The Philosophy of Voltaire - Collected Works: Treatise On Tolerance, Philosophical Dictionary, Candide, Letters on England, Plato's Dream, Dialogues, The Study of Nature, Ancient Faith and Fable…. Вольтер
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who sometimes possessed a conscience tender and enlightened, at others hardened and dark.
When he has it in his power to assassinate his king in a cavern, he scruples going beyond cutting off a corner of his robe—here is the tender conscience. He passes an entire year without feeling the slightest compunction for his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah—here is the same conscience in a state of obduracy and darkness.
Such, says the preacher, are the greater number of mankind. We concede to this clergyman that the great ones of the world are very often in this state; the torrent of pleasures and affairs urges them almost irresistibly on; they have no time to keep a conscience. Conscience is proper enough for the people; but even the people dispense with it, when the question is how to gain money. It is judicious, however, at times, to endeavor to awaken conscience both in mantua-makers and in monarchs, by the inculcation of a morality calculated to make an impression upon both; but, in order to make this impression, it is necessary to preach better than modern preachers usually do, who seldom talk effectively to either.
Liberty of Conscience.
Translated from the German.
*We do not adopt the whole of the following article; but, as it contains some truths, we did not consider ourselves obliged to omit it; and we do not feel ourselves called upon to justify what may be advanced in it with too great rashness or severity.—Author.
"The almoner of Prince ——, who is a Roman Catholic, threatened an anabaptist that he would get him banished from the small estates which the prince governed. He told him that there were only three authorized sects in the empire—that which eats Jesus Christ, by faith alone, in a morsel of bread, while drinking out of a cup; that which eats Jesus Christ with bread alone; and that which eats Jesus Christ in body and in soul, without either bread or wine; and that as for the anabaptist who does not in any way eat God, he was not fit to live in monseigneur's territory. At last, the conversation kindling into greater violence, the almoner fiercely threatened the anabaptist that he would get him hanged. 'So much the worse for his highness,' replied the anabaptist; 'I am a large manufacturer; I employ two hundred workmen; I occasion the influx of two hundred thousand crowns a year into his territories; my family will go and settle somewhere else; monseigneur will in consequence be a loser.'
"'But suppose monseigneur hangs up your two hundred workmen and your family,' rejoined the almoner, 'and gives your manufactory to good Catholics?'
"'I defy him to do it,' says the old gentleman. 'A manufactory is not to be given like a farm; because industry cannot be given. It would be more silly for him to act so than to order all his horses to be killed, because, being a bad horseman, one may have thrown him off his back. The interest of monseigneur does not consist in my swallowing the godhead in a wafer, but in my procuring something to eat for his subjects, and increasing the revenues by my industry. I am a gentleman; and although I had the misfortune not to be born such, my occupation would compel me to become one; for mercantile transactions are of a very different nature from those of a court, and from your own. There can be no success in them without probity. Of what consequence is it to you that I was baptized at what is called the age of discretion, and you while you were an infant? Of what consequence is it to you that I worship God after the manner of my fathers? Were you able to follow up your wise maxims, from one end of the world to the other, you will hang up the Greek, who does not believe that the spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; all the English, all the Hollanders, Danes, Swedes, Icelanders, Prussians, Hanoverians, Saxons, Holsteiners, Hessians, Würtembergers, Bernese, Hamburgers, Cossacks, Wallachians, and Russians, none of whom believe the pope to be infallible; all the Mussulmans, who believe in one God, and who give him neither father nor mother; the Indians, whose religion is more ancient than the Jewish; and the lettered Chinese, who, for the space of four thousand years, have served one only God without superstition and without fanaticism. This, then, is what you would perform had you but the power!' 'Most assuredly,' says the monk, 'for the zeal of the house of the Lord devours me.' 'Zelus domus suæ comedit me.'
"'Just tell me now, my good almoner,' resumed the anabaptist, 'are you a Dominican, or a Jesuit, or a devil?' 'I am a Jesuit,' says the other. 'Alas, my friend, if you are not a devil, why do you advance things so utterly diabolical?' 'Because the reverend father, the rector, has commanded me to do so.' 'And who commanded the reverend father, the rector, to commit such an abomination?' 'The provincial.' 'From whom did the provincial receive the command?' 'From our general, and all to please the pope.'
"The poor anabaptist exclaimed: 'Ye holy popes, who are at Rome in possession of the throne of the Cæsars—archbishops, bishops, and abbés, become sovereigns, I respect and fly you; but if, in the recesses of your heart, you confess that your opulence and power are founded only on the ignorance and stupidity of our fathers, at least enjoy them with moderation. We do not wish to dethrone you; but do not crush us. Enjoy yourselves, and let us be quiet. If otherwise, tremble, lest at last people should lose their patience, and reduce you, for the good of your souls, to the condition of the apostles, of whom you pretend to be the successors.'
"'Wretch! you would wish the pope and the bishop of Würtemberg to gain heaven by evangelical poverty!' 'You, reverend father, would wish to have me hanged!'"
"I'm a Jesuit."
CONSEQUENCE.
What is our real nature, and what sort of a curious and contemptible understanding do we possess? A man may, it appears, draw the most correct and luminous conclusions, and yet be destitute of common sense. This is, in fact, too true. The Athenian fool, who believed that all the vessels which came into the port belonged to him, could calculate to a nicety what the cargoes of those vessels were worth, and within how many days they would arrive from Smyrna at the Piræus.
We have seen idiots who could calculate and reason in a still more extraordinary manner. They were not idiots, then, you tell me. I ask your pardon—they certainly were. They rested their whole superstructure on an absurd principle; they regularly strung together chimeras. A man may walk well, and go astray at the same time; and, then, the better he walks the farther astray he goes.
The Fo of the Indians was son of an elephant, who condescended to produce offspring by an Indian princess, who, in consequence of this species of left-handed union, was brought to bed of the god Fo. This princess was sister to an emperor of the Indies. Fo, then, was the nephew of that emperor, and the grandson of the elephant and the monarch were cousins-german; therefore, according to the laws of the state, the race of the emperor being extinct, the descendants of the elephant become the rightful successors. Admit the principle, and the conclusion is perfectly correct.
It is said that the divine elephant was nine standard feet in height. You reasonably suppose that the gate of his stable should be above nine feet in height, in order to admit his entering with ease. He consumed twenty pounds of rice every day, and twenty pounds of sugar, and drank twenty-five pounds of water. You find, by using your arithmetic, that he swallows thirty-six thousand five hundred pounds weight in the course of a year; it is impossible to reckon more correctly. But did your elephant ever, in fact, exist? Was he the emperor's brother-in-law? Had his wife a child by this left-handed union? This is the matter to be investigated. Twenty different authors, who lived in Cochin China, have successively written about it; it is incumbent on you to collate these twenty authors, to weigh their testimonies, to consult ancient records, to see if there is any mention of this elephant in the public registers; to examine whether the whole account is not a fable, which certain impostors have an interest in sanctioning. You proceed upon an extravagant principle, but draw from it correct conclusions.
Logic is not so much wanting to men as the source of logic. It is not sufficient for a madman to say six vessels which belong to me carry two hundred tons each; the ton is two thousand pounds weight; I have therefore twelve hundred thousand pounds weight of merchandise in