Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/550

 412 General History of Europe his own condition and that of his fellows could he only succeed in ridding himself of the accumulation of ancient error and tradition. 718. Views of Voltaire (1694-1788). In the year 1726 there landed in England a young and gifted Frenchman who was to become the great prophet of this view. Voltaire, who was then thirty-two years of age, had already deserted the older religious beliefs and was ready to follow enthusiastically the more pro- gressive English thinkers, who discussed matters with an open- ness that filled him with astonishment. He greatly admired the teachings of Newton and regarded his discovery of universal gravitation as greater than any of the achievements of Alexander or Caesar. He had no use for warriors; he says, "It is to him who understands the universe, not to those who disfigure it, we owe our reverence." Voltaire was also deeply impressed by the Quakers their simple life and their hatred of war. He was pleased by the English -liberty of speech and writing, and he respected the general esteem for the business class. His little volume Letters on the English, in which he records the impressions which England made on him when he visited it, was condemned to be publicly burned by the high court of justice at Paris as scan- dalous and lacking in the respect then considered due to kings and governments. 719. Influence of Voltaire. Voltaire remained, however, during the rest of his long life the chief advocate in Europe of reliance upon reason and confidence in progress. The vast range of his writings enabled him to bring his views before all sorts and conditions of men. He wrote histories, plays, dramas, philosophic treatises, romances, and innumerable letters to his many admirers. The name of Voltaire has become associated with his relentless attack upon the Roman Catholic Church, which appeared to him opposed to the exercise of reason and hostile to reform. It was because he believed that the Church stood in the way of progress that he seemed incapable of realizing all that it had done for mankind during the bygone ages. He, however, fought against wrong and oppression and did much to prepare the way for great and permanent reforms.