SOULS OF FOOLS AND MONSTERS
A deformed child is born absolutely imbecile, it has no ideas and lives
without ideas; we have seen examples of this. How shall this animal be
defined? doctors have said that it is something between man and beast;
others have said that it had a sensitive soul, but not an intellectual
soul. It eats, drinks, sleeps, wakes, has sensations; but it does not
think.
Is there another life for this creature, or is there none? The question
has been posed, and has not yet been completely answered.
Some say that this creature must have a soul, because its father and
mother had one. But by this reasoning one would prove that if it came
into the world without a nose it would be deemed to have one, because
its father and its mother had noses.
A woman gives birth to child with no chin, its forehead is receding and
rather black, its nose is slim and pointed, its eyes are round, it bears
not a bad resemblance to a swallow; the rest of its body, nevertheless,
is made like ours. The parents have it baptised; by a plurality of votes
it is considered a man and possessor of an immortal soul. But if this
ridiculous little figure has pointed nails and beak-like mouth, it is
declared a monster, it has no soul, and is not baptised.
It is well known that in London in 1726 there was a woman who gave birth
every week to a rabbit. No difficulty was made about refusing baptism to
this child, despite the epidemic mania there was for three weeks in
London for believing that this poor rogue was making wild rabbits. The
surgeon who attended her, St. André by name, swore that nothing was
more true, and people believed him. But what reason did the credulous
have for refusing a soul to this woman's children? she had a soul, her
children should be provided with souls also; whether they had hands,
whether they had paws, whether they were born with a little snout or
with a face; cannot the Supreme Being bestow the gift of thought and
sensation on a little I know not what, born of a woman, shaped like a
rabbit, as well as to a little I know not what, shaped like a man? Shall
the soul that was ready to lodge in this woman's foetus go back again
into space?
Locke makes the sound observation, about monsters, that one must not
attribute immortality to the exterior of a body; that the form has
nothing to do with it. This immortality, he says, is no more attached to
the form of his face or his chest, than to the way his beard is dressed
or his coat cut.
He asks what is the exact measure of deformity by which you can
recognize whether or no a child has a soul? What is the precise degree
at which it must be declared a monster and deprived of a soul?
One asks still further what would be a soul which never has any but
fantastic ideas? there are some which never escape from them. Are they
worthy or unworthy? what is to be done with their pure spirit?
What is one to think of a child with two heads? without deformity apart
from this? Some say that it has two souls because it is provided with
two pineal glands, with two _corpus callosum_, with two _sensorium
commune_. Others reply that one cannot have two souls when one has only
one chest and one navel.[22]
In fine, so many questions have been asked about this poor human soul,
that if it were necessary to answer them all, this examination of its
own person would cause it the most intolerable boredom. There would
happen to it what happened to Cardinal de Polignac at a conclave. His
steward, tired of never being able to make him settle his accounts, made
the journey from Rome, and came to the little window of his cell
burdened with an immense bundle of papers. He read for nearly two hours.
At last, seeing that no reply was forthcoming, he put his head forward.
The cardinal had departed nearly two hours before. Our souls will depart
before their stewards have acquainted them with the facts: but let us be
exact before God, whatever sort of ignoramuses we are, we and our
stewards.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Voltaire himself.
[22] The Chevalier d'Angos, learned astronomer, has carefully observed a
two-headed lizard for several days; and he has assured himself that the
lizard had two independent wills, each of which had an almost equal
power over the body. When the lizard was given a piece of bread, in such
a way that it could see it with only one head, this head wanted to go
after the bread, and the other wanted the body to remain at rest.
_STATES_, _GOVERNMENTS_
The ins and outs of all governments have been closely examined recently.
Tell me then, you who have travelled, in what state, under what sort of
government you would choose to be born. I imagine that a great
land-owning lord in France would not be vexed to be born in Germany; he
would be sovereign instead of subject. A peer of France would be very
glad to have the privileges of the English peerage; he would be
legislator. The lawyer and the financier would be better off in France
than elsewhere.
But what country would a wise, free man, a man with a moderate fortune,
and without prejudices, choose?
A member of the government of Pondicherry, a learned man enough,
returned to Europe by land with a Brahmin better educated than the
ordinary Brahmin. "What do you think of the government of the Great
Mogul?" asked the councillor.
"I think it abominable," answered the Brahmin. "How can you expect a
state to be happily governed by the Tartars? Our rajahs, our omrahs, our
nabobs, are very content, but the citizens are hardly so; and millions
of citizens are something."
Reasoning, the councillor and the Brahmin traversed the whole of Upper
Asia. "I make the observation," said the Brahmin, "that there is not one
republic in all this vast part of the world."
"Formerly there was the republic of Tyre," said the councillor, "but it
did not last long; there was still another one in the direction of
Arabia Petrea, in a little corner called Palestine, if one can honour
with the name of republic a horde of thieves and usurers sometimes
governed by judges, sometimes by a species of kings, sometimes by
grand-pontiffs, become slave seven or eight times, and finally driven
out of the country which it had usurped."
"I imagine," said the Brahmin, "that one ought to find very few
republics on the earth. Men are rarely worthy of governing themselves.
This happiness should belong only to little peoples who hide themselves
in islands, or among the mountains, like rabbits who shun carnivorous
beasts; but in the long run they are discovered and devoured."
When the two travellers reached Asia Minor, the councillor said to the
Brahmin: "Would you believe that a republic was formed in a corner of
Italy, which lasted more than five hundred years, and which owned Asia
Minor, Asia, Africa, Greece, Gaul, Spain and the whole of Italy?"
"She soon became a monarchy, then," said the Brahmin.
"You have guessed right," said the other. "But this monarchy fell, and
every day we compose beautiful dissertations in order to find the cause
of its decadence and downfall."
"You take a deal of trouble," said the Indian. "This empire fell because
it existed. Everything has to fall. I hope as much will happen to the
Grand Mogul's empire."
"By the way," said the European, "do you consider that there should be
more honour in a despotic state, and more virtue in a republic?"
The Indian, having had explained to him what we mean by honour, answered
that honour was more necessary in a republic, and that one had more need
of virtue in a monarchical state. "For," said he, "a man who claims to
be elected by the people, will not be if he is dishonoured; whereas at
the court he could easily obtain a place, in accordance with a great
prince's maxim, that in order to succeed a courtier should have neither
honour nor character. As regards virtue, one must be prodigiously
virtuous to dare to say the truth. The virtuous man is much more at his
ease in a republic; he has no one to flatter."
"Do you think," said the man from Europe, "that laws and religions are
made for climates, just as one has to have furs in Moscow, and gauzy
stuffs in Delhi?"
"Without a doubt," answered the Brahmin. "All the laws which concern
material things are calculated for the meridian one lives in. A German
needs only one wife, and a Persian three or four.
"The rites of religion are of the same nature. How, if I were Christian,
should I say mass in my province where there is neither bread nor wine?
As regards dogmas, that is another matter; the climate has nothing to do
with them. Did not your religion begin in Asia, whence it was driven
out? does it not exist near the Baltic Sea, where it was unknown?"
"In what state, under what domination, would you like best to live?"
asked the councillor.
"Anywhere but where I do live," answered his companion. "And I have met
many Siamese, Tonkinese, Persians and Turks who said as much."
"But, once again," persisted the European, "what state would you
choose?"
The Brahmin answered: "The state where only the laws are obeyed."
"That is an old answer," said the councillor.
"It is none the worse for that," said the Brahmin.
"Where is that country?" asked the councillor.
"We must look for it," answered the Brahmin.
_SUPERSTITION_
The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant.
Further, the superstitious man is governed by the fanatic and becomes
fanatic. Superstition born in Paganism, adopted by Judaism, infested the
Christian Church from the earliest times. All the fathers of the Church,
without exception, believed in the power of magic. The Church always
condemned magic, but she always believed in it: she did not
excommunicate sorcerers as madmen who were mistaken, but as men who were
really in communication with the devil.
To-day one half of Europe thinks that the other half has long been and
still is superstitious. The Protestants regard the relics, the
indulgences, the mortifications, the prayers for the dead, the holy
water, and almost all the rites of the Roman Church, as a superstitious
dementia. Superstition, according to them, consists in taking useless
practices for necessary practices. Among the Roman Catholics there are
some more enlightened than their ancestors, who have renounced many of
these usages formerly considered sacred; and they defend themselves
against the others who have retained them, by saying: "They are
indifferent, and what is merely indifferent cannot be an evil."
It is difficult to mark the limits of superstition. A Frenchman
travelling in Italy finds almost everything superstitious, and is hardly
mistaken. The Archbishop of Canterbury maintains that the Archbishop of
Paris is superstitious; the Presbyterians make the same reproach against
His Grace of Canterbury, and are in their turn treated as superstitious
by the Quakers, who are the most superstitious of all in the eyes of
other Christians.
In Christian societies, therefore, no one agrees as to what superstition
is. The sect which seems to be the least attacked by this malady of the
intelligence is that which has the fewest rites. But if with few
ceremonies it is still strongly attached to an absurd belief, this
absurd belief is equivalent alone to all the superstitious practices
observed from the time of Simon the magician to that of Father
Gauffridi.
It is therefore clear that it is the fundamentals of the religion of one
sect which is considered as superstition by another sect.
The Moslems accuse all Christian societies of it, and are themselves
accused. Who will judge this great matter? Will it be reason? But each
sect claims to have reason on its side. It will therefore be force which
will judge, while awaiting the time when reason will penetrate a
sufficient number of heads to disarm force.
Up to what point does statecraft permit superstition to be destroyed?
This is a very thorny question; it is like asking up to what point one
should make an incision in a dropsical person, who may die under the
operation. It is a matter for the doctor's discretion.
Can there exist a people free from all superstitious prejudices? That is
to ask--Can there exist a nation of philosophers? It is said that there
is no superstition in the magistrature of China. It is probable that
none will remain in the magistrature of a few towns of Europe.
Then the magistrates will stop the superstition of the people from being
dangerous. These magistrates' example will not enlighten the mob, but
the principal persons of the middle-classes will hold the mob in check.
There is not perhaps a single riot, a single religious outrage in which
the middle-classes were not formerly imbrued, because these middle
classes were then the mob; but reason and time will have changed them.
Their softened manners will soften those of the lowest and most savage
populace; it is a thing of which we have striking examples in more than
one country. In a word, less superstition, less fanaticism; and less
fanaticism, less misery.
_TEARS_
Tears are the mute language of sorrow. But why? What connection is there
between a sad idea and this limpid, salt liquid, filtered through a
little gland at the external corner of the eye, which moistens the
conjunctiva and the small lachrymal points, whence it descends into the
nose and mouth through the reservoir called the lachrymal sack and its
ducts?
Why in women and children, whose organs are part of a frail and delicate
network, are tears more easily excited by sorrow than in grown men,
whose tissue is firmer?
Did nature wish compassion to be born in us at sight of these tears
which soften us, and lead us to help those who shed them? The woman of a
savage race is as firmly determined to help the child that cries as
would be a woman of the court, and maybe more, because she has fewer
distractions and passions.
In the animal body everything has an object without a doubt. The eyes
especially bear such evident, such proven, such admirable relation to
the rays of light; this mechanism is so divine, that I should be tempted
to take for a delirium of burning fever the audacity which denies the
final causes of the structure of our eyes.
The use of tears does not seem to have so well determined and striking
an object; but it would be beautiful that nature made them flow in order
to stir us to pity.
There are women who are accused of weeping when they wish. I am not at
all surprised at their talent. A live, sensitive, tender imagination can
fix itself on some object, on some sorrowful memory, and picture it in
such dominating colours that they wring tears from it. It is what
happens to many actors, and principally to actresses, on the stage.
The women who imitate them in their own homes add to this talent the
petty fraud of appearing to weep for their husbands, whereas in fact
they are weeping for their lovers. Their tears are true, but the object
of them is false.
One asks why the same man who has watched the most atrocious events
dry-eyed, who even has committed cold-blooded crimes, will weep at the
theatre at the representation of these events and crimes? It is that he
does not see them with the same eyes, he sees them with the eyes of the
author and the actor. He is no longer the same man; he was a barbarian,
he was agitated by furious passions when he saw an innocent woman
killed, when he stained himself with his friend's blood. His soul was
filled with stormy tumult; it is tranquil, it is empty; nature returns
to it; he sheds virtuous tears. That is the true merit, the great good
of the theatres; there is achieved what can never be achieved by the
frigid declamations of an orator paid to bore the whole of an audience
for an hour.
David the capitoul, who, without emotion, caused and saw the death of
innocent Calas on the wheel, would have shed tears at the sight of his
own crime in a well-written and well-spoken tragedy.
It is thus that Pope has said in the prologue to Addison's Cato:--
"Tyrants no more their savage nature kept;
And foes to virtue wondered how they wept."
_THEIST_
The theist is a man firmly persuaded of the existence of a Supreme Being
as good as He is powerful, who has formed all beings with extension,
vegetating, sentient and reflecting; who perpetuates their species, who
punishes crimes without cruelty, and rewards virtuous actions with
kindness.
The theist does not know how God punishes, how he protects, how he
pardons, for he is not reckless enough to flatter himself that he knows
how God acts, but he knows that God acts and that He is just.
Difficulties against Providence do not shake him in his faith, because
they are merely great difficulties, and not proofs. He submits to this
Providence, although he perceives but a few effects and a few signs of
this Providence: and, judging of the things he does not see by the
things he sees, he considers that this Providence reaches all places and
all centuries.
Reconciled in this principle with the rest of the universe, he does not
embrace any of the sects, all of which contradict each other; his
religion is the most ancient and the most widespread; for the simple
worship of a God has preceded all the systems of the world. He speaks a
language that all peoples understand, while they do not understand one
another. He has brothers from Pekin to Cayenne, and he counts all wise
men as his brethren. He believes that religion does not consist either
in the opinions of an unintelligible metaphysic, or in vain display, but
in worship and justice. The doing of good, there is his service; being
submissive to God, there is his doctrine. The Mahometan cries to
him--"Have a care if you do not make the pilgrimage to Mecca!" "Woe unto
you," says a Recollet, "if you do not make a journey to Notre-Dame de
Lorette!" He laughs at Lorette and at Mecca; but he succours the needy
and defends the oppressed.
_TOLERANCE_
What is tolerance? it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed
of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's
folly--that is the first law of nature.
It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother,
because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. That admits of no
difficulty. But the government! but the magistrates! but the princes!
how do they treat those who have another worship than theirs? If they
are powerful strangers, it is certain that a prince will make an
alliance with them. François I., very Christian, will unite with
Mussulmans against Charles V., very Catholic. François I. will give
money to the Lutherans of Germany to support them in their revolt
against the emperor; but, in accordance with custom, he will start by
having Lutherans burned at home. For political reasons he pays them in
Saxony; for political reasons he burns them in Paris. But what will
happen? Persecutions make proselytes? Soon France will be full of new
Protestants. At first they will let themselves be hanged, later they in
their turn will hang. There will be civil wars, then will come the St.
Bartholomew; and this corner of the world will be worse than all that
the ancients and moderns have ever told of hell.
Madmen, who have never been able to give worship to the God who made
you! Miscreants, whom the example of the Noachides, the learned Chinese,
the Parsees and all the sages, has never been able to lead! Monsters,
who need superstitions as crows' gizzards need carrion! you have been
told it already, and there is nothing else to tell you--if you have two
religions in your countries, they will cut each other's throat; if you
have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace. Look at the great Turk,
he governs Guebres, Banians, Greek Christians, Nestorians, Romans. The
first who tried to stir up tumult would be impaled; and everyone is
tranquil.
Of all religions, the Christian is without doubt the one which should
inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the
most intolerant of all men. The Christian Church was divided in its
cradle, and was divided even in the persecutions which under the first
emperors it sometimes endured. Often the martyr was regarded as an
apostate by his brethren, and the Carpocratian Christian expired beneath
the sword of the Roman executioners, excommunicated by the Ebionite
Christian, the which Ebionite was anathema to the Sabellian.
This horrible discord, which has lasted for so many centuries, is a very
striking lesson that we should pardon each other's errors; discord is
the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.
There is nobody who is not in agreement with this truth, whether he
meditates soberly in his study, or peaceably examines the truth with his
friends. Why then do the same men who admit in private indulgence,
kindness, justice, rise in public with so much fury against these
virtues? Why? it is that their own interest is their god, and that they
sacrifice everything to this monster that they worship.
I possess a dignity and a power founded on ignorance and credulity; I
walk on the heads of the men who lie prostrate at my feet; if they
should rise and look me in the face, I am lost; I must bind them to the
ground, therefore, with iron chains.
Thus have reasoned the men whom centuries of bigotry have made powerful.
They have other powerful men beneath them, and these have still others,
who all enrich themselves with the spoils of the poor, grow fat on their
blood, and laugh at their stupidity. They all detest tolerance, as
partisans grown rich at the public expense fear to render their
accounts, and as tyrants dread the word liberty. And then, to crown
everything, they hire fanatics to cry at the top of their voices:
"Respect my master's absurdities, tremble, pay, and keep your mouths
shut."
It is thus that a great part of the world long was treated; but to-day
when so many sects make a balance of power, what course to take with
them? Every sect, as one knows, is a ground of error; there are no sects
of geometers, algebraists, arithmeticians, because all the propositions
of geometry, algebra and arithmetic are true. In every other science one
may be deceived. What Thomist or Scotist theologian would dare say
seriously that he is sure of his case?
If it were permitted to reason consistently in religious matters, it is
clear that we all ought to become Jews, because Jesus Christ our Saviour
was born a Jew, lived a Jew, died a Jew, and that he said expressly that
he was accomplishing, that he was fulfilling the Jewish religion. But it
is clearer still that we ought to be tolerant of one another, because we
are all weak, inconsistent, liable to fickleness and error. Shall a reed
laid low in the mud by the wind say to a fellow reed fallen in the
opposite direction: "Crawl as I crawl, wretch, or I shall petition that
you be torn up by the roots and burned?"
_TRUTH_
"Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered,
Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause
came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.
Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.
"Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth? And when he had said this he went
out, etc." (St. John xviii. 37.)
It is a sad thing for the human race that Pilate went out without
waiting for the answer; we should know what truth is. Pilate had very
little curiosity. The accused led before him, says he is king, that he
was to be king; and Pilate does not inquire how that can be. He is
supreme judge in Cæsar's name, he has power of life and death; his duty
was to probe the sense of these words. He ought to say--"Tell me what
you understand by being king. How were you born to be king and to bear
witness to the truth? It is maintained that truth reaches but with
difficulty to the ear of kings. I am judge, I have always had great
trouble in finding it. While your enemies are howling against you
without, give me some information on the point; you will be doing me the
greatest service that has ever been done a judge; and I much prefer to
learn to recognize truth, than to accede to the Jews' clamorous demand
to have you hanged."
We shall not dare, to be sure, seek what the author of all truth would
have been able to reply to Pilate.
Would he have said: "Truth is an abstract word which most men use
indifferently in their books and judgments, for error and falsehood?"
This definition would have been marvellously appropriate to all makers
of systems. Similarly is the word "wisdom" taken often for folly, and
"wit" for nonsense.
Humanly speaking, let us define truth, while waiting for a better
definition, as--"a statement of the facts as they are."
I suppose that if one had given only six months to teaching Pilate the
truths of logic, he would assuredly have made this conclusive syllogism.
One must not take away the life of a man who has only preached good
morality: well, the man who has been impeached has, on the showing of
his enemies even, often preached excellent morality; therefore he should
not be punished with death.
He might have drawn this further argument.
My duty is to disperse the riotous assemblage of a seditious people who
demand a man's death, unreasonably and without legal form; well, that is
the position of the Jews in this instance; therefore I must drive them
away and break up their meeting.
We suppose that Pilate knew arithmetic; hence we will not speak of those
forms of truth.
As regards mathematical truths, I think it would have taken at least
three years before he could have learned higher geometry. The truths of
physics combined with those of geometry would have demanded more than
four years. We spend six, ordinarily, in studying theology; I ask twelve
for Pilate, seeing that he was pagan, and that six years would not have
been too much for eradicating all his old errors, and six years more for
making him fit to receive a doctor's hood.
If Pilate had had a well-balanced mind, I should have asked only two
years to teach him metaphysical truth; and as metaphysical truth is
necessarily allied to moral truth, I flatter myself that in less than
nine years he would have become a real scholar and a perfectly honest
man.
I should then have said to Pilate:--Historical truths are merely
probabilities. If you had fought at the battle of Philippi, that is for
you a truth which you know by intuition, by perception. But for us who
dwell near the Syrian desert, it is merely a very probable thing, which
we know by hearsay. How much hearsay is necessary to form a conviction
equal to that of a man who, having seen the thing, can flatter himself
that he has a sort of certainty?
He who has heard the thing told by twelve thousand eyewitnesses, has
only twelve thousand probabilities, equal to one strong probability,
which is not equal to certainty.
If you have the thing from only one of these witnesses, you know
nothing; you should be sceptical. If the witness is dead, you should be
still more sceptical, for you cannot enlighten yourself. If from several
witnesses who are dead, you are in the same plight. If from those to
whom the witnesses have spoken, your scepticism should increase still
more.
From generation to generation scepticism increases, and probability
diminishes; and soon probability is reduced to zero.
_TYRANNY_
One gives the name of tyrant to the sovereign who knows no laws but
those of his caprice, who takes his subjects' property, and who
afterwards enrols them to go to take the property of his neighbours.
There are none of these tyrants in Europe.
One distinguishes between the tyranny of one man and that of many. The
tyranny of many would be that of a body which invaded the rights of
other bodies, and which exercised despotism in favour of the laws
corrupted by it. Nor are there any tyrants of this sort in Europe.
Under which tyranny would you like to live? Under neither; but if I had
to choose, I should detest the tyranny of one man less than that of
many. A despot always has his good moments; an assembly of despots
never. If a tyrant does me an injustice, I can disarm him through his
mistress, his confessor or his page; but a company of grave tyrants is
inaccessible to all seductions. When it is not unjust, it is at the
least hard, and never does it bestow favours.
If I have only one despot, I am quit of him by drawing myself up against
a wall when I see him pass, or by bowing low, or by striking the ground
with my forehead, according to the custom of the country; but if there
is a company of a hundred despots, I am exposed to repeating this
ceremony a hundred times a day, which in the long run is very annoying
if one's hocks are not supple. If I have a farm in the neighbourhood of
one of our lords, I am crushed; if I plead against a relation of the
relations of one of our lords, I am ruined. What is to be done? I fear
that in this world one is reduced to being either hammer or anvil; lucky
the man who escapes these alternatives!
_VIRTUE_
SECTION I
It is said of Marcus Brutus that, before killing himself, he uttered
these words: "O virtue! I thought you were something; but you are only
an empty phantom!"
You were right, Brutus, if you considered virtue as being head of a
faction, and assassin of your benefactor; but if you had considered
virtue as consisting only of doing good to those dependent on you, you
would not have called it a phantom, and you would not have killed
yourself in despair.
I am very virtuous says this excrement of theology, for I have the four
cardinal virtues, and the three divine. An honest man asks him--"What is
the cardinal virtue?" The other answers--"Strength, prudence, temperance
and justice."
THE HONEST MAN:
If you are just, you have said everything; your strength, your prudence,
your temperance, are useful qualities. If you have them, so much the
better for you; but if you are just, so much the better for the others.
But it is not enough to be just, you must do good; that is what is
really cardinal. And your divine virtues, which are they?
THE EXCREMENT:
Faith, hope, charity.
THE HONEST MAN:
Is it a virtue to believe? either what you believe seems true to you,
and in this case there is no merit in believing; or it seems false to
you, and then it is impossible for you to believe.
Hope cannot be a virtue any more than fear; one fears and one hopes,
according as one receives a promise or a threat. As for charity, is it
not what the Greeks and the Romans understood by humanity, love of one's
neighbour? this love is nothing if it be not active; doing good,
therefore, is the sole true virtue.
THE EXCREMENT:
One would be a fool! Really, I am to give myself a deal of torment in
order to serve mankind, and I shall get no return! all work deserves
payment. I do not mean to do the least honest action, unless I am
certain of paradise.
THE HONEST MAN:
Ah, master! that is to say that, if you did not hope for paradise, and
if you did not fear hell, you would never do any good action. Believe
me, master, there are two things worthy of being loved for themselves,
God and virtue.
THE EXCREMENT:
I see, sir, you are a disciple of Fénélon.
THE HONEST MAN:
Yes, master.
THE EXCREMENT:
I shall denounce you to the judge of the ecclesiastical court at Meaux.
THE HONEST MAN:
Go along, denounce!
SECTION II
What is virtue? Beneficence towards the fellow-creature. Can I call
virtue things other than those which do me good? I am needy, you are
generous. I am in danger, you help me. I am deceived, you tell me the
truth. I am neglected, you console me. I am ignorant, you teach me.
Without difficulty I shall call you virtuous. But what will become of
the cardinal and divine virtues? Some of them will remain in the
schools.
What does it matter to me that you are temperate? you observe a precept
of health; you will have better health, and I am happy to hear it. You
have faith and hope, and I am happy still; they will procure you eternal
life. Your divine virtues are celestial gifts; your cardinal virtues are
excellent qualities which serve to guide you: but they are not virtues
as regards your fellow-creature. The prudent man does good to himself,
the virtuous man does good to mankind. St. Paul was right to tell you
that charity prevails over faith and hope.
But shall only those that are useful to one's fellow-creature be
admitted as virtues? How can I admit any others? We live in society;
really, therefore, the only things that are good for us are those that
are good for society. A recluse will be sober, pious; he will be clad in
hair-cloth; he will be a saint: but I shall not call him virtuous until
he has done some act of virtue by which other men have profited. So long
as he is alone, he is doing neither good nor evil; for us he is nothing.
If St. Bruno brought peace to families, if he succoured want, he was
virtuous; if he fasted, prayed in solitude, he was a saint. Virtue among
men is an interchange of kindness; he who has no part in this
interchange should not be counted. If this saint were in the world, he
would doubtless do good; but so long as he is not in the world, the
world will be right in refusing him the title of virtuous; he will be
good for himself and not for us.
But, you say to me, if a recluse is a glutton, a drunkard, given to
secret debauches with himself, he is vicious; he is virtuous, therefore,
if he has the opposite qualities. That is what I cannot agree: he is a
very disagreeable fellow if he has the faults you mention; but he is not
vicious, wicked, punishable as regards society to whom these infamies do
no harm. It is to be presumed that were he to return to society he would
do harm there, that he would be very vicious; and it is even more
probable that he would be a wicked man, than it is sure that the other
temperate and chaste recluse would be a virtuous man, for in society
faults increase, and good qualities diminish.
A much stronger objection is made; Nero, Pope Alexander VI., and other
monsters of this species, have bestowed kindnesses; I answer hardily
that on that day they were virtuous.
A few theologians say that the divine emperor Antonine was not virtuous;
that he was a stubborn Stoic who, not content with commanding men,
wished further to be esteemed by them; that he attributed to himself the
good he did to the human race; that all his life he was just, laborious,
beneficent through vanity, and that he only deceived men through his
virtues. "My God!" I exclaim. "Give us often rogues like him!"
_WHY?_
Why does one hardly ever do the tenth part of the good one might do?
Why in half Europe do girls pray to God in Latin, which they do not
understand?
Why in antiquity was there never a theological quarrel, and why were no
people ever distinguished by the name of a sect? The Egyptians were not
called Isiacs or Osiriacs; the peoples of Syria did not have the name of
Cybelians. The Cretans had a particular devotion to Jupiter, and were
never entitled Jupiterians. The ancient Latins were very attached to
Saturn; there was not a village in Latium called Saturnian: on the
contrary, the disciples of the God of truth taking their master's title,
and calling themselves "anointed" like Him, declared, as soon as they
could, an eternal war on all the peoples who were not anointed, and made
war among themselves for fourteen hundred years, taking the names of
Arians, Manicheans, Donatists, Hussites, Papists, Lutherans, Calvinists.
And lastly, the Jansenists and the Molinists have had no more poignant
mortification than that of not having been able to slaughter each other
in pitched battle. Whence does this come?
Why is the great number of hard-working, innocent men who till the land
every day of the year that you may eat all its fruits, scorned,
vilified, oppressed, robbed; and why is it that the useless and often
very wicked man who lives only by their work, and who is rich only
through their poverty, is on the contrary respected, courted,
considered?
Why is it that, the fruits of the earth being so necessary for the
conservation of men and animals, one yet sees so many years and so many
countries where there is entire lack of these fruits?
Why is the half of Africa and America covered with poisons?
Why is there no land where insects are not far in excess of men?
Why does a little whitish, evil-smelling secretion form a being which
has hard bones, desires and thoughts? and why do these beings always
persecute each other?
Why does so much evil exist, seeing that everything is formed by a God
whom all theists are agreed in naming "good?"
Why, since we complain ceaselessly of our ills, do we spend all our time
in increasing them?
Why, as we are so miserable, have we imagined that not to be is a great
ill, when it is clear that it was not an ill not to be before we were
born?
Why and how does one have dreams during sleep, if one has no soul; and
how is it that these dreams are always so incoherent, so extravagant, if
one has a soul?
Why do the stars move from west to east rather than from east to west?
Why do we exist? why is there anything?
_DECLARATION OF THE ADMIRERS, QUESTIONERS AND DOUBTERS WHO HAVE AMUSED
THEMSELVES BY PROPOUNDING TO THE SCHOLARS THE ABOVE QUESTIONS IN NINE
VOLUMES._[23]
We declare to the scholars that, being like them prodigiously ignorant
about the first principles of all things, and about the natural,
typical, mystic, allegorical sense of many things, we refer these things
to the infallible judgment of the Holy Inquisition of Rome, Florence,
Madrid, Lisbon, and to the decrees of the Sorbonne of Paris, perpetual
council of the Gauls.
Our errors springing in no wise from malice, but being the natural
consequence of human frailty, we hope that they will be pardoned to us
in this world and the other.
We beseech the small number of heavenly spirits who are still shut up in
France in mortal bodies, and who, from there, enlighten the universe at
_thirty sous_ the sheet, to communicate their luminousness to us for the
tenth volume which we reckon on publishing at the end of Lent 1772, or
in Advent 1773; and for their luminousness we will pay _forty sous_.
This tenth volume will contain some very curious articles, which, if God
favours us, will give new point to the salt which we shall endeavour to
bestow in the thanks we shall give to these gentlemen.
Executed on Mount Krapack, the thirtieth day of the month of Janus, the
year of the world
according to Scaliger 5722
according to Riccioli 5956
according to Eusebius 6972
according to the Alphonsine Tables 8707
according to the Egyptians 370000
according to the Chaldeans 465102
according to the Brahmins 780000
according to the philosophers infinity
FOOTNOTES:
[23] The Philosophical Dictionary was first published as "Questions on
the Encyclopedia," then reprinted as "Reason by Alphabet," and then
finally, with many additions, became the "Philosophical Dictionary."
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
This text had three occurrences of "François I" followed by a
superscripted "er". These have be rendered as François Ier in this text.
The following words used an "oe" ligature in the original:
foetus
manoeuvre
oesophagus
Phoenicia
Phoenicians
subpoenaed
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original.
There is one occurrence of "Vistnou" and one of "Vitsnou". One of these
is clearly an error, but each has been left as in the original.
The symbol representing infinity has been replaced with the word
"infinity" on page 316, the last line of the text.
The following corrections have been made to the original text:
page 17: Nestor, in the "Iliad," wishing to insinuate himself
as a wise conciliator into the minds of Achilles and
Agamemnon{original had "Agamamemnon"},
page 40: Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent persons, and
superstition{original had "superstitution"} is the vice of
fools.
page 42: if it is a greater crime not to believe in the
Deity{original had "Diety"} than to have unworthy opinions
thereof:
page 54: They will say as much of the great moral maxims, of
Zarathustra's--"In doubt if an{original had "in"} action be
just, abstain...";
page 58: What time and what trouble for copying correctly in
Greek and Latin the works of Origen{original had "Origin"}, of
Clement of Alexandria, and of all those other authors called
"fathers."
page 101: we shall be convinced that we must not be vain about
anything, and yet we shall always{original had "aways"} have
vanity.
page 128: All that certain tyrants{original had "tryants"} of
the souls desire is that the men they teach shall have false
judgment.
page 166: and to surround him with little chubby, flushed faces
accompanied{original had "accompained"} by two wings; I laugh
and I pardon them with all my heart.
page 171: And an unfortunate{original had "unforunate"} idiot,
who had had enough courage to render very great services to the
king
page 220: Try to retake from the Mohammedans all that they
usurped; but it is easier to calumniate{original had
"calcumniate"} them.
pafe 224: It was allowed among the Egyptians{original had
"Egyptains"}, the Athenians and even among the Jews, to marry
one's sister on the father's side.
page 251: Your parents have told you that you should bow before
this man; you respect him before knowing whether he merits your
respect;{original had colon} you grow in years and in
knowledge;
page 280: (Corporalitas animæ in ipso Evangelio relucescit, De
Anima,{original had period} cap. vii.)
page 295: "She soon became a monarchy, then,{original had
period}" said the Brahmin.
page 315: we refer these things to the infallible{original had
"infallable"} judgment of the Holy Inquisition of Rome,
Florence, Madrid, Lisbon,
End of Project Gutenberg's Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire