O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint
Anglicolas!
I have more confidence than ever in the sentiment which I expressed as an encouragement for our moral instructors; and with greater earnestness do I call on them to rescue from corruption and impending ruin a nation so highly deserving of their care.
Mr. Barruel, in the eighteenth chapter of his work, has suggested some reflections, which highly merit attention, and greatly tend to efface the impression which is naturally made on the minds of the unthinking and precipitant, when they observe such a list of authors, whom they have been accustomed to admire, all leagued against Religion. I think, however, that nothing can more effectually remove it, than what I have already shown of the vile and disgraceful tricks which these sophists have been guilty of to support their cause. The cause of this numerous association is distinctly seen in their very procedure. The very first step in their progress is depravation of manners. In this they have laboured with as much earnestness as either Spartacus, or Minos, or Bahrdt. It was a treat to me to learn that La Close's abominable book Les Liaisons Dangereuses, was not merely pandering for his patron Orleans, but also working for his masters at the Hotel d'Holbach. Nothing gives such certain bread to those authors, in the beginning of their career, as immoral and impure writings;—and with such did even their chief set out, and fill his pockets; witness his Pucelle d'Orleans; and even after they became the sages of France, they continued, either from coarse taste or from serious principle, for the diabolical purpose of inflaming the passions of others, to interlard their gravest performances with impure thoughts and sentiments. Nay, the secret of the Hotel d'Holbach shews us that, for any thing we know to the contrary, the vilest productions of their press may have been the compositions of the octogenary Voltaire, of the sly d'Alembert, or of the author of the Pere de Famille. What a pity it is that the Decline of the Roman Empire was not all written in England, and that its learned and elegant author, by going into their society, has allowed himself to be drawn into this muddy and degrading vortex!
I should scarcely ask for more to disgust me with the philosophy of these sages, and to make me distrust all their pretensions to knowledge. The meanness of the conduct suited the original poverty of the whole of them; but its continuance strips them of all claims to the name of philosophers. Their pretended wisdom is only cunning,—and we must acknowledge that their conduct was clever: for this mean of corruption, concealed or embellished by their talents for sentimental slang, (I can give it no better name,) made their conversation and their writings most acceptable to their noble patrons.—Now it is that Religion, of necessity, comes on the field; for Religion tells us, that these are mean pleasures for creatures born to our prospects; and Christianity tells us, that they are gross transgressions of the only just morality. The progress of the pupil will now be rapid; for he will listen with willing ears to lessons which flatter his passions. Yet Voltaire thinks it necessary to enliven the lessons by a little of the salaison, quelques bons mots à-propos auprès des femmes, which he recommends to d'Alembert, who, it seems, was deficient in this kind of small talk.
Surely all this is very unlike to wisdom; and when we see that it is part of a plan, and this an obvious one, it should greatly lessen our wonder at the number of these admired infidels. If we would now proceed to examine their pretensions to science, on which they found their claim to the name of philosophers, we must be careful to take the word in a sense that is unequivocal. Its true meaning is by no means what is commonly assigned to it, a lover of knowledge. It is a lover of wisdom; and philosophy professes to teach us what are the constituents of human felicity, and what are the means of attaining it; what are our duties, and the general rules for our conduct. The stoics were philosophers. The Christians are also philosophers. The Epicureans and the Sophists of France would also be called philosophers. I have put in my objection to this claim already, and need not repeat my reasons for saying that their doctrines are not dictates of wisdom. I shall only add, that their own conduct shows plainly that their principles had no effect on themselves, because we see, from the series of correspondence which Mr. Barruel has laid before us, that they do not scruple to practise villanous and hypocritical tricks, which never fail to disgrace a man, and are totally irreconcilable with our notions of human dignity. Voltaire patiently took a caning from an officer at Frankfort, for having wittily told lies of his scholar Frederic, and his wisdom told him that his honour was cleared by offering to meet the Major, each of them provided with an injection syringe. This was thought sublime wit at Ferney. I do not suppose that the slave Epictetus, or the soldier Digby, would have ended the affair in this manner. Many of the deeds of wisdom of the club d'Holbach were more degrading than even this; and I am confident that the whole of this phalanx of sages were conscious that they were treated by their patrons and pupils as Voltaire was treated by the Solomon of the North, and that their notions of the vraie sagesse were also the same with his. He gives this account of it in his letter to his niece: "Le Roi lui avoit repondu; 'j'aurai besoin de Voltaire un an tout au plus—On presse l'orange, et on jette l'écorce.' Je me suis fait repeter ces douces paroles"—(How poor Voltaire would grin!)—"Je vois bien qu'on a pressé l'orange—il faut penser à sauver l'ecorce."
But, as things stand at present, philosopher means a man of science, and in this sense of the word our sages claim great respect. No claim can be worse founded. It is amusing to observe the earnestness with which they recommend the study of natural history. One does not readily see the connection of this with their ostensible object, the happiness of man. A perusal of Voltaire's letters betrays the secret. Many years ago he heard that some observations on the formation of strata, and the fossils found in them, were incompatible with the age which the Mosaic history seems to assign to this globe. He mentions this with great exultation in some of his early letters; and, from that time forward, never ceases to enjoin his colleagues to press the study of natural history and cosmogony, and carefully to bring forward every fact which was hostile to the Mosaic accounts. It became a serious part of the exercises of their wealthy pupils, and their perplexing discoveries were most ostentatiously displayed. M. de Luc, a very eminent naturalist, has shewn, in a letter to the Chevalier Dr. Zimmermann, (published, I think, about the year 1790,) how very scanty the knowledge of these observers has been, and how precipitate have been their conclusions. For my own part, I think the affair is of little consequence. Moses writes the history, not of this globe, but of the race of Adam.
The science of these philosophers is not remarkable in other branches, if we except M. d'Alembert's mathematics[30]. Yet the imposing confidence of Voltaire was such, that he passes for a person fully informed, and he pronounces on every subject with so much authority, with such a force of expression, and generally with so much wit or pleasantry, that his hearers and readers are fascinated, and soon convinced of what they wish to be true.
It is not by the wisdom nor by the profound knowledge which these writers display, that they have acquired celebrity, a fame which has been so pernicious. It is by fine writing, by works addressed to the imagination and to the affections, by excellent dramas, by affecting moral essays, full of expressions of the greatest respect for virtue, the most tender benevolence, and the highest sentiments of honour and dignity.—By these means they fascinate all readers; they gain the esteem of the worthy, who imagine them sincere, and their pernicious doctrines are thus spread abroad, and steal into the minds of the dissolute, the licentious, and the unwary.
But I am writing to Britons, who are considered by our neighbours on the Continent as a nation of philosophers—to the countrymen of Bacon, of Locke, of Newton—who are not to be wheedled like children, but must be reasoned with as men.—Voltaire, who decides without hesitation on the character of the most distant nations in the most remote antiquity, did not know us: he came among us, in the beginning of his career, with the highest expectations of our support, and hoped to make his fortune by his Pucelle d'Orleans. It was rejected with disdain—but we published his Henriade for him: and, notwithstanding his repeated disappointments of the same kind, he durst not offend his countrymen by slandering us, but joined in the profound respect paid by all to British science.—Our writers, whether on natural or moral science, are still regarded as standard classics, and are studied with care. Lord Verulam is acknowledged by every man of science to have given the first just description of true philosophy, pointed out its objects, and ascertained its mode of procedure—And Newton is equally allowed to have evinced the propriety of the Baconian precepts by his unequalled success, suâ Mathesi facem preferente.—The most celebrated philosophers on the Continent are those who have completed by demonstration the wonderful guesses of his penetrating genius. Bailli, or Condorcet, (I forget which,) struck with the inconceivable reaches of Newton's thoughts, breaks out, in the words of Lucretius,
Te sequor, O magnæ gentis decus, inque tuis nunc
Fixa pedum pono pressis vestigia signis.
Tu pater et rerum inventor, tu patria nobis
Suppeditas precepta, tuisque ex inclute chartis,
Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,
Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta;
Aurea, perpetuâ semper dignissima vitâ.