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As a vegetarian and an advocate of animal rights, however, Voltaire praised Hinduism, stating Hindus were "[a] peaceful and innocent people, equally incapable of hurting others or of defending themselves. Voltaire wrote poetry and plays, as well as historical and philosophical works.

Candide is filled with philosophical and religious parody, and in the end the characters reject optimism. There is great debate on whether Voltaire was making an actual statement about embracing a pessimistic philosophy or if he was trying to encourage people to be actively involved to improve society. In , he published another of his acclaimed philosophical works, Dictionnaire philosophique , an encyclopedic dictionary that embraced the concepts of Enlightenment and rejected the ideas of the Roman Catholic Church.

In , Voltaire was exiled to Tulle for mocking the duc d'Orleans. In , he returned to Paris, only to be arrested and exiled to the Bastille for a year on charges of writing libelous poetry. Voltaire was sent to the Bastille again in , for arguing with the Chevalier de Rohan.

This time he was only detained briefly before being exiled to England, where he remained for nearly three years. Voltaire moved to Prussia in as a member of Frederick the Great's court, and spent later years in Geneva and Ferney.

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By , he was recognized as an icon of the Enlightenment's progressive ideals, and he was given a hero's welcome upon his return to Paris. Itis as a Freethinker, a reformer, and an apostle of reason and universal tolerationthat I esteem Voltaire, and I have considered him mainly under this aspect. For thesket of the salient points of his career I am indebted to many sources, includingCondorcet, Duvernet, Desnoisterres, Parton, Espinasse, Collins, and Saintsbury, to. John Morleys ablework and Col. Hamleys sket may also be recommended. In judging the work of the laughing sage of Francewe must remember that in his day the feudal laws still obtained in France, and aman might be clapped in prison for life without any trial.

Justice wasas easily bought as jewels. If Voltaires influence is no longer what it was, it is because he has altered that. We can no longer keenly feel the evils against whi he contended. His work is,however, by no means fully accomplished. While any remnant of superstition, in-tolerance, and oppression remains, his unremiing warfare againstl'infmeshouldbe an inspiration to all who are fighting for the liberation and progress of humanity. He was a younger son. In like manner, an old college- tutor of his, Pre ouli, transformedhimself, by a similar anagrammatic process, into the Abb Olivet.

Voltaire. a Sketch of His Life and Works

Something may have been wrong with the performance of the sacred ceremony,since the ild certainly grew up to think more of the world, the flesh, and thedevil than of the other trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. His father was arespectable aorney, and his mother came of noble family. His godfather and early. Voltaire showed when quite a ild an unsurpassed facility for verse-making. He was educated at a Jesuit college, and the followers of Jesus have ever since re-proaed him with Jesuitism.

Possibly he did imbibe some of their policy in thepropaganda of his ideas. Certainly he saw sufficient of the hypocrisy and immoral-. He learnt a certain amount of Latin and a parcel of stupidities. But, indifferentas this education was, it served to encourage his already marked literary tendency. This taste was very long in vogue. Augustine goes much further, concerning the dimensions of matter.

Breadth is the dilatation of the heart, which performs good works; length is perseverance; depth is the hope of reward. He carries the allegory very far, applying it to the cross, and drawing great consequences therefrom. The use of these figures had passed from the Jews to the Christians long before St. It is not for us to know within what bounds it was right to stop. The examples of this fault are innumerable.


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No one who has studied to advantage will hazard the introduction of such figures, either in the pulpit or in the school. We find no such instances among the Romans or the Greeks, not even in their poets. Deucalion and Pyrrha threw Edition: current; Page: [ 73 ] stones behind them between their legs, and men were produced therefrom. Ovid says:. Apollo loves Daphne, but Daphne does not love Apollo.

This is because love has two kinds of arrows; the one golden and piercing, the other leaden and blunt. Apollo has received in his heart a golden arrow, Daphne a leaden one. That Venus, the goddess of beauty, should not go unattended by the Graces, is a charming truth. These fables, which were in the mouths of all—these allegories, so natural and attractive—had so much sway over the minds of men, that perhaps the first Christians imitated while they opposed them.

They took up the weapons of mythology to destroy it, but they could not wield them with the same address. They did not reflect that the sacred austerity of our holy religion placed these resources Edition: current; Page: [ 74 ] out of their power, and that a Christian hand would have dealt but awkwardly with the lyre of Apollo. However, the taste for these typical and prophetic figures was so firmly rooted that every prince, every statesman, every pope, every founder of an order, had allegories or allusions taken from the Holy Scriptures applied to him.

Satire and flattery rivalled each other in drawing from this source. It is said to have been repeated for John Sobieski, after the deliverance of Vienna; but this latter preacher was nothing more than a plagiarist. In short, so constant has been this custom that no preacher of the present day has ever failed to take an allegory for his text. It is not to be wondered at that the Cordeliers carried these figures rather too far in favor of St.

Francis of Assisi with Jesus Christ. Francis, some in the Old Testament, others in the New; and each prediction contains three figures, which signify the founding of the Cordeliers. So that these fathers find themselves foretold in the Bible a hundred and ninety-two times. From Adam down to St. Paul, everything prefigured the blessed Francis of Assisi.

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The Scriptures were given to announce to the universe the sermons of Francis to the quadrupeds, the fishes, and the birds, the sport he had with a woman of snow, his frolics with the devil, his adventures with brother Elias and brother Pacificus. These pious reveries, which amounted even to blasphemy, have been condemned. But the Order of St.

Francis has not suffered by them, having renounced these extravagancies so common to the barbarous ages. Virgil said well: and Benedict Spinoza, who has not the brilliancy of Virgil, nor his merit, is compelled to acknowledge an intelligence presiding over all.

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Had he denied this, I should have said to him: Benedict, you are a fool; you possess intelligence, and you deny it, and to whom do you deny it? In the year , there appeared a man, in some respects far superior to Spinoza, as eloquent as the Jewish Hollander is dry, less methodical, but infinitely more perspicuous; perhaps equal to him in mathematical science; but without the ridiculous affectation of applying mathematical reasonings to metaphysical and moral subjects.

It is contended that animals furnish us with a convincing evidence that there is some powerful cause of their existence; the admirable adaptation of their different parts, mutually receiving and conferring aid towards accomplishing their functions, and maintaining in health and vigor the entire being, announce to us an artificer uniting power to wisdom. Of the power of nature, it is impossible Edition: current; Page: [ 77 ] for us to doubt; she produces all the animals that we see by the help of combinations of that matter, which is in incessant action; the adaptation of the parts of these animals is the result of the necessary laws of their nature, and of their combination.

When the adaptation ceases, the animal is necessarily destroyed. What then becomes of the wisdom, the intelligence, or the goodness of that alleged cause, to which was ascribed all the honor of this boasted adaptation? Those animals of so wonderful a structure as to be pronounced the works of an immutable God, do not they undergo incessant changes; and do not they end in decay and destruction? Where is the wisdom, the goodness, the foresight, the immutability of an artificer, whose sole object appears to be to derange and destroy the springs of those machines which are proclaimed to be masterpieces of his power and skill?

If this God cannot act otherwise than thus, he is neither free nor omnipotent. If his will changes, he is not immutable. If he permits machines, which he has endowed with sensibility, to experience pain, he is deficient in goodness. If he has been unable to render his productions solid and durable, he is deficient in skill.

Perceiving as we do the decay and ruin not only of all animals, but of all the other works of deity, we cannot but inevitably conclude, either that everything performed in the course of nature is absolutely necessary—the unavoidable result of its imperative and insuperable laws, or that the artificer Edition: current; Page: [ 78 ] who impels her various operations is destitute of plan, of power, of constancy, of skill, and of goodness. In this being, possessed of feeling, intuition, and reason, which considers itself as the perpetual object of divine partiality, and forms its God on the model of itself, we see a machine more changeable, more frail, more liable to derangement from its extraordinary complication, than that of the coarsest and grossest beings.

Beasts, which are destitute of our mental powers and acquirements; plants, which merely vegetate; stones, which are unendowed with sensation, are, in many respects, beings far more favored than man. They are, at least, exempt from distress of mind, from the tortures of thought, and corrosions of care, to which the latter is a victim. Who would not prefer being a mere unintelligent animal, or a senseless stone, when his thoughts revert to the irreparable loss of an object dearly beloved? Would it not be infinitely more desirable to be an inanimate mass, than the gloomy votary and victim of superstition, trembling under the present yoke of his diabolical deity, and anticipating infinite torments in a future existence?

Beings destitute of sensation, Edition: current; Page: [ 79 ] life, memory, and thought experience no affliction from the idea of what is past, present, or to come; they do not believe there is any danger of incurring eternal torture for inaccurate reasoning; which is believed, however, by many of those favored beings who maintain that the great architect of the world has created the universe for themselves. Nature is not a work. She has always existed of herself. Every process takes place in her bosom. She is an immense manufactory, provided with materials, and she forms the instruments by which she acts; all her works are effects of her own energy, and of agents or causes which she frames, contains, and impels.

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Eternal, uncreated elements—elements indestructible, ever in motion, and combining in exquisite and endless diversity, originate all the beings and all the phenomena that we behold; all the effects, good or evil, that we feel; the order or disorder which we distinguish, merely by different modes in which they affect ourselves; and, in a word, all those wonders which excite our meditation and confound our reasoning. These elements, in order to effect objects thus comprehensive and important, require nothing beyond their own properties, individual or combined, and the motion essential to their very existence; Edition: current; Page: [ 80 ] and thus preclude the necessity of recurring to an unknown artificer, in order to arrange, mould, combine, preserve, and dissolve them.

Shall he be within or without the universe? Is he matter or motion? Or is he mere space, nothingness, vacuity?