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Voltaire
Voltaire: Treatise on Tolerance
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2017 OK Publishing
ISBN 978-80-7583-594-9
Table of Contents
VOLTAIRE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS (Biography)
TREATISE ON TOLERANCE
Chapter I. A Brief Account Of The Death Of John Calas.
Chapter II. Consequences Of The Execution Of John Calas.
Chapter III. A Sketch Of The Reformation In The Sixteenth Century.
Chapter IV. Whether Toleration Is Dangerous, And Among What Nations It Is Practised.
Chapter V. In What Cases Toleration May Be Admitted.
Chapter VI. If Non-Toleration Is Agreeable To The Law Of Nature And Of Society.
Chapter VII. If Non-Toleration Was Known Among The Greeks.
Chapter VIII. Whether The Romans Encouraged Toleration.
Chapter X. The Danger Of False Legends And Persecution.
Chapter XI. Ill Consequences Of Non-Toleration.
Chapter XIII. The Great Toleration Exercised Among The Jews.
Chapter XIV. If Non-Toleration Was Taught By Christ.
Chapter XV. Testimonies Against Persecution.
Chapter XVI. A Conversation Between A Dying Man And One In Good Health.
Chapter XVIII. The Only Cases In Which Non-toleration Makes Part Of The Human Law.
Chapter XIX. Account Of A Controversial Dispute Which Happened In China.
Chapter XX. Whether It Is Of Service To Indulge The People In Superstition.
Chapter XXI. Virtue Is Better Than Learning.
Chapter XXII. Of Universal Toleration.
Chapter XXIII. An Address To The Deity.
Chapter XXV. Sequel And Conclusion.
Chapter I.
A Brief Account Of The Death Of John Calas.
The murder of John Calas, committed in Toulouse with the sword of justice, the 9th of March, 1762, is an event which, on account of its singularity, calls for the attention of the present age, and that of posterity. We soon forget the crowd of victims who have fallen in the course of innumerable battles, not only because this is a destiny inevitably connected with a life of warfare, but because those who thus fell might also have given death to their enemies, and did not lose their lives till after having first stood in their own defence. Where the danger and the advantage are equal, our wonder ceases, and even pity itself is in some measure lessened; but where the father of an innocent family is delivered up to the sword of error, prejudice, or enthusiasm, where the accused person has no other defence but his conscious virtue; where the arbiters of his destiny have nothing to hazard in putting him to death but the having been mistaken, and where they may murder with impunity under the sanction of a judicial process, then every one is ready to cry out, every one brings the case home to himself, and sees with fear and trembling that no person’s life is in safety in a court erected to watch over the lives of the subject, the public unite in demanding vengeance.
In this strange affair, we find religion, self-murder and parricide blended. The object of inquiry was, whether a father and a mother had murdered their own son with a view to please God, and whether a brother had murdered his brother, or a friend his friend; or whether the judges had to reproach themselves with having publicly executed an innocent father, or with having acquitted a guilty mother, brother, and friend.
John Calas, a person of sixty-eight years of age, had followed the profession of a merchant in Toulouse for upwards of forty years, and had always borne the character of a tender parent in his family and neighborhood; he was himself by religion a Protestant, as was also his wife, and all his children, one son only excepted, who had abjured heresy, and to whom the father allowed a small annuity; indeed, the good man appeared so far from being infected with that