A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 08

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Voltaire. A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 08

MONEY

MONSTERS

MORALITY

MOSES

MOTION

MOUNTAIN

NAIL

NATURE

NECESSARY – NECESSITY

NEW – NOVELTIES

NUDITY

NUMBER

NUMBERING

OCCULT QUALITIES

OFFENCES (LOCAL)

ONAN

OPINION

OPTIMISM

ORACLES

ORDEAL

ORDINATION

ORIGINAL SIN

OVID

PARADISE

PASSIONS

PAUL

PERSECUTION

PETER (SAINT)

PETER THE GREAT AND J.J. ROUSSEAU

PHILOSOPHER

PHILOSOPHY

PHYSICIANS

PIRATES OR BUCCANEERS

PLAGIARISM

PLATO

POETS

POISONINGS

POLICY

POLYPUS

POLYTHEISM

POPERY

POPULATION

POSSESSED

POST

POWER – OMNIPOTENCE

POWER

PRAYER (PUBLIC), THANKSGIVING, ETC

PREJUDICE

PRESBYTERIAN

PRETENSIONS

PRIDE

PRIESTS

PRIESTS OF THE PAGANS

PRIOR, BUTLER, AND SWIFT

PRIVILEGE – PRIVILEGED CASES

Отрывок из книги

The definition of monsters is more difficult than is generally imagined. Are we to apply the term to animals of enormous size; to a fish, or a serpent fifteen feet long, for instance? There are some, however, that are twenty or even thirty feet long, in comparison with which of course the others, instead of enormous or monstrous, would appear small.

There are monsters through defect. But, if a generally well-made and handsome man were destitute from his birth of the little toes and little fingers, would he be a monster? Teeth are more necessary to a man; I have seen a man who never had a tooth. He was in other respects pleasing in his person. Being destitute of the organs of generation, still more necessary in the system of nature, would not constitute the person thus defective a monster.

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If you had wished to deliver us to our enemies, you could not have taken a different route and other measures. God has saved us by a miracle, you say; the sea opened to let us pass; but after such a favor, should He let us die of hunger and fatigue in the horrible deserts of Kadesh-barnea, Mara, Elim, Horeb, and Sinai? All our fathers perished in these frightful solitudes; and you tell us, at the end of forty years, that God took particular care of them.

This is what these murmuring Jews, these unjust children of the vagabonds who died in the desert, might have said to Moses, if he had read Exodus and Genesis to them. And what might they not have said and done on the article of the golden calf? What! you dare to tell us that your brother made a calf for our fathers, when you were with God on the mountain? You, who sometimes tell us that you have spoken to God face to face, and sometimes that you could only see His back! But no matter, you were with this God, and your brother cast a golden calf in one day, and gave it to us to adore it; and instead of punishing your unworthy brother, you make him our chief priest, and order your Levites to slay twenty-three thousand men of your people. Would our fathers have suffered this? Would they have allowed themselves to be sacrificed like so many victims by sanguinary priests? You tell us that, not content with this incredible butchery, you have further massacred twenty-four thousand of our poor followers because one of them slept with a Midianitish woman, whilst you yourself espoused a Midianite; and yet you add, that you are the mildest of men! A few more instances of this mildness, and not a soul would have remained.

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