Voltaire is judged by the character which distinguishes him from other writers, his light touch and superficial raillery. Because he is _par excellence_ a _persifleur_, he is set down as merely a _persifleur_. Never was there a greater mistake. It is forgotten that he did not write witty tales and squibs only; that he made France acquainted with the philosophy of Locke and the science of Newton; that he wrote the _Age of Louis XIV._, the _History of the Parliament of Paris_, and the _Essay on Manners_ (which revived the historic method), and that he wrote more than twenty tragedies which transformed the French theatre. Voltaire was no mere mocker: his _manner_ was that of a _persifleur_, but his matter was as solid as that of any theologian. M. Louis de Brouckere, of the University of Brussels, justly claims for Voltaire a double share in the formation of modern culture and the development of modern science. He contributed to it directly by his personal works, and indirectly by antagonising the forces retarding knowledge and creating an intellectual environment eminently favorable to the formation of synthetic knowledge, and a new public opinion common to the intellectual _élite_ of Europe. Voltaire knew how to marshal against reigning prejudices and errors all the resources of vast learning and an incomparable wit; but no one more clearly than he saw that the doctrines he destroyed must be replaced by others, that humanity cannot get along without a body of common beliefs; and he contributed more than any one else to the elaboration of the new intellectual code by uniting and harmonising the efforts of special _savants_ and isolated thinkers, by giving them a clear consciousness that what they aimed at was the same thing and common to them all. He never slackened his efforts to appease the quarrels which broke out in the camp of the philosophers, to group all his _spiritual brothers_ in one compact bundle, capable of joint action, to unite them in a laic _church_ which could be utilised to oppose existing churches. The words I here italicise were underlined by him; they are found on every page of his correspondence, and he loses no opportunity to reiterate them and explain their meaning precisely. If the publication of the _Encyclopœdia_ was the work of Diderot, the union of the group of men who rendered that publication possible was, in great measure, the work of Voltaire. If Condorcet wrote just before his death his immortal _Sketch_, Voltaire took a preponderating part in the creation of the intellectual atmosphere in which Condorcet lived and could develop his genius.