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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 35629 ***
+
+A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
+
+VOLUME IX
+
+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 XIII
+
+
+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. IX
+
+THE HOUDON BUST--_Frontispiece_
+
+GENIUS INSPIRING THE MUSES
+
+SAMSON DESTROYING THE TEMPLE
+
+JOHN LOCKE
+
+
+[Illustration: Voltaire.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+VOLTAIRE
+
+A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
+
+IN TEN VOLUMES
+
+VOL. IX.
+
+PROPERTY--STATES-GENERAL
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PROPERTY.
+
+
+"Liberty and property" is the great national cry of the English. It is
+certainly better than "St. George and my right," or "St. Denis and
+Montjoie"; it is the cry of nature. From Switzerland to China the
+peasants are the real occupiers of the land. The right of conquest alone
+has, in some countries, deprived men of a right so natural.
+
+The general advantage or good of a nation is that of the sovereign, of
+the magistrate, and of the people, both in peace and war. Is this
+possession of lands by the peasantry equally conducive to the prosperity
+of the throne and the people in all periods and circumstances? In order
+to its being the most beneficial system for the throne, it must be that
+which produces the most considerable revenue, and the most numerous and
+powerful army.
+
+We must inquire, therefore, whether this principle or plan tends clearly
+to increase commerce and population. It is certain that the possessor of
+an estate will cultivate his own inheritance better than that of
+another. The spirit of property doubles a man's strength. He labors for
+himself and his family both with more vigor and pleasure than he would
+for a master. The slave, who is in the power of another, has but little
+inclination for marriage; he often shudders even at the thought of
+producing slaves like himself. His industry is damped; his soul is
+brutalized; and his strength is never exercised in its full energy and
+elasticity. The possessor of property, on the contrary, desires a wife
+to share his happiness, and children to assist in his labors. His wife
+and children constitute his wealth. The estate of such a cultivator,
+under the hands of an active and willing family, may become ten times
+more productive than it was before. The general commerce will be
+increased. The treasure of the prince will accumulate. The country will
+supply more soldiers. It is clear, therefore, that the system is
+beneficial to the prince. Poland would be thrice as populous and wealthy
+as it is at present if the peasants were not slaves.
+
+Nor is the system less beneficial to the great landlords. If we suppose
+one of these to possess ten thousand acres of land cultivated by serfs,
+these ten thousand acres will produce him but a very scanty revenue,
+which will be frequently absorbed in repairs, and reduced to nothing by
+the irregularity and severity of the seasons. What will he in fact be,
+although his estates may be vastly more extensive than we have
+mentioned, if at the same time they are unproductive? He will be merely
+the possessor of an immense solitude. He will never be really rich but
+in proportion as his vassals are so; his prosperity depends on theirs.
+If this prosperity advances so far as to render the land too populous;
+if land is wanting to employ the labor of so many industrious hands--as
+hands in the first instance were wanting to cultivate the land--then the
+superfluity of necessary laborers will flow off into cities and
+seaports, into manufactories and armies. Population will have produced
+this decided benefit, and the possession of the lands by the real
+cultivators, under payment of a rent which enriches the landlords, will
+have been the cause of this increase of population.
+
+There is another species of property not less beneficial; it is that
+which is freed from payment of rent altogether, and which is liable only
+to those general imposts which are levied by the sovereign for the
+support and benefit of the state. It is this property which has
+contributed in a particular manner to the wealth of England, of France,
+and the free cities of Germany. The sovereigns who thus enfranchised the
+lands which constituted their domains, derived, in the first instance,
+vast advantage from so doing by the franchises which they disposed of
+being eagerly purchased at high prices; and they derive from it, even at
+the present day, a greater advantage still, especially in France and
+England, by the progress of industry and commerce.
+
+England furnished a grand example to the sixteenth century by
+enfranchising the lands possessed by the church and the monks. Nothing
+could be more odious and nothing more pernicious than the before
+prevailing practice of men, who had voluntarily bound themselves, by the
+rules of their order, to a life of humility and poverty, becoming
+complete masters of the very finest estates in the kingdom, and treating
+their brethren of mankind as mere useful animals, as no better than
+beasts to bear their burdens. The state and opulence of this small
+number of priests degraded human nature; their appropriated and
+accumulated wealth impoverished the rest of the kingdom. The abuse was
+destroyed, and England became rich.
+
+In all the rest of Europe commerce has never flourished; the arts have
+never attained estimation and honor, and cities have never advanced both
+in extent and embellishment, except when the serfs of the Crown and the
+Church held their lands in property. And it is deserving of attentive
+remark that if the Church thus lost rights, which in fact never truly
+belonged to it, the Crown gained an extension of its legitimate rights;
+for the Church, whose first obligation and professed principle it is to
+imitate its great legislator in humility and poverty, was not originally
+instituted to fatten and aggrandize itself upon the fruit of the labors
+of mankind; and the sovereign, who is the representative of the State,
+is bound to manage with economy, the produce of that same labor for the
+good of the State itself, and for the splendor of the throne. In every
+country where the people labor for the Church, the State is poor; but
+wherever they labor for themselves and the sovereign, the State is rich.
+
+It is in these circumstances that commerce everywhere extends its
+branches. The mercantile navy becomes a school for the warlike navy.
+Great commercial companies are formed. The sovereign finds in periods of
+difficulty and danger resources before unknown. Accordingly, in the
+Austrian states, in England, and in France, we see the prince easily
+borrowing from his subjects a hundred times more than he could obtain by
+force while the people were bent down to the earth in slavery.
+
+All the peasants will not be rich, nor is it necessary that they should
+be so. The State requires men who possess nothing but strength and good
+will. Even such, however, who appear to many as the very outcasts of
+fortune, will participate in the prosperity of the rest. They will be
+free to dispose of their labor at the best market, and this freedom will
+be an effective substitute for property. The assured hope of adequate
+wages will support their spirits, and they will bring up their families
+in their own laborious and serviceable occupations with success, and
+even with gayety. It is this class, so despised by the great and
+opulent, that constitutes, be it remembered, the nursery for soldiers.
+Thus, from kings to shepherds, from the sceptre to the scythe, all is
+animation and prosperity, and the principle in question gives new force
+to every exertion.
+
+After having ascertained whether it is beneficial to a State that the
+cultivators should be proprietors, it remains to be shown how far this
+principle may be properly carried. It has happened, in more kingdoms
+than one, that the emancipated serf has attained such wealth by his
+skill and industry as has enabled him to occupy the station of his
+former masters, who have become reduced and impoverished by their
+luxury. He has purchased their lands and assumed their titles; the old
+noblesse have been degraded, and the new have been only envied and
+despised. Everything has been thrown into confusion. Those nations which
+have permitted such usurpations, have been the sport and scorn of such
+as have secured themselves against an evil so baneful. The errors of one
+government may become a lesson for others. They profit by its wise and
+salutary institutions; they may avoid the evil it has incurred through
+those of an opposite tendency.
+
+It is so easy to oppose the restrictions of law to the cupidity and
+arrogance of upstart proprietors, to fix the extent of lands which
+wealthy plebeians may be allowed to purchase, to prevent their
+acquisition of large seigniorial property and privileges, that a firm
+and wise government can never have cause to repent of having
+enfranchised servitude and enriched indigence. A good is never
+productive of evil but when it is carried to a culpable excess, in which
+case it completely ceases to be a good. The examples of other nations
+supply a warning; and on this principle it is easy to explain why those
+communities, which have most recently attained civilization and regular
+government, frequently surpass the masters from whom they drew their
+lessons.
+
+
+
+
+PROPHECIES.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+This word, in its ordinary acceptation, signifies prediction of the
+future. It is in this sense that Jesus declared to His disciples: "All
+things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in
+the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He their
+understanding that they might understand the Scriptures."
+
+We shall feel the indispensable necessity of having our minds opened to
+comprehend the prophecies, if we reflect that the Jews, who were the
+depositories of them, could never recognize Jesus for the Messiah, and
+that for eighteen centuries our theologians have disputed with them to
+fix the sense of some which they endeavor to apply to Jesus. Such is
+that of Jacob--"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver
+from between his feet, until Shiloh come." That of Moses--"The Lord thy
+God will raise up unto thee a prophet like unto me from the nations and
+from thy brethren; unto Him shall ye hearken." That of Isaiah--"Behold a
+virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and shall call his name
+Immanuel." That of Daniel--"Seventy weeks have been determined in favor
+of thy people," etc. But our object here is not to enter into
+theological detail.
+
+Let us merely observe what is said in the Acts of the Apostles, that in
+giving a successor to Judas, and on other occasions, they acted
+expressly to accomplish prophecies; but the apostles themselves
+sometimes quote such as are not found in the Jewish writings; such is
+that alleged by St. Matthew: "And He came and dwelt in a city called
+Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets,
+He shall be called a Nazarene."
+
+St. Jude, in his epistle, also quotes a prophecy from the book of
+"Enoch," which is apocryphal; and the author of the imperfect work on
+St. Matthew, speaking of the star seen in the East by the Magi,
+expresses himself in these terms: "It is related to me on the evidence
+of I know not what writing, which is not authentic, but which far from
+destroying faith encourages it, that there was a nation on the borders
+of the eastern ocean which possessed a book that bears the name of Seth,
+in which the star that appeared to the Magi is spoken of, and the
+presents which these Magi offered to the Son of God. This nation,
+instructed by the book in question, chose twelve of the most religious
+persons amongst them, and charged them with the care of observing
+whenever this star should appear. When any of them died, they
+substituted one of their sons or relations. They were called magi in
+their tongue, because they served God in silence and with a low voice.
+
+"These Magi went every year, after the corn harvest, to a mountain in
+their country, which they called the Mount of Victory, and which is very
+agreeable on account of the fountains that water and the trees which
+cover it. There is also a cistern dug in the rock, and after having
+there washed and purified themselves, they offered sacrifices and prayed
+to God in silence for three days.
+
+"They had not continued this pious practice for many generations, when
+the happy star descended on their mountain. They saw in it the figure of
+a little child, on which there appeared that of the cross. It spoke to
+them and told them to go to Judæa. They immediately departed, the star
+always going before them, and were two days on the road."
+
+This prophecy of the book of Seth resembles that of Zorodascht or
+Zoroaster, except that the figure seen in his star was that of a young
+virgin, and Zoroaster says not that there was a cross on her. This
+prophecy, quoted in the "Gospel of the Infancy," is thus related by
+Abulpharagius: "Zoroaster, the master of the Magi, instructed the
+Persians of the future manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
+commanded them to offer Him presents when He was born. He warned them
+that in future times a virgin should conceive without the operation of
+any man, and that when she brought her Son into the world, a star should
+appear which would shine at noonday, in the midst of which they would
+see the figure of a young virgin. 'You, my children,' adds Zoroaster,
+'will see it before all nations. When, therefore, you see this star
+appear, go where it will conduct you. Adore this dawning child; offer it
+presents, for it is the _word_ which created heaven.'"
+
+The accomplishment of this prophecy is related in Pliny's "Natural
+History"; but besides that the appearance of the star should have
+preceded the birth of Jesus by about forty years, this passage seems
+very suspicious to scholars, and is not the first nor only one which
+might have been interpolated in favor of Christianity. This is the exact
+account of it: "There appeared at Rome for seven days a comet so
+brilliant that the sight of it could scarcely be supported; in the
+middle of it a god was perceived under the human form; they took it for
+the soul of Julius Cæsar, who had just died, and adored it in a
+particular temple."
+
+M. Assermany, in his "Eastern Library," also speaks of a book of
+Solomon, archbishop of Bassora, entitled "The Bee," in which there is a
+chapter on this prediction of Zoroaster. Hornius, who doubted not its
+authenticity, has pretended that Zoroaster was Balaam, and that was very
+likely, because Origen, in his first book against Celsus, says that the
+Magi had no doubt of the prophecies of Balaam, of which these words are
+found in Numbers: "There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre
+shall rise out of Israel." But Balaam was no more a Jew than Zoroaster,
+since he said himself that he came from Aram--from the mountains of the
+East.
+
+Besides, St. Paul speaks expressly to Titus of a Cretan prophet, and St.
+Clement of Alexandria acknowledged that God, wishing to save the Jews,
+gave them prophets; with the same motive, He ever created the most
+excellent men of Greece; those who were the most proper to receive His
+grace, He separated from the vulgar, to be prophets of the Greeks, in
+order to instruct them in their own tongue. "Has not Plato," he further
+says, "in some manner predicted the plan of salvation, when in the
+second book of his 'Republic,' he has imitated this expression of
+Scripture: 'Let us separate ourselves from the Just, for he incommodes
+us'; and he expresses himself in these terms: 'The Just shall be beaten
+with rods, His eyes shall be put out, and after suffering all sorts of
+evils, He shall at last be crucified.'"
+
+St. Clement might have added, that if Jesus Christ's eyes were not put
+out, notwithstanding the prophecy, neither were His bones broken, though
+it is said in a psalm: "While they break My bones, My enemies who
+persecute Me overwhelm Me with their reproaches." On the contrary, St.
+John says positively that the soldiers broke the legs of two others who
+were crucified with Him, but they broke not those of Jesus, that the
+Scripture might be fulfilled: "A bone of Him shall not be broken."
+
+This Scripture, quoted by St. John, extended to the letter of the
+paschal lamb, which ought to be eaten by the Israelites; but John the
+Baptist having called Jesus the Lamb of God, not only was the
+application of it given to Him, but it is even pretended that His death
+was predicted by Confucius. Spizeli quotes the history of China by
+Maitinus, in which it is related that in the thirty-ninth year of the
+reign of King-hi, some hunters outside the gates of the town killed a
+rare animal which the Chinese called kilin, that is to say, the Lamb of
+God. At this news, Confucius struck his breast, sighed profoundly, and
+exclaimed more than once: "Kilin, who has said that thou art come?" He
+added: "My doctrine draws to an end; it will no longer be of use, since
+you will appear."
+
+Another prophecy of the same Confucius is also found in his second book,
+which is applied equally to Jesus, though He is not designated under the
+name of the Lamb of God. This is it: We need not fear but that when the
+expected Holy One shall come, all the honor will be rendered to His
+virtue which is due to it. His works will be conformable to the laws of
+heaven and earth.
+
+These contradictory prophecies found in the Jewish books seem to excuse
+their obstinacy, and give good reason for the embarrassment of our
+theologians in their controversy with them. Further, those which we are
+about to relate of other people, prove that the author of Numbers, the
+apostles and fathers, recognized prophets in all nations. The Arabs
+also pretend this, who reckon a hundred and eighty thousand prophets
+from the creation of the world to Mahomet, and believe that each of them
+was sent to a particular nation. We shall speak of prophetesses in the
+article on "Sibyls."
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+Prophets still exist: we had two at the Bicêtre in 1723, both calling
+themselves Elias. They were whipped; which put it out of all doubt.
+Before the prophets of Cévennes, who fired off their guns from behind
+hedges in the name of the Lord in 1704, Holland had the famous Peter
+Jurieu, who published the "Accomplishment of the Prophecies." But that
+Holland may not be too proud, he was born in France, in a little town
+called Mer, near Orleans. However, it must be confessed that it was at
+Rotterdam alone that God called him to prophesy.
+
+This Jurieu, like many others, saw clearly that the pope was the beast
+in the "Apocalypse," that he held "_poculum aureum plenum
+abominationum_," the golden cup full of abominations; that the four
+first letters of these four Latin words formed the word papa; that
+consequently his reign was about to finish; that the Jews would re-enter
+Jerusalem; that they would reign over the whole world during a thousand
+years; after which would come the Antichrist; finally, Jesus seated on a
+cloud would judge the quick and the dead.
+
+Jurieu prophesies expressly that the time of the great revolution and
+the entire fall of papistry "will fall justly in the year 1689, which I
+hold," says he, "to be the time of the apocalyptic vintage, for the two
+witnesses will revive at this time; after which, France will break with
+the pope before the end of this century, or at the commencement of the
+next, and the rest of the anti-Christian empire will be everywhere
+abolished."
+
+The disjunctive particle "or," that sign of doubt, is not in the manner
+of an adroit man. A prophet should not hesitate; he may be obscure, but
+he ought to be sure of his fact.
+
+The revolution in papistry not happening in 1689, as Peter Jurieu
+predicted, he quickly published a new edition, in which he assured the
+public that it would be in 1690; and, what is more astonishing, this
+edition was immediately followed by another. It would have been very
+beneficial if Bayle's "Dictionary" had had such a run in the first
+instance; the works of the latter have, however, remained, while those
+of Peter Jurieu are not even to be found by the side of Nostradamus.
+
+All was not left to a single prophet. An English Presbyterian, who
+studied at Utrecht, combated all which Jurieu said on the seven vials
+and seven trumpets of the Apocalypse, on the reign of a thousand years,
+the conversion of the Jews, and even on Antichrist. Each supported
+himself by the authority of Cocceius, Coterus, Drabicius, and Commenius,
+great preceding prophets, and by the prophetess Christina. The two
+champions confined themselves to writing; we hoped they would give each
+other blows, as Zedekiah smacked the face of Micaiah, saying: "Which way
+went the spirit of the Lord from my hand to thy cheek?" or literally:
+"How has the spirit passed from thee to me?" The public had not this
+satisfaction, which is a great pity.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+It belongs to the infallible church alone to fix the true sense of
+prophecies, for the Jews have always maintained, with their usual
+obstinacy, that no prophecy could regard Jesus Christ; and the Fathers
+of the Church could not dispute with them with advantage, since, except
+St. Ephrem, the great Origen, and St. Jerome, there was never any Father
+of the Church who knew a word of Hebrew.
+
+It is not until the ninth century that Raban the Moor, afterwards bishop
+of Mayence, learned the Jewish language. His example was followed by
+some others, and then they began disputing with the rabbi on the sense
+of the prophecies.
+
+Raban was astonished at the blasphemies which they uttered against our
+Saviour; calling Him a bastard, impious son of Panther, and saying that
+it is not permitted them to pray to God without cursing Jesus: "_Quod
+nulla oratio posset apud Deum accepta esse nisi in ea Dominum nostrum
+Jesum Christum maledicant. Confitentes eum esse impium et filium impii,
+id est, nescio cujus æthnici quern nominant Panthera, a quo dicunt
+matrem Domini adulteratam._"
+
+These horrible profanations are found in several places in the "Talmud,"
+in the books of Nizachon, in the dispute of Rittangel, in those of
+Jechiel and Nachmanides, entitled the "Bulwark of Faith," and above all
+in the abominable work of the Toldos Jeschut. It is particularly in the
+"Bulwark of Faith" of the Rabbin Isaac, that they interpret all the
+prophecies which announce Jesus Christ by applying them to other
+persons.
+
+We are there assured that the Trinity is not alluded to in any Hebrew
+book, and that there is not found in them the slightest trace of our
+holy religion. On the contrary, they point out a hundred passages,
+which, according to them, assert that the Mosaic law should eternally
+remain.
+
+The famous passage which should confound the Jews, and make the
+Christian religion triumph in the opinion of all our great theologians,
+is that of Isaiah: "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and
+shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may
+know how to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child
+shall know how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that
+thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings. And it shall come to
+pass in that day, that the Lord shall whistle for the flies that are in
+the brooks of Egypt, and for the bees that are in the land of Assyria.
+In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired,
+namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head and
+the hair of the genitals, and he will also consume the beard.
+
+"Moreover, the Lord said unto me, take thee a great roll, and write
+in it with a man's pen concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz. And I took
+unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zachariah
+the son of Jeberechiah. And I went in unto the prophetess; and
+she conceived and bare a son; then said the Lord to me, call his name
+Maher-shalal-hash-baz. For before the child shall have knowledge to
+cry my father and my mother, the riches of Damascus, and the spoil of
+Samaria, shall be taken away before the king of Assyria."
+
+The Rabbin Isaac affirms, with all the other doctors of his law, that
+the Hebrew word "alma" sometimes signifies a virgin and sometimes a
+married woman; that Ruth is called "alma" when she was a mother; that
+even an adulteress is sometimes called "alma"; that nobody is meant here
+but the wife of the prophet Isaiah; that her son was not called
+Immanuel, but Maher-shalal-hash-baz; that when this son should eat honey
+and butter, the two kings who besieged Jerusalem would be driven from
+the country, etc.
+
+Thus these blind interpreters of their own religion, and their own
+language, combated with the Church, and obstinately maintained, that
+this prophecy cannot in any manner regard Jesus Christ. We have a
+thousand times refuted their explication in our modern languages. We
+have employed force, gibbets, racks, and flames; yet they will not give
+up.
+
+"He has borne our ills, he has sustained our griefs, and we have beheld
+him afflicted with sores, stricken by God, and afflicted." However
+striking this prediction may appear to us, these obstinate Jews say that
+it has no relationship to Jesus Christ, and that it can only regard the
+prophets who were persecuted for the sins of the people.
+
+"And behold my servant shall prosper, shall be honored, and raised very
+high." They say, further, that the foregoing passage regards not Jesus
+Christ but David; that this king really did prosper, but that Jesus,
+whom they deny, did not prosper. "Behold I will make a new pact with the
+house of Israel, and with the house of Judah." They say that this
+passage signifies not, according to the letter and the sense, anything
+more than--I will renew my covenant with Judah and with Israel. However,
+this pact has not been renewed; and they cannot make a worse bargain
+than they have made. No matter, they are obstinate.
+
+"But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands
+of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth a ruler in Israel; whose
+goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."
+
+They dare to deny that this prophecy applies to Jesus Christ. They say
+that it is evident that Micah speaks of some native captain of
+Bethlehem, who shall gain some advantage in the war against the
+Babylonians: for the moment after he speaks of the history of Babylon,
+and of the seven captains who elected Darius. And if we demonstrate that
+he treated of the Messiah, they still will not agree.
+
+The Jews are grossly deceived in Judah, who should be a lion, and who
+has only been an ass under the Persians, Alexander, the Seleucides,
+Ptolemys, Romans, Arabs, and Turks.
+
+They know not what is understood by the Shiloh, and by the rod, and the
+thigh of Judah. The rod has been in Judæa but a very short time. They
+say miserable things; but the Abbé Houteville says not much more with
+his phrases, his neologism, and oratorical eloquence; a writer who
+always puts words in the place of things, and who proposes very
+difficult objections merely to reply to them by frothy discourse, or
+idle words!
+
+All this is, therefore, labor in vain; and when the French abbé would
+make a still larger book, when he would add to the five or six thousand
+volumes which we have on the subject, we shall only be more fatigued,
+without advancing a single step.
+
+We are, therefore, plunged in a chaos which it is impossible for the
+weakness of the human mind to set in order. Once more, we have need of a
+church which judges without appeal. For in fact, if a Chinese, a Tartar,
+or an African, reduced to the misfortune of having only good sense, read
+all these prophecies, it would be impossible for him to apply them to
+Jesus Christ, the Jews, or to anyone else. He would be in astonishment
+and uncertainty, would conceive nothing, and would not have a single
+distinct idea. He could not take a step in this abyss without a guide.
+With this guide, he arrives not only at the sanctuary of virtue, but at
+good canon-ships, at large commanderies, opulent abbeys, the crosiered
+and mitred abbots of which are called monseigneur by his monks and
+peasants, and to bishoprics which give the title of prince. In a word,
+he enjoys earth, and is sure of possessing heaven.
+
+
+
+
+PROPHETS.
+
+
+The prophet Jurieu was hissed; the prophets of the Cévennes were hanged
+or racked; the prophets who went from Languedoc and Dauphiny to London
+were put in the pillory; the Anabaptist prophets were condemned to
+various modes and degrees of punishment; and the prophet Savonarola was
+baked at Florence. If, in connection with these, we may advert to the
+case of the genuine Jewish prophets, we shall perceive their destiny to
+have been no less unfortunate; the greatest prophet among the Jews, St.
+John the Baptist, was beheaded.
+
+Zachariah is stated to have been assassinated; but, happily, this is not
+absolutely proved. The prophet Jeddo, or Addo, who was sent to Bethel
+under the injunction neither to eat nor drink, having unfortunately
+tasted a morsel of bread, was devoured in his turn by a lion; and his
+bones were found on the highway between the lion and his ass. Jonah was
+swallowed by a fish. He did not, it is true, remain in the fish's
+stomach more than three days and three nights; even this, however, was
+passing threescore and twelve hours very uncomfortably.
+
+Habakkuk was transported through the air, suspended by the hair of his
+head, to Babylon; this was not a fatal or permanent calamity, certainly;
+but it must have been an exceedingly uncomfortable method of travelling.
+A man could not help suffering a great deal by being suspended by his
+hair during a journey of three hundred miles. I certainly should have
+preferred a pair of wings, or the mare Borak, or the Hippogriffe.
+
+Micaiah, the son of Imla, saw the Lord seated on His throne, surrounded
+by His army of celestial spirits; and the Lord having inquired who could
+be found to go and deceive King Ahab, a demon volunteered for that
+purpose, and was accordingly charged with the commission; and Micaiah,
+on the part of the Lord, gave King Ahab an account of this celestial
+adventure. He was rewarded for this communication by a tremendous blow
+on his face from the hand of the prophet Zedekiah, and by being shut up
+for some days in a dungeon. His punishment might undoubtedly have been
+more severe; but still, it is unpleasant and painful enough for a man
+who knows and feels himself divinely inspired to be knocked about in so
+coarse and vulgar a manner, and confined in a damp and dirty hole of a
+prison.
+
+It is believed that King Amaziah had the teeth of the prophet Amos
+pulled out to prevent him from speaking; not that a person without teeth
+is absolutely incapable of speaking, as we see many toothless old ladies
+as loquacious and chattering as ever; but a prophecy should be uttered
+with great distinctness; and a toothless prophet is never listened to
+with the respect due to his character.
+
+Baruch experienced various persecutions. Ezekiel was stoned by the
+companions of his slavery. It is not ascertained whether Jeremiah was
+stoned or sawed asunder. Isaiah is considered as having been
+incontestably sawed to death by order of Manasseh, king of Judah.
+
+It cannot be denied, that the occupation of a prophet is exceedingly
+irksome and dangerous. For one who, like Elijah, sets off on his tour
+among the planets in a chariot of light, drawn by four white horses,
+there are a hundred who travel on foot, and are obliged to beg their
+subsistence from door to door. They may be compared to Homer, who, we
+are told, was reduced to be a mendicant in the same seven cities which
+afterwards sharply disputed with each other the honor of having given
+him birth. His commentators have attributed to him an infinity of
+allegories which he never even thought of; and prophets have frequently
+had the like honor conferred upon them. I by no means deny that there
+may have existed elsewhere persons possessed of a knowledge of the
+future. It is only requisite for a man to work up his soul to a high
+state of excitation, according to the doctrine of one of our doughty
+modern philosophers, who speculates upon boring the earth through to the
+Antipodes, and curing the sick by covering them all over with
+pitch-plaster.
+
+The Jews possessed this faculty of exalting and exciting the soul to
+such a degree that they saw every future event as clearly as possible;
+only unfortunately, it is difficult to decide whether by Jerusalem they
+always mean eternal life; whether Babylon means London or Paris;
+whether, when they speak of a grand dinner, they really mean a fast, and
+whether red wine means blood, and a red mantle faith, and a white mantle
+charity. Indeed, the correct and complete understanding of the prophets
+is the most arduous attainment of the human mind.
+
+There is likewise a further difficulty with respect to the Jewish
+prophets, which is, that many among them were Samaritan heretics. Hosea
+was of the tribe of Issachar, which dwelt in the Samaritan territory,
+and Elisha and Elijah were of the same tribe. But the objection is very
+easily answered. We well know that "the wind bloweth where it listeth,"
+and that grace lights on the most dry and barren, as well as on the most
+fertile soil.
+
+
+
+
+PROVIDENCE.
+
+
+I was at the grate of the convent when Sister Fessue said to Sister
+Confite: "Providence takes a visible care of me; you know how I love my
+sparrow; he would have been dead if I had not said nine ave-marias to
+obtain his cure. God has restored my sparrow to life; thanks to the Holy
+Virgin."
+
+A metaphysician said to her: "Sister, there is nothing so good as
+ave-marias, especially when a girl pronounces them in Latin in the
+suburbs of Paris; but I cannot believe that God has occupied Himself so
+much with your sparrow, pretty as he is; I pray you to believe that He
+has other matters to attend to. It is necessary for Him constantly to
+superintend the course of sixteen planets and the rising of Saturn, in
+the centre of which He has placed the sun, which is as large as a
+million of our globes. He has also thousands and thousands of millions
+of other suns, planets, and comets to govern. His immutable laws, and
+His eternal arrangement, produce motion throughout nature; all is bound
+to His throne by an infinite chain, of which no link can ever be put out
+of place!" If certain ave-marias had caused the sparrow of Sister Fessue
+to live an instant longer than it would naturally have lived, it would
+have violated all the laws imposed from eternity by the Great Being; it
+would have deranged the universe; a new world, a new God, and a new
+order of existence would have been rendered unavoidable.
+
+SISTER FESSUE.--What! do you think that God pays so little attention to
+Sister Fessue?
+
+METAPHYSICIAN.--I am sorry to inform you, that like myself you are but
+an imperceptible link in the great chain; that your organs, those of
+your sparrow, and my own, are destined to subsist a determinate number
+of minutes in the suburbs of Paris.
+
+SISTER FESSUE.--If so, I was predestined to say a certain number of
+ave-marias.
+
+METAPHYSICIAN.--Yes; but they have not obliged the Deity to prolong the
+life of your sparrow beyond his term. It has been so ordered, that in
+this convent at a certain hour you should pronounce, like a parrot,
+certain words in a certain language which you do not understand; that
+this bird, produced like yourself by the irresistible action of general
+laws, having been sick, should get better; that you should imagine that
+you had cured it, and that we should hold together this conversation.
+
+SISTER FESSUE.--Sir, this discourse savors of heresy. My confessor, the
+reverend Father de Menou, will infer that you do not believe in
+Providence.
+
+METAPHYSICIAN.--I believe in a general Providence, dear sister, which
+has laid down from all eternity the law which governs all things, like
+light from the sun; but I believe not that a particular Providence
+changes the economy of the world for your sparrow or your cat.
+
+SISTER FESSUE.--But suppose my confessor tells you, as he has told me,
+that God changes His intentions every day in favor of the devout?
+
+METAPHYSICIAN.--He would assert the greatest absurdity that a confessor
+of girls could possibly utter to a being who thinks.
+
+SISTER FESSUE.--My confessor absurd! Holy Virgin Mary!
+
+METAPHYSICIAN.--I do not go so far as that. I only observe that he
+cannot, by an enormously absurd assertion, justify the false principles
+which he has instilled into you--possibly very adroitly--in order to
+govern you.
+
+SISTER FESSUE.--That observation merits reflection. I will think of it.
+
+
+
+
+PURGATORY.
+
+
+It is very singular that the Protestant churches agree in exclaiming
+that purgatory was invented by the monks. It is true that they invented
+the art of drawing money from the living by praying to God for the dead;
+but purgatory existed before the monks.
+
+It was Pope John XIV., say they, who, towards the middle of the tenth
+century, instituted the feast of the dead. From that fact, however, I
+only conclude that they were prayed for before; for if they then took
+measures to pray for all, it is reasonable to believe that they had
+previously prayed for some of them; in the same way as the feast of All
+Saints was instituted, because the feast of many of them had been
+previously celebrated. The difference between the feast of All Saints
+and that of the dead, is, that in the first we invoke, and that in the
+second we are invoked; in the former we commend ourselves to the
+blessed, and in the second the unblessed commend themselves to us.
+
+The most ignorant writers know, that this feast was first instituted at
+Cluny, which was then a territory belonging to the German Empire. Is it
+necessary to repeat, "that St. Odilon, abbot of Cluny, was accustomed to
+deliver many souls from purgatory by his masses and his prayers; and
+that one day a knight or a monk, returning from the holy land, was cast
+by a tempest, on a small island, where he met with a hermit, who said to
+him, that in that island existed enormous caverns of fire and flames, in
+which the wicked were tormented; and that he often heard the devils
+complain of the Abbot Odilon and his monks, who every day delivered some
+soul or other; for which reason it was necessary to request Odilon to
+continue his exertions, at once to increase the joy of the saints in
+heaven and the grief of the demons in hell?"
+
+It is thus that Father Gerard, the Jesuit, relates the affair in his
+"Flower of the Saints," after Father Ribadeneira. Fleury differs a
+little from this legend, but has substantively preserved it. This
+revelation induced St. Odilon to institute in Cluny the feast of the
+dead, which was then adopted by the Church.
+
+Since this time, purgatory has brought much money to those who possess
+the power of opening the gates. It was by virtue of this power that
+English John, that great landlord, surnamed Lackland, by declaring
+himself the liegeman of Pope Innocent III., and placing his kingdom
+under submission, delivered the souls of his parents, who had been
+excommunicated: "_Pro mortuo excommunico, pro quo supplicant
+consanguinei._"
+
+The Roman chancery had even its regular scale for the absolution of the
+dead; there were many privileged altars in the fifteenth century, at
+which every mass performed for six liards delivered a soul from
+purgatory. Heretics could not ascend beyond the truth, that the apostles
+had the right of unbinding all who were bound on earth, but not _under_
+the earth; and many of them, like impious persons, doubted the power of
+the keys. It is however to be remarked, that when the pope is inclined
+to remit five or six hundred years of purgatory, he accords the grace
+with full power: "_Pro potestate a Deo accepta concedit_."
+
+_Of the Antiquity of Purgatory._
+
+It is pretended that purgatory was, from time immemorial, known to the
+famous Jewish people, and it is founded on the second book of the
+Maccabees, which says expressly, "that there being found concealed in
+the vestments of the Jews (at the battle of Adullam), things consecrated
+to the idols of Jamma, it was manifest that on that account they had
+perished; and having made a gathering of twelve thousand drachms of
+silver, Judas, who thought religiously of the resurrection, sent them to
+Jerusalem for the sins of the dead."
+
+Having taken upon ourselves the task of relating the objections of the
+heretics and infidels, for the purpose of confounding them by their own
+opinions, we will detail here these objections to the twelve thousand
+drachms transmitted by Judas; and to purgatory. They say: 1. That twelve
+thousand drachms of silver was too much for Judas Maccabeus, who only
+maintained a petty war of insurgency against a great king.
+
+2. That they might send a present to Jerusalem for the sins of the dead,
+in order to bring down the blessing of God on the survivors.
+
+3. That the idea of a resurrection was not entertained among the Jews at
+this time, it being ascertained that this doctrine was not discussed
+among them until the time of Gamaliel, a little before the ministry of
+Jesus Christ.
+
+4. As the laws of the Jews included in the "Decalogue," Leviticus and
+Deuteronomy, have not spoken of the immortality of the soul, nor of the
+torments of hell, it was impossible that they should contain the
+doctrine of purgatory.
+
+5. Heretics and infidels make the greatest efforts to demonstrate in
+their manner, that the books of the Maccabees are evidently apocryphal.
+The following are their pretended proofs:
+
+The Jews have never acknowledged the books of the Maccabees to be
+canonical, why then should we acknowledge them? Origen declares formally
+that the books of the Maccabees are to be rejected, and St. Jerome
+regards them as unworthy of credit. The Council of Laodicea, held in
+567, admits them not among the canonical books. The Athanasiuses, the
+Cyrils, and the Hilarys, have also rejected them. The reasons for
+treating the foregoing books as romances, and as very bad romances, are
+as follows:
+
+The ignorant author commences by a falsehood, known to be such by all
+the world. He says: "Alexander called the young nobles, who had been
+educated with him from their infancy, and parted his kingdom among them
+while he still lived." So gross and absurd a lie could not issue from
+the pen of a sacred and inspired writer.
+
+The author of the Maccabees, in speaking of Antiochus Epiphanes, says:
+"Antiochus marched towards Elymais, and wished to pillage it, but was
+not able, because his intention was known to the inhabitants, who
+assembled in order to give him battle, on which he departed with great
+sadness, and returned to Babylon. Whilst he was still in Persia, he
+learned that his army in Judæa had fled ... and he took to his bed and
+died."
+
+The same writer himself, in another place, says quite the contrary; for
+he relates that Antiochus Epiphanes was about to pillage Persepolis, and
+not Elymais; that he fell from his chariot; that he was stricken with an
+incurable wound; that he was devoured by worms; that he demanded pardon
+of the god of the Jews; that he wished himself to be a Jew: it is there
+where we find the celebrated versicle, which fanatics have applied so
+frequently to their enemies; "_Orabet scelestus ille veniam quam non
+erat consecuturus_." The wicked man demandeth a pardon, which he cannot
+obtain. This passage is very Jewish; but it is not permitted to an
+inspired writer to contradict himself so flagrantly.
+
+This is not all: behold another contradiction, and another oversight.
+The author makes Antiochus die in a third manner, so that there is quite
+a choice. He remarks that this prince was stoned in the temple of
+Nanneus; and those who would excuse the stupidity pretend that he here
+speaks of Antiochus Eupator; but neither Epiphanes nor Eupator was
+stoned.
+
+Moreover, this author says, that another Antiochus (the Great) was taken
+by the Romans, and that they gave to Eumenes the Indies and Media. This
+is about equal to saying that Francis I. made a prisoner of Henry VIII.,
+and that he gave Turkey to the duke of Savoy. It is insulting the Holy
+Ghost to imagine it capable of dictating so many disgusting absurdities.
+
+The same author says, that the Romans conquered the Galatians; but they
+did not conquer Galatia for more than a hundred years after. Thus the
+unhappy story-teller did not write for more than a hundred years after
+the time in which it was supposed that he wrote: and it is thus,
+according to the infidels, with almost all the Jewish books.
+
+The same author observes, that the Romans every year nominated a chief
+of the senate. Behold a well-informed man, who did not even know that
+Rome had two consuls! What reliance, say infidels, can be placed in
+these rhapsodies and puerile tales, strung together without choice or
+order by the most imbecile of men? How shameful to believe in them! and
+the barbarity of persecuting sensible men, in order to force a belief of
+miserable absurdities, for which they could not but entertain the most
+sovereign contempt, is equal to that of cannibals.
+
+Our answer is, that some mistakes which probably arose from the copyists
+may not affect the fundamental truths of the remainder; that the Holy
+Ghost inspired the author only, and not the copyists; that if the
+Council of Laodicea rejected the Maccabees, they have been admitted by
+the Council of Trent; that they are admitted by the Roman Church; and
+consequently that we ought to receive them with due submission.
+
+_Of the Origin of Purgatory._
+
+It is certain that those who admitted of purgatory in the primitive
+church were treated as heretics. The Simonians were condemned who
+admitted the purgation of souls--_Psuken Kadaron._
+
+St. Augustine has since condemned the followers of Origen who maintained
+this doctrine. But the Simonians and the Origenists had taken their
+purgatory from Virgil, Plato and the Egyptians. You will find it clearly
+indicated in the sixth book of the "Æneid," as we have already remarked.
+What is still more singular, Virgil describes souls suspended in air,
+others burned, and others drowned:
+
+                     _Aliæ panduntur inanes_
+     _Suspensæ ad ventos: aliis sub gurgite vasto_
+     _Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni._
+                               --Æneid, Book vi, 740-742.
+
+     For this are various penances enjoined,
+     And some are hung to bleach upon the wind;
+     Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires,
+     Till all the dregs are drained, and all the rust expires.
+                                                     --DRYDEN.
+
+And what is more singular still, Pope Gregory, surnamed the great, not
+only adopts this doctrine from Virgil, but in his theology introduces
+many souls who arrive from purgatory after having been hanged or
+drowned.
+
+Plato has spoken of purgatory in his "Phædon," and it is easy to
+discover, by a perusal of "Hermes Trismegistus" that Plato borrowed from
+the Egyptians all which he had not borrowed from Timæus of Locris.
+
+All this is very recent, and of yesterday, in comparison with the
+ancient Brahmins. The latter, it must be confessed, invented purgatory
+in the same manner as they invented the revolt and fall of the genii or
+celestial intelligences.
+
+It is in their Shasta, or Shastabad, written three thousand years before
+the vulgar era, that you, my dear reader, will discover the doctrine of
+purgatory. The rebel angels, of whom the history was copied among the
+Jews in the time of the rabbin Gamaliel, were condemned by the Eternal
+and His Son, to a thousand years of purgatory, after which God pardoned
+and made them men. This we have already said, dear reader, as also that
+the Brahmins found eternal punishment too severe, as eternity never
+concludes. The Brahmins thought like the Abbé Chaulieu, and called upon
+the Lord to pardon them, if, impressed with His bounties, they could not
+be brought to conceive that they would be punished so rigorously for
+vain pleasures, which passed away like a dream:
+
+     Pardonne alors, Seigneur, si, plein de tes bontés,
+     Je n'ai pu concevoir que mes fragilités,
+     Ni tous ces vains plaisirs que passent comme un songe,
+     Pussent être l'objet de tes sévérités;
+     Et si j'ai pu penser que tant des cruautés.
+     Puniraient un peu trop la douceur d'un mensonge.
+             --EPITRE SUR LA MORT, au Marquis de la Fare.
+
+
+
+
+QUACK (OR CHARLATAN).
+
+
+The abode of physicians is in large towns; there are scarcely any in
+country places. Great towns contain rich patients; debauchery, excess at
+the tables, and the passions, cause their maladies. Dumoulin, the
+physician, who was in as much practice as any of his profession, said
+when dying that he left two great physicians behind him--simple diet and
+soft water.
+
+In 1728, in the time of Law, the most famous of quacks of the first
+class, another named Villars, confided to some friends, that his uncle,
+who had lived to the age of nearly a hundred, and who was then killed by
+an accident, had left him the secret of a water which could easily
+prolong life to the age of one hundred and fifty, provided sobriety was
+attended to. When a funeral passed, he affected to shrug up his
+shoulders in pity: "Had the deceased," he exclaimed, "but drank my
+water, he would not be where he is." His friends, to whom he generously
+imparted it, and who attended a little to the regimen prescribed, found
+themselves well, and cried it up. He then sold it for six francs the
+bottle, and the sale was prodigious. It was the water of the Seine,
+impregnated with a small quantity of nitre, and those who took it and
+confined themselves a little to the regimen, but above all those who
+were born with a good constitution, in a short time recovered perfect
+health. He said to others: "It is your own fault if you are not
+perfectly cured. You have been intemperate and incontinent, correct
+yourself of these two vices, and you will live a hundred and fifty years
+at least." Several did so, and the fortune of this good quack augmented
+with his reputation. The enthusiastic Abbé de Pons ranked him much above
+his namesake, Marshal Villars. "He caused the death of men," he
+observed to him, "whereas you make men live."
+
+It being at last discovered that the water of Villars was only river
+water, people took no more of it, and resorted to other quacks in lieu
+of him. It is certain that he did much good, and he can only be accused
+of selling the Seine water too dear. He advised men to temperance, and
+so far was superior to the apothecary Arnault, who amused Europe with
+the farce of his specific against apoplexy, without recommending any
+virtue.
+
+I knew a physician of London named Brown, who had practised at
+Barbadoes. He had a sugar-house and negroes, and the latter stole from
+him a considerable sum. He accordingly assembled his negroes together,
+and thus addressed them: "My friends," said he to them, "the great
+serpent has appeared to me during the night, and has informed me that
+the thief has at this moment a paroquet's feather at the end of his
+nose." The criminal instantly applied his hand to his nose. "It is thou
+who hast robbed me," exclaimed the master; "the great serpent has just
+informed me so;" and he recovered his money. This quackery is scarcely
+condemnable, but then it is applicable only to negroes.
+
+The first Scipio Africanus, a very different person from the physician
+Brown, made his soldiers believe that he was inspired by the gods. This
+grand charlatanism was in use for a long time. Was Scipio to be blamed
+for assisting himself by the means of this pretension? He was possibly
+the man who did most honor to the Roman republic; but why the gods
+should inspire him has never been explained.
+
+Numa did better: he civilized robbers, and swayed a senate composed of a
+portion of them which was the most difficult to govern. If he had
+proposed his laws to the assembled tribes, the assassins of his
+predecessor would have started a thousand difficulties. He addressed
+himself to the goddess Egeria, who favored him with pandects from
+Jupiter; he was obeyed without a murmur, and reigned happily. His
+instructions were sound, his charlatanism did good; but if some secret
+enemy had discovered his knavery, and had said, "Let us exterminate an
+impostor who prostitutes the names of the gods in order to deceive men,"
+he would have run the risk of being sent to heaven like Romulus. It is
+probable that Numa took his measures ably, and that he deceived the
+Romans for their own benefit, by a policy adapted to the time, the
+place, and the early manners of the people.
+
+Mahomet was twenty times on the point of failure, but at length
+succeeded with the Arabs of Medina, who believed him the intimate friend
+of the angel Gabriel. If any one at present was to announce in
+Constantinople that he was favored by the angel Raphael, who is superior
+to Gabriel in dignity, and that he alone was to be believed, he would
+be publicly empaled. Quacks should know their time.
+
+Was there not a little quackery in Socrates with his familiar dæmon, and
+the express declaration of Apollo, that he was the wisest of all men?
+How can Rollin in his history reason from this oracle? Why not inform
+youth that it was a pure imposition? Socrates chose his time ill: about
+a hundred years before he might have governed Athens.
+
+Every chief of a sect in philosophy has been a little of a quack; but
+the greatest of all have been those who have aspired to govern. Cromwell
+was the most terrible of all quacks, and appeared precisely at a time in
+which he could succeed. Under Elizabeth he would have been hanged; under
+Charles II., laughed at. Fortunately for himself he came at a time when
+people were disgusted with kings: his son followed, when they were weary
+of protectors.
+
+_Of the Quackery of Sciences and of Literature._
+
+The followers of science have never been able to dispense with quackery.
+Each would have his opinions prevail; the subtle doctor would eclipse
+the angelic doctor, and the profound doctor would reign alone. Everyone
+erects his own system of physics, metaphysics, and scholastic theology;
+and the question is, who will value his merchandise? You have dependants
+who cry it up, fools who believe you, and protectors on whom to lean.
+Can there be greater quackery than the substitution of words for things,
+or than a wish to make others believe what we do not believe ourselves?
+
+One establishes vortices of subtile matter, branched, globular, and
+tubular; another, elements of matter which are not matter, and a
+pre-established harmony which makes the clock of the body sound the
+hour, when the needle of the clock of the soul is duly pointed. These
+chimeras found partisans for many years, and when these ideas went out
+of fashion, new pretenders to inspiration mounted upon the ambulatory
+stage. They banished the germs of the world, asserted that the sea
+produced mountains, and that men were formerly fishes.
+
+How much quackery has always pervaded history: either by astonishing the
+reader with prodigies, tickling the malignity of human nature with
+satire, or by flattering the families of tyrants with infamous eulogies!
+
+The unhappy class who write in order to live, are quacks of another
+kind. A poor man who has no trade, and has had the misfortune to have
+been at college, thinks that he knows how to write, and repairing to a
+neighboring bookseller, demands employment. The bookseller knows that
+most persons keeping houses are desirous of small libraries, and require
+abridgments and new tables, orders an abridgment of the history of Rapin
+Thoyras, or of the church; a collection of _bon mots_ from the
+Menagiana, or a dictionary of great men, in which some obscure pedant
+is placed by the side of Cicero, and a sonneteer of Italy as near as
+possible to Virgil.
+
+Another bookseller will order romances or the translation of romances.
+If you have no invention, he will say to his workman: You can collect
+adventures from the grand Cyrus, from Gusman d'Alfarache, from the
+"Secret Memoirs of a Man of Quality" or of a "Woman of Quality"; and
+from the total you will make a volume of four hundred pages.
+
+Another bookseller gives ten years' newspapers and almanacs to a man of
+genius, and says: You will make an abstract from all that, and in three
+months bring it me under the name of a faithful "History of the Times,"
+by M. le Chevalier ----, Lieutenant de Vaisseau, employed in the office
+for foreign affairs.
+
+Of this sort of books there are about fifty thousand in Europe, and the
+labor still goes on like the secret for whitening the skin, blackening
+the hair, and mixing up the universal remedy.
+
+
+
+
+RAVAILLAC.
+
+
+I knew in my infancy a canon of Péronne of the age of ninety-two years,
+who had been educated by one of the most furious burghers of the
+League--he always used to say, the late M. de Ravaillac. This canon had
+preserved many curious manuscripts of the apostolic times, although they
+did little honor to his party. The following is one of them, which he
+bequeathed to my uncle:
+
+_Dialogue of a Page of the Duke of Sully, and of Master Filesac, Doctor
+of the Sorbonne, one of the two Confessors of Ravaillac._
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--God be thanked, my dear page, Ravaillac has died like a
+saint. I heard his confession; he repented of his sin, and determined no
+more to fall into it. He wished to receive the holy sacrament, but it is
+not the custom here as at Rome; his penitence will serve in lieu of it,
+and it is certain that he is in paradise.
+
+PAGE.--He in paradise, in the Garden of Eden, the monster!
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--Yes, my fine lad, in that garden, or heaven, it is the
+same thing.
+
+PAGE.--I believe so; but he has taken a bad road to arrive there.
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--You talk like a young Huguenot. Learn that what I say
+to you partakes of faith. He possessed attrition, and attrition, joined
+to the sacrament of confession, infallibly works out the salvation which
+conducts straightway to paradise, where he is now praying to God for
+you.
+
+PAGE.--I have no wish that he should address God on my account. Let him
+go to the devil with his prayers and his attrition.
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--At the bottom, he was a good soul; his zeal led him to
+commit evil, but it was not with a bad intention. In all his
+interrogatories, he replied that he assassinated the king only because
+he was about to make war on the pope, and that he did so to serve God.
+His sentiments were very Christian-like. He is saved, I tell you; he was
+bound, and I have unbound him.
+
+PAGE.--In good faith, the more I listen to you the more I regard you as
+a man bound yourself. You excite horror in me.
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--It is because that you are not yet in the right way;
+but you will be one day. I have always said that you were not far from
+the kingdom of heaven; but your time is not yet come.
+
+PAGE.--And the time will never come in which I shall be made to believe
+that you have sent Ravaillac to the kingdom of heaven.
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--As soon as you shall be converted, which I hope will be
+the case, you will believe as I do; but in the meantime, be assured that
+you and the duke of Sully, your master, will be damned to all eternity
+with Judas Iscariot and the wicked rich man Dives, while Ravaillac will
+repose in the bosom of Abraham.
+
+PAGE.--How, scoundrel!
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--No abuse, my little son. It is forbidden to call our
+brother "_raca_," under the penalty of the _gehenna_ or hell fire.
+Permit me to instruct without enraging you.
+
+PAGE.--Go on; thou appearest to me so "_raca_," that I will be angry no
+more.
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--I therefore say to you, that agreeably to faith you
+will be damned, as unhappily our dear Henry IV. is already, as the
+Sorbonne always foresaw.
+
+PAGE.--My dear master damned! Listen to the wicked wretch! A cane! a
+cane!
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--Be patient, good young man; you promised to listen to
+me quietly. Is it not true that the great Henry died without confession?
+Is it not true that he died in the commission of mortal sin, being still
+amorous of the princess of Condé, and that he had not time to receive
+the sacrament of repentance, God having allowed him to be stabbed in the
+left ventricle of the heart, in consequence of which he was instantly
+suffocated with his own blood? You will absolutely find no good Catholic
+who will not say the same as I do.
+
+PAGE.--Hold thy tongue, master madman; if I thought that thy doctors
+taught a doctrine so abominable, I would burn them in their lodgings.
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--Once again, be calm; you have promised to be so. His
+lordship the marquis of Cochini, who is a good Catholic, will know how
+to prevent you from being guilty of the sacrilege of injuring my
+colleagues.
+
+PAGE.--But conscientiously, Master Filesac, does thy party really think
+in this manner?
+
+MASTER FILESAC.--Be assured of it; it is our catechism.
+
+PAGE.--Listen; for I must confess to thee, that one of thy Sorbonnists
+almost seduced me last year. He induced me to hope for a pension or a
+benefice. Since the king, he observed, has heard mass in Latin, you who
+are only a petty gentleman may also attend it without derogation. God
+takes care of His elect, giving them mitres, crosses, and prodigious
+sums of money, while you of the reformed doctrine go on foot, and can do
+nothing but write. I own I was staggered; but after what thou hast just
+said to me, I would rather a thousand times be a Mahometan than of thy
+creed.
+
+The page was wrong. We are not to become Mahometans because we are
+incensed; but we must pardon a feeling young man who loved Henry IV.
+Master Filesac spoke according to his theology; the page attended to his
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+REASONABLE, OR RIGHT.
+
+
+At the time that all France was carried away by the system of Law, and
+when he was comptroller-general, a man who was always in the right came
+to him one day and said:
+
+"Sir, you are the greatest madman, the greatest fool, or the greatest
+rogue, who has yet appeared among us. It is saying a great deal; but
+behold how I prove it. You have imagined that we may increase the riches
+of a state ten-fold by means of paper. But this paper only represents
+money, which is itself only a representative of genuine riches, the
+production of the earth and manufacture. It follows, therefore, that you
+should have commenced by giving us ten times as much corn, wine, cloth,
+linen, etc.; this is not enough, they must be certain of sale. Now you
+make ten times as many notes as we have money and commodities; ergo, you
+are ten times more insane, stupid, or roguish, than all the comptrollers
+or superintendents who have preceded you. Behold how rapidly I will
+prove my major."
+
+Scarcely had he commenced his major than he was conducted to St.
+Lazarus. When he came out of St. Lazarus, where he studied much and
+strengthened his reason, he went to Rome. He demanded a public audience,
+and that he should not be interrupted in his harangue. He addressed his
+holiness as follows:
+
+"Holy father, you are Antichrist, and behold how I will prove it to your
+holiness. I call him ante-Christ or antichrist, according to the meaning
+of the word, who does everything contrary to that which Christ
+commanded. Now Christ was poor, and you are very rich. He paid tribute,
+and you exact it. He submitted himself to the powers that be, and you
+have become one of them. He wandered on foot, and you visit Castle
+Gandolfo in a sumptuous carriage. He ate of all that which people were
+willing to give him, and you would have us eat fish on Fridays and
+Saturdays, even when we reside at a distance from the seas and rivers.
+He forbade Simon Barjonas using the sword, and you have many swords in
+your service, etc. In this sense, therefore, your holiness is
+Antichrist. In every other sense I exceedingly revere you, and request
+an indulgence '_in articulo mortis_.'"
+
+My free speaker was immediately confined in the castle of St. Angelo.
+When he came out of the castle of St. Angelo, he proceeded to Venice,
+and demanded an audience of the doge. "Your serenity," he exclaimed,
+"commits a great extravagance every year in marrying the sea; for, in
+the first place, people marry only once with the same person; secondly,
+your marriage resembles that of Harlequin, which was only half
+performed, as wanting the consent of one of the parties; thirdly, who
+has told you that, some day or other, the other maritime powers will not
+declare you incapable of consummating your marriage?"
+
+Having thus delivered his mind, he was shut up in the tower of St. Mark.
+When he came out of the tower of St. Mark, he proceeded to
+Constantinople, where he obtained an interview with the mufti, and thus
+addressed him: "Your religion contains some good points, such as the
+adoration of the Supreme Being, and the necessity of being just and
+charitable; nevertheless, it is a mere hash composed out of Judaism and
+a wearisome heap of stories from Mother Goose. If the archangel Gabriel
+had brought from some planet the leaves of the Koran to Mahomet, all
+Arabia would have beheld his descent. Nobody saw him, therefore Mahomet
+was a bold impostor, who deceived weak and ignorant people."
+
+He had scarcely pronounced these words before he was empaled;
+nevertheless, he had been all along in the right.
+
+
+
+
+RELICS.
+
+
+By this name are designated the remains or remaining parts of the body,
+or clothes, of a person placed after his death by the Church in the
+number of the blessed.
+
+It is clear that Jesus condemned only the hypocrisy of the Jews, in
+saying: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye
+build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the
+righteous." Thus orthodox Christians have an equal veneration for the
+relics and images of saints, and I know not what. Doctor Henry ventures
+to say that when bones or other relics are changed into worms, we must
+not adore these worms; the Jesuit Vasquez decided that the opinion of
+Henry is absurd and vain, for it signifies not in what manner corruption
+takes place; "consequently," says he, "we can adore relics as much under
+the form of worms as under that of ashes."
+
+However this may be, St. Cyril of Alexandria avows that the origin of
+relics is Pagan; and this is the description given of their worship by
+Theodoret, who lived in the commencement of the Christian era: "They
+run to the temples of martyrs," says this learned bishop, "some to
+demand the preservation of their health, others the cure of their
+maladies; and barren women for fruitfulness. After obtaining children,
+these women ask the preservation of them. Those who undertake voyages,
+pray the martyrs to accompany and conduct them; and on their return they
+testify to them their gratitude. They adore them not as gods, but they
+honor them as divine men; and conjure them to become their intercessors.
+
+"The offerings which are displayed in their temples are public proofs
+that those who have demanded with faith, have obtained the
+accomplishment of their vows and the cure of their disorders. Some hang
+up artificial eyes, others feet, and others hands of gold and silver.
+These monuments publish the virtue of those who are buried in these
+tombs, as their influence publishes that the god for whom they suffered
+is the true God. Thus Christians take care to give their children the
+names of martyrs, that they may be insured their protection."
+
+Finally, Theodoret adds, that the temples of the gods were demolished,
+and that the materials served for the construction of the temples of
+martyrs: "For the Lord," said he to the Pagans, "has substituted his
+dead for your gods; He has shown the vanity of the latter, and
+transferred to others the honors paid to them." It is of this that the
+famous sophist of Sardis complains bitterly in deploring the ruin of
+the temple of Serapis at Canopus, which was demolished by order of the
+emperor Theodosius I. in the year 389.
+
+"People," says Eunapius, "who had never heard of war, were, however,
+very valiant against the stones of this temple; and principally against
+the rich offerings with which it was filled. These holy places were
+given to monks, an infamous and useless class of people, who provided
+they wear a black and slovenly dress, hold a tyrannical authority over
+the minds of the people; and instead of the gods whom we acknowledge
+through the lights of reason, these monks give us heads of criminals,
+punished for their crimes, to adore, which they have salted in order to
+preserve them."
+
+The people are superstitious, and it is superstition which enchains
+them. The miracles forged on the subject of relics became a loadstone
+which attracted from all parts riches to the churches. Stupidity and
+credulity were carried so far that, in the year 386, the same Theodosius
+was obliged to make a law by which he forbade buried corpses to be
+transported from one place to another, or the relics of any martyr to be
+separated and sold.
+
+During the first three ages of Christianity they were contented with
+celebrating the day of the death of martyrs, which they called their
+natal day, by assembling in the cemeteries where their bodies lay, to
+pray for them, as we have remarked in the article on "Mass." They
+dreamed not then of a time in which Christians would raise temples to
+them, transport their ashes and bones from one place to another, show
+them in shrines, and finally make a traffic of them; which excited
+avarice to fill the world with false relics.
+
+But the Third Council of Carthage, held in the year 397, having inserted
+in the Scriptures the Apocalypse of St. John, the authenticity of which
+was till then contested, this passage of chapter vi., "I saw under the
+altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God"--authorized
+the custom of having relics of martyrs under the altars; and this
+practice was soon regarded so essential that St. Ambrose,
+notwithstanding the wishes of the people, would not consecrate a church
+where there were none; and in 692, the Council of Constantinople, in
+Trullo, even ordered all the altars to be demolished under which it
+found no relics.
+
+Another Council of Carthage, on the contrary, in the year 401, ordered
+bishops to build altars which might be seen everywhere, in fields and on
+high roads, in honor of martyrs; from which were here and there dug
+pretended relics, on dreams and vain revelations of all sorts of people.
+
+St. Augustine relates that towards the year 415, Lucian, the priest of a
+town called Caphargamata, some miles distant from Jerusalem, three times
+saw in a dream the learned Gamaliel, who declared to him that his body,
+that of Abibas his son, of St. Stephen, and Nicodemus, were buried in a
+part of his parish which he pointed out to him. He commanded him, on
+their part and his own, to leave them no longer neglected in the tomb in
+which they had been for some ages, but to go and tell John, bishop of
+Jerusalem, to come and dig them up immediately, if he would prevent the
+ills with which the world was threatened. Gamaliel added that this
+translation must be made in the episcopacy of John, who died about a
+year after. The order of heaven was that the body of St. Stephen should
+be transported to Jerusalem.
+
+Either Lucian did not clearly understand, or he was unfortunate--he dug
+and found nothing; which obliged the learned Jew to appear to a very
+simple and innocent monk, and indicate to him more precisely the place
+where the sacred relics lay. Lucian there found the treasure which he
+sought, according as God had revealed it unto him. In this tomb there
+was a stone on which was engraved the word "_cheliel_," which signifies
+"crown" in Hebrew, as "_stephanos_" does in Greek. On the opening of
+Stephen's coffin the earth trembled, a delightful odor issued, and a
+great number of sick were cured. The body of the saint was reduced to
+ashes, except the bones, which were transported to Jerusalem, and placed
+in the church of Sion. At the same hour there fell a great rain, until
+which they had had a great drouth.
+
+Avitus, a Spanish priest who was then in the East, translated into Latin
+this story, which Lucian wrote in Greek. As the Spaniard was the friend
+of Lucian, he obtained a small portion of the ashes of the saint, some
+bones full of an oil which was a visible proof of their holiness,
+surpassing newly-made perfumes, and the most agreeable odors. These
+relics, brought by Orosius into the island of Minorca, in eight days
+converted five hundred and forty Jews.
+
+They were afterwards informed by divers visions that some monks of Egypt
+had relics of St. Stephen which strangers had brought there. As the
+monks, not then being priests, had no churches of their own, they took
+this treasure to transport it to a church which was near Usala. Above
+the church some persons soon saw a star which seemed to come before the
+holy martyr. These relics did not remain long in this church; the bishop
+of Usala, finding it convenient to enrich his own, transported them,
+seated on a car, accompanied by a crowd of people, who sang the praises
+of God, attended by a great number of lights and tapers.
+
+In this manner the relics were borne to an elevated place in the church
+and placed on a throne ornamented with hangings. They were afterwards
+put on a little bed in a place which was locked up, but to which a
+little window was left, that cloths might be touched, which cured
+several disorders. A little dust collected on the shrine suddenly cured
+one that was paralytic. Flowers which had been presented to the saint,
+applied to the eyes of a blind man, gave him sight. There were even
+seven or eight corpses restored to life.
+
+St. Augustine, who endeavors to justify this worship by distinguishing
+it from that of adoration, which is due to God alone, is obliged to
+agree that he himself knew several Christians who adored sepulchres and
+images. "I know several who drink to great excess on the tombs, and who,
+in giving entertainments to the dead, fell themselves on those who were
+buried."
+
+Indeed, turning fresh from Paganism, and charmed to find deified men in
+the Christian church, though under other names, the people honored them
+as much as they had honored their false gods; and it would be grossly
+deceiving ourselves to judge of the ideas and practices of the populace
+by those of enlightened and philosophic bishops. We know that the sages
+among the Pagans made the same distinctions as our holy bishops. "We
+must," said Hierocles, "acknowledge and serve the gods so as to take
+great care to distinguish them from the supreme God, who is their author
+and father. We must not too greatly exalt their dignity. And finally the
+worship which we give them should relate to their sole creator, whom you
+may properly call the God of gods, because He is the Master of all, and
+the most excellent of all." Porphyrius, who, like St. Paul, terms the
+supreme God, the God who is above all things, adds that we must not
+sacrifice to Him anything that is sensible or material, because, being
+a pure Spirit, everything material is impure to Him. He can only be
+worthily honored by the thoughts and sentiments of a soul which is not
+tainted with any sinful passion.
+
+In a word, St. Augustine, in declaring with _naïveté_ that he dared not
+speak freely on several similar abuses on account of giving opportunity
+for scandal to pious persons or to pedants, shows that the bishops made
+use of the artifice to convert the Pagans, as St. Gregory recommended
+two centuries after to convert England. This pope, being consulted by
+the monk Augustine on some remains of ceremonies, half civil and half
+Pagan, which the newly converted English would not renounce, answered,
+"We cannot divest hard minds of all their habits at once; we reach not
+to the top of a steep rock by leaping, but by climbing step by step."
+
+The reply of the same pope to Constantina, the daughter of the emperor
+Tiberius Constantine, and the wife of Maurice, who demanded of him the
+head of St. Paul, to place in a temple which she had built in honor of
+this apostle, is no less remarkable. St. Gregory sent word to the
+princess that the bodies of saints shone with so many miracles that they
+dared not even approach their tombs to pray without being seized with
+fear. That his predecessor (Pelagius II.) wishing to remove some silver
+from the tomb of St. Peter to another place four feet distant, he
+appeared to him with frightful signs. That he (Gregory) wishing to make
+some repairs in the monument of St. Paul, as it had sunk a little in
+front, and he who had the care of the place having had the boldness to
+raise some bones which touched not the tomb of the apostle, to transport
+them elsewhere, he appeared to him also in a terrible manner, and he
+died immediately. That his predecessor also wishing to repair the tomb
+of St. Lawrence, the shroud which encircled the body of the martyr was
+imprudently discovered; and although the laborers were monks and
+officers of the church, they all died in the space of ten days because
+they had seen the body of the saint. That when the Romans gave relics,
+they never touched the sacred bodies, but contented themselves with
+putting some cloths, with which they approached them, in a box. That
+these cloths have the same virtue as relics, and perform as many
+miracles. That certain Greeks, doubting of this fact, Pope Leo took a
+pair of scissors, and in their presence cutting some of the cloth which
+had approached the holy bodies, blood came from it. That in the west of
+Rome it is a sacrilege to touch the bodies of saints; and that if any
+one attempts, he may be assured that his crime will not go unpunished.
+For which reason the Greeks cannot be persuaded to adopt the custom of
+transporting relics. That some Greeks daring to disinter some bodies in
+the night near the church of St. Paul, intending to transport them into
+their own country, were discovered, which persuaded them that the relics
+were false. That the easterns, pretending that the bodies of St. Peter
+and St. Paul belonged to them, came to Rome to take them to their own
+country; but arriving at the catacombs where these bodies repose, when
+they would have taken them, sudden lightning and terrible thunder
+dispersed the alarmed multitude and forced them to renounce their
+undertaking. That those who suggested to Constantina the demand of the
+head of St. Paul from him, had no other design than that of making him
+lose his favor. St. Gregory concludes with these words: "I have that
+confidence in God, that you will not be deprived of the fruit of your
+good will, nor of the virtue of the holy apostles, whom you love with
+all your heart and with all your mind; and that, if you have not their
+corporeal presence, you will always enjoy their protection."
+
+Yet the ecclesiastical history pretends that the translation of relics
+was equally frequent in the East and West; and the author of the notes
+to this letter further observes that the same St. Gregory afterwards
+gave several holy bodies, and that other popes have given so many as six
+or seven to one individual.
+
+After this, can we be astonished at the favor which relics find in the
+minds of people and kings? The sermons most commonly preached among the
+ancient French were composed on the relics of saints. It was thus that
+the kings Gontran, Sigebert, and Chilperic divided the states of
+Clotaire, and agreed to possess Paris in common. They made oath on the
+relics of St. Polyeuctus, St. Hilary, and St. Martin. Yet Chilperic
+possessed himself of the place and merely took the precaution of having
+a shrine, with a quantity of relics, which he had carried as a safeguard
+at the head of his troops, in hopes that the protection of these new
+patrons would shelter him from the punishment due to his perjury.
+Finally, the catechism of the Council of Trent approved of the custom of
+swearing by relics.
+
+It is further observed that the kings of France of the first and second
+races kept in their palaces a great number of relics; above all, the cap
+and mantle of St. Martin; and that they had them carried in their trains
+and in their armies. These relics were sent from the palaces to the
+provinces when an oath of fidelity was made to the king, or any treaty
+was concluded.
+
+
+
+
+RELIGION.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+The Epicureans, who had no religion, recommended retirement from public
+affairs, study, and concord. This sect was a society of friends, for
+friendship was their principal dogma. Atticus, Lucretius, Memmius, and a
+few other such men, might live very reputably together; this we see in
+all countries; philosophize as much as you please among yourselves. A
+set of amateurs may give a concert of refined and scientific music; but
+let them beware of performing such a concert before the ignorant and
+brutal vulgar, lest their instruments be broken over their heads. If you
+have but a village to govern, it _must_ have a religion.
+
+I speak not here of an error; but of the only good, the only necessary,
+the only proved, and the second revealed.
+
+Had it been possible for the human mind to have admitted a religion--I
+will not say at all approaching ours--but not so bad as all the other
+religions in the world--what would that religion have been?
+
+Would it not have been that which should propose to us the adoration of
+the supreme, only, infinite, eternal Being, the former of the world, who
+gives it motion and life, "_cui nec simile, nec secundum_"? That which
+should re-unite us to this Being of beings, as the reward of our
+virtues, and separate us from Him, as the chastisement of our crimes?
+
+That which should admit very few of the dogmas invented by unreasoning
+pride; those eternal subjects of disputation; and should teach a pure
+morality, about which there should never be any dispute?
+
+That which should not make the essence of worship consist in vain
+ceremonies, as that of spitting into your mouth, or that of taking from
+you one end of your prepuce, or of depriving you of one of your
+testicles--seeing that a man may fulfil all the social duties with two
+testicles and an entire foreskin, and without another's spitting into
+his mouth?
+
+That of serving one's neighbor for the love of God, instead of
+persecuting and butchering him in God's name? That which should tolerate
+all others, and which, meriting thus the goodwill of all, should alone
+be capable of making mankind a nation of brethren?
+
+That which should have august ceremonies, to strike the vulgar, without
+having mysteries to disgust the wise and irritate the incredulous?
+
+That which should offer men more encouragements to the social virtues
+than expiations for social crimes?
+
+That which should insure to its ministers a revenue large enough for
+their decent maintenance, but should never allow them to usurp dignities
+and power that might make them tyrants?
+
+That which should establish commodious retreats for sickness and old
+age, but never for idleness?
+
+A great part of this religion is already in the hearts of several
+princes; and it will prevail when the articles of perpetual peace,
+proposed by the abbé de St. Pierre, shall be signed by all potentates.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+Last night I was meditating; I was absorbed in the contemplation of
+nature, admiring the immensity, the courses, the relations of those
+infinite globes, which are above the admiration of the vulgar.
+
+I admired still more the intelligence that presides over this vast
+machinery. I said to myself: A man must be blind not to be impressed by
+this spectacle; he must be stupid not to recognize its author; he must
+be mad not to adore him. What tribute of adoration ought I to render
+him? Should not this tribute be the same throughout the extent of space,
+since the same Supreme Power reigns equally in all that extent?
+
+Does not a thinking being, inhabiting a star of the Milky Way, owe him
+the same homage as the thinking being on this little globe where we are?
+Light is the same to the dog-star as to us; morality, too, must be the
+same.
+
+If a feeling and thinking being in the dog-star is born of a tender
+father and mother, who have labored for his welfare, he owes them as
+much love and duty as we here owe to our parents. If any one in the
+Milky Way sees another lame and indigent, and does not relieve him,
+though able to do it, he is guilty in the sight of every globe.
+
+The heart has everywhere the same duties; on the steps of the throne of
+God, if He has a throne, and at the bottom of the great abyss, if there
+be an abyss.
+
+I was wrapt in these reflections, when one of those genii who fill the
+spaces between worlds, came down to me. I recognized the same aerial
+creature that had formerly appeared to me, to inform me that the
+judgments of God are different from ours, and how much a good action is
+preferable to controversy.
+
+He transported me into a desert covered all over with bones piled one
+upon another; and between these heaps of dead there were avenues of
+evergreen trees, and at the end of each avenue a tall man of august
+aspect gazing with compassion on these sad remains.
+
+"Alas! my archangel," said I, "whither have you brought me?" "To
+desolation," answered he. "And who are those fine old patriarchs whom I
+see motionless and melancholy at the end of those green avenues, and who
+seem to weep over this immense multitude of dead?" "Poor human creature!
+thou shalt know," replied the genius; "but, first, thou must weep."
+
+He began with the first heap. "These," said he, "are the twenty-three
+thousand Jews who danced before a calf, together with the twenty-four
+thousand who were slain while ravishing Midianitish women; the number of
+the slaughtered for similar offences or mistakes amounts to nearly three
+hundred thousand.
+
+"At the following avenues are the bones of Christians, butchered by one
+another on account of metaphysical disputes. They are divided into
+several piles of four centuries each; it was necessary to separate them;
+for had they been all together, they would have reached the sky."
+
+"What!" exclaimed I, "have brethren thus treated their brethren; and
+have I the misfortune to be one of this brotherhood?"
+
+[Illustration: Genius inspiring the muses.]
+
+"Here," said the spirit, "are twelve millions of Americans slain in
+their own country for not having been baptized." "Ah! My God! why were
+not these frightful skeletons left to whiten in the hemisphere where the
+bodies were born, and where they were murdered in so many various ways?
+Why are all these abominable monuments of barbarity and fanaticism
+assembled here?" "For thy instruction."
+
+"Since thou art willing to instruct me," said I to the genius, "tell me
+if there be any other people than the Christians and the Jews, whom zeal
+and religion, unhappily turned into fanaticism, have prompted to so many
+horrible cruelties?" "Yes," said he; "the Mahometans have been stained
+by the same inhuman acts, but rarely; and when their victims have cried
+out '_amman_!' (mercy!) and have offered them tribute, they have
+pardoned them. As for other nations, not one of them, since the
+beginning of the world, has ever made a purely religious war. Now,
+follow me!" I followed.
+
+A little beyond these heaps of dead we found other heaps; there were
+bags of gold and silver; and each pile had its label: "Substance of the
+heretics massacred in the eighteenth century, in the seventeenth, in the
+sixteenth," and so on. "Gold and silver of the slaughtered Americans,"
+etc.; and all these piles were surmounted by crosses, mitres, crosiers,
+and tiaras, enriched with jewels.
+
+"What! my genius, was it then to possess these riches that these
+carcasses were accumulated?"
+
+"Yes, my son."
+
+I shed tears; and when by my grief I had merited to be taken to the end
+of the green avenues, he conducted me thither.
+
+"Contemplate," said he, "the heroes of humanity who have been the
+benefactors of the earth, and who united to banish from the world, as
+far as they were able, violence and rapine. Question them."
+
+I went up to the first of this band; on his head was a crown, and in his
+hand a small censer. I humbly asked him his name. "I," said he, "am Numa
+Pompilius; I succeeded a robber, and had robbers to govern; I taught
+them virtue and the worship of God; after me they repeatedly forgot
+both. I forbade any image to be placed in the temples, because the
+divinity who animates nature cannot be represented. During my reign the
+Romans had neither wars nor seditions; and my religion did nothing but
+good. Every neighboring people came to honor my funeral, which has
+happened to me alone...."
+
+I made my obeisance and passed on to the second. This was a fine old
+man, of about a hundred, clad in a white robe; his middle finger was
+placed on his lip, and with the other hand he was scattering beans
+behind him. In him I recognized Pythagoras. He assured me that he had
+never had a golden thigh, and that he had never been a cock, but that he
+had governed the Crotonians with as much justice as Numa had governed
+the Romans about the same time, which justice was the most necessary and
+the rarest thing in the world. I learned that the Pythagoreans examined
+their consciences twice a day. What good people! and how far are we
+behind them! Yet we, who for thirteen hundred years have been nothing
+but assassins, assert that these wise men were proud.
+
+To please Pythagoras I said not a word to him, but went on to Zoroaster,
+who was engaged in concentrating the celestial fire in the focus of a
+concave mirror, in the centre of a vestibule with a hundred gates, each
+one leading to wisdom. On the principal of these gates I read these
+words, which are the abstract of all morality, and cut short all the
+disputes of the casuists: "When thou art in doubt whether an action is
+good or bad, abstain from it."
+
+"Certainly," said I to my genius, "the barbarians who immolated all the
+victims whose bones I have seen had not read these fine words."
+
+Then we saw Zaleucus, Thales, Anaximander, and all the other sages who
+had sought truth and practised virtue.
+
+When we came to Socrates I quickly recognized him by his broken nose.
+"Well," said I, "you then are among the confidants of the Most High! All
+the inhabitants of Europe, excepting the Turks and the Crim Tartars, who
+know nothing, pronounce your name with reverence. So much is that great
+name venerated, so much is it loved, that it has been sought to
+discover those of your persecutors. Melitus and Anitus are known because
+of you, as Ravaillac is known because of Henry IV.; but of Anitus I know
+only the name. I know not precisely who that villain was by whom you
+were calumniated, and who succeeded in procuring your condemnation to
+the hemlock."
+
+"I have never thought of that man since my adventure," answered
+Socrates; "but now that you put me in mind of him, I pity him much. He
+was a wicked priest, who secretly carried on a trade in leather, a
+traffic reputed shameful amongst us. He sent his two children to my
+school; the other disciples reproached them with their father's being a
+currier, and they were obliged to quit. The incensed father was
+unceasing in his endeavors until he had stirred up against me all the
+priests and all the sophists. They persuaded the council of the five
+hundred that I was an impious man, who did not believe that the moon,
+Mercury, and Mars were deities. I thought indeed, as I do now, that
+there is but one God, the master of all nature. The judges gave me up to
+the republic's poisoner, and he shortened my life a few days. I died
+with tranquillity at the age of seventy years, and since then I have led
+a happy life with all these great men whom you see, and of whom I am the
+least...."
+
+After enjoying the conversation of Socrates for some time, I advanced
+with my guide into a bower, situated above the groves, where all these
+sages of antiquity seemed to be tasting the sweets of repose.
+
+Here I beheld a man of mild and simple mien, who appeared to me to be
+about thirty-five years old. He was looking with compassion upon the
+distant heaps of whitened skeletons through which I had been led to the
+abode of the sages. I was astonished to find his feet swelled and
+bloody, his hands in the same state, his side pierced, and his ribs laid
+bare by flogging. "Good God!" said I, "is it possible that one of the
+just and wise should be in this state? I have just seen one who was
+treated in a very odious manner; but there is no comparison between his
+punishment and yours. Bad priests and bad judges poisoned him. Was it
+also by priests and judges that you were so cruelly assassinated?"
+
+With great affability he answered--"Yes."
+
+"And who were those monsters?"
+
+"They were hypocrites."
+
+"Ah! you have said all! by that one word I understand that they would
+condemn you to the worst of punishments. You then had proved to them,
+like Socrates, that the moon was not a goddess, and that Mercury was not
+a god?"
+
+"No; those planets were quite out of the question. My countrymen did not
+even know what a planet was; they were all arrant ignoramuses. Their
+superstitions were quite different from those of the Greeks."
+
+"Then you wished to teach them a new religion?"
+
+"Not at all; I simply said to them--'Love God with all your hearts, and
+your neighbor as yourselves; for that is all.' Judge whether this
+precept is not as old as the universe; judge whether I brought them a
+new worship. I constantly told them that I was come, not to abolish
+their law, but to fulfil it; I had observed all their rites; I was
+circumcised as they all were; I was baptized like the most zealous of
+them; like them I paid the corban; like them I kept the Passover; and
+ate, standing, lamb cooked with lettuce. I and my friends went to pray
+in their temple; my friends, too, frequented the temple after my death.
+In short, I fulfilled all their laws without one exception."
+
+"What! could not these wretches even reproach you with having departed
+from their laws?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"Why, then, did they put you in the state in which I now see you?"
+
+"Must I tell you?--They were proud and selfish; they saw that I knew
+them; they saw that I was making them known to the citizens; they were
+the strongest; they took away my life; and such as they will always do
+the same, if they can, to whoever shall have done them too much
+justice."
+
+"But did you say nothing; did you do nothing, that could serve them as a
+pretext?"
+
+"The wicked find a pretext in everything."
+
+"Did you not once tell them that you were come to bring, not peace, but
+the sword?"
+
+"This was an error of some scribe. I told them that I brought, not the
+sword, but peace. I never wrote anything; what I said might be miscopied
+without any ill intent."
+
+"You did not then contribute in anything, by your discourses, either
+badly rendered or badly interpreted, to those frightful masses of bones
+which I passed on my way to consult you?"
+
+"I looked with horror on those who were guilty of all these murders."
+
+"And those monuments of power and wealth--of pride and avarice--those
+treasures, those ornaments, those ensigns of greatness, which, when
+seeking wisdom, I saw accumulated on the way--do they proceed from you?"
+
+"It is impossible; I and mine lived in poverty and lowliness; my
+greatness was only in virtue."
+
+I was on the point of begging of him to have the goodness just to tell
+me who he was; but my guide warned me to refrain. He told me that I was
+not formed for comprehending these sublime mysteries. I conjured him to
+tell me only in what true religion consisted.
+
+"Have I not told you already?--Love God and your neighbor as yourself."
+
+"What! Can we love God and yet eat meat on a Friday?"
+
+"I always ate what was given me; for I was too poor to give a dinner to
+any one."
+
+"Might we love God and be just, and still be prudent enough not to
+intrust all the adventures of one's life to a person one does not know?"
+
+"Such was always my custom."
+
+"Might not I, while doing good, be excused from making a pilgrimage to
+St. James of Compostello?"
+
+"I never was in that country."
+
+"Should I confine myself in a place of retirement With blockheads?"
+
+"For my part, I always made little journeys from town to town."
+
+"Must I take part with the Greek or with the Latin Church?"
+
+"When I was in the world, I never made any difference between the Jew
+and the Samaritan."
+
+"Well, if it be so, I take you for my only master."
+
+Then he gave me a nod, which filled me with consolation. The vision
+disappeared, and I was left with a good conscience.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+_Questions on Religion._
+
+
+FIRST QUESTION.
+
+Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, author of one of the most learned works
+ever written, thus expresses himself ("Divine Legation of Moses," i.,
+8): "A religion, a society, which is not founded on the belief of a
+future state, must be supported by an extraordinary Providence. Judaism
+is not founded on the belief of a future state; therefore, Judaism was
+supported by an extraordinary Providence."
+
+Many theologians rose up against him; and, as all arguments are
+retorted, so was his retorted upon himself; he was told:
+
+"Every religion which is not founded on the dogma of the immortality of
+the soul, and on everlasting rewards and punishments, is necessarily
+false. Now these dogmas were unknown to the Jews; therefore Judaism, far
+from being supported by Providence, was, on your own principles, a false
+and barbarous religion by which Providence was attacked."
+
+This bishop had some other adversaries, who maintained against him that
+the immortality of the soul was known to the Jews even in the time of
+Moses; but he proved to them very clearly that neither the Decalogue,
+nor Leviticus, nor Deuteronomy, had said one word of such a belief; and
+that it is ridiculous to strive to distort and corrupt some passages of
+other books, in order to draw from them a truth which is not announced
+in the book of the law.
+
+The bishop, having written four volumes to demonstrate that the Jewish
+law proposed neither pains nor rewards after death, has never been able
+to answer his adversaries in a very satisfactory manner. They said to
+him: "Either Moses knew this dogma, and so deceived the Jews by not
+communicating it, or he did not know it, in which case he did not know
+enough to found a good religion. Indeed, if the religion had been good
+why should it have been abolished? A true religion must be for all times
+and all places; it must be as the light of the sun, enlightening all
+nations and generations."
+
+This prelate, enlightened as he is, has found it no easy task to
+extricate himself from so many difficulties. But what system is free
+from them?
+
+
+SECOND QUESTION.
+
+Another man of learning, and a much greater philosopher, who is one of
+the profoundest metaphysicians of the day, advances very strong
+arguments to prove that polytheism was the primitive religion of
+mankind, and that men began with believing in several gods before their
+reason was sufficiently enlightened to acknowledge one only Supreme
+Being.
+
+On the contrary, I venture to believe that in the beginning they
+acknowledged one only God, and that afterwards human weakness adopted
+several. My conception of the matter is this:
+
+It is indubitable that there were villages before large towns were
+built, and that all men have been divided into petty commonwealths
+before they were united in great empires. It is very natural that the
+people of a village, being terrified by thunder, afflicted at the loss
+of its harvests, ill-used by the inhabitants of a neighboring village,
+feeling every day its own weakness, feeling everywhere an invisible
+power, should soon have said: There is some Being above us who does us
+good and harm.
+
+It seems to me to be impossible that it should have said: There are two
+powers; for why more than one? In all things we begin with the simple;
+then comes the compound; and after, by superior light, we go back to the
+simple again. Such is the march of the human mind!
+
+But what is this being who is thus invoked at first? Is it the sun? Is
+it the moon? I do not think so. Let us examine what passes in the minds
+of children; they are nearly like those of uninformed men. They are
+struck, neither by the beauty nor by the utility of the luminary which
+animates nature, nor by the assistance lent us by the moon, nor by the
+regular variations of her course; they think not of these things; they
+are too much accustomed to them. We adore, we invoke, we seek to
+appease, only that which we fear. All children look upon the sky with
+indifference; but when the thunder growls they tremble and run to hide
+themselves. The first men undoubtedly did likewise. It could only be a
+sect of philosophers who first observed the courses of the planets, made
+them admired, and caused them to be adored; mere tillers of the ground,
+without any information, did not know enough of them to embrace so noble
+an error.
+
+A village then would confine itself to saying: There is a power which
+thunders and hails upon us, which makes our children die; let us appease
+it. But how shall we appease it? We see that by small presents we have
+calmed the anger of irritated men; let us then make small presents to
+this power. It must also receive a name. The first that presents itself
+is that of "chief," "master," "lord." This power then is styled "My
+Lord." For this reason perhaps it was that the first Egyptians called
+their god "knef"; the Syrians, "Adonai"; the neighboring nations,
+"Baal," or "Bel," or "Melch," or "Moloch"; the Scythians, "Papæus"; all
+these names signifying "lord," "master."
+
+Thus was nearly all America found to be divided into a multitude of
+petty tribes, each having its protecting god. The Mexicans, too, and the
+Peruvians, forming great nations, had only one god--the one adoring
+Manco Capak, the other the god of war. The Mexicans called their warlike
+divinity "_Huitzilipochtli_," as the Hebrews had called their Lord
+"_Sabaoth_."
+
+It was not from a superior and cultivated reason that every people thus
+began with acknowledging one only Divinity; had they been philosophers,
+they would have adored the God of all nature, and not the god of a
+village; they would have examined those infinite relations among all
+things which prove a Being creating and preserving; but they examined
+nothing--they felt. Such is the progress of our feeble understanding.
+Each village would feel its weakness and its need of a protector; it
+would imagine that tutelary and terrible being residing in the
+neighboring forest, or on a mountain, or in a cloud. It would imagine
+only one, because the clan had but one chief in war; it would imagine
+that one corporeal, because it was impossible to represent it otherwise.
+It could not believe that the neighboring tribe had not also its god.
+Therefore it was that Jephthah said to the inhabitants of Moab: "You
+possess lawfully what your god Chemoth has made you conquer; you should,
+then, let us enjoy what our god has given us by his victories."
+
+This language, used by one stranger to other strangers, is very
+remarkable. The Jews and the Moabites had dispossessed the natives of
+the country; neither had any right but that of force; and the one says
+to the other: "Your god has protected you in your usurpation; suffer our
+god to protect us in ours."
+
+Jeremiah and Amos both ask what right the god Melchem had to seize the
+country of Gad? From these passages it is evident that the ancients
+attributed to each country a protecting god. We find other traces of
+this theology in Homer.
+
+It is very natural that, men's imaginations being heated, and their
+minds having acquired some confused knowledge, they should soon multiply
+their gods, and speedily assign protectors to the elements, the seas,
+the forests, the fountains, and the fields. The more they observed the
+stars, the more they would be struck with admiration. How, indeed,
+should they have adored the divinity of a brook, and not have adored the
+sun? The first step being taken, the earth would soon be covered with
+gods; and from the stars men would at last come down to cats and
+onions.
+
+Reason, however, will advance towards perfection; time at length found
+philosophers who saw that neither onions, nor cats, nor even the stars,
+had arranged the order of nature. All those philosophers--Babylonians,
+Persians, Egyptians, Scythians, Greeks, and Romans--admitted a supreme,
+rewarding, and avenging God.
+
+They did not at first tell it to the people; for whosoever should have
+spoken ill of onions and cats before priests and old women, would have
+been stoned; whosoever should have reproached certain of the Egyptians
+with eating their gods would himself have been eaten--as Juvenal relates
+that an Egyptian was in reality killed and eaten quite raw in a
+controversial dispute.
+
+What then did they do? Orpheus and others established mysteries, which
+the initiated swore by oaths of execration not to reveal--of which
+mysteries the principal was the adoration of a supreme God. This great
+truth made its way through half the world, and the number of the
+initiated became immense. It is true that the ancient religion still
+existed; but as it was not contrary to the dogma of the unity of God, it
+was allowed to exist. And why should it have been abolished? The Romans
+acknowledged the "_Deus optimus maximus_" and the Greeks had their
+Zeus--their supreme god. All the other divinities were only intermediate
+beings; heroes and emperors were ranked with the gods, i.e., with the
+blessed; but it is certain that Claudius, Octavius, Tiberius, and
+Caligula, were not regarded as the creators of heaven and earth.
+
+In short, it seems proved that, in the time of Augustus, all who had a
+religion acknowledged a superior, eternal God, with several orders of
+secondary gods, whose worship was called idolatry.
+
+The laws of the Jews never favored idolatry; for, although they admitted
+the Malachim, angels and celestial beings of an inferior order, their
+law did not ordain that they should worship these secondary divinities.
+They adored the angels, it is true; that is, they prostrated themselves
+when they saw them; but as this did not often happen, there was no
+ceremonial nor legal worship established for them. The cherubim of the
+ark received no homage. It is beyond a doubt that the Jews, from
+Alexander's time at least, openly adored one only God, as the
+innumerable multitude of the initiated secretly adored Him in their
+mysteries.
+
+
+THIRD QUESTION.
+
+It was at the time when the worship of a Supreme God was universally
+established among all the wise in Asia, in Europe, and in Africa, that
+the Christian religion took its birth.
+
+Platonism assisted materially the understanding of its dogmas. The
+"_Logos_," which with Plato meant the "wisdom," the reason of the
+Supreme Being, became with us the "word," and a second person of God.
+Profound metaphysics, above human intelligence, were an inaccessible
+sanctuary in which religion was enveloped.
+
+It is not necessary here to repeat how Mary was afterwards declared to
+be the mother of God; how the consubstantiality of the Father and the
+"word" was established; as also the proceeding of the "_pneuma_," the
+divine organ of the divine _Logos_; as also the two natures and two
+wills resulting from the hypostasis; and lastly, the superior
+manducation--the soul nourished as well as the body, with the flesh and
+blood of the God-man, adored and eaten in the form of bread, present to
+the eyes, sensible to the taste, and yet annihilated. All mysteries have
+been sublime.
+
+In the second century devils began to be cast out in the name of Jesus;
+before they were cast out in the name of Jehovah or Ihaho; for St.
+Matthew relates that the enemies of Jesus having said that He cast out
+devils in the name of the prince of devils, He answered, "If I cast out
+devils by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?"
+
+It is not known at what time the Jews recognized Beelzebub, who was a
+strange god, as the prince of devils; but it is known, for Josephus
+tells us, that there were at Jerusalem exorcists appointed to cast out
+devils from the bodies of the possessed; that is, of such as were
+attacked by singular maladies, which were then in a great part of the
+world attributed to the malific genii.
+
+These demons were then cast out by the true pronunciation of Jehovah,
+which is now lost, and by other ceremonies now forgotten.
+
+This exorcism by Jehovah or by the other names of God, was still in use
+in the first ages of the church. Origen, disputing against Celsus, says
+to him: "If, when invoking God, or swearing by Him, you call Him 'the
+God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,' you will by those words do things,
+the nature and force of which are such that the evil spirits submit to
+those who pronounce them; but if you call him by another name, as 'God
+of the roaring sea,' etc., no effect will be produced. The name of
+'Israel,' rendered in Greek, will work nothing; but pronounce it in
+Hebrew with the other words required, and you will effect the
+conjuration."
+
+The same Origen has these remarkable words: "There are names which are
+powerful from their own nature. Such are those used by the sages of
+Egypt, the Magi of Persia, and the Brahmins of India. What is called
+'magic,' is not a vain and chimerical art, as the Stoics and Epicureans
+pretend. The names '_Sabaoth_' and '_Adonai_' were not made for created
+beings, but belong to a mysterious theology which has reference to the
+Creator; hence the virtue of these names when they are arranged and
+pronounced according to rule."
+
+Origen, when speaking thus, is not giving his private opinion; he is but
+repeating the universal opinion.
+
+All the religions then known admitted a sort of magic, which was
+distinguished into celestial magic, and infernal magic, necromancy and
+theurgy--all was prodigy, divination, oracle. The Persians did not deny
+the miracles of the Egyptians, nor the Egyptians those of the Persians.
+God permitted the primitive Christians to be persuaded of the truth of
+the oracles attributed to the Sibyls, and left them a few other
+unimportant errors, which were no essential detriment to their religion.
+Another very remarkable thing is, that the Christians of the primitive
+ages held temples, altars, and images in abhorrence. Origen acknowledges
+this (No. 347). Everything was afterwards changed, with the discipline,
+when the Church assumed a permanent form.
+
+
+FOURTH QUESTION.
+
+When once a religion is established in a state, the tribunals are all
+employed in perverting the continuance or renewal of most of the things
+that were done in that religion before it was publicly received. The
+founders used to assemble in private, in spite of magistrates; but now
+no assemblies are permitted but public ones under the eyes of the law,
+and all concealed associations are forbidden. The maxim formerly was,
+that "it is better to obey God than man"; the opposite maxim is now
+adopted, that "to follow the laws of the state is to obey God." Nothing
+was heard of but obsessions and possessions; the devil was then let
+loose upon the world, but now the devil stays at home. Prodigies and
+predictions were necessary; now they are no longer admitted: a man who
+in the places should foretell calamities, would be sent to a madhouse.
+The founders secretly received the money of the faithful; but now, a man
+who should gather money for his own disposal, without being authorized
+by the law, would be brought before a court of justice to answer for so
+doing. Thus the scaffoldings that have served to build the edifice are
+no longer made use of.
+
+
+FIFTH QUESTION.
+
+After our own holy religion, which indubitably is the only good one,
+what religion would be the least objectionable?
+
+Would it not be that which should be the simplest; that which should
+teach much morality and very few dogmas; that which should tend to make
+men just, without making them absurd; that which should not ordain the
+belief of things impossible, contradictory, injurious to the Divinity,
+and pernicious to mankind; nor dare to threaten with eternal pains
+whosoever should possess common sense? Would it not be that which should
+not uphold its belief by the hand of the executioner, nor inundate the
+earth with blood to support unintelligible sophisms; that in which an
+ambiguous expression, a play upon words, and two or three supported
+charters, should not suffice to make a sovereign and a god of a priest
+who is often incestuous, a murderer, and a poisoner; which should not
+make kings subject to this priest; that which should teach only the
+adoration of one God, justice, tolerance, and humanity.
+
+
+SIXTH QUESTION.
+
+It has been said, that the religion of the Gentiles was absurd in many
+points, contradictory, and pernicious; but have there not been imputed
+to it more harm than it ever did, and more absurdities than it ever
+preached?
+
+Show me in all antiquity a temple dedicated to Leda lying with a swan,
+or Europa with a bull. Was there ever a sermon preached at Athens or at
+Rome, to persuade the young women to cohabit with their poultry? Are the
+fables collected and adorned by Ovid religious? Are they not like our
+Golden Legend, our Flower of the Saints? If some Brahmin or dervish were
+to come and object to our story of St. Mary the Egyptian, who not having
+wherewith to pay the sailors who conveyed her to Egypt, gave to each of
+them instead of money what are called "favors," we should say to the
+Brahmin: Reverend father, you are mistaken; our religion is not the
+Golden Legend.
+
+We reproach the ancients with their oracles, and prodigies; if they
+could return to this world, and the miracles of our Lady of Loretto and
+our Lady of Ephesus could be counted, in whose favor would be the
+balance?
+
+Human sacrifices were established among almost every people, but very
+rarely put in practice. Among the Jews, only Jephthah's daughter and
+King Agag were immolated; for Isaac and Jonathan were not. Among the
+Greeks, the story of "Iphigenia" is not well authenticated; and human
+sacrifices were very rare among the ancient Romans. In short, the
+religion of the Pagans caused very little blood to be shed, while ours
+has deluged the earth. Ours is doubtless the only good, the only true
+one; but we have done so much harm by its means that when we speak of
+others we should be modest.
+
+
+SEVENTH QUESTION.
+
+If a man would persuade foreigners, or his own countrymen, of the truth
+of his religion, should he not go about it with the most insinuating
+mildness and the most engaging moderation? If he begins with telling
+them that what he announces is demonstrated, he will find a multitude of
+persons incredulous; if he ventures to tell them that they reject his
+doctrine only inasmuch as it condemns their passions; that their hearts
+have corrupted their minds; that their reasoning is only false and
+proud, he disgusts them; he incenses them against himself; he himself
+ruins what he would fain establish.
+
+If the religion he announces be true, will violence and insolence render
+it more so? Do you put yourself in a rage, when you say that it is
+necessary to be mild, patient, beneficent, just, and to fulfil all the
+duties of society? No; because everyone is of your own opinion. Why,
+then, do you abuse your brother when preaching to him a mysterious
+system of metaphysics? Because his opinion irritates your self-love. You
+are so proud as to require your brother to submit his intelligence to
+yours; humbled pride produces the wrath; it has no other source. A man
+who has received twenty wounds in a battle does not fly into a passion;
+but a divine, wounded by the refusal of your assent, at once becomes
+furious and implacable.
+
+
+EIGHTH QUESTION.
+
+Must we not carefully distinguish the religion of the state from
+theological religion? The religion of the state requires that the imans
+keep registers of the circumcised, the vicars or pastors registers of
+the baptized; that there be mosques, churches, temples, days consecrated
+to rest and worship, rites established by law; that the ministers of
+those rites enjoy consideration without power; that they teach good
+morals to the people, and that the ministers of the law watch over the
+morals of the ministers of the temples. This religion of the state
+cannot at any time cause any disturbance.
+
+It is otherwise with theological religion: this is the source of all
+imaginable follies and disturbances; it is the parent of fanaticism and
+civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind. A bonze asserts that _Fo_ is
+a God,-that he was foretold by fakirs, that he was born of a white
+elephant, and that every bonze can by certain grimaces make a _Fo_. A
+_talapoin_ says, that _Fo_ was a holy man, whose doctrine the bonzes
+have corrupted, and that _Sammonocodom_ is the true God. After a
+thousand arguments and contradictions, the two factions agree to refer
+the question to the _dalai-lama_, who resides three hundred leagues off,
+and who is not only immortal, but also infallible. The two factions send
+to him a solemn deputation; and the _dalai-lama_ begins, according to
+his divine custom, by distributing among them the contents of his
+close-stool.
+
+The two rival sects at first receive them with equal reverence; have
+them dried in the sun, and encase them in little chaplets which they
+kiss devoutly; but no sooner have the _dalai-lama_ and his council
+pronounced in the name of _Fo_, than the condemned party throw their
+chaplets in the vice-god's face, and would fain give him a sound
+thrashing. The other party defend their _lama_, from whom they have
+received good lands; both fight a long time; and when at last they are
+tired of mutual extermination, assassination, and poisoning, they
+grossly abuse each other, while the _dalai-lama_ laughs, and still
+distributes his excrement to whosoever is desirous of receiving the good
+father lama's precious favors.
+
+
+
+
+RHYME.
+
+
+Rhyme was probably invented to assist the memory, and to regulate at the
+same time the song and the dance. The return of the same sounds served
+to bring easily and readily to the recollection the intermediate words
+between the two rhymes. Those rhymes were a guide at once to the singer
+and the dancer; they indicated the measure. Accordingly, in every
+country, verse was the language of the gods.
+
+We may therefore class it among the list of probable, that is, of
+uncertain, opinions, that rhyme was at first a religious appendage or
+ceremony; for after all, it is possible that verses and songs might be
+addressed by a man to his mistress before they were addressed by him to
+his deities; and highly impassioned lovers indeed will say that the
+cases are precisely the same.
+
+A rabbi who gave a general view of the Hebrew language, which I never
+was able to learn, once recited to me a number of rhymed psalms, which
+he said we had most wretchedly translated. I remember two verses, which
+are as follows:
+
+     _Hibbitu clare vena haru_
+     _Ulph nehem al jeck pharu._
+
+"They looked upon him and were lightened, and their faces were not
+ashamed."
+
+No rhyme can be richer than that of those two verses; and this being
+admitted, I reason in the following manner:
+
+The Jews, who spoke a jargon half Phœnician and half Syriac, rhymed;
+therefore the great and powerful nations, under whom they were in
+slavery, rhymed also. We cannot help believing, that the Jews--who, as
+we have frequently observed, adopted almost everything from their
+neighbors--adopted from them also rhyme.
+
+All the Orientals rhyme; they are steady and constant in their usages.
+They dress now as they have dressed for the long series of five or six
+thousand years. We may, therefore, well believe that they have rhymed
+for a period of equal duration.
+
+Some of the learned contend that the Greeks began with rhyming, whether
+in honor of their gods, their heroes, or their mistresses; but, that
+afterwards becoming more sensible of the harmony of their language,
+having acquired a more accurate knowledge of prosody, and refined upon
+melody, they made those requisite verses without rhyme which have been
+transmitted down to us, and which the Latins imitated and very often
+surpassed.
+
+As for us, the miserable descendants of Goths, Vandals, Gauls, Franks,
+and Burgundians--barbarians who are incapable of attaining either the
+Greek or Latin melody--we are compelled to rhyme. Blank verse, among all
+modern nations, is nothing but prose without any measure; it is
+distinguished from ordinary prose only by a certain number of equal and
+monotonous syllables, which it has been agreed to denominate "verse."
+
+We have remarked elsewhere that those who have written in blank verse
+have done so only because they were incapable of rhyming. Blank verse
+originated in an incapacity to overcome difficulty, and in a desire to
+come to an end sooner.
+
+We have remarked that Ariosto has made a series of forty-eight thousand
+rhymes without producing either disgust or weariness in a single reader.
+We have observed how French poetry, in rhyme, sweeps all obstacles
+before it, and that pleasure arose even from the very obstacles
+themselves. We have been always convinced that rhyme was necessary for
+the ears, not for the eyes; and we have explained our opinions, if not
+with judgment and success, at least without dictation and arrogance.
+
+But we acknowledge that on the receipt at Mount Krapak of the late
+dreadful literary intelligence from Paris, our former moderation
+completely abandons us. We understand that there exists a rising sect of
+barbarians, whose doctrine is that no tragedy should henceforward be
+ever written but in prose. This last blow alone was wanting, in addition
+to all our previous afflictions. It is the abomination of desolation in
+the temple of the muses. We can very easily conceive that, after
+Corneille had turned into verse the "Imitation of Jesus Christ," some
+sarcastic wag might menace the public with the acting of a tragedy in
+prose, by Floridor and Mondori; but this project having been seriously
+executed by the abbé d'Aubignac, we well know with what success it was
+attended. We well know the ridicule and disgrace that were attached to
+the prose "Œdipus" of De la Motte Houdart, which were nearly as great
+as those which were incurred by his "Œdipus" in verse. What miserable
+Visigoth can dare, after "Cinna" and "Andromache," to banish verse from
+the theatre? After the grand and brilliant age of our literature, can we
+be really sunk into such degradation and opprobrium! Contemptible
+barbarians! Go, then, and see this your prose tragedy performed by
+actors in their riding-coats at Vauxhall, and afterwards go and feast
+upon shoulder of mutton and strong beer.
+
+What would Racine and Boileau have said had this terrible intelligence
+been announced to them? "_Bon Dieu_"! Good God! from what a height have
+we fallen, and into what a slough are we plunged!
+
+It is certain that rhyme gives a most overwhelming and oppressive
+influence to verses possessing mere mediocrity of merit. The poet in
+this case is just like a bad machinist, who cannot prevent the harsh and
+grating sounds of his wires and pulleys from annoying the ear. His
+readers experience the same fatigue that he underwent while forming his
+own rhymes; his verses are nothing but an empty jingling of wearisome
+syllables. But if he is happy in his thoughts and happy also in his
+rhyme, he then experiences and imparts a pleasure truly exquisite--a
+pleasure that can be fully enjoyed only by minds endowed with
+sensibility, and by ears attuned to harmony.
+
+
+
+
+RESURRECTION.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+We are told that the Egyptians built their pyramids for no other purpose
+than to make tombs of them, and that their bodies, embalmed within and
+without, waited there for their souls to come and reanimate them at the
+end of a thousand years. But if these bodies were to come to life again,
+why did the embalmers begin the operation by piercing the skull with a
+gimlet, and drawing out the brain? The idea of coming to life again
+without brains would make one suspect that--if the expression may be
+used--the Egyptians had not many while alive; but let us bear in mind
+that most of the ancients believed the soul to be in the breast. And why
+should the soul be in the breast rather than elsewhere? Because, when
+our feelings are at all violent, we do in reality feel, about the region
+of the heart, a dilatation or compression, which caused it to be thought
+that the soul was lodged there. This soul was something aerial; it was a
+slight figure that went about at random until it found its body again.
+
+The belief in resurrection is much more ancient than historical times.
+Athalides, son of Mercury, could die and come to life again at will;
+Æsculapius restored Hippolytus to life, and Hercules, Alceste. Pelops,
+after being cut in pieces by his father, was resuscitated by the gods.
+Plato relates that Heres came to life again for fifteen days only.
+
+Among the Jews, the Pharisees did not adopt the dogma of the
+resurrection until long after Plato's time.
+
+In the Acts of the Apostles there is a very singular fact, and one well
+worthy of attention. St. James and several of his companions advise St.
+Paul to go into the temple of Jerusalem, and, Christian as he was, to
+observe all the ceremonies of the Old Law, in order--say they--"that all
+may know that those things whereof they were informed concerning thee
+are nothing, but that thou thyself also walkest orderly and keepest the
+law." This is clearly saying: "Go and lie; go and perjure yourself; go
+and publicly deny the religion which you teach."
+
+St. Paul then went seven days into the temple; but on the seventh he was
+discovered. He was accused of having come into it with strangers, and of
+having profaned it. Let us see how he extricated himself.
+
+But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees and the other
+Pharisees, he cried out in the council--"Men and brethren, I am a
+Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee; of the hope and resurrection of the
+dead I am called in question." The resurrection of the dead formed no
+part of the question; Paul said this only to incense the Pharisees and
+Sadducees against each other.
+
+"And when he had so said there arose a dissension between the Pharisees
+and the Sadducees; and the multitude was divided.
+
+"For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor
+spirit; but the Pharisees confess both."
+
+It has been asserted that Job, who is very ancient, was acquainted with
+the doctrine of resurrection; and these words are cited: "I know that
+my Redeemer liveth, and that one day His redemption shall rise upon me;
+or that I shall rise again from the dust, that my skin shall return, and
+that in my flesh I shall again see God."
+
+But many commentators understand by these words that Job hopes soon to
+recover from his malady, and that he shall not always remain lying on
+the ground, as he then was. The sequel sufficiently proves this
+explanation to be the true one; for he cries out the next moment to his
+false and hardhearted friends: "Why then do you say let us persecute
+Him?" Or: "For you shall say, because we persecuted Him." Does not this
+evidently mean--you will repent of having ill used me, when you shall
+see me again in my future state of health and opulence. When a sick man
+says: I shall rise again, he does not say: I shall come to life again.
+To give forced meanings to clear passages is the sure way never to
+understand one another; or rather, to be regarded by honest men as
+wanting sincerity.
+
+St. Jerome dates the birth of the sect of the Pharisees but a very short
+time before Jesus Christ. The rabbin Hillel is considered as having been
+the founder of the Pharisaïc sect; and this Hillel was contemporary with
+St. Paul's master, Gamaliel.
+
+Many of these Pharisees believed that only the Jews were brought to life
+again, the rest of mankind not being worth the trouble. Others
+maintained that there would be no rising again but in Palestine; and
+that the bodies of such as were buried elsewhere would be secretly
+conveyed into the neighborhood of Jerusalem, there to rejoin their
+souls. But St. Paul, writing to the people of Thessalonica, says:
+
+"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are
+alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them
+which are asleep.
+
+"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the
+voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in
+Christ shall rise first.
+
+"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up with them in the
+clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the
+Lord."
+
+Does not this important passage clearly prove that the first Christians
+calculated on seeing the end of the world? as, indeed, it was foretold
+by St. Luke to take place while he himself was alive? But if they did
+not see this end of the world, if no one rose again in their day, that
+which is deferred is not lost.
+
+St. Augustine believed that children, and even still-born infants, would
+rise again in a state of maturity. Origen, Jerome, Athanasius, Basil,
+and others, did not believe that women would rise again with the marks
+of their sex.
+
+In short, there have ever been disputes about what we have been, about
+what we are, and about what we shall be.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+Father Malebranche proves resurrection by the caterpillars becoming
+butterflies. This proof, as every one may perceive, is not more weighty
+than the wings of the insects from which he borrows it. Calculating
+thinkers bring forth arithmetical objections against this truth which he
+has so well proved. They say that men and other animals are really fed
+and derive their growth from the substance of their predecessors. The
+body of a man, reduced to ashes, scattered in the air, and falling on
+the surface of the earth, becomes corn or vegetable. So Cain ate a part
+of Adam; Enoch fed on Cain; Irad on Enoch; Mahalaleel on Irad;
+Methuselah on Mahalaleel; and thus we find that there is not one among
+us who has not swallowed some portion of our first parent. Hence it has
+been said that we have all been cannibals. Nothing can be clearer than
+that such is the case after a battle; not only do we kill our brethren,
+but at the end of two or three years, when the harvests have been
+gathered from the field of battle, we have eaten them all; and we, in
+turn, shall be eaten with the greatest facility imaginable. Now, when we
+are to rise again, how shall we restore to each one the body that
+belongs to him, without losing something of our own?
+
+So say those who trust not in resurrection; but the resurrectionists
+have answered them very pertinently.
+
+A rabbin named Samaï demonstrates resurrection by this passage of
+Exodus: "I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and swore
+to give unto them the land of Canaan." Now--says this great
+rabbin--notwithstanding this oath, God did not give them that land;
+therefore, they will rise again to enjoy it, in order that the oath be
+fulfilled.
+
+The profound philosopher Calmet finds a much more conclusive proof in
+vampires. He saw vampires issuing from churchyards to go and suck the
+blood of good people in their sleep; it is clear that they could not
+suck the blood of the living if they themselves were still dead;
+therefore they had risen again; this is peremptory.
+
+It is also certain that at the day of judgment all the dead will walk
+under ground, like moles--so says the "Talmud"--that they may appear in
+the valley of Jehoshaphat, which lies between the city of Jerusalem and
+the Mount of Olives. There will be a good deal of squeezing in this
+valley; but it will only be necessary to reduce the bodies
+proportionately, like Milton's devils in the hall of Pandemonium.
+
+This resurrection will take place to the sound of the trumpet, according
+to St. Paul. There must, of course, be more trumpets than one; for the
+thunder itself is not heard more than three or four leagues round. It is
+asked: How many trumpets will there be? The divines have not yet made
+the calculation; it will nevertheless be made.
+
+The Jews say that Queen Cleopatra, who no doubt believed in the
+resurrection like all the ladies of that day, asked a Pharisee if we
+were to rise again quite naked? The doctor answered that we shall be
+very well dressed, for the same reason that the corn that has been sown
+and perished under ground rises again in ear with a robe and a beard.
+This rabbin was an excellent theologian; he reasoned like Dom Calmet.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+_Resurrection of the Ancients._
+
+It has been asserted that the dogma of resurrection was much in vogue
+with the Egyptians, and was the origin of their embalmings and their
+pyramids. This I myself formerly believed. Some said that the
+resurrection was to take place at the end of a thousand years; others at
+the end of three thousand. This difference in their theological opinions
+seems to prove that they were not very sure about the matter.
+
+Besides, in the history of Egypt, we find no man raised again; but among
+the Greeks we find several. Among the latter, then, we must look for
+this invention of rising again.
+
+But the Greeks often burned their bodies, and the Egyptians embalmed
+them, that when the soul, which was a small, aerial figure, returned to
+its habitation, it might find it quite ready. This had been good if its
+organs had also been ready; but the embalmer began by taking out the
+brain and clearing the entrails. How were men to rise again without
+intestines, and without the medullary part by means of which they think?
+Where were they to find again the blood, the lymph, and other humors?
+
+You will tell me that it was still more difficult to rise again among
+the Greeks, where there was not left of you more than a pound of ashes
+at the utmost--mingled, too, with the ashes of wood, stuffs and spices.
+
+Your objection is forcible, and I hold with you, that resurrection is a
+very extraordinary thing; but the son of Mercury did not the less die
+and rise again several times. The gods restored Pelops to life, although
+he had been served up as a ragout, and Ceres had eaten one of his
+shoulders. You know that Æsculapius brought Hippolytus to life again;
+this was a verified fact, of which even the most incredulous had no
+doubt; the name of "_Virbius_," given to Hippolytus, was a convincing
+proof. Hercules had resuscitated Alceste and Pirithous. Heres did, it is
+true--according to Plato--come to life again for fifteen days only;
+still it was a resurrection; the time does not alter the fact.
+
+Many grave schoolmen clearly see purgatory and resurrection in Virgil.
+As for purgatory, I am obliged to acknowledge that it is expressly in
+the sixth book. This may displease the Protestants, but I have no
+alternative:
+
+     _Non tamen omne malum miseris, nec funditus omnes_
+     _Corporea excedunt pestes,..._
+
+     Not death itself can wholly wash their stains;
+     But long contracted filth even in the soul remains.
+     The relics of inveterate vice they wear,
+     And spots of sin obscene in every face appear,...
+
+But we have already quoted this passage in the article on "Purgatory,"
+which doctrine is here expressed clearly enough; nor could the kinsfolks
+of that day obtain from the pagan priests an indulgence to abridge their
+sufferings for ready money. The ancients were much more severe and less
+simoniacal than we are notwithstanding that they imputed so many foolish
+actions to their gods. What would you have? Their theology was made up
+of contradictions, as the malignant say is the case with our own.
+
+When their purgation was finished, these souls went and drank of the
+waters of Lethe, and instantly asked that they might enter fresh bodies
+and again see daylight. But is this a resurrection? Not at all; it is
+taking an entirely new body, not resuming the old one; it is a
+metempsychosis, without any relation to the manner in which we of the
+true faith are to rise again.
+
+The souls of the ancients did, I must acknowledge, make a very bad
+bargain in coming back to this world, for seventy years at most, to
+undergo once more all that we know is undergone in a life of seventy
+years, and then suffer another thousand years' discipline. In my humble
+opinion there is no soul that would not be tired of this everlasting
+vicissitude of so short a life and so long a penance.
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+_Resurrection of the Moderns._
+
+Our resurrection is quite different. Every man will appear with
+precisely the same body which he had before; and all these bodies will
+be burned for all eternity, excepting only, at most, one in a hundred
+thousand. This is much worse than a purgatory of ten centuries, in order
+to live here again a few years.
+
+When will the great day of this general resurrection arrive? This is not
+positively known; and the learned are much divided. Nor do they any more
+know how each one is to find his own members again. Hereupon they start
+many difficulties.
+
+1. Our body, say they, is, during life, undergoing a continual change;
+at fifty years of age we have nothing of the body in which our soul was
+lodged at twenty.
+
+2. A soldier from Brittany goes into Canada; there, by a very common
+chance, he finds himself short of food, and is forced to eat an Iroquois
+whom he killed the day before. This Iroquois had fed on Jesuits for two
+or three months; a great part of his body had become Jesuit. Here, then,
+the body of a soldier is composed of Iroquois, of Jesuits, and of all
+that he had eaten before. How is each to take again precisely what
+belongs to him? and which part belongs to each?
+
+3. A child dies in its mother's womb, just at the moment that it has
+received a soul. Will it rise again fœtus, or boy, or man?
+
+4. To rise again--to be the same person as you were--you must have your
+memory perfectly fresh and present; it is memory that makes your
+identity. If your memory be lost, how will you be the same man?
+
+5. There are only a certain number of earthly particles that can
+constitute an animal. Sand, stone, minerals, metals, contribute nothing.
+All earth is not adapted thereto; it is only the soils favorable to
+vegetation that are favorable to the animal species. When, after the
+lapse of many ages, every one is to rise again, where shall be found the
+earth adapted to the formation of all these bodies?
+
+6. Suppose an island, the vegetative part of which will suffice for a
+thousand men, and for five or six thousand animals to feed and labor for
+that thousand men; at the end of a hundred thousand generations we shall
+have to raise again a thousand millions of men. It is clear that matter
+will be wanting: "_Materies opus est, ut crescunt post era saecla_."
+
+7. And lastly, when it is proved, or thought to be proved, that a
+miracle as great as the universal deluge, or the ten plagues of Egypt,
+will be necessary to work the resurrection of all mankind in the valley
+of Jehoshaphat, it is asked: What becomes of the souls of all these
+bodies while awaiting the moment of returning into their cases?
+
+Fifty rather knotty questions might easily be put; but the divines would
+likewise easily find answers to them all.
+
+
+
+
+RIGHTS.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+_National Rights--Natural Rights--Public Rights._
+
+I know no better way of commencing this subject than with the verses of
+Ariosto, in the second stanza of the 44th canto of the "_Orlando
+Furioso_," which observes that kings, emperors, and popes, sign fine
+treaties one day which they break the next, and that, whatever piety
+they may affect, the only god to whom they really appeal, is their
+interest:
+
+     _Fan lega oggi re, papi et imperatori_
+     _Doman saran nimici capitali:_
+     _Perche, qual Papparenze esteriori,_
+     _Non hanno i cor, non han gli animi tali,_
+     _Che non mirando al torto piu che al dritto._
+     _Attendon solamente al lor profitto._
+
+If there were only two men on earth, how would they live together? They
+would assist each other; they would annoy each other; they would court
+each other; they would speak ill of each other; fight with each other;
+be reconciled to each other; and be neither able to live with nor
+without each other. In short, they would do as people at present do,
+who possess the gift of reason certainly, but the gift of instinct also;
+and will feel, reason, and act forever as nature has destined.
+
+No god has descended upon our globe, assembled the human race, and said
+to them, "I ordain that the negroes and Kaffirs go stark naked and feed
+upon insects.
+
+"I order the Samoyeds to clothe, themselves with the skins of reindeer,
+and to feed upon their flesh, insipid as it is, and eat dry and half
+putrescent fish without salt. It is my will that the Tartars of Thibet
+all believe what their _dalai-lama_ shall say; and that the Japanese pay
+the same attention to their _dairo_.
+
+"The Arabs are not to eat swine, and the Westphalians nothing else but
+swine.
+
+"I have drawn a line from Mount Caucasus to Egypt, and from Egypt to
+Mount Atlas. All who inhabit the east of that line may espouse as many
+women as they please; those to the west of it must be satisfied with
+one.
+
+"If, towards the Adriatic Gulf, or the marshes of the Rhine and the
+Meuse, or in the neighborhood of Mount Jura, or the Isle of Albion, any
+one shall wish to make another despotic, or aspire to be so himself, let
+his head be cut off, on a full conviction that destiny and myself are
+opposed to his intentions.
+
+"Should any one be so insolent as to attempt to establish an assembly
+of free men on the banks of the Manzanares, or on the shores of the
+Propontis, let him be empaled alive or drawn asunder by four horses.
+
+"Whoever shall make up his accounts according to a certain rule of
+arithmetic at Constantinople, at Grand Cairo, at Tafilet, at Delhi, or
+at Adrianople, let him be empaled alive on the spot, without form of
+law; and whoever shall dare to account by any other rule at Lisbon,
+Madrid, in Champagne, in Picardy, and towards the Danube, from Ulm unto
+Belgrade, let him be devoutly burned amidst chantings of the
+'_Miserere_.'
+
+"That which is just along the shores of the Loire is otherwise on the
+banks of the Thames; for my laws are universal," etc.
+
+It must be confessed that we have no very clear proof, even in the
+"_Journal Chrétien_," nor in "The Key to the Cabinet of Princes," that a
+god has descended in order to promulgate such a public law. It exists,
+notwithstanding, and is literally practised according to the preceding
+announcement; and there have been compiled, compiled, and compiled, upon
+these national rights, very admirable commentaries, which have never
+produced a sou to the great numbers who have been ruined by war, by
+edicts, and by tax-gatherers.
+
+These compilations closely resemble the case of conscience of Pontas. It
+is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished who kill not
+in large companies, and to the sound of trumpets; it is the rule.
+
+At the time when Anthropophagi still existed in the forest of Ardennes,
+an old villager met with a man-eater, who had carried away an infant to
+devour it. Moved with pity, the villager killed the devourer of children
+and released the little boy, who quickly fled away. Two passengers, who
+witnessed the transaction at a distance, accused the good man with
+having committed a murder on the king's highway. The person of the
+offender being produced before the judge, the two witnesses--after they
+had paid the latter a hundred crowns for the exercise of his
+functions--deposed to the particulars, and the law being precise, the
+villager was hanged upon the spot for doing that which had so much
+exalted Hercules, Theseus, Orlando, and Amadis the Gaul. Ought the judge
+to be hanged himself, who executed this law to the letter? How ought the
+point to be decided upon a general principle? To resolve a thousand
+questions of this kind, a thousand volumes have been written.
+
+Puffendorff first established moral existences: "There are," said he,
+"certain modes which intelligent beings attach to things natural, or to
+physical operations, with the view of directing or restraining the
+voluntary actions of mankind, in order to infuse order, convenience, and
+felicity into human existence."
+
+Thus, to give correct ideas to the Swedes and the Germans of the just
+and the unjust, he remarks that "there are two kinds of place, in regard
+to one of which, it is said, that things are for example, here or there;
+and in respect to the other, that they have existed, do, or will exist
+at a certain time, as for example, yesterday, to-day, or to-morrow. In
+the same manner we conceive two sorts of moral existence, the one of
+which denotes a moral state, that has some conformity with place, simply
+considered; the other a certain time, when a moral effect will be
+produced," etc.
+
+This is not all; Puffendorff curiously distinguishes the simple moral
+from the modes of opinion, and the formal from the operative qualities.
+The formal qualities are simple attributes, but the operative are to be
+carefully divided into original and derivated.
+
+In the meantime, Barbeyrac has commented on these fine things, and they
+are taught in the universities, and opinion is divided between Grotius
+and Puffendorff in regard to questions of similar importance. Take my
+recommendation; read Tully's "Offices."
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+Nothing possibly can tend more to render a mind false, obscure, and
+uncertain than the perusal of Grotius, Puffendorff, and almost all the
+writers on the "_jus gentium_."
+
+We must not do evil that good may come of it, says the writer to whom
+nobody hearkens. It is permitted to make war on a power, lest it should
+become too strong, says the "Spirit of Laws."
+
+When rights are to be established by prescription, the publicists call
+to their aid divine right and human right; and the theologians take
+their part in the dispute. "Abraham and his seed," say they, "had a
+right to the land of Canaan, because he had travelled there; and God had
+given it to him in a vision." But according to the vulgate sage
+teachers, five hundred and forty-seven years elapsed between the time
+when Abraham purchased a sepulchre in the country and Joshua took
+possession of a small part of it. No matter, his right was clear and
+correct. And then prescription? Away with prescription! Ought that which
+once took place in Palestine to serve as a rule for Germany and Italy?
+Yes, for He said so. Be it so, gentlemen; God preserve me from disputing
+with you!
+
+The descendants of Attila, it is said, established themselves in
+Hungary. Till what time must the ancient inhabitants hold themselves
+bound in conscience to remain serfs to the descendants of Attila?
+
+Our doctors, who have written on peace and war, are very profound; if we
+attend to them, everything belongs of right to the sovereign for whom
+they write; he, in fact, has never been able to alienate his domains.
+The emperor of right ought to possess Rome, Italy, and France; such was
+the opinion of Bartholus; first, because the emperor was entitled king
+of the Romans; and, secondly, because the archbishop of Cologne is
+chancellor of Italy, and the archbishop of Trier chancellor of Gaul.
+Moreover, the emperor of Germany carries a gilded ball at his
+coronation, which of course proves that he is the rightful master of the
+whole globe.
+
+At Rome there is not a single priest who has not learned, in his course
+of theology, that the pope ought to be master of this earth, seeing it
+is written that it was said to Simon, the son of Jonas: "Thou art Peter,
+and upon this rock I will build my church." It was well said to Gregory
+VII. that this treated only of souls, and of the celestial kingdom.
+Damnable observation! he replied; and would have hanged the observer had
+he been able.
+
+Spirits, still more profound, establish this reasoning by an argument to
+which there is no reply. He to whom the bishop of Rome calls himself
+vicar has declared that his dominion is not of this world; can this
+world then belong to the vicar, when his master has renounced it? Which
+ought to prevail, human nature or the decretals? The decretals,
+indisputably.
+
+If it be asked whether the massacre of ten or twelve millions of unarmed
+men in America was defensible, it is replied that nothing can be more
+just and holy, since they were not Catholic, apostolic and Roman.
+
+There is not an age in which the declarations of war of Christian
+princes have not authorized the attack and pillage of all the subjects
+of the prince, to whom war has been announced by a herald, in a coat of
+mail and hanging sleeves. Thus, when this signification has been made,
+should a native of Auvergne meet a German, he is bound to kill, and
+entitled to rob him either before or after the murder.
+
+The following has been a very thorny question for the schools: The ban,
+and the arrière-ban, having been ordered out in order to kill and be
+killed on the frontiers, ought the Suabians, being satisfied that the
+war is atrociously unjust, to march? Some doctors say yes; others, more
+just, pronounce no. What say the politicians?
+
+When we have fully discussed these great preliminary questions, with
+which no sovereign embarrasses himself, or is embarrassed, we must
+proceed to discuss the right of fifty or sixty families upon the county
+of Alost; the town of Orchies; the duchy of Berg and of Juliers; upon
+the countries of Tournay and Nice; and, above all, on the frontiers of
+all the provinces, where the weakest always loses his cause.
+
+It was disputed for a hundred years whether the dukes of Orleans, Louis
+XII., and Francis I., had a claim on the duchy of Milan, by virtue of a
+contract of marriage with Valentina de Milan, granddaughter of the
+bastard of a brave peasant, named Jacob Muzio. Judgment was given in
+this process at the battle of Pavia.
+
+The dukes of Savoy, of Lorraine, and of Tuscany still pretend to the
+Milanese; but it is believed that a family of poor gentlemen exist in
+Friuli, the posterity in a right line from Albion, king of the Lombards,
+who possess an anterior claim.
+
+The publicists have written great books upon the rights of the kingdom
+of Jerusalem. The Turks have written none, and Jerusalem belongs to
+them; at least at this present writing; nor is Jerusalem a kingdom.
+
+
+CANONICAL RIGHTS--OR LAW.
+
+_General Idea of the Rights of the Church or Canon Law, by M. Bertrand,
+Heretofore First Pastor of the Church of Berne._
+
+We assume neither to adopt nor contradict the principles of M. Bertrand;
+it is for the public to judge of them.
+
+Canon law, or the canon, according to the vulgar opinion, is
+ecclesiastical jurisprudence. It is the collection of canons, rules of
+the council, decrees of the popes, and maxims of the fathers.
+
+According to reason, and to the rights of kings and of the people,
+ecclesiastical jurisprudence is only an exposition of the privileges
+accorded to ecclesiastics by sovereigns representing the nation.
+
+If two supreme authorities, two administrations, having separate rights,
+exist, and the one will make war without ceasing upon the other, the
+unavoidable result will be perpetual convulsions, civil wars, anarchy,
+tyranny, and all the misfortunes of which history presents so miserable
+a picture.
+
+If a priest is made sovereign; if the dairo of Japan remained emperor
+until the sixteenth century; if the _dalai-lama_ is still sovereign at
+Thibet; if Numa was at once king and pontiff; if the caliphs were heads
+of the state as well as of religion; and if the popes reign at
+Rome--these are only so many proofs of the truth of what we advance; the
+authority is not divided; there is but one power. The sovereigns of
+Russia and of England preside over religion; the essential unity of
+power is there preserved.
+
+Every religion is within the State; every priest forms a part of civil
+society, and all ecclesiastics are among the number of the subjects of
+the sovereign under whom they exercise their ministry. If a religion
+exists which establishes ecclesiastical independence, and supports them
+in a sovereign and legitimate authority, that religion cannot spring
+from God, the author of society.
+
+It is even to be proved, from all evidence, that in a religion of which
+God is represented as the author, the functions of ministers, their
+persons, property, pretensions, and manner of inculcating morality,
+teaching doctrines, celebrating ceremonies, the adjustment of spiritual
+penalties; in a word, all that relates to civil order, ought to be
+submitted to the authority of the prince and the inspection of the
+magistracy.
+
+If this jurisprudence constitutes a science, here will be found the
+elements.
+
+It is for the magistracy, solely, to authorize the books admissible into
+the schools, according to the nature and form of the government. It is
+thus that M. Paul Joseph Rieger, counsellor of the court, judiciously
+teaches canon law in the University of Vienna; and, in the like manner,
+the republic of Venice examined and reformed all the rules in the states
+which have ceased to belong to it. It is desirable that examples so wise
+should generally prevail.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+_Of the Ecclesiastical Ministry._
+
+Religion is instituted only to preserve order among mankind, and to
+render them worthy of the bounty of the Deity by virtue. Everything in a
+religion which does not tend to this object ought to be regarded as
+foreign or dangerous.
+
+Instruction, exhortation, the fear of punishment to come, the promises
+of a blessed hereafter, prayer, advice, and spiritual consolation are
+the only means which churchmen can properly employ to render men
+virtuous on earth and happy to all eternity.
+
+Every other means is repugnant to the freedom of reason; to the nature
+of the soul; to the unalterable rights of conscience; to the essence of
+religion; to that of the clerical ministry; and to the just rights of
+the sovereign.
+
+Virtue infers liberty, as the transport of a burden implies active
+force. With constraint there is no virtue, and without virtue no
+religion. Make me a slave and I shall be the worse for it.
+
+Even the sovereign has no right to employ force to lead men to religion,
+which essentially presumes choice and liberty. My opinions are no more
+dependent on authority than my sickness or my health.
+
+In a word, to unravel all the contradictions in which books on the canon
+law abound, and to adjust our ideas in respect to the ecclesiastical
+ministry, let us endeavor, in the midst of a thousand ambiguities, to
+determine what is the Church.
+
+The Church, then, is all believers, collectively, who are called
+together on certain days to pray in common, and at all times to perform
+good actions.
+
+Priests are persons appointed, under the authority of the State, to
+direct these prayers, and superintend public worship generally.
+
+A numerous Church cannot exist without ecclesiastics; but these
+ecclesiastics are not the Church.
+
+It is not less evident that if the ecclesiastics, who compose a part of
+civil society, have acquired rights which tend to trouble or destroy
+such society, such rights ought to be suppressed.
+
+It is still more obvious that if God has attached prerogatives or rights
+to the Church, these prerogatives and these rights belong exclusively
+neither to the head of the Church nor to the ecclesiastics; because
+these are not the Church itself, any more than the magistrates are the
+sovereign, either in a republic or a monarchy.
+
+Lastly; it is very evident that it is our souls only which are submitted
+to the care of the clergy, and that for spiritual objects alone.
+
+The soul acts inwardly; its inward acts are thought, will, inclination,
+and an acquiescence in certain truths, all which are above restraint;
+and it is for the ecclesiastical ministry to instruct, but not to
+command them.
+
+The soul acts also outwardly. Its exterior acts are submission to the
+civil law; and here constraint may take place, and temporal or corporeal
+penalties may punish the violations of the law.
+
+Obedience to the ecclesiastical order ought, consequently, to be always
+free and voluntary; it ought to exact no other. On the contrary,
+submission to the civil law may be enforced.
+
+For the same reason ecclesiastical penalties, always being spiritual,
+attach in this world to those only who are inwardly convinced of their
+error. Civil penalties, on the contrary, accompanied by physical evil
+produce physical effects, whether the offender acknowledge the justice
+of them or not.
+
+Hence it manifestly results that the authority of the clergy can only be
+spiritual--that it is unacquainted with temporal power, and that any
+co-operative force belongs not to the administration of the Church,
+which is essentially destroyed by it.
+
+It moreover follows that a prince, intent not to suffer any division of
+his authority, ought not to permit any enterprise which places the
+members of the community in an outward or civil dependence on the
+ecclesiastical corporation.
+
+Such are the incontestable principles of genuine canonical right or law,
+the rules and the decisions of which ought at all times to be submitted
+to the test of eternal and immutable truths, founded upon natural rights
+and the necessary order of society.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+_Of the Possessions of Ecclesiastics._
+
+Let us constantly ascend to the principles of society, which, in civil
+as in religious order, are the foundations of all right.
+
+Society in general is the proprietor of the territory of a country, and
+the source of national riches. A portion of this national revenue is
+devoted to the sovereign to support the expenses of government. Every
+individual is possessor of that part of the territory, and of the
+revenue, which the laws insure him; and no possession or enjoyment can
+at any time be sustained, except under the protection of law.
+
+In society we hold not any good, or any possession as a simple natural
+right, as we give up our natural rights and submit to the order of civil
+society, in return for assurance and protection. It is, therefore, by
+the law that we hold our possessions.
+
+No one can hold anything on earth through religion, neither lands nor
+chattels; since all its wealth is spiritual. The possessions of the
+faithful, as veritable members of the Church, are in heaven; it is there
+where their treasures are laid up. The kingdom of Jesus Christ, which He
+always announced as at hand, was not, nor could it be, of this world. No
+property, therefore, can be held by divine right.
+
+The Levites under the Hebrew law had, it is true, their tithe by a
+positive law of God; but that was under a theocracy which exists no
+longer--God Himself acting as the sovereign. All those laws have ceased,
+and cannot at present communicate any title to possession.
+
+If any body at present, like that of the priesthood, pretend to possess
+tithes or any other wealth by positive right divine, it must produce an
+express and incontestable proof enregistered by divine revelation. This
+miraculous title would be, I confess, an exception to the civil law,
+authorized by God, who says: "All persons ought to submit to the powers
+that be, because they are ordained of God and established in His name."
+
+In defect of such a title, no ecclesiastical body whatever can enjoy
+aught on earth but by consent of the sovereignty and the authority of
+the civil laws. These form their sole title to possession. If the clergy
+imprudently renounce this title, they will possess none at all, and
+might be despoiled by any one who is strong enough to attempt it. Its
+essential interest is, therefore, to support civil society, to which it
+owes everything.
+
+For the same reason, as all the wealth of a nation is liable without
+exception to public expenditure for the defence of the sovereign and the
+nation, no property can be exempt from it but by force of law, which law
+is always revocable as circumstances vary. Peter cannot be exempt
+without augmenting the tax of John. Equity, therefore, is eternally
+claiming for equality against surcharges; and the State has a right, at
+all times, to examine into exemptions, in order to replace things in a
+just, natural, proportionate order, by abolishing previously granted
+immunities, whether permitted or extorted.
+
+Every law which ordains that the sovereign, at the expense of the
+public, shall take care of the wealth or possessions of any individual
+or a body, without this body or individual contributing to the common
+expenses, amounts to a subversion of law.
+
+I moreover assert that the quota, whether the contribution of a body or
+an individual, ought to be proportionately regulated, not by him or
+them, but by the sovereign or magistracy, according to the general form
+and law. Thus the sovereign or state may demand an account of the wealth
+and of the possessions of everybody as of every individual.
+
+It is, therefore, once more on these immutable principles that the rules
+of the canon law should be founded which relate to the possessions and
+revenue of the clergy.
+
+Ecclesiastics, without doubt, ought to be allowed sufficient to live
+honorably, but not as members of or as representing the Church, for the
+Church itself claims neither sovereignty nor possession in this world.
+
+But if it be necessary for ministers to preside at t the altar, it is
+proper that society should support them in the same manner as the
+magistracy and soldiers. It is, therefore, for the civil law to make a
+suitable provision for the priesthood.
+
+Even when the possessions of the ecclesiastics have been bestowed on
+them by wills, or in any other manner, the donors have not been able to
+denationalize the property by abstracting it from public charges and the
+authority of the laws. It is always under the guarantee of the laws,
+without which they would not possess the insured and legitimate
+possessions which they enjoy.
+
+It is, therefore, still left to the sovereign, or the magistracy in his
+name, to examine at all times if the ecclesiastical revenues be
+sufficient; and if they are not, to augment the allotted provision; if,
+on the contrary, they are excessive, it is for them to dispose of the
+superfluity for the general good of society.
+
+But according to the right, commonly called canonical, which has sought
+to form a State within the State, "_imperium in imperio_,"
+ecclesiastical property is sacred and intangible, because it belongs to
+religion and the Church; they have come of God, and not of man.
+
+In the first place, it is impossible to appropriate this terrestrial
+wealth to religion, which has nothing temporal. They cannot belong to
+the Church, which is the universal body of the believers, including the
+king, the magistracy, the soldiery, and all subjects; for we are never
+to forget that priests no more form the Church than magistrates the
+State.
+
+Lastly, these goods come only from God in the same sense as all goods
+come from Him, because all is submitted to His providence.
+
+Therefore, every ecclesiastical possessor of riches, or revenue, enjoys
+it only as a subject and citizen of the State, under the single
+protection of the civil law.
+
+Property, which is temporal and material, cannot be rendered sacred or
+holy in any sense, neither literally nor figuratively. If it be said
+that a person or edifice is sacred, it only signifies that it has been
+consecrated or set apart for spiritual purposes.
+
+The abuse of a metaphor, to authorize rights and pretensions destructive
+to all society, is an enterprise of which history and religion furnish
+more than one example, and even some very singular ones, which are not
+at present to my purpose.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+_Of Ecclesiastical or Religious Assemblies._
+
+It is certain that nobody can call any public or regular assembly in a
+state but under the sanction of civil authority.
+
+Religious assemblies for public worship must be authorized by the
+sovereign, or civil magistracy, before they can be legal.
+
+In Holland, where the civil power grants the greatest liberty, and very
+nearly the same in Russia, in England, and in Prussia, those who wish to
+form a church have to obtain permission, after which the new church is
+in the states, although not of the religion of the states. In general,
+as soon as there is a sufficient number of persons, or of families, who
+wish to cultivate a particular mode of worship, and to assemble for that
+purpose, they can without hesitation apply to the magistrate, who makes
+himself a judge of it; and once allowed, it cannot be disturbed without
+a breach of public order. The facility with which the government of
+Holland has granted this permission has never produced any disorder; and
+it would be the same everywhere if the magistrate alone examined,
+judged, and protected the parties concerned.
+
+The sovereign, or civil power, possesses the right at all times of
+knowing what passes within these assemblies, of regulating, them in
+conformity with public order, and of preventing such as produce
+disorder. This perpetual inspection is an essential portion of
+sovereignty, which every religion ought to acknowledge.
+
+Everything in the worship, in respect to form of prayer, canticles, and
+ceremonies, ought to be open to the inspection of the magistrate. The
+clergy may compose these prayers; but it is for the State to approve or
+reform them in case of necessity. Bloody wars have been undertaken for
+mere forms, which would never have been waged had sovereigns understood
+their rights.
+
+Holidays ought to be no more established without the consent and
+approbation of the State, who may at all times abridge and regulate
+them. The multiplication of such days always produces a laxity of
+manners and national impoverishment.
+
+A superintendence over oral instruction and books of devotion, belongs
+of right to the State. It is not the executive which teaches, but which
+attends to the manner in which the people are taught. Morality above all
+should be attended to, which is always necessary; whereas disputes
+concerning doctrines are often dangerous.
+
+If disputes exist between ecclesiastics in reference to the manner of
+teaching, or on points of doctrine, the State may impose silence on both
+parties, and punish the disobedient.
+
+As religious congregations are not permitted by the State in order to
+treat of political matters, magistrates ought to repress seditious
+preachers, who heat the multitude by punishable declamation: these are
+pests in every State.
+
+Every mode of worship presumes a discipline to maintain order,
+uniformity, and decency. It is for the magistrate to protect this
+discipline, and to bring about such changes as times and circumstances
+may render necessary.
+
+For nearly eight centuries the emperors of the East assembled councils
+in order to appease religious disputes, which were only augmented by the
+too great attention paid to them. Contempt would have more certainly
+terminated the vain disputation, which interest and the passions had
+excited. Since the division of the empire of the West into various
+kingdoms, princes have left to the pope the convocation of these
+assemblies. The rights of the Roman pontiff are in this respect purely
+conventional, and the sovereigns may agree in the course of time, that
+they shall no longer exist; nor is any one of them obliged to submit to
+any canon without having examined and approved it. However, as the
+Council of Trent will most likely be the last, it is useless to agitate
+all the questions which might relate to a future general council.
+
+As to assemblies, synods, or national councils, they indisputably cannot
+be convoked except when the sovereign or State deems them necessary. The
+commissioners of the latter ought therefore to preside, direct all their
+deliberations, and give their sanction to the decrees.
+
+There may exist periodical assemblies of the clergy, to maintain order,
+under the authority of the State, but the civil power ought uniformly to
+direct their views and guide their deliberations. The periodical
+assembly of the clergy of France is only an assembly of regulative
+commissioners for all the clergy of the kingdom.
+
+The vows by which certain ecclesiastics oblige themselves to live in a
+body according to certain rules, under the name of monks, or of
+religieux, so prodigiously multiplied in Europe, should always be
+submitted to the inspection and approval of the magistrate. These
+convents, which shut up so many persons who are useless to society, and
+so many victims who regret the liberty which they have lost; these
+orders, which bear so many strange denominations, ought not to be valid
+or obligatory, unless when examined and sanctioned by the sovereign or
+the State.
+
+At all times, therefore, the prince or State has a right to take
+cognizance of the rules and conduct of these religious houses, and to
+reform or abolish them if held to be incompatible with present
+circumstances, and the positive welfare of society.
+
+The revenue and property of these religious bodies are, in like manner,
+open to the inspection of the magistracy, in order to judge of their
+amount and of the manner in which they are employed. If the mass of the
+riches, which is thus prevented from circulation, be too great; if the
+revenues greatly exceed the reasonable support of the regulars; if the
+employment of these revenues be opposed to the general good; if this
+accumulation impoverish the rest of the community; in all these cases it
+becomes the magistracy, as the common fathers of the country, to
+diminish and divide these riches, in order to make them partake of the
+circulation, which is the life of the body politic; or even to employ
+them in any other way for the benefit of the public.
+
+Agreeably to the same principles, the sovereign authority ought to
+forbid any religious order from having a superior who is a native or
+resident of another country. It approaches to the crime of lèse-majesté.
+
+The sovereign may prescribe rules for admission into these orders; he
+may, according to ancient usage, fix an age, and hinder taking vows,
+except by the express consent of the magistracy in each instance. Every
+citizen is born a subject of the State, and has no right to break his
+natural engagements with society without the consent of those who
+preside over it.
+
+If the sovereign abolishes a religious order, the vows cease to be
+binding. The first vow is that to the State; it is a primary and tacit
+oath authorized by God; a vow according to the decrees of Providence; a
+vow unalterable and imprescriptible, which unites man in society to his
+country and his sovereign. If we take a posterior vow, the primitive one
+still exists; and when they clash, nothing can weaken or suspend the
+force of the primary engagement. If, therefore, the sovereign declares
+this last vow, which is only conditional and dependent on the first,
+incompatible with it, he does not dissolve a vow, but decrees it to be
+necessarily void, and replaces the individual in his natural state.
+
+The foregoing is quite sufficient to dissipate all the sophistry by
+which the canonists have sought to embarrass a question so simple in the
+estimation of all who are disposed to listen to reason.
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+_On Ecclesiastical Penalties._
+
+Since neither the Church, which is the body of believers collectively,
+nor the ecclesiastics, who are ministers in the Church in the name of
+the sovereign and under his authority, possess any coactive strength,
+executive power, or terrestrial authority, it is evident that these
+ministers can inflict only spiritual punishments. To threaten sinners
+with the anger of heaven is the sole penalty that a pastor is entitled
+to inflict. If the name of punishment or penalty is not to be given to
+those censures or declamations, ministers of religion have none at all
+to inflict.
+
+May the Church eject from its bosom those who disgrace or who trouble
+it? This is a grand question, upon which the canonists have not
+hesitated to adopt the affirmative. Let us repeat, in the first place,
+that ecclesiastics are not the Church. The assembled Church, which
+includes the State or sovereign, doubtless possesses the right to
+exclude from the congregations a scandalous sinner, after repeated
+charitable and sufficient warnings. The exclusion, even in this case,
+cannot inflict any civil penalty, any bodily evil, or any merely earthly
+privation; but whatever right the Church may in this way possess, the
+ecclesiastics belonging to it can only exercise it as far as the
+sovereign and State allow.
+
+It is therefore still more incumbent on the sovereign, in this case, to
+watch over the manner in which this permitted right is exercised,
+vigilance being the more necessary in consequence of the abuse to which
+it is liable. It is, consequently, necessary for the supreme civil power
+to consult the rules for the regulation of assistance and charity, to
+prescribe suitable restrictions, without which every declaration of the
+clergy, and all excommunication, will be null and without effect, even
+when only applicable to the spiritual order. It is to confound different
+eras and circumstances, to regulate the proceedings of present times
+from the practice of the apostles. The sovereign in those days was not
+of the religion of the apostles, nor was the Church included in the
+State, so that the ministers of worship could not have recourse to the
+magistrates. Moreover, the apostles were ministers extraordinary, of
+which we now perceive no resemblance. If other examples of
+excommunication, without the authority of the sovereign, be quoted, I
+can only say that I cannot hear, without horror, of examples of
+excommunication insolently fulminated against sovereigns and
+magistrates; I boldly reply, that these denunciations amount to manifest
+rebellion, and to an open violation of the most sacred duties of
+religion, charity, and natural right.
+
+Let us add, in order to afford a complete idea of excommunication, and
+of the true rules of canonical right or law in this respect, that
+excommunication, legitimately pronounced by those to whom the sovereign,
+in the name of the Church, expressly leaves the power, includes
+privation only of spiritual advantages on earth, and can extend to
+nothing else: all beyond this will be abuse, and more or less
+tyrannical. The ministers of the Church can do no more than declare that
+such and such a man is no more a member of the Church. He may still,
+however, enjoy notwithstanding the excommunication, all his natural,
+civil, and temporal rights as a man and a citizen. If the magistrate
+steps in and deprives such a man, in consequence, of an office or
+employment in society, it then becomes a civil penalty for some fault
+against civil order.
+
+Let us suppose that which may very likely happen, as ecclesiastics are
+only men, that the excommunication which they have been led to pronounce
+has been prompted by some error or some passion; he who is exposed to a
+censure so precipitate is clearly justified in his conscience before
+God; the declaration issued against him can produce no effect upon the
+life to come. Deprived of exterior communion with the true Church, he
+may still enjoy the consolation of the interior communion. Justified by
+his conscience, he has nothing to fear in a future existence from the
+judgment of God, his only true judge.
+
+It is then a great question, as to canonical rights, whether the clergy,
+their head, or any ecclesiastical body whatever, can excommunicate the
+sovereign or the magistracy, under any pretext, or for any abuse of
+their power? This question is essentially scandalous, and the simple
+doubt a direct rebellion. In fact, the first duty of man in society is
+to respect the magistrate, and to advance his respectability, and you
+pretend to have a right to censure and set him aside. Who has given you
+this absurd and pernicious right? Is it God, who governs the political
+world by delegated sovereignty, and who ordains that society shall
+subsist by subordination?
+
+The first ecclesiastics at the rise of Christianity--did they conceive
+themselves authorized to excommunicate Tiberius, Nero, Claudius, or even
+Constantine, who was a heretic? How then have pretensions thus
+monstrous, ideas thus atrocious, wicked attempts equally condemned by
+reason and by natural and religious rights, been suffered to last so
+long? If a religion exists which teaches like horrors, society ought to
+proscribe it, as directly subversive of the repose of mankind. The cry
+of whole nations is already lifted up against these pretended canonical
+laws, dictated by ambition and by fanaticism. It is to be hoped that
+sovereigns, better instructed in their rights, and supported by the
+fidelity of their people, will terminate abuses so enormous, and which
+have caused so many misfortunes. The author of the "Essay on the Manners
+and Spirit of Nations" has been the first to forcibly expose the
+atrocity of enterprises of this nature.
+
+
+SECTION V.
+
+_Of the Superintendence of Doctrine._
+
+The sovereign is not the judge of the truth of doctrine; he may judge
+for himself, like all other men; but he ought to take cognizance of it
+in respect to everything which relates to civil order, whether in regard
+to purport or delivery.
+
+This is the general rule from which magistrates ought never to depart.
+Nothing in a doctrine merits the attention of the police, except as it
+interests public order: it is the influence of doctrine upon manners
+that decides its importance. Doctrines which have a distant connection
+only with good conduct can never be fundamental. Truths which conduce to
+render mankind gentle, humane, obedient to the laws and to the
+government, interest the State, and proceed evidently from God.
+
+
+SECTION VI.
+
+_Superintendence of the Magistracy Over the Administration of the
+Sacraments._
+
+The administration of the sacraments ought to be submitted to the
+careful inspection of the magistrates in everything which concerns
+public order.
+
+It has already been observed that the magistrate ought to watch over the
+form of the public registry of marriages, baptisms, and deaths, without
+any regard to the creed of the different inhabitants of the State.
+
+Similar reasons in relation to police and good government--do they not
+require an exact registry in the hands of the magistracy of all those
+who make vows, and enter convents in those countries in which convents
+are permitted?
+
+In the sacrament of repentance, the minister who refuses or grants
+absolution is accountable for his judgment only to God; and in the same
+manner, the penitent is accountable to God alone, whether he consummates
+it all, or does so well or ill.
+
+No pastor, himself a sinner, ought to have the right of publicly
+refusing, on his own private authority, the eucharist to another sinner.
+The sinless Jesus Christ refused not the communion to Judas.
+
+Extreme unction and the viaticum, if demanded or requested by the sick,
+should be governed by the same, rule. The simple right of the minister
+is to exhort the sick person, and it is the duty of the magistrate to
+take care that the pastor abuse not circumstances, in order to persecute
+the invalid.
+
+Formerly, it was the Church collectively which called the pastors, and
+conferred upon them the right of governing and instructing the flock. At
+present, ecclesiastics alone consecrate others, and the magistracy ought
+to be watchful of this privilege.
+
+It is doubtless a great, though ancient abuse, that of conferring orders
+without functions; it is depriving the State of members, without adding
+to the Church. The magistrate is called upon to reform this abuse.
+
+Marriage, in a civil sense, is the legitimate union of a man with a
+woman for the procreation of children, to secure their due nurture and
+education, and in order to assure unto them their rights and properties
+under the protection of the laws. In order to confirm and establish this
+union, it is accompanied by a religious ceremony, regarded by some as a
+sacrament, and by others as a portion of public worship; a genuine
+logomachy, which changes nothing in the thing. Two points are therefore
+to be distinguished in marriage--the civil contract, or natural
+engagement, and the sacrament, or sacred ceremony. Marriage may
+therefore exist, with all its natural and civil effects, independently
+of the religious ceremony. The ceremonies of the Church are only
+essential to civil order, because the State has adopted them. A long
+time elapsed before the ministers of religion had anything to do with
+marriage. In the time of Justinian, the agreement of the parties, in the
+presence of witnesses, without any ceremonies of the Church, legalized
+marriages among Christians. It was that emperor who, towards the middle
+of the sixth century, made the first laws by which the presence of
+priests was required, as simple witnesses, without, however, prescribing
+any nuptial benediction. The emperor Leo, who died in 886, seems to have
+been the first who placed the religious ceremony in the number of
+necessary conditions. The terms of the law itself indeed, which ordains
+it, prove it to have been a novelty.
+
+From the correct idea which we now form of marriage, it results in the
+first place, that good order, and even piety, render religious forms
+adopted in all Christian countries necessary. But the essence of
+marriage cannot be denationalized, and this engagement, which is the
+principal one in society, ought uniformly, as a branch of civil and
+political order, to be placed under the authority of the magistracy.
+
+It follows, therefore, that a married couple, even educated in the
+worship of infidels and heretics, are not obliged to marry again, if
+they have been united agreeably to the established forms of their own
+country; and it is for the magistrate in all such instances to
+investigate the state of the case.
+
+The priest is at present the magistrate freely nominated by the law, in
+certain countries, to receive the pledged faith of persons wishing to
+marry. It is very evident, that the law can modify or change as it
+pleases the extent of this ecclesiastical authority.
+
+Wills and funerals are incontestably under the authority of the civil
+magistracy and the police. The clergy have never been allowed to usurp
+the authority of the law in respect to these. In the age of Louis XIV.
+however, and even in that of Louis XV., striking examples have been
+witnessed of the endeavors of certain fanatical ecclesiastics to
+interfere in the regulation of funerals. Under the pretext of heresy,
+they refused the sacraments, and interment; a barbarity which Pagans
+would have held in horror.
+
+
+SECTION VII.
+
+_Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction._
+
+The sovereign or State may, without doubt, give up to an ecclesiastical
+body, or a single priest, a jurisdiction over certain objects and
+certain persons, with a power suitable to the authority confided. I
+examine not into the prudence of remitting a certain portion of civil
+authority into the hands of any body or person who already enjoys an
+authority in things spiritual. To deliver to those who ought to be
+solely employed in conducting men to heaven, an authority upon earth, is
+to produce a union of two powers, the abuse of which is only too easy;
+but at least it is evident that any man, as well as an ecclesiastic, may
+be intrusted with the same jurisdiction. By whomsoever possessed, it has
+either been conceded by the sovereign power, or usurped; there is no
+medium. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is not of this world; he refused to
+be a judge upon earth, and ordered that men should give unto Cæsar the
+things which belonged unto Cæsar: he forbade all dominations to his
+apostles, and preached only humility, gentleness, and dependence. From
+him ecclesiastics can derive neither power, authority, domination, nor
+jurisdiction in this world. They can therefore possess no legitimate
+authority, but by a concession from the sovereign or State, from which
+all authority in a society can properly emanate.
+
+There was a time in the unhappy epoch of the feudal ages in which
+ecclesiastics were possessed in various countries with the principal
+functions of the magistracy: the authority of the lords of the lay
+fiefs, so formidable to the sovereign and oppressive to the people, has
+been since bounded; but a portion of the independence of the
+ecclesiastical jurisdictions still exists. When will sovereigns be
+sufficiently informed and courageous to take back from them the usurped
+authority and numerous privileges which they have so often abused, to
+annoy the flock which they ought to protect?
+
+It is by this inadvertence of princes that the audacious enterprises of
+ecclesiastics against sovereigns themselves have originated. The
+scandalous history of these attempts has been consigned to records which
+cannot be contested. The bull "_In cœna Domini_," in particular,
+still remains to prove the continual enterprises of the clergy against
+royal and civil authority.
+
+_Extract from the Tariff of the Rights Exacted in France by the Court of
+Rome for Bulls, Dispensations, Absolutions, etc., which Tariff was
+Decreed in the King's Council, Sept. 4, 1691, and Which is Reported
+Entire in the Brief of James Lepelletier, Printed at Lyons in 1699, with
+the Approbation and Permission of the King. Lyons: Printed for Anthony
+Boudet, Eighth Edition._
+
+1. For absolution for the crime of apostasy, payable to the pope,
+twenty-four livres.
+
+2. A bastard wishing to take orders must pay twenty-five livres for a
+dispensation; if desirous to possess a benefice, he must pay in addition
+one hundred and eighty livres; if anxious that his dispensation should
+not allude to his illegitimacy, he will have to pay a thousand and fifty
+livres.
+
+3. For dispensation and absolution of bigamy, one thousand and fifty
+livres.
+
+4. For a dispensation for the error of a false judgment in the
+administration of justice or the exercise of medicine, ninety livres.
+
+5. Absolution for heresy, twenty-four livres.
+
+6. Brief of forty hours, for seven years, twelve livres.
+
+7. Absolution for having committed homicide in self-defence, or
+undesignedly, ninety-five livres. All in company of the murderer also
+need absolution, and are to pay for the same eighty-five livres each.
+
+8. Indulgences for seven years, twelve livres.
+
+9. Perpetual indulgences for a brotherhood, forty livres.
+
+10. Dispensation for irregularity and incapacity, twenty-five livres; if
+the irregularity is great, fifty livres.
+
+11. For permission to read forbidden books, twenty-five livres.
+
+12. Dispensation for simony, forty livres; with an augmentation
+according to circumstances.
+
+13. Brief to permit the eating of forbidden meats, sixty-five livres.
+
+14. Dispensation for simple vows of chastity or of religion, fifteen
+livres. Brief declaratory of the nullity of the profession of a monk or
+a nun, one hundred livres. If this brief be requested ten years after
+profession, double the amount.
+
+_Dispensations in Relation to Marriage._
+
+Dispensations for the fourth degree of relationship, with cause,
+sixty-five livres; without cause, ninety livres; with dispensation for
+familiarities that have passed between the future married persons, one
+hundred and eighty livres.
+
+For relations of the third or fourth degree, both on the side of the
+father and mother, without cause, eight hundred and eighty livres; with
+cause, one hundred and forty-five livres.
+
+For relations of the second degree on one side, and the fourth on the
+other; nobles to pay one thousand four hundred and thirty livres;
+roturiers, one thousand one hundred and fifty livres.
+
+He who would marry the sister of the girl to whom he has been affianced,
+to pay for a dispensation, one thousand four hundred and thirty livres.
+
+Those who are relations in the third degree, if they are nobles, or live
+creditably, are to pay one thousand four hundred and thirty livres; if
+the relationship is on the side of father as well as mother, two
+thousand four hundred and thirty livres.
+
+Relations in the second degree to pay four thousand five hundred and
+thirty livres; and if the female has accorded favors to the male, in
+addition for absolution, two thousand and thirty livres.
+
+For those who have stood sponsors at the baptism of the children of each
+other, the dispensation will cost two thousand seven hundred and thirty
+livres. If they would be absolved from premature familiarity, one
+thousand three hundred and thirty livres in addition.
+
+He who has enjoyed the favors of a widow during the life of her deceased
+husband, in order to legitimately espouse her, will have to pay one
+hundred and ninety livres.
+
+In Spain and Portugal, the marriage dispensations are still dearer.
+Cousins-german cannot obtain them for less than two thousand crowns.
+
+The poor not being able to pay these taxes, abatements may be made. It
+is better to obtain half a right, than lose all by refusing the
+dispensation.
+
+No reference is had here to the sums paid to the pope for the bulls of
+bishops, abbots, etc., which are to be found in the almanacs; but we
+cannot perceive by what authority the pope of Rome levies taxes upon
+laymen who choose to marry their cousins.
+
+
+
+
+RIVERS.
+
+
+The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to
+error. It is not long since it was discovered that all rivers originate
+in those eternal masses of snow which cover the summits of lofty
+mountains, those snows in rain, that rain in the vapor exhaled from the
+land and sea; and that thus everything is a link in the great chain of
+nature.
+
+When a boy, I heard theses delivered which proved that all rivers and
+fountains came from the sea. This was the opinion of all antiquity.
+These rivers flowed into immense caverns, and thence distributed their
+waters to all parts of the world.
+
+When Aristeus goes to lament the loss of his bees to Cyrene his mother,
+goddess of the little river Enipus in Thessaly, the river immediately
+divides itself, forming as it were two mountains of water, right and
+left, to receive him according to ancient and immemorial usage; after
+which he has a view of those vast and beautiful grottoes through which
+flow all the rivers of the earth; the Po, which descends from Mount Viso
+in Piedmont, and traverses Italy; the Teverone, which comes from the
+Apennines; the Phasis, which issues from Mount Caucasus, and falls into
+the Black Sea; and numberless others.
+
+Virgil, in this instance, adopted a strange system of natural
+philosophy, in which certainly none but poets can be indulged.
+
+Such, however, was the credit and prevalence of this system that,
+fifteen hundred years afterwards, Tasso completely imitated Virgil in
+his fourteenth canto, while imitating at the same time with far greater
+felicity Ariosto. An old Christian magician conducts underground the two
+knights who are to bring back Rinaldo from the arms of Armida, as
+Melissa had rescued Rogero from the caresses of Alcina. This venerable
+sage makes Rinaldo descend into his grotto, from which issue all the
+rivers which refresh and fertilize our earth. It is a pity that the
+rivers of America are not among the number. But as the Nile, the Danube,
+the Seine, the Jordan, and the Volga have their source in this cavern,
+that ought to be deemed sufficient. What is still more in conformity to
+the physics of antiquity is the circumstance of this grotto or cavern
+being in the very centre of the earth. Of course, it is here that
+Maupertuis wanted to take a tour.
+
+After admitting that rivers spring from mountains, and that both of them
+are essential parts of this great machine, let us beware how we give in
+to varying and vanishing systems.
+
+When Maillet imagined that the sea had formed the mountains, he should
+have dedicated his book to Cyrano de Bergerac. When it has been said,
+also, that the great chains of mountains extend from east to west, and
+that the greatest number of rivers also flow always to the west, the
+spirit of system has been more consulted than the truth of nature.
+
+With respect to mountains, disembark at the Cape of Good Hope, you will
+perceive a chain of mountains from the south as far north as Monomotapa.
+Only a few persons have visited that quarter of the world, and travelled
+under the line in Africa. But Calpe and Abila are completely in the
+direction of north and south. From Gibraltar to the river Guadiana, in a
+course directly northward, there is a continuous range of mountains. New
+and Old Castile are covered with them, and the direction of them all is
+from south to north, like that of all the mountains in America. With
+respect to the rivers, they flow precisely according to the disposition
+or direction of the land.
+
+The Guadalquivir runs straight to the south from Villanueva to San
+Lucar; the Guadiana the same, as far as Badajos. All the rivers in the
+Gulf of Venice, except the Po, fall into the sea towards the south. Such
+is the course of the Rhone from Lyons to its mouth. That of the Seine is
+from the north-northwest. The Rhine, from Basle, goes straight to the
+north. The Meuse does the same, from its source to the territory
+overflowed by its waters. The Scheldt also does the same.
+
+Why, then, should men be so assiduous in deceiving themselves, just for
+the pleasure of forming systems, and leading astray persons of weak and
+ignorant minds? What good can possibly arise from inducing a number of
+people--who must inevitably be soon undeceived--to believe that all
+rivers and all mountains are in a direction from east to west, or from
+west to east; that all mountains are covered with oyster-shells--which
+is most certainly false--that anchors have been found on the summit of
+the mountains of Switzerland; that these mountains have been formed by
+the currents of the ocean; and that limestone is composed entirely of
+seashells? What! shall we, at the present day, treat philosophy as the
+ancients formerly treated history?
+
+To return to streams and rivers. The most important and valuable things
+that can be done in relation to them is preventing their inundations,
+and making new rivers--that is, canals--out of those already existing,
+wherever the undertaking is practicable and beneficial. This is one of
+the most useful services that can be conferred upon a nation. The canals
+of Egypt were as serviceable as its pyramids were useless.
+
+With regard to the quantity of water conveyed along the beds of rivers,
+and everything relating to calculation on the subject, read the article
+on "River," by M. d'Alembert. It is, like everything else done by him,
+clear, exact, and true; and written in a style adapted to the subject;
+he does not employ the style of Telemachus to discuss subjects of
+natural philosophy.
+
+
+
+
+ROADS.
+
+
+It was not until lately that the modern nations of Europe began to
+render roads practicable and convenient, and to bestow on them some
+beauty. To superintend and keep in order the road is one of the most
+important cares of both the Mogul and Chinese emperors. But these
+princes never attained such eminence in this department as the Romans.
+The Appian, the Aurelian, the Flaminian, the Æmilian, and the Trajan
+ways exist even at the present day. The Romans alone were capable of
+constructing such roads, and they alone were capable of repairing them.
+
+Bergier, who has written an otherwise valuable book, insists much on
+Solomon's employing thirty thousand Jews in cutting wood on Mount
+Lebanon, eighty thousand in building the temple, seventy thousand on
+carriages, and three thousand six hundred in superintending the labors
+of others. We will for a moment admit it all to be true; yet still there
+is nothing said about his making or repairing highways.
+
+Pliny informs us that three hundred thousand men were employed for
+twenty years in building one of the pyramids of Egypt; I am not disposed
+to doubt it; but surely three hundred thousand men might have been much
+better employed. Those who worked on the canals in Egypt; or on the
+great wall, the canals, or highways of China; or those who constructed
+the celebrated ways of the Roman Empire were much more usefully occupied
+than the three hundred thousand miserable slaves in building a pyramidal
+sepulchre for the corpse of a bigoted Egyptian.
+
+We are well acquainted with the prodigious works accomplished by the
+Romans, their immense excavations for lakes of water, or the beds of
+lakes formed by nature, filled up, hills levelled, and a passage bored
+through a mountain by Vespasian, in the Flaminian way, for more than a
+thousand feet in length, the inscription on which remains at present.
+Pausilippo is not to be compared with it.
+
+The foundations of the greater part of our present houses are far from
+being so solid as were the highways in the neighborhood of Rome; and
+these public ways were extended throughout the empire, although not upon
+the same scale of duration and solidity. To effect that would have
+required more men and money than could possibly have been obtained.
+
+Almost all the highways of Italy were erected on a foundation four feet
+deep; when a space of marshy ground or bog was on the track of the road,
+it was filled up; and when any part of it was mountainous, its
+pretipitousness was reduced to a gentle and trifling inclination from
+the general line of the road. In many parts, the roads were supported by
+solid walls.
+
+Upon the four feet of masonry, were placed large hewn stones of marble,
+nearly one foot in thickness, and frequently ten feet wide; they were
+indented by the chisel to prevent the slipping of the horses. It was
+difficult to say which most attracted admiration--the utility or the
+magnificence of these astonishing works.
+
+Nearly all of these wonderful constructions were raised at the public
+expense. Cæsar repaired and extended the Appian way out of his own
+private funds; those funds, however, consisted of the money of the
+republic.
+
+Who were the persons employed upon these works? Slaves, captives taken
+in war, and provincials that were not admitted to the distinction of
+Roman citizens. They worked by "_corvée_," as they do in France and
+elsewhere; but some trifling remuneration was allowed them.
+
+Augustus was the first who joined the legions with the people in labors
+upon the highways of the Gauls, and in Spain and Asia. He penetrated the
+Alps by the valley which bore his name, and which the Piedmontese and
+the French corruptly called the "Valley of Aöste." It was previously
+necessary to bring under subjection all the savage hordes by which these
+cantons were inhabited. There is still visible, between Great and Little
+St. Bernard, the triumphal arch erected by the senate in honor of him
+after this expedition. He again penetrated the Alps on another side
+leading to Lyons, and thence into the whole of Gaul. The conquered never
+effected for themselves so much as was effected for them by their
+conquerors.
+
+The downfall of the Roman Empire was that of all the public works, as
+also of all orderly police, art, and industry. The great roads
+disappeared in the Gauls, except some causeways, "_chaussées_," which
+the unfortunate Queen Brunehilde kept for a little time in repair. A man
+could scarcely move on horseback with safety on the ancient celebrated
+ways, which were now becoming dreadfully broken up, and impeded by
+masses of stone and mud. It was found necessary to pass over the
+cultivated fields; the ploughs scarcely effected in a month what they
+now easily accomplish in a week. The little commerce that remained was
+limited to a few woollen and linen cloths, and some wretchedly wrought
+hardwares, which were carried on the backs of mules to the
+fortifications or prisons called "_châteaux_" situated in the midst of
+marshes, or on the tops of mountains covered with snow.
+
+Whatever travelling was accomplished--and it could be but little--during
+the severe seasons of the year, so long and so tedious in northern
+climates, could be effected only by wading through mud or climbing over
+rocks. Such was the state of the whole of France and Germany down to the
+middle of the seventeenth century. Every individual wore boots; and in
+many of the cities of Germany the inhabitants went into the streets on
+stilts.
+
+At length, under Louis XIV., were begun those great roads which other
+nations have imitated. Their width was limited to sixty feet in the year
+1720. They are bordered by trees in many places to the extent of thirty
+leagues from the capital, which has a most interesting and delightful
+effect. The Roman military ways were only sixteen feet wide, but were
+infinitely more solid. It was necessary to repair them every year, as is
+the practice with us. They were embellished by monuments, by military
+columns, and even by magnificent tombs; for it was not permitted, either
+in Greece or Italy, to bury the dead within the walls of cities, and
+still less within those of temples; to do so would have been no less an
+offence than sacrilege. It was not then as it is at present in our
+churches, in which, for a sum of money, ostentatious and barbarous
+vanity is allowed to deposit the dead bodies of wealthy citizens,
+infecting the very place where men assemble to adore their God in
+purity, and where incense seems to be burned solely to counteract the
+stench of carcasses; while the poorer classes are deposited in the
+adjoining cemetery; and both unite their fatal influence to spread
+contagion among survivors.
+
+The emperors were almost the only persons whose ashes were permitted to
+repose in the monuments erected at Rome.
+
+Highways, sixty feet in width, occupy too much land; it is about forty
+feet more than necessary. France measures two hundred leagues, or
+thereabouts, from the mouth of the Rhone to the extremity of Brittany,
+and about the same from Perpignan to Dunkirk; reckoning the league at
+two thousand five hundred toises. This calculation requires, merely for
+two great roads, a hundred and twenty millions of square feet of land,
+all which must of course be lost to agriculture. This loss is very
+considerable in a country where the harvests are by no means always
+abundant.
+
+An attempt was made to pave the high road from Orleans, which was not of
+the width above mentioned; but it was seen, in no long time, that
+nothing could be worse contrived for a road constantly covered with
+heavy carriages. Of these hewn paving stones laid on the ground, some
+will be constantly sinking, and others rising above the correct level,
+and the road becomes rugged, broken, and impracticable; it was therefore
+found necessary that the plan should be abandoned.
+
+Roads covered with gravel and sand require a renewal of labor every
+year; this labor interferes with the cultivation of land, and is ruinous
+to agriculture.
+
+M. Turgot, son of the mayor of Paris--whose name is never mentioned in
+that city but with blessings, and who was one of the most enlightened,
+patriotic, and zealous of magistrates--and the humane and beneficent M.
+de Fontette have done all in their power, in the provinces of Limousin
+and Normandy, to correct this most serious inconvenience.
+
+It has been contended that we should follow the example of Augustus and
+Trajan, and employ our troops in the construction of highways. But in
+that case the soldier must necessarily have an increase of pay; and a
+kingdom, which was nothing but a province of the Roman Empire, and which
+is often involved in debt, can rarely engage in such undertakings as the
+Roman Empire accomplished without difficulty.
+
+It is a very commendable practice in the Low Countries, to require the
+payment of a moderate toll from all carriages, in order to keep the
+public roads in proper repair. The burden is a very light one. The
+peasant is relieved from the old system of vexation and oppression, and
+the roads are in such fine preservation as to form even an agreeable
+continued promenade.
+
+Canals are much more useful still. The Chinese surpass all other people
+in these works, which require continual attention and repair. Louis
+XIV., Colbert, and Riquet, have immortalized themselves by the canal
+which joins the two seas. They have never been as yet imitated. It is no
+difficult matter to travel through a great part of France by canals.
+Nothing could be more easy in Germany than to join the Rhine to the
+Danube; but men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and
+cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending
+the grand means of human happiness.
+
+
+
+
+ROD.
+
+
+The Theurgists and ancient sages had always a rod with which they
+operated.
+
+Mercury passes for the first whose rod worked miracles. It is asserted
+that Zoroaster also bore a great rod. The rod of the ancient Bacchus was
+his Thyrsus, with which he separated the waters of the Orontes, the
+Hydaspus, and the Red Sea. The rod of Hercules was his club. Pythagoras
+was always represented with his rod. It is said it was of gold; and it
+is not surprising that, having a thigh of gold, he should possess a rod
+of the same metal.
+
+Abaris, priest of the hyperborean Apollo, who it is pretended was
+contemporary with Pythagoras, was still more famous for his rod. It was
+indeed only of wood, but he traversed the air astride of it. Porphyry
+and Iamblichus pretend that these two grand Theurgists, Abaris and
+Pythagoras, amicably exhibited their rods to each other.
+
+The rod, with sages, was at all times a sign of their superiority. The
+sorcerers of the privy council of Pharaoh at first effected as many
+feats with their rods as Moses with his own. The judicious Calmet
+informs us, in his "Dissertation on the Book of Exodus," that "these
+operations of the Magi were not miracles, properly speaking, but
+metamorphoses, viz.: singular and difficult indeed, but nevertheless
+neither contrary to nor above the laws of nature." The rod of Moses had
+the superiority, which it ought to have, over those of the Chotins of
+Egypt.
+
+Not only did the rod of Aaron share in the honor of the prodigies of
+that of his brother Moses, but he performed some admirable things with
+his own. No one can be ignorant that, out of thirteen rods, Aaron's
+alone blossomed, and bore buds and flowers of almonds.
+
+The devil, who, as is well known, is a wicked aper of the deeds of
+saints, would also have his rod or wand, with which he gratified the
+sorcerers: Medea and Circe were always armed with this mysterious
+instrument. Hence, a magician never appears at the opera without his
+rod, and on which account they call their parts, "_rôles de baguette_."
+No performer with cups and balls can manage his hey presto! without his
+rod or wand.
+
+Springs of water and hidden treasures are discovered by means of a rod
+made of a hazel twig, which fails not to press the hand of a fool who
+holds it too fast, but which turns about easily in that of a knave. M.
+Formey, secretary of the academy of Berlin, explains this phenomenon by
+that of the loadstone. All the conjurers of past times, it was thought,
+repaired to a sabbath or assembly on a magic rod or on a broom-stick;
+and judges, who were no conjurers, burned them.
+
+Birchen rods are formed of a handful of twigs of that tree with which
+malefactors are scourged on the back. It is indecent and shameful to
+scourge in this manner the posteriors of young boys and girls; a
+punishment which was formerly that of slaves. I have seen, in some
+colleges, barbarians who have stripped children almost naked; a kind of
+executioner, often intoxicated, lacerate them with long rods, which
+frequently covered them with blood, and produced extreme inflammation.
+Others struck them more gently, which from natural causes has been known
+to produce consequences, especially in females, scarcely less
+disgusting.
+
+By an incomprehensible species of police, the Jesuits of Paraguay
+whipped the fathers and mothers of families on their posteriors. Had
+there been no other motive for driving out the Jesuits, that would have
+sufficed.
+
+
+
+
+ROME (COURT OF).
+
+
+Before the time of Constantine, the bishop of Rome was considered by the
+Roman magistrates, who were unacquainted with our holy religion, only as
+the chief of a sect, frequently tolerated by the government, but
+frequently experiencing from it capital punishment. The names of the
+first disciples, who were by birth Jews, and of their successors, who
+governed the little flock concealed in the immense city of Rome, were
+absolutely unknown by all the Latin writers. We well know that
+everything was changed, and in what manner everything was changed under
+Constantine.
+
+The bishop of Rome, protected and enriched as he was, was always in
+subjection to the emperors, like the bishop of Constantinople, and of
+Nicomedia, and every other, not making even the slightest pretension to
+the shadow of sovereign authority. Fatality, which guides the affairs of
+the universe, finally established the power of the ecclesiastical Roman
+court, by the hands of the barbarians who destroyed the empire.
+
+The ancient religion, under which the Romans had been victorious for
+such a series of ages, existed still in the hearts of the population,
+notwithstanding all the efforts of persecution, when, in the four
+hundred and eighth year of our era, Alaric invaded Italy and beseiged
+Rome. Pope Innocent I. indeed did not think proper to forbid the
+inhabitants of that city sacrificing to the gods in the capitol, and in
+the other temples, in order to obtain the assistance of heaven against
+the Goths. But this same Pope Innocent, if we may credit Zosimus and
+Orosius, was one of the deputation sent to treat with Alaric, a
+circumstance which shows that the pope was at that time regarded as a
+person of considerable consequence.
+
+When Attila came to ravage Italy in 452, by the same right which the
+Romans themselves had exercised over so many and such powerful nations;
+by the right of Clovis, of the Goths, of the Vandals, and the Heruli,
+the emperor sent Pope Leo I., assisted by two personages of consular
+dignity, to negotiate with that conqueror. I have no doubt, that
+agreeably to what we are positively told, St. Leo was accompanied by an
+angel, armed with a flaming sword, which made the king of the Huns
+tremble, although he had no faith in angels, and a single sword was not
+exceedingly likely to inspire him with fear. This miracle is very finely
+painted in the Vatican, and nothing can be clearer than that it never
+would have been painted unless it had actually been true. What
+particularly vexes and perplexes me is this angel's suffering Aquileia,
+and the whole of Illyria, to be sacked and ravaged, and also his not
+preventing Genseric, at a later period, from giving up Rome to his
+soldiers for fourteen days of plunder. It was evidently not the angel of
+extermination.
+
+Under the exarchs, the credit and influence of the popes augmented, but
+even then they had not the smallest degree of civil power. The Roman
+bishop, elected by the people, craved protection for the bishop, of the
+exarch of Ravenna, who had the power of confirming or of cancelling the
+election.
+
+After the exarchate was destroyed by the Lombards, the Lombard kings
+were desirous of becoming masters also of the city of Rome; nothing
+could certainly be more natural.
+
+Pepin, the usurper of France, would not suffer the Lombards to usurp
+that capital, and so become too powerful against himself; nothing again
+can be more natural than this.
+
+It is pretended that Pepin and his son Charlemagne gave to the Roman
+bishops many lands of the exarchate, which was designated the Justices
+of St. Peter--"_les Justices de St. Pierre_." Such is the real origin of
+their temporal power. From this period, these bishops appear to have
+assiduously exerted themselves to obtain something of rather more
+consideration and of more consequence than these justices.
+
+We are in possession of a letter from Pope Arian I. to Charlemagne, in
+which he says, "The pious liberality of the emperor Constantine the
+Great, of sacred memory, raised and exalted, in the time of the blessed
+Roman Pontiff, Sylvester, the holy Roman Church, and conferred upon it
+his own power in this portion of Italy."
+
+From this time, we perceive, it was attempted to make the world believe
+in what is called the Donation of Constantine, which was, in the sequel,
+for a period of five hundred years, not merely regarded as an article of
+faith, but an incontestable truth. To entertain doubts on the subject of
+this donation included at once the crime of treason and the guilt of
+mortal sin.
+
+After the death of Charlemagne, the bishop augmented his authority in
+Rome from day to day; but centuries passed away before he came to be
+considered as a sovereign prince. Rome had for a long period a patrician
+municipal government.
+
+Pope John XII., whom Otho I., emperor of Germany, procured to be deposed
+in a sort of council, in 963, as simoniacal, incestuous, sodomitical, an
+atheist, in league with the devil, was the first man in Italy as
+patrician and consul, before he became bishop of Rome; and
+notwithstanding all these titles and claims, notwithstanding the
+influence of the celebrated Marosia, his mother, his authority was
+always questioned and contested.
+
+Gregory VII., who from the rank of a monk became pope, and pretended to
+depose kings and bestow empires, far from being in fact complete master
+of Rome, died under the protection, or rather as the prisoner of those
+Norman princes who conquered the two Sicilies, of which he considered
+himself the paramount lord.
+
+In the grand schism of the West, the popes who contended for the empire
+of the world frequently supported themselves on alms.
+
+It is a fact not a little extraordinary that the popes did not become
+rich till after the period when they dared not to exhibit themselves at
+Rome.
+
+According to Villani, Bertrand de Goth, Clement V. of Bordeaux, who
+passed his life in France, sold benefices publicly, and at his death
+left behind him vast treasures.
+
+The same Villani asserts that he died worth twenty-five millions of gold
+florins. St. Peter's patrimony could not certainly have brought him such
+a sum.
+
+In a word, down to the time of Innocent VIII., who, made himself master
+of the castle of St. Angelo, the popes never possessed in Rome actual
+sovereignty.
+
+Their spiritual authority was undoubtedly the foundation of their
+temporal; but had they confined themselves to imitating the conduct of
+St. Peter, whose place it was pretended they filled, they would never
+have obtained any other kingdom than that of heaven. Their policy always
+contrived to prevent the emperors from establishing themselves at Rome,
+notwithstanding the fine and flattering title of "king of the Romans."
+The Guelph faction always prevailed in Italy over the Ghibelline. The
+Romans were more disposed to obey an Italian priest than a German king.
+
+In the civil wars, which the quarrel between the empire and the
+priesthood excited and kept alive for a period of five hundred years,
+many lords obtained sovereignties, sometimes in quality of vicars of the
+empire, and sometimes in that of vicars of the Holy See. Such were the
+princes of Este at Ferrara, the Bentivoglios at Bologna, the Malatestas
+at Rimini, the Manfredis at Faenza, the Bagliones at Perouse, the Ursins
+in Anguillara and in Serveti, the Collonas in Ostia, the Riarios at
+Forli, the Montefeltros in Urbino, the Varanos in Camerino, and the
+Gravinas in Senigaglia.
+
+All these lords had as much right to the territories they possessed as
+the popes had to the patrimony of St. Peter; both were founded upon
+donations.
+
+It is known in what manner Pope Alexander VI. made use of his bastard to
+invade and take possession of all these principalities. King Louis XII.
+obtained from that pope the cancelling of his marriage, after a
+cohabitation of eighteen years, on condition of his assisting the
+usurper.
+
+The assassinations committed by Clovis to gain possession of the
+territories of the petty kings who were his neighbors, bear no
+comparison to the horrors exhibited on this occasion by Alexander and
+his son.
+
+The history of Nero himself is less abominable; the atrocity of whose
+crimes was not increased by the pretext of religion; and it is worth
+observing, that at the very time these diabolical excesses were
+performed, the kings of Spain and Portugal were suing to that pope, one
+of them for America, and the other for Asia, which the monster
+accordingly granted them in the name of that God he pretended to
+represent. It is also worth observing that not fewer than a hundred
+thousand pilgrims flocked to his jubilee and prostrated themselves in
+adoration of his person.
+
+Julius II. completed what Alexander had begun. Louis XII., born to
+become the dupe of all his neighbors, assisted Julius in seizing upon
+Bologna and Perouse. That unfortunate monarch, in return for his
+services, was driven out of Italy, and excommunicated by the very pope
+whom the archbishop of Auch, the king's ambassador at Rome, addressed
+with the words "your wickedness," instead of "your holiness."
+
+To complete his mortification, Anne of Brittany, his wife, a woman as
+devout as she was imperious, told him in plain terms, that he would be
+damned for going to war with the pope.
+
+If Leo X. and Clement VII. lost so many states which withdrew from the
+papal communion, their power continued no less absolute than before over
+the provinces which still adhered to the Catholic faith. The court of
+Rome excommunicated the emperor Henry III., and declared Henry IV.
+unworthy to reign.
+
+It still draws large sums from all the Catholic states of Germany, from
+Hungary, Poland, Spain, and France. Its ambassadors take precedence of
+all others; it is no longer sufficiently powerful to carry on war; and
+its weakness is in fact its happiness. The ecclesiastical state is the
+only one that has regularly enjoyed the advantages of peace since the
+sacking of Rome by the troops of Charles V. It appears, that the popes
+have been often treated like the gods of the Japanese, who are sometimes
+presented with offerings of gold, and sometimes thrown into the river.
+
+
+
+
+SAMOTHRACE.
+
+
+Whether the celebrated isle of Samothrace be at the mouth of the river
+Hebrus, as it is said to be in almost all the geographical dictionaries,
+or whether it be twenty miles distant from it, which is in fact the
+case, is not what I am now investigating.
+
+This isle was for a long time the most famous in the whole archipelago,
+and even in the whole world. Its deities called Cabiri, its hierophants,
+and its mysteries, conferred upon it as much reputation as was obtained
+not long since by St. Patrick's cave in Ireland.
+
+This Samothrace, the modern name of which is Samandrachi, is a rock
+covered with a very thin and barren soil, and inhabited by poor
+fishermen. They would be extremely surprised at being told of the glory
+which was formerly connected with their island; and they would probably
+ask, What is glory?
+
+I inquire, what were these hierophants, these holy free masons, who
+celebrated their ancient mysteries in Samothrace, and whence did they
+and their gods Cabiri come?
+
+It is not probable that these poor people came from Phœnicia, as
+Bochart infers by a long train of Hebrew etymologies, and as the Abbé
+Barrier, after him, is of opinion also. It is not in this manner that
+gods gain establishments in the world. They are like conquerors who
+subjugate nations, not all at once, but one after another. The distance
+from Phœnicia to this wretched island is too great to admit of the
+supposition that the gods of the wealthy Sidon and the proud Tyre should
+come to coop themselves up in this hermitage. Hierophants are not such
+fools.
+
+The fact is, that there were gods of the Cabiri, priests of the Cabiri,
+and mysteries of the Cabiri, in this contemptible and miserable island.
+Not only does Herodotus mention them, but the Phœnician historian
+Sanchoniathon, who lived long before Herodotus, speaks of them in those
+fragments which have been so fortunately preserved by Eusebius. What is
+worse still, this Sanchoniathon, who certainly lived before the period
+in which Moses flourished, cites the great Thaut, the first Hermes, the
+first Mercury of Egypt; and this same great Thaut lived eight hundred
+years before Sanchoniathon, as that Phœnician acknowledges himself.
+
+The Cabiri were therefore in estimation and honor two thousand and three
+or four hundred years before the Christian era.
+
+Now, if you are desirous of knowing whence those gods of the Cabiri,
+established in Samothrace, came, does it not seem probable that they
+came from Thrace, the country nearest to that island, and that that
+small island was granted them as a theatre on which to act their farces,
+and pick up a little money? Orpheus might very possibly be the prime
+minstrel of these gods.
+
+But who were these gods? They were what all the gods of antiquity were,
+phantoms invented by coarse and vulgar knaves, sculptured by artisans
+coarser still, and adored by brutes having the name of men.
+
+There were three sorts of Cabiri; for, as we have already observed,
+everything in antiquity was done by threes. Orpheus could not have made
+his appearance in the world until long after the invention of these
+three gods; for he admits only one in his mysteries. I am much disposed
+to consider Orpheus as having been a strict Socinian.
+
+I regard the ancient gods Cabiri as having been the first gods of
+Thrace, whatever Greek names may have been afterwards given to them.
+
+There is something, however, still more curious, respecting the history
+of Samothrace. We know that Greece and Thrace were formerly afflicted
+by many inundations. We have read of the deluges of Deucaleon and
+Ogyges. The isle of Samothrace boasted of a yet more ancient deluge; and
+its deluge corresponds, in point of time, with the period in which it is
+contended that the ancient king of Thrace, Xixuter, lived, whom we have
+spoken of under the article on "Ararat."
+
+You may probably recollect that the gods of Xixuter, or Xissuter, who
+were in all probability the Cabiri, commanded him to build a vessel
+about thirty thousand feet long, and a hundred and twelve wide; that
+this vessel sailed for a long time over the mountains of Armenia during
+the deluge; that, having taken on board with him some pigeons and many
+other domestic animals, he let loose his pigeons to ascertain whether
+the waters had withdrawn; and that they returned covered with dirt and
+slime, which induced Xixuter to resolve on disembarking from his immense
+vessel.
+
+You will say that it is a most extraordinary circumstance that
+Sanchoniathon does not make any mention of this curious adventure. I
+reply, that it is impossible for us to decide whether it was mentioned
+in his history or not, as Eusebius, who has only transmitted to us some
+fragments of this very ancient historian, had no particular inducement
+to quote any passage that might have existed in his work respecting the
+ship and pigeons. Berosus, however, relates the case, and he connects it
+with the marvellous, according to the general practice of the ancients.
+The inhabitants of Samothrace had erected monuments of this deluge.
+
+What is more extraordinary and astonishing still is, as indeed we have
+already partly remarked, that neither Greece nor Thrace, nor the people
+of any other country, ever knew anything of the real and great deluge,
+the deluge of Noah.
+
+How could it be possible, we once more ask, that an event so awful and
+appalling as that of the submersion of the whole earth should be unknown
+by the survivors? How could the name of our common father, Noah, who
+re-peopled the world, be unknown to all those who were indebted to him
+for life? It is the most prodigious of all progidies, that, of so many
+grandchildren, not one should have ever spoken of his grandfather!
+
+I have applied to all the learned men that I have seen, and said, Have
+you ever met with any old work in Greek, Tuscan, Arabian, Egyptian,
+Chaldæan, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, in which the name of Noah is to
+be found? They have all replied in the negative. This is a fact that
+perpetually perplexes and confounds me.
+
+But that the history of this universal inundation should be found in a
+single page of a book written in the wilderness by fugitives, and that
+this page should have been unknown to all the rest of the world till
+about nine hundred years after the foundation of Rome--this perfectly
+petrifies me. I cannot not recover from its impression. The effect
+is completely overpowering. My worthy reader, let us both together
+exclaim: "_O altitudo ignorantiarum!_"
+
+[Illustration: Samson Destroying the Temple.]
+
+
+
+
+SAMSON.
+
+
+In quality of poor alphabetical compilers, collectors of anecdotes,
+gatherers of trifles, pickers of rags at the corners of the streets, we
+glorify ourselves with all the pride attached to our sublime science, on
+having discovered that "Samson the Strong," a tragedy, was played at the
+close of the sixteenth century, in the town of Rouen, and that it was
+printed by Abraham Couturier. John Milton, for a long time a
+schoolmaster of London, afterwards Latin secretary to the protector,
+Cromwell--Milton, the author of "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise
+Regained"--wrote the tragedy of "Samson Agonistes"; and it is very
+unfortunate that we cannot tell in what year.
+
+We know, however, that it has been printed with a preface, in which much
+is boasted, by one of our brethren, the commentator named Paræus, who
+first perceived by the force of his genius, that the Apocalypse is a
+tragedy. On the strength of this discovery he divided the Apocalypse
+into five acts, and inserted choruses worthy of the elegance and fine
+nature of the piece. The author of this preface speaks to us of the fine
+tragedies of St. Gregory of Nazianzen. He asserts, that a tragedy should
+never have more than five acts, and to prove it, he gives us the
+"Samson Agonistes" of Milton, which has but one. Those who like
+elaborate declamation will be satisfied with this piece.
+
+A comedy of Samson was played for a long time in Italy. A translation of
+it was made in Paris in 1717, by one named Romagnesi; it was represented
+on the French theatre of the pretended Italian comedy, formerly the
+palace of the dukes of Burgundy. It was published, and dedicated to the
+duke of Orleans, regent of France.
+
+In this sublime piece, Arlequin, the servant of Samson, fights with a
+turkey-cock, whilst his master carries off the gates of Gaza on his
+shoulders.
+
+In 1732, it was wished to represent, at the opera of Paris, a tragedy of
+Samson, set to music by the celebrated Rameau; but it was not permitted.
+There was neither Arlequin nor turkey-cock; but the thing appeared too
+serious; besides, certain people were very glad to mortify Rameau, who
+possessed great talents. Yet at that time they performed the opera of
+"Jephthah," extracted from the Old Testament, and the comedy of the
+"Prodigal Son," from the New Testament.
+
+There is an old edition of the "Samson Agonistes" of Milton, preceded by
+an abridgment of the history of the hero. The following is this
+abridgment:
+
+The Jews, to whom God promised by oath all the country which is between
+the river of Egypt and the Euphrates, and who through their sins never
+had this country, were on the contrary reduced to servitude, which
+slavery lasted for forty years. Now there was a Jew of the tribe of Dan,
+named Manoah; and the wife of this Manoah was barren; and an angel
+appeared to this woman, and said to her, "Behold, thou shalt conceive
+and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any
+unclean thing; for the child shall be a Nazarite to God, from the womb
+to the day of his death."
+
+The angel afterwards appeared to the husband and wife; they gave him a
+kid to eat; he would have none of it, and disappeared in the midst of
+the smoke; and the woman said, We shall surely die, because we have seen
+God; but they died not.
+
+The slave Samson being born, was consecrated a Nazarite. As soon as he
+was grown up, the first thing he did was to go to the Phœnician or
+Philistine town of Timnath, to court a daughter of one of his masters,
+whom he married.
+
+In going to his mistress he met a lion, and tore him in pieces with his
+naked hand, as he would have done a kid. Some days after, he found a
+swarm of bees in the throat of the dead lion, with some honey, though
+bees never rest on carrion.
+
+Then he proposed this enigma to his companions: Out of the eater came
+forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness: if you guess, I
+will give you thirty tunics and thirty gowns; if not, you shall give me
+thirty gowns and thirty tunics. The comrades, not being able to guess in
+what the solution of the enigma consisted, gained over the young wife
+of Samson; she drew the secret from her husband, and he was obliged to
+give them thirty tunics and thirty gowns. "Ah," said he to them, "if ye
+had not ploughed with my heifer, ye would not have found out my riddle."
+
+Soon after, the father-in-law of Samson gave another husband to his
+daughter.
+
+Samson, enraged at having lost his wife, immediately caught three
+hundred foxes, tied them two together by the tails with lighted
+firebrands, and they fired the corn of the Philistines.
+
+The Jewish slaves, not being willing to be punished by their masters for
+the exploits of Samson, surprised him in the cavern in which he dwelt,
+tied him with great ropes, and delivered him to the Philistines. As soon
+as he was in the midst of them, he broke his cords, and finding the
+jawbone of an ass, with one effort he killed a thousand Philistines.
+Such an effort making him very warm, he was dying of thirst, on which
+God made a fountain spout from one of the teeth of the ass's jaw-bone.
+Samson, having drunk, went into Gaza, a Philistine town; he there
+immediately became smitten with a courtesan. As he slept with her, the
+Philistines shut the gates of the town, and surrounded the house, when
+he arose, took the gates, and carried them away. The Philistines, in
+despair at not being able to overcome this hero, addressed themselves to
+another courtesan named Delilah, with whom he afterwards slept. She
+finally drew from him the secret in which his strength consisted: it was
+only necessary to shave him, to render him equal to other men. He was
+shaved, became weak, and his eyes being put out, he was made to turn a
+mill and to play on the violin. One day, while playing in a Philistine
+temple, between two of its columns, he became indignant that the
+Philistines should have columned temples, whilst the Jews had only a
+tabernacle supported on four poles. He also felt that his hair began to
+grow; and being transported with a holy zeal, he pulled down the two
+pillars; by which concussion the temple was overthrown, the Philistines
+were crushed to death, and he with them.
+
+Such is this preface, word for word.
+
+This is the history which is the subject of the piece of Milton, and
+Romagnesi: it is adapted to Italian farce.
+
+
+
+
+SATURN'S RING.
+
+
+This astonishing phenomenon, but not more astonishing than others, this
+solid and luminous body, which surrounds the planet Saturn, which it
+enlightens, and by which it is enlightened, whether by the feeble
+reflection of the sun's rays, or by some unknown cause, was, according
+to a dreamer who calls himself a philosopher, formerly a sea. This sea,
+according to him, has hardened and become earth or rock; once it
+gravitated towards two centres, whereas at present it gravitates only
+towards one.
+
+How pleasantly you proceed, my ingenious dreamer! how easily you
+transform water into rock! Ovid was nothing in the comparison. What a
+marvellous power you exercise over nature; imagination by no means
+confounds you. Oh, greediness to utter novelties! Oh, fury for systems!
+Oh, weakness of the human mind! If anyone has spoken of this reverie in
+the "Encyclopædia," it is doubtless to ridicule it, without which other
+nations would have a right to say: Behold the use which the French make
+of the discovery of other people! Huyghens discovered the ring of
+Saturn, and calculated its appearances; Hook and Flamstead have done the
+same thing. A Frenchman has discovered that this solid body was even a
+circular ocean, and this Frenchman is not Cyrano de Bergerac!
+
+
+
+
+SCANDAL.
+
+
+Without inquiring whether scandal originally meant a stone which might
+occasion people to stumble and fall, or a quarrel, or a seduction, we
+consider it here merely in its present sense and acceptation. A scandal
+is a serious indecorum which is used generally in reference to the
+clergy. The tales of Fontaine are libertine or licentious; many passages
+of Sanchez, of Tambourin, and of Molina are scandalous.
+
+A man is scandalous by his writings or by his conduct. The siege which
+the Augustins maintained against the patrol, at the time of the Fronde,
+was scandalous. The bankruptcy of the brother La Valette, of the Society
+of Jesuits, was more than scandalous. The lawsuit carried on by the
+reverend fathers of the order of the Capuchins of Paris, in 1764, was a
+most satisfactory and delightful scandal to thousands. For the
+edification of the reader, a word or two upon that subject in this place
+will not be ill employed.
+
+These reverend fathers had been fighting in their convent; some of them
+had hidden their money, and others had stolen the concealed treasure. Up
+to this point the scandal was only particular, a stone against which
+only Capuchins could trip and tumble; but when the affair was brought
+before the parliament, the scandal became public.
+
+It is stated in the pleadings in the cause, that the convent of the St.
+Honoré consumes twelve hundred pounds of bread a week, and meat and wood
+in proportion; and that there are four collecting friars, "_quêteurs_,"
+whose office it is, conformably to the term, to raise contributions in
+the city. What a frightful, dreadful scandal! Twelve hundred pounds of
+meat and bread per week for a few Capuchins, while so many artisans
+overwhelmed with old age, and so many respectable widows, are exposed to
+languish in want, and die in misery!
+
+That the reverend father Dorotheus should have accumulated an income of
+three thousand livres a year at the expense of the convent, and
+consequently of the public, is not only an enormous scandal, but an
+absolute robbery, and a robbery committed upon the most needy class of
+citizens in Paris; for the poor are the persons who pay the tax imposed
+by the mendicant monks. The ignorance and weakness of the people make
+them imagine that they can never obtain heaven without parting with
+their absolute necessaries, from which these monks derive their
+superfluities.
+
+This single brother, therefore, the chief of the convent, Dorotheus, to
+make up his income of a thousand crowns a year, must have extorted from
+the poor of Paris, no less a sum than twenty thousand crowns.
+
+Consider, my good reader, that such cases are by no means rare, even in
+this eighteenth century of our era, which has produced useful books to
+expose abuses and enlighten minds; but, as I have before observed, the
+people never read. A single Capuchin, Recollet, or Carmelite is capable
+of doing more harm than the best books in the world will ever be able to
+do good.
+
+I would venture to propose to those who are really humane and
+well-disposed, to employ throughout the capital a certain number of
+anti-Capuchins and anti-Recollets, to go about from house to house
+exhorting fathers and mothers to virtue, and to keep their money for the
+maintenance of their families, and the support of their old age; to love
+God with all their hearts, but to give none of their money to monks.
+Let us return, however, to the real meaning of the word "scandal."
+
+In the above-mentioned process on the subject of the Capuchin convent,
+Brother Gregory is accused of being the father of a child by
+Mademoiselle Bras-defer, and of having her afterwards married to
+Moutard, the shoe-maker. It is not stated whether Brother Gregory
+himself bestowed the nuptial benediction on his mistress and poor
+Moutard, together with the required dispensation. If he did so, the
+scandal is rendered as complete as possible; it includes fornication,
+robbery, adultery, and sacrilege. "_Horresco referens_."
+
+I say in the first place "fornication," as Brother Gregory committed
+that offence with Magdalene Bras-defer, who was not at the time more
+than fifteen years of age.
+
+I also say "robbery," as he gave an apron and ribbons to Magdalene; and
+it is clear he must have robbed the convent in order to purchase them,
+and to pay for suppers, lodgings, and other expenses attending their
+intercourse.
+
+I say "adultery," as this depraved man continued his connection with
+Magdalene after she became Madame Moutard.
+
+And I say "sacrilege," as he was the confessor of Magdalene. And, if he
+himself performed the marriage ceremony for his mistress, judge what
+sort of man Brother Gregory must really have been.
+
+One of our colleagues in this little collection of philosophic and
+encyclopædic questions is now engaged on a moral work, on the subject of
+scandal, against the opinion of Brother Patouillet. We hope it will not
+be long before it sees the light.
+
+
+
+
+SCHISM.
+
+
+All that we had written on the subject of the grand schism between the
+Greeks and Latins, in the essay on the manners and spirit of nations,
+has been inserted in the great encyclopædic dictionary. We will not here
+repeat ourselves.
+
+But when reflecting on the meaning of the word "schism," which signifies
+a dividing or rending asunder, and considering also the present state of
+Poland, divided and rent as it is in a manner the most pitiable, we
+cannot help anew deploring that a malady so destructive should be
+peculiar to Christians. This malady, which we have not described with
+sufficient particularity, is a species of madness which first affects
+the eyes and the mouth; the patient looks with an impatient and
+resentful eye on the man who does not think exactly like himself, and
+soon begins to pour out all the abuse and reviling that his command of
+language will permit. The madness next seizes the hands; and the
+unfortunate maniac writes what exhibits, in the most decided manner, the
+inflamed and delirious state of the brain. He falls into demoniacal
+convulsions, draws his sword, and fights with fury and desperation to
+the last gasp. Medicine has never been able to find a remedy for this
+dreadful disease. Time and philosophy alone can effect a cure.
+
+The Poles are now the only people among whom this contagion at present
+rages. We may almost believe that the disorder is born with them, like
+their frightful plica. They are both diseases of the head, and of a most
+noxious character. Cleanliness will cure the plica; wisdom alone can
+extirpate schism.
+
+We are told that both these diseases were unknown to the Samartians
+while they were Pagans. The plica affects only the common people at
+present, but all the evils originating in schism are corroding and
+destroying the higher classes of the republic.
+
+The cause of the evil is the fertility of their land, which produces too
+much corn. It is a melancholy and deplorable case that even the blessing
+of heaven should in fact have involved them in such direful calamity.
+Some of the provinces have contended that it was absolutely necessary to
+put leaven in their bread, but the greater part of the nation entertain
+an obstinate and unalterable belief, that, on certain days of the year,
+fermented bread is absolutely mortal.
+
+Such is one of the principal causes of the schism or the rending asunder
+of Poland; the dispute has infused acrimony into their blood. Other
+causes have added to the effect.
+
+Some have imagined, in the paroxysms and convulsions of the malady under
+which they labor, that the Holy Spirit proceeded both from the Father
+and the Son: and the others have exclaimed, that it proceeded from the
+Father only. The two parties, one of which is called the Roman party,
+and the other the Dissident, look upon each other as if they were
+absolutely infected by the plague; but, by a singular symptom peculiar
+to this complaint, the infected Dissidents have always shown an
+inclination to approach the Catholics, while the Catholics on the other
+hand have never manifested any to approach them.
+
+There is no disease which does not vary in different circumstances and
+situations. The diet, which is generally esteemed salutary, has been so
+pernicious to this unhappy nation, that after the application of it in
+1768, the cities of Uman, Zablotin, Tetiou, Zilianki, and Zafran were
+destroyed and inundated with blood; and more than two hundred thousand
+patients miserably perished.
+
+On one side the empire of Russia, and on the other that of Turkey, have
+sent a hundred thousand surgeons provided with lancets, bistouries, and
+all sorts of instruments, adapted to cut off the morbid and gangrened
+parts; but the disease has only become more virulent. The delirium has
+even been so outrageous, that forty of the patients actually met
+together for the purpose of dissecting their king, who had never been
+attacked by the disease, and whose brain and all the vital and noble
+parts of his body were in a perfectly sound state, as we shall have to
+remark under the article on "Superstition." It is thought that if the
+contending parties would refer the case entirely to him, he might effect
+a cure of the whole nation; but it is one of the symptoms of this cruel
+malady to be afraid of being cured, as persons laboring under
+hydrophobia dread even the sight of water.
+
+There are some learned men among us who contend that the disease was
+brought, a long time ago, from Palestine, and that the inhabitants of
+Jerusalem and Samaria were long harassed by it. Others think that the
+original seat of the disease was Egypt, and that the dogs and cats,
+which were there held in the highest consideration, having become mad,
+communicated the madness of schism, or tearing asunder, to the greater
+part of the Egyptians, whose weak heads were but too susceptible to the
+disorder.
+
+It is remarked also, that the Greeks who travelled to Egypt, as, for
+example, Timeus of Locris and Plato, somewhat injured their brains by
+the excursion. However, the injury by no means reached madness, or
+plague, properly so called; it was a sort of delirium which was not at
+all times easily to be perceived, and which was often concealed under a
+very plausible appearance of reason. But the Greeks having, in the
+course of time, carried the complaint among the western and northern
+nations, the malformation or unfortunate excitability of the brain in
+our unhappy countries occasioned the slight fever of Timeus and Plato to
+break out among us into the most frightful and fatal contagion, which
+the physicians sometimes called intolerance, and sometimes persecution;
+sometimes religious war, sometimes madness, and sometimes pestilence.
+
+We have seen the fatal ravages committed by this infernal plague over
+the face of the earth. Many physicians have offered their services to
+destroy this frightful evil at its very root. But what will appear to
+many scarcely credible is, that there are entire faculties of medicine,
+at Salamanca and Coimbra, in Italy and even in Paris, which maintain
+that schism, division, or tearing asunder, is necessary for mankind;
+that corrupt humors are drawn off from them through the wounds which it
+occasions; that enthusiasm, which is one of the first symptoms of the
+complaint, exalts the soul, and produces the most beneficial
+consequences; that toleration is attended with innumerable
+inconveniences; that if the whole world were tolerant, great geniuses
+would want that powerful and irresistible impulse which has produced so
+many admirable works in theology; that peace is a great calamity to a
+state, because it brings back the pleasures in its train; and pleasures,
+after a course of time, soften down that noble ferocity which forms the
+hero; and that if the Greeks had made a treaty of commerce with the
+Trojans, instead of making war with them, there would never have been an
+Achilles, a Hector, or a Homer, and that the race of man would have
+stagnated in ignorance.
+
+These reasons, I acknowledge, are not without force; and I request time
+for giving them due consideration.
+
+
+
+
+SCROFULA.
+
+
+It has been pretended that divine power is appealed to in regard to this
+malady, because it is scarcely in human power to cure it.
+
+Possibly some monks began by supposing that kings, in their character of
+representatives of the divinity, possessed the privilege of curing
+scrofula, by touching the patients with their anointed hands. But why
+not bestow a similar power on emperors, whose dignity surpasses that of
+kings, or on popes, who call themselves the masters of emperors, and who
+are more than simple images of God, being His vicars on earth? It is
+possible, that some imaginary dreamer of Normandy, in order to render
+the usurpation of William the Bastard the more respectable, conceded to
+him, in quality of God's representative, the faculty of curing scrofula
+by the tip of his finger.
+
+It was some time after William that this usage became established. We
+must not gratify the kings of England with this gift, and refuse it to
+those of France, their liege lords. This would be in defiance of the
+respect due to the feudal system. In short, this power is traced up to
+Edward the Confessor in England, and to Clovis in France.
+
+The only testimony, in the least degree credible, of the antiquity of
+this usage, is to be found in the writings in favor of the house of
+Lancaster, composed by the judge, Sir John Fortescue, under Henry VI.,
+who was recognized king of France at Paris in his cradle, and then king
+of England, but who lost both kingdoms. Sir John Fortescue asserts, that
+from time immemorial, the kings of England were in possession of the
+power of curing scrofula by their touch. We cannot perceive, however,
+that this pretension rendered their persons more sacred in the wars
+between the roses.
+
+Queens consort could not cure scrofula, because they were not anointed
+in the hands, like the kings: but Elizabeth, a queen regnant and
+anointed, cured it without difficulty.
+
+A sad thing happened to Mortorillo the Calabrian, whom we denominate St.
+Francis de Paulo. King Louis XI. brought him to Plessis les Tours to
+cure him of his tendency to apoplexy, and the saint arrived afflicted by
+scrofula.
+
+"_Ipse fuit detentus gravi, inflatura, quam in parte inferiori, genæ suæ
+dextrae circa guttur patiebatur. Chirugii dicebant, mortum esse
+scrofarum._"
+
+The saint cured not the king, and the king cured not the saint.
+
+When the king of England, James II., was conducted from Rochester to
+Whitehall, somebody proposed that he should exhibit a proof of genuine
+royalty, as for instance, that of touching for the evil; but no one was
+presented to him. He departed to exercise his sovereignty in France at
+St. Germain, where he touched some Hibernians. His daughter Mary, King
+William, Queen Anne, and the kings of the house of Brunswick have cured
+nobody. This sacred gift departed when people began to reason.
+
+
+
+
+SECT.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+Every sect, of whatever opinion it may be, is a rallying point for doubt
+and error. Scotists, Thomists, Realists, Nominalists, Papists,
+Calvinists, Molinists, and Jansenists, are only warlike appellations.
+
+There is no sect in geometry; we never say: A Euclidian, an Archimedian.
+When truth is evident, it is impossible to divide people into parties
+and factions. Nobody disputes that it is broad day at noon.
+
+That part of astronomy which determines the course of the stars, and the
+return of eclipses, being now known, there is no longer any dispute
+among astronomers.
+
+It is similar with a small number of truths, which are similarly
+established; but if you are a Mahometan, as there are many men who are
+not Mahometans, you may possibly be in error.
+
+What would be the true religion, if Christianity did not exist? That in
+which there would be no sects; that in which all minds necessarily
+agreed.
+
+Now, in what doctrine are all minds agreed? In the adoration of one God,
+and in probity. All the philosophers who have professed a religion have
+said at all times: "There is a God, and He must be just." Behold then
+the universal religion, established throughout all time and among all
+men! The point then in which all agree is true; the systems in regard to
+which all differ are false.
+
+My sect is the best, says a Brahmin. But, my good friend, if thy sect is
+the best, it is necessary; for if not absolutely necessary, thou must
+confess that it is useless. If, on the contrary, it is necessary, it
+must be so to all men; how then is it that all men possess not what is
+absolutely necessary to them? How is it that the rest of the world
+laughs at thee and thy Brahma?
+
+When Zoroaster, Hermes, Orpheus, Minos, and all the great men say: Let
+us worship God, and be just, no one laughs; but all the world sneers at
+him who pretends, that to please God it is proper to die holding a cow
+by the tail; at him who cuts off a particle of foreskin for the same
+purpose; at him who consecrates crocodiles and onions; at him who
+attaches eternal salvation to the bones of dead men carried underneath
+the shirt, or to a plenary indulgence purchased at Rome for two sous and
+a half.
+
+Whence this universal assemblage of laughing and hissing from one end of
+the universe to the other? It must be that the things which all the
+world derides are not evident truths. What shall we say to a secretary
+of Sejanus, who dedicates to Petronius a book, in a confused and
+involved style, entitled "The Truth of the Sibylline Oracles, Proved
+from Facts."
+
+This secretary at first proves to you, that God sent upon earth many
+Sibyls, one after the other, having no other means of instructing men.
+It is demonstrated, that God communicated with these Sibyls, because the
+word "sibyl" signifies "Council of God." They ought to live a long time,
+for this privilege at least belongs to persons with whom God
+communicates. They amounted to twelve, because this number is sacred.
+They certainly predicted all the events in the world, because Tarquin
+the Proud bought their book from an old woman for a hundred crowns. What
+unbeliever, exclaims the secretary, can deny all these evident facts,
+which took place in one corner of the earth, in the face of all the
+world? Who can deny the accomplishment of their prophecies? Has not
+Virgil himself cited the predictions of the Sibyls? If we have not the
+first copies of the Sibylline books, written at a time when no one could
+read and write, we have authentic copies. Impiety must be silent before
+such proofs. Thus spoke Houteville to Sejanus, and hoped to obtain by it
+the place of chief augur, with a revenue of fifty thousand livres; but
+he obtained nothing.
+
+That which my sect teaches me is obscure, I confess it, exclaims a
+fanatic; and it is in consequence of that obscurity that I must believe
+it; for it says itself that it abounds in obscurities. My sect is
+extravagant, therefore it is divine; for how, appearing so insane,
+would it otherwise have been embraced by so many people. It is precisely
+like the Koran, which the Sonnites say presents at once the face of an
+angel and that of a beast. Be not scandalized at the muzzle of the
+beast, but revere the face of the angel. Thus spoke this madman; but a
+fanatic of another sect replied to the first fanatic: It is thou who art
+the beast, and I who am the angel.
+
+Now who will judge this process, and decide between these two inspired
+personages? The reasonable and impartial man who is learned in a science
+which is not that of words; the man divested of prejudice, and a lover
+of truth and of justice; the man, in fine, who is not a beast, and who
+pretends not to be an angel.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+Sect and error are synonymous terms. Thou art a peripatetic and I a
+Platonist; we are therefore both in the wrong; for thou opposest Plato,
+because his chimeras repel thee; and I fly from Aristotle, because it
+appears to me that he knew not what he said. If the one or the other had
+demonstrated the truth, there would have been an end of sect. To declare
+for the opinion of one in opposition to that of another, is to take part
+in a civil war. There is no sect in mathematics or experimental
+philosophy: a man who examines the relation between a cone and a sphere
+is not of the sect of Archimedes; and he who perceived that the square
+of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the
+squares of the other two sides, is not in consequence a Pythagorean.
+
+When we say that the blood circulates, that the air is weighty, that the
+rays of the sun are a bundle of seven refrangible rays, it follows not
+that we are of the sect of Harvey, of Torricelli, or of Newton; we
+simply acquiesce in the truths which they demonstrate, and the whole
+universe will be of the same opinion.
+
+Such is the character of truth, which belongs to all time and to all
+men. It is only to be produced to be acknowledged, and admits of no
+opposition. A long dispute signifies that both parties are in error.
+
+
+
+
+SELF-LOVE.
+
+
+Nicole, in his "Moral Essays," written after two or three thousand
+volumes on morals (Treatise on Charity, chap, ii.), says, that "by means
+of the gibbets and tortures which are established in common, the
+tyrannical designs of the self-love of each individual are repressed."
+
+I will not examine whether we have gibbets in common, as we have fields
+and woods in common, and a common purse, or if thoughts are repressed by
+wheels; but it seems to me very strange that Nicole has taken highway
+robbery and murder for self-love. The distinctions must be a little
+more examined. He who should say that Nero killed his mother from
+self-love, that Cartouche had much self-love, would not express himself
+very correctly. Self-love is not a wickedness; it is a sentiment natural
+to all men; it is much more the neighbor of vanity than of crime.
+
+A beggar of the suburbs of Madrid boldly asked alms; a passenger said to
+him: Are you not ashamed to carry on this infamous trade, when you can
+work? Sir, replied the mendicant, I ask you for money, and not for
+advice; and turned his back on him with Castilian dignity. This
+gentleman was a haughty beggar; his vanity was wounded by very little:
+he asked alms for love of himself, and would not suffer the reprimand
+from a still greater love of himself.
+
+A missionary, travelling in India, met a fakir loaded with chains, naked
+as an ape, lying on his stomach, and lashing himself for the sins of his
+countrymen, the Indians, who gave him some coins of the country. What a
+renouncement of himself! said one of the spectators. Renouncement of
+myself! said the fakir, learn that I only lash myself in this world to
+serve you the same in the next, when you will be the horses and I the
+rider.
+
+Those who said that love of ourselves is the basis of all our sentiments
+and actions were right; and as it has not been written to prove to men
+that they have a face, there is no occasion to prove to them that they
+possess self-love. This self-love is the instrument of our
+preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind;
+it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must
+conceal it.
+
+
+
+
+SENSATION.
+
+
+Oysters, it is said, have two senses; moles four; all other animals,
+like man, five. Some people contend for a sixth, but it is evident that
+the voluptuous sensation to which they allude is reducible to that of
+touch; and that five senses are our lot. It is impossible for us to
+imagine anything beyond them, or to desire out of their range.
+
+It may be, that in other globes the inhabitants possess sensations of
+which we can form no idea. It is possible that the number of our senses
+augments from globe to globe, and that an existence with innumerable and
+perfect senses will be the final attainment of all being.
+
+But with respect to ourselves and our five senses, what is the extent of
+our capacity? We constantly feel in spite of ourselves, and never
+because we will do so: it is impossible for us to avoid having the
+sensation which our nature ordains when any object excites it. The
+sensation is within us, but depends not upon ourselves. We receive it,
+but how do we receive it? It is evident that there is no connection
+between the stricken air, the words which I sing, and the impression
+which these words make upon my brain.
+
+We are astonished at thought, but sensation is equally wonderful. A
+divine power is as manifest in the sensation of the meanest of insects
+as in the brain of Newton. In the meantime, if a thousand animals die
+before our eyes, we are not anxious to know what becomes of their
+faculty of sensation, although it is as much the work of the Supreme
+Being as our own. We regard them as the machines of nature, created to
+perish, and to give place to others.
+
+For what purpose and in what manner may their sensations exist, when
+they exist no longer? What need has the author of all things to preserve
+qualities, when the substance is destroyed? It is as reasonable to
+assert that the power of the plant called "sensitive," to withdraw its
+leaves towards its branches, exists when the plant is no more. You will
+ask, without doubt, in what manner the sensation of animals perishes
+with them, while the mind of man perishes not? I am too ignorant to
+solve this question. The eternal author of mind and of sensation alone
+knows how to give, and how to preserve them.
+
+All antiquity maintains that our understanding contains nothing which
+has not been received by our senses. Descartes, on the contrary, asserts
+in his "Romances," that we have metaphysical ideas before we are
+acquainted with the nipple of our nurse. A faculty of theology
+proscribed this dogma, not because it was erroneous, but because it was
+new. Finally, however, it was adopted, because it had been destroyed by
+Locke, an English philosopher, and an Englishman must necessarily be in
+the wrong. In fine, after having so often changed opinion, the ancient
+opinion which declares that the senses are the inlets to the
+understanding is finally proscribed. This is acting like deeply indebted
+governments, who sometimes issue certain notes which are to pass
+current, and at other times cry them down; but for a long time no one
+will accept the notes of the said faculty of theology.
+
+All the faculties in the world will never prevent a philosopher from
+perceiving that we commence by sensation, and that our memory is nothing
+but a continued sensation. A man born without his five senses would be
+destitute of all idea, supposing it possible for him to live.
+Metaphysical notions are obtained only through the senses; for how is a
+circle or a triangle to be measured, if a circle or a triangle has
+neither been touched nor seen? How form an imperfect notion of infinity,
+without a notion of limits? And how take away limits, without having
+either beheld or felt them?
+
+Sensation includes all our faculties, says a great philosopher. What
+ought to be concluded from all this? You who read and think, pray
+conclude.
+
+The Greeks invented the faculty "_Psyche_" for sensation, and the
+faculty "_Nous_" for mind. We are, unhappily, ignorant of the nature of
+these two faculties: we possess them, but their origin is no more known
+to us than to the oyster, the sea-nettle, the polypus, worms, or plants.
+By some inconceivable mechanism, sensitiveness is diffused throughout my
+body, and thought in my head alone. If the head be cut off, there will
+remain a very small chance of its solving a problem in geometry. In the
+meantime, your pineal gland, your fleshly body, in which abides your
+soul, exists for a long time without alteration, while your separated
+head is so full of animal spirits that it frequently exhibits motion
+after its removal from the trunk. It seems as if at this moment it
+possessed the most lively ideas, resembling the head of Orpheus, which
+still uttered melodious song, and chanted Eurydice, when cast into the
+waters of the Hebrus.
+
+If we think no longer, after losing our heads, whence does it happen
+that the heart beats, and appears to be sensitive after being torn out?
+
+We feel, you say, because all our nerves have their origin in the brain;
+and in the meantime, if you are trepanned, and a portion of your brain
+be thrown into the fire, you feel nothing the less. Men who can state
+the reason of all this are very clever.
+
+
+
+
+SENTENCES (REMARKABLE).
+
+_On Natural Liberty._
+
+
+In several countries, and particularly in France, collections have been
+made of the juridical murders which tyranny, fanaticism, or even error
+and weakness, have committed with the sword of justice.
+
+There are sentences of death which whole years of vengeance could
+scarcely expiate, and which will make all future ages tremble. Such are
+the sentences given against the natural king of Naples and Sicily, by
+the tribunal of Charles of Anjou; against John Huss and Jerome of
+Prague, by priests and monks; and against the king of England, Charles
+I., by fanatical citizens.
+
+After these enormous crimes, formally committed, come the legal murders
+committed by indolence, stupidity, and superstition, and these are
+innumerable. We shall relate some of them in other articles.
+
+In this class we must principally place the trials for witchcraft, and
+never forget that even in our days, in 1750, the sacerdotal justice of
+the bishop of Würzburg has condemned as a witch a nun, a girl of
+quality, to the punishment of fire. I here repeat this circumstance,
+which I have elsewhere mentioned, that it should not be forgotten. We
+forget too much and too soon.
+
+Every day of the year I would have a public crier, instead of crying as
+in Germany and Holland what time it is--which is known very well without
+their crying--cry: It was on this day that, in the religious wars
+Magdeburg and all its inhabitants were reduced to ashes. It was on May
+14th that Henry IV. was assassinated, only because he was not submissive
+to the pope; it was on such a day that such an abominable cruelty was
+perpetrated in your town, under the name of justice.
+
+These continual advertisements would be very useful; but the judgments
+given in favor of innocence against persecutors should be cried with a
+much louder voice. For example, I propose, that every year, the two
+strongest throats which can be found in Paris and Toulouse shall cry
+these words in all the streets: It was on such a day that fifty
+magistrates of the council re-established the memory of John Calas, with
+a unanimous voice, and obtained for his family the favors of the king
+himself, in whose name John Calas had been condemned to the most
+horrible execution.
+
+It would not be amiss to have another crier at the door of all the
+ministers, to say to all who came to demand _lettres de cachet_, in
+order to possess themselves of the property of their relations, friends,
+or dependents: Gentlemen, fear to seduce the minister by false
+statements, and to abuse the name of the king. It is dangerous to take
+it in vain. There was in the world one Gerbier, who defended the cause
+of the widow and orphan oppressed under the weight of a sacred name. It
+was he who, at the bar of the Parliament of Paris, obtained the
+abolishment of the Society of Jesus. Listen attentively to the lesson
+which he gave to the society of St. Bernard, conjointly with Master
+Loiseau, another protector of widows.
+
+You must first know, that the reverend Bernardine fathers of Clairvaux
+possess seventeen thousand acres of wood, seven large forges, fourteen
+large farms, a quantity of fiefs, benefices, and even rights in foreign
+countries. The yearly revenue of the convent amounts to two hundred
+thousand livres. The treasure is immense; the abbot's palace is that of
+a prince. Nothing is more just; it is a poor recompense for the services
+which the Bernardines continually render to the State.
+
+It happened, that a youth of seventeen years of age, named Castille,
+whose baptismal name was Bernard, believed, for that reason, that he
+should become a Bernardine. It is thus that we reason at seventeen, and
+sometimes at thirty. He went to pass his novitiate at Lorraine, in the
+abbey of Orval. When he was required to pronounce his vows, grace was
+wanting in him: he did not sign them; he departed and became a man
+again. He established himself at Paris, and at the end of thirty years,
+having made a little fortune, he married, and had children.
+
+The reverend father, attorney of Clairvaux, named Mayeur, a worthy
+solicitor, brother of the abbot, having learned from a woman of pleasure
+at Paris, that this Castille was formerly a Bernardine, plotted to
+challenge him as a deserter--though he was not really engaged--to make
+his wife pass for his concubine, and to place his children in the
+hospital as bastards. He associated himself with another rogue, to
+divide the spoils. Both went to the court for _lettres de cachet_,
+exposed their grievances in the name of St. Bernard, obtained the
+letter, seized Bernard Castille, his wife, and their children, possessed
+themselves of all the property, and are now devouring it, you know
+where.
+
+Bernard Castille was shut up at Orval in a dungeon, where he was
+executed after six months, for fear that he should demand justice. His
+wife was conducted to another dungeon, at St. Pelagie, a house for
+prostitutes. Of three children, one died in the hospital.
+
+Things remained in this state for three years. At the end of this time,
+the wife of Castille obtained her enlargement. God is just: He gave a
+second husband to the widow. The husband, named Lannai, was a man of
+head, who discovered all the frauds, horrors, and crimes employed
+against his wife. They both entered into a suit against the monks. It is
+true, that brother Mayeur, who is called Dom Mayeur, was not hanged, but
+the convent of Clairvaux was condemned to pay forty thousand livres.
+There is no convent which would not rather see its attorney hanged than
+lose its money.
+
+This history should teach you, gentlemen, to use much moderation in the
+fact of _lettres de cachet_. Know, that Master Elias de Beaumont, that
+celebrated defender of the memory of Calas, and Master Target that other
+protector of oppressed innocence, caused the man to pay a fine of twenty
+thousand francs, who by his intrigues had gained a _lettre de cachet_
+to seize upon the dying countess of Lancize, to drag her from the bosom
+of her family and divest her of all her titles.
+
+When tribunals give such sentences as these, we hear clapping of hands
+from the extent of the grand chamber to the gates of Paris. Take care of
+yourselves, gentlemen; do not lightly demand _lettres de cachet_.
+
+An Englishman, on reading this article, exclaimed, "What is a _lettre de
+cachet_?" We could never make him comprehend it.
+
+
+
+
+SENTENCES OF DEATH.
+
+
+In reading history, and seeing its course continually interrupted with
+innumerable calamities heaped upon this globe, which some call the best
+of all possible worlds, I have been particularly struck with the great
+quantity of considerable men in the State, in the Church, and in
+society, who have suffered death like robbers on the highway. Setting
+aside assassinations and poisonings, I speak only of massacres in a
+juridical form, performed with loyalty and ceremony; I commence with
+kings and queens; England alone furnishes an ample list; but for
+chancellors, knights, and esquires, volumes are required. Of all who
+have thus perished by justice, I do not believe that there are four in
+all Europe who would have undergone their sentence if their suits had
+lasted some time longer, or if the adverse parties had died of apoplexy
+during the preparation.
+
+If fistula had gangrened the rectum of Cardinal Richelieu some months
+longer, the virtuous de Thou, Cinq-Mars, and so many others would have
+been at liberty. If Barneveldt had had as many Arminians for his judges
+as Gomerists, he would have died in his bed; if the constable de Luynes
+had not demanded the confiscation of the property of the lady of the
+Marshal d'Ancre, she would not have been burned as a witch. If a really
+criminal man, an assassin, a public thief, a poisoner, a parricide, be
+arrested, and his crime be proved, it is certain that in all times and
+whoever the judges, he will be condemned. But it is not the same with
+statesmen; only give them other judges, or wait until time has changed
+interests, cooled passions, and introduced other sentiments, and their
+lives will be in safety.
+
+Suppose Queen Elizabeth had died of an indigestion on the eve of the
+execution of Mary Stuart, then Mary Stuart would have been seated on the
+throne of England, Ireland, and Scotland, instead of dying by the hand
+of an executioner in a chamber hung with black. If Cromwell had only
+fallen sick, care would have been taken how Charles I.'s head was cut
+off. These two assassinations--disguised, I know not how, in the garb of
+the laws--scarcely entered into the list of ordinary injustice. Figure
+to yourself some highwaymen who, having bound and robbed two passengers,
+amuse themselves with naming in the troop an attorney-general, a
+president, an advocate and counsellors, and who, having signed a
+sentence, cause the two victims to be hanged in ceremony; it was thus
+that the Queen of Scotland and her grandson were judged.
+
+But of common judgments, pronounced by competent judges against princes
+or men in place, is there a single one which would have been either
+executed, or even passed, if another time had been chosen? Is there a
+single one of the condemned, immolated under Cardinal Richelieu, who
+would not have been in favor if their suits had been prolonged until the
+regency of Anne of Austria? The Prince of Condé was arrested under
+Francis II., he was condemned to death by commissaries; Francis II.
+died, and the Prince of Condé again became powerful.
+
+These instances are innumerable; we should above all consider the spirit
+of the times. Vanini was burned on a vague suspicion of atheism. At
+present, if any one was foolish and pedantic enough to write such books
+as Vanini, they would not be read, and that is all which could happen to
+them. A Spaniard passed through Geneva in the middle of the sixteenth
+century; the Picard, John Calvin, learned that this Spaniard was lodged
+at an inn; he remembered that this Spaniard had disputed with him on a
+subject which neither of them understood. Behold! my theologian, John
+Calvin, arrested the passenger, contrary to all laws, human or divine,
+contrary to the right possessed by people among all nations; immured him
+in a dungeon, and burned him at a slow fire with green faggots, that the
+pain might last the longer. Certainly this infernal manœuvre would
+never enter the head of any one in the present day; and if the fool
+Servetus had lived in good times, he would have had nothing to fear;
+what is called justice is therefore as arbitrary as fashion. There are
+times of horrors and follies among men, as there are times of
+pestilence, and this contagion has made the tour of the world.
+
+
+
+
+SERPENTS.
+
+
+"I certify that I have many times killed serpents by moistening in a
+slight degree, with my spittle, a stick or a stone, and giving them a
+slight blow on the middle of the body, scarcely sufficient to produce a
+small contusion. January 19, 1757. Figuier, Surgeon."
+
+The above surgeon having given me this certificate, two witnesses, who
+had seen him kill serpents in this manner, attested what they had
+beheld. Notwithstanding, I wished to behold the thing myself; for I
+confess that, in various parts of these queries, I have taken St. Thomas
+of Didymus for my patron saint, who always insisted on an examination
+with his own hands.
+
+For eighteen hundred years this opinion has been perpetuated among the
+people, and it might possibly be even eighteen thousand years old, if
+Genesis had not supplied us with the precise date of our enmity to this
+reptile. It may be asserted that if Eve had spit on the serpent when he
+took his place at her ear, a world of evil would have been spared human
+nature.
+
+Lucretius, in his fourth book, alludes to this manner of killing
+serpents as very well known:
+
+     _Est utique ut serpens hominis contacta salivis._
+     _Disperit, ac sese mandendo conficit ipsa._
+                                  --LIB., iv, v. 642-643.
+
+     Spit on a serpent, and his vigor flies,
+     He straight devours himself, and quickly dies.
+
+There is some slight contradiction in painting him at once deprived of
+vigor and self-devouring, but my surgeon Figuier asserts not that the
+serpents which he killed were self-devouring. Genesis says wisely that
+we kill them with our heels, and not with spittle.
+
+We are in the midst of winter on January 19, which is the time when
+serpents visit us. I cannot find any at Mount Krapak; but I exhort all
+philosophers to spit upon every serpent they meet with in the spring. It
+is good to know the extent of the power of the saliva of man.
+
+It is certain that Jesus Christ employed his spittle to cure a man who
+was deaf and dumb. He took him aside, placed His fingers on his ears,
+and looking up to heaven, sighed and said to him: "_Ephphatha_"--"be
+opened"--when the deaf and dumb person immediately began to speak.
+
+It may therefore be true that God has allowed the saliva of man to kill
+serpents; but He may have also permitted my surgeon to assail them with
+heavy blows from a stick or a stone, in such a way that they would die
+whether he spat upon them or not.
+
+I beg of all philosophers to examine the thing with attention. For
+example, should they meet Freron in the street, let them spit in his
+face, and if he die, the fact will be confirmed, in spite of all the
+reasoning of the incredulous.
+
+I take this opportunity also to beg of philosophers not to cut off the
+heads of any more snails; for I affirm that the head has returned to
+snails which I have decapitated very effectively. But it is not enough
+that I know it by experience, others must be equally satisfied in order
+that the fact be rendered probable; for although I have twice succeeded,
+I have failed thirty times. Success depends upon the age of the snail,
+the time in which the head is cut off, the situation of the incision,
+and the manner in which it is kept until the head grows again.
+
+If it is important to know that death may be inflicted by spitting, it
+is still more important to know that heads may be renewed. Man is of
+more consequence than a snail, and I doubt not that in due time, when
+the arts are brought to perfection, some means will be found to give a
+sound head to a man who has none at all.
+
+
+
+
+SHEKEL.
+
+
+A weight and denomination of money among the Jews; but as they never
+coined money, and always made use of the coinage of other people, all
+gold coins weighing about a guinea, and all silver coins of the weight
+of a small French crown, were called a shekel; and these shekels were
+distinguished into those of the weight of the sanctuary, and those of
+the weight of the king.
+
+It is said in the Book of Samuel that Absalom had very fine hair, from
+which he cut a part every year. Many profound commentators assert that
+he cut it once a month, and that it was valued at two hundred shekels.
+If these shekels were of gold, the locks of Absalom were worth two
+thousand four hundred guineas per annum. There are few seigniories which
+produce at present the revenue that Absalom derived from his head.
+
+It is said that when Abraham bought a cave in Hebron from the Canaanite
+Ephron, Ephron sold him the cave for four hundred shekels of silver, of
+current money with the merchant--_probatæ monetæ publicæ_.
+
+We have already remarked that there was no coined money in these days,
+and thus these four hundred shekels of silver became four hundred
+shekels in weight, which, valued at present at three livres four sous
+each, are equal to twelve hundred and eighty livres of France.
+
+It follows that the little field, which was sold with this cavern, was
+excellent land, to bring so high a price.
+
+When Eleazar, the servant of Abraham, met the beautiful Rebecca, the
+daughter of Bethnel, carrying a pitcher of water upon her shoulder, from
+which she gave him and his camels leave to drink, he presented her with
+earrings of gold, which weighed two shekels, and bracelets which weighed
+ten, amounting in the whole to a present of the value of twenty-four
+guineas.
+
+In the laws of Exodus it is said that if an ox gored a male or female
+slave, the possessor of the ox should give thirty shekels of silver to
+the master of the slave, and that the ox should be stoned. It is
+apparently to be understood that the ox in this case has produced a very
+dangerous wound, otherwise thirty-two crowns was a large sum for the
+neighborhood of Mount Sinai, where money was uncommon. It is for the
+same reason that many grave, but too hasty, persons suspect that Exodus
+as well as Genesis was not written until a comparatively late period.
+
+What tends to confirm them in this erroneous opinion is a passage in the
+same Exodus: "Take of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet
+cinnamon half as much; of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels;
+of cassia five hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary; and
+of olive-oil a ton, to form an ointment to annoint the tabernacle"; and
+whosoever anointed himself or any stranger with a similar composition,
+was to be put to death.
+
+It is added that with all these aromatics were to be united stacte,
+onyx, galbanum, and frankincense; and that a perfume was to be mixed up
+according to the art of the apothecary or perfumer.
+
+But I cannot perceive anything in this composition which ought to excite
+the doubt of the incredulous. It is natural to imagine that the
+Jews--who, according to the text, stole from the Egyptians all which
+they could bring away--had also taken frankincense, galbanum, onyx,
+stacte, olive-oil, cassia, sweet calamus, cinnamon, and myrrh. They
+also, without doubt, stole many shekels; indeed, we have seen, that one
+of the most zealous partisans of this Hebrew horde estimates what they
+stole, in gold alone, at nine millions. I abide by his reckoning.
+
+
+
+
+SIBYL.
+
+
+The first woman who pronounced oracles at Delphos was called Sibylla.
+According to Pausanias, she was the daughter of Jupiter, and of Lamia,
+the daughter of Neptune, and she lived a long time before the siege of
+Troy. From her all women were distinguished by the name of sibyls, who,
+without being priestesses, or even attached to a particular oracle,
+announced the future, and called themselves inspired. Different ages and
+countries have had their sibyls, or preserved predictions which bear
+their name, and collections were formed of them.
+
+The greatest embarrassment to the ancients was to explain by what happy
+privilege these sibyls had the gift of predicting the future. Platonists
+found the cause of it in the intimate union which the creature, arrived
+at a certain degree of perfection, might have with the Divinity. Others
+attribute this divine property of the sibyls to the vapors and
+exhalations of the caves which they inhabited. Finally others attributed
+the prophetic spirit of the sibyls to their sombre and melancholy humor,
+or to some singular malady.
+
+St. Jerome maintained that this gift was to them a recompense for their
+chastity; but there was at least one very celebrated one who boasted of
+having had a thousand lovers without being married. It would have been
+much more sensible in St. Jerome and other fathers of the Church to have
+denied the prophetic spirit of the sibyls, and to have said that by
+means of hazarding predictions at a venture, they might sometimes have
+been fulfilled, particularly with the help of a favorable commentary, by
+which words, spoken by chance, have been turned into facts which it was
+impossible they could have predicted.
+
+It is singular that their predictions were collected after the event.
+The first collection of sibylline leaves, bought by Tarquin, contained
+three books; the second was compiled after the fire of the capitol, but
+we are ignorant how many books it contained; and the third is that which
+we possess in eight books, and in which it is doubtful whether the
+author has not inserted several predictions of the second. This
+collection is the fruit of the pious fraud of some Platonic Christians,
+more zealous than clever, who in composing it thought to lend arms to
+the Christian religion, and to put those who defended it in a situation
+to combat paganism with the greatest advantage.
+
+This confused compilation of different prophecies was printed for the
+first time in the year 1545 from manuscripts, and published several
+times after, with ample commentaries, burdened with an erudition often
+trivial, and almost always foreign to the text, which they seldom
+enlightened. The number of works composed for and against the
+authenticity of these sibylline books is very great, and some even very
+learned; but there prevails so little order and reasoning, and the
+authors are so devoid of all philosophic spirit that those who might
+have courage to read them would gain nothing but ennui and fatigue. The
+date of the publication is found clearly indicated in the fifth and
+eighth books. The sibyl is made to say that the Roman Empire will have
+only fifteen emperors, fourteen of which are designated by the numeral
+value of the first letter of their names in the Greek alphabet. She adds
+that the fifteenth, who would be a man with a white head, would bear the
+name of a sea near Rome. The fifteenth of the Roman emperors was Adrian,
+and the Asiatic gulf is the sea of which he bears the name.
+
+From this prince, continues the sibyl, three others will proceed who
+will rule the empire at the same time; but finally one of them will
+remain the possessor. These three shoots were Antoninus, Marcus
+Aurelius, and Lucius Verus. The sibyl alludes to the adoptions and
+associations which united them. Marcus Aurelius found himself sole
+master of the empire at the death of Lucius Verus, at the commencement
+of the year 169; and he governed it without any colleague until the year
+177, when he associated with his son Commodus. As there is nothing which
+can have any relation to this new colleague of Marcus Aurelius, it is
+evident that the collection must have been made between the years 169
+and 177 of the vulgar era.
+
+Josephus, the historian, quotes a work of the sibyl, in which the Tower
+of Babel and the confusion of tongues are spoken of nearly as in
+Genesis; which proves that the Christians are not the first authors of
+the supposition of the sibylline books. Josephus not relating the exact
+words of the sibyl, we cannot ascertain whether what is said of the same
+event in our collection was extracted from the work quoted by Josephus;
+but it is certain that several lines, attributed to the sibyl, in the
+exhortations found in the works of St. Justin, of Theophilus of Antioch,
+of Clement of Alexandria, and in some other fathers, are not in our
+collection; and as most of these lines bear no stamp of Christianity,
+they might be the work of some Platonic Jew.
+
+In the time of Celsus, sibyls had already some credit among the
+Christians, as it appears by two passages of the answer of Origen. But
+in time sibylline prophecies appearing favorable to Christianity, they
+were commonly made use of in works of controversy with much more
+confidence than by the pagans themselves, who, acknowledging sibyls to
+be inspired women, confined themselves to saying that the Christians had
+falsified their writings, a fact which could only be decided by a
+comparison of the two manuscripts, which few people are in a situation
+to make.
+
+Finally, it was from a poem of the sibyl of Cumea that the principal
+dogmas of Christianity were taken. Constantine, in the fine discourse
+which he pronounced before the assembly of the saints, shows that the
+fourth eclogue of Virgil is only a prophetic description of the Saviour;
+and if that was not the immediate object of the poet, it was that of the
+sibyl from whom he borrowed his ideas, who, being filled with the spirit
+of God, announced the birth of the Redeemer.
+
+He believed that he saw in this poem the miracle of the birth of Jesus
+of a virgin, the abolition of sin by the preaching of the gospel, and
+the abolition of punishment by the grace of the Redeemer. He believed he
+saw the old serpent overthrown, and the mortal venom with which he
+poisoned human nature entirely deadened. He believed that he saw that
+the grace of the Lord, however powerful it might be, would nevertheless
+suffer the dregs and traces of sin to remain in the faithful; in a
+word, he believed that he saw Jesus Christ announced under the great
+character of the Son of God.
+
+In this eclogue there are many other passages which might have been said
+to be copies of the Jewish prophets, who apply it themselves to Jesus
+Christ; it is at least the general opinion of the Church. St. Augustine,
+like others, has been persuaded of it, and has pretended that the lines
+of Virgil can only be applied to Jesus Christ. Finally, the most clever
+moderns maintain the same opinion.
+
+
+
+
+SINGING.
+
+_Questions on Singing, Music, Modulation, Gesticulation, etc._
+
+
+Could a Turk conceive that we have one kind of singing for the first of
+our mysteries when we celebrate it in music, another kind which we call
+"motetts" in the same temple, a third kind at the opera, and a fourth at
+the theatre?
+
+In like manner, can we imagine how the ancients blew their flutes,
+recited on their theatres with their heads covered by enormous masks,
+and how their declamation was written down.
+
+Law was promulgated in Athens nearly as in Paris we sing an air on the
+Pont-Neuf. The public crier sang an edict, accompanying himself on the
+lyre.
+
+It is thus that in Paris the rose in bud is cried in one tone; old
+silver lace to sell in another; only in the streets of Paris the lyre is
+dispensed with.
+
+After the victory of Chæronea, Philip, the father of Alexander, sang the
+decree by which Demosthenes had made him declare war, and beat time with
+his foot. We are very far from singing in our streets our edicts, or
+finances, or upon the two sous in the livre.
+
+It is very probable that the melopée, or modulation, regarded by
+Aristotle in his poetic art as an essential part of tragedy, was an
+even, simple chant, like that which we call the preface to mass, which
+in my opinion is the Gregorian chant, and not the Ambrosian, and which
+is a true melopée.
+
+When the Italians revived tragedy in the sixteenth century the
+recitative was a melopée which could not be written; for who could write
+inflections of the voice which are octaves and sixths of tone? They were
+learned by heart. This custom was received in France when the French
+began to form a theatre, more than a century after the Italians. The
+"_Sophonisba_" of Mairet was sung like that of Trissin, but more
+grossly; for throats as well as minds were then rather coarser at Paris.
+All the parts of the actors, but particularly of the actresses, were
+noted from memory by tradition. Mademoiselle Bauval, an actress of the
+time of Corneille, Racine, and Molière, recited to me, about sixty years
+ago or more, the commencement of the part of _Emilia_, in "Cinna," as it
+had been played in the first representations by La Beaupré. This
+modulation resembled the declamation of the present day much less than
+our modern recitative resembles the manner of reading the newspaper.
+
+I cannot better compare this kind of singing, this modulation, than to
+the admirable recitative of Lulli, criticised by adorers of double
+crochets, who have no knowledge of the genius of our language, and who
+are ignorant what help this melody furnishes to an ingenious and
+sensible actor.
+
+Theatrical modulation perished with the comedian Duclos, whose only
+merit being a fine voice without spirit and soul, finally rendered that
+ridiculous which had been admired in Des Œuillets, and in Champmeslé.
+
+Tragedy is now played dryly; if we were not heated by the pathos of the
+spectacle and the action, it would be very insipid. Our age, commendable
+in other things, is the age of dryness.
+
+It is true that among the Romans one actor recited and another made
+gestures. It was not by chance that the abbé Dubos imagined this
+pleasant method of declaiming. Titus Livius, who never fails to instruct
+us in the manners and customs of the Romans, and who, in that respect is
+more useful than the ingenious and satirical Tacitus, informs us, I say,
+that Andronicus, being hoarse while singing in the interludes, got
+another to sing for him while he executed the dance; and thence came the
+custom of dividing interludes between dancers and singers: "_Dicitur
+cantum egisse magis vigente motu quum nihil vocis usis impediebat_." The
+song is expressed by the dance. "Cantum egisse magis vigente motu." With
+more vigorous movements.
+
+But they divided not the story of the piece between an actor who only
+gesticulates and another who only sings. The thing would have been as
+ridiculous as impracticable.
+
+The art of pantomimes, which are played without speaking, is quite
+different, and we have seen very striking examples of it; but this art
+can please only when a marked action is represented, a theatrical event
+which is easily presented to the imagination of the spectator. It can
+represent Orosmanes killing Zaïre and killing himself; Semiramis
+wounded, dragging herself on the frontiers to the tomb of Ninus, and
+holding her son in her arms. There is no occasion for verses to express
+these situations by gestures to the sound of a mournful and terrible
+symphony. But how would two pantomimes paint the dessertation of Maximus
+and Cinna on monarchical and popular governments?
+
+Apropos of the theatrical execution of the Romans, the abbé Dubos says
+that the dancers in the interludes were always in gowns. Dancing
+requires a closer dress. In the Pays de Vaud, a suite of baths built by
+the Romans, is carefully preserved, the pavement of which is mosaic.
+This mosaic, which is not decayed, represents dancers dressed like opera
+dancers. We make not these observations to detect errors in Dubos;
+there is no merit in having seen this antique monument which he had not
+seen; and besides, a very solid and just mind might be deceived by a
+passage of Titus Livius.
+
+
+
+
+SLAVES.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+Why do we denominate slaves those whom the Romans called "_servi_," and
+the Greeks "_duloi_"? Etymology is here exceedingly at fault; and
+Bochart has not been able to derive this word from the Hebrew.
+
+The most ancient record that we possess in which the word "slave" is
+found is the will of one Ermangaut, archbishop of Narbonne, who
+bequeathed to Bishop Fredelon his slave Anaph--"Anaphinus Slavonium."
+This Anaph was very fortunate in belonging to two bishops successively.
+
+It is not unlikely that the Slavonians came from the distant North with
+other indigent and conquering hordes, to pillage from the Roman Empire
+what that empire had pilliged from other nations, and especially in
+Dalmatia and Illyria. The Italians called the misfortune of falling into
+their hands "_shiavitu_," and "_schiavi_" the captives themselves.
+
+All that we can gather from the confused history of the middle ages is
+that in the time of the Romans the known world was divided between
+freemen and slaves. When the Slavonians, Alans, Huns, Heruli,
+Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Franks and Normans came to
+despoil Europe, there was little probability that the multitude of
+slaves would diminish. Ancient masters, in fact, saw themselves reduced
+to slavery, and the smaller number enslaved the greater, as negroes are
+enslaved in the colonies, and according to the practice in many other
+cases.
+
+We read nothing in ancient authors concerning the slaves of the
+Assyrians and the Babylonians. The book which speaks most of slaves is
+the "Iliad." In the first place, Briseis is slave to Achilles; and all
+the Trojan women, and more especially the princesses, fear becoming
+slaves to the Greeks, and spinners for their wives.
+
+Slavery is also as ancient as war, and war as human nature. Society was
+so accustomed to this degradation of the species that Epictetus, who was
+assuredly worth more than his master, never expresses any surprise at
+his being a slave.
+
+No legislator of antiquity ever attempted to abrogate slavery; on the
+contrary, the people most enthusiastic for liberty--the Athenians, the
+Lacedæmonians, the Romans, and the Carthaginians--were those who enacted
+the most severe laws against their serfs. The right of life and death
+over them was one of the principles of society. It must be confessed
+that, of all wars, that of Spartacus was the most just, and possibly the
+only one that was ever absolutely so.
+
+Who would believe that the Jews, created as it might appear to serve all
+nations in turn, should also appear to possess slaves of their own? It
+is observed in their laws, that they may purchase their brethren for
+six years, and strangers forever. It was said, that the children of Esau
+would become bondsmen to the children of Jacob; but since, under a
+different dispensation, the Arabs, who call themselves descendants of
+Esau, have enslaved the posterity of Jacob.
+
+The Evangelists put not a single word into the mouth of Jesus Christ
+which recalls mankind to the primitive liberty to which they appear to
+be born. There is nothing said in the New Testament on this state of
+degradation and suffering, to which one-half of the human race was
+condemned. Not a word appears in the writings of the apostles and the
+fathers of the Church, tending to change beasts of burden into citizens,
+as began to be done among ourselves in the thirteenth century. If
+slavery be spoken of, it is the slavery of sin.
+
+It is difficult to comprehend how, in St. John, the Jews can say to
+Jesus: "We have never been slaves to any one"--they who were at that
+time subjected to the Romans; they who had been sold in the market after
+the taking of Jerusalem; they of whom ten tribes, led away as slaves by
+Shalmaneser, had disappeared from the face of the earth, and of whom two
+other tribes were held in chains by the Babylonians for seventy years;
+they who had been seven times reduced to slavery in their promised land,
+according to their own avowal; they who in all their writings speak of
+their bondage in that Egypt which they abhorred, but to which they ran
+in crowds to gain money, as soon as Alexander condescended to allow
+them to settle there. The reverend Dom Calmet says, that we must
+understand in this passage, "intrinsic servitude," an explanation which
+by no means renders it more comprehensible.
+
+Italy, the Gauls, Spain, and a part of Germany, were inhabited by
+strangers, by foreigners become masters, and natives reduced to serfs.
+When the bishop of Seville, Opas, and Count Julian called over the
+Mahometan Moors against the Christian kings of the Visigoths, who
+reigned in the Pyrenees, the Mahometans, according to their custom,
+proposed to the natives, either to receive circumcision, give battle, or
+pay tribute in money and girls. King Roderick was vanquished, and slaves
+were made of those who were taken captive.
+
+The conquered preserved their wealth and their religion by paying; and
+it is thus that the Turks have since treated Greece, except that they
+imposed upon the latter a tribute of children of both sexes, the boys of
+which they circumcise and transform into pages and janissaries, while
+the girls are devoted to the harems. This tribute has since been
+compromised for money. The Turks have only a few slaves for the interior
+service of their houses, and these they purchase from the Circassians,
+Mingrelians, and nations of Lesser Tartary.
+
+Between the African Mahometans and the European Christians, the custom
+of piracy, and of making slaves of all who could be seized on the high
+seas, has always existed. They are birds of prey who feed upon one
+another; the Algerines, natives of Morocco, and Tunisians, all live by
+piracy. The Knights of Malta, successors to those of Rhodes, formally
+swear to rob and enslave all the Mahometans whom they meet; and the
+galleys of the pope cruise for Algerines on the northern coasts of
+Africa. Those who call themselves whites and Christians proceed to
+purchase negroes at a good market, in order to sell them dear in
+America. The Pennsylvanians alone have renounced this traffic, which
+they account flagitious.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+I read a short time ago at Mount Krapak, where it is known that I
+reside, a book written at Paris, abounding in wit and paradoxes, bold
+views and hardihood, resembling in some respects those of Montesquieu,
+against whom it is written. In this book, slavery is decidedly preferred
+to domesticity, and above all to the free labor. This book exceedingly
+pities those unhappy free men who earn a subsistence where they please,
+by the labor for which man is born, and which is the guardian of
+innocence, as well as the support of life. It is incumbent on no one,
+says the author, either to nourish or to succor them; whereas, slaves
+are fed and protected by their masters like their horses. All this is
+true; but human beings would rather provide for themselves than depend
+on others; and horses bred in the forest prefer them to stables.
+
+He justly remarks that artisans lose many days in which they are
+forbidden to work, which is very true; but this is not because they are
+free, but because ridiculous laws exist in regard to holidays.
+
+He says most truly, that it is not Christian charity which has broken
+the fetters of servitude, since the same charity has riveted them for
+more than twelve centuries; and that Christians, and even monks, all
+charitable as they are, still possess slaves reduced to a frightful
+state of bondage, under the name of "_mortaillables, mainmortables_" and
+serfs of the soil.
+
+He asserts that which is very true, that Christian princes only
+affranchised their serfs through avarice. It was, in fact, to obtain the
+money laboriously amassed by these unhappy persons, that they signed
+their letters of manumission. They did not bestow liberty, but sold it.
+The emperor Henry V. began: he freed the serfs of Spires and Worms in
+the twelfth century. The kings of France followed his example; and
+nothing tends more to prove the value of liberty than the high price
+these gross men paid for it.
+
+Lastly, it is for the men on whose condition the dispute turns to decide
+upon which state they prefer. Interrogate the lowest laborer covered
+with rags, fed upon black bread, and sleeping on straw, in a hut half
+open to the elements; ask this man, whether he will be a slave, better
+fed, clothed, and bedded; not only will he recoil with horror at the
+proposal, but regard you with horror for making the proposal. Ask a
+slave if he is willing to be free, and you will hear his answer. This
+alone ought to decide the question.
+
+It is also to be considered that a laborer may become a farmer, and a
+farmer a proprietor. In France, he may even become a counsellor of the
+king, if he acquire riches. In England, he may become a freeholder, or a
+member of parliament. In Sweden, he may become a member of the national
+states. These possibilities are of more value than that of dying
+neglected in the corner of his master's stable.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+Puffendorff says, that slavery has been established "by the free consent
+of the opposing parties." I will believe Puffendorff, when he shows me
+the original contract.
+
+Grotius inquires, whether a man who is taken captive in war has a right
+to escape; and it is to be remarked, that he speaks not of a prisoner on
+his parole of honor. He decides, that he has no such right; which is
+about as much as to say that a wounded man has no right to get cured.
+Nature decides against Grotius.
+
+Attend to the following observations of the author of the "Spirit of
+Laws," after painting negro slavery with the pencil of Molière:
+
+"Mr. Perry says that the Moscovites sell themselves readily; I can
+guess the reason--their liberty is worth nothing."
+
+Captain John Perry, an Englishman, who wrote an account of the state of
+Russia in 1714, says nothing of that which the "Spirit of Laws" makes
+him say. Perry contains a few lines only on the subject of Russian
+bondage, which are as follows: "The czar has ordered that, throughout
+his states, in future, no one is to be called '_golup_' or slave; but
+only '_raab_,' which signifies subject. However, the people derive no
+real advantage from this order, being still in reality slaves."
+
+The author of the "Spirit of Laws" adds, that according to Captain
+Dampier, "everybody sells himself in the kingdom of Achem." This would
+be a singular species of commerce, and I have seen nothing in the
+"Voyage" of Dampier which conveys such a notion. It is a pity that a man
+so replete with wit should hazard so many crudities, and so frequently
+quote incorrectly.
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+_Serfs of the Body, Serfs of the Glebe, Mainmort, etc._
+
+It is commonly asserted that there are no more slaves in France; that it
+is the kingdom of the Franks, and that slave and Frank are contradictory
+terms; that people are so free there that many financiers die worth more
+than thirty millions of francs, acquired at the expense of the
+descendants of the ancient Franks. Happy French nation to be thus free!
+But how, in the meantime, is so much freedom compatible with so many
+species of servitude, as for instance, that of the _mainmort_?
+
+Many a fine lady at Paris, who sparkles in her box at the opera, is
+ignorant that she descends from a family of Burgundy, the Bourbonnais,
+Franche-Comté, Marche, or Auvergne, which family is still enslaved,
+_mortaillable_ and _mainmortable_.
+
+Of these slaves, some are obliged to work three days a week for the
+lord, and others two. If they die without children, their wealth belongs
+to the lord; if they leave children, the lord takes only the finest
+cattle and, according to more than one custom, the most valuable
+movables. According to other customs, if the son of a _mainmortable_
+slave visits not the house of his father within a year and a day from
+his death, he loses all his father's property, yet still remains a
+slave; that is to say, whatever wealth he may acquire by his industry,
+becomes at his death the property of the lord.
+
+What follows is still better: An honest Parisian pays a visit to his
+parents in Burgundy and in Franche-Comté, resides a year and a day in a
+_mainmortable_ house, and returning to Paris finds that his property,
+wherever situated, belongs to the lord, in case he dies without issue.
+
+It is very properly asked how the province of Burgundy obtained the
+nickname of "free," while distinguished by such a species of servitude?
+It is without doubt upon the principle that the Greeks called the
+furies _Eumenides_, "good hearts."
+
+But the most curious and most consolatory circumstance attendant on this
+jurisprudence is that the lords of half these _mainmortable_ territories
+are monks.
+
+If by chance a prince of the blood, a minister of state, or a chancellor
+cast his eyes upon this article, it will be well for him to recollect,
+that the king of France, in his ordinance of May 18, 1731, declares to
+the nation, "that the monks and endowments possess more than half of the
+property of Franche-Comté."
+
+The marquis d'Argenson, in "_Le Droit Public Ecclesiastique_," says,
+that in Artois, out of eighteen ploughs, the monks possess thirteen. The
+monks themselves are called _mainmortables_, and yet possess slaves. Let
+us refer these monkish possessions to the chapter of contradictions.
+
+When we have made some modest remonstrances upon this strange tyranny on
+the part of people who have vowed to God to be poor and humble, they
+will then reply to us: We have enjoyed this right for six hundred years;
+why then despoil us of it? We may humbly rejoin, that for these thirty
+or forty thousand years, the weasels have been in the habit of sucking
+the blood of our pullets; yet we assume to ourselves the right of
+destroying them when we can catch them.
+
+N.B. It is a mortal sin for a Chartreux to eat half an ounce of mutton,
+but he may with a safe conscience devour the entire substance of a
+family. I have seen the Chartreux in my neighborhood inherit a hundred
+thousand crowns from one of their mainmortable slaves, who had made a
+fortune by commerce at Frankfort. But all the truth must be told; it is
+no less true, that his family enjoys the right of soliciting alms at the
+gate of the convent.
+
+Let us suppose that the monks have still fifty or sixty thousand slaves
+in the kingdom of France. Time has not been found hitherto to reform
+this Christian jurisprudence; but something is beginning to be thought
+about it. It is only to wait a few hundred years, until the debts of the
+state be paid.
+
+
+
+
+SLEEPERS (THE SEVEN).
+
+
+Fable supposes that one Epimenides in a single nap, slept twenty-seven
+years, and that on his awaking he was quite astonished at finding his
+grandchildren--who asked him his name--married, his friends dead, his
+town and the manners of its inhabitants changed. It was a fine field for
+criticism, and a pleasant subject for a comedy. The legend has borrowed
+all the features of the fable, and enlarged upon them.
+
+The author of the "Golden Legend" was not the first who, in the
+thirteenth century, instead of one sleeper, gave us seven, and bravely
+made them seven martyrs. He took his edifying history from Gregory de
+Tours, a veridical writer, who took it from Sigebert, who took it from
+Metaphrastes, who had taken it from Nicephorus. It is thus that truth is
+handed down from man to man.
+
+The reverend father Peter Ribadeneira, of the company of Jesus, goes
+still further in this celebrated "Flower of the Saints," of which
+mention Is made in Molière's "_Tartuffe_." It was translated, augmented;
+and enriched with engravings, by the reverend Antony Girard, of the same
+society: nothing was wanting to it.
+
+Some of the curious will doubtless like to see the prose of the reverend
+father Girard: behold a specimen! "In the time of the emperor Decius,
+the Church experienced a violent and fearful persecution. Among other
+Christians, seven brothers were accused, young, well disposed, and
+graceful; they were the children of a knight of Ephesus, and called
+Maximilian, Marius, Martinian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and
+Constantine. The emperor first took from them their golden girdles; then
+they hid themselves in a cavern, the entrance of which Decius caused to
+be walled up that they might die of hunger."
+
+Father Girard proceeds to say, that all seven quickly fell asleep, and
+did not awake again until they had slept one hundred and seventy-seven
+years.
+
+Father Girard, far from believing that this is the dream of a man awake,
+proves its authenticity by the most demonstrative arguments; and when
+he could find no other proof, alleges the names of these seven
+sleepers--names never being given to people who have not existed. The
+seven sleepers doubtless could neither be deceived nor deceivers, so
+that it is not to dispute this history that we speak of it, but merely
+to remark that there is not a single fabulous event of antiquity which
+has not been _rectified_ by ancient legendaries. All the history of
+Œdipus, Hercules, and Theseus is found among them, accommodated to
+their style. They have invented little, but they have _perfected_ much.
+
+I ingenuously confess that I know not whence Nicephorus took this fine
+story. I suppose it was from the tradition of Ephesus; for the cave of
+the seven sleepers, and the little church dedicated to them, still
+exist. The least awakened of the poor Greeks still go there to perform
+their devotions. Sir Paul Rycaut and several other English travellers
+have seen these two monuments; but as to their devotions there, we hear
+nothing about them.
+
+Let us conclude this article with the reasoning of Abbadie: "These are
+memorials instituted to celebrate forever the adventure of the seven
+sleepers. No Greek in Ephesus has ever doubted of it, and these Greeks
+could not have been deceived, nor deceive anybody else; therefore the
+history of the seven sleepers is incontestable."
+
+
+
+
+SLOW BELLIES (VENTRES PARESSEUX).
+
+
+St. Paul says, that the Cretans were all "liars," "evil beasts," and
+"slow bellies." The physician Hequet understood by slow bellies, that
+the Cretans were costive, which vitiated their blood, and rendered them
+ill-disposed and mischievous. It is doubtless very true that persons of
+this habit are more prone to choler than others: their bile passes not
+away, but accumulates until their blood is overheated.
+
+When you have a favor to beg of a minister, or his first secretary,
+inform yourself adroitly of the state of his stomach, and always seize
+on "mollia fandi tempora."
+
+No one is ignorant that our character and turn of mind are intimately
+connected with the water-closet. Cardinal Richelieu was sanguinary,
+because he had the piles, which afflicted his rectum and hardened his
+disposition. Queen Anne of Austria always called him "_cul pourri_"
+(sore bottom), which nickname redoubled his bile, and possibly cost
+Marshal Marillac his life, and Marshal Bassompierre his liberty; but I
+cannot discover why certain persons should be greater liars than others.
+There is no known connection between the anal sphincter and falsehood,
+like that very sensible one between our stomach and our passions, our
+manner of thinking and our conduct.
+
+I am much disposed to believe, that by "slow bellies" St. Paul
+understood voluptuous men and gross feeders--a kind of priors, canons,
+and abbots-commendatory--rich prelates, who lay in bed all the morning
+to recover from the excesses of the evening, as Marot observes in his
+eighty-sixth epigram in regard to a fat prior, who lay in bed and
+fondled his grandson while his partridges were preparing:
+
+     _Un gros prieur son petit fils baisait,_
+     _Et mignardait au matin dans sa couche,_
+     _Tandis rôtir sa perdrix en faisait, etc._
+
+But people may lie in bed all the morning without being either liars, or
+badly disposed. On the contrary, the voluptuously indolent are generally
+socially gentle, and easy in their commerce with the world.
+
+However this may be, I regret that St. Paul should offend an entire
+people. In this passage, humanly speaking, there is neither politeness,
+ability, or even truth. Nothing is gained from men by calling them evil
+beasts; and doubtless men of merit were to be found in Crete. Why thus
+outrage the country of Minos, which Archbishop Fénelon, infinitely more
+polished than St. Paul, so much eulogizes in his "Telemachus"?
+
+Was not St. Paul somewhat difficult to live with, of a proud spirit, and
+of a hard and imperious character? If I had been one of the apostles, or
+even a disciple only, I should infallibly have quarrelled with him. It
+appears to me, that the fault was all on his side, in his dispute with
+Simon Peter Barjonas. He had a furious passion for domination. He often
+boasts of being an apostle, and more an apostle than his associates--he
+who had assisted to stone St. Stephen, he who had been assistant
+persecutor under Gamaliel, and who was called upon to weep longer for
+his crimes than St. Peter for his weakness!--always, however, humanly
+speaking.
+
+He boasts of being a Roman citizen born at Tarsus, whereas St. Jerome
+pretends that he was a poor provincial Jew, born at Giscala in Galilee.
+In his letters addressed to the small flock of his brethren, he always
+speaks magisterially: "I will come," says he to certain Corinthians,
+"and I will judge of you all on the testimony of two or three witnesses;
+and I will neither pardon those who have sinned, nor others." This "nor
+others" is somewhat severe.
+
+Many men at present would be disposed to take the part of St. Peter
+against St. Paul, but for the episode of Ananias and Sapphira, which has
+intimidated persons inclined to bestow alms.
+
+I return to my text of the Cretan liars, evil beasts, and slow bellies;
+and I recommend to all missionaries never to commence their labors among
+any people with insults.
+
+It is not that I regard the Cretans as the most just and respectable of
+men, as they were called by fabulous Greece. I pretend not to reconcile
+their pretended virtue with the pretended bull of which the beautiful
+Pasiphæ was so much enamored; nor with the skill exerted by the artisan
+Dædalus in the construction of a cow of brass, by which Pasiphæ was
+enabled to produce a Minotaur, to whom the pious and equitable Minos
+sacrificed every year--and not every nine years--seven grown-up boys and
+seven virgins of Athens.
+
+It is not that I believe in the hundred large cities in Crete, meaning a
+hundred poor villages standing upon a long and narrow rock, with two or
+three towns. It is to be regretted that Rollin, in his elegant
+compilation of "Ancient History," has repeated so many of the ancient
+fables of Crete, and that of Minos among others.
+
+With respect to the poor Greeks and Jews who now inhabit the steep
+mountains of this island, under the government of a pasha, they may
+possibly be liars and evil disposed, but I cannot tell if they are slow
+of digestion: I sincerely hope, however, that they have sufficient to
+eat.
+
+
+
+
+SOCIETY (ROYAL) OF LONDON, AND ACADEMIES.
+
+
+Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of
+them. Homer and Phidias, Sophocles and Apelles, Virgil and Vitruvius,
+Ariosto and Michelangelo, were none of them academicians. Tasso
+encountered only unjust criticism from the Academy della Crusca, and
+Newton was not indebted to the Royal Society of London for his
+discoveries in optics, upon gravitation, upon the integral calculus, and
+upon chronology. Of what use then are academies? To cherish the fire
+which great genius has kindled.
+
+The Royal Society of London was formed in 1660, six years before the
+French Academy of Science. It has no rewards like ours, but neither has
+it any of the disagreeable distinctions invented by the abbé Bignon, who
+divided the Academy of Sciences between those who paid, and honorary
+members who were not learned. The society of London being independent,
+and only self-encouraged, has been composed of members who have
+discovered the laws of light, of gravitation, of the aberration of the
+stars, the reflecting telescope, the fire engine, solar microscope, and
+many other inventions, as useful as admirable. Could they have had
+greater men, had they admitted pensionaries or honorary members?
+
+The famous Doctor Swift, in the last years of the reign of Queen Anne,
+formed the idea of establishing an academy for the English language,
+after the model of the Académie Française. This project was countenanced
+by the earl of Oxford, first lord of the treasury, and still more by
+Lord Bolingbroke, secretary of state, who possessed the gift of speaking
+extempore in parliament with as much purity as Doctor Swift composed in
+his closet, and who would have been the patron and ornament of this
+academy. The members likely to compose it were men whose works will last
+as long as the English language. Doctor Swift would have been one, and
+Mr. Prior, whom we had among us as public minister, and who enjoyed a
+similar reputation in England to that of La Fontaine among ourselves.
+There were also Mr. Pope, the English Boileau, and Mr. Congreve, whom
+they call their Molière, and many more whose names escape my
+recollection. The queen, however, dying suddenly, the Whigs took it into
+their heads to occupy themselves in hanging the protectors of academies,
+a process which is very injurious to the belles-lettres. The members of
+this body would have enjoyed much greater advantages than were possessed
+by the first who composed the French Academy. Swift, Prior, Congreve,
+Dryden, Pope, Addison, and others, had fixed the English language by
+their writings, whereas Chapelain, Colletet, Cassaigne, Faret, and
+Cotin, our first academicians, were a scandal to the nation; and their
+names have become so ridiculous that if any author had the misfortune to
+be called Chapelain or Cotin at present, he would be obliged to change
+his name.
+
+Above all, the labors of an English academy would have materially
+differed from our own. One day, a wit of that country asked me for the
+memoirs of the French Academy. It composes no memoirs, I replied; but it
+has caused sixty or eighty volumes of compliments to be printed. He ran
+through one or two, but was not able to comprehend the style, although
+perfectly able to understand our best authors. "All that I can learn by
+these fine compositions," said he to me, "is, that the new member,
+having assured the body that his predecessor was a great man, Cardinal
+Richelieu a very great man, and Chancellor Séguier a tolerably great
+man, the president replies by a similar string of assurances, to which
+he adds a new one, implying that the new member is also a sort of great
+man; and as for himself, the president, he may also perchance possess a
+spice of pretension." It is easy to perceive by what fatality all the
+academic speeches are so little honorable to the body. "_Vitium est
+temporis, potius quam hominis_." It insensibly became a custom for every
+academician to repeat those eulogies at his reception; and thus the body
+imposed upon themselves a kind of obligation to fatigue the public. If
+we wish to discover the reason why the most brilliant among the men of
+genius, who have been chosen by this body, have so frequently made the
+worst speeches, the cause may be easily explained. It is, that they have
+been anxious to shine, and to treat worn-out matter in a new way. The
+necessity of saying something; the embarrassment produced by the
+consciousness of having nothing to say; and the desire to exhibit
+ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man
+ridiculous. Unable to discover new thoughts, the new members fatigue
+themselves for novel terms of expression, and often speak without
+thinking; like men who, affecting to chew with nothing in their mouths,
+seem to eat while perishing with hunger. Instead of a law in the French
+Academy to have these speeches printed, a law should be passed in
+prevention of that absurdity.
+
+The Academy of Belles-Lettres imposed upon itself a task more judicious
+and useful--that of presenting to the public a collection of memoirs
+comprising the most critical and curious disquisitions and researches.
+These memoirs are already held in great esteem by foreigners. It is only
+desirable, that some subjects were treated more profoundly, and others
+not treated of at all. They might, for example, very well dispense with
+dissertations upon the prerogative of the right hand over the left; and
+of other inquiries which, under a less ridiculous title, are not less
+frivolous. The Academy of Sciences, in its more difficult and useful
+investigation, embraces a study of nature, and the improvement of the
+arts; and it is to be expected that studies so profound and
+perseveringly pursued, calculations so exact, and discoveries so
+refined, will in the end produce a corresponding benefit to the world at
+large.
+
+As to the French Academy, what services might it not render to letters,
+to the language, and the nation, if, instead of printing volumes of
+compliments every year, it would reprint the best works of the age of
+Louis XIV., purified from all the faults of language which have crept
+into them! Corneille and Molière are full of them, and they swarm in La
+Fontaine. Those which could not be corrected might at least be marked,
+and Europe at large, which reads these authors, would then learn our
+language with certainty, and its purity would be forever fixed. Good
+French books, printed with care at the expense of the king, would be
+one of the most glorious monuments of the nation. I have heard say, that
+M. Despréaux once made this proposal, which has since been renewed by a
+man whose wit, wisdom, and sound criticism are generally acknowledged;
+but this idea has met with the fate of several other useful
+projects--that of being approved and neglected.
+
+
+
+
+SOCRATES.
+
+
+Is the mould broken of those who loved virtue for itself, of a
+Confucius, a Pythagoras, a Thales, a Socrates? In their time, there were
+crowds of devotees to their pagods and divinities; minds struck with
+fear of Cerberus and of the Furies, who underwent initiations,
+pilgrimages, and mysteries, who ruined themselves in offerings of black
+sheep. All times have seen those unfortunates of whom Lucretius speaks:
+
+     _Qui quocumque tamen miseri venere parentant,_
+     _Et nigras mactant pecudes, et manibu Divis_
+     _In ferias mittunt; multoque in rebus acerbis_
+     _Acrius advertunt animus ad religionem._
+                               --LUCRETIUS, iii, 51-54.
+
+     Who sacrifice black sheep on every tomb
+     To please the manes; and of all the rout
+     When cares and dangers press, grow most devout.
+                                            --CREECH.
+
+Mortifications were in use; the priests of Cybele castrated themselves
+to preserve continence. How comes it, that among all the martyrs of
+superstition, antiquity reckons not a single great man--a sage? It is,
+that fear could never make virtue, and that great men have been
+enthusiasts in moral good. Wisdom was their predominant passion; they
+were sages as Alexander was a warrior, as Homer was a poet, and Apelles
+a painter--by a superior energy and nature; which is all that is meant
+by the demon of Socrates.
+
+One day, two citizens of Athens, returning from the temple of Mercury,
+perceived Socrates in the public place. One said to the other: "Is not
+that the rascal who says that one can be virtuous without going every
+day to offer up sheep and geese?" "Yes," said the other, "that is the
+sage who has no religion; that is the atheist who says there is only one
+God." Socrates approached them with his simple air, his dæmon, and his
+irony, which Madame Dacier has so highly exalted. "My friends," said he
+to them, "one word, if you please: a man who prays to God, who adores
+Him, who seeks to resemble Him as much as human weakness can do, and who
+does all the good which lies in his power, what would you call him?" "A
+very religious soul," said they. "Very well; we may therefore adore the
+Supreme Being, and have a great deal of religion?" "Granted," said the
+two Athenians. "But do you believe," pursued Socrates, "that when the
+Divine Architect of the world arranged all the globes which roll over
+our heads, when He gave motion and life to so many different beings, He
+made use of the arm of Hercules, the lyre of Apollo, or the flute of
+Pan?" "It is not probable," said they. "But if it is not likely that He
+called in the aid of others to construct that which we see, it is not
+probable that He preserves it through others rather than through
+Himself. If Neptune was the absolute master of the sea, Juno of the air,
+Æolus of the winds, Ceres of harvests--and one would have a calm, when
+the other would have rain--you feel clearly, that the order of nature
+could not exist as it is. You will confess, that all depends upon Him
+who has made all. You give four white horses to the sun, and four black
+ones to the moon; but is it not more likely, that day and night are the
+effect of the motion given to the stars by their Master, than that they
+were produced by eight horses?" The two citizens looked at him, but
+answered nothing. In short, Socrates concluded by proving to them, that
+they might have harvests without giving money to the priests of Ceres;
+go to the chase without offering little silver statues to the temple of
+Diana; that Pomona gave not fruits; that Neptune gave not horses; and
+that they should thank the Sovereign who had made all.
+
+His discourse was most exactly logical. Xenophon, his disciple, a man
+who knew the world, and who afterwards sacrificed to the wind, in the
+retreat of the ten thousand, took Socrates by the sleeve, and said to
+him: "Your discourse is admirable; you have spoken better than an
+oracle; you are lost; one of these honest people to whom you speak is a
+butcher, who sells sheep and geese for sacrifices; and the other a
+goldsmith, who gains much by making little gods of silver and brass for
+women. They will accuse you of being a blasphemer, who would diminish
+their trade; they will depose against you to Melitus and Anitus, your
+enemies, who have resolved upon your ruin: have a care of hemlock; your
+familiar spirit should have warned you not to say to a butcher and a
+goldsmith what you should only say to Plato and Xenophon."
+
+Some time after, the enemies of Socrates caused him to be condemned by
+the council of five hundred. He had two hundred and twenty voices in his
+favor, which may cause it to be presumed that there were two hundred and
+twenty philosophers in this tribunal; but it shows that, in all
+companies, the number of philosophers is always the minority.
+
+Socrates therefore drank hemlock, for having spoken in favor of the
+unity of God; and the Athenians afterwards consecrated a temple to
+Socrates--to him who disputed against all temples dedicated to inferior
+beings.
+
+
+
+
+SOLOMON.
+
+
+Several kings have been good scholars, and have written good books. The
+king of Prussia, Frederick the Great, is the latest example we have had
+of it: German monarchs will be found who compose French verses, and who
+write the history of their countries. James I. in England, and even
+Henry VIII. have written. In Spain, we must go back as far as Alphonso
+X. Still it is doubtful whether he put his hand to the "Alphonsine
+Tables."
+
+France cannot boast of having had an author king. The empire of Germany
+has no book from the pen of its emperors; but Rome was glorified in
+Cæsar, Marcus Aurelius, and Julian. In Asia, several writers are
+reckoned among the kings. The present emperor of China, Kien Long,
+particularly, is considered a great poet; but Solomon, or Solyman, the
+Hebrew, has still more reputation than Kien Long, the Chinese.
+
+The name of Solomon has always been revered in the East. The works
+believed to be his, the "Annals of the Jews," and the fables of the
+Arabs, have carried his renown as far as the Indies. His reign is the
+great epoch of the Hebrews.
+
+He was the third king of Palestine. The First Book of Kings says that
+his mother, Bathsheba, obtained from David, the promise that he should
+crown Solomon, her son, instead of Adonijah, his eldest. It is not
+surprising that a woman, an accomplice in the death of her first
+husband, should have had artifice enough to cause the inheritance to be
+given to the fruit of her adultery, and to cause the legitimate son to
+be disinherited, who was also the eldest.
+
+It is a very remarkable fact that the prophet Nathan, who reproached
+David with his adultery, the murder of Uriah, and the marriage which
+followed this murder, was the same who afterwards seconded Bathsheba in
+placing that Solomon on the throne, who was born of this sanguine and
+infamous marriage. This conduct, reasoning according to the flesh, would
+prove, that the prophet Nathan had, according to circumstances, two
+weights and two measures. The book even says not that Nathan received a
+particular mission from God to disinherit Adonijah. If he had one, we
+must respect it; but we cannot admit that we find it written.
+
+It is a great question in theology, whether Solomon is most renowned for
+his ready money, his wives, or his books. I am sorry that he commenced
+his reign in the Turkish style by murdering his brother.
+
+Adonijah, excluded from the throne by Solomon, asked him, as an only
+favor, permission to espouse Abishag, the young girl who had been given
+to David to warm him in his old age. Scripture says not whether Solomon
+disputed with Adonijah, the concubine of his father; but it says, that
+Solomon, simply on this demand of Adonijah, caused him to be
+assassinated. Apparently God, who gave him the spirit of wisdom, refused
+him that of justice and humanity, as he afterwards refused him the gift
+of continence.
+
+It is said in the same Book of Kings that he was the master of a great
+kingdom which extended from the Euphrates to the Red Sea and the
+Mediterranean; but unfortunately it is said at the same time, that the
+king of Egypt conquered the country of Gezer, in Canaan, and that he
+gave the city of Gezer as a portion to his daughter, whom it is
+pretended that Solomon espoused. It is also said that there was a king
+at Damascus; and the kingdoms of Tyre and Sidon flourished. Surrounded
+thus with powerful states, he doubtless manifested his wisdom in living
+in peace with them all. The extreme abundance which enriched his country
+could only be the fruit of this profound wisdom, since, as we have
+already remarked, in the time of Saul there was not a worker in iron in
+the whole country. Those who reason find it difficult to understand how
+David, the successor of Saul, so vanquished by the Philistines, could
+have established so vast an empire.
+
+The riches which he left to Solomon are still more wonderful; he gave
+him in ready money one hundred and three thousand talents of gold, and
+one million thirteen thousand talents of silver. The Hebraic talent of
+gold, according; to Arbuthnot, is worth six thousand livres sterling,
+the talent of silver, about five hundred livres sterling. The sum total
+of the legacy in ready money, without the jewels and other effects, and
+without the ordinary revenue--proportioned no doubt to this
+treasure--amounted, according to this calculation, to one billion, one
+hundred and nineteen millions, five hundred thousand pounds sterling, or
+to five billions, five hundred and ninety-seven crowns of Germany, or to
+twenty-five billions, forty-eight millions of francs. There was not then
+so much money circulating through the whole world. Some scholars value
+this treasure at a little less, but the sum is always very large for
+Palestine.
+
+We see not, after that, why Solomon should torment himself so much to
+send fleets to Ophir to bring gold. We can still less divine how this
+powerful monarch, in his vast states, had not a man who knew how to
+fashion wood from the forest of Libanus. He was obliged to beg Hiram,
+king of Tyre, to lend him wood cutters and laborers to work it. It must
+be confessed that these contradictions exceedingly exercise the genius
+of commentators.
+
+Every day, fifty oxen, and one hundred sheep were served up for the
+dinner and supper of his houses, and poultry and game in proportion,
+which might be about sixty thousand pounds weight of meat per day. He
+kept a good house. It is added, that he had forty thousand stables, and
+as many houses for his chariots of war, but only twelve thousand stables
+for his cavalry. Here is a great number of chariots for a mountainous
+country; and it was a great equipage for a king whose predecessor had
+only a mule at his coronation, and a territory which bred asses alone.
+
+It was not becoming a prince possessing so many chariots to be limited
+in the article of women; he therefore possessed seven hundred who bore
+the name of queen; and what is strange, he had but three hundred
+concubines; contrary to the custom of kings, who have generally more
+mistresses than wives.
+
+He kept four hundred and twelve thousand horses, doubtless to take the
+air with them along the lake of Gennesaret, or that of Sodom, in the
+neighborhood of the Brook of Kedron, which would be one of the most
+delightful places upon earth, if the brook was not dry nine months of
+the year, and if the earth was not horribly stony.
+
+As to the temple which he built, and which the Jews believed to be the
+finest work of the universe, if the Bramantes, the Michelangelos, and
+the Palladios, had seen this building, they would not have admired it.
+It was a kind of small square fortress, which enclosed a court; in this
+court was one edifice of forty cubits long, and another of twenty; and
+it is said, that this second edifice, which was properly the temple, the
+oracle, the holy of holies, was only twenty cubits in length and
+breadth, and twenty cubits high. M. Souflot would not have been quite
+pleased with those proportions.
+
+The books attributed to Solomon have lasted longer than his temple.
+
+The name of the author alone has rendered these books respectable. They
+should be good, since they were written by a king, and this king passed
+for the wisest of men.
+
+The first work attributed to him is that of Proverbs. It is a collection
+of maxims, which sometimes appear to our refined minds trifling, low,
+incoherent, in bad taste, and without meaning. People cannot be
+persuaded that an enlightened king has composed a collection of
+sentences, in which there is not one which regards the art of
+government, politics, manners of courtiers, or customs of a court. They
+are astonished at seeing whole chapters in which nothing is spoken of
+but prostitutes, who invite passengers in the streets to lie with them.
+They revolt against sentences in the following style: "There are three
+things that are never satisfied, a fourth which never says 'enough'; the
+grave; the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water, are the
+three; and the fourth is fire, which never sayeth 'enough.'
+
+"There be three things which are too wonderful for me; yea, four which I
+know not. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a
+rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man
+with a maid.
+
+"There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are
+exceeding wise. The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their
+meat in the summer; the conies are but a feeble race, yet they make
+their houses in rocks; the locusts have no king, yet go they forth all
+of them by bands; the spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in
+kings' palaces."
+
+Can we impute such follies as these to a great king, to the wisest of
+mortals? say the objectors. This criticism is strong; it should deliver
+itself with more respect.
+
+The Proverbs have been attributed to Isaiah, Elijah, Sobna, Eliakim,
+Joachim, and several others; but whoever compiled this collection of
+Eastern sentences, it does not appear that it was a king who gave
+himself the trouble. Would he have said that the terror of the king is
+like the roaring of a lion? It is thus that a subject or a slave speaks,
+who trembles at the anger of his master. Would Solomon have spoken so
+much of unchaste women? Would he have said: "Look thou not upon the wine
+when it is red, when it giveth its color in the glass"?
+
+I doubt very much whether there were any drinking glasses in the time of
+Solomon; it is a very recent invention; all antiquity drank from cups of
+wood or metal; and this single passage perhaps indicates that this
+Jewish collection was composed in Alexandria, as well as most of the
+other Jewish books.
+
+The Book of Ecclesiastes, which is attributed to Solomon, is in quite a
+different order and taste. He who speaks in this work seems not to be
+deceived by visions of grandeur, to be tired of pleasures, and disgusted
+with science. We have taken him for an Epicurean who repeats on each
+page, that the just and unjust are subject to the same accidents; that
+man is nothing more than the beast which perishes; that it is better not
+to be born than to exist; that there is no other life; and that there is
+nothing more good and reasonable than to enjoy the fruit of our labors
+with a woman whom we love.
+
+It might happen that Solomon held such discourse with some of his wives;
+and it is pretended that these are objections which he made; but these
+maxims, which have a libertine air, do not at all resemble objections;
+and it is a joke to profess to understand in an author the exact
+contrary of that which he says.
+
+We believe that we read the sentiments of a materialist, at once sensual
+and disgusted, who appears to have put an edifying word or two on God in
+the last verse, to diminish the scandal which such a book must
+necessarily create. As to the rest, several fathers say that Solomon did
+penance; so that we can pardon him.
+
+Critics have difficulty in persuading themselves that this book can be
+by Solomon; and Grotius pretends that it was written under Zerubbabel.
+It is not natural for Solomon to say: "Woe to thee, O land, when thy
+king is a child!" The Jews had not then such kings.
+
+It is not natural for him to say: "I observe the face of the king." It
+is much more likely, that the author spoke of Solomon, and that by this
+alienation of mind, which we discover in so many rabbins, he has often
+forgotten, in the course of the book, that it was a king whom he caused
+to speak.
+
+What appears surprising to them is that this work has been consecrated
+among the canonical books. If the canon of the Bible were to be
+established now, say they, perhaps the Book of Ecclesiastes might not be
+inserted; but it was inserted at a time when books were very rare, and
+more admired than read. All that can be done now is to palliate the
+Epicureanism which prevails in this work. The Book of Ecclesiastes has
+been treated like many other things which disgust in a particular
+manner. Being established in times of ignorance, we are forced, to the
+scandal of reason, to maintain them in wiser times, and to disguise the
+horror or absurdity of them by allegories. These critics are too bold.
+
+The "Song of Songs" is further attributed to Solomon, because the name
+of that king is found in two or three places; because it is said to the
+beloved, that she is beautiful as the curtains of Solomon; because she
+says that she is black, by which epithet it is believed that Solomon
+designated his Egyptian wife.
+
+These three reasons have not proved convincing:
+
+1. When the beloved, in speaking to her lover, says "The king hath
+brought me into his chamber," she evidently speaks of another than her
+lover; therefore the king is not this lover; it is the king of the
+festival; it is the paranymph, the master of the house, whom she means;
+and this Jewess is so far from being the mistress of a king, that
+throughout the work she is a shepherdess, a country girl, who goes
+seeking her lover through the fields, and in the streets of the town,
+and who is stopped at the gates by a porter who steals her garment.
+
+2. "I am beautiful as the curtains of Solomon," is the expression of a
+villager, who would say: I am as beautiful as the king's tapestries; and
+it is precisely because the name of Solomon is found in this work, that
+it cannot be his. What monarch could make so ridiculous a comparison?
+"Behold," says the beloved, "behold King Solomon with the crown
+wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals!" Who
+recognizes not in these expressions the common comparisons which girls
+make in speaking of their lovers? They say: "He is as beautiful as a
+prince; he has the air of a king," etc.
+
+It is true that the shepherdess, who is made to speak in this amorous
+song, says that she is tanned by the sun, that she is brown. Now if this
+was the daughter of the king of Egypt, she was not so tanned. Females of
+quality in Egypt were fair. Cleopatra was so; and, in a word, this
+person could not be at once a peasant and a queen.
+
+A monarch who had a thousand wives might have said to one of them: "Let
+her kiss me with the lips of her mouth; for thy breasts are better than
+wine." A king and a shepherd, when the subject is of kissing, might
+express themselves in the same manner. It is true, that it is strange
+enough it should be pretended, that the girl speaks in this place, and
+eulogizes the breasts of her lover.
+
+We further avow that a gallant king might have said to his mistress: "A
+bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me; he shall lie all night
+between my breasts."
+
+That he might have said to her: "Thy navel is like a round goblet which
+wanteth not liquor; thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with
+lilies; thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins; thy neck
+is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fish pools in Heshbon; and
+thy nose as the tower of Lebanon."
+
+I confess that the "Eclogues" of Virgil are in a different style; but
+each has his own, and a Jew is not obliged to write like Virgil.
+
+We have not noticed this fine turn of Eastern eloquence: "We have a
+little sister, and she hath no breasts. What shall we do for our sister
+in the day when she shall be spoken for? If she be a wall, we will build
+upon her; and if she be a door, we will close it."
+
+Solomon, the wisest of men, might have spoken thus in his merry moods;
+but several rabbins have maintained, not only that this voluptuous
+eclogue was not King Solomon's, but that it is not authentic. Theodore
+of Mopsuestes was of this opinion, and the celebrated Grotius calls the
+"Song of Songs," a libertine flagitious work. However, it is
+consecrated, and we regard it as a perpetual allegory of the marriage of
+Jesus Christ with the Church. We must confess, that the allegory is
+rather strong, and we see not what the Church could understand, when the
+author says that his little sister has no breasts.
+
+After all, this song is a precious relic of antiquity; it is the only
+book of love of the Hebrews which remains to us. Enjoyment is often
+spoken of in it. It is a Jewish eclogue. The style is like that of all
+the eloquent works of the Hebrews, without connection, without order,
+full of repetition, confused, ridiculously metaphorical, but containing
+passages which breathe simplicity and love.
+
+The "Book of Wisdom" is in a more serious taste; but it is no more
+Solomon's than the "Song of Songs." It is generally attributed to Jesus,
+the son of Sirac, and by some to Philo of Biblos; but whoever may be the
+author, it is believed, that in his time the Pentateuch did not exist;
+for he says in chapter x., that Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac at
+the time of the Deluge; and in another place he speaks of the patriarch
+Joseph as of a king of Egypt. At least, it is the most natural sense.
+
+The worst of it is, that the author in the same chapter pretends, that
+in his time the statue of salt into which Lot's wife was changed was to
+be seen. What critics find still worse is that the book appears to them
+a tiresome mass of commonplaces; but they should consider that such
+works are not made to follow the vain rules of eloquence. They are
+written to edify, and not to please, and we should even combat our
+disinclination to read them.
+
+It is very likely that Solomon was rich and learned for his time and
+people. Exaggeration, the inseparable companion of greatness, attributes
+riches to him which he could not have possessed, and books which he
+could not have written. Respect for antiquity has since consecrated
+these errors.
+
+But what signifies it to us, that these books were written by a Jew?
+Our Christian religion is founded on the Jewish, but not on all the
+books which the Jews have written.
+
+For instance, why should the "Song of Songs" be more sacred to us than
+the fables of Talmud? It is, say they, because we have comprised it in
+the canon of the Hebrews. And what is this canon? It is a collection of
+authentic works. Well, must a work be divine to be authentic? A history
+of the little kingdoms of Judah and Sichem, for instance--is it anything
+but a history? This is a strange prejudice. We hold the Jews in horror,
+and we insist that all which has been written by them, and collected by
+us, bears the stamp of Divinity. There never was so palpable a
+contradiction.
+
+
+
+
+SOMNAMBULISTS AND DREAMERS.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+I have seen a somnambulist, but he contented himself with rising,
+dressing himself, making a bow, and dancing a minuet, all which he did
+very properly; and having again undressed himself, returned to bed and
+continued to sleep.
+
+This comes not near the somnambulist of the "Encyclopædia." The last was
+a young seminarist, who set himself to compose a sermon in his sleep. He
+wrote it correctly, read it from one end to the other, or at least
+appeared to read it, made corrections, erased some lines, substituted
+others, and inserted an omitted word. He even composed music, noted it
+with precision, and after preparing his paper with his ruler, placed the
+words under the notes without the least mistake.
+
+It is said, that an archbishop of Bordeaux has witnessed all these
+operations, and many others equally astonishing. It is to be wished that
+this prelate had affixed his attestation to the account, signed by his
+grand vicars, or at least by his secretary.
+
+But supposing that this somnambulist has done all which is imputed to
+him, I would persist in putting the same queries to him as to a simple
+dreamer. I would say to him: You have dreamed more forcibly than
+another; but it is upon the same principle; one has had a fever only,
+the other a degree of madness; but both the one and the other have
+received ideas and sensations to which they have not attended. You have
+both done what you did not intend to do.
+
+Of two dreamers, the one has not a single idea, the other a crowd; the
+one is as insensible as marble, while the other experiences desires and
+enjoyments. A lover composes a song on his mistress in a dream, and in
+his delirium imagines himself to be reading a tender letter from her,
+which he repeats aloud:
+
+     _Scribit amatori meretrix; dat adultera munus_
+     _In noctis spatio miserorum vulnera durant._
+                              --PETRONIUS, chap. civ.
+
+Does anything pass within you during this powerful dream more than what
+passes every day when you are awake?
+
+You, Mr. Seminarist, born with the gift of imitation, you have listened
+to some hundred sermons, and your brain is prepared to make them: moved
+by the talent of imitation, you have written them waking; and you are
+led by the same talent and impulse when you are asleep. But how have you
+been able to become a preacher in a dream? You went to sleep, without
+any desire to preach. Remember well the first time that you were led to
+compose the sketch of a sermon while awake. You thought not of it a
+quarter of an hour before; but seated in your chamber, occupied in a
+reverie, without any determinate ideas, your memory recalls, without
+your will interfering, the remembrance of a certain holiday; this
+holiday reminds you that sermons are delivered on that day; you remember
+a text; this text suggests an exordium; pens, ink, and paper, are lying
+near you; and you begin to write things you had not the least previous
+intention of writing. Such is precisely what came to pass in your
+noctambulism.
+
+You believe yourself, both in the one and the other occupation, to have
+done only what you intended to do; and you have been directed without
+consciousness by all which preceded the writing of the sermon.
+
+In the same manner when, on coming from vespers, you are shut up in your
+cell to meditate, you have no design to occupy yourself with the image
+of your fair neighbor; but it somehow or another intrudes; your
+imagination is inflamed; and I need not refer to the consequences. You
+may have experienced the same adventure in your sleep.
+
+What share has your will had in all these modifications of sensation?
+The same that it has had in the coursing of your blood through your
+arteries and veins, in the action of your lymphatic vessels, or in the
+pulsation of your heart, or of your brain.
+
+I have read the article on "Dreams" in the "Encyclopædia," and have
+understood nothing; and when I search after the cause of my ideas and
+actions, either in sleeping or waking, I am equally confounded.
+
+I know well, that a reasoner who would prove to me when I wake, and when
+I am neither mad nor intoxicated, that I am then an active agent, would
+but slightly embarrass me; but I should be still more embarrassed if I
+undertook to prove to him that when he slept he was passive and a pure
+automaton.
+
+Explain to me an animal who is a mere machine one-half of his life, and
+who changes his nature twice every twenty-four hours.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+_Letter on Dreams to the Editor of the Literary Gazette, August, 1764._
+
+Gentlemen: All the objects of science are within your jurisdiction;
+allow chimeras to be so also. "_Nil sub sole novum_"--"nothing new under
+the sun". Thus it is not of anything which passes in noonday that I am
+going to treat, but of that which takes place during the night. Be not
+alarmed; it is only with dreams that I concern myself.
+
+I confess, gentlemen, that I am constantly of the opinion of the
+physician of M. Pourceaugnac; he inquires of his patient the nature of
+his dreams, and M. Pourceaugnac, who is not a philosopher, replies that
+they are of the nature of dreams. It is most certain however, with no
+offence to your Limousin, that uneasy and horrible dreams denote pain
+either of body or mind; a body overcharged with aliment, or a mind
+occupied with melancholy ideas when awake.
+
+The laborer who has waked without chagrin, and fed without excess,
+sleeps sound and tranquil, and dreams disturb him not; so long as he is
+in this state, he seldom remembers having a dream--a truth which I have
+fully ascertained on my estate in Herefordshire. Every dream of a
+forcible nature is produced by some excess, either in the passions of
+the soul, or the nourishment of the body; it seems as if nature intended
+to punish us for them, by suggesting ideas, and making us think in spite
+of ourselves. It may be inferred from this, that those who think the
+least are the most happy; but it is not that conclusion which I seek to
+establish.
+
+We must acknowledge, with Petronius, "_Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris
+agit_." I have known advocates who have pleaded in dreams;
+mathematicians who have sought to solve problems; and poets who have
+composed verses. I have made some myself, which are very passable. It
+is therefore incontestable, that consecutive ideas occur in sleep, as
+well as when we are awake, which ideas as certainly come in spite of us.
+We think while sleeping, as we move in our beds, without our will having
+anything to do either in the motive or the thought. Your Father
+Malebranche is right in asserting that we are not able to give ourselves
+ideas. For why are we to be masters of them, when waking, more than
+during sleep? If your Malebranche had stopped there, he would have been
+a great philosopher; he deceived himself only by going too far: of him
+we may say:
+
+     _Processit longe flammantia mœnia mundi._
+                                  --LUCRETIUS, i, 74.
+
+     His vigorous and active mind was hurled
+     Beyond the flaming limits of this world.
+                                     --CREECH.
+
+For my part, I am persuaded that the reflection that our thoughts
+proceed not from ourselves, may induce the visit of some very good
+thoughts. I will not, however, undertake to develop mine, for fear of
+tiring some readers, and astonishing others.
+
+I simply beg to say two or three words in relation to dreams. Have you
+not found, like me, that they are the origin of the opinion so generally
+diffused throughout antiquity, touching spectres and manes? A man
+profoundly afflicted at the death of his wife or his son, sees them in
+his sleep; he speaks to them; they reply to him; and to him they have
+certainly appeared. Other men have had similar dreams; it is therefore
+impossible to deny that the dead may return; but it is certain, at the
+same time, that these deceased, whether inhumed, reduced to ashes, or
+buried in the abyss of the sea, have not been able to reserve their
+bodies; it is, therefore, the soul which we have seen. This soul must
+necessarily be extended, light, and impalpable, because in speaking to
+it we have not been able to embrace it: "_Effugit imago par levibus
+ventis_." It is moulded and designed from the body that it inhabits,
+since it perfectly resembles it. The name of shade or manes is given it;
+from all which a confused idea remains in the head, which differs itself
+so much more because no one can understand it.
+
+Dreams also appear to me to have been the sensible origin of primitive
+prophecy or prediction. What more natural or common than to dream that a
+person dear to us is in danger of dying, or that we see him expiring?
+What more natural, again, than that such a person may really die soon
+after this ominous dream of his friend? Dreams which have come to pass
+are always predictions which no one can doubt, no account being taken of
+the dreams which are never fulfilled; a single dream accomplished has
+more effect than a hundred which fail. Antiquity abounds with these
+examples. How constructed are we for the reception of error! Day and
+night unite to deceive us!
+
+You see, gentlemen, that by attending to these ideas, we may gather
+some fruit from the book of my compatriot, the dreamer; but I finish,
+lest you should take me myself for a mere visionary.
+
+                           Yours,
+
+                                  JOHN DREAMER.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+_Of Dreams._
+
+According to Petronius, dreams are not of divine origin, but
+self-formed:
+
+    _Somnia qua mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris,_
+    _Non delumbra deum nec ab æthere numina mittunt,_
+    _Sed sibi quisque facit._
+
+But how, all the senses being defunct in sleep, does there remain an
+internal one which retains consciousness? How is it, that while the eyes
+see not, the ears hear not, we notwithstanding understand in our dreams?
+The hound renews the chase in a dream: he barks, follows his prey, and
+is in at the death. The poet composes verses in his sleep; the
+mathematician examines his diagram; and the metaphysician reasons well
+or ill; of all which there are striking examples.
+
+Are they only the organs of the machine which act? Is it the pure soul,
+submitted to the empire of the senses, enjoying its faculties at
+liberty?
+
+If the organs alone produce dreams by night, why not alone produce ideas
+by day? If the soul, pure and tranquil, acting for itself during the
+repose of the senses, is the sole cause of our ideas while we are
+sleeping, why are all these ideas usually irregular, unreasonable, and
+incoherent? What! at a time when the soul is least disturbed, it is so
+much disquieted in its imagination? Is it frantic when at liberty? If it
+was produced with metaphysical ideas, as so many sages assert who dream
+with their eyes open, its correct and luminous ideas of being, of
+infinity, and of all the primary principles, ought to be revealed in the
+soul with the greatest energy when the body sleeps. We should never be
+good philosophers except when dreaming.
+
+Whatever system we embrace, whatever our vain endeavors to prove that
+the memory impels the brain, and that the brain acts upon the soul, we
+must allow that our ideas come, in sleep, independently of our will. It
+is therefore certain that we can think seven or eight hours running
+without the least intention of doing so, and even without being certain
+that we think. Pause upon that, and endeavor to divine what there is in
+this which is animal.
+
+Dreams have always formed a great object of superstition, and nothing is
+more natural. A man deeply affected by the sickness of his mistress
+dreams that he sees her dying; she dies the next day; and of course the
+gods have predicted her death.
+
+The general of an army dreams that he shall gain a battle; he
+subsequently gains one; the gods had decreed that he should be a
+conqueror. Dreams which are accomplished are alone attended to. Dreams
+form a great part of ancient history, as also of oracles.
+
+The "Vulgate" thus translates the end of Leviticus, xix, 26: "You shall
+not observe dreams." But the word "dream" exists not in the Hebrew; and
+it would be exceedingly strange, if attention to dreams was reproved in
+the same book in which it is said that Joseph became the benefactor of
+Egypt and his family, in consequence of his interpretation of three
+dreams.
+
+The interpretation of dreams was a thing so common, that the supposed
+art had no limits, and the interpreter was sometimes called upon to say
+what another person had dreamed. Nebuchadnezzar, having forgotten his
+dream, orders his Magi to say what it was he had dreamed, and threatened
+them with death if they failed; but the Jew Daniel, who was in the
+school of the Magi, saved their lives by divining at once what the king
+had dreamed, and interpreting it. This history, and many others, may
+serve to prove that the laws of the Jews did not forbid oneiromancy,
+that is to say, the science of dreams.
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+                          Lausanne, Oct. 25, 1757.
+
+In one of my dreams, I supped with M. Touron, who appeared to compose
+verses and music, which he sang to us. I addressed these four lines to
+him in my dream:
+
+     _Mon cher Touron, que tu m'enchantes_
+     _Par la douceur de tes accens!_
+     _Que tes vers sont doux et coulans!_
+     _Tu les fais comme tu tes chantes._
+
+     Thy gentle accents, Touron dear,
+     Sound most delightful to my ear!
+     With how much ease the verses roll,
+     Which flow, while singing, from thy soul!
+
+In another dream, I recited the first canto of the "Henriade" quite
+different from what it is. Yesterday, I dreamed that verses were recited
+at supper, and that some one pretended they were too witty. I replied
+that verses were entertainments given to the soul, and that ornaments
+are necessary in entertainments.
+
+I have therefore said things in my sleep which I should have some
+difficulty to say when awake; I have had thoughts and reflections, in
+spite of myself, and without the least voluntary operation on my own
+part, and nevertheless combined my ideas with sagacity, and even with
+genius. What am I, therefore, if not a machine?
+
+
+
+
+SOPHIST.
+
+
+A geometrician, a little severe, thus addressed us one day: There is
+nothing in literature more dangerous than rhetorical sophists; and among
+these sophists none are more unintelligible and unworthy of being
+understood than the divine Plato.
+
+The only useful idea to be found in him, is that of the immortality of
+the soul, which was already admitted among cultivated nations; but,
+then, how does he prove this immortality?
+
+We cannot too forcibly appeal to this proof, in order to correctly
+appreciate this famous Greek. He asserts, in his "Phædon" that death is
+the opposite of life, that death springs from life, and the living from
+the dead, consequently that our souls will descend beneath the earth
+when we die.
+
+If it is true that the sophist Plato, who gives himself out for the
+enemy of all sophists, reasons always thus, what have been all these
+pretended great men, and in what has consisted their utility?
+
+The grand defect of the Platonic philosophy is the transformation of
+abstract ideas into realities. A man can only perform a fine action,
+because a beauty really exists, which is its archetype.
+
+We cannot perform any action, without forming an idea of the
+action--therefore these ideas exist I know not where, and it is
+necessary to study them.
+
+God formed an idea of the world before He created it. This was His
+_logos_: the world, therefore, is the production of the _logos_!
+
+What disputes, how many vain and even sanguinary contests, has this
+manner of argument produced upon earth! Plato never dreamed that his
+doctrine would be able, at some future period, to divide a church which
+in his time was not in existence.
+
+To conceive a just contempt for all these foolish subtilties, read
+Demosthenes, and see if in any one of his harangues he employs one of
+these ridiculous sophisms. It is a clear proof that, in serious
+business, no more attention is paid to these chimeras than in a council
+of state to theses of theology.
+
+Neither will you find any of this sophistry in the speeches of Cicero.
+It was a jargon of the schools, invented to amuse idleness--the quackery
+of mind.
+
+
+
+
+SOUL.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+This is a vague and indeterminate term, expressing an unknown principle
+of known effects, which we feel in ourselves. This word "soul" answers
+to the "anima" of the Latins--to the "pneuma" of the Greeks--to the term
+which each and every nation has used to express what they understood no
+better than we do.
+
+In the proper and literal sense of the Latin and the languages derived
+from it, it signifies that which animates. Thus people say, the soul of
+men, of animals, and sometimes of plants, to denote their principle of
+vegetation and life. This word has never been uttered with any but a
+confused idea, as when it is said in Genesis: "God breathed into his
+nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul"; and: "The
+soul of animals is in the blood"; and: "Stay not my soul."
+
+Thus the soul was taken for the origin and the cause of life, and for
+life itself. Hence all known nations long imagined that everything died
+with the body. If anything can be discerned with clearness in the chaos
+of ancient histories, it seems that the Egyptians were at least the
+first who made a distinction between the intelligence and the soul; and
+the Greeks learned from them to distinguish their "_nous_" and their
+"_pneuma_." The Latins, after the example of the Greeks, distinguished
+"_animus_" and "_anima_"; and we have, too, our soul and our
+understanding. But are that which is the principle of our life, and that
+which is the principle of our thoughts, two different things? Does that
+which causes us to digest, and which gives us sensation and memory,
+resemble that which is the cause of digestion in animals, and of their
+sensations and memory?
+
+Here is an eternal object for disputation: I say an eternal object, for
+having no primitive notion from which to deduce in this investigation,
+we must ever continue in a labyrinth of doubts and feeble conjectures.
+
+We have not the smallest step on which to set our foot, to reach the
+slightest knowledge of what makes us live and what makes us think. How
+should we? For we must then have seen life and thought enter a body.
+Does a father know how he produced his son? Does a mother know how she
+conceived him? Has anyone ever been able to divine how he acts, how he
+wakes, or how he sleeps? Does anyone know how his limbs obey his will?
+Has anyone discovered by what art his ideas are traced in his brain, and
+issue from it at his command? Feeble automata, moved by the invisible
+hand which directs us on the stage of this world, which of us has ever
+perceived the thread which guides us?
+
+We dare to put in question, whether the intelligent soul is spirit or
+matter; whether it is created before us, or proceeds from nothing at our
+birth; whether, after animating us for a day on this earth, it lives
+after us in eternity. These questions appear sublime; what are they?
+Questions of blind men asking one another: What is light?
+
+When we wish to have a rude knowledge of a piece of metal, we put it on
+the fire in a crucible; but have we any crucible wherein to put the
+soul? It is spirit, says one; but what is spirit? Assuredly, no one
+knows. This is a word so void of meaning, that to tell what spirit is,
+you are obliged to say what it is not. The soul is matter, says another;
+but what is matter? We know nothing of it but a few appearances and
+properties; and not one of these properties, not one of these
+appearances, can bear the least affinity to thought.
+
+It is something distinct from matter, you say; but what proof have you
+of this? Is it because matter is divisible and figurable, and thought is
+not? But how do you know that the first principles of matter are
+divisible and figurable? It is very likely that they are not; whole
+sects of philosophers assert that the elements of matter have neither
+figure nor extent. You triumphantly exclaim: Thought is neither wood,
+nor stone, nor sand, nor metal; therefore, thought belongs not to
+matter. Weak and presumptuous reasoners! Gravitation is neither wood,
+nor sand, nor metal, nor stone; nor is motion, or vegetation, or life,
+any of all these; yet life, vegetation, motion, gravitation, are given
+to matter. To say that God cannot give thought to matter, is to say the
+most insolently absurd thing that has ever been advanced in the
+privileged schools of madness and folly. We are not assured that God has
+done this; we are only assured that He can do it. But of what avail is
+all that has been said, or all that will be said, about the soul? What
+avails it that it has been called "_entelechia_," quintessence, flame,
+ether--that it has been believed to be universal, uncreated,
+transmigrant?
+
+Of what avail, in these questions inaccessible to reason, are the
+romances of our uncertain imaginations? What avails it, that the fathers
+in the four primitive ages believed the soul to be corporeal? What
+avails it that Tertullian, with a contradictoriness that was familiar to
+him, decided that it is at once corporeal, figured, and simple? We have
+a thousand testimonies of ignorance, but not one which affords us a ray
+of probability.
+
+How, then, shall we be bold enough to affirm what the soul is? We know
+certainly that we exist, that we feel, that we think. Seek we to advance
+one step further--we fall into an abyss of darkness; and in this abyss,
+we have still the foolish temerity to dispute whether this soul, of
+which we have not the least idea, is made before us or with us, and
+whether it is perishable or immortal?
+
+The article on "Soul," and all articles belonging to metaphysics,
+should begin with a sincere submission to the indubitable tenets of the
+Church. Revelation is doubtless much better than philosophy. Systems
+exercise the mind, but faith enlightens and guides it.
+
+Are there not words often pronounced of which we have but a very
+confused idea, or perhaps no idea at all? Is not the word "soul" one of
+these? When the tongue of a pair of bellows is out of order, and the
+air, escaping through the valve, is not driven with violence towards the
+fire, the maid-servant says: "The soul of the bellows is burst." She
+knows no better, and the question does not at all disturb her quiet.
+
+The gardener uses the expression, "Soul of the plants"; and cultivates
+them very well without knowing what the term means.
+
+The musical-instrument maker places, and shifts forward or backward, the
+soul of a violin, under the bridge, in the interior of the instrument: a
+sorry bit of wood more or less gives it or takes from it a harmonious
+soul.
+
+We have several manufactures in which the workmen give the appellation
+of "soul" to their machines; but they are never heard to dispute about
+the word: it is otherwise with philosophers.
+
+The word "soul," with us, signifies in general that which animates. Our
+predecessors, the Celts, gave their soul the name of "_seel_," of which
+the English have made soul, while the Germans retain "_seel_"; and it
+is probable that the ancient Teutons and the ancient Britons had no
+university quarrels about this expression.
+
+The Greeks distinguished three sorts of souls: "_Psyche_," signifying
+the sensitive soul--the soul of the senses; and hence it was that Love,
+the son of Aphrodite, had so much passion for Psyche, and that she loved
+him so tenderly; "_Pneuma_," the breath which gave life and motion to
+the whole machine, and which we have rendered by "_spiritus_"--spirit--a
+vague term, which has received a thousand different acceptations: and
+lastly, "_nous_," intelligence.
+
+Thus we possess three souls, without having the slightest notion of any
+one of them. St. Thomas Aquinas admits these three souls in his quality
+of peripatetic, and distinguishes each of the three into three parts.
+
+"_Psyche_" was in the breast; "_Pneuma_" was spread throughout the body;
+and "_Nous_" was in the head. There was no other philosophy in our
+schools until the present day; and woe to the man who took one of these
+souls for another!
+
+In this chaos of ideas, there was however a foundation. Men had clearly
+perceived that in their passions of love, anger, fear, etc., motions
+were excited within them; the heart and the liver were the seat of the
+passions. When thinking deeply, one feels a laboring in the organs of
+the head; "therefore, the intellectual soul is in the brain. Without
+respiration there is no vegetation, no life; therefore, the vegetative
+soul is in the breast, which receives the breath of the air."
+
+When men had seen in their sleep their dead relatives or friends, they
+necessarily sought to discover what had appeared to them. It was not the
+body, which had been consumed on a pile or swallowed up in the sea and
+eaten by the fishes. However, they would declare it was something, for
+they had seen it; the dead man had spoken; the dreamer had questioned
+him. Was it "_Psyche_"; was it "_Pneuma_"; was it "_Nous_" with whom he
+had conversed in his sleep? Then a phantom was imagined--a slight
+figure; it was "_skia_"--it was "_daimonos_"--a shade of the manes; a
+small soul of air and fire, extremely slender, wandering none knew
+where.
+
+In after times, when it was determined to sound the matter, the
+undisputed result was, that this soul was corporeal, and all antiquity
+had no other idea of it. At length came Plato, who so subtilized this
+soul, that it was doubted whether he did not entirely separate it from
+matter; but the problem was never resolved until faith came to enlighten
+us.
+
+In vain do the materialists adduce the testimony of some fathers of the
+Church who do not express themselves with exactness. St. Irenæus says
+that the soul is but the breath of life, that it is incorporeal only in
+comparison with the mortal body, and that it retains the human figure in
+order that it may be recognized.
+
+In vain does Tertullian express himself thus:
+
+"The corporality of the soul shines forth in the Gospel. _'Corporalitas
+animæ in ipso evangelio relucesseit.'_" For if the soul had not a body,
+the image of the soul would not have the image of the body.
+
+In vain does he even relate the vision of a holy woman who had seen a
+very brilliant soul of the color of the air.
+
+In vain does Tatian expressly say:
+
+     _Ψυχὴ μὲν οὖν εἰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πυλυμερής ἐστιν_
+
+--"The soul of man is composed of several parts."
+
+In vain do they adduce St. Hilary, who said in later times: "There is
+nothing created which is not corporeal, neither in heaven nor on earth;
+neither visible nor invisible; all is formed of elements; and souls,
+whether they inhabit a body or are without a body, have always a
+corporeal substance."
+
+In vain does St. Ambrose, in the fourth century, say: "We know nothing
+but what is material, excepting only the ever-venerable Trinity."
+
+The whole body of the Church has decided that the soul is immaterial.
+These holy men had fallen into an error then universal; they were men:
+but they were not mistaken concerning immortality, because it is
+evidently announced in the Gospels.
+
+So evident is our need of the decision of the infallible Church on these
+points of philosophy, that indeed we have not of ourselves any
+sufficient notion of what is called pure spirit, nor of what is called
+matter. Pure spirit is an expression which gives us no idea; and we are
+acquainted with matter only by a few phenomena. So little do we know of
+it, that we call it substance, which word "substance" means that which
+is beneath; but this beneath will eternally be concealed from us; this
+beneath is the Creator's secret, and this secret of the Creator is
+everywhere. We do not know how we receive life, how we give it, how we
+grow, how we digest, how we sleep, how we think, nor how we feel. The
+great difficulty is, to comprehend how a being, whatsoever it be, has
+thoughts.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+_Locke's Doubts concerning the Soul._
+
+The author of the article on "Soul," in the "Encyclopædia," who has
+scrupulously followed Jacquelot, teaches us nothing. He also rises up
+against Locke, because the modest Locke has said:
+
+"Perhaps we shall never be capable of knowing whether a material being
+thinks or not; for this reason--that it is impossible for us to
+discover, by the contemplation of our own ideas, 'without revelation,'
+whether God has not given to some portion of matter, disposed as He
+thinks fit, the power of perceiving and thinking; or whether He has
+joined and united to matter so disposed, an immaterial and thinking
+substance. For with regard to our notions, it is no less easy for us to
+conceive that God can, if He pleases, add to an idea of matter the
+faculty of thinking, than to comprehend that He joins to it another
+substance with the faculty of thinking; since we know not in what
+thought consists, nor to what kind of substance this all-powerful Being
+has thought fit to grant this power, which could be created only by
+virtue of the good-will and pleasure of the Creator. I do not see that
+there is any contradiction in God--that thinking, eternal, and
+all-powerful Being--giving, if He wills it, certain degrees of feeling,
+perception, and thought, to certain portions of matter, created and
+insensible, which He joins together as he thinks fit."
+
+This was speaking like a profound, religious, and modest man. It is
+known what contests he had to maintain concerning this opinion, which he
+appeared to have hazarded, but which was really no other than a
+consequence of the conviction he felt of the omnipotence of God, and the
+weakness of man. He did not say that matter thought; but he said that we
+do not know enough to demonstrate that it is impossible for God to add
+the gift of thought to the unknown being called "matter," after granting
+to it those of gravitation and of motion, which are equally
+incomprehensible.
+
+Assuredly, Locke was not the only one who advanced this opinion; it was
+that of all the ancients--regarding the soul only as very subtile
+matter, they consequently affirmed that matter could feel and think.
+
+Such was the opinion of Gassendi, as we find in his objections to
+Descartes. "It is true," says Gassendi, "that you know that you think;
+but you, who think, know not of what kind of substance you are. Thus,
+though the operation of thought is known to you, the principle of your
+essence is hidden from you, and you do not know what is the nature of
+that substance, one of the operations of which is to think. You resemble
+a blind man who, feeling the heat of the sun, and being informed that it
+is caused by the sun, should believe himself to have a clear and
+distinct idea of that luminary, because, if he were asked what the sun
+is, he could answer, that it is a thing which warms...."
+
+The same Gassendi, in his "Philosophy of Epicurus," repeats several
+times that there is no mathematical evidence of the pure spirituality of
+the soul.
+
+Descartes, in one of his letters to Elizabeth, princess palatine, says
+to her: "I confess, that by natural reason alone, we can form many
+conjectures about the soul, and conceive flattering hopes; but we can
+have no assurance." And here Descartes combats in his letters what he
+advances in his books--a too ordinary contradiction.
+
+We have seen, too, that all the fathers in the first ages of the Church,
+while they believed the soul immortal, believed it to be material. They
+thought it as easy for God to preserve as to create. They said, God made
+it thinking, He will preserve it thinking.
+
+Malebranche has clearly proved, that by ourselves we have no idea, and
+that objects are incapable of giving us any; whence he concludes that we
+see all things in God. This, in substance, is the same as making God
+the author of all our ideas; for wherewith should we see ourselves in
+Him, if we had not instruments for seeing? and these instruments are
+held and directed by him alone. This system is a labyrinth, of which one
+path would lead you to Spinozism, another to Stoicism, another to chaos.
+
+When men have disputed well and long on matter and spirit, they always
+end in understanding neither one another nor themselves. No philosopher
+has ever been able to lift by his own strength the veil which nature has
+spread over the first principle of things. They dispute, while nature is
+acting.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+_On the Souls of Beasts, and on Some Empty Ideas._
+
+Before the strange system which supposes animals to be pure machines
+without any sensation, men had never imagined an immaterial soul in
+beasts; and no one had carried temerity so far as to say that an oyster
+has a spiritual soul. All the world peaceably agreed that beasts had
+received from God feeling, memory, ideas, but not a pure spirit. No one
+had abused the gift of reason so far as to say that nature has given to
+beasts the organs of feeling, in order that they may have no feeling. No
+one had said that they cry out when wounded, and fly when pursued,
+without experiencing either pain or fear.
+
+God's omnipotence was not then denied: it was in His power to
+communicate to the organized matter of animals pleasure, pain,
+remembrance, the combination of some ideas; it was in His power to give
+to several of them, as the ape, the elephant, the hound, the talent of
+perfecting themselves in the arts which are taught them: not only was it
+in His power to endow almost all carnivorous animals with the talent of
+making war better in their experienced old age than in their confiding
+youth; not only was it in His power to do this, but He had done it, as
+the whole world could witness.
+
+Pereira and Descartes maintained against the whole world that it was
+mistaken; that God had played the conjurer; that He had given to animals
+all the instruments of life and sensation, that they might have neither
+sensation or life properly so called. But some pretended philosophers, I
+know not whom, in order to answer Descartes' chimera, threw themselves
+into the opposite chimera very liberally, giving "pure spirit" to toads
+and insects. "_In vitium ducit culpæ fuga._"
+
+Betwixt these two follies, the one depriving of feeling the organs of
+feeling, the other lodging pure spirit in a bug--a mean was imagined,
+viz., instinct. And what is "instinct"? Oh! it is a substantial form; it
+is a plastic form; it is a--I know not what--it is instinct. I will be
+of your opinion, so long as you apply to most things "I know not what";
+so long as your philosophy shall begin and end with "I know not"; but
+when you "affirm," I shall say to you with Prior, in his poem on the
+vanity of the world:
+
+     Then vainly the philosopher avers
+     That reason guides our deeds, and instinct theirs.
+     How can we justly different causes frame,
+     When the effects entirely are the same?
+     Instinct and reason how can we divide?
+     'Tis the fool's ignorance, and the pedant's pride.
+
+The author of the article on "Soul," in the "Encyclopædia," explains
+himself thus: "I represent to myself the soul of beasts as a substance
+immaterial and intelligent." But of what kind? It seems to me, that it
+must be an active principle having sensations, and only sensations....
+If we reflect on the nature of the souls of beasts, it does not of
+itself give us any grounds for believing that their spirituality will
+save them from annihilation.
+
+I do not understand how you represent to yourself an immaterial
+substance. To represent a thing to yourself is to make to yourself an
+image of it; and hitherto no one has been able to paint the mind. I am
+willing to suppose that by the word "represent," the author means I
+"conceive"; for my part, I own that I do not conceive it. Still less do
+I conceive how a spiritual soul is annihilated, because I have no
+conception of creation or of nothing; because I never attended God's
+council; because I know nothing at all of the principle of things.
+
+If I seek to prove that the soul is a real being, I am stopped, and told
+that it is a faculty. If I affirm that it is a faculty, and that I have
+that of thinking, I am answered, that I mistake; that God, the eternal
+master of all nature, does everything in me, directing all my actions,
+and all my thoughts; that if I produced my thoughts, I should know
+those which I should have the next minute; that I never know this; that
+I am but an automaton with sensations and ideas, necessarily dependent,
+and in the hands of the Supreme Being, infinitely more subject to Him
+than clay is to the potter.
+
+I acknowledge then my ignorance; I acknowledge that four thousand
+volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what our soul is.
+
+An orthodox philosopher said to a heterodox philosopher, "How can you
+have brought yourself to imagine that the soul is of its nature mortal,
+and that it is eternal only by the pure will of God?" "By my
+experience," says the other. "How! have you been dead then?" "Yes, very
+often: in my youth I had a fit of epilepsy; and I assure you, that I was
+perfectly dead for several hours: I had no sensation, nor even any
+recollection from the moment that I was seized. The same thing happens
+to me now almost every night. I never feel precisely the moment when I
+fall asleep, and my sleep is absolutely without dreams. I cannot
+imagine, but by conjectures, how long I have slept. I am dead regularly
+six hours in twenty-four, which is one-fourth of my life."
+
+The orthodox then maintained against him that he always thought while he
+was asleep, without his knowing of it. The heterodox replied: "I
+believe, by revelation, that I shall think forever in the next world;
+but I assure you, that I seldom think in this."
+
+The orthodox was not mistaken in affirming the immortality of the soul,
+since faith demonstrates that truth; but he might be mistaken in
+affirming that a sleeping man constantly thinks.
+
+Locke frankly owned that he did not always think while he was asleep.
+Another philosopher has said: "Thought is peculiar to man, but it is not
+his essence."
+
+Let us leave every man at liberty to seek into himself and to lose
+himself in his ideas. However, it is well to know that in 1750, a
+philosopher underwent a very severe persecution, for having
+acknowledged, with Locke, that his understanding was not exercised every
+moment of the day and of the night, no more than his arms or his legs.
+Not only was he persecuted by the ignorance of the court, but the
+malicious ignorance of some pretended men of letters assailed the object
+of persecution. That which in England had produced only some
+philosophical disputes, produced in France the most disgraceful
+atrocities: a Frenchman was made the victim of Locke.
+
+There have always been among the refuse of our literature, some of those
+wretches who have sold their pens and caballed against their very
+benefactors. This remark is to be sure foreign to the article on "Soul":
+but ought one to lose a single opportunity of striking terror into those
+who render themselves unworthy of the name of literary men, who
+prostitute the little wit and conscience they have to a vile interest,
+to a chimerical policy, who betray their friends to flatter fools, who
+prepare in secret the hemlock-draught with which powerful and wicked
+ignorance would destroy useful citizens.
+
+Did it ever occur in true Rome, that a Lucretius was denounced to the
+consuls for having put the system of Epicurus into verse; a Cicero, for
+having repeatedly written, that there is no pain after death; or that a
+Pliny or a Varro was accused of having peculiar notions of the divinity?
+The liberty of thinking was unlimited among the Romans. Those of harsh,
+jealous, and narrow minds, who among us have endeavored to crush this
+liberty--the parent of our knowledge, the mainspring of the
+understanding--have made chimerical dangers their pretext; they have
+forgotten that the Romans, who carried this liberty much further than we
+do, were nevertheless our conquerors, our lawgivers; and that the
+disputes of schools have no more to do with government than the tub of
+Diogenes had with the victories of Alexander.
+
+This lesson is worth quite as much as a lesson on the soul. We shall
+perhaps have occasion more than once to recur to it.
+
+In fine, while adoring God with all our soul, let us ever confess our
+profound ignorance concerning that soul--that faculty of feeling and
+thinking which we owe to His infinite goodness. Let us acknowledge that
+our weak reasonings can neither take from nor add to revelation and
+faith. Let us, in short, conclude that we ought to employ this
+intelligence, whose nature is unknown, in perfecting the sciences which
+are the object of the "Encyclopædia," as watchmakers make use of springs
+in their watches, without knowing what _spring_ is.
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+_On the Soul, and on our Ignorance._
+
+Relying on our acquired knowledge, we have ventured to discuss the
+question: Whether the soul is created before us? Whether it arrives from
+nothing in our bodies? At what age it came and placed itself between the
+bladder and the intestines, "cæcum" and "rectum"? Whether it received or
+brought there any ideas, and what those ideas are? Whether, after
+animating us for a few moments, its essence is to live after us in
+eternity, without the intervention of God Himself? Whether, it being a
+spirit, and God being spirit, they are of like nature? These questions
+have an appearance of sublimity. What are they but questions of men born
+blind discussing the nature of light?
+
+What have all the philosophers, ancient and modern, taught us? A child
+is wiser than they: he does not think about what he cannot conceive.
+
+How unfortunate, you will say, for an insatiable curiosity, for an
+unquenchable thirst after well-being, that we are thus ignorant of
+ourselves! Granted: and there are things yet more unfortunate than this;
+but I will answer you: "_Sors tua mortalis, non est mortale quod
+optas."_--"Mortal thy fate, thy wishes those of gods."
+
+Once more let it be repeated, the nature of every principle of things
+appears to be the secret of the Creator. How does the air convey sound?
+How are animals formed? How do some of our members constantly obey our
+will? What hand places ideas in our memory, keeps them there as in a
+register, and draws them thence sometimes at our command, and sometimes
+in spite of us? Our own nature, that of the universe, that of the
+smallest plant--all, to us, involved in utter darkness.
+
+Man is an acting, feeling, and thinking being; this is all we know of
+the matter: it is not given to us to know either what renders us feeling
+or thinking, or what makes us act, or what causes us to be. The acting
+faculty is to us as incomprehensible as the thinking faculty. The
+difficulty is not so much to conceive how this body of clay has feelings
+and ideas as to conceive how a being, whatever it be, has ideas and
+feelings.
+
+Behold on one hand the soul of Archimedes, and on the other that of a
+simpleton; are they of the same nature? If their essence is to think,
+then they think always and independently of the body, which cannot act
+without them. If they think by their own nature, can a soul, which is
+incapable of performing a single arithmetical operation, be of the same
+species as that which has measured the heavens? If it is the organs of
+the body that have made Archimedes think, why does not my idiot think,
+seeing that he is better constituted than Archimedes, more vigorous,
+digesting better, performing all his functions better? Because, say you,
+his brain is not so good; but you suppose this; you have no knowledge of
+it. No difference has ever been found among sound brains that have been
+dissected; indeed, it is very likely that the brain-pan of a blockhead
+would be found in a better state than that of Archimedes, which has been
+prodigiously fatigued, and may be worn and contracted.
+
+Let us then conclude what we have concluded already, that we are
+ignorant of all first principles. As for those who are ignorant and
+self-sufficient, they are far below the ape.
+
+Now then dispute, ye choleric arguers; present memorials against one
+another; abuse one another; pronounce your sentences--you who know not a
+syllable of the matter!
+
+
+SECTION V.
+
+_Warburtons Paradox on the Immortality of the Soul._
+
+Warburton, the editor and commentator of Shakespeare, and Bishop of
+Gloucester, using English liberty, and abusing the custom of
+vituperating against adversaries, has composed four volumes to prove
+that the immortality of the soul was never announced in the Pentateuch;
+and to conclude from this very proof, that the mission of Moses, which
+he calls "legation," was divine. The following is an abstract of his
+book, which he himself gives at the commencement of the first volume:
+
+"1. That to inculcate the doctrine of a future state of rewards and
+punishments is necessary to the well-being of civil society.
+
+"2. That all mankind [wherein he is mistaken], especially the most wise
+and learned nations of antiquity, have concurred in believing and
+teaching, that this doctrine was of such use to civil society.
+
+"3. That the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is
+not to be found in, nor did it make part of, the Mosaic dispensation.
+
+"That therefore the law of Moses is of divine origin;
+
+"Which one or both of the two following syllogisms will evince:
+
+"I. Whatever religion and society have no future state for their support
+must be supported by an extraordinary Providence.
+
+"The Jewish religion and society had no future state for their support;
+
+"Therefore the Jewish religion and society were supported by an
+extraordinary Providence.
+
+"And again,
+
+"II. The ancient lawgivers universally believed that such a religion
+could be supported only by an extraordinary Providence.
+
+"Moses, an ancient lawgiver, versed in all the wisdom of Egypt,
+purposely instituted such a religion; Therefore Moses believed his
+religion was supported by an extraordinary Providence."
+
+What is most extraordinary, is this assertion of Warburton, which he has
+put in large characters at the head of his work. He has often been
+reproached with his extreme temerity and dishonesty in daring to say
+that all ancient lawgivers believed that a religion which is not founded
+on rewards and punishments after death cannot be upheld but by an
+extraordinary Providence: not one of them ever said so. He does not even
+undertake to adduce a single instance of this in his enormous book,
+stuffed with an immense number of quotations, all foreign to the
+subject. He has buried himself under a heap of Greek and Latin authors,
+ancient and modern, that no one may reach him through this horrible
+accumulation of coverings. When at length the critic has rummaged to the
+bottom, the author is raised to life from among all those dead, to load
+his adversaries with abuse.
+
+It is true, that near the close of the fourth volume, after ranging
+through a hundred labyrinths, and fighting all he met with on the way,
+he does at last come back to his great question from which he has so
+long wandered. He takes up the Book of Job, which the learned consider
+as the work of an Arab; and he seeks to prove, that Job did not believe
+in the immortality of the soul. He then explains, in his own way, all
+the texts of Scripture that have been brought to combat his opinion.
+
+All that should be said of him is, that if he was in the right, it was
+not for a bishop to be so in the right. He should have felt that two
+dangerous consequences might be drawn: but all goes by chance in this
+world. This man, who became an informer and a persecutor, was not made a
+bishop through the patronage of a minister of state, until immediately
+after he wrote his book.
+
+At Salamanca, at Coimbra, or at Rome, he would have been obliged to
+retract and to ask pardon. In England he became a peer of the realm,
+with an income of a hundred thousand livres. Here was something to
+soften his manners.
+
+
+SECTION VI.
+
+_On the Need of Revelation._
+
+The greatest benefit for which we are indebted to the New Testament is
+its having revealed to us the immortality of the soul. It is therefore
+quite in vain that this Warburton has sought to cloud this important
+truth, by continually representing, in his "Legation of Moses," that
+"the ancient Jews had no knowledge of this necessary dogma," and that
+"the Sadducees did not admit it in the time of our Lord Jesus."
+
+He interprets in his own way, the very words which Jesus Christ is made
+to utter: "Have ye not read that which is spoken unto you by God saying,
+I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: God
+is not the God of the dead, but of the living." He gives to the parable
+of the rich bad man a sense contrary to that of all the churches.
+Sherlock, bishop of London, and twenty other learned men, have refuted
+him. Even the English philosophers have reminded him how scandalous it
+is in an English bishop to manifest an opinion so contrary to the Church
+of England; and after all, this man has thought proper to call others
+impious: like Harlequin, in the farce of "The Housebreaker" (_Le
+Dévaliseur des Maisons_) who, after throwing the furniture out at the
+window, seeing a man carrying some articles away, cries with all his
+might--"Stop, thief!"
+
+The revelation of the immortality of the soul, and of pains and rewards
+after death, is the more to be blessed, as the vain philosophy of men
+always doubted of it. The great Cæsar had no faith in it. He explained
+himself clearly to the whole senate, when, to prevent Catiline from
+being put to death, he represented to them that death left man without
+feeling--that all died with him: and no one refuted this opinion.
+
+The Roman Empire was divided between two great principal sects: that of
+Epicurus, who affirmed that the divinity was useless to the world, and
+the soul perished with the body; and that of the Stoics, who regarded
+the soul as a portion of the divinity, which after death was reunited to
+its original--to the great All from which it had emanated. So that,
+whether the soul was believed to be mortal, or to be immortal, all
+sects united in contemning the idea of rewards and punishments after
+death.
+
+There are still remaining numerous monuments of this belief of the
+Romans. It was from the force of this opinion profoundly engraved on all
+hearts, that so many Roman heroes and so many private citizens put
+themselves to death without the smallest scruple; they did not wait for
+a tyrant to deliver them into the hands of the executioner.
+
+Even the most virtuous men, and the most thoroughly persuaded of the
+existence of a God, did not then hope any reward, nor did they fear any
+punishment. It has been seen in the article on "Apocrypha," that Clement
+himself, who was afterwards pope and saint, began with doubting what the
+first Christians said of another life, and that he consulted St. Peter
+at Cæsarea. We are very far from believing that St. Clement wrote the
+history which is attributed to him; but it shows what need mankind had
+of a precise revelation. All that can surprise us is that a tenet so
+repressing and so salutary should have left men a prey to so many
+horrible crimes, who have so short a time to live, and find themselves
+pressed between the eternities.
+
+
+SECTION VII.
+
+_Souls of Fools and Monsters._
+
+A child, ill-formed, is born absolutely imbecile, has no ideas, lives
+without ideas; instances of this have been known. How shall this animal
+be defined? Doctors have said that it is something between man and
+beast; others have said that it is a sensitive soul, but not an
+intellectual soul: it eats, it drinks, it sleeps, it wakes, it has
+sensations, but it does not think.
+
+Is there for it another life, or is there none? The case has been put,
+and has not yet been entirely resolved.
+
+Some have said that this creature must have a soul, because its father
+and its mother had souls. But by this reasoning it would be proved that
+if it had come into the world without a nose, it should have the
+reputation of having one, because its father and its mother had one.
+
+A woman is brought to bed: her infant has no chin; its forehead is flat
+and somewhat black, its eyes round, its nose thin and sharp; its
+countenance is not much unlike that of a swallow: yet the rest of his
+body is made like ours. It is decided by a majority of voices that it is
+a man, and possesses an immaterial soul; whereupon the parents have it
+baptized. But if this little ridiculous figure has pointed claws, and a
+mouth in the form of a beak, it is declared to be a monster; it has no
+soul; it is not baptized.
+
+It is known, that in 1726, there was in London a woman who was brought
+to bed every eight days of a young rabbit. No difficulty was made of
+refusing baptism to this child, notwithstanding the epidemic folly which
+prevailed in London for three weeks, of believing that this poor jade
+actually brought forth wild rabbits. The surgeon who delivered her,
+named St. André, swore that nothing was more true; and he was believed.
+But what reason had the credulous for refusing a soul to this woman's
+offspring? She had a soul; her children must likewise have been
+furnished with souls, whether they had hands? or paws, whether they were
+born with a snout or with a face: cannot the Supreme Being vouchsafe the
+gift of thought and sensation to a little nondescript, born of a woman,
+with the figure of a rabbit, as well as a little nondescript born with
+the figure of a man? Will the soul which was ready to take up its abode
+in this woman's fœtus return unhoused?
+
+It is very well observed by Locke, with regard to monsters, that
+immortality must not be attributed to the exterior of a body--that it
+has nothing to do with the figure. "This immortality," says he, "is no
+more attached to the form of one's face or breast than it is to the way
+in which one's beard is clipped or one's coat is cut."
+
+He asks: What is the exact measure of deformity by which you can
+recognize whether an infant has a soul or not? What is the precise
+degree at which it is to be declared a monster and without a soul?
+
+Again, it is asked: What would a soul be that should have none but
+chimerical ideas? There are some which never go beyond such. Are they
+worthy or unworthy? What is to be made of their pure spirit?
+
+What are we to think of a child with two heads, which is otherwise well
+formed? Some say that it has two souls, because it is furnished with two
+pineal glands, with two callous substances, with two "_sensoria
+communia_." Others answer that there cannot be two souls, with but one
+breast and one navel.
+
+In short, so many questions have been asked about this poor human soul,
+that if it were necessary to put an end to them all, such an examination
+of its own person would cause it the most insupportable annoyance. The
+same would happen to it as happened to Cardinal Polignac at a conclave:
+his steward, tired of having never been able to make him pass his
+accounts, took a journey to Rome, and went to the small window of his
+cell, laden with an immense bundle of papers; he read for nearly two
+hours; at last, finding that no answer was made, he thrust forward his
+head: the cardinal had been gone almost two hours. Our souls will be
+gone before their stewards have finished their statements; but let us be
+just before God--ignorant as both we and our stewards are.
+
+See what is said on the soul in the "Letters of Memmius."
+
+
+SECTION VIII.
+
+_Different Opinions Criticised--Apology for Locke._
+
+I must acknowledge, that when I examined the infallible Aristotle, the
+evangelical doctor, and the divine Plato, I took all these epithets for
+nicknames. In all the philosophers who have spoken of the human
+soul, I have found only blind men, full of babble and temerity,
+striving to persuade themselves that they have an eagle eye; and others,
+curious and foolish, believing them on their word, and imagining that
+they see something too.
+
+[Illustration: John Locke.]
+
+I shall not feign to rank Descartes and Malebranche with these teachers
+of error. The former assures us that the soul of man is a substance,
+whose essence is to think, which is always thinking, and which, in the
+mother's womb, is occupied with fine metaphysical ideas and general
+axioms, which it afterwards forgets.
+
+As for Father Malebranche, he is quite persuaded that we see all in
+God--and he has found partisans: for the most extravagant fables are
+those which are the best received by the weak imaginations of men.
+Various philosophers then had written the romance of the soul: at
+length, a wise man modestly wrote its history. Of this history I am
+about to give an abridgment, according to the conception I have formed
+of it. I very well know that all the world will not agree with Locke's
+ideas; it is not unlikely, that against Descartes and Malebranche, Locke
+was right, but that against the Sorbonne he was wrong: I speak according
+to the lights of philosophy, not according to the relations of the
+faith.
+
+It is not for me to think otherwise than humanly; theologians decide
+divinely, which is quite another thing: reason and faith are of contrary
+natures. In a word, here follows a short abstract of Locke, which I
+would censure, if I were a theologian, but which I adopt for a moment,
+simply as a hypothesis--a conjecture of philosophy. Humanly speaking,
+the question is: What is the soul?
+
+1. The word "soul" is one of those which everyone pronounces without
+understanding it; we understand only those things of which we have an
+idea; we have no idea of soul--spirit; therefore we do not understand
+it.
+
+2. We have then been pleased to give the name of soul to the faculty of
+feeling and thinking, as we have given that of life to the faculty of
+living, and that of will to the faculty of willing.
+
+Reasoners have come and said: Man is composed of matter and spirit:
+matter is extended and divisible; spirit is neither extended nor
+divisible; therefore, say they, it is of another nature. This is a
+joining together of beings which are not made for each other, and which
+God unites in spite of their nature. We see little of the body, we see
+nothing of the soul; it has no parts, therefore it is eternal; it has
+ideas pure and spiritual, therefore it does not receive them from
+matter; nor does it receive them from itself, therefore God gives them
+to it, and it brings with it at its birth the ideas of God, infinity,
+and all general ideas.
+
+Still humanly speaking, I answer these gentlemen that they are very
+knowing. They tell us, first, that there is a soul, and then what that
+soul must be. They pronounce the word "matter," and then plainly decide
+what it is. And I say to them: You have no knowledge either of spirit or
+of matter. By spirit you can imagine only the faculty of thinking; by
+matter you can understand only a certain assemblage of qualities,
+colors, extents, and solidities, which it has pleased you to call
+matter; and you have assigned limits to matter and to the soul, even
+before you are sure of the existence of either the one or the other.
+
+As for matter, you gravely teach that it has only extent and solidity;
+and I tell you modestly, that it is capable of a thousand properties
+about which neither you nor I know anything. You say that the soul is
+indivisible, eternal; and here you assume that which is in question. You
+are much like the regent of a college, who, having never in his life
+seen a clock, should all at once have an English repeater put into his
+hands. This man, a good peripatetic, is struck by the exactness with
+which the hands mark the time, and still more astonished that a button,
+pressed by the finger, should sound precisely the hour marked by the
+hand. My philosopher will not fail to prove that there is in this
+machine a soul which governs it and directs its springs. He learnedly
+demonstrates his opinion by the simile of the angels who keep the
+celestial spheres in motion; and in the class he forms fine theses,
+maintained on the souls of watches. One of his scholars opens the watch,
+and nothing is found but springs; yet the system of the soul of watches
+is still maintained, and is considered as demonstrated. I am that
+scholar, opening the watch called man; but instead of boldly defining
+what we do not understand, I endeavor to examine by degrees what we wish
+to know.
+
+Let us take an infant at the moment of its birth, and follow, step by
+step, the progress of its understanding. You do me the honor of
+informing me that God took the trouble of creating a soul, to go and
+take up its abode in this body when about six weeks old; that this soul,
+on its arrival, is provided with metaphysical ideas--having consequently
+a very clear knowledge of spirit, of abstract ideas, of infinity--being,
+in short, a very knowing person. But unfortunately it quits the uterus
+in the uttermost ignorance: for eighteen months it knows nothing but its
+nurse's teat; and when at the age of twenty years an attempt is made to
+bring back to this soul's recollection all the scientific ideas which it
+had when it entered its body, it is often too dull of apprehension to
+conceive any one of them. There are whole nations which have never had
+so much as one of these ideas. What, in truth, were the souls of
+Descartes and Malebranche thinking of, when they imagined such reveries?
+Let us then follow the idea of the child, without stopping at the
+imaginings of the philosophers.
+
+The day that his mother was brought to bed of him and his soul, there
+were born in the house a dog, a cat, and a canary bird. At the end of
+eighteen months I make the dog an excellent hunter; in a year the
+canary bird whistles an air; in six weeks the cat is master of its
+profession; and the child, at the end of four years, does nothing. I, a
+gross person, witnessing this prodigious difference, and never having
+seen a child, think at first that the cat, the dog, and the canary are
+very intelligent creatures, and that the infant is an automaton.
+However, by little and little, I perceive that this child has ideas and
+memory, that he has the same passions as these animals; and then I
+acknowledge that he is, like them, a rational creature. He communicates
+to me different ideas by some words which he has learned, in like manner
+as my dog, by diversified cries, makes known to me exactly his different
+wants. I perceive at the age of six or seven years the child combines in
+his little brain almost as many ideas as my hound in his; and at length,
+as he grows older, he acquires an infinite variety of knowledge. Then
+what am I to think of him? Shall I believe that he is of a nature
+altogether different? Undoubtedly not; for you see on one hand an idiot,
+and on the other a Newton; yet you assert that they are of one and the
+same nature--that there is no difference but that of greater and less.
+The better to assure myself of the verisimilitude of my probable
+opinion, I examine the dog and the child both waking and sleeping--I
+have them each bled immediately; then their ideas seem to escape with
+their blood. In this state I call them--they do not answer; and if I
+draw from them a few more ounces, my two machines, which before had
+ideas in great plenty and passions of every kind, have no longer any
+feeling. I next examine my two animals while they sleep; I perceive that
+the dog, after eating too much, has dreams; he hunts and cries after the
+game; my youngster, in the same state, talks to his mistress and makes
+love in his dreams. If both have eaten moderately, I observe that
+neither of them dream; in short, I see that the faculties of feeling,
+perceiving, and expressing their ideas unfold themselves gradually, and
+also become weaker by degrees. I discover many more affinities between
+them than between any man of strong mind and one absolutely imbecile.
+What opinion then shall I entertain of their nature? That which every
+people at first imagined, before Egyptian policy asserted the
+spirituality, the immortality, of the soul. I shall even suspect that
+Archimedes and a mole are but different varieties of the same
+species--as an oak and a grain of mustard are formed by the same
+principles, though the one is a large tree and the other the seed of a
+small plant. I shall believe that God has given portions of intelligence
+to portions of matter organized for thinking; I shall believe that
+matter has sensations in proportion to the fineness of its senses, that
+it is they which proportion them to the measure of our ideas; I shall
+believe that the oyster in its shell has fewer sensations and senses,
+because its soul being attached to its shell, five senses would not at
+all be useful to it. There are many animals with only two senses; we
+have five--which are very few. It is to be believed that in other
+worlds there are other animals enjoying twenty or thirty senses, and
+that other species, yet more perfect, have senses to infinity.
+
+Such, it appears to me, is the most natural way of reasoning on the
+matter--that is, of guessing and inspecting with certainty. A long time
+elapsed before men were ingenious enough to imagine an unknown being,
+which is ourselves, which does all in us, which is not altogether
+ourselves, and which lives after us. Nor was so bold an idea adopted all
+at once. At first this word "soul" signifies life, and was common to us
+and the other animals; then our pride made us a soul apart, and caused
+us to imagine a substantial form for other creatures. This human pride
+asks: What then is that power of perceiving and feeling, which in man is
+called soul, and in the brute instinct? I will satisfy this demand when
+the natural philosophers shall have informed me what is sound, light,
+space, body, time. I will say, in the spirit of the wise Locke:
+Philosophy consists in stopping when the torch of physical science fails
+us. I observe the effects of nature; but I freely own that of first
+principles I have no more conception than you have. All I do know is
+that I ought not to attribute to several causes--especially to unknown
+causes--that which I can attribute to a known cause; now I can attribute
+to my body the faculty of thinking and feeling; therefore I ought not to
+seek this faculty of thinking and feeling in another substance, called
+soul or spirit, of which I cannot have the smallest idea. You exclaim
+against this proposition. Do you then think it irreligious to dare to
+say that the body can think? But what would you say, Locke would answer,
+if you yourselves were found guilty of irreligion in thus daring to set
+bounds to the power of God? What man upon earth can affirm, without
+absurd impiety, that it is impossible for God to give to matter
+sensation and thought? Weak and presumptuous that you are! you boldly
+advance that matter does not think, because you do not conceive how
+matter of any kind should think.
+
+Ye great philosophers, who decide on the power of God, and say that God
+can of a stone make an angel--do you not see that, according to
+yourselves, God would in that case only give to a stone the power of
+thinking? for if the matter of the stone did not remain, there would no
+longer be a stone; there would be a stone annihilated and an angel
+created. Whichever way you turn you are forced to acknowledge two
+things--your ignorance and the boundless power of the Creator; your
+ignorance, to which thinking matter is repugnant; and the Creator's
+power, to which certes it is not impossible.
+
+You, who know that matter does not perish, will dispute whether God has
+the power to preserve in that matter the noblest quality with which He
+has endowed it. Extent subsists perfectly without body, through Him,
+since there are philosophers who believe in a void; accidents subsist
+very well without substance with Christians who believe in
+transubstantiation. God, you say, cannot do that which implies
+contradiction. To be sure of this, it is necessary to know more of the
+matter than you do know; it is all in vain; you will never know more
+than this--that you are a body, and that you think. Many persons who
+have learned at school to doubt of nothing, who take their syllogisms
+for oracles and their superstitions for religion, consider Locke as
+impious and dangerous. These superstitious people are in society what
+cowards are in an army; they are possessed by and communicate panic
+terror. We must have the compassion to dissipate their fears; they must
+be made sensible that the opinions of philosophers will never do harm to
+religion. We know for certain that light comes from the sun, and that
+the planets revolve round that luminary; yet we do not read with any the
+less edification in the Bible that light was made before the sun, and
+that the sun stood still over the village of Gibeon. It is demonstrated
+that the rainbow is necessarily formed by the rain; yet we do not the
+least reverence the sacred text which says that God set His bow in the
+clouds, after the Deluge, as a sign that there should never be another
+inundation.
+
+What though the mystery of the Trinity and that of the eucharist are
+contradictory to known demonstrations? They are not the less venerated
+by Catholic philosophers, who know that the things of reason and those
+of faith are different in their nature. The notion of the antipodes was
+condemned by the popes and the councils; yet the popes discovered the
+antipodes and carried thither that very Christian religion, the
+destruction of which had been thought to be sure, in case there could be
+found a man who, as it was then expressed, should have, as relative to
+our own position, his head downwards and his feet upwards, and who, as
+the very unphilosophical St. Augustine says, should have fallen from
+heaven.
+
+And now, let me once repeat that, while I write with freedom, I warrant
+no opinion--I am responsible for nothing. Perhaps there are, among these
+dreams, some reasonings, and even some reveries, to which I should give
+the preference; but there is not one that I would not unhesitatingly
+sacrifice to religion and to my country.
+
+
+SECTION IX.
+
+I shall suppose a dozen of good philosophers in an island where they
+have never seen anything but vegetables. Such an island, and especially
+twelve such philosophers, would be very hard to find; however, the
+fiction is allowable. They admire the life which circulates in the
+fibres of the plants, appearing to be alternately lost and renewed; and
+as they know not how a plant springs up, how it derives its nourishment
+and growth, they call this a vegetative soul. What, they are asked, do
+you understand by a vegetative soul? They answer: It is a word that
+serves to express the unknown spring by which all this is operated. But
+do you not see, a mechanic will ask them, that all this is naturally
+done by weights, levers, wheels, and pulleys? No, the philosophers will
+say; there is in this vegetation something other than ordinary motion;
+there is a secret power which all plants have of drawing to themselves
+the juices which nourish them; and this power cannot be explained by any
+system of mechanics; it is a gift which God has made to matter, and the
+nature of which neither you nor we comprehend.
+
+After disputing thus, our reasoners at length discover animals. Oh, oh!
+say they, after a long examination, here are beings organized like
+ourselves. It is indisputable that they have memory, and often more than
+we have. They have our passions; they have knowledge; they make us
+understand all their wants; they perpetuate their species like us. Our
+philosophers dissect some of these beings, and find in them hearts and
+brains. What! say they, can the author of these machines, who does
+nothing in vain, have given them all the organs of feeling, in order
+that they may have no feeling? It were absurd to think so--there is
+certainly something in thera which, for want of knowing a better term,
+we likewise call soul--something that experiences sensations, and has a
+certain number of ideas. But what is this principle? Is it something
+absolutely different from matter? Is it a pure spirit? Is it a middle
+being, between matter, of which we know little, and pure spirit, of
+which we know nothing? Is it a property given by God to organized
+matter?
+
+They then make experiments upon insects; upon earth worms--they cut them
+into several parts, and are astonished to find that, after a short time,
+there come heads to all these divided parts; the same animal is
+reproduced, and its very destruction becomes the means of its
+multiplication. Has it several souls, which wait until the head is cut
+off the original trunk, to animate the reproduced parts? They are like
+trees, which put forth fresh branches, and are reproduced from slips.
+Have these trees several souls? It is not likely. Then it is very
+probable that the soul of these reptiles is of a different kind from
+that which we call vegetative soul in plants; that it is a faculty of a
+superior order, which God has vouchsafed to give to certain portions of
+matter. Here is a fresh proof of His power--a fresh subject of
+adoration.
+
+A man of violent temper, and a bad reasoner, hears this discourse and
+says to them: You are wicked wretches, whose bodies should be burned for
+the good of your souls, for you deny the immortality of the soul of man.
+Our philosophers then look at one another in perfect astonishment, and
+one of them mildly answers him: Why burn us so hastily? Whence have you
+concluded that we have an idea that your cruel soul is mortal? From your
+believing, returns the other, that God has given to the brutes which are
+organized like us, the faculty of having feelings and ideas. Now this
+soul of the beasts perishes with them; therefore you believe that the
+soul of man perishes also.
+
+The philosopher replies: We are not at all sure that what we call "soul"
+in animal perishes with them; we know very well that matter does not
+perish, and we believe that God may have put in animals something which,
+if God will it, shall forever retain the faculty of having ideas. We are
+very far from affirming that such is the case, for it is hardly for men
+to be so confident; but we dare not set bounds to the power of God. We
+say that it is very probable that the beasts, which are matter, have
+received from Him a little intelligence. We are every day discovering
+properties of matter--that is, presents from God--of which we had before
+no idea. We at first defined matter to be an extended substance; next we
+found it necessary to add solidity; some time afterwards we were obliged
+to admit that this matter has a force which is called "_vis inertiæ_";
+and after this, to our great astonishment, we had to acknowledge that
+matter gravitates.
+
+When we sought to carry our researches further, we were forced to
+recognize beings resembling matter in some things, but without the
+other, attributes with which matter is gifted. The elementary fire, for
+instance, acts upon our senses like other bodies; but it does not, like
+them, tend to a centre; on the contrary, it escapes from the centre in
+straight lines on every side. It does not seem to obey the laws of
+attraction, of gravitation, like other bodies. There are mysteries in
+optics, for which it would be hard to account, without venturing to
+suppose that the rays of light penetrate one another. There is certainly
+something in light which distinguishes it from known matter. Light seems
+to be a middle being between bodies and other kinds of beings of which
+we are ignorant! It is very likely that these other kinds are themselves
+a medium leading to other creatures, and that there is a chain of
+substances extending to infinity. "_Usque adeo quod tangit idem est,
+tamen ultima distant!_"
+
+This idea seems to us to be worthy of the greatness of God, if anything
+is worthy of it. Among these substances He has doubtless had power to
+choose one which He has lodged in our bodies, and which we call the
+human soul; and the sacred books which we have read inform us that this
+soul is immortal. Reason is in accordance with revelation; for how
+should any substance perish? Every mode is destroyed; the substance
+remains. We cannot conceive the creation of a substance; we cannot
+conceive its annihilation; but we dare not affirm that the absolute
+master of all beings cannot also give feelings and perceptions to the
+being which we call matter. You are quite sure that the essence of your
+soul is to think; but we are not so sure of this; for when we examine a
+fœtus, we can hardly believe that its soul had many ideas in its
+head; and we very much doubt whether, in a sound and deep sleep, or in a
+complete lethargy, any one ever meditated. Thus it appears to us that
+thought may very well be, not the essence of the thinking being, but a
+present made by the Creator to beings which we call thinking; from all
+which we suspect that, if He would, He could make this present to an
+atom; and could preserve this atom and His present forever, or destroy
+it at His pleasure. The difficulty consists not so much in divining how
+matter could think, as in divining how any substance whatever does
+think. You have ideas only because God has been pleased to give them to
+you; why would you prevent Him from giving them to other species? Can
+you really be so fearless as to dare to believe that your soul is
+precisely of the same kind as the substances which approach nearest to
+the Divinity? There is great probability that they are of an order very
+superior, and that consequently God has vouchsafed to give them a way of
+thinking infinitely finer, just as He has given a very limited measure
+of ideas to the animals which are of an order inferior to you. I know
+not how I live, nor how I give life; yet you would have me know how I
+have ideas. The soul is a timepiece which God has given us to manage;
+but He has not told us of what the spring of this timepiece is composed.
+
+Is there anything in all this from which it can be inferred that our
+souls are mortal? Once more let us repeat it--we think as you do of the
+immortality announced to us by faith; but we believe that we are too
+ignorant to affirm that God has not the power of granting thought to
+whatever being He pleases. You bound the power of the Creator, which is
+boundless; and we extend it as far as His existence extends. Forgive us
+for believing Him to be omnipotent, as we forgive you for restraining
+His power. You doubtless know all that He can do, and we know nothing of
+it. Let us live as brethren; let us adore our common Father in
+peace--you with your knowing and daring souls, we with our ignorant and
+timid souls. We have a day to live; let us pass it calmly, without
+quarrelling about difficulties that will be cleared up in the immortal
+life which will begin to-morrow.
+
+The brutal man, having nothing good to say in reply, talked a long
+while, and was very angry. Our poor philosophers employed themselves for
+some weeks in reading history; and after reading well, they spoke as
+follows to this barbarian, who was so unworthy to have an immortal soul:
+
+My friend, we have read that in all antiquity things went on as well as
+they do in our own times--that there were even greater virtues, and that
+philosophers were not persecuted for the opinions which they held; why,
+then, should you seek to injure us for opinions which we do not hold? We
+read that all the ancients believed matter to be eternal. They who saw
+that it was created left the others at rest. Pythagoras had been a cock,
+his relations had been swine; but no one found fault with this; his sect
+was cherished and revered by all, except the cooks and those who had
+beans to sell.
+
+The Stoics acknowledged a god, nearly the same as the god afterwards so
+rashly admitted by the Spinozists; yet Stoicism was a sect the most
+fruitful in heroic virtues, and the most accredited.
+
+The Epicureans made their god like our canons, whose indolent corpulence
+upholds their divinity, and who take their nectar and ambrosia in quiet,
+without meddling with anything. These Epicureans boldly taught the
+materiality and the mortality of the soul; but they were not the less
+respected; they were admitted into all offices; and their crooked atoms
+never did the world any harm.
+
+The Platonists, like the Gymnosophists, did not do us the honor to think
+that God had condescended to form us Himself. According to them, He left
+this task to His officers--to genii, who in the course of their work
+made many blunders. The god of the Platonists was an excellent workman,
+who employed here below very indifferent assistants; but men did not the
+less reverence the school of Plato.
+
+In short, among the Greeks and the Romans, so many sects as there were,
+so many ways of thinking about God and the soul, the past and the
+future, none of these sects were persecutors. They were all
+mistaken--and we are very sorry for it; but they were all peaceful--and
+this confounds us, this condemns us, this shows us that most of the
+reasoners of the present day are monsters, and that those of antiquity
+were men. They sang publicly on the Roman stage: "_Post mortem nihil
+est, ipsaque mors nihil._"--"Naught after death, and death is nothing."
+
+These opinions made men neither better nor worse; all was governed, all
+went on as usual; and Titus, Trajan, and Aurelius governed the earth
+like beneficent deities.
+
+Passing from the Greeks and the Romans to barbarous nations, let us only
+contemplate the Jews. Superstitious, cruel, and ignorant as this
+wretched people were, still they honored the Pharisees, who admitted the
+fatality of destiny and the metempsychosis; they also paid respect to
+the Sadducees, who absolutely denied the immortality of the soul and the
+existence of spirits, taking for their foundation the law of Moses,
+which had made no mention of pain or reward after death. The Essenes,
+who also believed in fatality, and who never offered up victims in the
+temple, were reverenced still more than the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
+None of their opinions ever disturbed the government. Yet here were
+abundant subjects for slaughtering, burning, and exterminating one
+another, had they been so inclined. Oh, miserable men! profit by these
+examples. Think, and let others think. It is the solace of our feeble
+minds in this short life. What! will you receive with politeness a Turk,
+who believes that Mahomet travelled to the moon; will you be careful not
+to displease the pasha Bonneval; and yet will you have your brother
+hanged, drawn, and quartered, because he believes that God created
+intelligence in every creature?
+
+So spake one of the philosophers; and another of them added: Believe me,
+it need never be feared that any philosophical opinion will hurt the
+religion of a country. What though our mysteries are contrary to our
+demonstrations, they are not the less reverenced by our Christian
+philosophers, who know that the objects of reason and faith are of
+different natures. Philosophers will never form a religious sect; and
+why? Because they are without enthusiasm. Divide mankind into twenty
+parts; and of these, nineteen consist of those who labor with their
+hands, and will never know that there has been such a person as Locke in
+the world. In the remaining twentieth, how few men will be found who
+read! and among those who read, there are twenty that read novels for
+one that studies philosophy. Those who think are excessively few; and
+those few do not set themselves to disturb the world.
+
+Who are they who have waved the torch of discord in their native
+country? Are they Pomponatius, Montaigne, La Vayer, Descartes, Gassendi,
+Bayle, Spinoza, Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Boulainvilliers, the Consul
+Maillet, Toland, Collins, Flood, Woolston, Bekker, the author disguised
+under the name of Jacques Massé, he of the "Turkish Spy," he of the
+"_Lettres Persanes_" of the "_Lettres Juives_," of the "_Pensées
+Philosophiques_"? No; they are for the most part theologians, who,
+having at first been ambitious of becoming leaders of a sect, have soon
+become ambitious to be leaders of a party. Nay, not all the books of
+modern philosophy put together will ever make so much noise in the world
+as was once made by the dispute of the Cordeliers about the form of
+their hoods and sleeves.
+
+
+SECTION X.
+
+_On the Antiquity of the Dogma of the Immortality of the Soul--A
+Fragment_.
+
+The dogma of the immortality of the soul is at once the most consoling
+and the most repressing idea that the mind of man can receive. This fine
+philosophy was as ancient among the Egyptians as their pyramids; and
+before them it was known to the Persians. I have already elsewhere
+related the allegory of the first Zoroaster, cited in the "Sadder," in
+which God shows to Zoroaster a place of chastisement, such as the
+_Dardaroth_ or _Keron_ of the Egyptians, the _Hades_ and the _Tartarus_
+of the Greeks, which we have but imperfectly rendered in our modern
+tongues by the words "_inferno_," "_enfer_," "infernal regions," "hell,"
+"bottomless pit." In this place of punishment God showed to Zoroaster
+all the bad kings; one of them had but one foot; Zoroaster asked the
+reason; and God answered that this king had done only one good action in
+his life, which was by approaching to kick forward a trough which was
+not near enough to a poor ass dying of hunger. God had placed this
+wicked man's foot in heaven; the rest of his body was in hell.
+
+This fable, which cannot be too often repeated, shows how ancient was
+the opinion of another life. The Indians were persuaded of it, as their
+metempsychosis proves. The Chinese venerated the souls of their
+ancestors. Each of these nations had founded powerful empires long
+before the Egyptians. This is a very important truth, which I think I
+have already proved by the very nature of the soil of Egypt. The most
+favorable grounds must have been cultivated the first; the ground of
+Egypt is the least favorable of all, being under water four months of
+the year; it was not until after immense labor, and consequently after a
+prodigious lapse of time, that towns were at length raised which the
+Nile could not inundate.
+
+This empire, then, ancient as it was, was much less ancient than the
+empires of Asia; and in both one and the other it was believed that the
+soul existed after death. It is true that all these nations, without
+exception, considered the soul as a light ethereal form, an image of the
+body; the Greek word signifying "breath" was invented long after by the
+Greeks. But it is beyond a doubt that a part of ourselves was considered
+as immortal. Rewards and punishments in another life were the grand
+foundation of ancient theology.
+
+Pherecides was the first among the Greeks who believed that souls
+existed from all eternity, and not the first, as has been supposed, who
+said that the soul survived the body. Ulysses, long before Pherecides,
+had seen the souls of heroes in the infernal regions; but that souls
+were as old as the world was a system which had sprung up in the East,
+and was brought into the West by Pherecides. I do not believe that there
+is among us a single system which is not to be found among the ancients.
+The materials of all our modern edifices are taken from the wreck of
+antiquity.
+
+
+SECTION XI.
+
+It would be a fine thing to see one's soul. "Know thyself" is an
+excellent precept; but it belongs only to God to put it in practice. Who
+but He can know His own essence?
+
+We call "soul" that which animates. Owing to our limited intelligence we
+know scarcely anything more of the matter. Three-fourths of mankind go
+no further, and give themselves no concern about the thinking being; the
+other fourth seek it; no one has found it, or ever will find it.
+
+Poor pedant! thou seest a plant which vegetates, and thou sayest,
+"vegetation," or perhaps "vegetative soul." Thou remarkest that bodies
+have and communicate motion, and thou sayest, "force"; thou seest thy
+dog learn his craft under thee, and thou exclaimest, "instinct,"
+"sensitive soul"! Thou hast combined ideas, and thou exclaimest,
+"spirit!"
+
+But pray, what dost thou understand by these words? This flower
+vegetates; but is there any real being called vegetation? This body
+pushes along another, but does it possess within itself a distinct being
+called force? Thy dog brings thee a partridge, but is there any being
+called instinct? Wouldst thou not laugh, if a reasoner--though he had
+been preceptor to Alexander--were to say to thee: All animals live;
+therefore there is in them a being, a substantial form, which is life?
+
+If a tulip could speak and were to tell thee: I and my vegetation are
+two beings evidently joined together; wouldst thou not laugh at the
+tulip?
+
+Let us at first see what thou knowest, of what thou art certain; that
+thou walkest with thy feet; that thou digestest with thy stomach; that
+thou feelest with thy whole body; and that thou thinkest with thy head.
+Let us see if thy reason alone can have given thee light enough by which
+to conclude, without supernatural aid, that thou hast a soul.
+
+The first philosophers, whether Chaldæans or Egyptians, said: There must
+be something within us which produces our thoughts; that something must
+be very subtile; it is a breath; it is fire; it is ether; it is a
+quintessence; it is a slender likeness; it is an antelechia; it is a
+number; it is a harmony. Lastly, according to the divine Plato, it is a
+compound of the _same_ and the _other_. "It is atoms which think in us,"
+said Epicurus, after Democrites. But, my friend, how does an atom think?
+Acknowledge that thou knowest nothing of the matter.
+
+The opinion which one ought to adopt is, doubtless, that the soul is an
+immaterial being; but certainly we cannot conceive what an immaterial
+being is. No, answer the learned; but we know that its nature is to
+think. And whence do you know this? We know, because it does think. Oh,
+ye learned! I am much afraid that you are as ignorant as Epicurus! The
+nature of a stone is to fall, because it does fall; but I ask you, what
+makes it fall?
+
+We know, continue they, that a stone has no soul. Granted; I believe it
+as well as you. We know that an affirmative and a negative are not
+divisible, are not parts of matter. I am of your opinion. But matter,
+otherwise unknown to us, possesses qualities which are not material,
+which are not divisible; it has gravitation towards a centre, which God
+has given it; and this gravitation has no parts; it is not divisible.
+The moving force of bodies is not a being composed of parts. In like
+manner the vegetation of organized bodies, their life, their instinct,
+are not beings apart, divisible beings; you can no more cut in two the
+vegetation of a rose, the life of a horse, the instinct of a dog, than
+you can cut in two a sensation, an affirmation, a negation. Therefore
+your fine argument, drawn from the indivisibility of thought, proves
+nothing at all.
+
+What, then, do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot
+of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of
+anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.
+
+Now tell me honestly, is this power of feeling and thinking the same as
+that which causes you to digest and to walk? You own that it is not; for
+in vain might your understanding say to your stomach--Digest; it will
+not, if it be sick. In vain might your immaterial being order your feet
+to walk; they will not stir, if they have the gout.
+
+The Greeks clearly perceived that thought has frequently nothing to do
+with the play of our organs; they admitted the existence of an animal
+soul for these organs, and for the thoughts a soul finer, more
+subtile--a _nous_.
+
+But we find that this soul of thought has, on a thousand occasions, the
+ascendency over the animal soul. The thinking soul commands the hands to
+take, and they obey. It does not tell the heart to beat, the blood to
+flow, the chyle to form; all this is done without it. Here then are two
+souls much involved, and neither of them having the mastery.
+
+Now, this first animal soul certainly does not exist; it is nothing more
+than the movement of our organs. Take heed, O man! lest thou have no
+more proofs but thy weak reason that the other soul exists. Thou canst
+not know it but by faith; thou art born, thou eatest, thou thinkest,
+thou wakest, thou sleepest, without knowing how. God has given thee the
+faculty of thinking, as He has given thee all the rest; and if He had
+not come at the time appointed by His providence, to teach thee that
+thou hast an immaterial and an immortal soul, thou wouldst have no
+proof whatever of it.
+
+Let us examine the fine systems on the soul, which thy philosophy has
+fabricated.
+
+One says that the soul of man is part of the substance of God Himself;
+another that it is part of the great whole; a third that it is created
+from all eternity; a fourth that it is made, and not created. Others
+assure us that God makes souls according as they are wanted, and that
+they arrive at the moment of copulation. They are lodged in the seminal
+animalcules, cries one. No, says another, they take up their abode in
+the Fallopian tubes. A third comes and says: You are all wrong; the soul
+waits for six weeks, until the fœtus is formed, and then it takes
+possession of the pineal gland; but if it finds a false conception, it
+returns and waits for a better opportunity. The last opinion is that its
+dwelling is in the callous body; this is the post assigned to it by La
+Peyronie. A man should be first surgeon to the king of France to dispose
+in this way of the lodging of the soul. Yet the callous body was not so
+successful in the world as the surgeon was.
+
+St. Thomas in his question 75 and following, says that the soul is a
+form subsisting _per se_, that it is all in all, that its essence
+differs from its power; that there are three vegetative souls, viz., the
+nutritive, the argumentative, and the generative; that the memory of
+spiritual things is spiritual, and the memory of corporeal things is
+corporeal; that the rational soul is a form "immaterial as to its
+operations, and material as to its being." St. Thomas wrote two thousand
+pages, of like force and clearness; and he is the angel of the schools.
+
+Nor have there been fewer systems contrived on the way in which this
+soul will feel, when it shall have laid aside the body with which it
+felt; how it will hear without ears, smell without a nose, and touch
+without hands; what body it will afterwards resume, whether that which
+it had at two years old, or at eighty; how the _I_--the identity of the
+same person will subsist; how the soul of a man become imbecile at the
+age of fifteen, and dying imbecile at the age of seventy, will resume
+the thread of the ideas which he had at the age of puberty; by what
+contrivance a soul, the leg of whose body shall be cut off in Europe,
+and one of its arms lost in America, will recover this leg and arm,
+which, having been transformed into vegetables, will have passed into
+the blood of some other animal. We should never finish, if we were to
+seek to give an account of all the extravagances which this poor human
+soul has imagined about itself.
+
+It is very singular that, in the laws of God's people, not a word is
+said of the spirituality and immortality of the soul; nothing in the
+Decalogue, nothing in Leviticus, or in Deuteronomy.
+
+It is quite certain, it is indubitable, that Moses nowhere proposes to
+the Jews pains and rewards in another life; that he never mentions to
+them the immortality of their souls; that he never gives them hopes of
+heaven, nor threatens them with hell; all is temporal.
+
+Many illustrious commentators have thought that Moses was perfectly
+acquainted with these two great dogmas; and they prove it by the words
+of Jacob, who, believing that his son had been devoured by wild beasts,
+said in his grief: "I will go down into the grave--_in infernum_--unto
+my son"; that is, I will die, since my son is dead.
+
+They further prove it by the passages in Isaiah and Ezekiel; but the
+Hebrews, to whom Moses spoke, could not have read either Ezekiel or
+Isaiah, who did not come until several centuries after.
+
+It is quite useless to dispute about the private opinions of Moses. The
+fact is that in his public laws he never spoke of a life to come; that
+he limited all rewards and punishments to the time present. If he knew
+of a future life, why did he not expressly set forth that dogma? And if
+he did not know of it, what were the object and extent of his mission?
+This question is asked by many great persons. The answer is, that the
+Master of Moses, and of all men, reserved to Himself the right of
+expounding to the Jews, at His own time, a doctrine which they were not
+in a condition to understand when they were in the desert.
+
+If Moses had announced the immortality of the soul, a great school among
+the Jews would not have constantly combated it. This great retreat of
+the Sadducees would not have been authorized in the State; the Sadducees
+would not have filled the highest offices, nor would pontiffs have been
+chosen from their body.
+
+It appears that it was not until after the founding of Alexandria that
+the Jews were divided into three sects--the Pharisees, the Sadducees,
+and the Essenes. The historian Josephus, who was a Pharisee, informs us
+in the thirteenth book of his "Antiquities" that the Pharisees believed
+in the metempsychosis; the Sadducees believed that the soul perished
+with the body; the Essenes, says Josephus, held that souls were
+immortal; according to them souls descended in an aerial form into the
+body, from the highest region of the air, whither they were carried back
+again by a violent attraction; and after death, those which had belonged
+to the good dwelt beyond the ocean in a country where there was neither
+heat nor cold, nor wind, nor rain. The souls of the wicked went into a
+climate of an opposite description. Such was the theology of the Jews.
+
+He who alone was to instruct all men came and condemned these three
+sects; but without Him we could never have known anything of our soul;
+for the philosophers never had any determinate idea of it; and
+Moses--the only true lawgiver in the world before our own--Moses, who
+talked with God face to face, left men in the most profound ignorance on
+this great point. It is, then, only for seventeen hundred years that
+there has been any certainty of the soul's existence and its
+immortality.
+
+Cicero had only doubts; his grandson and granddaughter might learn the
+truth from the first Galileans who came to Rome.
+
+But before that time, and since then, in all the rest of the earth where
+the apostles did not penetrate, each one must have said to his soul:
+What art thou? whence comest thou? what dost thou? whither goest thou?
+Thou art I know not what, thinking and feeling: and wert thou to feel
+and think for a hundred thousand millions of years, thou wouldst never
+know any more by thine own light without the assistance of God.
+
+O man! God has given thee understanding for thy own good conduct, and
+not to penetrate into the essence of the things which He has created.
+
+So thought Locke; and before Locke, Gassendi; and before Gassendi, a
+multitude of sages; but we have bachelors who know all of which those
+great men were ignorant.
+
+Some cruel enemies of reason have dared to rise up against these truths,
+acknowledged by all the wise. They have carried their dishonesty and
+impudence so far as to charge the authors of this work with having
+affirmed that the soul is matter. You well know, persecutors of
+innocence, that we have said quite the contrary. You must have read
+these very words against Epicurus, Democritus, and Lucretius: "My
+friend, how does an atom think? Acknowledge that thou knowest nothing
+of the matter." It is then evident, ye are calumniators.
+
+No one knows what that material being is, which is called "spirit," to
+which--be it observed--you give this material name, signifying "wind."
+All the first fathers of the Church believed the soul to be corporeal.
+It is impossible for us limited beings to know whether our intelligence
+is substance or faculty: we cannot thoroughly know either the extended
+being, or the thinking beings, or the mechanism of thought.
+
+We exclaim to you, with the ever to be revered Gassendi and Locke, that
+we know nothing by ourselves of the secrets of the Creator. And are you
+gods, who know everything? We repeat to you, that you cannot know the
+nature and distinction of the soul but by revelation. And is not this
+revelation sufficient for you? You must surely be enemies of this
+revelation which we claim, since you persecute those who expect
+everything from it, and believe only in it.
+
+Yes, we tell you, we defer wholly to the word of God; and you, enemies
+of reason and of God, treat the humble doubt and humble submission of
+the philosopher as the wolf in the fable treated the lamb; you say to
+him: You said ill of me last year; I must suck your blood. Philosophy
+takes no revenge; she smiles in peace at your vain endeavors; she mildly
+enlightens mankind, whom you would brutalize, to make them like
+yourselves.
+
+
+
+
+SPACE.
+
+
+What is space? "There is no space in void," exclaimed Leibnitz, after
+having admitted a void; but when he admitted a void, he had not
+embroiled himself with Newton, nor disputed with him on the calculus of
+fluxions, of which Newton was the inventor. This dispute breaking out,
+there was no longer space or a void for Leibnitz.
+
+Fortunately, whatever may be said by philosophers on these insolvable
+questions, whether it be for Epicurus, for Gassendi, for Newton, for
+Descartes, or Rohaut, the laws of motion will be always the same.
+
+     _Que Rohaut vainement sèche pour concevoir_
+     _Comment tout étant plein, tout a pu se mouvoir_.
+                               --BOILEAU, Ep. v, 31-32.
+
+That Rohaut exhausts himself by vainly endeavoring to understand how
+motion can exist in a plenum will not prevent our vessels from sailing
+to the Indies, and all motion proceeding with regularity. Pure space,
+you say, can neither be matter, nor spirit; and as there is nothing in
+this world but matter and spirit, there can therefore be no space.
+
+So, gentlemen, you assert that there is only matter and spirit, to us
+who know so little either of the one or the other--a pleasant decision,
+truly! "There are only two things in nature, and these we know not."
+Montezuma reasons more justly in the English tragedy of Dryden: "Why
+come you here to tell me of the emperor Charles the Fifth? There are
+but two emperors in the world; he of Peru and myself." Montezuma spoke
+of two things with which he was acquainted, but we speak of two things
+of which we have no precise idea.
+
+We are very pleasant atoms. We make God a spirit in a mode of our own;
+and because we denominate that faculty spirit, which the supreme,
+universal, eternal, and all-powerful Being has given us, of combining a
+few ideas in our little brain, of the extent of six inches more or less,
+we suppose God to be a spirit in the same sense. God always in _our_
+image--honest souls!
+
+But how, if there be millions of beings of another nature from our
+matter, of which we know only a few qualities, and from our spirit, our
+ideal breath of which we accurately know nothing at all? and who can
+assert that these millions of beings exist not; or suspects not that
+God, demonstrated to exist by His works, is eminently different from all
+these beings, and that space may not be one of them?
+
+We are far from asserting with Lucretius--
+
+     _Ergo, præter inane et corpora, tertia per se_
+     _Nulla potest rerum in numero natura referri._
+                                --LIB., i, v. 446, 447.
+
+     That all consists of body and of space.--CREECH.
+
+But may we venture to believe with him, that space is infinite?
+
+Has any one been ever able to answer his question: Speed an arrow from
+the limits of the world--will it fall into nothing, into nihility?
+
+Clarke, who spoke in the name of Newton, pretends that "space has
+properties, for since it is extended, it is measurable, and therefore
+exists." But if we answer, that something may be put where there is
+nothing, what answer will be made by Newton and Clarke?
+
+Newton regards space as the sensorium of God. I thought that I
+understood this grand saying formerly, because I was young; at present,
+I understand it no more than his explanation of the Apocalypse. Space,
+the sensorium, the internal organ of God! I lose both Newton and myself
+there.
+
+Newton thought, according to Locke, that the creation might be explained
+by supposing that God, by an act of His will and His power, had rendered
+space impenetrable. It is melancholy that a genius so profound as that
+possessed by Newton should suggest such unintelligible things.
+
+
+
+
+STAGE (POLICE OF THE).
+
+
+Kings of France were formerly excommunicated; all from Philip I. to
+Louis VIII. were solemnly so; as also the emperors from Henry IV. to
+Louis of Bavaria inclusively. The kings of England had likewise a very
+decent part of these favors from the court of Rome. It was the rage of
+the times, and this rage cost six or seven hundred thousand men their
+lives. They actually excommunicated the representatives of monarchs; I
+do not mean ambassadors, but players, who are kings and emperors three
+or four times a week, and who govern the universe to procure a
+livelihood.
+
+I scarcely know of any but this profession, and that of magicians, to
+which this honor could now be paid; but as sorcerers have ceased for the
+eighty years that sound philosophy has been known to men, there are no
+longer any victims but Alexander, Cæsar, Athalie, Polyeucte, Andromache,
+Brutus, Zaïre, and Harlequin.
+
+The principal reason given is, that these gentlemen and ladies represent
+the passions; but if depicting the human heart merits so horrible a
+disgrace, a greater rigor should be used with painters and sculptors.
+There are many licentious pictures which are publicly sold, while we do
+not represent a single dramatic poem which maintains not the strictest
+decorum. The Venus of Titian and that of Correggio are quite naked, and
+are at all times dangerous for our modest youth; but comedians only
+recite the admirable lines of "Cinna" for about two hours, and with the
+approbation of the magistracy under the royal authority. Why, therefore,
+are these living personages on the stage more condemned than these mute
+comedians on canvas? "_Ut pictura poesis erit_." What would Sophocles
+and Euripides have said, if they could have foreseen that a people, who
+only ceased to be barbarous by imitating them, would one day inflict
+this disgrace upon the stage, which in their time received such high
+glory?
+
+Esopus and Roscius were not Roman senators, it is true; but the Flamen
+did not declare them infamous; and the art of Terence was not doubted.
+The great pope and prince, Leo X., to whom we owe the renewal of good
+tragedy and comedy in Europe, and who caused dramatic pieces to be
+represented in his palace with so much magnificence, foresaw not that
+one day, in a part of Gaul, the descendants of the Celts and the Goths
+would believe they had a right to disgrace that which he honored. If
+Cardinal Richelieu had lived--he who caused the Palais Royal to be
+built, and to whom France owes the stage--he would no longer have
+suffered them to have dared to cover with ignominy those whom he
+employed to recite his own works.
+
+It must be confessed that they were heretics who began to outrage the
+finest of all the arts. Leo X., having revived the tragic scene, the
+pretended reformers required nothing more to convince them that it was
+the work of Satan. Thus the town of Geneva, and several illustrious
+places of Switzerland, have been a hundred and fifty years without
+suffering a violin amongst them. The Jansenists, who now dance on the
+tomb of St. Paris, to the great edification of the neighborhood, in the
+last century forbade a princess of Conti, whom they governed, to allow
+her son to learn dancing, saying that dancing was too profane. However,
+as it was necessary he should be graceful, he was taught the minuet, but
+they would not allow a violin, and the director was a long time before
+he would suffer the prince of Conti to be taught with castanets. A few
+Catholic Visigoths on this side the Alps, therefore, fearing the
+reproaches of the reformers, cried as loudly as they did. Thus, by
+degrees, the fashion of defaming Cæsar and Pompey, and of refusing
+certain ceremonies to certain persons paid by the king, and laboring
+under the eyes of the magistracy, was established in France. We do not
+declaim against this abuse; for who would embroil himself with powerful
+men of the present time, for hedra and heroes of past ages?
+
+We are content with finding this rigor absurd, and with always paying
+our full tribute of admiration to the masterpieces of our stage.
+
+Rome, from whom we have learned our catechism, does not use it as we do;
+she has always known how to temper her laws according to times and
+occasions; she has known how to distinguish impudent mountebanks, who
+were formerly rightly censured, from the dramatic pieces of Trissin, and
+of several bishops and cardinals who have assisted to revive tragedy.
+Even at present, comedies are publicly represented at Rome in religious
+houses. Ladies go to them without scandal; they think not that
+dialogues, recited on boards, are a diabolical infamy. We have even seen
+the piece of "George Dandin" executed at Rome by nuns, in the presence
+of a crowd of ecclesiastics and ladies. The wise Romans are above all
+careful how they excommunicate the gentlemen who sing the trebles in the
+Italian operas; for, in truth, it is enough to be castrated in this
+world, without being damned in the other.
+
+In the good time of Louis XIV., there was always a bench at the
+spectacles, which was called the bench of bishops. I have been a
+witness, that in the minority of Louis XV., Cardinal Fleury, then bishop
+of Fréjus, was very anxious to revive this custom. With other times and
+other manners, we are apparently much wiser than in the times in which
+the whole of Europe came to admire our shows, when Richelieu revived the
+stage in France, when Leo X. renewed the age of Augustus in Italy: but a
+time will come in which our children, seeing the impertinent work of
+Father Le Brun against the art of Sophocles, and the works of our great
+men printed at the same time, will exclaim: Is it possible that the
+French could thus contradict themselves, and that the most absurd
+barbarity has so proudly raised its head against some of the finest
+productions of the human mind?
+
+St. Thomas of Aquinas, whose morals were equal to those of Calvin and
+Father Quesnel--St. Thomas, who had never seen good comedy, and who knew
+only miserable players, thinks however that the theatre might be useful.
+He had sufficient good sense and justice to feel the merit of this art,
+unfinished as it was, and permitted and approved of it. St. Charles
+Borromeo personally examined the pieces which were played at Milan, and
+gave them his approbation and signature. Who after that will be
+Visigoths enough to treat Roderigo and Chimene as soul-corrupters?
+Would to God that these barbarians, the enemies of the finest of arts,
+had the piety of Polyeucte, the clemency of Augustus, the virtue of
+Burrhus, and would die like the husband of Al-zira!
+
+
+
+
+STATES--GOVERNMENTS.
+
+
+Which is the best? I have not hitherto known any person who has not
+governed some state. I speak not of messieurs the ministers, who really
+govern; some two or three years, others six months, and others six
+weeks; I speak of all other men, who, at supper or in their closet,
+unfold their systems of government, and reform armies, the Church, the
+gown, and finances.
+
+The Abbé de Bourzeis began to govern France towards the year 1645, under
+the name of Cardinal Richelieu, and made the "Political Testament," in
+which he would enlist the nobility into the cavalry for three years,
+make chambers of accounts and parliaments pay the poll-tax, and deprive
+the king of the produce of the excise. He asserts, above all, that to
+enter a country with fifty thousand men, it is essential to economy that
+a hundred thousand should be raised. He affirms that "Provence alone has
+more fine seaports than Spain and Italy together."
+
+The Abbé de Bourzeis had not travelled. As to the rest, his work abounds
+with anachronisms and errors; and as he makes Cardinal Richelieu sign
+in a manner in which he never signed, so he makes him speak as he had
+never spoken. Moreover, he fills a whole chapter with saying that reason
+should guide a state, and in endeavoring to prove this discovery. This
+work of obscurities, this bastard of the Abbé de Bourzeis, has long
+passed for the legitimate offspring of the Cardinal Richelieu; and all
+academicians, in their speeches of reception, fail not to praise
+extravagantly this political masterpiece.
+
+The Sieur Gatien de Courtilz, seeing the success of the "_Testament
+Politique_" of Richelieu, published at The Hague the "_Testament de
+Colbert_" with a fine letter of M. Colbert to the king. It is clear that
+if this minister made such a testament, it must have been suppressed;
+yet this book has been quoted by several authors.
+
+Another ignoramus, of whose name we are ignorant, failed not to produce
+the "_Testament de Louis_" still worse, if possible, than that of
+Colbert. An abbé of Chevremont also made Charles, duke of Lorraine, form
+a testament. We have had the political testaments of Cardinal Alberoni,
+Marshal Belle-Isle, and finally that of Mandrin.
+
+M. de Boisguillebert, author of the "Détail de la France" published in
+1695, produced the impracticable project of the royal tithe, under the
+name of the marshal de Vauban.
+
+A madman, named La Jonchere, wanting bread, wrote, in 1720, a "Project
+of Finance," in four volumes; and some fools have quoted this
+production as a work of La Jonchere, the treasurer-general, imagining
+that a treasurer could not write a bad book on finance.
+
+But it must be confessed that very wise men, perhaps very worthy to
+govern, have written on the administration of states in France, Spain,
+and England. Their books have done much good; not that they have
+corrected ministers who were in place when these books appeared, for a
+minister does not and cannot correct himself. He has attained his
+growth, and more instruction, more counsel, he has not time to listen
+to. The current of affairs carries him away; but good books form, young
+people, destined for their places; and princes and statesmen of a
+succeeding generation are instructed.
+
+The strength and weakness of all governments has been narrowly examined
+in latter times. Tell me, then, you who have travelled, who have read
+and have seen, in what state, under what sort of government, would you
+be born? I conceive that a great landed lord in France would have no
+objection to be born in Germany: he would be a sovereign instead of a
+subject. A peer of France would be very glad to have the privileges of
+the English peerage: he would be a legislator. The gownsman and
+financier would find himself better off in France than elsewhere. But
+what country would a wise freeman choose--a man of small fortune,
+without prejudices?
+
+A rather learned member of the council of Pondicherry came into Europe,
+by land, with a brahmin, more learned than the generality of them. "How
+do you find the government of the Great Mogul?" said the counsellor.
+"Abominable," answered the brahmin; "how can you expect a state to be
+happily governed by Tartars? Our rajahs, our omras, and our nabobs are
+very contented, but the citizens are by no means so; and millions of
+citizens are something."
+
+The counsellor and the brahmin traversed all Upper Asia, reasoning on
+their way. "I reflect," said the brahmin, "that there is not a republic
+in all this vast part of the world." "There was formerly that of Tyre,"
+said the counsellor, "but it lasted not long; there was another towards
+Arabia Petræa, in a little nook called Palestine--if we can honor with
+the name of republic a horde of thieves and usurers, sometimes governed
+by judges, sometimes by a sort of kings, sometimes by high priests; who
+became slaves seven or eight times, and were finally driven from the
+country which they had usurped."
+
+"I fancy," said the brahmin, "that we should find very few republics on
+earth. Men are seldom worthy to govern themselves. This happiness should
+only belong to little people, who conceal themselves in islands, or
+between mountains, like rabbits who steal away from carnivorous animals,
+but at length are discovered and devoured."
+
+When the travellers arrived in Asia Minor, the counsellor said to the
+brahmin, "Would you believe that there was a republic formed in a corner
+of Italy, which lasted more than five hundred years, and which
+possessed this Asia Minor, Asia, Africa, Greece, the Gauls, Spain, and
+the whole of Italy?" "It was therefore soon turned into a monarchy?"
+said the brahmin. "You have guessed it," said the other; "but this
+monarchy has fallen, and every day we make fine dissertations to
+discover the causes of its decay and fall." "You take much useless
+pains," said the Indian: "this empire has fallen because it existed. All
+must fall. I hope that the same will happen to the empire of the Great
+Mogul." "Apropos," said the European, "do you believe that more honor is
+required in a despotic state, and more virtue in a republic?" The term
+"honor" being first explained to the Indian, he replied, that honor was
+more necessary in a republic, and that there is more need of virtue in a
+monarchical state. "For," said he, "a man who pretends to be elected by
+the people, will not be so, if he is dishonored; while at court he can
+easily obtain a place, according to the maxim of a great prince, that to
+succeed, a courtier should have neither honor nor a will of his own.
+With respect to virtue, it is prodigiously required in a court, in order
+to dare to tell the truth. The virtuous man is much more at his ease in
+a republic, having nobody to flatter."
+
+"Do you believe," said the European, "that laws and religions can be
+formed for climates, the same as furs are required at Moscow, and gauze
+stuffs at Delhi?" "Yes, doubtless," said the brahmin; "all laws which
+concern physics are calculated for the meridian which we inhabit; a
+German requires only one wife, and a Persian must have two or three.
+
+"Rites of religion are of the same nature. If I were a Christian, how
+would you have me say mass in my province, where there is neither bread
+nor wine? With regard to dogmas, it is another thing; climate has
+nothing to do with them. Did not your religion commence in Asia, from
+whence it was driven? does it not exist towards the Baltic Sea, where it
+was unknown?"
+
+"In what state, under what dominion, would you like to live?" said the
+counsellor. "Under any but my own," said his companion, "and I have
+found many Siamese, Tonquinese, Persians, and Turks who have said the
+same." "But, once more," said the European, "what state would you
+choose?" The brahmin answered, "That in which the laws alone are
+obeyed." "That is an odd answer," said the counsellor. "It is not the
+worse for that," said the brahmin. "Where is this country?" said the
+counsellor. The brahmin: "We must seek it."
+
+
+
+
+STATES-GENERAL.
+
+
+There have been always such in Europe, and probably in all the earth, so
+natural is it to assemble the family, to know its interests, and to
+provide for its wants! The Tartars had their _cour-ilté_. The Germans,
+according to Tacitus, assembled to consult. The Saxons and people of the
+North had their _witenagemot_. The people at large formed
+states-general in the Greek and Roman republics.
+
+We see none among the Egyptians, Persians, or Chinese, because we have
+but very imperfect fragments of their histories: we scarcely know
+anything of them until since the time in which their kings were
+absolute, or at least since the time in which they had only priests to
+balance their authority.
+
+When the comitia were abolished at Rome, the Prætorian guards took their
+place: insolent, greedy, barbarous, and idle soldiers were the republic.
+Septimius Severus conquered and disbanded them.
+
+The states-general of the Ottoman Empire are the janissaries and
+cavalry; in Algiers and Tunis, it is the militia. The greatest and most
+singular example of these states-general is the Diet of Ratisbon, which
+has lasted a hundred years, where the representatives of the empire, the
+ministers of electors, princes, counts, prelates and imperial cities, to
+the number of thirty-seven, continually sit.
+
+The second states-general of Europe are those of Great Britain. They are
+not always assembled, like the Diet of Ratisbon; but they are become so
+necessary that the king convokes them every year.
+
+The House of Commons answers precisely to the deputies of cities
+received in the diet of the empire; but it is much larger in number, and
+enjoys a superior power. It is properly the nation. Peers and bishops
+are in parliament only for themselves, and the House of Commons for all
+the country.
+
+This parliament of England is only a perfected imitation of certain
+states-general of France. In 1355, under King John, the three states
+were assembled at Paris, to aid him against the English. They granted
+him a considerable sum, at five livres five sous the mark, for fear the
+king should change the numerary value. They regulated the tax necessary
+to gather in this money, and they established nine commissioners to
+preside at the receipt. The king promised for himself and his
+successors, not to make any change in the coin in future.
+
+What is promising for himself and his heirs? Either it is promising
+nothing, or it is saying: Neither myself nor my heirs have the right of
+altering the money; we have not the power of doing ill.
+
+With this money, which was soon raised, an army was quickly formed,
+which prevented not King John from being made prisoner at the battle of
+Poitiers.
+
+Account should be rendered at the end of the year, of the employment of
+the granted sum. This is now the custom in England, with the House of
+Commons. The English nation has preserved all that the French nation has
+lost.
+
+The states-general of Sweden have a custom still more honorable to
+humanity, which is not found among any other people. They admit into
+their assemblies two hundred peasants, who form a body separated from
+the three others, and who maintain the liberty of those who labor for
+the subsistence of man.
+
+The states-general of Denmark took quite a contrary resolution in 1660;
+they deprived themselves of all their rights, in favor of the king. They
+gave him an absolute and unlimited power; but what is more strange is,
+that they have not hitherto repented it.
+
+The states-general in France have not been assembled since 1613, and the
+cortes of Spain lasted a hundred years after. The latter were assembled
+in 1712, to confirm the renunciation of Philip V., of the crown of
+France. These states-general have not been convoked since that
+time.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 9
+(of 10), by François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire)
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 35629 ***