



Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe
at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously
made available by the Internet Archive.)





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 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. X

VOLTAIRE'S REMAINS ON THE BASTILLE--_Frontispiece_

THE DEATH OF SOCRATES

THE VISION

PIERRE CORNEILLE



[Illustration: Throned Upon The Ruins Of The Bastille. "For one night,
upon the ruins of the Bastille, rested the body of Voltaire, on fallen
wall and broken aroh, above the dungeons where light had faded from the
lives of men, and hope had died in breaking hearts. The conqueror,
resting upon the conquered; throned upon the Bastille, the fallen
fortress of night."--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 people became literary they
have had no book written in a good style, until the year 1654, when the
"Provincial Letters" appeared; and why had no one written history in a
suitable tone, previous to that of the "Conspiracy of Venice" of the
Abbe St. Real? How is it that Pellisson was the first who adopted the
true Ciceronian style, in his memoir for the superintendent Fouquet?

Nothing is more difficult and more rare than a style altogether suitable
to the subject in hand.

The style of the letters of Balzac would not be amiss for funeral
orations; and we have some physical treatises in the style of the epic
poem or the ode. It is proper that all things occupy their own places.

Affect not strange terms of expression, or new words, in a treatise on
religion, like the Abbe Houteville; neither declaim in a physical
treatise. Avoid pleasantry in the mathematics, and flourish and
extravagant figures in a pleading. If a poor intoxicated woman dies of
an apoplexy, you say that she is in the regions of death; they bury her,
and you exclaim that her mortal remains are confided to the earth. If
the bell tolls at her burial, it is her funeral knell ascending to the
skies. In all this you think you imitate Cicero, and you only copy
Master Littlejohn....

Without style, it is impossible that there can be a good work in any
kind of eloquence or poetry. A profusion of words is the great vice of
all our modern philosophers and anti-philosophers. The "_Systeme de la
Nature_" is a great proof of this truth. It is very difficult to give
just ideas of God and nature, and perhaps equally so to form a good
style.

As the kind of execution to be employed by every artist depends upon the
subject of which he treats--as the line of Poussin is not that of
Teniers, nor the architecture of a temple that of a common house, nor
music of a serious opera that of a comic one--so has each kind of
writing its proper style, both in prose and verse. It is obvious that
the style of history is not that of a funeral oration, and that the
despatch of an ambassador ought not to be written like a sermon; that
comedy is not to borrow the boldness of the ode, the pathetic expression
of the tragedy, nor the metaphors and similes of the epic.

Every species has its different shades, which may, however, be reduced
to two, the simple and the elevated. These two kinds, which embrace so
many others, possess essential beauties in common, which beauties are
accuracy of idea, adaptation, elegance, propriety of expression, and
purity of language. Every piece of writing, whatever its nature, calls
for these qualities; the difference consists in the employment of the
corresponding tropes. Thus, a character in comedy will not utter sublime
or philosophical ideas, a shepherd spout the notions of a conqueror, not
a didactic epistle breathe forth passion; and none of these forms of
composition ought to exhibit bold metaphor, pathetic exclamation, or
vehement expression.

Between the simple and the sublime there are many shades, and it is the
art of adjusting them which contributes to the perfection of eloquence
and poetry. It is by this art that Virgil frequently exalts the eclogue.
This verse: _Ut vidi ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error!_ (Eclogue
viii, v. 41)--I saw, I perished, yet indulged my pain! (Dryden)--would
be as fine in the mouth of Dido as in that of a shepherd, because it is
nature, true and elegant, and the sentiment belongs to any condition.
But this:

     _Castaneasque nuces me quas Amaryllis amabat._
                                  --_Eclogue, ii, v. 52._.

     And pluck the chestnuts from the neighboring grove,
     Such as my Amaryllis used to love.
                                        --DRYDEN.

belongs not to an heroic personage, because the allusion is not such as
would be made by a hero.

These two instances are examples of the cases in which the mingling of
styles may be defended. Tragedy may occasionally stoop; it even ought to
do so. Simplicity, according to the precept of Horace, often relieves
grandeur. _Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri_ (_Ars Poet._,
v. 95)--And oft the tragic language humbly flows (Francis).

These two verses in Titus, so natural and so tender:

     _Depuis cinq ans entiers chaque jour je la vois._
     _Et crois toujours la voir pour la premiere fois._
                             --BERENICE, acte ii, scene 1.

     Each day, for five years, have I seen her face,
     And each succeeding time appears the first.

would not be at all out of place in serious comedy; but the following
verse of Antiochus: _Dans l'orient desert quel devint mon ennui!_ (Id.,
acte i, scene 4)--The lonely east, how wearisome to me!--would not suit
a lover in comedy; the figure of the "lonely east" is too elevated for
the simplicity of the buskin. We have already remarked, that an author
who writes on physics, in allusion to a writer on physics, called
Hercules, adds that he is not able to resist a philosopher so powerful.
Another who has written a small book, which he imagines to be physical
and moral, against the utility of inoculation, says that if the smallpox
be diffused artificially, death will be defrauded.

The above defect springs from a ridiculous affectation. There is another
which is the result of negligence, which is that of mingling with the
simple and noble style required by history, popular phrases and low
expressions, which are inimical to good taste. We often read in Mezeray,
and even in Daniel, who, having written so long after him, ought to be
more correct, that "a general pursued at the heels of the enemy,
followed his track, and utterly basted him"--_a plate couture_. We read
nothing of this kind in Livy, Tacitus, Guicciardini, or Clarendon.

Let us observe, that an author accustomed to this kind of style can
seldom change it with his subject. In his operas, La Fontaine composed
in the style of his fables; and Benserade, in his translation of Ovid's
"Metamorphoses," exhibited the same kind of pleasantry which rendered
his madrigals successful. Perfection consists in knowing how to adapt
our style to the various subjects of which we treat; but who is
altogether the master of his habits, and able to direct his genius at
pleasure?


VARIOUS STYLES DISTINGUISHED.

_The Feeble._

Weakness of the heart is not that of the mind, nor weakness of the soul
that of the heart. A feeble soul is without resource in action, and
abandons itself to those who govern it. The _heart_ which is weak or
feeble is easily softened, changes its inclinations with facility,
resists not the seduction or the ascendency required, and may subsist
with a strong _mind_; for we may think strongly and act weakly. The weak
mind receives impressions without resistance, embraces opinions without
examination, is alarmed without cause, and tends naturally to
superstition.

A work may be feeble either in its matter or its style; by the
thoughts, when too common, or when, being correct, they are not
sufficiently profound; and by the style, when it is destitute of images,
or turns of expression, and of figures which rouse attention. Compared
with those of Bossuet, the funeral orations of Mascaron are weak, and
his style is lifeless.

Every speech is feeble when it is not relieved by ingenious turns, and
by energetic expressions; but a pleader is weak, when, with all the aid
of eloquence, and all the earnestness of action, he fails in
ratiocination. No philosophical work is feeble, notwithstanding the
deficiency of its style, if the reasoning be correct and profound. A
tragedy is weak, although the style