The Discourse on Inequality was sent by Rousseau to Voltaire, and drew forth a characteristic letter from the pontiff of the Philosophers. "I have received, sir, your new book against the human race. I thank you for it. You will please the men to whom you tell disagreeable truths, but you will not correct them. It is impossible to paint in stronger colors the horrors of human society, from which our ignorance and weakness promise themselves so many consolations. No one ever spent so much wit in trying to make us stupid; when we read your book we feel like going on all fours. Nevertheless, as it is more than sixty years since I lost the habit, I am conscious that it is impossible for me to take it up again, and I leave this natural attitude to those who are more worthy of it than you and I. Nor can I take ship to go out and join the savages in Canada; first, because the diseases which bear me down oblige me to stay near the greatest physician in Europe, and because I should not find the same relief among the Missouris; secondly, because there is war in those regions, and the example of our nations has made the savages almost as cruel as we are." Voltaire then goes on to complain of his own sufferings as an author, but to vaunt the influence of letters. It is not Petrarch and Boccaccio, he says, that made the wars of Italy; the pleasantries of Marot did not cause the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day; nor the tragedy of the Cid produce the riots of the Fronde. Great crimes have generally been committed by ignorant great men. It is the insatiable cupidity, the indomitable pride of mankind, which have made this world a vale of tears; from Thamas Kouli-Kan, who could not read, to the custom-house clerk, who only knows how to cipher. [Footnote: August 30, 1755. Voltaire, lvi. 714.]