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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severe than St. Augustine. He boldly condemns the poor woman. This would be inconceivable did we not know how much almost every writer has suffered his pen to belie his heart—with what facility his own feelings have been sacrificed to the fear of enraging some evil-disposed pedant—in a word, how inconsistent he has been with himself.
A Father's Reflection.
A word on the contradictory education which we bestow upon our daughters. We inculcate an immoderate desire of pleasing; we dictate when nature does enough without us, and add to her lessons every refinement of art. When they are perfectly trained we punish them if they put in practice the very arts which we have been so anxious to teach! What should we think of a dancing master who, having taught a pupil for ten years, would break his leg because he had found him dancing with other people?
Might not this paragraph be added to the chapter of contradictions?
AFFIRMATION OR OATH.
We shall not say anything of the affirmations so frequently made use of by the learned. To affirm, to decide, is permissible only in geometry. In everything else let us imitate the Doctor Metaphrastes of Molière—it may be so; the thing is feasible; it is not impossible; we shall see. Let us adopt Rabelais' perhaps, Montaigne's what know I? the Roman non liquet, or the doubt of the Athenian academy: but only in profane matters, be it understood, for in sacred things, we are well aware that doubting is not permitted.
The primitives, in England called Quakers, are allowed to give testimony in a court of justice on their simple affirmation, without taking an oath. The peers of the realm have the same privilege—the lay peers affirming on their honor, and the bishops laying their hands on their hearts. The Quakers obtained it in the reign of Charles II., and are the only sect in Europe so honored.
The Lord Chancellor Cowper wished to compel the Quakers to swear like other citizens. He who was then at their head said to him gravely: "Friend Chancellor, thou oughtest to know that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ hath forbidden us to affirm otherwise than by yea or nay, he hath expressly said: I forbid thee to swear by heaven, because it is the throne of God; by the earth, because it is his footstool; by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the King of kings; or by thy head, because thou canst not change the color of a single hair. This, friend, is positive, and we will not disobey God to please thee and thy parliament." "It is impossible to argue better," replied the Chancellor; "but be it known to thee that Jupiter one day ordered all beasts of burden to get shod: horses, mules, and even camels, instantly obeyed, the asses alone resisted; they made so many representations, and brayed so long that Jupiter, who was good-natured, at last said to them, 'Asses, I grant your prayer; you shall not be shod; but the first slip you make you shall have a most sound cudgelling.'"
It must be granted that, hitherto, the Quakers have made no slips.
AGAR, OR HAGAR.
When a man puts away his mistress—his friend—the partner of his bed, he must either make her condition tolerably comfortable or be regarded among us as a man of bad heart.
We are told that Abraham was very rich in the desert of Gerar, although he did not possess an inch of land. However, we know with the greatest certainty that he defeated the armies of four great kings with three hundred and eighteen shepherds.
He should, then, at least have given a small flock to his mistress Agar, when he sent her away in the desert. I speak always according to worldly notions, always reverencing those incomprehensible ways which are not our ways.
I would have given my old companion Agar a few sheep, a few goats, a few suits of clothes for herself and our son Ishmael, a good she-ass for the mother and a pretty foal for the child, a camel to carry their baggage, and at least two men to attend them and prevent them from being devoured by wolves.
But when the Father of the Faithful exposed his poor mistress and her child in the desert he gave them only a loaf and a pitcher of water. Some impious persons have asserted that Abraham was not a very tender father—that he wished to make his bastard son die of hunger, and to cut his legitimate son's throat! But again let it be remembered that these ways were not our ways.
It is said that poor Agar went away into the desert of Beer-sheba. There was no desert of Beer-sheba; this name was not known until long after; but this is a mere trifle; the foundation of the story is not the less authentic. It is true that the posterity of Agar's son Ishmael took ample revenge on the posterity of Sarah's son Isaac, in favor of whom he had been cast out. The Saracens, descending in a right line from Ishmael, made themselves masters of Jerusalem, which belonged by right of conquest to the posterity of Isaac. I would have made the Saracens descend from Sarah; the etymology would then have been neater.
It has been asserted that the word Saracen comes from sarac, a robber. I do not believe any people have ever called themselves robbers; nearly all have been robbers, but it is not usual for them to take the title. Saracen descending from Sarah, appears to me to sound better.
ALCHEMY.
The emphatic al places the alchemist as much above the ordinary chemist as the gold which he obtains is superior to other metals. Germany still swarms with people who seek the philosopher's stone, as the water of immortality has been sought in China, and the fountain of youth in Europe. In France some have been known to ruin themselves in this pursuit.
The number of those who have believed in transmutations is prodigious, and the number of cheats has been in proportion to that of the credulous. At Paris we have seen Signor Dammi, Marquis of Conventiglio, obtain some hundred louis from several of the nobility that he might make them gold to the amount of two or three crowns. The best trick that has ever been performed in alchemy was that of a Rosicrucian, who, in 1620, went to Henry, Duke of Bouillon, of the house of Turenne, Sovereign Prince of Sedan, and addressed him as follows:
"You have not a sovereignty proportioned to your great courage, but I will make you richer than the emperor. I cannot remain for more than two days in your states, having to go to Venice to hold the grand assembly of the brethren; I only charge you to keep the secret. Send to the first apothecary of your town for some litharge; throw into it one grain of the red powder which I will give you, put the whole into a crucible and in a quarter of an hour you will have gold."
The prince performed the operation, and repeated it three times, in presence of the virtuoso. This man had previously bought up all the litharge from the apothecaries of Sedan and got it resold after mixing it with a few ounces of gold. The adept, on taking leave, made the Duke of Bouillon a present of all his transmuting powder.
The prince, having made three ounces of gold with three grains, doubted not that with three hundred thousand grains he should make three hundred thousand ounces, and that he should in a week possess eighteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty pounds of gold, besides what he should afterwards make. It took at least three months to make this powder. The philosopher was in haste to depart; he was without anything, having given all to the prince, and wanted some ready money in order to hold the states-general of hermetic philosophy. He was a man very moderate in his desires, and asked only twenty thousand crowns for the expenses of his journey. The duke, ashamed to give so small a sum, presented him with forty thousand. When he had consumed all the litharge in Sedan he made no more gold, nor ever more saw his philosopher or his forty thousand crowns.
All pretended alchemic