# The Works of Voltaire/Volume 36/The Law of Nature

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Akron, Ohio: The Warner Company, pages 19–39
Preface to the Poem on the Law of Nature.
It is generally known that this poem was not intended for the public; it long remained a secret between a great king and the author. About three months ago a few copies were handed about in Paris, and soon after several impressions of it were published, as incorrect as those of other works by the same hand.
It would be no more than justice to be more indulgent to a work forced out of the obscurity to which the author had condemned it than to a work offered by the writer himself to the inspection of the public. It would also be agreeable to equity not to pass the same judgment on a poem composed by a layman as on a theological thesis. These two poems are the fruits of a transplanted tree. Some of these fruits may perhaps not be to the taste of certain persons; they come from a foreign climate, but none of them are poisoned, and many of them may prove highly salutary.
This work should be considered as a letter, in which the author freely discloses his sentiments. Most books resemble those formal and general conversations in which people seldom utter their thoughts. The author, in this poem, declares his real opinions to a philosophical prince, whom he then ​had the honor of living with. He has been informed that persons of the best understanding have been pleased with this sketch: they were of opinion that the poem on the "Law of Nature" was intended only to prepare the world for truths more sublime. This consideration alone would have determined the author to render his work more complete and correct, if his infirmities had permitted it. He was at last obliged to content himself with correcting the faults which the first edition swarm with.
The praises bestowed in this work upon a prince by no means solicitous about praise should not surprise anybody, they came from the heart; they are very different from that incense which self-interestedness lavishes upon power. The man of letters might not perhaps have deserved the praises or the favors poured upon him by the monarch, but the monarch was every way deserving of the encomiums bestowed upon him in this poem by the man of letters. The change which has since happened, in a connection which does so much honor to learning, has by no means altered the sentiments which gave occasion to these praises.
In fine, since a work never intended for publication, has been snatched out of secrecy and obscurity, it will last among a few sages as a monument of a philosophical correspondence, which should not have ended, and if it shows human weakness throughout, it, at the same time, makes it appear that true philosophy always surmounts that weakness.
The Law of Nature.
Thou by whose works, deeds, reign with wonders fraught,
The brave and wise their duty shall be taught,
Who with unaltered brow alike look down
On life and death, the cottage and the crown; With force like thine my wavering soul inspire,
Spread o'er me rays of that celestial fire,
Which owes to sacred reason all its light,
By prepossession dimmed and turned to night.
On darkness which o'erspreads the world below,
Let's strive some light however faint to throw.
Our first of studies in our early age,
Was courtly Horace with Boileau's chaste page.
In them you sought with philosophic mind,
The true and beautiful at once to find;
Oft with instructive and with moral lines,
Brightly each finished composition shines;
But Pope possessed of genius more refined,
What lightly they skimmed knew how to find.
Light into the abyss of being first he brought,
And man by him to know himself was taught.
A trivial now, and now a useful art,
Verse is in Pope divine, it forms the heart.
What need we know that Horace hired to praise
Octavius in vile, prostituted lays, When from the night's polluted joys he rose,
Insulted Crispinus in measured prose?
That pensioned Boileau satire's venom shed
On Quinault's lyre and Tasso's laureled head;
Could paint the hurry, bustle, and the throng
Of Paris, where men scarce can pass along;
Or at a wretched feast what passed rehearse,
In flowing numbers and harmonious verse.
A soul like thine to higher views aspires,
Far other information it requires;
The essence of our spirit you explore,
Its end, beginning, but its duty more.
On this important theme what others thought,
What error has to vulgar doctors taught,
Let's scan and balance with those truths divine,
Which heaven suggests to such a soul as thine.
God we should search for in ourselves alone,
If He exists the human heart's His throne.
The God whose power from dust could mortals raise,
Must we then seek in learning's winding maze?
You trust not Origen's or Scotus' page,
Nature instructs us more than either sage;
Systems let's drop, those follies of the wise,
And into self descending, learn to rise.
Part the First.
God has given men ideas of justice and conscience to admonish them just as He has given them everything else necessary. This is that Law of Nature upon which religion is founded. This is the only principle herein discussed. The author speaks only of the Law of Nature, and not of religion and its awful mysteries.
Whether a self-existent being laid
The world's foundations, out of nothing made,
If forming matter o'er it he presides,
And having shaped the mass, directs and guides;
Whether the soul, that bright ethereal spark
Of heavenly fire, too oft obscure and dark,
Makes of our senses one or acts alone;
We all are subject to the Almighty's throne.
But at His throne round which deep thunders roar
What homage shall we pay, how God adore?
Can jealousy affect the eternal mind?
Will adulation there acceptance find?
Is it that warlike race of haughty brow,
Who to their power made famed Byzantium bow,
The phlegmatic Chinese, the Tartar rude,
Whose arms so many regions have subdued,
That rightly knows to praise the Power divine,
And offer grateful homage at His shrine? Various in language and religious lore
A different deity they all implore;
Then all have erred, let's therefore turn our eyes
From vile impostors who delight in lies: Nor let us vainly make attempt to sound
Awful religion's mysteries profound,
To reason let researches vain give place,
Let's strive to know if God instructs our race.
Nature to man has given with bounteous hand
Whate'er his nature's cravings can demand;
Sense's sure instinct, spirit's varied springs,
To him each element its tribute brings.
In the brain's foldings memory is placed,
And on it nature's lively image traced.
Ready at every motion of his will,
His call external objects answer still;
Sound to his ear is wafted by the air,
The light he sees without or pains or care.
As to his God, the end of humankind
Is man to ceaseless errors then confined?
Is nature then displayed to mortal's eyes,
While nature's God obscure and hidden lies?
Is succor in my greatest need denied?
Must my chief craving rest unsatisfied?
No, God in vain has not His creatures made,
The hand divine on every brow's displayed,
My Master's will can't from me be concealed;
When He gave being He His law revealed.
Doubtless He spoke, but spoke to all mankind;
To Egypt's deserts He was ne'er confined.
In Delphi, Delos, or the Sibyl's cave,
No oracle the godhead ever gave.
Morality, unvaried and the same,
Denounces to each age God's holy name.
'Tis Trajan's law, 'tis Socrates', yours,
By nature preached, like nature it endures;
Reason receives it, and the keen remorse
Of conscience strengthens it, and gives it force;
For conscience makes the obstinate repent,
And hardest bosoms at her voice relent.
Think you young Ammon, mad ambition's slave,
Not like you moderate, although as brave,
In a friend's blood, when he his hands imbrued,
By augurs to soft pity was subdued?
Religious rites for gold they had profaned,
And washed the monarch's hands by murder stained:
But nature's instinct could not be suppressed,
It pleaded powerful in the monarch's breast;
He could not his impetuous rage forgive, But thought himself a wretch unfit to live.
This law which bears in China sovereign sway,
To which fierce Japanese due reverence pay,
Fired Zoroaster's genius unconfined,
And shed its sacred light on Solon's mind.
It cries from Indus to cold Zembla's shore,
"Be just, thy country love, and God adore."
The Laplander, amidst eternal snows,
His God adores, and what is justice, knows;
And sold to distant coasts the negro race
With joy in others negro features trace.
No slanderer vile, no murderer ever knows
The mind's calm sunshine and the soul's repose;
Nor ever thus his secret thoughts expressed,
He who destroys the innocent is blessed;
Blessed he by whom his mother's blood is spilt,
Great the attractions and the charms of guilt.
Believe me, mortals, man, with dauntless brow,
Would openly such sentiments avow,
If there was not a universal law
Crimes to repress, and keep the world in awe.
Did men create the sense of guilt or shame?
Their soul and faculties did mortals frame?
Whether in Peru or in China flame
The golden heaps, their nature is the same:
From the artist's hands new forms the ingots take,
But he who shapes unable is to make:
Thus God, to whom each man his being owes,
In every heart the seeds of virtue sows.
True virtue by the Almighty first was made,
By man its counterfeit, and empty shade;
He may disguise the truth with errors vain,
His feelings an attempt to change restrain.
Part the Second.
Containing answers to the objections against universal morality, with a demonstration of that truth.
Cardan and famed Spinoza both reply,
This check of conscience, Nature's boasted cry,
From mutual wants and habit take their rise,
'Tis these cement our friendships and our ties.
Foe to thyself, sophist both weak and blind,
Whence springs this want? Why did the sovereign mind
Make in the bosom of all mortals dwell,
Instincts which to society impel?
Laws made by mortal man soon pass away,
The varied, weak productions of a day.
Jacob of old, as inclination led,
Two sisters of the Hebrew race could wed;
David, exempt both from restraint and shame,
Could to a hundred beauties tell his flame,
Whilst at the Vatican, the pope distressed,
Can't without scandal be of one possessed.
Here successors are chosen by the sires,
Whilst birthright there the whole estate acquires.
If but a whiskered Polander commands,
All public business suspended stands.
Electors must the emperor sustain,
The pope has dignity, the English gain.
Worship, law, interests, variations know,
Virtue's alone unchangeable below.
But whilst this moral beauty we admire,
See on a scaffold Britain's king expire.
Borgia the blade against his brother drew,
And stabbed whilst to his sister's arms he flew.
There the Dutch rabble roused to frantic rage,
Two brothers tear, the worthies of their age.
In France Brinvilliers constant still at prayers,
Poisons her sire, and to confess repairs;
The just is by the wicked's force subdued,
Hence do you virtue but a name conclude?
When with the baleful south wind's tainted breath,
All nature sickens, and each gale is death,
Will you maintain that since the world began,
Health never yet was known to dwell with man.
The various pests that poison human life,
Effects that spring from elemental strife,
Corrupt the bliss of mortals here below, But quickly vanish both their guilt and woe.
Soon as our passions fierce subside and cool,
Our hearts assent to every moral rule.
The source is pure, the furious winds in vain
Disturb its waves, and rushing torrents stain;
The mud that on its surface flows refines,
And by degrees the watery mirror shines;
The worst man there fierce as the storm before,
His image sees when once its rage is o'er.
The light of reason heaven gave not in vain
To man, but added conscience to restrain.
The springs of sense are moved by her command;
Who hears her voice is sure to understand:
To minds by passion swayed though free before,
She still an equilibrium can restore;
She kindles in each breast a generous flame,
And makes self-love and social love the same.
This was the demon Socrates' guide,
Ordained o'er all his actions to preside,
The God whose presence could his fears control,
Who made him dauntless drink the poisoned bowl.
Was to the sage its influence confined?
No; heaven must sure direct each human mind.
By this for five years Nero's rage was quelled,
Five years the voice of flattery he repelled.
His soul to this Aurelius still applied,
Like a philosopher he lived and died.
Julian, apostate by the Christians named,
Adhered to reason, whilst he faith disclaimed,
The Church's scandal, but of kings the pride,
Ne'er from the law of nature turned aside.
But cavillers truth's force will never own,
They cry to infants, "Reason is unknown;"
The power of education forms the mind,
Man still to copy others is inclined;
Nothing peculiar actuates his heart,
Others he apes, and acts a borrowed part;
Justice and truth with him are words of course,
But machine-like he acts by instinct's force.
He's Turk or Jew, Pagan or Child of Grace,
Layman or Monk, according to his race.
I know example influence acquires
O'er man; that habit sentiment inspires.
Speech, fashions, and the mind's unbounded range
Of mad opinions, subject still to change,
Are feeble traces by our sires impressed,
With mortal signet on each human breast.
But the first springs are made by God's own hand,
Of source divine, they shall forever stand.
To practise them the child a man must grow,
Their force he cannot in the cradle know.
The sparrow when he first beholds the light,
Can he unfledged feel amorous delight?
Do new-born foxes prey to seek begin?
Do insects taught by nature silk to spin,
Or do the humming swarms, whose artful skill,
Can wax compose, and honey's sweets distil,
Soon as they see the day their work produce?
Time ripens and brings all things into use,
All beings have their object, and they tend
At a fixed period to their destined end.
Passion, 'tis true, may hurry us along,
Sometimes the just may deviate into wrong.
Oft man from good to hated evil flies,
None in all moments virtuous are or wise.
We're told that man's a mystery o'er and o'er;
All nature as mysterious is or more.
Philosophers sagacious and profound,
The beasts' sure instinct could you ever sound?
The nature of the grass can you explain,
That dies, then rising spreads a verdant plain?
This world a veil o'erspreads of darkest night,
If through the deep obscure the glimmering light
Of reason serves to guide us on our way,
Should we extinguish it, and go astray.
When God first filled the vast expanse of sky,
Bid oceans flow and kindled suns on high;
He said, "Be in your limits fixed contained,"
And in their bounds the rising worlds remained.
On Venus laws and Saturn he imposed,
The sixteen orbs of which our world's composed;
On jarring elements that still contend,
On rolling thunders that the ether rend,
On man created to adore His power,
And on the worm that shall man's flesh devour.
Shall man audaciously, with effort vain,
His own laws add to those the heavens ordain?
Should we the phantoms of a day at most,
Who scarcely can a real being boast,
Place ourselves on the throne at God's right hand,
And issue forth (like Gods) supreme command?
Part the Third.
Shows that as men have for the most part disfigured, by the various opinions which they have adopted, the principle of natural religion which unites them, they should mutually bear with each other.
The universe is God's eternal shrine,
Men various ways adore the power divine.
All of their faith, their saints, their martyred host,
And oracles unerring voice make boast.
On numerous ablutions one relies,
He thinks heaven sees them with propitious eyes,
And that all those who are not circumcised,
Are by his God rejected and despised.
Another thinks he Brahma's favor gains,
Whilst he from eating rabbits' flesh abstains,
Amongst the blessed above he hopes a seat,
The just reward of merit so complete.
Against their neighbors all alike declaim,
And brand them with the unbeliever's name.
The jars amidst contending Christians bred,
More desolation through the world have spread,
Than the pretext of statesmen weak and vain,
Midst Europe's powers a balance to maintain.
See an inquisitor, with air benign,
His neighbor's body to the flames consign;
Much sorrow at the tragic scene he shows, But takes the money to assuage his woes.
Whilst touched with zeal religious crowds advance,
And praising God, around the victim dance.
Blind zeal could oft good Catholics incite,
At leaving mass to hurry to the sight,
And threatening each their neighbor loudly cry,
"Wretch, think like me, or else this moment die."
From Paris, Calvin and his sect withdrew,
Their effigies the bloodless hangman slew.
Servetus born in torments to expire,
By Calvin's self was sentenced to the fire.
Had but Servetus been of power possessed,
The Trinitarians had been sore oppressed,
Quickly had ended all the warm dispute,
For halters can the obstinate confute.
Thus sectaries who 'gainst Arminius rose,
Bent all his tenets warmly to oppose,
In Flanders gained the martyr's glorious name,
In Holland executioners became.
Why for so many years with pious rage,
Religious wars did our forefathers wage?
From nature's law allegiance they withdrew,
Or added others dangerous as new; And man to his own sense an abject slave,
To God his weakness and his passions gave.
To him men give the faults of humankind,
They paint him fickle, false, to rage inclined:
But reason, thanks to Heaven, in these our days
O'er half the globe diffuses kindly rays;
Man at her voice persuasive grows humane,
No piles are lighted, blood no altars stain.
If bigot fury should again be known,
Those fires would soon to tenfold rage be blown.
So oft opinion does not pass for guilt,
By man his brother's blood's more rarely spilt,
More rarely horror acts of faith inspire
At Lisbon, fewer Jews in flames expire; Less oft the Mufti cries in furious strain,
"Slave, follow Mahomet, from wine refrain."
But Christian still the furious Mufti names
Dogs, and condemns them to eternal flames.
The Catholics again from bliss exclude
The Turks, who have so many realms subdued;
They to damnation northern realms consign,
The curse great king affects even worth like thine.
In vain your goodness is each day displayed,
In vain all mankind you protect and aid;
You people and improve the barren plain,
Arts cultivate, asylums build in vain:
For confidently may doctors say
That you from Beelzebub derive your sway.
The Pagan virtues were but crimes at best,
All generous souls such maxims must detest.
Journalist base who with malignant mind
Thinkest thyself authorized to damn mankind;
Thou seest with joy God human beings frame,
To glut the devil and burn with endless flame.
Is it not enough that you at once consign
Montaigne and Montesquieu to wrath divine?
Shall Aristides, Socrates the sage,
Solon the guide and model of his age;
Aurelius, Trajan, Titus dear to fame,
Against whom you with bitterness declaim,
All be cast into the abyss of hell,
By the just Being whom they served so well?
And shall you be in heaven with glory crowned,
While crowds of cherubim your throne surround;
Because with monks a wallet once you bore,
In ignorance slept and greasy sack-cloth wore?
Be blest above, with souls no war I wage,
But why should Newton, wonder of his age,
Leibnitz profound, and Addison whose mind
With learning fraught was by true taste refined:
Locke who could spirits' properties explain,
And understanding's limits ascertain;
Men whom the God supreme deigned to inspire
Wherefore should these be doomed to penal fire?
In judging be more temperate and cool,
Teach not eternal wisdom how to rule;
To judge severely such great men beware,
And those who ne'er condemned you learn to spare.
Religion well observed will quell your rage,
And make you mild, compassionate and sage;
Drown others not, but try the port to find,
He's right who pardons but the angry blind.
Sons of one God, in these our days of woe
Let's live like brothers whilst we dwell below.
Let's strive to lend each other kind relief,
We groan beneath a load of woes and grief:
Against our lives a thousand foes lay wait,
Our lives which we at once both love and hate:
Some guide, some prop our wavering hearts require,
With languor chilled, or burned with strong desire.
Tears by the happiest mortals have been shed,
All have their share of anxious care and dread.
If kind society her succors lend,
Her joys awhile our grief and cares suspend:
Yet even here a weak resource we find,
'Gainst grief that ever rankles in the mind.
Dash not the cup in which our comforts flow,
Do not corrupt the balm of human woe.
Felons, methinks, I in a dungeon spy,
Who at their fellows' throats with fury fly;
And though they could relieve each other's pains,
Forever jar and combat with their chains.
Part the Fourth.
Proves that it is the business of the government to put an end to the unhappy disputes of the schools, by which the peace of society is disturbed.
I oft have heard it from your lips august,
'Tis the grand duty, doubtless, to be just;
And the first blessing is the heart's repose.
How could you, where so many sects oppose,
Amidst incessant wrangling and debate,
Preserve a peace so lasting in the state?
Whence is it Calvin's sons, and Luther's, tell,
Deemed by the Papists Satan's offspring fell,
The Roman, Greek, who will not own the power
Of Rome; the Quaker, Anabaptist sour,
Who in their law could never yet agree,
Are all united in the praise of thee?
'Tis because nature formed you for the throne;
Like you to rule had the first Valois known,
A Jacobin had not, with fury fired,
To rival Judith and Aod, aspired;
Ne'er on the king his hands profane had laid,
But Valois edged the church's murderous blade,
That blade by which, though subject crowds stood round,
Great Henry after fell, for worth renowned.
Such cursed effects from pious quarrels flow,
Or soon or late all factions bloody grow;
Quickly they spread and strength acquire, if prized,
But quickly sink to nothing, if despised.
He who can armies lead against the foe,
To govern refractory priests should know.
Yet could a Norman confessor persuade
A king who prowess in the field displayed,
That Quesnel, Jansen threatened much the state,
The monarch by his greatness gave them weight.
Then rose a hundred factions filled with ire,
Blind zeal made judges, pleaders, clerks conspire;
Then Jesuits, Capuchins, and Cordeliers,
The kingdom filled with scruples and with fears:
Ridiculous once by the regent made,
They quickly sunk into oblivion's shade.
The master's presence and his care suffice
To scatter bliss, thence general good must rise.
Who cultivates within the well-fenced field,
The treasures which the spring and autumn yield,
Can water, earth, sun's various gifts bestow,
Upon the trees that in his gardens grow;
On slender props he feeble branches rears,
And from the ground the useless plants uptears;
Or prunes them when they too luxuriant shoot,
And drain of needful sap the trunk and root.
His lands afford him all he can desire,
The laws of nature with his toil conspire;
A tree which he has planted with his hand,
Is sure, with others, to enrich the land;
And all the planter's cares are well repaid
With luscious fruits and with a grateful shade.
A gardener never could, by vengeance led,
Make heaven upon it baleful influence shed;
Could ne'er, by curses, make his fruits decay,
Or vines and fig-trees wither quite away.
Wretched those nations where laws still contend!
Their jarring factions never can have end:
The Roman senate, watchful o'er the state,
Morals and rites intent to regulate,
Set to the vestals' number its due bound,
Nor suffered bacchanals to range around.
Aurelius, Trajan, princes of renown,
The pontiff's bonnet wore, and emperor's crown:
The world depended on their care alone,
And the schools' vain disputes were then unknown;
Those legislators, with sage maxims fraught,
Ne'er for their sacred birds with fury fought.
On the same principle Rome now holds command,
The throne and altar by their union stand;
Her citizens enjoy serene repose,
More blessed than when they vanquished numerous foes.
Not that I think kings should the mitre wear,
And the cross jointly with the sceptre bear,
Or when they come from council should, aloud,
Utter their benediction to the crowd;
But I assert that kings, when they are crowned,
To maintain order are by duty bound,
That their authority's o'er all the same,
That all their fatherly protection claim.
On various orders well-formed states depend,
Merchants enrich them, warriors defend.
Religious ordinances level all,
The rich and poor, the great as well as small;
Equal authority has civil law,
This keeps both citizens and priests in awe.
Law in a state should equal sway extend
O'er all; all to it equally should bend.
Farther to treat of such points I decline,
Heaven ne'er for government formed souls like mine;
But from the port where now my life I close,
In tranquil happiness and calm repose,
Seeing the storms that all around me rage,
I with your lessons moralize my page.
From this discourse what inference shall we draw?
That prejudice to fools alone gives law;
We should not for it with fierce rage contend,
Earth teems with error, truths from heaven descend;
And amidst thistles which obstruct the way,
The sage finds paths that cannot lead astray.
Peace, which man wishes, whilst he from it flies,
As much as sacred truth should mortals prize.
Prayer.
Great God, whose being by thy works is known,
My last words hear from Thy eternal throne:
If I mistook 'twas while Thy law I sought,
I may have erred, but Thou wert in each thought.
Fearless I look beyond the opening grave,
And cannot think the God who being gave,
The God whose favors made my bliss o'erflow,
Has doomed me, after death, to endless woe.
* ↑ As God is an infinite being, His nature must of consequence be unknown to all men. As this is a philosophical work, it was judged necessary to cite the opinions of philosophers. All the ancients, without exception, looked on matter as eternal; this is almost the only point on which they agreed.
* ↑ Confucius should not be confounded with these: he confined himself to natural religion, and discovered everything that could be discovered without the light of revelation.
* ↑ When this poem was written, the author could not foresee that flames were to destroy a great part of that unhappy city in which fagots were too often kindled.
* ↑ We are not by the word Church, in this place, to understand the Catholic Church. Nothing is here alluded to but the abominable fanaticism of some ecclesiastics detested by the Church in all ages.
Footnotes