Part 22
It is a sad thing for the human race that Pilate went out without waiting for the answer; we should know what truth is. Pilate had very little curiosity. The accused led before him, says he is king, that he was to be king; and Pilate does not inquire how that can be. He is supreme judge in Cæsar's name, he has power of life and death; his duty was to probe the sense of these words. He ought to say--"Tell me what you understand by being king. How were you born to be king and to bear witness to the truth? It is maintained that truth reaches but with difficulty to the ear of kings. I am judge, I have always had great trouble in finding it. While your enemies are howling against you without, give me some information on the point; you will be doing me the greatest service that has ever been done a judge; and I much prefer to learn to recognize truth, than to accede to the Jews' clamorous demand to have you hanged."
We shall not dare, to be sure, seek what the author of all truth would have been able to reply to Pilate.
Would he have said: "Truth is an abstract word which most men use indifferently in their books and judgments, for error and falsehood?" This definition would have been marvellously appropriate to all makers of systems. Similarly is the word "wisdom" taken often for folly, and "wit" for nonsense.
Humanly speaking, let us define truth, while waiting for a better definition, as--"a statement of the facts as they are."
I suppose that if one had given only six months to teaching Pilate the truths of logic, he would assuredly have made this conclusive syllogism. One must not take away the life of a man who has only preached good morality: well, the man who has been impeached has, on the showing of his enemies even, often preached excellent morality; therefore he should not be punished with death.
He might have drawn this further argument.
My duty is to disperse the riotous assemblage of a seditious people who demand a man's death, unreasonably and without legal form; well, that is the position of the Jews in this instance; therefore I must drive them away and break up their meeting.
We suppose that Pilate knew arithmetic; hence we will not speak of those forms of truth.
As regards mathematical truths, I think it would have taken at least three years before he could have learned higher geometry. The truths of physics combined with those of geometry would have demanded more than four years. We spend six, ordinarily, in studying theology; I ask twelve for Pilate, seeing that he was pagan, and that six years would not have been too much for eradicating all his old errors, and six years more for making him fit to receive a doctor's hood.
If Pilate had had a well-balanced mind, I should have asked only two years to teach him metaphysical truth; and as metaphysical truth is necessarily allied to moral truth, I flatter myself that in less than nine years he would have become a real scholar and a perfectly honest man.
I should then have said to Pilate:--Historical truths are merely probabilities. If you had fought at the battle of Philippi, that is for you a truth which you know by intuition, by perception. But for us who dwell near the Syrian desert, it is merely a very probable thing, which we know by hearsay. How much hearsay is necessary to form a conviction equal to that of a man who, having seen the thing, can flatter himself that he has a sort of certainty?
He who has heard the thing told by twelve thousand eyewitnesses, has only twelve thousand probabilities, equal to one strong probability, which is not equal to certainty.
If you have the thing from only one of these witnesses, you know nothing; you should be sceptical. If the witness is dead, you should be still more sceptical, for you cannot enlighten yourself. If from several witnesses who are dead, you are in the same plight. If from those to whom the witnesses have spoken, your scepticism should increase still more.
From generation to generation scepticism increases, and probability diminishes; and soon probability is reduced to zero.
_TYRANNY_
One gives the name of tyrant to the sovereign who knows no laws but those of his caprice, who takes his subjects' property, and who afterwards enrols them to go to take the property of his neighbours. There are none of these tyrants in Europe.
One distinguishes between the tyranny of one man and that of many. The tyranny of many would be that of a body which invaded the rights of other bodies, and which exercised despotism in favour of the laws corrupted by it. Nor are there any tyrants of this sort in Europe.
Under which tyranny would you like to live? Under neither; but if I had to choose, I should detest the tyranny of one man less than that of many. A despot always has his good moments; an assembly of despots never. If a tyrant does me an injustice, I can disarm him through his mistress, his confessor or his page; but a company of grave tyrants is inaccessible to all seductions. When it is not unjust, it is at the least hard, and never does it bestow favours.
If I have only one despot, I am quit of him by drawing myself up against a wall when I see him pass, or by bowing low, or by striking the ground with my forehead, according to the custom of the country; but if there is a company of a hundred despots, I am exposed to repeating this ceremony a hundred times a day, which in the long run is very annoying if one's hocks are not supple. If I have a farm in the neighbourhood of one of our lords, I am crushed; if I plead against a relation of the relations of one of our lords, I am ruined. What is to be done? I fear that in this world one is reduced to being either hammer or anvil; lucky the man who escapes these alternatives!
_VIRTUE_
SECTION I
It is said of Marcus Brutus that, before killing himself, he uttered these words: "O virtue! I thought you were something; but you are only an empty phantom!"
You were right, Brutus, if you considered virtue as being head of a faction, and assassin of your benefactor; but if you had considered virtue as consisting only of doing good to those dependent on you, you would not have called it a phantom, and you would not have killed yourself in despair.
I am very virtuous says this excrement of theology, for I have the four cardinal virtues, and the three divine. An honest man asks him--"What is the cardinal virtue?" The other answers--"Strength, prudence, temperance and justice."
THE HONEST MAN:
If you are just, you have said everything; your strength, your prudence, your temperance, are useful qualities. If you have them, so much the better for you; but if you are just, so much the better for the others. But it is not enough to be just, you must do good; that is what is really cardinal. And your divine virtues, which are they?
THE EXCREMENT:
Faith, hope, charity.
THE HONEST MAN:
Is it a virtue to believe? either what you believe seems true to you, and in this case there is no merit in believing; or it seems false to you, and then it is impossible for you to believe.
Hope cannot be a virtue any more than fear; one fears and one hopes, according as one receives a promise or a threat. As for charity, is it not what the Greeks and the Romans understood by humanity, love of one's neighbour? this love is nothing if it be not active; doing good, therefore, is the sole true virtue.
THE EXCREMENT:
One would be a fool! Really, I am to give myself a deal of torment in order to serve mankind, and I shall get no return! all work deserves payment. I do not mean to do the least honest action, unless I am certain of paradise.
THE HONEST MAN:
Ah, master! that is to say that, if you did not hope for paradise, and if you did not fear hell, you would never do any good action. Believe me, master, there are two things worthy of being loved for themselves, God and virtue.
THE EXCREMENT:
I see, sir, you are a disciple of Fénélon.
THE HONEST MAN:
Yes, master.
THE EXCREMENT:
I shall denounce you to the judge of the ecclesiastical court at Meaux.
THE HONEST MAN:
Go along, denounce!
SECTION II
What is virtue? Beneficence towards the fellow-creature. Can I call virtue things other than those which do me good? I am needy, you are generous. I am in danger, you help me. I am deceived, you tell me the truth. I am neglected, you console me. I am ignorant, you teach me. Without difficulty I shall call you virtuous. But what will become of the cardinal and divine virtues? Some of them will remain in the schools.
What does it matter to me that you are temperate? you observe a precept of health; you will have better health, and I am happy to hear it. You have faith and hope, and I am happy still; they will procure you eternal life. Your divine virtues are celestial gifts; your cardinal virtues are excellent qualities which serve to guide you: but they are not virtues as regards your fellow-creature. The prudent man does good to himself, the virtuous man does good to mankind. St. Paul was right to tell you that charity prevails over faith and hope.
But shall only those that are useful to one's fellow-creature be admitted as virtues? How can I admit any others? We live in society; really, therefore, the only things that are good for us are those that are good for society. A recluse will be sober, pious; he will be clad in hair-cloth; he will be a saint: but I shall not call him virtuous until he has done some act of virtue by which other men have profited. So long as he is alone, he is doing neither good nor evil; for us he is nothing. If St. Bruno brought peace to families, if he succoured want, he was virtuous; if he fasted, prayed in solitude, he was a saint. Virtue among men is an interchange of kindness; he who has no part in this interchange should not be counted. If this saint were in the world, he would doubtless do good; but so long as he is not in the world, the world will be right in refusing him the title of virtuous; he will be good for himself and not for us.
But, you say to me, if a recluse is a glutton, a drunkard, given to secret debauches with himself, he is vicious; he is virtuous, therefore, if he has the opposite qualities. That is what I cannot agree: he is a very disagreeable fellow if he has the faults you mention; but he is not vicious, wicked, punishable as regards society to whom these infamies do no harm. It is to be presumed that were he to return to society he would do harm there, that he would be very vicious; and it is even more probable that he would be a wicked man, than it is sure that the other temperate and chaste recluse would be a virtuous man, for in society faults increase, and good qualities diminish.
A much stronger objection is made; Nero, Pope Alexander VI., and other monsters of this species, have bestowed kindnesses; I answer hardily that on that day they were virtuous.
A few theologians say that the divine emperor Antonine was not virtuous; that he was a stubborn Stoic who, not content with commanding men, wished further to be esteemed by them; that he attributed to himself the good he did to the human race; that all his life he was just, laborious, beneficent through vanity, and that he only deceived men through his virtues. "My God!" I exclaim. "Give us often rogues like him!"
_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?
_DECLARATION OF THE ADMIRERS, QUESTIONERS AND DOUBTERS WHO HAVE AMUSED THEMSELVES BY PROPOUNDING TO THE SCHOLARS THE ABOVE QUESTIONS IN NINE VOLUMES._[23]
We declare to the scholars that, being like them prodigiously ignorant about the first principles of all things, and about the natural, typical, mystic, allegorical sense of many things, we refer these things to the infallible judgment of the Holy Inquisition of Rome, Florence, Madrid, Lisbon, and to the decrees of the Sorbonne of Paris, perpetual council of the Gauls.
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
according to Scaliger 5722 according to Riccioli 5956 according to Eusebius 6972 according to the Alphonsine Tables 8707 according to the Egyptians 370000 according to the Chaldeans 465102 according to the Brahmins 780000 according to the philosophers infinity
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."
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
This text had three occurrences of "François I" followed by a superscripted "er". These have be rendered as François Ier in this text.
The following words used an "oe" ligature in the original:
foetus manoeuvre oesophagus Phoenicia Phoenicians subpoenaed
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original.
There is one occurrence of "Vistnou" and one of "Vitsnou". One of these is clearly an error, but each has been left as in the original.
The symbol representing infinity has been replaced with the word "infinity" on page 316, the last line of the text.
The following corrections have been made to the original text:
page 17: Nestor, in the "Iliad," wishing to insinuate himself as a wise conciliator into the minds of Achilles and Agamemnon{original had "Agamamemnon"},
page 40: Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent persons, and superstition{original had "superstitution"} is the vice of fools.
page 42: if it is a greater crime not to believe in the Deity{original had "Diety"} than to have unworthy opinions thereof:
page 54: They will say as much of the great moral maxims, of Zarathustra's--"In doubt if an{original had "in"} action be just, abstain...";
page 58: What time and what trouble for copying correctly in Greek and Latin the works of Origen{original had "Origin"}, of Clement of Alexandria, and of all those other authors called "fathers."
page 101: we shall be convinced that we must not be vain about anything, and yet we shall always{original had "aways"} have vanity.
page 128: All that certain tyrants{original had "tryants"} of the souls desire is that the men they teach shall have false judgment.
page 166: and to surround him with little chubby, flushed faces accompanied{original had "accompained"} by two wings; I laugh and I pardon them with all my heart.
page 171: And an unfortunate{original had "unforunate"} idiot, who had had enough courage to render very great services to the king
page 220: Try to retake from the Mohammedans all that they usurped; but it is easier to calumniate{original had "calcumniate"} them.
pafe 224: It was allowed among the Egyptians{original had "Egyptains"}, the Athenians and even among the Jews, to marry one's sister on the father's side.
page 251: Your parents have told you that you should bow before this man; you respect him before knowing whether he merits your respect;{original had colon} you grow in years and in knowledge;
page 280: (Corporalitas animæ in ipso Evangelio relucescit, De Anima,{original had period} cap. vii.)
page 295: "She soon became a monarchy, then,{original had period}" said the Brahmin.
page 315: we refer these things to the infallible{original had "infallable"} judgment of the Holy Inquisition of Rome, Florence, Madrid, Lisbon,
End of Project Gutenberg's Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire