The Washington times., 1919-12-07
TODAY
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subservient to that orb which have
escaped the observation Of all our
astronomers"
That was strangely accurate
guessing.
Prof. Asaph Hall, more than a
hundred years later, discovered
that the two tiny moons actually
did exist, sailing around Mars.
This "guess" by voltaire is part
of second sight that genius seems
to possess. Dante. four hundred
years before the birth of Newton,
foreshadowed the law of gravita-
ton, describing Dante and Virgil
climbing down the back of Satan,
seizing the long hairs, and passing
that spot at the center of the earth
ito which all things converge"
Shakespeare wrote about "the
drops that visit this sad heart" be-
fore Harvey had announced his
discovery Of the circulation of the
blood, in days when English doc
tors bled their patients first on the
left arm, then on the right, to keep
the amount of blood equal in both
sides of the body, like the juice in
an orange.
Recall also Goethe, offhand, tell
ing anatomists, what they all know
now, that the skull is simply de-
velopment Of the top joint of the
spinal column, telling botanists
that the flower Is development of a
leaf, and mapping out after glanc-
ing at rough map, the course that
engineers later on selected for the
Nicaragua Canal.
Return to wonderful old Vol
taire, who was always dying, but
amazed all France, driving from
the border of Switzerland to Paris
when he was eighty-four years old,
producing play he had just writ
ten, receiving the greatest cele-
bration ever given to any French
man at any time.
He was respectfully buried in con-
secrated ground, later honored by
the transfer of his body to the
Pantheon, where great men lie in
Paris, and still further and more
highly honored when asinine
royalty, returned to Paris after the
revolution, had his body dug up
and thrown into a hole on waste
ground.
Read as much as you can of
Voltaire's Philosophical Diction-
ary," not overlooking the chapter
devoted to statesmen. He says
he writes not for statesmen in his
day, too busy to listen, but for
young men that will be statesmen
when he is dead, and will then do
what he advises. That was a tue
statement. Those that read when
they were young what he wrote
when he was old made the French
revolution and the French republic
OF today.
For pure wit and amusing sar-
casm, read Voltaire's story, "The
White Bull" Read his story about
The Man of Forty Crowns" Learn
how the poor were taxed in
France and how ingeniously Vol
taire told their story in such a
fashion as to bring on the revolu-
tion that freed them.
1t is often said that Voltaire was
vlciously irreligious. He was not.
That to which he objected in re-
ligion, for instance putting young
men to death because they failed
to uncover their heads when a re-
ligious procession passed, or burn
ing man alive for expressing his
opinion of revealing scientific
truths, every religious man would
denounced today.
He erected a church ito the one
true God" and relics were sent to
him from Rome to be put under the
altar at which he himself preached.
He attacked not religion, but
abuses. The Jews would have more
complain of him, for he was un-
just to them, as were many men of
his day. He even wrote about the
respectable temple Of King Solo
man as "a dirty little temple for a
dirty little people" But intelli-
gent Jews smile at that, knowing
that Voltaire's prejudices and ha-
treds are dead with him, while his
wisdom and genius live to en-
Tighten the world and stimulate
thought.
READ VOLTAIRE. Buy his
BOOKS, have them with you if you
can; II not, read them in the pub
lie libraries TYrn ,,o,, g. A.