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A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY

VOLUME IV

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 VIII

E.R. DuMONT

PARIS--LONDON--NEW YORK--CHICAGO

1901



_The WORKS of VOLTAIRE_

     _"Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundred
     years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it
     with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED.
     Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the
     sweetness of the present civilization."_

                                                    _VICTOR HUGO._




LIST OF PLATES--VOL. IV


VOLTAIRE'S ARREST AT FRANKFORT _Frontispiece_

OLIVER CROMWELL

TIME MAKES TRUTH TRIUMPHANT

FRANCIS I. AND HIS SISTER



[Illustration: Voltaire's arrest at Frankfort.]


       *       *       *       *       *

VOLTAIRE

A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY

IN TEN VOLUMES

VOL. IV.

COUNTRY--FALSITY


       *       *       *       *       *


COUNTRY.


SECTION I

According to our custom, we confine ourselves on this subject to the
statement of a few queries which we cannot resolve. Has a Jew a country?
If he is born at Coimbra, it is in the midst of a crowd of ignorant and
absurd persons, who will dispute with him, and to whom he makes foolish
answers, if he dare reply at all. He is surrounded by inquisitors, who
would burn him if they knew that he declined to eat bacon, and all his
wealth would belong to them. Is Coimbra _his_ country? Can he exclaim,
like the Horatii in Corneille:

     _Mourir pour la patrie est un si digne sort_
     _Qu'on briguerait en foule, une si belle mort._

     So high his meed who for his country dies,
     Men should contend to gain the glorious prize.

He might as well exclaim, "fiddlestick!" Again! is Jerusalem his
country? He has probably heard of his ancestors of old; that they had
formerly inhabited a sterile and stony country, which is bordered by a
horrible desert, of which little country the Turks are at present
masters, but derive little or nothing from it. Jerusalem is, therefore,
not his country. In short, he has no country: there is not a square
foot of land on the globe which belongs to him.

The Gueber, more ancient, and a hundred times more respectable than the
Jew, a slave of the Turks, the Persians, or the Great Mogul, can he
regard as his country the fire-altars which he raises in secret among
the mountains? The Banian, the Armenian, who pass their lives in
wandering through all the east, in the capacity of money-brokers, can
they exclaim, "My dear country, my dear country"--who have no other
country than their purses and their account-books?

Among the nations of Europe, all those cut-throats who let out their
services to hire, and sell their blood to the first king who will
purchase it--have they a country? Not so much so as a bird of prey, who
returns every evening to the hollow of the rock where its mother built
its nest! The monks--will they venture to say that they have a country?
It is in heaven, they say. All in good time; but in this world I know
nothing about one.

This expression, "my country," how sounds it from the mouth of a Greek,
who, altogether ignorant of the previous existence of a Miltiades, an
Agesilaus, only knows that he is the slave of a janissary, who is the
slave of an aga, who is the slave of a pasha, who is the slave of a
vizier, who is the slave of an individual whom we call, in Paris, the
Grand Turk?

What, then, is country?--Is it not, probably, a good piece of ground,
in the midst of which the owner, residing in a well-built and commodious
house, may say: "This field which I cultivate, this house which I have
built, is my own; I live under the protection of laws which no tyrant
can infringe. When those who, like me, possess fields and houses
assemble for their common interests, I have a voice in such assembly. I
am a part of the whole, one of the community, a portion of the
sovereignty: behold my country!" What cannot be included in this
description too often amounts to little beyond studs of horses under the
command of a groom, who employs the whip at his pleasure. People may
have a country under a good king, but never under a bad one.


SECTION II.

A young pastry-cook who had been to college, and who had mustered some
phrases from Cicero, gave himself airs one day about loving his country.
"What dost thou mean by country?" said a neighbor to him. "Is it thy
oven? Is it the village where thou wast born, which thou hast never
seen, and to which thou wilt never return? Is it the street in which thy
father and mother reside? Is it the town hall, where thou wilt never
become so much as a clerk or an alderman? Is it the church of Notre
Dame, in which thou hast not been able to obtain a place among the boys
of the choir, although a very silly person, who is archbishop and duke,
obtains from it an annual income of twenty-four thousand louis d'or?"

The young pastry-cook knew not how to reply; and a person of reflection,
who overheard the conversation, was led to infer that a country of
moderate extent may contain many millions of men who have no country at
all. And thou, voluptuous Parisian, who hast never made a longer voyage
than to Dieppe, to feed upon fresh sea-fish--who art acquainted only
with thy splendid town-house, thy pretty villa in the country, thy box
at that opera which all the world makes it a point to feel tiresome but
thyself--who speakest thy own language agreeably enough, because thou
art ignorant of every other; thou lovest all this, no doubt, as well as
thy brilliant champagne from Rheims, and thy rents, payable every six
months; and loving these, thou dwellest upon thy love for thy country.

Speaking conscientiously, can a financier cordially love his country?
Where was the country of the duke of Guise, surnamed Balafre--at Nancy,
at Paris, at Madrid, or at Rome? What country had your cardinals Balue,
Duprat, Lorraine, and Mazarin? Where was the country of Attila situated,
or that of a hundred other heroes of the same kind, who, although
eternally travelling, make themselves always at home? I should be much
obliged to any one who would acquaint me with the country of Abraham.

The first who observed that every land is our country in which we "do
well," was, I believe, Euripides, in his "_Phaedo_":

     [Greek: "Os pantakoos ge patris boskousa gei."]

The first man, however, who left the place of his birth to seek a
greater share of welfare in another, said it before him.


SECTION III.

A country is a composition of many families; and as a family is commonly
supported on the principle of self-love, when, by an opposing interest,
the same self-love extends to our town, our province, or our nation, it
is called love of country. The greater a country becomes, the less we
love it; for love is weakened by diffusion. It is impossible to love a
family so numerous that all the members can scarcely be known.

He who is burning with ambition to be edile, tribune, praetor, consul, or
dictator, exclaims that he loves his country, while he loves only
himself. Every man wishes to possess the power of sleeping quietly at
home, and of preventing any other man from possessing the power of
sending him to sleep elsewhere. Every one would be certain of his
property and his life. Thus, all forming the same wishes, the particular
becomes the general interest. The welfare of the republic is spoken of,
while all that is signified is love of self.

It is impossible that a state was ever formed on earth, which was not
governed in the first instance as a republic: it is the natural march
of human nature. On the discovery of America, all the people were found
divided into republics; there were but two kingdoms in all that part of
the world. Of a thousand nations, but two were found subjugated.

It was the same in the ancient world; all was republican in Europe
before the little kinglings of Etruria and of Rome. There are yet
republics in Africa: the Hottentots, towards the south, still live as
people are said to have lived in the first ages of the world--free,
equal, without masters, without subjects, without money, and almost
without wants. The flesh of their sheep feeds them; they are clothed
with their skins; huts of wood and clay form their habitations. They are
the most dirty of all men, but they feel it not, but live and die more
easily than we do. There remain eight republics in Europe without
monarchs--Venice, Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Geneva,
and San Marino. Poland, Sweden, and England may be regarded as republics
under a king, but Poland is the only one of them which takes the name.

But which of the two is to be preferred for a country--a monarchy or a
republic? The question has been agitated for four thousand years. Ask
the rich, and they will tell you an aristocracy; ask the people, and
they will reply a democracy; kings alone prefer royalty. Why, then, is
almost all the earth governed by monarchs? Put that question to the rats
who proposed to hang a bell around the cat's neck. In truth, the
genuine reason is, because men are rarely worthy of governing
themselves.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot we must become the enemy of
the rest of mankind. That good citizen, the ancient Cato, always gave it
as his opinion, that Carthage must be destroyed: "_Delenda est
Carthago_." To be a good patriot is to wish our own country enriched by
commerce, and powerful by arms; but such is the condition of mankind,
that to wish the greatness of our own country is often to wish evil to
our neighbors. He who could bring himself to wish that his country
should always remain as it is, would be a citizen of the universe.




CRIMES OR OFFENCES.

_Of Time and Place._


A Roman in Egypt very unfortunately killed a consecrated cat, and the
infuriated people punished this sacrilege by tearing him to pieces. If
this Roman had been carried before the tribunal, and the judges had
possessed common sense, he would have been condemned to ask pardon of
the Egyptians and the cats, and to pay a heavy fine, either in money or
mice. They would have told him that he ought to respect the follies of
the people, since he was not strong enough to correct them.

The venerable chief justice should have spoken to him in this manner:
"Every country has its legal impertinences, and its offences of time
and place. If in your Rome, which has become the sovereign of Europe,
Africa, and Asia Minor, you were to kill a sacred fowl, at the precise
time that you give it grain in order to ascertain the just will of the
gods, you would be severely punished. We believe that you have only
killed our cat accidentally. The court admonishes you. Go in peace, and
be more circumspect in future."

It seems a very indifferent thing to have a statue in our hall; but if,
when Octavius, surnamed Augustus, was absolute master, a Roman had
placed in his house the statue of Brutus, he would have been punished as
seditious. If a citizen, under a reigning emperor, had the statue of the
competitor to the empire, it is said that it was accounted a crime of
high treason.

An Englishman, having nothing to do, went to Rome, where he met Prince
Charles Edward at the house of a cardinal. Pleased at the incident, on
his return he drank in a tavern to the health of Prince Charles Edward,
and was immediately accused of high treason. But whom did he highly
betray in wishing the prince well? If he had conspired to place him on
the throne, then he would have been guilty towards the nation; but I do
not see that the most rigid justice of parliament could require more
from him than to drink four cups to the health of the house of Hanover,
supposing he had drunk two to the house of Stuart.

_Of Crimes of Time and Place, which Ought to Be Concealed._

It is well known how much our Lady of Loretto ought to be respected in
the March of Ancona. Three young people happened to be joking on the
house of our lady, which has travelled through the air to Dalmatia;
which has two or three times changed its situation, and has only found
itself comfortable at Loretto. Our three scatterbrains sang a song at
supper, formerly made by a Huguenot, in ridicule of the translation of
the _santa casa_ of Jerusalem to the end of the Adriatic Gulf. A
fanatic, having heard by chance what passed at their supper, made strict
inquiries, sought witnesses, and engaged a magistrate to issue a
summons. This proceeding alarmed all consciences. Every one trembled in
speaking of it. Chambermaids, vergers, inn-keepers, lackeys, servants,
all heard what was never said, and saw what was never done: there was an
uproar, a horrible scandal throughout the whole March of Ancona. It was
said, half a league from Loretto, that these youths had killed our lady;
and a league farther, that they had thrown the _santa casa_ into the
sea. In short, they were condemned. The sentence was, that their hands
should be cut off, and their tongues be torn out; after which they were
to be put to the torture, to learn--at least by signs--how many
couplets there were in the song. Finally, they were to be burnt to death
by a slow fire.

An advocate of Milan, who happened to be at Loretto at this time, asked
the principal judge to what he would have condemned these boys if they
had violated their mother, and afterwards killed and eaten her? "Oh!"
replied the judge, "there is a great deal of difference; to assassinate
and devour their father and mother is only a crime against men." "Have
you an express law," said the Milanese, "which obliges you to put young
people scarcely out of their nurseries to such a horrible death, for
having indiscreetly made game of the _santa casa,_ which is
contemptuously laughed at all over the world, except in the March of
Ancona?" "No," said the judge, "the wisdom of our jurisprudence leaves
all to our discretion." "Very well, you ought to have discretion enough
to remember that one of these children is the grandson of a general who
has shed his blood for his country, and the nephew of an amiable and
respectable abbess; the youth and his companions are giddy boys, who
deserve paternal correction. You tear citizens from the state, who might
one day serve it; you imbrue yourself in innocent blood, and are more
cruel than cannibals. You will render yourselves execrable to posterity.
What motive has been powerful enough, thus to extinguish reason,
justice, and humanity in your minds, and to change you into ferocious
beasts?" The unhappy judge at last replied: "We have been quarrelling
with the clergy of Ancona; they accuse us of being too zealous for the
liberties of the Lombard Church, and consequently of having no
religion." "I understand, then," said the Milanese, "that you have made
yourselves assassins to appear Christians." At these words the judge
fell to the ground, as if struck by a thunderbolt; and his brother
judges having been since deprived of office, they cry out that injustice
is done them. They forget what they have done, and perceive not that the
hand of God is upon them.

For seven persons legally to amuse themselves by making an eighth perish
on a public scaffold by blows from iron bars; take a secret and
malignant pleasure in witnessing his torments; speak of it afterwards at
table with their wives and neighbors; for the executioners to perform
this office gaily, and joyously anticipate their reward; for the public
to run to this spectacle as to a fair--all this requires that a crime
merit this horrid punishment in the opinion of all well-governed
nations, and, as we here treat of universal humanity, that it is
necessary to the well-being of society. Above all, the actual
perpetration should be demonstrated beyond contradiction. If against a
hundred thousand probabilities that the accused be guilty there is a
single one that he is innocent, that alone should balance all the rest.

_Query: Are Two Witnesses Enough to Condemn a Man to be Hanged?_

It has been for a long time imagined, and the proverb assures us, that
two witnesses are enough to hang a man, with a safe conscience. Another
ambiguity! The world, then