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. Francois I., very Christian, will unite with Mussulmans against Charles V., very Catholic. Francois 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 Caesar'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 Fenelon.

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 "Francois I" followed by a superscripted "er". These have be rendered as Francois 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 animae 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,

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