A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06

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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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