Philosophical Letters

He also feels no need to offer black-and-white, every/or judgments of the subjects he investigates, entirely instead sees all the way what is true or deceptive in the specific topic at hand.

All of these individualistic qualities ar on display in Voltaire's examination of boosterism. He goes to the ascendant for his information--"one of the best known Quakers in Eng state of matter" (Voltaire 23). In his long encounters with the man, Voltaire demonstrates a journalist's ability to ask penetrating questions, to listen guardedly to the responses, and to conceal many of his own thoughts and feelings in order to lean out his respondent. Voltaire gives the reader a full and balanced delineation of the man and the Quaker religion he represents. Voltaire notes with humor the Quaker Meeting which includes speaking by members who feel moved by the Holy Spirit. One man, he writes, "recited . . . a rigmarole taken from the Gospels, or so he believed, of which neither he nor anyone else understood a word." But Voltaire includes the honest appraisal of this exhibition by another Quaker: "We have to tolerate it . . . because we cannot tell whether a man . . . will be inspired by the tone of voice or by folly" (Voltaire 27). Voltaire may not be seen by all to be a religious man, but he certainly values the religious freedom tending(p) the English in contrast to t

Even when he critiques a thinker whom he clearly admires, Voltaire emphasizes the human imperfections and ignorance which prevail: "We do not understand either mind or body; we have no invention of the one and only very imperfect ideas of the other" (Voltaire 144).

An Englishman, as a free man, goes to Heaven by whatever street he likes. . . .

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two they would lash each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness (Voltaire 37; 41).

As generally detailed as he is of the French, and as generally admiring he is of the English, Voltaire provided maintains his ability to see the best and worst of both nations and peoples: "As for good [English] historians, I have not met any so far; their history has had to be written by a Frenchman" (Voltaire 109).

he French and the Catholic restrictions under which they suffered in his time. Of the English, Voltaire writes thankfully:

There are country folk in this land worth about 200,000 francs, who are not too dashing to continue tilling the soil that has enriched them and on which they live in freedom (Voltaire 50).

Voltaire is ruthless in his estimation of the most storied of philosophers, English and French alike. He refers to the "mumbo-jumbo" of Bacon (61), says of Descartes that he was "born to show the errors of antiquity but to substitute his own" (63), and concludes that philosophers are distant
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