Page:The story of the French revolution (IA storyoffrenchrev00baxe).pdf/32

 negative. By his wit he scorched up all the reverence remaining in the minds of men for the forms of the old, outworn Feudal-Catholic organization. Though there was a great amount of adroit self-seeking in Voltaire’s character, it is as impossible to deny that there was also much that was genuine and truly noble in his indigna- tion at cruelty and his detestation of Christian hypocrisy, « as that it produced a far-reaching effect on the events that followed. Voltaire, although personally a Frenchman of Frenchmen, breathes the spirit of a conscious cosmo- politanism and contempt for nationality in his writ- ings, which for the first time in history became a popular creed during the Revolution, and was expressed in the famous appeal of 1793.

But in this, as in other respects, Voltaire was not alone. He partly created and partly reflected the prevalent tone of the French salon culture of the eighteenth century. This, if we cared to do so, we might trace back in its main features to the revival of learning — to the courts of the Medicis. And here it may be well to remind our readers, in passing, of the truth that individual genius merely means the special faculty of expressing that so-called “ spirit of the age” to which that of preceding ages has led up; and that Voltaire and Rousseau merely achieved the results they did by reason of their capacity for re- producing in words the shapeless thoughts of millions. To this, in the case of Voltaire, must be added a special width of intellectual sympathy which took in an unusually large number of different subjects.

Besides Rousseau and Voltaire, we must not omit to mention the brilliant group of contemporary workers and thinkers, headed by Diderot and D’Alembert, who built. up that monument of laborious industry, the great French Encyclopedia. Immense difficulties attended the publi- cation of this important work, notwithstanding that care was taken to exclude any expressions of overt contempt or hostility towards current prejudices. Again, we must