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On Religion, from the Philosophical
Dictionary Voltaire I MEDITATED last night; I was
absorbed in the contemplation of nature; I admired the immensity, the course,
the harmony of these infinite globes which the vulgar do not know how to
admire. I admired still more the intelligence
which directs these vast forces. I said to myself : " One must be blind
not to be dazzled by this spectacle; one must be stupid not to recognize the
author of it; one must be mad not to worship Him. What tribute of worship
should I render Him? Should not this tribute be the same in the whole of
space, since it is the same supreme power which reigns equally in all space?
Should not a thinking being who dwells in a star in the Milky Way offer Him
the same homage as the thinking being on this little globe where we are?
Light is uniform for the star Sirius and for us; moral philosophy must be
uniform. If a sentient, thinking animal in Sirius is born of a tender father
and mother who have been occupied with his happiness, he owes them as much
love and care as we owe to our parents. If someone in the Milky Way sees a
needy cripple, if he can relieve him and if he does not do it, he is guilty
toward all globes. Everywhere the heart has the same duties: on the steps of
the throne of God, if He has a throne; and in the depth of the abyss, if He
is an abyss." I was plunged in these ideas when one
of those genii who fill the intermundane spaces came down to me. I recognized
this same aerial creature who had appeared to me on another occasion to teach
me how different God's judgments were from our own, and how a good action is
preferable to a controversy. He transported me into a desert all
covered with piled up bones; and between these heaps of dead men there were
walks of ever-green trees, and at the end of each walk a tall man of august
mien, who regarded these sad remains with pity. " Alas! my archangel," said
I, " where have you brought me? " " To desolation," he
answered. " And who are these fine
patriarchs whom I see sad and motionless at the end of these green walks?
they seem to be weeping over this countless crowd of dead." " You shall know, poor human
creature," answered the genius from the intermundane spaces; " but
first of all you must weep." He began with the first pile. "
These," he said, " are the twenty-three thousand Jews who danced
before a calf, with the twenty-four thousand who were killed while lying with
Midianitish women. The number of those massacred for such errors and offences
amounts to nearly three hundred thousand. " In the other walks are the
bones of the Christians slaughtered by each other for metaphysical disputes.
They are divided into several heaps of four centuries each. One heap would
have mounted right to the sky; they had to be divided." " What! " I cried, "
brothers have treated their brothers like this, and I have the misfortune to
be of this brotherhood!" " Here," said the spirit,
" are the twelve million Americans killed in their fatherland because
they had not been baptized." " My God! why did you not leave
these frightful bones to dry in the hemisphere where their bodies were born,
and where they were consigned to so many different deaths? Why assemble here
all these abominable monuments to barbarism and fanaticism? " " To instruct you." " Since you wish to instruct
me," I said to the genius, " tell me if there have been peoples
other than the Christians and the Jews in whom zeal and religion wretchedly
transformed into fanaticism, have inspired so many horrible cruelties." " Yes," he said. " The
Mohammedans were sullied with the same inhumanities, but rarely; and when one
asked A little beyond these piles of dead
men we found other piles; they were composed of sacks of gold and silver, and
each had its label: Substance of the heretics massacred in the eighteenth
century, the seventeenth and the sixteenth. And so on in going back: Gold
and silver of Americans slaughtered, etc., etc. And all these piles were
surmounted with crosses, mitres, croziers, triple crowns studded with
precious stones. " What, my genius! it was then
to have these riches that these dead were piled up? " " Yes, my son." I wept; and when by my grief I had
merited to be led to the end of the green walks, he led me there. " Contemplate," he said,
" the heroes of humanity who were the world's benefactors, and who were
all united in banishing from the world, as far as they were able, violence
and rapine. Question them." I ran to the first of the band; he
had a crown on his head, and a little censer in his hand; I humbly asked him
his name. " I am Numa Pompilius," he said to me. " I succeeded
a brigand, and I had brigands to govern: I taught them virtue and the worship
of God; after me they forgot both more than once; I forbade that in the
temples there should be any image, because the Deity which animates nature
cannot be represented. During my reign the Romans had neither wars nor
seditions, and my religion did nothing but good. All the neighbouring peoples
came to honour me at my funeral: that happened to no one but me." I kissed his hand, and I went to the
second. He was a fine old man about a hundred years old, clad in a white
robe. He put his middle-finger on his mouth, and with the other hand he cast
some beans behind him. I recognized Pythagoras. He assured me he had never
had a golden thigh, and that he had never been a cock; but that he had
governed the Crotoniates with as much justice as Numa governed the Romans,
almost at the same time; and that this justice was the rarest and most
necessary thing in the world. I learned that the Pythagoreans examined their
consciences twice a day. The honest people! how far we are from them! But we
who have been nothing but assassins for thirteen hundred years, we say that
these wise men were arrogant . In order to please Pythagoras, I did
not say a word to him and I passed to Zarathustra, who was occupied in
concentrating the celestial fire in the focus of a concave mirror, in the
middle of a hall with a hundred doors which all led to wisdom. (Zarathustra's
precepts are called doors, and are a hundred in number.) Over the principal
door I read these words which are the precis of all moral philosophy, and
which cut short all the disputes of the causists : "When in doubt if an
action is good or bad, refrain." " Certainly," I said to my
genius, "the barbarians who immolated all these victims had never read
these beautiful words." We then saw the Zaleucus, the Thales,
the Aniximanders, and all the sages who had sought truth and practised
virtue. When we came to Socrates, I
recognized him very quickly by his flat nose. " Well," I said to
him, " here you are then among the number of the Almighty's confidants!
All the inhabitants of Europe, except the Turks and the Tartars of the "Since my adventure,"
replied Socrates, " I have never thought about that man; but seeing that
you make me remember it, I have much pity for him. He was a wicked priest who
secretly conducted a business in hides, a trade reputed shameful among us. He
sent his two children to my school. The other discipfes taunted them with
having a father who was a currier; they were obliged to leave. The irritated
father had no rest until he had stirred up all the priests and all the
sophists against me. They persuaded the counsel of the five hundred that I
was an impious fellow who did not believe that the Moon, Mercury and Mars
were gods. Indeed, I used to think, as I think now that there is only one
God, master of all nature. The judges handed me over to the poisoner of the
republic; he cut short my life by a few days: I died peacefully at the age of
seventy; and since that time I pass a happy life withh all these great men
whom you see, and of whom I am the least." After enjoying some time in
conversation with Socrates, Ih went forward with my guide into a grove
situated above the thickets where all the sages of antiquity seemed to be
tasting sweet repose. I saw a man of gentle, simple
countenance, who seemed to me to be about thirty-five years old. From afar he
cast compassionate glances on these piles of whitened bones, across which I
had had to pass to reach the sages' abode. I was astonished to find his feet
swollen and bleeding, his hands likewise, his side pierced, and his ribs
flayed with whip cuts. " Good Heavens! " I said to him, " is
it possible for a just man, a sage, to be in this state? I have just seen one
who was treated in a very hateful way, but there is no comparison between his
torture and yours. Wicked priests and wicked judges poisoned him; is it by
priests anhd judges that you have been so cruelly assassinated? " He answered with much courtesy--"Yes."
"And who were these monsters?
" "They were hypocrites."
"Ah! that says everything; I
understand by this single word that they must have condemned you to death.
Had you then proved to them, as Socrates did, that the Moon was not a
goddess, and that Mercury was not a god? " "No, these planets were not
in question. My compatriots did not know at all what a planet is; they were
all arrant ignoramuses. Their superstitions were quite different from those
of the Greeks." "You wanted to teach them a new
religion, then? " "Not at all; I said to them
simply--' Love God with all your heart and your fellow-creature as yourself,
for that is man's whole duty.' Judge if this precept is not as old as the
universe; judge if I brought them a new religion. I did not stop telling them
that I had come not to destroy the law bitt to fulfil it; I had observed all
their rites; circumcised as they all were, baptized as were the most zealous
among them, like them I paid the Corban; I observed the Passover as they did,
eating standing up a lahmb cooked with lettuces. I and my friends went to
pray in the temple; my friends even frequented this temple after my death; in
a word, I fulfilled all their laws without a single exception." "What! these wretches could not
even reproach you with swerving from their laws? " "No, without a doubt."
"Why then did they put you in
the condition in which I now see you? " "What do you expect me to
say! they were very arrogant and selfish. They saw that I knew them; they
knew that I was making the citizens acquainted with them; they were the
stronger; they took away my life: and people like them will always do as
much, if they can, to whoever does them too much justice.'' " But did you say nothing, do
nothing that could serve them as a pretext? " "To the wicked everything
serves as pretext." " Did you not say once that you
were come not to send peace, but a sword? " "It is a copyist's error; I
told them that I sent peace and not a sword. I have never written anything;
what I said can have been changed without evil intention." " You therefore contributed in
no way by your speeches, badly reported, badly interpreted, to these
frightful piles of bones which I saw on my road in coming to consult you?
" "It is with horror only that
I have seen those who have made themselves guilty oj these murders."
" And these monuments of power
and wealth, of pride and avarice, these treasures, these ornaments, these
signs of grandeur, which I have seen piled up on the road while I was seeking
wisdom, do they come from you? " "That is impossible; I and my
people lived in poverty and meanness: my grandeur was in virtue only."
I was about to beg him to be so good
as to tell me just who he was. My guide warned me to do nothing of the sort.
He told me that I was not made to understand these sublime mysteries. Only
did I conjure him to tell me in what true religion consisted. "Have I
not already told you? Love God and your fellow-creature as yourself."
" What! if one loves God, one
can eat meat on Friday? " "I always ate what was given
me; for I was too poor to give anyone food." " In loving God, in being just,
should one not be rather cautious not to confide all the adventures of one's
life to an unknown man?" "That was always my practice."
" Can I not, by doing good,
dispense with making a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella? " "I have never been in that
country." " Is it necessary for me to
imprison myself in a retreat with fools? " "As for me, I always made
little journeys from town to town.'' " Is it necessary for me to take
sides either for the Greek Church or the Latin? " "When I was in the world I
never made any difference between the Jew and the Samaritan." "Well, if that is so, I take you
for my only master." Then he made me a sign with his head which filled
me with consolation. The vision disappeared, and a clear conscience stayed
with me. |