Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary Part 13

The sages in all times did what they could, therefore, to inspire virtue, and not to reduce human frailty to despair; but also there are crimes so horrible that no mystery accorded expiation for them. Nero, for all that he was emperor, could not get himself initiated into the mysteries of Ceres. Constantine, on the Report of Zosimus, could not obtain pardon for his crimes: he was stained with the blood of his wife, his son and all his kindred. It was in the interest of the human race that such great transgressions should remain without expiation, in order that absolution should not invite their committal, and that universal horror might sometimes stop the villains.

The Roman Catholics have expiations which are called "penitences."

By the laws of the barbarians who destroyed the Roman Empire, crimes were expiated with money. That was called _compounding_, _componat c.u.m decem, viginti, triginta solidis_. It cost two hundred sous of that time to kill a priest, and four hundred for killing a bishop; so that a bishop was worth precisely two priests.

Having thus compounded with men, one compounded with G.o.d, when confession was generally established. Finally, Pope John XXII., who made money out of everything, prepared a tariff of sins.

The absolution of an incest, four turonenses for a layman; _ab incestu pro laico in foro conscientiae turonenses quatuor_. For the man and the woman who have committed incest, eighteen turonenses four ducats and nine carlins. That is not just; if one person pays only four turonenses, the two owed only eight turonenses.

Sodomy and b.e.s.t.i.a.lity are put at the same rate, with the inhibitory clause to t.i.tle XLIII: that amounts to ninety turonenses twelve ducats and six carlins: _c.u.m inhibitione turonenses 90, ducatos 12, carlinos 6_, _etc._

It is very difficult to believe that Leo X. was so imprudent as to have this impost printed in 1514, as is a.s.serted; but it must be considered that no spark appeared at that time of the conflagration which reformers kindled later, that the court of Rome slumbered on the people's credulity, and neglected to cover its exactions with the lightest veil.

The public sale of indulgences, which followed soon after, makes it clear that this court took no precaution to hide the turpitudes to which so many nations were accustomed. As soon as complaints against the Church's abuses burst forth, the court did what it could to suppress the book; but it could not succeed.

If I dare give my opinion of this impost, I think that the various editions are not reliable; the prices are not at all proportionate: these prices do not agree with those which are alleged by d'Aubigne, grandfather of Madame de Maintenon, in the "Confession de Sanci"; he rates virginity at six _gros_, and incest with his mother and sister at five _gros_; this account is ridiculous. I think that there was in fact a tariff established in the datary's office, for those who came to Rome to be absolved, or to bargain for dispensations; but that the enemies of Rome added much to it in order to render it more odious.

What is quite certain is that these imposts were never authorized by any council; that it was an enormous abuse invented by avarice, and respected by those whose interest it was not to abolish it. The buyers and the sellers were equally satisfied: thus, barely anybody protested, until the troubles of the reformation. It must be admitted that an exact note of all these imposts would be of great service to the history of the human mind.

_EXTREME_

We shall try to extract from this word _extreme_ a notion which may be useful.

One disputes every day if, in war, luck or leadership produces successes.

If, in disease, nature acts more than medicine for curing or killing.

If, in jurisprudence, it is not very advantageous to come to terms when one is in the right, and to plead when one is in the wrong.

If literature contributes to the glory of a nation or to its decadence.

If one should or should not make the people superst.i.tious.

If there is anything true in metaphysics, history and moral philosophy.

If taste is arbitrary, and if there is in fact good taste and bad taste, etc., etc.

To decide all these questions right away, take an example of what is the most extreme in each; compare the two opposed extremes, and you will at once discover which is true.

You wish to know if leadership can infallibly determine the success of the war; look at the most extreme case, the most opposed situations, in which leadership alone will infallibly triumph. The enemy's army is forced to pa.s.s through a deep mountain gorge; your general knows it: he makes a forced march, he takes possession of the heights, he holds the enemy shut in a pa.s.s; they must either die or surrender. In this extreme case, luck cannot have any part in the victory. It is therefore demonstrated that skill can determine the success of a campaign; from that alone is it proved that war is an art.

Now imagine an advantageous but less decisive position; success is not so certain, but it is always very probable. You arrive thus, step by step, to a perfect equality between the two armies. What will decide then? luck, that is to say an unforeseen event, a general officer killed when he is on his way to execute an important order, a corps which is shaken by a false rumour, a panic and a thousand other cases which cannot be remedied by prudence; but it still remains certain that there is an art, a generalship.

As much must be said of medicine, of this art of operating on the head and the hand, to restore life to a man who is about to lose it.

The first man who at the right moment bled and purged a sufferer from an apoplectic fit; the first man who thought of plunging a knife into the bladder in order to extract a stone, and of closing the wound again; the first man who knew how to stop gangrene in a part of the body, were without a doubt almost divine persons, and did not resemble Moliere's doctors.

Descend from this obvious example to experiments that are less striking and more equivocal; you see fevers, ills of all kinds which are cured, without it being well proved if it be nature or the doctor who has cured them; you see diseases of which the result cannot be guessed; twenty doctors are deceived; the one that has the most intelligence, the surest eye, guesses the character of the malady. There is therefore an art; and the superior man knows the finenesses of it. Thus did La Peyronie guess that a man of the court had swallowed a pointed bone which had caused an ulcer, and put him in danger of death; thus did Boerhaave guess the cause of the malady as unknown as cruel of a count of Va.s.senaar. There is therefore really an art of medicine; but in all arts there are men like Virgil and Maevius.

In jurisprudence, take a clear case, in which the law speaks clearly; a bill of exchange properly prepared and accepted; the acceptor must be condemned to pay it in every country. There is therefore a useful jurisprudence, although in a thousand cases judgments are arbitrary, to the misfortune of the human race, because the laws are badly made.

Do you desire to know if literature does good to a nation; compare the two extremes, Cicero and an uncouth ignoramus. See if it is Pliny or Attila who caused the fall of Rome.

One asks if one should encourage superst.i.tion in the people; see above all what is most extreme in this disastrous matter, St. Bartholomew, the ma.s.sacres in Ireland, the crusades; the question is soon answered.

Is there any truth in metaphysics? Seize first of all the points that are most astonishing and the most true; something exists for all eternity. An eternal Being exists by Himself; this Being cannot be either wicked or inconsequent. One must surrender to these truths; almost all the rest is given over to dispute, and the justest mind unravels the truth while the others are seeking in the shadows.

It is with all things as with colours; the weakest eyes distinguish black from white; the better, more practised eyes, discern shades that resemble each other.

_EZOURVEIDAM_

What is this "Ezourveidam" which is in the King of France's library? It is an ancient commentary which an ancient Brahmin composed once upon a time, before the epoch of Alexander, on the ancient "Veidam," which was itself much less ancient than the book of the "Shasta."

Let us respect, I tell you, all these ancient Indians. They invented the game of chess, and the Greeks went among them to learn geometry.

This "Ezourveidam" was lastly translated by a Brahmin, correspondent of the unfortunate French India Company. It was brought to me on Mount Krapack, where I have long been observing the snows; and I sent it to the great Library of Paris, where it is better placed than in my home.

Those who wish to consult it will see that after many revolutions produced by the Eternal, it pleased the Eternal to form a man who was called _Adimo_, and a woman whose name corresponds to that of life.

Is this Indian anecdote taken from the Jewish books? have the Jews copied it from the Indians? or can one say that both wrote it originally, and that fine minds meet?

The Jews were not permitted to think that their writers had drawn anything from the Brahmins, for they had never heard tell of them. We are not permitted to think about Adam otherwise than the Jews.

Consequently I hold my tongue, and I do not think at all.

_FAITH_

_We have long pondered whether or no we should print this article, which we found in an old book. Our respect for St. Peter's see restrained us.

But some pious men having convinced us that Pope Alexander VI. had nothing in common with St. Peter, we at last decided to bring this little piece into the light, without scruple._

One day Prince Pico della Mirandola met Pope Alexander VI. at the house of the courtesan Emilia, while Lucretia, the holy father's daughter, was in child-bed, and one did not know in Rome if the child was the Pope's, or his son's the Duke of Valentinois, or Lucretia's husband's, Alphonse of Aragon, who pa.s.sed for impotent. The conversation was at first very sprightly. Cardinal Bembo records a part of it.

"Little Pic," said the Pope, "who do you think is my grandson's father?"

"Your son-in-law, I think," answered Pic.

"Eh! how can you believe such folly?"