sonage of his age. The church, it must be said, merited most of the criticism it received, for it had now lost both faith and character; while as regards oppression of the people it far outran the government.

But Voltaire, despite the brilliancy of his ridicule, his satire and his invective, despite, too, the commanding position that he held as the greatest literary man of his time, must give place in power of thought, and in real influence upon the opinions of his age, to those two other great

MONTESQUIEU.

thinkers and writers whom we have named with him, Montesquieu and Dide

rot.

The genius of MONTESQUIEU was so different from that of Voltaire that at first thought it might seem wrong to associate them. Montesquieu was a real philosopher. He possessed the gift of patient research. He based his views and criticisms not upon impressions, but upon ascertained facts. He always had a definite end in view. He did not seek to break down and destroy (Voltaire's famous watchword was: "Crush the infamous thing!"*), but to modify and amend. He looked upon social and political institutions in the light which vast study and a wide purview afforded him. His great works were The Greatness and Decadence of the Romans" and "Laws" ("Esprit des Lois"), works in which he was the first to apply to the needs and conditions of contemporary time deductions derived from the study of history and of the growth and development of social and political institutions in all ages. It is unquestionable that Montesquieu had the greatest "Écrasez l'Infâme."

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possible influence upon his contemporaries. In less than two years from its publication the "Esprit des Lois" had passed through twenty-two editions and had been translated into many languages. France in the eighteenth century was destined to suffer fearful throes in its effort to give birth to liberty, justice, and popular government. That it was able to give birth to these things at all, that it was able even to conceive these things, was due in great measure to the sane and well

reasoned teachings of Montesquieu.

The influence of Montesquieu was in the field of government. The influence of Diderot was in the fields of science, philosophy, and metaphysical speculation. DIDEROT (1713-1784) was one of the most remarkable men ever born to France. great work was the famous "Encyclopedia," of which he was the editor-published

His

D'ALEMBERT.

amid incredible difficulties, owing to the opposition of the Jesuits and other causes, in the years 1751 to 1772. Associated with Diderot in the preparation of the "Encyclopedia" were many of the principal writers of the day, including Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, D'Alembert, Buffon, and Turgot. But the work was peculiarly Diderot's own, in that his spirit pervaded the whole. The "Encyclopedia" was intended to be a complete presentation of the science, the philosophy, the liberal arts, the mechanical arts, the social and political institutions of the time. And although it was very unequal in its execution

(Voltaire said that it was built half of marble, half of wood), it was, in fact, the most notable attempt to systematize the positive knowledge of the world (outside of biography and history) that the world had yet seen. And its influence was commensurate with its ability. It is safe to say that that spirit of scientific inquiry which for the last century and a quarter has been ever increasingly the characteristic feature of the thought of the world derives no small share of its impulse from Diderot's great work. But so far as its influence in its own day was concerned, the "Encyclopedia" is remarkable chiefly from the fact that it was from it that the anti-spiritual and materialistic ideas, so characteristic of the age subsequent to its publication, mainly derived their origin. Without setting out to be polemical or destructive in its aim, it became from the very positiveness of its premises, from the very logicalness of its reasoning, an engine against speculation or faith of any sort not founded on demonstrable certitude. It acknowledged no facts outside of matter and ascertainable phenomena, no methods outside of human reasoning. It was, in fact, the first great application of the positions of modern materialism and modern rationalism to the intellectual conclusions, the doctrines, the institutions, of man and of society.

VIII. VOLTAIRE.

LIBRARY
1819

What, then, shall we think of Voltaire? He was at least not an atheist. He acknowledged the being and affirmed the holiness of God. The gravamen of the charge against him is that he did evil that good might come; that he aimed at religious reform by irreligious means and in an irreligious spirit; in a word, that he was not merely a skeptic, but that he was a scoffer. Rightly or wrongly, this seems to be the prevalent view, and to most Englishmen and Americans Voltaire is a synonym for ribald blasphemy.

That he was eminent as a poet, a dramatist, a novelist, and a historian, is disregarded by those who shudder at him as the man of sin, the high priest of impiety, the especial enemy of the church, the very anti-Christ of modern days. There is, of course, a smaller but not uninfluential class that crown him with honor as a scientist and philosopher, a pioneer of popular education, a champion of religious liberty, an enlightened, courageous friend of man, an illustrious and immortal benefactor.

Voltaire lived in France and in the eighteenth century, and it is as a Frenchman of the eighteenth century that he must be judged. That great movement in favor of civil and religious liberty which Protestants call the Reformation, had succeeded in north Germany and in England, but had been overpowered in France. A stationary church as