People who never think frequently inquire of those who do think, what has been the use of philosophy? To destroy in England the religious rage which brought Charles I. to the scaffold; to deprive an archbishop in Sweden of the power, with a papal bull in his hand, of shedding the blood of the nobility; to preserve in Germany religious peace, by holding up theological disputes to ridicule; finally, to extinguish in Spain the hideous and devouring flames of the Inquisition.
Gauls! unfortunate Gauls! it prevents stormy and factious times from producing among you a second "Fronde," and a second "Damiens." Priests of Rome! it compels you to suppress your bull In cœna domini, that monument of impudence and stupidity. Nations! it humanizes your manners. Kings, it gives you instruction!
SECTION V.
The philosopher is the lover of wisdom and truth; to be a sage is to avoid the senseless and the depraved. The philosopher, therefore, should live only among philosophers.
I will suppose that there are still some sages among the Jews; if one of these, when dining in company with some rabbis, should help himself to a plate of eels or hare, or if he cannot refrain from a hearty laugh at some superstitious and ridiculous observations made by them in the course of conversation, he is forever ruined in the synagogue; the like remark may be made of a Mussulman, a Gueber, or a Banian.
I know it is contended by many that the sage should never develop his opinions to the vulgar; that he should be a madman with the mad, and foolish among fools; no one, however, has yet ventured to say that he should be a knave among knaves. But if it be required that a sage should always join in opinion with the deluders of mankind, is not this clearly the same as requiring that he should not be an honest man? Would any one require that a respectable physician should always be of the same opinion as charlatans?
The sage is a physician of souls. He ought to bestow his remedies on those who ask them of him, and avoid the company of quacks, who will infallibly persecute him. If, therefore, a madman of Asia Minor, or a madman of India, says to the sage: My good friend, I think you do not believe in the mare Borac, or in the metamorphoses of Vishnu; I will denounce you, I will hinder you from being bostanji, I will destroy your credit; I will persecute you—the sage ought to pity him and be silent.
If ignorant persons, but at the same time persons of good understanding and dispositions, and willing to receive instruction, should ask him: Are we bound to believe that the distance between the moon and Venus is only five hundred leagues, and that between Mercury and the sun the same, as the principal fathers of the Mussulman religion insist, in opposition to all the most learned astronomers?—the sage may reply to them that the fathers may possibly be mistaken. He should at all times inculcate upon them that a hundred abstract dogmas are not of the value of a single good action, and that it is better to relieve one individual in distress than to be profoundly acquainted with the abolishing and abolished. When a rustic sees a serpent ready to dart at him, he will kill it; when a sage perceives a bigot and a fanatic, what will he do? He will prevent them from biting.