to Voltaire by Dr. Samuel Clarke, with whom he tells us that he had several conferences in 1726,[31] and who was one of the ablest of the Newtonians. He had no doubt learnt the theory of vortices from the Jesuits, and clear exposition was the only thing needed to convert him to the new theory, which shines by its own light, and must, in an unbiassed intelligence with the humblest scientific quality, have extinguished every artificial explanation. One of the truest signs of the soundness of Voltaire’s intellectual activity was that his glad reception of the Newtonian doctrine of attraction did not blind him to the signal service and splendid genius of Descartes. That loud-shouting yet feeble-footed enthusiasm, which can only make sure of itself by disparaging the object of a counter-enthusiasm, had no place in an intellect so emphatically sincere and self-penetrative. He prefaces his account of the system of attraction by a hearty and loyal appreciation of the propounder of the system of vortices.[32] The acquisition of the special theory of attraction was in itself less important for Voltaire, than the irresistible impulse which it would give to the innate rationality or positivity of his own mind. It fitted him to encounter with proper freedom not only vortices, but that tremendous apparatus of monads, sufficient reason, and pre-established harmony, with which Leibnitz then overawed European philosophy. ‘O Metaphysics!’ he cried, ‘we have, then, got as far as they had in the time of the earliest Druids!’[33]