3115 ([return])
[ Voltaire "Essay sur les Moeurs,", chap. CXLVII., the summary; "The intelligent reader readily perceives that he must believe only in those great events which appear plausible, and view with pity the fables with which fanaticism, romantic taste and credulity have at all times filled the world.">[
3116 ([return])
[ Note this expression," exegetical methods". (Chambers defines an exegetist as one who interprets or expounds.) Taine refers to methods which should allow the Jacobins, socialists, communists, and other ideologists to, from an irrefutable idea or expression, to deduct, infer, conclude and draw firm and, to them, irrefutable conclusions. (SR.)]
3117 ([return])
[ "Traité de Metaphysique," chap. I. "Having fallen on this little heap of mud, and with no more idea of man than man has of the inhabitants of Mars and Jupiter, I set foot on the shore of the ocean of the country of Caffraria and at once began to search for a man. I encounter monkeys, elephants and Negroes, with gleams of imperfect intelligence, etc"—The new method is here clearly apparent.]
3118 ([return])
[ "Introduction à l'Essay sur les Moeurs: Des Sauvages."—Buffon, in "Epoques de la nature," the seventh epoch, precedes Darwin in his ideas on the modifications of the useful species of animals.]
3119 ([return])
[ Voltaire, "Remarques de l'essay sur les Moeurs." "We may speak of this people in connection with theology but they are not entitled to a prominent place in history."—"Entretien entre A, B, C," the seventh.]