A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06
Реклама. ООО «ЛитРес», ИНН: 7719571260.
Оглавление
Voltaire. A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06
HAPPY – HAPPILY
HEAVEN (CIEL MATÉRIEL)
HEAVEN OF THE ANCIENTS
HELL
HELL (DESCENT INTO)
HERESY
SECTION I
SECTION II
SECTION III
HERMES
HISTORIOGRAPHER
HISTORY
SECTION I
SECTION II
SECTION III
SECTION IV
SECTION V
SECTION VI
HONOR
HUMILITY
HYPATIA
IDEA
SECTION I
SECTION II
IDENTITY
IDOL – IDOLATER – IDOLATRY
SECTION I
SECTION II
SECTION III
IGNATIUS LOYOLA
IGNORANCE
SECTION I
SECTION II
IMAGINATION
SECTION I
SECTION II
IMPIOUS
IMPOST
SECTION I
SECTION II
SECTION III
SECTION IV
IMPOTENCE
INALIENATION – INALIENABLE
INCEST
INCUBUS
INFINITY
INFLUENCE
INITIATION
INNOCENTS
INQUISITION
SECTION I
SECTION II
INSTINCT
INTEREST
INTOLERANCE
INUNDATION
JEHOVAH
JEPHTHAH
SECTION I
SECTION II
JESUITS; OR PRIDE
JEWS
SECTION I
SECTION II
SECTION III
SECTION IV
JOB
Отрывок из книги
The laws of optics, which are founded upon the nature of things, have ordained that, from this small globe of earth on which we live, we shall always see the material heaven as if we were the centre of it, although we are far from being that centre; that we shall always see it as a vaulted roof, hanging over a plane, although there is no other vaulted roof than that of our atmosphere, which has no such plane; that our sun and moon will always appear one-third larger at the horizon than at their zenith, although they are nearer the spectator at the zenith than at the horizon.
Such are the laws of optics, such is the structure of your eyes, that, in the first place, the material heaven, the clouds, the moon, the sun, which is at so vast a distance from you; the planets, which in their apogee are still at a greater distance from it; all the stars placed at distances yet vastly greater, comets and meteors, everything, must appear to us in that vaulted roof as consisting of our atmosphere.
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The authors of the Jewish laws could at most only answer: "We confess that we are excessively ignorant; that we did not learn the art of writing until a late period; that our people were a wild and barbarous horde, that wandered, as our own records admit, for nearly half a century in impracticable deserts, and at length obtained possession of a petty territory by the most odious rapine and detestable cruelty ever mentioned in the records of history. We had no commerce with civilized nations, and how could you suppose that, so grossly mean and grovelling as we are in all our ideas and usages, we should have invented a system so refined and spiritual as that in question?"
We employed the word which most nearly corresponds with soul, merely to signify life; we know our God and His ministers, His angels, only as corporeal beings; the distinction of soul and body, the idea of a life beyond death, can be the fruit only of long meditation and refined philosophy. Ask the Hottentots and negroes, who inhabit a country a hundred times larger than ours, whether they know anything of a life to come? We thought we had done enough in persuading the people under our influence that God punished offenders to the fourth generation, either by leprosy, by sudden death, or by the loss of the little property of which the criminal might be possessed.
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