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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
Old Thoughts
FOR
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BEING SELECTIONS
From the “ Pensees Philosophiques ” of Diderot,
TRANSLATED
WILLIAM
AND
ARRANGED BY
HARDAKER.
“ Neither do men light a candle, and pnt it under a bushel, but
on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.”
—St. Matthew v., 15.
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L0ND0N:PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
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�DIDEROT
Was born in the town of Langres, France, in October,
1718. The illustrious creator of the “ French Encyclo
pedia” commenced his education at the Jesuits’ College
in his native town, where the sagacity of the priests of that
astute order soon discovered his rare talents, and persuaded
him to leave home without the knowledge of his parents, in order
to qualify in Paris for the priesthood. But, like Voltaire,
Denis Diderot was not destined to render the order of Loyala
illustrious. At Harcourt College he received one of those
solid educations which the reverend fathers knew so well
how to give. In the office of the lawyer, Clement de Ris, he
learned everything of law except its chicanery.
In 1743 he married against the wish of his father, and indeed
of his mother-in-law, who knew him to be without means save a
golden tongue. His married life was not happy. The first
money he earned by literature was the translation of the History
of Greece from the English. Being advanced in years, and
still poor, he resolved to sell his library so that he might assure
the future of his daughter, which was bought, without his solici
tation, by the Empress of Russia, who also supplied him with
the means to live in comfort for the short remainder of his days.
Diderot died on the 30th July, 1784, on the threshold of the
Great Revolution, which he, with Rousseau and Voltaire, helped
so materially to hasten.
�OLD THOUGHTS
FOR
NEW THINKERS.
BEING
Selections from the “ Pensees Philosophiques ” of Diderot.
TRANSLATED AND ARRANGED BY
WILLIAM
HARDAKEK.
---------- »----------
“I
of God; I count on but few readers, and small
approval. If these thoughts find favor with none, they
may possibly be simply crass; but I hold them detest
able if they please everyone.”
write
I know the bigots : they are prompt to take alarm. If for a
moment they judged that this book contained something con
trary to their ideas, I should expect to hear all the calumnies
they have spread abroad against a thousand men of greater worth
than myself. If I am only a Deist; and only a scoundrel, I shall
get off cheaply. They long ago damned Descartes, Montaigne,
Locke, and Bayle, and I hope they will yet damn a great many
others. I, however, declare to them that I do not count myself
to be either a more honest man, or a better Christian, than the
greater part of these philosophers. I was born in the Roman
Catholic Apostolic Church, and I submit, with all my might, to
her decisions. I wish to die in the religion of my fathers, and I
believe in it as much as it is possible for anyone who has never
had direct intercourse with the Divinity, and who has never
been eye-witness to any miracle. This is my profession of faith ;
I am almost certain they will be dissatisfied with it, although
they have not, perhaps, one among them in a condition to make
a better.
You present to an unbeliever a volume of writings which you
profess to demonstrate are of divine origin. But before enter
�4
ing upon an examination of your proofs, he will not fail to ask
you : Has it always been the same ? Why is it at present less
ample than it was some centuries ago? By what authority
have you banished such and such a work, revered by another
sect, and retained such and such another which it has rejected?
On what foundation have you given the preference to this
manuscript? . Who has directed you in the choice you have
made between so many differing copies ? What are the incon
testable proofs that these sacred authors have been transmitted
to you in their pristine purity ? But if the ignorance of copyists,
or the malice of heretics, has corrupted them, as you may
easily imagine is possible, you will be obliged to restore them
to their natural state before proving their divinity; for it is
not from a collection of mutilated writings that proofs will fall
with which to establish my faith; therefore to whom will you
entrust this restorat on ? To the Church. But I am not able
to believe in the infallibility of the Church until the divinity of
the scriptures is proved. You see me, then, in an inevitable
state of scepticism.
There is no answer to this difficulty, except by acknowledging
that the first foundations of the faithare purely human ; that the
choice between the manuscripts^ that the restitution of passages,
in fact, that the collection is made ..by the rules of criticism, and
I do not refuse to allow to the divinity of the sacred books a
degree of faith in proportion to their consonance with the canons
of criticism.
—'
I tell you there is no God; that the creation is a chimera ; that
the eternity of the universe is no more inconceivable than the
eternity of a spirit; that because I do not know how motion has
been able to engender this universe, which it knows so well to con
serve, it is ridiculous to remove this difficulty by the suppositious
existence of a being that I know still less ; thatif the brilliant mar
vels of the physical world discover an intelligence, the disturbances
so rife in the moral world, wipe out providence. I say to you
that if all is the work of a God, all should be the best possible ;
therefore, if all is not the best possible, God is either incapable
or malevolent. This being so, of what good are your revelations ?
Even were it as well demonstrated as it is not, that all evil is
the source of a good ; that it was good that a Britannicus, one of
the best of princes, perish ; that a Nero, the worst of men, reign.
How will it prove that it was impossible to attain the same end
by other means ? To permit vice in order that virtue may shine
with greater lustre by contrast, is but a frivolous advantage
to set against so serious an evil. This, says the Atheist, is what
I object; what have you to say ? . . . “ That I am a wretch; and
�i&rf if I had nothing to fear of God, I should not dispute his
existence."
Let us leave this phrase to the bigots; it may be untrue,
politeness proscribes it, and is besides uncharitable. Because
a man is wrong not to believe in God, shall we revile him ?
Invective is resorted to only in default of proofs. Between two
disputants it is a hundred to one that he who is in the wrong
will grow angry.
“Thou layest hold of thy thunder-bolts instead of replying,
said Menippus to Jupiter; “thou art then in the wrong.”
I open the book of a celebrated professor, and I read :
“ Atheists, I grant you that movement is essential to matter;
what can you make of it ? ... . That the world is the outcome
of a fortuitous aggregation of atoms? You may as well tell me
that Homer’s Iliad or la Henriade of Voltaire are the result of
fortuitous combinations of accidents.” I should be very care
ful not to offer such reasoning to an Atheist. The illustration
would give him fine play.
According to the laws of the analysis of chances, he would
say to me, I have no right to be surprised that a thing happens
so long as it is possible, and that the difficulty of the event is
compensated by the quantity of throws. In a certain number
of throws I will wager, with the odds in my favor, that I turn
up a hundred thousand sixes at a time with a hundred thousand
dice. Whatever might be the definite number of characters
with which it might be proposed I should fortuitously engender
the Iliad, there is a possible sum of throws, which renders the
proposition advantageous; my advantage would be infinite even,
if the number of throws granted were infinite. You will, no doubt,
agree with me, he would continue, that matter existed from all
eternity, and that movement is essential to it. In return for
this favor, I shall suppose, with you, that the world is boundless,
that the multitude of atoms are infinite, and the marvellous order
which fills you with astonishment does not belie the supposition.
Then, from these reciprocal concessions, there results nothing
more than that the possibility of engendering the universe by
accident is very small, but that the number of chances is
infinite ; that is to say, that the difficulty of the event is more
than sufficiently compensated by the multitude of throws.
Therefore, if anything should be repugnant to reason, it
should be the supposition that matter being self moved from
all eternity, and that their being perchance, in the infinite
number possible of combinations of forms, an infinite number of
admirable arrangements, there should not be any of these suit
able arrangements encountered in the infinite number of those
�6
she has taken successively. Therefore, the hypothetic duration
of chaos is more astounding than the real birth of the universe.
I divide Atheists into three classes. There are some who
would tell you distinctly that there is no God, and would believe
" what they said; these are true Atheists. Another numerous
class, who do not know what to think, and who would willingly
decide the question by tossing heads or tails; these are sceptics
Atheistic. There are many more who would like very much
that there should not be a God, who seem to persuade themselves
there is not, and who live as if they were so persuaded ; these
are blusterers, humbugs. I detest them ; they are false. I pity
the true Atheists. To me all consolation seems dead for them
and I pray to God for the sceptics that they may be enlightened’.
,
! Scepticism is not possible for everyone: It supposes pro
found and disinterested examination; he who doubts only be
cause he does not understand the reasons for believing is simply
one of the ignorant. The true sceptic has counted and weighed
the reasons; but to weigh reasons is no small affair. Who
among us knows exactly the value of reasoning ? Bring a hun
dred proofs of the same truth, each one will have its partisans ;
each mind looking through its own telescope in its own fashion’
An objection, which to my view appears a colossus, will diminish
to the vanishing point in yours. You find a reason light, which
crushes me under its weight. If we are divided on the question
of intrinsic value, how can we hope to be agreed on the relative
value ? Tell me, how many moral proofs does it take to'counter
balance a metaphysical conclusion? Are they my spectacles
which sin, or yours ? If then, it is so difficult to weigh reasons,
and if there are no questions in which there is not a pro and a con’
and almost always in equal measure why are we so peremptory?
From whence comes this tone of decision? What is more
revolting than a dogmatic self-sufficiency ? “ I am made to hate
the things which appear true,” said the author of the Essais
“when they are forced upon me as infallible.”
I love words which soften and moderate the boldness of our
propositions, such as, “Perhaps it maybe so,” “Let us see,”
“ It is so said,” “ I think,” and others similar; and if I had the
care of children, I would put into their mouths the habit of
replying by questions and not by affirmation; as, “I do not
understand,” “ It may possibly be so,” “ Is it true,” so that they
should rather use the manner of students at sixty than seem to
be professors at sixteen.
___
Men of passionate temperament, of ardent imagination,
cannot reconcile themselves to the indolence of the sceptic. They
�7
will choose at hazard rather than not make a choice at all;
deceive themselves rather than live in uncertainty. Whether it
be that they mistrust their strength, or that they fear the depth
of the flood, we see them for ever hanging to the branches of
which they feel all the frailty, and to which they cling in
preference to abandoning themselves to the torrent. They are
sure in all things although nothing have they examined with care.
They doubt of nothing, because they lack both the patience and
the courage. Deciding by emotion, if by chance they encounter
truth, it is not hesitatingly, but with a shock, and as a revelation.
They are, amongst the dogmatic, such as were in the religious
world styled the Illuminati. I have seen individuals of this
uneasy species who could not conceive it possible to ally tran
quillity of mind with indecision.
To be able to live happy without knowing what we are, from
whence we came, where we go, why we are here!
I pride myself on ignoring all that without being more un
happy, coldly replies the sceptic. It is not my fault if I have
found my reason mute when I have questioned it on these
things.
I shall never make myself unhappy over that which it is
impossible for me to know. Why should I regret the want of
a knowledge I am unable to procure, and which, doubtless, is
not very necessary since I am deprived of it ?
“I would as soon,” said one of the first genuises of our age,
“seriously afflict myself because I have not four eyes, four feet,
and a pair of wings.”
It may be required that I seek for truth, but not that I find it.
May not, possibly, a sophism be to me more forcible than a
solid proof ? I am in the necessity to consent to the false which
I take for truth, and to reject the truth which I take for false ;
but what have I to fear if I deceive myself innocently ? Since
we are not rewarded in the next world for having had a brilliant
intellect in this, should we be punished for our lack of under
standing ? To damn a man for being a bad reasoner, is to forget
that he is a fool in order to punish him for wickedness.
What is a sceptic ? A philosopher who has doubted of all
which he believes, and believes that which a legitimate use of
his reason and his senses have demonstrated true. If you wish
a more precise definition, render the pyrrhonian sincere and you
will have the sceptic.
IA sem2 <'5epticism is the mark of a weak mind; it shows a
�8
pusillanimous reasoner who allows himself to be. afraid of the
consequences ; a superstitions person who fears to unmask to
himself even; for if the truth has nothing to lose by examination,
as the semi-sceptic is convinced, what does he think at the
bottom of his heart of those concealed speculations, which he
is afraid to bring to the light, and which are shrouded in a corner
of his brain as in a sanctuary which he dare not approach ?
That which has never been questioned has not been proved;
that which has never been examined without prejudice has never
been thoroughly examined. Scepticism is then the first step
towards truth. It ought to be general, for it is the touchstone
of truth. If, to assure himself of the existence of God, the
philosopher commences by doubting his existence, is there any
proposition which ought to be withheld from proof ?
We risk as much by believing too much as by believing too
little. There is neither more nor less danger by being polytheist
as Atheist, hence scepticism alone can guarantee equally, in all
times and all places, from those two opposed excesses.
When the religious cry out against scepticism, it seems to me
that they understand their interest badly, or that they contra
dict themselves. If it is certain that a true religion in order to
be embraced, and a false religion in order to be abandoned, has
need only to be well known, it ought to be wished that a
universal doubt should spread over the whole surface of the
earth, and that all the world should earnestly question the
truth of their religions; our missionaries would thus find the
better half of their great labors spared them.
Reasoning which may be used equally by opposite parties
proves nothing; either for the one or the other. If fanaticism
has its martyrs as well as true religion ; and if among those who
have died for the true religion there were fanatics, we must
either believe in proportion to the number of martyrs, or
seek other motives for belief.
Nothing is more calculated to confirm irreligious ideas than
loose reasons for conversion. Sceptics are eternally taunted
with—
“ Who are you, to venture to attack a religion defended so
courageously by a Paul, a Tertullian, an Athanasius, a Chry
�9
sostom, an Augustine, a Cyprian, and so many other illustrious
personages ? You have, no doubt, perceived some difficulty which
had escaped these great men; show us,then, how much you
know more than they, or sacrifice your doubts to their decisions,
if you are agreed that they were wiser than yourself.”
Most frivolous reasoning. The profound learning of ministers
is not a proof of the truth of a religion. What cult could be more
absurd than that of the Egyptians, and what ministers more en
lightened? . . . No, I cannot adore an onion; w’hat merit has
it over other vegetables ? I should be idiotic to prostitute my
homage to things destined for my nourishment. The plant I
water and tend, and which grows and dies in my garden-plot, is
a droll sort of divinity ! “Hold, wretch, thy blasphemies make
me tremble. Wno art thou to set thy reason against the sacred
college ? Who art thou to attack the gods and give lessons to
their ministers ? Art thou more enlightened than those oracles
who were consulted by the entire universe ? Whatsoever thy
reply, I am astounded at thy impertinence and temerity.” . . .
Will Christians never abandon these miserable sophistries?
Moral: Prodigies and dogmatic authority may make dupes or
hypocrites; reason alone can make believers.
It is allowed to be of the last importance not to employ other
than solid reasons in the defence of religion, and yet those who
expose its weaknesses are assailed with virulence. What! is
not enough to be a Christian ?—must one be so illogically ?
It was in the search for -proofs that I found the difficulties.
The books which held the motives for my belief offered at the same
time reasons for being incredulous ; they are a common arsenal.
There I saw the Deist arm against the Atheist; the Deist and
the Atheist contend with the Jew; the Atheist, the Deist, and
the Jew league against the Christian; the Christian, the Jew,
the Deist, and the Atheist take sides against the Mussulman;
the Atheist, the Deist, the Jew, the Mussulman, and the multi
tudinous sects of Christianity come down upon the Christian,
and the sceptic alone against all. I was judge of the blows ; I
held the balance between the combatants ; the beam went up
and dowu according to the weight of their respective argument.
After long oscillations, the balance trembled almost imperceptibly
on the side of the Christian. I will answer for my equity: it
was not my fault if the difference were not greater; I call God
to witness my sincerity.
This diversity of opinion has evolved an argument for the
�10
Deists more singular perhaps than solid.
Cicero, having io
prove the Romans the most bellicose people in the world,
adroitly extracted this avowal from the mouths of their rivals:—
“ Gauls, to whom would you yield in courage if you yielded to
any ?—To the Romans. Parthians, after you, who are the most
courageous?—The Romans. Africans, whom would you fear, if
fear could enter your minds ?—The Romans.” Let us, following
his example, interrogate the rest of the religions, say the Deists:—
“ Chinese, what religion would be the best, if it were not yours?
—Natural religion. Mussulmans, what cult would you embrace
if you abjured Mahomet?—Naturalism. Christians, which is
the true religion, if perchance it is not Christianity?—The
Jewish religion. But, you Jews, what is the true religion, if
Judaism be false ?—Naturalism.” Therefore, continued Cicero,
that which is by unanimous consent accorded the second place,
and which itself concedes the first to none, merits incontestably
to hold that position.
“I had imagined,” said Julian [called the Apostate], “ that the
chiefs of the Galileans would appreciate how greatly my pro
ceedings are different from those of my predecessor, and that they
would therefore bear me good will. Under his reign they suffered
exile and imprisonment, and a multitude of those they deemed
heretics among them were put to the sword. . . . Under mine the
exiles have been recalled, the prisoners set at liberty, and the
proscribed re-established in the possession of their estates. But
such is the restlessness and the fury of this sort of men that,
since they have lost the privilege of devouring each other,
of tormenting both those who are attached to their dogmas,
and those who follow the authorised religion; they spare no
pains, they allow no occasion to escape of exciting revolts; fellows
without regard for true piety, and without respect for our
constitutions. . . . Nevertheless, we do not hear that they are
dragged to the feet of our altars, or that they suffer violence.
. . With respect to the common people, it appears to be their
chiefs who foment among them a seditious spirit, furious at the
limits we have fixed to their powers; for we have banished them
from our tribunals, and they have not now facilities to dispose
of testaments, to supplant the legitimate heirs, and gobble up
the succession. . . . This is why we prohibit this people to
create tumultuous assemblies and cabal at the houses of their
seditious priests. . . . This ordinance is for the security of our
magistrates, whom the rascals have insulted more than once and
put in danger of being stoned. . . . That they go peaceably to
their meetings, to pray, to be instructed, and to satisfy their
desires in the culture of their religion, we permit; but they
�11
must renounce their factious designs. ... If these assemblies
are made an occasion for revolt, it will be at their risk and peril;
I warn them beforehand. . . . Infidel people, live in peace. . . .
And you who have remained faithful to the religion of your
country and to the gods of your fathers, do not persecute your
neighbors, your fellow-citizens, whose ignorance is more to be
pitied than their wickedness is to be blamed. ... It is by
reason, and not by violence, that men should be brought back
to the truth. We enjoin, then, on you all, our faithful subjects,
to leave the Galileans in peace.”
Such were the sentiments of this prince, against whom we
may bring the charge of paganism, but not of apostacy.
I am astonished at one thing, that is, that the works of this
wise emperor have come down to our times. They contain
passages which do no violence to the truth of Christianity, but
which are disadvantageous enough to some Christians of his
time, inasmuch as they show glimpses of the singular care which
the fathers of the Church had taken to suppress the works oftheir enemies. It is from these predecessors apparently that St.
Gregory the Great had inherited the barbarous zeal which ani
mated him against letters and the arts, so that, had it rested with
this pontiff, we should be in the case of the Mohammedans, who
are reduced for all their reading to that of their Koran. For
what had been the fate of these ancient writers in the hands of
a man who ignored critical rules from religious principle ; who
imagined that to observe the rules of grammar was to submit
Jesus Christ to Donat, and who believed himself obliged in con
science to increase the heaped up ruins of antiquity.
The divin ity of the scriptures is not, however, a characteristic
so clearly imprinted on the face of them that the authority of
the sacred historians is absolutely independent of the testimony
of profane authors. Where should we be if it was necessary to
recognise the finger of God in the style of our Bible ? How
wretched is the Latin version! The originals even are not
masterpieces of composition. The prophets, apostles, and
evangelists wrote according to their capacity. Were it permitted
to us to regard the history of the Jews as a simple human pro
ductions, Moses and his successors would not bear away the
palm from Titus Livy, Sallust, Caesar, and Josephus, all of them
writers of whom no one assuredly suspects that they wrote by
inspiration.
“What is God?” is a question asked of children, and to
which philosophers cannot give an answer. The age at
X
�which children should begin to learn to read, to write, to dance,
and to sing is pretty well understood. It is only in religious
matters that the capacity of the child is not considered. Almost
before he can speak he is asked, “ What is God ?” At the same
time, and from the same lips, he learns that there are goblins,
ghosts, vampires, and a God. The most important truths are
inculcated in a manner to render them liable to be discredited
at the tribunal of reason. It cannot be surprising if, finding, on
reaching manhood, the existence of God mixed up in his head
with a crowd of absurd and superstitious ideas, he should treat
God as the magistrate treats an honest man discovered in the
company of rogues.
From the picture which is drawn of the supreme being, from
his liking to be angry, from the rigor of his vengeance, from
certain comparisons which show us the difference in number
between those he leaves to perish and those to whom he deigns
to offer the hand of salvation, the most pious soul would be
tempted to wish that he did not exist. People would be com
fortable enough in this world were they well assured they had
nothing to fear in the other ; the thought that there is no God at
all has never yet affrighted mortal, but that there is such a God
as he is painted has affrighted many.
There are those who desire that God burn the wicked, who
are powerless against him, in an everlasting fire ; and it is not
permitted a father to slay his son, who, perhaps, imperils his
life, his honor, and his fortune !
O Christians! you have, then, two differing ideas of goodness
and of wickedness, of the truth and lies. You are either the
most absurd dogmatists, or the most outrageous pyhrronians.
All the evil of which one is capable is not all the evil possible i
therefore, it is only he who is able to commit all the wickedness
possible who can merit an eternal chastisement. To make Goda
being infinitely vindictive, you transform an earth-worm into
a being infinitely powerful [to suffer].
The word these atrocious Christians have translated by eternal
signifies in Hebrew only durable. It is from ignorance of a
Hebraism! and the ferocious humor of a translator whence comes
the eternity of punishment.
�The time of revelations, of prodigies, and of extraordinary
missions is passed. Christianity has no longer any need of this
kind of scaffolding. A man taking a fancy to play amongst us
the character of Jonah ; to run about the streets crying, “ Yea,
three days, and London will be destroyed; Cockneys, repent of
your sins, cover yourselves with sackcloth and ashes, or in three
days you will perish,” would be incontinently collared by the
first policeman he might fall in with, who would bring him
before the police-magistrate of his district, who, in his turn,
would not fail to have him dispatched to the county lunatic
asylum. He might shout himself hoarse crying, “Are you less
wicked than the men of Nineveh?” No one would trouble to
reply to him ; and to treat him as a madman, would not wait for
the term of his prediction.
Elie may come from the other world whenever he may take
the fancy. Men are so, in these days, that he will be compelled
to .perform stupendous miracles ere he be well received in this.
A person was asked if there were any true Atheists. “Do
you believe,” replied he, “ that there are any true Christians p”
I hear an outcry from all sides against impiety. The Chris
tian is impious in Asia, the Mussulman in Europe, the Papist in
London, and the Calvinist in Paris. Who, then, is impious ?
All the world, or no one ?
When God, of whom we hold our reason, requires its sacrifice,
he is like a mountebank who conjures away the gifts he pretends
to confer.
If my reason comes from on high, it is the voice of heaven
which speaks by it. It is my duty to be guided by its counsels
If reason is a gift of God, and if faith is also a gift of God, he
has endowed us with two gifts, incompatible and contradictory.
Bewildered in an immense forest in the night time, I have
only a feeble lantern to light my path. Comes a stranger, who
says to me: “Blow out thy candle to better find thy way.” This
stranger is the theologian.
It is as sure as that two and two make four that Caesar
existed; it i3 also as sure that Jesus Christ existed as Caesar.
Then, it is also as sure that Jesus Christ was raised ftom the
�14
dead as that he existed. What logic ! The existence of Jesus
Christ and of Csesar is not a miracle.
Man is as God or nature made him, and God or nature make
nothing bad.
Shade of Jenner! Iam compelled to vaccinate my child to
preserve it from the small-pox, and I am not allowed to kill it
in order to save it from eternal hell ? It is monstrous mockery!
The precepts of religion and the law of society, which prohibit
the murder of innocent children, are both absurd and cruel,
when, in killing them, they are assured of an infinite happiness,
and that, in leaving them to live, they are devoted almost
surely to eternal damnation.
The God of the Christians is a father who sets great store by
his apples, but precious little by his children.
No good father would wish to resemble our heavenly father, t'
And why does he get so mad, this God ? Are we not told that
we cannot add to or detract from his glory, do anything for or
against his repose, for or against his serene majesty ?
If it is necessary to believe in order to be saved, why was
Christ crucified?
If there are a hundred thousand damned for one saved, the
devil has always the advantage, notwithstanding the death of
Christ.
A true religion would compel the attention of all men, in all
times, in all conditions ; would be eternal, universal, and evident.
No religion has these three characteristics. All are therefore
thrice demonstrated false.
Facts of which only a few persons were witnesses are insuffi
cient to prove a religion which is required to be believed by all
the world.
\
�15
.The evidence in support of religion is ancient and marvellous;
that is to say, the most suspicious possible; in proof of things
the most incredible.
To prove the gospel by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by
an act contrary to nature.
Why are the miracles of Christ true, and those of Esculapius,
of Appollonius, of Tyanseus and of Mahomet false ?
The Jews living in Jerusalem at the time of Christ were no
doubt converted on seeing his miracles? Not at all. So far
from believing, they crucified him. It must be conceded that
the Jews are a peculiar people ; everywhere may be seen people
carried away by a single false miracle; and yet Jesus Christ
could not convert the Jews with a multitude of real miracles!
“ This God, who crucified God, to appease the wrath of God ” ;
is an antithesis of more force in its pithy ridicule than a hundred
folio volumes of grave controversy.
It is said that he retired to the Mount of Olives to pray. And
to whom prayed he ? To himself!
God the father judges all men worthy of eternal vengeance’*
God the son, worthy of infinite mercy; God the Holy Ghost
remains neutral. How is this to be reconciled with the unity of
the divine will.
The question has been put to the theologians an infinite
number of times—How can the dogma of eternal damnation
be reconciled with the infinite mercy of God ? They are still
struggling with it!
Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petrum cedifioabo ecclesiam meam
Is this the language of a God or of a Cogers’ Hall punster ?
In dolores paries (Genes).—“ Thou shalt engender in sorrow ”
said God to the prevaricating apple-eating woman. And what
fault had the females of other animals committed that they also
bring forth in pain ?
�If we must take literally the words, “Pater major me est,”
Jesus Christ is not God. If we must take literally, “Hoc est
corpus meum,” he gave his body to his apostles with his own.
hands—which is just as absurd as to say that Saint Denis kissed
his head after it was cut from his shoulders.
It is matchless impudence to cite the conformity of the
gospels, while there are in some,.very important statements of
which not one word is said in the others.
In the first centuries there were sixty gospels of almost equal
authority. Fifty-six have been rejected for puerility and
absurdity. Is there nothing of these in the four which have
been retained ?
Pascal said: “If our religion is false, we risk nothing in
believing it to be true; if it be true, we risk all in believing it
false.” A Mohammedan might say the same as Pascal.
That Jesus Christ, who is God, was tempted of the devil, is
a story worthy of the “ Thousand and One Nights.”
A young woman who lived a very secluded life was one day
visited by a young man, who brought a bird. She became
enceinte, and it was asked how it happened ? Ridiculous! It
was the bird.
Why do the stories of Leda and the swan excite a smile, and
the little flames of Castor and Pollux risibility, when we accept
in all seriousness the pigeon and the tongues of fire of the
gospels ?
Printed and Published by W J. Ramsey, at 28 Stonecutter
Street, London.
�
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Old thoughts for new thinkers : being selections from the "Pensees philosophiques" of Diderot
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Diderot, Denis [1713-1784]
Hardaker, William (tr)
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
ORATION
ON
VOLTAIRE
COLONEL H. G. INGERSOLL.
Price Threepence.
LONDON :
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.CL
1892.
�On Saturday evening, October 8, Colonel K. Gr. Ingersoll
delivered his new lecture on “Voltaire” before the Chicago
Press Club, the audience numbering six thousand persons.
The delivery of the lecture occupied two hours and a half, and
from boginning to end the orator held the attention of the
audience completely, and was most vociferously cheered
throughout.
�B X73 V
Oration on Voltaire.
O
Ladies and Gentlemen,—The infidels of one age have often
been the aureoled saints of the next. The destroyers of the
old are the creators of the new. (Applause.)
As time sweeps on, the old passes away and the new in its
turn becomes old. There is in the intellectual world, as in
the physical, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of
buried age stand youth and joy. (Applause.)
The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives
of infidels. Political rights have been preserved by traitors;
liberty of mind by heretics. (Applause.)
To attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest was
blasphemy. For many centuries the sword and the cross
were allies. Together they attacked the rights of man. They
defended each other. The throne and the altar were twins—
two vultures from the same egg. (Applause.)
James I. said, “No Bishop, no King.” He might have
added, No cross, no crown. The king owned the bodies of
men; the priest the souls. One lived on taxes collected by
force, the other on alms collected by fear. Both robbers—
both beggars.
These robbers and these beggars controlled two worlds.
The king made laws, the priest made creeds. Both obtained
their authority from God; both were the agents of the
infinite. With bowed backs the people carried the burdens
of the one, and with Wonder’s open mouth received the
dogmas of the other. If the people aspired to be free, they
were crushed by the king; and every priest was a Herod
who slaughtered the children of the brain. (Applause)
�( 4 )
The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and each sup
ported the other. The king said to the people, “ God made
you peasants, and he made me to be king; he made you to
labor and me to enjoy; he made rags and hovels for you,
robes and palaces for me. He made you to obey, and me to
command. Such is the justice of God.” And the priest
said, “ God made you ignorant and vile; he made me holy
and wise. You are the sheep and I am the shepherd; your
fleeces belong to me. If you do not obey me here, God will
punish you now and torment you for ever in another world.
Such is the mercy of God. You must not reason. Reason
is a rebel. You must not contradict; contradiction is born
of egotism. You must believe. ‘ He that hath ears to ear,
let him hear.’ Heaven is a question of ears.” (Laughter
and applause.)
Fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there have
been heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, investigators, lovers of
liberty, men of genius, who have given theii’ lives to better
the condition of their fellow-men.
It may be well enough here to ask the question, “ What is
greatness ?” A great man adds to the sum of knowledge,
extends the horizon of thought, releases souls from the
Bastille of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious seas, gives
new islands and new continents to the domain of thought,
new constellations to the firmament of mind. A great man
does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks
the road to happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to
others. (Applause.)
A great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine are
sometimes changed to men. (Applause.) If the great men
had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be bar
barians now. (Applause.)
A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in super
stition’s night, an inspiration and a prophecy. Greatness is
�( 5 )
not the gift of majorities; it cannot be thrust upon any man;
men cannot give it to another; they can give place and
power, but not greatness. The place does not make the
man nor the sceptre the king. Greatness is from within.
(Applause.)
The great men are the heroes who have freed the bodies
of men; they are the philosophers and thinkers who have
given liberty to the soul; they are the poets who have trans
figured the common, and filled the lives of many millions
with love and song. (Great applause.) They are the artists
who have covered the bare walls of weary life with triumphs
of genius. They are the heroes who have slain the monsters
of ignorance and fear, who have outgazed the Gorgon and
driven the cruel gods from their thrones. They are the
inventors, the discoverers, the great mechanics, the kings of
the useful who have civilised this world. (Applause.)
At the head of this heroic army—foremost of all—stands
Voltaire, whose memory we are honoring to-night. (Great
applause.) Voltaire! A name that excites the admiration
of men, the malignity of priests. Pronounce that name in
the presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have
made a declaration of war. Pronounce that name, and from
the face of the priest the mask of meekness will fall, and from
the mouth of forgiveness will pour a Niagara of vituperation
and calumny. And yet Voltaire was the greatest man of his
century, and did more for the human race than any other of
the sons of men.
VOLTAIRE COMES TO “THIS GREAT STAGE OE TOOLS.”
On Sunday, Nov. 21, 1694, a babe was born—a babe exceed
ingly frail, whose breath hesitated about remaining. This
babe became the greatest man of the eighteenth century.
When Voltaire came to “this great stage of fools,” his
country had been Christianised—not civilised—for about
fourteen hundred years. For a thousand years the religion of
�( 6 )
peace and goodwill had been supreme. The laws had been
given by Christian kings and sanctioned by “ wise and holy
men.” (Laughter.)
Under the benign reign of universal love, every court had
its chamber of torture, and every priest relied on the thumb
screw and rack. (Laughter and applause.) Such had been
the success of the blessed gospel that every science was an
outcast. To speak your honest thoughts, to teach your
fellow men, to investigate for yourself, to seek the truth—
these were all crimes; and the “ Holy Mother Church ”
pursued the criminals with sword and flame. (Great
applause.)
The believers in a God of love—an infinite father—punished
hundreds of offences with torture and death. Suspected
persons were tortured to make them confess. Convicted
persons were tortured to make them give the names of their
accomplices. Under the leadership of the Church, cruelty
had become the only reforming power. In this blessed year
1694 all authors were at the mercy of king and priest. The
most of them were cast into prisons, impoverished by fines
and costs, exiled or executed. The little timejthat hangmen
could snatch from professional duties was occupied in
burning books. (Laughter and applause.) The courts of
justice were traps in which the innocent were caught. The
judges were almost as malicious and cruel as though they
had been bishops or saints. There was no trial by jury, and
the rules of evidence allowed the conviction of the supposed
criminal by the proof of suspicion or hearsay. The witnesses,
being liable to be tortured, generally told what the judges
wished to hear. (Laughter.)
ALMOST UNIVERSAL CORRUPTION.
When Voltaire was born, the Church ruled and owned
France. It was a period of almost universal corruption. The
priests were mostly libertines, the judges cruel and venal.
�( 7 )
The royal palace was a house of prostitution. The nobles
were heartless, arrogant, proud, and cruel to the last degree.
The common people were treated as beasts. It took the
Church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition
of things. (Applause and laughter.)
The seeds of the Revolution were being scattered uncon
sciously by every noble and by every priest. They were
germinating slowly in the hearts of the wretched ; they were
being watered by the tears of agony ; blows began to bear
interest. There was a faint longing for blood. Workmen,
blackened by the sun, bowed by labor, deformed by want,
looked at the white throats of scornful ladies and thought
about cutting them. In those days, witnesses were crossexamined with instruments of torture ; the Church was the
arsenal of superstition; miracles, relics, angels and devils
were as common as lies.
Voltaire was of the people. In the language of that day,
he had no ancestors. His real name was François Marie
Arouet. His mother was Marguerite d’Aumard. This
mother died when he was seven years of age. He had an
elder brother, Armand, who was a devotee, very religious,
and exceedingly disagreeable. This elder brother used to
present offerings to the Church, hoping to make amends for
the unbelief of his brother. So far as we know, none of his
ancestors were literary people. The Arouets had never
written a line. The Abbé de Chaulieu was his godfather,
and, although an abbé, was a Deist who cared nothing about
his religion except in connection with his salary. (Laughter.)
Voltaire’s father wanted to make a lawyer of him, but he
had no taste for law. At the age of ten he entered the
College of Louis le Grand. This was a Jesuit school, and
here he remained for seven years, leaving at seventeen, and
never attending any other school. According to Voltaire,
�he learned nothing at this school but a little Greek, a good
deal of Latin, and a vast amount of nonsense.
TORTURE BEHIND THE CREED.
In this College of Louis le Grand they did not teach geo
graphy, history, mathematics, or any science. This was a
Catholic institution, controlled by the Jesuits. In that day
the religion was defended, was protected, or supported by
the State. Behind the entire creed was the bayonet, the
axe, the wheel, the faggot, and the torture-chamber. While
Voltaire was attending the College of Louis le Grand, the
soldiers of the king were hunting Protestants in the moun
tains of Cevennes for magistrates to hang on gibbets, to put
to torture, to break on the wheel, or to burn at the stake.
There is but one use for law, but one excuse for govern
ment—the preservation of liberty, to give to each man his
own ; to secure to the farmer what he produces from the
soil, to the mechanic what he invents and makes, to the
artist what he creates, to the thinker the right to express his
thoughts. Liberty is the breath of progress. In France the
people were the sport of a king’s caprice. Everywhere was
the shadow of the Bastille. It fell upon the sunniest field,
upon the happiest home. With the king walked the heads
man, and back of the throne was the torture-chamber. The
Church appealed to the rack; faith relied on the faggot.
Science was an outcast, and philosophy, so-called, was the
pander of superstition. Nobles and priests were sacred;
peasants were vermin. Idleness sat at the banquet, and
industry gathered the crusts and crumbs. (Applause.)
At seventeen Voltaire determined to devote his life to
literature. The father said, speaking of his two sons Armand
and François : “ I have a pair of fools for sons, one in verse,
the other in prose.” (Laughter and applause.) In 1713,
Voltaire in a small way became a diplomat. He went to the
�( 9 )
Hague attached to the French Minister. There he fell in
love. The girl’s mother objected. Voltaire sent his clothes
to the young lady that she might visit him. Everything was
discovered and he was dismissed. To this girl he wrote a
letter, and in it you will find the key-note of Voltaire :
“ Do not expose yourself to the fury of your mother. You
know what she is capable of. You have experienced it too
well. Dissemble; it is your only chance. Tell her that you
have forgotten me, that you hate me. Then, after telling
her, love me all the more.”
On account of this episode, Voltaire was formally disin
herited by his father, who procured an order of arrest and
gave his son the choice of going to prison or beyond the seas.
Voltaire finally consented to become a lawyer, and says: “I
have already been a week at work in the office of a solicitor,
learning the trade of a pettifogger.” (Laughter.) About
this time he competed for a prize, writing a poem on the
king’s generosity in building the new choir in the Oathedral
of Notre Dame. He did not win it. After being with the
solicitor but a little while, he learnt to hate the law. He
began to write poetry and the outlines of tragedy. Great
questions were then agitating the public mind—questions
that throw a flood of light upon this epoch.
IN PRISON NOT KNOWING WHY.
Louis XIV. having died, the Regent took possession, and
then the prisons were opened. The Regent called for a list
of all persons then in the prisons sent there at the will of the
king, and he found that, as to many prisoners, nobody knew
any cause Why they had been in prison. They had been for
gotten. Many of the prisoners did not know themselves, and
could not guess why they had been arrested. One Italian had
been in the Bastille thirty-three years without ever knowing
why. On his arrival in Paris thirty-three years before, he was
�( 10 )
arrested and sent to prison. He had grown old. He had
survived his family and friends. When the rest were liberated,
he asked to remain where he was, and lived there the rest of
his life. The old prisoners were pardoned, but in a little while
their places were taken by new ones. At this time Voltaire
was not interested in the great world—knew very little of
religion or of government. He was busy writing poetry,
busy thinking of comedies and tragedies. He was full
of life. All his fancies were winged like moths. He was
charged with having written some cutting epigrams. He
was exiled to Tulle, three hundred miles away. From this
place he wrote in the true vein : “ I am at a chateau, a place
that would be the most agreeable in the world if I had not
been exiled to it, and where there is nothing wanting to my
perfect happiness except the liberty of leaving. It would be
delicious to remain if I only were allowed to go.” At last
the exile was allowed to return. Again he was arrested;
this time sent to the ¡Bastille, where he remained for nearly
a year. While in prison he changed his name from Francois
Marie Arouet to Voltaire, and by that name he has since been
known. Voltaire began to think, to doubt, to inquire. He
studied the history of the Church and of the creed. He found
that the religion of his time rested on the inspiration of the
scriptures—the infallibility of the Church—the dreams of
insane hermits—the absurdities of the fathers—the mistakes
and falsehoods of saints—the hysteria of nuns—the cunning
of priests and the stupidity of the people. He found that the
Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power,
murdered his wife Fausta and his eldest son Crispus the
same year that he convened the Council of Nice to decide
whether Christ was a man or the son of God. The Council
decided in the year 325, that Christ was consubstantial with
the Father. He found that the Church was indebted to a
husband who assassinated his wife—a father who murdered
�( 11 )
his son—for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the
Savior. He found that Theodosius called a council at Con
stantinople m 381 by which it was decided that the Holy Ghost
proceeded from the Father—that Theodosius, the younger,
assembled a council at Ephesus in 431 that declared the Virgin
Mary to be the mother of God—that the Emperor Marcian
called another council at Ohalcedon in 451 that decided that
Christ had two wills — that Pognatius called another
in 680, that declared that Christ had two natu'res to go with
his two wills—and that in 1274, at the Council of Lyons, the
important fact was found that the Holy Ghost “ proceeded ”
not only from the Father,, but also from the Son at the same
time. (Laughter and applause.)
WHAT THE GREAT EBENCHMAN MOCKED.
So Voltaire has been called a mocker ! What did he mopk P
He mocked kings that were unjust ; kings who cared nothing
for the sufferings of their subjects. He mocked the titled
fools of his day. He mocked the corruption of courts; the
meanness, the tyranny, and the brutality of judges. He
mocked the absurd and cruel laws, the barbarous customs.
He mocked popes and cardinals, bishops and priests, and all
the hypocrites on the earth. He mocked historians who filled
their books with lies, and philosophers who defended super
stition. He mocked the haters of liberty, the persecutors of
their fellow men. He mocked the arrogance, the cruelty the impudence, and the unspeakable baseness of his time.
(Applause.)
He has been blamed because he used the weapon of ridicule.
Hypocrisy has always hated laughter, and always will. Ab
surdity detests humor and stupidity despises wit. Voltaire
was the master of ridicule. He ridiculed the absurd, the
impossible. He ridiculed the mythologies and the miracles,
the stupid lives and lies of saints. He found pretence and
�( 12 )
mendacity crowned by credulity. He found the ignorant
many controlled by the cunning and cruel few. He found the
historian, saturated with superstition, filling his volumes with
the details of the impossible, and he found the scientists
satisfied with “ they say.” (Laughter.) Voltaire had the
instinct of the probable. He knew the law of average; the
sea level; he had the idea of proportion, and so he ridiculed
the mental monstrosities—the non sequiturs—of his day.
Aristotle said women had more teeth than men. This was
repeated again and again by the Catholic scientists of the
eighteenth century. Voltaire counted the teeth. The rest
were satisfied with “ they say.” (Laughter.)
THE APOSTLE OE COMMON SENSE.
We may, however, get an idea of the condition of France
from the fact that Voltaire regarded England as the land of
liberty. While he was in England he saw the body of Sir
Isaac Newton deposited in Westminster Abbey. He read the
works of this great man and afterwards gave to France the
philosophy of this great Englishman. (Applause.) Voltaire
was the apostle of common sense. He knew that there could
have been no primitive or first language from which all
human languages had been formed. He knew that every
language had been influenced by the surroundings of the
people. He knew that the language of snow and ice was not
the language of palm and flower. (Applause.) He knew also
that there had been no miracle in language. He knew it was
impossible that the story of the Tower of Babel should be
true. That everything in the whole world should be natural.
He was the enemy of alchemy, not only in language but in
science. One passage from him is enough to show his philo
sophy in this regard. He says: “To transmute iron into
gold two things are necessary. First, the annihilation of
iron; second, the creation of gold.” Voltaire was a man of
�( 13 )
humor, of good nature, of cheerfulness. He despised with
all his heart the philosophy of Calvin, the creed of the sombre,
of the severe, of the unnatural. He pitied those who needed
the aid of religion to be honest, to be cheerful. He had
the courage to enjoy the present and the philosophy to bear
what the future might bring. And yet for more than a
hundred and fifty years the Christian world has fought this
man and has maligned his memory. In every Christian
pulpit his name has been pronounced with scorn, and every
pulpit has been an arsenal of slander. He is one man of
whom no orthodox minister has ever told the truth. He has
been denounced equally by Catholics and Protestants.
Priests and ministers, bishops and exhorters, presiding
elders and popes have filled the world with slanders, with
calumnies about Voltaire. I am amazed that ministers will
not or cannot tell the truth about an enemy of the church.
As a matter of fact, for more than one thousand years
almost every pulpit has been a mint in which slanders were
coined.
PILLED EUROPE WITH HIS THOUGHTS.
For many years this restless man filled Europe with the
products of his brain. Essays, epigrams, epics, comedies,
tragedies, histories, poems, novels, representing every phase
and every faculty of the human mind. At the same time
engrossed in business, full of speculation, making money like
a millionaire, busy with the gossip of courts, and even with
scandals of priests. At the same time alive to all the dis
coveries of science and the theories of philosophers, and in
this babel never forgetting for a moment to assail the monster
of superstition. Sleeping and waking he hated the Church.
With the eyes of Argus he watched, and with the arms of
Briareius he struck. For sixty years he waged continuous
and unrelenting war, sometimes in the open field, sometimes
striking from the hedges of opportunity, taking care during
�( 14 )
all this time to remain independent of all men. He was in
the highest sense successful. He lived like a prince, became
one of the powers of Europe, and in him, for the first time,
literature was crowned. (Applause.) Voltaire, in spite of
his surroundings, in spite of almost universal tyranny and
oppression, was a believer in God and in what he was pleased
to call the religion of nature. He attacked the creed of his
time because it was dishonorable to his God. He thought of
the Deity as a father, as the fountain of justice, intelligence,
and mercy, and the creed of the Catholic Church made him a
monster of cruelty and stupidity. He attacked the Bible
with all the weapons at his command. He assailed its
geology, its astronomy, its idea of justice, its laws and cus
toms, its absurd and useless miracles, its foolish wonders, its
ignorance on all subjects, its insane prophecies, its cruel
threats, and its extravagant promises. At the same time he
praised the God of nature, the God who gives us rain and
light, and food and flowers, and health and happiness—
he who fills the world with youth and beauty. (Applause.)
LISBON EARTHQUAKE CHANGES VOLTAIRE.
In 1755 came the earthquake of Lisbon. This frightful
disaster became an immense interrogation. The optimist
was compelled to ask, “ What was my God doing? Why did
the Universal Father crush to shapelessness thousands of his
poor children, even at the moment when they were upon their
knees returning thanks to him ?” What could be done with
this horror P If earthquake there must be, why did it not
occur in some uninhabited desert, on some wide waste of
sea ? This frightful fact changed the theology of Voltaire.
He became convinced that this is not the best possible of all
worlds. He became convinced that evil is evil here now and
for ever. (Applause.)
Who can establish the existence of an infinite being ? It
is beyond the conception—the reason—the imagination of
�( 15 )
man—probably or possibly—where the zenith and nadir meet
this God can be found. (Applause.)
Voltaire, attacked on every side, fought with every weapon
that wit, logic, reason, scorn, contempt, laughter, pathos, and
indignation could sharpen, form, devise, or use. He often
apologised, and the apology was an insult. He often recanted,
and the recantation was a thousand times worse than the
thing recanted. He took it back by giving more. In the
name of eulogy he flayed his victim. In his praise there was
poison. He often advanced by retreating, and asserted by
retraction. He did not intend to give priests the satisfaction
of seeing him burn or suffer. Upon this very point of
recanting he wrote:
“ They say I must retract. Very willingly. I will declare
that Pascal is always right. That if St. Luke and St. Mark
contradict one another it is only anothei’ proof of the truth
of religion to those who know how to understand such things ;
and that another lovely proof of religion is that it is unintel
ligible. I will even avow that all priests are gentle and dis
interested; that Jesuits are honest people; that monks are
neither proud nor given to intrigue, and that their odor is
agreeable; that the Holy Inquisition is the triumph of
humanity and tolerance. In a word, I will say all that may
be desired of me, provided they leave me in repose, and wi’l
not prosecute a man who has done harm to none.”
He gave the best years of his wonderous life to succor
the oppressed, to shield the defenceless, to reverse infamous
decrees, to rescue the innocent, to reform the laws of France,
to do way with torture, to soften the hearts of priests,
to enlighten judges, to instruct kings, to civilise the people,
and to banish from the heart of man the love and lust
of war. (Applause.)
THE RELIGION OP HUMANITY.
Voltaire was not a saint.
He was educated by the
�( IB )
Jesuits. He was never troubled about the salvation of
his soul. All the theological disputes excited his laughter,
the creeds his pity, and the conduct of bigots his contempt.
He was much better than a saint. (Applause.) Most of
the Christians in his day kept their religion not for everyday
use but for disaster, as ships carry lifeboats to be used
only in the stress of storm. (Applause.)
Voltaire believed in the religion of humanity—of good
and generous deeds. For many centuries the Church had
painted virtue so ugly, sour, and cold, that vice was regarded
as beautiful. Voltaire taught the beauty of the useful,
the hatefulness and hideousness of superstition. He was
not the greatest of poets, or of dramatists, but he was the
greatest man in his time, the greatest friend of freedom,
and the deadliest foe of superstition.
(Applause.) He
wrote the best French plays—but they were not wonderful.
He wrote verses polished and perfect in their way. He
filled the air with painted moths—but not with Shakespeare
eagles.
You may think that I have said too much; that I have
placed this man too high. Let me tell you what Goethe,
the great German, said of this man: “ If you wish depth,
genius, imagination, taste, reason, sensibility, philosophy,
elevation, originality, nature, intellect, fancy, rectitude,
facility, flexibility, precision, art, abundance, variety, fertility,
warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle sweep of
vision, vast understanding, instruction rich, tone excellent,
urbanity, suavity, delicacy, correctness, purity, cleanliness,
eloquence, harmony, brilliancy, rapidity, gaiety, pathos,
sublimity, and universality, perfection indeed, behold
Voltaire.” (Applause.)
Even Carlyle, that old Scotch-terrier, with the growl
of a grizzly bear, who attacked shams, as I have sometimes
thought, because he hated rivals, was forced to admit that
�( 17 )
Voltaire gave the death-stab to modern superstition. It
was the hand of Voltaire that sowed the seeds of liberty
in the heart and brain of Franklin, of Jefferson, and of
Thomas Paine. (Applause.)
IN IGNORANT TOULOUSE.
Toulouse was a favored town. It was rich in relics.
The people were as ignorant as wooden images—(laughter)—
but they had in their possession the dried bones of seven
apostles—the bones of many of the infants slain by Herod—
part of a dress of the Virgin Mary, and lots of skulls and
skeletons of the infallible idiots known as saints. (Laughter
and applause.)
In this city the people celebrated every year with great
joy two holy events: The expulsion of the Huguenots and
the blessed massacre of Sb. Bartholomew. (Laughter.) The
citizens of Toulouse had been educated and civilised by
the Church. (Laughter.) A few Protestants, mild because
they were in the minority, lived among these jackals and
tigers. One of these Protestants was Jean Galas—a small
dealer in dry goods. For forty years he had been in this
business, and his character was without a stain. He was
honest, kind and agreeable. He had a wife and six children—
four sons and two daughters. One of his sons became a Catholic.
The eldest son, Marc Antoine, disliked his father’s business
and studied law. He could not be allowed to practise unless
he became a Catholic. He tried to get his license by conceal
ing that he was a Protestant. He was discovered—grew
morose. Finally he became discouraged and committed
suicide by hanging himself in his father’s store. The bigots
of Toulouse started the story that his parents had killed him
to prevent his becoming a Catholic. On this frightful charge
the father, mother, one son, one servant, and one guest at
their house were arrested. The dead son was considered a
B
�( 18 )
martyr, the Church taking possession of the body. This hap
pened in 1761. There was what was called a trial. There was
no evidence, not the slightest, except hearsay. All the facts
were in favor of the accused. The united strength of the
defendants could not have done the deed.
DOOMED TO DEATH UPON THE WHEEL.
Jean Calas was doomed to torture and to ^death upon the
wheel. This was on March 9, 1762, and the sentence was to
be carried out the next day. On the morning of the 10th the
father was to be taken to the toi’ture-room. The executioner
and his assistants were sworn on the cross to administer the
torture according to the judgment of the court. They bound
him by the wrists to an iron ring in the stone wall four feet
from the ground, and his feet to another ring in the floor.
Then they shortened the l’opes and chains until every joint
in his arms and legs were dislocated. Then he was ques
tioned. He declared that he was innocent. Then the ropes
were again shortened until life fluttered in the torn body;
but he remained firm. This was called the question ordinaire.
(Laughter.) Again the magistrates exhorted the victim to
confess, and again he refused, saying there was nothing to
confess. Then came the question extraordinaire. (Laughter.)
Into the mouth of the victim was placed a horn holding three
pints of water. In this way thirty pints of water were forced
into the body of the sufferer. The pain was beyond descrip
tion, and yet Jean Calas remained firm. He was then carried
to the scaffold in a tumbril. He was bound to a wooden cross
that lay on the scaffold. The executioner then took a bar of
iron, broke each arm and leg in two places, striking eleven
blows in all. He was then left to die if he could. He lived
for two hours, declaring his innocence to the last. He was
slow to die, and so the executioner strangled him. Then his
poor lacerated, bleeding and broken body was chained to a
�( 19 )
y
stake and burned. All this was a spectacle—a festival for
the savages of Toulouse. What would they have done if their
hearts had not been softened by the glad tidings of great joy,
peace on earth, goodwill to men ? (Laughter and applause.)
But this was not all. The property of the family was con
fiscated ; the son was released on condition that he became a
Catholic; the servant if she would enter a convent. The two
daughters were consigned to a convent, and the heart-broken
widow was allowed to wander where she would.
Voltaire heard of this case. In a moment his soul was on
fire. He took one of the sons under his roof. He wrote a
history of the case; he corresponded with Kings and Queens,
with chancellors and lawyers. If money was needed he
advanced it. For years he filled Europe with the echoes and
the groans of Jean Calas. He succeeded. The horrible judg
ment was annulled, the poor victim declared innocent and
thousands of dollars raised to support the mother and family.
(Applause.) This was the work of Voltaire.
Sirven, a Protestant, lived in Languedoc with his wife and
three daughters. The housekeeper of the Bishop wanted to
make one of the daughters a Catholic. The law allowed the
Bishop to take the child of Protestants from its parents for
the sake of its soul. This little girl was so taken and placed
in a convent. She ran away and came back to her parents.
Her poor little body was covered with marks of the convent
whip. “ Suffer little children to come unto me.” (Laughter
and applause.) The child was out of her mind. Suddenly
she disappeared, and a few days after her little body was
found in a well, three miles from home. The cry was raised
that her folks had murdered her to keep her from becoming
a Catholic. This happened only a little way from the
Christian city of Toulouse while Jean Calas was in prison.
The Sirvens knew that a trial would end in conviction. They
fled. In their absence they were convicted, theii’ property
�( 20 )
confiscated, the parents sentenced to die by the hangman,
the daughters to be under the gallows during the execution
of their mother, and then to be exiled. The family fled in
the midst of winter; the married daughter gave birth to a
child in the snows of the Alps; the mother died, and at last
the father, reaching Switzerland, found himself without
means of support. They went to Voltaire; he espoused their
cause; he took care of them, gave them the means to live,
and labored to annul the sentence that had been pronounced
against them for nine long and weary years. He appealed
to kings for money, to Catherine II. of Russia, and to
hundreds of others. He was successful. He said of this
case: The Sirvens were tried and condemned in two hours
in January, 1762; and now in January, 1772, after ten years
of effort, they have been restored to their rights. (Applause.)
This was the work of Voltaire. Why should the wor
shippers of God hate the lovers of men ? (Applause.)
THE ESPENASSE CASE.
Espenasse was a Protestant of good estate. In 1740 he
received into his house a Protestant clergyman, to whom he
gave supper and lodging. In a country where priests
repeated the parable of the “ Good Samaritan ” this was a
crime. (Laughter.) For this crime Espenasse was tried,
convicted, and sentenced to the galleys for life. When he
had been imprisoned for twenty-three years his case came
to the knowledge of Voltaire, and he was, through the
efforts of Voltaire, released and restored to his family,
(Applause.)
This was the work of Voltaire. There is not time to tell
of the case of General Lally, of the English General Byng,
of the niece of Corneille, of the Jesuit Adam, of the writers,
dramatists, actors, widows, and orphans for whose benefit he
gave his influence, his money, and his time.
But I will tell another case. In 1765, at the town of Abbe-
�( 21 )
ville, an old wooden cross on a bridge had been mutilated—
whittled with a knife—a terrible crime. (Laughter.) Sticks,
when crossing each other, were far more sacred than flesh
and blood. Two young men were suspected-—the Chevalier
de la Barre and d’Etallonde. D’Etallonde fled to Prussia and
enlisted as a common soldier.
La Barre remained and stood his trial. He was convicted
without the slightest evidence, and he and D’Etallonde were
both sentenced : First, to endure the torture, ordinary and
extraordinary; second, to have their tongues torn out by the
roots with pincers of iron; third, to have their right hands
cut off at the door of the church; and fourth, to be bound to
stakes by chains of iron and burned to death by a slow fire.
“ Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against ils.” (Laughter.) Remembering this, the judges
mitigated the sentence by providing that their heads should
be cut off before their bodies were given to the flames.
(Laughter.) The case was appealed to Paris; heard by a
court composed of twenty-five judges learned in law, and
the judgment was confirmed. The sentence was carried out
the 1st day of July, 1776.
WITH EVERY WEAPON OP GENIUS.
L
Voltaire had fought with every weapon that genius could
devise or use. He was the greatest of all caricaturists, and
he used this wonderful gift without mercy. Foi’ pure crystal
lised wit he had no equal. The art of flattery was carried by
him to the height of an exact science. He knew and practised
every subterfuge. He fought the army of hypocrisy and
pretence, the army of faith and falsehood. Voltaire was
annoyed by the meaner and baser spirits of his time, by the
cringers and crawlers, by the fawners and pretenders, by
those who wished to gain the favor of the priests, the
patronage of nobles. Sometimes he allowed himself to be
annoyed by these scorpions; sometimes he attacked them.
�( 22 )
And but for these attacks, long ago they would have been
forgotten. In the amber of his genius Voltaire preserved
these insects, these tarantulas, these scorpions. (Applause.)
It is fashionable to say that he was not profound. This
is because he was not stupid. In the presence of absurdity
he laughed, and was called irreverent. He thought God
would not damn even a priest forever. (Laughter.) This
was regarded as blasphemy. He endeavored to prevent
Christians from murdering each other, and did what he
could to civilise the disciples of Christ. (Laughter.) Had
he founded a sect, obtained control of some country, and
burned a few heretics at slow fires, he would have won
the admiration, respect, and love of the Christian world.
Had he only pretended to believe all the fables of antiquity,
had he mumbled Latin prayers, counted beads, crossed
himself, devoured now and then the flesh of God, and
carried faggots to the feet of Philosophy in the name of
Christ, he might have been in heaven this moment enjoying
a sight of the damned. (Laughter and applause.)
If he had only adopted the creed of his time—if he had
asserted that a God of infinite power and mercy had created
millions and billions of human beings to suffer eternal
pain, and all for the sake of his glorious justice—(laughter)—
that he had given his power of attorney to a cunning
and cruel Italian Pope, authorising him to save the soul
of his mistress and send honest wives to hell—if he had
given to the nostrils of this God the odor of burning
flesh—the incense of the faggot—if he had filled his ears
with the shrieks of the tortured—the music of the rack,
he would now be known as St. Voltaire. (Laughter and
applause.)
ALL RELIGIONS PRACTISE PERSECUTION.
Instead of doing these things he wilfully closed his eyes to
the light of the gospel, examined the Bible for himself,
�( 23 )
advocated intellectual liberty, struck from the brain the
fetters of an arrogant faith, assisted the weak, cried out
against the torture of man, appealed to reason, endeavored
to establish universal toleration, succored the indigent, and
defended the oppressed. (Applause.) He demonstrated that
the origin of all religions is the same, the same mysteries—
the same miracles—the same imposture—the same temples
and ceremonies—the same kind of founders, apostles and
dupes—the same promises and threats—the same pretence of
goodness and forgiveness and the practice of the same perse
cution and murder. He proved that religion made enemies
—philosophy, friends—and that above the rights of gods
were the rights of man. (Applause.) These were his crimes.
(Laughter.) Such a man God would not suffer to die in
peace. If allowed to meet death with a smile, others might
follow his example, until none would be left to light the holy
fires of the auto da fe. (Laughter.) It would not do for so
great, so successful an enemy of the Church to die without
leaving some shriek of fear, some shudder of remorse, some
ghastly prayer of shattered horror, uttered by lips covered
with blood and foam. For many centuries the theologians
have taught that an unbeliever—an infidel—one who spoke
or wrote against their creed, could not meet death with com
posure ; that in his last moment God would fill his conscience
with the serpents of remorse. For a thousand years the
clergy have manufactured the facts to fit this theory—this
infamous conception of the duty of man and the justice of
God. (Applause.) The theologians have insisted that crimes
against men were, and are, as nothing compared with crimes
against God. That, while kings and priestB did nothing
worse than to make their fellows wretched, that so long as
they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless,
God would maintain the strictest neutrality—(laughter)—but
when some honest man, some great and tender soul, expressed
�a doubt as to the truth of the scriptures, or prayed to the
wrong God, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the
real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and
from his quiver-flesh tore his wretched soul. (Applause.)
CRUELTIES IN THE WORLD.
There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of
murder has been paralysed—no truthful account in all the
literature of the world of the innocent child being shielded
by God. Thousands of crimes are committed every day
men are at this moment lying in wait for their human prey
—wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and
death—little children begging for mercy, lifting imploring,
tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers—
sweet girls are deceived, lured and outraged, but God has no
time to prevent these things—no time to defend the good and
protect the pure. He is too busy numbering hairs and
watching sparrows. (Laughter.) He listens for blasphemy;
looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines baptismal
registers; watches professors in college who begin to doubt
the geology of Moses and the astronomy of Joshua. (Laughter
and applause.) He does not particularly object to stealing
if you don’t swear. (Laughter.)
A great many persons have fallen dead in the act of taking
God’s name in vain, but millions of men, women and children
have been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of
burden, but no one engaged in this infamy has ever been
touched by the wrathful hand of God. All kinds of criminals,
except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. As a
rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any
discredit on his profession. (Laughter.) The murderer upon
the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts
the multitude to meet him in heaven. The man who has
succeeded in making his home a hell meets death without a
�( 25 )
quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the
divinity of Christ or the eternal “ procession ” of the Holy
Ghost. (Laughter and applause.)
KILLED E0R SPEAKING THE TRUTH.
Now and then a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual
honesty, has appeared. Such men have denounced the
superstitions of their day. They have pitied the multitude
To see priests devour the substance of the people—priests
who made begging one of the learned professions—filled
them with loathing and contempt. These men were honest
enough to tell their thoughts, brave enough to speak the
truth. Then they were denounced, tried, tortured, killed by
rack or flame. But some escaped the fury of the fiends who
loved their enemies and died naturally ,in their beds. It
would not do for the Church to admit that they died peace
fully. That would never do. That would show that religion
was not essential at the last moment. Superstition gets its
power from the terror of death. It would not do to have the
common people understand that a man could deny the Bible,
refuse to kiss the cross, contend that humanity was greater
than Christ, and then die as sweetly as Torquemada did
after pouring molten lead into the ears of an honest man—
(laughter)—or as calmly as Calvin after he had burned Servetus, or as peacefully as King David after advising, with his
last breath, one son to assassinate another. (Laughter and
applause.)
The Church has taken great pains to show that the last
moments of all infidels (that Christians did not succeed in
burning)—(laughter)—were infinitely wretched and despair
ing. It was alleged that words could not paint the horrors
that were endured by a dying infidel. Every good Christian
was expected to, and generally did, believe these accounts.
(Laughter.) They have been told and retold in every pulpit
�( 26 )
of the world. Protestant ministers have repeated the lies
invented by Catholic priests, and Catholic, by a kind of
theological comity, have sworn to the lies told by the Protes
tants. (Laughter and applause.) Upon this point they
have always stood together, and will as long as the same
falsehood can be used by both. Upon the death-bed subject
the clergy grow eloquent. When describing the shudderings
and shrieks of the dying unbeliever their eyes glitter with
delight. It is a festival. (Laughter.) They are no longer
men; they become hyenas; they dig open graves; they
devour the dead. (Laughter.) It is a banquet. Unsatisfied
still, they paint the terrors of hell. ¿They gaze at the souls
of the infidels writhing in the coils of the worm that never
dies. They see them in flames—in oceans of fire—in abysses
of despair. They shout with joy; they applaud.
“let
me die in peace.”
It is an auto da fe, presided over by God. But let us come
back to Voltaire—to the dying philosopher. He was an old
man of 84. He had been surrounded with the comforts, the
luxuries of life. He was a man of great wealth, the richest
writer that the world bad known. Among the literary men
of the earth he stood first. He was an intellectual monarch
—one who had built his own throne and woven the purple of
his own power. He was a man of genius. The Catholic God
had allowed him the appearance of success. (Laughter.) His
last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery—of
almost worship. He stood at the summit of his age. The
priests became anxious. (Laughter.) They began to fear
that God would forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make
a terrible example of Voltaire. (Laughter and applause.)
Towards the last of May, 1778, it was whispered in Paris that
Voltaire was dying. Upon the fences of expectation gathered
the unclean birds of superstition, impatiently waiting for
�( 27 )
their prey. Two days before his death, his nephew went to
seek the curé of St. Sulplice and the Abbé Gautier, and
brought thorn to his uncle’s sick chamber, who being informed
that they were there, said : “ Ah, well, give them my compli
ments and my thanks.” The abbé spoke some words to him,
exhorting him to patience. The curé of St. Sulplice then
came forward, having announced himself, and asked of
Voltaire, elevating his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity
of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Laughter.) The sick man pushed
one of his hands against the curé’s coif, shoving him back,
and cried, turning abruptly to the other side, “ Let me die in *
peace.” The curé seemingly considered his person soiled and
his coif dishonored by the touch of a philosopher. He made
the nurse give him a little brushing and went out with the
Abbé Gautier. He expired, says Wagniere, on May 30, 1778,
at about a quarter past eleven at night, with the most perfeet
tranquillity. A few moments before his last breath he took
the hand of Morand, his valet de chambre, who was watching
by him« pressed it, and said : “ Adieu, my dear Morand, I am
gone.” These were his last words. Like a peaceful river,
with green and shaded banks, he flowed without a murmur
into the waveless sea, where life is rest. (Applause.)
“ SHAMELESS LIES ” ABOUT HIS DEATH.
From this death, so simple and serere, so kind, so
philosophic and tender, so natural and peaceful ; from these
words so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch, all
the frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances have
been drawn and made. From these materials, and from
these alone, or rather, in spite of these facts, have been
constructed by priests and clergymen and their dupes,
all the shameless lies about the death of that great and
wonderful man. A man, compared with whom all of his
calumniators, dead and living, were, and are, but dust and
�( 28 )
vermin. (Applause.) Let us be honest. Did all the priests
of Rome increase the mental wealth of man as much as
BrunoP Did all the priests of France do as great a work
for the civilisation of the world as Voltaire or Diderot ? Did
all the ministers of Scotland add as much to the sum of
human knowledge as David Hume ? Have all the clergymen,
monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals, and
popes, from the day of Pentecost to the last election, done
as much for human liberty as Thomas Paine ? (Applause.)
What would the world be if infidels had never been P The
infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower
of the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day
of liberty and love; the generous spirits of an unworthy
past; the seers and prophets of our race; the great chivalric
souls, proud victors on the battle-fields of thought, the
creditors of all the years to be. (Applause.)
VOLTAIRE’S SECRET BURIAL.
In those days the philosophers—that is to say, the thinkers
—were not buried in holy ground. It was feared that
their principles might contaminate the ashes of the just.
(Laughter.) And it was also feared that on the morning of
the Resurrection they might, in a moment of confusion, slip
into heaven. (Laughter.) Some were burned and their
ashes scattered, and the bodies of some were thrown naked to
beasts, and others were buried in unholy earth. Voltaire
knew the history of Adrienne De Oouvreur, a beautiful
actress denied burial. After all, we do feel an interest in
what is to become of our bodies. There is a modesty that
belongs to death. Upon this subject Voltaire was very
sensitive, and it was that he might be buried that he went
through the farce of confession, of absolution, and of the last
sacrament. The priests knew that he was not in earnest,
and Voltaire knew that they would not allow him to be
buried in any of the cemeteries of Paris. His death was kept
�( 29 )
a secret. The Abbé Mignot made arrangements for the
burial at Romilli-on-the-Seine, more than one hundred miles
from Paris. Sunday evening, on the last day of May, 177&,
the body of Voltaire, clad in a dressing-gown, clothed to
resemble an invalid, posed to simulate life, was placed in a
carriage ; at its side was a servant, whose business it was to
keep it in position. To this carriage were attached six
horses, so that people might think a great lord was going to
his estates. Another carriage followed, in which were a
grand-nephew and two cousins of Voltaire. All night they
travelled, and on the following day arrived at the court-yard
of the abbey. The necessary papers were shown, the mass
was performed in the presence of the body, and Voltaire
found burial. A few moments afterwards the Prior, who
« for charity had given a little earth,” received from his
bishop a menacing letter forbidding the burial of Voltaire.
It was too late. He could not then be removed, and he was
allowed to remain in peace until 1791.
LABOR AND THOUGHT BECAME FRIENDS.
Voltaire was dead. The foundations of State and throne
had been sapped. The people were becoming acquainted
with the real kings and with the actual priests. Unknown
men born in misery and want, men whose fathers and
mothers had been pavement for the rich, were rising towards
the light and their shadowy faces were emerging from
darkness. Labor and thought became friends. That
is, the gutter and the attic fraternised. The monsters
of the night and the angels of dawn—the first thinking of
revenge and the others dreaming of equality, liberty and
fraternity. (Applause.) For 400 years the Bastille had been
the outward symbol of oppression. Within its walls the
noblest had perished. It was a perpetual threat. It was the
last and often the first argument of king and priest. Its
�( 30 )
dungeons, damp and rayless, its massive towers, its secret
cells, its instruments of torture, denied the existence of God.
In 1789, on the 14th of July, the people, the multitude,
frenzied by suffering, stormed and captured the Bastille.
(Applause.) The battle-cry was “ Vive le Voltaire.” (Ap
plause.)
In 1791 permission was given to place in the Pantheon the
ashes of Voltaire. He had been buried 110 miles from Paris.
Buried by stealth, he was to be removed by a nation. A
funeral procession of a hundred miles; every village with its
flags and arches in his honor; all the people anxious to honor
the philosopher of France—the savior of Calas—the destroyer
of superstition! On reaching Paris the great procession
moved along the B>ue St. Antoine. Here it paused, and for
one night upon the ruins of the Bastille rested the body of
Voltaire—rested in triumph, in glory—rested on fallen wall
and broken arch, on crumbling stone still damp with tears,
on rusting chain, and bar, and useless bolt—above the
dungeons dark and deep, where light had faded from the
lives of men and hope had died in breaking hearts. (Ap
plause.) The conqueror resting upon the conquered. Throned
upon the Bastille, the fallen fortress of night, the body of
Voltaire, from whose brain had issued the dawn. (Applause.)
For a moment his ashes must have felt the Promethean fire,
and the old smile must have illumined once more the face of
the dead. (Applause.)
While the vast multitude were trembling with love and
awe, a priest was heard to cry : “ God shall be avenged 1”
voltaire’s grave violated.'
The grave of Voltaire was violated. The cry of the priest
“ God shall be avenged !” had borne its fruit. Priests, skulking
in the shadows, with faces sinister as night—ghouls—in the
name of the Gospel, desecrated the grave. They carried away
�( 31 )
the body of Voltaire. The tomb was empty. God was
avenged! The tomb is empty, but the world is filled with
Voltaire’s fame. Man has conquered!
What cardinal, what bishop, what priest raised his voice
for the rights of men ? What ecclesiastic, what nobleman,
took the side of the oppressed—of the peasant? Who
denounced the frightful criminal code—the torture of sus
pect ed persons ? What priest pleaded for the liberty of the
citizen? What bishop pitied the victims of the rack? Is
there the grave of a priest in France on which a lover of
liberty would now drop a flower or a tear ? Is there a tomb
holding the ashes of a saint from which emerges one ray of
light ? (Applause.) If there be another life, a day of judg
ment, no God can afford to torture in anothei’ world a man
who abolished torture in this. (Applause.) If God be the
keeper of an eternal penitentiary—(laughter)—he should not
imprison there those who broke the chains of slavery here.
(Applause.) He cannot afford to make eternal convicts of
Franklin, of Jefferson, of Paine, of Voltaire. (Applause.)
PERFECT EQUIPMENT FOR HIS WORK.
Voltaire was perfectly equipped for his work. A perfect
master of the French language, knowing all its moods,
tens es, and declinations—in fact and in feeling playing upon
it as skilfully as Paganini on his violin, finding expression
for every thought and fancy, writing on the most serious
subjects with the gaiety of a harlequin, plucking jests from
the mouth of death, graceful as the waving of willows,
dealing in double meanings that covered the asp with
flowers and flattery, master of satire and compliment,
mingling them often in the same line, always interested
himself, therefore interesting others, handling thoughts,
questions, subjects as a juggler does balls, keeping them in
the air with perfect ease, dressing old words in new meanings,
�( 32 )
charming, grotesque, pathetic, mingling mirth with tears,
wit and wisdom, and sometimes wickedness, logic and
laughter. (Applause.) With a woman’s instinct, knowing
the sensitive nerves—just where to touch—hating arrogance
of place, the stupidity of the solemn, snatching masks from
priest and king, knowing the springs of action and ambi
tion s ends, perfectly familiar with the great world, the inti
mate of kings and their favorites, sympathising with the
oppressed and imprisoned, with the unfortunate and poor,
hating tyranny, despising superstition, and loving liberty
with all his heart. Such was Voltaire writing “ CEdipus ” at
seventeen, “ Irene ” at eighty-three, and crowding between
these two tragedies the accomplishment of a thousand lives
(Long-continued applause.)
Printed and Published by G-. W. Foote, at 28 Stonecutter-street,
London, E.C.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Oration on Voltaire
Creator
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Lecture delivered before the Chicago Press Club on 8 October [189?]. Printed and published by G.W. Foote. No. 88d in Stein checklist. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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R. Forder
Date
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1892
Identifier
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N381
Subject
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Voltaire
Philosophy
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Oration on Voltaire), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
French Philosophy
NSS
Philosophers-France
Voltaire