THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

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THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
than on truth"; 34 a remarkable anticipation, in the midst of the En-
doctrine with which Immanuel Kant was later
lightenment, of the very
to combat the Enlightenment. He defends himself gently against his
friends the atheists; lie addresses Holbach in the article on "God" in the
Dictionary:
You yourself say that belief in God ... has kept some men from crime;
this alone suffices 'me. When this belief prevents even ten assassinations, ten
calumnies, I hold that all the world should embrace it. Religion, you say,
has produced countless misfortunes; say rather the superstition which reigns
on our unhappy glebe. This is the cruelest enemy of the pure worship due
to the Supreme Being. Let us detest this monster which has always torn the
bosom of its mother; those who combat it are the benefactors of the human
race; it is a serpent which chokes religion in its embrace; we must crush
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its head without wounding the mother whom it devours.
This distinction between superstition and religion is fundamental with
him. He accepts gladly the theology of the Sermon on the Mount, and
acclaims Jesus in tributes which could hardly be matched even with the
pages of saintly ecstasy. He pictures Christ among the sages, weeping
over the crimes that have been committed in his name. At last he built
his own church, with the dedication, "Deo erexit Voltaire"; the only
church in Europe, he said, that was erected to God. He addresses to God
a magnificent prayer; and in the article "Theist" he expounds his faith
finally and clearly:
The theist is a man firmly persuaded of the existence of a supreme being
as good as he is powerful, who has formed all things , . . ; who punishes,
without cruelty, all crimes, and recompenses with goodness all virtuous
actions. . . . Reunited in this principle with the rest of the universe, he does
not join any of the sects which all contradict one another. His religion is the
most ancient and the most widespread; for the simple worship of a God
preceded all the systems of the world. He speaks a language which all
peoples understand, while they do not understand one another. He has
brothers from Pekin to Cayenne, and he counts all the sages for his fellows.
He believes that religion consists neither in the opinions of an unintelligible
metaphysic, nor in vain shows, but in worship and in justice. To do good
is his worship, to submit to God is his creed. The Mohammedan cries out to
him, ''Beware if you fail to make the pilgrimage to Mecca!" the priest says
to him, "Curses on you if you do not make the trip to Notre Dame de
Lorette!" He laughs at Lorette and at Mecca: but he succors the indigent
and defends the oppressed.
IX. VOLTAIRE AND ROUSSEAU
Voltaire was so engrossed in the struggle against ecclesiastical tyranny
that during the later decades of his life he was compelled almost to with-*
^Correspondence, Sept. u, 1738.