Voltaire was a supporter of which state. Philosopher Voltaire - educator and fighter against clericalism

French Enlightenment XVIII century was an important turning point in the spiritual development of mankind, a significant victory of science and reason over the anti-scientific, religious and mystical worldview. Brave figures of the Age of Enlightenment sharply criticized the flawed socio-economic and political relations of feudalism, despotic monarchical power, legal, political, philosophical, religious concepts that defended the unlimited domination of the feudal classes over the people. The French Enlightenment of the 18th century was a historical and logical continuation of the spiritual values of the Renaissance, the advanced social thought of Italy, England and Holland of the 16th-17th centuries, and the French freethinking of the previous era. Of course, the French Enlightenment of the 18th century cannot be considered as a simple continuation of previous progressive socio-political, philosophical, ethical and aesthetic ideas, for it reflected a higher stage of the struggle against feudalism and absolutism. The radicalism of the break with feudal reality in France of the 18th century should have determined and determined the radicalism, the novelty of the anti-feudal ideas of the French enlighteners.

It is also important to note the outstanding role of the French Enlightenment, and especially its materialist wing, in the development of the natural and social sciences. Relying on the achievements of their era, the enlighteners, in turn, stimulated the further development of scientific thought, armed it with advanced methodology, and rejected all varieties of idealism and agnosticism; any attempts to explain the real world, going beyond its limits and resorting to irrational, religious and mystical constructions.

Not only in France, but also where there was a struggle for the abolition of feudal relations and the feudal-clerical worldview, the ideas of the French Enlightenment contributed to the liberation struggle, historical progress, and the establishment of new social relations. Among many others, the progressive people of Russia, who rose up to fight against tsarism, serfdom, the dominant religion and church, and against obscurantism, adopted the best of the heritage of the French Enlightenment.

In turn, reactionaries of various shades and trends considered it their duty to belittle and refute the ideas of the French Enlightenment, and especially the French materialists and atheists of the 18th century. Even before the revolution of 1789-1794, the royal power and the Catholic Church persecuted the heralds of freedom and reason, threw them into prison, forced them to leave their homeland, burned their works with the hand of the executioner, apparently hoping to incinerate “wicked and rebellious” ideas and calls at the stake.

It is known that the French Enlightenment, generally directed against feudalism and absolutism, consisted of teachings of varying political and philosophical radicalism.

1.Voltaire's views

Voltaire(November 21, 1694, Paris, France - May 30, 1778, Paris, France; birth name Francois-Marie Arouet) - one of the largest French enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century: poet, prose writer, satirist, historian, publicist, human rights activist.

Voltaire took the path fight against despotism and fanaticism at a time when the revolutionary forces in France were in the initial stages of their formation and development. Voltaire was one of the first to try to connect together the advanced philosophical thought of France and England at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries. Voltaire adopted, deepened and developed Bayle's skepticism, sharpening it against religious-dogmatic thinking.

Voltaire opposed the deductive-rationalistic method of knowledge. On this issue, he had to disagree and disagreed with Spinoza, Malebranche and others, who in one form or another ignored sensory knowledge in the theoretical understanding of the world. Voltaire's sympathies were on the side of Locke's sensationalism.

Voltaire's Philosophical Letters, published in 1734 made a huge impression on their contemporaries and contributed to the growth of opposition sentiments in France. In these “Letters,” telling his compatriots about the advanced social orders and political institutions of England compared to the French, Voltaire spoke out against despotic power, against feudal-class inequality, intolerance and religious persecution, which were practiced at that time in his homeland.

Speaking about sensations as the first source of knowledge, Voltaire, in the process of clarifying his philosophical positions, decisively rejected Berkeley’s subjective idealism (in the fight against materialism, he denied the objective existence of the material world and argued that things are only a collection of sensations).

In the spirit of sensationalism (sensation and perception are the main and main form of reliable knowledge, opposed to realism), Voltaire rejected the substantiality of the soul. The soul is not an independent and independent principle. It means nothing more than the thinking ability of a person.

Thus, although under the guise of theological phrases, Voltaire tries to build a bridge between matter and thinking and resolve the issue in a monistic way. He declares: “I am the body, I think.” This was an undeniable step towards materialism.

Voltaire's popularization in France of the inductive (logical) method of the materialist Bacon and the physicist Newton was of great importance. Rejecting the sterile, bankrupt scholasticism (the synthesis of Christian (Catholic) theology and Aristotelian logic), Voltaire acted as an ardent supporter of experimental knowledge. He wrote that he could do nothing else but resort to analysis, which is the stick given by nature to the blind. It is necessary to examine everything, part by part, and then it will be seen whether the whole can then be judged.

In his subsequent works, Voltaire intensified his attack on the entire rotten edifice of feudalism, on despotic power, on the religious worldview, but, like Montesquieu, in search of a political ideal he did not go beyond the concept of an “enlightened sovereign”, and did not lose illusions about the possibility of establishing bourgeois orders in the conditions of pre-revolutionary France through compromise with the aristocracy, through peaceful reforms. He considered the republican form of government unrealistic for France and associated the implementation of his ideals, like many other enlighteners, with the accession to the throne of a “virtuous and enlightened” philosopher-monarch.

However, Voltaire's worldview also had weaknesses.

First of all, Voltaire did not completely free himself from the idea of God. Voltaire’s God was born of complex, contradictory philosophical reflections, “the desire to explain the emergence of nature and society, “their spontaneous development, to comprehend the laws of their existence and formation.

Unable to refute the teleological proof of the existence of God, Voltaire was forced to admit his existence. This god does not create the material world. It exists from eternity. Voltaire's deistic god only organizes material existence.

Through the efforts of Voltaire, God was reduced from the creator of the world to a force that brings order to this world. But if the world is governed by God, then this management at least must be somewhat reasonable and fair. For some time, Voltaire was fascinated by Lenbnitz’s “pre-established harmony”: everything that happens in the world is for good. But Voltaire soon realized the absurdity of admiring the intelligence and foresight of a wise and just ruler of the world.

As noted above, while rejecting Christ - God, a miracle worker, Voltaire allowed the existence of a real creator or creators of Christian teaching, founders and preachers of a new religious school of thought.

(Philosophical views: a supporter of the sensationalism of the English philosopher Locke, whose teachings he propagated in his “philosophical letters”, Voltaire was at the same time an opponent of French materialist philosophy, in particular Baron Holbach, against whom his "Letter of Memmius toCicero»; on the question of the spirit, Voltaire vacillated between denial and affirmation of the immortality of the soul; on the question of free will, he indecisively moved from indeterminism to determinism. Voltaire published the most important philosophical articles V"Encyclopedias" and then published it as a separate book, first under the title “Pocket Philosophical Dictionary” (French. Dictionnaire philosophique portatif, 1764). In this work, Voltaire showed himself as a fighter against idealism and religion, relying on the scientific achievements of his time. In numerous articles, he gives a vivid and witty criticism of the religious ideas of the Christian Church, religious morality, and denounces the crimes committed by the Christian Church.

Voltaire, as a representative of the school of natural law, recognizes for each individual the existence of inalienable natural rights: freedom, property, security, equality [ clarify ] .

Along with natural laws, the philosopher identifies positive laws, the necessity of which he explains by the fact that “people are evil.” Positive laws are designed to guarantee the natural rights of man. Many positive laws seemed to the philosopher to be unjust, embodying only human ignorance.

Religious views:

A tireless and merciless enemy of the church and clerics, whom he persecuted with arguments of logic and arrows of sarcasm, a writer whose slogan was “écrasez l'infâme” (“destroy the vile”, often translated as “crush the vermin”), Voltaire attacked both Judaism and to Christianity (for example in "Dinner at Citizen Boulainvilliers") expressing, however, his respect for the person of Christ (both in the indicated work and in the treatise “God and People”); for the purpose of anti-church propaganda Voltaire published "Testament"Jean Meslier», a socialist priest of the 17th century who did not spare words to debunk clericalism.

Fighting in word and deed (intercession for the victims of religious fanaticism - Calas and Servetus) against the domination and oppression of religious superstitions and prejudices, against clerical fanaticism, Voltaire tirelessly preached the ideas of religious tolerance both in his journalistic pamphlets ( Treatise on Tolerance1763 ), and in his artistic works (the image of Henry IV, who put an end to the religious strife between Catholics and Protestants; the image of the emperor in the tragedy “Gebras”).

In 1722, Voltaire wrote an anti-clerical poem "Pros and cons". In this poem he argues that the Christian religion, which commands us to love a merciful God, actually portrays Him as a cruel tyrant, “Whom we should hate.”

Criticism of atheism:

Voltaire was at the same time an enemy of atheism; Voltaire dedicated a special pamphlet to the campaign against atheism (“Homélie sur l’athéisme”). A deist in the spirit of the English bourgeois freethinkers of the 18th century, Voltaire tried with all kinds of arguments to prove the existence of a Deity who created the universe, in the affairs of which, however, he did not interfere, using evidence: “cosmological” (“Against Atheism”), “teleological” (“Le philosophe ignorant”) and “moral” (article “God” in the Encyclopedia).

According to social views, Voltaire is a supporter of inequality. Society should be divided into “educated and rich” and those who, “having nothing,” are “obliged to work for them” or “amuse” them. Therefore, there is no need to educate workers: “if the people start to reason, everything will perish” (from Voltaire’s letters). When printing Meslier’s “Testament,” Voltaire threw out all of his sharp criticism of private property, considering it “outrageous.” This explains Voltaire’s negative attitude towards Rousseau, although there was a personal element in their relationship.

A convinced and passionate opponent of absolutism, he remained until the end of his life a monarchist, a supporter of the idea of enlightened absolutism, a monarchy based on the “educated part” of society, on the intelligentsia, on “philosophers.” An enlightened monarch is his political ideal, which Voltaire embodied in a number of images: in the person of Henry IV (in the poem "Henriada"),"sensitive" philosopher-king Teucer (in tragedy "Laws of Minos"), who sets himself the task of “enlightening people, softening the morals of his subjects, civilizing a wild country,” and King Don Pedro (in the tragedy of the same name), who tragically dies in the fight against the feudal lords in the name of the principle expressed by Teucer in the words: “The kingdom is a great family with a father in chapter. Whoever has a different idea about the monarch is guilty before humanity.”

Voltaire, like Rousseau, sometimes tended to defend the idea of the "primitive state" in plays such as "Scythians" or "Laws of Minos", but his “primitive society” (the Scythians and Isidonians) has nothing in common with the paradise of small landowners depicted by Rousseau, but embodies a society of enemies of political despotism and religious intolerance.

In his satirical poem« Virgin of Orleans» he ridicules knights and courtiers, but in the poem “The Battle of Fontenoy” (1745) Voltaire glorifies the old French nobility, in plays such as “The Right of the Seigneur” and especially “Nanina”, he depicts with enthusiasm the landowners of a liberal bent, even ready to marry peasant woman For a long time Voltaire could not come to terms with the invasion of the stage by persons of non-noble status, “ordinary people” (French. hommes du commun), because it meant “to devalue the tragedy” (avilir le cothurne).

Connected by his political, religious-philosophical and social views still quite firmly with the “old order,” Voltaire, especially with his literary sympathies, firmly rooted himself in the aristocratic 18th century of Louis XIV, to whom he dedicated his best historical work, “Siècle de Louis XIV.”

Shortly before his death, on April 7, 1778, Voltaire joined the Paris Masonic Lodge of the Grand Orient of France - « Nine sisters" At the same time, he was accompanied to the box by Benjamin Franklin (at that time the American ambassador to France).

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Introduction

1. Life and works of Voltaire

2. Voltaire's philosophical views

3. Basic principles of Voltaire’s philosophy

Introduction

In feudal France of the 18th century, an intolerant situation developed. The old order of things became hour by hour more absurd and more destructive for the nation. Sometimes the bread produced in the country was only enough for four to five months. Every three years there was a famine, grain riots shook the country; in 1750, rebel artisans of the Parisian suburbs called for the burning of the royal palace at Versailles. The peasant, dependent on the lord, no longer wanted to work in the fields: after taxes, levies, taxes, direct and indirect, he had nothing left and he fled from the village in search of at least some kind of income or simply became a beggar. The nobles - nobles, leaving their empty castles, parks and huge hunting reserves, lived at court, filling their leisure time with palace gossip, intrigue and petty claims. The king had ten palaces. A quarter of the state income was spent on their maintenance. Favorites, courtiers, and numerous royal relatives demanded money, but the state treasury was empty.
There were four thousand monasteries, sixty thousand monks and nuns, six thousand priests, and the same number of churches and chapels in the country. Two privileged classes - the clergy and the nobility - owned almost half of the national lands, the best. On these lands stood palaces and castles with luxurious furniture, paintings, marble statues and a huge number of servants - and all this required money, money, money. Meanwhile, what could increase the influx of this money, in other words, the country’s material production developed extremely slowly. The “third estate” - merchants, owners of manufactories, that is, the bourgeoisie, which was growing rich and gaining strength - was constrained in its initiative, limited in its activities by complete political lack of rights. The state system of class monarchy was outdated and interfered with the development of productive forces. The economic, social, political and cultural conditions of life in French society during the period under review could not do without a radical change. The bourgeois revolution of the late 18th century was brewing.

This was France in the second half - the end of the 18th century, the century of Enlightenment, the century of Voltaire, who, before others, sensed the approach of impending changes and, together with the best minds of his country, contributed to the ideological preparation of a revolutionary explosion.

1. Life and works of Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), the son of a Parisian notary, known to the world under the literary name Voltaire, very early began to bother the Parisian authorities with daring epigrams on influential persons. For poems denouncing the Prince Regent Philippe of Orleans, he was kept behind bars in the Bastille for eleven months. But the punishment had no effect. Years, books, meetings with critically thinking people, personal life experience, talent did their job. The mature Voltaire is the first poet of France, the first playwright and, moreover, a historian, philosopher, a great mocker, an implacable opponent of the church, fanaticism, and rigid dogmatic thinking - in the end, the ruler of the thoughts of his age, “the leader of minds and fashion” (Pushkin) . Its efficiency is colossal. He showed himself in all areas of literary creativity, violating established canons, while declaring that “all genres are good, except the boring one.” “He flooded Europe with charming trinkets in which philosophy spoke in a generally accessible and humorous language,” Pushkin wrote about him. Crowned heads court Voltaire. True, Louis XV hates him and is afraid of him, but Pope Benedict XIV sends him a flattering message, Empress Catherine II enters into a long correspondence with him, Frederick II, King of Prussia, showers him with favors. However, in his native France, Voltaire is always on the alert. And not without reason. One of his readers, almost a boy, nineteen-year-old De la Barre, was executed for atheism in 1766: Voltaire’s “Philosophical Dictionary” found in his possession served as evidence.

Pushkin called Voltaire “sly and brave.” The characterization is correct. Rarely in his day did he decide to engage in a desperate battle with centuries-old prejudices and with official ideology. Voltaire made up his mind. He acted boldly, sometimes even daringly, but also cunningly. “Throw arrows without showing your hands,” he taught his comrades. For sixty years, from the first performance of the tragedy "Oedipus" (1718) until his death, he tirelessly undermined the spiritual foundations of feudalism, making a revolution in the minds of his contemporaries.

In March 1735, Voltaire's usual caution betrayed him. He took a rash step: he read the first songs of his new poem “The Virgin of Orleans” to his friends.

Rumors about the poem, which he had been writing since 1730 and had so far kept in the strictest confidence, spread around Paris and reached the ears of Cardinal Fleury, and he was all-powerful under Louis XV. It was necessary to hide immediately. And Voltaire went to Luneville, to Lorraine, to wait out the storm there.

Meanwhile, the Marquise Du Châtelet, his good friend, obtained permission for him to settle on her estate in Syre, promising the minister-custodian of the press not to allow “reprehensible” publications. The minister told Voltaire at the meeting that if even a line of his poem appears in print, then the Bastille, and forever! The police chief tried to reason with the poet: “No matter how much you write, Mr. Voltaire, you will not be able to destroy the Christian religion.” As the legend goes, Voltaire replied: “We’ll see!”

However, he did not at all want to destroy religion. Voltaire was not an atheist. He, of course, rejected all existing religions, with any personified gods (Christ, Allah or Buddha). But he believed in the idea of a “supreme mind,” a higher power unknown to people, ruling the world, that is, he was a supporter of a special “philosophical” religion, the so-called deism, which was adhered to by many enlightened minds of his time.

As for the “unenlightened minds” (the people), Voltaire left Christ, Allah, and Buddha to them. He owns the famous phrase: “If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.” Voltaire, not without reason, believed that the people needed religion as a moral rein. “It is undoubtedly in the interests of society that there should be some kind of deity who punishes what cannot be suppressed by human justice” (Philosophical Dictionary).

And yet, there was no person in the 18th century who dealt such sensitive blows to religious beliefs as Voltaire. He never spoke out against Christianity directly and openly, often he even lavished praise on it, but what praise! “The pagan religion shed a little blood, but ours flooded the whole earth with it. Ours is undoubtedly the only good one, the only true one, but using it, we have committed so much evil...” (Philosophical Dictionary).

Voltaire also owns the following lines: “The most absurd of all despotisms, the most humiliating for human nature, the most incongruous and the most harmful is the despotism of the priests; and of all the priestly dominions, the most criminal is, without a doubt, the dominion of the priests of the Christian Church.”

The theater was Voltaire's main platform. Over the course of sixty years, he wrote thirteen tragedies, twelve comedies, many librettos, divertissements, and a total of fifty-four plays. As a master, he was inferior to Corneille and Racine, but in the 18th century he was the only playwright capable of worthily continuing their aesthetic traditions.

Speaking about Voltaire’s attitude to absolute power, one cannot fail to mention his tragedy “Fanaticism, or the Prophet Mohammed,” which was staged back in 1741 in Lille and in 1742 in Paris. And again, Voltaire’s cunning has no limits: while apparently exposing the evil of Islam, he in fact, he challenged all the churches, the prophets and all the “powers of this world.”

In essence, Voltaire is conducting an extensive dispute in this tragedy with a well-known political figure, the Italian Nicolo Machiavelli, who in his treatise “The Prince” (1515) declared that all means are good for a ruler to achieve and retain power. Voltaire's Mohammed - a negative character - seems to embody the qualities of an "ideal" sovereign according to Machiavelli's program, but this is precisely what makes him a tyrant. It is curious that the young Prussian prince, later King Frederick II, not without the influence of Voltaire, undertook to write the treatise “Anti-Machiavelli”.

The main thing for which Voltaire condemns Mohammed is his deep contempt for the people, his attitude towards the masses as a crowd of slaves sacrificed to his personal egoism and ambition.

There are no gods among people; any deification of an individual leads, in the end, to uncontrolled power over other people, to tyranny - this is Voltaire’s thought. It runs like a red thread throughout the play, the problems of which are extremely characteristic of the Enlightenment of the 18th century, when the very principle of the absolute monarchy was questioned, and its support, the Catholic Church, was sharply criticized.

At the invitation of Frederick II, Voltaire travels to Prussia. There, in 1752, he wrote a small philosophical story, Micromegas, which he himself considered a trifle. And yet this charming trifle is still read with enthusiasm.

Nowadays, the theme of space travel in a work written more than two hundred years ago seems almost scientific prediction. But the story has a different task. When creating Micromegas, Voltaire thought nothing of science fiction. He needed the inhabitants of Saturn and Sirius only to “refresh” the reader’s perception, a technique that he uses in almost every one of his philosophical stories. This technique consists in the fact that ordinary things are put on display for “strangers”, characters outside the given order of life, who are capable of a new, critically impartial assessment of the established order of things. These “newcomers” have especially sharp eyesight, not weakened by habit, bias, dogma, they immediately notice negative phenomena and absurdities that people have become accustomed to, resigned themselves to and accepted as the norm. In Micromegas, the absurdities of European civilization are revealed and seen through the eyes of aliens from outer space.

The story "Mikromegas" is primarily philosophical. The names of the philosophers Leibniz, Malebranche, Pascal, with whom Voltaire did not agree, and the names of Locke and Newton, whom he promoted in every possible way, are mentioned here. Here are discussions about epistemological problems, and the system of perceptions, about sensations; moral and philosophical questions are posed here. But Voltaire’s main idea boils down to the fact that people do not know how to be happy, that they have managed to make their tiny world full of evil, suffering and injustice. The reader learns that our planet is infinitely small on the scale of the universe, that man is infinitely small on the scale of this infinitesimal planet. An ironic shift in scale helps Voltaire destroy the seemingly unshakable medieval authorities, show the imaginary earthly greatness of the “powerful of the world” and the absurdity of the established state orders of his time. The earth is just a lump of dirt, a small anthill; The Mediterranean Sea is a swamp, and the Great Ocean is a tiny pond. And disputes over an extra piece of this “lump of dirt” are absurd and ridiculous; and meanwhile people, at the will of their rulers, exterminate each other in absurd and destructive wars.

“I even wanted... to crush this anthill inhabited by pathetic killers with three blows of my heel,” says an angry resident of Sirius. “Don’t work. They themselves... are working on their own destruction,” answers the resident of Saturn. “This statement has not lost its relevance today, and in the light of recent events - global terrorism and inadequate measures to combat it - has acquired particular urgency.

The absurdity of the state of affairs lies in the fact that people could live happily, because no matter how small our planet is, it is beautiful. Space aliens are delighted with her, and with the intelligence of human beings. But the trouble is that human society is poorly structured and must be remade on the basis of reason. People, “thinking atoms,” in the words of the giant Micromegas, should have “tasted the purest joys” on their planet, spending their days “in love and reflection,” as befits truly intelligent beings.

In 1753, Voltaire left the court of Frederick II. In fact, he flees Prussia, having seen more than enough abominations both in the king’s court and outside his walls. He later described his impressions in “Memoirs,” which he was afraid to publish and even, according to rumors, tried to destroy. The ubiquitous publishers, however, did not sleep, and the little book was published as soon as Voltaire died, and even in one of the secret printing houses of Berlin, right next to Frederick II himself.

Having left the Prussian state, Voltaire wandered for some time, not finding a permanent refuge, and finally settled down as his home, purchasing Fernet Castle not far from the Swiss border (for the sake of safety!). Here, hiding in his bedroom and calling himself sick so as not to be disturbed by annoying guests, he reads, writes, dictates, sending up to thirty letters on some days to all corners of Europe. His head is full of the most extensive plans, and the world requires his constant intervention.

Voltaire's entire creative activity, from the very beginning to the end, had a pronounced political orientation. He was, first of all, a public figure. And, perhaps, the crown of this activity was his exposure of “the murder committed by people in judicial robes” (letter to d’Argental, August 29, 1762) - in the famous “case of Kalas,” a Protestant, that excited the whole of Europe (thanks to Voltaire) , brutally executed on religious grounds in Toulouse on March 9, 1762. The absurdity of the accusation, the cruelty of torture and execution (wheeling, burning), hysteria, fanaticism, and rampant fanatical passions acquired, under the educational pen of Voltaire, ominous features of universality - ignorance, obscurantism, and savagery of the morals of the century. Kalas was posthumously acquitted. In 1793, the Convention decided to erect a marble column "to Kalas - the victim of fanaticism" at the site of his execution. "Philosophy has won!" - Voltaire triumphed (letter to d'Argental, March 17, 1765). The name of Voltaire sounded in the speeches of people far from literature and philosophy, “unbookish” people, as the name of the defender of the oppressed and the “scourge of the oppressors.”

“The world is violently freeing itself from stupidity. The great revolution in minds is making itself known everywhere,” Voltaire told his friends.

Now, on the shores of Lake Geneva, almost free, almost independent, decrepit in body, young in soul and mind, Voltaire created his artistic masterpieces.

In 1758, he wrote his best philosophical story, Candide, or Optimism. Here again the question of the moral meaning of the world arises.

It is appropriate to recall some details of the spiritual life of the 17th-18th centuries. The famous astronomer Kepler in 1619, in his work “Harmony of the Worlds,” established the laws of planetary motion - everything in the world appeared orderly and expedient. Later, Leibniz developed the doctrine of world harmony. Good and evil turned out to be equally necessary in his understanding and seemed to balance each other. Many minds agreed with this, including Voltaire.

But in 1755 an earthquake destroyed the city of Lisbon. More than thirty thousand of its inhabitants died. The question of world evil again became the subject of philosophical reflection. From natural disasters in nature, thought moved to social disasters. In the poem “On the Fall of Lisbon” (1756), Voltaire declared that he renounced the recognition of “world harmony” and Leibnizian optimism. The story “Candide, or Optimism” is dedicated to the debunking of this theory. (“What is optimism?” - “Alas,” said Candide, “it is a passion to claim that everything is good when in reality everything is bad”).

Rejecting the philosophy of Leibniz and the English writers of the 18th century, whose optimism led to reconciliation with evil, supposedly “a necessary element of world harmony,” Voltaire was an optimist in another sense, namely, he believed in the perfection of humanity and all its social institutions.

Voltaire's prose is vivid and politically precise. He did his job. Serving all nine muses as a true philosopher, he never for a moment forgot about his educational mission. Tireless and mocking, he was irresistible and omnipotent. There was danger in his joke, his laughter struck like a sword. The European aristocracy tasted the honey of his speeches, without always feeling the taste of poison in them. With his withered hand he ruled public opinion. Voltaire's rule excluded the tyranny of prejudice and dogmatic compulsion. It was a free realm of the mind where everyone was allowed. Here one could breathe easily, here the idea reached the reader instantly, for it was presented with elegant simplicity, the most complex problems acquired clarity and comprehensibility. He did not live to see the Revolution, but the Revolution paid tribute to him.

Voltaire's remains, taken from Paris on the night of June 1, 1778, secretly, in great haste (the church authorities prohibited the official funeral ceremony), were solemnly returned to the capital and buried in the Pantheon on July 11, 1791. voltaire religious god atheism

Voltaire today is a recognized authority with almost three hundred years of experience. But he is not a monument before which everyone stops equally and impartially. “And today there are still many good souls who would gladly burn it,” wrote the French magazine Europe in 1959. Voltaire's works are a school of sober, common-sense thinking. His satirical irony is beneficial. He ridicules affectation that speculates on noble feelings, dispels illusions and, finally, miraculously breaks down ponderous dogmas and prejudices, which our 21st century is by no means poor in.

2. Voltaire's philosophical views

Voltaire's attitude to religion and God.

An important place in Voltaire's philosophy is occupied by his attitude towards religion and God. Formally, Voltaire can be classified as a deist, since he wrote that he believed in God, but at the same time God was considered only as a mind that designed an expedient “machine of nature” and gave it laws and movement. God does not constantly set in motion the mechanisms of the world. “God once commanded, but the Universe obeys forever.” Voltaire defines God as “a necessary being, existing in itself, by virtue of its rational, good and powerful nature, an intelligence many times superior to us, for it does things that we can hardly understand.” Although Voltaire writes that the existence of God does not require proof (“reason forces us to recognize it and only madness will refuse to define it”), he himself still tries to provide it. Voltaire believes that it is absurd if “everything - movement, order, life - was formed by itself, without any design,” so that “motion alone created reason,” therefore, God exists. “We are reasonable, which means there is a higher intelligence. Thoughts are not inherent in matter at all, which means that man received these abilities from God.”

But the further Voltaire goes in such reasoning, the more contradictions can be found in them. For example, at first he says that God created everything, including matter, and a little later he writes that “God and matter exist by virtue of things.” In general, the more Voltaire writes about God, the more faith and fewer arguments: “... let us worship God without trying to penetrate the darkness of his mysteries.” Voltaire writes that he himself will “worship him as long as he lives, not trusting any school and not directing the flight of his mind to limits that no mortal can reach.” Most of Voltaire's arguments in favor of the existence of God cannot be taken into account because of their inconsistency.

Voltaire believes that God is “the only one who is powerful, for it is he who created everything, but not overly powerful,” since “every being is limited by its nature” and “there are things that the supreme intellect cannot prevent, for example , to prevent the past from not existing, so that the present is not subject to constant fluidity, so that the future does not flow from the present.” The Supreme Being “did everything out of necessity, for if his creations were not necessary, they would be useless.” But this necessity does not deprive him of will and freedom, because freedom is the opportunity to act, and God is very powerful and therefore the freest. Thus, according to Voltaire, God is not omnipotent, but simply the most powerful; not absolutely, but the freest.

This is Voltaire’s concept of God, and if we judge the philosopher’s views by it, then he can be classified as a deist. But Voltaire’s deism is essentially disguised atheism and materialism, since, in my opinion, Voltaire needs God in order to live in peace with himself and have a starting point for reflection.

Voltaire wrote: “Let us take comfort in this. that we do not know the relationship between the web and the ring of Saturn, and we will continue to explore what is available to us.” I think that's exactly what he's doing. And, considering further study of existence inaccessible, Voltaire moves on to discussions on the topic of religion. It should be noted here that Voltaire always clearly separated philosophy and religion: “The Holy Scriptures should never be involved in philosophical disputes: these are completely dissimilar things that have nothing in common with each other.” In philosophical disputes, we are talking only about what we can know from our own experience, so we should not resort to God in philosophy, but this does not mean that philosophy and religion are incompatible. In philosophy, one cannot resort to God only when it is necessary to explain physical causes. When the dispute is about primary principles, an appeal to God becomes necessary, since if we knew our primary principle, we would know everything about the future and would become gods for ourselves. Voltaire believes that philosophy will not harm religion, since man is not able to figure out what God is. “Never does a philosopher say that he is inspired by God, for from that moment he ceases to be a philosopher and becomes a prophet.” The conclusions of philosophers contradict the canons of religion, but do not harm them.

What does Voltaire mean by the word “religion”: “constantly”? Firstly, Voltaire debunks the official religion in his works, since, in his opinion, the official religion is very different from the true one. And the ideal religion (which is true) is a religion that unites us with God as a reward for good and separates us for crimes, “the religion of serving your neighbor in the name of love for God, instead of persecuting him and killing him in the name of God.” This is a religion that “would teach tolerance towards others and, having thus earned universal favor, would be the only one capable of turning the human race into a nation of brothers... It would not so much offer people atonement for sins as inspire them to public virtues ... would not allow (her servants) to usurp ... power that could turn them into tyrants.” This is precisely what is lacking in the Christian religion, which Voltaire considered the only true one, and so true that “it does not need dubious evidence.”

Voltaire always had an extremely negative attitude towards religious fanatics, believing that they were capable of doing much more harm than all atheists. Voltaire is a resolute opponent of religious intolerance. “Anyone who tells me: “Think like me or God will punish you,” says to me: “Think like me or I will kill you.” The source of fanaticism is superstition, although in itself it may be harmless patriotic enthusiasm, but not dangerous fanaticism. A superstitious person becomes a fanatic when he is pushed to commit any atrocities in the name of the Lord. If a believer and an unbeliever break the law, then the first of them remains a monster all his life, while the second falls into barbarism only for a moment, because “the latter has a bridle, but nothing holds the former.”

“The most stupid and evil people are those who are “more superstitious than others,” since the superstitious believe that they do out of a sense of duty what others do out of habit or in a fit of madness.” Superstition for Voltaire is a mixture of fanaticism and obscurantism. Voltaire considered fanaticism to be a greater evil than atheism: “Fanaticism is a thousand times more fatal, for atheism does not inspire bloody passions at all, while fanaticism provokes them; atheism opposes crime, but fanaticism causes it.” Atheism, Voltaire believes, is the vice of some smart people, superstition and fanaticism are the vice of fools. In general, atheists are mostly brave and misguided scientists.

In fact, Voltaire had an ambivalent attitude towards atheism: in some ways he justified it (atheists “trampled underfoot the truth, because it was surrounded by lies”), but in some ways, on the contrary, he accused it (“it almost always turns out to be disastrous for virtue"). But still, it seems to me that Voltaire was more an atheist than a believer.

Voltaire clearly sympathizes with atheists and is convinced that a society consisting of atheists is possible, since society forms laws. Atheists, being philosophers at the same time, can lead a very wise and happy life under the shadow of laws; in any case, they would live in society with greater ease than religious fanatics. Voltaire constantly compares atheism and superstition, and invites the reader to choose the lesser evil, while he himself made his choice in favor of atheism.

Of course, despite this, Voltaire cannot be called a champion of atheistic ideas, but his attitude towards God and religion is such that Voltaire can be classified as one of those thinkers who have not fully decided on their attitude towards faith. However, it can be said that Voltaire strictly distinguishes between belief in God and religion. He believes that atheism is better than blind faith, which can give rise not just to superstition, but to prejudices brought to the point of absurdity, namely fanaticism and religious intolerance. “Atheism and fanaticism are two monsters capable of tearing apart and devouring society, but atheism in its delusion retains its reason, tearing teeth out of its mouth, while fanaticism is struck by madness, sharpening these teeth.” Atheism can, at most, allow public virtues to exist in calm private life, but, amid the storms of public life, it must lead to all sorts of atrocities. “Atheists holding power in their hands would be as sinister to humanity as superstitious people. Reason extends a saving hand to us in choosing between these two monsters.” The conclusion is obvious, since it is known that Voltaire valued reason above all else and considered it the basis of everything.

Thus, Voltaire’s atheism is not our usual atheism, which categorically denies the existence of God and everything that is inaccessible to the human mind, but rather simply a choice of the lesser of two evils, and Voltaire accompanies this choice with quite convincing evidence that this is exactly what evil is the lesser.

3 . Basic principles of Voltaire's philosophy

Of course, Voltaire’s materialism is also not materialism in the literal sense of the word. It’s just that Voltaire, reflecting on what matter is, what its role is in the worldview, etc., eventually begins to adhere to views that in some ways coincided with the views of materialists (in particular, Voltaire completely agreed that matter is eternal ), but in some ways they differed from them: Voltaire does not agree that matter is primary and believes that only empty space exists necessarily, and matter - thanks to the will of God, since space is a necessary means of existence of God. “The world is finite, if empty space exists, it means that matter does not exist necessarily and received its existence from an arbitrary cause.”

Voltaire does not agree that there is some kind of primary matter, capable of forming any forms and constituting the entire Universe, since he could not imagine “a generalized idea of an extended substance impenetrable and without outlines, without tying his thought to sand, gold, etc. And if such matter existed, then there would be no reason for, for example, whales to grow from grains.” Nevertheless, as mentioned above, Voltaire, like the materialists, believed that matter is eternal, but gave his own explanation for this. According to him, the eternity of matter follows from the fact that “there is no reason why it would not have existed earlier,” God created the world not from nothing, but from matter, and “the world, no matter what form it appears in, is just as eternal, like the Sun." “I perceive the universe as eternal, because it could not be formed from nothingness..., nothing comes from nothing.” The last phrase is the most universal of Voltaire's axioms. Matter is inextricably linked with movement, but Voltaire considers matter to be an inert mass, it can only preserve and not transmit movement, and not be its source, therefore, movement is not eternal. If matter “had in itself even the slightest movement, this movement would be internal to it, and in this case the presence of rest in it would be a contradiction.” This is one of the arguments that Voltaire expressed against atheism, since it follows that since matter cannot move on its own, it means that it receives movement from the outside, but not from matter, but from an immaterial being, which is God. But Voltaire does not argue against the argument that motion is absolute and rest is relative. Despite all the previous arguments, Voltaire finally had to admit that movement is eternal, since not a single law of nature operates without movement, and all beings, without exception, are subject to “eternal laws.” Thus, one cannot call Voltaire a materialist, but one cannot even talk about it. that materialistic ideas are alien to him is to sin against the truth.

Moreover, in his judgments about the soul, Voltaire was not far from the materialists: he did not agree with the statement that man consists of two essences - matter and spirit, which have nothing in common with each other and are united only thanks to the will of God. According to Voltaire, a person thinks not with his soul, but with his body, therefore, the soul is mortal and is not a substance. The soul is the ability, the properties of our body. In general, in his discussions about the soul, Voltaire is close to the materialists. “The ability to feel. remembering, combining ideas - that is what is called the soul.” However, Voltaire does not deny the possibility of the existence of an indestructible soul. He writes: “I cannot know their (God and soul) substance.” It is unlikely that he accidentally uses the term “substance” for the soul here. Previously, he categorically rejected this. The soul, according to Voltaire, is not the sixth sense, since in a dream we do not have ideas and feelings, therefore, it is not material. Matter has extension and density and would have to think and feel constantly. The soul is not a part of the universal soul, since the universal soul is God, and a part of God is also a deity, but man with his soul is too weak and unreasonable. There cannot be a soul, since all our abilities for movement, thinking, outpouring of will are given to us by God, we can call them soul, and we have the power to think without having a soul, just as we have the power to produce movement without being this movement ourselves. » Voltaire reads that the soul is mortal, although he admits that he cannot prove this, which does not prevent him from believing in the transmigration of souls due to the lack of evidence. Voltaire does not know whether God made it so that the human soul is immortal. But in order for a person (the totality of body and soul) to become immortal, it is necessary that after death he retains “his organs, his memory ... - all his abilities.” But this does not happen, therefore, immortality is unreal. Thus, it is clear that in his thoughts on soul and matter, Voltaire is somewhere between idealists and materialists. His point of view cannot be attributed to one or the other direction; many of the above statements differ significantly from the generally accepted opinion. We can say that Voltaire, trying to comprehend for himself such philosophical concepts as soul, matter, movement, etc., is quite close to the materialists, although he considers the soul and thinking a gift from God: “God designed the body for thinking precisely just as he arranged it for eating and digesting food. Thoughts and feelings are also a gift from God, since we think and feel in a dream when we do not control our behavior. “My thoughts do not come from me... and I bow before God, who helps me think without knowing how I think.” Voltaire's thought is not a creation of matter, since it does not possess its properties (breaking up, for example), therefore, it is not complex matter, it is a creation of God. All parts of the human body are capable of sensation, and there is no need to look for a substance in it that would feel instead of it. “I do not understand at all by what art movement, feeling, idea, memory and reasoning are located in this piece of organized matter, but I see it, and I myself am proof of it.” The diversity of human feelings, as Voltaire believes, is not at all a consequence of the fact that we have several souls, each of which we are able to feel one thing, but a consequence of the fact that a person finds himself in different circumstances.

In general, Voltaire’s feelings occupy far from the last place in his reasoning about basic philosophical concepts, such as “ideas”, “principles”, “good”, “freedom”. For example, he writes that we receive all ideas through the senses from external objects, that is, we have neither innate ideas nor innate principles. “Ideas come from the sense of experience” - this is the concept put forward by Voltaire, and feelings are always reliable, but in order to make a correct judgment, definition, one must perceive it not with one, but at least with several senses.

Despite the important role Voltaire assigns to the senses, he seems to place the thought higher: “I admit that I do not flatter myself with the thought that I would have ideas if I were always deprived of all my five senses; but I will not be convinced that my mental ability is a consequence of the five united potencies, since I continue to think even when I lose them one after another. Our first ideas are our sensations, then complex ideas appear from sensations and memory (memory is the ability to link concepts and images “and associate some small meaning with them at first”), then we subordinate them to general ideas. So, “all the vast knowledge of man flows from this single ability to combine and organize, in this way, our ideas.”

As already mentioned, Voltaire's main goal was to study what was available to him. Therefore, when studying ideas, feelings, thinking, etc., he only makes an attempt to explain how they are interconnected and, if possible, to establish their source, but he believes that “to ask the question how we think and feel, and how our movements obey our will,” that is, the mechanisms for the emergence of ideas and feelings, “means asking the Creator for his secret.”

Of great interest are Voltaire's reflections on life, on the basic principles of its structure, on man and society. Here his views are very progressive (naturally, for that time, since more daring ideas are now known).

Our whole life is “pleasure and suffering”, which are given to us from God, since we ourselves cannot be the cause of our own suffering. Although people believe that they do everything fairly and reasonably, their actions in all cases of life are guided by routine; they usually indulge in reflection extremely rarely, on special occasions and, as a rule, when there is no time left for it. Even those actions that seem to be the result of upbringing and education of the mind “are actually instincts. All people seek pleasure, only those who have coarser senses seek sensations in which the soul does not take part; those who have more refined feelings strive for more graceful amusements.”

Voltaire explains all the actions of people by self-love, which is “as necessary for a person as the blood flowing in his veins,” and he considers the observance of his own interests to be the engine of life. Our pride “tells us to respect the pride of other people. The law directs this self-love, religion perfects it.” It may seem that Voltaire, generally speaking, has a low opinion of people, since he explains all their actions by base reasons, but, in my opinion, he is still right. After all, explaining our actions by the desire for pleasure, he does not set it as the goal of his whole life. In addition, Voltaire is convinced that every person has a sense of decency “in the form of some antidote to all the poisons with which they are poisoned”; and in order to be happy, it is not at all necessary to indulge in vices; rather, on the contrary, “by suppressing our vices, we achieve peace of mind, a comforting testimony of our own conscience; By giving in to vices, we lose peace and health.” Voltaire divides people into two classes: “those who sacrifice their selfishness for the good of society” and “complete rabble, in love only with themselves.”

Considering man as a social being, Voltaire writes that “man is not like other animals, which have only the instinct of self-love,” and that man “is also characterized by natural benevolence, not noticed in animals.” However, often in humans, self-love is stronger than benevolence, but, in the end, the presence of reason in animals is very doubtful, namely, “these of his (God’s) gifts: reason, self-love, benevolence towards individuals of our species, the needs of passion - the essence of the means by which we established society." No human society can exist for a single day without rules. He needs laws, since Voltaire believes that the good of society is the only measure of moral good and evil, and only fear of the punishment of laws can keep a person from committing antisocial acts. However, Voltaire believes that, in addition to laws, a close relationship with God is necessary, although it has little impact on life. The existence of a society of atheists is unlikely because people without restraint are not capable of coexistence: laws are powerless against secret crimes, and it is necessary for an “avenger god” to punish those who have escaped human justice. Moreover, the need for faith does not mean the need for religion (remember that Voltaire always separated faith and religion).

Voltaire equates obedience to God and laws: “an ancient maxim said that one should obey not men, but God; the opposite view is now accepted, namely, that to obey God means to follow the laws of the land. Another thing is that the laws may be imperfect or the ruler may turn out to be bad, but for bad government people should only blame themselves and the bad laws they established, or their lack of courage, which prevents them from forcing others to follow good laws.” And if a ruler abuses power, then it is the fault of the people who tolerate his rule. And if this happens, then although it is bad for people, it is indifferent to God. Contrary to popular belief, Voltaire always argued that the monarch was not God’s anointed: “the relationship of man to man is incomparable with the relationship of creation to the supreme being, ... to honor God in the guise of a monarch is blasphemy.” In general, Voltaire did not see the need for the existence of a monarch (or a similar ruler). He wrote, for example, that the form of government adopted in England is much more progressive than in France, and therefore opposed the revolution in France, since “what becomes a revolution in England is only a rebellion in other countries.”

So, to summarize everything that has been written, we can say that Voltaire’s views were basically very progressive and new for his time, many of them ran counter to public opinion.

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Childhood and youth

François-Marie Arouet (the philosopher's name at birth) was born on November 21, 1694 in the city of love - Paris. The baby was so frail and weak that immediately after birth the parents sent for a priest. Unfortunately, Marie Marguerite Daumard, Voltaire's mother, died when the boy was seven years old. Therefore, the future ruler of the thoughts of Western Europe grew up and was brought up with his father, who was in bureaucratic service.

It cannot be said that the relationship between little Francois and his parent was friendly, so it is not surprising that already in adulthood Arouet declared himself the illegitimate son of the Chevalier de Rochebrune, a poor poet and musketeer. Francois Arouet Sr. sent his child to the Jesuit college, which now bears the name of the Lyceum of Louis the Great.

In this college, Voltaire studied “Latin and all sorts of nonsense,” because the young man, although he received serious literary training, for the rest of his life hated the fanaticism of the local Jesuit fathers, who put religious dogma above human life.

Voltaire's father wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and become a notary, so Francois was quickly assigned to a law office. Soon the young man realized that legal science, favored by the ancient Greek goddess Themis, was not his path. Therefore, in order to dilute the green melancholy with bright colors, Voltaire took up an inkwell and a pen not to copy documents, but to compose satirical stories.

Literature

When Voltaire turned 18, he composed his first play and even then had no doubt that he would definitely leave his mark on history as a writer. Two years later, François-Marie Arouet had already gained the reputation of the king of ridicule in Parisian salons and among sophisticated ladies and gentlemen. Therefore, some literary figures and high-ranking officials were afraid to find Voltaire's publication exposing them to society in a bad light.

But in 1717, Francois-Marie Arouet paid for his witty satires. The fact is that the talented young man ridiculed the regent of the French kingdom under the young king, Philip II of Orleans. But the ruler did not treat Voltaire’s poems with proper humor, so the writer was sent to the Bastille for a year.

But in prison, Voltaire did not lose his creative fervor, but, on the contrary, began to intensively study literature. Once freed, Voltaire received recognition and fame, because his tragedy “Oedipus,” written in 1718, took place on the stage of the Comedy Française theater.

The young man began to be compared with famous French playwrights, so Voltaire, who believed in his literary talent, composed one work after another, and these were not only philosophical tragedies, but also novels and pamphlets. The writer relied on historical images, so theater regulars could see actors dressed as Brutus or Mohammed on stage.

In total, François-Marie Arouet's track record includes 28 works that can be classified as classical tragedy. Voltaire also cultivated aristocratic genres of poetry; messages, gallant lyrics and odes often came from his pen. But it is worth saying that the writer was not afraid to experiment and mix seemingly incompatible things (tragic and comic) in one bottle.

He was not afraid to dilute rational coldness with notes of sentimental sensitivity, and exotic characters often appeared in his ancient works: the Chinese, Iranian-speaking Scythians and coats of arms professing Zoroastrianism.

As for poetry, Voltaire's classic epic "Henriad" was published in 1728. In this work, the great Frenchman condemned despot kings for their frantic worship of God, using not fictitious images, but real prototypes. Then, around 1730, Voltaire worked on his seminal satirical parody poem, The Virgin of Orleans. But the book itself was first published only in 1762; before that, anonymous publications were published.

“The Virgin of Orleans” by Voltaire, written in a syllabic twelve-syllable, immerses the reader in the story of a real-life personality, the well-known national heroine of France. But the writer’s work is by no means a biography of the army commander, but a complete irony on the structure of French society and the church.

It is worth noting that he read this manuscript in his youth; the Russian poet even tried to imitate Voltaire in his poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” (but, having matured, Pushkin addressed a very critical work to the “French mentor”).

Among other things, François-Marie Arouet distinguished himself with philosophical prose, which gained unprecedented popularity among his contemporaries. The master of the pen not only immersed the book holder in adventure stories, but also made him think about the futility of existence, the greatness of man, as well as the meaninglessness of pure optimism and the absurdity of ideal pessimism.

The work “The Innocent,” published in 1767, tells the story of the misadventures of an adherent of the “theory of natural law.” This manuscript is a mixture of lyrical element, educational novel and philosophical story.

The plot revolves around a typical character - a noble savage, a kind of Robinson Crusoe of the Enlightenment, who illustrates the innate morality of man before his contact with civilization. But it is also worth paying attention to Voltaire’s short story “Candide, or Optimism” (1759), which instantly became a world bestseller.

The work gathered dust behind a hopeless curtain for a long time, since the work was banned due to obscenity. It is interesting that the author of “Candide” himself considered this novel stupid and even refused to acknowledge his authorship. “Candide, or Optimism” is somewhat reminiscent of a typical picaresque novel, a genre that developed in Spain. As a rule, the main character of such a work is an adventurer who evokes sympathy.

But Voltaire's most quoted book is endowed with absurdity and angry sarcasm: all the adventures of the heroes are invented in order to ridicule society, the government and the church. In particular, the Saxon philosopher who propagated the doctrine described in Theodicy, or the Justification of God, fell into disgrace.

The Roman Catholic Church blacklisted the book, but this did not stop Candide from gaining fans in the form of Alexander Pushkin, Gustave Flaubert, and the American composer Leonard Bernstein.

Philosophy

It so happened that Voltaire returned again to the cold walls of the Bastille. In 1725–1726, a conflict arose between the writer and Chevalier de Rohan: the provocateur allowed himself to publicly ridicule Francois-Marie Arouet, who, under the pseudonym Voltaire, allegedly tried to hide his non-noble origins. Since the author of tragedies will not go into his pocket for a word, he allowed the offender to say:

“Sir, glory awaits my name, and oblivion awaits yours!”

The Frenchman literally paid for these daring words - he was beaten by de Rohan's lackey. Thus, the writer experienced first-hand what bias is and became an ardent defender of justice and social reform. Having left the exclusion zone, Voltaire, unnecessary in his homeland, was expelled to England by order of the king.

It is noteworthy that the government structure of the United Kingdom, which was fundamentally different from conservative monarchical France, amazed him to his fingertips. It was also useful to get acquainted with English thinkers, who unanimously argued that a person can turn to God without resorting to the help of the church.

The French thinker outlined his impressions of his travels around the island state in the treatise “Philosophical Letters,” promoting teachings and denying materialist philosophy. The main ideas of the Philosophical Letters were equality, respect for property, security and freedom. Voltaire also hesitated on the issue of the immortality of the soul; he did not deny, but also did not affirm the fact that there is life after death.

But on the question of the freedom of human will, Voltaire moved from indeterminism to determinism. Louis XV, having learned about the treatise, ordered Voltaire’s work to be burned, and the author of the unceremonious work to be sent to the Bastille. To avoid a third confinement in a cell, François-Marie Arouet went to Champagne to visit his beloved.

Voltaire, a supporter of inequality and a zealous opponent of absolutism, criticized the structure of the church to the nines, but he did not support atheism. The Frenchman was a deist, that is, he recognized the existence of the Creator, but denied religious dogmatism and supernatural phenomena. But in the 60s and 70s, Voltaire was overcome by skeptical thoughts. When contemporaries asked the enlightener whether there was a “higher authority,” he replied:

“There is no God, but my lackey and wife should not know this, since I don’t want my lackey to kill me, and my wife to disobey me.”

Although Voltaire, contrary to his father’s wishes, never became a lawyer, the philosopher was later involved in human rights activities. In 1762, the author of Candide participated in a petition to overturn the death sentence of the merchant Jean Calas, who was the victim of a biased trial due to a different religion. Calas personified Christian xenophobia in France: he was a Protestant, while others professed Catholicism.

The reason why Jean was executed on the wheel in 1762 was the suicide of his son. At that time, a person who committed suicide with his own hands was considered a criminal, which is why his body was publicly dragged on ropes and hanged in the square. Therefore, the Kalas family presented their son’s suicide as a murder, and the court considered that Jean killed the young man because he converted to Catholicism. Thanks to Voltaire, three years later Jean Calas was rehabilitated.

Personal life

In his free time from writing treatises and philosophical thoughts, Voltaire played chess. For 17 years, the Frenchman's rival was the Jesuit Father Adam, who lived in the house of Francois-Marie Arouet.

Voltaire's lover, muse and inspiration was the Marquise du Châtelet, who passionately loved mathematics and physics. This young lady even had the opportunity to translate a fundamental work in 1745.

Emily was a married woman, but she believed that all responsibilities to a man should be fulfilled only after the birth of children. Therefore, the young lady, without transgressing the bounds of decency, plunged into fleeting romances with mathematicians and philosophers.

The beauty met Voltaire in 1733, and in 1734 she provided refuge from re-imprisonment in the Bastille - her husband’s dilapidated castle, in which the philosopher spent 15 years of his life, returning there from numerous trips.

Du Châtelet instilled in Voltaire a love for equations, the laws of physics and mathematical formulas, so the lovers often solved complex problems. In the fall of 1749, Emily died after giving birth to a child, and Voltaire, having lost the love of his life, sank into depression.

By the way, few people know that Voltaire was actually a millionaire. Even in his youth, the philosopher met bankers who taught Francois how to invest capital. The writer, who became rich by the age of forty, invested in equipment for the French army, gave money to buy ships and bought works of art, and on his estate in Switzerland there was a pottery production.

Death

In the last years of his life, Voltaire was popular; every contemporary considered it his duty to visit the Swiss house of the wise old man. The philosopher hid from the French kings, but with the help of persuasion he returned to the country and Parmesan, where he died at the age of 83.

Voltaire's Sarcophagus

Bibliography

1730 – “The History of Charles XII”
1732 – “Zaire”
1734 – “Philosophical Letters. English letters"
1736 – “Newton's Epistle”
1738 – “Essay on the Nature of Fire”
1748 – “The World as It Is”
1748 – “Zadig, or Fate”
1748 – “Semiramis”
1752 – “Micromegas”
1755 – “The Virgin of Orleans”
1756 – “Lisbon earthquake”
1764 – “White and Black”
1768 – “Princess of Babylon”
1774 – “Don Pedro”
1778 – “Agathocles”

Quotes

“It is impossible to believe in God; not to believe in him is absurd.”
“For most people, improving means changing your shortcomings”
“Kings know no more about the affairs of their ministers than cuckolds know about the affairs of their wives.”
“It is not inequality that is painful, but dependence”
“There is nothing more unpleasant than being hanged in obscurity”

Daughters of the secretary of the criminal court, Marie Marguerite Domar, and the notary Francois Arouet. When the boy was seven years old, his mother died.

In 1711 he graduated from the Jesuit College (now the Lyceum of Louis the Great) in Paris. After graduating from college, at the insistence of his father, he was assigned to the School of Law.

The young man was not attracted to a legal career; while still in college, he began writing poetry. A relative of his mother, Abbot Chateauneuf, who sympathized with his literary hobbies, introduced the young man into the aristocratic circle. This was the so-called Temple Society, united around the Duke of Vendôme, the head of the Order of the Knights of Malta.

In May 1717, for writing a satire on the regent of France, the Duke of Orleans, he spent almost a year in the Bastille, a fortress prison in Paris. Wanting to brighten up the hours in a prison cell, he worked on the epic poem “Henriad” and the tragedy “Oedipus”.

In 1718, his play Oedipus was staged and was favorably received by the Comedie Française audience. In the same year, its author first appeared under the pseudonym "de Voltaire". The poem "Henriad", originally called "The League" (1723), strengthened his reputation as a skillful storyteller and champion of ideas. Dedicated to the era of the Wars of Religion of the 16th century and its main character, King Henry IV, the poem condemned religious fanaticism and glorified the monarch who made religious tolerance the slogan of his reign.

At the beginning of 1726, Voltaire clashed with the Chevalier de Rohan, who allowed him to publicly mock the poet’s attempt to hide his non-noble origins under a pseudonym. For the answer: “Sir, glory awaits my name, and oblivion awaits yours!” he was beaten by de Rohan's lackeys.

Armed with pistols, Voltaire tried to take revenge on his offender, but was arrested and thrown into the Bastille. Two weeks later he was released, prohibited from living in Paris.

In 1726-1728, Voltaire lived in England, studying its political system, science, philosophy and literature. Returning to France, he published his English impressions under the title Philosophical Letters. The “letters” idealized English order and painted the state of French social institutions in the darkest light. In 1734, the book was confiscated, and its publisher was paid by the Bastille.

Voltaire retired to Syrah, the castle of his beloved Marquise du Châtelet, located in Champagne, with whom he lived for 15 years. During this period, he created the tragedies "Alzira" (1736) and "Mohammed" (1742), "Treatise on Metaphysics" (1734) and "Fundamentals of Newton's Philosophy" (1738), and wrote most of the historical work "The Age of Louis XIV" ( 1751). At the same time, the epic poem “The Virgin of Orleans” was created, which was distributed in copies for a long time (official publication took place in 1762 in Geneva).

In 1745, Voltaire was appointed court poet and historiographer. In 1746 he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences. In the same year he became an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

The coldness of Louis XV, disappointment in the Versailles court, and the death of the Marquise du Châtelet in 1749 persuaded Voltaire to accept in 1750 the invitation of the Prussian king Frederick II, with whom he had been in correspondence since 1736, and to settle in Berlin.

Discord with the Prussian king forced Voltaire to leave Prussia in 1753. He found refuge in Switzerland. At the end of 1758, he rented the Tournai estate, and at the beginning of 1759 he acquired the Ferney estate, located on both sides of the border of the Geneva canton with France, from where he conducted extensive correspondence and received guests from all over Europe. In addition to Frederick II, Voltaire's correspondents included: Russian Empress Catherine II, Polish king Stanislav August Poniatowski, Swedish king Gustav III, Danish king Christian VII.

The 1750-1760s were extremely fruitful for Voltaire. Active collaboration in the “Encyclopedia” of Diderot and D'Alembert dates back to this period. In Fern, he published many literary, journalistic, philosophical and historical works, one of which is “The History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great” (1759-1763). Among the works Ferney period - the philosophical stories "Candide" (1759) and "The Simple-minded" (1767), "Treatise on Tolerance" (1763), "An Essay on General History and the Morals and Spirit of the People" (1756-69), "Pocket Philosophical Dictionary" (1764), "Questions about the Encyclopedia (1770-1772).

Voltaire's fortune was replenished from various sources: pensions from noble persons, his father's inheritance, fees for the publication and republication of works, proceeds from the sale of positions that belonged to him and from financial speculation. In 1776, his annual income was 200 thousand livres, which made the philosopher one of the richest men in France.

In February 1778, 84-year-old Voltaire returned to Paris, where he was given an enthusiastic welcome. He attended meetings of the French Academy four times and watched a production of his play “Irene” (1776) at the Comédie Française. Despite his advanced age, the philosopher began to revise the academic dictionary.

Two months before his death, he was accepted into the Nine Sisters Masonic Lodge, founded in 1769 by the astronomer Joseph Lalande.

In March he was reconciled with the church and received absolution.

The Archbishop of Paris refused Christian burial for his body. A memorial service for Voltaire was held in a Masonic lodge; his ashes were secretly buried in Celliers Abbey in Champagne, whose rector was the philosopher’s nephew.

In 1791, the Convention decided to transfer Voltaire's remains to the national tomb of eminent people - the Pantheon in Paris and rename the Quai de Théatines to the Quai Voltaire.

The philosopher's works comprised fifty volumes in the complete edition by Molan (1878-1885), each containing almost 600 pages, supplemented by two large volumes of "Indicators". 18 volumes of this edition are occupied by the epistolary heritage - more than ten thousand letters.

Voltaire played a significant role in the development of world, including Russian, philosophical thought, in the ideological preparation of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. The name of Voltaire is associated with the spread of the so-called in Russia. Voltairianism - political and religious free-thinking.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources