A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
VOLUME X
By
VOLTAIRE
EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION
THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE
A CONTEMPORARY VERSION
With Notes by Tobias Smollett, Revised and Modernized
New Translations by William F. Fleming, and an
Introduction by Oliver H.G. Leigh
A CRITIQUE AND BIOGRAPHY
BY
THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY
FORTY-THREE VOLUMES
One hundred and sixty-eight designs, comprising reproductions
of rare old engravings, steel plates, photogravures,
and curious fac-similes
VOLUME XIV
E.R. DuMONT
PARIS—LONDON—NEW YORK—CHICAGO
1901
The WORKS of VOLTAIRE
"Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundredyears apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say itwith a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED.Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed thesweetness of the present civilization."
VICTOR HUGO.
VOLTAIRE'S REMAINS ON THE BASTILLE—Frontispiece
THE DEATH OF SOCRATES
THE VISION
PIERRE CORNEILLE
"For one night, upon the ruins of the Bastille,rested the body of Voltaire, on fallenwall and broken aroh, above the dungeonswhere light had faded from the lives of men,and hope had died in breaking hearts. The conqueror,resting upon the conquered; thronedupon the Bastille, the fallen fortress ofnight."—INGERSOLL.VOLTAIRE
A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
IN TEN VOLUMES
VOL. X.
STYLE—ZOROASTER
AND DECLARATION OF THE AMATEURS, INQUIRERS, AND DOUBTERS
STYLE.
It is very strange that since the French peoplebecame literary they have had no book written ina good style, until the year 1654, when the "ProvincialLetters" appeared; and why had no one writtenhistory in a suitable tone, previous to that of the"Conspiracy of Venice" of the Abbé St. Réal? Howis it that Pellisson was the first who adopted the trueCiceronian style, in his memoir for the superintendentFouquet?
Nothing is more difficult and more rare than astyle altogether suitable to the subject in hand.
The style of the letters of Balzac would not beamiss for funeral orations; and we have some physicaltreatises in the style of the epic poem or theode. It is proper that all things occupy their ownplaces.
Affect not strange terms of expression, or newwords, in a treatise on religion, like the Abbé Houteville;neither declaim in a physical treatise. Avoidpleasantry in the mathematics, and flourish and extravagantfigures in a pleading. If a poor intoxicatedwoman dies of an apoplexy, you say that sheis in the regions of death; they bury her, and youexc