A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06
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- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~79,400 words · 377 passages
Cite this work
- APAVoltaire. (n.d.). A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/a-philosophical-dictionary-volume-06
- MLAVoltaire. A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/a-philosophical-dictionary-volume-06.
- ChicagoVoltaire. A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/a-philosophical-dictionary-volume-06.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Volume 6 of ten of the Philosophical Dictionary. Fanaticism – Ignorance. It contains 'War', where he says war is the sum of every crime.
Context and history
The form is the argument: a dictionary is consulted rather than read through, which made it impossible to refute as a whole and easy to circulate underground. Voltaire published it anonymously in 1764 and it was burned in Geneva and in Paris. A note on the edition: the catalogue holds TWO editions of the Philosophical Dictionary — this one in ten volumes and a single-volume Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. They are not a duplicate: they are different selections and translations, and the articles do not correspond one to one. The original is French.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
God bestowed upon them, to measure and arrange in their respective stations the heavenly bodies, other nations more gross and unintelligent made no advance towards imitating them. These childish and savage populations imagined the earth to be flat, supported, I know not how, by its own weight in the air; the sun, moon, and stars to move continually upon a solid vaulted roof called a firmament; and this roof to sustain waters, and have flood-gates at regular distances, through which these waters issued to moisten and fertilize the earth. But how did the sun, the moon, and all the stars reappear after their setting? Of this they know nothing at all. The heaven touched the flat earth: and there were no means by which the sun, moon, and stars could turn under the earth, and go to rise in the east after having set in the west. It is true that these children of ignorance were right by chance in not entertaining the idea that the sun and fixed stars moved, round the earth. But they were far from conceiving that the sun was immovable, and the earth with its satellite revolving round him in space together with the other planets. Their fables were more distant from the true system of the world than darkness from light. They thought that the sun and stars returned by certain unknown roads after having refreshed themselves for their course at some spot, not precisely ascertained, in the Mediterranean Sea. This was the amount of astronomy, even in the time of Homer, who is comparatively recent; for the Chaldæans kept their science to themselves, in order to obtain thereby, greater respect from other nations. Homer says, more than once, that the sun plunges into the ocean--and this ocean, be it observed, is nothing but the Nile--here, by the freshness of the waters, he repairs during the night the fatigue and exhaustion of the day, after which, he goes to the place of his regular rising by ways unknown to mortals.…