Voltaire

“ Who but the mercenary tyrants of our souls, who, while disgusting us with their knavery, urge some weak spirits to deny the God whom such monsters dishonor? How often have the people's bloodsuckers forced overburdened citizens to revolt against the king!
Men who have fattened on our substance, cry out to us: "Be persuaded that an ass spoke; believe that a fish swallowed a man, and threw him up three days after, safe and sound, on the shore; doubt not that the God of the universe ordered one Jewish prophet to eat excrement, and another to buy two prostitutes, and have bastards by them;" ”

“ Listen to one kind of beasts reasoning upon another; their soul is a spiritual being, which dies with the body; but what proof have you of it? What idea have you of this spiritual being, which has sentiment, memory, and its share of ideas and combinations, but which can never tell what made a child of six years old? On what ground do you imagine that this being, which is not corporeal, perishes with the body? The greatest beasts are those who have suggested that this soul is neither body nor spiritan excellent system! We can only understand by spirit something unknown, which is not body. ”

“ How could it be that Plato, who knew not one of these laws—the eloquent but chimerical Plato, who said that the foundation of the earth was an equilateral triangle, and that of water a right-angled triangle—the strange Plato, who said there could be but five worlds, because there were but five regular bodieshow, I say, was it that Plato, who was not even acquainted with spherical trigonometry, had nevertheless so fine a genius, so happy an instinct, as to call God the Eternal Geometrician—to feel that there exists a forming Intelligence? ”

“ Be that as it may, it is an astonishing phenomenon that a society of men who had never made war should have invented a sort of war carried on in imaginary space, or in a globe distant from our own, or in what is called the firmament—the empyrean. But let it be carefully observed, that in this revolt of the celestial beings against their Sovereign, there were no blows given, no celestial blood spilled, no mountains thrown at one another's heads, no angels deft in twain, as in Milton's sublime and grotesque poem. ”

“ I was astonished to find, in that great philosopher's chapter on innate ideas, that men have all different ideas of justice. Were such the case, morality would no longer be the same; the voice of God would not be heard by man; natural religion would be at an end. I am willing to believe, with him, that there are nations in which men eat their fathers, and where to lie with a neighbor's wife is to do him a friendly office; but if this be true it does not prove that the law, "Do not unto others that which you would not have others do unto you," is not general. ”

“ The Russians, whom the Greeks of old would have called barbarians, would neither have poisoned Socrates, nor have condemned Alcibiades to death.
We pass over the ages between the Roman commonwealth and our own times. The Romans, much more wise than the Greeks, never persecuted a philosopher for his opinions. Not so the barbarous nations which succeeded the Roman Empire. No sooner did the Emperor Frederick II. begin to quarrel with the popes, than he was accused of being an atheist, and being the author of the book of "The Three Impostors," conjointly with his chancellor De Vincis. ”

“ Our philosopher would reason thus: "If corruption suffices with the elements to produce unformed animals, it would appear that a little more corruption, with a little more heat, would also produce animals more complete. The virtue of heaven is here no other than the virtue of nature. I shall then think, with Epicurus and St. Thomas, that men may have sprung from the slime of the earth and the rays of the sun—a noble origin, too, for beings so wretched and so wicked. ”

“ You ask, Why is not the serpent harmless? And why have you not been harmless? Why have you been a persecutor? which, in a philosopher, is the greatest of crimes. This is quite another question; it is that of physical and moral evil. It has long been asked, Why are there so many serpents, and so many wicked men worse than serpents? If flies could reason, they would complain to God of the existence of spiders; but they would, at the same time, acknowledge what Minerva confessed to Arachne in the fable, that they arrange their webs in a wonderful manner. ”

“ But how was it possible for any Egyptian to speak of the exploits of a man who caused all the first born of the families of Egypt to be killed; who turned the Nile to blood, and who drowned in the Red Sea their king and all his army?
All our historians agree that one Clodowick, a Sicambrian, subjugated Gaul with a handful of barbarians. The English are the first to say that the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans came by turns to exterminate a part of their nation. If they had not avowed this truth all Europe would have exclaimed against its concealment. ”

“ It cannot be doubted that, in an organized society, it is better to have even a bad religion than no religion at all.
It appears then that Bayle should rather have examined whether atheism or fanaticism is the most dangerous. Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times the most to be dreaded; for atheism inspires no sanguinary passion, but fanaticism does; atheism does not oppose crime, but fanaticism prompts to its commission. ”

“ Indeed, Demosthenes and Cicero, who followed his precepts, never affected the poetic style in their speeches. "The style," says Aristotle, "must always be conformable to the subject."
Nothing can be more misplaced than to speak of physics poetically, and lavish figure and ornament where there should be only method, clearness, and truth. It is the quackery of a man who would pass off false systems under cover of an empty noise of words. Weak minds are caught by the bait, and strong minds disdain it. ”

“ We cry out that their religion has been embraced by so many nations only because it flatters the senses. But where is the sensuality in ordering abstinence from the wine and liquors in which we indulge to such excess; in pronouncing to every one an indispensable command to give to the poor each year two and a half per cent, of his income, to fast with the greatest rigor, to undergo a painful operation in the earliest stage of puberty, to make, over arid sands a pilgrimage of sometimes five hundred leagues, and to pray to God five times a day, even when in the field? ”

“ What has the vain science of words to do with the morality which should guide your actions? You cloud our doctrines with mysteries—you, who were designed to strengthen religion by your virtues. Would you leave the Christian religion a mass of sophistry? Did Christ come for this? Cease to dispute, humble yourselves, edify one another, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and pacify the quarrels of families, instead of giving scandal to the whole empire by your dissensions. ”

“ One thing I will venture to believe, which is, that of all religions, theism is the most widely spread in the world. It is the prevailing religion of China; it is that of the wise among the Mahometans; and, among Christian philosophers, eight out of ten are of the same opinion. It has penetrated even into the schools of theology, into the cloisters, into the conclave; it is a sort of sect without association, without worship, without ceremonies, without disputes, and without zeal, spread through the world without having been preached. Theism, like Judaism, is to be found amidst all religions ”

“ What we call large is to an elephant very small, and what we call small is to insects a world. The same motion which would be rapid to a snail would be very slow in the eye of an eagle. This rock, which is impenetrable by steel, is a sieve consisting of more pores than matter, and containing a thousand avenues of prodigious width leading to its centre, in which are lodged multitudes of animals, which may, for aught we know, think themselves the masters of the universe. ”

“ But Louis Racine very well knew that Augustus was an exceedingly bad man, regarding crime and virtue with indifference, availing himself alike of the horrors of the one and the appearances of the other, attentive solely to his own interest, employing bloodshed and peace, arms and laws, religion and pleasure, only to make himself master of the earth, and sacrificing everything to himself. ”

“ It is evident that in morals it is much better to acknowledge a God than not to admit one. It is certainly to the interest of all men that there should be a Divinity to punish what human, justice cannot repress; but it is also clear that it were better to acknowledge no God than to worship a barbarous one, and offer Him human victims, as so many nations have done.
We have one striking example, which places this truth beyond a doubt. The Jews, under Moses, had no idea of the immortality of the soul, nor of a future state. ”

“ In order to justify this execution it was necessary to charge the unfortunate man with the most enormous of crimes. The grey friar—the very grey friar Marsenne, was so besotted as to publish that "Vanini set out from Naples, with twelve of his apostles, to convert the whole world to atheism." What a pitiful tale! How should a poor priest have twelve men in his pay? How should he persuade twelve Neapolitans to travel at great expense, in order to spread this revolting doctrine at the peril of their lives? ”

“ It is indeed odd that all the laws of astrology were contrary to those of astronomy. The wretched charlatans of antiquity and their stupid disciples, who have been so well received and so well paid by all the princes of Europe, talked of nothing but Mars and Venus, stationary and retrograde. Such as had Mars stationary were always to conquer. Venus stationary made all lovers happy. Nothing was worse than to be born under Venus retrograde. But the fact is that these planets have never been either retrograde or stationary, which a very slight knowledge of optics would have sufficed to show. ”

“ Those of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Pythagoras, of Aristotle, of Epictetus, of Antoninus, are absolutely the same. God has placed in every breast the knowledge of good, with some inclination for evil.
Aristotle says that to be virtuous three things are necessary—nature, reason, and habit; and nothing is more true. Without a good disposition, virtue is too difficult; reason strengthens it; and habit renders good actions as familiar as a daily exercise to which one is accustomed. ”

“ When we see a fine machine, we say there is a good machinist, and that he has an excellent understanding. The world is assuredly an admirable machine; therefore there is in the world, somewhere or other, an admirable intelligence. This argument is old, but is not therefore the worse.
All animated bodies are composed of levers and pulleys, which act according to the laws of mechanics; of liquors, which are kept in perpetual circulation by the laws of hydrostatics; and the reflection that all these beings have sentiment which has no relation to their organization, fills us with wonder. ”

“ Doubtless it is no fable that Atlas, prince of Mauritania, called by the Greeks the son of heaven, was a celebrated astronomer, and constructed a celestial sphere such as the Chinese have had for so many ages. The ancients, who expressed everything in allegory, likened this prince to the mountain which bears his name, because it lifts its head above the clouds, which have been called the heavens by all mankind who have judged of things only from the testimony of their eyes. ”

“ Thus the work of the universe, now that it is better known, bespeaks a workman, and so many never-varying laws announce a lawgiver. Sound philosophy, therefore, has destroyed atheism, to which obscure theology furnished weapons of defence.
But one resource was left for the small number of difficult minds, which, being more forcibly struck by the pretended injustices of a Supreme Being than by his wisdom, were obstinate in denying this first mover. Nature has existed from all eternity; everything in nature is in motion, therefore everything in it continually changes. ”

“ Several philosophers, tired of being constantly deceived by bodies, have in their spleen pronounced that bodies do not exist, and that there is nothing real but our minds. As well might they have concluded that, all appearances being false, and the nature of the soul being as little known as that of the matter, there is no reality in either body or soul. Perhaps it is this despair of knowing anything which has caused some Chinese philosophers to say that nothing is the beginning and the end of all things. This philosophy, so destructive to being, was well known in Molière's time. ”

“ In those divine times all was miracle, without exception, and we have the profoundest reverence for all these miracles—for that ancient world which was not our world; for that nature which was not our nature; for a divine book, in which there can be nothing human.
But we are astonished at the liberty which Dr. Kennicott takes of calling those deists and atheists, who, while they revere the Bible more than he does, differ from him in opinion. Never will it be believed that a man with such ideas is of the Academy of Medals and Inscriptions. ”

“ If by the law of nature a man is permitted to choose his country, still more is the man who has lost the rights of a citizen at liberty to choose himself a new country. May he bear arms against his former fellow-citizens? Of this we have a thousand examples. How many French Protestants, naturalized in England, Holland, or Germany, have served, not only against France, but against armies in which their relatives, their own brothers, have fought? The Greeks in the armies of the king of Persia fought against the Greeks, their old fellow-countrymen. ”

“ I have heard men express astonishment that a religion so moderate, and so apparently conformable to reason, as theism, has not been spread among the people. Among the great and little vulgar may be found pious herb-women, Molinist duchesses, scrupulous seamstresses who would go to the stake for anabaptism, devout hackney-coachmen, most determined in the cause of Luther or of Arius, but no theists; for theism cannot so much be called a religion as a system of philosophy, and the vulgar, whether great or little, are not philosophers. ”

“ The souls of beasts are substantial forms, says Aristotle; and after Aristotle, the Arabian school; and after the Arabian school, the Angelical school; and after the Angelical school, the Sorbonne; and after the Sorbonne, every one in the world.
The souls of beasts are material, exclaim other philosophers. These have not been more fortunate than the former. They are in vain asked what is a material soul? They say that it is a matter which has sensation; but who has given it this sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say, it is composed of a matter which gives sensation to matter. ”

“ Their genius has never changed. They still compose their "Nights' Entertainments," as they did when they imagined one Bac or Bacchus, who passed through the Red Sea with three millions of men, women, and children; who stopped the sun and moon, and made streams of wine issue forth with a blow of his rod, which, when he chose, he changed into a serpent.
A nation so isolated, and whose blood remains unmixed, cannot change its character. The Arabs of the desert have always been given to robbery, and those inhabiting the towns been fond of fables, poetry, and astronomy. ”

“ They had, therefore, in their own philosophy, and in their own despite, a demonstration that there is a Supreme Being, necessary, infinite, the fabricator of the universe. Newton's philosophy, which admits and proves the void and finite matter, also demonstratively proves the existence of a God.
Thus I regard true philosophers as the apostles of the Divinity. Each class of men requires its particular ones; a parish catechist tells children that there is a God, but Newton proves it to the wise. ”