A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY VOLUME I 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 V 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._ [Illustration: Voltaire at the age of thirty] LIST OF PLATES--VOL. I VOLTAIRE AT THE AGE OF THIRTY _Frontispiece_ MAHOMET LOUIS AND MDLLE. DE LA VALLIÈRE ANCIENT GREECE A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY. _The_ DICTIONNAIRE PHILOSOPHIQUE _is Voltaire's principal essay in philosophy, though not a sustained work. The miscellaneous articles he contributed to Diderot's_ ENCYCLOPÉDIE _which compose this Dictionary embody a mass of scholarly research, criticism, and speculation, lit up with pungent sallies at the formal and tyrannous ecclesiasticism of the period and the bases of belief on which it stood._ _These short studies reflect every phase of Voltaire's sparkling genius. Though some of the views enunciated in them are now universally held, and others have become obsolete through extended knowledge, they were startlingly new when Voltaire, at peril of freedom and reputation, spread them before the people of all civilized nations, who read them still with their first charm of style and substance._ OLIVER H.G. LEIGH [Illustration: Voltaire at the age of thirty] * * * * * VOLTAIRE A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY. VOL. I A, B, C--APPARITION * * * * * A. The letter A has been accounted sacred in almost every nation, because it was the first letter. The Egyptians added this to their numberless superstitions; hence it was that the Greeks of Alexandria called it _hier'alpha_; and, as omega was the last of the letters, these words _alpha_ and _omega_ signified the beginning and the end of all things. This was the origin of the cabalistic art, and of more than one mysterious folly.