Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/28

10 he; "there certainly is no useful or entertaining history but the history of the day; all ancient histories, as one of our wits has observed, are only fables that men have agreed to admit as true. With regard to modern history it is a mere chaos, a confusion of which it is impossible to make anything. Of what consequence is it to the young marquis, your son, to know that Charlemagne instituted the twelve peers of France and that his successor stammered?"

"Admirably said," cried the governor; "the genius of young persons is smothered under a heap of useless knowledge; but of all sciences, the most absurd, and that which, in my opinion, is most calculated to stifle genius of every kind, is geometry. The objects about which this ridiculous science is conversant are surfaces, lines, and points that have no existence in nature. By the force of imagination the geometrician makes a hundred thousand curved lines pass between a circle and a right line that touches it, when, in reality, there is not room for a straw to pass there. Geometry, if we consider it in its true light, is a mere jest, and nothing more."

The marquis and his lady did not well understand the governor's meaning, yet they were entirely of his opinion.

"A man of quality, like the young marquis," continued he, "should not rack his brains with useless sciences. If he should ever have occasion for a plan of the lands of his estate he may have them correctly surveyed without studying geometry. If he has a