Edward Bruce Hamley,
Voltaire — A DIDACTIC POEM
(1877)
“ Never has the wit of man devised a faith which is consistent with the facts of life, or which renders them clear to the hapless being who stumbles darkling among them. Nor can it be said that Voltaire has been more successful than others in this adventure, the special object of which in his case is to explain how the bestowal of happiness on man, seemingly so fortuitous, is yet consistent with divine justice. ”
Edward Bruce Hamley,
Voltaire — A DIDACTIC POEM
(1877)
“ Voltaire generally wants the condensity, the sharp effects, the careful, neat antitheses of Pope—for his compositions were always rapidly executed, and such attributes can only be, except by happy chance, the last results of the prolonged distillation of ideas and the fastidious selection of words; but these compositions possess all his characteristic ease and grace, and much happiness of illustration. ”
Edward Bruce Hamley,
Voltaire — A DIDACTIC POEM
(1877)
“ The task of explaining "the riddle of the painful earth" has been always too hard for philosophy; and such questions as that of free-will, of the balance of happiness, of the relative position of man in the universe, are rather exercises for ingenuity than problems for solution. ”
