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
manner as, if I were inclined to detail the contradictions existing in society, it would be necessary to write the history of mankind. An Asiatic, who should travel to Europe, might well consider us as pagans; our week days bear the names of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus; and the nuptials of Cupid and Psyche are painted in the pope's palace; but, particularly, were this Asiatic to attend at our opera, he would not hesitate in concluding it to be a festival in honor of the pagan deities. If he endeavored to gain more precise information respecting our manners, he would experience still greater astonishment; he would see, in Spain, that a severe law forbids any foreigner from having the slightest share, however indirect, in the commerce of America; and that, notwithstanding, foreigners—through the medium of Spanish factors—carry on a commerce with it to the extent of fifteen millions a year. Thus Spain can be enriched only by the violation of a law always subsisting and always evaded. He would see that in another country the government establishes and encourages a company for trading to the Indies, while the divines of that country have declared the receiving of dividends upon the shares offensive in the sight of God. He would see that the offices of a judge, a commander, a privy counsellor, are purchased; he would be unable to comprehend why it is stated in the patents appointing to such offices that they have been bestowed gratis and without purchase, while the receipt for the sum given for them is attached to the commission itself. Would not our Asiatic be surprised, also, to see comedians salaried by sovereigns, and excommunicated by priests? He would inquire why a plebeian lieutenant-general, who had won battles, should be subject to the taille, like a peasant; and a sheriff should be considered, at least in reference to this point, as noble as a Montmorency; why, while regular dramas are forbidden to be performed during a week sacred to edification, merry-andrews are permitted to offend even the least delicate ears with their ribaldry. He would almost everywhere see our usages in opposition to our laws; and were we to travel to Asia, we should discover the existence of exactly similar contradictions.
Men are everywhere inconsistent alike. They have made laws by piecemeal, as breaches are repaired in walls. Here the eldest sons take everything they are able from the younger ones; there all share equally. Sometimes the Church has ordered duels, sometimes it has anathematized them. The partisans and the opponents of Aristotle have been both excommunicated in their turn; as have also the wearers of long hair and short hair. There has been but one perfect law in the world, and that was designed to regulate a species of folly—that is to say, play. The laws of play are the only ones which admit of no exception, relaxation, change or tyranny. A man who has been a lackey, if he plays at lansquenet with kings, is paid with perfect readiness when he wins. In other cases the law is everywhere a sword, with which the strongest party cuts in pieces the weakest.
In the meantime the world goes on as if everything was wisely arranged; irregularity is part of our nature. Our social world is like the natural globe, rude and unshapely, but possessing a principle of preservation; it would be folly to wish that mountains, seas, and rivers were traced in regular and finished forms; it would be a still greater folly to expect from man the perfection of wisdom; it would be as weak as to wish to attach wings to dogs or horns to eagles.
Examples Taken from History, from Sacred Scripture, from Numerous Authors, etc.
We have just been instancing a variety of contradictions in our usages, our manners, and our laws, but we have not said enough. Everything, particularly in Europe, has been made in the same manner as Harlequin's habit. His master, when he wanted to have a dress made for him, had not a piece of cloth, and therefore took old cuttings of all sorts of colors. Harlequin was laughed at, but then he was clothed.
The Germans are a brave nation, whom neither the Germanicuses nor the Trajans were ever able completely to subjugate. All the German nations that dwelt beyond the Elbe were invincible, although badly armed; and from these gloomy climes issued forth, in part, the avengers of the world. Germany, far from constituting the Roman Empire, has been instrumental in destroying it.
This empire had found a refuge at Constantinople, when a German—an Austrasian—went from Aix-la-Chapelle to Rome, to strip the Greek Cæsars of the remainder of their possessions in Italy. He assumed the name of Cæsar Imperator; but neither he nor his successors even ventured to reside at Rome. That capital could not either boast or regret that from the time of Augustulus, the final excrement of the genuine Roman Empire, a single Cæsar had lived and been buried within its walls.
It is difficult to suppose the empire can be "holy," as it professes three different religions, of which two are declared impious, abominable, damnable, and damned, by the court of Rome, which the whole imperial court considers in such cases to be supreme. It is certainly not Roman, since the emperor has not any residence at Rome.
In England people wait upon the king kneeling. The constant maxim is, "The king can do no wrong"; his ministers only can deserve blame; he is as infallible in his actions as the pope in his judgments. Such is the fundamental, the "Salic" law of England. Yet the parliament sat in judgment on its king, Edward II., who had been vanquished and taken prisoner by his wife; he was declared to have done all possible wrong, and deprived of all his rights to the crown. Sir William Tressel went to him in prison, and made him the following complimentary address:
"I, William Tressel, as proxy for the parliament and the whole English nation, revoke the homage formerly paid you; I put you to defiance, and deprive you of royal power, and from this time forth we will hold no allegiance to you."
The parliament tried and sentenced King Richard II., grandson of the great Edward III. Thirty-one articles of accusation were brought against him, among which two are not a little singular—that he had borrowed money and not repaid it; and that he had asserted before witnesses that he was master of the lives and properties of his subjects.
The parliament deposed Henry VI., who, undoubtedly, was exceedingly wrong, but in a somewhat different sense: he was imbecile.
The parliament declared Edward IV. a traitor, and confiscated his goods; and afterwards, on his being successful, restored him. As for Richard III., he undoubtedly committed more wrong than all the others; he was a Nero, but a bold one; and the parliament did not declare his wrongs till after he was slain.
The House of Commons imputed to Charles I. more wrong than he was justly chargeable with, and brought him to the scaffold. Parliament voted that James II. had committed very gross and flagrant wrongs, and particularly that of withdrawing himself from the kingdom. It declared the throne vacant; that is, it deposed him. In the present day, Junius writes to the king of England that he is faulty in being good and wise. If these are not contradictions, I know not where to find them.
Contradictions in Certain Rites.
Next to those great political contradictions, which are subdivided into innumerable little ones, nothing more forcibly attracts our notice than the contradiction apparent in reference to some of our rites. We hate Judaism. No longer than fifteen years ago Jews were still burned at the stake. We consider them as murderers of our God, and yet we assemble every Sunday to chant Jewish psalms and canticles; it is only owing to our ignorance of the language that we do not recite them in Hebrew. But the fifteen first bishops, the priests, deacons and congregation of Jerusalem, which was the cradle of the Christian religion, always recited the Jewish psalms in the Jewish idiom of the Syriac language; and, till the time of the Caliph Omar, almost all the Christians, from Tyre to Aleppo, prayed in that Jewish idiom. At present any one reciting the psalms as they were originally composed, or chanting them in the Jewish language, would be suspected of being a circumcised Jew, and might be burned as one; at least, not more than twenty years since, that would have been his fate, although Jesus Christ was circumcised, as were also his apostles and disciples. I set aside the mysterious doctrines of our holy religion—everything that is an object of faith—everything that we ought to approach only with awe and submission. I look only at externals; I refer simply to observances; I ask if anything was ever more contradictory?
Contradictions in Things and Men.
If any literary society is inclined to undertake a history of contradictions, I will subscribe for twenty folio volumes. The world displays nothing but contradictions. What would be necessary to put an end to