A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
VOLUME VI
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 X
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 HOME IN GENEVA—Frontispiece
THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS
THE DUKE OF SULLY
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION IN PORTUGAL
VOLTAIRE
A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
IN TEN VOLUMES
VOL. VI
HAPPY—JOB
HAPPY—HAPPILY.
What is called happiness is an abstract idea, composed of various ideasof pleasure; for he who has but a moment of pleasure is not a happy man,in like manner that a moment of grief constitutes not a miserable one.Pleasure is more transient than happiness, and happiness than felicity.When a person says—I am happy at this moment, he abuses the word, andonly means I am pleased. When pleasure is continuous, he may then callhimself happy. When this happiness lasts a little longer, it is a stateof felicity. We are sometimes very far from being happy in prosperity,just as a surfeited invalid eats nothing of a great feast prepared forhim.
The ancient adage, "No person should be called happy before his death,"seems to turn on very false principles, if we mean by this maxim that weshould not give the name of happy to a man who had been so constantlyfrom his birth to his last hour. This continuity of agreeable moments isrendered impossible by the constitution of our organs, by that of theelements on which we depend, and by that of mankind, on whom we dependstill more. Constant happiness is the philosopher's stone of the soul;it is a great deal for us not to be a long time unhappy. A person whomwe might suppose to have always enjoyed a happy life, who perishesmiserably, would certainly merit the appellation of happy until hisdeath, and we might