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 LIST OF PLATES--VOL. X VOLTAIRE'S REMAINS ON THE BASTILLE--_Frontispiece_ THE DEATH OF SOCRATES THE VISION PIERRE CORNEILLE _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._ [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 Abbé St. Réal? 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 Abbé 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....