Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
“Deux grandes notions philosophiques dominent la théorie fondamentale de la méthode naturelle proprement dite, savoir la formation des groupes naturels, et ensuite leur succession hiérarchique.”—COMTE, Cours de Philosophie Positive, 42me leçon. Of Observation And Description.
The last volume of this edition did not appear till 1837, and before that time Balzac had taken further strides towards his grand conception of the Comedie Humaine. In the "Etudes de Moeurs" types will be formed from individuals, in the "Etudes Philosophiques" individuals from types. Then, after effects and causes, will come principles, in the "Etudes Analytiques."
Some other storms raised by his works, such as his Lettres Philosophiques and his Epitre a Uranie, he weathered by flight, or by unscrupulously denying their authorship. The rest of his works, contained in seventy volumes, do not concern our present purpose. Our English poet James Montgomery began life as a poor shop-boy.
I found a splendid copy of Voltaire in the Holkham library, and hunted through the endless volumes, till I came to the 'Dialogues Philosophiques. The world is too busy, fortunately, to disturb its peace with such profane satire, such withering sarcasm as flashes through an 'entretien' like that between 'Frere Rigolet' and 'L'Empereur de la Chine. Every French man of letters knows it by heart; but it would wound our English susceptibilities were I to cite it here.
He was to live and die a fighter in the ranks of progress, a champion in the mighty struggle which was now beginning against the powers of darkness in France. The first great blow in that struggle had been struck ten years earlier by Montesquieu in his Lettres Persanes; the second was struck by Voltaire in the Lettres Philosophiques.
When he was allowed to return to his own country, Voltaire published the outcome of his observations and reflections in his Lettres Philosophiques, where for the first time his genius displayed itself in its essential form. The book contains an account of England as Voltaire saw it, from the social rather than from the political point of view.
Ibid., "Fragmens Philosophiques." Preface, VII. VALROGER, "Etudes Critiques," pp. 115, 126, 151, 308, 316. MARET, "Essai sur Pantheisme," p. 249. P. LEROUX, "Sur l'Humanité," 2 vols. BUDDÆUS, "De Atheismo et Superstitione," pp. 184, 212. RICHARD BENTLEY, "On Freethinking," Boyle Lectures.
The "Lettres Philosophiques," or "Letters concerning the English Nation," were first published in England in 1733. They were allowed to slip into circulation in France in the following year.
In Renan's exquisitely phrased preface to his Drames Philosophiques occurs the following sentence which I render into English tant bien que mal: "Side by side are the history of fact and the history of the ideal, the latter materially speaking of what has never taken place, but which, in the ideal sense, has happened a thousand times."
Another step was taken a few years ago with the publication of M. Lanson's elaborate and exhaustive edition of the Lettres Philosophiques, the work in which Voltaire gave to the world the distilled essence of his English experiences.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking