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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 35628 ***
+
+A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
+
+VOLUME VIII
+
+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 XII
+
+
+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. VIII
+
+ALLEGORICAL BUST OF VOLTAIRE--frontispiece
+
+THE INITIATE BANISHING THE PRIEST
+
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+
+JOHN CALVIN
+
+
+[Illustration: Allegorical bust of Voltaire.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VOLTAIRE
+
+A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY.
+
+IN TEN VOLUMES
+
+VOL. VIII
+
+MONEY--PRIVILEGE
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MONEY.
+
+
+A word made use of to express gold. "Sir, will you lend me a hundred
+louis d'or?" "Sir, I would with all my heart, but I have no money; I am
+out of ready money." The Italian will say to you: "_Signore, non ha di
+danari_"--"I have no deniers."
+
+Harpagon asks Maître Jacques: "Wilt thou make a good entertainment?"
+"Yes, if you will give me plenty of money."
+
+We continually inquire which of the countries of Europe is the richest
+in money? By that we mean, which is the people who circulate the most
+metals representative of objects of commerce? In the same manner we ask,
+which is the poorest? and thirty contending nations present
+themselves--the Westphalian, Limousin, Basque, Tyrolese, Valois, Grison,
+Istrian, Scotch, and Irish, the Swiss of a small canton, and above all
+the subjects of the pope.
+
+In deciding which has most, we hesitate at present between France,
+Spain, and Holland, which had none in 1600.
+
+Formerly, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the
+province of the papal treasury had no doubt the most ready money, and
+therefore the greatest trade. How do you sell that? would be asked of a
+theological merchant, who replied, For as much as the people are fools
+enough to give me.
+
+All Europe then sent its money to the Roman court, who gave in change
+consecrated beads, agnuses, indulgences plenary and limited,
+dispensations, confirmations, exemptions, benedictions, and even
+excommunications against those whom the subscriber chose, and who had
+not sufficient faith in the court of Rome.
+
+The Venetians sold nothing of all this, but they traded with all the
+West by Alexandria, and it was through them only that we had pepper and
+cinnamon. The money which went not to the papal treasury came to them,
+excepting a little to the Tuscans and Genoese. All the other kingdoms of
+Europe were so poor in ready money that Charles VIII. was obliged to
+borrow the jewels of the duchess of Savoy and put them in pawn, to raise
+funds to conquer Naples, which he soon lost again. The Venetians
+supported stronger armies than his. A noble Venetian had more gold in
+his coffers, and more vessels of silver on his table, than the emperor
+Maximilian surnamed "_Pochi danari._"
+
+Things changed when the Portuguese traded with India as conquerors, and
+the Spaniards subjugated Mexico and Peru with six or seven hundred men.
+We know that then the commerce of Venice, and the other towns of Italy
+all fell to the ground. Philip II., the master of Spain, Portugal, the
+Low Countries, the Two Sicilies, and the Milanese, of fifteen hundred
+leagues of coast in Asia, and mines of gold and silver in America, was
+the only rich, and consequently the only powerful prince in Europe. The
+spies whom he gained in France kissed on their knees the Catholic
+doubloons, and the small number of angels and caroluses which circulated
+in that country had not much credit. It is pretended that America and
+Asia brought him in nearly ten million ducats of revenue. He would have
+really bought Europe with his money, but for the iron of Henry IV. and
+the fleets of Queen Elizabeth.
+
+The "_Dictionnaire Encyclopédique,_" in the article on "Argent," quotes
+the "Spirits of Laws," in which it is said: "I have heard deplored a
+thousand times, the blindness of the council of Francis I., who rejected
+the proposal of Christopher Columbus for the discovery of the
+Indies--perhaps this imprudence has turned out a very wise thing."
+
+We see by the enormous power of Philip that the pretended council of
+Francis I. could not have done such a wise thing. But let us content
+ourselves with remarking that Francis I. was not born when it is
+pretended that he refused the offers of Christopher Columbus. The
+Genoese captain landed in America in 1492, and Francis I. was born in
+1497, and did not ascend the throne until 1515. Let us here compare the
+revenues of Henry III., Henry IV., and Queen Elizabeth, with those of
+Philip II. The ordinary income of Elizabeth was only one hundred
+thousand pound sterling, and with extras it was, one year with another,
+four hundred thousand; but she required this surplus to defend herself
+from Philip II. Without extreme economy she would have been lost, and
+England with her.
+
+The revenue of Henry III. indeed increased to thirty millions of livres
+of his time; this, to the sum that Philip drew from the Indies, was as
+three to ten; but not more than a third of this money entered into the
+coffers of Henry III., who was very prodigal, greatly robbed, and
+consequently very poor. We find that Philip II. in one article was ten
+times richer than Henry.
+
+As to Henry IV., it is not worth while to compare his treasures with
+those of Philip II. Until the Peace of Vervins, he had only what he
+could borrow or win at the point of his sword; and he lived as a
+knight-errant, until the time in which he became the first king in
+Europe. England had always been so poor that King Edward III. was the
+first king who coined money of gold.
+
+Would we know what became of the money which flowed continually from
+Mexico and Peru into Spain? It entered the pockets of the French,
+English and Dutch, who traded with Cadiz under Spanish names; and who
+sent to America the productions of their manufactories. A great part of
+this money goes to the East Indies to pay for spices, cotton, saltpetre,
+sugar, candy, tea, cloths, diamonds, and monkeys.
+
+We may afterwards demand, what is become of all the treasures of the
+Indies? I answer that Shah Thamas Kouli-Khan or Shah Nadir had carried
+away all those of the great Mogul, together with his jewels. You would
+know where those jewels are, and this money that Shah Nadir carried with
+him into Persia? A part was hidden in the earth during the civil wars;
+predatory leaders made use of the rest to raise troops against one
+another; for, as Cæsar very well remarks: "With money we get soldiers,
+and with soldiers we steal money."
+
+Your curiosity is not yet satisfied; you are troubled to know what have
+become of the treasures of Sesostris, of Crœ, Cyrus, Nebuchadnezzar, and
+above all of Solomon, who, it is said, had to his own share equal to
+twenty millions and more of our pounds in his coffers.
+
+I will tell you. It is spread all over the world. Things find their
+level in time. Be sure, that in the time of Cyrus, the Gauls, Germany,
+Denmark, Poland, and Russia, had not a crown. Besides, that which is
+lost in gilding, which is fooled away upon our Lady of Loretto, and
+other places, and which has been swallowed up by the avaricious sea must
+be counted.
+
+How did the Romans under their great Romulus, the son of Mars, and a
+vestal, and under the devout Numa Pompilius? They had a Jupiter of oak;
+rudely carved huts for palaces; a handful of hay at the end of a stick
+for a standard; and not a piece of money of twelve sous value in their
+pockets. Our coachmen have gold watches that the seven kings of Rome,
+the Camilluses, Manliuses, and Fabiuses, could not have paid for.
+
+If by chance the wife of a receiver-general of finances was to have this
+chapter read at her toilette by the bel-esprit of the house, she would
+have a strange contempt for the Romans of the three first centuries, and
+would not allow a Manlius, Curius, or Fabius to enter her antechamber,
+should he come on foot, and not have wherewithal to take his part at
+play.
+
+Their ready money was of brass. It served at once for arms and money.
+They fought and reckoned with brass. Three or four pounds of brass, of
+twelve ounces weight, paid for an ox. They bought necessaries at market,
+as we buy them at present; and men had, as in all times, food, clothing,
+and habitations. The Romans, poorer than their neighbors, conquered
+them, and continually augmented their territory for the space of five
+hundred years, before they coined silver money.
+
+The soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus in Sweden had nothing but copper money
+for their pay, before the time that they made conquests out of their own
+country.
+
+Provided we have a pledge of exchange for the necessary things of life,
+commerce will continually go on. It signifies not whether this pledge be
+of shells or paper. Gold and silver have prevailed everywhere, only
+because they have been the most rare.
+
+It was in Asia that the first manufactures of money of these two metals
+commenced, because Asia was the cradle of all the arts.
+
+There certainly was no money in the Trojan war. Gold and silver passed
+by weight; Agamemnon might have had a treasure, but certainly no money.
+
+What has made several hardy scholars suspect that the "Pentateuch" was
+not written until the time in which the Hebrews began to procure coins
+from their neighbors is that in more than one passage mention is made of
+shekels. It is there said that Abraham, who was a stranger and had not
+an inch of land in the country of Canaan, bought there a field and a
+cave in which to bury his wife, for four hundred shekels of silver
+current money. The judicious Dom Calmet values this sum at four hundred
+and forty-eight livres, six sous, nine deniers, according to the ancient
+calculation adopted at random, in which the silver mark was of
+six-and-twenty livres value. As the silver mark has, however, increased
+by half the sum, the present value would be eight hundred and ninety-six
+livres.
+
+Now, as in that time there was no coined money answering to the word
+"_pecunia,_" that would make a little difficulty, from which it is not
+easy to extricate ourselves.
+
+Another difficulty is, that in one place it is said that Abraham bought
+this field in Hebron, and in another at Sichem. On that point consult
+the venerable Bede, Raban, Maure, and Emanuel Sa.
+
+We will now speak of the riches which David left to Solomon in coined
+money. Some make it amount to twenty-one or twenty-two millions of
+French livres, others to five-and-twenty. There is no keeper of the
+royal treasure, nor _tefterdan_ of the grand Turk's, who can exactly
+compute the treasure of King Solomon; but the young bachelors of Oxford
+and the Sorbonne make out the amount without difficulty.
+
+I will not speak of the innumerable adventures which have happened to
+money since it has been stamped, marked, valued, altered, increased,
+buried, and stolen, having through all its transformations constantly
+remained the idol of mankind. It is so much loved that among all
+Christian princes there still exists an old law which is not to allow
+gold and silver to go out of their kingdoms. This law implies one of two
+things--either that these princes reign over fools who lavish their
+money in a foreign country for their pleasure, or that we must not pay
+our debts to foreigners. It is, however, clear that no person is foolish
+enough to give his money without reason, and that, when we are in debt
+to a foreigner, we should pay him either in bills of exchange,
+commodities, or legitimate coin. Thus this law has not been executed
+since we began to open our eyes--which is not long ago.
+
+There are many things to be said on coined money; as on the unjust and
+ridiculous augmentation of specie, which suddenly loses considerable
+sums to a state on the melting down again; on the re-stamping, with an
+augmentation of ideal value, which augmentation invites all your
+neighbors and all your enemies to re-coin your money and gain at your
+expense; in short, on twenty other equally ruinous expedients. Several
+new books are full of judicious remarks upon this subject. It is more
+easy to write on money than to obtain it; and those who gain it, jest
+much at those who only know how to write about it.
+
+In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as
+possible from one part of the citizens to give to the other.
+
+It is demanded, if it be possible radically to ruin a kingdom of which
+the soil in general is fertile. We answer that the thing is not
+practicable, since from the war of 1689 till the end of 1769, in which
+we write, everything has continually been done which could ruin France
+and leave it without resource, and yet it never could be brought about.
+It is a sound body which has had a fever of eighty years with relapses,
+and which has been in the hands of quacks, but which will survive.
+
+
+
+
+MONSTERS.
+
+
+The definition of monsters is more difficult than is generally imagined.
+Are we to apply the term to animals of enormous size; to a fish, or a
+serpent fifteen feet long, for instance? There are some, however, that
+are twenty or even thirty feet long, in comparison with which of course
+the others, instead of enormous or monstrous, would appear small.
+
+There are monsters through defect. But, if a generally well-made and
+handsome man were destitute from his birth of the little toes and little
+fingers, would he be a monster? Teeth are more necessary to a man; I
+have seen a man who never had a tooth. He was in other respects pleasing
+in his person. Being destitute of the organs of generation, still more
+necessary in the system of nature, would not constitute the person thus
+defective a monster.
+
+There are monsters by excess as well as by defect. But those who have
+six fingers, or three testicles, or two perforations instead of one, or
+the spine elongated in the form of a small tail, are not considered
+monsters.
+
+The third kind consists of those which have members of other animals;
+as, for example, a lion with the wings of an ostrich, or a serpent with
+the wings of an eagle, like the griffin and ixion of the Jews. But all
+bats have wings, and flying fish have them, without being monsters.
+
+Let us, then, reserve the name for animals whose deformities strike us
+with horror.
+
+Yet the first negro, upon this idea, was a monster to white women; and
+the most admirable of European beauties was a monster in the eyes of
+negroes.
+
+If Polyphemus and the Cyclops had really existed, people who carried an
+eye on each side of the root of the nose, would, in the island of
+Lipari, and the neighborhood of Mount Ætna, have been pronounced
+monsters.
+
+I once saw, at a fair, a young woman with four nipples, or rather dugs,
+and what resembled the tail of a cow hanging down between them. She was
+decidedly a monster when she displayed her neck, but was rather an
+agreeable woman in appearance when she concealed it.
+
+Centaurs and Minotaurs would have been monsters, but beautiful monsters.
+The well-proportioned body of a horse serving as a base or support to
+the upper part of a man would have been a masterpiece of nature's
+workmanship on earth; just as we draw the masterpieces of heaven--those
+spirits which we call angels, and which we paint and sculpture in our
+churches--adorned sometimes with two wings, sometimes with four, and
+sometimes even with six.
+
+We have already asked, with the judicious Locke, what is the boundary of
+distinction between the human and merely animal figure; what is the
+point of monstrosity at which it would be proper to take your stand
+against baptizing an infant, against admitting it as a member of the
+human species, against according to it the possession of a soul? We have
+seen that this boundary is as difficult to be settled as it is difficult
+to ascertain what a soul is; for there certainly are none who know what
+it is but theologians.
+
+Why should the satyrs which St. Jerome saw, the offspring of women and
+baboons, have been reputed monsters? Might it not be thought, on the
+contrary, that their lot was in reality happier than ours? Must they not
+have possessed more strength and more agility? and would they not have
+laughed at us as an unfortunate race, to whom nature had refused both
+tails and clothing? A mule, the offspring of two different species; a
+jumart, the offspring of a bull and a mare; a tarin, the offspring, we
+are told, of a canary bird and hen linnet--are not monsters.
+
+But how is it that mules, jumarts, and tarins, which are thus produced
+in nature, do not themselves reproduce? And how do the seminists,
+ovists, or animalculists, explain, upon their respective theories, the
+formation of these mongrel productions?
+
+I will tell you plainly, that they do not explain it at all. The
+seminists never discovered how it is that the ass communicates to his
+mule offspring a resemblance only in the ears and crupper; the ovists
+neither inform us, nor understand how a mare should contain in her egg
+anything but an animal of her own species. And the animalculists cannot
+perceive how a minute embryo of an ass could introduce its ears into the
+matrix of a mare.
+
+The theorist who, in a work entitled the "Philosophy of Venus,"
+maintained that all animals and all monsters are formed by attraction,
+was still less successful than those just mentioned, in accounting for
+phenomena so common and yet so surprising.
+
+Alas! my good friends! you none of you know how you originate your own
+offspring; you are ignorant of the secrets of nature in your own
+species, and yet vainly attempt to develop them in the mule!
+
+It may, however, be confidently presumed, in reference to a monster by
+defect, that the whole seminal matter did not reach its destined
+appropriation; or, perhaps, that the small spermatic worm had lost a
+portion of its substance; or, perhaps that the egg was crazed and
+injured. With respect to a monster by excess, you may imagine that some
+portions of the seminal matter superabounded; that of two spermatic
+worms united, one could only animate a single member of the animal, and
+that that member remains in supererogation; that two eggs have blended
+together, and that one of them has produced but a single member, which
+was joined to the body of the other.
+
+But what would you say of so many monstrosities arising from the
+addition of parts of animals of a totally different species? How would
+you explain a crab on the neck of a girl? or the tail of a rat upon the
+thigh? or, above all, the four dugs and tail of a cow, which was
+exhibited at the fair at St. Germain? You would be reduced to the
+supposition that the unfortunate woman's mother belonged to the very
+extraordinary family of _Pasiphæ._
+
+Let each of us boldly and honestly say, How little is it that I really
+know.
+
+
+
+
+MORALITY.
+
+
+Babblers, preachers, extravagant controversialists! endeavor to remember
+that your master never announced that the sacrament was the visible sign
+of an invisible thing; He has nowhere admitted four cardinal virtues,
+and three divine ones. He has never decided whether His mother came into
+the world maculate or immaculate. Cease, therefore, to repeat things
+which never entered into His mind. He has said, in conformity with a
+truth as ancient as the world--Love God and your neighbor. Abide by that
+precept, miserable cavillers! Preach morality and nothing more. Observe
+it, and let the tribunals no longer echo with your prosecutions; snatch
+no longer, by the claw of an attorney, their morsel of bread from the
+widow and the orphan. Dispute not concerning some petty benefice with
+the same fury as the papacy was disputed in the great schism of the
+West. Monks! place not to the utmost of your power, the universe under
+contribution, and we may then be able to believe you. I have just read
+these words in a piece of declamation in fourteen volumes, entitled,
+"The History of the Lower Empire"; "The Christians had a morality, but
+the Pagans had none."
+
+Oh, M. Le Beau! author of these fourteen volumes, where did you pick up
+this absurdity? What becomes of the morality of Socrates, of Zaleucus,
+of Charondas, of Cicero, of Epictetus, and of Marcus Aurelius?
+
+There is but one morality, M. Le Beau, as there is but one geometry. But
+you will tell me that the greater part of mankind are ignorant of
+geometry. True; but if they apply a little to the study of it, all men
+draw the same conclusions. Agriculturists, manufacturers, artisans, do
+not go through a regular course of morality; they read neither the "_De
+Finibus_" of Cicero, nor the "Ethics" of Aristotle; but as soon as they
+reflect, they are, without knowing it, disciples of Cicero. The Indian
+dyer, the Tartarian shepherd, and the English seaman, are acquainted
+with justice and injustice. Confucius did not invent a system of morals,
+as men construct physical systems. He found his in the hearts of all
+mankind.
+
+This morality existed in the bosom of the prætor Festus, when the Jews
+pressed him to put Paul to death for having taken strangers into their
+temple. "Learn," said he, "that the Romans never condemn any one
+unheard."
+
+If the Jews were deficient in a moral sense, the Romans were not, and
+paid it homage.
+
+There is no morality in superstition; it exists not in ceremonies, and
+has nothing to do with dogmas. We cannot repeat too frequently that
+dogmas differ, but that morality is the same among all men who make use
+of their reason. Morality proceeds from God, like light; our
+superstitions are only darkness. Reflect, reader; pursue the truth, and
+draw the consequences.
+
+
+
+
+MOSES.
+
+SECTION I.
+
+
+Philosophy, of which we sometimes pass the boundaries, researches of
+antiquity, and the spirit of discussion and criticism, have been carried
+so far that several learned men have finally doubted if there ever was a
+Moses, and whether this man was not an imaginary being, such as were
+Perseus, Bacchus, Atlas, Penthesilea, Vesta, Rhea Silvia, Isis,
+Sammonocodom, Fo, Mercury, Trismegistus, Odin, Merlin, Francus, Robert
+the Devil, and so many other heroes of romance whose lives and prowess
+have been recorded.
+
+It is not very likely, say the incredulous, that a man ever existed
+whose life is a continual prodigy.
+
+It is not very likely that he worked so many stupendous miracles in
+Egypt, Arabia, and Syria, without their being known throughout the
+world.
+
+It is not likely that no Egyptian or Greek writer should have
+transmitted these miracles to posterity. They are mentioned by the Jews
+alone; and in the time that this history was written by them, they were
+not known to any nation--not indeed until towards the second century.
+The first author who expressly quotes the Book of Moses is Longinus,
+minister of Queen Zenobia, in the time of the emperor Aurelian.
+
+It is to be remarked that the author of the "_Mercury Trismegistus,_"
+who certainly was an Egyptian, says not a single word about this Moses.
+
+If a single ancient author had related a single one of these miracles,
+Eusebius would no doubt have triumphed in this evidence, either in his
+"History" or in his "Evangelical Preparation."
+
+It is true, he mentions authors who have quoted his name, but none who
+have cited his prodigies. Before him, the Jews, Josephus and Philo, who
+have so much celebrated their own nation, sought all the writers in
+which the name of Moses is found, but there was not a single one who
+made the least mention of the marvellous actions attributed to him.
+
+In this silence of the whole world, the incredulous reason with a
+temerity which refutes itself.
+
+The Jews are the only people who possessed the Pentateuch, which they
+attribute to Moses. It is said, even in their books, that this
+Pentateuch was not known until the reign of their king Josiah,
+thirty-six years before the destruction and captivity of Jerusalem; and
+they then only possessed a single copy, which the priest Hilkiah found
+at the bottom of a strong box, while counting money. The priest sent it
+to the king by his scribe Shaphan. All this, say they, necessarily
+obscures the authenticity of the Pentateuch.
+
+In short, if the Pentateuch was known to all the Jews, would
+Solomon--the wise Solomon, inspired by God Himself to build a
+temple--have ornamented this temple with so many statues, contrary to
+the express order of Moses?
+
+All the Jewish prophets, who prophesied in the name of the Lord from the
+time of Moses till that of King Josiah, would they not have been
+supported in all their prophecies by the laws of Moses? Would they not a
+thousand times have quoted his own words? Would they not have commented
+upon them? None of them, however, quote two lines--no one follows the
+text of Moses--they even oppose them in several places.
+
+According to these unbelievers, the books attributed to Moses were only
+written among the Babylonians during the captivity, or immediately
+afterwards by Esdras. Indeed, we see only Persian and Chaldæan
+terminations in the Jewish writings: "_Babel,_" gate of God;
+"_Phegor-beel,_" or "_Beel-phegor,_" god of the precipices;
+"_Zebuth-beel,_" or "_Beel-zebuth,_" god of insects; "_Bethel,_" house
+of God; "_Daniel,_" judgment of God; "_Gabriel,_" man of God; "_Jahel,_"
+afflicted of God; "_Jael,_" the life of God; "_Israel,_" seeing God;
+"_Oviel,_" strength of God; "_Raphael,_" help of God; "_Uriel,_" fire of
+God.
+
+Thus, all is foreign in the Jewish nation, a stranger itself in
+Palestine; circumcision, ceremonies, sacrifices, the ark, the cherubim,
+the goat Hazazel, baptism of justice, simple baptism, proofs,
+divination, interpretation of dreams, enchantment of serpents--nothing
+originated among these people, nothing was invented by them.
+
+The celebrated Lord Bolingbroke believed not that Moses ever existed; he
+thought he saw in the Pentateuch a crowd of contradictions and puzzling
+chronological and geographical faults; names of towns not then built,
+precepts given to kings at a time when not only the Jews had no kings,
+but in which it is probable there were none, since they lived in
+deserts, in tents, in the manner of the Bedouin Arabs.
+
+What appears to him above all the most palpable contradiction is the
+gift of forty-eight cities with their suburbs, made to the Levites in a
+country in which there was not a single village; and it is principally
+on these forty-eight cities that he refutes Abbadie, and even has the
+cruelty to treat him with the aversion and contempt of a lord of the
+Upper Chamber, or a minister of state towards a petty foreign priest who
+would be so impertinent as to reason with him.
+
+I will take the liberty of representing to Viscount Bolingbroke, and to
+all those who think with him, not only that the Jewish nation has always
+believed in the existence of Moses, and in that of his books, but that
+even Jesus Christ has acknowledged him. The four Gospels, the Acts of
+the Apostles, recognize him. St. Matthew says expressly, that Moses and
+Elias appeared to Jesus Christ on the mountain during the night of the
+transfiguration, and St. Luke says the same.
+
+Jesus Christ declares in St. Matthew that he is not come to abolish this
+law, but to accomplish it. In the New Testament, we are often referred
+to the law of Moses and to the prophets. The whole Church has always
+believed the Pentateuch written by Moses; and further, of five hundred
+different societies, which have been so long established in Christendom,
+none have ever doubted the existence of this great prophet. We must,
+therefore, submit our reason, as so many men have done before us.
+
+I know very well that I shall gain nothing in the mind of the viscount,
+or of those of his opinion. They are too well persuaded that the Jewish
+books were not written until very late, and during the captivity of the
+two tribes which remained. But we shall possess the consolation of
+having the Church with us.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+If you would be instructed and amused with antiquity, read the life of
+Moses in the article on "Apocrypha."
+
+In vain have several scholars believed that the Pentateuch could not
+have been written by Moses. They say that it is affirmed even by the
+Scripture, that the first known copy was found in the time of King
+Josiah, and that this single copy was brought to the king by the
+secretary Shaphan. Now, between the time of Moses and this adventure of
+the secretary Shaphan, there were one thousand one hundred and
+sixty-seven years, by the Hebrew computation. For God appeared to Moses
+in the burning bush, in the year of the world 2213, and the secretary
+Shaphan published the book of the law in the year of the world 3380.
+This book found under Josiah, was unknown until the return from the
+Babylonish captivity; and it is said that it was Esdras, inspired by
+God, who brought the Holy Scriptures to light.
+
+But whether it was Esdras or another who digested this book is
+absolutely indifferent, since it is inspired. It is not said in the
+Pentateuch, that Moses was the author; we might, therefore, be permitted
+to attribute it to the declaration of some other divine mind, if the
+Church had not decided that the book is by Moses.
+
+Some opposers add, that no prophet has quoted the books of the
+Pentateuch, that there is no mention of it either in the Psalms or in
+the books attributed to Solomon, in Jeremiah or Isaiah, or, in short, in
+any canonical book of the Jews. Words answering to those of Genesis,
+Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, are not found in any other
+language recognized by them as authentic. Others, still more bold, have
+put the following questions:
+
+1. In what language could Moses have written in a savage desert? It
+could only be in Egyptian; for by this same book we are told that Moses
+and all his people were born in Egypt. It is therefore probable that
+they spoke no other language. The Egyptians had yet made no use of
+papyrus; they engraved hieroglyphics on tables of wood or marble. It is
+even said, that the tables of the commandments were engraved on polished
+stones, which required prodigious time and labor.
+
+2. Is it likely, that in a desert where the Jewish people had neither
+shoemaker nor tailor--in which the God of the universe was obliged to
+work a continual miracle to preserve the old dresses and shoes of the
+Jews--men could be found clever enough to engrave the five books of the
+Pentateuch on marble or wood? You will say, that they found laborers who
+made a golden calf in one night, and who afterwards reduced the gold
+into powder--an operation impracticable to common chemistry, which was
+not yet discovered. Who constructed the tabernacle? Who ornamented
+thirty columns of brass with capitals of silver? Who wove and
+embroidered veils of linen with hyacinth, purple, and scarlet? An
+account that supports the opinion of the contradictors. They answer,
+that it was not possible that in a desert, where they were in want of
+everything, for them to perform works so intricate; that they must have
+begun by making shoes and tunics; that those who wanted necessaries
+could not indulge in luxuries; and that it is an evident contradiction
+to say, that they had founders, engravers, and embroiderers, when they
+had neither clothes nor bread.
+
+3. If Moses had written the first chapter of Genesis, would all young
+people have been forbidden to read the first chapter? Would so little
+respect have been paid to the legislator? If it was Moses who said that
+God punished the iniquity of the fathers to the fourth generation, would
+Ezekiel have dared to say the contrary?
+
+4. If Moses wrote Leviticus, could he have contradicted it in
+Deuteronomy? Leviticus forbids a woman to marry her brother, Deuteronomy
+commands it.
+
+5. Could Moses have spoken of towns which existed not in his time? Would
+he have said that towns which, in regard to him, were on the east of the
+Jordan were on the west?
+
+6. Would he have assigned forty-eight cities to the Levites, in a
+country in which there were never ten, and in a desert in which he had
+always wandered without habitation?
+
+7. Would he have prescribed rules for the Jewish kings, when not only
+there were no kings among this people, but they were held in horror, and
+it was not probable they would ever have any? What! would Moses have
+given precepts for the conduct of kings who came not until five hundred
+years after him, and have said nothing in relation to the judges and
+priests who succeeded him? Does not this religion lead us to believe
+that the Pentateuch was composed in the time of kings, and that the
+ceremonies instituted by Moses were only traditional.
+
+8. Suppose he had said to the Jews: I have made you depart to the number
+of six hundred thousand combatants from the land of Egypt under the
+protection of your God? Would not the Jews have answered him: You must
+have been very timid not to lead us against Pharaoh of Egypt; he could
+not have opposed to us an army of two hundred thousand men. There never
+was such an army on foot in Egypt; we should have conquered them easily;
+we should have been the masters of their country. What! has the God, who
+talks to you, to please us slain all the first-born of Egypt, which, if
+there were in this country three hundred thousand families, makes three
+hundred thousand men destroyed in one night, simply to avenge us, and
+yet you have not seconded your God and given us that fertile country
+which nothing could withhold from us. On the contrary you have made us
+depart from Egypt as thieves and cowards, to perish in deserts between
+mountains and precipices. You might, at least, have conducted us by the
+direct road to this land of Canaan, to which we have no right, but which
+you have promised us, and on which we have not yet been able to enter.
+
+It was natural that, from the land of Goshen, we should march towards
+Tyre and Sidon, along the Mediterranean; but you made us entirely pass
+the Isthmus of Suez, and re-enter Egypt, proceed as far as Memphis, when
+we find ourselves at Beel-Sephor on the borders of the Red Sea, turning
+our backs on the land of Canaan, having journeyed eighty leagues in this
+Egypt which we wished to avoid, so as at last to nearly perish between
+the sea and the army of Pharaoh!
+
+If you had wished to deliver us to our enemies, you could not have taken
+a different route and other measures. God has saved us by a miracle, you
+say; the sea opened to let us pass; but after such a favor, should He
+let us die of hunger and fatigue in the horrible deserts of
+Kadesh-barnea, Mara, Elim, Horeb, and Sinai? All our fathers perished in
+these frightful solitudes; and you tell us, at the end of forty years,
+that God took particular care of them.
+
+This is what these murmuring Jews, these unjust children of the
+vagabonds who died in the desert, might have said to Moses, if he had
+read Exodus and Genesis to them. And what might they not have said and
+done on the article of the golden calf? What! you dare to tell us that
+your brother made a calf for our fathers, when you were with God on the
+mountain? You, who sometimes tell us that you have spoken to God face to
+face, and sometimes that you could only see His back! But no matter, you
+were with this God, and your brother cast a golden calf in one day, and
+gave it to us to adore it; and instead of punishing your unworthy
+brother, you make him our chief priest, and order your Levites to slay
+twenty-three thousand men of your people. Would our fathers have
+suffered this? Would they have allowed themselves to be sacrificed like
+so many victims by sanguinary priests? You tell us that, not content
+with this incredible butchery, you have further massacred twenty-four
+thousand of our poor followers because one of them slept with a
+Midianitish woman, whilst you yourself espoused a Midianite; and yet you
+add, that you are the mildest of men! A few more instances of this
+mildness, and not a soul would have remained.
+
+No; if you have been capable of all this cruelty, if you can have
+exercised it, you would be the most barbarous of men, and no punishment
+would suffice to expiate so great a crime.
+
+These are nearly the objections which all scholars make to those who
+think that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch. But we answer them,
+that the ways of God are not those of men; that God has proved,
+conducted, and abandoned His people by a wisdom which is unknown to us;
+that the Jews themselves, for more than two thousand years, have
+believed that Moses is the author of these books; that the Church, which
+has succeeded the synagogue, and which is equally infallible, has
+decided this point of controversy; and that scholars should remain
+silent when the Church pronounces.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+We cannot doubt that there was a Moses, a legislator of the Jews. We
+will here examine his history, following merely the rules of criticism;
+the Divine is not submitted to similar examination. We must confine
+ourselves to the probable; men can only judge as men. It is very natural
+and very probable that an Arab nation dwelt on the confines of Egypt, on
+the side of Arabia Deserta; that it was tributary or slave to the
+Egyptian kings, and that afterwards it sought to establish itself
+elsewhere; but that which reason alone cannot admit is, that this
+nation, composed of seventy persons at most in the time of Joseph,
+increased in two hundred and fifteen years, from Joseph to Moses, to the
+number of six hundred thousand combatants, according to the Book of
+Exodus, which six hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms imply a
+multitude of about two millions, counting old men, women, and children.
+It is not certainly in the course of nature for a colony of seventy
+persons, as many males as females, to produce in two centuries two
+millions of inhabitants. The calculations made on this progression by
+men very little versed in the things of this world, are falsified by the
+experience of all nations and all times. Children are not made by a
+stroke of the pen. Reflect well that at this rate a population of ten
+thousand persons in two hundred years would produce more inhabitants
+than the globe of the earth could sustain.
+
+Is it any more probable, that these six hundred thousand combatants,
+favored by the Author of nature who worked for them so many prodigies,
+were forced to wander in the deserts in which they died, instead of
+seeking to possess themselves of fertile Egypt?
+
+By these rules of an established and reasonable human criticism, we must
+agree that it is very likely that Moses conducted a small people from
+the confines of Egypt. There was among the Egyptians an ancient
+tradition, related by Plutarch in his "Treatise on Isis and Osiris,"
+that Tiphon, the father of Jerosselaim and Juddecus, fled from Egypt on
+an ass. It is clear from this passage that the ancestors of the Jews,
+the inhabitants of Jerusalem, were supposed to have been fugitives from
+Egypt. A tradition, no less ancient and more general is, that the Jews
+were driven from Egypt, either as a troop of unruly brigands, or a
+people infected with leprosy. This double accusation carries its
+probability even from the land of Goshen, which they had inhabited, a
+neighboring land of the vagabond Arabs, and where the disease of
+leprosy, peculiar to the Arabs, might be common. It appears even by the
+Scripture that this people went from Egypt against their will. The
+seventeenth chapter of Deuteronomy forbids kings to think of leading the
+Jews back to Egypt.
+
+The conformity of several Egyptian and Jewish customs still more
+strengthens the opinion that this people was an Egyptian colony, and
+what gives it a new degree of probability is the feast of the Passover;
+that is to say, of the flight or passage instituted in memory of their
+evasion. This feast alone would be no proof; for among all peoples there
+are solemnities established to celebrate fabulous and incredible events;
+such were most of the feasts of the Greeks and Romans; but a flight from
+one country to another is nothing uncommon, and calls for belief. The
+proof drawn from this feast of the Passover receives a still greater
+force by that of the Tabernacles, in memory of the time in which the
+Jews inhabited the desert on their departure from Egypt. These
+similitudes, united with so many others, prove that a colony really went
+from Egypt, and finally established itself for some time at Palestine.
+
+Almost all the rest is of a kind so marvellous that human sagacity
+cannot digest it. All that we can do is to seek the time in which the
+history of this flight--that is to say, the Book of Exodus--can have
+been written, and to examine the opinions which then prevailed;
+opinions, of which the proof is in the book itself, compared with the
+ancient customs of nations.
+
+With regard to the books attributed to Moses, the most common rules of
+criticism permit us not to believe that he can be the author of them.
+
+1. It is not likely that he spoke of the places by names which were not
+given to them until long afterwards. In this book mention is made of the
+cities of Jair, and every one agrees that they were not so named until
+long after the death of Moses. It also speaks of the country of Dan, and
+the tribe of Dan had not given its name to the country of which it was
+not yet the master.
+
+2. How could Moses have quoted the book of the wars of the Lord, when
+these wars and this book were after his time?
+
+3. How could Moses speak of the pretended defeat of a giant named Og,
+king of Bashan, vanquished in the desert in the last year of his
+government? And how could he add, that he further saw his bed of iron of
+nine cubits long in Rabath? This city of Rabath was the capital of the
+Ammonites, into whose country the Hebrews had not yet penetrated. Is it
+not apparent, that such a passage is the production of a posterior
+writer, which his inadvertence betrays? As an evidence of the victory
+gained over the giant, he brings forward the bed said to be still at
+Rabath, forgetting that it is Moses whom he makes speak, who was dead
+long before.
+
+4. How could Moses have called cities beyond the Jordan, which, with
+regard to him, were on this side? Is it not palpable, that the book
+attributed to him was written a long time after the Israelites had
+crossed this little river Jordan, which they never passed under his
+conduct?
+
+5. Is it likely that Moses told his people, that in the last year of his
+government he took, in the little province of Argob--a sterile and
+frightful country of Arabia Petræa--sixty great towns surrounded with
+high fortified walls, independent of an infinite number of open cities?
+Is it not much more probable that these exaggerations were afterwards
+written by a man who wished to flatter a stupid nation?
+
+6. It is still less likely, that Moses related the miracles with which
+this history is filled.
+
+It is easy to persuade a happy and victorious people that God has fought
+for them; but it is not in human nature that a people should believe a
+hundred miracles in their favor, when all these prodigies ended only in
+making them perish in a desert. Let us examine some of the miracles
+related in Exodus.
+
+7. It appears contradictory and injurious to the divine essence to
+suppose that God, having formed a people to be the sole depository of
+His laws, and to reign over all nations, should send a man of this
+people to demand of the king, their oppressor, permission to go into the
+desert to sacrifice to his God, that this people might escape under the
+pretence of this sacrifice. Our common ideas cannot forbear attaching an
+idea of baseness and knavery to this management, far from recognizing
+the majesty and power of the Supreme Being.
+
+When, immediately after, we read that Moses changed his rod into a
+serpent, before the king, and turned all the waters of the kingdom into
+blood; that he caused frogs to be produced which covered the surface of
+the earth; that he changed all the dust into lice, and filled the air
+with venomous winged insects; that he afflicted all the men and animals
+of the country with frightful ulcers; that he called hail, tempests, and
+thunder, to ruin all the country; that he covered it with locusts; that
+he plunged it in fearful darkness for three days; that, finally, an
+exterminating angel struck with death all the first-born of men and
+animals in Egypt, commencing with the son of the king; again, when we
+afterwards see his people walking across the Red Sea, the waves
+suspended in mountains to the right and left, and later falling on the
+army of Pharaoh, which they swallowed up--when, I say, we read all these
+miracles, the first idea which comes into our minds is, that this
+people, for whom God performed such astonishing things, no doubt became
+the masters of the universe. But, no! the fruit of so many wonders was,
+that they suffered want and hunger in arid sands; and--prodigy upon
+prodigy--all died without seeing the little corner of earth in which
+their descendants afterwards, for some years, established themselves! It
+is no doubt pardonable if we disbelieve this crowd of prodigies, at the
+least of which reason so decidedly revolts.
+
+This reason, left to itself, cannot be persuaded that Moses wrote such
+strange things. How can we make a generation believe so many miracles
+uselessly wrought for it, and all of which, it is said, were performed
+in the desert? What being, enjoying divine power, would employ it in
+preserving the clothes and shoes of these people, after having armed all
+nature in their favor?
+
+It is therefore very natural to think that all this prodigious history
+was written a long time after Moses, as the romances of Charlemagne were
+forged three centuries after him; and as the origins of all nations have
+not been written until they were out of sight, the imagination has been
+left at liberty to invent. The more coarse and unfortunate a people are,
+the more they seek to exalt their ancient history; and what people have
+been longer miserable, or more barbarous, than the Jews?
+
+It is not to be believed that, when they had not wherewithal to make
+shoes in their deserts, under the government of Moses, there were any
+cunning enough to write. We should presume, that the poor creatures born
+in these deserts did not receive a very brilliant education; and that
+the nation only began to read and write when it had some commerce with
+Phœnicia. It was probably in the commencement of monarchy that the Jews,
+feeling they had some genius, wrote the Pentateuch, and adjusted their
+traditions. Would they have made Moses recommend kings to read and write
+his law in a time in which there were no kings? Is it not probable, that
+the seventeenth chapter of Deuteronomy was composed to moderate the
+power of royalty; and that it was written by priests in the time of
+Saul?
+
+It is most likely at this epoch that we must place the digest of the
+Pentateuch. The frequent slaveries to which this people were subject
+seem badly calculated to establish literature in a nation, and to render
+books very common; and the more rare these books were in the
+commencement, the more the authors ventured to fill them with miracles.
+
+The Pentateuch, attributed to Moses, is, no doubt, very ancient; if it
+was put in order in the time of Saul and Solomon, it was about the time
+of the Trojan war, and is one of the most curious monuments of the
+manner of thinking of that time. We see that all known nations, in
+proportion to their ignorance, were fond of prodigies. All was then
+performed by celestial ministry in Egypt, Phrygia, Greece, and Asia.
+
+The authors of the Pentateuch give us to understand that every nation
+has its gods, and that these gods have all nearly an equal power.
+
+If Moses, in the name of God, changed his rod into a serpent, the
+priests of Pharaoh did as much; if he changed all the waters of Egypt
+into blood, even to that which was in the vases, the priests immediately
+performed the same prodigy, without our being able to conceive on what
+waters they performed this metamorphosis; at least, unless they
+expressly created new waters for the purpose. The Jewish writers prefer
+being reduced to this absurdity, rather than allow us to suspect that
+the gods of Egypt had not the power of changing water into blood as well
+as the God of Jacob.
+
+But when the latter fills the land of Egypt with lice, changing all the
+dust into them, His entire superiority appears; the magi cannot imitate
+it, and they make the God of the Jews speak thus: "Pharaoh shall know
+that nothing is equal to me." These words put into his mouth, merely
+mark a being who believes himself more powerful than his rivals; he was
+equalled in the metamorphosis of a rod into a serpent, and in that of
+the waters into blood; but he gains the victory in the article of the
+lice and the following miracles.
+
+This idea of the supernatural power of priests of all countries is
+displayed in several places of Scripture. When Balaam, the priest of the
+little state of a petty king, named Balak, in the midst of deserts, is
+near cursing the Jews, their God appears to him to prevent him. It seems
+that the malediction of Balaam was much to be feared. To restrain this
+priest, it is not enough that God speaks to him, he sends before him an
+angel with a sword, and speaks Himself again by the mouth of his ass.
+All these precautions certainly prove the opinion which then prevailed,
+that the malediction of a priest, whatever it was, drew fatal
+consequences after it.
+
+This idea of a God superior to other gods, though He made heaven and
+earth, was so rooted in all minds, that Solomon in his last prayer
+cries: "Oh, my God! there is no other god like thee in earth or heaven."
+It is this opinion which rendered the Jews so credulous respecting the
+sorceries and enchantments of other nations.
+
+It is this which gave rise to the story of the Witch of Endor, who had
+the power of invoking the shade of Saul. Every people had their
+prodigies and oracles, and it never even came into the minds of any
+nations to doubt the miracles and prophecies of others. They were
+contented with opposing similar arms; it seems as if the priests, in
+denying the prodigies of other nations, feared to discredit their own.
+This kind of theology prevailed a long time over all the earth.
+
+It is not for us to enter here on the detail of all that is written on
+Moses. We speak of his laws in more than one place in this work. We will
+here confine ourselves to remarking how much we are astonished to see a
+legislator inspired by God; a prophet, through whom God Himself speaks,
+proposing to us no future life. There is not a single word in Leviticus,
+which can lead us to suspect the immortality of the soul. The reply to
+this overwhelming difficulty is, that God proportioned Himself to the
+ignorance of the Jews. What a miserable answer! It was for God to
+elevate the Jews to necessary knowledge--not to lower Himself to them.
+If the soul is immortal, if there are rewards and punishments in another
+life, it is necessary for men to be informed of it. If God spoke, He
+must have informed them of this fundamental dogma. What legislator, what
+god but this, proposes to his people wine, oil, and milk alone! What god
+but this always encourages his believers, as a chief of robbers
+encourages his troops, with the hope of plunder only! Once more; it is
+very pardonable for mere human reason simply to see, in such a history,
+the barbarous stupidity of the first ages of a savage people. Man,
+whatever he does, cannot reason otherwise; but if God really is the
+author of the Pentateuch, we must submit without reasoning.
+
+
+
+
+MOTION.
+
+
+A philosopher, in the neighborhood of Mount Krapak, argued with me that
+motion is essential to matter.
+
+"Everything moves," says he; "the sun continually revolves on its own
+axis; the planets do the same, and every planet has many different
+motions; everything is a sieve; everything passes through a sieve; the
+hardest metal is pierced with an infinity of pores, by which escapes a
+constant torrent of vapors that circulate in space. The universe is
+nothing but motion; motion, therefore, is essential to matter."
+
+"But, sir," said I to him, "might not any one say, in answer to what you
+have advanced: This block of marble, this cannon, this house, this
+motion, are not in motion; therefore motion is not essential?"
+
+"They do move," he replied; "they move in space together with the earth
+by the common motion, and they move so incontestably--although
+insensibly--by their own peculiar motion, that, at the expiration of an
+indefinite number of centuries, there will remain not a single atom of
+the masses which now constitute them, from which particles are detaching
+themselves every passing moment."
+
+"But, my good sir, I can conceive matter to be in a state of rest;
+motion, therefore, cannot be considered essential to it."
+
+"Why, certainly, it must be of vast consequence whether you conceive it
+to be, or conceive it not to be, in a state of rest. I still repeat,
+that it is impossible for it to be so."
+
+"This is a bold assertion; but what, let me ask you, will you say to
+chaos?"
+
+"Oh, chaos! If we were inclined to talk about chaos, I should tell you
+that all was necessarily in motion, and that 'the breath of God moved
+upon the waters'; that the element of water was recognized in existence,
+and that the other elements existed also; that, consequently, fire
+existed; that there cannot be fire without motion, that motion is
+essential to fire. You will not succeed much with chaos."
+
+"Alas! who can succeed with all these subjects of dispute? But, as you
+are so very fully acquainted with these things, I must request you to
+inform me why one body impels another: whether it is because matter is
+impenetrable, or because two bodies cannot be together in one place; or
+because, in every case of every description, the weak is driven before
+the strong?"
+
+"Your last reason is rather more facetious than philosophical. No person
+has hitherto been able to discover the cause of the communication of
+motion."
+
+"That, however, does not prevent its being essential to matter. No one
+has ever been able to discover the cause of sensation in animals; yet
+this sensation is so essential to them, that, if you exclude the idea of
+it, you no longer have the idea of an animal."
+
+"Well, I will concede to you, for a moment, that motion is essential to
+matter--just for a moment, let it be remembered, for I am not much
+inclined to embroil myself with the theologians--and now, after this
+admission, tell me how one ball produces motion in another?"
+
+"You are very curious and inquisitive; you wish me to inform you of what
+no philosopher ever knew."
+
+"It appears rather curious, and even ludicrous, that we should know the
+laws of motion, and yet be profoundly ignorant of the principle of the
+communication of motion!"
+
+"It is the same with everything else; we know the laws of reasoning, but
+we know not what it is in us that reasons. The ducts through which our
+blood and other animal fluids pass are very well known to us, but we
+know not what forms that blood and those fluids. We are in life, but we
+know not in what the vital principle consists."
+
+"Inform me, however, at least, whether, if motion be essential to
+matter, there has not always existed the same quantity of motion in the
+world?"
+
+"That is an old chimera of Epicurus revived by Descartes. I do not, for
+my own part, see that this equality of motion in the world is more
+necessary than an equality of triangles. It is essential that a triangle
+should have three angles and three sides, but it is not essential that
+the number of triangles on this globe should be always equal."
+
+"But is there not always an equality of forces, as other philosophers
+express it?"
+
+"That is a similar chimera. We must, upon such a principle, suppose that
+there is always an equal number of men, and animals, and moving beings,
+which is absurd."
+
+By the way, what, let me ask, is the force of a body in motion? It is
+the product of its quantity multiplied by its velocity in a given time.
+Calling the quantity of a body four, and its velocity four, the force of
+its impulse will be equal to sixteen. Another quantity we will assume to
+be two, and its velocity two; the force with which that impels is as
+four. This is the grand principle of mechanics. Leibnitz decidedly and
+pompously pronounced the principle defective. He maintained that it was
+necessary to measure that force, that product, by the quantity
+multiplied by the square of the velocity. But this was mere captious
+sophistry and chicanery, an ambiguity unworthy of a philosopher, founded
+on an abuse of the discovery of the great Galileo, that the spaces
+traversed with a motion uniformly accelerated were, to each other, as
+the squares of the times and velocities.
+
+Leibnitz did not consider the time which he should have considered. No
+English mathematician adopted his system. It was received for a while by
+a small number of geometricians in France. It pervaded some books, and
+even the philosophical institutions of a person of great celebrity.
+Maupertuis is very abusive of Mairan, in a little work entitled "A, B,
+C"; as if he thought it necessary to teach the _a, b, c,_ of science to
+any man who followed the old and, in fact, the true system of
+calculation. Mairan was, however, in the right. He adhered to the
+ancient measurement, that of the quantity multiplied by the velocity. He
+gradually prevailed over his antagonists, and his system recovered its
+former station; the scandal of mathematics disappeared, and the quackery
+of the square of the velocity was dismissed at last to the extramundane
+spaces, to the limbo of vanity, together with the monads which Leibnitz
+supposed to constitute the concentric mirror of nature, and also with
+his elaborate and fanciful system of "pre-established harmony."
+
+
+
+
+MOUNTAIN.
+
+
+The fable of the mountain which, after alarming the whole neighborhood
+with its outcries in labor, was ridiculed by all present when it became
+delivered of a mouse, is at once ancient and universal. The company,
+however, who thus gave way to ridicule were not a company of
+philosophers. Those who mocked should in reality have admired. A
+mountain's being delivered of a mouse was an event as extraordinary, and
+as worthy of admiration, as a mouse's being delivered of a mountain. A
+rock's producing a rat is a case absolutely prodigious, and the world
+never beheld anything approaching to such a miracle. All the worlds in
+the universe could not originate a fly. Thus, in cases where the vulgar
+mock, the philosopher admires; and where the vulgar strain their eyes in
+stupid astonishment, he often smiles.
+
+
+
+
+NAIL.
+
+
+We only ask here from the censors of books, permission to transcribe
+from that which the Dominican missionary Labat, proveditor of the holy
+office, has written concerning the nails of the cross, into which it is
+more than probable no nails were ever driven.
+
+"The Italian priest who conducted us had sufficient interest to get us,
+among other things, a sight of the nails with which our Saviour was
+fastened to the cross. They appeared to me very different from those
+which the Benedictines show at St. Denis. Possibly those belonging to
+St. Denis served for the feet, and the others for the hands. It was
+necessary that those for the hands should be sufficiently large and
+strong to support all the weight of the body. However, the Jews must
+either have made use of more than four nails, or some of those which are
+shown to the faithful are not genuine. History relates that St. Helena
+threw one of them into the sea, to appease a furious tempest which
+assailed the ship in which she had embarked. Constantine made use of
+another, to make a bit for the bridle of his horse. One is shown entire
+at St. Denis in France; another also entire at the Holy Cross of
+Jerusalem at Rome. A very celebrated Roman author of our day asserts
+that the iron crown with which they crown the emperors in Italy was made
+out of one of these nails. We are shown at Rome and at Carpentras two
+bridle bits also made of these nails, not to mention more at other
+places. To be sure, several of them are discreet enough to say, that it
+is the head or point only of these nails which they exhibit."
+
+The missionary speaks in the same tone of all the relics. He observes in
+the same passage, that when the body of the first deacon, St. Stephen,
+was brought from Jerusalem to Rome, in 557, and placed in the tomb of
+the deacon of St. Lawrence: "St. Lawrence made way of himself to give
+the right hand to his predecessor; an action which procured him the name
+of the civil Spaniard."
+
+Upon this passage we venture only one reflection, which is, that if some
+philosopher had said as much, in the "Encyclopædia", as the Dominican
+Labat, a crowd of Pantouillets, Nonnottes, Chiniacs, Chaumeix, and other
+knaves, would have exclaimed--Deist, atheist, and geometrician!
+According to circumstances things change their names.
+
+     _Selon ce que l'on peut être_
+     _Les choses changent de nom._
+                      --_Amphytrion,_ Prologue.
+
+
+
+
+NATURE.
+
+_Dialogue Between The Philosopher And Nature._
+
+
+PHILOSOPHER.
+
+What are you, Nature? I live in you? but I have been searching for you
+for fifty years, and have never yet been able to find you.
+
+NATURE.
+
+The ancient Egyptians, whose lives it is said extended to twelve hundred
+years, attached the same reproach to me. They called me Isis; they
+placed a thick veil over my head; and they said that no one could ever
+raise it.
+
+PHILOSOPHER.
+
+It is on that account that I apply directly to yourself. I have been
+able to measure some of your globes, to ascertain their courses, and to
+point out the laws of motion; but I have never been able to ascertain
+what you are yourself.
+
+Are you always active? Are you always passive? Do your elements arrange
+themselves, as water places itself over sand, oil over water, and air
+over oil? Have you a mind which directs all your operations--as councils
+are inspired as soon as they meet, although the individual members
+composing them are often ignorant? Explain to me, I entreat, the enigma
+in which you are enveloped.
+
+NATURE.
+
+I am the great universal system. I know nothing farther. I am no
+mathematician, and yet everything in and about me is arranged agreeably
+to mathematical laws. Conjecture, if you can, how all this is effected.
+
+PHILOSOPHER.
+
+Certainly, since your great universal system knows nothing of
+mathematics, and yet the laws by which you are regulated are those of
+the most profound geometry, there must necessarily be an eternal
+geometrician, who directs you, and presides over your operations.
+
+NATURE.
+
+You are perfectly right; I am water, earth, fire, air, metal, mineral,
+stone, vegetable, and animal. I clearly perceive that there is an
+intelligence in me: you possess an intelligence, although you see it
+not. Neither do I see mine; I feel this invisible power; I am unable to
+know it: why should you, who are only a very minute portion of myself,
+be anxious to know what I myself am ignorant of?
+
+PHILOSOPHER.
+
+We are curious. I should be pleased to learn how it is, that while so
+rough and coarse in your mountains, and deserts, and seas, you are at
+the same time so ingenious and finished in your animals and vegetables?
+
+NATURE.
+
+My poor child, shall I tell you the real truth? I have had bestowed upon
+me a name that does not at all suit me: I am called nature, while I am
+all art.
+
+PHILOSOPHER.
+
+That word deranges all my ideas. What! is it possible that nature should
+be nothing but art.
+
+NATURE.
+
+It is undoubtedly the case. Do you not know that there is infinite art
+in those seas and mountains which you represent as so rough and so
+coarse? Do you not know that all those waters gravitate towards the
+centre of the earth, and are raised only by immutable laws; and that
+those mountains which crown the earth are immense reservoirs of eternal
+snows, incessantly producing the fountains, lakes, and rivers, without
+which my animal and vegetable off-spring would inevitably perish? And,
+with respect to what are denominated my animal, vegetable, and mineral
+kingdoms, constituting thus only three kingdoms, be assured that I have
+in fact millions of them. But if you consider the formation of an
+insect, of an ear of corn, of gold, or of copper, all will exhibit to
+you prodigies of art.
+
+PHILOSOPHER.
+
+It is undoubtedly true. The more I reflect on the subject, the more
+clearly I perceive that you are only the art of some Great Being,
+extremely powerful and skilful, who conceals Himself and exhibits you.
+All the reasoners, from the time of Thales, and probably long before
+him, have been playing at hide and seek with you. They have said, "I
+have hold of you"; and they in fact held nothing. We all resemble Ixion:
+he thought he embraced Juno, when he embraced only a cloud.
+
+NATURE.
+
+Since I am the whole that exists, how is it possible for a being like
+you, so small a portion of myself, to comprehend me? Be contented, my
+dear little atomic children, with seeing a few particles that surround
+you, with drinking a few drops of my milk, with vegetating for a few
+moments in my bosom, and at last dying without any knowledge of your
+mother and your nurse.
+
+PHILOSOPHER.
+
+My beloved mother, pray tell me a little why you exist--why anything has
+existed?
+
+NATURE.
+
+I will answer you in the language in which I always have answered, for
+so long a series of ages, those who have interrogated me on the subject
+of first principles: "I know nothing at all about the matter."
+
+PHILOSOPHER.
+
+Nothing itself, would it not be preferable to that multitude of
+existences formed to be continually dissolved; those tribes of animals
+born and reproduced to devour others, and devoured in their turn; those
+numberless beings endued with sensation, and formed to experience so
+many sensations of pain; and those other tribes of reasoning beings
+which never, or at least only rarely, listen to reason? For what
+purpose, Nature, was all this?
+
+NATURE.
+
+Oh! pray go and inquire of Him who made me.
+
+
+
+
+NECESSARY--NECESSITY.
+
+
+OSMIN.
+
+Do you not assert that everything is necessary?
+
+SELIM.
+
+If all be not necessary, it follows that God does unnecessary things.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+That is to say, it was necessary for the Divine Nature to do what it has
+done.
+
+SELIM.
+
+I believe, or at least I suspect so. There are men who think
+differently. I do not understand them; but possibly they are right. I
+fear to dispute on this subject.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+It is, however, necessary for me to talk to you upon it.
+
+SELIM.
+
+In what manner? Would you speak of what is necessary to sustain life, or
+the evil to which people are reduced who cannot procure it?
+
+OSMIN.
+
+No; for that which is necessary to one is not always necessary to
+another. It is necessary for an Indian to possess rice, for an
+Englishman to eat animal food, as Russians must wear furs, and Africans
+gauze. One man believes that he has need of a dozen coach-horses,
+another limits himself to a pair of shoes, and a third walks gayly on
+his bare feet. I wish to speak to you of that which is necessary to all
+men.
+
+SELIM.
+
+It appears to me that God has given us all that is necessary in this
+sense: eyes to see, feet to walk, a mouth to eat, a gullet to swallow, a
+stomach to digest, a brain to reason, and organs to produce our kind.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+How happens it then that men are sometimes born who are deprived of a
+part of these necessary faculties?
+
+SELIM.
+
+Because the general laws of nature are liable to accidents which produce
+monsters; but in general man is provided with all things necessary to
+his existence in society.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+Are there not notions common to all men necessary to this purpose?
+
+SELIM.
+
+Yes; I have travelled with Paul Lucas, and wherever I went I saw that
+man respected his father and mother; that he thought himself bound to
+keep his promise; that he pitied oppressed innocence; that he detested
+persecution; that he regarded freedom of thinking as a right of nature,
+and the enemies of that freedom as the enemies of the human race. They
+who think differently appear to me to be badly organized, and monsters,
+like those who are born without eyes or heads.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+These necessary things--are they necessary in all times, and in all
+places?
+
+SELIM.
+
+Yes: otherwise they would not be necessary to human kind.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+Therefore, a new creed is not necessary to mankind. Men could live in
+society, and perform all their duties towards God, before they believed
+that Mahomet had frequent conversations with the angel Gabriel.
+
+SELIM.
+
+Nothing is more evident; it would be ridiculous to think that man could
+not perform his duties until Mahomet came into the world. It was no way
+necessary for men to believe the Koran. The world went on before the
+appearance of Mahomet, precisely as at present. If Mahometanism was
+necessary to the world, it would exist everywhere. God, who has given us
+two eyes to see the sun, would have bestowed upon us some means of
+discovering the truths of the Mahometan religion. That sect therefore
+resembles the arbitrary laws which change according to times and places,
+like fashions or the theories of physicians, which displace and succeed
+one another. The Mahometan religion cannot therefore be essentially
+necessary to man.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+But since it exists, God has permitted it.
+
+SELIM.
+
+Yes, as He permits all the world to abound in absurdities, errors, and
+calamities. This is not saying that men were absolutely created in order
+to be foolish and unhappy. God permits some men to be eaten by serpents,
+but we ought not to say that God made man to be eaten by serpents.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+What do you mean by saying that God permits? Can anything happen but by
+His orders? To permit and to will--are they not with Him the same thing?
+
+SELIM.
+
+He permits crime, but does not commit it.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+To commit a crime is to act against Divine justice--to disobey God.
+Therefore, as God cannot disobey Himself, He cannot commit crime; but He
+has so made man that man commits it frequently. How does that arise?
+
+SELIM.
+
+Some men can tell, but I am not one of them. All that I know is, that
+the Koran is ridiculous, although possessing here and there things which
+are passable. The Koran, however, is certainly not necessary to
+man--that I maintain. I perceive clearly that which is false, but know
+very little of that which is true.
+
+OSMIN.
+
+I thought that you would instruct me, but you teach me nothing.
+
+SELIM.
+
+Is it not something to know the men who deceive you, and the gross and
+dangerous errors they promulgate?
+
+OSMIN.
+
+I should have cause to complain of a physician who made me acquainted
+with poisonous plants, without instructing me in regard to such as are
+salutary.
+
+SELIM.
+
+I am no physician, nor are you a sick man; and it appears to me that I
+give you a very useful prescription, when I say to you: Distrust the
+inventions of charlatans; worship God; be an honest man; and believe
+that two and two make four.
+
+
+
+
+NEW--NOVELTIES.
+
+
+It seems as if the first words of Ovid's "Metamorphoses"--"_In nova fert
+animus_"--were the emblem of mankind. No one is touched with the
+admirable spectacle of the sun which rises or seems to rise every day;
+but everybody runs at the smallest meteor which appears for a moment in
+the map of vapors which surround the earth, and which we call heaven. We
+despise whatever is common, or which has been long known:
+
+     _Vilia sunt nobis quæcumque prioribus annis_
+     _Vidimus, et sordet quidquid spectavimus olim._
+
+A hawker will not burden himself with a "Virgil" or a "Horace," but with
+a new book, were it ever so detestable. He draws you aside and says to
+you: "Sir, will you have some books from Holland?"
+
+From the commencement of the world, women have complained of the
+infidelities done to them in favor of the first new object which
+presents itself, and which has often this novelty for its only merit.
+Several ladies--we must confess it, notwithstanding the infinite respect
+which we have for them--have treated men as they complain that the men
+have treated them; and the story of Jocondo is much more ancient than
+Ariosto.
+
+Perhaps this universal taste for novelty is a benefit of nature. We are
+told: Content yourselves with what you have; desire nothing beyond your
+situation; subdue the restlessness of your mind. These are very good
+maxims; but if we had followed them, we should still live upon acorns
+and sleep under the stars, and we should have had neither Corneille,
+Racine, Molière, Poussin, Le Brun, Lemoine, nor Pigal.
+
+
+
+
+NUDITY.
+
+
+Why do we shut up a man or a woman whom we find naked in the streets?
+and why is no one offended at entirely naked statues, and with certain
+paintings of Jesus and of Magdalen which are to be seen in some of the
+churches? It is very likely that human beings existed for a considerable
+time without clothing. In more than one island and on the continent of
+America, people are still found who are ignorant of clothing.
+
+The most civilized of them conceal the organs of generation by leaves,
+by interlaced rushes or mats, and by feathers. Whence this latter
+modesty? Is it the instinct of nature to provoke desire by the
+concealment of that which we are inclined to discover? Is it true that
+among nations somewhat more polished than the Jews and demi-Jews, there
+are entire sects who, when they worship God, deprive themselves of
+clothing. Such have been, it is said, the Adamites and the Abelians.
+They assembled, naked, to sing the praises of God. St. Epiphanius and
+St. Augustine say this, who, it is true, were not contemporaries, and
+who lived very distant from their country. But after all, this folly is
+possible, and is not more extraordinary or insane than a hundred other
+follies which have made the tour of the world, one after another.
+
+We have seen, in the article "Emblem", that the Mahometans still possess
+saints who are mad, and who go about naked as apes. It is very possible
+that crazy people have existed, who thought that it was more proper to
+present ourselves before the Deity in the state in which He has formed
+us, than under any disguise of our own invention. It is possible that
+these persons exposed themselves out of pure devotion. There are so few
+well-made people of either sex, that nudity may have inspired chastity,
+or rather disgust, instead of augmenting desire.
+
+It is moreover asserted that the Abelians renounced marriage. If they
+abounded in youthful gallants and amorous maidens, they were the less
+comparable with St. Adhelm and the happy Robert D'Arbriselle, who lay
+with the most beautiful women, only in order to prove the strength of
+their continence. I confess, however, that it must be pleasant to
+witness a hundred naked Helens and Parises singing anthems, giving one
+another the kiss of peace, and performing the ceremonies of the agapæ.
+
+All this proves that there is nothing so singular, so extravagant, or so
+superstitious, which has not been conceived by the head of man. Happy it
+is, when these follies do not trouble society, and make of it a scene of
+hate, of discord, and of fury. It is doubtless better to pray to God
+stark naked, than to soil His altars and the public places with human
+blood.
+
+
+
+
+NUMBER.
+
+
+Was Euclid right in defining number to be a collection of unities of the
+same kind? When Newton says that number is an abstract relation of one
+quantity to another of the same kind, does he not understand by that the
+use of numbers in arithmetic and geometry? Wolfe says, number is that
+which has the same relation with unity as one right line has with
+another. Is not this rather a property attributed to a number, than a
+definition? If I dared, I would simply define numbers the idea of
+several unities.
+
+I see white--I have a sensation, an idea of white. It signifies not
+whether these two things are or are not of the same species; I can
+reckon two ideas. I see four men and four horses--I have the idea of
+eight; in like manner, three stones and six trees will give me the idea
+of nine.
+
+That I add, multiply, subtract, and divide these, are operations of the
+faculty of thought which I have received from the master of nature; but
+they are not properties inherent to number. I can square three and cube
+it, but there is not certainly in nature any number which can be squared
+or cubed. I very well conceive what an odd or even number is, but I can
+never conceive either a perfect or an imperfect one.
+
+Numbers can have nothing by themselves. What properties, what virtue,
+can ten flints, ten trees, ten ideas, possess because they are ten? What
+superiority will one number divisible in three even parts have over
+another divisible in two?
+
+Pythagoras was the first, it is said, who discovered divine virtue in
+numbers. I doubt whether he was the first; for he had travelled in
+Egypt, Babylon, and India, and must have related much of their arts and
+knowledge. The Indians particularly, the inventors of the combined and
+complicated game of chess, and of ciphers, so convenient that the Arabs
+learned of them, through whom they have been communicated to us after so
+many ages--these same Indians, I say, joined strange chimeras to their
+sciences. The Chaldæans had still more, and the Egyptians more still. We
+know that self-delusion is in our nature. Happy is he who can preserve
+himself from it! Happy is he who, after having some access of this fever
+of the mind, can recover tolerable health.
+
+Porphyrius, in the "Life of Pythagoras," says that the number 2 is
+fatal. We might say, on the contrary, that it is the most favorable of
+all. Woe to him that is always single! Woe to nature, if the human
+species and that of animals were not often two and two!
+
+If 2 was of bad augury, 3, by way of recompense, was admirable, and 4
+was divine; but the Pythagoreans and their imitators forgot that this
+mysterious 4, so divine, was composed of twice that diabolical number 2!
+Six had its merit, because the first statuaries divided their figures
+into six modules. We have seen that, according to the Chaldæans, God
+created the world in six _gahambars;_ but 7 was the most marvellous
+number; for there were at first but seven planets, each planet had its
+heaven, and that made seven heavens, without anyone knowing what was
+meant by the word heaven.
+
+All Asia reckoned seven days for a week. We divide the life of man into
+seven ages. How many reasons have we in favor of this number!
+
+The Jews in time collected some scraps of this philosophy. It passed
+among the first Christians of Alexandria with the dogmas of Plato. It is
+principally displayed in the "Apocalypse of Cerinthus," attributed to
+John the Apostle.
+
+We see a striking example of it in the number of the beast: "That no man
+might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast,
+or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath
+understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a
+man; and his number is six hundred three score and six."
+
+We know what great pains all the great scholars have taken to divine the
+solution of this enigma. This number, composed of three times two at
+each figure, does it signify three times fatal to the third power? There
+were two beasts, and we know not yet of which the author would speak.
+
+We have seen that Bossuet, less happy in arithmetic than in funeral
+orations, has demonstrated that Diocletian is the beast, because we find
+the Roman figures 666 in the letters of his name, by cutting off those
+which would spoil this operation. But in making use of Roman figures, he
+does not remember that the Apocalypse was written in Greek. An eloquent
+man may fall into this mistake. The power of numbers was much more
+respected among us when we knew nothing about them.
+
+You may observe, my dear reader, in the article on "Figure," some fine
+allegories that Augustine, bishop of Hippo, extracted from numbers.
+
+This taste subsisted so long, that it triumphed at the Council of Trent.
+We preserve its mysteries, called "Sacraments" in the Latin church,
+because the Dominicans, with Soto at their head, allege that there are
+seven things which contribute to life, seven planets, seven virtues,
+seven mortal sins, six days of creation and one of repose, which make
+seven; further, seven plagues of Egypt, seven beatitudes; but
+unfortunately the fathers forget that Exodus reckons ten plagues, and
+that the beatitudes are to the number of eight in St. Matthew and four
+in St. Luke. But scholars have overcome this difficulty; by retrenching
+from St. Matthew the four beatitudes of St. Luke, there remain six, and
+add unity to these six, and you will have seven. Consult Fra Paolo
+Sarpi, in the second book of his history of the County of Trent.
+
+
+
+
+NUMBERING.
+
+SECTION I.
+
+
+The most ancient numberings that history has left us are those of the
+Israelites, which are indubitable, since they are extracted from the
+Jewish books. We believe that we must not reckon as a numbering the
+flight of the Israelites to the number of six hundred thousand men on
+foot, because the text specifies them not tribe by tribe; it adds, that
+an innumerable troop of people gathered together and joined them. This
+is only a relation.
+
+The first circumstantial numbering is that which we see in the book of
+the "Viedaber," which we call Numbers. By the reckoning which Moses and
+Aaron made of the people in the desert, we find, in counting all the
+tribes except that of Levi, six hundred and three thousand five hundred
+and fifty men capable of bearing arms; and if we add the tribe of Levi,
+supposing it equal in number to the others, the strong with the weak, we
+shall have six hundred and fifty-three thousand nine hundred and
+thirty-five men, to which we must add an equal number of old women and
+children, which will compose two millions six hundred and fifteen
+thousand seven hundred and forty-two persons, who departed from Egypt.
+
+When David, after the example of Moses, ordered the numbering of all the
+people, he found eight hundred thousand warriors of the tribes of
+Israel, and five hundred thousand of that of Judah, according to the
+Book of Kings; but according to Chronicles they reckoned eleven hundred
+thousand warriors in Israel; and less than five hundred thousand in
+Judah.
+
+The Book of Kings formally excludes Levi and Benjamin, and counts them
+not. If therefore we join these two tribes to the others in their
+proportion, the total of the warriors will amount to nineteen hundred
+and twenty thousand. This is a great number for the little country of
+Judæa, the half of which is composed of frightful rocks and caverns: but
+it was a miracle.
+
+It is not for us to enter into the reasons for which the Sovereign
+Arbiter of kings and people punished David for an operation which he
+himself commanded to Moses. It still less becomes us to seek why God,
+being irritated against David, punished the people for being numbered.
+The prophet Gad ordered the king on the part of God to choose war,
+famine, or pestilence. David accepted the pestilence, and seventy
+thousand Jews died of it in three days.
+
+St. Ambrosius, in his book of "Repentance," and St. Augustine in his
+book against Faustus, acknowledged that pride and ambition led David to
+make this calculation. Their opinion is of great weight, and we can
+certainly submit to their decision by extinguishing all the deceitful
+lights of our own minds.
+
+Scripture relates a new numbering in the time of Esdras, when the Jewish
+nation returned from captivity. "All this multitude (say equally Esdras
+and Nehemiah, being as one man) amounted to forty-two thousand three
+hundred and sixty persons." They were all named by families, and they
+counted the number of Jews of each family, and the number of priests.
+But in these two authors there are not only differences between the
+numbers and the names of families, but we further see an error of
+calculation in both. By the calculation of Esdras, instead of forty-two
+thousand men, after computation we find but twenty-nine thousand eight
+hundred and eighteen; and by that of Nehemiah we find thirty-one
+thousand and eighty-nine.
+
+We must consult the commentators on this apparent mistake, particularly
+Dom Calmet, who adding to one of these calculations what is wanting to
+the other, and further adding what is wanted to both of them, solves all
+the difficulty. To the computations of Esdras and Nehemiah, as reckoned
+by Calmet, are wanting ten thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven
+persons; but we find them in families which could not give their
+genealogy; besides, if there were any fault of the copyist, it could not
+destroy the veracity of the divinely inspired text.
+
+It is to be believed that the great neighboring kings of Palestine made
+numberings of their people as frequently as possible. Herodotus gives us
+the amount of all those who followed Xerxes, without including his naval
+forces. He reckons seventeen hundred thousand men, and he pretends, that
+to arrive at this computation, they were sent in divisions of ten
+thousand into a place which would only hold this number of men closely
+crowded. This method is very faulty, for by crowding a little less, each
+division of ten thousand might easily contain only from eight to nine.
+Further, this method is not at all soldier-like, and it would have been
+much more easy to have counted the whole by making the soldiers march in
+rank and file.
+
+It should further be observed, how difficult it was to support seventeen
+hundred thousand men in the country of Greece, which they went to
+conquer. We may very well doubt of this number, and the manner of
+reckoning it; of the whipping given to the Hellespont; and of the
+sacrifice of a thousand oxen made to Minerva by a Persian king, who knew
+her not, and who adored the sun alone as the only emblem of the
+Divinity. Besides, the numbering of seventeen hundred thousand men is
+not complete, even by the confession of Herodotus, since Xerxes further
+carried with him all the people of Thrace and Macedonia, whom he forced,
+he says, to follow him, apparently the sooner to starve his army. We
+should therefore do here what all wise men do in reading ancient, and
+even modern histories--suspend our judgment and doubt much.
+
+The first numbering which we have of a profane nation is that made by
+Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome. He found, says Titus Livius,
+eighty thousand combatants, all Roman citizens: that implies three
+hundred and twenty thousand citizens at least, as many old people, women
+and children, to which we must add at least twenty thousand domestics,
+slaves and freemen.
+
+Now we may reasonably doubt whether the little Roman state contained
+this number. Romulus only reigned (if we may call him king) over about
+three thousand bandits, assembled in a little town between the
+mountains. This town was the worst land of Italy. The circuit of all his
+country was not three thousand paces. Servius was the sixth chief or
+king of this rising people. The rule of Newton, which is indubitable for
+elective kingdoms, gives twenty-one years' reign to each king, and by
+that contradicts all the ancient historians, who have never observed the
+order of time, nor given any precise date. The five kings of Rome must
+have reigned about a hundred years.
+
+It is certainly not in the order of nature that an ungrateful soil,
+which was not five leagues in length or three in breadth, and which must
+have lost many of its inhabitants in its almost continual little wars,
+could be peopled with three hundred and forty thousand souls. There is
+not half the number in the same territory at present, when Rome is the
+metropolis of the Christian world; when the affluence of foreigners and
+the ambassadors of so many nations must serve to people the towns; when
+gold flows from Poland, Hungary, half of Germany, Spain, and France, by
+a thousand channels into the purse of the treasury, and must further
+facilitate population, if other causes intercept it.
+
+As the history of Rome was not written until more than five hundred
+years after its foundation, it would not be at all surprising if the
+historians had liberally given Servius Tullius eighty thousand warriors
+instead of eight thousand, through false zeal for their country. Their
+zeal would have been much more judicious if they had confessed the weak
+commencement of their republic. It is much more noble to be raised from
+so poor an origin to so much greatness, than to have had double the
+soldiers of Alexander to conquer about fifteen leagues of country in
+four hundred years.
+
+The census was never taken except of Roman citizens. It is pretended
+that under Augustus it amounted to four millions one hundred and
+thirty-seven thousand in the year 29 before our vulgar era, according to
+Tillemont, who is very exact, and Dion Cassius, who is no less so.
+
+Lawrence Echard admits but one numbering, of four millions one hundred
+and thirty-seven thousand men, in the year 14 of our era. The same
+Echard speaks of a general numbering of the empire for the first year of
+the same era; but he quotes no Roman author, nor specifies any
+calculation of the number of citizens. Tillemont does not speak in any
+way of this numbering.
+
+We have quoted Tacitus and Suetonius, but to very little purpose. The
+census of which Suetonius speaks is not a numbering of citizens; it is
+only a list of those to whom the public furnished corn. Tacitus only
+speaks, in book ii., of a census established among the Gauls, for the
+purpose of raising more tribute on each head. Augustus never made a
+calculation of the other subjects of his empire, because they paid not
+the poll-tax, which he wished to establish in Gaul.
+
+Tacitus says that Augustus had a memoir, written in his own hand, which
+contained the revenues of the empire, the fleets and contributary
+kingdoms. He speaks not of any numbering. Dion Cassius speaks of a
+census, but he specifies no number.
+
+Josephus, in his "Antiquities," says that in the year 759 of Rome--the
+time answering to the eleventh year of our era--Cyrenius, then
+constituted governor of Syria, caused a list to be made of all the
+property of the Jews, which caused a revolt. This has no relation to a
+general numbering, and merely proves that this Cyrenius was not governor
+of Judæa--which was then a little province of Syria--until ten years
+after, and not at the birth of our Saviour.
+
+These seem to me to be all the principal passages that we can collect in
+profane histories, touching the numberings attributed to Augustus. If we
+refer to them, Jesus Christ would be born under the government of Varus,
+and not under that of Cyrenius; and there could have been no universal
+numbering. But St. Luke, whose authority should prevail over that of
+Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, Dion Cassius, and all the writers of
+Rome--St. Luke affirms positively that there was a universal numbering
+of all the earth, and that Cyrenius was governor of Judæa. We must
+therefore refer solely to him, without even seeking to reconcile him
+with Flavius Josephus, or with any other historian. As to the rest,
+neither the New nor the Old Testament has been given to us to enlighten
+points of history, but to announce salutary truths, before which all
+events and opinions should vanish. It is thus that we always reply to
+the false calculations, contradictions, absurdities, enormous faults of
+geography, chronology, physics, and even common sense, with which
+philosophers tell us the Holy Scripture is filled; we cease not to reply
+that there is here no question of reason, but of faith and piety.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+With regard to the numbers of the moderns, kings fear not at present
+that a doctor Gad should propose to them on the part of God, either
+famine, war, or pestilence, to punish them for wishing to know the
+amount of their subjects. None of them know it. We conjecture and guess,
+and always possibly within a few millions of men.
+
+I have carried the number of inhabitants which compose the empire of
+Russia to twenty-four millions, in the statements which have been sent
+to me; but I have not guaranteed this valuation, because I know very
+little about it. I believe that Germany possessed as many people,
+reckoning the Hungarians. If I am deceived by one or two millions, we
+know it is a trifle in such a case.
+
+I beg pardon of the King of Spain, if I have only awarded him seven
+millions of subjects in our continent. It is a very small number; but
+Don Ustaris, employed in the ministry, gives him no more. We reckon from
+about nine to ten millions of free beings in the three kingdoms of Great
+Britain. In France we count between sixteen and twenty millions. This is
+a proof that Doctor Gad has nothing wherewith to reproach the ministry
+of France.
+
+As to the capital towns, opinions are further divided. According to some
+calculators, Paris has seven hundred thousand inhabitants, and according
+to others five hundred thousand. It is thus with London, Constantinople,
+and Grand Cairo.
+
+As to the subjects of the pope, they will make a crowd in paradise, but
+the multitude is moderate on earth. Why so?--because they are subjects
+of the pope. Would Cato the Censor have ever believed the Romans would
+come to that pass?
+
+
+
+
+OCCULT QUALITIES.
+
+
+Occult qualities have for a very long time been much derided; it would
+be more proper to deride those who do not believe in them. Let us for
+the hundredth time repeat that every principle, every primitive source
+of any of the works which come from the hand of the _demiourgos,_ is
+occult, and eternally hidden from mortals.
+
+What is the centripetal force, the force of gravitation, which acts
+without contact at such immense distances? What causes our hearts to
+beat sixty times a minute? What other power changes this grass into milk
+in the udder of a cow? and this bread into the flesh, blood, and bone of
+that child, who grows proportionally while he eats it, until he arrives
+at the height determined by nature, after which there is no art which
+can add a line to it.
+
+Vegetables, minerals, animals, where is your originating principle? In
+the hands of Him who turns the sun on its axis, and who has clothed it
+with light. This lead will never become silver, nor this silver gold;
+this gold will never become diamond, nor this straw be transformed into
+lemons and bananas. What corpuscular system of physics, what atoms,
+determine their nature? You know nothing about it, and the cause will be
+eternally occult to you. All that surrounds us, all within us, is an
+enigma which it is not in the power of man to divine.
+
+The furred ignoramus ought to have been aware of this truth when he said
+that beasts possess a vegetative and sensitive soul, and man a soul
+which is vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual. Poor man, kneaded up
+of pride, who has pronounced only words--have you ever seen a soul? Know
+you how it is made? We have spoken much of the soul in these inquiries,
+but have always confessed our ignorance. I now repeat this confession
+still more emphatically, since the more I read, the more I meditate, and
+the more I acquire, the more am I enabled to affirm that I know nothing.
+
+
+
+
+OFFENCES (LOCAL).
+
+
+If we travel throughout the whole earth, we still find that theft,
+murder, adultery, calumny, etc., are regarded as offences which society
+condemns and represses; but that which is approved in England and
+condemned in Italy, ought it to be punished in Italy, as if it were one
+of the crimes against general humanity? That which is a crime only in
+the precincts of some mountains, or between two rivers, demands it not
+from judges more indulgence than those outrages which are regarded with
+horror in all countries? Ought not the judge to say to himself, I should
+not dare to punish in Ragusa what I punish at Loretto? Should not this
+reflection soften his heart, and moderate the hardness which it is too
+apt to contract in the long exercise of his employment? The "Kermesses"
+of Flanders are well known; they were carried in the last century to a
+degree of indecency, revolting to the eyes of all persons who were not
+accustomed to such spectacles.
+
+The following is the manner in which Christmas is celebrated in some
+countries. In the first place appears a young man half-naked, with wings
+on his shoulders; he repeats the Ave Maria to a young girl, who replies
+"fiat," and the angel kisses her on the mouth; after which a child, shut
+up in a great cock of pasteboard, imitates the crowing of the cock.
+"_Puer natus est nobis._" A great ox bellows out "ubi"; a sheep baas out
+"Bethlehem"; an ass brays "hihanus", to signify "eamus"; and a long
+procession, preceded by four fools with bells and baubles, brings up the
+rear. There still remain some traces of this popular devotion, which
+among a civilized and educated people would be taken for profanation. A
+Swiss, out of patience, and possibly more intoxicated than the
+performers of the ox and the ass, took the liberty of remonstrating with
+them at Louvain, and was rewarded with no small number of blows; they
+would indeed have hanged him, and he escaped with great difficulty.
+
+The same man had a dangerous quarrel at The Hague for violently taking
+the part of Barnevelt against an outrageous Gomarist. He was imprisoned
+at Amsterdam for saying that priests were the scourge of humanity, and
+the source of all our misfortunes. "How!" said he, "if we maintain that
+good works are necessary to salvation, we are sent to a dungeon; and if
+we laugh at a cock and an ass we risk hanging!" Ridiculous as this
+adventure was, it is sufficient to convince us that we may be criminal
+in one or two points in our hemisphere, and innocent in all the rest of
+the world.
+
+
+
+
+ONAN.
+
+
+The race of Onan exhibits great singularities. The patriarch Judah, his
+father, lay with his daughter-in-law, Tamar the Phœnician, in the
+highroad; Jacob, the father of Judah, was at the same time married to
+two sisters, the daughters of an idolater; and deluded both his father
+and father-in-law. Lot, the granduncle of Jacob, lay with his two
+daughters. Saleum, one of the descendants of Jacob and of Judah,
+espoused Rahab the Canaanite, a prostitute. Boaz, son of Saleum and
+Rahab, received into his bed Ruth the Midianite; and was great
+grandfather of David. David took away Bathsheba from the warrior Uriah,
+her husband, and caused him to be slain, that he might be unrestrained
+in his amour. Lastly, in the two genealogies of Christ, which differ in
+so many points, but agree in this, we discover that he descended from
+this tissue of fornication, adultery, and incest.
+
+Nothing is more proper to confound human prudence; to humble our limited
+minds; and to convince us that the ways of Providence are not like our
+ways. The reverend father Dom Calmet makes this reflection, in alluding
+to the incest of Judah with Tamar, and to the sin of Onan, spoken of in
+the 38th chapter of "Genesis": "Scripture," he observes, "gives us the
+details of a history, which on the first perusal strikes our minds as
+not of a nature for edification; but the hidden sense which is shut up
+in it is as elevated as that of the mere letter appears low to carnal
+eyes. It is not without good reasons that the Holy Spirit has allowed
+the histories of Tamar, of Rahab, of Ruth, and of Bathsheba, to form a
+part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ."
+
+It might have been well if Dom Calmet had explained these sound reasons,
+by which we might have cleared up the doubts and appeased the scruples
+of all the honest and timorous souls who are anxious to comprehend how
+this Supreme Being, the Creator of worlds, could be born in a Jewish
+village, of a race of plunderers and of prostitutes. This mystery, which
+is not less inconceivable than other mysteries, was assuredly worthy the
+explanation of so able a commentator--but to return to our subject.
+
+We perfectly understand the crime of the patriarch Judah, and of the
+patriarchs Simeon and Levi, his brothers, at Sichem; but it is more
+difficult to understand the sin of Onan. Judah had married his eldest
+son Er to the Phœnician, Tamar. Er died in consequence of his
+wickedness, and the patriarch wished his second son to espouse the
+widow, according to an ancient law of the Egyptians and Phœnicians,
+their neighbors, which was called raising up seed for his brother. The
+first child of this second marriage bore the name of the deceased, and
+this Onan objected to. He hated the memory of his brother, or to produce
+a child to bear the name of Er; and to avoid it took the means which are
+detailed in the chapter of "Genesis" already mentioned, and which are
+practised by no species of animals but apes and human beings.
+
+An English physician wrote a small volume on this vice, which he called
+after the name of the patriarch who was guilty of it. M. Tissot, the
+celebrated physician of Lausanne, also wrote on this subject, in a work
+much more profound and methodical than the English one. These two works
+detail the consequences of this unhappy habit--loss of strength,
+impotence, weakness of the stomach and intestines, tremblings, vertigo,
+lethargy, and often premature death.
+
+M. Tissot, however, to console us for this evil, relates as many
+examples of the mischiefs of repletion in both sexes. There cannot be a
+stronger argument against rash vows of chastity. From the examples
+afforded, it is impossible to avoid being convinced of the enormous
+folly of condemning ourselves to these turpitudes in order to renounce a
+connection which has been expressly commanded by God Himself. In this
+manner think the Protestants, the Jews, the Mahometans, and many other
+nations; the Catholics offer other reasons in favor of converts. I shall
+merely say of the Catholics what Dom Calmet says of the Holy Ghost--That
+their reasons are doubtless good, could we understand them.
+
+
+
+
+OPINION.
+
+
+What is the opinion of all the nations of the north of America, and
+those which border the Straits of Sunda, on the best of governments, and
+best of religions; on public ecclesiastical rights; on the manner of
+writing history; on the nature of tragedy, comedy, opera, eclogue, epic
+poetry; on innate ideas, concomitant grace, and the miracles of Deacon
+Paris? It is clear that all these people have no opinions on things of
+which they have no ideas.
+
+They have a confused feeling of their customs, and go not beyond this
+instinct. Such are the people who inhabit the shores of the Frozen Sea
+for the space of fifteen hundred leagues. Such are the inhabitants of
+the three parts of Africa, and those of nearly all the isles of Asia; of
+twenty hordes of Tartars, and almost all men solely occupied with the
+painful and continual care of providing their subsistence. Such are, at
+two steps from us, most of the Morlachians, many of the Savoyards, and
+some citizens of Paris.
+
+When a nation begins to be civilized, it has some opinions which are
+quite false. It believes in spirits, sorcerers, the enchantment of
+serpents and their immortality; in possessions of the devil, exorcisms,
+and soothsayers. It is persuaded that seeds must grow rotten in the
+earth to spring up again, and that the quarters of the moon are the
+causes of accesses of fever.
+
+A Talapoin persuades his followers that the god Sammonocodom sojourned
+some time at Siam, and that he cut down all the trees in a forest which
+prevented him from flying his kite at his ease, which was his favorite
+amusement. This idea takes root in their heads; and finally, an honest
+man who might doubt this adventure of Sammonocodom, would run the risk
+of being stoned. It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion. Opinion
+is called the queen of the world; it is so; for when reason opposes it,
+it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes to
+gradually drive away the usurper.
+
+
+
+
+OPTIMISM.
+
+
+I beg of you, gentlemen, to explain to me how everything is for the
+best; for I do not understand it. Does it signify that everything is
+arranged and ordered according to the laws of the impelling power? That
+I comprehend and acknowledge. Do you mean that every one is well and
+possesses the means of living--that nobody suffers? You know that such
+is not the case. Are you of the opinion that the lamentable calamities
+which afflict the earth are good in reference to God; and that He takes
+pleasure in them? I credit not this horrible doctrine; neither do you.
+
+Have the goodness to explain how all is for the best. Plato, the
+dialectician, condescended to allow to God the liberty of making five
+worlds; because, said he, there are five regular solids in geometry, the
+tetrahedron, the cube, the hexahedron, the dodecahedron, and the
+icosahedron. But why thus restrict divine power? Why not permit the
+sphere, which is still more regular, and even the cone, the pyramid of
+many sides, the cylinder, etc.?
+
+God, according to Plato, necessarily chose the best of all possible
+worlds; and this system has been embraced by many Christian
+philosophers, although it appears repugnant to the doctrine of original
+sin. After this transgression, our globe was no more the best of all
+possible worlds. If it was ever so, it might be so still; but many
+people believe it to be the worst of worlds instead of the best.
+
+Leibnitz takes the part of Plato; more readers than one complain of
+their inability to understand either the one or the other; and for
+ourselves, having read both of them more than once, we avow our
+ignorance according to custom; and since the gospel has revealed nothing
+on the subject, we remain in darkness without remorse.
+
+Leibnitz, who speaks of everything, has treated of original sin; and as
+every man of systems introduces into his plan something contradictory,
+he imagined that the disobedience towards God, with the frightful
+misfortunes which followed it, were integral parts of the best of
+worlds, and necessary ingredients of all possible felicity: "_Calla,
+calla, senor don Carlos; todo che se haze es por su ben._"
+
+What! to be chased from a delicious place, where we might have lived for
+ever only for the eating of an apple? What! to produce in misery
+wretched children, who will suffer everything, and in return produce
+others to suffer after them? What! to experience all maladies, feel all
+vexations, die in the midst of grief, and by way of recompense be burned
+to all eternity--is this lot the best possible? It certainly is not
+_good_ for us, and in what manner can it be so for God? Leibnitz felt
+that nothing could be said to these objections, but nevertheless made
+great books, in which he did not even understand himself.
+
+Lucullus, in good health, partaking of a good dinner with his friends
+and his mistress in the hall of Apollo, may jocosely deny the existence
+of evil; but let him put his head out of the window and he will behold
+wretches in abundance; let him be seized with a fever, and he will be
+one himself.
+
+I do not like to quote; it is ordinarily a thorny proceeding. What
+precedes and what follows the passage quoted is too frequently
+neglected; and thus a thousand objections may rise. I must,
+notwithstanding, quote Lactantius, one of the fathers, who, in the
+thirteenth chapter on the anger of God, makes Epicurus speak as follows:
+"God can either take away evil from the world and will not; or being
+willing to do so, cannot; or He neither can nor will; or, lastly, He is
+both able and willing. If He is willing to remove evil and cannot, then
+is He not omnipotent. If He can, but will not remove it, then is He not
+benevolent; if He is neither able nor willing, then is He neither
+powerful nor benevolent; lastly, if both able and willing to annihilate
+evil, how does it exist?"
+
+The argument is weighty, and Lactantius replies to it very poorly by
+saying that God wills evil, but has given us wisdom to secure the good.
+It must be confessed that this answer is very weak in comparison with
+the objection; for it implies that God could bestow wisdom only by
+allowing evil--a pleasant wisdom truly! The origin of evil has always
+been an abyss, the depth of which no one has been able to sound. It was
+this difficulty which reduced so many ancient philosophers and
+legislators to have recourse to two principles--the one good, the other
+wicked. Typhon was the evil principle among the Egyptians, Arimanes
+among the Persians. The Manichæans, it is said, adopted this theory; but
+as these people have never spoken either of a good or of a bad
+principle, we have nothing to prove it but the assertion.
+
+Among the absurdities abounding in this world, and which may be placed
+among the number of our evils, that is not the least which presumes the
+existence of two all-powerful beings, combating which shall prevail most
+in this world, and making a treaty like the two physicians in Molière:
+"Allow me the emetic, and I resign to you the lancet."
+
+Basilides pretended, with the platonists of the first century of the
+church, that God gave the making of our world to His inferior angels,
+and these, being inexpert, have constructed it as we perceive. This
+theological fable is laid prostrate by the overwhelming objection that
+it is not in the nature of a deity all-powerful and all-wise to intrust
+the construction of a world to incompetent architects.
+
+Simon, who felt the force of this objection, obviates it by saying that
+the angel who presided over the workmen is damned for having done his
+business so slovenly, but the roasting of this angel amends nothing. The
+adventure of Pandora among the Greeks scarcely meets the objection
+better. The box in which every evil is enclosed, and at the bottom of
+which remains Hope, is indeed a charming allegory; but this Pandora was
+made by Vulcan, only to avenge himself on Prometheus, who had stolen
+fire to inform a man of clay.
+
+The Indians have succeeded no better. God having created man, gave him a
+drug which would insure him permanent health of body. The man loaded his
+ass with the drug, and the ass being thirsty, the serpent directed him
+to a fountain, and while the ass was drinking, purloined the drug.
+
+The Syrians pretended that man and woman having been created in the
+fourth heaven, they resolved to eat a cake in lieu of ambrosia, their
+natural food. Ambrosia exhaled by the pores; but after eating cake, they
+were obliged to relieve themselves in the usual manner. The man and the
+woman requested an angel to direct them to a water-closet. Behold, said
+the angel, that petty globe which is almost of no size at all; it is
+situated about sixty millions of leagues from this place, and is the
+privy of the universe--go there as quickly as you can. The man and woman
+obeyed the angel and came here, where they have ever since remained;
+since which time the world has been what we now find it. The Syrians
+will eternally be asked why God allowed man to eat the cake and
+experience such a crowd of formidable ills?
+
+I pass with speed from the fourth heaven to Lord Bolingbroke. This
+writer, who doubtless was a great genius, gave to the celebrated Pope
+his plan of "all for the best," as it is found word for word in the
+posthumous works of Lord Bolingbroke, and recorded by Lord Shaftesbury
+in his "Characteristics." Read in Shaftesbury's chapter of the
+"Moralists" the following passage:
+
+"Much may be replied to these complaints of the defects of nature--How
+came it so powerless and defective from the hands of a perfect
+Being?--But I deny that it is defective. Beauty is the result
+of contrast, and universal concord springs out of a perpetual
+conflict.... It is necessary that everything be sacrificed to other
+things--vegetables to animals, and animals to the earth.... The laws of
+the central power of gravitation, which give to the celestial bodies
+their weight and motion, are not to be deranged in consideration of a
+pitiful animal, who, protected as he is by the same laws, will soon be
+reduced to dust."
+
+Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, and Pope, their working artisan, resolve their
+general question no better than the rest. Their "all for the best" says
+no more than that all is governed by immutable laws; and who did not
+know that? We learn nothing when we remark, after the manner of little
+children, that flies are created to be eaten by spiders, spiders by
+swallows, swallows by hawks, hawks by eagles, eagles by men, men by one
+another, to afford food for worms; and at last, at the rate of about a
+thousand to one, to be the prey of devils everlastingly.
+
+There is a constant and regular order established among animals of all
+kinds--a universal order. When a stone is formed in my bladder, the
+mechanical process is admirable; sandy particles pass by small degrees
+into my blood; they are filtered by the veins; and passing the urethra,
+deposit themselves in my bladder; where, uniting agreeably to the
+Newtonian attraction, a stone is formed, which gradually increases, and
+I suffer pains a thousand times worse than death by the finest
+arrangement in the world. A surgeon, perfect in the art of Tubal-Cain,
+thrusts into me a sharp instrument; and cutting into the perineum,
+seizes the stone with his pincers, which breaks during the endeavors, by
+the necessary laws of mechanism; and owing to the same mechanism, I die
+in frightful torments. All this is "for the best", being the evident
+result of unalterable physical principles, agreeably to which I know as
+well as you that I perish.
+
+If we were insensitive, there would be nothing to say against this
+system of physics; but this is not the point on which we treat. We ask
+if there are not physical evils, and whence do they originate? There is
+no absolute evil, says Pope in his "Essay on Man"; or if there are
+particular evils, they compose a general good. It is a singular general
+good which is composed of the stone and the gout--of all sorts of crime
+and sufferings, and of death and damnation.
+
+The fall of man is our plaister for all these particular maladies of
+body and soul, which you call "the general health"; but Shaftesbury and
+Bolingbroke have attacked original sin. Pope says nothing about it; but
+it is clear that their system saps the foundations of the Christian
+religion, and explains nothing at all.
+
+In the meantime, this system has been since approved by many
+theologians, who willingly embrace contradictions. Be it so; we ought to
+leave to everybody the privilege of reasoning in their own way upon the
+deluge of ills which overwhelm us. It would be as reasonable to prevent
+incurable patients from eating what they please. "God," says Pope,
+"beholds, with an equal eye, a hero perish or a sparrow fall; the
+destruction of an atom, or the ruin of a thousand planets; the bursting
+of a bubble, or the dissolution of a world."
+
+This, I must confess, is a pleasant consolation. Who does not find a
+comfort in the declaration of Lord Shaftesbury, who asserts, "that God
+will not derange His general system for so miserable an animal as man?"
+It must be confessed at least that this pitiful creature has a right to
+cry out humbly, and to endeavor, while bemoaning himself, to understand
+why these eternal laws do not comprehend the good of every individual.
+
+This system of "all for the best" represents the Author of Nature as a
+powerful and malevolent monarch, who cares not for the destruction of
+four or five hundred thousand men, nor of the many more who in
+consequence spend the rest of their days in penury and tears, provided
+He succeeds in His designs.
+
+Far therefore from the doctrine--that this is the best of all possible
+worlds--being consolatory, it is a hopeless one to the philosophers who
+embrace it. The question of good and evil remains in irremediable chaos
+for those who seek to fathom it in reality. It is a mere mental sport to
+the disputants, who are captives that play with their chains. As to
+unreasoning people, they resemble the fish which are transported from a
+river to a reservoir, with no more suspicion that they are to be eaten
+during the approaching Lent, than we have ourselves of the facts which
+originate our destiny.
+
+Let us place at the end of every chapter of metaphysics the two letters
+used by the Roman judges when they did not understand a pleading. N.L.
+_non liquet_--it is not clear. Let us, above all, silence the knaves
+who, overloaded like ourselves with the weight of human calamities, add
+the mischief of their calumny; let us refute their execrable imposture
+by having recourse to faith and Providence.
+
+Some reasoners are of opinion that it agrees not with the nature of the
+Great Being of Beings for things to be otherwise than they are. It is a
+rough system, and I am too ignorant to venture to examine it.
+
+
+
+
+ORACLES.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+After the sect of the Pharisees among the Jews had become acquainted
+with the devil, some reasoners among them began to entertain the idea
+that the devil and his companions inspired, among all other nations, the
+priests and statues that delivered oracles. The Sadducees had no belief
+in such beings. They admitted neither angels nor demons. It appears that
+they were more philosophic than the Pharisees, and consequently less
+calculated to obtain influence and credit with the people.
+
+The devil was the great agent with the Jewish populace in the time of
+Gamaliel, John the Baptist, James Oblia, and Jesus his brother, who was
+our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Accordingly, we perceive that the devil
+transports Jesus sometimes into the wilderness, sometimes to the
+pinnacle of the temple, and sometimes to a neighboring hill, from which
+might be discovered all the kingdoms of the world; the devil takes
+possession, when he pleases, of the persons of boys, girls, and animals.
+
+The Christians, although mortal enemies of the Pharisees, adopted all
+that the Pharisees had imagined of the devil; as the Jews had long
+before introduced among themselves the customs and ceremonies of the
+Egyptians. Nothing is so common as to imitate the practices of enemies,
+and to use their weapons.
+
+In a short time the fathers of the church ascribed to the devil all the
+religions which divided the earth, all pretended prodigies, all great
+events, comets, plagues, epilepsies, scrofula, etc. The poor devil, who
+was supposed to be roasting in a hole under the earth, was perfectly
+astonished to find himself master of the world. His power afterwards
+increased wonderfully from the institution of monks.
+
+The motto or device of all these newcomers was, "Give me money and I
+will deliver you from the devil." But both the celestial and terrestrial
+power of these gentry received at length a terrible check from the hand
+of one of their own brotherhood, Luther, who, quarreling with them about
+some beggarly trifle, disclosed to the world all the trick and villainy
+of their mysteries. Hondorf, an eye-witness, tells us that the reformed
+party having expelled the monks from a convent at Eisenach in Thuringia,
+found in it a statue of the Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, contrived
+with such art that, when offerings were placed upon the altar, the
+Virgin and Child bent their heads in sign of grateful acknowledgment,
+but turned their backs on those who presented themselves with empty
+hands.
+
+In England the case was much worse. When by order of Henry VIII., a
+judicial visitation took place of all the convents, half of the nuns
+were found in a state of pregnancy; and this, at least it may be
+supposed, was not by the operation of the devil. Bishop Burnet relates
+that in a hundred and forty-four convents the depositions taken by the
+king's commissioners attested abominations which those of Sodom and
+Gomorrah did not even approach. In fact, the English monks might
+naturally be expected to be more dissolute than the inhabitants of
+Sodom, as they were richer. They were in possession of the best lands in
+the kingdom. The territory of Sodom and Gomorrah, on the contrary,
+produced neither grain, fruit, nor pulse; and being moreover deficient
+even in water fit to drink, could be neither more nor less than a
+frightful desert, inhabited by miserable wretches too much occupied in
+satisfying their absolute necessities to have much time to devote to
+pleasures.
+
+In short, these superb asylums of laziness having been suppressed by act
+of parliament, all the instruments of their pious frauds were exposed in
+the public places; the famous crucifix of Brocksley, which moved and
+marched like a puppet; phials of a red liquid which was passed off for
+blood shed by the statues of saints when they were dissatisfied with the
+court; candlesticks of tinned iron, in which the lighted candles were
+carefully placed so as to make the people believe they were the same
+candles that were always burning; speaking tubes--_sarbacans_--which
+communicated between the sacristy and the roof of the church, and by
+which celestial voices were occasionally heard by apparently devotees,
+who were paid for hearing them; in short, everything that was ever
+invented by knavery to impose upon imbecility.
+
+Many sensible persons who lived at this period, being perfectly
+convinced that the monks, and not the devils, had employed all these
+pious stratagems, began to entertain the idea that the case had been
+very similar with the religions of antiquity; that all the oracles and
+all the miracles so highly vaunted by ancient times had been merely the
+tricks of charlatans; that the devil had never had anything to do with
+such matters; and that the simple fact was, that the Greek, Roman,
+Syrian, and Egyptian priests had been still more expert than our modern
+monks.
+
+The devil, therefore, thus lost much of his credit; insomuch that at
+length the honest Bekker, whose article you may consult, wrote his
+tiresome book against the devil, and proved by a hundred arguments that
+he had no existence. The devil himself made no answer to him, but the
+ministers of the holy gospel, as you have already seen, did answer him;
+they punished the honest author for having divulged their secret, and
+took away his living; so that Bekker fell a victim to the nullity of
+Beelzebub.
+
+It was the lot of Holland to produce the most formidable enemies of the
+devil. The physician Van Dale--a humane philosopher, a man of profound
+learning, a most charitable citizen, and one whose naturally bold mind
+became proportionately bolder, in consequence of his intrepidity being
+founded on virtue--undertook at length the task of enlightening mankind,
+always enslaved by ancient errors, and always spreading the bandage that
+covers their eyes, until at last some powerful flash of light discovers
+to them a corner of truth of which the greater number are completely
+unworthy. He proved, in a work abounding in the most recondite learning,
+that the devils had never delivered a single oracle, had never performed
+a single prodigy, and had never mingled in human affairs at all; and
+that there never had in reality been any demons but those impostors who
+had deceived their fellow men. The devil should never ridicule or
+despise a sensible physician. Those who know something of nature are
+very formidable enemies to all juggling performers of prodigies. If the
+devil would be advised by me, he would always address himself to the
+faculty of theology, and never to the faculty of medicine.
+
+Van Dale proved, then, by numberless authorities, not merely that the
+Pagan oracles were mere tricks of the priests, but that these knaveries,
+consecrated all over the world, had not ceased at the time of John the
+Baptist and Jesus Christ, as was piously and generally thought to be the
+case. Nothing was more true, more clear, more decidedly demonstrated,
+than this doctrine announced by the physician Van Dale; and there is no
+man of education and respectability who now calls it in question.
+
+The work of Van Dale is not, perhaps, very methodical, but it is one of
+the most curious works that ever came from the press. For, from the
+gross forgeries of the pretended Histape and the Sibyls; from the
+apocryphal history of the voyage of Simon Barjonas to Rome, and the
+compliments which Simon the magician sent him through the medium of his
+dog; from the miracles of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and especially the
+letter which that saint wrote to the devil, and which was safely
+delivered according to its address, down to the miracles of the reverend
+fathers, the Jesuits, and the reverend fathers, the Capuchins, nothing
+is forgotten. The empire of imposture and stupidity is completely
+developed before the eyes of all who can read; but they, alas! are only
+a small number.
+
+Far indeed was that empire, at that period, from being destroyed in
+Italy, France, Spain, the states of Austria, and more especially in
+Poland, where the Jesuits then bore absolute sway. Diabolical
+possessions and false miracles still inundated one-half of besotted and
+barbarized Europe. The following account is given by Van Dale of a
+singular oracle that was delivered in his time at Terni, in the States
+of the Pope, about the year 1650; and the narrative of which was printed
+at Venice by order of the government:
+
+A hermit of the name of Pasquale, having heard that Jacovello, a citizen
+of Terni, was very covetous and rich, came to Terni to offer up his
+devotions in the church frequented by the opulent miser, soon formed an
+acquaintance with him, flattered him in his ruling passion, and
+persuaded him that it was a service highly acceptable to God to take as
+much care as possible of money; it was indeed expressly enjoined in the
+gospel, as the negligent servant who had not put out his lord's money to
+interest at five hundred per cent was thrown into outer darkness.
+
+In the conversations which the hermit had with Jacovello, he frequently
+entertained him with plausible discourses held by crucifixes and by a
+quantity of Italian Virgin Marys. Jacovello agreed that the statues of
+saints sometimes spoke to men, and told him that he should believe
+himself one of the elect if ever he could have the happiness to hear the
+image of a saint speak.
+
+The friendly Pasquale replied that he had some hope he might be able to
+give him that satisfaction in a very little time; that he expected every
+day from Rome a death's head, which the pope had presented to one of his
+brother hermits; and that this head spoke quite as distinctly and
+sensibly as the trees of Dodona, or even the ass of Balaam. He showed
+him the identical head, in fact, four days after this conversation. He
+requested of Jacovello the key of a small cave and an inner chamber,
+that no person might possibly be a witness of the awful mystery. The
+hermit, having introduced a tube from this cave into the head, and made
+every other suitable arrangement, went to prayer with his friend
+Jacovello, and the head at that moment uttered the following words:
+"Jacovello, I will recompense thy zeal. I announce to thee a treasure of
+a hundred thousand crowns under a yew tree in thy garden. But thou shalt
+die by a sudden death if thou makest any attempt to obtain this treasure
+until thou hast produced before me a pot containing coin amounting to
+ten gold marks."
+
+Jacovello ran speedily to his coffers and placed before the oracle a pot
+containing the ten marks. The good hermit had had the precaution to
+procure a similar vessel which he had filled with sand, and he
+dexterously substituted that for the pot of Jacovello, on his turning
+his back, and then left the pious miser with one death's head more, and
+ten gold marks less, than he had before. Nearly such is the way in which
+all oracles have been delivered, beginning with those of Jupiter Ammon,
+and ending with that of Trophonius.
+
+One of the secrets of the priests of antiquity, as it is of our own, was
+confession in the mysteries. It was by this that they gained correct and
+particular information about the affairs of families, and qualified
+themselves in a great measure to give pertinent and suitable replies to
+those who came to consult them. To this subject applies the anecdote
+which Plutarch has rendered so celebrated. A priest once urging an
+initiated person to confession, that person said: "To whom should I
+confess?" "To God," replied the priest. "Begone then, man," said the
+desired penitent; "begone, and leave me alone with God."
+
+[Illustration: The Initial Banishing of the Priest.--Begone and leave me
+alone with God.]
+
+It would be almost endless to recount all the interesting facts and
+narratives with which Van Dale has enriched his book. Fontenelle did not
+translate it. But he extracted from it what he thought would be most
+suitable to his countrymen, who love sprightly anecdote and observation
+better than profound knowledge. He was eagerly read by what in France is
+called good company; and Van Dale, who had written in Latin and Greek,
+had been read only by the learned. The rough diamond of Van Dale shone
+with exquisite brilliancy after the cutting and polish of Fontenelle:
+the success of the work was such that the fanatics became alarmed.
+Notwithstanding all Fontenelle's endeavors to soften down the
+expressions of Van Dale, and his explaining himself sometimes with the
+license of a Norman, he was too well understood by the monks, who never
+like to be told that their brethren have been impostors.
+
+A certain Jesuit of the name of Baltus, born near Messina, one of that
+description of learned persons who know how to consult old books, and to
+falsify and cite them, although after all nothing to the purpose, took
+the part of the devil against Van Dale and Fontenelle. The devil could
+not have chosen a more tiresome and wretched advocate; his name is now
+known solely from the honor he had of writing against two celebrated men
+who advocated a good cause.
+
+Baltus likewise, in his capacity of Jesuit, caballed with no little
+perseverance and bitterness on the occasion, in union with his brethren,
+who at that time were as high in credit and influence as they have since
+been plunged deep in ignominy. The Jansenists, on their part, more
+impassionate and exasperated than even the Jesuits, clamored in a still
+louder tone than they did. In short, all the fanatics were convinced
+that it would be all over with the Christian religion, if the devil were
+not supported in his rights.
+
+In the course of time the books of Jansenists and Jesuits have all sunk
+into oblivion. That of Van Dale still remains for men of learning, and
+that of Fontenelle for men of wit. With respect to the devil, he
+resembles both Jesuits and Jansenists, and is losing credit from day to
+day.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+Some curious and surprising histories of oracles, which it was thought
+could be ascribed only to the power of genii, made the Christians think
+they were delivered by demons, and that they had ceased at the coming of
+Christ. They were thus enabled to save the time and trouble that would
+have been required by an investigation of the facts; and they thought to
+strengthen the religion which informed them of the existence of demons
+by referring to those beings such events.
+
+The histories however that were circulated on the subject of oracles are
+exceedingly suspicious. That of Thamus, to which Eusebius gives credit,
+and which Plutarch alone relates, is followed in the same history by
+another story so ridiculous, that that would be sufficient to throw
+discredit upon it; but it is, besides, incapable of any reasonable
+interpretation. If this great Pan were a demon, can we suppose the
+demons incapable of communicating the event of his death to one another
+without employing Thamus about it? If the great Pan were Jesus Christ,
+how came it that not a single Pagan was undeceived with respect to his
+religion, and converted to the belief that this same Pan was in fact
+Jesus Christ who died in Judæa, if God Himself compelled the demons to
+announce this death to the pagans?
+
+The history of Thulis, whose oracle is clear and positive on the subject
+of the Trinity, is related only by Suidas. This Thulis, king of Egypt,
+was not certainly one of the Ptolemies. What becomes of the whole oracle
+of Serapis, when it is ascertained that Herodotus does not speak of that
+god, while Tacitus relates at length how and why one of the Ptolemies
+brought the god Serapis from Pontus, where he had only until then been
+known?
+
+The oracle delivered to Augustus about the Hebrew infant who should be
+obeyed by all the gods, is absolutely inadmissible. Cedrenus quotes it
+from Eusebius, but it is not now to be found in him. It certainly is not
+impossible that Cedrenus quotes it from Eusebius, but it is not now to
+be found in him. It certainly is not impossible that Cedrenus may have
+made a false quotation, or have quoted a work falsely ascribed to
+Eusebius; but how is it to be accounted for, that all the early
+apologists for Christianity should have preserved complete silence with
+respect to an oracle so favorable to their religion?
+
+The oracles which Eusebius relates from Porphyry, who was attached to
+paganism, are not of a more embarrassing nature than those just noticed.
+He gives them to us stripped of all the accompanying circumstances that
+attended them in the writings of Porphyry. How do we know whether that
+pagan did not refute them. For the interest of his cause it would
+naturally have been an object for him to do so; and if he did not do it,
+most assuredly it was from some concealed motive, such, for instance, as
+presenting them to the Christians only for an occasion to prove and
+deride their credulity, if they should really receive them as true and
+rest their religion on such weak foundations.
+
+Besides, some of the ancient Christians reproached the pagans with being
+the dupes of their priests. Observe how Clement of Alexandria speaks of
+them: "Boast as long as you please of your childish and impertinent
+oracles, whether of Claros or the Pythian Apollo, of Dindymus or
+Amphilocus; and add to these your augurs and interpreters of dreams and
+prodigies. Bring forward also those clever gentry who, in the presence
+of the mighty Pythian Apollo, effect their divinations through the
+medium of meal or barley, and those also who, by a certain talent of
+ventriloquism, have obtained such high reputation. Let the secrets of
+the Egyptian temples, and the necromancy of the Etruscans, remain in
+darkness; all these things are most certainly nothing more than decided
+impostures, as completely tricks as those of a juggler with his cups and
+balls. The goats carefully trained for the divination, the ravens
+elaborately instructed to deliver the oracles, are--if we may use the
+expression--merely accomplices of the charlatans by whom the whole world
+has thus been cheated."
+
+Eusebius, in his turn, displays a number of excellent reasons to prove
+that oracles could be nothing but impostures; and if he attributes them
+to demons, it is the result of deplorable prejudices or of an affected
+respect for general opinion. The pagans would never admit that their
+oracles were merely the artifices of their priests; it was imagined
+therefore, by rather an awkward process of reasoning, that a little was
+gained in the dispute by admitting the possibility, that there might be
+something supernatural in their oracles, and insisting at the same time,
+that if there were, it was the operation, not of the deity, but of
+demons.
+
+It is no longer necessary now, in order to expose the finesse and
+stratagems of priests, to resort to means which might themselves appear
+too strongly marked by those qualities. A time has already been when
+they were completely exhibited to the eyes of the whole world--the time,
+I mean when the Christian religion proudly triumphed over paganism under
+Christian emperors.
+
+Theodoret says that Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, exhibited to the
+inhabitants of that city the hollow statues into which the priests
+entered, from secret passages, to deliver the oracles. When, by
+Constantine's order, the temple of Æsculapius at Ægea, in Cilicia, was
+pulled down, there was driven out of it, says Eusebius in his life of
+that emperor, not a god, nor a demon, but the human impostor who had so
+long duped the credulity of nations. To this he adds the general
+observation that, in the statues of the gods that were thrown down, not
+the slightest appearance was found of gods, or demons, or even any
+wretched and gloomy spectres, but only hay, straw, or the bones of the
+dead.
+
+The greatest difficulty respecting oracles is surmounted, when it is
+ascertained and admitted, that demons had no concern with them. There is
+no longer any reason why they should cease precisely at the coming of
+Jesus Christ. And moreover, there are many proofs that oracles continued
+more than four hundred years after Jesus Christ, and that they were not
+totally silenced but by the total destruction of paganism.
+
+Suetonius, in the life of Nero, says the oracle of Delphi warned that
+emperor to be aware of seventy-three years, and that Nero concluded he
+was to die at that age, never thinking upon old Galba, who, at the age
+of seventy-three, deprived him of the empire.
+
+Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius of Tyana, who saw Domitian,
+informs us that Apollonius visited all the oracles of Greece, and that
+of Dodona, and that of Delphos; and that of Amphiaraus. Plutarch, who
+lived under Trajan, tells us that the oracles of Delphos still
+subsisted, although there was then only one priestess, instead of two or
+three. Under Adrian, Dion Chrysostom relates that he consulted the
+oracle of Delphos; he obtained from it an answer which appeared to him
+not a little perplexed, and which in fact was so.
+
+Under the Antonines, Lucian asserts that a priest of Tyana went to
+inquire of the false prophet Alexander, whether the oracles which were
+then delivered at Dindymus, Claros, and Delphos, were really answers of
+Apollo, or impostures? Alexander had some fellow-feeling for these
+oracles, which were of a similar description to his own, and replied to
+the priest, that that was not permitted to be known; but when the same
+wise inquirer asked what he should be after his death, he was boldly
+answered, "You will be a camel, then a horse, afterwards a philosopher,
+and at length a prophet as great as Alexander."
+
+After the Antonines, three emperors contended for the empire. The oracle
+of Delphos was consulted, says Spartian, to ascertain which of the three
+the republic might expect as its head. The oracle answered in a single
+verse to the following purport: The black is better; the African is
+good; the white is the worst. By the black was understood Pescennius
+Niger; by the African, Severus Septimus, who was from Africa; and by the
+white, Claudius Albinus.
+
+Dion, who did not conclude his history before the eighth year of
+Alexander Severus, that is, the year 230, relates that in his time
+Amphilocus still delivered oracles in dreams. He informs us also, that
+there was in the city of Apollonia an oracle which declared future
+events by the manner in which the fire caught and consumed the incense
+thrown upon an altar.
+
+Under Aurelian, about the year 272, the people of Palmyra, having
+revolted, consulted an oracle of Sarpedonian Apollo in Cilicia; they
+again consulted that of the Aphacian Venus. Licinus, according to the
+account of Sozomen, designing to renew the war against Constantine,
+consulted the oracle of Apollo of Dindymus, and received from it in
+answer two verses of Homer, of which the sense is--Unhappy old man, it
+becomes not you to combat with the young! you have no strength, and are
+sinking under the weight of age.
+
+A certain god, scarcely if at all known, of the name of Besa, if we may
+credit Ammianus Marcellinus, still delivered oracles on billets at
+Abydos, in the extremity of the Thebais, under the reign of Constantius.
+Finally, Macrobius, who lived under Arcadius and Honorius, sons of
+Theodosius, speaks of the god of Heliopolis of Syria and his oracle, and
+of the fortunes of Antium, in terms which distinctly imply that they all
+still subsisted in his time.
+
+We may observe that it is not of the slightest consequence whether these
+histories are true or whether the oracles in fact delivered the answers
+attributed to them; it is completely sufficient for the purpose that
+false answers could be attributed only to oracles which were in fact
+known still to subsist; and the histories which so many authors have
+published clearly prove that they did not cease but with the cessation
+of paganism itself.
+
+Constantine pulled down but few temples, nor indeed could he venture to
+pull them down but on a pretext of crimes committed in them. It was on
+this ground that he ordered the demolition of those of the Aphacian
+Venus, and of Æsculapius which was at Ægea in Cilicia, both of them
+temples in which oracles were delivered. But he forbade sacrifices to
+the gods, and by that edict began to render temples useless.
+
+Many oracles still subsisted when Julian assumed the reins of empire. He
+re-established some that were in a state of ruin; and he was even
+desirous of being the prophet of that of Dindymus. Jovian, his
+successor, began his reign with great zeal for the destruction of
+paganism; but in the short space of seven months, which comprised the
+whole time he reigned, he was unable to make any great progress.
+Theodosius, in order to attain the same object, ordered all the temples
+of the pagans to be shut up. At last, the exercise of that religion was
+prohibited under pain of death by an edict of the emperors Valentinian
+and Marcian, in the year 451 of the vulgar era; and the destruction of
+paganism necessarily involved that of oracles.
+
+This conclusion has nothing in it surprising or extraordinary: it is the
+natural consequence of the establishment of a new worship. Miraculous
+facts, or rather what it is desired should be considered as such,
+diminish in a false religion, either in proportion as it becomes firmly
+established and has no longer occasion for them, or in proportion as it
+gradually becomes weaker and weaker, because they no longer obtain
+credit. The ardent but useless desire to pry into futurity gave birth to
+oracles; imposture encouraged and sanctioned them; and fanaticism set
+the seal; for an infallible method of making fanatics is to persuade
+before you instruct. The poverty of the people, who had no longer
+anything left them to give; the imposture detected in many oracles, and
+thence naturally concluded to exist in all; and finally the edicts of
+the Christian emperors; such are the real causes of the establishment,
+and of the cessation, of this species of imposture. The introduction of
+an opposite state of circumstances into human affairs made it completely
+disappear; and oracles thus became involved in the vicissitudes
+accompanying all human institutions.
+
+Some limit themselves to observing that the birth of Jesus Christ is the
+first epoch of the cessation of oracles. But why, on such an occasion,
+should some demons have fled, while others remained? Besides, ancient
+history proves decidedly that many oracles had been destroyed before
+this birth. All the distinguished oracles of Greece no longer existed,
+or scarcely existed, and the oracle was occasionally interrupted by the
+silence of an honest priest who would not consent to deceive the people.
+"The oracle of Delphi," says Lucian, "remains dumb since princes have
+become afraid of futurity; they have prohibited the gods from speaking,
+and the gods have obeyed them."
+
+
+
+
+ORDEAL.
+
+
+It might be imagined that all the absurdities which degrade human nature
+were destined to come to us from Asia, the source at the same time of
+all the sciences and arts! It was in Asia and in Egypt that mankind
+first dared to make the life or death of a person accused, dependent on
+the throw of a die, or something equally unconnected with reason and
+decided by chance--on cold water or hot water, on red hot iron, or a bit
+of barley bread. Similar superstition, we are assured by travellers,
+still exists in the Indies, on the coast of Malabar, and in Japan.
+
+This superstition passed from Egypt into Greece. There was a very
+celebrated temple at Trezène in which every man who perjured himself
+died instantly of apoplexy. Hippolytus, in the tragedy of "Phædra," in
+the first scene of the fifth act, addresses the following lines to his
+mistress Aricia:
+
+     _Aux portes de Trezène, et parmi ces tombeaux,_
+     _Des princes de ma race antiques sepultures,_
+     _Est un temple sacré formidable aux parjures._
+     _C'est là que les mortels n'osent jurer en vain;_
+     _Le perfide y reçoit un châtiment soudain;_
+     _Et, craignant d'y trouver la mort inévitable,_
+     _Le mensonge n'a point de frem plus redoubtable._
+
+     At Trezène's gates, amidst the ancient tombs
+     In which repose the princes of my race,
+     A sacred temple stands, the perjurer's dread.
+     No daring mortal there may falsely swear,
+     For swift the vengeance which pursues his crime,
+     Inevitable death his instant lot;
+     Nowhere has falsehood a more awful curb.
+
+The learned commentator of the great Racine makes the following remark
+on these Trezenian proofs or ordeals:
+
+"M. de la Motte has remarked that Hippolytus should have proposed to his
+father to come and hear his justification in this temple, where no one
+dared venture on swearing to a falsehood. It is certain, that in such a
+case Theseus could not have doubted the innocence of that young prince;
+but he had received too convincing evidence against the virtue of
+Phædra, and Hippolytus was not inclined to make the experiment. M. de la
+Motte would have done well to have distrusted his own good taste, when
+he suspected that of Racine, who appears to have foreseen the objection
+here made. In fact, Theseus is so prejudiced against Hippolytus that he
+will not even permit him to justify himself by an oath."
+
+I should observe that the criticism of La Motte was originally made by
+the deceased marquis de Lassai. He delivered it at M. de la Faye's, at a
+dinner party at which I was present together with the late M. de la
+Motte, who promised to make use of it; and, in fact, in his "Discourses
+upon Tragedy," he gives the honor of the criticism to the marquis de
+Lassai. The remark appeared to me particularly judicious, as well as to
+M. de la Faye and to all the guests present, who--of course excepting
+myself--were the most able critics in Paris. But we all agreed that
+Aricia was the person who should have called upon Theseus to try the
+accused by the ordeal of the Trezenian temple; and so much the more so,
+as Theseus immediately after talks for a long time together to that
+princess, who forgets the only thing that could clear up the doubts of
+the father and vindicate the son. The commentator in vain objects that
+Theseus has declared to his son he will not believe his oaths:
+
+     Toujours les scélérats ont recours au parjure.
+                      --_Phedra._ Act iv., scene 2.
+
+     The wicked always have recourse to oaths.
+
+There is a prodigious difference between an oath taken in a common
+apartment, and an oath taken in a temple where the perjured are punished
+by sudden death. Had Aricia said but a single word on the subject,
+Theseus could have had no excuse for not conducting Hippolytus to this
+temple; but, in that case, what would have become of the catastrophe?
+
+Hippolytus, then, should not have mentioned at all the appalling power
+of the temple of Trezène to his beloved Aricia; he had no need whatever
+to take an oath of his love to her, for of that she was already most
+fully persuaded. In short, his doing so is an inadvertence, a small
+fault, which escaped the most ingenious, elegant, and impassioned
+tragedian that we ever had.
+
+From this digression, I return to the barbarous madness of ordeals. They
+were not admitted in the Roman republic. We cannot consider as of one of
+these ordeals, the usage by which the most important enterprises were
+made to depend upon the manner in which the sacred pullets ate their
+vetches. We are here considering only ordeals applied to ascertain the
+guilt or innocence of men. It was never proposed to the Manliuses,
+Camilluses, or Scipios, to prove their innocence by plunging their hands
+into boiling water without its scalding them.
+
+These suggestions of folly and barbarism were not admitted under the
+emperors. But the Tartars who came to destroy the empire--for the
+greater part of these plunderers issued originally from Tartary--filled
+our quarter of the world with their ridiculous and cruel jurisprudence,
+which they derived from the Persians. It was not known in the Eastern
+Empire till the time of Justinian, notwithstanding the detestable
+superstition which prevailed in it. But from that time the ordeals we
+are speaking of were received. This manner of trying men is so ancient
+that we find it established among the Jews in all periods of their
+history.
+
+Korah, Dathan, and Abiram dispute the pontificate with the high priest
+Aaron in the wilderness; Moses commands them to bring him two hundred
+and fifty censors, and says to them: Let God choose between their
+censors and that of Aaron. Scarcely had the revolted made their
+appearance in order to submit to this ordeal, before they were swallowed
+up by the earth, and fire from heaven struck two hundred and fifty of
+their principal adherents; after which, the Lord destroyed fourteen
+thousand seven hundred more men of that party. The quarrel however for
+the priesthood still continued between the chiefs of Israel and Aaron.
+The ordeal of rods was then employed; each man presented his rod, and
+that of Aaron was the only one which budded.
+
+Although the people of God had levelled the walls of Jericho by the
+sound of trumpets, they were overcome by the inhabitants of Ai. This
+defeat did not appear at all natural to Joshua; he consulted the Lord,
+who answered that Israel had sinned; that some one had appropriated to
+his own use a part of the plunder that had been taken at Jericho, and
+there devoted as accursed. In fact, all ought to have been burned,
+together with the men and women, children and cattle, and whoever had
+preserved and carried off any part was to be exterminated. Joshua, in
+order to discover the offender, subjected all the tribes to the trial by
+lot. The lot first fell on the tribe of Judah, then on the family of
+Zarah, then on the house of Zabdi, and finally on the grandson of Zabdi,
+whose name was Acham.
+
+Scripture does not explain how it was that these wandering tribes came
+to have houses; neither does it inform us what kind of lots were made
+use of on the occasion; but it is clear from the text, that Acham, being
+convicted of stealing a small wedge of gold, a scarlet mantle, and two
+hundred shekels of silver, was burned to death in the valley of Achor,
+together with his sons, his sheep, his oxen, and his asses; and even his
+very tent was burned with him.
+
+The promised land was divided by lot; lots were drawn respecting the two
+goats of expiation which should be sacrificed to the Lord, and which
+should go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. When Saul was to be
+chosen king, lots were consulted, and the lot fell on the tribe of
+Benjamin, on the family of Metri belonging to that tribe, and finally on
+Saul, the son of Kish, in the family of Metri.
+
+The lot fell on Jonathan to be punished for having eaten some honey at
+the end of a rod. The sailors of Joppa drew lots to learn from God what
+was the cause of the tempest. The lot informed them that it was Jonah;
+and they threw him into the sea.
+
+All these ordeals by lot, which among other nations were merely profane
+superstitions, were the voice of God Himself when employed by His
+cherished and beloved people; and so completely and decidedly the voice
+of God that even the apostles filled the place of the apostle Judas by
+lot. The two candidates for the succession were Matthias and Barnabas.
+Providence declared in favor of St. Matthias.
+
+Pope Honorius, the third of that name, forbade by a decretal from that
+time forward the method of choosing bishops by lot. Deciding by lots was
+a very common practice, and was called by the pagans, "_sortilegium._"
+Cato, in the "Pharsalia," says, "_Sortilegis egeant dubil...._"
+
+There were other ordeals among the Jews in the name of the Lord; as, for
+example, the waters of jealousy. A woman suspected of adultery was
+obliged to drink of that water mixed with ashes, and consecrated by the
+high priest. If she was guilty she instantly swelled and died. It is
+upon the foundation of this law that the whole Christian world in the
+West established oracles for persons under juridical accusation, not
+considering that what was ordained even by God Himself in the Old
+Testament was nothing more or less than an absurd superstition in the
+New.
+
+Duel by wager of battle was one of those ordeals, and lasted down to the
+sixteenth century. He who killed his adversary was always in the right.
+The most dreadful of all these curious and barbarous ordeals, was that
+of a man's carrying a bar of red-hot iron to the distance of nine paces
+without burning himself. Accordingly, the history of the middle ages,
+fabulous as it is, does not record any instance of this ordeal, nor of
+that which consisted in walking over nine burning ploughshares. All the
+others might be doubted, or the deceptions and tricks employed in
+relation to them to deceive the judges might be easily explained. It was
+very easy, for example, to appear to pass through the trial of boiling
+water without injury; a vessel might be produced half full of cold
+water, into which the judicial boiling water might be put; and the
+accused might safely plunge his arm up to the elbow in the lukewarm
+mixture, and take up from the bottom the sacred blessed ring that had
+been thrown into it for that purpose.
+
+Oil might be made to boil with water; the oil begins to rise and appears
+to boil when the water begins to simmer, and the oil at that time has
+acquired but a small degree of heat. In such circumstances, a man seems
+to plunge his hand into boiling water; but, in fact, moistens it with
+the harmless oil, which preserves it from contact with and injury by the
+water.
+
+A champion may easily, by degrees, harden and habituate himself to
+holding, for a few seconds, a ring that has been thrown into the fire,
+without any very striking or painful marks of burning. To pass between
+two fires without being scorched is no very extraordinary proof of skill
+or address, when the movement is made with great rapidity and the face
+and hands are well rubbed with ointment. It is thus that the formidable
+Peter Aldobrandini, or "The Fiery Peter," as he was called, used to
+manage--if there is any truth in his history--when he passed between two
+blazing fires at Florence, in order to demonstrate, with God's help,
+that his archbishop was a knave and debauchee. O, charlatans!
+charlatans! henceforth disappear forever from the pages of history!
+
+There existed a rather ludicrous ordeal, which consisted in making an
+accused person try to swallow a piece of barley bread, which it was
+believed would certainly choke him if he were guilty. I am not, however,
+so much diverted with this case as with the conduct of Harlequin, when
+the judge interrogated him concerning a robbery of which Dr. Balouard
+accused him. The judge was sitting at table, and drinking some excellent
+wine at the time, when Harlequin was brought in; perceiving which, the
+latter takes up the bottle, and, pouring the whole of its contents into
+a glass, swallows it at a draught, saying to the doctor: "If I am guilty
+of what you accuse me, sir, I hope this wine will prove poison to me."
+
+
+
+
+ORDINATION.
+
+
+If a soldier, charged by the king of France with the honor of conferring
+the order of St. Louis upon another soldier, had not, when presenting
+the latter with the cross, the intention of making him a knight of that
+order, would the receiver of the badge be on that account the less a
+member of the order than if such intention had existed? Certainly not.
+
+How was it, then, that many priests thought it necessary to be
+re-ordained after the death of the celebrated Lavardin, bishop of Mans?
+That singular prelate, who had instituted the order of "Good
+Fellows"--Des Coteaux--bethought himself on his deathbed of a singular
+trick, in the way of revenge, on a class of persons who had much annoyed
+him. He was well known as one of the most daring freethinkers of the age
+of Louis XIV., and had been publicly upbraided with his infidel
+sentiments, by many of those on whom he had conferred orders of
+priesthood. It is natural at the approach of death, for a sensitive and
+apprehensive soul to revert to the religion of its early years. Decency
+alone would have required of the bishop, that at least at his death he
+should give an example of edification to the flock to which he had given
+so much scandal by his life. But he was so deeply exasperated against
+his clergy, as to declare, that not a single individual of those whom he
+had himself ordained was really and truly a priest; that all their acts
+in the capacity of priests were null and void; and that he never
+entertained the intention of conferring any sacrament.
+
+Such reasoning seems certainly characteristic, and just such as might be
+expected from a drunken man; the priests of Mans might have replied to
+him, "It is not your intention that is of any consequence, but ours. We
+had an ardent and determined desire to be priests; we did all in our
+power to become such. We are perfectly ingenuous and sincere; if you are
+not so, that is nothing at all to us." The maxim applicable to the
+occasion is, "_quic quid accipitur ad modum recipientis accipitur,_" and
+not "_ad modum dantis._" "When our wine merchant has sold us a half a
+hogshead of wine, we drink it, although he might have a secret intention
+to hinder us from drinking it; we shall still be priests in spite of
+your testament."
+
+Those reasons were sound and satisfactory. However, the greater number
+of those who had been ordained by that bishop did not consider
+themselves as real and authorized priests, and subjected themselves to
+ordination a second time. Mascaron, a man of moderate talents, but of
+great celebrity as a preacher, persuaded them, both by his discourses
+and example, to have the ceremony repeated. The affair occasioned great
+scandal at Mans, and Paris, and Versailles; but like everything else was
+soon forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+ORIGINAL SIN.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+This is a subject on which the Socinians or Unitarians take occasion to
+exult and triumph. They denominate this foundation of Christianity its
+"original sin." It is an insult to God, they say; it is accusing Him of
+the most absurd barbarity to have the hardihood to assert, that He
+formed all the successive generations of mankind to deliver them over to
+eternal tortures, under the pretext of their original ancestor having
+eaten of a particular fruit in a garden. This sacrilegious imputation is
+so much the more inexcusable among Christians, as there is not a single
+word respecting this same invention of original sin, either in the
+Pentateuch, or in the prophets, or the gospels, whether apocryphal or
+canonical, or in any of the writers who are called the "first fathers of
+the Church."
+
+It is not even related in the Book of Genesis that God condemned Adam to
+death for eating an apple. God says to him, indeed, "in the day that
+thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." But the very same Book of
+Genesis makes Adam live nine hundred and thirty years after indulging in
+this criminal repast. The animals, the plants, which had not partaken of
+this fruit, died at the respective periods prescribed for them by
+nature. Man is evidently born to die, like all the rest.
+
+Moreover, the punishment of Adam was never, in any way, introduced into
+the Jewish law. Adam was no more a Jew than he was a Persian or
+Chaldæan. The first chapters of Genesis--at whatever period they were
+composed--were regarded by all the learned Jews as an allegory, and even
+as a fable not a little dangerous, since that book was forbidden to be
+read by any before they had attained the age of twenty-one.
+
+In a word, the Jews knew no more about original sin than they did about
+the Chinese ceremonies; and, although divines generally discover in the
+Scripture everything they wish to find there, either "_totidem verbis,_"
+or "_totidem literis,_" we may safely assert that no reasonable divine
+will ever discover in it this surprising and overwhelming mystery.
+
+We admit that St. Augustine was the first who brought this strange
+notion into credit; a notion worthy of the warm and romantic brain of an
+African debauchee and penitent, Manichæan and Christian, tolerant and
+persecuting--who passed his life in perpetual self-contradiction.
+
+What an abomination, exclaim the strict Unitarians, so atrociously to
+calumniate the Author of Nature as even to impute to Him perpetual
+miracles, in order that He may damn to all eternity the unhappy race of
+mankind, whom he introduces into the present life only for so short a
+span! Either He created souls from all eternity, upon which system, as
+they must be infinitely more ancient than the sin of Adam, they can have
+no possible connection with it; or these souls are formed whenever man
+and woman sexually associate; in which case the Supreme Being must be
+supposed continually watching for all the various associations of this
+nature that take place, to create spirits that He will render eternally
+miserable; or, finally, God is Himself the soul of all mankind, and upon
+this system damns Himself. Which of these three suppositions is the most
+absurd and abominable? There is no fourth. For the opinion that God
+waits six weeks before He creates a damned soul in a fœtus is, in fact,
+no other than that which creates it at the moment of sexual connection:
+the difference of six weeks cannot be of the slightest consequence in
+the argument. I have merely related the opinion of the Unitarians; but
+men have now attained such a degree of superstition that I can scarcely
+relate it without trembling.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+It must be acknowledged that we are not acquainted with any father of
+the Church before St. Augustine and St. Jerome, who taught the doctrine
+of original sin. St. Clement of Alexandria, notwithstanding his profound
+knowledge of antiquity, far from speaking in any one passage of his
+works of that corruption which has infected the whole human race, and
+rendered it guilty from its birth, says in express words, "What evil can
+a new-born infant commit? How could it possibly prevaricate? How could
+such a being, which has, in fact, as yet done no one thing, fall under
+the curse of Adam?"
+
+And it is worth observing that he does not employ this language in order
+to combat the rigid opinion of original sin, which was not at that time
+developed, but merely to show that the passions, which are capable of
+corrupting all mankind, have, as yet, taken no hold of this innocent
+infant. He does not say: This creature of a day would not be damned if
+it should now die, for no one had yet conjectured that it would be
+damned. St. Clement could not combat a system absolutely unknown.
+
+The great Origen is still more decisive than St. Clement of Alexandria.
+He admits, indeed, in his exposition of the Epistle of Paul to the
+Romans, that sin entered into the world by Adam, but he maintains that
+it is the inclination to sin that thus entered; that it is very easy to
+commit evil, but that it is not on that account said, man will always
+commit evil, and is guilty even as soon as he is born.
+
+In short, original sin, in the time of Origen, consisted only in the
+misfortune of resembling the first man by being liable to sin like him.
+Baptism was a necessary ordinance; it was the seal of Christianity; it
+washed away all sins; but no man had yet said, that it washed away those
+which the subject of it had not committed. No one yet asserted that an
+infant would be damned, and burned in everlasting flames, in consequence
+of its dying within two minutes of its birth. And an unanswerable proof
+on this point is, that a long period passed away before the practice of
+baptizing infants became prevalent. Tertullian was averse to their being
+baptized; but, on the persuasion that original sin--of which these poor
+innocents could not possibly be guilty--would affect their reprobation,
+and expose them to suffer boundless and endless torture, for a deed of
+which it was impossible for them to have the slightest knowledge: to
+refuse them the consecrated bath of baptism, would be wilfully
+consigning them to eternal damnation. The souls of all the executioners
+in the world, condensed into the very essence of ingenious cruelty,
+could not have suggested a more execrable abomination.
+
+In a word, it is an incontestable fact that Christians did not for a
+certain period baptize their infants, and it is therefore equally
+incontestable that they were very far from damning them.
+
+This, however, is not all; Jesus Christ never said: "The infant that is
+not baptized will be damned." He came on the contrary to expiate all
+sins, to redeem mankind by His blood; therefore, infants could not be
+damned. Infants would, of course, _a fortiori,_ and, preferably, enjoy
+this privilege. Our divine Saviour never baptized any person. Paul
+circumcised his disciple Timothy, but is nowhere said to have baptized
+him.
+
+In a word, during the two first centuries, the baptism of infants was
+not customary; it was not believed, therefore, that infants would become
+victims of the fault of Adam. At the end of four hundred years their
+salvation was considered in danger, and great uncertainty and
+apprehension existed on the subject.
+
+In the fifth century appears Pelagius. He treated the opinion of
+original sin as monstrous. According to him, this dogma, like all
+others, was founded upon a mere ambiguity. God had said to Adam in the
+garden: "In the day in which thou shalt eat of the tree of knowledge,
+thou shalt die." But, he did not die; and God pardoned him. Why, then,
+should He not spare His race to the thousandth generation? Why should He
+consign to infinite and eternal torments the innocent infants whose
+father He received back into forgiveness and favor?
+
+Pelagius considered God, not merely as an absolute master, but as a
+parent, who left His children at perfect liberty, and rewarded them
+beyond their merits, and punished them less than their faults deserved.
+The language used by him and his disciples was: "If all men are born
+objects of the eternal wrath of that Being who confers on them life; if
+they can possibly be guilty before they can even think, it is then a
+fearful and execrable offence to give them being, and marriage is the
+most atrocious of crimes. Marriage, on this system, is nothing more or
+less than an emanation from the Manichæan principle of evil; and those
+who engage in it, instead of adoring God, adore the devil."
+
+Pelagius and his partisans propagated this doctrine in Africa, where the
+reputation and influence of St. Augustine were unbounded. He had been a
+Manichæan, and seemed to think himself called upon to enter the lists
+against Pelagius. The latter was ill able to resist either Augustine or
+Jerome; various points, however, were contested, and the dispute
+proceeded so far that Augustine pronounced his sentence of damnation
+upon all children born, or to be born, throughout the world, in the
+following terms: "The Catholic faith teaches that all men are born so
+guilty that even infants are certainly damned when they die without
+having been regenerated in Jesus."
+
+It would be but a wretched compliment of condolence to offer to a queen
+of China, or Japan, or India, Scythia, or Gothia, who had just lost her
+infant son to say: "Be comforted, madam; his highness the prince royal
+is now in the clutches of five hundred devils, who turn him round and
+round in a great furnace to all eternity, while his body rests embalmed
+and in peace within the precincts of your palace."
+
+The astonished and terrified queen inquires why these devils should
+eternally roast her dear son, the prince royal. She is answered that the
+reason of it is that his great-grandfather formerly ate of the fruit of
+knowledge, in a garden. Form an idea, if possible, of the looks and
+thoughts of the king, the queen, the whole council, and all the
+beautiful ladies of the court!
+
+The sentence of the African bishop appeared to some divines--for there
+are some good souls to be found in every place and class--rather severe,
+and was therefore mitigated by one Peter Chrysologus, or Peter
+Golden-tongue, who invented a suburb to hell, called "limbo", where all
+the little boys and girls that died before baptism might be disposed of.
+It is a place in which these innocents vegetate without sensation; the
+abode of apathy; the place that has been called "The paradise of fools."
+We find this very expression in Milton. He places this paradise
+somewhere near the moon!
+
+
+_Explication Of Original Sin._
+
+The difficulty is the same with respect to this substituted limbo as
+with respect to hell. Why should these poor little wretches be placed in
+this limbo? what had they done? how could their souls, which they had
+not in their possession a single day, be guilty of a gormandizing that
+merited a punishment of six thousand years?
+
+St. Augustine, who damns them, assigns as a reason, that the souls of
+all men being comprised in that of Adam, it is probable that they were
+all accomplices. But, as the Church subsequently decided that souls are
+not made before the bodies which they are to inhabit are originated,
+that system falls to the ground, notwithstanding the celebrity of its
+author.
+
+Others said that original sin was transmitted from soul to soul, in the
+way of emanation, and that one soul, derived from another, came into the
+world with all the corruption of the mother-soul. This opinion was
+condemned.
+
+After the divines had done with the question, the philosophers tried at
+it. Leibnitz, while sporting with his monads, amused himself with
+collecting together in Adam all the human monads with their little
+bodies of monads. This was going further than St. Augustine. But this
+idea, which was worthy of Cyrano de Bergerac, met with very few to adopt
+and defend it. Malebranche explains the matter by the influence of the
+imagination on mothers. Eve's brain was so strongly inflamed with the
+desire of eating the fruit that her children had the same desire; just
+like the irresistibly authenticated case of the woman who, after having
+seen a man racked, was brought to bed of a dislocated infant.
+
+Nicole reduced the affair to "a certain inclination, a certain tendency
+to concupiscence, which we have derived from our mothers. This
+inclination is not an act; but it will one day become such." Well said,
+Nicole; bravo! But, in the meantime, why am I to be damned? Nicole does
+not even touch the difficulty, which consists in ascertaining how our
+own souls, which have but recently been formed, can be fairly made
+responsible for the fault of another soul that lived some thousands of
+years ago.
+
+What, my good friends, _ought_ to be said upon the subject? Nothing.
+Accordingly, I do not give _my_ explication of the difficulty: I say not
+a single word.
+
+
+
+
+OVID.
+
+
+Scholars have not failed to write volumes to inform us exactly to what
+corner of the earth Ovidius Naso was banished by Octavius Cepias,
+surnamed Augustus. All that we know of it is, that, born at Sulmo and
+brought up at Rome, he passed ten years on the right shore of the
+Danube, in the neighborhood of the Black Sea. Though he calls this land
+barbarous, we must not fancy that it was a land of savages. There were
+verses made there; Cotis, the petty king of a part of Thrace, made Getic
+verses for Ovid. The Latin poet learned Getic, and also composed lines
+in this language. It seems as if Greek poetry should have been
+understood in the ancient country of Orpheus, but this country was then
+peopled by nations from the North, who probably spoke a Tartar dialect,
+a language approaching to the ancient Slavonian. Ovid seemed not
+destined to make Tartar verses. The country of the Tomites, to which he
+was banished, was a part of Mysia, a Roman province, between Mount Hemus
+and the Danube. It is situated in forty-four and a half degrees north
+latitude, like one of the finest climates of France; but the mountains
+which are at the south, and the winds of the north and east, which blow
+from the Euxine, the cold and dampness of the forests, and of the
+Danube, rendered this country insupportable to a man born in Italy. Thus
+Ovid did not live long, but died there at the age of sixty. He complains
+in his "Elegies" of the climate, and not of the inhabitants. "_Quos ego,
+cum loca sim vestra perosus, amo._"
+
+These people crowned him with laurel, and gave him privileges, which
+prevented him not from regretting Rome. It was a great instance of the
+slavery of the Romans and of the extinction of all laws, when a man born
+of an equestrian family, like Octavius, exiled a man of another
+equestrian family, and when one citizen of Rome with one word sent
+another among the Scythians. Before this time, it required a
+"plebiscitum", a law of the nation, to deprive a Roman of his country.
+Cicero, although banished by a cabal, had at least been exiled with the
+forms of law.
+
+The crime of Ovid was incontestably that of having seen something
+shameful in the family of Octavius:
+
+     _Cur aliquid vidi, cur noxia lumina feci?_
+     Why saw I aught, or why discover crime?
+
+The learned have not decided whether he had seen Augustus with a
+prettier boy than Mannius, whom he said he would not have because he was
+too ugly; whether he saw some page in the arms of the empress Livia,
+whom this Augustus had espoused, while pregnant by another; whether he
+had seen the said Augustus occupied with his daughter or granddaughter;
+or, finally, whether he saw him doing something still worse, "_torva tu
+entibus hircis?_" It is most probable that Ovid detected an incestuous
+correspondence, as an author, almost contemporary, named Minutionus
+Apuleius, says: "_Pulsum quoque in exilium quod Augusti incestum
+vidisset._"
+
+Octavius made a pretext of the innocent book of the "Art of Love," a
+book very decently written, and in which there is not an obscene word,
+to send a Roman knight to the Black Sea. The pretence was ridiculous.
+How could Augustus, of whom we have still verses filled with
+obscenities, banish Ovid for having several years before given to his
+friends some copies of the "Art of Love"? How could he impudently
+reproach Ovid for a work written with decorum, while he approved of
+Horace, who lavishes allusions and phrases on the most infamous
+prostitution, and who proposed girls and boys, maid servants and valets
+indiscriminately? It is nothing less than impudence to blame Ovid and
+tolerate Horace. It is clear that Octavius alleged a very insufficient
+reason, because he dared not allude to the real one. One proof that it
+related to some secret adventure of the sacred imperial family is that
+the goat of Caprea--Tiberius, immortalized by medals for his
+debaucheries; Tiberius, that monster of lust and dissimulation--did not
+recall Ovid, who, rather than demand the favor from the author of the
+proscriptions and the poisoner of Germanicus, remained on the shores of
+the Danube.
+
+If a Dutch, Polish, Swedish, English, or Venetian gentleman had by
+chance seen a stadtholder, or a king of Great Britain, Sweden, or
+Poland, or a doge of Venice, commit some great sin, even if it was not
+by chance that he saw it; if he had even sought the occasion, and was so
+indiscreet as to speak of it, this stadtholder, king, or doge could not
+legally banish him.
+
+We can reproach Ovid almost as much as Augustus and Tiberius for having
+praised them. The eulogiums which he lavishes on them are so extravagant
+that at present they would excite indignation if he had even given them
+to legitimate princes, his benefactors, instead of to tyrants, and to
+his tyrants in particular. You may be pardoned for praising a little too
+much a prince who caresses you; but not for treating as a god one who
+persecutes you. It would have been a hundred times better for him to
+have embarked on the Black Sea and retired into Persia by the Palus
+Mæotis, than to have written his "Tristia." He would have learned
+Persian as easily as Getic, and might have forgotten the master of Rome
+near the master of Ecbatana. Some strong minds will say that there was
+still another part to take, which was to go secretly to Rome, address
+himself to some relations of Brutus and Cassius, and get up a twelfth
+conspiracy against Octavius; but that was not in elegiac taste.
+
+Poetical panegyrics are strange things! It is very clear that Ovid
+wished with all his heart, that some Brutus would deliver Rome from that
+Augustus, to whom in his verses he wished immortality. I reproach Ovid
+with his "Tristia" alone. Bayle forms his system on the philosophy of
+chaos so ably exhibited in the commencement of the "Metamorphoses":
+
+     _Ante mare et terras, et quod tegit omnia cœlum,_
+     _Unus erat toto naturæ vultus in orbe._
+
+Bayle thus translates these first lines: "Before there was a heaven, an
+earth, and a sea, nature was all homogeneous." In Ovid it is, "The face
+of nature was the same throughout the universe," which means not that
+all was homogeneous, but heterogeneous--this assemblage of different
+things appeared the same; "_unus vultus._" Bayle criticises chaos
+throughout. Ovid, who in his verses is only the poet of the ancient
+philosophy, says that things hard and soft, light and heavy, were mixed
+together:
+
+     _Mollia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus._
+                             --OVID'S Met., b. i., l. 20.
+
+And this is the manner in which Bayle reasons against him: "There is
+nothing more absurd than to suppose a chaos which had been homogeneous
+from all eternity, though it had the elementary qualities, at least
+those which we call alteratives, which are heat, cold, humidity, and
+dryness, as those which we call matrices, which are lightness and
+weight, the former the cause of upper motion, the latter of lower.
+Matter of this nature cannot be homogeneous, and must necessarily
+contain all sorts of heterogeneousness. Heat and cold, humidity and
+dryness, cannot exist together, unless their action and reaction temper
+and convert them into other qualities which assume the form of mixed
+bodies; and as this temperament can be made according to innumerable
+diversities of combinations, chaos must contain an incredible number of
+compound species. The only manner of conceiving matter homogeneous is by
+saying that the alterative qualities of the elements modify all the
+molecules of matter in the same degree in such a way, that throughout
+there is the same warmth, the same softness, the same odor, etc. But
+this would be to destroy with one hand that which has been built up with
+the other; it would be by a contradiction in terms to call chaos the
+most regular, the most marvellous for its symmetry, and the most
+admirable in its proportions that it is possible to conceive. I allow
+that the taste of man approves of a diversified rather than of a regular
+work; but our reason teaches us that the harmony of contrary qualities,
+uniformly preserved throughout the universe, would be as admirable a
+perfection as the unequal division of them which has succeeded chaos.
+What knowledge and power would not the diffusion of this uniform harmony
+throughout nature demand! It would not be sufficient to place in any
+compound an equal quantity of all the four ingredients; of one there
+must be more and of another less, according as their force is greater or
+less for action or resistance; for we know that philosophers bestow
+action and reaction in a different degree on the elementary qualities.
+All would amount to an opinion that the power which metamorphosed chaos
+has withdrawn it, not from a state of strife and confusion as is
+pretended, but from a state of the most admirable harmony, which by the
+adjustment of the equilibrium of contrary forces, retained it in a
+repose equivalent to peace. It is certain, therefore, that if the poets
+will insist on the homogeneity of chaos, they must erase all which they
+have added concerning the wild confusion of contrary seeds, of the
+undigested mass, and of the perpetual combat of conflicting principles.
+
+"Passing over this contradiction we shall find sufficient subject for
+opposing them in other particulars. Let us recommence the attack on
+eternity. There is nothing more absurd than to admit, for an infinite
+time, the mixture of the insensible particles of four elements; for as
+soon as you suppose in them the activity of heat, the action and
+reaction of the four primary qualities, and besides these, motion
+towards the centre in the elements of earth and water, and towards the
+circumference in those of fire and air, you establish a principle which
+necessarily separates these four kinds of bodies, the one from the
+other, and for which a definite period alone is necessary. Consider a
+little, that which is denominated "the vial of the four elements". There
+are put into it some small metallic particles, and then three liquids,
+the one much lighter than the other. Shake these well together, and you
+no longer discern any of these component parts singly; each is
+confounded with the other. But leave your vial at rest for a short time,
+and you will find every one of them resume its pristine situation. The
+metallic particles will reassemble at the bottom of the vial, the
+lightest liquid will rise to the top, and the others take their stations
+according to their respective degrees of gravity. Thus a very short time
+will suffice to restore them to the same relative situation which they
+occupied before the vial was shaken. In this vial you behold the laws
+which nature has given in this world to the four elements, and,
+comparing the universe to this vial, we may conclude, that if the earth
+reduced to powder had been mingled with the matter of the stars, and
+with that of air and of water, in such a way as that the compound
+exhibited none of the elements by themselves, all would have immediately
+operated to disengage themselves, and at the end of a certain time, the
+particles of earth would form one mass, those of fire another; and thus
+of the others in proportion to the lightness or heaviness of each of
+them."
+
+I deny to Bayle, that the experiment of the vial infers a definite
+period for the duration of chaos. I inform him, that by heavy and light
+things, Ovid and the philosophers intended those which became so after
+God had placed His hand on them. I say to him: "You take for granted
+that nature arranged all, and bestowed weight upon herself. You must
+begin by proving to me that gravity is an essential quality of matter, a
+position which has never been proved." Descartes, in his romance has
+pretended that body never became heavy until his vortices of subtle
+matter began to push them from the centre. Newton, in his correct
+philosophy, never says that gravitation or attraction is a quality
+essential to matter. If Ovid had been able to divine the "Principia" of
+Newton, he would have said: "Matter was neither heavy nor in motion in
+my chaos; it was God who endowed it with these properties; my chaos
+includes not the forces you imagine"--"_nec quidquam nisi pondus
+iners;_" it was a powerless mass; "pondus" here signifies not weight but
+mass.
+
+Nothing could possess weight, before God bestowed on matter the
+principle of gravitation. In whatever degree one body is impelled
+towards the centre of another, would it be drawn or impelled by another,
+if the Supreme Power had not bestowed upon it this inexplicable virtue?
+Therefore Ovid will not only turn out a good philosopher but a passable
+theologian.
+
+You say: "A scholastic theologian will admit without difficulty, that if
+the four elements had existed independently of God, with all the
+properties which they now possess, they would have formed of themselves
+the machine of the world, and have maintained it in the state which we
+now behold. There are therefore two great faults in the doctrine of
+chaos; the first of which is, that it takes away from God the creation
+of matter, and the production of the qualities proper to air, fire,
+earth, and water; the other, that after taking God away, He is made to
+appear unnecessarily on the theatre of the world, in order to assign
+their places to the four elements. Our modern philosophers, who have
+rejected the faculties and the qualities of the peripatetician physics,
+will find the same defects in the description of the chaos of Ovid; for
+that which they call general laws of motion, mechanical principles,
+modifications of matter, the form, situation, and arrangement of atoms,
+comprehends nothing beyond the active and passive virtue of nature,
+which the peripatetics understand by the alterative and formative
+qualities of the four elements. Seeing, therefore, that, according to
+the doctrine of this school, these four bodies, separated according to
+their natural heaviness and lightness, form a principle which suffices
+for all generation, the Cartesians, Gassendists, and other modern
+philosophers, ought to maintain that the motion, situation, and form of
+the particles of matter, are sufficient for the production of all
+natural effects, without excepting even the general arrangement which
+has placed the earth, the air, the water, and the stars where we see
+them. Thus, the true cause of the world, and of the effect which it
+produces, is not different from the cause which has bestowed motion on
+particles of matter--whether at the same time that it assigned to each
+atom a determinate figure, as the Gassendists assert, or that it has
+only given to particles entirely cubic, an impulsion which, by the
+duration of the motion according to certain laws, makes it ultimately
+take all sorts of forms--which is the hypothesis of the Cartesians. Both
+the one and the other consequently agree, that if matter had been,
+before the generation of the present world, as Ovid describes, it would
+have been capable of withdrawing itself from chaos by its own necessary
+operation, without the assistance of God. Ovid may therefore be accused
+of two oversights--having supposed, in the first place, that without the
+assistance of the Divinity, matter possessed the seeds of every
+compound, heat, motion, etc.; and in the second, that without the same
+assistance it could extricate itself from confusion. This is to give at
+once too much and too little to both God and matter; it is to pass over
+assistance when most needed, and to demand it when no longer necessary."
+
+Ovid may still reply: "You are wrong in supposing that my elements
+originally possessed all the qualities which they possess at present.
+They had no qualities; matter existed naked, unformed, and powerless;
+and when I say, that in my chaos, heat was mingled with cold, and
+dryness with humidity, I only employ these expressions to signify that
+there was neither cold, nor heat, nor wet, nor dry, which are qualities
+that God has placed in our sensations, and not in matter. I have not
+made the mistakes of which you accuse me. Your Cartesians and your
+Gassendists commit oversights with their atoms and their cubic
+particles; and their imaginations deal as little in truth as my
+"Metamorphoses". I prefer Daphne changed into a laurel, and Narcissus
+into a flower, to subtile matter changed into suns, and denser matter
+transformed into earth and water. I have given you fables for fables,
+and your philosophers have given you fables for truth."
+
+
+
+
+PARADISE.
+
+
+There is no word whose meaning is more remote from its etymology. It is
+well known that it originally meant a place planted with fruit trees;
+and afterwards, the name was given to gardens planted with trees for
+shade. Such, in distant antiquity, were those of Saana, near Eden, in
+Arabia Felix, known long before the hordes of the Hebrews had invaded a
+part of the territory of Palestine.
+
+This word "paradise" is not celebrated among the Jews, except in the
+Book of Genesis. Some Jewish canonical writers speak of gardens; but not
+one of them has mentioned a word about the garden denominated the
+"earthly paradise". How could it happen that no Jewish writer, no Jewish
+prophet, or Jewish psalmodist, should have once cited that terrestrial
+paradise which we are talking of every day of our lives? This is almost
+incomprehensible. It has induced many daring critics to believe that
+Genesis was not written till a very late period.
+
+The Jews never took this orchard or plantation of trees--this garden,
+whether of plants or flowers--for heaven. St. Luke is the first who uses
+the word "paradise," as signifying heaven, when Jesus Christ says to the
+good thief: "This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise."
+
+The ancients gave the name of "heaven" to the clouds. That name would
+not have been exactly appropriate, as the clouds actually touch the
+earth by the vapors of which they are formed, and as heaven is a vague
+word signifying an immense space in which exist innumerable suns,
+planets, and comets, which has certainly but little resemblance to an
+orchard.
+
+St. Thomas says that there are three paradises--the terrestrial, the
+celestial, and the spiritual. I do not, I acknowledge, perfectly
+understand the difference between the spiritual and celestial. The
+spiritual orchard is according to him, the beatific vision. But it is
+precisely that which constitutes the celestial paradise, it is the
+enjoyment of God Himself. I do not presume to dispute against the "angel
+of the schools." I merely say--Happy must he be who always resides in
+one of these three paradises!
+
+Some curious critics have thought the paradise of the Hesperides,
+guarded by a dragon, was an imitation of the garden of Eden, kept by a
+winged ox or a cherub. Others, more rash, have ventured to assert that
+the ox was a bad copy of the dragon, and that the Jews were always gross
+plagiarists; but this will be admitted to be blasphemy, and that idea is
+insupportable.
+
+Why has the name of paradise been applied to the square courts in the
+front of a church? Why has the third row of boxes at the theatre or
+opera house been called paradise? Is it because, as these places are
+less dear than others, it was thought they were intended for the poor,
+and because it is pretended that in the other paradise there are far
+more poor persons than rich? Is it because these boxes are so high that
+they have obtained a name which also signifies heaven? There is,
+however, some difference between ascending to heaven, and ascending to
+the third row of boxes. What would a stranger think on his arrival at
+Paris, when asked: "Are you inclined to go to paradise to see
+Pourceaugnac?"
+
+What incongruities and equivoques are to be found in all languages! How
+strongly is human weakness manifested in every object that is presented
+around us! See the article "Paradise" in the great Encyclopædia. It is
+certainly better than this. We conclude with the Abbé de St. Pierre's
+favorite sentiment--"Paradise to the beneficent."
+
+
+
+
+PASSIONS.
+
+_Their Influence Upon The Body, And That Of The Body Upon Them._
+
+
+Pray inform me, doctor--I do not mean a doctor of medicine, who really
+possesses some degree of knowledge, who has long examined the
+sinuosities of the brain, who has investigated whether there is a
+circulating fluid in the nerves, who has repeatedly and assiduously
+dissected the human matrix in vain, to discover something of the
+formation of thinking beings, and who, in short, knows all of our
+machine that can be known; alas! I mean a very different person, a
+doctor of theology--I adjure you, by that reason at the very name of
+which you shudder, tell me why it is, that in consequence of your young
+and handsome housekeeper saying a few loving words, and giving herself a
+few coquettish airs, your blood becomes instantly agitated, and your
+whole frame thrown into a tumult of desire, which speedily leads to
+pleasures, of which neither herself nor you can explain the cause, but
+which terminate with the introduction into the world of a thinking being
+encrusted all over with original sin. Inform me, I entreat you, how the
+action tends to or is connected with the result? You may read and
+re-read Sanchez and Thomas Aquinas, and Scot and Bonaventure, but you
+will never in consequence know an iota the more of that incomprehensible
+mechanism by which the eternal architect directs your ideas and your
+actions, and originates the little bastard of a priest predestined to
+damnation from all eternity.
+
+On the following morning, when taking your chocolate, your memory
+retraces the image of pleasure which you experienced the evening before,
+and the scene and rapture are repeated. Have you any idea, my great
+automaton friend, what this same memory, which you possess in common
+with every species of animals, really is? Do you know what fibres recall
+your ideas, and paint in your brain the joys of the evening by a
+continuous sentiment, a consciousness, a personal identity which slept
+with you, and awoke with you? The doctor replies, in the language of
+Thomas Aquinas, that all this is the work of his vegetative soul, his
+sensitive soul, and his intellectual soul, all three of which compose a
+soul which, although without extension itself, evidently acts on a body
+possessed of extension in course.
+
+I perceived by his embarrassed manner, that he has been stammering out
+words without a single idea; and I at length say to him: If you feel,
+doctor, that, however reluctantly, you must in your own mind admit that
+you do not know what a soul is, and that you have been talking all your
+life without any distinct meaning, why not acknowledge it like an honest
+man? Why do you not conclude the same as must be concluded from the
+physical promotion of Doctor Bourssier, and from certain passages of
+Malebranche, and, above all, from the acute and judicious Locke, so far
+superior to Malebranche--why do you not, I say, conclude that your soul
+is a faculty which God has bestowed on you without disclosing to you the
+secret of His process, as He has bestowed on you various others? Be
+assured, that many men of deep reflection maintain that, properly
+speaking, the unknown power of the Divine Artificer, and His unknown
+laws, alone perform everything in us: and that, to speak more correctly
+still, we shall never know in fact anything at all about the matter.
+
+The doctor at this becomes agitated and irritated; the blood rushes into
+his face; if he had been stronger than myself, and had not been
+restrained by a sense of decency, he would certainly have struck me. His
+heart swells; the systole and diastole are interrupted in their regular
+operation; his brain is compressed; and he falls down in a fit of
+apoplexy. What connection could there be between this blood, and heart,
+and brain, and an old opinion of the doctor contrary to my own? Does a
+pure intellectual spirit fall into syncope when another is of a
+different opinion? I have uttered certain sounds; he has uttered certain
+sounds; and behold! he falls down in apoplexy--he drops dead!
+
+I am sitting at table, "_prima mensis,_" in the first of the month,
+myself and my soul, at the Sorbonne, with five or six doctors, "_socii
+Sorbonnici,_" fellows of the institution. We are served with bad and
+adulterated wine; at first our souls are elevated and maddened; half an
+hour afterwards our souls are stupefied, and as it were annihilated; and
+on the ensuing morning these same worthy doctors issue a grand decree,
+deciding that the soul, although occupying no place, let it be
+remembered, and absolutely immaterial--is lodged in the "_corpus
+callosum_" of the brain, in order to pay their court to surgeon La
+Peyronie.
+
+A guest is sitting at table full of conversation and gayety. A letter is
+brought him that overwhelms him with astonishment, grief, and
+apprehension. Instantly the muscles of his abdomen contract and relax
+with extraordinary violence, the peristaltic motion of the intestines is
+augmented, the sphincter of the rectum is opened by the convulsions
+which agitate his frame, and the unfortunate gentleman, instead of
+finishing his dinner in comfort, produces a copious evacuation. Tell me,
+then, what secret connection nature has established between an idea and
+a water-closet.
+
+Of all those persons who have undergone the operation of trepanning, a
+great proportion always remain imbecile. Of course, therefore, the
+thinking fibres of their brain have been injured; but where are these
+thinking fibres? Oh, Sanchez! Oh, Masters de Grillandis, Tamponet,
+Riballier! Oh, Cogé-Pecus, second regent and rector of the university,
+do give me a clear, decisive, and satisfactory explanation of all this,
+if you possibly can!
+
+While I was writing this article at Mount Krapak for my own private
+improvement, a book was brought to me called "The Medicine of the Mind,"
+by Doctor Camus, professor of medicine in the University of Paris. I was
+in hopes of finding in this book a solution of all my difficulties. But
+what was it that I found in fact? Just nothing at all. Ah, Master Camus!
+you have not displayed much mind in preparing your "Medicine of the
+Mind." This person strongly recommends the blood of an ass, drawn from
+behind the ear, as a specific against madness. "The virtue of the blood
+of an ass," he says, "re-establishes the soul in its functions." He
+maintains, also, that madmen are cured by giving them the itch. He
+asserts, likewise, that in order to gain or strengthen a memory, the
+meat of capons, leverets, and larks, is of eminent service, and that
+onions and butter ought to be avoided above all things. This was printed
+in 1769 with the king's approbation and privilege; and there really were
+people who consigned their health to the keeping of Master Camus,
+professor of medicine! Why was he not made first physician to the king?
+
+Poor puppets of the Eternal Artificer, who know neither why nor how an
+invisible hand moves all the springs of our machine, and at length packs
+us away in our wooden box! We constantly see more and more reason for
+repeating, with Aristotle, All is occult, all is secret.
+
+
+
+
+PAUL.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+_Questions Concerning Paul._
+
+Was Paul a Roman citizen, as he boasted? If he was a native of Tarsus in
+Cilicia, Tarsus was not a Roman colony until a hundred years after his
+death; upon this point all antiquaries are agreed. If he belonged to the
+little town or village of Gescala, as St. Jerome believed, this town was
+in Galilee, and certainly the Galileans were not Roman citizens.
+
+Is it true, that St. Paul entered into the rising society of Christians,
+who at that time were demi-Jews, only because Gamaliel, whose disciple
+he was, refused him his daughter in marriage? It appears that this
+accusation is to be found exclusively in the Acts of the Apostles, which
+are received by the Ebionites, and refuted by the Bishop Epiphanius in
+his thirtieth chapter.
+
+Is it true, that St. Thecla sought St. Paul in the disguise of a man,
+and are the acts of St. Thecla admissible? Tertullian, in the thirteenth
+chapter of his book on "Baptism," maintains that this history was
+composed by a priest attached to Paul. Jerome and Cyprian, in refuting
+the story of the lion baptized by St. Thecla, affirm the genuineness of
+these acts, in which we find that singular portrait of St. Paul, which
+we have already recorded. "He was fat, short, and broad shouldered; his
+dark eyebrows united across his aquiline nose; his legs were crooked,
+his head bald, and he was full of the grace of the Lord." This is pretty
+nearly his portrait in the "Philopatris" of Lucian, with the exception
+of "the grace of God," with which Lucian unfortunately had no
+acquaintance.
+
+Is Paul to be reprehended for his reproof of the Judaizing of St. Peter,
+who himself Judaized for eight days together in the temple of Jerusalem?
+When Paul was traduced before the governor of Judæa for having
+introduced strangers into the temple, was it proper for him to say to
+the governor, that he was prosecuted on account of his teaching the
+resurrection of the dead, whilst of the resurrection of the dead nothing
+was said at all.
+
+Did Paul do right in circumcising his disciple Timothy, after having
+written to the Galatians, that if they were circumcised Jesus would not
+profit them? Was it well to write to the Corinthians, chap. ix.: Have we
+not power to eat and drink at your expense? "Have we not power to lead
+about a sister, a wife?" etc. Was it proper to write in his Second
+Epistle to the Corinthians, that he will pardon none of them, neither
+those who have sinned nor others? What should we think at present of a
+man who pretended to live at our expense, himself, and his wife; and to
+judge and to punish us, confounding the innocent with the guilty? What
+are we to understand by the ascension of Paul into the third
+heaven?--what is the third heaven? Which is the most probable--humanly
+speaking? Did St. Paul become a Christian in consequence of being thrown
+from a horse by the appearance of a great light at noon day, from which
+a celestial voice exclaimed: Saul, "Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" or
+was it in consequence of being irritated against the Pharisees, either
+by the refusal of Gamaliel to give him his daughter, or by some other
+cause?
+
+In all other history, the refusal of Gamaliel would appear more probable
+than the celestial voice; especially if, moreover, we were not obliged
+to believe in this miracle. I only ask these questions in order to be
+instructed; and I request all those who are willing to instruct me to
+speak reasonably.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+The Epistles of St. Paul are so sublime, it is often difficult to
+understand them. Many young bachelors demand the precise signification
+of the following words: "Every man praying or prophesying, having his
+head covered, dishonoreth his head." What does he mean by the words: "I
+have learned from the Lord, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which
+He was betrayed, took bread?"
+
+How could he learn anything from that Jesus Christ to Whom he had never
+spoken, and to Whom he had been a most cruel enemy, without ever having
+seen Him? Was it by inspiration, or by the recital of the apostles? or
+did he learn it when the celestial light caused him to fall from his
+horse? He does not inform us on this point.
+
+The following again: "The woman shall be saved in child-bearing." This
+is certainly to encourage population: it appears not that St. Paul
+founded convents. He speaks of seducing spirits and doctrines of devils;
+of those whose consciences are seared up with a red-hot iron, who forbid
+to marry, and command to abstain from meats. This is very strong. It
+appears that he abjured monks, nuns, and fast-days. Explain this
+contradiction; deliver me from this cruel embarrassment.
+
+What is to be said of the passage in which he recommends the bishops to
+have one wife?--"_Unius uxoris virum._" This is positive. He permits the
+bishops to have but one wife, whilst the Jewish pontiffs might have
+several. He says unequivocally, that the last judgment will happen
+during his own time, that Jesus will descend from on high, as described
+by St. Luke, and that St. Paul and the righteous inhabitants of
+Thessalonica will be caught up to Him in the air, etc.
+
+Has this occurred? or is it an allegory, a figure? Did he actually
+believe that he should make this journey, or that he had been caught up
+into the third heaven? Which is the third heaven? How will he ascend
+into the air? Has he been there? "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
+the Father of Glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom." Is this
+acknowledging Jesus to be the same God as the Father? He has manifested
+His power over Jesus "when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at
+His own right hand." Does this constitute the divinity of Jesus?
+
+"Thou madest him (Jesus) a little lower than angels; thou crownedst him
+with glory." If He is inferior to angels--is He God?
+
+"For if by one man's offence death reigneth, much more they who receive
+of the abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign
+in life by one Jesus Christ." Almost man and never God, except in a
+single passage contested by Erasmus, Grotius, Le Clerc, etc.
+
+"Children of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ." Is not this
+constantly regarding Jesus as one of us, although superior by the grace
+of God? "To God, alone wise, honor and glory, through Jesus Christ." How
+are we to understand these passages literally, without fearing to offend
+Jesus Christ; or, in a more extended sense, without the risk of
+offending God the Father?
+
+There are many more passages of this kind, which exercise the sagacity
+of the learned. The commentators differ, and we pretend not to possess
+any light which can remove the obscurity. We submit with heart and mouth
+to the decision of the Church. We have also taken some trouble to
+penetrate into the meaning of the following passages:
+
+"For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keepest the law; but if thou
+be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." "Now
+we know, that whatever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the
+law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become
+guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be
+justified; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.... Seeing that it is
+one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and
+uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law, through
+faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." "For if Abraham was
+justified by his works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God."
+
+We fear that even the ingenuous and profound Dom Calmet himself gives us
+not, upon these somewhat obscure passages, a light which dissipates all
+our darkness. It is without doubt our own fault that we do not
+understand the commentators, and are deprived of that complete
+conception of the text, which is given only to privileged souls. As
+soon, however, as an explanation shall come from the chair of truth, we
+shall comprehend the whole perfectly.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+Let us add this little supplement to the article "Paul." It is better to
+edify ourselves with the Epistles of this apostle, than to weaken our
+piety by calumniating the times and persons for which they were written.
+The learned search in vain for the year and the day in which St. Paul
+assisted to stone St. Stephen, and to guard the mantles of his
+executioners.
+
+They dispute on the year in which he was thrown from his horse by a
+miraculous light at noonday, and on the epoch of his being borne away
+into the third heaven. They can agree neither upon the year in which he
+was conducted to Rome, nor that in which he died. They are unacquainted
+with the date of any of his letters. St. Jerome, in his commentary on
+the "Epistle to Philemon" says that Paul might signify the _embouchure_
+of a flute.
+
+The letters of St. Paul to Seneca, and from Seneca to St. Paul, were
+accounted as authentic in the primitive ages of the Church, as all the
+rest of the Christian writings. St. Jerome asserts their authenticity,
+and quotes passages from these letters in his catalogue. St. Augustine
+doubts them not in his 153d letter to Macedonius. We have thirty letters
+of these two great men, Paul and Seneca, who, it is pretended, were
+linked together by a strict friendship in the court of Nero. The seventh
+letter from Paul to Seneca is very curious. He tells him that the Jews
+and the Christians were often burned as incendiaries at Rome:
+
+"_Christiani et Judæi tanquam machinatores incendii supplicio affici
+solent._" It is in fact probable, that the Jews and the Christians,
+whose mutual enmity was extremely violent, reciprocally accused each
+other of setting the city on fire; and that the scorn and horror felt
+towards the Jews, with whom the Christians were usually confounded,
+rendered them equally the objects of public suspicion and vengeance.
+
+We are obliged to acknowledge, that the epistolary correspondence of
+Seneca and Paul is in a ridiculous and barbarous Latin; that the
+subjects of these letters are as inconsistent as the style; and that at
+present they are regarded as forgeries. But, then, may we venture to
+contradict the testimony of St. Jerome and St. Augustine? If writings,
+attested by them, are nothing but vile impostures, how shall we be
+certain of the authenticity of others more respectable? Such is the
+important objection of many learned persons. If we are unworthily
+deceived, say they, in relation to the letters of Paul and Seneca on the
+Apostolical Institutes, and the Acts of St. Peter, why may we not be
+equally imposed upon by the Acts of the Apostles? The decision of the
+Church and faith are unequivocal answers to all these researches of
+science and suggestions of the understanding.
+
+It is not known upon what foundation Abdias, first bishop of Babylon,
+says, in his "History of the Apostles," that St. Paul caused St. James
+the Less to be stoned by the people. Before he was converted, however,
+he might as readily persecute St. James as St. Stephen. He was certainly
+very violent, because it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, that he
+"breathed threatenings and slaughter". Abdias has also taken care to
+observe, that the mover of the sedition in which St. James was so
+cruelly treated, was the same Paul whom God had since called to the
+apostleship.
+
+This book, attributed to Abdias, is not admitted into the canon; but
+Julius Africanus, who has translated it into Latin, believes it to be
+authentic. Since, however, the church has not admitted it, _we_ must not
+admit it. Let us content ourselves with adoring Providence, and wishing
+that all persecutors were transformed into charitable and compassionate
+apostles.
+
+
+
+
+PERSECUTION.
+
+
+I will not call Diocletian a persecutor, for he protected the Christians
+for eighteen years; and if, during his latter days, he did not save them
+from the resentment of Galerius, he only furnished the example of a
+prince seduced, like many others, by intrigue and cabal, into a conduct
+unworthy of his character. I will still less give the name of persecutor
+to Trajan or Antonius. I should regard myself as uttering blasphemy.
+
+What is a persecutor? He whose wounded pride and fanaticism irritate
+princes and magistrates into fury against innocent men, whose only crime
+is that of being of a different opinion. Impudent man! you have
+worshipped God; you have preached and practised virtue; you have served
+and assisted man; you have protected the orphan, have succored the poor;
+you have changed deserts, in which slaves dragged on a miserable
+existence, into fertile districts peopled with happy families; but I
+have discovered that you despise me, and have never read my
+controversial work. I will, therefore, seek the confessor of the prime
+minister, or the magistrate; I will show them, with outstretched neck
+and twisted mouth, that you hold an erroneous opinion in relation to the
+cells in which the Septuagint was studied; that you have even spoken
+disrespectfully for these ten years past of Tobit's dog, which you
+assert to have been a spaniel, whilst I maintain that it was a
+greyhound. I will denounce you as the enemy of God and man! Such is the
+language of the persecutor; and if these words do not precisely issue
+from his lips, they are engraven on his heart with the graver of
+fanaticism steeped in the gall of envy.
+
+It was thus that the Jesuit Letellier dared to persecute Cardinal de
+Noailles, and that Jurieu persecuted Bayle. When the persecution of the
+Protestants commenced in France, it was not Francis I., nor Henry II.,
+nor Francis II., who sought out these unfortunate people, who hardened
+themselves against them with reflective bitterness, and who delivered
+them to the flames in the spirit of vengeance. Francis I. was too much
+engaged with the Duchess d'Étampes; Henry II., with his ancient Diana,
+and Francis II. was too much a child. Who, then, commenced these
+persecutions? Jealous priests, who enlisted in their service the
+prejudices of magistrates and the policy of ministers.
+
+If these monarchs had not been deceived, if they had foreseen that these
+persecutions would produce half a century of civil war, and that the two
+parts of the nation would mutually exterminate each other, they would
+have extinguished with their tears the first piles which they allowed to
+be lighted. Oh, God of mercy! if any man can resemble that malignant
+being who is described as actually employed in the destruction of Your
+works, is it not the persecutor?
+
+
+
+
+PETER (SAINT).
+
+
+Why have the successors of St. Peter possessed so much power in the West
+and none in the East? This is just the same as to ask why the bishops of
+Würzburg and Salzburg obtained for themselves regal prerogatives in a
+period of anarchy, while the Greek bishops always remained subjects.
+Time, opportunity, the ambition of some, and the weakness of others,
+have done and will do everything in the world. We always except what
+relates to religion. To this anarchy, must be added opinion; and opinion
+is the queen of mankind. Not that, in fact, they have any very clear and
+definite opinion of their own, but words answer the same end with them.
+
+"I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." The zealous
+partisans of the bishop of Rome contended, about the eleventh century,
+that whoever gives the greater gives the less; that heaven surrounded
+the earth; and that, as Peter had the keys of the container, he had also
+the keys of what was contained. If by heaven we understand all the stars
+and planets, it is evident, according to Tomasius, that the keys given
+to Simon Barjonas, surnamed Peter, were a universal passport. If we
+understand by heaven the clouds, the atmosphere, the ether, and the
+space in which the planets revolve, no smith in the world, as Meursius
+observes, could ever make a key for such gates as these. Railleries,
+however, are not reasons.
+
+Keys in Palestine were wooden latches with strings to them. Jesus says
+to Barjonas, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
+heaven." The pope's clergy concluded from these words, that the popes
+had received authority to bind and unbind the people's oath of fidelity
+to their kings, and to dispose of kingdoms at their pleasure. This
+certainly was concluding magnificently. The Commons in the
+states-general of France, in 1302, say, in their memorial to the king,
+that "Boniface VIII. was a b---- for believing that God bound and
+imprisoned in heaven what Boniface bound on earth." A famous German
+Lutheran--the great Melancthon--could not endure the idea of Jesus
+having said to Simon Barjonas, Cepha or Cephas, "Thou art Peter, and
+upon this rock will I build my assembly, my church." He could not
+conceive that God would use such a play of words, and that the power of
+the pope could have been established on a pun. Such a doubt, however,
+can be indulged only by a Protestant.
+
+Peter has been considered as having been bishop of Rome; but it is well
+known that, in the apostolic age, and long after, there was no
+particular and appropriate bishopric. The society of Christians did not
+assume a regular form until about the middle of the second century. It
+may be true that Peter went to Rome, and even that he was crucified with
+his head downwards, although that was not the usual mode of crucifixion;
+but we have no proof whatever of all this. We have a letter under his
+name, in which he says that he is at Babylon: acute and shrewd canonists
+have contended that, by Babylon, we ought to understand Rome; and on the
+same principle, if he had dated at Rome, we might have concluded that
+the letter had been written at Babylon. Men have long been in the habit
+of drawing such reasonable and judicious inferences as these; and it is
+in this manner that the world has been governed.
+
+There was once a clergyman who, after having been made to pay
+extortionately for a benefice at Rome--an offence known by the name of
+simony--happened to be asked, some time afterwards, whether he thought
+Simon Peter had ever been in that city? He replied, "I do not think that
+Peter was ever there, but I am sure Simon was."
+
+With respect to the personal character and behavior of St. Peter, it
+must be acknowledged that Paul is not the only one who was scandalized
+at his conduct. He was often "withstood to the face," as well as his
+successors. St. Paul vehemently reproached him with eating forbidden
+meats: that is, pork, blood-pudding, hare, eels, the ixion, and the
+griffin; Peter vindicated himself by saying that he had seen heaven
+opened about the sixth hour, and as it were a great sheet descending
+from the four corners of it, which was filled with creeping things,
+quadrupeds, and birds, while the voice of an angel called out to him,
+saying, "Kill and eat." This, says Woolston, seems to have been the same
+voice which has called out to so many pontiffs since, "Kill everything;
+eat up the substance of the people." But this reproach is much too
+strong.
+
+Casaubon cannot by any means bring himself to approve the manner in
+which St. Peter treated Ananias and Sapphira, his wife. "By what right,"
+says Casaubon, "did a Jew slave of the Romans order or permit that all
+those who believed in Jesus should sell their inheritance, and lay down
+the price paid for it at his feet?" If an Anabaptist at London was to
+order all the money belonging to his brethren to be brought and laid at
+his feet, would he not be apprehended as a seditious seducer, as a thief
+who would certainly be hanged at Tyburn? Was it not abominable to kill
+Ananias, because, after having sold his property and delivered over the
+bulk of the produce to Peter, he had retained for himself and his wife a
+few crowns for any case of necessity, without mentioning it? Scarcely,
+moreover, has Ananias expired, before his wife arrives. Peter, instead
+of warning her charitably that he had just destroyed her husband by
+apoplexy for having kept back a few oboli, and cautioning her therefore
+to look well to herself, leads her as it were intentionally into the
+snare. He asks her if her husband has given all his money to the saints;
+the poor woman replies in the affirmative, and dies instantly. This is
+certainly rather severe.
+
+Corringius asks, why Peter, who thus killed the persons that had given
+him alms and showed him kindness, did not rather go and destroy all the
+learned doctors who had brought Jesus Christ to the cross, and who more
+than once brought a scourging on himself. "Oh, Peter!" says Corringius,
+"you put to death two Christians who bestowed alms on you, and at the
+same time suffer those to live who crucified your God!"
+
+In the reigns of Henry IV., and Louis XIII., we had an advocate-general
+of the parliament of Provence, a man of quality, called d'Oraison de
+Torame, who, in a book respecting the church militant, dedicated to
+Henry IV., has appropriated a whole chapter to the sentences pronounced
+by St. Peter in criminal causes. He says, that the sentence pronounced
+by Peter on Ananias and Sapphira was executed by God Himself, "in the
+very terms and forms of spiritual jurisdiction." His whole book is in
+the same strain; but Corringius, as we perceive, is of a different
+opinion from that of our sagacious and liberal provincial advocate. It
+is pretty evident that Corringius was not in the country of the
+Inquisition when he published his bold remarks.
+
+Erasmus, in relation to St. Peter, remarked a somewhat curious
+circumstance, which is, that the chief of the Christian religion began
+his apostleship with denying Jesus Christ, and that the first pontiff of
+the Jews commenced his ministry by making a golden calf and worshipping
+it.
+
+However that may be, Peter is described as a poor man instructing the
+poor. He resembles those founders of orders who lived in indigence, and
+whose successors have become great lords and even princes.
+
+The pope, the successor of Peter, has sometimes gained and sometimes
+lost; but there are still about fifty millions of persons in the world
+submitting in many points to his laws, besides his own immediate
+subjects.
+
+To obtain a master three or four hundred leagues from home; to suspend
+your own opinion and wait for what he puts forth as his; not to dare to
+give a final decision on a cause relating to certain of our
+fellow-citizens, but through commissioners appointed by this stranger;
+not to dare to take possession of certain fields and vineyards granted
+by our own sovereign, without paying a considerable sum to this foreign
+master; to violate the laws of our country, which prohibit a man's
+marriage with his niece, and marry her legitimately by giving this
+foreign master a sum still more considerable than the former one; not to
+dare to cultivate one's field on the day this stranger is inclined to
+celebrate the memory of some unknown person whom he has chosen to
+introduce into heaven by his own sole authority; such are a part only of
+the conveniences and comforts of admitting the jurisdiction of a pope;
+such, if we may believe Marsais, are the liberties of the Gallican
+Church.
+
+There are some other nations that carry their submission further. We
+have, in our own time, actually known a sovereign request permission of
+the pope to try in his own courts certain monks accused of parricide,
+and able neither to obtain this permission nor to venture on such trial
+without it!
+
+It is well known that, formerly, the power of the popes extended
+further. They were far above the gods of antiquity; for the latter were
+merely supposed to dispose of empires, but the popes disposed of them in
+fact. Sturbinus says, that we may pardon those who entertain doubts of
+the divinity and infallibility of the pope, when we reflect: that forty
+schisms have profaned the chair of St. Peter, twenty-seven of which have
+been marked by blood; that Stephen VII., the son of a priest,
+disinterred the corpse of Formosus, his predecessor, and had the head of
+it cut off; that Sergius III., convicted of assassinations, had a son by
+Marozia, who inherited the popedom; that John X., the paramour of
+Theodora, was strangled in her bed; that John XI., son of Sergius III.,
+was known only by his gross intemperance; that John XII. was
+assassinated in the apartments of his mistress; that Benedict IX. both
+bought and sold the pontificate; that Gregory VII. was the author of
+five hundred years of civil war, carried on by his successors; that,
+finally, among so many ambitious, sanguinary, and debauched popes, there
+was an Alexander VI., whose name is pronounced with the same horror as
+those of Nero and Caligula.
+
+It is, we are told, a proof of the divinity of their character, that it
+has subsisted in connection with so many crimes; but according to this,
+if the caliphs had displayed still more atrocious and abominable
+conduct, they would have been still more divine. This argument,
+inferring their divinity from their wickedness, is urged by Dermius. He
+has been properly answered; but the best reply is to be found in the
+mitigated authority which the bishops of Rome at present exercise with
+discretion; in the long possession which the emperors permit them to
+enjoy, because in fact they are unable to deprive them of it; and in the
+system of the balance of power, which is watched with jealousy by every
+court in Europe.
+
+It has been contended, and very lately, that there are only two nations
+which could invade Italy and crush Rome. These are the Turks and
+Russians; but they are necessarily enemies; and, besides, I cannot
+distinctly anticipate misfortunes so distant.
+
+     _Je ne sais point prévoir les malheurs de si loin._
+                   --RACINE, _Andromache,_ act. i, scene 2.
+
+
+
+
+PETER THE GREAT AND J.J. ROUSSEAU.
+
+
+"The Czar Peter ... had not true genius--that which creates and makes
+all of nothing. Some things which he did were good; the greater part
+were misplaced. He saw that his people were barbarous; he has not seen
+that they were not prepared for polishing; he would civilize them when
+they only wanted training. He wished at once to make Germans and English
+when he should have commenced by making Russians. He prevented his
+subjects from becoming what they might be, by persuading them that they
+were what they are not. It is thus that a French preceptor forms his
+pupil to shine for a moment in his childhood, and never afterwards to be
+anything. The empire of Russia would subjugate Europe, and will be
+subjugated itself. The Tartars, its subjects or neighbors, will become
+its masters and ours. This revolution appears to me unavoidable: all the
+kings of Europe labor together to accelerate it." (_Contrat Social,_
+livre ii. chap. viii.) These words are extracted from a pamphlet
+entitled the "_Contrat Social,_" or "unsocial," of the very unsociable
+Jean Jacques Rousseau. It is not astonishing, that having performed
+miracles at Venice he should prophesy on Moscow; but as he well knows
+that the good time of miracles and prophecies has passed away, he ought
+to believe, that his prediction against Russia is not so infallible as
+it appeared to him in his first fit of divination. It is pleasant to
+announce the fall of great empires; it consoles us for our littleness.
+It will be a fine gain for philosophy, when we shall constantly behold
+the Nogais Tartars--who can, I believe, bring twelve thousand men into
+the field--coming to subjugate Russia, Germany, Italy, and France. But I
+flatter myself, that the Emperor of China will not suffer it; he has
+already acceded to perpetual peace, and as he has no more Jesuits about
+him, he will not trouble Europe. Jean Jacques, who possesses, as he
+himself believes, true genius, finds that Peter the Great had it not.
+
+[Illustration: JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU]
+
+A Russian lord, a man of much wit, who sometimes amuses himself with
+reading pamphlets, while reading this, remembered some lines of Molière,
+implying, that three miserable authors took it into their heads, that it
+was only necessary to be printed and bound in calf, to become important
+personages and dispose of empires:
+
+     _Il semble à trois gredins, dans leur petit cerveau,_
+     _Que pour être imprimés et reliés en veau,_
+     _Les voilà dans l'état d'importantes personnes,_
+     _Qu'avec leur plume ils font le destin des couronnes._
+
+The Russians, says Jean Jacques, were never polished. I have seen some
+at least very polite, and who had just, delicate, agreeable, cultivated,
+and even logical minds, which Jean Jacques will find very extraordinary.
+As he is very gallant, he will not fail to say, that they are formed at
+the court of the empress of Russia, that her example has influenced
+them: but that prevents not the correctness of his prophecy--that this
+empire will soon be destroyed.
+
+This good little man assures us, in one of his modest works, that a
+statue should be erected to him. It will not probably be either at
+Moscow or St. Petersburg, that anyone will trouble himself to sculpture
+Jean Jacques.
+
+I wish, in general, that when people judge of nations from their
+garrets, they would be more honest and circumspect. Every poor devil can
+say what he pleases of the Romans, Athenians, and ancient Persians. He
+can deceive himself with impunity on the tribunes, comitia, and
+dictatorships. He can govern in idea two or three thousand leagues of
+country, whilst he is incapable of governing his servant girl. In a
+romance, he can receive "an acrid kiss" from his Julia, and advise a
+prince to espouse the daughter of a hangman. These are follies without
+consequence--there are others which may have disastrous effects.
+
+Court fools were very discreet; they insulted the weak alone by their
+buffooneries, and respected the powerful: country fools are at present
+more bold. It will be answered, that Diogenes and Aretin were tolerated.
+Granted; but a fly one day seeing a swallow wing away with a spider's
+web, would do the same thing, and was taken.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+May we not say of these legislators who govern the universe at two sous
+the sheet, and who from their garrets give orders to all kings, what
+Homer said to Calchas?:
+
+     _Os ede ta conta, taere essomena, pro theonta._
+     He knew the past, present, and future.
+
+It is a pity that the author of the little paragraph which we are going
+to quote, knew nothing of the three times of which Homer speaks. "Peter
+the Great," says he, "had not the genius which makes all of nothing."
+Truly, Jean Jacques, I can easily believe it; for it is said that God
+alone has this prerogative. "He has not seen that his people were not
+prepared for polishing."
+
+In this case, it was admirable of the czar to prepare them. It appears
+to me, that it is Jean Jacques who had not seen that he must make use of
+the Germans and English to form Russians.
+
+"He has prevented his subjects from ever becoming what they might be,"
+etc. Yet these same Russians have become the conquerors of the Turks and
+Tartars, the conquerors and legislators of the Crimea, and twenty
+different nations. Their sovereign has given laws to nations of which
+even the names were unknown in Europe.
+
+As to the prophecy of Jean Jacques, he may have exalted his soul
+sufficiently to read the future. He has all the requisites of a prophet;
+but as to the past and the present, it must be confessed that he knows
+nothing about them. I doubt whether antiquity has anything comparable to
+the boldness of sending four squadrons from the extremity of the Baltic
+into the seas of Greece--of reigning at once over the Ægean and the
+Euxine Seas--of carrying terror into Colchis, and to the Dardanelles--of
+subjugating Taurida, and forcing the vizier Azem to fly from the shores
+of the Danube to the gates of Adrianople.
+
+If Jean Jacques considers so many great actions which astonished the
+attentive world as nothing, he must at least confess, that there was
+some generosity in one Count Orloff, who having taken a vessel which
+contained all the family and treasures of a pasha, sent him back both
+his family and treasures. If the Russians were not prepared for
+polishing in the time of Peter the Great, let us agree that they are now
+prepared for greatness of soul; and that Jean Jacques is not quite
+prepared for truth and reasoning. With regard to the future, we shall
+know it when we have Ezekiels, Isaiahs, Habakkuks, and Micahs; but their
+time has passed away; and if we dare say so much, it is to be feared
+that it will never return.
+
+I confess that these lies, printed in relation to present times, always
+astonish me. If these liberties are allowed in an age in which a
+thousand volumes, a thousand newspapers and journals, are constantly
+correcting each other, what faith can we have in those histories of
+ancient times, which collected all vague rumors without consulting any
+archives, which put into writing all that they had heard told by their
+grandmothers in their childhood, very sure that no critic would discover
+their errors?
+
+We had for a long time nine muses: wholesome criticism is the tenth,
+which has appeared very lately. She existed not in the time of Cecrops,
+of the first Bacchus, or of Sanchoniathon, Thaut, Bramah, etc. People
+then wrote all they liked with impunity. At present we must be a little
+more careful.
+
+
+
+
+PHILOSOPHER.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+Philosopher, "lover of wisdom," that is, "of truth." All philosophers
+have possessed this two-fold character; there is not one among those of
+antiquity who did not give examples of virtue to mankind, and lessons of
+moral truth. They might be mistaken, and undoubtedly were so, on
+subjects of natural philosophy; but that is of comparatively so little
+importance to the conduct of life, that philosophers had then no need of
+it. Ages were required to discover a part of the laws of nature. A
+single day is sufficient to enable a sage to become acquainted with the
+duties of man.
+
+The philosopher is no enthusiast; he does not set himself up for a
+prophet; he does not represent himself as inspired by the gods. I shall
+not therefore place in the rank of philosophers the ancient Zoroaster,
+or Hermes, or Orpheus, or any of those legislators in whom the countries
+of Chaldæa, Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Greece made their boast. Those who
+called themselves the sons of gods were the fathers of imposture; and if
+they employed falsehood to inculcate truths, they were unworthy of
+inculcating them; they were not philosophers; they were at best only
+prudent liars.
+
+By what fatality, disgraceful perhaps to the nations of the West, has it
+happened that we are obliged to travel to the extremity of the East, in
+order to find a sage of simple manners and character, without arrogance
+and without imposture, who taught men how to live happy six hundred
+years before our era, at a period when the whole of the North was
+ignorant of the use of letters, and when the Greeks had scarcely begun
+to distinguish themselves by wisdom? That sage is Confucius, who deemed
+too highly of his character as a legislator for mankind, to stoop to
+deceive them. What finer rule of conduct has ever been given since his
+time, throughout the earth?
+
+"Rule a state as you rule a family; a man cannot govern his family well
+without giving a good example; virtue should be common to the laborer
+and the monarch; be active in preventing crimes, that you may lessen the
+trouble of punishing them.
+
+"Under the good kings Yao and Xu, the Chinese were good; under the bad
+kings Kie and Chu, they were wicked.
+
+"Do to another as to thyself; love mankind in general, but cherish those
+who are good; forget injuries, but never benefits."
+
+I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of
+virtue. Let us acknowledge that no legislator ever announced to the
+world more useful truths.
+
+A multitude of Greek philosophers taught afterwards a morality equally
+pure. Had they distinguished themselves only by their vain systems of
+natural philosophy, their names would be mentioned at the present day
+only in derision. If they are still respected, it is because they were
+just, and because they taught mankind to be so.
+
+It is impossible to read certain passages of Plato, and particularly the
+admirable exordium of the laws of Zaleucus, without experiencing an
+ardent love of honorable and generous actions. The Romans have their
+Cicero who alone is perhaps more valuable than all the philosophers of
+Greece. After him come men more respectable still, but whom we may
+almost despair of imitating; these are Epictetus in slavery, and the
+Antonines and Julian upon a throne.
+
+Where is the citizen to be found among us who would deprive himself,
+like Julian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius, of all the refined
+accommodations of our delicate and luxurious modes of living? Who would,
+like them, sleep on the bare ground? Who would restrict himself to their
+frugal habits? Who would, like them, march bareheaded and barefooted at
+the head of the armies, exposed sometimes to the burning sun, and at
+other times to the freezing blast? Who would, like them, keep perfect
+mastery of all his passions? We have among us devotees, but where are
+the sages? where are the souls just and tolerant, serene and undaunted?
+
+There have been some philosophers of the closet in France; and all of
+them, with the exception of Montaigne, have been persecuted. It seems to
+me the last degree of malignity that our nature can exhibit, to attempt
+to oppress those who devote their best endeavors to correct and improve
+it.
+
+I can easily conceive of the fanatics of one sect slaughtering those of
+another sect; that the Franciscans should hate the Dominicans, and that
+a bad artist should cabal and intrigue for the destruction of an artist
+that surpasses him; but that the sage Charron should have been menaced
+with the loss of life; that the learned and noble-minded Ramus should
+have been actually assassinated; that Descartes should have been obliged
+to withdraw to Holland in order to escape the rage of ignorance; that
+Gassendi should have been often compelled to retire to Digne, far
+distant from the calumnies of Paris, are events that load a nation with
+eternal opprobrium.
+
+One of the philosophers who were most persecuted, was the immortal
+Bayle, the honor of human nature. I shall be told that the name of
+Jurieu, his slanderer and persecutor, is become execrable; I acknowledge
+that it is so; that of the Jesuit Letellier is become so likewise; but
+is it the less true that the great men whom he oppressed ended their
+days in exile and penury?
+
+One of the pretexts made use of for reducing Bayle to poverty, was his
+article on David, in his valuable dictionary. He was reproached with not
+praising actions which were in themselves unjust, sanguinary, atrocious,
+contrary to good faith, or grossly offensive to decency.
+
+Bayle certainly has not praised David for having, according to the
+Hebrew historian, collected six hundred vagabonds overwhelmed with debts
+and crimes; for having pillaged his countrymen at the head of these
+banditti; for having resolved to destroy Nabal and his whole family,
+because he refused paying contributions to him; for having hired out his
+services to King Achish, the enemy of his country; for having afterwards
+betrayed Achish, notwithstanding his kindness to him; for having sacked
+the villages in alliance with that king; for having massacred in these
+villages every human being, including even infants at the breast, that
+no one might be found on a future day to give testimony of his
+depredations, as if an infant could have possibly disclosed his
+villainy; for having destroyed all the inhabitants of some other
+villages under saws, and harrows, and axes, and in brick-kilns; for
+having wrested the throne from Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, by an act of
+perfidy; for having despoiled of his property and afterwards put to
+death Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul, and son of his own peculiar
+friend and generous protector, Jonathan; or for having delivered up to
+the Gibeonites two other sons of Saul, and five of his grandsons who
+perished by the gallows.
+
+I do not notice the extreme incontinence of David, his numerous
+concubines, his adultery with Bathsheba, or his murder of Uriah.
+
+What then! is it possible that the enemies of Bayle should have expected
+or wished him to eulogize all these cruelties and crimes? Ought he to
+have said: Go, ye princes of the earth, and imitate the man after God's
+own heart; massacre without pity the allies of your benefactor; destroy
+or deliver over to destruction the whole family of your king;
+appropriate to your own pleasures all the women, while you are pouring
+out the blood of the men; and you will thus exhibit models of human
+virtue, especially if, in addition to all the rest, you do but compose a
+book of psalms?
+
+Was not Bayle perfectly correct in his observation, that if David was
+the man after God's own heart, it must have been by his penitence, and
+not by his crimes? Did not Bayle perform a service to the human race
+when he said, that God, who undoubtedly dictated the Jewish history, has
+not consecrated all the crimes recorded in that history?
+
+However, Bayle was in fact persecuted, and by whom? By the very men who
+had been elsewhere persecuted themselves; by refugees who in their own
+country would have been delivered over to the flames; and these refugees
+were opposed by other refugees called Jansenists, who had been driven
+from their own country by the Jesuits; who have at length been
+themselves driven from it in their turn.
+
+Thus all the persecutors declare against each other mortal war, while
+the philosopher, oppressed by them all, contents himself with pitying
+them.
+
+It is not generally known, that Fontenelle, in 1718, was on the point of
+losing his pensions, place, and liberty, for having published in France,
+twenty years before, what may be called an abridgement of the learned
+Van Dale's "Treatise on Oracles", in which he had taken particular care
+to retrench and modify the original work, so as to give no unnecessary
+offence to fanaticism. A Jesuit had written against Fontenelle, and he
+had not deigned to make him any reply; and that was enough to induce the
+Jesuit Letellier, confessor to Louis XIV., to accuse Fontenelle to the
+king of atheism.
+
+But for the fortunate mediation of M. d'Argenson, the son of a forging
+solicitor of Vire--a son worthy of such a father, as he was detected in
+forgery himself--would have proscribed, in his old age, the nephew of
+the great Corneille.
+
+It is so easy for a confessor to seduce his penitent, that we ought to
+bless God that Letellier did no more harm than is justly imputed to him.
+There are two situations in which seduction and calumny cannot easily be
+resisted--the bed and the confessional.
+
+We have always seen philosophers persecuted by fanatics. But can it be
+really possible, that men of letters should be seen mixed up in a
+business so odious; and that they should often be observed sharpening
+the weapons against their brethren, by which they are themselves almost
+universally destroyed or wounded in their turn. Unhappy men of letters,
+does it become you to turn informers? Did the Romans ever find a
+Garasse, a Chaumeix, or a Hayet, to accuse a Lucretius, a Posidonius, a
+Varro, or a Pliny?
+
+How inexpressible is the meanness of being a hypocrite! how horrible is
+it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite! There were no hypocrites
+in ancient Rome, which reckoned us a small portion of its innumerable
+subjects. There were impostors, I admit, but not religious hypocrites,
+which are the most profligate and cruel species of all. Why is it that
+we see none such in England, and whence does it arise that there still
+are such in France? Philosophers, you will solve this problem with ease.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+This brilliant and beautiful name has been sometimes honored, and
+sometimes disgraced; like that of poet, mathematician, monk, priest, and
+everything dependent on opinion. Domitian banished the philosophers, and
+Lucian derided them. But what sort of philosophers and mathematicians
+were they whom the monster Domitian exiled? They were jugglers with
+their cups and balls; the calculators of horoscopes, fortune-tellers,
+miserable peddling Jews, who composed philtres and talismans; gentry who
+had special and sovereign power over evil spirits, who evoked them from
+their infernal habitations, made them take possession of the bodies of
+men and women by certain words or signs, and dislodged them by other
+words or signs.
+
+And what were the philosophers that Lucian held up to public ridicule?
+They were the dregs of the human race. They were a set of profligate
+beggars incapable of applying to any useful profession or occupation;
+men perfectly resembling the "Poor Devil," who has been described to us
+with so much both of truth and humor; men who are undecided whether to
+wear a livery, or to write the almanac of the "_Annus Mirabilis,_" the
+marvellous year; whether to work on reviews, or on roads; whether to
+turn soldiers or priests; who in the meantime frequent the
+coffee-houses, to give their opinion upon the last new piece, upon God,
+upon being in general, and the various modes of being; who will then
+borrow your money, and immediately go away and write a libel against you
+in conjunction with the barrister Marchand, or the creature called
+Chaudon, or the equally despicable wretch called Bonneval.
+
+It was not from such a school that the Ciceros, the Atticuses, the
+Epictetuses, the Trajans, Adrians, Antonines, and Julians proceeded. It
+was not such a school that formed a king of Prussia, who has composed as
+many philosophical treatises as he has gained battles, and who has
+levelled with the dust as many prejudices as enemies.
+
+A victorious empress, at whose name the Ottomans tremble, and who so
+gloriously rules an empire more extensive than that of Rome, would never
+have been a great legistratrix, had she not been a philosopher. Every
+northern prince is so, and the North puts the South to absolute shame.
+If the confederates of Poland had only a very small share of philosophy,
+they would not expose their country, their estates, and their houses, to
+pillage; they would not drench their territory in blood; they would not
+obstinately and wantonly reduce themselves to being the most miserable
+of mankind; they would listen to the voice of their philosophic king,
+who has given so many noble proofs and so many admirable lessons of
+moderation and prudence in vain.
+
+The great Julian was a philosopher when he wrote to his ministers and
+pontiffs his exquisite letters abounding in clemency and wisdom, which
+all men of judgment and feeling highly admire, even at the present day,
+however sincerely they may condemn his errors.
+
+Constantine was not a philosopher when he assassinated his relations,
+his son and his wife, and when, reeking with the blood of his family, he
+swore that God had sent to him the "_Labarum_" in the clouds. It is a
+long bound that carries us from Constantine to Charles IX., and Henry
+III., kings of one of the fifty great provinces of the Roman Empire. But
+if these kings had been philosophers, one would not have been guilty of
+the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the other would not have made
+scandalous processions, nor have been reduced to the necessity of
+assassinating the duke of Guise and the cardinal, his brother, and at
+length have been assassinated himself by a young Jacobin, for the love
+of God and of the holy church.
+
+If Louis the Just, the thirteenth monarch of that name, had been a
+philosopher, he would not have permitted the virtuous de Thou and the
+innocent Marshal de Marillac to have been dragged to the scaffold; he
+would not have suffered his mother to perish with hunger at Cologne; and
+his reign would not have been an uninterrupted succession of intestine
+discords and calamities.
+
+Compare with those princes, thus ignorant, superstitious, cruel, and
+enslaved by their own passions or those of their ministers, such a man
+as Montaigne, or Charron, or the Chancellor de l'Hôpital, or the
+historian de Thou, or la Mothe Le Vayer, or a Locke, a Shaftesbury, a
+Sidney, or a Herbert; and say whether you would rather be governed by
+those sovereigns or by these sages.
+
+When I speak of philosophers I do not mean the coarse and brutal cynics
+who appear desirous of being apes of Diogenes, but the men who imitate
+Plato and Cicero. As for you, voluptuous courtiers, and you also, men of
+petty minds, invested with a petty employment which confers on you a
+petty authority in a petty country, who uniformly exclaim against and
+abuse philosophy, proceed as long as you please with your invective
+railing. I consider you as the Nomentanuses inveighing against Horace;
+and the Cotins attempting to cry down Boileau.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+The stiff Lutheran, the savage Calvinist, the proud Anglican high
+churchman, the fanatical Jansenist, the Jesuit always aiming at
+dominion, even in exile and at the very gallows, the Sorbonnist who
+deems himself one of the fathers of a council; these, and some imbecile
+beings under their respective guidance, inveigh incessantly and bitterly
+against philosophy. They are all different species of the canine race,
+snarling and howling in their peculiar ways against a beautiful horse
+that is pasturing in a verdant meadow, and who never enters into contest
+with them about any of the carrion carcasses upon which they feed, and
+for which they are perpetually fighting with one another.
+
+They every day produce from the press their trash of philosophic
+theology, their philosophico-theological dictionaries; their old and
+battered arguments, as common as the streets, which they denominate
+"demonstrations"; and their ten thousand times repeated and ridiculous
+assertions which they call "lemmas," and "corollaries"; as false coiners
+cover a lead crown with a plating of silver.
+
+They perceive that they are despised by all persons of reflection, and
+that they can no longer deceive any but a few weak old women. This state
+is far more humiliating and mortifying than even being expelled from
+France and Spain and Naples. Everything can be supported except
+contempt. We are told that when the devil was conquered by Raphael--as
+it is clearly proved he was--that haughty compound of body and spirit at
+first easily consoled himself with the idea of the chances of war. But
+when he understood that Raphael laughed at him, he roundly swore that he
+would never forgive him. Accordingly, the Jesuits never forgave Pascal;
+accordingly, Jerieu went on calumniating Bayle even to the grave; and
+just in the same manner all the Tartuffes, all the hypocrites, in
+Molière's time, inveighed against that author to his dying day. In their
+rage they resort to calumnies, as in their folly they publish arguments.
+
+One of the most determined slanderers, as well as one of the most
+contemptible reasoners that we have among us, is an ex-Jesuit of the
+name of Paulian, who published a theologico-philosophical rhapsody in
+the city of Avignon, formerly a papal city, and perhaps destined to be
+so again. This person accuses the authors of the "Encyclopædia" of
+having said:
+
+"That as man is by his nature open only to the pleasures of the senses,
+these pleasures are consequently the sole objects of his desires; that
+man in himself has neither vice nor virtue, neither good nor bad morals,
+neither justice nor injustice; that the pleasures of the senses produce
+all the virtues; that in order to be happy, men must extinguish remorse,
+etc."
+
+In what articles of the "Encyclopædia," of which five new editions have
+lately commenced, are these horrible propositions to be found? You are
+bound actually to produce them. Have you carried the insolence of your
+pride and the madness of your character to such an extent as to imagine
+that you will be believed on your bare word? These ridiculous
+absurdities may be found perhaps in the works of your own casuists, or
+those of the Porter of the Chartreux, but they are certainly not to be
+found in the articles of the "Encyclopædia" composed by M. Diderot, M.
+d'Alembert, the chevalier Jaucourt, or M. de Voltaire. You have never
+seen them in the articles of the Count de Tressan, nor in those of
+Messrs. Blondel, Boucher-d'Argis, Marmontel, Venel, Tronchin,
+d'Aubenton, d'Argenville, and various others, who generously devoted
+their time and labors to enrich the "Encyclopædic Dictionary," and
+thereby conferred an everlasting benefit on Europe. Most assuredly, not
+one of them is chargeable with the abominations you impute to them. Only
+yourself, and Abraham Chaumeix, the vinegar merchant and crucified
+convulsionary, could be capable of broaching so infamous a calumny.
+
+You confound error with truth, because you have not sense sufficient to
+distinguish between them. You wish to stigmatize as impious the maxim
+adopted by all publicists, "That every man is free to choose his
+country."
+
+What! you contemptible preacher of slavery, was not Queen Christina free
+to travel to France and reside at Rome? Were not Casimir and Stanislaus
+authorized to end their days in France? Was it necessary, because they
+were Poles, that they should die in Poland? Did Goldoni, Vanloo, and
+Cassini give offense to God by settling at Paris? Have all the Irish,
+who have established themselves in fame and fortune in France, committed
+by so doing a mortal sin?
+
+And you have the stupidity to print such extravagance and absurdity as
+this, and Riballier has stupidity enough to approve and sanction you;
+and you range in one and the same class Bayle, Montesquieu, and the
+madman de La Mettrie; and it may be added, you have found the French
+nation too humane and indulgent, notwithstanding all your slander and
+malignity, to deliver you over to anything but scorn!
+
+What! do you dare to calumniate your country--if indeed a Jesuit can be
+said to have a country? Do you dare to assert "that philosophers alone
+in France attribute to chance the union and disunion of the atoms which
+constitute the soul of man?" "_Mentiris impudentissime!_" I defy you to
+produce a single book, published within the last thirty years, in which
+anything at all is attributed to chance, which is merely a word without
+a meaning.
+
+Do you dare to accuse the sagacious and judicious Locke of having said
+"that it is possible the soul may be a spirit, but that he is not
+perfectly sure it is so; and that we are unable to decide what it may be
+able or unable to acquire?"
+
+"_Mentiris impudentissime!_" Locke, the truly respectable and venerable
+Locke, says expressly, in his answer to the cavilling and sophistical
+Stilling-fleet, "I am strongly persuaded, although it cannot be shown,
+by mere reason, that the soul is immaterial, because the veracity of God
+is a demonstration of the truth of all that He has revealed, and the
+absence of another demonstration can never throw any doubt upon what is
+already demonstrated."
+
+See, moreover, under the article "Soul," how Locke expresses himself on
+the bounds of human knowledge, and the immensity of the power of the
+Supreme Being. The great philosopher Bolingbroke declares that the
+opinion opposite to Locke's is blasphemy. All the fathers, during the
+first three ages of the church, regarded the soul as a light, attenuated
+species of matter, but did not the less, in consequence, regard it as
+immortal. But now, forsooth, even your college drudges consequentially
+put themselves forward and denounce as "atheists" those who, with the
+fathers of the Christian church, think that God is able to bestow and to
+preserve the immortality of the soul, whatever may be the substance it
+consists of.
+
+You carry your audacity so far as to discover atheism in the following
+words, Who produces motion in nature? God. "Who produces vegetation in
+plants? God. Who produces motion in animals? God. Who produces thought
+in man? God."
+
+We cannot so properly say on this occasion, "_Mentiris impudentissime_";
+but we should rather say you impudently blaspheme the truth. We conclude
+with observing that the hero of the ex-Jesuit Paulian is the ex-Jesuit
+Patouillet, the author of a bishop's mandate in which all the
+parliaments of the kingdom are insulted. This mandate was burned by the
+hands of the executioner. Nothing after this was wanting but for the
+ex-Jesuit Paulian to elevate the ex-Jesuit Nonnotte to be a father of
+the church, and to canonize the Jesuits Malagrida, Guignard, Garnet, and
+Oldham, and all other Jesuits to whom God has granted the grace of being
+hanged or quartered; they were all of them great metaphysicians, great
+philosophico-theologians.
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+People who never think frequently inquire of those who do think, what
+has been the use of philosophy? To destroy in England the religious rage
+which brought Charles I. to the scaffold; to deprive an archbishop in
+Sweden of the power, with a papal bull in his hand, of shedding the
+blood of the nobility; to preserve in Germany religious peace, by
+holding up theological disputes to ridicule; finally, to extinguish in
+Spain the hideous and devouring flames of the Inquisition.
+
+Gauls! unfortunate Gauls! it prevents stormy and factious times from
+producing among you a second "Fronde," and a second "Damiens." Priests
+of Rome! it compels you to suppress your bull _In cœna domini,_ that
+monument of impudence and stupidity. Nations! it humanizes your manners.
+Kings, it gives you instruction!
+
+
+SECTION V.
+
+The philosopher is the lover of wisdom and truth; to be a sage is to
+avoid the senseless and the depraved. The philosopher, therefore, should
+live only among philosophers.
+
+I will suppose that there are still some sages among the Jews; if one of
+these, when dining in company with some rabbis, should help himself to a
+plate of eels or hare, or if he cannot refrain from a hearty laugh at
+some superstitious and ridiculous observations made by them in the
+course of conversation, he is forever ruined in the synagogue; the like
+remark may be made of a Mussulman, a Gueber, or a Banian.
+
+I know it is contended by many that the sage should never develop his
+opinions to the vulgar; that he should be a madman with the mad, and
+foolish among fools; no one, however, has yet ventured to say that he
+should be a knave among knaves. But if it be required that a sage should
+always join in opinion with the deluders of mankind, is not this clearly
+the same as requiring that he should not be an honest man? Would any one
+require that a respectable physician should always be of the same
+opinion as charlatans?
+
+The sage is a physician of souls. He ought to bestow his remedies on
+those who ask them of him, and avoid the company of quacks, who will
+infallibly persecute him. If, therefore, a madman of Asia Minor, or a
+madman of India, says to the sage: My good friend, I think you do not
+believe in the mare Borac, or in the metamorphoses of Vishnu; I will
+denounce you, I will hinder you from being bostanji, I will destroy your
+credit; I will persecute you--the sage ought to pity him and be silent.
+
+If ignorant persons, but at the same time persons of good understanding
+and dispositions, and willing to receive instruction, should ask him:
+Are we bound to believe that the distance between the moon and Venus is
+only five hundred leagues, and that between Mercury and the sun the
+same, as the principal fathers of the Mussulman religion insist, in
+opposition to all the most learned astronomers?--the sage may reply to
+them that the fathers may possibly be mistaken. He should at all times
+inculcate upon them that a hundred abstract dogmas are not of the value
+of a single good action, and that it is better to relieve one individual
+in distress than to be profoundly acquainted with the abolishing and
+abolished. When a rustic sees a serpent ready to dart at him, he will
+kill it; when a sage perceives a bigot and a fanatic, what will he do?
+He will prevent them from biting.
+
+
+
+
+PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+Write filosophy or philosophy as you please, but agree that as soon as
+it appears it is persecuted. Dogs to whom you present an aliment for
+which they have no taste, bite you. You will say that I repeat myself;
+but we must a hundred times remind mankind that the holy conclave
+condemned Galileo; and that the pedants who declared all the good
+citizens excommunicated who should submit to the great Henry IV., were
+the same who condemned the only truths which could be found in the works
+of Descartes.
+
+All the spaniels of the theological kennel bark at one another, and all
+together at de Thou, la Mothe, Le Vayer, and Bayle. What nonsense has
+been written by little Celtic scholars against the wise Locke!
+
+These Celts say that Cæsar, Cicero, Seneca, Pliny, and Marcus Aurelius,
+might be philosophers, but that philosophy is not permitted among the
+Celts. We answer that it is permitted and very useful among the French;
+that nothing has done more good to the English; and that it is time to
+exterminate barbarity. You reply that that will never come to pass. No;
+with the uninformed and foolish it will not; but with honest people the
+affair is soon concluded.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+One of the great misfortunes, as also one of the great follies, of
+mankind, is that in all countries which we call polished, except,
+perhaps, China, priests concern themselves with what belongs only to
+philosophers. These priests interfered with regulating the year; it was,
+they say, their right; for it was necessary that the people should know
+their holy days. Thus the Chaldæan, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman priests,
+believed themselves mathematicians and astronomers; but what mathematics
+and astronomy! Whoever makes a trade of quackery cannot have a just and
+enlightened mind. They were astrologers, and never astronomers.
+
+The Greek priests themselves first made the year to consist only of
+three hundred and sixty days. Their geometricians must have informed
+them that they were deceived by five days and more. They, therefore,
+corrected their year. Other geometricians further showed them that they
+were deceived by six hours. Iphitus obliged them to change their Greek
+almanac. They added one day in four years to their faulty year; Iphitus
+celebrated this change by the institution of the Olympiads.
+
+They were finally obliged to have recourse to the philosopher Meton,
+who, combining the year of the moon with that of the sun, composed his
+cycle of nineteen years, at the end of which the sun and moon returned
+to the same point within an hour and a half. This cycle was graven in
+gold in the public place of Athens; and it is of this famous golden
+number that we still make use, with the necessary corrections.
+
+We well know what ridiculous confusion the Roman priests introduced in
+their computation of the year. Their blunders were so great that their
+summer holidays arrived in winter. Cæsar, the universal Cæsar, was
+obliged to bring the philosopher Sosigenes from Alexandria to repair the
+enormous errors of the pontiffs. When it was necessary to correct the
+calendar of Julius Cæsar, under the pontificate of Gregory XIII., to
+whom did they address themselves? Was it to some inquisitor? It was to a
+philosopher and physician named Lilio.
+
+When the almanac was given to Professor Cogé, rector of the university,
+to compose, he knew not even the subject. They were obliged to apply to
+M. de Lalande, of the Academy of Sciences, who was burdened with this
+very painful task, too poorly recompensed. The rhetorician Cogé,
+therefore, made a great mistake when he proposed for the prize of the
+university this subject so strangely expressed:
+
+"_Non magis Deo quam regibus infensa est ista quæ vocatur hodie
+philosophia._"--"That which we now call philosophy, is not more the
+enemy of God than of kings." He would say _less_ the enemy. He has taken
+_magis_ for _minus._ And the poor man ought to know that our academies
+are not enemies either to the king or God.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+If philosophy has done so much honor to France in the "Encyclopædia," it
+must also be confessed that the ignorance and envy which have dared to
+condemn this work would have covered France with opprobrium, if twelve
+or fifteen convulsionaries, who formed a cabal, could be regarded as the
+organs of France; they were really only the ministers of fanaticism and
+sedition; those who forced the king to dissolve the body which they had
+seduced. Their fanatical credulity for convulsions and the miserable
+impostures of St. Médard, was so strong, that they obliged a magistrate,
+elsewhere wise and respectable, to say in full parliament that the
+miracles of the Catholic church always existed. By these miracles, we
+can only understand those of convulsions, for assuredly it never
+performed any others; at least, if we believe not in the little children
+resuscitated by St. Ovid. The time of miracles is passed; the triumphant
+church has no longer occasion for them. Seriously, was there one of the
+persecutors of the Encyclopædia who understood one word of the articles
+Astronomy, Dynamics, Geometry, Metaphysics, Botany, Medicine, or
+Anatomy, of which this book, become so necessary, treats in every
+volume. What a crowd of absurd imputations and gross calumnies have they
+accumulated against this treasure of all the sciences! They should be
+reprinted at the end of the "Encyclopædia," to eternize their shame. See
+what it is to judge a work which they were not even fit to study. The
+fools! they have exclaimed that philosophy ruined Catholicism. What,
+then, in twenty millions of people, has one been found who has vexed the
+least officer of the parish! one who has failed in respect to the
+churches! one who has publicly proffered against our ceremonies a single
+word which approached the virulence with which these railers have
+expressed themselves against the regal authority! Let us repeat that
+philosophy never did evil to the state, and that fanaticism, joined to
+the _esprit du corps,_ has done much in all times.
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+_Substance Of Ancient Philosophy._
+
+
+I have consumed about forty years of my pilgrimage in two or three
+corners of the world, seeking the philosopher's stone called truth. I
+have consulted all the adepts of antiquity, Epicurus and Augustine,
+Plato and Malebranche, and I still remain in ignorance. In all the
+crucibles of philosophers, there are perhaps two or three ounces of
+gold, but all the rest is _caput mortuum,_ insipid mire, from which
+nothing can be extracted.
+
+It seems to me that the Greeks, our masters, wrote much more to show
+their intellect, than they made use of their intellect to instruct
+themselves. I see not a single author of antiquity who has a consistent,
+methodical, clear system, going from consequence to consequence.
+
+All that I have been able to obtain by comparing and combining the
+systems of Plato, of the tutor of Alexander, Pythagoras, and the
+Orientals, is this: Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist
+without a cause. The world is arranged according to mathematical laws;
+therefore, it is arranged by an intelligence.
+
+It is not an intelligent being like myself who presided at the formation
+of the world; for I cannot form a miserable worm; therefore, the world
+is the work of an intelligence prodigiously superior. Does this being,
+who possesses intelligence and power in so high a degree, necessarily
+exist? It must be so, for he must either have received being from
+another, or through his own nature. If he has received his being from
+another, which is very difficult to conceive, I must look up to this
+other, which will in that case be the first cause. On whichever side I
+turn, I must admit a first cause, powerful and intelligent, who by his
+own nature is necessarily so.
+
+Has this first cause created things out of nothing? We cannot conceive
+that to create out of nothing is to change nothing into something. I
+cannot admit such a creation, at least until I find invincible reasons
+which force me to admit what my mind can never comprehend. All that
+exists appears to exist necessarily, since it exists; for if to-day
+there is a reason for the existence of things, there was one yesterday;
+there has been one in all times; and this cause must always have had its
+effect, without which it would have been a useless cause during
+eternity.
+
+But how can things have always existed, being visibly under the hand of
+the first cause? This power must always have acted in like manner. There
+is no sun without light, there is no motion without a being passing from
+one point of space to another.
+
+There is, therefore, a powerful and intelligent being who has always
+acted; and if this being had not acted, of what use to him would have
+been his existence? All things are, therefore, emanations from this
+first cause. But how can we imagine that stone and clay may be
+emanations of the eternal, intelligent, and puissant being? Of two
+things, one must be; either that the matter of this stone and mine
+necessarily exists of itself, or that it exists necessarily by this
+first cause; there is no medium.
+
+Thus, therefore, there are but two parts to take; either to admit matter
+eternal of itself, or matter eternally proceeding from a powerful,
+intelligent, eternal being. But existing of its own nature, or emanating
+from a producing being, it exists from all eternity, because it exists;
+and there is no reason that it might not have always existed.
+
+If matter is eternally necessary, it is in consequence impossible--it is
+contradictory, that it should not exist; but what man can assure you
+that it is impossible, that it is contradictory, that this fly and this
+flint have not always existed? We are, however, obliged to swallow this
+difficulty, which more astonishes the imagination than contradicts the
+principles of reasoning.
+
+Indeed, as soon as we have conceived that all has emanated from the
+supreme and intelligent being; that nothing has emanated from him
+without reason; that this being, always existing, must always have
+acted; that, consequently, all things must have eternally proceeded from
+the bosom of his existence--we should no more be deterred from believing
+the matter of which this fly and flint are formed is eternal, than we
+are deterred from conceiving light to be an emanation of the
+all-powerful being.
+
+Since I am an extended and thinking being, my extent and thought are the
+necessary productions of this being. It is evident to me that I cannot
+give myself extent or thought. I have, therefore, received both from
+this necessary being.
+
+Can he have given me what he has not? I have intelligence; I am in
+space; therefore, he is intelligent and is in space. To say that the
+Eternal Being, the All-Powerful God, has from all time necessarily
+filled the universe with His productions, is not taking from Him His
+free-will; but on the contrary, for free-will is but the power of
+acting. God has always fully acted; therefore God has always used the
+plenitude of His liberty.
+
+The liberty which we call indifference is a word without an idea--an
+absurdity; for this would be to determine without reason; it would be an
+effect without a cause. Therefore God cannot have this pretended
+free-will, which is a contradiction in terms. He has, therefore, always
+acted by the same necessity which causes His existence. It is,
+therefore, impossible for the world to exist without God; it is
+impossible for God to exist without the world. This world is filled with
+beings who succeed each other; therefore, God has always produced beings
+in succession.
+
+These preliminary assertions are the basis of the ancient eastern
+philosophy, and of that of the Greeks. We must except Democritus and
+Epicurus, whose corpuscular philosophy has combated these dogmas. But
+let us remark that the Epicureans were founded on an entirely erroneous
+philosophy, and that the metaphysical system of all the other philosophy
+subsisted with all the physical systems. All nature, except the void,
+contradicts Epicurus, and no phenomenon contradicts the philosophy which
+I explain. Now, a philosophy which agrees with all which passes in
+nature, and which contents the most attentive mind, is it not superior
+to all other unrevealed systems?
+
+After the assertions of the most ancient philosophers, which I have
+approached as nearly as possible, what remains to us? A chaos of doubts
+and chimeras. I believe that there never was a philosopher of a system
+who did not confess at the end of his life that he had lost his time. It
+must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been
+much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms. He who
+imagined a ship, towers much above him who imagined innate ideas.
+
+
+
+
+PHYSICIANS.
+
+
+Regimen is superior to medicine, especially as, from time immemorial,
+out of every hundred physicians, ninety-eight are charlatans. Molière
+was right in laughing at them; for nothing is more ridiculous than to
+witness an infinite number of silly women, and men no less than women,
+when they have eaten, drunk, sported, or abstained from repose too much,
+call in a physician for the headache, invoke him like a god, and request
+him to work the miracle of producing an alliance between health and
+intemperance, not omitting to fee the said god, who laughs at their
+folly.
+
+It is not, however, the less true that an able physician may preserve
+life on a hundred occasions, and restore to us the use of our limbs.
+When a man falls into an apoplexy, it is neither a captain of infantry
+nor a sergeant at law who will cure him. If cataracts are formed on my
+eyes, it is not my neighbor who will relieve me. I distinguish not
+between physicians and surgeons, these professions being so intimately
+connected.
+
+Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the
+joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the
+earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is
+almost as noble as to create. The Roman people had no physicians for
+more than five hundred years. This people, whose sole occupation was
+slaughter, in particular cultivated not the art of prolonging life.
+What, therefore, happened at Rome to those who had a putrid fever, a
+fistula, a gangrene, or an inflammation of the stomach? They died. The
+small number of great physicians introduced into Rome were only slaves.
+A physician among the great Roman patricians was a species of luxury,
+like a cook. Every rich man had his perfumers, his bathers, his harpers,
+and his physician. The celebrated Musa, the physician of Augustus, was a
+slave; he was freed and made a Roman knight; after which physicians
+became persons of consideration.
+
+When Christianity was so fully established as to bestow on us the
+felicity of possessing monks, they were expressly forbidden, by many
+councils, from practising medicine. They should have prescribed a
+precisely contrary line of conduct, if it were desirable to render them
+useful to mankind.
+
+How beneficial to society were monks obliged to study medicine and to
+cure our ailments for God's sake! Having nothing to gain but heaven,
+they would never be charlatans; they would equally instruct themselves
+in our diseases and their remedies, one of the finest of occupations,
+and the only one forbidden them. It has been objected that they would
+poison the impious; but even that would be advantageous to the church.
+Had this been the case, Luther would never have stolen one-half of
+Catholic Europe from our holy father, the pope; for in the first fever
+which might have seized the Augustine Luther, a Dominican would have
+prepared his pills. You will tell me that he would not have taken them;
+but with a little address this might have been managed. But to proceed:
+
+Towards the year 1517 lived a citizen, animated with a Christian zeal,
+named John; I do not mean John Calvin, but John, surnamed of God, who
+instituted the Brothers of Charity. This body, instituted for the
+redemption of captives, is composed of the only useful monks, although
+not accounted among the orders. The Dominicans, Bernardines, Norbertins,
+and Benedictines, acknowledge not the Brothers of Charity. They are
+simply adverted to in the continuation of the "Ecclesiastical History"
+of Fleury. Why? Because they have performed cures instead of
+miracles--have been useful and not caballed--cured poor women without
+either directing or seducing them. Lastly, their institution being
+charitable, it is proper that other monks should despise them.
+
+Medicine, having then become a mercenary profession in the world, as the
+administration of justice is in many places, it has become liable to
+strange abuses. But nothing is more estimable than a physician who,
+having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human
+body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it,
+exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and
+the poor. Such a man is very superior to the general of the Capuchins,
+however respectable this general may be.
+
+
+
+
+PIRATES OR BUCCANEERS.
+
+
+In the time of Cardinal Richelieu, when the Spaniards and French
+detested each other, because Ferdinand the Catholic laughed at Louis
+XII., and Francis I. was taken at the battle of Pavia by an army of
+Charles V.--while this hatred was so strong that the false author of the
+political romance, and political piece of tediousness, called the
+"Political Testament of Cardinal Richelieu," feared not to call the
+Spaniards "an insatiable nation, who rendered the Indies tributaries of
+hell"; when, in short, we were leagued in 1635 with Holland against
+Spain; when France had nothing in America, and the Spaniards covered the
+seas with their galleys--then buccaneers began to appear. They were at
+first French adventurers, whose quality was at most that of corsairs.
+
+One of them, named Legrande, a native of Dieppe, associated himself with
+fifty determined men, and went to tempt fortune in a bark which had not
+even a cannon. Towards the Isle of Hispaniola (St. Domingo), he
+perceived a galley strayed from the great Spanish fleet; he approached
+it as a captain wishing to sell provisions; he mounted, attended by his
+people; he entered the chamber of the captain, who was playing at cards,
+threw him down, made him prisoner with his cargo, and returned to Dieppe
+with his vessel laden with immense riches. This adventure was the signal
+for forty years' unheard-of exploits.
+
+French, English, and Dutch buccaneers associated together in the caverns
+of St. Domingo, of the little islands of St. Christopher and Tortola.
+They chose a chief for each expedition, which was the first origin of
+kings. Agriculturists would never have wished for a king; they had no
+need of one to sow, thrash, and sell corn.
+
+When the buccaneers took a great prize, they bought with it a little
+vessel and cannon. One happy chance produced twenty others. If they were
+a hundred in number they were believed to be a thousand; it was
+difficult to escape them, still more so to follow them. They were birds
+of prey who established themselves on all sides, and who retired into
+inaccessible places; sometimes they ravaged from four to five hundred
+leagues of coast; sometimes they advanced on foot, or horseback, two
+hundred leagues up the countries. They surprised and pillaged the rich
+towns of Chagra, Maracaybo, Vera Cruz, Panama, Porto Rico, Campeachy,
+the island of St. Catherine, and the suburbs of Cartagena.
+
+One of these pirates, named Olonois, penetrated to the gates of Havana,
+followed by twenty men only. Having afterwards retired into his boat,
+the governor sent against him a ship of war with soldiers and an
+executioner. Olonois rendered himself master of the vessel, cut off the
+heads of the Spanish soldiers, whom he had taken himself, and sent back
+the executioner to the governor. Such astonishing actions were never
+performed by the Romans, or by other robbers. The warlike voyage of
+Admiral Anson round the world is only an agreeable promenade in
+comparison with the passage of the buccaneers in the South Sea, and with
+what they endured on terra firma.
+
+Had their policy been equal to their invincible courage, they would have
+founded a great empire in America. They wanted females; but instead of
+ravishing and marrying Sabines, like the Romans, they procured them from
+the brothels of Paris, which sufficed not to produce a second
+generation.
+
+They were more cruel towards the Spaniards than the Israelites ever were
+to the Canaanites. A Dutchman is spoken of, named Roc, who put several
+Spaniards on a spit and caused them to be eaten by his comrades. Their
+expeditions were tours of thieves, and never campaigns of conquerors;
+thus, in all the West Indies, they were never called anything but _los
+ladrones._ When they surprised and entered the house of a father of a
+family, they put him to the torture to discover his treasures. That
+sufficiently proves what we say in the article "Question," that torture
+was invented by robbers.
+
+What rendered their exploits useless was, that they lavished in
+debauches, as foolish as monstrous, all that they acquired by rapine and
+murder. Finally, there remains nothing more of them than their name, and
+scarcely that. Such were the buccaneers.
+
+But what people in Europe have not been pirates? The Goths, Alans,
+Vandals, and Huns, were they anything else? What were Rollo, who
+established himself in Normandy, and William Fier-a-bras, but the most
+able pirates? Was not Clovis a pirate, who came from the borders of the
+Rhine into Gaul?
+
+
+
+
+PLAGIARISM.
+
+
+It is said that this word is derived from the Latin word _plaga,_ and
+that it signifies the condemnation to the scourge of those who sold
+freemen for slaves. This has nothing in common with the plagiarism of
+authors, who sell not men either enslaved or free. They only for a
+little money occasionally sell themselves.
+
+When an author sells the thoughts of another man for his own, the
+larceny is called plagiarism. All the makers of dictionaries, all
+compilers who do nothing else than repeat backwards and forwards the
+opinions, the errors, the impostures, and the truths already printed, we
+may term plagiarists, but honest plagiarists, who arrogate not the merit
+of invention. They pretend not even to have collected from the ancients
+the materials which they get together; they only copy the laborious
+compilers of the sixteenth century. They will sell you in quarto that
+which already exists in folio. Call them if you please bookmakers, not
+authors; range them rather among second-hand dealers than plagiarists.
+
+The true plagiarist is he who gives the works of another for his own,
+who inserts in his rhapsodies long passages from a good book a little
+modified. The enlightened reader, seeing this patch of cloth of gold
+upon a blanket, soon detects the bungling purloiner.
+
+Ramsay, who after having been a Presbyterian in his native Scotland, an
+Anglican in London, then a Quaker, and who finally persuaded Fénelon
+that he was a Catholic, and even pretended a penchant for celestial
+love--Ramsay, I say, compiled the "Travels of Cyrus," because his master
+made his Telemachus travel. So far he only imitated; but in these
+travels he copies from an old English author, who introduces a young
+solitary dissecting his dead goat, and arriving at a knowledge of the
+Deity by the process, which is very much like plagiarism. On conducting
+Cyrus into Egypt, in describing that singular country, he employs the
+same expressions as Bossuet, whom he copies word for word without
+citing; this is plagiarism complete. One of my friends reproached him
+with this one day; Ramsay replied that he was not aware of it, and that
+it was not surprising he should think like Fénelon and write like
+Bossuet. This was making out the adage, "Proud as a Scotsman."
+
+The most singular of all plagiarism is possibly that of Father Barre,
+author of a large history of Germany in ten volumes. The history of
+Charles XII. had just been printed, and he inserted more than two
+hundred pages of it in his work; making a duke of Lorraine say precisely
+that which was said by Charles XII.
+
+He attributes to the emperor Arnold that which happened to the Swedish
+monarch. He relates of the emperor Rudolph that which was said of King
+Stanislaus. Waldemar, king of Denmark, acts precisely like Charles at
+Bender, etc.
+
+The most pleasant part of the story is, that a journalist, perceiving
+this extraordinary resemblance between the two works, failed not to
+impute the plagiarism to the author of the history of Charles XII., who
+had composed his work twenty years before the appearance of that of
+Father Barre. It is chiefly in poetry that plagiarism is allowed to
+pass; and certainly, of all larcenies, it is that which is least
+dangerous to society.
+
+
+
+
+PLATO.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+_Of The Timæus Of Plato And Some Other Things._
+
+The fathers of the Church, of the first four centuries, were all Greeks
+and Platonists: you find not one Roman who wrote for Christianity, or
+who had the slightest tincture of philosophy. I will here observe, by
+the way, that it is strange enough, the great Church of Rome, which
+contributed in nothing to this establishment, has alone reaped all the
+advantage. It has been with this revolution, as with all those produced
+by civil wars: the first who trouble a state, always unknowingly labor
+for others rather than for themselves.
+
+The school of Alexandria, founded by one named Mark, to whom succeeded
+Athenagoras, Clement, and Origen, was the centre of the Christian
+philosophy. Plato was regarded by all the Greeks of Alexandria as the
+master of wisdom, the interpreter of the divinity. If the first
+Christians had not embraced the dogmas of Plato, they would never have
+had any philosophers, any man of mind in their party. I set aside
+inspiration and grace which are above all philosophy, and speak only of
+the ordinary course of human events.
+
+It is said that it was principally in the "Timæus" of Plato that the
+Greek fathers were instructed. This "Timæus" passes for the most sublime
+work of all ancient philosophy. It is almost the only one which Dacier
+has not translated, and I think the reason is, because he did not
+understand it, and that he feared to discover to clear-sighted readers
+the face of this Greek divinity, who is only adored because he is
+veiled.
+
+Plato, in this fine dialogue, commences by introducing an Egyptian
+priest, who teaches Solon the ancient history of the city of Athens,
+which was preserved faithfully for nine thousand years in the archives
+of Egypt.
+
+Athens, says the priest, was once the finest city of Greece, and the
+most renowned in the world for the arts of war and peace. She alone
+resisted the warriors of the famous island Atlantis, who came in
+innumerable vessels to subjugate a great part of Europe and Asia. Athens
+had the glory of freeing so many vanquished people, and of preserving
+Egypt from the servitude which menaced us. But after this illustrious
+victory and service rendered to mankind, a frightful earthquake in
+twenty-four hours swallowed the territory of Athens, and all the great
+island of Atlantis. This island is now only a vast sea, which the ruins
+of this ancient world and the slime mixed with its waters rendered
+unnavigable.
+
+This is what the priest relates to Solon: and such is the manner in
+which Plato prepares to explain to us subsequently, the formation of the
+soul, the operations of the "Word," and his trinity. It is not
+physically impossible that there might be an island Atlantis, which had
+not existed for nine thousand years, and which perished by an
+earthquake, like Herculaneum and so many other cities; but our priest,
+in adding that the sea which washes Mount Atlas is inaccessible to
+vessels, renders the history a little suspicious.
+
+It may be, after all, that since Solon--that is to say, in the course of
+three thousand years--vessels have dispersed the slime of the ancient
+island Atlantis and rendered the sea navigable; but it is still
+surprising that he should prepare by this island to speak of the "Word."
+
+Perhaps in telling this priest's or old woman's story, Plato wished to
+insinuate something contrary to the vicissitudes which have so often
+changed the face of the globe. Perhaps he would merely say what
+Pythagoras and Timæus of Locris have said so long before him, and what
+our eyes tell us every day--that everything in nature perishes and is
+renewed. The history of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the fall of Phæthon, are
+fables: but inundations and conflagrations are truths.
+
+Plato departs from his imaginary island, to speak of things which the
+best of philosophers of our days would not disavow. "That which is
+produced has necessarily a cause, an author. It is difficult to discover
+the author of this world; and when he is found it is dangerous to speak
+of him to the people."
+
+Nothing is more true, even now, than that if a sage, in passing by our
+Lady of Loretto, said to another sage, his friend, that our Lady of
+Loretto, with her little black face, governs not the entire universe,
+and a good woman overheard these words, and related them to other good
+women of the march of Ancona, the sage would be stoned like Orpheus.
+This is precisely the situation in which the first Christians were
+believed to be, who spoke not well of Cybele and Diana, which alone
+should attach them to Plato. The unintelligible things which he
+afterwards treats of, ought not to disgust us with him.
+
+I will not reproach Plato with saying, in his "Timæus," that the world
+is an animal; for he no doubt understands that the elements in motion
+animate the world; and he means not, by animal, a dog or a man, who
+walks, feels, eats, sleeps, and engenders. An author should always be
+explained in the most favorable sense; and it is not while we accuse
+people, or when we denounce their books, that it is right to interpret
+malignantly and poison all their words; nor is it thus that I shall
+treat Plato.
+
+According to him there is a kind of trinity which is the soul of matter.
+These are his words: "From the indivisible substance, always similar to
+itself, and the divisible substance, a third substance is composed,
+which partakes of the same and of others."
+
+Afterwards came the Pythagorean number, which renders the thing still
+more unintelligible, and consequently more respectable. What ammunition
+for people commencing a paper war! Friend reader, a little patience and
+attention, if you please: "When God had formed the soul of the world of
+these three substances, the soul shot itself into the midst of the
+universe, to the extremities of being; spreading itself everywhere, and
+reacting upon itself, it formed at all times a divine origin of eternal
+wisdom."
+
+And some lines afterwards: "Thus the nature of the immense animal which
+we call _the world,_ is eternal." Plato, following the example of his
+predecessors, then introduces the Supreme Being, the Creator of the
+world, forming this world before time; so that God could not exist
+without the world, nor the world without God; as the sun cannot exist
+without shedding light into space, nor this light steal into space
+without the sun.
+
+I pass in silence many Greek, or rather Oriental ideas; as for
+example--that there are four sorts of animals--celestial gods, birds of
+the air, fishes, and terrestrial animals, to which last we have the
+honor to belong.
+
+I hasten to arrive at a second trinity: "the being engendered, the being
+who engenders, and the being which resembles the engendered and the
+engenderer." This trinity is formal enough, and the fathers have found
+their account in it.
+
+This trinity is followed by a rather singular theory of the four
+elements. The earth is founded on an equilateral triangle, water on a
+right-angled triangle, air on a scalene, and fire on an isosceles
+triangle. After which he demonstratively proves that there can be but
+five worlds, because there are but five regular solid bodies, and yet
+that there is but one world which is round.
+
+I confess that no philosopher in Bedlam has ever reasoned so powerfully.
+Rouse yourself, friend reader, to hear me speak of the other famous
+trinity of Plato, which his commentators have so much vaunted: it is the
+Eternal Being, the Eternal Creator of the world; His word, intelligence,
+or idea; and the good which results from it. I assure you that I have
+sought for it diligently in this "Timæus," and I have never found it
+there; it may be there "_totidem literis,_" but it is not "_totidem
+verbis,_" or I am much mistaken.
+
+After reading all Plato with great reluctance, I perceived some shadow
+of the trinity for which he is so much honored. It is in the sixth book
+of his "Chimerical Republic," in which he says: "Let us speak of the
+Son, the wonderful production of good, and His perfect image." But
+unfortunately he discovers this perfect image of God to be the sun. It
+was therefore the physical sun, which with the Word and the Father
+composed the platonic trinity. In the "Epinomis" of Plato there are very
+curious absurdities, one of which I translate as reasonably as I can,
+for the convenience of the reader:
+
+"Know that there are eight virtues in heaven: I have observed them,
+which is easy to all the world. The sun is one of its virtues, the moon
+another; the third is the assemblage of stars; and the five planets,
+with these three virtues, make the number eight. Be careful of thinking
+that these virtues, or those which they contain, and which animate them,
+either move of themselves or are carried in vehicles; be careful, I say,
+of believing that some may be gods and others not; that some may be
+adorable, and others such as we should neither adore or invoke. They are
+all brothers; each has his share; we owe them all the same honors; they
+fill all the situations which the Word assigned to them, when it formed
+the visible universe."
+
+Here is the Word already found: we must now find the three persons. They
+are in the second letter from Plato to Dionysius, which letters
+assuredly are not forged; the style is the same as that of his
+dialogues. He often says to Dionysius and Dion things very difficult to
+comprehend, and which we might believe to be written in numbers, but he
+also tells us very clear ones, which have been found true a long time
+after him. For example, he expresses himself thus in his seventh letter
+to Dion:
+
+"I have been convinced that all states are very badly governed; there is
+scarcely any good institution or administration. We see, as it were, day
+after day, that all follow the path of fortune rather than that of
+wisdom." After this short digression on temporal affairs, let us return
+to spiritual ones, to the Trinity. Plato says to Dionysius:
+
+"The King of the universe is surrounded by His works: all is the effect
+of His grace. The finest of things have their first cause in Him; the
+second in perfection have in Him their second cause, and He is further
+the third cause of works of the third degree."
+
+The Trinity, such as we acknowledge, could not be recognized in this
+letter; but it was a great point to have in a Greek author a guaranty of
+the dogmas of the dawning Church. Every Greek church was therefore
+Platonic, as every Latin church was peripatetic, from the commencement
+of the third century. Thus two Greeks whom we have never understood,
+were the masters of our opinions until the time in which men at the end
+of two thousand years were obliged to think for themselves.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+_Questions On Plato And Some Other Trifles._
+
+Plato, in saying to the Greeks what so many philosophers of other
+nations have said before him, in assuring them that there is a Supreme
+Intelligence which arranged the universe--did he think that this Supreme
+Intelligence resided in a single place, like a king of the East in his
+seraglio? Or rather did he believe that this Powerful Intelligence
+spread itself everywhere like light, or a being still more delicate,
+prompt, active, and penetrating than light? The God of Plato, in a word,
+is he in matter, or is he separated from it? Oh, you who have read Plato
+attentively, that is to say, seven or eight fantastical dreams hidden in
+some garret in Europe, if ever these questions reach you, I implore you
+to answer them.
+
+The barbarous island of Cassite rides, in which men lived in the woods
+in the time of Plato, has finally produced philosophers who are as much
+beyond him as Plato was beyond those of his contemporaries who reasoned
+not at all. Among these philosophers, Clarke is perhaps altogether the
+clearest, the most profound, the most methodical, and the strongest of
+all those who have spoken of the Supreme Being.
+
+When he gave his excellent book to the public he found a young gentleman
+of the county of Gloucester who candidly advanced objections as strong
+as his demonstrations. We can see them at the end of the first volume of
+Clarke; it was not on the necessary existence of the Supreme Being that
+he reasoned; it was on His infinity and immensity.
+
+It appears not indeed, that Clarke has proved that there is a being who
+penetrates intimately all which exists, and that this being whose
+properties we cannot conceive has the property of extending Himself to
+the greatest imaginable distance.
+
+The great Newton has demonstrated that there is a void in nature; but
+what philosopher could demonstrate to me that God is in this void; that
+He touches it; that He fills it? How, bounded as we are, can we attain
+to the knowledge of these mysteries? Does it not suffice, that it proves
+to us that a Supreme Master exists? It is not given to us to know what
+He is nor how He is.
+
+It seems as if Locke and Clarke had the keys of the intelligible world.
+Locke has opened all the apartments which can be entered; but has not
+Clarke wished to penetrate a little above the edifice? How could a
+philosopher like Samuel Clarke, after so admirable a work on the
+existence of God, write so pitiable a one on matters of fact?
+
+How could Benedict Spinoza, who had as much profundity of mind as Samuel
+Clarke, after raising himself to the most sublime metaphysics, how could
+he not perceive that a Supreme Intelligence presides over works visibly
+arranged with a supreme intelligence--if it is true after all that such
+is the system of Spinoza?
+
+How could Newton, the greatest of men, comment upon the Apocalypse, as
+we have already remarked? How could Locke, after having so well
+developed the human understanding, degrade his own in another work? I
+fancy I see eagles, who after darting into a cloud go to rest on a
+dunghill.
+
+
+
+
+POETS.
+
+
+A young man on leaving college deliberates whether he shall be an
+advocate, a physician, a theologian, or a poet--whether he shall take
+care of our body, our soul, or our entertainment. We have already spoken
+of advocates and physicians; we will now speak of the prodigious fortune
+which is sometimes made by the theologian.
+
+The theologian becomes pope, and has not only his theological valets,
+cooks, singers, chamberlains, physicians, surgeons, sweepers, _agnus
+dei_ makers, confectioners, and preachers, but also his poet. I know not
+what inspired personage was the poet of Leo X., as David was for some
+time the poet of Saul.
+
+It is surely of all the employments in a great house, that which is the
+most useless. The kings of England, who have preserved in their island
+many of the ancient usages which are lost on the continent, have their
+official poet. He is obliged once a year to make an ode in praise of St.
+Cecilia, who played so marvellously on the organ or psalterium that an
+angel descended from the ninth heaven to listen to her more
+conveniently--the harmony of the psaltery, in ascending from this place
+to the land of angels, necessarily losing a small portion of its volume.
+
+Moses is the first poet that we know of; but it is thought that before
+him the Chaldæans, the Syrians, and the Indians practised poetry, since
+they possessed music. Nevertheless, the fine canticle which Moses
+chanted with his sister Miriam, when they came out of the Red Sea, is
+the most ancient poetical monument in hexameter verse that we possess. I
+am not of the opinion of those impious and ignorant rogues, Newton, Le
+Clerc, and others, who prove that all this was written about eight
+hundred years after the event, and who insolently maintain that Moses
+could not write in Hebrew, since Hebrew is only a comparatively modern
+dialect of the Phœnician, of which Moses could know nothing at all. I
+examine not with the learned Huet how Moses was able to sing so well,
+who stammered and could not speak.
+
+If we listened to many of these authors, Moses would be less ancient
+than Orpheus, Musæus, Homer, and Hesiod. We perceive at the first glance
+the absurdity of this opinion; as if a Greek could be an ancient as a
+Jew!
+
+Neither will I reply to those impertinent persons who suspect that Moses
+is only an imaginary personage, a fabulous imitation of the fable of the
+ancient Bacchus; and that all the prodigies of Bacchus, since attributed
+to Moses, were sung in orgies before it was known that Jews existed in
+the world. This idea refutes itself; it is obvious to good sense that it
+is impossible that Bacchus could have existed before Moses.
+
+We have still, however, an excellent Jewish poet undeniably anterior to
+Horace--King David; and we know well how infinitely superior the
+"_Miserere,_" is to the "_Justum ac tenacem propositi virum._" But what
+is most astonishing, legislators and kings have been our earliest poets.
+We find even at present people so good as to become poets for kings.
+Virgil indeed had not the office of poet to Augustus, nor Lucan that of
+poet to Nero; but I confess that it would have debased the profession
+not a little to make gods of either the one or the other.
+
+It is asked, why poetry, being so unnecessary to the world, occupies so
+high a rank among the fine arts? The same question may be put with
+regard to music. Poetry is the music of the soul, and above all of great
+and of feeling souls. One merit of poetry few persons will deny; it says
+more and in fewer words than prose. Who was ever able to translate the
+following Latin words with the brevity with which they came from the
+brain of the poet: "_Vive memor lethi, fugit hora, hoc quod loquor inde
+est?_"
+
+I speak not of the other charms of poetry, as they are well known; but I
+insist upon the grand precept of Horace, "_Sapere est principium et
+fons._" There can be no great poetry without great wisdom; but how
+connect this wisdom with enthusiasm, like Cæsar, who formed his plan of
+battle with circumspection, and fought with all possible ardor?
+
+There have no doubt been ignorant poets, but then they have been bad
+poets. A man acquainted only with dactyls and spondees, and with a head
+full of rhymes, is rarely a man of sense; but Virgil is endowed with
+superior reason.
+
+Lucretius, in common with all the ancients, was miserably ignorant of
+physical laws, a knowledge of which is not to be acquired by wit. It is
+a knowledge which is only to be obtained by instruments, which in his
+time had not been invented. Glasses are necessary--microscopes,
+pneumatic machines, barometers, etc., to have even a distant idea of the
+operations of nature.
+
+Descartes knew little more than Lucretius, when his keys opened the
+sanctuary; and an hundred times more of the path has been trodden from
+the time of Galileo, who was better instructed physically than
+Descartes, to the present day, than from the first Hermes to Lucretius.
+
+All ancient physics are absurd: it was not thus with the philosophy of
+mind, and that good sense which, assisted by strength of intellect, can
+acutely balance between doubts and appearances. This is the chief merit
+of Lucretius; his third book is a masterpiece of reasoning. He argues
+like Cicero, and expresses himself like Virgil; and it must be confessed
+that when our illustrious Polignac attacked his third book, he refuted
+it only like a cardinal.
+
+When I say, that Lucretius reasons in his third book like an able
+metaphysician, I do not say that he was right. We may argue very
+soundly, and deceive ourselves, if not instructed by revelation.
+Lucretius was not a Jew, and we know that Jews alone were in the right
+in the days of Cicero, of Posidonius, of Cæsar, and of Cato. Lastly,
+under Tiberius, the Jews were no longer in the right, and common sense
+was possessed by the Christians exclusively.
+
+Thus it was impossible that Lucretius, Cicero, and Cæsar could be
+anything but imbecile, in comparison with the Jews and ourselves; but it
+must be allowed that in the eyes of the rest of the world they were very
+great men. I allow that Lucretius killed himself, as also did Cato,
+Cassius, and Brutus, but they might very well kill themselves, and still
+reason like men of intellect during their lives.
+
+In every author let us distinguish the man from his works. Racine wrote
+like Virgil, but he became Jansenist through weakness, and he died in
+consequence of weakness equally great--because a man in passing through
+a gallery did not bestow a look upon him. I am very sorry for all this;
+but the part of Phædra is not therefore the less admirable.
+
+
+
+
+POISONINGS.
+
+
+Let us often repeat useful truths. There have always been fewer
+poisonings than have been spoken of: it is almost with them as with
+parricides; the accusations have been very common, and the crimes very
+rare. One proof is, that we have a long time taken for poison that which
+is not so. How many princes have got rid of those who were suspected by
+them by making them drink bullock's blood! How many other princes have
+swallowed it themselves to avoid falling into the hands of their
+enemies! All ancient historians, and even Plutarch, attest it.
+
+I was so infatuated with these tales in my childhood that I bled one of
+my bulls, in the idea that his blood belonged to me, since he was born
+in my stable--an ancient pretension of which I will not here dispute the
+validity. I drank this blood, like Atreus and Mademoiselle de Vergi, and
+it did me no more harm than horse's blood does to the Tartars, or
+pudding does to us every day, if it be not too rich.
+
+Why should the blood of a bull be a poison, when that of a goat is
+considered a remedy? The peasants of my province swallow the blood of a
+cow, which they call fricassée, every day; that of a bull is not more
+dangerous. Be sure, dear reader, that Themistocles died not of it.
+
+Some speculators of the court of Louis XIV. believed they discovered
+that his sister-in-law, Henrietta of England, was poisoned with powder
+of diamonds, which was put into a bowl of strawberries, instead of
+grated sugar; but neither the impalpable powder of glass or diamonds,
+nor that of any production of nature which was not in itself venomous,
+could be hurtful.
+
+They are only sharp-cutting active points which can become violent. The
+exact observer, Mead, a celebrated English physician, saw through a
+microscope the liquor shot from the gums of irritated vipers. He
+pretends that he has always found them strewn with these cutting,
+pointed blades, the immense number of which tear and pierce the internal
+membranes.
+
+The cantarella, of which it is pretended that Pope Alexander VI. and his
+bastard, the duke of Borgia, made great use, was, it is said, the foam
+of a hog rendered furious by suspending him by the feet with his head
+downwards, in which situation he was beaten to death; it was a poison as
+prompt and violent as that of the viper. A great apothecary assures me
+that Madame la Tofana, that celebrated poisoner of Naples, principally
+made use of this receipt; all which is perhaps untrue. This science is
+one of those of which we should be ignorant.
+
+Poisons which coagulate the blood, instead of tearing the membranes, are
+opium, hemlock, henbane, aconite, and several others. The Athenians
+became so refined as to cause their countrymen, condemned to death, to
+die by poisons reputed cold; an apothecary was the executioner of the
+republic. It is said that Socrates died very peacefully, and as if he
+slept: I can scarcely believe it.
+
+I made one remark on the Jewish books, which is, that among this people
+we see no one who was poisoned. A crowd of kings and priests perished by
+assassination; the history of the nation is the history of murders and
+robberies; but a single instance only is mentioned of a man who was
+poisoned, and this man was not a Jew--he was a Syrian named Lysias,
+general of the armies of Antiochus Epiphanes. The second Book of
+Maccabees says that he poisoned himself--"_veneno vitam finivit_;" but
+these Books of Maccabees are very suspicious. My dear reader, I have
+already desired you to believe nothing lightly.
+
+What astonishes me most in the history of the manners of the ancient
+Romans is the conspiracy of the Roman women to cause to perish by
+poison, not only their husbands, but the principal citizens in general.
+"It was," says Titus Livius, "in the year 423 from the foundation of
+Rome, and therefore in the time of the most austere virtue; it was
+before there was any mention of divorce, though divorce was authorized;
+it was when women drank no wine, and scarcely ever went out of their
+houses, except to the temples." How can we imagine, that they suddenly
+applied themselves to the knowledge of poisons; that they assembled to
+compose them; and, without any apparent interest, thus administered
+death to the first men in Rome?
+
+Lawrence Echard, in his abridged compilation, contents himself with
+saying, that "the virtue of the Roman ladies was strangely belied; that
+one hundred and seventy who meddled with the art of making poisons, and
+of reducing this art into precepts, were all at once accused, convicted,
+and punished." Titus Livius assuredly does not say that they reduced
+this art into rules. That would signify that they held a school of
+poisons, that they professed it as a science; which is ridiculous. He
+says nothing about a hundred and seventy professors in corrosive
+sublimate and verdigris. Finally, he does not affirm that there were
+poisoners among the wives of the senators and knights.
+
+The people were extremely foolish, and reasoned at Rome as elsewhere.
+These are the words of Titus Livius: "The year 423 was of the number of
+unfortunate ones; there was a mortality caused by the temperature of the
+air or by human malice. I wish that we could affirm with some author
+that the corruption of the air caused this epidemic, rather than
+attribute the death of so many Romans to poison, as many historians have
+falsely written, to decry this year."
+
+They have therefore written falsely, according to Titus Livius, who
+believes not that the ladies of Rome were poisoners: but what interest
+had authors in decrying this year? I know not.
+
+"I relate the fact," continues he, "as it was related before me." This
+is not the speech of a satisfied man; besides, the alleged fact much
+resembles a fable. A slave accuses about seventy women, among whom are
+several of the patrician rank, of causing the plague in Rome by
+preparing poisons. Some of the accused demand permission to swallow
+their drugs, and expire on the spot; and their accomplices are condemned
+to death without the manner of their punishment being specified.
+
+I suspect that this story to which Titus Livius gives no credit,
+deserves to be banished to the place in which the vessel is preserved
+which a vestal drew to shore with a girdle; where Jupiter in person
+stopped the flight of the Romans; where Castor and Pollux came to combat
+on horseback in their behalf; where a flint was cut with a razor; and
+where Simon Barjonas, surnamed Peter, disputed miracles with Simon the
+magician.
+
+There is scarcely any poison of which we cannot prevent the consequences
+by combating it immediately. There is no medicine which is not a poison
+when taken in too strong a dose. All indigestion is a poison. An
+ignorant physician, and even a learned but inattentive one, is often a
+poisoner. A good cook is a certain slow poisoner, if you are not
+temperate.
+
+One day the marquis d'Argenson, minister of state for the foreign
+department, whilst his brother was minister of war, received from London
+a letter from a fool--as ministers do by every post; this fool proposed
+an infallible means of poisoning all the inhabitants of the capital of
+England. "This does not concern me," said the marquis d'Argenson to us;
+"it is a packet to my brother."
+
+
+
+
+POLICY.
+
+
+The policy of man consists, at first, in endeavoring to arrive at a
+state equal to that of animals, whom nature has furnished with food,
+clothing, and shelter. To attain this state is a matter of no little
+time and difficulty. How to procure for himself subsistence and
+accommodation, and protect himself from evil, comprises the whole object
+and business of man.
+
+This evil exists everywhere; the four elements of nature conspire to
+form it. The barrenness of one-quarter part of the world, the numberless
+diseases to which we are subject, the multitude of strong and hostile
+animals by which we are surrounded, oblige us to be constantly on the
+alert in body and in mind, to guard against the various forms of evil.
+
+No man, by his own individual care and exertion, can secure himself from
+evil; he requires assistance. Society therefore is as ancient as the
+world. This society consists sometimes of too many, and sometimes of too
+few. The vicissitudes of the world have often destroyed whole races of
+men and other animals, in many countries, and have multiplied them in
+others.
+
+To enable a species to multiply, a tolerable climate and soil are
+necessary; and even with these advantages, men may be under the
+necessity of going unclothed, of suffering hunger, of being destitute of
+everything, and of perishing in misery.
+
+Men are not like beavers, or bees, or silk-worms; they have no sure and
+infallible instinct which procures for them necessaries. Among a hundred
+men, there is scarcely one that possesses genius; and among women,
+scarcely one among five hundred.
+
+It is only by means of genius that those arts are invented, which
+eventually furnish something of that accommodation which is the great
+object of all policy.
+
+To attempt these arts with success, the assistance of others is
+requisite; hands to aid you, and minds sufficiently acute and
+unprejudiced to comprehend you, and sufficiently docile to obey you.
+Before, however, all this can be discovered and brought together,
+thousands of years roll on in ignorance and barbarism; thousands of
+efforts for improvement terminate only in abortion. At length, the
+outlines of an art are formed, but thousands of ages are still requisite
+to carry it to perfection.
+
+_Foreign Policy._
+
+When any one nation has become acquainted with metallurgy, it will
+certainly beat its neighbors and make slaves of them. You possess arrows
+and sabres, and were born in a climate that has rendered you robust. We
+are weak, and have only clubs and stones. You kill us, or if you permit
+us to live, it is that we may till your fields and build your houses. We
+sing some rustic ditty to dissipate your spleen or animate your languor,
+if we have any voice; or we blow on some pipes, in order to obtain from
+you clothing and bread. If our wives and daughters are handsome, you
+appropriate them without scruple to yourselves. The young gentleman,
+your son, not only takes advantage of the established policy, but adds
+new discoveries to this growing art. His servants proceed, by his
+orders, to emasculate my unfortunate boys, whom he then honors with the
+guardianship of his wives and mistresses. Such has been policy, the
+great art of making mankind contribute to individual advantage and
+enjoyment; and such is still policy throughout the largest portion of
+Asia.
+
+Some nations, or rather hordes, having thus by superior strength and
+skill brought into subjection others, begin afterwards to fight with one
+another for the division of the spoil. Each petty nation maintains and
+pays soldiers. To encourage, and at the same time to control these
+soldiers, each possesses its gods, its oracles, and prophecies; each
+maintains and pays its soothsayers and slaughtering priests. These
+soothsayers or augurs begin with prophesying in favor of the heads of
+the nation; they afterwards prophesy for themselves and obtain a share
+in the government. The most powerful and shrewd prevail at last over the
+others, after ages of carnage which excite our horror, and of impostures
+which excite our laughter. Such is the regular course and completion of
+policy.
+
+While these scenes of ravage and fraud are carried on in one portion of
+the globe, other nations, or rather clans, retire to mountain caverns,
+or districts surrounded by inaccessible swamps, marshes, or some verdant
+and solitary spot in the midst of vast deserts of burning sand, or some
+peninsular and consequently easily protected territory, to secure
+themselves against the tyrants of the continent. At length all become
+armed with nearly the same description of weapons; and blood flows from
+one extremity of the world to the other.
+
+Men, however, cannot forever go on killing one another; and peace is
+consequently made, till either party thinks itself sufficiently strong
+to recommence the war. Those who can write draw up these treaties of
+peace; and the chiefs of every nation, with a view more successfully to
+impose upon their enemies, invoke the gods to attest with what sincerity
+they bind themselves to the observance of these compacts. Oaths of the
+most solemn character are invented and employed, and one party engages
+in the name of the great Somonocodom, and the other in that of Jupiter
+the Avenger, to live forever in peace and amity; while in the same names
+of Somonocodom and Jupiter, they take the first opportunity of cutting
+one another's throats.
+
+In times of the greatest civilization and refinement, the lion of Æsop
+made a treaty with three animals, who were his neighbors. The object was
+to divide the common spoil into four equal parts. The lion, for certain
+incontestable and satisfactory reasons which he did not then deem it
+necessary to detail, but which he would be always ready to give in due
+time and place, first takes three parts out of the four for himself, and
+then threatens instant strangulation to whoever shall dare to touch the
+fourth. This is the true sublime of policy.
+
+_Internal Policy._
+
+The object here is to accumulate for our own country the greatest
+quantity of power, honor, and enjoyment possible. To attain these in any
+extraordinary degree, much money is indispensable. In a democracy it is
+very difficult to accomplish this object. Every citizen is your rival; a
+democracy can never subsist but in a small territory. You may have
+wealth almost equal to your wishes through your own mercantile dealings,
+or transmitted in patrimony from your industrious and opulent
+grandfather; your fortune will excite jealousy and envy, but will
+purchase little real co-operation and service. If an affluent family
+ever bears sway in a democracy, it is not for a long time.
+
+In an aristocracy, honors, pleasures, power, and money, are more easily
+obtainable. Great discretion, however, is necessary. If abuse is
+flagrant, revolution will be the consequence. Thus in a democracy all
+the citizens are equal. This species of government is at present rare,
+and appears to but little advantage, although it is in itself natural
+and wise. In aristocracy, inequality or superiority makes itself
+sensibly felt; but the less arrogant its demeanor, the more secure and
+successful will be its course.
+
+Monarchy remains to be mentioned. In this, all mankind are made for one
+individual: he accumulates all honors with which he chooses to decorate
+himself, tastes all pleasures to which he feels an inclination, and
+exercises a power absolutely without control; provided, let it be
+remembered, that he has plenty of money. If he is deficient in that, he
+will be unsuccessful at home as well as abroad, and will soon be left
+destitute of power, pleasures, honors, and perhaps even of life.
+
+While this personage has money, not only is he successful and happy
+himself, but his relations and principal servants are flourishing in
+full enjoyment also; and an immense multitude of hirelings labor for
+them the whole year round, in the vain hope that they shall themselves,
+some time or other, enjoy in their cottages the leisure and comfort
+which their sultans and pashas enjoy in their harems. Observe, however,
+what will probably happen.
+
+A jolly, full-fed farmer was formerly in possession of a vast estate,
+consisting of fields, meadows, vineyards, orchards, and forests. A
+hundred laborers worked for him, while he dined with his family, drank
+his wine, and went to sleep. His principal domestics, who plundered him,
+dined next, and ate up nearly everything. Then came the laborers, for
+whom there was left only a very meagre and insufficient meal. They at
+first murmured, then openly complained, speedily lost all patience, and
+at last ate up the dinner prepared for their master, and turned him out
+of his house. The master said they were a set of scoundrels, a pack of
+undutiful and rebellious children who assaulted and abused their own
+father. The laborers replied that they had only obeyed the sacred law of
+nature, which he had violated. The dispute was finally referred to a
+soothsayer in the neighborhood, who was thought to be actually inspired.
+The holy man takes the farm into his own hands, and nearly famishes both
+the laborers and the master; till at length their feelings counteract
+their superstition, and the saint is in the end expelled in his turn.
+This is domestic policy.
+
+There have been more examples than one of this description; and some
+consequences of this species of policy still subsist in all their
+strength. We may hope that in the course of ten or twelve thousand ages,
+when mankind become more enlightened, the great proprietors of estates,
+grown also more wise, will on the one hand treat their laborers rather
+better, and on the other take care not to be duped by soothsayers.
+
+
+
+
+POLYPUS.
+
+
+In quality of a doubter, I have a long time filled my vocation. I have
+doubted when they would persuade me, that the _glossopetres_ which I
+have seen formed in my fields, were originally the tongues of sea-dogs,
+that the lime used in my barn was composed of shells only, that corals
+were the production of the excrement of certain little fishes, that the
+sea by its currents has formed Mount Cenis and Mount Taurus, and that
+Niobe was formerly changed into marble.
+
+It is not that I love not the extraordinary, the marvellous, as well as
+any traveller or man of system; but to believe firmly, I would see with
+my own eyes, touch with my own hands, and that several times. Even that
+is not enough; I would still be aided by the eyes and hands of others.
+
+Two of my companions, who, like myself, form questions on the
+"Encyclopædia," have for some time amused themselves with me in studying
+the nature of several of the little films which grow in ditches by the
+side of water lentils. These light herbs, which we call polypi of soft
+water, have several roots, from which circumstance we have given them
+the name of polypi. These little parasite plants were merely plants,
+until the commencement of the age in which we live. Leuenhoeck raises
+them to the rank of animals. We know not if they have gained much by it.
+
+We think that, to be considered as an animal, it is necessary to be
+endowed with sensation. They therefore commence by showing us, that
+these soft water polypi have feeling, in order that we should present
+them with our right of citizenship.
+
+We have not dared to grant it the dignity of sensation, though it
+appeared to have the greatest pretensions to it. Why should we give it
+to a species of small rush? Is it because it appears to bud? This
+property is common to all trees growing by the water-side; to willows,
+poplars, aspens, etc. It is so light, that it changes place at the least
+motion of the drop of water which bears it; thence it has been concluded
+that it walked. In like manner, we may suppose that the little,
+floating, marshy islands of St. Omer are animals, for they often change
+their place.
+
+It is said its roots are its feet, its stalk its body, its branches are
+its arms; the pipe which composes its stalk is pierced at the top--it is
+its mouth. In this pipe there is a light white pith, of which some
+almost imperceptible animalcules are very greedy; they enter the hollow
+of this little pipe by making it bend, and eat this light paste;--it is
+the polypus who captures these animals with his snout, though it has not
+the least appearance of head, mouth, or stomach.
+
+We have examined this sport of nature with all the attention of which we
+are capable. It appeared to us that the production called polypus
+resembled an animal much less than a carrot or asparagus. In vain we
+have opposed to our eyes all the reasonings which we formerly read; the
+evidence of our eyes has overthrown them. It is a pity to lose an
+illusion. We know how pleasant it would be to have an animal which could
+reproduce itself by offshoots, and which, having all the appearances of
+a plant, could join the animal to the vegetable kingdom.
+
+It would be much more natural to give the rank of an animal to the
+newly-discovered plant of Anglo-America, to which the pleasant name of
+Venus' fly-trap has been given. It is a kind of prickly sensitive-plant,
+the leaves of which fold of themselves; the flies are taken in these
+leaves and perish there more certainly than in the web of a spider. If
+any of our physicians would call this plant an animal, he would have
+partisans.
+
+But if you would have something more extraordinary, more worthy of the
+observation of philosophers, observe the snail, which lives one and two
+whole months after its head is cut off, and which afterwards has a
+second head, containing all the organs possessed by the first. This
+truth, to which all children can be witnesses, is more worthy than the
+illusion of polypi of soft water. What becomes of its sensorium, its
+magazine of ideas, and soul, when its head is cut off? How do all these
+return? A soul which is renewed is a very curious phenomenon; not that
+it is more strange than a soul begotten, a soul which sleeps and awakes,
+or a condemned soul.
+
+
+
+
+POLYTHEISM.
+
+
+The plurality of gods is the great reproach at present cast upon the
+Greeks and Romans: but let any man show me, if he can, a single fact in
+the whole of their histories, or a single word in the whole of their
+books, from which it may be fairly inferred that they believed in many
+supreme gods; and if neither that fact nor word can be found, if, on the
+contrary, all antiquity is full of monuments and records which attest
+one sovereign God, superior to all other gods, let us candidly admit
+that we have judged the ancients as harshly as we too often judge our
+contemporaries.
+
+We read in numberless passages that Zeus, Jupiter, is the master of gods
+and men. "_Jovis omnia plena._"--"All things are full of Jupiter." And
+St. Paul gives this testimony in favor of the ancients: "_In ipso
+vivimus, movemur, et sumus, ut quidam vestrorum poetarum dixit._"--"In
+God we live, and move, and have our being, as one of your own poets has
+said." After such an acknowledgment as this, how can we dare to accuse
+our instructors of not having recognized a supreme God?
+
+We have no occasion whatever to examine upon this subject, whether there
+was formerly a Jupiter who was king of Crete, and who may possibly have
+been considered and ranked as a god; or whether the Egyptians had twelve
+superior gods, or eight, among whom the deity called Jupiter by the
+Latins might be one. The single point to be investigated and ascertained
+here is, whether the Greeks and Romans acknowledged one celestial being
+as the master or sovereign of other celestial beings. They constantly
+tell us that they do; and we ought therefore to believe them.
+
+The admirable letter of the philosopher Maximus of Madaura to St.
+Augustine is completely to our purpose: "There is a God," says he,
+"without any beginning, the common Father of all, but who never produced
+a being like Himself. What man is so stupid and besotted as to doubt
+it?" Such is the testimony of a pagan of the fourth century on behalf of
+all antiquity.
+
+Were I inclined to lift the veil that conceals the mysteries of Egypt, I
+should find the deity adored under the name of Knef, who produced all
+things and presides over all the other deities; I should discover also a
+Mithra among the Persians, and a Brahma among the Indians, and could
+perhaps show, that every civilized nation admitted one supreme being,
+together with a multitude of dependent divinities. I do not speak of the
+Chinese, whose government, more respectable than all the rest, has
+acknowledged one God only for a period of more than four thousand years.
+Let us here confine ourselves to the Greeks and Romans, who are the
+objects of our immediate researches. They had among them innumerable
+superstitions--it is impossible to doubt it; they adopted fables
+absolutely ridiculous--everybody knows it; and I may safely add, that
+they were themselves sufficiently disposed to ridicule them. After all,
+however, the foundation of their theology was conformable to reason.
+
+In the first place, with respect to the Greeks placing heroes in heaven
+as a reward for their virtues, it was one of the most wise and useful of
+religious institutions. What nobler recompense could possibly be
+bestowed upon them; what more animating and inspiring hope could be held
+out to them? Is it becoming that we, above all others, should censure
+such a practice--we who, enlightened by the truth, have piously
+consecrated the very usage which the ancients imagined? We have a far
+greater number of the blessed in honor of whom we have created altars,
+than the Greeks and Romans had of heroes and demi-gods; the difference
+is, that they granted the apotheosis to the most illustrious and
+resplendent actions, and we grant it to the most meek and retired
+virtues. But their deified heroes never shared the throne of Jupiter,
+the great architect, the eternal sovereign of the universe; they were
+admitted to his court and enjoyed his favors. What is there unreasonable
+in this? Is it not a faint shadow and resemblance of the celestial
+hierarchy presented to us by our religion? Nothing can be of a more
+salutary moral tendency than such an idea; and the reality is not
+physically impossible in itself. We have surely, upon this subject, no
+fair ground for ridiculing nations to whom we are indebted even for our
+alphabet.
+
+The second object of our reproaches, is the multitude of gods admitted
+to the government of the world; Neptune presiding over the sea, Juno
+over the air, Æolus over the winds, and Pluto or Vesta over the earth,
+and Mars over armies. We set aside the genealogies of all these
+divinities, which are as false as those which are every day fabricated
+and printed respecting individuals among ourselves; we pass sentence of
+condemnation on all their light and loose adventures, worthy of being
+recorded in the pages of the "Thousand and One Nights," and which never
+constituted the foundation or essence of the Greek and Roman faith; but
+let us at the same time candidly ask, where is the folly and stupidity
+of having adopted beings of a secondary order, who, whatever they may be
+in relation to the great supreme, have at least some power over our very
+differently-constituted race, which, instead of belonging to the second,
+belongs perhaps to the hundred thousandth order of existence? Does this
+doctrine necessarily imply either bad metaphysics or bad natural
+philosophy? Have we not ourselves nine choirs of celestial spirits, more
+ancient than mankind? Has not each of these choirs a peculiar name? Did
+not the Jews take the greater number of these names from the Persians?
+Have not many angels their peculiar functions assigned them? There was
+an exterminating angel, who fought for the Jews, and the angel of
+travellers, who conducted Tobit. Michael was the particular angel of the
+Hebrews; and, according to Daniel, he fights against the angel of the
+Persians, and speaks to the angel of the Greeks. An angel of inferior
+rank gives an account to Michael, in the book of Zachariah, of the state
+in which he had found the country. Every nation possessed its angel; the
+version of the Seventy Days, in Deuteronomy, that the Lord allotted the
+nations according to the number of angels. St. Paul, in the Acts of the
+Apostles, talks to the angel of Macedonia. These celestial spirits are
+frequently called gods in Scripture, _Eloim._ For among all nations, the
+word that corresponds with that of Theos, Deus, Dieu, God, by no means
+universally signifies the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth; it
+frequently signifies a celestial being, a being superior to man, but
+dependent upon the great Sovereign of Nature; and it is sometimes
+bestowed even on princes and judges.
+
+Since to us it is a matter of truth and reality, that celestial
+substances actually exist, who are intrusted with the care of men and
+empires, the people who have admitted this truth without the light of
+revelation are more worthy of our esteem than our contempt.
+
+The ridicule, therefore, does not attach to polytheism itself, but to
+the abuse of it; to the popular fables of superstition; to the multitude
+of absurd divinities which have been supposed to exist and to the number
+of which every individual might add at his pleasure.
+
+The goddess of nipples, "_dea Rumilia_"; the goddess of conjugal union,
+"_dea Pertunda_"; the god of the water-closet, "_deus Stercutius_"; the
+god of flatulence, "_deus Crepitus_"; are certainly not calculated to
+attract the highest degree of veneration. These ridiculous absurdities,
+the amusement of the old women and children of Rome, merely prove that
+the word _deus_ had acceptations of a widely different nature. Nothing
+can be more certain or obvious, than that the god of flatulence, "_deus
+Crepitus,_" could never excite the same idea as _deus divûm et hominum
+sator,_ the source of gods and men. The Roman pontiffs did not admit the
+little burlesque and baboon-looking deities which silly women introduced
+into their cabinets. The Roman religion was in fact, in its intrinsic
+character, both serious and austere. Oaths were inviolable; war could
+not be commenced before the college of heralds had declared it just; and
+a vestal convicted of having violated her vow of virginity, was
+condemned to death. These circumstances announce a people inclined to
+austerities, rather than a people volatile, frivolous, and addicted to
+ridicule.
+
+I confine myself here to showing that the senate did not reason absurdly
+in adopting polytheism. It is asked, how that senate, to two or three
+deputies from which we were indebted both for chains and laws, could
+permit so many extravagances among the people, and authorize so many
+fables among the pontiffs? It would be by no means difficult to answer
+this question. The wise have in every age made use of fools. They freely
+leave to the people their lupercals and their saturnalia, if they only
+continue loyal and obedient; and the sacred pullets that promised
+victory to the armies, are judiciously secured against the sacrilege of
+being slaughtered for the table. Let us never be surprised at seeing,
+that the most enlightened governments have permitted customs and fables
+of the most senseless character. These customs and fables existed before
+government was formed; and no one would pull down an immense city,
+however irregular in its buildings, to erect it precisely according to
+line and level.
+
+How can it arise, we are asked, that on one side we see so much
+philosophy and science, and on the other so much fanaticism? The reason
+is, that science and philosophy were scarcely born before Cicero, and
+that fanaticism reigned for centuries. Policy, in such circumstances,
+says to philosophy and fanaticism: Let us all three live together as
+well as we can.
+
+
+
+
+POPERY.
+
+
+PAPIST.--His highness has within his principality Lutherans, Calvinists,
+Quakers, Anabaptists, and even Jews; and you wish that he would admit
+Unitarians?
+
+TREASURER.--Certainly, if these Unitarians bring with them wealth and
+industry. You will only be the better paid your wages.
+
+PAPIST.--I must confess that a diminution of my wages would be more
+disagreeable to me than the admission of these persons; but, then, they
+do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
+
+TREASURER.--What does that signify to you, provided that you are
+permitted to believe it, and are well lodged, well clothed, and well
+fed? The Jews are far from believing that He is the Son of God, and yet
+you are very easy with the Jews, with whom you deposit your money at six
+per cent. St. Paul himself has never spoken of the divinity of Jesus
+Christ, who is undisguisedly called a man. Death, says he, entered into
+the world by the sin of one man ... and by one man, Jesus Christ, the
+gift of grace hath abounded unto many, etc. All the early fathers of the
+Church thought like Paul. It is evident that, for three hundred years,
+Jesus was content with His humanity; imagine yourself a Christian of one
+of the first three centuries.
+
+PAPIST.--Yes, sir; but neither do they believe in eternal punishments.
+
+TREASURER.--Nor I either; be you damned eternally if you please; for my
+own part, I do not look for that advantage.
+
+PAPIST.--Ah, sir! it is very hard not to be able to damn at pleasure all
+the heretics in the world; but the rage which the Unitarian displays for
+rendering everybody finally happy is not my only complaint. Know, that
+these monsters believe the resurrection of the body no more than the
+Sadducees. They say, that we are all anthropophagi, and that the
+particles which compose our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, having
+been necessarily dispersed in the atmosphere, become carrots and
+asparagus, and that it is possible we may have devoured a portion of our
+ancestors.
+
+TREASURER.--Be it so; our children will do as much by us; it is but
+repayment, and Papists will be as much benefited as others. This is no
+reason for driving you from the states of his highness; and why any more
+so for ejecting the Unitarians? Rise again, if you are able; it matters
+little whether the Unitarians rise again or no, provided they are useful
+during their lives.
+
+PAPIST.--And what, sir, do you say to original sin, which they boldly
+deny? Are you not scandalized by their assertion, that the Pentateuch
+says not a word about it, that the bishop of Hippo, St. Augustine, is
+the first who decidedly taught this dogma, although it is evidently
+indicated by St. Paul?
+
+TREASURER.--Truly, if the Pentateuch does not mention it, that is not my
+fault. Why not add a text or two about original sin to the Old
+Testament, as it is said you have added on other subjects? I know
+nothing of these subtleties; it is my business only to pay you your
+stipend, when I have the money to do so.
+
+
+
+
+POPULATION.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+There were very few caterpillars in my canton last year, and we killed
+nearly the whole of them. God has rendered them this year more numerous
+than the leaves. Is it not nearly thus with other animals, and above all
+with mankind? Famine, pestilence, death, and the two sister diseases
+which have visited us from Arabia and America, destroy the inhabitants
+of a province, and we are surprised at finding it abound with people a
+hundred years afterwards.
+
+I admit that it is a sacred duty to people this world, and that all
+animals are stimulated by pleasure to fulfil this intention of the great
+Demiourgos. Why this inhabiting of the earth? and to what purpose form
+so many beings to devour one another, and the animal man to cut the
+throat of his fellow, from one end of the earth to the other? I am
+assured that I shall one day be in the possession of this secret, and in
+my character of an inquisitive man I exceedingly desire it.
+
+It is clear that we ought to people the earth as much as we are able;
+even our health renders it necessary. The wise Arabians, the robbers of
+the desert, in the treaties which they made with travellers, always
+stipulated for girls. When they conquered Spain, they imposed a tribute
+of girls. The country of Media pays the Turks in girls. The buccaneers
+brought girls from Paris to the little island of which they took
+possession; and it is related that, at the fine spectacle with which
+Romulus entertained the Sabines, he stole from them three hundred girls.
+
+I cannot conceive why the Jews, whom moreover I revere, killed everybody
+in Jericho, even to the girls; and why they say in the Psalms, that it
+will be sweet to massacre the infants at the mother's breast, without
+excepting even girls. All other people, whether Tartars, Cannibals,
+Teutons, or Celts, have always held girls in great request.
+
+Owing to this happy instinct, it seems that the earth may one day be
+covered with animals of our own kind. Father Petau makes the inhabitants
+of the earth seven hundred millions, two hundred and eighty years after
+the deluge. It is not, however, at the end of the "Arabian Nights" that
+he has printed this pleasant enumeration.
+
+I reckon at present on our globe about nine hundred millions of
+contemporaries, and an equal number of each sex. Wallace makes them a
+thousand millions. Am I in error, or is he? Possibly both of us; but a
+tenth is a small matter; the arithmetic of historians is usually much
+more erroneous.
+
+I am somewhat surprised that the arithmetician Wallace, who extends the
+number of people at present existing to a thousand millions, should
+pretend in the same page, that in the year 966, after the creation, our
+forefathers amounted to sixteen hundred and ten millions.
+
+In the first place, I wish the epoch of the creation to be clearly
+established; and as, in our western world, we have no less than eighty
+theories of this event, there will be some difficulty to hit on the
+correct one. In the second place, the Egyptians, the Chaldæans, the
+Persians, the Indians, and the Chinese, have all different calculations;
+and it is still more difficult to agree with them. Thirdly, why, in the
+nine hundred and sixty-sixth year of the world, should there be more
+people than there are at present?
+
+To explain this absurdity, we are told that matters occurred otherwise
+than at present; that nature, being more vigorous, was better concocted
+and more prolific; and, moreover, that people lived longer. Why do they
+not add, that the sun was warmer, and the moon more beautiful.
+
+We are told, that in the time of Cæsar, although men had begun to
+greatly degenerate, the world was like an ants' nest of bipeds; but that
+at present it is a desert. Montesquieu, who always exaggerates, and who
+sacrifices anything to an itching desire of displaying his wit, ventures
+to believe, and in his "Persian Letters" would have others believe, that
+there were thirty times as many people in the world in the days of Cæsar
+as at present.
+
+Wallace acknowledges that this calculation made at random is too much;
+but for what reason? Because, before the days of Cæsar, the world
+possessed more inhabitants than during the most brilliant period of the
+Roman republic. He then ascends to the time of Semiramis, and if
+possible exaggerates more than Montesquieu.
+
+Lastly, in conformity with the taste which is always attributed to the
+Holy Spirit for hyperbole, they fail not to instance the eleven hundred
+and sixty thousand men, who marched so fiercely under the standards of
+the great monarch, Josophat, or Jehosophat, king of the province of
+Judah. Enough, enough, Mr. Wallace; the Holy Spirit cannot deceive; but
+its agents and copyists have badly calculated and numbered. All your
+Scotland would not furnish eleven hundred thousand men to attend your
+sermons, and the kingdom of Judah was not a twentieth part of Scotland.
+See, again, what St. Jerome says of this poor Holy Land, in which he so
+long resided. Have you well calculated the quantity of money the great
+King Jehosophat must have possessed, to pay, feed, clothe, and arm
+eleven hundred thousand chosen men? But thus is history written.
+
+Mr. Wallace returns from Jehosophat to Cæsar, and concludes, that since
+the time of this dictator of short duration, the world has visibly
+decreased in the number of its inhabitants. Behold, said he, the Swiss:
+according to the relation of Cæsar, they amounted to three hundred and
+sixty-eight thousand, when they so wisely quitted their country to seek
+their fortunes, like the Cimbri.
+
+I wish by this example to recall those partisans into a little due
+consideration, who gift the ancients with such wonders in the way of
+generation, at the expense of the moderns. The canton of Berne alone,
+according to an accurate census, possesses a greater number of
+inhabitants than quitted the whole of Helvetia in the time of Cæsar. The
+human species is, therefore, doubled in Helvetia since that expedition.
+
+I likewise believe, that Germany, France, and England are much better
+peopled now than at that time; and for this reason: I adduce the vast
+clearance of forests, the number of great towns built and increased
+during the last eight hundred years, and the number of arts which have
+originated in proportion. This I regard as a sufficient answer to the
+brazen declamation, repeated every day in books, in which truth is
+sacrificed to sallies, and which are rendered useless by their abundant
+wit.
+
+"_L'Ami des Hommes_" says, that in the time of Cæsar fifty-two millions
+of men were assigned to Spain, which Strabo observes has always been
+badly peopled, owing to the interior being so deficient in water. Strabo
+is apparently right, and "_L'Ami des Hommes_" erroneous. But they scare
+us by asking what has become of the prodigious quantity of Huns, Alans,
+Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, and Lombards, who spread like a torrent
+over Europe in the fifth century.
+
+I distrust these multitudes, and suspect that twenty or thirty thousand
+ferocious animals, more or less, were sufficient to overwhelm with
+fright the whole Roman Empire, governed by a Pulcheria, by eunuchs, and
+by monks. It was enough for ten thousand barbarians to pass the Danube;
+for every parish rumor, or homily, to make them more numerous than the
+locusts in the plains of Egypt; and call them a scourge from God, in
+order to inspire penitence, and produce gifts of money to the convents.
+Fear seized all the inhabitants, and they fled in crowds. Behold
+precisely the fright which a wolf caused in the district of Gevanden in
+the year 1766.
+
+Mandarin the robber, at the head of fifty vagabonds, put an entire town
+under contribution. As soon as he entered at one gate, it was said at
+the other, that he brought with him four thousand men and artillery. If
+Attila, followed by fifty thousand hungry assassins, ravaged province
+after province, report would call them five hundred thousand.
+
+The millions of men who followed Xerxes, Cyrus, Tomyris, the thirty or
+forty-four millions of Egyptians, Thebes with her hundred gates--"_Et
+quicquid Grecia mendax audet in historia_"--resemble the five hundred
+thousand men of Attila, which company of pleasant travellers it would
+have been difficult to find on the journey.
+
+These Huns came from Siberia, and thence I conclude that they came in
+very small numbers. Siberia was certainly not more fertile than in our
+own days. I doubt whether in the reign of Tomyris a town existed equal
+to Tobolsk, or that these frightful deserts can feed a great number of
+inhabitants.
+
+India, China, Persia, and Asia Minor were thickly peopled; this I can
+credit without difficulty; and possibly they are not less so at present,
+notwithstanding the destructive prevalence of invasions and wars.
+Throughout, Nature has clothed them with pasturage; the bull freely
+unites with the heifer, the ram with the sheep, and man with woman.
+
+The deserts of Barca, of Arabia, and of Oreb, of Sinai, of Jerusalem, of
+Gobi, etc., were never peopled, are not peopled at present, and never
+will be peopled; at least, until some natural revolution happens to
+transform these plains of sand and flint into fertile land.
+
+The land of France is tolerably good, and it is sufficiently inhabited
+by consumers, since of all kinds there are more than are well supplied;
+since there are two hundred thousand impostors, who beg from one end of
+the country to the other, and sustain their despicable lives at the
+expense of the rich; and lastly, since France supports more than eighty
+thousand monks, of which not a single one assists to produce an ear of
+corn.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+I believe that England, Protestant Germany, and Holland are better
+peopled in proportion than France. The reason is evident; those
+countries harbor not monks who vow to God to be useless to man. In these
+countries, the clergy, having little else to do, occupy themselves with
+study and propagation. They give birth to robust children, and give them
+a better education than that which is bestowed on the offspring of
+French and Italian marquises.
+
+Rome, on the contrary, would be a desert without cardinals, ambassadors,
+and travellers. It would be only an illustrious monument, like the
+temple of Jupiter Ammon. In the time of the first Cæsar, it was computed
+that this sterile territory, rendered fertile by manure and the labor of
+slaves, contained some millions of men. It was an exception to the
+general law, that population is ordinarily in proportion to fertility of
+soil.
+
+Conquest rendered this barren country fertile and populous. A form of
+government as strange and contradictory as any which ever astonished
+mankind, has restored to the territory of Romulus its primitive
+character. The whole country is depopulated from Orvieto to Terracina.
+Rome, reduced to its own citizens, would be to London only as one to
+twelve; and in respect to money and commerce, would be to the towns of
+Amsterdam and London as one to a thousand.
+
+That which Rome has lost, Europe has not only regained, but the
+population has almost tripled since the days of Charlemagne. I say
+tripled, which is much; for propagation is _not_ in geometrical
+progression. All the calculations made on the idea of this pretended
+multiplication, amount only to absurd chimeras.
+
+If a family of human beings or of apes multiplied in this manner, at the
+end of two hundred years the earth would not be able to contain them.
+Nature has taken care at once to preserve and restrain the various
+species. She resembles the fates, who spin and cut threads continually.
+She is occupied with birth and destruction alone.
+
+If she has given to man more ideas and memory than to other animals; if
+she has rendered him capable of generalizing his ideas and combining
+them; if he has the advantage of the gift of speech, she has not
+bestowed on him that of multiplication equal to insects. There are more
+ants in a square league of heath, than of men in the world, counting all
+that have ever existed.
+
+When a country possesses a great number of idlers, be sure that it is
+well peopled; since these idlers are lodged, clothed, fed, amused, and
+respected by those who labor. The principal object, however, is not to
+possess a superfluity of men, but to render such as we have as little
+unhappy as possible.
+
+Let us thank nature for placing us in the temperate zone, peopled almost
+throughout by a more than sufficient number of inhabitants, who
+cultivate all the arts; and let us endeavor not to lessen this advantage
+by our absurdities.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+It must be confessed, that we ordinarily people and depopulate the world
+a little at random; and everybody acts in this manner. We are little
+adapted to obtain an accurate notion of things; the _nearly_ is our only
+guide, and it often leads us astray.
+
+It is still worse when we wish to calculate precisely. We go and see
+farces and laugh at them; but should we laugh less in our closets when
+we read grave authors deciding exactly how many men existed on the earth
+two hundred and eighty-five years after the general deluge. We find,
+according to Father Petau, that the family of Noah had produced one
+thousand two hundred and twenty-four millions seven hundred and
+seventeen thousand inhabitants, in three hundred years. The good priest
+Petau evidently knew little about getting children and rearing them, if
+we are to judge by this statement.
+
+According to Cumberland, this family increased to three thousand three
+hundred and thirty millions, in three hundred and forty years; and
+according to Whiston, about three hundred years after the Deluge, they
+amounted only to sixty-five millions four hundred and thirty-six.
+
+It is difficult to reconcile and to estimate these accounts, such is the
+extravagance when people seek to make things accord which are repugnant,
+and to explain what is inexplicable. This unhappy endeavor has deranged
+heads which in other pursuits might have made discoveries beneficial to
+society.
+
+The authors of the English "Universal History" observe, it is generally
+agreed that the present inhabitants of the earth amount to about four
+thousand millions. It is to be remarked, that these gentlemen do not
+include in this number the natives of America, which comprehends nearly
+half of the globe. For my own part, if, instead of a common romance, I
+wished to amuse myself by reckoning up the number of brethren I have on
+this unhappy little planet, I would proceed as follows: I would first
+endeavor to estimate pretty nearly the number of inhabited square
+leagues this earth contains on its surface; I should then say: The
+surface of the globe contains twenty-seven millions of square leagues;
+take away two-thirds at least for seas, rivers, lakes, deserts,
+mountains, and all that is uninhabited; this calculation, which is very
+moderate, leaves us nine millions of square leagues to account for.
+
+In France and Germany, there are said to be six hundred persons to a
+square league; in Spain, one hundred and fifty; in Russia, fifteen; and
+Tartary, ten. Take the mean number at a hundred, and you will have about
+nine hundred millions of brethren, including mulattoes, negroes, the
+brown, the copper-colored, the fair, the bearded, and the unbearded. It
+is not thought, indeed, that the number is so great as this; and if
+eunuchs continue to be made, monks to multiply, and wars to be waged on
+the most trifling pretexts, it is easy to perceive that we shall not
+very soon be able to muster the four thousand millions, with which the
+English authors of the "Universal History" have so liberally favored us;
+but, then, of what consequence is it, whether the number of men on the
+earth be great or small? The chief thing is to discover the means of
+rendering our miserable species as little unhappy as possible.
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+_Of The Population Of America._
+
+The discovery of America--that field of so much avarice and so much
+ambition--has also become an object of philosophical curiosity. A great
+number of writers have endeavored to prove that America was a colony of
+the ancient world. Some modest mathematicians, on the contrary, have
+said, that the same power which has caused the grass to grow in American
+soil, was able to place man there; but this simple and naked system has
+not been attended to.
+
+When the great Columbus suspected the existence of this new world, it
+was held to be impossible; and Columbus was taken for a visionary. When
+it was really discovered, it was then found out that it had been known
+long before.
+
+It was pretended that Martin Behem, a native of Nuremberg, quitted
+Flanders about the year 1460, in search of this unknown world; that he
+made his way even to the Straits of Magellan, of which he left unknown
+charts. As, however, it is certain that Martin Behem did not people
+America, it must certainly have been one of the later grandchildren of
+Noah, who took this trouble. All antiquity is then ransacked for
+accounts of long voyages, to which they apply the discovery of this
+fourth quarter of the globe. They make the ships of Solomon proceed to
+Mexico, and it is thence that he drew the gold of Ophir, to procure
+which he borrowed them from King Hiram. They find out America in Plato,
+give the honor of it to the Carthaginians, and quote this anecdote from
+a book of Aristotle which he never wrote.
+
+Hornius pretends to discover some conformity between the Hebrew language
+and that of the Caribs. Father Lafiteau, the Jesuit, has not failed to
+follow up so fine an opening. The Mexicans, when greatly afflicted, tore
+their garments; certain people of Asia formerly did the same, and of
+course they are the ancestors of the Mexicans. It might be added, that
+the natives of Languedoc are very fond of dancing; and that, as in their
+rejoicings the Hurons dance also, the Languedocians are descended from
+the Hurons, or the Hurons from the Languedocians.
+
+The authors of a tremendous "Universal History" pretend that all the
+Americans are descended from the Tartars. They assure us that this
+opinion is general among the learned, but they do not say whether it is
+so among the learned who reflect. According to them, some descendants of
+Noah could find nothing better to do, than to go and settle in the
+delicious country of Kamchatka, in the north of Siberia. This family
+being destitute of occupation, resolved to visit Canada either by means
+of ships, or by marching pleasantly across some slip of connecting land,
+which has not been discovered in our own times. They then began to busy
+themselves in propagation, until the fine country of Canada soon
+becoming inadequate to the support of so numerous a population, they
+went to people Mexico, Peru, Chile; while certain of their
+great-granddaughters were in due time brought to bed of giants in the
+Straits of Magellan.
+
+As ferocious animals are found in some of the warm countries of America,
+these authors pretend, that the Christopher Columbuses of Kamchatka took
+them into Canada for their amusement, and carefully confined themselves
+to those kinds which are no longer to be found in the ancient
+hemisphere.
+
+But the Kamchatkans have not alone peopled the new world; they have been
+charitably assisted by the Mantchou Tartars, by the Huns, by the
+Chinese, and by the inhabitants of Japan. The Mantchou Tartars are
+incontestably the ancestors of the Peruvians, for Mango Capac was the
+first inca of Peru. Mango resembles Manco; Manco sounds like Mancu;
+Mancu approaches Mantchu, and Mantchou is very close to the latter.
+Nothing can be better demonstrated. As for the Huns, they built in
+Hungary a town called Cunadi. Now, changing Cu into Ca, we have Canadi,
+from which Canada manifestly derives its name.
+
+A plant resembling the ginseng of the Chinese, grows in Canada, which
+the Chinese transplanted into the latter even before they were masters
+of the part of Tartary where it is indigenous. Moreover, the Chinese are
+such great navigators, they formerly sent fleets to America without
+maintaining the least correspondence with their colonies.
+
+With respect to the Japanese, they are the nearest neighbors of America,
+which, as they are distant only about twelve hundred leagues, they have
+doubtless visited in their time, although latterly they have neglected
+repeating the voyage. Thus is history written in our own days. What
+shall we say to these, and many other systems which resemble them?
+Nothing.
+
+
+
+
+POSSESSED.
+
+
+Of all those who boast of having leagues with the devil, to the
+possessed alone it is of no use to reply. If a man says to you, "I am
+possessed," you should believe it on his word. They are not obliged to
+do very extraordinary things; and when they do them, it is more than can
+fairly be demanded. What can we answer to a man who rolls his eyes,
+twists his mouth, and tells you that he has the devil within him?
+Everyone feels what he feels; and as the world was formerly full of
+possessed persons, we may still meet with them. If they take measures to
+conquer the world, we give them property and they become more moderate;
+but for a poor demoniac, who is content with a few convulsions, and does
+no harm to anyone, it is not right to make him injurious. If you dispute
+with him, you will infallibly have the worst of it. He will tell you,
+"The devil entered me to-day under such a form; from that time I have
+had a supernatural colic, which all the apothecaries in the world cannot
+assuage." There is certainly no other plan to be taken with this man,
+than to exorcise or abandon him to the devil.
+
+It is a great pity that there are no longer possessed magicians or
+astrologers. We can conceive the cause of all these mysteries. A hundred
+years ago all the nobility lived in their castles; the winter evenings
+are long, and they would have died of ennui without these noble
+amusements. There was scarcely a castle which a fairy did not visit on
+certain marked days, like the fairy Melusina at the castle of Lusignan.
+The great hunter, a tall black man, hunted with a pack of black dogs in
+the forest of Fontainebleau. The devil twisted Marshal Fabert's neck.
+Every village had its sorcerer or sorceress; every prince had his
+astrologer; all the ladies had their fortunes told; the possessed ran
+about the fields; it was who had seen the devil or could see him; all
+these things were inexhaustible subjects of conversation which kept
+minds in exercise. In the present day we insipidly play at cards, and we
+have lost by being undeceived.
+
+
+
+
+POST.
+
+
+Formerly, if you had one friend at Constantinople and another at Moscow,
+you would have been obliged to wait for their return before you could
+obtain any intelligence concerning them. At present, without either of
+you leaving your apartments, you may familiarly converse through the
+medium of a sheet of paper. You may even despatch to them by the post,
+one of Arnaults sovereign remedies for apoplexy, which would be received
+much more infallibly, probably, than it would cure.
+
+If one of your friends has occasion for a supply of money at St.
+Petersburg, and the other at Smyrna, the post will completely and
+rapidly effect your business. Your mistress is at Bordeaux, while you
+are with your regiment before Prague; she gives you regular accounts of
+the constancy of her affections; you know from her all the news of the
+city, except her own infidelities. In short, the post is the grand
+connecting link of all transactions, of all negotiations. Those who are
+absent, by its means become present; it is the consolation of life.
+
+France, where this beautiful invention was revived, even in our period
+of barbarism, has hereby conferred the most important service on all
+Europe. She has also never in any instance herself marred and tainted so
+valuable a benefit, and never has any minister who superintended the
+department of the post opened the letters of any individual, except when
+it was absolutely necessary that he should know their contents. It is
+not thus, we are told, in other countries. It is asserted, that in
+Germany private letters, passing through the territories of five or six
+different governments, have been read just that number of times, and
+that at last the seal has been so nearly destroyed that it became
+necessary to substitute a new one.
+
+Mr. Craggs, secretary of state in England, would never permit any person
+in his office to open private letters; he said that to do so was a
+breach of public faith, and that no man ought to possess himself of a
+secret that was not voluntarily confided to him; that it is often a
+greater crime to steal a man's thoughts than his gold; and that such
+treachery is proportionally more disgraceful, as it may be committed
+without danger, and without even the possibility of conviction.
+
+To bewilder the eagerness of curiosity and defeat the vigilance of
+malice, a method was at first invented of writing a part of the contents
+of letters in ciphers; but the part written in the ordinary hand in this
+case sometimes served as a key to the rest. This inconvenience led to
+perfecting the art of ciphers, which is called "stenography."
+
+Against these enigmatical productions was brought the art of
+deciphering; but this art was exceedingly defective and inefficient. The
+only advantage derived from it was exciting the belief in weak and
+ill-formed minds, that their letters had been deciphered, and all the
+pleasure it afforded consisted in giving such persons pain. According to
+the law of probabilities, in a well-constructed cipher there would be
+two, three, or even four hundred chances against one, that in each mark
+the decipherer would not discover the syllable of which it was the
+representative.
+
+The number of chances increases in proportion to the complication of the
+ciphers; and deciphering is utterly impossible when the system is
+arranged with any ingenuity. Those who boast that they can decipher a
+letter, without being at all acquainted with the subject of which it
+treats, and without any preliminary assistance, are greater charlatans
+than those who boast, if any such are to be found, of understanding a
+language which they never learned.
+
+With respect to those who in a free and easy way send you by post a
+tragedy, in good round hand, with blank leaves, on which you are
+requested kindly to make your observations, or who in the same way
+regale you with a first volume of metaphysical researches, to be
+speedily followed by a second, we may just whisper in their ear that a
+little more discretion would do no harm, and even that there are some
+countries where they would run some risk by thus informing the
+administration of the day that there are such things in the world as bad
+poets and bad metaphysicians.
+
+
+
+
+POWER--OMNIPOTENCE.
+
+
+I presume every reader of this article to be convinced that the world is
+formed with intelligence, and that a slight knowledge of astronomy and
+anatomy is sufficient to produce admiration of that universal and
+supreme intelligence. Once more I repeat "_mens agitat molem._"
+
+Can the reader of himself ascertain that this intelligence is
+omnipotent, that is to say, infinitely powerful? Has he the slightest
+notion of infinity, to enable him to comprehend the meaning and extent
+of almighty power?
+
+The celebrated philosophic historian, David Hume, says, "A weight of ten
+ounces is raised in a balance by another weight; this other weight
+therefore is more than ten ounces; but no one can rationally infer that
+it must necessarily be a hundred weight."
+
+We may fairly and judiciously apply here the same argument. You
+acknowledge a supreme intelligence sufficiently powerful to form
+yourself, to preserve you for a limited time in life, to reward you and
+to punish you. Are you sufficiently acquainted with it to be able to
+demonstrate that it can do more than this? How can you prove by your
+reason that a being can do more than it has actually done?
+
+The life of all animals is short. Could he make it longer? All animals
+are food for one another without exception; everything is born to be
+devoured. Could he form without destroying? You know not what his nature
+is. It is impossible, therefore, that you should know whether his nature
+may not have compelled him to do only the very things which he has done.
+
+The globe on which we live is one vast field of destruction and carnage.
+Either the Supreme Being was able to make of it an eternal mode of
+enjoyment for all beings possessed of sensation, or He was not. If He
+was able and yet did not do it, you will undoubtedly tremble to
+pronounce or consider Him a maleficent being; but if He was unable to do
+so, do not tremble to regard Him as a power of very great extent indeed,
+but nevertheless circumscribed by His nature within certain limits.
+
+Whether it be infinite or not, is not of any consequence to you. It is
+perfectly indifferent to a subject whether his sovereign possesses five
+hundred leagues of territory or five thousand; he is in either case
+neither more nor less a subject. Which would reflect most strongly on
+this great and ineffable Being: to say He made miserable beings because
+it was indispensable to do so; or that He made them merely because it
+was His will and pleasure?
+
+Many sects represent Him as cruel; others, through fear of admitting the
+existence of a wicked Deity, are daring enough to deny His existence at
+all. Would it not be far preferable to say that probably the necessity
+of His own nature and that of things have determined everything?
+
+The world is the theatre of moral and natural evil; this is too
+decidedly found and felt to be the case; and the "all is for the best"
+of Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, and Pope, is nothing but the effusion of a
+mind devoted to eccentricity and paradox; in short, nothing but a dull
+jest.
+
+The two principles of Zoroaster and Manes, so minutely investigated by
+Bayle, are a duller jest still. They are, as we have already observed,
+the two physicians of Molière, one of whom says to the other: "You
+excuse my emetics, and I will excuse your bleedings." Manichæism is
+absurd; and that circumstance will account for its having had so many
+partisans.
+
+I acknowledge that I have not had my mind enlightened by all that Bayle
+has said about the Manichæans and Paulicians. It is all controversy;
+what I wanted was pure philosophy. Why speak about our mysteries to
+Zoroaster? As soon as ever we have the temerity to discuss the critical
+subject of our mysteries, we open to our view the most tremendous
+precipices.
+
+The trash of our own scholastic theology has nothing to do with the
+trash of Zoroaster's reveries. Why discuss with Zoroaster the subject of
+original sin? That subject did not become a matter of dispute until the
+time of St. Augustine. Neither Zoroaster nor any other legislator of
+antiquity ever heard it mentioned. If you dispute with Zoroaster, lock
+up your Old and New Testament, with which he had not the slightest
+acquaintance, and which it is our duty to revere without attempting to
+explain.
+
+What I should myself have said to Zoroaster would have been this: My
+reason opposes the admission of two gods in conflict with each other;
+such an idea is allowable only in a poem in which Minerva quarrels with
+Mars. My weak understanding much more readily acquiesces in the notion
+of only one Great Being, than in that of two great beings, of whom one
+is constantly counteracting and spoiling the operations of the other.
+Your evil principle, Arimanes, has not been able to derange a single
+astronomical and physical law established by the good principle of
+Oromazes; everything proceeds, among the numberless worlds which
+constitute what we call the heavens, with perfect regularity and
+harmony; how comes it that the malignant Arimanes has power only over
+this little globe of earth?
+
+Had I been Arimanes, I should have assailed Oromazes in his immense and
+noble provinces, comprehending numbers of suns and stars. I should never
+have been content to confine the war to an insignificant and miserable
+village. There certainly is a great deal of misery in this same village;
+but how can we possibly ascertain that it is not absolutely inevitable?
+
+You are compelled to admit an intelligence diffused through the
+universe. But in the first place, do you absolutely know that this
+intelligence comprises a knowledge of the future? You have asserted a
+thousand times that it does; but you have never been able to prove it to
+me, or to comprehend it yourself. You cannot have any idea how any being
+can see what does not exist; well, the future does not exist, therefore
+no being can see it. You are reduced to the necessity of saying that he
+foresees it; but to foresee is only to conjecture.
+
+Now a god who, according to your system, conjectures may be mistaken. He
+is, on your principles, really mistaken; for if he had foreseen that his
+enemy would poison all his works in this lower world, he would never
+have produced them; he would not have been accessory to the disgrace he
+sustains in being perpetually vanquished.
+
+Secondly, is he not much more honored upon my hypothesis, which
+maintains that he does everything by the necessity of his own nature,
+than upon yours, which raises up against him an enemy, disfiguring,
+polluting, and destroying all his works of wisdom and kindness
+throughout the world!
+
+In the third place, it by no means implies a mean and unworthy idea of
+God to say that, after forming millions of worlds, in which death and
+evil may have no residence, it might be necessary that death and evil
+should reside in this.
+
+Fourth, it is not deprecating God to say that He could not form man
+without bestowing on him self-love; that this self-love could not be his
+guide without almost always leading him astray; that his passions are
+necessary, but at the same time noxious; that the continuation of the
+species cannot be accomplished without desires; that these desires
+cannot operate without exciting quarrels; and that these quarrels
+necessarily bring on wars, etc.
+
+Fifth, on observing a part of the combinations of the vegetable, animal,
+and mineral kingdoms, and the porous nature of the earth, in every part
+so minutely pierced and drilled like a sieve, and from which exhalations
+constantly rise in immense profusion, what philosopher will be bold
+enough, what schoolman will be weak enough, decidedly to maintain that
+nature could possibly prevent the ravages of volcanoes, the
+intemperature of seasons, the rage of tempests, the poison of
+pestilence, or, in short, any of those scourages which afflict the
+world?
+
+Sixth, a very great degree of power and skill are required to form lions
+who devour bulls, and to produce men who invent arms which destroy, by a
+single blow, not merely the life of bulls and lions, but--melancholy as
+the idea is--the life of one another. Great power is necessary to
+produce the spiders which spread their exquisitely fine threads and
+net-work to catch flies; but this power amounts not to omnipotence--it
+is not boundless power.
+
+In the seventh place, if the Supreme Being had been infinitely powerful,
+no reason can be assigned why He should not have made creatures endowed
+with sensation infinitely happy; He has not in fact done so; therefore
+we ought to conclude that He could not do so.
+
+Eighth, all the different sects of philosophers have struck on the rock
+of physical and moral evil. The only conclusion that can be securely
+reached is, that God, acting always for the best, has done the best that
+He was able to do.
+
+Ninth, this necessity cuts off all difficulties and terminates all
+disputes. We have not the hardihood to say: "All is good"; we say:
+"There is no more evil than was absolutely inevitable."
+
+Tenth, why do some infants die at the mother's breast? Why are others,
+after experiencing the first misfortune of being born, reserved for
+tormentes as lasting as their lives, which are at length ended by an
+appalling death? Why has the source of life been poisoned throughout the
+world since the discovery of America? Why, since the seventh century of
+the Christian era, has the smallpox swept away an eighth portion of the
+human species? Why, in every age of the world, have human bladders been
+liable to be converted into stone quarries? Why pestilence, and war, and
+famine, and the Inquisition? Consider the subject as carefully, as
+profoundly, as the powers of the mind will absolutely permit, you will
+find no other possible solution than that all is necessary.
+
+I address myself here solely to philosophers, and not to divines. We
+know that faith is the clue to guide us through the labyrinth. We know
+full well that the fall of Adam and Eve, original sin, the vast power
+communicated to devils, the predilection entertained by the Supreme
+Being for the Jewish people, and the ceremony of baptism substituted for
+that of circumcision, are answers that clear up every difficulty. We
+have been here arguing only against Zoroaster, and not against the
+University of Coimbra, to whose decisions and doctrines, in all the
+articles of our work, we submit with all possible deference and faith.
+See the letters of Memmius to Cicero; and answer them if you can.
+
+
+
+
+POWER.
+
+_The Two Powers._
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+Whoever holds both the sceptre and the censer has his hands completely
+occupied. If he governs a people possessed of common sense he may be
+considered as a very able man; but if his subjects have no more mind
+than children or savages, he may be compared to Bernier's coachman, who
+was one day suddenly surprised by his master in one of the public places
+of Delhi, haranguing the populace, and distributing among them his quack
+medicines. "What! Lapierre," says Bernier to him, "have you turned
+physician?" "Yes, sir," replied the coachman; "like people, like
+doctor."
+
+The dairo of the Japanese, or the grand lama of Thibet, might make just
+the same remark. Even Numa Pompilius, with his Egeria, would have
+answered Bernier in the same manner. Melchizedek was probably in a
+similar situation, as well as the Anius whom Virgil introduces in the
+following two lines of the third book of his "Æneid":
+
+     _Rex Anius, rex idem hominum Phœbique sacerdos,_
+     _Vittis et sacra redimitus tempora lauro._--VIRGIL.
+
+     Anius, the priest and king, with laurel crowned
+     His hoary locks with purple fillets bound.--DRYDEN.
+
+This charlatan Anius was merely king of the isle of Delos, a very paltry
+kingdom, which, next to those of Melchizedek and Yvetot, was one of the
+least considerable in the world; but the worship of Apollo had conferred
+on it a high reputation; a single saint is enough to raise any country
+into credit and consequence.
+
+Three of the German electors are more powerful than Anius, and, like
+him, unite the rights of the mitre with those of the crown; although in
+subordination, at least apparently so, to the Roman emperor, who is no
+other than the emperor of Germany. But of all the countries in which the
+plenitude of ecclesiastical and the plenitude of royal claims combine to
+form the most full and complete power that can be imagined, modern Rome
+is the chief.
+
+The pope is regarded in the Catholic part of Europe as the first of
+kings and the first of priests. It was the same in what was called
+"pagan" Rome; Julius Cæsar was at once chief pontiff, dictator, warrior,
+and conqueror; distinguished also both for eloquence and gallantry; in
+every respect the first of mankind; and with whom no modern, except in a
+dedication, could ever be compared.
+
+The king of England, being the head also of the Church, possesses nearly
+the same dignities as the pope. The empress of Russia is likewise
+absolute mistress over her clergy, in the largest empire existing upon
+earth. The notion that two powers may exist, in opposition to each
+other, in the same state, is there regarded even by the clergy
+themselves as a chimera equally absurd and pernicious.
+
+In this connection I cannot help introducing a letter which the empress
+of Russia, Catherine II., did me the honor to write to me at Mount
+Krapak, on Aug. 22, 1765, and which she permitted me to make use of as I
+might see occasion:
+
+"The Capuchins who are tolerated at Moscow (for toleration is general
+throughout the Russian empire, and the Jesuits alone are not suffered to
+remain in it), having, in the course of the last winter, obstinately
+refused to inter a Frenchman who died suddenly, under a pretence that he
+had not received the sacraments, Abraham Chaumeix drew up a factum, or
+statement, against them, in order to prove to them that it was
+obligatory upon them to bury the dead. But neither this factum, nor two
+requisitions of the governor, could prevail on these fathers to obey. At
+last they were authoritatively told that they must either bury the
+Frenchman or remove beyond the frontiers. They actually removed
+accordingly; and I sent some Augustins from this place, who were
+somewhat more tractable, and who, perceiving that no trifling or delay
+would be permitted, did all that was desired on the occasion. Thus
+Abraham Chaumeix has in Russia become a reasonable man; he absolutely is
+an enemy to persecution; were he also to become a man of wit and
+intellect, he would make the most incredulous believe in miracles; but
+all the miracles in the world will not blot out the disgrace of having
+been the denouncer of the 'Encyclopædia.'
+
+"The subjects of the Church, having suffered many, and frequently
+tyrannical, grievances, which the frequent change of masters very
+considerably increased, towards the end of the reign of the empress
+Elizabeth, rose in actual rebellion; and at my accession to the throne
+there were more than a hundred thousand men in arms. This occasioned me,
+in 1762, to execute the project of changing entirely the administration
+of the property of the clergy, and to settle on them fixed revenues.
+Arsenius, bishop of Rostow, strenuously opposed this, urged on by some
+of his brother clergy, who did not feel it perfectly convenient to put
+themselves forward by name. He sent in two memorials, in which he
+attempted to establish the absurd principle of two powers. He had made
+the like attempt before, in the time of the empress Elizabeth, when he
+had been simply enjoined silence; but his insolence and folly
+redoubling, he was now tried by the metropolitan of Novgorod and the
+whole synod, condemned as a fanatic, found guilty of attempts contrary
+to the orthodox faith, as well as to the supreme power, deprived of his
+dignity and priesthood, and delivered over to the secular arm. I acted
+leniently towards him; and after reducing him to the situation of a
+monk, extended his punishment no farther."
+
+Such are the very words of the empress; and the inference from the whole
+case is that she well knows both how to support the Church and how to
+restrain it; that she respects humanity as well as religion; that she
+protects the laborer as well as the priest; and that all orders in the
+state ought both to admire and bless her.
+
+I shall hope to be excused for the further indiscretion of transcribing
+here a passage contained in another of her letters, written on November
+28, 1765:
+
+"Toleration is established among us; it constitutes a law of the state;
+persecution is prohibited. We have indeed fanatics who, as they are not
+persecuted by others, burn themselves; but if those of other countries
+also did the same, no great harm could result; the world, in consequence
+of such a system, would have been more tranquil, and Calas would not
+have been racked to death."
+
+Do not imagine that she writes in this style from a feeling of transient
+and vain enthusiasm, contradicted afterwards in her practice, nor even
+from a laudable desire of obtaining throughout Europe the suffrages and
+applause of those who think, and teach others the way to think. She lays
+down these principles as the basis of her government. She wrote with her
+own hand, in the "Council of Legislations," the following words, which
+should be engraved on the gates of every city in the world:
+
+"In a great empire, extending its sway over as many different nations as
+there are different creeds among mankind, the most pernicious fault
+would be intolerance."
+
+It is to be observed that she does not hesitate to put intolerance in
+the rank of faults--I had nearly said offences. Thus does an absolute
+empress, in the depths of the North, put an end to persecution and
+slavery--while in the South--.
+
+Judge for yourself, sir, after this, whether there will be found a man
+in Europe who will not be ready to sign the eulogium you propose. Not
+only is this princess tolerant, but she is desirous that her neighbors
+should be so likewise. This is the first instance in which supreme power
+has been exercised in establishing liberty of conscience. It constitutes
+the grandest epoch with which I am acquainted in modern history.
+
+The case of the ancient Persians forbidding the Carthaginians to offer
+human sacrifices is a somewhat similar instance. Would to God, that
+instead of the barbarians who formerly poured from the plains of
+Scythia, and the mountains of Imaus and Caucasus, towards the Alps and
+Pyrenees, carrying with them ravage and desolation, armies might be seen
+at the present day descending to subvert the tribunal of the
+Inquisition--a tribunal more horrible than even the sacrifices of human
+beings which constitute the eternal reproach of our forefathers.
+
+In short, this superior genius wishes to convince her neighbors of what
+Europe is now beginning to comprehend, that metaphysical unintelligible
+opinions, which are the daughters of absurdity, are the mothers of
+discord; and that the Church, instead of saying: "I come to bring, not
+peace, but the sword," should exclaim aloud: "I bring peace, and not the
+sword." Accordingly the empress is unwilling to draw the sword against
+any but those who wish to crush the dissidents.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+_Conversation Between The Reverend Father Bouvet, Missionary Of The
+Company Of Jesus, And The Emperor Camhi, In The Presence Of Brother
+Attiret, A Jesuit; Extracted From The Private Memoirs Of The Mission, In
+1772._
+
+FATHER BOUVET.
+
+Yes, may it please your sacred majesty, as soon as you will have had the
+happiness of being baptized by me, which I hope will be the case, you
+will be relieved of one-half of the immense burden which now oppresses
+you. I have mentioned to you the fable of Atlas, who supported the
+heavens on his shoulders. Hercules relieved him and carried away the
+heavens. You are Atlas, and Hercules is the pope. There will be two
+powers in your empire. Our excellent Clement will be the first. Upon
+this plan you will enjoy the greatest of all advantages; those of being
+at leisure while you live, and of being saved when you die.
+
+THE EMPEROR.
+
+I am exceedingly obliged to my dear friend, the pope, for condescending
+to take so much trouble; but how will he be able to govern my empire at
+the distance of six thousand leagues?
+
+FATHER BOUVET.
+
+Nothing, may it please your Imperial Majesty, can be more easy. We are
+his vicars apostolic, and he is the vicar of God; you will therefore be
+governed by God Himself.
+
+THE EMPEROR.
+
+How delightful that will be! I am not, however, quite easy on the
+subject. Will your vice-god share the imperial revenues with myself? For
+all labor ought to be paid for.
+
+FATHER BOUVET.
+
+Our vice-god is so kind and good that in general he will not take, at
+most, more than a quarter, except in cases of disobedience. Our
+emoluments will not exceed fifty million ounces of pure silver, which is
+surely a trifling object in comparison with heavenly advantages.
+
+THE EMPEROR.
+
+Yes, it is certainly, as you say, giving them almost for nothing. I
+suppose your celebrated and benevolent city derives just about the same
+sum from each of my three neighbors--the Great Mogul, the Emperor of
+Japan, and the Empress of Russia; and also from the Persian and the
+Turkish empires?
+
+FATHER BOUVET.
+
+I cannot exactly say that is yet the case; but, with Gods help and our
+own, I have no doubt it will be so.
+
+THE EMPEROR.
+
+And how are you, who are the vicars apostolic, to be paid?
+
+FATHER BOUVET.
+
+We have no regular wages; but we are somewhat like the principal female
+character in a comedy written by one Count Caylus, a countryman of mine;
+all that I ... is for myself.
+
+THE EMPEROR.
+
+But pray inform me whether your Christian princes in Europe pay your
+Italian friend or patron in proportion to the assessment laid on me.
+
+FATHER BOUVET.
+
+No, they do not! One-half of Europe has separated from him and pays him
+nothing; and the other pays him no more than it is obliged to pay.
+
+THE EMPEROR.
+
+You told me some time since that he was sovereign of a very fine and
+fertile territory.
+
+FATHER BOUVET.
+
+Yes; but it produces very little to him; it lies mostly uncultivated.
+
+THE EMPEROR.
+
+Poor man! he does not know how to cultivate his own territory, and yet
+pretends to govern mine.
+
+FATHER BOUVET.
+
+Formerly, in one of our councils--that is, in one of our assemblies of
+priests, which was held in a city called Constance--our holy father
+caused a proposition to be made for a new tax for the support of his
+dignity. The assembly replied that any necessity for that would be
+perfectly precluded by his attending to the cultivation of his own
+lands. This, however, he took effectual care not to do. He preferred
+living on the produce of those who labor in other kingdoms. He appeared
+to think that this manner of living had an air of greater grandeur.
+
+THE EMPEROR.
+
+Well, go and tell him from me, that I not only make those about me
+labor, but that I also labor myself; and I doubt much whether it will be
+for him.
+
+FATHER BOUVET.
+
+Holy Virgin! I am absolutely taken for a fool!
+
+THE EMPEROR.
+
+Begone, this instant! I have been too indulgent.
+
+BROTHER ATTIRET TO FATHER BOUVET.
+
+I was right, you see, when I told you that the emperor, with all his
+excellence of heart, had also more understanding than both of us
+together.
+
+
+
+
+PRAYER (PUBLIC), THANKSGIVING, ETC.
+
+
+Very few forms of public prayers used by the ancients still remain. We
+have only Horace's beautiful hymn for the secular games of the ancient
+Romans. This prayer is in the rhythm and measure which the other Romans
+long after imitated in the hymn, "_Ut queat laxis resonare fibris._"
+
+The _Pervigilium Veneris_ is written in a quaint and affected taste, and
+seems unworthy of the noble simplicity of the reign of Augustus. It is
+possible that this hymn to Venus may have been chanted in the festivals
+celebrated in honor of that goddess; but it cannot be doubted that the
+poem of Horace was chanted with much greater solemnity.
+
+It must be allowed that this secular poem of Horace is one of the finest
+productions of antiquity; and that the hymn, "_Ut queat laxis,_" is one
+of the most flat and vapid pieces that appeared during the barbarous
+period of the decline of the Latin language. The Catholic Church in
+those times paid little attention to eloquence and poetry. We all know
+very well that God prefers bad verses recited with a pure heart, to the
+finest verses possible chanted by the wicked. Good verses, however,
+never yet did any harm, and--all other things being equal--must deserve
+a preference.
+
+Nothing among us ever approached the secular games, which were
+celebrated at the expiration of every hundred and ten years. Our jubilee
+is only a faint and feeble copy of it. Three magnificent altars were
+erected on the banks of the Tiber. All Rome was illuminated for three
+successive nights; and fifteen priests distributed the lustral water and
+wax tapers among the men and women of the city who were appointed to
+chant the prayers. A sacrifice was first offered to Jupiter as the great
+god, the sovereign master of the gods; and afterwards to Juno, Apollo,
+Latona, Diana, Pluto, Proserpine, and the Fates, as to inferior powers.
+All these divinities had their own peculiar hymns and ceremonies. There
+were two choirs, one of twenty-seven boys, and the other of twenty-seven
+girls, for each of the divinities. Finally, on the last day, the boys
+and girls, crowned with flowers, chanted the ode of Horace.
+
+It is true that in private houses his other odes, for Ligurinus and
+Liciscus and other contemptible characters, were heard at table;
+performances which undoubtedly were not calculated to excite the finest
+feelings of devotion; but there is a time for all things, "_pictoribus
+atque poetis._" Caraccio, who drew the figures of Aretin, painted saints
+also; and in all our colleges we have excused in Horace what the masters
+of the Roman Empire excused in him without any difficulty.
+
+As to forms of prayer, we have only a few slight fragments of that which
+was recited at the mysteries of Isis. We have quoted it elsewhere, but
+we will repeat it here, because it is at once short and beautiful:
+
+"The celestial powers obey thee; hell is in subjection to thee; the
+universe revolves under thy moving hand; thy feet tread on Tartarus; the
+stars are responsive to thy voice; the seasons return at thy command;
+the elements are obedient to thy will."
+
+We repeat also the form supposed to have been used in the worship of the
+ancient Orpheus, which we think superior even to the above respecting
+Isis:
+
+"Walk in the path of justice; adore the sole Master of the Universe; He
+is One Alone, and self-existent; all other beings owe their existence to
+Him; He acts both in them and by them; He sees all, but has never been
+Himself seen by mortal eyes."
+
+It is not a little extraordinary that in the Leviticus and Deuteronomy
+of the Jews, there is not a single public prayer, not one single formula
+of public worship. It seems as if the Levites were fully employed in
+dividing among themselves the viands that were offered to them. We do
+not even see a single prayer instituted for their great festivals of the
+Passover, the Pentecost, the trumpets, the tabernacles, the general
+expiation, or the new moon.
+
+The learned are almost unanimously agreed that there were no regular
+prayers among the Jews, except when, during their captivity at Babylon,
+they adopted somewhat of the manners, and acquired something of the
+sciences, of that civilized and powerful people. They borrowed all from
+the Chaldaic Persians, even to their very language, characters, and
+numerals; and joining some new customs to their old Egyptian rites, they
+became a new people, so much the more superstitious than before, in
+consequence of their being, after the conclusion of a long captivity,
+still always dependent upon their neighbors.
+
+                    _... In rebus acerbis_
+     _Arcius advertunt animos ad religionem._
+                       --LUCRETIUS, book iii., 52, 53.
+
+                            _... The common rout,_
+     _When cares and dangers press, grow more devout._
+                                             --CREECH.
+
+With respect to the ten other tribes who had been previously dispersed,
+we may reasonably believe that they were as destitute of public forms of
+prayer as the two others, and that they had not, even up to the period
+of their dispersion, any fixed and well-defined religion, as they
+abandoned that which they professed with so much facility, and forgot
+even their own name, which cannot be said of the small number of
+unfortunate beings who returned to rebuild Jerusalem.
+
+It is, therefore, at that period that the two tribes, or rather the two
+tribes and a half, seemed to have first attached themselves to certain
+invariable rites, to have written books, and used regular prayers. It is
+not before that time that we begin to see among them forms of prayer.
+Esdras ordained two prayers for every day, and added a third for the
+Sabbath; it is even said that he instituted eighteen prayers, that there
+might be room for selection, and also to afford variety in the service.
+The first of these begins in the following manner:
+
+"Blessed be Thou, O Lord God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac,
+and Jacob; the great God, the powerful, the terrible, the most high, the
+liberal distributor of good things, the former and possessor of the
+world, who rememberest good actions, and sendest a Redeemer to their
+descendants for Thy name's sake. O King, our help and Saviour, our
+buckler, blessed be Thou, O Lord, the buckler of our father Abraham."
+
+It is asserted that Gamaliel, who lived in the time of Jesus Christ, and
+who had such violent quarrels with St. Paul, ordered a nineteenth
+prayer, which is as follows:
+
+"Grant peace, benefits, blessing, favor, kindness, and piety to us, and
+to Thy people Israel. Bless us, O our Father! bless us altogether with
+the light of Thy countenance; for by the light of Thy countenance Thou
+hast given us, O Lord our God, the law of life, love, kindness, equity,
+blessing, piety, and peace. May it please Thee to bless, through all
+time, and at every moment, Thy people Israel, by giving them peace.
+Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who blessest Thy people Israel by giving them
+peace. Amen."
+
+There is one circumstance deserving of remark with regard to many
+prayers, which is, that every nation has prayed for the direct contrary
+events to those prayed for by their neighbors.
+
+The Jews, for example, prayed that God would exterminate the Syrians,
+Babylonians, and Egyptians; and these prayed that God would exterminate
+the Jews; and, accordingly, they may be said to have been so, with
+respect to the ten tribes, who have been confounded and mixed up with so
+many nations; and the remaining two tribes were more unfortunate still;
+for, as they obstinately persevered in remaining separate from all other
+nations in the midst of whom they dwelt, they were deprived of the grand
+advantages of human society.
+
+In our own times, in the course of the wars that we so frequently
+undertake for the sake of particular cities, or even perhaps villages,
+the Germans and Spaniards, when they happened to be the enemies of the
+French, prayed to the Holy Virgin, from the bottom of their hearts, that
+she would completely defeat the Gauls and the Gavaches, who in their
+turn supplicated her, with equal importunity, to destroy the Maranes and
+the Teutons.
+
+In England advocates of the red rose offered up to St. George the most
+ardent prayers to prevail upon him to sink all the partisans of the
+white rose to the bottom of the sea. The white rose was equally devout
+and importunate for the very opposite event. We can all of us have some
+idea of the embarrassment which this must have caused St. George; and if
+Henry VII. had not come to his assistance, St. George would never have
+been able to get extricated from it.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+We know of no religion without prayers; even the Jews had them, although
+there was no public form of prayer among them before the time when they
+sang their canticles in their synagogues, which did not take place until
+a late period.
+
+The people of all nations, whether actuated by desires or fears, have
+invoked the assistance of the Divinity. Philosophers, however, more
+respectful to the Supreme Being, and rising more above human weakness,
+have been habituated to substitute, for prayer, resignation. This, in
+fact, is all that appears proper and suitable between creature and
+Creator. But philosophy is not adapted to the great mass of mankind; it
+soars too high above the vulgar; it speaks a language they are unable to
+comprehend. To propose philosophy to them would be just as weak as to
+propose the study of conic sections to peasants or fish-women.
+
+Among the philosophers themselves, I know of no one besides Maximus
+Tyrius who has treated of this subject. The following is the substance
+of his ideas upon it: "The designs of God exist from all eternity. If
+the object prayed for be conformable to His immutable will, it must be
+perfectly useless to request of Him the very thing which He has
+determined to do. If He is prayed to for the reverse of what He has
+determined to do, He is prayed to be weak, fickle, and inconstant; such
+a prayer implies that this is thought to be His character, and is
+nothing better than ridicule or mockery of Him. You either request of
+Him what is just and right, in which case He ought to do it, and it will
+be actually done without any solicitation, which in fact shows distrust
+of His rectitude; or what you request is unjust, and then you insult
+Him. You are either worthy or unworthy of the favor you implore: if
+worthy, He knows it better than you do yourself; if unworthy, you commit
+an additional crime in requesting that which you do not merit."
+
+In a word, we offer up prayers to God only because we have made Him
+after our own image. We treat Him like a pasha, or a sultan, who is
+capable of being exasperated and appeased. In short, all nations pray to
+God: the sage is resigned, and obeys Him. Let us pray with the people,
+and let us be resigned to Him with the sage.
+
+We have already spoken of the public prayers of many nations, and of
+those of the Jews. That people have had one from time immemorial, which
+deserves all our attention, from its resemblance to the prayer taught us
+by Jesus Christ Himself. This Jewish prayer is called the Kadish, and
+begins with these words: "O, God! let Thy name be magnified and
+sanctified; make Thy kingdom to prevail; let redemption flourish, and
+the Messiah come quickly!"
+
+As this Kadish is recited in Chaldee it has induced the belief that it
+is as ancient as the captivity, and that it was at that period that the
+Jews began to hope for a Messiah, a Liberator, or Redeemer, whom they
+have since prayed for in the seasons of their calamities.
+
+The circumstance of this word "Messiah" being found in this ancient
+prayer has occasioned much controversy on the subject of the history of
+this people. If the prayer originated during the Babylonish captivity,
+it is evident that the Jews at that time must have hoped for and
+expected a Redeemer. But whence does it arise, that in times more
+dreadfully calamitous still, after the destruction of Jerusalem by
+Titus, neither Josephus nor Philo ever mentioned any expectation of a
+Messiah? There are obscurities in the history of every people; but those
+of the Jews form an absolute and perpetual chaos. It is unfortunate for
+those who are desirous of information, that the Chaldæans and Egyptians
+have lost their archives, while the Jews have preserved theirs.
+
+
+
+
+PREJUDICE.
+
+
+Prejudice is an opinion without judgment. Thus, throughout the world,
+children are inspired with opinions before they can judge. There are
+universal and necessary prejudices, and these even constitute virtue. In
+all countries, children are taught to acknowledge a rewarding and
+punishing God; to respect and love their fathers and mothers; to regard
+theft as a crime, and interested lying as a vice, before they can tell
+what is a virtue or a vice. Prejudice may, therefore, be very useful,
+and such as judgment will ratify when we reason.
+
+Sentiment is not simply prejudice, it is something much stronger. A
+mother loves not her son because she is told that she must love him; she
+fortunately cherishes him in spite of herself. It is not through
+prejudice that you run to the aid of an unknown child nearly falling
+down a precipice, or being devoured by a beast.
+
+But it is through prejudice that you will respect a man dressed in
+certain clothes, walking gravely, and talking at the same time. Your
+parents have told you that you must bend to this man; you respect him
+before you know whether he merits your respect; you grow in age and
+knowledge; you perceive that this man is a quack, made up of pride,
+interest, and artifice; you despise that which you revered, and
+prejudice yields to judgment. Through prejudice, you have believed the
+fables with which your infancy was lulled: you are told that the Titans
+made war against the gods, that Venus was amorous of Adonis; at twelve
+years of age you take these fables for truth; at twenty, you regard them
+as ingenious allegories.
+
+Let us examine, in a few words, the different kinds of prejudices, in
+order to arrange our ideas. We shall perhaps be like those who, in the
+time of the scheme of Law, perceived that they had calculated upon
+imaginary riches.
+
+_Prejudices Of The Senses._
+
+Is it not an amusing thing, that our eyes always deceive us, even when
+we see very well, and that on the contrary our ears do not? When your
+properly-formed ear hears: "You are beautiful; I love you," it is very
+certain that the words are not: I hate you; you are ugly; but you see a
+smooth mirror--it is demonstrated that you are deceived; it is a very
+rough surface. You see the sun about two feet in diameter; it is
+demonstrated that it is a million times larger than the earth.
+
+It seems that God has put truth into your ears, and error into your
+eyes; but study optics, and you will perceive that God has not deceived
+you, and that it was impossible for objects to appear to you otherwise
+than you see them in the present state of things.
+
+_Physical Prejudices._
+
+The sun rises, the moon also, the earth is immovable; these are natural
+physical prejudices. But that crabs are good for the blood, because when
+boiled they are of the same color; that eels cure paralysis, because
+they frisk about; that the moon influences our diseases, because an
+invalid was one day observed to have an increase of fever during the
+wane of the moon: these ideas and a thousand others were the errors of
+ancient charlatans, who judged without reason, and who, being themselves
+deceived, deceived others.
+
+_Historical Prejudices._
+
+The greater part of historians have believed without examining, and this
+confidence is a prejudice. Fabius Pictor relates, that, several ages
+before him, a vestal of the town of Alba, going to draw water in her
+pitcher, was violated, that she was delivered of Romulus and Remus, that
+they were nourished by a she-wolf. The Roman people believed this fable;
+they examined not whether at that time there were vestals in Latium;
+whether it was likely that the daughter of a king should go out of her
+convent with a pitcher, or whether it was probable that a she-wolf
+should suckle two children, instead of eating them: prejudice
+established it.
+
+A monk writes that Clovis, being in great danger at the battle of
+Tolbiac, made a vow to become a Christian if he escaped; but is it
+natural that he should address a strange god on such an occasion? Would
+not the religion in which he was born have acted the most powerfully?
+Where is the Christian who, in a battle against the Turks, would not
+rather address himself to the holy Virgin Mary, than to Mahomet? He
+adds, that a pigeon brought the vial in his beak to anoint Clovis, and
+that an angel brought the oriflamme to conduct him: the prejudiced
+believed all the stories of this kind. Those who are acquainted with
+human nature well know, that the usurper Clovis, and the usurper Rollo,
+or Rol, became Christians to govern the Christians more securely; as the
+Turkish usurpers became Mussulmans to govern the Mussulmans more
+securely.
+
+_Religious Prejudices._
+
+If your nurse has told you, that Ceres presides over corn, or that
+Vishnu and Xaca became men several times, or that Sammonocodom cut down
+a forest, or that Odin expects you in his hall near Jutland, or that
+Mahomet, or some other, made a journey to heaven; finally, if your
+preceptor afterwards thrusts into your brain what your nurse has
+engraven on it, you will possess it for life. If your judgment would
+rise above these prejudices, your neighbors, and above all, the ladies,
+exclaim "impiety!" and frighten you; your dervish, fearing to see his
+revenue diminished, accuses you before the cadi; and this cadi, if he
+can, causes you to be impaled, because he would command fools, and he
+believes that fools obey better than others; which state of things will
+last until your neighbors and the dervish and cadi begin to comprehend
+that folly is good for nothing, and that persecution is abominable.
+
+
+
+
+PRESBYTERIAN.
+
+
+The Anglican religion is predominant only in England and Ireland;
+Presbyterianism is the established religion of Scotland. This
+Presbyterianism is nothing more than pure Calvinism, such as once
+existed in France, and still exists at Geneva.
+
+In comparison with a young and lively French bachelor in divinity,
+brawling during the morning in the schools of theology, and singing with
+the ladies in the evening, a Church-of-England divine is a Cato; but
+this Cato is himself a gallant in presence of the Scottish
+Presbyterians. The latter affect a solemn walk, a serious demeanor, a
+large hat, a long robe beneath a short one, and preach through the nose.
+All churches in which the ecclesiastics are so happy as to receive an
+annual income of fifty thousand livres, and to be addressed by the
+people as "my lord," "your grace," or "your eminence," they denominate
+the whore of Babylon. These gentlemen have also several churches in
+England, where they maintain the same manners and gravity as in
+Scotland. It is to them chiefly that the English are indebted for the
+strict sanctification of Sunday throughout the three kingdoms. They are
+forbidden either to labor or to amuse themselves. No opera, no concert,
+no comedy, in London on a Sunday. Even cards are expressly forbidden;
+and there are only certain people of quality, who are deemed open souls,
+who play on that day. The rest of the nation attend sermons, taverns,
+and their small affairs of love.
+
+Although Episcopacy and Presbyterianism predominate in Great Britain,
+all other opinions are welcome and live tolerably well together,
+although the various preachers reciprocally detest one another with
+nearly the same cordiality as a Jansenist damns a Jesuit.
+
+Enter into the Royal Exchange of London, a place more respectable than
+many courts, in which deputies from all nations assemble for the
+advantage of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian
+bargain with one another as if they were of the same religion, and
+bestow the name of infidel on bankrupts only. There the Presbyterian
+gives credit to the Anabaptist, and the votary of the establishment
+accepts the promise of the Quaker. On the separation of these free and
+pacific assemblies, some visit the synagogue, others repair to the
+tavern. Here one proceeds to baptize his son in a great tub, in the name
+of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; there another deprives his boy of a
+small portion of his foreskin, and mutters over the child some Hebrew
+words which he cannot understand; a third kind hasten to their chapels
+to wait for the inspiration of the Lord with their hats on; and all are
+content.
+
+[Illustration: John Calvin.]
+
+Was there in London but one religion, despotism might be apprehended; if
+two only, they would seek to cut each others throats; but as there are
+at least thirty, they live together in peace and happiness.
+
+
+
+
+PRETENSIONS.
+
+
+There is not a single prince in Europe who does not assume the title of
+sovereign of a country possessed by his neighbor. This political madness
+is unknown in the rest of the world. The king of Boutan never called
+himself emperor of China; nor did the sovereign of Tartary ever assume
+the title of king of Egypt.
+
+The most splendid and comprehensive pretensions have always been those
+of the popes; two keys, _saltier,_ gave them clear and decided
+possession of the kingdom of heaven. They bound and unbound everything
+on earth. This ligature made them masters of the continent; and St.
+Peter's nets gave them the dominion of the seas.
+
+Many learned theologians thought, that when these gods were assailed by
+the Titans, called Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists, etc., they
+themselves reduced some articles of their pretensions. It is certain
+that many of them became more modest, and that their celestial court
+attended more to propriety and decency; but their pretensions were
+renewed on every opportunity that offered. No other proof is necessary
+than the conduct of Aldobrandini, Clement VIII., to the great Henry IV.,
+when it was deemed necessary to give him an absolution that he had no
+occasion for, on account of his being already absolved by the bishops of
+his own kingdom, and also on account of his being victorious.
+
+Aldobrandini at first resisted for a whole year, and refused to
+acknowledge the duke of Nemours as the ambassador of France. At last he
+consented to open to Henry the gate of the kingdom of heaven, on the
+following conditions:
+
+1. That Henry should ask pardon for having made the sub-porters--that
+is, the bishops--open the gate to him, instead of applying to the grand
+porter.
+
+2. That he should acknowledge himself to have forfeited the throne of
+France till Aldobrandini, by the plenitude of his power, reinstated him
+on it.
+
+3. That he should be a second time consecrated and crowned; the first
+coronation having been null and void, as it was performed without the
+express order of Aldobrandini.
+
+4. That he should expel all the Protestants from his kingdom; which
+would have been neither honorable nor possible. It would not have been
+honorable, because the Protestants had profusely shed their blood to
+establish him as king of France; and it would not have been possible, as
+the number of these dissidents amounted to two millions.
+
+5. That he should immediately make war on the Grand Turk, which would
+not have been more honorable or possible than the last condition, as the
+Grand Turk had recognized him as king of France at a time when Rome
+refused to do so, and as Henry had neither troops, nor money, nor ships,
+to engage in such an insane war with his faithful ally.
+
+6. That he should receive in an attitude of complete prostration the
+absolution of the pope's legate, according to the usual form in which it
+is administered; that is in fact, that he should be actually scourged by
+the legate.
+
+7. That he should recall the Jesuits, who had been expelled from his
+kingdom by the parliament for the attempt made to assassinate him by
+Jean Châtel, their scholar.
+
+I omit many other minor pretensions. Henry obtained a mitigation of a
+number of them. In particular, he obtained the concession, although with
+a great deal of difficulty, that the scourging should be inflicted only
+by proxy, and by the hand of Aldobrandini himself.
+
+You will perhaps tell me, that his holiness was obliged to require those
+extravagant conditions by that old and inveterate demon of the South,
+Philip II., who was more powerful at Rome than the pope himself. You
+compare Aldobrandini to a contemptible poltroon of a soldier whom his
+colonel forces forward to the trenches by caning him.
+
+To this I answer, that Clement VIII. was indeed afraid of Philip II.,
+but that he was not less attached to the rights of the tiara; and that
+it was so exquisite a gratification for the grandson of a banker to
+scourge a king of France, that Aldobrandini would not altogether have
+conceded this point for the world.
+
+You will reply, that should a pope at present renew such pretensions,
+should he now attempt to apply the scourge to a king of France, or
+Spain, or Naples, or to a duke of Parma, for having driven the reverend
+fathers, the Jesuits, from their dominions, he would be in imminent
+danger of incurring the same treatment as Clement VII. did from Charles
+V., and even of experiencing still greater humiliations; that it is
+necessary to sacrifice pretensions to interests; that men must yield to
+times and circumstances; and that the sheriff of Mecca must proclaim Ali
+Bey king of Egypt, if he is successful and firm upon the throne. To this
+I answer, that you are perfectly right.
+
+_Pretensions Of The Empire; Extracted From Glafey And Schwedar._
+
+Upon Rome (none). Even Charles V., after he had taken Rome, claimed no
+right of actual domain.
+
+Upon the patrimony of St. Peter, from Viterbo to Civita Castellana, the
+estates of the countess Mathilda, but solemnly ceded by Rudolph of
+Hapsburg.
+
+Upon Parma and Placentia, the supreme dominion as part of Lombardy,
+invaded by Julius II., granted by Paul III., to his bastard Farnese:
+homage always paid for them to the pope from that time; the sovereignty
+always claimed by the seigneurs of Lombardy; the right of sovereignty
+completely ceded to the emperor by the treaties of Cambray and of
+London, at the peace of 1737.
+
+Upon Tuscany, right of sovereignty exercised by Charles V.; an estate of
+the empire, belonging now to the emperor's brother.
+
+Upon the republic of Lucca, erected into a duchy by Louis of Bavaria, in
+1328; the senators declared afterwards vicars of the empire by Charles
+IV. The Emperor Charles VI., however, in the war of 1701, exercised in
+it his right of sovereignty by levying upon it a large contribution.
+
+Upon the duchy of Milan, ceded by the Emperor Wincenslaus to Galeas
+Visconti, but considered as a fief of the empire.
+
+Upon the duchy of Mirandola, reunited to the house of Austria in 1711 by
+Joseph I.
+
+Upon the duchy of Mantua, erected into a duchy by Charles V.; reunited
+in like manner in 1708.
+
+Upon Guastalla, Novellara, Bozzolo, and Castiglione, also fiefs of the
+empire, detached from the duchy of Mantua.
+
+Upon the whole of Montferrat, of which the duke of Savoy received the
+investiture at Vienna in 1708.
+
+Upon Piedmont, the investiture of which was bestowed by the emperor
+Sigismund on the duke of Savoy, Amadeus VIII.
+
+Upon the county of Asti, bestowed by Charles V., on the house of Savoy:
+the dukes of Savoy always vicars in Italy from the time of the emperor
+Sigismund.
+
+Upon Genoa, formerly part of the domain of the Lombard kings. Frederick
+Barbarossa granted to it in fief the coast from Monaco to Portovenere;
+it is free under Charles V., in 1529; but the words of the instrument
+are _In civitate nostra Genoa, et salvis Romani imperii juribus._
+
+Upon the fiefs of Langues, of which the dukes of Savoy have the direct
+domain.
+
+Upon Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, rights fallen into neglect.
+
+Upon Naples and Sicily, rights still more fallen into neglect. Almost
+all the states of Italy are or have been in vassalage to the empire.
+
+Upon Pomerania and Mecklenburg, the fiefs of which were granted by
+Frederick Barbarossa.
+
+Upon Denmark, formerly a fief of the empire; Otho I. granted the
+investiture of it.
+
+Upon Poland, for the territory on the banks of the Vistula.
+
+Upon Bohemia and Silesia, united to the empire by Charles IV., in 1355.
+
+Upon Prussia, from the time of Henry VII.; the grand master of Prussia
+acknowledged a member of the empire in 1500.
+
+Upon Livonia, from the time of the knights of the sword. Upon Hungary,
+from the time of Henry II.
+
+Upon Lorraine, by the treaty of 1542; acknowledged an estate of the
+empire, paying taxes to support the war against the Turks.
+
+Upon the duchy of Bar down to the year 1311, when Philip the Fair, who
+conquered it, did homage for it.
+
+Upon the duchy of Burgundy, by virtue of the rights of Mary of Burgundy.
+
+Upon the kingdom of Arles and Burgundy on the other side of the Jura,
+which Conrad the Salian, possessed in chief by his wife.
+
+Upon Dauphiny, as part of the kingdom of Arles; the emperor Charles IV.
+having caused himself to be crowned at Arles in 1365, and created the
+dauphin of France his viceroy.
+
+Upon Provence, as a member of the kingdom of Arles, for which Charles of
+Anjou did homage to the empire.
+
+Upon the principality of Orange, as an arrière-fief of the empire.
+
+Upon Avignon, for the same reason.
+
+Upon Sardinia, which Frederick II. erected into a kingdom.
+
+Upon Switzerland, as a member of the kingdoms of Arles and Burgundy.
+
+Upon Dalmatia, a great part of which belongs at present wholly to the
+Venetians, and the rest to Hungary.
+
+
+
+
+PRIDE.
+
+
+Cicero, in one of his letters, says familiarly to his friend: "Send to
+me the persons to whom you wish me to give the Gauls." In another, he
+complains of being fatigued with letters from I know not what princes,
+who thank him for causing their provinces to be erected into kingdoms;
+and he adds that he does not even know where these kingdoms are
+situated.
+
+It is probable that Cicero, who often saw the Roman people, the
+sovereign people, applaud and obey him, and who was thanked by kings
+whom he knew not, had some emotions of pride and vanity.
+
+Though the sentiment is not at all consistent in so pitiful an animal as
+man, yet we can pardon it in a Cicero, a Cæsar, or a Scipio; but when in
+the extremity of one of our half barbarous provinces, a man who may have
+bought a small situation, and printed poor verses, takes it into his
+head to be proud, it is very laughable.
+
+
+
+
+PRIESTS.
+
+
+Priests in a state approach nearly to what preceptors are in private
+families: it is their province to teach, pray, and supply example. They
+ought to have no authority over the masters of the house; at least until
+it can be proved that he who gives the wages ought to obey him who
+receives them. Of all religions the one which most positively excludes
+the priesthood from civil authority, is that of Jesus. "Give unto Cæsar
+the things which are Cæsar's."--"Among you there is neither first nor
+last."--"My kingdom is not of this world."
+
+The quarrels between the empires and the priesthood, which have bedewed
+Europe with blood for more than six centuries, have therefore been, on
+the part of the priests, nothing but rebellion at once against God and
+man, and a continual sin against the Holy Ghost.
+
+From the time of Calchas, who assassinated the daughter of Agamemnon,
+until Gregory XII., and Sixtus V., two bishops who would have deprived
+Henry IV., of the kingdom of France, sacerdotal power has been injurious
+to the world.
+
+Prayer is not dominion, nor exhortation despotism. A good priest ought
+to be a physician to the soul. If Hippocrates had ordered his patients
+to take hellebore under pain of being hanged, he would have been more
+insane and barbarous than Phalaris, and would have had little practice.
+When a priest says: Worship God; be just, indulgent, and compassionate;
+he is then a good physician; when he says: Believe me, or you shall be
+burned; he is an assassin.
+
+The magistrate ought to support and restrain the priest in the same
+manner as the father of a family insures respect to the preceptor, and
+prevents him from abusing it. The agreement of Church and State is of
+all systems the most monstrous, for it necessarily implies division, and
+the existence of two contracting parties. We ought to say the protection
+given by government to the priesthood or church.
+
+But what is to be said and done in respect to countries in which the
+priesthood have obtained dominion, as in Salem, where Melchizedek was
+priest and king; in Japan, where the dairo has been for a long time
+emperor? I answer, that the successors of Melchizedek and the dairos
+have been set aside.
+
+The Turks are wise in this; they religiously make a pilgrimage to Mecca;
+but they will not permit the xerif of Mecca to excommunicate the sultan.
+Neither will they purchase from Mecca permission not to observe the
+ramadan, or the liberty of espousing their cousins or their nieces. They
+are not judged by imans, whom the xerif delegates; nor do they pay the
+first year's revenue to the xerif. What is to be said of all that?
+Reader, speak for yourself.
+
+
+
+
+PRIESTS OF THE PAGANS.
+
+
+Father Navarette, in one of his letters to Don John of Austria, relates
+the following speech of the dalai-lama to his privy council: "My
+venerable brothers, you and I know very well that I am not immortal; but
+it is proper that the people should think so. The Tartars of great and
+little Thibet are people with stiff necks and little information, who
+require a heavy yoke and gross inventions. Convince them of my
+immortality, and the glory will reflect on you, and you will procure
+honors and riches.
+
+"When the time shall come in which the Tartars will be more enlightened,
+we may then confess that the grand lamas are not now immortal, but that
+their predecessors were so; and that what is necessary for the erection
+of a grand edifice, is no longer so when it is established on an
+immovable foundation.
+
+"I hesitated at first to distribute the _agremens_ of my water-closet,
+properly inclosed in crystals ornamented with gilded copper, to the
+vassals of my empire; but these relics have been received with so much
+respect, that the usage must be continued, which after all exhibits
+nothing repugnant to sound morals, and brings much money into our sacred
+treasury.
+
+"If any impious reasoner should ever endeavor to persuade the people
+that one end of our sacred person is not so divine as the other--should
+they protest against our relics, you will maintain their value and
+importance to the utmost of your power.
+
+"And if you are finally obliged to give up the sanctity of our nether
+end, you must take care to preserve in the minds of the reasoners the
+most profound respect for our understanding, just as in a treaty with
+the Moguls, we have ceded a poor province, in order to secure our
+peaceable possession of the remainder.
+
+"So long as our Tartars of great and little Thibet are unable to read
+and write, they will remain ignorant and devout; you may therefore
+boldly take their money, intrigue with their wives and their daughters,
+and threaten them with the anger of the god Fo if they complain.
+
+"When the time of correct reasoning shall arrive--for it will arrive
+some day or other--you will then take a totally opposite course, and say
+directly the contrary of what your predecessors have said, for you ought
+to change the nature of your curb in proportion as the horses become
+more difficult to govern. Your exterior must be more grave, your
+intrigues more mysterious, your secrets better guarded, your sophistry
+more dazzling, and your policy more refined. You will then be the pilots
+of a vessel which is leaky on all sides. Have under you subalterns
+continually employed at the pumps, and as caulkers to stop all the
+holes. You will navigate with difficulty, but you will still proceed,
+and be enabled to cast into the fire or the water, as may be most
+convenient, all those who would examine whether you have properly
+refitted the vessel.
+
+"If among the unbelievers is a prince of Calkas, a chief of the
+Kalmucks, a prince of Kasan, or any other powerful prince, who has
+unhappily too much wit, take great care not to quarrel with him. Respect
+him, and continually observe that you hope he will return to the holy
+path. As to simple citizens, spare them not, and the better men they
+are, the more you ought to labor to exterminate them; for being men of
+honor they are the most dangerous of all to you. You will exhibit the
+simplicity of the dove, the prudence of the serpent, and the paw of the
+lion, according to circumstances."
+
+The dalai-lama had scarcely pronounced these words when the earth
+trembled; lightnings sparkled in the firmament from one pole to the
+other; thunders rolled, and a celestial voice was heard to exclaim,
+"Adore God and not the grand lama."
+
+All the inferior lamas insisted that the voice said, "Adore God and the
+grand lama;" and they were believed for a long time in the kingdom of
+Thibet; but they are now believed no longer.
+
+
+
+
+PRIOR, BUTLER, AND SWIFT.
+
+
+It was not known to France that Prior, who was deputed by Queen Anne to
+adjust the treaty of Utrecht with Louis XIV., was a poet. France has
+since repaid England in the same coin, for Cardinal Dubois sent our
+Destouches to London, where he passed as little for a poet as Prior in
+France. Prior was originally an attendant at a tavern kept by his uncle,
+when the earl of Dorset, a good poet himself and a lover of the bottle,
+one day surprised him reading Horace; in the same manner as Lord Ailsa
+found his gardener reading Newton. Ailsa made his gardener a good
+geometrician, and Dorset made a very agreeable poet of his vintner.
+
+It was Prior who wrote the history of the soul under the title of
+"Alma," and it is the most natural which has hitherto been composed on
+an existence so much felt, and so little known. The soul, according to
+"Alma," resides at first, in the extremities; in the feet and hands of
+children, and from thence gradually ascends to the centre of the body at
+the age of puberty. Its next step is to the heart, in which it engenders
+sentiments of love and heroism; thence it mounts to the head at a mature
+age, where it reasons as well as it is able; and in old age it is not
+known what becomes of it; it is the sap of an aged tree which
+evaporates, and is not renewed again. This work is probably too long,
+for all pleasantry should be short; and it might even be as well were
+the serious short also.
+
+Prior made a small poem on the battle of Hochstädt. It is not equal to
+his "Alma"; there is, however, one good apostrophe to Boileau, who is
+called a satirical flatterer for taking so much pains to sing that Louis
+did _not_ pass the Rhine. Our plenipotentiary finished by paraphrasing,
+in fifteen hundred verses, the words attributed to Solomon, that "all is
+vanity". Fifteen thousand verses might be written on this subject; but
+woe to him who says all which can be said upon it!
+
+At length Queen Anne dying, the ministry changed, and the peace adjusted
+by Prior being altogether unpopular, he had nothing to depend upon
+except an edition of his works; which were subscribed for by his party:
+after which he died like a philosopher, which is the usual mode of dying
+of all respectable Englishmen.
+
+_Hudibras._
+
+There is an English poem which it is very difficult to make foreigners
+understand, entitled "Hudibras." It is a very humorous work, although
+the subject is the civil war of the time of Cromwell. A struggle which
+cost so much blood and so many tears, originated a poem which obliges
+the most serious reader to smile. An example of this contrast is found
+in our "Satire of Menippus." Certainly the Romans would not have made a
+burlesque poem on the wars of Pompey and Cæsar, or the proscription of
+Antony and Octavius. How then is it that the frightful evils of the
+League in France, and of the wars between the king and parliament in
+England, have proved sources of pleasantry? because at bottom there is
+something ridiculous hid beneath these fatal quarrels. The citizens of
+Paris, at the head of the faction of Sixteen, mingled impertinence with
+the miseries of faction. The intrigues of women, of the legates and of
+the monks, presented a comic aspect, notwithstanding the calamities
+which they produced. The theological disputes and enthusiasm of the
+Puritans in England, were also very open to raillery; and this fund of
+the ridiculous, well managed, might pleasantly enough aid in dispersing
+the tragical horrors which abound on the surface. If the bull
+_Unigenitus_ caused the shedding of blood, the little poem "Philotanus"
+was no less suitable to the subject; and it is only to be complained of
+for not being so gay, so pleasant, and so various as it might have been;
+and for not fulfilling in the course of the work the promise held out by
+its commencement.
+
+The poem of "Hudibras" of which I speak, seems to be a composition of
+the satire of "Menippus" and of "Don Quixote." It surpasses them in the
+advantage of verse and also in wit; the former indeed does not come near
+it; being a very middling production; but notwithstanding his wit, the
+author of "Hudibras" is much beneath "Don Quixote." Taste, vivacity, the
+art of narrating and of introducing adventures, with the faculty of
+never being tedious, go farther than wit; and moreover, "Don Quixote" is
+read by all nations, and "Hudibras" by the English alone.
+
+Butler, the author of this extraordinary poem, was contemporary with
+Milton, and enjoyed infinitely more temporary popularity than the
+latter, because his work was humorous, and that of Milton melancholy.
+Butler turned the enemies of King Charles II. into ridicule, and all the
+recompense he received was the frequent quotation of his verses by that
+monarch. The combats of the knight Hudibras were much better known than
+the battles between the good and bad angels in "Paradise Lost"; but the
+court of England treated Butler no better than the celestial court
+treated Milton; both the one and the other died in want, or very near
+it.
+
+A man whose imagination was impregnated with a tenth part of the comic
+spirit, good or bad, which pervades this work, could not but be very
+pleasant; but he must take care how he translates "Hudibras." It is
+difficult to make foreign readers laugh at pleasantries which are almost
+forgotten by the nation which has produced them. Dante is little read in
+Europe, because we are ignorant of so much of his allusion; and it is
+the same with "Hudibras." The greater part of the humor of this poem
+being expended on the theology and theologians of its own time, a
+commentary is eternally necessary. Pleasantry requiring explanation
+ceases to be pleasantry; and a commentator on _bon mots_ is seldom
+capable of conveying them.
+
+_Of Dean Swift._
+
+How is it that in France so little is understood of the works of the
+ingenious Doctor Swift, who is called the Rabelais of England? He has
+the honor, like the latter, of being a churchman and an universal joker;
+but Rabelais was not above his age, and Swift is much above Rabelais.
+
+Our curate of Meudon, in his extravagant and unintelligible book, has
+exhibited extreme gayety and equally great impertinence. He has lavished
+at once erudition, coarseness and ennui. A good story of two pages is
+purchased by a volume of absurdities. There are only some persons of an
+eccentric taste who pique themselves upon understanding and valuing the
+whole of this work. The rest of the nation laugh at the humor of
+Rabelais, and despise the work; regarding him only as the first of
+buffoons. We regret that a man who possessed so much wit, should have
+made so miserable a use of it. He is a drunken philosopher, who wrote
+only in the moments of his intoxication.
+
+Dr. Swift is Rabelais sober, and living in good company. He has not
+indeed the gayety of the former, but he has all the finesse, sense,
+discrimination, which is wanted by our curate of Meudon. His verse is in
+a singular taste, and almost inimitable. He exhibits a fine vein of
+humor, both in prose and in verse; but in order to understand it, it is
+necessary to visit his country.
+
+In this country, which appears so extraordinary to other parts of
+Europe, it has excited little surprise that Doctor Swift, dean of a
+cathedral, should make merry in his "Tale of a Tub" with Catholicism,
+Lutheranism, and Calvinism; his own defence is that he has not meddled
+with Christianity. He pretends to respect the parent, while he scourges
+the children. Certain fastidious persons are of opinion that his lashes
+are so long they have even reached the father.
+
+This famous "Tale of a Tub" is the ancient story of the three invisible
+rings which a father bequeathed to his three children. These three rings
+were the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mahometan religions. It is still
+more an imitation of the history of Mero and Enégu by Fontenelle. Mero
+is the anagram of Rome; Enégu of Geneva, and they are two sisters who
+aspire to the succession of the kingdom of their father. Mero reigns the
+first, and Fontenelle represents her as a sorceress, who plays tricks
+with bread and effects conjuration with dead bodies. This is precisely
+the Lord Peter of Swift, who presents a piece of bread to his two
+brothers, and says to them, "Here is some excellent Burgundy, my
+friends; this partridge is of a delicious flavor." Lord Peter in Swift
+performs the same part with the Mero of Fontenelle.
+
+Thus almost all is imitation. The idea of the "Persian Letters" was
+taken from that of the "Turkish Spy." Boyardo imitated Pulci; Ariosto,
+Boyardo; the most original wits borrow from one another. Cervantes makes
+a madman of his Don Quixote, but is Orlando anything else? It would be
+difficult to decide by which of the two knight-errantry is more
+ridiculed, the grotesque portraiture of Cervantes, or the fertile
+imagination of Ariosto. Metastasia has borrowed the greater part of his
+operas from our French tragedies; and many English authors have copied
+us and said nothing about it. It is with books as with the fires in our
+grates; everybody borrows a light from his neighbor to kindle his own,
+which in its turn is communicated to others, and each partakes of all.
+
+
+
+
+PRIVILEGE--PRIVILEGED CASES.
+
+
+Custom, which almost always prevails against reason, would have the
+offences of ecclesiastics and monks against civil orders, which are very
+frequent, called privileged offences; and those offences common which
+regard only ecclesiastical discipline, cases that are abandoned to the
+sacerdotal hierarchy, and with which the civil power does not interfere.
+
+The Church having no jurisdiction but that which sovereigns have granted
+it, and the judges of the Church being thus only judges privileged by
+the sovereign, those cases should be called privileged which it is their
+province to judge, and those common offences which are punishable by the
+prince's officers. But the canonists, who are very rarely exact in their
+expressions, particularly when treating of regal jurisprudence, having
+regarded a priest called the official, as being of right the sole judge
+of the clergy, they have entitled that privilege, which in common law
+belongs to lay tribunals, and the ordinances of the monarch have adopted
+this expression in France.
+
+To conform himself to this custom, the judge of the Church takes
+cognizance only of common crime; in respect to privileged cases he can
+act only concurrently with the regal judge, who repairs to the episcopal
+court, where, however, he is but the assessor of the judge of the
+Church. Both are assisted by their register; each separately, but in one
+another's presence, takes notes of the course of the proceedings. The
+official who presides alone interrogates the accused; and if the royal
+judge has questions to put to him, he must have permission of the
+ecclesiastical judge to propose them.
+
+This procedure is composed of formalities, and produces delays which
+should not be admitted in criminal jurisprudence. Judges of the Church
+who have not made a study of laws and formalities are seldom able to
+conduct criminal proceedings without giving place to appeals, which ruin
+the accused in expense, make him languish in chains, or retard his
+punishment if he is guilty.
+
+Besides, the French have no precise law to determine which are
+privileged cases. A criminal often groans in a dungeon for a whole year,
+without knowing what tribunal will judge him. Priests and monks are in
+the state and subjects of it. It is very strange that when they trouble
+society they are not to be judged, like other citizens, by the officers
+of the sovereign.
+
+Among the Jews, even the high priest had not the privilege which our
+laws grant to simple parish priests. Solomon deposed the high priest
+Abiathar, without referring him to the synagogue to take his trial.
+Jesus Christ, accused before a secular and pagan judge, challenged not
+his jurisdiction. St. Paul, translated to the tribunal of Felix and
+Festus, declined not their judgment. The Emperor Constantine first
+granted this privilege to bishops. Honorius and Theodosius the younger
+extended it to all the clergy, and Justinian confirmed it.
+
+In digesting the criminal code of 1670, the counsellor of state,
+Pussort, and the president of Novion, wished to abolish the conjoint
+proceeding, and to give to royal judges alone the right of judging the
+clergy accused of privileged cases; but this so reasonable desire was
+combated by the first president De Lamoignon, and the advocate-general
+Talon, and a law which was made to reform our abuses confirmed the most
+ridiculous of them.
+
+A declaration of the king on April 26, 1657, forbids the Parliament of
+Paris to continue the proceeding commenced against Cardinal Retz,
+accused of high treason. The same declaration desires that the suits of
+cardinals, archbishops, and bishops of the kingdom, accused of the crime
+of high treason, are to be conducted and judged by ecclesiastical
+judges, as ordered by the canons.
+
+But this declaration, contrary to the customs of the kingdoms, has not
+been registered in any parliament, and would not be followed. Our books
+relate several sentences which have doomed cardinals, archbishops, and
+bishops to imprisonment, deposition, confiscation, and other
+punishments. These punishments were pronounced against the bishop of
+Nantes, by sentence of June 25, 1455; against Jean de la Balue, cardinal
+and bishop of Angers, by sentence dated July 29, 1469; Jean Hebert,
+bishop of Constance, in 1480; Louis de Rochechouart, bishop of Nantes,
+in 1481; Geoffroi de Pompadour, bishop of Périgueux, and George
+d'Amboise, bishop of Montauban, in 1488; Geoffroi Dintiville, bishop of
+Auxerre, in 1531; Bernard Lordat, bishop of Pumiers, in 1537; Cardinal
+de Châtillon, bishop of Beauvais, the 19th of March, 1569; Geoffroi de
+La Martonie, bishop of Amiens, the 9th of July, 1594; Gilbert Génébrard,
+archbishop of Aix, the 26th of January, 1596; William Rose, bishop of
+Senlis, September 5, 1598; Cardinal de Sourdis, archbishop of Bordeaux,
+November 17, 1615.
+
+The parliament sentenced Cardinal de Bouillon to be imprisoned, and
+seized his property on June 20, 1710.
+
+Cardinal de Mailly, archbishop of Rheims, in 1717, made a law tending to
+destroy the ecclesiastical peace established by the government. The
+hangman publicly burned the law by sentence of parliament.
+
+The sieur Languet, bishop of Soissons, having maintained that he could
+not be judged by the justice of the king even for the crime of high
+treason, was condemned to pay a fine of ten thousand livres.
+
+In the shameful troubles excited by the refusal of sacraments, the
+simple presidial of Nantes condemned the bishop of that city to pay a
+fine of six thousand francs for having refused the communion to those
+who demanded it.
+
+In 1764, the archbishop of Auch, of the name of Montillet, was fined,
+and his command, regarded as a defamatory libel, was burned by the
+executioner at Bordeaux.
+
+These examples have been very frequent. The maxim, that ecclesiastics
+are entirely amenable to the justice of the king, like other citizens,
+has prevailed throughout the kingdom. There is no express law which
+commands it; but the opinion of all lawyers, the unanimous cry of the
+nation, and the good of the state, are in themselves a law.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 8
+(of 10), by François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire)
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 35628 ***