Вольтер
A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06
SECTION IV
Of the Method or Manner of Writing History, and of Style.
We have said so much upon this subject, that we must here say very little. It is sufficiently known and fully admitted, that the method and style of Livy – his gravity, and instructive eloquence, are suitable to the majesty of the Roman republic; that Tacitus is more calculated to portray tyrants, Polybius to give lessons on war, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus to investigate antiquities.
But, while he forms himself on the general model of these great masters, a weighty responsibility is attached to the modern historian from which they were exempt. He is required to give more minute details, facts more completely authenticated, correct dates, precise authorities, more attention to customs, laws, manners, commerce, finance, agriculture, and population. It is with history, as it is with mathematics and natural philosophy; the field of it is immensely enlarged. The more easy it is to compile newspapers, the more difficult it is at the present day to write history.
Daniel thought himself a historian, because he transcribed dates and narratives of battles, of which I can understand nothing. He should have informed me of the rights of the nation, the rights of the chief corporate establishments in it; its laws, usages, manners, with the alterations by which they have been affected in the progress of time. This nation might not improperly address him in some such language as the following: – I want from you my own history rather than that of Louis le Gros and Louis Hutin; you tell me, copying from some old, unauthenticated, and carelessly-written chronicle, that when Louis VIII. was attacked by a mortal disease, and lay languishing and powerless, the physicians ordered the more than half-dead monarch to take to his bed a blooming damsel, who might cherish the few sparks of remaining life; and that the pious king rejected the unholy advice with indignation. Alas! Daniel, you are unacquainted, it seems, with the Italian proverb – "Donna ignuda manda l'uomo sotto la terra." You ought to possess a little stronger tincture of political and natural history.
The history of a foreign country should be formed on a different model to that of our own.
If we compose a history of France, we are under no necessity to describe the course of the Seine and the Loire; but if we publish a history of the conquests of the Portuguese in Asia, a topographical description of the recently explored country is required. It is desirable that we should, as it were, conduct the reader by the hand round Africa, and along the coasts of Persia and India; and it is expected that we should treat with information and judgment, of manners, laws, and customs so new to Europe.
We have a great variety of histories of the establishment of the Portuguese in India, written by our countrymen, but not one of them has made us acquainted with the different governments of that country, with its religious antiquities, Brahmins, disciples of St. John, Guebers, and Banians. Some letters of Xavier and his successors have, it is true, been preserved to us. We have had histories of the Indies composed at Paris, from the accounts of those missionaries who were unacquainted with the language of the Brahmins. We have it repeated, in a hundred works, that the Indians worship the devil. The chaplains of a company of merchants quit our country under these impressions, and, as soon as they perceive on the coast some symbolical figures, they fail not to write home that they are the portraits and likenesses of the devil, that they are in the devil's empire, and that they are going to engage in battle with him. They do not reflect that we are the real worshippers of the devil Mammon, and that we travel six thousand leagues from our native land to offer our vows at his shrine, and to obtain the grant of some portion of his treasures.
As to those who hire themselves out at Paris to some bookseller in the Rue de St. Jacques, and at so much per job, and who are ordered to write a history of Japan, Canada, or the Canaries, as the case requires and opportunity suggests, from the memoirs of a few Capuchin friars – to such I have nothing to say.
It is sufficient, if it be clearly understood, that the method which would be proper in writing a history of our own country is not suitable in describing the discoveries of the new world; that we should not write on a small city as on a great empire; and that the private history of a prince should be composed in a very different manner from the history of France and England.
If you have nothing to tell us, but that on the banks of the Oxus and the Jaxartes, one barbarian has been succeeded by another barbarian, in what respect do you benefit the public?
These rules are well known; but the art of writing history well will always be very uncommon. It obviously requires a style grave, pure, varied, and smooth. But we may say with respect to rules for writing history, as in reference to those for all the intellectual arts – there are many precepts, but few masters.
SECTION V
History of the Jewish Kings, and of the "Paralipomena."
Every nation, as soon as it was able to write, has written its own history, and the Jews have accordingly written theirs. Before they had kings, they lived under a theocracy; it was their destiny to be governed by God himself.
When the Jews were desirous of having a king, like the adjoining nations, the prophet Samuel, who was exceedingly interested in preventing it, declared to them, on the part of God, that they were rejecting God himself. Thus the Jewish theocracy ceased when the monarchy commenced.
We may therefore remark, without the imputation of blasphemy, that the history of the Jewish kings was written like that of other nations, and that God did not take the pains Himself to dictate the history of a people whom He no longer governed.
We advance this opinion with the greatest diffidence. What may perhaps be considered as confirming it, is, that the "Paralipomena" very frequently contradict the Book of Kings, both with respect to chronology and facts, just as profane historians sometimes contradict one another. Moreover, if God always wrote the history of the Jews, it seems only consistent and natural to think that He writes it still; for the Jews are always His cherished people. They are on some future day to be converted, and it seems that whenever that event happens, they will have as complete a right to consider the history of their dispersion as sacred, as they have now to say, that God wrote the history of their kings.
We may be allowed here to make one reflection; which is, that as God was for a very long period their king, and afterwards became their historian, we are bound to entertain for all Jews the most profound respect. There is not a single Jew broker, or slop-man, who is not infinitely superior to Cæsar and Alexander. How can we avoid bending in prostration before an old-clothes man, who proves to us that his history has been written by God Himself, while the histories of Greece and Rome have been transmitted to us merely by the profane hand of man?
If the style of the history of the kings, and of the "Paralipomena," is divine, it may nevertheless be true that the acts recorded in these histories are not divine. David murders Uriah; Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth are murdered; Absalom murders Ammon; Joab murders Absalom; Solomon murders his brother Adonijah; Baasha murders Nadab; Zimri murders Ela; Omri murders Zimri; Ahab murders Naboth; Jehu murders Ahab and Joram; the inhabitants of Jerusalem murder Amaziah, son of Joash; Shallum, son of Jabesh, murders Zachariah, son of Jeroboam; Menahhem murders Shallum, son of Jabesh; Pekah, son of Remaliah, murders Pekahiah, son of Manehem; and Hoshea, son of Elah, murders Pekah, son of Remaliah. We pass over, in silence, many other minor murders. It must be acknowledged, that, if the Holy Spirit did write this history, He did not choose a subject particularly edifying.
SECTION VI
Of bad Actions which have been consecrated or excused in History.
It is but too common for historians to praise very depraved and abandoned characters, who have done service either to a dominant sect, or to their nation at large. The praises thus bestowed, come perhaps from a loyal and zealous citizen; but zeal of this description is injurious to the great society of mankind. Romulus murders his brother, and he is made a god. Constantine cuts the throat of his son, strangles his wife, and murders almost all his family: he has been eulogized in general councils, but history should ever hold up such barbarities to detestation. It is undoubtedly fortunate for us that Clovis was a Catholic. It is fortunate for the Anglican church that Henry VIII. abolished monks, but we must at the same time admit that Clovis and Henry VIII. were monsters of cruelty.
When first the Jesuit Berruyer, who although a Jesuit, was a fool, undertook to paraphrase the Old and New Testaments in the style of the lowest populace, with no other intention than that of having them read; he scattered some flowers of rhetoric over the two-edged knife which the Jew Ehud thrust up to the hilt in the stomach of the king Eglon; and over the sabre with which Judith cut off the head of Holofernes after having prostituted herself to his pleasures; and also over many other acts recorded, of a similar description. The parliament, respecting the Bible which narrates these histories, nevertheless condemned the Jesuit who extolled them, and ordered the Old and New Testaments to be burned: – I mean merely those of the Jesuit.
But as the judgments of mankind are ever different in similar cases, the same thing happened to Bayle in circumstances totally different. He was condemned for not praising all the actions of David, king of the province of Judæa. A man of the name of Jurieu, a refugee preacher in Holland, associated with some other refugee preachers, were desirous of obliging him to recant. But how could he recant with reference to facts delivered in the scripture? Had not Bayle some reason to conclude that all the facts recorded in the Jewish books are not the actions of saints; that David, like other men, had committed some criminal acts; and that if he is called a man after God's own heart, he is called so in consequence of his penitence, and not of his crimes?
Let us disregard names and confine our consideration to things only. Let us suppose, that during the reign of Henry IV. a clergyman of the League party secretly poured out a phial of oil on the head of a shepherd of Brie; that the shepherd comes to court; that the clergyman presents him to Henry IV. as an excellent violin player who can completely drive away all care and melancholy; that the king makes him his equerry, and bestows on him one of his daughters in marriage; that afterwards, the king having quarrelled with the shepherd, the latter takes refuge with one of the princes of Germany, his father-in-law's enemy; that he enlists and arms six hundred banditti overwhelmed by debt and debauchery; that with this regiment of brigands he rushes to the field, slays friends as well as enemies, exterminating all, even to women with children at the breast, in order to prevent a single individual's remaining to give intelligence of the horrid butchery. I farther suppose this same shepherd of Brie to become king of France after the death of Henry IV.; that he procures the murder of that king's grandson, after having invited him to sit at meat at his own table, and delivers over to death seven other younger children of his king and benefactor. Who is the man that will not conceive the shepherd of Brie to act rather harshly?
Commentators are agreed that the adultery of David, and his murder of Uriah, are faults which God pardoned. We may therefore conclude that the massacres above mentioned are faults which God also pardoned.
However, Bayle had no quarter given him; but at length some preachers at London having compared George II. to David, one of that monarch's servants prints and publishes a small book, in which he censures the comparison. He examines the whole conduct of David; he goes infinitely farther than Bayle, and treats David with more severity than Tacitus applies to Domitian. This book did not raise in England the slightest murmur; every reader felt that bad actions are always bad; that God may pardon them when repentance is proportioned to guilt, but that certainly no man can ever approve of them.
There was more reason, therefore, prevailing in England than there was in Holland in the time of Bayle. We now perceive clearly and without difficulty, that we ought not to hold up as a model of sanctity what, in fact, deserves the severest punishment; and we see with equal clearness that, as we ought not to consecrate guilt, so we ought not to believe absurdity.
HONOR
The author of the "Spirit of Laws" has founded his system on the idea that virtue is the principle of a republican government, and honor that of mom archism. Is there virtue then without honor, and how is a republic established in virtue?
Let us place before the reader's eyes that which has been said in an able little book upon this subject. Pamphlets soon sink into oblivion. Truth ought not to be lost; it should be consigned to works possessing durability.
"Assuredly republics have never been formed on a theoretical principle of virtue. The public interest being opposed to the domination of an individual, the spirit of self-importance, and the ambition of every person, serve to curb ambition and the inclination to rapacity, wherever they may appear. The pride of each citizen watches over that of his neighbor, and no person would willingly be the slave of another's caprice. Such are the feelings which establish republics, and which preserve them. It is ridiculous to imagine that there must be more virtue in a Grison than in a Spaniard."
That honor can be the sole principle of monarchies is a no less chimerical idea, and the author shows it to be so himself, without being aware of it. "The nature of honor," says he, in chapter vii. of book iii., "is to demand preferences and distinctions. It, therefore, naturally suits a monarchical government."
Was it not on this same principle, that the Romans demanded the prætorship, consulship, ovation, and triumph in their republic? These were preferences and distinctions well worth the titles and preferences purchased in monarchies, and for which there is often a regular fixed price.
This remark proves, in our opinion, that the "Spirit of Laws," although sparkling with wit, and commendable by its respect for the laws and hatred of superstition and rapine, is founded entirely upon false views.
Let us add, that it is precisely in courts that there is always least honor:
L'ingannare, il mentir, la frode, il furto,
E la rapina di pictà vestita,
Crescer coi damno e precipizio altrui,
E fare a se de l'altrui biasmo onore,
Son le virtù di quella gente infidà.
– PASTOR FIDO, atto v., scena i.
Ramper avec bassesse en affectant l'audace,
S'engraisser de rapine en attestant les lois,
Étouffer en secret son ami qu'on embrasse.
Voilà l'honneur qui règne à la suite des rois.
To basely crawl, yet wear a face of pride;
To rob the public, yet o'er law preside;
Salute a friend, yet sting in the embrace —
Such is the honor which in courts takes place.
Indeed, it is in courts, that men devoid of honor often attain to the highest dignities; and it is in republics that a known dishonorable citizen is seldom trusted by the people with public concerns.
The celebrated saying of the regent, duke of Orleans, is sufficient to destroy the foundation of the "Spirit of Laws": "This is a perfect courtier – he has neither temper nor honor."
HUMILITY
Philosophers have inquired, whether humility is a virtue; but virtue or not, every one must agree that nothing is more rare. The Greeks called it "tapeinosis" or "tapeineia." It is strongly recommended in the fourth book of the "Laws of Plato": he rejects the proud and would multiply the humble.
Epictetus, in five places, preaches humility: "If thou passest for a person of consequence in the opinion of some people, distrust thyself. No lifting up of thy eye-brows. Be nothing in thine own eyes – if thou seekest to please, thou art lost. Give place to all men; prefer them to thyself; assist them all." We see by these maxims that never Capuchin went so far as Epictetus.
Some theologians, who had the misfortune to be proud, have pretended that humility cost nothing to Epictetus, who was a slave; and that he was humble by station, as a doctor or a Jesuit may be proud by station.
But what will they say of Marcus Antoninus, who on the throne recommended humility? He places Alexander and his muleteer on the same line. He said that the vanity of pomp is only a bone thrown in the midst of dogs; that to do good, and to patiently hear himself calumniated, constitute the virtue of a king.
Thus the master of the known world recommended humility; but propose humility to a musician, and see how he will laugh at Marcus Aurelius.
Descartes, in his treatise on the "Passions of the Soul," places humility among their number, who – if we may personify this quality – did not expect to be regarded as a passion. He also distinguishes between virtuous and vicious humility.
But we leave to philosophers more enlightened than ourselves the care of explaining this doctrine, and will confine ourselves to saying, that humility is "the modesty of the soul."
It is the antidote to pride. Humility could not prevent Rousseau from believing that he knew more of music than those to whom he taught it; but it could induce him to believe that he was not superior to Lulli in recitative.
The reverend father Viret, cordelier, theologian, and preacher, all humble as he is, will always firmly believe that he knows more than those who learn to read and write; but his Christian humility, his modesty of soul, will oblige him to confess in the bottom of his heart that he has written nothing but nonsense. Oh, brothers Nonnotte, Guyon, Pantouillet, vulgar scribblers! be more humble, and always bear in recollection "the modesty of the soul."
HYPATIA
I will suppose that Madame Dacier had been the finest woman in Paris; and that in the quarrel on the comparative merits of the ancients and moderns, the Carmelites pretended that the poem of the Magdalen, written by a Carmelite, was infinitely superior to Homer, and that it was an atrocious impiety to prefer the "Iliad" to the verses of a monk. I will take the additional liberty of supposing that the archbishop of Paris took the part of the Carmelites against the governor of the city, a partisan of the beautiful Madame Dacier, and that he excited the Carmelites to massacre this fine woman in the church of Notre Dame, and to drag her, naked and bloody, to the Place Maubert – would not everybody say that the archbishop of Paris had done a very wicked action, for which he ought to do penance?
This is precisely the history of Hypatia. She taught Homer and Plato, in Alexandria, in the time of Theodosius II. St. Cyril incensed the Christian populace against her, as it is related by Damasius and Suidas, and clearly proved by the most learned men of the age, such as Bruker, La Croze, and Basnage, as is very judiciously exposed in the great "Dictionnaire Encyclopédique," in the article on "Éclectisme."
A man whose intentions are no doubt very good, has printed two volumes against this article of the "Encyclopædia." Two volumes against two pages, my friends, are too much. I have told you a hundred times you multiply being without necessity. Two lines against two volumes would be quite sufficient; but write not even these two lines.
I am content with remarking, that St. Cyril was a man of parts; that he suffered his zeal to carry him too far; that when we strip beautiful women, it is not to massacre them; that St. Cyril, no doubt, asked pardon of God for this abominable action; and that I pray the father of mercies to have pity on his soul. He wrote the two volumes against "Éclectisme," also inspires me with infinite commiseration.
