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    Philosophical Letters: (Letters Concerning the English Nation)
    Philosophical Letters: (Letters Concerning the English Nation)
    Philosophical Letters: (Letters Concerning the English Nation)
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    Philosophical Letters: (Letters Concerning the English Nation)

    By . Voltaire

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    Best known for his philosophical novel Candide, Voltaire ranked among the leading intellectuals of the Enlightenment period. His two-and-a-half-year sojourn in England left a profound impression, and these letters—written as though explaining English society to a French friend—focus on the country's religion and politics, with commentaries on Quakers, the Church of England, Presbyterians, Anti-Trinitarians, Parliament, the government, and commerce. They also include essays on Locke, Descartes, and Newton. Voltaire was much influenced by English tolerance, and his observations on the subject sounded a revolutionary note among European readers that resonated for long afterward. First published in English in 1733, Philosophical Letters was condemned by the French government as "likely to inspire a license of thought most dangerous to religion and civil order." It remains a landmark of the Age of Reason.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateJun 12, 2012
    ISBN9780486143163
    Philosophical Letters: (Letters Concerning the English Nation)
    Author

    . Voltaire

    Imprisoned in the Bastille at the age of twenty-three for a criminal libel against the Regent of France, François-Marie Arouet was freed in 1718 with a new name, Voltaire, and the completed manuscript of his first play, Oedipe, which became a huge hit on the Paris stage in the same year. For the rest of his long and dangerously eventful life, this cadaverous genius shone with uninterrupted brilliance as one of the most famous men in the world. Revered, and occasionally reviled, in the royal courts of Europe, his literary outpourings and fearless campaigning against the medieval injustices of church and state in the midst of the ‘Enlightenment’ did much to trigger the French Revolution and to formulate the present notions of democracy. But above all, Voltaire was an observer of the human condition, and his masterpiece Candide stands out as an astonishing testament to his unequalled insight into the way we were and probably always will be.

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    • 3/5
      Zeer mooie verzameling van korte stukjes over wat hij bewondert bij de Engelsen.
    • 4/5
      I love Voltaire, always have. Voltaire is humorous, sarcastic and opinionated, and like his other works, there is a unique style that fully captures his character. In this work, he addresses Quakers, Parliament, literature, smallpox vaccination, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Government, Commerce, and many other subjects. He also expresses his profound respect for John Locke and Francis Bacon, and especially for Isaac Newton. Although most his arguments are of course outdated, the book definitely gives the reader a glimpse into the 18th c. enlightened mind. However some remain relevant today, and the reader may even find one on which to find common ground. Although still a man of his time, it is always surprising to read how open-minded he was.
    • 4/5
      I was completely surprised at how great this was. I haven't read Candide in 25 or more years and had forgotten how well Voltaire wrote. Would be 5 stars but that last letter, yeesh, complete slog.
    • 3/5
      This piqued my interest in Voltaire's non-fiction writing. Previously, I had only read Candide. From this point forward, I plan to explore more of his writings-- he is a dutiful and fulfilling writer. A commendable effort. Good show.
    • 3/5
      Zeer mooie verzameling van korte stukjes over wat hij bewondert bij de Engelsen.

    Book preview

    Philosophical Letters - . Voltaire

    DOVER BOOKS ON LITERATURE AND DRAMA

    LADY SUSAN, JANE AUSTEN. EDITED BY R. W. CHAPMAN. (0-486-44407-4)

    PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, JANE AUSTEN. ILLUSTRATED BY HUGH THOMSON. (0-486-44091-5)

    SANDITON AND THE WATSONS: AUSTEN’S UNFINISHED NOVELS, JANE AUSTEN. (0-486-45793-1)

    COMPLETE ESSAYS, FRANCIS BACON. (0-486-45443-6)

    VILLETTE, CHARLOTTE BRONTË. (0-486-45557-2)

    BULFINCH’S MEDIEVAL MYTHOLOGY: THE AGE OF CHIVALRY, THOMAS BULFINCH. (0-486-43653-5)

    ONE OF OURS, WILLA CATHER. (0-486-45599-H)

    TEN PLAYS, ANTON CHEKHOV. (0-486-46560-8)

    THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS, CHARLES W. CHESNUTT. (0-486-46144-0)

    THE BALL AND THE CROSS, G. K. CHESTERTON. (0-486-28805-6)

    TREMENDOUS TRIFLES, G. K. CHESTERTON. (0-486-45475-4)

    THE COLOURED LANDS: FAIRY STORIES, COMIC VERSE AND FANTASTIC PICTURES, G. K. CHESTERTON. WITH AN AFTERWORD BY MARTIN GARDNER. (0-486-47115-2)

    FAVORITE CHRISTMAS POEMS, EDITED BY JAMES DALEY. (0-486-44746-4)

    THE KING OF PIRATES, DANIEL DEFOE. (0-486-46915-8)

    A CHRISTMAS CAROL, CHARLES DICKENS. ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR RACKHAM. (0-486-45124-0)

    THE HAUNTED HOUSE, CHARLES DICKENS. (0-486-46309-5)

    THREE GREAT AFRICAN-AMERICAN NOVELS: THE HEROIC SLAVE, CLOTEL AND OUR NIG, FREDERICK DOUGLASS, WILLIAM WELLS BROWN, AND HARRIET E. WILSON. (0-486-46851-8)

    SIR NIGEL: A NOVEL OF THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR, SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. (0-486-47144-6)

    THE QUEST OF THE SILVER FLEECE, W. E. B. DU BOIS. INTRODUCTION BY HERBERT APTHEKER. (0-486-46022-3)

    THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO: ABRIDGED EDITION, ALEXANDRE DUMAS. (0-486-45643-9)

    THE SPORT OF THE GODS, PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR. (0-486-46850-X)

    BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR AND OTHER STORIES, F. SCOTT FITZGERALD. (0-486-47049-0)

    FRANKLIN’S WAY TO WEALTH AND PENN’S MAXIMS, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND WILLIAM PENN. (0-486-45460-6)

    POEMS, PARABLES AND DRAWINGS, KAHLIL GIBRAN. (0-486-46822-4)

    THE GOETHE TREASURY: SELECTED PROSE AND POETRY, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE. EDITED, SELECTED, AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THOMAS MANN. (0-486-44780-4)

    SOME CHINESE GHOSTS, LAFCADIO HEARN. (0-486-46306-0)

    A MODERN INSTANCE, WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. (0-486-46887-9)

    THE LAST DAY OF A CONDEMNED MAN, VICTOR HUGO. NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID DOW. (0-486-46998-0)

    LES MISÉRABLES, VICTOR HUGO. TRANSLATED BY CHARLES E. WILBOUR. ABRIDGED BY JAMES K. ROBINSON. (0-486-45789-3)

    OLD CHRISTMAS, WASHINGTON IRVING. ILLUSTRATED BY RANDOLPH CALDECOTT.. (0-486-44370-1)

    A JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND AND THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES, SAMUEL JOHNSON AND JAMES BOSWELL. (0-486-45554-8)

    Bibliographical Note

    This Dover edition, first published in 2003, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by the Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., Indianapolis, in 1961.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Voltaire, 1694–1778.

    [Lettres philosophiques. English]

    Philosophical letters: letters concerning the English nation / Voltaire (François

    Marie Arouet); translated, with an introduction, by Ernest Dilworth. p. cm.

    Includes bibliographical references and index.

    9780486143163

    1. Imaginary letters. 2. Philosophy, Modern—18th century. 3. Great Britain—Civilization—18th century. I. Dilworth, Ernest, 1912–II. Title.

    PQ2086.L4 E5 2003

    2002035096

    Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

    42673402

    www.doverpublications.com

    Table of Contents

    DOVER BOOKS ON LITERATURE AND DRAMA

    Title Page

    Copyright Page

    INTRODUCTION

    SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

    VOLTAIRE

    LETTER ONE - ON THE QUAKERS

    LETTER TWO - ON THE QUAKERS

    LETTER THREE - ON THE QUAKERS

    LETTER FOUR - ON THE QUAKERS

    LETTER FIVE - ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

    LETTER SIX - ON THE PRESBYTERIANS

    LETTER SEVEN - ON THE SOCINIANS, OR ARIANS, OR ANTI-TRINITARIANS

    LETTER EIGHT - ON THE PARLIAMENT

    LETTER NINE - ON THE GOVERNMENT

    LETTER TEN - ON COMMERCE

    LETTER ELEVEN - ON INOCULATION WITH SMALLPOX

    LETTER TWELVE - ON CHANCELLOR BACON

    LETTER THIRTEEN - ON MR. LOCKE

    LETTER FOURTEEN - ON DESCARTES AND NEWTON

    LETTER FIFTEEN - ON THE SYSTEM OF ATTRACTION

    LETTER SIXTEEN - ON NEWTON’S OPTICS

    LETTER SEVENTEEN - ON INFINITY AND ON CHRONOLOGY

    LETTER EIGHTEEN - ON TRAGEDY

    LETTER NINETEEN - ON COMEDY

    LETTER TWENTY - ON PERSONS OF RANK WHO CULTIVATE LEARNING

    LETTER TWENTY-ONE - ON THE EARL OF ROCHESTER AND MR. WALLER

    LETTER TWENTY-TWO - ON MR. POPE AND SOME OTHER FAMOUS POETS

    LETTER TWENTY-THREE - ON THE CONSIDERATION OWED TO MEN OF LETTERS

    LETTER TWENTY-FOUR - ON ACADEMIES

    LETTER TWENTY-FIVE - ON THE PENSEES OF M. PASCAL

    APPENDIX

    A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST

    INTRODUCTION

    There are two things the Philosophical Letters can do for twentieth-century people besides amuse them. One is to introduce them (and for this purpose it is as good as any book I know) to the eighteenth century and to those two complementary strains of what, in our deadly provincialism, we call the Western Mind: the French and the English genius. The other is to remind them that there is hope for men because they have it in their power to be reasonable.

    Professional philosophy the book is not; it is, however, a collection of critical reports by a philosophe of the Age of Reason—that is, a rational observer and free-thinking moralist —interested in the human meaning of all thought and action. The separate letters or chapters are written more or less as if to a friend in France (Nicolas Claude Thieriot), and the book first appeared, in an English translation by John Lockman, as Letters Concerning the English Nation (London, 1733). Voltaire himself referred to it often enough as the English Letters, but it was as Lettres Philosophiques, with an additional letter on Pascal, that the book, on June 10, 1734, was condemned by the Parlement of Paris to be lacerated and burnt by the hangman, as likely to inspire a license of thought most dangerous to religion and civil order. The true work of Voltaire had begun, and our lives are different because of it.

    We think of Voltaire as having been, even in his cradle, a wit, a poet, a freely discursive mind. In the story of Ninon de Lenclos’ leaving him 2,000 écus to buy books with, nothing is more interesting than that when she died, in 1705, he was no more than eleven years old. He was young enough when introduced into the urbane and hedonistic society of the Temple; at twenty-five he was famous as a tragic poet, the author of another Oedipus. Ambitious, inquisitive, always busy, he was also a brilliant speculator, and at thirty he had an independent fortune. His genius and individuality were irrepressible, and he was already, as the author of La Ligue, known as an epic poet, as well as a critic of powerful institutions and men, when he was called away from dinner with the Duc de Sully and cudgeled in the street by hirelings of the Chevalier de Rohan. After a comfortable stay in the Bastille (it was his second), where he was sent so that he might be protected from his own desire for revenge, he was released on the provision that he keep fifty leagues away from Paris. He went to England.

    We do not know the dates of arrival and departure, but we may suppose his visit to have lasted from about the end of May, 1726, to September or October, 1728—that is, roughly two and a half years. Nor do we know much about his life in England, though he seems to have mixed with a fair number of notabilities if only because of the recommendations of Englishmen whom he had known in France—among them Bolingbroke and Horatio Walpole, the British ambassador. We hear of his being with Bubb Dodington, with Lord and Lady Hervey, with Pope, with Gay, and with Mrs. Conduit, the niece of Newton. He met the dowager Duchess of Marlborough; he talked with Berkeley and with Edward Young. It seems that he was, with Swift, for three months the guest of Lord Peterborough. He thought highly enough of Swift to write letters of introduction for him, in June of 1727, to du Noquet, treasurer-general at Calais; to the Comte de Morville, Secretary of State; and to the Marquis de Maisons. The first six months he spent in learning English, partly by means of constant attendance at the theater; by December of 1727 he had written and published two essays in English—one on epic poetry from Homer to Milton, the other on the civil wars in France.

    Other travelers had written on the English, particularly during the previous half-century. The book Voltaire finished in 1733 was not so much a description of England and the English as a series of notes on the good life of men and nations. If he had pleased to comment at any length on English eccentricity, for instance, it would have been in the vein of this passage from a letter to Rolland Des Alleurs:

    I assure you again that a man of yr temper would not dislike a country, where one obeys to the laws only and to one’s whims. Reason is free here and walks her own way, hippocondriaks especially are well come. No manner of living appears strange; we have men who walk six miles a day for their health, feed upon roots, never taste flesh, wear a coat in winter thinner than yr ladies do in the hottest days.¹

    Reason is free here and walks her own way....

    In the Philosophical Letters, Voltaire is on the trail of principles, though no book could seem more casual or be more informally put together. That is one of the principles. These letters are not to sound like art. He is talking, without guile or labor it would seem (though the guile will often step forth and preen itself for the pleasure of author and reader); he is talking to everyone who can pause long enough to listen. To a translator, doubly concerned with language, the vocabulary seems limited, repetitious; in the Philosophical Letters there are no great adventures in style: the grace of precision, the delicacy of strength will shine in works to come. This is mere life. And so Voltaire jerks his thumb at the subject with ce, ce, ce—this man, this book of this Jones; and so, the translator may now and then feel, the sentences go on, to end in the last murmurs of a subordinate clause. The translator finds that sentences constructed with such unconcern come over into English sounding absurdly ragged; but his infrequent and reluctant shifting of a clause only proves to him the colloquial beauty of the original, the style in style-lessness, the grace of mind when the mind is by nature full of ideas. There is possible triumph in being caught without one’s wig.

    And the immediate subject matter of these notes? English books and writers Voltaire reports on briefly, for the most part; it is important for his countrymen to know that this home of science and of political and religious liberty has poems and plays worth reading. He glances at their faults as well. The faults of literary works are not so mysterious as the beauties. A Butler makes a great comic poem out of subject matter near to him in place and time; too much of it is meaningless to foreigners and to Englishmen of a later generation. A Shakespeare—and Voltaire was to feel, with some justice, that it was he who had introduced Shakespeare, Newton, and inoculation to the French—a Shakespeare has marvelous beauties in him, but barbarism as well. Barbarism is the toleration or enjoyment of disorder, deformity, horror, and the truly civilized will not admire it as colorful, or excuse it because of poetic beauties elsewhere. Barbarism is indefensible, and the best that poetry can do is remind us of the fact. This classical view of things, absorbed by Voltaire from the air of France, from Boileau, and from the Jesuits who schooled him, is more rational than some moderns appear to think. It assumes that literature is not cut off from life, that poetry is necessarily social, that all things are vitally related to one another, that thought and action have consequences, and that what we admire is much of what we shall come to be.

    Voltaire’s interest in literature, then, while not unaesthetic, is broadly humane. He must survey and report on Bacon and Locke, even Pascal, for the same reason as he must report on the Parliament. He sees man at the center; he catches at what may make us free and throw light on the world for man’s sake. Though granting the genius of Pascal, he sees in him a bent for the antihuman; though he admires the candid manliness of the Quakers, he scorns their artifices of spirituality; though he understands that mathematics paces off the immeasurable, he stares metaphysics in the eye and firmly, on a giddy planet, stakes out our claim. There is work to do on earth; it can be done only if enough men are sufficiently aware of their earthly circumstances. Voltaire is not a democrat but a liberator. He sits down to the subject of scientific method as to the practical questions of government. He is one of the great eighteenth-century popularizers, men who upheld with such passion the value of humanity that they forced the specialists out of their towers, and shamed them into lucid conversation.

    For the rest, whether the subject is Quakers or Presbyterians, smallpox or universal gravitation, and whether we are simply enjoying the detail of the moment, we are hearing good news about man: that in his simplicity he is admirable; that he need not be superstitious; that slavery is not inevitable; that science is part of common sense; that reason and instinct are equally gifts of God; that there is no law by which we must make a hell of our earth rather than a garden; above all that we are on our own, helped by no providential hand, and that to be intelligent and just is our responsibility and our finest achievement.

    ERNEST DILWORTH

    SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

    EDITIONS OF VOLTAIRE’S WORKS

    Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire. Edited by A. Beuchot. Paris, 1828.

    Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire. Edited by L. Moland. Paris, 1877-85.

    Lettres Philosophiques. Edited by Gustave Lanson. 2 vols. Paris: Société des Textes Français Modernes, 1909; 3rd ed., 1924.

    Lettres Philosophiques. Edited by Henri Labroue. Paris, 1910; 5th ed., 1931.

    Lettres Philosophiques. Edited by Raymond Naves. Paris, 1939.

    Lettres Philosophiques. Edited by F. A. Taylor. Oxford: Blackwell, 1943; rev. ed., 1946.

    COLLATERAL READING

    Ballantyne, Archibald. Voltaire’s Visit to England, 1726-1729. London, 1919.

    Besterman, Theodore (ed.). Voltaire’s Correspondence. Geneva, 1953.

    ———. Voltaire’s Notebooks. 2 vols. Geneva, 1952.

    Brailsford, H. N. Voltaire. London, 1947.

    Chase, Cleveland B. The Young Voltaire. London, 1926.

    Collins, J. Churton. Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau in England. London, 1908.

    Havens, George R. "Voltaire’s Marginal Comments upon Pope’s Essay on Man," Modern Language Notes, XLIII (1928), 429-439.

    Lanson, Gustave. Voltaire. Paris, 1919.

    Lecky, W. E. H. A History of England in the Eighteenth Century. 8 vols. London, 1878-90.

    Mornet, Daniel. French Thought in the Eighteenth Century. Translated by Lawrence M. Levin. New York, 1929.

    Stephen, Leslie. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. 2 vols. London, 1902.

    Tallentyre, S. G. The Life of Voltaire. 2 vols. London, 1904.

    Torrey, Norman L. Bolingbroke and Voltaire, P.M.L.A., XLII (1927), 788-797.

    ———. Voltaire’s English Notebook, Modern Philology, XXVI (1928), 307-325.

    OTHER ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE Philosophical Letters

    Letters Concerning the English Nation, by Mr. de Voltaire (London, 1733). This first translation, by John Lockman, preceded by a year the first edition in French. The letter on Pascal did not appear in this edition or in the French edition published in London in 1734. The Lockman was several times reprinted.

    The Works of M. de Voltaire, translated from the French, with notes, historical and critical, by T. Smollett, M.D., T. Francklin, M.A., and others (London, 1761-65, 1761-70, 1778-81). As in France, the letters were now to be found in volumes of Miscellanies.

    Letters on England, Cassell’s National Library (London, 1886). This was the Lockman translation.

    The Works of Voltaire; a contemporary version with notes, by Tobias Smollett, revised and modernized new translations by William F. Fleming and an introduction by Oliver H. G. Leigh, a critique and biography by the Rt. Hon. John Morley (Paris, New York, London, Chicago, 1901).

    Letters Concerning the English Nation, with an introduction by Charles Whibley (London: Peter Davies, 1926). This was a reprint of the first edition of Lockman’s translation. The edition was limited to 750 copies.

    NOTE ON THE TEXT

    The text used as the basis for this translation is that of Jore (Rouen, 1734), as established by Gustave Lanson in his critical edition of the Lettres Philosophiques (Paris, 1909). The translator has also consulted with great profit the editions of Raymond Naves (in the Classiques Garnier), Henri Labroue (Paris, 1910) and F. A. Taylor (Oxford: Blackwell,

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