Note 935 — Chapter VI

In this case, as in many others, ignorance has been fortified by bigotry; for, as Lord Campbell truly says of Voltaire, ‘since the French Revolution, an indiscriminate abuse of this author has been in England the test of orthodoxy and loyalty.’ Campbell's Chief Justices, vol. ii. p. 335. Indeed, so extensively has the public mind been prejudiced against this great man, that, until a very few years ago, when Lord Brougham published a life of him, there was no book in the English language containing even a tolerable account of one of the most influential writers France has produced. This work of Lord Brougham's, though a middling performance, is at least an honest one, and, as it harmonizes with the general spirit of our time, it has probably had considerable weight. In it he says of Voltaire, ‘nor can any one since the days of Luther be named, to whom the spirit of free inquiry, nay, the emancipation of the human mind from spiritual tyranny, owes a more lasting debt of gratitude.’ Brougham's Life of Voltaire, p. 132. It is certain, that the better the history of the eighteenth century is understood, the more the reputation of Voltaire will increase; as was clearly foreseen by a celebrated writer nearly a generation ago. In 1831, Lerminier wrote these remarkable, and, as the result has proved, prophetic words: ‘Il est temps de revenir à des sentimens plus respectueux pour la mémoire de Voltaire…. Voltaire a fait pour la France ce que Leibnitz a fait pour l'Allemagne; pendant trois-quarts de siècle il a représenté son pays, puissant à la manière de Luther et de Napoléon; il est destiné à survivre a bien des gloires, et je plains ceux qui se sont oubliés jusqu'à laisser tomber des paroles dédaigneuses sur le génie de cet homme.’ Lerminier, Philosophie du Droit, vol. i. p. 199. Compare the glowing eulogy in Longchamp et Wagnière, Mémoires sur Voltaire, vol. ii. pp. 388, 389, with the remarks of Saint-Lambert, in Mém. d'Epinay, vol. i. p. 263.