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Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, a non-fiction book by Voltaire |
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_ WHY? Why does one hardly ever do the tenth part of the good one might do? Why in half Europe do girls pray to God in Latin, which they do not understand? Why in antiquity was there never a theological quarrel, and why were no people ever distinguished by the name of a sect? The Egyptians were not called Isiacs or Osiriacs; the peoples of Syria did not have the name of Cybelians. The Cretans had a particular devotion to Jupiter, and were never entitled Jupiterians. The ancient Latins were very attached to Saturn; there was not a village in Latium called Saturnian: on the contrary, the disciples of the God of truth taking their master's title, and calling themselves "anointed" like Him, declared, as soon as they could, an eternal war on all the peoples who were not anointed, and made war among themselves for fourteen hundred years, taking the names of Arians, Manicheans, Donatists, Hussites, Papists, Lutherans, Calvinists. And lastly, the Jansenists and the Molinists have had no more poignant mortification than that of not having been able to slaughter each other in pitched battle. Whence does this come? Why is the great number of hard-working, innocent men who till the land every day of the year that you may eat all its fruits, scorned, vilified, oppressed, robbed; and why is it that the useless and often very wicked man who lives only by their work, and who is rich only through their poverty, is on the contrary respected, courted, considered? Why is it that, the fruits of the earth being so necessary for the conservation of men and animals, one yet sees so many years and so many countries where there is entire lack of these fruits? Why is the half of Africa and America covered with poisons? Why is there no land where insects are not far in excess of men? Why does a little whitish, evil-smelling secretion form a being which has hard bones, desires and thoughts? and why do these beings always persecute each other? Why does so much evil exist, seeing that everything is formed by a God whom all theists are agreed in naming "good?" Why, since we complain ceaselessly of our ills, do we spend all our time in increasing them? Why, as we are so miserable, have we imagined that not to be is a great ill, when it is clear that it was not an ill not to be before we were born? Why and how does one have dreams during sleep, if one has no soul; and how is it that these dreams are always so incoherent, so extravagant, if one has a soul? Why do the stars move from west to east rather than from east to west? Why do we exist? why is there anything?
Our errors springing in no wise from malice, but being the natural consequence of human frailty, we hope that they will be pardoned to us in this world and the other. We beseech the small number of heavenly spirits who are still shut up in France in mortal bodies, and who, from there, enlighten the universe at _thirty sous_ the sheet, to communicate their luminousness to us for the tenth volume which we reckon on publishing at the end of Lent 1772, or in Advent 1773; and for their luminousness we will pay _forty sous_. This tenth volume will contain some very curious articles, which, if God favours us, will give new point to the salt which we shall endeavour to bestow in the thanks we shall give to these gentlemen. Executed on Mount Krapack, the thirtieth day of the month of Janus, the year of the world
FOOTNOTES: [23] The Philosophical Dictionary was first published as "Questions on the Encyclopedia," then reprinted as "Reason by Alphabet," and then finally, with many additions, became the "Philosophical Dictionary." [THE END] _ |
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