit named Alfaro. + +Clement XI. let them proceed in their own way. His only object was to +please the king of France, who had long been displeased with him, on +account of his recognizing the Archduke Charles, afterwards emperor, as +King of Spain. To make his peace with the king, it cost him only a piece +of parchment sealed with lead, concerning a question which he himself +despised. + +Clement XI. did not wait to be solicited; he sent the bull, and was +quite astonished to learn that it was received throughout France with +hisses and groans. "What!" said he to Cardinal Carpegno, "a bull is +earnestly asked of me; I give it freely, and every one makes a jest of +it!" + +Every one was indeed surprised to see a pope, in the name of Jesus +Christ, condemning as heretical, tainted with heresy, and offensive to +pious ears, this proposition: "It is good to read books of piety on +Sundays, especially the Holy Scriptures;" and this: "The fear of an +unjust excommunication should not prevent us from doing our duty." + +The partisans of the Jesuits were themselves alarmed at these censures, +but they dared not speak. The wise and disinterested exclaimed against +the scandal, and the rest of the nation against the absurdity. + +Nevertheless, Letellier still triumphed, until the death of Louis XIV.; +he was held in abhorrence, but he governed. This wretch tried every +means to procure the suspension of Cardinal de Noailles; but after the +death of his penitent, the incendiary was banished. The duke of Orleans, +during his regency, extinguished these quarrels by making a jest of +them. They have since thrown out a few sparks; but they are at last +forgotten, probably forever. Their duration, for more than half a +century, was quite long enough. Yet, happy indeed would mankind be, if +they were divided only by foolish questions unproductive of bloodshed! + + + + +CAESAR. + + +It is not as the husband of so many women and the wife of so many men; +as the conqueror of Pompey and the Scipios; as the satirist who turned +Cato into ridicule; as the robber of the public treasury, who employed +the money of the Romans to reduce the Romans to subjection; as he who, +clement in his triumphs, pardoned the vanquished; as the man of +learning, who reformed the calendar; as the tyrant and the father of his +country, assassinated by his friends and his bastard son; that I shall +here speak of Caesar. I shall consider this extraordinary man only in my +quality of descendant from the poor barbarians whom he subjugated. + +You will not pass through a town in France, in Spain, on the banks of +the Rhine, or on the English coast opposite to Calais, in which you will +not find good people who boast of having had Caesar there. Some of the +townspeople of Dover are persuaded that Caesar built their castle; and +there are citizens of Paris who believe that the great _chatelet_ is one +of his fine works. Many a country squire in France shows you an old +turret which serves him for a dove-cote, and tells you that Caesar +provided a lodging for his pigeons. Each province disputes with its +neighbor the honor of having been the first to which Caesar applied the +lash; it was not by that road, but by this, that he came to cut our +throats, embrace our wives and daughters, impose laws upon us by +interpreters, and take from us what little money we had. + +The Indians are wiser. We have already seen that they have a confused +knowledge that a great robber, named Alexander, came among them with +other robbers; but they scarcely ever speak of him. + +An Italian antiquarian, passing a few years ago through Vannes in +Brittany, was quite astonished to hear the learned men of Vannes boast +of Caesar's stay in their town. "No doubt," said he, "you have monuments +of that great man?" "Yes," answered the most notable among them, "we +will show you the place where that hero had the whole senate of our +province hanged, to the number of six hundred." + +"Some ignorant fellows, who had found a hundred beams under ground, +advanced in the journals in 1755 that they were the remains of a bridge +built by Caesar; but I proved to them in my dissertation of 1756 that +they were the gallows on which that hero had our parliament tied up. +What other town in Gaul can say as much? We have the testimony of the +great Caesar himself. He says in his Commentaries' that we 'are fickle +and prefer liberty to slavery.' He charges us with having been so +insolent as to take hostages of the Romans, to whom we had given +hostages, and to be unwilling to return them unless our own were given +up. He taught us good behavior." + +"He did well," replied the virtuoso, "his right was incontestable. It +was, however, disputed, for you know that when he vanquished the +emigrant Swiss, to the number of three hundred and sixty-eight thousand, +and there were not more than a hundred and ten thousand left, he had a +conference in Alsace with a German king named Ariovistus, and Ariovistus +said to him: 'I come to plunder Gaul, and I will not suffer any one to +plunder it but myself;' after which these good Germans, who were come to +lay waste the country, put into the hands of their witches two Roman +knights, ambassadors from Caesar; and these witches were on the point of +burning them and offering them to their gods, when Caesar came and +delivered them by a victory. We must confess that the right on both +sides was equal, and that Tacitus had good reason for bestowing so many +praises on the manners of the ancient Germans." + +This conversation gave rise to a very warm dispute between the learned +men of Vannes and the antiquarian. Several of the Bretons could not +conceive what was the virtue of the Romans in deceiving one after +another all the nations of Gaul, in making them by turns the instruments +of their own ruin, in butchering one-fourth of the people, and reducing +the other three-fourths to slavery. + +"Oh! nothing can be finer," returned the antiquarian. "I have in my +pocket a medal representing Caesar's triumph at the Capitol; it is in the +best preservation." He showed the medal. A Breton, a tittle rude, took +it and threw it into the river, exclaiming: "Oh! that I could so serve +all who use their power and their skill to oppress their fellow-men! +Rome deceived us, disunited us, butchered us, chained us; and at this +day Rome still disposes of many of our benefices; and is it possible +that we have so long and in so many ways been a country of slaves?" + +To the conversation between the Italian antiquarian and the Breton I +shall only add that Perrot d'Ablancourt, the translator of Caesar's +"Commentaries," in his dedication to the great Conde, makes use of these +words: "Does it not seem to you, sir, as if you were reading the life of +some Christian philosopher?" Caesar a Christian philosopher! I wonder he +has not been made a saint. Writers of dedications are remarkable for +saying fine things and much to the purpose. + + + + +CALENDS. + + +The feast of the Circumcision, which the church celebrates on the first +of January, has taken the place of another called the Feast of the +Calends, of Asses, of Fools, or of Innocents, according to the different +places where, and the different days on which, it was held. It was most +commonly at Christmas, the Circumcision, or the Epiphany. + +In the cathedral of Rouen there was on Christmas day a procession, in +which ecclesiastics, chosen for the purpose, represented the prophets of +the Old Testament, who foretold the birth of the Messiah, and--which +may have given the feast its name--Balaam appeared, mounted on a +she-ass; but as Lactantius' poem, and the "Book of Promises," under the +name of St. Prosper, say that Jesus in the manger was recognized by the +ox and the ass, according to the passage Isaiah: "The ox knoweth his +owner, and the ass his master's crib" (a circumstance, however, which +neither the gospel nor the ancient fathers have remarked), it is more +likely that, from this opinion, the Feast of the Ass took its name. + +Indeed, the Jesuit, Theophilus Raynaud, testifies that on St. Stephen's +day there was sung a hymn of the ass, which was also called the Prose of +Fools; and that on St. John's day another was sung, called the Prose of +the Ox. In the library of the chapter of Sens there is preserved a +manuscript of vellum with miniature figures representing the ceremonies +of the Feast of Fools. The text contains a description of it, including +this Prose of the Ass; it was sung by two choirs, who imitated at +intervals and as the burden of the song, the braying of that animal. + +There was elected in the cathedral churches a bishop or archbishop of +the Fools, which election was confirmed by all sorts of buffooneries, +played off by way of consecration. This bishop officiated pontifically +and gave his blessing to the people, before whom he appeared bearing the +mitre, the crosier, and even the archiepiscopal cross. In those +churches which held immediately from the Holy See, a pope of the Fools +was elected, who officiated in all the decorations of papacy. All the +clergy assisted in the mass, some dressed in women's apparel, others as +buffoons, or masked in a grotesque and ridiculous manner. Not content +with singing licentious songs in the choir, they sat and played at dice +on the altar, at the side of the officiator. When the mass was over they +ran, leaped, and danced about the church, uttering obscene words, +singing immodest songs, and putting themselves in a thousand indecent +postures, sometimes exposing themselves almost naked. They then had +themselves drawn about the streets in tumbrels full of filth, that they +might throw it at the mob which gathered round them. The looser part of +the seculars would mix among the clergy, that they might play some +fool's part in the ecclesiastical habit. + +This feast was held in the same manner in the convents of monks and +nuns, as Naude testifies in his complaint to Gassendi, in 1645, in which +he relates that at Antibes, in the Franciscan monastery, neither the +officiating monks nor the guardian went to the choir on the day of the +Innocents. The lay brethren occupied their places on that day, and, +clothed in sacerdotal decorations, torn and turned inside out, made a +sort of office. They held books turned upside down, which they seemed to +be reading through spectacles, the glasses of which were made of orange +peel; and muttered confused words, or uttered strange cries, +accompanied by extravagant contortions. + +The second register of the church of Autun, by the secretary Rotarii, +which ends with 1416, says, without specifying the day, that at the +Feast of Fools an ass was led along with a clergyman's cape on his back, +the attendants singing: "He haw! Mr. Ass, he haw!" + +Ducange relates a sentence of the officialty of Viviers, upon one +William, who, having been elected fool-bishop in 1400, had refused to +perform the solemnities and to defray the expenses customary on such +occasions. + +And, to conclude, the registers of St. Stephen, at Dijon, in 1521, +without mentioning the day, that the vicars ran about the streets with +drums, fifes, and other instruments, and carried lamps before the +_pre-chantre_ of the Fools, to whom the honor of the feast principally +belonged. But the parliament of that city, by a decree of January 19, +1552, forbade the celebration of this feast, which had already been +condemned by several councils, and especially by a circular of March 11, +1444, sent to all the clergy in the kingdom by the Paris university. +This letter, which we find at the end of the works of Peter of Blois, +says that this feast was, in the eyes of the clergy, so well imagined +and so Christian, that those who sought to suppress it were looked on as +excommunicated; and the Sorbonne doctor, John des Lyons, in his +discourse against the paganism of the Roiboit, informs us that a doctor +of divinity publicly maintained at Auxerre, about the close of the +fifteenth century, that "the feast of Fools was no less pleasing to God +than the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; +besides, that it was of much higher antiquity in the church." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2 +(of 10), by Francois-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY *** + +***** This file should be named 35622.txt or 35622.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/6/2/35622/ + +Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe +at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously +made available by the Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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