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
each other; they present reciprocal helps in the concordances and harmony of the four gospels.
And if there are many difficulties which we cannot solve, mysteries which we cannot comprehend, adventures which we cannot credit, prodigies which shock the weakness of the human understanding, and contradictions which it is impossible to reconcile, it is in order to exercise our faith and to humiliate our reason.
Contradictions in Judgments Upon Works of Literature or Art.
I have sometimes heard it said of a good judge on these subjects, and of exquisite taste, that man decides according to mere caprice. He yesterday described Poussin as an admirable painter; to-day he represents him as an ordinary one. The fact is, that Poussin has merited both praise and censure.
There is no contradiction in being enraptured by the delicious scenes of the Horatii and Curiatii, of the Cid, of Augustus and of Cinna, and afterwards in seeing, with disgust and indignation, fifteen tragedies in succession, containing no interest, no beauty, and not even written in French.
It is the author himself who is contradictory. It is he who has the misfortune to differ entirely from himself. The critic would contradict himself, if he equally applauded what is excellent and detestable. He will admire in Homer the description of the girdle of Venus; the parting of Hector and Andromache; the interview between Achilles and Priam. But will he equally applaud those passages which describe the gods as abusing and fighting with one another; the uniformity in battles which decide nothing; the brutal ferocity of the heroes, and the avarice by which they are almost all actuated; in short, a poem which terminates with a truce of eleven days, unquestionably exciting an expectation of the continuation of the war and the taking of Troy, which, however, are not related?
A good critic will frequently pass from approbation to censure, however excellent the work may be which he is perusing.
CONTRAST.
Contrast, opposition of figures, situations, fortune, manners, etc. A modest shepherdess forms a beautiful contrast in a painting with a haughty princess. The part of the impostor and that of Aristes constitute a very admirable contrast in "Tartuffe."
The little may contrast with the great in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Opposition of colors contrasts; but there are also colors contrary to each other; that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.
"Contradictory" is a term to be used only in logic. It is contradictory for anything to be and not to be; to be in many places at once; to be of a certain number or size, and not to be so. An opinion, a discourse, or a decree, we may call contradictory. The different fortunes of Charles XII. have been contrary, but not contradictory; they form in history a beautiful contrast.
It is a striking contrast—and the two things are perfectly contrary—but it is not contradictory, that the pope should be worshipped in Rome, and burned in London on the same day; that while he was called God's vicegerent in Italy, he should be represented in the streets of Moscow as a hog, for the amusement of Peter the Great.
Mahomet, stationed at the right hand of God over half the globe, and damned over the other half, is the greatest of contrasts. Travel far from your own country, and everything will be contrast for you. The white man who first saw a negro was much astonished; but the first who said that the negro was the offspring of a white pair astonishes me much more; I do not agree with him. A painter who represents white men, negroes, and olive-colored people, may display fine contrasts.
CONVULSIONARIES.
About the year 1724 the cemetery of St. Médard abounded in amusement, and many miracles were performed there. The following epigram by the duchess of Maine gives a tolerable account of the character of most of them:
Un décrotteur à la Royale, Du talon gauche estropié, Obtint, pour grâce speciale, D'être tortueux de l'autre pied. A Port-Royal shoe-black, who had one lame leg, To make both alike the Lord's favor did beg; Heaven listened, and straightway a miracle came, For quickly he rose up, with both his legs lame.
The miracles continued, as is well known, until a guard was stationed at the cemetery.
De par le roi, défense à Dieu De faire miracles en ce lieu. Louis to God:—To keep the peace, Here miracles must henceforth cease.
It is also well known that the Jesuits, being no longer able to perform similar miracles, in consequence of Xavier having exhausted their stock of grace and miraculous power, by resuscitating nine dead persons at one time, resolved in order to counteract the credit of the Jansenists, to engrave a print of Jesus Christ dressed as a Jesuit. The Jansenists, on the other hand, in order to give a satisfactory proof that Jesus Christ had not assumed the habit of a Jesuit, filled Paris with convulsions, and attracted great crowds of people to witness them. The counsellor of parliament, Carré de Montgeron, went to present to the king a quarto collection of all these miracles, attested by a thousand witnesses. He was very properly shut up in a château, where attempts were made to restore his senses by regimen; but truth always prevails over persecution, and the miracles lasted for thirty years together, without interruption. Sister Rose, Sister Illuminée, and the sisters Promise and Comfitte, were scourged with great energy, without, however, exhibiting any appearance of the whipping next day. They were bastinadoed on their stomachs without injury, and placed before a large fire; but, being defended by certain pomades and preparations, were not burned. At length, as every art is constantly advancing towards perfection, their persecutors concluded with actually thrusting swords through their chairs, and with crucifying them. A famous schoolmaster had also the benefit of crucifixion; all which was done to convince the world that a certain bull was ridiculous, a fact that might have been easily proved without so much trouble. However, Jesuits and Jansenists all united against the "Spirit of Laws," and against, and against.... and against.... and.... And after all this we dare to ridicule Laplanders, Samoyeds, and negroes!
CORN.
They must be skeptics indeed who doubt that pain comes from panis. But to make bread we must have corn. The Gauls had corn in the time of Cæsar; but whence did they take the word blé? It is pretended that it is from bladum, a word employed in the barbarous Latin of the middle age by the Chancellor Desvignes, or De Erneis, whose eyes, it is said, were torn out by order of the Emperor Frederick II.
But the Latin words of these barbarous ages were only ancient Celtic or Teutonic words Latinized. Bladum then comes from our blead, and not our blead from bladum. The Italians call it bioda, and the countries in which the ancient Roman language is preserved, still say blia.
This knowledge is not infinitely useful; but we are curious to know where the Gauls and Teutons found corn to sow? We are told that the Tyrians brought it into Spain, the Spaniards into Gaul, and the Gauls into Germany. And where did the Tyrians get this corn? Probably from the Greeks, in exchange for their alphabet.
Who made this present to the Greeks? It was the goddess Ceres, without doubt; and having ascended to Ceres, we can scarcely go any higher. Ceres must have descended from heaven expressly to give us wheat, rye, and barley. However, as the credit of Ceres, who gave corn to the Greeks, and that of Ishet, or Isis, who gratified the Egyptians with it, are at present very much decayed, we may still be said to remain in uncertainty as to the origin of corn.
Sanchoniathon tells us that Dagon or Dagan, one of the grandsons of Thaut, had the superintendence of the corn in Phœnicia.